The two polls released this week, from ReachTEL and Essential Research, both landed bang on trend after bias adjustment, making for a dull old week in the world of BludgerTrack. All changes on the primary and two-party vote are minuscule, the seat projection is exactly as it was last week, and there are no new figures for the leadership ratings. The only thing that’s sort of worth mentioning is a vague stirring in the Palmer United vote, which the model records as peaking at 6.77% in July 2014, then suffering an uninterrupted decline to a low of 1.26% in July 2015, since which time it has recovered to its present level of 1.75%. Those craving a little more excitement from their polling are advised to look to the nearby posts on the Canning by-election and monthly Morgan state poll.
@1644 – Syria is a FAILED STATE, with no ‘good’ side on which to fight. Saying the numbers mean nothing shows how little you fundamentally understand the Syrian conflict. There are plenty of women and children.
But it’s a cute attempt to distract from the fact that Abbott has YET AGAIN, taken a ridiculous amount of time to do something that was so blindingly obvious and managed to kick other people in the teeth… pure Abbott.
TPOF @ 1639: The reference to Afghanistan seems wrong, but many of other points could be drawn from Mearsheimer and Walt. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Israel_Lobby_and_U.S._Foreign_Policy).
[The mining boom was a wasted opportunity for Australia.]
Please don’t get me started on this. The billions pissed up against a wall by Howard and Costello is just depressing looking back.
We could’ve had so much more, but unfortunately had a myopic coalition govt in place so nothing of any mention was ever achieved.
TrueBlueAussie
[… when the Japanese were bombing and attacking us… we stood.. and fought.]
😆 You obviously haven’t heard of the ‘Great Flee’ from Darwin. Not that it is polite to talk about then and now.
[“There are plenty of women and children. “]
Horse Radish.
Check the images and video the people coming traveling to Germany.
90% of them are young men. A good portion of them aren’t even Syrians as well, a lot of them are from central Africa
bemused @ 1643: Parties may well have a legal right to ignore “no junk mail” signs, but to do so is an outright discourtesy, and costs them votes like mine.
At the NSW State election in 2011, I voted at a small booth outside Canberra, and as things weren’t busy, I invited the major parties’ booth workers to gather around so I could explain to them how the discourtesy of their campaign offices had cost them my vote.
It’s not just a matter of being ornery: I travel a fair bit, and as Neighbourhood Watch can tell you, an overflowing letter box advertises your absence to miscreants. Most of my mail is redirected (at my expense) to a PO box, and it’s the junk leaflets that slip through the cracks.
Um… rightio.
Just because you’re willingly ignoring what is inconvenient for your point doesn’t mean they aren’t there.
confessions, sorry, I’m a bit late responding to your query on why I think the NZ flag referendum will fail – all the opinion poll results I’ve seen have suggested the ‘Against change’ side has a majority. One poll had it for 70% against change; although a slightly more recent poll had it at 53% against change (23% for change; 24% undecided). I suppose this might change once an actual design is chosen for the alternative flag.
@1654 – considering that the country barely knew at the time that Darwin had been so seriously attacked… as usually false equivalence reigns with that one.
confessions @ 1633
It’s one thing in a by-election or election to marshall resources for where they can have the best impact, but you never tank deliberately for some purported political end. You take your wins where you get them and then do your best to leverage off them. So, if Labor wins Canning it will always be better than losing. Whether Abbott stays or goes.
By the same token, it is wrong to think Labor are going easy on Abbott to keep him in the PM’s job. Rather, it is all to do with Labor having a full-term game plan that they are not going to depart from for cheap gains. They are playing this by-election as they would a by-election at this point in the electoral cycle, rather than some more obscure and tricky game.
1654
Or the apocraphylic drop in Bondi house prices after the attacks on Sydney and Newcastle – but I suspect that one is an urban myth.
Confessions
Yet to this day howard/Costello are seen as economic virtuoses. It shows how millions of people are so ignorant and narrow minded to acknowledge how much better off we would have been had Keating stayed on longer. In any case, howard/Costello purely benefited from Keatings reforms, the prosperity between 1996 and 2007 had absolutely nothing to do with themselves.
@1658 – I spoke to people about the issue when I was in NZ in June, their overall view was that is was a distraction and a waste of time and money. These weren’t old traditionalists.
“we stood.. and fought.”
Tony & TBA with their toy lead soldiers.
Apochryphal of course
[“Just because you’re willingly ignoring what is inconvenient for your point doesn’t mean they aren’t there.”]
I dunno if you are referring to me, but I didn’t say women and children weren’t there I said they are 90% not there, instead almost entirely young men.
I’m using these eyeballs God gifted me with at birth
confessions
[
The mining boom was a wasted opportunity for Australia.
Please don’t get me started on this..]
I am an ignoramus when it comes to economics but what they did truly horrified me after reading , in of all places The Australian , an article by George Megalogenis in late Howard era days. He enlightened me on the term “structural deficit’ . He described them as making budgets on the assumption that after winning lotto (mining boom) you will keep winning lotto every week.
If anything in life is certain it is that, if a boat was sinking, TBA would beat the women and children into the lifeboats.
pedant@1656
The exemption is there for a reason and party workers have no way of knowing individual circumstances.
I suppose they all burst into tears.
So you have no friendly neighbours?
You seem to have no reason to have a letterbox. Get rid of it and your problem is solved.
[I suppose this might change once an actual design is chosen for the alternative flag.]
Thanks ltep. This is what I’m thinking.
@1670 – I’m predicting, no matter the design, the vote will go down.
[Yet to this day howard/Costello are seen as economic virtuoses.]
Periodic ‘issues’ polling shows Abbott/Hockey have seriously eroded this perception. It’s quite astonishing how badly this govt is performing in the wider community across a range of measures.
The letterbox is on common property in a strata title block. I have no use for it, but I can’t just get rid of it.
poroti:
Mega George is a keeper for sure.
But when you think about how much revenue we got during the period of the mining boom, and how little we have to show for it today, ie Costello’s ‘have one for mum, one for dad and one for the country’ spruiking, it’s enough to make you very angry.
sceptic
The Abbott family must have been quite a flutter over the Japanese bombing raids. What with his granddad fleeing to Australia with his family from the UK and all early in the war.
US
[
Well as I said, the civil war is essentially a proxy war between NATO/america/israel on one side and iran/Russia on the other side. Both are arming various local parties in Syria for their own geopolitical ends. ]
Well actually, there are more players with long pockets than those mentioned.
Saudi Arabia, Qatar, UAE, Bahrain, Kuwait, Jordan all quite rightly fear what the Iranian backed theocratic revolutionaries will so to their cosy regimes. Iran justifies their concerns by backing mostly, but not exclusively, Shiite proxies in Iraq, Yemen, Lebanon, and yes in Syria as well.
The Saudi led channels money into counter disruptive forces, allegedly Al Queda and more recently, Islamic State. The West and Russia are bit players in this existential threat to the Arab monarchies.
@1654 – the fact that these cash splashes were in election years, including something like $6 billion worth of spending in ONE SPEECH in the 2007, shows that the Liberals got LUCKY and regardless of what happened, we were going to end up on this path.
pedant@1673
If I go away, I get a neighbour’s kids to earn a bit of pocket money by keeping my letterbox clear.
If that doesn’t work for you, if you can’t do it yourself, get a handyman to make a device to plug the slot, and put a lock on the back.
I think charities are also exempt so it is not only election time you have to worry about.
confessions
Mega George used the term “pissed up against the wall” to describe what The Rodent and the Hammock Dweller did with the money. Best description I have heard for it.
Sprocket
Of course there are many more players, but it essentially at its core boils down to those 2 groups. The Middle Eastern states you mentioned are largely satellites in the game between the 2 groups i mentioned.
Anyone know if Newspoll is out tonight or tomorrow this week?
It was definitely in the field because Possum was polled and gave it a massive Twitter spray as the worst robopoll he’d ever had.
Confessions
A recession will do the trick once and for all. I am of the opinion that this quarter and next will be both contractions and we will be confirmed of recession in early March.
I see that in the UK there is a petition to swap TV “personality” Katie Hopkins (famous for saying she would use gunboats to stop refugees) for 50,000 refugees.
Maybe we could do something similar. There must be a few ‘celebrities’, media ‘personalities’ and even politicians we could swap.
@1681 – In what way the ‘worst’? Like, shitty questioning to get the answer they want? 😛
briefly,
I reposted your comment on the other site, as your report is so positive.
sprocket_
[fear what the Iranian backed theocratic revolutionaries ]
If it comes to choosing between Iranian backed fundies and Saudi backed fundies give me Hezbollah any day rather than Al Qaeda and ISIL.
Puff, the Magic Dragon.@1687
Se what going to that site does to you? 👿
[A recession will do the trick once and for all. I am of the opinion that this quarter and next will be both contractions and we will be confirmed of recession in early March.]
It may well do, but my own view is that a recession should be avoided at all costs.
Abbott’s mob likely don’t have the skills to avoid it, but I’d like to think they are still taking advice from bureacrats who can steer them in the right direction.
Attended a family wedding this weekend, predominantly Sydney Hills and North Shore types, and invariably the talk turned to politics. Abbott is considered to be a carcass swinging in the breeze, ready to be cut down – and general dismay at how he has proven so inept as PM.
So what still resonates? Remarkably ChopperGate gor a mention in one of the speeches – aimed at drawing a laugh, which it certainly did.
The other theme which the Liberal-inclined ones would want to tell me all about, after agreeing with me that it was OK to dislike Abbott, as every body does, was Bill Shorten. The litany of Turc ‘revelations’, backstabbing, in the pocket of CFMEU etc etc. The KillBill meme may have been lost here, but it is repeated ad nauseum on Sydney redneck radio, Bolt and NewsCorpse outlets, and the string of RW talking heads on the ABC.
The story goes something like, “Yes, we agree Abbott is a dud and an idiot, and he has to go; but were you aware of all the things Bill Shorten has done?”
Also, ScoMo is the darling, Malcolm would be ok if he got his party behind him.
Newspoll tonight (possibly)?
55 – 45 to the good guys is my tip.
Fulvio Sammut@1690
Your tip is my wish. 🙂
[1686
poroti
[
fear what the Iranian backed theocratic revolutionaries
If it comes to choosing between Iranian backed fundies and Saudi backed fundies give me Hezbollah any day rather than Al Qaeda and ISIL.]
Abbott didn’t quite get it right with his “baddies versus baddies” description. More accurately its “baddies versus worsies”. And the “worsies” are the ones with royal blood, Savville Row suits and Eton accents.
Confessions
Only a bursting of the housing bubble and a deep recession will make this country wake up and accept the fact that prosperity cannot be taken for granted forever.
The fact of the matter is our economy is a large hole in the ground surrounded by expensive property. Our economists need to stop beating around the bush and accept it as it is.
Sprocket
The allegations against shorten from 2010 to 2013 will have absolutely no relevance to the minds of everyday people next year.
Re Sprocket_ @1689: probably indicates why the Abbott Government is only behind in the polls by 53-47 instead of 60-40. The situation also applies in reverse. I would not vote for the Abbott Government even if the Opposition gave the impression of being grossly incompetent. I find the Coaltion’s vision for Australia’s future so unacceptable. Rusted on Coalition voters think the same about Labor, the Greens and the unions.
Kevin Bonham #1681
Do you think Possum was being hyperbolic?
Today was Fathers’ Day. One son came over this morning but had to work the afternoon shift. One daughter couldn’t come at all because she had to work for the day. Employers would like us to think that it was just like any other day and no one deserves being paid more to work today then tomorrow.
Apologies if posted already, but this new campaign is going gangbusters on Twitter, with not totally the desired effect…
The tag line is Coal is Amazing
[LAUNCH OF NEW COAL CAMPAIGN
SEP 06 2015GREG EVANS, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR – COAL
The Minerals Council of Australia (MCA) together with Australian Coal Association Low Emission Technology (ACALET) has today launched a new national campaign to provide information about the iconic Australian coal industry and the importance of coal in underpinning our energy future.
The Little Black Rock Campaign starts today, covering TV, radio, press and online advertising. The campaign explains the many economic and social benefits that coal delivers but also the investment the industry is making to deliver significant efficiencies and much lower emissions.
Australia has the fourth-largest share of coal reserves in the world and all Australians benefit from coal through its contribution to exports, wages, investment and Federal and State government revenues.]
http://bit.ly/1Nip93n
Laundy is smarter than the average Liberal bear, but that’s a low barrier to hurdle. He knows he’s a oncer without a miracle and he knows he’s no shot of a miracle unless he can distance himself effectively from Abbott.
But seeing as he got in on the back of Abbott and the Libs filthy lies he can go to hell. The good people of Reid will return to their historical home (granted that it’s boundaries are quite different from when Laurie and Uren held it). You would expect the boundaries will move West again with the redistribution so Labor will have it pretty solidly in the expected gains column.
In some ways it’s a shame that more sensible and moderate Libs like Laundy will pay the heaviest price for Abbott’s existence, but they lay down with the dog. If after the election the ‘Liberals’ (sic) are an even more RWNJ party then so long as Labor can keep their leadershit under control (and the new rules seem to bode well) then they should be able to enjoy a long stint in government and rebuild what these vandals have torn down and more.
bemused@1637
I just looked it up, the reasons are interesting. It must be one of the few former colonies where French was originally used that is switching to English.