The BludgerTrack poll aggregate this week records a strong move back to Labor, which partly reflects the Coalition’s soft Newspoll result this week. However, it’s also indicative of how sensitive the model is short-term fluctuations now that it’s using the start of the Turnbull era of year zero, and thus only has a small number of data points. The story on the primary vote is that the Greens have recovered some of the ground they lost over the previous weeks, with the Labor primary vote remaining steady. The difference all this makes to the seat projection is rather modest, with the Coalition dropping two seats in New South Wales and one in Queensland. The leadership ratings from Newspoll give a further boost to Malcolm Turnbull’s already strong net approval rating, but the other indicators are essentially unchanged. Preferred prime minister and Turnbull’s net approval are still being determined through weighted averages of all polling since the leadership change, rather than trend measures.
What’s more:
• The meeting of the New South Wales Liberal Party’s state council on the weekend, chiefly noted for the heckling delivered to the Prime Minister, saw the demise of a proposal for all preselections to be conducted by plebiscites of party members, in place of the current system where the vote is divided between branch delegates and head office. This was despite just such a reform being advocated by a post-election review conducted by a panel headed by John Howard. However, a compromise resolution will see plebiscites conducted in one federal seat before next year’s election, two for the subsequent federal election due in 2019, and two for the next state election, also due in 2019.
• Tom McIlroy of the Canberra Times identifies Christina Hobbs, a United Nations World Food Program program officer, as a possible starter for the Greens’ Senate preselection in the Australian Capital Territory. However, the report also cites a party source saying its resources were likely to be concentrated elsewhere, particularly on “potentially difficult fights in Queensland, NSW and South Australia”.
Big win! Federal gov’t and @TurnbullMalcolm will legalise medicinal cannabis! Share the news. – Update on “Malcolm Turnbull: Decriminalise the use of medicinal cannabis for people with terminal cancer like my son.”
Good one!
The current kerfuffle about the PM’s tax arrangements (it’s not about his wealth) put me in mind of Paul Krugman’s short opinion piece “The New Political Correctness”:
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/05/26/the-new-political-correctness/?_r=0
For example:
[‘…Thus, even talking about “the wealthy” brings angry denunciations; we’re supposed to call them “job creators”. Even talking about inequality is “class warfare”.’]
Poor Joe – on the outer as well –
[ Former treasurer and neighbour apparently not invited after suggesting Foreign Investment Review Board investigate tycoon.
…There was no sign of former treasurer Joe Hockey at the “White Party” held on the manicured lawns of the multimillion-dollar Hunters Hill estate owned by his neighbour, Chinese billionaire Kui Zhang “Sam” Guo, who PS first dubbed the Chinese Gatsby thanks to his lavish parties.]
Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/lifestyle/private-sydney/private-sydney-chinese-gatsby-sam-guo-made-famous-by-joe-hockey-throws-a-party-20151015-gk9the.html#ixzz3omUfffzH
poroti
Incredible isn’t it ?
Nothing is going to change there on this.
poroti:
https://twitter.com/MarkDiStef/status/655181677602324480
dave
They are totally fuacked in the head. This from a leading candidate in a mainstream party .
[Ben Carson claims Jewish people might have stopped Holocaust if they had guns
…………Carson was quizzed on CNN over comments in his new book, A More Perfect Union: What We the People Can Do to Reclaim Our Constitutional Liberties, which cites Nazi Germany to argue that the right to bear arms should not be curtailed.]
http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/oct/09/ben-carson-claims-jewish-people-might-have-stopped-holocaust-if-they-had-guns
confessions
😆 and he may get to add another one.
[ Ben Carson claims Jewish people might have stopped Holocaust if they had guns ]
You just can’t make this up.
[and he may get to add another one]
Indeed.
poroti
I reckon the reason they exclude Mexico from that graph is because too many Mexicans are shot at the border by the US and they couldn’t figure out which country to add the numbers to.
[1434
confessions
briefly:
Abbott has relied on others to advance his study and career his whole life. I can’t see that changing now.]
Yes, he’s always relied on patronage.
He has remarkably little to offer anyone anywhere, particularly outside politics. He makes very poor decisions, is inflammatory, deceitful, inattentive, attention-seeking and irrational. Perhaps his development into adulthood was permanently arrested.
He’s never had to accept responsibility for anything…and even now is avoiding responsibility. He is able to deny everything.
1345xcxxx or whatever
What the F**K are you on about. I am an ALP member. I fully support the NBN.
However my comment had nothing much to do with the NBN directly. I am not scheduled for ANY NBN Labor’s or Turnbull’s, so I just want my ADSL2 to work.
[ Malcolm Turnbull’s freedom ride runs out of puff
…All hail our great liberal leader, who will soon set his sights on squashing the threat posed by terrorist toddlers. No sandpit is safe from Grand Mal’s counter-terrorism measures, foreshadowing the imposition of control orders and controlled crying on the under-fives.
The government has already signed warrants for ASIO to spy on pimply pre-pubescents suspected of terrorist links. Now Malcolm Turnbull wants children as young as 14 to wear tracking devices and to face curfews, even absent criminal charges.
And all so soon after our brave new Prime Minister snatched office by vowing to run a “thoroughly liberal government committed to freedom”.
A mere month on, the Princeps of Point Piper has packed away his freedom fighter cape and undies. Under his watch, Australians subject to control orders could be denied access to evidence used against them on security grounds.
Authorities were equally cock-a-hoop as metadata laws were ushered in by this thoroughly liberal government on Tuesday. Police and intelligence agencies won’t need a warrant to access details of your phone and internet use.
Meanwhile, whistleblowers now face up to 10 years’ jail for exposing errors by security agencies.
Presiding over all this is our small-l liberal PM.
…haranguing the boss of SBS about “offensive” tweets by a reporter, who was sacked soon after for daring to question Anzac Day commemorations.
….Turnbull also took to Twitter to rail against such “inappropriate” free expression, between posting pics of himself on public transport and ghostwriting a blog about dogs.
The man who was once the scourge of MI5 is now siding with the spooks. Grand Mal ascended the throne promising individual freedoms and a different style of leadership to his predecessor.
….Welcome to the post-apocalypse, where political expediency still reigns.
Our new PM loves spruiking personal liberty, so long as you’re not same-sex couples desiring marriage equality or a teen suspect seeking basic legal rights, a health worker at an offshore detention centre wishing to reveal human rights abuses or a refugee on Nauru seeking the freedom not to be raped or beaten.
“The burden of leadership is a very heavy one,” Turnbull lamented on toppling Tony Abbott in September. We’re already seeing just how heavy hangs the head that wears the crown.]
http://www.smh.com.au/comment/farewell-to-malcolm-turnbull-the-last-freedom-fighter-20151015-gka3hu.html
Carsons is also an eminent neurosurgeon who doesn’t believe in evolution – seriously. Weird.
Poroti, you mean this Ben Carson?
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Aul2Zf-1qwo
Ps the new host of the Daily Show is good value
[1441
dave
The United States, with a murder rate of approximately 5 per 100,000….]
I s’pose that’s an annual rate, so that the lifetime risk of being murdered is about (5×85)/100,000….or 0.425%. That seems like an incredibly high life-time risk to me….getting on to 1 in 200. This rate must be much higher for some groups – male Afro-Americans, for example.
[From 2010 through 2012, the annual rate of homicide deaths among non-Hispanic white Americans was 2.5 per 100,000 persons, meaning that about one in every 40,000 white Americans is a homicide victim each year. By comparison, the rate of homicide deaths among non-Hispanic black Americans is 19.4 per 100,000 persons, or about 1 in 5,000 people per year.
Black Americans are almost eight times as likely as white ones to be homicide victims, in other words.]
http://fivethirtyeight.com/datalab/black-americans-are-killed-at-12-times-the-rate-of-people-in-other-developed-countries/
Chris Kenny, of all people, savages Abbott, Bolt and Hadley (last two not by name)
[ Some Abbott loyalists (let’s call them Turnbull denialists) are angry and bitter, decrying the change and denouncing the new prime minister.
This vocal minority are lashing out on blogs and radio, blaming everyone for the downfall except Tony Abbott, who clearly played a major role in his own demise.
For all his achievements and admirable loyalty, Abbott displayed an almost inconceivable stubbornness, obstinately sticking to his ways despite public and private urgings.
And no matter what supporters now may say about the injustice or injudiciousness of the coup, it did not come out of nowhere.
The myriad warnings, up to and including a failed leadership spill, came not only from the antipathetic public broadcasters and press gallery but also from many who had his best interests at heart.
Simply put, Turnbull’s triumph could not have occurred without Abbott’s intransigence.]
Fairfax Editorial –
[ The Prime Minister insisted his investment in the Cayman Islands avoided withholding tax in the US so that all the taxes would be paid in Australia.
But his disclosure of his assets and rationale for investment decisions, no matter how innocent, is only half the issue.
In the Turnbulls’ case it would take some serious research to determine the industries in which they have an interest and whether they have potential to give rise to a conflict. Most of their shareholdings are disclosed only as ASX or NASDAQ codes.
Nor is it clear whether they are offshore or onshore investments or whether they are self-managed or managed by professionals at arm’s length.
Mr Turnbull has shown he is alert to the potential conflicts of his fortune and his office. Upon appointment as communications minister he sold his shares in Melbourne IT, an internet company that provides domain name services.
While the Herald applauds the efforts the Turnbulls have made to ensure their financial affairs are ring-fenced from government, they should consider whether more can be done.
Mr Turnbull still has several directorships of private companies which own shares, manage trusts, own properties and other investments.
Mrs Turnbull is also a director of these companies as well as being on the board of Prima Biomed, a listed biotechnology company; Sealink, a listed shipping company, and on the board of Committee for Sydney and the Grattan Institute, a policy think tank in Melbourne.
But unfortunately for Mrs Turnbull the bar is set very high for prime ministers and their partners when it comes to avoiding conflicts of interest.
The test must be: does any decision of the federal government have the potential to benefit or harm the Turnbulls’ investment?
Is there any information that might come from being the Prime Minister’s wife which could lead to allegations of an improper use of that information? Is the company likely to seek federal funds or do business with the government.?
It does not take much for business interests to cause a problem – either a genuine conflict or a perception of one – and it can rapidly become a political problem that can seriously damage a government.]
Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/comment/smh-editorial/the-turnbulls-wealth-and-conflicts-of-interest-20151014-gk8n0w.html#ixzz3omiw0fEe
[1451
MTBW]
I support the medicinal use of cannabis, but it should still be regarded as a dangerous substance which can cause the development of psychosis in some users.
SirGitOfSmeg
Thanks for the link.
MTBW
I thought medicinal cannabis was a state issue. I know Baird has funded a trial in NSW.
Diogenes@1467
Notwithstanding that kenny makes some very valid points….kenny was turnbull’s chief of staff, including during utegate…..
Dio — would have thought an old skeptic like yourself would have been right on to that angle ?
Dave – Great article, and the video his hysterical
SIRGIT – Carsons takes hypocrisy to an absolutely new level. Brilliant.
dave
[Dio — would have thought an old skeptic like yourself would have been right on to that angle ?]
It did cross my mind that he might be looking to get his old job.
I haven’t gone soft in my old age.
K17,
The scary thing is people actually vote for these clowns
Funny quote from Mike Carlton re Malcayman
https://mobile.twitter.com/RunawayBudgie/status/654927797861789696/photo/1l
Jeb Bush really looks good when you compare him to Trump and Carson.
Fiorina would be my pick.
daretotread
“” I am an ALP member. I fully support the NBN.””
Well there you go, I learn something new every day!.
Bully for you!.
Abbott’s job prospects outside of parliament appear non existent, does that mean he will hang around the backbench like a bad smell
Vic – Inside ‘tony world’ he may see himself doing a comeback – as crazy as it sounds.
But he remains bitter and twisted – so who knows how that will vent.
He really doesn’t need to decide anything at the moment – although an announcement that he intends to stand next election *might* produce a job offer of some sort? 🙂
dave
Nothing would surprise me re Abbott
Vic & dave:
Toady is about to find out how kind and forgiving his employers are. Live by the sword…
Speed now an exhilarating 4KB.
Bloody Telstra
Dio
[I thought medicinal cannabis was a state issue. I know Baird has funded a trial in NSW.]
I am not sure but the mother of the young man Lucy Haslam is very very pleased that it is getting attention.
Sacha Baron Cohen’s character in ‘The Dictator, trying to convince Americans about the benefits of having a dictatorship….it works in the Aust context also
“Why are you guys so anti-dictators? Imagine if America was a dictatorship. You could let 1% of the people have all the nation’s wealth. You could help your rich friends get richer by cutting their taxes. And bailing them out when they gamble and lose.
You could ignore the needs of the poor for health care and education.
Your media would appear free, but would secretly be controlled by one person and his family.
You could wiretap phones. You could torture foreign prisoners. You could have rigged elections.
You could lie about why you go to war. You could fill your prisons with one particular racial group, and no one would complain.
You could use the media to scare the people into supporting policies that are against their interests”
ABC RN Saturday Extra with Geraldine Doogue this morning:
1. http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/saturdayextra/money-money-money3a-australia27s-changing-attitude-to-wealth/6860266
[The ALP clearly thought it could stir discontent with the government this week by asking a series of questions in parliament about the private wealth of Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull but narratives of class seem to be more complex than ever before.]
2. http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/saturdayextra/the-political-strategist2c-mark-textor/6860892
[If you were a political advisor today how would you read the nuances of opinion in such a state of flux and with the knowledge that any successful leading politician has to appeal to a variety of constituencies.]
Diogenes
[The Federal Opposition has also announced it would move to legalise medicinal cannabis.
But while the Government will leave it up to the states to decide if they want to allow the drug to be grown, the shadow assistant health minister, Stephen Jones, said Labor would have a nationally consistent scheme.
“A truly national scheme to make medicinal cannabis available,” Mr Jones said.
“It should not be a matter of whether you live in New South Wales or Victoria or somewhere else in Australia.]
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-10-17/federal-government-to-legalise-growing-of-medicinal-cannabis/6862294
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/oct/17/flying-a-refugee-to-nauru-in-secret-is-this-any-different-to-extraordinary-rendition
[The rebadging of the Australian customs and border protection service as the Australian border force illustrates a phenomenon that’s been apparent for some time – the entwining of refugee policy with the war on terror.
Today, the institution tasked with responding to desperate people fleeing persecution has been thoroughly militarised. Its personnel are uniformed; its key leaders comes from the army and navy, and treat the most basic information about refugees and their conditions as a state secrets.
But recent events – particularly the government chartering a RAAF jet to secretly fly a pregnant refugee out of Australia to escape a court injunction on Friday – remind us of another, less obvious, intersection between the treatment of asylum seekers and the treatment of terrorists, one that relates to the American policy known as “extraordinary rendition”.]
Victoria – I think Malcolm understands that, outside political combat, he is an empty shell. Write his memoirs? Sit on a few boards? Nope, nope, nope. I have huge trouble believing he will disappear.
I read somewhere that Abbott can retire on $300k a year or take a lump sum of something north of $1 million and a reduced pension.
Maybe he could ask Turnbull for some investment advice for the million …
The disparity in wealth….
Peter Martin: http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-opinion/no-longer-a-nation-of-home-owners-now-were-renting-20151016-gkb7gr.html
[It’s the flipside of the boom in second properties that has made Australia a nation of landlords. The Bureau of Statistics says an extraordinary 1.5 million households now own properties they don’t live in. Among high earners 39 per cent own a second, third or fourth property.
The extra properties need tenants, and the higher prices the landlords have been prepared to pay to get the properties have created a new class of tenants – those who once would have been able to afford to buy in their own right.]]
http://www.theage.com.au/comment/the-policy-canape-thats-getting-harder-to-swalllow-20151014-gk9hik.html#ixzz3omCeO9Kg
[The second was that the gourmet knees-up was held smack bang in the middle of Anti-Poverty Week. Granted, “Flavours of Tasmania” is about promoting the state’s troubled economy. And it’s always something week somewhere. But there was something syncopated about so many powerful people enjoying a canape free-for-all while the community sector was pointing out that Australia has a significant poverty problem.
Earlier this year, the Centre for Economic Development of Australia found that between 1 million and 1.5 million Australians live in poverty, based on their access to necessary goods and services and social exclusion measures. Using an income measure, the Australian Council of Social Service estimates that 2.55 million Australians live below the poverty line.]
in a week or was it one day
MT challenged about tax dodging on cayman says he has paid tax on australian investments nothing about foreign hedge f – is this misleading parliament?
MT while dodging question about text in lower house sneaked in non disclosure for text on high earners including himself in senate – labot slipped, SA senator away
MT turns legitimate unanswered cayman questions (even if overput) into old abbott/howard line on class envy – as if any reform of tax for wealthy etc if just based on class envy
media and many public only see latter – miss whole point of questions how exactly did MT earn $200m in 2 or so decades
MT rhetoric about sympathy, for hard works, how he is luck, how people who have honestly earned wealth should be respected – this is all out of charles dickens
MT on environment passes the coal mine
MT knows public fed up with years of predecessor, he can defect opposition in name of normality non confrontation
not happy malcolm……..
regarding cannabis medicinal or otherwise, I support decriminalizing everything, and ramping up education on the potential harm from various substances. This measure not only takes away the criminal profit incentive , it also saves the taxpayer a fortune in war on drugs policing.
Also the medicinal strain of cannabis is supposedly safer re causing psychosis .
I was very disappointed with Alberici’s interview regarding the lass flown back to Nauru. She took a very aggressive position and at no time tried to find out the facts from the lawyer, consequently the impression anyone might take away was that the woman was just being difficult, and her plead for an abortion was a ‘stunt’.
A very low mark, Emma.
[Maybe he could ask Turnbull for some investment advice for the million …]
Given the way Abbott treated Turnbull from the time he backstabbed him until today, and given Turnbull’s reputation for exacting revenge, that might not be the best advice to offer Abbott, unless you wish him ill
}:-)
rossmcg
Posted Saturday, October 17, 2015 at 1:42 pm | PERMALINK
I read somewhere that Abbott can retire on $300k a year or take a lump sum of something north of $1 million and a reduced pension.
Maybe he could ask Turnbull for some investment advice for the million …
———appalling figures … when did we as a nation give such largesse to our representatives? ditto the PM income – one of highest in western world, higher than US President.
Lizzie @ 1495
That’s what many people want to hear. They can dampen the cognitive dissonance and reassure themselves they really are “good people”. They can continue to disbelieve the torture and abuse being done in their name and rationalise their complicit support by remaining silent and continue to accept the dehumanisation of desperate people.
lizzie @ 1495
Could not agree more she was dreadful.
cognitive dissonance – that is what we are now inflicted with in this country – worse still with desire for normalcy after abbott – am not sure MT any less dangerous – it is same dissonance that keeps republicanism in play in america, aspirationalism in working protects the wealthy and keeps workers poor. last thing we need at the time of neo-recession. MT is not moral conservative altho willing to trade off on moral issues – but it is easier to support issues on indigeneity and SSM and even republic that envisage fundamentals of economic change – even packer support indigenous issues, so long as he gets his way on main things