The Seven Network had a poll this evening from ReachTEL, which records a Coalition lead of 53-47 – a substantial shift on the 50-50 result it recorded on September 15, the evening after the leadership change. That’s all there is from that poll at this stage, but there were some headline-grabbing results today from a Morgan poll, conducted by telephone from a fairly small sample of 574. Bill Shorten could manage only fourth place on the question of preferred Labor leader, with Tanya Plibersek leading on 27% (up a point since July), Anthony Albanese second on 23% (up four), Wayne Swan third on 10% (steady) and Shorten down three to 9%. By contrast, Malcolm Turnbull’s first result for preferred Liberal leader as prime minister has him gaining from 44% to 64%, with Julie Bishop on 12% (down three), Tony Abbott on 8% (down five) and Scott Morrison on 4% (down one). The current leaders’ ratings were 66% approval and 16% disapproval for Turnbull, 25% approval (up one) and 62% disapproval (up two) for Shorten, and Turbull leading 76-14 as preferred prime minister.
UPDATE: GhostWhoVotes relates that ReachTEL has Turnbull leading Shorten 68.9-31.1 on preferred prime minister, with 40.2% saying Labor should replace Shorten as leader versus 26.0% opposed.
UPDATE 2: Full results from ReachTEL here. The sample was 3574 – big even by ReachTEL’s standards – with primary votes of 46.7% for the Coalition (up 3.4%), 33.0% for Labor (down 2.9%) and 11.3% for the Greens (down 0.6%).
@Aussie Achmed, @Lizzie: Abbott stole Rudd’s ‘Me too’ campaign, which basically involved Rudd running around stealing Coalition’s policy.
zoomster @ 180: LOL. No really, that was hilarious. Good to have a belly laugh first thing in the morning.
Tough morning for the lemmings:
http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/bill-shorten-starts-to-become-an-issue-for-labor-20151023-gkgpr3.html
@Kevin-One-Seven: Your friend is wrong. People have been mentally over politics for many years, thus it doesn’t account for Abbott’s poor popularity shifting to Turnbull’s good popularity.
Today’s Cartoons:
Banks putting a dampener on the housing market:
http://cdn.newsapi.com.au/image/v1/d3c4602cb4b830316f1142055acbf423?width=1024&api_key=zw4msefggf9wdvqswdfuqnr5
Dyson on the Broad Church of the Liberal party:
Is that shorten with the trowel?
A new airport but no transport from the city:
The famous table again:
More bridge building:
http://www.smh.com.au/photogallery/federal-politics/cartoons/david-pope-20141123-1t3j0.html
New ones from Rowe. I just love the second one!
Oh, and BTW isn’t Hartcher a prize?
According to him, the idea that Turnbull not only wanted to become PM but also to achieve something in the job is “remarkable”!
Well, I guess it’s a characteristic that Hartcher’s last two pin-ups, Rudd and Abbott, didn’t really share: they both mainly seemed to be motivated by ambition.
But, hey, in my living memory, there have been Gillard, Hawke, Keating, Whitlam, Gorton and even Howard who all wanted to make something of their time in the top job. Not really all that unusual eh Peter?
I have to say, I think I find the rantings of Bolt and Sheehan easier to take seriously that the stuff Hartcher dishes up.
K17:
My own view is that people became tired of politics many years ago. People regarded Abbott as a joke and pretty useless, and so are quite relieved that he is no longer PM and no longer in their faces each night on the news.
Under the Labor NBN
Another big misconception about the NBN is how it will be paid for. So, in simple terms, here is an explanation of the public funding:
The $27.5bn Government component of the NBN is funded by debt, through the issuing of Australian Government Bonds. That is, the Federal Government offers our AAA-rated bonds to investors, at an interest rate of about 4% (depending on the term).
The NBN however, will provide a return of about 7%. This means that (once the network is operational), the NBN will begin repaying those bonds at a higher rate than what Government is paying on the debt. By 2034, the entire Government investment (including the interest) will have been repaid by the users of the network, leaving the Government owning a valuable asset (the NBN network) and no associated debt. Big users of the network (those who choose the high speed and high volume plans) will contribute more towards repayment of the debt, and actually subsidise those on smaller plans.
Taxpayers don’t really have anything to do with NBN funding. It is users of the network who will pay to build it, whether they are taxpayers or not.
This is completely different to the majority of Government spending, which doesn’t earn any return. To borrow (and modify) an analogy I read on an internet forum:
Think of the NBN as an investment property….
(from the nbnmyths website)
K17
I agree that people do not want to think politics just now – which is why the Cayman Island stuff fell flat. I think it would have been better to wait until after MT’s first stuff up. Probably next year.
Morning
Thaks Lizzie and others for today’s offerings.
Good to finally have a journo acknowledge the role Shorten played re Abbott.
Also the comments put on the Guardian re The NBN and Truffles is on the money.
Also agree with feedback k17 received, re the punters downing tools after Abbott was dumped
Z
[ As no one likes losing, the new leader immediately begins with almost half of party members]
Actually in Shortens case it was more than half the party members as he lost the membership vote.
meher baba @ 177: Agree with most of that.
Shorten will be forgotten faster than Simon Crean.
What about skipping the current generation and going straight to Jason Clare? Smart guy, plenty of electoral appeal, and this is a cracker of a speech he gave yesterday:
http://www.jasonclare.com.au/media/speeches/2784-a-digital-banana-republic-global-competitiveness-in-the-digital-age
Malcolm is a big believer in the market, and so was never going to be a supporter of Labor’s NBN plan because the demand in Australia is still a fair way away and especially considering how expensive it is.
Zoomster
I know you mentioned this previously, and I recall it being reported somewhere, that Shorten and team Labor were always prepared to meet with Turnbull at next federal election.
Kevin 1-7
I find it an irritation that Wyatt Roy, while enthusiastically spruiking innovation and technology, has wiped the advantages of the real NBN from his memory.
@Lorax: Clare’s a better option than Shorten, Tanya, or Albanese imo.
[Peter Reith @Peter_Reith 1h1 hour ago
My memoirs have got off to a very strong start with extracts and a news item from The Australian. And some fun SMS and other comments.
Peter Brent @mumbletwits 51m51 minutes ago
1. Get elected.
2. Form govt.
3. Lose govt.
4. Leave parliament.
5. Write memoirs putting your side of the story.]
Diog
I realised that – I was making a more general point.
[Cer White
Posted Saturday, October 24, 2015 at 9:11 am | Permalink
Malcolm is a big believer in the market, and so was never going to be a supporter of Labor’s NBN plan because the demand in Australia is still a fair way away and especially considering how expensive it is.]
So implements a more expensive and inferior NBN plan. It’s strange market he believes in.
A new one from Cathy Wilcox:
Malcolm is a big believer in the market, and so was never going to be a supporter of Labor’s NBN plan because the demand in Australia is still a fair way away and especially considering how expensive it is.
and the Turnbull mish-mash is now up to $57 billion…and now buying new copper, not to replace old copper but to install instead of optic fibre
Cer White @215: Yeah, especially after the inevitable catastrophic defeat. Renewal and all that. He could be Australia’s Justin Trudeau in 2019. And he’s in the right, er, correct, faction.
Good Morning
So we are in the honeymoon period.
Not going to last. The reaction on the SSM plebiscite is a good example of this.
Labor sees that the voters can see the difference on the issue and for Labor its a winner and a simple introduction to voters on how Turnbull is going down the Abbott path.
@kevjohnno: It isn’t more expensive. Labor’s figures were always going to be wrong, conservative figures put Labor’s plan at 59 billion, other estimates are higher. Turnbull’s comes in under those.
Cer White
The LNP NBN is more expensive. It has to be. Purchasing copper which is obsolete and then replacing it with Fibre means you are doing it twice.
This means the LNP NBN is twice the cost.
Cer White
But you believe Turnbull’s estimates. Can I sell you a bridge?
@Kevjohnno: To be fair, I took the MOST CONSERVATIVE realistic estimate of the Labor party, versus the HIGHEST ESTIMATE of the liberal party. If I had believed Turnbull, I would parrot his line of his NBN still being 34 billion dollars cheaper than Labor’s.
At the end of the day, the Libs will prob be substantially cheaper with the caveat that you get an inferior service. People going around demonising Turnbull’s plan by saying it will cost much more, and it’s not as visionary are just not credible. Personally, if it was up to me, I’d have rather internet be left to the market and for the 50 billion dollars be spent on a high speed rail network connecting the East Coast of Australia, but that’s just me.
[It isn’t more expensive.]
It may not be in the short term, but in the long term as Turnbull’s ‘NBN’ becomes outdated and obsolete, will need to be done properly. This is going to cost many magnitudes more than the forecast cost of the original NBN.
guytaur@222. Of course! Silly me! SSM is going to bring Turnbull down with the swinging voters and install Shorten in the Lodge. How could I have missed this? Especially as the issue worked so well for Rudd in 2013.
guytaur: there’s a touch of meguire bob in that post.
Cer White
Look at the mess that is the USA to see why leaving it up to the market is wrong.
Its the most expensive way to do it as inferior product means you fall behind other countries in competitive terms
Guytaur
Honestly you are just out of touch. Most ordinary people will think that a plebiscite is a perfectly reasonable way to deal with a sensitive issue. Sure they may think a vote in parliament would have been easier but they will not care about a plebiscite either.
It is NOT a vote changing issue. It matters a lot to 10% of the population and tanks about 4999th of 5000 issues for the rest of the population. Now I will vote yes for ME at a plebiscite, but as an issue I regard it as a piece of trivia, pushed by over entitle spoiled rich kiddies. Basically I do not think that the right to hold a big party and get a scrap of paper with no additional legal rights attached, really worth the cost of a plebiscite but that is politics.
I am NOT joking when I say I could think of 4998 more important political/social issues. Symbolism not substance seems the order of the day.
@Guytaur: Europe is collasping financially, Asia has never been at the forefront, Australia and NZ are well behind, Africa is Africa, but it’s the ‘USA’, still the world’s only superpower, which is a giant mess?
baba
What a load of BS from you. Just ignore the word introduction so you can make out its the one issue alone.
Cer White
again Turnbull’s 20th century copper NBN is now up to $57 billion
@confessions: Turnbull’s plan would have involved not doing anything at all, because his position is that demand would be met by the market, but you inherit the hand you’re given.
Cer White
again Turnbull’s 20th century copper NBN is now up to $57 billion
and that doesn’t take into account the $100 million a year in maintaining the aging copper
Cer White
When it comes to infrastructure including internet services yes the USA is a mess.
The USA would be doing much much better if it had had some Australian policies. This is why China is going ahead faster than the US as they do not have the ideology against government the US right has.
@AussieAchmed: A peak estimate given by Turnbull, where he maintains Labor’s would have cost 90 billion.
Re Vic By-election
The roads in South West Victoria would easily be the worst in the state. The Portland to Hamilton road and the Portland to Nelson road are both in shocking condition.
A user pays principle would be a way forward in relation to the trucking industry. Thier argument that larger trucks (B/Double config) would reduce the numbers of trucks on the road is complete bull dust.
It’s not just falling behind other countries – it’s that, for the net to work most effectively, everyone basically has to have access to roughly the same speeds.
No use, for example, trying to deliver medical consultations via Skype or similar if the only patients who benefit are a five minute drive from their nearest doctor. Lots of benefits if it saves a considerable cohort of patients an hour’s drive.
The market would only deliver for the former.
It is quite reasonable that the ALP would not be panicking at this time about the polls. Reasoning that all new leaders get some sort of honeymoon period and in this case the clear negative personal Abbott effect plus the positive Turnbull effect combined with the gushing media sycophancy means there has been a quite staggering PPM effect. However, that hasn’t translated into NSW/Baird like 2PP Polling. The ALP remain in striking distance but with the FP at 30% the acid test will be whether that is the bottom. If they reach Gillardesque FP numbers then a decision will once again have to be made on “saving the furniture” or more precisely saving the Senate.
Interestingly this has to play into how the ALP approached reform of Senate voting – will they be of a mind to change the system if they are facing a trouncing and possible LNP majorities in both houses if a DD election is called?
I’ve never given heavy weight to the importance of PPM but you have to admit 14% is pretty bad in anyone’s language.
@Guytaur: The USA would be making less money if it focused on top of the line infrastructure. Which is the point, you run the country to make a profit, which involves not implementing everything you want.
DTT
Your are wrong. Most people do not think that. Its no mistake Labor is pursuing this.
I used the word introduction because it gets people thinking and opens the way for people to see that policies under Turnbull are the same and that only the salesman has changed.
For what it is worth my telstra technician (whom I have seen a lot of lately – problem FIXED) told be that there is some new technology that allows COPPER to run 300 times faster. No idea if true but throw it in.
Cer White
Ignoring China means you are ideology over substance
DTT
The UK uses it its called GFast. Last gasp of copper before it has to be replaced.
@198
If the only answer they would accept is boat people are victims who are desperately fleeing from persecution how can they label a section as criminals?
@Guytaur: I’m not ignoring China. China has the 2nd biggest economy in the world, but are in no way an existing superpower. There is only one superpower in the world.
Lorax: Clare seems good, but the powers that be in the party clearly don’t rate him as a prospect, or else they would give him a more prominent shadow portfolio. He’s a Bob Carr acolyte, and Carr never carried much weight with the unions and other key party power bases. Clare will have to wait until opportunities arise by default, as they did for Carr.
zoomster
[It’s far from one of my favorites.]
It’s good to see you admit to having many snide “favourites” 🙂
DTT
Just so you are in no doubt about what Labor is doing
“@AustralianLabor: Gay & lesbian health Victoria has said a plebiscite on #marriageequality will allow extreme forms of homophobic abuse to be aired. #qt”