This week’s big result for the Coalition from Ipsos has had a solid impact on the BludgerTrack poll aggregate, which shifts a further 0.9% on two-party preferred and four seats on the seat projection, including one each in New South Wales, Victoria, Western Australia and South Australia. The two other pollsters to report this week were essentially stable, but both are being downweighted by the model owing to their idiosyncrasies: Morgan for having the Coalition several points higher than the rest of the pack, and Essential Research for its characteristically sedate reading of the recent Coalition surge. New leadership ratings from Ipsos push Bill Shorten’s personal rating to a new low with no sign of the downward trend abating, whereas Malcolm Turnbull now appears to have reached his equilibrium point.
Other news from around the place:
• Sharon Bird, Labor’s member for the safe seat of Cunningham in the Illawarra region, faces a preselection challenge from Misha Zelinsky, described by Nick McLaren of the ABC as “an official with the Australian Workers Union, former NSW government policy advisor and criminal defence lawyer”.
• The Liberal National Party has preselected Nic Monsour, managing director of a consultancy and brother-in-law of Campbell Newman, as its candidate for the southern Brisbane seat of Moreton, which Graham Perrett gained for Labor in 2007 and did well to retain in 2013.
• The Nationals have preselected Marty Corboy, a manager at a Wangaratta stockfeed business, as its candidate for the seat of northern Victorian seat of Indi, which independent Cathy McGowan won from Liberal member Sophie Mirabella, who will also be a candidate again.
• Georgie Burgess of the Launceston Examiner reports that the Liberals’ Tasmanian Senate preselection is pitting incumbents Eric Abetz and Stephen Parry against Sally Chandler, a trade expert who was pipped at the post by Jacqui Lambie as the Liberals’ number three candidate in 2013, and Jonathon Duniam, deputy chief-of-staff to Will Hodgman.
• Roy Morgan had one of its occasional polls on the biggest issues facing the country and the world. Terrorism and war came back to life late last year after a long quiet spell, though more as an international than a local issue. The economy is on a long upward trend at local level, but the terrorism and war resurgence looks to have taken the edge off it in the international result. The results are from a phone poll of 647 respondents conducted a month ago.
BK
Now I can get back to making long comments on some articles instead of pretending to be neutral.
Cheers (oh how I miss the emoticons)
TPOF:
Yes, great stuff by Pope!
What has happened to emoticons?
😀 😆
Oh no!!
🙂
Edwina StJohn@949
I don’t think the Federal Government needs to run a Commercial Bank. Selling CBA to mainly Australians/ Australian Institutions (at the time) is not remotely comparable.
The Telstra sale went astray when the tories refused to structurally desperate Telstra’s functions in order to maximumise the selling price, then they bungled the first tranch of the float by woefully underpricing the shares.
The second trance was about right and T# was well overpriced – so much for the business nouce of the ‘born to rule’.
The overall “problem” is the tories want to sell everything in sight and not in sight regardless of the circumstances.
desperate _ Separate.
BK, that is great news about your shoulder.
Lizzie, thanks again for this morning’s dawn patrol & for your efforts over the recent weeks, greatly aporeciated.
Thanks to everyone for the thanks 🙂
BK, glad to hear your shoulder is doing well, and thanks for all your work with he Dawn Patrol. It is my major news source for the day. I wandered over to PB a couple of years ago when First Dog on the Moon went on holidays, and I am now a committed PBer.
Bernard Keane is the very model of a modern neoliberal. It’s true that the Coalition is all over the map in its approach to foreign investment, but Keane suggests that Australia desperately needs foreigners to own land and infrastructure here. We don’t. All assets that are fundamentally public in their character should be owned by government and managed in a way that fulfils public goals. We don’t gain anything by having ports and lands owned by foreign interests with no incentive to promote public interests.
Love it “foreign interests” . How very retro xenophobic of you Nicholas. Just white Australia with a green left varnish really.
Foreign ownership…the right suffer amnesia over their ranting over the sale of Cubby.
They just keep proving what hypocritical dimwits they really are
Douglas and Milko
Many thanks for your contribution of the cartoons. It made my job much quicker and easier and I know it sometimes put you under pressure.
[TPOF
Posted Friday, November 20, 2015 at 11:49 pm | PERMALINK
I find it difficult to believe that Labor in its current form can deliver a progressive future; there are just too many opportunists who will do whatever it takes to win pre-selection.
So you will vote for a Liberal opportunist instead, someone who will support the party line in opposing Marriage Equality, in americanising the Australian health system on ideological grounds, on making the right noises (finally) about climate change but sticking doggedly to the same useless, expensive polices that achieve less than nothing and so on.]
I saw Turnbull in a news clip yesterday being asked about the asylum seeker boat that nearly made it to Christmas Island. His response was in complete contrast to the usual effusive confident style he has been presenting since he was made PM.
In fact he looked decidedly uncomfortable and almost a little embarrassed as he parroted the party line about not commenting on operational matters. It wasn’t a good look and he knew it.
One thing that can be said about the changeover from Abbott to Turnbull is that it has been a seamless transition: from bumbling incompetence to bumbling incompetence.
Less than 100 days left before Labor knifes Shorten.
[oh how I miss the emoticons]
Do we know at this stage if we are going to get them back?
Also, are we ever going to get the preview button operating again?
967
As Goldsmith put it so elegantly:
[But soon a wonder came to light,
That showed the rogues they lied;
The man recovered of the bite,
The dog it was that died.]
Into the valley of death rode the FPLP onward onward …
Lizzie,
No problem! Sometimes the cartoons were a bit late, but always fun to do.
The Libs also sold off Medibank and look how that turned for members.
The $6 billion was not used to pay down debt and went into the budget revenue and spent.
Lizzie and Douglas and Milko thanks for all your work and welcome back BK.
Public banking is an extremely valuable policy tool for making financial services available to everybody at very low cost, and with public goals in view. Public banking was important to Australia’s economic and social development. There was no compelling policy reason for privatising public banks. It was an ideological move, pure and simple. Any sensible improvement of our financial system must include restoring the role of public banks in keeping fees and charges low to retail customers, and in setting a high standard of serving customers’ and society’s interests, not just the interests of senior managers.
[Edwina StJohn
Posted Saturday, November 21, 2015 at 10:22 am | PERMALINK
Less than 100 days left before Labor knifes Shorten.</i.]
Another one of ESJs sure to be wrong predictions. Talk about leading with your chin.
(And if MTBWs theory is correct it's probably a VERY weak chin)
z
OC OD’d in bringing up Anne Charltons previous addiction. Yet his main point is not that NSW Labor needs pure candidates, rather that in his view there is a lack of change (inside many parts of NSW Labor) since the bad old days that turned so many away.
Could those bludgers who are inside NSW Labor comment on that point?
Belinda Neal should never ever get preselection for a Labor seat again .
She is distasteful rude and just an awful ambitious person who doesn’t give a shite about anybody else,
Surely Labor get run a better candidate than her.
The Liberals defend to $14 BILLION a year fossil fuel industry in rebates and subsidies to the multi-billion dollar mining industry with their multi-billion dollar profits they offshore to avoid taxes to the point they get more in rebates and subsidies from the taxpayer than they pay in tax.
The Liberals rant about the ‘death’ of manufacturing while refusing to provide rebates or subsidies to manufacturing.
They care not about Australians working and are disingenuous with their rantings about the “bludgers” while they do all they can to reduce jobs for Australians.
Darn
Love your chin reference!
Belinda yesterday, Belinda today, Belinda tomorrow. BELINDA. FOREVER
Labor is trying to get Anglo working class votes back by a coded argument which boils down to Asians took your jobs and we’ll stop Asians taking more of them.
TPOF at 901
“That blast from Andrew Neil was terrific. Spoke for many people – and went to what I was saying about why we felt what happened in Paris more than what happened in Beirut. It is no disrespect to the Lebanese victims of these Islamic Scum, to use Neil’s words, but the attack by the IslamoNazis in Paris, like their model under Hitler almost 65 years earlier, was an attack not just on the people who attended a concert, a football match or a couple of restaurants, but an attack on the values and culture of France which has influenced so much of what we enjoy today in the west.”
I thought Neil’s speech was good too but I didn’t draw quite the same parallel you did. I thought Neil compared France’s clearly superior culture to ISIS’ clearly barbaric & inferior culture. I didn’t think he compared France’s culture as being superior to Lebanon’s culture, both of which have rich history’s, scholars, architects, artists, cuisine etc.
I think the two comparisons were different. One was a comparison of a state versus non-state entity where the aspects of humanity are diametrically opposed whereas the other is a comparison of two cultures but where the aspects of humanity are the same.
Edwina StJohn
You can have her in the Liberal Party if you like but I warn you she is not a nice person.
[Less than 100 days left before Labor knifes Shorten.]
Lets assume Alias’ trolling is right and Turnbull isn’t really on a leash at all it just suits him now to look like it and he isn’t being punished for it so why change that right now.
If he is preparing a comprehensive and compelling package he could then go to an early election, subject to all the timing problems, I’m not sure Turnbull is all that worried about.
If he surprises with an early election Bill doesn’t get knifed and your 100 day thing is silly.
If Turnbull is telling the truth and going to go full term and in 100 days the polling is still 54:46 to Turnbull a wise head might still say wait a little bit longer for the budget and see what happens then.
Labor powerbrokers aren’t really known as wise heads but they have a problem, they can’t open up a leadership ballot and have only an acting leader for a month or more begging Malcolm to run to an election without an opposition leader, or with a rushed change of rules and a general appearance of choas.
They can’t really change the rules and then suddenly knife shorten that would be a disaster.
So the only option would be to engineer Shorten retiring ‘because of polling showing he was in an unwinnable position and there only being a single alternative candidate for leader. I’m not sure this can be done.
Good old ESJ he’s annoyed everyone he knows, so he’s got to troll on a Saturday morning.
Perhaps we could arrange a swap. The emoticons for ESJ.
[MTBW
Posted Saturday, November 21, 2015 at 10:40 am | PERMALINK
Darn
Love your chin reference!]
Thought you would.
[Labor is trying to get Anglo working class votes back by a coded argument which boils down to Asians took your jobs and we’ll stop Asians taking more of them]
The message is that the Liberals prefer to support their billionaire mates than the working people of Australia.
The plan is to create massive unemployment, cut the unemployment benefits to such a low that it cannot feed your family let alone put a roof over their heads and then enable their billionaire mates to cut wages to a level just higher than the unemployment benefit knowing that the desperate will accept anything that pays more than unemployment so they can feed and house their family. It is a deliberate policy to create a large underclass
Agree WWP it’s a pickle.
One million Australians live and work overseas, we are the 12th largest economy in the world, we have and are mixing it in a deregulated competitive world. statist labor policies don’t work – why go back?
Hawke and Keating saw it, why can’t the modern ALP get it?
[So another far-right activist has been caught with weapons seemingly intended for use againt political opponents.
Police discovered Tasers, a bomb-making manual and other equipment during a raid on the Braybrook house of Phillip Galea, an anti-Muslim agitator.]
Edwina
Trying to divide Aussies into Anglos and Asians is a little old-fashioned, now that so many of us are a mix of cultures.
Link
https://newmatilda.com/2015/11/21/members-of-the-far-right-are-threatening-political-violence-whatever-happened-to-those-anti-terror-laws/
Australia is slowing being overtaken by countries that have lower interest rates, greater and broader support for enterprises/industries and smarter investment strategies — and hence more people employed and stronger growth.
victoria@990
Stale news.
He pleaded guilty yesterday and was sentenced to a month in gaol and a $5,000 fine.
Skips in trouble. Pity about the greed.
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/nov/21/yanis-varoufakis-australia-is-a-plaything-of-world-economic-forces-it-cannot-control
[Hawke and Keating saw it, why can’t the modern ALP get it?]
The problem is that Howard stuffed it up and the wealth of the boom flowed disproportionately to the wealthy and very wealthy through a combination of laziness in not building public goods and infrastructure, blind and bad ideology and stupidity like the 50% cut in the CGT rate and opening super rorts up to the very wealthy, while at the same time consistently attacking those Australians in need.
It is not surprising they aren’t happy about it, and in a downturn looking at all the jobs moved from Australia to overseas isn’t a good thing for an unemployed Australians.
[Labor is trying to get Anglo working class votes back by a coded argument which boils down to Asians took your jobs and we’ll stop Asians taking more of them]
Running the racist card is the new low for the right. Labor wants Australians to have jobs.
Liberals want cheap Asian labour to have the jobs in order to enable bigger profits for the billionaire Party owners.
Victoria
I suspect that it was probably part of the CFTA. If we blocked the sale of the Port then it would make it clear we were anit Chinese. personally I think it probably wise, given the US bases. it maintains at least the hope of neutrality in the forthcoming hot/cold/lukewarm war between the US/China & Russia.
I am for staying neutral. Not sure about you.
CE @ 982
[I thought Neil’s speech was good too but I didn’t draw quite the same parallel you did. I thought Neil compared France’s clearly superior culture to ISIS’ clearly barbaric & inferior culture. I didn’t think he compared France’s culture as being superior to Lebanon’s culture, both of which have rich history’s, scholars, architects, artists, cuisine etc.]
I agree with you as to what Neil was getting at. My point was not that Lebanon did not have an equally rich culture – and I was not comparing the cultures. My point was most westerners relate much more to French culture (some of which has made its way into the rich tapestry of Lebanese culture courtesy of M. Picot) than to Lebanese culture. I could say exactly the same about Chinese culture. Nobody questions the depth and richness of Chinese culture, but it has been less influential on how we in the west think about things and the values we have than French culture.
It’s not a case of cultural relativism or cultural superiority. It’s much more a case of history.
It’s a point I was trying to make yesterday that a lot of people misunderstood – in one case absurdly. Tribalism and competitiveness is built into our evolutionary DNA , but so is cooperation. For the most part peoples cooperate. They recognise differences and see those differences as a good thing, in the same way that the best team brings together different skills. But there are exceptions. Nazism was an exception; so is Daesh.
There is a powerfully coherent internal logic in Daesh’s belief system. Central to that logic is that anything that could question that logic is axiomatically false and should be not only ignored but destroyed. There have been plenty of ideologies throughout history that have had the same pattern. A relatively recent example was Pol Pot’s dystopian vision for Cambodia.
So when I said yesterday that the attack on Paris was because Daesh hates us, us being everyone who wasn’t them, I was referring specifically to Daesh. And the formal international response to these attacks – the display of the Tricolour on the great landmarks of the west – was an assertion of our faith that our culture is infinitely superior to that of Daesh (not China, nor Lebanon, nor Aboriginal Australians).
The informal response – the western media – is largely driven by financial gain, which is based on what people want to read, click on or watch. We may not like it and want to change it to a more serious and constructive approach, but the media still has get its money. Which is why a ridiculously disproportionate amount of air and web space in this country is being given to the story of one person who suffered a relatively minor wound but who is female, young, very good looking and Australian.
That said, by watching or reading her story, there is a relatively easy entree into understanding what went on in the Bataclan that night and seeing the horror through her eyes as a person who suffered the direct trauma of being there. And that is not a bad thing to understand what it is really like to be a victim of these psychopathic ideologues.
Were the Chinese the only bidders for the Port of Darwin?