With another two weeks to go before the break in the festive season polling drought:
• The closest thing we’ve had to a new poll over the break has been a ReachTEL survey of Tony Abbott’s electorate of Warringah, conducted for the Australia Institute. The automated phone poll of 743 respondents was conducted on December 17, and found support for the Liberals at 62.1% (up from 60.9% at the September 2013 election), the Greens at 16.1% (up from 15.5%) and Labor at 14.6% (down from 19.3%). The poll also found 50.9% believed Tony Abbott should retire from politics, with no time frame specified, while 35.4% preferring that he remain. When asked if his departure would make them more likely to vote Liberal, 36.7% said it would, compared with 17.5% who opted for less likely. A hike in the goods and services tax from 10% and 15% recorded 39.4% support and 46.5% opposition, whereas support for “gradually transitioning to 100 per cent renewable energy by the year 2030” was at 77.2%, with 16.7% opposed.
• James Robertson at Fairfax reports that the factional warfare engulfing the New South Wales Liberal Party is posing a threat to Craig Kelly, Liberal member for the seat of Hughes in Sydney’s outer south. Kelly would appear to have been undermined by a redistribution proposal that excises the Liverpool end of the electorate, reportedly home to two branches loyal to him and the arch-conservative tendency he represents, and adds a moderate-controlled branch at the Sutherland end of the seat. The most likely challenger is said to be Kent Johns, an influential moderate who sits on Sutherland Shire Council, followed by Liverpool mayor Ned Mannoun. Further complicating matters is a membership recruitment drive that conservatives have been conducting among the Macedonian community, which led the party’s moderate-dominated state executive to freeze membership at the Liverpool branch.
• Sarah Martin of The Australian reports on “heightened speculation” that dumped minister Jamie Briggs may be set to vacate his seat of Mayo at the election. The report says that Right faction MPs were meeting to discuss a possible successor, amid fears his ongoing presence could exacerbate the threat posed in the seat by the Nick Xenophon Team. The NXT has fortuitously preselected a disaffected former staffer to Briggs, Rebekha Sharkie.
• Daniel Wills of The Advertiser reports that six candidates will seek Liberal preselection for the seat of Adelaide, held for Labor by Kate Ellis, at a ballot of 500 party members to be held on February 6. Houssam Abiad, deputy Lord Mayor of Adelaide, had been attracting the most attention, but the report says the “front-runners” are David Colovic, a partner with HWL Ebsworth Lawyers, and Beth Loveday, a dentist. The report identifies the other contenders as Shaun Osborn, a policeman, Kent Aughey, a commercial consultant, and Emma Flowerdew, a small businesswoman.
• Matthew Dixon of the Ballarat Courier reports two candidates have nominated for Liberal preselection in Ballarat, held for Labor by Catherine King: Nick Shady, a farmer and mental health advocate, and Sarah Wade, a lawyer. The report also says the Nationals are planning to field candidates in all Labor-held Victorian regional seats, which is to say Ballarat, Bendigo and McEwen.
UPDATE: Channel Seven in Adelaide has results of a ReachTEL poll from Jamie Briggs’ electorate of Mayo, with better results than he might have feared: a Liberal primary vote of 43.9%, compared with 53.8% at the 2013 election, with Labor on 17.2% and the Nick Xenophon Team on 15.4%. This probably includes an unallocated undecided result of around 8%, suggesting all concerned would in fact be a few points higher – with Briggs close enough to 50% to get him home, even if the NXT got ahead of Labor. A two-party Liberal-versus-Labor result shows Briggs leading 59-41, compared with 62.5-37.5 at the election.
In China there is a number of different types of lanes for different purposes on highways, they even have one for “changing lanes”.
I suspect that tba has never experienced peak hour traffic like what happens in the major cities and can’t understand why he can’t just bulldoze his way through.
@GG/2302
I suspect he has, and he felt “entitled” in the same way the LNP “entitled” to rip people off, to bulldoze the way through.
I see that Bernard Keane and presumably Ben Oquist do not like mumble. So I assume the weird tweet by Keane in the twitter of mumbles ‘leaving the oz’ was just a scumbag sledge of mumble.
My very low opinion of Keane accordingly adjusted down, my first opinion of the other dude is the same low setting.
BB,
They used to say there were two types of fighter pilots: either the old or the bold.
TPOF@2299
Yes, clowns who can’t maintain a relatively constant speed are a nuisance. As are those who insist on always driving in the right hand lane regardless of their speed.
BK – I was going to say finance spivs who donate to the liberal party, but that would be redundant.
davidwh@2300
That phenomenon is caused by ‘The TBA Effect’.
It is a kind of aura which surrounds him and causes stupid and irrational behaviour. 😛
Comrade actually I think a person can be booked for driving at 20k on a highway assuming they weren’t the victim of a road rage first.
[davidwh
Posted Monday, January 11, 2016 at 1:33 pm | Permalink
TBA you must be the unluckiest driver ever. I drive the Bruce daily and virtually every day have to contend with drivers slowing to 85/90k for speed cameras but I have been lucky enough to have never come across a driver slowing to 20k.]
David I drive the Gateway & Deagon Deviation daily to get to & from Redcliffe and I was thinking how lucky TBA was to be going 100k anytime. Hardly ever happens to me.
kevjonno I did it this morning to drop MrsD off at our daughters place and between Deagon and Boondall 20kmh would have been very fast.
TPOF@2299
Yes,
Those type of “dickheads” are what called tailing you (or have watched a Mythbusters episode)., they probably thought they can get to places quicker than you.
David as I mentioned a single car slowing down can cause an endless chain reaction for the traffic following behind it.
Mythbusters did an experiment on this braking chain reation phenomenon.
Firstly they put a handful of cars in a circle and had them go around with the car in front braking. This was okay and after a little while the traffic flowed freely again.
Then they put more cars into the driving circle. Now when the first car braked it caused an endless chain reaction that went on continuously. Traffic was unable to flow freely again until some of the cars were taken out of the driving circle.
Therefore in heavy traffic it takes just 1 car to brake and in theory the result of that 1 car braking can cause a traffic jam bottleneck for hours.
I see that Pauline Hanson is one of those anti-vaxxers.
I think she should be deported from this country.
In France they just recently detained anti-vaxxers.
@TBA/2313
As I suspected, TBA has watched TV.
I have read that in some cases traffic congestion can be described mathematically as a compression wave (like sound waves) that moves up a line of traffic. TBA is describing something similar. Any dusturbance propagates up the system. We’ve all had the experience in freeway traffic when the traffic suddenly slows down for no apparent reason and a little while later, again for no apparent reason, breaks up and flows freely again.
TBA I agree about the compounding effect of slow/slowing vehicles. I experience it virtually every day.
Steve things have become so crazy these days that some drivers only have to see a vehicle stopped on the side of the highway and they slow down assuming it’s a speed camera. Add to that flashing lights and they slow down even more. Then there are people who can’t merge or lane changes without slowing a line of traffic.
It’s crazy out there but it is the price for living in paradise 🙂
[Then there are people who can’t merge or lane changes without slowing a line of traffic.
It’s crazy out there but it is the price for living in paradise 🙂
]
When did you move to WA – swapping the heat for the scorchers is a big win!
It’s crazy out there but it is the price for living in paradise 🙂
The price of the joys of car ownership.
It doesn’t matter if it’s vehicle or public transport, it happens in both.
Humans need to do better to follow rules, not the other way around.
Other day it was TBA whinging about driver-less cars.
davidwh
[Add to that flashing lights and they slow down even more. ]
I always take my foot off the accelerator when I see flashing lights ahead, as on our highway it invariably means an accident, an ambulance or a traffic problem. I wouldn’t brake until necessary, though.
The correct solution appears to be people-less cars.
[2255
TrueBlueAussie
Knowing full well they can’t speed up to safely go through the yellow]
And that’s the entire problem with your “argument” – no one should ever be speeding up to go through an orange light. It is only if AT THE SPEED LIMIT you are already in the intersection, or imminently about to enter it (e.g. you are at or within a few metres of the line and the light changes from green to orange), that you proceed through the orange light – that is what is meant by “stop unless it is unsafe to do so”.
Your “argument” is little more than a whinge that you don’t get to do whatever you want. Very childish.
[2317
davidwh
TBA I agree about the compounding effect of slow/slowing vehicles. I experience it virtually every day]
It is generally the reverse that is true – congestion caused by high volumes of traffic slows vehicles down, rather than slow vehicles causing congestion. You see this with large volumes of pedestrians and bikes as well. Of course, accidents and excessive slowing will slow things down further.
[ imacca,
Surely not the time to be touting for the Private Finance Industry to be taking charge of people’s Super: ]
C@t, for the Libs it is ALWAYS time. Especially at the moment when if there are big ructions happening and their mates NEED a more reliable source of blood to suck. FFS, they have private school fees to pay and Beemers to run dont cha know!!
Funny thing happened years ago. We had a mortgage on our first house and my OH stopped at one of those “pay off your mortgage faster” stalls at the local shopping centre. Upshot was we got a visit from one of their “advisers” who was a very attractive 20 something lass who turned up in a late model turbo Merc and was all wide eyed smiling flirty friendly. 🙂
After a bit of discussion it turned out that the best she could do for us was worse than the deal we already had…but she would charge us a couple k fees to organise. No thanks miss spiv. 🙂
They fcked the NBN:
http://www.businessspectator.com.au/article/2016/1/11/technology/what-nbn-will-look-2020
https://delimiter.com.au/2016/01/11/fixed-wireless-nbn-turns-out-worse-than-adsl-for-some/
poroti
Posted Monday, January 11, 2016 at 12:52 pm | Permalink
TBA is always in a bad mood driving as he has to drive on the “left” .
*laughing*
You see TBA does have a purpose, some of the come backs to it’s comments just crack me up. 🙂
It is stinking hot in Sydney and a couple more days to come temps around forty expected before the end of the week.
Morgan poll on its way shortly.
http://www.sbs.com.au/comedy/article/2016/01/11/shorten-promises-never-raise-gst-never-becoming-prime-minister0
😆
A poll on the way !
Who’s on cleaning duty to clean up the blood on the PB floor after the last few weeks… ?
Re 2331
[The Backburner is Australia’s most trusted news source, it is quite obviously satire and shouldn’t be taken seriously or before operating heavy machinery.]
New thread.
“Severe thunderstorm warning with damaging winds for Central Victoria including Melbourne.”
Have decided not to read Huffington Post from now on. No matter what link I click on it takes me to the Huff Post AU site even though i do NOT want to read the AU news but the US news.
Pissed off entirely.
Call the Whaambulance!
David Bowie dead!!: http://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/david-bowie-dead-at-69-20160111-gm3la4.html