The Australian has a surprise in store tomorrow, with the latest Newspoll survey showing the two parties at level pegging on two-party preferred, wiping out a 53-47 lead to the Coalition at the last poll three weeks ago. The Coalition is down three on the primary vote to 43%, Labor is up one to 35%, and the Greens are up one to 12%. This has been reflected in personal ratings, with Malcolm Turnbull down five on approval to 48% and up seven on disapproval to 38%, while Bill Shorten is up three on approval to 28% and down three on disapproval to 57%. Turnbull’s lead as preferred prime minister narrows from 59-20 to 55-21. The poll also finds 47% support for Labor’s negative gearing plan, with 31% opposed and 22% undecided. It was conducted Thursday to Sunday by Galaxy Research from a sample of 1807, contacted online and through automated phone polling. UPDATE: Also from Newspoll are results on “words used to describe the leaders” and “best leader to handle issues.
Note that there are a further two new posts beneath this one, one providing a forum for discussion on Senate reform and double dissolution talk separate from the main thread, the other being the return of Seat of the Week.
UPDATE (Roy Morgan): Roy Morgan finds no change on a much improved result for Labor a fortnight ago, with the Coalition again leading 52.5-47.5 on both respondent-allocated and previous-election measures of two-party preferred. The primary votes are Coalition 43.5% (steady), Labor 29.5% (up 0.5%) and Greens 15% (down one). The poll was conducted by face-to-face and SMS over the past two weekends from a sample of 3116.
UPDATE 2 (Essential Research): Essential Research is steady at 52-48 to the Coalition, but Labor’s primary vote has bounced back two points to 35% after dropping the same amount last week – unusually volatile behaviour for this series, which provides a rolling average of two weekly results. The Coalition is up a point to 44%, with the Greens down one to 10%. The most interesting of the supplementary questions divided the sample into two halves and asked a separate question on negative gearing: a straight one on reform “so that, for future purchases, investors can only claim tax deductions for
investments in newly built homes”, and another attributing the policy to Labor. The switch made surprisingly little difference: the former had 38% approval and 28% disapproval, the latter 37% and 32%, with moderate variations between Labor and Coalition voters cancelling out in the totals. Other results find 31% approval and 54% disapproval of cutting Sunday penalty rates in hospitality, entertainment and retail, and grim assessments on the health of the economy and respondents’ financial wellbeing – only company profits perceived as having improved over the past year, and very large majorities rating that the cost of living has worsened. The poll was conducted online, over two weeks from a sample of 2017 in the case of voting intention, and Wednesday to Sunday from a sample of 1002 for the rest.
Matt@2099
I am amazed at the number of words being wasted on it here.
It just seems so clear cut to me.
Well, thank goodness for that. I was afraid the RWNJs n the Senate might have blocked it.
[Medicinal cannabis could soon be legally grown in Australia, with changes passed to create a national licensing scheme for growers.
The changes to the Narcotic Drugs Act, which passed the Senate on Wednesday, create a national body that can issue licences to growers and regulate local crops of medicinal marijuana.
The drug remains a “prohibited substance” under the poisons schedule. But Health Minister Sussan Ley said the Department of Health and the Therapeutic Goods Administration were “well-advanced” in considering downgrading it to a “controlled substance” class, putting it in the same category as morphine.
“This will in turn reduce any barriers to access, no matter what state a patient lives in,” she said.
Ms Ley said that patients would be able to access locally-produced medicinal cannabis with a valid prescription under the scheme.]
http://www.theage.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/senate-passes-medicinal-cannabis-legislation-20160224-gn2gjk.html
Yay!
Federal Politics @PoliticsFairfax 14m14 minutes ago
Senate passes medicinal cannabis legislation http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/senate-passes-medicinal-cannabis-legislation-20160224-gn2gjk.html … #auspol
lizzie
Great result on Medicinal Cannabis congratulations to the mother of the young man who was dying and she fought to the end.
[I’ll throw in there that real estate agents tell me that the value of the land depreciates as soon as you build a house on it, because the house you build on it will not be the perfect house.]
Yes, but no. Like I said the value of the house and land is ALWAYS less than the value of the vacant block + the cost of building. It is the value of the building that is less than the cost of building (partly because it isn’t ‘perfect’). The land value hasn’t changed.
[Power doesn’t corrupt, it reveals. Ain’t that the truth.]
and ain’t Malcolm being revealed.
ratsak
I always knew real estate agents were shonky.
Paul you can’t offset capital gains against taxable losses only against other capital losses.
Seems Greens are no different since the change of Leadership.
Renai LeMay @renailemay 1m1 minute ago
So wait, Greens are now ones rushing controversial changes through Parliament with only short consultation. Boooy. Shoe on the other foot.
[I always knew real estate agents were shonky.]
Ha maybe so. But the net effect is the same. If your place burnt to the ground the land would still be worth the same. If it was the land that was less that wouldn’t be true (unless you wanted to argue that the land increased in value when the building burnt down).
Cory Bernardi and Mini Me, Andrew Hastie behind the Anti Safe Sex Coalition smear campaign and in conjunction with the vile Lyle Shelton and the ACL:
The grassroots backers of Bernardi and Hastie are being a little less subtle. In fact, so worried are they, many saw the Safe Schools Coalition as contributing to the final decline of civilisation as we know it.
https://newmatilda.com/2016/02/24/exclusive-anti-safe-schools-emails-to-mps-reveal-homophobia-and-confusion-among-programs-opponents/
[So wait, Greens are now ones rushing controversial changes through Parliament with only short consultation. Boooy. Shoe on the other foot.]
Renai not feeling the love for his previous employer.
I think Labor really does need to stop taking scalps, looting the Liberal village, and shooting their horses, and start thinking of the next policy release before this one wears off.
There’s a long war ahead, and I get the feeling that this victory may have been a little unexpected by both sides. Best not to gloat or waste too much time celebrating.
And just get on with it.
I don’t believe anyone can realistically predict what the effects of the proposed Labor changes to NG will be. Likely there will be winners and losers depending on individual circumstances and how the market movers react with new strategies.
Assuming the changes have grandfathering provisions then one possible outcome is that people with existing NG properties will hold those properties while they get a financial advantage from those investments. We will likely create a new pool of “pre-September 1985” asset types.
New investors will likely look to NG primarily in new developments which may restrict the people able to take advantage of the new NG rules.
It will no doubt be messy for a period of time until the changes wash through the property market.
It will be interesting for a time if it goes ahead.
[I think Labor really does need to stop taking scalps, looting the Liberal village, and shooting their horses, and start thinking of the next policy release before this one wears off.
There’s a long war ahead, and I get the feeling that this victory may have been a little unexpected by both sides. Best not to gloat or waste too much time celebrating.
And just get on with it.]
Yep. Malcolm wants to set in for a long siege. Time to attack him from a new direction. He’s so flat footed he’ll never expect it.
Aint that the truth
[Schadenfreude George
Schadenfreude George – @GeorgeBludger
It’s like we got off the Abbott train, got on the Turnbull train, but ended up on the same Platform of Stupid.
9:59 PM – 23 Feb 2016
21 RETWEETS23 LIKES]
[Rental losses can still be carried forward until there is investment income or capital gain to offset. ]
Can they? I know the greens proposal does not allow losses to be carried forward, does the labor proposal for non new res premises?
The greens proposal also read as if you could transfer or carry forward losses in relation to commercial and industrial property, although it might not have been their intent.
Does Labor let you negative gear commercial and industrial property?
BB
[There’s a long war ahead, and I get the feeling that this victory may have been a little unexpected by both sides. Best not to gloat or waste too much time celebrating.
And just get on with it.]
Absolutely agree it ain’t over till it is over.
davidwh,
Of course you can reasonably predict realistic effects and identify unrealistic effects.
Everything Turnbull is talking about is utterly unrealistic. Like I said being wiped out by a comet is more likely than Labor’s proposals causing a collapse of house values.
Minor price drops are of coua realistic possibility in some markets.
phoenix
Thanks for the Hellstorm info. Just watched it.
How sad that innocent people pay such a huge price for war. More people should see this.
[At least there’s hope that the most wooden of political performers Bill Shorten has a pulse. The Bernardi comeback was great and worth a thousand stage-managed zingers]
Lorax
Coming from you that is high praise indeed – and in one way a bit ironic. You now seem to be giving Labor more chance of winning the coming election – under Shorten – than I do. And I am a paid up member of the dreaded echo chamber that you spent so much time criticising – one of the lemmings you might say.
I actually give Labor no chance at all this time around, despite the current Liberal travails. But I am predicting with great confidence that Shorten will flog them in 2019, after they have been fully exposed as the frauds that they really are.
Mal had better enjoy his short stint as PM. The seeds of his destruction are already there.
ratsak generally I agree and a rational person would likely hold onto a pre-2017 property that allows them to take advantage of the pre-2017 laws however 2008/2009 showed us that where there is uncertainty people often don’t do what seems to be the rational thing.
As I said it will get interesting for a while.
No wonder we need all that extra money for defence – its the F-35 wondercraft:
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/report-f-35-testing-schedule-unrealistic-could-cause-purchase-delays/article/2582174?utm_source=fark&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=farklandingpage
In fact we will need to cut a lot more from health and education not to mention NDIS just to pay for it!
Darn
[I actually give Labor no chance at all this time around, despite the current Liberal travails. But I am predicting with great confidence that Shorten will flog them in 2019, after they have been fully exposed as the frauds that they really are.]
The way the rules work there will another leadership ballot after the election I suspect.
[The Federal Senate has passed a motion calling on the West Australian government to abandon “divisive and unnecessary” anti-protest laws which have been strongly condemned by the United Nations.
The motion, introduced by Greens Senator Rachel Siewert and passed on the voices, adds to a long list of institutions and individuals who are concerned about what Colin Barnett’s government is proposing.
Last week three separate United Nations Special Rapporteurs issued a joint statement condemning the anti-protest laws, saying it would have the “chilling affect of silencing dissenters”.
“It would go against Australia’s international obligations under international human rights law, including the rights to freedom of opinion and expression as well as peaceful assembly and association,” the three Special Rapporteurs said.
Hundreds of people protested against the bill at the West Australian Parliament yesterday, and a coalition of more than 80 community organisations, legal centres, and unions have signed an open letter opposing the bill.]
Link, sorry.
https://newmatilda.com/2016/02/24/federal-senate-urges-abandonment-of-anti-protest-law-as-wa-parliament-prepares-to-pass-it/
More on ratsak and MB’s excellent posts.
The fact that existing NG properties are grandfathered means impacts will be moderated and over a period of time.
Existing NG owners have no need to sell, only buyers are affected and for any particular property they are only part of the market.
It would be more equitable to not grandfather but the risk of a market impact is far greater.
MTBW
A ballot for leadership after a loss is surely the usual thing. Shorten would know that.
There should be an ALP leadership ballot after the election, if the party does not win, however at this stage Shorten deserves to win, assuming the result is better than 2013.
lizzie
I am sure he does!
[Katharine Murphy @murpharoo · 2m2 minutes ago
How the beatings & humiliations of the 1978 Sydney Mardi Gras made reform inescapable. A great piece from David Marr http://gu.com/p/4hxgp/stw ]
[The way the rules work there will another leadership ballot after the election I suspect.
]
Which I expect Shorten to win – if he isn’t PM, of course.
[ Yep. Malcolm wants to set in for a long siege. Time to attack him from a new direction. He’s so flat footed he’ll never expect it. ]
In the immediate future the Defence White paper could be an issue to attack on.
With that, the Libs are about to announce programs that are over a long period and going to cost a lot.
How are they going to fund that with the Budget strategy they are running?
They are all about cutting spending in areas perceived as more immediately relevant to people than Defence, have no idea about increasing revenue in any meaningful or fair way, BUT are insisting that they will deliver Tax Cuts.
Short of magic pudding economics, and hitting up mythical creatures for their fairy gold how the fwark do they expect to deliver on all that while laying out a plausible path back to a balanced budget???
I reckon they are looking at a scenario where among all the other matters they have retreated on, they may have to ditch the tax cut proposals as well (particularly corporate tax) which leaves them with what exactly to go to an election with??
I think its becoming apparent its a complete
miss-characterisation to say that MalPM is the man with a plan for a plan. He’s not even that good.
Trump wins Nevada
[It would be more equitable to not grandfather but the risk of a market impact is far greater.]
Oh absolutely. I’ve no doubt the grandfathering was mostly politically driven, but the stability aspect is enormously important.
If it wasn’t grandfathered I would agree that a property slump would become much less unlikely.
[CSIRO research fellow John Church said the lack of clarity was taking a toll on staff.
“Clearly staff are stressed, upset about their future,” he said.
“They’re dismayed about the performance of the CSIRO executive.
“Clearly there’s not as much consultation as many people would like, and clearly there’s a lack of understanding from our leadership on what it is exactly they’re cutting.”
The 90-minute meeting focused mainly on the itinerary of site visits over the next few weeks, with management to visit CSIRO offices in Tasmania, Victoria and Queensland.
The CSIRO said it was shifting its focus from climate measurement to long-term mitigation measures.
Federal Science Minister Christopher Pyne also asserted, during Question Time this week, the decision was made by management and not by the Government.]
{Chrissie does a pontius pilate}
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-02-24/csiro-workers-still-in-the-dark-on-jobs-after-meeting/7196522
Federal Science Minister Christopher Pyne also asserted, during Question Time this week, the decision was made by management and not by the Government.
[MTBW
Posted Wednesday, February 24, 2016 at 6:20 pm | PERMALINK
Darn
I actually give Labor no chance at all this time around, despite the current Liberal travails. But I am predicting with great confidence that Shorten will flog them in 2019, after they have been fully exposed as the frauds that they really are.
The way the rules work there will another leadership ballot after the election I suspect.]
Perhaps. But if Shorten does well in this election and gets them within striking distance for 2019 I think he will be given the nod again.
“I was surprised at my reaction to “Berlin” – I felt sorry for the Germans.”
Long ago (long before I read ‘Berlin’) I played hockey with some German lads. I got on great with them. One night we all went out for dinner and stopped at a bottlo for wine. They were taking ages to decide and, as they didnt know the where the restaurant was, I waited for them. I got impatient and jokingly said ‘hurry up, the Russians are coming’.
Even tho they took it well I regretted it immediately and when I got over my embarrassment I apologised. Its right up there for stupidest non-funny things I have ever said.
[ which leaves them with what exactly to go to an election with?? ]
Actually, on reflection thats me being silly. I forgot the dictum for a moment:
Its Liberal, It Lies.
So they will go to an election with a pile of poorly polished bullshit they have no intention of following up on if re-elected. 🙂
And how about I throw another tax into the equation.
If the Government is considering the possibility of a death tax (ain’t everything except GST on the table?) what about gift duty.
A tax on the value of every gift received (at the recipient’s income tax rate), and every gift made by the donor. (at a slightly lower rate).
Then the rich and soon-to-be pensioners couldn’t reduce or distribute their capital inter-vivos without the State taxing it.
Why doesn’t Bill ask Mal if he’ll rule it in or out?
@C@tmomma 2066
Yeah, I gave you crickets because I felt your response collapsed in on itself. Labor made a good start on affordable housing with the stimulus package, but then the Greens spent the following years trying to protect it from Labor’s own cuts. One can only hope that Labor is planning on restoring the program, but these are old policies which were already funded. Now we have new money saved from negative gearing on the table.
Money saved from negative gearing should be directly reinvested into new affordable housing stock. It’s new money, new capacity and it should bring new ambition.
bemused
[I felt sorry for the civilians.
As for people like Nazi functionaries and the SS, too many of them got off far too lightly, as did their collaborators.]
It suited the Americans to punish the smallest number of Germans for the maximum of war crimes.
That the Wehrmacht and Civilians had no knowledge of what was happening is a fallacy.
Simon Katich@2138
I always try to recall that the first victims of the Nazis were Germans and that there was a German resistance.
The movie “Sophie Scholl: The Final Days” is a good reminder.
[Sophie Scholl and the White Rose
Margie Burns
At the age of 21, Sophie Scholl was executed by the People’s Court in Germany on Feb. 22, 1943, during the Holocaust, for her involvement in The White Rose, an organization that was secretly writing pamphlets calling for the end of the war and strongly denouncing the inhuman acts of the Nazis.
In May, 1942 German troops were on the battlefields of Russia and North Africa, while students at the University of Munich attended salons sharing their love of medicine, Theology, and philosophy and their aversion to the Nazi regime. Hans Scholl, Alexander Schmorell, and Sophie Scholl were at the center of this group of friends.
Attending the same university were two medical students, Willi Graf and Jurgen Wittgenstein, who had served in a military hospital in 1939, with Hans, Sophie’s older brother. Along with Christoph Probst, a married soldier and father of three, they eventually joined The White Rose.
Sophie Scholl was born on May 9, 1921, in Forchtenberg am Kocher, where her father Robert Scholl, was mayor. At 12 Sophie joined the Hitler Youth, but became disillusioned. The arrest of her father for referring to Hitler as ”God’s Scourge,” to an employee, left a strong impression on her.
To the Scholl family loyalty meant obeying the dictates of the heart. ”What I want for you is to live in uprightness and freedom of spirit, no matter how difficult that proves to be,” her father told the family.
When the mass deportation of Jews began in 1942, Sophie, Hans, Alexander and Jurgen realized it was time for action. They bought a typewriter and a duplicating machine and Hans and Alex wrote the first leaflet with the heading: Leaflets of The White Rose, which said:
”Nothing is so unworthy of a nation as allowing itself to be governed without opposition by a clique that has yielded to base instinct…Western civilization must defend itself against fascism and offer passive resistance, before the nation’s last young man has given his blood on some battlefield.”
Members of The White Rose worked day and night in secrecy, producing thousands of leaflets, mailed from undetectable locations in Germany, to scholars and medics. Sophie bought stamps and paper at different places, to divert attention from their activities.]
[In the immediate future the Defence White paper could be an issue to attack on.]
Nah. Mal wants to talk about defence so he doesn’t have to talk about tax.
Therefore Labor should hit him with another tax policy. Tomorrow morning.
Doesn’t have to be a big ‘un. Labor already has the ground as the only party with a tax policy. Even some minor tax change would mean no one wants to talk defence (Labor’s position is pretty much bi-partisan), and everyone will be talking tax.
That means Mal will take another option off the table, ramp up his scare campaign to lunacy, and he and his ministers will fluff their lines whilst the media asks ‘where’s your policy?’
Sun Tzu mate.
WWP @ 2117
[Can they? I know the greens proposal does not allow losses to be carried forward, does the labor proposal for non new res premises?]
My understanding is that is definitely the case.
ratsak and others: thanks for your responses. I’m still struggling to understand the point of a “reform” which won’t collect much more tax and, according to all of you, won’t have any significant effect on the housing market.
I still reckon it will lead to rental increases, rental shortages in some areas and a strong downward pressure on the market value of second-hand apartments in areas where there are large numbers of them: Sydney, the coastal strip between Sydney and Noosa, and possibly parts of Melbourne. The extent to which this downward pressure flows through to the housing market more generally will depend on a variety of factors: interest rates, net migration levels, the overall state of the economy and market sentiment.
All we can do is to speculate about what might happen, but the way Turnbull and his crew are going at the moment, it’s possible we’re going to find out.
CTar1, is history going to condemn each and every one of us for the torture the Australian Government is putting asylum seekers though in the same way you are (apparently) condemning the German people for the atrocities of their then Government?
dwh
Careful, I work in accounting and tax software development. You’ve got this backwards.
“you can’t offset capital gains against taxable losses only against other capital losses.”
The law is you can’t offset capital losses against taxable income only against other capital gains. Rental losses will now be carried forward too.
meher baba@2146
It will not collect much more tax initially, but the tax take will grow each year.
It will moderate the rate of increase in house prices and perhaps avoid an eventual collapse of the housing bubble or at least make it less severe.
[I’m still struggling to understand the point of a “reform” which won’t collect much more tax and, according to all of you, won’t have any significant effect on the housing market.]
It’s long term structural reform. The benefit will take a long time to flow through, but the first thing that needs to happen is that the unspoken rule that negative gearing cannot be touched needs to be broken.
Should the Labor changes go through reasonably smoothly it will be much easier for future governments to make further reforms. It will also make it much easier for future oppositions to propose reforms and not instantly write off their election chances.
It’s unreasonable to expect too much ‘Big Bang’ reform. It’s a hard graft of small changes that (hopefully) build on each other to amount to something really substantial.
From little things, big things grow…