We’re about half-way between the weekly BludgerTrack and when I’m anticipating the next opinion poll, this being the period of pre-budget calm before the storm, and a new thread is wanted. So I’ve decided to hang this one off the latest ANUpoll survey, an exercise conducted by the Australian National University two or three times a year to gauge the public mood on a specific area of public policy, and track the salience of various issues over time. The subject of the latest instalment, which was conducted by phone from a sample of 1200 in February and March, is tax and equity in Australia. Among various findings on tax that would be familiar from those who follow Essential Research, the report also finds support for increased spending on social services at its highest level since the series began in 1987. The report also finds that, in spite of everything, 56% consider the existing system “moderately fair”, on top of another 4% for “very fair”, while 22% rate it “not too fair” and 18% “not at all fair”.
The survey also features regular questions in which respondents are asked to name the first and second most important political problems, out of a list that presently includes 27 options. To make this easier to interpret, I’ve condensed results into various categories, which are hopefully generally self-explanatory (particularly economy/budget, environment and better government – security/external covers wars, terrorism, defence and immigration, while services covers health and education and such). The progress of these results since 2008 is shown in the chart below.
From which a number of points are clearly worth noting. Concern about service provision mounted to giddy heights after the 2014 budget, but promptly returned to normal after Malcolm Turnbull became prime minister. The combined result for the various economic issues is at a low point in the latest survey, having peaked in the years immediately following the global financial crisis. Security/external and crime/society, which are largely conservative concerns, are on an upward trend. “Better government”, I’m guessing, was a popular response among Coalition supporters while Labor was in power, but is not a correspondingly popular choice for Labor voters now it’s the Coalition’s turn.
How did Bowen go this morning…?
An interesting article by a highly respected conservative journalist/columnist David Brooks (think News Hour PBS).
—Those who walked with Trump will be tainted forever—
He says he (and others) need to get out of the bourgeois strata. And then this……
“I don’t know what the new national story will be, but maybe it will be less individualistic and more redemptive. Maybe it will be a story about communities that heal those who suffer from addiction, broken homes, trauma, prison and loss, a story of those who triumph over the isolation, social instability and dislocation so common today.”
Good luck telling the Americans voting for Trump they (and laws) need to be less individualistic.
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/29/opinion/if-not-trump-what.html?ref=opinion&_r=0
In inviting themselves to the Gonski party the G’s are gatecrashing. This is closely related to their usual form. Generally, when they can see Labor holding a BBQ, they will set up another stove just slightly upwind from Labor’s. They will claim they offer meatier meat, greener salad, tangier dressings and bread that is both gluten free and gluten rich at the same time. But every now and then they find their own stove will not ignite or that their salad has spoiled. On these occasions they will invite themselves to Labor’s smorgasbord, claim it as their own and then, while dolling around to everyone’s amazement, publicly admire their new aprons and hats.
Simon Katich
The difference is pretty much the same for all spiders . The males use them for mating so you’ll be able to apply it to any type that wanders by. Amaze your friends by being able to tell the sex of a Daddy Long Legs with just a quick glance 😆
Gecko
Bowen did good,
You can watch it here
http://www.abc.net.au/insiders/
poroti
Let me guess … you don’t have many friends.
I love Huntsman spiders. My daughter is arachnophobic. Whenever one came into the house I would name it so the kids would feel more enamoured.
Unfortunately, they seemed to know my daughter was terrified and almost always would cosy up to her bed and I’d have to catch it and take it outside.
Was meant to be a smiley at the end of my last post – 😀
Drat! How is it that some people can insert emoticons into their posts that I can see, but even if I cut and paste them, they don’t appear when I post?
[Projection.]
I wouldn’t have thought you’d get much more connected to reality than introducing gonski in the first place. Had a great CPRS that would have had been fantastic and what 6, 7 years old, an effective established, adjustable tool.
You had a smiley on the previous post!
I grew up with Funnel webs. Huntsmen are fluffy ducks in comparison.
White-tails, on the other hand, are the embodiment of evil and meet a very quick end.
Did anyone notice Savaa’s slip up in her final observation? Despite all the nonsense prior, she unwittingly revealed that she now thinks Shorten has a real shot at becoming PM.
wtte: “Had Turnbull not taken over from Abbott when he did, we would now not be asking if Shorten will win, but by how far.”
jenauthor
How odd. Doesn’t appear for me. And I’ve even installed the special non-standard Crikey font!
The P1 grin
now you see it…now you don’t!
briefly
I’m hoping that once the Crikey gerbils finally give up and go away, that Musrum will be able to reinstate both emoticons and decent fonts here on PB.
Turnbull’s latest scrooge-like funding for schools comes with a draconian list of conditions attached. Essentially it represents the LNP/ICA ideology that only private schools should be funded by the Commonwealth while at the same time imposing a large bureaucracy to carry out the mind-numbing and expensive task of administering the scheme.
http://www.news.com.au/national/breaking-news/extra-1b-for-schools-in-budget/news-story/8461aaf2702625bdf12c9616b45a3cec
I do find it interesting that when certain “wordsmiths” here have a go at the Greens they rarely use measured factual language about the reality of the policy/politics but resort to elaborate metaphors and colourful insults. It’s the polemical equivalent of drawing a black ink caricature of them as an octopus with tentacles everywhere. Cute but not very informative
victoria @ #605 Sunday, May 1, 2016 at 11:39 am
Thanks Vic… read the transcript as my internet incapable of vision. Yes he did good.
We removed our Huntsman – the one I discussed here a few weeks ago – down to the laundry under the house
After five days in the corner of the ceiling cornice it was …. gone! As soon as we stopped checking it out, it scarpered. Maybe it was shy.
Three days later it reappeared in the kirchen. Her Indoors had had enough, got the broom and gave it a gentle nudge in the direction of the back door. It took off like a scalded monkey, dropped to the floor, tried to get past HI again, but in the end was forced to scramble over the door jam, flip itself upside down and disappear to below the deck boards.
Another five days went by and we found it, safe and snug, gorged on flies and moths, happily existing under a rafter that formed the ceiling of the laundry.
It didn’t “home” back to our lounge room. Why would it? It was in Spider Heaven.
[b]Test to see if this does anything[/b]
Is there somewhere I can reference the basic commands required to indent, reply, bold, etc. my posts…?
victoria @ #605 Sunday, May 1, 2016 at 11:39 am
Very clear contrast between Bowen – incisive, crisp – and the cliched, rant-o-matic foaming of Morrison.
Player One @ #618 Sunday, May 1, 2016 at 11:51 am
likewise, to be sure !
After Springborg managed to give Labor CPV, it’s no wonder he’s going to be rolled.
A B @ #623 Sunday, May 1, 2016 at 11:59 am
try this
Player One @ #586 Sunday, May 1, 2016 at 11:12 am
Ditto! I had our Ethernet cables nicely tucked through a hole in the floorboards and under the house to pop up in each room where there was a computer…until the Antechinus chewed through them, popped up through the hole into the house and proceeded to eat the bananas in the fruit bowl!!!
We made a very great effort to block the holes because we don’t like to kill native fauna. So the little bugger chewed a bigger hole and then for extra measure chewed the power supply cable to the WiiU almost clean in half! For which replacement we had to send away to Japan for a new one because you can’t get them in Oz!
Then one day, on it’s way to the bananas again, it decided to chew through the fridge power cable!
So, reluctantly, out came the Ratsak.
I don’t have any Musrum stuff installed and see emoticons but they are outlines no colour infil .
Well how about this?
1. Refugees
Years after the Greens refused to even try the Malaysia solution, the Labor government that wanted to give it a go is gone, replaced by a cruel, uncaring Coalition government that has made conditions worse for refugees and will not countenance evn the most basic humanitarian gestures designed to alleviate their suffering. Good result, Greens!
2. Climate Change
Seven years after they had their first chance to help the Rudd Labor government with Carbon Pricing and flubbed it, the Greens forced the Carbon Tax on a Labor government in 2011, a government that lost office – i.e. took all the political heat – in large measure due to it. Now we have nothing. Good result, Greens!
————
Think of all those years wasted when good work could have been done, processes put in place that could have been changed, amended and developed once they had been accepted by the public… now gone.
Politically, on these two issues, we are back where we were 10 years ago, thanks to the Greens’ Holier-Than-Thou fundamentalism and ideological purity. When you give the voters an “all or nothing at all” choice, you usually get… nothing.
With Credlin now writing a regular column for the DT (and presumably other Murdoch tabloids), Abbott can laugh and Turnbull can cry.
Shorten ‘a contender’: Credlin
She admits to being blunt and forthright, and Peta Credlin, former chief of staff to Tony Abbott, has an honest message to the Coalition as she takes on a role as Sunday Telegraph columnist.
Shiftaling says
‘It’s the polemical equivalent of drawing a black ink caricature of them as an octopus with tentacles everywhere. Cute but not very informative’
Bluey is on his way over to your place, blue rings pulsating.
BB
I agree wholeheartedly. It’s all the fault of the Greens. Labor has nothing to learn from it’s own behaviour. What is this Shorten fellow trying to pull, running a unified ship? What was wrong with the old RGR model?
citizen @ 11.54
And then smugly claiming that these bureaucrats (and the teachers who get their teaching time stolen) are bludging off honourable high income private sector taxpayers. Which is what Stutchbury did this morning.
Peg
The Greens here and elsewhere have been doing wall-to-wall Manus grandstanding. I have yet to see a single Greens poster do anything at all sustained on exploitation of 800,000 workers.
As for Greens doing enquiries. Phhht.
Real parties do real government, warts and all.
Greens to 100% of pure nothing.
shiftaling @ #620 Sunday, May 1, 2016 at 11:55 am
I’ve only seen restraint, even forbearance. Simple dress. No gowns or lace. Nothing equestrian. No braid or embroidery. No carnival masks or fancy millinery. No feathers.
If we ‘wordsmiths’ speak in metaphors I’d suggest it is a reaction to the ‘utopian’ template that Greens seek to provide for society.
And to add to that: The Greens are like parents who will only accept a child scoring 100% in an exam.
My son found a Funnel Web on the floor beside his bed last weekend. He wanted to kill it. I said, “What has it done to you that you want to kill it?”
He said, “It’s not what it has done but what it might do!!”
I said, “How about we compromise? You get a glass and a stiff piece of cardboard and we’ll catch it and take it over the road to the National Park and release it over there. I don’t think it will survive the journey back across the road if it tries to come back here. Deal?”
Reluctantly the deal was made. Spider still alive I assume. Son still alive. Mum banks good karma.
Which reward occurred on Friday afternoon when a Rock Wallaby hopped past the back door. 🙂
So, Peg admits she is highly educated.
White-tipped spiders, Funnel-webbed Spiders and Greens are starting to merge like a photo-shopped nightmare. So that the rest of us can tell the difference, could the Greens please differentiate themselves by starting all their posts with:
Never a government; never silent.
It seems Morrison is determined to cast his budget as “Labor Lite” …
So voters will have a real choice at the next election – you can have proper education funding, proper multinational company tax reform and proper superannuation changes … or the “lite” version where the packaging looks a bit the same but the content does nothing.
jenauthor @ #638 Sunday, May 1, 2016 at 12:17 pm
I for one tire of smoked Liberals. I like to vary my diet with steamed Greens. Liberals are not nutritious. Wizened, they are. Rubberised. The G’s are bitter. But I like that. Bitter G’s take me back to the old Testament.
Boerwar
As I said before .. they are all fine out in the wild, but none of them should be allowed in the House.
P1
From that article
Same ‘ol, same ‘ol.
Player One @ #642 Sunday, May 1, 2016 at 12:22 pm
This is the Turnbot we’ve come to known and deride…He is False Promise. Voters can see right through the something-for-nothing offers.
Basically, if The Greens had any balls they would join the Labor Party and work on achieving government as a united force of the Left, and, by doing so, would become a part of the competitive tension and dialogue that comes with government and be a part of winning the internal debates of government.
As they stand, with no hope of forming government they are simply a boutique political party. All care and NO responsibility. Like Pegasus’ avatar. A fictional horse, not a working horse.
C@t
If the Greens adopted Labor policy, Greens voters would just vote into existence another Greens party.
Her Indoors wanted to use Ratsak on our rat, affectionately named “Raoul”.
I pointed out we had dogs, and that we shouldn’t put poison about that they might get into their little systems.
So I “fed” Raoul with 16 dog biscuits per night, to sate him enough so that he wouldn’t invade the kitchen. This actually worked.
Every morning, the dog biscuits would be gone,and no rat poo firther along in the kitchen. It was a comfortable relationship.
Her Indoors curled her lip at this after a while and forbade me tp “feed that stinking rat”. I tried for a while longer, but the nagging was getting me down, so I stopped feeding him.
Pretty soon the rat droppings started up in the kitchen. Bags of rice in the cupboard were gnawed into. Packets of flour were pierced with tiny teeth. Half-eaten bananas were found on the floor. The little buggers even polished off our grapes in the fruit bowl, like right little Fauntleroys. The dogs, being retired by now, just watched.
It also became apparent that there was more than one rat now. Many more than one. Raoul had met his Raylene and multiplied. Every night around 9pm we could hear them (plus brood) scurrying down the inside of the stud wall to get their dinner.
They chewed a hole in the wall behind the piano where we couldn’t see them enter and exit their highway to the sky (i.e. the roof, where they lived). We could hear squeaks and thumps as they had their little territorial spats over who got to dine on our impressive cornucopia first.
So I bought a humane bandicoot trap as a last ditch effort to avoid either Ratsak or something more sudden. The idea was to take them FAR away to the bush so they could at least have a chance of setting up shop somewhere else. Picking where to drop them was fun. Our suburb is staunchly Tory, so at first I dropped them off outside the houses of some particularly obnoxious conservatives that I knew around here. Eventually, enemies exhausted, I just took them down to the bush, with a main road, a railway and 3 kilometres between their old and their new homes.
The bandicoot trap cost $100, but was worth every cent.
Over the next few months we caught 17 of the little critters. Some big. Some barely weaned. We even caught twins on two occasions, both in the trap at the same time.
The last one was a pregnant mother. I put some Parmesan cheese in the cage with her as we drove to her new digs. When I opened the gate, she continued chowing down, she was so ravenously hungry. I waited a minute so she could have a last bellyfull and prodeed her out with a stick. Last I saw of her she waddled off into the bush (as opposed to the normal way they exited the cage, more reminiscent of an F-18 being catapaulted off an aircraft carrier).
Never had a rat in the house, since. And we’ve still got the cage, just in case we do.
DisplayName
… it will just be shifted from the more wealthy to the less wealthy!