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.
victoria
Exactly. The polls tell us this time after time.
The LNP and the ALP have both (in their own ways) taken this on board. The Greens have not. They appear to live in the small bubble of their own support base, and pay no attention to what the wider electorate actually wants.
What a great political deal we see here! The ALP gets to do all the work in convincing the electorate, they can take all the flak for making the argument, and then they can get more flak when their new policy is still not good enough!
mimhoff
Yep. Business as usual for the Green team
Sorry, briefly, but that is simply tripe. Almost all other nations in this region ( and beyond) bear a far, far higher load wrt asylum seekers and refugees than Australia does. They have a far more realistic notion of the real issues and consequences than we do, too. If Australia wants to understand this stuff it needs to become part of the region, and understand such things in their terms. Any suggestion Australia’s utterly trivial issues with asylum seekers can be dealt with independently of such things simply emphasises our own bloated notion of our self-importance!
briefly
Facts are facts. Rudd lost support on As because he was seen to lose control.
The reality is the PNG court decision is crystal clear and Dutton and Turnbull don’t have a clue what to do.
Its the LNP who are losing control of the borders now. The whole basis for their cruel punitive policy is unravelling before our eyes.
All Labor has to do is have a workable policy that gives the voters the assurance they are competent and can manage the borders. I think this should be fairly easy given how fast the LNP lost control of the borders with the PNG decision.
They either keep paying people smugglers to turn boats back around to Indonesia with many more piles of cash to be displayed to the media or they find a country fast that will accept detention camps or they settle them in Australia.
These are the choices. To avoid bottlenecks in camps making Labor look out of control have community detention so the boats arriving lose their potency as a fear factor.
Has to happen now as the PNG court has given people smugglers a route immune from Australian interception.
guytaur @ 7.09
I agree with your points. The problem Labor has in Opposition is that they can actually do nothing at all on the asylum seeker situation. To the extent that they could, they opposed increased unnecessary cruelty – for example, they opposed the reintroduction of Temporary Protection Visas, which were proven to have had no effect on unauthorised arrival numbers.
But at the moment the Coalition is slavering like a rabid dog for Labor to give them anything on which to hang a new ‘Labor will open the doors to boats again’ campaign during this election. One reason why this government has not been keen to do anything about a regional solution is that keeping a constant reminder of an undimmed flow of unauthorised asylum seekers front and centre will help its electoral prospects. You only have to see Chris Kenny over at the GG jump up and down with excitement at the political scaremongering that the PNG Court decision has opened up for the Coalition.
So, whatever Labor wants to do, it will not signal it before the election. It definitely will not have a Greens-like open door. When you consider the consequences of the very small moves that Labor took in 2007 to humanise our treatment of asylum seekers, such action would be insane. But a genuine attempt to find permanent homes for those who are now in Manus and Nauru would be welcome. And a corrupt and poor country like Cambodia just won’t cut it.
Primrose Riordan
5h5 hours ago
Primrose Riordan @primroseriordan
Interesting note here via Hamish McDonald of how DCNS has been linked to allegations of kickbacks https://www.thesaturdaypaper.com.au/world/north-am
I feel like I’m talking to a brick wall.
It’s not MY policy. It doesn’t matter what I think or believe. This is the way politics works. Politicians can believe what they want, but they can only implement what the electorate wants. My use of the term “Open borders” is merely to simplify an alternative to what the current policy is. There is no further agenda or purpose behind my selection of this phrase.
Personally, I’m not afraid of too many asylum seekers flooding into the country, nor am I afraid of IS terrorists hiding around every corner, nor do I think that we need to spend $50b on submarines, but that doesn’t compel me to question why the ALP says “Me too” and refuses to call out the LNP on these issues. For a political blog, that attracts so many clued-up critical thinkers, there are an awful lot who fail to understand this most fundamental rule of politics. Unless you win government, you can’t do anything and the only way to win government is if enough of the “ordinary” voters to elect you.
Let me know when the Greens are elected into government and then we can discuss the sale of souls. Until then, as MalPM says, it’s irrelevant.
TPOF
There is no choice. The boats cannot be stopped they have an open route now.
Its taking time with all the denial in the body politic but that has changed the politics and off shore really is dead thanks to LNP overreach.
Also the open detention idea. Domestically thats called community detention. That is have parole like conditions for AS to report so they can be kept tracked of while assessment happens.
No loss of control there.
AB
You are using open borders because its a political tool used to discredit policy that says we don’t have to be cruel. This is what you are doing even if its not your intention because thats how the term is being used generally in political debate on this issue.
guytaur
Surely you jest. The coalition and ALP do not want open borders and they will do everything they can to ensure it stays that way. Shorten has offered to assist Turnbull in doing whatever they can to ensure that outcome. The irrelevant Greens can continue to rant in their little bubble
victoria
Reality. Open borders was only ever a political term used to discredit an opposing argument.
This is because it instantly implies loss of control.
Thats the purpose of using the term as a smear by the LNP that they have used against both Labor and the Greens.
Ackland has the wrong end of the handle here. The vote was for the presidency of the Liberals’ Warringah electorate council, not preselection. The AFR probably didn’t help by headlining it “Tony Abbott defeats Philip Higginson in Liberal vote”, when it was actually Walter Villatora who had defeated Higginson.
guytaur
Why do you keep insisting there’s an open route. Does the PNG court ruling impact on Australia’s sovereignty?
When it comes to border control I wonder how many Australians realise there were 3.55 MILLION international passenger movement into Australian airports in January 2016 alone, and that the few hundred poor blighters still condemned to misery on Nauru or Manus because they arrived by boat are utterly, utterly insignificant when it comes to “foreign arrivals” , legitimate or otherwise, in this country? 🙁
Meanwhile
Adam Gartrell
Adam Gartrell – Verified account @adamgartrell
Gonski is goneski: buy The Sun-Herald or Sunday Age for exclusive details of the Turnbull government’s new school funding plan #auspol
2:24 AM – 30 Apr 2016 from Canberra, Australian Capital Territory
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Player One @ #251 Saturday, April 30, 2016 at 7:15 pm
The PNG decision effectively annuls the “Pacific Solution”. We’re back to 2001. AS voyages can be expected to resume again….most likely before the election. The LNP will be seen to have failed. But this will not be the end of the matter. Rather, it will merely signal its resumption. We will have to figure out – with the benefit of many decades of experience – how we are going to handle this issue in the future. For mine, since the Parties cannot help playing politics on the issue, civil society will have to determine this.
My own view is that we cannot choose despotism and repression. This is not only for the sakes of those who seek our assistance. This is for all our sakes. ….
Gecko
You obviously did not see the Dutton presser about blaming Labor for thinking of talking to NZ setting up a back door open border route.
Why the feck should the ALP die in a ditch over yye Asylum Seeker issue? They got kicked in the guts the last time tgey tried to find a workable, note workable not pie in sky, the by the libs, msm, social.media, blogs, the msm, every human rights group in the known universe, the greens, the CPG, the local stray cats and the weeds in the park AND the voters.
And now every one and biz/her dog expects them to throw away the next election on this.
Not a chance. You can all get fuuckked. Stick your miserable neck s out first, this time. Change public opinion
Julia gillard lost her prime ministership for this. Why shoukd the ALp lose another election due to the precious wilful ignorance of the masses and those that influence them.
From this ALP supporter all those telling tge alp what to do. Get knotted.
guytaur @ #268 Saturday, April 30, 2016 at 7:33 pm
No I didn’t, can you explain.
guytar
I already explained why I chose that term. You are free to doubt my honesty if you wish but I know myself.
Right now, no matter what decision is made by PNG or anyone else, no matter how humane or inhumane, I would hope the ALP does nothing to give the LNP the upper hand on AS before the election. If that means “Me too, me too, me too” then so be it. When the ALP win government, then they can implement a morally just solution.
https://www.thesaturdaypaper.com.au/world/north-america/2016/04/30/french-subs-builders-record-corruption/14619384003178
link to Victoria’s #257
Good evening all,
I have not entered the AS debate before and I do so this time with trepidation because it is a very emotional issue with no short term solution.
There are just two points I would like to raise,
1) it is all so easy to say set up processing centres in Indonesia, Malaysia etc etc.
The one problem with this argument is has anyone asked the countries put forward if they are willing to have processing centres and by doing so are they willing to host tens of thousands of refugees for months if not years as they wait for processing ? I would not be surprised if Malaysia, for example, told Australia to stick it after the accusations and attacks it incurred as a result of entering a agreement with the Gillard government.
Any negotiations would take months and months if not years and the simplistic and superior attitude of simply saying set up a centre in this country or that country is pure bullshit. Intense and extensive negotiations would be required.
As well poll after poll has shown a significant majority of Australians support the current AS policy suite and any attempt to ” close the camps down and bring them to Australia ” would result in a huge backlash against labor.
I have no solution to offer except to say I believe the only way to change the current mind set of Australians is to do it in small incremental steps and that can not be done if not in government. If labor adopts a policy of being them to Australia then they would remain in opposition and thus be able to achieve nothing.
Purity is for the impotent and it may enable you to sleep easy but it will do nothing to change Australia.
My take anyway and I hope you all have a great night.
Cheers.
Puff
Did you not see where I said Mr Shorten is addressing this. Its what his indefinite detention line is about.
After the election Labor can have a regional solution (Its policy so no one telling them what to do). The LNP can see Mr Shorten has left room to be humane in his statements. They are in full whip up fear mod to try to panic Mr Shorten to change.
Their strategy is wrong on two fronts.
First I don’t think Mr Shorten is one to panic. Second because they have overreached and Australians want border control not a fascist style regime. Now as was inevitable the lNP fascist approach is falling apart.
Labor has to have a workable policy that neutralises the issue in the election campaign.
I have offered up what I think is a solution to show a policy where the ALP can show control of the borders. Its only an idea. Its not telling the ALP what to do.
The truth is I don’t think Labor is a party of fascist punitive cruel policy.
That is where I am coming from
briefly
Yes, you are probably right. But a regional solution is what is desperately needed. So we should elect the party most likely to be able to implement such a scheme. The LNP by themselves are obviously out, and the ALP have tried in the past to adopt a bipartisan approach and had it thrown back in their faces. The Greens “let them all come” policy will never be embraced by the electorate, so the only possibility is to elect an ALP government in the hope they can devise such a scheme, and successfully negotiate it with the other countries in our region.
1. If Labor are not elected it will be the Conservos deciding AS policy for the next 3 years.
2. Conservos are always crueller than Labor.
3. Labor will not be shambolic and will win more than one term.
4. At the end of 2 terms ie 6 years, the AS policy as it evolves under Labor, will be far less inhumane than under Conservos.
5. Pragmatism always trumps fantasy.
Much as many of us disagree with the Asylum policy in this country, perhaps it is time for the Greens to start understanding that they are a minority party and do not represent the majority of the electorate. The majority of the electorate is represented by the major parties. It’s the basic tenet behind democracy. Get over yourselves.
Tom
Tom
The ongoing debate here confirms that the AS policy will be a live issue in this election.
Doyley, for what it is worth, Malaysia currently has over a quarter of a million refugees, asylum seekers etc within its borders – 273,000 according to the UNHCR and it probably is an under-estimate. This is one of the reasons why regional neighbours are crying out for regional solutions. They’d like us to at least begin to pull our own weight. What was it? Become “lifters” , not “leaners” who at present, despite our interminable whinges, seem determined to export even our own trivial arrivals to impoverished local 3rd world islands!
Tom
Tom,
The sound of war drums…
feeney
Yes. I think Labor is up to it this time. There will be hiccups along the way. However as its not Labor in power all the falling apart loss of control will be owned by the LNP
👿
On that note goodnight all
Have some things to do.
The Greens are mainly highly educated, wealthy, knowledge economy inner city people. They have very high employment rates, often in jobs where employers are wage price takers. They are new economy. They do not work in factories. They do not dig stuff up. They do not grow stuff. The consume and they provide non-physical services. Naturally, divorced from the growing stuff, digging stuff up, building houses, operating machinery and the like, they want everyone to consume and to provide non-physical services as well. Some are not of course, but that is the core Greens constituency.
This means that they do not compete for resources with refugees. They do not compete for housing with refugees. They do not compete for jobs with refugees. They do not compete for public health with refugees. They do not compete for public schooling with refugees. All that shit goes to non-Greens voting other people. So, why should the Greens care about the consequences of their policies for other Australians?
The old Greens were grounded in real green stuff. They knew about finite resources, finite capacity of natural systems and they actually believed that the environment was neither an infinite source or an infinite sump. They knew about birds and plants and fish. The new red Greens don’t do that stuff. Most of them could not give a rat’s about the environment. Di Natale gets this because he is a new red Greens. Apart from a bit of ritual stunting on the Reef he has not mentioned all that old greens stuff at all.
They red Greens seriously think that Australia has an infinite capacity to absorb an infinite number of refugees with no impact on sustainability. They know that the tens of millions will turn into the hundreds of millions because the stats are there for all to see. But the new Greens have persuaded themselves that the tens of millions, the hundreds of millions, will bend themselves to the Greens way of thinking and stay where they are because the Greens are flying 50,000 a year to Australia.
The Greens, last I saw, wanted to fly refugees to Australia. I am not sure of the figure, say it is 50,000 a year, but the Greens reckons reckon that no other refugee will head to Australia other than the ones they pick to fly over.
Merkel had he same sort of theory until it was completely and utterly wrecked by the reality. There are not a few hundred thousand people out there who can be organised into orderly plane loads. There are tens of millions of people out there with millions more being added every single year. As global warming increases, as productive land becomes flooded, as resource wars become more and more desperate, and as the robots take more and more ordinary repeatable work and as land hunger grows and as life in the city slums becomes more and more intolerable the tens of millions could well swell into hundreds of millions. What we are seeing is, after all, only the beginning.
The Greens’ theories will never be tested, so they are safe. They can wag the old-style Merkel finger from their wealthy inner city gentrified pads. They can vent as much as they like, secure in the knowledge that their bs will never be tested. They can wax lyrical, lachrymose, nasty… whatever tickles their fancies. They can make up stuff. They will never have to face any test of cause and effect. They will never have to have their numbers tested. And since they will always be the pimple on the political elephant’s bum they do not even have to concern themselves with the electoral consequences of their views for a package of other policies that non-Greens reckon ought to be put into the balance. This does not unduly concern the Greens because the are RIGHT about those other policies as well!
Some of the rest of us reckon that we face packages of choices. I am not aware of anyone who likes the totality of any of the packages on offer.
The Greens package is irrelevant, electorally. The polyps know this. So do the men in Manus.
That leaves us ordinary non Greens with where the Coalition want to take us.
Or it leaves where Labor wants to take us.
There is no regional ‘solution’ that will magically make tens of millions of refugees disappear.
Any regional agreement might create orderly processing. It might create save and humane conditions in camps.
But a regional solution will not create tens of millions of new jobs in Australia, Malaysia, PNG, Cambodia or Indonesia. All those countries have a desperate fringe of working poor who are barely holding a fingernail in the mainstream economies. This includes the real Australia and not the fantasy Australia of inner city Green knowledge economy workers – the ones who are driving Greens policies.
Australia has around one million people who would like to work longer hours right now. Their proportion is increasing.
40% of Australia’s workforce is in insecure work. This proportion is increasing. By and large refugees will in general compete more directly with those in insecure work than those in the knowledge industries inhabited by the Greens.
The nearest analogy to refugees are the 800,000 foreigners who are working as 457s, 417s, backpackers, seasonal workers and as illegal workers. They are being exploited ruthlessly by the boss class.
I think the anti Labor Group think that the Asylum Seeker issue is where Labor is most vulnerable which is why they will keep harping on it. I also think that some on this site think the same which is why that is the only issue they rave on about. No mention of schools, hospitals, medicare etc.
Boerwar
Yes, that’s important. But the key point of the solution must be that it sees people resettled in ALL of the regional member countries, via some fair and equitable arrangement – i.e. there is no guaranteed resettlement in Australia.
I think a majority of Australians would be willing to accept that if it was transparent and “fair”.
Bollocks.
WarrenPeace
That could be because we all agree that the LNP are deceitful liars about such things. Hence, no disagreement.
Player One 288
Possibly
Of course, player one, many “regional countries” actually bear a far, far higher refugee and asylum seeker load than Australia. Would you at least be happy for this very, very wealthy place we live in to bring itself up to parity?
That’s always been the biggest problem with a regional solution and IS a real one. I think it could be somewhat alleviated by spreading the load of housing refugees awaiting processing among ALL countries, and make those people subject to the same conditions with the same outlook regardless of what country they are processed in??
One thing about the Malaysian attempt though that i though could have made that effective. Malaysia is at the head of the pipeline. I dont know what will “work”, but we certainly know what doesn’t.
Interesting the hear jens reports of the Town Hall Shorten did today. Get a change in Govt and there is at least the possibility of positive change on AS.
Boerwar @ #284 Saturday, April 30, 2016 at 8:17 pm
So what’s the solution your ‘Informal Party’ offers?
Or do you think we have all forgotten that piece of idiocy?
One thing is for sure From Tuesday there will be so many topics on which to attack the Libs with, it will be great fun
Have been following the AS debate on here today with some interest. While not all points if view have been ventilated (it’s really been an ALP/ realist v Greens/idealist fight), it gas been pleasing that just about all contributors have been able to put their views without recourse to name calling. This is a particularly vexed debate, and I have found that it is one where people hold passionate, but rather rigid, views, and so engaging in nuanced debate is rare. So kudos to all on here who have expressed their no doubt sincere views in a relatively civilised way.
Personally, I find this issue an almost impossible one, and I find my own idealist and realist sides heavily conflicted. I think that we probably need to start with the acceptance that there is no “solution” to this issue – it’s only going to get more acute over the coming years and decades – and that the best we can hope for a manageable way forward.
I also think that partisans on this issue often wilfully refuse to accept some uncomfortable and inconvenient truths. For the anti-refugee crowd, they refuse to acknowledge that the amount of unauthorised arrivals in Australia is pitifully small, and given our geographical position, is likely to remain at manageable levels for the foreseeable future. However, the pro-refugee crowd refuse to acknowledge that the boats all come from Indonesia and Malaysia. I don’t doubt that the vast majority of asylum seekers currently in these countries are genuine refugees from their original countries, but while life in Indonesia might be a bit bleak, they are not actually serious danger there.
TPOF made some telling points in his comment on Lenore Taylor’s column, to the effect that the primary reason that this issue is intractable is down to the Coalition playing rank racist politics on it, and as long as they continue to take this approach, a reasonable discussion on the matter is well-nigh impossible.
Finally, it’s also worth noting that it’s not the cruel gulags that act as the deterrent to the boats, but rather the boat-turn backs. This is what makes the smuggling trade unfeasible, so we could actually undertake a more humane approach to the detention without too much risk to opening the floodgates. But I agree that an election campaign is not the time for Labor to be looking for nuance on this issue.
Every one of whom had authority to come to Australia either as a visa holder or as a citizen. It is an irrelevant comparison. You might as well say that there is no problem with a bank robber when millions of Australians every day make legitimate withdrawals from banks.
Back from a day in Sydney, where my son and I played ‘Spot the Aussie’ while we waited for my brother to pick us up and take us to his party, and what do I come back to?
The Church of the Latter Day Limp-Wristed Left still wringing their hands and bemoaning the fate of a select few refugees and asylum seekers, whilst, as per usual when you have rose-coloured glasses on in Cloud Cuckoo Land, blithely ignoring the reality that is the plight of every other refugee and asylum seeker in the world who hasn’t paid a People Trafficker to get them to Australia.
Plus being blissfully ignorant of the likely real world outcome of their misguided benighted view.
Get real guys! Boerwar is on the money here and not you with your First World Angst in your pants from the comfort of your suburban Xanadus.
For the umpteenth time.
Yes, Australia should take in refugees.
No, Australia shouldn’t let People Traffickers decide who they should be.
Yes, there will be enough salt of the earth, heart of gold refugees to make briefley’s day.
Sheesh! It can’t be that hard to sort it, can it?
Boerwar,
Refugees are not responsible for high unemployment or the casualisation of the workforce, or poor housing affordability, or a lack of funding for public health and schools, as much as some would like to use them as scapegoats
TPOF,
I’m sorry, but you’re making strong claims that are far from proven.
The one about the numbers of people that came to Australia in 2012/2103. Far more than could be sustained owing to social cohesion issues? Really? How many were there, actually in those years? Some tens of thousands? Ten thousand people is one in 2,000. Where is the basis of the claim that this level of settlement is going to cause social incohesion?
What I see is a weak claim that it might cause problems if it were beaten up by Abbott and his mates in the media. Under more normal circumstances I do not think so.
TPOF,
A refugee is not a bank robber. Whilst it is true that s0meone who shows up who is traumatised and poor does require more resources, for a while, than a typical regular migrant, the fact is that even at its worst the impact of the regular migration program was far higher than for refugees.
Now, if the numbers of refugees went to 100,000+ (say) in a year, there would be cause for concern. But again, its easy in this debate to simply dodge and imply. Or claim its too hard to figure out how many refugees Australia could actually take within social cohesion limits, and then skip to the “we must not allow any to pass” which was the conclusion dictated by baser emotions. I regard you as one of the more intelligent and well informed posters (and I’m on your side politically). That’s why I’m picking on you because its a shame you really haven’t thought it through with rigour.
C@tmomma
Saturday, April 30, 2016 at 9:00 pm
And how exactly did you and your son ‘spot the Aussie’ did you ask people for citizenship papers perhaps?