The latest result for Essential Research is largely unchanged on last week, with the Coalition steady on 42% of the primary vote, Labor steady on 38% and the Greens down one to 9%. One change is that the pollster has dumped Palmer United from its survey and replaced it with the Nick Xenophon Team, which opens it account on 3%. The poll also features Essential’s monthly leadership ratings, which find Malcolm Turnbull up one on approval to 40% and up three on disapproval to 42%, Bill Shorten up four on approval to 34% and down one on disapproval to 43%, and Turnbull’s lead as preferred prime minister narrowing from 44-22 to 43-28. There is also a suite of questions on social class, something 81% agreed existed in Australia, with only 8% saying otherwise. Only 2% of respondents identified as upper class, yet 53% thought the Liberal Party mainly served that party’s interests. Forty-eight per cent of respondents identified as middle class, which 15% thought mainly served by Liberal and 17% by Labor, while 34% identified as working class, which 39% thought mainly represented by Labor and 4% by Liberal. The poll also found 48% approval of the budget’s internships scheme for the young unemployed, and 52% rating the election campaign too long versus 5% for too short and 32% for about right.
nicholas @ #1146 Wednesday, May 18, 2016 at 7:43 pm
And these “people of greater imagination and courage” have managed to do … err … what, exactly?
https://www.facebook.com/LatikaMbourkeJournalist/posts/1023949554309531
Some interesting comments essentially underscoring the feeling of being let down that is reflected in his personal and the LNP polling.
I see Bluey considers any publicity, good publicity. I think Bluey’s stretching the tentacles with that one.
Gulp……..
Simon Banks
48m48 minutes ago
Simon Banks @SimonBanksHB
Wondering whether @TurnbullMalcolm & the LNP could stoop any lower?
Consider this:
There are 6 1/2 weeks to go
They’re not desperate yet
The Johan for me. 1951.
I thought Truffles seemed to be unprepared to respond to Dutton’s racist comments this am ..he refused to take questions about the issue until later today at a second press conference..
..think he ‘war-gamed’ the response with other senior Libs between press-conferences..
Note: I haven’t heard anything from Pyne so far..
No, it really wasn’t. And compared with what we have now this is an astonishingly silly thing to say.
And how about those Europeans swapping people with Turkey – that country with human rights issues and disturbing politics.
There were a lot of potentially positive things to come out of the Malaysia deal. Maybe it would have ended in tears, or maybe it would have been the start of something a lot more humane and practical. It would have been worth finding out.
Instead we have Manus and Nauru and ‘illiterate’ refugees.
Eff me Leigh is on fire with Marles tonight.
Barely letting him get a word in with her constant interruptions.
She sounds angry.
N
Bluey would like nothing better than to have Dutton to himself for 5 seconds in his rock pool. But Bluey reckons that rule no 1 is to force the agenda. Rule no 2 is to frame the agenda so that even if you ‘lose’, you win. The Libs did both today.
Ignore Wissle classic troll that adds absolutely nothing to this forum. At least CC actually adds a point of view…Wissle does not just uses labels best to ignore.
This election is becoming interesting although somewhat predictable will be interesting to see how much the electorate gets sucked in to the fear campaign. The biggest irony of the campaign so far for me is the comment from someone in the media, may have been Kelly although I may be wrong, that Shorten putting up 100 positive policies is a fear campaign. The coalition have not offered any policies just ironic statements such as jobs and growth when this is not occurring and debt has increased substantially in their time in government.
Have yet to see a pattern in the polls except that it is close….Labor is coming from a long way back and are definitely still underdogs
Hairy Nose LOL, view from the street classic.
Your alerts, ranked
So, for what should you, the informed idiocy-averse democracy-enthusiast keep an eye out?
The government have a graduated series of alerts which indicate the operational level of panic.
At the moment they’re at Code Dutton, meaning that they feel the message is slipping out of their grasp and that they need a thrashing poo-covered straw man to provide desperately-needed contrast to the leader.
The next level is Code Christensen, where the playful Queensland MP and conspiracy fantasist is deployed to say something inflammatory about gay people, say, or halal certification. This, however, is a foul-smelling box only opened in the event that Turnbull looks too irredeemably prejudiced and needs someone to take the Twitter-heat.
And finally, there’s the Omega Device: the super weapon of Mutually Assured Destruction that means that Turnbull has been caught on camera devouring an infant, or telling young aspirational home owners to get their parents to buy them a place, and no amount of Safe Schools socialist panic or angry marriage plebiscite debate can wrest the headlines away.
Mark our words: when the Liberal Party chooses to release the Abbott, may god have mercy on us all.
Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/comment/view-from-the-street/view-from-the-street-peter-dutton-strategic-coalition-distractiongoose-20160518-goy43j.html#ixzz4904H5MHQ
Labor wedged on boats.. utterly predictable, utterly predictable. Despite Shorten trying to hold fast on the one issue that will prevent a Labor victory, it’s hard when with every second Labor member coming out supporting bring back the boat policies. Labor or Green….. things are blurring. Go the Greens. They are better at wedging Labor than the Libs lol
Good piece by Mark Kenny.
“Once again the fear of asylum seekers is being exploited and dragged to centre-stage in an election. But this time, it is not just Labor’s convictions that voters might be questioning”.
“And here lies the danger for Turnbull. He had been popular because he was not Tony Abbott. Not because he was”.
Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/federal-election-2016-opinion/australian-election-peter-duttons-refugee-comments-show-malcolm-turnbulls-coalition-has-yielded-to-panic-20160518-goxods.html#ixzz4905J3puE
Follow us: @smh on Twitter | sydneymorningherald on Facebook
Henry
Why is leigh Sales angry with Marles?
Henry:
Even Mumble raises his eyebrows:
Peter Brent @mumbletwits 14m14 minutes ago anberra, Australian Capital Territory
Sales calls them asylum seekers; it was resettled refugees Dutton was talking about.
Peter Brent @mumbletwits 13m13 minutes ago
Second question also conflates the two. And the third.
Peter Brent @mumbletwits 4m4 minutes ago
Ah, aggressive, interrupting interview to balance out the “pro-refugee” story. Gotcha.
GG:
The comments on Latika’s facebook page reinforce Kenny’s remark about Turnbull’s popularity linked to his not being Abbott as well.
[Deporting refugees to a human rights abusing country (and one Australia has been known to have to accept refugees *from*) without hope of being resettled anywhere actually safe is the sort of thing I’d normally expect from Scott Morrison. ]
Since we’re currently abusing refugees the argument doesn’t have foundation, does it.
Rummel – you’re right, which is why Labor will return to message very soon.
Rummel:
The question arises for me as to whether the Greens will be so willing to enter into Kroger’s preference deal with the Libs after Dutton’s comments today. Let’s see how it pans out over the coming weeks.
Player one
And what happens if shorten refused to leave the plantation?
To be fair
My father, Australian born and bred said the food served up in the RAAF at Tocumwal was inedible. Aged 18 he and his fellow trainees survived on toast. Dad was eternally grateful to the CO who provided toasters, he was the father of singer Shirley Abicair
frednk @ #1170 Wednesday, May 18, 2016 at 8:10 pm
They will double down again.
‘Why is leigh Sales angry with Marles?’
Because he’s a member of the ALP? She is symptomatic of everything that’s wrong with journalism in this country.
I thought Marles handled that quite well actually. Eventually shoved all the attempted gotchas back in the box. Took much the same attitude as Shorten.
I think the only way to shut down the rubbish the Liberals are coming up with on refugees is to push back as hard as possible by calling it out as rubbish. Once it is seen by the pubic that all the Liberals are doing is playing politics, the value of the scare will be destroyed.
Pretty sure this is a planned response by Labor given the consistency pf their messaging.
I can’t remember the movie or TV show, but there was a scene where a character removed a latex face to reveal the real face.
How about just after polling closes on 2 July, MalcolmTurnbull removes his latex face to reveal he is really Tony Abbott?
Remember, have we seen Turnbull and Abbott appearing together in recent weeks??
Confessions:
For the Libs; I hope not. Doing deals with the greens churns my political compass.
For the Greens; I hope they do as maybe Labor will decide to fight them. Greens, political pure as driven snow, my arse. They are political leeches sucking the life out of Labor and a swinging Libs needs someplace to swing too. With Labor turning light greens, it’s getting tough to swing.
Dutton a Menace to Multi-cultural Australia according to Michelle Gratten. It’s unusual for her to have an opinion. Must be too big a disaster for anyone to ignore.
https://theconversation.com/peter-dutton-a-menace-to-multicultural-australia-59618
[Since we’re currently abusing refugees the argument doesn’t have foundation, does it.]
You couldn’t really call it abuse, it is just rape and murder, but as Dutton says they probably innumerate and illiterate in their own language they probably don’t feel pain or mind a bit of rape here and there. It is why the libs are happy to ignore international law, treaties and stop them getting here, and inflict cruel punishment on those who do. We don’t want that kind here do we. If we don’t be careful they’ll be popular and successful TV hosts and we know we all HATE that.
*sighs*
Nicholas @7:43PM: in 2009 Labor had an ETS than was maybe 80% right, maybe 60% right. It could have been fixed and fine tuned. Now we have Direct Inaction.
In 2011 Labor had a stop-gap solution which might have acted as a circuit breaker, with guarantees of reasonable treatment of transferees from Malaysia and a doubling of the humanitarian intake. Now we have Manus, Nauru and the stupid and malevolent Potatohead.
I’m unconvinced Boerwar. There’s framing the agenda in a way that dovetails to your over-arching theme and then there’s framing the agenda in a way that completely derails it.
Boats are a second order issue. My guess is that Turnbull is trying to talk to the Liberal base rather than mainstream disengaged voters.
Rummel,
You were never going to swing.
You’re only kidding yourself. No one else is fooled by your bizarre rationalisations.
Today’s Liberal dog whistle is to the Western Sydney under class who have every reason to fear that a dollar spent on asylum seekers is a dollar that will not reach them.
The correct political response to this dog whistle is to ignore it completely and to talk about how the Coalition plans to hammer the underclass and to emphasize what Labor will bring to the underclass.
Shorten did neither, which is why (+feeney) he lost today.
R
Shouldn’ t you be out destroying what is left of NSW biodiversity and killing some more breathing challenged Australians with some more of your ridiculous control burns?
“I can’t remember the movie or TV show, but there was a scene where a character removed a latex face to reveal the real face.”
Mission Impossible
Quick google search…
Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/election-2016-major-parties-espouse-need-for-climate-truce-but-find-little-common-ground-20160518-goy2p2.html#ixzz4909gh5CS
——————————
Perhaps if Greens senator Larissa Waters had been included in the NPC address, there might have been more interest.
We had Senator the Hon Richard Colbeck in town today telling us how he will help the people of Fisher forge a new tourism identity for Coolum after nasty Clive had trashed it.
He was a little embarrassed when he was told Coolum is in Fairfax. Dumbo.
Since some people seem eager to do so, let’s take a closer look at Dutton’s comments to see how accurate they are:
There’s not much data relating to the numeracy skills of refugees, however, data collected from 2300 recent arrivals between late 2013 and 2014 found that 23 per cent of female and 17 per cent of males were illiterate in their own language.
https://www.dss.gov.au/sites/default/files/documents/09_2015/data-highlight-no-2-2015-bnla.docx
A 2010 survey of arrivals who have lived in Australia for at least 12 months found lower figures: 10.4 percent could not speak English, 13 percent could not read English, and 13.9 percent could not write English.
https://www.dss.gov.au/sites/default/files/documents/01_2014/settlement-outcomes-new-arrival_access.pdf
So, the percentage of illiteracy among refugees is relatively low – between 10% and 25% percent. That wouldn’t be reasonably considered to be ‘many’. (Although the rate of refugees unable to understand spoken English is much higher, ranging from 33 to 44 percent.)
Putting aside Dutton’s qualification of refugees taking ‘Australian’ jobs, (after all, if they’re accepted as genuine refugees and are resettled in Australia, wouldn’t that make them Australians?) the data from the 2010 survey shows that 24.1% were in paid work, 1.6% were running their own business, and 0.7% were in the process of setting up a business.
However, only 11.3% of refugees said they were an ‘unemployed job-seeker’, while 3.3% were unemployed – this is because most refugees are neither entirely in paid work or are unemployed – some are studying full-time (20.4%), with familiar responsibilities (18.1%), studying with familiar responsibilities (16.2%), studying while working (11.3%), retired (4.4%), or are in unpaid/voluntary work (1.9%).
So it isn’t entirely accurate to say that refugees are ‘taking Australian jobs’ or ‘many would be unemployed’ – there’s more refugees that don’t fit into those narrow categories.
Now, it’s worth noting that Dutton isn’t referring to existing refugees, but supposed refugees that would be taken if the refugee intake was increased.
Nonetheless, without any other further relevant information on these supposed refugees, Dutton’s claims are unsubstantiated.
Larissa Waters was interviewed on ABC RN Drive this evening.
http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/drive/greens-make-their-climate-and-environment-election-pitch/7426380
This report confirms what we already knew about the Greens from the standard of posts by Nicholas, Pegasus et al. They’re all”pisspots”.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com.au/2016/05/18/greens-voters-are-the-heaviest-drinkers-survey-finds/?ncid=tweetlnkauhpmg00000001
[is to the Western Sydney under class who have every reason to fear that a dollar spent on asylum seekers is a dollar that will not reach them.]
Well no they have no reason to fear, it is just an irrational fear like the associated racism, when the Libs take money from the Western Sydney it doesn’t go to resettled refugees, or to genuine refugees we are responsible for being raped and tortured on far away islands (it does cost a bloody fortune but it isn’t going to the bad people with the wrong names and funny skin) it is going to the pay for CGT discounts, negative gearing, and excessive military stuff.
Larissa who?
Boerwar @ 1182:
That is a cogent assessment. Thank you.
And if that was Bluey’s rationale then I agree. Too much attention is placed on western Sydney IMO.
I don’t know why Sales was so aggro with Marles victoria but tonight she was the worst I have seen for a long time. Every time Marles tried to answer a question she would interrupt him , sometimes twice.
[Boats are a second order issue. My guess is that Turnbull is trying to talk to the Liberal base rather than mainstream disengaged voters.]
Right and wrong. Boats are a first order issue which an majority of the public support in stopping. Labor has been found wanting….. again and the Libs are going to make sure that the public are well aware of the potential return of Kev07/Merkel policies. Funny thing, most people dont want to become a German/Europe basket case that has been shown to be the way if some Labor supporters and Greens get their way. When will Labor learn? Shorten has, but the troops seem keen on another term on the sidelines.
Whinged and blamed everyone else… but courageously.
I *knew* you were no good… torturer!
Just watched Sales/Marles interview.. Sales her usual rude aggressive self when interviewing an ALP MP ..but I thought Marles handled her very well..
Standard ABC 730 fare..
Re dead cats, dog whistles, etc.
<>
Basically the political Right, representing and backed by a range of interests that could be collectively called ‘Big Money’, want to implement neoliberal economic reforms. They want to reduce worker bargaining power (hence wages and conditions), so there’s more left over for them. They want to wind back and as far as possible dismantle the welfare safety net, partly to advance this agenda and partly because they don’t want to pay for it. In Australia they want to dismantle Medicare and wind back public support for health and eduction, privatising as much as they can get away with. They don’t want to pay tax and they don’t want their business activities regulated. The only Government functions they want to increase are Defence, police and orisons, paid for by someone else’s taxes.
Now, only big shareholders and higher level corporate executives, those who see their intersts aligned with those of, say, the big banks, big miners, big multinationals, would actually vote for this. This is why the Abbott Opposition had to hide their true agenda before the last election, to be finally revealed in the 2014 budget.
So how do the Right get the numbers? Well, they need distractions. Social Conservatism brings in a lot of punters. Fair enough, as long as people know what they are voting for.
More concerning is the way the Right use fear – of communism, jihadis, ‘union thugs’ or whatever the hobgoblin of the day. They use racism, although these days they mostly resort to the dogwhistle. Hence the moral panic over asylum seekers in this and other countries. They resort to class warfare while accusing their opponents of doing so, cultivating a sort of ‘downwards envy’ of benefits received by the victims of failed economic and social policies (the unemployed, aborigines, the disabled). Then there’s the ‘culture war’ stuff, making out that the white, the male, the Anglo, the ‘straight’ are actually victims because their ‘right to be a bigot’ (or sexist or homophobe) has been impinged.
So while it would seem a big ask to convince most voters that their interests align with ‘Big Money’, the Right have found that they don’t need to.
<>
GG
“You’re only kidding yourself. No one else is fooled by your bizarre rationalisations”
Some Lib voter has too! Unless Labor has decided to take the fight to the Greens this election…
WWP
Try looking at it from the underclass POV. You have no power to determine resource allocation. Your wealthy betters want to spend very scarce billions on a new group of people with whom you are in direct competition. The Greens don’t get this and they don’t care much either.