Courtesy of The Australian, the second fortnightly result from Newspoll since its post-election return is identical to the first so far as voting intention is concerned, with primary votes of Coalition 41%, Labor 36% and Greens 9%, and a dead heat on two-party preferred. There is also next to no change on leaders’ ratings, with Malcolm Turnbull steady on approval at 34% and up one on disapproval to 53%, while Bill Shorten is down one to 35% and up two to 52%. Turnbull’s lead as preferred prime minister has nudged from 43-32 to 43-31. The poll was conducted Thursday to Sunday from a sample of 1680.
UPDATE (Essential Research): The latest reading of the Essential Research fortnightly rolling average has the Coalition down a point to 38%, Labor and the Greens steady at 38% and 37%, the Nick Xenophon Team up one to 4%, and the new response option of Pauline Hanson’s One Nation opening its account on 5%. Two-party preferred is unchanged, with Labor leading 52-48. Also featured are Essential’s monthly leadership ratings, which have Malcolm Turnbull down three on approval to 35% and steady on disapproval at 43%, Bill Shorten down one to 36% and steady on 41%, and Turnbull’s lead as preferred prime minister up from 40-30 to 41-26. Further questions find majorities in favour of bans on political donations from companies, trade unions and professional associations, with 50% saying they should be allowed and 35% disallowed from individual Australian voters. A question on whether the words “offend or insult” should be removed from racial vilification law found 45% supportive and 35% opposed. Further questions relate to illegal drugs, with 47% supportive of the decriminalisation of cannabis and 39% opposed, but heavy majorities against decriminalisation of ecstasy, amphetamines, cocaine or heroin.
Ah yes, the Inner Malcolm, a Father To His Nation of innovators and hipsters.
Funny isn’t it? How we had good Prime Ministers in Gillard and Rudd, only to find them mocked by Fairfax (and not Fairfax alone) for “shoe malfunctions”, sucking on sauce bottles, and their verbal hiccups, policy reversals and even their sleeping and sexual habits echoed daily in every column, on every page of every newspaper for years.
Our glorious Media. Champions of policy and analysis… unless someone stubs their toe, or misspeaks. Then – unless they are Saint Malcolm – they will be ruthlessly pilloried and heckled.
Malcolm Turnbull must be the first Prime Minister in history who is judged not by wha he does, or betrays, or bungles, but by what he might be one day, if only everyone gives him clear air.
bk @ #3000 Tuesday, September 20, 2016 at 7:27 am
Good Morning BK, and Thanks for sharing your findings this dawn patrol.
I am dreading the slant Porter will take. I suspect we will hear more debt and deficit rhetoric, taxed and taxed nots nonsense and that he plays into Pauline Hanson’s ball court of picking on single mothers. I liked this more balanced view from the article.
For the longer term transport future this.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-09-20/teleportation-of-light-particles-across-cities-breakthrough/7853860
Nicole
Silos of data? The Shared Services are mainly about Departmental payroll and accounts payable processing.
Loved Q&A last night what a lovely bloke is Jimmy Barnes and loved Magda as well great people.
A more realistic view about privacy concerns. A real life example.
https://therealstrategy.com/100-million-social-security-numbers-hacked-sale-online-20000-usd/
ctar1 @ #3054 Tuesday, September 20, 2016 at 10:35 am
Thanks for replying. I hope it stays that way. Excuse my paranoia but I don’t trust this government or the NCOA whatsoever going by what they have said they are wanting to do. And they have been whining about the way silos of data have been so inaccessible.
Come again? Surely the socially unacceptable behavior is telling women what they can and can’t wear to the beach? And then harassing them over their chosen beach attire? Especially since doing so flies in the face of court decisions made in France overturning such laws.
As long a France wants to maintain its socially unacceptable (and, according to the French courts, illegal) war on clothing, I fully support anyone who wants to go over there and stir the pot by putting on a burkini. Don’t care who pays, or if the story gets dressed up a journalism. There’s a valid story there, which is that thanks to some obstinate coastal mayors and an outspoken, maladroit PM, France is letting the terrorists win.
adrian @ #3049 Tuesday, September 20, 2016 at 10:23 am
It didn’t say what it was independent of.
Facts?
Logic?
Reason?
BB – Struck the nail beautifully on the head. It’s all about Malcolm’s potential, so it doesn’t matter how hopeless he is now. Of course, if he’s not fit for office at 62, he ain’t gonna get any better. It’s not a probationary job.
https://www.crikey.com.au/2016/09/20/essential-if-plebiscite-is-blocked-voters-want-parliament-to-sort-it/
Sep 20, 2016
Essential: if plebiscite is blocked, voters want Parliament to pass marriage equality
Bernard Keane Politics Editor
If the same-sex marriage plebiscite is blocked, most voters, including many Coalition voters, want a parliamentary vote to determine the matter, this week’s Essential Report suggests.
With the government’s proposed plebiscite bill looking likely to fail in the Senate, 53% of voters say there should be a vote in Parliament if the bill is blocked, while 29% say there should not be. Greens and Labor voters strongly support a parliamentary vote, but more Coalition voters — 46% — support a parliamentary vote than oppose one — 38%. Even “other” voters (voters other than Labor, Coalition and Greens), who tend to be socially conservative, support a vote, 53%-32%.
…………………
On voting intention, the Coalition is down another point on its primary vote to 37%, around five points down from the election and the same level as Labor, while the Greens remain on 10%. One Nation is up a point to 6% while NXT is on 4%, for an unchanged two-party preferred outcome of 52%-48% in Labor’s favour.
Good morning all,
The new welfare direction to be released today by the government will simply be a attempt to get a relatively small number of welfare receipients ” off the government books” under the camouflage of giving them a new direction. Instead of the government continuing its ongoing responsibility to the people in question money will be given to the private sector and the government can then forget about them and pretend to improve the budget bottom line by manipulating the figures.
It is nothing about actually helping the people it will target but just a means to ” improve the budget ”
Interesting to see what line labor takes on this.
Hopefully they will line up with welfare agencies ( ACOSS etc ) and skis this up for what it is. A mean and underhand attempt to fix the budget bottom line.
Perhaps it is time for labor to hitch the cart up to the multinational tax cuts agenda Turnbull still has and make it clear that if budget repair is to be done start by forgetting about tax cuts to big business.
” Budget repair that is fair ”
We shall see.
Cheers and a good day to all.
ctar1 @ #3054 Tuesday, September 20, 2016 at 10:35 am
Shhh… do not disturb the phobias and delusions.
Doyley
I hope Labor does do what you suggest. All the comments I have heard from Labor in response to this suggest Labor is against these “reforms”.
Bill Shorten presser soon so we should see.
BB – Or, in other words, according to the Fawning Corporate Media, it’s alright to have a Prime Ministerial intern.
K-17,
Anyone who doesn’t think the SMH is run by right-wing nutbags should read today’s editorial. It’s hard to believe, but the SMH still thinks that Malcolm is playing a long game and if Labor is kind enough to give him a few wins then super-Mal will emerge. In other words, it’s labor’s job to help him out with the RWNJs in his party. These SMH people are just totally soft in the head. Oh, yes, and it’s Labor’s fault if it blocks a plebiscite.
I feel your pain, brother! I was just listening to the morning politics chat on ABC Sydney between Wendy Harmer and Peter van Onselen and I nearly drove off the road as the syrupy treacle about Malcolm Turnbull, Prime Minister just oozed out of every orifice of Wendy Harmer!
Peter van Onselen, of all people, the acknowledged Conservative of the pair, was actually the voice of reason in the conversation! He would point out that Malcolm is not the most popular pork chop in the synagogue among his fellow government MPs but Harmer would have none of it. She said that Turnbull is the first PM for a very, very long while that can actually rub shoulders with the world’s elite and not seem diminished by it, as have so many of our recent Prime Ministers! Gah!
No longer does Wendy feel the cultural cringe when our PM speaks on behalf of the country in foreign locales. And so on and so forth to varying degrees of rhapsodic testifying to the might and power of Malcolm. With PvO gamely trying to get a word in edgeways in order to bring a dose of reality to the discussion, ultimately to no avail as Wendy, proud of her work, thanked him for his contribution and bade him farewell.
However, as PvO WAS trying to point out, Malcolm Turnbull may be able to project an air of superiority over all he surveys, with his ‘Message to World Leaders’ at the UN today letting them know just how they should be running the world in his image; and it’s just the role he has been styling himself for his whole life, with added touches of humble brag thrown in to prove that the man with the Central Park Penthouse is also able to mix it with the proles, but, as PvO manfully struggled to point out, that is mixing it on the train surrounded by an Australian Protective Services detail and standing in front of kleig lights and cameras; however, when it comes to the nitty gritty of everyday governing and Malcolm’s carapace of cool has to be shucked off and the sleeves rolled up to get his hands dirty with more mundane domestic pursuits, he is nowhere near as impressive.
So it is that what we have is a man as Prime Minister who does want to be the next Robert Menzies, and who it seems has convinced ‘Lefties’ like Wendy Harmer who would normally tear strips off a Coalition PM, that he is also the best thing SINCE Menzies. However, to my mind the only way I can agree with him and her is to say that the most important parallel between the two men is that they both preferred to spend their time swanning around overseas and hobnobbing with their equals and betters, though they don’t believe there are many that are much better examples of homo sapiens than they, whilst the country that they were meant to be governing wallows in the doldrums as they just seemed so disinterested in the mundane and humdrum aspects of their job. Such as Guy Rundle sharply observed about Turnbull’s performance on the hustings during the election, of a man seeming to barely tolerate what he had to do in order to drag himself and his party over the line to victory by the skin of his capped teeth.
However, as the ever-preening Julie Bishop observed, that’s all they needed to enable them, two peas in a pod, to keep their jobs poncing about the world. Which is all that seems to really matter. To them and the Wendy Harmers of this country, privileged positions that they both have. And maybe that’s the subtext that, at the end of the day, unites them and causes them to stroke each other’s egos.
Player One
Tuesday, September 20, 2016 at 9:07 am
…. it is clear that you choose not to even consider a solution that offers true equality….
PO, your proposal illustrates very clearly that this issue is really about freedom of expression. If carried out, while all unions could be registered, they could not be called “marriages”. This is just a sleight of language. You’re really saying that unless everyone can use the term “married” to describe their relationship, then no-one can use it in anything other than a religiously-specified, decorative or symbolic sense.
This really insults everyone that has ever “married” in a civil ceremony. Rather than admit same-sex couples into the estate, you would close it down by semantic means. That is not a solution. The solution is to remove the barriers to entry to the estate that currently exist in the Act.
Thinking some more about our sense of war proportion, and our mythmaking, the single recent bombing of Syrian soldiers killed or wounded the equivalent of about a quarter of the total number of ADF personnel currently serving in the Iraq War and Syrian Civil War.
Correction….
Player One
Tuesday, September 20, 2016 at 9:07 am
…. it is clear that you choose not to even consider a solution that offers true equality….
PO, your proposal illustrates very clearly that this issue is really about freedom of expression. If carried out, while all unions could be registered, they could not be called “marriages”. This is just a sleight of language. You’re really saying that rather than allow the term “married” to be used to describe same-sex as well as opposite-sex relationships, no-one should be able to use it in anything other than a religiously-specified sense. You would legislate against the use of the word to describe purely civil registrations and ceremonies.
This really insults everyone that has ever “married” in a civil ceremony. Rather than admit same-sex couples into the common estate, you would close it down by semantic means. That is not a solution. The solution is to remove the barriers to entry to the estate that currently exist in the Act.
C@T
So have I got it right the SMH is biased against the ALP and Wendy Harmer and Peter van Onselen are as well?
Really!
MTBW
I don’t think you read Cat’s post carefully. Cat pointed out that Van Onselen was less friendly to Turnbull than Harmer.
COTMOMMA – Thanks. Very interesting. There is a certain person who thinks that because Malcolm knows how to handle a canape, he can handle high office. But for every one like Harmer there are dozens out there who think he is Mr Waterfront Mansion. That will kill him at election time.
Well, Malcolm did basically call PvO a liar and his latest book fiction!
In relation to whether the US is more or less likely to do collateral damage because of carelessness or deliberately, I doubt it.
As kids we watched Westerns in which we were informed ‘That the only good Injun is a dead injun.’
We got it, alright.
What we did not know then but what we do know now, was that this included Injun women and Injun kids.
There is a powerful thread of racism in US carelessness and this might be an argument for why the US is peculiarly more likely than other nations to be careless in war.
Except that once you start seriously digging, almost every single nation that has engaged in modern war (say since 1900) has also killed civilians deliberately (terror), killed prisoners or people in lifeboats (war crimes), or carelessly engaged in killing noncombatants and/or (collateral damage).
The bottom line seems to be that if you give 18 year olds guns, add some armed other people who want to kill them, drive them half mad, then things get dangerous in their vicinity.
I agree with what I took to be William’s implicit point.
Right now in the Middle East it would be far safer to be a civilian in the vicinity of a US or Australian bombing raid than it would be in the vicinity of a Russian, Syrian, Turkish, Iraqi, or Saudi bombing raid.
Am I right in assuming that according to Essential, the Lib vote is now on the wrong side of 48?
BW @ 11.24
Fully agree. And Samantha Power nailed with calling out Russian hypocrisy over their outrage when they have been and continue to support a top notch brutal war criminal like Assad, not to mention indiscriminately killing Syrian civilians themselves in support of Assad’s murderous regime.
Guytaur
Last I heard Harmer was a Labor voter!
MTBW
That does not change what Harmer said. I make no comment as I did not listen today and am going solely on what Cat has said.
MTBW – its not that Wendy is biased against the ALP as such or that she hasn’t supported them before, its that she can’t help gushing about Turnbull. There was a LOT more of this in late 2015 as we know, mainly from Fairfax journos, but some others here & there too. The few actual pro ALP lefty op-ed writers, and many of the harder News Corp conservatives for their own reasons, resisted the dazzle of The Sun King. Its died off to some extent but Wendy is clearly one of the hold-outs.
Its worth reminding ourselves that most the paid political commentators who someone like Chris Mitchell would dub “Left” are really small “l” liberals – socially liberal & economically dry, somewhat defensive centrists, or non Labor lefties who love to take a swing at Labor for its shortcomings. How they imagined Turnbull to be was perfect for them. It helps that he seems a cultured & urbane as well, and his rise could neatly dovetail into a “crisis for Shorten” narrative.
boerwar @ #3074 Tuesday, September 20, 2016 at 11:24 am
Put simply, the US seeks to avoid casualties among its forces by employing technology and overwhelming firepower.
Rather than put ground forces into an infantry campaign to drive an enemy out of a city, and incur casualties, they will bomb the whole place to oblivion.
Shorten presser now
Again, MTBW, read C@’s post. Part of her point is that Harmer is seen as a progressive.
bemused @ #3063 Tuesday, September 20, 2016 at 10:55 am
Because the LNP government and the NCOA are so trustworthy of course and would never dream of doing anything that is not in the best interests of constituents right? How wrong and delusional of me to question their actions. One thousand apologies.
So now we have the regressive Turnbull attempting to sell/export Australian border policies to the rest of the world.
Shorten presser brilliant today.
Telling it as it is
briefly @ #3067 Tuesday, September 20, 2016 at 11:10 am
Of course it is. It is equitable. It is fair. It is inclusive and yet it allows for diversity of opinion. It is just not the solution that you, Kevin or Barney are willing to accept. This is entirely your problem, not mine.
Doyley.
My hope and your expectation is correct. 🙂
P1
No its not equality.
Its denying gay people the right to make the same choice as straight people.
Argue against marriage all you like. However be aware. People call their unions marriage for a reason and good luck telling them they are not married if its a civil ceremony. Its a world wide recognised word. It applies to gay people’s unions in other countries.
Australians deserve the same rights as those in Europe and the Americas.
nicole @ #3083 Tuesday, September 20, 2016 at 11:45 am
The same could be said of any government, government department or agency, or business.
If you believe that you are seriously paranoid.
Bemused
‘Rather than put ground forces into an infantry campaign to drive an enemy out of a city, and incur casualties, they will bomb the whole place to oblivion.’
This was true in WW2.
It is not, arguably, very true now – except for the bit about letting other countries do the infantry dying on their behalf.
During the latter stages of the Vietnam War in particular, and ever since, the US has been working assiduously at ‘force multipliers’ to get more bang for their buck.
The B52s relearned the WW2 lesson: that area bombing is inefficient and expensive.
So instead of flattening a suburb with a hundred tons of bombs the US (and Australia which has purchased most of the relevant technologies and has installed them in the FA-18s) now routinely destroys a single building and everyone inside the building with a single guided munition that might weigh less than a hundred kilograms. The warheads can be configured to destroy a single car or a single building or a bridge or a tunnel.
The problem of identifying the right building or car or group of armed fighters has been addressed to an extent with excellent camera gear.
As usual, humint is the weak point.
This is probably why the only Australians in real danger in the ME right now are the ones embedded with forward elements of Kurds, etc, etc, with a view to providing accurate target descriptions for our planes.
I think Harmer is a poor interviewer.
A few weeks ago she had a child (and mother on) to discuss alopecia which seemed important. Harmer appeared completely unprepared to conduct the interview. There was nothing of substance so Harmer instead:
(a) giggled;
(b) wasted time discussing how the little girl got on with her sister;
(c) talked about Harmer’s children books.
“Malcolm Turnbull tells world leaders to follow Australia’s asylum policies”
The Guardian
How much longer can Katharine Murphy and her like continue to defend this man as some sort of liberal lighthouse about to breakthrough the fog of his conservative foes. There are only two ways to analyse Turnbull;
1. A man prepared to ditch his beliefs and ethics to stay PM. Seeking the fame/glory of being PM without having any of the power that comes with it. A hollow puppet.
Or,
2. A man with the same beliefs as the conservative toadies that surround him.
Player One
Tuesday, September 20, 2016 at 11:46 am
It takes the law back to the days before 1753, when the first Marriage Act was passed in the UK…back to the time when marriage was regulated by religious canon rather than by civil law.
Your proposal is an attempted trick. Turnbull was in favour of it until he thought more on the matter. Rather than establishing equality for same-sex couples, your proposal would ensure their permanent exclusion from an estate that others would be free to join anytime they wished to satisfy the ecclesiastical authorities, something same-sex couples could never do.
You would licence the clerics to make permanent the social, cultural and emotional disability of same-sex couples. That is the very opposite of equality.
You would return to the clerics the powers taken away from them in 1753.
Shell, I remember the glory days of ABC 702. John Doyle especially, but there were so many others over many years that were high quality.
Now what do you have, Wendy Harmer, The BuckWit, and James Valentine? Sheesh. Makes ABC Adelaide 891 look OK.
Thank goodness for Fidler and Colvin.
How is Chris Bath? I remember here from her days on NBN television News.
MTBW,
Last I heard Harmer was a Labor voter!
It doesn’t really matter in the Warringah electorate in which she lives. : )
What does matter is the position of importance she holds in the media in Sydney and the uncritical perspective of Turnbull she retails.
Hmmm that Buzzfeed quiz that purports to pick your age from food preferences said this about me.
So they shaved half a century off my age!
I like it. 😆
https://www.buzzfeed.com/perpetua/polarizing-food-age-quiz?utm_term=.yieL41Mw5#.wkYP3AK2W
SK,
How is Chris Bath?
I also get to listen to her afternoon politics chat most days and she seems to get the bit between her teeth a lot more than Harmer does in the morning.
A further example of the need for “marriage” laws, from the Peoples’ Republic…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Marriage_Law
SK –
ABC showing the ‘Mix’ makes for reflex TV channel change.
SK
Back in April, driving between Goulburn and Canberra, the only radio am frequency I could get was ABC Adelaide. Weird.