The return of Ipsos this week threw a spanner in the BludgerTrack works, since its results were starkly divergent from the trend of the other two pollsters, to an extent that went well beyond the pollster’s observed peculiarities before the election. In particular, the primary vote for Labor was four points below anything recorded by Newspoll or Essential since the election; the Coalition were about two points below its recent form; and the Greens came in about six points on the high side. My general strategy for bias adjustment had been to use half measures of the difference between election result and trend measurements for the relevant pollster, but that wasn’t remotely adequate to cover the peculiarity of this Ipsos result. So, for the time being at least, I’m incorporating Ipsos in a way that is all-but-neutral to the overall calculation, but in which the trendlines will be affected by the movement in Ipsos results (or will be, when there is more than one Ipsos result to go off).
Despite the Ipsos numbers having little impact on this week’s result, there has been a fairly solid move back to the Coalition on the voting intention reading, which partly reflects the recent trend of Essential Research, which has had Labor’s lead over the past fortnight narrowing from 53-47 to 51-49. On the BludgerTrack seat projection, this translates into gains for the Coalition of two seats in Western Australia, and one apiece in New South Wales, Victoria and South Australia. Here the Ipsos numbers did play a role, since its state breakdowns were particularly strong for the Coalition in Western Australia and South Australia. Ipsos also makes as much difference as it would always have done to the leadership ratings, the model for which begins with the Malcolm Turnbull prime ministership. Reflecting to the overall strength of the Ipsos result for the Coalition, Malcolm Turnbull records a solid recovery on net approval, to the extent of almost closing the gap on Bill Shorten, and widened his lead as preferred prime minister.
confessions @ #200 Friday, December 2, 2016 at 7:58 pm
Or at least it would be if we had any other products to sell.
Blast. Crikey is swallowing posts again. How can this be so bloody difficult!
Player One
The high currency a while back killed off a number of our manufacturing industries.
The editor-in-chief of the Age, Mark Forbes, has been stood down and is being investigated by Fairfax Media after a young female reporter complained of sexual harassment.
The woman made a formal complaint to management after Forbes allegedly “groped her on the bottom” at the Age Music Victoria awards in November, sources told Guardian Australia.
After inquiries from Guardian Australia on Friday, Fairfax Media confirmed the investigation.
“Mark Forbes has been stood down pending the outcome of an investigation that is underway,” a spokesman said. “Fairfax is committed to a safe workplace and has zero tolerance for any behaviour that does not meet the highest standards.
https://www.theguardian.com/media/2016/dec/02/mark-forbes-editor-in-chief-of-the-age-is-stood-down-over-sex-harassment-claim
And here she is, Jessica Mauboy in ‘Love Child’:
About feakin’ time!
http://www.smh.com.au/national/investigations/major-supermarkets-selling-the-fruit-of-forbidden-labour-20161201-gt1w0l.html
It’s not that the young unemployed are too lazy to do this work but the bleedin’ farmers won’t employ them! Preferring to import visa scab labour instead to do the work for virtually bupkis.
Last Saturday morning I had 45minute drive through Sydney.
I flicked to ABC 702 some time after 10 and heard something I hadn’t for a while Pink Floyd playing their ’60s single ‘Arnold Layne’
It appeared I had stumbled upon an episode of Mark Bannerman’s a Sonic Journey program.
This was Pink Floyd ‘The Early Years’, or more accurately ‘The Sid Barret Half Hour’.
Mark Bannerman while playing songs talked in great detail about Floyd and their first 10 years. I gather it went 50 minutes from 10:10 to 11 am (allowing for some time to talk about the band apart from Sid).
Mark is a producer on 4 corners who happens to have one of the best record (‘vinyl’ to younger folk) collections in the country.
Part 2 is this week, and I have arranged to be back in the Sydney traffic same time , same channel.
They said it is available on the net, this page looks likely:
http://blogs.abc.net.au/nsw/2015/04/sonic-journey-with-mark-bannerman.html?site=centralcoast&program=702_weekends
John Reidy
Thank you for the alert. The original film clip for Arnold Lane.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CNg9yL7tDF0
Maybe Malcolm Turnbull is happy for Backpackers to be scared away from Australia, so more of the same worker exploitation can happen, the honest employers can be driven out of business and wages and conditions eventually reach serf-like levels?
[
C@tmomma
Friday, December 2, 2016 at 8:22 pm
About feakin’ time!
http://www.smh.com.au/national/investigations/major-supermarkets-selling-the-fruit-of-forbidden-labour-20161201-gt1w0l.html
It’s not that the young unemployed are too lazy to do this work but the bleedin’ farmers won’t employ them! Preferring to import visa scab labour instead to do the work for virtually bupkis.
]
Farmers are not employing anyone directly anymore; they use firms (thugs) that supply labor. And yes it is about time something was done about it.
Frednk
It is happening all over. I’ve seen several docos from Europe showing how major respectable companies are cutting costs and absolving themselves from responsibility for the exploitation of migrant workers by using labor hire companies.
FredNK,
Farmers are not employing anyone directly anymore; they use firms (thugs) that supply labor. And yes it is about time something was done about it.
Yes, but the farmer employs the labour hire firms, so ultimately the buck stops with him.
To which I might add that the farmer has eyes with which to see and a brain to work out that the nature of his workforce has a decidedly unbackpackerlike complexion.
Not to mention the fact that, a very obvious question arises…who is supplying the cash to pay the illegal workers with?
poroti @ #203 Friday, December 2, 2016 at 8:14 pm
And you think this was an accident? Like Hockey deliberately evicting the car industry?
Wow thanks Poroti, what a film clip.
Having played that on YouTube,in glorious black and white on my flat screen TV it immediately has started playing other clips.
poroti,
Trying to wash their hands of responsibility for labour hire company practices does not, or should not, absolve the company who engages the labour hire company of ultimate responsibility. He who pays the piper calls the tune. And it is the companies who are paying the labour hire firms that are profiting, and they know it.
The buck starts with them, because the money the labour hire firm pays the exploited workers with comes from the companies. Anyone in HR in those companies who is signing off on the payments would easily be able to calculate how much each supplied worker was earning. Then they turn a blind eye.
It’s all down to the fetishisation of increased earnings and profit, for the conveniently generic ‘mum and dad shareholders’ and the shareholders of any company, in general, that have perverted society’s valuation of endeavour. It has become the case that the endeavour of investing, and exploiting the rules of the game to maximise profit, has Trumped the endeavour of pouring blood, sweat and tears into an honest day’s toil for a financial return.
This has got to stop before we return to the era of the iconic exploited chimney sweep. If we are not already there. And if we are then we, if we learned anything from the Enlightenment and the formal end of Slavery, need to rectify the situation pronto! For the way this scenario ends is fighting for a job and being willing to work for peanuts like exploited monkeys.
One comment re Pink Floyd relevant to recent musical discussions here, Mark B was commenting on Sid’s song writing and lyrics, many of them are very good and ‘while he is no Leonard Cohen’ the imagery is deft and at times vivid.
c@tmomma @ #212 Friday, December 2, 2016 at 8:36 pm
Loose language. The farmers do not ’employ’ the labour hire firm any more than they employ any other company that supplies them with services.
These parasites should be sentenced to hard labour if convicted of wrong doing. Which I have no doubt they would be in a just system.
C@Tmomma
Of course it doesn’t absolve them but like tax avoidance in the Caymans it is “legal” no matter the immorality.
rossco @ #168 Friday, December 2, 2016 at 4:30 pm
Pilger was arguing that Clinton was worse than Trump because she would start a military war with China. Now Trump is elected and Pilger is still saying there is going to be a war with China. Looks like he has a film to promote.
KB – Pilger always a wantabe.
She actually apologised on one occasion for interrupting him. I nearly fell off my chair.
May be crap may be gold but worth a read. The guy Unz behind the site sure is an interesting character.
http://www.unz.com/article/political-sciences-theory-of-everything/
Helen Razer gets what’s happening to the ABC:
‘The trust Australians have in the ABC is dwindling, making way for a media disaster. And the disaster will not be that there are ads on the ABC, something that Guthrie has, in any case, ruled out. It will just be that we no longer give a shit, and even if there is another Don Dale expose — itself a report that largely failed to locate those terrible indignities in a broader policy context — we simply will not care.
It will happen forcefully. It will happen soon. We will not care to defend something we no longer trust. The ABC will be trusted only as the official emergency broadcaster of natural disaster, its own disaster already in the past.’
Daretoread was saying exactly this too. She’s been somewhat quiet about the US elections now Trump is elected.
It should not but it, in practice, it does, if for no other reason than there is an extra layer of pay/control/responsibility leading to an order of magnitude increase in potential for finger pointing and blame shifting.
One of the (numerous) reports on Baiada’s bad practices – both cruelty to the animals being processed, but also the terrible treatment of workers at their plants – ran into this where the labour hire company can say “it’s not our responsibility to ensure there is a safe workplace, it’s the responsibility of Baiada”, and Baiada can refer all questions about payment of workers and their conditions to the labour hire company.
And, or course, for any investigating journalist (or regulatory agency) it muddies the waters significantly and they seem to have a hard enough time reporting/regulating even the most straightforward issues these days.
Darn:
Yes that was shocking to me too. I’ve found Sales to be virtually unwatchable for her frequent interruptions and talking over the top of her interviewees. It’s as if someone told her at some point that ‘hard hitting’ interviews mean not letting the person being interviewed get a word in edge-ways, much less anything else.
adrian @ #223 Friday, December 2, 2016 at 9:26 pm
If you want to destroy a government agency, you first destroy the trust people have in it, so that they no longer care about it. It happened with the ABS. It happened with the CSIRO. It is happening with the BOM, and it is happening with the ABC.
Michelle Guthrie knows exactly what she’s doing, and exactly why she’s doing it. Sadly, she looks like being much better at it than Mark Scott ever was. Who incidentally has been moved to the Dept of Education in NSW – I think you can probably guess why.
Poroti,
Of course it doesn’t absolve them but like tax avoidance in the Caymans it is “legal” no matter the immorality.
Well, there’s only one solution to that. Make it illegal. That’s what governments are supposed to be for, aren’t they!?! Slavery was legal too. Until it wasn’t.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-12-02/kevin-rudd-to-pay-back-insurance-bills-after-bingles/8088306
Nothing about Barnaby paying for the Landy he drowned?
Oh that’s right, Barnaby never paid for it did he. Not news then sorry
Apparently “Australia keeps locking up and torturing children” is enough to deter backpackers sans tax
Confessions
Not at all
Just been busy and rather sick – nasty cold.
There are a great many on the far left who were concerned about Hillary and her war warmongering, myself included (I am only partly far left but on international affairs probably that is me). Pilger obviously fits that description too. There was and still is a very good case to make that Clinton would have edged the US rapidly towards open confrontation with Russia, with unpredictable consequences.
A similar story can be made for China where Clinton was largely responsible for the “pivot to Asia” and the encirclement of China. She is or was a very dangerous lady.
Now Trump is an unpredictable wild card. He will probably be LESS inclined to start confrontation with Russia but hostility to iran means that there may be confrontation by proxy.
I am holding fire on Trump until we see what sort of cabinet he picks. So far I am not impressed.
Trump will of course be a lousy president, but if he avoids hot war with Russia and China then he will have done all I could ever expect of him.
I heard some one today talking about politics and was continually referring pejoratively to “my trailer trash”.
Does anyone know what he may have been on about?
“”pivot to Asia” and the encirclement of China” brings up few conspiracy theory sites
“There are a great many on the far left who were concerned about Hillary and her war warmongering, myself included ”
Send an email to don at trumptowers and he’ll reassure you
[“There are a great many on the far left who were concerned about Hillary and her war warmongering, myself included ”
Send an email to don at trumptowers and he’ll reassure you]
The world was sure lucky to avoid that Hilary … in a two horse race if you continually shoot at one horse you are helping the other whether or not you are smart enough to realise it, it was these geniuses that delivered Mr Trump the presidency. Not the brightest sparks, they don’t even realise it.
Wouldn’t be at all surprised if backpackers have mistakenly gotten the impression that the Australian Greens support a government that runs offshore hellholes for children
Maybe stating the obvious but won’t such a heavy tax on backpackers force more employers utilising them to pay cash in hand, ultimately undoing whatever tax revenue the government is attempting to generate?
It was timid unimaginative centrists like you who delivered the presidency to Donald Trump with your serial bungling of economic policy and your insistence that voters continually eat shit sandwiches that may have marginally less shit than the other side’s.
Mind you, the ‘darling of the far left’ Julian assange probably did a bit more to get Trump elected than anonymous ‘timid unimaginative centrists’ on Poll Bludger
That is a very low bar, all Trump has to do is avoid your imagined alternative. The idea that Clinton was itching to start a hot war directly with Russia and/or China is laughable.
So you don’t like that Trump got elected? I thought you said his victory would herald a lurch to the left… or something.
Yeah… I’m not feeling it either.
My concern with Trump, apart from still having no idea what he will do after an 18 month campaign, is that he inherited an improving economy, and may do a Howard. All he wants is the grandstand, his appointments so far suggest it will be a great time to be a RWNJ.
test
Thanks! I’ve heard it in passing, but haven’t really listened to anything prior to “Meddle”.
Hey, I heard on some conspiricy site that Hillary wants to bomb the world, which is far more believable than an actual taped quote…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_FTHXgmzURM
Two days I received the message from the Crikey Editor that they are “making Crikey even better”. This was my reply:
Could this be a sign Rupes is preparing the scene for a return ?
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/opinion/columnists/chris-kenny/donald-trump-victory-shows-tony-abbott-could-have-won-2016-election/news-story/6882ad442dc303ecee01279a8f7d8d10
Morning all. Before pondering Australian politics, worth noting there is a very important Italian referendum coming up on reforming their all too corruptible constitution. If it does not pass pro-reform (and reasonable IMO) PM Renzi will likely resign. I have no idea of the odds in any polls.
http://thenewdaily.com.au/money/finance-news/2016/12/02/italy-referendum/
Having been both a federal and state public servant in past decades, I can only agree strongly with this article by Peter Hartcher about the need to drain our own local swamp in Canberra. Donations and conflicts of interests that would be crimes in most states do not even get reported in Federal politics.
http://www.smh.com.au/comment/malcolm-turnbull-can-clean-the-political-swamp-20161202-gt2lig.html
In transport infrastructure this has led to huge waste in recent years. A string of failed road PPPs have seen billions in both taxpayer and private funds lost, whilst needed rail lines go unbuilt, and existing roads unmaintained.