The first Newspoll of the year, courtesy of The Australian, has Labor with a lead of 54-46, compared with 52-48 in the final poll last year, from primary votes of Coalition 35% (down four), Labor 36% (steady), Greens 10% (steady) – and, impliedly, One Nation rather a lot. Notwithstanding his newly elevated international profile, Malcolm Turnbull’s personal ratings are all but unchanged, with approval up one to 33% and disapproval down one to 54%, while Bill Shorten is down two to 32% and up three to 54%. Turnbull’s lead as preferred prime minister is at 42-30, little different from the 41-32 result last time. The poll was conducted Thursday to Sunday from a sample of 1734. Hat tip to the always reliable James J.
UPDATE: One Nation is said to be on 8%, and from what I can gather, this is related in The Australian’s report and not in the tables. This is important, because it suggests that Newspoll’s opening question continues to limit response options to the major parties, the Greens and others, with those opting for the latter prompted to be more specific. This would, if anything, tend to result in their support being underestimated. By contrast, the Western Australian state poll published on Friday included One Nation up front.
Things must be tough for MacDonald and Maitland. On trial for corruption and a conga line of political associates giving evidence for the prosecution.
https://au.news.yahoo.com/video/watch/34353635/labor-figures-anthony-albanese-luke-foley-nathan-rees-morris-iemma-doug-cameron-michael-costa-to-give-evidence-at-ian-macdonald-trial/
An interesting analysis by Matthew Knott (better than Mark Kenny usually provides):
One thing you have to give Trump; by inventing terrorist attacks he has taken the “are you scared yet” campaign to anew level.
Is it easy? Really? Whenever anyone tries to provide a list of “moderates” in the modern Liberal party I go “really? You think So-and-so is moderate? On what evidence?”
If I was forced to try and name moderates I guess I’d go with Marise Payne, Sussan Ley, and then I’d struggle. Maybe John Alexander, for whatever that’s worth, which isn’t much.
Christopher Pyne and Greg Hunt are usually in peoples’ “moderate” lists, to which I say bullshit. I think what is being identified here is not “moderateness”, but complete lack of any belief system at all. Pyne and Hunt are poster boys for the “say whatever the boss wants and lie as frequently as possible in a way that damages the Labor party”. What Pyne and Hunt actually believe, deep down (deep! hah!), who knows, honestly?
Hockey was another such, he was supposed to be a “moderate”, as was Turnbull himself, but they have done/do nothing moderate, they simply spin and lie and moan about Labor and do what the RWNJs insist they do. Brandis another case in point. Sinodinos. Frydenberg. Birmingham. Bishop. Keenan. Empty vessels, all.
So yeah, with a (very very) few exceptions I think what journalists describe as “moderate” in the modern Liberal party is simply a description for those who simply don’t believe in anything except gaining power.
‘moderates’ [sic] Jackol
Jackol
The inevitable result of Howard’s successful pogram against the “Wets” .
Any speculation on how many votes Australian Conservatives might get, and if they will contest state elections (eg Queensland) ?
Sales leads her Bernardi report with the falsehood that Bernardi is our Trump equivalent.
No. Trump won because he was the Republican candidate. Bernardi is going in the opposite direction. Nothing like a Trump equivalent.
Bug1
So far, speculation about how much support the ACs have has proven wrong – in the pre Christmas trailers, we were led to believe that several Senators would be joining Bernardi.
On that basis, all one can say with any degree of confidence is that the Australian Cons have one member, who coincidentally already has a seat.
fess
If I were Sales, I would have asked why it is that Shorten talking about jobs means he is a populist who is only pretending to care because of Trump, whereas ScoMo talking about jobs is just the government caring about ordinary folk…
Good evening all,
Looks like the government has made a preemptive attempt to put some gloss on the Childcare package it will introduce tomorrow. A couple of outlets are carrying the story re changes to the Family tax benefits savings measures. It appears the government has toned down on some of the savings measures and is running its sales pitch through the MSM. No surprise there.
The line is low and middle income families will actually be $ 20 a fortnight better off. However, what has actually happened is the government is still removing the $720 ( approx ) yearly supplement and replacing it will the extra each fortnight.
Do the maths and you find families will actually be losing $200 a year.
A few other changes have also been leaked but the bottom line is the government is still tying the Childcare legislation in with savings. They havento find $ 3.5 billion plus to pay for the Childcare package and that still has to be paid for and it appears still out of savings to Family benefits. Just what the gory detail is will be released tomorrow but you can bet what has been leaked so far is the good bits.
It will be interesting to see what the real deal is when labor and ACOSS drill the figures. The bottom line is it still has to be paid for and unless Turnbull and co can pull savings out of some magical hat then savings amounting to at least $3.5 billion has to be found in welfare cuts.
Cheers.
Zoom:
Terrible interview from Sales. Only thing I can say is bring back Stan Grant.
It seems the new USofA President is functionally illiterate.
http://bellacaledonia.org.uk/2017/02/07/can-trump-read-and-write/
See the imbeded video.
[It appears the government has toned down on some of the savings measures and is running its sales pitch through the MSM. No surprise there.]
A compliant tool of very limited intelligence, perfect for this government.
Which would inevitably lead to Labor replacing his stooges in NBNco and holding an inquiry which would trash Turnbull’s reputation forever. Bring it on.
WeWantPaul,
Very limited intelligence or complicity. A thin line.
Sam Maiden is running hard tonight with the ” families better off ” line. In simple terms families will be at the very least $200 a year worse off. May not sound like much but it could mean the difference between new school shoes or not.
Cheers.
One of the underlying premises of Australian politics is that the LNP are superior economic managers. Though it is essentially not true at all it is nevertheless an assumption that voters and the LNP themselves operate with. We have seen this supposed truth exposed as a myth. The economy is clearly not “working” as it is expected to. Unemployment and underemployment are worse under the policies of the LNP than they were under Labor policies. Income growth is also much slower. Other economic indicators, such as inequality, home ownership rates and the quality of housing, the budget performance, the effects of climate change, transport congestion, and the rate of new investment are all worse.
None of this is a surprise to Labor.
But it is big surprise to the LNP and their supporters. They really do believe they are better at these things. They have yet to realise that the causes of their failings lie with their policies. Instead, they cast around for targets that can be blamed. They blame Labor, each other, their enemies old and new and go looking for scapegoats. But they will not change their analysis or their policies. Instead, they divide into cliques and gangs and fall for distractions and divisions.
This has been going on for some years. Bernardi is but one example. ON is another. NXT is similar. There will be more. The working assumptions of the LNP are just wrong. They are incompetent. This is becoming clearer and clearer by the day.
[WeWantPaul,
Very limited intelligence or complicity. A thin line.
Sam Maiden is running hard tonight with the ” families better off ” line. In simple terms families will be at the very least $200 a year worse off. May not sound like much but it could mean the difference between new school shoes or not.
Cheers.]
this Government wouldn’t be doing it if it didn’t make people worse off.
The only vaguely honourable path left for Turnbull is to resign from the PMship and party, move to the cross-bench, and vote down the government, and for a new election.
Then immediately resign from parliament and politics, piss off, and let the real adults start cleaning up the mess he and Abbott have left us.
just me @ #1369 Tuesday, February 7, 2017 at 11:16 pm
That would require some of the cross-benchers to also vote to bring the govt down.
Not all of them would necessarily want to go to an election.
I’ve just walked over the Ben Hai bridge, 17th parallel, DMZ, where the North and South were and weren’t joined. It is very sobering to reflect on the defeat of the rich and mighty invader, and where it finds its capitalist neoliberal self today, and the scorched pock marked ruins of a country and people and what (and how) they have achieved since, and their future.
And in the evening under a ceiling fan here on PB I am reading of the fracturing of the right, completely expected when the individual trumps (sic) the common good, and speculation about the left, and the ideals of common wealth.
For those depressed about the latter, and that would be me, here is Noam Chomsky giving perspective and a voice of confidence to workers, the oppressed, the struggling, the progressives.
Stay and work together comrades.
Zoomster, im hoping they can get 3-5%, enough to be on the radar, contest some seats, troll some Liberal conservatives.
Waste of good popcorn if its just about him.
swamprat @ #1363 Tuesday, February 7, 2017 at 10:46 pm
No wonder the man is so insecure.
Further to my earlier posts it looks like families will lose Family benefit A completely when their child reaches 18. This would cut off benefits for children who in many cases would still be at school and hit a lot of families badly. These cuts are just the bits leaked early among the ” good news “. Another 2 or 3 billion in cuts to come.
Anyway, all will be revealed in coming days as to the real hit to families across Australia becomes clear.
Off to bed. Good night to all.
Cheers.
‘moderates’
Is the problem with the plural?
libertarian unionist @ #1375 Tuesday, February 7, 2017 at 11:45 pm
Just as we now have alternative facts, we now seem to have alternative definitions. I can’t think of one of the Nasties who meets the traditional definition of a moderate. Unless we’re talking about moderately far right wing as opposed to far far far right wing.
That would require some of the cross-benchers to also vote to bring the govt down.
Not all of them would necessarily want to go to an election.
———–
True, Mal moving to the cross-bench would only make it 75 – 71 (Labor + Green + Mal). Requires another 5 votes.
Wilkie would be a good bet, which gets to 75/72. Down to 4 votes.
Not clear how the Xenophonite, Katter, and McGowan would vote in such a situation.
Plus there must be at last one or two moderates on the government backbench who don’t wish to go down in history as failing to take the chance to stop the hard right completely farking the place. Though that may be wishful thinking on my part. Howard et al may have been too successful in their purges.
Right, so moderate now just means not a radical rwdb. Lovely.
good read
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/feb/07/california-donald-trump-jobs-immigration-lgbt-rights
Just me at 11:16
Not at all sure that what you wrote there will come to pass, but I have to say I enjoyed reading it immensely!
Bernardi says…
voters weren’t interested in the “indulgences of the political class”.
….having decided to thoroughly indulge himself, profiting enormously from the Lib-leaning voters of SA and insulting them at the same time.
He is another self-disgracing Tory.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/feb/07/hungary-submits-plans-automatically-detain-all-asylum-seekers-donald-trump-viktor-orban-zoltan-kovacs
The Australian solution as applied by Hungary.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/feb/07/up-to-13000-secretly-hanged-in-syrian-jail-says-amnesty
As many as 13,000 opponents of Bashar al-Assad were secretly hanged in one of Syria’s most infamous prisons in the first five years of the country’s civil war as part of an extermination policy ordered by the highest levels of the Syrian government, according to Amnesty International.
Many thousands more people held in Saydnaya prison died through torture and starvation, Amnesty said, and the bodies were dumped in two mass graves on the outskirts of Damascus between midnight and dawn most Tuesday mornings for at least five years.
The report, Human Slaughterhouse, details allegations of state-sanctioned abuse that are unprecedented in Syria’s civil war, a conflict that has consistently broken new ground in depravity, leaving at least 400,000 people dead and nearly half the country’s population displaced.
It suggests thousands more people could have been hanged in Saydnaya since the end of 2015, after which former guards and detainees who spoke to Amnesty no longer had access to verifiable information from inside the prison.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/feb/07/us-refugees-canada-border-trump-travel-ban
A growing number of asylum seekers are braving freezing cold temperatures to walk into Canada from the US, driven by fears of what Donald Trump’s presidency will mean for refugees, advocates say.
Last week, amid the chaos and uncertainty triggered by Trump’s travel ban, one agency dedicated to resettling refugees and immigrants opened an unprecedented 10 refugee claims in one day. Eight of the claimants had walked into Canada in order to avoid detection by border officials.
“They’re not crossing at the actual point where there’s an immigration and customs offices,” said Rita Chahal of the Manitoba Interfaith Immigration Council. “They’re walking through prairie fields with lots and lots of deep snow. In Europe we’re seeing people in boats; now just imagine a prairie flatland and snow for miles and miles.”
Freedom and justice are losing to fear and hate in America.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/feb/07/us-refugees-canada-border-trump-travel-ban
The risks being taken by these asylum seekers were laid bare on Christmas eve, when two refugee claimants, Seidu Mohammed and Razak Iyal, were found trekking through waist-high snow in Manitoba. Their journey into Canada had started in North Dakota with a C$400 cab ride that dropped them within sight of the border.
Mohammed, 24, said he had fled Ghana over fears of being persecuted for being gay and Muslim. After a judge in the US denied his asylum request, he was facing deportation. He met Iyal, 35 and also from Ghana, in the US, and the pair decided to try their luck at making it to Canada.
Woefully underdressed for a winter that ranks among the coldest in recent years, the pair walked for hours, trudging through darkened fields and fighting past brush to make it into Canada. “We didn’t feel any sign, but we could feel we are in Canada, because of the cold – very, very intense,” Mohammed told Macleans magazine. Disoriented from the cold and suffering severe frostbite, the pair eventually stumbled upon a highway, where a trucker stopped to help them.
Both men ended up in hospital; Mohammed had to have all of his fingers amputated, while Iyal lost all of his fingers except for his thumbs to frostbite.
briefly @ #1385 Wednesday, February 8, 2017 at 12:36 am
I’m wondering how the Lib numbers are lining up for the possible challenger to Turnbull?
I’ve disagreed with plenty of government policies at times, but never had the feeling I have now of the utter lack of leadership or any creditable vision of the future that we get from this PM. Hopefully our economy won’t be totally stuffed by the time we get to vote again.
The obvious possible contenders are Morrison and Dutton. They have both been preparing for a chance, but may not commit if not sure they have sufficient numbers. Bishop seems to have abdicated any pretence of leadership so fugeddabout her.
One of the problems is that the more electorally palatable options don’t seem to believe in anything really.
Norwester
Wednesday, February 8, 2017 at 12:57 am
This report certainly touched me too, Norwester.
I doubt that anyone will muster the numbers to roll Turnbull. Their woes are structural. The economy….the stresses over SSM…the destabilising conduct of Abbott…the agitations from ON…the very deep, community-wide unease inspired by Trump….these factors will not change with a change of leader. A change of leader may just make everything seem much worse.
It was interesting to note today that WA Labor have announced they will sae no deals with ON wrt the State election.
swamprat @ #1363 Tuesday, February 7, 2017 at 10:46 pm
It seems the new USofA President is functionally illiterate.
http://bellacaledonia.org.uk/2017/02/07/can-trump-read-and-write/
See the imbeded video.
On further investigation it appears this is indeed the case.
He. Can’t. Read. Or. Write!
Regarding the earlier Trump Cant Read video, an earlier monologue on that topic by Samantha Bee was hilarious but scary a few weeks prior to the election but is horrifying now.
Asked to describe his understanding of a lease, Trump’s answer was “Once you have a lease……..you know when you have a lease you have a lease…..and err, I just don’t know what the lease says”
So there you have it. Once you have a lease you have a lease.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7LFkN7QGp2c
New thread.
swamprat @ #1363 Tuesday, February 7, 2017 at 10:46 pm
Thank you, that explains a lot.
This Woman Fact-Checked A Donald Trump Tweet And It Was Brilliant
On Friday, a man armed with two machetes attacked a military patrol at the Carrousel du Louvre, an underground shopping centre in Paris. He injured a soldier, and was himself wounded in the stomach by bullets fired by another soldier.
TRUMP TWEET :
Donald J. Trump
✔ @realDonaldTrump
A new radical Islamic terrorist has just attacked in Louvre Museum in Paris. Tourists were locked down. France on edge again. GET SMART U.S.
Egie Wild (a pseudonym), an English-speaking Parisian, decided to answer the American president, point by point :
The post reads:
Dear Mr Trump,
thank you for your concern.
A man has indeed attacked a soldier with two machetes this morning in Paris.
It wasn’t in the Louvre Museum, it was in the Carrousel du Louvre, which is a mall. (Less symbolic than what you’re implying.)
He didn’t attack any tourist (or french people -apart from the soldier- either, by the way, thank you again for your concern) and he was instantly attacked back by another soldier, and wounded.
The crowd has been kept inside after that by order of the army for security reasons, but not for any kind of hostage situation. (Your tweet is -voluntarily?- ambiguous)
France is not on edge again, at all. I learnt about the attack 10 hours after it happened (even though it was in the media earlier), and I spent 1h30 in another mall in Paris at lunch today without any kind of military reinforcement (I mean, just the usual since Charlie Hebdo or nov 2015 attacks).
Oh and by the way, the man is from Egypt, you know, the country you didn’t ban from entering the US (because of your personnal affairs?)
Again, thank you for your concern, but don’t use France as an excuse for your arseholery. You’re the one encouraging fear with your distortion of truth.
Regards,
Egie Wild
PS : GET SMART U.S. : Don’t believe anything that he says without checking facts first.
https://www.buzzfeed.com/julesdarmanin/americans-love-this-response-of-a-french-woman-to?utm_term=.vuAkeWA9p#.ljExjlPX4
:elephant:
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