Labor slips back a point in this week’s reading of the Essential Research fortnightly average, from 54-46 to 53-47, although this is to do with a particularly weak result for the Coalition a fortnight ago washing out of the result, rather than a turn in their favour this week. On the primary vote, the Coalition is up a point to 36%, Labor is steady on 37%, One Nation is steady on 10%, and the Greens are down one to 8%. Other findings are that 49% disapprove of Donald Trump’s self-styled Muslim ban, with only 36% in favour. At least some of this would appear to be down to questions of implementation, as the gap is narrower on the question of whether Australia should do something similar, with 41% in support and 46% opposed. Fifty-three per cent agree with the Prime Minister’s position that it is not his job to comment, versus 36% who disagree. Other questions relate to technology use, including a finding that 50% say technological change is making lives better, with 25% opting for worse.
Had to go into town early, so caught a bit of Fran and Nikki on the radio.
Fran was gushing about the busy agenda the government had in front of it – from memory, she listed three issues, which included childcare and the Gold Pass repeal.
If Fran thought this was setting a giddy pace, she must have been in a continual state of breathlessness during the Gillard years.
Savva did ‘poor Malcolm, none of this was his fault, what a dreadful start of the year’ – and then repeatedly listed Sussan Ley and Corey Bernardi as part of the dreadful things which weren’t Malcolm’s fault. We seem to have entered a reality where leaders have nothing to do with the behaviour of their followers.
Again, imagine if the media had dismissed Slipper or Thomson as not Gillard’s fault, and sympathised about the difficulties their behaviour was causing her…
jenauthor @ #44 Wednesday, February 8, 2017 at 9:40 am
A timely and prophetic metaphor for Bullturn’s PMship.
bk @ #36 Wednesday, February 8, 2017 at 9:18 am
I have been had a long time interest in “The Australian Sceptics” who have a tradition of awarding an annual “Bent Spoon Award”.
The following are of particular interest the current chat:-
•2008: Prof Kerryn Phelps. I’m not sure why this was awarded. Perhaps some Poll Bludger researcher can help.
Now to the important stuff:-
Doing fencing work is really good for “meetin’ wimmin”. Sadly the young women are about 50 or more years too young – not their opinion ❗
A bon jour to all. ✌
dave @ #49 Wednesday, February 8, 2017 at 9:52 am
There goes the escape tunnel for all the disaffected Libs that they have been working on!
Alternative health: ref – Alternative Facts
I’d like to know what % (if any at all) of that rather large package was donated to the Liberal party.
I recall a story from a year or so ago detailing the salary paid to America’s PO head and it was much far smaller than Fahour’s despite the massive difference in responsibility. That story also mentioned that Fahour was a large contributor to the Libs. If he was/is a contributor then something stinks. Come on journalists … do your job.
bk @ #54 Wednesday, February 8, 2017 at 10:08 am
Now there’s your problem (affecting a piss poor myth busters voice) – what to fill it with ❗
:laughsalot emoticon:
A sinkhole at Mal’s House.
Just more proof Turnbull & Co want to send this counrty down the gurgler.
BK – ‘Poor’ ol turnbull – might have to slum it and move into a taxpayer funded mansion at Kirribilli.
Raining fairly heavy again in my part of Sydney – don’t know about Pt Piper.
This was very revealing:
Australians earning $104K and above were the only group to back private schools over public schools.
from
http://www.theage.com.au/national/education/public-schools-judged-superior-to-private-schools-new-survey-shows-20170207-gu767n.html.
It suggests that the ALP could run with their Gonski approach and start to wind down funding to private schools to a more even level without any political backlash.
If you ban homeopathic and herbal products from pharmacies, then people will try and make the same concoctions at home (there’s certainly plenty of recipes around).
Personally, I’d ban all those face creams and anti ageing products which do f*ck all first.
Let the chemists sell these products – so that they do as little harm as possible – but not promote them as medicines.
Australia Post haven’t helped themselves in all of this.
Several years back when they disclosed Fahour’s salary package and bonus etc they was an outcry at its ‘generousity’.
So what did they do ? They kept on digging deeper of course – they refused to disclose since I think 2014 how much Fahour has been paid.
Now its coming back to bite.
Arrogant sods.
I wonder when the Greensborough Growler, aka GG is going to acknowledge that his ongoing defence of the Roman Paedophile Protection Cabal, also known as the Catholic Church, has been misguided, mistaken, and delusional. The organisation is sick, and corrupt, from top to parish.
To quote Joanne McCarthy, the Newcastle journalist who started the uncovering of this monstrous stain on Australian life (in Feb 6 SMH) http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/royal-commission-reveals-extent-of-crimes-within-catholic-church-over-decades-20170206-gu6r63.html :
The best way to understand the staggering nature of child sex crimes within the Catholic Church in Australia over many decades is to forget they’re crimes and alleged crimes involving a church, and transfer the figures to a secular organisation.
A multinational bank will do.
How would we view a global bank if we knew that 40 per cent of people working in one of its units – say the loans section in one of its national banks – were the subject of child sexual abuse reports between January, 1980 and February, 2015? That’s two out of every five employees.
How would we view that global bank if its Australian arm – and just its Australian arm – was the subject of complaints from 4444 people during the same period alleging they had been sexually abused as children by Australian bank representatives?
How would we view that global bank if we knew the children left at the mercy of the unit where two in five employees were alleged offenders were particularly vulnerable, and had either intellectual disabilities or behavioural problems? What about if we knew some of those children were only six when they were abused by those adult employees, in situations where the children had nowhere to hide, and noone to turn to for help?
How would we view that global bank if we knew the rate of child sex crimes within many of its units was far, far higher than the rate of child sexual abuse within the general population, higher than the rates in other comparable banks, and certainly much higher than the bank ever admitted to when its victims started speaking out.
Now consider this – how would we view any of the above if it was a global bikie gang or terrorist group committing crimes at that level against often very young, very vulnerable children?
Now think about how we should view the sexual abuse of children within the Catholic Church for many decades, after those figures and many more were revealed in just the first few hours of the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse’s 50th hearing.
The St John of God order has received child sex allegations against 40.4 per cent of its members. The order ran the Kendall Grange residential home at Morisset from 1948 for boys with intellectual disabilities, and later boys with behavioural problems. The youngest boys were six.”
etc., etc., etc.
From the SMH editorial today:
“In April 2014 the royal commission asked the Holy See for documents that would show what action it took when sexual abuse allegations against Australian priests were referred to it. The Holy See responded it was ‘neither possible nor appropriate’ to provide the documents.”
A sick, corrupt organisation, which claims to be the only true representative of the one true sky fairy, on earth.
Apologise, GG. I doubt that even your own, personal, all powerful sky fairy, in whose name all of this depravity was perpetrated, can stomach this.
Pontificating Paul Kelly will never pontificate about the CA Royal Commission findings.
Yabba88…great post.
..the other aspect of the 40% figure is that you cannot pretend that ‘innocent’ members of the organisation were unaware that something was wrong.
It only takes one or two sexist males in a school staffroom for the conversations to be punctuated with smutty jokes, rants against ‘political correctness’, smarmy put downs of female colleagues (if not outright rudeness), etc.
Imagine the conversation if 4 out of 10 people around the table are pedophiles. Whilst it’s unlikely that they’re going to come out and say it, their attitudes and conversation are not going to be consistently normal. Their behaviour isn’t going to be, either.
A normal person, in a room with a number of pedophiles, is going to know that something is wrong, even if they can’t put their finger on the wrongness – and at least one normal person of the 60% of normal people is going to ask questions and want to find out what’s going on.
So we have to believe that people knew what was happening, but either didn’t admit it to themselves (itself a failing) or deliberately chose not to act.
Of course, the church’s dealings are complicated by the fact that forgiveness is meant to be a core part of its beliefs, but even Christ put a limit on forgiveness, and repeated offences undermine the concept of true repentance.
Thanks, Greg. GG usually responds to me with a stream of foul abuse. We shall see.
cheers, MD/Yabba
ABC TV News in Sydney last night had a package which said it was at least 40% but may have been as high as 70% with the St John of God Brothers.
Briefly made a good point last night ~11pm, re the Coalition myth of better economic management.
This year is a great time to defeat this perception.
It’s importance is because it makes all other economic policies possible or at least easier to sell and implement.
It will take repetition, refutation and arguments, both fact and issue based. It must be more than quoting various economic statistics all of which have deteriorated since 2013.
I’m listening to the US court hearing at the moment and it’s not going well for the Justice Dept. The re are many pointed questions and assertions from the bench.
greg mcauliffe @ #65 Wednesday, February 8, 2017 at 10:28 am
Will GG respond?
Actually, I do feel terribly sorry for GG and a lot of other sincere and good Catholics who have been terribly betrayed by those they trusted.
But denial won’t fix it.
From the Guardian. All Pauline wants to do is get square over the snubs and slights she has suffered during life. that’s her whole platform.
Business welfare and tax breaks needs to stop and hanson needs to both say so and vote so.
Also no tax cuts for big business – in fact make businesses, farmers etc pay tax.
Businesses not paying tax should pay an alternative minimum tax as some other countries have on the books.
Q: What do you call alternative medicine that works?
A: Medicine
Yabba88
Just watching the RC live … Professor Patrick Parkinson on the stand.
He was asked to give his understanding about the Catholic cover-ups etc, and one of the several reasons he gave was about the language the Catholics use to describe abuse. An example was that they have habitually referred to rape as “improper touching”.
Another reason he gave was their reliance on internal “investigations” (which sometimes occurred). He said that the “investigations” typically amounted to a pleasant enough phone call from a “boss” (bishop or minion, or head of religious order or minion) along these lines …… “Did you do it?” “Of course not” “OK, but we better move you on to XYZ so that the matter will settle down”
Don’t worry about GG …. he’s just a buzzing mosquito who is wilfully blind to these crimes.
Yes, great post Yabba88.
Imagine if it were a Muslim organisation, or a trade union or any other currently officially demonised group.
peter piper @ #74 Wednesday, February 8, 2017 at 11:16 am
Ha Ha Ha De Ha ❗
I’m a little hysterical, hot and bothered after finishing my fencing stint for the day.
Thanks for an excellent definition and a good laugh.
(♥♥,) ❇ ❇ ❇ ❇ ❇
His Honour is giving Archbishop Colleridge a bit of a working over on the issue of priestly celibacy.
yabba88 @ #67 Wednesday, February 8, 2017 at 10:39 am
GG appears to be one of William’s ‘protected ones’.
He gets away with far worse than has got others booted.
The comment may have been made, bu if
then why the hell is calculating a CGT deduction on actual historical inflation figures considered so dififcult, requiring the much simpler 50% plat deduction?
It’s like they are just making this shit up as they go along.
BK and Psyclaw
and
others who report on the CA RC .
Thank you.
Tajik
You can avoid tax by investing in the company;Tax cuts have nothing to do with that.
‘GG appears to be one of William’s ‘protected ones’.
He gets away with far worse than has got others booted.’
I’ve had altercations with GG in the past, but this is all in your mind.
adrian @ #83 Wednesday, February 8, 2017 at 11:37 am
Yes and it got there from observation and evidence.
What Yabba said was correct.
You two are cut from the same cloth, buddy. GG just toes the line a smidgen better.
libertarian unionist @ #85 Wednesday, February 8, 2017 at 11:39 am
GG uses language I would never use.
Good morning all,
I posted last night that it will be interesting to see what unfolds once labor , ACOSS and others start to drill the finer points of the combined Childcare / welfare cuts legislation introduced today.
Some doozies already starting to see the sunlight. The government wants to move some unemployed young Australians onto a lower payment schedule just for one.
Once again Turnbull and co have tried to cover how really bad bastards they are by relying on a fawning MSM to rinse and repeat their press releases and ” exclusives”with no analysis. The legislation presented today is nothing more than a rebranding of the 2014 zombie measures plus some additions dressed up as a family friendly package.
A lot more of the bad stuff yet to be revealed.
Cheers.
Yes, and you also have radically different opinions on some matters, on which I usually side with you. But that was not my point.
zoomster
Bravo! Huge expense for the wrapping and the brand.
Bemused
I completely agree.
libertarian unionist @ #88 Wednesday, February 8, 2017 at 11:50 am
Seems you have no point.
‘Once again Turnbull and co have tried to cover how really bad bastards they are by relying on a fawning MSM to rinse and repeat their press releases and ” exclusives”with no analysis. The legislation presented today is nothing more than a rebranding of the 2014 zombie measures plus some additions dressed up as a family friendly package.’
I’m sure the forensic (ha!) Sabra Lane drilled down into this level of detail during AM’s daily govt minister propaganda 10 minutes today. However I started listening to some very nice music as soon as Porter came on, so cannot be sure.
Awwww. Just heard that the sink in PPiper is nowhere near PM’s home.
I’d break the Pharmacy Guild.
FWIW, my view is that GG is right up to a point.
There has been an unreasonable degree of sectarian RC bashing in relation to the RoyCom.
My view is that GG is also wrong up to a point when he goes to defending the obviously indefensible.
If you are a decent RC, which most RCs are, in my direct experience, there is not a lot of room to turn and getting the balance right is hard. Very hard.
As for the use of intemperate language, let he who is without sin cast the first stone.
forgiveness is meant to be a core part of its beliefs, but even Christ put a limit on forgiveness,…
Forgiveness is a fundamental Christian belief, not just a Catholic one. God forgives, but that does not excuse the offender from the Earthly consequences of their actions. It applies and should be applied to priests, religious orders and bishops as to everyone else.
There is something systemically seriously wrong with the Church as an institution. It needs a thorough cleansing. It’s not about beliefs or doctrines, although they have been seriously discredited in the eyes of the world by the actions of those who purport to teach and uphold them.
Bernardi Party Website
http://cra.party/
adrian, I have been a lurker, and occasional participant on this blog for many years. Somewhat longer than you, I believe.
What I said re GG and his interaction with me is true. I could dig up various of his streams of vitriol if I was so minded, but I am not. His type of behaviour seems to be a fairly common characteristic amongst those who have deeply ingrained irrational beliefs, whether they be in regard to sky fairies, the myths and legends of middle eastern goat herders, or the denial of global warming.
In my case, GG has called into question, in a deliberately abusive manner, my intelligence, my ability to compose meaningful prose, my capacity for empathy, and my sanity. I do not value his opinion on these matters, because he has continually exposed, to us all, the chasm in his ability to think straight about the foul behaviour of the Roman so-called church. The man is an unquestioning supporter of Pell, for dog’s sake.
[GG uses language I would never use.]
GG USES CONTRACEPTIVE PRACTICES THAT I WOULD NEVER USE.
[What I said re GG and his interaction with me is true. I could dig up various of his streams of vitriol if I was so minded, but I am not.]
MY GUESS IS HE PROBABLY WROTE ABOUT YOUR PENIS AND ACCUSED YOU OF BEING HOMOSEXUAL.