Newspoll records a much improved result for the Coalition, with Labor’s two-party lead cut from 55-45 to 52-48. The Coalition is up three on the primary vote to 37%, Labor is down two to 35%, One Nation are steady on 10%, and the Greens are down one to 9%. Malcolm Turnbull is up one on approval to 30% and down two on disapproval to 57%; Bill Shorten is down one to 29% and up one to 57%; and Turnbull’s lead as preferred prime minister has improved from 40-33 to 43-29. The poll was conducted Thursday to Sunday from a sample of 1819. Report from The Australian.
I was speaking mainly in terms of donations to political parties. If people want to donate to unions, union affiliates, religious orgs, corporates, or corporate initiatives, I think that all sits outside the point so long as none of those things pass the funds on to an actual political party (or coordinate their usage of the funds with a political party).
Though I also wouldn’t complain if running political advertising was exclusively relegated to the domain of political parties (at least when talking about large-scale, broadcast-level campaigns) so that neither unions nor big business can clutter up the joint with their political opinions. Let the corporates spend their advertising budgets on “buy our product(s)”, and let the unions spend theirs on “join our union”, and leave saying “vote for us” to the actual political parties involved. Or keep their finances and strategies separate, transparent, and well-regulated. Either way.
AR
Turnbull was attacking donations to unions. Precisely because he wants unions to be weaker in the public debate.
If he succeeds activist groups will be next.
Look at this shit from the ABC ~
A smug beaming Cash, she of the selective memory, alongside ever so thoughtful and gravely concerned Turnbull, counterposed with a goofy Shorten photo. They’re not even pretending anymore.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-03-20/pm-proposes-crackdown-on-illegitimate-payments-to-unions/8369166
No sign of Arfur tho.
AR
Sorry post got chopped.
The problem with what you propose is would mean only established parties could speak and not independent organisations that talking about an issue becomes political.
The Climate Council funded by public donation comes under this as its credibility would be totally destroyed by being associated with a political party yet telling the scientific facts is regarded as political debate at the moment on climate change.
“So terrible the left will soon have no choice but to act on this long running leadership problem with Shorten.”
Fantastic idea: put a Left faction leader in charge of the Federal ALP. It’s going so well in the UK.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/mar/19/jeremy-corbyn-labour-threat-party-election-support
rex douglas @ #150 Monday, March 20, 2017 at 12:51 pm
In your wet dreams, Rex.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-03-20/sa-labor-abandons-electoral-boundary-challenge/8369338
The Labor Party will drop its fight against a significant revision of South Australia’s state electoral boundaries saying it was “pessimistic” about its chances of success in the High Court.
In March, the full bench of the Supreme Court dismissed the party’s appeal against the changes, which made four Labor-held seats notionally Liberal — Colton, Elder, Mawson and Newland.
What are the likely implications of the revised electoral boundaries in SA?
Hi everyone: due to the weight of issues in my life, I’m turning into a long-time lurker, occasional poster. But I did find the latest Newspoll interesting and worthy of comment.
I doubt it had a great deal to do with the PM’s Utopia nation-building announcement. It’s been my sense for a while that Turnbull has consolidated his position just a little bit, and I had been somewhat surprised that this hadn’t become apparent in the polls so far.
Talking to my politically less-engaged friends, my sense has been that, despite the clumsiness of the Turnbull PMship, they remain pretty keen to see the guy succeed. Unlike the Press Gallery, they are sick to death of leadership changes and are keen for some stability.
In that context, the very concerted slapping down of Tony Abbott by senior Libs and Nats –
particularly Cormann – when TA dipped his toe in the leadership water a few weeks ago seemed to me to be a significant turning point. It provided some much-needed reassurance that Turnbull might be allowed to govern for a while to come. Since then, he hasn’t looked quite as much of a bumbler.
I still think Shorten – if he’s allowed to stay in his role – will beat MT at the next election. However, it’s no sure thing: people might not be too impressed with MT as a political leader, but they seem to be reasonably comfortable with him as a human being: something they didn’t seem to feel with Gillard, Rudd Mk 2, or Abbott.
Shorten also sniffed which way the wind was blowing.
Shorten has since tried to recast the penalty rate cut as belonging to the Coalition on the grounds that they had refused to fix it. Shorten expanded that theory today.
13:08: https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/live/2017/mar/20/george-brandis-finally-releases-his-diaries-politics-live
I found this tweet by Mark Newton amusing, but I’m not sure why.
poroti @ #142 Monday, March 20, 2017 at 12:25 pm
That provides the science behind something the news media, and particularly the ABC, did during the Gillard minority government. Very often the report led with an Opposition attack on a Government announcement or event, rather than the government announcement or event. Thus we had reports like: “Opposition leader Tony Abbott condemned as disastrous the latest government decision on renewable energy”.
So what would be anchored in the minds of readers, viewers and listeners was the condemnation, not the issue at hand. Sometimes it was a real effort to even find out what the substantive issue was.
Australian mainstream media is crap.
MB
“Fantastic idea: put a Left faction leader in charge of the Federal ALP. It’s going so well in the UK.”
Corbyn is a gift to the Tories. With enemies like Corbyn, who needs friends?
“https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/mar/19/jeremy-corbyn-labour-threat-party-election-support”
Excellent article. I found the last line especially relevant.
Re penalty rates: while I personally thought the FWC decision was a good one, I am convinced it’s a strong issue for Labor among the disengaged, swinging voters. I thought this was fairly obvious from the outset, when MT and his senior ministers ran dead on the issue: I suspect some focus groups were conducted by the party and the results were pretty bad.
It took Sally McManus’s incredible gaffe (it’s no good pretending that it was anything else) to give the Libs the opportunity to try to seize the running on the issue. But I’m not sure this tactic has worked: the Australian people are quite clever enough to dislike and distrust hard left union leaders and simultaneously want to see no change to penalty rates.
Certainly, if the Sally McManus issue was that helpful to the Libs, then I can’t understand why Michaelia has gone on the attack on Shorten this morning.
If I were advising Turnbull and the Libs, I’d be suggesting they stay out of industrial relations as much as possible and focus on the energy issue. But, while it doesn’t look as if Turnbull is about to be challenged, the Coalition remains a rabble.
Shorten’s abandoning of the ACTU leader would no doubt have aggrieved union workers across the nation.
@Itza – that photo comparison makes it look like Shorten is doing an impression of Cash.
Just saw a report on facebook from fox news that Rowan Atkinson has died in a car accident.
Sad news.
I think Corbyn is done as Labour leader. Not because of policies. Just not able to withstand the attacks on him.
Murdoch’s media in UK is too powerful it seems.
For years the Greens party was demonised and vilified by both the mainstream media and the political duopoly for its drug policy. For years without fail they ran pre-election scare campaigns warning the public about the dire consequences of voting Greens based on its drugs policy.
Now the Greens drug policy is well and truly mainstream.
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2017/mar/20/former-premiers-and-australian-police-chiefs-call-for-drug-decriminalisation
BiS
“Just saw a report on facebook from fox news that Rowan Atkinson has died in a car accident.”
I’d say it’s a hoax. Does the rounds every year.
TPOF
Yep. One slight quibble about that article was the title and using the word “inadvertently” .
The penalty rates issue was a gift to Shorten which should’ve seem him in unison with union workers, but Shorten has botched it again (first with the fake worker) by abandoning the ACTU leader and creating a division.
“Just saw a report on facebook from fox news that Rowan Atkinson has died in a car accident.”
Isn’t this a hoax?
Please note regarding Rowan Atkinson on further investigation this could be a hoax that fox news, I should have known, has been caught up in.
Hope so.
So it’s ok for millionaire mansion boy to have tax avoidance with the top 500 companies who also probably does tax minimisation?
But he has a go at Union bashing? While living in a mansion?
Out of touch much(reminds me of Tony Abbott and Joe hockey comments/policies).
guytaur @ #168 Monday, March 20, 2017 at 1:27 pm
Murdoch in unison with the Blair-ites.
Guytaur
“I think Corbyn is done as Labour leader. ”
The vast majority of the parliamentary party want him gone. They know he’ll lose, and take many (most?) of them down with him. AND they’ll lose their seats.
It’s the dewy-eyed mass of the party membership that keeps him as leader. They can afford to be blindly idealistic, because it won’t cost them anything.
I was just thinking, if this Snowy brain fart of Turnbull turns out to be a potential winner for him (after the feasibility study and so on) why couldn’t Shorten simply ‘me too’ it and make it part of his energy policy. That would free him up to focus on all of the other rat poison policies the Liberals seem to want to commit electoral suicide with.
Pumped hydro is a renewable source of energy and I can’t think of any reason why the Labor brains trust wouldn’t at least consider stealing Mal’s grand plan if it ticks all the boxes.
barney in saigon @ #174 Monday, March 20, 2017 at 1:31 pm
Reports of his death are greatly exaggerated.
http://www.dailystar.co.uk/news/latest-news/598147/rowan-atkinson-dead-car-crash-mr-bean-celebrity-death-hoax
Rex
“Murdoch in unison with the Blair-ites.”
No conspiracy here. Corbyn is a dud.
https://www.thesun.co.uk/tvandshowbiz/3129509/rowan-atkinson-seen-resurrecting-mr-bean-at-chinese-film-premiere-hours-after-becoming-victim-of-sick-death-hoax/
I don’t think Rowan is dead:
https://www.google.com.au/amp/www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-4328856/amp/Rowan-Atkinson-stars-Chinese-film-costly-divorce.html
Re Keating and his current views on accessing super to purchase a house…
blockquote>Paul Keating has carpeted the Liberal party for considering allowing first home buyers to dip into their super, though history shows the former PM was once in favour of the idea himself in the 1990s.
The Guardian @ 02:29 pm
Apparently, ALP’s 1993 Election Platform, launched by Paul Keating, promised access to super for housing deposits.
kakuru @ #177 Monday, March 20, 2017 at 1:34 pm
So many here were in raptures for Rudds changing of the rules giving more power to the ALP members.
Do we want the leader elected by the caucus or the party members ?
Murdoch should be sued for this slander/lie.
Yep. Rowan Atkinson is alive and well.
Kakaru
The members see the parliamentary team as part of the problem promoting policies against them.
The coup against Corbyn solidified that view. Until the Parliamentary comes up with a credible politician willing to uphold the platform the membership voted for and not go down the Blair rout expect the standoff and losing Labour position to continue.
Its the minority members of the parliament that has to change or leave the party not the membership which wants its policy platform pursued not the parliamentarians one.
The membership is not going to compromise on their policy platform. Thats become obvious.
kakuru @ #180 Monday, March 20, 2017 at 1:36 pm
The members disagree
“The members disagree”
The members are wrong. It’s not their heads on the chopping block. It’s the ranks of Labour MPs who’ll be out of a job when May goes to the polls.
Rex
Corbyn has failed to sell the policies. A change needs to happen. That does not mean the policies are wrong. Just that the PLP has to accept the policies and have someone genuinely implement the party policy platform
@Pegasus
Times change, so does the economy.
It is very much harder to buy a house or an apartment especially in NSW.
Kakaru
The members are right. Just as voters are right. Don’t like the policies leave the party.
Until the Labour Parliamentary Party genuinely accepts that policy platform Corby will remain the martyr symbol of the membership.
Sorry Corybn not Corby
guytaur @ #190 Monday, March 20, 2017 at 1:41 pm
It might take Corbyn finding a suitable replacement from the left.
rex douglas @ #150 Monday, March 20, 2017 at 12:51 pm
Offering yourself Rex?
Rex
Yes. There is no doubt Corbyn has failed as a winning leader. He is not getting in the media to get his message across. Seems to be off duty a lot.
A pity as their are good issues for Labour to promote from its platform.
Unfortunately can’t see Shorten stepping aside so the left will have to blast him out.
They cannot take the chance of the Coalition scraping over the line again.
Guyaur
“The members are right. Just as voters are right.”
When it comes to Corbyn, the vast majority of Labour members are in direct contradiction to the vast majority of British voters. This dichotomy can’t last.
Kakaru
Yeah just keep ignoring the Parliament members undermining and division that made Corbyn untenable. Just as the division did during the RGR wars here.
Labour saw the problem before Labor here. Now they are stuck with the solution they voted for. They voted for members to elect the leader not the party room. They have to live with the consequences.
The Blair-ites are acting against their constituents. A terrible situation.