Next to no change on the BludgerTrack poll aggregate this week, with the weekly Essential Research being the only new poll conducted over Easter. However, Labor makes a net gain on the seat projection, making gains of one apiece on Victoria and Queensland and dropping one in Western Australia. The state-level seat measures should be a bit more volatile, now that I’m using trend measures to calculate each state’s deviation from the national total rather than the crude post-election averages I was using until last week.
For those wishing to discuss elections in Britain and France, note that there’s a dedicated thread for that. And while you’re about, please take advantage of our sensational Crikey discounted subscriptions offer.
This was written in February, but still relevant, if the Welfare Card is mentioned in the Budget. How do the LNP constantly get away with this stuff?
https://theaimn.com/lnp-welfare-card-true-facts-exposed-corruption-disguised-philanthropy/
This is getting out of control.
I wonder what the Chinese are going to do about North Korea. Can’t see them wanting a hot war on one of their borders.
Besides, the US would just smash NK to smithereens.
My pick for news poll is for the government to pick up one point on primaries from the minor (read right) parties, but the 2pp unchanged.
Has Rowe depicted Dutton as Kurtz, al la Heart of Darkness/Apocalypse Now?
fess
The NK’s last missile launch blew up on take off. Also as I said above, I can’t see the Chinese allowing a hot war on their doorstep.
ML
The NK hostage is Seoul.
There is virtually nothing the US can do to stop the NK from detonating a nuke in one of the tunnels they have under the DMZ.
Something like a quarter to a third of Seoul would suffer an immediate and monstrous artillery barrage, come what may.
Regardless of the damage, the SK economy can be expected to suffer an immediate and disastrous reduction.
The flow on impact on world (and Australian) trade are large.
Not that Trump cares.
If he even knows.
Turnbull is an utter and culpable idiot for encouraging Pence to come and rattle nuclear sabres in Australia.
If the LNP seriously consider Dutton for PM, they are all supporting his lies and deceit.
Zoomster
Sunday, April 23, 2017 at 6:13 pm
It does depend, doesn’t it.
I have no truck for Churchill. And I guess you, like BW, have skin in the game.
Say what you like, but whatever won the war, it was an Allied effort, not the pick and choose, among those allies, that you and BW like to present.
Everyone suffered, on all sides. And I prefer to blame the aggressors, not those who took up arms against it, however miniscule their role.
Good evening all,
Mark Kenny and the rest of the MSM need to take a deep breath and tone down the rhetoric. Alas, they will not and will continue to pump out bullshit.
Cheers.
The nationalistic rhetoric pumped out by Turnbull this past week and the visit by Pence are not mutually exclusive coincidences.
Cheers.
We were concerned that with Tony in charge, we might ‘accidentally’ be drawn into a war. Turnbull is proving that his hands are no more safe than Tony’s. 🙁
kezza
Well, my father fought for the wrong side, so I think that means I can be fairly objective about the other!
(Although, it must be noted, my great uncle was a ventriloquist in the Australian Air Force, something which not everyone can claim…)
Boerwar
I realise that Seoul is hostage and vast damage could be done there militarily and in trade flow on.
I guess my question is about what China can and will do, as I’m sure they won’t do something in this situation. WWII and all that, plus Seoul is not that far from their border as well.
Trumble poncing with Pence is just about what I’ve come to expect from him.
socrates @ #248 Sunday, April 23, 2017 at 4:02 pm
Thanks Socrates. They do seem to be confining the taller buildings to a central area with progressively lower limits as you move out from the centre.
It is a reasonably good transport hub at present but needs to be improved to keep pace with population growth, not just in Box Hill, but further out.
Monica,
I agree re China but I also think the forgotten player in the area is Russia. Putin would not be comfortable with the developments occurring atm.
Cheers.
CARL BERNSTEIN (VANITY FAIR): FBI and Congress believe the Trump administration is ACTIVELY covering up Russia ties.
Monica L:
What Boerwar said, but also the way this has escalated to the point it has now is because of the dangerous, careless rhetoric being deployed by Trump and now our govt. We already know that Republicans are stupidly wedded to the illogical idea that escalation rhetoric without active intent leads to de-escalation of intent among our enemies when nothing is further from the truth. I can’t see this North Korea folly by the US and now Aust ending any way other than in tragedy.
ML
Trump seemed to be talking as if there was an agreement between Trump and Xi following their meetings. China would sit on NK and Trump would no longer call global warming a ‘chinese hoax’, would no longer call the chinese ‘currency manipulators’ and would no longer wage a trade war against China.
But, also since the Xi/Trump meetings, Pence has been poncing around SEA lining up the ducks for a possible nuclear war against NK.
Whether this is consistent with the apparent agreement between Xi and Trump is anyone’s guess.
Whether anyone has any sort of immediate control at all over KIY is moot, IMO.
BTW, NK has a huge history of posturing and threatening without them coming to anything much at all.
The problem is that no-one quite knows whether this bellicose theatre of the insane will run off the rails.
The odds of an accidental error going hugely wrong must now be very large indeed.
Lizzie:
To be fair to Turnbull, Abbott had an adult contemporary in the White House during his tenure as PM, whereas Turnbull does not.
Doyley
You’re right as Russia also has a border in the East, not to mention Vladivostok.
zoomster
I don’t think that your experience can be determined as “fairly objective”, despite the fact you have decided your father was on the ‘wrong’ side. Sounds like you’re lucky to be here.
And I’ll challenge anyone to beat my great uncle, known to all and sundry as Strawb, the Tussock Jumper, as an asset to Australia’s WWI effort.
doyley @ #310 Sunday, April 23, 2017 at 6:44 pm
Kenny’s simplistic view that china is not trying hard enough so the US may have no choice but for preemptive military action is lazy analysis. Rather scary that he’s putting out such a view without much qualification.
http://www.theage.com.au/federal-politics/political-opinion/north-korean-threats-will-leave-alliance-countries-little-choice-20170423-gvqpxh.html
I didn’t know the Chevron case which the ATO won last week was based upon law which Labor brought in and which the Coalition fought against at the time. Wayne Swan explains it here:
John Reidy
Well spotted .
grimace @ #253 Sunday, April 23, 2017 at 4:15 pm
Well said Grimace!
I have made similar comments before although not as eloquently.
Monica,
Putin and Russia are getting pressured on numerous fronts. Ukraine and the push by NATO to expand its presence on Russia’s borders are a huge issue. Having a major push by the USA into possible major conflict on his eastern border is not something Putin would be sitting back and relaxing about. Putin is the dark dark horse in all this and his interactions with China on the matter would be very very interesting.
Cheers and a good night to all
kezza
Why ‘lucky”? Dad didn’t choose where he was born, and he didn’t get much choice in who he fought for. He, like other Balts, were seen as THE most desirable immigrants available after the war. (It’s everyone afterwards who are lucky to be here, they wouldn’t have been if there’d been enough Balts…)
In a multicultural society, we’re all ‘lucky’ – and we’re all (equally) Australian.
Poops me off no end when I have to justify my existence here by pointing to five generations on the other side, as if that somehow gives me more legitimacy.
Boerwar and fess
I’ll admit I’m worried about Korea and the potential for catastrophe. Perhaps I’m vainly clutching at straws that major powers such as China and Russia would do everything they could to avert such an outcome, though an accidental trigger can never be ignored.
I remember the Cuban crisis only too well and this time we’ve got total morons in the NK and US in charge. I keep recalling Trump asking 3 times, why if we’ve got nukes, why don’t we use them, at a briefing.
Whilst Dutton as PM sounds far fetched to anyone who isn’t a flat earther recent experience would tend to warn against writing it off.
So pleeeeeeeeeeeeeaaaseeeeee Liberal Party room, make it so.
We know Liberal voters will hold their nose and vote for any old raving lunatic with a blue tie, but PDuddy might just be too far for a more than significant number to stomach. I reckon the leadership change bounce alone would be worth 4 points to Shorten.
To see Trumbles humiliated by being replaced by a tuber would be delicious. To see the carnage that would follow would be pure bliss. Fingers and toes crossed.
Sir Humphrey in response to “Alternative Facts”:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=8keZbZL2ero
Zoomster
Why lucky? Because, according to you, your father fought for the “other side”; meaning the enemy.
And that’s why I said it sounds like “you” are lucky to be here.
It might “poop you off” but you’re the one who keeps mentioning you roots.
If Dutton becomes PM, I will know I have died and gone to a hell I don’t believe in.
Monica L:
I’m incredibly worried about recent developments simply because Trump is such a wild card who cannot be relied upon to embody rational, calm thought. Add Kim Jung Un into the mix and it’s anything goes.
I thought George W was reckless and irresponsible but Trump is in a category all his own.
If US Replicans can vote for Trump and Liberals over here can fawn on him, “Liberals” will have no problems voting for Dutton. I find his personna repulsive and not just a little diturbing, but he will be attractive to the “Liberal” base and to those who would consider voting One Nation. Meanwhile the “Pharasee” branch of Christianity, the IPA/Business types and the “Howard Tradies” won’t have a problem with him. Most of the few remaining liberal “Liberals” will put a peg on their nose and vote for him. After all, they voted for Abbott.
Just on ANZAC and war reflections, the propensity to glorify is sad and misguided.
One grandfather was gassed on the Eastern Front in 1917 at 18 and managed to live another 42 years though with failing lungs. His brother aged 20 was not so lucky. Chemical weapons were evil then and now.
Both my parents were civilians interned by the Japanese and witnessed cruelty which would make ISIS blush, like beheadings for failing to bow to Japanese soldiers.
So the defence of Australia (despite Churchill and the poms best efforts in 2 wars) is to be immensely thankful for. We would not be here without it. But not to be glorified, and if at all possible, not to be repeated.
Zoomster
‘Some might’, but others will think that D-Day was delayed because the Americans, despite the ‘Europe First’ policy, used more of their resources and effort in the Pacific, rather than Europe, until mid-1943.
kezza2 @ #269 Sunday, April 23, 2017 at 5:01 pm
As I said earlier today…
bemused @ #97 Sunday, April 23, 2017 at 8:58 am
Monica L:
If you can push forward to the 22min mark of this video there is some good commentary on North Korea and the US pugilism under Trump:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F11LT965nT0
How tall is Peter Dutton? Looks about 6’4
Pretty formidable. And a cop, to boot. You don’t often query a bloke like that. He’ll sit you on your arse quicker than a wink.
He seems to me to be a cop of the “take all prisoners” type. And, one who has accrued a massive property portfolio from petty earnings, of the afraid kind.
I think Malcolm Turnbull is afraid of him.
The other side to this is that Stalin and his Generals used Soviet troops in such a way that it maximised causalities. This wasn’t just the way the troops were very poorly equipped, feed and armed but the virtually suicidal way they were deployed.
Stalin played his Generals off against each other, increasing the aggressiveness with which the Generals used troops.
But one order from Stalin caused massively more Soviet deaths then anything else – the “Not One Step Backwards” directive – which was backed up by political troops who shot anyone who hesitated/ failed to press home attacks etc.
Hence the saying – there was only one thing more dangerous then being part of Soviet attack – failing to attack with the speed and vigour dictated by Stalin.
Same with Soviets taken prisoners of war who were stripped of citizenship and shipped to Gulags if they survived the war. One to cop this treatment was Stalins son.
A common theme of Stalin at the various “Big Three” Conferences during the war was his demand that those who shed the most blood would get the most ‘spoils’ after the war – even though his actions massively increased the deaths of his own troops.
His intention right from the start was to never withdraw from countries captured from Germany. His intention was that the Germans would be slave labour, stripped of industry and reduced to an agrarian society.
The Soviet people bore a huge burden in winning WW2 but Stalin’s actions increased that burden massively.
Stalin also killed as many Soviet citizens (some estimates say even more than) as died in WW2 by his successive purges from the 1920’s.
There are estimates that between Stalin and Mao they killed about 100 million of their own people, combined.
In Stalins final days he wrote wtte, “I am finished (health wise) and cannot even trust myself”.
He got that right!
Sprocket:
Thanks for sharing your family history. I personally do not get involved with Anzac commemorations but don’t oppose those who do.
CTaR1
Yep. You get the sense that the early successes of the Japanese caught the US off balance enough for them to push more stuff into the Pacific than they had planned originally.
Apart from that, the Pacific was ‘their’ war in a sense that the European war was not.
fess,
Well, when a huge number of US mental health clinicians have declared Trump mentally unstable, you can add my voice to that.
Malevolent narcissistic personality disorder.
Ghastly creatures.
A bit like vampires.
Kezza:
There was a cartoon from back in the Abbott era when his govt was going hell for leather against Gillian Triggs. Showed Abbott, Brandis and others in a vehicle, with a laid out Triggs knocked out on the ground behind the car, and Dutton, sleeves rolled up having laid her out, stalking back to the vehicle.
That cartoon for me perfectly embodied everything the Abbott Liberals embraced: thuggery, misogyny, sexism, anti-liberalism and anti free speech. It has stuck with me since the day I first saw it in BK’s dawn patrol.
When Malcolm hands his hereditary fiefdom, also known as the Wentworth electorate, to his son-in-law, that will show truly spectacular contempt for voters in the area. I wonder if they will cop it, particularly after Malcolm has soiled his brand. Will be fascinating.
I think Malcolm Turnbull is afraid of him.
I think Malcolm Turnbull is afraid of his own shadow.
ML
Which makes Turnbull’s recent assertion that he ‘trusts’ Trump and believes he has ‘wisdom’ very weird stuff indeed.
which is ironic when you note he doesn’t cast a shadow
Is it just me or is the media Anzackery particularly fulsome this year?