The Essential Research fortnight rolling average maintains its recent habit of shifting between 53-47 and 54-46, the latest instalment going from the latter to the former. On the primary vote, the Coalition is up a point to 37% and Labor is down one to 36%, with the Greens and One Nation steady at 10% and 8%, so that the result is in all respects identical to the week before last. The poll also finds 40% think Tony Abbott should resign from parliament, 17% that he should stay on the back bench, and another 17% that he should be given a position in the ministry. This is worse for him than when the same questions were posed in August last year, when the respective results were 37%, 21% and 25%. Other findings relate to the tightening of 457 visas: 16% said they went too far, 28% not far enough, and 39% that they were about right; 59% approved of allowing visa holders to apply for permanent residency, against 23% disapprove; 78% agreed that those applying for permanent residency should first be put on a probationary visa, against only 10% for disagree.
The Australian also had extra questions from Newspoll, which found that 70% favoured the government prioritising spending cuts over 20% for increasing taxes, but that only 30% favoured cuts to welfare payments with 61% opposed.
Morrison says portfolios will be held responsible for the debts they rack up and incur on future generations.
What puerile crap! How will the Dept of Human Services’ “debt”be calculated? Is it the difference between budget and actual? Will it be offset for unemployment levels that differ from budget forecasts?
It’s cost accounting on ice and will lead to extensive sub-optimal behaviour by portfolio heads and ministers.
FAIL!!!
BK – Scotty off-loading his responsibility for the Commonwealth’s financial position (common Liberal behaviour) …
… It’s someone elses fault.
Lizzie – http://www.theage.com.au/comment/age-discrimination-at-work-now-happening-to-people-as-young-as-45-20170427-gvtg13.html
It happens earlier. There is a reason it is important to ‘rise’ into management and the executive ranks…. it can be the only path to job security. Sacrifices you make early in ones career are meaningless later on in this dog eat dog world. Its all about give and take – if you have no job market power then you give and they take.
Scotty must be getting flogged in the Expenditure Review Committee meetings.
BK
When they turn unemployment payments and the like into a “loan” it will be easy.
This is really troubling. Bias and ignorance rule.
https://www.buzzfeed.com/robstott/anatomy-of-a-fake-news-story-the-muslim-politician-and-the?utm_term=.dkB8vrn0z#.giY74zDM0
You win a UK general election by winning seats, not votes.
Yeah this.
It’s not back in the early 2000s anymore. Firstly a Labor vote of 30% will be about what they got last time. Yes that was a failure, but it was the destruction of the LibDems that gave the Tories their majority.
Sure the polls are showing May and co with a smashing lead. If they get 45% on the day then yes they’ll win big.
But UK polling is notoriously unreliable. Yes often it’s because of shy Tories, but it would hardly be surprising with their numbers as high as they are that there are many shy Tories about atm. It wouldn’t take too much error and a bit of shy Labour effect in the polling to make things interesting.
The main points being:
– Labour had 45% of the Scottish vote as recently as 2013. Now they are <15%. That's about 3% of the National vote lost right there. They should just give up most of Scotland to the SNP and especially any seats that the Tories are a shot in. Letting them win Scottish seats off the SNP would just be insane. Face reality and accept the only way to government is in coalition with SNP.
– Labour can also ignore the South and East Midlands and anywhere else the Tories are strong. Let them win those seats with stonking great majorities.
– Sit down with the LibDems and get out of each other's way in seats that they split the non-Tory vote. Even if the LibDems did end up keeping the Tories in government (and last elections result would be a huge warning not to) every seat the Tories lose is a benefit to Corbyn and Labour. Lots of the seats the LibDems lost are susceptible to switch back where the No Brexit vote was strong. Even if they can get back a third of what they lost two years ago it will hurt May.
– Then fight street to street in the North, Wales, West Midlands and London where they need to hold and try and pick up some seats. This is where Corbyn activating the base is the advantage. Like with Labor here, they need to go around the media and talk directly to the voters that can be influenced in their direction. For all his failings you would think this is one thing Corbyn should be able to achieve.
That's how you make the National polls mean less than they seem to. You can't think of it like here where preferential voting and an elected Senate make it important to run in every seat. Large swathes of the country can be pretty much given up on by Labour. They have to choose their fights, think tactically by staying out of their enemy's enemies way, and try to maximise the seat value of their vote.
Certainly May goes in a massive favourite. So did Clinton. Corbyn looks like a joke candidate to everyone but his base. So did Trump. Like Clinton, May will easily win the popular vote. But when it's First Past the Post that isn't always enough. Smart tactics and a good campaign from the anti-Tory forces shouldn't be completely discounted, and could very well force May into minority government. And with Tory expectations so high, that is something she'd almost certainly not survive.
The Department of Human Services and any other department that has any oversight and or responsibility for welfare payments will have their ” debt ” squarely in the bad debt column.
By debt you can be assured that all welfare expenditure will be defined as bad debt as it is recurring and it will be highlighted as unsustainable and used as a battering ram to push the same Ol budget cuts to pensions etc.
Any ” debt ” linked to any expenditure the government wishes to cut or remove will also be highlighted as bad debt.
Peter Martin and others of his ilk can wet their pants over this move by Morrison and announce the dawning of a brave new world order but it is nothing more than a continuation of the governments ideological push against supporting those most in need.
Cheers.
Doyley
Taken to the ultimate, this kind of budgeting would result in many new buildings and highways and the poor sleeping in culverts and lifts. 🙁
Ratsak,
**It’s not back in the early 2000s anymore. Firstly a Labor vote….she’d almost certainly not survive.**
You need a lot of spit to polish a turd.
We’ll see won’t we Simon. But it’s early days. I’ve seen far too many no hopers (including Corbyn himself) get up when they were written off from the start. I’ll be hedging on this one (which is something I almost never do).
I’m not saying Corbyn will be the next PM, but I can see a scenario where the Tory’s dreams of a landslide with a massive majority come back to bite them very hard on the arse.
Morrison probably believes that good unemployment is when voters lose their job and bad unemployment is when the Government Ministers lose their job.
Dutton
“I will not be cowered into …”
English, please, Mr Potato.
Thanks to everyone who had some input to my questions on EV’s and the grid, appreciate your efforts.
Free speech?
lizzie @ #163 Thursday, April 27, 2017 at 2:38 pm
Translation from Potatoese.
I don’t care how much evidence you produce that shows what I said was a lie, I will not concede the point.
Barney in Go Dau @ #167 Thursday, April 27th, 2017 – 2:45 pm
Yeah, but what has truth or evidence ever done for him!
lizzie @ #166 Thursday, April 27, 2017 at 2:45 pm
What bullsh!t!
She should completely ignore any demands for her dismissal.
Any consideration of her role with DFAT should be judged purely on her performance of that role.
Ratsak – Something or someone needs to rattle the Tory cage and get the rust to fall off. There are ample reasons for people to change their vote away from the right…. but they seem to like their overlords and I see only a deepening tribal allegiance with the Murdoch right.
The Tories may not get a majority – it is the land of hope and glory right? (and a land of Non-Compulsory voting and FPTP).
But I have only spent 10hrs in England so WTFDIK?
Barney In Go Dau
I thought he might have avoided the correct word “cowed” because it sounds a bit too feminine. It’s not the first time he’s said ‘cowered’. 😉
This is an accurate comment on the feckless stupidity of centrists:
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/apr/25/vote-labour-jeremy-corbyn-theresa-may?CMP=share_btn_tw
The feckless stupidity of the far left gifts power to the right
All this alluding to pensioners and the unemployed as a drain on the public purse has to stop! Scott Morrison, as a supposed Christian, should heed the homily,
‘There but for the Grace of God go I’.
Vogon Poet,
The feckless stupidity of the far left gifts power to the right
And, as Nicholas is so against the centre of the political conversation, where common sense resides, he can spout off against ‘centrists’ as much as he likes and he does himself no favours by doing so and just encourages sensible people to ignore him.
Worth a laugh. Truffles.
You know what I reckon is far worse than Dutton trying to brazen his way out of his Manus duplicity? The fact that his leader, the Prime Minister, is so bereft of principles that he hasn’t sacked Dutton already.
C@t
I think “supposed Christian” hits the mark.
Madonna King pretty much says it all and says it well.
http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/comment/that-thinking-feeling/if-yassmin-abdelmagied-was-out-of-line-her-attackers-were-worse-20170426-gvtb7t.html
C@Tmomma
In his church having money is a sign you are in dog’s good books. So obviously poor people must be ‘orrible sinners.
lizzie @ #171 Thursday, April 27, 2017 at 2:55 pm
National security can’t become a plaything of internal Liberal party politics – no case has been made for a Department of Homeland Security.
In fact, a very good case can be made against creating it.
* The Department of Immigration and Border Protection is virtually unaccountable now, so giving it a greater remit can only expand the powers of those who are running it and are behaving this way.
* The Department of Immigration and Homeland Security keep blowing their budget out of the water but are not held to account for it. Giving them a bigger department means they will want more money and that money will likely be taken away from other departments and public services.
* Who really wants to bring on the creation of a Police State in Australia!?!
Bloody emoticons.
Lizzie #181 cont.
It has a different spelling in Potatoese. 🙂 😛
Poroti,
In his church having money is a sign you are in dog’s good books. So obviously poor people must be ‘orrible sinners.
I don’t care what Scott Morrison thinks, I care about what his God might do to him when he smites him for being a Right Arskhole! 😀
Lizzie,
😉
DTT
If you are reading –
http://www.france24.com/en/20170407-video-revisited-ebola-epidemic-west-africa-guinea-liberia-survivors-mourning
Doco reviewing the state of play 3 yrs later.
Greensborough,
As was so correctly pointed out, if it’s okay with the Rabid Right for Bill Leak to draw racist cartoons, in the name of ‘Free Speech’, why isn’t it also okay for Yasmin Abdel-Magheid to have an opinion on Anzac Day that goes against the grain of the Right…because ‘Free Speech’ also?
C@tmommo
No need to be a “radical lefty” to consider large parts of what Blair did as little different to the Tories. Heck I think it was Maggie T who commented Blair went further than they had dared so maybe even worse than the Tory lot in some cases.
I don’t agree with Madonna King on this if this is what Abdel-Magied intended (and formulating intention from a tweet is fraught).
[She simply asked, on a day when we commemorate those brave souls, that we also not forget others – those on Manus Island and Nauru, in Syria and Palestine.
It was a mistake.]
It could only be a mistake if the expression Lest We Forget is somehow considered inseparable from Anzac, Remembrance or other days dedicated to commemorate the deaths and injuries of those who have served us.
So, Obama got $400,000 for speaking to Wall St. Postponed kickback? Sleaze? Very Blairite and Clintonesque of Barak, I must say. I guess they all can’t be Jimmy Carter.
“Sensible centre” is one the great oxymorons of our age. Centrists have gutted social goods and deepened inequality. Centrists have accepted and consolidated the conservatives’ framing of economic debates. Centrists are conservatives’ best friends – they help conservatives get what they want. I think that if you take pride in being in the centre of our right-wing political landscape, you lack perspective and judgement.
momma,
The reasons are that Leak was
1. subject to an 18C complaint and (allegedly) was humiliated by a court process.
2. Abdelmagied is employed by the ABC as a commenator and is also on a DFAT committee.
I agree with King that linking political issues du jour to Anzac day way was a fairly stupid and inept thing to say. But, to her credit, she apologised and removed the the offensive post from her Facebook page. That’s something Leak would never do!
Sohar
He does it for peanuts.
I will pay you that one, CTar1.
This could be of use to the Corbyn supporters:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yiJ9fy1qSFI
Sohar – I tried to resist!
Sohar
“So, Obama got $400,000 for speaking to Wall St. Postponed kickback? Sleaze? Very Blairite and Clintonesque of Barak, I must say. I guess they all can’t be Jimmy Carter.”
Bit harsh. Doesn’t Obama deserve to earn a decent living, post-politics? Especially after all he (and his family) were put through.
C@tmomma
“And, as Nicholas is so against the centre of the political conversation, where common sense resides, he can spout off against ‘centrists’ as much as he likes and he does himself no favours by doing so and just encourages sensible people to ignore him.”
Ignore who?
😉
GG,
I agree with King that linking political issues du jour to Anzac day way was a fairly stupid and inept thing to say.
Agree. However so soon after Easter it was a bit much to try and crucify a Muslim Woman.
momma,
The Culture Wars never end nor take a break.