The Courier-Mail today has federal results from the Queensland poll by Galaxy, for which state results were published on Saturday. It has Labor and the Coalition tied on two-party preferred, which represents a 4.1% swing to Labor compared with last year’s election, and a one point shift to Labor since the previous such poll in February. On the primary vote, the Coalition is at 35% (steady since February, down from 43.2% at the election); Labor at 33% (up four since February, and up from 30.9% at the election); and One Nation at 15% (down three since the last poll; comparisons with the federal election are not meaningful as did not run in a majority of the seats). The poll was conducted Wednesday and Thursday from a sample of 850.
Itza, if only I could tell you about the meetings I have had CEOs and ministers. That phrase sums it up so well.
Cud Chewer
Tuesday, May 2, 2017 at 11:16 am
Sounds beautiful, CC
CC – Yep the key to the second AP is a fast rail link, but if this line was built the price of the AP site must be hiked to pay for a good chunk of the line.
CC….the cities need trains and lots of em…this should be Labor’s mission, nationwide…build light and heavy rail…change the economies…de-congest life…
Railways pay for themselves many times over….evidence is everywhere to be seen and yet totally ignored by the LNP…
Briefly
Adani and Gina agree with you proposition.
I am Sydney airport at moment, chaotic. My plane to Santiago an hour plus late,technical problems,.. having a few drinks to pass yime
http://thenewdaily.com.au/entertainment/celebrity/2017/05/01/shah-rukh-khan-ted-talk/?utm_source=Responsys&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=20170502_TND
Some star dust
Yes, wonderful idea CC.
Why is it that we have such nongs directing policy in most of this country?
Just look at the travesty that is Westconnex!
Is there any other country in the world that is spending billions on road systems in already congested cities that will only add to the congestion?
Le Pen may win amid disarray on the left
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/may/01/marine-le-pen-front-national-upbeat-leftwing-lethargy-french-elections
Marine Le Pen is currently polling at about 40%, a historic high compared with her father’s final score of less than 18% in 2002. She has, for the first time in her party’s 45-year history, forged a presidential election alliance with a smaller political party, headed by the nationalist “Gaullist” Nicolas Dupont-Aignan, who will be her prime minister if she wins.
She has appeared to soften her stance on leaving the euro, which was seen as a sticking point with some voters. Marine Le Pen believes she can increase her score this week and the Front National is seeking to make gains in the parliamentary elections that follow in June.
The presidential election has so far revealed a France that is more divided than ever. In the first round, almost half of voters chose candidates that opposed Macron’s pro-business line, from the far right to the hard left. Macron took about 16% of the working-class vote, what would be one of the lowest scores of any French president. He has since addressed factory workers and rural communities in an attempt to redress the balance.
In recent days, Macron has visited sites including a Holocaust memorial and Oradour-sur-Glane, which saw the worst Nazi massacre of civilians on French soil, in order to galvanise French republican opposition to Marine Le Pen and highlight what he calls the risks of a far-right party of “hatred”.
Jean-Marie Le Pen, who was cut off politically by his daughter after comments belittling the Holocaust two years ago, held a small May Day rally in central Paris and hit out at her rival for the presidency. “Emmanuel Macron is doing a tour of graveyards,” he said scornfully. “It’s a bad sign for him.”
I have often wondered how a person sinks to such a low they will become the type of politician that will happily back bad policy to suit their financial backers and not see they have sold out. Then I saw this….. positive reinforcement….
https://youtu.be/xEMjTtaTzB8
It helps to start out hungry, or greedy.
https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2017/may/01/gun-shoot-civil-war-statues-new-orleans
The US is not just one thing…
I saw your comment to me yesterday, Briefly. You are very cheeky!
So, tell me, have you managed to get into the 20th century yet? 🙂
Mari – QF27 come on down …
https://thewest.com.au/news/wa/low-paid-foot-bill-for-surplus-ng-b88461253z
OK, so let me get this straight.
Kevin Rudd should have stepped down from the Prime Ministership, according to a huffing and puffing Malcolm Turnbull as Opposition Leader, due to a friend having donated and not declared, according to Malcolm, a Ute for Kevin to campaign in?
On the other hand, a Melbourne Property Developer buys Pauline Hanson, via funelling funds through James Ashby, a new plane, and Malcolm says nothing about it in public or to Pauline Hanson, instead sools his Special Minister of State, Scott Ryan, onto Sam Dastyari, for daring to question the arrangement and Hanson’s assertion that everything’s hunky dory and the AEC agrees!?!
http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/juvenile-labors-sam-dastyari-slammed-for-threatening-aec-over-pauline-hanson-probe-20170501-gvwwsd.html
Two-faced hypocrites!
**Le Pen may win amid disarray on the left**
There is a fair bit of disarray on the right too. Le Pen can only win if a large portion of those who voted for Fillon fall to her. At least a 1/3rd of them already have – like children to candy – despite Fillon backing Macron and Macron being a centrist.
If Le Pen gets close then the focus should be on the Centre Right. This is an identity crises for them. If they prefer an extremist over Macron then they should walk down the hall of mirrors and replace the word ‘centre’ with ‘hard’.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/may/01/how-junckers-downing-street-dinner-turned-sour
The Brexit time bomb actually does not necessarily go off in 2 years. If all the parties agree, the exit process may be extended indefinitely. And then there will be a “transition” phase, which could be as short as 2 years or as long as the parties agree.
Considering the parties have yet to even begin to agree on the order of business, let alone get the substance of the matters, there has to be a good chance that negotiations will not be completed – or possibly even really commenced – within the 2 years provided for in Article 50. In this case, Brexit will likely be postponed. This would suit the EU. They hold the aces. They can basically withhold their agreement to British terms and then offer to prolong the talks. The British would have to choose between crashing out or talking through. As it is, the EU seem to be preparing for long conversations with the English. Doubtless this would tear the Conservatives to pieces and play to Remain sentiments at the same time.
briefly @ #610 Tuesday, May 2nd, 2017 – 11:53 am
Indeed:
Somewhere along the way the left seems to have forgotten that democracy is often about choosing the lesser of two evils, whether you like it or not. Faced with a choice between a Nazi and someone who’s not, you get behind the not-a-Nazi. Not grudgingly, or with suspicion, or while talking about how awful you think not-a-Nazi is too. You get behind them and you make sure they win, and whinge about how your most preferred candidate didn’t make it later.
The time to pick apart the leftmost candidate’s failings is after the Nazi has been kept out of power. People need to either learn patience or get over the fact that their most-preferred candidate didn’t make the final round. The only question left now is ‘Fascism, yes or no?’. You either throw your support behind ‘no’, or you’re effectively voting ‘yes’.
Simon Aussie Katich
Tuesday, May 2, 2017 at 12:26 pm
The risk is that voters do not turn out, allowing Le Pen, whose support is likely to be more highly motivated, to win as if by default.
She has 40% apparently. That is alarmingly close.
Briefly, that article re the French election was interesting, and here is another good – albeit highly pessimistic – one in the Guardian today.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/may/01/emmanuel-macron-french-voters-marine-le-pen
One can’t help feeling nervous about a contest in which the predicted winner seems to stand for very little in a policy sense other than a commitment to a range of rather unpopular aspects of the status quo.
Whereas Le Pen’s policy aims are lucid and clear. Yes, they are completely unpalatable to those of us in the spectrum from centre-right to centre-left. And, yes, they probably aren’t capable of being implemented in any sort of a sensible way.
But Le Pen stands for something. Whereas Macron comes across as a bland, somewhat smarmy, technocrat: a Tony Blair with a little less charisma and a bit more credibility as an economic thinker.
If he does win, it will prove the strength of the feeling in France against nefarious populism of the Le Pen variety, and this will be very reassuring. But I just hope that all those who have told opinion pollsters that they prefer him actually feel motivated enough to show up to vote on election day. The Guardian commentator appears to suggest that there is a chance that this won’t happen, which is a worry.
If BC is not going to have a curfew and we are expected to believe that all flights during the curfew will take off and land via the sw during the curfew equivalent hours then there is no excuse for a curfew at KSA. All flights during the curfew can take off and land via Botany Bay during the curfew hours and while we are at it the hourly restrictions should also be lifted. Wonder if BC would stack up after those changes?
C@Tmomma
Tuesday, May 2, 2017 at 12:08 pm
Oh, I have sneaked into the 21st, C@t. I’ve been seen at the Fly By Night establishment in Fremantle, my inner bogan out on parole for the gig, which featured an extraordinary effort from “The Floors”. I’ve been rocked by Maurice Flavel’s “Heal Me”. I’ve been to the Basso and felt the crushing force of The Volcanics. My ears have not stopped ringing! Daytura4, Old Blood, Kill Devil Hills have seduced me…Live music lives in Western Australia!!
Le Pen can only win if a large portion of those who voted for Fillon fall to her.
Is this why she just gave a speech which plagiarised, word for word, a speech Fillon gave a little while ago?
Which fact just proves how sleazy and disingenuous she is in pursuit of her goal.
I remember Santiago as a beautiful city. The architecture, the stunning mountain backdrop, the pumping restaurants/bars, angry armed soldiers who dont like having their photos taken by a teenager who didnt know better.
Ah, but Briefly, if those bands are of the heavy metallic type, as their names imply, isn’t that still just so 20th century? 😉
AR: “Somewhere along the way the left seems to have forgotten that democracy is often about choosing the lesser of two evils, whether you like it or not. Faced with a choice between a Nazi and someone who’s not, you get behind the not-a-Nazi. Not grudgingly, or with suspicion, or while talking about how awful you think not-a-Nazi is too. You get behind them and you make sure they win, and whinge about how your most preferred candidate didn’t make it later.”
It depends on who you mean by “the left”. I’m sure the urban middle class educated elite of Paris and the other major cities will turn out in strength for Macron. However, history has shown that, in France as in the UK and the US, there is a white blue collar element of the population who sees a certain appeal in both the far left and the far right ends of the political spectrum. There are definitely going to be a fair whack of people who voted for Melenchon or even perhaps Hamon in round one who will switch to Le Pen in round two.
And, I fear, there are also a lot of undecided voters who would never vote for Le Pen in a million years but don’t find Macron very inspiring. If enough of these people turn out to vote on election day, Macron will win easily.
But what if a lot of them stay home?
NBN Co finally seems to be acknowledging some of the problems its rural customers have been screaming about with the new Sky Muster satellite service …
Anyone who has used the ‘new improved’ satellite service will be only too familiar with the random daily outages, poor customer service and ridiculously low bandwidth packages somehow being passed off as as a modern internet service. NBN Co claims things are now ‘improving’ – but customers (including me!) are seeing the speed of the service gradually reduce on an almost daily basis – presumably as more and more customers are being added.
It seems NBN Co got their capacity planning completely wrong. I guess their thinking was that rural Australians probably wouldn’t want all this new-fangled interwebby stuff. What a bunch of bozos.
Is this where Scott Morrison is ultimately going with his Angel and Devil, er, ‘Good’ and ‘Bad’ narrative? Towards targeting our Health Budget?
http://www.rawstory.com/2017/05/republican-people-who-lead-good-lives-should-pay-less-than-those-with-pre-existing-conditions/
P1
So NBN’s problem that did not exist has now been fixed?
I see that Melanchon’s behaviour is already paying rich dividends for Le Pen.
Just like Sanders did for Trump.
Just like Di Natale did for Turnbull.
When are the far left going to take responsibility for the consequences of their actions?
The turnout of the Centre right will be interesting. I wondered in the US if Trump was assisted by upticket voting by moderate republicans who turned out by habit or to save the senate from turning Democrat. There was talk that the last debate questions (Fox) helped Trump offer these moderate republicans just enough sugar to get them to stay rusted on.
Essential fed poll
TPP: ALP 53 (0) L/NP 47 (0)
Primary: L/NP 38(+1) ALP 37(+1) GRN 9(-1) ON 7(-1) NXT 3(0) OTH 6(0)
http://www.essentialvision.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Essential-Report_170502-1.pdf
Note, includes questions on support compulsory voting on page 11 & 12.
Yes 66%, No 27%, Don’t know 7%
For comparison in 2005 compulsory voting had 74% support
http://www.smh.com.au/news/National/Poll-shows-majority-favours-compulsory-voting/2005/03/27/1111862241033.html
In 2013 it was 71% support
http://essentialvision.com.au/documents/essential_report_131022.pdf
A R
Somewhere along the line Hollande and the Socialists decided to betray the people his party was meant to represent and go all ‘Thatcher’ on the workers. Saying “Vote for me I’m not Hitler” doesn’t really cut it.
SAK; Santiago has fewer soldiers now, but still has very good Pisco Sour, less expensive than in Buenos Aires, and with a larger shot of Pisco than over in Argentina. I am surprised CTar1 is doing their drinking at this end.
meher baba @ #627 Tuesday, May 2nd, 2017 – 12:40 pm
To quote from the article I linked:
So by “the left” I mean people who self-identify as left-wing and are expressing disdain for Macron or reluctance to get behind him because he’s “not left-wing enough”. Basically, the same kind of people who refused to get behind Hillary because what they wanted most was Sanders. Their hubris and ideological stubbornness earned them Trump instead.
Sanders wasn’t an option. Someone further to the left of Macron isn’t an option. The responsible thing is to get over it, vote for the non-fascist, and then try harder next election.
C@Tmomma
Tuesday, May 2, 2017 at 12:39 pm
Ah, but Briefly, if those bands are of the heavy metallic type, as their names imply, isn’t that still just so 20th century?
They are quite eclectic, all told. True, there is a lot of electric guitar. And drums. The percussion is imperative. But I’ve also heard some cutting edge vocals and a unique blue-electrified-violin, some bell-like keyboard, some incredible bass. It’s poetic. Laconic. There’s all-or-nothing performance. There’s self-revelation by the artists. There’s the joy of going-beyond. There’s dream and dance. There’s incantation, like urban corroboree. And tis all original, written in the last few years…. or days.
For sure, I think it is a bit out of time…as are we all…
Mari
All the best for your trip. Meanwhile, how is BH and family holding up?
D-Money, Pinochet was still in power. I was smart enough to not take photos at the border pass, but thought it was safe for a ceremonial thing at the Palace (or whatever it is called). I was young.
BA was a blast. Just a total blast. I remember being in the back of a mini being driven along the footpath because the lights turned red (think Bourne Identity). Apparently it was not a good idea to stop at red lights late at night. But they were going through a crazy bad economic thing – Santiago was more restrained and refined but still exciting.
‘But what if a lot of them stay home?’
A lot of Sanders voters did just that.
Leroy Lynch
Tuesday, May 2, 2017 at 12:46 pm
Essential fed poll
TPP: ALP 53 (0) L/NP 47 (0)
Primary: L/NP 38(+1) ALP 37(+1) GRN 9(-1) ON 7(-1) NXT 3(0) OTH 6(0)
Cheers Leroy.
ON go into their inevitable decline.
A really good Will Bunch column on why the New York Times stuffed up publishing Bret Stephens’ column on climate change: http://www.philly.com/philly/blogs/attytood/The-big-problem-with-NY-Times-climate-isnt-what-you-think.html
Basically they were trashing their own brand (objective truth and facts).
Briefly,
I commend your devotion to the cause of the Creative Arts. 🙂
One of my sons has inherited his father’s creative juices. Thank goodness, not his mother’s lack of same.
SAK the cycle of Commies/Conservatives/Coups has given Chile a very interesting history. Some good street art in Santiago as a result, and the people seem quite philosophical about what may be around the corner politically
B
‘The Brexit time bomb actually does not necessarily go off in 2 years. If all the parties agree, the exit process may be extended indefinitely. And then there will be a “transition” phase, which could be as short as 2 years or as long as the parties agree.’
Hard Right Ideologues in the Tory Party favour the nuclear option.
Simply, do no deal at all on anything and walk out in two year’s time.
‘But Le Pen stands for something. Whereas Macron comes across as a bland, somewhat smarmy, technocrat: a Tony Blair with a little less charisma and a bit more credibility as an economic thinker.’
As I keep saying, it’s easy to sound like you stand for something when you’re not constrained by reality.
For example, a total ignoramus with no idea of the real world can campaign on a “Jobs for All!” strategy, particularly if no one is interested in holding them to account.
A candidate who bases their statements in reality – “I’d like to provide jobs for all, but obviously in this economic climate some degree of unemployment is inevitable. I’ll do everything I possibly can to minimise this.” – is going be dismissed as wishy washy.
I’m concerned that the reaction to the ‘rise’ of the right at least in some circles seems to be that we should adopt their strategies and either try and sell policies we know won’t work or lie about the effectiveness of the policies we know will work (but don’t provide any magical cure all).
The left is actually in quite a strong position right now, and sticking to the leftist guns of evidence based policy based on what is achievable in the real world will pay off in the longer term (which actually won’t be that long). A few doses of the Trumps and Hansons of this world go a long way to refocussing voters’ minds.
During the US campaign, some black voters were on the record as saying they were voting for Clinton BECAUSE she wasn’t promising an instant fix to their problems. They said that they had had decades of Messiah-types who were going to sweep in and achieve Instant Equality and would prefer someone who would tackle the practical problems they faced first.
Primary: L/NP 38(+1) ALP 37(+1) GRN 9(-1) ON 7(-1) NXT 3(0) OTH 6(0)
Probably safe to assume from those numbers that 1% of Labor’s Primary Vote came from The Greens and 1% of the Coalition PV came from the PHONys.
D-Money – It’s Mari who is at the AP.
D-money, it is one place I would love to go back to.
And on the way I could stop off in Bogota for some cheap kick arse headphones.
P
‘Saying “Vote for me I’m not Hitler” doesn’t really cut it.’
It would have in the mid thirties.
Given the deep anti-semitism of the Le Pennites, it does today.