Essential Research’s fortnight rolling average has Labor’s two-party lead unchanged at 54-46, the only change on the primary vote being a one point drop for Labor to 37%, with the Coalition on 37%, the Greens on 10% and One Nation on 6%. An occasional question on the attributes of the parties yields little change since it was last asked in May, the biggest movers being “have good policies”, “clear about what they stand for” and “too close to big corporate and financial interests” for Labor, all of which are down five points. Another question finds Labor more trusted to find Medicare, the NDIS, universities, the age pension and public schools, but the Coalition more trusted to fund independent and private schools (keeping in mind that not everyone would feel these things should be funded). Labor’s specific budget response proposals all get highly positive responses; more respondents oppose (39%) than favour (24%) removing the deficit levy on the top income tax rate; and an overwhelming majority (78% to 7%) expect the bank levy will be passed on to customers.
Lizzie
In my best ‘pirate’ “Arrr me hearty” 🙂
Lizzie
I LOL at this bit
Poroti
Hmmm. I noted the presence of a dog ‘not for food’.
pegasus @ #1600 Sunday, May 28, 2017 at 2:36 pm
Don’t forget to clock in when you return.
Respectfully, I don’t agree. Gonski 2.0 is not about addressing school funding – it is about getting education off the public agenda. Turnbull wants to blur the f*ck out of the distinction between Labor and the Coalition on school-funding and play me-tooism at the next election.
If the Coalition was being serious about school-funding, they would have engaged in genuine public consultation and negotiation with the education sector, the states, and the Labor Party. Instead, Turnbull and Birmingham pulled some numbers out of their arses, wheeled David Gonski out, and got the media’s collective heart all a-flutter.
Labor rightly has no interest in pandering to Turnbull.
Yes, yes, a thousand times yes.
The argument seems to be that Trumble has rolled a Turd in glitter so Labor should pretend it is gold.
Labor was winning with NBN. Trumble guts it but keeps the name – should Labor say oh well that’s fine then? Of course not. To even consider it marks you out as a fool.
So why the difference when Trumble guts Gonsk but keeps the name? Or when Trumble wants to find some money to pay for tax cuts to the top end of town so slugs everyone else and says ‘but NDIS’?
Of course there is no difference.
As I’ve said before. Shorten has Brian T by the balls. The big jump to the left was a hail mary. Turnbull knew he was for the long jump if he didn’t turn the polls around so he went all in. I actually give him some credit for that. But even his ‘all in’ is a sham (as per normal for him). He needs Budget Bounce or he’s a corpse waiting for the party to get tired of the smell and cut him down.
So Shorten denies him a bounce by simply pointing out the obvious fraud the Libs are trying to pull. This is somehow a bad thing?
Trumble is desperate. He will come to a position much much much closer to Labor’s on education and taxation unless the Greens decide to sell out. He simply can’t afford to lose again and he knows it. Bill is winning these arguments in the real world which is why the Greens have backed away.
Ratsak – it never ceases to amaze me that some think Labor should snatch defeat when it’s on the brink of victory.
LOL!
I’ve previously put an argument (which I’m only half-convinced of myself) that’s a bit different than just accepting whatever Turnbull has put up because it’s not as bad as what Abbott put up.
To my mind there is an opportunity here to, effectively, lock in the Liberal’s conversion to supporting needs-based funding and tax increases via the medicare levy and bank levy. If Turnbull gets rolled, then the Libs will naturally repudiate any of these notions, so there is potentially a risk here that if the ALP fight back too hard they may lose an opportunity to have the Liberal party officially sign on, via legislation they vote for, for these principles.
For that reason I kind of think the ALP may be best served by grumbling about how they aren’t happy, and would do things much better (as they have been), but engineering to have these proposals go through one way or another. I think it will make the ALP’s life a lot easier to have these locked-in bits of history when they come to government to mitigate future Abbott-style adventures by future oppositions.
But I’m sure Shorten et al are in a much better position to judge these things than I am.
For BK 😉
Antonbruckner makes a good point. The ALP is very neoliberal (and therefore not progressive). Their raison d’être is to be somewhat less appalling than the LNP, and to provide cushy parliamentary and post-parliamentary careers for a select few.
Lizzie
Yes the “not for food” bit was a bit of a !!!. Also liked the name of the pirated ship’s skipper “William Swallows” a bit like Pirates of the Caribbean’s ‘Jack Sparrow’ 🙂
Ratsak – it never ceases to amaze me that some think Labor should snatch defeat when it’s on the brink of victory.
Indeed.
And as we’ve both noted, why the hell would Labor want to allow the Libs to just sign off “mission accomplished” on education and health so that they can get out of those swamps and back onto some more favourable ground for them.
Trumble has come up with Conski for one reason. To get the issue off the list of things that are killing him. So he’s come to fight on Labor’s ground. Crazy brave or just crazy the worst thing Labor could do would be to let them escape. Bill knows his Sun Tzu. He’s planning Trumble’s retreat for him.
The longer Trumble is stuck arguing about education the worse it will be for him. I’m sure he wants to strangle the stupid fuck that put the graph showing Conki saving $22bil over Gonski in the Lib’s own glossy pamphlet. It’s boats in reverse. No matter what he gives it won’t be enough and he won’t ever be trusted on it because education is Labor ground. He’ll need to capitulate like Labor did on boats just to partially neutralise it.
Shorten is going to extract the full price out of him. To do anything less would be stupid.
lizzie @ #1609 Sunday, May 28, 2017 at 3:08 pm
Ratsak – Shorten is many things, but stupid he ain’t.
lizzie @ #1609 Sunday, May 28, 2017 at 3:08 pm
What the one who stitched up Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran?
No thanks, they can keep her.
I don’t condone what any of them did but they were all in it up to their eyeballs and she was just selling out others to save her hide.
Pegasus
Sunday, May 28, 2017 at 2:36 pm
I am going now.
You’ll be back. 🙂
As if there is nothing, nothing more important than Corby?
This is sheer laziness by ABC (and I blame shrinking funds).
Lawrie Oakes described shorten as a smart operator and a good long term strategist in his article yesterday, so it looks as if you are the political klutz Rex, not Shorten. But most of us here already knew that. There’s been more than enough evidence of it.
If you could just get over your hatred of the man you might stop making such a fool of yourself.
UK Polling Reports discusses the impact of the main parties’ respective manifesto launches on the UK election campaign:
http://ukpollingreport.co.uk/blog/archives/9893
I also think there is a lot to the argument put by Bill Shorten that, if Labor agrees to all the Revenue-raising proposed by the Coalition, then the Coalition could justifiably say that they can thus afford to give their mates in Business their $65 Billion Tax Cut. Because ‘Fully Funded’.
lizzie @ #1617 Sunday, May 28, 2017 at 3:21 pm
Nope. They are responding to what H.L. Mencken said about Americans.
“No-one ever went broke underestimating the taste of the American public.”
It is true of Australians too and people are just lapping up that rubbish.
c@tmomma @ #1620 Sunday, May 28, 2017 at 3:30 pm
While ever there is a deficit on current account, nothing is ‘fully funded’.
Such claims are just nonsense and I am surprised they are not being refuted with vigour.
Bemused
People may be ‘lapping up that rubbish’, but a producer has made the decision to report it and I suspect it’s a consequence of Guthrie’s move towards popular.
Put simply, the policy positions of Labor and LNP are:
LNP – reduce taxation (particularly for business) and slash services to try to achieve balance.
Labor – maintain and enhance services and look to raising the revenue to fund them while striving for balance.
In my view it’s more about the ABC’s belief that it needs to ape the commercial outlets in attracting viewers, nothing to do with laziness.
Re ABC and Corby. Guthrie pretty much put it out there that the strategy will be going for “click bait”. Given her background no surprise.
Then stop bloody complaining when we naturally assume you were having a shot at Labor with the link you posted. You knew what you were up to. You have a long history of it here. It’s not about mind reading. It’s just about the evidence we have all seen over a long period of time. So spare us the little miss innocence act.
Darn,
But, but Teh Greens are pure! And impotent. 🙂
“In my view it’s more about the ABC’s belief that it needs to ape the commercial outlets in attracting viewers, nothing to do with laziness.”
Exactly, it’s a question of prioritising what’s important, and ABC’s descent into aping the commercials.
When its reason for existence becomes ever more tenuous it will be far easier to sell because fewer of the remaining audience will give a shit.
Why value a product that has lost what once made it so special?
Bemused,
While ever there is a deficit on current account, nothing is ‘fully funded’.
Such claims are just nonsense and I am surprised they are not being refuted with vigour.
I do realise that. However, I was just trying to lay out what may be a rationale that the Coalition may seek to use to justify their ongoing desire to shove a wodge of money at their business mates.
http://www.counterpunch.org/2017/05/26/we-know-what-inspired-the-manchester-attack-we-just-wont-admit-it/
Patrick Cockburn blames Manchester on Saudi Arabia.
I also think there is a lot to the argument put by Bill Shorten that, if Labor agrees to all the Revenue-raising proposed by the Coalition, then the Coalition could justifiably say that they can thus afford to give their mates in Business their $65 Billion Tax Cut. Because ‘Fully Funded’.
Very much so. Labor wants the $22bil spent on education. If they let Trumble get away with not spending it Brian will spend it on something else (like his tax cuts). It will be then soooo much harder to find the money. It’s much much easier to stop a tax cut or Liberal spending than it is to reverse it once it’s in place.
Having now admitted the previous Liberal policies in education were shit Trumble can’t go ahead without implementing some sort of change. The electorate won’t blame anyone but him for that. Gonski was in place, it was only the Libs that wanted to wreck it. His own propaganda shows that Conski cut’s $22bil out of education which is why Shorten and Tanya are running hard and often on that number and so winning.
Short of the Greens or entire Crossbench deciding to invite the wrath of everyone who gives a Gonski down on their heads there is no way out of this for Trumble that doesn’t involve a lot of pain for him and Shorten again coming out as the guy actually running the show.
Adrian:
Not even selling it, but defunding the ABC altogether because its content and programming has become so much like the rubbish on commercial channels that government can’t justify continued support for public broadcasting.
Jared Kushner’s Lawyer Issues Statement That Doesn’t Deny Potential Acts Of Treason
http://www.politicususa.com/2017/05/27/jared-kushners-lawyer-issues-statement-deny-potential-acts-treason.html
Labor destroyed Trumble once before. I’d suggest that there may well be lessons to be learnt from that experience…
c@tmomma @ #1630 Sunday, May 28, 2017 at 3:52 pm
Well I do wish the MSM and Opposition would pick it up and hammer the point repeatedly.
Any idiot uttering the phrase ‘Fully Funded’ should be mocked mercilessly while ever we have a deficit.
It all boils down to what government spending is prioritised.
antonbruckner11 @ #1631 Sunday, May 28, 2017 at 3:53 pm
And he’s correct.
Is there only one week of parliament left before the Long Winter Break? If so, won’t the government want to get at least one big win against Labor under it’s belt wrt to the big issues Labor is holding out against?
The Corridors of Power will be a very interesting place to be this week then. Hmm, let’s see. I bet The Greens extract a concession from Turnbull wrt to fully funding the Disabled and Special Needs kids in the Public School system, and to hell with the rest of the funding shortfall, in order to get their vote for Gonski 2.0.
I could be wrong though and they may grow a spine and hold out for the Full Gonski with Labor. And Unicorns might fly. 🙂
C@Tmomma
Treason ? Sorry but establishing secure “back channels” has always been part of the game and a very important method of avoiding shit.How is what he did “treason” ? It was dumb arse for sure because the Russkiy would never expose their secure communications in the way that his approach would entail. So dumb it may even be a US Intel attempt to access the Russians most secret communication centres.
I’ve long been of the opinion that Rudd’s compromises on the CPRS to get Liberal support were an attempt to lock them into supporting action on climate change which could be improved on later, the overall principle having been accepted as bipartisan.
When it looked like becoming reality the reactionary elements in the coalition knifed Turnbull and the rest is history.
Would it be any different if Labor were now to wave through Turnbull’s proposals on Gonski and NDIS? Both of these are deeply offensive to the reactionaries and I suspect that if they looked like getting an easy passage Turnbull would be gone.
The Greens would then dine out for years on how Labor abandoned school children and people with a disability – sound familiar?
I hope Shorten and Labor have learnt from history – it looks as though they have.
In the longer run being true to principles pays dividends – trying to take cheap political advantage all the time devalues credibility in the eyes of the electorate. People need to know that, in the long run, if they want schools well funded, people with a disability supported and a fair taxation system, there is only one way to do it.
Bemused
Correct and no secret for the best part of a quarter of a century.
“In my view it’s more about the ABC’s belief that it needs to ape the commercial outlets in attracting viewers, nothing to do with laziness”
Howard killed the ABC about 20 years ago. The parrot is dead. No use worrying about it anymore. Gone. Kaputt.
Question re: Gonski.
What will the Governments funding for schools be if their current proposal does not get through the Parliament?
Labor destroyed Trumble once before. I’d suggest that there may well be lessons to be learnt from that experience…
They’re the government now Jackol and the most recent memory of Liberal Government isn’t endless surpluses and lolly. 2009/10 simply isn’t a valid comparison.
The Murdoch sewer could polish up Abbott (with a lot of help from Labor) when he was LOTO. Now we’ve seen what too many were able to ignore before he got elected. Going back to him would be a disaster for the Libs. They simply don’t have an alternative to Trumble. The fact Dutton of all people is being polished up tells you that. Dutton as PM? Seriously BRING IT ON. Like with Abbott or Trump a goose like him might be able to be sold in prospect, but what they are can’t be hidden once they’re in the top job.
For all that is so obviously wrong with him Turnbull is still the only thing between the Libs and 42s in the polls. It would be insanity for Labor to let him get off the mat. Destroying him is clearly the best option if it can be done, and no less than he or his party deserves.
Ajm
In my work I went to some “Carbon conferences” back in CPRS days. I was pretty unimpressed about all the concessions made to various industries UNTIL discovering the emissions cap would be lowered year by year. No matter what, the bar would be lowered and the effing Greens complaint about prices being too low would be eliminated by the fact there was a cap on emissions and it would continue to be reduced. Supply and demand would do the rest. .
I find it interesting.
The Greens are being attacked because they might do a deal on education funding. They were also being attacked because they did not do a deal on carbon pricing.
“Australia has a much better approximation to ideal democracy than just about any other country.”
The public service is dangerously degraded, and engagement is worryingly poor, but we would still be competitive with the other best countries.
If nothing else, Corbyn has done a great job of managing expectations. The fact that being ‘only’ 10 percent behind is celebrated as some sort of victory is evidence of that.
This compares to the 6.5% margin the Conservatives achieved over Labour at the 2015 election.
PP – In fact, Corbyn looks like polling significantly better than Miliband. Which one of the Blairites would do better?
sohar @ #1642 Sunday, May 28, 2017 at 4:31 pm
Simplistic garbage that appeals to a certain type of impoverished intellect.