The latest Newspoll is absolutely unchanged on the post-budget result from a fortnight ago, with primary votes of Coalition 36%, Labor 36%, Greens 10% and One Nation 9%, and Labor leading 53-47 on two-party preferred. Nonetheless, Malcolm Turnbull’s approval rating is up for the third survey in a row, this time by two points to 35%, although he’s also up a point on disapproval to 54%. Bill Shorten is up one on approval to 33% and down one on disapproval to 53%, while Turnbull’s lead as preferred prime minister is all but unchanged at 45-33, compared with 44-31 last time. As always, the poll was conducted Thursday to Sunday by The Australian from a sample of around 1700.
UPDATE: Here’s the BludgerTrack update I should have run a couple of days ago:
Great essay in The Monthly by Richard Denniss: Grandfathering the Australian dream
House prices, insecure work and growing debts … Who can afford a stake in today’s society?
https://www.themonthly.com.au/issue/2017/june/1496239200/richard-denniss/grandfathering-australian-dream
I sometimes think that real Australian values used to be represented by those Australians in the POW camps in WW2 who collectivised to look after each other. Unfortunately those aren’t the Australian values the right wants Australia to retain, or return to.
India declines an Australian request to take part in multilateral naval exercises in July over fears it could unnecessarily enflame diplomatic tensions with China.
enflame: transitive verb. 1a : to excite to excessive or uncontrollable action or feeling; especially : to make angry
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-05-31/india-rejects-australian-request-to-join-naval-war-games/8577664
Covfefe is probably the only word ever to enter the international lexicon without having first being ascribed a meaning or a pronunciation.
I will leave it to greater, more creative, minds than mine to eventually discover an affliction which would be admirably described by such an innovative juxtaposition of consonants and vowels. I’m sure Mr. Trump will be one day be found to have suffered from one, as yet unnamed or discovered, which will fit the bill.
But the pronunciation?
Is it cov-fifi as in the french poodle, or perhaps cov-fefe with the e as in effluent?
Is the v pronounced as a w as in the Germanic so it is pronounced cow- fefe or cow-fifi? That might explain a lot, given Mr. Trump’s attitude towards women, particularly German women.
The world really needs your help here. The international community needs certainty and linguistic definition to give due dignity and respect for the utterance of a word of such profundity.
Yes, I know the w-v, v-w bit is not quite right, but hey.
This article includes some info on what the US would have to do to withdraw –
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-40108659
New thread.
ides of march @ #1100 Wednesday, May 31, 2017 at 9:01 pm
That is an impressive amount of money to raise in one week. I’ll be chucking in as well. So pleased that there is an opportunity for us ordinary folk to help to remove this cretin from our body politic.