The Guardian reports the Coalition has recovered a point in the latest fortnight rolling average from Essential Research, which returns to 53-47 in favour of Labor after two weeks at 54-46. After accounting for an apparent transpositional error in the report, I believe the primary votes are Coalition 38% (up two), Labor 37% (down one), Greens 10% (steady), One Nation 7% (steady) and Nick Xenophon Team 4% (up one). The poll also finds that 56% approve of the new national security ministry, with 18% disapproving; 45% expect it will strengthen national security, 28% think it will make little difference and 8% think it will weaken it; and 45% registering concern that Peter Dutton will have control over all security services, with 35% not concerned. The report provides an incomplete account of questions on an emissions intensity scheme taxing pollution above a certain level (54% are in favour) and the National Broadband Network (48% of the 40% who have it say it beats their previous service, but only 19% say it is much better, and 51% say it’s about the same or worse). Full results should be with us later today.
In other news, if you’re a Crikey subscriber you’ll find that I’ve had a lot to say about the Greens recently, in a report on the succession to Scott Ludlam’s Western Australian seat that may be showing its age; an account of the deficiencies of Section 44 (see also Laurie Oakes); and a look askance at conservative suggestions that the party is, uh, “cooked”.
UPDATE: Full report here. We also have bonus Newspoll questions on Tony Abbott, which find 58% favouring Malcolm Turnbull on “best values and leadership credentials” against 23% for Abbott, and pose a question on his future in politics that unusually doesn’t feature an option for him to leave it.
NOTE ON NEW COMMENTS ARCHITECTURE: Regular visitors will shortly notice that the design of the comments section has been overhauled. This has mostly been done for site performance reasons, to which it has made an immediate and massive difference. As you can see, there are lots of new features that people have long asked for. If we can get used to reverse chronological comments, I think it will prove to be a great outcome. A tip for acclimatising yourself here: you do not need to refresh the page to see new comments, and you will cause yourself an annoyance if you try. You will see, at the top of the comments thread, a green “x new comments” button when new comments appear – all you need to do is press this and they will slot into view. Also, for emoji that work, see here.
One way or another though, this is how it will be for the next few days, after which the situation may be reviewed.
It also seems that live updates have been disabled. I am having to refresh the entire page
Okay I just installed the plug-in and tested it, and it wouldn’t allow me to see recent comments, only those from around 2 hours ago. Suffice to say I have uninstalled it.
Zeh
Where are the new extensions of which you speak?
[AR’s new extension sorts out the quotation features]
To mark the passing of John Clarke, his keynote address on Haneef which is pertinent to discussion about super ministries
http://www.ombudsman.gov.au/news-and-media/other-resources/good-better-best/keynote-address
Zeh
A well designed format would mean no add ons required. I like your suggestions for William.
guytaur @ #1240 Wednesday, July 26th, 2017 – 11:03 am
I think you mean:
Live updates are working for me.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/sperm-count-west-men-health-drop-60-per-cent-years-modern-life-a7859491.html
Pesticides, hormone-disrupting chemicals, diet, stress, smoking and obesity have all been suggested as possible reasons behind the dramatic declines but experts say more research is urgently needed…“And, as the present study indicates, this is likely to get worse rather than better as we move forwards in time,” he warned. He added that this effect, when combined with the trend for women to have a baby in their thirties, created a “double whammy for couple fertility in modern Western societies”.
https://media3.giphy.com/media/7EgLCy2NSQ9nG/200.webp#96-grid1
A better link for the Senator Roberts citizenship thing
https://www.buzzfeed.com/markdistefano/here-are-the-online-databases-suggesting-a-one-nation?utm_term=.mdGmq3qpJ#.cqzJkVkda
No, actually it seems that should have been:
Democrats Are Looking For Ways To Block Senate Recess So Trump Can’t Replace Jeff Sessions
Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL) said that Democrats are looking at ways to prevent the Senate from going into full August recess to prevent Trump from replacing Jeff Sessions and stopping the Russia investigation
Everybody knows why Trump wants Sessions gone, and Democrats aren’t going to allow the President to close down the Russia investigation by allowing the Senate to leave town. It is not happening, so Trump better think of another plan.
Democrats are going to all they can to keep the Senate in session and teach Trump that no person is above the law.
http://www.politicususa.com/2017/07/25/democrats-ways-block-senate-recess-trump-replace-jeff-sessions.html
Well, that was a https gif and it didn’t upload properly. What was the little bit of code I could add on the end again?
Mr Denmore @MrDenmore · 1h1 hour ago
Contrast the Greens’ graceful no-excuses exit in the dual-citizenship mess & the graceless dog-ate-my-homework stance of the Nasty Party
lizzie
Zeh
Where are the new extensions of which you speak?
[AR’s new extension sorts out the quotation features]
I think Zeh is speaking of Williams options.
‘They’re fighting over who loves me the most’: Trump downplays White House turmoil in latest interview
Donald Trump on Tuesday characterized the White House turmoil that’s come to define his young presidency as “White House stuff, where they’re fighting over who loves me the most.”
Trump made the comment in an interview with the Wall Street Journal, where he continued to stoke concerns over the status of special counsel Robert Mueller.
“I have no comment yet, because it’s too early,” Trump said of Mueller’s staying power as special counsel. “But we’ll see. We’re going to see.”
http://www.rawstory.com/2017/07/theyre-fighting-over-who-loves-me-the-most-trump-downplays-white-house-turmoil-in-latest-interview/
We are really wreaking havoc on the environment and every population within it, including the human population.
McCain Makes Dramatic Return To The Capitol, Blasts Fellow Senators For “Getting Nothing Done”
“We are the servants of a great nation,” McCain said after returning to the Senate on Tuesday to vote to open debate on a Republican health care bill.
Though McCain voted to allow debate on the health care bill, he said during his comments that he would not ultimately vote to pass the “bill as it is today.”
https://www.buzzfeed.com/jimdalrympleii/mccain-makes-dramatic-return-to-the-capitol-blasts-fellow?utm_term=.hxQ11YKla#.fs7LL5xEp
briefly
Into self-destruct mode and can’t see it (or acknowledge it).
I come back for lil bit and find out that PB has changed?
Not a fan of it, too complex, and with the voting nonsense, I seen this before, ppl will down vote other people’s votes and eventually the voting down others will become rule where they will get banned for too many bad posts.
Also:
https://itwire.com/telecoms-and-nbn/79137-full-fibre-nbn-will-cost-about-as-much-as-fttdp-experts.html
Labor sucks for not pushing more FTTP:
“”NBN Co is still quoting a cost of $4400 for FttP – the same cost they were quoting back in 2013, but if they just made the decision to use FttP and put some effort into getting the costs down, as Chorus in New Zealand has shown they can do with their 44% cost reduction over a few years, the cost of FttP would be very similar to FttDP. And that is even before you have to start adding in the eventual upgrade costs of FttDP and its impacts on long-term operating costs.”
http://www.skynews.com.au/video/program/program_featured/2017/07/19/nbn–as-big-an-issue-as-power-prices-.html
Strike what i said about live update. Disabling them for guests unfortunately also hides the load more button, which means they would then just spam refresh as they did in the old system…
It would be nice if there was an automatic load option for subscribers, then the load more button for guests.
If they currently have live updates enabled at all, they must be set to update 10 minutely. Which is too long, and again, encourages people to hit the old F5 key, and thus, stress the server more than it needs to be… (Really their CDN and cache should handle most of that anyways)
The declines in fertility in the industrial economies really mean that within a few decades they will become completely reliant on immigrants. Host communities will be subsumed by the newcomers.
I’ve just recalled that an earlier botched version of the comments section wouldn’t return me to the main page after clicking on a link, so I had to open any link in a new tab. Looks as if it’s back to that procedure.
The terrific thing about the new format is that is does not freely accomodate the incredibly verbose. LGH will be miniaturised. That’s gotta be a good thing for the discourse.
lizzie
briefly
Into self-destruct mode and can’t see it (or acknowledge it).
Yes. We are in trouble.
I don’t think Barnaby is helping Canavan much, but now we may know the reason for the citizenship change?
[The Deputy Prime Minister denied Senator Canavan’s mother applied for Italian citizenship on his behalf at the same time as his father was sentenced to seven years’ jail for fraud.
Bryan Michael Canavan was sentenced to more than seven years’ jail in 2007 for embezzling almost $1.6 million from food giant Nestle Australia.
Canavan and other man, Phillip Michael Gardiner, pleaded guilty to two counts of fraud which took place between January 2001 and May 2004.
“I don’t particularly want to go into the details of that,” Mr Joyce said. “What that can show you is the incredible character of a person such as Matthew Canavan, that he is, you know, in tougher times he has come through as an exemplary character and exemplary person.”]
http://www.theage.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/matt-canavan-citizenship-resignation-barnaby-joyce-defends-exemplary-person-amid-new-questions-20170725-gxis6e.html
https://www.buzzfeed.com/lanesainty/young-voters-postal-plebiscite?utm_term=.tw0WA3AEx#.rb4xXNX3a
Stephen Colbert on Trump. Very funny.
https://www.facebook.com/colbertlateshow/videos/3394010258438/
Still not going well for the GOP from the sounds of it.
NateSilver538: Some surprising votes in both directions. Overall, 9 Republicans opposed. This vote was expected to fail but not a great sign for McConnell. twitter.com/Phil_Mattingly…
Guytaur:
The Senate has voted down the health care bill.
@a r: This is the cause of the url rewrites.
They would’ve had the 2nd option ticked, the 1st is the way to go however.
Fess
Actually its worse than that. The Senate just voted not to even have a debate on the bill
http://www.canberratimes.com.au/national/public-service/justice-michael-kirby-on-success-and-battling-gay-stereotypes-20170725-gxit69.html
I don’t want to click on Oldest Comments and scroll through 20 or more pages to get to the latest comments so I can read bottom up. Why can’t we choose top down or bottom up comment layout?
I like to sit down and lurk, reading back comments and following conversations, as well as picking up news and links. That is much harder with the current style.
Lizzie
You currently have the comment with the most Thumbs Up. 🙂
testy
Puff
As I don’t look back, I had no idea 🙂
I can’t get rid of bloody email notifications of a new comment. Just annoying.
a r @ #1260 Wednesday, July 26th, 2017 – 11:16 am
Gif in a block quote?
Using your updated extension now, there are other issues with pagination combined with live updates, new posts appear (incorrectly) at the top of whatever page you happen to be on.
AP
Yeah thats annoying all right.
albericie: Here’s what I learnt at the Italian Consulate today. Italian Citizenship rules are the same regardless of where you live in the world
https://twitter.com/albericie/status/890031226916020224
Al Pal
It’s happening to me, but intermittently.
Al Pal @ #1287 Wednesday, July 26th, 2017 – 12:19 pm
Click on the unsubscribe button just near the post comment box
Zeh @ #1280 Wednesday, July 26th, 2017 – 11:56 am
From the description it’s not entirely clear what that option does. What does it replace the non-https content with?
Zeh
There is no unsubscribe button.
@lizzie, are you running any scripts or extensions for the chat.
This should be visible if you are receiving emails
I’ve just been trying to find any comments re’ politics.
The blog mechanics are dominating.
Too hard to use on a phone at the moment!
Zeh @ #1288 Wednesday, July 26th, 2017 – 12:22 pm
Interesting, I always live on ‘Page 1’, so haven’t seen that. But the logic is supposed to be that live updates only occur when viewing the first page (w/ ‘Recent Comments First’) or the last page (without ‘Recent Comments First’). On any other page, live updates are supposed to be paused.
joshgnosis: Abbott admits Liberals not bound on same-sex marriage vote twitter.com/TonyAbbottMHR/…
TonyAbbottMHR: Re Matthew Knott article: we’re not bound on the issue but we are honour bound to the electorate on the process for this term of parliament
a r @ #1297 Wednesday, July 26th, 2017 – 12:30 pm
Not a problem with your extension. I’m talking about discuz. Been playing around with it on my own install