Newspoll breaks out of its 53-47 straitjacket to record a 54-46 lead for Labor, from primary vote of Coalition 35% (down one), Labor 38% (up two), Greens 9% (down two) and One Nation 9% (up one). Leadership ratings also record substantial change for the first time a while, with Malcolm Turnbull down three on approval to 35% and up five on disapproval to 55%, and Bill Shorten down two to 34% and up three to 54%. Malcolm Turnbull leads 43-33 as preferred prime minister, down from 46-31 last time. The poll was conducted from a sample of 1675 from Thursday to Sunday. The Australian’s paywalled report here.
The steering failed on the USS John McCain?
LOLZ.
alias @ #550 Monday, August 21st, 2017 – 5:33 pm
Just like Rex does.
Shorten was just on the 5 o’clock news saying pretty much what the constitutional law expert was saying on The World Today, WTE of while he thought proroguing parliament was perhaps unnecessary, that the Ministers should stand aside from cabinet and all contentious legislation be postponed. He also made reference to the ‘distraction’ of his own citizenship status, saying he renounced back in 2006.
FFS. It’s not what the Libs want Shorten to do. It’s what the public wants.
This citizenship query is very out there in the public domain. It’s not a time to play smarty-pants. Sort of reminiscent of Abbott’s bullshit.
If there’s a question, answer it. With as much as you’ve got.
Because if Shorten doesn’t, it just looks like he’s waiting for some sort of verification.
If it’s all in order, just release it. Be done with it, and move on.
It just comes across as hubris. Just waiting for a fall.
Alt-Shorten….what an insidious depiction. Posts like that give bludging a bad name
Boerwar @ #532 Monday, August 21st, 2017 – 5:20 pm
Yes, my occasional reminders about the idiotic ‘Informal Party’ are a severe embarrassment.
lizzie @ #548 Monday, August 21st, 2017 – 5:31 pm
That’s a bit of a furphy.
Have spoken with numerous cane toads this past fortnight.
A consistent feature has been grumpiness about climate things… from disappearing beaches, todead coral, to flooding during king tides to absent wet seasons…
[Player One
Trog Sorrenson @ #541 Monday, August 21st, 2017 – 5:26 pm
Interesting article describibg the game changing financial structure behind the Aurora solar thermal project in SA.
Gas and coal can’t compete with this.
http://reneweconomy.com.au/why-solar-towers-and-storage-plants-will-reshape-energy-markets-73278/
So why are the subsidies necessary then?]
But P1 it’s from Renew Economy.
Since when have you believed anything that comes from there?
kezza2
Why do you think the Labor members are not releasing the relevant documentation?
Thanks BW, I’ve been offline for three months travelling in the outback. Come back to Poll Bludger to see that some things have changed (the software) and some things have stayed the same (people still reacting to Bemused’s taunts).
Memo to self: in order to maintain personal happiness leave the last posts, like hanging chads, to RD and bemused.
If the question of Bill’s citizenship is so interesting to the general public, I’m sure that it will come up on QT tonight.
P1
The subsidy is marginal -in effect a cheap loan for about 15-20% of construction cost. Subsidies are helpful because pollution from gas and coal fired plants is not taxed, despite the massive environmental damage they cause.
Society has not evolved to the point where investnents are made purely to protect the planet.
Barney in Go Dau @ #559 Monday, August 21st, 2017 – 5:39 pm
Excellent point. Sometimes I wonder if Trog even reads the articles before he posts them.
Here is a technical question: Suppose an MP is elected at one election but is not eligible on account of dual citizenship. He/she renounces during the period before the next election, and is duly re-elected at the next election. Does he/she have any problems?
Trog, thanks for forwarding the article on SA solar plant. Good place for it too, lots of sunlight and the poles and wires are leftover from retiring the old plant.
My prediction is the LNP will renege on honouring their commitment to help finance it. The money would be better spent on useless royal commissions, postal plebiscites, grants to Foxtel and building a railway to the middle of QLD for private enterprise to use.
monica @ #562 Monday, August 21st, 2017 – 5:40 pm
What do you mean?
I meant Labor MPs, not members.
And there have been at least three Labor MPs, that I’m aware of, whose citizenship has been queried, and they have stated the steps they took to renounce another citizenship, when they took the steps, and when they were advised they had successfully done so.
I stupidly said they ‘slapped these documents on the table.’ I should have said they repudiated the allegations of dual-citizenship, without slapping the documents on the table, but rather providing the facts.
Why can’t Bill Shorten do the same? Instead of dragging this out, like he has something to hide.
PeeBee @ #561 Monday, August 21st, 2017 – 5:41 pm
Pull your head in you twerp.
You are doing exactly what you accuse me of.
kezza
Shorten has done exactly what the rest of those Labor MPs have done.
[Player One
Barney in Go Dau @ #559 Monday, August 21st, 2017 – 5:39 pm
But P1 it’s from Renew Economy.
Since when have you believed anything that comes from there?
Excellent point. Sometimes I wonder if Trog even reads the articles before he posts them.]
I’m sure Trog’s behaviour is most ethical as opposed to your flippant dismissal.
PeeBee
I don’t think it would be politically wise for the govt to renege on the loan to Aurora.
Trog Sorrenson @ #564 Monday, August 21st, 2017 – 5:45 pm
Not that subsidy, although that just makes the whole thing worse. I meant the implicit and ongoing subsidy of guaranteeing the purchasing of expensive peak power from this plant, while you buy your bulk cheap power elsewhere. Other peakers don’t get such a guarantee.
It certainly puts paid to your “renewables are already cheaper” mantra … again.
zoomster @ #572 Monday, August 21st, 2017 – 5:51 pm
Has he?
When?
https://mobile.twitter.com/FinancialReview/status/899537808154542081
Just arrive home to David Rowe latest
zoomster
Since there has been a query about Irish citizenship, he should clear it up. Simple, pimple.
Barney in Go Dau @ #571 Monday, August 21st, 2017 – 5:51 pm
I read the articles Trog posts. They are certainly not ethical. They are often nonsense, pure and simple.
[alias
Here is a technical question: Suppose an MP is elected at one election but is not eligible on account of dual citizenship. He/she renounces during the period before the next election, and is duly elected at the next election. Does he/she have any problems?]
No.
Exhibit 1: EricA betz
The HC can only look at eligibility relating to the last election.
kezza
Yes, but you keep saying he should do what the other Labor MPs have done, and he has.
kezza2 @ #554 Monday, August 21st, 2017 – 5:36 pm
Yes, let all of them answer it. The Greens proposed an audit, so let’s just do that. Having a double-standard of public accountability that only applies to Shorten is silly. They all need to prove standing, or none of them do.
Though I question how “as much as you’ve got” can be anything more than “nothing at all” in cases where a person was never a dual-citizen to begin with. It’s pretty hard to prove a negative using evidence. The other side should have to produce positive evidence of dual-citizenship, not the other way around.
kezza2
Sorry, of course, Labor MPs. Yes, I saw that about the 3 Labor MPs stating what steps they took and so on, though they didn’t release the actual documentation.
I think there are others, including Shorten, who haven’t done so. I’m asking why you think they haven’t done so.
I’m suspecting something like what Boerwar speculated, that if they do release documentation, a ‘birther’ like response of questioning the the authenticity of the documents would follow.
P1
It’s also a strategy to get power prices down, as the reserve capacity in the molten salt can help keep yoyr mates the gas peakers from ripping us off at peak time.
What has the Liberal dirt unit been doing for the last couple of weeks?
Shorten’s English father is the very first sentence under “Early life” in his Wikipedia entry.
I fully expect Bill Shorten has indeed renounced, but it’s politically illogical to leave doubt in voters minds. Truly bizarre tactics.
mari @ #577 Monday, August 21st, 2017 – 5:53 pm
I don’t agree. Turnbull should have his shoulder to wheel, at least.
Rowe makes it look like getting rid of Abbott is a walk in the park. Some hope.
zoomster @ #581 Monday, August 21st, 2017 – 5:55 pm
Oh, well, then, zoomster, I musta missed it.
Do tell.
Trog Sorrenson @ #582 Monday, August 21st, 2017 – 5:58 pm
Which of course explains why SA is also building more gas peakers.
monica @ #583 Monday, August 21st, 2017 – 5:57 pm
Just like we did with Abbott?
In all honesty, I believe Shorten and all Labor MPs/Senators should put out their renounciation documents. Two reasons
1) Put up to shut up the “birthers”
2) Show up weakness of other parties in renouncing dual citizenships.
I believe that Bill S’s mother Ann was the granddaughter of an Irishman, so that’s pretty removed from Bill.
kezza2
I don’t think I’ve seen actual documentation from Abbott, so haven’t joined in any doubting of same, since I have no way of knowing one way or the other.
markjs
Bill Shorten has absolutely no need to present his citizenship documentation for public scrutiny..
..if anyone has any evidence he is a dual citizen, then put up or shut up!! Bill has been publicly vilified enough already for no more than being a very effective union leader & politician..
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Labor, and especially Bill Shorten, have been very careful not to play the game of spotting potential dual citizens and demanding they show their documentation. I suspect it is specifically because it is hoping that the Coalition make another error of judgement and refer Labor people to the High Court on suspicion only.
Whatever the reason, the bottom line is that is for others to show Bill Shorten, and anyone else under suspicion, has dual citizenship not for them to have to prove they are not.
The processes that Zoomster has previously described here should have killed off any speculation about Labor MPs here.
Of course unless you might want to dispute what Zoomster said, but I don’t recall anyone doing so.
Even if something had not been picked up by the process, the very fact of having gone through it may well constitute ‘reasonable steps’.
Why are people still on this treadmill?
Ides of March
In all honesty, I believe Shorten and all Labor MPs/Senators should put out their renounciation documents. Two reasons
1) Put up to shut up the “birthers”
2) Show up weakness of other parties in renouncing dual citizenships.
_____________________________________
I’d like to see first what the High Court says is the precise law as applied to the cases already before it. Of course, Labor’s point is that Government MPs and Senators who are not entitled to be there are more concerning because it was their votes that passed government legislation.
Very carefully thought through stuff from Labor and Shorten, I reckon.
It’s in Labor’s interests to spin out the dual citizenship issue as long as possible.
That’s why he’s destined to be the next Prime Minister of Australia and you’re not, Rex.
Ever heard of the term “Come in spinner”?
Even Turnbull hasn’t fallen for that one. If Turnbull hauls Shorten before the HC and it turns out everything is hunky-dory, it’ll be a repeat of Utegate for Malcolm: an abuse of power that is nasty, sneaky and wrong.
Bemused
Why are people still on this treadmill?
Here, its because it is an ongoing political discussion. In hothouse (but effing cold otherwise) Canberra it is because the Coalition are desperate for a distraction and the press gallery circle jerk still feel they owe it to the government to find some ‘balance’ by finding some Labor person with a dual citizenship.
monica @ #592 Monday, August 21st, 2017 – 6:06 pm
Monica
That’s exactly my point. Bill should release the stuff, so that we do know, one way or the other.
Every time someone queried Abbott’s eligibility, FOI said wtte those docs were locked up in the parliamentary archives and couldn’t release the info. Which did nothing to satisfy anyone.
Even when a so-called doc was released recently, no one believed it. Because he didn’t do it at the time.
I don’t think it would be skin of Bill’s nose to release the info. That’s all.
And if he’s waiting to give Turnbull a bloody nose, after Turnbull refers him to the High Court, then why bother? Turnbull’s already on the nose.
TPOF @ #596 Monday, August 21st, 2017 – 6:13 pm
Well they sure have got a lot of people on PB chasing their tail.
ajm
Some grudging respect?
Samantha Maiden @samanthamaiden
·
5h
Glad @billshortenmp is not joining the parade of muppets demanding constitutional reform because the Greens & Nats can’t read a form
_________________________________________
Indeed. And he didn’t get all on his high horse to tell them for getting it wrong, although he would have been on much safer ground that the Coalition muppets (come in Baaaaarnyard) who did see political advantage in doing so.
On the other hand, if Bill Shorten is indeed a dual citizen, a quick and clean transition to a new leader would be best for the ALP.