New poll this week from Newspoll (better for the Coalition), Essential Research (worse) and YouGov (about the same) add up to no change at all on the BludgerTrack poll aggregate, except that the Coalition is up a seat in Victoria and down one in Western Australia. The leadership ratings from Newspoll cause Malcolm Turnbull to gain a little ground on preferred prime minister, but lose it on net approval. Full details at the bottom.
First though, some news on forthcoming by-elections, which will get dedicated pages and threads soon enough:
• A date is yet to be set for the by-election in the Victorian state seat of Northcote following the death of on August 23. There will presumably be no Liberal candidate, but the Greens are highly competitive in the seat, having fallen 6.0% short of unseating Richardson at the 2014 election. Clare Burns, a political organiser with the Victorian Trades Hall Council and former speech pathologist, has been preselected unopposed as Labor’s candidate. The Greens will hold a preselection ballot today.
• There are now three state by-elections looming in New South Wales, and the date for them has been set at October 14. Cootamundra and Blacktown were already on the cards, following the respective retirements of Nationals MP Katrina Hodgkinson and Labor MP John Robertson, and Murray was added to the list earlier this week after Nationals MP Adrian Piccoli announced his retirement.
And some localised polling snippets:
• There was a rare Northern Territory opinion poll a fortnight ago, conducted by MediaReach for the Northern Territory News and encompassing a sample of 1400. On the primary vote, the poll has Labor on 43%, compared with 42.2% last year; the Country Liberal Party on 38%, recovering from 31.8%; and “others” on 19%. The respondent-allocated preference result is 50-50, compared with 58.5-41.5 to Labor last year, which implies a near-perfect reversal of the 63-37 preference split in favour of Labor last year.
• (UPDATE: I had a report here on Tony Windsor’s prospects on New England, but I wasn’t looking closely enough and it was actually from before the last election.)
All this talk of the medicinal side is neglecting its value as a fibre.
victoria @ #27 Saturday, September 9th, 2017 – 8:43 am
victoria, you are too gentle, to your credit. It’s a lot more than a crying shame. It’s wicked. Getting cannabis for medical use is another enormous struggle against the dark forces of conservatism here. There is no downside with this whatever scares and fears they confect. This is about giving comfort to people who suffer. And it is denied. I see it as much the same mind-set as ME (support for which according to today’s news is falling) – no rational downside vs the (surely Christian ethos) of giving comfort to people.
And then there is voluntary assisted dying. And then there is recreational cannabis.
Little wonder we are increasingly regarded as a regressive backwater. Australia has for example crashed out of desirable expat countries, out of the top 10 to 34th iirc. We’re on the nose.
(btw, I met O N-J a few times at the time she was with Matt Latanzi. She was absolutely gorgeous, generous, natural, and as we poked around the kitchen she was more interested in things like my work than talking about her glamorous self. Enough to turn one straight. 😉 )
Lizzie
Not only for pain relief and epilepsy. Brilliant as an anti inflammatory, and Also effectiive to stabilising serious illnesses such as cancer.
Barney in Go
That goes without saying!!
[Player One
…
Having watched Katharine Murphy and other journalists completely fail to do their job for the best part of two decades, a little part of me dies every time a conniving journalist makes a reappearance on the national stage.]
I don’t think you can lump the Guardian in with the All, to their credit they have been pretty consistent on energy/climate policies.
Victoria, considering all the side-effects (often serious) of other medications, you would think medicines that have cannabis as an ingredient could be easily managed by the system. I am not necessarily for open slather on the drug, but just as opioids are illegal yet used in many medicines, why not cannabis?
And as BIGD says, it makes a good alternative to cotton. And possible a fuel.
I have also wondered, if we insist on transporting cattle long distances and slaughtering them, perhaps they should be fed marijuana prior to both. With 4 stomachs that should really send them to nirvana.
The Rise of the Weaponized AI Propaganda Machine
There’s a new automated propaganda machine driving global politics. How it works and what it will mean for the future of democracy.
Nix likes to boast that Analytica’s personality model has allowed it to create a personality profile for every adult in the U.S. — 220 million of them, each with up to 5,000 data points. And those profiles are being continually updated and improved the more data you spew out online.
Albright also believes that your Facebook and Twitter posts are being collected and integrated back into Cambridge Analytica’s personality profiles. “Twitter and also Facebook are being used to collect a lot of responsive data because people are impassioned, they reply, they retweet, but they also include basically their entire argument and their entire background on this topic,” Albright explains.
https://toinformistoinfluence.com/2017/02/17/the-rise-of-the-weaponized-ai-propaganda-machine/
‘The Coalition’s political message is not cutting through. He elaborated: “Our politics is not quite right. Shorten is beating us at that. Hanson is beating us at that.’
Ouch. It must hurt to admit that Hanson – a bear of little brain and less judgement, with slim resources behind her – is beating you at your own game.
How inept can you be? And, if Hanson is beating you at politics, what chance is there you can turn things around?
‘The medium here is the government itself; its message is of a fractious show barely holding together, so much so that Turnbull increasingly is seen to be governing for his party rather than the nation. A fragile one-seat majority leaves him little option, or at the least exposes his inability to exercise strong, credible leadership. ‘
I’d remove a few of the qualifiers here – ‘increasingly is seen’ is unnecessary. Turnbull has been governing this way from Day One. He governed this way last time he was in charge of the Liberal party. The fragile majority in the parliament is irrelevant.
Interestingly, I never see in the media a ‘compare and contrast’ between Gillard’s management of a minority government and Turnbull’s inability to manage a majority one.
‘Testing his courage are the threats to this wafer-thin majority should Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce or fellow lower-house National David Gillespie be found to be in breach of different subsections of section 44 of the constitution.’
Clunky sentence, but it demonstrates the CPG’s determination to give Turnbull the benefit of the doubt. This would only be relevant if Turnbull had been governing well before these issues arose. He wasn’t, so they don’t in any way explain his problems, and resolving them won’t help, either.
‘The stakes are very high here but Turnbull’s weak political position has forced him to gamble on the High Court..’
No, actually. If Turnbull had stood Joyce et al aside, Labor would have provided pairs. If anyone in the Senate is found to be ineligible, they will be quietly replaced (just as the One Nation Senator was, with barely a ripple). If Joyce is, there will be a by election, which the Coalition should win (and would win, had matters been handled properly).
It is far more likely that Barnaby has simply dug his heels in and refused to go, and we’re now seeing fig leaves being flourished to hide this. But I haven’t seen that hypothesis raised by anyone in the media, let alone tested.
A strong leader would have dealt with this issue firmly and quietly – and then it wouldn’t have been one.
‘One says Joyce’s unwillingness to forgo his ministerial salary is being put ahead of the government’s best interests.’
Ah – there we go. But surely such an accusation deserves more than one parting sentence? If the Deputy Leader of the government is behaving like a sulky teenager, that is hugely in the national interest.
‘How else can you explain the operator’s findings that blackouts and price spikes will hit this summer unless action is taken?’
Well, I would like to see the figures compared to past summers. I can certainly remember when Gillard was in power a local Fed MP whinging about the impact of rolling blackouts in Victoria. Without comparisons, one could speculate (a good media would actually tell us) whether the predicted blackouts are normal in the scheme of things or of unprecedented proportions.
‘The Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO) recommended establishing a strategic reserve with a $50 million price tag, which would utilise mothballed gas and diesel generators to minimise the risk.’
Which raises the question about why the government is focussing on a more expensive option, which won’t have any effect at all on either blackouts or prices this summer. But crickets from the media.
‘There is no doubt this shortfall has a lot to do with former prime minister Tony Abbott’s war on renewables, which saw projects cancelled and investments diverted overseas. Such projects would have by now been generating power. This, and the scrapping of the so-called carbon tax – always a misnomer, dishonestly applied by Abbott, as his chief of staff Peta Credlin has famously admitted – left the market confused and unwilling to seek funding for new power generation. Such funding from banks would have put no premium on new coal-fired projects in any case.’
Wonderful how journos can rabbit on about the lack of bipartisanship leading to our present problems without explicitly saying it was all on one side.
‘The AEMO made no such recommendation and its report shows it is not necessary to keep Liddell going.’
Again, great to see the point made, but this deserves a whole story – on the front page – of its own, not one passing sentence.
https://www.thesaturdaypaper.com.au/opinion/topic/2017/09/09/coalition-tensions-fuel-energy-debate/15048792005174
I’ve just found this link.
http://www.cannabiscure.info/cannabis-treatment/
kezza
I had a 48 hour labour followed by an emergency Caesar. A friend of mine had a vasectomy a few months later and told me I didn’t know how painful it was because I hadn’t had a ‘real’ childbirth.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/right-turn/wp/2017/09/08/why-donald-trump-jr-is-in-robert-muellers-cross-hairs/?hpid=hp_no-name_opinion-card-d%3Ahomepage%2Fstory&utm_term=.18c6d0049861
**Well, folks, no one created this particular problem, apart from the Coalition under prime minister Abbott. The current imbalance in the energy system is the sum of Abbott’s decisions.**
Thanks to whoever posted the Katherine Murphy story.
Important that she blames the “Coalition under… Abbott”. Every single MP of that party is to be blamed… along with their menagerie of toadies in the media.
Simon Katich @ #45 Saturday, September 9th, 2017 – 9:10 am
It’s a pity smoking is so damaging. The inhalational route (anaesthesia a classic example, and inhalation in the labour ward the women here will have some experience with probably) has many advantages – rapid onset and therefore it is much easier to titrate dosage – a little bit, and a little bit more. Orally, things are harder to control. You ingest, wait for the slow onset time to kick in, and then realise you’ve had too much, or not enough, and revisit the slow process.
Now I realise it’s Saturday morning, but the low end of town is a very good way of giving drugs. The French are particularly enamoured with it. Amongst other things.
zoomster @ #60 Saturday, September 9th, 2017 – 9:34 am
Simon Katich @ #56 Saturday, September 9th, 2017 – 9:24 am
The munchies in a cattle truck. There’s a Larson cartoon there somewhere.
Itzadream
You are correct. It is wicked!! My hope that there will be an awakening against the dark forces.
I know of others, who have also met with OJN, and they say the same as you.
ItzaDream @ #66 Saturday, September 9th, 2017 – 9:39 am
apologies zoomster, conflated posts
Except what has Turnbull done to fix things?
zoomster @ #60 Saturday, September 9th, 2017 – 9:34 am
There is no equivalence. I hope you had good care up to and including a working epidural.
Renal colic (kidney stones), which I’ve had, is said to be the closet mere males get to the experience. Except you don’t get to name the stones.
zoomster @ #60 Saturday, September 9th, 2017 – 9:34 am
The pain of childbirth or the vasectomy?
And, I don’t how you did 48 hours; and then a caesar! At least when one gives birth, the pain stops immediately – apart from any stitches, of course, but that’s a piece of cake in comparison. But you then had to put up with the aftermath of surgery and the pain associated. More power to your elbow.
The Coalition are about power for powers sake. Sure, there are benefits to it. Nice cushy ones. For them it is pure competition where to spoils are just the victory; devoid of purpose and principles.
They were obviously a pretty randy lot of lads over on Fox
Fox News’ Decline Continues As The Network Drops Accused Sexual Harasser Eric Bolling
Eric Bolling became the latest in a growing line of male employees to be dumped by Fox News after he was accused and investigated for sexual harassment.
The reality is that Fox News has seen their talent roster gutted by the sexual harassment scandal. The departure of Roger Ailes led to Greta Van Susteren leaving. The sexual harassment scandal sent Megyn Kelly to NBC, and eventually caught the big fish in sending Bill O’Reilly into retirement. Bolling always had ambitions of being next Bill O’Reilly, so at least in one way, he got his wish.
The election of the wildly unpopular Trump led to a surge of viewers moving to MSNBC, specifically, The Rachel Maddow Show, and the Fox News sexual harassment scandal depleted the network of its top talent, and the replacements have been average at best.
Fox News is on the decline, and the network may never recover from the ongoing sexual harassment scandal that continues to grow.
http://www.politicususa.com/2017/09/08/fox-news-decline-continues-network-drops-accused-sexual-harasser-eric-bolling.html
BIGD
More importantly it is neglecting its value as a recreational drug.
phRD
It’s a bit more than that. He doesn’t understand the job and is not learning.
His latest idea that his likeness should be on coins indicates he thinks he’s a monarch or emperor rather than the president of a republic.
I don’t think this sort of thing coming from him is a ‘brain fart’.
It’s what he believes his role is. He sees the Congress as an annoying bit of window dressing to his won power.
[Jolyon Wagg
BIGD
All this talk of the medicinal side is neglecting its value as a fibre.
More importantly it is neglecting its value as a recreational drug.]
It’s a long time since I placed any value of its use in that way. 🙂
SK / Itza
A friend tells me that there are some good banana cake recipes around.
kezza
A month or so after the birth, a woman came up to me in the street to do the baby-admiring thing.
After about five minutes of cooing, she said, “You’re lucky he’s so small, you’re so little yourself.”
“He was eight pounds,” I said, looking down at him.
I heard a little gasp, and when I looked up, the woman had vanished.
Obviously she had literally run away to avoid hearing any gruesome details!!
zoom – A vasectomy!
What planet was this ‘person’ from?
Howard is calling for protection for parents, religion and free speech when SSM is legislated.
I can’t access the article in the Oz, but what on earth is his problem?
CTar1
phRD
“‘Sen. Franken’s message is clear. If Donald Trump is unwilling to do the work, he doesn’t deserve to be president.’”
It’s a bit more than that. He doesn’t understand the job and is not learning.
******************************************
I think the earlier piece I posted by GOP strategist Rick Wilson rips the whole Trump persona apart :
Trump isn’t a good president. He isn’t a smart man. He isn’t a conservative by any stretch of the imagination. Praising the Umber Emperor’s fabulously tailored suit when he’s capered across the American political stage like a jiggling column of pasty flab always took a lot of effort for both these men, but after Wednesday, it may be more than they can muster.
Betrayal isn’t just a part of Trump’s behavior; it’s wired into his DNA. Donald Trump will always lie. Always. He will lie and betray when he thinks it makes him look good. He will lie and betray when he knows it will make him look bad. His default setting is to lie and betray, and if this week hasn’t finally taught Republicans and conservatives that lesson, it’s hard to see what will.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/donald-trump-betrays-everyone-somehow-republicans-still-seem-surprised?source=twitter&via=desktop
CTar1
I think the problem is controlling the dose in choccy biks.
Cows
**Except what has Turnbull done to fix things?**
Thats my point. I blame them all. Individually and collectively. It doesnt matter who the muppet is leading them.
But they are backing themselves into a corner and it is becoming harder for them to spin this. The realisation is slowly dawning on the public and (more slowly) the MSM that the Coalition are incapable, in any guise or with any leader, of facing up to climate change and dealing with the transition away from fossil fuels and the myriad of problems and opportunities that brings.
lizzie:
Howard is playing culture war games.
Currently eating Black Forest Tiramisu for breakfast, recipe courtesy of jenauthor (I think) several years ago and now our standard celebration ‘cake’.
lizzie
I can understand the dosage problem bit. The better it tastes.
My experience limited to two puffs decades ago … didn’t like the taste.
Childbirth seemed not so bad to me. Learning to breastfeed on the other hand appeared to be rather unpleasant.
Anyway, childbirth only lasts for short time, having to listen to how painful it was lasts a lifetime.
[lizzie
Howard is calling for protection for parents, religion and free speech when SSM is legislated.
I can’t access the article in the Oz, but what on earth is his problem?]
Howard will be calling for the establishment of a new State/Territory.
It would be called Menziesland and its laws would be those in place at the the start of the 1950s.
It would provide a safe environment for those fragile things that can’t deal with the fact that the world and societies change over time.
Their would be no need for a Parliament as their Constitution would ban new and changes to laws.
I found breastfeeding a breeze, but finding breastfeeding a breeze is socially isolating. I had nothing to talk about at new mothers’ meetings and one of my friends basically stopped talking to me.
Trump having a non-announced meeting with the new Russian Ambassador is not really that suspicious.
As DTT says there is a long history of these sort of meetings.
Diplomacy is made of such things. There must be many messages and questions that a newly arrived Russian Ambassador, who without doubt would have been tasked by Putin directly, to convey and seek Trumps’ opinion on.
Not an easy job to try to discern if anything that Trump says is good for the length of the meeting or an opinion strongly held.
[Simon Katich
Childbirth seemed not so bad to me. Learning to breastfeed on the other hand appeared to be rather unpleasant.
Anyway, childbirth only lasts for short time, having to listen to how painful it was lasts a lifetime.]
Child birth can be painful for men, too.
A mate knowing that labour was goes going to be induced later that day went into work early so he could be at the birth.
Due to the early start he didn’t eat all day and in the delivery room it all got a bit much and he collapsed head first into some monitoring equipment.
He woke, with a very sore head, in a bed next to his wife who was nursing their new child having missed the whole thing.
🙂
The issues involved in the mechanics of bringing children in the world is nothing compared to the stress and trauma of raising them so that they turn out as reasonable members of society and not murderers or leaders of the Liberal Party.
Simon Katich @ #62 Saturday, September 9th, 2017 – 9:34 am
Murphy would never blame Turnbull – she is one of his coterie of admirers. Here is what she wrote about his political ascendency …
Makes you ill just reading it, doesn’t it?
[Player One
…
Murphy would never blame Turnbull – she is one of his coterie of admirers. Here is what she wrote about his political ascendency …
Turnbull was born ready to lead, but people have to consent to being led. … Turnbull has the opportunity to craft a different conversation. To do that he will have to maintain the courage of his independence, to be both of the system and, somehow, above it. He will have to be the man prepared to lose the leadership of the party over a principle, but a wiser man—one with the patience to build coalitions to get things done.
Does he have the patience? I don’t know, quite possibly not. Does he have the intelligence? Yes, absolutely, with one caveat. The problem with being the smartest guy in the room is your company quickly confounds and disappoints.
Makes you ill just reading it, doesn’t it?]
Sounds like a pretty good appraisal of the situation that confronted him.
And based on that you’d have to say he has failed.
Sending military trainers to the Southern Philippines – It reeks of the Australian Army Training Team Vietnam (AATTV) and the inevitable quagmire that lead to.
Having brushed with what appears to be cannabis-triggered schizophrenia, family smash ups, life time zombie smokers, and suicides, I am inclined to leave it well alone.
I can understand why some folk believe the trade offs are acceptable in some circumstance but putting your feet in the fire to keep them warm may sometimes be an unacceptable trade-off.
The nuclearisation of North Korea and survival in a nuclear world.
http://www.smh.com.au/world/how-does-the-world-deal-with-a-new-nuclear-power-20170908-gydhs8.html
Boerwar
I assume the medical cannabis oil is not the same as the full weed for smoking.
And of course, if you potentially only have months to live, the effects of long term use are irrelevant.
CTar1
Yep. Absolutely idiotic.
The Philippines Civil War many, many, decades long, beckons.
160,000 dead, and counting.
It is Christian Corrupt Dictatorial Luzon Tagalogs v Downtrodden Muslim Mindanao.
They don’t even speak the same languages.
ISIS simply climbed aboard. Easy as.
Barney in Go Dau @ #94 Saturday, September 9th, 2017 – 10:23 am
Of course Turnbull has failed. Comprehensively. But you’d never guess that reading Murphy’s article. Instead we get “Poor Malcolm … boo hoo … it’s all Tony’ fault … boo hoo … ”
You’d never realize that Turnbull has now been PM longer than Abbott was but has achieved much less, would you?