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.)
Itza
Did you see that the amateur anaesthetist in the fatal breast surgery case injected 1.5 GRAMS of tramadol.
1. I suspect the victim died on the end of the needle
2. Did the clown confuse grams and milligrams
3. Where does an unregistered person get so much of the stuff?
lizzie
I don’t knows the ins and outs of oil v weed. I agree with your point about it being a rather lovely basis for an exit strategy.
The die high club.
OC
The victim had cardiac arrest on the spot, was revived and stabilized, and then died in hospital not all that long later.
The victim, BTW, was the amateur’s boss of the clinic which I think is splendid: a self-regulating quack shop.
Sometimes what comes round goes round.
Boerwar
That wasn’t quite the point I made. It was the relief of pain towards the end.
Bw
The latest is that the assistant is also up for manslaughter.
Chinese on a student visa who may or may not have recently finished a nursing degree but was unregistered.
The owner/victim/deceased was paying her $17 ph
Boerwar @ #96 Saturday, September 9th, 2017 – 10:28 am
I wonder about this. I have had two family members who would appear to have been classic cases of young men who had their lives ruined by cannabis-triggered schizophrenia. But that view is only plausible to those outside the family. From inside the family, we realized (in hindsight) that both of them had the symptoms of schizophrenia (and other problems) well before the cannabis use started, and that they were in effect just self-medicating. But of course it is the cannabis that gets the blame.
Barney: “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.”
Great idea – give the buggers a place of their own! But what about the kids who have to grow up there?
Oakeshott Country @ #102 Saturday, September 9th, 2017 – 10:34 am
OC I didn’t see that dosage! I guess it can be bought. When I started out and we used to have to take our own stuff to Private Hospitals (big ones on the Nth Shore for eg) I used to buy from Veterinary supplier. And off we went with a bag of rubber tubes and a bottle of halothane.
I conjectured along the lines of a Xylocaine overdose, either absolute or from an intravascular injection, or some adrenalin issue, or even an intrapleural needling with a pneumothorax.
As Brendon Nelson said on the context of lesser qualified giving ‘minor’ anaesthetics, the only minor anaesthetic is the one you’re not having.
Boerwar @ #97 Saturday, September 9th, 2017 – 10:28 am
Bw, it’s a drug, with indications, contraindications, side effects, a therapeutic range, and individual variations in response. I don’t doubt your experiences, but mention for completeness the risk of conflating causation with concurrence.
Boerwar @ #96 Saturday, September 9th, 2017 – 10:28 am
Yes, the dark side of it which some here trivialise and dismiss.
I have no problem with cannabis or any other pharmaceutical substance being used for medicinal purposes under proper medical supervision.
But too many young people have suffered extremely adverse effects from smoking dope and it should be discouraged.
One of those big North Shore private hospitals has an ancient history of significant anaesthetic events which were still being talked about when I was a boy. Though I wonder if they were urban myths.
1. The surgeon and anaesthetist (both GPs) swapping roles during a thyroidectomy with extreme prejudicial result
2. A dementing anaesthetist wandering off home in the middle of a case
IaD
Agree.
And like all drugs, best left in the cupboard unless absolutely necessary.
OC
I’ve had a little bit of experience with this ‘dirty’ old pain killer recently (useful still in its place).
1.5 grams is way out there – must have been misunderstanding the measure.
Tramadol IV comes as 100mg in 2ml. By the time you are drawing up your fifteenth vial, you’d think the penny would drop that something was badly wrong.
Interesting back story to Rohingga ‘ethnic cleansing’ currently in media
http://www.globalresearch.ca/the-rohingya-of-myanmar-pawns-in-an-anglo-chinese-proxy-war-fought-by-saudi-jihadists/5607605
O Pollbludger lord master and moderator, I notice that BludgerTrack still allocates eleven seats to SA, thirty-seven to Victoria and four to the territories. Are you able to change these amounts before the election and/or redistribution? or is does that require information you do not yet have?
sprocket_ @ #115 Saturday, September 9th, 2017 – 11:23 am
Rohingya crisis: Suu Kyi says ‘fake news helping terrorists’
. . . Is it ‘fake news’?
There has certainly been a large amount of “fake news” surrounding recent events.
By 5 September there had been 1.2 million tweets talking about the crisis since refugees began flooding over the border, and many contain pictures purportedly showing a glimpse of the violence which has engulfed the region.
What sparked latest violence in Rakhine?
Who will help Myanmar’s Rohingya?
Fake photos inflame tension
The problem is, according to the BBC’s south-east Asia correspondent Jonathan Head, “much of it is wrong”. A closer look reveals many – but not all – of the pictures come from other crises around the world, with one tweeted by Turkey’s Deputy Prime Minister Mehmet Simsek dating back to the Rwandan genocide in 1994. . . .
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-41170570
Who to believe?
Chinese ‘chuckle at Trump for messing up picture-perfect America’: State media
•State-run Chinese newspaper chides Trump for ending program that gives children of illegal immigrants a path to stay in the country
President Donald Trump received a cheeky editorial from China’s state-run press over his decision to rescind the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals order — the so-called “Dreamers” program.
In the eyes of some Chinese, Trump has made a big mess in America, and the decision to kill the program is just further evidence that the American Dream is quickly becoming the American Pipe Dream,” the Communist Party’s official newspaper said.
“Meanwhile, some Chinese are just enjoying the political thriller. Given all the chaos he creates at home, it is almost like Trump was sent to destroy America from within,” the editorial said.
https://www.cnbc.com/2017/09/08/chinese-state-media-chuckles-at-trump-for-messing-up-america.html?recirc=taboolainternal
I expect a deal will be cut at something less than manslaughter
Presumably the accusers will contend they were acting under the direction of owner
I am very uncertain about the ins and outs of Rohinyga situation.
But the notion that the Burmese Army has suddenly reformed itself seems problematic. This essentially Burman/Buddhist institution has systematically burned villages, raped the local women, and murdered lots of people in one ethnic cleansing/suppression/genocide after another.
That there is both insurgent and state terrorism is not surprising either.
Civil wars tend to be like that.
That outside interests including Pakistan, Bangla Desh, China and Saudi Arabia have used, and are continuing to use, the situation as a proxy for their strategic interests would seem to be axiomatic rather than surprising.
There is no doubt that the usual manipulation of social media is taking place. Fake news is, nowadays, endemic. That it lacks sophistication hardly surprises. If it works with the target audiences, that is all that matters.
I note with interest the continued silence of the Greens in relation to Suu Kyi.
Shellbell
I know that manslaughter is hard to get up against registered practitioners in Australia (NZ is a different story) but does registration make a difference? Is the level of liability more for someone who acts like this without training or qualification?
shellbell
So, it all depends on the evidence of the owner/victim?
I can’t see that Murphy is excusing the Coalition for the energy mess. She is correct in sheeting it home to Abbott.
Afternoon
I think all drugs should be legalised and then regulated to the max. Then we can have the legality or illegally of them done according to the actual harm they do not the demonising of particular drugs.
Thus a regulated cannabis market would be a good thing. For starters we will know if its the additives included in the hydroponics growing by crims or the natural side effects from the drug.
The same is true of all drugs.
Until we do this we will continue to see a growing market for increasing addiction rates no matter what harmful side effects occur as we have seen where it used to be just marijuana and herion but now its designer drugs like ICE with the awful side effects that make users dangerous to society
phRD
Saying it like it is!
The amount of uncertainty he has generated world-wide in such a short time about the direction and intention of the US is amazing.
BOConnorMP: This Government’s plan:
Tax cuts for billionaires,
Tax cuts for millionaires,
Tax cuts for big business,
Tax INCREASES for workers.
#auspol pic.twitter.com/UuRlHTphTr
leolaporte: So sorry to lose a good friend and a great writer. RIP Jerry Pournelle. twitter.com/ChaoticScholar…
lizzie @ #123 Saturday, September 9th, 2017 – 12:16 pm
Murphy is not trying to excuse the Coalition, she’s just trying to excuse Turnbull – by sheeting all the blame home to Abbott, even though Turnbull has now been PM longer than Abbott was.
Who can read stuff like this and not feel a bit nauseous (my bold) …
It’s like something Annabel Crabb would write. Icky!
P1
Sorry, but I’m not prejudiced against Annabel, either.
Andrews government to give housing, food to asylum seekers facing homelessness
Talk about slacktivists.
“The number of people who say they will take part is at 65 per cent — and drops down further to 58 per cent among 18-34 year-olds.”
http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/lifestyle/new-poll-has-support-for-same-sex-marriage-in-australia-falling/news-story/eafbaaba8663f5384d8b97d3e74cbc35
Lizzie
The problem for Annabel Crabbe is that some people mistook her journalistic way of operating. She has never been about the really serious political games. Thus her Kitchen Cabinet series.
An attempt to humanise all politicians and let voters see what they are like outside the theatre of press conferences and parliament.
I know that I like her series for this. I am sure its one of the reasons trust in politicians is not lower than it already is.
This perception comes mainly from when she was drafted in to be host of the Drum panel. As that is so stacked with right wing panellists most of the time it made her look more partisan than she actually is. With hindsight I seem to remember her giving more airing to the left side of politics than is currently the case.
I have noticed lately a bit of a return to the old format and am watching with interest. However the Drum has always been stacked with right wing spokes people from the start. It makes QandA look left wing by comparison
Player One
You’d never realize that Turnbull has now been PM longer than Abbott was but has achieved much less, would you?
I cannot think of a single thing “achieved” by Abbott. He wrecked things. He behaved erratically. He disgraced his office.
lizzie @ #129 Saturday, September 9th, 2017 – 12:27 pm
Ah well, seems there are some things on which we will simply never agree 🙂
Ms Crabbe adds a unique and useful prism to our understanding of political life.
Dio
MExit?
briefly @ #133 Saturday, September 9th, 2017 – 12:35 pm
Abbott would proudly include all the things he wrecked as “achievements”. Turnbull just stands amongst the ruins wringing his hands and expects us all to be impressed. Sadly, some people do seem to be!
Boerwar @ #135 Saturday, September 9th, 2017 – 12:45 pm
I suppose she at least provides serious journalism with a useful counter-example!
guytaur
Thank you. I didn’t see Annabel on The Drum. I did, however watch her visit to USA, and realised she has a talent for asking potentially upsetting questions with a disarming smile. Perhaps some people think she is a ditz because of this. Also, she writes with humour as a commentator, not an expert.
‘An inconvenient truth’: Maher mocks Republicans with lavish vacation homes about to suffer Irma’s wrath
President Donald Trump, Rush Limbaugh, the Bushes and many other well-known Republican climate deniers are slated to lose lavish vacation homes or houses due to a “category five hoax,” Bill Maher joked on Friday night.
In all seriousness, he warned anyone in Florida watching his show to stop and get out and get to safety as soon as possible. He noted that the storm is so severe he’s seeing colors on weather maps that he’s never seen before.
“If you see yellow, like Trump’s hair, take extra care,” Maher rhymed. “If you see orange like his face, shelter in place. Red like his ties to Russia, just evacuate now.”
http://www.rawstory.com/2017/09/an-inconvenient-truth-maher-mocks-republicans-with-lavish-vacation-homes-about-to-suffer-irmas-wrath/
My view is that it is reasonable to expect different people to bring different insights into our understanding of what is happening politically.
Crabbe is a dab hand at getting people to reveal things about themselves that we might not otherwise see.
No-one expects this to be serious political or policy analysis.
At the end of the day, politics and policies get done by people.
Getting to know them a bit better is a useful and good thing.
That is why I appreciate Crabbe.
Irma will not be finding huge numbers of plutocrats ATM.
Her eyewall has just crossed the Cuban coast.
Boerwar
MExit ? Speaking of Mexico. Already has a catchy campaign song @3:40 and ‘merch’ 🙂
.
“Vicente Fox is Running for President of the United States”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=307&v=-ukv9v7IGZw
I’m sorry Boerwar – it’s Crabb
Malaysian government blocks/censorship of the gaming platform Steam over a 2D brawler, beating up Jesus:
http://www.pcgamer.com/malaysia-blocks-steam-over-2d-brawler-that-lets-you-beat-up-jesus/
Imagine if we have this kind of extremists in Australia (we have).
Boerwar
You put it much better than I did.
Boerwar @ #141 Saturday, September 9th, 2017 – 1:04 pm
The ABC does. She is their “chief online political commentator” or somesuch. In fact, she is a perfect demonstration of how degraded and moronic political commentary has become in this country.
The idea of “politics as entertainment” trivializes both disciplines.
P1
The Chief political commentator for the ABC was Chris Ullmann. Its now Andrew Probyn.
Crabb has appeared on political panels at election times and the Drum but thats it. When she does she does not present the humorous entertainment side so much.
To be precise here is the ABC description of Crabb’s role
guytaur @ #148 Saturday, September 9th, 2017 – 1:31 pm
Part of Crabb’s job is to humanise those who often lack humanity.
This she does fairly well if you are inclined to give these people the benefit of considerable doubt, and you have a liking for gormless trivia.