Courtesy of The Australian, the final Newspoll of the year is something of a non-event, with two-party preferred unchanged at 53-47, primary votes unchanged at 36% for the Coalition, 37% for Labor and 10% for the Greens, and the only move being a one point drop for One Nation to 7%. Malcolm Turnbull’s personal ratings are also unmoved, at 32% approval and 57% disapproval, while his lead as preferred prime minister shifts from 39-33 to 41-34. Bill Shorten is down one on approval to 32%, and up two on disapproval to 56%. The poll was conducted Thursday to Sunday from a sample of 1669.
daretotread @ #550 Monday, December 18th, 2017 – 10:41 pm
Are you confusing Kooyong the suburb with Kooyong the electorate?
Seems so to me.
Poroti,
Yeah right.
Did I bruise your delicate ego before when I pinged your facile perspective on Mandatory Detention?
Well you showed me!
(~_^)
Yeah, you can’t always trust them (the Greens) to vote against their own long standing and publicly available policy positions in support of Labor’s current policy*. Why the sheer nerve, you’d almost think they weren’t Labor party MPs and belonged to a different political party, pretty canny of them to pull off that clever deception by not running as Labor MPs.
*Especially when Labor deliberately cuts them off from negotiation (like Rudd did with his ETS) or when Labor just reversed their policy to seek political advantage at the cost of accurate democratic representation (the abolishing of GTV).
E,
Get with the program. This is a democracy in which only 2 (3) parties may exist, Labor and the Coalition.
I reckon some would argue that only Labor has the moral entitlement to be a party of government despite the fact millions of voters would disagree.
Oops, sorry. Didn’t know youse were all just chuckling at her ignorance.
C@t:
My beef with the Greens (and other minor/micro parties) is their insistence that Labor and the coalition are just the same.
This is manifestly untrue and serves only to underscore the ignorance and naievity of those who claim it.
Btw Bernie supporters in the 2016 election said the same thing about Clinton and Trump. Oh how those idiots have been forced to eat their own stupid words!
Elaugaufein @ #549 Monday, December 18th, 2017 – 9:39 pm
Labor was originally set up by the industrial movement as a strategic intervention to improve the lot of working people. The setting up of any party is essentially a strategic move to gain purchase in the political sphere to achieve some higher objective. Labor largely continues in this mode, which is why it continues to be opposed by the forces of capital.
While Labor is a great community of people with generally common objectives, it has generally resisted the urge to become a quasi-religious organisation (not always, but no organisation is perfect) which is valued by its members for its own sake rather than what it can achieve for working people. The Greens not so much, I think.
“My feelings are hurt because not everybody agrees with my view of what is possible and worth advocating in electoral politics. Labor has no right to exist and it is stealing votes that belong by divine right to the Greens. Also, I think we have First Past The Post voting and don’t understand how preferential voting works.”
There aren’t any Greens expressing or implying those beliefs here. But several Labor supporters here evince those beliefs. The cognitive dissonance is profound in those posters.
Barney
What a load of drivel
The stuff taught in University these days would have been junior high school stuff in my time and in my parents era (the 20s)would have been primary school. The literacy skills of many especially the foreign students is abysmal and I can say with confidence that at least on kid with entry into Uni had a literacy standard that was bested by my kids by the time they were 8 and a work ethic that was non existent.
While the maths and science curriculum are still reasonable enough, the English and history standard is abysmal.
Oddly enough I have an old physiology text that my mother used in JUNIOR High – she never got past intermediate – and it was about 2nd year Uni Anatomy standard.
omg E,
You’re not getting with the program. If the Greens Party, unfortunately has the temerity to exist in our democracy, it’s reason for being is to rubber stamp Labor’s policies.
‘fess
I was thinking ‘yeah, riiiiight, I’ll leave that alone’. 😀
Maybe Whitlam, Evatt and Menzies all repeated 5th Grade.
ajm
Yet the number of working poor and the rising inequality between poor and rich has occurred over decades.
One can only conclude this situation must be the fault of the Greens Party, even when it didn’t exist and has never been in government.
Such is cognitive dissonance.
C@t, seriously? You’re being ridiculous.
There are a lot more Greens supporters on this website than the three or four you mentioned
Quite frankly, I get pretty sick of people constantly acting as though Pegasus and Rex Douglas (who may not even be a Greens supporters considering he’s spent the last few days encouroging everyone to vote for the Reason Party, whatever the hell that is) and DTT (who is a member of the Laborparty) are the only ever Greens voterswho post here, and tarring all the rest of us with the same brush. We’re not a fucking hive-mind, you know. Or is it just better for your narrative to cherrypick the most obnoxious ones and ignore the rest?
Elaugaufren strikes me as being a generally thoughtful and valuable contributer here, while I do think he/she is probably overreacting a little a here, I have to agree about how unpleasant this place this place can become sometimes, and how tedious these attempts to provoke hostilities between Labor and the Greens (repeatedly incited by the usual suspects) really are. I don’t actuallt think eitger side is worse than the other here – just that one has a lot more people in it, who post here a whole lot more, and a situation like that generally leads to uncomfortable pile-ons for those on the other side.
And that “we only attack strategies, you attack our morals” argument AJM posted just before is absolute BS – a good portion of the anti-Greens stuff here is directed personally towards Greens supporters here, not at the party itself. Just look at Boerwar’s comments this morning. Trog makes a post about the ‘effing Rohingyan genocide (the victims of which I’m sure will be super thankful that for the Aussies bashing the Greens over the internet on their behalf), does not make a single mention of Labor or the Greens – in fact is heavily critical of the Coalition, much as many here are complaining is evil Greens never do – and Boerwar leaps in with a baffling diatribe about the Greens that basically suggests that supporters of the party do not have to right to criticize the Coalition on anything.
Or look at half the shit Bemused has written in the last few pages. Or Briefly, who in one of his/her recent “occasional and measured” posts on the “G’s”, charmingly called us narcissists who are deliberately trying to bring down working people and the Labor Party’s chances of winning government, among other things. Or C@tmomma’s own ludicrously emotive and hostile contributions to the subject, complete with a passive agressive little “well, I was going to say something nice about the Greens, but because of you I won’t now!” Yes, yes, its a public forum and we’re all entitled to share our opinion here, and lord knows you need a thick skin if you’re going to discuss politics with strangers, but to suggest to criticism of the Greens only every consists of dicussions of “tactics and strategies” without ever resorting to personal attacks is an Abbott-grade falsehood.
Are those of us from the Greens side innocent in all this? Of course not. Are there a few Greens supporters here that are very obnoxious, unpleasant, and, frankly, not real bright? Sure are. There are people like that in every demographic, and there’s certainly quite a few on the Labor side here as well. I mean, would it be fair if I suggested some of those individuals were representative of every single Labor supporter on this website?
No Bemused.
I know both areas well. Kooyong includes suburbs like Camberwell, Canterbury, and parts of Balwym. Take a drive down Monomeath Ave – it was the most expensive st in Melbourne at one time.
As i said the parallels are
Bennelong suburbs like Ryde and Eastwood are like Burwood whereas Kooyong is closer to the upper noeth Shore – hunters Hill and Lane cove and even Pymble.
Oddly enough I recall learning about Sydney demographics in my First year High school social studies class where we learned about the rings of suburbs in Sydney.
Elaugaufein
The greens lead with a feign and rarely hold the hand to win.
@Wakefield
If Greens and Labor can’t find a way to argue without throwing out the baby and bathwater then progressive politics in Australia will be weakened.
Well stated.
I have an obsession with 20th Century History – probably because it is still biting us in the bum.
In Ron Rosenbaum’s book, “Explaining Hitler”, some German people of the Jewish faith, interviewed in both the US and Israel in the 1990s, regret that in the 1930s the left were too busy fighting among themselves to stop the rise of Hitler and all that he stood for.
This is where we are now.
While I am at it, let me mention the book I am currently reading, published in 2016, which sheds new light on how the politics of the 1947 shaped the postwar world.
It is titled “1947, When Now Begins”, by Elisabeth Asbrink (with translation by Fiona Graham).
daretotread @ #550 Monday, December 18th, 2017 – 9:41 pm
Because of the size of Federal electorates (about 150,000 population), the most that can be said of most of them is that they include a broad range of people of different incomes, ethnicity and social background, with perhaps a bit of a bias one way or the other.
My own electorate (Griffith in Queensland) contains everything from inner city latee sippers to luxury suburbs to average suburban sprawl to increasing density middle ring unit dwellers and probably some others I can’t think of right now.
The point is that none of us probably has much idea of the total range of people living in a particular electorate and our “knowledge” will inevitably be biased by the bits of it that we know well. We should be very wary of facile characterisations.
I suspect, for example, the Bennelong has quite a lot of middle aged and older xenophobes that Turnbull was targeting with his China scare, and he was betting that there were more of them that might change their vote than people of Chinese ethnicity who might be turned off by it. As with most things in politics, it’s all about numbers and the most adept practitioners are those who have the best grasp of the numbers and how they are changing or changeable.
The man of the match has just been announced for the Third Test in Perth. The curator said in his acceptance speech that “it was a close run thing, but I planned it beautifully to get England in on a dangerous water soaked wicket after rolling out a road for the first three days.”
Seriously, if Australia were caught on that pitch, the match would have been abandoned. Test cricket is a joke these days. Still I’m glad it was worthy of so much celebration. What an empty ‘win.’
LOL!
SA State Newspoll
Labor 27, Liberal 29, Greens 6, SA Best 32, Others 6
Better Premier: Weatherill 22, Marshall 19, Xenophon 46
No 2PP was calculated.
800 sample, Oct-Dec 2017
One other thing – and this will probably be my last post tonight, since I have to go to bed soon and I can waste hours stuck in these circular arguments if I’m not careful – it’s incorrect to say that the Greens never compromise on their positions. They quite regularly do so while in a BOP positon.
We’ve seen heaps of examples during the Labor minority government in Tasmania (after which the Greens actually lost supporters due to a perception McKim had sold out to Labor), the current Labor minority government in the ACT, and the federal Gillard minority government. I mean, the Gillard government wouldn’t have been able to get a damn thing through the senate if the Greens were as stubborn and immovable is some people here claim.
No, they didn’t vote for the Rudd ETS, but they never even got a chance to compromise their principles that one.
On a vaguely related note, it amuses to yet again see the Greens criticized as impotently pure by the man who spent the entire 2013 election campaign advocating the crowning example of ineffectual purity-above-pragramatism: the informal vote.
James J:
Holy shit.
“Burwood where Humphreys grew up” Humphreys grew up in Camberwell, which is more upmarket than Burwood. Burwood would have been a semi rural area in his childhood.
Asha Leu,
‘I know you are, but so am I! ‘
(the shorter version of your diatribe), is not much of an argument.
If only you had dealt with the substantive points I was trying to make, instead of getting all defensive and taking a swing at me. I could have taken what you said seriously.
Would that mean Premier Xenophon? How many candidates are they fielding?
I, too am going to bed.
Surely this is deserving of a Newspoll WOW!
Re the SA poll… a sample of what…800? next!
Final observation.
The people of SA need to realise, all the SA Best candidates are not clones of Nick Xenophon. They may come to rue thinking they are.
And Nick Xenophon is not all that they deludedly think he is.
C@t:
I’ll admit that being compared to Rex Douglas does kind of push my beserk button.
But the problem is that, IMO, your “substanstive” points were mostly nonsense, and presented in such a shrill and mean-spirited manner that I can’t really be bothered engaging with them.
And, frankly, I find the assertion that what I wrote was an overly-defensive diatribe but yours wasn’t to be pretty bloody rich.
Okay, actually going to sleep now.
X is an opportunist. A member of the tin foil hat brigade believing – or supporting those who do -wind turbines cause dementia.
Also voted to sell the network.
If Weatherill gets voted out to this prick, SA will go backwards.
X is just Liberal lite. Might as well vote Lib in SA.Another deluded electorate.
It would be almost impossible to arrive at a 2PP estimate on those primaries
C@tmomma
Nick Xenophon a multi-cultural Pauline Hanson attracting an assortment of oddfellows and others.
Good luck SA as you presently have one of the most successful Premiers of the ages
davidwh:
Which parties would the 2PP vote even be between ?
A 2PP would be actively misleading off those numbers yes*. Even a SAB vs someone is tricky because off those numbers it’s almost entirely down to how the others split that determine if it’s SAB vs Lib or Lab. I suspect it’d just barely be SAB vs Lib given Others without a PHON / AusCon breakout but with a Greens one will tend to break conservative. But I suspect that’s still wrong from a Government / Opposition perspective because SAB seems to perform better in Lib seats on balance.
*Unless you’re trying to measure Federal senate success or something where it’d be relevant.
Golly
Never underestimate the stupidity of the masses. If this seems arrogant, it’s because it is. Just a statement of reality.
Spent some time tonight talking to an SA irrigator. Raised the issue of Qld and NSW water ripoffs. All he could talk about was Tim Flannerys inaccurate predictions of Murray Darling drought.
Given the electoral population of SA a sample size of 800 has a MoE of +/- 3.46% , which is only a little worse than most Federal polls. If you want to dismiss it, I’d do so on the basis it’s only a single poll, rather than the sample size.
It shouldn’t be a great surprise that South Australians are sick of State Labor after they have been in for so long (and many stuffups to their name), but have been unconvinced by the Libs (and having Libs in power federally will drag down the State counterparts).
If SAns can vote for Lib-lite in the form of Xenephon’s team, clearly they are keen to do so.
If we actually get a Xenephon government in SA where SAB is the biggest party, and it doesn’t all go to hell immediately, it could be an interesting future … if they don’t completely embarrass themselves you could see SAB completely displace the Libs in SA. Labor have their own issues of course, but if SAB retain their Lib-lite positioning and aren’t complete fruitcakes, why would anyone bother to vote for actual Libs?
What that might mean federally in SA, or outside of SA is an interesting question.
Actually, no, I lied. Have to comment a bit more on that SA poll.
If Xenophon does actually manage to do the unthinkable and form a government after the next election it would be a disaster, IMO. A cabinet entirely comprised of first term MPs, from a party with a history of poorly vetting their candidates, headed by a man who has had no ministerial or government experience, with no old hands or a well-oiled party machine to guide them through it. And that’s without even getting to what it would like on a policy front.
It would likely make the Trump administration look like the height of competence and stability in comparison. I’m sure Xenophom thinks he’ll be an excellent premier, but I’m having difficulty envisioning a situation that doesn’t end in tears for everyone involved.
Of course, on those numbers, Xenophon would almost certainly have to govern in minority, and if Labor or the Liberals were willing the suck it up and be a junior coalition partner, they may provide just enough experience to prevent it from being a total clusterfuck
But I honestly can’t see either party being willing to to be the junior party to a young upstart like SA Best.
People.may joke at how slow the Greens’ rise has been, but an upside of that approach is that they now have have a decent quantity experienced sitting and former parliamentarians on a state and federal level and a decades-old party machine to guide new MPs through the process, avoiding the sort of implosions we see when a minor party suddenly goes from a caucus of zero to twenty. SA Best looks like its going to be One Nation ’98 on steroids, with the aftermath likely to be just as dire for them all.
Trog – Hang onto your jocks. Xenophon is proof that SA’ers are all mad.
Be very afraid! You’ll need one of these .
Yes Fess and then how could you even estimate preference flows.
Well Barney and Confessions
Thankyou for proving my point.
Clearly neither of you have comprehension skills or capacity to follow an argument of view things in perspective.
It should be obvious to anyone with year 9 maths/english that what I wrote was obvious. If in 1950 less than 2% of the population went to university and few finished school, then to have a law degree or any professional qualification or to have self taught yourself by reading the classics then you could be considered to be highly educated ie perhaps in the top 5%. In today’s world the top 5% will have Phds or higher several weighty publications and perhaps a professorship. That should be obvious.
Therefore whereas in 1960 Whitlam, Evatt, Menzies etc wee considered highly educated by virtue of the fact of their law degrees (usually a combined BA/Law) the equivalent these days is not a basic law degree.
I am not sure whether you lack logic and reasoning capacity or have poor comprehension, but I get tired of people like you totally missing the point of my posts either because you are incapable of understanding or because you are blinded by hatred of me personally such that you willfully mis understand.
Perhaps it is all three,
Trog – Bugger, my emoji didn’t work -person in helmut!
steve davis:
X is better than the Libs in some respects – mainly social issues, and I do think he’s 100% correct on pokies – but seems to be just as as bad on economics, IR, and the environment. I lost whatever respect I had for him when he voted with Abbott to repeal the climate tax while still claiming to want action on climate change.
I vote for X where the only other realistic candidate is a Lib. The lesser of two weevils.
SA Best is probably a tad better than the actual Libs on economics , since they generally lack economic dries. Probably about the same on IR, since even the wets are awful. And hard to call on the environment, I’d say a tad better at the moment, their wind farm stuff is weird but at least they aren’t worshipping at the altar of Coal.
Sohar
Humphries grew up in that part of Camberwell known as Burwood or very close to it. I am pretty sure that it is on the South side of Riversdale Rd and that is NOT in the Kooyong electorate (or it used not to be).
Knowing both that area and Eastwood I know them to be similar. Three bedroom solid brick housed built in the 20s/30s.