The final Essential Research result for 2017 (actually released yesterday, but who’s keeping score at this time of year) has the Coalition gaining a point on two-party preferred for the second week in a row, reducing the Labor lead to 53-47. They’re also up two on the primary vote to 37%, with Labor steady on 38%, the Greens down one to 9% and One Nation steady on 7%.
Essential closes the year with a particularly interesting series of supplementary findings, one of which is that only 29% approve of tax cuts to medium and large businesses, with 54% opposed. On political donations, overwhelming support is recorded for immediate disclosure of donations (84% versus 6%) and politicians’ meetings with companies donors and unions (82% versus 5%), very strong support for a ban on foreign donations (67% to 16%), capping donations at $5000 (59% to 20%) and banning donations from companies and unions (58% to 22%), but opposition to banning donations altogether and replacing them with public funding (30% to 50%).
Another series of generalised questions on how things have been going over the past year suggest Australians are feeling a good deal more positive than they have at any time since this annual series began in 2013. In particular, there are greatly improved perceptions on the state of the economy; neutral but improved ones on respondents’ personal financial situations; greatly improved, but still somewhat negative ones on how “the average Australian” has fared; and a view on “Australian politics in general” that remains highly negative, but is still greatly improved. Included for the first time is a question on “the planet”, with 20% consider to have had a good year versus 42% for bad.
KayJay,
For some reason annoying cricket commentators don’t bother me. 🙂
I tend to laugh at Michael Clark’s way of mangling the language (and people complain about Bill Shorten… geez).
Warne is an idiot, he always wants to declare way too soon. He doesn’t understand that the fun of Test cricket is to grind the opposition into a pile of dust 🙂
Having said that, I do wish Steve Smith would work on a pretence of sportsmanship. You need to grind down the opposition with an veneer of polite society, that is one of the many arts of the game 😉
Ian Healy is the worst cricket commentator outside of James Brayshaw.
Confessions @ #2351 Tuesday, December 26th, 2017 – 11:02 am
Micheal Slater a very close second.
#weatheronpb: Sydney’s putting on some of my least favourite weather today, as a layer of cool dank air from the Tasman Sea inserts itself under warmer air aloft. It can’t get over the ranges and it can’t rise to build up into decent rain clouds, so we’re stuck with a solid grey pall that won’t shift but won’t deliver more than a few drops of rain or drizzle.
We get quite a few days like this in Summer but we don’t tell the tourists.
Agreed.
Ian Healy is the worst cricket commentator outside of James Brayshaw.
Micheal Slater a very close second.
_______
It’s a dead heat for the entire Ch 9 commentary team. We are not all morons who crave hearing about the crap that that they promote.
I find that Kevin Peterson grates more than any other commentator.
BK:
Richie Benaud and other commentators like him knew the value of silence and didn’t feel the need to constantly be talking. I can remember sometimes whole deliveries would go by with no commentary at all on dot balls.
The current mob feel they need to speak all the time, hence it’s inevitable that crap will come out of their mouths.
WRT the saltwater crocodile found in Melbourne, when I moved to Victoria a few years ago I was really surprised to find that you could own pretty much anything on a wildlife license, experience not required.
All 10 of Australians most venomous land snakes, a saltwater crocodile and so much more were all on license. The only difference between a beginner and advanced license was the cost.
The only limiting factor was availability.
I vote for Ian Healy as the worst commentator on 9. My wife regularly berates me for yelling variants of “shut up Healy” at the TV.
Shouting at the radio or TV never works.
PB weather
Tropical storm out in the distance.
Schools are closed.
Stuck at home.
Boxing Day Test.
Perfect!!!! 🙂
The Newspoll Oct-Dec 2017 tables:
Barney:
I hope where you are is sufficiently out of the path of the storm.
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/malcolm-turnbull-on-the-slide-in-cities-and-key-state/news-story/74060d36a274a55872dc2dccd1d451b6 paywalled, google the URL
Malcolm Turnbull on the slide in cities and key state
The Australian 12:00AM December 26, 2017
Simon Benson National Political Editor Sydney
The federal government has suffered a collapse in support in the critical state of NSW, lost ground across the five major capital cities and ceded further territory to One Nation, leaving Malcolm Turnbull facing an electoral battle on several key fronts in the new year.
A quarterly demographic analysis of Newspoll conducted exclusively for The Australian shows that the Coalition still faces its greatest challenge in Queensland, where primary-vote support has continued to fall, hitting a low of 32 per cent for the first time, and marking an 11.2 point descent since last year’s election.
https://theaustralianatnewscorpau.files.wordpress.com/2017/12/federalnewspoll_12-17.pdf
Link to full multipage table, no paywall
http://cdn.newsapi.com.au/image/v1/2600e0dbfb1efa72d62006a4c34dbfea
Image of the TPP in each state, no paywall
GG
I have read that Malcolm and Lucy consider themselves lucky and like to ‘give back’ to the community. That’s why I can’t understand how Mal can support people such as the Uber Tuber, or the meanness of the Centrelink measures. Is the only explanation his determination to hold on to power (not a new thought!), making power more important than generosity. With his support crumbling, why doesn’t he throw caution to the winds and change a policy or two, so that he can go out in a blaze of glory…
lizzie says:
Yes and considers the most awesome, fabulous gift he can give “to the community” is Malcolm Bligh Turnbull.
Confessions @ #2365 Tuesday, December 26th, 2017 – 8:40 am
It’s well south of me, so no real dramas here.
It’s just passing the the most southerly point of Vietnam, Cape Ca Mau, at the moment.
The area is the delta, so very low lying and any storm surge will be a major issue.
Fortunately it’s not a densely populated area but due to the nature of the delta it’s not easy to move around so people can become easily isolated.
Reading the comments to the NewsPoll story is eyeopening.
It just demonstrates how binary politics, most of the concerns expressed as negatives are what I would consider positives in political debate. 🙂
This is the eternal Murdoch/Trump/RWNJ style article – just change the date each year, the rubbishy words can stay the same.
citizen – it’s the eternal straw man article
We always get right-wing commentators “defending” Christmas. Can anyone find me an example of how Christmas (as a religious or secular event) is under attack in Australia? Bonus points if the attack is by an actual politician or anyone with any actual influence over anything. I’m curious to find some examples. The closest examples I can recall are when some local council decides to spend less on a public display in any given year and the local tabloid does a beat up. I don’t count some random leftie writing an article no one cares about.
Oh please. What a blowhard president Man Baby is. Here’s a gif showing all the times the Obamas said merry xmas. Fake news!
https://twitter.com/dovesrose5/status/945139393148456960
Hi Lizzie, I hope all went well for you yesterday and you enjoyed your son’s visit.
My good intentions to check in on you on PB came to naught 🙁 as I got too distracted by the goings on where I was.
Nothing super special, just a nice Christmas lunch with my son and his family. Good company, good conversation, not too much Christmas Kitsch, good food, reasonably good wine and abundant entertainment from my two youngest granddaughters. (3 & 7).
The two of them both swim with sufficient competence to get out of trouble. The eldest has just mastered the skill of diving properly from the side of the pool. The youngest has just worked out how to submerge unassisted and swim underwater to retrieve objects in up to 1.8M of water.
The process of them learning to do things has been fascinating. When shown how to do something they may not immediately catch on. But then at next opportunity they do. It is as if they process the information in their heads for a day or two and are then ready to perform.
Their big sister is somewhat older and is a delightful young lady who has just completed the first year of a nursing course. Of course she is in on all the adult conversation now and adds another generational perspective to it. She is also marvellous with her younger sisters who think the world of her.
After swimming with the kids, who did a great job of wearing me out, I had no trouble at all falling asleep last night.
I hope everyone had a great day, and from comments so far, it seems you did. 😀
BiDG
Looking at Cape Ca Mau on Google satellite.
No shortage of fishing boats and there’s been loads of work done on the waterways to make the irrigation drainage work.
Is it scenic or just more swamp?
Bill Maher on saving christmas. Wonder whether this is what RWNJs had in mind 😆
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZGpATMO-6_o
BigD
I have a boy staying with me from Ca Mau. He is a bit concerned about his family. Any news
Betcha Mrs Cater did all the work, and Nick (I-provided-the-money-for-this-extravaganza; and-now-I-am-a-big-man) came in at the last moment, pissed because newspaper creds, doncha know, and played happy santas, at wife’s direction. And please don’t bother me on Christ’s birthday morning because I paid for this, and I don’t have to do anything else. signed big man cater. But, I’ll just write a piece of shit about Christmas being hi-jacked to please Decreptt Old Dog Rupe. Gotta keep those rupees flowing.
And, all the better to pontificate to Labor voters.
Piss off Nick. You blokes are a dime a dozen. Always sooking in your shed about something or other. Bout the good ole days when you could give your wife a biff, and it didn’t matter; and you could brag about it. When you could leer at a fellow journo, touch her up, if you wanted to, and it didn’t matter; because it was up to you if she sank or swam.
Grow up, Nick.
Let’s hope your next Christmas sees you by yourself, wondering what to do, when you reel home.
It is a bit rich for Nick Cater to criticise leftists for being like Scrooge and not enjoying Christmas when he works for an organisation that screws the poor by paying no tax.
Oops, sorry,
The context for @ 1.49pm
PC mob deserved grey Christmas
NICK CATER
The spirit of Christmas has survived another year, much to the annoyance of its critics.
Belated seasons greetings to all, in whatever phrasing you wish.
Much thanks to BK and assistants for the valued daily news round up.
And of course thanks to Mr Bowe for another year of helping to keep the political junkies honest. Will be signing up for a modest but regular contribution once a couple of other subscriptions expire in a few weeks.
In Sydney visiting rellies, enjoying the cool change, resplendent in my $20 plain-white collared shirts straight off the sales rack at K-Mart. (Free tip, Mal: If you are going to mix with the plebs, then at least have the common sense, not to mention the common courtesy, to dress like one.)
kezza2 @ #2378 Tuesday, December 26th, 2017 – 1:49 pm
Rebecca Weisser? Notorious for ill informed Drum appearnaces.
bemused
Don’t know what/who you mean.
kezza2 @ #2383 Tuesday, December 26th, 2017 – 2:09 pm
aka Mrs Cater.
Something from the “Only in Americal” folder.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/redneck-revolt-group-who-are-they-left-wing-armed-group-protect-minorities-interview-a8117551.html
CTar1 @ #2376 Tuesday, December 26th, 2017 – 9:41 am
I love the delta.
It’s more a system of interconnected waterways than swamp, you can still travel around much of it by water taxis/busses.
Being so flat there’s nothing in the way of distant vistas, but that just forces you focus on the near which can be so easily overlooked. A bit like night diving!
Going around a corner is always an adventure, especially when emerging from trees and you suddenly discover yourself surrounded by lush green rice paddies for as far as you can see.
It doesn’t matter what time of year you visit, with the access to water it’s always alive even at the end of the dry season.
If you enjoy seafood, I don’t, you are spoilt for choice straight from the source.
Also now with the completion of the bridges across the major distributaries of the delta the south has been opened up and people are flocking to it making access to it much easier.
For mine, definitely an area to chill and explore! 🙂
Everyone else probably knows, but I just learnt Nick Cater is executive director of the Menzies Research Centre.
So complaining about people trying to destroy Christmas is the chief research topic at the Menzies centre.
I wonder what else they research? How to live 1950’s style behind a white picket fence?
WaPo columnist shreds Trump’s ‘awful, rotten, no-good, ridiculous, rancorous, sordid, disgraceful’ first year
In a column posted late on Christmas Day, Washington Post columnist Eugene Robinson reviewed the first year year under the presidency of Donald Trump and was unimpressed, to say the least.
According to liberal author, 2017 has been “awful, rotten, no-good, ridiculous, rancorous, sordid, disgraceful” — and we all have Donald Trump to blame for that.
“Many of us began 2017 with the consoling thought that the Donald Trump presidency couldn’t possibly be as bad as we feared. It turned out to be worse,” Robinson wrote.
https://www.rawstory.com/2017/12/wapo-columnist-shreds-trumps-awful-rotten-no-good-ridiculous-rancorous-sordid-disgraceful-first-year/
LNP saved Christmas ?
That be like saying the great Mao saved China.
Trump’s tweets could be witness intimidation: ex-White House lawyers
President Donald Trump’s recent tweets about current or former FBI officials could violate laws meant to protect witnesses, according to two former White House ethics lawyers. In recent days, Trump has criticized former FBI Director James Comey, FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe and outgoing FBI general counsel James Baker.
“Normally, someone being investigated for obstruction of justice who intimidates and threatens three key witnesses against him (here Comey, McCabe and Baker) risks additional witness tampering charges,” tweeted Norm Eisen, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and special assistant for ethics and government reform for former President Barack Obama.
https://www.rawstory.com/2017/12/trumps-tweets-could-be-witness-intimidation-ex-white-house-lawyers/
daretotread @ #2378 Tuesday, December 26th, 2017 – 9:49 am
It looks like they may have dodged a bullet with the storm rapidly degenerating to a tropical depression before it reached the Cape.
Hopefully the storm surge is minimised and doesn’t correspond with the high tide.
The winds seem to have dropped off hugely since their peak yesterday.
I read that the Government had evacuated about 75,000 from the area and have closed all the schools as far north HCMC and Tay Ninh.
I went outside a short while ago to calm conditions and glorious blue skies, so the Government have been their usual conservative selves when dealing with major storms.
This is the 16th major storm of the year so the Government unfortunately get plenty of practice dealing with such events and seem to handle them well, but infrastructure and geography can still cause large barriers when handling them.
At a guess I’d say your guest can breath much easier than they would have been yesterday.
citizen @ #2388 Tuesday, December 26th, 2017 – 2:51 pm
I am curious about what version of Christmas they want to ‘save’.
Is it the religious version which has been largely sublimated but lingers on with a diminishing community?
Is it the mythology of an obese red-coated gent domiciled in northern climes and with an affinity for a sleigh drawn by reindeer?
Is it any number of other accretions largely due to commercial interests?
It is only the first I see as having any preservation value, but that only applies to believers.
The rest is little more than crass commercialism.
Barney in Go Dau @ #2393 Tuesday, December 26th, 2017 – 10:59 am
https://www.skynews.com.au/details/_5692772551001
Funnily enough the day before Cater the GG had an article with a headline saying “Thank the Romans Not the Christians” . In it the writer laid out all the bit and bobs of Roman celebrations that have carried over.
This will be interesting to watch.
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/dec/25/scotland-universal-basic-income-councils-pilot-scheme?utm_source=esp&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=GU+Today+AUS+v1+-+AUS+morning+mail+callout&utm_term=258096&subid=22688624&CMP=ema_632
I urge everyone to sign this petition to stop Cassowary Coast council from banning Christmas Lights in Cardwell because of objections from the local Imam
https://www.change.org/p/the-council-of-cardwell-nth-queensland-the-pm-of-queensland-a-local-member-who-agrees-council-in-cardwell-nth-queensland-has-banned-christmas-lights-because-it-offends-muslims
Of course the real question is how dumb you have to be to belief this sort of fake news
Probably can’t tie shoelaces dumb