Another random assortment of polling and preselection news to tide us over until the federal polling season resumes:
• Essential Research has broken the poll drought to the extent of releasing state voting intention results, compiled from the polling it conducted between October and December. The results find Labor ahead in all five states, with Tasmania not covered. This includes a breakthrough 51-49 lead in New South Wales, after they were slightly behind in each quarterly poll going back to April-June 2016; a 51-49 lead in Victoria, after they led either 52-48 or 53-47 going back to October-December 2015; a 52-48 lead in Queensland, from primary vote results well in line with the state election held during the period; and a new peak of 57-43 in Western Australia. In South Australia, Labor is credited with a lead of 51-49, from primary vote numbers which are, typically for Essential Research, less good for Nick Xenophon’s SA Best than Newspoll/Galaxy: Labor 34%, Liberal 31%, SA Best 22%.
• The Age has ReachTEL polls of two Victorian state seats conducted on Friday, prompted by the current hot button issue in the state’s politics, namely “crime and anti-social behaviour”. The poll targeted two Labor-held seats at the opposite ends of outer Melbourne, one safe (Tarneit in the west, margin 14.6%), the other marginal (Cranbourne in the south-east, margin 2.3%). After excluding the higher-than-usual undecided (14.5% in Cranbourne, 15.5% in Tarneit), the primary votes in Cranbourne are Labor 40% (down from 43.4% at the last election), Liberal 40% (down from 41.3%) and Greens 7% (up from 4.2%); in Tarneit, Labor 43% (down from 46.8%), Liberal 36% (up from 26.4%), Greens 10% (up from 9.0%). Substantial majorities in both electorates consider youth crime a worsening problem, believe “the main issues with youth crime concern gangs of African origin”, and rate that they are, indeed, less likely to go out at night than they were twelve months ago. The bad news for the Liberals is that very strong majorities in both seats (74.6-25.4 in Tarneit, 66.5-33.5) feel Daniel Andrews would be more effective than Matthew Guy at dealing with the issue.
• Rachel Baxendale of The Australian reports on the latest flare-up in an ongoing feud between Ian Goodenough, member for the safe Liberal seat of Moore in Perth’s northern suburbs, and party player Simon Ehrenfeld, whose preselection for the corresponding state seat of Hillarys before the last state election was overturned by the party’s state council. The report includes intimations that Goodenough may have a fight of his own in the preselection for the next election, with those ubiquitous “party sources” rating him a “waste of a safe seat“, particularly in light of Christian Porter’s dangerous position in Pearce.
• Not long after Andrew Bartlett replaced Larissa Waters as a Queensland Greens Senator following the latter’s Section 44-related disqualification, the two are set to go head-to-head for preselection at the next election. Sonia Kohlbacher of AAP reports that Ben Pennings, “anti-Adani advocate and former party employee”, has also nominated, although he’s presumably a long shot. The ballot of party members will begin on February 16, with the result to be announced on March 26.
vic:
There are now questions around Corey Lewandowski getting kickbacks from Big Coal:
https://www.politico.com/story/2017/08/25/lewandowski-trump-coal-lobbying-242052
Not even that long, from what I’ve heard.
And of course it is common knowledge that we use diesel to run many of the conveyors feeding our coal-fired power plants…
Boerwar says:
Wednesday, January 10, 2018 at 9:21 am
3. I did not recommend open ocean wind turbines in typhoon zones. Nice straw man stuff, BTW. Plus a verbal. As for where the Japanese ARE siting their wind turbines, that is up to them.
____________________
Repost from the early hours of this morning:
Absence of Empathy says:
Wednesday, January 10, 2018 at 2:58 am
No, you can’t, they operate in winds of up to about 90km/hr, above this speed a brake is applied to shut them down.
They can survive quite high short gusts of wind.
Sustained very high speed winds such as a typhoon would simply tear one to pieces.
See if you can find a single example of an offshore wind farm anywhere tropical storms are a regular occurrence.
___________________
Japan is in a typhoon and tsunami prone geographical situation. They have installed a considerable amount of onshore wind turbines, and more are being built, as well as increasing amounts of fixed offshore, and floating offshore units.
http://jwpa.jp/pdf/JWPA_REvision2017_ExpertMTG.pdf
as 0f 2015 total 3 gW.
as of 2020 (est) 11 gW
as of 2030 (est) 36 gW
In 2015 they built the world’s largest floating wind turbine 20 km off Fukushima:
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/japan-builds-worlds-largest-floating-wind-turbine-fukushima-n402871
____________________________
Absence of Empathy says:
Wednesday, January 10, 2018 at 2:58 am
3. No, you can’t, they operate in winds of up to about 90km/hr, above this speed a brake is applied to shut them down.
________________
Wikipedia:
All wind turbines are designed for a maximum wind speed, called the survival speed, above which they will be damaged. The survival speed of commercial wind turbines is in the range of 40 m/s (144 km/h, 89 MPH) to 72 m/s (259 km/h, 161 MPH). The most common survival speed is 60 m/s (216 km/h, 134 MPH).
Some have been designed to survive 80 metres per second (290 km/h; 180 mph).
Confessions @ #36 Wednesday, January 10th, 2018 – 9:12 am
Extensive! Lots and lots of other Dutch painters as well as Rembrandt! It took us a good couple of hours to get around and look at all the pictures. It was amazing to think that some of them had been painted in 1650! Of course, they have been perfectly looked after and lovingly restored. In fact, there was a story about one of them, ‘The Adoration of the Magi’, which stated that the Conservators noticed an extra layer of paint over the Baby Jesus part of the painting. So they analysed it and found that the original artwork had been painted over some time later by a disgruntled Christian painter who didn’t like the fact that the original depiction of Baby Jesus on Mary’s lap made him look like an angry little toddler! 😀
Anyway, it was good that the Art Gallery didn’t put the works behind chains and glass, even some of the Rembrandts, because it allowed you to get up close and have a look at the technique, the brush strokes and colours.
One of the Still Life paintings of a bunch of flowers took 5 years to paint! No one has that much spare time these days!
I saw this one up close and personal:
Aelbert Jansz van der Schoor
Plus we caught up with some classic Australian Art as well.
Then we went to the Tennis. What an exercise in contrasts!
We were exhausted, well and truly, by the end of it. But happily so. 🙂
Confessions @ #46 Wednesday, January 10th, 2018 – 9:21 am
It just shows the calibre and the character of candidates for high office, and just remember that 100 Senators out of a population of 300 Million people is a pretty select bunch, that Trump is happy to endorse.
c@t
Glad you enjoyed it all!
Don
Thank you.
Replying to @davidfrum
“Lewandowski denied in a message Friday that he is working for the companies, utility FirstEnergy and mining corporation Murray Energy. But … some senior administration officials and others close to Trump … believed he was being paid for the work.”
Lewandoski being tricky with words. Obviously not an employee of the companies in question, not formally, but maybe receiving a ‘gratuity’ for pushing their cause. Also, a lobbyist isn’t strictly an employee of the company they lobby for, they are an employee of their lobbying outfit.
C@t:
It sounds wonderful. I’m so jealous it’s not travelling across the Nullabor.
The mainstream media likes the advertising revenue that it gets from property developers and real estate agencies, so they have a financial interest in upholding the narrative that increased land prices are great and a gradual decrease or a slower rate of increase would be bad. They also lack journalists with the policy expertise and the autonomy to think and write critically about housing and taxation or indeed anything more complex than “he said, she said” stenography.
victoria @ #56 Wednesday, January 10th, 2018 – 9:37 am
Absolutely! The Tennis was surreal. It was held at the old Sydney Olympic Tennis Centre. It was obviously set up for the television audience because every time there was a scheduled ad break after a point ended, the players just sat down and waited until it was over before starting the match again!
It was very hot though and I don’t know how the players kept running around in it so ferociously!
“ABC 7.30 was in cheap magazine mode last night, virtually repeating all the salacious detail about McLaughlin from the night before. Is this what Guthrie wants? I’m not defending him, but his lawyers might object.”
Yup, the rinse repeat on this story is pretty poor behavior i think. They don’t have to do a high rotation repeat of the whole lot on their news channel.
Confessions @ #59 Wednesday, January 10th, 2018 – 9:41 am
You’ll have to go to Holland one day and see them instead!
imacca @ #63 Wednesday, January 10th, 2018 – 9:46 am
I agree, it’s pretty poor form. Put it out there and then move on until the matter is settled. Putting it on high rotation on tv is just cheap gossip mongering.
BW, I read AofE attack on you last night and was looking forward to your response today. Obviously, he or she hasn’t seen your track record, otherwise they would have been more civil. (Like the attack on the last night). Unequal contest in my opinion.
Hope AofE comes back as I always like to see people like AofE (think of arrogant, abusive know all) humbled by your pen.
The cases that have been reported in the media are not romantic overtures gone awry. They either involve sexual assault or rape, and / or persistent unwanted requests for or allusions to sex. Nobody so far has lost their job for asking someone out and accepting “No thanks” for an answer.
I have some sympathy with BW on much of what he says, but have the following questions:
I know currently most of our refined fuels comes via Singapore but could not the remaining refineries take up the slack via oil from the Persian Gulf? Certainly what you say is true about Sydney but perhaps less so in other places.
Empathy was pretty much off the planet talking of the Straits of Malacca etc. It is very narrow and I believe even today that piracy can be a bit of an issue. It is to be assumed that in a hot war with China that this would be the location of some pretty full on battles. Indeed looking at a map I would predict that in any hot (or cold) war between the USA and china the following would be where the major naval battles would be:
1. Malacca straits (US would seek to block China)
2. Its alternative Sunda straits (US would seek to block China)
3. South China Sea (Both would fight in this zone)
4. Timor Sea and Torres Strait (China would seek to block USA trade routes)
5. The gap between Taiwan and the Phillipines (US would seek to block China)
If Japan were also involved then:
Sea of Japan (US would seek to block China)
North China sea(US would seek to block China)
If Russia were also involved then add
The Bering Strait
Sea of Okosh
Arctic Sea
Baltic Sea
More distantly of course all the usual choke points would be in play – Suez, Persian Gulf, Panama Canal, Bosphorus, Gibralta, Cape of Good Hope, and the Horn (I now undertand why the Falklands mattered)
There are probably others also.
Whatever way you look at it the Straits of Malacca are pretty bloody high strategic value
Boerwar @ #45 Wednesday, January 10th, 2018 – 9:21 am
Don’t be any more boorish than you can help, boerwar. Do you think I’m the only one here that finds your snide and repetitious jibes a little tedious?
I think people should only be named or photographed after they are found guilty of offences and actually practice what we preach…i.e. innocent until proven guilty.
Once mud is thrown, it invariably sticks and it also affects those associated . Feel this applies even more strongly where children and teens are concerned.
Player One @ #69 Wednesday, January 10th, 2018 – 9:55 am
And your pointing out of same, equally so.
“I think people should only be named or photographed after they are found guilty of offences and actually practice what we preach…i.e. innocent until proven guilty.”
Which in the Craig McLaughlan / Rocky Horror matters may well have been do-able if the producers had acted, in some way, to the complaints made.
The women making the complaints seem to have actually tried to deal with this “discreetly”, and i can understand that even if purely in terms of the career implications of them standing up for themselves. They have been frustrated in that and when the circumstances cam together, go public. Fair Nuff.
ABC need to tome down the tabloid rag stuff though. Doesn’t help anyone.
Probably no surprise that Murdoch is attacking Bannon after Bannon turned against Trump:
Fess
No surprises re Corey L. There are big question marks around anyone connected to the Trump crime organisation!
I do not subscribe to the idea that because there is an accusation there is automatic guilt. It will take more than a television interview to verify the allegations.
It will be interesting to see if any other accusations are made from other productions, a pattern. Such behaviour is usually serial.
I am not believing or disbelieving anyone at the moment. They are all actors, so I want more than TV appearances to go on. I want evidence.
C@tmomma @ #71 Wednesday, January 10th, 2018 – 9:58 am
???
Internal Trump campaign source tipped off FBI about Russia collusion, according to Senate testimony
In the testimony, Simpson said the Steele dossier was taken seriously by the FBI because it corroborated reports the bureau had received from other sources.
“My understanding was that they believed Chris at this point – that they believed Chris’s (Steele’s) information might be credible because they had other intelligence that indicated the same thing and one of those pieces of intelligence was a human source from inside the Trump organization,” Simpson said.
https://www.rawstory.com/2018/01/internal-trump-campaign-source-tipped-off-fbi-about-russia-collusion-according-to-senate-testimony/
Samantha Bee goes on ‘Apology Race’ across the world to say sorry for Trump’s ‘garbage’ mistakes
Known for her biting political satire, Full Frontal host Samantha Bee is sending her correspondents on a new partisan voyage — to apologize for President Donald Trump.
“This is New York City, home of Donald Trump and an entire city of people who hate him,” Bee noted from atop a skyscraper in the “race” announcement video.
“For the next two weeks, my correspondents will travel the globe to apologize for every garbage thing Donald Trump does,” she said. “His poor impulse control might force us to go apologize to Korea, the entire Muslim world or some rando.”
https://www.rawstory.com/2018/01/samantha-bee-goes-on-apology-race-across-the-world-to-say-sorry-for-trumps-garbage-mistakes/
citizen @ #30 Wednesday, January 10th, 2018 – 4:59 am
How is more incompetence meant to correct an existing incompetence? 🙂
From the Ben Eltham article, this needs to be repeated:
What’s more, these Business Nabobs of Nastiness don’t even care how they look complaining about penalty rates and bleating how they have to have more and bigger Tax Cuts so they can create more jobs/employ more Precariat Workers.
Player One @ #76 Wednesday, January 10th, 2018 – 10:25 am
It’s equally boorish and snide. Do you really need to make those sort of comments? You do do it quite often, and I, for one, am getting sick of seeing them. dtt also does it and it doesn’t make for any sort of a convincing argument, if you have one to make.
Do you want to win the argument or be supercilious?
And, yes, point to me as well if you must but I don’t think that would make for a convincing argument in rebuttal either. 🙂
I was in the UK in 2012 when the Jimmy Saville story broke.
The initial reaction there was familiar. Why was it not reported? They are only doing it for money. Innocent till proved guilty.
The last one is interesting. Every day we read allegations of dubious behaviour, some criminal, some close to criminal, some just bad.
But somehow people think allegations of sexual misbehaviour should not be reported until a crime is proved.
Sexual harassment is nothing new. I think I have mentioned before that my 93 year old mother can still remember the names of the men best abounded when she worked in the WA Treasury Department in 1944.
It is long past time that the perpetrators should be allowed to hide behind the “innocent till proved guilty” line. There is no doubt in my mind that the offenders in these cases have thought they could act with impunity.
The cases coming to light now do not involve a single person or single incident. People were queuing up to report Don Burke’s activities. Anybody still defending him?
For the Ghan fans out there, SBS is looking to release a 17 hour version.
I like the concept.
When travelling I often find the journey presents as many highlights as the destination.
Sometimes more! 🙂
https://www.theguardian.com/media/2018/jan/10/the-ghan-three-hour-train-epic-on-track-for-ratings-record-but-some-viewers-rail-against-slow-tv
What didn’t Republicans want you to see in the Fusion GPS transcript?
https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/right-turn/wp/2018/01/09/what-didnt-republicans-want-you-to-see-in-the-fusion-gps-transcript/?utm_term=.971338963970
I have decided to go on The Ghan as a result of the program! I have been on The Indian Pacific as well. I just sit there and look at the beautiful scenery Australia has to offer. 🙂
I believe Catherine Deneuve is missing the point…
https://www.theguardian.com/film/2018/jan/09/catherine-deneuve-men-should-be-free-hit-on-women-harvey-weinstein-scandal
Catherine, like some other women who have survived the travails of climbing to success, seem to think that as they were able to make it and found ways to circumvent male power then whats the problem?
Well, women are vastly under-represented in executive ranks and the situation is going sideways rather than improving. Women are paid less for doing the same job. There are two problems to start with.
As for “awkward attempts to pick someone up” – this misrepresents what is actually happening with MeToo. MeToo is about powerful people using their power in the workplace to gain sexual gratification over the less powerful. The sexual gratification is gained at the expense of the less powerful person – in this interaction the less powerful person is demeaned as their wants and needs and dignity are deemed secondary or even irrelevant. To say it is merely an awkward attempt at a pick up fails to take into account that these powerful people know exactly what they are doing as shown by their attempts to denigrate the victim when denied gratification or when their behavior is exposed to the public.
MeToo is not about two people in a workplace awkwardly exploring their feelings for each other. Anyone in a powerful position in a workplace must be acutely aware of the sensitivities of beginning any sort of relationship with someone in a less powerful position and behave carefully and respectfully – if they are at all crass or careless then they are showing incompetence in holding a powerful role. They deserve to have their career curtailed for these failures if we want to address a myriad of problems caused by abuse of power in the workplace.
PhoenixRed
According to Mensch last week, there were two human sources within the Trump Campaign.
I have no firm idea of who they might be.
Re the comment that innocent men might be falsely labelled sexual predators. Yes that occasionally happens. A famous case concerned a popular teacher in far eastern Victoria Ensay??? who was on the sex offenders register. As a 17 year old he had groped his girlfriends breasts and her very righteous father had had him prosecuted, he pleaded guilty and bingo his name was written onto the sex offenders register for all eternity
Far more common is when sex offenders are tried in front of a jury that fails to convict. When I read Emily Cole’s story of her jury service I was strongly reminded of my friends jury service. The defendant was charged with underage sex, the victim lived in St Albans. It was a very hot day in the airless jury room in the Victorian Supreme Court, one male juror point blankly refused to convict a man of a sex crime, a woman in the jury room said that every 14 year old girl from St Albans was a slut, so it couldn’t be rape.
After the jury returned their verdict the police said the defendant had a history of underage sex court appearances.
Every woman who has been raped has had to weigh up the costs of complaining to the police in terms of loss of privacy, loss of credibility, damage to self esteem against the likelihood of successful prosecution. In Victoria only 3% of rapes reported to police go to court. The victims don’t deserve to be humiliated, threatened and belittled by the perpetrator or their barristers all over again.
I am all for judge only trials for sex offences.
http://www.smh.com.au/comment/can-juries-deliver-justice-to-sexual-assault-victims-20171220-h0870m.html
Barney
The Reunification Express from Hanoi to Ho Chi Minh City would make a good ‘slow train’ documentary.
Plenty of scope for an interesting commentary and I imagine the scenery would be interesting.
C@t
I was watching the Ghan show and tried to look up prices on the web but it seems heaps of people had the same idea and the system crashed!
I have travelled on the Indian Pacific twice, back in the 80s and 90s. I tell people if you really want to get a feel for how big this country is drive it or take the train.
Observation of recent comments on PB:
People can freely speculate about Trump (and related people) colluding with Russia, Corey Lewandowski getting kickbacks from Big Coal, Michaelia Cash’s manufactured raid on the AWU, NSW Coalition government being deceitful about real reasons for train problems, and hiding data about usage of new motorway, Turnbull and Dutton scaremongering about race issues to help the next VIC state election…
But when sexual abuse or harassment claims are made, there is an avalanche saying we should not speculate, must wait until it has been tried in court, proven beyond all reasonable doubt, don’t want to risk ruining a man’s reputation, etc.
Can someone please clarify for me the guidelines regarding which types of allegations we must ignore (until proven in a court of law) versus which we can discuss freely, and why there appears to be a double standard?
Just read Eltham’s NM piece. Definitely worth taking time over!
https://newmatilda.com/2018/01/09/unmasking-malcolm-the-big-5-policy-failures-of-2017/
Good Morning
I see the Greens are getting the credit by the media on tackling corruption by continually raising the concept of a Federal ICAC.
Labor needs to be more forceful and actually call their anti corruption watchdog an independent Federal ICAC with independent funding and real teeth.
Anything less in light of the reports of corruption in the public service doubling in the last three years will be seen by voters (agree with the perception or not) as the two parties are the same.
This is an area the Greens do have the narrative on. Labor needs to be strong on this to counter the whole the two parties are the same.
Time for some very strong statements Labor.
rossmcg,
Thankfully we are now at a point where such behaviours that were once tolerated are no longer so.
One problem here is the enablers.
In the Child Abuse RC we saw the institutions themselves acting in ways that enabled and facilitated further abuses to occur in order to protect the institution.
This seems to be a theme in the entertainment industry as well with Producers ignoring or tolerating such behaviour in order to protect the shows viability.
The problem can only be fully addressed by also dealing with these enablers, they are the ones who allow the perpetrators to re-offend by offering real or tacit protection.
C@tmomma @ #81 Wednesday, January 10th, 2018 – 10:40 am
I don’t see how me pointing out that boerwar’s comments are boorish and snide -which they certainly are – is boorish and snide. You certainly have some odd standards for other people’s behaviour.
edit: fix quote fail!
It is good to see Luke Foley actually jumping on the train timetable issue.
He is actually in your face on the media today. Good to see.
Also good to see Labor in front in NSW state politics. LNP have managed to undo the whole corruption is Labor voter anchor that has beset Labor since Obeid first surfaced at ICAC
victoria says: Wednesday, January 10, 2018 at 10:57 am
PhoenixRed
According to Mensch last week, there were two human sources within the Trump Campaign.
I have no firm idea of who they might be.
************************************************
If anyone, she would have a good idea – will maybe come out later – but whoever it is, is just adding corroborating evidence to such issues as money laundering and collusion and effectively the finishing touches to the whole saga …… Robert Mueller must be sitting on a mountain of information now and perhaps the investigation part will coming to some defined end point
PhoenixRed
One name that comes to my mind is Felix Sater. From recollection, the FBI had forgone some of his crimes in past, so he could be an asset for them in the whole Russian mob and money laundering schemes in New York.
According to Mensch last week, there were two human sources within the Trump Campaign.
Pure speculation on my part, but I’m plumping for Trump’s former Aide de Camp who left his employ a couple of month’s ago. He used to be a NY Policeman and may have been placed in Trump’s orbit when Trump started having no problem at all recovering from numerous financial setbacks due to Russian contacts and money.