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.
Socrates @ #1000 Friday, January 12th, 2018 – 10:08 pm
It is just blatant corruption.
Paul Kelly (who else) likes the red roofs of Sydney
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2pRthfLnpX8
Bemused
At present in SA local government it need not count as corruption! That is the problem. To be fair to Weatherall the discussion paper I linked to recommended solutions similar to the Qld Act for all these issues. But unfortunately it has not got through SA parliament.
Socrates @ #1003 Friday, January 12th, 2018 – 10:17 pm
Whether the law has caught up or not, it is still corrupt conduct by any reasonable definition.
Of course, to say that similar legislation on conflicts of interest, rather than worthless “codes of conduct” is needed badly at Federal as well as Local government level in all states, is an understatement. The antics of Sinodinos, Hockey and others highlights the point. State politics is now fairly well regulated for corruption, but that only highlights the glaring inconsistencies with the other tiers of government.
Night all.
Bemused
Yes I agree it is corrupt in practice. Just far too common.
CTar1 @ #997 Friday, January 12th, 2018 – 10:02 pm
And your evidence is?
Not that I have given credence to Trump’s stupid comments, but this is too good. And of course no chance President Man Baby deliberately chose his words to coincide. He most likely wouldn’t know who Alexander Hamilton was.
Bemused – It is my opinion from what I’ve seen of the matter. Full stop.
I have no need to post my ‘evidence’ and no obligation to do so..
CTar1 @ #1009 Friday, January 12th, 2018 – 10:27 pm
Fine, so it is just an opinion.
But subsequent events have shown that the implied objective hasn’t been achieved. Or maybe there never was such an objective, just more mischief on the part of whoever is running Wikileaks these days.
bemused – Most things on here are exactly that.
Bemused:
Don, there are a number of aspects of that snake bite death that puzzle me.
> The snake was supposedly small, so I would have thought less venom.
> The bite was on a finger so I would have thought a tourniquet would have been an easy matter to apply.
> The victim got to hospital and was treated fairly soon after the bite.
> The victim was a young man, presumably in reasonable physical condition and so should have been able to cope better than a kid or unhealthy older person. And yet he succumbed rapidly.
Is more known about it locally?
You make good points. In particular the tourniquet. I carry elastic bandages specifically for this purpose at all times in the bush, which have printed images on them which change from rectangular to square when you have reached the correct tension for lymph suppression of transport of venom, without compromising the supply of blood to the limb.
If you are bitten on the bum, tough luck.
Then (or earlier!) I raise the antenna on my personal locator beacon, and hope for the best. May it never happen.
The size of the brown snake is, I suspect, immaterial. Do you want to die in twenty minutes, or in thirty? The chopper will never reach me in time, but it has been a good life, and je ne regrette rien. I have already outlived most of my ancestors, and with any luck (I have an abundance of it) I will set a new record.
Never get into a ‘mano a mano’ with a brown snake, you are bound to lose.
With reference to your comment, I know nothing about it locally, I suspect it is for experts to decide.
But I give brown snakes and death adders as much room as they desire, and then some. Don’t fool around with either. I’ve been lucky so far, but then again I am a lucky bastard in pretty much every scenario to this point, and in life in general.
Others, not so much.
In particular, children with Leukemia or similar. Life is not fair, nor death.
Give it your best shot. Always.
don
Nah, did that in Darwin, barefoot ,shorts and a coat hanger………….and a gazillion units of Adrenalin. 🙂
In Darwin or for a Darwin award?
CTar1
This article in the Grauniad may ring a few PB bells 🙂
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/jan/10/the-media-should-not-settle-for-truthiness-on-trump
don @ #1012 Friday, January 12th, 2018 – 10:34 pm
I enjoy your philosophical writings!
When I was in High School in suburban Sydney, there were a couple of avid snake collectors in the school. They used to frequent such places as the swamp down near the Kurnell refinery, catching all sorts of snakes and their collection extended to the highly venomous species.
On several occasions one or another of them was summoned to go home and catch one of the snakes that had escaped.
I got curious and bought a few snakes off one of the collectors. Semi venomous types including a marsh snake, a whip snake and a few others I can’t remember. I took them home and was keeping them under the house which was quite high off the ground.
Then my mother found out my ‘secret’! 😆
That was the end of my snake collection.
While I had them, I handled them quite a bit and there was never any attempt by any to bite me and I really overcame any irrational fears I may have had about snakes. Your fears are well founded.
They really are beautiful creatures in their own way, as you said earlier.
don
One of the local lawyers stopped at a lookout on his way from one valley here to the next. He got out of his car to stretch his legs, and saw a brown snake nearby.
He lobbed a piece of asphalt in its direction (not to hit it, but to encourage it to leave).
The next thing he knew he was scrambling onto the bonnet of his car to get to the roof.
He says he knows exactly what the colour of a brown snake’s throat is, he’s looked straight down one.
Bemused and Socrates
The first law of corruption is that the problem is not what is illegal; it’s what is legal.
On the snakes, health department specifically advise NOT to put a tourniquet on the limb. They teach pressure-immobilisation. Personally I’d put a tight tourniquet on and cut my finger off but that’s not Medical advice.
bemused
One of my friends, as a toddler, was found by her mother collecting red backed spiders in a jar.
She said she’d been told to look out for them.
Tom the first and best
The choice was either go and put on more appropriate clothes and let the blighter go lordy knows where or capture him/here Brown snake then and there.
The US State Dept staffers must be having a great time being the pooper scoopers for Dotard
poroti says:
Friday, January 12, 2018 at 10:44 pm
don
Never get into a ‘mano a mano’ with a brown snake, you are bound to lose.
Nah, did that in Darwin, barefoot ,shorts and a coat hanger………….and a gazillion units of Adrenalin.
I dips me lid. You are another lucky bastard. Thought I was one of the few.
But don’t try that down the gorges, trust me. You are a very, very long distance from help, and from adrenalin injections, which most sources I have consulted say are of limited usefulness in any case. Your experience may be different, consult your local physician.
In the gorges you are at the bottom of a very big hole, and help is a long way away.
Which is part of the attraction, of course.
When I was a teenager, we used to joke that we wanted to die at 95 years old, climbing out of a bedroom window, shot by a jealous husband.
Now I would settle for falling from a great height, trying a new route out of the gorges. To each his own.
poroti:
From what I’ve seen from US political commentators the Wolff book is shoddy, lazily researched and written, full of minor factual errors, and arguably therefore bringing itself into question because of.
It begs the question however, as to why Trump and Team Trump went so hard in reacting to it instead of doing presidential and ‘meh’ when it was released. My guess: Trump is out of his depth and knows it. Anything that brings his mental and intellectual capacity for potus into question is going to sting and is going to bang on record in a big way. As it did with Wolff’s book.
End game: he’s unfit for office. And the sooner the Republicans in Congress realise this and act, the better for everyone.
You can’t go mano a mano with a snake as they don’t have any hands. 😐
Zoomster
If the snake had known it was attacking a lawyer it would have fled!
Apologies in advance to the lawyers (bush and otherwise) on PB.
Genius. Until today, if you Googled “Trump” and “shithole” all you got were hotel reviews.
“He lobbed a piece of asphalt in its direction (not to hit it, but to encourage it to leave).
The next thing he knew he was scrambling onto the bonnet of his car to get to the roof.”
Evolution in action???
don
Definitely not a ” lucky bastard” . It was calculated , the alternative was worse and I had experience in catching snakes. That said I would not want to do it again. Fear factor was 10/10.
Diogenes says:
Friday, January 12, 2018 at 10:55 pm
You can’t go mano a mano with a snake as they don’t have any hands.
Perhaps so, literally hand to hand, but in common usage:
http://www.dictionary.com/browse/mano-a-mano
Word Origin
noun, plural manos a manos
1.
Spanish. a corrida in which two matadors alternate in fighting two or three bulls each.
2.
a direct confrontation or conflict; head-on competition; duel.
It is version 2 which is the most common interpretation.
“Genius. Until today, if you Googled “Trump” and “shithole” all you got were hotel reviews.”
That one well worth sharing. 🙂
zoomster @ #1019 Friday, January 12th, 2018 – 10:51 pm
LOL…
There was a (probably apocryphal) story in the SMH many years ago about some hippy type on the North Coast of NSW who went to a doctor not feeling well.
A colony of redback spiders was located in his dreadlocks and he must have received one or more bites. 😀
poroti says:
Friday, January 12, 2018 at 11:06 pm
don
Definitely not a ” lucky bastard” . It was calculated , the alternative was worse and I had experience in catching snakes. That said I would not want to do it again. Fear factor was 10/10.
That is the definition of bravery. If you weren’t scared, there is no heroism involved. Fortune favours the brave.
Heroism is being shit scared and doing what needs to be done anyhow.
don @ #1032 Friday, January 12th, 2018 – 11:15 pm
I liked the story an ex-serviceman told of only being scared once in world war II … from 1939 – 1945.
Diogenes @ #1018 Friday, January 12th, 2018 – 10:50 pm
The venom is carried in the lymph, so enough compression to occlude (low pressure) lymph flow, which translates into a firm compression bandage, and max possible immobilisation of the bitten part – usually hand or leg.
I remember reading that the two most common factors with a bite were 1. alcohol – blokes get pissed and stupid and 2. water – a water hole, dam or creek.
zoomster @ #1018 Friday, January 12th, 2018 – 6:51 pm
When I was a young kid I had a Bug Catcher toy.
One day I caught a spider that had just come out from cover.
On close inspection it had red markings.
I was too young to know for sure but old enough to know about Red Backs, so I quickly granted it its freedom! 🙂
poroti
I’ve been ‘out of commission’ for a few days but did see this article.
I agree discounting what Wolffe has written because some errors are in there is stupid.
As said by others the White House reaction says the overall ‘vibe’ is probably right.
Have you seen this Sparrow guy talking on a vid. He’s intelligent but even ruder and more ill-mannered than McKim – Objectionable to the hilt.
Facebook rediscovers itself.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/11/technology/facebook-news-feed.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=first-column-region®ion=top-news&WT.nav=top-news
CTar1 @ #1035 Friday, January 12th, 2018 – 7:27 pm
The Castle has a lot to answer for! 🙂
Interesting that Dutton is criticising Africans at the same time Trump is calling out shithole countries.
I wonder who writes the scripts for these degenerates?
Dutton’s sortie into hate politics is aimed at retrieving support lost by the LNP to ON. His real targets are probably not the voters of the Independent Socialist Republic of Victoria, but the hostiles of QLD and NSW.
Will it work? Probably not. It will cost many more votes than it will ever be likely to attract. It’s a sign of the desperation in the LNP – convinced, as they must be, that all is practically lost – that they are willing to try this tactic.
Notably, Federal Labor have been holding their tongues. The LNP are entering into risky territory. Every time Dutton mouths off about Africans he reminds voters of the LNP’s form on racial issues. He is phobo-matic. This has to be highly deleterious for the LNP brand. Labor’s best reflex is to stay out while the LNP discredit themselves.
“The venom is carried in the lymph, so enough compression to occlude (low pressure) lymph flow, which translates into a firm compression bandage, and max possible immobilisation of the bitten part – usually hand or leg.”
Yup. No tourniquet for poisons. We do have one in our marine field kit at work but its ONLY for use in the event of traumatic amputation if there is something there to wrap it around. Something you really hope to never have to use on a student.
Interesting article on ABC tonight on Stonefish. Was good to see that they made the point that the first aid for that is immersion in hot water. 65 -70 degrees will denature the toxin ( a large, multi level of folded protein) in a few minutes. Actually that’s a pretty standard 1st aid for fish spikes and stings. Heat breaks down the weakest levels of bonding and it changes the chemical properties of the toxin such that it stops causing the awesome levels of pain you get from Stonefish, or even the common Cobbler. From my reading treating a Stonefish hit with hot water early can make, litereallyweeks of difference to the time it takes to heal.
Me, nearly got spiked in the head by a Lionfish once on a dive. Quite scary. 🙁
Was out on another field trip and my boss took a Cobbler pectoral spine straight through the Achilles tendon. Not a good day that one.
Thought there is damn good eating to be had off a Cobbler. 🙂
Labor have always “put ON last”. That is, they have put maximum distance between themselves and everything that ON and their imitators have stood for. Dutton is re-emphasising this difference without any help from Labor. He is campaigning against the LNP/for Labor.
They are such desperadoes…political outlaws.
Sprocket
We used to have a Federal Government Department known as DOTARD – Department of Transport and Regional Development.
And over the years we’ve had DIMA – Department of Immigration and Multi Cultural Affairs – and DOPIE – Department of Primary Industry and Energy.
Long ago we had DASSET – Department of Administrative Services, Sport, Environment and Territories … It didn’t last long and got changed, split, added to, taken away from etc. until it morphed in to something known generally in-government as Admin Services, Arts, farts and spare parts … until it got totally worked over yet again because JWH had as fit about travel rorts, sacked the minister responsible and sold off all the government assets it managed.
😀
Interesting news in the local rag on careers of worth and service post politics. Melissa Parke (ex Fed ALP member for Freo) has been appointed as an “eminent expert” by the UN to investigate war crimes in Yemen.
briefly
And he revels in being let of the chain to smear, verbal and denigrate whatever and who ever.
A pig in clover.
CTar1 says:
Saturday, January 13, 2018 at 12:31 am
briefly
Dutton’s sortie into hate politics is aimed at retrieving support lost by the LNP to ON.
And he revels in being let of the chain to smear, verbal and denigrate whatever and who ever.
A pig in clover.
He seems to enjoy it….though he must know it’s a risky move. I guess they can see they can lose a lot of seats in QLD and not so many in Victoria. The LNP can only hang on if, among other things, they can repair their standing in QLD. Since they are unable to reset their economic and social settings in ways that would appeal to the ON-susceptible, they have resorted to kicking heads. Dutton is a truncheon….the original blunt object.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/climate-consensus-97-per-cent/2018/jan/09/the-imminent-mini-ice-age-myth-is-back-and-its-still-wrong
Weather to stay warmish i see. Flat Earthers predicting imminent global cooling will be disappointed.
We should expect to see lots more appeals to the base from the LNP. They have to try to stem the losses in PV support. They cannot do deals with ON…they will try to out-do them.
briefly – The 2 politicians I most like to see ‘gone’ are Dutton and Porter.
Then I have a big list of others both on the right and left whose time is over and are detrimental, or just a general waste of space.
We have a lot of well paid in the Senate and Reps that just make up the voting numbers and add nothing more than that.