The first ReachTEL poll of the year for Sky News is one of the Coalition’s better results of recent times, with Labor’s two-party lead down from 53-47 to 52-48 from the previous poll on November 28. On the primary vote, the Coalition is up a point to 34%; Labor is steady on 36%; the Greens are steady on 10%; and One Nation is down one to 8%.
Malcolm Turnbull also records a strong improvement on his personal ratings, being rated good by 30% (up six), average by 37% (up two) and poor by 32% (down eight). Bill Shorten is on 31% good (up one), 32% average (down four) and 36% poor (up three-and-a-half). Turnbull has increased his lead on ReachTEL’s all-or-nothing preferred prime minister measure, which typically produces closer results than other pollsters: last time it was 52-48, this time it’s 54-46.
The poll also finds 32% support for a cut in the company tax rate for businesses with a turnover of more than $50 million, with 44% opposed. Thirty-nine per cent of respondents rated that trade deals were good for employment, compared with 20% for poor; but 49% said Labor should vote against the Trans Pacific Partnership if it “doesn’t protect jobs”, with 20% taking the contrary view.
I’m not exactly sure what the field date was for the poll, but ReachTEL uses robopolling with samples of typically around 2300.
In other news, Tasmanian Premier Will Hodgman today called an election for March 3, which means there will be no clash with South Australia this time, as there was in 2010 and 2014. I hope to have a full election guide posted later today, so stay tuned.
@WewantPaul
I guess my issue is your use of ‘same’ in comparing it to ‘Hillary is the same as Trump’. You are strawmanning anyone who says ‘Labor and Liberals are similar in some ways’, by making it sound like what they actually said are ‘Labor and Liberals are identical in every way’.
CTar1
Win10 and chrome using an ‘incognito window’…Same, but all I got was the sub invitation in the middle of the page of subs details, not over the article.
Never mind.
“by making it sound like what they actually said are ‘Labor and Liberals are identical in every way’.”
I wasn’t straw-manning anything there is poster posting Lib-Lab as if they were the same and in a coalition currently running the Govt. Neither thing is true.
Marshall CohenVerified account@MarshallCohen
Jan 25
REMEMBER: Trump, his lawyer John Dowd and his top adviser Kellyanne Conway ALL DENIED last August that Trump ever considered firing Mueller. (NYT just reported that Trump ordered Mueller’s firing in June.)
Fascinating. The company that mid 2017 won the tender to run the South Australian LTO has just announced that their new Chief Executive is Brenton Pike.
Mr Pike was, until very recently, South Australia’s Registrar General.
The wheels within wheels and the degrees of separation to Donald Trump keep me constantly amazed. Today’s announcement by Turnbull about becoming a big kahuna in the Arms Trade sent my memory back to this guy and his corrupt ways when it came to Arms Dealing, ( he was, of course, a close friend of Donald Trump, who bought his Super Yacht off him):
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/long_reads/adnan-khashoggi-dead-saudi-arms-dealer-playboy-pleasure-wives-billionaire-lifestyle-wealth-profit-a7778031.html
So I wonder if, during their private talks, Malcolm and Don will discuss the Arms Trade business?
Yeah there’s a big difference between a claim that “Labor and Liberals are similar in some ways” and combining their names into one single entity. Downplaying “Lib-Lab” as meaning “similar” is just as much a strawman as “they are identical in every way”.
Bill Shorten keeps on avoiding policy difference and waving through right-wing nuttery and watch that poll lead evaporate.
@mimhof – it’s about context. The context was a post about a specific plan to subsidise arms exporters, which was proposed by the Coalition, and agreed with by Labor (or at least, by senior a Labor frontbencher – the party itself obviously has no official position and won’t until much later).
“Lib-Lab now on a same-same unity ticket to make Australia a top 10 arms dealer shipping weapons to regions awash with crackpot war mongers.”
Replace ‘Lib-Lab’ with “The Liberal Party and the Labor Party” and you have a sentence that (crackpot war mongers comment aside) really is just objective truth.
It is worth noting that the Greens have not supported a single defence purchase in the past quarter of a century.
Not one.
If it were up to the Greens the Air Force would be flying 50 year old Mirages, the Army would be using Vietnam War era Centurion tanks, the Navy would be flying clapped out Skyhawks, and sailing in Oberon class submarines.
There could be no revisit of the East Timor operation because the Indonesians would trounce us.
Day 14 of the Massive National Campaign and the Greens Party continue to fail miserably to achieve any of their 28 Aims for Indigenous people. As they have failed miserably for this past quarter of a century.
The progress that has been made is due solely to the Labor Party.
Plus the Greens have detracted from the Coalition’s accountability on these matters and had a bit of political fun by playing the self-indulgent Whitefella Sport of Culture Wars at the Expense of Indigenous People.
The thing to remember is that the Greens have superior ethics to everyone else. All the time.
Hands up those who are happy with the Lib-Lab policy of spending $50,000,000,000 on a bunch of subs that will do a few exercises now and then ?
Confessions
That is most interesting. It reminds of the Greens posting here. Same same.
So, Turnbull is using taxpayer funds to subsidize coal exports and arms exports.
I can’t recall him promising to do that.
Di Natale promised to further 28 separate Indigenous Advancement Aims (as per the Greens Party Policy Platform) but he did not promise to Change the Date.
Turnbull and Di Natale: same same: much ado about nothing much.
Lizzie,
Shh! 😉
‘The Coalition government is seeking to lift its political standing by focusing on the differences between itself and Labor on economic management.
While there are significant differences between how the two major parties would run the nation, Malcolm Turnbull’s team is at a profound disadvantage compared with previous right-wing attempts to build political success off the back of economic management.
The tactic is drawn directly from Howard-era politicking. John Howard built his 1996 election campaign around condemning the build-up of debt on Labor’s watch during the Hawke and Keating years. The demonisation was made easier by the fact Paul Keating had been treasurer before taking over as prime minister. Recessions, double-digit unemployment and interest rates overshadowed the micro-economic reforms for which we all now congratulate Keating. In 1996, Keating’s leadership was politically toxic and the election result reflected that. It was the biggest defeat in federal political history other than the fall of Gough Whitlam in the 1970s.
Once in office, Howard continued the economic theme — using the 1998 re-election campaign to argue for sizeable tax reform via the GST. He returned to economic management in 2004 to put Mark Latham to the sword, with the catchcry: who do you trust to manage the economy? It worked, with Howard increasing the Coalition’s margin and, despite seeking a fourth term, picking up seats in every mainland state. A first in Australian politics.
But Howard had runs on the board to build such a narrative. While the times suited him and the mining boom was in full swing, the fact is he paid down Labor’s debt and could point to serious tax and industrial relations reforms. Unlike today, it did not require contortions to sell positive economic news to voters. In the here and now selling economic gains is much harder to do, partly because the economic climate is different, but also because the achievements are slender.
There is no escaping the build-up of debt on the Coalition’s watch. It has doubled since the 2013 election, with deficits forecast across the forward estimates. Tales of a return to surplus feel like exactly that, and both major parties wear the odium of over-promising while under-delivering.
Conservatives will tell you Labor blocked the first Abbott-era budget, and continue to make it difficult to achieve surpluses by stymieing reforms and cuts on everything from social security to higher education. That might be true, alongside the hostility of a fractured Senate, but governments — like it or not — remain accountable for what they do or don’t achieve. Rather than the promised return to surplus, the Coalition has instead continued to accumulate debt.
But the chinks in the economic narrative go deeper than this. Turnbull himself shredded the economic credentials of this Coalition government when he used economic failure as one of two primary motivators for challenging Tony Abbott. Polling failures (the 30 consecutive defeats to Labor is a score the government is once again creeping up to) and poor economic stewardship (or at least salesmanship) were used to prise a first-term PM out of office less than two years after a thumping election victory. It worked, but it has left the government disunited and devoid of a consistent narrative spanning its complete time in office. How can the Coalition now argue its time in office has included “fixing Labor’s economic mess” when Turnbull’s promise in late-2015 was to repair the polls and fix Abbott’s poor economic efforts?
This goes to the heart of why it is unlikely the Coalition can recover to win the next election, unless voters’ attention spans are even shorter than we think.
Labor can’t necessarily win a debate built around economic management, but it doesn’t have to. Polling tells us the Coalition has long been regarded (rightly or wrongly) as better economic managers, but those same polls have the Coalition trailing Labor on the two-party vote. And a low primary vote is continually being eroded by the rise of minor parties on the Coalition’s right flank. Labor only needs to hold the line on the economy and pivot to question the “fairness” of the government’s agenda.
Corporate tax cuts are hard to sell, especially when they are so much more substantial than expected income tax cuts, which directly benefit voters. Labor simplistically (but effectively) paints the government as doing the bidding of the big end of town.
Trade deals are good, moderate IR reforms are too, but they don’t convince voters that this Coalition government’s economic credentials are a patch on those of Howard and Peter Costello. This is especially the case when disunity pervades the government over the best strategy to address stagnant wages and under-employment in the economy.
Turnbull has an economic story to tell, it’s just not a particularly good one. Or at least not as good as is likely necessary to turn the politics of 2018 around. He may be helped along by other difficulties that Bill Shorten will face early this year on citizenship and factional differences in key states like Victoria. But to build momentum, Liberals need to spruik more than piecemeal economic achievements.
The budget in May will be interesting; a lot will be riding on it. If Shorten has survived other threats until that time he will be entrenched as Labor leader, and Turnbull will be under immense pressure, having surpassed the benchmark of 30 Newspolls he used to oust Abbott.
While the Coalition hopes to build a theme for re-election around economic management, the truth is the real theme for this government on the economy is one of lost opportunities.
The 2014 budget was a political disaster, impossible to sell because of Abbott’s unnecessary rhetoric ruling out spending cuts on the eve of an election he was certain to win. Blocked in the Senate and seeking to legislate broken promises from the 2013 election campaign, the Coalition’s first budget left Abbott terminally weakened just one year into office, distrusted by a public already cynical about the political class.
Then divisions were caused by poor leadership and even poorer man management of a prime minister by an office drunk on power. The incompetence that led to Abbott being challenged was off the charts, and Liberals learned nothing from Kevin Rudd’s demise and the subsequent instability created by the ousting of a first-term PM.
After all of the above, the new administration squibbed it and didn’t pursue a Howard-like reform agenda around which to build re-election — despite honeymoon polls that put Turnbull a mile in front of Shorten. Sniping at the leader became a way of life and reactionaries replaced true conservatives on the party’s ideological right flank. The result has been a diminishing of the Liberal Party’s brand.
With so much baggage, and so many obstacles in place, it’s hard to see how the Coalition can convince voters to re-elect it based on economic management. The only possibility is if enough voters consider the Coalition a lesser of evils compared to the other mob.’ PvO
@ Boerwar – I really hope you’re being deliberately dense there.
The Greens continue to oppose increased military spending because we continue to spend too much. If we genuinely needed more, they would be more likely to support increases.
It’s called basing your policy on the facts at hand.
KayJay
Tks.
briefly @ #451 Monday, January 29th, 2018 – 11:44 am
So you are unaware of what happened to demonstrators against the Vietnam War, Apartheid and other evils in Australia back in the 196os & 70s?
Many were beaten by cops, some savagely, and many were charged with various made up crimes and often convicted on no evidence beyond the cops accusation.
And you apparently are unaware of similar events in the US including much worse such as Kent State College where the National Guard opened fire on demonstrating students.
You live in a curiously black and white world.
Rex: “Bill Shorten keeps on avoiding policy difference and waving through right-wing nuttery and watch that poll lead evaporate.”
Rex, despite what you want to peddle by way of nonsense, I think you’ll find that Shorten is:
A) Waving through stuff of no consequence or defence related
B) strategically NOT giving the Libs that line: “they just oppose verything for opposition’s sake”
C) Not dancing to your, anybody else’s, private wish list tune
VE – The Greens defence advisor Whish-Wilson?
‘Voice Endeavour says:
Monday, January 29, 2018 at 2:40 pm
@ Boerwar – I really hope you’re being deliberately dense there.
The Greens continue to oppose increased military spending because we continue to spend too much. If we genuinely needed more, they would be more likely to support increases.
It’s called basing your policy on the facts at hand.’
I challenge you to name a single item of defence equipment that the Greens have ever supported.
OTOH, the Greens routinely criticize ALL defence acquisitions. They do this vociferously.
Naturally gullible Greens supporters are being sucked in here. There are plenty of folk in the 50 Shades of Red camp would totally disarm Australia.
You have a penny that urgently needs dropping.
C@t. copyright. You are allowed to use excerpts, but not the whole thing.
CTaR1
Whish-Wilson knows as much about defence needs as your average accountant or Greensbot.
It used to be Ludlam. He was seriously into unilateral disarmament. Fortunately for Australia his assessment of our defence needs was on par with his assessment of his dual citizenship status.
Once again the Greens Party is playing around.
Rex Douglas @ #512 Monday, January 29th, 2018 – 2:33 pm
Anyone …?
I would think the work subs do would be easier/better/cheaper with drones, but perhaps water makes the communication far more difficult than with the airborne drones?
Rex
or
@Boerwar – you entirely missed the point.
Lets say I share a pencil with someone. This person and I use the pencil for 10 seconds at a time, every now and again.
The other person compulsively sharpens the pencil after every time they use it. I don’t know why – it makes the pencil too sharp, such that the lead keeps breaking off. I’ve asked them to sharpen it less frequently, but they don’t listen.
So, I never sharpen the pencil. There is never a single instance when it is being sharpened, where I am glad it is being sharpened.
Do you think that if this other person were to move elsewhere, such that we never shared the pencil, I would after a few hours, be sitting there failing to write because the pencil had gone blunt?
No, if the pencil needed sharpening, I would sharpen it. but there was never a time when it genuinely needed sharpening.
You cannot use the fact that the Greens have never supported defence investment to conclude that the Greens would not support a defence investment that was actually needed. Because Australia has always (for much more than 25 years), overinvested in its military.
but perhaps water makes the communication far more difficult than with the airborne drones?
Oh yes. Much, much more so.
VE
The Greens think that a pencil sharpener would do the trick?
The Greens approach for defence is to make the false assumption that the only wars that Australia will ever be involved in is ones which we start.
Good luck with that.
@Boerwar
If I think equipment could last 4 years and a vote came up at 3 years to replace it. I would vote against it. In another 3 years I would still vote against it thinking it could do another year.
So despite voting against in every upgrade vote I still support upgrades.
Catprog
I am not making a comment about what you do or your thinking.
Here is the reality. The Greens’ principles and aims actually mean that the Greens think that peace is axiomatic if you are nice to the other chap and if you disarm your country. This is truly lunatic and extremely dangerous stuff and, with the collapse of the WW2 order, increasingly risky.
What has happened ever since the Greens Party was formed is that the Greens ALWAYS oppose EVERY SINGLE new acquisition. By way of contrast the Greens have NEVER supported as single new acquisition.
If the Greens’ publicly stated wishes in these matters were to be translated by the same old same old parties who actually have some accountability for defending Australia, this would mean that we would be running Centurions, Skyhawks and Oberon Class subs.
Indonesia could trounce us. But not to worry. Indonesia has had a long record of resolving matters peacefully. Right?
Oh, and Centurions, Skyhawks and Oberon Class Submarines would mostly be immobile as being too old and dangerous for ADF people to use.
That is the Defence Vision of the 50 Shades of Red.
Boerwar,
Re-posting…
Albanese interview this morning on ABC RN Breakfast:
http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/breakfast/constitution-inadequate-while-is-doesnt-recognise-indigenous-aus/9369352
He was also asked about other issues including the abolition of pokie machines in clubs.
————————
Any opinion on this?
By the by….When pushed Albanese said he does not support the abolition of poker machines from NSW clubs, in contrast with Tas Rebecca White.
Any opinion on this?
“What has happened ever since the Greens Party was formed is that the Greens ALWAYS oppose EVERY SINGLE new acquisition. By way of contrast the Greens have NEVER supported as single new acquisition.
If the Greens’ publicly stated wishes in these matters were to be translated by the same old same old parties who actually have some accountability for defending Australia, this would mean that we would be running Centurions, Skyhawks and Oberon Class subs.”
No. That’s not how it works.
As Catprog pointed out, if the two major parties vote to replace things every 3 years, then a party who thinks those things should get replaced every 4 years would vote against every single proposal to replace them. But if the two major parties thought like that party that voted down all proposals, things would get replaced every 4 years, they would not go 50 years without being replaced.
Rex
Spending 50 billion on subs that are just about obsolete already is crazy.
That money should be spent on developing a drone and general robotics and AI industry instead.
Then we might have some decent protection, as well as something to sell.
In 2040 these subs would be dead in the first 24 hrs of a real war.
Have made this point on PB several times.
VE
How it works is that the two majors get on with defending Australia by supplying the ADF with modern equipment.
The Greens want the ADF to fight with Vietnam War era stuff.
Apparently there has been an astounding decrease in Indigenous homelessness on Day 14 of the Massive National Campaign!
Bwana, you were right all along!
Changing the Date is like sprinkling pixie dust over the lives of Indigenous people.
jenauthor
The majority of bills that get far enough to vote on are not contested at all (rather than of ‘no consequence’) with little change from first draft other than some better drafting suggestions incorporated.
This is why the Opposition gets pi##ed off when this current government will not give them the draft. This usually means that the Coalition are going to come up with some ‘end of the world’ deadline to try to panic Labor, the Greens and others into voting for it.
‘Trog Sorrenson says:
Monday, January 29, 2018 at 3:18 pm
Rex
Spending 50 billion on subs that are just about obsolete already is crazy.
That money should be spent on developing a drone and general robotics and AI industry instead.
Then we might have some decent protection, as well as something to sell.
In 2040 these subs would be dead in the first 24 hrs of a real war.
Have made this point on PB several times.’
Trog
May I suggest you are missing the point here?
The Greens never support any new acquisition. They always criticize each acquisition. There is no real point about discussing with the Greensbots whether one set of acquisitions would be strategically and tactically superior. Because WHATEVER acquisitions you or anybody else comes up with, the Greens will always criticize it.
There has not been a SINGLE acquisition over the life of the Greens Party that they have supported.
Not one.
It is another of their dirty little secrets.
Because of the near impossibility of communication through seawater, a submarine drone would need to be completely autonomous.
This would include the autonomous capability to decide on whether to “kill” a target, including any human being in, on or around such target.
Is that the position of those that advocate replacing manned submarines with drones? Seems to me to raise huge ethical issues – the same issues raised by other autonomous weapons systems. At least a surface drone or an airborne one can, if so designed, stay connected back to base for final “kill” commands to be issued.
Boerwar
I am not talking about the Greens.
‘ajm says:
Monday, January 29, 2018 at 3:25 pm
Because of the near impossibility of communication through seawater, a submarine drone would need to be completely autonomous.’
Well, the Greensbots cannot have it both ways.
Apparently Blue Whales can communicate over thousands of kilometers.
Naturally one of the Peace and Security Aims of the Greens is to protect whales from having to listen to noisy defence equipment. Think of it as a sort of Maginot Line.
Trog
I wave the white flag.
ajm
There are plenty of bad actors who do not share your reservations. If a robot is coming after you, it would be nice to have your own ready to go after it.
Most of the targets may well be other robots or drones. This is the reality of 21st century warfare.
question / LU
The communication problems with drone subs make it so they need to be preprogramed with attack/defend rules/tactics for a period of time and you only get to stop it, change the rules or make it come home when it reaches the preprogramed time to come to the surface for instruction. So if you tell one two weeks before communicating it will keep doing what you told it to do for the period. Dangerous things.
Airborne ones can be directly controlled in real time.