Newspoll has Labor’s lead back at 53-47, after its first new poll for the year a fortnight ago had it down to 52-48. The Coalition is down two on the primary vote to 36%, with Labor steady on 37%, the Greens steady on 10%, and One Nation bouncing back three points after a recent slump to 8%. Malcolm Turnbull’s lead as preferred prime minister is down from 45-31 to 40-33. All we have in terms of leadership approval at this stage are that Malcolm Turnbull’s net rating has weakened from minus 13% to minus 18%. Also featured is a finding that 65% of respondents believe Barnaby Joyce should resign as leader of the Nationals, which breaks down into a lot of detail I’m finding hard to parse from Simon Benson’s report in The Australian. The poll was conducted Thursday to Sunday from a sample of 1632.
UPDATE: Malcolm Turnbull is down three on approval to 34% and up four on disapproval 54%; Bill Shorten is steady on 34% approval and up two on disapproval to 54%. Only 23% agreed that Barnaby Joyce should remain Nationals leader, with 29% favouring him resigning from the front bench, 15% bowing out at the next election, and 21% quitting parliament immediately. The poll also finds 64% support for a ban on sexual relations between politicians and their employees, with 25% opposed.
sprocket_ @ #2087 Thursday, February 22nd, 2018 – 2:04 pm
The most interesting thing about Abbott and the rest of the Libs is that leaking Cabinet decisions and processes to decisions is now being leaked almost indiscriminately. Apart from all their poll trouble and policy stuff ups, once they start re-running debates for personal gain then trust between Ministers is gone and scores will be settled.
So Trump is now encouraging school teachers to shoot people dead. The lack of logic in that country is breathtaking.
To see the kids standing up against guns is heartwarming. Too late for the adults as they’ve already been ‘conditioned’ to the gun culture. Hope the kids can continue to resist and ultimately be able to vote for someone who will change things..
For those that were not able to access the live stream in time
jameswest2010: The is the must-watch video of this moment: teenagers confronting politicians about the dark money flooding and corrupting politics snpy.tv/2sLWUqX
https://twitter.com/jameswest2010/status/966508906322300936
Player One @ #2096 Thursday, February 22nd, 2018 – 2:09 pm
It has never worked for fruit flies.
Barney in Cherating @ #522 Thursday, February 22nd, 2018 – 2:01 pm
Oh good grief… give me a spell ! 😆
They’re all factional union hack careerists dancing to the tune of their sponsors.
Shorten is all about Shorten.
There have been numerous studies done over the years, as all these pollies would know. The conclusions have always been that migration is of economic benefit to the country, from significant to minor.
I believe that environmental considerations were taken into account. I wonder where Sustainable Australia get their sources from, or maybe they are just a fig leaf.
C@tmomma @ #2103 Thursday, February 22nd, 2018 – 2:18 pm
On the other hand, it did work for cane toads, foxes and rabbits! 🙂
Billy Graham – conman extraordinaire.
What an aggressive, hard, combative woman the NRA has sent!
matt31: Yes, you’re right – probably some of the erstwhile Liberal vote will land with the AC so they may get into the high single digits at this by-election.
I still don’t think they’ll be able to effectively distribute HTVs, and the other parties certainly don’t have anything to offer them in return for their dubiously effective preferences.
Rex
And di Natale is all about di Natale, and Hanson-Young is all about Hanson-Young, and Fiona Patton is all about Fiona Patton.
You could level the same accusation at anyone from any profession – nurses are in it for the money, too,you know – they don’t rock up to hospitals just for the love of it.
I
NRA lady lacking in empathy!
Fess
Glad the Sherriff called her out.
bakunin @ #2084 Thursday, February 22nd, 2018 – 1:59 pm
It’s a tricky one. Do you leave the leadership decision to the ‘grassroots’ or to the work colleagues?
Woah this lady is going after what is a well ordered militia
guutaur:
The sheriff is awesome and has been since the massacre.
Apparently in 20 years time, Australia will have a massive shortage of workers in the age range 20 to 40 years, and the only way to head off this looming disaster is to import vast numbers of people who are in their 20s and 30s today. This must be true, because we hear it all the time from independent experts such as property developers.
BK @ #2108 Thursday, February 22nd, 2018 – 2:22 pm
It is a gun organisation, after all? Can’t think there’d be too many Maria von Trapps or Mother Theresas in their ranks!
Player One @ #2096 Thursday, February 22nd, 2018 – 2:09 pm
We need immigration because our aging population demands we need the workers to provide the services 10, 20 and 30 years down the track.
Most of our major cities are going through an infrastructure boom to accommodate the growing population and also to replace aged assets that no longer do the job they were designed for.
There can always be an argument about the right amount of immigration. At the moment we , as a nation are tracking at about 1million new Australians every 4 and 5 years (which is a new Adelaide).
I’d like an informed discussion that uses population statistics to evaluate our long term people needs to drive the discussion. At the moment, the Government seems to be relying on facts. Abbott has openly said he disagrees with the facts and conclusions presented by the bureaucracy. That sounds a lot like a climate denying position and a position based on dog whistle to create hatred of outsiders.
Darc @ #549 Thursday, February 22nd, 2018 – 2:27 pm
Given we’re supposed to be a democracy I think the answer is obvious.
NRA lady was not able to answer to what is a well regulated militia today
Lovey
Environmental considerations are never taken into account. Who care if it is unsustainable just so long as the GDP is higher…………………..just don’t mention GDP per capita though.
‘CTar1 says:
Thursday, February 22, 2018 at 11:23 am
Bw
Interventions in these US nutter attacks in the past by armed individuals other than off-duty cops seem to be few and far between.
Most of those who are armed seem to be just as good at running for it or hiding in cupboards as the un-armed members of the public.’
Traditionally many men in many armies will shoot to miss. They have socialized inhibition against actually killing someone.
The Viet-era Kanungra training program was altered. Recruits were taken into the jungle with a sarge behind them. They were instructed to discriminate between combatants and non-combatants and then to shoot at all targets. The word ‘target’ was drummed into them. The de-humanization resulted in a far greater initial willingness to shoot other humans.
The rough rule of thumb with a weapon in a massacre situation is that if you show a gun you must be prepared to use it to kill someone.
It is almost always much easier and safer simply to bugger off with everyone else.
The NRA and its hacks for agitprop purposes have been collecting incidents of armed interventions by bystanders that are deemed to have saved lives. They are vanishingly scarce.
Ante Meridian @ #2116 Thursday, February 22nd, 2018 – 2:28 pm
Or, you could just employ the workers who will then be in the age range 40 – 60 years! But as anyone who is in this age range knows, it is almost impossible to get a job once you reach that age even if you have all the qualifications and experience 🙁
Rex Douglas @ #2119 Thursday, February 22nd, 2018 – 2:30 pm
Both are democratic, within our system. For example, we don’t elect a Prime Minister. We elect members of Parliament, some of whom have the ability to remove or appoint a PM at any time.
I’d love to ask NRA lady what possible reason does a civillian need semi automatic weapons for?
Ante Meridian @ #2116 Thursday, February 22nd, 2018 – 2:28 pm
Well successive LNP neoliberal governments have decimated whatever training system we had in this country and long ago handed it over to their spiv mates.
If you compare our apprenticeship system to Germany’s for example, it’s a friggin’ joke.
This ladies monologue for her dead daughter says it all for me
Greensborough Growler @ #2118 Thursday, February 22nd, 2018 – 2:29 pm
I’d like to see an informed discussion also, because the facts the government relies on don’t seem to stack up either economically or environmentally.
When our immigration rates were proportionally lower (i.e. pre-Howard) we were a lot better off – and that was before the mining boom. What happened?
Confessions @ #2125 Thursday, February 22nd, 2018 – 11:35 am
Also, What were these weapons designed to do and be for?
Lovey @ #2105 Thursday, February 22nd, 2018 – 2:21 pm
I don’t think this is the case. Just look at the Murray Darling Basin. Or the gold coast. Or the rate of forest clearing. I think it depends on how you value the environmental damage done. If you value it purely economically, then you may be correct.
Z
The Greens will always support ANY potential ALP leader who is even vaguely to the left of the existing ALP leader.
The Greens: Day 49, Year 25 and still fucking us around worse than Joyce.
adrian
Added to that the Spivocrats sold off all the railway depts ,state electricity etc.As a result the great flow of tradies trained in their various workshops went up in a puff of smoke.
Wow tough for the Sheriff having to answer on behalf of FBI
Barney:
Yep, good follow up question.
One explanation I read once for the Second Amendment is that, for the vast majority of the politicians who supported its introduction, it was designed mainly as a deal so that the Southern slave states could have militias to reduce the ability of the Federal Government to end slavery in the South. That is to say that the the Civil War, or at least the serious dissuasive threat thereof, was the purpose of the Second Amendment, although it was designed more for preventing a Federal defeat of the South than actually resulted.
It is an unfortunate truth that the immigration policy debate has been undermined by both the looney racist right and the nong far lefties in the Greens.
The Greens have yet to explain how if we can’t be every remotely sustainable with our current population we will become MORE sustainable with millions more immigrants/asylum seekers.
As for the raving right, simple racism is the answer to every question.
Both extremes are demeaning themselves by playing their immigrant political wedge cards.
Player One @ #2128 Thursday, February 22nd, 2018 – 2:39 pm
We decimated our training system that’s what happened. And it wasn’t great compared to world best practice, even then.
I’m getting the vibe that the irony inherent in my last post might have been missed by some people, so here’s a quick summary.
The problem is that 20 years from now we will not have enough people under the age of 40 (supposedly).
If we import people who are in their 20s and 30s today, 20 years from now they will all be 20 years older, which means… Oh, never mind.
Zoomster it is an interesting point!
Each person standing for election has a set of beliefs (right or wrong in our own opinions)
Those people gain a mandate to execute those beliefs IMO….. hence yes I don’t really thing the whole being in it for themselves is a bad idea (unless corrupt activities of course).
The problem I have with the state of (elections more than just politics in general)play now is that the voting public just do not take the time to really know the person they are voting for, or base a decision along party lines and hope the “candidate” they are voting for wont follow through on their beliefs…
A case study of this (IMHO) is Abbott and Turnbull, people knew or suspected that Abbott was a far right wing nut job or just voted Liberal, but being PM would tame his policies. This did not occur, and his policies were so distasteful that his approval nose dived. With Turnbull, the people saw a PM who had moral fibre, who believed in action on AGW and same sex marriage etc. Then he caved and didn’t follow his stated beliefs, and he too is up the creek without a paddle….
Not sure the morale of the story other than to Bloody know the person you vote for!!!!!!!
Tom the first and best
It was adopted in 1791 so maybe not. Seems there was an English “connection”.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution
Furthermore, most of our universities, training colleges, ‘institutes’ etc etc would go down the tube if they had to stop relying on ripping off overseas students.
Matt
The mortal of that story is that the media have not done the homework they are paid to do for those of us without the time to do it.
Campaigning media is anathema to our democracy as Murdoch has proved.
Anyone thinking we’ll see a ‘come to jesus’ moment on guns for Florida congress men and women seeking re-election come Nov 18?
A handy graph to rebut the LNP.
TheAusInstitute: A company tax cut for big business? Majority of voters say no. pic.twitter.com/tZXBGWkq4K
So the NRA shill equated ‘a well regulated militia’ to EVERY man and woman in the USA!
She also said that, if an 18 year old can be in the military and use a semi automatic rifle, then they should also be able to do it on civvy street!
Finally, she used the timeworn excuse that mentally unstable people should not be able to buy a gun. Semi Automatic or otherwise. Not answering that, not all mass murderers in America are certifiably insane before they commit their atrocity. What about the guy in Las Vegas, for example?
Confessions
Nope. If they were that politically aware Impeachment would have started against Trump already.
Boerwar
Typical anti greens again??
Maybe just maybe the population issue might be a global issue rather than a local one? Maybe the Greens immigration policy might just be based on decency and humanity, concepts you obviously don’t care about one iota!
shannonrwatts: .@NRA lobbyist Dana Loesch blaming mental illness for violent crime. People with mental illness commit less than 5% of violent crimes. They are more likely to be victims than perpetrators.
CNN Town Hall
Guytaur
“Matt
The mortal of that story is that the media have not done the homework they are paid to do for those of us without the time to do it.”
But they are doing what they have been paid for…..by vested interests or in the ABC’c case the threat of continued funding cuts