The first Newspoll for three weeks lands where it usually does, at 53-47 to Labor, with no change on the previous poll, making it 29 successive losses for Malcolm Turnbull. There’s also all but no change on the primary vote, with Labor up one to 39%, the Coalition steady on 37%, the Greens steady on 9% and One Nation steady on 7%. Malcolm Turnbull’s lead as preferred prime minister shifts from 37-35 to 39-36. On personal ratings, Malcolm Turnbull is down two on approval to 32% and Bill Shorten is one to 34% – we will evidently have to wait for the disapproval numbers (UPDATE: Turnbull’s disapproval rating is down one to 56%, Shorten’s is down two to 54%). Simon Benson’s more than usually idiosyncratic take on the results at The Oz here.
UPDATE: Newspoll also has a question on Labor’s plan to abolish franking credit cash refunds, which makes The Oz’s report less weird than it seemed at first blush. It finds 50% opposed to the idea with only 33% in support, breaking down to 42-36 in favour those aged 18-34, 45-32 against among the 35-49s, 58-30 against among the 50-64s, and 66-25 against among those over 65.
Plus, PeeBee, you have been very evasive and not transparent at all in fessing up to how ‘poor’ you are; how you get to be a Pensioner; and why Labor’s policy affects you so much that you have launched a jihad against it.
Until you come clean about that, then the rest of us are entitled to view your complaints with due scepticism.
This Q&A episode is weird and frustrating. Right and wrong are questions of ethics. The law has nothing to do with them. Completely independent topics.
shiftaling:
A cricket ball has a seam around the middle, dividing it into hemispheres. When the ball is delivered to the batter, it is customary to keep the seam upright, so that it doesn’t appear to “wobble” as it moves. If one hemisphere is rougher than the other than the difference in aerodynamic drag across the ball’s surface causes the ball to swerve in its trajectory.
When a batter only has half a second to react from the time the ball leave the bowler’s hand, you could imagine that a sudden horizontal deflection in the ball’s movement would be very difficult to adjust for.
There are legal ways to effect a difference in the roughness of either side of the ball (using sweat and saliva to polish one side of the ball) and illegal ways (practically anything else).
To someone not familiar with cricket one method would be pretty indistinguishable from another. But any cricket fan knows that the laws of cricket are maintained by batsmen, for the express purpose of neutering any advantage a bowler might ever accrue.
With Clarke as Captain Australia was bowled out for 47 v South Africa in South Africa
After being 9/21 I think
Everyone is looking for a headline by outdoing the predictable outrage of others
But I repeat
This goes to the ICC and has been brewing for years
The undermining of Umpires including by DRS (and media rights should ban use by media)
Umpires should also have a protocol in regards an acceptable Test Match pitch and the power to abandon games where the pitch is not to the required standard
The Match Referee can not be made redundant – aka Crowe last week
Immediately a ball commences to reverse swing the Umpires are to inspect and replace the ball – with the Match Referee to then investigate the cause of the damage to the ball
The Umpires already have authority re “sledging” and any inappropriate comments made
Interestingly the comments made to Warner were made in the Stairwell not on the field of play where the Umpires were present
All interviews to be with the Captain- and not any other player And compulsory interviewing by media be dispensed with. Media can report on the play they have witnessed on the field and that is their job
The media need to be put in their place and that is not in the personal space of any player
Would not be surprised if Smith is covering for Warner. No leadership group at all, just Warner and Smith and Bancroft heard them discussing it and volunteered for the job.
TPOF
I think you yourself have indicated the problem re zionism/anti semitism.
I do not think there is ANYONE who challenges Israel’s right to exist – at least not in the western world.
Too many zionists hide behind this shield and it is high time they stopped using this as a shield.
You can perhaps have an argument about the size of Israel, but not its existence.
For example someone who says that Israel should retreat to the internationally agreed 1947 borders is not antisemitic. Simply legalistic. I am not saying that that border is appropriate – the world has moved on, but I also say the same about Crimea.
What I want to see is honesty and consistency as well as recognition of political reality. But there must be justice and equity too.
Issue 1: Now the world set up Israel and displaced the exiting inhabitants. This was probably very unfair but it is political reality now, just as is colonial occupation of Australia and the Americas. So just as in Australia re indigenous peoples, the Palestinians displaced by Israel deserve just compensation. It should be a matter of international courts etc to determine if there was such justice and if not then compensation should be paid over some reasonable time frame
Issue 2: Having been displaced and forced into refugee ghettoes in Gaza and Lebanon and Jordan, it is a bloody disgrace for them to be further persecuted. Nothing shames Israel more than their cruel treatment of the millions forced into Gaza. These displaced people need compensation and a right to pursue economic stability and progress. This does not include embargoes and bombing and targeted assassinations. Now sorry but this zionist cover is absurd. It is the Israeli government which is the repressor. Israel is democratic so just as we in Australia must accept responsibility for Abbot and Dutton, so too must Israel as a nation accept responsibility for the crimes committed by its government. It may be a fact that Israel is a Jewish state, but disgust at their treatment of the Gazans has nothing whatever to do with their race or religion. I grew up with most of my good friends being Jewish and possibly have some Jewish ancestry myself, but I abhor the injustice in Palestine, especially Gaza.
a r @ #805 Monday, March 26th, 2018 – 11:01 pm
He’s a philosopher, a r. That’s what they do. 🙂
A lot like many of the characters in ‘Alice In Wonderland’.
No concrete answers, and when they attempt one, such as with the trolley car problem, they can’t even answer it themselves! Their ‘talent’, such as it is, is in making us ‘think’.
I was especially entertained by his non-answer on the philosophical tension between the Utilitarian position of saving the lives of refugees who drown on the way to Australia versus the demonstration of neglect of those who have been placed on Manus and Nauru. He was asked to decide which was more offensive, letting people drown, or locking them away. He prevaricated and said that that was a decision for governments. He didn’t want to give a personal opinion!
I once knew a philosopher who drove himself crazy and ended up living on the streets. I think I can understand why.
Just to add First Class balls are 4 piece
At lower levels the balls are 2 piece
If a bowler grabbed a 2 piece in the Nets its movement was greater than a 4 piece
So you would tell the bowler to get a proper ball – and get the appropriate reaction
From teammates (although some from lower grades looking for a scalp)
Competition in the Nets was always a given
Ghostie tweets libs 48 52 in essential.
They’re coming back lol.
shiftaling (part II):
Apologies if I’ve “cricket-splained” a concept you might be familiar with, overall 🙂
Reverse swing is more devastating than “conventional swing”, but the means to achieve it are apparently dubious, because it requires one side of the ball to be much rougher than one might normally expect from the general wear and tear of a cricket game. The “acceptable lie” is an abrasive pitch and/or outfield accelerating wear and tear on the whole of the ball, then you use whatever means possible to preserve the state of one half of the ball (e.g. application of sugar-laden saliva by sucking boiled sweets).
Merv Hughes used to be seen directly licking the ball before commencing his bowling run-up. Interesting man – did they have Roundup in those days?
Would like to know dates essential poll was done.
And Media Rights are being negotiated
So guess who has the upper hand now
And media reporting is making sure the value is falling
Big business, hey?
It’s the classic neo con device of capturing the political definition. Abbott mastered it as leader of the opposition, so a carbon trading scheme became a great big tax. Gillard confirming his definition was one of the weakest pieces of political behaviour I have seen in my life time. The neo cons are trying to find any club they can, to beat Corbyn and Labour with, so they begin by capturing the key terms, therefore anti Zionism becomes anti Semitism. last week, Corbyn was a Russian spy for the KGB. Honestly you couldn’t make this shit up. The establishment are petrified of Labour under Corbyn and I really like that!
There are plenty of people in the west and elsewhere who challenge Israel’s right to exist. At least all those people who say there should be a single state of Palestine without racial or religeous discrimination and based on the right of Palestinian refugees to return home.
You’d think it would have killed his moustache.
And OH, the catalyst was “how are South Africa able to reverse swing and we can not”
Hence my prior contribution as to what needs to happen from here
I think the present Israeli government are a bunch of fascists. Does that make me an anti Semite? It would in the eyes of many Zionists.
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DTT and Wakefield
The issue is not Israel. The issue is the extent to which criticism and support for Israel moves quickly into attitudes about Jewish people generally. And that cuts both ways. As many opponents of Israel and/or its government like to point out, it is all too easy for them to be accuses of anti-semitism. However, the rapidity with which expressed opposition to Israel and the policies of its government move into racist and ugly anti-semitism can be quite surprising.
As I said earlier, look at what is said, not the side that the speaker is on.
I saw an NZ rugby player deliberately cheat to successfully get a penalty on the weekend. Every soccer player pretending to be mortally wounded if an opponent comes within a metre of him is just a cheat trying to get a free kick. An AFL player in Melbourne put on an Oscar worthy performance to try to hoodwink the umpire in the opening round. A cricketer scratched a ball to take the polish off it. Big deal.
We’ve had cheats found guilty in fencing, athletics, swimming, boxing, cycling, weight lifting etc etc and I don’t mean Aussies.
As soon as there is a competition and there is money involved, someone will try to get an unfair advantage.
And just to finish they bowled at 15 yards in the Nets, not 22
A batsman’s life
The middle was a cake walk
Clem Attlee @ #817 Monday, March 26th, 2018 – 11:25 pm
No Clem, but if you post long enough I wouldn’t be surprised to see something anti-semitic come out. It’s that sense of pained defensiveness (reminds me of Trumble and Dutton).
Wakefield @ #812 Monday, March 26th, 2018 – 10:19 pm
Wakefield
Slightly different issue. Yes there are NOW people probably including myself who have shifted to a single state solution, because of the intractability of the Palestine issue. I think that the ever expanding settlements and the continues mistreatment of the Palestinians means that a two state solution is no longer possible.
i have heard rumours that the “tump” plan is just that, Gaza to be handed to Egypt, large sections of Palestine to be handed to Jordan and Israel to get the rest. The quid pro quo is that those Palestinian resident in Israel should have complete democratic rights the same as Israelis. No segregation or bantustans. Now the demographic reality is that Israel as a “Jewish” state would cease to exist since the majority of the population would be Muslim.
Observer – that might be the ultimate question … was one side better at hiding their cheating than the other? In fairness to the Saffers, they are playing in familiar home conditions too.
I still hold out hope that talent is the main determinant, and that one’s bowling action has a big influence on how much swing you can create – alongside local variables like the weather.
If any good comes from this ball tampering saga, I hope it is this:
We will never again have to put up with Oz players and official claiming to be the sole guardians & enforcers of the true spirit of cricket and/or the way the game should be played. Neither will be any talk of The Line – either its location, mobility or degree of permeability. Anybody who tries to do that over the next few years is going to be laughed out of the country.
Clem Attlee says:
Monday, March 26, 2018 at 11:18 pm
It’s the classic neo con device of capturing the political definition. Abbott mastered it as leader of the opposition, so a carbon trading scheme became a great big tax. Gillard confirming his definition was one of the weakest pieces of political behaviour I have seen in my life time. The neo cons are trying to find any club they can, to beat Corbyn and Labour with, so they begin by capturing the key terms, therefore anti Zionism becomes anti Semitism. last week, Corbyn was a Russian spy for the KGB. Honestly you couldn’t make this shit up. The establishment are petrified of Labour under Corbyn and I really like that!
Clem….really, Corbyn last week abysmally failed to respond to crimes carried out in Britain by a secretive, martial, authoritarian, anti-democratic gangster-State. This is certainly not the same thing as working for the defunct Soviet organ, the KGB. Putin is a Right-winger. Corbyn has put himself on the same page as the incipient Euro-Right… on the same page as Le Pen and AfD, among others. He has the same underlying chauvinist attitudes to European peace, security, prosperity and democracy as the Austrian Neo-Fa. This is not anything like a respectable left-wing position. It is wholly Fake.
I don’t buy the false gods thing posted by someone above, I can barely tolerate the clowns in the Australian team and it has been decades since I found ‘supporting’ them a natural instinct, on the whole they have been very hard to like.
What do these obnoxious clowns do? They ‘compete in a competition’ the excitement of which, to the extent there is any excitement at all, is the contest. The product they are offering is worthless if cheating becomes a thing, like wrestling but with much bigger egos, much stupider contestants over a lot longer period and not as interesting..
TPOF @ #817 Monday, March 26th, 2018 – 10:25 pm
TPOF
Sorry but you protest too much. If Israel behaved properly in Palestine nearly ALL the hostility would evaporate overnight. Certainly this would be rue for all politically aware type people.
I will however acknowledge that the IS a core of frank antisemitism around and this seems to be growing or at least is now more on the surface. i am not sure what is driving it but I suspect income disparity plays a huge role. Wherever any identifiable group is seen to have an economic/power advantage over another there is a tendency to nasty quarreling and sectarianism. It may be simply the self identification of bikie gangs that gives rise to hostility, or to head gear etc but will be most marked if people believe that one group is getting an unfair advantage ie “all the immigrants wearing head scarves get public housing and I cannot etc, or indigenous people get more welfare or opportunities for uni etc, etc. In the case of Jewish people there is a perception that they accumulate more wealth than others. It is probably just that – perception rather than reality, but it is a bloody powerful argument for leveling tax rates, stopping corporate rots and reducing inequality, it matters not if the wealthy are largely Jewish or Scottish, the problem is the same.
In Australia of course for most of its history it was the Scots who ran the place and accumulated all of its wealth. It is not an accident that so many in the conservative ranks were Scottish – Menzies, McEwan, Fraser, Bruce etc. Presbyterians to their bootstraps.
Like question time in the House of Representatives.
Mr Ed
I am reading a book about philosophy and sport with a chapter on exactly that. It’s to do with social conventions, gamesmanship vs cheating. Often it’s whether what happened could be seen by the ref/ump. Overappealing for LBW is gamesmanship; ball tampering is cheating.
daretotread
there is a large contingent in world in west in palestine/israel, middle east who challenge israel’s right to exist and seek a one secular state solution (palestine/isreal or vice versa) – many in israeli left have always sought this although there voice is silenced
I saw an NZ rugby player deliberately cheat to successfully get a penalty on the weekend. Every soccer player pretending to be mortally wounded if an opponent comes within a metre of him is just a cheat trying to get a free kick. An AFL player in Melbourne put on an Oscar worthy performance to try to hoodwink the umpire in the opening round. A cricketer scratched a ball to take the polish off it. Big deal.
We’ve had cheats found guilty in fencing, athletics (Russians), swimming (chinese women) , boxing (save your ears) , cycling (USA Lance) , weight lifting ( most European countries ) etc etc
As soon as there is a competition and there is money and prestige involved, someone will try to get an unfair advantage.
Boom
Oddly linking fake battles and cheating to wrestling i read today of someone trying to explain Trumps odd “corfefe” tweet. Apparently there is some term used in wresting for that sort of fake bravado. I looked it up it is Kayfabe.
Some cricket followers consider the term “reverse swing” as code for “ball-tampering”.
“Gillard confirming his definition was one of the weakest pieces of political behaviour I have seen in my life time. ”
No it wasn’t weak at all, if you were work shopping it for her, you’d almost certainly have come to the same ‘let them call it what they want it away it will go away’ conclusion. What caused the problem was that gave the idiots at the ABC, still at that time seen by many, including some here, as actually professional and balanced, if not left wing, permission to call it a carbon tax.
When I lodged a formal complaint that the news was factually incorrect calling it a carbon tax when it wasn’t, their ABC’s lame response was ‘oh well yeah maybe but the PM said we could call it that if we want.’ I gave up on them as in anyway balanced or competent when I read in disbelief that response. When you have most media outlets running as propaganda machines for their rich owners and the supposedly balanced ABC doing that, it doesn’t really matter what you say you are largely screwed.
Largely screwed until it becomes obvious that they are pedalling bs. In large part it is why the media, lazy, content, stupid in their cozy little self referential, self reinforcing bubble keep expecting the brilliance of Malcolm to shine, keep expecting the neocon lies of the last 40 years to keep working as they worked for the last 40 years. But more and more we are seeing the inequality, we are seeing they keep promising trickle down, ‘if you just give up this’ ‘if you are just more flexible on that’ ‘if you just give a 65 billion tax cut’ it will rain rivers of gold. Well it took us 40 years, and the rivers of gold do flow, just we have noticed they aren’t flowing to us.
Like most things in life politics is a lot of dumb luck, and being the right idiot in the right place. Very little indeed is driven either by hard work made good, or brilliance forcing itself to the front, mostly it is lucky opportunists grabbing onto a half chance when it appears and bs’ing their way through. They say cream rises to the top, but so does sewage, and sewage lasts a lot longer when it get there.
geoffrey @ #829 Monday, March 26th, 2018 – 10:47 pm
Yes but that is not the zionist defence. They always present it as some external armed type of threat.
As i posted I think that that is now probably the only possible solution other than mass genocide.
I think it is a bit of a tragedy really. Israel could have followed the Singapore model. A largely recently transplanted Chinese population grew to be phenomenally rich and successful in a small land area, managing to absorb and care for its indigenous Malay population. This model could have worked for Israel but probably no longer, due to the ongoing hostility.
As an atheist, I can’t help noticing that this week the Christian community will commemorate an act of human sacrifice. They don’t call it that – leading me to think they’ve overlooked the exemplary aspects of ritualised public execution – but nevertheless that is what occurred.
Isn’t this Christian rite really no more than a weird form of homage to violence – to violence perpetrated by a corrupt, martial dictatorship on behalf of an oligarchic, patriarchal elite – and then later renamed “sacrifice”?
For mine, there is something dreadfully decadent about this idea – the idea that murder can serve the appetite of the deity and therefore ease the burden we experience as “the human condition”.
“Like question time in the House of Representatives.”
That isn’t a contest, although the media, devoid of well thought, report it that way for eyeballs. It is political theatre pure and simple.
WWP
I have many criticisms of Gillard, but the “carbon tax” thing is not one of them. Sure she was a bit inept, but it was blown out of all proportion by Abbot and co and the complicit media. Same of course for the pink bats affair. Minor political stumbles of no significance were used to destroy people.
TOPF… I agree with everything you have posted above. Thanks.
So cricket has been around for yonks, reverse swing only from the late 70’s. Sarfraz Nawaz took 9/83 v Australia at the MCG with ‘reverse swing’ and in the next test appealed against Hilditch for handling the ball. A pillar of sporting virtue. Massie at Lord’s took 16/137 with ‘traditional’ swing bowling. Apparently…. so, I don’t think it’s all peachy what has been happening. People are just getting caught these days.
DTT
very correct – one must regret why state of israel with its backers has not lifted all its population and surrounding countries into prosperity – peace through prosperity – it must be asked if the good jewish people in israel are so clever why has this not happened – the answer is the violent formation of the state, but moreso violence inherited by trauma of WW2 – the curse of Himmler still endures through generations
“Isn’t this Christian rite really no more than a weird form of homage to violence – to violence perpetrated by a corrupt, martial dictatorship on behalf of an oligarchic elite – and then later renamed “sacrifice”?
For min, there is something dreadfully decadent about this idea – the idea that murder can serve the appetite of the deity and therefore ease the burden we experience as “the human condition”.”
Funny you would express it that way, a lawyer who’d I’d call post-evangelical, you might well call recovering evangelical, expressed it to me effectively exactly the same way.
But equally if there is / was a God, she’d still have needed to communicate with man in symbols man could understand, so it would have to be pretty simple, not at all nuanced and frankly brutal.
C@tmomma @ #804 Monday, March 26th, 2018 – 10:15 pm
Indeed. Though I feel that Jones was also at pains to cut him off before he said something that could be construed as critical of the Government’s refugee policy.
He did best on the ‘populism’ question, at explaining the difference between democracy and pure “majoritarianism”, as he put it. And why you don’t want to have the rights of an unpopular minority up for a simple majority vote.
A pity he couldn’t apply his own logic when trying to reason out whether or not it was appropriate to have a plebiscite on the same-sex marriage issue.
briefly
the easter saga must be about the nature of authority and hierarchy (jesus was high priest/kingly – not god, he was a jew) – therefore some political dimension – the literal kingdom and its leader lost – some kind of distributed justice / communalism continued – something like that – churches tend to tell a transcendental thing that misses lots
Briefly, Corbyn has already dismissed anti Semitism in the party. He is responsible for what happens in the Labour Party, not what happens in a gangster state. Just because he fails to denounce every tin pot regime does not mean he supports them. Putin? I miss your point. With regards to Europe, he is in a very difficult place, as is every other British political leader. All I know is that the fakes in Labour, you know the closet Tories want to see the back of Corbyn as much as the real ones do. Corbyn is no radical, he is like my handle (Britain’s greatest prime minister) a mainstream democratic socialist
WWP
Not necessarily a;ll martial.
Now Cromm Cradock of Ireland as a pretty nasty fellow to upset. He wanted your first born.
Human sacrifice is a feature of most agrarian fertility cults eg the Corn God etc.
Simon Katich, Great Lakes district, south of Forster, out along the Lakes Way.
Clem Attlee says:
Tuesday, March 27, 2018 at 12:10 am
Briefly, Corbyn ….is responsible for what happens in the Labour Party, not what happens in a gangster state. Just because he fails to denounce every tin pot regime does not mean he supports them. Putin? I miss your point.
Corbyn effectively excused Putin in relation to the use of chemical weapons in Britain. He’s hopeless. Everyone from Lithuania to the US accepts that Russia is responsible for this episode….everyone other than Corbyn.
Geoffrey
The Easter cult is pre Christian, pre Jewish (passover) and is really part of the Mediterranean fertility cult. Think Isis and Adonis, the Mithras story, Hippolyte etc. and most of the Greek temples etc.
It is the story of the dying god, reflected throughout Europe – Balder, the corn god, Jon Barleycorn, the may king/Queen, wicker man etc, to name just a few remnants.
It is one of the markers of the passage of the seasons.
Obviously Xmas is at the Winter solstice (in Europe, and the new God arrives and is born as the days grow longer.
Easter is the Spring Equinox and is celebrated by death of the old and resurrection. it is to be found in the Hindu religion also.