As reported by The Guardian, the latest fortnightly poll from Essential Research shifts in favour of the Coalition, who now trail Labor 52-48 compared with 54-46 in the last poll. While this fits the narrative of Labor taking a hit from dividend imputation better than Newspoll, Essential’s question on the subject produces a better result for Labor than Newspoll’s, with 32% supportive and 30% opposed (compared with 33% and 50% from Newspoll). Primary votes and full report to follow later.
UPDATE: Full report here. As with two-party, the Coalition is up two on the primary vote, to 38%, and Labor down two, to 36%, with the Greens steady on 9% and One Nation steady on 8%.
I believe the mystery of Newspoll’s and Essential’s different numbers on dividend imputation is solved: Essential’s question was preceded by another on how many people were beneficiaries of the existing policy (16% received a tax deduction, 10% a cash payment), which explained how the existing policy works and how much it costs. This is unfortunate in my view, because it put respondents on a different footing from the general population. Some of the “statements about imputation credits” that respondents were invited to agree or disagree with also seem a bit leading (“paying people money to compensate for tax they haven’t paid does not make sense”), although in this case it doesn’t affect the responses to the more important question of support or opposition to the policy, as it came later in the survey.
The poll also canvasses opinion on what other tax policies respondents might support or oppose, and as usual it finds that the public heavily favours a more redistributive approach (class war and the politics of envy, if you will). Nonetheless, 40% favour cutting the company tax rate to 25%, with 30% opposed. Twenty-six per cent trust Labor more to manage a fair tax system, 28% the Coalition, and 31% no difference. Only 7% reckon Australia’s gun laws too strict, 25% think them too weak, and 62% say they are about right. A series of questions on Facebook finds 79% agreeing it should be more regulated, with 12% disagreeing, but 45% finding Facebook “generally a force for good”, with 37% disagreeing.
sprocket_ (Block)
Tuesday, March 27th, 2018 – 7:01 am
Comment #4
No Australia? Mass expulsions on Russian diplomats..
The government will be expelling Russians here too. They were just waiting for the work day to begin here. 🙂
ratsak,
Agree!
Dumb, no need to react at the moment.
It’s like they workshopped the announcement and are just following a predetermined path rather responding to the situation now.
1. Announce the policy. tick
2. Ride the hysteria. tick
3. Two weeks, announce concessions. tick
Number 3 did not have to be after 2 weeks, they could have kept that in their pockets much longer. 🙂
It almost looks that orchestrated, BiGD. 🙂
There aren’t going to be too many diplomats left in Russia if the expel in retaliation everyone who has dumped on them. Bad time to do that with the World Cup around the corner.
Cheating is ingrained in life.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/mar/26/not-cricket-ball-tampering-world-trust-sport-election-result
Back in the 80s a friend was involved with some people who organised a small sting at the trots.
They were not as clever as they thought, the stewards were on to them quickly and two or three were disqualified for periods.
My friend wondered what the world was coming to. “Organise a rort at the trots for $10,000 and you get time,” he lamented. “Do some deals on St Georges terrace that cost shareholders millions and you are a national hero.”
Those who remember the business culture in Perth in those days will understand the comment.
And it hasnt changed a bit.
Bill seems to be confusing media narrative with fact. The former usually has no connection to the latter.
Chris Bowen really putting the boot into the government in this press conference.
Labor must have known that there would be a small number adversely affected so why not bake in compensation to them from the start ? Bowens ” responding to feedback’ is WTF !? They shouldn’t bloody need to because they should have already known.
Who, I ask myself, is Neil Mitchell ❓
Foolishly I ask my friendly research assistant for information. (Google )
*****************
Taps teeth with pencil – which version do I prefer ❓
Note to self: stop asking silly question.
Thank you self.
Ƹ̴Ӂ̴Ʒ Ƹ̴Ӂ̴Ʒ ☕
Pension payments are the safety net once you get to Pension age – and the receipt of same is means tested resulting also in part pension payments or no pension payment
The tax system is the tax system with income taxed when that income exceeds the tax free threshold
To use the tax system for income is an aberration
That is my view
That strategies exist to use the tax system for income is a misuse
On cricket
The baying herd are still trying to out outrage each other – and missing the point
Now a former South African player chimes in but no one thinks to put to him “But the reason there was the conversation in the Australian dressing room was that South Africa were getting the ball to reverse and Australia were not”
The remainder of the contribution detailing how a ball is compromised to obtain reverse swing is correct
So the question is, how were South Africa able to achieve reverse swing but Australia could not?
To repair the reputation of cricket we require enquiring minds not a flock of sheep following the leader
Labor to repeal the Corporate Tax Cuts if elected to government!
C@t ‘ You could have been more generous in your summation of Labor’s subsequent actions wrt a basically sound and egalitarian policy.’
What on earth are you talking about? Shorten was wrong, Just like you are now. It was not egalitarian, it was unfair and I was calling them out on it.
At least Shorten has woken up to it and announced some exemptions for the poorer investors.
The ALP should have thought it through more carefully as they have given the media a golden opportunity to call him out for backflipping.
bIgd
Have all the non political tragics (the 99.9% ) see lots of radio/tv/newspaper headlines about Labor backflips,back downs,concessions ( iow Labor flucked it up initially) . TICK.
Poroti:’Labor must have known that there would be a small number adversely affected so why not bake in compensation to them from the start ? Bowens ” responding to feedback’ is WTF !? They shouldn’t bloody need to because they should have already known.’
Exactly!
C@tmomma @ #61 Tuesday, March 27th, 2018 – 5:15 am
Good move.
Takes the pressure off Hinch and Storer as they can now rightly say,
you’re just wasting my time, they’re never going to happen.
Australia to expel 2 Russian diplomats.
“We are the party of Workers. We are the party of Education.”
Bill Shorten
Announcing repeal of the company tax cuts before they’ve even got through the Senate doesn’t strike me as brilliant either.
This is the last sitting until the budget. It takes a bit of pressure off the hold outs I would have thought. No harm keeping everyone guessing for a bit and use it as a big bang in the budget reply if needed.
Labor are interrupting the enemy when they’re making mistakes.
“Mr Turnbull wants to have the world’s best tax loopholes. I want to have the world’s best Child Care system.”
Bill Shorten
..on the other hand, Labor has allowed the Libs to trot out all their ‘why this is not a good idea’ arguments and countered them. It will make it harder for the Libs to explain ‘why this is not a good idea’. The next step is the Libs being asked ‘If this is a good idea, why aren’t you adopting it?”
If they adopt the idea, it then becomes Labor setting the agenda; if they don’t, then they’re flying in the face of evidence etc etc.
And ‘we listened to people and we changed our policy’ has never been a vote loser. Howard built a political career out of it.
‘Labor are interrupting the enemy when they’re making mistakes.’
Labor is setting the agenda.
(If you wait for the Liberals to stop c*cking up before you do anything, you’re never going to get air time..)
If it had been Turnbull proposing the imputation policy – the adjustment announced today would have been “What imputation policy? We didn’t have a policy like that.” And then would drop the whole thing.
It’s a good thing they believe in democracy, otherwise these US states could be in real trouble:
https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2018/03/republicans-declare-war-on-the-courts-after-rulings-that-threaten-their-majorities/
ratsak @ #68 Tuesday, March 27th, 2018 – 9:24 am
Absolutely and fundamentally disagree, ratsak. This is Bill Shorten sending a shot across the bows of Derryn Hinch and Tim Storer. He is telegraphing the message to them that if you want to be seen as handing over $65 Billion to large corporate entities and foreign multinationals, then let that be on your head because Labor will be making sure, after the next federal election, if and when they are in government, that that money will be going to the little guy and their families, who you claim to be the representatives of in parliament. Then, watch your vote evaporate as a consequence and flow to Labor. Sayonara, baby! 🙂
PeeBee
I’ll be waiting for you to call out all unfair policy that presently exists and unfair policy proposed by both all parties, of all sizes.
There is presently in place many an unfair policy relating to taxation.
Unfair is a subjective relative term and your conclusion regarding Shorten and Labor policy is itself unfair!
Too many on here, like in the commentariat, stress too much over small movements in the polls. Remember, an individual opinion poll means nothing, it’s the trend that counts. And then trend in all opinion polls over the last 18 months is that they haven’t moved – it’s been around 52/53-48/47 since late 2016. This poll might or might not be a harbinger of a move back to the government (though personally, I doubt it), but we won’t know that for a few months. The most likely outcome is that the next Essential result will have Labor back to 53/54.
In regards to policy, I agree that Labor has probably rushed to make concessions to its dividend imputation refund reforms. It seemed like Labor had basically won the battle politically, and had just about ridden out the storm. However, it could be the case that they genuinely are concerned about some pensioners being worse off, and have move to fix that.
With corporate tax, I think Labor has a) done the only thing that it could, given its rhetoric up to this points, and b) on a winner politically. Big corporations are very much on the nose at the moment (and rightly so), and there’s no real political downside in giving them a kicking.
The Gig economy, coming soon to an Australia near you:
https://www.truthdig.com/articles/the-gig-economy-is-the-new-term-for-serfdom/
I don’t much care that Pauline is an uneducated fish shop owner who has manoeuvred her way into parliament. We need all sorts of representation in a democracy, right?
What bugs me is that she can vote to allow unfair legislation to go through, and doesn’t realise she’s being gamed by the LNP.
PeeBee,
At least Shorten has woken up to it and announced some exemptions for the poorer investors.
Sorry, but you are not poor. Poorer than the rich people massively benefiting from the Dividend Imputation Cash Splash, maybe, but you get no sympathy from me, especially when you can afford European holidays and car hire. Sure, you might have worked hard all your life and saved for a comfortable retirement, invested well, yada, yada, but when Australia’s truly poor, like the recipients of Newstart, and the poor people renting in the capital cities and the regions who haven’t been granted an increase in their rental subsidies for over a decade, have to do without financial consideration from the Budget because the government says it can’t afford it, but can apparently afford without question the Dividend Imputation Cash Splash, then you don’t get much sympathy from me. A Budget is all about the government’s priorities, and this government’s priorities are all wrong. Labor is addressing this, and while I have a soupcon of sympathy of concern for your position, that’s all it ever will be. Too many other truly poor Australians need help from the Budget more than you do.
Brown Bear dressed as a pirate.
Brown Bear spent eight years in nursing homes with my wife.
Really good day in Newcastle for mowing.
Thanks BK for your morning roundup.
☮
Well well the flat earth guy survived his rocket trip.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=13&v=0UAHORcbvvQ
https://www.washingtonpost.com/powerpost/suburban-voters-angry-with-trump-threaten-gop-grip-on-house/2018/03/26/e7c81026-2de3-11e8-8688-e053ba58f1e4_story.html?utm_term=.91ebdb30fc90
Who’d a thunk the Republicans would have a white people problem! But apparently many of the most competitive House seats this year are in Los Angeles, Chicago, Denver, Houston, Philadelphia, New York and Washington.
ETTD
Golly, Gosh that was a cleaver statement.
Although, if you are saying there should be a complete review (and implementation) of the tax system, I agree with you.
The Henry review was quiet comprehensive, but not sufficiently adopted to be effective.
BREAKING NEWS…..AUSTRALIA TO EXPELL TWO RUSSIAN ‘SPIES’
Two Russian spies have been ordered to leave Australia
It could be the Labor expected pushback on dividend imputations, but didnt want to bake any concessions in until they saw who it was coming from, and how strongly.
e.g. If they had have come up with exemptions for pensioners, the business lobby would have likely argued for exemptions for everyone upto that amount.
From Crikey’s version of BK’s morning wrap (via the Oz):
Z,
Backing down in the face of opposition is never setting the agenda.
And no one is going to ask Trumble any difficult questions.
Shorten has given Trumble a win. It might be a minor win, and it might not make much difference in the long run. But it wasn’t necessary to do so.
The move to remove cash credits for everyone had a logic to it. Now an unnecessary layer of complication has been added. The pensioners affected could and should have been compensated in another way, that would also have benefited all pensioners. Yes more expensive, but also more equitable and better politics.
That would have left Trumble arguing to deny the many for the sake of allowing a privileged few to keep their lolly.
Now pensioners without shares get nothing and have no dog in the fight.
At worst this should have been in from day one. But that would simply have been the least worst solution. Backing down just makes it look like you didn’t do your homework and opens up the opportunity for more people to claim they’re just as poor as the pensioners so why don’t they get the same?
Like I said I don’t think it’s fatal at all and Trumble’s next fuck up will be just around the corner. But this isn’t something Labor should have done.
The worst thing about it is that it makes their next revenue announcement conditional. Unlike with Negative Gearing where they ignored the wailing, Shorten’s now shown he can be bullied into a backflip. That will just encourage the vested interests to go in harder and make it harder to defend. He has completely unnecessarily created a rod for his own back.
Ratsak – the holdouts are being told that, if they vote for these coy tax cuts, it will be front and centre at the next election and they will have to explain themselves. A good strategy, I would have thought.
poroti @ #82 Tuesday, March 27th, 2018 – 9:48 am
Yes, but did he get high enough to tell whether it is flat or not?
A great many astronomers are eagerly awaiting his verdict as a considerable amount of their project funding will depend on it. Especially those designing future planetary probes.
Darn @ #40 Tuesday, March 27th, 2018 – 7:48 am
I don’t know. Granting them an exemption now makes it even harder to repeal dividend imputation altogether. Which is what the endgame should be with these changes.
I’m curious to see so many people accepting the word of the Australian without questioning it.
There is no conceivable way that current (public) polling is ‘flatlining’ AND points to the Greens losing ‘over half’ of their current senators.
The most recent election that wasn’t a DD saw the Greens get 8.65% HoR vote share, and 9.23% in the Senate. This was enough to get them 4 seats in the half senate that was up for grabs.
Their current polling (minus this week’s Essential and Newspoll) puts them at 10.2% on Bludger track, which is a 1.55% swing to the Greens since the 2013 election. We could therefore predict they would likely get somewhere in the range of 4-5 Senate seats.
If this happens for 2 elections with no DD, they therefore have 8-10 senate seats.
The Greens currently have 9 seats. Losing “over half” would put them at 4 or fewer.
There is no conceivable way that the Greens HoR vote share will go from 8.65 to 10.2, while their senate seats won per election goes from 4 to 2.
THINK before accepting the word of the Australian.
@ Ratsak –
“Announcing repeal of the company tax cuts before they’ve even got through the Senate doesn’t strike me as brilliant either.
Labor are interrupting the enemy when they’re making mistakes.”
Totally agree. Now everybody will think, “Oh well, Labor will fix it if it is a fuck up. So we may as well let the Governemnt go ahead with it in the meantime”.
No – keep the pressure ON the governemnt to justify the cuts. Now the focus will be on Labor INCREASING taxes. It is a total shift in argument. The onus is now on Labor. Over a real distraction. One that can only cost it votes. Bad move. Really bad.
Also Labor saying that anyone who signs up for a Pension from today, who is eligible for the Dividend Imputation Cash Back, will not be eligible for the Pensioner Guarantee. So grandfathering the change to the policy. Smart.
Equally the holdouts are being told don’t worry you can vote this through and we’ll fix it.
No pressure on them.
Labor should do nothing that even potentially helps Trumble get these cuts up. It may be a Pyrrhic victory in many ways for Trumble but it would still be a victory and a fillip when he most needs it. It is also much harder to take something already given.
I’ve been more effusive in my praise for Shorten than pretty much everyone. This looks like a few errors to me because they run counter to what Labor has consistently done up to now.
Andrew_Earlwood.
Explain to me how Labor can be ‘increasing taxes’, when they are just not letting the Coalition give a tax holiday to large corporates and multinationals? It’s situation normal, NOT a tax increase. You’re buying the government frame if you call it a tax increase. Silly.
PeeBee @ #62 Tuesday, March 27th, 2018 – 9:15 am
Still the same mistaken obsession?
Perhaps I should also point out that a backflip leaves you facing the same way as originally!
Watch Sam Kerr closely next time she does one.
The “fix” should correctly be thru the Pension, not the tax system
That way remedy is universal to all who qualify for a pension or part pension (courtesy of a means Test)
Not just more well heeled pensioners able to invest on the Stock Exchange (and still satisfy the Means Test) AND able to afford the Financial Advice which has delivered this outcome to them
Fair?
Still wrong, imho, ratsak. Hinch and Storer assisting the government’s tax handout to multinationals and large corporates who don’t need it and won’t pass it on to employees as wage increases is how their voters will see it. And that’s what counts. Whether they will re-elected when their time is up in the Senate. Not what they think might make it easier for them now.
VE
After the last Federal election Di Natale promised that the Greens would form government in their own right. He has to do make up this fake news shit because, until that date, the Greens are helping the Coalition to fuck up the environment.