Nine News has results of post-budget polling of three federal marginal seats, these being automated phone polls conducted by YouGov Galaxy.
• In the seat of Robertson on the central coast of New South Wales, the Liberals are credited with a 52-48 lead on two-party preferred, little changed from Lucy Wicks’ 1.1% winning margin in 2016. Primary votes are Liberal 44% (44.7% at the election), Labor 37% (38.4%), Greens 6% (8.4%) and One Nation 7%. Twenty-four per cent rated the budget would make them better off, 20% worse off and 48% no difference; 42% supported the government’s company tax cuts, and an equal share opposed the. The sample for the Robertson poll was 514.
• In the seat of Chisholm in Melbourne’s south-east, which was the one seat gained by the Coalition from Labor in 2016, the score is 50-50, compared with a 1.2% winning margin for Liberal member Julia Banks in 2016. The primary votes are Liberal 44% (45.3%), Labor 38% (35.9%), Greens 9% (12.3%) and One Nation 3%. Twenty-six per cent said the budget would make them better off, 23% worse off and 43% no difference; 32% supported, and 50% opposed, the company tax cuts. Sample: 539.
• In the Townsville-based seat of Herbert, which Cathy O’Toole gained Labor by a handful of votes in 2016, the Liberal National Party is credited with a 51-49 lead, from primary votes of Labor 34% (30.5%), LNP 38% (35.5%), One Nation 19% (13.5%) and Greens 3% (6.3%). Sample: 554.
I also offer the following by-election news. If you would like to leave a comment on the by-election that’s not going to get lost in the flow, I can recommend this thread. See also the links to detailed guides for all five seats featured on the sidebar.
• The West Australian reports Labor’s federal executive will today anoint the party’s candidate in Perth, which will almost certainly be its state secretary, Patrick Gorman. Prominent lawyer and former Cottesloe mayor John Hammond has also nominated, but it may be presumed that Gorman has the numbers. It was reported that an alternative scheme might involve Senator Louise Pratt contesting the seat, and her Senate vacancy going to Gorman. However, Latika Bourke of Fairfax reported yesterday that the plan had not found the favour of the Australian Manufacturing and Workers Union, the Left faction union that has long been Pratt’s power base.
• The Courier-Mail reports the Liberal National Party preselection in Longman is likely to be contested by Trevor Ruthenberg, who held the state seat of Kallangur from 2012 to 2015 and is now chief executive of the Mosaic Property Group’s philanthropic foundation, and Jason Snow, a disability support worker. One Nation has endorsed Caboolture small businessman Matthew Stephen, despite the controversy that attended his run for the state seat of Sandgate, in which it emerged he had repeatedly had his trades licence suspended, narrowly avoided bankruptcy, and was prone to politically incorrect utterances on social media.
• The Mercury reports that a Liberal internal poll gave the party a 53-47 lead on federal voting intention in Braddon. However, it was also noted that the poll had a small sample and, as Kevin Bonham observes, the result may have been contaminated by the Liberals’ easy victory at the March state election. (UPDATE: Kevin Bonham explains in comments that I don’t have the right end of the handle here. “The 53 for the Liberals in Braddon in their internal poll sample is the primary not the 2PP. Labor was on 20 and the Greens were on 15. Hence (and there are other reasons too) my rubbishing of it whenever I have been asked. And that was the seat sample from a state sample of 756, so probably only about 150 voters.”)
• The Australian today stirs the pot on the eligibility of Cowan MP Anne Aly, who has only been able to provide a letter from the Egyptian embassy acknowledging its receipt of her application to renounce her citizenship dated two months before the 2016 election (UPDATE: Aly has today produced a letter from the Egyptian embassy that would appear to put the matter to rest).
“Arduous”? I bet Ms Campion had it tougher. Why are they promoting the Beetrooter?
Steve777 @ #745 Saturday, May 12th, 2018 – 8:32 am
Barnaby has featured heavily in News Corp papers the last few days. Strange given he’s just a backbencher. And meanwhile most people can’t actually name his successor.
https://www.google.com.au/search?q=barnaby+joyce&source=lnms&tbm=nws&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwim6Omp9f7aAhXDULwKHUPIAsUQ_AUICigB&biw=1242&bih=579
STEVE777 – And anyone who replaced Shorten would get the same treatment. He has been wonderfully focused and composed. Would anyone else be?
Fess
The whole Schneiderman saga has no doubt been politically timed. The whole thing smells very strange. Much like everything else connected to the Trump shit show
GetUp has gone off with the funny moneys.
Another gift from the Numpty Left to Turnbull.
Keerist! Reading back on the posts last night, some people are still demonstrating they have absolutely no sense of humour. Because it is clear that many of you missed the original post before you started snarking, here it my original comment again in its entirety:
Fully credited to Douglas Adams, and clearly intended to be a humorous comment.
From now on, I will give a full biography, wikipedia reference and explanation of the contextual relevance whenever I quote from a source with which any of you may be unfamiliar 🙂
If Turnbull intends to go to early election, can’t have by elections. So what has he decided?
Boerwar
GetUp? Please expline…
“STEVE777 – And anyone who replaced Shorten would get the same treatment. He has been wonderfully focused and composed. Would anyone else be?”
Exactly. They probably have dirt files (with largely made-up or beat-up dirt) on any likely alternative, which they’ll bring out if needed. The Coalition campaign negatively because it works, helped by a mainstream media largely controlled by the friends.
l
Nicholas has written several thousand words in a post explaining why GetUp! is good because it has adopted his NMT Numpty Money Theory.
GetUp! has been captured by the similar loons who are whispering into Di Natale’s ear.
Stand by for more ‘explanations’ about why making up trillions of dollars is (a) ridiculously easy and (b) ONLY has good consequences, (c) that there is such a thing as a free lunch and (d) that you can eat your cake and have it too.
The taxpayers who funding these ‘thinkers’ should get their money back: a complete waste but dangerous withal.
Victoria @ #751 Saturday, May 12th, 2018 – 8:45 am
Absolutely. Schneiderman has been investigating Trump for years, and so Trump and Cohen would’ve taken any opportunity to amass info about him that could be used at a strategic time point regardless of whether Trump was in office or still in ‘business’. As the article says, Trump tweeted about him being worse than two accused sex abusers back in 2013 – they knew about these incidents involving Schneiderman back then.
Boerwar
Tks. Nicholas is one of the posters that I never read.
In this crazy world we live in, our household up here on the (still sunny) Mid North Coast scored a free Netflix subscription for a month, simplybecause we bought a new smart TV.
Parenthetically, I have to admit that even though I have been whingeing about being forced to use the NBN, up here it does a pretty good job delivering faultless high definition television, and even ultra-high definition television. The NBN technician told me that is one of the advantages of living in a small community. If anything, we are over serviced with our NBN. Being over a kilometre from the node, our speed is paltry. However there is little competition for it. We score a good bitrate any time of the day. And for that I am truly grateful.
Most of the Netflix movies are old, worn out and – frankly – rubbish. This means we have to confine ourselves to the in-house Netflix series and documentaries. Of course some of these are terrible, too. But some are truly excellent. This being the case, our aim is to get through everything worth watching before our free subscription runs out in another 2 weeks.
At the excellent end of the scale is a truly remarkable Ken Burns documentary series on the Roosevelt presidents, Teddy and Franklin Delano. Narrated by Peter Coyote, it is a treat to both watch and listen to.
These two men, who lived only to about the same age as I am now, between them ran 6 presidencies, changed the fate of nations, first defended, and then reshaped their worlds, in general making what they did look, if not easy, then at least inevitable – polio, San Juan Hill, the Depression, Hitler, Tojo, and all. The two Roosevelt presidents (albeit from politically opposite sides of the family) demonstrate clearly that few are called, fewer are chosen, and even fewer succeed. FDR and Teddy put my own pathetic little existence into its proper perspective: not much to write home about.
So it was with some surprise that I noticed this morning a little idea I had last night (just before I began binge-watching six hours of the American presidency) had taken at least some root. How many ways could we add “Bill” (as in Shorten) to various words?
While he may not be a Roosevelt, a Hawke, a Whitlam, a Chifley, or a Curtin, Bill Shorten has done an amazing – one might say incredi-Bill, even unbelieva-Bill – job with today’s Labor Party.
Bill has refloated a shipwrecked party, only recently written off as hardly worth the salvage, and in a few years has turned it into the front runner for the next election, united, policy-rich and confident.
That is a truly formida-Bill achievement. His enemies – Big Business, the media and the Tory hack-puppets whose strings they pull – can do nothing more cutting than to call him names. If anything is a sign of the political terror that Bill Shorten is causing in conservative ranks, this playground childishness is it.
As many here predicted it would be, the Budget is now forgotten: the day-before-yesterday’s news. And who was most instrumental in heaving this useless, forgetta-Bill document overboard? Why, it was the Liberals and their pin-striped puppeteers themselves!
Never a truer word was said than “any publicity is good publicity”. By their schoolyard heckling the Libs have scored a massive own goal: their own Budget – their political lifeboat – lost at sea for the sake of a few smartarsed quips, their enemy (and his policies) rendered nationally relevant, and their own political voyage… becalmed.
For just three days effort, that’s a pretty remarka-Bill achievement for the capa-Bill Mr Shorten.
And this time the pun is intended.
Fess
Yep. This story has a way to play out yet.
As I say, House of Cards has nothing on this show!
Defeated Malaysian PM, and alleged kleptocrat, Najib Razak is doing the expected and fleeing the country. Going off somewhere safe to count his loot, first stop Jakarta.
“KUALA LUMPUR – The flight manifest of a private jet scheduled to leave from an airport near Kuala Lumpur for Jakarta at 10am on Saturday (May 12) names ousted Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak and his wife as passengers, two sources and two media reports said.
Officials close to Mr Najib, who lost a general election this week, were not immediately available for comment, Reuters reported.”
https://www.straitstimes.com/asia/se-asia/former-malaysia-pm-najib-listed-on-manifest-for-jet-leaving-malaysia
29 degrees forecast here today. Almost unheard of for this time of year.
#weatheronPB #AGWisreal
#WeatheronPB: cool, overcast, windy and trying to rain in Sydney, 15°.
Boerwar says:
Saturday, May 12, 2018 at 10:52 am
l
Nicholas has written several thousand words in a post explaining why GetUp! is good because it has adopted his NMT Numpty Money Theory.
You really should put the effort in to understand MMT. Just dismissing it out of hand is a very conservative action. Here is an explanation by Professor Bill Mitchell of Newcastle University.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YnyDRwSqp2E
It is actually quite interesting.
Bushfire Bill (AnonBlock)
Saturday, May 12th, 2018 – 11:04 am
Comment #752
Excellent post.
🐘 ✨✨✨✨✨
👴 RW Politician with ears and tail.
Confessions @ #766 Saturday, May 12th, 2018 – 11:31 am
This autumn looks like being the warmest on record, but in a year where there is no El Nino effect exacerbating the warm dry conditions. This just seems to be the new “normal”.
What will happen during the next El Nino is the real worry 🙁
‘Careful whispers: secret commands pose security risk’ by Craig Smith (originally New York Times) is a sobering article in the hard copy of today’s Sydney Morning Herald but when I try searching for it online, I can’t find it.
It describes research (Berkeley) showing how subliminal messages and commands undetectable to the human ear via smartphones and smart speakers and hidden in white noise can be played through YouTube.
This stealthy stuff is nightmarish .
My concern is that my young adult autistic grandson who does most of his socialising online, has become extremely right wing in his views recently, pro-NRA, etc, and my reasoning with him is in vain. At 21 he is vulnerable, and since there are no support groups for him at this age, he is socially isolated and spends too much time gaming online.
Multiply his case and we have potentially a huge social problem.
Also, could the LNP be using this technique in this pre- election time?
At the risk of sounding paranoid, I don’t trust Dutton and worry about covert methods of retaining power.
Quasar @ #771 Saturday, May 12th, 2018 – 11:56 am
I think it is this one – https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/10/technology/alexa-siri-hidden-command-audio-attacks.html
I may not be as paranoid as you, but I would certainly not have one of these devices in my home! 🙂
Nicholas is saying is that the quantity of money in an economy – made available by a government – should be determined by different factors than the ones popularly used.
He is not saying that there should be no limit.
Thanks, P1.
Am a bit of a techno- phobe so unsure how widespread the reach of this technology is.
The Garden of Earthly Delights is the modern title[a] given to a triptych oil painting on oak panel painted by the Early Netherlandish master Hieronymus Bosch, housed in the Museo del Prado in Madrid It dates from between 1490 and 1510, when Bosch was between 40 and 60 years old.[1]
A vision for the Poll Bludgers Cheerful Chalies division. 😈
DN
I assume that the Greens are pursuing Numpty Money Theory.
Magic Pudding meet Money Tree meet imagination unlimited.
What are we up to over forward estimates? Some $1.7 trillion housing mortgage market to be nationalized with something called the Volksbank.
Newstart to be increased by 75%.
UBI. $1.5 trillion plus over forward estimates.
Free education and and free health and free whatever. Say another $1.5 trillion over forward estimates.
In terms of revenue, that will collapse as capital flight and capital strike goes beserk.
The Numpty Money Theorists are telling us that you don’t even have to borrow this money or even to print it. All you have to do is IMAGINE it.
We are solemnly promised by these numpties that this will NOT be inflationary! Since when has debasing the coinage NOT been inflationary?
The nanosecond they get serious about this two things will happen: capital strike (no Australian investor will want to invest in Australia because the investment can be summarily devalued by imagined money by the Money Numpties) and capital flight. Anyone who has anything in Aussie dollars will get the buggary out of it asap.
In other words, Numpty Money is just another phrase for debasing the coinage by imagining more of it.
Forex would be in for a wild ride indeed!
And we all know where debasing the coinage ends. You get a downward spiral which, I assume, the Money Numpties would ‘fix’ by imagining even more money. Get your wheelbarrows ready.
KJ
Been there. Seen that. I got the point Bosch was trying to make but it sort of did not look all that much like the worthies were relaxed enough to be having your actual light-hearted fun.
https://www.google.com/search?q=image+garden+of+earthly+delights+bosch&client=firefox-b&tbm=isch&source=iu&ictx=1&fir=3qofaANVxLMHJM%253A%252CWBL6D1awYIuVJM%252C_&usg=__PZeP3a0v8bi9DlbVbyXFHwhwN-8%3D&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjc25mvjv_aAhXLebwKHUHbCf0Q9QEIPjAE#imgrc=3qofaANVxLMHJM:
Quasar @ #774 Saturday, May 12th, 2018 – 12:11 pm
The are becoming popular household items. My brother has one. Next time you visit someone who is “tech savvy”, just start a sentence with “ok google …” and see what happens – sometimes the unintentional results are hilarious 🙂
lizzie @ #709 Saturday, May 12th, 2018 – 8:22 am
So the lives of men and boys don’t matter.
Sick!
Seven people died. 4 were children.
Boerwar @ #766 Saturday, May 12th, 2018 – 12:21 pm
The painting has come up in one of a current series of books I am reading. An owl in particular.
Fascinating stuff. 🙄
DN
We need to keep in mind something the Greens DO NOT talk about at all: regardless of their Play Money theory, the massive damage they will do to existing industries.
Ag will be assaulted in multifarious ways such that existing production will fall dramatically and foreign investment in agriculture will virtually stop. Mines, including Olympic Dam, will be closed. (All uranium mines are to be closed and all uranium exports will be banned).
So, apart from the Play Money, there will be a concerted assault on two of Australia’s major export earners. The impact on jobs, export earnings, and the value of the dollar HAVE NEVER BEEN EXPOSED by the Greens. Normally extremely voluble, they are silent on this stuff.
DisplayName @ #773 Saturday, May 12th, 2018 – 12:04 pm
Makes sense.
Player One says:
Saturday, May 12, 2018 at 10:46 am
Keerist! Reading back on the posts last night, some people are still demonstrating they have absolutely no sense of humour. Because it is clear that many of you missed the original post before you started snarking, here it my original comment again in its entirety:
No, our big mistake was coming down from the trees in the first place – Douglas Adams.
Fully credited to Douglas Adams, and clearly intended to be a humorous comment.
From now on, I will give a full biography, wikipedia reference and explanation of the contextual relevance whenever I quote from a source with which any of you may be unfamiliar
———————————–
you couldn’t cite a mite – you humourless jerk, you really should try to lighten up and also read what is said not try to make cheap insults
I hope that, for the Captain Cook statue they get the bloke who designed the “Motherland Calls” above Stalingrad. This country sadly needs a triumphal statue in the Soviet style.
bemused
The message wasn’t the one you seem to have picked up. It was about – oh, never mind.
geoffrey @ #783 Saturday, May 12th, 2018 – 12:36 pm
Way to prove my point, geoffrey! 🙂
That might happen – but you just know it’s going to be the guy who thought this was a good idea:
bemused @ #779 Saturday, May 12th, 2018 – 12:30 pm
What a ridiculous conclusion to draw!
Maybe you should join the Moronic Posters on PB Club. I’m sure that extremely senior President and CEO Borewar will accept your membership application.
yes player one – i can’t remember when I last insulted anyone this place so you have all the honours
btw i will tell you when you say anything of interest
Jaeger @ #788 Saturday, May 12th, 2018 – 12:46 pm
Nah, get the guy who did this statue so that it meets the usual Turdball quality standards.
https://www.theguardian.com/football/2017/dec/12/it-looks-like-someones-gran-diego-maradona-statue-unveiled-in-india
Tom.
LR
Please do not insult the memory of Max Planck by comparing him with the Numpty Money Theorists OR Greensthinkers.
Unlike the latter, Planck did NOT make shit up.
Tom
It is only a matter of time.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hWxszYK6IPU
geoffrey @ #789 Saturday, May 12th, 2018 – 12:49 pm
I’m flattered. Are you sure you can spare that much time? 🙂
Nicholas is saying is that the quantity of money in an economy – made available by a government – should be determined by different factors than the ones popularly used.
He is not saying that there should be no limit.
Sure, but he doesn’t ever give or explain a specific mechanism for identifying how much money it is reasonable to inject into the economy to stimulate growth without causing run-away inflation, massive capital flight, currency collapse, or all three. Heck, he hardly ever admits that this is a risk.
The current limits on the growth of the money supply are implemented using the discipline of the market to price the aggregate scarity of natural and human capital resources. This provides the price stability required to encourage investment over the long term.
What’s the alternative?
Note that this is not an argument against increased fiscal stimulus by the government at this precise point in time, or an anti-Keynesian point of view.
lizzie @ #785 Saturday, May 12th, 2018 – 12:42 pm
I took it to mean what it said.
I don’t think the full story has yet emerged. Where is the father of the children? Where is the farm hand who worked at the farm? Where sere they when the event happened? Why have they not been mentioned?
adrian @ #788 Saturday, May 12th, 2018 – 12:48 pm
You must be the secretary since you are conducting the correspondence!
Kind offer declined. But thanks for asking. 😀
Boerwar @ #791 Saturday, May 12th, 2018 – 12:52 pm
I think he had the right idea.
Full ep of today’s Real Time.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hp1B_v8YKYk
Fess
Thanks for linking RealTime!
Confessions says: Saturday, May 12, 2018 at 1:15 pm
Full ep of today’s Real Time.
****************************************
Thanks Confessions – off to watch 🙂