Newspoll: 52-48 to Labor

Newspoll returns after three weeks to find the situation all but totally unchanged.

One Nation are off two points on the primary vote, from 8% to 6%, but the latest Newspoll is otherwise as dull as it gets. Labor’s lead on two-party preferred is unchanged at 52-48, both major parties are unchanged at 38% on the primary vote, the Greens are up one to 10%. Malcolm Turnbull is up a point on both approval and disapproval, to 40% and 50% respectively; Bill Shorten is down one to 33% and steady on 55%. Turnbull leads 46-31 on preferred prime minister, compared with 47-30 last time. The poll was conducted Thursday to Sunday, presumably from a sample of about 1600.

Author: William Bowe

William Bowe is a Perth-based election analyst and occasional teacher of political science. His blog, The Poll Bludger, has existed in one form or another since 2004, and is one of the most heavily trafficked websites on Australian politics.

891 comments on “Newspoll: 52-48 to Labor”

Comments Page 16 of 18
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  1. Henry @ #737 Monday, June 18th, 2018 – 9:59 pm

    Correct confessions. It’s on all males to take responsibility and ownership of this issue. The onus is on us men.
    Of course i and the majority of males are not responsible for the terrible acts of violence committed against women but we have a duty and responsibility to do our bit to reduce the incidence of such crimes.

    So, what actions are on your list Henry?
    Have you carried out any yet?
    When will you report back on the outcomes.

  2. *Sigh*

    No one is asking you to, Bemused. What we, as men, are being asked to do is to reflect on our own thoughts and actions and encourage other men to do the same. I don’t think that’s a particularly onerous ask, and I’m, well, bemused that you a few others on here are so het up about this.

    Zoomster made a good analogy with the violence against and dispossession of Aboriginal Australians. I wasn’t personally responsible for it, and nor to the best of my knowledge were any of my forebears. But we are still all complicit in it. That doesn’t mean we have to go around in a hair shirt and bowing down before every Aborigine we meet, but it does mean owning your privilege and doing whatever you can to make things better.

  3. ar

    ‘Though there was one twitter comment that flashed by with someone having a whinge about how everyone needs to “stop blaming all men”. Which I might agree with, except that most people aren’t actually doing that to begin with.’

    I won’t suggest you scroll back to do so but you would certainly find a number of posters doing exactly that should you do so.

  4. I have decided to sit this one out. Mostly. However, I just couldn’t let a couple of things go unremarked.

    Firstly, Bushfire Bill’s premise seems to be that because he, or we, cannot change anything, we shouldn’t even try. Nor should we even show that we care about victims like Eurydice by going to vigils because how’s that going to change anything?

    How callous. How heartless.

    Secondly, this has to be the most vile comment I have read about Eurydice Dixon anywhere since the fateful night when she was raped and murdered:

    This does not condone murder, but she knew she was taking a chance. Perhaps she was even tempting fate, overtly, sending a message that her friends were wimps?

    A vile twist on the, ‘she asked for it’ line. She was titillating herself!?! Really!?!

  5. Just tonight Kev I had a chat with my ten year old nephew and this issue was discussed. I reinforced to him, which he already knew as he has good parents, that he should always be respectful, polite and kind to all people, particularly women as they are the ones who suffer 99% of the violence on society. He gets it, he’s a good kid and it gives me hope.

  6. Henry @ #744 Monday, June 18th, 2018 – 10:06 pm

    Yes it’s only rape and murder bemused isn’t it. No biggie.
    Thankfully the next generation are slowly getting it, as we could see with the 15,000 at the vigil for eurodice tonight.
    Your ilk is a dying breed and we can take comfort from that.

    At least I have sufficient respect to try to spell the victims name correctly.
    What are you ‘getting’ Henry? I hope you haven’t caught something nasty.

  7. I don’t need you to take my word for anything. What I do want you to do is to stop carelessly uses language that lumps me and all other men with rapists, murderers and domestic violence perpetrators.

    If that’s what you take from my comments then that’s your issue, not mine.

  8. On other important matters, Labor look like only supporting the low income rebate.

    So now the ball appears to be in the Greens’ court as to whether the package is to be split.

    Labor unlikely to support stage two of $143bn tax package

    Opposition backs initial tax cuts for low income earners, but likely not later stages aimed at higher earners

    https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2018/jun/18/labor-unlikely-to-support-stage-two-of-143bn-tax-package

  9. Boerwar @ #750 Monday, June 18th, 2018 – 10:11 pm

    ar

    ‘Though there was one twitter comment that flashed by with someone having a whinge about how everyone needs to “stop blaming all men”. Which I might agree with, except that most people aren’t actually doing that to begin with.’

    I won’t suggest you scroll back to do so but you would certainly find a number of posters doing exactly that should you do so.

    I’ve seen it, but I don’t think the participants represent a majority. Hence why I said most people aren’t doing that.

    Some are, and I don’t agree with them. Not do I agree with the amount of umbrage some others take with those comments, or their weird arguments that no men have issues, or that women shouldn’t be walking around in public spaces, or that women on male violence is a huge sleeper issue that needs to be talked about right now. There’s plenty of wrongness going around. 🙂

  10. You don’t get it bemused and blokes like you, in your 70s and 80s are a lost cause. And that’s fine. Your attitudes and beliefs are from a long gone era. Keep tilting at windmills, it’s about all you have.

  11. Should Americans be partly responsible for Trump, Cheney etc?
    Elderly Germans for the Holocaust?
    Whites for black lynchings?
    Males for sexual violence?
    Women for infanticide?
    Was ball tampering just Warner etc? The whole team? Cricket Australia? Cricket in general?
    It’s very gray.

  12. H

    ‘Zoomster made a good analogy with the violence against and dispossession of Aboriginal Australians. I wasn’t personally responsible for it, and nor to the best of my knowledge were any of my forebears. But we are still all complicit in it. That doesn’t mean we have to go around in a hair shirt and bowing down before every Aborigine we meet, but it does mean owning your privilege and doing whatever you can to make things better.’

    How can we be complicit in something that happened before we were born? What we are accountable for is how we work to address the consequences. Most of my working life was devoted to addressing just that accountability.

    How can a man, or a woman, possibly be complicit in a rape perpetrated by someone we do not know against someone we do not know in a place a thousand km from where we live?

    What we are accountable for is this: that our words and deeds in all our social, work and democratic engagement contexts demonstrate respect to women (and men) and everything that flows from that.

  13. Barney in Go Dau @ #757 Monday, June 18th, 2018 – 10:16 pm

    So now the ball appears to be in the Greens’ court as to whether the package is to be split.

    The Greens seem to just want to play games. From the article you posted …

    The Greens are still on the fence about the looming Senate debate. The party discussed its position on Monday but is waiting on a definitive position from Labor before resolving whether or not to join tactical skirmishes in the Senate to try and split the package.

    We know how badly the Greens normally get outplayed, so this will probably not end well 🙁

  14. So here’s a thought. Why don’t we all agree that this is a tragedy that shouldn’t have happened and let us all grieve and remember Eurydice and others like her, and not take it all so personally. Because, you know, it’s not about you.

    If the attack is on “men” as a gender, then it is exactly about all men.

    It seems nowadays that it doesn’t do you any good to lead a decent life, teach your grandkids the right thing, not harm others, pay your bills, be pleasant to strangers, be a non-rapist and a non-murderer, a non-stalker and a non-basher.

    If you’re born with Y chromosome you’re lumped in with the trailer trash, retarded, malignant bastards of this world who have nothing in common with you other than that Y chromosome. Nothing else.

    If you complain there’ll be some smartarse who insinuates that you’re too sensitive – in their estimation – so you must be guilty of something, or have some dark secret.

    Yes, it’s a shame that Eurydice Dixon was murdered. Just as it is a shame that those kids in America were gunned down in their own school. Just as it’s a shame that old ladies and old gentlemen die needlessly because they can’t afford health care. Just as it’s terrible that people get run over by drunk drivers. Or that walls fall on innocent passers-by. Or that every year the flu kills thousands, here, in “civilized” First world Australia. Or that none of this will matter when the Antarctic ice melts and everyone within coo-ee of the coast has to move to high ground, unfortunately already occupied by double whatever the population is now.

    And yes, some men will need to take stock of their attitudes towards women, but they won’t, and we all know they won’t. Just as some will need to stop watching kiddie porn, or stop being cruel to animals. But they won’t.

    We can only do what we can do.

    Stopping and saying a silent prayer for Eurydice Dixon is something I won’t do. Not because I don’t think she deserved better in life, or because I’m against it in principle, but because I don’t know and never knew her and because there are plenty of other things, and the fates of other people, to be grief-stricken about.

    One of my best mates has Stage 3 prostate cancer. I spend a lot of time with him, trying to cheer him up through his chemotherapy. Also with his wife who – if anything – is more distraught and unhinged than he is. My next door neighbour lost his wife suddenly a couple of years back. She died on a railway station on the way home from work. The platform cleaner found her body at 10pm. My neighbour can’t get over it. He cries himself to sleep – a grown man! He can’t stop feeling there’s something he could have done to stop that massive heart attack she had. No amount of my telling him there was nothing he could do will help. She was the love of his life.

    Put the fate of an unfortunate young woman in Melbourne into that perspective. I didn’t know her. I do know my mate, his wife, my neighbour. There’s only enough grief left in me to go round. Let her friends grieve for her. I doubt whether they will grieve for my friends, or help them, or hold their hands when they are crying. Life goes on, as does death.

    In the meantime, quit the accusations and the easy insinuations, the inescapable conclusions as to motivation and the squalid, condescending advice as to who I should mourn and when, and most particularly why I should feel guilty because I was assigned a Y chromosome, something over which I have not one zillionth of one percent of control.

  15. Might I also just add that my inculcation of my sons’ attitudes towards women started when they were toddlers and I bought them a soft baby girl doll to play with. As well as trucks and scooters etc. Also, when one of them expressed an interest in my perfumes I didn’t shoo him away with scolding words about boys don’t wear perfume! I let him spray it on himself and now he has the greatest collection of men’s after shaves and colognes.

    So, my point is, it’s the lifelong job of the mother and father to mould their children into the sort of people we want in the world.

    The proof of the pudding will then be in the eating, and I have feasted on compliments from friends and strangers alike about how well my sons behave and how kind and courteous they are, especially towards women.

    They certainly don’t swear at them in public. Like Bushfire Bill did to Confessions tonight.

  16. Hugoaugogo @ #751 Monday, June 18th, 2018 – 10:11 pm

    *Sigh*

    No one is asking you to, Bemused. What we, as men, are being asked to do is to reflect on our own thoughts and actions and encourage other men to do the same. I don’t think that’s a particularly onerous ask, and I’m, well, bemused that you a few others on here are so het up about this.

    Zoomster made a good analogy with the violence against and dispossession of Aboriginal Australians. I wasn’t personally responsible for it, and nor to the best of my knowledge were any of my forebears. But we are still all complicit in it. That doesn’t mean we have to go around in a hair shirt and bowing down before every Aborigine we meet, but it does mean owning your privilege and doing whatever you can to make things better.

    Referring to your first paragraph, I take it you are referring to my statement: “But I am not going to accept personal responsibility for the actions of ONE MAN and I don’t expect other men to do so either.”

    The problem for you is that is precisely what some here have been wanting.

    The problem is not men generally, but some particular men. When I meet one I would certainly be prepared to take action such as reporting, speaking my mind, or whatever was appropriate in the circumstances. But I tend not to meet any or their behaviours are hidden.

  17. Thanks TPOF and C@t. Yes I’ve confused him with Simon Chapman, hence my raised eyebrows at some of Jackman’s comments tonight.

  18. C@tmomma:

    I have decided to sit this one out. Mostly. However, I just couldn’t let a couple of things go unremarked.

    Who then immediately negates her own resolution.

    Piss.Weak.

  19. ” I don’t think a single panelist suggested that the victim “should have known better” than to go walking alone at night.”

    That a really provocative phrasing, “should have known better”. Havent read every post on this. too much pointless bullshit being said by people who just want to bitch . But also have not seen any blatant victim blaming as you describe or missed it?

    Got two issues / messages here that i think are valid.

    1: Australia should be a safer place than it is where no-one walks in fear of rape and murder.

    2: Its going to take a while for that to happens, will never be absolute (cause the universe doesn’t do behavioural absolutes), and so people need to be conscious of personal security and risk.

  20. Dio

    The lynchings were not small, private affairs. They were sometimes attended by thousands of people at at time – including women and children. Postcards were made of the lynchings and were used as such.
    The perpetrators were never or extremely rarely arrested tried convicted and executed for murder.
    In other words it is possible to argue that the lynchings were state-sanctioned murder, that the governments kept being re-elected and were expressions of popular will.
    At the time the way you voted was probably an important measure of your personal accountability. You might add whether you were prepared to speak out at the time but that might have been socially, economically and personally very dangerous.
    Those who inherited the consequences of the lynching (White wealth/Afro-American poverty) own those consequences, IMO.

  21. C@t:

    The Sydney Uni guy tonight gives credence to your comments this morning that the Ramsey Center would seek out a sandstone uni, ie USyd.

  22. Henry @ #759 Monday, June 18th, 2018 – 10:20 pm

    You don’t get it bemused and blokes like you, in your 70s and 80s are a lost cause. And that’s fine. Your attitudes and beliefs are from a long gone era. Keep tilting at windmills, it’s about all you have.

    Shorter Henry: “I can’t answer your question, it’s too hard and my brain hurts.”

  23. The proof of the pudding will then be in the eating, and I have feasted on compliments from friends and strangers alike about how well my sons behave and how kind and courteous they are, especially towards women.

    Self-serving twaddle. They’re grown up men and they still live at home with Mummy. Says a lot.

  24. Bushfire Bill @ #766 Monday, June 18th, 2018 – 10:28 pm

    C@tmomma:

    I have decided to sit this one out. Mostly. However, I just couldn’t let a couple of things go unremarked.

    Who then immediately negates her own resolution.

    Piss.Weak.

    Piss. Off. With. Your. Piss. Poor. Response. An easy sledge from an uninspiring commenter.

  25. Henry says:
    Monday, June 18, 2018 at 10:14 pm
    Just tonight Kev I had a chat with my ten year old nephew and this issue was discussed. I reinforced to him, which he already knew as he has good parents, that he should always be respectful, polite and kind to all people, particularly women as they are the ones who suffer 99% of the violence on society. He gets it, he’s a good kid and it gives me hope.

    Henry

    It’s good that you are having that kind of chat with your nephew but where did you get the idea that women suffer 99% of the violence in society? For starters, did you know that about three quarters of all murders are of men?. Even with domestic violence, where arguably there is much more violence against women than the other way around, it is nowhere near 99%. If you are going to play a part in the kid’s education at least start by getting your facts right.

  26. Piss. Off. With. Your. Piss. Poor. Response. An easy sledge from an uninspiring commenter.

    Easy response, but nonetheless true.

    You can’t help yourself, can you? You’re away all night, turn up for five minutes, cast a quick eye over the proceedings, and offer your utterly predictable 2-bob’s worth. Don’t want to comment, not your argument of course, nothing to do with you, but…

  27. I’d argue that not only do we still have to have that conversation re cultural diversity, but we also need to keep having that conversation re gender diversity. Comment here tonight suggest that conversation hasn’t been resolved.

  28. Bushfire Bill @ #772 Monday, June 18th, 2018 – 10:33 pm

    The proof of the pudding will then be in the eating, and I have feasted on compliments from friends and strangers alike about how well my sons behave and how kind and courteous they are, especially towards women.

    Self-serving twaddle. They’re grown up men and they still live at home with Mummy. Says a lot.

    I feel sorry for you, I really do. You’re lashing out at any female who challenges your antediluvian point of view tonight by getting personal and attempting to hit them below the belt, when you’re not outright abusing them.

    Look, I know your children, or is it step-children, aren’t paragons of virtue, I get that, but it doesn’t mean you have to slag off mine.

    You really need to take a long, hard look at yourself. You are losing whatever sense of reasonableness and equitable perspective you once possessed.

    Also, for your information, and you know this as well as anyone because you have rabbitted on about it before, it’s bloody expensive to live in Sydney! However, my family succeeds in doing so by working together as a financial collective so that we may continue to live outside the Public Housing system. Nonetheless, both of my boys have expressed to me the sentiment, numerous times, that they have dreams about one day being able to afford to live away from home. Also to be able to afford to have wives, and a family that they can afford to support.

    Hardly, ‘Mummy’s Boys’ at all. Real Men. Unlike you, who probably can’t even get it up any more without the blue pill.

  29. ar
    Just off to bed but I just want to say that, having read your last post, I think we are probably mostly on the same page.

  30. Perhaps I might put in a few penneth into this debate.Surely the real issue is mental illness.

    Yes in men mental illness and violence may take the form of rape, but at the core it is a mental illness. This is the thing that must be addressed not the act of rape and murder. Now if it is true that the attacker is autistic then it is not males who are to blame, but rather society for allowing an uncontrolled violent teenage loose. We know that autistic people have limited social control and in some cases that may mean violence. Similarly some people with schizophrenia are a danger to themselves or others.

    While we have an inadequt mental health system ANG a culture that values “liberty” for the affected person over the risks to others, people will be murdered.

    Biological reality is that if a man hits a woman she is much more likely to be seriously injured than if a woman hits a man, Similarly if both parents hit children the greater strength of the male in more likely to cause serious injury. I am not sure that men are more inherently violent that women but they are bigger and stronger so injury is more apparent. Women will rarely take on a much stronger opponent so obvious violence reduced via fear. Think Madame Defage – no less bloodthirsty that the males who perhaps dragged the nobles to the guillotine.

    I think perhaps we should remove gender from the discussion about walking alone in a park at night. it is mostly about size and strength. Thus while women are at risk because of size and strength, so too are young boys and even slightly built adult makes who often tend to be Asian but it is their build not their race that makes them vulnerable. The old MALE drunks are also often targeted. Often it might be a mugging or robbery.

    I am of course not denying that there is a sexual element, but I think power and strength and mental illness are also critical Moreover we cannot lock up every male but we could and should do something to ensure those will mental illnesses which are potentially violent are monitored.

    In this age of Ice addiction I think that violence is no the increase and both male and female addicts are a risk. Plenty of females glass others.

  31. Jake TapperVerified account@jaketapper
    52m52 minutes ago
    The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights “expressed deep concern over recent policies adopted by the United States that led to the forceful separation of children from their families..that any State would seek to deter parents by inflicting abuse on children was unconscionable.”

    Team Trump says they just want to comply with existing laws. Okay. So why not simply deport the whole family, why separate children from their parents?

  32. Sadmomma “Hardly, ‘Mummy’s Boys’ at all. Real Men. Unlike you, who probably can’t even get it up any more without the blue pill.”

    The inability of the @ person to have a sane debate without resorting to nasty comes through every time. Its really time for you to go!

  33. I feel sorry for you, I really do. You’re lashing out at any female who challenges your antediluvian point of view tonight by getting personal and attempting to hit them below the belt, when you’re not outright abusing them.

    Listen mate, you want to voluntarily bring your sons into the argument as shining examples of whatever, and how well you brought them up, then don’t complain about commentary on that subject.

    I never said my grandsons were paragons of virtue. I said I didn’t think they’d ever murder or rape anyone. That’s the hope, anyway.

    Their father was and remains a no-hoper. Their mother was, but thankfully is no longer addicted. Both boys were born heroin addicts and had to be weaned off it, which is starting out in negative territory by any stretch. But so far, so good. I’m claiming nothing more than that.

    I am far more concerned about their welfare than I am about a comedienne from Brunswick, no matter how well loved and treasured by all she was.

    Holding candles in a public park somewhere to honour the dead will neither bring back the dead, nor get anything done.

    The parents of the accused person are mortified by what he has confessed to. They have expressed their literal shame and sadness for the family of the dead woman. I’m sure they thought they brought up their son well, too.

    No amount of pious breast-beating and bragging about family values, life-long committments etc. will get past the fact that some children, when grown to adulthood, just turn out bad. They can come from privilege or from poverty. Working class or upper crust. There are no demographics to murderers and rapists.

    So save your outrage and your pity for someone who really needs it.

  34. Hardly, ‘Mummy’s Boys’ at all. Real Men. Unlike you, who probably can’t even get it up any more without the blue pill.

    Didn’t see this before… but better late than never.

    With you as the pin-up girl, Victoria, I’d need a bucket full of them. And a trailer load out the back for afters.

  35. Well those last 10 or so pages really weren’t worth reading save a couple of posts…
    I know it’s the internet, and people love being combative, but can’t some logic and common sense prevail occasionally…

    Also
    All generalisations are bad

  36. There is a reason we have police, courts and gaols.

    We are human and while most of us are able to conform with the Society’s constraints some do not or can not.

    While living in a Society of no fear or danger is a wonderful aspiration, it is unfortunately an unreasonable expectation.

    A tiny minority of people in our Society will do bad things.

    It’s horrible, it’s tragic but there is little we can do to stop these events.

    Sure there are broader elements of violence and attitudes to it that we can and need to address to further reduce issues like domestic violence.

    But we will still be left with the tiny minority.

    Why?

    We are humans and that means not all of us will act and behave logically and rationally at all times.

    Sorry!!!!

  37. Fuck me dead. I don’t think I’ve seen as many straw men slaughtered, humourless non sequiturs, and just plain virtue signaling nonsense for ages (but then I didn’t get a ticket to the Lib’s National Conference).

    Men aren’t blaming women for getting raped and murdered because they took a risk. They are pointing out it’s not a perfect world and it’s never going to be. So be careful. We want you to be not raped and dead.

    But, but, but, certain individual man SHOULD just not rape and murder! Oh, well that’s fucking helpful. Why did no one in the last 10,000 odd years of human civilization not think of that?

    No one is saying that because the world can’t be perfect that we just throw up our hands and do nothing. But wtf does ‘men taking responsibility’ actually mean? Like in the real actual world. You know that actual world where most men are actually in reality decent human beings and do actual good and stuff. Oh you mean those other blokes? That tiny minority of dickheads? The ones who are just going to fucking ignore your wishy washy shite?

    As noted above replace men and violence against women for muslims and terrorism.

    It’s not just that such broad brush blame is unfair. It’s positively counter-productive. Now you could say all those poor widdle snowflake men SHOULD just get the fuck over it, but hey we’re not as perfect as our downtrodden sisters. You know, real world and stuff. Kinda how all the nice muslim people I know don’t take kindly to being lumped in with Osama. They SHOULD know we don’t mean them eh? Such self absorption when people are being blown up by their co-religionists…

    This ‘men have to take responsibility’ malarkey is the intellectual equivalent of huffing your own farts.

    People have bad shit happen to them. That’s why we have laws and police and stuff.

    There has been a massive cultural change around the role of women in our society over the last 50 years. This has been a massive boon to us all male and female. And yes most of that change has had to be fought for. Bloody hard.

    But latching onto a tragic death to try and advance that worthy cause and in such a platitudinous and finger pointing fashion doesn’t strike me as being of much use to anyone other than those looking to pretend to do something. Hit us men that are meant to take responsibility for this shit with some actual tangible practical things and I’ve no doubt almost all of us Y chromosome afflicted potential rapists and murders will be keen to do what we can.

    Fighting for better treatment of and resources for mental health would very likely make a measurable difference to the potential for young women to not be raped and murdered whilst walking through parks late at night, and also to lots of other people suffering. As just a single obvious starting point. Whilst recognising the problem is multi-dimensional, chronic and ultimately unsolvable so always one of balance between ‘acceptable’ levels of public safety and resources. In other words political.

    So telling men you want us to accept responsibility by joining with you politically to demand said resources from government even when they try and bribe us with tax cuts? Sure, can do. Glad to.

    Telling men they need to take responsibility and you know not be so rapey and murdery – not so much use.

  38. A good example of how our Muslim , Aboriginal fellow citizens must feel when the few spoil it for the rest.
    As a Catholic, I remember feeling extremely defensive and ashamed when the IRA were terrorising the UK.

  39. Let’s be honest, the murder of Eurydice Dixon is a tragic event. But, just as nothing changed after the murder of Jill Meagher (and please correct me if I’m wrong), I doubt anything will change now. Everyone can argue about whether a man or men are at fault with the only result being people digging in to defend their position and the atmosphere here getting hotter than our climate if CO2 reaches 1400ppm.

    Over the next two weeks the Coalition will attempt to push through Parliament changes to tax rates that will potentially increase inequality and massively redistribute income to the well off. Given the parlous state of our budget, I’m not sure these tax changes are sustainable. I wonder if the Coalition understand that and are just trying to “starve the beast” as the Americans would say, or if they’re trying to look after themselves and their big end of town. Maybe they even believe their rhetoric.

    We have a Senate cross bench that can probably be called interesting (as in the Chinese curse) so who knows how it will turn out. From what I gather, several of the cross bench will support splitting the bill if the numbers are there. If not then they may vote for the cuts in full.

    This poses a dilemma for the ALP, which I’m sure the Coalition planned on. If there are insufficient votes to split the bill in the Senate, then does the ALP vote for or against the bill? IIRC, the last time they voted against tax cuts, arguing that they favoured the rich, it really hurt them in the polls. It would certainly give the Coalition something to attack Labor on. On the other hand, if they allowed the full tax cuts through arguing that they would fix them when in office the Coalition would go into the next election arguing that Labor wanted to raise taxes.

    The question is what will the Greens do? The Greens have said that they oppose tax cuts. That’s not an unreasonable position if you are arguing that the Government needs to spend more on services. However, what happens if they follow through with their position and refuse to support splitting the bill (actually amending it to remove the later tax cuts)? In that case the amendments will fail and, given what I have typed above, the bill might well pass. In that case the Greens, through their intransigence, will have helped bring about that which they claim to oppose.

    All of this is playing out as we have by-elections in four states.

    Interesting times in politics at the moment.

  40. What the responses on here identify is that people have agendas – and they use circumstances to promote those agendas

    I do the same – I basically adhere to Stieglitz so quote from him in presentations to suite my purpose

    So I reinforce my prejudices

    Whilst people come to the matters subject to comment on here with agendas and prejudices there will be no progress because there is skepticism as to agenda and prejudice – and, as we see, that is the problem

    Because there is no backing down by those who have agenda and prejudice

    And when I note boys raised as “especially courteous to women” I have a problem

    Because my wife and I have raised our children to be courteous

    Do unto others as you would wish done to you

    Full stop

  41. <sarcasm>
    May every murderer kill an equal ratio of genders lest not to draw the ire of the genderist/antigenderist.
    </sarcasm>
    Preferably 0. Much easier to achieve anyway.

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