Labor’s two-point gain in last fortnight’s Essential Research poll has proved to be an aberration, with the latest result snapping back to 52-48. This is matched by the primary votes, on which the Coalition is up two to 38% and Labor down two to 35% (we will have to wait for the full report later today to see how the minor parties have gone). According to The Guardian’s report, the poll also finds 50% favouring Labor’s tax policy over the Coalition, with the result for the latter not stated, except of course that it’s lower; 79% supporting the first stage of the government’s tax cuts, targeting lower and middle income earners, but only 37% for stage three, whereby the tax scales will be flattened to the advantage of higher income earners; support and opposition for company tax cuts tied at 39% apiece; support for higher finding for the ABC, though we will have to wait for hard data on which areas of the broadcaster’s activities were most favoured.
Other questions relate to international matters, with 35% responding that the North Korea summit would make the world safer, 8% less safe, and 41% no difference. On foreign leaders, Justin Trudeau (up nine on last year) and Jacinda Ardern (on debut) both scored 54% approval, and if I’m reading this correctly, Theresa May scored 42% (up nine) and Donald Trump 22% (up six) – I believe other leaders will have been canvassed as well, but further results will have to wait.
UPDATE: Full results from Essential here – the Greens are up one to 11%, and One Nation down one to 7%. Further international leadership approval ratings include a 43% for Angela Merkel, unchanged on last year, 42% for Emmanuel Macron, up one, 19% for Vladimir Putin, up three, and, if you could credit it, 9% for Kim Jong-Un. Fortuitously, this comes as the Lowy Institute publishes results of a survey of 1200 respondents on Australian attitudes to the world, which similarly finds high levels of confidence for Theresa May and Emmanuel Macron, and low ones for Donald Trump and Kim Jong-Un.
Also out today is further results from the Newspoll in The Australian, finding Malcolm Turnbull favoured by 47% as best leader to handle the asylum seeker issue (down five from December) and Bill Shorten on 30% (up two). It also finds 26% expecting Labor will “improve the policy”, 37% that it will “open the floodgates”, and 24% that it will make no difference.
ratsak,
A few of your wise words directed at some of the male commenters who were basically saying ED asked for it and was titillating herself by dicing with obvious danger on the night, might not go astray either. You are an influential voice.
@ratsak Agree
Also there is even more reason to blame a swinging Coalition voter for stupid Coalition shit, because they CHOSE to vote for the coalition.
A man does not choose to be male. Blaming someone for something innate that they have no control over pushes them into the radical’s domain.
Very windy here at the moment. Had to disappoint the cockatoos at lunch yesterday, who sidled up wanting to finish off my prawn cutlets.
Giving hubby (who is a very nice non-violent man … in case you were wondering 😆 ) who generally works 20 hrs a day, 7 days a week, a well earned break. And what’s he doing right now? Having a skype meeting with the powers that be. Sigh.
@guytaur All people are responsible, as a species.
Barney in Go Dau @ #127 Tuesday, June 19th, 2018 – 8:24 am
I thought people on this site had more of a clue on this issue. Neither Labor nor the Libs are proposing tax “cuts”, no matter how much they try to sell them.
They are tax REBATES. No-one will see any difference in their pay packets every week/fortnight/month. Everyone, rich and poor alike, will have to wait until the end of the financial year to get money back.
My own thoughts on the REBATES is that both sides are giving a ready made excuse to employers not to raise wages. “Hey, the government is giving you an extra $x a week, so we don’t have to”.
I actually haven’t commented on the men/violence thing on purpose because my viewpoint is coloured by the fact that both my mother and my sister have lived through physically abusive relationships.
I therefore cannot give an objective opinion about such an emotive social issue.
Joel Fitzgibbon
Verified account @fitzhunter
2m2 minutes ago
A Denman resident received a letter from #Centrelink seeking to recover $39,581.13. Centrelink later told her there’d been a case of mistaken identity. Malcolm Turnbull’s 1,280 jobs cuts from Human Services are leading to shocking Centrelink errors http://www.joelfitzgibbon.com/centrelink_debt_recovery_debacle_hits_a_new_low … #auspol
briefly
Yeah yeah.
I get it. You don’t like the Greens position because its not Labor’s position.
You don’t have to like it. You can say that all you like but the reality is the Greens have given Labor the negotiating position.
So in reality if low income earners are denied a tax cut it will be because the LNP opposed it.
Not the Greens.
Way to set the agenda for the LNP to run out an excuse to wriggle away from their denial of income tax cuts to low income people.
Keep the pressure on where it belongs. With the LNP trying to increase inequality. Take the Greens gift and run with it.
The Greens have given Labor the tools to run the narrative for the election on this.
Labor will be able to say the LNP voted against tax cuts for low income people if Labor focusses on the LNP not the Greens.
Thats the ball game. The Greens are bit players on this only giving Labor the ammunition for its inequality campaign.
They did this by stating they are standing up for the battlers who have income so low they don’t even get to pay tax.
Its not the Greens campaigning for the big end or town and Labor needs to remember this.
@Dan
Tax Cuts, REBATES, whatever or how ever you address them, they are the same shit.
It’s only one Payment, a very small one, in the grand scheme of things don’t do fucking shit.
In one year, the Liberal Party and Labor Party will either cut or agree to tighten the access surrounding payments, or attack low income earners one way or another, through Increased Bills, or charging GP or changing PBS Schemes.
Non of it fucking matters.
BK @ #16 Tuesday, June 19th, 2018 – 7:25 am
One for C@tmomma …
🙂
C@tmomma @ #140 Tuesday, June 19th, 2018 – 8:34 am
There is nothing “immediate” about having to wait until the end of the financial year to get money back.
People can get themselves into severe financial difficulty having to wait that long for “relief” to arrive. The money will have been spent long before it arrives.
Dan Gulberry @ #155 Tuesday, June 19th, 2018 – 7:45 am
Yep, my slip, I have been referring to them as rebates.
I did notice my error and decided to let it slip,
you however did not!
I have been suitably admonished!!!! 🙂
Briefly
Another way of putting it. Don’t win the battle and lose the war
On topic of this, maybe Labor should get LNP to drop MP Payments:
Greg Jericho
Verified account @GrogsGamut
2m2 minutes ago
But even with their very high income, & using Treasury’s dodgy wage growth of 3.5% they still won’t get to $200,000 until 2033-34
Greg Jericho
Verified account @GrogsGamut
5m5 minutes ago
Bit of a rant to follow:
Yesterday in #qt @TurnbullMalcolm gave the eg of “school principals”, “which are not normally regarded as being part of the millionaire, banker class of Vaucluse—that will be earning an income that gets up towards that $200,000 mark”.
guytaur
So do you think the Greens should or should not support splitting the bill?
@Barney,
It was not Greens idea to split, it was not Greens idea for Tax Cuts/Rebates.
Zoidlord @ #166 Tuesday, June 19th, 2018 – 7:57 am
So, this is nothing to do with support of the legislation.
This is purely an administrative matter in how the Senate deals with the legislation, whether as a whole or in parts.
Elise Viebeck
Verified account @eliseviebeck
9m9 minutes ago
NEW: In West Jordan, Utah, @MittRomney tells voters that family separations are a “humanitarian crisis that is heartbreaking”
Sounds so similar to Peter Dutton and White Africa’s.
@Barney
Like the National Security laws, Labor attached amendments.
But will not attach amendments to these poorly designed bills by LNP.
Barney
The Greens oppose the whole lot because it is arguing for greater equality.
Labor can get cross bench votes on low income tax cuts.
The LNP cannot get cross bench votes on corporate tax cuts.
Thus if the whole bill gets put forward it fails. Thus its the LNP denying low income earners a tax cut by denying the separation of the Bill.
Blame the Greens for this and you give the LNP an out. You give them a way to win the war by making out tax cuts in and of themselves are good
Thats what blaming the Greens for standing up for the lowest income earners who don’t pay taxes gets you.
Its only the LNP that are denying Labor’s low income tax cuts. They are doing this by insisting on the whole bill including corporate tax cuts be passed.
Not the Greens voting against that.
Do the Coalition ever, ever, introduce legislation for the benefit of Australians as a whole, rather than as part of a plot to wedge the opposition?
Zoidlord @ #169 Tuesday, June 19th, 2018 – 9:02 am
A humanitarian crisis caused by his party.
lizzie @ #168 Tuesday, June 19th, 2018 – 8:01 am
Sanity, well done!!! 🙂
lizzie @ #168 Tuesday, June 19th, 2018 – 9:01 am
I’ll believe it when it happens.
Barney
My comments if the Greens had not done what was just announced still stands.
I don’t want Labor giving the LNP excuses in their rush to blame the Greens.
This is my point about the Labor v Green wars. Be careful not to have the skirmish lose the war.
Personally, I think Labor would be quite happy if the Greens chose not to split the bill.
The proposed rebate to low income earners is poor policy, devised (like everything else this appallingly ugly government does) for political effect rather than the national interest. Labor has to support it as it is the only way poorer income earners will get anything while the Coalition is in power and, more importantly for Labor, to avoid the Coalition and its media lackeys (including the ABC) from portraying them as against tax cuts for poorer wage earners.
If the whole package goes down and the Greens get the blame, Labor can bank the money not spent for far more constructive tax cuts in its election pitch.
Zoidlord @ #170 Tuesday, June 19th, 2018 – 8:03 am
The amendments you are asking for are completely unrelated to taxation, they are an entirely different matter and should be treated as such.
guytaur @ #176 Tuesday, June 19th, 2018 – 11:06 am
Agree. I think the Greens have had pretty poor form in generating these wars, but that is no reason to engage at every opportunity. Short of the Greens doing a deal with the Government, either option is good. The most important thing is to not set up a fundamental structural disaster in Commonwealth revenue as this Government is trying to do.
guytaur @ #171 Tuesday, June 19th, 2018 – 8:03 am
Do you even understand what bill we are talking about.
The personal tax bill and business tax bill are two entirely separate bills.
TPOF
The only problem is your bank the blame with the Greens.
The reality is blame the LNP.
Its their appalling legislation
I say good on all Senators from which ever party vote against the LNP.
I don’t care if its part or whole of the bill as long as in the end the inequality is not entrenched.
Having the Greens stand for greater funding for the poorest doesn’t hurt Labor one bit.
Labor can without blaming the Greens campaign on standing up for low income tax earners by its higher tax cuts the LNP would not give.
Thats the narrative we want in the election campaign not the Greens and Labor denied tax cuts.
From Murpharoo:
(edited by me).
Greens now support splitting the tax REBATES?
https://twitter.com/murpharoo/status/1008874168916443136
Barney
I get the politics of winning the war.
The LNP want tax cuts to be a good thing in and of itself.
This is their attempt to get Labor to say that.
guytaur @ #184 Tuesday, June 19th, 2018 – 8:12 am
You’re making arguments without even knowing what you are arguing about!!!!!
A lesson for our media.
[Boerwar says:
Tuesday, June 19, 2018 at 10:20 am
The red rag for some men is that some women use language that effectively accuses men, all men, of being either rapists or complicit with rapists.
The notion that men, all men, and hence myself and ALL of the men I know really well, are anything at all like the repulsive, reprehensible, raving ratbag Latham is, quite simply, absurd.]
Your first point is true, that some women use language that effectively accuses all men of being rapists or complicit.
Your second point, that all men are not quite like Latham is undeniable.
Both miss the point.
When a rape-murder occurs in the way it has so recently ALL women feel a little bit more fear about going out, particularly after dark and particularly, alone. That fear may not be strictly logical (statistically, who knows, maybe it is safer now than it was 10 years ago) but it is an obvious rational reaction to the emotional shock. That fear that ALL women suffer is a fear of “ALL men” that they might encounter when they are out particularly after dark and alone.
Likewise as a man I feel increased loathing that I am a cause of that fear every time I go out at night and encounter a woman alone. Like many men, indeed the vast majority, the fact that I know that I am no danger to any woman that might encounter me is not a fact that the woman is required to assume, particularly after Eurydice’s murder. In this way ALL men are complicit in the sense we are the visceral cause of the fear we engender, even if we loathe being the cause.
As men we need to admit to being the cause of the fear and speak the admission out loud. We need to denounce those actions taken by men that cause the fear and by our response normalise the rejection of such actions.
Finally the problem with a male response that offers gratuitous advice that women need to be careful when they go out is that this response normalises the notion that women are victims and have reason to be scared. Instead we need to affirm the notion that women have the right not to be scared to go out.
Women can and will decide for themselves when and where they are prepared to go out but any time a woman feels safe to go out alone, after dark through a quiet park she will have my full support and her doing so will assuage some of the guilt I feel as a man that I am, however innocently, a cause of women collectively feeling fear to go out.
Guytaur
I’m talking about the general attacks on Labor by the Greens in order to claim Labor turf in areas where young trendies are strongest, like inner cities. My main point (and I agreed with you) is that we don’t need to distract ourselves bagging the Greens when whatever they do (other than support the Government bill) will help stop this appalling giveaway to the rich at everyone else’s cost.
Low income earners deserve a better deal, but supporting the miserable offering to them by the Government is still better in the current circumstances than not.
Barney
I know the bill that Labor and the Greens are still opposing are about the so called “bracket creep” measures in income tax that entrench regressive taxes.
I am talking about how the LNP will use it to campaign on. They won’t resile from conflating this with the corporate taxes. They want Labor to say tax cuts are good. That way they get a way to say Labor is opposing good policy of tax cuts
Zoomster
I have seen your oft quoted stat that 96% of murders are committed by men and I agree that it shows there is an issue with male violence. But when someone tacks onto it the argument that it is therefore the personal responsibility of all men to solve the problem, it opens a whole new arena of debate and controversy.
It is a non sequiter. For example, consider the stats regarding the level of violence in lesbian relationships. l am not going to quote them here but I know it is surprisingly high and it is 100% committed by women, lesbian women. Do we conclude from that that there is a problem with lesbianism and it is the responsibility of all lesbians to address the violence that occurs in their relationships, whether they are the perpetrators or not?
I say no. To do so would be to hold a whole group accountable for the actions of a minority of their number. But somehow when it’s men, not lesbians, it’s a whole different ball game.
The announcements by Daniel Andrews and Bill Shorten that ALL men must change their behaviour were at best patronising and at worst insulting to those of us who have never indulged in violence of any kind, let alone towards women. One would think that not personally committing violence would be enough to be going on with, something to have a sense of pride about, but apparently not.
If Shorten and Andrews had said VIOLENT men, not ALL men, need to change their behaviour, their statements would have made sense and would have received 100% support from men and women alike. But suggesting that men who are already doing the right thing need to change their behaviour is just stupid and bound to be counter productive.
guytaur @ #189 Tuesday, June 19th, 2018 – 11:17 am
The joke is that the only people suffering from ‘bracket creep’ these days are those who are getting big increases in their income. Poor income earners are more worried about getting a pay increase first than paying extra tax on it!
The Gs have come to their senses. They will help put the LNP in the position of having to choose whether or not to enact the rebates they themselves have proposed.
Will the LNP vote for their own policy?
TPOF
Yes but thats not going to be the attacking narrative from the LNP.
My only point was Labor should not blame the Greens and give the toxic LNP narrative ammunition.
Instead just focus on the inequality of the LNP.
Of course all hypothetical now as the Greens have decided also that narrative is too dangerous to be in a different position to Labor on this despite their previously outlined preference for no tax cuts just funding the poorest through services that benefit everyone.
Not happening!
https://truthout.org/articles/may-2018-broke-thousands-of-temperature-records-across-the-us/
Windhover
There is more than one point.
That my points miss the points you wish to make does not invalidate my point.
Bowen quoted saying on RN this morning that basically locking in a tax cut to apply in seven years when nobody knows what the economy will be like is just not sensible.
We only have to go back to the Howard and Costello years when they splashed the cash from the mining boom and then along came the GFC.
Morrison’s plan is just a crazy stunt designed to wedge Labor in the run up to an election.
It’s a pity he doesnt spend more of his time on his real job, being treasurer, than on stuff like this.
If the LNP will not vote for their own proposal they will be held up for total ridicule…the Senate will have stymied them….great result
It seems pretty obvious that the (positive) movement to not judge people by traits such as skin colour, sex, religion, or sexual preference has developed an inconsistency in regards to males and white people, with a slightly smaller inconsistency to heterosexuals and Christians (but all religions are fucking nuts so pile on those fools 🙂 ). These are fair game.
The reasons for this are obvious and understandable. But again largely built on a fallacy of composition and clearly and most importantly, counter productive. Yeah, the traditional cultural power structures in our society supported an elite that was composed almost exclusively of White Male Hetero Christians (or at least people who purported to be the last two). So the fallacy of the Powerful Elites are White Male Hetero Christians therefore White Male Hetero Christians are Powerful Elites has been used to give licence to speaking about Males, Whites, Christians (to a lesser extent and it’s way more complicated around religion), and Heterosexuals (to a far far far lesser extent) in ways that ‘minorities’ have been spoken of in the past and which we now recognize as being wrong.
Which is not to over-state the matter. I recognize for instance that as a white male I have enjoyed a certain level of privilege not afforded to say your average Aboriginal woman. But the idea that I am somehow part of a powerful elite in this society is as ridiculous as the idea I am responsible for male violence. I have far greater common cause with the plight of a migrant woman being exploited by an employer than with the problems of some Point Piper private school turd worrying about how to screw another few million out of society for instance.
That’s always been the problem with prejudiced language. People are far more complex than the simplistic labelling. But the labelling is used to dehumanise them. And be under no misapprehension, saying ‘Men’ need to accept ‘responsibility’ for the acts of a few of our number is prejudice pure and simple. You need do no more than consider if the following would be deemed reasonable comment to see it (and I’m not picking on you Puffy, just that this is a very good illustration of my point…)
We have two groups in this scene.
womennon muslims, andmenmuslims.MenMuslims are killingWomennon muslims.WomenNon muslims are getting killed bymenmuslims.I do not like being in the prey group,
Womennon muslims. Somemenmuslims object to being recognised as being in the predator group,menmuslims.You may not not exhibit the behaviours of your group. Fair enough. But a member of that group you are.
I am sure as fuck I don’t want to be prey but I do not get a choice. That depends on whether
menmuslims chose to attack me. It is out of my hands. The best I can do is try to be invisible or take self defence classes.MenMuslims get a choice. Will I kill thatwomannon muslim or not? Will i attend a rally or advocate for the safety offemalesnon muslims? Will i twiddle my thumbs because it is not one of myfemalesnon muslim family or one I know getting hurt?Is it enough that I do not personally kill
womennon muslims?I have the outrage of being seen as a good prospect for a
malemuslim to kill, just because i am in the group calledwomennon muslims. I do not get a choice.We have
menmuslims on PB who have the outrage of being seen belonging to the group calledmenmuslims. The group that killswomennon muslims. You do not get choice. you belong to it.So
menmuslims andwomennon muslims have some equality. We both are members of a social group that imposes attributes.WomenNon muslims get killed, for beingWomennon muslims.MenMuslims get accused of killingWomennon muslims, for beingmenmuslims.It is tough being a
menmuslims.Doesn’t read well does it.
As I noted above, the right wing reactionaries are low rent bullshit artists. Completely despicable. But for FFS people, using the sort of language that you would decry if it were used about a ‘minority’ to lump men all in together with the worst of us just drives their traffic. You do half their job for them. If you want to win maybe try not doing the stuff you would criticize others for.
Briefly
The more united the opposition to the LNP inequality the differing parties are the better.
Its one reason why I like Senator Tim Storrer’s position.
Not only good reasons but steadfast in unity of equality. The main game.
The Gs have to be careful. They’re running very close to adopting practical positions on substantive issues. That will never do.