After recording a slight spike to Labor last week on the back of the Ipsos result, the latest results from Newspoll and Essential Research have brought the BludgerTrack two-party trend reading to about where it was before. This has happened without any changes in the seat projection, in any seat. Newspoll and Essential also both provided leadership ratings, which cause Malcolm Turnbull’s net approval result to improve a little, and Bill Shorten’s to worsen a little. This will be an off week for both the regularly reporting pollsters, but Sky News may step into the breach with a ReachTEL on Sunday morning. We’re also due for Newspoll’s quarterly poll state and demographic breakdowns. Full results from BludgerTrack by clicking on the following:
Preselection news:
• A preselection for the Queensland Liberal National Party Senate ticket has dumped incumbents Ian Macdonald and Barry O’Sullivan in favour of Paul Scarr, described by Jared Owens of The Australian as a “low-profile mining executive”, and Susan McDonald, managing director of a chain of butcher’s shops and member of a Queensland grazing dynasty. The third position goes to Gerard Rennick, a finance executive. Macdonald will have to make do with number four, which was last productive in the freak result of 2004 than delivered the Howard government a Senate majority during its final term. Also frozen out was Scott Emerson, the former minister in Campbell Newman’s government who lost the seat of Maiwar to the Greens in the state election last November.
• The first of two retirement announcements this week from federal Labor MPs in Victoria was that of Michael Danby, who has held Melbourne Ports since 1998. Danby insists the decision was wholly his own choice, which reflects suggestions his pro-Israel outlook may have been contributing to the pressure Labor has increasingly faced in the inner city electorate from the Greens. Three names that have long been mooted as potential successors for Labor preselectionn are Josh Burns, an adviser to Daniel Andrews and former staffer to Danby; Mary Delahunty, a Glen Eira councillor and former mayor (not to be confused with the former state member for Northcote); and Nick Dyrenfurth, executive director of the John Curtin Research Centre. The latter reportedly ruled himself out in February, but has been rated a potential starter in media reports following Danby’s announcement.
• The second was that of Jenny Macklin, who had held Jagajaga since 1996. According to Noel Towell of The Age, the vacancy could finally provide Labor with a solution to its dilemma of how to accommodate Jane Garrett, who refuses to defend her existing state seat of Brunswick from the ever-rising threat of the Greens, and was rebuffed in her bid for a berth in the state upper house. It was earlier suggested that Garrett might get the safe Labor federal seat that was predictably produced by the recently finalised redistribution, but Bill Shorten is now considering taking it instead, as it takes much of his existing seat of Maribyrnong. The redrawn Maribyrnong is perhaps not of interest to Garrett because, as Fairfax recently reported, it was “tipped to turn marginal in the coming years”, although I have my doubts about that personally.
Thanks C@t.
Football for me is about patriotism not nationalism. I love the country of my birth… its done some terrible things … the Empire, Thatcher but at its best I feel proud … the NHS, 70th birthday yesterday, George Orwell, its dry quiet humour, Peter Cook and Yorkshire pud …
In memory of CTar1 I suggest we all stick to short single sentence posts for the rest of the night.
Confessions @ #424 Saturday, July 7th, 2018 – 8:16 pm
The one bad one I experienced fitted that mould exactly. But he did great damage to a lot of people (including myself) and the organisation while enriching himself an his close associates.
Trump certainly is a symptom of failed governance and policy – but perhaps most important is not so much welfare (and a living wage) but a multi layered (racial, religious, wealth, political, education level) segregation.
England .. been all luck so far, tonight they show if they are contenders.
Morocco the best team in comp to date.
Poroti
I have to fully agree.
Trump (or worse) was inevitable. After all John Cain chose Sarah Palin. The Tea Party happened.
It is of course perfectly understandable
Every nation judges itself against a set of criteria on which they base their national pride, sense of security and place in the world.
In 1960 American exceptionalism was at its peak.
They has emerged dominant after WWII with just about all other nations seriously weakened
They were a manufacturing and technological leader in just about every feild
Their military was dominant
They were ahead in the space race (or thought they were until Uri Gagarin)
All their people were gainfully employed and their standard of living was the envy of the world
They appeared to be competent builders, with infrastructure to lead the world and quality engineering.
They dominated the cultural sphere with Hollywood and TV essentially a US monopoly.
They seemed to have a good civil society where corruption was contained and the community knew how to take care of itself and one another.
They has a stable democracy and were convinced that they could lead the world to peace, prosperity and the american way. They were the country that the world was supposed to adore for its liberty and social justice.
Were there problems? Yes but they were well hidden from the world and from most of the Americans themselves. The racial tensions in the south were real enough and the pure free market systems no doubt created losers, but by and large the people of the USA saw their world as “Leave it to Beaver”or “Happy Days.” The most obvious sign of trouble was their obsessive hatred of communism and the horrors of McCarthyism, but that only troubled the “academia and intellectuals” not the masses.
However slowly the US NO 1 position in the economy, manufacturing, wealth of citizens, educational achievements (IVY league) , infrastructure, cultural dominance, space and even military dominance has started to be eroded.
Most people stay oblivious to this decline until it becomes obvious and then a person like Trump wins, not because he is great, but because he is the first to call the USA for what it is – a fading nation. His slogan Make America Great Again, was implicitly acknowledging that the USA was no longer great and needed change. Sanders also accepted this reality ,but Hillary and the Democratic machine just could not. They more or less missed the boat.
The signs of this decline have been showing for some time, it is just that Trump arrived at a tipping point when the signs became obvious to average Americans.
Rossmore
I understand you passion but for me my main concern tonight is for 12 young boys trapped in a cave. I ahve even watched a little of the World cup (surprising for me) but I cannot stop being worried for the 12 boys (and the coach who seems like a decent guy).
It would seem that going into the cave was a sort of ritual for all the boys (and probably their fathers) – I have even read a sort of initiation ceremony. They got more than they bargained for. (mind you there may be lots of garbage stories around, which s why I said I have read it, rather than a bolder statement.
DTR
and even military dominance has started to be eroded…
Not sure this is correct.. still by far the most dangerous just a change in how war is waged today ( since Vietnam ) has had its effect .
The US is now paying the price for Raygun trying to send the USSR broke in the arms race… America suffered as well.
Daretotread … of course ….
Daretotread … of course ….
Sceptic @ #448 Saturday, July 7th, 2018 – 9:43 pm
I meant that to refer to this game specifically, and out of an abundance of sentimentality, plus, for tonight, in deference to CTar1. 🙂
Trump is a symptom of the fact that anyone can win Lotto. It’s just that the big jackpots sometimes go to those who are unfit to make the best use of their windfall.
Sceptic @ #458 Saturday, July 7th, 2018 – 10:32 pm
Sceptic
I am certainly no expert, but there seem to me a few indications that US military dominace is not as clear cut as it once was.
Firstly China, Russia and even North Korea have developed formidable submarine capacity. Both China and Russia seems to have a submarine fleet that matches or nearly matches that of the USA and form the little I have read technologically they seem to be up there with the USA ie not old noisy boats. Now this presumably makes the US aircraft carriers quite vulnerable
Secondly the US navy seems not to be in good form as the spate of naval accidents is anything to go by. They have changed the command structure so presumably these problems have been rectified, but it must be damaging to morale.
Thirdly, while I gather the US still outranks other nations in the air, both Russia and China have made considerable advances
Fourthly, the land troop capacity of Russia is generally thought to be superior ie tanks and artillery.
Finally while no doubt there was a lot of hype over the Russian new weaponry, some of it seems real enough.
I suspect that while in the cold war days the US could face of with Russia and probably win, facing of with both Russia and China at the same time is a much, much harder task.
Rossmore @ #451 Saturday, July 7th, 2018 – 9:55 pm
Don’t forget Monty Python, Morecombe and Wise, Noel Coward, Oscar Wilde, Shakespeare, the Goons, the Goodies, the Wombles, Basil Brush, Benny Hill, The Clash, The Sex Pistols, The Stranglers, David Beckham, the list goes on and on… 🙂
“Don’t forget Monty Python, Morecombe and Wise, Noel Coward, Oscar Wilde, Shakespeare, the Goons, the Goodies, the Wombles, Basil Brush, Benny Hill, The Clash, The Sex Pistols, The Stranglers, David Beckham, the list goes on and on…”
I’d quit while your behind. Oh, dear.
‘Don’t forget Monty Python, Morecombe and Wise, Noel Coward, Oscar Wilde, Shakespeare, the Goons, the Goodies, the Wombles, Basil Brush, Benny Hill, The Clash, The Sex Pistols, The Stranglers, David Beckham, the list goes on and on…’
Yes, but surely if we French speakers or Germans or Indians or Egyptians we would have similar lists of people from our own culture…
zoomster @ #464 Saturday, July 7th, 2018 – 11:06 pm
Zoomster
In terms of literature yes the French and Germans do and of course the Russians. However almost everyone grants to Shakespeare status as top of the pops. I am not sure about the rest of the list, but I think the UK has long been known for its quirky capacity to laugh at itself. Until recently that was a skill that the yanks had none of, but it seems to be emerging. Basil Brush in the same list as Shakespeare hmmmm!!!
zoomster @ #466 Saturday, July 7th, 2018 – 11:06 pm
Really!?! World famous ones like that!?! I don’t think. 🙂
dtt
‘ Until recently that was a skill that the yanks had none of, but it seems to be emerging.’
Never read James Thurber? Or Dorothy Parker? Or — to go even further back – Stephen Leacock?
As for Shakespeare, there’s works in other languages commonly described as his equivalent. Not speaking those other languages, I can’t judge.
C@tmomma @ #468 Saturday, July 7th, 2018 – 8:25 pm
World Famous?
I’ll take that list to work tomorrow.
I may get a hit with Beckham but after that I’d expect a big fat zero. 🙂
C@
‘Monty Python, Morecombe and Wise, Noel Coward, Oscar Wilde, Shakespeare, the Goons, the Goodies, the Wombles, Basil Brush, Benny Hill, The Clash, The Sex Pistols, The Stranglers, David Beckham’
Some of these I love, others not so much. I doubt that Morecombe and Wise stand the test of time – Noel Coward is almost unheard of now, and though I love Oscar Wilde most people now know him for his association with ‘Cats’. Shows like Basil Brush occur in every country with television, ditto pop music, and every country has its sporting heroes (Bradman is probably more significant than Beckham)
C@tmomma@10:54pm
You may be trying to make Rossmore happy and hence your list. One of the things Rossmore mentioned was “colonialism”. Because of colonialism of British, English language has spread through out the world. Hence, people learnt about Shakespeare. Google about “Kalidas” of India. He may not be as famous as Shakespeare but Some say he is greater than Shakespeare for the work of literature he has produced.
Or Homer of Greece.
Ahem.
What about Danger Mouse? (oh, alright, Penfold too.)
And, Captain Kremmen?
Spike Milligan, Tommy Cooper!!!
By the Editor of the Monthly
North Korea Calls U.S. Diplomatic Posture ‘Regrettable’
President Trump may have declared diplomatic victory immediately after his cordial June meeting with Kim Jong-un. But ever since the announcement of that summit, experts on North Korea have warned that Kim was very unlikely to give up his nuclear arsenal altogether, since it is his prime source of leverage against the rest of the world.
Now, as the afterglow of the Trump-Kim tete-a-tete wears off the prospect of any kind of easy North Korean solution is looking — unsurprisingly — like a mirage.
The danger now is what happens if Trump finds that North Korea isn’t willing to bend to his most unrealistic demands — a likely possibility. In that case, it’s easy to imagine the countries finding themselves in an even more unstable position than where they started.
http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2018/07/north-korea-calls-u-s-diplomatic-posture-regrettable.html
‘This isn’t winning’: Wall Street Journal sarcastically batters ‘master negotiator’ Trump for plunging US into trade war
As the trade war with China — caused by tariffs demanded by Donald Trump — heats up, the editors of the Wall Street Journal have taken the president to task, sarcastically mocking him as a “master negotiator” who has yet to negotiate any deals while causing damage to the U.S. economy.
https://www.rawstory.com/2018/07/isnt-winningwall-street-journal-sarcastically-batters-master-negotiator-trump-plunging-us-trade-war/
Defence spending per year…. USA 610 Billion China 228 Billion Russia 66 Billion ….for what it is worth. As far as Russia’s ‘strength’ is concerned their GDP is barely bigger than Australia’s. But they can blow up the world hundreds of times!
The Liberal Party has leaked their own internal polling to the Daily ToiletPaper.
In a remarkable piece of selective leaking, the only stat presented is the negative ratings for Bill Shorten – no 2PP, no primaries, no ratings for Turnbull, nor indeed for any of the candidates. Perhaps the Liberals and their propaganda arm in the Murdoch press are looking beyond super Saturday to the KillBill themed main game.
“BILL Shorten is on the nose with voters in three key by-election seats and is particularly unpopular among young women, new polling reveals.
With less than three weeks to the Super Saturday by-elections, leaked Liberal Party polling seen by The Sunday Telegraph shows Mr Shorten’s popularity has slumped to its lowest result since the campaign began.
The Liberal Party has been buoyed by the latest poll results, taken in the past week after Mr Shorten succumbed to party pressure and backed down on his promise to reverse tax cuts for medium-sized businesses.
The internal polling, which has been conducted regularly during the by-election campaigns, asks respondents whether they had a favourable or unfavourable impression of the Labor leader.
In the crucial Tasmanian seat of Braddon, he has recorded a net favourability rating of minus 45.
Ousted Labor MP Justine Keay, who resigned from parliament over dual-citizenship, is fighting to hold the northwest Tasmanian electorate, which has changed hands five times since 2004. In the ultra-marginal Queensland seat of Longman, pollsters found Mr Shorten’s net favourability was minus 27.
Mr Shorten recorded his worst personal result in the South Australian seat of Mayo, where Centre Alliance’s Rebekha Sharkie is expected to hold her seat despite the Liberals running Georgina Downer, the daughter of former foreign minister Alexander Downer.
With Labor never having held Mayo, Labor MPs said they weren’t concerned that Mr Shorten returned a favourability rating of minus 27.
But he returned an unprecedented rating of minus 77 among young female voters in Mayo, those aged under 35.
The leaked results are consistent with the latest Newspoll result, released last Monday, which revealed the Labor leader’s approval rating had fallen to its equal-lowest level in more than a year after he was rolled by his shadow cabinet on company tax.‘
https://www.theage.com.au/politics/federal/millionaire-migrants-pouring-into-australia-20180706-p4zpzm.html
There is an online vigil in support of Julian Assange live all day Sunday #Unity4J
https://unity4j.com/
Its about Unity, its not about traditional left vs right divide, its pro-establishment vs anti-establishment.
Democracy dies in darkness
Good morning Dawn Patrollers. Try as I might this is all I could educe from today’s offerings.
David Crowe says that the voters of Caboolture are running out of patience. They are on the receiving end of intense campaigns that are turning their community into a test case for the nation.
https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/a-protest-vote-is-coming-in-longman-and-it-s-accompanied-by-a-roar-of-frustration-20180706-p4zpy8.html
Clare Kimball imagines what it would be like if Abbott had kept his word to not snipe or undermine, etc.
https://www.smh.com.au/national/what-could-have-been-if-tony-abbott-had-kept-his-word-20180706-p4zpzw.html
The restaurant empire fronted by celebrity chef Neil Perry is saving millions of dollars a year from unpaid wages, with senior managers and chefs saying its profits are based on the systemic exploitation of workers. One for the arseholes file!
https://www.theage.com.au/business/workplace/rampant-exploitation-at-rockpool-restaurant-empire-20180706-p4zpvc.html
Michael McCormack has issued a subtle warning to the Queensland Liberal National party to fall in line with the government’s proposed energy policy, while leaving the door open for a coal-inclusive future.
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2018/jul/07/nationals-leader-pushes-queensland-lnp-to-back-coalitions-energy-policy
In a pretty good contribution Katharine Murphy explains how Abbott is making noise but the real threat to sorting out energy policy is elsewhere.
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2018/jul/07/abbott-is-angry-about-energy-but-there-are-bigger-fish-to-fry
Paula Matthewson writes that voters are no fools when it comes to electricity prices. That’s the strong message reinforced by one of the more reputable opinion polls this week, and one of the reasons why Tony Abbott’s campaign against renewable energy is falling on deaf ears.
https://thenewdaily.com.au/news/national/2018/07/06/tony-abbott-energy-revolution/
The prospect of a more conservative US Supreme Court has gay rights groups worried about their landmark legal victory being overturned – or subverted.
https://www.smh.com.au/world/north-america/why-the-us-supreme-court-opening-could-affect-same-sex-marriage-20180705-p4zpq0.html
Peter FitzSimons says that he has been blocked by Leyonhjelm and he couldn’t be happier.
https://www.smh.com.au/national/david-leyonhjelm-blocked-me-and-i-couldn-t-be-happier-20180706-p4zpzq.html
Neoliberalism is a “terrible disease” and the government’s proposed income tax cuts would “rip the guts out of what remains of a progressive taxation system”. So says John Falzon, the chief executive of the St Vincent de Paul Society, who has launched his bid for Labor preselection in Canberra, the third and newest federal seat in the Australian Capital Territory.
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2018/jul/07/neoliberalism-is-a-disease-charity-chiefs-pitch-to-be-labors-new-star
Trump has threatened to impose tariffs on every single Chinese import into America as the world’s two largest economies exchanged the first blows in a trade war that isn’t set to end anytime soon.
https://www.canberratimes.com.au/business/markets/trump-eyes-even-higher-tariffs-as-china-trade-war-escalates-20180707-p4zq2p.html
Have we reached “peak screen”?
https://www.smh.com.au/business/companies/peak-screen-future-of-tech-is-screenless-and-it-could-be-glorious-20180704-p4zpef.html
Jessica Valenti laments that he US is in the midst of a humanitarian crisis perpetrated by the Trump administration, and the worst is not yet over
https://www.theguardian.com/world/commentisfree/2018/jul/07/the-us-government-is-abusing-children-we-cant-stop-being-urgently-ashamed
You’ve all heard of Bitcoin and Etherium, but what about Dogecoin or Halcyon? None of them are made up, and at least one of them is a scam. The world of cryptocurrency is mysterious and prone to hyperbole and deception, as Independent Australia critical thinker John Turnbull discovers.
https://independentaustralia.net/business/business-display/think-for-yourself-cryptocurrencies,11669
Police are investigating how Sydney father John Edwards obtained a firearms licence and was allowed to take weapons from a gun range before shooting dead his teenage son and daughter. Did our gun control system fail?
https://thenewdaily.com.au/news/national/2018/07/07/gun-control-john-edwards/
The next stage in cricket’s evolution: A ball exclusive to Twenty-20.
https://www.theage.com.au/sport/cricket/the-next-stage-in-cricket-s-evolution-a-ball-exclusive-to-twenty-20-20180707-p4zq4c.html
Cartoon Corner
Sean Leahy and the trade war.
From Glen Le Lievre.
https://pbs.twimg.com/card_img/1015378141907308544/eNvBFAQl?format=jpg&name=600×314
Here are today’s Fairfax cartoons.
https://www.smh.com.au/national/victoria/best-of-fairfax-cartoons-july-8-2018-20180707-h12dyy.html
adrian @ #474 Sunday, July 8th, 2018 – 1:47 am
Oi! Spike’s heart belonged to Woy Woy! 😉
A pretty good lineup.
Around 10% of voters in Mayo are women aged 35 and under, so unless the total sample size is around 5000, this can’t mean very much. In point of fact, this is very clearly tracking polling, which usually involves contacting a few hundred respondents every day or two. How much of that has been aggregated to produce this result, we can only speculate. But I would say there is next to no chance that the sample size for the above quoted numbers is greater than 200.
Material from the Stanford experiment – where students were divided into either guards or prisoners, and the conclusion was that making someone a guard automatically resulted in even ‘good’ people behaving badly – has been re examined and the conclusions of the original study challenged.
‘Professor Haslam concluded that people do not mindlessly and helplessly succumb to brutality. Instead, he found that brutality occurs when people identify strongly with groups that have a brutal ideology.’
https://www.canberratimes.com.au/national/queensland/what-the-stanford-prison-experiment-really-tells-us-about-tyrants-20180706-p4zpxn.html
bug1 @ #481 Sunday, July 8th, 2018 – 7:29 am
And they are campaigning against Assange? Because, man, that guy is as anti democracy as they come. Aiding and abetting Farage in Brexit, aiding and abetting Putin against Hillary Clinton, not standing up like a man and facing the sexual assault charges against him in Sweden. Nope. He gets no support from me. He’s just an attention-seeking narcissist. He uses the internet to subvert democracy, not aid it.
This is no better than dial-up.
This is a weird article from Gittins (more probably it’s my lack of financial nous, but I’m stuck so far).
He starts by outlining a series of assumptions (which (a) he assumes exists and (b) he assumes are commonly held) —
1. That the way a government can reduce the gap between rich and poor is through taxes;
2. If the gap between rich and poor is rising, it must be because of something the government is doing (and he specifically uses as his example the Turnbull tax cuts);
3. Inequality of incomes increase as each year passes.
Gittins says these are false assumptions and I’d agree with him. But I don’t agree with him when he assumes these assumptions are widely held.
I would reframe them as:
1. Tax revenue allows the government to address problems of equality . (Oh, surprise – Gittin finds this).
2. Most people understand that private businesses determine the number of jobs available and the rate they’re paid. Therefore they look to government to regulate private businesses to make sure jobs are available and rates rise. Tax is one tool the government can use, certainly, but it is one of many.
3. It is if you’re looking at the poorest of the poor, those on government handouts.
https://www.canberratimes.com.au/business/the-economy/cash-and-kind-how-governments-shift-income-from-rich-to-poor-20180706-p4zpui.html
I’ve been thinking this as well:
Bill Maher Gets Played By Conservative Troll Ben Shapiro
Dude, get it together.
https://www.thedailybeast.com/bill-maher-gets-played-by-conservative-troll-ben-shapiro?ref=scroll
sprocket_ @ #479 Sunday, July 8th, 2018 – 7:04 am
Bill Shortens unpopularity will come as no surprise to anyone, including Labors factional powerbrokers.
They will seemingly forge on with him as their chief spokesperson, putting at risk a very real possibility of a continuance of this destructive Abbott/Turnbull Govt.
https://independentaustralia.net/environment/environment-display/linc-stink-queenslands-biggest-environmental-disaster,11673#.W0FA2urtbtQ.twitter
Linc Energy has been found guilty of polluting a significant part of the Darling Downs in Queensland.
Rex Douglas @ #492 Sunday, July 8th, 2018 – 5:50 am
Wow Rex!
You’re now able to project the thoughts of others.
Your mind powers must be truly awesome!
A rational, non-ideological Insiders panel today.
Hi Rexy
Never heard you say that before. Food for thought ….
When will we get this sort of political interview on Insiders?
https://twitter.com/notesfrompoland/status/1015289680227643393
Abbott and co the Coalsheviks. Love it.
#insiders
Wikileaks is needed in todays democracy – now more than ever. Assange built it and that shouldnt be forgotten. Aside from that, I agree with your post and especially with the above extract.
While Woy Woy may have been in Spikes heart he wasnt ‘from’ there…. and he did call it the only above ground cemetery in the world. But I love this “Woy it is called Woy Woy Oi will never know”. Which is wrong of course as he was aware of the aboriginal heritage there.