Ipsos provided the one new poll for the week in its monthly outing for the Fairfax papers, and it raised a few eyebrows with its weak primary vote for Labor and extraordinarily strong result for the Greens, the latter exacerbating a long established peculiarity of this pollster. The poll’s addition to the BludgerTrack aggregate takes a certain amount of edge off the recent blowout to Labor, while still finding them on course for a victory of historic dimensions. The BludgerTrack seat projection has Labor down three on last week’s result, with Victoria, Queensland and Western Australia each moving one seat in the Coalition’s favour. The methodological caveats about BludgerTrack from last week’s post continue to apply, as does the fact that I won’t be updating the leadership ratings until the model has a solid enough base of Morrison-era data to work from. Other than that, full results from the link below.
c@t
Which is where I spent most of my sojourn in Sydney. Initially Glebe, then Croydon Park, Parramatta, Summer Hill, Petersham, and finally Ashfield for the last 17 of my 21 years there.
Holden St, about 3 minutes walk from the shopping centre and 1 minute or so from Pratten Park.
Big A Adrian @ #198 Thursday, September 20th, 2018 – 11:17 am
Adrian
Tricky one. They would be if they advocated anyone actually doing it. if they advocated for a law to be changed. No it would be OK just as (much as I hate them with a passion) those who want a return to capital punishment for any crime have a right to be heard.
C@t
Was that when he added, “Labor just wants to stop au pairs” ?
My understanding is that the kid charged was as the result of a copycat event, not the original crime.
lizzie @ #197 Thursday, September 20th, 2018 – 9:18 am
What’s with the facial expression?
ItzaDream @ #198 Thursday, September 20th, 2018 – 8:15 am
The feds would have been a tiny presence in the whole of Society back then, how times change!!!
Confessions @ #176 Thursday, September 20th, 2018 – 11:03 am
Once the schools finish, and construction wanes, it eases up a lot. Christmas can quite quiet. Lots head to the beaches, and the great Sydney summer kicks in. From the Friday before Christmas to Australia Day it’s its very own idyll.
“Steve
So what!”
Not saying they shouldn’t be allowed, including the deniers and lobbyists. Speakers’ Corner used to be an interesting diversion. You’d listen to a communist for a while, then go over to the prophet of doom urging us all to repent. There’d be hecklers as well, who usually got more than they dished out. I seem to recall there was a poem about Speakers’ Corner.
I think Speakers’ Corner would be much less interesting now if it was still going, but who knows? Free speech rules.
guytaur:
[‘The government is doing overreach to grab political momentum.’]
There’s no doubting that.
[‘Deterrence works to an extent.’]
I’d suggest, to a very small extent.
[‘Its why we have jails.’]
That’s one of the five reasons, but like I suggested, the prospect of imprisonment does not deter many, evidenced by, inter alia, recidivism, often for the very offence(s) the prisoner was first imprisoned for. Don’t get me wrong, jails are indispensable to the criminal justice system, but the deterrence argument is quite a weak one – again, in my experience.
lizzie
Someone saw that photo and did a comparison
https://twitter.com/TomMcIlroy/status/1042555690005409792/photo/1
No – that’s the sub-editor’s job. Oh wait…
Fairfax had a cracker yesterday re: Her Majesty’s Barque Endeavour.
The original read:
It was later changed to “materials such as oak and pine”.
*facepalm*
DTT
http://www.bettinaarndt.com.au/news/la-trobe-bans-my-talk-on-the-fake-rape-crisis/
It was the Liberals inviting her to speak. Not the administrators. Note they did not ban her but asked for the Liberals to pay for security in the end.
The debate is about should the Liberals have been allowed to invite her to speak in the first place.
I can see why it was reasonable for the University to say no. I can see the arguments for her speaking. I just don’t see it as a case of banning free speech.
I agree completely with Watt’s words.
This sort of long term thinking and planning is something that that has been lacking in so many areas these last 5 years!
Jaeger
😆 The HM Bark Endeavour would have been a magnificent sight.
lizzie @ #195 Thursday, September 20th, 2018 – 11:15 am
Sharks are generally too busy to eat anyone when they’re at work.
Boys love their big trucks, don’t they.
Morrison reminds me also of Toad of Toad Hall.
adrian
😆
guytaur says:
Aunt Mavis.
[‘Hysteria has gripped the nation. Just as the LNP want it. Be afraid be very afraid.’]
No argument there; it won’t last though.
The Australian dollar could rise as much as 6 per cent, which would shrink the economy by as much as 3.5 per cent in the worst case scenario of a global trade war, Reserve Bank of Australia research shows.
The RBA painted a picture of the Australian economy in the event of an all-out trade war – what it termed a retaliatory scenario – in research dated March and April this year.
In this scenario, with a fixed real exchange and an unchanged cash rate, the level of GDP would be around 1 per cent lower by a 2021 trough, the unemployment rate would rise a quarter of a percentage point and inflation would move lower by around 0.2 percentage points.
An interest-rate response to the weaker unemployment and inflation modelled in the RBA’s worst-case scenario suggests that the cash rate would be cut by 50 basis points, the central bank says. Australia’s cash rate is currently at 1.5 per cent.
The Reserve Bank released the modelling late Wednesday in response to a freedom of information request from Bloomberg.
AUD the swing factor
In an all-out trade war, the Australian dollar would be the key swing factor for the Australian economy, the modelling from the Reserve Bank of Australia shows.
“It is possible that the Australian dollar could appreciate,” the central bank said in March. “Were this to occur, the downside risks of this scenario would be greater.”
The Australian dollar could rise by as much as 6 per cent, GDP would then fall by an extra 2.5 per cent, the RBA estimated, although it added a lower cash rate could largely offset these effects in the long run.
The Reserve Bank says that Australia’s position as a country that is less reliant on global trade flows as a source of demand for its products and with a relatively smaller manufacturing sector could boost demand for its currency in the worst-case scenario it has modelled.
However, if the currency depreciates in response to an all-out global trade war, then the economy would likely fare a bit better because exports would be supported by the currency’s fall, the central bank says.
Should the Australian dollar rise in reaction to escalating trade tensions, that would be a historically unusual reaction for the currency that many regard as a risk proxy for global markets.
“A deterioration in global economic conditions, heightened risk aversion and a fall in commodity prices would typically be associated with a depreciation in the Australian dollar,” the RBA noted.
adrian
Nah Morrison’s constituents do eat at work as well as on holiday 🙂
Itza:
Sounds perfect!
nath @ #155 Thursday, September 20th, 2018 – 10:28 am
Yep, and that’s the totalitarian part, not the stuff that DTT said about how they should be able to lease a speaking venue from a university if they want. That still has nothing whatsoever to do with free speech.
It’s guilt by association, with few (if any) checks on what associations the government can declare illegal.
poroti @ #210 Thursday, September 20th, 2018 – 11:27 am
Terrifying really. He did say he ‘gets’ Trump.
Fairfax to launch “Please Explain” podcast:
https://www.smh.com.au/national/please-explain-the-new-podcast-from-the-age-and-smh-20180919-p504my.html
lizzie @ #221 Thursday, September 20th, 2018 – 8:33 am
How very apt! 🙂
Re freedom of speech.
I don’t think I’m alone in being disturbed by the growing use of strongarm tactics by left-wing groups (most notoriously Antifa, but also – in a somewhat less aggressive way – the students who attempt to block access to Arndt’s talk the other night.
I’m not so much concerned about the questionable “principle of free speech”. It’s just that I don’t think that anyone’s desire to go and listen to a talk by Bettina Arndt, or Milo Yiannopolous or Laura Southern or whoever justifies their being jostled and muscled out of the way or even assaulted (as has happened in a couple of incidents involving Antifa activists, who – being the big brave warriors against fascism that they were – had hidden their faces so they couldn’t be identified). There have also been incidents on US campuses at which the speakers were physically attacked.
These sorts of actions are quite self-defeating: 1) because they give a great deal more publicity to the speakers than they otherwise would have received; and 2) because it damages the reputations not only of those who are actively opposing the speakers, but of the broader movements which they purport to represent; and 3) it adds to a general sense of fear and unease in the community which aids the right-wing side of politics.
The behaviour of some of these aggressive far left types is sometimes so outrageous and counter-productive that one almost suspects that they are agents provocateurs. But I’ve met a few, and they seem to me to be profoundly naive and idealistic, living in fantasy world in which they are doing the equivalent of climbing the gates of the Tsar’s palace in 1917 as a step towards the total collapse of Western civilisation as we know it and the rise of the golden utopia of the workers’ paradise. It’s all rather cute, and – except for a small hard core element which maintains the faith for life – tends to fade away once they get out of university and enter the paid workforce and marry and have kids, etc.
One of the worst things about campus politics is that it seems to instill the people who participate in it with a fervent belief that the issues that arise on campus are the overwhelmingly the most important things in the universe. But they aren’t. Regardless of whether or not conservative voices are silenced on campuses, Alan Jones and Ray Hadley and Andrew Bolt will still get their messages to large numbers of people. And you can have all the safe spaces and carefully-crafted curricula that you want for people from different ethnic backgrounds or different sexualities, but the big, bad real world outside the campuses will remain as big and bad as it has always done.
How is this in the public interest when she is leaving parliament? Shouldn’t these trips be reserved for people who are actually going to hang around?
53% of Australians approve of constitutional amendment to separate government and religion
http://adrianbeaumont.net/53-of-australians-approve-of-constitutional-amendment-to-separate-government-and-religion/
This article was done for the NSW Rationalists. A YouGov Galaxy poll has 53% approval of a constitutional amendment to separate government and religion, 14% disapproval and 32% unsure. It doesn’t look as if PM Morrison’s calls for more religious freedom will have much support.
Baba
If the Liberals want to invite a controversial speaker to an event they have to be prepared for the logistics of hosting that speaker. From providing tea to security. Not restrict the freedom of speech of the dissenters.
lizzie @ #231 Thursday, September 20th, 2018 – 8:41 am
The Senate has passed another order arguing that whilst the discussions in Cabinet are covered by the public interest immunity claim, the documents being discussed have no such standing.
The merry-go-round continues! 🙂
George Brandis has the lock on Toad of Toad Hall
“Someone saw that photo and did a comparison”
Big boys and their toys.
meher baba:
[‘The behaviour of some of these aggressive far left types is sometimes so outrageous and counter-productive that one almost suspects that they are agents provocateurs.’]
You would agree, however, that those pesky ‘far left types’ did a pretty good job in the ’60s when demonstrating against our involvement in Vietnam?
Baba
I also note you are using the White Supremacist term to apply to their opponents in the US. Thats where Antifa comes from. The full name is Antifascist.
Bettina Arndt has not helped her argument by allowing the matter to become politicised. And the Liberals have not helped either. As a well-known sexist organisation, the Liberal Party is hardly the place to go for a constructive discussion about sexual harassment and violence.
The Liberals are trolling us….and Arndt has been the bait.
Anthony Albanese
Verified account @AlboMP
41m41 minutes ago
A Parliamentary Committee has found that @PeterDutton_MP deliberately mislead Parliament. Westminster principles provide that he now should resign. @SkyNewsAust
“Good” news for those on Newstart, you’re getting that increase you’ve been hanging out for.
While I agree with Siewart’s sentiments, the Greens’ actions are pointless as this sort of increase can only come from the Government of the day.
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/live/2018/sep/20/morrison-shorten-dutton-coalition-labor-greens
meher baba:
[‘The behaviour of some of these aggressive far left types is sometimes so outrageous and counter-productive that one almost suspects that they are agents provocateurs.’]
You would agree, however, that those pesky ‘far left types’ did a pretty good job in the early ’70s when demonstrating against our involvement in Vietnam?
https://anzacportal.dva.gov.au/history/conflicts/australia-and-vietnam-war/events/conscription/moratoriums-and-opposition
MB is right. There are Alt-Left trojans who hope to arouse public fighting. They are skinheads too. They are the political equivalent of computer viruses. They want to hack the discourse.
poroti @ #239 Thursday, September 20th, 2018 – 8:50 am
Superficially, yes, but lizzie is going a little deeper than that. 🙂
briefly
Nope. MB is using exactly the same argument that Bannon Yianopoulous and David Duke have used.
Be in no doubt. Dissent against fascism is justified.
This is the way Arndt is being used in this case. Trojan horse to make fascism acceptable on University campuses
Glad I don’t live in NSW, with their damn shooter’s party:
https://www.smh.com.au/environment/conservation/shooters-party-must-not-dictate-policy-20180919-p504p3.html
lizzie @ #224 Thursday, September 20th, 2018 – 11:38 am
Well, at least they are clear about who is really in charge 🙁
Aunt Mavis says:
Thursday, September 20, 2018 at 11:51 am
meher baba:
[‘The behaviour of some of these aggressive far left types is sometimes so outrageous and counter-productive that one almost suspects that they are agents provocateurs.’]
You would agree, however, that those pesky ‘far left types’ did a pretty good job in the ’60s when demonstrating against our involvement in Vietnam?
The anti-war movement was not a trolling game. It was not run by skinhead cells.
On Galleries –
“Dollars are valued more than life.”
I spent a few hours in the Art Gallery of NSW yesterday. Perspective and impact are diminished in the photo. It’s a massive river gum, fallen and fractured, covered in white ochre, the pigment of mourning, and itself evoking the great MDB river system, the lighting cords the rivulets and creeks.
Jonathan Jones b1978
Wiradjuri, Southern Riverina / Kamilaroi, Northern Rivers
untitled (illuminated tree)
https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-YBrFs7qtmVs/W6MAFwu6UZI/AAAAAAAAGsc/2_fRwhwCSQkNeO_rLTA32PrA9Eub7Vw-ACLcBGAs/s1600/fullsizeoutput_3305.jpeg
‘The south-east of Australia is defined by the Murray–Darling River system. The country’s largest network of rivers, seasonal creeks, wetlands, floodplains and billabongs, it is the most fertile and resource-rich area of Australia. For countless generations the region has supported many different nations, their languages, people and ceremonies. The freshwater system connects nations like Kamilaroi at the top of the catchment to Ngarrindjeri where the river meets the sea. Stands of red gums line the banks of the rivers, with canoes made from their bark crafted to navigate the environment. This region was one of the first to be colonised, with diseases such as smallpox carried along the river ahead of any contact with white people, severely decimating the population. Lands were conquered, the rivers dammed and diverted, wetlands drained and bodies dumped in the river. This lifeline to the region has waned in recent years. Dollars are valued more than life. Once a trope of colonial painting, used to frame the western imagination in this vast landscape, the gum tree has fallen. Caked in white ochre, the tree traces the memory of the river, creating an Aboriginal framework that challenges the western perspectives that have been imposed on an Australian setting.‘ Jonathan Jones 2018