The Australian has published Newspoll’s final quarterly aggregate for the year, with state breakdowns showing Labor leading 54-46 in New South Wales (unchanged on the previous quarter), 56-44 in Victoria (down from 57-43), 54-46 in Queensland (unchanged), 53-47 in Western Australia (down from 54-46) and 58-42 in South Australia (unchanged). As The Australian’s report notes, it also records a nine point increase in Scott Morrison’s disapproval rating outside the five mainland capitals, from 38% to 47%, while his approval is down from 42% to 39%. In the capitals, Morrison is down two on approval to 42% and up five on disapproval to 44%. However, this doesn’t feed through to voting intention, on which Labor’s lead is steady at 56-44 in the capitals, but down from 54-46 to 53-47 elsewhere.
There are no gender or age breakdowns included, so expect those to be published separately over the coming days. We should also get aggregated quarterly state breakdowns from Ipsos in what used to be the Fairfax papers at some point.
UPDATE: Newspoll’s gender and age breakdowns have indeed been published in The Australian today. As with the state breakdowns, these yield little change on voting intention, with the arguable exception of Labor’s primary vote being down two among the 18-34s to 44%, and up two among the 35-49s to 43%. However, the decline noted yesterday in Scott Morrison’s personal ratings among regional voters is matched in the 50-plus cohort, among whom he is down six on approval to 42% and up nine on disapproval to 45%.
If you are cheating on me C@t I will get a bit upset.
A big F YOU to Liberals:
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2018/dec/28/happy-christmas-from-centrelink-our-welfare-payments-have-been-stopped?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other
Davidwh
As long as it is top of the range you should be OK with Scotty.
Poroti. 🙂
Of course, contrary to the Brits leaving peacefully the Dutch enforced ‘police actions’ and sought Allied troops to stop the National Revolution and killed a hundred thousand Indonesians. So that was not a very good policy either.
Can you afford it, after blowing your super on that trip around Australia?
Fulvio we are modest travelers.
Despite all the Brexit shit, the UK still effortlessly keeps introducing new rythm and blues perspectives
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=trbwqF0d7NA
nath,
You can serve the food and drinks. I think a few cans of Irn Bru would be great to go with our battered Cod and chips. 🙂
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/dec/29/parliament-brexit-second-referendum-eu-deal
PuffyTMD @ #1854 Saturday, December 29th, 2018 – 7:44 pm
Crikey Whitey and I assume OzPol Tragic. Possibly RUAwake
Do we know that Ctari and Trog have passed. I know both were sick.
You got the last bit right. Cat, and that is all.
Yeah Nath, but Boer isn’t motivated to speak about that. Maybe Wikipedia doesn’t have that many entries on Dutch colonial practice in the Dutch East Indies. What about the Boers in South Africa?
poroti@10:46pm
Thanks for article you posted today describing the looting of British from India. You are pal. Much appreciated. Let India win tomorrow.
fwiw, I understand where BW is coming from – he doesnt support colonialism, but takes a “you broke it you fix it” attitude. Thus a prolonging of, in his words, “nasty, racist colonialism” to avert a certain bloodbath becomes the lesser of two evils. Extraordinary circumstances and all that. At face value its a reasonable position to take. Unfortunately, he is either unaware or ignores the fact that this kind of rationalising is exactly the modus operandi of actual, true believer imperialists to justify continuing their imperialism. “finish the job”, “dont cut and run” have been the rallying cries to justify the continuation of so many occupations that have wrought untold damage and suffering.
The thing is, there will always be one last massacre to stop, one last descent into anarchy to prevent. The boerwars of this world will always swear its the last intervention required to enable a happy and smooth withdrawal, but they are either delusional or completely cynical. If Attlee had kept up the “racist and nasty” occupation for the sake of the partition, would that have been it? Of course not, it would be immediately followed by something else that simply couldnt cope without a further extension of the occupation. And on and on it goes. There simply wouldnt have been any good time for Britain to pull out in BWs book – despite his insistence that this was definitely an extraordinary one-off.
People continue to amaze me, not.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/dec/28/scooters-california-oakland-los-angeles-bird-lime
To cut to the chase, Boer hates everything Anglo.That hatred and blind prejudice is what drives all these comments re Indian occupation.
Clem ,
If you really want to get Boerwar going, mention Bob Dylan, or Footscray’s AFL pemiership. Don’t mention that the Boers started apartheid ( a good old Dutch word).
BW has consistency. Once he hates something he goes on hating it, and anyone who disagrees with him
Gippslander… very succinct and to the point.
Clem attlee@11:17pm
So do you think British colonisation of India is right and beneficial to India?
Dutton has got himself 2 items in newscorpse with his opinions of his ex colleagues. Drinking too much christmas spirit?
After deep reflection, I have concluded that my main concern arising out of the Andrew Broad affair is the realisation that our Prime Minister reads New Idea.
Fulvio Sammut @ #1972 Saturday, December 29th, 2018 – 11:11 pm
But only for the pictures. 😉
Going back a few pages.
Tell me if I’m wrong, but I though that asking for a delay to Brexit didn’t require a vote in Parliament?
Sunday Mail Interview with the Potato. More Libs Wars. If you can’t run your party. You can’t run the Nation.
PETER Dutton has spectacularly broken his silence to accuse Malcolm Turnbull of spite attacks worse than Kevin Rudd’s, and lambasted the former prime minister for running a “paralysed” government caused by his own political incompetence.
In an explosive, gloves-off account to The Sunday Mail, the senior Federal Government frontbencher reveals why his colleagues pushed to dump an indecisive Mr Turnbull in August.
Mr Dutton, who has spoken out to protect his colleagues and the Government from ongoing criticism, has accused Mr Turnbull of a political hissy-fit worse than the backstabbing Mr Rudd unleashed on Julia Gillard after she rolled him in 2010.
He said Mr Turnbull did “not have a political bone in his body”, took the Government’s message from three-word slogans to “3000”, and alienated rusted-on Liberal Party supporters. Mr Dutton predicted the Coalition would have lost 25 seats if Mr Turnbull remained prime minister.
Mr Turnbull has regularly denied wrongdoing, but has privately briefed some MPs on what he was planning as prime minister, reaffirming the views by some that he is trying to destabilise and kill off the Government.
In one of the must-read political exposes of 2018, Mr Dutton, who says he is “no Bible basher or right-wing extremist”, said he and other senior Ministers for a long-time sandbagged Mr Turnbull’s leadership, but the biggest damage to Mr Turnbull’s legacy — and his prime ministership — was self-inflicted.
“I am the first to defend the legacy of the Turnbull government. Malcolm was strong on economic management, borders and national security, but Malcolm will trash his own legacy if he believes his position is strengthened by seeing us lose under Scott,’’ Mr Dutton said.
“Walking away from (his seat of) Wentworth and not working to have (Liberal Wentworth candidate) Dave Sharma elected was worse than any behaviour we saw even under Rudd.
“In 2016, Malcolm ran the worst campaign in Liberal Party history, and we ended up losing 15 seats and were left with a one-seat majority which just made the Parliament unmanageable. We were paralysed.
“Countless opportunities to strengthen the Government or nail Shorten passed us by because Malcolm couldn’t make a decision.
“Malcolm is charming and affable but he doesn’t have a political bone in his body and it’s not a criticism, but without political judgment you can’t survive in politics and he didn’t.
“Malcolm had a plan to become Prime Minister but no plan to be Prime Minister.
“He didn’t have John Howard’s touch or judgment nor his ability to convey a message. We went from three-word slogans under Tony (Abbott) to 3000 under Malcolm and our achievements weren’t effectively communicated as a result.”
Second Part
ON THE SPILL
Malcolm said to me on two occasions, ‘This Government only survives because of Scott, Mathias, you and I’.
“The reality is along with a number of senior colleagues we all did everything possible to make the Turnbull government work — we did not leak or undermine and we backed him up at every turn, but there was only so much we could do.
“The Liberal Party had become unrecognisable to our supporters. People who had voted for us for years had switched off.
“Energy policy had effectively become the “greatest moral challenge of our time” and version after version just didn’t work.
“Marginal seat members across the country believed we would lose the election and in the end MP’s couldn’t walk down the street without people saying you have to get rid of him.
“People thought they had a good local member but wouldn’t vote for us whilst Malcolm was leader.
“It became clear after we had lost 38 Newspoll’s in a row the government was going to be wiped out under Malcolm and that was the view of many based on discussions with their constituents.
“I have no doubt Malcolm will rue the day he stormed in to the party room and declared the leadership open expecting to get a resounding vote.
“His low vote destroyed him without any challenge necessary. It was then only a matter of when, and he used every trick to delay the vote but it would have been untenable to leave Canberra that week without the leadership question being settled.
ON HIS FAILED LEADERSHIP TILT
Mr Dutton said it was easy to get behind Mr Morrison because it was for the good of the country to have a leader able to defeat Labor.
“I challenged Malcolm for a number of reasons – one was Bill Shorten was certain to be PM if Malcolm was still in his job, so I declared my support for Scott from day one because he is a better person than Bill Shorten.
“(Scott) is a good economic manager and strong on border protection and national security.”
Part 3. Sorry William for posting the whole article. Big I thinks it gives a good insight into the way the Libs are thinking
ON HOLDING HIS SEAT
Mr Dutton, who is holidaying at the Gold Coast with wife Kirilly and children Rebecca, Harry and Tom, said he knew he would have a tough fight on his hands to retain his marginal seat of Dickson north of Brisbane.
He said while most voters in Australia viewed him through the prism of his decisions on border security, in his electorate, he hoped it was different in his outer suburban electorate.
“Dickson has always been a marginal seat and it’s a battle every election. But our family live locally and have done for a long time and I think people appreciate that.”
ON TONY ABBOTT
“After the 2013 election Tony broke his promise not to cut spending in certain areas and made some bad decisions otherwise.
“It left him vulnerable and three or four members of his cabinet leaked continuously and undermined which ultimately destroyed the Abbott Government.
“The suggestion I was acting under Tony’s direction is another fairytale. I had been clear with Tony very early on I would not be his stalking horse, and I didn’t seek his advice and nor did he offer it during the leadership week. Malcolm was the beneficiary.”
ON SAME-SEX MARRIAGE
“Malcolm will understandably claim same-sex marriage as a great legacy of his Government, but the fact is the issue was going to destroy his government.
“Rushing to a parliamentary vote would have destroyed his leadership overnight.
“In the end Mathias and I worked with colleagues on the postal plebiscite. It gave a significant social change greater legitimacy because the public overwhelmingly supported it as opposed to driving it through parliament during a midnight sitting and winning by a vote or two.
“Without that Malcolm would never have survived that issue and he knew it.”
ON CLAIMS HE IS A RIGHT-WING EXTREMIST
“I am not a Bible-basher or some right-wing extremist, but that suits how the Left want to define me.
“The real reason they hate me is because of border protection policy, and I have taken a tough stance on the issue but it has kept us safe.
“The claims the party was dragged to the Right was a nonsense.
“We ran a tight budget management process, we secured borders and kept our country safe and didn’t adopt an energy policy that would destroy jobs and the economy.
“To me that sounds more common sense than right-wing-extremist.”
Second Article in the Sunday Mail an attack on Banks. She should refuse to support the Government in Confidence Motions now.
LIBERAL Party defector Julia Banks has been sensationally accused of falsely claiming she was bullied because she was bitter about not being promoted to Scott Morrison’s ministry.
It a brutal take-down, Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton said he was calling out the Victorian MP’s case of “sour grapes”.
Ms Banks, who was a close ally of Malcolm Turnbull, has repeatedly said she was bullied and intimidated by colleagues during the August spill.
She has never used parliamentary privilege to name the so-called bullies, but has continued to allege vague claims — most recently in a wide-ranging interview in The Australian Women’s Weekly.
But a fed-up Mr Dutton said Ms Banks lashed out because she did not get promoted.
“She has made allegations about being bullied, but has never detailed a single case,’’ Mr Dutton exclusively told The Sunday Mail.
“My colleagues have been tarnished by accusations of bullying and intimidation and the claims are false.
“It just didn’t happen and it has been used by Julia as an excuse to leave the party because she was upset about Malcolm losing the leadership and her not being promoted to the Ministry under Scott.
“It is pure and simple a case of sour grapes and it deserves to be called out. We need more women in politics but to suggest we have a bullying problem is ridiculous.”
Of course Mal the magnificant will take this lying down.
Upnorth, Sunday Mail? At a guess he’s worried about losing his seat.
If I knew how I would do a fact check.
Campaigning.
@ Late Riser.
Agree they are “puff pieces” trying to save his seat. Won’t be surprised if he doesn’t run if things don’t improve.
Late Riser
Yep Sunday Mail in QLD. Trying to save his seat!!
Was the Potato’s fencing accident more serious than we’ve been told?
It seems to have affected his memory. 🙂
And about Julia Banks
Julia clearly isn’t a good girl like Jane Prentice. But for some reason this made me think of Julie Bishop’s stunt in the Sydney to Hobart race. And I wonder why Dutton thought it important to say these things today?
Upnorth
Thanks for the insight into the ReichsPotato’s thinking. However has the potato got his facts mashed up? He says this:
“ON HOLDING HIS SEAT
Mr Dutton, who is holidaying at the Gold Coast with wife Kirilly and children Rebecca, Harry and Tom….
“Dickson has always been a marginal seat and it’s a battle every election. But our family live locally and have done for a long time and I think people appreciate that.”
IS that right? Previously he has been reported as buying a $2.3 million dollar beach house on Palm Beach, Gold Coast. Is it a weekender or does he live there? Or does he live in his other six bedroom, million dollar house on acreage in the back of Brisbane, presumably just within Dickson?
https://www.domain.com.au/news/how-peter-dutton-built-substantial-wealth-through-property-20180823-h14cph-759526/
Its good to know these people still know what it means to struggle and are not an out of touch set of grifters who have worked the system to advance themselves financially.
And is this the “tight budget process” Dutton was referring to? Promised savings from the Departmental merger of $1 billion yet no audits of what was achieved and less than one third of them realised.
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2018/jun/07/border-force-merger-fails-to-bring-savings-and-beset-by-problems-report
Upnorth @ #1981 Saturday, December 29th, 2018 – 11:37 pm
Well he doesn’t need the money. And his speculated conflict of interest would make him an easy target on the opposition front bench. Maybe time to spend more time with his family coming up.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/new-horizons-on-course-for-new-years-day-flyby-of-ultima-thule/
NASA. Despite Trump’s government shutdown.
The engineering to do this is beyond my ken. I can’t imagine how weak the radio signals will be after travelling 6.6 billion kilometres back to earth, and how they will be sifted from the local radio cacophony. The precision and accuracy needed to hit something that far away is astonishing. The resilience of a craft still functioning after 15 years is a credit to the builders.
Ven, absolutely not. I oppose it in all cases. that’s why I defended Attlee, who ended it, against Boerwar’s specious and ugly smears. Boerwar wanted British imperialism to continue in India. He’s the Imperialist fanboy.
Late Riser @ #1987 Saturday, December 29th, 2018 – 8:58 pm
Well, it’s not something you can put off until next week. 🙂
According to Wikipedia, Dutton’s TPP in Dickson are as follows:
2001 – 55.97%
2004 – 57.83%
2007 – 50.13%
2010 – 55.13%
2013 – 56.72%
2016 – 51.60%
The result for 2007 stands out, which saw an ALP victory federally and Dutton suffer a swing of 7.7% to just hang on. And after which he recovered with a 5% swing. He only has a 1.6% buffer this time. If he thinks next year will be similar (electorally) to 2007 I’d say he is sniffing defeat. That Sunday Mail interview might indicate that he already thinks of himself as a loser, getting in some hits before he is gone.
Barney in Go Dau,
Apparently they plan ahead, even though Ultima Thule wasn’t discovered until 2014, 10 years after New Horions launched.
The numbers of people presently in Australia with visa problems is currently how many?
They numbers of “illegal” overstayers is how many?
Dutton is just a spruiker, hanging around for more political win money. Dutton may well be behind Morrison, in the manner of being behind Turnbull, and before that Abbott, and before that Howard.
Dutton’s electorate could do us all a favour by not returning him at the next election.
Dutton’s comments in regard to Turnbull are consistent. Dutton never lets the facts get in the way of self-interest.
Good morning Dawn Patrollers.
A very interesting article from Matt Wade about our gross misconceptions over major issues.
https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/the-uncomfortable-truth-about-voters-perception-versus-reality-20181228-p50olu.html
The SMH editorial is an exhortation to action from the ground up on climate policy because it’s not coming from this federal government.
https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/climate-danger-take-heart-and-fight-on-20181228-p50okk.html
Patrick Hatch tells us that a solar farm which will be the largest in NSW and be big enough power a city of almost a million people is a step closer to reality after getting the green light from planning authorities.
https://www.smh.com.au/business/companies/nsw-largest-solar-farm-gets-government-s-green-light-20181228-p50om4.html
Ben Oquist says that the next election and the next Senate will have to make some of the biggest decisions on the direction of taxation policy in a generation. If they get it right, perhaps their most important achievement will be showing to all Australians that our democracy is not yet completely broken.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/dec/30/can-australia-learn-from-its-tax-mistakes-of-the-past
According to Greg Sheridan Donald Trump, Xi Jinping and Theresa May — the three great disrupters of 2018 will determine the shape of the world in 2019. Never have three less likely revolutionaries strode the global stage.
https://www.outline.com/TbJ2Cg
After dipping a toe in the world of public relations with a Twitter account, the Australian Signals Directorate is set to take a leap in the direction of transparency, with plans to publish a two-volume history of the agency.
https://www.canberratimes.com.au/politics/federal/shadowy-agency-wants-to-tell-its-story-20181227-p50oed.html
It gets worse for some Opal Tower residents.
https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/welcome-to-the-gypsy-life-new-year-s-pain-for-opal-tower-residents-20181229-p50oqq.html
Fines for driving unregistered are up more than 64,000 per year since the removal of rego stickers. Motorists blame the government for not sending reminders.
https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/drivers-demand-reminders-for-car-rego-as-nsw-rakes-in-240m-in-fines-20181228-p50ojy.html
If history’s greatest novelists and playwrights were to come back from the dead so they could tell the improbable tale of Donald Trump, how would they do it?
https://www.smh.com.au/world/north-america/how-would-the-great-writers-tell-the-improbable-story-of-trump-20181229-p50oqs.html
Victoria is set to record its lowest ever road toll, almost 20% less than 2017. SA has a similar story.
https://www.theage.com.au/national/victoria/victoria-set-to-record-lowest-ever-road-toll-almost-20-percent-less-than-2017-20181229-p50oqr.html
Here’s Gideon Haigh’s take on day 4 of the test match.
https://outline.com/P88WeP
Geoff Lemon writes that the workload of Pat Cummins and the rest of the Australian bowlers is not being helped by batsmen who are not currently doing their jobs
https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2018/dec/28/cummins-strikes-but-australias-bowlers-are-at-breaking-point
Gift cards have burgeoned into a multi-billion-dollar industry in Australia, but companies are pushing short expiry dates and sneaky fees onto consumers.
https://thenewdaily.com.au/money/consumer/2018/12/26/what-to-know-about-gift-cards/
And for “Arsehole of the Week” . . .
https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/he-ruled-it-like-a-cult-inside-drug-crop-enforcer-s-brutal-regime-20181226-p50o9e.html
Cartoon Corner
From Matt Golding.
Peter Broelman and some anxious spectators.
Paul Zanetti with Hawkie.
‘gippslander says:
Saturday, December 29, 2018 at 11:39 pm
Clem ,
If you really want to get Boerwar going, mention Bob Dylan, or Footscray’s AFL pemiership. Don’t mention that the Boers started apartheid ( a good old Dutch word).
BW has consistency. Once he hates something he goes on hating it, and anyone who disagrees with him’
My posting name is Boerwar because I consider that war to be one of the nastiest, vicious and most pointless wars in history. It was essentially about who was going to exploit southern African resources and who was going to treat the Africans like slaves.
Just for the information of ahistorical guys like you and Attlee, one of the British promises in that War was that they were going to increase African wages in the gold mines. When they won the war they reduced the African wages.
Astute observers will have noticed that the Anglos used the Afrikaaners like a fig leaf then and now, when there was no excuse for any of the whites.
As for Apartheid, it was a vicious and racist abomination of colonial control. I was a regular on the Springbok barricades.
And if you really want to think about issues, you might just want to reflect how Australia’s pattern of dispersal and concentration is a distant echo of racist control by way of controlling the location of black populations.
‘clem attlee says:
Sunday, December 30, 2018 at 1:01 am
Ven, absolutely not. I oppose it in all cases. that’s why I defended Attlee, who ended it, against Boerwar’s specious and ugly smears. Boerwar wanted British imperialism to continue in India. He’s the Imperialist fanboy.’
Lunatic stuff. I did not want British Imperialism to continue in India. I wanted the disengagement to be done in a responsible way. It was not. The result was well over a million deaths. As the prime minister, Attlee is accountable for that.
As for your notion that you defend Attlee, that is bullshit. You can’t defend him because you won’t go near the reality of what happened.
With apologies to BK, I’ll be putting a new post up in 15 minutes or so.
‘clem attlee says:
Saturday, December 29, 2018 at 11:08 pm
Yeah Nath, but Boer isn’t motivated to speak about that. Maybe Wikipedia doesn’t have that many entries on Dutch colonial practice in the Dutch East Indies. What about the Boers in South Africa?’
I think I may be virtually the only poster who has done any in-depth critiques of Dutch colonialism in the NEI on Bludger. Chapter and verse.
Here are a couple of lessons in basic logic for you.
You can’t defend Attlee by attacking me personally.
You can’t defend Attlee by way of comparing what the the Dutch did in Indonesia.
You can’t defend Attlee by way of referencing Wiki.
You could try to defend Attlee by reference to the facts.
Except that you are smart enough not to go there.
Attlee’s direction of military resources out of India, and financial resources into England, ensured the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Indians BEFORE independence.
While they are the colonial power, colonial powers are accountable for their actions in the colonies.
Attlee was prime minister.
He was therefore accountable for what happened in India before Independence.
Attlee has blood on his hands.
Boerwar, I’m sorry, but I’m going to block you. I know that you have some good sides, but your aggression against ‘the Anglos’ is getting me down. How can we combine as an Australian nation if we don’t put the centuries-old fights aside? The prejudice against England from some here does indeed feel like racism.
Apology accepted William!
I’m cocked and ready to go.