BludgerTrack: 53.1-46.9 to Labor

The one new poll for the week maintains the trend of incremental improvement for the Coalition.

First up, please note the threads below this one dealing with state politics in South Australia and New South Wales.

The BludgerTrack poll aggregate continues to inch in the Coalition’s direction with the addition of the Essential Research poll, the only one published this week. Whereas Labor finished 2018 with a lead of 54.4-45.6, the latest result has it at 53.1-46.9, which is a 0.4% shift compared with a week ago. However, this only makes one seat’s difference on the seat projection, with a projected gain for the Coalition in New South Wales. No new results for the leadership ratings this week.

Full results are available through the link below. There is a bit of bug here that often stops the state breakdowns from loading when you click on the tabs – I will get around to fixing this one day, but for the time being, it should work if you do a hard refresh.

Author: William Bowe

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

1,337 comments on “BludgerTrack: 53.1-46.9 to Labor”

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  1. sprocket_ @ #957 Sunday, February 10th, 2019 – 1:04 pm

    Just fact checking on the Malaysia solution, it was all agreed – indeed it was a swap, Rohinggas and others languishing in Malaysia for boat arrivals being held on Xmas Island, on a ratio of 5 to 1.

    Humanitarian intake of genuine refugees balanced off against queue jumpers – the first plane to remove a group to Malaysia was warming its engines on Xmas Is airport.

    And off to the HIgh Court for an injunction, cheered in equal part by the Abbott Opposition and the Greens.

    Sprocket

    Agreed by whom

    The corrupt Razak PM/government.

    You obviously have missed the whole bloody point of the ussue and WHY the HC rejected it. The deal had so many legal holes it did not stack up

    FFS these people were going to Malaysia FOREVER. You need more than a handshake with a bribery enthusiast to guarantee safety. They had no bloody WORKING rights. How the hell were they supposed to LIVE. Sure we would educate thir kids and help with medical costs but if they cannot work that is pretty bloody useless.

  2. There probably are a small number of people who will be significantly affected by the franked credits policy, maybe 5%. Couldn’t Labor bring in a policy allowing the first $10K to be a tax credit and the rest not a credit?

  3. Player One says:

    Christopher Pyne admits that all those in offshore detention require urgent medial attention

    But why would any of them be sent here ? Didn’t all those government people tell us how medical facilities/treatment available to AS are as good as that for Australians?

  4. Peter Stanton @ #829 Sunday, February 10th, 2019 – 11:25 am

    Rex Douglas says:
    Sunday, February 10, 2019 at 11:12 am
    Is it comforting for you to live in a divided society and a polluted environment.
    What logic do you use to justify voting for a party that has contributed to this ?
    —————————————
    In a our democracy we have to choose between the candidates that run. I have many times had to choose the least worse candidate because that is all that is on offer. A few times that has been the Green candidate. Since seeing the example of the damage a Greens dominated government can do I have avoided voting for them. The example I use to judge them is the Greens dominated Byron Bay Council.
    I have spent my adult life doing my bit to address the problem by being active in politics at many levels.

    Hi peter,

    Just spent two weeks at Cabarita Beach north of Byron Bay . Wandered down there and had a couple of nice cold ales at the pub overlooking the Beach. Byron seems very commercial. But we enjoyed anyways. We had a terrific time overall and enjoyed traipsing around a lovely part of the world.

    From the people we met, there is a high level of environmental awareness and pride.

  5. https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/one-in-three-nauru-refugees-to-seek-medical-help-in-australia-under-phelps-bill-expert-says-20190208-p50wg9.html

    Doctors will seek for one in every three offshore refugees to receive medical treatment in Australia if the government loses a crucial bill when Parliament resumes next week, according to a senior medical professional who was based on Nauru.

    The claim comes after Prime Minister Scott Morrison said earlier in the week that “hundreds” of refugees could come to Australia “within a matter of weeks” if the motion passes.

    Dr Nick Martin, who was Australia’s most senior doctor on Nauru in 2016 and 2017, expected around 300 applications for mainland aid – over a timeframe of months, rather than weeks.

  6. lizzie @ #950 Sunday, February 10th, 2019 – 1:36 pm

    grace pettigrew
    ‏@broomstick33
    34m34 minutes ago

    veteran #CBR journalist, now deceased, once told me that most journalists have no idea how the rules of Parliament and the #APS work, and care less, they are there for the political drama

    That seems a fair assessment.

    Lizzie.
    That sums it up. Most of them would not know an amendment from cement mixer.

    And they are paid heaps. It is a good gig for very little work.

  7. TPOF: “For the vast bulk of people on a defined benefit pension, including myself and everyone on a defined benefit pension that I know, the value as determined by the super fund and reported to the ATO is below $1.6 million.”

    I’m sure that you will agree that the calculation which the ATO uses for this – that $1 in pension is equivalent to $16 in accumulated assets – is generous to those who have defined benefit pensions, particularly those who are under 65 years of age. Financial advisers tend to suggest that you need accumulated assets of around $25 to generate $1 of retirement income.

    It is of course a complex policy area. Defined benefit super and accumulated super are two completely different beasts. People with accumulated super have the opportunity to significantly supplement their recurrent investment income by steadily whittling down their assets, knowing that – at a certain point – they will land on the safety net of the aged pensions. People with defined benefit pension incomes are generally stuck with that income in real terms until the day they die. And they will have no ability to leave any of that asset to their offspring.

    It is for this reason that some investment advisors – including that barefoot bloke – advise people that accumulated super taken as a lump sum is in many ways a good thing and might enable them to retire earlier than they could on a superannuation pension. And the same thing applies to the people who are living off their share investments and drawing on the dividend imputation credit who, as several posters have suggested, would probably do better to start gradually divesting themselves of their portfolios. And I would be strongly in favour of a policy change that gently and gradually pushed them in that direction.

    And, more broadly, I think both sides of politics would do well to promote better understanding of the retirement income system more generally. Turnbull’s reforms a couple of years back were not well presented or explained, and Labor has done even worse with this proposed change IMO.

    Retirement incomes are a complex policy area in which questions of what is/is not fair and appropriate are not as clear to most affected people as they appear to be to the gung ho element among the posters on PB. And that’s why any government looking to change things in this area would always do well to adopt a considered, consultative and holistic approach.

    Instead, Labor has put forward a swingeing, isolated policy change, and has adopted a sales pitch along the lines of “it’s a rort, it’s got to go, we’re tough, we’re not going to back down, suck it up self-funded retirees.”

    I don’t think this is ever going to be a good way of going about reform.

  8. DTT

    It is precisely hysterical responses like yours, which shipwrecked a principled approach to a wicked problem – and led to years of misery and death.

  9. Diogenes
    says:
    Sunday, February 10, 2019 at 2:12 pm
    There probably are a small number of people who will be significantly affected by the franked credits policy, maybe 5%. Couldn’t Labor bring in a policy allowing the first $10K to be a tax credit and the rest not a credit?
    ____________________________
    sounds fair to me.

  10. Greens dominated Byron Bay Council.

    There are 9 councillors on the Byron Shire Council, four of which are Greens: Martin, Richardson, Lyon and Nydiaye.

    Five are not Greens affiliated, the majority are not Greens affiliated.

  11. Prof Kerryn Phelps AM
    ‏@drkerrynphelps

    The #Wentworth community is united in outrage by the news that thirty swastikas were graffitied on the murals around Bondi Beach overnight. There is no place for anti-Semitism in Australia.

  12. I lay at the feet of the Greens the fault of sabotaging the Malaysia deal and the result which has been a living Hell and death for refugees and asylum seekers in Australia’s off-shore detention centres. Any chance of me voting Green was lost forever.

    The Greens are the enemy of Labor. Given the chance to have 60% of a good deal they will always opt for 100% of kicking Labor in the guts.

  13. Retirement incomes are a complex policy area in which questions of what is/is not fair and appropriate are not as clear to most affected people as they appear to be to the gung ho element among the posters on PB. And that’s why any government looking to change things in this area would always do well to adopt a considered, consultative and holistic approach.

    Instead, Labor has put forward a swingeing, isolated policy change, and has adopted a sales pitch along the lines of “it’s a rort, it’s got to go, we’re tough, we’re not going to back down, suck it up self-funded retirees.”

    I don’t think this is ever going to be a good way of going about reform.

    Exactly but tinkering around the edges is all that ever happens. For example, you only have to look at how the Henry Tax Review and its recommendations were basically ignored.

    Short-termism in action.

  14. lizzie @ #963 Sunday, February 10th, 2019 – 1:55 pm

    Prof Kerryn Phelps AM
    ‏@drkerrynphelps

    The #Wentworth community is united in outrage by the news that thirty swastikas were graffitied on the murals around Bondi Beach overnight. There is no place for anti-Semitism in Australia.

    Lizzie,
    The normalisation of race hatred in Australia, as role-modelled by those outstanding humanitarians known as the Coalition, is a modern tragedy. We could have been so much better them the race-baiting and hard right anti-human polices green-lighted by that war criminal John Howard.

    I despair at times.

  15. Diogenes @ #965 Sunday, February 10th, 2019 – 2:12 pm

    There probably are a small number of people who will be significantly affected by the franked credits policy, maybe 5%. Couldn’t Labor bring in a policy allowing the first $10K to be a tax credit and the rest not a credit?

    I notice you have changed your avatar. I must admit that George Orwell is an improvement on Silvio Berlusconi.

  16. Last night was one of those occasions where I felt really bad to be the publisher of this blog. The Christopher Pyne thing was only part of the issue, and matters have certainly not improved today. So I’m of a mind to be more interventionist moving forward. I’m far from clear this will actually do more good than harm, but I at least have to try something. So if your comment is abusive towards another commenter, or part of a boring personal spat of no imaginable interest to anyone other than the two people engaged in it, don’t be surprised if it gets chopped; and if it does, please deal with the fact like a grown-up who understands whose blog this is, unlike some ex-commenters I could name.

  17. WeWantPaul @ #905 Sunday, February 10th, 2019 – 11:49 am

    Imagine what $5B a year could do for all the ordinary pensioners. Or providing proper aged-care.

    The inequity of this system is simply staggering

    Yes beautifully framed.

    I’ll just leave this here:

    “On 1 January 2017, more than 330,000 Age Pensioners had their Age Pension entitlements cut, with at least 100,000 of those affected Australians losing all Age Pension entitlements.”

    https://www.superguide.com.au/smsfs/300000-retired-australians-to-lose-some-or-all-age-pension-entitlements

  18. Puff

    I have been watching quite a lot of SBS 33 lately, and it is one area where different cultures are celebrated.

    Perhaps anyone who dislikes migrants and ‘ethnics’ should forswear any of their foods. 😀

  19. Rex & Player One
    “Christopher Pyne admits that all those in offshore detention require urgent medial attention”

    ALL … REQUIRE!

    Is there some reason you are compelled to misquote people?
    Payne said “They could all qualify,” he told the ABC’s Insiders program.
    From your own ABC link.

    Could qualify isn’t the same as your attribution in the slightest.
    Greens .. expert in verbaling.

  20. “veteran #CBR journalist, now deceased, once told me that most journalists have no idea how the rules of Parliament and the #APS work, and care less, they are there for the political drama”

    As was demonstrated by the comments on Insiders this morning that there was nothing to stop the Government introducing legislation in the next few weeks to implement some of Hayne’s recommendations. And the example of national security legislation – which has sometimes passed through parliament very quickly – was raised.

    In the real world, national security legislation is drafted quickly only in the event of a clear and present threat. No government in its right mind wants to rush through the legislative drafting process, given the ever-present risk of 1) loopholes which can let the intended targets of the legislation off the hook and 2) unforeseen and unintended consequences that can make the whole situation even worse than it is now.

    But, of course, if – like the Press Gallery – you are preoccupied with the daily drama, then the current state of play is that Labor holds an advantage re banks and the best way for the Libs to counteract that is to be seen to be doing something immediately.

    I have to say that, with of all of her faults, the one journo I have observed over the years who has taken the time to try to understand how the governmental process (as opposed to the political process) actually works is Michelle Grattan. And I’d give honourable mentions to Jim Middleton and Chris Uhlmann.

  21. Prof Kerryn Phelps AM
    ‏@drkerrynphelps
    6h6 hours ago

    It costs $400k a year to hold an asylum seeker in offshore detention
    $239k to hold them in detention in Australia
    less than $100k for an asylum seeker to live in community detention
    around $40k for an asylum seeker to live in the community on bridging visa https://www.kaldorcentre.unsw.edu.au/sites/default/files/Factsheet_Cost%20of%20Australias%20asylum%20and%20refugee%20policy_Aug2018.pdf

    You’d think that the ‘superior money managers’ might take notice of this, but they are more intent on torture by confinement.

  22. chuckle.

    Peter Murphy
    ‏@PeterWMurphy1
    3h3 hours ago

    Dear @barriecassidy,
    Obviously you’re new to the whole political interviewing gig. Firstly, you tried to get @cpyne to actually answer your questions. Secondly, you called him out on some untruths. Um, that’s not how it’s done in the Australian media these days. #Insiders #auspol

  23. WB: “Last night was one of those occasions where I felt really bad to be the publisher of this blog. The Christopher Pyne thing was only part of the issue, and matters have certainly not improved today. So I’m of a mind to be more interventionist moving forward. I’m far from clear this will actually do more good than harm, but I at least have to try something. So if your comment is abusive towards another commenter, or part of a boring personal spat of no imaginable interest to anyone other than the two people engaged in it, don’t be surprised if it gets chopped; and if it does, please deal with the fact like a grown-up who understands whose blog this is, unlike some ex-commenters I could name.”

    Dear Blog Overlord. I support your comment 100%

    I personally find any ad hominem attack directed towards me rather comical, given that my cyber identity is a fantasy and – to the best of my knowledge – I have never personally met anybody who posts on this blog. However, it is clear that some posters do find these sorts of attacks to be hurtful. And any one ad hominem attack tends to start a spat of them.

    As for potentially defamatory posts about public figures: I would suggest you should always delete them asap. They are dangerous both for you and potentially the person who made the post.

  24. The no tax paid franking rort has blown out from a few hundred million a year to several billion. Grandfathering such excess would jut reward people who have plenty if assets.

  25. The scenario seems to be that people want to uncover their family tree, and being entrepreneurial you start a DNA lab that accepts samples and specialises in finding others just like them. To do this your company must entice lots of people to submit samples. So you start by offering general incentives to your customers, such as the thrill of getting a 3% Neanderthal result, or double checking that they’re not about to marry a half-sibling.

    After time there are lots of records in the your database, and your sales pitch gets better as you get better matches, so the samples keep coming. Then law enforcement comes knocking on the door. They want your help to find the relatives of a person or the actual person who they suspect did a bad thing. So you treat the law as any other entity and help them too. Then your customers find out. Now what?

    https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/salvadorhernandez/family-tree-dna-fbi-investigative-genealogy-privacy

  26. Sceptic @ #972 Sunday, February 10th, 2019 – 2:42 pm

    Rex & Player One
    “Christopher Pyne admits that all those in offshore detention require urgent medial attention”

    ALL … REQUIRE!

    Is there some reason you are compelled to misquote people?
    Payne said “They could all qualify,” he told the ABC’s Insiders program.
    From your own ABC link.

    Could qualify isn’t the same as your attribution in the slightest.
    Greens .. expert in verbaling.

    Well, I’m not a Green, but I don’t see any substantive difference between “qualify” and “require” medical attention.

    Are you trying to say that someone who qualifies for medical evacuation might not actually require it?

    Don’t forget that we’re not talking about simple cuts and bruises here – we’re talking something sufficiently serious to qualify for medical evacuation to another country.

    Can you give an example?

  27. I don’t have a problem with the concept of imputation which simply means the owners of a business, the shareholders, pay tax on company profits distributed to them at their marginal tax rate.

    Simply a company earns a before tax profit of $100, pays $30 tax, and then distributes the $70 to a shareholder fully franked. The shareholder declares the grossed up amount of $100 as income, pays tax at their marginal rate on the $100, and receives the franking credit of $30 as a reduction of their tax calculation.

    The problem arises where people arrange their affairs so their income is tax exempt and therefore get a full refund of the franking credits. However there will be a lot of other people, who are not wealthy, earn modest incomes, have a marginal tax rate below 30% and who will lose some of the value of their franking credits. It’s these folks who are being ignored in all the rhetoric over this issue.

  28. “Can you please explain clearly what is wrong with my analysis”

    Malaysian solution would have been a start at cutting things off at the head of the pipeline, having genuine model start to go in place for regional processing. Perfect solution…no…but better than anything else that has gone on the table.

    To say that anyone should be thankful to the greens for their part in that ridiculous.

    And no, i often dont read all your posts. Experience shows they are generally too long and full of crap, but occasionally a response other than scroll past is justified when they are almost too stupid for words…almost.

  29. Player One @ #979 Sunday, February 10th, 2019 – 2:55 pm

    Sceptic @ #972 Sunday, February 10th, 2019 – 2:42 pm

    Rex & Player One
    “Christopher Pyne admits that all those in offshore detention require urgent medial attention”

    ALL … REQUIRE!

    Is there some reason you are compelled to misquote people?
    Payne said “They could all qualify,” he told the ABC’s Insiders program.
    From your own ABC link.

    Could qualify isn’t the same as your attribution in the slightest.
    Greens .. expert in verbaling.

    Well, I’m not a green, but I don’t see any substantive difference between “qualify” and “require” medical attention.

    Are you trying to say that someone who qualifies for medical evacuation might not actually require it?

    Don’t forget that we’re not talking about simple cuts and bruises here – we’re talking something sufficiently serious to qualify for medical evacuation to another country.

    Can you give an example?

    The issue for the Government is that it would be used a s a wedge. Because it’s an entitlement, patients would need to come to Australia for assessment (regardless of whether they succeed or not). Once here, then, there are plenty of lawyers to stop them going back.

  30. “and if it does, please deal with the fact like a grown-up who understands whose blog this is”

    heard that. All good and sorry if i have been a bit cranky of late. 🙁 Will try to make more use of the scroll wheel than keyboard in the future..

  31. Greensborough Growler says:
    Sunday, February 10, 2019 at 2:14 pmHi peter,

    Just spent two weeks at Cabarita Beach north of Byron Bay . Wandered down there and had a couple of nice cold ales at the pub overlooking the Beach. Byron seems very commercial. But we enjoyed anyways. We had a terrific time overall and enjoyed traipsing around a lovely part of the world.

    From the people we met, there is a high level of environmental awareness and pride.
    ————————————–

    I agree Greeny, Byron is a very nice place. I have had quite a few cold ales at the Beach Hotel, there a few better places to have one. It used to have great bands on the weekends as well. We used to spend time there regularly, it was our preferred “get away from the rat race” place. In the last 10 years or so it has steadily lost its alternative character. The Greens, supported by a few green inclined others have controlled the council for some years. Since then there has been little spent on local infrastructure. Roads are crumbling into chains of potholes. Traffic has become chaotic and many of the unique small business have closed and been replaced by national chain stores. Maybe I am judging it a bit harshly because I compare it with what it was 25 years ago.

  32. Player One
    Please just read the quote in ABC link or listen to the interview, no one other than Rex/ yourself implied ALL would require urgent medical attention.

    What is happening to the refugees is a tragedy not helped by misquoting people.
    Better to stick to the truth & the facts

  33. WB , heartily support your proposed actions. Lost count of the dead hours spent scrolling past interminable pissing contests!

  34. meher baba @ #989 Sunday, February 10th, 2019 – 2:53 pm

    WB: “Last night was one of those occasions where I felt really bad to be the publisher of this blog. The Christopher Pyne thing was only part of the issue, and matters have certainly not improved today. So I’m of a mind to be more interventionist moving forward. I’m far from clear this will actually do more good than harm, but I at least have to try something. So if your comment is abusive towards another commenter, or part of a boring personal spat of no imaginable interest to anyone other than the two people engaged in it, don’t be surprised if it gets chopped; and if it does, please deal with the fact like a grown-up who understands whose blog this is, unlike some ex-commenters I could name.”

    Dear Blog Overlord. I support your comment 100%

    I personally find any ad hominem attack directed towards me rather comical, given that my cyber identity is a fantasy and – to the best of my knowledge – I have never personally met anybody who posts on this blog. However, it is clear that some posters do find these sorts of attacks to be hurtful. And any one ad hominem attack tends to start a spat of them.

    As for potentially defamatory posts about public figures: I would suggest you should always delete them asap. They are dangerous both for you and potentially the person who made the post.

    It’s not just that abuse/bullying is hurtful to the victim – and it can be to some victims – but from a blog administrators point of view, it’s a terrible look for the blog. There should be enough respect for the administrator from users to not have him required to moderate such posts.

  35. Thousands of people have been evacuated from a New Zealand town as firefighters battle a wildfire stoked by winds in the country’s South Island.

    The blaze, which began six days ago near the city of Nelson, is now threatening the town of Wakefield.

    Twenty-three helicopters and two planes have been deployed to tackle the blaze. Rain forecast for the area on Tuesday is expected to miss the fire zone.

    Fires of this size are unusual for New Zealand, with local media calling it the worst bushfire in 50 years.

    https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-47187604?ocid=socialflow_twitter

  36. Greensborough Growler @ #983 Sunday, February 10th, 2019 – 3:00 pm

    The issue for the Government is that it would be used a s a wedge. Because it’s an entitlement, patients would need to come to Australia for assessment (regardless of whether they succeed or not). Once here, then, there are plenty of lawyers to stop them going back.

    That may indeed be the case. But I still don’t see sceptic’s point 🙁

    If “all could qualify” for medical treatment (and that’s a direct quote), doesn’t that imply that they all require some kind of treatment?

    What medical condition qualifies you for an international medical evacuation but doesn’t require treatment?

    An example might help.

  37. lizzie: “You’d think that the ‘superior money managers’ might take notice of this, but they are more intent on torture by confinement.”

    With respect, I would suggest that Phelps – like many others who hold strong views against the current policy re unauthorised boat arrivals – subscribes to the school of thought that they are all people fleeing particular adverse circumstances and there will always be a limited number of these.

    The opposite point of view, consistently held by the Coalition and quite often by Labor (but not early in Rudd’s first term and possibly not at the moment), is that the boats departing Indonesia to Australia are part of a racket and, unless we take action to disrupt it, this racket will bring ever-growing numbers of asylum seekers to our shores, with a substantial and rising cost to government across a range of areas of expenditure.

    I have sat through enough dinner party arguments about this issue to know that most Australians are firmly on one side of this debate or the other and are not going to move. Arguably, the majority of all Australians are on the Government’s side and the majority of educated, middle class people are on Kerryn Phelps’s side. The fact that, these days, the majority of White, educated, middle class people are supporters of Labor or other left-of-centre parties makes it a particularly difficult policy issue for Labor, which -unlike Dr Phelps – needs to gain the support of a broad range of Australians in order to be elected.

  38. Prof Kerryn Phelps AM
    ‏@drkerrynphelps
    6h6 hours ago

    It costs $400k a year to hold an asylum seeker in offshore detention
    $239k to hold them in detention in Australia
    less than $100k for an asylum seeker to live in community detention
    around $40k for an asylum seeker to live in the community on bridging visa https://www.kaldorcentre.unsw.edu.au/sites/default/files/Factsheet_Cost%20of%20Australias%20asylum%20and%20refugee%20policy_Aug2018.pdf
    ____
    I think Phelps might be a better medico than an accountant. Those per head costs are bases almost all upon allocated costs from fixed overheads and fixed operating costs. Most of the costs offshore would remain if half of the refugees there were removed.

  39. Barney in Go Dau @ #988 Sunday, February 10th, 2019 – 2:04 pm

    The amazing thing about Pyne’s interview this a.m. is his basic admission that there are a large number detainees with medical problems that can’t be treated where they are and the Government is completely unapologetic about denying them treatment.

    https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-02-10/all-refugees-on-manus-nauru-qualify-medical-transfer-coalition/10797592

    Perhaps the reasoning is that were they to do that it would open the door to admitting fault.

  40. Re Virginia and what’s going on over there.

    As an expert in the history of amateur blackface minstrelsy, I was not surprised to see that a young Northam had a photo showing a man in blackface and someone dressed as a Klansman on his page in the 1984 Eastern Virginia Medical School yearbook. I spent a decade poring over blackface composites from yearbooks and fraternal orders, watching cracked film footage, and cataloguing more than 10,000 blackface plays — collecting and preserving discarded programs, scrapbooks, photographs and blackface how-to guides from library sales, antique auctions and abandoned boxes outside foreclosed homes.

    The reaction to the news out of Virginia shows how deeply the history of blackface has been buried, along with the practice. Once central to American popular culture, minstrelsy became taboo after African American activists fought against it in the 1960s and 1970s. But the truth is that it’s hard to look anywhere without seeing its vestiges.

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/yes-politicians-wore-blackface-it-used-to-be-all-american-fun/2019/02/08/821b268c-2b0d-11e9-b011-d8500644dc98_story.html?utm_term=.9dfb7827b75a

  41. Player One @ #993 Sunday, February 10th, 2019 – 3:06 pm

    Greensborough Growler @ #983 Sunday, February 10th, 2019 – 3:00 pm

    The issue for the Government is that it would be used a s a wedge. Because it’s an entitlement, patients would need to come to Australia for assessment (regardless of whether they succeed or not). Once here, then, there are plenty of lawyers to stop them going back.

    That may indeed be the case. But I still don’t see sceptic’s point 🙁

    If “all could qualify” for medical treatment (and that’s a direct quote), doesn’t that imply that they all require some kind of treatment?

    What medical condition qualifies you for an international medical evacuation but doesn’t require treatment?

    An example might help.

    Everyone in Australia qualifies for medical attention. But, I only go to the doctor a couple of times a year.

    Apart for treatment for insanity. Everyone knows it’s hereditary and you get it from your kids!

  42. Barney in Go Dau @ #989 Sunday, February 10th, 2019 – 3:04 pm

    The amazing thing about Pyne’s interview this a.m. is his basic admission that there are a large number detainees with medical problems that can’t be treated where they are and the Government is completely unapologetic about denying them treatment.

    https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-02-10/all-refugees-on-manus-nauru-qualify-medical-transfer-coalition/10797592

    However, Malcolm Farr correctly notes the bind it puts Bill Shorten in (which is exactly where the Coalition wants him);

    However, there is little joy ahead for Labor on matters related to the legislation Mr Shorten knows the bulk of his party wants — a demonstration of compassion with the medical transfer proposal.

    He knows the ruthless efficiency with which Mr Morrison will campaign on it at the election.

    The prime minister has said he will ignore the legislation if it is passed, but was ready to accuse Labor or wanting to restart the people smugglers’ flotillas.

    And, apparently taking a cue from the Trump administration, Mr Morrison will argue not just terrorists but child molesters and violent gang members would be allowed in from Nauru and Manus.

    He has not provided evidence of a criminal flood and ASIO seems to have confined its report to terrorism.

    But fears of dangerous refugees, valid or not, are ready campaign currency for Mr Morrison and Mr Dutton, who will be prepared to invest it with vigour.

    https://www.news.com.au/national/politics/scott-morrison-has-just-10-days-to-save-himself-with-a-long-list-of-political-bombs-to-juggle/news-story/2d43c63fb2add11d75dbbb083e02e28c

  43. Mb and BK

    I’m more concerned about the torture aspect of confinement without hope. Perhaps that’s because I know that my own reaction would be severe.

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