After a period of improving poll results for the Coalition, the latest Newspoll records a tiny shift on primary votes to Labor, but not another to alter their existing lead of 53-47 from a fortnight ago. Labor is up one point on the primary vote to 39%, after a three-point drop last time, while the Coalition is steady on 37%, retaining their two-point gain in the last poll. The Greens are steady on 9%, while One Nation is down a point to 5%, the lowest it’s been in a year. Scott Morrison’s personal ratings are improved, with approval up three to 43% and disapproval down two to 45%, and his lead as prime minister out from 43-36 to 44-35. Bill Shorten is down one on approval to 36% and up one on disapproval to 51%. The poll was conducted Thursday to Sunday from a sample of 1567.
https://www.afr.com/news/policy/foreign-affairs/cashing-in-on-refugees-duo-make-20-million-a-month-at-manus-island-20190210-h1b2e5
Evil Liberals making profit for private dodgy companies.
On the Football discussion, I recall it started last night with a comment that Soccer would eventually become Australia’s number one sport, and that AFL is dying. If I had a dollar for every time I’ve heard that one over the years, I’d be doing all right. It’s not even close! Yes, Soccer has a high level of junior participation, it has as long as I can remember. But Soccer people will tell you when they are being rational that they are usually lost to the sport at around fifteen. The national Soccer competition, the A-league, is in an extremely unhealthy state, and you sure can’t be the number one sport with a flagging national competition; crowds are down and television ratings are awful. I’m not anti Soccer by a long shot, but the game could not be described as being in a healthy state here.
Late Riser:
I’ve noticed that too from time to time.
Re: Pancreatic cancer, a friend fell over carrying milk buckets to some calves, went later to Dr for pain in side thinking rib damage. Shadow on x-ray indicated pancreatic cancer, died 6 weeks later.
Andrew Leigh
Verified account @ALeighMP
Stuart Robert & Qld LNP received a $112,000 political donation from Shac Communications. Months later, the firm went bust, owing $129,000 in tax. Why should the LNP get a donation at taxpayer expense? Time to pay it back, Stuart. https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2019/feb/12/labor-seeks-inquiry-into-firms-donations-to-liberals-despite-financial-trouble … #auspol
It’s hard to believe that a Party which was so effective at running targeted campaigns as the Libs used to be have become so ham-fisted. They have just completely buggered any attack on the franking credits policy. It’s just glorious ineptitude.
Rosie Lewis
Verified account @rosieslewis
57m57 minutes ago
Labor has four votes locked in to add two extra March sitting weeks: Julia Banks still to show her hand, Andrew Wilkie taking advice from Treasury today and Bob Katter “open”
@Matt31…..re soccer. Yep….totally agree.
I’m a WS Wanderers member and unfortunately the FFA…..run by an ex-nrl type in Gallop has gone backwards in recent years………they have yet to get the junior participation into meaningful members of A league clubs.
Re POroti @9:45.
The Right is still up to the same tricks, blaming “The Other” for all of Society’s ills, often for stuff that they are doing themselves. And today, they are almost as crude.
Cheap labour – greedy white bosses. Today, abuse of 457-type visas and wage & superannuation theft.
Gambling – done by white people
Prostitution – ditto
Dread diseases – think Morrison’s press release in 2012 detailing diseases allegedly carried by asylum seekers, all of which were endemic here or brought back by returning Aussie travellers.
Drugs – see gambling & prostitution
Tax rorts – see gambling and prostitution
I suppose today the Right would add “terrorism” and street crime (“African Gangs”) to this list of the sins of “The Other”.
Rossmcg @ #1068 Tuesday, February 12th, 2019 – 6:57 am
WAFL actually. There was never any N on it. Hence it’s nickname as the “waffle”.
Surely there is no case for not sitting the extra weeks. They’re paid by us to work for us.
Oh , by the way BB that was a cracker re: subs! Medaication working well I assume?
Well all put in for a keyboard for you.
sonar, thank you for the link. Just one quote “The entire country is run by the app Uber. Every time you need a government you just click on the app. Whoever locally volunteers, he’s your Prime Minister.” It rang a bell.
In answer to someone’s earlier question (Barney’s, I think) Australian football is the only code where the maximum score must come from the foot. In association football a score can come from the head or chest, or even from the hands of the goalkeeper (for example).
Guardian Australia
Verified account @GuardianAus
1m1 minute ago
Labor warns Coalition bill to strip terrorists of citizenship is ‘unconstitutional’
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2019/feb/12/labor-warns-coalition-bill-to-strip-terrorist-of-citizenship-is-unconstitutional?CMP=soc_568
Luke Henriques-Gomes
Verified account @lukehgomes
3m3 minutes ago
Justice Bromberg has ruled Michaelia Cash’s former media adviser David De Garis will have to give evidence about who tipped him off that federal police were set to raid the AWU’s offices. #auspol
Zoidlord says:
Tuesday, February 12, 2019 at 10:44 am
Rosie Lewis
Verified account @rosieslewis
57m57 minutes ago
Labor has four votes locked in to add two extra March sitting weeks: Julia Banks still to show her hand, Andrew Wilkie taking advice from Treasury today and Bob Katter “open”
–
If memory serves me right [cant be sure when u get over 60 and wake up thinking your a woman] Wilkie was keen for the banking RC and Katter was ambivalent when it was being debated before those 2 Nats threatened to cross the floor and forced Talkbull to make a “regrettable” decision. IF Banks wants to put a genuine Independent label on herself for the election she might go for it ?
Alex Turnbull
@alexbhturnbull
Repeat after me: there is nothing at all suspicious about a private military company with a PO Box address running Manus Island for the Australian government. Totes normal. #auspol
https://www.canberratimes.com.au/politics/federal/long-delays-official-audit-slams-peter-dutton-s-department-for-australian-citizenship-backlog-20190211-p50x2j.html
I always find social mores curious. The Herald-Sun is getting all outraged at the idea of women (from a brothel) standing in the street wearing nothing but their underwear, but go to any beach and you’ll find women (and men) wearing even less.
One is seen as outrageous, the other as perfectly normal.
That has always made me laugh Zoomster
zoomster @ #1118 Tuesday, February 12th, 2019 – 9:58 am
zoomster, There’s a place for everything…
Annnnnd as you’d expect, Di Garis has to tell the court who tipped him off about the AWU raids.
I am really sorry I brought up the pancreatic cancer question last night. Hearing the scary ghost stories gave me the whillies.
It seems that it’s undetectable until too late, and then it’s untreatable in 99% of cases..
So best not to worry about it, I guess. If your number’s up, it’s up.
Live well, eat well, give up everything and then a bus will run you over anyway.
Burgey
Anyone going to hazard a guess as to who he will name?
“Football” is a generic description for any game that involves a ball being kicked.
Different places at different times have had different rules for the game. Each place at each time has been happy to describe the game(s) involving kicking the ball as football.
When for any place a particular form of the game has predominated it has understandably been described in that place as “football”.
Aussie Rules, soccer, rugby league and union, gaelic and American are all types of football that have a recognised and sustaining set of rules (which have nevertheless constantly altered over time) which have regulated how each type of football has been played.
The notion that any one form of football is deserving of the name football because:-
(a) it has the longest history;
(b) it involves greater use of foot skills than others; and/or
(c) is played competitively by more people throughout the world and hence recognised as “football”by those more people;-
are each arguments of convenience rather than merit and of cultural imperialism.
The first argument, that one code has the longest history, is simply silly. Each code has, as it must have, rules for the game. The rules define the game and without them we cannot even know what game we are talking about. But each of the codes has changed the rules of the game with regular frequency. Each time a code changes its rules the game, as defined, must change. Australian Rules at AFL level has changed its rules significantly for the coming season.
In a real sense, whilst recognising the coherence with the past, each code becomes a new game every time there is a change in the rules. This is not some pedantic philosophical point since it is likely football played at Rugby school was not at the time a clearly different game to the football played at other schools that did not permit running forward with the ball, but might have permitted running backwards. whilst holding the ball.
Soccer, as a game with a crossbar to introduce a height limit for goals came in about 1870 well after rugby and Australian Rules were regularly played. The name “soccer” apparently derived from “Association (Football)”, the name of the English competition, to distinguish the game from Rugby.
Ultimately the appeal to history is no more than a tenuous reverse engineering in which every code probably has an equal claim. To claim one code had historical primacy would be as fallacious (and for the same reason) as a claim that homo sapiens were the pinnacle evolutionary achievement of the first form of life started billions of years ago. The humble fruit fly can make the same claim.
The second argument, that one form of the game has more use of the foot than other forms of the game, giving it the better right to be called football, is complete tosh. Soccer, which probably does use the foot more than the other codes, still involves throwing the ball into play and by one designated player and goals being able to be scored using the head.
Since there is no purity of use of foot among any of the codes, arguing over degrees of impurity is trivial. A new game invented tomorrow that required only the use of the foot to propel the ball without any following anywhere would suddenly, on this argument, become “football”, which is obvious nonsense.
The third argument, one code is more popular than the others, is a pure and simple appeal to majority cultural domination.
The Semantic Solution
When one travels from one place to another (even from one ground to another) the word “football” will have a meaning dependent upon the time and place of its use. On a blog site, where place and even time are not easily identifiable, the use of the word “football” without a qualifier is an act of cultural arrogance unless the context already identifies what is being referred to.
BB
Yep. In a nutshell!
Lol!
Not the Greens again?
Imagine if De garis says “Bill Shorten rang me and said the cops were coming.” FMD that would punch a hole in the whole thing.
How the Cth DPP didn’t charge that arsehole when he admitted he leaked the info is just the most politicized decision from a prosecuting body I’ve seen in a long time. Disgraceful.
“JUDGE: “Oh, you needn’t worry about self-incrimination. The AFP is in charge of the case. They NEVER prosecute chaps like you.”
What irks me is that the AFP declined to recommend the DPP prosecute, yet the witness seems to be in no doubt whatsoever that he might well have done something criminally prosecutable.
And anyway, shouldn’t it be the leaker who’s prosecuted? If so, what’s the recipient of the leak doing worrying about being prosecuted?
DiNatale just engaged in hyperbole, and when challenged with ‘why?’ He backtracked and began to babble. #auspol
Sounds like voter suppression to me.
This time around, Greens voting against Labor on the hot bill would be doing Labor a favour. Purity is a great virtue but pragmatism is the name of the political game. A reason, I would suggest, as to why the Greens will never be in a position to do the tough things that mature political parties have to do to (a) get into government and (b) stay there.
Dan
You must be a youngster.
The WAFL was the WANFL from 1931 to 1979.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_Australian_Football_League
Greens will not support Labor amendments
Richard Di Natale says the Greens won’t support any amendment which means it takes longer for asylum seekers and refugees to get medical treatment.
“The amendments that have been put forward by the Labor party, at the moment, potentially make the situation worse than doing nothing,” he tells Sky News, saying that is what he has been told from the refugee sector and those who have followed these cases through the courts.
The Greens can always be relied upon to do the wrong thing!
“This time around, Greens voting against Labor on the hot bill would be doing Labor a favour. Purity is a great virtue but pragmatism is the name of the political game.”
Politics is the art of the possible. Compromise to get 80% of what you want, or maybe 50, rather than nothing. Incremental change. All successful politicians know that.
And Labor can do very little from Opposition.
For telco aficianados out there, re the NBN:
We have 3 mobiles (2 with 50 gig data, unlimited calls), 1 (tablet) with only 2 gig
Highest speed internet(for around here, anyway, about 30mbits/sec),
1000 gig of internet data (of which we use about 500 all told, mostly Netflix, YouTube, iView, and some blogging etc),
Unlimited landline calls.
Telstra. Cost $212/month all up, on one bill.
Does this sound about right?
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH Di Natale
Ross,
Did they play at the WANCA?
sonar
The A-League has really been stuck in a rut for a few years. And then they finally decide to expand to twelve teams and they can’t even get that right – adding the third Melbourne team next season but the third Sydney one a season later! Surely all the bids from all the franchises were ready to go for next season?
Western Sydney joining was a breath of fresh air and your supporters have added a lot. But a ten or twelve team competition is just too small and makes for too many of the same games.
Someone else commented on this earlier. The Liberals in the Howard era were very good at running targeted campaigns, both to promote specific policies and to scare voters. It seems now they can’t even run a good scare campaign; their campaign on franking credits appears to have blown up spectacularly! They just don’t seem to have the ability to campaign cleverly, and seem to find ways to over reach.
Bushfire Bill,
The only thing I would say, don’t put off something you want to do and have the capacity to do to another day. One – it may never arrive and Two – your circumstances be financial or health may change. Live today as if it is your last coz one day it will be.
Now back to politics….
So, it looks like Labor may be able to defeat the government on the floor of the hHouse, but because the Greens won’t vote for the amendments in the Senate, they’ll fail to be passed into law?
Nice way to avoid a wedge on boats in the Senate AND rub the government’s nose in it in the House.
In the Australian experience, soccer is the only football code that truly embraces racial, religious and gender difference. It personifies multiculturalism. It has global appeal. It reminds me of the ALP.
AFL has had a shameful past with regards to racism against Indigenous Australians (one large, Melbourne-based club supported by the dentally challenged in particular). See Winmar, N., Goodes, A. et al. It has psychotic delusions of grandeur, just like the Greens.
Rugby League has a massive, institutionalised ‘women problem’ that appears to be getting worse. Similar to the RWNJs in the Liberal Party.
Both AFL and RL have had major issues with illegal drug use among players.
AFL and those who support that provincial sport remind me of insular Yanks crowing about Super Bowl winners being ‘world champions’. Two of its greatest players, Ablett and Carey, have a sordid past with hard drug use and domestic violence.
Rugby Union is an elitist fringe game in this country played and supported by mostly small l Liberal Party voting toffs and private school educated merchant bankers. Also Alan Jones loves it.
Thank you for the link on Dutton’s citizenship black hole Lizzie. Informative read.
Geez Kirky, we’re all cheerful today aren’t we?
LNPin full scare mode onABC now.
GG
Droll
One of my earliest memories of a WANFL game is seeing my team Perth play at the WACA Ground in the late 1950s.
BB
The Bill has already passed the Senate. Didn’t you listen to Dreyfus last nigh?
“This time around, Greens voting against Labor on the hot bill would be doing Labor a favour. Purity is a great virtue but pragmatism is the name of the political game.”
If the ALP can get the x-benchers to agree to the ammendments then the Greens will fall into line. They would be remarkably stupid not too on this issue and they need a decent relationship with the X benchers. Yup, they may move some other ammendments when it goes back to the Senate but thats fine and part of the normal process.
Seems everyone would like to be a little ambiguous on this till its in the house for a vote. 🙂 Except the Libs who are idiots the utterances of which on position, are meaningless shouty fart in a thunderstorm stuff anyway.