Essential Research has come out with a second poll in consecutive weeks, the previous one having departed from its normal practice in having a longer field work period and a later release, tailored to work around the interruption of the long weekend. Coming after a period in which a media narrative of Labor taking on water over franking credits has taken hold, the results of the latest poll are striking: the Coalition has sunk four points on the primary vote to 34%, Labor is up two to 38%, the Greens and One Nation are steady on 10% and 7% respectively, and Labor’s two-party lead has blown out from 52-48 to 55-45. Other questions relate to the banking royal commission: you can read more about them from The Guardian, or await for Essential’s full report, which I assume will be with us later today.
UPDATE: Full report here. The poll was conducted Wednesday to Monday from a sample of 1067.
The DT is doing its bit for Murdoch’s propaganda campaign in favour of Morrison. Big headline on dead tree front page:
Exclusive: ScoMo to fight return of deaths at sea PM’S RED LINE
http://dailytelegraph.digitaleditions.com.au/?code=401
More accurate headline of course would be: SCOMO ENCOURAGES BOATS TO COME
I doubt at the time Pence and the cabinet would’ve gone for it, but still. Wow.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/14/us/politics/mccabe-trump.html?action=click&module=Top%20Stories&pgtype=Homepage
The turkeys voted for Christmas. Now they are trying to work out a deal where they don’t get their heads chopped off. Some of the turkeys want their Christmas, deal or no deal.
Victoria,
Tennessee Valley Authority are looking to deploy nuclear SMRs to replace coal.
If they pull it off successfully, it could mean a step change in nuclear power costs.
Media Release: Legislation introduced to establish $2 billion Securitisation Fund
“The Government has introduced legislation to establish the $2 billion Australian Business Securitisation Fund which will see small and medium-sized businesses get better access to more competitive finance.”
Any indication on whether the ALP will support/oppose?
John Reidy @ #1725 Friday, February 15th, 2019 – 9:26 am
Shouldn’t that be “The farce etc.etc”?
I agree, almost zero chance, it wasn’t a cabinet dominated by talent, ethics or sacrifice. There was perhaps a window for Pence, if he was hungry enough and ruthless enough, he might have been able to get the numbers to take the office, but even then would you trust anyone in that cabinet enough to start a coup, let alone have faith you could pull of the whole 25 process.
Good Morning
Of course Labor’s increasing sitting days was a stunt. It was a stunt precisely because the numbers on the Crossbench were not there.
The point is no one should have any doubt that if the numbers were there Labor would have made it more than a stunt.
Labor put amendments to Parliament which would have allowed different approaches to Nauru/Manus, including opening open wider options than just ‘signatories to the UNHCR convention.’ The Greens voted against these.
One of the consequences of that was to make Nauru/Manus one of the few legal avenues available.
Gillard then put together a package which could meet the requirements of the legislation the Greens had supported. There was no suggestion from the Greens that they would come back to the table to legislate more acceptable alternatives.
The number is 48 Newspolls lost
It was the ex-Libs number on the crossbench, not a lack of “spine”, that made a difference.
Zoomster
Still fighting a battle already won I see.
Labor needs to learn when the battle is over be magnanimous in public.
That way you get to win more battles.
WWP: “If Brexit wins again how stupid do you look and if remain wins you’ve got 40 – 45% of the population with a genuine grievance and a right to be angry and active for decades.”…
In the case of a second, and final, referendum, if Brexit wins again then that’s it: Hard Brexit is the way and good luck to the UK…. Democracy allows you to take any decision about your future, you regret or enjoy the consequences into the future. A second referendum is needed simply because the UK are sunk in complete chaos, uncertainty and instability, which is affecting their economy, not just their social cohesion.
If Remain wins, that’s it, nothing needs to be done, the UK stays in and then try to influence the policies of the EU to address at least some of the major grievances of the Brexiters, step by step, over time. A minority will continue to shout, cry and protest. That’s unavoidable in a divided country, but the shouting will decrease for as long as a new Labour government finally takes the UK away from their old Neoliberal path. Let’s not forget that Brexit, more than a call for greater “sovereignty”, is in reality a strong call in rejection of those Neoliberal policies that have made the majority unhappy and the top 1% very, very happy.
BK, try this link to the Victorian RC
https://www.rcmpi.vic.gov.au/Public-Hearing-Live-Stream
Victoria @ #1691 Friday, February 15th, 2019 – 5:34 am
Zero Days. It’s primarily about the stuxnet malware the US and Israel use to take out Iran’s nuclear facilities, but then goes further into the whole idea and ramifications of cyber warfare. Scary stuff.
WWP:
I wonder what the appetite would be for removing him now.
It should be remembered anyone claiming it was only the Greens that did not agree with Labor is living fantasyland on the Medical Transfer Deal is living in fantasyland.
Have a go at Di Natale for going public by all means. Just don’t try and rewrite history
I tend to agree with this, very misplaced call, but I think I tend to agree.
I don’t think the brexiters will see it this way, they will see it either as illegitimate or if they are very generous ‘we are now 1:1 we need a tiebreaker referendum’. You’ll also have set the example that referendums don’t matter because the losers will just sook and whine and cheat their way around it. Unless you can discredit the first referendum in the eyes of those who voted to brexit, a second referendum is a disaster for democracy in Britain.
Thanks Bert – got it!
Alpha Zero @ #1694 Friday, February 15th, 2019 – 5:40 am
Three birds with one stone.
1) Destroy the unions;
2) Enrich your maaates;
3) Maaates then donate to your party.
David Crowe
Verified account @CroweDM
2h2 hours ago
Australia would be better off with an election now, even if the politicians aren’t ready.
https://www.theage.com.au/politics/federal/shorten-should-have-called-for-an-election-immediately-20190214-p50xqx.html
The Stupid media thinks Labor is in Government.
Chris Uhlmann
Verified account @CUhlmann
20h20 hours ago
There is a coordinated attempt to disrupt Question Time. People standing one at a time to protest against non-action on climate change from all three public galleries.
Alpo
The problem with Brexit is its those 1% that are in charge of the Brexit process.
A fundamental contradiction that pundits rightly claim a rejection of neoliberalism ignore. If that was central to commentary reforming the EU economic model would be talked about more.
Confessions says: Friday, February 15, 2019 at 10:21 am
WWP:
I wonder what the appetite would be for removing him now.
*************************************************
Jennifer Rubin writes in the Washington Post :
‘Sycophancy comes with a price’: Conservative says GOP senators facing a wipeout in 2020 for sucking up to Trump
Conservative columnist Jennifer Rubin is sounding the alarm early for Republicans today in the Washington Post, predicting a potential Senate wipeout in 2020.
“Sycophancy comes with a price,” she wrote. “Their political future is now inextricably bound with Trump’s.”
“If Trump is polling around 40 percent, the final report from special counsel Robert S. Mueller III is damning, and the economy, as many experts predict, has cooled off, you do wonder whether Republican senators might be more inclined to turn on the president, pressuring him to step down (with the implicit threat of impeachment proceedings hanging over them),” she wrote.
https://www.rawstory.com/2019/02/sycophancy-comes-price-conservative-says-gop-senators-facing-wipeout-2020-sucking-trump/
EB @ #21685 Friday, February 15th, 2019 – 7:45 am
Listening to the excellent AFR National Affairs correspondent on LNL last night, I suspect that it isn’t Dutton that is getting the kickback from the Paladin Scam, it’s the PNG heavies (some of them still in the PNG government) who Dutton is forced to cover for.
That the Spanish owners of the rebadged Transfield made a big show of pulling out of the Manus contract last year is the key factoid. Paladin is a shell around the gross corruption of the PNG setup: a minimum of $A 18m/month of Fed money has to go somewhere beyond extra-judicial post-boxes in Kangaroo Island, Singapore & HK to disappear. I’m sure some of the money went to the caretakers on Nauru, but they are cheap and have little choice compared to the Big Men of PNG. Dutton is in this up to his tiny little potato eyes, but even he’s not stupid or hubristic enough to skim some of the black money from the sewer that is PNG graft & corruption.
Dutton and Morrison are gone for all money in May, but discovering the depths of the moral and political corruption that Dutton, and his predecessor Morrison (and their pathetic condoms, Abbott and Turnbull), went to to shore up the xenophobic BOATS! campaign over the last 5 years will be pure schadenfreude for me, and, I suspect the majority of Australians. Rowe should have drawn the Paladin box as an unexploded mine.
I think now you’d need to be weighing up how much of Trump’s base is republican and going to flow with the change, the way a lot of ALP guys went full bore with the Rudd to Gillard change, and how many are really Trump guys who will make trouble. If President Pence can’t attract centrists in big enough numbers to overcome any Trump rump (trade mark pending) it may not help you in 2020.
Personally I think the ‘Trump is dangerous’ view is overblown, like in the UK with Brexit, Trump was largely the losers from 4 decades of trickle down / flood up shooting themselves in the foot, and i think the writing is on the wall that there are enough who’ve realised this, and there is a lot of ‘opps we didn’t vote in 2016’ that has me giving Trump relatively little chance against any dem contender that staggers out of the primaries. Except perhaps the crazy one from Hawaii.
guytaur @ #1757 Friday, February 15th, 2019 – 10:15 am
So you say it was a stunt but if the greens had of supported it, it wasn’t a stunt.
Optics, Phelps on the bubbles, Cormann and Hickey with Cigars, the group hug by coalition front benchers after the Carbon bill was voted down, nor to mention Tones broken coffee table, they all do it!
If you were a terrified republican senator, do you help get a President Pence, either through 25 or impeachment, or do you primary Trump? If you don’t think you can Primary Trump, how much will the other two methods actually help you.
Can an impeached President run again? If he is primaried what stops him running as an independent?
Greenies think Labor is making a stunt.
Greenies are avoiding making Liberals responsible.
Greenies are in bed with the devil.
BK, after all the effort you put in of a morning twas the least I could do.
I see that D Crowe article contains the sentence “Labor may have just lost the election. ” which is then lifted from the type body and given it’s own space IN BOLD just in case you missed it.
So again Labor partisans attack the Greens as if their one member is the reason sitting days were not extended.
The mood against the Liberal Party among those who were their “base” has only intensified over the last 2 days
I would suggest that there is now no such thing as a “safe” Liberal seat, at least in Melbourne
Dan Gulberry
I think there is a 4th very important objective. To destroy the legitimacy of Government as an agent for a ‘public service’ or ‘social good’. They want to embed in the political discourse as much as possible that the only can legitimate motive for Government action is the furtherance of private profit and NOT social good.
Labor calling for extra sitting days a stunt ?
Parliament is a continuous stunt these days. And the holier than all the rest Greens participate on a daily basis.
Zoid
You attacked the Greens for voting with Labor.
Your attacks are doing Labor no favours.
AFR:
The corporate regulator’s chief prosecutor, Daniel Crennan, QC, has warned the government has empowered him to pursue “extremely harsh civil penalties and criminal sanctions against banks, their executives and others” after the Senate passed tough new rules for white-collar offences.
Corporate executives could face maximum jail terms of 15 years for criminal offences and companies could cop fines of up to $525 million per civil offence, after the Morrison government agreed to Labor’s amendments to toughen the Coalition’s bill on Thursday night.
Mr Crennan, an ASIC deputy chairman, said the passage of the penalties bill through the Senate was a very significant step for the Australian Securities and Investments Commission’s enforcement capabilities when corporate laws had been breached.
“Without this bill, very significant aspects of the law lacked sufficient penalties to properly punish corporate wrongdoing in Australia,” Mr Crennan said.”In part, the core obligations owed by banks and other financial services licensees to the citizens of Australia did not carry any penalties.
“The legislation is the culmination of ASIC’s recommendations to government and will provide the legislative regime for it to far better enforce the law.”
Separately, the government and Labor did a bipartisan deal on a Senate bill to stop superannuation funds such as industry giant Hostplus from wining and dining corporate clients to win default fund mandates from employers.
Mr Crennan, appointed ASIC deputy chairman last June after conducting a sweeping enforcement review of ASIC, is quickly developing a reputation as a tough corporate cop on the beat.
The Hayne royal commission chastised ASIC’s propensity to cut deals and impose lenient penalties on financial services firms, and urged the new ASIC chairman to shift to a “why not litigate” culture on corporate misdeeds.
Treasurer Josh Frydenberg said: “The increased penalties include increases to penalties that haven’t changed in more than 20 years. The range of contraventions subject to civil penalties will also now expand and the courts will be given the power to seek additional remedies to strip wrongdoers of profits illegally obtained or losses avoided.”
Dandy Murray
It was confessions post you are responding to. Cheers!
@guytaur
Greens may voted with Labor, but Greens still attacking Labor as same-same with Liberals.
Janet Rice of the Greens, for example keeps labeling Labor as the same-same with Liberals.
No diff to Peg/rex & Co.
Dan Gulberry
Thanks! When I get opportunity, will watch it
@gutaur
Lets not forget Greens voted with Coalition Party on Super.
Geoff Pearson
@GCobber99
12s12 seconds ago
Labor rebukes Coalition for siding with Greens on opt-out superannuation life insurance
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2019/feb/14/labor-rebukes-coalition-for-siding-with-greens-on-opt-out-superannuation-life-insurance?CMP=share_btn_tw
Pegasus
‘A catholic ex-politician joining a catholic lobby group..’
Drive-by sectarian sniping by a Libling, who never saw a Labor politician they didn’t want to slap around.
guytaur @ #1781 Friday, February 15th, 2019 – 10:36 am
But their one member and their great leader are the reason the medevac bill got passed. I say well done by all, but the greens were on here straight away pontificating how great their bill is…
Well at the moment the Republicans are still rusted onto Trump.
Rebekha Sharkie MP
Verified account @MakeMayoMatter
3h3 hours ago
The curious case of #Paladin the company that won a $423M Home Affairs contract with no tangible assets or experience while registered to a beach shack in my electorate. #auspol #estimates
https://www.afr.com/news/policy/foreign-affairs/home-affairs-sought-to-delete-foi-clause-from-manus-contract-20190214-h1b8yb
swamprat @ #1784 Friday, February 15th, 2019 – 7:37 am
Good point.
guytaur
‘It should be remembered anyone claiming it was only the Greens that did not agree with Labor..’
Oh, that’s right. The Coalition did too.
So I guess it’s “Coalition-Greens — same-same’ then.
Is there any live streaming of the AWU court case?
briefly
says:
Friday, February 15, 2019 at 10:43 am
Pegasus
‘A catholic ex-politician joining a catholic lobby group..’
Drive-by sectarian sniping by a Libling, who never saw a Labor politician they didn’t want to slap around.
________________________________________
Yeah, it’s pretty sectarian that a Catholic clique has taken control of supermarket workers and just replace Catholic politicians with Catholic politicians. That’s much more Sectarian than complaining about it.
Tom
My point is simple.
Keep up divisive attacks after a joint victory and poison the well of trust.