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.
“so it would seem Defense think that the subs give us something that those ships wouldn’t. ”
Like…. a ship that is not as much of a missle magnet as a surface vessel. 🙂
A handful of Subs will never “defend” the nation. Maybe the Greens are just against the spending of money for the illusion of defence of the nation. No nation is going to try to invade us because it is just too darn expensive…
I also wonder if we should be investing in Fully Automated Renewable Technology Submarines.
I reckon no power would dare take on our FARTS!
“I reckon no power would dare take on our FARTS!”
Ahhh…as long as they are more potent than the Muppets Brain-Farts!
nath
‘When is the Navy ever going to turn down acquisitions? The ‘feelpinion’ is more a political argument that Australian military spending is way more than what is needed for the defence of the nation. As to the actual decision to get submarines, as opposed to other weapons, that could be left to experts, but I’d imagine the Air Force and Army would have different opinions.’
There will always be conflicts between air, ground and water uniforms. The current resolution, FWIW, in terms of proportion of expenditures, favours air (JSF) and water (subs, the helo carriers and the destroyers).
I assume that this maximizes the only real military advantage we have: a large water barrier.
FWIW, I believe that we are making the following large strategic errors:
1. depending far too much on the US
2. building a force structure and equipment that is a bit part of the US military rather than an integrated whole
3. gutting even the most basic of our war fighting infrastructure, in particular our ability to refine fuel
4. failing utterly to resolve the fact that China owns us economically and the US owns us militarily.
Alpha Zero @ #2053 Friday, February 15th, 2019 – 2:36 pm
😆
How does one find the cartoon in The Age? – it is not under politics or entertainment or any other heading i can see.
Rex Douglas @ #2039 Friday, February 15th, 2019 – 2:24 pm
Your analogy is flawed, just like your logic.
The coal miners are experts at mining coal, but the climate change scientists are the experts on the consequences of mining coal.
Similarly, the bean counters in Defence Materiel are the experts at buying subs, but the navy are the experts on the consequences of buying subs.
How does one find the cartoon in The Age? It is not under politics or entertainment or any other heading that i can search.
Tina Sparkle gets a slap on the wrist.
https://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/tv-and-radio/sonia-kruger-vilified-muslims-in-today-show-segment-20190215-p50y11.html
Flinders is a more conservative electorate so dare I say more likely to oppose the medivac bill(or side with the Coalition)If this is as good as it gets for Morrisons scare campaign, he is fucked.
‘Alpha Zero says:
Friday, February 15, 2019 at 2:36 pm
A handful of Subs will never “defend” the nation. Maybe the Greens are just against the spending of money for the illusion of defence of the nation. No nation is going to try to invade us because it is just too darn expensive…’
This probably helps explain the Greens input to Bludger Law No 2: That the Greens criticism of all things military is in inverse proportion to their intention to defend Australia at all.
Inept strawman: ‘…a handful of subs…’
Well of course, with the subs they got $50,000,000,000 .Those other tubs would never have got near that amount for their ’empire’.
It seems to me that we would be better to invest defence dollars in drones – both airborne and undersea – not idiotic F35s and manned submarines.
In the future they will be more stealthy and faster than anything a man/woman has to sit in.
And cheaper!
BW
I thought that post was satire v
Rex Douglas says:
Friday, February 15, 2019 at 2:30 pm
Barney in Ben Tre @ #2028 Friday, February 15th, 2019 – 2:14 pm
Obviously Defense saw a different need and considered the number of patrol boats adequate.
These decisions are not brainfarts, they are part of an overall strategy.
Hello Rex. You asked if my conservative mates would weigh up the negatives of Labor versus the negatives of the LNP? Of course I can’t know for sure, but I think most of them are very firmly rusted on LNP voters. So no. But two comments:
-the LNP people I know are all pessimistic about the next federal election, since Turnbull got rolled they are expecting to lose (but they feel a lot better about their chances at state level)
-attitudes towards climate change have changed. When I first explained how this works to them maybe 20 years ago, I was greeted with stony silence. But their disbelief has gradually crumbled in the face of objective reality, they now know that climate change is real. However, they still blame the switch to renewables for the cost of electricity!
Cheers
Bool
Yes. With airborne drones the miniaturisation means they will be hard to detect on radar. Especially for defences such as missiles if they attack as a swarm.
The limit seems to be size for carrying the weapons.
My thanks to Briefly for this constructive illustration of exactly what commenters shouldn’t be doing. In this case, responding to a statement of fact with a name-calling personal attack.
jenauthor@2:09pm
To assume that other countries like China will attack us only through cyber and not militarily in future is naive.
With their intercontinental ballistic missiles it is easy to attack us, submarines or not. IMO we need to be prepared for such attacks and may have to spend much more or military given the way things are happening in US. Till now nobody dared to attack us because we are under the security umbrella of US i. e. ANZUS. They didn’t risk a retaliation from US. Hence we spent much less on military to protect us than necessary.
Consider ANZUS as some sort of insurance. We pay our premiums by supporting US in their war mongering whether we like those wars or not. If we do not have that insurance then the cost of protecting ourselves will be very high.
So do not believe the crap Rex posts. Rex is trying to wedge ALP faithfuls.
‘booleanbach says:
Friday, February 15, 2019 at 2:42 pm
It seems to me that we would be better to invest defence dollars in drones –’
Amusing! The uniforms will be on fire!
Satire and truth rolled into one.
For future reference flick on Yes Minister and ask Sir Humphrey what the point of Britains defence policy is…
One of the more fevered articles in The Oz this week was by Savva who wondered whether Morrison had not missed his moment in history by not calling an election immediately the Medivac Act was passed.
The inhabitants of the Extreme Right Canberra Bubble were in a right royal tizz.
I heard somewhere that Mr Murdoch subsidizes the Oz with $25 million a year.
Faced with three years of Labor Government which owes him nothing… and with a media empire that failed to stop Labor… would Mr Murdoch pay $75 million to pester the Shorten Labor Government with the febrile output of the likes of Ms Savva and messers Shanahan, Kenny and Kelly?
OR
Are might their jobs be on the line?
Cash is back in the dock, now adopting the Monty Python Defence…
Asked if she told the AFP that David De Garis had tipped off media about the AWU, Cash says ‘they didn’t ask’. She said she referred AFP to her Senate estimates evidence. ‘They has no further questions’.
Ven wrote:
YOUcan prepare for ICBM attacks, Ven.
If thermonuclear (or for that matter, ordinary nuclear) bombs come into play as a serious threat, I’ll be surrendering. So would any sensible person.
Why spend gigabucks on defence if, ultimately, the money’s wasted?
The only way we can physically provide any deterrence is by getting nuclear weapons ourselves. The rest is posturing.
(P.S. And I can’t see us getting them)
Think of what you know of drones . Think of what you know about nuclear missiles. Combine the two. That’s the future.
Low flying missiles can fly low enough to avoid radar. If they can be submersible for part of the journey that makes them hard to detect by submarines and radar.
Already we know all someone has to do to disrupt aircraft flight is put a drone to flying around an airport. See UK panic.
spr
Sergeant Schulz could have given Ms Cash a few pointers.
Or should that be Colonel Klink?
Ucomm- not Reachtel in Flinders…
There is an interesting letter in the London Review of Books this week by a guy called Edward Luttwak who knew Reagan and says that Reagan often said that if the US suffered a nuclear attack he would NOT launch a retaliatory strike. Reagan’s view was: “What’s the point”. Not what you would expect.
https://www.lrb.co.uk/v41/n04/letters
AFP might come out of this looking worse than Cash will. Especially if Cash keeping putting them under buses like that.
Shortie looks like he’s down to fighting weight for the election. Never seen him so fit.
GetUP sponsored the Flinders poll
It will be interesting how Cash is assessed as a witness at the end of this!
https://mobile.abc.net.au/news/2019-02-15/michaelia-cash-testifies-at-awu-court-hearing/10814638
This is the Alice Workman version of the inspector Clousea plods (allegedly)..
When asked if Cash told the AFP who from her office leaked to the media she told the court: “They did not ask”.
Cash said when she referred the AFP to her statements to Senate Estimates “they had no further questions”.
She also told the court that after De Garis resigned she asked all her staff if they knew in advance about the raid. They all said no so she didn’t make further inquiries
Ven
The idea that we are safe because we are under some US umbrella is not only absurd but quite dangerous.
As loyal members of the British Empire we were under the protection of the Royal Navy until of course we weren’t because it became otherwise preoccupied in the early 1940s.
Then we latched ourselves on to the US Empire. The US will come to our aid if it is in their interest so to do. The US will not come to our aid if, at the time, they have other more important interests.
Australia is a bigger and stronger country than it was pre-WW2. It should adopt an independent foreign policy and an independent defence policy.
The US is not an Asian/west Pacific/indian Ocean Power. It has different interests, objectives and priorities to Australia.
Our politicians who slavishly follow the USA in foreign and defence do the country a disservice and potentially undermine our security.
sprocket_ says:
The Ministry of Silly Walks ?
BoerWar,
In your PB hiatus, did you revise your opinion on the desirability of the continued unfettered behaviour of the SW Queensland/Northern NSW cotton industry, and their practice of placing levees around their properties to stop runoff into rivers, and of damming rivers that happen to pass through their properties, to prevent any flow at all downstream? I think $10 billion export sales by these ,mostly foreign owned, companies was your reason for supporting these, no doubt, thoroughly upstanding, law abiding, (non) tax paying farmers.
Do you think that the massive fish kills, and destruction of downstream towns and farming, may have changed the minds of those with opinions like your own? How about yourself? (As an example only, you understand).
sprocket_ @ #1949 Friday, February 15th, 2019 – 1:58 pm
It is interesting that only Hunt and Banks were named.
There have been dozens of wars involving nuclear-armed combatants since the end of World War Two.
I suggest this falsifies the notion that there is no point in investing in a military unless it is in nuclear weapons.
China has been involved in border fighting with India, Russia, Pakistan and Vietnam. Russia and the US have been involved in several dozen military actions.
IMO, the main purpose of Australia having a powerful conventional military is never having to use it in war. The problem here is that we keep doing the opposite – wasting huge sums on military adventures for no particular strategic gain.
In this context the point of our military expenditure is to demonstrate (a) a willingness to fight and (b) a preparedness and capacity to make any gains too uncertain and/or too costly to risk initiating a war.
In this context both the JSFs and the subs are, IMO, a reasonable investment in principle. I am sceptical that in practice the contractual arrangements are as good as they might be. They are the two platforms most likely to inflict huge losses on approaching shipping. This may change in the future.
IMO, and FWIW, ANZUS and the US Alliance are detrimental to this strategic approach.
From that Flinders poll it seems to me that Banks is getting 10 points off Hunt and half the Green vote. Hunt is looking vulnerable but should win based on that. IMO.
There seems to be a hell of a lot of comment on Submarines today.
The following is a link to a wonderful video on submarine warfare in WW2.
Truly wonderful story of young women, schoolgirls really, that won the submarine war in the Atlantic.
I have watched this a couple of times and well worth the time spent.
https://youtu.be/fVet82IUAqQ
Nice verballing of BW there, Yabba.
Regarding the Ucomm poll in Flinders posted by sprocket_.
The other two interesting bits are: (1) Hunt is most popular among the 18-34 group, in fact he has a majority in that cohort. (2) Greens have twice the support among Males than Females.
I would not have guessed at this result.
Late Riser
says:
Friday, February 15, 2019 at 3:14 pm
Regarding the Ucomm poll in Flinders posted by sprocket_.
The other two interesting bits are: (1) Hunt is most popular among the 18-34 group, in fact he has a majority in that cohort. (2) Greens have twice the support among Males than Females.
I would not have guessed at this result.
_________________________________
the low ALP vote for 18-34 seems odd. Greens voting women supporting Banks less so.
nath says:
Friday, February 15, 2019 at 3:11 pm
That seems to support zoomster’s theory that about half the Green vote is a soft protest vote.
Where does the Hunt v ALP 48-52 come from? Respondent allocated prefs? Pinch of salt stuff in a seat poll of this size with an ex lib indie. Hunt will no doubt find ample reason to ignore it…. then go pleading for campaign funds. The libs will be spread thin.
Why would he have? Another thing we’re doing here any more is reactivating tired old arguments.
I don’t know who Ucomm is, but 52.8 for Hunt among 18-34s is weird.
Dandy Murray @ #2091 Friday, February 15th, 2019 – 3:14 pm
Not verballing, just summarising. Read his posts ridiculing myself and many others in his inimitable style. I am sure he doesn’t need you to justify his, no doubt, well thought out, and factually based (former?) position.
“If that was central to commentary reforming the EU economic model would be talked about more”…
Indeed. Rejecting Neoliberalism is central to the politics needed to reform the EU and to solving all the troubles they are in at the moment, including unemployment, sinking living standards, the rise of fringe activist movements, Brexit… and Neo-fascism. It will take still some time, but they will get there, especially once the USA get rid of Trump and elect a Democrat President with a strong Social Democratic agenda. Then it will be talked about more, read my lips.
Many of us wish that the pace of change was faster, but for as long as the Evolution proceeds always in the correct direction I would be happy. The coming Shorten ALP Government in Australia will be also an important part of this move for change.
In any event: What’s the alternative?…. I frankly can’t see any that would preserve Democracy and restore Fairness. There is no Socialist Revolution coming, there is no Anarchic alternative, but plenty of Neo-fascist ideas and interests waiting for an opportunity to come to the fore and protect the Neoliberal economic order.
Yeah, nah, yabba