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.
lefty_e @ #2199 Friday, February 15th, 2019 – 5:38 pm
Bring on the Federal ICAC!
Flinders Poll
Hunt PV: ~40%
Thumb rule: If the pv falls below 43% in safe seats, it will be very difficult to win. Examples : Melbourne Ports and Wentworth.
frednk
‘Since goat farming has started ( they only started to have a commercial value in the last 20 years) the feral goat population has fallen.’
Of course. Once you start farming them they are no longer feral…(yes, I know, how smarstarse of me).
The real issue is that, on a continental scale, there is no management of goat grazing loads and that whole swathes of country (for example west of Broken Hill/Tibooburra) are being completely denuded of native veg cover. I have personal observations of areas which are being ‘managed’ for goats where there is zero native plant reveg. The goats are knocking it off before it has any chance at all of developing a seed set.
I suggest that one of the issues is cultural. Australian graziers do not want to be known as goat farmers. So everyone sort of does not mention what is happening…
Wouldn’t it be hilarious if Peter Dutton had to forfeit his wealth after the election, and after a Federal ICAC have run the fine tooth comb over his actions in government, as being the Proceeds of Crime. 😆
Yabba
‘It is an almost trivial calculation to determine that for Cubbie Station to bring to harvest the area it plants to cotton has required between 3 and 11 times the rainfall that has fallen on the property over the past ten years. Two of those years were high rainfall years. Digest that!’
I am not sure what point you are making.
If the point is that irrigation water does not necessarily come from the area in which the irrigation occurs, then I agree.
This is almost universally true for irrigation water around the globe.
The first order issue is that the MDB allocates a proportion of the useable water to irrigation.
That water is then purchased in a competitive market for use by irrigators.
These irrigators do so on the basis of ROI for all their inputs.
This input would include the uncertain and low level of rain at, for example, Cubby.
You may be making a different point that I have not picked up on.
Its the time of the month where I work where they gather us together and attempt to bore us to death with an update on the organisation and the latest corporate line that we need to toe.
As the subject of closing nuclear reactors has come up recently here and I work with a couple of guys who have worked on a number of nuclear reactors in the UK and Europe, I used the monthly bore session to ask them about their views on the closing of nuclear reactors.
Within their area of expertise, which covers all thermal power plants (including concentrated solar thermal), nuclear power plants experience the same problems that all other aging thermal power plants do, and like all other thermal plants, you get to a point where the tremendous expenditure required to rectify the problems makes it uneconomic to do so.
Boerwar
The goat population in the back country has fallen, if you like. Goats now have a value; there are people who make a living sending them to market. When they had no value control was a cost; a cost that was never covered.
What has changed, you will no longer see sheep in the area, the new generation don’t care what they are called.
swamprat says:
Friday, February 15, 2019 at 2:25 pm
Poroti
Isn’t it more likely that the devil put Morrison (given his mistreatment of the poor and refugees and creation generally) on the throne and god is trying to get rid of him?
……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
The absurdity, not to mention arrogance, of declarations that God put such-and-such a ruler, president, prime minister or lord protector in charge of such-and-such a country has never ceased to amaze me.
Does that mean Hitler, Stalin, Genghis Khan, to name only the best-remembered of evil rulers, were also placed in their positions of power by God?
The belief that God wills this or that is either a cop-out or the refuge of a scoundrel.
Believe in a personal God if you wish, but don’t wash your hands of your responsibility for what happens in this world.
Just got an ad to sign a franking credit petition. They are sure doing their best to try and keep the scam alive. Zero taxation for all I say.
So, what has been the local reaction to the facebook post about Christian Porter you alluded to earlier, grimace?
Sir Henry Parkes says:
Friday, February 15, 2019 at 5:37 pm
‘I’ve never been convinced Australia needs these expensive submarines, not when there are so many other things we could spend taxpayers’ dollars on. I’m not anti-defence, as some on the far left appear to be. We do need a military to defend us in case of dangerous events, in this not-so-perfect world of ours.
But I cannot see what purpose these submarines would fulfil in the foreseeable future, that could not be met by our existing defence weaponry. Of course the navy would say it needs them, just as the police and security services say they need more powers.’
1. The strategic purpose of the submarines is to increase the perceived risk that an invasion would incur unacceptable losses to invasion shipping.
2. The larger strategic purpose is to provide an unacceptable threat to China’s POL supplies, 40% of which transit the Indian Ocean, and which are well within the scope and capabilities of the both the Collins and the future subs.
3. No other platform is currently able to meet these strategic outcomes.
4. The submarine should not be assessed in isolation but in combination. So the subs would have a significant multiplier effect if operated in combination with the JSFs.
And always rememeber: the Greens noise about defence acquisition is in inverse proportion to their intention to provide Australia with a credible conventional defence force.
The Greens’ ONLY announced military nostrum, a ‘light mobile force’ is a recipe for military disaster.
Ven
Sorry but your statement about nukes, India and Pakistan is just wrong. India first detonated a bomb in 1974, Pakistan in 1998. Pakistan attacked India several times in between and once just after the 1998 tests, plus the terror attack on India’s parliament. Here is one of several examples.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kargil_War
Nuclear proliferation is insanely dangerous, when you consider that any country can wind up with a Donald Trump in charge.
frednk
I am intrigued to know if you have data on goat numbers.
How can a Government sell Vales Point, a publicly funded power station for $1 million and it is then valued 2 years later at $730 million??
swamprat @ #1694 Friday, February 15th, 2019 – 4:57 pm
If you’re reading the article in the Guardian, it is also worth asking why it was sold if it could have made a profit of $113m for NSW, to be used for the state or to reduce power prices.
Swamprat
It would be interesting to know if they are including the large liability to decomission and remediate the site in that value? Some old coal power stations are worth less than their potential costs IFF conditions to clean them up are enforced…
C@tmomma @ #2210 Friday, February 15th, 2019 – 2:54 pm
1. Content I dare not repost lest I incur the wrath of William
2. Speculation as to whether it is true or not;
3. Accusations that there was partisan motivation behind the posting (the OP is *not* a member of the local Labor Party branch);
4. It’s not a nice thing to say about the wonderful Mr Porter
5. It’s not true
Late Riser
The other great mystery to me is what sort of justice system do we have when the prisons are not full of thieving Tory politicians and thieving business types?? 🙂
Here’s some info on goat exports
https://www.weeklytimesnow.com.au/agribusiness/live-goat-exports-plummet-as-demand-declines/news-story/2260483c3c47f298011e6433e95c6cb3
It would seem to me that if they are not being rounded up for sale and export the buggers will breed. and they do that pretty well I hear.
Might be enough for Bromberg J but I am still waiting for the bit where Cash directed the ROC (or the ROC felt directed) to conduct the investigation into the AWU.
The ordinary principle would be that something exceptional or overwhelming would need to be demonstrated to stop any investigation. I am not seeing it at the moment.
I see from the SMH report that the AWU had to get her declared as a hostile witness because the AWU had to call her as a witness under its subpoena. That sounds like fun but the AWU was naturally limited with what it could do in cross-examination before that time and then it is suggestion/denial afterwards.
C@tmomma @ #2202 Friday, February 15th, 2019 – 5:43 pm
C@t, I doubt that Dutton’s wealth comes from the Paladin Scam -see my post from this morning:
rhwombat (Block)
Friday, February 15th, 2019 – 10:27 am
Comment #1774
EB @ #21685 Friday, February 15th, 2019 – 7:45 am
lizzie says:
Friday, February 15, 2019 at 7:37 am
Why the special treatment of Paladin? Crikey
Did i hear right that Paladin was the only Co invited to tender last time; Dutton must have invested in Palladin, he is a rich bas…d.
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.
Boerwar says:
Friday, February 15, 2019 at 5:56 pm
frednk
I am intrigued to know if you have data on goat numbers.
I can for sure find the numbers before harvesting started; it was a serious problem; goats do very well in the back country. I can get numbers of the number removed since harvesting started, it is serious numbers, with it now being viable to farm them in the front country because of lack of feral supply . The actual number left very much depends on the season so it requires a longitudinal survey, but as supply is now an issue the number has definitely fallen. If there is a market humans can hunt anything to extinction.
frednk @ #2222 Friday, February 15th, 2019 – 6:13 pm
Perhaps we need to put a price on humans?
Or farm it. I recall an amusing recent discussion here on toad farming.
rhwombat,
I saw that post but was thinking more along the lines of ‘an office of profit under the Crown’ wrt his Child Care Centres.
At this point I think there would be widespread support for a Federal ICAC with powers to review multiple incidents in the current parliament. For example, what if a minister with high internet usage was actually running a side business at taxpayer expense? Or another with a large shareholding refused to declare it and voted on relevant legislation. Or what if one party received large donations while implementing a federally funded management plan? There is a lot to look at.
Considering Coalition witch hunts of the CFMEU, Labor owes it no favours. Plus there is a legitimate public interest in exposing conflicts and abuse of power. The coalition myth of superior management could really be buried if a Tony Fitzgerald type were let loose with investigative resources.
I would strongly recommend adding investigation of the tendering processes for some rural rail lines and urban freeways as well.
rossmcg
The price for goats is very good; often exceeding what is offered for lamb. The rules are also very different. Lamb is not to have any adult teeth. A goat can be any age, sex and if an adult male does not have to be wethered.
A lot in this David Rowe…
Boerwar says:
Friday, February 15, 2019 at 5:54 pm
Sir Henry Parkes says:
Friday, February 15, 2019 at 5:37 pm
‘I’ve never been convinced Australia needs these expensive submarines, not when there are so many other things we could spend taxpayers’ dollars on. I’m not anti-defence, as some on the far left appear to be. We do need a military to defend us in case of dangerous events, in this not-so-perfect world of ours.
But I cannot see what purpose these submarines would fulfil in the foreseeable future, that could not be met by our existing defence weaponry. Of course the navy would say it needs them, just as the police and security services say they need more powers.’
-0-
Ok Boer War, you’re the resident defence expert, so a few questions:
How much has the United States spent on defence since the end of World War II?
What was the most significant attack on the United States in that period, and perhaps in U.S. history?
How much did the attackers spend to get that result?
What was it that President Dwight D. Eisenhower warned his fellow Americans about in his farewell speech as he left office?
I’ll let you phone a friend, or even Greg Sheridan to get the answers.
frednk
Oh.
In that case, one statistical problem would be calibrating for the impact of the record drought.
I think we can probably go to something like there is regional variation in the impact of feral goats and that in some regions goats are speeding up Australia’s desertification.
I admire Julia Baird using the Drum as a platform for her continuing advocacy on women’s issues. Such a contrast with the commercial stations.
Player One says:
Friday, February 15, 2019 at 6:14 pm
frednk @ #2222 Friday, February 15th, 2019 – 6:13 pm
If there is a market humans can hunt anything to extinction.
Perhaps we need to put a price on humans?
I am not trying to be nasty; but that is my problems with the Greens; it seems to be the only solution on offer. Education and birth control is a lot more acceptable solution.
The Empire of ‘The Greater United States’
Quite an interesting read:
https://www.theguardian.com/news/2019/feb/15/the-us-hidden-empire-overseas-territories-united-states-guam-puerto-rico-american-samoa
I know is it just straws in the wind, but on ABC “Just In” news there are 19 items currently listed. Not one, that I can see, is anything to do with “boats”. If I were Scotty, I would be a bit disappointed. Mind you, on talk back local radio in Perth this morning there seemed to be some kind of “Just wait until the first boat turns up. Shorten is finished” from the self-proclaimed gurus. When one of the smarter ones pointed out that there has been no news about any boats and this is kind of Hush-Hush stuff for years, they smugly proclaimed that “news would get out”. The hypocrisy associated with such an act seemed to be beyond their shallow thinking. However, you gets what you gets on 6PR in Perth.
Boerwar says:
Friday, February 15, 2019 at 6:22 pm
frednk
Oh.
In that case, one statistical problem would be calibrating for the impact of the record drought.
I think we can probably go to something like there is regional variation in the impact of feral goats and that in some regions goats are speeding up Australia’s desertification.
I have no issue with the claim that feral goats cause desertification; where i have issues is rules that prevented there management for commercial purposes. A goat does not need a farmer to keep it alive; it does need a farmer to send it off to market. A dead goat to market is tasty and not causing desertification.
‘Ok Boer War, you’re the resident defence expert, so a few questions:’
I prefer ‘thoughtful and well-read armchair warrior whose sensibilities go to extended family members who suffered terribly as a result of being on the losing side in a war.’ But if you insist on ‘expert’, so be it.
‘How much has the United States spent on defence since the end of World War II?’
Far too much. Debt funded as well. $22 trillion in the red and climbing rapidly.
‘What was the most significant attack on the United States in that period, and perhaps in U.S. history?’
9/11.
‘How much did the attackers spend to get that result?’
Too much.
‘What was it that President Dwight D. Eisenhower warned his fellow Americans about in his farewell speech as he left office?’
Beware the military industrial complex.
‘I’ll let you phone a friend, or even Greg Sheridan to get the answers.’
I am glad you have not confused the two.
‘mikehilliard says:
Friday, February 15, 2019 at 6:22 pm
I admire Julia Baird using the Drum as a platform for her continuing advocacy on women’s issues. Such a contrast with the commercial stations.’
Snap. Just having a conversation about my wife about the very notion of an all-woman panel discussing women’s issues in mainstream media. How very powerful. Apart from that, the discussions and the perspectives have been very interesting.
booleanbach @ #1713 Friday, February 15th, 2019 – 5:24 pm
Agreed. Still chewing my way through it.
frednk
I sort of agree in principle but find the practice wanting.
Goats are not just another grazer so they need appropriate and far more intense management than they are currently getting.
There is a muster. There is a sorting. Breeders are chased back out. And that is that.
The exception would be where there are deliberate whole-of-property investments (goat proof fences around paddocks for rotation grazing, etc, etc, etc).
frednk @ #2232 Friday, February 15th, 2019 – 6:23 pm
I would agree with that. But I think you can count on your fingers and toes the number of years before we start seeing the other solution implemented in some parts of the world.
First, they will call it “war”. Later, they may eventually concede it was simply a cull 🙁
The ZPG Movement couldn’t even make a dent on population growth when it was popular because not enough of the people that need to heed its warnings are listening.
frednk
A question, if I may: ‘What do you mean by ‘back country’?
Cash’s answers were direct so unless someone can show she lied under oath then I don’t see how any type of improper behavior on her part can be shown.
Dear me, people can’t follow an argument.
I was not questioning whether or not submarines are justifiable. I was seeing if Rex had expert evidence on which to place his assertion that submarines were not justifiable.
Follow this: Rex asserts we should follow experts advice, and cites the purchase of submarines as an example of where expert advice should have been followed. Therefore, Rex, in dismissing the ‘experts’ in Defence, must have contrary and more weighty expert advice. If he doesn’t Rex is doing the opposite of what he proposes, and is rejecting ‘expert’ advice without justification.
Rex listed three examples. I could have asked Rex the same question on any of them.
Zoidlord@4:19pm
Ex-president of Nauru seeks asylum in Australia
Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha……
I thought we do not give asylum to anybody from Nauru
Will they or won’t they?
Frednk
I have a friend who often extolled the virtues of goat farming based in her experience as a younger woman.
There is good demand for the meat, fibre and milk.
But she was talking about a more managed situation. I doubt she would approve of allowing them to roam the rangelands along with the feral horses, donkeys and camels.
Sheep are no longer viable in many parts of WA where they were once prolific but the goats are still there, chewing away.
BW Here is the MDBA’ own description of its River Operations.
http://www.murrayriver.com.au/about-the-murray/water-use-and-consumption/
The MDBA meets States water requirements along the Murray with minimum wastage by:
Storing water in the wetter winter/spring months and later releasing it during the drier summer/autumn months to meet supply requirements.
Making releases from the most downstream storage first to minimise losses due to spill.
Making timely releases from major sources to accurately match water supply with demand, with close attention paid to the time it takes for flow to travel along the Murray. The upper States assist by estimating and advising the Commission of their future water requirements at each off-take point along the Murray and also by estimating future tributary inflows.
Using a network of flow gauging stations along the Murray and its tributaries to continuously monitor river flows.
Utilizing mid-river storages to re-regulate flows if supplies do not exactly match demand.
Other operational objectives defined in the Agreement include:
Providing dilution flows of up to 2,450 ML/day and 3,900 ML/day past Euston and Torrumbarry Weirs respectively, to prevent the salinity of river water at Merbein and Swan Hill from exceeding 500 EC units as far as possible. These flows are in addition to downstream water supply requirements.
Providing a depth of water at locks and weirs sufficient for navigation by vessels drawing 1.4m of water.
There are numerous other, often conflicting requirements that the MDBA attempts to meet in its operations. It does this provided that the water conservation objective is not significantly prejudiced. Other requirements include:
Proving flood protection
Improving water quality
Protecting and enhancing the river environment
Allowing electricity generation
Meeting recreational needs.
The MDBA would release stored water to meet such objectives, however, at the request of a State, with the water being taken from that State’s share of MDBA available water.
………… end quote.
Note where ‘Protecting and enhancing the river environment’ comes. Third last. And note the final sentence. How often do you think that the NSW and Victorian governments put the environment before irrigators?
davidwh @ #2242 Friday, February 15th, 2019 – 6:38 pm
The Alan Bond defense isn’t illegal, but it is convenient.
It has not long been on 7 news that there has been 64,932 asylum seekers that have arrived by plane in the last 4 years. Over 27,000 in the last year alone.Riley says there has rarely been a whimper about this by the Government.