The addition of this week’s Newspoll and Essential Research polls have ended a period of improvement for the Coalition in BludgerTrack, which records a solid shift to Labor this week. Labor’s two-party lead is now 53.8-46.2, out from 53.1-46.9 last week, and they have made two gains on the seat projection, one in New South Wales and one in Queensland. Despite that, the Newspoll leadership numbers have resulted in an improvement in Scott Morrison’s reading on the net approval trend. Full results are available through the link below – if you can’t get the state breakdown tabs to work, try doing a hard refresh.
National polling news:
• A poll result from Roy Morgan circulated earlier this week, although there’s no mention of it on the company’s website. The primary votes are Labor 36%, Coalition 34.5% and Greens 12.5%, which pans out to a Labor lead of 54-46 using past preference flows (thanks Steve777). Morgan continues to conduct weekly face-to-face polling, but the results are only made public when Gary Morgan has a point to make – which on this occasion is that Clive Palmer’s United Australia Party is on all of 1%. One Nation doesn’t do great in the poll either, recording 3%. The poll was conducted over two weekends from a sample of 1673.
• The Australian had supplementary questions from this week’s Newspoll on Tuesday, which had Scott Morrison favoured over Bill Shorten by 48-33 on the question of best leader handle the economy – little different from his 50-32 lead in October, or the size of the lead consistently held by Malcolm Turnbull. It also found 33% saying the government should prioritise funding of services, compared with 27% for cutting personal income tax and 30% for paying down debt.
• The Australian also confused me by publishing, together with the Newspoll voting intention numbers on Monday, results on franking credits and “reducing tax breaks for investors” – derived not from last weekend’s poll, but earlier surveys in December and November (UPDATE: Silly me – the next column along is the total from the latest poll). The former found 48% opposed to Labor’s franking credits policy and 30% in support, compared with 50% and 33% when it was first floated in March (UPDATE: So the latest poll actually has support back up five to 35% and opposition down two to 38%). Respondents were instructed that the policy was “expected to raise $5.5 billion a year from around 900,000 Australians that receive income from investments in shares”, which I tend to think is friendlier to Labor than a question that made no effort to explain the policy would have been. The tax breaks produced a stronger result for Labor, with 47% in favour and 33% opposed, although this was down on 54% and 28% in April (UPDATE: Make that even better results for Labor – support up four to 51%, opposition down one to 32%).
With due recognition of Kevin Bonham’s campaign against sketchy reports of seat polling, let the record note the following:
• Ben Packham of The Australian reports Nationals polling shows them in danger of losing Page to Labor and Cowper to Rob Oakeshott. Part of the problem, it seems, is a minuscule recognition rating for the party’s leader, one Michael McCormack.
• There’s a uComms/ReachTEL poll of Flinders for GetUp! doing the rounds, conducted on Wednesday from a sample of 634, which has Liberal member Greg Hunt on 40.7%, an unspecified Labor candidate on 29.4% and ex-Liberal independent Julia Banks on 16.1%. That would seem to put the result down to the wild card of Banks’ preference flows. There was apparently a respondent-allocated two-party figure with the result, but I haven’t seen it. UPDATE: Turns out it was 54-46 in favour of Greg Hunt, which seems a bit much.
• The West Australian reported last weekend that a uComms/ReachTel poll for GetUp! had Christian Porter leading 52-48 in Pearce, which is above market expectations for him.
• Another week before, The West Australian reported Labor internal polling had it with a 51.5-48.5 lead in Stirling.
Preselection news:
• Following Nigel Scullion’s retirement announcement last month, the Northern Territory News reports a field of eight nominees for his Country Liberal Party Senate seat: Joshua Burgoyne, an Alice Springs electrician, who was earlier preselected for the second position on the ticket behind Scullion; Bess Price, who held the remote seat of Stuart in the territory parliament from 2012 to 2016, and whose high-profile daughter Jacinta Price is the party’s candidate for Lingiari; Tony Schelling, a financial adviser; Tim Cross, former general manager of NT Correctional Industries; Gary Haslett, a Darwin councillor; Kris Civitarese, deputy mayor of Tennant Creek; Linda Fazldeen, from the Northern Territory’s Department of Trade, Business and Innovation; and Bill Yan, general manager at the Alice Springs Correctional Centre.
• Andrew Burrell of The Australian reports Liberal nominees to succeed Michael Keenan in Stirling include Vince Connelly, Woodside Petroleum risk management adviser and former army officer; Joanne Quinn, a lawyer for Edith Cowan University; Michelle Sutherland, a teacher and the wife of Michael Sutherland, former state member for Mount Lawley; Georgina Fraser, a 28-year-old “oil and gas executive”; and Taryn Houghton, “head of community engagement at a mental health service, HelpingMinds”. No further mention of Tom White, general manager of Uber in Japan and a former adviser to state MP and local factional powerbroker Peter Collier, who was spruiked earlier. The paper earlier reported that Karen Caddy, a former Rio Tinto engineer, had her application rejected after state council refused to give her the waiver required for those who were not party members of one year’s standing.
• The Nationals candidate for Indi is Mark Byatt, a Wodonga-based manager for Regional Development Victoria.
Dave – I am not sure anyone knew what they wanted to achieve in Vietnam. The Americans had no end game, so I doubt the Australians did either.
Anyone remember to bring some….
confessions
That does rather indicate that the Boomers were all over the place on some key issues.
clem attlee @ #446 Saturday, February 16th, 2019 – 7:39 pm
Albo is a Labor partisan and will shift to whatever position Labor requires.
“Albanese is a neo liberal, he is not of the left.”
Hi Clem.
How’s the shark jumping off St Kilda pier these days?
‘B.S. Fairman says:
Saturday, February 16, 2019 at 7:41 pm
Dave – I am not sure anyone knew what they wanted to achieve in Vietnam. The Americans had no end game, so I doubt the Australians did either.’
Actually I did follow the war aims discussions at the time:
Stop the dominoes!
“Albo is a Labor partisan and will shift to whatever position Labor requires.”
# pollbludgerafterdark lives.
Blessed day!
And beside the empty bottles of Mateus Rose with a candle in them in the Uni Share House in the 70s and 80s was one of these:
🙂
Blue Nun was for rich Boomers.
cat
Snap! My OH just nominated exactly that as a cultural icon du jour.
poroti
I do remember Blue Nun.
And these!
Quasar @ #432 Saturday, February 16th, 2019 – 7:27 pm
Yep – understandable.
For me the ‘parent company’ ie Nine Entertainment, which now owns Nine Newspapers (was Fairfax) – says it all – they are in the business of ‘entertainment’ and that reflects on the website. You have to really dig down to find ‘news’ etc.
I turn to BK’s dawn patrol each morning as a far better alternative.
Many thanks as always BK 🙂
Boerwar:
It isn’t unheard of for me to lay out a cheese plate with rose as a lunch offering for unexpected guests. 😀
#standsthetestoftime
Report on a no-chance Greens candidate who has spent many months and thousands of dollars chasing up authorities in the UK, Germany, Ukraine, Russia, China and Hungary to ensure he’s not ineligible under Section 44.
https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/a-14-month-battle-to-run-for-parliament-a-triple-citizen-s-experience-20190215-p50y3i.html
I can remember my parents teaching themselves the difference between a Spaetlese and a Gewurtztraminer with their Len Evans Tasting Dozens. 😀
Was Barossa Pearl a close relative of Porphyry Pearl?
Dan Gulberry @ #448 Saturday, February 16th, 2019 – 7:40 pm
No, not really. The stuff you extract has a higher than normal concentration of uranium, gold and copper (and probably many other heavy metals as well). You took it out of the ground to process it precisely for that reason … but then what? Both the gold and copper extraction processes tend to be toxic processes. And once you process it, then (even if you can just leave the uranium untouched, which I doubt) you can’t just rebury the remaining slag where you dug it up from – at least not without waiting till all extraction from that particular mine has finished.
So you have to store it somewhere in the meantime.
So, basically, you end up with a big pile of slag that is slightly radioactive and highly toxic.
Interesting discussion on the principles of ore extraction on PB tonight. What little I know is that most ores are a dense variable conglomeration of different crystals of valuable minerals.
First step is comminution, which means breaking the ore into very fine pieces, essentially to allow individual minerals to be separated from each other. The size and distribution of the crystals in the ore determines how small the pieces need to be made. It is an inexact process with widely varying ranges of piece sizes, from micro to nano-metre sizes resulting, what a layman might call dust.
The second step is separation, using the different physical (density) and surface chemical properties of the crystals to imperfectly but preferentially select them into different concentrates. Lots of water and unpleasant substances are typically used in this process. The concentrates may or may not be further treated for storage and transport.
There is also a lot of waste. Due to the imperfection of the separation processes the waste will have some of each original valuable crystals in it, as will the concentrates have impurities of both valuable and non-valuable material. If uranium is mined it will be present in each concentrate to some degree and in the waste as well. The key is the percentage. There is radioactivity literally everywhere in the world, and on the whole most of us don’t care, and neither should we.
Finally, I think Olympic Dam is an underground hard rock mine. There are different mining methods but a common one creates enormous underground rooms, the size of small skyscrapers. They are really big empty spaces. And they cause problems for the miners. They are unstable. The best solution is to fill them in with stuff that you don’t want any more, such as the waste. Mixing the uranium concentrate with the waste and “putting it back” would seem a good option to look into, if indeed the uranium is no longer “valuable”.
I’ll leave the economics for someone else to describe.
BK
An attempted revival…………
Barossa Pearl is back!
Barossa Pearl has been reborn! Stop the presses!
Well, maybe not.
Like many Baby Boomers, I felt the tiniest pang of nostalgia when I heard this history-making wine had been revived……………….. With its distinctive green label, skittle shaped bottle, screwcap and plastic stopper, this lightly fizzing sweet-ish party wine was credited with changing the drinking habits of the nation in the 1950s and ‘60s. It was instrumental in converting sherry drinkers to light unfortified wines, kick-starting the table wine boom of the ‘60s and ‘70s. God, my parents even drank it occasionally. Along with the odd Seppelt Moyston Claret and Romalo Sparkling Burgundy.
https://www.therealreview.com/2014/12/03/barossa-pearl-is-back/
William Bowe @ #464 Saturday, February 16th, 2019 – 4:53 pm
S44 seriously needs reform in my view.
Mum and Dad were Ben Ean fans.
Remember them serving that during a party in November 1975. Days after Gough was sacked. It was a hot steamy night Upnorth. Neil Diamond’s “Hot August Night” was on the turntable.
William Bowe @ #395 Saturday, February 16th, 2019 – 7:53 pm
If this unfortunate person is ever persuaded to wear a camouflage outfit – he will possibly blend in with the Universe at large and probably just float away.
Goodnight all. 📺 Ambulance. 💤
WB
I must admit I had previously had little sympathy for the duals, actual or potential.
But that article does solidly demonstrate that it would be worth a go at changing the Constitution.
William, the sanitization of “your” blog is over the top. In days of yore, one praised in public, admonished in private.
William Bowe @ #464 Saturday, February 16th, 2019 – 7:53 pm
This is a reasonable argument for having a government department dedicated to resolving citizenship issues for prospective candidates … but not for allowing dual (or triple!) citizens in our parliament.
LR
Thanks. Interesting.
Scott Morrison rejects suggestions parliamentary tactics were used to avoid disability royal commission vote –
“We were prepared to allow that motion to go through on Thursday afternoon.The simple fact was the motion wasn’t coming back to the House of Representatives on Thursday afternoon. Were it coming back, it would have passed through the House.”
But on Friday leader of the House Christopher said this –
“We weren’t going to be railroaded by the Senate into making a snap decision. It will be considered properly”
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-02-16/scott-morrison-rejects-suggestions-he-avoided-disability-vote/10818878?section=politics.
So whose lying ?
The Disability Royal Commission Bill and the Nats supported amendments to the obscure Treasury Laws Amendment (2018 Measures No5) bill designed to help in competition law cases such as farmers and suppliers taking on Coles and Woolworths in court for misuse of market power will make it a tough week for the Morrison Government – they are facing 2 possible defeats in the HOR.
Maybe Pine can find a way to turn the HOR into a non stop question time for the entire week. In his dreams. Pine and Morrison better have a chat over the weekend about at least making their lies consistent.
The NAT’s are out to make themselves relevant to their constituents by threatening to cross the floor [Joyce, Broad,Pitt] to back the senate passed Treasury Laws Amendment (2018 Measures No5) bill and JSJ has a bone he won’t get go of till the HOR passes a RC in the Disability sector. For the first and probably only ever time I say ‘go get em barnacle’.
Zafiro Añejo. The world’s most expensive and deadly Tequila
Cold Duck.
A sparkling red in a white plastic coated bottle.
Reported at the the time (the mid 70s) to have aphrodisiac qualities.
Never worked for me.
All these years later I am a fan of sparkling Shiraz, particularly those from Bleasedale in SA’s Langhorne Creek region
And the fortified Shiraz goes OK as well
The Liberals’ real policy (https://ipa.org.au/ipa-review-articles/be-like-gough-75-radical-ideas-to-transform-australia) also includes several objectives that aim to protect coal and block action on climate change:
1 Repeal the carbon tax, and don’t replace it….
2 Abolish the Department of Climate Change
3 Abolish the Clean Energy Fund
6 Repeal the renewable energy target
10 Withdraw from the Kyoto Protocol
Make no mistake, the Coalition are incapable of acting on climate change even if they wanted to (which they don’t). They will only ever produce a pretend bullshit scheme like Direct Inaction or the NEG as it was shaping up in the last days of Malcolm.
EB
‘The NAT’s are out to make themselves relevant to their constituents by threatening to cross the floor…’
Yep.
“WB
I must admit I had previously had little sympathy for the duals, actual or potential.
But that article does solidly demonstrate that it would be worth a go at changing the Constitution.”
Indeed. Given that he renounced his British citizenship it’s kinda a pity he didn’t leave it at that, given his ancestors General statelessness, and ran and won (I know, I know, he’s a dirty Greenie) just so Justice Keifel could look suitability embarrassed (if that was a human emotion she’s capable of possessing) over the inflexible hot mess her High Court has made of s.44
S777
Yep. The next election will be dual referenda on whether to take Global Warming seriously and on whether to do something serious about the Wealth Gap.
B.S. Fairman @ #451 Saturday, February 16th, 2019 – 7:41 pm
Well – the Australians wanted to and did fight a totally different war to that of the US, who were classic in using the ‘approach’ of the previous war.
The US thought their ‘might’ firepower would prevail.
You ‘bumped’ the point I was making that the Australian Government deployed our troops, our conscripts without telling our military what they were to ‘DO”.
Our system is that the elected government tell the military what the gaol is – well in theory anyway (sometimes)….
Australian peak strength at Nui Dat was about 7,000, so a re-reinforce Brigade, 3 Infantry Battalions at a time with reasonable supporting arms and logistics – not ever going to ‘win’ a war.
But after Long Tan they dominated Phuoc Tuy province (said in a historic factual sense – a not drum beating way).
Ham makes the point that every Task Force Commander set his own and different aims etc, without Australian Government input, BUT they dominated Phuoc Tuy – making some huge blunders along the way – resulting in many Australian deaths.
One of the biggest mistakes was the laying of a barrier minefield, not covered by weapon fire and constant effective patrolling with the predictable result – the Vietnamese, ‘lifted’ huge numbers of mines , killing many of their own until they perfected the technique – then used the explosives back against our troops in bobby traps etc etc.
The 1970s
Sydney inner city. Group houses. All those bottles. Beer. Parties. Gough. Arts Factory. Frenches. The Old Push. And more.
Glebe, Surry Hills, Darlo, Chippendale Newtown, (Golden Grove), Enmore, Redfern, Balmain, Rozelle.
Hair, Music, Volkswagon Beetles and more.
I left as the eighties dawned. It was never the same ( neither was I)
Its all wealthy now, quieter, posh.
The police would ask to finish the parties as the sun appeared.
My group and their destiny would amaze. There’s no need to name them.
We still get together.
We were always told that the purpose of fighting in Vietnam was to stop them (the Communists) there before they arrived on our doorstep. The domino theory. Red China’s thrust between the Indian and Pacific Oceans. No one knew what that meant but it sounded scary. Election posters with red arrows thrusting down through SE Asia aiming for Australia.
Liberals lying and talking crap is nothing new. They were doing it over 50 years ago.
Steve777 @ #486 Saturday, February 16th, 2019 – 8:22 pm
Yep – Spot on.
Unfortunately.
Re: Olympic Dam and radioactive/toxic waste …
Reading this article …
https://www.smh.com.au/business/companies/bhp-billiton-wants-to-increase-radioactive-waste-storage-at-olympic-dam-but-opponents-say-leakage-rates-will-rise-20150111-12ltwq.html
… it is clear that Olympic Dam already has problems storing enough toxic and radioactive waste. Your best bet when mining appears to be to concentrate the toxic residues as much as you can, because you just have to physically store it on site (and hope it never leaks out!). I think that if they did not extract the uranium for export, they would just end up with more problems, because their tailings would be more radioactive.
So the best option night be to continue to extract the uranium, in order to minimize the volume of dangerous tailings, but then if we can’t export it then we would have to store it somewhere else – somewhere hopefully a bit safer 🙁
Steve777:
The theory of the domino theory was completely off the radar for those involved.
Tweets & replies Media
Pinned Tweet
Christian Porter
@cporterwa
4 Jul 2018
After years of fighting for a fairer #GST share for #WesternAustralia, we have finally achieved a permanent fix for our State. A great day for WA and a huge effort by our WA Liberal team #auspol @LiberalsWA @LiberalAus @MathiasCormann @ScottMorrisonMP.
Notice who is missing ?
I Hope Insider’s asks a few pointed questions about Jewelry Bishop and the “WA Liberal team” tommorrow.
#reminiscencesonPB: my birthday came out in the conscription lottery – the only lottery I ever ‘won’, in fact the only one I ever entered. I got a student deferment. The following year, still a student, I was directed to attend a medical. By this stage our involvement in the war was winding down, so I didn’t foresee going to war but had no desire to spend two years in the army. In any case by then Gough’s victory looked as inevitable as Bill’s does today. Back then, I was in perfect health, but a history of childhood asthma precluded a military career.
I read Catch 22. That’s about as close to a war as I want to get.
Back then, the Liberals invited strikes the way Morriscum invites boats.
Julie was probably at an Independance Day function.
Morrison appears to have done a 180 on his AS rhetoric today.
Going full on macho he has claimed that the people smugglers “ will not get past he or Dutton. “
So, in the course of 24 hours Morrison has turned the potential arrival of a boat or boats around from being the fault of Shorten and no one else to being a failure of the Morrison government.
I am sure labor is ready to shove this stupid claim by
Morrison right back at him at every opportunity and have the video of Morrison making the claim ready to run “ just in case.” I find the stupidity of Morrison gob smacking.
Meanwhile the 64000 plus arriving by plane over the last four years will be a constant mantra over coming days by labor.
Steve777:
We’re so happy for you for your student deferment.
The end of the European War, The significant USSR thing, the Russians if you like, the Communists in Indonesia, so they said. The Malay Peninsula, more communists, Korea, Cuba, Central Europe, it was all a scare.
The Americans, so dominant over Japan, (the bomb).
Veitnam, the French gave up with delight, China so closed, and we fought with half belief and young boys and never knew.
Gough came and went and did so much to drag a country forward. There were others less revered.
We are at that time again and Green ginger wine and more.
It will happen and it is good.
That WA funereal crowd looks like they can hear a tumbril arriving.
doyley
I’m thinking…………..
sprocket_ @ #48 Saturday, February 16th, 2019 – 9:02 am
Those people are nucking futs.