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.
Yes, no more abusive tones please. Not even from you, Observer.
The cotton farming defence does look a bit odd in the light of a dead river. But hey, I guess it all depends on how much you like cotton.
Boerwar @ #298 Saturday, February 16th, 2019 – 2:05 pm
Diddums.
Olympic Dam will remain open even if uranium mining is banned. FACT.
William is there a medal/prize for the most behaved/most improved? I believe I am in the running.
The US Government’s bonds are merely an instrument that its central bank uses to drain reserves from the banking system so that the central bank hits its target overnight interest rate. The purchases and sales of bonds are an instrument of monetary policy. The bonds are not a burden on the government or on taxpayers. The bonds constitute the net financial wealth of the non-government sector. It is a policy choice by the currency issuer to sell bonds to drain reserves and to buy bonds to add reserves to the banking system as needed to manipulate the total supply of reserves so that the central bank’s desired interest rate target is maintained. A different choice would be to simply pay the desired target rate on reserve balances. Another choice would be to let the interest rate in the interbank lending market fall to zero and keep it there. Fiscal policy is a lot more powerful and precise than monetary policy anyway.
Stephanie Kelton talked about a currency issuer’s finances at this GetUp event:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lZ8ejYqVPGU
Baby Boomers were possibly the first generation to look at the world they were supposed to accept, did not like it,and said ‘NO’. They then changed things to suit them. So all the benefits currently enjoyed by the next generations, including the ability to change the world to what you want, is our gift. (I just scrape into the Boomer cohort). So it can be done, we did it. So get off your butts and your facebook likes and armchair activism and change things.
The Earth needs saving from destruction. Bloody well go out and save it. It is your tirn.
It would be an interesting exercise to make two Boomer lists:
Credits Discredits
They would be long lists!
‘generational’ arguments have to be slightly more intelligent than arguing over horoscopes, but not much.
‘Dan Gulberry says:
Saturday, February 16, 2019 at 5:12 pm
Boerwar @ #298 Saturday, February 16th, 2019 – 2:05 pm
Dan
I note your very abusive tone and therefore decline to respond substantively.
Diddums.
Olympic Dam will remain open even if uranium mining is banned. FACT.’
I note that you continue to behave in a highly abusive fashion. I will therefore not engage with the substantive issues.
Olympic Dam will remain open even if uranium mining is banned.
nath
It is an interesting thought.
Your principle is that, for example, reformed mass murderers who cease and desist deserve acknowledgement…
… but medals for stopping such behaviour?
There have been various generations at a national or international level who have done good, whatever bad they might also have done. Some of these go back a long way. Some examples:
Magna Carta
ending slavery
universal suffrage
ending child labour
separating water supply from the sewerage systems
avoiding inventing social media for these past 10,000 years.
Boerwar
says:
Saturday, February 16, 2019 at 5:20 pm
nath
It is an interesting thought.
Your principle is that, for example, reformed mass murderers who cease and desist deserve acknowledgement…
… but medals for stopping such behaviour?
_______________________________
what about for not only stopping mass murder, but actively fighting against murderousness in a most non-murderous way?
Oh William has more important things on his plate than such trivialities.
I believe KJ dispenses with stamps and stars.
I reckon there are 4 CFS aerial units currently involved in a fire just over the way. First reported 20min ago. It is in a bad spot – seems all guns blazing to put it out.
BHP, the leaseholder of the Olympic Dam mine in South Australia will go on mining copper, gold, silver and other minerals for decades to come irrespective of whether uranium mining is banned.
But the father said to his servants, Bring forth the best robe, and put it on him; and put a ring on his hand, and shoes on his feet. And bring hither the fatted calf, and kill it; and let us eat, and be merry. For this my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found. And they began to be merry.
You chose ‘mass murderers’ to illustrate nath’s claim of reform. Isn’t that a bit abusive in this Age of Aquarius ?
‘Dan Gulberry says:
Saturday, February 16, 2019 at 5:19 pm
Olympic Dam will remain open even if uranium mining is banned.’
The Greens Party might like to clarify exactly this point.
Their policy position is quite clear: uranium mines will be closed.
There are no ifs. There are no buts.
So, if a mine mines uranium, is it a uranium mine?
Olympic Dam has, to date, mined some 37,000 tonnes of U3O8
This makes it one of the biggest uranium mines in the world.
The uranium ore is not separate from the copper ore.
if the Greens mean that all the uranium mines except for Olympic Dam are closed, they should say so.
When uranium mining is banned, BHP will keep reaping profits from the Olympic Dam mine due to uranium only being a minority product from a copper mining operation.
WB
*laughs with sheer enjoyment*
But don’t forget how it all went down with the bro.
Question @ #248 Saturday, February 16th, 2019 – 2:57 pm
She’s Liberal/National. She lies.
So why did she stand next to the poster about Obesity then?
Remember, it was the older generation that tried to destroy the Boomer generation who were busy protesting and changing things. The Cold War, real wars, locking them up under drug laws, and sometimes even supplying the drugs (as into USA black communities, and by using powerful media companies to brainwash the populace. Restricting employment, destroying our gains, enablingthe corporations to treat us as inhuman products or consumers, we could go on.
My Kb is stuffing up so I can’t complete this other than to say anyone who wants to denigrate the Boomer generation could learn a damn lot from us. I have never seen such a generation of weak-kneed, lazy, conformist generations as the post-Boomers. Maybe we were too nice to our kids.
Thank you. I am the Son and the penitent. And I say:
Do not think that I came to destroy the Law or the Prophets. I did not come to destroy but to fulfil.Whoever therefore breaks one of the least of these commandments, and teaches men so, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but whoever does and teaches them, he shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven
William – what is this light-hearted frivolity reflecting.
Dan
By sales value, uranium is 25% of Olympic Dam production.
So BHP would have to mine it, refine it out of the copper ore, and then store it for eternity.
And the mine would still be profitable?
nath @ #304 Saturday, February 16th, 2019 – 5:13 pm
Lol. I feel positively spayed! 😆
@Confessions: Just by pure coincidence (/s), Thom Tillis is up for re-election in 2020, in a State Trump carried by less than 5%…and will probably lose badly next year. He needs all the crossover Democrat votes he can get, and apparently he knows it!
Don’t look for him to actually vote against Trump’s agenda even once, though.
and buy me a new jet plane….
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LM4EudCC6bE
Poor calf :-‘(
THAT FLINDERS POLL WAS 54% 2PP FOR THE HUNT.
Late Riser @ #294 Saturday, February 16th, 2019 – 5:00 pm
Yes, I agree. If the Greens would revert to their environmental roots, they might expect to actually be courted by other parties who were sympathetic – if not so fanatical – with their aims.
But instead, the Greens have turned into a Social Democratic party who are very keen on inner-city social reform issues, but who seem to regard the environment as a third-order issue (or worse).
No wonder they are bleeding members.
Thanks Shows.
Observer @ #299 Saturday, February 16th, 2019 – 5:06 pm
All that wealth getting you down, O?
Olympic Dam does not currently sit well on BHPs copper cost curve. It is an expensive, complex mine and BHP only tolerate it because of its potential and the risks of someone else owning the lease (as the previous government had once threatened).
Boerwar @ #318 Saturday, February 16th, 2019 – 2:28 pm
Neither are the gold, silver and other minerals.
This is the same as it is at every mine in Australia. There is one primary mineral, but sometimes lots of other minerals present as well. These are separated from each other at the site. Some of them are not present in quantities big enough to make them commercially viable. The ones that are viable are separated into each mineral type.
Already in place at Olympic Dam (and every other mine site) is the ability to separate the copper from the gold, from the silver, and yes, the uranium. The copper, gold, silver and other minerals will be then dealt with as per normal. The uranium will be left behind.
Irrespective of how much uranium is left behind, Olympic Dam will remain open for many years to come.
The only threat to its existence is if some new man made substance is invented and manufactured that renders copper obsolete.
I love this admission from Australian Border Force, under questioning from Kim Carr in Estimates:
So, basically: boats are still arriving, but we just dont count them.
Found it….
https://www.afr.com/business/mining/bhp-approaches-sliding-doors-moment-at-olympic-dam-20181024-h172cn
I’m not sure where GenX, Y, Z and beyond would be if Baby Boomers never existed or were wiped out in some Cold War extinction?
Like all generations we were born, grew up, worked, raised and educated our children and live our lives as best we can given the circumstances that exist on this planet during our lifetimes.
On Baby Boomers, SA’s thinker in residence from a few years ago had this to say in his final report at the end of his tenure. People can make of it what they will.
…
…
http://www.flinders.edu.au/sabs/fcas-files/Publications/The%20Longevity%20Revolution.pdf
Sir Humphrey puts everything into perspective…
It’s clear that the Committee has agreed that your new policy is really an excellent plan. But in view of some of the doubts being expressed, may I propose that I recall that after careful consideration, the considered view of the Committee was that, while they considered that the proposal met with broad approval in principle, that some of the principles were sufficiently fundamental in principle, and some of the considerations so complex and finely balanced in practice that in principle it was proposed that the sensible and prudent practice would be to submit the proposal for more detailed consideration, laying stress on the essential continuity of the new proposal with existing principles, the principle of the principal arguments which the proposal proposes and propounds for their approval. In principle.
And to finish
To put it simply, Prime Minister, certain informal discussions took place, involving a full and frank exchange of views, out of which there arose a series of proposals which on examination proved to indicate certain promising lines of enquiry which when pursued led to the realization that the alternative courses of action might in fact, in certain circumstances, be susceptible of discreet modification, leading to a reappraisal of the original areas of difference and pointing the way to encouraging possibilities of compromise and cooperation which if bilaterally implemented with appropriate give and take on both sides might if the climate were right have a reasonable possibility at the end of the day of leading, rightly or wrongly, to a mutually satisfactory resolution.
Peel me a grape ❗
My gravatar has been immensely successful and I will need something more in keeping with an almost new reality.
Foil hat to lily.
Flowers and creaming soda
🍹🌸🍹🌼
C@t, spayed? What does it feel like, I used to do it to ewes when I was at Uni and forgot to ask them what it was like.
As a follow up to an email I sent to Wilson Asset Management I have received a response from Geof Wilson asking for my phone number so he can ring me for a discussion on my views
Perhaps he “sussed” as to who I am!
Anyway I responded that I did not view any discussion would be productive because he is promoting a scheme which I would never support for the reasons I included in my original email
That Centrelink is there for a purpose being a safety net for those in need, that government priority should correctly be on the issues I listed including because we have children and grandchildren and we are leaving them not only our priorities in life but priorities in regards society
To avail of the refund of tax not paid by me as a Shareholder and where I have no tax liability is not the example I wish to leave to my successors
And, in regard those I associate with, including household names in Commerce and Industry, we are all of the same view
There are obviously some who do not live by the same ideals, and they are the Shareholders in Wilson Asset Management
Observer,
Get angry at our so-called ‘leaders’ at the time of the Vietnam War who sent our young men off to die just so they could suck up to the so-called ‘leaders’ in the USA who started the damn thing!
Matt:
Oh of course, that would explain his outspokenness!!
We watched Clear and Present Danger last night and I laughed at the quaint notion of Jack Ryan taking the illegal war to the Senate oversight committee, and the fear stark on the face of the president.
Re: Uranium Mining …
http://www.world-nuclear.org/information-library/country-profiles/countries-a-f/australia.aspx
Someone might like to calculate how many millions of tonnes of global C02 emissions our uranium exports have saved over the years.
Without them, we would probably not be the sixth largest greenhouse gas emitting country, we might even creep up into fifth place (ahead of Russia).
Do we really want that?
It is interesting … I was only thinking earlier today (hard to believe, I know) that 20-30 odd years ago, river pollution and the hole in the ozone layer were tackled.
The reason they WERE tackled was because it was clear that we were doing things to destroy those. It seems to be there is a tipping point where big business, vested interests, can no longer deny the source of the issue.
It may be we’re getting to that point now with climate change. Even the denialists are seeing ‘change’ and that change is not for the better.
On the ‘bugs’ diminution – I agree on the xmas beetles, but was only commenting to someone the other day, I have seen more butterflies and moths this year than since I was a child (am in the centre of Sydney). And ants …. a gazillion ants (that keep coming inside my damned house)!
Wren’s week: Abbott’s fantasy world. What is new about that? He always lived in that world.
https://independentaustralia.net/politics/politics-display/wrens-week-abbotts-fantasy-world-wilsons-corruption-and-medevac,12380
Ha! Mueller threatens Manafort with 24 years jail and Trump announces a national emergency. It is an emergency alright. 24years is a good way to squeeze more song from that little bird.
Dog’s Breakfast @ #342 Saturday, February 16th, 2019 – 5:49 pm
De-hormoned, DB. Here’s a photo that they took the day after:
Mr Bowe performed the surgery with absolute precision. 😉