The Australian brings us a second Newspoll in consecutive weeks, perhaps portending weekly results from now to the election. It shows no change from last week on two-party preferred, with Labor maintaining its 52-48 lead, but both major parties are up on the primary vote – Labor by two and the Coalition by one, leaving them tied on 39%. The Greens are steady on 9% and One Nation are, interestingly, down two to 4%. All we are told of the leaders’ ratings at this stage is that they are “virtually unchanged”. Scott Morrison is unchanged on 45% approval and up one to 44% disapproval; Bill Shorten is unchanged on both measures, at 37% and 51%; and preferred prime minister is likewise unchanged, at 46-35 in favour of Morrison. The poll was conducted Thursday to Sunday from a sample of 1697.
Firefox, seriously mate, you should learn to distinguish between trolling and taking the piss.
Another day into the campaign. More shoot in the foot stuff. Feds claim about cost of Labors Cancer policies revealed as based on the Feds numbers, not Labors. Shades of a couple of days ago.
Nats Deputy resorts to dissembling and point-blank refusal to answer questions from Karvelas on ABC. Nats Leader vows to put Greens last.( Gives finger to Scomos comments about putting PHON last.)
What next?
Re. GI’s retirement announcement today. I refuse to endorse the scuttlebutt in RL circles that he took training lightly. He was a great player, deserving of the highest praise, both at a club level & Origin.
“He could prove a thorn in the side of the Government if he retains a modicum of the Labor value of fairness.”
He totally conned Labor and I doubt if he ever held any of their values. He’s just a far right nutter. At least now he’s not trying to hide it anymore. It still sickens me when I remember that I voted for Labor in 04. Uhhhg the shame!! Much more comfortable with my vote for Rudd in 07, even though I switched to the Greens later during his term.
The Bluey Report: Day 5 of the Comatose Election
Bluey reckons that the only thing that might save the Liberals is a Labor MP being electrocuted while re-charging a Prius which then catches fire and starts a wildfire that burns most of Western Sydney to the ground. Bluey hesitates to expose this scenario to the Coalition campaign team.
Bluey’s fun fact of the day which might help explain campaign things a bit: Bill Shorten was the Victorian under 15 fencing champion, sabre. Bluey had a mate who was into sabres and it hurt.
There was still some residual MSM activity on EVs and Dutton’s bashing a Disabled Person but nobody’s heart was in it. Bluey reckons that the EV stuff is now largely out of the hands of the parties and is being prosecuted by third parties. There seems to be two target audiences: Ute Persons and the rest of us.
Bluey watched around 40 minutes of morning telly on five channels simultaneously down at the gym. You should see Bluey do push ups. He can do four in the same amount of time that it takes humans to do one. Talk about a plank! There were about five political ads during which Bluey put his brain out of gear. The stations concentrated on torn cruciate ligaments, the Inglis Retirement, Folau’s Biblical Homophobia, and the best yoghurt for kids. Bluey notes that Geelong’s Gary Ablett has liked Folau’s post. Bluey hates cats.
On the Campaign klutz front, Wilson and Wilder have put their feet in the same mess that Parkes put her foot into. Bluey cautions all MPs and wannabe MPs that the Middle East is not your usual student political arena. If you say something, it is recorded and kept for a rainy day: your rainy day. If you are at a meeting and someone else says something and you are silent, your silence is recorded.
In the scale of world events Bluey does not give particular priority to either Israel or Palestine. They are not that important. Bluey reckons that if foreign policy is your bag, there are oodles of much bigger and much worser things happening much closer to home than what is happening west of Jordan. China/Uighers; Indonesia/West Irianese; Myanmmar/Rohyngas; Ceylon/Tamils, India/North-east Tribal lands; The Philippines/Mindanao, North Korea running a vicious dictatorship, and so on and so forth. ALL of these involve similar or larger numbers of victims, the mass deprivation of liberty and/or democracy and mass incarcerations, along with the usual general abuse of state organs of suppression. There are plenty of powerful state injustices to get your teeth stuck in if that is your bag. Bluey reckons that Labor should leave the M-E kiddie politics to the Greens. They love making powerless noises. But yeah, nah. Between them, Parkes, Wilson and Wilder have been oxygen thieves for yesterday, today and almost certainly tomorrow. Bluey reckons they are self-indulgent and undisciplined Duttonesque dickheads.
Bluey notes that, while most senate elections do not unduly focus on individuals, in the ACT the Senate race is local enough to be personal. Lake Burley Griffin-based occies would recall that there were some interesting preselection manoeuvers involved in removing sitting Liberal Senator Humphries who was a Canberra Liberal sort of guy – fairly bland, fairly nice, fairly blancmange, and fairly reasonable albeit with about as much chin as Corbyn. Senator Seselja has been part of a Coalition Government that for six years has systematically assaulted the ACT and the APS in thought, word and deed. It has sent several bunches of APS folk beyond the pale for no reason other than porking. Efficiency is reduced. Effectiveness is reduced. Peoples’ lives are sundered. All this is for party political purposes and the personal political purposes of such Coalition demi-gods as Joyce and Ley. No-one at all in the ACT likes Joyce. Seselja has been a supporter of gutting of the ACT workforce. Seselja was strongly anti marriage equality in the second most pro-marriage equality electorate in the land. Seselja was one of the Dutton henchpersons who knifed Turnbull. Whatever Canberra occies might say about Turnbull, they have worse things to say about Dutton and Morrison. They know the sorts of things that, if published, would get your average journo an instant defamation action threat. There is a very, very, very slight statistical sniff that Seselja might get rolled and so the attack ads are personalized accordingly. OTOH, Bluey reckons that there are quite a few aged Labor-leaning elderly voters who will be out of pocket as a direct result of the franking credits reforms and who might just kick over the traces and get Seselja over the line.
Bluey reckons that waiting lists are going up and up and up under the Coalition as a direct result of the Coalition’s DNA disposition to gut public health funding. Around 800,000 people are on waiting lists. (It took forever for one of Bluey’s cuzzes to get her eight knee replacements.) Bluey reckons that anyone on a waiting list or planning to go on a waiting list will wait shorter under a Shorten government. No brainer. While on the topic of diseases, Bluey notes that the Liberals used to have a woman health minister but that she was destroyed by internal Liberal leaking. Hunt, who stabbed Turnbull in the back and who achieved nothing much more than environmental destruction as Environment Minister, was accidentally conveniently in place to take her gig. Hunt is now busy repelling the Banks boarding party in Flinders. Catherine King was wheeled out for the waiting list announcement. Another Labor woman star. Bluey reckons compare and contrast.
Bluey wonders what Morrison was thinking when he proposed Mason as a jockey for Winx. Zinger Fail. Bluey notes that Morrison is continuing his non stop vilification of Shorten. It is as vicious a set of personal attacks as Bluey can remember in Australian politics… perhaps Keating excepted. Shorten and his team merely respond with jibes about the other mob and the failed ad man. Bluey is intensely curious to see whether the conventional political wisdom: a flood of FUD, combined with an unleavened stream of vicious personal attacks, will work this time. Labor is being far more positive. Note all the images of a smiling Bill and and the foam-flecked out-thrust jaw of Morrison.
Bluey denies 100% being seen in a Tony Abbott campaign tshirt.
Bluey is pleased that Labor is going to put in place a well-funded Integrity Commission. It will have a wider remit than that of the Liberals’ version which apparently involves a cabal of Liberal appointees resisting FOI requests from a room with no windows in it. Bluey reckons that there are one or two Coalition ministers, who shall remain nameless so that Mr Bowe does not get flooded (sic!) with defamation suits, who might be wetting their pants (get it?) about a possible investigation by the new Integrity Commission.
Bluey notes that Mr Shorten has appropriated ‘congestion busting’ from Mr Morrison. It is a back-handed complement, of course, but a nice political judo throw. Shorten announced some decongestant projects today.
Bluey notes that Canavan has gone the raw onion. Bluey reckons that this may explain the permanent sour look on Canavan’s face. Maybe he was tortured by onion breath when he threw his mother under a bus during his S44 travails. Bluey reckons that Canavan’s next stunt might be Mr Canavan riding a white gelding called Captain GetUp! into an open cut coalmine for some mixed species frottage with a lump of coal.
Bluey notes that Mr Morrison, not satisfied with sticking his tongue down someone’s throat, with dragging Ms Ahern in for a #metoo hug, and with bragging about hugging numerous muslims (no cameras present!) is now ni haoing his way through Australia’s East Asian Australian populations. Bluey liked Morrison better when he was pouring beer on his head.
Bluey notes that various Coalition peeps have lied about what Treasury said about the impact of Labor’s policies on house prices. Not little lies, either.
Score for the Day: Labor: one full point for the waiting lists fix, but half a point deducted on account of the useless and pointless oxygen theft distractions presented by Parkes, Wilson and Wilder.
Coalition: 0 points. They really going to have to get past the rinse and repeat nasty stuff. Bluey reckons that Kill Bill has been going for six years. He is a dead as they can kill him already. Another five weeks of Kill Bill will not make a skerrick of difference. On the basis of the Newspoll entrails Bluey reckons that the reverse seems to be happening: Labor is gaining while the Coalition focuses its attack on Bill.
Bluey was inclined to think that, because the Greens did nothing and said nothing of note today, and because this is the first day that they have not spent another$50 billion that they do not have, the Greens deserved a full point which would have raised them back up to 0 points. But Bluey is still waiting for the Greens to explain why they totally failed to hold the Liberals and the Nationals to account for the past six years. So, another zero score for the Greens. But it was very, very close and Bluey encourages the Greens to keep trying hard.
Cumulative score: Labor plus 4.5 points; Coalition 0 points; Greens minus 1 point.
“Firefox, seriously mate, you should learn to distinguish between trolling and taking the piss.”
Those lines are often blurred lol
Ladbrokes are currently Labor 1.17 and Coalition 5.00 – odds in the sidebar are not updated in real time.
Fulvio
Are you taking the piss?
Firefox: “It still sickens me when I remember that I voted for Labor in 04. Uhhhg the shame!!”
No shame. After all, who else was there to vote for? Greens maybe. The Democrats were pretty much finished by then. And ultimately you had to preference Latham or Howard. No, getting rid of Howard before the vandalism of the 2006-07 tax “reforms” would have been great. And if Latham didn’t work out? Well, there was that nice Mr Rudd, or maybe back to Beazley.
Goll, you’re trying to deprive me of my mystery status now!
Mavis Davis
I think football clubs of all codes have become smarter in tailoring training regimes to ‘older’ (as in over about 28!) players. It surely helps them have longer careers. Though as an AFL supporter mainly I am stunned that anyone can survive playing more than 200 games of Rugby League at the highest level.
And thanks Rugby League – Billy Slater has been helping with tackling and evasion/sidestepping at St.Kilda over the summer and it is paying dividends with our best start I think since 2010 when we last made the Grand Final.
Firefox @ #746 Monday, April 15th, 2019 – 5:10 pm
I thought you were a fox!?! 😆
citizen
Ladbrokes are currently Labor 1.17 and Coalition 5.00 – odds in the sidebar are not updated in real time.
That is interesting – there is a significant shift from pre-campaign around Budget time when Parliament was actually sitting for a few days.
Maybe it is the realisation that nothing is working for Morrison, and that every ‘cunning plan’ he has had so far has backfired quickly.
“No shame. After all, who else was there to vote for? Greens maybe. The Democrats were pretty much finished by then. And ultimately you had to preference Latham or Howard. No, getting rid of Howard before the vandalism of the 2006-07 tax “reforms” would have been great. And if Latham didn’t work out? Well, there was that nice Mr Rudd, or maybe back to Beazley.”
Yeah that really was such an awful election. I don’t blame Labor for that either. I know they’re as disgusted with Latham as I am. We were all conned. He was just trying to use Labor to get elected, just as he’s now used One Nation. They deserve him though. Labor and Australia definitely didn’t.
“I thought you were a fox!?! ”
Hehehe hmmm yea maybe mess with the fox and get the fire? Lol
C@tmomma @ #762 Monday, April 15th, 2019 – 5:32 pm
You mess with the bull, you get covered in bullshit!
You bin there, GG?
“You mess with the bull, you get covered in bullshit!”
Excuse the crudeness for a moment, but are you suggesting I’m ——– on you? I don’t really think that worked dude lol. I mean, I wouldn’t put it like that, but thanks? I think. Lol
Easter and Anzac Day are really going to be campaign phoney war days aren’t they?
Boerwar
Bluey is the highlight of this election!
As with bulls, you mess with the Liberals, you get covered in bullshit.
Actually, you don’t have to ‘mess’ with them, you just need to come into contact with their media wing, Newscrap, or even any part of the mainstream media, which takes its lead from Newscrap.
Clem Attlee @ #732 Monday, April 15th, 2019 – 4:27 pm
Yes, that is true. Animal Welfare supporters come from across the political spectrum and have varying levels of support for various animal welfare issues.
Miseryguts Morris.
Remember when Australia had the best economy? You have read this
https://independentaustralia.net/politics/politics-display/remember-when-australia-had-the-worlds-best-economy,12577
“Easter and Anzac Day are really going to be campaign phoney war days aren’t they?”
The Greens will be campaigning over Easter on Adani. Think the others are having a break. We’re stopping on ANZAC day though.
“Easter and Anzac Day are really going to be campaign phoney war days aren’t they?”
I think Anzac Day might be a set-piece battle. The Right owns it and the dirt units are in the lookout for anyone among their class enemies they can ‘Yasmin’.
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/ng-interactive/2019/apr/15/who-should-i-vote-for-policy-guide-to-the-2019-australian-election
With a build up like that I expected an analysis of how the policies might affect me, so I could answer the headline’s question, “Who should I vote for?” What I got was a political analysis.
For example, on LNP Tax policies:
Thanks Boerwar and Bluey! I agree with Victoria: Bluey is the star of the election campaign.
New government ad:
https://twitter.com/thejuicemedia/status/1113666236297039872
Dr Phelps has had to refer leaflets to the AFP again. Homophobic and a few other isms thrown in apparently
Bluey for PM. Many hands make life work.
Vote 1 – Bluey
Fulvio Sammut @ #767 Monday, April 15th, 2019 – 5:44 pm
I’ve just mulched and fertilised my property. I know bullshit well.
PvO’s Ch10 news report.
https://twitter.com/10NewsFirst/status/1117693034261385216
I reckon Bluey is being kind to the govt – the clip certainly makes it sound like today was a total shocker for Morrison!
lizzie @ #774 Monday, April 15th, 2019 – 5:53 pm
How quickly and conveniently Graeme seems to have forgotten this:
Seems to be on the campaign trail to my eyes.
FireFox
I am glad the Greens are campaigning during the Easter period. At least they recognise we are a secular multi religion society. Plus it will give them some clear air despite the inevitable how dare you that will come from the other parties b
The Andrews Labor government’s $1 million intervention into the federal election should be investigated by Victoria’s corruption watchdog, according to the state opposition.
The Victorian Liberals want the Independent Broad-based Anti-corruption Commission to investigate four top public servants the opposition says are responsible for allowing the state government’s $1 million ad campaign against Scott Morrison’s government to go ahead.
How Shorten’s visit in Deakin to chat with a “fair dinkum” family was reported in the local paper – The Whitehorse Leader:
Link
https://www.theage.com.au/federal-election-2019/libs-launch-corruption-complaint-over-andrews
Victoria:
Since when has it been illegal for state govts to campaign against federal govts? Jeez I can remember the Barnett govt here campaigning and grandstanding at every opportunity about increased GST share.
Vic Liberals certainly are a precious lot, aren’t they?
Pegasus must be running The Greens’ Dirt Unit for this campaign. 😆
How pathetic.
Thanks, ‘fess for PvO’s daily take. 🙂
Fess
It will be interesting to see what IBAC have to say
https://play.acast.com/s/the-professor-and-the-hack
I want Labor to win and will work for that outcome so I am biased but I have to agree with Bluey’s assessment. It seems to be going well so far for Labor apart from some loose mouthed backbenchers. Hard to get a feel obviously but optics seem to be alright for Labor.
“FireFox
I am glad the Greens are campaigning during the Easter period. At least they recognise we are a secular multi religion society. Plus it will give them some clear air despite the inevitable how dare you that will come from the other parties”
Agreed. As an atheist, Easter doesn’t have any special meaning for me. I fully support other people’s right to observe the occasion as they see fit according to their own beliefs though. If someone wants to campaign then that’s fine, if not then that’s fine too.
Link to Victoria’s excerpt: https://www.theage.com.au/federal-election-2019/libs-launch-corruption-complaint-over-andrews-election-intervention-20190415-p51ecc.html
I like Labor’s enrol to vote dinosaurs advert
Vic:
I’ve got a vague recollection the WA state govt ran pro coalition adverts during the 2016 federal election around WA’s GST share. Of course it didn’t save them from being solidly defeated 9 months later. 🙂
It surely can’t be long now until the onslaught of single seat polls begins; surprised we haven’t seen it start yet!