Despite the onset of the election campaign, there is only one new data point to add to BludgerTrack this week, which is a status quo 52-48 result from Newspoll that has duly little effect on the national vote trends. Such movement as there is is away from One Nation and towards the Coalition on the primary vote, with next to no impact on two-party preferred or the seat projection, where the Coalition makes a single gain in Victoria.
Since there is no new state-level data this week, the breakdowns continue to record an unnatural looking lurch to the Coalition in New South Wales, which I would want to see corroborated by more data. The leadership trends are interesting in that an upswing in Scott Morrison’s net approval has returned him, just barely, to net positive territory. The effect on preferred prime minister is more modest, but there appears to be a slight trend in his favour there too.
However, the biggest news in BludgerTrack this week as far as I’m concerned is that a helpful reader has told me how to fix the bug that was preventing the state breakdown tabs from working much of the time. If this was causing you grief before, there is a very good chance it will not be doing so if you try again now, which you can do through the link below.
bakunin @ #1050 Friday, April 19th, 2019 – 1:37 pm
Exactly how I took it too. And if not, team colours don’t make for collaboration.
I love this. The “needs more funding” bit, that is.
https://www.theguardian.com/media/2019/apr/19/review-finds-abc-needs-long-term-funding-which-might-not-be-what-the-government-wanted?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other
LR
You think Murdoch media is not a silo?
All I know is that since the gatekeepers have lost their control more diverse voices have risen.
Its been the vested interests that have complained about silos the most. What they mean is like minded people can put together good arguments.
People are getting better at quality control so they don’t fall for conspiracy theories.
Much as people learnt how to deal with email scams.
citizen @ #965 Friday, April 19th, 2019 – 11:25 am
Who authorised it?
I didn’t know the Green Triangle one was for ‘criminals’
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazi_concentration_camp_badge
“Firefox,
I suspect WB was alluding to the Yellow Star badge that the Nazi’s forced Jews to wear during the Holocaust when he made the Green Triangle comment.”
Ah yes, I see what you mean.
Firefox @ #1016 Friday, April 19th, 2019 – 12:36 pm
Wow!
Jumping the gun a bit aren’t we sunshine?
First we have to have a Labor Govt and little green people keep putting obstacles in the way.
guytaur, why do mention silos? I was responding to your point about distraction and making one of my own about other ways to mislead.
EGW @ #1054 Friday, April 19th, 2019 – 1:45 pm
It’s not the Greens’ fault Shorten ruined Labors opening week with a major gaffe re super tax.
Tom,
There’s some fine print at the bottom of the left hand door.
It appears to say the Liberal Party.
Can someone confirm that, I’m on a tablet so there’s a limit to how much I can blow it up. 🙂
EGW
Albanese and Wong did too then. After all they are arguing about Senate negotiations after Labor forms government.
Instead of arguing for more progressive Senators to be elected.
“Of course, in the left leaning areas of Australia, the Greens vote is much higher than the ~10% national average. We don’t get high levels of support in conservative right wing parts of the country like Labor does.”
Yeah, and your point being? Elections are decided in the outer suburbs and the inner regions. If Labor were to have policies just tailored to the inner-city tertiary educated like the Greens they would never get into government and would spend all their time like the Greens screaming from the sidelines.
Firefox @ #1015 Friday, April 19th, 2019 – 12:36 pm
That’s right. A party with only 9% of the vote should run the country. I guess it’s the born to rule mentality. Which other party does that remind you of?
William Bowe @ #1031 Friday, April 19th, 2019 – 1:14 pm
Splendid idea William.
I eagerly await your rigorous enforcement of it.
Any breach should be dealt with severely.
LR
My point was about the fact with social media you don’t get the media putting sports and religion at the top of the agenda if you don’t want that.
So in fact nowadays less distractions over holiday periods than before. We see this effect with the attempts to drop stuff on Friday’s after the MSM deadlines.
What happens? The issue gets narrated by social media instead.
Putting the trash out works way less well than it used to.
guytaur @ #1058 Friday, April 19th, 2019 – 1:48 pm
Genuine progressives will vote to ensure a progressive balance of power in the Senate.
You can’t trust the L/NP and Labor with the environment given their desire to prop up thermal coal mining and exports.
Spot on.
Here is a secret about implementing a 100 percent federally funded health care system.
It would most likely be a deflationary event.
That is, total spending on health care would probably go down.
It is very wasteful to have private health insurers, with their need for profit margins and advertising budgets, involved in health care.
It is very wasteful to have large out-of-pocket fees for patients.
If the federal government pays for everything, it can bargain hard with providers, deliver fair remuneration to health care workers, and keep costs down.
When people say, “But how would you pay for a completely federally funded health system?” they are posing the wrong question. The are wrongly assuming that the extra spending by the federal government would be inflationary unless it were offset by tax increases, and / or by spending cuts on other things.
In reality, the federal government would probably need to increase spending on other areas and / or implement tax cuts in order to offset the job losses involved in making private health insurance companies obsolete.
So moving to a 100 percent single payer health care system would actually give the federal government more fiscal space, not less.
That is a nice bonus.
Another closely guarded secret in the health care debate is that when the federal government negotiates with doctors, the federal government is holding nearly all of the cards.
The federal government decides how many Medicare Provider Numbers to issue.
The federal government can attach whatever criteria and conditions it likes to Medicare Provider Numbers. For example, it could make an MPN conditional on the doctor bulk billing all patients.
The federal governments sets the Medicare rebates. Doctors get 80 percent of their income from the federal government. The notion of doctors as independent private practitioners is a myth. They are public sector workers in substance.
The federal government funds the universities that educate doctors.
The federal government provides much of the funding for the public hospitals where medical graduates do their training – and the federal government could always expand the public hospitals if it wanted to increase the number of trainee positions for medical graduates.
The federal government controls the demand side of health care and it controls the supply side as well.
The only card that doctors have is the esteem that they enjoy in the community. Doctors as a group are much more highly regarded than politicians.
But a government with the political will to make the case for health care that is completely free at the point of use would be able to overcome any resistance from doctors who didn’t like it.
It would be a very popular change and it is completely realistic macroeconomically, politically, and in terms of real resources available to our nation.
There isn’t a shortage of talented young Australians who would love the chance to become a doctor and who would do a superb job.
There isn’t a shortage of foreign doctors who would like to migrate and practise here.
If there are any supply shortages in particular areas of the medical profession, the federal government can fill those quite easily.
The medical lobby is a paper tiger.
Barney in Mui Ne @ #1061 Friday, April 19th, 2019 – 1:48 pm
Looks like stickers on the glass Ace Glass.
Attacks on high profile independents may backfire. I don’t think people voting Liberal in electorates like Warringah are dumb. They will see through the scare campaign.
It is the purpose of science to imprison truth; of art is to liberate it.
“Wow!
Jumping the gun a bit aren’t we sunshine?
First we have to have a Labor Govt and little green people keep putting obstacles in the way.”
Not really. The Greens are currently holding the ACT government to account by being part of it. Canberra is, despite the negative views many people have of it, easily the most modern and progressive city in the entire country. The rest of Australia has a negative view of Canberra because they blame it for the decisions of the federal government. This is fuelled by media reports that state Canberra did this or that when they’re actually referring to what the government did. The rest of the country should be apologising to Canberrans because they have to put up with all the politicians that get sent there.
As for the coming election, changing the government is not the only thing that matters. We need to make sure that the next government, regardless of who forms it, is held to account and prevented from lurching to the right as is so often the case. Having a strong Greens presence in the parliament is the only way to ensure that happens.
KayJay,
On the left hand door, not the left hand window. 🙂
Omg yes! Thank you guytaur! 😀 *Points to Greens logo in avatar*
How would I indicate the Right Faction of the Labor Party?
guytaur @ #1061 Friday, April 19th, 2019 – 1:48 pm
They are recognising reality, not advocating that situation.
Like many other posters I am finding the Labor-Greens wars a bit dispiriting, especially now during an election campaign when we Labor and you Greens and other progressives should be focused on defeating the real enemy.
I do not hate the Greens, as some other Labor posters do, nor do I subscribe to the simplistic notion of them being “Liblings”. In fact I credit the Greens with pushing a lot of progressive policies and in doing, being able to keep them on the agenda so Labor could eventually adopt them.
It’s one of the positive roles that minor parties can play. Even though they are not likely to ever be in government, they can highlight progressive policies that larger parties may be a bit wary of touching.
I do have my criticisms of the Greens. I think because the Greens are not going to form government they to tend play to their base too much; such as threatening Labor over its climate action policy because it does not “go far enough”, or holding out for refugee policies that, however well intentioned, are just not accepted by the majority of Australians.
The worst examples were the Greens voting down Labor’s emissions trading scheme in 2010 and refusing to back the Gillard government’s Malaysian solution to boat arrivals, forcing it instead to reintroduce the Liberals’ Pacific solution.
Both led to outcomes far worse than what the Greens said they wanted, for climate action or for refugees.
Having said that, some of my best friends are Greens and I look forward to a productive working relationship between the Shorten government and Greens senators in the near future.
Firefox
We have had people arguing voting for the left is a vote for the right.
Imported from overseas First Past The Post System.
Sometimes with preference flows it can apply in a particular seat.
That guesswork is how Labor got its Family First Senator forcing Rudd to negotiate with the LNP not the Greens in 2013.
Big own goal that one
“How would I indicate the Right Faction of the Labor Party?”
Like this…
Couldn’t resist 😛
The problem for Greens is that when people are sick of government they tend to turn towards the opposition. Considering climate change and environment are hot topics, Greens should be doing so much better than they currently do.
It seems both Tanya and Albo are supporting candidates across the country. Last election they spent a lot of time sandbagging their own seats.
It seems there is no energy in Green campaign. What they had going for them all this time was the energy and grassroots support that makes people get out there and letterbox, leaflet, put up corfulates etc even in safe seats. These days you barely see campaigning.
I expect another drop in senate vote for the party.
Firefox
I think this would be a better avatar for you..
vogon poet:
Indeed!
guytaur, I understand your point about uncovering the hidden. But distraction is getting interrupted every minute with something new. Opinions become malleable and steerable. If you think of MSM as a traditional war dominated by a few, then by comparison SM is a guerilla war. As a civilian caught in the middle, it is not clear to me that the guerillas are the good guys.
“Even though they are not likely to ever be in government”
Can we please just stop with this line that the Greens can’t be part of governments. It’s just not true at all. We’ve been part of countless governments in the past, including federally in 2010-13, and are currently part of the ACT government.
“Firefox
I think this would be a better avatar for you..”
RDN looking sharp!
Barney in Mui Ne @ #1073 Friday, April 19th, 2019 – 1:58 pm
Dammit. I just woke up. I feel such a fool (touching hand to head).
I think I had better go back to bed. 🌸 💤
I had a look at The Guardian and can’t get a better image, sorry.
The Vichy Government used the symbol of a double-headed hatchet.
It would be an apt symbol for hatchet men (and women) who collaborate with conservatives and block progressive policies.
Here’s a human with a top sense of humour:
Matthew Thompson
@matthewtgreens
Apr 15
Woke up this morning to find some right wing columnist for the Tele has ranked Greens candidates based on ‘smugness’. Anyway, he gave me 8.2 out of 10 which I am deeply offended by bc I definitely deserve a 10. I’m a gay vegan cyclist. What more do I need to do to score 10/10??!
LR
Better guerilla war than one side domination pounding out the sound of an alternative view. To mix metaphors
So, what do we have?
$600 billion to a gang of miners to look after the Reef. Zero Greens holding the Coalition to account.
A couple of hundred mates parachuted into sinecures. Zero Greens holding the Coalition to account.
$200 million of taxpayer monies to advertise themselves. Zero Greens holding the Coalition to account.
$164 million to open and shut Christmas Island. Zero Greens holding the Coalition to account.
$55 million on a Shorten/union bashing RC which has resulted in two ministers dodging AFP questions. Zero Greens holding the Coalition to account.
$25 million to Sky, no questions asked and certainly none answered. Zero Greens holding the Coalition to account.
$70 million on water rights that were probably half what was paid for them at the time. Zero Greens holding the Coalition to account.
What does the Greens holding someone to account mean in practice?
Fuck all.
Astute observers will also have noticed that the Greens:
1. routinely attack Shorten more than they attack Morrison
2. routinely attack Shadow spokespersons more than they attack Frontbencers
3. routinely bag Labor more than they bag Liberals.
4. routinely promise to hold Labor to account
5. routinely fail to hold the Liberals and Nationals to account.
Greens/Liberals same same: both trying to stop Labor from forming government.
Astute observers will also have noticed that Di Natale has stopped his utter bullshit about the Greens forming government (the Greens thousand year government gone before it got up!) and has started politically placing the Greens as a blood sucking tick on the body of Labor.
Now, the Greens will argue that any damage they do to Labor is acceptable, even desirable. But if the Greens gift the Coalition another three years with their parasitism and their white anting and with their wedging, then the Greens will own the consequences.
As for the notion that the Greens hold the ACT Government to account… bullshit. Rattenbury IS the ACT Government and he is not all that good at holding himself to account.
How would I indicate the Right Faction of the Labor Party?
Brown paper bag … 😉
“Firefox
We have had people arguing voting for the left is a vote for the right.”
I know. It’s just ridiculous isn’t it. The Coalition absolutely hate the Greens. They think we are like the embodiment of evil or something. Go and ask any of them what they think of us and you’ll send them into a frenzy. Just look at how Senator McGrath went bonkers at Senator Waters on Q&A the other night. We drive them absolutely mad.
Boerwar @ #1072 Friday, April 19th, 2019 – 1:58 pm
No. Disingenuous. Science says nothing about truth. Truth is a moral dimension. But if you really want to link them: Science uncovers truth; but art gives it meaning.
guytaur @ #1077 Friday, April 19th, 2019 – 2:03 pm
I have to concede that point to you guytaur.
It illustrates the point that it doesn’t pay to try to be too clever with preferences.
Extinction Rebellion in London:
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-04-19/climate-change-protesters-to-target-heathrow-airport/11031950
The mass gatherings will escalate around the world as ordinary citizens realize the truth about the AGW crisis and the need for real and rapid action to mitigate its effects.
Boerwar :
Will Bluey give a daily wrap today or is he having a day off?
Google search trends for parties and leaders over the last week.
https://trends.google.com/trends/story/AU_cu_yRkITmkBAACo1M_en
Firefox @ #1091 Friday, April 19th, 2019 – 2:14 pm
She was deliberately winding him up. And did it very well indeed. 😆
Boerwar @ #2524 Friday, April 19th, 2019 – 1:58 pm
A BW original – or is a translation of an old occie proverb*?
* like: “Many tentacles make light work”, “Blue means danger”, or “Time to turn over a new rock”.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-04-19/biggest-election-but-voters-keener-than-ever-for-it-to-be-over/11029728
The reality of political campaigning is the need to get out big announcements earlier and not leave them to the last week before polling day.
guytaur @ #1090 Friday, April 19th, 2019 – 2:13 pm
You can’t fight the rain, but you can open an umbrella.