BludgerTrack: 51.9-48.1 to Labor

‘Tis the season for readjusting preference allocations – but for which the BludgerTrack poll aggregate reading would have gone all but unchanged this week.

BludgerTrack records a movement to the Coalition this week, but in keeping with the zeitgeist, this is more about changes in preference assumptions rather than voting intention. Specifically, I’ve decided to apply a crude 60-40 split in favour of the Coalition on One Nation preferences, as Newspoll has been doing since the start of last year.

A while back I came up with an elaborate mechanism to allocate One Nation preferences based on respondent-allocated two-party polling data, the true purpose of which was to produce a figure more favourable to the Coalition than the 50-50 split recorded in the 15 seats the party contested in 2016, which only partisan optimists (hello to you all) expect to be repeated this time. However, this has been increasingly ineffective due to the paucity of respondent-allocated results since ReachTEL’s national polling stopped around a year ago. It seemed to me that something needed to be done though, and I have been persuaded by the position of David Briggs at YouGov Galaxy that 60-40 is a conservative approximation (albeit an arbitrary one) given the preference flows at the last two state elections at which One Nation made a serious effort in lower house seats, namely Queensland (65.2% of preferences to the Liberal National Party) and Western Australia (60.6% to the Liberals).

I am not, however, convinced that the same thing should be done with the United Australia Party, as Newspoll has now started doing. The Palmer United Party had Labor last on every how-to-vote card in 2013, yet 46.3% of their voters still put Labor ahead of the Coalition. In addition to the impact of the heavily publicised preference deal, Briggs points to the fact that UAP voters in the latest Newspoll sample strongly favoured Scott Morrison over Bill Shorten on the question of trust, but this strikes me as thin gruel given the small sample size. Kevin Bonham makes the point that the Sinophobic bent of Palmer’s current campaign might be capturing a more right-wing audience than last time, which may well be so. However, he also makes the very good point that Palmer “may be taking Coalition-friendly voters from the Others pile, so the remaining Others may on balance be slightly Labor-leaning”.

All things considered, I don’t see enough reason to stop treating the UAP as part of the amorphous collection of “others” and to continue allocating its collective preferences as per the 2016 result, which was basically 50-50 – particularly not in the context of an election at which anti-government sentiment is harder than it was last time, based on all available evidence. In any case, I will not for the time being be making the effort to produce a trend measure from the UAP, whose primary vote will remain locked up in BludgerTrack’s aggregated “others” measure.

The upshot of all this is that the dial has moved 0.5% in favour of the Coalition on two-party preferred, but only 0.2% of this is due to the addition of the new polls this week from YouGov Galaxy, Newspoll and Essential Research. The Coalition has gained three on the seat projection, consisting of one each in Queensland, Western Australia and South Australia. The addition of new state data has smoothed off what hitherto seemed excessive movement in the Coalition’s favour in New South Wales, although it’s had the opposite effect in Western Australia. Labor continues to be credited with eight gains in Queensland, which seems rather a lot, but elsewhere the projections seem in line with what the major parties are expecting.

Full results can be accessed through the link below, which is permanently available on the sidebar.

And while you’re about, don’t miss the latest edition of Seat du Jour in the post below this one, covering Peter Dutton’s seat of Dickson.

Author: William Bowe

William Bowe is a Perth-based election analyst and occasional teacher of political science. His blog, The Poll Bludger, has existed in one form or another since 2004, and is one of the most heavily trafficked websites on Australian politics.

790 comments on “BludgerTrack: 51.9-48.1 to Labor”

Comments Page 3 of 16
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  1. Adrian

    At 5.58am Fran Kelly announced that she would be talking to Angus Taylor, then Mark Butler, about the “new” modelling.

    At about 7.37 am she totally demolished Taylor. At about 8.10am she talked to Butler. The interview was such that Butler clearly pointed out the stupidity of the current modelling.

    One of the assumptions (by Kirk???? the recent modeller) was that carbon abatement costs $300 per tonne. it currently costs $15 a tonne.

    Looking at the two interviews together, the result was that between them, Butler and Kelly poured shite on the Coalies.

  2. I heard WB on podcast yesterday discussing with Michelle G the prospects for Labor in WA.
    If I read him correctly he is putting Swan back into a likely swing seat to Labor and Hasluck likely to change hands……………so minimum of 2 seats for Labor in WA.
    Beyond that he speculated that Labor would consider it a real win if Pearce went to Labor and that Stirling might come back to being a traditional swing seat as well. In the latter case, he pointed out that while the incumbent Liberal had built up his margin over the years, this might might not transfer over to the new Lib candidate. MG then got around to Cowan (the only likely prospect for the Libs on the face of it) and WB pointed out that the electors in this seat see Morrison more of there type with his BBQs and beer approach. On the other hand he suggested that Labor would probably hold this seat. So there you have it……..anything between 2-4 for Labor. The strong point from WB was that the gloss of the boom has been gone from WA for quite a while, after two years WA folk have become used to a competent Labor State government with McGowan and they are doing it tough.
    Despite all this, the West newspaper is back to its Labor-bashing best today with big, red, stark headlines about 32,000 jobs being lost with Shorten’s CC stuff.
    It is just amazing how much in synch the West and the Murdoch mob are these days – even down to the political editor of the Melbourne Herald-Sun having an “opinion” piece.
    We were lucky yesterday as Miranda Devine also pontificated on the evils of Bill.

  3. @Brian Krassenstein

    This exchange between Cory Booker and William Barr must go viral.

    Barr refuses to admonish anything Trump has done and instead brings up Hillary Clinton.

    For me this is by far the most damning exchange all day.

    (See video)

  4. “There’s lots of ways of finding additional funding, including cutting ineffective or unnecessary programs”

    Honestly, I think Labor this time have decided to believe everyone who says they want transparent parties who have a plan. Lots of people have complained about the small target strategy in the past, so I think this is an attempt to go with that.

    All the polling was also saying people would welcome trading higher taxes for better services.

    If it fails, expect no opposition to ever have any policy more detailed than “mums are really good” for the next few elections. I wouldn’t be totally surprised if it turns out people lie.

  5. psyclaw, I realise that most posters on this forum believe that Fran is a paid up member of the Liberal Party, but, contrary to that opinion of her, she has always been very strong on the climate change issue.

    And now I really must go.

  7. Lol at everyone having a go at my comment.

    I agree 100% with action on climate change.
    I agree 100% with spending money to reduce further expenditure.
    I agree 100% that doing nothing will cost us more.

    However, as it costs more money now than later, this needs to be budgeted and dealt with. You can’t just say we’ll be better off but not plan economically for it.

    You all need to stop immediately assuming that rational comments about how to implement policies mean that people are against those policies.

    By the way, the Libs plan may or may not be more or less expensive, but because they are ineffective, this means they absolutely have more economic impact.

  8. Confessions @ 9.06am

    I wish, but alas, that was an advertising wrap around. You can just make out the “authorised by…..” at the bottom.

  9. Fess

    That is a paid advertising wrap on the Mornington News from the Victorian Trades Council. Its not the paper’s own stance.

  10. “The last three Federal political leaders to win government from opposition – Howard, Rudd and Abbott – put themselves in a position in which they basically weren’t obliged to explain anything”

    And all three of their PMships either unravelled completely (Rudd, Abott) or came within an inch of unravelling (Howard) in only their first term. And why? Basically because they had no clear policy agenda and relied on focusing on the government’s failings (though without offering tangible alternatives) Then when they became PM, they either blindsided the electorate with previously unmentioned nasty cuts (Howard and Abbott), or proved to be a massive dissapointment. Shorten is clearly buffering himself against this trap, with a clear and well articulated policy agenda that no one will be surprised by, or dissapointed by when he starts rolling it out.

  11. So, in this morning’s Fairfax Lite Crowe ramped Climate costings up from $250 billion to $500-and-something billion in the space of two sentences. But clever Benson sees Crowe’s $500-and-something billion, and raises him a further $500 billion. We’ve hit The Big T, since just last night. When it comes to high stakes poker Rupert’s crew are all over those wimps at Fair-whateveritscalledtoday.

    I was only joking earlier on about a $Gazillion, but now I’m not so sure! I hanker for the old days when lamb roasts were going to cost merely $100, and it was only Whyalla that was being wiped off the map.

    ScoMo’s plan is to cost a measly $300 million a year, totalling $3 billion over the decade: 0.3% of the cost of Labor’s plan. No wonder the punters think the Libs are such good money managers. We should be exporting Save The Planet kits, not coal or iron ore. If you can fix Climate Change for what’s virtually tuppence ha’penny by cleaning up some rubbish and handing out pork for Tidy Towns and planting shrubs, we’ll be able to avoid global catastrophe cheap, as well as make a buck on the side.

    “ScoMo Saves The World!”

    Has a nice ting to it, don’t ya think?

  14. Andrew_Earlwood says:
    Thursday, May 2, 2019 at 9:16 am
    Fisher has been embraced by the Rupeverse, Costello world and the more thick of the ABC stable. It gives the Liberals cover for their outrageous lies they have been running 24-7 on mainstream advertising and social media.

    In my view this propaganda is cutting through. Big time.

    I’m yet to see any evidence of a real drop off in the combined labor-green vote or any indication that the LNP are going to get that 5% drop back in its primary vote BUT I reckon ‘low information’ voters in the ‘others’ column are falling for it.

    Labor faces two other problems. Firstly, it’s advertising is not effective. The protest outrage it is meant to engender isn’t cutting through. Largely because people are tired of hearing about how bad this mob are. They are used to this level of incompetence and have come to accept it. Alas.

    Secondly, the wiggle and Bob Brown act is killing Labor big time in marginal seats: the LNP say that the Greens will run Labor. The Greens say they’ll hold Labor to ransom. Folk in the middle considering voting labor and more concerned with their own immediate material struggles than the Greens utopia are saying “yeah, nah” I’m not risking a vote for Labor if it means getting THAT.

    Frankly the Wiggle is as popular and as woke as Pepe Le Pew. That convoy over the last two weeks must have been paid for by the Queensland LNP – it was so effective in shoring up the LNP in up to 6 seats that would have otherwise lost in the sunshine state. Briefly is right about the Greens.

    AE

    You posted a comment a few days ago saying wtte that watching where the leaders are going tells you much more about the state of play than listening to what they are saying. Using this method you concluded that Labor was on track to win fairly easily.

    This latest observation seems to suggest that you’re not so sure now. What are the moves of the leaders telling you now.

  16. @Ewinhannan
    ‘Senior Victorian Liberals are furious at the candidate revelations, privately arguing they’re the result of the party being increasingly “stacked” by extremists & party head office being “out of its depth”, unable to cope with the candidate vetting process’, says @PatsKarvelas

    @PatsKarvelas
    NEW FROM ME. Darkest day in Liberal’s campaign hints at civil war to come #AusVotes19  #auspol  #ThePartyRoom abc.net.au/news/2019-05-0… via @abcnews

  18. PVO:

    The LNP constitution says it is a division of the Liberal Party. Scott Morrison says the Liberal Party won’t preference One Nation. Why then are some LNP MPs preferencing One Nation? Scott Morrison should explain that…. #auspol 

    @Senator Murray Watt
    More chaos and disunity from the LNP, with Senator Ian Macdonald running against LNP ticket. Says this of other LNP candidates: “None of them have achieved greatness in their own right.”
    https://www.couriermail.com.au/news/queensland/queensland-government/lnp-senator-ian-macdonald-urges-voters-to-back-him-over-his-colleagues/news-story/0fa47348da62e7b0d90fd9c5d5f7c16c

    @Alex Turnbull

    Nice to see the idiot scribe @aclennell – after I explicitly stated I did not donate to either of these campaigns – saying I did. Even Pravda had better fact checking than this. #auspol 
    https://pbs.twimg.com/media/D5hODbFWkAA4K6f?format=jpg&name=large

  19. The federal government does not need to issue Commonwealth Government Securities (the federal government’s bonds). It uses bond transactions in open market operations to manipulate the supply of reserves in the banking system so that the central bank can maintain its target interest rate for the overnight interbank lending market (commonly called the official cash rate).

    If the supply of reserves falls too low, the interest rate that the banks are charging each other in the overnight interbank lending market rises above the central bank’s desired rate. So the central bank buys bonds from the banks to inject more reserves into the banking system.

    If the supply of reserves rises too high, the interest rate that the banks are charging each other in the overnight interbank lending market falls below the central bank’s desired rate. So the central bank sells bonds to the banks in order to drain reserves out of the banking system.

    The intricacies of how the central bank operates is pretty complex and often it doesn’t just involve outright purchases and sales of bonds – often the central bank engages in repurchase agreements (called repos). But in substance the system works the way I’ve described: the central bank uses bond transactions to either add reserves or drain reserves so that its desired cash rate is maintained.

    But the central bank could simply pay that target interest rate on excess reserve balances. Bond issuance is not necessary. Or ideally it could set the overnight interbank interest rate at zero and leave it there permanently. Monetary policy is ineffective.

    The central bank should focus on running the payments system and enforcing strong underwriting standards for the banks. Maintaining true full employment with price stability and sustainable resource use is the job of fiscal policy.

    Monetary policy (interest rate adjustments) are a steering wheel that isn’t connected to anything. Businesses make investment decisions based on their expectations of profit. If they can’t see a justification to expand production because consumer spending is stagnant and they have significant unsold inventory already, they won’t borrow, even if interest rates have been lowered.

    We want banks’ lending decisions – whether it’s to businesses or to households – to be based on very high quality credit analysis.

    If there isn’t enough spending in the economy overall to employ everybody who wants work, that is a problem of fiscal policy, not monetary policy.

  21. @tricot

    I would be very happy with 2-4 seats gained over here in the West. I’m not particularly confident about Stirling or Pearce. On pre poll at Hasluck this week and have had a good response But always such a tight seat.

    And you’re on the money with The West, why’ve been appalling his campaign. I’ve raised this directly with the political editor on twitter but sadly she’s yet to respond to me.

  23. Next to no-one reads ‘The West’, but it is one more voice campaigning against Labor. Gotta go and set up the pre-poll booth, where there’s a thoroughly clueless racist, religious bigot running for ON, some amiable Libs and a relatively obnoxious G, who clearly thinks it’s their role to improve everyone else, especially the red shirts.

    Most voters are street-wise. They know the Libs are promising more of the same. They will have to choose between the devil and the deep blue sea. I think there will be just enough willing to take the plunge…..but it’s gonna be close.

  24. @KieraGorden

    #ABC730 just had an;

    ✔️ entitled 71-year-old retiree
    ✔️ complaining about franking credit changes and
    ✔️ how he’s hard done by because his cushy tax loophole’s being closed
    ✔️ whilst sitting on his BOAT ⛵️

    We’ve officially hit peak Libtard. #AusVotes2019  #AusPol 

  26. psyclaw @ #100 Thursday, May 2nd, 2019 – 9:23 am

    Adrian

    At 5.58am Fran Kelly announced that she would be talking to Angus Taylor, then Mark Butler, about the “new” modelling.

    At about 7.37 am she totally demolished Taylor. At about 8.10am she talked to Butler. The interview was such that Butler clearly pointed out the stupidity of the current modelling.

    One of the assumptions (by Kirk???? the recent modeller) was that carbon abatement costs $300 per tonne. it currently costs $15 a tonne.

    Looking at the two interviews together, the result was that between them, Butler and Kelly poured shite on the Coalies.

    Good to hear! It was only Taylor that they played on the 9.00am news, however.

  28. Well said Grog.
    ———————————————-
    The climate change debate is trapped in a hell of false balance.

    It should not be which party’s policy “costs” more.

    It should be , Ok, the science says we need a 45% (or more) reduction – which party has the most effective/efficient way to reach that?

    — Greg Jericho (@GrogsGamut) May 1, 2019

  29. Thanks Briefly! Very chilly out here the last couple of mornings but thankfully a very nice cafe nearby!

    Our candidate is also a very nice guy which helps.

  30. B B, morning … I caught your reappraisal of that Dickson creep, with some relief (on my part) and good on ya.

    Anyway, there’s a well written piece by a sex worker in the Guardian this morning in which she underlines a few points – these blokes are what they always are, and it’s not some one night aberration; there’s a lot of (Asian) racism and misogyny generally and specifically in Dickson’s diatribe, and then there’s the sad fact that being a sex worker ain’t always voluntary, hardly news.

    Few public conversations about sex work in Australia – including in progressive spaces – fail to make mention of a presumed proportion of women who find themselves in the sex industry by force or coercion, and yesterday’s Dickson dialogue was no exception. Progressives may politely neglect to name exactly who they think comprises that proportion, but conservatives are less likely to stealth their racism or their misogyny. Especially over scotch and burgers with fellow blokes.

    https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/may/01/steve-dicksons-comments-reveal-an-ugly-truth-about-our-attitude-towards-migrant-sex-workers

  31. Darn @ #87 Thursday, May 2nd, 2019 – 9:12 am

    The one article I most wanted to read from BKs offerings this morning (thanks BK, as always) was Nikki Savva’s contribution from the Australian. I have googled it as BK instructed but the request keeps getting rejected by the paywall. Has anyone else had any success with it?

    https://www.theaustralian.com.au/commentary/bulldog-morrison-can-only-nip-at-shortens-heels/news-story/1afa91238c38e8f68013810bc6a1319a

    A couple of excepts from the piece. –

    Morrison was in the must-hold seat of Reid with two winners, John Howard and Gladys Berejiklian. Shorten was in Chisholm, which Labor seems certain to regain, with his rejuvenated handbag hit squad and his wife, Chloe.

    Shorten announced two major packages — a whopping $230 million a minute — one to provide dental payments for pensioners, the other childcare for families. As well as targeting several key groups — pensioners, young families, low-paid female workers — it gave him something to talk about during the debate, and he did it without apologising for the higher taxes or the closing of tax loop­holes to pay for them. It was a smart tactic.

    Morrison was like an aggressive bulldog, goading and nudging Shorten on his inconsistencies and costs. Shorten sat slumped on his stool like a rag doll, grinning weirdly, doing his best to shake free from the jaws clamped around his ankles. Morrison’s questions were pertinent; Shorten’s answers were short on detail, sometimes slippery. Typically, Shorten’s answers went to the why, not the how or how much. Nevertheless, he hit the right buttons, at least for those watching in the studio, such as when he argued the cost of not acting on climate change was greater than the cost of acting, or when he promised to restore fairness. After climate change, his references to Pauline Hanson and Clive Palmer drew the best spontaneous responses from the small studio audience, which overwhelmingly voted him the winner.

    Shorten has long been regarded as a drag on Labor’s ticket, but the two biggest drags on Morrison’s could turn out to be Hanson and Palmer. The preferences they swing to the Coalition could easily be outnumbered by the lost primary votes of Liberals or swinging voters in cities and suburbs turned off by deals with candidates they consider reprehensible.

    There are questions not properly answered on Labor’s sussing out of a deal with Palmer, which Morrison tried to inject into the debate; however, the deal has been done with the government, allowing Shorten to weave it into his narrative warning of ongoing chaos and dysfunction if the Coali­tion is re-elected and Palmer wins a seat in the Senate.

    There a couple of addons for Firefox or Chrome which will bypass the Paywalls for The Australian – The Daily Telegraph and many more.

    Over and out. 😎

  32. “It is just amazing how much in synch the West and the Murdoch mob are these days ”

    The Seven-west conglomerate will merge with newscorpse very soon. The last move on Fifield’s right wing media consolidation orders from upon high.

    Just in time for right wing loon Lachie to take over from both Rupe and lil’ Kerry. Joy

  33. poroti @ #126 Thursday, May 2nd, 2019 – 10:02 am

    Well said Grog.
    ———————————————-
    The climate change debate is trapped in a hell of false balance.

    It should not be which party’s policy “costs” more.

    It should be , Ok, the science says we need a 45% (or more) reduction – which party has the most effective/efficient way to reach that?

    — Greg Jericho (@GrogsGamut) May 1, 2019

    Absobloodylootly.

    It has to be a question of whether we are resource driven or outcome driven. Climate Change has to be outcome driven, and we work out how much, and then work out how. It’s as stupid as saying you can only afford the car with no brakes, or a 737 without the extra programme.

  34. “If it fails, expect no opposition to ever have any policy more detailed than “mums are really good” for the next few elections. I wouldn’t be totally surprised if it turns out people lie.”

    The problem with that approach is it ruins your ability to get anything done when in power, as you don’t have even a whiff of a mandate for any particular policy. That’s basically what unstuck the Abbott government – he went small target, then when elected tried big changes via the 2014 budget and came a cropper.

  35. Martin…………I have no issue with the West being on the side of the LNP – this is a democracy after all, but this time around it is just so tilted……The West has always been a “conservative” paper but usually managed to at least give some credence to the fact there is more in the political world other than the LNP. As another poster just mentioned, the readership of the West is now much more limited.
    Recent evidence of this was a day or so before the debate the West made a big issue of “Questions to be answered by Shorten” (nothing was to be asked of Morrison apparently) and the only thing the readers so-say came up with was the Franking issue. This tells us that the West’s demographic is older, natural LNP supporters and folk outside the metro area. I only get it as they let me have it at a discount, I want a TV mag and I do the cryptic.
    The laugh was, in the debate itself, I think the Franking thing got just one look-in. While the Libs are making hay with this Franking thing, it is of little or no consequence to those under 60 – and these are the voters who will make or break the election one way or the other.
    Oh, and someone earlier on was bemoaning Labor’s ads were “not cutting through”. This is all in the eye of the beholder. The Libs only seem to have one ad and that is those sad-sack lot whinging about tax. A more recent variety is the old couple “have saved for 50 years” and might just have to go on the pension. I doubt whether anyone gives a toss, other than the hard done by $500,000 superannuants.

  36. Thanks for that Kay Jay. Much appreciated.

    I use Chrome and I would be very interested in hearing more about the add-on you mentioned that will by-pass pay walls.

  38. The media coverage of the Reserve Bank’s exalted deliberations about the official cash rate is mostly pointless. Apart from people who work in the financial sector, few people should pay any attention to it. What the Reserve Bank does to interest rates is nearly always a great big nothing burger for people’s economic circumstances. The only exception is when a central bank does something crazy like when Paul Volcker raised interest rates sky high in the early 1980s to induce a recession. But whether or not the Reserve Bank will lower the cash rate by 0.25 percent is not an interesting question that should be taking up time in the election campaign coverage.

    The Australian Government does not need to issue Commonwealth Government Securities (the federal government’s bonds). It uses bond transactions in open market operations to manipulate the supply of reserves in the banking system so that the central bank can maintain its target interest rate for the overnight interbank lending market (commonly called the official cash rate).

    If the supply of reserves falls too low, the interest rate that the banks are charging each other in the overnight interbank lending market rises above the central bank’s desired rate. So the central bank buys bonds from the banks to inject more reserves into the banking system.

    If the supply of reserves rises too high, the interest rate that the banks are charging each other in the overnight interbank lending market falls below the central bank’s desired rate. So the central bank sells bonds to the banks in order to drain reserves out of the banking system.

    The intricacies of how the central bank operates is complex and often it doesn’t just involve outright purchases and sales of bonds – often the central bank engages in repurchase agreements (called repos). But in substance the system works the way I’ve described: the central bank uses bond transactions to either add reserves or drain reserves so that its desired cash rate is maintained.

    But the central bank could simply pay that target interest rate on excess reserve balances. Bond issuance is not necessary. Or ideally the central bank could set the overnight interbank interest rate at zero and leave it there permanently. Monetary policy is ineffective.

    The central bank should focus on running the payments system and enforcing strong underwriting standards for the banks. Maintaining true full employment with price stability and sustainable resource use is the job of fiscal policy.

    Monetary policy (interest rate adjustments) is a steering wheel that isn’t connected to anything. Businesses base investment decisions on their expectations of profit. If they can’t see a justification to expand production because consumer spending is stagnant and they have significant unsold inventory already, they won’t borrow more, even if interest rates fall.

    Households base borrowing decisions on their existing debt levels, their degree of job security, and their expected income. If households are already heavily indebted, their wages are stagnating, and their employment is precarious, they won’t borrow more, even if interest rates fall.

    We want banks’ lending decisions – whether it’s to businesses or to households – to be based on high quality credit analysis.

    If there isn’t enough spending in the economy overall to provide a secure decently paid job everybody who wants one, that is a problem of fiscal policy, not monetary policy.

  39. See what I mean about the “eye of the beholder”?
    According to Savva, and she being totally bias free (joke), mentions above, “Shorten sat on his stool like a rag doll…………blah, blah…………..”. This from those ultra clean Liberals who would never stoop to suggesting that at the time of the State election that Mark McGowan was wtte, ” a sweaty man with a 5 o’clock shadow” or something similar. Without checking, I seem to remember this highly offensive comment came out of the mouth of one local Federal Lib Minister who has been touted as a future leader.

  40. Gawd. Just back from doing the weekly shop at Coles and saw The Australian front page for today. I mean, talk about puerile:

    ‘The cost of doing nothing about Climate Change, the question that can’t be answered? We have the answer!’

    🙄

  41. I’m still getting rubbish from Sharma in my inbox, but finally managed to unsubscribe I think. Motherhood statements of exceptional meaninglessness would be an understatement.

    The money is on him. It’s interesting. When GetUp were calling in the lead up to the by-election, their main message was if you’re a Liberal voter, take the opportunity to send the Govt a message – about dumping Turnbull, or whatever else is worrying you – and then come the Fed Election, you can revert to form. Which it appears is happening, not that Phelps hasn’t made an impact and kept her profile high.

    The question is whether it matters. It mattered then to get rid of the one seat majority, rattle their cage, and ramp up the angst and in fact, essentially get them to shut down Government, admittedly generally not a good thing to do, exceptions apply – a bunch a clowns with shit legislation comes to mind.

    So they (GetUp) and she (Phelps) did the job. This time round, it matters much less. If Sharma wants to spend his time on the opposition benches as shadow minister for stupid statements on EVs, good luck to him. Though I do think we’d get more for our money with Phelps as an agitating independent.

  42. Tricot @ #137 Thursday, May 2nd, 2019 – 10:19 am

    See what I mean about the “eye of the beholder”?
    According to Savva, and she being totally bias free (joke), mentions above, “Shorten sat on his stool like a rag doll…………blah, blah…………..”. This from those ultra clean Liberals who would never stoop to suggesting that at the time of the State election that Mark McGowan was wtte, ” a sweaty man with a 5 o’clock shadow” or something similar. Without checking, I seem to remember this highly offensive comment came out of the mouth of one local Federal Lib Minister who has been touted as a future leader.

    Because everyone wants a leader that looks like that fine, upright, committed Christian, former SAS Soldier..and supporter of White Supremacist White South African Farmers, Andrew Hastie!?!

    Yeah nah.

  45. Nicholas @ #136 Thursday, May 2nd, 2019 – 10:19 am

    The media coverage of the Reserve Bank’s exalted deliberations about the official cash rate is mostly pointless. Apart from people who work in the financial sector, few people should pay any attention to it.

    Except for every single person with a variable-rate mortgage.

    If you have, say, debt of $500k then a 0.25% rate decrease saves you $1250/year*. That’s more than either party is offering to anyone in tax cuts.

    * Assuming the banks do the ethical thing, and pass the decrease on in full.

  46. BH @ #97 Thursday, May 2nd, 2019 – 9:20 am

    @catmomma

    SkyNews talking head said Labor worried about Central Coast seats. Death tax and retiree tax is cutting through. Are you getting much feedback on the ground?

    It’s a bit of a wrinkle but we are mainly getting people who want to turf a borderline corrupt government, only in it for themselves, out.

    We have poor pensioners and pensioners who don’t lose out of the Dividend Imputation stuff too, you know.

    In other words, don’t believe the Liberals propaganda.

  48. Oh and on perception of “how things are going”, I would not have a clue.
    However, if I were able to distance myself (and now I have postal voted, I can a bit), I would judge the election has barely raised the temperature for most of Oz. Many, I would hazzard, are ignoring all political ads…………..the Liberal ones are boring repetition – same can be said for Labor – and there is a yeh, yeh feeling about it all. One party is clearly on the back foot while the other has not raised the passion for change – or not to me as yet.
    As well, the LNP seem to be in much more strife on the ground………under-played by their MSM barackers; their people seem to be doing their own sweet thing to save their seats (Molan/McDonald); there are former “winners” (Abbott/Dutton/Porter) on the back foot in their own seats; there are loud-mouthed Libs (eg M Cash/Abetz) invisible and silent; others totally ignoring the LNP line, while in some seats, there do not appear to be any candidates at all.

  49. d @ #28 Thursday, May 2nd, 2019 – 10:14 am

    Thanks for that Kay Jay. Much appreciated.

    I use Chrome and I would be very interested in hearing more about the add-on you mentioned that will by-pass pay walls.

    Sitting back now like a rag doll I look for the item in my Poll Bludger folder.

    Aha ❗

    https://github.com/iamadamdev/bypass-paywalls-chrome

    Download .zip

    Then see instructions on the referenced github page.

    Works very well. Sadly outline no longer works for many papers. 😵

    Firefox also catered for if anybody interested.

  50. Tricot. The West’s bias and barracking is on a whole new level this time around. The number of all out attacks on Bill Shorten on the front page this campaign is pathetic. Hopefully this is the campaign that will cement the paper’s descent into complete irrelevance.

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