The latest of Essential Research’s fortnightly polls, which continue to limit themselves to issue questions in the wake of the great pollster failure, focuses mostly on the Israel Folau controversy. Respondents registered high levels of recognition of the matter, with 22% saying they had been following it closely, 46% that they had “read or seen some news”, and another 17% saying they were at least “aware”.
Probing further, the poll records very strong support for what seem at first blush to be some rather illiberal propositions, including 64% agreement with the notion that people “should not be allowed to argue religious freedom to abuse others”. However, question wording would seem to be very important here, as other questions find an even split on whether Folau “has the right to voice his religious views, regardless of the hurt it could cause others” (34% agree, 36% disagree), and whether there should be “stronger laws to protect people who express their religious views in public” (38% agree, 38% disagree). Furthermore, 58% agreed that “employers should not have the right to dictate what their employees say outside work”, which would seem to encompass the Folau situation.
Respondents were also asked who would benefit and suffer from the federal government’s policies over the next three years, which, typically for a Coalition government, found large companies and corporations expected to do best (54% good, 11% bad). Other results were fairly evenly balanced, the most negative findings relating to the environment (26% good, 33% bad) and, funnily enough, “older Australians” (26% good, 38% bad). The economy came in at 33% good and 29% bad, and “Australia in general” at 36% good and 27% bad. The poll was conducted last Tuesday to Saturday from a sample of 1099.
Also of note:
• A referendum on indigenous recognition may be held before the next election, after Aboriginal Affairs Minister Ken Wyatt’s announcement on Wednesday that he would pursue a consensus option for a proposal to go before voters “during the current parliamentary term”. It is clear the government would not be willing to countenance anything that went further than recognition, contrary to the Uluru Statement from the Heart’s call for a “First Nations Voice enshrined in the Constitution” – a notion derided as a “third chamber of parliament” by critics, including Scott Morrison.
• A paper in the University of Western Australia Law Review keeps the Section 44 pot astir by suggesting 26 current members of federal parliament may fall foul by maintaining a “right of abode” in the United Kingdom – a status allowing “practically the same rights” as citizenship even where citizenship has been formally renounced. The status has only been available to British citizens since 1983, but is maintained by citizens of Commonwealth countries who held it before that time, which they could do through marriage or descent. This could potentially be interpreted as among “the rights or privileges of a subject or citizen of a foreign power”, as per the disqualifying clause in Section 44. Anyone concerned by this has until the end of the month to challenge an election result within the 40 day period that began with the return of the writs on June 21. Action beyond that point would require referral by the House of Representatives or the Senate, as appropriate.
Barney in the rabbit hole of fuckwittery @ #97 Friday, July 12th, 2019 – 10:48 am
😆
poroti
I agree. Why put something in the constitution which is a scientific fact universally recognised ie that indigenous people were here more than 40,000 years ago? And then why bring up race at all which is a thoroughly discredited idea in this age and is just divisive?
Goll
As in the John Howard ‘Fist Full of Dollars’ bullshit promise ?
guytaur @ #100 Friday, July 12th, 2019 – 10:58 am
You think like a Green. You see one issue, and instead of just helping to fix that one issue, you conflate it with a grab bag of other issues and try to solve the problems of the universe.
Which is why you end up never achieving anything useful.
P1
You think like a failure which is why Labor has lost way more elections than it has lost.
What you are slagging off is what Keating called the vision thing.
The reality is people vote for values.
To get Labor’s agenda of hope trumping (no pun intended) fear you have to be very strong in projecting your values.
Labor did well at this with engaged voters who got those values.
The LNP won because Labor’s weak arguments did not engage voters.
To change that Labor needs to have a cut through values message voters get.
For Labor voter perception is Higher Taxes Big Spending. Like it or not. So just use it in Labor’s favour. The same is true of human rights. Labor has been championing human rights for a century. The Greens are just a Johnny come lately.
Freedom of Association is a core concern to the Union movement. Nothing Green about that concern.
“MyGov website crashes amid tax return chaos for Australians trying to claim $1080 bonus”
Wait until they realise that their “$1080 bonus” is a tax offset, and they received $0…
#popcorn
Guytaur
We probably do need a republic and cutting all ties with the imperialist minded constitution.
Alas! Morrison et al. know well enough that the voters aren’t interested and like many issues seemingly important are placed in the “do not open” compartment by the regime.
This government is about enhancing the wealth and sinecure of its membership.
The Nathaniels and Natalies are unable to see beyond their outdoor kitchens and European 4×4 in the driveway.
As well intentioned the majority of posters on PB are, PB comments are outside the confines of the mirrored conformity of enough voters to allow this menagerie of rorters recently re-elected to do as they please.
‘You think like a failure which is why Labor has lost way more elections than it has lost.’
That’s quite an achievement.
I see that Israel Folau is not going away then…
I might be able to slot him into my list of things to worry about – maybe around No. 7000.
zoomster says:
Friday, July 12, 2019 at 11:21 am
No, just guytaur logic.
Labor quite clearly loses when it wins! 😆
Goll
Change is hard. You have to fight for it.
The problem for Labor was no cut through with engaged voters. Not it’s policies because those that did engage Labor won over.
So all I am suggesting make sure the inevitable LNP Labor Taxes High spends big attacks work in Labor’s favour not against it.
Embrace Oversight. Keneally has that exactly right. Use Oversight also known as accountability to attack the LNP weakness. The corruption
That impacts citizens rights from the ability to judge how a government is operating to consumer protection. Standing up for human rights is part of that. This is a strength of Labor not a weakness.
You have to give it to Pyne, he did call the Liberal party an election winning machine. They even win when they have no policies and deposed 2 PMs.
nath
It’s always easier to tear something down than to build.
Mygov crashes cos people are desperately wanting their 1000 bucks from the ATO.
Debt ridden Aussies is what we are looking at here.
And bloggers on this site want to believe that tax cuts was something to vote against.
No idea.
nath
The Liberals might be an election winning machine but they only have to win against Labor and the Greens.
How good is that?
Barney
If Dutton has any real power or influence in the party and his view prevails, Wyatt is wasting his time.
In the NPC address Wyatt when asked about his hard core colleagues said that it is their right to have their views and his job is to turn them around. He also said that Pauline Hanson had done good things for the country, and he respects her right to the views she has.
Insipid. F he slips whilst balancing on the fence he will do himself a painful injury.
Cheers
The advertising/marketing industry is f’ing huge and growing faster than GDP. Anyone who tells you Murdochs influence is over-rated need to think about human psychology and why companies (and political parties) spend so much of their money and time on marketing.
It has been 20 years since Kleins excellent book No Logo. Yet society is now almost entirely branded. Hillsong is a brand. Hipster is a brand. Are the proles still capable of independent thought?
“if he slips….”
Jaeger @ #106 Friday, July 12th, 2019 – 11:17 am
And according to The Greens Army here that will be all Labor’s fault.
This isnt intended to be a negotiation. This is an attempt to wedge and shift the blame to Labor. It is a distraction. It is brilliant. All it needs is a massive hands off propaganda machine to make it work and an ABC giddy with willingness to parrot their talking points.
Goll
Sorry. No cut through with unegaged voters.
Any bludgers here confirm whether the Queensland/NSW CFMMEU received kickbacks from the coal industry ..?
Psclaw
” Wyatt is wasting his time.”
Yes, he is. Tellingly, he announced at the outset that if the referendum looks like getting a No, it won’t go ahead. I read that as code for it’s doomed, but we’ll go through the motions anyway. This is the Clayton’s approach to indigenous recognition. If the govt really gave a damn it would embrace the Uluru statement.
What is a “kickback”……….eg……..donations from public companies to LNP for services rendered or required? Or, better still, a virulent advertising campaign a la the so-called ‘mining’ tax funded by the likes of BHP claiming such a tax was going to hammer ‘sovereign wealth’ in Oz? Kickbacks come in all forms and means to both sides of politics……………..In the case of BHP it came from shareholder funds, buy hey, who cares?
nath says:
Friday, July 12, 2019 at 11:32 am
You have to give it to Pyne, he did call the Liberal party an election winning machine. They even win when they have no policies and deposed 2 PMs.
He’s correct. They also have the advantages of a Green Party that campaigns for them all the time and a Labor Party that campaigns against itself as well.
The centre left has become permanently dysfunctional. As a result, not one single important issue has been resolved on terms that favour working people since the 1980s. As a corollary, Labor has succeeded in just one election since 1996 and that Government soon dissolved.
Unless and until the dysfunction on the Left is resolved, Pyne’s Machine will go on winning.
The social contract that was put together by Labor during its periods in office from 1942 until 1990 will be taken apart by Pyne’s machine. This is already happening. It is happening as we watch. There is nothing that can be done about this in the absence of an effective centre -left plurality. Such a plurality does not exist. It is a thing of the past.
We are all dying in Green Valley. We are dying of conundrum.
Victoria says:
With this government’s track record the most likely reason is a stuff up in implementation. IT has not been a strength to say the least.
There may also be a large increase in inquiries because of a jump in the number of companies doing what the one I work for introduced this year. No group certificates , just jump on to mygov. I have to say doing the tax return on mygov was damned quick and easy.
Also it may be a coin’s coincidence but today’s date was the one given by mygov for my assessment being done. So there would be a stack of people who,like med,got their return in early busily logging on to find out what they got.Especially if they batch them all up for a release date at the end of each working week.
swamprat says:
Friday, July 12, 2019 at 11:42 am
nath
The Liberals might be an election winning machine but they only have to win against Labor and the Greens.
How good is that?
What planet is this on? On this one Labor has to win against the Liberal/Green anti Labor machine.
Unless and until the dysfunction on the Left is resolved, Pyne’s Machine will go on winning.
The Liberals are very well aware of this, of course. They take advantage of this by spinning out wedges for the use of the Greens on a continuing basis. The Greens have become the Liberals’ Pavlovian Puppies. They have been taught to bark at Labor. This goes on and on. It drives the neighbours batty. The Liberals love it.
briefly says:
Friday, July 12, 2019 at 12:13 pm
There is nothing that can be done about this in the absence of an effective centre -left plurality. Such a plurality does not exist. It is a thing of the past.
________________________________
The ALP would not have such a large Green voting cohort on its left flank if not for the ALP right wing which alienated them in the first place. You think people who vote for the Greens want to put SDA operatives and the likes of Kimberley Kitching into Parliament. The only way for progressive voters to make sure they were not putting in these people was to move to the greens. The Greens are not the problem for the ALP, the problem is their right wing, not all of them, but many of them who will not be elevated into Parliament by progressive and well educated people.
FredNK
You have defined the problem no use whining about it. How is Labor going to do it?
I would suggest not moving to the right further away from the grassroots workers who formed the party.
The biggest problem for Labor is coal workers. Give them a future they can believe in with the renewable future and I predict Labor will win. Do that and death tax scare campaigns won’t cut through.
Tricot
Lots of ads on Rupert’s Foxtel for instance would be a nice tax deductible way of ‘paying for sympathetic coverage’. The mining companies would have millions of brownie points in the Rupert Bank .
briefly @ #108 Friday, July 12th, 2019 – 12:13 pm
The Greens and a few Independents are all that occupy the left these days.
With Labors transition to Lib lite and its desertion from a leftist ideology, it leaves the left with a lot of electoral ground to make up.
poroti says:
Friday, July 12, 2019 at 12:14 pm
Victoria says:
Mygov crashes cos people are desperately wanting their 1000 bucks from the ATO.
With this government’s track record the most likely reason is a stuff up in implementation. IT has not been a strength to say the least.
There may also be a large increase in inquiries because of a jump in the number of companies doing what the one I work for introduced this year. No group certificates , just jump on to mygov. I have to say doing the tax return on mygov was damned quick and easy.
Also it may be a coin’s coincidence but today’s date was the one given by mygov for my assessment being done. So there would be a stack of people who,like med,got their return in early busily logging on to find out what they got.Especially if they batch them all up for a release date at the end of each working week.
The Liberals like it when things don’t work, Government-wise. This is proof that the State sector can never do anything effectively. They will blame Labor. The Greens will blame Labor. The voters will say they are all the same. They will vote for the anti-Government parties…for the National Socialists and the anarcho-billionaires. The Liberals will exploit the incompetence of the Public Service to dismantle it and export the remnants to Fiji.
There will be no relief from this unless and until the dysfunction on the Left is resolved.
Guytaur @11:30.
“The problem for Labor was no cut through with engaged voters. Not it’s policies because those that did engage Labor won over.”
I think that it is more a problem of a lack of cut-through to disengaged voters. The engaged voters are more likely to see though the bullshit. That doesn’t necessarily mean they’ll vote Labor. They might accept the LNP world view and vote for it, ignoring the campaign palava. In any case they’ll be more likely to make up their own minds. The disengaged, however, are likely to be much more susceptible to the Noise Machine.
You can blame Howard’s Whole of Government IT Outsourcing policy for that.
Rex….the Greens are not a Left expression. They are a bourgeois/radical cult that despises working people, their values, their hopes, their suburbs, their jobs, their cars, their everything, including above all their political-industrial organs. They ride shot-gun for the Reactionaries. They will maintain the Liberals in office forever.
You are their voice. Rexicology is here. We are all going to perish in Green Valley.
Steve777
It was a typo I meant no cut through with disengaged/unengaged voters.
The polling was accurate about engaged voters.
swamprat says:
Friday, July 12, 2019 at 11:42 am
nath
The Liberals might be an election winning machine but they only have to win against Labor and the Greens.
How good is that?
What planet is this on? On this one Labor has to win against the Liberal/Green anti Labor machine.
FredNK
Labor fights for human rights. It’s core union business.
Stop moving right. Stand up as proud lefties on your strongest ground. United never defeated.
Listen to Sally McManus.
I see the RC into mental health has heard a submission about using psychedelics and MDMA in trials for depression, anxiety, addiction and PTSD. There is a lot of evidence supporting them from the US where the FDA has given them breakthrough technology status. I hope Australia’s wowser pantswetting unscientific politicians don’t just rule them out of hand like pill testing.
guytaur says:
Friday, July 12, 2019 at 12:23 pm
FredNK
You have defined the problem no use whining about it. How is Labor going to do it?
I would suggest not moving to the right further away from the grassroots workers who formed the party.
The biggest problem for Labor is coal workers. Give them a future they can believe in with the renewable future and I predict Labor will win. Do that and death tax scare campaigns won’t cut through.
For the greens it is not about policy; it is about destroying Labor. Greens actually pick up a very small portion of the vote. The Greens are there to belt Labor from the Left while the Liberals belt them from the right. A very very successful Liberal campaign machine.
The latest of cause is, from the Greens, Labor is not an opposition because they don’t have the numbers to stop the government stage 3 tax cuts (thanks Greens); from the Liberals, labor opposed the tax cuts.
The Greens really are a sad and pathetic party, part of the Liberal campaign machine, nothing more. They actually haven’t added anything to environmental policy for there whole existence.
guytaur says:
Friday, July 12, 2019 at 12:37 pm
FredNK
Labor fights for human rights. It’s core union business.
Stop moving right. Stand up as proud lefties on your strongest ground. United never defeated.
Listen to Sally McManus.
Central environmental issue? God knows what twisted logic brought this forward as the latest wedge the Greens are to use against Labor.
I’m sorry i should take more interest in the Greens anti Labor campaign.
FredNK
Stop whining. Greens can’t destroy a Labor Party with effective policy on issues. History has proven it.
Do note I only said the obvious. Coal workers need a future. I am not a climate denialist.
Kakura
You only have to look at that great Liberal exemplar who was PM from 1996 till he was booted in 2007 to get the gist of the basic Coalie perspective on our Indigenous people.
As a cigarette advert said a couple of decades ago “times change, but people never do”. So too with Conservos and their outlook on Indigenous matters.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/jul/12/like-a-horror-movie-dozens-of-corellas-dead-after-falling-from-sky-in-suspected-poisoning
I dont often get loud when arguing with locals. But when they whinge about ‘the bloody corellas’ and I know they care about animals and the environment – well it comes at them with both barrels.
One of the wonders of the natural world are large flocks/herd of fauna. And we have lost so many of these wonders. And it pisses me off when peeps start whinging about the few we have left, when they claim plagues and armageddon. Yes, sometimes animals in large numbers are bad for the environment and for themselves and culling is required. But that isnt what these people are up in arms about. This is some sort of evolutionary base instinct that that many animals MUST be bad. Ahhh, they are noisy! SHOOT, POISON them QUICK!
Well f off. Take a breath and appreciate the wonder while we still have such wonders. I have seen kids walk up to these flocks in amazement. Completely in awe, stunned and then overwhelmed with happiness and a memory they wont easily forget. Surely the adults can find that within themselves.
As for these corellas, they poisoned the wrong ones. These ones are protected birds. The cruel b@stard who did it needs to get the full force of whatever pathetically lenient law that exists.
‘Diogenes says:
Friday, July 12, 2019 at 11:03 am
poroti
I agree. Why put something in the constitution which is a scientific fact universally recognised ie that indigenous people were here more than 40,000 years ago? And then why bring up race at all which is a thoroughly discredited idea in this age and is just divisive?’
Every now and then the whites have another bout of the Indigenous Problem jitters. After more than two centuries of solving the problem the final solution eludes them. Some perenniel markers on the whitefella bubblebabble:
1. It is just like Apartheid. Code for: it is not just like Apartheid because Apartheid was about oppressing blacks and this is about empowering blacks which we hate.
2. Indigenous people don’t all agree with each other. Code for: The old Pontius Pilate/divide and conquer trick. How can we whitefellas possibly do anything when Indigenous people can’t agree with each other?
3. There is no such valid concept as ‘race’. Code for: when it suits whitefellas, there is no such thing as race (except when it comes race-based incaceration and policing rates.)
4. Doing anything different would be divisive. Code for: whitefellas can’t agree among themselves. Again.
5. We whitefellas won’t do anything real so we have to be pragamatic and pretend to do real things. Code for the racists have won before we even start.
6. History was yesterday. Code for Indigenous people should just learn to suck up the ongoing consequences of what the whitefellas have been up to for the part two and a quarter centuries.
Two and a quarter centuries of the most appalling behaviour by whites has failed to grind Indigenous people and Indigenous culture into oblivion. In response, Indigenous people are evolving Indigenous nationalism(s). These operate at the first nations level and, conceptually, at a combination of first nations level: a national Indigenous consciousness. The markers for this are pride in survival, pride in culture, pride in origins, a deep-seated anger, a determination to right wrongs and, importantly for whites, a notion that Indigenous Australians are prepared to cut a national deal around Voice, Treaty and Truth.
Our historical tradition, now more than two centuries old, is that many whitefellas will speak with forked tongues and in code. In the first week of the ‘consultation’ examples abound. This is basically an abuse of rational and civilized discourse.
It is a marked feature of The Uluru Call from the Heart is that Indigenous people are unwilling to accept being fobbed off with meaningless whitefella-approved symbols.
Thus when Wyatt, lapdog of Morrison and Kelly and the like, talks about ‘pragmatism’ he means my whitefella bosses will give you nothing but a metaphorical pat on the head at best: the most innocuous set of words possible. In the Preamble. Not in the Constitution. As long as you behave in the consultations going forward.
poroti @ #126 Friday, July 12th, 2019 – 12:14 pm
For this I am grateful.
The only thing worse than having a bunch of repressive authoritarian assholes in charge is having a bunch of repressive authoritarian assholes who are actually competent at technology. Long may the government fail at all its IT undertakings. 🙂
guytaur @ #105 Friday, July 12th, 2019 – 11:16 am
Labor’s actual track record – on just about any issue you care to name – puts the Greens to shame. And I’m no longer even a particularly avid Labor supporter, because I can see they have currently lost the plot at both the state and federal level. Hopefully, they will find it again before the next election, otherwise we are all going to suffer even more than we will now 🙁
However, forget about Labor for a moment – one thing is certain: if you really want change, you are eventually going to have to move on from the Greens. They deliver nothing. You have to find another way.
Democracy Busters R Us
Indigenous Colonial Suppression Section
Chapter: Morrison Hides. Cunning as a Shithouse Rat.
Morrison first sent Wyatt out to start the Consultation. Within days the Rabid Right in Morrison’s Party are publicly trailing their race-hate coats. In acceptable code, of course. Instead of backing Wyatt to do a real consultation, Morrison chops him off at the knees by getting someone in the Prime Minister’s Office to drop the word to a ‘journalist’ from The Australia. We are all to know that two thirds of the consultation frame will NOT happen because Morrison does not want it to.
guytaur says:
Friday, July 12, 2019 at 12:47 pm
FredNK
Stop whining. Greens can’t destroy a Labor Party with effective policy on issues. History has proven it.
Do note I only said the obvious. Coal workers need a future. I am not a climate denialist.
Been around this bush.
That was not the central message when the Greens wandered up to Queensland in their gas guzzlers to tell the locals, stuff you, we want the mines closed down.
It was full on Labor wedge aimed at people living in city central, Labor won’t come out and say we will put you all out of work tomorrow; wha wha wha.