Essential Research has released its fortnightly poll, once again without voting intention results. It includes a series of questions on Scott Morrison’s visit to the United States, with results generally more favourable than I personally would have expected. For example, the most negative finding is that 32% agreed that Donald Trump’s presidency has been good for Australia, compared with 49% who disagreed. By way of comparison, a Lowy Institute survey in March found 66% believed Trump had weakened the alliance, and only 25% had either a lot of or some confidence in him.
Only 38% agreed that a good relationship between Scott Morrison and Donald Trump reflected badly on Australia, compared with 48% who disagreed. Other results were probably too influenced by question wording to be of much value. Fifty-seven percent felt Morrison had shown “good diplomacy skills” during the visit, a quality that might be attributed to anyone who maintains a straight face in the President’s presence. The statement that Morrison “should have attended the UN Climate Summit, alongside other world leaders” is compromised by the words in italics (which are my own), but for what it’s worth, 70% agreed and 20% disagreed.
A question on the state of the economy likewise produces a result less bad than the government might have feared, with 32% rating it good and 33% poor. Fifty-one per cent supported Australian military involvement in the Middle East, after it was put to them that Australia had “agreed to provide military support to their allies in the Middle East to protect shipping and trade in the region”, with 35% opposed.
Essential has not yet published the full report on its website, so the precise sample size cannot be identified, but it will assuredly have been between 1000 and 1100. The poll was conducted online from Thursday to Sunday.
@BernieSanders tweets
Thanks for all the well wishes. I’m feeling good. I’m fortunate to have good health care and great doctors and nurses helping me to recover.
None of us know when a medical emergency might affect us. And no one should fear going bankrupt if it occurs. Medicare for All!
Vic:
Also this timely reminder that Trump corrupts in plain sight and openly admits to his crimes.
AE
When Labor is a pale imitation of the LNP then nah I will vote for the real deal and wait for the Green vote as the major left party alternative to Labor as voters wake up to Labor’s move to the right and what that means.
Your response shows that this is a real danger as you rail against the collective vision that Medicare represents. Its Universal Healthcare for a reason. Core Labor values of the collective good over the neo liberal idea of the individual and there being as Margaret Thatcher put it “no society”
Its Labor that’s facing the test not me.
@cheryl_kernot tweets
RBA is cutting rates because the government has abandoned responsibility for economic growth #auspol https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/oct/03/rba-is-cutting-rates-because-the-government-has-abandoned-responsibility-for-economic-growth?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other
@jonkudelka tweets
@GrogsGamut “I do feel Johnson has been historically hampered by his inability to conduct assignations with mortal women by disguising himself as a swan, say, or a shower of gold. He has only ever taken the form of Boris Johnson.”
OMG
Fess
Yep. It has always been thus.
KayJay,
The Milky Way is no innocent when it comes to cannibalising its neighbours (GD-1, Palomar 5, Antlia 2 etc.) – it’s just harder to see the crumbs from the inside.
https://www.skyandtelescope.com/astronomy-news/evidence-dark-matter-clump-milky-way/
https://www.sciencealert.com/ripples-in-the-milky-way-are-evidence-of-an-ancient-collision-with-a-galactic-ghost
https://www.newscientist.com/article/2212350-best-ever-map-of-milky-way-shows-our-galaxy-is-warped-in-an-s-shape/
@CFMEU tweets
The Liberal’s expansion of working holiday visas exploits visa workers and drives down wages for everyone.
It’s a lose-lose. https://www.sbs.com.au/news/unions-label-government-s-push-for-more-working-holiday-visas-a-kick-in-the-guts?fbclid=IwAR3aiIhKyLdpKfqHzNZvfmTmQzG_z4Tr_ZdRxrzLzdsPx7cYWYzbcpRxwlM
Andrew_Earlwood @ #49 Thursday, October 3rd, 2019 – 8:43 am
The voters will give their preference to the party they believe they can trust to carry out their stated policies.
Which is precisely what did this last time, and it turned out that party wasn’t Labor 🙁
The Irish Times editorial on BoJoBrexit plan…
The latest UK proposals on Brexit reflect either an extraordinary ignorance of Northern Ireland or a willingness to risk the Belfast Agreement – and the progress of the last 20 years – to further the Johnson government’s political interests.
The need to minimise the inevitable problems caused by a customs border on the island of Ireland is presented as a technical issue when, of course, it is so much more. The contortions necessary to keep the Democratic Unionist Party on side have created proposals which would be disastrous for the North’s economy and bring with it wider dangers to peace.
At a simple level, this is about the technicalities of trade and ensuring rules are applied between two different customs regimes. But it is, of course, about more than that. It is about opening a new divide and potentially upsetting a delicate balance which has maintained peace on this island. Even at a practical level, what is proposed would cause huge upheaval to many businesses – North and South – and undermine cross-border trade.’
https://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/editorial/the-irish-times-view-on-the-uk-s-brexit-proposals-unrealistic-and-unworkable-1.4038032
Player One
But LNP didn’t have any policies. Just don’t vote Labor.
P1 chimes in with his historical rewrite.
I’ll give you this though: Labor will win once the voters in the outer burbs and regions trust it to keep the green menance and your own brand of wunderwaffe in check and instead prosecute real labor policies: education, health, jobs and incomes.
lizzie
The LNP had a scare campaign.
They had their neo liberal tax cuts out there. The very ones Labor voted for. Designed to gut Medicare and Social Security and the rest we are seeing. The cruelty is the point.
lizzie @ #63 Thursday, October 3rd, 2019 – 9:18 am
They had a choice between a party with very few policies (but ones which they could probably trust) or a party with a bunch of policies (some of which they couldn’t trust, because the party kept changing its mind on them).
So they trusted their hip pockets. Who can blame them?
guytaur:
[‘Labor moving away from tax and spend betrays its values. No more universal health care. No more social security and the list goes on.’]
Please stop being so alarmist. Medicare, a social security net are bread and butter issues for Labor, and always will be. Rudd preached economic conservatism in 2007 but such didn’t result in a diminution in these core values. Labor should get business on side, but not to the detriment of those who rely on universal health care, benefits – I’m confident it can do both.
Player One
I don’t think you should introduce the word “trust” in a conversation about the LNP.
Andrew_Earlwood @ #65 Thursday, October 3rd, 2019 – 9:23 am
Those who don’t know history are doomed to repeat it.
Even Labor themselves now acknowledges that one of the reasons they failed was that they were sending “mixed messages”.
As they are still doing.
Mavis
I am not. Rudd did not do what he promised. There are many reasons for that. However the Federal Government did not take over the States health as he campaigned on.
Yes Rudd supported Medicare. However make no mistake about the basic argument.
The Medicare Levy is a tax. While it exists the LNP will always run Labor is the party of tax and spend.
Labor buying into this and arguing for tax cuts means the Tories have won the argument.
Just as they are falling apart on economic management. This is not the time for Labor to be running Tory slogans.
Jaeger @ #57 Thursday, October 3rd, 2019 – 9:00 am
The article I quoted seemed to think that the sun in the collision scenario (much overused word) may be kicked out and becoming and wandering outcast lost in interstellar space. The probably lost in translation extinction of life would have been long ago finalised.
Another article tells us that black holes are really spherical. I am proud (I tell yez) to announce that I had already factored that into my calculations enabling me to aim my (knuckle down skin tight) taw at the big ring expo with deadly effect.*
So we go to weed and feed prior to my weekly couple of hours day release.
What joy on this glorious Spring day. Clear sky 27℃ projected temperature. Sadly my tulips have finished – but my lilies are sprouting – hurrah ❗
*About four or five guys were plenty to get a game started. Just scratch a three- or four-foot circle in some well-worn spot in the school yard, and make a smaller 12-inch circle. Then all players plant a half dozen marbles in the small circle. Scratch a “taw” line about five feet behind the big circle, and take turns pitching your big “shooter” to see who got closest to the line and would be first to play. We generally pitched our shooter standing or kneeling behind that taw line. If we knocked a marble out of the small circle, it was a keeper. If your shooter landed outside the inner circle, you could shoot again. If it stayed in the inner circle, it just became one more marble, and the next round you had to shoot with a regular-sized marble.
The idea was to keep your larger shooter marble working because it had more power. What a challenge to win more marbles than your opponents, or at least come out ahead. Once all the marbles were knocked out of the inner circle, the game was over and you could count up all your winnings. The one with the most marbles won the game. Then start again!
**My very favourite daughter at about 10 years of age cleaned up the school yard and had a huge collection of marbles. Favourite son (doing windows displays) borrowed them (plus Uncle King’s War Medals) for display purposes. These items are currently residing in the aforementioned black hole – never to be seen again. 😢
P.S. Someone is encouraging madness. Sounds good to me. Where do I sign up ❓ 😍
lizzie @ #74 Thursday, October 3rd, 2019 – 9:35 am
In the sense that the voters trust them to work on behalf of their constituency. The LNP’s biggest con trick is making voters believe they belong to that constituency.
AE
You are thick. You don’t understand the Tory attack. You support their slogans.
Its very simple. Labor has to be the tax and spend party. Its their core values. Next up will be lowering the Medicare Levy because consolidated revenue pays for it all. You know it makes sense.
Thats you buying into the Tory narrative and eroding Labor’s values of a society instead of a nation of individuals
“Don’t argue, it only encourages madness!”
Don’t worry Lizzy, I’m just sparring. Getting ready for my next batch of jury trials. Guytaur makes for an easy head to hit whilst I get back into match shape.
Player One
Sometimes you are so subtle that your real meaning is hidden. 🙂
I’m feeling a bit belligerent today as I am expecting a visitor for lunch, a relative who is well off, a dedicated Liberal, with a complete lack of empathy for others. And no, it’s not the Ruston Senator. 😆
It’s helpful of guytaur to remind us all – we may have forgotten this during the night – that Labor and the Greens are opposed on many issues. There is no way in the world that Labor will adopt Green policies. The more often Labor says “Thanks, but no thanks” to the Greens and their trolls the better it will go for Labor. Thanks for your help, g…..thanks indeed.
RI
Yeah arguing for core Labor values is so Green.
Your labelling is delusional
Laborism is not a Tory narrative. It is just not the Greens narrative either.
Laborism is the Tory antidote.
Regrettably Shorten forgot that: too many ‘we will take stuff off people and give it to their people’, rather than presenting a grand plan of hope. A plan targeted directly at the folk who decide the outcomes of elections. Folk that you despise Guytaur, but the folk that need to be brought into the tent despite your contempt. That’s the labor way: bringing folk together via hope.
AE
Ah yes I despise people because I argue that Medicare needs to be properly funded. That means taxes. I have not even once in years mentioned how university HECS fees should go too. Taxes should pay for that too.
Thats how far this taxes is evil narrative has shifted the overton window to the right. The Tories are winning because Labor is not arguing for society. Its letting the Tories run the its a nation on individuals narrative and wondering why they are losing elections
EdIt: Remember when Gough Whitlam campaigned he was not shy about using taxes to pay for services comrade.
Guytaur,
Do you have any facts to support your assertions?
It seems that KayJay’s piece on the Milky Way has encouraged you to jump around with abandon, leaving any logical thread lost in the central black hole.
Putting aside the question of which side (if any) I personally support, the partisans, dreamers, party hacks and chanting dogmatists involved in this site’s daily “Labor v. Greens” circular shitfight must be the closest thing imaginable to a Liberal party strategist’s perpetual wet dream.
The Greens are greedy for the future they believe awaits them. Labor is nostalgic for the past it prays will come again. Each is in the other’s way, and neither can prosper. Louts and crass chancers like Morrison are the only ones who profit.
Political amalgamation, in the eyes of either side, is unthinkable, preposterous, even as a marriage of convenience, despite the fact that such an alliance would deliver far more votes than their opposing coalition could possibly cobble together. So the heroes of the left continue to throw dung at each other inside the cage they’ve constructed for themselves.
Meanwhile the Right continues to feather its own and its donors’ nests with ad hoc acts of banditry, gross indulgence and looting of public resources, unable to believe their good fortune.
Barney
See BK’s Dawn Patrol.
Article. Labor moving away from tax and spend.
guytaur:
It was you who wrote:
‘No more universal health care. No more social security and the list goes on.’
This is overstating the matter by more than a country mile, and you do your argument a disservice by such overstatement. Anyway, I’ve stated my case and do not wish to further comment on it.
BB
Yes. Real Green posters have been bullied off the site. Someone like me who has publicly stated his position of being an individual voter who swings between Labor and the Greens is labelled Green just because I point out some hard truths about the basic attack the Tories are mounting on Labor and how thats eroding Labor’s ability to do its core values.
Mavis
You don’t get it. See US for how this ends. This is the Tory attack. It was used in the UK as well. This resulted in members voting for Jeremy Corbyn as he became popular because the centrist Blairites were seen to betray Labour values.
I am talking some real basic stuff here. Not some complicated excuses for attacking the Tories on all taxes are evil narrative. Thats the point. The more you buy the Tories arguments and narrative the more they win.
Edit: Its accepting the framing of the Tories.
This is where a certain poster should be directing his anger.
Barnaby Joyce and the coal-loving Morrison Government’s “jobs for the boys” and inaction on climate are only exacerbating the circumstances that lead to drought and other disasters, writes executive editor Michelle Pini.
https://independentaustralia.net/politics/politics-display/how-barnaby-and-the-coalition-make-hay-when-it-doesnt-rain,13166
@ewarren tweets
I’m looking forward to seeing my friend @BernieSanders strong and back on the campaign trail soon. https://twitter.com/ewarren/status/1179489092918267909/video/1
Guytaur,
You really are illiterate.
“policy emphasis”
Policies that are chosen to be highlighted.
Changing the “emphasis” on a policy doesn’t imply that the policy has changed in any way at all. It just means that other policies will be the focus of future campaigning.
On this tax and spend malarkey.
Since the LNP will have cut all services to the bone by the time they are finally thrown out of office, there will have to be a lot of funds spent if any sort of social equality is to be restored. If only Greens and Indies would support Labor on this.
What a shame this is only for Christmas!
Barney
No you are the idiot. Thats the very point I am talking about. That change in emphasis is accepting the Tory narrative that taxes are evil.
Thats my entire point. Thats their attack line. Labor should not surrender before a shot is fired.
g…..you only imagine you’re arguing Labor values (to be generous to you). You’re simply highlighting that Labor is Green-resistant. This is very kind of you. Labor is not a branch of anything Green. We’re not going to become one.
RI
Arguing that my values are Green only and not socialist is your problem. I want us to be like Norway.
Bring back Rudd’s resources tax. Spend it on services. This is basic Labor stuff.
KayJay:
[‘P.S. Someone is encouraging madness…Where do I sign up ❓ ‘]
On this particular morning at least, please consult with guytaur.
Barnaby meant to text “no water” matter – but the spell checker didn’t pick up the typo.
g…..good of you to mention Corbyn. He is the most unpopular Labour leader of all time. His net-sat is around -60. That’s minus 60. More than half of those who voted Labour in the last election think he should resign. He is the very model of how to wreck a Party.
Andrew Earlwood is a fool. Holding on to ‘labourism’ is like hanging on to a dead horse as it floats down the river. The ALP is a moribund instrument of corruption and cronyism and this is best exemplified by the NSW branch which at certain times has verged on being a criminal organisation.
I see the bullies are lining up because I dare to suggest Labor is doing something wrong.
Its all the way with the partisan group think no discussing how their are different views within the Labor party let alone outside it allowed.
Its the Labor party line only or you are mad and insane or an idiot.
guytaursays:
Thursday, October 3, 2019 at 10:16 am
So, your master plan is to keep playing to the Liberal’s strengths.
That sounds intelligent.
The resources tax? You mean one of the most idiotic ideas ever to leave captivity? You mean the idea that when promoted persuaded the working people of WA and QLD that Labor was opposed to their economic well-being? Oh, that idea. Thanks for reminding us of how to lose elections. We need to be constantly refreshed on this.
I’m thankful to you, g. Please continue. The Green-line is not the Labor-line. Repeat it a thousand times.