The heat is on

An issues poll finds concern about climate change up since the May federal election, and national security down.

One sort-of-poll, and three items of Liberal preselection news:

• The latest results of the JWS Research True Issues survey records growing concern about the environment and climate change, which is now rated among the top five most important issues by 38% of respondents, compared with 33% in June and 31% a year ago. There is diminishing concern about immigration and border security (26%, down from 30% in June and 34% last November and defence, security and terrorism (18%, down from 20% in June and 29% a year ago). A range of measures of general optimism and perceptions of government performance produced weaker results than the June survey, which appeared to record a post-election spike in positive sentiment.

• Jim Molan will shortly return to the Senate after winning a party vote last weekend to fill the New South Wales Senate vacancy caused by Arthur Sinodinos’s resignation. Molan scored 321 votes to 260 for former state party director Richard Shields, adding a second silver medal to his collection after being shaded by Dave Sharma in Wentworth last year. This was despite Molan’s attempt to retain his seat from number four on the ticket at the May election by beseeching supporters to vote for him below the line, to the displeasure of some in the party (and still more of the Nationals, who would have been the losers if Molan had succeeded). Molan was reportedly able to secure moderate faction support due to the apprehension that he will not seek another term beyond the next election.

• The Victorian Liberal Party is embroiled in a dispute over a plan for preselection proceedings for the next federal election to start as soon as January, which has been endorsed by the party’s administrative committee but is bitterly opposed by affected federal MPs. The committee is determined not to see a repeat of the previous term, when preselections were taken out of the hands of branch members to head off a number of challenges to sitting members. Those challenges might now come to fruition, most notably a threat to Howard government veteran Kevin Andrews, whose seat of Menzies is of interest to Keith Wolahan, a barrister and former army officer. Tim Wilson in Goldstein and Russell Broadbent in Monash (formerly McMillan) have also been mentioned as potential targets. According to Rob Harris of The Age, votes in Liberal-held seats could happen as soon as late February, with marginal seats to unfold from April to August and Labor-held seats to be taken care of in October.

• Matthew Denholm of The Australian ($) reports Eric Abetz and his conservative supporters believe they have seen off a threat to his position at the top of the Liberals’ Tasmanian Senate ticket, following elections for the state party’s preselection committee. Abetz’s opponents believed he should make way for rising star Jonathan Duniam to head the ticket, and for the secure second seat to go to Wendy Askew, one of the Tasmanian Liberals’ limited retinue of women MPs.

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.

2,475 comments on “The heat is on”

Comments Page 41 of 50
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  1. THANKS Boerwar – I will go through the obvious channels to find a copy – always happy to read a recommendation from someone like minded in military history

    I am waiting for C@t to pop up and quip something about boys being infatuated by war.

  4. lizzie,
    The Coalition and Josh Frydebudget should simply be honest and say that their desire to have older people work longer is to enable them to spend less via Newstart for them than they would if those people were on the Pension.

  5. SK
    It is a matter of choice, I suppose.
    My view is that the more you can bring to the reading the more it can be appreciated and enjoyed.
    I recently watched a broadcast performance of La Traviata at the Garnier, with Pretty Yenda (who was born and bred in Piet Retief in South Africa) doing her Violetta debut.
    I experienced various enjoyments and disenjoyments during the show.
    So I did some digging to find opera reviews of this, the opening performance.
    They offered a much, much richer response than I could muster. (Although my french has a shallow depth of opera-specific terms!).
    I am looking forward to watching the show again, this time better informed.

  6. Simon Katich @ #2007 Friday, November 22nd, 2019 – 4:27 pm

    THANKS Boerwar – I will go through the obvious channels to find a copy – always happy to read a recommendation from someone like minded in military history

    I am waiting for C@t to pop up and quip something about boys being infatuated by war.

    I’m in a benevolent mood. 🙂

    But it’s true. What’s the most popular game for young men to play online?
    Tom Clancy’s ‘Call of Duty’. They just love it!

  7. Boerwar @ #2005 Friday, November 22nd, 2019 – 4:31 pm

    SK
    It is a matter of choice, I suppose.
    My view is that the more you can bring to the reading the more it can be appreciated and enjoyed.
    I recently watched a broadcast performance of La Traviata at the Garnier, with Pretty Yenda (who was born and bred in Piet Retief in South Africa) doing her Violetta debut.
    I experienced various enjoyments and disenjoyments during the show.
    So I did some digging to find opera reviews of this, the opening performance.
    They offered a much, much richer response than I could muster. (Although my french has a shallow depth of opera-specific terms!).
    I am looking forward to watching the show again, this time better informed.

    pedant alert

    That’d be Pretty Yende.

  13. This is the latest attempt at distraction by Morrison – huffing and puffing furiously at Westpac while taking zero action to legislate corporate bad and criminal behaviour.

    One minute of listening to Price and Sloan today was the same story, with Sloan also bringing gay marriage into it.

    I’m not sure where Turnbull fits into the picture.

    ‘Highest gravity’: Morrison, Turnbull up pressure on Westpac over money laundering claims

    The Prime Minister and his predecessor have called on the bank’s board to address explosive allegations by the financial intelligence agency.

    by Charlotte Grieve and Sarah Danckert (Nine/Fairfax headline)

  14. Mr Morrison does a cheap two card trick whereby he adopts a public persona of being anti-the Big End of Town while quietly allowing the Big End of Town to get on with it.

  16. Time to dispel a few climate furphies.

    The first is that no one is doing anything on #ClimateChange.

    Here is the % change in emissions (excluding LULUCF) from 2005-17 for all #OECD nations.

    Australia is one of only five (in red) that has increased emissions! #auspol

  17. Citizen
    There are laws that Austrac is looking to enforce.

    I really don’t get why people think there are no laws in finance when there are actually countless laws.

  18. Itza bugger all happening here in Maitland and it looks to be going south of us but I do hope the Mt Gosper fire cops a deluge

  20. lizzie

    Those tables are, IMO, somewhat misleading.

    To make sense they need to integrate imported CO2 emissions.

    Thus countries which are importing vehicles from China may look as if they are reducing their emissions when they have, in fact, off shored their CO2 emissions to China.

  21. Richie Merzian @RichieMerzian (Director Climate and Energy Program TAI)
    ·
    3h My @10Daily piece just out dispelling all the facts from furphies on climate…

    Furphies:
    1) green policies are causing bushfires
    2) bushfires have always been bad
    3) cost of acting on climate is huge
    4) fossil fuel lobby is constructive

  25. Tony Burke
    @Tony_Burke
    ·
    35s
    Want proof the ensuring integrity bill is unfixable? govt drops out the amendments on a Fri PM. Even after the amendments unions would still be able to be deregistered for 3 paper work errors.
    Same week we find a bank breaks terror laws 21 million times….

  26. I liked DBC Pierres Vernon God Little. The style, the language, the ripping story had me hooked from page 1.

    His second book wasnt so good – although the bit where he described sex in restaurant in a fish tank full of squid was memorable.

  27. Chris Hardman @FFMVic_Chief
    ·
    1h
    May not hear on the news about the fires in remote forests and parks. The dry lightning had started more than 51 fires yesterday. Victoria’s forest fire fighters will be working day and night to contain these fires for many days and possibly weeks to come. Stay Safe
    @DELWP_Vic

  28. Looking at Trump’s attitude towards the Ukraine makes me wonder how we would react if his real attitude towards Australia was revealed considering he doesn’t have any business interests here.

  29. It’s quite dark in Sydney now. The street lights have come on nearly 3 hours before sunset. The sky’s grey-brown with an orange tinge and thunder is rumbling away with the occasional flash. At this stage, however, just a few spits of rain.

    Maybe it’s the Rapture. Are we about to lose Scottie?

  30. Labor shouldn’t be adopting the Right’s frames but creating a few of its own.

    Exactly. The Right are perceptive and persistent in their use of framing to promote their goals. For instance, they have entrenched phrases such as “death taxes” and “tax relief” and “balanced budgets” in the popular lexicon in order to bias policy debates to terrain that is favourable to conservative goals.

    The ALP and the Greens need to use terms like “government investments in public services and infrastructure”, “first class public services and infrastructure”, “fulfilling and interesting work for all who want to work”, “secure and stable employment”, “socially useful jobs”, “zero waste of people”, “investing in people’s skills and knowledge”.

    Terms like “deficit spending”, or even just “government spending” don’t help progressive framing because they have an inherently negative and inaccurate connotation (of a financially constrained government running out of money and racking up debt).

  31. Citizen and Cameron

    I am happy they are doing it. I think it’s a good message to send as the government worked to entrench discrimination.


  32. Player One says:
    Friday, November 22, 2019 at 2:57 pm
    ..
    I’ve got a great idea. Some people here believe we can lay undersea power cables all the way to Singapore (a mere 4,500km or so).
    ..

    There is only one way to put it, you really are an ignorant sod.

    There are three reasons why you would not lay a cable directly to Singapore.
    1) You don’t have to. There is a whole large market on the way. The islands are laid out in a nice arc ( go and look at a map).
    2) There is a whole market on the way so you take the land path.
    3) you cannot run a 4500km cable.

    You really should do a bit of study so you don’t make a complete fool of yourself.

    The longest under water cable needed is shorter than the longest currently under construction.

  34. I do hope the Mt Gosper fire cops a deluge

    The radar looks promising.
    I vividly remember late one evening driving from Mudgee to Ryleston and seeing an almighty storm brewing over the ranges. I pulled over, climbed onto the roof of the XB, sat, cracked open a beer I thankfully had handy and watched the show.

  35. “Same week we find a bank breaks terror laws 21 million times….”

    If you or i broke terror laws or facilitated kiddie fiddling Dutton would take all our assets, jail us for some indeterminite time, and brag about what a big swinging dick he is and isn’t that good as we should all feel safe.

    Bank does it and i’ll bet cha NO-ONE is jailed and the fine will be paltry. The banks wont change unless shareholders jack up and demand it. They wont do that unless they suffer the consequences of the managment they have accepted in place. So, inflict real pain on the shareholders (but not enough to put the bank out of business) so THEY…the owners of the banks actually drive change. Freeze trading in the shares before you do so they cant just sell out and run away and avoid the pain.

    Whats not to like. 🙂

  36. ‘Mexicanbeemer says:
    Friday, November 22, 2019 at 4:50 pm

    Looking at Trump’s attitude towards the Ukraine makes me wonder how we would react if his real attitude towards Australia was revealed considering he doesn’t have any business interests here.’

    Disposable in the Trump national interest.

  37. Nicholas

    Good points on accepting the framing.

    It turns a government failing to fulfil its duties about human dignity into a positive.

    Labor and the Greens should avoid that framing of the right like the plague.
    A term that should be in use is the Services Deficit.
    Remind people it’s not just law and order government is responsible for delivering.

    Edit: Don’t expect Labor to do that reframing. That would mean having to fight. Australian Labor are no UK Labour in it for the long haul. The Centrists are in control.

  45. Nicholas @ #2030 Friday, November 22nd, 2019 – 4:53 pm

    Labor shouldn’t be adopting the Right’s frames but creating a few of its own.

    Exactly. The Right are perceptive and persistent in their use of framing to promote their goals. For instance, they have entrenched phrases such as “death taxes” and “tax relief” and “balanced budgets” in the popular lexicon in order to bias policy debates to terrain that is favourable to conservative goals.

    The ALP and the Greens need to use terms like “government investments in public services and infrastructure”, “first class public services and infrastructure”, “fulfilling and interesting work for all who want to work”, “secure and stable employment”, “socially useful jobs”, “zero waste of people”, “investing in people’s skills and knowledge”.

    Terms like “deficit spending”, or even just “government spending” don’t help progressive framing because they have an inherently negative and inaccurate connotation (of a financially constrained government running out of money and racking up debt).

    Who knows, in a couple of generations they may be able to shift a few misconceptions but the’d need to start now.
    On another point I hear Labor has rediscovered the NBN!
    Should have maintained the rage for the last 6+ years, but I s’pose it’s never too late.
    And I see Malcolm has gone to work framing it as one of his great achievements.
    Labor needs to strike now. Big.

  49. Boerwar

    It’s such an obvious marketing opportunity for drug sellers when thousands of schoolies gather on the Gold Coast.

    I wash my hands of the whole show and will probably die poverty stricken. Meanwhile, Dutton has had a brilliant day in the limelight.

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