Big news on the polling front as Newspoll unveils its first set of results based on what The Australian describes as “an improved methodology following an investigation into the failure of the major published polls”. The old series had been limping on post-election with results appearing every three weeks, but this latest result emerges only a fortnight after the last, presumably portending a return to the traditional fortnightly schedule.
The poll credits the Coalition with a two-party lead of 51-49, compared with 50-50 in the result a fortnight ago, from primary votes of Coalition 41% (up one), Labor 33% (down two), Greens 12% (steady) and One Nation 5% (down two). Interestingly, both leaders’ personal ratings are a lot worse than they were in the old series: Scott Morrison’s approval rating is at 43% (down three) with disapproval at 52% (up nine), while Anthony Albanese is at 38% approval (down four, though he was up five last time) and 42% disapproval (up five, though he was down seven last time). No news yet on preferred prime minister, which is presumably still a thing (UPDATE: Morrison’s lead narrows from 46-32 to 46-35).
On the methodological front, the poll has dropped robopolling and is now conducted entirely online. The sample size of 1519 is similar to before (slightly lower in fact), but the field work dates are now Thursday to Saturday rather than Thursday to Sunday. In a column for the newspaper, Campbell White of YouGov Asia-Pacific, which conducts the poll, offers the following on why robopolling has been abandoned:
A decade or so ago, most people had landlines and they tended to answer them. There was very little call screening. This meant getting a representative sample was easier and pollsters did not need to be so skilled in modelling and scaling their data. The truth is, the old days are never coming back. In order to do better, we need to consider what we can do differently. We’ve seen a consistent pattern overseas where telephone polling has become less accurate and online polling more so as fewer people answer phone calls and more and more people are online.
White further notes that “annoying and invasive” robopolling is “answered largely by older people or those who are very interested in politics”, while “busy people who are less interested in politics either don’t answer or hang up”. He also reveals that the new series will “weight the data by age interlocked with education and have precise quotas for different types of electorate throughout Australia”, consistent with YouGov’s methodology internationally.
Hopefully the restated commitment to “greater transparency” means we will shortly see comprehensive details of demographic breakdowns and weightings, a commonplace feature of British and American polling that Australian poll watchers could only envy. Stay tuned.
A few things Labor can’t say but the Greens can:
– The extractive industries by and large are greedy, tax-evading/avoiding wankers who use ‘soft’ and possibly harder corruption to get their way.
– Our business “leaders” are for the most part a bunch of lazy, mendacious, greedy, often dishonest, sometimes criminal and generally and useless wankers
– “self-funded”
wankersretirees can get … whatever– if parents don’t want to send their kids to public schools because they want them indoctrinated and/or because they want them to be given a boost up the greasy pole, they can bloody well pay for it themselves
– the “private” health industry – see “self funded” retirees.
– billionaires shouldn’t exist
– nothing in public hands should be privatised ever and those enterprises that have over the last few decades should be renationalised as the opportunity arises – unlikely.
–
Mavis
The conversation between Fuller and Morrison and the conclusions that Morrison drew from it are truly on the bizarre side of historical Australian political ‘explanations’, IMO.
Isn’t this the right course of action until such time as there is something reported back from the police?
S777
The problem for the Greens is not what the Greens do or do not say.
The problem is that Labor gets tarred with the Greens brush in regional seats.
And we all end up with a Prime Minister Morrison.
Boerwar
Repetitive anti-Greens rants changes nothing. After advocating for the Informal Party you have zip cred. PB has its fair share of posturing wannabes who have refined the art of spreading fake news.
‘Douglas and Milko says:
Tuesday, November 26, 2019 at 8:06 pm
I do think we need too update our democratic system to cope with the rapidly changing polity that is the 21st Century.
Steve777
I actually support Proportional Representation. The idea of a “local member” representing you is a polite fiction. My “local member” will always be a “Liberal” who won’t represent me in “this lifetime or the next”.
Nicholas
Unfortunately it is a polite fiction that many people seem invested in. I think it might help if we completely separated the constituency work that MPs currently perform from the legislative work of MPs. Elect a district-based Citizens’ Advocate who does the constituency work – helping people to navigate bureaucracies and so on – but this person isn’t a Member of Parliament. Elect the parliament on a proportional basis. Legislating, done well, is a full-time job. Constituency work / bureaucratic troubleshooting, done well, is a full-time job. I think it is completely arbitrary and unhelpful that those two distinct roles happen to be combined in the same person under the current system.
I wish I knew how to do this update to our democracy software find a new system that provide democracy in our 24/7 interconnected world. The new system would need to cope with a social space replete with fake news, successfully aimed at capturing the low-information, low-education demographic. They may only be 15% of Australia, but capturing that vote is enough to swing elections.
I am tending to think that Multi-member electorates combined with broader proportional representation might be a good thing.
And literally, a new group of MPs (or similar) who would be elected on a six-monthly basis, and who had a real influence on government. The people (Volk?) are impatient. they want quick input into the political process.’
D&M
Good policy processes are extremely complex as are most federal laws. Six months would mostly not get your average MP a working knowledge of procedures and processes, let alone your actual Bills and things. In short, the only real influence during the first six months would generally be ignorance.
Peg
I am not sure why you are getting personal.
The reality is that for most farmers, Bandt has no cred. We know this because the Greens routinely get less than ten per cent of the vote in rural electorates. In fact the Greens often get less than five per cent in rural electorates.
Pretending that Bandt has some sort of farmer leadership role is fake news.
The problems for the greens is Labor has to get to a position where next time Richard Di Natale says he can tell Labor what to do, people Laugh.
Judges have their own way of entering and leaving courts. For instance, NSW Supreme Court judges have judge, staff only elevators, never mixing it with the hoi polloi, for the very sound reason that if they were to be seen entering, leaving an elevator in the company of a party to a litigation, such could give rise the issue of apprehended bias. Likewise, a prime minister contacting a police commissioner re. an active investigation is a no-no. I fail to understand why Labor has yet to agitate this issue.
‘frednk says:
Tuesday, November 26, 2019 at 9:01 pm
The problems for the greens is Labor has to get to a position where next time Richard Di Natale says he can tell Labor what to do, people Laugh.’
I can’t see this happening for decades.
‘Mavis says:
Tuesday, November 26, 2019 at 9:02 pm
Judges have their own way of entering and leaving courts. For instance, NSW Supreme Court judges have judge, staff only elevators, never mixing it with the hoi polloi, for the very sound reason that if they were to be seen entering, leaving an elevator in the company of a party to a litigation, such could give rise the issue of apprehended bias. Likewise, a prime minister contacting a police commissioner re. an active investigation is a no-no. I fail to understand why Labor has yet to agitate this issue.’
Possibly because Morrison only let that cat out of the bag today.
Must be time for a Daniel Andrews redirection to feed the progressive left. I wonder what he has in store this time. Maybe something on climate change could take the focus away from the corruption scandal engulfing his govt.
taylormade says:
Tuesday, November 26, 2019 at 9:04 pm
Must be time for a Daniel Andrews redirection to feed the progressive left. I wonder what he has in store this time. Maybe something on climate change could take the focus away from the corruption scandal engulfing his govt.
_______
The weird thing is they had a pretty decent story to tell on political donations by legislating new reforms.
BW…true to say, things are not exactly sky blue for Labor at the moment, but having said this, do your really get the vibe that the electorate is now jumping for joy with a Morrison lead government? I know WA is not Victoria, but I do not pick up much rah-rah on behalf of the Liberals and their hayseed mates here in Sandgropia. The main vibe I get is kind of “Let’s not talk about politics” as the non-government side is still feeling sick in the stomach at the defeat, while the winners have not get a clue what to do about anything other than harp on about ‘Labor’……………..Our local West newspaper is a case in point in that it makes itself look even more ridiculous each day in its blatant (now) support for Morrison (and Trump by default) while the WA economy teeters on the edge of recession…
Boerwar:
[‘Possibly because Morrison only let that cat out of the bag today.’]
Morrison came into the House shortly after QT to announce that all seems to be good for Taylor following his call to Fuller. That’s some four hours ago. Surely Albanese or Dreyfus should have by now brought the matter to the fore. The crux is that by contacting Fuller, Morrison has at least impliedly put pressure on the commissioner. This smells to high heaven.
Tricot
I get the feeling that the people who chose Morrison generally still believe that they made the right choice.
Mavis
I assume that this will make you happy:
This AFR story indicates that it was Labor who ‘ambushed’ the Coalition.
https://www.afr.com/politics/federal/pm-stands-by-angus-taylor-as-police-probe-alleged-fake-report-20191126-p53e9d
Perhaps labor should demand the PM release a transcript and or details of his telephone conversation with the NSW police commissioner.
Given it was Morrison who raised in Parliament this afternoon without any prompting the somewhat “ dubious “conversation as part of his defence of Taylor he should be prepared to let the sunlight in on what exactly was discussed. Of course he will not but it may be something labor could use to broaden its attack.
itsthevibe says:
Tuesday, November 26, 2019 at 8:13 pm
That’s exactly the line Bowen went with in 2013, and the public response was basically “Aha, so you admit that your spending got us into this mess!” Even among those who conceded that some spending was necessary, the common belief was that it was excessive and poorly-targeted. In my eyes, this widespread view was quite clearly the main cause of that election result, as much as certain elements in the party self-servingly try to put it all down to climate policy and/or asylum seekers.
-0-
With due respect, that’s exactly the line that came right out of the LNP playbook at the time. I don’t recall any significant public outcry except for that ginned up by Tony Abbott and his gang.
And what exactly, Stan, was this “mess” you got us into this time. On re-reading your comment I see that you don’t actually subscribe to the “common belief” and “widespread view” that you cite.
As far as I remember, Abbott and Co., were the principal source of the pink batts and school halls criticism. They chose to play politics with the unfortunate deaths of the four young men, a small number of the many industrial accident fatalities in that year. And of course amplified by a servile media led by the odious Murdoch newspapers.
As for “excessive and poorly targeted,” what could have been better than a program to reduce energy consumption and to improve the learning environment for our children. These two programs required little lead time and meant reducing unemployment almost immediately at a time when rapid response was required. It was too bad that shonky businesses took advantage of the insulation program and flouted occupational health and safety laws.
I’m still waiting for an independent analysis that shows just how much energy has been saved by the pink batts and just how important that injection of stimulus in the economy was.
And I wouldn’t want to reopen the lengthy debate that has raged on PB over whether Rudd-Gillard-Rudd and the Opposition’s fear-mongering border security and carbon tax lies were actually the principal causes of the 2013 result,
Boerwar:
I could not open the link. I do know, however, that it was Labor who laid the complaint, not the City of Sydney Council. I’m not sure what ‘ambush’ means contextually, but will suggest that on the face of it,
Labor had justification to seek an investigation into crooked, incompetent Taylor. Anyway, I’m off.
With regards to the IBAC enquiry and the “ bombshell” revelation that labor pollies accepted donations it is my understanding the counsel assisting the enquiry made it clear yesterday that despite a extensive investigation nothing illegal or improper was uncovered against any government member.
If the worst the enquiry comes up with is labor pollies accepted legal donations from a developer then the media and the liberal lapdogs floating around can spew their bile all they like.
We shall see what unfolds.
doyley
I haven’t been studying it too hard but I get the feeling that Labor is working pretty well with what it has. This is not a whole lot because both the AFP and the NSW Plods are politically controlled.
I assume that Morrison and Berejiklian are combining to ensure that Taylor lasts until the end of this sitting.
The police may come out with the same thing they came out with in relation to Cash, wtte, someone broke the law but we can’t figure out who.
I assume that IT forensics will demonstrate that the document used to justify a political attack was forged. But after that we get into what Angus said and what his staffers said.
The police could drop the case by announcement on the Friday before Christmas and declare the case finished.
Mavis
OK. The gist of what I did read was that Labor knew that the police had moved on from ‘considering a referral’ to launching a criminal investigation and used that knowledge in QT.
Anyhoo, time for bed. Good night everyone and may all your dreams be sweet.
Boerwar,
Fair call.
doyley says:
Tuesday, November 26, 2019 at 9:33 pm
With regards to the IBAC enquiry and the “ bombshell” revelation that labor pollies accepted donations it is my understanding the counsel assisting the enquiry made it clear yesterday that despite a extensive investigation nothing illegal or improper was uncovered against any government member.
If the worst the enquiry comes up with is labor pollies accepted legal donations from a developer then the media and the liberal lapdogs floating around can spew their bile all they like.
We shall see what unfolds.
————————————————
Yep. Nothing to see here. No evidence of a crime so clearly no crime has been committed. Clearly the 160k was due to Woodman’s philanthropic sensibilities.
In NSW property developers are prohibited donors to political parties. In Victoria, not so. Why the difference?
“Property developers
A ‘property developer’ is an individual or corporation that:
carries on a business mainly concerned with the residential or commercial development of land, with the ultimate purpose of its sale or lease of the land for profit, and
in the course of that business:
one relevant planning application has been made by or on behalf of the individual or corporation that is pending
three or more relevant planning applications have been made by or on behalf of the individual or corporation and determined within the preceding seven ears.
A person who is a close associate of a property developer is also a prohibited donor.”
https://www.elections.nsw.gov.au/Funding-and-disclosure/Political-donations/Unlawful-political-donations/Prohibited-donors
Boerwar @ #924 Tuesday, November 26th, 2019 – 9:17 pm
Not entirely. I actually spoke to a regional voter, of low socio-economic status, but the estranged partner of a pretty unscrupulous builder who gets in teams of labourers from overseas to work on his projects for low wages, because he can, and she admitted that she voted for Scott Morrison, ‘because he seemed a reasonable sort of person’ (I kid you not) but that now that she had seen him operate she said that she regrets it.
Still trying to gin up outrage against Labor legally accepting donations, Pegasus? 😆
Never understood the unreasoning fear of property developers. Of course there are bad ones, as there are in any walk of life, but generally they’re business people running businesses.
When I was a councillor, I encouraged people who had concerns about developments to approach the developers directly. More times than not, the developer would happily work with the resident/s to solve the perceived problem.
*Never received a cent in donations or in kind from anyone, btw.
C@
Remember the time when the Greens received a million dollar donation from a company director, in direct contravention of their own ‘guidelines’?
They altered them incredibly quickly to make the donation acceptable!
zoomster says:
Tuesday, November 26, 2019 at 9:52 pm
Never understood the unreasoning fear of property developers. Of course there are bad ones, as there are in any walk of life, but generally they’re business people running businesses.
____________________
i know right. It’s not like there is a long history of developers being involved in various crimes in Sydney for example. Or any where you care to look. Of course your experience in bumcrack Victoria probably hasn’t exposed you to the millions to be made in metropolitan centers and the things done to get them through.
Anyone who thinks we should, or even could, abolish the states is dreamin’.
Remember Queensland? That state that still causes so much consternation. Do you seriously think that Queenslanders will vote in a referendum to cede total power over their lives to a bunch of southerners? That’s even before we start with Western Australia.
Also it is probably worth reminding the idiots who think that’s a good idea is that Australia is not a nation divided into 6 states and 2 territories. It is a federation formed by the merger of 6 independent colonies.
There’s as much chance of abolishing the Australian states as the USA has of abolishing theirs.
nath
But that’s my point. A developer in country Victoria is probably pretty harmless. Why should they be banned from donating to political parties?
There are a lot of other types of businesses where SOME of those involved have been proven to be corrupt, and they’re still allowed to make donations.
It’s as silly as trying to make laws restricting union activity because of problems with one union boss.
So far from the media stereotype of blokey construction worker thug.
NSW had to try something with the trouble they had with developers. I’m not too concerned with the unrealised dreams of developers wishing to donate to political parties if it has a beneficial effect on planning.
Nath is right (except for the gratuitous insult of regional Australia): malfeasance in property development is more or less inversely related distance from the CBD. That’s because it’s driven by the unimproved land value, which is also inversely related to distance from CBD.
What one thus sees is:
– near the CBD, the reward to property developers is based mainly on the unimproved land value, so improvements (e.g. good buildings rather than poor) are almost relevant and malfeasance is rife
– in the regions, the unimproved land value is low, so property developers only profit by actually building with quality
nath
Ah, the old ‘something has to be done, this is something, let’s do it” approach to policy.
What’s your idea to strengthen the integrity of the planning process?
zoomster @ #939 Tuesday, November 26th, 2019 – 9:54 pm
And who knows what new rules they passed at their national conference last weekend? That’s what really gets up my nose, they get all sanctimonious about Labor’s so-called unprincipled behaviour in accepting legal donations from people that they think are dodgy, but when it comes to clean hands themselves they are shown to be just as guilty as Lady Macbeth because, as the CEO of Bunnings says, they class themselves as property developers rather than hardware store proprietors. So the same could be said of Kathmandu stores, the owner of which has been a mega donor to The Greens. But you’d never get The Greens admitting to that.
nath
Oh, legislation, prosecution, that sort of stuff. You could, for example, set up a body whose sole purpose was to investigate corruption. I wonder why NSW didn’t think of that!
Queensland bans political donations from property developers, a ban recently upheld by the High Court.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-04-17/high-court-decision-property-developer-spence-challenge/11020604
“The High Court has ruled a Queensland law banning political donations from property developers is valid.
The law was introduced last year to crack down on corruption and increase transparency.”
——-
Apparently, everything is hunky dory in Victoria because, well, “there’s nothing to see here”.
Apparently, Victoria is free of the corrupting influence of property developers because, well, just because.
peg
No one said any of that.
I do wish you’d stop verbalising and misrepresenting people, but I suppose you do it when they’re winning the argument.
(Thinks: does peg do irony? We’ll soon know).
Yes that could expose corruption in the planning process. Although when done properly there will be no evidence. Especially when all it takes is a wink and a nod. Banning donations from developers would have a far more powerful effects. Although I still support a permanent anti corruption body.
I think that if Australia devotes massive attention and political capital to a constitutional change, it should avoid the cosmetic issue of whether the ceremonial Head of State is the British monarch or an Australian grandee. We should only do substantive constitutional change. Constitutionalizing some core economic rights is the way to go. It is practical. It would improve the lives of millions of people. It would inspire people. It would be well worth the political capital. The constitution should impose on the Commonwealth Parliament an affirmative duty to enact a right to decent housing, a right to decent employment, a right to decent health care, a right to a decent education, a right to nutritious food, a right to good quality infrastructure for telecommunications, energy, water, and transportation.
nath
The trouble with that is that you’re saying that classes of people should be banned even if there’s no evidence of wrongdoing but just an assumption that nodding and winking is going on.
It’s exactly the same kind of justification Morrison is using with unions (and, indeed, with groups like Get Up).
Nicholas
Jolly. You try getting substantive change through the referendum process.
If Morrison, centre Alliance and Lambie were so concerned about union “ thugs” like their poster boy Setka and the militant CFMMEU being responsible for huge blowouts on projects then they should give the ABCC more power. Restrict the legislation to the construction industry. It would be nothing new. The construction unions are already the most regulated in the country. Why attack the entire labour movement if, as Morrison continues to rant on about in QT, it is all about CFMMEU thugs ?
Why hurt 1.5 million unionists and destroy their unions if it is all about John Setka and the CFMMEU ?
The simple answer is Morrison and big business want to crush all unions and with Centee Alliance, Lambie and most probably Hanson along for the ride are simply using Setka as a excuse.
That is the simple reality.
Only just came across this – a scientist won the 2017 Ig Nobel prize for his research into whether cats are a liquid or a solid –
‘A liquid is traditionally defined as a material that adapts its shape to fit a container. Yet under certain conditions, cats seem to fit this definition.’
‘If we take cats as our example, the fact is that they can adapt their shape to their container if we give them enough time. Cats are thus liquid if we give them the time to become liquid.’
https://theconversation.com/answering-the-question-that-won-me-the-ig-nobel-prize-are-cats-liquid-86589
We have had this conversation in our family, and concluded (through our own independent research) that cats are non-Newtonian solids.
I forgot to add developers to my list @8:49 – for them, as for the extractive industries.
Other things someone should say but Labor can’t:
– boats don’t matter. A grown up country can deal with them
– terrorism is a distraction.
— Terrorists are criminals, pure and simple. They should be dealt with as such, not built up into something bigger than they are.
— Bushfires kill far more people.
— All the “security” legislation passed since 2001 should be repealed or greatly wound back
–