The second Newspoll conducted under the new regime of online polls conducted by YouGov records the Coalition with a 52-48 lead, out from 51-49 a fortnight ago. On the primary vote, the Coalition is up a point to 42%, Labor is steady on 33%, the Greens are down one to 11% and One Nation is steady on 5%. Both leaders’ personal ratings are improved after weak results last time, with Scott Morrison up two on approval to 45% and down four on disapproval to 48%, and Anthony Albanese up two to 40% and down four to 41%. Morrison’s lead as preferred prime minister is out from 46-35 to 48-34.
Respondents were also asked to rate the leaders according to nine attributes, eight positive and one negative. Morrison scored higher than Albanese for the experience (68-64), decisiveness and strength (60-51) and having a vision for Australia (60-54), while Albanese had the edge on caring for people (60-55). There was essentially nothing to separate them on understanding the major issues (57-56 to Albanese), likeability (56-56), being in touch with voters (50-49 to Albanese) and trustworthiness (49-48). However, Morrison’s worst result was his 58-40 lead on the one negative quality that was gauged – arrogance.
The poll was conducted Wednesday to Sunday from a sample of 1503. The Australian’s paywalled report of the results is here.
In other poll news, a uComms poll (apparently minus the ReachTEL branding now) for the Courier-Mail ($) suggests Queensland’s embattled Deputy Premier, Jackie Trad, is in grave danger of losing her seat of South Brisbane to the Greens. The poll shows the Greens on 29.4%, Labor on 27.5% and the Liberal National Party on 26.6%, with 10.4% undecided. Labor is credited with a 52-48 lead on respondent-allocated preferences, but this may flatter Labor given the LNP’s announcement that they would direct preferences against them. No field work date is provided that I can see, but the sample size was 700. The deficiencies of automated phone polls in inner city seats were noted by Kevin Bonham, among others.
UPDATE: In better poll news still, the results from the post-election Australian Election Study survey are available in all their glory, courtesy of the Australian National University. You can view the ANU’s overview of the findings here, but the real fun of this resource is that it allows you to cross-tabulate responses to 3143-respondent survey across a dizzying range of variables. The survey also includes demographic weightings that presume to correct for the biases introduced by the survey process. The survey also addresses a long-standing criticism by including a component of 968 respondents who also completed the 2016 survey, allowing for study of the changing behaviour of the same set of respondents over time.
Rest assured you will be hearing a great deal more about the survey going forward, but for the time being, here’s one set of numbers I have crunched for starters. This shows the primary vote broken down into three age cohorts, and compares them with the equivalent figures from the 2016 survey. This produces some eye-catching results, particularly in regard to a probably excessive surge in support for the Coalition among the middle-aged cohort – mostly at the expense of “others”. By contrast, the young cohort swung heavily to the left, while the boomers were relatively static.
If people haven’t realised, Australia is a conservative country. Thanks to Reagan, Thatcher & Keating, people have embraced deregulation & the significantly rising wealth inequality (that can be starkly demonstrated graphically).
Labor has over time become more like the LNP than vice versa.
Anthropogenic global warming won’t be dealt with – we don’t live long enough to concern ourselves with the consequences
FredNK
Its simple I am with Peter Garrett not Joel Fitzgibbon.
Which Labor side are you choosing?
guytaursays:
Monday, December 9, 2019 at 10:52 am
The technology may exist, but it’s not in place.
We could transition faster if the Government had the political will, but still how long will it take?
How long does a pumped hydro dam take to build?
While the Tesla battery has had a positive impact, it is no where near the capacity to maintain power to the grid for any period of time.
C@tmomma @ #190 Monday, December 9th, 2019 – 7:48 am
You claim that Labor can’t do anything because it isn’t in government, which is actually a fair point. However you expect me to come up with solutions to all the world’s ills when I’m not even in parliament, or even a member of ANY political party.
You on the other hand are a member of a political party, so you are much better placed than I am to offer any practical solutions to any and all of the world’s ills.
So tell us what do you propose as a practical solution, and what are you doing to achieve those outcomes?
Jackol,
That wasn’t my point at all. FWIW (probably not much as it is not my area at all) I lean towards “harm minimisation” and education as the most effective approached to drugs.
Barney
Thanks for conceding my point.
I expect Labor to come up with practical solutions without being the equivalent to drug pushers.
As I said to you in my initial post. Make sure the renewables are in place first. You know the very renewables Labor IS arguing for as the solution to reducing fossil fuel use.
shellbell @ #198 Monday, December 9th, 2019 – 7:54 am
My point was actually about what happened after asbestos was finally accepted s being toxic. There ws no aid to either the workforce or the town.
Joel Fitzgibbon’s twitter response to Peter Garrett
https://twitter.com/fitzhunter/status/1203473662273179649
Sound familiar. Only people in Central Qld, etc can have a view about the existential crisis represented by global heating.
It’s a fact global heating doesn’t discriminate on geographical location but, hey, let’s bury our heads in the sand and continue with business as usual where the two major parties are beholden to the fossil fuel industry via political donations and the revolving door.
FredNK
Thanks for the implicit endorsement of my retirement plan. I was worried that some might have an ethical objection. 🙂
A couple of points:
– Outlawing supply would, as with coal, tend to increase rather than reduce the street price.
– Outlawing supply would be a tad easier with coal than meth.
Pegasus
says:
Only people in Central Qld, etc can have a view about the existential crisis represented by global heating.
___________________________
It’s a mulletocracy.
How good are 90 bushfires?!
https://twitter.com/Nigel_Lake/status/1203224828091625472
There were many land buybacks and relocation assistance in Wittenoom in the process of phasing down the town.
Shutting down coal mines thankfully isn’t likely to have such a nasty physical legacy on the environment and land rehabilitation is going to be an easier and safer task.
What’s the test to pass as a “true believer”. Let’s round up anyone who isn’t one and put them in camps. Global heating doesn’t discriminate.
But let’s keep propping up coal miners and the fossil fuel industry for three decades or more despite all the warnings real action needs to be taken far earlier.
Keep selling them the delusion nothing needs to change; I’m alright, Jack, I am earning mega bucks.
No environment, no economy for the aspirationals.
Reality will bite sooner rather than later.
Vic says:
Monday, December 9, 2019 at 11:00 am
If people haven’t realised, Australia is a conservative country. Thanks to Reagan, Thatcher & Keating, people have embraced deregulation & the significantly rising wealth inequality (that can be starkly demonstrated graphically).
Labor has over time become more like the LNP than vice versa.
Anthropogenic global warming won’t be dealt with – we don’t live long enough to concern ourselves with the consequences
The consequences of global heating are already well and truly upon us. We can already see the spread of anoxic conditions in the marine environment – conditions which have already destroyed marine life. This in turn is having two further effects. First, it is reducing the capacity of the oceans to absorb CO2. And secondly, the populations of photosynthesising phytoplankton are being destroyed. This will reduce the supply of oxygen to the entire ecosystem – the marine environment, the atmosphere and all the earth’s living organisms. These processes do not merely lie ahead in the indeterminate future. The have been occurring for some time now – for decades.
Anoxic conditions will destroy all life wherever they occur. The MDB fish kills are a vivid example of this. But this is minor compared with instances already documented in the marine environment, where destruction has occurred on a truly massive scale already.
As a species, we seem to be incapable of comprehending this. Instead, we fight among ourselves. We will be destroyed as a result.
I’ve just come in from shopping and whisked through the pages, and a comment by, I think, Not Sure, made me sit up and growl. The one about disallowing older voters to vote unless under 18s can.
Pegasus @ #206 Monday, December 9th, 2019 – 11:14 am
Could have been written by Scrott.
@smh tweets
Bob Carr: Sydney is now experiencing air pollution that would have disposed of Sydney’s Olympic bid https://www.smh.com.au/national/a-sydney-circled-by-fire-could-never-have-hosted-the-olympics-20191208-p53hva.html?utm_medium=Social&utm_source=Twitter#Echobox=1575851046
Oh look another Green fact truth teller inner city elite.
JW –
You were making a sarcastic comment about how it’s ok to deal meth because if we didn’t someone else would, but that inherently implies
(a) that supplying meth is wrong – I don’t necessarily disagree with this, except that there’s a more complex argument here where I would argue that meth use is a direct result of prohibition on other, less harmful recreational drugs, and that if we had not embarked on the war on drugs we wouldn’t have a meth problem at all, and not having a ‘war on drugs’ means that supply of those other, significantly less harmful drugs would be (as it was) entirely legal, regulated, as safe as possible etc etc. In that context I see talking about ‘meth supply’ as shorthand for any prohibited drug supply. Meth is dangerous, for sure, and talking about dealing meth in isolation is nice and emotive, but it is, in my opinion, misleading, and – to state the blindingly obvious – an entirely inappropriate analogy when talking about coal mining/carbon emissions/global warming.
(b) that cutting off legal supply of meth has any chance of stopping people from using meth, which it clearly does not.
Great. Clearly measures aimed at managing demand. Not that I want to reinforce the analogy between meth supply and coal mining, because the analogy is deeply deeply flawed.
guytaursays:
Monday, December 9, 2019 at 11:07 am
But the infrastructure is not there yet.
Your starting point doesn’t exist yet.
You throw around emotive language which denies what the situation is at this moment in time.
You’re ignoring that we have a lot to do to get there.
Greeks will be hit with a hefty fine if they do not spend almost a third of their income electronically in an unprecedented bid by the new government to stamp out rampant tax evasion.
The government expects to raise more than €500 million ($808 million) every year from the initiative that will force Greeks to spend 30 per cent of their income electronically, Alex Patelis, the prime minister’s chief economic adviser, revealed.
Individuals that fail to meet the target will be hit with a 22 per cent fine on the shortfall. Therefore, if an individual spends just 20 per cent of their income through electronic means, they would face a 22 per cent tax on the remaining 10 per cent bar some exclusions.
The scheme is a radical attempt to cast some light on Greece’s huge shadow economy, the world’s largest, and is part of new prime minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis’s sweeping overhaul to revive growth.
“This is a big initiative next year that will either raise more revenue because [people] will pay the penalty or more likely because of the [higher] VAT receipts,” Mr Patelis told The Telegraph.
The revenue predicted is likely to be at the “lower end” of estimates and the country’s banks will help impose the measures by reporting spending to the authorities.
If a Greek earned €1,000 per month and only paid 15 per cent of their income electronically, they would pay a fine of around €400 every year, for example. The government is confident it will not drive more workers into the country’s booming shadow economy and tempt them to understate their earnings, a key problem in Greece.
Greeks can use debit cards, credit cards, bank transfers and ecommerce for the electronic transactions, which includes rent.
But many workers are paid their wages in cash, which they then use to pay their rent and bills. Greece also has one of the lowest internet usage rates in the EU at 72 per cent. This suggests that some in the country could struggle to meet the 30 per cent target.
Southern Europe, particularly Greece, have booming shadow economies. A study by the Institute for Applied Economic Research in 2017 found that Greece had the largest in the world, being equivalent to 22 per cent of gross domestic product.
Actually, tobacco provides some interesting parallels to global heating, not the least of which that the fossil fuel indstry is adopting and refining tactics used by the tobacco industry, even some of the same people.
But a here’s a thought experiment. There’s a country where 80% of the male population and 50% of the female population smoke. Most smokers are addicted. So rather like Australia c. 1965.
Let’s further assume that this country is a major producer and exporter of tobacco (Australia never was).
The country has three main political parties we’ll call, Liberal, Green and Labor.
The news about the devastating health impacts of smoking loom large in the public consciousness. So how to proceed from there?
The Liberals, in the pocket of the tobacco industry, want to boost tobacco production and export. They defund bodies working on the link between smoking and health, often deny there’s any problem at all, hide statistics regarding smoking and health and undertake a couple of token measures like mild warnings (“Medical authorities advise that smoking is a health hazard”) at the end of cigarette ads.
The Greens want to immediately ban smoking, together with tobacco production and export. Even if this were possible, it ain’t going to happen.
Meanwhile, Labor are trying to steer a realistic course to reduce tobacco consumption to very low levels within a reasonable time, through the sorts of measures we’ve actually seen in Australia in the last few decades. Other countries are trying to do the same, with varying levels of commitment and sucess. Labor doesn’t ban tobacco production and exports but these industries are dying as demand shrinks. Labor wants to establish transition plans for displaced tobacco farmers and workers.
Jackol
Where the analogy works and you don’t have to bring in you have to be for the drug war or against it.
Instead Labor needs to adopt the Portugal approach to the drug war. So yes harm minimisation. The problem for Labor is it has joined the ranks of the drug pushers. Fair enough if you want to push the drug itself and ignore all the harms that come from pushing the drug. The open slather approach.
Barney
No I am not adopting the we have to have NEW coal mines and exports or we have blackouts nonsense.
Its right up there with Chris Uhlmanns Storms blowing down transmission towers means renewables are at fault.
Albanese is heading to regional Queensland this week to clear up a few misconceptions
https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/albanese-heads-north-to-clear-up-a-few-misconceptions-20191208-p53hz4.html
Just before Christmas …. Will his ‘listening and talking’ tour go down well at an often stressful time for many? A politician – a member of the “elite class”, perceived as untrustworthy and in it for themselves.
Pegasus says:
Monday, December 9, 2019 at 11:33 am
Albanese is heading to regional Queensland this week to clear up a few misconceptions
https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/albanese-heads-north-to-clear-up-a-few-misconceptions-20191208-p53hz4.html
Just before Christmas …. Will his ‘listening and talking’ tour go down well at an often stressful time for many? A politician – a member of the “elite class”, perceived as untrustworthy and in it for themselves.
An utterly fucking puerile interjection from a totally fatuous source.
Holden Hillbilly
I suspect that Greek “reform” is more for show than go. The vast majority of income tax avoidance was being done by the ‘mega rich” . They will rest assured be able to ‘tax avoid’ their way around these ‘reforms’
Steve777 @ #222 Monday, December 9th, 2019 – 8:29 am
Quite a good analogy but with one major flaw. The bit about doing all this “within a reasonable time”.
How much time do we have? You used a starting point for tobacco reduction of 1965. Therefore 40 plus years. Is that a reasonable time frame? Do you think Mother Nature will wait that long?
Also, tobacco use and production isn’t doing anywhere near the damage that global heating is doing and will continue to do over the next 40 years. Not to mention that despite the bad health outcomes, some smokers live to be a ripe old age and smoking tobacco doesn’t cause birds and fruit bats to fall dead out of trees. Nor does it damage coral reefs.
The world came together to ban CFCs to protect the ozone layer. It also came together to fix the Y2K bug. It did both of these things in just a few short years. Not decades, years.
In the Interests of Truth in Advertising the NSW Police Force is changing it’s name to the NSW Pervert Force.
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2019/dec/09/nsw-police-strip-searched-more-than-340-school-aged-boys-in-the-past-three-years
The Greens party have never advocated closing down the coal industry immediately. The meme that it does, as promulgated by the political duopoly and the mainstream party, is just that, a meme, fake news. The continuation of the status quo aka business as usual is what matters, not the good of the country or the world.
Greens 2019 policy platform – Renew Australia 2030: powering past coal to a clean future for all of us
https://greens.org.au/sites/default/files/2019-03/Greens%202019%20Policy%20Platform%20-%20Renew%20Australia.pdf
RI
lol Thanks for the laugh.
guytaursays:
Monday, December 9, 2019 at 11:31 am
See you miss the point completely.
Mining is not part of the solution.
The solution comes from putting renewables and storage in place.
Do that and there will be little demand for coal.
You achieve the reduction in mining by making redundant the industries that support it.
Alpha Zero @ #194 Monday, December 9th, 2019 – 10:50 am
And it may surprise you to know, but Labor are all for them. Just not, NOW!
As Barney has been patiently saying, Labor are not in government, however, if they were I’m sure the blueprint of the Latrobe Valley, Hazelwood shut-down would be used. It was very successful:
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-03-18/hazelwood-power-station-closure-two-years-on/10908866
This is how Labor does things. 🙂
How much time do we have?
Even less every time a Coalition government is elected and voters are pushed into their arms by Greens convoys and their ‘demands’ of Labor.
Barney
No you miss the point.
NO NEW COAL MINES does not equal shutting down existing mines and exports.
Thats it.
Simples. The global heating facts demands that for the future existence of civilisation roughly as we know it today.
You can have your own opinions not your own facts
Of course if you do not care about humanity’s future but care about money you argue that opening new mines is closing down existing ones.
As I and others have been patiently saying, the Greens are not, and have never been in government in their own right ever.
Yet the Greens are scapegoated for all the ills besetting Australia and the world.
Anyone would think Labor has no agency of its own.
It’s a funny world.
Five bright ideas for the future from COP25’s ‘green zone’
A 3,000 square-metres space at climate summit is dedicated to raising awareness and showcasing innovative projects.
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/12/bright-ideas-future-cop25-green-zone-191207140033323.html
Not Sure says:
Monday, December 9, 2019 at 10:30 am
“Anyway, I’m off to take the kids to the beach in my environmentally destructive 3 tonne diesel truck.”
And here encapsulated is the mindset of the typical conservative voter – when it’s all stripped away at the core is a, relatively, self centred person. My guess is they have sky fairy belief to assuage cognitive dissonance, when there is any level of metacognition.
Peg,
reminds me of Umberto Eco’s common features of Ur-fascism:
C@tmomma says:
Monday, December 9, 2019 at 11:53 am
How much time do we have?
“Even less every time a Coalition government is elected and voters are pushed into their arms by Greens convoys and their ‘demands’ of Labor.“
Not really. It just highlights/exposes how self centred the majority of people are.
I get a sort of catharsis when seeing my conservative parents. Because I can’t talk about the weather, Kim kardashian, etc, etc I talk about deep stuff only – that includes the psychology of my mother & father & not holding back when talking (read: educating) them about their deep psychology & hence why they vote the way they do.
It’s got to the point where they barely speak to me anymore. And in a way, it shows the type of people they truly are. By the way, I am putting millions of dollars in inheritance at risk & I don’t care.
I would argue that a considerable number of people, who support Scott Morrison as Prime Minister. Don’t mind at all, that he is trying to turn the country into an authoritarian ‘illiberal democracy’. So long as they believe Morrison is keeping the country ‘safe’ and ‘prosperous’, then they believe this is an acceptable price to pay.
This also probably includes what Morrison described as the ‘Quiet Australians’, essentially politically disengaged people aged approximately 35-54, who are often are parents raising their children, paying off mortgages, along with living in the outer suburbs and regional cities. It was notable that the ANU election survey reported, that the 35-54’s swung the heaviest to the Coalition on the primary vote at the Federal Election.
bakunin
Now that rings a few bells 😆
Vic, I had a chat with my parents today to see how they are going after the fires. My dad told me that the Mid North Coast has only about 3 weeks of water left if it doesn’t rain. He is someone who didn’t have much of an education, votes Liberal and doesn’t believe in Climate Change. Go figure after what he’s just been through. Anyway, I gently broached the subject of Climate Change and he came back with, ‘CO2 is natural’. I, as gently as possible replied, ‘So is Arsenic’, left it at that and quickly moved on. I hope it gives him food for thought. That’s all I can hope for.
The PV’s for both the coalition and labor are the same as they were two or three polls ago. No great end of year movement to the government. Just the normal ebbs and flows.
What the difference is between 51-49 in earlier polls and the 52- 48 now is the greens vote has gone from 13 to 11 in the last few polls.
Perhaps it is the greens and their supporters who should be concerned that their “ end of the world unless we talk about climate change now “ and the “major parties are arsonists “ political rants are simply not reasonating in the real world as people fight for their homes and properties and are simply trying to survive the unfolding summer disaster as best they can.
Tristo
With a “budget surplus” still taken as the acme of good financial management the “back in black” claim was an electoral killer blow . With an increasing fear of a recession that “good management” would look a safe refuge compared to the side who was talking about change.
And here is my green contribution for the day:
Dreaming of a green Christmas: make your own sustainable tree
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2019/dec/07/dreaming-of-a-green-christmas-make-your-own-sustainable-tree
Practical. Doable. 🙂
“This also probably includes what Morrison described as the ‘Quiet Australians’, essentially politically disengaged people aged approximately 35-54, who are often are parents raising their children, paying off mortgages, along with living in the outer suburbs and regional cities. It was notable that the ANU election survey reported, that the 35-54’s swung the heaviest to the Coalition on the primary vote at the Federal Election.”
***
Gen X has almost been forgotten about while Millennials and Baby Boomers go at each other. Xers seem to be becoming less and less engaged as time goes on. I’d say many of the “Quiet (uninformed) Australians” are Gen Xers who have just switched off completely and frankly don’t give a fig leaf about any of it.
Rifkin on the New Green Deal
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bovsn-5HW6k
Jolyon Wagg @ #183 Monday, December 9th, 2019 – 10:40 am
Your logic is impeccable – you’ve convinced me! How do I invest? Are you going IPO?
Firefox
Well they were the original ‘Slackers’ 🙂