The first Newspoll for the year, and the third under the new YouGov online polling regime, finds Labor opening up a 51-49 lead, after they trailed 52-48 in the poll in early December. On the primary vote, the Coalition is down two to 40%, Labor up three to 36%, the Greens up one to 12% and One Nation down one to 4%. Perhaps more remarkably, Scott Morrison now trails Anthony Albanese as preferred prime minister by 43-39, after leading him 48-34 in the previous poll. The damage on Morrison’s personal ratings amounts to an eight point drop on approval to 37% and an eleven point rise on disapproval to 59%. Conversely, Albanese is up six on approval to 46% and down four on disapproval to 37%. The Australian’s report is here; the poll was conducted from Wednesday to Saturday from a sample of 1505.
UPDATE (Essential Research): The Guardian has numbers from the first Essential Research poll of the year, but they disappointingly offer nothing on voting intention. What they do provide is corroboration for Newspoll’s finding that Anthony Albanese has taken the lead over Scott Morrison as preferred prime minister, in this case at 39-36, which compares with a 44-28 lead to Morrison when Essential last asked the question in early November. We are told that Scott Morrison is up nine on disapproval to 52% and that Anthony Albanese is up four on approval to 43% – their respective approval and disapproval ratings will have to wait for the full Essential report, which will presumably be with us later today or tomorrow. UPDATE: Morrison is down five on approval to 40%, Albanese is up two on disapproval to 30%. Full report here.
Despite everything, the poll finds 32% approving of Morrison’s handling of the bushfire crisis, which may be related to the fact that his approval rating was down only three among Coalition voters. The Guardian tells us only that 36% strongly disapproved of Morrison’s performance, to which the less strong measure of disapproval will need to be added to produce an equivalent figure for the 32% approval. Fifty-two per cent disagreed that Australia had always had bushfires like those just experienced, and 78% believe the government had been unprepared for them. Efforts to shift blame to the states do not appear to have borne fruit: Gladys Berejiklian’s handling of the bushfires scored 55% approval among New South Wales respondents, while Daniel Andrews was on 58% (these numbers would have come from small sub-samples of around 300 to 400 respondents).
The poll also offers a timely addition to the pollster’s leaders attributes series. The findings for the various attributes in this serious invariably move en bloc with the leaders’ general standing, and Morrison is accordingly down across the board. However, a clear standout is his collapse from 51% to 32% for “good in a crisis”, on which he was up 10% the last time the question was posed in October. Other unfavourable movements related in The Guardian range from a six-point increase in “out of touch with ordinary Australians“ to 62% to a 12 point drop on “visionary” to 30%.
More on all this when the full report is published. The poll was conducted online from Tuesday to Sunday from a sample of 1081.
Diogenes
The UQ club had been disendorsed a month or so beforehand so he already would have been involved in a shit storm for weeks . It must have been a doozy for them to get the boot.
The current generation, sadly, live and die by social media.
Boerwar @ #982 Tuesday, January 14th, 2020 – 11:11 am
Because he or she IS an Atomic Playboy!
– https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IE06ECcimb8
Next week: “We killed him because he was a shapeshifting alien lizard from the moon bent on our destruction.”
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jan/14/pompeo-says-killing-of-suleimani-is-part-of-bigger-strategy-to-deter-us-foes
EGT
Let them eat cake!
or another angle…………Morrison’s climate inaction and refusal to heed advice from fire chiefs set to smash the hip pockets of marginal voters.
……………..”The price of vegetables is expected to jump by up to 50 per cent as catastrophic bushfires destroy crops and shut down highways while growers remain under pressure from ongoing hot and dry conditions.”…………….
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-01-14/vegetable-prices-in-australia-set-to-rise-fire-drought-impact/11866038
I’m not going to speculate on why that poor guy decided to take his life, but I certainly didn’t have the faintest idea of his sexuality until after he passed. I didn’t even know the guy’s name.
Loathe as I am to defend the tarring-and-feathering and pile-ons so common on social media these days (which should be decried no matter what side of politics its coming from), I doubt many of the people criticizing him really knew that either – quite likely, they envisioned him as a smug far-right bigot whose main reaction to the abuse would have been to laugh about all the SJW’s he had triggered.
Pegasus
The last reply of yours exemplifies low information, narrow minded, egotistical types, insisting on an inflated sense of self importance and superiority.
I await your apology.
I was going to add “you know it all bitch” but unlike you l know my place.
Kronomex
I can see Trump having a hissy fit over this from Trudeau in that article you linked.
.
““I think if there were no tensions, if there was no escalation recently in the region, those Canadians would be right now home with their families,””…………………. but also in “managing the tensions in the region that are brought about by US actions as well”.
In any case, I’d take the crocodile tears of the likes of Lyle Shelton and George Christensen a bit more seriously if they were this up in arms about – to pick one example – the legions of far-right climate deniers posting memes about how Greta Thunberg should be murdered and/or raped.
Disdain for homosexuality just seems to be part of the authoritarian right mindset. Homosexuals, like foreigners, are “other”, suitable subjects for heckling.
This guy had the misfortune be both right wing and gay.
AL
I feel sorry for his family and friends. Apart from the immediate loss and grief, suicide typically leaves its own lasting trail of destruction on nearest and dearest.
Peg,
Fiona Patton is perhaps the most productive and useful member of the Andrews government 😉
Her scoreboard for achievements is rather impressive to say the least. I honestly thought the change in the brand name would have cost her seat. We could do with a few more of her ilk at a federal level too..
Bushfire Bill:
Right. Because protesting against drag queens (who are probably, though not necessarily exclusively, gay) being “involved with kids” is not condemning homosexual people. Or do the protesters not mind homosexual people “being involved with kids” – it is only the gender non-conformity they have an issue with?
Surely you are not lacking this much self-awareness?
Bushfire Bill @ #1092 Tuesday, January 14th, 2020 – 1:49 pm
Never said any of that, either. Keep missing the point if you want, but kindly stop making up nonsense and then misattributing it.
Being in a tolerant frame of mind right now, I’m casting around for reasons why I shouldn’t ban you right now. So far I’m coming up blank.
In the end, politics is a brutal game. The Coalition understand this more than most, given their regular contributions to the brutality. This guy wasn’t some nobody making an innocent online comment that got blown out of proportion, he was a student politician making a deliberate political statement with – I’d have to assume – the intent to incite and provoke hostile reactions from the left. That it ended the way it did is absolutely tragic, but I really would have thought that “triggering SJWs” and receiving an onslaught of online anger would have been an explicit goal of such an act (“look at how all the rabid lefties have reacted to my expression of free speech!”), rather than an unexpected consequence.
BW:
Absolutely.
Don’t know, but hopefully it will stop happening now.
William Bowe
Thank you for your tolerance.
However I’ve decided to accept a ban.
Cheers.
Russians Hacked Ukrainian Gas Company at Center of Impeachment
With President Trump facing an impeachment trial over his efforts to pressure Ukraine to investigate former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. and his son Hunter Biden, Russian military hackers have been boring into the Ukrainian gas company at the center of the affair, according to security experts.
It is not yet clear what the hackers found, or precisely what they were searching for. But the experts say the timing and scale of the attacks suggest that the Russians could be searching for potentially embarrassing material on the Bidens — the same kind of information that Mr. Trump wanted from Ukraine when he pressed for an investigation of the Bidens and Burisma, setting off a chain of events that led to his impeachment.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/13/us/politics/russian-hackers-burisma-ukraine.html
Ex-FBI official Frank Figliuzzi on the NYT report: “Make no mistake. This is a full-on attack on our 2020 election.”
Adam SchiffVerified account RepAdamSchiff
The Russians appear to be at it again. According to a new report, they’re hacking information that could be a prelude to more election interference in 2020.
And again, it appears aimed to help Trump.
We must reject foreign meddling.
Americans should decide American elections.
Kronomex
They want to switch it off and get a life.
I hadn’t understood that one of the reasons vegie prices are going to go up is because bushfire road closures are forcing longer food miles.
Just checking around backyard growers around here, there are some vegie types that are not producing as they might be expected to.
The two notions put forward are that the very hot December meant that plants were putting everything into staying alive. The other one is that there is a dearth of bees.
I don’t know.
More BB:
No. I have said though that I am yet to hear a single, rational argument for opposing SSM, unless you are similarly against ALL marriage (and your opposition is not sexuality-based).
What’s wrong with it? As long as the drag queens are decent, non kiddly-fiddling types, I don’t see what the problem is with them reading stories to young children.
To do this kind of work, even if it is as a volunteer, the drag queens in question have almost certainly been vetted through a Working With Children check, which they would have had to pass. In which case, what reason is there to disapprove?
I don’t think anyone here is celebrating the death of this young man, troubled as he may have been. If you show up to a kid’s library to protest drag queens reading books to them, then you’ve got to be prepared to cop some blowback, though. That doesn’t equate with rejoicing in the fact that this man is now dead.
If sexual orientation is, as you say, a preference, that means you could choose to be gay if you wanted to be (assuming, perhaps incorrectly, that you identify as exclusively heterosexual). Who would you choose to be gay for, hypothetically, if I may ask?
Because you probably hold those views yourself. Please tell us why it is that you oppose these things (just the drag queens associating with kids will do, to keep it on topic, if you don’t feel like divulging the rest).
Since most of you don’t seem to get it – a political “policy” is supposed to be a statement of the principles that will guide your decision making process when proposing or formulating legislation.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Policy
So what exactly are Labor saying to the electorate by having no policies … ?
P1
They had 100 at the last election and still lost.
😵😵😵😵😵😵😵😵😵😵😵😵😵😵😵😲😲😲😲😲😲😲😲😲😲😲😲😲😲
Are we there yet ❓
Keep on digging.
http://www.adnews.com.au/campaigns/bill-shorten-plugs-100-positive-policies-for-labor
2016 still didnt win. Jobs and growth won.
On the face of it I initially agreed with other posters…. WTF would it take to budge these rusted on voters – Murdoch and the LNP have trained them well to hate the ALP yadda yadda.
However, Morrison was only elected back in May. Peeps generally dont rapidly fall off the wagon – no matter how badly the chap they voted for performs – they peel off. Each layer that comes off exposes the next.
And I am assuming that is a 4pt drop of support within the remaining LNP voters. So a significant drop in support from previous election LNP voters as some have already peeled off.
steve davis @ #1126 Tuesday, January 14th, 2020 – 3:21 pm
As others have pointed out – putting out key policies just before the election is probably the dumbest thing you could possibly do. The second dumbest would be having an each way bet on a critical policy area.
Now, guess what Albo intends to do … ?
Player One:
[‘So what exactly are Labor saying to the electorate by having no policies … ?’]
Seeing you asked so nicely, it’s very early in the election cycle, with Parliament not resuming until early February. Labor will develop policies in due course and with the May 18 election post mortem in mind.
__________________________________________________________
Tassie premier announces his resignation.
The stranglehold of Carbon Industrial complex:
” …Taken together, these suggest less an effort by fossil fuel companies to influence policymaking than a wholesale co-option of the policymaking process, in which key staff move between fossil fuel corporations, premiers’ offices and the PMO; former ministers lobby for fossil fuel interests and current ministers conduct PR for companies while accepting millions in donations.
Call it the carbon-industrial complex, a seamless union of corporate interest and policymaking that has left Australia on the edge of a climate nightmare.”
https://www.crikey.com.au/2020/01/14/how-a-carbon-industrial-complex-shapes-australian-politics/?utm_campaign=Daily&utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&ins=YVd4eDh4T1B0SlJ6STFxeXhDK3dqdz09 ($).
p1
Still niggling at Labor are we?
You just can’t help yourself can you?
You even go to the effort of cherry picking a definition of policy that enables you to attack Labor.
Policy can be a course or principle of action adopted or proposed by an organization or individual.
Labor does not have a course of action on emissions.
Labor does not have a course of action on energy.
But do keep frotting Labor. Your desperation to find something, anything, is a true delight.
Morrison is your man. He’s the boss. He’s the one. Attack his policies for a change!
KayJay
No, we still need to go around the mulberry bush another 28 times after the Grand Old Duke of York finishes up our pointless marching. Then my friend, we are THERE.
Hodgeman gone.
‘Player One says:
Tuesday, January 14, 2020 at 3:28 pm
steve davis @ #1126 Tuesday, January 14th, 2020 – 3:21 pm
P1
They had 100 at the last election and still lost.
As others have pointed out – putting out key policies just before the election is probably the dumbest thing you could possibly do. The second dumbest would be having an each way bet on a critical policy area.
Now, guess what Albo intends to do … ?’
Uh huh. Having them all out for years so that the Greens and the Coalition could join in attacking them for year after year worked so very well last time.
Labor’s best bet is probably to go to the election with as few broad policies as possible. Small target. As we can see on Bludger there is an endless conga line of peeps who have nothing better to do than to attack Labor. Small target makes sense.
Tristo:
Without knowing the facts (I don’t think anyone does yet; it’s all just speculation), that seems quite plausible to me.
Or the protest really brought home the notion that he was the very thing he hates – in which case, the pertinent question should really be, what led this young man to hate himself so much that he chose to end his life?
Mavis @ #1132 Tuesday, January 14th, 2020 – 3:29 pm
Early February is all of three weeks away.
If I was the government, I would use the second day of parliament (not the first, which will be taken up with condolences) politely offering Labor a chance to fill the parliament in on their climate change and energy policies, as a means of determining whether or not a bipartisan position could be arrived at.
Can you imagine just how stupid Labor would look? … “Mr Speaker, our policies are … ummm … well … perhaps, Mr Speaker, you could ask the government to outline their policies first, and then we can just save everyone’s time by saying #MeToo”
Boerwar @ #1134 Tuesday, January 14th, 2020 – 3:31 pm
That’s right – I just whipped up that whole Wikipedia entry for the purposes of attacking Labor.
Drat! How could I be so silly as to think you wouldn’t spot that?
Boerwar @ #1144 Tuesday, January 14th, 2020 – 3:34 pm
Curling up and whimpering in the corner is hardly an election winning strategy.
The ALP’s problem wasn’t the timing of policies being released but was the dud quality of those policies.
The Taal volcano has already done a lot of damage to people who cannot afford it.
The volcano is an island in the middle of a very large caldera. I have climbed that island and had a look at the water in the crater lake. Fumaroles abound. The shores of the island are lined with aquaculture ventures. The main village was a tourist village – providing guides and/or horses for the trek up the hill. It will be deep under ash by now. I imagine that all the cropping on the lower slopes will basically have been trashed.
I have used the Tagaytay lookout in one of the visual elements and spent some time in the Tagaytay jail – to look at buying a painting. Ahem.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jan/13/philippines-lava-gushes-from-taal-volcano-as-alert-level-raised
Mexicanbeemer @ #1149 Tuesday, January 14th, 2020 – 3:43 pm
It was the lack of political skill to sell them.
Meanwhile, as the Greens and fellow travellers goad and hector Labor and it’s supporters, Albanese’s strategy of engaging all Australians and refusing to make knee jerk policy decisions on the run looks to be paying electoral dividends if these latest Polls are to be believed.
Sure , it’s early days and there is plenty of work to be done. But, early signs are positive for Labor.
‘Mexicanbeemer says:
Tuesday, January 14, 2020 at 3:43 pm
The ALP’s problem wasn’t the timing of policies being released but was the dud quality of those policies.’
The Liberal Party, the National Party, the Greens Party, the PHON, the Palmer United Party, the Katter Party are all going to band together and tell each other that Labor has excellent policies.
The reality is that that whole conga line of parties is always going to attack Labor’s policies – regardless of the policies.
Small target might work this time. Big target failed last time.
Rex
Absolutely right the sales job was poor.
Poor old p1 suffering from political prey deprivation syndrome.
As for Rexie from Greens Marketing… on behalf of little mate Sleazy from Coalition Marketing… same old same old.
Six years of Killing Bill and sinking Labor got them Morrison and the Coalition.
You guys own that.
Like Nader owns Bush.
EGT
What’s the background story behind that nuclear bomb cake?
Palmer could pony up $60 million to buy an election.
How is he going on the donor stakes?
All good?