Essential Research has not allowed the long weekend to interrupt the fortnightly schedule of its polling, which continues to be limited to attitudinal questions. Conducted last Tuesday to this Monday from a sample of 1080, the most interesting question from the latest poll relates to Bridget McKenzie, whom 51% felt should have been stood down by the Prime Minister. Only 15% felt he was right not to do so, while a further 34% said they had not been following the issue. The question included an explanation of what the issue involved, which is always best avoided, but the wording was suitably neutral (“it is claimed she allocated $100million to sporting organisations in marginal seats to favour the Coalition”).
The poll also finds overwhelming support for the establishment of a federal ICAC – or to be precise, of “an independent federal corruption body to monitor the behaviour of our politicians and public servants”. Fully 80% of respondents were in favour, including 49% strongly in favour, which is five points higher than when Angus Taylor’s troubles prompted the same question to be asked in December. Also featured are yet more findings on Australia Day, for which Essential accentuates the positive by framing the question around “a separate national day to recognise indigenous Australians”. Fifty per cent were in favour of such a thing, down two on last year, but only 18% of these believed it should be in place of, rather than supplementary to, Australia Day. Forty per cent did not support such a day at all, unchanged on last year.
Note that there are two threads below this one of hopefully ongoing interest: the latest guest post from Adrian Beaumont on Monday’s Democratic caucuses in Iowa, and other international concerns; and my review of looming elections in Queensland, where the Liberal National Party has now chosen its candidate for the looming Currumbin by-election, who has not proved to the liking of retiring member Jann Stuckey.
Coming Up: Q+A Bushfires Special | Live from Bega
Monday, February 3
Kristy McBain, Mayor of Bega Valley Shire
Andrew Constance, Member for Bega
Victor Steffensen, Indigenous fire practitioner
Cheryl McCarthy, Far South Coast Director, Surf Life Saving NSW
Michael Mann, Renowned US climate scientist
Jim Molan, Liberal Senator for NSW
2 Liberal politcians, and apparently local federal members Mike Kelly and/or Fiona Phillips were unavailable. Not a good start for golden boy Hamish
lizzie @ #30 Thursday, January 30th, 2020 – 8:31 am
More fence sitting: “We’ll tell you our policy once we see the polls” 🙁
Morning – as I don’t say often enough – mega thanks to BK for my daily morning enlightenment.
The US cartoon of the elephant trampling Justice is telling. As is the unequalled Rowe cartoon talent.
Watching the skewering of the Trump arguments in the senate … boring … yet entertaining in respect to said skewering.
sprocket
According to this from Mike Kelly, they probably weren’t invited.
Bludgers’ opinions on this might just vary a bit. IMO, its strength is that it connects policy with politics:
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/commentisfree/2020/jan/29/finding-a-way-through-the-overton-climate-window-is-the-only-way-forward
John Quiggin – Invest with the best
https://insidestory.org.au/invest-with-the-best/
“@vanOnselenP tells @frankelly08 he has “written evidence” of the prime minister’s office involvement in sports grants allocations which may indicate a more hands-on role than mere passing on representations as @ScottMorrisonMP told NPC yesterday. @10NewsFirst = We need an ICAC.”
Okay PVO. Piss or get off the pot.
Morning all. Thanks BK. Thanks also to Crikey and others for digging out more details on the Sports Rorts affair. I think Scotty from Marketing and Bridget from Embezeling have questions to answer. Never mind the marginal seat bias, look at some of the actual amounts and reasons given:
“Kempsey Little Athletics Cowper (Nat) $780,000 for new coffee machine
Seacliff Soccer Club Boothby (Lib) $450,000 for ball wax
Grafton Polo Club Page (Nat) $100,000 for horse massages”
$780,000 for a new coffee machine? You could lease a whole coffee shop in central Melbourne for less than that. Where was the due diligence to make sure the amounts were not excessive, or that the Commonwealth would not be defrauded? I doubt the Minister has met the requirements of the Act in approving this money.
https://www.crikey.com.au/2020/01/29/sports-rorts-mckenzie-spreadsheet/?utm_campaign=CrikeyWorm&utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter
Climate change cities index: Melbourne predicted to be among worst affected by 2050
https://thenewdaily.com.au/life/science/environment/2020/01/29/climate-change-cities-index-2050/
In Kempsey they like their lattes with some freshly milked and hand made yak butter.
Boerwar
Peter Lewis definitely suggests some areas which might profitably be pursued by Labor.
Renewable industries seems uncontroversial.
Zero emissions by 2050 – the date puts it far enough into the future not to frighten the horses and at least is a policy positive. Meanwhile, the target might be met early.
“Requiring mining companies to fund bushfire hazard reduction” could be wrapped up in general hazard reduction. Anti-parks people are very keen on this.
“Remove taxpayer funded subsidies to the fossil fuel industry”. Like the zero pollution target, set a date well ahead to remove fear.
Kakuru @ #56 Thursday, January 30th, 2020 – 9:29 am
He’s been on the pot for a couple of weeks now……still nothing
Kakuru @ #57 Thursday, January 30th, 2020 – 6:29 am
PvO is doing much more than other journos to hold Scotty and his mob to account.
Socrates, I think you’ll find that was a parody article…
$780k = 15 million cups of Nescafe Blend 43 instant coffee (excluding Yak butter).
It is getting hard to tell, aint it?
Christine Keneay taking the ALP back to its working class roots and away from the latte sipping inner city elites:
Australia’s reliance on temporary visas has created millions of migrants with no stake in the country’s future, Opposition home affairs spokeswoman Kristina Keneally will warn on Thursday night, saying the nation is risking a new and damaging form of social and economic exclusion.
In her first major policy speech since taking over the shadow portfolio, Senator Keneally will declare Australia is changing from a nation built by permanent migrants to an economy relying on temporary visas.
With the more than two million temporary migrants having “no stake and no say in the future of our country”, Senator Keneally will warn there are serious risks for how Australia defends against, and recovers from, national disasters such as bushfires.
Senator Keneally will also warn people smugglers have updated their business model from boats to airplane arrivals, with the 100,000 people who have claimed asylum after arriving a plane in the last six years driven by “criminal people smuggling syndicates now running a work scam”.
“They use online tourist visa systems, now available to Malaysia and China, where most of these airplane arrivals come from,” she will say, according to a draft of the speech to be delivered at Curtin Research Centre.
“Once the trafficked worker is here, the smugglers instruct them to apply for asylum, knowing the worker will be put on a bridging visa for at least three years before their application is determined.
“We are not talking about a handful of workers on a couple of farms. We’re talking about tens of thousands of people in hospitality, cleaning, security, beauty, food manufacturing, transport, and sex work.”
Senator Keneally will say that boats carrying asylum seekers cannot be allowed to restart, but the Morrison Government must now turn its attention in cracking down on the plane arrivals.
Australia is now home to the second largest temporary migrant workforce in the world, right behind the United States, with the number of people on temporary visas jumping from 1.8 million to 2.2 million in the past four years.
Pegasus
That individual city based climate impact index is here. It is interactive. You can play with the sorting to see how your city ranks for specific aspects e.g. risk from water shortage or temperature increase.
https://www.nestpick.com/2050-climate-change-city-index/
Since the climate denial forces have been pretty cynical in this whole “debate” it may be time for pro-climate change political forces to point out which Australian cities stand to lose the most. For example Melbourne is most at risk from future water shortage. Perth is forecast to get the worst increase in average temperature.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-01-30/lyrebirds-band-together-to-avoid-approaching-bushfire/11910666
Boerwar @ #55 Thursday, January 30th, 2020 – 9:23 am
So, how good is Labor’s decision not to have policy?
Yes that article was in yesterday’s Crikey email. Definitely parody.
“Socrates, I think you’ll find that was a parody article…
It is getting hard to tell, aint it?”
With Scotty from Marketing in charge, Yes it is 🙂
Scotty from Marketing (SfM) has descended from on high to tell us he now believes climate has changed, but it’s too late to do anything about stopping the changes, so we must Mitigate.
This table from Nestpick shows both Sydney and Melbourne have water shortages which are getting worse.
https://www.nestpick.com/2050-climate-change-city-index/
So SfM needs to help Mitigate by drastically reducing immigration (nearly all immigrants come to Sydney or Melbourne).
Which journo is prepared to weather the Wall of Words that will result from asking that question?
The question that immediately pops into my mind is – what about the female lyrebirds? Did they perish?
$780k would also abate about 10% of the yearly carbon emissions of Kempsey’s 30,000 residents. And if it were invested in renewable energy/transport…
lizzie @ #75 Thursday, January 30th, 2020 – 9:51 am
Trivago!
I bet if you punched in “Xmas Island Detention Centre”, you’d find many different rates. Just choose the cheapest!
Simples.
Player One
😆
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-01-30/aboriginal-cultural-burning-funding-for-bushfire-mitigation/11910464
If only they were a target shooting team, or a rich yacht club.
“The poll also finds overwhelming support for the establishment of a federal ICAC”
***
We need a real ICAC with teeth of the kind the Greens have been trying to get implemented for years. What we don’t want is a watered down Coalition version of the thing that ends up being an anti-corruption commission in name only.
Confessions @ #63 Thursday, January 30th, 2020 – 6:41 am
And yet still much less than other journos. Jericho, Remeikis, Taylor, Murphy, Marr, Bongiorno, Pascoe, Middleton, Secombe and Tingle leave PvO’s efforts in the shade. Even Maiden now she’s not on the Newscorp teat, Mathewson, a former Howard staffer and Hewson, former Liberal leader are doing as much if not more than PvO.
WTF?! And if they can’t afford a chartered airliner to the middle of nowhere, they can just sit and stew in the coronavirus?
How utterly useless is the Australian government if it can’t even cover its own decision to evacuate its citizens from a (possible) health crisis?
Confessions
“PvO is doing much more than other journos to hold Scotty and his mob to account.”
Yes, he has (off a low base). But if he has a big story, just break it already. What’s with all the tease?
“4. Evacuees have to pay for airfares (and accommodation?)”
What was the principle used to decide that rural Australian bushfire emergency victims without insurance would get taxpayer financial aid, but (mostly) urban Chinese Australians returning from seeing family and caught in a disease emergency have to pay their own costs?
“Seacliff Soccer Club Boothby (Lib) $450,000 for ball wax”
A gift tto the worlds cartoonists?? 🙂
https://www.crikey.com.au/2020/01/29/sports-rorts-mckenzie-spreadsheet/?utm_campaign=CrikeyWorm&utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter
Seriously, I would flag this as some kind of satire and not actually true……unless there is independent verification out there??
If true then we have gotten wayyyyyyyyyyyyyy past peak stupid. Combine this (which people will laugh at) and PvO actually coming through with solid links to Smoko’s office??? People will berolling on the ground cacking themselves as Smoko walks past.
“4. Evacuees have to pay for airfares (and accommodation?)”
That will go over like a lead thing that doesn’t fly very well. 🙂 Everything the Libs touch turns to shit.
“PvO is doing much more than other journos to hold Scotty and his mob to account.”
***
It’s personal for him. The civil war between Sky employees never ended, even after PvO left Sky. Moderate/centrist vs far-right. Goes back to the Turnbull vs Abbott contest or even further. There were also some nasty comments that were made about PvO’s wife if I remember correctly. He’s no fan of the far-right and their cheerleaders in the media.
What about the cost of flying themselves home to places all over Australia?
What about the not insignificant local Christmas Island community who have nowhere to go to avoid possible contagion?
What about the possibility of a new confirmed infection on the 14th day of the time they spend on the island. Will they have to spend another 14 days because they were exposed?
Part of a Twitter thread by Ronni Salt. Just more fuel for the fire.
Kakuru @ #57 Thursday, January 30th, 2020 – 8:29 am
Yep, he breathlessly reported on a dinner party that the PM denies ever happened. With no pics, audio recording, or anything else to back it up.
And the outcome of that party was supposedly that McKenzie would be gone by (last) Friday (or sooner). Didn’t happen.
And now he’s got some kind of bombshell evidence proving the PM was lying yesterday (which he almost certainly was). Well okay then, where is it already?
PVO is either trolling, or being trolled.
did anyone tune in to listen to what it was?
Simon Katich @ #60 Thursday, January 30th, 2020 – 6:34 am
Have you smelt yak butter?
“And if it was not for the Prime Minister including this money in the budget – it would not have happened.”
So, THAT’S the ‘information’ that Morrison gave to his MPs when they contacted him and his office!
Interestingly, as Ms Henderson had to come back into parliament via the back door of the Senate, and Labor won the seat of Corangamite anyway, despite the pork, it would be interesting to see whether SfM has put the go-slow on that money going to the electorate since the election?
Confessions @ #91 Thursday, January 30th, 2020 – 10:26 am
Via Kakaru earlier:
“@vanOnselenP tells @frankelly08 he has “written evidence” of the prime minister’s office involvement in sports grants allocations which may indicate a more hands-on role than mere passing on representations as @ScottMorrisonMP told NPC yesterday. @10NewsFirst = We need an ICAC.”
… it would be interesting to see whether SfM has put the go-slow on that money going to the electorate since the election?
Didn’t something like that happen in Indi (Vic) with regard to a hospital when Sophie Mirabella failed to regain the seat?
kakuru:
Yes I agree if there’s a story there to be reported, just report it.
C@t:
I saw the tweet. I was asking if anyone actually heard the segment themselves.
Steve777 @ #95 Thursday, January 30th, 2020 – 10:31 am
Yes. So it would also be interesting to analyse whether the seats the Indies hold that the Coalition were trying to win back have received their money yet?
Confessions @ #97 Thursday, January 30th, 2020 – 10:33 am
Sorry, you weren’t entirely clear. I just thought you wanted the kernel of what it was that he had. 🙂
Player One
Thursday, January 30th, 2020 – 9:55 am
Comment #77
😅