The Guardian reports on yet another fortnightly Essential Research poll with no voting intention numbers, but we does at least get the monthly leadership ratings. These show Scott Morrison down a point on approval to 39% and steady on disapproval at 52%, after the previous poll respectively had him down five and up nine. Anthony Albanese is respectively down two to 41% and up one to 31%, and he has lost his 39-36 lead as preferred prime minister, with the two now tied on 36%. The BludgerTrack trends on the sidebar have now been updated with these results.
Further questions on bushfire recovery, sports rorts and coronavirus don’t seem to have turned up anything too mindblowing, but the publication of the full report may turn up something hopefully later today.
UPDATE: Full report here. The most interesting of the supplementary findings for mine relate to the budget surplus, the consistent theme of which is that respondents aren’t that fussed about it: 79% agree spending on bushfire recovery is more important than maintaining it, with 11% disagreeing; 65% say it would be understandable if the coronavirus impact meant it wasn’t achieved, with 18% disagreeing; and 57% agree it was wrong for the government to discuss the surplus in the present tense before the election, with 24% disagreeing.
Bellwether
‘I seem to remember only Nath predicted the outcome.’
No. mundo did. nath predicted that Shorten would be PM for a long time, that’s what he was afraid of.*
*nath wasn’t necessarily consistent.
I don’t think Sanders is the problem, the thing is the battle ground has shifted since 2016 and its yet to be seen if Sanders or any other Democrat can adapt to that. The old saying of fighting yesterday’s war comes to mind.
Bellwether @ #147 Tuesday, February 11th, 2020 – 10:45 am
Realists gonna be real. 😐
Mexicanbeemer @ #150 Tuesday, February 11th, 2020 – 10:49 am
Which is why I think the Dems need to attack Trump on the economy. Just like that Wash Po article gives clues to the way they can do it.
I actually think Trump is going to get a second term, regardless of who the Democrat nominee is. If American voters were stupid enough to elect him once (yes, I know, he didn’t win the popular vote, but that’s not what matters), they’ll do it again.
I’d love to be proved wrong, though.
C@tmomma @ #153 Tuesday, February 11th, 2020 – 10:49 am
You’re so real I can just about reach out and touch you. 🙁
Cat
Sanders attacks Trump on the economy.
It’s a major reason he looks like winning the nomination.
So did Warren.
If Sanders does win that will be why.
The economy.
Have you all forgotten Wayne?
Perhaps we should ask Wayne what the Dems should do and how much trump will win by in that scenario…
Mr Newbie says:
Tuesday, February 11, 2020 at 10:52 am
I actually think Trump is going to get a second term, regardless of who the Democrat nominee is. If American voters were stupid enough to elect him once (yes, I know, he didn’t win the popular vote, but that’s not what matters), they’ll do it again.
I’d love to be proved wrong, though.
___________________________________
Frankly, after Trump got elected I think anything is possible. By all rational measures, other than the fantasy dreams of the extra lefty Corbynites here, Sanders should make McGovern look like a real winner. But those rational measures no longer apply with Trump in power.
All I can say is ‘anything is possible’.
Wayne managed to predict every possible outcome. Of course he was going to be right!
It depends. Yes, people are conservative in that change is hard to sell in our political climate. Yet the reforms of the left are deeply embedded in peoples values. People want a more egalitarian, fair, just, supportive and community based social system. They do not want a dog eat dog, anarchical market based system where the powerful get rich and the rest battle each other for crumbs. They want politicians to make this a better place. They want accountability – and democracy gives them that only if governments stop ceding services and power to corporations.
Furthermore, peeps turn out and place their vote for various reasons. A heck of a lot of people turn out and vote against left of centre political parties for dozens of reasons unrelated to any social reform policies like health and education.
Confessions @ #55 Tuesday, February 11th, 2020 – 6:25 am
Nowhere does he encourage his supporters to do that. You’ve drawn a very long bow about what is a very valid point – no-one should be allowed to buy the presidency.
Or are you now in support of elections being bought? Clive Palmer thanks you.
https://thehill.com/regulation/court-battles/482418-doj-asks-judge-to-sentence-roger-stone-to-7-9-years-in-prison
On occasion there outbreaks of “same same” and complaints about the use of “same same” in PB . Someone wrote an article on the “same same”..
.
Or so wrote Tony Abbott in the March 22 1994 edition of The Bulletin I’m reading.
.
.
.
P.S. One difference Tones did bring to the readers’ attention is “The Liberals are fundamentally more honest” 😆 😆 😆
He will have more money and a far better ground team this time.
Trumps is perfectly capable of completely stuffing it up tho.
Torchbearer says:
Tuesday, February 11, 2020 at 10:26 am
Canavan ….. is vomit inducing.
___________________________________________
fify
SK
Yes. One term Presidents are not the usual with US politics. The hope is Trump has disrupted that political norm too.
My recollections are that Mundo, nath and myself predicted a very close result, either hung or ALP scraping through. We were called hand wringers (amongst other things). Perhaps one of nath or Mundo went further in a post or two – but that is more their recalcitrant personality showing through.
Wayne was the true winner.
I also remember everyone assuming that the YouGov polls showing the Coalition ahead on 2PP were outliers, or that YouGov were dodgy pollers.
Sprocket
Now this is getting interesting. If Labor plus Adam Bandt, cross benchers and O’Brien vote in the lower house for a NIC, how many Liberal would need to cross the floor to make it happen – 2?
On the other hand, any Liberal who crossed the floor in the lower house so that the Government lost a vote would not retain preselection at the next Federal election, but are there any small “l” liberals likely to retire who could do this? John Alexander may very well not contest Bennelong next time. Any other possibilities people can think of?
I don’t think the fury has died down yet!
You only have to look at the mess the world is in to question whether evolutionary theory was actually correct.
We are devo. D-E-V-O.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hRguZr0xCOc
When it comes to humans, survival of the stupidest, maybe.
A 4-3 split but the right decision and a defeat for the Reichmarhsall, though Love’s not out of the water yet:
Paul Karp:
The high court has decided that Aboriginal Australians are not aliens for the purpose of the constitution, a major defeat for the deportation powers of Peter Dutton’s home affairs department and a significant development in the rights of Indigenous Australians.
In four-to-three split decision the high court ruled on Tuesday that Aboriginals cannot be aliens, giving them a special status in Australian constitutional law likely to have ramifications far beyond existing native title law.
The majority of the high court ruled that Brendan Thoms was not an alien and the commonwealth therefore did not have power to order his deportation. The court was not able to decide if the second plaintiff, Daniel Love, is Aboriginal Australian, requiring a further hearing to establish the facts.
The plaintiffs were born in Papua New Guinea and New Zealand, each with one Aboriginal parent, and face deportation due to laws which allow the cancellation of visas on character grounds.
Lawyers for the two Indigenous men, backed up by the state of Victoria, argued the Australian government cannot deport Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islanders even though they do not hold Australian citizenship because the constitutional definition of “alien” can’t be set by the government of the day through citizenship law.
Simon Katich says:
Tuesday, February 11, 2020 at 11:04 am
I seem to remember only Nath predicted the outcome.
My recollections are that Mundo, nath and myself predicted a very close result, either hung or ALP scraping through. We were called hand wringers (amongst other things). Perhaps one of nath or Mundo went further in a post or two – but that is more their recalcitrant personality showing through.
Wayne was the true winner.
______________
That’s pretty accurate from what I can remember. Wayne may have occasionally had different pronouncements at times. But no one can doubt that his main message was the Morrison would be re-elected with an increased majority.
Don’t panic!
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-02-11/cane-toad-numbers-explode-after-heavy-rainfall-uq-brisbane-nsw/11952928
lizzie @ #172 Tuesday, February 11th, 2020 – 11:07 am
I’m sure there are plenty in the Coalition who still don’t accept it. A character like Barnaby doesn’t really add support to the Theory of Evolution.
Nostradamus was spookily accurate
It was the First Dog on the Moon wot picked the result.
FWIR, almost exactly as it panned out.
Mundo said that the cartoon was doing his head in.
Well, it did mine in.
First, denial – than, despair ………
Another two and a bit years of these %$@)*ing ^&#@s
The pain, the pain
tadpole traps? frangas?
Marcos De Feilittt @ #180 Tuesday, February 11th, 2020 – 11:18 am
FDOTM didn’t predict the result, he changed it! 😉
shellbell @ #179 Tuesday, February 11th, 2020 – 10:18 am
about the cane toads ?
High Court rules the Pope is a Catholic.
The Murdoch-rag Media have such overwhelming power in Australia that federal politics is near one-party rule (despite the Opposition gaining a reasonable proportion of total seats).
Despite the presence of internet media, the demographic that are ultimately responsible for the near monopoly of the LNP on federal government typically do not utilise the internet and are easily led. They are not able to be educated to change their minds through rational means, simply because they lack the sophistication. This is not limited to Australians, this is so for most of the world.
I believe that in the next century a non-conservative party will be in federal government in Australia for 10-15 years at the most. Probably less.
The saddest thing is that, in general, the working age population will continue to suffer due to the voting patterns of the elderly.
Cameron C. says:
The saddest thing is that, in general, the working age population will continue to suffer due to the voting patterns of the elderly.
_________________
In what profound ways would Australia be different if the people voted for the ALP last May?
But it wasn’t unanimous, it was a 4-3 split, which isn’t as definitive.
[‘While the MPs are meeting, so are their staff.
In the opposition staff meeting, a former Victorian premier, Steve Bracks, has been brought in to give “a morale-boosting speech” to the troops.
There are also rumours that Labor wants to bring back Sharon McCrohan, who was Bracks’ comms chief and who also came in late during Bill Shorten’s campaign.
Bracks has told the staff that to win government from opposition, ‘You have to let people know where you stand.’ That has raised a few eyebrows, because so far, under Anthony Albanese’s leadership, ministers and MPs have been told to keep their positions fairly close to their chest.
Albanese wants the focus on the government, not the opposition, after the release of Labor’s policies early in the last term put the spotlight on what Labor would do, rather than what the government was doing.
But with a new year, shadow ministers are starting to get itchy to announce policy positions – something I understand won’t be happening for a little while longer.
Bracks has also told the group to keep reminding people Albanese is “genuine”. Looks like those focus groups are getting interesting.’]
I think Bracks is right. Labor should settle major policies sooner than later. Abbott won government by attacking Labor incessantly and it worked. But Albanese is not in the same league of Abbott in the attack dog department, with today’s Essential evidencing that Morrison is shedding some of the flak that struck him in the last six weeks or so.
I’m sorry, but IMO this is just more of Morrison trying to get ‘someone else’ to pay for the costs of fires and floods.
lizzie @ #187 Tuesday, February 11th, 2020 – 11:37 am
It’s all about the Surplus. And the Marketing angle for #ScottyfromMarketing
lizzie:
[‘But it wasn’t unanimous, it was a 4-3 split, which isn’t as definitive.’]
A majority decision is definitive, there being no further avenue for appeal.
@Confessions:
Sanders’ criticism of Bloomberg is pretty much par for the course in the environment of a contested Primary. I believe all of the candidates on the last debate stage took similar shots against Bloomberg, and that kind of thing is to be expected, it’s how this process works.
What will matter is what happens in the hypothetical scenario where the convention picks Bloomberg as the candidate – what Sanders says then will be crucial. I wouldn’t presume to guess what he would do (but I also don’t expect to find out, because I don’t think Bloomberg is at all likely to get the nomination).
lizzie says:
Tuesday, February 11, 2020 at 11:33 am
The High Court has found Aboriginal people occupy a special place and are exempt from immigration laws, after considering the cases of two men facing deportation for criminal convictions.
But it wasn’t unanimous, it was a 4-3 split, which isn’t as definitive.
________________________
What an historic ruling. I’m not sure how I feel about this. On one hand the idea that indigenous people cannot be ‘alien’ to Australia I have sympathy for but it seems to open up a range of possible complications.
nath @ #193 Tuesday, February 11th, 2020 – 10:45 am
We’ve invaded their homeland and committed all kinds of atrocities against them. Having to put up with a few legal complications is more than fair.
nath
A bit like returning them to the “flora and fauna” column ?
a r says:
Tuesday, February 11, 2020 at 11:51 am
nath @ #193 Tuesday, February 11th, 2020 – 10:45 am
On one hand the idea that indigenous people cannot be ‘alien’ to Australia I have sympathy for but it seems to open up a range of possible complications.
We’ve invaded their homeland and committed all kinds of atrocities against them. Having to put up with a few legal complications is more than fair.
_________________
I was thinking more along the lines of non-Indigenous people claiming to be so and how you can resolve the issue. Are courts now going to be the arbiters of who is Aboriginal and who isn’t? That is what concerns me.
Mavis
Legally definitive, but room for social blowback?
Will the tour be paid for out of the “Bushfire Recovery” money? Or the “tourism advertisements” money?
New solar desal tech:
http://news.mit.edu/2020/passive-solar-powered-water-desalination-0207
Mike Bowers was out the front of parliament this morning where bushfire survivors are holding a protest, asking politicians to cut ties with the coal lobby.
They brought debris from what was left of their homes.
Pacific Islanders were also protesting, highlighting the dangers their homelands face from a warming planet.
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/live/2020/feb/11/nationals-liberal-party-morrison-mccormack-australian-politics-live?page=with:block-5e41e8c68f086a28115a953a#block-5e41e8c68f086a28115a953a