Pestilential as anything

Democracy battles on in the face of adversity in Queensland and (at least for now) Tasmania, as a poll finds most Australians believe the media is exaggerating the crisis (at least for now).

The campaigns for Queensland’s local government elections and Currumbin and Bundamaba state by-elections next Saturday are proceeding in the most trying of circumstances. My guides to the by-elections can be found on the sidebar; I’ll find something to say about the Brisbane City Council elections, which I have thus far neglected entirely, later this week. Updates:

• The Electoral Commission of Queensland relates that 560,000 postal vote applications have been received for the statewide local government elections, which compares with 260,680 postal votes cast at the previous elections in 2016. However, not all applications will result in completed votes being returned – the conversion rate in Queensland at last year’s federal election was 86.0%. There have also been more than 500,000 pre-poll votes, exceeding the 435,828 cast in 2016 with a week left to go. To those understandably reluctant to turn out on so-called polling day next Saturday, the commission has been expanding opening hours at pre-poll booths. All of which will make the results that come in on Saturday night particularly hard to follow.

• A ban has been imposed on the dissemination of how-to-vote cards and canvassing for votes at polling booths. Booth supervisors may allow the material to be displayed at the booths “in a manner deemed appropriate”.

Elsewhere:

• An international poll by Ipsos on attitudes to coronavirus finds 34% of Australians strongly agree, and 35% somewhat agree, with closing borders until the virus “is proved to be contained”, which is about average among the twelve nations surveyed. The survey has been conducted over four waves going back to early February, in which time the number of respondents identifying a very high or high threat to them personally has risen from around 10% to 23%. However, Australians recorded among the highest response in favour of the proposition that the media was exaggerating about the virus, which actually increased over the past fortnight from the high forties to 58%. A notable outlier in respect of all questions is Italy, where only 29% now say the media is exaggerating the threat, slumping from around 80%.

• Tasmanian Attorney-General Elise Archer announced this week that May 2 elections for the Legislative Council seats of Huon and Rosevears are “safe to proceed”, with “significant measures being put in place to maintain public safety”.

• A Roy Morgan SMS poll of 974 respondents asked whether respondents trusted or distrusted a list of current and former politicians that included Jacinda Ardern, but was apparently otherwise entirely Australian. All we are given at this stage is a top ten list of the best net performers, which is headed by Jacinda Ardern and otherwise notable for not including a single male conservative. However, this is all pretty useless without hard numbers, which will apparently be forthcoming “in coming days”.

Author: William Bowe

William Bowe is a Perth-based election analyst and occasional teacher of political science. His blog, The Poll Bludger, has existed in one form or another since 2004, and is one of the most heavily trafficked websites on Australian politics.

2,185 comments on “Pestilential as anything”

Comments Page 33 of 44
1 … 32 33 34 … 44

  2. ajm @ #1569 Monday, March 23rd, 2020 – 1:11 pm

    The fact is that any DDOS attack would have worked by effectively tying up many of the available 55,000 sessions, so fewer than 55,000 sessions were actually available.

    Not necessarily.

    If it spammed valid-looking HTTP requests that resulted in the Centrelink servers allocating a session for each one then yes. However you don’t need to operate at the application/protocol layer to run a DDoS. In which case application sessions won’t shouldn’t be allocated/consumed (if the server is even halfway sane).

    The only recent DDoS against Australia I’m seeing (here) is this one from around 12:20-1:05pm AEST today:

    The website appears to have crashed sometime before that attack started, so likely the DDoS was a response to the news breaking that an Australian website crashed “because of DDoS attack” rather than the other way around.

  3. Dandy Murray @ #1594 Monday, March 23rd, 2020 – 2:15 pm

    P1, I learned at a young age that the best thing about NSW is that it was between Vic and Qld.
    –MIAMB

    As a child, we were taught that NSW were to be hated, but Victorians pitied.

    In SA, if we are ever aware NSW or Qld exists, we watch with amusement at the convict states squabbling. Victoria is our love/hate relationship.

    MIAMB

  4. lizzie says:
    Monday, March 23, 2020 at 2:23 pm
    Fran Molloy
    @franmolloy
    ·
    Mar 22
    Children who attend the same private school as the PM’s daughters report that his children are NOT at school. (via trusted personal contact). Politicians families are generally off-limits but this is not ok.

    If true, Morrison is as big a hypocrite as Alan Jones who broadcasts from his country hideaway telling people the coronavirus is insignificant.

  5. Also kinda Karmic, Victoria :

    Harvey Weinstein contracts coronavirus in Rikers Island prison: report

    Convicted rapist Harvey Weinstein is in isolation after testing positive for the coronavirus.

    According to the Niagara-Gazette, the ailing and aging Weinstein is being housed in the notorious Rikers Island jail, where there are reports of two cases of the virus. It’s unclear if Weinstein was the first case or if he contracted it from that case.

    https://www.rawstory.com/2020/03/harvey-weinstein-contracts-coronavirus-in-rikers-island-prison-report/

  6. Scott Morrison telling #qt that he doesn’t control Australia’s borders.

    Apparently cruise ships are a NSW govt issue.

  7. Scott Morrison telling #qt that he doesn’t control Australia’s borders.

    Apparently cruise ships are a NSW govt issue.

    I think what he actually means there is “blame Dutton”. 🙂

  10. Stuart Robert made a big point in his press conference of saying the site was not overloaded, but it had been the victim of a cyber attack.

    In the parliament, where misleading the chamber can bring penalties, the minister admits there was no attack, just an alert, because the site was overwhelmed by the number of people trying to access it at once – almost double what it is set up to handle.

    Effing idiot!!!

  11. So they were bullshit artistes. And they wonder why people don’t believe of listen to what they tell us FMD

    3m ago 03:58

    No cyber attack on myGov – site just overwhelmed.
    At least 95,000 people tried to access myGov this morning, shortly after 9.30am.

    The site can take just 55,000 people at once.
    https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2020/mar/23/australia-coronavirus-updates-live-pubs-closed-but-schools-open-after-national-cabinet-meeting-latest

  14. a r @ #1607 Monday, March 23rd, 2020 – 1:58 pm

    Scott Morrison telling #qt that he doesn’t control Australia’s borders.

    Apparently cruise ships are a NSW govt issue.

    I think what he actually means there is “blame Dutton”. 🙂

    Mr “I Stopped These” doesn’t control our borders. Apart from the obvious oopsie there, it’s not really much different than saying he doesn’t hold the hose, or wtte. I wonder if he will some day be asked, “Then what do you control?”
    –MIAMB

  16. So border protection is dead as an issue.

    The economic is in recession so that is dead.

    Poor Libs only hope is for the ALP to blow up.

  17. BK @ #1610 Monday, March 23rd, 2020 – 2:02 pm

    Stuart Robert made a big point in his press conference of saying the site was not overloaded, but it had been the victim of a cyber attack.

    In the parliament, where misleading the chamber can bring penalties, the minister admits there was no attack, just an alert, because the site was overwhelmed by the number of people trying to access it at once – almost double what it is set up to handle.

    Effing idiot!!!

    So, just guessing, it’s maybe set up for 30,000 sessions, which at one session per person would be just over 0.1% of it’s customers. Interesting level of service there.

    –MIAMB

  23. PhoenixRed

    It goes to show how widespread the virus is when prisoners, including Weinstein, at Rikers are getting it.

  25. Gallipoli Spirit?

    It turns out that the medical arrangements for the Gallipoli Campaign were a yuge cock up.

    https://ama.com.au/ausmed/saving-anzacs-%E2%80%93-heroic-role-medics-gallipoli

    Putting in plenty of supplies before the Great Depression would have been an excellent preparation for the Great Depression. Images of hungry people who failed to put in plenty of supplies before the Great Depression. Memo: don’t panic.

    https://www.google.com/search?q=the+great+depression+australia+images+of+soup+kitchens&tbm=isch&source=univ&client=firefox-b-d&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwizi4O23a_oAhWg7XMBHXXfAvQQ7Al6BAgHEC0&biw=960&bih=458

    One wonders how the re-enactment of Cook’s circumnavigation of Australia is faring?

  28. I’m now glad for Australia that Labor did not win the last election. Not because a Labor government would have handled it better – they would have – but because a Coalition opposition would have no capacity whatsoever to bury its political nastiness and work with the government. So things would actually be worse.

    These people – demonstrably and obviously – know absolutely nothing about anything except political gamesmanship.

    At least this way we will have better outcomes – and they can wear any of the spending decisions that go wrong (as inevitably some will).

  29. One of the things I learned during my life in the USA was the expression “bubble gum and bailing wire”. Do we have equivalent slang? The point being it might describe MyGov, the NBN, etc.
    –MIAMB

  30. Rakali says:
    Monday, March 23, 2020 at 3:15 pm
    Holdenhillbilly

    Cruise ship with 250 sick passengers from Europe ……..
    ————-

    Reminds of 1788

    _________________________________

    Who says there is nothing to be learnt from history?

  33. “Victoria says:
    Monday, March 23, 2020 at 3:12 pm
    PhoenixRed
    It goes to show how widespread the virus is when prisoners, including Weinstein, at Rikers are getting it.”

    Perhaps Weinstein contracting the virus wasn’t accidental.

  35. S51 of the Australian Constitution:

    The Parliament shall, subject to this Constitution, have power to make laws for the peace, order, and good government of the Commonwealth with respect to:

    (ix) quarantine;

  37. On the WA cruise ship, ABC has
    “McGowan will not allow sick cruise ship passengers to disembark at Fremantle

    Huge development from Western Australia. Premier Mark McGowan says of the 1,700 passengers on board the MSC Magnifica, more than 250 passengers have reported upper respiratory illnesses.

    He said it had requested to dock at Fremantle Port as early as tonight.

  38. Victoria says:
    Monday, March 23, 2020 at 3:17 pm
    TPOF

    Agreed. But having said that. I am glad we have a state Labor govt in charge in Victoria

    _______________________________________

    I heard the other day the opposition leader in Victoria (whose name I didn’t know) criticise Andrews for not being able to bring in a surplus because of all the waste he had presided over (my memory of what he was saying).

    I was thinking of that piece of arrogant and wilful stupidity when I made that comment.

  39. TPOF
    Not at my computer so I can’t check but it was a department that wasn’t rolled into home affairs. Infectious disease?

  40. Rex
    By the time this passes we could be within a year of an election.

    This government would struggle to get an austerity budget through the parliament.

  42. Interesting as local line outside Centre Link this morning got longer, there was not one bar of toilet soap or toilet roll in the local Woolies. Says it all I suppose…………..other than Morrison was good at “stopping the boats” (those rickety ones from Indonesia and elsewhere) but he and Dutton were not able to stop sick people coming ashore from some of the biggest and most sophisticated passenger ships afloat. And these guys say “Trust Me ……just a little bit of Anzac spirit and all will be well…………” What a hoot if it were not so serious.

  43. Coalition score for the day. A perfect ten.

    1. Collapse of digital social security access arrangements.
    2. Spurious historical references by fake Winnie.
    3. Minister’s barefaced lie to defend his incompetence.
    4. Record number of daily new C19 cases.
    5. Actual Federal funding transfers slow, niggardly, and late.
    6. Three different definitions of ‘school closure’ in operation.
    7. Mass confusion among the citizenry about basic expectations in relation to personal behaviour.
    8. States and Territory real leaders no longer pretending that Morrison is a national leader.
    9. Kilometers long queues of desperate people.
    10. The Coalition’s massive APS staffing cuts coming home to roost.

  45. Tweet from Bill Shorten –
    “Minister for Government Services Stuart Robert lied today in the middle of a public health crisis to cover his own behind.
    He’s the one who should be queuing up at Centrelink.”

  46. One of the great tragedies of this pandemic is that a Labor Government led by Bill Shorten is not there to deal with it.

    We would, beyond a shadow of a doubt, be in a far, far better position than we are now.

    All the wreckers who spent six long years trashing Shorten and trashing Labor – including the Greens wreckers – are now paying for their utter stupidity.

  47. What gets me about the fake cheeriness, pats on our “resilient” backs, reminders of “ANZAC spirit”, and other feel good crap, is that it implicitly means “You’ll manage. You’re strong.”, and also “You don’t really need my help.”
    –MIAMB

  48. Mr Robert has now told Question Time the high number of people logging on to the site to claim unemployment benefits mirrored such an attack, triggering internal alarms. (ABC updates)

    Next he will be claiming that the huge queues outside Centrelink offices were mostly comprised of actors hired by Labor to make the government look bad.

  50. citizen says: Monday, March 23, 2020 at 3:18 pm

    It goes to show how widespread the virus is when prisoners, including Weinstein, at Rikers are getting it.”

    Perhaps Weinstein contracting the virus wasn’t accidental.

    ***********************************************************

    Must have something to do with the surname ??? – anybody recall seeing William Barr visiting him at Rykers ????

    Weinstein = Epstein

Comments Page 33 of 44
1 … 32 33 34 … 44

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *