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 34 of 44
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  1. Its not just the Centrelink that is shut down. It is the whole of mygov, which involves far more than Centrelink. An attempt to sign on, on behalf of one of my ‘appointees’, who has lost her job, produced an immediate ‘Firefox has ceased working’ message! I did not shut down Firefox, and it proceeded normally after I cancelled that message.
    Mygov is the front for:
    Australian JobSearch
    Australian Taxation Office
    Centrelink
    Child Support
    Department of Health Applications Portal
    Department of Veterans’ Affairs
    HousingVic Online Services
    Medicare
    My Aged Care
    My Health Record
    National Disability Insurance Scheme
    National Redress Scheme
    State Revenue Office Victoria

    All of these are currently off-line, indefinitely.

  3. I tried to watch QT, but found it hard to keep listening. Labor was co-operative but questioned different aspects of the stimulus, e.g. How long it will take before people see any actual money, why disability pensioners etc did not get the rise in payments, Medicare’s so called cyber-attack.
    ScottyfromMarketing lost me by going on about ‘on the other side’. This is not just a creek to cross, it is life changing for a long time, perhaps for good.

    MIAMB

  4. I wonder which prime ministerial staffer whizzkid made up the phrase: ‘World War Two Peace’?

    Dicks, two clever by half, abound.

  5. lizzie:

    I read on twitter that it’s not border control but another dept that has responsibility.

    It is a mess

  6. Right.

    So the ABC cuts from the leader of the Opposition speaking about the passage of bills that will authorize the expenditure of nearly $200 billion, and about the Opposition’s suggestions for amendments to those bills, in order to feature some nameless numpty from the AOC talking about talking about maybe, someday, perhaps talking about whether the Olympics might be delayed.

    Lovely.

    I’m sure the poor buggers queuing outside Centrelink in the rain will be enthralled. Almost as enthralled as the fire fighters were over the Boxing Day Test.

  8. BH @ #1481 Monday, March 23rd, 2020 – 12:38 pm

    @catmomma

    I’ve been told by someone in a position to know that Woolworths are desperate for workers. Said if I know anyone to tell them not to bother to apply through usual channels but to front up to a Store and ask for a job directly.

    Hope that works in your area.

    You are an angel! Thank you. Will do tomorrow! 🙂

  9. Is it ironic that a government with a policy of denying services to Australians blames a denial of service attack for Australia’s problems?
    –MIAMB

  13. Late Riser

    Ah the “ANZAC spirit” , start with cock ups and confusion,fight a hopeless fight before inevitable defeat, slinking away in the dead of night. I don’t think we should emulate that with this virus.

  14. I read on twitter that it’s not border control but another dept that has responsibility.

    Someone earlier in this thread mentioned that AQIS wasn’t put into Home Affairs/Border Force, but instead those responsibilities were put into ‘DAWE’, or the Department of Agriculture, Water and Environment.

    Because of course “Quarantine” is just about protecting agriculture …

    One can’t help but feel Joyce’s dead hand in there somewhere…

  16. I see that the most corrupt prime minister since Federation, of the most corrupt government since Federation, is ignoring the fact that his minister has lied outright.
    The lie is a very big lie.
    It goes directly to the lived experience of millions of Australians who depend on MyGov for their personal survival.

    Will Morrison sack him for this?

    This is the same chap who took took a $50,000 gold Rolex without declaring the gift. Was he sacked for this? No. (Stuart’s missus bagged a $50,000 time keeper as well.)

    This is the same chap who had to resign a previous ministry after it emerged that he had abused his status as a minister to try to inveigle some chinese(!) intervention or other into the business affairs of a partner.

    This is the same chap who somehow or other thought that it was fine to use taxpayer-funded home IT arrangements, to tune of some $38,000, to pursue his personal business interests. Did Morrison sack him for this? No.

    Sunland, a Gold Coast property developer, provided (inadvertently or otherwise) part of the text of Robert’s maiden speech? Not a problem.

    Make no mistake. Morrison is the most corrupt prime minister of the most corrupt government since Federation.

    This matters hugely when trust in leadership and in government becomes a key component of our national response.

  17. “Just a little bit of Anzac spirit and all will be well…………”

    My great grandfather was an original Anzac, he landed on the beach on April 25th and was promptly shot the same day. I never met him but my Mother used to tell me some of the stories he passed on to her.
    The “Anzac” spirit was essentially a wry sense of humour and a philosophy of independence born from the experiences at Anzac in as much as the average digger thought that those running the show were totally clueless and incapable of managing the proverbial root in a brothel (not that they could do that these days anyway, what with social distancing and all that).
    So generally speaking I think we need to have a bit of the ‘ol Anzac spirit indeed because if anything has been shown it’s that the current mob are totally incompetent any way you look at it.

  18. 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.
    _____
    Nice one!

  19. I’m surprised at the surprise expressed here that the Government’s comms unit is failing in its efforts to inform the public. You’re talking about a spin unit. The normal job of the people who work there is to obscure the truth, not propagate it. They’re acting well outside their area of expertise.

  21. Boerwar

    And of all the choice Morrison could have made, when we need an organised, responsive department, we have Stuart Robert, the praying mantis.

  23. @cat
    Happy to help and good luck to your son. Hopefully it applies everywhere.
    Woollies seem to be more on the ball than Coles atm

  25. Jackol @ #1664 Monday, March 23rd, 2020 – 3:46 pm

    I read on twitter that it’s not border control but another dept that has responsibility.

    Someone earlier in this thread mentioned that AQIS wasn’t put into Home Affairs/Border Force, but instead those responsibilities were put into ‘DAWE’, or the Department of Agriculture, Water and Environment.

    Because of course “Quarantine” is just about protecting agriculture …

    One can’t help but feel Joyce’s dead hand in there somewhere…

    That reminds me. Imagine if the Coalition’s project of decentralising the federal Public Service (so they could no longer vote Labor), far and wide across the country had proceeded as thoroughly as they would have liked? In a situation like this the amount of time you would have to spend gathering the expertise together in Canberra, before you could even start talking about what needed to be done, think Department of Health, Department of Human Services, Department of Home Affairs, Department of Agriculture, and probably others I can’t think of, would be time lost to actually fighting the pandemic.

    There’s a reason Canberra and the ACT were created by the Founding Fathers of Federation, and the Coalition government have forgotten it.

  26. When Stuart Robert was deputy treasurer to Morrison he led a tour group in Israel, the ‘Adventure of a lifetime, walking in the footsteps of Jesus’.
    When did Jesus lie about a cyber attack …

  27. BB

    So the ABC cuts from the leader of the Opposition speaking about the passage of bills that will authorize the expenditure of nearly $200 billion, and about the Opposition’s suggestions for amendments to those bills, in order to feature some nameless numpty from the AOC talking about talking about maybe, someday, perhaps talking about whether the Olympics might be delayed.

    Same shit, different arseholes

    Just ban anyone under the age of forty from working in the ABC or as a political staffer.

  30. Some one here asked the other day if anyone was old enough to remember Ration Cards.

    I do. I remember family and friends swapping tea coupons for butter or sugar. It was a bit of a herdy gerder at our place at times. My grandmother and her daughters kept tabs on who was getting too greedy and wanting too many coupons. Gran then ‘rationed’ them out.

    I think it ended in about 1950 – the year I started High School in SA.

    OH who was still in Cardiff, Wales, til 1954 said that the coupons finished not long after the War ended. They used to buy butter from Australia while we were making do with dripping on toast – uggh!

  31. Sealing wax used to be in some saying re held together by sfa. brown paper and sealing wax ?
    ____
    In Robert’s case it’s held together with prayers.

  33. The museum houses a permanent exhibition of original artwork, books, photographs, film and other media. It will also run special exhibits, the first of which is called “Heath Robinson at War” and contains 60 original artworks, books, Christmas cards made for the different sections of the military, and letters from the troops to Robinson thanking him for the work. The museum writes: “In each World War, Heath Robinson demonstrated his ability to counter, by the application of gentle satire and absurdity, both the pompous German propaganda and the fear and depression engendered by the horrors of war.” It goes on to quote the man himself, thus: “I believe that our sense of humour played a greater part than we were always aware of in saving us from despair during those days of trial.”

    Robinson’s work is steeped in that humour. His name was included in the dictionary from 1912 as a synonym for absurd, ingenious and over-complicated makeshift devices, like the ones he spent his life designing.

  34. 48 cases of coronavirus let loose on Australia by the criminally negligent decision to offload the Ruby Princess. Number may go higher. Single worst decision so far.

  39. “ My great grandfather was an original Anzac, he landed on the beach on April 25th and was promptly shot the same day. I never met him but my Mother used to tell me some of the stories he passed on to her.
    The “Anzac” spirit was essentially a wry sense of humour and a philosophy of independence born from the experiences at Anzac in as much as the average digger thought that those running the show were totally clueless and incapable of managing the proverbial root in a brothel (not that they could do that these days anyway, what with social distancing and all that).
    So generally speaking I think we need to have a bit of the ‘ol Anzac spirit indeed because if anything has been shown it’s that the current mob are totally incompetent any way you look at it.”

    My grandad also landed at Gallipoli on 25 April, 1915. Except he went in with the Lancashire regiments right on the toe of the peninsula. Where he stayed for 6 months before coping a piece of shrapnel and being evaluated back to blighty for convalesce. He later served in Palestine. Before the war he went down pit aged 12 only to come up again aged 19 and march straight off to the war. Afterwards he emigrated to South Australia, where he met my grandmother.

    I have a copy of a photo of him in uniform. I also have a copy of a much older photo of my great great grand dad on his small Yorkshire farm. Taken before he moved just over the county border and went down pit.

  40. @bongobeach33
    ·
    32m
    Replying to @JoshButler

    Stuart Robert: “It looked like a cyber attack but it wasn’t”
    also
    Stuart Robert: “It looked like a fake Rolex but it wasn’t”

  41. Rex Patrick tested positive to coronavirus after sharing a Senate committee with another federal MP, Andrew Bragg, who was infected at a wedding.

  43. Thank for the many contributions.
    * bubble gum and bailing wire
    * sticky tape and Blu Tack
    * chewing gum and sticky tape
    * held together by fencing wire
    * held together with spit
    * brown paper and sealing wax
    * wing and a prayer

    For me, “chewing gum and sticky tape” gets closest to the imagery of “bubble gum and bailing wire”, with an honourable mention for “held together with fencing wire” and “spit”.

    –MIAMB

  47. If you think racism or pointing a finger at a country, rather than media hype, and selfish bastards, then next big thing is coming:

    “Covid-19 Is Becoming the Disease That Divides Us: By Race, Class and Age”:
    https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-03-21/covid-19-divides-u-s-society-by-race-class-and-age

    Coronavirus has become a lightning rod for bullying of Chinese people in the U.S., as racial slurs like “Kung Flu” make the rounds on Twitter. The deadly outbreak has escalated the tension between generations, as some young people not-so-jokingly referred to the deadly virus as “#BoomerRemover” because it is most deadly in older people—with the not-so-surprising baby boomer backlash against college students who continued to “#CoronaParty” on spring break as other people died. And as more white-collar workers are able to keep their jobs and work from home, the growing ranks of unemployed, uninsured hourly workers are finding fresh outrages in the potentially fatal gap between haves and have nots.

    “The virus is not doing the dividing,” said Jason Beckfield, chair of the sociology department at Harvard University. “The dividing is a function of what people are choosing to do with the virus. People are able to shift blame away from themselves or shift blame onto people they dislike.”

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