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 6 of 44
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  1. ‘Confessions says:
    Sunday, March 22, 2020 at 11:33 am

    poroti:

    Gross! The smell of Spam resembles canned dog food, I can’t imagine why people would voluntarily eat it when there are plenty of other preferable food items to be found.’

    Plenty of fat and plenty of salt.

  2. 66billion. $6k per household?

    For what…. 6 months?

    Morrison isn’t up to this. He sells brands. He doesn’t have a clue how to make a product.

  3. Simon Katich

    I confess I don’t know much about using semolina but I’ve somehow acquired a packet (not recently). It used to be a sort of milk pudding dessert in my childhood. Can you point me to a source of recipes pls?

  4. poroti @ #248 Sunday, March 22nd, 2020 – 11:33 am

    C@t

    Re “Essential Services Personnel children” . Thinking about what you could call “essential” I realised that the list could be bloody extensive. People involved in the supply of power,water,food delivery,production and on it goes. I wonder who ‘teh authorities’ will put on ‘The List” ?

    Good question. I guess they don’t all work at the same time, have children the same age, who go to the same school, so it should even itself out around the place.

    I think there is already a definition of Essential Services in law.

  6. The NT has only two places. The NT and “Down South”. Down Southers aka Bloody Southerners have very bad PR up there 🙂

  7. The government will waive the asset test and waiting period for the job seeker allowance allowing more Australians more quickly access to support they need.

    The supplement will provide an additional $550 a fortnight on top of the existing job seeker or new start payment and will be available to sole traders, casual workers who meet the income test. This means, anyone eligible for the maximum jobseeker payment will now receive more than $1100 a fortnight, effectively doubling the jobseeker allowance.

  11. “The prime minister’s call for an end to non-essential travel shatters what is left of the businesses of Qantas, Virgin Australia and regional airline Rex.”

    And good bye economy.

  13. It’s Time @ #217 Sunday, March 22nd, 2020 – 11:17 am

    (lots of stuff deleted which basically amounts to “we are not sure how effective school closures would be”)

    School closure is associated with considerable costs.

    (lots more stuff deleted which basically amounts to “we are not sure how effective school closures would be”)

    As I keep saying – this is an economic, not a medical decision. Over 70 countries have made the opposite decision to ours, and the list is growing. Are they less well informed than we are?

    Of course, there is no way to know exactly how many lives would be saved by doing so – but in the end it could potentially amount to many thousands.

    It just depends on what value you put on those lives.

  14. I grew up on semolina porridge.

    I use Madhur Jaffrey world vegetarian cookbook. Quite a few semolina recipes in there. Breads, pancakes (Greek) and Kerala style ‘risottos’ (uppama)

  16. lizzie

    For me, tinned mussels or oysters are an abomination, little rubbery blobs. I only eat fresh or frozen.
    ————
    Of course, this is “war time”.

  20. THIS A DEMAND SHOCK!

    PAYING COMPANIES TO KEEP DOING WHAT THEY WERE ALWAYS DOING WONT WORK!

    GOVT NEEDS TO PAY WORKERS!

  21. Did a grocery run today, finally found some baking powder and flour. Also did a Bunning run – if I am quarantined or on mandatory lock down, at least I can catch up on some overdue household chores (nearest neighbour is 1/2km away)

  23. citizen @ #220 Sunday, March 22nd, 2020 – 10:19 am

    The local Woolworths at 8:15 today had a lot more stock than on Friday afternoon. There was a shipment of Sorbent 10 packs and some kitchen paper but no tissues. The most notable absences were sanitiser, hand wash materials and pasta ingredients. There were floor markings for queues but I had an annoying fellow standing close behind me. Every second check out in the self-serve was closed causing a longer queue and a Wilson security guard was there but people were generally happy.

    A good long cough should generate the distancing you want.

  24. Rakali

    I remember wartime. Bread with ersatz margarine and part of Grandma’s sugar ration sprinkled on it instead of jam. Milk sops (bread & hot milk) or Tea sops (milky tea on bread) for supper.
    Yet I don’t remember feeling disadvantaged or hungry.

  25. Simon Katich @ #252 Sunday, March 22nd, 2020 – 11:34 am

    66billion. $6k per household?

    For what…. 6 months?

    Morrison isn’t up to this. He sells brands. He doesn’t have a clue how to make a product.

    He will still play his political games like throwing a wall of money after the end of the current quarter to try and avoid two quarters of negative economic growth.

  26. Tony Windsor
    @TonyHWindsor
    ·
    8m
    Through the package announced today and the warnings of “more draconian “ health measures means the Govt now recognises the gate was left open too long and that the mathematical calculations on the spread of the virus are unavoidable ….shocking news.

  33. One good thing about coronavirus: no unwanted hawkers and religious happy clappers knocking on your door on a weekend.

  37. Went to the supermarket this morning – Woolworths Northbridge. It was a bit more crowded than usual but not excessively so. Most stuff was available apart from toilet paper, paper towels and paper serviettes. Tinned food was a bit low, as was long-life milk.

    No fights broke out.

  41. The bitterness and recriminations from Team Bernie continue, but have escalated to the predictable leaks from the campaign team as they try to correct the hindsight record.

    The pollster, Ben Tulchin, in a meeting with campaign aides, recommended a new offensive to influence older black voters, according to three people briefed on his presentation. The data showed two clear vulnerabilities for Mr. Biden: his past support for overhauling Social Security, and his authorship of a punitive criminal justice law in the 1990s.

    But the suggestion met with resistance. Some senior advisers argued that it wasn’t worth diverting resources from Iowa and New Hampshire, people familiar with the campaign’s deliberations said. Others pressed Mr. Tulchin on what kind of message, exactly, would make voters rethink their support for the most loyal ally of the first black president.

    Crucially, both Mr. Sanders and his wife, Jane, consistently expressed reservations about going negative on Mr. Biden, preferring to stick with the left-wing policy message they have been pressing for 40 years.

    The warnings about Mr. Biden proved prescient: Two months later, Mr. Sanders is now all but vanquished in the Democratic presidential race, after Mr. Biden resurrected his campaign in South Carolina and built an overwhelming coalition of black voters and white moderates on Super Tuesday.

    https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/21/us/politics/bernie-sanders-democrats-2020.html?action=click&module=Top%20Stories&pgtype=Homepage

  42. C@tmomma @ #235 Sunday, March 22nd, 2020 – 10:27 am

    It’s Time,
    It doesn’t matter how much it will cost to close down the schools! Just do it! Who cares about Singapore!?! Australia is NOT Singapore in so many ways I am not going to bother enumerating them, you should be honest enough to work them out for yourself.

    And if you try and think about it for 30 seconds you will realise that grandparents won’t be needed to mind the kids, their parents will be working from home! Just keep a skeleton staff on at schools on a rotation basis to look after Essential Services Personnel children. If there are any kids that need feeding, then allow them to come to school for a daily feed. Then send them home again. Just do it all hygenically and the rest should sort itself out.

    There is this widespread delusion that people can just work from home and keep the kids locked down in isolation as well. And “essential services” to maintain a functioning society is a LOT more than police, ambulance, firies and medicos.

  44. Greed
    ———
    And Josh can’t bring them in for a stern talking to.

    But seriously, what’s the point of lower fed interest rates if it doesn’t flow on?

    Is the idea to take government low interest loans to pay bank loan repayments? Isn’t that just a great big bank subsidy?

  47. How many can work from home ? Of those that can how many of them will be able to work from home before the Abbott-Turnbull Economic Crime NBN falls over ?

  48. Have had NBC today on in the background. Took me a while to realise they have got their weekly concert in the plaza outside the studios on complete with a crowd in the middle of New York!

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