The West Australian had a Painted Dog Research poll of 500 respondents on attitudes to the coronavirus, with field work dates undisclosed – or at least its website did, as I can’t see any mention of it in the hard copy. What the online report ($) tells us is that 71% believed the federal government should “enforce a full lockdown”; that 25% expected three months of social distancing, and 23% six months; that 18% were extremely worried about losing their job by September, with another 42% slightly worried; and that 68% were most concerned about the health impact, compared with 28% for the economic impact.
Other than that, I have the following to relate about Queensland’s elections on the weekend, which I’ll put here as the dedicated post on the subject doesn’t seem to be doing much business:
• As the dust settles on the troubled counting process, it’s clear the Liberal National Party has enjoyed something of a triumph in the election for Brisbane City Council, extending their 16-year grip on the lord mayoralty and quite probably repeating their feat from 2016 of winning 19 out 26 wards on the council. Incumbent Adrian Schrinner leads Labor’s Pat Condren in the lord mayoral race by a margin of 5.5%, although the latter gained a 4.0% swing off Graham Quirk’s landslide win in 2016. The ABC projection is awarding 17 ward seats to the LNP, to which they look very likely to add Enoggera, while maintaining a slender lead over the Greens in Paddington. The Greens’ combined council ward vote is up 3.4% on 2016 to 17.9%, and they retained their sole existing seat of The Gabba with swings of 12.2% on the primary vote and 8.5% on two-party preferred.
• However, it was a less good performance by the LNP in the two state by-elections, where all the detail is laid out at my results pages for Bundamba and Currumbin. The party finished a distant third behind One Nation in Bundamba, which remains a safe seat for Labor, and have only narrowly held on in Currumbin, where Labor has achieved a rare feat for a governing party in picking up a swing of nearly 2% at a by-election. Party leader Deb Frecklington would nonetheless be relieved by the result, since a defeat in Currumbin, which a pre-election poll suggested was in prospect, would surely have imperilled her leadership, despite her being able to point to the highly unusual circumstances in which the election was held.
• Speaking of which, I offer the following numbers on the ways the enrolled voters of Bundamba and Currumbin did and didn’t vote, with the qualification that there is an indeterminate number of postals still to be counted — perhaps rather a few of them, given I understood that there had been a surge in applications (although it seems a number of applicants never received their ballots).
Finally, a few thoughts on the situation in the United States, elaborating on a subject covered in yesterday’s post here by Adrian Beaumont – you are encouraged to comment on that thread if you have something specific to offer on matters American, and in particular on Donald Trump’s confounding opinion poll bounce over the past few weeks. I sought to put the latter event in context in a paywalled Crikey article on Monday, the key feature of which is the following comparison of his approval rating trend, as measured by FiveThirtyEight, with comparable trend measures of my own for Angela Merkel, Boris Johnson, Emmanuel Macron and Scott Morrison.
The upshot is that leaders the world over are enjoying a “rally around the flag” approval bounce, and that Donald Trump’s looks meagre indeed compared with his colleagues across the Atlantic. I feel pretty sure that the lack of a clear bounce for Scott Morrison is down to the fact that there have been no new numbers since Essential Research’s poll of over a fortnight ago, with the surges for Merkel, Johnson and Macron being concentrated since that time.
It’s also interesting to observe that Trump’s improvement has not been consistently observed. The chart below records his trends so far from this year from the five most prolific pollsters. For some reason, Rasmussen, the pollster that is usually most favourable to him — and which is accordingly the most frequent subject of his vainglorious tweets on the odd occasion when it reaches 50% — has in fact found his approval rating going in the direction he deserves. There is also no sign of change from the Ipsos series. However, the improving trend from the other three is more in line with the many other pollsters included in the FiveThirtyEight series, hence its overall picture of his best ratings since his post-election honeymoon.
Socrates
Unfortunately large numbers of working-class people did – and still do – buy the Brexit line
I drive a lorry for a living, mainly in the North and Midlands (I don’t do long-distance work anymore) and in numerous chats with drivers and warehouse workers in the fag shelter it’s been incredibly rare to meet anyone who’ll stick up for the EU or admit they voted to stay 🙁
One final thought on NSW Minister Brad Hazzard’s farcical press conference yesterday. Even if he was telling the truth, his defense makes no medical sense.
Lets assume they knew a ship with over 100 cases of severe flu and respiratory illness was coming in, and it was “only” a flu. With the winter flu season about to begin that is still a big deal. Having flu and Covid19 in combination is thought to increase the risk of death, especially among the elderly, which many of the passengers were. The last thing NSW needs is a flu-epidemic right now.
So even if it was the flu, which is still highly contagious, letting everyone wander off without telling them to be careful and self isolate was really stupid. A competent doctor or nurse would not do it. None of the medical staff in attendance have been allowed to speak. If they did, I would love to hear if they were under orders from above to let the passengers go quickly. My guess is they were.
Have a peaceful day and stay healthy.
Poroti, the first photo is a sculpture (wikipedia does have its uses sometimes) –
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/America_(Cattelan)
Just had an interesting thought on the Franking Credit issue – Dividends are likely to dry up in the short term with the massive downturn in the global economy and therefore franking credits refunds are likely to be very low.
The same people who were screaming about losing money from the lose of franking credit refunds are now going to be coming with a begging bowl because all their money has dried up.
Ray (UK)
Yes I understand that. The EU was a flawed institution. But those workers will find that world trade outside the EU is more flawed. Afte Covid19 it will probably also get more protectionist, so I can’t see things improving for UK soon.
Kronomex
Thanks. It sure has a bit of a tale attached to it . I liked the term ” participatory art” 🙂 Must have been a bit of a queue to use it .
That seemed a very dull Insiders. Is it just me?
lizzie @ #1738 Sunday, April 5th, 2020 – 9:30 am
That’s the third law of alchohol consumption.
PeeBee @ #1750 Sunday, April 5th, 2020 – 9:50 am
Not necessarily. It would be possible (via software) to make the phone transmit even though you think it is in flight mode.
Also, it is worth noting that just removing the phone’s SIM does not make it untrackable. A phone will work quite happily without a SIM (e.g. you can usually still make emergency calls).
On cruise ships.
John Howard made it crystal clear boats are a border issue.
Lizzie, did you just have a little vomit in your mouth at listening to Simon on he panel.
Morrison is the greatest PM Eva!
Yep Lizzie
Apparently the ABC should be proud to have 3 ex or current news ltd employees on the panel of Insiders.
The bar has been lowered
I only watched Insiders to see Sally McManus. Even she could not make it interesting. Despite some valiant attempts by Karvelas.
PeeBee @ #1750 Sunday, April 5th, 2020 – 7:50 am
Don’t know, but I doubt it. Tracking is done via the SIM card, so it wouldn’t matter whether you turn it off or what mode you have it on. As long as the SIM is in there it can be traced and tracked.
DISCLOSURE: I got that from an episode of the spy drama SPOOKS. Take that for what it’s worth.
lizzie says:
Sunday, April 5, 2020 at 8:37 am
This doesn’t make sense. How do they define “personal information”?
NEWS: @VodafoneAU has provided the Federal and New South Wales governments with the location data of millions of Australians to help ensure people are following social distancing rules & stop the spread of #coronavirus.
———————–
They can track the location of a phone without listening into the call or reading message because the syms card connects with the nearest tower providing a location.
It was this technoque that helped lead to the arrest of Jill Meagher’s killer because he kept the card.
This seems an odd issue for Dutton to pop his head up for.
.
Don’t be fooled by dodgy ‘home’ COVID-19 test kits: Dutton
https://www.smh.com.au/national/coronavirus-updates-live-covid-19-cases-surpass-1-1-million-worldwide-australia-spends-first-weekend-with-strict-social-distancing-restrictions-20200404-p54h58.html#p508gg
I think I will give Insiders a miss today.
An army of people employed in socially unproductive tasks that contribute nothing to health care outcomes:
deciding what to cover and which claims will be paid, and devising ways to avoid paying out claims
marketing and advertising in order to psychologically manipulate people
A bloated senior executive class on extremely high salaries.
Immensely wealthy owners who are further enriched by the profits of the sector.
puffyTMD that would be sensible
Loved Benson’s hero worship of Morrison at the end of Insiders.
Why is he even on the show? He’s just a Murdoch hack.
Speers in charge of the program is turning into a big disappointment.
Socrates @ #1755 Sunday, April 5th, 2020 – 9:55 am
But Boris is going to get very cross with China over the coronavirus and trade talks are back to square one. What could go wrong?
B.S. Fairman @ #1754 Sunday, April 5th, 2020 – 9:52 am
Hopefully such people won’t be able to claim a part pension because they exceed the asset limits with all those shares.
Danama Papers @ #1764 Sunday, April 5th, 2020 – 10:06 am
Not much! Spooks was great TV, but technically it was full of howlers! 🙂
AFAIK, the only way to turn off phone tracking is remove the battery. Turning the power off maybe does the same.
PeeBee
I went off to make the dogs’ lunch (it takes a day or two for them to adjust their timing!) and when I got back found this. I agree – totally sick-making. As is Speers saying Morrison is more worthy of our trust now.
Hmm
Coronavirus adviser to PM wants ‘herd immunity’ considered again to end lockdown
“The UK may need to reconsider a “herd immunity” strategy to defeat coronavirus, a senior adviser to the Prime Minister has warned.
Professor Graham Medley, of Imperial College London, claimed the country had “painted itself into a corner” as it battled the deadly bug with no clear exit plan”
https://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/coronavirus-adviser-pm-wants-herd-18042073
I found VDV quite entertaining. The programme was not made for Dutch audience and is fiction…..For those who look for “reality” clearly Midsommer Murders and Death in Paradise set in mythical England and a mythical Caribbean hardly make it either. These places would have to be the most dangerous on earth with a homicide rate of 3 per every 10 people – a real trail of carnage. Just examples of entertaining escape set in great locations…………otherwise totally divorced from the real bloody and violent world we live in………………
And Simon Benson had the cheek to “congratulate the ABC” on having today’s panel.
The Australian
@australian
·
54m
Immunologist and Nobel laureate Peter Doherty says COVID-19 is just as deadly as the Spanish flu, and 20 times worse than seasonal flu. And it is far from contained.
As lethal as Spanish flu: Nobel laureate
Locked down in his Melbourne home, Nobel laureate Peter Doherty is settling in for the long haul. He says COVID-19 is just as lethal as the Spanish flu that ravaged his parents generation, and 20…
theaustralian.com.au
Are any of the covid deaths coroners cases?
The good, bad and ugly – mainly ugly – at the local servo……….No hand cleaning stuff at the pumps because………..two or three of the hand wipe dispensers and their paper towels were ripped off the stand and stolen. Only wipes available are on a dispenser inside.
We on this side of the Rabbit Proof are very selective as to can come to WA now but we are at least an hour closer to where the real/only news that happens – that is Sydney and Melbourne – for which we 10% of the Oz population are just so grateful……………………Some here, seeing how quickly we physically divorced ourselves from Over East, are now wondering if we should keep all our mining money and tell the rest of Oz to get stuffed….
I wonder if faithful Mordor Media orc Denis Shanana realises what he has said with his observation that “Scott Morrison has morphed into a man who will do what’s necessary for the good of us all.”
Do tell Denis what the man was before he ‘morphed’
https://www.theaustralian.com.au/subscribe/news/1/?sourceCode=TAWEB_WRE170_a&dest=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theaustralian.com.au%2Finquirer%2Fconsensus-and-inclusion-hallmarks-of-a-strong-leader%2Fnews-story%2F2a669876811a81219ea83186e817d9c7&memtype=anonymous&mode=premium
With so many current current and ex news Corp Journos appearing on Insiders, it makes you wonder how long before a paywall goes up.
Benson’s comment on Morrison was balanced by his reference to Andrews as being the best Labor leader in the land. Today’s “Insiders” was, however, very lame save for the “Talking Pictures” segment.
GG
The way it is atm, I wouldn’t pay!
For some time there has been a growing number now ABC employees. Karvelas is one.
If you were under a rock or were someone that had been doing well then suddenly find your self benefiting from stimulus measures then you could be forgiven for thinking Morrison is doing well but the real test for Morrison isn’t now but in six to twelve months time. The world the media people live in is the kind of place where you would find people that were happy with Morrison’s performance because many media people live in places like Bondi and we know how many Bondi residents are taking this so seriously.
Fess: “Woody Harrelson has been promoting the 5G conspiracy on Instagram. I had no idea the man was such a nutter!”
Woody grew up at the heart of a conspiracy theory. His father was the infamous man on the grassy knoll (well, one of them). Look it up.
He was well cast in Cheers.
poroti: “Very serious and full on and then in the middle of it up pops ‘George Roper’ from ‘George and Mildred’ looking just like ‘George Roper’. The atmosphere fell in a heap ”
He was in a few Ken Russell movies, as I recall it. If you watch The Boyfriend (starring the model Twiggy, who is very good), you can see Brian Murphy (his real name) dancing and singing. He’s actually ok, but it’s always hard to get his later, most famous role as George out of your mind.
yabba @ #1737 Sunday, April 5th, 2020 – 9:28 am
yabba,
Do you work at being nasty, or does it just come naturally? I’m tending towards the latter.
Now, for slow learners, or should that be Mensa-level intellects that have a zero EQ and even less common sense…No, I don’t put oil down my sink, nor does/did my son before he left for America, however, when cleaning his cooking implements some of the saponified fats solidified in the S Bend, apparently, as we and he rinsed off the plates, pots and pans with cold water to get the detergent off them. Because we don’t like detergent residue on the things we eat off.
Now, because common sense doesn’t seem to be your forte, I guess I’ll have to spell it out for you. We. Are. Too. Poor. To. Own. A. Dishwasher. We. Wash. All. Our. Dishes. Ourselves. In. The. Sink.
Ye gods, I just do not know why some people, like It’s Time and yabba, are using this time on the blog to try and find reasons to belittle other contributors! Not to mention P1 going for gold in the snark stakes.
Look, if I can bury the hatchet with BB, and vice versa, maybe you lot could break the habit of a lifetime too!?! Give it a try, it doesn’t hurt and it won’t kill you. Though having to put up with the pettiness of certain contributors may drive me insane. 😐
SIM cards are just identification/storage devices, they wouldn’t have RF transceivers themselves (unless you have a super-duper spook version that was engineered to do so – you don’t), so a regular mobile phone system would not be able to communicate/track a regular SIM card that isn’t installed in a phone.
Regular mobile phones without a SIM card, but with a battery, can (in fact must) be able to talk to the network to support emergency calls (and would thus be visible to the system).
Removing the battery (if you can) from a regular phone should disable it.
Flight mode/powering it off are not guaranteed to do so because these functions are all software controlled these days and potentially hackable.
meher baba
Thanks for that, will try and check out the movie.
It’s Time says:
Sunday, April 5, 2020 at 10:13 am
B.S. Fairman @ #1754 Sunday, April 5th, 2020 – 9:52 am
Just had an interesting thought on the Franking Credit issue – Dividends are likely to dry up in the short term with the massive downturn in the global economy and therefore franking credits refunds are likely to be very low.
The same people who were screaming about losing money from the lose of franking credit refunds are now going to be coming with a begging bowl because all their money has dried up.
Hopefully such people won’t be able to claim a part pension because they exceed the asset limits with all those shares.
____________________________________
Yes. But have you seen how much value has been lost on those shares?
Tricot @ #1782 Sunday, April 5th, 2020 – 10:31 am
And NSW and Queensland can keep all their Coal which is used to turn the Iron Ore into steel? Uh huh. Oh, and I seem to remember NSW and Victoria, via the federal government, having to bail out the WA economy recently, and we here in the East having had to do it more often than WA doing the reverse in the history of the Commonwealth.
Be careful what you wish for. Oh, and get a grip, Tricot. Not being able to sanitise your hands at the petrol pump shouldn’t induce such outrageous thoughts. Just do it as soon as you get home again! 🙄
87 in NSW today
39 in ICU
23 on ventilators
Very stable for 6 days
Morrison is getting a lot of pats on the back for doing his job.
However, the policy decisions made so far are the “ easy “ part of the virus story for Morrison.
Lot more of the story to come over coming months and that is when the not so easy decisions will start to bite Morrison on the arse combined with the lived experience of many Australians who have been promised the wo4ld by the government and the media.
BTW, Sally McManus made the point this morning that approx 50% of uni employees are on short term contracts and will miss out on the wage subsidy.
It should also be noted up to 70% of TAFE staff are on short term contracts and will not be eligible either. Many of those are women who have been on contract after short term contract for years.
As well, the givernment is relying on the wage subsidy to do a lot of the lifting as part of its child care package. Many child care workers are also on short term contract as well and will also miss out.
Or, if you are worried about going out for a walk down a bush track and there are 3 of you, in contravention of social distancing rules, then only one of you needs to carry their phone in case of an accident.
Or, just do the right thing for all our sakes.
If people are self isolating and want to sneak out why not just leave the phone at home ?
doyley @ #1800 Sunday, April 5th, 2020 – 11:04 am
Apparently, according to It’s Time, the thought is preposterous. 🙄