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.
TPOF
You mention one part of history but deny the other.
The LNP have spent decades demonising others to show they are strong and more competent on borders.
They failed. Result Australians died. Voters will not forget that.
This is a worldwide pandemic. It’s shutdown the world economy.
Australia has had a J curve increase in unemployment. Anyone who still has a job now personally knows someone who has lost a job overnight.
That’s a majority that will vote Labor to improve the lives of themselves and their family. It’s that horse. Self Interest.
“Shellbellsays:
Friday, April 3, 2020 at 12:44 pm
Should the growth rate take into account “retirements”.
Victoria seems to suggest the equivalent of a 40% retirement rate.”
Depends what you want to look at really. There’s no “right” answer on that one. Your number would be “total active reported cases”. Definitely a relevant number.
At the moment, “total reported cases” is a fairly easy number to get and define. The other number is interesting, but not well reported. Not sure all states are reporting closed cases (recovery or death)
mundosays:
Friday, April 3, 2020 at 12:46 pm
Just heard John Citizen stuck in Peru really sticking it to Comrade Morrison.
Apart from Morrison haters I doubt anyone will be too worked up over this.
Bucephalus:
[‘Would you like a further technical discussion about ammunition? Because unless you are an Ammunition Technical Officer you are unlikely to know as much about ammunition as an Officer in the Royal Australian Armoured Corps who has passed Gunnery Wing training at the School of Armour.’]
Self-praise is no recommendation.
poroti @ #205 Friday, April 3rd, 2020 – 9:03 am
737 Max anyone?
Bucephalus says:
Friday, April 3, 2020 at 12:36 pm
I never understand why Curtin is held out as a great Wartime Leader. Yes, he was a good Orator which was a require skill in those days and yes, we ended up winning but the lack of effective oversight of either MacArthur
I thought MacArthur was a USA general which neither Blamey, Curtin nor the US President had much control over.
mundo: “Just heard John Citizen stuck in Peru really sticking it to Comrade Morrison.”
When I hear all these people stuck overseas complaining about the government’s inaction in regard to rescuing them, I wonder when they actually departed on their trips. If they left before the middle of February, then I am highly sympathetic to them. If they departed much after that, I think it’s reasonable to say that they should perhaps have paid some regard to the risk they were taking: even if Smart Traveller didn’t specifically say not to go there.
The US Navy Under Secretary has sacked the captain who warned of the need to evacuate and quarantine part of his crew with Covid19. The Under Secretary is a Trump appointed businessman. You always know things aren’t going well when they start shooting the messengers.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/apr/02/us-navy-uss-theodore-roosevelt-coronavirus?utm_term=RWRpdG9yaWFsX0d1YXJkaWFuVG9kYXlBVVMtMjAwNDAz&utm_source=esp&utm_medium=Email&CMP=GTAU_email&utm_campaign=GuardianTodayAUS
GoldenSmaug
Morrison is under increasing pressure from within the Liberal Party with the reactionaries joining the likes of Jeff Kennett demanding this doesn’t continue for too long and that spending is brought under control. Listening to Jeff this morning you could see the fear in his eyes as he was basically begging Morrison to think of the economy.
It seems that absolutely no one I know has got GT’s memo.
guytaursays:
Friday, April 3, 2020 at 12:50 pm
… and Abbott was unelectable, Trump unelectable, Morrison was going to lose because etc etc, BREXIT was going to lose, Boris was going to lose ….
Curtin is great because he grasped THE fundamental geo-political reality of the hour: that Australia had to stand up to the Brits and to go with the Yanks. The rest is mere detail.
OTOH, Cinque Ports Menzies crawled supinely to Churchill, and to the past.
blobbit,
My input into the discussion a page or so ago, where everyone was getting heated about the definition of an exponential function.
Not trying to be too critical, but an exponential function with a base of 1 is a *very* special case. It’s the value at which the slope of the exponential function switches sign, the curvature switches sign, and all the higher-order derivatives also switch sign. In graphical terms, it’s the base value at which the curve goes from decreasing to increasing.
Moreover, there is no reason to change the base of the exp model – this just introduces another degree of freedom into the model with no value, because:
[ a^x = e^{ln(a) x} ]
This means we can fix the base, and all the tinkering can occur in the exponent to the same effect (see my chart from earlier).
Buce
Abbott won from opposition.
Morrison has a record of incompetence.
Resulting in Australians dying.
Unemployment going up under his watch.
The guy that said jobs are the best form of welfare.
Smashed by reality.
lizzie @ #239 Friday, April 3rd, 2020 – 9:39 am
…, but as for his wife?
The two volume biography of John Curtin recently published (which I seemed to have misplaced) captures just how high the odds were stacked against him.
Plus his fear of flying. Some courage to agree to fly either over the Pacific to the US or the Atlantic en route to the War Conference in 1945.
Plus he had to deal with Herb Evatt.
Dandy Murray:
[‘\[ a^x = e^{\ln(a) x} \]
This equation (if that’s what it is) brings back bad memories. My math teacher way back said: “Mavis, you’d do better doing home economics.” He was on the money.
Mavis says:
Friday, April 3, 2020 at 12:52 pm
It wasn’t self praise – just laying out my qualifications and experience so that the knob jockey understood who he was trying to hoodwink with his bullshit.
Boerwar says:
Friday, April 3, 2020 at 12:55 pm
Curtin is great because he grasped THE fundamental geo-political reality of the hour: that Australia had to stand up to the Brits and to go with the Yanks. The rest is mere detail.
OTOH, Cinque Ports Menzies crawled supinely to Churchill, and to the past.
__________________________________
Not to mention sending pig iron to Japan prior in the late thirties to feed their industries.
“Not trying to be too critical, but an exponential function with a base of 1 is a *very* special case. It’s the value at which the slope of the exponential function switches sign, the curvature switches sign, and all the higher-order derivatives also switch sign. In graphical terms, it’s the base value at which the curve goes from decreasing to increasing.”
Sure. The point was to illustrate the effect of the growth rate.
guytaursays:
Friday, April 3, 2020 at 12:57 pm
Is the rising unemployment in Australia purely an Australian phenomenon? Do you really think Australian Voters are as stupid as you make them out to be?
There was one leader who meddled further than Churchill. Look where that got him.
Curtin was a great Australian. His political affiliation is irrelevant to all except the political fundamentalists at certain publications and think tanks (and their loyal grunts) who have nothing better to do but toke on some revisionism weed.
To respond to criticism of the secrecy about the Ruby Princess decision, the PM’s office has released a video of the meeting between Scomo, Dutton and the NSW Health Minister when they made the decision.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZHh0V7UjVXI
Shellbellsays:
Friday, April 3, 2020 at 1:02 pm
John Curtin’s War by John Edwards published by Penguin-Viking?
It has a blurb by Gillard claiming he should be remembered as the greatest. I’m not sure she took the time to read the books.
blobbit,
But you weren’t changing the growth rate directly, you were changing the base. It’s the equivalent effect, but the two terms do not have the same interpretation wrt the system under study.
“Dandy Murraysays:
Friday, April 3, 2020 at 1:09 pm
blobbit,
But you weren’t changing the growth rate directly, you were changing the base. It’s the equivalent effect, but the two terms do not have the same interpretation wrt the system under study.”
I’m using this definition (yes, Wikipedia; it’s an easy reference)
Buce
No I think they are more intelligent than you are pretending they are.
The funny (and entertaining) thing about Morrison and Turnbull is that neither of them were or are real “Liberals” in the way that other leaders were.
Both Morrison and Turnbull entered politics for the Prize rather than for any particular reason to do with a core belief. Unlike the Labor party where core belief if everything generally Liberals go in to line their pockets and getting power for the sake of power however generally they share a view of the economy based on “free market” (free of “organised labour” that is, anything else is open to negotiation based on graft).
Morrison is now in the position where “true believers” in economic “Thatcherism” are getting restless. Ultimately trying to please this lot in the current environment is not going the help Morrisons election chances.
Of course if the draconian powers that are being created for Covid-19 do not get revoked perhaps free elections won’t be a thing anymore.
I was trying to ignore one of the resident RW trolls cracks on the last page. But since others can’t help falling for the bait, I will respond. The whole Curtain criticism is a croc of Murdoch-esque distortions.
If people had read as much of the history of the Kokoda campaign as they claim, they would know that MacArthur and Blamey were both notorious for concealing the facts from their superiors. In fact neither MacArthur nor Blamey visited the front line until well after the fighting was over. Eventually (early 1943) MacArthur’s deputy General Eichelberger was sent up to find out what was going wrong at Buna and Gona. Later he made some quite caustic remarks about MacArthur’s dishonesty. Curtain tried to disentangle Australia from MacArthur’s crusade as soon as he got honest advice about the situation.
Read Peter Brune’s book or the US official history on New Guinea (2 volumes) if you don’t want to wind up talking like a horse’s arse on the subject. The Australian official history leaves out a few details embarrassing to Blamey, especially over the unjust sacking of Bill Potts.
“Steve777 says:
Friday, April 3, 2020 at 12:01 pm
Is ”cockwomble” a banned word? In fact, is it a word?”
Cockwomble: A strange disorder where you wake up one morning and find your penis wearing a little hat , singing the Wombling Song and a plane ticket to Wimbledon Common in your bed.
Question on the run (And Hello)
This morning 4 hours ago, I glanced at https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/australia/ and saw “Deaths: 28”. Now it shows 25. Did I imagine that? (Did anyone else notice?) I suppose it is possible that 3 deaths previously attributed to Australia have now been attributed elsewhere. The aggregators all periodically adjust their data.
Funny – we are supposed to cut Curtin some slack for not having adequate oversight of military operations but Morrison is going to be electorally hung, drawn and quartered for his management of the current Pandemic because he doesn’t have perfect foresight nor control over State responsibilities.
@MrKRudd tweets
Now that everything is moving online, the hardcore defenders of the butchered Murdoch-Morrison NBN are becoming extra sensitive to criticism. They’re finally getting a reality check as to the harm they’ve done with their snail-slow, copper network. https://twitter.com/MrKRudd/status/1245895806227369985/photo/1
blobbit,
That formulation introduces two terms, (i) a growth factor and (ii) a time constant. Note that a growth factor is not a growth rate, and the time constant is changing in the system we are looking at. Or you can fix the base, and look directly at the compounding growth rate; from the same wiki article:
I’m using the last formulation, because we can directly measure the daily growth rate r, and this has a well-understood meaning (to everyone except Mex), which equivalent to compound interest.
Fiddling with the base is just bloody confusing, imho.
Morrison will suffer a backlash for the economy and border protection because they are central themes.
Bucephalus:
[‘It wasn’t self praise – just laying out my qualifications and experience so that the knob jockey understood who he was trying to hoodwink with his bullshit.’]
Many contributors to this blog are very well credentialled but as far as I see it, the rule of thumb is not to argue from said perspective, as everyone has the right to express their point of view, even if it’s sometimes erroneous, without belittlement. That said, I’m very happy for you that you’re serving (or did serve) as a reserve officer in the Australian Army.
Shellbell says:
Friday, April 3, 2020 at 1:02 pm
The two volume biography of John Curtin recently published (which I seemed to have misplaced) captures just how high the odds were stacked against him.
Plus his fear of flying. Some courage to agree to fly either over the Pacific to the US or the Atlantic en route to the War Conference in 1945.
Plus he had to deal with Herb Evatt.
——————————————————-
Don’t want to sound like a PB pedant, but wasn’t it “Bert” Evatt?
I’m interested to know what meddling in military operations in WWII did Churchill make that cost lives?
Mavissays:
Friday, April 3, 2020 at 1:27 pm
While I enjoyed my time as a an Officer in the ARES I spent three times as long in the ARA.
DP
(to everyone except Mex)
——————
What am I missing?
Mexicanbeemer says:
Friday, April 3, 2020 at 1:27 pm
“Morrison will suffer a backlash for the economy and border protection because they are central themes.”
Yes, we’ve heard it all before. I believe past ALP failures are down to the fact that they won the argument but something something something not fair etc etc. And Churchill lost after WWII and Bligh lost after the floods etc etc.
When is the next election due?
My NBN is more than 2x faster up and down than my old ADSL+ and I’ve got massive amounts more data all for the same price and I got it years before the Rolls Royce FTH model would ever have got here. Very satisfied.
Rudd should just F off.
[‘Wall Street analysts predicted that unemployment will hit 16 per cent within months – a rate not seen since the end of the Great Depression in the 1930s.’]
https://www.smh.com.au/business/markets/echoes-of-the-great-depression-eye-watering-us-unemployment-figures-set-to-get-much-worse-20200403-p54gnk.html
What am I missing?
Leaving yourself wide open there, comrade 🙂
@TheKouk tweets
Mr Morrison’s policy response on the economy has been solid – but he is doing what any economist would say is bleeding obvious.
It isn’t that difficult.
Getting praise for turning on the light in a dark room is fine, but hardly pathbreaking.
@annabelcrabb tweets
The PM will make a statement shortly post national Cabinet. Watch live on @abcnews
Bucephalus
Many ALP supporters make excuses for Keating and the SA and Victorian state governments but they still copped sizable defeats. Morrison only has a small margin so wont take much for him to lose office and its difficult for any government to win an election during a recession.
Next election will be early 2022.
Bucephalus @ #238 Friday, April 3rd, 2020 – 12:38 pm
Do you love the smell of napalm in the morning too, Buce?
Bucephalus @ #292 Friday, April 3rd, 2020 – 1:36 pm
Australia is 50th on this list …
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_Internet_connection_speeds
… and still working its way down, as more and more countries overtake our shitty and obsolete NBN 🙁
Bucephalus @ #292 Friday, April 3rd, 2020 – 1:36 pm
With Liberals it’s always all about them.
Anyway, I will not waste my time explaining all the beneficial results of having FTTP.
Health and Education, being just the foremost. And just ask your mates in business, having to work from home, if they would appreciate FTTP right now.