I’ll be taking part in the Political Geekfest videocast through Zoom with Peter Lewis of Essential Research and Katharine Murphy of the Guardian Australia at 1pm AEST today, which you can register for here. The subject of discussion will be this:
• The Guardian reports on another Essential Research poll focusing mostly on coronavirus, which would appear to be a weekly thing at least for the time being. The latest poll finds 59% rating the government’s response as about right, up from 46% last week and 39% in the two previous weekly polls; 13% rating it an overreaction, continuing its downward trajectory from 33% to 18% to 17%; and 29% rating it an underreaction, which bounced around over the first three weeks from 28% to 43% to 37%. Respondents were also asked to rate their state governments’ reactions, though with sample sizes too small to be of that much use at the individual level: the combined responses for very good and quite good were at 56% for New South Wales, 76% for Victoria, 52% for Queensland, 79% for Western Australia and 72% for South Australia. The poll also records a surprisingly high level of general morale, producing an average 6.7 rating on a scale of one to ten, unchanged from May last year. The full report should be published later today. UPDATE: Full report here.
• Also apparently a weekly thing is Roy Morgan’s coronavirus polling, which is being conducted online and not by SMS as I previously assumed – indeed, I believe this is the first online polling Morgan has ever published. Last week’s tranche showed a sharp rise in approval of the government’s handling of the matter from a week previous, with 21% strongly agreeing the government was handling the matter well (up twelve), 44% less strongly agreeing (up ten), 23% disagreeing (down ten) and 6% strongly disagreeing (down ten). Respondents had also become more optimistic since the previous week (59% saying the worst was yet to come, down 26 points, 33% saying the situation would remain the same, up 22 points, and 8% expecting things to improve, up four), and, contra Essential, slightly more inclined to consider the threat was being exaggerated (up five points to 20%, with disagreement down six to 75%). The poll was conducted last weekend from a sample of 987.
The Guardian
The ACTU has joined the list of people calling for the government to do something to save Virgin, warning that Australia is on the verge of seeing another Ansett situation.
ACTU president Michele O’Neil says the government needs to act to save 16,000 jobs
Socrates @ 2.09pm
“Several countries are looking at airline bailouts. I am not aware of any planning to bail out foreign owned airlines.”
It does happen. According to a German aviation website, Switzerland is preparing an aid package for airlines, albeit with strict conditions:
– Only for companies that have exhausted other ways to finance their operations.
– Loans only, with normal interest rates.
– No dividends until the loan is fully paid back.
– Money must not be used to support foreign parent or daughter companies.
– Airlines require a long-term commitment to Switzerland and Swiss infrastructure.
The main Swiss carriers, Swiss and Edelweiss, are both owned by the German airline Lufthansa and EasyJet Switzerland is 40% owned by Easyjet UK.
Similarly, a bailout package is on the way for Brussels Airlines from Belgium, also owned by Lufthansa.
The Guardian
Anthony Albanese says that if it were the case that Australia was going to lose the two-airline model, the government should intervene.
The idea that Virgin can disappear and someone will just come in and pick up what’s left is just a triumph of hope over reality, which is why people in the government are talking about opening up Australian domestic routes to foreign carriers, which would carry foreign workers and pay foreign wages.
Asked about whether any mooted assistance should be available to other airlines, Albanese said it was Virgin that was particularly requiring support at the current time, but added:
Of course this isn’t about favouring one airline or another. This is about favouring an industry structure that serves the national interest.
Albanese said, however, that taxpayer money should not be given unconditionally. There was no reason why the government could not make a financial injection through equity with the ability to sell that stake down the track, he said.
This is an ideal time. If anything, this is the bottom of the market, that’s for sure.
c@tmomma: her name is Emilie Oldknow, and has been touted as the next General Secretary of the Party.
BTW, I don’t know if anyone else has bothered to check, but no mainstream British media outlet is currently running with this story: the only place you can find out it is in the Morning Star: which was formerly the Communist Party of Great Britain’s celebrated newspaper the Daily Worker.
south,
Thanks for the polite reply. I’m not a negative person, I assure you, it’s simply that I abhor blinkered thinkers that let themselves be led around by the nose by perception creators. Like mundo. For whatever misguided reason he is doing, and keeps doing, it.
I appreciate your explanation as to why you feel the way you do and I hope you read BH’s post because it simply and effectively exemplifies the cleft stick Labor are in.
That is why it really bugs me when fluffers for Morrison, which is what mundo is, whether he wants to admit it or not, as he never goes out there to find Labor’s contributions, just jump to conclusions based upon one example which suits his narrative, and then uses that to bounce his pre-formed, pre-digested, predictable narrative off for the rest of the day.
I see my function as merely trying to correct the broken record.
Now, you take care of yourself too, south. 🙂
Labor definitely could do better tbh. Although, I know right now people aren’t really listening because of the covid crisis, starting the talking points now is better than sitting at the side biding your time until the right moment is never a really good idea. Economic hardship will start being on people’s minds eventually and their anger will be directed better if there has already been a torrent of opposition criticism happening already. It’s slow but that’s how shit is won.
I think we can put to sleep the “steady as she goes” mantra that has been clinged-to here over so many years. I am optimistic Labor will win the next election (don’t @ me mundo) but they can’t just expect it to drop into their laps.
Fess
I’m fine – actually enjoying our forced isolation. I can veg out on reading, watching old DVDs I put aside for a rainy day years ago and no running up and down to the Hospital with OH. It’s all done via telehealth – great invention. The cooler weather helps his COPD enormously so the pressure is off a little.
I read your comments about staff working from home. It will be interesting watching the final outcome of all that.
Signs of autumn. The first sight of a blackbird spending a whole day perching and then hovering over a tall climbing rose to pluck the little red haws.
Rational Leftist,
After reading BH’s post, what do you think Labor should be doing that they aren’t already doing? Don’t forget that, at the end of the day, discretion is in the hands of the media producers and editors as to what they put before us.
WA update. Message is still bloody cruise ships
Jerrie Demasi
@JerrieDemasi
·
17m
UPDATED WA COVID19 STATISTICS:
4 new cases today.
1 West Aussie (close contact of a confirmed case).
3 from the Artania.
Aged 31 – 58yo.
527 total positive cases.
296 recovered.
32 in hospital, 12 in ICU.
A question on the webinar is about an outbreak of racism. Apparently there has been posters displayed on the freeway (doesn’t say which one), as well as other places.
I had no idea Perth had seen this kind of behaviour.
What a dilemma…..Give $5 billion to an airline owned by overseas interests who probably pay no taxes here to prevent an Australian listed company becoming a monopoly…………………….Gee, if this does not win you over for free market economics, nothing will……….. On the other hand, the government could take over both of them, amalgamate them and then sell is off to the highest bidder once it is back in profit. Damn it! This has already been done in Oz……
Murphy is not having a good day. First his false allegation about medical staff attending a covid-19 spreading party in Burnie, now blaming parents and teachers for defying his edict that all students attend school.
BH:
Hope your OH is doing well, good that he doesn’t have to make trips to hospital. Telehealth is so much more accessible.
Yes I’m hoping we can keep working from home once things return to ‘normal’. It’s been great.
Re Virgin
Saving them ? The number of people needing to fly won’t change.
And if I am not mistaken Chris Ulhman is not for euthanasia laws. Seriously this guy can be loopy
https://www.smh.com.au/national/if-a-grandparent-chooses-a-loving-embrace-that-may-kill-them-who-are-we-to-stop-them-20200414-p54jmy.html
On the UK Labour leak, you should read the document (it’s easily found online). It’s a Corbynite stitch up.snd not even an official Labour report.
It includes some amusing right wing head office chit chat. Very relatable too if you have ever been in a divided office of any sort.
Citizen
It wasnt false allegation that he made. That is what he had been told. Now the police are investigating to verify if true or not.
BH
Cheers to you and OH
I think Murphy’s only mistake in the Tas thing was to comment publicly on it. I guess that shows the value of evading such questions until you have all the facts.
While I am not that close a follower of UK politics, I’d give my left ball to never have to hear the terms “Blairite” and “Corbynite” (or variances thereof) again. Perhaps, if they do need to factionalise on some ideological grounds, they could not do so under labels that exclusively tie them to a failed former leader or one who hasn’t led the party for nearly 15 years.
Latest on school situation. The word is that if the virus continues to be contained, they are looking at re opening schools to all students in June.
citizen
Apparently in his world this sort of thing could never happen in Australia …..
………………………………………………………………………………………….
Marist College, a Catholic girl’s school in Auckland’s leafy Mt Albert, has seen 85 cases linked to it as of Saturday – making it the most significant cluster by confirmed cas……….. positive saw cases rise exponentially, from just eight cases on the Monday to 52 on Friday.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/health/coronavirus/120895239/coronavirus-everything-we-know-about-new-zealands-marist-college-covid19-cluster
Ballantyne
“The main Swiss carriers, Swiss and Edelweiss, are both owned by the German airline Lufthansa and EasyJet Switzerland is 40% owned by Easyjet UK.
Similarly, a bailout package is on the way for Brussels Airlines from Belgium, also owned by Lufthansa.”
Thnaks, I was not aware of the situation in Switzerland and Belgium. That being said, if they do not otherwise have a locally owned national carrier, that makes more sense. We do have a local option.
Confessions
He did not need to evade . He was answering questions from an NZ parliamentary committee. Did he even have to mention it ?
Rational Leftist: “While I am not that close a follower of UK politics, I’d give my left ball to never have to hear the terms “Blairite” and “Corbynite” (or variances thereof) again.”
Have you been on this forum very long? I have found over many years that the use of terms like “left faction”, “hard left” and the like in relation to the ALP and foreign parties of a similar bent attracts a lot of negative criticism: even when, as I have done with the NSW Hard Left faction (the one that Albo and Plib belong to), you use a term that they regularly use to describe themselves.
So nowadays I try to terms that don’t use the word “left”: of which Corbynite is a good example.
The use of the term “right faction” doesn’t elicit the same level of complaints. So, if you like, I’ll use it instead of Blairite in future.
Historyintime: “On the UK Labour leak, you should read the document (it’s easily found online). It’s a Corbynite stitch up.snd not even an official Labour report.”
I started reading it, but decided that life was too short. Obviously the journos of all the main media outlets in Britain reached the same conclusion pretty quickly.
The Corbynite-Momentum crowd believe in their hearts that they are the champions of the great mass of the British people and therefore cannot accept the fact that that same great mass of the people told them to shove off in the recent election. Therefore, it must all come down to an evil conspiracy.
Rational Leftist @ #405 Tuesday, April 14th, 2020 – 2:42 pm
Labor don’t have the political talent to engage the media/public.
Look back through history and those individuals that did have the talent to cut through did with great effect.
Right now, the talent pool they’re drawing from is too small.
I mean, Richard Marles is deputy leader for goodness sakes.
Labor just keeps ignoring the obvious catastrophic faults within it’s structure and every time they fail electorally they keep ignoring the obvious.
You think there would have been some lessons learnt about keeping people on a plague infected ship. Take them all off, quarantine with medical support, tow the Rubella Princess out into the deepwater and scuttle.
“Three more crew members from the Ruby Princess have tested positive for COVID-19, taking the total number of crew members who have had the disease to 128.
NSW Health said 69 crew members remain symptomatic, and 11 of those people remain in hospital in Sydney. A further 59 crew members who no longer have symptoms have also returned positive tests.“
Is the illegal dinner party thing true?
Kinda both makes the medical profession look like they aren’t taking this real seriously (again after Dr Entitled blamed the Minister) and it masks the criminal stupidity and corruption of who ever allowed the docking and disembarkation from the floating virus incubator cruise ship.
One hopes that the crew members showing no symptoms continue to be tested and are kept isolated.
WWP
Here is statement by CMO
https://mobile.twitter.com/annajhenderson/status/1249922112266989569
What I love about this place is no matter how innocuous you think your comment might be, there’s a chance someone will fly off their handle over it.
So Brendan Murphy did go off half cocked and trusted what he had read in social media.
Unprofessional.
Rational leftist
Yep, its like a well loved chemistry workbench.
Whatever you spill is bound to react violently with something you’ve spilled last week 🙂
When it comes to government working with business it really depends on the circumstances and how each party approaches it. A large company shouldn’t see the government as a soft touch when it can tap capital markets or its own investors but there isn’t a reason why the government couldn’t work with that business through the problem and if that means the government takes an equity state or provides a loan with interest then that is fine but the government should always look for come out of it with a return on that investment just as any bank or investor would.
Rational Leftist says:
Tuesday, April 14, 2020 at 3:20 pm
What I love about this place is no matter how innocuous you think your comment might be, there’s a chance someone will fly off their handle over it.
________
oh piss off whinger
CC
😆
It’s a toss-up over who’s worse: Sean Hannity* or Laura Ingraham? And then there Fox & Friends’ sycophantic hosts: Steve Doocy, Ainsley Earhardt, Brian Kilmeade, not forgetting Tucker Carlson, Trace Gallagher. Ole Pa Murdoch has a lot to answer for, including the hosts of Sky News After Dark, particularly Murray, Jones, Kenny, and Bolt. At 89, with a relatively young Jerry Hall (63), and with the best medical care that money can buy, I’m sure he’ll beat his mother’s age of 103? Any gerontologists out there(?).
* Hannity, MD, like his hero Dr. Trump, highly recommends hydroxychloroquine for C-19 patients, despite a trial in Brazil in which 11 out of 81 subjects died of arrhythmia:
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/12/health/chloroquine-coronavirus-trump.html
Thank you so much. He should resign or be sacked immediately.
I would but y’all need an arsehole who speaks out of different sides of his mouth and has the audacity to call himself “rational” to hate or love (depending on which side of the mouth I am speaking out of at the time) 😉
Murphy is held up as an expert but is a career director that was once a doctor of some kind. If we treated him as a normal public servant then his approach would make more sense because its more akin to implementing the government’s policies instead of being seen as offering some kind of special advice.
The Govt should seek community outcomes as well. Union / workforce reps on boards. Bans on dividends and share buybacks not capped to income tax paid. Enforceable rules on ethical employment practices including the prohibition of fix term contracts, casuals and moving jobs to low wage jurisdictions.
Mavis, I can’t watch either Sky or Fox News for very long. Otherwise I go through a two minutes hate session myself. The urge to headbutt Tucker Carlson or Paul Murray is very strong to me. I therefore abstain.
Despite the feds telling states and territories to keep schools open, it seems the general move is to have most students at home with schools accepting students who cannot be looked after at home. There was a Guardian article yesterday with a guide to what each jurisdiction is doing.
The ACT is keeping a limited number of schools open for students but they will do the same online work as students at home. Our daughter, who is a teacher, has been preparing online resources and will generally work from home.
WWP
“ Thank you so much. He should resign or be sacked immediately.”
He’s an idiot. That has been apparent from day 1.
He wasn’t even asked about it; the moron actually volunteered it.
The obvious thing to do is to let Virgin go bust and then to licence the vacant airport slots to the highest bidder(s).
WWP
The Govt should seek community outcomes as well. Union / workforce reps on boards. Bans on dividends and share buybacks not capped to income tax paid. Enforceable rules on ethical employment practices including the prohibition of fix term contracts, casuals and moving jobs to low wage jurisdictions.
————————————–
Yep that is why i am saying the government should not be a soft touch.
If a company goes to a bank, the bank will impose conditions and so should the government.
I agree. But this Govt can’t really be sacking people because they are idiots, they’d not have enough left to run the country.
Here is reporter Paula Reid not taking any shit from the Pooper-in-Chief..
https://mobile.twitter.com/selena_adera/status/1249830097936363531