The usual weekly Essential Research coronavirus poll finds “only a quarter” of respondents now consider it too soon to be easing coronavirus restrictions, down from a peak of 49% in mid-April. There was also strong support for a range of fresh restrictions being imposed if there is a new surge of cases, but not for making the coronavirus app compulsory, which only 38% supported. Only 45% were confident the government would be able to adequately protect data from the app, and 44% were confident the government itself would not misuse it. Kristina Keneally’s call for a reduction in temporary migration after the pandemic had the support of 67% of respondents. All this detail is derived from The Guardian, which also tells us that the number of respondents who are “quite concerned” about the virus is up three points since last week to 49%, but without the “very concerned” figure it’s hard to know what if anything to make of that. The full report from the pollster should be published later today.
UPDATE: Full report here. The government reaches new heights on the eighth weekly iteration of the question as to how well it is handling the crisis, with good up five points to 71% and poor down one to 13%. The goodwill extends to state governments, who are collectively up three on good to 73% and steady on poor at 12%. The poll was conducted Thursday to Sunday from a sample of 1067.
“I’d say the most common cause is being fed up by the boorish behaviour of some posters.”
that’s it. -a.v.
alfred venison @ #1392 Thursday, May 14th, 2020 – 12:29 pm
Never happened.
P1 and av
I find that the ability to temporarily block irritating posters is the best way to remain calm. 🙂
Well Scomo and Josh have gotten the all time record, with 600,000 jobs lost in a month! A feat Labor has never come close to matching
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-05-14/unemployment-jobs-abs-april-recession/12247154
Scomo might truthfully say that JobKeeper is “holding up the nation”. But he omits to mention the hundreds of thousands of casuals, new starters and people in the arts and entertainment industries who are not qualified to receive it. Are they non-citizens?
Not to mention the numerous reports of people/businesses not actually receiving their JobKeeper payments.
I think one of the best ways to try and create a recovery that is better than an L shape is for Government to go hard at the energy transition. Shoot at a 200% renewables energy sector and encourage high energy use businesses to use cheap and / or subisdised renewable energy.
The law firm Ashurst have a newish (I think I got their email this week) report on the energy transition here:
https://www.ashurst.com/en/news-and-insights/hubs/energy-transition/
[‘Don’t the charges include committing offences while on bail?’]
I’m not sure about that, but if that is the case, it would have been the ground the magistrate refused his application under the rubric of being a danger to the public provided he was on bail for the type of offences he allegedly committed recently, which would make it more difficult for him with any further application.
of course it didn’t – it is what they’re striving for in getting the flynn case dismissed. -a.v.
lizzie says:
Thursday, May 14, 2020 at 12:26 pm
“Ian Verrender reminds us that the unemployment stats are for April, also that they are made lower because of the unprecedented number of people who have simply given up.”
The participation rate (those actively looking for work) is always an element of the calculation. It sounds as if you think that it now shouldn’t be. It swings both ways – as economies improve the participation rate generally increases as more people look for a job and this means the Unemployment Rate doesn’t fall as fast as it otherwise would have if the Participation Rate had remained unchanged.
California’s 25th Congressional District just flipped back to the Republicans. It wasn’t even close: 56%-44%. This area has voted for the Democratic Presidential candidate since 2008.
Walter Mondale will be feeling a bit better about himself come November.
Socrates says:
Thursday, May 14, 2020 at 12:44 pm
“Well Scomo and Josh have gotten the all time record, with 600,000 jobs lost in a month! A feat Labor has never come close to matching”
Exactly what do you think that they should have done to have not achieved this? Not have a lockdown? Keep International Tourism open?
Come on genius – lay out your grand plan that would have controlled the virus and kept all of the jobs.
itsthevibesays:
Thursday, May 14, 2020 at 12:49 pm
The seat was Democrat for I think 10 months out of the last 20 or so years.
It’s not really what I would describe as a surprising outcome.
Latino ex-Navy Fighter Pilot – doesn’t get much better than that as Candidate material for that seat. Add on the reason for the By-election.
It’s actually a return to normal.
Bucephalus
It’s the word “unprecedented” that’s getting top billing nowadays – and who could argue with that?
lizzie:
[‘I find that the ability to temporarily block irritating posters is the best way to remain calm. ‘]
I’ve never blocked anyone nor do I intend to do so, though I do admit I went close on one occasion. Generally, I find this site quite civil compared to other sites I frequent.
There is absolutely no doubt at all that the Abbott, Turnbull and Morrison governments have been choosing the unemployment stats that suited them politically.
You might be working for a day a month and be counted as ’employed’.
The notion that 6 million Jobkeeper peeps are ’employed’ is ludicrous.
The practical test for that particular bit of Weasel Morrison will arrive as soon as the Jobkeeper funds stop.
The participation rate is in and of itself a useful economic marker. When it rises it is often a signal that people have given up searching for work because they believe it is not worth their time and effort. It is another sign that the economy is tanking.
The jobless rate also masks another significant economic marker: the number of the 2.1 million people on temporary visas who were in work but who are now back in their home country.
Finally, there are the underemployed.
The persistent pattern here is to weasel the stats to make things look better than they really are.
In this case the lies are huge.
There is only one metric that makes a lot of sense here: hours actually (rather than even nominally as per Jobkeeper) worked.
This is not so much a snap back as a reversion to the Morrison norm: lying with statistics.
Coronavirus crisis sees more than 62,000 WA jobs lost as new unemployment data bites state budget forecasts
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-05-14/62000-lose-jobs-in-wa-as-coronavirus-impacts-state-budget/12246852
Mavis
The operative word is “temporary”. I use it when arguments go round in circles for many hours. That’s all.
Consider a business, say in hospitality, that before Corvid-19 had 100 casual employees, all who had been working for the business for over 18 months prior to March 2020, and had worked over 50 regular shifts each year, reopening again in September 2020.
The likely hood is that maybe 10 -20 of the former casuals will be called back to work (the better ones) because that is all the business will require for the foreseeable future, given the six-month closure.
Eighty casuals now likely unemployed and adding to the jobless numbers. Multiply that by the number of other businesses in this position.
It’s going to be horrendous for a Government about to go into an election cycle.
Buce
Morrison and Frydenberg and Cormann are the superior economic managers.
They failed.
That is not a hypothetical.
They failed big time.
The real unemployment rate is much, much closer to 20% than it is to 6%.
They could at least admit that they failed miserably.
But no, it is somebody else’s fault, apparently.
Bucephalus @ #1411 Thursday, May 14th, 2020 – 12:52 pm
JobKeeper started from 2-4 weeks earlier, at a benefit amount of $1500/fortnight/employee or 80% of an employee’s average fortnightly pay, whichever is more. And without the requirement that a business must demonstrate a 30% drop in turnover to qualify. Every business gets it automatically.
Plus interest rates set to 0 on all consumer debt and rent freezes on all commercial leases.
If the government wants to keep jobs, it can be a lot more serious about it than it has.
itsthevibe @ #1410 Thursday, May 14th, 2020 – 12:49 pm
NYT: “Roughly 56% of voters 65 and older returned a mail ballot. Just 19% of those younger than 35 did so.”
Think that pretty much explains it.
Greg Jericho:
boerwar
I still return to the original failure – when Dutton and Co decided that preparing for a pandemic (or similar) was too expensive to think about.
Morrison keeps saying that all their actions since January have been carefully thought out and not rushed. I call bullshit.
boerwar: “There is absolutely no doubt at all that the Abbott, Turnbull and Morrison governments have been choosing the unemployment stats that suited them politically.
You might be working for a day a month and be counted as ’employed’.”
Hasn’t the ABS measured the concept of being “employed” in the same way for several decades now?
Re Frednk @11:38.
I haven’t had a chance to watch the video but another factor is the marked shift of formerly centre-right parties to the Right, at least in what one might call the “Murdochian Anglosphere” (ANZUK). The Liberal Party has virtually abandoned the Centre since the early 90s, leaving it free for Labor or an effective centrist grouping.
The G
And the Senate has just voted on one of those disallowance motions – the one which would have returned the seven days notice employees have of proposed changes to their enterprise bargaining agreements has just failed.
One Nation voted with the government, and as the swing votes, tanked the motion.
***
boerwarsays:
Thursday, May 14, 2020 at 1:01 pm
“There is absolutely no doubt at all that the Abbott, Turnbull and Morrison governments have been choosing the unemployment stats that suited them politically.
You might be working for a day a month and be counted as ’employed’.”
Complete and utter rubbish.
“The ABS uses internationally agreed standards in defining unemployment and the key indicators have been measured in a consistent way since 1966.”
https://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/Latestproducts/6105.0Feature%20Article53July%202014
Player One says:
..
Sure. And the fact that Labor has abandoned their left roots to the extent that so many left-leaning people now find them unsupportable has not been a contributing factor at all.
I will not argue that the left that called for the redistribution of wealth was abandoned by the Labor party.
I will argue the action of the Green has result in right of center parties being elected.
The Greens saw an opportunity and moved into the space, and have campaigned strongly against Labor to try and widen the space. I will also argue that there is no longer a party representing environmental issues.
Lack of membership weakened the union movement, the Greens made sure their reduced power amounted to nothing at all.
I think Prof. Shapiro argument is, without the unions there is no institution underpinning the left. My argument is the greens are little more than a rabble that have unleashed untold damage onto Australian politics.
ar: “And without the requirement that a business must demonstrate a 30% drop in turnover to qualify. Every business gets it automatically.”
This is a silly suggestion. The payment as it stands is open to abuse in a number of ways and this would simply make the situation far worse.
m b
Yes.
ABS definition of unemployed:
“Unemployment. The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) defines a person who is unemployed as one who, during a specified reference period, is not employed for one hour or more, is actively seeking work, and is currently available for work”.
I used to bring up the above definition back in the day when Labor was in government. and would get hammered by some, including zoomster who defended it. Unsurprisingly.
‘meher baba says:
Thursday, May 14, 2020 at 1:08 pm
boerwar: “There is absolutely no doubt at all that the Abbott, Turnbull and Morrison governments have been choosing the unemployment stats that suited them politically.
You might be working for a day a month and be counted as ’employed’.”
Hasn’t the ABS measured the concept of being “employed” in the same way for several decades now?’
So what?
Morrison has contingency plans if civil unrest occurs resulting from the C-19 shutdown. When in September the JobSeeker payment reverts to its former amount, he might have to invoke them.
That was zoomster’s and others defence of the measure.
Michael @ #1443 Thursday, May 14th, 2020 – 11:59 am
Entirely predictable response from someone who would prefer it was a Greens-dominated blog. 🙄
No, Rakali’s response to me was fine. He understood where I was coming from. You, otoh, are just taking a cheap shot.
The Greens would no doubt redefine ’employment’ as working for 40 hours a week for 4 weeks a month. Everyone will be employed using the UBI and the UJG and the MMT.
And under their open slather migration program there will be an extra 25 million people drinking water from an extra five Warragambas and an extra five desal plants.
All by 2050.
What could possibly go wrong?
When you are trying to avoid a very very deep L shaped depression without a recovery, it makes ZERO sense to f*ck around with eligibility at the front. Pour that money into the damn economy, do it quick and put NO hurdles in place. Get the money out there.
You can use the income tax system and asset tests and income tests to claw it back from those who got it but never really needed it anyway.
One of the stupidest and cruelest things we do is the massive amount of effort and money we spend, the massive administrative hurdles, to stop a tiny tiny amount of welfare fraud. And it is all based on a deliberate right wing lie, based on an entirely fictional ‘welfare queen’.
Michaela Cash has such a … strange way of … phrasing her speeches that … it’s sometimes very difficult to … understand her.
a rsays:
Thursday, May 14, 2020 at 1:04 pm
“JobKeeper started from 2-4 weeks earlier, at a benefit amount of $1500/fortnight/employee or 80% of an employee’s average fortnightly pay, whichever is more. And without the requirement that a business must demonstrate a 30% drop in turnover to qualify. Every business gets it automatically.
Plus interest rates set to 0 on all consumer debt and rent freezes on all commercial leases.”
That’s a lovely idea – now cost it and detail all the legal and commercial issues that you’ve just created plus the compliance nightmare and how you could achieve that in the time frame that you set.
You clearly have no idea about the realities of developing and implementing government policy nor have any idea about how business operate nor of commercial law.
‘Maybe we shouldn’t have waited’: Sutton admits Cedar Meats shortcomings
https://www.theage.com.au/national/victoria/maybe-we-shouldn-t-have-waited-sutton-admits-cedar-meats-shortcomings-20200514-p54sv0.html
What took them so long….
David Beard
@dabeard
·
1h
FBI raids home and seizes cellphone of North Carolina Sen. Richard Burr, one of several GOP senators accused of controversial stock trades as the #coronavirus pandemic began https://latimes.com/politics/story/2020-05-13/fbi-serves-warrant-on-senator-stock-investigation
@DelWilber
FBI serves warrant on senator in investigation of stock sales linked to coronavirus
Warrant marks a major escalation of the investigation of stock trades by lawmakers as the coronavirus spread.
latimes.com
And the gas giants haven’t even really started their next rounds of cuts yet (they will they just cannot do anything else with oil at the diabolically low price it is at).
WA is in a whole world of pain and it is going to get worse and worse and worse. Unless we see some big and brilliantly targeted Govt intervention.
boerwarsays:
Thursday, May 14, 2020 at 1:04 pm
You must be extremely confident of getting an Albanese Government after the next election then, like you were about getting a Shorten one.
More in article as linked by pegasus above.
But maybe we shouldn’t have waited for a third linked case. Maybe for these settings we should shut an entire place down – not just the boning room where it all started – but an entire facility.”
Professor Sutton said shutting down a workplace was a “big call when some of them have 1000-plus employees,” but said he would apply that level of cautiousness in future.
“I think the very first linked cases that suggest transmission has occurred at the workplace, I think that could be a prompt to shut it all down.”
Professor Sutton said it was his decision to close workplaces and he instructed Fawkner McDonald’s to shut after a second employee tested positive.
frednk,
You’d expect the Greens to have some substantive achievement to point to after 30 years of existence. But, they can’t and aren’t likely to any time soon. So, they are really just a waste of space.
The next Election is likely to be about jobs and who the electorate feels are best able and most likely to provide them.
The Greens will no doubt moan and whinge as they always do. But, the public are going to want substance over rhetoric and they just have not got the ammunition.
boerwar: “So what?”
So your statement “There is absolutely no doubt at all that the Abbott, Turnbull and Morrison governments have been choosing the unemployment stats that suited them politically.” is a complete load of unadulterated bollocks.
But do carry on. The commentary on PB today is at peak monocularity, so you’re fitting in just fine.
WeWantPaulsays:
Thursday, May 14, 2020 at 1:25 pm
“And the gas giants haven’t even really started their next rounds of cuts yet (they will they just cannot do anything else with oil at the diabolically low price it is at).”
Yes, there’s been some cuts and there’ll likely be more but it’s not the end and there will be a recovery. Much of our LNG is based on long-term offtake agreements so they will continue to be met.
All those rorting “dole bludgers” has been a common meme deployed by both major parties appealing to the swinging aspirational voters in the marginal outer suburbs and regional areas who don’t want their hard-earned supporting the ‘lifestyles’ of the undeserving unemployed. These are the minority of voters who generally determine the outcome of every election, every time.
Post pandemic will this attitude change now that the newly unemployed are the new deserving. One can only hope but I wouldn’t bet any money on it.
“Morrison keeps saying that all their actions since January have been carefully thought out and not rushed. I call bullshit.”
I call meg-tonne stockpile of bullshit..
“I’m going to the footy”.
The 1 hour rule used by the ABS makes sense because it is a statistical result so it can’t start at zero so it starts at 1. We really need to see a measure of people actually registering for unemployment to cross reference the ABS numbers.