Courtesy of The Guardian, some headline results of another weekly Essential Research poll on coronavirus, the full report of which should be published later today. This includes regular questions on federal and state governments’ handling with the crisis, of which we are only told that respondents remain highly positive, and on easing restrictions, for which we are told only 25% now consider it too soon, which is down two on last time and has been consistently declining over five surveys.
Beyond that, the survey gauged response to a number of what might be described as conspiracy theories concerning the virus. By far the most popular was the notion that the virus “was engineered and released from a Chinese laboratory in Wuhan”, which has received a certain amount of encouragement from the Daily Telegraph but is starkly at odds with the scientific consensus. Agreement and disagreement with this proposition was tied on 39%.
Thirteen per cent subscribed to a theory that Bill Gates was involved in the creation and spread of the virus, with 71% disagreeing; 13% agreed the virus was not dangerous and was being used to force people to get vaccines, with 79% disagreeing; 12% thought the 5G network was being used to spread the virus, with 75% disagreeing; and 20% agreed the number of deaths was being exaggerated, with “more than 70%” disagreeing. The poll also found 77% agreed that the outbreak in China was worse than the official statistics showed.
The poll was conducted Thursday to Sunday from a sample of 1073.
UPDATE: Full report here.
Hmm. Maybe those British billions and trillions could be useful for budget deficits.
US trillion = 10^12
UK trillion = 10^ 24.
In the latter, deficit is approx zero.
Give that man a job running Treasury!
That poor bloody ATO bloke who was sent out to take the flak for this massive fuck up looked like a rabbit caught in the spot light. He was asked a question and was completely buggered trying to think of an answer. The cowards of the castle have all ducked for cover and decided that the hapless public servants can take the kick in the arse. What a weak lot of dumbshits we have trying to run the country.
Oh come on! I opened this can of worms last week! Sheesh!
Nobody listens to me. Think I will eat some worms.
davidwh @ #2533 Friday, May 22nd, 2020 – 5:08 pm
Yes, use it for the Casuals and Students and Visa Workers who formerly received nothing.
Oh dear. Not again.
C@T
The disabled should be in front of those groups because casuals and students can access jobseeker or keeper which are higher than DSP.
Bulldust @ #2552 Friday, May 22nd, 2020 – 5:29 pm
I thought the Public Servants weren’t to be trusted?
Oh, that was last week.
Imagine if a Labort Government made an error of $60 billion. But this Governmet will be allowed to get away with it.
Now mistakes do happen, especially when things need to be done quickly. For COVID 19, as with the GFC, we didn’t have the luxury of months of planning. There will be errors, oversights and maybe payments to the undeserving. Maybe the odd cheque to a dead person or someone overseas. These can be fixed. However, the Labor Government was given no quarter. Nor should this one.
Attack, no quarter.
Find out why it isnt being used before you expand. The system may be crook.
Simon Katich @ #2556 Friday, May 22nd, 2020 – 5:30 pm
Shorten made a speech!
Mexicanbeemer @ #2556 Friday, May 22nd, 2020 – 5:31 pm
I was thinking about the foreign students and visa holders and anyone else that was getting nothing at all, from either scheme.
And, if we really want to get down to brass tacks, if the government were prepared to spend that money in the first instance, then they should simply redirect it to permanently raising the level of Newstart after the virus crisis is over.
I really don’t think punters are going to give a stuff about the phantom stimulus. It’s figment money. Mirage. What will matter is whether they have a job, whether their hours are cut, whether they can pay their bills.
“There has been a bureaucratic bungle. So what. That is why we have bureaucrats.”
People have v low expectations of Canberra.
I wonder how many dangerous pink batts and dodgy school halls $60b would buy.
Simon Katich @ #2555 Friday, May 22nd, 2020 – 5:30 pm
Which one of the Three Stooges was it? mundo, nath or Rex Douglas? 🙂
C@T
A disabled worker if laid off goes back to DSP so they too do not benefit from the higher jobseeker payment.
$60 billion is more than the Victorian state budget.
That was then. 😆
C@tmomma @ #2548 Friday, May 22nd, 2020 – 5:26 pm
What’s a mundo?
BK @ #2564 Friday, May 22nd, 2020 – 5:35 pm
All of them!
CI
There is low expectations of the Fed govt no doubt after the punters voted in the worst govt in history for another 3 incompetent years.
lizzie @ #2567 Friday, May 22nd, 2020 – 3:41 pm
Could explain the timing!
Chris Bowen, always ready to lend a helping hand.
It was only last week, only last week……
I think it was C@t who said Albo would be a disaster as leader, largely because of the Newscorp dirt file held on him. Although this dirt file mainly consisted of the fact that Albo and a corrupt NSW minister were of the same faction.
south @ #2541 Friday, May 22nd, 2020 – 5:24 pm
You can dream South.
And good on you!
Mexicanbeemer @ #2565 Friday, May 22nd, 2020 – 5:40 pm
Ugh. Something else the Morrison government didn’t shout from the rooftops. I wonder why? 🙂
GG
Well fancy that!!!
With great social media participation, comes great responsibility…to get it right.
Greensborough Growler @ #2562 Friday, May 22nd, 2020 – 5:42 pm
Now now GG you know very well what Mundo is.
But, as I said, some good lines from Albo. A pity about the delivery and the long winded responses.
Is that ok?
D7M
Do you have any authoritative references to support this claim?
Is that a Sukkar punch ?
Apparently, Frydenberg is saying Matthias ran the numbers.
Is that a Sukkar punch ?
How long have you waited to say that?
Vogon Poet @ #2581 Friday, May 22nd, 2020 – 5:58 pm
Boom boom!
https://tradingeconomics.com/china/gdp-growth-annual
The Chinese economy shrank 6.8 percent year-on-year in the first quarter of 2020, after a 6 percent growth in the last three months of 2019 and compared with market forecasts of a 6.5 percent decline. It is the first GDP contraction since records began in 1992, reflecting the severe damage caused by the COVID-19 outbreak after the authorities enforced a near two-month-long shutdown of all non-essential business activity. The industrial sector dropped 9.6 percent, services fell 5.2 percent and the primary sector went down 3.2 percent. Car production recorded the sharpest decline (-44.6 percent). However, China’s long term growth potential will not be affected by the short term fallout of the coronavirus pandemic, as the country’s economic fundamentals remain unchanged, the authorities said.
Chinese industrial production in deep decline.
Stephen Koukoulas
@TheKouk
·
3h
What a horrendous economic error to make during an economic depression.
If there was a $60 billion overspend, it would have been good!
But underspending with 20% labour underutilisation & with hundreds of thousands of businesses going bankrupt is an economic policy crime
Continually Insufferable @ #2585 Friday, May 22nd, 2020 – 6:03 pm
Yeah. Good luck with that.
ABC sustaining the myth that it was a reporting error, not an estimation error.
Player One @ #2584 Friday, May 22nd, 2020 – 6:02 pm
If it was your mistake they’d be saying”Broom! Broom!”
https://www.pollbludger.net/2020/05/19/essential-research-coronavirus-restrictions-conspiracy-theories/comment-page-52/#comment-3411491
… don’t forget nbn/ NBN or Harvey Norman cheques.
The nbn MTM version is heading to the mid $50Bs so far, supposedly with weeks to go.
The G
The Greens senator Rachel Siewert says:
The revised jobkeeper figures released today mean that the government has no excuse to return the jobseeker payment to $40 a day at the end of September.
Further, the government can top up the DSP and carer payments so that disabled people and carers can meet the additional costs they are facing because of the pandemic.
No one in a country as wealthy as Australia should be living in poverty and cutting income support payments to those who need it most is a choice, not an inevitability.
I find it most interesting that Bludgers are criticizing Morrison for making a statement about the Australian desire to see an inquiry into the origins of the Virus.
Because it might upset Xi. This is the Xi who is crushing human rights in China. Who is crushing democracy in Hong Kong. Who is committing genocide on the Uighers. Who has threatened a functioning democracy, Taiwan, with armed invasion, every time the Taiwanese start to take their democracy seriously, who has unilaterally grabbed off half a dozen nations contested islands in the South China Sea. Xi’s regime routinely executes corrupt officials and business people. It turns out that a disproportionate number of these are also political enemies of Xi.
The Xi regime runs a vast prison system that abuses prisoners for forced labor and as a source for ‘donated’ organs.
Xi’s regime keeps afloat such wonderful allies as North Korea and Cambodia.
This is the same Xi who has now cut $600 million in barley imports for no other reason than that Morrison said some words that, implicitly, questioned the legitimacy of Dictator for Life Xi.
My view is that Morrison’s timing was crap, that Morrison’s co-ord with other nations was crap and that Morrison’s intent was crap.
But Morrison is a democratically elected prime minister of a democracy. The words used by Morrison are not an international crime. Morrison is fully entitled to express an opinion.
What else is Morrison not allowed to say according to dictator Xi?
I find it difficult to believe that in the current brouhaha decent Australians absolutely refuse to criticize dictator Xi and his evil actions.
Ahem…
It appears Fitch said more then what josh told us –
https://www.fitchratings.com/research/sovereigns/fitch-revises-australia-outlook-to-negative-affirms-rating-at-aaa-21-05-2020
The G
The Greens arts spokesperson, Sarah Hanson-Young, says:
The massive revision on jobkeeper numbers today leaves the government with no excuse not to extend the program to casuals, migrant workers and workers in the arts and entertainment industry who have been excluded from the program.”
There is now $60bn already budgeted for jobkeeper that can go to saving more jobs.
The arts and entertainment industry has been one of the hardest hit by coronavirus restrictions and will be one of the last to recover, yet the government has left many artists and creatives without support due to the nature of the work.
The arts and entertainment industry needs a tailored package to save it and the government clearly has the financial capacity to do it.
Peggy,
Sure, Rachel SoWhat made a comment!
steve davis says:
Friday, May 22, 2020 at 5:43 pm
CI
There is low expectations of the Fed govt no doubt after the punters voted in the worst govt in history for another 3 incompetent years.
Yup. Punters expect very little. They’re seldom disappointed that way. Really….who could invest much hope in them? The various strains of Lib are as dim-witted as they get. Utterly useless most of the time.
Greensborough Growler @ #2581 Friday, May 22nd, 2020 – 6:01 pm
Which begs the question, why didn’t he check them? He only has the whole of Treasury at his disposal.
David Speers on The Drum pulling no punches. Thank goodness.
Phew!
Just Googled ‘Bandt criticizes China for illegal barley boycott and its comprehensive threats to all other Australian exports.’
Bandt does not hold back from criticizing one of the worst tyrants in the world!
Good on him!
Pegasus says:
Friday, May 22, 2020 at 6:08 pm
The G
The Greens arts spokesperson, Sarah Hanson-Young, says:
The massive revision on jobkeeper numbers today leaves the government with no excuse not to extend the program to casuals, migrant workers and workers in the arts and entertainment industry who have been excluded from the program.”
Kiss of death.
Pity the casuals and others who’ve lost out. The Libkin are on the case. They will never get a penny. Count on it.