The Guardian reports that Essential Research, which a fortnight ago published its first coronavirus-free poll since January, has naturally revived its interest in the subject. The poll finds 36% of respondents rating themselves very concerned about the virus, up from 25% when the question was last asked three weeks ago. The state breakdowns have it at 46% in Victoria, though New South Wales isn’t far behind at 42%.
The poll also finds approval of the federal government’s handling of the matter down from 70% when the question as last asked three weeks ago to 64%, while small sample breakdowns concerning state governments’ responses have the Victorian government’s favourable rating slumping from 65% to 49%. Below are charts recording the progress of these results since the pollster first asked the question in relation to the federal government in March and the state governments in April, although at this stage I only have “good” and not “poor” ratings from the latest poll. Keep in mind that the sample sizes for the Victorian results is only around 275.
The poll also features the pollster’s monthly (actually a bit longer than that on occasion, the previous result having been from May 28-31) leadership ratings, which find Scott Morrison down two on approval to 63% and up one on disapproval to 27%, while Anthony Albanese is up one to 44% and down two to 28%. The latter numbers are rather a lot different from Newspoll, whose poll a fortnight ago had Albanese on 42% for both approval and disapproval. Morrison holds a lead of 50-27 lead as preferred prime minister, narrowing from 53-23 last time.
The BludgerTrack aggregates have been updated with these numbers. Essential Research should publish the full report for the poll later today.
UPDATE: Full report here. The federal government’s poor rating on COVID-19 is up four to 16%, while the Victorian government’s has doubled to 26%.
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?objectid=12347793
Todd Muller quits as National Party leader for health reasons
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jul/14/new-zealand-opposition-leader-todd-muller-resigns-just-weeks-before-election
New Zealand opposition leader Todd Muller resigns just two months before election
Greensborough Growler says:
Tuesday, July 14, 2020 at 8:56 am
You’re just a poverty enabler. Be proud of your status.
Just giving people free money without creating incentives to work and meaningfully take control of their life is a recipe for entrenching poverty.
________________
More IPA talk. The one noble thing about the DLP was its commitment to social justice. Its no surprise that a creature such as yourself would fail to inherit their one redeeming feature.
Of course nath couldn’t give a stuff about the lives of people on welfare(unless it’s his life, of course), so we can discount anything he says about Gillard’s policy as humbug of the highest order.
GG
Most people do have an incentive to search for employment, but when the economy is so skewed that only one in ten can find it, many will succumb to depression and maybe stop trying. Penalising them as the LNP is doing under their current “mutual obligation” routine does not help.
Given attempts by some to absolve this government of its responsibility for robodebt (and blame Labor) despite the clear evidence to the contrary, I find it hard to believe they are anything but concern trolls. They don’t particular care about other people, but they know others do and see that care as a weakness to exploit, use to manipulate opinion and gain advantage.
They use missteps or mistakes by people who do care to deflect attention from themselves and their allies. Keep our eyes occupied with the spectacle of a collapsing pedestal and other things will slip by.
Beware those who never forgive, with eternal memories for moments of shame, who spend all their time combing the depth and breadth of the past for transgressions to revisit and relive, and who offer nothing else constructive.
https://www.theshovel.com.au/2020/07/09/security-melbourne-quarantine-appropriate-protection-when-having-sex-with-guests/
Lizzie,
I can agree the execution of the policy is not ideal, but I don’t see anything wrong with the idea of mutual obligation.
DisplayNamesays:
Tuesday, July 14, 2020 at 9:14 am
Beware those who can’t forgive, with eternal memories for moments of shame, who spend all their time combing the depth and breadth of the past for transgressions to revisit and relive, and who offer nothing else constructive.
_______________
I disagree. By looking at the past for transgressions you can inform current politics considerably. In the same way that looking at past triumphs, such as Hawkes’ child poverty reforms can inspire, looking at grievous errors such as those committed by Howard and Gillard can also inspire to do better.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2020/07/13/june-2020-budget-deficit-coronavirus/
The U.S. budget deficit widened to a record-high $864 billion last month because of the federal government’s extraordinary response to the coronavirus pandemic, the Treasury Department said on Monday.
lol “extraordinary”
Greensborough Growler @ #47 Tuesday, July 14th, 2020 – 8:56 am
Could just as easily be a recipe for a work-free life of reasonable comfort. We’re well past the point where ensuring everyone has access to essential basics requires that everyone work hard (or at all) for it. Technology and automation mean much of the “you have to work for it” attitude is outdated. People largely don’t have to do that anymore; they’re just used to it.
Problem within mutual Obligation is the free slave labour , if the government can find places for people to do work duties then they should be paid a wage,
nath
Of course I never said don’t examine the past, but it’s unsurprising you would construct a strawman based on a deliberate misinterpretation of what I said.
GG
Filling the week with makework programs “Working for the Dole” added to endless and useless applications to employers is not getting anywhere. Also, the current payments are not sufficient. A less punitive attitude by gov would go a long way.
I agree that volunteering can keep people in touch with their community (that’s how I got back into the workforce at one time).
The payment which the government pays to the job provider and Host for the forced free slave labour , could be paid as wage subsidy .
that’s right Lizzie, more carrots and less sticks. Encouragement and not punitive measures is how you reduce intergenerational poverty and unemployment.
The evidence for this government’s creation of robodebt was there in 2017, how come in all your examinations of the past you never brought that up? Quite a selective revision of past events.
Hmm. Looks like I was wrong. Turns out that the COVIDSAFE app is actually a runaway success after all.
https://www.theshovel.com.au/2020/07/14/covidsafe-app-identified-coronavirus-outbreak-on-the-ruby-princess/
Scottsays:
Tuesday, July 14, 2020 at 9:23 am
The payment which the government pays to the job provider and Host for the forced free slave labour , could be paid as wage subsidy .
_________
It’s quite absurd that we are paying thousands of people to monitor and harass unemployed people. Presumably it is to satisfy IPA schmendricks like GG that the unemployed are suffering.
Greensborough Growler @ #34 Tuesday, July 14th, 2020 – 8:25 am
Pretty sure he died actually.
https://www.michaelwest.com.au/stuart-robert-listed-parents-as-company-directors-without-their-knowledge/
Alan Robert told The Age and the Sydney Morning Herald that the company, Robert International, was run by his son during the six-year period Alan and his wife, Dorothy, were the company’s only directors. The time line reportedly appeared to link the Queensland MP with the IT services business, GMT Group, at a time when Stuart Robert says he “ceased involvement” in GMT.
Robert strenuously denied any wrongdoing
Mr Robert resigned his directorships and offloaded his shares in his GMT Group in 2010 – three years after he was first elected to Parliament. He told the newspaper he structured his affairs in a way that did not breach the constitution, but did not provide any evidence to support this claim.
Pretty sure he’s visiting the far fields, mundo.
nath
Most of the punitive systems of this gov are costing more to administer than they get back in benefits. Just hand out the money to those who need it. It’s not that hard.
ar,
Your concept of middle class welfare forever paid for by the Government is neither socially nor politically acceptable to most people.
Welfare needs to be targetted at people that actually need it. We should all be encouraged to be as self sufficient as possible.
Beware those who never forgive, with eternal memories for moments of shame, who spend all their time combing the depth and breadth of the past for transgressions to revisit and relive, and who offer nothing else constructive.
Poetic, DN.
Also, for good measure, there are some Labor people here who employ tedium and repetition just as (or even more) magnificently :-P.
I wonder how many carcasses William has had to send off to the knackers.
The pandemic is changing everything. So much of our existence is premised on free movement, free action, easy mobility and unfettered personal choice. This is all in the process of being suspended or radically abridged. The pandemic is elevating the value of social collaboration above personal agency. needless to say, people are having some difficulty adjusting to this. But if we’ve learned anything so far about covid19 it’s that it thrives on human interaction.
If it turns out that immunity is really short-lived then a vaccine will not help much. It would also mean that populations with high rates of past infection will continue to have high rates of infection into the future. In places like the US, this could mean a very debilitated future indeed….a future in which recurring contagion and lockdown will become inescapable, in which elevated death rates become permanent.
The social, economic and demographic consequences of the Black Death were profound. It’s too soon to know whether or not are experiencing a new plague of similar depth and even greater longevity. The epidemiologists are anticipating a ‘second wave’ in the approaching European winter. If such waves become annual events then human life and society – and the economy – will be radically changed.
Those that dwell in the past without learning are destined to become bitter ideologues spouting the long discredited world view of the past.
The future belongs to those who plan for it and act decisively.
People should be encouraged to do both.
Permanent welfare is a recipe for entrenched poverty.
nath @ #40 Tuesday, July 14th, 2020 – 8:41 am
I watched her question again on IView and she did say that her family wasn’t affected by the changes.
So, produce the evidence then that the small tail of Single Parent families, that had their grandfathering ended, were more adversely affected than those who had already been moved under the Howard government changes.
If you are unable to do that, then it simply becomes a case of embittered wild speculation on your part. Note well that I have also been a Single Parent on Welfare since 2013, so I have real world experience to back me up.
DisplayName @ #55 Tuesday, July 14th, 2020 – 9:14 am
Yeah!
Permanent welfare is a recipe for entrenched poverty.
In a context in which there is too little work available – in which real wages, consumption and economic output are being repressed – the absence of welfare support also means entrenched poverty.
We’ve had a couple of hundred years of steadily improving real wages, improvements that have expanded consumption and thereby also expanded employment opportunities, especially in the urban economies.
What happens when real wages start to shrink, as is occurring right now? Covid is changing the economy. We don’t yet know how far-reaching and permanent those changes will be.
The injunction against welfare payments also embeds the idea that poverty is the problem of and the fault of the poor. This, of course, is false. Poverty is institutionalised among the poor by a whole range of factors – lack of work, low social investment, lack of capital investment, weak social capital – most of which cannot be changed by the poor themselves.
If the absence of welfare support were enough to eradicate poverty then Bangladesh would be the wealthiest place on earth.
C@tmommasays:
So, produce the evidence then that the small tail of Single Parent families, that had their grandfathering ended, were more adversely affected than those who had already been moved under the Howard government changes.
_________________________________
I’m not arguing that the 80 thousand single parents were more adversely affected than those moved under Howard, I’m saying they were as equally disadvantaged.
The extension of income support to single mothers was one of the very great achievements enacted by Gough. It absolutely changed society for the better. It changed the life outcomes of thousands of women and their children. There’s no question about this. It will stand as one of his most substantial and courageous reforms. The extension of this support by Hawke was one of his greatest achievements too. He should always be remembered for his campaign against poverty. The partial revision of this support by Gillard was a mistake. It was punitive and essentially sexist in its effects. Labor has to do better.
Good for you Briefly.
Dandy M
Good to see you come up for air!
This reminds me of Tallyrand’s comment on the Bourbons after the restoration of Louis XVIII “They have forgotten nothing, and they have learned nothing”.
Of course I have always said that Malcolm Fraser was a Soviet mole, most likely recruited in his days at Oxford, where he arrived as a gormless country bumpkin, but left as a political firebrand.
Being from the de facto “ruling party” at the time, and as a scion of the Bunyip Aristocracy, men like Fraser would have been far more useful to the Soviets than a “working class” Union boss organizing beer strikes at Christmas. For similar reasons they picked and groomed Philby, Burgess and McLean in the UK: impeccable conservative credentials. Chaps like them could be granted access to state secrets of the highest sensitivity, virtually by default.
Indeed Fraser’s first ministry was as Minister for the Army, to which he was appointed on Australia Day 1966 by Harold Holt(!), who had ascended to the Prime Ministership on the very same day.
Within a couple of years Fraser was at Defence, smack dab in the middle of the Vietnam War (in which his masters at the Politburo were intimate players), then LOTO, then, after a very grubby involvement in the Dismissal coup (of which we may hear more today), Prime Minister of Australia. Fraser had gone from backbencher to leader, from hayseed to head honcho, after 9 years of stabbing anyone who got in his way in the back.
Moscow had their man hiding in plain sight.
I personally never trusted him.
Greensborough Growler @ #79 Tuesday, July 14th, 2020 – 9:40 am
Who said permanent? The concept should be that if you’re not working you receive enough support for a reasonable existence that can include shelter, food, utilities, and other essentials, without being constantly harassed over it.
If someone decides they’re happy with that level of existence (few actually will), then fair enough, let them choose to continue it indefinitely; it’s not entrenched poverty when it’s voluntary. If they want more than reasonable basics (such as actual middle-class comforts) then they have to go out and work for it.
“ Problem within mutual Obligation is the free slave labour , if the government can find places for people to do work duties then they should be paid a wage,”
Exactly. Here’s a radical idea: paid ‘work for the dole’. Anybody that makes themselves available for 10 hours work a week gets paid an additional 10 hours on top of any benefit they are receiving. It’s up to the federal government to provide the work, either directly or via a third party. If the government doesn’t provide the work the punter gets paid the ten hours anyways. There is a heap of socially useful things that could be done in the community: the onus in these economic times should be on the government to match the need with the pool of available workers. Once established, why stop at 10 hours? Provide more if people want it. Facilitate those who want to and are able to travel for seasonal work with losing their welfare benefit.
Kerr contemplating Dismissal (and discussing it with The Palace) as early as September 12th, 1975.
Bastard.
“ Permanent welfare is a recipe for entrenched poverty.”
There is no need for our welfare system to be structured as it currently is. At the moment the faux ‘mutual obligation’ doctrine, including ‘work for the dole’ does a great job of entrenching poverty because it effector crushes the hopes and aspirations of those stuck in the system. There is a pool of available labour that has been rendered surplus to the modern economy. Like most things in public life John Winston Howard is mainly to blame for this.
In addition to my ‘paid work for the dole’ policy pivot the centrepiece of reengaging the long term unemployed with the economy is a ‘Working Nation 2.0’ vocational training wage scheme. Coupled with a massive uptick in government spending – mainly in physical infrastructure programs – extending over at least a decade (because that’s how long it will take the economy to otherwise pull itself out of the depression it is now in IMO). My ‘paid work the dole’ is part of the safety net underneath Working Nation 2.0.
The combination of infrastructure/government spending stimulus, Working Nation 2.o and ‘paid work for the dole’ would be to lift folk who are currently in poverty out of it. Even folk who simply can’t cut it in a ‘real job’ would see their disposable incomes more than double from pre covid19 levels.
Earlwood seeing as your on JobKeeper I think the govt should send you and others out indentured style – to recoup its investment.
I need a retaining wall done on my property – you could come out and do the digging for me.
G’day. Can’t resist jumping back on the ferris wheel to comment on Julia G’s appearance on Q&A last night, which was of course highly impressive. Gillard has a sharp mind which can quickly get across any topic (as PM, her understanding of economics was much greater than that of the supposedly university-trained economists Abbott and Turnbull). And she has the ability to talk about fraught political issues without resorting to cant or weasel words.
I find that a very easy way of judging any person who pretends to possess any superior knowledge or insight about Australian politics is to ask them about Gillard. If they say she was stupid because of her accent, or a conniving backstabber because of what she did to the magnificent Rudd, then I know that that there’s no point in bothering about that person’s political views ever again.
I must also be fair and say that Hamish Macdonald, who I generally find to be a rather tiresomely woke goody two shoes type, did a very good job in hosting the show. And Raina MacIntyre was great too.
Well worth catching up with if anyone missed it.
Ok, back to my temporary retirement at Coombe Estate.
meher baba @ #90 Tuesday, July 14th, 2020 – 10:23 am
She was equally impressive, if not more so on RN this morning.
Continuo: ‘If it turns out that immunity is really short-lived then a vaccine will not help much. It would also mean that populations with high rates of past infection will continue to have high rates of infection into the future. In places like the US, this could mean a very debilitated future indeed….a future in which recurring contagion and lockdown will become inescapable, in which elevated death rates become permanent.’
I was speaking to a lung surgeon recently who has also been involved with research into vaccines who said that is the likely outcome. Populations will have recurring rates of infections even if they have been exposed to the virus/vaccine in the past.
He doesn’t agree with the elevated death rates, however. In fact, the contrary, the virus will become less lethal over time. This will be through a process of natural selection where the virus that doesn’t kill it’s host will ‘be selected for’ over it’s more lethal brethren. The more lethal brethren will kill it’s host and at the same time, itself, thus limiting their spread.
MB
Raina MacIntyre seems to have moved away from hard lockdown to suppression
meher baba
Tuesday, July 14th, 2020 – 10:23 am
Comment #50
G’day. What’s a “Coombe Estate” ❓
Dr. Tom Frieden
@DrTomFrieden
·
12h
When studies show that, opposite from SARS & MERS, COVID19 is most infectious soon after infection & less infectious later, we recognize asymptomatic transmission and importance of masks. That’s called science, not a mistake. The real, deadly mistake is not listening to science.
Andrew
The Red Scheme
That takes us back a bit!