It is apparently the case that Essential Research will, at long last, be including voting intention when it publishes its next survey next week. I also gather that it’s back to a fortnightly publication schedule after going to weekly for the first few months of the coronavirus crisis.
Also:
• My Newspoll post on Sunday night noted that the sample was an unusually high 1850, compared with the more normal 1500 to 1600. It turns out that this was done to juice up the New South Wales and Victorian sub-samples to 601 and 605 respectively, allowing The Australian to run a follow-up yesterday on the respective state governments’ handling of coronavirus. This predictably found a decline in Daniel Andrews’ numbers, though they remain high in absolute terms, with his approval down ten since a June 24-28 poll to 57%, and disapproval up the same amount to 37%. However, Gladys Berejiklian was also down four on approval to 64% and up four on disapproval to 30%, suggesting part of Andrews’ fall was purely gravitational. Andrews is still rated as having handled the virus well by 61% and poorly by 36%, compared with 72% and 25% from June 24-28 and 85% and 11% from April 21-26. However, the decline has been concentrated in the “very well” response, which has progressed from 51% to 32% to 27%. Berejiklian is at 68% for well (down eleven) and 26% for poorly (up ten). Scott Morrison is now doing better than both, at 72% well (down seven) and 24% poorly (up six) in New South Wales and 77% well (down four) and 20% poorly (up three) in Victoria. Results at national level found 76% saying they were more concerned about moving too quickly to relax lockdowns and restrictions, up four from May 13-16, compared with 20% saying they were more concerned about moving too slowly, down four. The poll was conducted Wednesday to Saturday.
• An academic survey conducted by the Democracy 2025 project, encompassing the United States, United Kingdom and Italy as well as Australia, records a dramatic increase in trust in the federal government (54%, compared with 29% in last year’s post-election Australian Election Study survey) and the public service (up from 38% to 54%), with smaller improvements recorded for the media (television up seven to 39%, newspapers up eight to 37% and radio up three to 41%). The survey was conducted from a sample of 1059 in May and June – small-sample state breakdowns provide another increment of evidence that Western Australia’s government is doing best of all out of the crisis.
• The Victorian Liberals have been spruiking internal robo-polling, apparently commissioned by Senator James Patterson, showing 65% to 70% disapproval of state government agreements with China as part of the latter’s “Belt and Road” initiative, based on a sample of 7000 respondents across seven marginal Labor-held seats.
• South Australian Attorney-General Vickie Chapman has confirmed the government will proceed with an attempt to introduce optional preferential voting in the state. Labor and the Greens are opposed, which will leave the fate of the proposal in the hands of upper house cross-benchers elected under the Nick Xenophon banner. A blog post by Antony Green tackles the issue with characteristic thoroughness. I gather they have thought better of clamping down on the dissemination of how-to-vote cards at polling booths, contrary to earlier reports.
Perhaps a Royal Commission into labour hire companies, and why so many exploited workers engaged through these spivs have continued to go to work infected?
Mavis
Sorry your meaning isn’t clear.
Mavis @ #1943 Saturday, July 25th, 2020 – 7:14 pm
There you go again. Playing the ‘Yabba the Victim’ card, when it was me who was being attacked by Yabba, in an unwarranted and obsessively personal and condescending way.
So, what I said before goes double. You’re the last one who should be passing judgement on other’s character. You inavariably get it wrong.
And lizzie’s comment was harmless joy in birds. Yabba’s was another in the long line of his attempts to belittle and throw his intellectual weight around here. And failing. Again. And that was the problem with it that you have overlooked and created a false equivalence with lizzie’s harmless comment here today.
C@tmomma:
Saturday, July 25, 2020 at 6:58 pm
[‘Are you still offering free character assessments? What makes you such a good judge of character anyway?’]
Resulting from, dear Cat, my personal deficiencies.
Lars Von Trier @ #1941 Saturday, July 25th, 2020 – 7:13 pm
You really have an unbridled zeal for being judge, jury and executioner of Labor governments, don’t you? Baseless and ill-informed zeal, I might add.
Maybe it’s the same old story meher baba, people defend their beliefs and those who represent them. Been going on for years.
Mavis @ #1949 Saturday, July 25th, 2020 – 7:20 pm
Interesting qualification you give yourself. I would have thought that a guy who gets royally jiggered then engages in 3-way jiggery-pokery was the last one to be fit to judge others.
Especially, as I outlined, considering the way you have completely and utterly mis-characterised the situation in regards to Yabba.
Maybe you should give it a rest then?
C@tmomma:
Saturday, July 25, 2020 at 7:18 pm
[‘There you go again. Playing the ‘Yabba the Victim’ card…’]
Not at all. I merely observed a post by him last night which I was thought was unfairly adjudicated.
sprocket_ says:
Saturday, July 25, 2020 at 7:17 pm
Perhaps a Royal Commission into labour hire companies, and why so many exploited workers engaged through these spivs have continued to go to work infected?
___________________________________
Yeah, not not best line of attack – why don’t you try and warm up sports rorts?
Mavis
I feel a bit sorry for Yabba. He is obviously deeply sincere about bird and habitat conservation but I know from experience that arguing about bird identification only leads to a dead end. I’m not thinking of C@t. I used to answer queries on birds as part of my job and most callers already have their mind made up.
C@tmomma says:
Saturday, July 25, 2020 at 7:22 pm
Lars Von Trier @ #1941 Saturday, July 25th, 2020 – 7:13 pm
The failures have been in quarantine. The consequence of that failure has been seen in deaths in aged care facilities.
You really have an unbridled zeal for being judge, jury and executioner of Labor governments, don’t you? Baseless and ill-informed zeal, I might add.
______________________________
I’m excited about a post-Labor, post 2 party conservative duopoly future in this country c@t.
Lizzie:
Saturday, July 25, 2020 at 7:29 pm
Fair enough.
KayJay
Teh marvelous cartoonist Alan Moir adopted that saying for Toned Abs.
lizzie,
Following that train of thought I have observed that Yabba is obsessed with being correct, even when he isn’t and is unwilling to back down.
For example, he is probably correct in the strictest sense about what you should and shouldn’t be feeding birds. As was my eldest son for a few years. He forbade me to feed them and said they needed to find their own food sources. However, the day I found an Australian Raven dead at the end of my verandah in the middle of winter, obviously from starvation as it was as light as a feather when I picked iy up to give it a humane burial, I resolved from that day on that I would ignore the purists on feeding, but find a food source that was as full of seeds and grain as possible, and begin again to feed them.
From which time I have observed a veritable cornucopia of native bird life in the bushes on my acreage, whose numbers and types are growing year by year. Not to mention no more dead birds in the middle of winter. And no vermin, flying or ground-based. They are just the observable facts.
That’s good enough for me.
Lars Von Trier @ #1956 Saturday, July 25th, 2020 – 7:34 pm
You would have to completely remake the voting system to successfully achieve that. At the moment all it would lead to would be splintering into special interest parties, all competing to have their constituent’s voices heard.
There were four deaths today, only a stone’s throw from the trailer park where I live.
EXACTLY C@T! We totally need to change the voting system. To paraphrase Oakeshott it WILL be beautiful in its ugliness!
Preferential voting is the life support keeping the 2 party duopoly alive!
C@tmomma
😆 And ain’t that a very rare trait of Bludger posters.
Who knows how O’Brien would handle the current situation. Andrews always struggles when throwing money at an issue does not work.
Taylormade:
Saturday, July 25, 2020 at 7:44 pm
Who’s O’Brien; I’ve never heard of him?
I sense confusion , have you thought about resigning your Labor party membership c@t?
Mavis
You obviously know jack shit about Victorian politics.
poroti @ #1963 Saturday, July 25th, 2020 – 7:44 pm
True dat. 😉
Lars Von Trier @ #1966 Saturday, July 25th, 2020 – 7:53 pm
I think you are confused about my so-called confusion.
Lars Von Trier @ #1962 Saturday, July 25th, 2020 – 7:44 pm
OPV is just as bad. Just Vote 1 leads to dominance of the 2 major parties.
C@tmomma says:
Saturday, July 25, 2020 at 7:58 pm
Lars Von Trier @ #1966 Saturday, July 25th, 2020 – 7:53 pm
I sense confusion , have you thought about resigning your Labor party membership c@t?
I think you are confused about my so-called confusion.
______________________________________________________
Am I now? I sense there is still good in you c@t!
Proportional representation C@t is the answer!
Mavis @ #1961 Saturday, July 25th, 2020 – 7:42 pm
Advancetown?
Do or do not C@t, there is no try!
LvT,
It’s a bird that won’t fly simply because the Coalition are in government most of the time and that’s the way they like it. They approve of the way that they got there.
Taylormade says:
Saturday, July 25, 2020 at 7:53 pm
Mavis
You obviously know jack shit about Victorian politics.
Sorry mate, very few people know the name of the poneranium,. Yap, yap yap, gives them little incentive to try and find out.
Taylormade:
Saturday, July 25, 2020 at 7:53 pm
[‘You obviously know jack shit about Victorian politics.’]
Do most Victorians, I’d hazard a guess – not? It’s rather like who knows the name of the Queensland opposition leader.
C@tmomma says:
Saturday, July 25, 2020 at 8:06 pm
LvT,
It’s a bird that won’t fly simply because the Coalition are in government most of the time and that’s the way they like it. They approve of the way that they got there.
______________________________________
Conservative parties always bankrupt themselves c@t, first the nationalists, then the UAP and now the Libs.
Australians desperately want 2P duopoly reform.
We can do it. we must do it.
C@tmomma:
Saturday, July 25, 2020 at 8:02 pm
Correct. All that’s here is a trailer park, a pub, bad roads.
If you want to break up the Duopoly we probably would need to go to a system of proportional representation. Single member electorates, especially when combined with first past the post voting, entrench a Centre-Right – Centre-Left duopoly.
Unfortunately the majority of deaths being in Aged Care means that the arrogant Adam Creighton and his true believers will feel justified in their conviction that CV19 is mostly confined to the old.
It’s all so sad.
1. end the 2 party duopoly – bring in PR
2. death duties
3. CGT exemptions ended
4. Progressive income tax
5. infrastructure spending
6. negative income tax
7. introduce republic
8. higher GST
9. end the US alliance
10. constitutional reform
Ricky, we can do it!
Steve777 @ #1984 Saturday, July 25th, 2020 – 8:24 pm
But does PR break up the duopoly?
In PR systems, either;
1. Government alternates between Centre-Left + friends and Centre-Right + friends
or
2. If the minor parties are unpalatable then there is a grand coalition of Centre-Left and Centre-Right
I’ll grant that (1) might open things up a bit, but (2) can turn a duopoly into a monopoly.
Isle of Rocks, PR will bring it out into the open. Huge reform, will bring Australia back into the forefront of social reform worldwide.
We only need to trust each other to bring about the future!
Mavis @ #1980 Saturday, July 25th, 2020 – 8:16 pm
It looked like a slippery road in the rain and a blind corner were the main culprits.
Re Lars @8:30.
Interesting list. I agree with many of them.
2, 4, 5, 7, 9.
Open to the others.
Who’s Ricky?
Steve777 says:
Saturday, July 25, 2020 at 8:42 pm
Re Lars @8:30.
Interesting list. I agree with many of them.
2, 4, 5, 7, 9.
Open to the others.
Who’s Ricky?
____________________________
Bring in PV and the Libs split in 2. Labor goes back to a core 25@ PV, new leadership emerges to lead us to a new politics.
Can you see any of this list happening under the current system?
Re Isle of Rocks ”But does PR break up the duopoly?“
We would get Centre-right, Centre-left and maybe Centre Coalitions. The duopoly seems to have broken up in countries that use PR or similar, e.g France, Germany, Israel.
Over time, there would be realignments. Maybe the left of Labor would join the Greens. The moderate Liberals join with the Labor right. The Liberals break up into a religious-socially conservative grouping and a socially liberal free market grouping. The Nationals die of irrelevance (especially if a 5% bar were introduced for winning seats).
Who knows? The possibilities are endless.
Lars Von Trier @ #1988 Saturday, July 25th, 2020 – 8:36 pm
I know you are keen on MMP. Given Australia’s large dispersed population, have you considered Dual Member Proportional?
https://dmpforcanada.com/
Jonahan Pie gives his opinion on the wearing of face masks 🙂
https://youtu.be/wZQkBHysrig
Steve777 says:
Saturday, July 25, 2020 at 8:51 pm
Re Isle of Rocks ”But does PR break up the duopoly?“
We would get Centre-right, Centre-left and maybe Centre Coalitions. The duopoly seems to have broken up in countries that use PR or similar, e.g France, Germany, Israel.
Over time, there would be realignments. Maybe the left of Labor would join the Greens. The moderate Liberals join with the Labor right. The Liberals break up into a religious-socially conservative grouping and a socially liberal free market grouping. The Nationals die of irrelevance (especially if a 5% bar were introduced for winning seats).
Who knows? The possibilities are endless.
___________________________
Exactly!
ajm says:
Saturday, July 25, 2020 at 5:20 pm
This is a bit scary from John Quiggin on Twitter:
Amid all the strange, alarming and exciting things that have happened lately, the fact that real long-term (30-year) interest rates have fallen to zero has been largely overlooked. Yet this is the end of capitalism, at least as it has traditionally been understood.
Interest is the pure form of return to capital, excluding any return to monopoly power, corporate control, managerial skills or compensation for risk. If there is no real return to capital, then then there is no capitalism. Not just a result of the pandemic. A trend that goes back to the GFC.
Of course, there is no sign that the replacement for capitalism (let’s call it plutocracy for now) will be an improvement.
Quiggin is not really correct here. Financial assets are at all-time high price/low yields because ‘investors’ are chasing two things – capital security and a coupon, even if the coupon is modest. The pricing on assets reflects expectations about future inflation, or rather, the expectation that future prices are more likely to remain the same or fall rather than increase. Considering the deflationary impact of the pandemic, the trade wars, environmental disruption and demographic change, it’s a good bet that real wages will decline in the coming several decades at least. If real wages fall, the present discount rate will deliver real returns to asset-holders. It is also the case that financial assets/liabilities can be created at will, which means there is excess buying pressure from asset-holders. Prices of financial securities reflect the relative shortage of income-producing instruments. This will probably get a lot worse as pressure on real economies intensifies.
Capitalism is not dead. It is adjusting to falls in output, prices, wages and populations…to the pressures of contraction.
FPTP voting would restore Labor’s plurality. It should be adopted.
A Socially Distanced Conversation: President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden
https://youtu.be/r3hgsAXbvWc
Perhaps IoR, we’ll probably need a constitutional convention once the ALP collapses to work out the details.