Three bits of polling news from around the place, including some rare intelligence from Western Australia, which has still only had one public poll of voting intention in the three-and-a-half years since the 2017 election:
• Roy Morgan made one of its occasional random drops of the federal voting intention polling it conducts weekly, crediting the Coalition with a lead of 51.5-48.5, out from 50.5-49.5 when it last published figures a month ago. On the primary vote, the Coalition is up a point to 43.5%, Labor is down one to 33.5%, the Greens are up half to 11.0% and One Nation is down 1.5% to 2.5%. Also included are state two-party breakdowns with the Coalition leading 52.5-47.5 in New South Wales, 58-42 in Queensland, 53.5-46.5 in Western Australia and 53-47 in South Australia, and Labor leading 53.5-46.5 in Victoria and 58-42 in Tasmania. The poll was conducted online and by phone from a sample of 2589 respondents over the weekends of July 11-12 and July 18-19.
• Today’s News Corp tabloids ($) have results of a national YouGov survey of 2307 respondents concerning COVID-19, of which the most interesting finding is that only 6% consider current restrictions too tough, compared with 33% for too lenient and 60% for about right. Despite variable national experience of COVID-19 at the present time, results were fairly consistent across the states, with Victoria only slightly outperforming the national “too tough” response at 11%. The poll was conducted from July 15-20.
• The West Australian reported that polling conducted for “a prominent business group” by Utting Research, which has conducted much of Labor’s internal polling over the years, producing the remarkable finding that Mark McGowan’s state Labor government held a 66-34 lead. The poll was conducted back in May, but there is little reason to think the McGowan balloon would have burst since then. The poll recorded approval ratings of 86% for Mark McGowan, 64% for Scott Morrison but only 25% for state Liberal leader Liza Harvey, though the latter would have a much higher uncommitted rating.
• Staying on the subject of WA polling that’s perhaps not as fresh as it might be, Painted Dog Research published leadership ratings early last month that escaped this site’s notice at the time. These showed Mark McGowan with a satisfaction rating of 87% (including 63% very satisfied) with only 4% dissatisfied (2% very dissatisfied); Scott Morrison on 67% satisfied (33% very) and 19% dissatisfied (7% very); Anthony Albanese on 27% satisfied (7% very) and 29% unsatisfied (12% very); and Liza Harvey on 19% satisfied (4% very) and 37% dissatisfied (17% very) (UPDATE: For what it’s worth, this is metropolitan only). The poll was conducted June 5-7 from a sample of 800. The West Australian reported at the time that it understood Labor internal polling showed similar results.
Westpac says an internal investigation has discovered it may have breached anti-money laundering and counter-terrorism finance laws on up to 450,000 occasions more than it previously thought.
The investigation was ordered in response to a money-laundering and child-exploitation scandal at the bank that resulted in legal action against it by the regulator and the resignation of its chief executive and chairman.
Austrac, the regulator, has told Westpac it may add any new breaches discovered by the investigation to the existing 23m breaches over which it is already litigating.
Westpac has already admitted breaching the law in the case, part of which revolves around customers who were sending money to the Philippines in a way consistent with paying for child exploitation.
The newly discovered potential breaches relate to a different reporting rule requiring banks to tell Austrac about any transaction in excess of $10,000.
In May Westpac said it had failed to report between 60,000 and 90,000 such transactions.
But on Tuesday it said that after further investigation, and a demand from Austrac for more information, it now believed that number could be as high as 175,000.
Separately, it said it had given Austrac about 365,000 reports about transactions above $10,000 that “may have contained incomplete or inaccurate information”.
C@T
That is because it is an easy target that would be easy to sell to most people because they are not on the minimum wage.
Maybe there really is a strong case for Australia devoting some of its real resources to manufacturing trains. But there is a tendency among many people to assume that the fact that we don’t manufacture X, Y, or Z is inherently a sign of weakness or a lack of sophistication in our economy. The reality of Australian manufacturing is that we have a large amount of very advanced capability – but it is in small batch production lines that don’t get much attention or visibility. I think many people focus too much on the aesthetics of manufacturing – does our nation look sexy, glamorous etc – instead of the practical question of whether we are making the best use of our available real resources.
Manufacturing is a relatively small component of our employment because manufacturing has become a lot more efficient than it was in the era when industrial nations had 60 percent of their workers in manufacturing. These days industrial nations tend to have 6 or 7 percent of their workers in manufacturing. That is not a sign of weakness or decline. It reflects massive increases in productivity.
For eons societies needed 99 percent of their people working in agriculture – otherwise people starved. Now we only need 1 percent of our people working in agriculture to feed everyone. Is that a bad thing? Absolutely not.
Having a services-dominated economy doesn’t mean you are hollowed out, don’t do anything real and meaningful etc. It means you have far more options about how you organize your real resources. You get to decide what you want your society to be like, how you want to care for people, how you want to care for communities, what you want your natural environment to be like – and deploy people to work towards those goals.
That is a much stronger position to be in than having the economy of the 1950s.
Bucephalus says:
Tuesday, July 28, 2020 at 12:52 pm
..
Well, that’s just bad luck because Andrews has piled in with both boots to give the Greek Orthodox Aged Care system a really fucking good kicking – so suck it up.
By pointing out the Morrison has responsibilities.
Morrison has spent months undermining the state response with his swarmy behavior.
States left with international border protection because Morrison couldn’t even start to do the job.
Pushing for schools to open by providing incentives for independent schools to open early.
Support federal cases to try and force states to open early.
In the end there is no rock left to hide, and finally someone has pointed out the states are left, in difficult times, dealing with the federal government’s appalling effort.
Buce,
No, I never suggested that the car manufacturing workers in Australia, or Germany, were on the Minimum Wage. What I was trying to get through to the likes of you who are on the abandon the Minimum Wage because it will make Australian manufacturing, any sort of manufacturing and especially nascent industries who may wish to manufacture in Australia in the future, bandwagon, is that it is a zero sum game, and always has been and always will be because there will always be another country willing to manufacture, let’s say, widgets, cheaper than Australia.
So, using the example of the auto industry workers in Germany who make goods that the rest of the world wants, regardless of them being on way above the Minimum Wage, as you correctly point out, I was merely making the salient point that Australia should be going down a similar road and not down the abandon the Minimum Wage road.
Capice?
Having a services-dominated economy doesn’t mean you are hollowed out, don’t do anything real and meaningful etc. It means you have far more options about how you organize your real resources. You get to decide what you want your society to be like, how you want to care for people, how you want to care for communities, what you want your natural environment to be like – and deploy people to work towards those goals.
Except for the elephant in the room who has just been exposed in all his naked glory.
Australia didn’t have the manufacturing capability in clothing, footwear and textiles anymore, to manufacture our own PPE for the Covid crisis and so we were left exposed as utterly dependent on China, who isn’t averse to turning the screws on Australia if they feel like it, as we have already seen in Beef and Barley.
If it is true that Australia is vulnerable because of lack of domestic capacity to produce PPE, that is a good reason for Australia to develop such a capacity. The purpose would be to improve our resilience, our autonomy, our capacity to respond to a crisis.
The reason would not be because it is glamorous and aesthetically impressive to have a highly visible manufacturing sector. My point was that many people seem to prioritize those things rather than the wellbeing of Australians.
Guardian. Hunt giving his world view.
Uh-oh. Now this is getting serious. 😉
lizzie @ #1206 Tuesday, July 28th, 2020 – 1:20 pm
You’ll know it’s serious when Gladys locks down the Double Bay Botox parlours again. 😀
Gee whiz, for those who don’t know the CYC – think Aspen or St Tropez on the water.
This is serious money, no Daily ToiletPaper B graders here. An C19 on the board? Well Daaaahling!
Mexicanbeemer @ #1193 Tuesday, July 28th, 2020 – 12:52 pm
Costs is costs. We have cheap raw materials and expensive labor. China has it the other way around. But both of us have to ship our stuff halfway around the world to our markets, so we both suffer expensive transport costs. The EU has both expensive labor and expensive raw materials, but cheap transport to most of their markets.
The point is, that arguing costs is a bit irrelevant. The differing costs might change what we manufacture, but we instead decided not to have a manufacturing industry at all. We used to have one, and we decided we no longer needed it. Helped, it is true, by countries cleverer than us undercutting our industries until we stupidly came to believe we didn’t need to have them (but now, of course, they can gouge us as much as they like!).
We thought instead we could live forever on exporting cheap raw materials and importing tourists.
We were wrong.
Greg the Lyin’ Hunt spinning like a top – and a bolshie journo giving him heaps – reverts to blaming hotel quarantine. Nothing to say about being asleep at the wheel overseeing dodgy private aged care
I hope William can make use of the 45-47 from Essential because it means bugger all to me.
They appear to not want to put a stake in the ground on a 2PP number that they can be held accountable for.
The PB Snobs reveal themselves again.
Greg is now into denialism and not so subtle blame shifting
Nicholas @ #1200 Tuesday, July 28th, 2020 – 1:03 pm
Until no-one needs or wants your services. Such as is happening with both tourism and education, which used to be two of our biggest earners.
This is when you start to realize how silly you have been in allowing your economy to be hollowed out.
The CYC is an aged care facility with boats.
Nicholas @ #1205 Tuesday, July 28th, 2020 – 1:16 pm
I haven’t seen anyone here arguing anything remotely like that.
Peter Lewis explains why Essential are doing what they are doing with Polling and why. For those genuinely interested in Polling, this is good at articulating the isssues confronting pollsters and why a more subtle apprroach is required.
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/commentisfree/2020/jul/28/morrisons-election-upset-forced-a-reckoning-on-pollsters-heres-what-weve-changed
CYC is a shadow of RMYC
Bucephalus @ #1213 Tuesday, July 28th, 2020 – 1:30 pm
Grow a sense of humour, Buce. And enough of the culture war stuff already! We can see right through it.
There is always the possibility that circumstances emerge that force you to adapt, whether you are in services, in manufacturing, or in agriculture.
Manufacturing isn’t superior or special in that regard.
On this i think Nicholas is right there is a tensity for some people to see large scale manufacturing has the solution.
Wee Ghunt goes for a double gold medal in the “arse covering” and “Not my fault” events. Bolding by Amy.
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/live/2020/jul/28/coronavirus-australia-victoria-aged-care-outbreak-melbourne-sydney-nsw-qld-andrews-berejiklian-morrison-latest-updates
Nicholas @ #1222 Tuesday, July 28th, 2020 – 1:39 pm
No, it is not “special”. But no-one here has claimed that it is. The point is that the whole economy – as well as the whole society – benefits from having a resilient, agile and adaptable workforce – one that has a deep and wide pool of available skills. A workforce that has only service or white-collar skills is not much use if you suddenly find you have a need for trade and manual skills. Or vice-versa.
In hindsight, it is now clear that it was inevitable that circumstances were going to change. Many of us thought the next “big change” was going to be climate change. It turned out to be a virus. It could have been (and may still be) a war.
We became complacent. We were the “Lucky Country”, with all the downsides that term originally implied. And we also got sucked in by the neoliberal version of globalism, which has turned out to be fragile, if not downright dangerous. We put too many of our eggs in the resources and services baskets.
Nicholas ,
it is in the fact you can change what you manufacture with relative ease.
If people stop being tourists its very difficult to pivot that sector. And that’s the same with education, which is essentially a tourist industry as well.
If we had a complex manufacturing sector here, we could be making ventilators and cars and electric bikes and other goods and we would be able to have stimulus that resulted in the goverment ordering widgets to do things.
In regards to Essential, the problem with leaving in the “undecideds” is that I reckon there’s a fair few who call themselves “undecided” even though they’ve voted the same way all their lives, and ultimately are going to vote the same way again next time too. They just don’t want to admit this, either to the interviewer or themselves – nobody likes to think they’ve been bought.
One feature of the service sector is it is chock full of insecure low paid work. It seems the sector is the place to be if you want to screw over or exploit your workers and or customers. Bonus ! You have the Liberal and National parties working to assist you by making it easier to do.
Bucephalus @ #1179 Tuesday, July 28th, 2020 – 12:45 pm
Right that’s it Buce, now Sprocko has warned about this sort of thing and you need to watch yourself.
Albo is doing an excellent job.
Excellent I tells ya!!!!!
sprocket_ @ #1160 Tuesday, July 28th, 2020 – 12:27 pm
Yes, these are all things Labor is well on top of and certainly getting the message out there, so your point is?
caf @ #1228 Tuesday, July 28th, 2020 – 1:55 pm
It’s a good trick to get yourself into a focus group. 😉
Krugman talking about the likes of Bunnings’ ‘Karen 2.0’ .
………………………………………………………………………………………..
The Cult of Selfishness Is Killing America
The right has made irresponsible behavior a key principle.
I’ve long been struck by the intensity of right-wing anger against relatively trivial regulations, like bans on phosphates in detergent and efficiency standards for light bulbs. It’s the principle of the thing: Many on the right are enraged at any suggestion that their actions should take other people’s welfare into account
This rage is sometimes portrayed as love of freedom. But people who insist on the right to pollute are notably unbothered by, say, federal agents tear-gassing peaceful protesters. What they call “freedom” is actually absence of responsibility.
poroti,
Wilful ignorance and irresponsibility just about sums it up. Just read Bucephalus for a day and you’ll get the gist.
A poll result of 45-47 with 8% undecided would normally be presented as 49-51 (distributing undecided in proportion to decided –> 45/(45+47), etc).
Cue definition of wilful:
‘having or showing a stubborn and determined intention to do as one wants, regardless of the consequences.’
“a spoiled, wilful child”
I agree that tourism is a precarious industry where you have very little control over your destiny, and I agree that it is foolish of the federal government to starve the universities of funds and force them to chase revenue from foreign students. I wouldn’t want my community to be dependent on tourists or foreign students to be able to survive.
C@t
Krugman could be talking about our Libs here.
……………………………………………………………………………………..
……in their opposition to the temporary rise in unemployment benefits; for example, Senator Lindsey Graham declared that these benefits would be extended “over our dead bodies.” Why such hatred?
It’s not because the benefits are making workers unwilling to take jobs. There’s no evidence that this is happening — it’s just something Republicans want to believe. And in any case, economic arguments can’t explain the rage.
Again, it’s the principle. Aiding the unemployed, even if their joblessness isn’t their own fault, is a tacit admission that lucky Americans should help their less-fortunate fellow citizens. And that’s an admission the right doesn’t want to make.
Since when is it against CV19 restrictions to gather for a common purpose?
poroti says:
Tuesday, July 28, 2020 at 2:31 pm
Sure. Of course the BLM Protestors in Sydney went to the Courts to use the Law but when they didn’t get the legal decision they wanted they chose to ignore the law and ended up getting arrested.
Jog on with your holier-than-thou bullshit.
mikehilliard says:
Tuesday, July 28, 2020 at 2:40 pm
“Since when is it against CV19 restrictions to gather for a common purpose?”
Since they lost every appeal to the NSW Supreme Court.
Any of PB’s astute commenters care to comment on whether Marshall is utilising the cream on top or scraping the bottom of the barrel?
Bucephalus
The attitudes Krugman spoke of sounding a bit too close to yours eh Buse ? I’ve already said the protest is irresponsible and should not go ahead.
Trump or Biden – it really is a shit sandwich of a choice either way.
citizen
We’ll need to find out how big the barrel is first. The distance between the two may not be very great.
Not really. Trump is at least ten times the shit sandwich Biden is or ever could be.
citizen,
I’m assuming the Speaker is resigning that role?