Miscellany: Groom by-election, Victoria poll, perceptions of US

A by-election looms in an uncompetitive seat; a poll shows Labor maintaining a lead in Victoria in spite of everything; and regard for the United States and its President falls still further.

First up, note the new-ish posts below on a YouGov poll for South Australia and Adrian Beaumont’s latest on the US race.

• A federal by-election looms for the seat of the Queensland Groom, centred on Toowoomba. This follows yesterday’s announcement by Liberal-aligned LNP member John McVeigh, the member since 2016 and previously state member for Toowoomba South from 2012,. that he will retire due to his wife’s illness. With Labor having polled 18.7% of the primary vote in the seat at the 2019 election, it seems a fairly safe bet that they will be sitting this one out. To the extent that the seat has been interesting it has been as a battleground between the Liberals and the Nationals, most recently when McVeigh’s predecessor, Ian Macfarlane, had his bid to defect from the former to the latter blocked by the Liberal National Party administration in 2015. John McVeigh’s father, Tom McVeigh, held the seat for the National/Country Party from 1972 to 1988 (it was known until 1984 as Darling Downs), but it passed to the Liberal control at the by-election following his retirement.

• Roy Morgan has an SMS poll of state voting intention in Victoria, and while the methodology may be dubious, it delivers a rebuke to the news media orthodoxy in crediting Daniel Andrews’ Labor government with a two-party lead of 51.5-48.5. The primary votes are Labor 37%, Coalition 38.5% and Greens 12.5%. The results at the 2018 election were Labor 42.9%, Coalition 35.2% and Greens 10.7%, with Labor winning the two-party vote 57.3-42.7. The poll was conducted Tuesday to Thursday from a sample of 1147.

• An international poll by the Pew Research Centre finds 94% of Australians believe their country has handled the pandemic well and 6% badly, whereas 85% think the United States has handled it badly and 14% well, while the respective numbers for China are 25% and 73%. Twenty-three per cent have confidence in Donald Trump to do the right think for world affairs, down from 35% last year, equaling a previous low recorded for George W. Bush in 2008. Only 33% of Australians have a favourable view of the United States, down from 50% last year, a change similar to that for all other nations surveyed.

Author: William Bowe

William Bowe is a Perth-based election analyst and occasional teacher of political science. His blog, The Poll Bludger, has existed in one form or another since 2004, and is one of the most heavily trafficked websites on Australian politics.

671 comments on “Miscellany: Groom by-election, Victoria poll, perceptions of US”

Comments Page 2 of 14
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  1. “ Looking at US polls hopefully Biden will win, show leadership on climate change, and our class of ethically-challenged political donkeys will follow in their shadow as always.‘

    None of that matters now. With a 6-3 conservative vote on the Supreme Court nothing progressive in America can actually happen for 30 years.

  2. Andrew_Earlwood @ #48 Saturday, September 19th, 2020 – 7:42 am

    RBG dead.

    The Republican ‘project’ is now complete. 6 conservative judges on the Supreme Court will block every progressive legislative reform for the next 30 years.

    Tell me again, why the 2016 presidential election was a ‘same-same’ race that really didn’t matter? In truth, it was the defining example of the evil faux left combining with the alternative right to put an end to the enlightenment.

    Will any nomination get through before the election?

  3. alfred venison @ #51 Saturday, September 19th, 2020 – 7:44 am

    have a great day, Socrates. btw, the topic today is more about “great moral challenge labelling”, less about “gas”. oh, and k. murphy has been promoted from “greenite” to “sage”, something to do with her saying what the denizens like to hear. -cheers, a.v.

    More about the logic of her argument.

  5. Barney in Tanjung Bunga @ #53 Saturday, September 19th, 2020 – 7:45 am

    Andrew_Earlwood @ #48 Saturday, September 19th, 2020 – 7:42 am

    RBG dead.

    The Republican ‘project’ is now complete. 6 conservative judges on the Supreme Court will block every progressive legislative reform for the next 30 years.

    Tell me again, why the 2016 presidential election was a ‘same-same’ race that really didn’t matter? In truth, it was the defining example of the evil faux left combining with the alternative right to put an end to the enlightenment.

    Will any nomination get through before the election?

    You betcha. Moscow Mitch will be all over this.

  6. Barney in Tanjung Bunga @ #15 Saturday, September 19th, 2020 – 7:54 am

    I can’t find a point to argue with Katharine Murphy’s piece on Morrison’s gas plan as it basically mirrors everything I have said here.

    It lays everything out very well.

    IMHO well worth a read.

    https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2020/sep/19/morrison-says-youre-either-for-gas-or-against-it-of-course-its-not-as-simple-as-that

    Yes, the article is well-worth reading. One thing it points out is that this is not a binary “gas or no gas” decision. It never has been. Gas has a significant role to play no matter which way we go. However, Murphy is a bit misleading when she says that no modelling has been done on these scenarios – in fact a huge amount of modelling was done on scenarios very much like this during the Rudd/Gillard era, and the solution was (in general) that using gas as a transition fuel on the path to renewables led to the lowest overall emissions (and also, that that some kind of emissions tax is a very efficient and cost effective way to do it – but that ship has well and truly sunk).

    The thing that gets me annoyed about this debate is the number of people who lose track of the goal, which is to minimize emissions. As we get closer and closer to the climate tipping points (and Tim Flannery – amongst others – believes we have already passed most of them), it is minimizing the emissions, not the cost, that is the most important thing.

  7. RBG should have retired in 2013 – when she was 80, had served 20 years on the SC bench and the democrats still had the numbers in the senate for Obama to replace her with another progressive woman, but one still in her 40s. Hubris, I reckon.

  9. I should have added to my previous post that I don’t actually believe Murphy’s implications that the Coalition plan is to use gas as a transition fuel on the way to renewables, or that the Coalition will meet their Paris commitments via this plan.

    Their plan is simply to replace coal with gas, and they don’t care what the consequences are.

  10. Andrew_Earlwoodsays: Saturday, September 19, 2020 at 9:50 am

    RBG should have retired in 2013 – when she was 80, had served 20 years on the SC bench and the democrats still had the numbers in the senate for Obama to replace her with another progressive woman, but one still in her 40s. Hubris, I reckon.

    ******************************************************

    Just days before her death, as her strength waned, Ginsburg dictated this statement to her granddaughter Clara Spera: “My most fervent wish is that i I will not be replaced until a new president is installed.”

    She knew what was to come. Ginsburg’s death will have profound consequences for the court and the country. Inside the court, not only is the leader of the liberal wing gone, but with the Court about to open a new term, Chief Justice John Roberts no longer holds the controlling vote in closely contested cases.

    Though he has a consistently conservative record in most cases, he has split from fellow conservatives in a few important ones, this year casting his vote with liberals, for instance, to at least temporarily protect the so-called Dreamers from deportation by the Trump administration, to uphold a major abortion precedent, and to uphold bans on large church gatherings during the coronavirus pandemic. But with Ginsburg gone, there is no clear court majority for those outcomes.

    https://www.npr.org/2020/09/18/100306972/justice-ruth-bader-ginsburg-champion-of-gender-equality-dies-at-87

  14. [‘According to the Congressional Research Service, the average number of days from nomination to final Senate vote since 1975 is 67 days (2.2 months), while the median is 71 days (or 2.3 months).’]

  16. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, a diminutive yet towering women’s rights champion who became the court’s second female justice, died Friday at her home in Washington. She was 87.

    Ginsburg died of complications from metastatic pancreatic cancer, the court said.

  18. Josh Butler
    @JoshButler
    ·
    16h
    Need someone to write a 1000-word thesis on why Australian conspiracy theorists just bloody *love* doing videos from the front seat of their car. Why that spot specifically? To escape the family? Are they driving around and overcome by the primal need to vlog? What’s this about

    I think they want everyone to see them getting arrested for traffic infringements as they “rebel”.

  19. Dotard issued an update list of candidate Supreme Court nominees – with some great legal minds included..

    ‘Ted Cruz is a United States Senator for the State of Texas. Prior to his election in 2012, Senator Cruz was a partner at Morgan, Lewis & Bockius, LLP and served as Solicitor General of Texas. Senator Cruz served as a law clerk to Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist on the Supreme Court of the United States and Judge J. Michael Luttig on the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit. Senator Cruz received his A.B., cum laude, from Princeton University and his J.D., magna cum laude, from Harvard Law School.’

    ‘Kate Todd is Deputy Assistant to the President and Deputy Counsel to the President. Before her appointment in 2019, she served as Senior Vice President and Chief Counsel of the United States Chamber Litigation Center and as a partner at what was previously Wiley Rein & Fielding, LLP. Ms. Todd served as a law clerk to Justice Clarence Thomas of the Supreme Court of the United States and Judge J. Michael Luttig of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit. Ms. Todd earned her B.A., with distinction, from Cornell University and her J.D., magna cum laude, from Harvard Law School.’

    Tom Cotton is a United States Senator for the State of Arkansas. Prior to his election in 2014, Senator Cotton served as a Member in the United States House of Representatives and in the United States Army, rising to the rank of Captain while serving in both Iraq with the 101st Airborne and in Afghanistan with a Provincial Reconstruction Team. Prior to his military service, Senator Cotton practiced law at Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher, LLP. Senator Cotton served as a law clerk to Judge Jerry Smith of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. He received his A.B., magna cum laude, from Harvard College and his J.D. from Harvard Law School.

    https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/additions-president-donald-j-trumps-supreme-court-list/

  22. This article is also worth reading:

    https://www.smh.com.au/environment/climate-change/cowardice-what-morrison-and-albanese-have-in-common-on-climate-20200918-p55wxu.html

    On the subject of Morrison and gas:

    There are various nuances around the energy announcements of recent days, but there is a simple fact, too: the Prime Minister failed us. The beginning of this year, its hurtling fires and thickened air, gave an early taste of the harm that will be done to Australia and Australians by a hotter climate. Most of us will see worse before we die. On Tuesday, Morrison announced he would hurry things along, by doing everything he could to get more gas out of the ground.

    I think we can all agree that more gas is not what we need. However:

    So is there a role for gas as a “transition fuel” away from coal, as the Prime Minister says? Yes, says Steffen – but that means using the gas we already have, not extracting more of it.

    This is, in a nutshell, what I have been pointing out here for a long time. To the disbelieving shrieks of various cheese-eating surrender gibbons.

    On the Paris commitments:

    … countries are not even meeting these weak commitments. Australia, Steffen says, is at the worse end of this. If every country acted like Australia, temperatures might rise by close to four degrees. In the abstract public debate, the Paris accord can seem like a series of bureaucratic targets. In reality, it is the difference between the world that we have now – already facing more fire and drought – and absolute catastrophe.

    On Labor:

    And what about Labor, a party of the left, allegedly committed to fighting climate change, the only one of the two major parties to have passed significant legislation to cut emissions? What did Labor do this week? Went along with it, more or less. There were some questions about whether the plan was much of a plan, but there was no strong disagreement. The truth is, Labor has pretty much given up on fighting on climate change from opposition.

    And, in conclusion:

    In Australia, if Labor chooses not to fight on climate, at this revolutionary moment, what will it fight on?

    What, indeed 🙁

    The author, by the way, is Sean Kelly – a former advisor to both Rudd and Gillard.

  23. The faux left will doubtless rejoice at the death of RBG, who was appointed by the notorious neo-Lib, Bill Clinton, and who fought all her life for the principle of equal protection – a principle the faux left have shown us they utterly despise.

  24. Speculation worth a look.. the article also provides a fair eulogy of Ginsberg’s career.

    ‘Court-watchers have speculated that Trump may try to appoint a woman as his third high-court nominee to avoid any risk of another #MeToo moment in a confirmation hearing. At the top of the list is 48-year old Amy Coney Barrett, whom Trump appointed to the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals in 2017. Barrett had spent the previous 15 years as a law professor at Notre Dame, her alma mater, after clerking for Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia and working for a couple of years in a corporate law firm.

    Barrett couldn’t be more different from the woman she might replace. She is popular with evangelicals and conservative Christians because she’s a devout Catholic with seven children, two who were adopted from Haiti. She is viewed as staunchly anti-abortion, thanks to her association with Faculty for Life at Notre Dame and her opposition to the birth-control coverage mandated in the Affordable Care Act, which she called “a grave infringement on religious liberty.” Barrett is also affiliated with a charismatic Christian group called People of Praise, in which female members were until recently assigned personal advisers called “handmaids.” Members of the group swear a lifelong loyalty oath to each other and donate 5 percent of their income to the group, which teaches that men have authority over the family, including their wives. They believe in prophecy, divine healing, and speaking in tongues, practices that could make for an interesting confirmation hearing. (Barrett did not disclose her membership in People of Praise before her 7th Circuit confirmation.)

    https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2020/09/supreme-court-justice-ruth-bader-ginsburg-has-died/

  25. Thanks BK
    The latingle article in AFR about the report into the effects of the Liddell power station closure ( sat on by LNP Gov’t since April) has a few gems.
    Like
    1 the wholesale price hike of electricity expected on closure is modest ( less than 20%)
    2 it will drop as other generators expand capacity and new renewables come on stream, so no big deal
    BUT
    3 Tomago aluminium smelter is highly price sensitive ( it doesn’t pay full price like we plebs), and supply sensitive (blackouts are very bad for a smelter)
    4 a big shareholder in Tomago is Rio Tinto (a Donor, hence Very Important)
    So, Tomago’s worries are Scotty’s worries.
    Which is why we need a gas-fired power station in the Hunter Valley (coincidentally where Tomago is) before Liddell closes.

    Simple when you join the dots. That’s why Scotty sat on the report.

  27. With the passing of Ginsberg is yet another example of an own goal by the left because as we see here some are happy to elect the right unless they get a pure choice but that isn’t how the world works and it wont but only the right gets it.

  28. Under His Eye:

    “ Speculation worth a look.. the article also provides a fair eulogy of Ginsberg’s career.

    ‘Court-watchers have speculated that Trump may try to appoint a woman as his third high-court nominee to avoid any risk of another #MeToo moment in a confirmation hearing. At the top of the list is 48-year old Amy Coney Barrett, whom Trump appointed to the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals in 2017. Barrett had spent the previous 15 years as a law professor at Notre Dame, her alma mater, after clerking for Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia and working for a couple of years in a corporate law firm.

    Barrett couldn’t be more different from the woman she might replace. She is popular with evangelicals and conservative Christians because she’s a devout Catholic with seven children, two who were adopted from Haiti. She is viewed as staunchly anti-abortion, thanks to her association with Faculty for Life at Notre Dame and her opposition to the birth-control coverage mandated in the Affordable Care Act, which she called “a grave infringement on religious liberty.” Barrett is also affiliated with a charismatic Christian group called People of Praise, in which female members were until recently assigned personal advisers called “handmaids.” Members of the group swear a lifelong loyalty oath to each other and donate 5 percent of their income to the group, which teaches that men have authority over the family, including their wives. They believe in prophecy, divine healing, and speaking in tongues, practices that could make for an interesting confirmation hearing. (Barrett did not disclose her membership in People of Praise before her 7th Circuit confirmation.)”

  29. I worked at RMIT once. Did sweet bugger all and was paid a fortune. But still hated it and could not get out of there quick enough. First and last time i will ever work in the public sector.
    Feel bad for the 1000 who will lose thier jobs but was a very fat and bloated workforce.

  30. Gordon Legal claims that the dozens of judgments– which were previously hidden from public view – show the government knew the scheme was unlawful because it declined to appeal on every occasion.

    In a fresh statement of claim filed days before a federal court trial, the firm also names government minister Alan Tudge among a handful of insiders said to be aware the program was flawed as early as January 2017.

    And it alleged several instances through 2017 and 2018 where top officials were made aware how people caught up in the program were threatening self-harm while on the phone to Centrelink staff.

    Tudge knew about deaths. He lies with the best of the rotten government.

    https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2020/sep/19/robodebt-court-documents-show-government-was-warned-76-times-debts-were-not-legally-enforceable

  31. I imagine Mitch is right now abandoning that oh so important principal that judges not be appointed to the SCOTUS during a presidential election year.

    For the Democrats to stack the Supreme Court they will first need to win the Senate, and that’s assuming Biden wins. 538 has them as slight favourites to win.

  34. … some are happy to elect the right unless they get a pure choice but that isn’t how the world works and it wont but only the right gets it.

    The village needs first to be destroyed in order to save it. Some see nothing less than a full demolition being required, a cleared block, an empty canvas as an absolute necessity before real reforms can be implemented.

    Lunatics and madmen come to mind. Hitler famously ordered Speer to lay waste to Germany because the German people didn’t deserve to survive. Stalin carried out the Holodomor in the Ukraine in order to impress upon the peasants that a new order was in place. Millions died in both cases.

    Other lunatics believe the best way to achieve real change is to ensure Trump is re-elected by casting futile votes for Leftwing candidates who have no chance whatsoever, thus taking votes away from the Democrats. “In chaos is profit” they seem to think. We must pay for our sins first. Whoever’s left afterwards can run things in just as doctrinaire a fashion, just as viciously, but with Truth (their version of it) on their side.

    By definition lunatics and fanatics have the greatest reserves of energy. You can’t argue with them within the “System” because they see the System as a mechanism to be used by them to gain control, and then be discarded. They have made up their minds. Any appearance of rational argument from them is mere lip service. They don’t believe in the System. It’s what they want to destroy: the sooner the better to implement perpetual Revolution.

    Most ordinary folk just want to live their lives and get along with each other. Fanatics love this. It allows them to gain control, and then to purge society of undesirable elements: ie. the rest of us.

  35. In further breaking news, Dmitry Medvedev has just been admitted to practice law at the state Bar in Kentucky. US Secretary of Trasnsport, Elaine Lan Chao, moved his admission.

    ‘Dmitry is an old friend. When reached out expressing an interest to come to America and practice law, we were only too happy to help’.

    Standing by Dmitry and Elaine, Senate Majority leader Mitch McConnell was heard to remark, ‘Dimitry will make a very fine American jurist. Soon.’

    Greens Presidential Candidate Howie Hawkins tweeted his support. ‘A great day for the American Soviet collective. This is exactly the sort of immigration we Greens believe passionately in’.

  36. Alex Bolton
    @alexanderbolton
    · Aug 3
    Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) says it would be a “double standard” to fill a Supreme Court vacancy before 2021 & “would not support it.”

  37. BB

    Yes – it’s very much of “if X candidate if elected, I’ll only get 80% of what I want. I’ll go for candidate Y and get 0% of what I want…”

  38. “ BB

    Yes – it’s very much of “if X candidate if elected, I’ll only get 80% of what I want. I’ll go for candidate Y and get 0% of what I want…””

    It’s a little bit more ‘subtle’ than that Zoomie. It’s more “ if X candidate if elected, I’ll only get 80% of what I want. I’ll stay at home and play x-box. Or watch Netflix and chill. Perhaps its 420 time. Because …. her emails’.

    On the other hand. Say what you will about Republicans, but they vote the ticket. Even for a shitgibbon.

  40. Good Morning

    Andrew Earlwood

    I agree with you about the consequences of RBG dying.

    My conclusion is as a result expect assassination and civil riots to return as the normal political tool in the United States. Starting with Election Dispute decisions.

    In a better system you don’t fear for democracy because one 80+ woman dies.

  41. “For the Democrats to stack the Supreme Court they will first need to win the Senate, and that’s assuming Biden wins. 538 has them as slight favourites to win.”

    _________________________________________

    I’ve been listening to Stephen Fry’s retelling of the Greek myths and noted the concept of hubris. If the Republicans seek to force through a Supreme Court nominee at this very late stage I wonder if they will suffer that fate.

    In the last few weeks before the Presidential election there is enormous scope to scare the bejesus out of non-conservative voters with horror tales of what a majority Gilead inspired Supreme Court would do.

    They may well squeeze through their candidate (but remember there are Republican senators on a knife-edge) but it could be at the cost of forcing millions of american voters to the polls for the first time to throw Trump and Moscow Mitch out.

  44. Now that Lisa Murkowski has broken ranks with the rest of the Senate Rethuglicans, it’s time for the Democrats to put the focus on Susan Collins in Maine, plus all the other Republican Senators up for re-election. But mainly Susan Collins. 😀

  46. Barney in Tanjung Bunga:

    Saturday, September 19, 2020 at 10:05 am

    [‘What’s the shortest time taken?’]

    That I don’t know but it would seem that Trump won’t have time and the Dems will no doubt do everything they can to stall the nomination process.

  48. Watch the hypocrite Repugs explain that it is now OK to nominate only 6 weeks from an election when only 4 years ago it wasnt OK 8 months from one.

  49. Even if the Democrats won the White House and the Senate, and then passed Medicare for all, it might all come to naught if a conservative Supreme Court found the legislation unconstitutional.

  50. Simon Katich @ #98 Saturday, September 19th, 2020 – 11:20 am

    Watch the hypocrite Repugs explain that it is now OK to nominate only 6 weeks from an election when only 4 years ago it wasnt OK 8 months from one.

    Mitch McConnell is already out of the blocks with self-serving ‘reasoning’ to explain that hypocrisy away. Apparently, people elected Donald Trump in 2016 to stack the court while he was President, so how can the Senate not do that…while he is still President?

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