It’s time for a new general discussion thread, but do take note of the other important new posts below this one before diving in:
• New state polling from Western Australia suggests there will be little left of the parliamentary Liberal Party after the election there in March;
• Guest contributor Adrian Beaumont offers his weekly situation report on the ever-eventful US election campaign;
• I launch my Queensland election guide, and in doing so provide a thread for discussion of that state’s October 31 election;
• I humbly plead for donations, as I do every two months.
Other than that, there is one further poll to report on in the shape of a Roy Morgan SMS poll from Victoria, following on from a similar efforts two and three weeks ago. This finds the Labor state government’s two-party lead unchanged at 51.5-48.5, but Daniel Andrews is down nine on approval to 61% and up nine on disapproval to 39%. There has also been movement in sentiment against existing COVID-19 restrictions, with a 61-39 split in favour of lifting the five kilometre rule (50-50 last time), 59-41 in favour of visits to immediate family members (55-45 in favour last time) and 56-44 in favour of a resumption of table service (63-37 against last time). The poll was conducted Monday and Tuesday from a sample of 2223.
bill @ #1600 Monday, October 5th, 2020 – 9:38 pm
Yep. Some people don’t even realise when they are being played as rubes.
Redlands Mowerman
Thank heavens, then, that we don’t live in America.
bill @ #1600 Monday, October 5th, 2020 – 9:38 pm
Good get!
Will Jane Hume get asked about this mug?
sprocket_ @ #1604 Monday, October 5th, 2020 – 9:43 pm
Sorry, I couldn’t see Scott Morrison in that photo. 😉
Oh C@tmomma! So quick to denigrate your audience.
Jane Hume is the Assistant Minister for Dismembering Superannuation
The punters bought and sold for $1000 last election and will be bought and sold for a $1000 tomorrow. Over a trillon dollars in debt,yet who cares because its Smoko and crew running the joint. The Lib spivs will still be the best economic managers as usual.
Griff @ #1606 Monday, October 5th, 2020 – 9:46 pm
Nuttertruckers hang on my every word!?!
Thanks. I guess.
Redlands Mowerman @ #3168 Monday, October 5th, 2020 – 9:19 pm
Are you Andrew Laming ?
The Trump Show just keeps getting more bizarre by the minute:
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/04/us/politics/trump-virus.html
Well C@tmomma, RM posted here. You replied here. Or was that a third party insult to an absent victim?
bill @ #1600 Monday, October 5th, 2020 – 9:38 pm
I wish JoNova would post an updated picture of herself on her web site. It would be like an online version of “The Picture of Dorian Gray”
Someone has control of Dotard’s Twitter account, pretending to be him. But without the insults, racism and self dealing – a poor shadow of the man…
bill @ #3181 Monday, October 5th, 2020 – 9:38 pm
I presume David E. is David Evans – ex-electrical engineer and Climate Denialist married to Joanne Codling aka Jo Nova ex-“molecular biologist” and Climate Denialist. What a wank.
Only time I took an interest in her website was when ShowsOn was over there posting as ‘Adam Smith’ it was extremely hilarious. He confused them so much that they were agreeing with him at the end without knowing why. One of the highlights of the internet for me.
sprocket_ @ #3195 Monday, October 5th, 2020 – 10:01 pm
Trump Bot or Trump Bottom?
There are an avalanche of these Dotard tweets, all bot-like, all caps eg
SPACE FORCE! VOTE!
401 (K)! VOTE!
But the great leader ain’t doing the tweeting..

Another WA secession poll — 28% yea, 55% nay.
https://thewest.com.au/politics/state-politics/waxit-poll-shows-one-in-four-want-wa-secession-in-result-labelled-deeply-concerning-by-mp-patrick-gorman-ng-b881682762z?utm_campaign=share-icons&utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social&tid=1601896337818
I find it curious that no one has commented yet that the President of the United States is currently in the custody of the military.
“Another WA secession poll — 28% yea, 55% nay”
Close enough
ajm @ #1620 Monday, October 5th, 2020 – 10:16 pm
So, like todays little adventure was a jail break attempt.
Seriously?
Why would we secede when we can just close our border and achieve the same result?
Confessions @ #1623 Monday, October 5th, 2020 – 10:23 pm
Eagles are out of the finals, eh!
WA would probably have an awesome national cricket team…
William Bowe @ #1619 Monday, October 5th, 2020 – 10:16 pm
I guess there are “deplorables” on every issue 🙁
Waxit
Put it to the vote at the WA election.
Greensborough Growler @ #1622 Monday, October 5th, 2020 – 9:22 pm
Everything about Trumps America is totally off the page, so who knows? Not me, but it would be foolish not to explore all the possibilities.
So it turns out the UK’s 35 million pound ‘state of the art’ test and trace system is based on an Excel spreadsheet. As if thats not bad enough – the reason it stopped populating was the max number of columns was exceeded – 16384 (xfd). Yes thats right – they were actually entering cases by the column, not the row. Had they used rows it would still be working – as the row limit is over a million.
Thats gobsmacking – even for that joke of a government.
Big A Adrian @ #1629 Monday, October 5th, 2020 – 10:39 pm
That is gobsmacking! They never heard of the “transpose” function?
https://www.educba.com/rows-to-columns-in-excel/
🙁
WA wont secede because they still love Smoko.
BA Adrian – Holy shit, that’s amateur hour stuff.
steve davis @ #1631 Monday, October 5th, 2020 – 10:43 pm
WA won’t secede because only a complete moron wouldn’t realize by now that the future of fossil fuels is not only finite, but is measurable in a matter of years, not even decades.
And without that, where is their economy?
It’s hard to believe that the UK has become such a caricature of itself. It used to be ahead of the game in so many fields. What a farce!
Ever heard of iron ore, or gold, or nickel, or lithium or mineral sands, or ….?
P1
There is still plenty of fossil fuel voters. Ask a Queenslander.
Fulvio Sammut @ #1635 Monday, October 5th, 2020 – 10:49 pm
Now, let’s not get silly here …
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petroleum_industry_in_Western_Australia
steve davis @ #1636 Monday, October 5th, 2020 – 10:50 pm
And then ask them again in a few years 🙁
WA can’t secede as the Constitution Act of 1900 says ‘one indissoluble commonwealth’.
Not sure how they get around that.
Because WA produces more petroleum products than the rest of Australia does not mean that those products constitute the mainstay of its economy.
Those fossil fuel QLD’ers will vote in a Labor government yet again.
QLD Labor is not Federal Labor according to Queenslanders obviously.
Fulvio Sammut @ #1640 Monday, October 5th, 2020 – 10:58 pm
WA has Iron Ore. Then LNG. Then daylight. Then a couple of other minor exports.
Antony Green
@AntonyGreenABC
In the last four decades, four Queensland elections have produced hung parliaments. Let me run through them. First, after the coalition split in 1983, the Nationals fell just short of a majority at the election. The lured two Liberals to join the Nationals. …/2 #qldvotes
1995 – Labor won 45 seats, Coalition 43, 1 Independent. The Labor 2PP% was 46.7%. After Labor lost the Mundingburra re-election in Feb 1996, the numbers were 44-44 and Independent Liz Cunningham named the 2PP% as why she backed Borbidge to replace Goss as Premier. …/3
1998 – the One Nation surge. Labor won 44 seats, one short of a majority. Independent Peter Wellington agreed to put Labor in office. The only alternative government was a National-Liberal-One Nation-Independent coalition. …/4
2015 – Labor won 44 seats, one short. Peter Wellington became Speaker, and with Katter’s Australian Party holding 2 seats, the LNP could not bring down the government on its own, though LNP and KAP did defeat government from time time on specific votes, not no confidence votes.
Big A Adrian:
sprocket_ @ #45426 Monday, October 5th, 2020 – 6:21 pm
I think they’ve started the process and have already removed his brains through his nose.
He could do that by sneezing.
Coal and gas together amount to less than 18% in total of the value of WA annual exports.
We’d manage without you quite well in increased Chinese trade alone, without the burden of carrying the other States and the white anting by Morrison and his cronies of the WA -China economic relationship.
Fulvio Sammut @ #1648 Monday, October 5th, 2020 – 11:38 pm
Perhaps you should have considered that before you put him in power against the wishes of all the other states and territories bar Qld.
Oh, I think the voters in the other 60 or more seats east of our border that voted LNP may have had a lot more to do with it.