Courtesy of The Australian, the latest Newspoll has the Coalition’s lead at 51-49, in from 52-48 at the last result four weeks ago (a longer than usual gap owing to the interuption of the Queensland election), from primary votes of Coalition 43% (down one), Labor 34% (up one), Greens 11% (steady) and One Nation 3% (steady). The report says Scott Morrison’s approval rating is at 64%, down one, but doesn’t provide disapproval (UPDATE: Up one to 32%). Anthony Albanese’s records better ratings after some weak results recently, at 43% approval (up four) and 39% disapproval (down four), but he continues to trail Morrison 58-29 as preferred prime minister, hardly changed from 57-28 last time. The poll was conducted Wednesday to Saturday from a sample of 1510.
As a progressive, but not rusted on partisan ALP, voter I’m largely indifferent to how Joel Fitzgibbon is dealt with. I disagree with his position personally of course. However the point he is raising about the divergence of interests between traditional working class ALP voters who are employed in fossil fuel industries, and progressive voters in the cities who are very focussed on climate change is a real one. Either the ALP coalesces around a Fitzgibbon friendly position, and so enhances its electoral chances in the regions, but risks losing more urban seats to the Greens. Or it adopts a more explicitly climate focussed policy, minimising electoral exposure to the Greens, but then still facing major challenges in winning back its traditional voters from PHON or the coalition. Or it tries to uncomfortably straddle the two, which leads to confusing messages and compromised credibility. In reality, over the medium turn, the interests of all of us in avoiding the worst effects of climate change are pretty much completely aligned. So far as I know, no political party has yet found a way of communicating that message in a way that has broad enough acceptance to translate into winning elections. As the effects of climate change become ever more patent maybe that message will become easier to communicate. Hopefully not too late, though plenty of people would say it’s already way too late.
Max,
The point joel fails to consider in
—the divergence of interests between traditional working class ALP voters who are employed in fossil fuel industries, and progressive voters in the cities who are very focussed on climate change —
Workers in Mining and Oil in the regions probably earn and keep better incomes than those who live in the cities.
Tony Kevin rips into Morrison’s “ham-fisted” public response to Biden’s victory as tin-eared, selfish, and petty diplomacy at its worst.
https://johnmenadue.com/scott-morrisons-ambit-claims-on-us-president-elect-biden-unlikely-to-have-much-impact/
lizzie @ #1294 Wednesday, November 11th, 2020 – 10:53 am
Lizzie, there have been more ‘genuine opening for Labor to attack Morrison’s gov’ than you can poke a stick at – and I don’t include Bonkgate, which isn’t worth diddly – and each has gone begging….
Holdenhillbilly
The one-time ASIO director-general also says federal MPs must avoid calling into question the loyalty of Chinese-Australians, in comments echoed by former Howard government minister Warwick Smith, who called it “offensive”.
______________________________________
This has the stench of anti-semitism in Europe throughout the 20th century. The myth that Jews, being
‘wandering’ and ‘shiftless’, would never be loyal to the country they were in, despite countless cases to the contrary. For Eric Abetz, it is uncle Otto’s cloth pattern, but instead of yellow star Jews it is red star Chinese.
Disgusting and revolting.
” the divergence of interests between traditional working class ALP voters who are employed in fossil fuel industries ”
Somebody needs to be honest with these people and tell them they need to start thinking about transitioning away from the Fossil Fuel Industry. Technology is moving so fast that renewables are dropping in cost at a rate that fossil fuel just can’t keep up with. The advances in batteries and solar cells that will be coming out in the next few years will make fossil fuel obsolete. The British have developed a new type of solar cell which is three times more efficient than current solar cells and will begin mass producing them in the next year or two. Telsa’s new batteries are nothing short of amazing. There is no way that fossil fuels will be able to compete. For most people it will be more about economics than the environment.
This “human frailty” biz.
Is Morrison accusing the ABC investigators of being more hard-hearted than the rest of the Australian public?
Is he positioning himself as such a humble example of said frailty, that voters will forgive him for any little moral slips, past and future?
Or is he just a bloody hypocrite?
Perparim
If Joel had really been working for his electorate rather than himself, he would have taken on this role and even promoted ways of helping them.
In BK’s admirable-as-ever Dawn Patrol, a cartoon by Warren Brown (Daily Telegraph), attacking Malcolm Turnbull, was wrongly attributed to Mark Knight (Herald Sun). The signature clearly reads “Warren”.
Scott Morrison is a 21st century leader with a 20th century mindset. Perfect for the Baby Boomer cohort that sustains him electorally.
Perparim
You said it in one. A party that is dealing in reality is looking at how to manage the transition. The liberal line that it is not going to happen is bullshit. The Green line that they need to screw Labor to make it happen is even worse as it makes it ore difficult to deal with the Liberals bullshit. Joel Fitzgibbon problem is he wants things to stay as they were, the dream of those in the coal industry. The dream is not going to happen.
lizzie @ #1261 Wednesday, November 11th, 2020 – 11:38 am
He’s not a true Christian, that’s for sure. Otherwise he would be stoutly defending the sanctity of marriage and one of the 10 Commandments…’Thou shalt not commit Adultery’. Instead, what he is is a Trump Hillsong Evangelical…’Thou Shalt Make Money as a Sign of Your Godliness’ and excuse all other venality.
sprocket_ @ #1299 Wednesday, November 11th, 2020 – 11:05 am
Is planning his coup.
So far as I know, no political party has yet found a way of communicating that message in a way that has broad enough acceptance to translate into winning elections.
*cough* Anastacia Palaszczjuk in Queensland of all places.
‘Be in no doubt, Jim Chalmers will change his mind and decide he is ready to take on the role of Opposition Leader.
He is the most impressive of the ALP front benchers. He is a new generation, and from Queensland – a key “battleground” State in Australian politics.’
Yeah, nah. I’d prefer not to flameout a promising career, just in the mere hopes of pulling off an unlikely victory. When you lose an election it is a blotch on your resume. And rushing Jim Chalmers in just the hopes of short-term gain and not taking in consideration of his career down the track is kind of selfish. Mark Latham was drafted in at 42 and he didn’t handle it well the fall out of the loss. The loss certainly did damage Latham career beyond repair, and led to his premature departure from federal parliament.
lizzie @ #1291 Wednesday, November 11th, 2020 – 7:53 am
In fairness, he hasn’t been doing anything different lately.
It came to a head because it was finally pointed out, how what he was saying conflicted with the Party’s position on acting on climate change.
So the actual timing that brought it to a head wasn’t so much his choosing, but that the patience of Albo had run out.
Corio
I didn’t pick that up. It was directly from the sequence of Knight’s cartoons in the Herald Sum website.
Same stable, same employer.
So annoying. Advertisement on SMH website in green and gold colours:
AUSTRALIAN GOVERNMENT – THIS IS OUR COMEBACK – THE ECONOMIC RECOVERY PLAN
This would be Morrison and mates ‘gas led recovery’?
and on this day something funny happened
.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K9hZ7kjgFh4
Barney
That makes the fib that he was in charge of his own destiny even more shakey.
Aaron (Dodd)
@AaronDodd
·
The 11th of November is auspicious in Australia:
It’s Armistice Day;
the day Ned Kelly was hanged;
and the day Gough Whitlam was dismissed.
Billie says:
Wednesday, November 11, 2020 at 9:51 am
ALP should….. get former unionist PHON candidate to run for Hunter
No thanks. ON are a ridiculous white supremacist, pseudo-Lib reaction. They have no place in Labor.
GOP donors paid USPS ‘whistleblower’ $136,000 for election fraud allegations — that he just recanted
A Pennsylvania postal worker who became Republicans’ star witness after saying he was aware of widespread ballot tampering by the U.S. Post Office has recanted his claims. GOP donors have paid him $136,000 via a GoFundMe campaign.
Hopkins has now signed an affidavit recanting his false claims, which the House Oversight Committee noted in a Twitter thread.
https://www.rawstory.com/2020/11/gop-donors-paid-usps-whistleblower-136000-for-election-fraud-allegations-that-he-just-recanted/
lizzie says:
Wednesday, November 11, 2020 at 12:10 pm
Charles Harvey
@CJHarvey56
This should be the end of Tudge’s career. He is a criminal and hypocrite, misogynist and bully, a human rights abuser. What does it take to get sacked from @ScottMorrisonMP ’s cabinet?
The politics of intransigence stipulates that Tudge will not be sacked.
BK @ 11:56 am
I didn’t pick that up. It was directly from the sequence of Knight’s cartoons in the Herald Sum website.
Same stable, same employer.
Quite, but perhaps, in an acknowledgement of a slightly different audience in Victoria, even for Murdoch organs, Knight tends to be more even-handed than the cartoonists in Sinny. It’s all relative, though.
Political Nightwatchman @ #1269 Wednesday, November 11th, 2020 – 11:52 am
This is exactly what I said last night. Albanese seems prepared to go into the trenches to fight for the new directions Labor should go in and then lead his men and women over the top in battle for the hearts and minds of the electorate that he knows is out there waiting for a leader that espouses the coming zeitgeist.
If he loses his political life in the battle for those hearts and minds, and let me tell you, I believe Zali Steggall and Kerryn Phelps were harbingers of where the new supporters and seats can be found, not to mention in the regions of all the states and the far flung areas where Wind, Solar and Batteries will be creating jobs and a newly integrated grid will allow manufacturing in these areas to benefit from their creation, then he will be setting Labor up to take advantage of all that, IF they can get the messaging right (and Ed Husic is just the guy to do that job), and victory and a long term reign will be assured as the Coalition becomes a bunch of beached whales, in the best metaphor I can think of.
lizzie @ #1323 Wednesday, November 11th, 2020 – 12:10 pm
Going soft.
phoenixRED @ #1325 Wednesday, November 11th, 2020 – 11:13 am
That would be conspiracy if true.
But I’m assuming the GoFundMe campaign came after the (fraudulent) fraud allegations?
It seems that Melania is also pretending that there is no change of Presidency, as she has not yet “reached out” (aka “got in touch with”) Jill Biden as part of the changeover.
What could a PhD educator and Botoxed clothes horse possibly find to talk about? 😆
lizzie @ #1318 Wednesday, November 11th, 2020 – 9:07 am
He was in charge of his own destiny, as his actions were only going to produce one result.
As to the timing that was the thing he had little control of.
lizzie @ #1319 Wednesday, November 11th, 2020 – 9:10 am
Being a compassionate human being.
Barney
I thought he tried to give the impression that the timing was entirely his own.
Although I agree with you on the destiny thingy. It’s just a shame it took so long.
“…Mark Latham was drafted in at 42 and he didn’t handle it well the fall out of the loss. The loss certainly did damage Latham career beyond repair, and led to his premature departure from federal parliament.”
I don’t know about that. I had a work colleague and friend who came from the Liverpool area and told us from as early as 1994 (or maybe 1995) that Latham was “fucking crazy and bad news”. Someone must have known.
As for Chalmers, unless there are some Porteresque pecadillos in his background, then he is ready. Because, as nice a bloke as he undoubtedly is, Albanese is just not cutting it. Yes. We know about the media. Yes. We know what Murdoch will do with Chalmers’ background if there was the slightest mis-step. But it simply isn’t happening with “Albo”.
At the moment, Labor is heading for almost certain defeat at the next election. Albanese is making zero headway against a clearly certifiable PM. The ALP has just won in Queensland, where Chalmers is from and the virus response was the main reason for the win. With the Libs on the nose big time in WA (although one can never tell) over Morrison backing Palmer, Porter and a state government enjoying stratospheric levels of support there are opportunities there. Victoria speaks for itself with it’s Jim Rose circus of an opposition and then there is Gladys. Dear Gladys. Running around trying to hide that lazy quarter billion of corruption she sent the Libs way, trying to divert us with changing national anthems and picking fights with other states over border closures when she is the only one with known clusters. She is a carcass swinging in the breeze waiting for Murdoch to cut her down. Just as soon as he is done with Trump.
If Labor make a short, sharp, successful switch then they are in a position to pick up government in Queensland alone. Morrison is only effective when he is standing behind 2GB, the Daily Telegraph and the double headed ogre of Channels 7 and 9. He will have to make a decision and he doesn’t do that well. Go early and hope to run over the top of any honeymoon period? Or try to “do him slowly” and therefore run the risk of Chalmers being the attack dog Labor needs.
I reckon he is worth a go.
So annoying. Advertisement on SMH website in green and gold colours…
I saw a similar ad in a TV program I’d recorded. Looks like the Government is using taxpayer funds to restart its
political propagandacommunity service announcements.‘As a progressive, but not rusted on partisan ALP, voter I’m largely indifferent to how Joel Fitzgibbon is dealt with. I disagree with his position personally of course. However the point he is raising about the divergence of interests between traditional working class ALP voters who are employed in fossil fuel industries, and progressive voters in the cities who are very focussed on climate change is a real one.’
I tend to agree with this. There has been a lot of criticism of Joel Fitzgibbon that has been misguided with suggestions he’s trading on his father’s name and that he should run for One Nation and so forth. Fitzgibbon criticism that Labor can’t abandon it coal mine workers constituents is a strong dilemma for the party. I know Labor members of the party who also members of the CPSU and work for New Hope who are frustrated Labor won’t approve New Acland Stage 3. Just Greens members coming on this forum and suggesting the simple way to counter to win over central and north Queensland voters on Adani is simply by ‘educating’ them on climate change is about effective as a Bob Brown convoy.
Fitzgibbon is also known as a bit of a straight shooter. He was interviewed a couple of years ago and took out a script that Prime Minister Julia Gillard’s office had prepared that he read out as talking points. Fitzgibbon wasn’t the only Labor MP/Senator who was frustrated the party was making them just repeat lines like a puppet rather then answering the journalists questions.
Fitzgibbon also instigated the “Country Caucus” a group of rural and regional Labor members of parliament who focus on rural and regional issues. To suggest he just out looking out for himself and doesn’t have the party’s interest at heart is a bit unfair. However, the manner he has gone about things probably wasn’t the right thing to do.
Trump is ‘potentially imperiling national security’ with his shenanigans: Washington Post
President Donald J. Trump’s baseless voter fraud claims are now raising the risk of undermining the public’s faith in the vote and, by obstructing President-elect Joe Biden’s transition, potentially imperiling national security, The Washington Post reported Tuesday.
The White House has instructed government agencies to block cooperation with the Biden transition team — including the Government Services Administration, whose Trump-appointed administrator, Emily Murphy, has refused to sign paperwork that releases millions in preallocated dollars to fund the transition and gives Biden’s team access to agency officials and information, according to The Washington Post.
https://www.rawstory.com/2020/11/trump-is-potentially-imperiling-national-security-with-his-shenanigans-washington-post/
I suspect the scam was reasonably well thought out except for the part where proof had to be produced and evidence of tampering.
The days of some old guy behind a desk “post marking” individual letters is decades old. Post marks are applied to hundreds of letters a minute (probably thousands) as they pass in front of a printer head. There would be solid audit trails in the software that would easily identify if someone had tampered with the machinery, I doubt it would be possible to be honest as the date/time would be set based on a centralised clock maintained by USPS.
The chances are the guy figured that he’d easily make a sizable amount from the Go Fund me page by making himself a right wing hero and was probably rubbing his hands together until the investigation team pointed out how the world actually worked, the software audit trails that could easily be used to disprove his assertions and what the punishments are for election fraud (I read somewhere it’s 5 years and $10 k in Pennsylvania or Nevada) and general fraud.
Perparim says:
Wednesday, November 11, 2020 at 11:36 am
” the divergence of interests between traditional working class ALP voters who are employed in fossil fuel industries ”
Somebody needs to be honest with these people and tell them they need to start thinking about transitioning away from the Fossil Fuel Industry.
—————————
Perparim
I hear and agree with you but the fundamental problem is these people do not want change forced upon them by people they see as outsiders to their communities.
They really don’t see how things can change without them and their communities being the loser and this comes back to the cultural idea of working class because these people hold to a traditional and outdated idea of what working class is then there is the cost of living issue of people not wanting higher power bills. But like most things its not always black n white because many of these people do go out and install solar panels.
Oh, I’m sure it was all well thought out.
– Trump spends the entire election telling his supporters not to vote by mail and that postal voting is prone to fraud.
– Trump tries and almost succeeds in sabotaging USPS’s ability to deliver postal ballots by election day.
– Trump succeeds in getting a court order segregating ballots delivered after Nov 3 from other ballots in PA, even if/when they’re postmarked prior to Nov 3.
There was an attempt to defraud the election, it just didn’t come from the Democrats. And the scary thing is it almost worked.
United States :
Coronavirus Cases:
10,559,184
Deaths:
245,799
– 135,574 new cases and 1,345 new deaths in the United States
Dena Grayson, MD, PhD@DrDenaGrayson
THIS IS BAD. The US posts 135,574 new #coronavirus cases—a record high. 61,964 people are currently hospitalized with #COVID19 *another record*.
The death toll was 1,345—this will soon soar, as it takes weeks for people to die from #COVID.
WE NEED A NATIONAL MASK MANDATE.
” I hear and agree with you but the fundamental problem is these people do not want change forced upon them by people they see as outsiders to their communities. ”
The problem for them it’s not going to be the “outsiders” who kill their jobs. The mining companies are right now as we speak trying to fully automate the mines and run them with computers and robots. 10 years from now most mines in Australia will have half a dozen humans and hundreds of robots. I worked for a large electricity company and our Head of IT left to take a job at a mine in Western Australia which is being fully automated. Will the Libs or One Nation pass legislation that will stop the Robots. I very much doubt it. Regardless of what the “Greenies” do the jobs are going to disappear.
Re Joel Fitzgibbon, I largely agree with Political Nightwatchman. Although this rush to embrace renewables makes economic sense in the medium and long term, there are many traditional Labor voters who are deeply uneasy about the immediate consequences (including their jobs). I’ve met them. No doubt Fitzgibbon has as well – they make up a huge proportion of his electorate. These voters don’t appreciate being lectured to, Greens-style.
So I’m prepared to cut Fitzgibbon some slack on this issue. The party needs people like him. He’s a pragmatist, not an idealist. Closer to home, he represents the voice of a great many disaffected Labor voters. He’s made the entirely sensible point that ambitious climate change policies won’t amount to anything unless you can actually win government.
Roy Orbison @ #1335 Wednesday, November 11th, 2020 – 12:26 pm
My name is Mundo, and I endorse this message.
Kakuru @ #1345 Wednesday, November 11th, 2020 – 1:02 pm
I endorse this message as well.
phoenixRED @ #1342 Wednesday, November 11th, 2020 – 11:57 am
It takes about a month.
And yes, the death toll will soar. The deaths we’re seeing today are from when the US was averaging under 50k cases/day. In 30 days we’ll be looking at double to triple that. And that’s if hospital capacity isn’t overwhelmed.
Trump Is No Longer Participating In Work-Related Tasks As He Tries To Overturn Election Loss
According to Jonathan Lemire of the Associated Press, Trump is devoting all of his time in the White House to trying to overturn the results of an election that he clearly lost.
It’s been more than a month since his schedule has advised that he’s received a daily intelligence briefing. There hasn’t been a read out of a foreign leader call in weeks. He has not participated in a coronavirus task force meeting in well more than a month, if almost two. And outside of ousting the secretary of defense yesterday and some other aides, he isn’t really governing this country. He isn’t leading this White House at a time when the coronavirus pandemic is surging out of control to record and extremely dangerous levels.
https://www.politicususa.com/2020/11/10/trump-is-no-longer-participating-in-work-related-tasks-as-he-tries-to-overturn-election-loss.html