The Herald-Sun reported on Monday on a “privately conducted” Victorian state poll by YouGov that showed Labor maintaining a commanding 55-45 lead on two-party preferred, from primary votes of Labor 44%, Coalition 40% and Greens 11%. This compares with 57.3-42.7 at Labor’s landslide win in 2018, when the primary votes were Labor 42.9%, Coalition 35.2% and Greens 10.7%. Personal ratings are good for Daniel Andrews (65% approval and 32% disapproval) and disastrous for Liberal leader Michael O’Brien (26% approval and 53% disapproval).
The poll nonetheless found that 55% thought it fair to hold Daniel Andrews responsible for the second COVID-19 wave, compared with 40% for not fair. Fifty per cent believed Andrews had been honest and transparent about the hotel quarantine failure against 43% for not honest and transparent; 53% said Victoria was heading in the right direction versus 39% who said it is “time for change”. The poll was conducted from October 29 to November from a sample of 1241.
UPDATE: Now a Roy Morgan poll gives Labor a lead of 58.5-41.5, up from 51.5-48.5 a month ago, from primary votes of Labor 45% (up five), Coalition 34.5% (down 5.5) and Greens 11% (up two). Daniel Andrews’ approval rating split is out from 59-41 to 71-29. The poll was conducted by SMS on Monday and Tuesday from a sample of 818.
In real election news, the Electoral Commission of Queensland has been completing preference distributions for the October 31 state election, and while the numbers haven’t been officially published, Antony Green relates that luck has favoured Labor in the final preference distributions in Bundaberg and Nicklin. These seats have been gained from the LNP with respective margins of 11 and 79 votes, pending LNP requests for recounts.
Confirmation of these results would leave Labor with 52 seats in a parliament of 93, a net gain of four compared with the 2017 result. South Brisbane was lost to the Greens (6.0% margin, 9.5% swing), while five were gained from the LNP Bundaberg (by a 0.0% margin with a 4.2% swing), Nicklin (a 0.1% margin and a 5.4% swing), Caloundra (a 2.5% margin and a 5.9% swing), Hervey Bay (a 2.2% margin and an 11.3% swing) and Pumicestone (a 5.1% margin and a 6.0% swing). These are Labor’s first ever wins in Nicklin and Caloundra, both of which are on the Sunshine Coast.
The LNP is duly reduced from 38 seats to 33, unless you count their recovery of Whitsunday after its previous member was expelled from the party mid-term. Their one piece of good news from late counting was that they managed to retain the Gold Coast seat of Currumbin by 310 votes, a 0.3% margin against a swing to Labor of 3.0% (David Crisafulli will be chosen as the party’s new leader unopposed at a party room meeting today). South Brisbane increases the Greens from one to two, with the party having easily its 2017 gain of Maiwar from the LNP, while Katter’s Australian Party and One Nation achieved status quo results of three seats and one respectively, as did independents with Sandy Bolton comfortably retaining Noosa.
Official results are naturally available from the ECQ; the numbers on my live results facility are emphatically not official, in that I have preserved them as they were a week ago before the ECQ removed the indicative two-candidate preferred counts. This means both the booth-level two-candidate preferred results and preference flow by candidate breakdowns are preserved, albeit in not entirely complete form.
Finally, while the attention of most of us has been firmly elsewhere, the process for the November 28 Groom by-election has continued chugging along, with nominations having been declared last Friday. The by-election has attracted a remarkably thin field of four candidates, which somewhat to my surprise includes one from Labor: Chris Meibusch, a community lawyer and unsuccessful candidate for the Toowoomba mayoralty in March. The preselection of LNP candidate Garth Hamilton was related here. The other two candidates are from the Liberal Democrats and Sustainable Australia – as well as there being no One Nation presence, this must be the first time a while that the Greens have left a federal contest uncontested.
Where’s Boerwar? Our bark beetle expert.
BK @ #48 Thursday, November 12th, 2020 – 9:33 am
Only if they dish the REAL dirt they must have on the guy.
Cud Chewer @ #45 Thursday, November 12th, 2020 – 9:30 am
Thank god it didn’t happen on Friday the 13th or I might have got spooked! 😆
C@t
I can’t wait to hear Turnbull talk in detail about the coordination going on between News Limited and Lib Headquarters. Case in point: The Daily TellMeCrap’s front page spread “Ninety Billion Network” attacking the NBN and pushing Turnbull’s rubbish, conveniently brought out the day before Turnbull’s fraudband was launched – at Fox Studios no less.
C@t
Here’s one for the superstitious..
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/acts-of-faith/wp/2017/10/13/flight-666-to-hel-took-off-one-last-time-this-friday-the-13th/
Lizzie
I’ve missed boerwar.
https://www.pollbludger.net/2020/11/12/victorian-poll-queensland-election-groom-by-election/comment-page-1/#comment-3512215
No doubt, off with the fairies $houty’s full on handmaid tale fantasies …
So the state of Georgia is going to recount millions of ballots by hand.
Sheesh!
Victoria’s first Indigenous senator Lidia Thorpe expresses shock at receiving abusive letter purportedly from Jim’s Group CEO Jim Penman
Victoria’s first Indigenous senator has expressed shock at receiving an abusive letter purporting to be from the CEO of Australian gardening company Jim’s Group.
Greens senator Lidia Thorpe told Parliament she recently received a letter that appeared to have been sent from Jim’s Mowing founder Jim Penman telling her to “get off her fat black ass”.
“I have only been in this job, in public office, for a matter of weeks and the misogyny, sexism and racism is coming in thick and fast,” Ms Thorpe told the Senate on Tuesday night.
“People need to be called out.”
The ABC has seen a copy of the letter, which takes aim at Senator Thorpe’s activism, but cannot independently verify its origins.
In a statement to the ABC, Mr Penman categorically denied sending the letter and said he believed a “fraudster” had copied an electronic signature and attached it to the letter.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-11-11/lidia-thorpe-abusive-letter-parliament-jims-mowing-denial/12869524
There really are some genuinely horrible people in this world.
(Edit: To clarify, obviously I understand it hasn’t been verified.)
But that sounds like classic Jim. The guy is an absolute prick, the publicly-known stuff is only the tip of the iceberg.
I dislike The jim mowing guy immensely, but he does emphatically deny it was him.
Cud Chewer @ #54 Thursday, November 12th, 2020 – 9:40 am
We all well remember the time Tony Abbott was papped going into Holt Street HQ for his weekly meeting with the Murdoch reptiles so as to co-ordinate the story line against Labor for the week ahead.
a r @ #46 Thursday, November 12th, 2020 – 9:01 am
It matters now. The Republicans have to crack three locks. Why wait until it is down to one lock before calling them out on what they are trying to do?
‘Laura Gerber wins Currumbin. The rats don’t win and I am not talking about Labor.’
The QLD state election win generally was a great result for QLD Labor. The only disappointment was the Gold Coast. It had alot of focus from Labor and the media, and they didn’t gain one seat. Its generally a letdown compared to Labor’s success in Wide Bay and the Sunshine Coast where the expectations were not as high.
I suppose they have made some of those Gold Coast seats more marginal, but generally it’s considered a disappointment.
https://www.pollbludger.net/2020/11/12/victorian-poll-queensland-election-groom-by-election/comment-page-2/#comment-3512273
… I have been meaning to get Fizza’s book from the library, but a former Nbnco CTO had quite the write up, not that long ago. Not that I’d expect words like affordable, reliable, fit for purpose broadband in there (WFH/ streaming/ gaming isn’t browsing/ emailing/ calling).
OECD broadband policy advice for regulatory reform (see the Netherlands, Singapore, New Zealand, France or Canada for alternatives), competition for services and infrastructure, besides neutrality of technology was only to some extend followed.
Be it nbn from 2013, or NBN from 2007, it essentially semi-public sector/ GBE, or Telstra’s Ugly Sister/ PMG lite, neither Telstra nor SingTel Optus Aussat – offloaded with more than three times debt over equity – or PMG mk1.
On top of that the various cost estimates and timelines have been way out, the latest seems to be Gbps for 75% of premises by 2023, not sure about the rest, and already up to $57B and counting (with the initial roll out declared but not actually complete).
Or overdue, overpriced (lotsa capex, propex, opex going to run rate plus being off budget as a GBE needing to earn a risk-adjusted return, oops), and still not Gbps over here.
Victoria @ #58 Thursday, November 12th, 2020 – 9:53 am
It’s part of a plan to enable the Repugs to blow through the December deadline for the Electoral College to be declared and thus Trump can continue his shenanigans. However, this great article debunks all of it:
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/nov/11/can-donald-trump-stay-in-office-second-term-president-coup
“Lizzie
I’ve missed boerwar.”
***
This may sound strange given how often we sparred, but I miss him too. Over time you get to know the characters on blogs like these and there was something endearing about how relentlessly devoted to the Labor cause he was, no matter what. Sure, the repetition could get annoying, but we can all be guilty of that sometimes.
I think we all realise what might have happened too… I wouldn’t want to speculate on that but I’ll just say that when long time posters like him and Peg vanish all of a sudden it does leave a vacuum. I hope they both come back some day.
Louise Milligan
@Milliganreports
·
14h
Christian Porter, Alan Tudge, the bonk man and a Prime Ministerial “manterruption” make it to
@nytimes
. “Australia’s willingness to let government institutions be run like gentleman’s clubs of yesteryear.”
Prime Minister Scott Morrison of Australia with Anne Ruston, the minister for families and social services, at Parliament House in Canberra in January.
Australia’s Struggle With ‘Bonk Bans’ and ‘Manterruptions’
Prime Minister Scott Morrison came under fire this week for abruptly interrupting a female senior minister who was asked what it’s like to be a woman in Parliament.
nytimes.com
C@t
I’m very confident that it will be okay. And I am confident that Trump and his enablers malfeasance will be exposed. That includes Lindsey Graham and Mitch McConnell.
I’m also hopeful that that psychops done via Qanon etc will also be verily exposed.
Firefox
I don’t know if I imagined it. But I do believe boerwar alluded to serious ill health within the family not long before he no longer commented on blog,
Firefox
I miss Boerwar’s intelligent comments on environmental matters, from his practical experience and not just theory. I worry that illness might have overtaken him.
Current vote count
Padma Lakshmi
@PadmaLakshmi
·
2h
Again:
Biden leads the popular vote by 5.1 million which at 50.8% is the highest % for challenger since FDR in 1932 (
@AriMelber
)
He also leads by:
MI: +149k
PA: +48k
NV: +37k
WI: +20k
GA: +14k
AZ: +13k
It’s OVER
Amazing. That’s the same way I feel about you, Firefox.
My dad was speaking to his brother in Italy last night. In region of Abruzzi,where they reside, they didn’t have COVID exposure during first wave. Now they do.
……………………
Dena Grayson, MD, PhD
@DrDenaGrayson
·
8h
Police cars revolving lightThe #coronavirus pandemic is surging in #Italy—where doctors fear conditions are on the verge of “exploding.”
@SayChrisLive
: “Extremely hard to be back inside an Italian ICU, and see patients dying before our eyes.”
THIS IS WHERE THE US IS HEADING.
https://mobile.twitter.com/DrDenaGrayson/status/1326534425518116867
The projection is for Biden to win the popular vote by 8 million, when all the votes have been finally counted.
So Lars has let the cat out of the bag about the Coalition’s dog policy.
They want to ban all dog ownership and universally prohibit all dog breeding.
What about police dogs? What about dogs for the deaf and the blind? What about companion and emotional support dogs?
A very poorly thought out policy yet again being introduced under the cover of Covid. No consideration of the social impacts and the effect on health and law and order issues.
A vote for the coalition is a vote to exterminate man’s best friend.
Thank you Lars for coming clean.
C@tmomma @ #49 Thursday, November 12th, 2020 – 8:34 am
The Nationals will lose Groome on the bitterest cold day of hell freezing over and cattle losing their right to vote. Labor always puts up a candidate, usually a beginner who is supposed to learn from the experience. The only interest is the lack of a PHON candidate. Perhaps they are to scared to have it confirmed that their support has evaporated. That would ruin their plan for one last blast at the next federal election before withering away into obscurity.
I bet Scott Morrison ignores VP -Elect Kamala Harris too if she comes to Australia with POTUS_Elect Biden. He’s as much of a misogynist as Abbott. Oh to be a fly on the wall and hear him in Cabinet treating the women with unbridled disdain when he knows no one is able to see or hear him.
Political Nightwatchman @ #64 Thursday, November 12th, 2020 – 9:08 am
The Sunshine Coast and Wide Bay with their high older populations were probably more swayed by the border closures without the level of economic disruption as the Gold Coast.
Cud Chewer, if you’re still about, that link to cumulative locally acquired covid infections is what I was looking for. I hadn’t spotted the link on the Transmission page. Once I knew it was there I could find it too. Thank you.
None of the six candidates elected last year to the Victorian Bar Council, in the category into which Ms Foley fell, were re-elected this year.
In fact none of the 10 barristers who were junior members of the Victorian Bar Council, including Ms Foley, were re-elected if they stood.
Must be a bit of turbulence
Robert Harrington on the long term purpose
“We have many battles yet to fight. Chief among these are global warming, racial and gender inequality, the corrupting influence of corporate money in elections and politics, and a pandemic that will be, hopefully, brought to heel by this new vaccine, and many more. After all, if the job of making the world a better place isn’t ours, then whose is it? And, as ever, ladies and gentlemen, brothers and sisters, comrades and friends, stay safe.”
I could add global dictators and authoritarians. And affordable health.
https://www.palmerreport.com/analysis/this-is-why-we-must-never-never-give-up-the-fight/33958/
According to SBS, Georgia’s secretary of state Mr Raffensperger thinks the recount in Georgia will be done by November 20.
https://www.sbs.com.au/news/us-state-of-georgia-orders-a-full-hand-recount-of-presidential-election-votes
Victoria hits 13th day in a row of no new cases
The state is also on the verge of being completely virus-free, with just three active cases remaining, 1 with unknown source.
There were 20,819 tests received
Test
On the Pentagon staff changes
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/nov/11/downright-dangerous-democrat-alarm-as-trump-stacks-pentagon-with-loyalists
Figured out how to make a gif work. Just add .gif to the Image Address you Copy. 😀
C@tmomma @ #66 Thursday, November 12th, 2020 – 9:41 am
As quoted form the article
“Federal law allows legislatures to do this if states have “failed to make a choice” by the day the electoral college meets. But there is no evidence of systemic fraud of wrongdoing in any state and Biden’s commanding margins in these places make it clear that the states have in fact made a choice.”
70% of Republican voters already believe there was fraud.
Peeps need to stop thinking Trump and his mob work within the box of norms they do. And he has a Republican party already capable of doing just about anything for the sake of power. If they think they can get away with it, they will do it.
The covid news from Victoria keeps getting better and better. Does anyone know if Victoria is accepting arrivals into quarantine?
Texas has become the first US state to surpass one million coronavirus infections, with mobile morgues and makeshift hospitals being used to cope with an alarming spike in cases.
One week since the presidential election, COVID-19 continues to soar in America, with cases topping 100,000 for seven consecutive days and hospitalisations reaching all-time high across the country.
According to figures from Johns Hopkins University, Texas – the most populous US state after California – has now become the first in America to record more than 1 million known coronavirus cases.
In the border city of El Paso, the health system is so overwhelmed that tents are being set up in hospital parking lots, a convention centre has been set up as a temporary overflow hospital, and mobile morgues have been brought in to store dead bodies.
https://www.theage.com.au/world/north-america/texas-becomes-first-state-to-top-one-million-coronavirus-infections-20201112-p56duz.html
************************************************
How long until we have a bronze statue of Dan???
Testing
Vic,
You didn’t imagine it, re BW.
Let’s hope he returns soon
Well that gif thing didn’t work.
BK @ #93 Thursday, November 12th, 2020 – 10:56 am
Sorry, I’m just trying to make it easier to do and it worked for me with a Daily Beast gif. So anyway I’ll keep experimenting to get a definitive and simple answer, if possible.
Victoria @ #58 Thursday, November 12th, 2020 – 6:53 am
Why? After Pennsylvania pushed Biden over 270 it seems somewhat academic.
Covid news is popular again. Note the last sentence.
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/live/2020/nov/11/uk-coronavirus-live-johnson-tories-lockdown-chief-of-staff-covid-latest-updates
I know it’s not as simple, but one way to read this is that if it takes covid more than 28 days to kill you then officially it didn’t.
For the millionth time, didn’t Boerwar have a set to with Mr Bowe and so he took his bat and ball and went home!?!
gifs are a mongrel, C@t!
5 hotel quarantinees in NSW with covid – no local transmissions.
Big testing number, 23,000 , presumably off back of waster water concerns in North West Sydney
Danama Papers @ #95 Thursday, November 12th, 2020 – 11:03 am
For 2 reasons: Georgia Senate Run-Off and, Georgia Senate Run-Off. It keeps the issue on the front burner and serves to motivate the Trumpists to come out bigly.