The latest fortnightly Essential Research survey includes the pollster’s monthly leadership ratings, which find Scott Morrison up three on approval to 66% and down two on approval to 25%, Anthony Albanese down four on approval to 40% and up four on disapproval to 39%, and Morrison holding a 53-24 lead as preferred prime minister, out from 50-25. There was also a six point increase in the government’s good rating on COVID-19 response to 67%, with the poor rating steady on 15%.
As it did a fortnight ago, the poll also asked about the mainland state premiers from the small sub-samples in the relevant states: Gladys Berejiklian was at 75% approval (up seven) and 17% disapproval (down four); Daniel Andrews at 65% approval (up four) and 28% disapproval (down five); Annastacia Palazczuk at 65% approval (steady) and 27% disapproval (up three); Mark McGowan at 87% (up nine) approval and 7% disapproval (down five); and Steven Marshall, who was not featured in last fortnight’s polling, at 60% approval and 21% disapproval. State government handling of COVID-19 was rated as good by 82% of respondents in Western Australia, 76% in South Australia, 75% in New South Wales, 71% in Queensland and 59% in Victoria.
Respondents were asked how much attention they had been paying to recent news stories, with 73% saying they had closely followed the easing of COVID-19 restrictions in Victoria, 68% the US presidential election, 36% the allegations of sexual misconduct raised by the ABC’s Four Corners, and 29% Joel Fitzgibbon’s resignation from the shadow cabinet. It also finds an easing in concern over COVID-19, with 27% rating themselves very concerned (down three), 44% quite concerned (down two), 23% not that concerned (up three) and 6% not at all concerned (up two). The peak of concern was in early August, when 50% were very concerned, 40% quite concerned, 7% not that concerned and 3% not at all concerned.
The poll was conducted Wednesday to Monday from a sample of 1010.
steve davis @ #1196 Saturday, November 21st, 2020 – 2:45 pm
They didn’t mean your wages.
guytaur
It wasn’t that long ago when certain “experts” here in Australia were telling us masks weren’t effective and shouldn’t be used. I bought mine in early March.
Lizzie @ #1187 Saturday, November 21st, 2020 – 2:20 pm
The feds have neglected Victoria for too long – politically, Morrison had no choice, he had to front up.
I think Dan did say it was at least 20 years too late. One change will be that trains will take passengers right into the city rather than forcing them off at what was Spencer st.
Despite being an empty suit, I have to say Morrison is pretty good a self-preservation.
However, a skilled political opponent could easily dismantle him.
Rex
What particular skill would you suggest?
Remember that he’s backed by a massive team of spin merchants and a supporting cast of inveterate gaslighters and liars.
Lizzie @ #1206 Saturday, November 21st, 2020 – 3:09 pm
Basically someone with the imagination and verbal skills to engage the voters and expose Morrisons political pantomime.
Albo is a meat and veggies politician. Same as Howard really.
It’s little wonder that Labors electoral strategy relies on a basic bribe of the outer urbs (childcare) rather than a Keating style dismantling of an empty suit opponent (Hewson).
Daniel Andrews on the other hand is the complete package.
The heartening thing about the Michigan Republican house and senate leader’s press statement is that it was released 1 minute after they left Trump at the White House, and was obviously written and agreed before they went in. Basically an ‘up yours’ to Trump. Very pleasing, particularly the following couple of sentences.
” the candidates who win the most votes win elections and Michigan’s electoral votes. These are simple truths that should provide confidence in our elections”
Spray:
I don’t know what “almost” means, but the statement is otherwise wrong
I think the underlying assumption is that the order of discovery (of infection) is a causal order for the occurrence of infection, and that assumption is wrong.
Consider:
– Case B detected at time T2, by routine testing; untraced at that point
– Tracing of past contacts of base B finds infected case A, detected at time T3 (> T2) ; A traced to B
– It is determined that A can also be traced from HQ breach (either A works at HQ or is traced from an infected person who does, or genes link to a person in HQ)
– It is determined (using genes and times of work) that A was infected at some time T1 (< T2)
– A and B are linked, A was first infected, so the link is from A to B, at this point B ceases to be an untraced case and becomes a traced case, traced from HQ breach
This is closely related to a well known and well understood problem – distributed tracing concurrent with distributed mutation (matution = action; in this case infection)
See for example:
"Concurrent and Distributed Garbage Collection of Active Objects"
– https://www.computer.org/csdl/journal/td/1995/04/l0337/13rRUxjQyoE
Public access is only to the abstract (which is uninformative) and bibliography (which is very good) -F*&k. the IEEE.
Lizzie @ #1207 Saturday, November 21st, 2020 – 3:09 pm
Rex Douglas is just like the guy down the pub who has the answer to everything and the solution to nothing.
Jaeger (quoting someone):
That 13 or 14% of the population of Republican US Senators (depend on who counts in the population)
13% is quite high – they’re going for herd immunity in the Republican US Senator herd
C@tmomma @ #1212 Saturday, November 21st, 2020 – 3:36 pm
Typically snarky and sneering attack from you.
C@tmomma @ #1212 Saturday, November 21st, 2020 – 3:36 pm
You should recruit him into the Labor party. It sounds like he would fit right in.
EG
Its no wonder really, they are totally ignorant of the virus just like their stupid voters.
I’m with Rex when it comes to Morrison being beatable but the opposition needs to make him the issue instead of clouding the campaign by making themselves the issue which helps Morrison. People seem to forget Morrison doesn’t have much of a margin at all.
Liberal MP Andrew Hastie is tending on Twitter. Hastie was an army officer, including commanding an SAS squadron in Afghanistan in 2013, before lending Scomo a hand in Canberra.
https://twitter.com/search?q=%22Andrew%20Hastie%22&src=trend_click&vertical=trends
As always, Tony Abbott is an impeccable judge of character.
Well, to be serious for a moment, I think that Albo is too conciliatory and Labor MPS on the whole too polite.
It’s not a gender thing. Credlin was more aggressive than Abbott.
Dan Andrews is polite to Morrison, but he has power behind him.
Mexicanbeemer @ #1217 Saturday, November 21st, 2020 – 3:51 pm
Sure, Morrison is beatable – but he has one huge advantage … Albanese!
Not sure if this has been posted previously. A good read.
https://theshot.net.au/general-news/what-does-scott-morrison-do/
Lizzie
Nah, i don’t think the ALP are too polite at the moment and Albo is right when he says people don’t want or need the opposition to be on the constant attack until the campaign itself and the ALP doesn’t need to because Morrison only needs to lose 1 seat to become a minority government and that might happen in the next round of redistribution.
Lizzie @ #1198 Saturday, November 21st, 2020 – 2:45 pm
Much thinner. I bet he hardly ate the whole lockdown. Too busy trying to save as many Victorian lives as he could. He looks happier now though. 🙂
Common sense seems to be prevailing.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-michigan-lawmakers-meeting/2020/11/20/ef30e2ba-2b43-11eb-8fa2-06e7cbb145c0_story.html
Mexican
You’re an optimist. I hadn’t realised. 🙂
There is a long time before the next election and every time Morrison slides past criticism it’s seen as a win for the Libs. Such a relief when the WA Premier named names last week.
Steve Davis (re new Melbourne train tracks):
– Integrated tunnelling machines were only starting to be built
– The world didn’t have a worldwide surplus of same
– Price of land had not gone through the roof
– Melbourne is lower density and lower population than London etc, even more so in the 70s
Hence tracks on the ring route in the 70s would have been above ground (and probably at ground level), which would have been sub-optimal
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lkuzLFjO1yU&ab_channel=TheLincolnProject
Aqualung
Thank you. It captured my mood perfectly.
Rex Douglas @ #1214 Saturday, November 21st, 2020 – 2:44 pm
I thought it was quite clever
Honestly, who among us would even remember and thank them for it if Labor got all hot and bothered every day over the slightest little thing that Morrison does wrong? Then thnk about how many ordinary, generally uninterested folk would congratulate them for it, as opposed to getting the general impression that they were just being a lot of angry ants, and especially so close to a Christmas that everyone has been looking forward to being able to finally get together with their family and celebrate after a hell of a year.
Scott Morrison proved it’s all about the timing when it comes to winning an election. He wasn’t even PM this far out from the last election and he still won.
C@tmomma @ #1230 Saturday, November 21st, 2020 – 4:24 pm
Ummm. Anyone who actually wants to see a change in government?
ajm @ #1230 Saturday, November 21st, 2020 – 4:24 pm
Lol. ‘Rex Douglas’ gives HIMSELF a leave pass to ‘be snarky and sneery’ every single time he pops up here! He also is a massive hypocrite, but then we knew that already.
Toronto is going into lockdown for at least 28 days due to rising numbers of infections. I wonder how much Canada is being affected by the disastrous situation in the US.
Yes, thanks for that, Aqualung. I follow him on Twitter and didn’t know he had a blog as well. 🙂
C@t
Frydenberg and Hunt needed to be taken to task for their complete lack of support for their own state in its difficulties. It was shameful. Perhaps WA Premier was the best one to do it.
Regurgitated reporting (from 2015 etc) on Mr Hastie is incomplete and misleading:
– Orders issue from on-high to obtain finger-prints from deceased without further specifics
(this is “mission type orders” – “Order to a unit to perform a mission without specifying how it is to be accomplished” and is key to SF capability)
– SASR patrol commanders (NCOs) conceive and develop practice of cut hands off deceased as a way to achieve the “military necessity” of the fingerprinting mission
– Practice becomes known to Mr Hastie (Captain Haste as he then was) – who determines that “that looks a bit strange” and orders that it be paused immediately and sends question up chain of command
– Unknown how the chain of command responded, but the practice seems both to have ceased and to have become widely known as something not to do (which then leaked out).
Difference between NCO and Officer:
– Aus NCO – if I’m dead, I don’t care if someone cuts my hand off, cuts my dick off or anything else, since I’ve no further use for them, being dead. Hence practice is OK
– Aus Officer – how does this practice affect the overall Aus mission in Afghanistan? Answer is adverse effect on overall mission and the practice is thus paused immediately by junior officer and subsequently banned by field officers / general officers
There are many reasons to dislike Mr Hastie’s politics but on current information his military contributions are not one of those reasons.
No worries Lizzie and C@tmomma. I found it in the comments on Katherine Murphy’s column on mental health.
Pretty good observations I thought and gels with my thoughts too.
For the legal eagles, is there some sort of penalty for failing to be a model litigant or is it just a term?
Aqualung @ #1222 Saturday, November 21st, 2020 – 2:57 pm
Thank you Aqualung. I feel it. And as someone who lives in Qld I can only reiterate, the rest of Australia owes Victoria. Thank you Victoria.
If the present holds …….
Biden will break 80,000,000 votes.
He will defeat Trump by 6,000,000 votes.
He will defeat Trump by 4%.
Biden flipped: PA, MI, WI, AZ & GA.
Biden won the West, Southwest, Upper Midwest, Northeast & New England & Georgia……#Blowout
Late Riser agreed.
https://www.pollbludger.net/2020/11/18/essential-research-state-and-federal-leadership-polling/comment-page-25/#comment-3515691
A major new line built in the 1970s would have been very unlikely to have been built with new level crossings (the outer section Glen Waverley line opened in 1930 did not have any), so the ill-effects of a surface line would have been minimal. Tunnels for railways are only really of use to railways for retrofitting in urban areas and going through mountains, otherwise the high costs (tunnelling, evacuation procedures, particulate pollution at very high levels, etc.) outweigh the benefits.
EGT
Reminds me of when I first did a deep dive into the Java Virtual Machine and then spent a lot of time designing a sophisticated concurrent garbage collection system that would be baked into a new operating system design. One day I may return to that.
As a novice I’ve found this transportation blog informative. https://humantransit.org/ (I think it was CC who first mentioned it on PB.) Anyway, a well designed and implemented BRT seems like a public transport solution worth looking at. We’ve got one in Brisbane. Who knew? Though the jury may always be undecided on the details.
My thoughts on Melbourne’s rail network.
I’m disappointed that they aren’t willing to go for an uncompromised airport rail link. That could have been the start of a high speed rail line to the north.
LR
Yes I mentioned humantransit.org before – in the context of his spat with Elon Musk (who is an outright idiot when it comes to mass transit). I agree with a lot of the ideas that go into that blog. I don’t always agree though. Speed is also essential and that’s lost on a lot of mass transit people.
Oh and, Brisbane’s BRT is a hideous mess. Would have made a lot more sense to terminate most bus routes at a CBD periphery station. The southeastern BRT route could just as easily have been light rail.
Late Riser
Human Transit is a highly regarded blog among people who do transport planning for a living. Jarret Walker is a recognised expert, especially on bus service planning. He explains the problems very clearly.
Mr Hastie at the rank of Captain would not have been a squadron commander. He would have been a troop commander. Roughly:
– patrol ~= section / squad, with NCO as commander
– troop ~= platoon, commander is Lieutenant or Captain
– squadron ~= company, commander is Captain or Major
SASR is very demanding, so officers are almost always at the higher rank (Captain for Troop, Major for Squadron), even though units are smaller, and officers have usually already commanded equivalent Regular unit (of larger size) before SASR appointment. Unlike NCOs who can (currently) stay in SASR permanently once they join, officer are required to alternate between SF and Regulars.
New SO commander Major General Paul Kenny is the first not to have previously been in SASR, policy has been varied in order to fix the bad culture.
They must be considering rotating the NCO commanders in and out for same reason (but what would the NCOs do in regulars?)
Noting that the key to unravelling the whole mess was a female investigator who by adopting a highly principled approach was able to gain the trust of a large number of (male) SO operators then might be an argument for an all-female special combat reconnaissance and liaison unit like the Norwegian Jegertroppen (deployable into combat but not I think yet deployed as a unit) as this would improve the culture. Females are often better at long distance target shooting and adding sniping to the unit capability would be compatible and assist in gaining credibility with the rest of the SO units
Lizzie @ #101 Saturday, November 21st, 2020 – 4:33 pm
Who else was going to do it, Albo?
Player One @ #97 Saturday, November 21st, 2020 – 4:26 pm
Kapow!