Miscellany: Morgan poll, Liberal Senate preselection, etc.

Two polls suggest the federal government’s COVID-19 dividend may be starting to wear a bit thin.

Today is the day of the federal by-election for the Queensland seat of Groom, which you can offer your thoughts on on this post in the apparently unlikely event that you have something specifically to say about it through the course of the day. This site will naturally be all over the count this evening, complete with a live results facility that is fully battle-tested so far as federal elections are concerned.

Other news of note:

• Roy Morgan had a result this week from the federal voting intention series it conducts regularly but publishes erratically. This one credited the Coalition with a slender two-party lead of 50.5-49.5, from primary votes of Coalition 42%, Labor 34%, Greens 12% and One Nation 4%. State breakdowns had the Coalition leading 53.5-46.5 in New South Wales, the reverse in Victoria, the Coalition leading 54.5-45.5 in Queensland, the Coalition leading 51-49 in Western Australia, and Labor leading 52.5-47.5 in South Australia. The poll was conducted online and by telephone over the two previous weekends from a sample of 2824.

• The Financial Review reports on JWS Research polling that shows 20% believe states should close borders to other states that have any active COVID-19 cases, “almost 60%” believe the same should happen if there are 25 active cases, and 75% say the same for 100 active cases. The report further relates that 60% of respondents rated the federal government’s handling of the virus positively, down six points from July, and that 87% of Western Australians, 82% of South Australians and 57% of Victorians (up seven since July) did likewise for their state goverments, with due caution for the small size of the relevant sub-samples. The poll was conducted from a sample of 1035 from last Friday to Sunday.

John Ferguson of The Australian reports on Victorial Liberal Senate preselection contenders for the next election: Simon Frost, staffer to Josh Frydenberg and the party’s former state director (including at the time of its disastrous 2018 campaign); Roshena Campbell, a Melbourne lawyer; Greg Mirabella, Wangaratta farmer and husband of Sophie Mirabella; and Jess Wilson, policy director at the Business Council of Australia. This is likely to amount to a race for the second position on the ticket, with Sarah Henderson to be promoted to first and Scott Ryan not seeking another term. There is contention in the state branch over president Robert Clark’s reluctance to have preselections determined through party plebiscites, with critics accusing him of using COVID-19 to maintain control by the central administration, as it did before the last election. According to the report, “a statewide ballot would favour Mr Frost, while an administrative committee vote would favour those loyal to Mr Clark’s forces“.

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.

686 comments on “Miscellany: Morgan poll, Liberal Senate preselection, etc.”

Comments Page 13 of 14
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  1. Douglas and Milko @ #625 Sunday, November 29th, 2020 – 5:20 pm

    C@t,

    COVID chickens coming home to roost:

    PRGuy
    @PRGuy17
    ·
    1h
    CAN’T GIVE IT AWAY: shoppers report supermarket staff pushing free Herald Sun with each purchase. Ex-subscribers report News Corp begging to negotiate free or heavily reduced deals to stay on. Victorians are fighting back after an incredible assault by Herald Sun on Victoria.

    Just catching up with today’s posts on the blog, and this stool out. Can Melbourne do a Liverpool UK, and just stop buying Murdoch papers?

    Good question. Sadly I think the answer is no. Papers like The Herald Sun reinforce certain individual’s prejudices and like any addictive drug it needs to be taken constantly.

    It’s of a piece with Julia Baird’s article:

    https://www.smh.com.au/national/men-who-hate-women-and-their-online-refuge-of-scoundrels-20201127-p56ika.html

    There are too many people out there still who want to perpetuate certain mindsets and we are seeing, instead of the attitudes dying out, they are being nurtured in our younger generations.

  2. lizzie

    ‘ I had something more important to attend to – a little dog with diarrhoea.’

    And how is that different to playing with Taylormade?

  3. No need for further comment. Every LNP pollie who retires gets a prize.

    Cheryl Kernot
    @cheryl_kernot
    ·
    15m
    Libs entrenched in our embassies. Just another way of achieving LNP aims. #auspol

    ***
    Stephen Dziedzic
    @stephendziedzic
    · 2h
    Another political appointment to an important overseas post- former Tasmanian Premier Will Hodgman will be Australia’s next High Commissioner to Singapore. We already have political appointees in:

    *Washington
    *New Delhi
    *London
    *The UN
    *Wellington
    *New York
    *Chicago
    *Ireland

  4. Wayne Swan
    @SwannyQLD
    · 7h
    The Coremann VIP jet scandal stinks to high http://heaven.As treasurer for 6 years I know the OECD is not the main game for Australia. Morrison wants him out of the way so he gets the cherio of the jet while thousands are stranded in Europe at Christmas #insiders

    Cherio?

  5. @jommy_tee
    ·
    Nov 28
    Twiggy’s Minderoo Foundation is both a registered charity with ACNC and a registered political campaigner with AEC.

    Guess no one will touch that paradox.

  6. BK

    I must admit the laboratory tea ceremony was high on spectacle value.

    That means all the boxes are ticked. It could have been a gold mine alright. You just needed to decide whether to market it via Jamie Oliver, Pete Evans , Gordon Ramsay or Two Fat Ladies.

  7. Q: Or is it just unique to Victoria which mismanaged hotel quarantine so badly…..

    Umm no South Australia. Still employing part time, two job private security guards against the findings of the VIC Inquiry.
    And the relevant SA minister said last week he hasn’t read the report yet…..

  8. Torchbearer @ #610 Sunday, November 29th, 2020 – 5:45 pm

    Q: Or is it just unique to Victoria which mismanaged hotel quarantine so badly…..

    Umm no South Australia. Still employing part time, two job private security guards against the findings of the VIC Inquiry.
    And the relevant SA minister said last week he hasn’t read the report yet…..

    The SA Police Commissioner got VERY defensive when quizzed on security working second jobs.

    Is that right the minister hasn’t read the Vic Inquiry preliminary recommendations ? Unbelievable if true !

  9. poroti @ #644 Sunday, November 29th, 2020 – 5:44 pm

    BK

    I must admit the laboratory tea ceremony was high on spectacle value.

    That means all the boxes are ticked. It could have been a gold mine alright. You just needed to decide whether to market it via Jamie Oliver, Pete Evans , Gordon Ramsay or Two Fat Ladies.

    *cough* Heston Blumenthal, surely?

  10. Shellbell,

    Imagine being so cynical about Australian Test Team selections.

    My view is that both Pucowski and Green should be in the First Test Team.

    Burns can fight for a spot down the list.

  11. Q ;Is that right the minister hasn’t read the Vic Inquiry preliminary recommendations ? Unbelievable if true !

    It came up in Parliamentary hearings last week…like most things SA was not widely reported.

  12. Cud Chewer @ #593 Sunday, November 29th, 2020 – 5:21 pm

    poroti

    This reminds me of when I stayed at a farmhouse in upstate New York. The farm came with its own gas well. And you know what that means – gas permeating the water table.

    The water out of the water well tasted sulphurous. It even stank having a shower. Ewww.

    I guess you could describe it as mineral water!

    Sounds exactly like Cunnamulla, closer, but arguably harder to get to than upstate New York. We used to be regulars on Lake Tennanah just outside Roscoe, of Roscoe Diner fame!

  13. O C

    You are very keen to absolve the Feds.

    Although @richardmcolbeck @GregHuntMP @ScottMorrisonMP
    deny responsibility, the federal govt is responsible for the systemic failures in the private sector that resulted in preventable deaths.

  14. OC,

    To be totally fair, the Federal Government should do their job as Regulators of the facilities they administer.

    It’s pretty obvious that there has been a “light touch” approach by the Government.

  15. C@tmomma
    Oh yeah,Heston ‘Not Charlton” would be the go for promoting BK-TEA. Now Panda Dung tea goes for about 22,000 yuan for 50g so an Aussie version, Koala Poo Tea, using the BK prep method should be a goer.

  16. GG

    [My view is that both Pucowski and Green should be in the First Test Team.

    Burns can fight for a spot down the list.]

    You are copying my view

  17. Re C@t @5:33

    Good question. Sadly I think the answer is no. Papers like The Herald Sun reinforce certain individual’s prejudices and like any addictive drug it needs to be taken constantly.

    Even so, if the customer base for the Daily Rupert were reduced to the Australian equivalent of the Trumpist crowd they’d surely have to rethink their business model or (preferably) shut down.

  18. It’s not so much what’s in the water that matters, it is how much water you drink (or get in other ways, like intravenously). That piece is pretty flakey Barney, except for introducing the concept of (buzzword alert) – the semipermeable membrane – which all cell membranes are, and across which ions will move under various regulators, not least the trend to equilibrate the tonicity (the concentration of stuff) of the solutions either side.

    There are three great main water compartments in the body: the blood (vascular system), outside the blood (extravascular system) made of off outside the cells (extracellular) and inside the cells (intracellular).

    It’s not the stomach that matters, it is the kidneys. The kidneys are the great regulators of what’s going on – processing the fluids and minerals and everything else of the vascular system and filtering and reabsorbing to achieve the desirable concentrations (tonicity), while the semipermeable membranes of cell walls do what they do – selectively leak for more concentrated to less -in concert with the real cruncher: cell wall pumps, which work against equilibrium, set up ionic differences, which generate ionic potentials, which makes cells fire off impulses, contract, and generally keep the show on the road.

    Back to water intoxication, which was where this started, erroneous fingers pointing at ‘pure water’, and it can be read about here.

    Correspondence about words and their intent in the above will not be entered into and besides, this place looks like Cyclone Tracy just went through, although we do now have power back on.

  19. Edit:

    Edit function not working cleanly for me. It throws me into a loop going back to page 1, and the process goes round and round.

    The link above was in error – it leads to Roscoe, which I had a mind to link to, but decided it was of little merit, but it was locked in on control C.

    The intended link was to Water Intoxication, and that is here:
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_intoxication

  20. I’ve just been watching a very interesting Foreign Correspondent called “The rise of China”. The boom there may last another 15 years.

  21. Player One says:
    Sunday, November 29, 2020 at 2:12 pm

    I see carbon border taxes is another subject that Briefly feels he doesn’t actually need to read about before posting.

    I understand taxes/tariffs in the context of the global trading system.

    Consider a bulk commodity…say, for example, iron ore, manganese, zinc, copper, alumina or fodder hay or cotton or wool or barley. Australia exports these kind of goods to economies where they are used in various kinds of production, either for domestic consumption or, to a small extent, for re-export to world markets that might or might not include Australia.

    The importing economy that imposes a ‘carbon tariff’ on imports of these bulk raw raw materials will simply be driving up their own production costs and reducing their living standards. The tariffs would be paid by importers to the government of the importing country and their effect would fall mostly on the importing economy while the incidence felt by exporters would be relatively small. Accordingly, the tariff will penalise the user of the materials but mostly not the producer. Imposing a tariff would be self-harming.

    The concept of “passing on” costs is, of course, only very rarely applicable in the bulk goods markets. Most producers of manufactures are not price setters (who could conceivably pass on their costs). They are usually price-takers. Competitive pressure exists in nearly all markets and this limits “passing-on” opportunities. The industrial economies really actively rely on “free” trade in materials, even if they discriminate with respect to manufactures and services. Preferred access to minerals, agricultural goods and other crude materials was one of the motivators for colonial conquest by industrialising Europe. This access is still defended even if the markets for manufactures have been progressively distorted by protectionist devices. This motivation still exists precisely because it sustains incomes in the industrial economies.

    Importing economies are not going to jeopardise their least-cost supplies of essential raw materials by taxing the exports of countries that have achieved net zero emissions, whether with or without the use of carbon taxes.

  22. To add to the above…why would an importer of, say, alumina, impose a carbon tariff on the product if it contained no embedded carbon? If it was, so to speak, green alumina?

    Australia will be producing this kind of export within a couple of decades using renewably generated electricity. It will be cheaper than alumina smelted using electricity produced from burning coal or gas. Why would an importer tax it?

  23. Evening all. My compliments to Dan Andrews for an excellent idea for renewable energy supply in Victoria. Vic is funding studies into the potential and necessary supporting grid infrastructure for building offshore wind farms off Gippsland and potentially elsewhere in Bass Strait.
    https://www.premier.vic.gov.au/backing-new-energy-breakthroughs-and-victorian-jobs

    This is a great idea because offshore winds tend to be more constant and will tap into different weather patterns than on land, increasing capacity and reliability of supply. I know some engineers involved in designing a large one recently built off UK in the North Sea. Despite the challenging sea environment it has been highly successful, with recent project costs greatly reducing. More of this could see industries like Portland aluminium refinery running off renewable power, creating energy jobs and saving refinery jobs.

    I hope Qld Labor is looking similarly at options between Sandy Cape and Byron Bay, which also have a strong offshore wind climate.

  24. Socratessays:
    Sunday, November 29, 2020 at 7:48 pm
    Evening all. My compliments to Dan Andrews for an excellent idea for renewable energy supply in Victoria. Vic is funding studies into the potential and necessary supporting grid infrastructure for building offshore wind farms off Gippsland and potentially elsewhere in Bass Strait.
    ___________________________
    there was a proposal a few years ago to build a 2000mw wind farm on King Island that didn’t go ahead for some reason. I wonder if small island turbines might be just as efficient as off shore turbines but cost less?

  25. ItzaDream @ #3773 Sunday, November 29th, 2020 – 6:32 pm

    It’s not so much what’s in the water that matters, it is how much water you drink (or get in other ways, like intravenously). That piece is pretty flakey Barney, except for introducing the concept of (buzzword alert) – the semipermeable membrane – which all cell membranes are, and across which ions will move under various regulators, not least the trend to equilibrate the tonicity (the concentration of stuff) of the solutions either side.

    There are three great main water compartments in the body: the blood (vascular system), outside the blood (extravascular system) made of off outside the cells (extracellular) and inside the cells (intracellular).

    It’s not the stomach that matters, it is the kidneys. The kidneys are the great regulators of what’s going on – processing the fluids and minerals and everything else of the vascular system and filtering and reabsorbing to achieve the desirable concentrations (tonicity), while the semipermeable membranes of cell walls do what they do – selectively leak for more concentrated to less -in concert with the real cruncher: cell wall pumps, which work against equilibrium, set up ionic differences, which generate ionic potentials, which makes cells fire off impulses, contract, and generally keep the show on the road.

    Back to water intoxication, which was where this started, erroneous fingers pointing at ‘pure water’, and it can be read about here.

    Correspondence about words and their intent in the above will not be entered into and besides, this place looks like Cyclone Tracy just went through, although we do now have power back on.

    Beautifully summarised, Itza. My old man (AKA Smiling Death) couldn’t have put it better. At least he finished reading the Hobbit aloud to my brother and me before starting on Bob Schreir’s tome.

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