The latest fortnightly Essential Research poll finds 67% rating the federal government’s COVID-19 response as good, unchanged on a fortnight ago, with the poor rating down two to 13% – its strongest net result in this regular series since June. The small sample state breakdowns find the South Australian government’s positive rating down six to 70%, which I believe is the lowest it has yet recorded, although it might not pay to read too much into that given the near double-digit margin of error. The results for the other four mainland state are all up by one point: to 76% for New South Wales, 60% for Victoria, 72% for Queensland and 83% for Western Australia.
Respondents were also asked about their level of interest in various news stories: 69% said they were closely following the COVID-19 outbreak in South Australia, against 31% for not closely; 66% likewise for COVID-19 vaccine trials, and 34% for not closely; 56% closely for Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn his election defeat, with 44% for not closely; and 53% closely for war crimes allegations against Australian soliders, against 47% for not closely. The poll also found 37% felt the government spent too much on foreign aid, down four points since 2017, with spends too little steady on 16% and the right amount up four to 23%. Also featured was a series of detailed questions on climate change and coal-fired power plants, which you can read all about in the full report. The poll was conducted Wednesday to Monday from a sample of 1034.
In other news, Antony Green peruses the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters’ report recommending action to preserve the Northern Territory’s second House of Representatives seat, which otherwise stands to be lost based on the territory’s share of the national population. Significantly, he notes that the proposed removal of an existing tweak to the calculation that was added to help the Northern Territory get over the line back in 2004 now stands to cost the Australian Capital Territory the third seat it gained at the last election – perhaps explaining why the government has been so sanguine about preserving Labor-held seats in the Northern Territory.
The change in 2004 made use of the margin of error the Australian Bureau of Statistics provides for its population estimates for the territories, requiring that the figure at the top end of the range be used in making the determination. Whereas the most recent determination credited the ACT with 2.55 quotas, rounding up to three seats, it would have only have been 2.48 if the ABS’s straightforward estimate had been used. There is no suggestion of changing the existing determination to cost the ACT its third seat at the next election, but a significant growth in population would be needed if the third seat was to be preserved at the next election after.
Antony Green’s submission to the inquiry suggested that, in addition to giving the territories a minimum of two seats, the calculation be made not on the basis of the garden variety arithmetic mean, but on the harmonic mean, which would be less prone to rounding down for the territories and smaller states. This method has the virtue of producing “an allocation of seats with a population per member closer to the national quota than the arithmetic mean”. The committee – apparently including the four Labor and one Greens members as well as the five from the government, since there was no dissenting report – acknowledged the logic of this but cited “problems with the potential for public acceptance”
Mention should also be made of Saturday’s by-election in the regional Queensland seat of Groom, which did nothing to alter its complexion as a safe seat for the Coalition. The LNP candidate, Garth Hamilton, currently has 66.9% of the two-party preferred vote with only a handful of votes outstanding, representing a 3.6% swing to Labor Œ more or less the same size of the swing in the Longman by-election that did for Malcolm Turnbull in 2018, though on that occasion his critics could point to a 9.4% drop in the LNP vote as One Nation surged to 15.9%. The One Nation factor went untested on this occasion, since the party did not field a candidate, although the party’s performance in the recent state election suggested they would only have done a limited amount of damage.
Of perhaps more note than the result is the pattern of turnout in the second by-election held during COVID-19 (the first being in Eden-Monaro only July 4): election day turnout was down 21.3%, from 53,943 to 42,490; pre-poll voting centres were up 0.8% from 25,169 to 25,380; and there have so far been 11,966 postal votes counted, compared with 14,108 at the 2019 election. Voter fraud fans may care to note that the LNP did better on election day votes (a 2.7% swing to Labor) than pre-poll votes (a 4.0% swing) and, especially, postal votes (a 7.3% swing).
lizzie @ #200 Wednesday, December 2nd, 2020 – 1:00 pm
You do Lizzie. I’ve noticed that.
The Greens stunt motion can be seen in its full regalia here, at item 4a
https://parlwork.aph.gov.au/Senate/DynamicRed#81b6ee26-2134-eb11-b85e-005056b55720
The gist, and only specific is this..
That the Senate
(1) declares an environmental and climate emergency
No proposed Bill, action, program, funding, approach…. just a meaningless stunt. No wonder the party of government voted it down
Player One says:
Wednesday, December 2, 2020 at 12:28 pm
Non @ #146 Wednesday, December 2nd, 2020 – 11:53 am
The smugness of the FFs of the political sphere is repellant, to be sure, but there’s nothing to be done about it.
Of course there is! You and the other right-faction Labor ratbags here on PB can continue to whinge, moan, complain, insult, and try to bully off this blog anyone whose opinions you don’t like.
1. I belong to the Labor Left
2. I do not bully FF, or anyone else.
3. I feel free to complain….as indeed do you.
The No Windmills Party are a blight on the political landscape. I make no apology for saying so.
Bloody Sarah Henderson.
zoomster @ #199 Wednesday, December 2nd, 2020 – 12:59 pm
So if Labor puts something up and the Greens don’t support it, that would be “immature” and “spiteful”, but if the Greens put the same thing up but Labor don’t support it, that would be … what … “clever politics”?
September quarter, economy grew by 3.3 percent
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-12-02/australia-september-quarter-economic-growth-gdp-figures/12934336
I don’t know how BK does it day in day out.
_____
frednk
Neither do I!
BK
Reading your summaries today, I felt a dark cloud descending. I hope that the constant bad news doesn’t affect you too much.
Yesterday it was the ABC over 4 Corners; today it is the Chief of Defence Force. In the style of Trump, Morrison is lashing out at public officials who upset him.
I’m sure there have been some superficial but non-objectionable motions in the Senate and other Houses of parliament that Labor have backed in the past, despite no legislation or money being attached to them.
zoomster @ #199 Wednesday, December 2nd, 2020 – 9:59 am
OK. It seems that despite an initial difference, we’re on the same page.
Oh, and your point about voting against something you’re for if it has “nasties” attached. Agreed 100%.
Which actually explains why the Greens didn’t vote for Rudd’s ETS. It was a shambles which would’ve compensated polluters, and do absolutely bugger all to reduce emissions. It was designed to attract Liberal Party voters, not environmentally aware MPs.
Reading your summaries today, I felt a dark cloud descending. I hope that the constant bad news doesn’t affect you too much.
______
lizzie
I am inured to it. Like a surgeon to his or her many patients I suppose.
“The Crown” Season 4 is pretty good – apart from the terrible “Bruces from U.Woolloomooloo” accents, dodgy NotAustralia fill-in locations etc.
(SPOILERS.)
One episode feature Stevie Nicks “Edge of Seventeen”. A brilliant choice – but the “official” YouTube version (live) is crap.
This is better (skip in 10s): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hSp4F7u7sjY
Speaking of stable geniuses like Scomo, the one about to depart the White House may be in more trouble:
https://edition.cnn.com/2020/12/01/politics/presidential-pardon-justice-department/index.html
Former Illinois governor Blagojovich went to jail for trying to sell a Senate seat. And Bill Barr has refused to support Trump’s electoral fraud claims. I guess Barr must feel he will not need a pardon himself. Without promises of reward and threats, Trump only has his great deal-making ability to fall back on.
Where’d Andrew go? NY reported over 850k votes today. Biden won like 80+% of them. Still 700k ballots left to report in the state.
Biden’s going to pass 81 million votes easily, and win the popular vote by 7.2 million at least.
We are privileged to have a unique brain like Craig Kelly’s present in our parliament.
…
sprocket_ @ #202 Wednesday, December 2nd, 2020 – 10:05 am
Same as the UK, Korea, Japan and other nations have already done then.
PS, just how do you design policies to combat an issue if you don’t first acknowledge that there is a problem?
Surely the first step in the design of said policies is to acknowledge the problem the policies are meant to counteract. It’s the necessary first step to designing and implementing policies to address global heating.
Meaningless” Perhaps.
A stunt? Perhaps.
Necessary? Damn right it is.
a r @ #215 Wednesday, December 2nd, 2020 – 1:25 pm
But! But! Dumkopf Donald says that’s just not possible! 😆
The election head in Georgia, a lifelong Republican, says what everyone in his once great party should. A must watch…
https://twitter.com/jamesrbuk/status/1333919015174098950?s=21
a r @ #215 Wednesday, December 2nd, 2020 – 1:25 pm
And ultimately the pollsters will have got it pretty right. Not perfect by any means, but not the disaster that it was made out to be.
Nate Silver had NC as a toss-up, and Florida going marginally to Biden. Every other state result accorded with the polls. And the popular vote outcome is at least in the ballpark of what the polls were indicating.
Yeah I saw that earlier Sprocket. Powerful stuff.
DP
The nations you mention don’t just have slogans, they have set targets for net zero emissions by 2050, and active measures regarding renewables and transportation.
sprocket_ @ #223 Wednesday, December 2nd, 2020 – 10:41 am
Exactly my point. Now they’ve acknowledged this is an emergency, and they can now design and implement policies to combat the issue.
The Australian parliament decided today that there is no emergency.
Having decided that, now go out and design policies that will address the issue. Bit hard, nay impossible, to design policies to overcome a problem that “doesn’t exist”.
Isn’t it?
United States :
Coronavirus Cases:
14,108,490
Deaths:
276,976
– phew – 182,172 new cases and 2,611 new deaths in the United States ( some carry over numbers for the holiday weekend )
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/us/
“ Where’d Andrew go? NY reported over 850k votes today. Biden won like 80+% of them. Still 700k ballots left to report in the state.
Biden’s going to pass 81 million votes easily, and win the popular vote by 7.2 million at least.”
Yes! I did notice that when I did a ‘refresh’ of Cook Political Popular vote tracker when I sat down to lunch (Vegitable Thai Curry at Deco, Tamworth).
Result! I even ordered a glass of Riesling to celebrate, even though I’m back in court this afternoon.
Huzzah!
Danama Papers @ #224 Wednesday, December 2nd, 2020 – 10:49 am
Furthermore, how do you expect voters to take your policies to address global heating, when you’ve just voted in Parliament that there is no emergency.
“ The Australian parliament decided today that there is no emergency.”
Horseshit. You are a blatant liar and propagandist. There was no such declaration. Only a determination to not sideline the daily business of the senate (like considering and actually legislating) to waste time with the Greens virtue signalling circlejerk.
Remind me again: what party has 100% record on voting FOR every single bit of climate change legislation? Hints, five letters, starts with “L” and ends with “r”.
Andrew_Earlwood @ #228 Wednesday, December 2nd, 2020 – 1:56 pm
Loser?
Given that several of the states and territories, along with the private sector, are now doing the heavy lifting on responding to the climate emergency, a declaration by the federal parliament is currently of limited value.
citizen @ #230 Wednesday, December 2nd, 2020 – 2:03 pm
So just like Covid. The Drought. The Bushfires. The Recession. Foreign Affairs. Trade.
Remind me – why do we have a Federal government at all?
Andrew_Earlwood @ #228 Wednesday, December 2nd, 2020 – 10:56 am
Ooh. how nice to know I’ve managed to find a way to get up the nose of the second most pompous prick on this site (you’re still a pretty poor imitation of Bushpig Bill though – more effort required).
Bless, P1:
Thinking of a word for you. Compound word, 7 letters, starts with “F”, ends with “t”.
“I must say that Firefox/Allizom…”
***
Like I said, it’s absolutely hilarious when someone says they have blocked you and then only minutes later launches into an unhinged tirade about you and what you’ve been posting. Get a grip, Cat.
“ Ooh. how nice to know I’ve managed to find a way to get up the nose of the second most pompous prick on this site ”
Small mind. Small ambitions.
Piss weak. Bushpig Bill would’ve filled half the internet with his reply.
Another illustration of what a poor imitation of the real thing you are.
CLIMATE EMERGENCY DECLARATION PUT TO BOTH HOUSES: LIBERALS OPPOSE, LABOR SPLIT
ADAM BANDT
The Liberals and Labor have combined forces to block a Climate Emergency declaration in Australia, on the day our closest neighbours have declared a climate emergency at their Labour Prime Minister’s request.
The Australian Greens put Climate Emergency Declaration motions before the House and Senate today, with the Government blocking the vote in the House, and Labor and the Government blocking in the Senate.
Meanwhile, across the Tasman, the New Zealand Parliament today joined the many nations to declare a Climate Emergency, following a long and successful campaign from the NZ Greens.
“The first step to dealing with a problem is admitting you’ve got one. Last summer’s disastrous season of bushfires has made it abundantly clear that we’re rapidly speeding towards a climate cliff,” Mr Bandt said.
“This was a chance for Australia to show it is serious about climate action ahead of next week’s international climate summit. Thanks to the Liberals and Labor, we have failed.
“We are running out of time to stop the climate emergency, and every day counts. When the Australian population is at threat, when there is a threat to the safety and the livelihoods of our people and our country, parliament should drop everything to deal with it. Instead, the government is refusing to accept the truth about our climate.”
https://greensmps.org.au/articles/climate-emergency-declaration-put-both-houses-liberals-oppose-labor-split
I went out and sat in the sun for half an hour to eat my lunch and listened to a magpie warbling. Came back to find PB unchanged. Time moves slowly in PB world.
Bill Palmer : Donald Trump is reportedly about to pardon his family – and no, it’s not going to keep anyone out of prison
This evening we all learned that the DOJ is criminally investigating a Trump White House bribery-for-pardon scheme that’s been going on since at least August. If you’re wondering why the judge in the case chose today to suddenly unseal the news of this case, it may be because she’s trying to put a damper on what Trump is about to try to do.
The New York Times broke the news this evening that Donald Trump is discussing whether to issue preemptive pardons to Donald Trump Jr, Eric Trump, Ivanka Trump, Jared Kushner, and Rudy Giuliani.
Even if Donald Trump does pardon his kids and Rudy, this would only apply to federal charges. It would have no impact at all on whatever criminal charges that New York State is planning to bring against any of them. So these pardons wouldn’t keep anyone involved out of prison. Bottom line, if Trump’s family members are proven guilty of crimes, they’ll end up in prison one way or the other.
MORE : https://www.palmerreport.com/analysis/donal-trump-is-reportedly-about-to-pardon-his-family-and-no-its-not-going-to-keep-anyone-out-of-prison/34549/
If any Trumps are put in prison it will be funny, as they have done this to many others.Clinton will love it.
PB bird people, I have a question
I saw ~20 magpies perched on poles and trees all within about 25 meters of each other on my walk into work today. I’ve never seen so many in the same place at once, and it was noticeably odd. Why might they all have been together?
Dandy Murray @ #242 Wednesday, December 2nd, 2020 – 11:34 am
If it was early in the morning, they’d be on a food search. Just about every day I get a dozen or so that seem to like my back lawn as a food source.
Tassie magpies are the friendliest in the country. They dont attack anyone here.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-10-02/why-dont-tasmanian-magpies-swoop/11561036
Remeikis.
Joshie avoids answering the question. Of course.
“ Piss weak. Bushpig Bill would’ve filled half the internet with his reply.
Another illustration of what a poor imitation of the real thing you are.”
You seem upset. Take care of your health. No one wants to see you infarct.
Dandy Murray
It may be the “teenagers” from several families.
Thanks all,
It struck me as very unusual, esp as there were about 9 on the one power pole.
It wasn’t a particularly green area, so I don’t think food was the draw. But it might have been a rabble of teenagers as there are plenty about, showing off their glossy new black and white feathers 🙂
https://johnmenadue.com/thats-all-she-wrote/
Bert
I’ll miss Mungo’s work too. It’s been years of enjoying it.
Mungo and our late son were Brunswick Heads mates for years so it was weird that they did chemo together. Our son got 4 more months but Mungo has so far had 4 years longer.
Strange old world. Mungo won’t be forgotten tho.
The Greens have got to get used to the fact that Labor is not going to waste political capital on a Green stunt. How the cross benches react to Labors efforts to make the Liberals accountable is really up to them.