The fortnightly Essential Research poll includes the pollster’s more-or-less monthly reading of the leadership ratings, which record a four point increase in Scott Morrison’s approval rating to 65% and a two point drop in disapproval to 28%. Anthony Albanese is respectively down two to 40% and steady on 33%. Morrison’s lead as preferred prime minister increases slightly, from 51-25 to 52-24.
Also featured are the pollster’s regular questions on federal and state government handling of COVID-19, with the added twist of a question asking who respondents felt had performed better out of the Prime Minister and their Premier or Chief Minister. This found 52% favouring their state or territory leader compared with 30% for Scott Morrison. The poll nonetheless gives the federal government its strongest result for handling of the pandemic in at least six months, with 69% rating it good (up two on a fortnight ago) and 12% as poor (down two).
The state government results are little changed for the three states with passable sample sizes: the New South Wales government’s good rating is up a point to 72%; Victoria’s is down two to 59% (the state’s lockdown was announced on the third day of the six-day polling period); and Queensland’s is down two to 76%. Western Australia’s is at 88%, the highest reading in at least six months, after the conclusion of that state’s lockdown, which is up eight on the previous poll, conducted shortly before the lockdown began. However, here the sample size is below 200 and the margin of error as high as 10%. The same applies to South Australia’s 79%, down one on last time.
The poll also has questions about Craig Kelly’s recent behaviour, although I wonder about a question wording that says Kelly has been “sharing Covid-19 misinformation”, the consistently negative tone of the propositions being put to the respondents, and the lack of clear response options along the lines of “who’s Craig Kelly?”. The results find 41% agreeing that Morrison has showed poor leadership, without offering clarity on how many disagreed and how many had no opinion, and 56% agreeing Kelly was “more interested in sharing Covid-19 misinformation and building his media profile than representing his constituency”.
The full report features still further questions on COVID-19 and one on a 2050 net zero carbon emissions target. The poll was conducted Wednesday to Monday from a sample of 1109.
Player One:
Saturday, February 20, 2021 at 9:05 pm
[‘Still, perhaps I shouldn’t be too critical, since Labor hasn’t actually released a policy on this subject yet – just a draft.’]
There’s no rule that requires Labor to release its gas for power generation policy at this stage. Suffice to say, it’s committed to zero net emissions by 2050 whereas the Tories won’t…
Probably should be on the WA thread, but this deep analysis of the NewsPoll ‘outlier’ is worth a look…
‘While the 2pp result found in this poll isn’t that big a stretch by historical standards, the primary vote results are. Ever since the 1980s and the rise of a strong minor party presence (Democrats/Greens/One Nation), just one party/grouping has managed to win more than 50% of the first-preference vote (Coalition, NSW 2011) in states which run single-winner elections (NSW, Vic, QLD, WA, SA). Even in the heyday of the two-party system and the largest re-election win federally (1943), the highest primary vote share recorded at that election was 50.2%.
Yet the Newspoll claims that 59% of Western Australians intend to vote for Labor. With another 8% intending to vote for the left-wing Greens.
What is one to do with such an outlier?’
https://armariuminterreta.site/2021/02/20/outliers-in-bayesian-statistics/
Been There @ #1950 Saturday, February 20th, 2021 – 9:33 pm
Odd. I thought gas was supposed to be used to transition away from coal. Or are we also redefining “transition” now?
“Finally, from so little sleeping and so much reading, his brain dried up and he went completely out of his mind.”
― Cervantes, Don
I always liked that quote 🙂
And Antony Green pre-empts an obituary for Zak Kirkup (if you don’t know who he is, join 99.9% of Australians) – plus a helpful list of leaders who lost their seats
The Gurgle Hole of History – Leaders who’ve lost their Seats at Elections
by Antony GreenFebruary 20, 2021
Western Australia’s Liberal Leader Zak Kirkup hold’s his seat of Dawesville by a margin of just 0.8%.
According to the Newspoll in this morning’s The Australian, the swing to Labor at the state election on 13 March could be more than ten times Kirkup’s margin in Dawesville. Kirkup is clearly in danger of losing his seat, even if you intone the usual caveats about margin of error and the perils of assuming uniform swing.
It raises the grim prospect for Kirkup that his name could soon be added to an unwanted list – that of government leaders and opposition leaders who have lost their seats at an election.
This list below is not guaranteed to be complete. It is merely a list of all the examples I can think of post World War One.
https://antonygreen.com.au/the-gurgle-hole-of-history-leaders-whove-lost-their-seats-at-elections/
https://www.themarysue.com/rush-limbaugh-is-dead-tweets/
https://brokeassstuart.com/2021/02/17/7-times-rush-limbaugh-made-jokes-about-other-people-dying/
https://www.thewrap.com/a-lot-of-folks-are-very-happy-rush-limbaugh-is-dead-a-coward-and-white-supremacist/
Good riddance..
Cud Chewer @ #1952 Saturday, February 20th, 2021 – 10:02 pm
SE Cupp says it best:
https://youtu.be/Ot_q6Y72af4
Frednk
No, you have not gone too far.
It is possible she does not realise it, but P1 is parroting the Liberal party talking points on pushing LNG as our saviour, together with pumped hydro, while insisting that advances in renewable energy, like large batteries will only help keep coal alive.
Mind you, she has not insisted that hydrogen is our energy / climate change saviour, so she may just be acting on outdated information.
Assantdj @ #1934 Saturday, February 20th, 2021 – 8:50 pm
Not to mention that the attacker appears to have benefited from another Morrison specialty: move him sideways and out of sight and out of mind until the heat dies down and then start building him back up again as ‘a rising star in the Liberal Party’. Cynical bastardry at its finest.
Mavis,
I thought Jen Brady showed a lot of spunk and flashes of the talent that will hopefully take her far in the game. It seems as though Chris Evert is one of her mentors. Couldn’t pick a better hero to model yourself after.
I thought the match was worthy of a Grand Slam Final and enjoyed it immensely.
P1
Thank you for that interesting discussion between you and a couple of others over base load power. (though I’m not sure the others found it as interesting as I did).
I don’t want to misquote you, but you seemed to be saying that we will always need some liquid gas input as well as the renewables such as wind hydro and solar. If I’ve got that right, does that mean the reserves of gas are so huge that we will never run out of it?
C@tmomma:
Saturday, February 20, 2021 at 10:14 pm
[‘I thought Jen Brady showed a lot of spunk and flashes of the talent that will hopefully take her far in the game.’]
Brady’s no doubt a talented player, losing to Osaka in the semi-finals in the US Open last year in three sets. Osaka, though, has her measure at the moment, her forehand one of the fastest on the circuit, and her serve is quite a weapon too. I’m glad you enjoyed it but I thought Brady was never quite in it and would have liked it to go to a third set. Anyway, we’ve got tomorrow night to look forward to, where I’d like Medvedev to beat the Joker.
By the way, Stosur and Ebden just lost the mixed final.
C@tmomma
They are both the transition to renewables.
Could have worded it better.
Coal has it’s role until then, but the sooner the better that it’s gone.
What a piece of excrement Rush Limbaugh was. Little wonder Trump rewarded him with a gong – peas in a pod.
There will always be someone champing at the bit to replace him. Maybe the ageing Lou Dobbs will get the gig after being sacked by Fox News or perhaps sexual deviant Bill O’Reilly? Anyway, the US is better off without him.
P1,
I’m trying to work out where the gap in your understanding is.
There are at possibly three operating constraints of thermal generation plant you seem to not be aware of, or at least not understand how they interact:
– Minimum output: plant cannot be set to an arbitrary output level between 0 and max power, rather they have a minimum output, which is usually 40-50% nameplate capacity.
– Minimum downtime constraints: if thermal plant are shut down, they have to stay off for a minimum amount of time. This is 2-6 hours, depending on design. So if the coal-fired plant or gas-fired steam turbine is switched off, it stays off for a considerable time.
– Ramping constraints: plant cannot move from one output level to another instantly, they have to increment their changes, due to limitations of the combustion process (I don’t know the exact details of why). This is like the limits to acceleration limiting changes in speed of a vehicle; and thermal plant typically to 2 hours to move from min to max output.
Under the current generation mix, the interaction of these constraints means that you cannot balance supply and demand for a morning peak if you turn off too many thermal generators overnight. (This problem, of having enough generators “spinning” is called the unit commitment problem.) The task of having enough generation to meet load in the morning is intertemporally coupled to the
number of generators dispatched overnight. That is, operator has to ensure that there is enough load overnight to absorb the minimum output of the minimum number of generators required for the morning peak.
Solar generation is applying similar pressure during the day – how can an evening peak be met if thermal generation is switched off during the middle of the day?
By this reasoning, the definition Fred used is not backward; it is correct because it takes into account the operational dynamics of the power system.
So what!? you say, we don’t care about baseload because we can meet it with renewables, so we should only care about peak – but if you need to have the coal- or gas-fired thermal generators spinning to meet a peak demand later in the day, we need them on earlier, and at those time we need load to absorb their output, not more renewables (they may have negative marginal value to the system at those times for a reason).
Power system operation is a dynamic balancing act. The idea that you seem to be stuck on is not that we can’t meet minimum demand with renewables alone (of course we can), it’s that we may not be able to meet a later peak without running thermal generators, which means running the thermal plnt earlier, because they have long lead times.
(And that’s before bringing in technical services like inertia, PFR, system strength, voltage support, frequency regulation and contingency reserves.)
Dandy Murray
Oh please, that’s too much for any intelligent person to take in at this time on a Saturday night, let alone P1.
Great information best left for daytime review.
Keep up the good work.
Been there,
Fair enough, tho I’m in Qld 🙂
Dandy Murray
Don’t worry I’ve copied ready to read tomorrow.
Go QLD!
Born and bred in Cairns myself.
Unfortunately my wharfie dad had to move south once they built the sugar loader terminal in Trinity Inlet.
What I don’t understand is the security breach justification for the alleged rapists sacking, as I have a family member who is a staffer & is required to frequently work long hours into the night including weekends using their digital pass. This access doesn’t require a parliamentary guard to either unlock or lock the office in order to gain admittance. Entry into the Ministers’ office by the alleged perpetrator wouldn’t be possible unless he had a valid pass & if so how has he breached security?
I saw reported that the alleged signed in the offended. But left her in the office and exited the building. So didn’t escort her out. A convenient case for a c u later.
Red Clyde @ #1969 Saturday, February 20th, 2021 – 9:23 pm
I would say the breach would relate to entering the office after hours when no work related matters required it.
I promise I won’t hold this against you.. 🙂
Dandy Murray says:
Saturday, February 20, 2021 at 11:20 pm
P1,
I’m trying to work out where the gap in your understanding is.
The point of their postings is to deride Labor. End of story. They have never seen a renewable power concept to which they did not take an immediate dislike. They are immune to new information. They are reactionary to the core.
P1 Is like the liberal party stuck on only one solution.
Good morning Dawn Patrollers
In a measured evaluation of the situation, Jack Waterford writes that Scott Morrison’s handling of Brittany Higgins rape allegations lack empathy. He also says he has “never seen, over 50 years, a more slippery customer than Morrison, a person more impossible to pin down, chronically secretive, truculent, and given to marketing verbiage in the thickets of which it is almost impossible to separate the new from the old, the fact from the hope, or the dream from the substance.” Wow!
https://www.canberratimes.com.au/story/7133899/once-again-the-pm-has-shown-he-has-no-empathy-for-human-emotions/?cs=14350
James Massola and Fergus Hunter tell us that Morrison was “sickened” by the alleged rape of former Liberal staffer Brittany Higgins, declaring “Parliament should be setting the standard” for workplace culture in Australia. The trouble for Morrison is who will believe that it is Higgins and the other woman that he is concerned about and not the politics.
https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/parliament-should-be-setting-the-standard-pm-blasts-workplace-culture-after-second-rape-allegation-20210219-p573zn.html
John Lord expounds upon a tale of two wrongs: a rape and the Prime Minister’s response.
https://theaimn.com/a-tale-of-two-wrongs-a-rape-and-the-prime-ministers-response/
Michael Koziol reports that Queensland’s Chief Health Officer has indicated the state is highly unlikely to close its borders or impose any more lockdowns in the event of a COVID-19 outbreak now that vaccination is about to commence.
https://www.smh.com.au/national/queensland-s-chief-health-officer-hopes-vaccines-will-end-border-closures-20210220-p5749j.html
And Koziol explores what it will take to inoculate us against lockdowns.
https://www.smh.com.au/national/let-freedom-ring-what-will-it-take-to-inoculate-us-against-lockdowns-20210218-p573tl.html
The editorial in The Age is concerned that moving quarantine into the regions carries significant risk and logistical challenges. The quarantine system requires a large workforce. It says bringing a workforce of this size in and out of regional facilities and accommodating them would prove a challenge.
https://www.theage.com.au/politics/federal/regional-australia-cannot-carry-all-the-quarantine-risk-20210220-p574a1.html
Cait Kelly reports that tensions between Beijing and Washington have escalated, with the Chinese government pushing for a World Health Organisation investigation into whether the coronavirus pandemic was birthed from a lab in the United States.
https://thenewdaily.com.au/news/coronavirus/2021/02/20/who-china-covid-conspiracy-us/
Australia’s recovery appears to be going well, but it’s still very weird out there points out Greg Jericho.
https://www.theguardian.com/business/commentisfree/2021/feb/21/australias-recovery-appears-to-be-going-well-but-its-still-very-weird-out-there
Facebook is gambling Australia can’t live without it. Imagine if we prove it wrong writes Lenore Taylor.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/feb/19/facebook-is-gambling-australia-cant-live-without-it-imagine-if-we-prove-them-wrong
The Australian’s Katrina Grace Kelly writes about the parlous state of the Victorian Liberal Party.
https://www.theaustralian.com.au/inquirer/what-should-state-libs-stand-for-ask-the-silent-majority/news-story/6bc37f62dc4d249f876c287b96fff573
Crispin Hull reminds us of how scare campaigns lead to significant reform.
https://www.canberratimes.com.au/story/7132096/how-scare-campaigns-lead-to-significant-reform/?cs=14258
A league table system for the embattled aged care sector has been created by SA researchers – but they fear the public might never get to use it.
https://www.adelaidenow.com.au/news/south-australia/sahmri-league-table-could-reveal-aged-cares-best-and-worst/news-story/c2818dc68e7628b41de6d710c0b03709
There were a few small gatherings of idiots around the country demonstrating against the vaccination rollout.
https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/left-exposed-plea-to-give-australia-s-diplomatic-staff-priority-vaccine-access-20210219-p5744z.html
Cartoon Corner
Matt Golding
Matt Davidson
Reg Lynch
Glen Le Lievre
Andrew Dyson
Mark Knight
From the US
when did the media know about these alleged rape cases, if the media knew before the 2019 federal election why did the media keep quiet, aren’t the media organisation and so called journalist if they knew aren’t they guilty of keeping alleged crime quiet.
More reason for media reforms to come in and stop this corruption in the media
Good morning and thanks BK for the Dawn Patrol.
From the BK Files 👇👇👇
In a measured evaluation of the situation, Jack Waterford writes that Scott Morrison’s handling of Brittany Higgins rape allegations lack empathy. He also says he has “never seen, over 50 years, a more slippery customer than Morrison, a person more impossible to pin down, chronically secretive, truculent, and given to marketing verbiage in the thickets of which it is almost impossible to separate the new from the old, the fact from the hope, or the dream from the substance.” Wow!
https://www.canberratimes.com.au/story/7133899/once-again-the-pm-has-shown-he-has-no-empathy-for-human-emotions/?cs=14350
“Wow” indeed…….
Holding breath starting ……..now…
https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/it-s-not-optional-debt-collectors-sent-in-for-overdue-quarantine-hotel-bills-20210219-p5747y.html
The NSW government has called in debt collectors to chase $16.4 million owed by more than 7000 returning Australians for their stay in mandatory hotel quarantine in Sydney.
Revenue NSW figures as of Friday, February 19 show debt recovery orders have been issued for 5264 invoices covering 7214 travellers. These bills are more than two months overdue.
Not good enough glady! Chasing debt during a pandemic which you help cause!
Asking for a friend 😉 but will the new deal between google and news publications allow us to access their content from behind their impenetrable paywalls? Thinking about The Canberra Times here.
Jeez. What a load of tripe got posted here after I went to bed last night. So much gaslighting you could power the grid with it.
I am simply astonished that so many nominally Labor people seem completely unaware of Labor’s draft energy policy, particularly its position on gas.
No wonder the energy debate in this country continues to go nowhere.
Seems like we have gone from sports rorts and porkbarrelling to the big prick rollout.
Here’s a list of priority vaccination sites in QLD.
Player One @ #1980 Sunday, February 21st, 2021 – 4:41 am
😆
You do seem to be arguing against knowledge.
Greensborough Growler
Sunday, February 21st, 2021 – 7:46 am
Comment #1982
I suspected this when the local TV had an item showing that staff at the John Hunter hospital (biggest outside Sydney) are not a priority.
How to Scott Morrison.
C@tmomma @ #1979 Sunday, February 21st, 2021 – 7:38 am
There is an addon for both Firefox and Chrome which will enable reading of most papers .
https://github.com/iamadamdev/bypass-paywalls-chrome
The security breach was signing someone in but then leaving them in the building.
Which is code for ‘we’ve got to get rid of you but we can’t make it public why.’
I think if the ALP focus on a few issues they can beat Scomo/Scmoko. He is a flim flam man ,at least Albo seems sincere . Climate change with the merciful demise of the madcap dimwitted former President is the number one issue. Also the parlous state of our relationship to China driven by anti communist zealots in the LNP. ALP can run good fear campaigns like Mediscare and workchoices. Why not go hell for leather on climate change. Also the sleazy characters in the LNP ranks carrying on like 60s vintage ratpackers is a big turnoff. I think they need to be turfed out.
Viola Wills had a song for that back in the day.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0WrpgXJzX7U
Clearly, the really clever people abandoned old media years ago in favour of the internet.
As I’ve often said, over the years the msm have chastised political parties for losing primary votes, branch members and failing to connect with ordinary voters, whilst themselves losing readership at massive rates.
They really seemed to believe the internet was a passing fad and that they didn’t have to change the way they operated in response to it. When they did, it was with a mixed bag of approaches – put everything on line, put some things on line, have paywalls, don’t have paywalls….
If google and facebook can not just keep operating (which many media outlets struggle to do) but make motzas of profit without requiring a subscription (and they’re using a very old model, in internet terms – I remember being astonished when I set up my first yahoo account that it was costing me nothing…) then newspapers should have been able to use the same model and achieve the same outcomes.
Even now, instead of innovating, the msm run bleating to the government about how it’s all so unfair (surely sooking that ‘these organisations provide us with free advertising and a wider audience’ struck someone in government as a strange beef) and get them to ‘fix’ it for them.
Because they don’t recognise their real problems, of course they have no idea about how to fix them, so I expect that this will backfire on them bigly.
Maley’s piece in the SMH “Call her Ms Higgins: the PM’s over-familiarity is revealing”…fantastic analysis of LNP and Morrison’s attitude to women….doesn’t even go into their treatment of Gillard.
Pigs.
Greensborough Growler
Sunday, February 21st, 2021 – 7:46 am
Comment #1982
Seems like we have gone from sports rorts and porkbarrelling to the big prick rollout.
Here’s a list of priority vaccination sites in QLD.
———————————
Didn’t they win all of Qld?
If the Victorian sites are all in Higgins, Goldstein, Kooyong, Deakin and Chisholm, I’d agree the prick Rort is in…
The first cases of the H5N8 bird flu strain have been detected in humans, scientists have said – though there are no signs of transmission between people.
Authorities in Russia have sent information to the World Health Organisation on seven cases that were detected in workers at a poultry farm last December in the south of the country.
The cases were reported “several days ago, just as we became absolutely certain of our results,” said
The workers were infected with H5N8 following an outbreak of the virus at the farm, but did not suffer any serious health consequences and have since made a full recovery. “This situation did not develop further,” Ms Popova added.
The highly contagious strain is lethal for birds but this is the first reported instance of H5N8 passing from the animals into humans.
‘Facebook is gambling Australia can’t live without it. Imagine if we prove it wrong writes Lenore Taylor.’
No, facebook is gambling it can live without providing news outlets a free platform.
Apart from the initial glitches, which seem to be addressed, facebook seems to be doing fine.
Again, the media thinks it’s all about them.
facebook is a tool. Most people use it for its original purpose, which was to stay in touch with friends and family.
Alpha Zero @ #1995 Sunday, February 21st, 2021 – 8:14 am
Check for yourself!
See Kay Jays response earlier.
Source please? How do the other states compare?