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.
Did people in the UK think Brexit would magically place the UK Uber Alles?
Scotty is such a fake. He hugs the old lady who has just been vaccinated, then ostentatiously bumps elbows with the nurse. Then leads ‘Jane’ by hand to a seat to sit down.
NSW – Donut community transmission, 3 quarantined travelers.
35 days with no reported locally acquired cases
This is a brilliant opinion piece by Nick Cohen about the main architect of the Brexit deal, David Frost, and his rise up the greasy pole of politics via Brexit:
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/feb/20/david-frost-rise-eu-uk-relations
And the ABC doing a “landed on Mars” imitation. wtte “The first vaccination was at xx minutes xx seconds …”
lizzie @ #1738 Sunday, February 21st, 2021 – 11:19 am
So he disregards correct protocol for one but ostentatiously performs it for the other.
Sick making.
Wouldn’t it be great if he cared as much about young women in his government’s employ?
Billy Ray @BillyRay5229
I disagree with @aoc about a lot… But she’s easing the suffering of people that will NEVER vote for her (some of whom want to destroy her).
That’s the right thing to do. Leadership. Governance. Compassion.
THAT is “America First.”
New Yorker AOC continues to show up Ted Cruz — has now raised $4 million for Texas
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) suffered a politically devastating week after fleeing Texas during an emergency to vacation in Cancun.
His leadership gap was filled by Democrats such as former Rep. Beto O’Rourke (D-TX) and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY).
O’Rourke organized his supporters to make phone calls to check on the welfare of senior citizens in Texas.
Ocasio-Cortez used her massive social media follow to raise money for Texas nonprofits responding to the crisis. On Saturday, she announced that over $4 million had been raised.
https://www.rawstory.com/aoc-texas/
You know what Ted Cruz should have said to his privileged offspring who whined at him about wanting to get away from their conditions in Texas?
No, you can’t have a holiday in Cancun. You will come with me to help out the poor people of Texas!
The British thought that they voted for fewer foreigners but everything else staying the same. They are now finding out what they actually voted for.
Vaccinations administered daily now being reported –
https://covidlive.com.au/report/vaccinations
https://covidlive.com.au/report/daily-vaccinations/nsw
Player One says:
Sunday, February 21, 2021 at 7:41 am
..
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.
P1, in my view the reason why the energy debate goes nowhere with you, your trying to separate politics from technical reality, and you really have no clue when the technical issues are discussed.
DM gave you a very clear explanation on why there is a minimum minimum and you chose to ignore his post, responding with information free nonsense instead. Oh poor P1, no-one is listening to your brilliance, sob sob.
Sorry mate, my impression, DM has forgotten more than I know on the topic, and I work in the area. P1 still hasn’t picked up a kindergarten primer.
MormorLady (I Don’t Hold the Hose Mate)
@mormorlady
FFS- He wears a T shirt with Self Promo self named nickname “SCOMO” on his back
What a wanker !!
Vaccinations administered daily now being reported –
They left out the Liberal Party logo.
P.S. First vaccine recipient (vaccinatee?) is an 84 year old Sydney lady in aged care.
Frednk @ #1748 Sunday, February 21st, 2021 – 11:29 am
It takes a while but eventually people get it about P1.
Give me the views of Dandy Murray and frednk any day.
Steve777 @ #1750 Sunday, February 21st, 2021 – 11:31 am
Puts on cynical hat. Mother of someone aligned with the Liberal Party or a Life Member of the Liberal Party?
Frednk
P1 comes to this site to demonstrate how much cleverer she is than anybody else.
This means she can’t learn, let alone accept correction – that would be admitting that others had something to teach her, and then bang! goes the sense of superiority.
zoomster @ #1753 Sunday, February 21st, 2021 – 11:33 am
Boo yeah!
Ye gods, the amount I have learned that I don’t know by coming here! I appreciate being called out though because then I can test my beliefs against those who say I know not what I am talking about. Sometimes though I prove to myself I am right, however, but only after rigorous cross-checking.
My mum had a name for people like P1. ‘Clever clogs’. I don’t know what it means but I do know what it was meant to mean. 🙂
N @ #2086 Sunday, February 21st, 2021 – 10:53 am
From someone who claims to have co-authored a WA LAbor energy policy document (which one, by the way – have you decided yet?) I would expect that you would at least have glanced at the policy proposals of your Federal counterparts. But apparently not.
As for politically motivated misinformation and obfuscation, it is all from your side. I do not “deny the reality of investments in renewables in storage”, nor do I “call for new investment to be focused on gas rather than renewables and storage”.
However, I don’t really want to waste yet another day arguing with the PB Hive Mind, so I will just ask you the same question I asked frednk yesterday – are you in favor of actively closing down all coal-fired power stations, given that we already have all the necessary alternatives to provide baseload power?
It’s not a difficult question.
I confess that I couldn’t make it to the end of Lenore Taylor’s anti Facebook tirade. Too sick making. Too self serving. Too devoid of facts. Astonishingly awful.
I think what Lenore – and all the other MSM media Shills – are going to find out is that Facebook users in Australia will cope quite well with News links not automatically coming up on their Facebook feed.
Ther are a number of fallacies behind the rhetoric. Australians are in no way ‘dependant’ on Facebook for news or public announcements. Many Australians do (up until Thursday at least) get their news and current affairs information via the Facebook platform out of convenience. Now that the convenient has gone, Australians will simply adapt to other platforms – TV, Radio, Apps, other online platforms, including social media all exist outside the Facebook bubble. The fact that Australians take their news via Facebook links demonstrates that they are adapters. They can – and will – simply adapt away from Facebook for News and links to other ‘news like’ information.
The confected outrage by MSM over community pages and public service announcements being cut is both risible and also something of a ‘7 day wonder’. Firstly, these pages were cut because of the complete overreach in the definition of ‘news’ in the Government’s legislation: which was drafted by MSM lobbyists. The Government and MSM are largely to blame. That being said, Facebook immediately started to in-block community pages, satirical news pages and public service announcement pages. Ina week’s time we will look back as see this as a complete non-issue.
In the longer term, I suspect that Facebook is using Australia as a bit of an experiment. It actually generates a very small proportion of its traffic – and hence advertising revenue – by hosting news outlets on its platform, or in permitting Facebook users to link to news content on their own pages. Yet nearly all the ‘trouble’ Facebook has gotten itself into has involved this news links.
Commercially, Zuck seems to be asking himself – ‘is news worth it’? I suspect the answer will be either ‘no’ (therefore total bans on news links, alla Australia at the moment), or ‘partially no’ and Facebook will restrict links to News providers that are largely anodyne – ie. genuine news stories and no commentary or opinion pieces and perhaps only from selected sources: perhaps if Zuck simply brought AAP and provided a direct feed to its stories without any other media players being involved, that might work out quite well for Facebook. Of course if he does that then Facebook is a publisher and content provider without question – which then creates its own regulatory problems for the platform. So, I reckon Zuck may ditch news globally.
So, SfM gets the vaccine with a 10% fail rate while most others get the bargain bin vaccine with a 40% fail rate.
A_E
It wouldn’t surprise me – in fact, it surprises me that this hasn’t already happened – if one of the social media giants starts its own news service.
Now that WOULD create serious problems, not just for the msm but for democracy generally, but basically the ‘old media’ is admitting its business model has failed and that it’s incapable of meeting the challenges of ‘new’ media.
They may be able to prop the structure up a bit longer, with the help of complacent governments, but – without dramatic changes – they’ll become increasingly irrelevant.
…and nature abhors a vacuum.
He’s everyone’s new best friend today. Paddling like crazy. Makes me tired.
I’ve hardly ever used my facebook account. It’s mostly dormant.
I get all my news from selected journo’s on twitter. Very efficient. Grog is an excellent follow.
lizzie @ #2124 Sunday, February 21st, 2021 – 11:46 am
lizzie,
He was in a business shirt before hand.
We know from his history that Scotty has no idea how to roll up his sleeves for anything.
Barney in Tanjung Bunga @ #1971 Sunday, February 21st, 2021 – 12:03 am
Still catching up, so apologies if this is a repeat. The point is why wasn’t she sacked or otherwise reprimanded? That she wasn’t suggests the sacking was a cover up.
I basically only use facebook to keep in touch with family – share photos, share family news, organise get-togethers. Some other stuff gets into my feed which I’ll occasionally ‘like’ or comment on, but I don’t get “News” from it. I’ve noticed no change during the current kerfuffle.
Zoom: I suspect that the MSM-Liberal party gambit with its current legislation is not just about money: its about breaking net neutrality, bringing new tech to heal but also including them into the Rum Corp oligarchy that sustains the ‘small government, big kick backs’ operating model in Australia.
If it was just about money, both Newscorpse and 9 Entertainment would have abandoned their pay walls in favour of front loading advertising on any link that may be clicked from either a google search or via a social media platform.
C@tmomma @ #2115 Sunday, February 21st, 2021 – 11:32 am
Feeling left out again, C@t? Did you miss a heartworm tablet or something?
Rex Douglas says:
Sunday, February 21, 2021 at 11:42 am
So, SfM gets the vaccine with a 10% fail rate while most others get the bargain bin vaccine with a 40% fail rate.
The important figure is will you die if you get covid. For the both vaccines the answer is no.
It is going to take a long tong time to vaccine all. As we are manufacturing here we know what the figure is. One million doses a week, 2 doses needed, 25 million Australians, job will be done about march 2022. this is not all over for a long long time.
It is absolutely best if this does not become a political issue. And there is absolutely nothing wrong with the PM as an overweight male stepping up to show it really is risk free.
GG
Quite so.
But he could have worn a jacket over a T-shirt for a quick change (as a woman might do). He’s also wearing the same droopy-bummed trousers from yesterday. No taste at all.
Rex Douglas @ #2125 Sunday, February 21st, 2021 – 11:47 am
Don’t do Facebook.
Get my news from all over the world.
Can’t see what all the fuss is about.
What did people do before FB?
Sceptic @ #2094 Sunday, February 21st, 2021 – 11:10 am
On his pole?
zoomster @ #1988 Sunday, February 21st, 2021 – 7:02 am
Thanks. That makes sense as far as it goes. But if that was the only transgression recorded, why wasn’t she also reprimanded. The only answer is that it was a cover up.
After the 84yo “WW2 survivor’, Morrison, Kelly and chief nurse get Pfizer vaccine in big PR event. (ABC updates).
Subsidy seeking land clearer ?
That eats roots leaves…
Seeing front line health workers get the jab first should be convincing enough for everyone else to have confidence.
SfM, unlike the selfless Jacinda Ardern, is just promoting himself like always.
Scotty still has his mother and mother in law at Kirribilli house. Both old. Both more in need of the Jab than Scotty.
Steve
Likewise.
The Facebook business made no difference to me.
If I want to know the weather i go direct to BoM page, not Facebook version.
Same with a few other things of interest.
Good thing is that Facebook has stopped cluttering my page with links to stories in The West Australian that are paywalled anyway. And that I wouldn’t read.
lizzie says:
Sunday, February 21, 2021 at 12:00 pm
Scotty still has his mother and mother in law at Kirribilli house. Both old. Both more in need of the Jab than Scotty.
Are they his daughters, does scotty care?
Now he’s doing a Churchillian “I stand before you… to prove it’s safe.”
Re Cambarra times on google news.
If you go through google news you still end up on a subscribe page.
Google news would be better if they only linked to pages you can read.
Barney
“I wonder what Albo’s response will be. He’s down for one later in the week.”
Initially there was no mention of Albo being offered vaccination but I wondered if Morrison was getting flak about Jacinda Adern waiting her turn so Hunt announced this am that Albo and 2 other Labor MPs would be offered it. This Govt does nothing out of the goodness of its own heart to help Labor and Greens.
Late Riser @ #2134 Sunday, February 21st, 2021 – 11:59 am
Any Inquiry will necessarily have to consider Higgins behaviour and actions on the night in question However, any recommendation to admonish or punish her will be political dynamite for Morrison and the Government.
On the narrow point of Facebook usage, I’m with Mundo et al.
Who needs Facebook?
Who needs to access news from Facebook?
If you think about it, very few.
The worst foreign policy crisis since Federation could yet morph into the worst military crisis since Federation.
At any moment Xi’s bellicose threats, constant jet sorties into Taiwan, and general warmongering behaviour could accidentally result in either a limited cross-Taiwan Straits war or even an all-out East Asian War. Alternatively, Xi may not rely on the piecemeal mix of Cyber attacks, economic attacks, anger venting and small-scale military incursions. He may ultimately order a deliberate invasion of Taiwan.
Fortunately, Australia is well-prepared for either the accidental or deliberate conflagration. Our war making governance arrangements are in fine fettle:
‘Just ask Jen.’
https://www.news.com.au/world/asia/china-deploys-fighter-jets-in-south-china-sea-escalating-taiwan-conflict/news-story/327f1df26d4b6eabdb3d7ba60920eaa5
Wouldn’t shock me to hear that Ms Higgins’ drinks were spiked on the night in question.
This alleged perpetrator sounds like a real scumbag that would do that.
“Will Morrison take his jab like the greek PM?”
Phew, GG! That is definitely eye candy for an old lady as CTar1 would say, bless him.
True?
I hope the vaccination rollout goes smoothly but it will be interesting to see how the coming days and weeks unfold as people present to receive the vaccination and are told it is not available to them.
Morrison appears atm to be over egging the roll out and perhaps the detail will be lost in all the noise around how great Scotty is.
My understanding ( more than happy to be corrected ) is the majority of Australians will not be vaccinated until the middle of this year at least. Will this fact be lost on the good citizens of this great country ?