As brought to you by The Australian, Newspoll maintains its sedentary ways in its latest poll, which repeats the previous result three weeks ago in recording a dead head on two-party preferred. Labor is up a point on the primary vote to 37%, while the Coalition on 42%, the Greens on 10% and One Nation on 3% are all unchanged. Despite a seemingly difficult week for Scott Morrison, he gains one on approval to 64% and drops one on disapproval to 32% and widens his lead as preferred prime minister from 57-29 to 61-26, as Anthony Albanese drops three on approval to 38% and rises two on disapproval to 45%. The poll was conducted Wednesday to Saturday from a sample of 1504.
There was also a poll on Friday from Roy Morgan, which sometimes publishes its regular federal voting intention polling and sometimes doesn’t. In this case Labor was credited with a bare lead of 50.5-49.5, from primary votes of Coalition 40%, Labor 34.5%, the Greens 13% and One Nation 3.5%. The poll was conducted over the previous two weekends online and by phone from a sample of 2824.
Between Newspoll, Roy Morgan and Essential Research, there are now three pollsters who rate the situation as steady of with Labor fractionally ahead. This is reflected in the BludgerTrack poll aggregate, now updated with the above results on both the voting intention and leadership rating trends, which has Labor edging ahead to a 50.2-49.8 lead.
The letter urges the Prime Minister to set up an independent parliamentary investigation into the matter, similar to that commissioned by the High Court into allegations against former Justice, Dyson Heydon.
——————————
With Morrison anything is possible but
I hope this is not misinterpreted , that Dyson Heydon should be leading the investigation
heather r,
I think Rupert has taken notice of the fact that popular ALP state leaders are driving a boost in the popularity of the Federal ALP, according to Newspoll.
So, before Scotty from Marketing can call the next election, Queensland LNP needs to get itself a new Campbell Newman – a saviour who everyone will love, and who will convince Queenslanders that the LNP is back in business, and although it is horrible that they have to wait for 3.5 years before they can kick Anna P out, they can send a message by voting LNP at the federal election.
I think until the Federal next election Anna P will have to continue her steady-as-she-goes government.
Rupert will be looking for any excuse to have “state Labor scandals” / “Labor coming for your honest tradie jobs” / “Eco-fascists are pulling the strings” all over the front pages of his 13 out of 14 media organisations in QLD that he owns – he does not keep open things that are operating at a loss for the heck of it!
I’m still trying to understand the morality that requires a living victim to prosecute a crime. (Is it better to say, alleged crime?) But that it is apparently so means that there can be no exoneration of the accused and no conviction either. This is a test of Morrison and his cabinet. Will the man step forward? Will Morrison do anything?
Late Riser @ #2803 Saturday, February 27th, 2021 – 2:17 pm
It is a fairly common legal principle that someone accused of a crime has a right to confront their accuser. If the evidence is overwhelming then a case could still be made, but if the evidence is weak, circumstantial or uncorroborated, it would be difficult to get a conviction.
On the question of whether the ABC “left out” anything from the Four Corners episode, obviously its possible but I also think this other article gives a more plausible explanation.
Since the Higgins story has come out Louise Milligan has reported the ABC has received a large number of complaints from additional women. We don’t know how many more have made complaints, or might do so.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-02-23/brittany-higgins-sexual-assault-fourth-allegation-parliament/13178072?utm_source=abc_news_web&utm_medium=content_shared&utm_content=twitter&utm_campaign=abc_news_web
It appears that the identity of the accused cabinet minister boils down to two taking into account their age, the date of the alleged rape, their probable location at the relevant time. If he doesn’t step forward it’s probable that he’ll be named under privilege, though the person who names him will probably be referred to the Privileges’ Committee of either chamber. I really can’t see SHY keeping mum for too long though I think Wong, who became aware of the complaint and some of the details of the allegation in 2019, would be more cautious. So tragic that the day after she withdrew her complaint (June 23, 2020), she ended her life.
How to Bitcoin!
https://twitter.com/i/status/1365069357475389453
“I’m still trying to understand the morality that requires a living victim to prosecute a crime”
It is not a question of morality. It is a question of whether admissible evidence exists and the prospects of a successful conviction in light of that admissible evidence.
For Pell’s alleged victim 2 (who was dead), there was admissible evidence including exculpatory evidence. Hence a prosecution.
D&M
That triggers a similar thought, namely they need the federal LNP to protect them from 100% Labor. It’s a simple message. (And refutable.) But the danger for the LNP in Rupert’s current strategy is that it exposes a deep internal disunity. The LNP are not a team. L and N are an emulsion, like oil and water in mayonnaise, and they’re splitting. To overcome that they’ll need a saviour to hide the disunity and bully any wanderers. We were OS before 2012, but we did live in Brisbane through the Newman Arrogance Period. A Newman clone will be tough sell.
Player One:
Saturday, February 27, 2021 at 2:25 pm
You omitted contemporaneous hearsay, which can be admissible, an example of which, a person subject to a rape runs to a neighbour’s house informing “I’ve just been raped”.
Player One @ #2805 Saturday, February 27th, 2021 – 1:25 pm
Thanks for the reply. I understand the principal. It’s the morality I struggle with. Crimes against young children for example, or as I’m reading about in this case, of rape/suicide.
I’m channeling PvO with a WOW.
I got a text this morning from a mate whose gives me Liberal Party goss and he reckons when the cabinet minister is revealed it wont be a shock and there are similar stories floating around twitter about this person but he isn’t from Sydney so i have some doubts to this story.
Yesterday someone asked who would benefit from this story coming out and if my source is right then its coincidence that one of the main benefactors has a nice buff piece in today’s paper.
My guess is Porter.
All the speculation we are seeing here on this reasonably restrained site demonstrates why Morrison need to get this matter resolved bloody quickly!
Mexicanbeemer @ #2813 Saturday, February 27th, 2021 – 1:42 pm
Sydney hosted world uni debating 1988
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Universities_Debating_Championship
Shellbell @ #2809 Saturday, February 27th, 2021 – 1:32 pm
Thanks. And if I understand your earlier post, with her death there is insufficient evidence to proceed. Which leads me to wonder if different processes had been followed there might have been evidence. (I read somewhere that she had written a lengthy detailed declaration and given it to her lawyer.) I lack the knowledge to pursue these thoughts. It’s frustrating.
Questions have been raised about Federal Attorney-General Christian Porter’s attitude towards women, after a Four Corners investigation revealed a history of sexism and inappropriate behaviour.
Key points:
A Four Corners investigation reveals concerns about Christian Porter’s attitude towards women, dating back decades.
His alleged behaviour includes making unwanted advances to women while in federal office
Mr Porter released a statement denying the claims made against him
Following revelations Mr Porter was warned by then-prime minister Malcolm Turnbull about public behaviour with a young female staffer, contributing to Mr Turnbull’s infamous “bonk ban”, the investigation has also discovered that concerns about the Attorney-General’s behaviour go back decades.
The alleged behaviour includes public drunkenness and making unwanted advances to women during his time in federal politics. Other allegations go back to when he was a champion debater in his university days, and later while a Crown prosecutor in WA.
Four Corners has spoken to dozens of former and currently serving political staffers, members of Parliament and members of the legal profession.
Many have worked within, been members of, or voted for the Liberal Party, and many have volunteered examples of what they believe is inappropriate conduct by Mr Porter, which has continued since his elevation to federal political office.
Hard to see any other than Porter.
steve davis
That ties in with the attempt by LNP to shut down the Canberra Bubble story.
Lynchpin says:
Saturday, February 27, 2021 at 1:50 pm
Has Morrison’s government reached “embattled” stage yet?
Hopefully that happens soon but in the meantime “ludicrous” would be a good description of their behaviour.
I asked him if he knew Brittany Higgins and he said no but had heard she was good at her job and was well liked.
Mexicanbeemer:
Saturday, February 27, 2021 at 2:42 pm
[‘…about this person but he isn’t from Sydney so i have some doubts to this story.’]
While unware of its veracity, someone posted on this site that a certain person traveled to Sydney around the relevant time to take part in a debating competition.
Lizzie
Of course, surely not a coincidence.
Obviously that is not the case, otherwise no-one would ever be prosecuted for murder or manslaughter.
As others have pointed out, where there are no eye witnesses, no forensic evidence and the offence was 33 years ago (rendering memories less reliable), it is mostly a “he-said/she-said” situation.
Even if the lady was still alive a prosecution would have a low chance of success, absent a confession or independently corroborative evidence.
What beats me is how Porter came to be given so many and such influential ministries in Morrison’s Cabinet.
Lizzie
Morrison just as bad because he is still backing Porter up.
The alleged perp in Ms Higgins case has has had at least 3 new accusers stand up since news broke.
Theses acts are not one offs.
The 4 corners evidence leads creedence to this. More will appear.
steve davis
Of course he is. He’s also having to ‘work’ this weekend, to find reasons not to accept the recommendations of the Aged Care Report.
I’m going with the former.
Indeed. The longer this lingers and they’re trying to explain it away, the more they’re losing control of the narrative. Right now they’re looking increasingly chaotic and undisciplined, and the Flint announcement can trigger a narrative of rats deserting a sinking ship. Compare that with Albanese who has been confidently talking about policy and their focus on what they’ll do when they’re back in government. Whether or not this is resonating with voters or will have any long-term effect with voters (sometimes us hyper-engaged can be more sensitive to these things than regular voters), I have no idea but this is an episode Morrison and the Liberals need like a hole in the head.
lizzie @ #2825 Saturday, February 27th, 2021 – 1:54 pm
It’s a boys club ?
Mavis @ #2811 Saturday, February 27th, 2021 – 2:36 pm
As I said, if the evidence is strong enough, you could still get a conviction. But I suspect it would need to be stronger than that.
Albo will be on Insiders tomorrow.
F35 and Frenchie Submarines: Part 2
Turning now to the F35 program.
23 years or so ago, one could see the allure of a common airframe being the basis for the next generation standard fighter for the USAF, USN and Marines. It was never intended to be a low cost fighter – just one that was lower in costs than the big twin engine fighters that formed the ‘high cost’ front line – the F14, F15 and the soon to be in service FA18E/F Superhornets and the F22 Raptor.
By 2000 the F16 itself was no longer a ‘low cost’ fighter – it had been loaded up with ‘electronic junk’ and radar guided missiles and bombs, much to the annoyance of the high priests of the fighter mafia like Pierre Sprey. Not surprising really given that within visual range air to air missions had become effectively redundant over the previous 20 years.
In hindsight the JSF program was overly ambitious and created a monopolistic aerospace cartel: effectively the old industrial-military complex on steroids. By the beginning of the Obama administration it was out of control without any clear road map of how it was going to achieve its stated goals. That, coupled with the redundancy of the expensive F22 program (again – within visual range air to air missions are largely redundant, and its internal payload capabilities too limited for stealth interdiction – itself a largely redundant mission given the development of long range strike missiles).
The program needed to be totally restructured. Some of the original design requirements (mainly relating to within visual range manoeuvrability and the development of the canon) were put on a slow boat.
Now, 8 years, and although there are still some bugs to iron out, the F35 is now capable of achieving all its mission specifications across each of the three variants.
For brevity, I’m not going to get into arguments in this long post about manoeuvrability or the ALIS system, or the helmet etc etc. But other than die hard critics like the aforementioned Pierre Sprey and propaganda outfits like RT News it is generally accepted that the F35 will ‘do the job’ or series of jobs it was always intended to do. Even Sprey concedes as much – although he still whinges about manoeuvrability and close air support. But he’s a procurement guy – not an engineer or pilot and frankly he’s astonishingly ignorant when his claims are closely scrutinised.
I’ll just indulge in one side track to demonstrate a point. Sprey argues that because the F35 has tiny wings and is weighed down with ‘junk’ that it isn’t fast enough or manoeuvrable enough to replace his beloved F16. In about 2017 there was an article by “War is Boring” that was supposed to contained leaked information from a test done the previous year matching up an old 2 seater F16 against an F35 in some within visual range manoeuvrability tests and apparently the F16 smashed the F35.
The funny thing was that Lockheed Martin actually reported on this test on their official website six months before. It turns out that the F35 in question was limited to 4G manoeuvres. The purpose of the test was not to see whether the F35 could beat the F16, rather how well it could keep up within those strict limits. So impressed was the JSF program office with the results that they actually brought forward the manoeuvrability program by a whole year and tasked a group to further develop air to air tactics but with the manoeuvrability limitations increase to 6.5G. By the time that the War is Boring article came out the F35 was routinely beating F16s in mock air to air, even though the F16 was allowed to manoeuvre at its maximum G limits and the F35 wasn’t. By the time that the F35 debuted at the annual ‘Red Flag’ war games it was routinely beating 4th generation fighters at a better than 15:1 kill ratio (4th gen fighters that it gone up against at fed flags include the F16, the FA18 super hornet, the F15 and international invitationals like the Typhoon Eurofighter). It will even kill F22s in beyond visual range scenarios.
In some way ‘the failure’ of the F35 is actually a reflection on its successes. What the last 3 red flag exercises has proven beyond doubt is that the greatest strength of the F35 is as a ‘force multiplier’: the ability to fuse with other platforms (ie. 4th generation fighters) and quarterback them in to strike scenarios safely within a field of battle even though the 4th generation planes lack stealth. A typical Red Flag exercise involves an attempt to obtain air superiority within a 10,000 square mile battle front. Each side may have up to four squadrons (48 individual planes) of fighters plus support planes. Air superiority is deemed to have been obtained when the enemies fighters are rendered in effective (ie killing more than 50%) and all the SAM systems on the ground are knocked out.
What Red Flag has demonstrated is that one single squadron of F35s, teamed with 3 squadrons of fourth generation planes, can as easily obtain air superiority over this battle front as 4 squadrons of 5th generation planes, because of ‘fusion’.
This is what this ‘failure’ debate is about. While the airframes of the F35 are as cost competitive as any legacy 4th generation platform the sustainment costs are 2 to 3 times higher. Whilst it is likely that Lockheed Martin will get its running costs down from around $40,000 per hour to under $30,000 that is still higher than the running costs of the big twin engined F15s, F15Es and FA18E/Fs. It is twice the cost of an F16 or an equivalent single engined 4th gen fighter like the Saab Griphon. So the been counters in the pentagon are asking why would we pay $44,000 per hour for 48 planes to obtain air superiority when we could be paying $44,000 per hour for 12 F35s, $30,000 per hour for 12 F15Es and $15,000 per hour for 24 F16s for the same mission?
Even though Lockheed have long stated that fusion was the key and have lobbied the pentagon to invest in the latest block F16s (as has Boeing re the FA18E/Fs and F15s) there has been no investment in either new variants of those planes alongside the F35 program or investment in a whole new airframe for a cheap and replacement.
Personally I think it is mad for the pentagon to invest in a new 4th generation airframe. I think they should simply place orders for new F15, F16 and FA18E/Fs to be rolled out alongside the F35.
I don’t think the USN can afford to cut the planed 240 plane buy of the F35C.
I think the marines can afford to cut their planned 420 plane purchase of the F35B to around 300. Probably in tandem with doubling its planned but of the F35C from 80 airframes to around 160: this would allow the marines to maintain a single squadron on each of the 11 super carriers that the USN has in operation – which has been the custom and practice since ww2.
I’m not sure it’s a good idea for the USAF to cut its planned purchase. Certainly it would be stupid to cut its purchases down to its current fleet of around 300.
In the long term, the USAF will get much better bang for buck by teaming the F35 (and later the planned 6th generation replacement – which can operate as either a manned or unmanned plane) with high speed low visibility modular multi-mission drones: just like the ‘Loyal Wingman’ project being developed jointly by Boeing and the RAAF.
This leads to a consideration of where the RAAF is placed right now. In summary, it is well placed. It currently has two operational squadrons (No.3 squadron and No 2 Conversion Unit) with the final two squadrons becoming operational by 2023. In addition it has 35 fairly new (ie. between 4 and 10 years old) Superhornet airframes (11 of which are the electronic warfare FA18G Growler version). We should have a dozen (hopefully more) Loyal Wingman drones to team with these manned platforms. If we purchased 11 new Superhornet Airframes, retained a dozen or so legacy hornets for conversion training) we could have two complete fighter wings and be able to deploy four squadrons (1 x F35, 1 x F18F, 1 x F18G and 1 loyal wingman) squadron to obtain air superiority over any battlefield that we may be called upon to deploy 1 or 2 brigades of ground troops over.
Part 3 will ask the question – what do we need from our ADF. And I’ll give my views on that. As a spoiler:
1.given the inherent unreliability of both of major trading partner (China) and our main defence ally (America) we need to develop a moderately more neutral atttitude to both (dialling down from eleventy in the trade elations stakes with China to about a 5 out of 10 and dialling down the defence relationship with America from eleventy to no more than 7 out of 10;
2. Given our Continental size, resources and strategic position astride 3 out of the worlds 5 oceans, we can’t afford to go the NZ route of having a ‘light infrantry force’ with a few patrol boats. It is in our strategic interests to increase defence spending by about 50% and foreign aid to 0.7% of GNP – like we should have always done.
More on that later in Part 3.
C@tmomma @ #2560 Friday, February 26th, 2021 – 10:03 pm
Historically, the only members of the British royal family who made the century were the Queen Mother and the Duchess of Gloucester. Hardly a comment on proving the superiority of a dynasty.
lizzie @ #3599 Saturday, February 27th, 2021 – 2:54 pm
I suspect he was the WA counter-Cormann in Scummo’s coup. Der KartoffelFührer might be stirring.
lizzie:
Saturday, February 27, 2021 at 2:54 pm
[‘What beats me is how Porter came to be given so many and such influential ministries in Morrison’s Cabinet.’]
He has a pretty good CV. Also, he thinks of himself as prime ministerial material, and that’s why I think Morrison increased his workload – Attorney-General, Industrial Relations, Leader of the House.
Late Riser @ #2812 Saturday, February 27th, 2021 – 2:38 pm
One should not confuse legal principles with morality 🙁
Always liked listening to K Rudd personally.
I have to say that after the last two weeks, Labor and Albanese are looking more and more like a viable alternative government.
Unsurprising how little has actually changed within the Liberal party…
Certain person was not 18 until July 1988 so, if certain person, reporting of name may be problematic in any event.
Thanks. I get that. That’s actually what triggered my question. Shellbell cleared some of it up for me.
Ballantyne: ‘Historically, the only members of the British royal family who made the century were the Queen Mother and the Duchess of Gloucester. Hardly a comment on proving the superiority of a dynasty.’
Probably a genetic weakness caused by all that inbreeding. If any group has had access to the best health care and nutritional food of the time throughout history, it’s the privileged royals.
Does former PM Rudd address his role in undermining only Oz female PM in his Courage book.
That would take courage and self-reflection particularly where such acts fit in the democratic framework.
shellbell @ #2846 Saturday, February 27th, 2021 – 12:12 pm
LOL true.
Andrew_Earlwood
I like you long-form articles. They are an interesting read.
The interest in these events for me is not in the personalities as much as the way Morrison and his crew deal with them.
“Certain person was not 18 until July 1988 so, if certain person, reporting of name may be problematic in any event.”
Shellbell – why?