Note posts below this on latest developments in the Western Australian campaign and a new state poll from South Australia. In other polling news, we have the latest from a regular series on issue salience and a state poll from Tasmania that I don’t quite feel warrants a post of its own:
• The latest True Issues survey of issue salience from JWS Research records a slight moderation of the coronavirus-driven peculiarities of the mid-year results, in that 42% now rate health among the top three issues (down from 47% in June, but still well up on 24% in February) and 19% do so for environment (up three on last time, but still well down on 26% in February. However, a spike in concern about the economy (steady at 32%, compared with 18% in February) and employment and wages (up two to 30%, compared with 21% in February) has not abated. Nineteen per cent rate the federal government’s response to COVID-19 as very good and 37% as good, but state governments collectively fare better at 29% and 35%. Positive ratings are markedly lower in Victoria for both the federal and state governments. Plenty more detail here from the poll, which was conducted from February 18 to 22 from a sample of 1000.
• The latest quarterly EMRS poll of state voting intention in Tasmania is little changed on the previous result in November, with the incumbent Liberals steady on 52%, Labor up two to 27% and the Greens up one to 14%, with the only complication to a static picture being a four point drop for “others” to 7%. Peter Gutwein’s lead over Labor’s Rebecca White as preferred premier is unchanged at 52-27. The poll was conducted by phone from Monday, February 15 to Tuesday, February 23, from a sample of 1000. Much analysis as always from Kevin Bonham.
Other relevant developments:
• The conventional wisdom that the election would be held in the second half of this year, most likely around September, was disturbed by an Age/Herald report last week that the Prime Minister had “told colleagues to plan for two federal budgets before the Coalition government heads to the polls”.
• Sarah Elks of The Australian reports Warren Entsch, who has held the far north Queensland seat of Leichhardt for the Liberals and the Liberal National Party outside of a one-term time-out from 2007 to 2010, has gone back on his decision to retire. The 70-year-old announced this term would be his last on the night of the 2019 election, but now feels it “incumbent on me during these uncertain times to continue to support our community and its residents”.
• The Advertiser reports the Prime Minister has told South Australian factional leaders they are expected to preselect a woman to succeed Nicolle Flint in Boothby. This presumably reduces the chances of the position going to state Environment Minister David Speirs, who said last week he was “pondering” a run. The Advertiser suggests the front runners are Rachel Swift, a factional moderate and infectious diseases expert who currently has the unwinnable fourth position on the Senate ticket, and Leah Blyth, a conservative and head of student services at Adelaide University. Another woman mentioned as a possibility by Tom Richardson of InDaily was Marion Themeliotis, Onkaparinga councillor and staffer to state Davenport MP Steve Murray.
KayJay @ #132 Sunday, March 7th, 2021 – 11:10 am
Fuck the (RWNJ Thought) Police – defund the Australian War Memorial. Let those who ride the long ANZAC scam fund themselves from the ample pokies profits.
If this makes OxDick’s head explode – good. My grandfather had quite strong views on this – and he was evacuated from ANZAC cove (with brucellosis) on 28 July 1915.
Andrew_Earlwood @ #150 Sunday, March 7th, 2021 – 11:49 am
He should, but I don’t expect he will…
I’ve lived through one of these.
The memories of roads covered in fur, traps consisting of a buckets of water a bottle and a piece of cheese catching hundreds, a cat watching them go by, too many to take an interest.
Furniture ruined, beds in with legs in cans of water, for sure it is painful.
https://www.theage.com.au/national/of-swarming-mice-and-desperate-men-20210304-p577qz.html
Whenever the election is called, my instinct is that many women and men will abandon Morrison in protest against what is currently happening along with all the other scandals and corruption in the time of his govt.
Jared Kushner has ‘checked out of politics’ amid feud with his father-in-law: report
“Donald Trump is set to make his first trip to New York since leaving the White House amid an apparent rift with Jared Kushner who the ex-president is said to be angry with over his election loss,” the Mail reported. “News of his visit comes amid reports of escalating tensions between Trump and his son-in-law and former White House Senior Adviser Jared in the days since they both left DC.” – the ex-president is telling his inner circle he blames Jared for his failed second run at office, reported CNN. However sources close to Jared say Kushner has ‘checked out of politics’ because he is ‘done’ with Trump’s false rhetoric of widespread election fraud,” the Daily Mail reported.
https://www.rawstory.com/jared-kushner-trump/
Oh dear Mexicanbeemer , do you see there is a power imbalance there. I acknowledge power imbalance and I am a very middle class white male.
Do you actually believe white males do not have more power than others?
If you are offended by the fact that white males have more power than others own it.
Have you ever listened to a victim of sexual assault? That is what we need to do – stop making white males the victim.
The person who has experienced sexual and domestic assault needs to be listened to.
Oh dear Mexicanbeemer , do you see there is a power imbalance there. I acknowledge power imbalance and I am a very middle class white male.
Do you actually believe white males do not have more power than others?
If you are offended by the fact that white males have more power than others own it.
Have you ever listened to a victim of sexual assault? That is what we need to do – stop making white males the victim.
The person who has experienced sexual and domestic assault needs to be listened to.
Rex
There is a real possibility of that happening but the ALP needs to allow it to happen by not then coming out with dumb policies or running disorganised campaigns and every attack ad has to include Morrison’s i don’t care comment
rhwombat @ #151 Sunday, March 7th, 2021 – 11:51 am
My thoughts are always with the brave men and women who served with the intention of doing the selfless thing for their country.
For them, there should be a prominent memorial site.
What is galling to me is the political exploitation of ‘war’ by power-obsessed politicians. They are the scum of the earth.
Mexicanbeemer
I’m sure there are several “I don’t” comments that put together would make a good short sharp themed ad. I don’t care, I don’t hold a hose mate + (others)
Rex Douglassays:
Sunday, March 7, 2021 at 11:39 am
“Morrison should do the right thing and visit the Governor General.”
………..
There is a glaring flaw in your suggestion.
Scout
Australia has a majority white population so of course many of our politicians media and legal system is made up by white people and Brittany Higgins boss was a white women. If Australia was run by black people you and everyone else that brings up “white men” would be silent on skin color and that is my point and why its offensive.
zoomster @ #132 Sunday, March 7th, 2021 – 11:10 am
Aha! boerwar’s strategy finally revealed! Cunning!
To generalise: “I don’t* hold any object”
* unless it’s as part of a photo opportunity
Mexicanbeemer -I am fine that you can not acknowledge a power imbalance in Australia, no problem. Stop getting offended.
Do you actually believe our parliament is a fair representation of the community.
Yep Brittany Higgins boss was a woman, that does not mean men do not have more power in this country . Another case of whataboutism.
Again victims of sexual abuse should be the ones who should be listened to.
I heading out to enjoy Sunday enjoy yours
cheers
Mexicanbeemer @ #158 Sunday, March 7th, 2021 – 11:59 am
Albanese is running a stripped down ‘meat and potatoes’ campaign. I think the time is right to take that approach in order to win.
There’s indeed an abundance of juicy material available to discredit the flimflam man currently occupying the Lodge and I’m hoping for GetUp to follow the advertising technique of The Lincoln Project.
Steve777 @ #164 Sunday, March 7th, 2021 – 12:09 pm
Doesn’t even have to be an object: “I don’t hold an inquiry, mate!”
Rex Douglas
A great uncle of mine went through the Gallipoli campaign and refused to march or attend ANZAC day services. He was mighty pissed that the people he blamed for it all , pollies and church leaders, were center stage at the commemoration. He wasn’t alone he and a bunch of old vets used to go to the pub for drinks instead. Luckily for him he was the publican 🙂
Confessions…is there any discernible sense of the mood of the voters at your pre-poll site?
Have any mentioned anything about Higgins and Porter?
poroti @ #168 Sunday, March 7th, 2021 – 12:13 pm
That’s the spirit !
https://www.sbs.com.au/news/pandemic-risks-undoing-gains-for-women-angela-merkel-warns?cid=news:socialshare:twitter
The reward for Biden and Harris reaching out to progressives pre-election pays off today with the senate passing the $1.9 trillion Covid-19 relief plan.
A great moment for the people.
If Labor focus their campaign on Scotty from Damage Control, the moment it looks like it is working there will be a #libspill.
There’s plenty to attack in their policies (Workchoices 3.0, Robodebt 2.0 etc.); there may be some value in pointing out that despite all of the leadership changes, they’re still offering the same terrible policies.
Rex Douglas
Sunday, March 7th, 2021 – 12:17 pm
Comment #170
Here’s looking at you kid ❗ 🍹🥂
Make mine creaming soda. 🥤
Rex Douglas
There was quite a split on one side of the family after WWI . That side of the family had been pretty bloody churchy. Keen Methodists , the grim variety. Is there any other sort ? 🙂 . The 3 brothers that went off to war came back and became committed heathen atheists. Their ‘non veteran’ siblings remained devout god botherers.
Labor need to make a determined and persistent effort to unpack and unpick the Coalition’s language, especially when parroted by their enablers in the media. The Coalition are not simple liars, they are experts at using language to disguise and control what is discussed.
Maybe they should have a dedicated team of people whose focus, privately and publicly, is to unravel and reframe the Coalition’s language.
Scotty brings this question to mind. I’d take a punt on The Rodent or the Mad Monk but Scotty from Marketing would get a firm NO.
We are facing the single worst foreign affairs crisis since Federation.
Xi holds all the cards in this crisis.
Every month or so he plays another card.
The latest two were the coral trout card and chinese students cards.
Stand by for more and for worse.
IMO it is likely that the cards will still be on the table during the election campaign. Further, one the reasons that Morrison has suggesting he may put off an election until next year is that he has no control over this crisis.
It is a signature tune of the most corrupt government since Federation that all they have to offer in public on the foreign policy crisis is nothing. Waiting for a phone call.
Regional security is at its most fragile following WW2 and the immediate post-colonial period.
It is degrading rapidly despite the Great Wall of Peace Studies.
In terms of regional security the single most important likely decision in the next couple of decades, but highly likely within Xi’s lifetime, is how and whether and under what circumstances we make a decision about whether to go war in Taiwan.
Instead of addressing this core issue we have relatively minor political petty proxy ‘battles’ about the War Memorial, the usefulness of JSFs and the sub contract.
ATM we have just one person who controls the war decisions – Morrison – and he is clearly unfit for purpose. But it is not just the quality of the individual. It is that any single individual has that power.
I find the stories interesting but we do not need have soldiers in the family to have standing in any of the policy debates about war.
boerwar @ #179 Sunday, March 7th, 2021 – 12:36 pm
Perhaps because fear-mongers like you keep handing him their cards 🙁
boerwarsays:
Sunday, March 7, 2021 at 12:36 pm
“We are facing the single worst foreign affairs crisis since Federation”
………..
I can think of at least three examples which disprove this statement.
United States COVID 19 data :
537,119 total deaths
Today – 58,228 new cases ……………………. 1,515 new deaths
And they say Q-Anon are bunch of deluded obsessives!
Obsessed with sex. White, male, rapists and willing their female slaves around every corner, in every office, and under every bed. Elite cabals running every aspect of our lives. Laws? Who needs them when our gut feelings tell the only truth worth telling?
Crazy, those Q-Anons.
Over at the Pub, some bloggers were concerned about right wing religious loons taking over the WA Libs, I reckon it’s a good thing. They usually get outed. The majority of voters don’t want there views rammed down our necks. Australia is not a religious country, if you aren’t sure about that, go for a Sunday drive and count the cars parked outside the churches, and then count the cars at shopping centres, pubs, sports grounds, etc.
In the unlikely event that this version of the Liberal Party gains the balance of power, they won’t last long. Their goal obviously is to wind back rights in areas like euthanasia and abortion, and the rights of gay people, and the majority won’t cop that.
However, I don’t think this religious putsch will last much longer. The owners of the Liberal Party, the IPA, will soon step in and remind them of what their proper role is.
Maybe if the grain growers didn’t knock down every single tree to “maximise efficiency”, there would be habitat for Nankeen Kestrels, Black-shouldered Kites, Barn Owls etc. to feed on the mice.
Use wisdom on pests
https://www.northqueenslandregister.com.au/story/3367074/use-wisdom-on-pests/
Could Bludger’s Xitroopers have it right after all?
Xi is IMPROVING democracy in Hong Kong! It says so here:
http://en.people.cn/n3/2021/0307/c90000-9825931.html
A splendid article today in Adelaide’s Sunday Mail by regular columnist Nick Ryan, a strong supporter of the victim in the latest Morrison Government imbroglio. Under the heading ‘A dear friend, she deserves justice’, Ryan tells of the days when he was a fellow debater but “half as good” as the lady he fondly
remembers.
Ryan says he and other friends and debaters from the era have been “just a little surprised by the Attorney-General’s recollection of those times.
“His memory of someone he competed against and socialised with at two national championships in 1986 and 1987; someone who became his teammate in the Australian team at the end of that 1987 tournament and went on to compete at the 1988 World Intervarsity tournament in Sydney, is described when addressing her parents at his media conference as ‘I only knew your daughter for the briefest of periods.
“To us she was far more memorable than that.
“At the media conference, the Attorney-General said, ‘I remember the person as an intelligent, bright, happy person.’ In that he is right. We remember her in that way too. But we also know that there were times in her life when the brightness and the happiness receded – fodder for those her mental strength struggles to publicly discredit her now.”
Ryan concludes: “To us, her death is a great tragedy. It’s not the procedural convenience some would like it to be.”
‘Arthur says:
Sunday, March 7, 2021 at 12:44 pm
boerwarsays:
Sunday, March 7, 2021 at 12:36 pm
“We are facing the single worst foreign affairs crisis since Federation”
………..
I can think of at least three examples which disprove this statement.’
Happy to discuss. Which three?
Mavis @ #70 Sunday, March 7th, 2021 – 9:49 am
They’re Liberal males. They think they can lord it over us females.
Our Attorney General is as guilty as sin for a multitude of demonstrably provable crimes against his country.
My “gut feeling” is that it matters not whether he happens to be innocent of the one he is about to be hung for.
boerwar
True but who said we do ? With all the rah rah rah we get about ANZAC day shoved down our throats some reminders of what some ‘who were there’ thought is a useful counter to the propaganda.
J
Natural predator/prey dynamics in Australia’s arid and semi-arid lands virtually guarantee booms (aka mice plagues/locust plagues/huge flocks of budgies) and busts (aka no mice/locusts/nary a budgie). We used to have vast irruptions of, for example, Rattus vilosissimus.
Plague locust management (essentially early detection and massive spraying at the right stages in their life cycles) has virtually suppressed most of the locust booms.
Whether mice management has suppressed some or most of the mice plagues is probably moot. The budgies can chatter for themselves.
‘poroti says:
Sunday, March 7, 2021 at 12:57 pm
boerwar
True but who said we do ?…’
Some, perhaps most, current soldiers and vets seem to believe that they have some sort of exclusive or superior standing. Some of their relatives, ditto.
boerwarsays:
Sunday, March 7, 2021 at 12:50 pm
“Happy to discuss. Which three?”
………..
This should be so obvious as to not need stating.
Rest assured that none of them had anything to do with coral trout or pineapples.
Bushfire Bill @ #185 Sunday, March 7th, 2021 – 12:48 pm
And then there are fixated nut jobs like you who are spending up until 3am in the morning defending the Male perspective, using legal connotations to brush past what is staring you in the face that no amount of legal Whataboutery can dismiss, attempting on multiple occasions every day to lampoon and denigrate people who don’t adopt your strictly legalistic perspective, and never for a moment giving an inch which may show that you possess even an ounce of humanity on behalf of someone who is no longer able to defend themselves.
Pfft!
Why can’t all the feral cats eat all the mice?
Arthur @ #192 Sunday, March 7th, 2021 – 12:54 pm
It’s called karma. Not a strictly legalistic term but an effective leveler nonetheless.
Q:Happy to discuss. Which three?..
Lets start with the Japanese bombing of Darwin, Broome, Nth Queensland, Sydney etc…backed up by the invasion of our nearest neighbour, PNG.
Then, following Britain into WW1 (including doing dumb things like invading Turkey) leading to the death of 70,000 Australians…
You can all fight over number 3!
The current foreign affairs crisis is existential because it is forcing a decision we have created for ourselves over the past two-three decades.
That decision was to foster a major dependence on each of economic and military competing hegemons.
The economic hegemon is now unpicking that decision.
It is bent on peeling Australia from the military hegemon.
It is forcing a choice.
The economic hegemon is fully prepared to degrade our democratic freedoms so to do.
The economic hegemon is fully prepared to degrade our economy so to do.
In fact, it is already partially succeeding in both.
There is no comparable foreign policy crisis.
World War 1 was not a foreign policy crisis because no major national choices were considered. Britain was in therefore we were in.
World War 2 was not a foreign policy crisis, ditto. Britain is at war therefore we are at war yadda, yadda, yadda.
The Boer War and all the other play-acting gig wars we have engaged in, other than WW1 and WW2, do not count.