I had a vague hope that last fortnight’s sooner-than-expected Newspoll portended a return to a (usually) fortnightly rather than three-weekly schedule, but apparently not. Essential Research should be along this evening though, hopefully including its monthly leadership ratings. Then there’s this:
• Roy Morgan has published results of an SMS poll conducted on Friday and Saturday from a sample of 1423, which asked if respondents were still up for the COVID-19 vaccine in light of recent developments (only 17% were not, increasing to 24% when those who would only settle for Pfizer were included) and, most interestingly, if they approved of Scott Morrison’s handling of “all COVID-19 related issues”. In the absence of a non-response option, the latter question recorded 49% approval and 51% disapproval. I’m aware of two past polls that specifically asked about leaders’ rather than governments’ handling of COVID-19, both from Newspoll – one in April and one in July – from which the weakest result was 61% approval and 36% disapproval for Daniel Andrews in the July poll.
• Sarah Elks of The Australian reports that Andrew Laming has declined Scott Morrison’s invitation to sit out the preselection for his Brisbane seat of Bowman, and is “collecting evidence in an effort to disprove a series of allegations against him”. The report notes he has an incentive in a $105,600 reward available to to MPs who “retire involuntarily”, which would not be granted if he went gracefully. Laming will also need to pass muster with the Liberal National Party’s “candidate suitability panel” if his nomination is to proceed to the stage where local party members have a say.
• In a piece for The Conversation, Benjamin Reilly of the University of Western Australia evaluates the likely impact of optional preferential voting, as mooted by the Coalition members of the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters. The conclusion is that Labor would only have won about half of the 36 seats it won on preferences at the 2013, 2016 and 2019 elections after trailing on the primary vote, and that few if any members of the House of Representatives front bench would have got their foot in the door.
• I have a guide up for the Upper Hunter state by-election in New South Wales on May 22, though it’s still at a preliminary stage since most of the candidates haven’t been announced, together with a Tasmanian state election guide that has lately been supplemented with a page for the Legislative Council contests.
Graeme Grahamsays:
Tuesday, April 13, 2021 at 8:22 pm
When the blokes and sheilas in high-vis in the ‘burbs first heard on 10 News that AusPost’s boss had been harshly dealt with they thought, “I know that feeling”.
Then came the upper-crust Pommy accent.
And the blokes and sheilas did recant, and reckon that the PM got it right.
An unexpected vote winner for our hero, slayer of Shortie.
No Aussie would ever want the Poms to win the Ashes. It’s un-Australian.
———————————-
You really have no clue about how the working class think have you. That is not surprising, few sivertails have. As my wonderful indigenous wife likes to say. What they do not understand is we can play in their yard but they cannot play in ours.
The working class can look past what your accent is or what school you went to and see the real person. We grew up in a real unprotected world and learned from it.
All inner parties are full of wankers and spivs.
The problems begin when they become so entrenched or arrogant that they no longer understand that they need to modify their behaviour to keep the voters voting for them to preserve the inner party.
The classic end to a nomenklatura
Steve
I think that’s about right. Almost all the cases have been in women under fifty (older than 25) who are only about 15% of those vaccinated so their risk of dying is presumably 1:100000 to 1:200000.
I’m not sure of the long term effect if you survive but a venous stroke would have some significant permanent effects in most.
And read what Elizabeth Knight thinks about governance at AP with a board stacked with Liberal mates.
https://www.theage.com.au/business/companies/the-gifts-that-were-really-responsible-for-australia-post-s-woes-20210413-p57iwa.html
This video Excerpt from tonight’s interview
abc730
@abc730
·
1h
Former boss of Australia Post Christine Holgate says PM
@ScottMorrisonMP
‘s Question Time spray was the “one of the worst acts of bullying I’ve ever witnessed”. #abc730
https://mobile.twitter.com/abc730/status/1381904957079658498
Peter Stanton:
Graeme Graham thinks the optimal election strategy for Scott Morrison in 2022 is to attack the Keating government and prey on the public’s fear of interest rate rises. I think it’s fair to say that Graeme Graham hasn’t got a clue about a lot of things.
The main thing here is quite straightforward.
This is the most corrupt federal government since Federation.
Not by a little bit.
But by a country mile.
That said, I can’t see this being much of a vote changer either way. Its relevant in that it adds to the general picture of corruption and misogyny within the Morrison government, but most people will probably have forgotten about this specific event by next week.
BW “$7.2 billion for a spivs’ picnic.
Gotta be worth a few backhanders.”
$7.2 billion to be pissed up against the wall in tax cuts and election bribes that will be forgotten before the last vote is counted.
‘Steve777 says:
Tuesday, April 13, 2021 at 8:52 pm
BW “$7.2 billion for a spivs’ picnic.
Gotta be worth a few backhanders.”
$7.2 billion to be pissed up against the wall in tax cuts and election bribes that will be forgotten before the last vote is counted.’
EVERY.SINGLE.THING.
Asha Lau:
I doubt Graeme Graham is even outer party!
All inner parties are full of wankers and spivs.
The problems begin when they become so entrenched or arrogant that they no longer understand that they need to modify their behaviour to keep the voters voting for them to preserve the inner party.
The classic end to a nomenklatura
——————————-
You would have some expertise in wanking. I can agree that wankers and spivs exist in all political organizations. However, the longer existing organizations learn to identify them early and they rarely not make the inner party. I say tis who grw up in the same branch as Brian Burke.
‘Peter Stanton says:
Tuesday, April 13, 2021 at 8:59 pm
All inner parties are full of wankers and spivs.
The problems begin when they become so entrenched or arrogant that they no longer understand that they need to modify their behaviour to keep the voters voting for them to preserve the inner party.
The classic end to a nomenklatura
——————————-
You would have some expertise in wanking. I can agree that wankers and spivs exist in all political organizations. However, the longer existing organizations learn to identify them early and they rarely not make the inner party. I say tis who grw up in the same branch as Brian Burke.’
WOW. He knows whereof he speaks.
Caught a few minutes of Alan Jones talking to Peta Credlin and she backed Holgate by saying how impressive she was and her submission to the senate was one of the best she has ever seen but she made a comment about Morrison that he will react to the daily headlines without there being any strategic thought given to how it will play over the next few days and weeks.
Sprocket
I guess that shows how irrelevant Albo is.
I have given some thought to you calling me a “flanno” a few days ago.
My understanding is that you are not of the working class but have sucked at the teat of Labor for much of your working life.
Do you think that part of NSW Labor’s problem might be that members of the inner party are middle class, aussie rules watching wankers who have nothing but disdain for the people whose votes they need to keep them in a job?
A limited class view holding back the progressive movement. Not everyone is from the industrial heritage of Labor, and defined in 19th century terms. Working? My migrant parents put me to work in the shop at the age of 8, and I’ve worked ever since. Gough’s free universities is where we learnt to ‘wank’, and to appreciate the power of social justice.
Oh dear…
(CNN)The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the US Food and Drug Administration are recommending that the United States pause the use of Johnson & Johnson’s Covid-19 vaccine over six reported US cases of a “rare and severe” type of blood clot.
8? Looxury! At least you didn’t need to carry the horse to school!
sprocket_says:
Tuesday, April 13, 2021 at 9:18 pm
When you recommend Johnson and Johnson over anything ….
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/12/business/johnson-johnson-talcum-powder.html
Did they ever learn ?
For me the core of the Holgate scandal was that the fact that she opposed selling off the lucrative parcels arm of Australia Post and that she succeeded in a deal with the banks that made them worse off.
That’s why she was targeted. Because of a corrupt PM and his corrupt Ministers.
Griff, love that Monty Python sketch – had to walk to school, and the horse troughs in Bathurst were frozen solid – as were our water pipes…
Having watched Holgate’s testimony in its entirety now, my amateur take on the matter is that she is a most reliable witness. Such accuracy in her testimony! But then I like numbers.
Not so sure about that other fellow. Having to previously amend his testimony put him in a poor position from the start and he didn’t do himself any favours either.
WASHINGTON — Federal health agencies on Tuesday called for an immediate pause in use of Johnson & Johnson’s single-dose coronavirus vaccine after six recipients in the United States developed a rare disorder involving blood clots within about two weeks of vaccination.
All six recipients were women between the ages of 18 and 48. One woman died and a second woman in Nebraska has been hospitalized in critical condition, officials briefed on the cases said.
Nearly seven million people in the United States have received Johnson & Johnson shots so far, and roughly nine million more doses have been shipped out to the states, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/13/us/politics/johnson-johnson-vaccine-blood-clots-fda-cdc.html?smid=tw-nythealth&smtyp=cur
Attacking Holgate’s accent is racist but it also misses the danger for Morrison because this time the danger isn’t the outer burbs but the poshy Liberal electorates.
sprocket_ @ #970 Tuesday, April 13th, 2021 – 9:26 pm
sprocket_ @ #970 Tuesday, April 13th, 2021 – 9:26 pm
Showing your age there! The only horse trough left in Bathurst that I know of is in Rocket St, diagonally opposite where St Barnabas Church in South Bathurst was.
Piped water? I used to DREAM of piped water! You were lucky! 🙂
And yet you call people who you want to vote Labor “flannos”
“The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which.”
What a truly idiotic statement. Now “race” is an accent?
The problems begin when they become so entrenched or arrogant that they no longer understand that they need to modify their behaviour to keep the voters voting for them to preserve the inner party.
A perfect description of the Liberal Party.
Oakshott Country,
You have already said you won’t vote Labor again? Perhaps sprocket is giving up the cause. But I say you can still be persuaded 🙂
BB
Holgate’s accent is British so yes it could be racist.
She isn’t an Australian talking with a private school plum.
As I understand the timeline explained by Di Bartolommeo Fletcher rang di Bartolommeo just after 1pm, not long after holgate had finished at estimates and said he wanted her stood down.
Di Bartolommeo said are you sure.
Fletcher said he would get back to him. Around 1 30 Fletcher rang again and confirmed his view.
Some time after 2pm in QT Morrison exploded.
I’d like to know who spoke to who in that time.
And di Bartolommeo said that when he received Holgate’s resignation he rang the minister’s office to tell them. The news was leaked to Sky soon after.
Who did you speak to? I don’t remember. The minister? Not sure.
A few senators thought the idea that you would not be sure if you spoke to the minister or a staffer was a bit of a laugh.
When the public sees a government lumber from crisis to crisis, thinking they have played a trump card, but still not winning a trick, public opinion starts to harden.
The Australian electorate are typically an unconcerned, myopic bunch, but they are also not very forgiving.
I have never said that I will not vote for Labor.
What I said was that:
1. I did not renew my party membership when the appalling incompetence and corruption of the end stage of the nomenklatura became obvious
2. Labor lost the automatic right to my vote on the night that the Shorten faction deposed Gillard
Where do your comments on Craig Thompson fit in OC?
No matter. What incompetence and corruption is required in the current NSW and Federal Governments to swing your opinion back? Perhaps we can make it happen! 🙂
The global business of professional trolling
By Sara Fischer
Odd – no mention of our friends on PollBludger
https://www.axios.com/trolls-misinformation-facebook-twitter-iran-dd1a13b4-de1f-48cd-91a6-cac66202344b.html
Oakeshott Country is the epitome of the Howard Aspirational. Come from a poor family, made good via Whitlam’s monumental policy advances, then used it to walk away from his roots via the artifice of finding corruption in Labor to be the hill his vote for Labor died on.
Never a mention of Robin Askin and the absolute stench of corruption around his government in NSW, not even, if you look to the present mob of Coalition shysters in power now, can he bring himself to express disgust at their behaviour the way he regularly does about the Labor Party. As a friend of mine said to me the other day, the only difference between Labor Party and Coalition corruption in NSW is that the Labor MPs are forced to go before the courts but the corrupt Liberals are just disappeared, like Chris Hartcher, or brazen it out with the help of the Murdoch media, like Gladys Berejiklian.
Not to mention the copious examples we have been presented with over the term of the federal Coalition government.
But do you ever hear a peep from Oakeshott Country about that?
Never.
And that’s what really gets my goat when he pours contempt and contumely on Labor. Because it just puts up in neon lights what a contemptible hypocrite he is. I think it must be the incredible guilt he has carried all his life about his origins. I know how the ‘Scholarship kids’ were treated at Sydney Uni. How you were never really allowed to fit in with all the kids from the Private Schools and I can understand how that must eat away at you. To the point where the political party that enabled you to leave your origins behind is the one you kick down on now. Sad.
Griff:
I’m just old enough to remember when Piped Music was a selling point!
Maybe but probably not while Shorten is the Éminence grise in the Federal Caucus.
The thing about Craig Thomson (no p) is that he was apparently a likeable enough and good meaning chap but as with many in the NSW Right he had left his moral compass at the door. He couldn’t really understand why people objected when he ordered the cos-play full service with changeover and put it on the HSU credit card. After all he worked very hard for the union and deserved a little treat. Just as Auspost executives work very hard and deserved Cartiers
Mexicanbeemer
The ‘Posh Pom’ accent comes in packages of all colors and shapes these days. So hardly a “racial’ trait.
And from what you tell us you are a Whitlam failure
Poroti
If we apply a strict legal definition and in the process of attacking someone you mention their accent and they are a foreigner then it could be classed as a racist comment.
Oakeshott Country @ #488 Tuesday, April 13th, 2021 – 9:56 pm
Um, no. But nice try at a backhander, OC. I expect nothing less from you. But no cigar. Just try and prove otherwise. 🙂
Apparently my failure is that I don’t mention, on a daily basis, the corruption of a premier who left office 47 years ago.
OK, I deplore that Sir John Robertson’s land act allowed his squatter mates to get legal title to their land
OC,
I can respect your thoughts about Shorten. But right now OC, there is no Coalition corruption to see? That is the issue.
Speaking of which. A story I came across the other day.
Sir John Robertson’s grandson was Archibald Clark Kerr, 1st Baron Inverchapel. A noted bisexual English diplomat who was the UK ambassador to the Soviet Union in 1942-5. He is most famous for sending the following dispatch to his senior at the FO, Lord Pembroke:
My Dear Reggie,
In these dark days man tends to look for little shafts of light that spill from Heaven. My days are probably darker than yours, and I need, my God I do, all the light I can get. But I am a decent fellow, and I do not want to be mean and selfish about what little brightness is shed upon me from time to time. So I propose to share with you a tiny flash that has illuminated my sombre life and tell you that God has given me a new Turkish colleague whose card tells me that he is called Mustapha Kunt.
We all feel like that, Reggie, now and then, especially when Spring is upon us, but few of us would care to put it on our cards. It takes a Turk to do that.
Sir Archibald Clerk Kerr, H.M. Ambassador”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archibald_Clark_Kerr,_1st_Baron_Inverchapel
Well, OC, you do love to continually bring up the corruption of Obeid et al from over a decade ago, whilst ignoring the corruption of the current crop of Coalition spivs, so there’s that if you want a contemporaneous frame.
However, way to completely ignore the point. Your hypocrisy in service of your Liberal vote.
Anyway, we’ve seen enough of your type in the Labor Party to see you coming a mile away. You don’t fool me and you never will.
Oh there is plenty of corruption in the Federal Government and I have never voted for them.
As in compulsory preferential voting you are required to pick from 2, the only option I have is to return a blank ballot and hope that one day Labor refinds its soul.
God knows where her accent comes from, but the way she speaks is entirely up to her, thus not a matter of race.
Many people, of many ethnicities and races, speak with posh English accents, be they from England, Ireland, Germany, Scandinavia, India, Africa and even rare parts of the USA.
Race us about one’s race, one’s ethnicity by birth: something beyond one’s control. Race is not whether you speak with a plum in your mouth.
“Racist” is fast becoming the laziest word in the English language, employed as a general insult, almost always inaccurately.
OC, I am sorry that you cannot see any way through, apart from not making your vote count.
“ Vale Darius?
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-04-13/police-hunt-thieves-of-world-biggest-rabbit-darius/100067028”
My money is on the farm’s resident momma Stoat. Stoats may only weigh 250grams, but they love rabbit, and will take down all sorts of game smaller than a moose. Adorable demented cute monsters, Stoats.