The Australian reports Labor has retained its 51-49 lead in the post-budget poll, from primary votes of Coalition 41% (unchanged), Labor 36% (down two), Greens 12% (up two) and One Nation 2% (down one). Scott Morrison is down a point on approval to 58% and up one on disapproval to 38%, while Anthony Albanese is respectively down one to 39% and up three to 46%, which equals his worst ever net rating from Newspoll. Morrison’s lead as preferred prime minister is little changed at 55-30, compared with 56-30 last time.
Regarding the budget, the poll found 44% of respondents expecting it would be good for the economy compared with 15% for bad. On the question of the its personal impact, the better off and worse off responses both scored 19%, with a strikingly high 62% unable to say. There was presumably also a question on whether the opposition would have done a better job, as per Newspoll’s long-established practice — I’ll add that and any further detail as it becomes available.
UPDATE: The poll was conducted Thursday to Sunday from a sample of 1506. No result yet for the “would the opposition have done better” question, probably because The Australian is saving it for tomorrow. Out of 34 post-budget Newspolls going back to 1988, this is the eighth best result for impact on personal finances and the sixth best for impact on the economy.
The chart below plots the one series against the other, with the present result shown in red. This is near the trendline, suggesting no particular tendency for the budget’s economic impact to be seen as more positive (as tended to be the case in the Howard goverment’s early budgets) than the personal impact (which rated higher in the last three budgets), relative to the favourable reception for the budget overall.
The best received budgets mostly came during the golden age of government revenue from 2004 to 2008: the best of all, on both personal and economic impact, was the one that preceded the Howard government’s defeat in 2007.
Lars
Whilst a variant being more transmissible is not the same thing as being more vaccine resistant, it is the case that the more transmissible a variant is, the more effective a vaccine has to be, or the higher the vaccine takeup has to be (or both) in order to achieve herd immunity through vaccination.
Any way you stir it, the more aggressive variants means we need the best possible vaccine.
The price of not having herd immunity is that despite widespread vaccination, the virus may be able to not just spread in some contained, steady manner, but instead start a new “wave” that infects large numbers of people. Among those, people not vaccinated and thus susceptible to severe illness and death.
Herd immunity matters. The quality of the vaccine matters.
So the voters liked the Labor Lite Budget.
Now just elect the real deal! With added sprinkles on top. 🙂
Simon Katich:
Medicare
Just as the government pays GPs (who are mostly private businesses) so too it pays schools to educate all students regardless of background
Schools can charge a gap, but if if it’s too large they lose the government copayment
CONservatives do love a good party at tax payers expense ..
https://www.thedailybeast.com/rep-matt-gaetz-snorted-cocaine-with-megan-zalonka-escort-who-had-no-show-govt-job?ref=home
The congressman—who has declared that he “never paid for sex”—wrote off the stay at the hotel as a campaign expense, with his donors picking up the tab.
Simon Katich @ #2859 Sunday, May 16th, 2021 – 9:16 pm
E.G.Theodore,
The problem with our Education funding is that the State pays too much to the Private Schools, no matter the Fees on top that they charge each student. Study after study has found this to be a fact.
Same goes with medicine in this country. Some specialties and their consequent operations, are paid way more than is fair and reasonable. GPs, not so much.
Sceptic
What’s enlightening about the Gaetz/Greenburg (the tax farmer and “wing man”) business is the labels used on these expenses, viz:
Stuff – $500
Orher Stuff (sic) – $1,000
Food – $1,000
Rent – $1,500
and perhaps most pertinently:
Appetizers – $500!
Fore!
American politics never ceases to amaze me.
https://www.politico.com/news/2021/05/16/matthew-mcconaughey-texas-governor-run-488536
C@tMomma
Look at the price structure of the private secondary school “market” and you will see something that is almost unique and cannot be anything except a total market failure (driven by government mis-intervention)
Correct the market failure and one will get a conventionally distributed set of prices across the range. Once that happens the current idiocy will sort itself out in less than a decade
Gaetz, as befits a mental lightweight, probably did the traditional thing of sniffing Cocaine off the hooker’s butt. 🙄
How would you correct the market failure, EGT?
Run in Florida instead
Imagine blowing all that money in the budget, getting wall to wall praise from the press and denigration of the opposition by the same press… and it has no effect.
That’s just priceless.
Sceptic
Aren’t there hotels that specialise in including the escort fee as part of the hotel fee in order to hide it?
Are you serious? It would go down just fine. They accepted Trump – why not naked bongo beating.
I do know he likes whiskey.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z1Jk9i4gr_4
That’s exactly what I thought, SK. Politics as frisson. 🙂
“ I don’t know how beating bongo drums naked in your front yard goes over in rural Texas
Are you serious? It would go down just fine. They accepted Trump – why not naked bongo beating.”
Regardless of gender and orientation, I’m pretty sure that Americans – bar one – would prefer to see McConaughey naked than Trump. … Lindsey Graham is the odd one out …
1 – set the bulk billing rate at the ordinary Catholic system current price
2 – set the bulk billing rate for special needs student at real cost plus some percent
3 – offer the State Government owned secondary school premises for lease conditional on gap <= 20% of the bulk billing rate (offer at most 10% of the stock per annum)
4 – directly fund (at 25% above the bulk billing rate) academically selective secondary schools in all states as public schools, as about ten percent of the student population
5 – cap the gap at 100% of the bulk billing rate
6 – apply same approach to trades education as an alternative to year 11-12
Monopsony, monopsony, monopsony, monopsony!
I see Albo’s Budget Reply Speech cut through.
Good luck with the politics of envy and Private Education.
Governments rarely get a big move from Budgets just as election campaigns rarely move polling numbers very much.
Bucephalus @ #NaN Sunday, May 16th, 2021 – 8:23 pm
Cow Head logic.
No budget bounce, but somehow it’s Albo that didn’t cut through.
Bucephalus
Per my proposal, I would turn all secondary school education over to private enterprise (excepting academically selective public schools, which notably outperform all other schools)
What have you got against private enterprise?
I start to suspect you operate in an area of faux private enterprise created by the government, such as the provision of financial advice.
Government rarely get a big move from budgets … but opposition budget reply speeches regularly rock the dial?
Barney in Tanjung Bunga @ #19 Sunday, May 16th, 2021 – 10:00 pm
Buce has gone up the magic faraway tree again. Land of topsy turvy?
This poll goes some way to evidence that the average punter wouldn’t know a budget if they bumped into one. Morrison’s attempted bribe – principally tax cuts to lower and middle-income earners when debt is at a near-record high – has failed to provide the boost expected by him. Now he’s stuck with the cuts (and other bribes) where revenue raising should’ve been prioritised.
A few more Newspoll results like this one would tend to put the dampener on enthusiasm for an early election based on the budget handouts.
Wouldn’t rich White people still congregate together, do business together, marry each other etc?
Of course they will and of course I have no problem with that. However, we’re under no obligation to pay for their incubators.
Citizen,
I suspect Scotty is between a rock & a hard place
Delaying the election past Spring risks running during bushfires, which will remind voters how useless he was last time, when he didn’t hold a hose.
citizen @ #25 Sunday, May 16th, 2021 – 10:19 pm
ALP ahead 52-48 when 2019 campaign started (and ended and most of the inbetween).
No but they do Rock the Casbah!
Maybe Nick McKim’s budget reply speech got a bounce
Seems the Greens billionaires tax and job keeper rort recovery proposals have been getting a better reception than the average bludger might think
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M55R259BEqM
I understand Newspoll’s methodology has changed since 2019; if so, the 51-49 2PP may be indicative.
Labour Wales is tackling public funding. This will be limited in not having the power to implement of the Westminster system.
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2021/may/14/wales-to-launch-universal-basic-income-pilot-scheme
Edit: On the Newspoll. Confirmation of anecdotes that voters don’t know about the budget. You don’t react to something you don’t know about. While we are doing wild guesses on reasons.
🙂
E. G. Theodore says:
Sunday, May 16, 2021 at 10:32 pm
“academically selective public schools, which notably outperform all other schools”
So they should. What surprises me is that those on the Left never suggest to means test access to them nor move them out of wealthy suburbs to poor areas.
“What have you got against private enterprise?”
Nothing, but your proposed restrictions on spending isn’t private enterprise and schooling in Australia isn’t a “for profit” enterprise activity.
” What surprises me is that those on the Left never suggest to means test access to them nor move them out of wealthy suburbs to poor areas.”
It’s called universal access, bro.
I understand Newspoll’s methodology has changed since 2019; if so, the 51-49 2PP may be indicative.
Maybe but it doesn’t feel that way.
Buce
Means testing is failure.
See Finland most successful education outcomes. All public funded for all wealth groups.
http://www.ipsnews.net/2019/07/finlands-education-system-leads-globally/
Edit: Look for improvement follow the best. Of course the LNP won’t do this. It requires investment in people.
Dandy Murray says:
Sunday, May 16, 2021 at 11:14 pm
“It’s called universal access, bro.”
They can still go to schools. They’ll do well anywhere.
Mavis:
Recessions usually involve a lack of money, and thus spraying money around can and does help.
Whilst the Morecession started before COVID, it was made worse by COVID and the problem is unique, a massive reduction in real activity unrelated to any lack of money.
What was (and still is) needed in this unique situation is an injection of real activity into the economy, revenue raising detracts from real activity (in fact that’s it primary effect) and would thus be a mistake at this time.
Instead, to recover from the Morecession:
– fix the NBN so that people can be fully productive working from home
– subsidise home office creation (further extend the instant asset write off initiated by the Gillard government so that one need not go to the trouble of registering for GST – or just give everyone an ABN)
– focus on building infrastructure as opposed to announcing it, including with direct capability
– provide non-trivial subsidies for on-shore manufacturing
– find some way to reverse the threat to national security created by the destruction of the domestic car industry (no idea how to do this, particularly in a timely manner, but it has to be done)
– place export tariffs on iron ore transferred fully to domestic steel producers – so in practice iron ore exporters would suddenly (re)discover a burning inter in steel (current state of local steel production is also a threat to national security)
– start building a second nuclear medicine reactor (quite small) to complement Lucas Heights (probably in Perth)
– various other national medical infrastructure
– fund AI research at a credible rate comparable to serious nations, and with broader catchment
– create a domestic battery production industry (same mechanism as for iron-ore => steel)
– build solar power to supply East Timor (and PNG)
– build Cud’s effing HSR to Newcastle and Wollongong, and same in QLD and VIC
– build quarantine centres, infectious diseases hospitals and geriatric referral hospitals (and pay directly for RNs to run nursing homes)
Fight the war they way the last one was fought – this has been pathetic
Simon Benson, the Oz:
[‘Voters rate budget the best since Costello. Josh Frydenberg has handed down the best-received budget since Peter Costello’s era but has fallen short of an electoral bounce.’]
Why not?
GPs run (somewhat) profitably; why can’t schools?
Can private schools not cut it in the free market?
And if they can’t, why are they termed private? Mendicant would be more apt
Should the government fund persistent mendicancy?
I say they should run for profit (but with government financing of capital via leasing and consequent effect) and that is private enterprise: educate well and make a deserved profit; educate poorly and on your bike
They’ll do well anywhere.
Why have them at all then?
Gladys has been sitting on this for a year.
Apparently there was a formal complaint and investigation into Gareth Ward and her office secretly dealt with it whatever that means.
Story in the gg apparently.
E. G. Theodore:
Sunday, May 16, 2021 at 11:29 pm
[‘Recessions usually involve a lack of money, and thus spraying money around can and does help.
Whilst the Morecession started before COVID, it was made worse by COVID and the problem is unique, a massive reduction in real activity unrelated to any lack of money.’]
In the Keynesian paradigm yes. But this is a government with a fixation on surpluses, even members of his party have expressed concern with
Morrison’s profligacy, worried about future generations being saddled with such a huge debt. Granted, a Labor government would’ve done similar but would have been hauled over the coals for it. It’s high time for Labor to turn the tables on the Tories for their double standards – a debt bus perhaps, traversing the country with a running total on both sides, with pics of drunken sailors (no offence to matelots).
Very good reason not to fund private schools.
Graphic https://www.smh.com.au/national/sex-schoolkids-and-where-it-all-goes-wrong-20210312-p57a48.html
E. G. Theodore says:
Sunday, May 16, 2021 at 11:40 pm
“Mendicant would be more apt
Should the government fund persistent mendicancy?”
Get a grip. You’re either just trying to get a rise out of supporters of private education or being stupid for some other reason.
Private Schools do a good job and save the Taxpayer money by costing less than Government Schools.
Y U NO VARIANCE, NEWSPOLL?
Bucephalus @ #45 Monday, May 17th, 2021 – 12:03 am
They should be able to continue doing a good job and would save the taxpayer even more money if they didn’t accept any public funding whatsoever. Let the private system be private.
I suspect the intricacies of creative accounting would negate the the suggestion that private schools cost the tax payers less.
This is a well proven bullshit argument as wealthy private schools have veneered their financial structures accordingly.
Donations to charitable institutions and associated tax deductions for individuals as an example!
Fascinating article, seemingly well-researched and soberly written.
It posits that, as Wuhan hosted the premier centre in China for research into coronaviruses, artificial corona viruses were definitely being created and experimented with there. The experimental viruses we know about had several genomic aspects in common with SARS-CoV-2, as well as the virus itself having characteristics that may indicate an artificial origin.
Furthermore, Wuhan is 1,500 kilometres away from the large bat colonies of Southern China , making a “natural” path from bats to humans unlikely. In other words the article makes it clear that the allegation the SARS-CoV-2 virus escaped laboratory confinement isn’t as paranoid as many think. In fact it is the more likely scenario compared to the “naturally occuring cross-species infection” theory.
The article stops short of unequivocally pointing the finger at an accidental laboratory origin for SARS-CoV-2, but comes uncomfortably close.
Morrison/Frydenberg concoccted a bullshit budget with telltalls everywhere.
The budget rolls everything conveniently down the road, looking for a bounce, somewhere, anywhere, to allay fears that at this point no one, especially the government have any idea where the pandemic policy on the run together with the reckless spend will end up.
If as this poll suggests, the voters haven’t reacted, Morrison will bowl a few more overs of political spin looking to get lucky.
Promise the world, keep house prices rising, throw in some racism from India, kick the poor can further down the laneway, add a touch of China phobia and play for luck.
Anything to hold the keys to the big poker machine on the hill.
.