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.
Our slow vaccine rollout may be a blessing in disguise.
It pushes back the inevitable weakening of quarantine.
It means the rest of the world will have less covid when we do reopen.
It means we can learn more from overseas data on real world effects of vaccines on transmission.
It allows us to learn from the data and discover the differences between vaccines wrt variants.
It allows us more time to understand the threshold of herd immunity.
It allows more time for the media to understand herd immunity as being the key.
It allows us to leapfrog to the next gen vaccines – upgraded Moderna etc.
What’s happening with Bernard Collaery ?
The public have a right to know.
When the Libs keep something secret you know they’re hiding corruption and foul play.
surely the Greens are looking good in Macnamara now?
“lizziesays:
Monday, May 17, 2021 at 1:23 pm
On what religious grounds might a school child carry a knife?
A 14-year-old boy is facing serious charges after allegedly stabbing a 16-year-old boy with a “religious knife’” at Glenwood High School on May 6.”
Lizzie
Sikhs can carry a ‘religious knife’ called ‘Kirpan’
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kirpan
Rex Douglassays:
Monday, May 17, 2021 at 2:19 pm
“Private Metro hospital beds are also accessible if required.”
………
Toowoomba has several quite large private hospitals including one with a 24 hour emergency department.
P1
I know the WHO should have asked the questions. We have theories about the species crossover. We don’t know.
It’s not anti Chinese to say so. The same occurred with AIDS.
The failure can be for practical reasons we can say the secrecy of the Chinese government has of course been an obstacle in finding out facts.
https://kevinbonham.blogspot.com/2021/05/tasmania-2021-so-what-was-point-of-this.html
Tasmania 2021: What Was The Point Of This Election?
Washup article for Tasmanian state election.
‘Cud Chewer says:
Monday, May 17, 2021 at 2:26 pm
Our slow vaccine rollout may be a blessing in disguise.
….
It pushes back the inevitable weakening of quarantine.’
————————————————-
Do you really think so?
guytaur
The evidence is in. Wuhan was not the origin/epicentre of the virus. It had been spreading in various places for months, including outside China before the first Wuhan patients. The theory that the virus came (accidentally) from a Wuhan lab doesn’t gel with it having spread far and wide before it took hold in Wuhan.
You could just as easily construct a plausible theory involving virus escaping a number of labs – including those in the US and having gotten to Wuhan from there.
Besides if its unintentional the the lab virus will contain deliberate markers that are put there for good reason. The wild virus doesn’t.
All of this is like the Spanish Flu – which didn’t originate in Spain.
China’s not winning its trade war with Australia
It must be a source of increasing frustration for China’s bureaucrats that its own economic successes are overwhelming their efforts to sanction Australia for our less than diplomatic commentary on the origins of the pandemic and China’s treatment of the Uighurs in the Xinjiang region.
While the sanctions on barley, wine, lobsters, coal and other products have bitten, they have been far more than offset by China’s insatiable demand for iron ore and LNG and the spiking prices – in iron ore’s case, soaring prices – of both.
If this is a trade war, Australia is winning its first phase quite handsomely.
The iron ore price is above $US200 a tonne and LNG prices have rebounded from the pandemic to levels last seen two years ago.
In coal, China is being forced to buy lower quality coal at higher prices while its competitors benefit from the windfall of high quality Australian coal at lower prices.
It’s not that China hasn’t tried to do something about its reliance on Australian iron ore and LNG.
China’s reliance on Australian iron ore for almost two-thirds of its steel industry’s requirements and Vale’s continuing struggles to restore production after its tailing dam disasters and pandemic-related disruptions in Brazil means there is little it can do to curtail purchases of Australian iron ore without hurting its steel industry and economy.
The giant Simandou resource in Guinea would be higher-cost (development of the infrastructure for Simandou could cost the best part of $US20 billion), and nearly a decade away and would in any event probably represent only about 10 per cent of China’s existing demand.
The big Australian producers – Rio Tinto, BHP and Fortescue – are the low-cost producers and have a significant cost advantage over Brazil because of their proximity to China and therefore their lower shipping costs.
LNG has different issues.
LNG is an internationally-traded commodity and demand within the Asia Pacific is strong enough for Australian cargoes to be redeployed elsewhere, as has happened in coal.
Also China’s state-owned energy companies have big, multi-billion-dollar equity stakes and long term contracts with the major Australian LNG exporters, so damaging the Australian industry would damage China’s own SOEs.
China hasn’t been able to hurt the Australian producers of the two big commodities that really matter.
Its actions have prompted Australian companies to seek out new markets and reduce their dependence on China which, given the recent relationship, is probably a positive for Australia’s long term national interests.
https://www.smh.com.au/business/markets/china-s-not-winning-its-trade-war-with-australia-20210517-p57sjd.html
Kevin Bonham
Why Even Bother?
Before the events that led to this election, Tasmania had a 13-9-2-1 parliament. After Sue Hickey quit the Liberals and Madeleine Ogilvie joined them, it was still 13-9-2-1. And after the election it was yet again 13-9-2-1. All the election seems to have achieved is replacing Sue Hickey with Kristie Johnston and letting Labor get Dean Winter and Janie Finlay into parliament, without any renewal (unless one counts Ogilvie) on the Liberal side. The Liberals sacrificed ten months of their term and risked a lot in the process, winning the final seat in Clark by just 2.2%. Was it all worth it? The artificial falling into minority and trying so not hard to get out of it? The nonsense theories about the early election? The bizarre campaign of Adam Brooks and the claims that it tainted the result? The criticism of calling an election while the Opposition Leader was pregnant? The criticism over undelivered promises and over outlining plans for the first 100 days only to be told they could have been doing those things instead of having an election? All this … just to get rid of Sue Hickey?
Yep thats all it was about as I said at the time.Gutwein wanted rid of Hickey as she was a rebel after resigning from the Libs. She was also the speaker in the parliament and often contradicted Gutwein.
Private Hospitals don’t generally have significant unused capacity.
‘Cud Chewer says:
Monday, May 17, 2021 at 2:34 pm
guytaur
The evidence is in.’
———————————————-
The evidence the comrades want you to have is in. For sure.
Ryan Spencer says:
Monday, May 17, 2021 at 2:27 pm
surely the Greens are looking good in Macnamara now?
————————————-
Not really. After the purposed boundaries changes Macnamera will still be a Liberal versus ALP contest and it will probably go Liberal before it goes Green.
dave
The Wolf Warriors bit themselves on the bum?
“Do you really think so?”
Arguable. Gladys has said we must be vaccinated first. But noone is saying what threshold and whether it involves getting to the point of having a large fraction of people ‘boosted’ with a vaccine designed for variants.
I wouldn’t put it past them to draw a line and say something like “50 percent at 2nd dose”
However the delay in the vaccination has certainly delayed reopening borders. Go ask the mad Irishman.
Also if we delay enough (say past November) we’re going to be using the upgraded Moderna by default. I for one will certainly getting a booster once the upgraded versions come out.
“Not really. After the purposed boundaries changes Macnamera will probably still be a Liberal versus ALP contest and it will probably go Liberal before it goes Green.”
I meant based off the Newspoll results (i.e. the point of this article) that if the Greens were up 2 and Labor were down two, and the gap in Macnamara is about 4 points between the two, and the Greens vote is higher in inner city areas, and also that Caulfield’s high Jewish population is likely to be in Higgins (I think) as opposed to Macnamara, the Greens have a very solid chance of winning the seat, as with probably Brisbane as well…
As I suspected.
“Despite the state government’s enthusiasm for the project, the local Toowoomba community remains deeply divided over the prospect of a quarantine facility on their doorstep, with prominent businessman Clive Berghofer spearheading local resistance to the project”.
https://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/national/queensland/pm-again-dismisses-queensland-s-toowoomba-quarantine-proposal-20210517-p57sl1.html
Back from my walk to see P1 is still pissing in the wind, threatening people with saving “incriminating” posts to be used against them at some later date, promising to produce conclusive evidence, labelling, slagging etc. etc. ad infinitum. All without substantiation.
Get a friggin’ life, P1. I doubt whether anyone but that bastion of common sense, Zerlo, cares a lot what official character determinations you come to.
The article I read and linked provides a point of view. Quite explicitly, neither its author, nor I presented it as gospel truth. Labelling something as a “conspiracy theory” does not automatically end every argument. It’s a shallow, somewhat lazy method of shutting down a conversation when you can’t answer the questions being asked, as are your sanctimonious accusations that others are racists or some other kind of convenient wokeist insult.
If you ever wrote anything that even tried to be interesting, or amusing, rather than threatening, nasty or indulgently critical, it would be a Red Letter Day here.
Try saying something light, amusing, or kind for a change, or even witty, rather than your customary veiled threats that never deliver. It’s good advice.
Qantas supermoon flight to nowhere sells out in ‘record time’
Qantas is offering a new “flight to nowhere” that will give travel-starved Australian residents the chance to admire the late May supermoon and full lunar eclipse from over 40,000 feet in the sky.
If you were hoping to nab tickets, you’re out of luck — the airline says they were snapped up in “record time” — 2.5 minutes to be exact.
The supermoon flight is the latest in a series of Qantas-operated trips that take travelers up for a joy ride, before returning them right back to where they came from.
Tickets for the supermoon flight started at AUS $499 for an economy ticket (US $386), while business class was on sale for $1,499 a pop (US $1,160).
The flight promises some pretty spectacular lunar views. The airline said in a press release that it’s working with astronomer Dr. Vanessa Moss to design “the optimal flight path over the Pacific Ocean.”
Moss will also be on board to entertain travelers with facts and insights about the May 26 lunar event, which NASA calls a “super blood Moon eclipse.”
NASA explains that the “super” part comes from the fact that the full moon will be near its closest orbital position to Earth, which will render it larger and brighter to the human eye.
https://edition.cnn.com/travel/article/qantas-supermoon-flight-to-nowhere/index.html
I thought the WHO investigation found the most likely origin of C19 was Wuhan?
Not that it’s the most crucial issue around C19.
Cud.
We don’t know. The WHO report was clear about access in the early stages. We know secrecy in China including early access has prevented knowledge being shared.
So we don’t know if international sites came from China or not.
Either way I am not saying the lab leak is a credible theory. I am saying be wary because the Trump lunatic conspiracy theorists are trying to pursue Dr Fauci with the lab leak theory.
bw
You mean the “comrades” who have found virus in Us, Italian and other samples going back to at least Oct 2019?
The virus was circulating outside of China back then.
BW – We should be able to see the steam coming out their ears from here 🙂
‘Cud Chewer says:
Monday, May 17, 2021 at 2:43 pm
…
I for one will certainly getting a booster once the upgraded versions come out.’
———————————————–
Even if you have already had 2XAZ?
I wonder what came first, the Wuhan or the Lab?
Ryan Spencer
———————–
I understood that and under the purposed boundaries Caulfield would be transferred to Higgins but the Greens strongest booth in the western end of Stonnington was added last time and the Greens didn’t get the pop that i and others thought they might and because of that I’m not seeing the seat going Green but if the Greens found a top notch candidate then that might make it interesting.
guytaur
An accidental leak has occurred before. But when it has, its been easily identifyable as such.
Researchers doing good faith research into live viruses deliberately engineer them so that they can be identified. In ways that are obvioys from reading the base sequence.
To have a lab escape that is engineered to look like it isn’t, actually requires effort.
‘Cud Chewer says:
Monday, May 17, 2021 at 2:46 pm
bw
You mean the “comrades” who have found virus in Us, Italian and other samples going back to at least Oct 10?
The virus was circulating outside of China back then.’
My points are fairly straightforward.
1. We don’t know what data the comrades suppressed. We do know that they suppressed some. They meant to. That essentially invalidates the data we DO have.
2. We do know that there were China lab cockups in other domains. One of these is costing them a motsa. (The Global Times had one of those articles in which they talk about everything except what they are talking about. The real focus: the price of pork because production has been shattered.)
3. We do know that there is more than one China lab working on virus research. Some are not in Wuhan.
4. The binary between wet market/lab deliberate is a false binary. There is no particular reason to suppose that a natural process in a lab did not inadvertently create a ‘natural’ Covid. Are pangolins cuddley?
5. A state that engages in genocide would have no scruples at all about engaging in biological weapons research including weaponizing SARs.
6. We do know that China failed to close down the wild meats sections of the wet markets when they knew the wet markets were a time bomb.
“Even if you have already had 2XAZ?”
My 2nd AZ is late June. And yes, because I do not trust AZ with some variants.
I’ll be getting a booster once the data is in and there is an updated vaccine available.
Heard a snippet of an interesting and very relevant broadcast on Radio National today. Didn’t catch enough to know who was being interviewed, but he was an ex-diplomat and the interviewer was Geraldine Doogue, so I presume it was this program, and the bit I heard was the interview with John McCarthy:
https://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/extra/monday-17-may/13337344
There were three main messages:
1. Australia is entering a new era WRT China, and seems completely unprepared for the consequences;
2. Australia has very little experience at international diplomacy, our politicians are generally very naive when it comes to this area, neither seeking nor listening to professional advice. As a result, our diplomatic services have been hollowed out to the point of nonexistence in some regions; and
3. All this recent beating of war drums and deliberate attempts to create a wave of Sinophobia in Australia for local political purposes is ultimately likely to prove seriously damaging to our interests.
Not that most Australians seem to care, I guess 🙁
Bushfire Bill @ #318 Monday, May 17th, 2021 – 2:45 pm
Sorry, BB. We’ve already done “projection”. Try another subject.
Cud
It’s unlikely to have come from a lab is what I understand.
It’s why I started off agreeing with SK. Even with secrecy there are limits to what you can speculate happened under that early timeline.
We don’t know if those international sites came about from early Wuhan visitors because we only know when the whistleblower health staff got desperate enough to breach official lines of communication to inform Beijing.
With the origin story we have educated guesses. We don’t know.
davidwh @ #320 Monday, May 17th, 2021 – 2:46 pm
Yes. However, the WHO investigation also found that the “lab leak” theory to be the least likely.
Which is, of course, why some here are desperate to discredit the WHO. The WHO report doesn’t fit their conspiracy theories.
This article on COVID is worthwhile.
A quick and basic biology lesson on the virus goes like this: a virus exists in an animal — the leading candidate is a bat. At some point the bat virus is transmitted to another animal that is in closer contact with humans and then some time after that, the virus infects its first human. Maybe a fragment of faeces or mucus from the animal is absorbed, or it could be transmitted after being eaten.
It’s not possible to know precisely how long before being detected in humans this transmission happened. Holmes uses the example of HIV which is believed to have jumped from chimps to humans in the 1920s, maybe while the animal was being butchered for food, but only became widely known in the 1980s when it spread to a level that allowed patterns to become evident in the community.
In the case of COVID-19, several mutations may have existed in humans prior to November 2019, but for one reason or another they died out, leaving just one powerful mutation. Perhaps that mutation was caught by a superspreader, leading to the current pandemic.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-11-17/coronavirus-origins-wuhan-12-months-on/12890076
Cud Chewer
Your post re the benefits of the slow rollout and closed borders are only benefits if the government learns from them.
I have no faith that Morrison will learn anything if it is against his agenda
This part of report is quite instructive….
What happens next
Finding that animal or species that transferred COVID-19 to humans is of critical importance, Holmes believes, and the World Health Organisation has released a plan to search for the zoonotic origins of the virus.
Right now, the COVID-19 genome is around 96 per cent compatible with coronaviruses that have known animal hosts. But that’s just not close enough. It equates to around 30 years of missing evolution.
“The key thing to do is fill in that gap,” says Holmes. “Thirty-or-so years of missing ‘stuff’.”
‘Cud Chewer says:
Monday, May 17, 2021 at 2:55 pm
“Even if you have already had 2XAZ?”
My 2nd AZ is late June. And yes, because I do not trust AZ with some variants.
I’ll be getting a booster once the data is in and there is an updated vaccine available.’
——————————————————
Thanks.
Cud Chewer @ #329 Monday, May 17th, 2021 – 2:55 pm
Ditto from me, one AZ to go, but I too want more data on variants and the possible need for vaccines on a yearly basis….
‘Victoria says:
Monday, May 17, 2021 at 3:13 pm
….
Right now, the COVID-19 genome is around 96 per cent compatible with coronaviruses that have known animal hosts. But that’s just not close enough. It equates to around 30 years of missing evolution.
“The key thing to do is fill in that gap,” says Holmes. “Thirty-or-so years of missing ‘stuff’.”
—————————————————————
The closed-access 2019 samples would, no doubt, be handy for gap filling.
The Wuhan lab theory seemed to originate from parties in the US who were trying to divert attention from Trump’s failure to control the virus. There appears to have been plenty of speculation and misinformation, some of it published by Murdoch papers in Australia, but no actual evidence.
I have no doubt there were early failures in the detection and management of this outbreak by officials in China. I also have no doubt that the Chinese government is actively trying to cover up these failures less any criticism be directed at their Supreme Leader, Gift to Mankind, etc. I also doubt that many western countries would have performed any better than China. Indeed, the evidence so far suggests they wouldn’t have.
‘Pica says:
Monday, May 17, 2021 at 3:17 pm
…
Ditto from me, one AZ to go, but I too want more data on variants and the possible need for vaccines on a yearly basis….’
Thanks.
bc @ #340 Monday, May 17th, 2021 – 3:18 pm
Excellent summary. And you know what gave this lab theory legs? They found they could link Dr Fauci with the lab in Wuhan (which is not at all surprising when you consider Dr Fauci’s background, and the fact that the US used to be actively engaged in the research being done in Wuhan).
This must have led to the Trump conspiracy nuts in the US creaming their jeans! 🙂
‘bc says:
Monday, May 17, 2021 at 3:18 pm
… but no actual evidence.’
—————————–
Do you seriously think that the comrades would even consider giving evidence to the rest of the world.
boerwar @ #343 Monday, May 17th, 2021 – 3:26 pm
Right. Clearly, the absence of any evidence supports your conspiracy theory 🙁
P1,
The same could be said of your own desperate efforts to label any departure from, or speculation about an adverse role for China or Chinese scientists in the origins of the virus as “racism” or “conspiracy theories”.
As part of a discussion here on a controversial and quite politically charged speech given by the newly ex-Deputy CMO, Nick Coatsworth, just the other day, I wrote here (among other things) that the “Wuhan Lab Release” theory remained unsubstantiated.
I therefore read the article in question after I made that post, with an open mind, as recommended reading by one of The Guardian’s editorial team.
If you had a similarly open mind you’d read it right through yourself (which you have clearly not done) without resorting to your usual routine, kneejerk slurring and slagging tactics.
There is also a lively discussion in the comments to the article that fleshes out and considers many of the points raised here by others, both pro and con.
Regarding Dr Fauci, he was more than tangentially connected to the Wuhan coronavirus research. The organisation of which he was Director at the time, the NIAID directly commissioned and funded that research.
Get ready for lots of miracles. Girl no longer needs wheelchair:
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2021/may/17/girl-who-uses-wheelchair-deemed-to-have-no-mobility-concerns-by-ndis-independent-assessment
Bushfire Bill @ #345 Monday, May 17th, 2021 – 3:32 pm
I don’t label it “racism”. I label it “sinophobia”. There is a difference, although in your case – and given your previous posts – the reasons for your sinophobia seem fairly clear.
As for labelling them “conspiracy theories”, what else would you call a theory where even the people who post them have to agree when challenged that there is no actual evidence for them, but nevertheless continue to post them at every opportunity?
Very good post bc.
Bucephalussays:
Monday, May 17, 2021 at 2:38 pm
“Private Hospitals don’t generally have significant unused capacity.”
……….
That’s true enough.
But what they do have is significant unused space.
Just pile all the sick and dying elitists up 4 deep per private room and whacko! You’ve got a ready made covid ward.