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.
China’s factory output slows as bottlenecks crimp production
China’s factories slowed their output growth in April and retail sales significantly missed expectations as officials warned of new problems affecting the recovery in the world’s second-largest economy.
While China’s exporters are enjoying strong demand, global supply chain bottlenecks and rising raw materials costs have weighed on production, cooling the blistering economic recovery from last year’s COVID-19 slump.
NBS spokesman Fu Linghui said while China’s economy showed a steady improvement in April, new problems are also emerging, notably the rise in international commodity prices.
“The foundations for the domestic economic recovery are not yet secure,” Fu told a news briefing in Beijing on Monday.
In the factory sector, motor vehicle production growth fell sharply to 6.8% from 69.8%, due in part to the base effect as well as critical shortages of semiconductors used in car systems.
“China’s economy shows signs of unbalanced recovery: strong exports and domestic investment on one hand, but weak consumption on the other,” said Zhiwei Zhang, chief economist at Pinpoint Asset Management, in a note.
April also saw factory activity slow amid supply bottlenecks and rising costs and policymakers have acknowledged some of the recent weaknesses seen in the economic recovery.
https://www.reuters.com/world/china/wrapup-chinas-industrial-output-growth-slows-april-retail-sales-miss-forecasts-2021-05-17/
It’s the clash of the “prominent businessmen” of Toowoomba. Presumably Clive Berghofer has better access to the Morrison government than the proponents, the Wagner family.
Surely all these red carpets are a photoshopped joke, or some sort of prank
What is the point of a red carpet that ends prematurely? in some cases half-way along?
What is the red carpet rider to do when the carpet is foreshortened? Stop?
It’s like they ordered some red carpets from the Trump Organization, and these are what turned up!
boerwar @ #200 Monday, May 17th, 2021 – 3:38 pm
Reverse assessment. The young lady was conducting the assessment and found that the spoofed assessors are a bunch of arseholes looking for a place to roost should the coffins they usually occupy be not up the standard they require.
I understand that capital punishment is to be reinstated for Gummin scammers, scammers and looters and not a day too soon (coming soon to a school assembly hall near you as a ♫ musical ♪).
Kayjay
My view is that the private sector profit making assessors are going to lay on the hands and Lo! the legless will walk, the blind will see, and the deaf will hear!
citizensays:
Monday, May 17, 2021 at 3:52 pm
“It’s the clash of the “prominent businessmen” of Toowoomba. Presumably Clive Berghofer has better access to the Morrison government than the proponents, the Wagner family.”
…………
Berghofer was a long time mayor and real estate spiv, he probably has his nose out of joint because the proposed quarantine facility isn’t on land he owns.
P1, you just can’t help yourself.
You can’t resist continuing your slurring and slagging-off. You persist in the hope it’ll stick. Yet you never produce the threatened evidence.
“P1 has determined {insert slur of the day here}…”
You are a hopeless case.
White House group gets to work on plan to increase unionization of U.S. workers
The White House on Thursday launched an effort to increase the number of American workers belonging to unions, address income inequality and redress a power imbalance that favors employers.
The agenda was unveiled at the first meeting of President Joe Biden’s labor task force, which he created in April.
Vice President Kamala Harris, who leads the group, said the work was a high priority for the administration. “When there are more union members, there is less income inequality,” she said.
Harris also said the COVID-19 pandemic exposed fractures in the system designed to protect worker rights. “For whom things were bad, today they’re even worse.” she said.
A White House official told Reuters that between 1979 and 2020, the percentage of American workers represented by a union dropped by 14.9 percentage points. According to analysts, because of that drop American workers are losing out on $200 billion a year in wages and benefits they could have achieved under union contracts, the official said.
https://www.reuters.com/world/us/white-house-labor-task-force-will-discuss-using-federal-resources-help-workers-2021-05-13/
boerwar @ #354 Monday, May 17th, 2021 – 3:59 pm
Excellent plan. I look forward to greeting my blind wife when she returns in a blaze of glory from heaven.
Please tell me while I wait — that Mr. Whatsisname is not planning on becoming the Father of the Nation.
Over and out. 😇
Bushfire Bill @ #356 Monday, May 17th, 2021 – 4:06 pm
Because I refuse to let people get away with transparent self-serving bullshit?
Guilty.
It is a pity that China has lost it’s way. This would be a interesting place to visit.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2YFdN7cw_cU
I am not sure about the proportions but before the Covid shutdowns there were already labour shortages directly attributable to Brexit.
The Brexit unleashed xenophobia and racism which increased the amount of hostility towards o/s workers and this resulted in people leaving. As well people who might have arrived stayed away.
There was evidence on social media that messaging going back home from the UK was about incidents that o/s workers had suffered.
The tabloids in the UK show zero restraint in this respect.
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2021/may/17/uk-faces-labour-shortage-as-covid-and-brexit-fuel-exodus-of-overseas-workers
frednk
Some of the images only minutes in are very attractive!
The World Economy Is Suddenly Running Low on Everything
‘It is anything but efficient or normal.’ Surging corporate demand is upending global supply chains.
A year ago, as the pandemic ravaged country after country and economies shuddered, consumers were the ones panic-buying. Today, on the rebound, it’s companies furiously stocking up.
Mattress producers to car manufacturers to aluminum foil makers are buying more material than they need to survive the breakneck speed at which demand for goods is recovering and assuage that primal fear of running out. The corporate buying and hoarding is pushing supply chains to the brink of seizing up. Shortages, transportation bottlenecks and price spikes are nearing the highest levels in recent memory, raising concern that a supercharged global economy will stoke inflation.
Copper, iron ore and steel. Corn, coffee, wheat and soybeans. Lumber, semiconductors, plastic and cardboard for packaging. The world is seemingly low on all of it. “You name it, and we have a shortage on it,” Tom Linebarger, chairman and chief executive of engine and generator manufacturer Cummins Inc.,
The difference between the big crunch of 2021 and past supply disruptions is the sheer magnitude of it, and the fact that there is — as far as anyone can tell — no clear end in sight
Further exacerbating the situation is an unusually long and growing list of calamities that have rocked commodities in recent months. A freak accident in the Suez Canal backed up global shipping in March. Drought has wreaked havoc upon agricultural crops. A deep freeze and mass blackout wiped out energy and petrochemicals operations across the central U.S. in February. Less than two weeks ago, hackers brought down the largest fuel pipeline in the U.S.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-05-17/inflation-rate-2021-and-shortages-companies-panic-buying-as-supplies-run-short?srnd=premium-asia
A charity with a total income of 18 thousand dollars
https://www.acnc.gov.au/charity/10b8cb0e2cd1296b715a39247e674768
slags off and the age publishes, is it worth reading?
https://www.theage.com.au/national/victoria/is-the-super-loop-getting-in-the-way-of-real-public-transport-upgrades-20210516-p57sc6.html
Read it, apparently we should have more tram stops and bike lanes. Not sure how that relates to rail but there you are.
boerwar says:
Monday, May 17, 2021 at 4:22 pm
frednk
Some of the images only minutes in are very attractive!
It is just an amazing part of he world, it is a pity it is all going to close up again.
BB is at it again .
I think he lost PB when u fell out with c@t. But now I see he is raging when he got called out on a conspiracy theory by P1.
dave
It is everywhere.
If you want a new John Deere in Australia you have to wait at least six months. Before, you could haggle with your dealer and get your tractor straight away with a discount.
I suspect this is what happens when everyone pretends you can print as much money as you like and it won’t make any difference in the real world.
The Baltic Dry Index has screamed north:
https://tradingeconomics.com/commodity/baltic
I assume that these two have the ambition of getting a dishonourable mention in BK’s nominations for Arseholes of the Week:
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-05-17/two-men-arrested-after-alleged-l-plate-driver-assault-at-bolivar/100143462
No.
Because you never back up what you claim. You just slur people without arguing your case. Your sole determinant appears to be your own sanctimonious version of morality.
But you don’t present it as your opinion. You present it as fact, without actually providing any facts, or arguments.
You would not be out of place at the Salem witch trials.
Bushfire Bill @ #370 Monday, May 17th, 2021 – 4:33 pm
I posted a link to some of the original posts that got you into trouble earlier today. You apparently missed that. Look back and I’m sure you’ll find it.
In case youse had, like myself, wondered:
https://www.abc.net.au/news/science/2021-05-16/spinifex-hole-mystery-australian-outback-microbes/100083850
KayJay @ #353 Monday, May 17th, 2021 – 3:56 pm
Has Scotty been laying on hands again….
Bill Shorten showing Albo how it’s done (from the Guardian live blog) …
I know Labor’s position is hopeless but can we please not turn on each other.
We need to focus on the wilderness years ahead fer crisakes.
https://www.fedcourt.gov.au/services/access-to-files-and-transcripts/online-files/porter-v-abc/Affidavit-Grant-McAvaney-13-May-2021.pdf
Angry letters and Jo Dyer has filed four affidavits in her application to restrain Porter’s lawyer from acting (I think)
Player One @ #105 Monday, May 17th, 2021 – 4:57 pm
‘Why don’t we just say what everyone is thinking. This government is making it up as it goes along.’
A killer line to open.
Frednk
As I had to get from Beaumaris to Monash without a car as a 17 year old, Victorian drivers must be 18, I thoroughly approve of that new rail line which I think will be well patronised by Monash students and workers in the surrounding high tech industrial parks and Monash hospital in Clayton
Although future Monash Uni students won’t learn how to hitch hike or bum lifts by walking through the libraries, I have many fond and some hair raising memories of my travels to and from Uni and around Germany and Argentina
billie
Talking about fond memories as a Monash student, I lost my shoes at Beaumaris. Did we connect?
Rex Douglas @ #NaN Monday, May 17th, 2021 – 2:00 pm
Greg the Sick Lying Hunt was just on the 9 Afternoon news patting himself on the back because the number is now up to 999 Australia wide. 😡
Nothing to see here, move along!
boerwar says Monday, May 17, 2021 at 4:49 pm
I see they managed to get at least one pun in:
Don’t they learn critical thinking in officer school?
https://www.watoday.com.au/world/north-america/us-space-force-leader-claims-marxists-taking-over-military-loses-job-20210517-p57slm.html
‘shellbell says:
Monday, May 17, 2021 at 5:00 pm
https://www.fedcourt.gov.au/services/access-to-files-and-transcripts/online-files/porter-v-abc/Affidavit-Grant-McAvaney-13-May-2021.pdf
Angry letters and Jo Dyer has filed four affidavits in her application to restrain Porter’s lawyer from acting (I think)’
—————————————
All that made my head hurt. Is this about priveleged information in one context being unfairly accessible to an opponent in another case?
‘bc says:
Monday, May 17, 2021 at 5:14 pm
Don’t they learn critical thinking in officer school?’
————————————-
Not really. They secretly arranged for him to be sacked. Proves it.
bc
Neither a Dad’s joke nor a zinger.
“Got me into trouble” with who? YOU?
That’s practically a badge of honour.
Kindly provide evidence of your authority to “get people into trouble”.
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2021/may/17/abject-failure-only-834-out-of-23000-australian-disability-care-residents-vaccinated
EVERY.SINGLE.THING.THEY.TOUCH.
bc @ #NaN Monday, May 17th, 2021 – 3:18 pm
Yes, but as you intimate, China, and thus its leader, has to perform better than the rest.
It’s a toss up though whose brainwashing is superior, Trump’s or Xi’s. They’ve both attained world wide reach.
“citizensays:
Monday, May 17, 2021 at 3:52 pm
It’s the clash of the “prominent businessmen” of Toowoomba. Presumably Clive Berghofer has better access to the Morrison government than the proponents, the Wagner family.”
I don’t know about that. But may be an Aussie special feature called “not in my backyard” in play.
Here we go. The UK is back in its favourite emotional space: World War Two.
Northern Ireland is Vichy redux:
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-northern-ireland-57108347
The notion that China would publicly acknowledge the existence of a biological warfare laboratory (not the Wuhan lab, of course) is most entertaining.
If Arlene Foster is not to be the next Phillipe Petain, who is?
billie says:
Monday, May 17, 2021 at 5:01 pm
Frednk
As I had to get from Beaumaris to Monash without a car as a 17 year old, Victorian drivers must be 18, I thoroughly approve of that new rail line which I think will be well patronised by Monash students and workers in the surrounding high tech industrial parks and Monash hospital in Clayton
As a regular train user I know how hard it is to get from Bacchus marsh to the airport. I strongly approve of the ring.
We may need more bike lanes ( I don’t ride bikes) but it has jack shit to do with train travel. As for the train stations, I travel on trains to get from A to B, not to admire the amenities.
It would seem John Hearsch loves trams:
https://www.watoday.com.au/politics/victoria/trams-the-missing-piece-from-the-transport-puzzle-20181119-p50gvt.html
Clive Berghofer is a former National Party member for the state seat of Toowoomba South. LNP through and through and still up to his armpits in the internals of the party.
I have no idea about the Wagner family.
“C@tmommasays:
Monday, May 17, 2021 at 5:24 pm
It’s a toss up though whose brainwashing is superior, Trump’s or Xi’s. They’ve both attained world wide reach.”
Although I know it does not make a rat backside difference to what I think, I am really concerned about both the brainwashes. There is a very high chance those brainwashes will unfortunately affect US and the world adversely in near future.
Jimmy Lai thought that he was protected by Hong Kong’s democracy. Xi now has him by the short and curlies. That’s how dictatorships work.
https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202105/1223651.shtml
Some more chest-thumping:
https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202105/1223493.shtml
frednk..
Indeed, I have done the Silk Road overland from Beijing to Istanbul in a number of trips, and the Central Asian parts through Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan and Iran were the highlights. It helps give a whole new perspective on world history, especially the Persian Era and European Dark Ages when Central Asia was forging ahead in trade, mathematics, medicine and astronomy.
Told my 70 year old sister about it, and she did most of it alone a few years later!
Hope it is all doable again one day…..
Bushfire Bill @ #386 Monday, May 17th, 2021 – 5:21 pm
The racism inherent in your comments was pointed out to you by William. Is there a higher authority on this blog?
And here you are, a year later, still trying to rewrite history to dig yourself out. Sad.
If you really must drone on like this for page after page, Player One, at least keep me out of it.