Highlights of the latest fortnightly Essential Research poll, which is lacking the really interesting stuff (the monthly leadership ratings and quarterly dump of voting intention), but covers a fair bit of ground on the budget:
• Respondents were asked whether the budget would be good or bad for various groups and interests, results for which appear to be heavily influenced by general attitudes towards the party bringing down the budget. In this cases, the budget was reckoned to be most beneficial to “people who are well off” (51% good, 8% bad) and big businesses (49% and 7%), but scored net negative ratings for people on lower incomes (30% and 33%) and “you personally” (22% and 25%). However, the budget rated more strongly across the board than last year’s, with net ratings 23% higher for the economy overall, 15% higher for families, 12% higher for younger Australians and 11% higher for average working people.
• The budget has apparently impressed respondents as being good for women, particularly compared with last year’s. Thirty-four per cent rated that it put women’s interests ahead of men’s versus 19% for vice-versa and 47% who thought it balanced, compared with respective figures last year of 14%, 31% and 54%. It would also appear easy to persuade respondents that budgets put the interests of young people ahead of old: 32% thought so this year compared with 28% for vice-versa and 40% for balanced, albeit that this is quite a lot narrower than last year’s split of 45% to 21% with 34% for balanced. As usual with a Coalition budget, many more respondents felt it put the interests of businesses ahead of employees than vice-versa (49% versus 13% with 38% for balanced, compared with 14%, 42% and 45% for last year).
• A regular question on governments’ handling of COVID-19 gave the federal government what I believe to be its weakest good rating to date of 58%, down four on last month, with the poor rating up a point to 18%. For the state governments, good ratings are down five in New South Wales to 68%, up five for Victoria to 63% and down four for Queensland to 68%.
• As did last week’s Resolve Strategic poll, and no doubt most other polls that have ever been conducted on the subject, this one finds strong opposition to an early election: 61% agreed an election this year would “just be opportunism for the Prime Minister”, compared with 39% for the alternative proposition that an early election “will be good for Australia, because a lot has changed since the last election”.
The poll was conducted Wednesday to Sunday from a sample of 1100.
Just toooooo depressing..
Volkswagen says its ID.3 and ID.4 electric vehicles are unlikely to arrive in Australia by 2023, as previously foresadowed, after accusing Australia of being “hostile” to EVs, with little if any support and encouragement from federal and state governments.
Volkswagen says the ID.4, a small electric SUV, would likely cost around $60,000 in Australia, while the ID.3, a Golf-sized electric hatchback, would be less than that.
The company’s Australia boss Michael Bartsch had previously said 2023 was a likely date for their arrival, but even that looks unlikely with no positive regulatory change on the horizon, a spokesman for the German car maker said.
I’m likely never to be in a position to buy my EV
‘Quoll says:
Wednesday, May 26, 2021 at 10:45 am
Looks like it was fortunate for Australia that the wind was blowing, as it almost always is doing somewhere.
….’
—————————–
Good post, IMO.
‘Sceptic says:
Wednesday, May 26, 2021 at 11:06 am
Just toooooo depressing..
Volkswagen says its ID.3 and ID.4 electric vehicles are unlikely to arrive in Australia by 2023, as previously foresadowed, after accusing Australia of being “hostile” to EVs, with little if any support and encouragement from federal and state governments.
Volkswagen says the ID.4, a small electric SUV, would likely cost around $60,000 in Australia, while the ID.3, a Golf-sized electric hatchback, would be less than that.
The company’s Australia boss Michael Bartsch had previously said 2023 was a likely date for their arrival, but even that looks unlikely with no positive regulatory change on the horizon, a spokesman for the German car maker said.
I’m likely never to be in a position to buy my EV’
———————————————
I await an enterprising jurisdiction to do a mass buy/resale effort before then.
Ven @ #88 Wednesday, May 26th, 2021 – 10:57 am
Of course they know the original source, but as far as I know they haven’t claimed to know the chain of transmission.
I accept your apology on behalf of Andrew Laming. Can you take it down now?
boerwar @ #95 Wednesday, May 26th, 2021 – 11:01 am
Downloading an upgrade is a service? I’ve been driving an EV for 18 months. There’s nothing to service.
“Sharaz told Guardian Australia in a statement:
The PM’s chief of staff undertakes an investigation into his own office and finds it’s functioning well. How unexpected.
Even the most cynical person would see this for what it is – PMO staffers protecting themselves.
I’m incredibly proud of Brittany for everything she’s achieved, and the dignified way in which she’s handled herself at the hands of a government intent on treating her like a political problem.
We won’t be intimidated by those who wish to silence us.”
Bravo! Morrison, and the way he uses his power, disgusts me more each day.
More of it. ..
Bartsch’s exasperation was clear in an interview with The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald on Tuesday, in which he lashed the government’s “embarrassing” position on EVs.
“Hardly a day goes by when we don’t get an inquiry from someone who would dearly love to buy a Volkswagen electric vehicle, and we have to tell them we don’t know when we can introduce them. It seems to get more and more uncertain,” he was quoted as saying.
Energy Minister Angus Taylor’s office responded to the comments in hostile fashion, saying it wouldn’t “be lectured about vehicles emissions by a car manufacturer that has a track record of deceiving motorists and violating clean-air laws” – a reference to the “diesel dupe” scandal of more than five years ago.
https://thedriven.io/2021/03/24/third-world-for-evs-vw-says-electric-id-range-wont-be-in-australia-for-years/
Why the hell doesn’t Labor go after Angus? He is so fragile he needs to be shirt-fronted Bruce Doull like
Itza
I think it’s the consequence of ten years of the major parties saying the Greens are evil.
It’s a result of Murdoch’s campaign against the environment.
Just look at the way Turnbull trashed pontificating Paul Kelly on QANDA.
Those years opposing Labor with lies have had their effect on how Australians view climate change policy.
It’s why Labor needs to grasp the nettle and find ways to make the Murdoch lies very stark.
I am pleased that Bernard Keane has started.
He might just get the press gallery to change its narrative just enough for Labor to win the election.
Then Labor can do something about it.
I personally believe this is why Murdoch is so willing to destroy credibility in the US campaigning for Donald Trump with no regard for democracy.
Edit: a reminder this is my opinion about the Murdoch media.
There is no such thing as a free lunch, except if you can persuade others that your lunch ought to be free for them to pay for:
https://www.greencars.com/post/what-does-it-cost-to-maintain-an-electric-car
‘Stuart says:
Wednesday, May 26, 2021 at 11:10 am
I accept your apology on behalf of Andrew Laming. Can you take it down now?’
—————————
You may have missed that William has requested Bludgers that we do not discuss it.
ItzaDream @ #108 Wednesday, May 26th, 2021 – 11:12 am
Yes I think boerwar was being wilfully obtuse there. he does that sometimes in order to try and make his point.
Spray,
I believe they haven’t found the person infected by the SA man that subsequently infected the first infected of the Whittlesea group. It will be difficult to find that person now because although infected by Covid they may not have demonstrated Covid symptoms while infective and they may have fully recovered.
From the ABC:
Have authorities found the ‘missing link’?
Professor Sutton says the only missing link “is the link to the Wollert case from South Australian hotel quarantine”.
He says all of the cases in this cluster are linked.
“So we understand the relationships between them and we have an explanation for how transmission has occurred,” he said.
“We might see new people coming forward and testing positive that either tell us what the missing link is.”
He said unknown acquisition was “always a concern”, adding: “That is essentially case five”.
“That case has done the right thing in giving us all of the information and all of the subsequent investigations are running down the chains of transmission… but there could be other cases,” he said.
“Whether or not we identify you as a close contact or a casual contact, whether or not you have been to an exposure site, if you are symptomatic, please get tested — and that is the mildest of symptoms.
“It could be a runny nose or a sore throat or aches and pains. It might be lethargy, a headache. Get tested.”
C@tmomma @ #112 Wednesday, May 26th, 2021 – 11:19 am
which his last rubbish post (about changing tyres or something) illustrates nicely.
And that the Coalition are the only ones who can do anything about it.
Beware the Morrison Climate Epiphany.
There are relatively few jobs in ongoing Alternative Power generation. Most of it runs itself, once constructed. Recently, we passed hundreds of hectares of solar farms near Broken Hill. There were 4 cars in the car park. 300 wind turbines at Hornsdale SA scored 8 cars.
Whichever way you look at it, it appears that massive employment in Alternative Energy is close to a myth. Coal mining at least offers a few thousand jobs, adjacent to areas where workers live. Yeah, it’s digging holes, but there’s employment to be had without having to travel thousands of kilometres to get it.
The aim of those trying to promote Alternative Energy as the way of the future has to include the prospect of a re-industrialized Australia: an Australia that makes use of abundant non-fossil-fuel energy potential to add value to, not just dig up our natural resources. It means industrializing Regional Australia, much more than the cities.
It has to be a strategic plan, not an ad hoc scheme to win a by-election, shore-up a marginal seat, or settle factional scores. It needs to include a proper, fast, ubiquitous national broadband network, one whose achievements match its name, so that reliable, lightning fast, bi-directional, heavy data traffic can be available in all regions for time-critical industrial operations: no buffering or traffic bottlenecks tolerated. This alone would serve to help move employment concentration out of cities and CBDs, and into areas about to have the rug pulled from under them when Coal dies its natural death.
There’s no plan for any of this, on either side of politics (press releases, tweets, or dogmativ but impotent politicians rabbiting on about closing Coal down tomorrow do not constitute a plan). Mostly we just hear about either continuing our reliance on primary industries – farming and mining – forever, with our heads buried in the sand, or magically ceasing to mine coal overnight and deftly switching over to mining wind or sun. Whichever way you look at it, it doesn’t add value. And it won’t garner votes, or change anything.
Yes GG, that’s how I understood it. And after a certain period of time, finding that index case is unimportant. That’s the point that seems to be lost on a very large and noisy subset of the community, particularly on Twitter.
The problem with saying the Greens or the Labor party are the only serious party on climate change is the climate deniers use that to wedge the good ideas of both parties about the environment.
How about instead Labor On Your Side.
Edit: I didn’t put up a Greens slogan as I don’t know what it is.
FWIW, there are gov schemes designed to help poor and renters get solar panels.
And speaking of being, possibly unwittingly, obtuse.
Have you ever been on the bones of your arse for an extended period of time, Simon Katich? I have. So let me just inform you that the poor can’t eat solar panels. They are generally more concerned with putting food on the table, paying the rent, paying for school shoes and school excursions, and paying the bills, like the electricity bill and if they are able to put money aside to pay the rest of the cost of putting solar panels on the roof of their rental then they must be one of the handful of Australian families, whose numbers can be counted on the fingers of one hand, that can afford to do it. Or they have an illegal side gig.
So, like the federal government scheme to give Single Mothers coverage to buy a house with 2% deposit, those sort of schemes are simply feel good pablum to salve our guilty consciences that we do little of real consequence to help them. Like give them the solar panels for free or housing to keep a roof over their family’s head.
I am going to be crystal clear.
Labor and the Greens are serious about the environment and all policies about that. They have different approaches and policies.
It’s the LNP that are not serious on these issues as we see by their actions with courts having to enforce environmental laws that the minister for the environment has not.
Edit: So remember who is the real enemy of the environment
The voice of reason, as always….
https://twitter.com/GregDore2/status/1397346316603195394
Why scientists are suddenly more interested in the lab-leak theory of Covid’s origin
We’re as far as ever from knowing how this virus, which shut down the world, came to be — which is as frightening as anything, since there’s growing suggestions that it didn’t just occur naturally, as many experts have long argued.
The US, with increasing urgency, is calling for more study, warning about the stakes for future pandemics, and more openly considering the idea that mistakes or an accident in a Chinese lab caused the Covid-19 pandemic.
The Chinese government says case closed.
What’s new?
A US intelligence report found that several researchers at China’s Wuhan Institute of Virology fell ill in November 2019 and had to be hospitalized, a new detail about the severity of their symptoms. It’s not clear the researchers contracted Covid-19 and the lab strongly denied the report, calling it a lie to push the so-called lab-leak theory for the disease origin.
Scientists affiliated with the institute have previously said the institute did not come into contact with Covid-19 until December 30.
The US had actually provided some funding for the study of coronaviruses and their transmission through bats, which had made it to the Wuhan Institute of Virology.
On Capitol Hill Tuesday, Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said it would have been a “dereliction of duty” not to fund earlier coronavirus research in bats in China.
The takeaway here: There needs to be more investigation.
WHO officials called for additional investigation and openness from the Chinese.
China has been unwilling to submit to an open investigation; it insisted on strict parameters for the earlier WHO study.
https://edition.cnn.com/2021/05/25/politics/wuhan-lab-covid-origin-theory/index.html
“It could be a runny nose or a sore throat or aches and pains. It might be lethargy, a headache. Get tested.”
Which I do religiously every time I get the sniffles, or when I had the full blown flu recently. To which I will add, that with the number of people around here who have the flu at the moment, if COVID breaks out, everyone will think they have it! 😆
https://www.smh.com.au/environment/climate-change/nsw-labor-followed-the-joel-fitzgibbon-playbook-in-the-hunter-and-look-what-happened-20210525-p57v0c.html
It’s time.
It’s time for Labor to get back to core business of providing jobs in traditional Labor areas of manufacturing, health, education and hospitality.
It’s time to jettison the fossil fuel rats who are delivering govt to the crackpot Libs and Nats.
so vw is holding back shipment of its electric cars to australia due to gov’t hostility, who’d have thought. meanwhile ford is going to manufacture five (5) models of electric vehicles at its factory in oakville ontario, making the oakville plant the No1 electric vehicle factory in north america. because they still make cars in canada. canadian & ontario governments are chipping in a total of $592,000,000 to assist in upgrading the plants. a deal with the unions has already been worked out : 5,400 unionised jobs. -a.v.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/ford-oakville-government-1.5754974
https://www.greencarreports.com/news/1129696_ford-plans-to-build-5-electric-vehicles-in-canada-beginning-in-2025
Lol.
Simon Vaccinated Chapman AO ✳️
@SimonChapman6
They say that people often look like their dogs. Can politicians come to look like their values? #auspol2021
dave
That is the mother of all sinophobic posts. Anyone who even suggests that theory has been branded a racist, a conspiracist, a Trumpist, and a sinophobe. Repeatedly and with venom.
Now China has upgraded the impossible to the ‘unlikely’. I hadn’t judged the Global Times editor and his staff to be racists, Trumpists, conspiracists and sinophobes but there it is.
Even China is admitting that the ‘Wuhan leak theory’ is not impossible.
https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202105/1224394.shtml
Just in case there are any innocents out there who are likely to be taken in by ideological Bludger bullshit artists, there ARE servicing costs for EVs. I have posted a link, above which lays these out.
As might be expected, these are much less than for fossil tanks.
All that said, I demand that others subsidize ALL my EV costs should I happen to buy one for the common good. Plus free beer for the launch.
I hadn’t realized that Spain and Italy have been overrun by pangolins.
Reading a UK farmer’s group opposing Australian tariff free beef imports I spotted this. Prepare yourself for some godawful Scomopromo
.
Media commentators believe the deal will be agreed before Scott Morrison, the Prime Minister’s Australian counterpart, attends the G7 summit in Cornwall as a guest next month.
https://sustainablefoodtrust.org/articles/why-we-should-be-concerned-about-a-free-trade-deal-with-australia/
I haven’t read a single paper that indicates the Virus is anything other than a zoonotic virus. It may have escaped from the Wuhan lab because of some kind of accident or slack procedures but that still isn’t the cause of the pandemic. If it escaped the lab then it’s certainly a matter for concern but this isn’t the first or last time this will happen. The US actually had people at the lab until Trump decided to defund them.
What is the cause of the pandemic is first world leaders systematically ignoring warnings from scientists over decades and fools like Trump, Morrison, Boris Johnson etc defunding the institutions who are supposed to deal with these things, ignoring international cooperation and treating Covid as nothing more than a minor inconvenience until it was too late to contain.
The fact that most Asian countries did contain it initially was largely due to them actually taking it seriously and having plans in place.
Our problems didn’t stem from China, they came from US tourist, the Ruby princess debacle and out political leaders.
BW,
But, they do have very cute gondolas in Italy.
BW –
Quite so. Who would’ve thought it…
poroti
I must admit to having a bit of a giggle at the self-serving tosh in that article.
Golden Smaug
The only certainty is that there is much we don’t know because the comrades don’t want us to know it.
BW
It may have escaped your notice. The best Lab leak conspiracy theories come from the Trumpism cults.
Just like the pandemic is real and Trumpists have used that to call it the China virus.
So Smaug is correct in the general point.
U.S. COVID update:
– New cases: 23,654 ………………. – New deaths: 690
– In hospital: 25,664 (-152)
– In ICU: 7,000 (+16)
605,208 total deaths now
‘GoldenSmaug says:
Wednesday, May 26, 2021 at 12:06 pm
…
Our problems didn’t stem from China, they came from US tourist, the Ruby princess debacle and out political leaders.
….’
There is absolutely nothing like self-loathing westerners when it comes to letting Despot Xi and ChiCom China off the hook!
The pandemic got its kick start when the comrades sent hundreds of thousands of Chinese citizens o/s for the Chinese New Year KNOWING that Covid was lethal and transmissable. That they also allowed tens of millions of Chinese citizens to travel internally at the same time compounds their culpability.
An example of how the conspiracy stuff works.
@ SimonCopland tweets
It’s interesting how so much of the criticism has now turned to “boomers” who are delaying getting their vaccinations rather than a Government and media that has completed fucked up the messaging associated with the vaccine roll out.
Not saying this is conspiracy theory. I am noting how the media destroying its credibility feeds into valid questions that get filled by all manner of bad actors.
phoenixRED @ #136 Wednesday, May 26th, 2021 – 12:15 pm
It wasn’t that long ago Trump was delivering 3,500 deaths a day. What a disaster he was …and still is.
boerwar,
Calling other Bludgers names and continuing to assert via some very obscure and convoluted logic that you should not have to pay a Road Users Fee if and when you buy an EV because YOU are doing US a favour by purchasing an EV, is one of the most banal justifications for taking an oppositional and defiant stance to the Road Users Tax that I have ever come across.
Also the second canard, when one will not do, that changing your tyres amounts to the equivalent of mechanical work on your EV, also updating the software used to run it, also strikes me as an argument for the sake of it. You should know better and I believe you probably do.
phoenixRED,
I am wondering what is behind the uptick in deaths from COVID-19 in the US?
cat,
Complacency and new variants.
The EV tax is stupid.
Pallas should have had the state build and toll all major roads instead.
EV servicing costs:
https://www.canstarblue.com.au/vehicles/electric-car-servicing/
Rex Douglas @ #145 Wednesday, May 26th, 2021 – 12:28 pm
Tolls are stupid. Roads should be built for all to use equally and freely as a toll is a differential tax which affects the poor more than the well-off.
BW
EV services are dramatically less than fossil fuel cars.
There is just less to be serviced. No oil change. Many moving parts removed.
It’s just not there.
boerwar @ #127 Wednesday, May 26th, 2021 – 12:01 pm
Hey, careful who you call a bullshit artist. The link posted is a load of tosh, and speaks for itself. You didn’t post it again, so I will –
https://www.greencars.com/post/what-does-it-cost-to-maintain-an-electric-car
The car I drive has the following *recommendations*:
* Check Cabin Air Filter every 2 years
* Check Brake Fluid every 2 years
* Service aircon every 6 years
* Rotate tyres to maintain even tread
Anyone seriously calling that out as “servicing costs for EVs” might just fall into the bullshit artist category.
Cat
Specific taxes to pay for roads is a con.
All citizens benefit from roads. So all government can fund roads for all citizens.
Anyone that argues against this is saying no one buys goods and services.
It’s a neoliberal con trick.
boerwar @ #146 Wednesday, May 26th, 2021 – 12:28 pm
Which exactly and quantitatively makes my point. EVs need less mechanical servicing because there are fewer moving parts. Mechanics will be needed less as a result.
However, EVs will be using the roads and those roads will need to be built and maintained. A Road Users Charge is the most equitable way to do it. Especially as the source of revenue which supplies much of the money to do it now, Petrol Excise, will drop off dramatically as more EVs come on the road.
Just to get back to taws, I welcome any and all moves to subsidize my EV purchase and usage.
In return and just to be fair, like any other inner urbs environmental sink and sumper, I do not promise that I will plant enough trees to absorb the CO2 costs of:
1. mining and transporting raw materials from all over the world from the mines to the refineries.
2. the CO2 costs of transport refined materials to the parts manufacturers
3. the CO2 costs of manufacture of parts
4. the CO2 costs of carrying the parts to the assembly plants
5. the CO2 costs of assembly
6. The CO2 costs of transport from o/s to Australia
7. the CO2 costs of road construction and maintenance.