Two bits of polling news to report, neither of which are from Resolve Strategic, which had hitherto been appearing in the Age/Herald on the third Wednesday of each month. That leaves:
• Essential Research’s fortnightly report does not include the monthly leadership ratings, which are the series’ main point of interest outside of its quarterly dump of voting intention numbers. However, it does feature the regular ratings on governments’ COVID-19 responses, which finds the federal government’s good rating up three from its nadir a fortnight ago to 41% and its bad rating steady on 35%. The New South Wales government’s good rating is at a new low of 42%, which is down five on a fortnight ago and compares with 69% eight weeks ago. Victoria’s is up two to 56% and Queensland’s is up six to 66%; from their particularly small sample sizes, Western Australia is up five to 87% and South Australia is down five to 68%. The poll also finds 75% support and only 10% opposition to mandatory vaccinations, with no distinctions to speak of by party support. Also featured are further questions on COVID-19 that tend to the personal rather than the political, and questions prompted by the release of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report last week. The poll was conducted Wednesday to Sunday from a sample of 1100.
• JWS Research has released its occasional True Issues survey, in which the federal government’s performance index score (by which 50% would indicate an even balance of positive and negative responses) is down six points since February to 52%. Fifty-seven per cent now rate Australia’s COVID-19 response as very good or good in comparison with the rest of the world, down from 79%. For the federal government specifically, the drop is from 56% to 38%; for state governments in aggregate, it’s down from 64% to 53%. A question on issue salience, in which respondents were asked to list three issues of particular importance, finds “hospitals, health care and ageing” reigning supreme on 59%, up from 45% in February, with economy and finances a distant second on an abnormally low 21%.
Other news:
• Phillip Coorey of the Financial Review on “a school of thought that it would be better to not wait for another budget and go in March instead”:
Waiting until May and launching an election campaign with a budget that would be a sea of red ink does not have the same appeal as 2019, when the budget predicted a return to surplus and contained generous tax cuts. The March theory is based on the hope that there is some semblance of normality in society following the Christmas break, due to vaccination levels being high enough and nobody in hard lockdown.
• Graeme Orr of the University of Queensland law department pokes many a hole in the government’s legislation whose intention is to give the existing major parties dibs on the words Liberal and Labor, and notes the proposed hike in the minimum membership requirement for party registration from 500 to 1500 is rough on regionally focused parties but little obstacle to parties formed by “wealthy interests”.
• Paul Sakkal of The Age reports the Liberal preselection for Casey, which will be vacated with Tony Smith’s retirement, has attracted a field of six: Roshena Campbell, barrister, Melbourne councillor and wife of Herald Sun journalist James Campbell; Grant Hutchison, managing partner of local law firm Hutchinson Legal; Aaron Violi, former staffer to Senator James Patterson and current executive with a company that provides online ordering services to restaurants; Andrew Asten, principal of Boston Consulting Group and former ministerial chief-of-staff to Alan Tudge; Donalea Patman, founder of For the Love of Wildlife, which campaigns against hunting in Africa; and Ranjana Srivastava, an oncologist. The report relates that Campbell and Violi are aligned with state Opposition Leader Michael O’Brien and party president Robert Clark, while Hutchison and Asten are in the rival Josh Frydenberg/Michael Sukkar camp.
• Charlie Peel of The Australian reports there are three candidates for Liberal National Party preselection to succeed George Christensen in Dawson: Whitsunday mayor Andrew Wilcox, former Mackay councillor Chris Bonanno and “the relatively unknown Chas Pasquale”.
Some coalition supporters are still going around claiming Morrison and his cronies are definitely toast at the upcoming federal election
Be interesting to see if they follow through with their words come election day
Re Dandy Murray and Reff
See blue line in graphs at: https://chrisbillington.net/COVID_NSW.html
Note significant differentials by LGAs but no figures there yet for Dubbo which would be high.
NSW cases by postcode up to day before at: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-07-29/how-many-active-covid-19-cases-are-in-your-sydney-nsw-suburb/100331444
Morrison qua Churchill?
Spare me.
Here’s Slomo with his “At Lowes!” double finger pointing, sleazy charm offensive.
Chant bravely fighting from within? Maybe a lot braver to have belled the cat weeks ago if her advice for a strict lockdown was ignored.
Resigning then and making it clear why, would likely have helped save Australia from this almighty mess.
I don’t buy that she’s the white hat here. She’s enabled Gladys and co all along and her polyspeak answers today were disgraceful from a public servant.
No courage that I see – it all smacks of job and position preservation.
Maybe Chant’s supporters on here could let me know how they think she’s improved matters by going along with the mockdown?
Vietnam!!!!
Long Tan!!!!!
Carbull!!!!!!!!!!
Captain Morrison!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
26 people on a C130.
Fucking hopeless.
They can carry 130 under normal conditions.
Socrates
I agree the more I see and read about the press conferences and the answers Chant gives the more I believe that she is restrained in her answers. I would guess that Cabinet confidentiality is the reason.
It is a major flaw in the governance model that the person with the knowledge has to hand the decision making over to someone who is not only less knowledgeable but is also going to be influenced by other factors.
It is like getting a specialist to,advise on your cancer and then basing your treatment plan on a health influencer who is paid by the tobacco industry.
You would have thought that if you had spare capacity they could have lifted out some others as well (like people the Americans or Europeans wanted out).
I watched the NSW press announcement this morning, but did not notice that Gladys left the building some time before the end, presumably just as Dr. Chant was coming on to answer questions. Was her departure announced and I missed it? Or did she just walk off?
Tom Flow
@TomFlowAu
·
41m
Hazzard said “the health system is under stress.” This is due to the inaction taken by your government and not able to make real and proactive rules. This reactive measures that you are taking is just going to cause more stress on the system.
#COVID19nsw #GladysClusterfuk
———————————————–
Not to mention number of cuts by NSW GOV AND FEDERAL GOVERNMENT OVER THE PAST 20 years.
Slomo reassuring the RWNJs that these airlifted Afghans will not be entering Australia illegally.
What a grub.
Dudley Morrison appears on TV and one’s first reaction is:- this won’t be true!
A leader with a ship!
Morrison is now a people smuggler.
How times have changed!
Goll
But he assures us they will be smuggled in small groups, in orderly fashion!
Anthony Albanese
@AlboMP
·
7m
Too little, too late. https://pic.twitter.com/rR72XrCCTK
Oh gawd, the spittle’s back.
I have no words for how bad our NSW related Governments are being.
Most of its already been said.
Flicked on to redneck radio. They were still moaning about cops having to patrol skate parks and playgrounds. Zero mention of North of the Murray or New Zealand.
This is who Morrison reminds me of these days.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ddckMpoaDQs
Assantdj
As others have said before the NSW CMO is only an advisory role. She can’t overrule the premier and as a public servant would be barred from criticising government policy. I can’t speak for all the other States but I know in SA both the CMO and Police Commissioner have the power to personally declare a medical emergency. It makes a huge difference ot the autonomy of their roles and you can see it when they answer questions.
@CaseyBriggs tweets
Dr Kerry Chant says transmission being driven by:
a) Essential workers getting it at work & giving it to people they live with
b) “a small proportion of people” not taking it seriously and visiting other households
But our entire conversation seems to be about b), and not a)
He stopped those.
Rex Douglassays:
Wednesday, August 18, 2021 at 11:38 am
Dr Chant should have resigned weeks ago if in fact her advice has been rebuffed by Gladys.
________________
I thought she had already.
I remember seeing a reposted twèet from Victoria the other day saying that she had resigned ????
Lizzie
Illegals?? FFS! These aren’t boat people. They are obvious refugees fleeing a war and entering the country on a (quarter full) RAAF plane. It is not a crime to seek refuge as a refugee under Australian and International law. How can these people be illegal?
I only lasted listening to Morrison for around 2 minutes.
I was unaware that it’s Vietnam Veterans’ Day today. I take it that Morrison will announce that there will be an Afganistan Veterans’ Day if there’s not already one. A fat lot of good that will do to stem the suicide rate, which now numbers 500, not to mention mental health disorders in the veteran community:
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-12-06/veteran-suicide-spike-worries-covid19-war-crimes-brereton-report/12947234
I’m assuming one of these highly paid members of the MSM will ask Slomo and Marise why they didn’t action these withdrawals 6 months ago, when it was inevitable what was coming.
Taylormade,
Offering to resign and it being accepted by the Government are slightly different things.
You’ll notice that significant change in the Governments lockdown policy occurred just after those rumours were circulating.
@chaser tweets
‘Twitter ban on misleading content is a direct attack on us’, claims Sky News
I can’t see what Chant resigning would achieve, other than removing herself from the shit show, which nicety would be second in her mind I think to trying to get the best outcome for NSW, and her continued presence suggests she thinks she’s still the one best able.
@ChaserInterns tweets
“The Afghan translators haven’t done enough to earn a place here” says PM after meeting with international tax dodgers destroying the planet
Getting it in workplaces could be due to people going out and having smoke breaks together and obviously unmasked as with coffee breaks together.
They should be policed during these breaks by a COVID cop to avoid this.
Itza,
Agree.
Chant’s a committed clinician. There’d be no guarantee the next person would do a better job and certainly would give the people in Government putting the slows on dealing with Covid an at least short time advantage.
@JulianHillMP tweets
Morrison. Amazing. Reaches new lows every day
A good old boat scare, then his ‘generous’ offer: 3,000 refugee places
Still NO mention of families of Australians in Afghanistan or visa delays
Afghan TPV refugees will “never” settle permanently, but they’ll never have to leave♂️
It’s pretty clear that this NSW outbreak is just about out of control – it probably is already, though we’ll need to wait a few days to see if the additional restrictions introduced late last week have any effect.
It was made pretty clear in some spirited exchanges here last week that the vast majority of Bludgers are in the “lock it down” camp, and are unwilling / unable to see that any variation from that hard line can in fact be something short of “let it rip”. And up until relatively recently, I probably would have included myself in that camp.
But the vast spread of the current outbreak, along with the more infectious nature of the Delta variant (and presumably even more infectious variants that are coming), coupled with rapidly increasing vaccination rates, has made me have a rethink.
Australia has based its Covid response, at least since the end of the first wave at the beginning of last winter, on the aim of zero Covid at all times. This worked wonderfully well for us for a year, but it was always an unrealistic expectation that it can last forever. We are dealing of course with a highly contagious pathogen that has left no country untouched for nearly two years, and there’s no real sign that it’s going to disappear. We have been the beneficiaries of geography, luck, and mostly good government, and we have been able to keep the virus at bay, but it was only a matter of time before it breached our defences. I understand that many (most? all?) Bludgers are very keen to blame NSW/Sydney/Berejiklian etc for this outbreak, and some of this blame is certainly justified. I also appreciate that Sydney-baiting is a popular past-time among those who don’t live in the Emerald City, and good luck to you if it makes you feel better. But it’s probably not much use in plotting the best way forward.
In the short-term, of course, the existing Sydney lockdown should and most likely will be extended through September and possibly into October, and with a bit of luck, case numbers should start to decline. But it’s probably now going to be very difficult to get back to zero Covid in Sydney, and as vaccination rates start getting toward 70%-80%, they may not need to. In due course (and pretty soon, I’d say), we’ll need to start focussing less on raw case numbers, and more on hospitalisations and deaths. After all, while catching Covid is no doubt an unpleasant experience for those unfortunate enough to get it, if they are able to get better after two weeks in bed (which even now is the case with most episodes), then it’s kinda hard to justify locking down whole cities if there are not also large numbers sick enough to be in hospital, ICU or morgues.
The evidence we have so far of the vaccines is that they are great at limiting severe cases of Covid and deaths. If and when we get to, say, 75% vaccination rates, we can probably handle a much higher caseload (say, 1000-2000 a day) than we are used to, so long as we can keep the serious cases to a minimum. The experience in the UK since their so-called Freedom Day in mid-July is that overall case numbers have actually dropped, and deaths and hospitalisations are a fraction of what they were during the winter wave in January. I was sceptical of their approach at the time (and I’m certainly no fan of Boris Johnson), but evidence so far is pretty clear.
More by accident than design, we may be about to see a similar Covid experiment right here in Australia, with NSW slowly reducing restrictions through the coming Spring, on the back of high vaccination rates (and it’s estimated that NSW will reach 70% by mid-late October), and despite relatively high daily case numbers. Meanwhile, the other states will undoubtedly keep their borders (to NSW at least) locked tight, even as Sydney starts to reopen to the rest of the world. It will be very interesting to see how this pans out in the coming months. It might look like the NSW approach has failed right now (as it did in Melbourne this time last year), but things develop quickly in the pandemic, and the situation may yet look very different by Christmas).
I should stress that I’m not trying to defend the NSW government (so you can save yourself the. trouble of the tiresome jibes that I’m some sort of Liberal apologist). It’s more that I think that the situation is now on a trajectory that might be beyond the control of government.
Seriously.. Pentecostal twat.
Australia in a Covid ‘tunnel’ and vaccines are ‘rays of light’, PM says
Kindergarten children have a higher intellectual capacity than him.
Bob Lynch @ #264 Wednesday, August 18th, 2021 – 12:59 pm
Yes. Zero chance they’re getting it from anything as mundane as sharing the same indoor space as other people for 8 hours a day. 🙂
From Crikey:
Meanwhile, as Morrison dog whistles…
@kenklipperstein tweets
The US military spent years gathering biometric data (iris scans, fingerprints) on Afghans. That’s now been seized by the Taliban, military sources tell me:
Cronulla this morning. Few masks. Not much attention to social distancing. How far from home?
Is this seriously the best you can do Sydney?
From personal observation, there’s lot of problems in workplaces – you remove your mask for a coffee, to eat, because your glasses are fogging up —
GG – seriously? You’re resorting to shaming a single community (one that has currently a grand total of 4 active Covid cases) on the basis of a single misleading photo? Is that the best you can do?
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