The Australian reports the latest Newspoll records Labor’s two-party preferred lead out from 53-47 to 54-46, with the Coalition taking a three-point tumble on the primary vote to 36%, Labor up a point to 40%, the Greens down one to 10% and One Nation steady on 3%. Despite this, Scott Morrison is up two on approval to 49% and down two on disapproval to 47%, and has slightly widened his lead as preferred prime minister from 49-36 to 50-34. Anthony Albanese is up two on approval to 40% and up one on disapproval to 47%. The poll was conducted Wednesday to Saturday from a sample of 1528.
The conservative voices that I hear in NSW are directing their anger at Morrison for not providing St Gladys with the where with all to be all things to all things conservative and couldn’t gives a shit about anything west of Orange; well Warren then.
Gladys, Hazzard and Barilaro have been relentless in their daily emphases, up to and especially including today, where it made it to QT in the Big House, that they are having to deal with deadly Delta through no fault of their own, and with the limited help from the Feds, and their paucity of vaccines, and notwithstanding the “best medical advice”, here we are. The one concession is from Hazzard, who went so far as to say that the Feds had “done their best”. Which is one thing with which I can agree – they did do their best, and it was shithouse piss poor, but yes, that’s their best.
Another take on Iron air Batteries: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gKyzFKTEx8s
Asha
If everybody is mostly vaccinated by the end of the year, we are able to safely open up, and the election is called for early next year, then, yeah, Labor will probably have to change direction somewhat. But that doesn’t mean there isn’t value in focussing on the Coalition’s many stuff-ups re Covid right now, when it is relevant.
___________________________________________
I cannot believe how much expectation has been generated by Scummo and Glad Tidings that opening up implies safely doing so. The numbers from overseas are telling us something dramatically different in populations that are far more advanced with vaccinations than we are.
Yes, we can open up like overseas. But while the overseas experience now (despite substantial numbers of hospitalisations and deaths) is a hell of a lot better than a year earlier (question mark over the US south), a comparable proportion in Australia will be a hell of a lot worse than Australians have experienced to date. Will Australians regard this as ‘safe’?
I suspect not, when the strong likelihood is that fathers, mothers, children, friends and colleagues fall ill and tell those around them about what it is really like to have covid or, worse, die.
The only way forward, if zero numbers are no longer achievable, is to use all available controls to keep the number of cases within the capacity of the hospitals and medical practitioners to handle, while still enabling them to carry out other necessary procedures safely and in a timely way. I don’t know what that looks like yet, but that is what all the premiers and chief ministers, other than Glad Tidings, are aiming for.
Anything more virulent, and those who enabled and championed unsafe opening up will be cactus I think.
While I don’t remotely agree with the point these protesters are making, I have no issue with them demonstrating in Brisbane, at least. We have no cases right now and are not in lockdown.
Peaceful protest is a right all Australians have, regardless of how silly the cause may be. It’s doing so in the midst of a deadly outbreak that’s grossly irresponsible, not the act of protest itself.
(I might add that I am certainly not defending the flog who tried to break into the Queensland Parliament. That’s not protesting peacefully.)
jt
I think Labor has it in the bag for negative campaign advertising.
The trick is like Whitlam Hawke and Rudd Labor needs something for voters to vote for. I have no doubt Labor is holding something back for the campaign. The wonderful thing is that competent financial management is with the government has a role. The whole small government cut taxes and services is dead.
Biden proved in the storm of Trumpism that cuts through. The Republicans screamed all the talking points and still Biden won because reality bites and Biden gave hope.
Griff
“You have now posted over 20 posts over the last couple of days maintaining that the Morrison strategy is potentially election-winning and that Albanese needs to improve his presence. I pointed to bludgertrack that shows that Albanese has improved. I claim that you also haven’t factored in the black swan event of COVID as you keep maintaining it may be over by the election. It won’t. As you haven’t changed your argument or explained the reason for the improvement in Albanese’s numbers, it looks like we are at an impasse”
Well support levels for the Coalition have taken a hit, and we all know why that is, so that is why ALP polling has improved. Insightful genius needed? Them taking a rightful hit moves towards the ALP, but you are asserting Albo’s cut through as res ipsa loquitor based on this polling shift. Nope i do not agree and impasse perhaps covers it appropriately if you cannot see why i might take that view.
What may be “over” by the election is that everyone who wants to be vaccinated has had the choice and opportunity to do so. This presents a turnaround situation for ScoMo tapping into a strong enthusiasm for ‘getting our lives back’. So when you say “it wont be over”, that is a total strawman because i have never suggested that covid will be over… just that there is a good chance that (a) vaccinated voters will tolerate a level of covid for their lives back, and (b) unvaccinated voters are unlikely ALP voters on average regardless of who says what.
This is not a particularly nuanced take around how things can turn around for ScoMo, and why Oscar de la Hoya performance for Albo is fraught with danger notwithstanding current polling
I think it’s important to check the difference between ‘c’ conservative voters and ‘C’ conservative voters.
Many ‘c’ conservative voters I know are furious about the situation, but in NSW they are giving Gladys more leeway, since they already liked her and more readily aggitated with Dan and Anna P… because, obvs. It’s not really impacting the ‘c’ voters base, and given those voters are most prevalent in urban safe Liberal seats (see: North Sydney/Wentworth/Kooyong/Curtin etc).
‘C’ conservatives are basically reactionary nutjobs and can be trusted to blow the shop up before doing what they’re asked.
@guy – Indeed – the Labor platform will be critical. While I think specifics are probably less important, Albo’s campaign energy needs to be enthusiastic and optimistic. You can kick someone while smiling – it’s not easy, but it can be done.
Expat
Unvaccinated voters are unlikely ALP voters on average regardless of who says what
———————————————-
vaccinate rates are higher in Liberal Party electorates than ALP electorates.
Guytaur, the problem with your argument is that during the roughly eight or nine years I’ve been reading this blog, you have made similar predictions about pretty much every single state and federal election held during that time. No matter what is going on in the political cycle, it is almost always a sign the left is about to win big.
Sure, you may be right about this one, but you know what they say about broken clocks.
Chris Bowen
@Bowenchris
Replying to @ScottMorrisonMP
Singapore sends us 500,000 Pfizer doses in September. We send Singapore 500,000 doses in December. Scott Morrison has finally committed to net zero.
All the previous misjudgements and mismanagements by the LNP have cost us money, but this time, they are causing deaths an sickness on a broad scale. Surely that must mean something?
From an electoral point of view, I urge the Liberal and National parties to stick with their quarantine failures, their vacccination failures, their failures to protect the elderly, their failures to protect Indigenous Australians, their failures to give clear, consistent messages and their vicious habit of backgrounding against each other and of blaming the victim. I urge them to hang up on people, to refuse to answer hard questions, and to refuse to demonstrate policy numeracy. I also urge them to continue showing a pathological lack of empathy for anything other than the economy. I urge them to continue threatening others if others do not tow their line. I urge them to continue waiting until a disaster has already happened before they make pathetic rescue responses for which they overcook the selfgratulations each and every time. I urging them to continue verbaling the premiers. I urge them to continue cherry-picking modeling. I urge the keep killing people. I urge them to keep giving people Long Covid. I urge them to keep destroying businesses. I urge them to keep stoking the mental illness epidemic.
From a human point of view I urge them to resign. NOW.
Morrison has been stacking NSW Pfizer allocation at the cost of Labor states.
Classic.
Badham has a look at Musk’s robot.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/aug/31/the-tesla-bot-reveals-the-alarming-truth-billionaires-dont-know-what-its-like-for-the-rest-of-us
Boerwar, I urge you to think of us poor souls browsing on mobiles and consider using a paragraph or two.
Asha
As lots said about the Democrats and Trump winning.
I got Sanders winning the Primary wrong but not the victory for the left.
I am also not predicting a landslide. I expect a huge propaganda effort from the LNP and am giving Labor credit for a small target strategy that I personally disagree with that is showing results in the polling. That’s different
Say what you want about Chris Bowen, but the man has some solid zingers.
A proper Federal ICAC is definitely something to vote for 🙂
MexB “I get the vibe from conservative people and you can see it in the polling because Morrison’s approval ratings has dropped from 68 to 49 and looking back at 2019 is misleading because after the ALP ran a bad campaign Morrison only won 76 seats”
geez talk about a perspective choice! ever getting to 68 is a bit of a godsend in this modern political environment and to still be at 49 during the asbolute nadir worst situation some would be very grateful for. Gilliard comes to mind.
“Morrison only won 76 seats”… you’re kidding me. After however many polls in a row suggesting a rock solid ALP win, somehow ScoMo underperformed expectations??!!
Griff @ #968 Tuesday, August 31st, 2021 – 4:24 pm
So’s economic competence, should it ever make it onto the radar.
Just to be clear, who would you guess the principled antivaxxers – who wont get the jab when supply is not an issue – are likely to vote for? Or the protest bunch who punch horses and the like.
Does anyone really think they are a target demo for the ALP?????
EF
geez talk about a perspective choice! ever getting to 68 is a bit of a godsend in this modern political environment and to still be at 49 during the asbolute nadir worst situation some would be very grateful for. Gilliard comes to mind.
“Morrison only won 76 seats”… you’re kidding me. After however many polls in a row suggesting a rock solid ALP win, somehow ScoMo underperformed expectations??!!
_______________________________________
Yeah, nah. Trend in polling is the issue. Still, these numbers are pretty irrelevant anyway for better or worse. As for only winning 76 seats, that was then. This is now, and ‘only’ winning 76 seats means that he has ‘only’ a one seat majority.
All Labor supporters were burnt by what happened last time. So most are pretty cautious about predicting victory. As I noted earlier, the time for the uncommitted punters to pay attention has become the most compressed ever. Everything up until an election is called is minor skirmishing.
If the public is not happy with where things are at when the election is called, Scummo has a much harder road to hoe. And as the mainstay of all Coalition electioneering is that things will always be worse under Labor, Albanese and Labor are making sense in not providing any ammunition whatsoever at this stage.
And one last word. If the Liberals always sell themselves as the better economic managers, Labor has the lead on health. Which is why the Libs are trying to pretend it’s about the economy. Just wait and see what the swinging voters care about most when the election is called.
I think that the smaller states like SA, TAS, WA and even Qld are bemused by the talk of opening up and letting it rip and that covid zero is unobtainable….no its not….we have it already…….Morrison will lose the election in these states if NSW opens up and numbers skyrocket into the 10’s of thousands and border controls fail to stem the tide of the virus escaping Northward and Westward
‘Expat Follower says:
Tuesday, August 31, 2021 at 4:28 pm
Just to be clear, who would you guess the principled antivaxxers – who wont get the jab when supply is not an issue – are likely to vote for? Or the protest bunch who punch horses and the like.
Does anyone really think they are a target demo for the ALP?????’
___________________________________
Simples. If they are principled they will not be voting for Morrison, Hunt, Wyatt, Colbeck, Hazzard, Barilaro or Berejiklian.
I still remember the lectures about how Shorten/Albanese (and other centre-left leaders around the world) will need to pay attention to Corbyn and emulate him if they want to be electable.
Expat
Morrison only winning 76 seats is significant because of how bad the ALP campaigned.
Its not scientific but after watching a lot of elections you can get a sense for how the electorate is lending and the polling is picking up the shift but Morrison can still turn it around if he is good enough.
Gladys Berejiklian has quietly halved the state’s weekly caps on returning overseas travellers for September as the number of active cases in NSW approaches 18,000. About 750 people will be able to fly into NSW from overseas each week.
As a person born and bred near the actual geographic centre of NSW, with a large number of relations still there, and a lifelong connection to Koorie people the disaster unfolding within Indiginous groups in NSW is so so predictable and so disgusting because of that.
There are so many factors involved in the spread of Covid within that cohort that go back to all the generations of failings of policy plus the actual sucess of other apartheid like policies regarding the living standards of Aboriginal people. Policies like housing them in “Missions” of housing clusters on the periphery of towns, or even like in Euabalong in a township several kms outside a town. Imprisonment rates for minor crimes (mostly of poverty) also are having a cost.
One of the major spreaders inthat cohort is their necessary mobility. Seeking medical attention in western NSW nearly always requires extensive travel, (my BIL had to travel 190kms each way last week for a specialist appointment for a kidney infection). He stayed in a motel overnight after a late timeslot was the only option, Koories usually have to doss down in the already overcrowded home of relatives or friends, and Koorie culture demands that hospitality must be granted. Widespread incarceration rates for both adults and children inthat cohort means a regular supply of potentially infected are continuosly released into crowded housing etc. Particularly in the case of children, but also in the case of adults, someone has to pick up released prisoners, often from very distant gaols requiring further overnight stays. Where I lived we had about a 60kms round trip to get to a chemist, 100kms to a dentist, etc,etc. That would be about the best that many Koories could hope for, but poverty means that if you make a trip to a larger centre you are obliged to offer a lift to those who need to make the journey but lack the means to do so.
Most Koories don’t have these actual hurdles to face as such. They live in large regional centres such as Wagga, Griffith, Dubbo etc in reasonable if crowded housing. But that is part of the problem. People seeking treatment for kidney disease, emphysema, etc etc need to bunk down somewhere, and relatives/friends are usually theonly recourse. If you live in Brewarrina, Bourke or Goodooga you need to get to Dubbo or even further east to be treated.
I’m not surprised that the politicians or their bureaucrats fail to acknowledge this problem. They have traditionally done so for every contigency for generations evenwhen white people have been in the gun. They are highly unlikely to improve any time soon. When the media including the ABC refer to Lithgow (commuting distance fro Sydney) as being in”western NSW” you know that utter ignorance is the base line for decisions regarding central and western NSW.
Fun fact. Brewarrina is only just west of the half way point of the NSW Qld border.
TPOF – my only objection was to the “only won 76 seats” at the 2019 election being some implied form of failure for Morrison. I was referring to the mood of coalition voters i know when Turnbull-Dutton-ScoMo all came about relative to their mood now, and suggesting it was worse then albeit far from age of aquarius joy atm
I think Morrison’s narrow win outperformed expectations, which is why he came out smiling but a narrow win is still a narrow win, and it’s not something he can rest too much on – especially as he either needs to really rigidly hold that line or gain in other places at the next election to retain power. Yes, the opposition still have a higher onus but a narrow government majority still limits the government’s viable approaches to re-election; they can’t just “tank” over the line.
BBC interviewee interrupted by his children live on air – video
A total classic… brilliant comedy!
https://www.theguardian.com/media/video/2017/mar/10/bbc-correspondent-interrupted-by-his-children-live-on-air-video
And Bernie Sanders.
Expat
The reason why i wrote only won 76 seats is because some people talk about Morrison as if he won 86 or 96 seats.
Cut Snake
Excellent post, IMO.
Expat
” this auto kneejerk that we’re facing Bolsonaro armageddon is hysteria.”
No, we’re only facing Borris armageddon – or perhaps a bit worse, which is bad enough.
Wat Tyler, yes you are surely right… having a big majority gives you leeway that a tiny one doesnt.
Its why Howard ’98 and Turnbull ’16 were able to hang on. To a lesser degree Gilliard ’10.
ALP can win this election purely on Qld/WA pickups without needing anything in NSW. Its why Albo not overtly joined at the hip with seemingly popular ALP leaders in those states + Vic at a minimum just befuddles me. Could really lock in some voters there with some kind of presence and solidarity… shouldnt he be appearing at all their press conferences as much as tenable/possible?
‘Cud Chewer says:
Tuesday, August 31, 2021 at 4:51 pm
Expat
” this auto kneejerk that we’re facing Bolsonaro armageddon is hysteria.”’
_________________________
Strawman + two pejoratives.
All the responses about Corbyn and Sanders proves my point about Biden.
So no cigar guys. I am not saying Labor should argue the Greens position.
The Greens should and will make gains. Be in no doubt that’s not the Labor position.
Cut Snake
Thank you for that explanation of Koori difficulties and the reasons they may unwittingly spread infection. It seems an insoluble problem unless regions have more services. There was a time when the NBN was going to solve some of this. 🙁
I don’t know about WA but Albanese has spent a great deal of time camped out in QLD.
Expat Follower @ #984 Tuesday, August 31st, 2021 – 4:53 pm
The media here would go beserk at any serious connection between Albo and Dan. They can’t get past that to any logical thought. Sorry Nice idea
I am sure, in your mind, the shapes of the clouds in the sky confirm whatever point you think you’re currently making.
Wat Tyler
I am sure your personal attack is not an election winning strategy unlike Biden’s successful campaign against Trump
Any swing to the ALP could give them an extra seat in SA (Boothby 51.38 in 2019)
I’m sorry that I lost Labor the election everyone. It was stupid of me. I forgot the most important issue of the day for voters was guytaur not being at the receiving end of any mild snark.
If they bother preselecting anybody.
Shit, you mean Labor shouldn’t run on a platform of mocking Guytaur? We’ve already printed the flyers and everything!
Wat
Your response is more personal attack as your cherry pick of my reply to you indicates. How unfortunate for you that Biden won against Trump
Cud – that Boris whose party is polling 7 points clear of Labor? ScoMo would hate to be in his position 🙂
but seriously, if you think ScoMo is deliberately and excitedly rushing headlong to a situation that he knows will deliver (on a per capita equivalence) levels of 12000 new cases and 45 deaths per day then i concede that you are right, he will lose big time.
nothing to worry about, unless he doesnt do anything of the sort
Expat Follower says:
Tuesday, August 31, 2021 at 5:07 pm
Cud – that Boris whose party is polling 7 points clear of Labor? ScoMo would hate to be in his position
but seriously, if you think ScoMo is deliberately and excitedly rushing headlong to a situation that he knows will deliver (on a per capita equivalence) levels of 12000 new cases and 45 deaths per day then i concede that you are right, he will lose big time.
nothing to worry about, unless he doesnt do anything of the sort
____________________________________
He is not all that intelligent. If he apes Boris faithfully then he is looking at 40 deaths a day. But he is probably hoping that the Labor premiers save him from himself. Again.