No further national voting intention polls this week after the weekend Newspoll. Presumably this means the monthly Resolve Strategic will be along next week in the Age/Herald. Roy Morgan has for some time come along fortnightly and did not report last week, but the manner of its reporting is notoriously hard to predict. Together with the ongoing New South Wales by-elections count, which is covered in the post below this one, that just leaves the following:
• Roy Morgan did have an SMS poll of 1080 respondents conducted on Monday and Tuesday which found Josh Frydenberg favoured to lead the Coalition by 38.5%, ahead of Scott Morrison on 31% and Peter Dutton on 12.5%. The question specifically asked, “if you were a Liberal or National Party voter and helping to choose the Coalition Leader for the next Federal Election, who would you prefer”.
• The West Australian had a poll by Painted Dog Research on Wednesday which found Mark McGowan’s approval rating in Western Australia had fallen from 77% to 64% since December, having peaked at 91% in September 2020, with disapproval up from 14% to 25%. The poll was conducted Friday to Tuesday from a sample of 654.
• Recommended viewing and listening: Antony Green explains the dark art of election night results projection, while pollsters Peter Lewis and John Utting discuss the even darker art of opinion polling on 2SER’s Fourth Estate program.
‘Simon Katich says:
Monday, February 21, 2022 at 9:50 am
Poor old Putin: he is being vilified by the nasty western media. Comrades, Putin is the victim here! Just ask Pilger.
Pilger is an important writer who works damn hard at undermining his own valid arguments and his credibility. Through frustration or emotion he just cant help himself – it feels self destructive. Almost masochistic. Does it annoy all his admirers? It sure frustrates the crapola out of me.’
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Like many of the West’s intelligentsia he seems to be having trouble coping with the notion that it is Putin and Xi, not the West, who are setting the imperialist and militaristic agendas and making the running. Like many of his colleagues, Pilger is OBE.
https://youtu.be/xS1kZ-nT7Oo
So, the ABC and the SMH are claiming the Sydney rail lockout and shutdown by the government and management is a union strike. Unbelievable bias. The Australian media is a joke. The editor of the SMH is even blocking people on Twitter for pointing out that it is not a strike, but a lockout.
Yep Sohar and Scomo got on 2GB radio early this morning to have a cheap shot at union bashing again…knowing full well there is no strike and the Liberal State Government shut the train system down. No surprises there, but it shows this PM is desperate to win a point somewhere, anywhere.
duh. the point is not that they don’t share the intelligence with readers of the new york times, the point is, as the european officials quoted in the washington post article said, the americans are not sharing the intelligence with their european allies. allies who quite understandably are reluctant to be Suckered by yet more unsubstantiated claims made by biden & blinken. -a.v.
In January 2022 Australians expected inflation of 4.9% annually over the next two years, up 0.1% points from December 2021. The level of Inflation Expectations in January equals the seven-year high reached in November 2021 – the highest since November 2014.
Inflation Expectations are now 0.2% points above the long-term average of 4.7% and a large 1.3% points higher than a year ago in January 2021 (3.6%).
https://www.roymorgan.com/findings/8911-australian-inflation-expectations-january-2022-202202180613
🙁 Piss everyone off, blame the Unions and then move on to the next disaster. 🙁
They will be coming thick and fast people. Get the punters worn out and confused so that they disengage and stick with the incumbents.
Minister on the teev at the moment lying by calling this a snap strike instead of a snap lockdown.
“The lie travels around the world before the truth is even out of bed..” and so the SMH begins to slowly walk back on the terrible unionists stopping trains, Bevan Shields blocking tweeters that are pointing out his ‘error’ in firstly condemning the unions…but all too late.
That SfM and Ley both were quick off the mark shows the feds probably knew about the plan and have enthusiastically supported Dom’s bastardry.
Comments on the SHM blog running very strongly against the LNP line
https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/sydney-train-shutdown-live-updates-services-suspended-across-city-as-rtbu-slams-nsw-government-20220221-p59y53.html
Metadata analysis of false flag videos being used by Russia and Russian Separatists:
https://youtu.be/g6wZmCMpXcM
Interesting suggestions, finally, of some of the sanctions that Russia and Russian Oligarchs may face:
* Cancelling Aeroflot landing rights in the West
* Cancelling the ~2500 British Visas that Russian Oligarchs hold
AV
Can you please explain what the unprecedented massing of Russian military around the borders of Ukraine is all about?
Seizing the assets of the 2500 Oligarchs would be a greater penalty.
What an organisation:
https://www.smh.com.au/business/workplace/too-female-army-captain-sacked-for-something-she-says-men-get-away-with-20220218-p59xpp.html
SfM has rolled out Labor-Commies and ‘union thugs’ . ‘TAX scare’ must be due shortly.
” Cancelling the ~2500 British Visas that Russian Oligarchs hold”
Various British governments from Blair’s time onward have had a very sinister relationship with the Russian oligarchy (including Vlad), so that is unlikely.
omg, such onerous sanctions already yet. nothing proposed yet to screw up the eu economies ? -a.v.
RTB Union coming out strong on social media. Making it clear this is not a strike.
Will the media pick up on the fact it is a combination of Liberal party indolence and incompetence that lead to the bosses locking workers out and shutting down the train system?
I will agree with you in this way – there is plenty of room for criticising the actions of the West without wholesale defence of the likes of Putin. There is also plenty of room for pointing out the hypocrisy of the West, and where they have shot themselves in the foot (Iraq justifications for war) even at a time like this, without accusations of false equivalencies. Pilger feels the need to go a step further. He has seen too many atrocities committed by the West. Whilst this gives him an important perspective, he also seems to have lost sight of the broader picture. And that is fine. Plenty of journos do this – on all sides. The shame of it is that it turns people off reading his work – it gives them an easy out, a free kick.
Boerwar says:
Monday, February 21, 2022 at 9:56 am
Pilger has made his living celebrating – really, glorifying – revolutionary terrorists, political extremists and their despotism. As a part of this, his production themes rely on the interwoven promises of betrayal, guilt and remorse. If war and peace were romance fiction, he’d be a staple writer for a Mills and Boon.
B.S. Fairman at 10:17 am
Putin might actually like that . Firstly, a number of them are people he has ‘unfinished business’ with. Secondly the threat could trigger the same response as happened during a previous time when there was talk of sanctions and a crack down . They repatriated gigabucks of cash and assets back to Russia.
Russia is already menacing Ukraine. Whether forces invade or not, Putin is using military weight to strong arm a neighbouring population. He’s a despot. He’s a war-maker.
Last years NEM battery average discharge price $134.75/MWh.
Last years NEM OCGT average price $290.79.
Battery’s are competitive with peaker gas now.
Interest rates are going up and the squeeze will be felt most acutely by those who just managed to get a deposit and who are barely treading water on minimum repayments (Howard’s battlers!)
But if Albanese gets elected we are looking at DOUBLE DIGIT interest rates!
Could YOU and YOUR FAMILY afford repayments on 18% p.a. interest rates off your mortgage? It would mean that interest ALONE would swallow up your entire income if you are the head of household, leaving your wife to cough up for EVERYTHING ELSE when she could be spending quality time with the kids instead of slaving away at two jobs.
Interest rates under a Labor government will ALWAYS be higher than under a Coalition government.
Think about that before you enter the ballot box.
The AGL bid is a little low. The market is suggesting there is still a little room for more value in the company. It is 35 cents higher than the $7.50 bid price.
Nostradamus:
Interest rates under Rudd and Gillard were lower than those under Howard. Interest rates under Hawke/Keating were also lower than those under Fraser/Howard
Perhaps—Nostradamus—you should stick to you main game: making things up about the future; making things up about the past just looks silly
Where is SfM’s take in this?
http://www.watoday.com.au/national/western-australia/mullet-madness-beach-hotel-apologises-for-barring-blokes-sporting-classic-aussie-cut-20220217-p59xg7.html
I won’t be entering the ballot box.
My advancing years make it hard to fit through the slot.
Morrison has said comparing Albo to Whitlam is unfair to Gough, you have to go back further.
And day now he’ll raise Chifley and the Labor Greens plan to nationalise coal.
This is a secondary concern. Under the ALP we will become a communist province of China and the sky will fall down.
Rewi @ #1397 Monday, February 21st, 2022 – 10:46 am
He better be careful because he’ll run headlong into the pushback from the Millennials and the Zoomers whose raison d’etre is the ‘I’m Me’ mindset. Everyone is a singularity these days and they will believe that Albanese is simply, Albanese. And judge him accordingly. Not to mention that thjey probably don’t even know who Chifley or Whitlam are/were.
TPOF : to force the usa (and to a lesser extent nato) to enter into negotiations for a new security framework for europe. the old one is no longer fit for purpose. that’s what the draft treaties russia tabled in december are about.
btw, you are aware of the 150,000 ukrainian troops (half their army) stationed along the LOC with the donetsk oblasts since december last year ? -a.v.
E. G. Theodore @ #1394 Monday, February 21st, 2022 – 10:37 am
Also to look like an economic ignoramus who doesn’t have any idea about the function of Interest Rates.
alfred venison @ #1400 Monday, February 21st, 2022 – 10:50 am
And? They are not preparing to invade Russia, are they? And if they want to take back Donetsk and Luhansk from Putin, good on them. They are still nominally a part of Ukraine.
Nostradamus, Ladies and Gentlemen. Here ’till Tuesday. Try the veal
“ Here ’till Tuesday”
What happens on Tuesday? End of the World? Nostradamus? Tap. Tap. What say you?
Well, I’m doubting whether Putin will invade.
I can’t see where the advantage is, for one thing. It’ll cost a fortune that Russia doesn’t have, and many, many lives. The assumption that the Ukrainian defence forces won’t put up resistance to a fully-fledged invasion may be too pessimistic.
Speaking of “vibes”, the vibe’s just not there for mine. If Putin was going to invade he’d have done it by now. The glory days of magnificent, sweeping tank thrusts across the grassy steppes, with millions doing battle to the death in a total war are long gone, in my opinion.
Most of the chest beating is coming from the media – pro or con invasion. Today’s media consists mostly of young men and women writing up the posturings of slightly older men and women who hold positions of political power. They all talk – the media and the politicians – so casually, even flippantly of “WAR!”, but have no understanding of it’s cost and devastation. They treat it as a Reality TV show where, in the end, no-one really gets hurt too badly. This is quite dangerous.
It has indeed. Vlad will be back on BoJo’s xmas card list.
.
TIM SHIPMAN
Ukraine couldn’t have come at a better time for Johnson
Hard-to-answer questions about lockdown parties and Brexit have been eclipsed by the rumblings of war in eastern Europe.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/ukraine-couldnt-have-come-at-a-better-time-for-boris-johnson-cwp50kl5n
When did the Ukrainian army reach 300,000? Last I read it was about 130,000 iirc.
alfred venison says:
Monday, February 21, 2022 at 10:50 am
TPOF : to force the usa (and to a lesser extent nato) to enter into negotiations for a new security framework for europe. the old one is no longer fit for purpose. that’s what the draft treaties russia tabled in december are about.
btw, you are aware of the 150,000 ukrainian troops (half their army) stationed along the LOC with the donetsk oblasts since december last year ? -a.v.
____________________________________
I hope you are right about the reasons and that nothing further will ensue. I am not certain he will invade for the reasons given by BB above at 11.02. However, history is strewn with crazies, dumbos (such as George W Bush) and others who have invaded other countries with long-term incalculable damage.
As for your second point, no, I’m not aware. What’s the point of that comment?
Liberal Party figures including factional powerbroker Alex Hawke have been named as defendants in a court action launched on Monday in a bid to stop federal intervention that could give Prime Minister Scott Morrison more power over the party.
A member of the party’s NSW state executive, Matthew Camenzuli, lodged a claim in the NSW Supreme Court to halt steps taken by the party’s federal executive last Thursday to intervene in the state division.
https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/court-action-launched-to-challenge-scott-morrison-s-key-ally-20220221-p59y8c.html
c@t : ukraine is as free as russia or any other nation state to move its army around its national territory. but if that force moves on the donetsk oblasts, it would be in violation of a treaty ukraine entered into with france and germany and russia (minsk 2) commiting it to resolve the ultimate status of those oblasts by negotiation, not by slaughtering the ethnic russian population and/or destroying its infrastructure if no one is home. and if that force were to cross the LOC, it would be destroyed by the russians without them needing to cross the border. -a.v.
I agree BB, we are supposed to believe Blinken who has intelligence he won’t reveal. This from the mob who who gave us the bullshit Gulf of Tonkin incident and told lies in the UN about WMD in Iraq.
I would take more notice of the European reaction, quite muted in comparison, except for that idiot Boris of course.
If we are going to start shading out borders because of ethnic populations then what of non Russian areas of Russia? Borders are borders and a sovereign country has a right to secure them. These are not nonsense borders. They are negotiated and agreed upon international borders.
GA
This from the mob who who gave us the bullshit Gulf of Tonkin incident and told lies in the UN about WMD in Iraq.
___________________________________
Those were about reasons for an invasion or massive escalation of direct military action. There is absolutely no suggestion that the USA is proposing this – indeed, quite the opposite. There is no case for it and I feel safe to say that everybody on this site would be shocked and aghast were that to happen.
It’s bad enough comparing past historical events with the present without nuance, but you are completely wrong in the conclusions you draw.
I expect that if Russia does attack, you will be one of the posters here (along with Poroti and VA) who will claim that the US’s comments forced Putin into it, because he’d look like he’d chickened out.
E. G. Theodoresays:
Monday, February 21, 2022 at 10:37 am
Nostradamus:
Interest rates under a Labor government will ALWAYS be higher than under a Coalition government.
Interest rates under Rudd and Gillard were lower than those under Howard. Interest rates under Hawke/Keating were also lower than those under Fraser/Howard
Perhaps—Nostradamus—you should stick to you main game: making things up about the future; making things up about the past just looks silly
__________________________________________________________
Hawke/Keating were also lower than those under Fraser/Howard.
Are you sure about this one?
Fraser around 8 to 11 % under Hawk/Keating 11 to 17 %
https://www.infochoice.com.au/rate-watch/history-of-interest-rate-movements/
“Perhaps—Nostradamus—you should stick to you main game: making things up about the future; making things up about the past just looks silly”
Hmmm
TPOFs at 11:22 am
Not at all. If he does attack it is all his own doing and be a bigly f’wit for doing so. There is absolutely no up side for Russia in such a move.
Simon Katich says:
Monday, February 21, 2022 at 11:20 am
They are still nominally a part of Ukraine.
If we are going to start shading out borders because of ethnic populations then what of non Russian areas of Russia? Borders are borders and a sovereign country has a right to secure them. These are not nonsense borders. They are negotiated and agreed upon international borders.
____________________________________
Since Hitler’s use of Sudetenland as a pretext to invade Czechoslovakia, any proposition that it is necessary to invade another country to protect ethnic nationals is very unbelievable as a casus belli.
poroti says:
Monday, February 21, 2022 at 11:27 am
TPOFs at 11:22 am
Not at all. If he does attack it is all his own doing and be a bigly f’wit for doing so. There is absolutely no up side for Russia in such a move.
____________________________________
Well, I’m comforted that that is your view. I also see absolutely no upside. Indeed, it will actually strengthen ties within NATO as the US (and other NATO countries) would have the treaty obligation to defend a NATO country invaded by Russia (or anyone else, of course).
TPOF, the point is that they have lied about their intelligence before so will very likely do it again.
The current size of Ukraine’s armed forces, which consists of 250,000 (215,000 military personnel), is the largest in Europe, and second in the region after the Russian Armed Forces.
this number does not include private armies raised & maintained by oligarchs, like the azov brigade, armed border forces (53,000) and the ukrainian national guard (60,000). -a.v.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armed_Forces_of_Ukraine#:~:text=The%20current%20size%20of%20Ukraine's,after%20the%20Russian%20Armed%20Forces.