For those of you following the South Australian election, note the new post immediately below this one. For the rest of you:
• The latest fortnightly Roy Morgan poll has Labor leading 56.5-43.5, in from 57-43 last time, from primary votes of Coalition 32.5% (down half), Labor 37.5% (down one), Greens 12.5% (up one), One Nation 3.5% (down half) and United Australia Party on 1.5% (steady). The state two-party breakdowns have Labor leading 56.5-43.5 in New South Wales (in from 59-41 for a swing of around 9%), 60-40 in Victoria (out from 57.5-42.5 for a swing of around 7%), 52-48 in Western Australia (in from 53.5-46.5 for a swing of around 7.5%), 59.5-40.5 in South Australia (steady for a swing of around 9%) and 75-25 in Tasmania (a swing of 19%, with the inevitable proviso that this is from a tiny sample). The result in Queensland is 50-50, compared with 51.5-48.5 to Labor last time, for a swing of around 8.5%. The poll had a sample of 2261 and was conducted from February 14 to 23, long lead times before publication having become a feature of Roy Morgan’s polling of late.
• The Courier-Mail had results on federal politics from the same YouGov poll for which it published Queensland state voting intention results on Saturday, though this did not include straight results on voting intention. The poll found Scott Morrison at 41% approval and 47% disapproval in Queensland, with Anthony Albanese at 32% and 38%. Forty-three per cent thought a “Morrison Liberal-National Coalition government” would be better for Queensland compared with 39% for “an Albanese Labor government”. The poll was conducted February 18 to 23 from a sample of 1021.
• The Australian yesterday had follow-up questions from the weekend Newspoll on various questions of national security, which found 33% favouring Scott Morrison and the Coalition on handling the threat of China and 26% favouring Anthony Albanese and Labor, compared with 31% and 26% when the question was previously asked a month ago, with respective results of 30% and 24% on a similar question involving the threat of Russia. Seventy-four per cent felt China posed a threat to Australian national security compared with 18% who didn’t, while 64% held such a view in relation to Russia compared with 27% who didn’t.
As an old fart who was born after WW2 I have strong memories from parents, uncles, grandparents of the horror’s of war and the decades it took for European countries in particular to recover from it. I have to keep my nose out of the Russian invasion because it would just overwhelm me.
This one dictator nut job has upset the apple cart for Europe. We will feel the consequences of it down here on our big island at the bottom of the planet for years to come. On top of Covid and a fuckwit PM running the show, its sometimes a good idea to switch off or pick your battles. I don’t like to swear on a public website, but that is exactly what Scomo is. The sooner we rid this country of this giant cancerous disease on Australian democracy the better.
WeWantPaul says:
Wednesday, March 2, 2022 at 10:42 am
“In case you hadn’t noticed the people of the West collectively have the attention spans of goldfish, and there is money to be made dontcha know.”
Business as usual before all else, who cares who we kill or how.
Comrade, this has to be the most facile comment of the day. “We” are not the killers here. Putin is the killer. Your remark amounts to an exoneration of the killer. In these circumstances you’re either against the killer or you’re for him.
We can render such help as we can to the people of Ukraine…or not. Your remarks are aiding the aggressors.
I shudder at the thought of those poor souls who drowned in their homes in the flood. So terrible.
There is much work to be done regulating how these regions must set up going forward to avoid the damage of these weather events.
Australian economy rebounded 3.4% in the December quarter 2021:
https://www.abs.gov.au/statistics/economy/national-accounts/australian-national-accounts-national-income-expenditure-and-product/dec-2021
ltep at 11:29 am
It is wonderful. The Season Gods and Goddesses were particularly punctual this year. Autumn starts and boom! However there is a nagging sense of guilt (?) in cheering for rain given the disasters rain is causing over East. Sure to be a ‘passing phase’ though 🙂 Not having the lawn reticulated has meant weeks/months of non stop rounds of moving the sprinkler so that will be one joy. That and remembering the last water bill .
So here’s hoping that this signals a break up in whatever weather pattern has been stuck over Australia.
Rex
Here in DoPe-istan, property developers want the Warragamba Dam wall raised. Nothing to do with building houses on flood plains and flogging them off to the highest bidder, of course.
Snappy Tom says:
Wednesday, March 2, 2022 at 11:16 am
All good Rewi.
Putin won’t respect the rights of civilians anyway, any who oppose him being ‘Nazis.’
In case anyone is wondering, Putin disgusts me. Unfortunately, he is part of an extremely long list.
As a theologian, the human abuse of power becomes (for me, at least) the credible edge for reflecting on notions of ‘sin.’
Sin is meant to mean an offence before the deity. How is it possible to give offence to an entity that does not exist?
Have they got Electric Boats yet? I think that would be a better investment than an EV, looking at the Climate Change prognosis for the future. 😐
Snappy Tom @ #156 Wednesday, March 2nd, 2022 – 11:39 am
You still should be able to build in the flood prone areas – just mandate stilts.
“Comrade, this has to be the most facile comment of the day. “We” are not the killers here. Putin is the killer. Your remark amounts to an exoneration of the killer. In these circumstances you’re either against the killer or you’re for him.
We can render such help as we can to the people of Ukraine…or not. Your remarks are aiding the aggressors.”
Really this moralistic simplistic binary with or against rubbish was done by people much smarter than you, like the dumber Bush president.
It is as tired as it is childish and cultish.
Holdenhillbilly
That’s why we had to ‘live with Covid’ (or push through or whatever other lethal bullshit that is responsible for hundreds of deaths) – the GDP figure for the previous (September) quarter was -1.9%. This was clearly the result of 1) lock downs, restricting economic activity; and 2) the major reductions in federal Covid support payments, also reducing economic activity.
If Morrison, Perrottet and their enablers hadn’t ‘let it rip’ late last year, we might well have had a second successive quarter of negative growth – and that would have meant (da, da, dahhh!) a RECESSION!
A RECESSION? From the superior economic managers? A few months before an election?
No way! Let’s put people at risk instead…
PS Imagine a Labor govt in similar circumstances, deciding to keep restrictions but stimulate the economy by also keeping support payments (so people have money to shop online etc.) No recession, but DEBT AND DEFICIT!
The Right, as a collective (and along with Putin,) are on the extremely long list of ‘people who disgust me’…
“You still should be able to build in the flood prone areas – just mandate stilts.”
They will also need to be fireproof and rated to withstand megacyclones.
C@T “Have they got Electric Boats yet?” Yes for small craft at least and I own such an electric outboard. They have been available for many decades FWIW.
All my power garden equipment is now electric as excellent quality heavy duty stuff is widely available. Beats messing with ICEs/fuel.
frednk @ #88 Wednesday, March 2nd, 2022 – 8:35 am
Thanks for the link.
Tales from the frontline (Brisbane, not Kyiv). My sister’s story:
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2022/mar/01/brisbane-flood-residents-assess-damage-to-homes-as-clean-up-efforts-begin
This rain in northern perth after the hottest summer on record ever is just beautiful.
Of course, Bludging at 11.43am, we learned from Hitchhiker’s Guide some time ago that God disappeared in a puff of logic.
I wish the human lust for power had done likewise.
NSW Liberal president Philip Ruddock says Holsworthy MP Melanie Gibbons is not suitable to run in the federal seat of Hughes and could not win it, as the party remains paralysed over preselections.
In an extraordinary criticism of a sitting MP, a motion sent by Mr Ruddock to state executive members on Tuesday night said former Young Liberals president Alex Dore should be the candidate.
As the NSW division of the Liberal Party continues its internal war over preselections ahead of the looming federal election, the lengthy motion was the latest attempt to end the damaging impasse.
Ms Gibbons is one of three nominees for Hughes, currently held by Liberal turncoat Craig Kelly, including lawyer Jenny Ware and another local candidate Alex Cook.
However, the motion, which has the support of Prime Minister Scott Morrison and Premier Dominic Perrottet, warns the three nominees could not win the seat, according to a source on state executive. Mr Dore is from Manly and does not live in Hughes.
https://www.smh.com.au/politics/nsw/holsworthy-mp-melanie-gibbons-not-suitable-for-federal-seat-libs-20220302-p5a0yn.html
😆
Holdenhillbilly @ #168 Wednesday, March 2nd, 2022 – 11:58 am
If they can’t govern themselves, how can the govern the country …?
What qualities does Mr Dore have that would make him more likely to win?
WeWantPaul @ #16 Wednesday, March 2nd, 2022 – 11:56 am
You can have our 200mm today as well if you want? 😉
ltep @ #21 Wednesday, March 2nd, 2022 – 12:02 pm
His father is an editor of a Murdoch newspaper. 😐
“Ukraine is a natural partner to the EU,” Opimakh said in the presentation. “We have great untapped potential for building strategic and beneficial partnerships with EU”.
The Ukrainian state has prepared an Investment Atlas with around 30 critical mineral assets, titanium, lithium, nickel, cobalt, chrome, tantalum, niobium, beryllium, zirconium, scandium, molybdenum, gold and graphite, according to Opimakh.
Ukraine has some of Europe’s biggest lithium reserves but doesn’t currently produce the light metal.
https://www.spglobal.com/commodity-insights/en/market-insights/latest-news/metals/051021-ukraine-may-advance-with-critical-minerals-project-auctions-this-year-geological-service
Those who invest earliest make the greatest gains. The capitalists/oligarchs will be making plans.
Thanks, Terminator. Just don’t go too far out, otherwise you might not get back. 😀
And I’m just so sick of the cloud, the humidity and the rain…
Victoria says:
Wednesday, March 2, 2022 at 9:43 am
Golden Smaug
Sorry about your brother.
Unfortunately he is one of many. Whilst here in Australia, the percentage of people who have fallen down the rabbit hole is not high.
In the USA for eg, millions of people now believe in the tenets of Qanon.
Politicians and msm keep saying it is not important to know who actually is behind Qanon. It is more important to deal with the fallout.
I disagree. Qanon was a psyop. Who are behind it, is very instrumental. It needs to be exposed.
This psyop is part of why the world is now at this juncture. It is no co incidence.
Fancy believing Putin and Trump are the saviours of the world.
These people have been systematically and deliberately brainwashed.
________________________________________________________
I once would have dismissed the notion that widespread beliefs in conspiracies were themselves the products of another sort of conspiracy, ie, disinformation from Russian secret services or other players.
I’ve little doubt the Americans have probably played similar disinformation tricks in their time, but it is probably no exaggeration to say the Russians are masters at it. One good look at Russia’s history of disinformation is in Otto English’s book, Fake History. English says that KGB disinformation was initially responsible for many Americans’ belief that President Kennedy’s assassination was a conspiracy, which included elaborate cover-ups in the investigation.
English also credits Russian disinformation with helping the Brexit campaign and fuelling conspiracy theories around the world today. The reason being that Russia sees a divided and demoralised west as best suiting its interests.
Obviously not everything can be sheeted home to Russian propagandists; we run the risk of believing unlikely conspiracies about that if we’re not careful. But we should remember that just because someone is paranoid, does not mean that someone is not out to get them.
Let me just clarify what it takes to be on the ‘good’ of the good / bad binary:
* cause de jour is Ukraine, unconstrained, unfiltered support required
* covid still badish but only in an annoying way – daily Australian deaths not to be mentioned at all because business as usual is more important and we factored in those deaths as competely acceptable (contrast with Ukranian lives we value today, but probably not enough to welcome refugees)
* killing civilians in Yemen is not to be mentioned either, allies directly contribute to that so they must be ‘sanctioned’ or good killings (refugees definitely should not apply to Australia)
* Palestine, aparthied, ongoing crimes against humanity, all good, not to be mentioned if someone else mentions moan about ‘whataboutism’ yeah that is all there is to defend it.
This selective caring is pretty f*cked up.
Just saying.
Just wondering, what sort of timeline would you expect for the cleanup of a flooded property if it has been almost totally submerged for a couple of days. I assume it would need more than just a wipe down of the walls and floors.
How is this going to impact housing, given we already have a housing crisis in many areas.
Will the cleanup still be an issue in late April or May or will it all be over in a week or to.
Keen eyed observers will have noticed that I earlier conflated the 4th battle of Kharkov (Kharkiv) with the 3rd, which took place between mid February and mid March 1943 and whereupon Von Manstein managed to stabilise the southern front after the disastrous outcome of Stalingrad.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_Battle_of_Kharkov
We Want Paul
“I’m reading a report that suggests there is still a 50% chance that net zero emissions by 2050 would still cap temperature rise as 1.5 degrees.”
Maybe… But there’s little chance of the world being Net Zero by then…
https://climateactiontracker.org/global/temperatures/
WeWantPaul @ #178 Wednesday, March 2nd, 2022 – 9:08 am
As soon as you try to classify something as complicated as human society in a binary way, you invariably leave reality behind.
What happens to Ukraine’s nascent EU membership if it obtains full membership status and THEN Putin completes his conquest and installs a puppet government?
pukka
You too can get in on the action by investing in Ukrainian war bonds. Just talk to your broker.*
*Not financial advice.
I’ve thought of something that would bring me more joy than the current NSW Libs’ civil wars: Morrison delivering a concession speech in the near future.
OK, not an original thought, but still enjoyable (whilst never daring to take the electorate for granted etc etc)
ItzaDream @ #100 Wednesday, March 2nd, 2022 – 9:02 am
Perhaps she’s right about his mental state, perhaps it’s propaganda. But what struck me, unfairly, is Putin’s little superior smirk which peeps out again and again. (The indulgent parent you better not mess with.) Any comparison with Mr Morrison is grossly unfair, but that’s where my mind went. The rest of the interview is sobering. Paraphrasing: “You don’t stop a mad man with sanctions.”, “Ukraine alone can’t do this.”, “This is URGENT.”
Thanks ItzaDream.
pukka at 12:05 pm
Another odd commodity situation is the supply of Neon gas. 90% of the world’s production comes from (drum roll) Ukraine and Russia and 90% of the US supply of semiconductor grade Neon comes from the same pair.
Apparently the gas is extracted from air. Despite this, for some reason, those two countries have a near monopoly on its production. As it is cryogenic extraction perhaps their super cold winters makes it easier/cheaper ?
WWP, I feel that a white feather might be on its way to you …
We stayed in one of these floating homes at Schoonschip during one of our visits.
https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20220202-floating-homes-the-benefits-of-living-on-water
So, A_E at 12.11pm, does that reduce the number of Battles of Kharkiv to 4?
Andrew_Earlwood at 12:15 pm
After reading WWP C@t visited the backyard.
A Washington perspective:
https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-march-1
Snappy Tom @ #185 Wednesday, March 2nd, 2022 – 12:14 pm
Anything but the speech which begins…’How good are miracles….’
Everything he says (and thinks) begins with ‘I’ and ends with ‘me’.
ANZ-Roy Morgan Consumer Confidence decreased 2.6pts to 99.2 during the last week of February. Consumer Confidence is now 13.1pts below the same week a year ago, February 27/28, 2021 (111.3) and 2pts below the 2022 weekly average of 101.2.
It should be noted that almost two-thirds of the interviews for this week’s Consumer Confidence were conducted prior to Russia invasion of Ukraine. For those 947 interviews conducted from Monday – Wednesday (Feb 21-23) Consumer Confidence was 100.8, while for the 583 interviews conducted from Thursday-Sunday (Feb 24-27) Consumer Confidence had dropped to 97.1.
Driving the fall in this week’s Consumer Confidence were big falls in Queensland and Western Australia. Consumer Confidence in Queensland was down a significant 10.4pts to 90.0 as 18,000 homes have been flooded across the region according to Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk. Western Australia also took a turn this week, down 5pts to 97.4 as their Covid cases increased rapidly for first the first time during the pandemic.
Driving the decreases were falls in sentiment regarding the performance of the Australian economy over the next year and next five years.
https://www.roymorgan.com/findings/8925-anz-roy-morgan-consumer-confidence-march-1-202202280537
Assantdj @ #179 Wednesday, March 2nd, 2022 – 12:10 pm
There are several large factories in Lismore producing food. They have been submerged under 2 metres of filthy water. This was not expected, as previous record floods had not reached these facilities. Complete refurbishment of all plant and equipment will be required. All electric motors will need to be disassembled and rewound. All conveyors and filling machines, packaging machines likewise disassembled, cleaned, refurbished.
Every pipeline, valve, control system, flow meter and tank/vat thoroughly cleaned, tested, recalibrated.
There will not be anywhere near enough parts available. Several major supermarket food items will be unavailable for months, after stocks run out.
I post this from a position of detailed knowledge of the situation. I am preparing critical path schedules.
I also ask you to imagine what the Spotlight store, and Bunnings store will be like after being submerged to the roofline.
It’s an ill wind … NSW SES people will no doubt be overjoyed they won’t have to interrupt their vital work for a visit from Morrison with the media circus in tow.
Rex,
The real thing: https://www.google.com.au/maps/@-27.5123306,153.0151736,3a,50.3y,178.34h,84.59t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sBrBOdfKybv7J3fQ-fBBNQw!2e0!7i16384!8i8192
Edit: if you spin that view around, you can see a 150 room retirement facility built basically in a creek bed in Yeronga. They needed the ADF to get all the residents out over the weekend after power was cut and the lower levels were inundated. Freeking genius planning that.
Andrew_Earlwood @ #143 Wednesday, March 2nd, 2022 – 10:22 am
That’s a large part of it. The first thing I mean. Nobody wins a nuclear war.
And that highlights the remainder. I count that definition of “unacceptable risk” to be an unacceptable risk itself. It basically says that any jackass with nukes gets to do whatever they feel like to anyone who doesn’t have nukes.
That’s just unsupportable in principle. And it suggests that the only reasonable action for anyone without nukes is to acquire some nukes as a matter of urgency (so I guess, let’s give some to Ukraine?), which will have its own risks down the track. Ultimately though, it’s the former thing that carries more weight imo. Kowtowing to anyone with a nuclear weapon is just wrong in principle. Survival of the species isn’t worthwhile if it means everyone grovels at the feet of the first crackpot dictator with nukes. Gotta take some risks, or there’s nothing around worth safeguarding.
“ So, A_E at 12.11pm, does that reduce the number of Battles of Kharkiv to 4?”
Good question.
Most historians identify the 4th Battle of Kharkov as comprising the Belgorod–Kharkov offensive operation of August 1943 – which was the Soviet Offensive operation that followed up on their successful defensive battle in the Kursk salient.
The Germans called this operation the 4th battle of Kharkov. Not that the Red Army commanders saw that distinction: as far as Zhukov was concerned both the defensive operations and the offensive counter attack were part of the same overall Battle of Kursk, because THAT is how he planned the battle to go: for the Red Army luring the germans into Kursk only made strategic sense IF they could be effectively annihilated in the counter offensive. That’s why Zhukov spent as much time ensuring that all the Lend Lease trucks and support vehicles were in place to take advantage of any German retreat as he did in laying the massive in depth defensive fortifications.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belgorod–Kharkov_offensive_operation