Two other new posts to note before we proceed: a summary of the South Australian election result, and an Adrian Beaumont guest post covering Ukraine, France, Hungary and the United Kingdom.
In what’s otherwise likely to be a barren week for polling, with most of the players having held their fire ahead of the budget, Roy Morgan published a result on Tuesday showing a narrowing in Labor’s two-party lead to 55.5-44.5 from 58-42 a week previously. The primary votes were Coalition 33% (up two), Labor 35.5% (down two), Greens 12.5% (up half), One Nation 3.5% (up half) and United Australia Party 1% (steady).
The state two-party breakdowns had Labor leading 53-47 in New South Wales (in from 57.5-42.5, a swing of around 5%), 60-40 in Victoria (in from 64-36, a swing of around 7%), 57-43 in Western Australia (in from 59-41, a swing of around 12.5%), 63.5-36.5 in South Australia (out from 60.5-39.5, a swing of around 13%) and 53-47 from the small sample in Tasmania (a swing to the Liberals of 3%). The Coalition leads 51-49 in Queensland, in from 54.5-45.5 for a swing of around 7.5%. The poll was conducted last Monday to Sunday from a sample of 1404.
UPDATE: Now Morgan has an SMS poll of 1067 respondents conducted Wednesday and Thursday showing Josh Frydenberg leading Scott Morrison 46% to 28.5% as preferred Liberal leader, out from 38.5% to 31% in mid-February.
In further polling news, Ipsos has announced it will be conducting polling for the Financial Review during the federal election campaign using a mix of phone and online polling. Ipsos conducted polling for the full gamut of the Fairfax/Nine newspaper stable in the previous term, which includes the Sydney Morning Herald and The Age, which now bring us monthly polling from Resolve Strategic. Unlike Resolve Strategic, it is a member of the Australian Polling Council and observes the body’s transparency standards. Ipsos was the one pollster that had an accurate read on the Labor primary vote before the last election, but this did not flow into superior performance on two-party preferred since it was balanced by exaggerated results for the Greens.
On the election timing front, the Financial Review has a headline that reads “Why the federal election will likely be May 21”, whereas news.com.au has one that says “May 14 most likely date”. The reasoning behind the former is that the Coalition’s standing in the polls means Scott Morrison will take every week he can get; the latter invokes the opinion of Labor strategists along with the fact that the Electoral Commission has booked out halls for that date, though I personally wouldn’t read much into the latter.
Scott Morrison said on Wednesday he will not be visiting the Governor-General this weekend as he has “a lot to do”, which just about rules out May 7 unless he calls it on Monday. Laura Tingle suggested this wouldn’t happen on the ABC’s 7:30 last night, as the government wants to get “some advertising out in the ether” and the Liberal Party still lacks candidates in key seats due to its legal tangles in New South Wales. Tingle concluded that “most people think that it will now be May 14”, with the announcement to be made late next week.
https://www.pollbludger.net/2022/04/01/morgan-55-5-44-5-to-labor-4/#comment-3853135
Vision vs photo-ops without follow up …
WeWantPaul says:
Friday, April 1, 2022 at 8:05 am
“– Fully costed and achievable policy for a 43% reductions in carbon emissions by 2030 and a clear pathway to net zero 2050;”
43%! Wow about half of what is needed with most of it left to the last part of the last quarter, the science is very clear this is very very bad policy.
———————————————-
Let’s see: WWP
1. Will take no personal responsibility for his own carbon emissions. None at all. Zip. Zero.
2. Says that he cannot take any personal responsibility for his own carbon emissions because that would look like he is caving into the Fossil Fuel propaganda. No compromise with the enemy!
3. Supports a Party that has promised everything and delivered nothing on carbon emissions for 32 years. Said Party has had the occasional opportunity to act but routinely acts in bad faith so wrecks those opportunities.
4. Criticizes everyone and everything else for not being pure enough on carbon emissions.
5. Personally abuses anyone who disagrees with him as being a ‘cultist’ or a ‘climate criminal’.
6. And wonders why Greens national polling is going backwards.
WWP
Yes, don’t you like the way the Libs/Murdochracy scream for Albo to say something then when he does, in the form of a major statement, things go quiet.
Eleanor Beardsley Paris correspondent for National Public Radio.
@ElBeardsley
Incredible testimony on BFMTV from this mayor of Melitopol who was kidnapped for several days by the Russians. He says they had no idea what’s going on. They told him we’re here to get the Nazis – he said I’ve been in this town 30 years and I’ve never met one…. then they said
well we’re here to help the Russian speakers and he said 95% of us speak Russian and we’re fine. They said they heard that the World War II veterans of the town had been beaten in the patriot day and he said au contraire they’re venerated and there’s not very many of them left.
It seems these Russian soldiers truly thought that. This entire war is being fought on propaganda – for false pretenses. Its not only Putin who doesn’t know what’s going on. This mayor, Ivan Fedorov, said the soldiers were completely unprepared and clueless.
There are big differences in rhetoric between Labor and the Coalition, but on the economic fundamentals there is little – other than aged care reform – to separate the two, explains economics professor, Stephen Bartos.
https://theconversation.com/labors-budget-reply-goes-big-on-aged-care-similar-on-much-else-180098
========================================
Same, same; same old crap.
One lot wants real wages to fall; the other lot wants real wages to go up.
Thanks so much BK
“Sandman says:
Friday, April 1, 2022 at 8:14 am
ALBO’S ELECTION PITCH”
Exactly!…. The Liberal stormtroopers living in the internet, and their mates in the MSM, may try to hide ALBO’S ELECTION PITCH…. but they forget that the ALP election pitch is simply a reflection of what the People want. Hence the message doesn’t need to “reach the voters”, because it “comes from the voters”!!!
Well, isn’t that almost a Revolution?
John Hewson
@JohnRHewson
Morrison boasts that he knows, unlike Labor, when to stop spending. Yet if our economy is roaring ahead as he boasts with the prospect of crippling debt why did he spend billions of additional dollars in the hope of buying votes in key seats?
Boerwar:
“Same, same; same old crap.
One lot wants real wages to fall; the other lot wants real wages to go up.”
I don’t understand: Are both positions equally crappy, or is one crappier than the other and, if so, which is which?
I think it likely that the previous Morgan 58-42 result was an outlier.
Senator Murray Watt
@MurrayWatt
Head of major aged care provider Hammond Care and former Liberal Premier Mike Baird tells @RNBreakfast that @AlboMP aged care plan is “a very good plan” and Morrison should match it.
😯
Dead tree DT front page – at least it’s not headed “where’s the money coming from?”
Labor is promising to build 30,000 social houses. Fully costed.
The Greens are promising to build 1,000,000 social houses. Fully uncosted.
Morning all. Thanks for the morning roundup B.
This story here highlights a trend I also observed in trying to get to the bottom of the submarine contract saga. This government simply doesn’t report the same amount of financial detail on its projects and programs to parliament as its predecessors. This often makes it almost impossible to know what it actually is spending on a particular project in a particular year, or when it will do so in the future. When I worked in Federal government (Howard era) the reporting was much more complete.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-04-01/budget-transparency-takes-a-dive/100954074
To this end, I have been through Budget Paper 2. I still cannot tell whether any actual spending on the nuclear submarine project will occur in the next three years. Nor can I tell much about transport infrastructure funding. In both cases, promises of expenditure range up to 10 years (road promises) or 20 years (subs) into the future. Will the spending occur in year 4 or year 9 or year 19? We don’t know.
”
Maude Lynnesays:
Friday, April 1, 2022 at 7:03 am
Michael Janda calls out Frydenberg’s budget obfuscation
There’s been a long history of, like, the same dam being announced 10 times, and this sort of thing,” explains John Hawkins, a former Treasury official who is now a senior lecturer at the Canberra School of Politics, Economics and Society and NATSEM within the University of Canberra.
“But, yeah, there seems to have been even more sort of trickery.”
The phrases “funding for this measure has already been provided for” and “partial funding for this measure has already been provided for” are central to this “trickery”.
With these phrases Frydo cleverly sidesteps any need to explain “where the money’s coming from”
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-04-01/budget-transparency-takes-a-dive/100954074
”
ML
It doesn’t matter whether the whole LNP government budget is based on trickery, the MSM other than a few will not ask LNP where the money is coming even after Trillion dollars worth of debit.
That is the reason why Morrison, Frydenburg and Joyce don’t care anymore to answer where the money is coming from let alone how they will balance budget in future.
Look at the story of Nationals MP Andrew Gee protesting to resign from ministry if his Ministry is not funded as he demanded . Voila, the funding for his Ministry is quadrupled. Is there a rhyme or reason for that kind of funding? Did anyone in Media asked where that extra funding came from. No
“The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) says Russian forces have begun leaving the Chernobyl nuclear plant after transferring control “in writing” of the defunct facility to Ukrainian personnel. Ukraine’s state power company, Energoatom, said Russian troops began leaving the nuclear plant after soldiers got “significant doses” of radiation from digging trenches at the highly contaminated site.”
What, nobody thought of that? D’oh.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-04-01/russian-forces-leave-chernobyl-ukraine-iaea/100957466
The media’s choice of question tells you exactly what they think of each political party.
The media doesn’t ask Morrison or his Government where the money comes from because they know that announcements are free.
Labor might actually use money to do what they say they will do. Different story.
Chris Minns posting that Tolls have been removed in NSW. Whats the date today?
“ The fact checkers found that Mr Frydenberg had used a “time travelling trick” — ignoring the effects of inflation — to make the government’s spending in areas such as aged care and healthcare appear larger than the reality. Similarly, a claim that apprenticeship numbers were at record levels conveniently did not take into account population growth. In fact, as a proportion of the working-age population, apprenticeships were highest during the Rudd/Gillard years.”
Would Josh’s tell porkies to Australians? If the ABC do this research, do they also announce it on AM? It does seem like a major factual and integrity issue after all.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-04-01/checkmate-senior-australians-relative-poverty-meme/100955380
Cronus
There were earlier reports of the Chernobyl Invasion Convoy ex Belarus driving full bore through the Red Zone, enveloping itself in clouds of radioactive dust. I had sort of assumed they had figured out that a brief dash through might be worth the risk of a few of the soldiers imbibing a radioactive particle or two.
But really, digging in and then living there. What were they thinking?
Apart from that, the question is why do a special operation among the Special Operations to capture and hold Cherbobyl in the first place? It is a standing liability and produces no electricity. Were they frightened that the Ukrainians might do something dirty with the spent fuel rods?
BTW, thank you, BK.
Good point
PRGuy
@PRGuy17
PORT RORT: Josh Frydenberg has set aside $2 billion (+ $5 billion) to build a new Darwin port because the Morrison Government sold the existing one to China. We’re yet to see media scrutinise this reckless blunder, or any of the usual suspects ask ‘can we afford this’.
Out, and proud
Political Alert
@political_alert
Leader of the Australian Labor Party, Anthony Albanese, is in Sydney today with Labor candidate for Parramatta, Andrew Charlton, and will hold a doorstop, 10:45AM
https://twitter.com/political_alert/status/1509644365173387272?
Public Schools funding cuts.
This is one of many things Frydenberg didn’t talk about in his pre-election speech. It is buried deep in the backwaters of the budget papers.
“Private schools will pocket $2bn in bonus federal funding as $560m is siphoned from public schools over the next three years.
A teachers’ union has blasted the “elitist” spending switch and will use its national conference on Friday to kick-start a campaign to unseat government MPs at the imminent election”.
The Australian Education Union has a $3.5m war chest to campaign against the Morrison government in marginal seats, appealing to public school parents over Facebook, Instagram and other social media.
https://www.theaustralian.com.au/nation/politics/private-schools-to-get-a-2bn-bonus/news-story/96a6a94e2434d12a931dcb71abc2b086
Gosh, the Darwin port lease was sold for A$506 million. Looks like a bargain now!
sprocket_ says:
Friday, April 1, 2022 at 6:04 am
Uni of Queensland is talking up a big game on election advertising data, worth a follow..
—
Surprised at the amount of the ALP ad spend indicated on your graph. I’ve seen very little Labor advertising here in Melbourne.
Under the Space Cadet Plan Darwin will have three ports: one for China, one for America and one for Australia.
Even if Morrison matches or exceeds labor’s policy and funding for aged care, can he be believed?
Obviously a rhetorical question.
Scott says:
Friday, April 1, 2022 at 7:47 am
You can tell if Albanese & labor budget reply was spot on, the corrupt lib/nats propaganda media units are giving it little air as possible
—
The usual nutters at the Oz are going hard on Labor this morning. It’s desperate stuff, and not even pretending to be balanced.
“Leader of the Australian Labor Party, Anthony Albanese, is in Sydney today with Labor candidate for Parramatta, Andrew Charlton, and will hold a doorstop, 10:45AM”
House hunting
Grace Tame’s take on SfM ‘understanding’ the Oscars Slap…https://twitter.com/TamePunk/status/1509295781261770753?s=20&t=7Tai2yatStwinmahHwjbtA
Albo with Andrew Charlton today, good. Charlton’s already campaigning very hard in Parramatta, judging by his facebook page.
@WWP:
“ am
“– Fully costed and achievable policy for a 43% reductions in carbon emissions by 2030 and a clear pathway to net zero 2050;”
43%! Wow about half of what is needed with most of it left to the last part of the last quarter, the science is very clear this is very very bad policy.”
______
Geez. Talk about missing my point! You get the bronze medal in bludger humbug.
Whether you agree – or disagree – of think it inadequate or otherwise – my point IS: … it’s a policy! And actual tangible policy. Contrary to the film flam from the LNP.
Ergo: concrete evidence that Albo is NOT running a ‘zero target’ strategy.
There are other points to make in support of this policy, but I won’t distract you by going off on a tangent.
@WWP:
“ am
“– Fully costed and achievable policy for a 43% reductions in carbon emissions by 2030 and a clear pathway to net zero 2050;”
43%! Wow about half of what is needed with most of it left to the last part of the last quarter, the science is very clear this is very very bad policy.”
______
Geez. Talk about missing my point! You get the bronze medal in bludger humbug.
Whether you agree – or disagree – of think it inadequate or otherwise – my point IS: … it’s a policy! And actual tangible policy. Contrary to the film flam from the LNP.
Ergo: concrete evidence that Albo is NOT running a ‘zero target’ strategy.
There are other points to make in support of this policy, but I won’t distract you by going off on a tangent.
Victoria @ #72 Friday, April 1st, 2022 – 8:56 am
or $5 billion for a dam with no business case, just Beetroot’s blatherings.
What did Mr Victoria think of the Memorial? On a trivial note, I was struck my the use of ‘Mr’ before his name – Mr Shane Warne – in the main overhead. I thought it naff, and jarringly unnecessary.
Itzadream
OH didn’t end up going. He gave his ticket to a friend who really wanted to go.
OH was happy to watch the memorial on tv, which was handled very well.
“ But The Australian’s editor-at-large Paul Kelly said this week had done nothing but damage Mr Morrison’s reputation further.
“The government wanted to set the agenda around the budget … and on Tuesday night looked as though it was going to do that,” Kelly said.
“Then we had yet another attack on the Prime Minister, this time from his own ranks … an extraordinary attack, I think particularly damaging, accusing the Prime Minister of being unfit for high office, of being a bully, of lacking a moral compass.”
Says it all really, and from another supporter. It must’ve been hard for Kelly to admit this.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-04-01/lambie-steggall-criticise-scott-morrison-budget-qa-joyce/100957162
Brent Hodgson
@BrentHodgson
·
10m
Frydenberg Economics:
Sell Port of Darwin to a foreign government for $506 million on 99 year Lease;
Then build a NEW Port of Darwin for $2 BILLION to counter that foreign government.
It’s genius!
”
Phil Coorey reckons Morrison is putting all his chips on the budget roulette wheel.
https://www.afr.com/politics/federal/morrison-puts-all-his-chips-on-the-budget-roulette-wheel-20220331-p5a9m5
”
It’s a Russian Roulette wheel.
Transcript of HC liberal party fight yesterday.
http://www.austlii.edu.au/cgi-bin/viewdoc/au/cases/cth/HCATrans//2022/48.html
Senator Cash threw the Solicitor General in real deep
Paul Kelly surely knows that Morrison doesn’t have a reputation to damage.
It’s already in the bin.
Victoria @ #78 Friday, April 1st, 2022 – 9:01 am
As noted, it is April 1.
What I can’t believe, is that they didn’t do serious anything about it, at all, other than chuck $800 bucks in two aliquots to a few aged care workers most of whom wont ever see it, and then call it a day. Everyone is ageing, has aged parents, had aged parents, respects the aged, thanks the aged, and on it goes. If ever there was one winning issue (and boy, is there a long list of starters) this is it. And they did the usual insincere double dealing quick cash slash announcement, achieved nothing for the sector, or themselves, and left the field right open for Labor to step up, and care, by name and nature. They are so done.
Victoria @ #78 Friday, April 1st, 2022 – 9:01 am
As noted, it is April 1.
What I can’t believe, is that they didn’t do serious anything about it, at all, other than chuck $800 bucks in two aliquots to a few aged care workers most of whom wont ever see it, and then call it a day. Everyone is ageing, has aged parents, had aged parents, respects the aged, thanks the aged, and on it goes. If ever there was one winning issue (and boy, is there a long list of starters) this is it. And they did the usual insincere double dealing quick cash slash announcement, achieved nothing for the sector, or themselves, and left the field right open for Labor to step up, and care, by name and nature. They are so done.
”
Budget 2022 is a bit like that last lolly bag at the party. The one with the bottom falling out of it. The one that’s therefore not only joyless, but useless, because it promises everything and contains next to nothing, writes John Falzon.
https://www.canberratimes.com.au/story/7680665/one-off-fixes-like-the-ones-in-this-budget-are-no-fixes-at-all/?cs=9676
”
Brilliant anology!
Infact the lolly bag is already shredded to pieces while fighting for those lollies. For example, the budget is leaving a huge budget black hole from the point of ‘fuel excise ‘ POV as the oil prices are already falling.
Ven, Chronus
That article about the accounting tricks in the budget relates to exactly the same tricks I pointed out in relation to the real or imagined timing of defence and infrastructure spending.
Apart from the much heralded consumer cash splash, very little else the Morrison government is “promising” is guaranteed to happen in the next parliament.
If this budget was a financial statement of a company, you would fail the auditor.
Labor should target the credibility of promises in this budget. Like commuter car parks promised last time, major projects announced by Morrison are not guaranteed to happen.
Victoria @ #86 Friday, April 1st, 2022 – 9:08 am
To my surprise, I watched it, and agree; longish, but then, of course it was always going to be, and needed to be.
Front page of Herald Sun today features Helicopter tragedy.
Helicopter taking four passengers in a convoy with another helicopter crashed 60km out from city on an aptly named mountain disappointment.
Apparently low cloud may have had something to do with it.
Very sad
Bit of system stuttering going on.
Itzadream
Yes it gave a good accounting of who Warne was and why he was loved by so many.
Victoria :
There have been another six COVID-19 deaths.
There are 310 cases in hospital, with 12 of those in intensive care and four requiring ventilation.
There were 10,424 new cases announced today.
………………………………………………………………………………………………
NSW :
The state has recorded two more COVID-19 deaths.
There are 1,345 cases in hospital, 43 of those in intensive care.
There were 25,495 new cases announced today.