Essential Research: Albanese approval and COVID management (open thread)

Albanese down a little off a post-election high, plus some detail from a further poll conducted immediately after the federal election.

The latest fortnightly Essential Research poll includes its monthly read on prime ministerial approval, but still nothing on voting intention or opinion of the Opposition Leader. Anthony Albanese maintains most but not all of his post-election bounce, his approval down three to 56% and disapproval up six to 24%.

The pollster’s now regular fortnighly question on national direction is effectively unchanged at 47% for right and 28% for wrong. Further questions relate to COVID-19, which find 55% believe we “need to get on with life and treat Covid like another form of flu”, but that 60% support the return of mask wearing in some settings 53% support the government rolling out of a fourth shot (which it began doing during the survey period).

About half the respondents felt Australia had handled the pandemic better than the United States, the United Kingdom and China, with between 16% and 22% opting for worse, while the result for New Zealand was broadly neutral. The poll was conducted Thursday to Monday from a sample of 1097.

Also out earlier this week was a brief release from the Australia Institute which reported that a poll it conducted on the night of the May 21 federal election found the Coalition had 37% support among men and 30% support among women, which became 28% to 38% when a further survey was conducted the following month. Given a list of 20 options to choose from as Coalition weaknesses, 67% tagged “the state of aged care” and 66% “the treatment of women in politics”.

UPDATE: The Australia Institute has now posted more detail from its polls. As well as a lot more detail on what respondents regarded as Coalition strengths and weaknesses going into the election, it has a set of voting intention numbers dating from June 14: Labor 34%, Coalition 31%, Greens 12%, One Nation 4%, United Australia Party 4%, independents and others 9% and not sure 7%. The first phase of the poll was conducted from May 21 to 25 from a sample of 1424, and the second was conducted “in June” from a sample of 1001.

Author: William Bowe

William Bowe is a Perth-based election analyst and occasional teacher of political science. His blog, The Poll Bludger, has existed in one form or another since 2004, and is one of the most heavily trafficked websites on Australian politics.

2,030 comments on “Essential Research: Albanese approval and COVID management (open thread)”

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  1. Victoria @ #48 Wednesday, July 13th, 2022 – 9:56 am

    My main questions remains.
    What were the intelligence agencies doing at the time?
    Surely the FBI and homeland security would have been aware and had a heads up?

    And surely they should have been able to quell the Qanon element of this crapola by now.

    They didn’t even do anything on Trump/Russia. Why would they have done those other things?


  2. zoomstersays:
    Wednesday, July 13, 2022 at 8:18 am
    Can we also remember that the media beats up these things, and portrays groups of people as bitching about things when (by and large) they aren’t?

    My son bought a house this year. He and his partner’s financial position has improved greatly since then, and they won’t have any trouble if interest rates rise.

    They do live from pay check to pay check, but that’s because they’re making improvements to the house and want to do these as soon as they can.

    ABC default beatup almost everyday on Breakfast show is to talk about health and Ambulance crisis in Melbourne and Airport Chaos in Sydney airport.

  3. With so little detail provided, taking this Roy Morgan result with a grain of salt.

    Roy Morgan “The latest data on Working From Home Preferences, Federal Voting Intentions & Consumer Confidence” video has:

    TPP ALP 53.5 (+0.5) L/NP 46.5 (-0.5)

    No primaries or other polling figures are provided here or on their website.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RYS02gKCm20

    https://twitter.com/Leroy_Lynch/status/1547004330037112832

    my tweet has the relevant image in it


  4. Scottsays:
    Wednesday, July 13, 2022 at 8:18 am
    Lol Taylormade

    The corrupt lib/nats propaganda media units such as costello controlled , murdoch and stokes
    will be worrying about the truth in political advertising laws

    Scott
    You have deviated from usual LOL Taylormade and providing commentary. ‘LOL’ was sufficient and succinct IMO. 🙂

  5. Another beauty from Tim Smith. Lol

    The bed wetting boomers at @3AW693 are sooking we haven’t been compulsorily muzzled & ordered to work from home. First @3AWNeilMitchell now this Stevenson. This is how Andrews got away with the world’s longest lockdown…Melbourne’s media cheer squad…https://t.co/AIulV9zrpI

  6. BW, earlier
    “Somewhere in it someone states that climate change might cause the extinction of 10% of the world’s species.”
    https://emergencemagazine.org/essay/the-vagrants/?fbclid=IwAR2ayL6Klt1xWPI2KndSKBo3Qi_82ehCYED241Cynpgl6-xtIutPj9OJyFE

    I’m waiting on a library book (below), having only made it 1/2 way through on my first borrowing. It posits that we have NFI how many species there are on this planet, and therefore no clue how many are being lost. There are too many to count. The last two sentences in the summary below capture the essence. “Life’s future flourishing is not in question. Ours is.” And I think I can add that we aren’t alone in that.

    Your link neatly fits into Dunn’s thesis, as he explores island ecologies, what they mean for species within them and and then broadens the definition of islands to include bounded ecosystems of any kind, such as road corridors or cityscapes. I can’t wait to finish his book.


    A natural history of the future : what the laws of biology tell us about the destiny of the human species
    Author: Dunn, Rob
    ISBN: 9781399800143
    Summary: Over the past century, our species has made unprecedented technological innovations with which we have sought to control nature. In this book, biologist Rob Dunn argues that such efforts are futile. We may see ourselves as life’s overlords, but we are instead at its mercy. In the evolution of antibiotic resistance, the power of natural selection to create biodiversity, and even the surprising life of the London Underground, Dunn finds laws of life that no human activity can annul. When we create artificial islands of crops, dump toxic waste, or build communities, we provide new materials for old laws to shape. Life’s future flourishing is not in question. Ours is.

  7. The Guardian:
    Graham Brady confirms eight candidates in first ballot for Tory leadership
    Sir Graham Brady is reading out the names of the candidates who will be in the first ballot. He reads the names in alphabetical order. They are:

    Kemi Badenoch

    Suella Braverman

    Jeremy Hunt

    Penny Mordaunt

    Rishi Sunak

    Liz Truss

    Tom Tugendhat

    Nadhim Zahawi

    Brady says the first round ballot will take place tomorrow between 1.30pm and 3.30pm. The result will be announced soon afterwards, he says.

    He does not name the MPs who have not made it, but three MPs said today they would not stand after struggling to get the support of 20 MPs. They are:

    Rehman Chishti

    Grant Shapps

    Sajid Javid

  8. sprocket_ says:
    Wednesday, July 13, 2022 at 6:58 am
    There is life after the Senate….

    Liberal Party
    Here’s the real reason the Liberals lost the election
    The lesson of the Morrison government’s election defeat is that caving to leftist positions might have changed the subject, but it didn’t win votes, writes this former senator and new The Australian Financial Review columnist.

    Amanda Stoker
    Columnist
    ————————————————————
    Extraordinary ‘analysis’ from Citizen Stoker.
    The LNP lost the election because they were fundamentally a woeful government and this time nobody listened to Murdoch. Federal ICAC is going to be busy for years…..

  9. Late Riser

    I love island ecology because islands accelerate, magnify, amplify and clarify processes that look muddier on a continental scale.

    We are creating depauperate islands everywhere on the planet – either by reducing biodiversity on old ones or creating little earth islands surrounded by barriers in new ones.

    Yet each one of those islands is generating separate genetic lineages which will increase earth’s biodiversity.

    The local earthworms have trouble crossing a bitumen road because the bitumen rubs off their protective slime… Imagine if every city block develops its own earthworm community of species….

    This is why I think that, if we want life duplication, we should hoover up a bunch of bugs from every volcano (terrestrial and sub-sea) and chuck the lot at Mars.

  10. John Bolton admits on live TV he ‘has helped plan Coups D’État’

    Longtime Republican official John Bolton admitted during a televised interview Tuesday that he has helped plan coups outside of the United States.

    On CNN – Jake Tapper said that with all due respect. One doesn’t have to be brilliant to attempt a coup.”

    Bolton responded that “I disagree with that. As somebody who has helped plan coups d’état, not here, but, you know, other places, it takes a lot of work. .”

    Bolton has a long history of advocating for coups and supporting regime change plots. He advocated for regime change in Iraq ahead of a war he helped orchestrate and said in 2018 that the United States should overthrow the government of Iran.

    Critics of Bolton shared a range of reactions on social media.

    Philadelphia Inquirer columnist Will Bunch tweeted that “I’ve been investigating U.S. imperialism for decades, and…he…just…blurted…it…out.”

    “America in one clip,” More Perfect Union’s Jordan Zakarin said of the interview, describing Bolton as “a bloodthirsty right-wing war hawk” who was given a platform to “brazenly admit to secret war crimes without worrying about any consequences whatsoever.”

    MORE : https://www.huffpost.com/entry/john-bolton-coup-trump-jan-6-committee_n_62cde555e4b007c97c83fa1f

  11. The Labor Government has the same substantive concerns about China and the same policy responses.
    What is different is that Labor is choosing to engage in adult diplomatic dialogue using adult language to engage with China.
    This also happens to be exactly what the then Labor Opposition promised it would do during the election campaign.

    Morrison and Dutton sought to paint Labor as ‘weak’ on China.

    The Greens and the Teals were parroting the ‘same old same old’ Big Lie.

    I don’t know where this will lead.

    But I DO know that this is another domain in which Labor is burying the ‘same old, same old’ Big Lie stone dead.

    Speaking of same old, same old: the Greens are quite content to let Putin conquer Ukraine. They advocate not lifting a finger by providing tanks and heavy artillery. The Greens’ solution is straight out of Peace Studies 101: provide humanitarian assistance to the human wreckage that is created by the Greens’ style policies of allowing Putin free military rein: burying the dead, hospitalising the wounded, counseling those with PTSD, housing the homeless and teaching millions of refugees a new language in a new land.

    It turns out that depending on Peace Studies 101 DOES have real world consequences after all.

  12. Here are 3 things the J6 committee must do to implicate Trump in the Capitol attack: reporter

    On Tuesday, writing for The Daily Beast, reporter Eleanor Clift outlined the three main questions that the House Select Committee investigating the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol needs to ask to make a definitive case linking the violence to former President Donald Trump.

    Today’s hearings showed that — having exhausted bogus legal appeals after losing the 2020 election to Joe Biden — Trump convened a December 18 meeting in the Oval Office that ended after midnight in a flurry of profane shouting between the outside ‘crazies’ and the inside White House lawyers. Upon concluding that unhinged meeting, at 1:42am, Trump tweeted about the planned protests on Jan. 6: ‘Be there. It will be wild ”

    Clift then outlined the three final things the committee needs to do: “Dig into Trump’s dereliction of duty for the 187 minutes that he was AWOL; Get the answers for why it took so long to send reinforcements to the U.S. Capitol; [and] lay out exactly who knew that (and when) the violent attack on the Capitol was coming.”

    “The testimony from far-right extremists who had been taken under Trump’s cult-like spell is a fitting bridge to where the committee is headed next,” concluded Clift. “And if the next hearing does prove to be the committee’s last—it’s up to Cheney and company to hit their marks and solidify the case that Donald Trump, alone, is responsible for Jan. 6 and the conspiracy that led to one of the darkest days in our nation’s history.”

  13. Jan 6 @ #31 Wednesday, July 13th, 2022 – 8:57 am

    Everyone should have been factoring in rate rises. But I suspect lots of people bought a house in desperation and in hope rates would stay low.

    The problem is; what is the purpose of RBA? Is it to normalise rates? If so, rate rises should have started earlier and been more gradual. Is it to deal with inflation? If so, they want people to hurt. Which is f ing disgraceful economic policy considering the people who will hurt most are;
    least able to cope with that hurt,
    have had no role in inflation and
    have already been hurt with low wages for a decade.

    F the rba.

    Michael Pascoe has some interesting thoughts on the current rates, interest and inflation, coming off a Brad Delong article in The Economist ($) which looks back at the major inflation bouts in the US in the 20thC. And generals fighting the last war.

    And it’s worth remembering that there are two stories about the RBA’s present tightening of monetary policy.

    The obvious one, the one that is good clickbait, is that it is fighting the demon inflation, wanting to batter the economy into submission with its blunt instrument.

    The other is that it is taking the opportunity when demand is strong, the labour market tight and unemployment low to take its foot off the accelerator, to nudge the cost of money back up towards something like “neutral”.

    After all, the key drivers of the present inflation here won’t be materially cooled by the RBA pushing up the price of money by a couple of per cent, there remains a good chance those drivers will pass. (And let me again remind that money is still free in real terms.)

    And what is our 10-year bond market saying? It has retreated from last month’s high nudging 4.2 per cent to a little over 3.4 per cent – hardly the stuff of high inflationary expectations.

    As Professor DeLong suggests, you wouldn’t want to be fighting the wrong war.

    https://thenewdaily.com.au/finance/2022/07/13/michael-pascoe-inflation-hawks/?

  14. Snappy Tom 9:31 am
    Re your query on other thread about the AFR article. Mandy sounded alot like the Sky After Dark menagerie or El Dutto. The Libs need to stop pandering to those pinko lefties and give the electorate some good ‘ol fashioned rw gruel and give it to ’em good and hard.

    There is a real risk that the wrong lessons will be learnt by the Liberal Party about the reasons for the federal election loss, and the path back to government.

    Two months after the defeat, much of the commentary to date has suggested that because it was largely urban, left-leaning Liberals who lost their seats to the so-called “teal independents”, the party was being punished for being insufficiently progressive. If that becomes the basis of the party’s rebuild strategy, it will also need to become comfortable in the wilderness, Bear Grylls style, for a long time………………Caving to leftist positions might have changed the subject, but it didn’t win votes.

    If you believe in imminent catastrophic climate change, the abandonment of the rule of law to prevent corruption, and the primacy of woke social policy over the fundamental freedoms and liberties that made our society rise to prosperity, why would you accept a Liberal grudgingly giving you what you want, when there was a crowded market of Labor, Greens and pseudo-independents offering it with enthusiasm?

    https://www.afr.com/politics/federal/here-s-the-real-reason-the-liberals-lost-the-election-20220711-p5b0sa

  15. Snappy Tom 9:31 am
    Re your query on other thread about the AFR article. Mandy sounded alot like the Sky After Dark menagerie or El Dutto. The Libs need to stop pandering to those pinko lefties and give the electorate some good ‘ol fashioned rw gruel and give it to ’em good and hard.

    There is a real risk that the wrong lessons will be learnt by the Liberal Party about the reasons for the federal election loss, and the path back to government.

    Two months after the defeat, much of the commentary to date has suggested that because it was largely urban, left-leaning Liberals who lost their seats to the so-called “teal independents”, the party was being punished for being insufficiently progressive. If that becomes the basis of the party’s rebuild strategy, it will also need to become comfortable in the wilderness, Bear Grylls style, for a long time………………Caving to leftist positions might have changed the subject, but it didn’t win votes.

    If you believe in imminent catastrophic climate change, the abandonment of the rule of law to prevent corruption, and the primacy of woke social policy over the fundamental freedoms and liberties that made our society rise to prosperity, why would you accept a Liberal grudgingly giving you what you want, when there was a crowded market of Labor, Greens and pseudo-independents offering it with enthusiasm?

    https://www.afr.com/politics/federal/here-s-the-real-reason-the-liberals-lost-the-election-20220711-p5b0sa

  16. phoenixRED
    This is an interesting accidental(?) insight by “reporter Eleanor Clift”.

    it’s up to Cheney and company to hit their marks

    Cheney is in the passenger seat. The steering wheel meme might need dusting off.

  17. Late Risersays: Wednesday, July 13, 2022 at 11:26 am

    phoenixRED

    This is an interesting accidental(?) insight by “reporter Eleanor Clift”.

    it’s up to Cheney and company to hit their marks

    Cheney is in the passenger seat. The steering wheel meme might need dusting off.

    ………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..

    Former Trump White House attorney Ty Cobb explained a divergence of thinking between the Department of Justice and the select committee that could keep Donald Trump from being indicted.

    “I think, so far, 800 plus prosecutions, people have tried to blame the president and the prosecutors have pushed back on that,” he explained. ”

    “I think the Justice Department clearly believes that those people were responsible for their own actions,” Cobb continued. “It is quite a pivot for them to insist that Trump controlled that.”

  18. I’m a huge fan of Michael Pollan, and thought his book “How To Change Your Mind” a great and very enlightening read. It’s now in the hands of Netflix. While I can’t see how it will be able to reproduce the depth and quality of Pollan’s research, which underlines the seriousness of his intent, keeping these incredibly fascinating drugs away from the therapeutic platform is a modern day tragedy, and anything that keeps the topic on the boil is worthwhile.

    https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2022/jul/12/how-to-change-your-mind-the-documentary-that-wants-you-to-think-again-about-lsd

    https://youtu.be/X8LRb4jfZ9g

  19. ajm says:
    Wednesday, July 13, 2022 at 9:21 am

    Amanda Stoker would come from the Liberal view that saw wage subsidies, sick payments, free tests and vaccines, lockdowns etc as socialist policies and so they were. These policies are what got us through the early stages of the pandemic and they were more or less forced on the Federal government’s by the states, mostly Labor. Stoker’s supporters despise Morrison for caving to the”socialists”.

    Stoker and Co would have preferred an extreme version of “let it rip”. The really bizarre thing is she believes that would have been more politically popular – an extreme case of projecting your own preferences on to the public at large.

    I actually know some people who think this way, so I’m not inventing the stereotype. We can only hope they greatly increase their influence in the LNP!
    —————————————–
    The polling tells a different story because there was a time in 2020 when Morrison’s poll numbers surged and they only changed direction after Morrison started crapping on about living with covid and it became clear that not everyone was being supported fairly.

    Stoker and co need to stop calling everything left wing because they are now calling things left wing that real lefties would never call left wing.

  20. phoenixRED
    “It is quite a pivot for them to insist that Trump controlled that.”

    Good point. Nevertheless,
    (1) Invalidating the defence of “just following orders” doesn’t invalidate the criminal nature of those orders.
    (2) Trump was also responsible for his own actions. And there are plenty to choose from.

  21. Late Risersays: Wednesday, July 13, 2022 at 11:46 am
    phoenixRED

    “It is quite a pivot for them to insist that Trump controlled that.”

    Good point. Nevertheless,
    (1) Invalidating the defence of “just following orders” doesn’t invalidate the criminal nature of those orders.
    (2) Trump was also responsible for his own actions. And there are plenty to choose from.

    ………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

    Rep. Jamie Raskin laid out how Trump focused the militias and his supporters on the common date of 1/6.

    1/6 Committee member Jaime Raskin said, “While Trump supporters grew more aggressive online, he continued to rile up his base on Twitter. He said there was overwhelming evidence that the election was the biggest scam in our nation’s history. As you can see, the president continued to boost the event dozens of times in the lead-up to January 6.”

    A big point made repeatedly during the hearing was that Donald Trump understood the power of his Twitter account, and he used that power to mobilize violent extremists to come to the Capitol to stop the certification of the election.

    Trump knew exactly what he was doing, and the incitement of the mob on 1/6 began on Twitter days before the attack.

    https://www.politicususa.com/2022/07/12/3-things-1-6-committee-7th-hearing.html

  22. If you believe in imminent catastrophic climate change, the abandonment of the rule of law to prevent corruption, and the primacy of woke social policy over the fundamental freedoms and liberties that made our society rise to prosperity, why would you accept a Liberal grudgingly giving you what you want, when there was a crowded market of Labor, Greens and pseudo-independents offering it with enthusiasm?
    —————————————
    Stoker is no conservative because conservatives are risk adverse and corruption is illegal and goes against sound budget management and enforcing this country’s discrimination laws is being compliance with the law.

  23. Politicians would have to declare political donations over $1000 in real time as part of a sweeping package of integrity measures Special Minister of State Don Farrell hopes to introduce by mid-2023.

    Labor also wants to introduce “truth in political advertising” laws and potentially double the number of senators allocated to the Northern Territory and the ACT, from two each to four. The proposals would be examined in an inquiry by the joint standing committee on electoral matters.

    https://www.watoday.com.au/politics/federal/labor-to-introduce-real-time-disclosures-and-slash-donation-thresholds-20220712-p5b12a.html


  24. phoenixREDsays:
    Wednesday, July 13, 2022 at 10:53 am
    John Bolton admits on live TV he ‘has helped plan Coups D’État’

    Longtime Republican official John Bolton admitted during a televised interview Tuesday that he has helped plan coups outside of the United States.

    On CNN – Jake Tapper said that with all due respect. One doesn’t have to be brilliant to attempt a coup.”

    Bolton responded that “I disagree with that. As somebody who has helped plan coups d’état, not here, but, you know, other places, it takes a lot of work. .”

    Bolton has a long history of advocating for coups and supporting regime change plots. He advocated for regime change in Iraq ahead of a war he helped orchestrate and said in 2018 that the United States should overthrow the government of Iran.

    Critics of Bolton shared a range of reactions on social media.

    Philadelphia Inquirer columnist Will Bunch tweeted that “I’ve been investigating U.S. imperialism for decades, and…he…just…blurted…it…out.”

    “America in one clip,” More Perfect Union’s Jordan Zakarin said of the interview, describing Bolton as “a bloodthirsty right-wing war hawk” who was given a platform to “brazenly admit to secret war crimes without worrying about any consequences whatsoever.”

    MORE : https://www.huffpost.com/entry/john-bolton-coup-trump-jan-6-committee_n_62cde555e4b007c97c83fa1f

    “American imperialism” and “America in one clip”.
    And hence Karma bites on America’s backside.

  25. Trump is engaged in attempted witness tampering now. Not when he was President but now.

    https://m.dailykos.com/stories/2022/7/12/2109982/-Cheney-says-Trump-engaged-in-attempted-witness-tampering-If-true-he-should-be-in-cuffs

    From the article:
    Donald Trump is now committing crimes in real time as the Jan. 6 select committee investigates the crimes he already committed while in office.

    That’s the bombshell Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming, vice chair of the committee, dropped at the conclusion of the panel’s seventh hearing documenting Trump’s coup plot. Cheney revealed that Trump apparently attempted to contact an unnamed witness whose testimony isn’t public yet.

    “After our last hearing, President Trump tried to call a witness in our investigation—a witness you have not yet heard from in these hearings,” Cheney said from the dais, noting that the person declined to answer Trump’s call and instead referred the information to their lawyer.

    “Their lawyer alerted us and this committee has supplied that information to the Department of Justice,“ Cheney said, adding, “Let me say one more time: We will take any effort to influence witness testimony very seriously.”

  26. I see the Guardian doing a whole exposé on how uber got going…

    https://www.theguardian.com/news/2022/jul/12/emmanuel-macron-proud-of-supporting-ubers-lobbying-drive-in-france

    The thing is, in Sydney the whole taxi industry was a cartel (run by that fat cabcharge billionaire)
    that was pathetic, unreliable, unobtainable after hours or during festivals, and half the taxis stank
    of tobacco or body odor and were poorly kept,
    The fact is THE WHOLE INDUSTRY NEEDED TO BE SMASHED and I for one are glad uber and others came along to do it.

  27. Taylormade @ #9 Wednesday, July 13th, 2022 – 7:50 am

    The Age 13/07
    Cases are climbing. COVID is now the leading cause of death in the country. Hospitals are staggering. Elective surgery is to be reduced. And it is quicker to get to hospital by Uber than ambulance.

    But still Victoria is governed through a fog of spin, evasion and social media manipulation designed to dodge the need for detail or questioning.
    _____________________
    Neil Mitchell not holding back, now that the Andrews govt is ignoring health advice with an eye to the upcoming election.

    Corporate 9 media attacking the Andrews Govt pre-election – surprise surprise ..!

    Things are very different now compared to last year and 2019. We now have vaccines, masks available and the ability to work from home. Mandates outside of public transport, health and aged care settings aren’t required, IMHO.

    The corporate media agenda is very obvious to most.

  28. @Lateriser1115
    Interesting comment about the water dragons here in urban Brisbane. Having lived on the banks of Enoggera Ck for 3 decades after growing up near the Brisbane R, I can concur that the species is living proof of evolution occurring, and over a relatively short period of time.
    I have watched the species grow bigger, more aggressive, the male’s colours in season are much brighter and have no fear of coming into houses in search of food, particularly pet food.
    They will stand their ground- particularly the males.
    They were a food source for the Turrbal people of the Yuggera nation and were called ” magil- magil” ( from which we get the suburb of Moggill- for those PBers residing in sunny Brisbane and SE Qld. )
    The really big males are a sight to see. They remind me of the lizards in Sci-Fi and Greek hero movies of my childhood.

  29. davo,
    My overview of the Uber situation (jeez there’s a lot to keep up with these days!), is that, to a certain degree to be disruptors on a global scale, Uber needed to have sharp elbows to succeed. Some of the practices I have read about seemed to be a result of Kapterian getting high on his own supply and taking things TOO far. However, now that the taxi cartel (lame joke alert!) has been rent asunder by Uber it’s time for them to become good corporate citizens. Which the deal announced this week with the TWU is hopefully a harbinger of.

  30. Max Chalmers
    @maxchalm
    · 5h
    Albanese on decision to end free home COVID tests for concession card holders: “My government has not made this decision, this is a decision that was inherited”

    That’s weak from Albanese. Terrible, in fact. Do better.

  31. Vensays:
    Wednesday, July 13, 2022 at 10:00 am
    ABC default beatup almost everyday on Breakfast show is to talk about health and Ambulance crisis in Melbourne and Airport Chaos in Sydney airport.
    _____________________
    Yes Ven. No issues at all with the Health and the Ambulance service in Victoria. Everything is running like clockwork at the moment.

  32. Taylormade @ #90 Wednesday, July 13th, 2022 – 12:42 pm

    Vensays:
    Wednesday, July 13, 2022 at 10:00 am
    ABC default beatup almost everyday on Breakfast show is to talk about health and Ambulance crisis in Melbourne and Airport Chaos in Sydney airport.
    _____________________
    Yes Ven. No issues at all with the Health and the Ambulance service in Victoria. Everything is running like clockwork at the moment.

    As it would also be if the Liberals were in power in Victoria and they were having to deal with a 3rd wave of the COVID-19 pandemic. And you know it.

  33. C@tmomma @ #90 Wednesday, July 13th, 2022 – 12:43 pm

    It was only free RATs for Concession Card holders and I’ve got plenty, as I expect most have.

    I asked for our first the other day. We had not really needed them and I snagged a couple early on, one of which we still had. We were given 10 and warned that the program was finishing.

  34. Zoom, and C@t, Jan, et al,

    “Can we also remember that the media beats up these things, and portrays groups of people as bitching about things when (by and large) they aren’t?

    My son bought a house this year. He and his partner’s financial position has improved greatly since then, and they won’t have any trouble if interest rates rise.

    They do live from pay check to pay check, but that’s because they’re making improvements to the house and want to do these as soon as they can.”

    This is me at the moment. The improvement to the house have been more costly than we expected, due to materials costs boing bonkers, and the household budget has been stretched a bit further by general inflation. But we factored in a significant repayment buffer. The EV and the new back deck will be pushed out by a couple of years, but we’ll be right.

    But more to the point, our lender made sure we had a significant buffer before extending our loan. Can’t say we weren’t warned, and can’t complain.

  35. re Covid – The same media outlets (Murdoch, Nine/Fairfax, Guardian) that are currently attacking Andrews have not a peep to say about Perrottet. Both premiers are taking the same approach and both are facing state elections.

    In fact, so far as I know, every state and territory is doing virtually the same thing.

  36. citizen says:
    Wednesday, July 13, 2022 at 1:35 pm

    re Covid – The same media outlets (Murdoch, Nine/Fairfax, Guardian) that are currently attacking Andrews have not a peep to say about Perrottet. Both premiers are taking the same approach and both are facing state elections.
    ————————
    The big difference is Andrews has used medical advice to impose tight restrictions but just before an election he has dismissed the medical advice and Perrottet and the NSW government hasn’t always taken medical advice.

  37. Chocolate lovers are in for a treat as two iconic brands have combined to make the ultimate snack.

    KitKat has announced a new collaboration with Milo, which will see the chocolate bar filled with the choc-malt flavoured drink that so many associate with an Aussie childhood.

    There will be three different bars on offer from late July – chunky, bar and block.

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