The Australian has today published a Newspoll result of state voting intention in Victoria, which I have added as an introductory note to my earlier post covering general electoral developments in the state. I am not sure what the deal is with Newspoll’s federal polling – plainly it has not returned to its earlier schedule of a poll every three weeks, as there would otherwise have been one on Monday.
We do have two new attitudinal polls from the Australia Institute, one posing an array of stimulating questions on the potential for conflict with China. This encompassed both an Australian sample of 1003 and a Taiwanese sample of 1002, the survey work being conducted by international market research firm Dynata.
Among many other things, the Australian end of the survey found 47% expecting a Chinese armed attack on Australia either soon (9%) or “sometime” (38%), with only 19% opting for never and 33% uncommitted. Twenty-one per cent felt Australia would be able to defend itself from China without international assistance, compared with 60% who thought otherwise, and 57% anticipate such support would be forthcoming from the United States compared with 11% who didn’t and 19% who opted for “it depends”. Thirty-five per cent would back the US and Australia to win such a conflict compared with 8% for lose and 26% for a draw of some description.
Thirty-seven per cent felt the Australian people would be prepared to go to war if China threatened military action against Australia, effectively equal to the 38% who thought otherwise. Twenty-six per cent were prepared for Australia to go to war to help Taiwan gain independence compared with 33% who weren’t and 41% for uncommitted. Framed a little differently, 14% strongly agreed and 23% less strongly agreed that Australia should “send its defence forces to Taiwan to fight for their freedom … if China incorporated Taiwan”, compared with 20% for disagree and 9% for strongly disagree.
The Taiwanese end of the survey is beyond this site’s scope, thought it’s interesting to note that 41% felt optimistic with respect to the future for Taiwan compared with 40% for neutral and only 20% for pessimistic. The survey was conducted between August 13 and 16 – Nancy Pelosi’s visit was on August 2 and China’s military exercises followed from August 4 to 7.
A second report from the Australia Institute provides results of a poll conducted back in April on the seemingly less pressing subject of “wokeness”, a concept that meant nothing to 43% of those surveyed, ranging from only 22% of those aged 18 to 29 to 59% of those aged 60 and over. Forty-nine per cent of the former cohort owned up to being woke, decreasing with arithmetic precision to 9% for the latter, while around 30% for each of the five age cohorts identified as “not woke”. Interestingly, Coalition and Labor voters produced similar results, with Greens and One Nation voters deviating in the manner you would expect. The poll was conducted from April 5 to 8 from a sample of 1003, so the sub-sample sizes for the results cited above are not great, however intuitively likely the results might be.
Also:
• Anthony Galloway of the Sun-Herald identifies possible successors to Scott Morrison in Cook: Mark Speakman, moderate-aligned state Attorney-General and member for Cronulla; Melanie Gibbons, state member for Holsworthy, who unsuccessfully sought preselection for the Hughes at the federal election; Carmelo Pesce, the mayor of Sutherland Shire; and Alex Cooke, identified only as a “party member”.
• The Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters has called for submissions to its inquiry into the 2022 federal election. Matters specifically touched up on by the terms of reference include political donation and truth-in-advertising laws, enfranchisement of New Zealand citizens living in Australia and “proportional representation of the states and territories in the parliament”, the latter seemingly referring to the possibility of adding extra seats for the territories in the Senate.
• The Australian Parliamentary Library has published a “quick guide” on the technicalities of when the next federal election might be held, together with a handy calendar showing when state and local elections are due through to 2006.
• No fewer than twelve candidates have nominated for Western Australia’s North West Central by-election on September 17, with Labor not among them, for a seat with only 11,189 voters. As well as the Nationals and the Liberals, there are two candidates of the Western Australia Party, one being hardy perennial Anthony Fels, plus the Greens, One Nation, Legalise Cannabis, Liberal Democrats, No Mandatory Vaccination, the Small Business Party and two independents. My guide to the by-election can be found here.
Time to invest in Greenland mining exploration tenements?
The Age 30/08
Labor campaigners and a senior party official have met taxpayer-funded electorate staff during work hours to discuss the campaign strategy for the upcoming state election in a potential breach of strict laws introduced three years ago.
_____________________
They just can’t help themselves can they.
It must be ingrained.
“But even before that we will see the catastrophic effects, and some pacific island nations may become uninhabitable due to storm surges etc.”
Yup. Saltwater intrusion into coastal and island aquifers is already happening. Coastal erosion is happening and will get worse. And regardless of the average rise the effect of storm surges will be greater, and storms that cause them become more common.
In developed countries coastal infrastructure like ports, power plants come under immediate threat. That seriously affects our capacity to shift commodities and products around, even if we can still produce them. There WILL be large population centers and whole countries either inundated or functionally uninhabitable.
Forced migration will be the norm and we will just have to deal with that. I think people will stop being concerned about “standard of living” and just focus on the “still being living” thing.
30cm or so by 2100 is bad. Anything between 50cm and 1m in that time-frame is catastrophic. I think that where we are now with Climate is that we have to do what we can to mitigate it, and also to adapt to what we know is coming. If it was all run according to the Science from now on that would be great and adaption would start. But……..politically……. there is no way enough people will accept the realities at the moment, particularly in Australia.
The 202o bush-fires were a shock. Sea level rise is a bit like the boiling frog thing. Actually much more of a threat overall, but more subtle.
What i am waiting for is the Gulf Stream to weaken and/or stop. Mass migration FROM Europe wont be pretty. 🙁
Australia needs to STOP enabling the higher emitting countries with our fossil fuel exports.
Australia is a leading accessory to murdering this planet.
zoomstersays:
Tuesday, August 30, 2022 at 1:13 pm
nath
Thought that was so obvious that it didn’t need an explanation.
———————————————-
Maybe nath should remain more focussed on floaters in CBD public toilets!
imaccaa
It is much worse than that. In several south coast towns it is only possible to walk along the beach at low tide.
This war of words between Matt Guy and Tim Smith shows the Vic Libs are mired in internal conflicts rather than governing Victoria.
https://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/opinion/shannon-deery-things-getting-very-ugly-for-matthew-guys-opposition/news-story/e999ddb5de7ad4b9aae5affa8592d6a9
This Andrew Clennell story about the three Ministers and their failure to sell their share holdings is concerning. I do not understand why this has been done already?
McBain and Ayres seems inexplicable. Shorten has some context I guess.
Albanese needs to take action i guess. It’s not a great thing in my view.
Cronussays:
Tuesday, August 30, 2022 at 12:51 pm
Time ran out probably decades ago.
I remember discussing climate change with my eldest brother about 15 years ago. He was all about stopping climate change. When I pointed out that that wasn’t possible in the short-term and we also needed to plan how we deal with it, he had a hard time accepting what I was saying.
Climate change is a slow process with large lag times. The impacts that we see today are the result of what we did up to a couple of decades ago.
Even if we, as a world, decarbonised our economy today, we would be seeing the impacts of yesterday towards the middle of this century.
Of course the immediate priority is to decarbonise, but some of the consequences, like a certain amount of sea-level change, are already locked in, so we need to start thinking how we will deal with them.
Boerwar says:
Tuesday, August 30, 2022 at 1:10 pm
cronus
“You have a platoon each at each end of a village. It is an encounter battle. Lots of noise, smoke and flames. Both sides have what infantry platoons normally have. But one side has an Abrams. Apart from anything else, you are happy that the Abrams is drawing fire.”
Exactly, in their support role they provide great covering fire (main gun and coax) and as you say they draw fire. I vividly recall both exercising with tanks and also very closely watching actual platoon attacks by Israelis and SLA against Hezbollah positions. Friendly infantry are very attracted to the sheer size and perceived protection they provide (hide behind) and also few enemy can resist the desire to fire at them even with small arms (just habit/instinct I guess) which can give away their positions.
In the right terrain, all else being equal, they certainly have a role (just ask the Ukrainians). I look forward to the after-action assessments of the effects, if any, of drones on this part of the battle space.
Barney in Cherating says:
Tuesday, August 30, 2022 at 1:43 pm
Cronussays:
Tuesday, August 30, 2022 at 12:51 pm
Player One
“ Time to act is not running out. It has run out.”
And it is this point that I think many people just don’t get, they know things are not good, they even suspect that they’re bad but humans always think there’s a last minute solution that will pop up at short notice. It won’t and the ramifications will impact every facet of our lives.
Time ran out probably decades ago.
I remember discussing climate change with my eldest brother about 15 years ago. He was all about stopping climate change. When I pointed out that that wasn’t possible in the short-term and we also needed to plan how we deal with it, he had a hard time accepting what I was saying.
Climate change is a slow process with large lag times. The impacts that we see today are the result of what we did up to a couple of decades ago.
Even if we, as a world, decarbonised our economy today, we would be seeing the impacts of yesterday towards the middle of this century.
Of course the immediate priority is to decarbonise, but some of the consequences, like a certain amount of sea-level change, are already locked in, so we need to start thinking how we will deal with them.
+1, a mixture of prevention and adaptation. I think the point about the lag factor is important because as you say, the floods and fires of the past two years have been decades in the making. This should concern people because exponentially, the climate change and increase in food in the meantime has been significant.
For those interested Krygios has just won his match against Kokkinakis
”
Boerwarsays:
Tuesday, August 30, 2022 at 1:11 pm
Perrotet is pretending he is a Labor premier. The next thing is that GOP candidates will go silent on abortion
”
Yeah! Your prediction has come true. A lot of GOP candidates have gone silent on abortion. 🙂
Bernie Sanders would have been just as good a socialist leader in the US as Daniel Andrews is in Victoria.
Their loss.
Taylormade @ #88 Tuesday, August 30th, 2022 – 1:22 pm
https://www.theage.com.au/national/victoria/matthew-and-madafferi-opposition-leader-matthew-guy-dined-with-alleged-mobster-20170807-gxqsoc.html
Matthew and Madafferi: Opposition Leader Matthew Guy dined with (alleged) mobster.
SUKKAR!
“Friendly infantry are very attracted to the sheer size and perceived protection they provide (hide behind) ”
Interesting blog post on that subject…in a modern context.
https://www.tanknology.co.uk/post/combined-arms-aps
” few enemy can resist the desire to fire at them even with small arms (just habit/instinct I guess) which can give away their positions. ”
Which actually isn’t so much a panic reaction when well trained troops are involved. It can be a way of breaking optics and sensors, particularly when a Sniper, or heavy anti material rifle (50 cal??) is used.
Tanks are big, tough, bullet magnets. But still useful if used properly.
https://www.pollbludger.net/2022/08/27/hawks-and-doves-open-thread/comment-page-26/#comment-3972821
Don’t look up?
As a reminder:
Australia’s COVID-19 numbers are dropping but experts warn the pandemic will not end this year
Mortality appears to be steady at 0.14%, from which I make it that about 1 in roughly 700 people who catch covid will die as a result. How many people do you meet or walk past in a day?
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-08-29/how-will-we-know-when-covid-is-over-pandemic-declaration/101334534
Deaths recorded during the previous 24 hours:
NSW...37 (some should have been recorded earlier)VIC...18
QLD...18
SA.....3
TAS....0
ACT....0
NT.....0
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-08-30/covid-cases-vaccines-hospitalisations-daily-statistics-australia/101385550
LR
Why tge wave effect?
Trump bragged to friends he ‘knew illicit details’ about love life of French president from ‘intelligence’
Among the information that was seized at Mar-a-Lago was a document about French President Emmanuel Macron. And according to Donald Trump it was about his sex life, Rolling Stone reported on Monday evening.
The report cited two sources that Trump has had a “tawdry” interest in Macron for years and even bragged recently that he knew “illicit details about the love life” of Macron.
The report explained that officials on both sides of the Atlantic were trying to figure out what Trump had on Macron. There are further questions about why Trump would steal such documents when he left the White House unless it was to use it.
“The officials in both nations wanted to know if this discovery signified some kind of national-security breach — or if it amounted to a frivolous, but stolen, keepsake,” said Rolling Stone.
https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/donald-trump-emmanuel-macron-maralago-fbi-raid-1234582465/
BW, I’d be speculating. My first guess would be the aged cohort.
PhoenixRed
The french dont give a toss about the sex lives of their politicians. In fact, it is expected that they have interesting sex lives. Lol!
LR, the other factor is the vaccination effect and the fact that all ages are getting it lowering the mortality rate, whilst when there was that wave, it got into aged care facilities primarily and didn’t get spread outside of them…
LR
I can understand the front of the wave. But why does it fall off?
Taylormade @ #88 Tuesday, August 30th, 2022 – 1:22 pm
A chequered history: Matthew Guy’s most controversial decisions
Victorian opposition leader Matthew Guy has been caught up in a string of controversies involving Liberal party figures, donors or donations, notably in his time as planning minister in the Baillieu and Napthine governments between 2010 and 2014.
Opposition Leader Matthew Guy spent millions of dollars of taxpayers’ money to confidentially settle a lawsuit over a botched planning decision because he feared losing his job if the case went to court.
Ventnor
Land owners Karen Green and Robert Newall and, in the background, the farmland Matthew Guy briefly rezoned for housing.
The botched rezoning of farmland on Phillip Island in 2011 cost taxpayers millions of dollars and left a major question hanging over Mr Guy’s judgment.
In 2014, then ombudsman George Brouwer slammed the Coalition government’s handling of the Ventnor matter, but with limited powers to investigate politicians, his report focused on the public service rather than the minister’s own decision-making.
Mr Brouwer also stressed that then-minister Mr Guy refused to hand over documents.
Fishermans Bend
In July 2012, Mr Guy stunned the political and property worlds when he, in effect, doubled the size of the Melbourne CBD by rezoning a 250-hectare industrial area south-west of the CBD and dubbing it “Fishermans Bend”.
The decision to declare the precinct a “Capital City” zone triggered a massive hike in land values, a frenzy of high-rise apartment tower applications and approvals, and windfall paper profits to landowners and speculators, among whom were some senior Liberal party members and donors, including the party’s honorary federal treasurer Andrew Burnes.
At the time there was no binding master plan nor height limits, nor any mechanism to capture any of the uplift in land values – money that could have helped pay up-front for the infrastructure and services.
https://www.theage.com.au/politics/victoria/a-chequered-history-matthew-guy-s-most-controversial-decisions-20180903-p501gk.html
SUKKAR!
Yabba
You gotta feel for taylormade. Lol
Q. How long does it take to deliver a judgment?
A. As long as Harrison, J wants it to.
Boerwar says:
Tuesday, August 30, 2022 at 2:58 pm
LR
I can understand the front of the wave. But why does it fall off?
Vaccines rates do have an effect on the mortality rate.
Shorter Harrison, J – he dunnit.
frednk
Thanks. I should have been more specific. I was thinking about the daily new infections curve. I don’t understand why it goes off the boil.
BW (and others) The vaccines would be my guess. It would be interesting to superimpose the vaccine’s first, second, third etc dose uptake on the same graph.
Dawson has been found guilty of murdering his wife, Lynette.
From the Guardian live blog – is this the first case of Labor claiming the budget restricts their ability to do stuff?
Hard to dispute.
Continued movement in the 538 numbers towards the good guys.
23% chance of winning the House for the Dems, up from 12% as recently as July 12th.
But the pessimism for the Dems is primarily because 538’s model just puts a big fat “midterms are bad for democrats and bad for incumbents, doubly bad for democrat incumbents” adjustment on all the polling they get.
Focussing on the actual polls puts the D chance in the House at 36%, up from 22% on 12 July.
Senate obviously looking better for D. 67-81% depending on model if the aim is 50 seats + VP tie breaker. Although 50+VP basically just allows them to replace any judges that die, as they need any of 52, 60 or 62 to actually pass much legislation through 2 traitors in their midst and ridiculous filibuster process.
Victoria @ #1322 Tuesday, August 30th, 2022 – 2:58 pm
There’s a fun book called “The Secret Life Of France“.
Lucy Wadham worked for the BBC, skipped across the channel for a life more interesting when she caught her English boyfriend looking out the window when they were (meant to be) hard at it, and joined her sister in Paris. She married French. Among the many stories of the French and their comparatively open sex lives, and the eros therein, there’s one about the time she was being escorted to interview some big wig, and on the train, in their own compartment, her companion made serious advances. That evening, describing the episode to her husband, he had no hesitation in expressing his disappointment in her.
Itza, yes to Kiama! But will be there for our next PB lunch.
BW
I suspect a lot of error in the daily infections numbers. So much of it is self reported. But if you’re asking about the 7 day pattern, I think we have to look closely at two things. First how does the behaviour of people differ on each day of the week? Second, how many resources are available to record data on each day of the week. That’s probably why the 7 day average, though lagging, is the better measure.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-03-17/coronavirus-cases-data-reveals-how-covid-19-spreads-in-australia/12060704
4 and half hours of verdict. The judge basically said judgement on every single piece evidence if he accepted it or rejected it. This will make an appeal harder as it can only be on bits of evidence he accepted. He rejected quite a lot and much of this was because it had been polluted by the podcast or the actions of the journalists who made it.
Quasar @ #1336 Tuesday, August 30th, 2022 – 3:20 pm
Good to hear, on both counts.
Who’d have thunk it?
Labor can’t fix every issue instantly.
But being in Government allows them to progressively work towards solutions.
Concerning the now convicted murderer Dawson, I don’t really understand why he elected for a judge-only trial. If I faced such a serious charge, I would’ve exercised my Constitutional right (s.80) of a jury trial – but that’s just me.
….. for declining the advances, I mean. Someone important and someone desirable … that’s how it works.
Mavis
Did you watch much of the judgement?
Itsa
My view, FWIW, is that there is something of a shift in France with respect to attitudes regarding sex.
LR
Thanks.
(guardian)
Very disappointing about Jobseeker. The Government could have done something, even a little bit.
Boerwar says:
Tuesday, August 30, 2022 at 3:13 pm
frednk
Thanks. I should have been more specific. I was thinking about the daily new infections curve. I don’t understand why it goes off the boil.
10 million of us have been infected. There is only 26 million of us.
https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-d&q=number+of+covid+infections+autralia
Itzadream
Well according to boerwar there has been a shift. Not sure in which direction. Lol!
frednk
Yes. But what about the other 16 million of us? Why do we have to miss out?