Essential Research’s fortnightly poll records little change on federal voting intention, with the Coalition steady on 34%, Labor down one to 31%, the Greens up one to 13%, One Nation steady on 7% and the undecided component up one to 6%. The pollster’s 2PP+ reading has the Coalition as close as it has been this term to taking the lead, with Labor down a point to 48% and the Coalition steady on 47%, the remaining 6% being in the undecided category. Monthly leadership ratings have Anthony Albanese in net negative territory for the first time since the election, his approval down four to 42% and disapproval up four to 47%. Peter Dutton is up three on approval to 39% and down one on disapproval to 42%.
A monthly “national mood” reading records a deterioriation after five months of stability, with 51% now rating the country on the wrong track (up three) compared with 30% for the right track (down four). The Coalition is credited with an edge as best party to manage the economy (33% to Labor’s 25%), reduce cost of living pressures (28% to 25%) and keep prices down (ditto), though Labor leads 37% to 19% on supporting higher wages. Forty-four per cent consider social and economic equality is decreasing (one would more naturally say inequality was increasing), with only 16% holding the opposite view. The poll was conducted Wednesday to Sunday from a sample of 1151.
Also out yesterday was the weekly Roy Morgan poll, one of Labor’s better recent results with a two-party lead of 52.5-47.5, reversing a Coalition lead of 50.5-49.5 last week. The primary votes are Labor 32% (up two-and-a-half), Coalition 35% (down two-and-a-half), Greens 13.5% (steady) and One Nation 5% (down one-and-a-half). The poll was conducted last Monday to Sunday from a sample of 1379. The Australian also published further results yesterday from the recent Newspoll showing only 16% consider themselves better off than they were two years ago, compared with 50% for worse off. The 18-to-34 cohort offered the most favourable response, with 29% for better off and 37% for worse off.
The Australian National University’s Centre for Social Research and Methods also treats us to a 93-page report on the October 14 Indigenous Voice referendum, based on a survey of 4219 respondents from October 17 to 29. I haven’t absorbed this one yet, but the report is here.
I spent the last two days at the climate Smart Engineering 28 conference. Came away depressed. Ended up in a breakout group with the spoke-person for the Nuclear Industry. Engineers are a polite group, I wasn’t. Things needed to be said, but I do not feel good about it.
I’m pretty angry with the Nuclear industry at the moment, even if the problems with nuclear were solved and the Howard’s legislation blocking Nuclear for power generation was dealt with tomorrow, we would not have a reactor for decades, it is not possible for it to be part of the solution needed for power generation in the coming decades, lack of generation is a wicked problem created by 10 years of delay thanks to the Liberals and the greens.
Nuclear is just part of Dutton’s attempt to make the mess worse. I am not sure a nuclear detraction at a conference trying to deal with the problems we face is appropriate.
As an aside the small nuclear rector thing is rapidly falling over.
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2023/nov/09/small-modular-nuclear-reactor-that-was-hailed-by-coalition-as-future-cancelled-due-to-rising-costs
It’s engineering, after putting my point, generation has got to be done, it won’t be coal, we don’t need distractions, I agreed to go to the talks “Recycling nuclear waste”, detraction from the stream I was interested in but hay, I had been obnoxious. .
Basically the argument was, there is not much waste: Soccer field three stories high.
Apparently the stuff is stored in water for about 50 years because there are thermal issues for a while and to give the worst stuff that has shorter half lives time to calm down. That is why the long term storage problem didn’t exist for the industries first decades.
The waste contains plutonium-238, that is the stuff with a 1/2 life of 24,065 years. That prevents the material getting back to background radiation levels for hundred of thousands of years. Remove that and the uranium the problem comes back to 10,000 years and the material removed can be used in light water reactors.
To bring it back to 100 years you have to remove other elements, which is possible, but difficult. The removed material can only be used in fast breeder reactors of which there are only two.
A dream but possible.
I wonder who is responsible for dispatching the spent fuel in the submarine nuclear reactors?
Did Higgins have to give testimony at the defamation trial?
John F Clauser. Nobel Prize – physics
Judith A. Curry. American climatologist and former chair of the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at the Georgia Institute of Technology.
Roy Spencer. served as senior scientist for climate studies at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center
That’s only a few – there a plenty more highly qualified scientists who doubt that the current warming is caused by humans.
Not so much vale as goodbye at last to Henry Kissinger, a man who caused a lot of other people to lose their lives and freedom in the name of defending US freedom.
By coincidence like a few others here I knew a Chilean refugee family growing up in Brisbane in the 1970s. Their daughter went to the same Catholic school as my sister. Their father was an academic who was warned by friends to get out before he was arrested. He wasn’t even associated with Allende, but some friends of his were.
The tragedy and stupidity of US policy to cause a coup in Chile was that the Allende socialists were not aligned with Moscow. They were moderates and the threat of Soviet takeover was imagined.
Some talk about geopolitics and alliances like it is all a carefully calibrated science but it is not. Sometimes “experts” like Kissinger get it wrong, and countries are wiped out for no good reason. The invasion of Iraq is another recent example. We are suckers and fools to get mixed up in this “great game”. Being part of it appeals to the egos and insecurities of some.
WTF is going on at the Sydney Theatre Company?
There are so many causes in the world that these actors could have chosen to make potentially career-destroying gestures/speeches about: the Ukraine, the ill-treatment of minorities around the world, the Voice, BLM, etc. Bur they decide to die in a ditch about the one issue that is guaranteed to cause maximum hurt to some donors, employees, fellow actors and audience members: some of whom have relatives and friends adversely affected by the dreadful events of October 7.
I’d like to say more, but I support the PB moratorium. So I’ll simply say once again: WTF?
The only reason a nuclear power station takes longer than a decade to plan and build is a lack of political will. They built them quicker than a decade in the UAE.
The examples out of the UK, US etc are purely caused by political interference. Lawfare is a massive problem in western democracies. Cut that out and you’ve got a plant in a decade easily.
Ah, yes – the moderate socialists of South America. Upholders of human rights and the rule of law, elections and parliamentary democracy. They heyday of socioeconomic progress. Only matched by those of SE Asia. How could we forget.
Higgins did not have to give evidence. I suspect her reasons for doing so will be explored by Lehmann’s lawyers tomorrow.
More bad news. Vale the incomparable Shane McGowan of the wonderful Pogues.
A bunch of policemen in a bar in a fictional Baltimore will no doubt be singing along to “The Body of an American” as I write this.
FUBAR: I don’t like socialists much more than you do, but the Allende Government was democratically elected. Which counts for something in my book.
Perhaps they’d have turned Chile into Venezuela down the track, but they were only in the middle of their first term.
And the Pinochet regime was barbaric.
meher babasays:
Thursday, November 30, 2023 at 11:29 pm
More bad news. Vale the incomparable Shane McGowan of the wonderful Pogues.
A bunch of policemen in a bar in a fictional Baltimore will no doubt be singing along to “The Body of an American” as I write this.
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Bugger. Was a massive fan. So many good songs hard to name a favourite.
Broad Majestic Shannon.
Lullaby of London.
Old Main Drag
Boys from County Hell
A Pair of Brown Eyes
Bottle of Smoke
But it has to be Lullaby of London I think.
A Chilean friend of mine once explained to me that the two elite groups in Chilean society were those of Basque ancestry and those of French ancestry.
Allende was of Basque ancestry and Pinochet of French.
An interesting back story.
Regardless of whether the Allende regime would have been good or bad, the point is Chile was another case where the great foreign policy mind Kissinger got it completely wrong. Chile was never an enemy state. The coup was bloody, misguided, and pointless.
Being committed to far right politics is no barrier to stupidity (or arrogance).
I’d say the same about far left politics too. They are two sides of the same dumb coin.
Taylomade. I rather like Sally Maclennane.
Fairytale of New York and Rsiny Night in Soho were bloody good too.
Ah Socrates, the good old horseshoe theory.
I’m not sure that I accept that theory: I think the far left and far right are stupid in different ways. But I’d better get some sleep. Another time
It is always a good rule of thumb that when it comes to identity politics and geopolitics, whatever cause de jour the Greens are supporting, be on the opposite side of the argument. You will almost always be on the correct side.
It is always a good rule of thumb that when it comes to identity politics and geopolitics, whatever cause de jour FUBAR is supporting, be on the opposite side of the argument. You will almost always be on the correct side.
meher babasays:
Thursday, November 30, 2023 at 11:46 pm
Taylomade. I rather like Sally Maclennane.
Fairytale of New York and Rsiny Night in Soho were bloody good too.
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Yep all good songs.
The 1st 3 albums were brilliant.
If you havent already watch the BBC documentary.
The Great Hunger: The Life and Songs of Shane MacGowan.
Hi been there.
Ditto.
I don’t bother reading his/her/their comments. Nor do I respond.
Every time I see their name, I donate $50 to the Greens. Expensive. But so worth it.
Pogues frontman and songwriter Shane MacGowan dies aged 65
https://www.rte.ie/entertainment/2023/1130/1419329-pogues-frontman-shane-macgowan-dies-aged-65/
Shane MacGowan: Twilight of a Celtic champion
https://www.rte.ie/entertainment/2023/1130/1419331-shane-mcgowan-twilight-of-a-celtic-champion/
President Higgins leads tributes to Shane MacGowan
https://www.rte.ie/entertainment/2023/1130/1419363-president-higgins-leads-tributes-to-shane-macgowan/
Former chancellor Alistair Darling dies, aged 70
Veteran Labour MP served as chancellor under Gordon Brown from 2007 to 2010
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2023/nov/30/former-chancellor-alistair-darling-dies-aged-70
Mabwmsays:
Friday, December 1, 2023 at 12:13 am
Hi been there.
Ditto.
I don’t bother reading his/her/their comments. Nor do I respond.
Every time I see their name, I donate $50 to the Greens. Expensive. But so worth it.
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Summed it up my friend, but no donations from me, just try to educate people in the community and at the booths at elections.
Cheers!
Universal Suffrage has a lot to answer for!
‘Major changes have been recommended to be made to Australia’s National Security Information Act’
‘The Independent National Security Legislation Monitor Grant Donaldson described parts of the act as “overreach”’
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-12-01/review-calls-for-changes-to-australia-s-strongest-secrecy-law/103174726
‘So now it’s Dave Sharma on his way to the Senate, to provide, as deputy Liberal leader Sussan Ley declared, “a unique perspective”. Hmmm … does he, though? One does not want to be unkind to Sharma, who is certainly an accomplished individual and very far from an empty suit, but why is it that the party so vociferously committed to “merit”… is simultaneously so relaxed about offering Mulligans to proven losers?’
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-11-30/high-court-mike-pezzullo-this-week-in-parliament/103173140
(Had to look up ‘Mulligan’. In golf, ‘an extra stroke allowed after a poor shot, not counted on the scorecard’. Ouch!)
This is concerning…I was one of the geriatrics who supported the school kids in their Climate protest in Sydney a few years ago. Watched QT yesterday amd was disappointed with Penny Wong’s response to this.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/dec/01/over-20-bn-tonnes-of-co2-could-be-emitted-if-australian-fossil-fuel-projects-up-for-approval-go-ahead
New thread.
Vale: Shane Mac Gowan
If he ascends to that mythical otherworldly home of the sky god, may he be re-united with Kirsty McColl and may they again, sing together, “A Fairy Tale of New York”.
The greatest seasonal Christmas song ever written, recorded or sung.