The only federal poll for the week was the regular weekly Roy Morgan, which had Labor with an unchanged two-party lead of 51.5-48.5, from primary votes of Labor 31.5% (down half), Coalition 37% (down one), Greens 12.5% (down half) and One Nation 5.5% (up one-and-a-half). The poll was conducted Monday to Sunday from a sample of a 1710.
Aside from a dearth of published polling, the non-external factors that have contributed to this site being light on for posts lately have been the effort I’ve been putting in trying to get live results features up for the Tasmanian election (see above post) and tomorrow’s South Australian state by-election for Dunstan, which in the absence of any polling for the highly marginal seat should prove an interesting litmus test for Peter Malinauskas’s Labor government.
Andrew Constance having another go at Gilmore – probably the very hard working Fiona Phillips will beat him again too.
People of good conscience are stopping eating birds, animals, fish and products derived from them altogether.
Just on the Moscow concert massacre, two competing narratives on who is responsible:
1. Russia has announced the ‘capture of the terrorists’, still apparently in their white Renault van, on their way to Ukraine. The captured Tajikistan men say they were being paid by Ukraine.
2. ISIS-K has released confronting Go-Pro footage of the massacre, from what they say is one of their fighters.
Who to believe?
And Zelenskyy comments on narrative #1
Zelenskyi’s evening speech
—
What happened yesterday in Moscow is obviously just Putin and the other scum trying to blame it on someone else. They always have the same methods. It has happened before. There have been bombed houses, shootings, and explosions. And they always blame others.
They come to Ukraine, burn our cities, and try to blame Ukraine. They torture and rape our people – and they blame them. They have brought hundreds of thousands of their own terrorists here, to Ukrainian soil, to fight against us, and they don’t care what happens inside their own country. Yesterday, all this happened, and this lowlife Putin, instead of dealing with his Russian citizens, addressing them, was silent for a day, thinking about how to bring it to Ukraine. Everything is absolutely predictable.
The hundreds of thousands of Russians who are now being killed on Ukrainian soil would definitely be enough to stop any terrorists.
Diogenes and OC have provided an excellent explanation of why ramping happens. The primary care inflow and residential care outflow are system issues. But I would add a bigger bucket does allow for greater system flexibility. Big buckets are also less efficient with periods of empty beds and excess staff (once you have them trained).
By the way SA Health have publicly accessible (just about) real-time information. Not so transparent elsewhere in Australia.
https://www.sahealth.sa.gov.au/wps/wcm/connect/public+content/sa+health+internet/about+us/our+performance/our+hospital+dashboards
Dio
You and me both buddy.
Two factors that have reduced the call to general practice- both of which can be seen as unexpected results from good intentions.
1. Work conditions for registrars now mean that virtually all oncall positions are a minimum 1:3, substantially increasing the number of specialty training positions.
2. Markedly improved conditions for residents, particularly locums, has produced a subset of about 10% of graduates who intend to stay in hospitalist/locum positions.
Both were well overdue and irreversible but they have added to the GP crisis
Sprocket
In my defence it is easy to get David Speers and David Speirs mixed up.
Both campaign for the same party.
”The captured Tajikistan men say they were being paid by Ukraine.”
Well, the Russians say that the captives said that.
Maybe they did. The interrogators no doubt have ways to make them say they were being paid by the Vatican or by anyone who best suits the preferred narrative.
Oliver Sutton says:
Sunday, March 24, 2024 at 9:49 am
Steve777: “What happens if the Liberals keep moving ever further to the Right? Do they fall over the edge? Or do they pop up on the other side?”
Well, the Horseshit Theory does have some adherents here.
___________
If you are talking about the Horseshoe theory, then yes. Not always. Sometimes. The enemy of my enemy is my friend is a well worn expression for a reason.
Boerwar says:
“”The only practicable way to get anti-methane supplements into cattle is in intensive farming… like feedlots. The main message is the Greens have policies that will destroy large swathes of the economy in rural and regional Australia which will go into massive unemployment, despair and desperate recession as a result. But it is all good.””
——
Feedlots barely employ anyone, are incredibly cruel, and unhygienic, and you are what you eat.
Pastured Beef and Lamb employs many people in the supply chain, no one gets rich out of it besides perhaps the Butcher at the point of sale.
However, The Greens talk a good game, but where are the victories?
Their aim is shutting down Industries, not legislating humane practices.
Sohar @ #639 Sunday, March 24th, 2024 – 9:24 am
There’s no doubt about the clear message sent to the major parties.
Only a fool would dismiss it.
Griff
This is the killer graph. Scroll to the Ramping graph. It’s a straight line going up. Hard to level out, let alone turn around.
https://www.sahealth.sa.gov.au/wps/wcm/connect/public+content/sa+health+internet/about+us/our+performance/ambulance+waiting+times
Rex
There was a lot of throwing mud from both sides which would have upped the Green vote. The media were obsessed with the husbands of the two ladies. Very unedifying.
Labor have flipped Dunstan in SA By-election on Greens preferences.
Liberals: 40%, swing -6.7%
Labor: 32.3% swing -2.9%
Greens: 22.4%, swing +8.8%
And yet so many lite Left ‘pragmatists’ here just ridicule the Greens and those who vote for them.
@Rainman
I’m not ridiculing the Greens, but I do think there is a double standards. If it was the Greens that had gained the seat and not Labor. There would be no ‘Greens flipped the seat on Labor preferences’. It would be framed as ‘What a great result for the Greens!’.
Diogenes says:
Sunday, March 24, 2024 at 10:23 am
Griff
This is the killer graph. Scroll to the Ramping graph. It’s a straight line going up. Hard to level out, let alone turn around.
https://www.sahealth.sa.gov.au/wps/wcm/connect/public+content/sa+health+internet/about+us/our+performance/ambulance+waiting+times
__________
Agreed! Not good. For bucket size I like the real time bed occupancy on the lower left of this dashboard.
https://www.sahealth.sa.gov.au/wps/wcm/connect/public+content/sa+health+internet/about+us/our+performance/our+hospital+dashboards/about+the+ambulance+service+dashboard/ambulance+service+dashboard
Love dashboards! If only we had this degree of transparency in NSW. But then, the larger States generally do better. Bigger buckets. https://www.medicalrepublic.com.au/ed-and-elective-surgery-wait-times-revealed/18461
Andrew Constance having another go at Gilmore – probably the very hard working Fiona Phillips will beat him again too.
It’s actually ironic Taylormade championing how democratic the Liberal preselection’s are. The Liberals in 2019 ditched their candidate for Gilmore, and installed Scott Morrison’s captain pick Warren Mundine against the wishes of the rank and file. In 2022, when Andrew Constance reportedly didn’t have the numbers. The other candidates dropped out of the preselection in a stich up for Constance.
Diogenes @ #662 Sunday, March 24th, 2024 – 10:25 am
Yes, looks like the voters of Dunstan were none too impressed.
If the federal election trend is stable that the major political parties are unlikely to see over 40% in the primary vote for a while
Will the federal liberal party split from the federal national party and contest the national party seats , to try to make national party go the same way as the Australian democrats party did,
On the prospects of Ukraine helping the Moscow attack terrorists, this German analyst’s tweet sums it up well:
Janis Kluge@jakluge
“So, according to Russia, Ukraine is now an Islamist Nazi state headed by a Jewish president?”
Scott @ #668 Sunday, March 24th, 2024 – 10:52 am
I don’t think the Nationals voters in the regions will flip to the Libs. Too much family tradition going on there.
The Greens Teals and Jackie Lambie Network are getting swings to them for good reasons.
Homeless people vote. Renters vote. Mortgage holders under stres vote.
How long until Tasmania gets a public developer?
Crazy crazy times with all these massacres of innocent civilians.
The likes of Putin and Bibi go down in history in the category of the worst of the worst madmen.
Scott @ #671 Sunday, March 24th, 2024 – 10:59 am
Yes, but old traditional voting habits take precedent for rusted on partisans.
In the SA by-election Labor had a -2.5% swing, and the Liberal -5.0, whereas the Greens had a +8.4% swing, to be on 22.4% of the vote, and Labor claims it as a great victory. Well..
Anyway, it is highly unlikely that the 8.4% swing to the Greens came directly from the Liberals. Most likely most of the swing to the Greens came from Labor voters, and this was compensated to Labor from the even bigger loss of Liberal voters. Labor and the Liberal are interchangeable these days, and it’s not impossible that they will go into a coalition in the future if the votes of both parties continue to erode.
@Sohar
But Sohar you are ignoring history. And the way you frame it as the major parties are trying to lock out the minor parties. But the Greens are not pure on this front either. And 2018 they preferenced the Liberals ahead of Nick Xenophon in the state seat he was running for Hartley at the 2018 SA state election. They knew if they locked Xenophon out of state parliament it would be huge blow to SA Best party and the Xenophon team party federally. And it worked, Xenophon after failing to win his state seat resigned from his party which they rebranded to be Centre Alliance. There federal senate vote collapsed, and the Greens captalised on it by establishing themselves as that third protest party in South Australia.
Scott: “National party can not govern on their own”
Well, they did in Queensland, for one term. During the Joh era.
With the support of two Liberal rats who defected. (And who later served jail terms: not for being rats, but for corruption.)
And with the help of the gerrymander.
(Speaking of Gerry Mander, Mrs S and I were dining out in Keperra last night when his grandson, Tim Mander, showed up. Formerly deputy leader of the LNP. And, not coincidentally, formerly of the Bible Society.)
The Nuclear Duttonator exhibits Tin Ear:
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2024/mar/24/peter-dutton-liberal-leaders-nuclear-power-ban
C@t, Librrals focussed on it. Media less so. And being a byelection, not much media focus at all compared to what will happen in a state election.
Don’t get me wrong at all, please.
The Greens have thousands of good reasons why they are going to smash rural and regional communities, towns and individuals.
True, there is a certain amount of city/bush vindictiveness that goes with this but the policy discussion should rise above this.
The reality is that the Greens have got zip idea about what they are going to do about the consequences of the totality of their policies. (Perhaps we are supposed to believe that they will not really close down Olympic Dam and town because it is an uranium mine?)
The totality of the consequences include the Australian economy contracting to a significant degree and for a considerable period of time. We are certainly looking at a recession and possibly even a national depression.
The consequences include massive amounts of community misery with no future and no hope. (None, as it turns out, will be happening in the inner urban fastnesses, BTW. Even in pure politics coincidences do happen.)
True, we never ever hear the end of the Greens talking about how they would improve the lives of the unemployed. Do the Greens know about a thing called hypocrisy? The Greens are promising, deliberately, and as a matter of policy, to make hundreds of thousands of people unemployed.
I see that the Liberals have finally woken up with their Hamer Kooyong preselection: set a Teal to catch a Teal.
The lib/nats propaganda media units , boat scared tactic didn’t work well for the Liberal party in South Australia or Tasmania
Rex, PNman, Soh…. I’d be very interested to drill down into the Greens vote in Dunstan.
A good candidate.
Some turned off by the mud slinging (imho, minimal – the slimging was minor and not from the candidates, despite the media decrying a pox on both major parties).
And….. no teal candidate for a certain demographic to turn to. Did they chose a presentable green instead?
The big lesson from this might be for the Greens.
Interested in thoughts from bludgers on the ground in Dunstan.
No matter how much you enjoy the flavour, and no matter how much you admire and respect them and no matter how hard your religion tries to drill this habit into you, do not eat the flesh of your deceased rellies:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/mar/24/tremors-before-death-unravelling-the-mystery-disease-that-left-entire-papua-new-guinean-villages-without-women
The Nationals are the party of the big Miners and big Agribusiness these days – big business done outside major cities.
This works because of the low baseline of sequestered carbon at the get go. From there the systems eventually reach a saturation state and it is back to the zero net fifty drawing board:
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2024/mar/23/carbon-neutral-cattle-sale-australia-gloucester
”set a Teal to catch a Teal.”
That makes a lot of sense. In fact the former member for North Sydney (Trent Zimmerman) was Teal-tinged.
But he campaigned under the Liberal banner. A vote for any Liberal is a vote for Dutton, for climate denial, for nuclear nonsense and dog-whistling. That’s what the Teal member for Kooyong needs to emphasise.
Democracy Sausage @ #651 Sunday, March 24th, 2024 – 9:50 am
She should work a bit harder for her electorate, and not just on getting re-elected.
If she did that, she would have a chance.
Socrates at 9.37 am
“And of course, places like Chechnya are where much of Russia’s oil revenue flows from.”
Incorrect. There is very little Russian oil in the North Caucasus, little more than in Kaliningrad. See these figures:
“Russia’s oil production by region in 2013 (region, thousand barrels per day): A) Western Siberia: 6,422; B) Urals-Volga: 2,310; C) Krasnoyarsk: 426; D) Sakhalin: 277; E) Arkhangelsk: 269; F) Komi Republic: 257; G) Irkutsk: 227; H) Yakutiya: 149; I) North Caucasus: 62; J) Kaliningrad: 26. Total: 10,425.
”
https://factsanddetails.com/russia/Education_Health_Transportation_Energy/sub9_6c/entry-5151.html#:~:text=About%20two%2Dthirds%20of%20Russia's,the%20construction%20of%20expensive%20pipelines.
Graph at: https://www.statista.com/statistics/305356/oil-production-in-russia-by-region/
Boerwar @ #683 Sunday, March 24th, 2024 – 11:32 am
This is “insetting”, not “offsetting”. Just like reducing carbon emissions through reforestation. It is a temporary measure at best, and not a substitute for actually eliminating fossil fuels.
Katich
I don’t understand why there was no teal candidate. I know they aren’t a party but a high profile teal would have gotten a lot of votes.
Griff
I believe Tasmania is bringing a dashboard in. Queensland has stopped even putting out ramping hours because they’re so bad. Ramping did go down a bit in WA last year. The other states don’t report it. Supposedly Vic is dismal. NSW seems to be the best but it’s hard to tell.
Boerwar @ #684 Sunday, March 24th, 2024 – 11:27 am
That UK Guardian story has a smell of cultural imperialism (& grant seeking by the MRC Prion unit). The epidemiology & anthropology of the prion disease kuru was worked out in the 1960s primarily by Carleton Gajdusek, Vincent Zigas & Mike Alpers in the old colonial PNG system. Gajdusek got a Nobel in 1976, but was disgraced by his paedophilia.
A vote for Hamer in Kooyong is a vote for MAGA Dutton and his radically extreme agenda and a rejection of genuine conservatism.
Diogenes and OC have provided an excellent explanation of why ramping happens. The primary care inflow and residential care outflow are system issues. But I would add a bigger bucket does allow for greater system flexibility. Big buckets are also less efficient with periods of empty beds and excess staff (once you have them trained).
____________
We are seeing the Theory of Constraints at work here. The current constraint is the capacity of the hospital (not A&E) to treat and discharge patients. there are two points here within the constraint – the treatment and its completion itself (the primary objective) and then the ability to discharge the patients, that is find somewhere to send them.
Compounding the situation is that when things are clogged up, all sorts of compensatory actions have to take place and these actions are not part of what would consume resources when things were flowing satisfactorily.
If the inability to discharge were to be overcome the constraint might still be in the wards, in which case it comes down to manage their effective capacity up.
Then the constraint – if there is one – comes back to A&E. It is only after addressing this can the ambulance service come under question, its measurement of performance being 000 response times.
Rewi, I eat meat. Very rarely for various reasons but one is;
when I sit down for a steak (about 4 times a year) it tastes orgasmic. The flavour blows your stack. Eat a steak every day or every week and you miss the luxury.
And because I eat it rarely, I can buy or order the best and most humanely farmed meat. When I eat sheep (rarer still), it is hogget (bordering on Mutton but it depends on the farmer and conditions) farmed locally, slaughtered and cut up and sold by the local butcher. Exe – but omg good.
Imo, pork farmed humanely improves the taste and texture markedly. Doubles the price, but so be it.
For me, lamb crosses a line.
Wombat
Why aren’t there more prion diseases —and why are they so rare?
And why are they all brain? Is that because neurons don’t divide?
BK
Another problem in SA is that the private hospitals are sick of taking public patients as it’s losing them money and it’s bad for the private system. They were happy to help during Covid but SA Health has eroded the good will.
Rh wombat says:
“”The epidemiology & anthropology of the prion disease kuru was worked out in the 1960s primarily by Carleton Gajdusek, Vincent Zigas & Mike Alpers in the old colonial PNG system. Gajdusek got a Nobel in 1976, but was disgraced by his paedophilia.””
– – – –
But, was it legitimate research or ass covering?
The ourbreak of BSE in Britain was controversial, the only farmer in the affected region whose herd was BSE free was also the only farmer whose herd hadn’t been sprayed for Warble Fly.
The research is weak on how Prions got into the tissues of PNG Highlanders.
“Random Occurrence” can’t be a scientifically based conclusion.
Diogenes
Yes, that too.
Fixation with ramping per se is a waste of effort and emotion.
Double the number of ambulances and crews and there would be even MORE visible ramping.
I should sufface my comment on teals and Greens in Dunstan….. I have always thought that the Greens made a strategic error in broadening their policy platform. I get why they did, but it narrowed their electoral audience and created an illusion that environmentally friendly policies were left wing (helped by scumbag politicians in other parties).
The SA Liberal party leader is very aware of the danger here. There is a large demographic of traditional Liberal voters who are small “g” green. He has tried to talk the green talk (while walking a different walk).
Good teal candidates in Adelaide Metro seats could be more than disruptive.
On current technologies we will still have to eliminate domestic livestock to reach zero net fifty even when we eliminate fossil fuels.
Entropy said I should post this on the general site. As Marles had been interviewed on Insiders this morning. Speers did a good job here, in particular he spoke of the the original $3billion promise announced by Marles and Conroy for AUKUS at the time. To be given to the US.
They lied. This $3billion was in USD. Didn’t want Australians to know how much our deposit for US nuclear powered submarines were.
Late last year the truth was revealed. USD3 billion, is actually AUD4.7billion.
This relevation doesn’t help anyone having confidence in at least this Labor decision on AUKUS.
Until Albanese, Wong, Marles are evicted or leave from politics, AUKUS will remain.
Thinking about it, Morrison is/was corrupt, a bully and liar. Yet Albanese trusted his judgment. As we can see Morrison was planing for an AUKUS job after politics. Which Labor kindly obliged.
Morrison doesn’t believe in government. As spoken at Margaret Court’s Victory Church in Perth. Played a trick on Labor.
Albanese’s judgement on AUKUS, The Voice has not been very good.
Already almost $10billion of taxpayers money will be given to help build US and UK (AUD4.6 billion ) nuclear powered submarines. Nothing here for Australia.
Apparently around AUD 50 – 60billion will be given to the US and UK over the decade. With no guarantee of any nuclear submarines provided for Australia in that time frame.
Our Defence budget has been increased. Meaning other defence or needs for Australians at home will be cut.
Of course when, if we get any, Albanese, Marles and Wong will be long gone. As Morrison is. Any decision, many more $billions required, as Defence usually goes over budget, not their problem.
A Navy officer stated the future problems keeping two different types, US and UK submarines, serviced. Two different crews required.
And all countries with nuclear powered submarines have nuclear energy power stations. Dutton will get his wish it seems.
Some Australians have to develop skill in the nuclear industry. Best to get, therefore some nuclear powered energy providers.
And why should Trump reject the many AUDbillions to build their submarines, with no requirement to give any second hands ones to Australia in the original time frame?
From The Guardian News feed, March 24, 2024. ‘No reason’ to think second Trump administration would renege on Aukus, Marles says
Marles says there is “no reason” to think a second Trump administration would renege on Aukus.
In terms of Aukus, with a Trump presidency, we’ve got no reason to have any sense that it will be anything other than supportive because, again, when you look at what occurred in Congress last year, with historic votes in respect of both pillars of Aukus, there was unanimous support, really, across the United States. Democrats and Republicans alike, and within the Republicans, those who support Donald Trump as well, so we have a sense of confidence of support across the spectrum for Aukus. It makes strategic sense for the United States.
In response to how the government is preparing for all eventualities in the US election, including talking to Trump’s inner circle, Marles said “we are doing everything you would expect us to be doing at this time.”
Aukus budget ‘still where we expected it to be’ despite additional $4.6bn UK nuclear production funding, Marles says
Marles is also denying the costs of Aukus have blown out, after the government this week said it will seek to prop up the pact by sending $4.6bn to the UK to clear bottlenecks at the Rolls-Royce nuclear reactor production line.
Marles said:
The budget is still where we expected it to be in terms of Aukus. We’ve heard the opposition try to muddy this up. I mean, they can say what they say, but it doesn’t matter how much they talk about money, it doesn’t distract from the facts. And the facts are, money has been provided, and an increase in money has been provided to the defence budget.
He said delays and overruns in shipbuilding was not a worry because the stretched industrial base in the US and UK was “factored in”:
We knew that the industrial base, both in the UK and the US, was stretched, which is why we made the decision last year to make a contribution to the industrial bases of both countries in order to allow them to do what they needed to do.
Actually, on current technologies we will have to stop flying to reach zero net fifty.
China’s air construction industry alone has orders for around a thousand fossil-fueled. passenger planes.