It seems YouGov federal polls will be a weekly Friday event from now until the big day. The latest result replicates last week’s above-par showing for Labor, who maintain their 51-49 two-party lead off primary votes that might have been entirely unchanged if not for YouGov’s apparent new practice of rounding to the nearest half percentage point: Labor 31% (steady), Coalition 36% (steady), Greens 13.5% (up half), One Nation 7.5% (up half) and Trumpet of Patriots 1% (steady).
Anthony Albanese is on 43% approval (up one on last week and three on the week before) and 49% disapproval (down two and three respectively), while Peter Dutton is on 42% approval (down one and two respectively) and 48% disapproval (up one and two). Albanese’s lead as preferred prime minister is unchanged at 45-39. A question on whether Australia should “stand with” Volodymr Zelenskyy or Donald Trump produced a split of 69-31 in the former’s favour. The poll was conducted last Friday to Thursday from a sample of 1526.
”
leftieBrawlersays:
Sunday, March 16, 2025 at 6:01 pm
Today’s Trump headlines concern the threat Trump poses to the affordability of many essential medicines on the PBS and how potential IP arrangements could be turned upside down.
At this rate I’m very worried about the LNP’s ability to save enough furniture to be a viable opposition in the next parliament.
”
Leftie
I hope your prediction comes true but it will not happen. Unfortunately, I am still sticking to my LNP win. Nothing Albanese government did till now is a ‘gamechanger’ for your scenario to evantuate.
Just reading Paul Bongiornio’s piece in the Saturday Paper – he is normally well informed and passes on some internal Labor polling…
Labor is taking great encouragement from the aggregate of the latest batch of polls, which give it a slight edge over the Coalition. Of particular interest is the Newspoll finding that a majority of Australians, 55 per cent, are not confident the Liberal–National Coalition is ready to govern Australia.
This ties in with Labor’s research that suggests a significant number of Australians aren’t buying Peter Dutton. According to party sources, this applies as much in Victoria as it does in Western Australia, where the Labor brand is riding high after the Liberals failed to mount the beginnings of a much-vaunted recovery at last weekend’s state election.
According to these sources, Labor in the west is on track to hold the four seats it won at the 2022 federal election and pick up the new seat of Bullwinkel, a finding at odds with a recent JWS Research poll.
https://www.thesaturdaypaper.com.au/comment/topic/2025/03/15/back-election-plan-albanese
Sceptic @ #888 Sunday, March 16th, 2025 – 5:23 pm
Well, the quote is not making the point that Reagan was ‘clever’, just that he was ‘transformative’. Not necessarily in a good way.
And, of course, you can say the same about Trump.
But the interesting thing is to consider what else they have in common – i.e. they are both primarily TV celebrities- i.e. puppets put up purely for show. They don’t need intellect, they just need to look plausible on TV and have some basic acting ability. The intent is to distract the public from what is really being done behind the scenes. Trump is quite good at this. It may be his only actual talent.
Harlan Ellison called television “The Glass Teat”. Americans are born and raised suckling on that teat. Many of them never wean themselves off it.
Is there an economic opportunity for the Australian beef tallow industry in the US? Perhaps these are the “critical minerals” the US craves.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/mar/12/rfk-jr-hannity-interview-beef-tallow
This group of Trump voters will piss you off—and give you hope
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2025/3/15/2310217/-This-group-of-Trump-voters-will-piss-you-off-and-give-you-hope?pm_campaign=front_page&pm_source=top_news_slot_7&pm_medium=web
“Axios gathered 13 Michigan voters who voted for Donald Trump in 2024 after voting for Joe Biden in 2020, and gauged their opinions of the new administration. The results were both encouraging and infuriating—often at the same time.
“Ten of 13 participants from this battleground, auto-industry state bordering Canada said what they’re seeing isn’t what they thought they were voting for—and they’re worried Trump’s approach may hurt their pocketbooks,” wrote Axios. ”
https://www.axios.com/2025/03/14/trump-harris-michigan-focus-group
beguiledagain: “In Canada liquor is only sold in provincial government stores with almost no private stores.”
——————————————————————————-
It’s a long time since I was last in Canada, but I have a dim recollection that, in Quebec, the laws were different and it was possible to buy wine and possibly beer in grocery shops. Am I right, or misremembering?
Look, I think Reagan was consequential in a very important way, for all the cold war warrior that he was, he fundamentally pivoted towards understanding that nuclear war had no winners. Maybe he was no great thinker, but his gut feeling on this made the difference.
Of course he was a horror to society in other ways.
Coming up in the UK are the Local Elections on 6 May.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2025_United_Kingdom_local_elections
I reckon this will be the first test of what’s truly going over there electorally. Electoral Calculus has a MRP poll up about the predicted amount of councillors compared to the last round in 2021.
https://www.electoralcalculus.co.uk/blogs/ec_lepoll_20250314.html
Conservative: 688 (-732)
Labour: 285 (-56)
Reform: 697 (+697)
Lib Dem: 401 (+127)
Green: 44 (-3)
Other: 132 (-33)
I suppose we’ll see if Reform really does perform as well as its polling, given the councillors up for election are mostly in strong Conservative districts this year.
Price, the Duttonite mouthpiece who railed against corruption in Indigenous organizations and who is all set to lead Dutton’s efficiency campaign has paid back $11,000 of taxpayer dollars and is under investigation in relation to monies received for traveling to music gigs.
Musk, presumably Dutton’s guiding light on sacking a random number of 36,000 APS staff, has NFI:
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/mar/15/elon-musk-18f-x-false-claims
Stunning!
Trump wipes out 7 agencies at once
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2025/3/15/2310437/-Trump-wipes-out-7-agencies-at-once?pm_campaign=front_page&pm_source=trending&pm_medium=web
“Seven agencies at once in an executive order to reduce the the minimum required by law, which can be one person.
It’s called: “Continuing The Reduction Of The Federal Bureaucracy.” The agencies affected are:
1. Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service. 2025 budget $45 million.
2. United States Agency for Global Media. 2025 budget $950 million.
3. Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in the Smithsonian Institution. 2024 budget $16.1 million.
4. Institute for Museum and Library Services. 2025 budget $280 million.
5. United States Interagency Council for Homelessness. 2025 budget $4.3 million.
6. Community Development Financial Institutions Fund 2025 budget $325 million.
7. Minority Business Development Agency. 2025 Budget $80 million.”
Ven you are measured and diligent contributor that likes to do deep dives. No doubt you’ve got your reasons for leaning to a LNP win. I just can’t see it, particularly with the trending back to Labor over the last fortnight or so. The cross bench is stacked with progressives. Your need to see a collapse of the teal vote and a resounding LNP primary across the board to get to that
Ven says:
Sunday, March 16, 2025 at 7:01 pm
Stunning!
Trump wipes out 7 agencies at once
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2025/3/15/2310437/-Trump-wipes-out-7-agencies-at-once?pm_campaign=front_page&pm_source=trending&pm_medium=web
“Seven agencies at once in an executive order to reduce the the minimum required by law, which can be one person.
It’s called: “Continuing The Reduction Of The Federal Bureaucracy.” The agencies affected are:
Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service. 2025 budget $45 million.
United States Agency for Global Media. 2025 budget $950 million.
Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in the Smithsonian Institution. 2024 budget $16.1 million.
Institute for Museum and Library Services. 2025 budget $280 million.
United States Interagency Council for Homelessness. 2025 budget $4.3 million.
Community Development Financial Institutions Fund 2025 budget $325 million.
Minority Business Development Agency. 2025 Budget $80 million.”
____________
A brave little tailor 🙂
”This group of Trump voters will piss you off—and give you hope”
Trump hated those who they hate and he promised to hurt them. They weren’t expecting themselves or those they care to get caught in the backwash.
Stuff them.
Ven to your last point … Albanese doesn’t need to do anything to get the breakthrough- Trump and by association Dutton is doing it for him.
A brief peruse of the latest sky news uploads to YouTube reveals the consistent and ongoing narratives read out by the talking heads that are preparing the viewship for a Labor win.
They know this because their very own news poll is telling them- I am highly suspicious of the last one’s credibility
sprocket_ says:
Sunday, March 16, 2025 at 4:57 pm
Briefly aka woke partisan
Thank you sprocket
Eagles trying to outsuck themselves
Not defending Trump wiping out agencies but the Dems were deep in the trough. There was something like $40b squirreled away by the EPA just after the election in off shore accounts so it couldn’t DOGEd. Stacy Abraham’s friends got a $2b grant for “communication strategies”.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/fact-check-unpacking-claim-group-110000291.html
Ven says:
Sunday, March 16, 2025 at 5:23 pm
”
Oakeshott Countrysays:
Sunday, March 16, 2025 at 3:57 pm
Well, it wasn’t Australia – we didn’t invade Grenada
”
Well, I even thought so. But zoomster corrected me by posting that one of her relatives, who was in Australian military and who was posted in US at that time told her that a few Australians worked as some sort of support staff to the US military personnel, who invaded Grenada.
—————————————————–
And it’s a good thing we didn’t join physically in the invasion of a fellow Commonwealth country.
Here is why, as I reported previously on PB several years ago.
“I was there, shortly after the tawdry October 1983 invasion. And it was more than a whiff of grapeshot, on one of the most beautiful islands on the planet.
I saw the wreckage of some of the many U.S. helicopter gunships that crashed while making strafing runs up and down the small savannah behind Grand Anse beach and nearby populated areas around the capital St. George’s.
The spurious pretext for the invasion was to protect American students at a medical school located in a former hotel on the beach, during civil unrest that saw the assassination of leftist Prime Minister Maurice Bishop.
The medical students I spoke to said that when they saw a U.S. helicopter crashing on the beach in front of them, they were more afraid of the Americans than of the small number of lightly-armed Grenadian militia who were trying to protect them.
The U.S. won a “great victory” over a tiny force, on a tiny island. But the execution of the raid turned out to be a series of military disasters, pre-raid SEALS drowning and failing to get vital reconaissance information, friendly fire deaths, heavy collateral damage and civilian deaths and unexploded ordnance that remains..
A couple of hundred meters from my beachfront hotel lay the pulverized ruins of Grenada’s radio station, Radio Free Grenada. Up in the hills overlooking Grand Anse I saw the destruction of houses which seemed to be the only targets the gunships could find. Oh, and the mental hospital they mistakenly bombed killing 18 patients.
They fished the body of a local from the house swimming pool. Down the hill beyond the pool I could see the wreckage of yet another American gunship, one of 9 Tomcats that were lost, nearly a third of the gunship force..
The Pentagon was smarting from the bombing of the marine barracks in Beirut the previous week and saw the events on Grenada as a training exercise. Reagan thought he was in one of those B grade movies he starred in during the 1940’s and decided to flex the U.S military muscle
Bishop had become very popular after overthrowing the dictatorial and corrupt Eric Gairy, and the State Department was afraid that he would win democratic elections, thereby becoming the first
democratically elected Marxist leader in the region. It has been suggested that they probably got together with the CIA to orchestrate, Allende-like, the division in Bishop’s government which led to him being removed and ultimately executed.
The U.S. bullied governments of nearby islands to get them to give them cover for the invasion. They described the couple of hundred Cuban construction workers on the new airport site at Point Salines as a heavily armed Cuban military force. They said the new international airport, built with funding from the U.K and Canada to improve tourist access, was actually a military airfield to give the Soviet Union a forward airbase in the Americas.
They kept the media from reaching the island and also prevented a Canadian charter aircraft from evacuating Canadians. Margaret Thatcher was only given three hours notice of the attack on the small Commonwealth nation by her soulmate Reagan..
There were so many lies by the U.S. Government that there isn’t room to go through them all. This looked like a dress rehearsal for the campaign of lies that preceded their Iraq disaster.
According to Wikipedia, American forces sustained 19 killed and 116 wounded; Of the Cubans, mostly construction workers, 25 were killed, 59 wounded, and 638 so-called “combatants” were captured. Grenadian forces, mostly police and a small militia suffered 45 dead and 358 wounded.
At least 24 civilians were also killed.. That official body count is probably significantly understated. The Americans also dropped cluster bombs on the island and left a large amount of unexploded ordnance which has killed Grenadian kids since the invasion.
The invasion was a war crime that shattered the most beautiful island in the eastern Caribbean. It was just another disgraceful chapter in the recent history of American militarism and interventionism.”
The Ketamine kid is Musk
London mocks The Ketamine Kid
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2025/3/15/2310373/-London-mocks-The-Ketamine-Kid?pm_campaign=front_page&pm_source=trending&pm_medium=web
“The anti-Swasticar guerilla billboard campaign is gathering pace in London.
The 0-1939 poster was the first. Also appearing around London now:
Tesla: The Swasticar. Now with white-power steering.
Thinking about buying a Tesla? You’re in for a Nazi surprise.
Tesla: The Swasticar. Autopilot for your car. Autocrat for your country.
Elon’s Musk: Parfum de 1939. Pour wankers.
Hate doesn’t sell. Ask Tesla!
Elon Musk is a bellend.
My favourite is a billboard-sized mock movie advert. “The Fast and the Fuhrer! Heil Tesla!”.
“
meher baba says:
Sunday, March 16, 2025 at 6:43 pm
beguiledagain: “In Canada liquor is only sold in provincial government stores with almost no private stores.”
——————————————————————————-
It’s a long time since I was last in Canada, but I have a dim recollection that, in Quebec, the laws were different and it was possible to buy wine and possibly beer in grocery shops. Am I right, or misremembering?
——————————————————-
Yes, you’re right. In recent years some governments have allowed beer and in some cases Canadian wine to be sold in grocery stores. Quebec led the way. Ontario followed a few years ago.
However hard liquor is only available in the government-run stores.
I remember when I first was in Canada in the 1950’s having to fill in a form if I wanted to buy beer or liquor in Ontario government beer stores and liquor stores.
Some provinces like Alberta and British Columbia have permitted limited private wine stores. I think in Ontario the grocery stores can only sell Canadian wine and beer.
It’s such a lucrative source of revenue that provincial governments have been reluctant to fully privatize it.
Canada’s new Prime Minister orders review of Canada’s plans to purchase 88 American F-35’s! NEW POLL
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2025/3/15/2310499/-Canada-s-new-Prime-Minister-orders-review-of-Canada-s-plans-to-purchase-88-American-F-35?pm_campaign=front_page&pm_source=trending&pm_medium=web
“Canada’s Globe & Mail newspaper is reporting the country’s new Prime Minister ordered a review of the Canada’s current commitment to the American made next-gen F-35 jet fighter immediately upon being sworn in. The order came a day after fellow NATO ally Portugal made a similar announcement.
Canada’s decision to purchase F-35’s was contentious in the face of a very strong competing bid from Saab’s F-39 Gripen — a fighter plane that was specifically designed for arctic conditions.
Canada is contractually committed to purchase sixteen Lockeed planes with deliveries beginning next year. The review will cover Canada’s option to purchase an additional 72 American planes over the next seven years.
Pundits and editorials started urging the Canadian government to abandon the F-35 after Trump revealed the full extent of his sympathy for Russia earlier this month and after he threatened to use economic pressure to “collapse the Canadian economy” in a effort to force Canada into accepting annexation as America’s 51st state.
Several NATO countries, including Canada, are concerned that the F-35 comes with an American based software “kill switch” that can remotely disable its armaments. This would impede their ability to independently undertake military action disapproved by President Nero and his puppet-master in the Kremlin — a concern that never existed under any other American president.
”
Here is a link of Globe and Mail newspaper
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/article-carney-requests-review-of-f-35-fighter-jet-purchase-from-lockheed/?intcmp=gift_expired
And now WOTR on AUKUS, although admittedly written in Australia:
https://warontherocks.com/2025/03/when-it-comes-to-submarines-australia-is-going-to-be-left-high-and-dry/
Elon Musk is going to rue the day he hitched his wagon to Trump.
United States Interagency Council for Homelessness. 2025 budget $4.3 million.
________________________________
18 people sharing 4 million in salaries to produce motherhood statements. like:
In 2010, the agency released the first federal strategic plan to end homelessness in the United States which includes four goals
To finish the job of ending chronic homelessness by 2015.
To prevent and end homelessness among Veterans by 2015.
To prevent and end homelessness for families, youth, and children by 2020.
To set a path to ending all types of homelessness.
Wombat
Thanks for the link to WOTR
It shouldn’t be surprising that people who know anything about submarines are going to start calling out AUKUS as a fake plan. I think at this point Marles and Albo are only sticking to AUKUS to avoid a political argument. If they don’t know AUKUS is failing by now their advisers should be sacked.
Simple maths tells you Australia will not get subs out of AUKUS. A Virginia takes 6 to 8 years to build plus 2 years prior orders of long lead components. There have not been enough subs ordered in the 3.5 years since AUKUS was announced for it to be possible for the RAN to receive US SSNs when required in the early 2030s. So it is already too late for AUKUS to work as promised.
Same with critical shipyard and naval base upgrades in Australia. Planned but not contracted. Money spent is minimal.
This financial allocation failure carries over to legislative change. There was talk early on in AUKUS of changes to US laws on defense technology to allow greater work sharing between Australia, UK and US. It hasn’t happened. The ITAR laws and Jones Act are still there. If anything USA is more protectionist now than in 2021.
Where AUKUS has shone is in strategy documents, press releases and creating a submarine delivery agency in Canberra. It has 700 staff! Awesome progress.
“Victoriasays:
Sunday, March 16, 2025 at 7:44 pm
Elon Musk is going to rue the day he hitched his wagon to Trump.
”
Umm. I don’t know about that Victoria.
Revisionist History
Union Blasts Musk Over Retweet Blaming Holocaust on Public Workers
It’s not the first time the world’s richest man has taken an incendiary stance on Adolf Hitler or the atrocities of World War II
https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-news/musk-holocaust-public-workers-union-1235296401/
Uncle Phil has just delivered some good news to labor in the monthly freshwater poll he says libs and Dutton off the boil as election nears.
AFR Now.
Dave, yeah the place is rotten from top to bottom. But the Trump enema will clean out more than just the shit.
Mostly Interestedsays:
Sunday, March 16, 2025 at 8:07 pm
Dave, yeah the place is rotten from top to bottom. But the Trump enema will clean out more than just the shit.
________
Beautifully put.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Opposition Leader Peter Dutton.
Dutton coming off the boil as election nears
Peter Dutton’s personal ratings and voter expectations of a Coalition victory have fallen sharply, suggesting Labor attacks on the opposition leader are working.
Ahh the writings on the wall lnp sinking faster than a rock
The Wombat @ #922 Sunday, March 16th, 2025 – 7:43 pm
hmmm
Who’d of thunk it.
Freshwater poll in the AFR – numbers incoming
Freshwater..
With Albanese to call a May election soon after next week’s federal budget, the poll of 1051 voters, taken from Thursday to Saturday, shows the Coalition is leading Labor on a two-party-preferred 51 per cent to 49 per cent, which is down from its 52-48 lead last month.
The change is due to the Coalition’s primary vote falling 2 points in a month to 39 per cent, while Labor’s stayed unchanged at 31 per cent and the Greens rose a point to 14 per cent.
Should the 51-49 result be reflected on election day, and the swing of 3.1 per cent since the 2022 election be uniform, Labor would have 71 seats compared with the Coalition’s 66 and 12 crossbenchers, putting Albanese in the box seat to negotiate minority government.
Each paragraph in this article describes one or more atrocities committed by Trump.
Orange Man Worse Than Ever
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2025/3/14/2310342/-Orange-Man-Worse-Than-Ever?pm_campaign=front_page&pm_source=trending&pm_medium=web
A sample
“I think the big takeaway here is before you start a trade war, make sure you understand what tariffs are, and how they work. Cuz when you don’t, it’s sorta like entering WWI on the presumption that mustard gas is good for you. So now the stock market’s hacking and spasming, and sure, you could pass out gas masks at any time, but that would entail admitting you were wrong, so bring on the “correction,” I guess.
Meanwhile, our would-be oligarch overlords are furious, because none of their bullshit works without a booming, inherited economy to coast on and take credit for. Look at Sean Hannity, impotently chastising a disobedient stock market, while Laura Ingraham orders her audience to simply ignore their disappearing 401(k)s. Tom Petty-defiling Fox bleating head Lara Trump insists us plebs “ought to be kissing the feet of Elon Musk and Donald Trump,” which strikes me as a good way to get real, real sick.”
Timbo
I saw your comment earlier this morning. Thanks.
Technologically I think there is an argument that changes in satellite ISR supports a shift from SSK to SSN for countries that can’t just use AIP subs over shorter distances.
I would agree that we would be better off getting modern SSKs than wasting decades waiting for mythical SSNs.
I think that Australia getting Virginia or SSN AUKUS submarines with VLS tubes has nothing to do with defending Australia. We don’t need VLS equipped subs IMO.
More Freshwater..
The latest poll shows an increase of 1 point for Albanese, and a 1 point drop in support for Dutton gives Albanese a 4-point lead as preferred prime minister, which is above the poll’s margin of error of 3.1 per cent.
One of the sharpest movements in the latest poll is a plunge in expectations of a Coalition victory.
It shows 42 per cent of voters now predicting Labor to rule either in majority or minority and 45 per cent believing the same about the Coalition. This, however, represents a 5 percentage point drop for the Coalition and a 5 point increase for Labor since this time last month.
Of the 42 per cent predicting a Labor government, just 7 per cent believe it will be a majority government and 35 per cent expect minority. As for the 45 per cent predicting a Coalition government, 18 per cent believe it will be a majority and 27 per cent forecast a minority.
Overall, 62 per cent of voters are expecting a minority government, either Labor or Coalition.
https://www.afr.com/politics/federal/dutton-coming-off-the-boil-as-election-nears-20250316-p5ljya
I think that Elon’s reputation will be improved once Spacex’s rescue mission comes home. There will be celebrations in the White House.
Sprocket
Thanks. So in relative terms, the shift in the Freshwater poll vs previous looks similar to the shift in YouGov vs its previous poll.
And the AFR Freshwater has a seat projection
ALP 71 (-7)
LNP 66 (+9)
OTH 13 (-3)
Socrates
Yes, it has been obvious that Peak Dutton was a few weeks back, and each of the polls since have had incremental drops for LNP (primary down 2 in this poll) and in PPM (Albo +4 on 2 point swing against Dutton).
If this trend continues into the campaign, I wouldn’t rule out close to a majority for Labor.
The more people see of Dutton the less they like what they see.
New thread.
Mostly Interested:
Sunday, March 16, 2025 at 6:44 pm
[‘Of course he was a horror to society in other ways.’]
His movies included.
___________________________________________________
The Mexican president is quite savvy by imposing tariffs on soybeans & dairy products on the US states that voted for the GOP in 2020:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fiuu3u4jRBQ&t=178s
Worth a look.
Climate-driven insurance premium increases are helping to trash some housing markets in the US.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PM4keUzOP8A