The Financial Review reports the latest Freshwater Strategy poll has the Coalition’s lead in from 52-48 to 51-49. Labor’s primary vote is unchanged at 31%, but the Coalition is down two to 39% and the Greens are up one to 14%. The exact figures are not yet provided, but we are told that Anthony Albanese’s net approval rating is up one to minus 10% while Dutton’s is down four to minus 12%. (UPDATE: Albanese is up two on approval to 37% and up one on disapproval to 47%; Dutton is down one to 35% and up two to 46%.) Albanese’s lead as preferred prime minister is out from 45-43 to 46-42.
Forty-two per cent now expect Labor to win the next election, up five (though only 7% expect a majority Labor government), with the Coalition down five to 45% (18% for a majority). Field work dates and sample size don’t appear to be featured in the online reports (UPDATE: 1051 and Thursday to Saturday, apparently), but the gaps will presumably be filled when the print edition is available. Polls in this series have typically been spaced four weeks apart, but this time it’s only been three.
Not that I want it but Labor is on course for majority govt at this rate. People are looking for stability.
Reposting this link to a Lawyers, Guns and Money post about the real Trump Derangement Syndrome.
https://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2025/03/politics-and-the-thought-terminating-cliche
But really it’s pointless with MAGA types. At this point the truth is their enemy. All they care about is dogma from King Trump and whatever his lickspittles tell them is the truth, no other evidence needed. Trying to point out how this is a bad thing and they just smirk and giggle and relish in the fact that their enemies are being made uncomfortable, and will soon be arrested and hanged from lamp posts while their golden pisslord gets stronger and stronger.
Results are still coming through now one crazy ass WA election count.ABC.
Are ABC taking the piss?
They have put Basil’s seat back into the doubtful column now 6 undecided.
Yeah PP it’s a bit crazy Zempilas has only achieved a 2.5% swing and has a 500 vote margin now. It’s simple, people don’t like him and he clearly is not going to be a popular leader of the WA Liberals.
Nicholassays:
Monday, March 17, 2025 at 10:42 pm
Ok I’ll try to be more polite about it.
The problem with MMT is that it is very similar to “neoliberalism”. In that while “neoliberalism” is largely a made up term uses as a political insult with shifting (and often contradictory) definitions, MMT practitioners rarely practice what they preach.
Because MMT was the child of the pre-Covid era, when people thought that inflation was beat and interest rates were at their lowest in thousands of years.
But then we had the inflation shock, and when the MMT prescription of reducing demand to meet it our inflation was necessary, MMT practitioners either went silent or spun like crazy to justify their big spending beliefs.
MMT is also the product of the US academic system, and as “prescribed” (deficits don’t matter) ignores that most countries A) are not the reserve currency issuer, or B) capital, food, and energy self sufficient, so issues like currency stability and imported inflation are much more important.
At least for a non-US country like Australia, we have at least a medium term fiscal surplus objective and real interest rates policy, so while these may be out of whack from time to time, markets at least price these broader objectives (allowance for cyclical deficits, on the assumption they shrink structurally).
We see this in Asia right? Japanese debt is “sustainable” as it is locally issues, but hasn’t helped with the catastrophic devaluation of the yen that is making the lives of locals difficult (great fir foreign tourists though…).
Same with China, obsessing with holding up the yuan (as a food/energy/resources importer), but has hard capital controls that are scaring away investors. Thought China has it worse, as the deflation cycle from excessive government investment (yes that is a thing) will pretty much doom that country to thr middle income trap.
Long story short – MMT was a time-and-place theory in the 2010s and in the US. The policy proclamations of its adherents did not keep up with changing economic conditions nor local economic circumstances. We breached our inflation budget in 2022, and the MMT’ers went scurrying.
We need to learn to be self sustainable and not count on anyone else.
mjsays:
Tuesday, March 18, 2025 at 1:08 am
We need to learn to be self sustainable and not count on anyone else.
_____________________________________
Better yet. Take inspiration from one of my friend’s Italian ancestors who built a wall around their village and threw rocks at any strangers walking past.
You are being frivolous as usual. I never said build a wall, we should work with countries that want to work with us. But we need to be prepared in the event we are isolated for whatever reason.
C@tmomma says Monday, March 17, 2025 at 10:22 pm
Personally, I think the Chinese warship scare was pretty much a media and political beat up. I don’t recall see any creditable evidence of a Chinese submarine being involved, only some speculation. Unless there’s some evidence I’m going to lob that unseen submarine into the category of a “can you rule out x” loved by the media when it’s impossible to rule out anything.
pied piper says:
Monday, March 17, 2025 at 11:13 pm
…. who called Trump a Traitor…
Well, Trump is a traitor. He has repudiated nearly everything for which America has stood for the last 80 years. He has aligned the US with Putin, the thieving tyrant. Trump is treachery. He is betrayal. He is cowardice.
Dutton has decided to dress himself up as a local Trump. Trump is despised by Australian voters. They will very soon despise Dutton too.
mjsays:
Tuesday, March 18, 2025 at 1:08 am
[We need to learn to be self sustainable and not count on anyone else.]
Dave 1.12am,
[Take inspiration from one of my friend’s Italian ancestors who built a wall around their village and threw rocks at any strangers walking past.]
mjsays:
Tuesday, March 18, 2025 at 1:18 am
[You are being frivolous as usual]
Nah, just throwing rocks, to get lucky.
And good on ‘im.
Nath a rock thrower, who’d thought!
“lanceur de Pierre”
As the election gets closer there are now Liberals getting cold feet on nuclear. Whether it’s fears politically or policy wise they have now blinked.
“Desperate’ Liberal supporters have urged Peter Dutton to dump his $331bn nuclear promise, with fears the policy will drive voters to Teal and independent candidates in a tightly fought election.
A coalition of voters, supporters and former officials will launch the new advocacy group, Liberals Against Nuclear on Tuesday through a series of ads set to be blasted on television, online platforms and billboards in targeted electorates.
Spokesman and former Tasmanian Liberal director Andrew Gregson said while he didn’t have an issue with nuclear technology, the promise to build seven government-owned reactors by 2050 went against Liberal values of private enterprise and reducing bureaucracy.
“The people involved in this group are not doing it out of malice or anger but out of a desperation of sorts,” he told NewsWire.
“They want to see the Liberals win government, and they are involved in a campaign against their own party. That’s not a comfortable place to be.”
https://www.news.com.au/national/politics/new-advocacy-group-liberals-against-nuclear-calls-on-peter-dutton-to-dump-nuclear-promise/news-story/32aef6997cd75031983fe1b81113c1c8?amp
Putting the last few polls together, the green shoots for Labor are looking stronger by the day.
I think the “Public Servants must be in the office 5-days a week” was a major misstep by Peter Dutton, showing that he is really out of touch with is what is happening in the burbs.
The flexible work arrangements have been here for 5 years now, and people have built lives , and finances, around them. They are family friendly – a sick child is no longer the great cause for panic, especially in a tw0-parent family, where one parent can work from home.
It also saves a lot of money and time, not wasted on long commutes.
Productivity – depends who asked the question, but basically it has remained the same:
Even the conservative Hilda’s Network has found, in 2025:
“In a report from HILDA, 3 in 5 Aussie respondents indicated the same or better productivity following increased hours working from home. While only 24% reported a positive impact, about 33% had seen no change in productivity. At worst, 42% reported negative impacts.”
https://www.redsearch.com.au/resources/remote-work-working-home-statistics-australia/#:~:text=Working%20From%20Home%20Productivity%20Statistics,%2C%2042%25%20reported%20negative%20impacts.
And the increase in quality of life for those in suburbs with longish commutes (the burbs as I said above, not Annandale) should be one of those investments in children and families that is not reduced to a Productivity Commission report.
And “This will only happen to Public Servants therefore it does not affect me”?
A lot of companies, for not very good reasons (value of their capital real-estate investments – CBA in Barangaroo, I am looking at you), would just jump at the chance to force their employees back to the office full-time. And these employees know very well that a Coalition victory will bolster their resolve.
CBA has a hard “5 days in 10 in the office” policy, and even that has led to an exodus of some highly qualified staff – I personally know one such – who have grabbed lucrative European banking jobs based in Australia. But at least with this policy, families can still manage, and many people without long commutes are more than happy to do this.
And there are also many big employers, K-Mart etc. come to mind, where buyers and other non-shop-floor people do have flexible arrangements.
Do people trust Dutton to NOT put pressure on these employers in the same way he bullied Woolworths to put Australia day merchandise on the shelves, even though few people wanted to buy it?
And Peter Dutton’s comments that woman who work from home in the Public Service should “Job-share” if they could not get into the office 5-days a week? How is this supposed to help in a cost-of-living crisis?
While Sussan Ley tried to walk the comment back: “Only people who were not working remotely before COVID will have to go back.”, this still leaves a large number of people who have structured their lives around some work from home vulnerable of losing their job and not being able to service a mortgage, because childcare at short notice for a sick child is almost impossible to source, and in winter , children can get sick for literally weeks.
And for parents who have managed to juggle things so the kids are only in childcare three days a week, then how do they find the extra money for the extra two days? Not to mention the extra money for the travel from the outer suburbs.
And no matter how much Dutton, Ley and any other Coalition spokespersons promise that it will be only Public Servants affected, thanks to Campbell Newman and Tony Abbott, no one believes it.
For me this has resonances with Bill Shorten’s Franking Credits policy announcements in 2019. Firstly, it was poorly thought through – the first iteration would have deprived self-funded retirees at the poorer end of much-needed retirement income. As one pensioner said to me, the few hundred dollars she received from Franking Credits enabled her to register her car.
And once, the policy was walked back to exclude any pensioner – 1) people did not really register that this had occurred, because the issue itself was complex, and 2) people regard Labor as high taxing, and felt that even if they would exempt pensions in the beginning, it would not last.
But the biggest reaction to the Franking Credits scheme came very rationally from people who had set up SMFs under the previous rules. They would personally lose quite a bit, and voted Coalition in droves.
Here Dutton is playing with the same thing – people who have made financial and lifestyle decisions under the current rules.
Dutton’s Nuclear abomination is going down like a lead balloon in the suburbs of Australian
cities and towns.
The prospect of living next store to a Nuclear power plant is going down like a
led balloon in the mind of female voters across the country, tanking the popularity of the
Opposition leader Peter Dutton recent polls have concluded across the board.
— from the Guardian and Fairfax/Nine papers:
Most polls have concluded that Peter Dutton’s support for Nuclear Power has resulted in a marked decrease in his popularity in the polls mainly due to concern from women. Especially
women’s concern about raising children in the shadow of possible polluting Nuclear power plants.
David Rowe
Do you want to live next to a Nuclear Power Plant?
Should be the Question asked of EVERY Australian
says Anthony Albanese when considering voting for Peter Dutton’s Nuclear Australia option.
The Guardian and FairFax/Nine papers surveyed over 1000 Australians and got the following responses;
(1) No we do not want to live anywhere near a Nuclear power plant
(2) Renewables are the the way Australia should be dealing with Energy shortages.
And what a shocker that PB’ers like taylormade support temu-trump Dutton’s view on poisoning Australia’s pristine land with poisonous Nuclear power plants.
Women don’t want to give birth to 3-eyed babies!
New thread.
On the other hand, if I was a young woman again I’d be lining up to have Bizzcan’s babies. He really spoke to Nicholas in the language Nicholas understands and knocked him and his unrealistic ideas into a cocked hat last night. 🙂
The Abbott..
Why did Tony Abbott wait until he was almost 24 years old to become an Australian citizen?
At this time Tony Abbott was 23 years and 7 months of age and, had either applied for a Rhodes Scholarship or was intending to apply for this scholarship to study at Oxford University in the United Kingdom.
Currently such applications must be applied for after 1 June in the year a Rhodes Scholarship is on offer.
To gain a Rhodes Scholarship an applicant has to be an Australian citizen and have been resident in Australia for at least five of the last ten years.
Tony Abbott was apparently intending to depart Australia on or about 10 July 1981 and, started his scholarship course at Queens College, Oxford, in October 1981.
One cannot escape the suspicion that the future Prime Minister of Australia only applied for Australian citizenship at that time in order to gain a monetary advantage which would allow him to further his studies overseas.
Which, if true, would make him a somewhat reluctant Aussie and perhaps go some way to explaining his strong admiration of the British monarchy and those anachronistic English titles he has re-introduced (without consultation with Cabinet or party room) into the Australian honours system.
Note: Immigration and citizenship information found at the National Archives of Australia.
https://theaimn.com/why-did-tony-abbott-wait-until-he-was-almost-24-years-old-to-become-an-australian-citizen/#google_vignette
Hahaha Lars the Thorpe affair being rebooted in Manuka. A bizarre love triangle indeed !