The News Corp papers have a new poll RedBridge Group and Accent Research, which appears from the reporting to be a national poll, though in other respects it looks like the third wave of the marginal seat tracking poll that last reported in early March. It credits Labor with a two-party lead of 52-48, out from 51-49 in the pollster’s last result from March 13 to 24. The primary votes are Labor 33% (down one), Coalition 36% (down two) and Greens 12% (up one). The poll also finds 40% now feel the government is “focused on the right priorities” compared with 43% for the contrary view, which compares with 30% and 52% when the same question was asked in November. Thirty-eight per cent rate Peter Dutton and the Coalition as “ready for government” compared with 43% for unready, which compares with 40% and 39% in November.
Thirty-three per cent felt Labor’s “economic vision” was better for themselves compared with 28% for the Coalition; 31% felt Labor’s was better for Australia compared with 29% for the Coalition. Questions on individual policies are favourable to the Coalition to the extent of recording a net plus 47% for a 25% cut in the permanent migration program and plus 39% for fast-tracking new gas projects. Views are less favourable on reducing the public service by 41,000 at plus 5%, and less favourable still for ending public servants’ work from home arrangements, at minus 5%. The poll had an unusually long gestation period of March 8 to April 1 and a sample of 1006 (UPDATE: The report turns out to be in error – March 8 should read March 28).
The active ingredients in Bex powder were aspirin, phenacetin, and caffeine. They were banned in the ’70s due to the harmful effects of phenacetin on the kidneys. They were advertised thus:
‘A cup of tea, a Bex and a good lie down.’ The thing was that many didn’t get up again.
Kirsdarke says:
Saturday, April 5, 2025 at 8:44 pm
The difference between who Jacinta Price is and how the Coalition and aligned media present her as doesn’t feel like a paradox to me. It feels like they want to maximise how validated they feel in their own perceptions and views related to Aboriginal Australians by her atypical worldview. I think they’re not doing it because they think she prefers to be presented that way, but because they prefer her to be presented that way.
On some level it could also be linked to wanting/honestly believing she is or should be a role model to Aboriginal Australians in how she has fully integrated (others would say assimilated) into ‘Australia’.
…just how it has come across to me, at any rate.
If I was so bold to make a prediction now I think the Liberals make no or few net gains at the election. They may win a few outer suburban seats offset by losses elsewhere. Probably will gain disproportional support in seats they already hold and where they don’t need it.
Mj I think the gain a few seats the liberals but when I heard they need 21 to govern in majority of I was like that’s gonna be hard because the labour party at the moment is it hated now it’s looking like it turned a corner so it’s even gonna be even more harder
Quentin, Labor isn’t deeply loved but I think it’s clearly the more preferred of the 2 parties and the only one of them capable of being a sensible government. Labor is a liberal party nowadays. The “Liberal” party under Dutton is a wannabe fascist outfit that turns most people off them.
In Aston the Lib has coated the area in corflutes. There are everywhere. Labor has corflutes in prominent areas. Looks like about 20 lib corflutes to each Labor plus a smattering of Green and independent. There has been plenty of instances of Labor corflutes being removed while Liberal ones are left alone.
The general feeling in Aston is that the Libs have gone overboard in the corflute war. One would think elections are won by the number of corflutes and billboards. Hint, corflutes are not votes.
Like other posters I have not detected strong anti government vibes despite the best (worst) efforts of Murdoch and the Age.
I feel that the swing against the federal ALP in Victoria may be somewhat exaggerated.
Whilst Jacinta Allan and the state ALP are on the nose, Dutton is not well liked in Victoria at all and for all the hullabaloo over the Werribee and Prahran state by-elections in February of this year, there was a 16.5% swing away from Labor on first preferences but only 3.7% went to the Libs in Werribee. In Prahran where the ALP did not stand a candidate, there was a 4.8% swing to the Libs on first preferences, hardly a recipe for disaster federally for the ALP.
It seems like state based perceptions of the parties are still critical. It’s kind of weird if WA had the highest federal Labor vote at the election but it wouldn’t be surprising given the state govt’s record.
MJ what I meant to say was labour wasn’t as hated as people think it was in the lead up to the election that’s why I always said both parties on election night aren’t gonna walk away happy now I think one’s gonna walk away happy the other’s gonna look at themselves and go why did we decide to go Trump and if they win and decide to go Trump well the backlash is gonna look money similar to what happened had
Kirsdarke says:
Saturday, April 5, 2025 at 8:44 pm
“You know, since 2023 there’s been an annoying paradox when it comes to Senator Price. Her whole political brand is that she’s an indigenous person who cast away her identity as an indigenous person, who has declared that colonialism was a good thing among other positions that most other indigenous people would disagree with.
Yet all the pro-Coalition outlets insist on calling her “Jacinta Nampijinpa Price”, making sure to include her indigenous language name in every mention of her.
So is it one thing or the other with her?”
The hard right have found their token Aboriginal and Price is more than happy to go along with that.
She gave up being a black fella a long time ago to join the colonist gravy train, just like Warren Mundine. The “pro coalition outlets” as you call them, are hellbent on presenting her and Mundine as the “voices” of Aboriginal peoples and anyone who raises objection to them, they are labeled as lefties, “woke” (whatever that means).
They call her “Jacinta Nampijinpa Price” to try and legitimise her even though she, like her Mum, joined the National Party whose constituency were infamous for organising hunts with the prefix starting with the letter n and ending with the letter r.
DepressReleasesays:
Saturday, April 5, 2025 at 11:39 pm
Kirsdarke says:
Saturday, April 5, 2025 at 8:44 pm
The difference between who Jacinta Price is and how the Coalition and aligned media present her as doesn’t feel like a paradox to me. It feels like they want to maximise how validated they feel in their own perceptions and views related to Aboriginal Australians by her atypical worldview. I think they’re not doing it because they think she prefers to be presented that way, but because they prefer her to be presented that way.
On some level it could also be linked to wanting/honestly believing she is or should be a role model to Aboriginal Australians in how she has fully integrated (others would say assimilated) into ‘Australia’.
…just how it has come across to me, at any rate.
_______________________________________________________
You should read a little before you make it up, I have met Jacinta’s Mum on a few occasions when she was the CLP member in the NT Government. Bess was born in Yuendumu and her politics was born out of what happened to her people when the sit down money began. To say Jacinta is atypical to the majority of Aboriginal people is wrong, particularly for traditional aboriginal people in communities, many have seen what easy money did to their people. Much of the good will to the ALP is born out of Land rights and fairly so but that is waning, unfortunately ALP get the vote now as they are most likely to give extra money out. Sad. Also worth noting that even for the voice the turnout was barely above 60% in the communities and the excuse that it is difficult to get to vote is simply not true. Every community has a place to vote, they just chose not to even for an issue that was sold as helping the traditional communities the most. I do often wonder what the turnout and outcome would be in these communities without all the teachers and community administrators were not handing out the ALP how to vote cards,
I’m in Swan and so far I’ve only seen corflutes for the Liberal candidate, some before the state election had finished. Interestingly, some houses are displaying them for Liberal candidate for Swan, but never had anything up for the Liberal candidate for South Perth. Senator Linda Reynolds house (at least I’m told it is) has had a sign for the Swan candidate for some months.
I feel that the swing against the federal ALP in Victoria may be somewhat exaggerated.
Whilst Jacinta Allan and the state ALP are on the nose, Dutton is not well liked in Victoria at all and for all the hullabaloo over the Werribee and Prahran state by-elections in February of this year, there was a 16.5% swing away from Labor on first preferences but only 3.7% went to the Libs in Werribee. In Prahran where the ALP did not stand a candidate, there was a 4.8% swing to the Libs on first preferences, hardly a recipe for disaster federally for the ALP.
@Playa Girón
Agree with this. I will also add NSW state Labor was hated after the corruption of Eddie Obeid. But it didn’t really translate into support for Federal NSW Liberals during that period. That’s why people need to be cautious thinking state and federal results will completely mimic each other. I’m happy to acknowledge that there can be some rub off sometimes though. Federal WA Labor benefited some rub off from the popularity of the state McGowan government last federal election.
The easy money of having their tribal land stolen via genocide and displacement, by the british crown, handed over to billionaires who can pillage as they see fit and binding them to western law except for the one law that really matters, which is possession, a depravation of land ownership that would otherwise be worth billions upon billions of dollars.
Quentin Rountree at 11.01 and 11.33 pm and midnight
There is a reason why Dr Bonham has warned that the Hung Parliament scenario is far from certain.
The reason is that polls can change during the campaign when the often disinterested or barely interested voters eventually start to think about what their voting choice involves.
That has probably started to happen in the past month, a bit earlier than usual because the lead up to this election was so prolonged.
Labor have picked up substantially in the past month, so that a majority is almost within reach. Dutton is not at all agile, so the trend seems likely to continue rather than anything else.
Despite what others believe, Nadia goes largely off the polls, although sometimes extrapolating too much, without recalling Dr Bonham’s point about the potential for rapid change.
She was right to focus on Labor’s poor primary in Victoria. Even Shorten would have done so before retiring, though without offering solutions. But the swing to the Libs in Victoria has started to diminish somewhat, as some of the local observers expected.
What the polls can’t accurately assess is the firm or spongy nature of the apparent support. The Werribee result suggests any shift in support toward Dutton in Victoria has been spongy.
There is also a basic reason for poll aggregation, which is to identify real trends not insignificant minutae. It is possible that the big shift has already occurred in the past month. Yet it is hard to see Dutton reversing any of it.
In the end as always it comes down to the effectiveness of local campaigns. Labor is better placed, both due to the pendulum and due to its discipline.
Because the shift has occurred the extra holidays will help not hinder Labor. Dutton believes, as Moir put in during the Voice referendum, that “ignorance is strength”, but it turns out most Australians are not actually ignorant about him, as the vignettes in the story from Ms Maiden showed.
As S. Birmingham is fond of saying in private to his mirror, “I was right”.
Even leaders of the right can do good things from time to time.
Malcolm Fraser was active in the campaign against apartheid (Margaret Simons has an interesting obituary on Fraser at https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2015/mar/20/malcolm-fraser-dared-dream-original-australian-foreign-policy).
Without Margaret Thatcher I think it would have been much harder to have had the Montreal Protocol signed. She was also an early advocate for action on global warming.
George W Bush’s PEPFAR program has probably saved millions of lives in Africa.
There’s shades of grey in everyone (although the Trump administration is probably closer to charcoal, and Miller is probably jet black).
Edit: The above people had some sort of moral compass, even if we didn’t necessary align with it ourselves. I don’t think Trump and most of those around him have any sense of morality at all.
Political Nightwatchman says Sunday, April 6, 2025 at 1:03 am
Morrison was critical of WA closing its border (remember the reference to the Croods) and supported Clive Palmer in his High Court challenge. The bats were out for him anyway regardless of McGowan’s popularity.
It’s interesting that Albanese seems to visit WA a lot more than other Prime Ministers, especially compared to Morrison.
Playa Girón @ #559 Sunday, April 6th, 2025 – 12:49 am
That’s a pretty good way of putting it.
@bc swan is a very interesting one. I’ve seen wall to wall Lib and keep the sheep corflutes around south Perth and comp but more for labor around vic park.
Has always been seen as one of the bellwether seats but i don’t think the labor MP should have any problems this time.
Dutton thought this would just be a referendum on Albanese. He was wrong.
It is Peter Dutton who appears hesitant and reactive. The Prime Minister projects confidence and Labor seemed to head into the campaign with at least an element of a message.
This is big coming from Simon Benson( The Oz).
steve davis says:
Sunday, April 6, 2025 at 2:00 am
Dutton thought this would just be a referendum on Albanese. He was wrong.
It’s a referendum on Trump, Dutton and The Reactionaries. They will be lucky to attract the reluctant support of 2/5 of the electorate, and many of those voters will be in their stronghold seats. The rest of the country will vote against them in their millions. The Reactionaries might well lose all their capital city seats, save a handful of outer-urban/semi-rural redoubts.
They have been pursuing ideologically Rightist nonsense for years and years. No-one can take them seriously.
Just going off state results, Swan won’t be that close. Every other election, its marginal status gets explained by it being a mix of South Perth (rock solid Lib) and safe Labor seats to the east. Except now, Labor have won South Perth twice in a row. WA Libs are damn near extinct south of the river, and it’ll bite them there and in Tangney.
Steely Dan (and others)
[aboriginal people in communities, many have seen what easy money did to their people. ]
That argument, that commonly walked path, that discrimination, that hate and that innate classification exists in every aspect of Australian society.
The TV show from many years ago now, “Kingswood Country” exemplified the use of classification, discrimination and parody in Australian society.
“sit down money”, a discriminatory phrase, presents discrimination in its multitude of manifestations in Australia so acutely.
Impossible not to remember the “franking credits” election, and the opposition to removing “franking credits”, particularly by people not knowing what “franking credits” are!
The use and the derivation of the word”pom” was born of discrimination.
The structure of the entire Australian education system is born of discrimination.
The Trump phonomena is born of discrimination.
As Dutton flounders in “the shit” of his own making, discrimination as a political weapon will emerge and be displayed in its entire spectrum.
Elections do that.
Mr Albanese has at this point of the electoral cycle and electoral campaign, navigated the minefield of discrimination that is nearly every Australians, “suit of armour”, to parade and justify their relative value.
Being Australian is taking for granted “easy sit-down money” and yet the need to discriminate is profound.
The sheer audacity of Dutton and the LNP to broadcast their version of “make Australia great again” says it all.
The Dutton LNP opposition to WFH is a modern version of opposition to a variety of “sit down money”.
Australians just “hate” to think that they’re missing out.
Wouldn’t Mr Dutton like some of the Kirribilli “sit down” money, but instead the “sit down money” could end up in the pocket of the single parent housing commision boy.
The great Australian anthem “watta about me”!
The anti “black fella” thing is the festering blight on the ” lucky country”.
New thread.
Global Tariff shit show.
I will be blunt..… when you are in an existential crisis .. you do anything to survive.. if that means you eliminate the source.. you do it.. you put a bullet to the mad cows head.. it will happen.. it happened to Popes that were past their use by date.
Paul Krugmann substack ..
https://substack.com/home/post/p-160404589
Another vote winner:
Taxpayers will contribute $4000 for an average household battery installation under a $2.3 billion election commitment by Anthony Albanese, with Labor promising the policy will push electricity prices down for “everyone”.
The Prime Minister will on Sunday make a speech in the Brisbane electorate of Griffith and vow to make it about 30 per cent cheaper for Australian households to install batteries that are charged by energy generated by rooftop solar panels.
The installation cost of an 11 kilowatt battery – a size used for a typical family home – would be brought down to about $9300. The subsidy also applies for the first 50 kilowatts of a 100 kilowatt battery, which would be enough power for a small business, with the cost to taxpayers for a battery of this size to be about $15,000.
With Labor aiming to win Griffith from the Greens, Mr Albanese said the policy was “good for power bills and good for the environment”. “Labor’s number one priority is delivering cost of living relief,” Mr Albanese said. “That’s why we want to make sure Australians have access to cheaper, cleaner energy.”
https://www.theaustralian.com.au/nation/anthony-albanese-vows-household-battery-subsidy-will-push-down-power-prices-for-everyone/news-story/1984b5551fed4bb874abcdfc04ae6936?amp
World News & Politics Patrol:
Russian attack on Zelensky’s home city kills 19 people, including 9 children, one of the deadliest strikes this year: https://edition.cnn.com/2025/04/04/americas/ukraine-strike-zelensky-russia-latam-intl/index.html
‘Take a deep breath’: Treasury Secretary urges countries not to retaliate against tariffs: https://abc3340.com/news/nation-world/take-a-deep-breath-treasury-secretary-scott-bessent-urges-countries-not-to-retaliate-against-president-donald-trump-liberation-day-tariffs-china-european-union-canada-mexico
China says ‘market has spoken’ after Trump tariffs spark global stocks rout: https://www.cnbc.com/2025/04/05/china-says-market-has-spoken-after-trump-tariffs-spark-stocks-rout.html
Russian Markets Reel from Trump Tariffs, Oil Price Collapse: https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2025/04/05/russian-markets-reel-from-trump-tariffs-oil-price-collapse-a88618
BBC accused of ‘Islamist propaganda’ for calling Muslim converts ‘reverts’: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/04/05/bbc-accused-of-islamist-propaganda-muslim-revert-convert/
Donald Trump to Skip US Soldier Memorial, White House Confirms: https://www.newsweek.com/donald-trump-skip-us-soldier-memorial-white-house-confirms-2055449#:~:text=Lithuanian%20President%20Gitanas%20Naus%C4%97da%20attended,Read%20more%20Donald%20Trump
Nintendo Fans Blame Trump After Switch 2 Delayed in U.S. Due to Tariffs: ‘Worst President of US History’: https://www.latintimes.com/nintendo-fans-blame-trump-after-switch-2-delayed-us-due-tariffs-worst-president-us-history-579988
‘Dumbest’ Recession Ever: Democrats Prepare To Make GOP Pay For Trump’s Tariffs: https://www.huffpost.com/entry/democrats-make-gop-pay-trump-tariffs-recession_n_67eea459e4b0c989cefdf544
McConnell calls out Trump for hiring ‘amateur isolationists’ at Pentagon, firing NSA director: https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/5234058-mcconnell-trump-pentagon-nsa-criticism/
As Stock Market Plunges Over Tariffs, Trump Takes In The Greens At His Golf Course: https://www.huffpost.com/entry/trump-golfing-tariffs-stock-market-plummeting_n_67f0a7c4e4b0f761e074019b
‘Unhappy’ Trump Blindsided by Musk Briefing on Secret China War Plan: https://www.thedailybeast.com/unhappy-trump-shaken-by-musk-briefing-on-secret-china-war-plan/
Trump Approval Rating Goes Negative With Republican Pollster for First Time: https://www.newsweek.com/donald-trump-approval-rating-polls-2055795
Elon Musk’s DOGE teams cut critical funding from America’s libraries, officials say: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/elon-musk-doge-cuts-libraries/
Labour MP Dan Norris arrested on suspicion of rape and child sex offences: https://news.sky.com/story/labour-mp-arrested-on-suspicion-of-rape-and-child-sex-offences-13342856
The absurdity of Trump’s tariffs lies in their supposed outcome: a resurgence in American manufacturing; a nostalgic return to the days where every small town had a factory employing its citizens in well-paid jobs, and the American dream was alive.
Most of those factories lie in ruins now; the towns they supported are today inhabited mostly by those who couldn’t afford to leave. Whole industries like steelmaking and aluminum smelting are either gone or going. Why? Because it was cheaper to move those manufacturing jobs overseas. There may have been some advantages in material costs, but mostly it was the cost of labour (and lax labour regulation) that made offshoring of manufacturing so attractive.
Apart from the risks of investing millions (or billions) of dollars rebuilding – physically erecting and equipping – the lost factories, they then have to be operated. Any workers they employ will not want to work for Chinese, Bangladeshi, or Vietnamese wages. Sure, immigrants might bridge the gap, or some of it, but MAGA policy objectices are to get rid of immigrants, not reinvite them back into the country. Even visitors with their paperwork in order are starting to be disappeared off the street, sometimes direct from the airport, in a giant “Fuck you” to the rest of the planet.
Another solution is to increase the use of robots to make the new factories work. But by definition this does little to to take those displaced workers (all of them voters) off food stamps. All it might accomplish is to enrich the oligarchs who own the companies. In any case, many of those workers are either close to or have passed retirement age. And it’s unlikely their ruined towns will be rebuilt in any case.
All of the above is based on the tariffs staying permanently in place, or at least being long-term. And nothing Trump has ever done is long-term. His modus operandi has always been to lurch from deal to deal, running hostile takeovers, threatening new victims, seeing them fear him, and finally give in to him, just to feed his narcissism and his deluded vision of himself as a business genius. Anyone who relies on Trump to create any kind of stable, long-term business environment is kidding themselves. Trump is too opportunistic, too unpredictable.
In short, apart from a few foolish cult members who have swallowed the “Trump” Kool-Aid, and wiĺl do anything he demands, no-one will be rebuilding the new factories. The ghost towns will not be repopulated. A new generation of well-paid American industrial workers will remain stillborn. There will be no jobs at the local plant. The Trumpist vision of an America Made Great Again is a pipe dream.
It’s up to the rest of the World to accept this and go about its business, the sooner the better.
One factoid that Rick Wilson conveyed yesterday in a Substack video sealed the lunacy of Trump’s Make American Manufacturing Great Again thought bubble for me. He said that to build any of these Manufacturing plants they will require a Long Haul Internal Crane (at least that’s what I think he called it). He said such places can’t function without one. The wait time for one at the moment?
9 years