On the cusp of interruptions to the campaign arising from Easter and Anzac Day, a flurry of new poll results:
• The Freshwater Strategy poll for the Financial Review has been the most favourable series for the Coalition throughout the past term, and remains so with a new result recording a tie on two-party preferred. The change from 51-49 in the Coalition’s favour in the post-budget poll is due to either rounding or respondent-allocated preferences, as the primary votes are entirely unchanged at Labor 32%, Coalition 39% and Greens 12%. There is also little movement on the leaders’ ratings, with both down a point on approval and steady on disapproval, leaving Anthony Albanese at 37% and 48% and Peter Dutton at 36% and 47%. Albanese’s lead as preferred prime minister is nonetheless out from 46-45 to 46-41. I don’t normally pay much attention to the poll’s “management of voter priorities” results, but it may be notable that Labor now leads 35% to 31% as the best party to handle housing compared with a 33% to 30% deficit last time. The poll was conducted Monday to Wednesday from a sample of 1062.
• The News Corp papers report a new MRP poll by RedBridge Group and Accent Research, conducted from February 3 to April 1 from a sample of 9953, projects a minimum 66 seats for Labor, 55 for the Coalition and 15 for minor parties and independents, with 14 seats too close to call. Chisholm, Aston and Dobell are rated as Coalition gains from Labor, with Sturt and Bass going the other way. As is sometimes the case with MRP polling, there are some unorthodox projections with respect to minor parties and independents, with the Liberals favoured to gain Kooyong from Monique Ryan and Brisbane from the Greens, but lose Cowper, Calare and Monash to various stripes of independent. The seats rated too close to call are Labor-held Robertson, Reid, Shortland, Bennelong, Gilmore, Paterson, Bruce, Hawke, McEwen and Lingiari, Liberal-held Hughes and Casey, teal-held Goldstein, and the new seat of Bullwinkel.
• The Daily Mail reports on an Ipsos poll that offers nothing on voting intention, but finds Anthony Albanese on 35% approval and 39% disapproval, Peter Dutton with distinctly poor ratings of 27% approval and 47% disapproval, and Albanese leading 44-30 on preferred prime minister. Forty-seven per cent expected Labor to win, compared with 26% for the Coalition, but 35% felt the country was headed on the right track compared with 51% for the wrong track. No field work dates are provided, but the sample was 2006.
• The Courier-Mail reports polling conducted for Australian Energy Producers by JWS Research shows the Greens set to lose all three of their seats in Brisbane, by an eyebrow-raising margin in the case of Ryan, where incumbent Elizabeth Watson-Brown is credited with just 13% of the primary vote. The LNP candidate is on 45% and leads second-placed Labor 57-43 on two-party preferred. Things presumably aren’t much better for Stephen Bates in Brisbane, where Labor is credited with a 51-49 two-party lead from primary votes of 42% for the LNP and 29% for Labor. The report says Labor leads the LNP 51-49 in Griffith in scenarios where Greens member Max Chandler-Mather drops out and the LNP leads him 53-47 where Labor does, but the primary votes that would allow for the likelihood of the respective scenarios to be evaluated are not provided. We are told the sample for the Ryan poll was 2547, but I suspect this was for the three seats in total.
• The Lowy Institute has published some preview results of its annual survey of attitudes to foreign policy, finding 41% of the view that Anthony Albanese would be more competent at handling foreign policy compared with 29% for Peter Dutton. Dutton is at 35% to Albanese’s 34% for handling Donald Trump, but Albanese leads 45% to 25% for handling Xi Jinping. There was a 64-36 break against the proposition that the United States can be trusted to act responsibly in the world, compared with 56-44 in favour last year. Eighty per cent nonetheless hold that the relationship is very or fairly important to Australia’s security, down only three points. The survey was conducted March 3 to 16 from a sample of 2117.
There’s trans and there’s trans.
Some trans know they’re in the wrong body from their mind and/or brain. Sometimes from a very early age, as young as 6 or 7.
Others only have to look at themselves in the mirror or look at their genitals that may not be all there or in some cases have both gender looking genitals.
With puberty blockers and reconstruction surgery available to almost everyone who wants it, it’s only a matter of time that procedures like this will be commonplace.
Kirsdarke @ #744 Thursday, April 17th, 2025 – 11:34 pm
Or better still, when she drank it and inadvertently used cat hair and became a half herminone/half cat
I know it’s Thursday, but it feels like Friday, so …
Imagine the Earth as a perfect sphere exactly 6400km in radius. There is a ribbon around the equator, seamless, that exactly touches the surface all the way around. Now we magically increase the length of the ribbon by 20 centimetres and lift it so that it’s equidistant from the surface of the Earth at all points.
To one significant figure, how far is the ribbon from the surface? Bonus points if you can explain how calculus allows you to do it in your head.
(Yeah, it’s not really a logic puzzle, really a maths puzzle, but I’m running out of logic puzzles.)
Snakes leave you alone unless you threaten them aye
Natalia Viana of Agência Pública (courtesy of World Crunch with a translation by Irene Caselli) writes that it’s the Global South that has been pushing back on American Big Tech companies.
It’s undeniable: The land of the free is no longer a free country.
For those living there, it’s an exasperating realization — one we incorporated generations ago in Latin America — that an authoritarian regime isn’t upheld only by decisions made at the top, but by how that authoritarianism seeps into the fabric of society. This is how the hunger for power goes to the head of the policeman around the corner, or to the so-called good citizen next door, who under a far-right government, suddenly decide to keep an eye on you.
Although the neo-fascists in the White House want the world to believe they wield absolute power — not just over the United States but over the globe — the truth is, politics doesn’t play out solely in palaces. Americans are about to learn that resistance begins in the everyday; that surrendering your liberties out of fear is the first step toward total defeat. There are already early signs of resistance, as Brazil expert James Green pointed out in Agência Pública. […]
But for those who see no escape from the nightmare of authoritarianism fused with techno-oligarchy, let me remind you: the world isn’t standing still, waiting on a handful of white men. I bring a few words of hope
https://worldcrunch.com/eyes-on-the-us/american-oligarchy-world/
Harry Potter supports trans people. He hates his creator and the faux left. Thinks they may be cookers, more than the average grassy knoll believers.
New thread.
mj
I don’t care for the kind of leftism that would be willing to throw those of my identity under the bus. We all get to the top together, or not at all.
Let me plant a little seed here for the tradleft types.
Trans workers are workers. In many cases, they are union members. You can’t claim to be for the workers while selling some workers up the river.
the toilet wars have obscured the real issue: due to religious zealotry being all up in my police state, bottle shops are not open tomorrow. when will chris minns act to correct this cruel injustice?
Ante Meridian @ #752 Thursday, April 17th, 2025 – 11:46 pm
It’s a bit late in the day for me to think of a serious answer, so I’ll just head to bed with this answer.
Dr Fumbles
It is only 124 light years so once they invent cyro-hibernation, stasis pods or, better still warp drive we can get there.
……………………………………………………………………………………………….
It may as well be a trillion light years away.
In fact it may not exist any longer so it will be a one way journey for all those that you mentioned.
Plus Dutton.
Fair enough, Kirsdarke. Can’t argue with that.
mjsays:
Thursday, April 17, 2025 at 11:36 pm
The left needs a greater cause than being for this or that identity, the obvious greater cause is current material conditions. I don’t care for identity politics.
______________________
The biggest gain for the living standards of trans and other LGBT folk is that they can apply for and gain the same well paying jobs many of us have, without embarrassment or hiding who they are.
*****
sustainable snailsays:
Thursday, April 17, 2025 at 11:28 pm
Well apart from the few shoppie types, thank you ALP posters for not piling in on the anti trans commentary, unlike some faux left who actually have been exposed for their diatribe. Some of us need solidarity on this.
____________________
Trans folk are simply people who deserve respect and a good job – something that the US is willing to throw away for some of their most talented and hard working people. I recently interacted with a fairly obvious trans midwife recently and they were the upmost professional and a welcomed presence in care.
“To one significant figure, how far is the ribbon from the surface”
1. Rounded of course.
I live in a community that has male and female homosexuals , now we have a person who dresses in womens clothes as he is a man who is a woman. A problem has now arrisen as this person insists on using the women’s toilets.
Some women are offended and frightened of this person. After being approached and told that using the women’s toilet is offending and frightening them, this person says that he wants to use the women’s toilet as he is a women.
My reaction to this is that these people exist and have always existed. If we were to accept this fact we would all be free and no longer be frightened. So, accept these people exist and they are not there to harm us, we would all be free,
But I guess this means I am woke 🙂
CN says:
Thursday, April 17, 2025 at 11:49 pm
mj
I don’t care for the kind of leftism that would be willing to throw those of my identity under the bus. We all get to the top together, or not at all.
Let me plant a little seed here for the tradleft types.
Trans workers are workers. In many cases, they are union members. You can’t claim to be for the workers while selling some workers up the river.
———
I’m not saying trans people should be thrown under the bus. I’m just saying it should not be a prime area of concern and to view narrow identities as something that unites us. Leftists should look at outcomes for everyone and seek outcomes that improve society broadly.
98.6 @ #715 Thursday, April 17th, 2025 – 11:00 pm
Just catching up, the whole ‘awful get hit on by a guy cause i am a big tough straight man’ thing is sailing pretty close to the good old ‘gay panic’ defense where one could beat up someone and then claim, “oh he hit on me i was so scared” and then get away with it.
A common theory from psycs is that those most insecure about their own sexuality have the greatest fear and often violent response.
I can’t tell you the number of times guys have tried to hit on me, I must have a faulty gaydar but it used to happen alot – and mostly I didn’t much notice it
as I am comfortable with what I am. There were a few overt propositions but thats easy enough to say, sorry not into that.
Anyhow traveling in the US as well, what is it with them and young Aussie blokes, I encountered it a few times but instead of shrieking in panic i was nice, what happened?, people are nice back, in fact so nice I got flight upgrades of the, there’s a spare seat in business class type, or upgraded meals, free drinks and all sorts.
And you know what, it is exactly the kinda thing that happens to pretty girls from straight guys and it is harmless.
Getting onto toilets, I have used the wrong one by mistake but that was in France and they were labelled M and H. An you are wrong, every toilet has a urinal, it is called a sink. As a noted intellectual one said “I am a man and the world is my toilet”.
There’s a new thread, everyone.
Bludgeoned Westie at 4.11 and 4.14 pm
Thanks for your update.
On a pedantic point there is no LNP candidate in Bullwinkel. Mia Davies is National candidate but she will be defeated by Dutton’s shemozzles.
Look at the swing to Labor in WA on BT then consider the nominal margin for the new seat. The logic you used to make Chisholm a Labor retain applies much more to Bullwinkel.
You have noted Rebecca White’s status as a key factor in Labor retaining Lyons. So is Labor’s health policy. Albo was in Bridgewater the other day promoting that policy. Note there is more salmon farming in Franklin than in Lyons but most of it is in Braddon, where the Liberal candidate has been caught fabricating a non-affluent image. The obvious contrast is Bass, where Ms Archer does not have to resort to fake news.
Your expected 6 Lib gains from Labor are based on out of date polling. What is significant is you have only two such gains in Victoria, clearly where the swing against Labor is likely to be largest, though Shorten claimed that is diminishing, which is clearly true.
Labor have never lost Lingiari, and with a strong local MP will retain it.
You have apparently ignored the big problems facing the Lib candidate in Bennelong. Neither that seat nor Gilmore are clear Lib gains, despite the small margins, both because of the weaknesses of the Lib candidates and because of the trend to Labor.
If you change those 4 seats (Lingiari, Bullwinkel, Bennelong and Gilmore) to Labor, and you recognise that Dai Le (on a small margin against a blow-in candidate in Keneally) is likely to lose, partly due to the trend back to Labor, you would get to 75 seats. Then the hypothetical Greens gains in Wills and Macnamara are all that stop you from recognising a likely Labor win.
What are those Greens gains based on? Macnamara is likely to be close but why presume the Greens will win?
The barbarity of Netanyahu’s war will not change many votes in the end.
Despite Trump, the election is being decided overwhelmingly on domestic issues. Greens are in a better position at retaining seats than gaining them.
Democracy Sausagesays:
Thursday, April 17, 2025 at 7:25 pm
…
Dai Le definitely will get a sophmore surge and be reelected. Every time I turn on Sky News, she’s on one program or another, …
I have to just laugh every time I see “X has been on Sky News, so they’ve got a public profile…”
Have you seen the ratings? Nobody watches Sky News. We’re talking audience figures in the mid-4 figures.
pied pipersays:
Thursday, April 17, 2025 at 7:28 pm
“Work for the dole can be gamed.A lot of people do online courses as per their obligation and on one page is the course and on another computer page is the work for the dole killer.
ChatGPT.”
This is another one of those fact-free anecdotes that lazy conservatives love to cite about dole bludgers. You don’t have a clue about what it’s like to have to suffer the jumping through hoops centrelink demands from people with the misfortune to have lost a job.
Work for the dole is useless, it is a punitive measure that has no value in terms of either work experience or value to society in the work done. And it was the Liberals under the previous Government who made it as useless as it is.
And as for ChatGPT – none of the online tests Centrelink counts as valid for points are able to be gamed using AI in any way. They’re just not structured that way. This is something some rusted-on LNP hack came up with at the pub at 11pm, worked up a few pensioners about, and it’s spread far enough that it got to you – unless you’re the one making it up. It’s despicable, gutter-bottom politics.
C@tmomma
Apologies C@t, missed your post. I don’t know Maitland well, but it’s typical of the outer suburban and regional demographic with the added factor of a lot of voters who work in the mines, coal power stations, or associated industries.
This Easter weekend is one of the busiest betting (horse racing) periods of the year.
After Saturday’s racing, I will get to my contacts and provide the most accurate information regarding betting activity on our election in Australia, make that the world
By early next week, if interested, stay tuned.
Ante Meridian -> the ribbon will be 1/(10pi) meters above the surface. *shrugs* No calculus but no calculator.
Metres (r is new radius):
12 800 000pi + 0.2 = 2 pi r
r = 6 400 000 + 1/(10pi)
r increased by 1/(10pi)
Or 1/31.4159m… a little over 3cm.