The monthly poll from Essential Research has Labor down a point to 30%, the Coalition steady on 24%, One Nation up a point to 25% (overtaking the Coalition for the first time in this series) and the Greens up a point to 11%, with a further 5% undecided. The Coalition continues to have its nose ahead of Labor on this pollster’s 2PP+ measure, which has the Coalition up two to 49% and Labor up one to 47%, with the balance undecided. Anthony Albanese is up two on approval to 41% and steady at 51% disapproval, while Angus Taylor is down one on approval to 34% and up one on disapproval to 34%.
Further questions find 26% approving and 42% disapproving of the US and Israeli military action on Iran, with 34% approving and 26% disapproving of Australia’s response. Twenty-one per cent said they would support sending troops if requested by the US and Israel with 50% opposed; 32% supported and 35% opposed the government’s actual policy of sending weapons and equipment to countries like the United Arab Emirates; and 37% said they would support and 31% oppose offering refuge to displaced civilians.
Questions on international relationships find sentiment towards China softening considerably as compared with 2021: where 12% then felt Australia should get closer to China “in terms of diplomatic and trade relationships” compared with 51% for “become less close”, the respective numbers are now 21% and 26%. For the United States, “get closer” is down from 32% to 21% and “become less” close up from 14% to 34%. The Guardian’s report says the sample was 1067, and the field work dates were presumably last Wednesday to Monday.
The sometimes volatile weekly series from Roy Morgan is little changed this week, with Labor down half-a-point to 30%, the Coalition down half-a-point to 23%, One Nation up one to 22.5% and the Greens up half-a-point to 14%. Labor holds two-party preferred leads over the Coalition of 54.5-45.5 on respondent-allocated preferences, in from 55.5-44.5 last week, and 54-46 on previous election preferences, in from 54.5-45.5 The poll was conducted Monday to Sunday from a sample of 1587.
Retail electricity price movements from recent years are shown below:
https://www.abs.gov.au/media-centre/media-releases/cpi-rose-38-year-january-2026
Excluding rebates, the electricity price increase in:
– mid 2023 was due to the 2022 Global Energy Crisis caused by Russian aggression and flooding of east coast coal infrastructure.
– mid 2025 was due to a wind drought in 2024 which necessitated the use of more expensive fossil fuels in the southern states. NSW also had high prices due to coal plant and transmission outages.
pp’s “massive inflationary bill hikes” are clearly due to the removal of rebates which he complained endlessly about but now wants to re-introduce.
The solar rebates have been around since 2001. The Cheaper Homes Battery program (which started in the mid 2025) has helped bring down wholesale power prices:
https://www.aer.gov.au/industry/registers/charts/weekly-volume-weighted-average-spot-prices-regions
Which is why retail electricity bills will be coming down in all the mainland states (idk what’s happening in Tassie) next financial year.
Pegasus @8:40 am
Keating made a lot of visionary conceptual statements when he was PM. In return, what did country and ALP got. A big ‘f**k all’ of 11 years of Howard government, which changed the country forever for worse. In the end, only “warm inner glow” was what was left with ALP supporters.
Australians are not too keen on big visionary statements. They want someone like Menzies and Howard to plod and/ or give tax cuts in every budget to enjoy their lives. In return they don’t care what those leaders do to their country.
Australians are easily scared by right-wing scare campaign
Pegasus, P1, Rex, Miscal, Difficult, et tl were in their Rip Van Winkle years from March 1996 to May 2022 . We had right-wing governments in 20 out of those 26 years, which destroyed social security systems or made them redundant.
Even in 2022, Australians voted reluctantly for a majority ALP government by a 1000 votes
“The federal government has pledged new funding to help the states and territories strike agreements that would allow them to assess and approve projects themselves under new federal nature laws.
Anthony Albanese will make the four-year, $45m announcement in a speech to a mining industry event in Western Australia, describing the deals as a “circuit-breaker” that will fast-track mining, energy and housing applications.
:::
Labor had previously opposed handing federal environmental approval powers to state and territory governments, including iterations of the policy that were put forward by the Abbott and Morrison governments.”
Japan on-sells almost twice as much gas as Australians consume
https://thepoint.com.au/off-the-charts/260424-japan-on-sells-almost-twice-as-much-lng-as-australians-consume
“Gas companies argue that a 25% gas export tax would threaten Japan’s energy supply – this is nonsense.”
How is fast tracking mining projects suppose to get us to the 62-70% emissions reduction target by 2035?
Almost forgot – first record in 15 days – Qld battery charge:
https://openelectricity.org.au/records/au.nem.qld1.battery_charging.energy.day.high?datetime=2026-04-28T00_00_00&offset=10_00&focus=1777298400000
It’s only a marginal increase from January but it’s three times that of the start of April 2025.
Hard Being Greensays:
Wednesday, April 29, 2026 at 8:32 am
Bizzcan are you suggesting none of the 300,000 potential participants who will lose / won’t get access to the NDIS didn’t require the assistance? Some will argue the fringe cases, others will argue for those who need support
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Im telling that the country’s highest income households are able to game the NDIS in order to fatten up family travel budgets, by being accepted at well below normal diagnostic standards.
https://crawford.anu.edu.au/content-centre/research/individualized-disability-support-schemes-and-their-impact-autism-diagnoses
So yes, if reassessment shows that hundreds of thousands of people don’t need a subsidised Bali resort, then good.
Hell, the resort I cited doesn’t even take physically disabled children:
https://ubudfamilyexperience.com/ndis-participants/
“Wheelchairs and children with significant mobility challenges will not be suited to attend due to the terrain and mobility requirements.”
And none of the above are “rorts” , they are integral to the current system that the protestors are defending.
Besides, if the provders who organised the protests are really upset, then I’m sure the following would help console themselves
https://growdsp.com.au/bali-ndis-provider-retreat/
TBM
The fast tracking is part of the EPBC reforms passed at the end of last year – fossil fuels are excluded.
SLsays:
Wednesday, April 29, 2026 at 8:00 am
Feel free to explain Labor’s wind farm policy and how the mooted changes are inflationary, pp.
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Wind Farms use air and air is used to inflate things like balloons…
Trump indicts James Comey again
I don’t know how to post pictures here but this link (if it is to be believed) from Snarky Gherkin suggests that Air Friers are the basis of the rising One Notion support.
BTW I do understand causation v correlation in case someone feels the need to explain it to me, lol.
https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=1387326166763191&set=a.227762992719520
1. Copy (and paste) image link.
2. Add #image.jpg to the end if necessary.
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If the windfarms use the air, it might reduce inflation … of balloons.
That’s right, SL. Nevertheless, Albanese has once again flipped on a position he argued strongly against re federal vs state approvals.
A speech to the mining industry in WA – how appropriate given the politics.
Much gaslighting again on PB this morning, I see.
But it would be really great if you people could get up an hour or two earlier so I wouldn’t need to use my solar batteries just to read in bed.
Guardian Essential poll: more Australians approve of Hanson’s party leadership than Albanese or Taylor’s
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2026/apr/28/pauline-hanson-one-nation-leadership-guardian-essential-poll-ntwnfb
Bizzcan
Rorts can be stopped without kicking 160k people off the NDIS and making it harder for people to access the NDIS.
Yeah if there are illegitimate claims, dodgy providers, etc etc, work hard to get them out of the system.
Maybe we’d save the billions people are claiming, maybe we’d find out the NDIS haters have just being lying to us, like almost everything we’ve been told by trickle down ecomonists for 50 years, just baseless lies is the most likely outcome.
And means testing is a truly terrible idea. You’d have to really really really hate the NDIS to want to turn it isn’t means testsed service. Spend those millions and millions and millions of dollar policing the eligibility of those you are meant to help. The trickle down liars also then dumb down and cheapen the service, because it is just for the poors and they don’t really deserve a good service they should be getting a very poor service noone would really want to use. And of course at the same time the stories of rorts would increase not decrease, facts are not needed the trickle down economist lot have never ever needed facts, they bring their own, but these lies further undermining support for the now means tested shit NDIS, particularly with those just on the wrong side of the means test.
Then you have those who are your target group on the right side of the means test who you criminalise for ticking the wrong box on a 3000 page form, or doing one too many shifts at Hungry Jacks and earning $20 too much.
We’ve seen this farce play out before.
Re SL @9:06.
That’s about as close to a 1.0 correlation as you can get. What is the source? It is suspiciously close. Are you sure it’s real?
P.S. Maybe those air fryers are emitting harmful radiation that fries people’s brains and they turn into One Nation voters.
P.S. I recall that some Scottish actuarial students published a table that showed a close correlation between the consumption of Scotch whisky and the stipends of Presbyterian ministers.
Landlord of the Year says:
Wednesday, April 29, 2026 at 9:17 am
Bizzcan
Rorts can be stopped without kicking 160k people off the NDIS and making it harder for people to access the NDIS.
____________________________________
The “rort” is that there are hundreds of thousands of people participating who shouldn’t be:
https://crawford.anu.edu.au/content-centre/research/individualized-disability-support-schemes-and-their-impact-autism-diagnoses
“We find compelling evidence that the introduction of the NDIS has led to a 32% increase in reported autism prevalence and accounts for 47% of new diagnoses since the introduction of the scheme. We also find a significant shift in diagnostic practices with a reduction in diagnoses from government subsided healthcare professionals. A lower threshold for recognition appears more important as a channel than catch-up in historical underdiagnoses.”
I reject the argument that its “not the participants fault” when so many are the beneficiaries of this rort – likely doctor shopping just to get in on it.
And the Bali resorts, provider retreats, and up-selling of services are not the “rorts”, they are inherent to the system hat has no means-testing whatsoever.
idk what’s happening in Tassie
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Dont they have big batteries that fill for free that cover 90% of their mix. A somewhat isolated case. Maybe there is something happening to the prices of their exports to Vic?
Bizzcan
If the NDIS was restricted to people eligible for DSP, they would already be means tested.
Pegasus @8:40 am
Neither our Prime Minister nor Foreign Minister are given to making big, visionary conceptual statements,
_______________________
No wonder after Gillards “setting your alarm clocks early” in response to constant questioning on what her Govt actually stood for.
God she was hopeless.
Pegasus says:
Wednesday, April 29, 2026 at 8:47 am
Griff
Aren’t we being selective. Why don’t you tell all the others who also cut and paste more than 10%
________
Feel free to tell others when they do it. Help William out 🙂
Landlord of the Year says:
Wednesday, April 29, 2026 at 9:29 am
Bizzcan
If the NDIS was restricted to people eligible for DSP, they would already be means tested.
______________________________________________
Is that a proposal or a statement of current settings? Because as I understand the DSP is far stricter to get on than the NDIS is.
And I suspect applying the full DSP framework to the NDIS would “cut” far, far more people off the NDIS than what the governments estimates actually suggest the planned changes would do.
Which is fine if that’s your argument, at least it is something tangible to discuss than the vague pronouncements of faith from others regarding the NDIS.
Probably they like her whinging and grievance politics.
More US people liked Trump leadership than Biden’s and look where the world is.
God she was hopeless.
——————-
Yeah, things really improved a few months later when we got the Moe, Larry and Curly era. What a time.
Yeah ‘more important as a channel’ isn’t very precise nor quantative.
And it is just obvious that if you define the threshold lower more of the population will be in the catchment. So the actual important question is what is the appropriate threshold and what treatments and most beneficial at various thresholds and at various points on the spectrum. Which we still understand very poorly.
But no lets jump straight into the ‘they are rorting the system’ and we need to means test it, along with the bag of lies that has been used to undermine public good services and demonise those on them since Reagans fictional welfare queen.
Bizzcan
There are more people on DSP and eligible for DSP than people on the NDIS, and by keeping the NDIS to people on DSP would better target the profoundly disabled.
We haven’t seen anything like NDIS play out before where $50 billions is spent on 600000 people.
A bit rich someone who consistently preaches a wide range of the tenents of faith of trickle down economics, a faith that has proven again and again to be largely false, to pick on others for statements that are insufficiently supported.
You mean ATM governments, where L-NP supporters, benefactors and friends used Australian government as ATM.
SL , Thanks…you would think after years of lurking I’d have picked how to do that.
WeWantPaul says:
Wednesday, April 29, 2026 at 9:46 am
A bit rich someone who consistently preaches a wide range of the tenents of faith of trickle down economics, a faith that has proven again and again to be largely false, to pick on others for statements that are insufficiently supported.
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I don’t think the DSP is particularly difficult to get on. It has long been used as a parking spot to put the older chronically unemployed until they reach OAP age. It makes the unemployment rate look better.
The law of inverse care applies to any benefit that is not means tested. Those who can afford to provide for themselves are the people with a voice and influence and they will always skewer benefits away from those who need the services. The defenders of the current NDIS fiasco are a prime example.
Ven at 6.54am posted about Thailand looking to Russia and China instead of Chumpistan.
Boarwar at the end of the previous thread posted about the Taiwanese Opposition Leader in potential discussions with Xi.
Just more evidence that the Yankee Empire is crumbling away. Australia needs a strategy to deal with that.
Steve777: The graph was sourced from RQ’s facebook link.
TK: Tassie electricity prices will be whatever the govt decides. They can reduce them at the expense of the dividend Tassie Hydro sends to the govt or vice versa.
That is a great graph of cause and effect Bizzcan, who’d have thought we’d end this agreeing on the cause of social disharmony and the collapse of the centre. Perhaps you’d could start a pod called Bizzcan’s economics and advocate taxing wealth not work. I won’t hold my breath.
Oakeshott Country says:
Wednesday, April 29, 2026 at 9:54 am
I don’t think the DSP is particularly difficult to get on. It has long been used as a parking spot to put the older chronically unemployed until they reach OAP age. It makes the unemployment rate look better.
The law of inverse care applies to any benefit that is not means tested. Those who can afford to provide for themselves are the people with a voice and influence and they will always skewer benefits away from those who need the services. The defenders of the current NDIS fiasco are a prime example.
____________________________________________
I’m happy to be corrected on the exact mechanisms of the DSP. I have no strong views (yet) on “make the NDIS like the DSP and means test”, it is at least something to react to.
WeWantPaul says:
Wednesday, April 29, 2026 at 10:05 am
“advocate taxing wealth not work” – do you actually believe this? Because many would call this “trickle down economics”.
Ten years ago the majority of people on the DSP were on it for musculoskeletal pains. A quick check with AI says that new entries are down to about 15% due to a tightening of the entry requirements. It looks like that anomaly is being resolved but the legacy cases will continue until the recipients reach OAP age.
PP
60 day of Trump illegal war on Iran with no end in sight.
China and Russia say Thank you.
Losing!
“But renewables are cheaper they spew!”
They are and that is a scientific fact, something you will never understand.
It is the fossil fuel component of the grid that is keeping costs high, the more we shift to renewables the cheaper it will become.
There is far more conclusive evidence that shows that renewables are the cheapest energy source then there is conclusive evidence dispelling that at least some of Trump’s would be assassins weren’t disgruntled MAGA nutters.
PP
Do you know that ex-FBI director is indicted again based on a seashell photo?
Russia and China say thank you for making US Justice system a joke.
It appears spending $50 billion on 600000 people is okay for defenders of current NDIS system like Pegasus, HBG et tl.
Why is ’86 47′ a threat to Trump
Well I’ll give a quick serious response.
The tax wealth not work comes from some very intelligent people who make a good case.
I think it fails to address the gambling industry that is international finance and I think that is a weakness, but I have two books near the bed that might show I just haven’t read enough and that is not the case.
But most people experience life in the world and just as one possibility a land tax that excluded upto 2 or 2.5 million but then took increasingly large chunks as values of holdings increased might be able to reverse the some of the worst of the housing crisis.
I think designing and implementing a range of taxing wealth is worthwhile.
Ultimately I don’t think it will work, I think democracy has been too hollowed out to regulate capital. It isn’t an accident the Epstein class usually get away with their crimes. The damage has been done I don’t think there is a way out, but I find it inexplicably stupid that we are still following the faith, long since proven false, that got us here in the first place, particularly from Australia where we can look at the US and UK for a very bleak picture of where we are going at full pace.
Not getting a return on our resources, global greed stopping action on climate change, and the apparent need to cripple the NDIS just three sign posts on the road to disaster for most of the population.
I know it’s pointless responding to PP’s bullshit that Chump’s US is winning, check out again the main relevant points in HH’s links this morning.
A second professional US Ambassador to Ukraine is leaving because of Chump’s love affair with Putin. Social media, mostly owned by US billionaires, is choc-a-bloc with bullshit, mostly placed there anonymously. The Greeks are proposing to ban the anonymous bit. If that catches on, the value of social media will collapse. Chump dribbles that much crap that programs like 60 Minutes have to edit it out. I call that propaganda production because it conceals his incompetence. US workers are treated so badly that the Democrats want to triple the minimum wage. Expect howls of outrage from the billionaires. ICE Agents murdered an unarmed Mother and the Chump Administration covers it up. In gun happy Chumpistan, while trying to prevent yet another presidential assassination, government protective service agents shoot one another and all Chump and the sycophants can focus on is a ballroom while their countries debt balloons past $39 Trillion. And finally, Chump’s tariff ripoff has to be refunded with just one company, General Motors owed $500 Million.
All this in just one day of media reporting. Today wasn’t special, just another day in MAGAland, and many idiots reckon we need Chump Lite (Hanson) here.
It’s amazing that even after such a controversial first year into the second term the two-party-preferred gap is only 1% smaller than it was at the 2025 election, and that even with a 3.7% drop in the primary vote they will still get 89 seats because the gap in primaries between them, and the nearest competitor is 8% which by the way is the exact same gap that it was at the start of the polling season all the way back in June 2025.
That graph of One Nation support over time doesn’t look remotely accurate and I’m sure the whole thing comparing it to air fryer ownership is just a gag.
Pauline can’t help bragging about her current lifestyle.