The fortnightly Sky News Pulse poll by YouGov has Labor up three points to 30%, the Coalition up one to 21%, One Nation down three to 24% and the Greens steady on 14%. Labor’s two-party lead over the Coalition is unchanged at 54-46, but is much improved against One Nation at 57-43, out from 53-47. Anthony Albanese is up two on approval to 40% and down three on disapproval to 54%, while Angus Taylor is steady on 38% and down one to 42%. Albanese’s lead over Taylor on preferred prime minister is out from 44-39 to 45-36, and his lead over Pauline Hanson is out from 50-39 to 54-35. The poll was conducted last Tuesday to this Tuesday from a sample size unspecified in the report, which was likely around 1100 (UPDATE: It was actually 1500, as is typical for this series).
The weekly Roy Morgan poll has Labor steady at 29.5%, the Coalition up one-and-a-half to 24%, One Nation down one to 21.5% and the Greens down one to 13%. Labor’s lead on respondent-allocated preferences is unchanged at 54.5-45.5, while its lead on previous election preferences is in from 54-46 to 53-47. The poll was conducted Monday to Sunday from a sample of 1681.
Ah, there we go. I knew deep down that Tony Abbott’s aim was for the Liberal Party President.
May he chew many onions and thus shed many tears, for them.
AI slop argumentum ad populum.
Abbott- unable to find a job in the real world…..
Let’s keep this factual:
“Israel has committed genocide in the Gaza Strip, UN Commission finds”
https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2025/09/israel-has-committed-genocide-gaza-strip-un-commission-finds
(from 16 September 2025)
“… and punish those responsible for it”.
Ghost Of Whitlamsays:
Wednesday, May 6, 2026 at 5:34 pm
AI slop argumentum ad populum.
======================================
The AI slop is just making it easier for me to find the opinion poll results. Which I have now done for the USA and UK in separate posts above. Are you actually suggesting the AI didn’t get those results from legitimate opinion polls and that those results are actually way out. The only opinion poll result I suspect was totally made up was yours claiming the UK Greens had lost support. Showing you don’t have to be AI to post slop.
I agree.
Insane. Utter lunacy.
Hm, yeah, as much as I wish it wasn’t so, the Democrats under Jeffries and Schumer just don’t have what it takes to win the 4 seats needed to flip the Senate.
Yeah they’re very likely to flip North Carolina, that’s 1 out of 4 seats, then what?
Maine? The Democrats from the Centrist and Progressive factions are still spitting venom at each other over the fact that Graham Platner pushed Janet Mills out of the race. “He said the R-word!” “She’s too old!” “He has a nazi tattoo!” “She’s a cuck for Chuck!”
Alaska? Well, at least they’re running someone who actually won a statewide seat (the Alaska-at-Large seat in 2022), but that was a ranked-choice vote against Sarah Palin, known widely around as a joke. And furthermore Mary Leltola will be going against the incumbent Republican Dan Sullivan.
Texas? James Talarico does appear to be in with a chance against both Ken Paxton and John Cornyn (who in a latest poll appear to be Paxton 48 – Cornyn 45), but once the Texas Republicans sort themselves out then it’d be a huge ask for Blexas.
Ohio? Democrat Sherrod Brown trails in all polls against the incumbent Republican John Husted.
Nebraska? Independent Dan Osborn is in with a good chance, but he won’t be tied to the Democrats to do everything they’d like.
And even if they manage to flip 4 out of those 6 seats, there’s the likely chance that Democrat Jon Fetterman will actually be a rat and cross the floor to join the Republicans to make it 50-50 with JD Vance being the casting vote.
Goal: win the senate
Stretch goal: win a filibuster-proof majority
Stretch goal 2: win a rotating villain-proof majority
That’s going to take some time
A One Nation volunteer has snatched a Senator’s phone during a heated altercation at a pre-poll booth ahead of the Farrer by-election. Liberal Senator James Paterson was in Albury campaigning for candidate Raissa Butkowski when a One Nation volunteer confronted him.
The altercation over a Liberal Party corflute describing One Nation candidate David Farley was captured in wild footage.
The One Nation volunteer accused Mr Paterson of “weaponising” Mr Farley’s previous political affiliations on the Liberal advertisements, to which the Senator insisted that voters had a right to know.
“Well, I mean, David was a member of Labor,” Senator Paterson said, before pulling out his phone to record the confrontation. The One Nation volunteer said the Liberals “shouldn’t get to this low”, adding that the Coalition was turning Mr Farley’s political past “into a defamation”.
Mr Paterson questioned how it was defamatory because “truth is a defence to defamation”.
https://www.skynews.com.au/australia-news/politics/thats-assault-liberal-senator-james-paterson-caught-in-verbal-clash-with-a-one-nation-volunteer-in-albury/news-story/c2b0c46e08bd6149bb7fd89e4e2354c2
Kirsdarke
========================================
I would also give an honourable mention to the good citizens of Portland, who employed a superweapon against ICE – ridicule.
When you are confronted by citizens wearing inflatable animal costumes including a frog, unicorn, dinosaurs and Teletubbies, you decide to retreat, and it goes viral, you have no coming back from the loss of face. From there, fear of ICE rapidly turned to contempt.
https://yapms.com/app?m=zj5930r2kb1db97
This is my prediction for the US Senate.
@TBM
Yeah, that checks out, only 3 seats flipping so that it’s still 50-50 with JD Vance being the casting vote, so Fetterman won’t have to rat.
Are the actions of the Israeli Government and armed forces in Gaza a genocide? I don’t know. It is clear, however, that even if the Israelis are not deliberately setting out to wipe out the Gazan population and to finish Gaza as an Arab city, they don’t care how many Gazan civilian deaths they cause in their quest to eliminate the Hamas threat. If they believe that Hamas forces are hiding in a hospital or a school, they’ll attack the hospital or school. Definitely a war crime as I understand the term.
From the Israeli Government’s point of view, they are almost certainly also dishing out collective exemplary punishment to the people of Gaza and to the Palestinians more generally – another war crime.
From the point of view of individual Israelis, probably including members of the armed forces and possibly some politicians, they do want to kill as many Palestinians as possible.
For balance, I mention in passing:
1. That apparently Hamas cares no more than Israel how many Gazan civilians die as they continue their quest to survive to fight another day.
2. Many individual Israelis oppose the actions of their Government and armed forces in Gaza.
@Socrates
Oh yeah, there was that. I didn’t pay attention to it at first since MAGA appeared to shrug it off as “just another worthless 2017 pussy hat protest”, but it seemed to push the bloated oompa-loompa’s buttons.
Waste of money given the explosion in EV take-up.
There’s an argument that he will fare much better and be more powerful as the 51st Dem vote in that scenario than flipping and caucusing with Republicans.
Will be interesting if Worksafe Victoria take action against Carlton FC. The AFL slapped them with a warm lettuce leaf. How come Voss hasn’t been managed out ??
https://www.270towin.com/2026-house-images/M2Rw7BM
Interactive Version: https://www.270towin.com/2026-house-election/M2Rw7BM
And this is my prediction for the House of Representatives.
@Confessions
Well, all in all it depends on how threatened he feels.
Yeah he might stay on as a Democrat if it becomes 51-49 after the midterms, but if he feels like he’s going to lose the primary for the Pennsylvania 2028 Senate election he’ll probably flip as a final “Fuck you” to them and join the Republicans, especially if he can carry on the incumbency bonus and actually hold Pennsylvania as the Republican candidate.
I’ve never understood people whose first instinct in a confrontation is to go to their phone. What did they do in these scenarios before mobiles?
Rex Douglassays:
Wednesday, May 6, 2026 at 6:17 pm
Socratessays:
Wednesday, May 6, 2026 at 4:25 pm
Chalmers confirms there will finally be serious investment in fuel storage (plus fertiliser). $10 billion for a national storage facility that will contain several billion litres.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-05-06/government-commits-10-billion-for-australian-fuel-supply/106582514
Previous governments have been warned about this problem dating back to Howard. Good to see it finally being done seriously.
Surely nobody will argue this one now?
============================================
Waste of money given the explosion in EV take-up.
=======================================
I don’t think it is a great idea either as the fuel reserves we have seems to be working. Fortunately they are only doing it for diesel and aviation fuel which isn’t as bad as if they had did it for unleaded petrol as well. Unfortunately the Government has caved into some of P1’s pro-fuel lobby demands.
US politics doesn’t really translate here because primaries, apathy and non compulsory voting makes it more important to turn out “the base” than build coalitions of support across a majority of the population and boy does it show. They get the politicians they can be bothered to show up and vote for.
In Australia the great mass who aren’t rusted ons decide elections. In America the enthusiasm gap between the MAGA cult and Democrat voters decides elections.
Trouble is the establishment Democrats are still somewhere in 1992 understanding this. What used to work doesn’t work – there’s this whole raft of left wing voters in America who’d rather sit on their hands and let Trump in and then complain the Democrats aren’t opposing Trump well enough than bother to vote for a Hillary or Kamala, and it doesn’t matter how stupid I think they are, the Democrats need those people to win. They need candidates who generate enthusiasm without being completely unacceptable to centrist Democrat voters and making those people sit on their hands instead. I don’t envy Democrats the balancing act.
“If they believe that Hamas forces are hiding in a hospital or a school, they’ll attack the hospital or school. Definitely a war crime as I understand the term.”
If Hamas are in either of those places, it’s actually the opposite of your understanding of the term. The occupation and use of those facilities by military force makes them a legitimate military target.
Kirs:
Given his health issues, I wonder if he’ll even recontest?
Do you think we’ll ever see a 100+ seat majority government at some point in history?
I recommend you to watch. It proves what racist POS Trump is.
Rachel Maddow: Trump is terrible at everything except this one thing
https://youtu.be/1JN3eoWmu14?si=gMlBRIE1yMhe-jK6
We’re going to be needing petrol, diesel and aviation fuel for a long time. Albo’s measures to protect us against future disruptions to fossil fuel supplies is the way to go. We hope that some day it won’t be a problem because we won’t use the stuff, but that day is some decades off. It will be postponed by one year plus for each year of right-wing Government we have in coming decades.
@Confessions at 6:34pm
With Jon Fetterman, his attitude lately seems to be “Well, the more they hate me, the more I want to defy them.”
Apparently he’s been chumming up a lot with Senate Republicans this year, even Trump himself, and he hasn’t really done much to play that down.
He’s like an American Barnaby at the moment.
Thomas Brian Mutter @ #226 Wednesday, May 6th, 2026 – 6:37 pm
With the hollowing out of the major parties votes I’d say it’s unlikely.
But even 13 months ago ago nobody was forecasting a Labor landslide of historic proportions.
“Do you think we’ll ever see a 100+ seat majority government at some point in history?”
Albo won 94 and has 1 more that would ordinarily be Labor’s without the idiotic parachuting of Kristina Keneally.
That off a 2PP of 55.22%
Labor only needed another 0.75% to finish 2nd above the Greens in Ryan, after which they would have won the seat against the LNP.
If Labor got a further 2.5% swing they could win Longman, Berowra, La Trobe, Forrest and Bowman.
That would give them 101 seats.
There’s also the alternative of an expanded Parliament. Labor’s 94 seats out of 150 is 62.66% of seats. That percentage would result in 100 seats from a 160 seat Parliament.
I think Fetterman has made a strategic error in cozying up to Trump and Republicans, presumably under the impression that their 2024 win would sustain even stronger electoral performances throughout Trump 2.0.
Instead (and admittedly with the benefit of hindsight), he should’ve hung back, waited to see how Trump handled his victory, allowing himself time and opportunity to recalibrate at a later period if he felt electoral pressure to do so. Now though, he’s given it all away and is on the anchor with Trump, potentially sinking with him the longer he hangs on.
I could be wrong, and he could fare better as a Republican or Independent caucusing with them. I just think he nailed his colours to the mast way too early, much like those media personalities who all went to Mar a lago and bent the knee to Trump. How do they feel now I wonder?
I think we’ll need to see how things play out.
The Pro-Mills for Maine Democrats are currently being like “Platner will be just like Fetterman, just you wait and see.”
It’s all up in the air at the moment. As it is with Michigan where the Democrats are having a similarly vicious intra-party battle, and their Primary isn’t due until August.
newy boy at 11.28 am and 12.14 pm
“how long do you think we’ll be waiting for ‘a deal’ between Ukraine and Russia?”
Putin’s war will definitely last longer than the Great War of 1914-18. That tragic milestone will be passed in the second week of June.
The positions of Russia and Ukraine regarding Putin’s war and its resolution are further apart even than the positions of the US and Iran regarding Trump’s war.
Putin and Netanyahu have many similarities as cynical war criminals engrossed in corruption, but there are important contextual differences.
Netantyahu probably now realises he is most likely to lose in October. His health is likely worse than Putin’s. In some respects those factors might make him more dangerous than Putin, since he knows time is against him, whereas Putin probably pretends otherwise to himself.
The big difference is outside support. Netanyahu’s war crimes are made in the USA, because they depend on Pentagon materiel and diplomatic cover from the US. Putin depends to some extent on China, but not nearly to the extreme extent of Netanyahu’s dependence on Trump.
Yes, Putin is helped a lot by Trump now, but not nearly as much as if he had invaded Ukraine in December 2019. Yes, Putin is chronically deceitful, but so was Milosevic, and the US made a deal with him to end his war on Bosnia. Milosevic was a war criminal but not as brutal as Putin.
Zelenskyy talks a lot about putting more pressure on Putin. The problem is how to do that. The only credible avenue for putting pressure on Putin is via China. Western sanctions had a very limited effect even before Trump, because Russia had alternative sources for many goods. It takes time for sanctions to work even if comprehensive, and they are much less likely to work against a regime that has nullified any opposition, such as is sadly the case in Russia. On one view in Russia Putin is addicted to war because it provides an excuse for intensified repression.
The obvious answer to the question ‘how to get Putin to stick to a deal?’ is not via Trump, who is all theatrics without substance, as shown by his lack of real diplomats or basic knowledge.
The problem of stopping Putin’s war has not really been one of moral cowardice in the shadow of a dictator, but rather the pragmatic difficulty of how to constrain him in a situation when even an imbecile like Liz Truss noted that Western deterrence of Putin simply did not work.
This is where the Istanbul talks of early April 2022 remain significant. There is nothing at all similar regarding Netanyahu’s wars by analogy. His belligerence has been full steam ahead from go to woe, against Gaza, Lebanon and Iran. It was only his attack on Qatar that caused Trump to insist on some reduction in Netanyahu’s brutality toward Gaza.
What remains significant about the Istanbul talks is that B. Johnson, acting no doubt with Biden’s approval, scuttled them more definitively even than Ukraine has scuttled Russia’s Black Sea fleet. What Johnson reportedly promised Zelenskyy is that Ukraine could win the war militarily by Xmas 2022 with huge Western support. Johnson’s assumption, which Zelenskyy seems to have accepted, is that, because Putin had withdrawn from the outskirts of Kyiv, he was on the run militarily and consequently more war would make Putin weaker politically.
It was a colossal strategic mistake, worthy of someone as ignorant as Trump. Johnson is not as ignorant as that but he and others who made that assumption did not understand the nature of Putin’s regime and its relationship with war, which is reinforcing instead of involving tension.
The irony of Putin’s war from the tragic experience of Ukraine is that Putin was politically at his weakest in the first phase of the war, broadly until May 2022, when Ukraine was on its own. That is when Ukraine could have got the best armistice deal, if it had been seriously pursued by the US, acting either with the Chinese or via someone such as Kissinger.
Once Putin started to make advances on the main eastern front in the summer of 2022 the Russian position regarding ending Putin’s war became obstinate, and has remained so since.
Regarding the important point of criminal accountability, namely that “the world has to have a serious conversation about how to make Putin and his cronies pay for the Ukrainian civilians (and citizen soldiers) they have so needlessly and unjustifiably slaughtered”, the historical problem is that the conversation started in the 1990s with the formulation of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court. In other words, you can’t set up a system of criminal accountability belatedly and inconsistently and expect criminal justice for a thug like Putin.
The specific problem is that, in contrast to its position in discussions over the Genocide Convention in the late 1940s, when the US supported an international criminal court, in the 1990s and after the US decided to various degrees to support impunity for war criminals.
Finally, the relevance of the Istanbul talks to Putin’s criminal responsibility is this. If Putin’s war had been resolved in the month or so after the publicity surrounding the Bucha massacres (and similar massacres in many Ukrainian towns), i.e. in May 2022, then the horrific legacy of Bucha would have remembered much more widely than it is now, after the Hamas attack of October 2023 and Netanyahu’s barbarism, and Trump’s war crimes.
The moral culpability of Putin for war crimes is obvious, but he remains beyond prosecution.
The new Fuel Security and Resilience package includes:
https://minister.dcceew.gov.au/bowen/media-releases/joint-media-release-government-securing-more-fuel-reserves-australian-fuel-security-resilience-package
There are differing interpretations of this in the media. I suspect the $7.5 billion might be going to Export Finance Australia so they can continue securing extra cargoes, but I could be wrong as nobody else I have read mentions this.
I would like to see the diesel portion of the $3.2 billion to be co-located with gas-fired power stations in regional locations like Uranquinty and the Hunter and eventually used to store biodiesel.
Most importantly, next week’s budget should include the phasing out of fuel tax credits for the big miners (as per the Fortescue/CEF model) and comprehensive electrification plans, especially for the major highways.
Thomas Brian Mutter @ #219 Wednesday, May 6th, 2026 – 6:25 pm
In the wake of the SCOTUS decision on the Voting Rights Act, I think blue states need to get aggressive with partisan redistricting. At the very minimum ahead of the 2028 elections.
And on the SCOTUS ruling, how ridiculous is it that districts with significant Black populations will likely now have next to zero shot at electing Black representation?
Replace Australian ‘Jewish people’ with ‘Australian Hindus’
Will Australian media contact Indian government ‘to seek views of a government which is governing only country where Hindus are in majority’?
Axios has released a report that the war is nearly over. The Americans are presenting a One Page settlement agreement to Iranians.
Oil has fallen 5% off the back of this news.
How a complex conflict such as this can be resolved with a single page of text is beyond me.
Axios is the Trump admin’s favourite place to leak favourable news to.
Kirsdarke:
I agree Mills is far too old to be a serious candidate (what was Schumer thinking!), but Maine, a gettable Senate vote for Dems is one state I wish they weren’t running an everyman-style character against Susan Collins of all Republicans.
I think you are underestimating MAGA. They will come back with vengeance under the leadership of a thinking MAGA leader and there are many in US.
Recent polling in US shows that majority Americans don’t support Israel anymore.
Bernard Keane thinks that we have reached peak One Nation.
https://www.crikey.com.au/2026/05/05/one-nation-pauline-hanson-polling-voter-demographics/
(I can read the article in spit of no longer having a Crikey subscription. Maybe others here can)
Continuing from @ 7:24 pm post
As per Google AI
As of April and May 2026, multiple polls indicate a significant decline in American public support for Israel, with a majority of U.S. adults holding an unfavorable view of the country. This shift represents a sharp rise in negative sentiment since 2022.
Key Findings on US Public Opinion (2026):
Majority Disapproval: A Pew Research Center survey released in April 2026 found that 60% of U.S. adults have an unfavorable view of Israel, rising from 53% in 2025 and 40% in 2022.
Declining Sympathy: According to a February 2026 Gallup survey, 41% of Americans now sympathize more with Palestinians, while 36% sympathize more with Israelis.
Generational Divide: Younger Americans are significantly more critical of Israel, with NBC News reporting that 74% of Gen Z (aged 18–34) sympathize more with Palestinians. Conversely, older Americans, particularly those over 55, tend to remain more supportive of Israel.
Political Party Split: Support for Israel is increasingly polarized. Around 80% of Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents now express negative views of Israel. While Republicans remain more supportive, the share of Republicans with a negative view has increased.
Declining Confidence in Leadership: The same Pew research shows 59% of Americans have little or no confidence in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Reasons for the Shift:The decline in support is primarily linked to the ongoing war in Gaza and its impact on the region. The Arab American Institute noted that increased concern over U.S. military involvement in the Middle East has also caused many Americans to view Israel through the lens of broader foreign policy risks rather than as a secure ally.
Dr Doolittle, Wednesday, May 6, 2026 at 6:59 pm:
————————
Dr D, thank you so much for your detailed and highly considered answer to my question. Two points:
1. I think you underplay the extent to which the Russian ‘offer’ at Istanbul was both unacceptable to Ukraine at the time, and would have rendered Ukraine defenceless against any future Russian attack, because of the severe level of demilitarisation (a cap of 85,000 troops, with no cap on Russia’s), and the Russian veto over any Western troop deployments in Ukraine. The Bucha massacre merely made politically impossible for Zelenskyy an agreement which would have been military suicide anyway. But that massacre was what scuttled the Istanbul peace talks, more than anything else.
2. Rome Statute aside (which Russia has not ratified, in any case), Russian forces have been reported to have performed many acts which are violations of the Geneva Convention. Then, there is the matter of Russia’s blatant violation of Article 2(4) of the UN Charter, which Russia has signed up to. It is hard to see how it is in the interests of most people around the globe for the protections articulated by those instruments to be simply abandoned as pie in the sky. It is better for most people for there to be a sufficient international will to deter such violations, through the credible threat of diplomatic and economic isolation for any state which launches unjustified military invasions.
@Ven
What I meant was, I don’t think that 2025-2029 MAGA America will be like 1933-37 Nazi Germany.
Yeah, there’s every chance that their opposition flubs it up once again so that 2033-beyond MAGA will just pick it up once again and nobody stops them, but the initial burst of fascist energy they had in 2025 has run out for the moment.
Kirsdrake – Mills didn’t want to run in the first place. Her supporters are more passionate than she was. It reminds me of Clinton supporters in 2008 – they weren’t willing to give up that she lost.
An extra 100 police officers are being deployed across London’s Jewish communities as more anti-semitic attacks are feared. The Metropolitan Police said the new community protection team will help ‘face some of the highest levels of hate crime alongside significant terrorist and hostile state threats’.
This includes the double stabbing in Golders Green, which is being treated as an act of terrorism, and arson attacks on volunteer Jewish ambulances and an October 7 memorial wall.
Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley described the spate of attacks as a ‘pandemic’ of antisemitism, saying an extra 300 police officers were needed.
https://metro.co.uk/2026/05/06/new-100-strong-met-unit-protect-jewish-people-london-28253833/
@B.S. Fairman
That’s true, Mills has already had a long, successful political career and deserved to retire peacefully this year, but of course Schumer had to cynically use her as a human shield to defend against the increasing tide of voters that hate what he’s doing, just like he did with Andrew Cuomo against Zohran Mamdani last year.
I’ve heard it said that Chuck would have gladly used her as an “I’m not running for re-election” pawn to be one of the Dems to pass Republican legislation in the Senate 60-40 to be like “Another $100 Billion of US Taxpayer money to dubious causes, no strings attached”.
Vensays:
Wednesday, May 6, 2026 at 7:24 pm
Entropysays:
Wednesday, May 6, 2026 at 5:30 pm
Ghost Of Whitlamsays:
Wednesday, May 6, 2026 at 5:21 pm
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It is the majority view in most countries in the world, even in the USA it is pretty close to being that.
“AI Overview
As of August 2025, approximately 47% of US adults believe Israel is committing genocide in Gaza, a figure that has increased from 39% in April 2024.”
========================================
Recent polling in US shows that majority Americans don’t support Israel anymore.
===========================================
That is a different question to one I posted. You can still not think Israel is committing genocide, maybe just war crimes, while still not supporting them. The AI data I posted was how many thought it was a genocide.
Grattan on Hanson in the Da House:
https://citynews.com.au/2026/amid-the-hubris-hanson-toys-with-a-tilt-at-the-lower-house/?utm_source=mailpoet&utm_medium=email&utm_source_platform=mailpoet&utm_campaign=canberra-daily-today-s-news-today_7801