Two markedly different federal poll results from the past few days, the more favourable for Labor being from the uneven Roy Morgan series, which has them up two-and-a-half points to 29.5%, with One Nation down three-and-a-half to 23.5%, the Coalition down half to 20.5% and the Greens down half to 13.5%. Labor is credited with two-party preferred leads on respondent-allocated preferences of 55.5-44.5 over One Nation (out from 53-47) and 56-44 over the Coalition (out from 52-48), and a lead of 55-45 over the Coalition on previous election preference flows (out from 52.5-47.5). The poll was conducted last Monday to Sunday from a sample of 1585.
Conversely, the monthly Essential Research poll gives Labor its worst result of the term, down five on the primary vote to 26% with the Coalition up four to 26%, One Nation down two to 23% and the Greens up one to 13%, with an undecided component accounting for 5%. The Coalition leads the pollster’s 2PP+ measure by 50-45, after Labor led 48-47 last time. Anthony Albanese is down three on approval to 35% and up four on disapproval to 56%, while Angus Taylor is respectively down one to 32% and down three to 41%. The regular national mood question has the “right direction” response down five to a new low of 23%, with wrong direction up six to a new high of 59%. The full report has further questions on workplace relations, social media and the “manosphere”. The poll was presumably conducted Wednesday to Sunday from a ample of a bit over 1000, though details are not yet available.
Wombat:
Nah, I’m good. I prefer to read good books over thousand year old texts by long-dead charlatans.
Anyone who has been to Singapore or Hong Kong over Christmas would know how well they do it. The street and shop decorations put Australian ones to shame. Yet, they aren’t Christian countries. It’s not that difficult. And there’s none of the “Happy Holidays” stuff – it is all Merry Christmas and Santa and Angels and Nativity Scenes.
davidwh @ #24 Thursday, September 3rd, 2026 – 9:03 am
Christmas is the celebration of the northern hemisphere winter solstice, after which daylight hours would increase. The Cheesus cult, in about 75 CE, decided to adopt this date as the supposed date of Cheesus birth, that birth as invented by someone unknown, as taken up by whoever authored the ‘gospel’ falsely attributed to Matthew, then embroidered with nonsense by whoever wrote the ‘gospel’ falsely attributed to Luke.
In my family, xmas has always been a time for family get-togethers, gift exchange, Santa to fill pillow slips, excited young children, Jingle Bells, and a partridge in a pear tree. We have always managed to have ‘Christmas without carols’ or sky fairy nonsense. Four generations.
Seoul is peak Christmas. Tokyo a close second.
FUBAR:
And I bet all the retail workers there are one bad day from slitting their wrists or going on a violent rampage that time of the year too.
Strange Fruitsays:
Thursday, September 3, 2026 at 9:23 am
Entropysays:
Wednesday, September 2, 2026 at 8:32 pm
Here is Tom Cruise mentioning Melbourne in SF’s favourite movie.
—————
Entropy,
I have no particular problem with your ongoing need to accuse me of being a brilliant genius, with a severe neurodevelopmental disorder, because at least one of those two things is almost certainly true.
I understand that doing so helps you to better manage your own raging inferiority complex.
========================================
While the post did mention you, it was actually posted for Nadia’s benefit. Whom for reasons even I don’t fully understand. Requires me to post numerous posts praising her deductive reasoning in PB identity recovery operations.
Asha
Luther was 16th century, you probably agree with him more than you realise.
I doubt that the hierarchy of any church in Australia, or the most devout sections of their flocks, have seen the broader Australian society which surrounds them as being very Christian at all, for a very long time.
Strange Fruit, I’m agnostic on the source of the smoke. Tax it all, including vaping.
We just need a way of nailing everybody down, minute by minute, to keep track of what they do. It works for social media; why not real life?
Life imitates art.
Landlord:
Ah, right you are. I’ll rephrase:
“Nah, I’m good. I prefer to read good books over six hundred year old texts by long-dead anti-semitic charlatans.”
In fact I recall a few years ago that Rupert Murdoch himself decided to divorce his wife and fire Tucker Carlson when she decided to whip out a bible and loudly read verses with Tucker at a gathering on one of his megayachts or private resorts or whatever. Overt Christian evangelism like that really seems to piss him off.
Asha – I’m glad you stipulated ‘600 year old texts’ and not ‘430 year old texts’. 😉
Gang violence
And not only in Victoria but Nation wide
So who are the leaders attracting recalcitrants – and who do they attract and why?
There was an old story that if you had nothing to protect you did not value anything
Is this at the core – and in an age where education is available to all, including across services and trades, those who are attracted to gangs have had an opportunity to access education for the purpose of leading meaningful lives
To me it seems that the catalyst for recalcitrants and gangs, railing against the norms of society and challenging laws, was the pandemic and the global response to mitigate against the spread of this deadly virus
So objecting to lockdowns and vaccinations, which were universal responses and which were successful in combating that deadly virus
And to object to science by extension points to the uneducated – now marching behind the despicable Hansun
So how do we spread the advancement of education to the benefit of society?
And I would add that education leads to questioning – so enquiring minds
Not just simplistic slogans shouting others down for the purpose of publicity and media headlines
And I would add
What are their family circumstances and where is parental guidance?
Noting that best efforts can fail – leading to these recalcitrants being evicted from their family homes
Oh, and just on this point, Wombat:
I hate, hate, hate the argument that somehow this stuff comes from religion. I don’t need a holy book to tell me how to be a good person. It isn’t difficult.
Anyone who needs to read the Bible or any other religious text in order to treat others decently is a fucking psychopath.
Leader: “Assault by knife should be legal too. They are harmful, yes, but are significantly less so that assault by guns.”
Guns are legal like cigarettes are they? Gawd that’s a dumb analogy.
Leader:
My obvious point is that is people are going to consume nicotine, vapes are a safer way to do so than cigarettes. Not a harmless way to do so, no, but surely much better than the alternative?
It should also be noted that attacking a person with a knife or a gun is harmful others, and orders of magnitude worse than somevody damaging their own body. Puffing on a vape is only harmful to the person doing it… unlike ciggies, you don’t even have to worry about second-hand smoke or making everything smell like dogshit.
Charles is going to spend a significant period of time in Long Bay
Tax is going to do him big time, he will also be found to be a director of Macquarie Consulting.. it is impossible Dominic isn’t involved in the background.,
The problem you have fubar, is that you think you speak for white people, and you don’t. This ‘culture’ you think you share with me because of my skin colour doesn’t exist. The only ‘culture’ you belong to is that of the perpetual whinger. Whinge whinge whinge whinge whinge. You do that far more than you attend any church services, don’t ya? Personally I’d prefer if you spent more of that time of yours singing Christmas carols, but if you did that, you’d be whingeing about that too.
I have a cousin who is a senior nurse who has worked on the Cardio-Thoracic Ward at Charles Gardner Hospital for over twenty years – probably close to thirty now.
She has young children and says if she found any of them using vapes she would personally buy them cigarettes instead – based on what she now sees of the lung damage from vapes.
Asha, that’s hilarious, because that’s very similar to what Luther and Calvin said. Although they were a big fan of reading the bible, their argument was they didn’t need any religious constructs (Catholicism) interfering between them and God.
Pi says:
Thursday, September 3, 2026 at 1:07 pm
When did I mention skin colour?
I don’t give as fat rat’s clacker what colour your skin is.
And I’m an atheist but I do attend church for hatches, matches, and dispatches, and Easter and Christmas with Mum and the family, because she likes that.
It shouldn’t matter whether something is harmful or not, or the degree of harmfulness. The issue should be whether they’re sufficiently analogous to justify being taxed by the government.
Like gambling company profits.
The Wombat – do you regard Protestantism as a core component of post-medieval European culture, or rather the Reformation as a core event influencing it (or both)?
FUBARsays:
Thursday, September 3, 2026 at 12:33 pm
So, tell me how it is.
———–
How it is, is that we are not now, nor have we ever been a christian country.
Our constitution is quite explicit with respect to this;
‘The Commonwealth shall not make any law’, etcetera.
The judeo-christian, British values and Australian culture nonsense are some of Ms Hanson’s perennial racist tropes. All bullshit of course, signifying nothing much other than a longing for a past that never existed.
And I thought you didn’t like her?
Can someone explain just what the term ‘Judeo-Christian’ actually means? From my atheist perspective, the overlap in culture and values between Jews and Christians is pretty close to zilch.
It’s even more confusing when preceded or followed by the word ‘democratic’. Are there many elections mentioned in the Bible?
Pi, I didn’t say guns were legal, but a proportion are.
But that wasn’t my point.
The point, which you seem to have missed, is that because something is less harmful than something else, it should be legalised.
Knives aren’t illegal either. You want to conflate assault weapons with smoking. It’s a dumb analogy.
Asha says:
Thursday, September 3, 2026 at 1:02 pm
The Ten Commandments are pretty spot on and reflected in our laws. A fair bit of the Nee Testament is reasonable guidance on how to live a good life.
FUBARsays:
Thursday, September 3, 2026 at 12:45 pm
I just don’t think it is too much to ask that those who come here respect our culture and traditions.
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Good point Fubar, for 60000 years there has been smoking ceremonies and welcome to countries for visiting other tribe members in this great land of ours. Anyone who opposes these great Australian traditions practiced since the dawn of human history here, can go piss off to whatever Judeo-Christian hell hole they or their recent ancestors, in the last few hundred years, crawled here from, we don’t need them.
Those who don’t respect first Australian customs and tradition that evolved for more than 60,000 years on this great continent are un-Australian and should not be allowed to come here.
@Ante Meridian at 1:12pm
From my experience, “Judeo-Christian” is just a cute fluffy term that the right uses for “19th Century British Colonialism”, which was not quite so cute and fluffy.
Fubar: “I don’t give as fat rat’s clacker what colour your skin is.”
bs. You white nation freaks are defined by it. You don’t get to stand up and chant with the racists and then complain that you don’t like being associated with them.
Wombat:
So you agree than that our ethical and moral constructs do not come from faith, then?
If your point is that I am not super educated on the history and intricacies of various Christian denominations, well, er, you are correct. I’m afraid I just don’t… really care. What relevance does that stuff have to do with life in 2026?
Entropysays:
Thursday, September 3, 2026 at 1:14 pm
“Good point Fubar, for 60000 years there has been smoking ceremonies and welcome to countries for visiting other tribe members in this great land of ours.”
No, there hasn’t.
There’s no Anthropological evidence to support that claim. They are a modern invention.
FUBAR, Thursday, September 3, 2026 at 1:14 pm:
FUBAR – where are prohibitions on worshipping other gods but Yahweh, making idols/graven images, misusing ‘the Lord’s name’, working on the Sabbath, or coveting stuff you don’t already own, “reflected in our laws”?
Ante Meridian says:
Thursday, September 3, 2026 at 1:12 pm
“Can someone explain just what the term ‘Judeo-Christian’ actually means? From my atheist perspective, the overlap in culture and values between Jews and Christians is pretty close to zilch.”
The Jewish Talmud and the Christian Old Testament are basically the same document. There are parts of Jewish rituals and ceremony that is replicated in Christian church services.
Both, newy.
It’s interesting, my family has not long been in the country in the scheme of things. I’m an odd mixture of Scottish and Swiss heritage. I’d not really thought about my philosophical and moral underpinnings until recently. I’ve mostly done so in the setting of exploring history a lot in recent times. Without realising, my underlying philosophical and moral constructs are clearly profoundly shaped by both Calvin and the Presbyterian Church. I have sufficient insight to see it in myself, my family. You can’t take it out of me. I wouldn’t describe myself as a Christian, but I’m clearly deeply shaped by Calvinism and Presbyterianism. I’m very well educated, I’ve read enormous amounts of philosophy and cultural discussions from all over the world. But I have always, in a way, been a Calvinist. I just didn’t know it. Most of us are.
fubar: “The Ten Commandments are pretty spot on and reflected in our laws.”
The problem with you nutters is your understanding of law is about the same level as it is with anything; that is, scraped from the bottom of a shoe. You wanna go to church on Sunday, you do it, but there ain’t no law that says i can’t do what I want. And I will covet whatever the fk I want, be it a good or someones squeeze. So that’s three out of ten. And you flogs lie about literally everything. So that’s four out of ten. And your god sucks, so that’s five out of ten. And i haven’t even gone through them all.
All you know how to do is regurgitate nonsense.
newy boy says:
Thursday, September 3, 2026 at 1:20 pm
I didn’t say “all”.
You think you are clever?
How does wafting smoke over someone even get past an OH&S assessment?
That includes the Holy Hand grenades in Churches.
Ante Meridian says:
Thursday, September 3, 2026 at 1:12 pm
The “democratic” comes from the Western European adoption of Parliaments as the method of administering nations. Iceland is recognised as having the oldest, but the influence of the Westminster Parliamentary tradition throughout the world has to be recognised as a significant cultural influence.
FUBARsays:
Thursday, September 3, 2026 at 1:20 pm
Entropysays:
Thursday, September 3, 2026 at 1:14 pm
“Good point Fubar, for 60000 years there has been smoking ceremonies and welcome to countries for visiting other tribe members in this great land of ours.”
No, there hasn’t.
There’s no Anthropological evidence to support that claim. They are a modern invention.
=====================================
Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. How do you expect to find evidence of a smoking ceremony from 60K years ago anyway? It is continuous culture and in a continuous culture many culture traditions continue. What evidence have you that many of the cultural traditions they have now haven’t been around 60,000 years or more?
You are sounding like one of those people we should be deporting for disrespecting our cultural heritage.
Fubar:
Near every society in the damn world has had laws against theft and murder and rape, many long before any of the Abrahamic faiths existed. They had laws against that stuff not because some dude walked down a mountain with stone tablets, but because most people are not keen on being robbed or killed or raped.
And for every commandment that’s just common sense “Not Being a Psychopath 101”, there’s one that is just prohibitting trivial bullshit no reasonable person should care about, like worshipping false idols.
I agree with the great prophet George Carlin on this one: https://youtu.be/CE8ooMBIyC8?si=M-1n5jgzPaaMDOTw
FUBAR,
Yeah, but somehow I don’t think anyone who talks about ‘Judeo-Christian’ culture and/or values is referring to a ceremony in a place of worship.
FUBARsays:
Thursday, September 3, 2026 at 1:14 pm
The Ten Commandments are pretty spot on and reflected in our laws. A fair bit of the Nee Testament is reasonable guidance on how to live a good life.
————-
Jesus-fucking-christ, soldier! You swore an oath to serve the Queen and faithfully discharge your duty to defend the laws of the Commonwealth of Australia.
Moses had nothing at all, to do with that.
Asha, your philosophical and moral underpinnings are laid down when you are very, very young. You got them before you even remember thinking about this stuff. And it influences every thought you have about anything, all your judgements. You don’t somehow develop them independently in some kind of vacuum. You are deeply shaped by Christianity, you just don’t know it, partly because you don’t understand what Christianity is.
…we’re not legally required to honour our parents or forbidden to commit adultery, either, which basically leaves murder, theft and false witness as the only three reflected in our laws…and most religions cover at least two of those.
For what its worth, I’m no big fan of smoking ceremonies either. Faith should not inconvenience or harm others.
Pi says:
Thursday, September 3, 2026 at 1:23 pm
You’d be a far better commenter if you actually read what you are commenting on and cut the personal abuse.
I’m an Atheist.
It is Lefties like you that feed the One Nation/MAGA view of the world. How’s that working for you?
The Wombat – you are right to point out how developments in religion have shaped Europe’s culture, society and politics. The thing I would keep in mind, though, is not to overlook the influence of humanism (particularly the revival of Classical learning during the Renaissance) on that same cultural story. There is a case to be made that the influx of Greek scholars and manuscripts from Byzantium, particularly around and after the fall of Constantinople to the Ottomans in 1453, was at least as consequential for the subsequent development of European culture as the Reformation.
Wombat:
You do realise much of these same basic ideals of being a decent person also exist in many non-Christian cultures, right? Have you ever travelled overseas?
I was raised by athiests, I might add.