The third Newspoll in consecutive weeks is another disaster for the Coalition, showing Labor’s lead widening still further despite the government’s recent discomfort over boat arrivals. Labor is now ahead 59-41 on two-party preferred, compared with 58-42 at both last week’s unusual poll and last fortnight’s usual one. Kevin Rudd’s preferred prime minister rating is down two points to 65 per cent while Malcolm Turnbull’s is up one to 19 per cent. UPDATE: Graphic here: interestingly, 4 per cent has marched from satisfied with Kevin Rudd to dissatisfied, but Malcolm Turnbull’s disapproval rating is up six points as well. Labor leads 48 per cent to 34 per cent on the primary vote.
Elsewhere:
• Labor’s lead is steady at 58-42 according to the latest weekly Essential Research survey, which seems to be more closely resembling Newspoll than it used to. There are also various questions on the parties’ approaches to the global financial crisis and the rise in interest rates.
• Sue Neales of The Mercury reports Matthew Groom, son of former Premier Ray Groom, has nominated for Liberal preselection in the state lower house division of Denison. Neales suggests the “corporate lawyer with Tasmanian state-owned wind power company Roaring 40s” is likely to win a spot on the ticket when the party finalises preselection on Monday, which it earlier deferred because party leaders were “concerned by a lack of high-profile talent” (UPDATE: Kevin Bonham clarifies the situation in comments: Elise Archer, Michael Hodgman and Matt Stevenson were preselected in March, and the remainder of the ticket is to be finalised on Monday). Others reportedly seeking preselection are veteran incumbent Michael Hodgman, who is 70 years old and battling ill health which recently forced him to relinquish the Shadow Attorney-General position; Jenny Branch, a Glenorchy alderman who polled strongly as an independent against Treasurer Michael Aird in his upper house seat of Derwent in April; and Elise Archer, a Hobart alderman. Another Hobart alderman, regular independent candidate Marti Zucco, has been mentioned as a starter, but appears to face powerful opposition in the Liberal organisation. The result in Denison at the 2006 election was Labor three, Liberal one and Greens one; Peter Tucker at Tasmanian Politics rates the Liberals a solid chance of taking a second seat, possibly at the expense of accident-prone Labor incumbent Graeme Sturges.
• The Queensland Greens have preselected their unsuccessful Senate candidate from 2007, Larissa Waters, to head their ticket at the next election. Waters prevailed in a three-way contest over Jenny Stirling and Libby Connors, party activists and frequent candidates respectively based in Townsville and Toowoomba.
• Republished courtesy of Peter Brent at Mumble, Malcolm Mackerras in the Canberra Times lambasts Peter Dutton and his supporters over his reluctance to stand and fight in Dickson, and confidently predicts he will now not only contest the seat but win it.
What’s wrong with that? If my neighbour’s house is flooded, and I say he can sleep on my couch until his house is fixed up, have I thereby agreed that he can move in with me for good?
*gone*
[If my neighbour’s house is flooded, and I say he can sleep on my couch until his house is fixed up, have I thereby agreed that he can move in with me for good?]
Ah, the good old false analogy trick. A forced change of culture after everything is lost is rather more than a change of couch until the water recedes. Roots are put down in he new country. Language learnt. Kids are born and start school. They make friends and don’t know anything of their parents’ homeland. And you and the Libs want to then uproot them if things eventually improve. Think about it.
But it must be said that your analogy may have more resonance in the next few decades as peoples from low lying regions of the Pacific and Asia are displaced by water. Keep it in reserve 🙂
We will indeed require a Pacific solution, but not of the kind Howard had in mind. And whilst they are about Copenhagen they may as well start working on an international agreement and solution as to climate change refugees.
TP
[We will indeed require a Pacific solution, but not of the kind Howard had in mind]
I like that segue- very good. 🙂
Not only that, you’re perfectly correct. Those countries like Tibet, Bhutan, Maldives and several others I can’t think of in the shadow of the rapidly melting Himalayan glaciers with, I think fully 1/6 of the world’s population depend on 9 major rivers rising at the glaciers. I’m especially concerned for them. And 25 million people is our limit here.
Well the Maldives will be affected by the sea level rise. And that’s one I forgot – Bangladesh
Update of Canadian ship.
[The migrant smuggling ship that arrived off the West Coast on the weekend carrying 76 Sri Lankans departed from India early last month, according to international shipping records.
After a stop in Mumbai on Aug. 31, the Princess Easwary sailed from the northwest Indian port of Mundra on Sept. 8. That was its last recorded port of call until it entered Canadian waters.
While the records indicate the ship’s last port of call was India, it may have made unreported stops elsewhere in South or Southeast Asia to pick up its human cargo before heading for Canada.]
http://www.nationalpost.com/news/story.html?id=2135764
It appears to me from my short investigation of the Canadian papers to be a lack of sensationalism and dog-whistling on this issue. But I do recall reading that both major parties were loath to dog-whistle due to Canada’s high immigrant population.
It was very nasty and desperate on both sides.
[Yesterday, a U.S. State Department report said that during the final months of the conflict, the Tamil Tigers recruited children as young as 12 and used civilians as human shields, while the government forces shelled a civilian no-fire zone and killed rebels who tried to surrender. Government forces or pro-government militias also abducted and killed Tamil civilians, including children, it said.]
[But I do recall reading that both major parties were loath to dog-whistle due to Canada’s high immigrant population.]
We can’t yet be above the critical mass required for political restraint. What a pity. Ironic though when just about every family other than the indigenes can easily trace back to its own relatively recent arrival on these shores.
[It was very nasty and desperate on both sides.]
Still is from what I’ve read. That the Sri Lankan govt is preventing the UN from processing 300,000 displaced Tamils and others in the camps until the govt. has vetted them all for their own purposes sends a shiver down my spine.
These pesky human rights commissioners just don’t get the politics of the situation, do they?
[THE Human Rights Commissioner, Catherine Branson, has criticised conditions on Christmas Island and demanded the Rudd Government stop detaining people there immediately. She also slammed the Government for its failure to overturn laws that excise thousands of islands from the country’s migration zone.
…
Ms Branson said people who arrive by boat have less legal protection than those who arrive by plane.
”Asylum seekers should not be penalised because of their method of arrival,” she said. ”The excision and offshore processing regime establishes a two-tiered system.”
The Howard-era laws excising the islands should be overturned immediately, the commission’s 2009 Immigration Detention and Offshore Processing on Christmas Island said among 22 recommendations.
The penalising of people who arrive by boat violates Australia’s international obligations.]
http://www.smh.com.au/national/labor-charged-with-mistreating-boat-people-20091023-hdc9.html
[THE Human Rights Commissioner, Catherine Branson, has criticised conditions on Christmas Island and demanded the Rudd Government stop detaining people there immediately. She also slammed the Government for its failure to overturn laws that excise thousands of islands from the country’s migration zone.]
This perversely helps Rudd. Any criticism of him being too harsh will calm the xenophobe nerve that quietly exists in many, especially in respect from attacks from the other sides of being too soft. It actually helps Rudd with the hard but human line he is currently playing.
Those who are wishing for Rudd to be more left on the issue would never vote Liberal as they know they will never find joy there. Rudd by deliberately straddling both sides of the line in his rhetoric leaves the Liberals trying to say he is both soft and hard whist themselves not knowing what to give as a solution.
Rudd should have people stationed in Timor giving out air tickets to those who board boats. Then it would be no issue.
This is systemic problems for the Liberals. Their reputation is well known and precedes them. Rudd can therefore in rhetoric move to centre and centre right knowing that nobody left of this would vote for the Liberals. He keeps the previous Liberal voters of the last election and forces the Liberals even further to insanity.
New thread.