The latest weekly Morgan face-to-face poll has Labor shedding another two points on the primary vote – down over the last three surveys from 42 per cent to 40 per cent to 38 per cent – and the dividend again being picked up by the Greens, who have gone from 8.5 per cent to 11 per cent to 13 per cent. The Coalition is down half a point to 41 per cent. As a result there is only a slight change on the two-party vote, with Labor’s lead down from 52-48 to 51.5-48.5. There seems to be an anomaly with the “others” rating, which has supposedly jerked up from an anomalous 2 per cent to 6.5 per cent. The fact that last week’s figures only add up to 97 per cent probably has something to do with this.
Elsewhere:
• New South Wales Labor is bracing itself for tomorrow’s Penrith by-election, which you can discuss here. Tune into this site from 6pm tomorrow for live coverage.
• The Senate passed legislation yesterday that will allow pre-poll votes cast within the relevant electorate to be treated as ordinary rather than declaration votes, and thus to be admitted to the count on election night. This will account for about 4500 votes per electorate – roughly 5 per cent of the total. Nearly 20 per cent of the votes cast in 2007 were declaration votes of various kinds, slightly under half of which were pre-polls. The bill also allows changes to enrolment to be made online, and will prevent a repeat of the Christian Democratic Party’s effort from last year’s Bradfield by-election where it fielded nine candidates without having to go to the bother of obtaining the 50 supporting signatures required of independent candidates.
• Wyong councillor John McNamara has been chosen as the new Liberal candidate for Dobell. The nomination had been vacated by the withdrawal of original nominee Garry Lee, who seems to have been pushed because his establishment of a company to take advantage of the government’s insulation scheme threatened to muddy the election campaign waters. VexNews published a colourful account from a local Liberal who tipped the outcome earlier in the week, which suggested the party does not fancy its chances in the seat.
• The Queensland Times has published a list of eight starters for the June 27 Liberal National Party preselection in the new seat of Wright, to be held following the disendorsement of Hajnal Ban. Not included are the previously discussed Bill O’Chee and Ted Shepherd. Former Blair MP Cameron Thompson appears to be the front-runner, the others being Scott Buchholz, chief-of-staff to Senator Barnaby Joyce; Richard Hackett-Jones, “a long-term tax-review campaigner who helms the Revenue Review Foundation which advocates for a uniform rate of income tax”; Bob La Castra, Gold Coast councillor and perennial preselection bridesmaid; David Neuendorf, a Lockyer councillor; Scott White, an aircraft engineer; and the unheralded Erin Kerr and Jonathan Krause.
• Yet more trouble for the Liberal National Party, with the Courier-Mail reporting local members are calling for Forde candidate Bert van Manen to be disendorsed because “he had not kept his promise to fund his own election”. While van Manen was reckoned safe for the time being, “sources admitted there had been problems and his position might come under scrutiny if there were any further issues”.
• The Liberal National Party has preselected Logan councillor Luke Smith to run against Craig Emerson in the safe Labor southern Brisbane seat of Rankin.
• The Illawarra Mercury reports former rugby league player David Boyle will withdraw as Labor candidate for the winnable south coast New South Wales seat of Gilmore, after his installation by the national executive caused an uproar in local party branches.
• Following the withdrawal of original nominee Tania Murdock, the Nationals will preselect a new candidate tomorrow for the Labor-held north coast New South Wales seat of Richmond. The preselection has attracted four candidates, an interesting turnaround on the first round when Murdock was the only person interested. According to Alex Easton of The Northern Star, the nominees are “Richmond Nationals president Alan Hunter and lawyer Jim Fuggle from the south of the electorate; and businessman Phil Taylor and pharmacist Brian Curran from the seat’s north”. Oddly, Hunter was quoted on Wednesday saying “party members would not automatically appoint a candidate if there were no stand-out nominations”, with suggestions the one-time Anthony family stronghold should be left to the Liberals.
• The Tasmanian Liberals are hawking internal polling which it says shows Labor in trouble in as many three seats, although the only figure provided – a 37 per cent primary vote tie in Bass, which would translate to a comfortable win for Labor – doesn’t bear this out. The other two seats are Braddon and, it seems, Lyons. Barnaby Joyce has today been talking of a Queensland hit-list consisting of Leichhardt, Dawson, Flynn, Longman and Wright (a slightly creative inclusion given it’s a notionally LNP new seat), with Forde as a roughie.
• Left faction powerbroker and state party assistant secretary Luke Foley has taken the place of Ian Macdonald in the New South Wales Legislative Council, following the latter’s resignation after an adverse review finding into travel expenses.
I work in the market and social research industry and I have seen some recent interesting research done in the last few days about the RSPT based on some fairly robust methodology and representative numbers, about 1,200 respondents. Without going into the proprietary details of the research, the question of interest to PBers goes to what respondents think the Government should do now in regard to the RSPT, and the results are:
Stick to what they have proposed – the Mining Sector can afford to pay more without damaging the economy = 20%
Compromise with some changes, but still implement the tax = 48%
Drop the tax entirely – the Mining Sector can’t afford to pay more without damaging the economy = 32%
What seems pretty clear to me on these results is that the wider view about the RSPT in the community is being missed by the other pollsters because of the limited scope of the questions they have been asking – 68% of respondents in this survey are in favour of the RSPT concept if the Government makes some changes, with only 32% absolutely opposed to the tax in any form.
When you ask the question in a different, but still valid way, you can get a different set of responses to those being propagated by the Abbott Opposition and the Mining Sector, and echoed as gospel in the MSM.
Jen
basically the vitriol and noise has ceased
also some dodgy behaviour vis a vis the MCA has given the whip hand to Prime MInister Kevin Rudd
The bleatings here of the drones confirm the Fibs are back to batts boats and the BER
The RSPT has been accepted by 2/3 of the mining industry, onlt the rapacious gougers oppose it now
😉
You really don’t get it do you?
It’s up to YOU to read the links, not us.
Give us your digest of the “facts” contained in the links and then put up with the ridicule you so richly deserve.
It’s very poor etiquette to demand that others do your reading for you (if you can read, that is). You’re not Teacher, and we’re not your students.
If you want to make a point make it yourself.
Skybeau
You cannot prove a negative.
http://bit.ly/bVOIiF
RSPT via Bloomberg
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/06/18/2930655.htm?section=justin
For russel aka Skybeau
My evidence for positive response to the BER comes from ‘the inside’. That is proof positive for me.
The odd rort happens everywhere and anywhere. 200 problems from 24,000 is an extremely acceptable ratio.
If you were in charge of ANYTHING you’d be grateful for those figures.
Give it a rest. You can only go around in circles so long before you get dizzy and faint. Didn’t your Mum ever tell you that?
Thanks Gus, and Hallelujah for that!
Common sense will reign — eventually.
Do you know what (besides really misleading advertising) the MCA did? Or can you not say on a public forum?
[340
Skybeau
You wanted evidence of the blowouts – here’s the blowouts!]
A lot of bluster, no evidence, just polemic…and not worth trudging through, really.
jenauthor@357
The MCA were caught out bribing people to view their ads.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/06/18/2930975.htm?section=justin
jen
1. nil desperandum
2.the people united will never be divided
3. Mar’n had the cat in the bag anyway
TBS
[When you ask the question in a different, but still valid way, you can get a different set of responses]
Yes, perhaps. But as you work in research you would know that if you give respondents three options there is a tendency to select the middle one.
The fact that only 20% fully support the Government position is not particularly encouraging for Labor. To put it another way, 80% oppose the RSPT in its current form.
And you really shouldn’t be giving so much information – some of us may know which company does samples of 1200.
Darren Laver,
[I am sure Scorpio’s just having a bad day]
You don’t know the half of it! 😉
[NSW Education Department director-general Michael Coutts-Trotter says the state has experienced more problems with the BER scheme because it has more schools and in particular, more small schools receiving smaller grants.
“At the outset, we anticipated that there would be problems with the program,” he told the inquiry. “It’s huge.”
Mr Coutts-Trotter says NSW spends more money on school buildings than other states because it has higher quality standards.
He says construction costs have also been higher under the BER program because it was rushed and building work had to be done during school terms.]
SKYBEAU
Blow that out your vuvezuela
I also noticed some debate again about the alleged internet filter from this mornings report about Conroy having to grab his life-jacket and EPIRB before being washed down the gunnels on that issue.
What are we saying, that the filter should stay on the decks, or not? For me the interesting distinction is between those:
1. who believe in (pun intended) the filter;
2. those who think it is good because the government proposed it, and;
3. those in both camps. Anyone like to put their hand up? Of course,
4. is the group who have always thought the filter is moralistic rubbish – a Conroy/ Aust. Christian Lobby gambit with no value.
I’m in group 4. I think group 4 wins.
Wow Gus The Bloomberg story sets it out well.
This part should be mandatory reading!
[ Big Thinking
Rudd’s tax would be one for the history books. Should it be defeated, it could mean the end of big economic thinking. It could deepen entrenched divisions between political parties, leading to a more polarized system, a la the U.S., and allow big business to dictate government policy.
To see where that got the U.S., look no further than the catastrophe at BP Plc. Or how Wall Street giants like Goldman Sachs Group Inc. that received government bailouts are now fighting regulatory change that would benefit America.
Rudd, for all his shortcomings, is the only leader of the developed-economy world who navigated around the global financial crisis. That hardly makes him the clueless liberal ideologue that right-wing pundits suggest.
The public-relations battle is clearly being won by the billionaires. To listen to the miners, Rudd’s tax is an assault on Australia’s future. No, just them and their monster profits. Rudd is putting Australians first, and good for him.]
BB (sigh) the articles refer to another bunch of unhappy schools. If I had just said that you would have wanted the proof.
Jen how can you defend the actual figures – such as $600,000 for an 8m x 3m canteen? Would you pay that for a new house? And that the Catholic school administered projects cost a quarter of the state administered ones? Does it not upset you that the Government are allowing building companies to scam YOUR tax dollars that could go to more worthy causes? Not to mention that your 200 complaints is just quoting the Government’s figures? Hardly impartial is it?
And Briefly your “not worth trudging through” shows a typical Labor trait – don’t let the facts get in the way of a good, passed through the media advisors, spread to all Ministers and spouted ad nauseum media grab !
Skybeau
You have given us opinion pieces.
Can you please supply the auditors reports?
@Gus
[3. Mar’n had the cat in the bag anyway]
Call me dense but I need a translation
Disingenous Jen – we avoided the GFC cos of many things that Rud had nothing to do with – banking regulation set in place by Hawke, personal super set in place by Keating, and large surplus inherited from Howard – personally my $900 stimulated New Zealand so that didn’t really work did it? Our banks were never going to be exposed as much as the US ones as we had far more regulations in place – and let’s be honest how many of you actually felt any impact from the GFC regardless of what Rudd and Swan claim they have done?
[340
Skybeau,You wanted evidence of the blowouts – here’s the blowouts!]
One of the links was to the state national party bloke, Adrian Piccolli, who said hundreds upon hundreds of schools were going to suffer under the BER. A very impartial observer.
On one side we have the OECD holding Australia up as the model that other countries should have followed , the benchmark, for what to have done in the GFC. An international benchmark.
On the other side we have Barnaby zillions, the mad Monk, the blustering buffoon Hockey and their staffers.
Who are you going to take note of.
Unfortunately frank it just will not get as much exposure to people who have seen the orginal MCA ads.
It just beats me that australian *battlers* are supposedly cheering the miners who want to get our minerals at bargain prices while they get all the top side.
Marn Frgsn
Rsrces Mnster
The RSPT debate began way back in Aug 2008
The unbelievable dense and malleable MSM clutched at the oinking of Big Mining Co’s
mar’n ended a 38 year process
😉
skybeau, your ranting doesn’t do your readers any credit at all. There is nothing to be gained by retailing misleading gossip and self-interested political posturing.
Sorry Skybeau, I won;t even answer the nonsense @ 369
You exist on another plane
Castle
I hope you NB’ed the Russel ref in @355
Wow – I give credit to your past leaders’ reforms and you still can’t agree – do you honestly think that if those 3 things hadn’t already been in place that we wouldn’t have sunk further into the GFC crisis even with Rudd’s mad throwing money about?
[4. is the group who have always thought the filter is moralistic rubbish – a Conroy/ Aust. Christian Lobby gambit with no value.]
JV
I’m in group 4 also, but sometimes you have to face realism, if the govt didn’t have a policy like this in place the libs, nats, CDP, FF would go absolutely feral with the backing of the ABC and news about how labor were corrupting our youth and society.
The filter will stop accidental hits, casual browsing and dampens an opposition wedge.
#363
More schools therefore more problems. However the real question is does NSW have a higher % of problems.
JV,
You forgot 5. Those that think filtering the internet is a waste of time, money and effort.
I disagree with the notion of government censorship in general but this is a non-starter from a technical perspective.
Castle – granted the Piccoli one was a mistake was trying to avoid political sites – sorry about that
However I am fed up with the term Mad Monk when Rudd is just as religious if not more so than Abbott – has it occurred to you where he is interviewed every Sunday? Outside St John’s Church in Canberra!
Ta Gus.
Interesting the the MSM have continually bagged Rudd & co over how they went about the tax, but in reality, it has been going on for a long time (which I already understood).
I am getting to a point where I ant to go into some of these news orgs and shake people! Why anyine would want to promote a second rate, backward looking opposition leader with geriatric heaven for followers, over a team of bright, forward thinking ministers is beyond my understanding.
But there you go.
The question is whether the electorate allow the MSM to wield the power they think they have, or not.
I caught a bit of Brad Orgill’s session to the NSW parliamentary committee. One teacher/principal, no doubt very well intentioned, just got off on the wrong path talking wttw about getting better value for educational objectives had it been done more slowly. Which still continues to miss the point that it was as much, or more so, an economic strategy that relied on speed.
I tend to think that whatever the complaint rate is (~1% or whatever), it is pretty small for a quick, complex, widely dispersed project, as compared to its objectives. Not that one goes out to court problems, but problems do arise.
If I were thinking of a competently managed exercise in the private sector, I would imagine that if there were NO complaints, that would almost be a failure, as not enough experimentation was conducted in the exercise.
I was jogged into a remembering a comment made by FDR at a speech he made on his accepentance of the Democratic nomination (in 1936), in particular the last line:
[In the place of the palace of privilege we seek to build a temple out of faith and hope and charity.
It is a sobering thing, my friends, to be a servant of this great cause. We try in our daily work to remember that the cause belongs not to us, but to the people. The standard is not in the hands of you and me alone. It is carried by America. We seek daily to profit from experience, to learn to do better as our task proceeds.
Governments can err, presidents do make mistakes, but the immortal Dante tells us that Divine justice weighs the sins of the cold-blooded and the sins of the warm-hearted on different scales. Better the occasional faults of a government that lives in a spirit of charity than the consistent omissions of a government frozen in the ice of its own indifference.]
As I was reading the speech (a very nice, worthwhile quick read; pity public oratory is so little prized in Australia), the following line struck me as a bit reminiscent of a particular industry in Australia heavily engaged in moving dirt into ships:
[It was natural and perhaps human that the privileged princes of these new economic dynasties, thirsting for power, reached out for control over government itself. They created a new despotism and wrapped it in the robes of legal sanction. In its service new mercenaries sought to regiment the people, their labor, and their property. And as a result the average man once more confronts the problem that faced the Minute Man.]
Anyway, this fine speech is here:
http://www.austincc.edu/lpatrick/his2341/fdr36acceptancespeech.htm
Jon 100% thumbs up – if people want to stop their kids seeing inappropriate things let them take the responsibility to stop it – we don’t all need nursemaiding
[More schools therefore more problems. However the real question is does NSW have a higher % of problems.]
Youg Peter
per capita or dollar value
I think that it is very likely that if the Liberals had won the last election that they would have implemented a stimulus package.
Choosing to oppose Rudd’s package was a move calculated to help them sell the idea of Rudd being a big spender, which they thought would help them win in the future. So their opposition to the stimulus package was a political strategy.
Anyone agree with me?
#380
I am over God-Botherers.
Bob for PM !!!
😆
#380
I am over God-Botherers.
Bob for PM !!!
😆
Peter Young@387
Be careful what you wish for – Bob’s Non Preference Deal will DELIVER a God Botherer – known as Tony Abbott 🙂
[the immortal Dante tells us that Divine justice weighs the sins of the cold-blooded and the sins of the warm-hearted on different scales. Better the occasional faults of a government that lives in a spirit of charity than the consistent omissions of a government frozen in the ice of its own indifference.]
WOW
Am about to read the link
How truly appropriate for our times
🙁
Not really MWH – there may well have been something in place but I think it would have been better thought through – I would like to have think the spending would have been directed towards long term things that would benefit the nation – railways, ports, some way to get QLD’s summer excess water down to the MDB, or the scheme to pump seawater into Lake Eyre, something akin to the Snowy Mountain Scheme, Ord River Dam or Kalgoorlie pipeline
[However I am fed up with the term Mad Monk when Rudd is just as religious if not more so than Abbott – has it occurred to you where he is interviewed every Sunday? Outside St John’s Church in Canberra!]
Oh Skybeau you make me cringe!
Abbott has firmly established his religious wowserness with the Morning After pill veto.
That was letting personal belief overtake political common sense. His statements about women and virginity also do this.
His predeccessor did something similar in appointing a church leader as the GG.
At no time has Rudd done any such thing. And I doubt the Rudds invite the press to meet them on the church steps — more like the parasites lay in wait knowing the im.age will polarise opinion
#384
I would like to see the results on both basis (although I am not sure what the relevance of per capita is). In addition I would like to see the figures on a state by state basis for-
a. Total number of individual projects.
b. Number of projects with identified problems.
Peter Young wrote
Well peter, up to you but you might be interested in the following – download it skip forward 10 or so mins is where the discussion really starts.
Make your own mind up –
http://www.2gb.com/podcasts/alanjones/alanjonesleece_2_270410.mp3
Building the Education revolution
Alan Jones talks to Bob Leece – Coordinator General of the New South Wales Nation Building and Jobs Plan Taskforce – Building the Education revolution.
castle@377
That has no basis in fact. There was never a political driving force for a mandatory internet filter at any point. As far as electoral necessity for a government run internet filter of the type proposed by Conroy goes: there was none; there is none; and there never will be one.
And on the internet filter and censorship …
Kids should not see R and X rated content – so filter or not, kids need protection.
The filter is aimed at stopping adults seeing things that the religious conservatives oppose. Hence info on euthanasia, and sexual things such as fetish are banned. As I said before, things are RC here that are shown on UK TV.
And it is pretty certain that the list of things that is Refused Classification will only grow.
#388
[ Be careful what you wish for – Bob’s Non Preference Deal will DELIVER a God Botherer – known as Tony Abbott ]
Well Bob is truly between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea.
Either way – we get a God-Botherer.
Pox on both their houses.
Youg Peter
[#384]
So sorry that you have caught GP’s disease
anyhoo
read the final report
A&B are both covered
jenauthor – the internet filter, which at one stage was going to ban x-rated content, must be supported by Rudd. That a man is now in a NSW jail for selling porn is in part due to Rudd.
[Disingenous Jen – we avoided the GFC cos of many things that Rud had nothing to do with – banking regulation set in place by Hawke]
Incorrect. Australian banks dispensed with the spivs and schisters in the 90’s after our deep recession. The banks have been gun shy of high risk products (such as CDS’s) ever since.
Still, Rudd had to guarantee the banks. A measure not given the kudo’s it deserved for stopping a panic at the height of the GFC in Oct 2008.
[ personal super set in place by Keating]
Explain how super saved the economy from contracting.
[ and large surplus inherited from Howard]
what large surplus?
[– personally my $900 stimulated New Zealand so that didn’t really work did it?]
So what? The vast majority of the $900 was spent in Australia. Ask retailers how they faired in Australia compared to America and Europe in late 2008 and 2009.
[ Our banks were never going to be exposed as much as the US ones as we had far more regulations in place]
Could you tell us the regulation the banks have in place compared to risk strategy?
[– and let’s be honest how many of you actually felt any impact from the GFC regardless of what Rudd and Swan claim they have done?]
and lest be honest, you are making a fool of yourself. In one breath you mention superannuation and in the next nobody in Australia felt the GFC.
My god, the dripping irony. So no Australians saw their super balances decrease?
You do know that if it wasn’t for public spending, Australia would have slipped into negative growth last quarter, you do know that dont you?
We have an unemployment rate of 5.2%, compared to double digit unemployment in America and across Europe, but you are trying to tell us this happened by chance.
Fair dinkum mate your ignorance and revisionist foolishness is breathtaking.
Jon@379
Yes, indeed. The amusing thing is that no-one on this blog ever mentioned the policy about censorship until Conroy announced it. It has always been the usual retrospective justification from the party faithful. Had it been announced by Howard they would have gone ballistic against it. But, well, that’s modern blog politics.