James J reports Newspoll has the Coalition lead steady at 56-44, from primary votes of 28% for Labor (down three), 46% for the Coalition (down two) and 11% for the Greens (steady), with “others” for some reason hiking five points to 15%, which GhostWhoVotes tells us is the highest since February 2006. Julia Gillard is up two on approval to 29% and one on disapproval to 62%, while Tony Abbott is down two to 30% and up four to 61% – apparently his worst net result ever. Even so, his lead as preferred prime minister has opened from 39-36 to 40-36.
Also out today:
• The weekly Essential Research has Labor recover the point it lost last week to trail 56-44, from primary votes of 33% for Labor (up two), 49% for the Coalition (steady) and 10% for the Greens (steady). Further questions find 53% thinking it “likely” an Abbott government would introduce industrial relations laws similar to WorkChoices against 22% unlikely, and 37% thinking “Australian workers” would be worse off under Abbott against 32% better off. There is also a rather complex question on amendments to surveillance and intelligence-gathering laws.
• Morgan face-to-face, conducted over the previous two weekends, has two-party preferred steady at 54-46 on previous-election preferences and down from 57.5-42.5 to 57-43 on respondent-allocated. On the primary vote, Labor is up 2% to 31.5% and the Greens down 2.5% to 12%, with the Coalition steady on 43%.
Preselection news:
Newcastle (NSW, Labor 12.5%): Labor’s member since 2001, Sharon Grierson, has announced she will not contest the next election. The Newcastle Herald reports the front-runner to succeed Grierson as Labor candidate is “her long-serving staffer and Newcastle councillor Sharon Claydon”. The Liberals have preselected Jaimie Abbott, principal of media training company Gold Star Media who has worked in the past as a public affairs officer with the RAAF, media adviser to Paterson PM Bob Baldwin, and television and radio journalist.
Petrie (Qld, Labor 2.5%): Sandgate Pest Control managing director Luke Howarth has won LNP preselection from a field of ten candidates, emerging a surprise winner over the John Howard-endorsed John Connolly, former Wallabies coach and unsuccessful state candidate for Nicklin.
Rankin (Qld, Labor 5.4%): Jamie Walker of The Australian reports David Lin, Taiwanese-born founder of the Sushi Station restaurant chain, will take on Craig Emerson after winning LNP preselection from a field of six candidates.
Melbourne Ports (Vic, Labor 7.9%): NineMSN reports that the Liberals have again preselected their candidate from 2010, Kevin Ekendahl, a manager at non-profit social enterprises organisation Try Australia.
Throsby (NSW, Labor 12.1%): Bevan Shields of the Illawarra Mercury reports that Mark Hay, military prosecutor and son of state Wollongong MP Noreen Hay, has announced he will not as rumoured be launching a preselection challenge against Stephen Jones in Throsby, as he is about to take a posting with the Royal Australian Navy.
queen about to jump
Dan Gulberry@5511
You’re out by a factor of 10. It’s 16.35 a week. Still not much, particularly since it’s intended to address the long term disadvantage of a vulnerable group in our community.
Spending $16.35 a week on the disabled certainly beats throwing away $1,100,000,000 of taxpayers’ funds like we did when the Super Seaprite replacement helicopter project was abandoned.
Craig Emerson MP retweeted you
18m: @CraigEmersonMP Yay, Emmo on the BISONs – When PJK boasted in the late 1980s of a beautiful set of numbers ,,, http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&ved=0CCUQFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.theaustralian.com.au%2Fnational-affairs%2Fopinion%2Fwe-stand-high-on-the-podium-of-economic-success%2Fstory-e6frgd0x-1226436968828&ei=bmcTUNaiKqOhmQW5kIGgCQ&usg=AFQjCNHP4aKkui1x5O273TIzE7kTMIpVFA …
Is there a link to this Obama survey?
No no No, if there is going Bond, James Bond, it got to be Sean Connery, not the pretender #BondFail
Leone
[I’ve been rung many times by Newpoll and other pollsters and they ALWAYS want a male between 18 and 39. I find it hard to believe that they have always reached their quota for females before they get to me.]
Most of the people in that age group would have a mobile phone, there would be more women at home during the day than men, that is probably why you miss out.
They do not ring mobiles to my knowledge that’s why I think the polls are BENT!.
Fran – You’re RW. Dog help your soul 😆
Craig Emerson MP @CraigEmersonMP
@Thefinnigans @juliagillard You watch, if even one of our BISONs so much as develops a limp our critics will say the whole herd is buggered.
View conversation
Reply Retweet Favorite
New thread.
Finns
Emmo is right. Glum and glummer will highlight any limps
TheFinnigans天地有道人无道 @Thefinnigans
@CraigEmersonMP @juliagillard No way Jose, the magnificent BISONs will always serve the Nation as they have survived for million of years
Oh … you can click on the links …
Apparently Jill Stein
Supports a NATO intervention in Sudan … I said the US should stay out …
Hasn’t given a position on Affirmative Action
Doesn’t believe in expanding welfare programs (Wow! What a conservative!)
Believes in subsidising US farmers (oh dear)
Wants to “offset” the debt by raising taxes and reducing spending but not on farmers (making her a semi-tea party-style “Green”)
….
Wants no government surveillance of the Internet … (with probable cause qualification, I’m OK with that but would oppose regualtion monitoring)
Wants to subsidise US farmers (but include small and organic farmers)
Wants the US out of the UN … Gosh …
Fran 79% Green
Me 73%
Impossible 🙁
Post 5662 is good news 🙂
Yes, I know, new thread 😛
BB terrific post 5490 and 5497.
[Boerwar
Posted Saturday, July 28, 2012 at 2:23 pm | Permalink
Adding one per cent to the GST, from 10% to 11%, would just about cover the NDIS. I suggest we have a question added to the next poll. 1%+ to the GST to cover the NDIS: yes/no.
So, asking the poorest in society to contribute the biggest percentage of their income to funding the NDIS?
Good plan. Not.]
Everyone pays the GST.
To make the prospect of the NDIS real in the next term of government, we have to find an extra $6 billion a year by way of revenue, or find an extra $6 billion worth of programs to cut to offset the $6 billion.
I think we can safely say that the state and territory budgetary situations fall somewhere between parlous and passable. With increasing social costs as the boomers age, the states and territories will be less, and not more, able to pay for the NDIS. So, assume they are not going to be able to come up with the $6 billion.
Mr Abbott is being cagey about the NDIS. He has already said that the Coalition will only pay for the NDIS if they can afford it. They have some sort of monster budget black hole, so they will not be able to afford it. There is no way the Coalition would support an increase in either the company tax or income tax to cover the NDIS. They will already have cut programs massively, so it is unlikely they would find the extra program cuts to fund the $6 billion per annum.
So, forget the states, forget the Coalition.
Labor has already said that it wants to cut company tax, not increase it. Labor is not going to go to an election promising an increase in income tax. Labor has been cutting personal income tax. It is impossible to think it would go to an election promising an increase in income taxes.
In sum, there is no prospect of company tax increases, personal income tax increases or program cuts to an equivalent of $6 billion a year by either of the federal parties. Of course a Greens government would support full funding of the NDIS. The only way they would be able to fund it would be to give their magic pudding another flogging.
That leaves a de facto referendum on increasing the GST by 1% to cover the NDIS. I consider this to be unlikely as well, so I doubt whether we will get an NDIS in the next term of government, regardless of which party runs it.
CTar1:
[Fran – You’re RW. Dog help your soul]
As I said a while back, there are people to my left … The Greens have been described as “neoliberals on bikes” by some on the left. I regard that as unfair, but it does show that the world is a diverse place.
BW:
[To make the prospect of the NDIS real in the next term of government, we have to find an extra $6 billion a year by way of revenue, or find an extra $6 billion worth of programs to cut to offset the $6 billion.]
No prizes for guessing what I’d be cutting … but that aside … the net impact on revenue would probably be a good deal smaller than that because in many cases, the support would facilitate greater workforce participation either by the disabled themselves or their carers. Of course, to the extent that new services are offered and these are taxable, there is revenue clawback.
Fran @ 5667
I don’t discard others’ opinions and you’ve made some effort to make your posting suit the blog so I have a look at what your at – often interesting and thoughtful.
If I tease you about being RW I suspect you’ll survive it.
🙂
BW
Can’t make ends meet at the moment without another 1% added to my cost of living.
Newstart was increased by $11 a fortnight. And that would have given me a buffer, the tiniest of buffers.
However, the rent was increased by $14 a fortnight from July 1.
Percentage-wise of my income, I pay a helluva lot more GST than probably you do.
What about tweaking the MRRT?
[Cape Town – New solar plant technology may take up a lot of space, but it can easily deliver enough energy to power the world, a researcher has said.
Concentrated solar power (CSP) has emerged as a potentially efficient technology that may be able to reduce the reliance on fossil fuels for electricity generation.
“They take up space but when you actually calculate it, it’s a small amount of space. One hundred by 100 miles in the Sahara would actually be enough to power the whole world. It’s not total insanity,” Paul Gauché senior researcher and director of the Solar Thermal Energy Research Group (Sterg) in the Department of Mechanical and Mechatronic Engineering at Stellenbosch University told News24.]
http://www.news24.com/SciTech/News/Solar-could-supply-the-world-20120727
CTar1:
[If I tease you about being RW I suspect you’ll survive it.]
I’m sure I will. OTOH, as I’ve said once before, once you’ve been on the far left for some time, the idea that you’ve drifted rightward is always a little troubling. However rational the reasons for doing so may be, being attacked from the left always provokes a little twinge of discomfort.
Interestingly, the “isidewith” poll probably marginally understated my agreement with Ron Paul. On the Gay Marriage question Paul said no and I said yes. Paul however declared (approximately) for a position that I”ve held for as long as I can recall, which is that the state shouldn’t be in the marriage business and that the matter should be left up to religions. My veiw is that it should be left up to individuals but it amounts to the same thing.
IMO, the state should not impose a qualification on marriages that it recognises other than informed consent. If it removed all reference to marriage in the legal code and accorded no spousal privilege at all, I’d have no interest in supporting gay marriage because there would be no discrimination. Of course, the likelihood of that occurring any time in the forseeable future is for all practical purposes, zero, and to oppose gay marriage law on that basis simply aggravates the offence done to those seeking recognition of their relationships who are denied it purely on a gender basis. This is a bona fide example of the perfect being the enemy of the good.
Tony Abbott will be the most divisive political leader ever to become PM in Australia, at least post World War II. He might get a disproportionate majority of the seats in the House of Reps, but he will be loathed by nearly all of the 46 to 50% who won’t have voted Liberal or National. And many of those who do vote Liberal will probably be holding their nose while they do so. This is very different from when John Howard won in 1996. The ‘losers’ were disappointed but accepted that he’d won a fairly and squarely. Malcolm Fraser was a very divisive figure in 1975, but most of us eventually came to respect, if not particularly like him. But Tony Abbott is certainly not in Malcolm Fraser’s class. He is nothing more than a wrecker and the most crass opportunist, ready to say and do anything to get power. Once he has wrested power for corporate Australia, I predict that he will be ditched by his own side as soon as the polls start to reverse for him – Kevin Rudd’s fate awaits Tony Abbott.
Fan
[If it removed all reference to marriage in the legal code]
I’m also totally indifferent over it other than the equal treatment aspect – if that means in legal terms the ‘marriage’ concept is just a religeous term so be it and leave it to those that want that.
I got 92% Jill Stein followed by Stewart then Obama in the Presidential Quiz.
This is what the argy bargy was all about this week at COAG.
The tory States particularly want the Feds to take full financial responsibility for NDIS while they quietly withdraw and retain the funding they already provide in this area.
So does this other example of howard & costello throwing money away –
Interesting Presidential test. It says I’m 90% with Barrack Obama, 85% with Jill Stein and 18% with Mitt Romney.
[Ian
Posted Saturday, July 28, 2012 at 1:06 pm | Permalink
Would I be wrong in assuming that the trials for the NDIS could, reasonably, be seen as a cost/benefit analysis?]
Exactly it, Ian. That was why Credlin and her lackeys were so desperate to stop it. It’s very clear from Abbott’s warm-up remarks that the NDIS should be funded “from other cuts” not an NDIS levy. Gillard just as clearly doesn’t want the discussion to go there just yet, especially given the Abbott-Credlin propensity to grandstand on GBNT.
The trials will lead to very positive reporting. The recommendations for funding will probably evolve from the trials’ effectiveness. Given the goodwill likely to come from these trials, it will be impossible to run a Tea Party campaign against NDIS.
Gillard and the disability organisations did very well to shame the premiers into cooperating.
[Schnappi
Posted Thursday, July 26, 2012 at 10:13 pm | Permalink
fredn
She was smart enough to bow out.
You saying she will not be sacked or anything else]
Didn’t say she was smart enough not to get involved.
It appears that the turning point (the ALP winning the State seat of Melbourne) has been reached, with the added NDIS and the Coalition saying NOOOO then succumbing. The reporting of politics has been much more favourable to the ALP.
HI MOFOS!!!!!!!!!
HAPPY SPEED DATING FRIDAY!!!!!!!!!!
HAS GUSFACE BEEN HERE WITH MORE WACKY INTERNAL POLLS?
I was trying to catch up on the commentary.
This comment from C@tmomma gets 10/10 from me.
[bemused,
So just a barracker with no skin in the game.
The sort of skin you appear to have in the ALP ‘game’ bemused, could best be characterised as Melanoma.]
😆 😆
Environmental risks of a mind-boggling kind…thanks to Obama
___________________________
From.., Prof Cole
The Feds in the USA have given speedy approval to Shell Oil who want to start ocean floor drilling under the ice in the Arctic Ocean near Alaska
Despite the fact that there is no person or any technology that could aid in the event of an underwater explosion like that several years ago in the Gulf of Mexico…thereby making any efforts to stop a oil flow in the harsh Arctic winters under the sea non-viable .. a flow .which might go for ever thus polluting a large part of the Arctic Ocean…Obama has given permission for the project to go ahead
He seem as blackhearted a villian as George Bush
http://www.juancole.com/2012/08/poisoning-the-seas-to-get-out-oil-that-poisons-the-atmosphere-banerjee.h