GhostWhoVotes relates that the latest Newspoll has Labor leading 52-48, up from 51-49 last fortnight. Labor is up a point on the primary vote to 36%, and the Coalition down one to 40%. More to follow. UPDATE: The Australian report relates that Bill Shorten’s approval rating is up three points to 36%, which is the first time a poll has moved in his favour in quite a while. UPDATE 2: Full tables here; to fill in the blanks, Shorten’s disapproval is steady at 43%, Tony Abbott is up two on approval to 40% and steady on disapproval at 50%, and Abbott’s lead as preferred prime minister nudges from 42-36 to 43-36.
Today’s Morgan result, combining its regular face-to-face and SMS polling from the last two weekends, was the Coalition’s worst since the election, recording a 1.5% shift on the primary vote from the Coalition (to 38%) to Labor (38.5%), with the Greens down a point to 11% and Palmer United up half a point to 4.5%. On 2013 election preferences, this gives Labor a 53.5-46.5 lead, up from 52.5-47.5 a fortnight ago, while on respondent-allocated preferences the shift is from 53.5-46.5 to 54.5-45.5. Morgan has also been in the business lately of providing selective state-level two-party results, which are presumably based on respondent-allocated preferences. From this poll we are told Labor had unlikely leads of 56.5-43.5 in Queensland and 52-48 in Western Australia, together with leads of 54.5-45.5 in New South Wales and 55-45 in Victoria, and an unspecified “narrow” lead in South Australia.
UPDATE (Essential Research): Essential Research has Labor back up a point on the primary vote after it fell two last week, now at 37%, with the Coalition up one for a second week. The Greens and Palmer United are at 9% and 4%, with others down a point and the other loose point coming off rounding. Respondents were quizzed about the attributes of the major parties, which provides good news for Labor in that “divided” is down 14% to 58%, and “clear about what they stand for” is up 8% to 42%. Those are also the biggest movers for the Liberals, respectively down 6% and up 7%, although they are still performing better than Labor on each at 50% and 32%. The worst differential for Labor is still “divided”, at 26% in favour of the Liberals, while for the Liberals it’s “too close to the big corporate and financial interests”, which is at 62% for Liberal and 34% for Labor.
A question reading “as far as you know, do you think taxes in Australia are higher or lower than in other developed countries” turns up the fascinating finding that 64% of respondents believed they were higher versus only 8% for lower, while 65% believed taxes to have increased over the last five years versus 9% for decreased. Forty-seven per cent believe the current level of taxation is enough versus 33% who believe they will need to increase. The poll also finds 50% opposed to following New Zealand’s example in holding a referendum on changing the flag versus only 31% supportive.
@LU/398
XP demise is long coming, considering it’s one of the most popular operating systems, it’s no different for Ubuntu going from version 5 to 10.
Linux (any flavor) is still ready for prime time.
$120 is cheap (you can get Windows 8.1 for that price too, OEM).
[ Jackol
Posted Tuesday, March 25, 2014 at 1:36 pm | Permalink
I would have thought Thomson’s precarious financial position would have made just copping the 3 months in the big house as a more sensible option… ]
My thoughts as well. Do the time and try to move on, not drag it out with money he probably doesn’t have.
lizzie
Very bizarre as he repeatedly told Labor how they should have done the SSO. Apparently the SSO smacked of being a typical Labor political stunt. Said with a straight face of course.
[XP demise is long coming, considering it’s one of the most popular operating systems, it’s no different for Ubuntu going from version 5 to 10.]
XP was a good system, and I used it right up until I made the switch to linux about 6 years ago.
[you can get Windows 8.1 for that price too, OEM]
But why would you, given that it’s shite?
@LU/404
I have no drama using it, the main problem was Metro, which can be fixed by one of the free tools for start menu (or Stardock).
milenko
[The RC is reading emails/ advice between Church’s lawyers & themselves… Ellis is being churned… justice or moral duty is the Last thing on their minds.]
Spot on!
Lizzie
[I am running XP. Do I have to panic? Should I ask Turnbull’s advice?]
Probably not (even putting aside the pointlessness of panicking). You just won’t get any patches or new plug-ins and you may be more vulnerable to data loss or malware.
Everything that currently works will continue to do so though not all new applications by MS will be able to run in XP.
I recommend saving all your important data onto separate drives. These days, you can save images of your drive at various points and put them onto external drives. This allows you to recover from most malware issues without even working out what the problem is because you just reimage over the top and then add your backed up folders. It has the added advantage that if a drive fails, or the PC is stolen or there is a fire, then your data is safe.
I find OSX from Apple is good. Especially as they too have it on their machines for free and if you like you can have linux or windows on your machine as well
Oh no. Knight and Dame is back. How retrograde is Abbott?
Thomson is stuck in the criminal’s catch 22.
I am not guilty but if I am guilty, I am sorry
“@farrm51: PM Abbott to bring back knighthoods. GG Cosgrove to be first knight. Outgoing GG Bryce the first dame.”
LU
[But why would you, given that it’s shite?]
I’ve got 2 laptops.
One with a big screen and Windows 7 (I’ve seen 8 and not going there anytime soon).
A second 10.1″ screen one that I chuck in a suitcase when I travel. It’s got Ubantu on it.
http://www.japantoday.com/category/national/view/fukushima-plant-water-decontamination-system-down-again
More Fukushima issues.
Had the misfortune of using (or trying to use) a windows laptop recently. Have been using Macs so long I just expect things to happen. 😀
Sensible question from Gallery
Why would yu want to do this?
“@bkjabour: Holy shit. Sir Shane Warne.”
I recall Whitlam’s reference to Jack Eggerton as ‘Sir Toby Belch’. Can anyone beat that in reference to Abbott?
*ALERT*
MASSIVE CREDLIN STUNT – LOOK OVER THERE !!
Abbott is reintroducing Sirs and Dames into Australian honours.
FFS!
Jesus Kerrrist!
“Lord Downer of Kangaroo Island and the White Shark Coast”.
Arise Sir David Flint.
Sir Arthur Sinodinos?
How much is it going to cost the tax payers to bring back knighthoods?
What to say? I am revolted, personally, but … gah.
Is Bryce going to go along with this? I will be somewhat disappointed in her if she does, particularly given the mild republican sentiment she expressed in that speech.
“@bairdjulia: The great irony: Quentin Bryce, the first Governor General to express republican views while in office to be Abbott’s first queenly Dame.”
The Australian Unicorn Awards.
“@danielhurstbne: What’s wrong with existing honour system, @lenoretaylor asks. PM: “That is for eminent achievement. This is for pre-eminent achievement””
And Dame Browyn Bishop
[ the main problem was Metro]
Boy, isn’t it a dog of a welcome page! Anyway, I find that any flavour of linux runs the applications I need for work significantly faster than windows (leaving me more time to poll-bludge) and I have better control of what’s going on in general. That’s my PoV on it.
Onto other things, what do PBers think of this? (SMH link)
“@David_Speers: background: Whitlam axed knighthoods in 75, Fraser brought back. Hawke axed again in 83. Howard didn’t bring back. #pmagenda @SkyNewsAust”
@LU/429
That’s fine for you, but the masses think that Linux not ready.
[ By the way, if the situation is so dire, why is Abbott repealing the mining tax just before it starts to make money … ]
I think you just answered your own question 🙂
“@profsarahj: Gee this govt is into the important things. The right to be a bigot. Tick. Knighthoods. Tick. Reconciliation … *tumbleweeds*”
Good to see Abbott addressing the big issues facing Australia. 😆
Abbott says they will be Sirs and Dames of the Order of Australia. If it’s not a British thing then why revert to such an anachronism?
LU –
Hmmm. I’m all in favour of pushing the minimum wage up as far as is practicable, but I’m not impressed by using the pyramid-scheme of Australian house prices as a basis for judging what the minimum wage should be.
“@Picketer: Epic trolling of modernity from the PM. Well played, Sir.”
Wow, knights and dames coming back. Ho hum, another unicorn moment. This should make the ALP and the left very happy, more evidence of how this government is, very much to its own disadvantage, spending far too much energy on niche issues of concern only to an elderly subset of its supporters.
Not sure whether the details permit there to be a Dame Bronwyn Bishop. I rather hope so: the thought of Mr Abbott being driven to distraction by her daily lobbying is really rather nice.
Dame Gina the Hutt
“@Mileshef: Reigning tweet on Knighthoods from Dame Ali RT”@apiotrowski9: This is really taking the whole Game of Thrones obsession too far. #auspol””
Wonder what happens if MP’s here are knighted, and found out expenses, conflict of interests, etc?
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/honours-list/10542899/New-Year-Honours-2014-Three-MPs-criticised-over-expenses-given-knighthoods.html
“Three MPs who have been embarrassed over their use of the Parliamentary expenses system are knighted in the New Year honours list.”
And people accuse the left of being obsessed with symbolic bullshit…
[That’s fine for you, but the masses think that Linux not ready.]
Dare I say, the masses don’t know what’s good for them, in this extremely limited, but at the same time ubiquitous, case, but it will probably stay that way until Android rejoins the Linux main kernel.
“@SimonThomsen: Clive Palmer. Sir Cumference”
This item from Essential highlights one of the pitfalls of polling:
[64% think that taxes in Australia are higher than in other developed countries (with 29% saying
much higher), 21% think they are much the same
and 8% think they are lower.]
The problem here is that 64% of people are objectively wrong. Facts arent determined by their popularity.
Pat Murray @99keepitup 34s
@randlight @farrm51 How long before J. Howard “accepts public office” swiftly followed by a knighthood.
View conversation
No at least a Lord for him????
I run Win 8.1, Ubuntu 13.10, iOS 7.1 and Android 4.4.2.
They all have things they do well, I use the tool for the job I want to do.
WTF knighthoods!! Give me a break.
What else is going on – what’s this a distraction from?
[Hmmm. I’m all in favour of pushing the minimum wage up as far as is practicable, but I’m not impressed by using the pyramid-scheme of Australian house prices as a basis for judging what the minimum wage should be.]
So Jackol, you’d agree that the way to tackle high housing prices is by implementing measures that would make housing more affordable?
Bring back Sir Les!
“@drewsheldrick: This announcement is going to do wonders for drag names.”