The BludgerTrack poll aggregate this week mostly splits the difference between a strong result for the government from ReachTEL and a weak one from Ipsos, translating into a 0.3% shift to Labor on two-party preferred and a two-point change on the seat projection, with Labor picking up one each in New South Wales and Victoria. The Ipsos poll also furnished one set of leadership ratings for the week, the impact of which on the trend measures is fairly minor.
On top of that, I’ve got an avalanche of new material to treat you with this week, most of which has been hived off to a separate post dealing with preselection news. There are two further poll results I’ve so far neglected to cover:
• This week’s Essential Research moves a point in favour of the Coalition on two-party preferred, who now lead 52-48. The primary votes are Coalition 43% (steady), Labor 33% (down two) and Greens 11% (steady). Further questions find 28% reporting the Malcolm Turnbull prime ministership has been better than expected, 22% worse than expected, and 41% as expected; a very even divide on the issue of babies born to asylum seekers in Australia, with 39% wanting them sent to Nauru and 40% believing they should remain in Australia; 34% believing conditions for asylum seekers on Nauru and Manus Island are good, versus 40% for poor; and 64% disapproving of suggestions the administration and payment of Medicare, pharmaceutical and aged care benefits should be outsourced, with only 17% approving.
• The Galaxy Queensland poll that provided state results for the Courier-Mail on the weekend also had a federal voting intention component, which had the Coalition’s lead in Queensland at 57-43 (unchanged from the 2013 election), from primary votes of Coalition 49% (up 3.3% since the election), Labor 30% (up 0.2%), Greens 10% (up 3.8%) and Palmer United 1% (down 10.0%). The poll was conducted last Wednesday and Thursday from a sample of 869.
Other notable news:
• The federal redistribution process for the Australian Capital Territory was finalised last month, leaving undisturbed the draft proposal from September. The Fraser electorate, which covers the northern part of Canberra, is to be renamed Fenner, with the Canberra electorate continuing to account for the capital’s centre and south, along with the unpopulated areas of the territory’s south. The two seats are respectively held for Labor by Gai Brodtmann and Andrew Leigh. Around 10,000 voters are to be transferred from Fraser to Canberra, leaving Labor’s two-party margin in Fraser unchanged at 12.6%, while increasing the Canberra margin from 7.0% to 7.4%.
• The process for a redistribution of the Northern Territory and its two federal electorates has commenced, but with a final resolution for the process being scheduled for early next year, the new boundaries will not take effect at the next election.
• The Northern Territory parliament has voted to change the electoral system from compulsory to optional preferential voting, so that voters will be required to do no more than number a single box, as is the case at state elections in New South Wales and Queensland. The bill was passed with the support of cross-bench independents in the face of opposition from Labor.
Jack, quit while your ahead.
MTBW@2047
I think you should take the advice offered in 2043.
You are confusing two remarks made about different people.
I hope I got it right this time. 😀
Not sure why people are still against the death penalty these days…
MTBW@2047
And as he said, he was talking about two different people, so one could be delusional and one could be chewed up by the big party machine. So I guess he could have it both ways 🙂
Jack a Randa
Perhaps I’m too old for this pc nonsense.
Anyway, I’m not attracted to Liz Ellis.
So much material – so little desire to get my head smacked …
Bemused is just concerned about Rex’s mental health. Its been well established in the medical community that having contrary opinions to Bemused on the Rudd/Gillard issue is a clear sign of psychological problems.
IMO, its a bit much to call Maxine McKew deluded for her positions re RGR. She was simply an ardent Rudd supporter, either due to a genuine regard for his performance as PM or simply a belief that she owed her win in Bennelongand subsequent outer ministry to him, or – most likely – a combination of both. In any case, as a parliamentary secretary, she probably never had to deal with Rudd to the extent that ministers and public servants had to, and being (I assume) on pretty good terms with him, she probably wasn’t ever really on the receiving end of his legendarily bad temper either.
I’m hardly a fan of Rudd, but I think its important to remember that things are generally a lot more nuanced and complicated than “Rudd was utterly incompetent in everything he did” or “Rudd was an excellent PM knifed in the back for no reason!” Personally, I find it hard to dispute the many, many accounts about Rudd’s unsuitability for the position of PM and, er, less-than-stellar personality traits, but I’m don’t doubt that he was trying his absolute hardest in the job, that there were still those areas where he did well in (the GFC respons le comes to mind), and that were people who could genuinely stand working with him and/or to whom Rudd’s flaws weren’t particularly apparent.
Fulvio
Relax 😀
So how long does baby Asha and her mother get to stay in community before Dutton quietly deports them back to Nauru?
Tom.
Asha
Rudd and Abbott through their madness have destructed this once lucky country in a massive way over the last decade .
The Associated Press @AP 17m17 minutes ago
BREAKING: Police: 14-year-old girl is seventh person to die after Kalamazoo, Michigan, shootings
Rex Douglas@2060
You really are obsessed aren’t you Rex?
FWIW, a close relative was working way up the greasy pole in the APS and close to the action when Cheryl Kernot swapped into Labor. She said that the wheels fell off because Cheryl had lost her minders in the switch and lacking political judgment, behaved like a loose cannon.
Only anecdotal, I know, though with the heady business of an affair as well, could explain why she didn’t last. Although the affair being publicised wouldn’t have helped.
Rex Douglas@2053
Because two wrongs don’t make a right.
Rex Douglas@2061
Is Rudd or Shorten responsible?
bemused
Taliban have no real worries about IS. IS are getting the shit kicked out of them in Syria, IS’s next great hope is Libya.
And, Bemused, you’re not obsessed? Just STOP it NOW, please. And Fulvio at top of page, I’m not saying another word about Ms Ellis…
poroti@2066
Have you read that article by Kilcullen?
Jack A Randa@2067
Nope, I’m not obsessed. Are you?
I’d be absolutely for the death penalty in cases of callous murder where it was absolutely 100% certain they’d got the right perpetrator – and knowing the number of cases where the accused has turned out later to be innocent that’s probably never.
Is it Crikey that does the sexiest pollie of the year thing, along with the arsehat awards?
Don’t think it’s neccesarily sexist to say you find people attractive.
Jack A Randa: if you are still here, do you have a constitutional lawyer’s view on the issue I raised back over the page at 2049? I seem to recall there was a High Court case a few years ago on the degree of specificity required in Appropriation Acts, but I’m not across the detailed implications of that ruling for the movement of money around between agencies.
don
I think it’s wrong that society be expected to support such an anti-social person capable of such terror.
Monica Lynagh@2071
Of course it isn’t.
Rex Douglas
[The Associated Press @AP 3m3 minutes ago
Michigan State Police: 9-year-old girl in critical condition after Kalamazoo shootings http://apne.ws/1TxBDae
Not sure why people are still against the death penalty these days…]
Yeah, the death penalty would have stopped that eh ?
Rex Douglas@2073
It is actually more expensive to execute them after all the appeals that will take place.
Oh dear, support for the death penalty. Think it’s time to water the garden.
poroti
Is that what I said?
bemused
The article what you did not link ? 🙂
[Don’t think it’s neccesarily sexist to say you find people attractive.]
It certainly isn’t.
RD
[Is that what I said?]
Yes. But if not what did you say ?
poroti@2079
As is well known, a link to the Australian will not work.
I gave the headline with instructions to google it.
Bemused
I rather think Kilcunnen may be suffering relevance deprivation. At the moment anyway ISIS in both Syria and Iraq, looks to be taking a beating. The Kurds in the North have shrunk their territory in Syria and the Russo/Syrian forces are gaining in the middle areas. The US claims to be bombing but I am not sure who is benefitting – possibly the Kurds but it is not clear.
It is not over yet but the claims of ISIS sweeping all before them seem to be now overblown. The story seems similar in Iraq, with the Kurds and the iraqi government regaining territory.
Are MTBW and poroti the same person?
daretotread@2084
So you have read his article I recommended?
An interesting piece by Krugman.
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/15/opinion/how-america-was-lost.html?WT.mc_ev=click&WT.mc_id=NYT-E-I-NYT-E-AT-021816-L4A&=&=&em_pos=medium&emc=edit_el_20160218&nl=el&nl=at-times&nl_art=2&nlid=12353973&ref=headline&te=1&_r=0
Re the Thomas Piketty oped on the rise of Bernie Sanders, I have a theory that from the early eighties the rich in the US (and the UK) forgot the lessons of WW2 and started getting greedy again.
frednk @ 1998,
‘ I only found out today that Baby Asha is in hospital with burns suffered as a result of a cooking accident on Nauru. So of course it would be wrong to send a one year old burns victim back to an atoll in the middle of nowhere and without a proper Burns Unit.
I am sure you can harden your heart a little more and declare it acceptable.’
That’s really nasty.
B.C.
[I have a theory that from the early eighties the rich in the US (and the UK) forgot the lessons of WW2 and started getting greedy again.]
Yep. Fantastic interview by P Adams of JK Galbraith on LNL years back where JKG explained how the post war welfare state was designed to protect the wealthy rather than the poor . The theory being that poverty made extreme politics , left and right, appealing. The Welfare State was to prevent the general population falling into such states of poverty. The wealthy of Europe suffered catastrophic loss of wealth and in eastern Europe pretty much total loss. The rich bustards have forgotten that lesson and think the welfare state is about looking after the ‘peasants’.
Given quite a few PBers have argued for fixing bracket creep, I’d be interested to see what people think of this:
afford”. Photo: Jonathan Barrett
[A proposal to lift the $80,001 marginal tax bracket to fix the problem of bracket creep would help the wealthy up to 10 times more than average wage earners, according to an analysis of Treasury data.]
http://www.theage.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/bracket-creep-fix-a-boon-to-wealthy-men-20160220-gmzf06.html
Nauru should never, ever have been reopened. The Immigration Department advised strongly in 2011 that it would not be effective again. Then Secretary, Andrew Metcalfe, who had been closely involved in the first Pacific Solution explicitly advised Abbott and Morrison of this. And so he was sacked from his subsequent job as Secretary of the Department of Agriculture when Abbott and Credlin came to power.
Nauru was only reopened because Abbott and Morrison blocked Labor from implementing any other solution – specifically the Malaysian people swap. Abbott and Morrison wanted Nauru reopened to make the political point that it was all Labor’s fault for closing it. Morrison went there and could see that it was not ready but came back and announced to the nation that it was ready to take asylum seekers straight away. And all of our press corps just took his word for it. Now they are whinging that they can’t get visas to go there, but at the time they couldn’t even be bothered to fact check his outrageous lie.
So the baby Asha case and the repeated allegations of other gross human rights violations are directly the fault of Abbott, Morrison, Dutton and Turnbull, all of whom were happy to go along with insistence on a brutal regime of inhumanity in order to get electoral power.
JD @ 2090
[Given quite a few PBers have argued for fixing bracket creep]
We need bracket creep to claw back structurally the overly generous tax cuts based on the mining boom receipts that never eventuated. At best, there should be an adjustment at the bottom end, so that any cut back disproportionately benefits those who most need it – the lowest income earners.
JaR@2070
Of couse, I respect your right to express your views in relation to CP but I am totally oppose your stance.
Nothing more than judicial murder in my view.
I suspect if a referendum were held a majority would probably go for a reintroduction of this barbaric form of revenge, however the arguments today for its abolition in Oz are as good as they were 20-30 years ago when this primitive form of punishment was finally done away with.
Quite happy to accept I hold a minority view.
Michael at 2072 – I was away but now I’m back, maybe briefly. Yes I think you’ve discovered another reason why Trunchbull may need the budget or at least a “supply” act passed before he can pull off a DD. Looking at the appropriations for the Finance portfolio there is a separate line of two for the AEC and even if Outcome 2 for the Department itself (“Support an efficient and high-performing public sector through providing leadership to Commonwealth entities in ongoing improvements to public sector governance, including through systems, frameworks, policy, advice and service delivery”) could be stretched to apply to an independent statutory authority (dubious) there may not be enough money spilling over into the next FY to pay for a complex DD election.
Incidentally there is one permanent appropriation lurking in the C’th Electoral Act, s 302. But it’s only for the election funding provisions for candidates and parties. They should really have one for the AEC’s own expenses incurred in the conduct of elections – but they don’t unless it’s buried somewhere that I can’t find.
Tricot, I don’t think you read my view carefully enough – a common problem on this blog.
I’m sorry but I really am heartbroken that frednk could say something as nasty as that about me.
Frankly it’s The Greens that have hardened their hearts in recent years such that they can now justify getting down in the gutter and spitting acid at people who don’t agree with their world view because they are purer of heart than anyone else. Or so their deluded world view makes them think.
Anyway, over and above the fact that it distresses me to see such full frontal nastiness from supporters of the party that styles themselves as the good guys compared with any other political party, I just know that at least my stance as far as the asylum seeker issue goes has been constant from the get go and unaffected by any political consideration other than wanting to achieve an outcome in this policy area similar to that espoused by imacca earlier today but basically, at it’s heart, to see the tragic loss of life at sea diminished to as close to zero as possible, to increase our refugee intake via collecting together a varied cross-section of refugees from strife-torn areas around the globe and to excise the People Traffickers from the equation.
If that makes me hard of heart, so be it, I guess.
I would have thought crocodile tears over deaths of asylum seekers at sea plus no real solution about what to do about it was worse. Apparently not.
Oh, and as a mother of course I am concerned about Baby Asha, though I had refrained up until today from saying anything about the situation because I fully expected to be called a hypocrite because some are not able to understand a nuanced position. I just didn’t expect them to be so nasty with it.
I’m off to watch The X Files with my children who love me and I them and to get away from such pathetic smallness of vision and understanding.
Apologies if someone has already linked:
https://t.co/q6NnMLwSIG
ajm:
Brilliant. Thanks for sharing.
Jack A Randa @ 2094: Thanks for your views on that. As it happens I worked at the AEC for a long time, and was involved with the big legislative amendments in 1983. At that time there was a standing appropriation inserted in s.92 of the Commonwealth Electoral Act to cover the cost of “habitation reviews” – door to door updates of the roll. But that’s no longer there, and my memory was that that Department of Finance, a good while ago now, more or less declared war on standing appropriations, and tried to pare them back as much as possible. There certainly isn’t one for election costs.
There is such an appropriation, however, in the Tasmanian Electoral Act 2004 (http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/legis/tas/consol_act/ea2004103/s240.html). The whole issue of control of finances is an important one when it comes to the independence of a body like the AEC. In many countries, it’s deemed unthinkable that the election management body could be truly independent while the executive government retained control over its finances.
[
C@tmomma@2096I’m sorry but I really am heartbroken that frednk could say something as nasty as that about me. ]
I try hard to ignore the bad opinions about me from those whom I do not respect.
Fsssshhh! Straight over the top of my head.
If I am walking down the road and some hoons lean out of a car and say things about me, do I care? No, I smile, because I do not know them nor respect them, and they do not know me. How could they be capable of reasoned thought about me?
I think we should only care about the opinions of those whose opinions we value. All others can just bugger off.