An off week in the fortnightly cycles for both Newspoll and Essential Research, but we do have three fairly detailed sets of attitudinal polling doing the rounds:
• Ipsos has results from its monthly Issues Monitor series, which records a dramatic escalation in concern about the environment. Asked to pick the three most salient out of 19 listed issues, 41% chose the environment, more than any other. This was up ten on last month’s survey, and compares with single digit results that were not uncommonly recorded as recently as 2015. Cost of living and health care tied for second on 31%, respectively down three and up six on last month. The economy was up one to 25%, and crime down one to 21%. On “party most capable to manage environmental issues across the generations”, generations up to and including X gave the highest rating to the Greens, towards whom the “boomer” and “builder” generations showed their usual hostility. The poll was conducted online from a sample of 1000.
• A poll by YouGov for the Australian Institute finds 79% expressing concern about climate change, up five since a similar poll in July. This includes 47% who were very concerned, up ten. Among those aged 18 to 34, only around 10% expressed a lack of concern. Fifty-seven per cent said Australia was experiencing “a lot” of climate change impact, up 14%; 67% said climate change was making bushfires worse, with 26% disagreeing; and only 33% felt the Coalition had done a good job “managing the climate crisis” (a potentially problematic turn of phrase for those who did not allow that there was one), compared with 53% who took the contrary view. The poll was conducted January 8 to 12 from a sample of 1200; considerable further detail is available through the full report.
• The Institute of Public Affairs has a poll on Australia Day and political correctness from Dynata, which has also done polling on the other side of the ideological aisle for the aforesaid Australia Institute. This finds 71% agreeing that “Australia Day should be celebrated on January 26” (55% strongly, 16% somewhat), and 68% agreeing Australia had become too politically correct (42% strongly, 26% somewhat). Disagreement with both propositions was at just 11%. A very substantial age effect was evident here, but not for the two further questions relating to pride in Australia, which received enthusiastic responses across the board. I have my doubts about opening the batting on this particular set of questions by asking if respondents were “proud to be an Australian”, which brings Yes Minister to mind. Perhaps the most interesting thing about the poll is the demographic detail on the respondents, who were presumably drawn from an online panel. This shows women were greatly over-represented in the younger cohorts, while the opposite was true among the old; and that the sample included rather too many middle-aged people on low incomes. The results would have been weighted to correct for this, but some of these weightings were doing some fairly heavy lifting (so to speak).
Elsewhere, if you’re a Crikey subscriber you can enjoy my searing expose on the electoral impact of Bridget McKenzie’s sports sports. I particularly hope you appreciate the following line, as it was the fruit of about two days’ work:
When polling booth and sport grants data are aggregated into 2288 local regions designated by the Australian Bureau of Statistics, there turns out to be no correlation whatsoever between the amount of funding they received and how much they swung to or against the Coalition.
I worked this out by identifying the approximate target locations of 518 grants, building a dataset recording grant funding and booth-level election swings for each of the ABS’s Statistical Local Area 2 regions, and using linear regression to calculate how much impact the grants had on the Coalition vote. The verdict: absolutely none whatsoever.
Coalition’s ‘demeaning’ parenting payment crackdown falls short of estimated savings
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2020/jan/23/coalitions-demeaning-parenting-payment-crackdown-falling-short-of-estimated-savings
Bushfire crisis: more than half of all Australians found to have been directly affected
A quarter of those in Australia Institute survey reported illness or health effects
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2020/jan/23/bushfire-crisis-more-than-half-of-all-australians-found-to-have-been-directly-affected
C@t,
One last point I’d make is that anarchist politics are fundamentally anti-statist and anti-hierarchical. Bookchin for example argues for what he terms Libertarian Municipalism which revolves around shifting decision making to face-to-face municipal based groupings. This replaces top-down power with grass-roots bottom-up power. This idea and Bookchin’s writing formed the basis of the reorganization of the Kurdish PKK in the late-1990’s and early 2000’s.
https://pulitzercenter.org/reporting/bizarre-and-wonderful-murray-bookchin-eco-anarchist
BW
Any fool can slag Greens. And many fools do.
Spending so much time slagging a minor party that will not be in government in its own right is such a foolish waste of time.
C@tmomma @ #566 Thursday, January 23rd, 2020 – 7:09 am
If only there was a major political party prepared to capitalize on this by having a credible climate policy geared towards preventing these kind of events from getting even worse in the future, and pointing out that the Coalition has no such policy and wants to do the exact opposite…
‘poroti says:
Thursday, January 23, 2020 at 9:23 am
Boerwar
A suggestion that what Whitlam spoke of may still be there but in a different form, you are a bit of a ‘petal’ to call that “slagging Labor”.’
Yeah, nah.
If it were an isolated incident on Bludger, perhaps.
But after six years of systemic Labor slagging by the Greens, nope. The Greens should be claiming some credit for Scotty from Marketing. They helped get him up. The Greens were Killing Bill and Same Old Same Old with the best of them.
Anecdotal, but somewhat depressing…
I’m on a bit of a road trip down to Sydney at the moment.
Speaking to people in servos, shops, friends I’m staying with etc., I haven’t found ONE who, when the surface is even slightly scratched, believes that the bushfires have anything much at all to do with Climate Change.
It’s “bloody Greenies” stopping burnbacks, arsonists, “just another hot summer”, “an ABC beat up” (they’re after more funding apparently), “greedy scientists” and so on… anything but Climate Change.
Don’t underestimate the capabilities of the human mind to rationalise away almost anything into as comfortable corner as possible, one that makes it easier to cope with the consequences, or that confirms their view of the world and it’s supposed future.
Belief that Climate Change is a real thing that is affecting us now is very fragile. This week’s seemingly solid polls are just a thin crust papering over a huge seething ocean of denial and excuses.
You can explain the physical mechanisms of how CO2 acts as a greenhouse gases and receive blank, almost patronizing looks of disbelief. You can refer to temperature tables over the decades and be told the BOM is corrupt.
People don’t WANT to believe their world is changing. Almost anyone who gives them that opportunity to deny will find an attentive audience.
bakunin,
You know what I’ve discovered about local collective decision-making cohorts? The alphas and the ambitious always try to dominate. They aren’t always the ones best qualified to lead either.
https://www.goodfood.com.au/recipes/news/i-made-paris-hiltons-lasagne-and-it-tasted-like-a-shoe-20200121-h1l7qs
Flashback —–
https://www.newstatesman.com/node/162645
Therefore – go ye forth and be of humble spirit. Boiled shoe is not to be sneezed at. 🤧👞👠
‘BB
People don’t WANT to believe their world is changing.’
What did Vesuvius ever do for Pompeii?
Good Morning
https://www.thenational.ae/davos-funeral-of-free-market-capitalism-has-china-in-mind-1.411937
Jeff Sparrow
There’s nothing safe about a country in flames, and the Coalition will exploit that
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/jan/22/theres-nothing-safe-about-a-country-in-flames-and-the-coalition-will-exploit-that
@KetanJO tweets
I think conservative / climate denying media outlets and journalists use this photo because they’re catastrophically misogynist.
The world is realising how much harm their pseudoscience has caused, so they console themselves by turning to something familiar: hating a woman. https://twitter.com/KetanJ0/status/1219964817315942401/photo/1
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EO4vgm0WkAAAts-?format=jpg&name=360×360
@alexbhturnbull tweets
Climate change makes your power bills go up. You pay a little now or you pay a lot later ecology does not care. https://twitter.com/vepc_vu/status/1220113281739739136
@VEPU_VU tweets
Bushfires set to spark electricity bill shock as power companies pass on insurance and rebuilding costs https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-01-23/power-prices-rise-blackouts-increase-bushfire-season-intensifies/11890646 via @ABCNews
bakunin
Qamishli is one of the towns now dominated by Turkish armor, long range artillery, and air power. This happened following Trump’s sudden and unilateral and subsequent partially-reversed withdrawal from Syria.
Tens of thousands of Kurds fled this latest invasion by the Turks.
I am not sure that the Turks actually entered the town. They can flatten it any time they choose so to do. They dominate all the approaches.
guytaur
‘State capitalism” must be very fashionable among the ‘power elite” . Earlier read an analysis as to what the Russian governments recent musical chairs was about and ‘Come on Down” ‘state capitalism” as being the in thing. Although what each writer means by ‘state capitalism’ may be very different.
https://www.unz.com/tsaker/the-new-russian-government/
Bushfire Bill
Thursday, January 23rd, 2020 – 9:34 am
Comment #605
Perhaps you are attractive to the people you describe.
I spend a couple of hours a week talking to a nephew in Canberra who recounts conversations with his friends and acquaintances who have (what I would describe as) weird religious theories. He then wants to tell me (in minute detail) of these conversations. I am now tempted to play the “Red Card” with a threat of going to the “Black Spot” – purely in self defence you will understand.
In your case – I wonder where are the folk who make up the respondents mentioned in William’s headline notes. You may have a repelling factor.
The failure of polling at the last Federal Election tells me the almost unimaginable idea –
People lie about just about everything.
Bonjour. 😎
Bushfire Bill @ #606 Thursday, January 23rd, 2020 – 9:34 am
A PB stalwart comes hard up against reality.
Mundo is not surprised.
Poroti
The “State Capitalism” I want is the Scandinavian kind.
People not corporations or government in charge. I truly don’t like the authoritarianism of the Asian model.
On climate change, the suggestion these events have happened before is BS. There are many counter-examples, not only in Australia.
I have several relatives and pen-friends in Scandinavian countries, and this “winter” for them has been historically mild. In southern Finland there has been no snow and there was no white christmas. The lakes have not frozen over for the first time in recorded history (>500years). For perspective, Helsinki is north of Anchorage and the top third of Finland is inside the Arctic Circle. The average January temperature is normally around -10C. This year it is around 0 C.
https://yle.fi/uutiset/osasto/news/finland_experiencing_mildest_winter_in_100_years/11160303
The world is presently experiencing climate events that have not been seen before in recorded human history.
Wildfires show us how the climate emergency is already affecting Europe
We look at the devastation of Australia’s bushfires and don’t believe it could happen here. But it already is
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/jan/22/australia-bushfires-europe-wildfire-climate
Also who knew. The Equality for LGBTI people means a socialist society.
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/davos-2020-salesforce-founder-capitalism-is-dead-181643945.html
While the debate about fuel reduction burns will come up there is one parameter that has yet to be mentioned:
You can’t do fuel reduction burns in rainforest without destroying the rainforest.
Extensive tracts of rainforest were burned during the fires.
The disconnect is obvious and deliberate.
Doesn’t Scandinavian capitalism include Equinor which is majority owned by the Norwegian Government?
Shellbell
No system gets it totally right.
I always want democracy not dictatorship.
@dwnews tweets
Wuhan authorities have locked down the city by suspending all transport.
https://www.dw.com/en/pandemic-fears-grow-as-new-coronavirus-spreads/a-52103638
[Benioff also called for higher taxes on the rich to help tackle inequality and the climate crisis.]
Presumably he could pay for some modelling as to what the appropriate level of tax is and has been, determine the personal differential and pay the difference somewhere.
Shellbell
I think that is somewhere in the Davos forums.
These are billionaires saying Bernie Sanders is not extreme but the new normal.
If they were serious about the end of “modern capitalism”, they wouldn’t keep holding the meeting at Davos, CH, during the ski season.
Nup, didn’t think so…
shellbell
“Doesn’t Scandinavian capitalism include Equinor which is majority owned by the Norwegian Government?”
Not sure but my family and friends live in Finland and Sweden not Norway so I have much less knowledge of them. All the oil exploitation companies in Norway are government owned, or owned by the Sovereign Wealth Fund. In the rest of Scandinavia the Norwegian oil industry is not popular.
At this point I would observe that the only countries with significant numbers of climate change skeptics make money out of fossil fuels. Nobody else has a motive to believe the climate denial BS.
@NSWRFS tweets
It’s going to be very hot across many across NSW today with increased fire danger well into tonight. Know the fire danger for your area and be ready to take action. #nswrfs #nswfires https://twitter.com/BOM_NSW/status/1220120722229661698
@BOM_NSW
A cold front is crossing the state with dust, heat, storms and wind a feature in many Districts. Stay up to date with the latest forecast and warnings: http://ow.ly/pnXx50y2x0g NSW RFS fire info: http://ow.ly/3LoA50y2x0f NSW SES storm preparedness info: http://ow.ly/Fq0r50y2x0e https://twitter.com/BOM_NSW/status/1220120722229661698/photo/1
Albo firing up the blowtorch.
https://twitter.com/i/status/1220120011269754880
Guytaur
“It’s going to be very hot across many across NSW today with increased fire danger well into tonight. Know the fire danger for your area and be ready to take action. #nswrfs #nswfires https://twitter.com/BOM_NSW/status/1220120722229661698”
Fear not! Honest Scomo is back on the job now, water bomber aircraft have been flown in from USA and everything is prepared. Scomo has promised that he will not be caught napping twice.
@RichardDiNatale tweets
It’s been 136 days since the Greens bill for a federal ICAC passed the Senate. But instead of the government doing its job in the house and legislating for an anti-corruption body that the Liberals say they support, they’ve been dragging their heels https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2020/jan/22/christian-porter-defends-bridget-mckenzie-over-36000-grant-to-sport-club-she-belongs-to?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other
Does anyone really trust the Prime Minister’s own department to investigate Bridget McKenzie, his Coalition partner’s deputy leader? Enough is enough. Scott Morrison needs to stop stalling and pass our federal ICAC bill in the House when Parliament returns.
C@tmomma @ #569 Thursday, January 23rd, 2020 – 5:17 am
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p554R-Jq43A
@jilevin tweets
Why Glenn Greenwald’s Prosecution Is An Outrage http://bit.ly/37mjerg
Yep. Just another summer day….
The Age
@theage
·
1h
Melburnians have woken to sludge-coated cars, a dirty orange Yarra River and swimming pools full of grime after dusty rain fell over the city. Do you have more images to share? Get in touch: picdesk@theage.com.au
http://ow.ly/RbeH50y2uHR #melbweather
A present from the Mallee: sludge coats cars, Yarra River and closes public pools
Melburnians are scratching their heads at dirty-orange swimming pools and sludge-coated cars, clothes and outdoor furniture,
If these people are older, there is a good chance that they don’t want to face the realisation that things have fundamentally changed.
On the other hand, people like Morrison have children who will face the ravages of climate change. Does he not care about their future or is he so convinced that his family will be saved by the Rapture that he dares not interfere in what he considers to be “god’s will”?
Greensborough Growler @ #631 Thursday, January 23rd, 2020 – 10:13 am
1500 views, 69 retweets.
That’s some blowtorch.
Mundo; keeping it real.
@ARationalFear tweets
PART 1:
Who is responsible for the Australian Bushfire Crisis?
Narrated by @timminchin.
#australianfires #bushfirecrisis #auspol https://twitter.com/ARationalFear/status/1219808878692466688/video/1
Whatever the Coalition says about accepting science, they are anti science. The media need to observe, analyse and report on what they *do*, not what they say. Their *methods* are anti science. They start with their solution and work backwards to discover a problem. It started under Abbott. It was the same under Turnbull. It’s the same under Morrison. The science minister’s methods are no different. They cherry pick the bits that suit their ideology and ignore the bits that don’t. Worse, when it comes to funding science, they play a game of patronage that rewards and includes those in favour while punishing, excluding and alienating those in disfavour. It’s been the same for a decade. They’ve not changed. It’s the same mob with different sales people.
Why do they keep being given the benefit of the doubt, despite their consistent practices over a decade? I think the press gallery don’t understand science. They don’t understand the *processes* of science and how this mob’s processes are anathema. They don’t understand and are incapable of recognising that what the government does, and how the government does it, contradicts what the Coalition says. They’re incapable of distinguishing between a solution that is constructed as the result of a process of inquiry, and a solution that is used to define a process of inquiry. They don’t understand, and fail to report, that these two practices are different.
For example, they never saw through Malcom Turnbull’s Mess, his “technology agnostic” sales pitch, or understood that they were comparing a political solution (Turnbull’s) to a technological solution (Labor’s). Otherwise they would not have put them on the same level. Similarly, they are now failing to report that the Coalition is anti-science when judged by their methods and practices. The Coalition don’t need to be given the benefit of the doubt, we don’t need to wait and see (to then act surprised and disappointed). We can already see what they’re doing, right now, by the processes they’ve initiated, that are no different to their usual practices.
A huge dust cloud has arrived over our part of Canberra propelled by the strong NW winds.
Crews are still mopping up the the fire that started yesterday afternoon near Canberra airport and with the current winds could still threaten parts of Queanbeyan (NSW) and the adjacent village of Oaks Estate (ACT).
Republicans are losing — even if Trump will be acquitted: Columnist Max Boot
Conservative Washington Post columnist Max Boot walked through the ways that Republicans are completely failing in their attempt to defend President Donald Trump.
The president’s trial began Tuesday with a series of votes where Republicans blocked a vote on whether to include witnesses, evidence and any information from the House investigations. It appeared that the president’s team was unprepared to argue against the witnesses and evidence, instead, demanding the trial begin immediately and arguments over witnesses be dismissed.
Boot noted that Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) came prepared with not only information but a slate of videos that used his own words against him. It was so good that lawyers watching Schiff called it the perfect example to use for law school classes and others complimented it as the most impressive they’ve ever seen.
“The transparently false arguments by Trump lawyers will not convince those majorities that they are wrong. The Trump team will win an acquittal in the Senate no matter how badly they argue but, on the present trajectory, they won’t win in the court of public opinion,” Boot closed.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/01/22/democrats-are-winning-argument-even-though-theyll-lose-senate-trial/
#weatheronPB. No dust or smoke in Sydney. Sunny, windy and 35° on the way to 41°. Just a one day burst of heat before showers and humidity return so hopefully no fires get going.
DisplayName
They repeatedly say they accept the science it may even be true that they do but do they ever say they will act accordingly to such acceptance ? As a former philosopher king in Australia once said “nope,nope,nope” . For religious nutters like Scrott “accepting the science” would be just accepting your fate or accepting the will of god , can’t change it , no use trying.
https://www.canberratimes.com.au/story/6593977/pork-barrelling-how-it-pays-to-have-an-electoral-contest/?cs=14264
With quote from Kevin Bonham
UN report on Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s hacking of Bezos’s phone raises questions over other potentially compromised elites
“If the Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman personally hacked Bezos’s phone via malicious files sent over text, it seems extremely likely he’s hacked heads of state the same way.”
“Jared Kushner also has talked to bin Salman extensively over WhatsApp. This information raises the question of whether Kushner’s phone was similarly compromised by Saudi intelligence, which may be blackmailing Kushner to influence U.S. Middle East policy. Indeed, for all we know, Donald Trump’s own phone may have been hacked in this way by bin Salman.”
https://www.rawstory.com/2020/01/un-report-on-saudi-crown-prince-mohammed-bin-salmans-hacking-of-bezoss-phone-raises-questions-over-other-potentially-compromised-elites/
https://www.counterpunch.org/2020/01/22/the-evolving-scotty-morrison-from-marketing/ ; not that Albo would be much of an improvement, more positions on coal than Corbyn had on Brexit
Two future leaders who both want the world to change.
An interesting angle.