The latest fortnightly federal voting intention poll from Roy Morgan finds the series continuing to bounce around within a range of 52.5-47.5 to 54.5-45.5 in favour of Labor, as it has through seven polls since July. The result this time is 53-47, in from 54-46 last fortnight, from primary votes of Coalition 37.5% (up one-and-a-half points), Labor 36% (steady), Greens 11.5% (down one) and One Nation 3% (down half).
The state two-party breakdowns, which range from respectable sub-samples in the case of the large states to a tiny one in the case of Tasmania, have Labor leading 53.5-46.5 in New South Wales (unchanged on the last poll, a swing of about 5.5%), 56-44 in Victoria (unchanged, a swing of about 3%), 55-45 in Western Australia (out from 54.5-45.5, a swing of about 10.5%), 54.5-45.5 in South Australia (in from 58.5-41.5, a swing of around 4%) and 53-47 in Tasmania (out from 52-48, a swing to the Liberals of about 3%). In Queensland, the Coalition is credited with a lead of 55-45 (out from 52.5-47.5, a swing to Labor of about 3.5%). The poll was conducted over the past two weekends from a sample of 2794.
Also of note, particularly in relation to state politics in New South Wales:
• There is now a fourth by-election on the way, following yesterday’s announcement by Holsworthy MP Melanie Gibbons that she will seek preselection for the federal seat of Hughes, where former Liberal incumbent Craig Kelly has defected to Clive Palmer’s United Australia Party. Holsworthy is far the most marginal of the four seats that will be vacated, having been retained by Gibbons in 2019 by 3.2%. However, the Sydney Morning Herald reports that Labor leader Chris Minns has said Labor “needs to consider whether to run in Holsworthy”, having “already suggested to his shadow cabinet that they should not run a candidate in Monaro or Bega”.
• The Sydney Morning Herald further reports that Willoughby mayor Gail Giles-Gidney is the front-runner for Liberal preselection in Gladys Berejiklian’s particularly safe seat of Willoughby. Based on the comments from Chris Minns noted above, it can presumably be taken as read that Labor will not run.
• As for Melanie Gibbons’ hopes for Hughes, both the Sydney Morning Herald and Daily Telegraph today report a view among senior Liberals that she would, in the words of the latter, “face difficulty securing preselection in a vote of party members”.
• If my thoughts on the federal election landscape are of interest to you, I have lately been providing material to CGM Communications’ state-by-state analyses, which have recently covered New South Wales and Victoria, and was interrogated for an election preview that aired on Nine News over the weekend.
So it was Let Rip Dom.. he can now add & fu*k the touching the planet lightly….
Where is Joyce gonna get the pork from? All the piggies have gone to the jb keeper market or wee wee wee home to the mates.
They might have to ditch the high end tax cuts. Ha! Nah. They will go for the usual. More Screws on the poor, scrap what’s left of environmental funding and more cuts to regulators.
ICAC would have their ducks lined up nicely so the conga line of Tories in the gun next week better be “honest” in their recollections…
The truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth..hmmm.
Mr Littleproud said there was strong support within the Nationals for nuclear power to reduce emissions, but to achieve it would require “an environment for a mature conversation”.
Hence the Virginia class sub…. can’t have one without the other.. power station takes 10 years plus… much longer for Australia without background construction experience.
Frednk @ #1760 Sunday, October 17th, 2021 – 9:16 pm
I would hardly call the Southern Highlands, ‘country’ in the traditional sense. More of a quaint redoubt for moneyed city folk, just far enough away from the city to not be the city.
As someone not opposed to nuclear power… the idea it can do the heavy lifting for 2030 or even 2050 emissions reductions is absurd. So no surprise the Nationals are suggesting it.
The Milats are from the southern highlands. Hilltop.
Sceptic,
You do know that not all Nuclear Power is extremely dangerous, don’t you?
China is presently constructing 3 Pebble Bed Nuclear Reactors per year until 2030. They have created a module that is incorporated into existing Coal-Fired Power Plants that replaces the Coal Burner:
https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2017/08/china-small-modular-pebble-beds-will-be-400-million-for-200-mw-and-1-2-billion-for-600-mw.html
I’d be happy to have them replace Coal-Fired Power in Australia, sooner rather than later.
” …the conga line of Tories in the gun next week better be “honest” in their recollections…
The truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth..hmmm.”
Sadly, there’s an epidemic of amnesia among our Tory brethren. They’ll be very hard-pressed to recall stuff.
I would have as my preference, of course, a connected, stabilised grid that runs off Renewable Energy sources.
As for slomo and Glasgow, he’d better press his black slacks and dig out the white coat as essentially he’ll be serving the drinks and canapés at COP26. Tits on a bull ands all that.
What an embarrassment he will be.
Simon Katich @ #1777 Sunday, October 17th, 2021 – 10:07 pm
A very isolated part that is a fair distance from Mittagong, Bowral and Moss Vale.
https://evcricketenergy.wordpress.com/2021/05/16/a-plan-for-nuclear-power-in-australia/
A Plan for Nuclear Power in Australia
By evcricket May 16, 2021
There’s a persistent theme, particularly since the Texas power system dramas during the big cold, that nuclear power is some sort of magic bullet for power grids, and avoids the complexities of a majority solar and wind grid. I am frequently told that if we used nuclear in Australia we could avoid all these costly and time consuming transmission projects, greatly reduce the storage required and generally prosper. Problem is no one seems to have punched the numbers. Any of them. Not how much it will cost, not how many plants we’ll need and no estimate on whether or not we can actually do it without building additional transmission. This post will have a crack at all of those things.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-10-16/international-borders-perrottet-morrison-opening-up-covid/100541594
Might as well rotate state/ territory premiers/ first ministers through the PM role, same for governors and GG. [Both England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland and some islands, as well as the PRC show the pros and con of centralisation.
And if the pandemic has shown one thing, it is that differing models by state compete.]
It is not like there isn’t also an overseas HoS.
In the next normal, Canberra ACT should be further decentralised to about five ministries, Wuflu has shown the states can do the lifting, and are much closer to the people. [As in more the Swiss model.]
Just raise the GST, and lower income tax, and change stamp duty to a land tax.
Meanwhile, let’s see if the global minimum organisations tax will be applied without exemptions for religion based business, unlike charities.
I’d also like to see a halving of parliament, pay those remaining double, so we get quality, and strong anti-corruption and integrity legislation.
Enable voting from electoral offices, so we get pollyTICs that live in their community, and go home to their families at night, save on expenses, better for the environment.
…
Considering that about 50% of the grid power was generated by solar during the day today, I just find it odd that the conversations over energy in the country seem to be stuck at least a decade ago.
So, PB for all its faults being a place where some people with actual knowledge of stuff hang out, can i put a general question out there?
Does anyone have any references to Carbon Storage and Capture projects that have actually worked as advertised?
So the Nationals won’t support any early action on climate change targets. The last time I was this surprised was when Tony Abbott broke all his promises after being elected PM.
For the Nationals, I think this overplays the strength of their position a great deal. Outside the LNP mutation in Qld, the Nationals average less than 5% of the vote. They are only half as major a party as the Greens. They are trying to dictate policy to the nation on an issue a clear majority want action on.
For the Liberals, this exposes their weakness and Morrison’s cowardice. If Morrison was serious about climate change action, he could reach out to Labor as Rudd and turnbull did. But he won’t because he doesn’t really want action.
So Morrison gets an excuse to do nothing, and the Nationals get to imitate a major party.
Farmers are one of the biggest losers from this. Can’t they see they are just electing a bunch of grifters who couldn’t care less about farming?
@cat Hilltops is an easy 20min drive from Mittagong, not isolated at all. Did a bush dance for the primary school there some time back.
Imacca
I’m only aware of four CCS facilities that actually reached operation in the world (one each in Australia, Canada, Iceland and USA). All were late and over budget. One has since been shut. None of the other three remove anywhere near the amount of CO2 promised. The Iceland one works best, but it has the advantage of virtually unlimited free geothermal power to run it.
My brother works in a coal power plant. He said they looked at CCS and concluded it would cost another 50% in capital cost to build, and require 1/3 of the plant’s power output to run. So it is insanely inefficient, even if it works, which it rarely does.
Socrates
So as much surprise as the sum of past, present and future emissions reductions delivered by the Coalition, then.
Percentage of Federal vote:
Nationals ~ 8.8% (counting half of Qld LNP vote)
Greens ~ 10.4%
One has 21/22 seats in the House of Reps and calls the shots regarding what happens in this country
The other has one reps seat and is essentially powerless.
For the Liberals, this exposes their weakness and Morrison’s cowardice. If Morrison was serious about climate change action, he could reach out to Labor as Rudd and turnbull did. But he won’t because he doesn’t really want action.
Rudd put the safety of his leadership and the Labor government in the care of his opponents and they did the obvious, predictable, inevitable thing: they took the opportunity given to them by Rudd and basically blew up his government. Rudd never recovered. The Liberals are not idiots. They will not do what Rudd did.
It’s not the number of votes the Nats gets it’s where they get them.
In seats they can win.
DisplayName
Yes that much. Shocked, shocked I was that the National’s would delay climate change action! What is next? Rapists in parliament house??
Delaying action is the new strategy for the fossil fuel industry after denial is no longer credible, so today’s meeting was all theatre.
The Libs want to appeal to city voters that they care. The Nats have no intention of permitting any action. There is no climate solution with the LNP.
Socrates says:
Sunday, October 17, 2021 at 10:22 pm
For the Nationals, I think this overplays the strength of their position a great deal. Outside the LNP mutation in Qld, the Nationals average less than 5% of the vote. They are only half as major a party as the Greens. …..
The Nationals are a rump. But they understand the concept of solidarity in government. They do not spend their every waking hour trying to take seats from the Liberals and seeking to drive voters off to the Opposition. In this respect, their strategies are successful. The Liberals depend on the Nationals for power but this is certainly a mutual reliance. The Nationals need the Liberals to succeed.
Green ambitions are not predicated on Labor success. They are predicated on Labor defeat. They strive at all times for that result.
No NewsPoll tonight? I assumed we were going to fortnightly releases from now on.
Dog’s Breakfast @ #1788 Sunday, October 17th, 2021 – 10:24 pm
That thought fills me with dread. Not you, Ivan Milat being so close to a major highway. It looked isolated from the other towns. 🙁
imacca @ #1786 Sunday, October 17th, 2021 – 10:22 pm
As Soc pointed out, in Iceland. Here’s a balanced, informative article about it:
https://en.unesco.org/news/carbon-capture-and-storage-plant-becomes-operational-iceland
The money quotes:
CCS
A Multibillion-Dollar Clean Coal Plant Never Worked, and Now It’s Been Imploded
RIP to parts of the Kemper plant, a pointless money-and-coal hole.
Residents in Kemper County, Mississippi, were startled early Saturday morning by a “loud explosion” coming from the local coal plant. It wasn’t an industrial accident, though. Instead, it was the planned demolition of parts of the Kemper Plant.
During the first years of its construction, the Kemper plant represented the pinnacle of technological progress and the possibility of a continued future for the coal industry. The project began construction in 2010 at a cost of $7.5 billion. The Kemper facility was supposed to be the largest “clean coal” plant in the world, a proof-of-concept for the industry that it’s possible to turn cheap lignite coal into fuel while sending relatively scant amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. The promise was to turn one of the dirtiest fuel sources on Earth into something that was, if not zero-emissions, at least Less Bad.
https://gizmodo.com/a-multibillion-dollar-clean-coal-plant-never-worked-an-1847866199
Geopolitics Of Nuclear Generation Delayed Renewables By Decades To Fossil Fuel Industry Benefit, Our Detriment
It’s deeply unfortunate that nuclear geopolitics massively extended our use of fossil fuels and hence the power of the fossil fuel industry to pivot to gas generation and delay renewables, but their time has come as well.
https://cleantechnica.com/2020/12/28/geopolitics-of-nuclear-generation-delayed-renewables-by-decades-to-fossil-fuel-industry-benefit-our-detriment/
Small Modular Nuclear Reactors Are Mostly Bad Policy
People asserting that SMRs are the primary or only answer to energy generation either don’t know what they are talking about, are actively dissembling or are intentionally delaying climate action.
https://cleantechnica.com/2021/05/03/small-modular-nuclear-reactors-are-mostly-bad-policy/
Why nuclear power will never supply the world’s energy needs
https://phys.org/news/2011-05-nuclear-power-world-energy.html
The 440 commercial nuclear reactors in use worldwide are currently helping to minimize our consumption of fossil fuels, but how much bigger can nuclear power get? In an analysis to be published in a future issue of the Proceedings of the IEEE, Derek Abbott, Professor of Electrical and Electronic Engineering at the University of Adelaide in Australia, has concluded that nuclear power cannot be globally scaled to supply the world’s energy needs for numerous reasons. The results suggest that we’re likely better off investing in other energy solutions that are truly scalable.
—
Uranium abundance: At the current rate of uranium consumption with conventional reactors, the world supply of viable uranium, which is the most common nuclear fuel, will last for 80 years. Scaling consumption up to 15 TW, the viable uranium supply will last for less than 5 years. (Viable uranium is the uranium that exists in a high enough ore concentration so that extracting the ore is economically justified)
“Clean coal” and CCS are some of the most dangerous myths established around climate. Sure, actual myths, are dangerous… but these ones? They suggest there’s an easy/non-distruptive way to keep things exactly as they are.
No one can underestimate the absolutely necessary changes to deal with climate change, and its impacts, will be difficult to impliment, more expensive than many would want and WILL be disruptive – both in real terms and in made up scuttlebut… but it must be done…and people need to be brought along. If there’s one thing the last decade has showed us, talking at people is not the way.
Mmmm –
Vikki Campion verbals Prince Charles on climate change
News Corp Australia’s conservative (or populist) columnists were never going to meekly accept the publisher’s new and official position on climate change. That Andrew Bolt and others – largely his Sky News stablemates – would continue to rail against Australia’s inevitable adoption of a net zero emission target for 2050 is completely unremarkable.
Some have railed more skilfully than others. For rhetorical overreach, it’s hard to beat The Daily Telegraph’s Saturday columnist Vikki Campion, also a Morrison government electorate officer and the wife of Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce.
“Prince Charles lectured Australia on climate change this week,” Campion thundered.
His Highness did no such thing. Asked specifically about the Australian government’s position on climate change, he told the BBC: “You gently try to suggest there may be other ways of doing things, in my case anyway; otherwise you lot accuse me of interfering and meddling, don’t you?”
Hardly an evisceration. From the same interview, the Prince of Wales has been widely quoted as describing the COP26 meeting in Glasgow as “the last chance saloon” but this was in response to the question “What would you say to world leaders about why they should come to Glasgow?”
So the Prince of Wales was not lecturing Australia any more than he was lecturing Xi Jinping, whose COP26 absenteeism is what the BBC really ought to fret over.
“The Queen has never let her private views be known in the course of her duty, yet her son does not follow suit,” Campion confidently asserted less than 24 hours after Her Majesty was overheard complaining about world leaders skipping Glasgow, saying: “It’s really irritating when they talk, but they don’t do.”
But for infelicity, nothing could eclipse this: “The oxymoronic thing is that Prince Charles’ biggest ally in his quest for net zero is the head of the republican movement in Australia, Malcolm Turnbull.”
First, Turnbull resigned from his position at the Australian Republican Movement more than 20 years ago.
But even had he not, Campion’s construction would not be an oxymoron. It could be vaguely ironic, at best. Campion clearly doesn’t understand the rhetorical device but invokes it anyway. Way to take the “oxy” out of oxymoronic.
Marvel at Rupert Murdoch’s newspaper by, and for, the illiterate in full flight. There should be a Daily Telegraph scholarship at Derek Zoolander’s Centre for Kids Who Can’t Read Good.
Incidentally, this is the second misconceived hit on Prince Charles in the Sydney tabloid in under two years. They’ll land one eventually.
https://www.afr.com/rear-window/vikki-campion-verbals-prince-charles-on-climate-change-20211017-p590pk
Imacca, the only carbon capture and storage that know of that works as advertised is trees (until they burn)
Ta for the info an references on CCS people.
Katharine Murphy (Guardian Australia)
“Colleagues say Barnaby Joyce doesn’t care about net zero – whether that lands or whether it doesn’t – but he does care about a whopping bucket of money he might be able to extract for regional revitalisation on the way through.”.
Money versus Science ?
After the last few years and everything still remains the personal and collective spoils.
So many words by so few.
Such disinterest by so many.
“Opening Up” should perhaps refer to a collective mindset.
Unfortunately it’s something else.
We have a very divisive set of political discord on many levels.
And “Barnaby” remains brightly lit front and centre, Dom highly fertile, Dan rock-like, Mark secluded (and aren’t they very happy) and some others.
The marketeer won’t like being the understudy, so some unexpected add-ons will emerge as the week unfolds, lots shirt fronting, posturing and a testosterone garnish.
Mr Albanese, keeping his powder dry and playing a very patient innings, may well eventually hold the trophy aloft.
A somewhat very damaged trophy these days!
80% double vaccinated in NSW probably means approximately 65% in reality, but they’re only numbers!
“poor fellow my country” said someone lamenting something sometime! (XH)
I must say I’m pretty fearful of the Palmer effect again. Although he doesn’t look set to run an explicitly anti-Labor campaign, the preferences will still go to the LNP. That’s unless the how to vote cards don’t specify preferences for the major parties, which seems very unlikely.
There was big talk in 2019 but the final result for the UAP was a flop, garnering just 3.43% of the vote. While the mood feels different time, it’s important to remember just how small the antivax/anti-lockdown component of the population is. I would put it between 5 and 10%, probably at the lower end of that range.
How much of the population supports the UAPs ideas, how many of them will vote UAP, how many will blindly follow the How to Vote cards, and will this be enough to get the Coalition across the line? Maybe others can provide an insight.
US urges UK to rebuild relations with Paris after submarine contract row
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2021/oct/17/us-urges-uk-to-rebuild-relations-with-paris-after-submarine-contract-row
Hi
This isn’t going away…. 2 PMs involved both fools
https://www.smh.com.au/environment/climate-change/business-frustration-over-government-s-climate-inaction-grows-20211017-p590ol.html
The National Party has metamorphosed from the Australian Country Party over the last Century, having had a variety of name changes in that time.
Like most of Australia’s political parties, the given name doesn’t always represent the ideology.
The Nationals, as they are now called, hardly describes what they should be called, a mob of _____, as has been their way since about 1920.
The Nationals are an over represented mob of _____, still decrying the stump jump plough,electricity, engines, wide blade shears, automatic transmission and running water.
Over a hundred years since the Country Party’s establishment, a divided nation and progress are being held to ransom by the squattocracy and fear of change.
However , each and every year they are heard to beg “please sir can I have some more”.
https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/international-vaccination-passports-land-on-tuesday-as-nation-nears-70-per-cent-fully-immunised-20211017-p590pa.html
And further to last Friday, the states continue to set the terms for international travel.
Our federal government has been all but redundant throughout the pandemic. They failed on the 3 things they absolutely had a remit for (international quarantine, protecting aged care residents, and a vaccine rollout), are a day late and a dollar short when it comes to negotiating key milestones for Australia’s recovery.
If what we saw yesterday from the Nationals tail that wags the Coalition dog of a government is the likely outcome, then all that is going to happen is some feel good words from the Salesman In Chief and a big barrel of pork will be rolled out. It won’t keep the likes of Matt ‘Carries the Can for Mining’ Canavan, Keith ‘Mining’ Pitt or Barnaby ‘Miners Choice’ Joyce quiet, but it might keep a few mining seats in Coalition hands. Which was the aim all along.
I wonder if Vikki Campion writes her Saturday columns for The Daily Telegraph as she works Monday to Friday as an Electorate Officer for the Morrison government? Hmm.
I’m sure she’d say she does it after hours, in between looking after the kids. 😉
Kevin Rudd had a great line to describe Morrison’s approach to taking action to deal with the causes of Global Heating: ‘Cynical inertia’.
C@t:
It pains me to say this but we are arguably where we are today on addressing AGW because of Rudd’s inertia. Had he called a DD election all those years ago, seeing off Abbott, winning the Senate and legislating carbon pricing, we would likely be in a very different place at the moment.
Barnaby on News Breakfast. “We are the most important people evah!”
“You’re not going to make important decisions like this in 4 hours on a Sunday night.”
Could I suggest they should have been better prepared?
Confessions says:
Monday, October 18, 2021 at 6:40 am
And further to last Friday, the states continue to set the terms for international travel.
Our federal government has been all but redundant throughout the pandemic.
———————
And increasingly so on climate policy, with much of the heavy lifting around emissions reduction and renewables being done by the States. Scomo could lift the pathetic 2030 target just off the back of that.
I used to think that the States were parochial anachronisms whose governments were standing in the way of a positive, innovative, intelligent Australia. (Though some of them were just that in former times.) I’d not be getting rid of them in a hurry now.
‘fess,
I agree but it’s no reason to ignore him now. He has a platform and a way with words that can still help.
Why is Barnaby Joyce allowed to set the agenda!?!