The fortnightly Essential Research poll adds to an overall picture of static voting intention despite the government’s income tax overhaul, with Labor down a point on the primary vote to 31%, the Coalition recording 34% for the sixth poll in a row, the Greens up a point to 14% and One Nation steady on 7%, with undecided steady on 5%. Respondent-allocated preferences nonetheless cause Labor to perk up a little on the pollster’s 2PP+ measure, which has Labor up two to 50% and the Coalition steady on 46% (again with 5% undecided), Labor’s biggest lead on this measure since the start of October.
The poll also includes the monthly leaders’ favourability ratings, with differ from the separate approval ratings in inviting respondents to rate the leaders on a scale of zero to ten. This gives Peter Dutton his strongest result so far, with a four-point increase among those rating him seven or higher to 32% and a four-point fall in those rating him three or lower to 33%. Anthony Albanese improves slightly from December, when he recorded the weakest results of his prime ministership, with 33% rating him seven or higher (up one) and 35% three or lower (down two).
Questions on the tax cut changes confirm what was already established in finding 56% in favour and 16% opposed, while telling us something new with respect to awareness of them: only 10% consider they know a lot about the changes, with 37% for a bit, 40% for hardly anything and 13% for nothing at all. The poll also found 59% per cent for the “right to disconnect” laws working their way through parliament with only 15% opposed. Other questions cover fuel efficiency standards, party most trusted on tax, the importance of keeping election promises and the ubiquitous Taylor Swift, who scores a non-recognition rating of 3%.
The weekly Roy Morgan poll has Labor’s two-party lead in from 53-47 to 52-48, but this is due to changes in respondent-allocated preferences rather than primary votes, on which Labor gains one-and-a-half points to 34.5% – its strongest showing from Morgan since October – with the Coalition and the Greens steady on 37% and 12% and One Nation down half a point to 4.5%. The poll was conducted Monday to Sunday from a sample of 1699.
In by-election news, of which there will be a fair bit to report over the next six weeks, the ballot paper draws were conducted yesterday for Queensland’s Inala and Ipswich West by-elections on March 16, which have respectively attracted eight and four candidates. Ipswich West is a rare no-show for the Greens, who are presumably more concerned with the same day’s Brisbane City Council elections. Further crowding the calendar is a looming state election in Tasmania, which is covered in the post above.
Lars Von Trier @ #596 Thursday, February 15th, 2024 – 8:04 am
Lars Von Trier @ #596 Thursday, February 15th, 2024 – 8:04 am
I prefer Penny Wong’s reaction:
Reports indicate 1 dead and up to 10 injured in Kansas city
Lars Von Trier @ #595 Thursday, February 15th, 2024 – 9:04 am
Right on cue, the L’Arse farted. A nasty, runny, stinky one.
Well done L’Arse! A credit to you. Will count strongly towards your KPI’s.
BK
Thanks for today’s dawn patrol!
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/shooting-kansas-city-chiefs-super-bowl-celebration-union-station-rcna138883
Victoria / Cat
Much as I share your desire to see the end of Putin, if you read Bill Browder’s book it is not going to be easy.
Putin faces no real election. He controls the media. His opponents are beaten up or poisoned. He has an FSB bigger per capita than the old KGB to control the masses.
Putin is really the head of a group of autocratic oligarchs that run the country like unelected robber barons. Russia is no longer a superpower, but it inherited the military arsenal of a superpower.
If the west can get its act into order sufficiently to arm Ukraine to force the Russian army out of Ukraine, the blow to Putin’s prestige would be devastating and he might fall. But there is no guarantee the successor will be any better.
Lars Von Trier @ #596 Thursday, February 15th, 2024 – 9:04 am
The polling must have suggested a marriage was a good move . Will it be a civil or a church wedding?
Will Kyle Sandilands be invited ?
The milk of human kindness in this person is a dried up puddle of sour milk gone off in the sun which has fried his braincells and turned his heart into a raisin. 😡
‘The bloody and rapacious occupation of East Timor from
1975 to 1999, when nearly a quarter of the population died of famine and violence, is not the responsibility of the current Indonesian government.
But Prabowo Subianto has been widely accused of some of the atrocities that led to the carnage, and most surveys show the Indonesian people are set to elect him as their new president
At home, Prabowo’s brutality is better known for the reactionary repression of the protests that helped topple Suharto, once his father-in-law.
The army threw him out in 1998 after it found he was implicated in the kidnapping of nine activists – 13 are still missing – a claim Prabowo vehemently denied.
In 2014, though, he admitted to media group Al Jazeera that he participated in the abductions, and added that he was just following orders. But no charges have ever been filed against him nor have the allegations against him been tried in court.
Many Indonesians apparently do not know that their likely future premier (and their defense minister since 2019) had been accused of bloodying his hands decades earlier – in East Timor.
The Indonesian media has been silent on this rather lengthy period of Prabowo’s life.
Prabowo served as commander of Kopassandha, Indonesia’s special forces that later became known as Kopassus, from 1995.
A post-imperial truth and reconciliation commission found that the Indonesian armed forces (and Kopassus, especially) were responsible for war crimes and crimes against humanity during the 24-year occupation of Timor-Leste.
Indeed, because of this, Prabowo was banned from entering the United States until recently, after he became defense minister.
According to the Commission for Reception, Truth and Reconciliation in East Timor, Prabowo’s Kopassandha/ Kopassus was responsible for the largest number of human rights violations.’
Source: benarnews.org
Socrates
Another reason is that Putin has bought many US congress people. Whether by kompromat or not.
Just look at the most ridiculous interview that Tucker Carlson with an F, did with Putin.
We are in a kinetic war. People are just not seeing it.
Something has got to give.
For example. This is the latest in the USA. The congress itself is bloody compromised.
——
BREAKING: House Republicans are taking a 2-week vacation in the midst of a national security threat and a mass shooting as yet another government shutdown looms.
The only saving grace of the shit show in the USA, is the demise of the GOP. Good f@@kin riddance.
Victoria
Agreed. That is why I hav gone on so much about the failed defence projects. In more normal times it would not matter. But they do matter now.
On a happier note, its nice to see good things happen to good people. Congratulations Anthony and Jodie.
“A selection of wind videos from around Melbourne and Victoria”:
https://www.instagram.com/reel/C3R8-5oLQPs/
Socrates @ #605 Thursday, February 15th, 2024 – 9:25 am
Soc,
There’s only one thing Putin cannot outrun. Father Time. Also, he may have spent his political life creating the apparatus you describe but there is only one Putin. After he is gone, many may try to emulate him but no one will be him 2.0
Also, there’s already an undercurrent of discontent bubbling up underneath the surface of Putin’s iron grip on Russia. He can’t kill or jail them all, and eventually, the opposition to Putin’s way will prevail. Russian history tells us they always have. It may even be that that’s the site of the next civil war, not America. Because that’s one thing that regimes like Putin’s always succeed in doing, creating an increasing number of enemies. Eventually, therefore, there’s a straw that breaks the camel’s back.
I mean, take for example the reign of Silvio Berlusconi. He was the prototype that you describe about Putin. He mentored Giorgia Meloni, as far as I can tell, but she assumed a chameleon’s guise to get to the top of politics in Italy. And now Berlusconi is dead and she is Prime Minister. Not the way people predicted things were going to happen. At all. She’s not governing like Berlusconi.
So I think that we can’t be too predictive about Russia. Time and tide waits for no man. Not even Vladimir Putin. It’s the only thing he can’t control. 🙂
“The only saving grace of the shit show in the USA, is the demise of the GOP”
Really? Polls have consistently put Trump in front, and state polling has all shown a swing to Trump in the states that matter. Trump is on track to regain all the states he lost in 2020 and win the POPULAR vote. Senate is almost a certainty to be Republican and the House is also likely to stay with a GOP majority. About the only way that Trump can end up not being reinaugurated is by him being in jail before their autumn, and even then the GOP will win the general election.
I must say Albo looks like he has put on weight again in that photo. Pressures of the job presumably.
Maybe he needs to talk to Turnbully’s green tea guy.
Player One says:
Thursday, February 15, 2024 at 8:41 am
Here we go again @ #575 Thursday, February 15th, 2024 – 8:17 am
History teaches us lessons
What history mostly teaches us is that we don’t learn from history.
——————————————————————————
Sorry to disagree, but people learn a lot from history.
They learn they can kill other people and steal their stuff and get away with it.
Your brain is broken, Melbourne Mammoth.
I suppose you have taken no notice of the result in George Santos’ old Republican-held seat, NY3, in the election held yesterday? It’s called an election. It’s what counts. Not your spurious wishin’ and hopin’ and prayin’ for a Trump apocalypse. 😐
#weatheronPB
Dull, bland, cloud cover,
and comfortable, listless warmth,
deaden the spirits.
I’d better get my wife to check her jewellery box: I reckon Albo has stolen her engagement ring …
Cat
I hope you are correct re Putin, but a glance through the pages of Russian history is not encouraging. There are a lot more Stalins and Putins than Gorbachevs.
My hope is that the power of Russia is broken so that whoever succeeds Putin is not capable of invading more countries.
Lars Von Trier @ #615 Thursday, February 15th, 2024 – 9:39 am
Another dribbly one. You need some Imodium.
That’s great news re Albo and Jodie and has made me unexpectedly happy. Congratulations to them both: I know what a wonderful thing it is to find the right person at last.
C@tmomma, George Santos’ seat is in New York, it is urban and the sort of place that would buck the trend. Trump’s popularity is MASSIVE in the less educated, less enlightened outer suburbia and most especially rural areas. And polls ALMOST ALWAYS understate the conservative vote due to the Shy Tory effect. It is for this reason that in fact, if a federal election was held in Oz this weekend, a Coalition win is probably the most likely outcome.
It’s officially mid-February. ICYMI, mid-February is for when Judge Engoron rescheduled his judgement on the damages Mr Tup must pay after being found guilty in his civil fraud case. The AG asked for $370M. Clock’s are ticking.
@Late-Riser, the courts in USA are even more glacial than the rest of the world. I reckon there would not be a judgment this month. Trump is more than likely to outfox the courts and the world simply by stalling.
Latest from Kansas City is that the Children’s Hospital has 9 kids with gunshot wounds. I am sure that the US politicians will offer thoughts and prays.
Socrates: “There are a lot more Stalins and Putins than Gorbachevs.”
Arguably there has been around 16 years of genuine democracy in the whole of Russian history: the 8 or so months between the February and October revolutions in 1917, and then around 15 years between the failed August 1991 coup and the mid-2010s, when Putin started to pull up the ladder. Otherwise, it’s been absolute monarchy and authoritarianism all the way.
I don’t say it often enough, and I dare say I won’t say it more often, but thanks for the round ups BK.
@Player One
What you leave out is that climate change had been weaponise by the coalition the past elections. It’s good to see the roosters have come to roost via the loss of seats by the Teals. But you sitting there shitting all over emissions reduction target of 43% by 2030. After the past couple elections with Liberals making hell via the carbon tax and Adani. Is a bit rich considering Labor was even taking a gamble putting out the 43% target. This was also acknowledge in the media.
Anthony Albanese will set an emissions reduction target of 43% by 2030 and boost the share of renewables in the national electricity market to 82% if Labor wins the coming federal election.
The ALP leader has unveiled Labor’s most electorally risky policy commitment since the 2019 election defeat, declaring a more ambitious target would spur $76bn in investment and reduce average annual household power bills by $275 in 2025 and $378 in 2030.
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2021/dec/03/anthony-albanese-commits-labor-to-emissions-reduction-target-of-43-by-2030
Horrible news from Kansas City. Around 20 years ago, I spent several days there for work, and also had the opportunity to wander around Union Station, Penn Valley Park (with its excellent WWI memorial) and the downtown area. I hate to think of all that bloodshed occurring in those pleasant locations.
If it turns out (as is surely likely) to have been some sort of MAGA lunatic inspired by all the conspiracy nonsense about Taylor and Travis and etc., I’d like to see an enterprising DA have a go at charging some of the evil people who put this stuff about in the online media as accessories before the fact.
Lars gets out the plumb line…
“It is currently anticipated the Engoron decision will be released on Friday, barring unforeseen circumstances.”
Meher Baba – According to unconfirmed reports, it is looking more like a brawl that got out of control. The stampede injury many as well as the gunfire. It is a nightmare to have a panic in a crowd that large.
I am watching the NBC news coverage on youtube – but most of the reporters on the scene are their sports reporters.
In terms of framing mass shootings in the USA, can it now be called an insurgency?
I know many mass shootings are not political, but many seem to be. There certainly isn’t a central command on this stuff, but the online ecosphere absolutely pumps out racialized people who go out and kill people for a political statement.
When they go low, I go high.
cf The Lars Team ™
Melbourne M, the trial has already ready run. He lost. This is for damages.
Melbourne mammoth
You can believe what you want. Trump will facilitate the demise of the GOP in its current form.
sprocket_ @ #634 Thursday, February 15th, 2024 – 10:14 am
Lol. It was always fake. Like the person. Not a genuine bone in their body.
Player One pissing on Labor from a great height AGAIN today!?! Tell me it isn’t true!?! 😆
The only delay Mr Tup has managed so far in his many trials, is from scheduling conflicts because of the many trials. The slow process has a built-in lengthy period to hear and deal with the many procedural issues a defence team might dream up. These are still playing out; the most recent one, that Mr Tup is above the law, going all the way to the SCOTUS. (I hate posting and running, but I’ll be back in a few hours.)
Of course they polled Jodie and whether a wedding is a good idea politically.
A Catholic Church wedding may also be beneficial with a small contestable segment of the voting public. The atheists will probs still vote for Albo regardless.
It’s naive to think this wasn’t done before the announcement. Some might say in the post Clinton era it would have been political malpractice not to have done so.
It’s simple.. stop AirBnB et al. ( ps won’t happen)
Nearly 100,000 NSW homes not being used for long-term housing, figures show
Almost 100,000 apartments and houses across New South Wales are not being used for long-term housing, according to state government modelling.
The state government estimates 15,000 homes are vacant year-round, 45,000 are used as holiday homes and more than 33,000 are registered as non-hosted short-term properties, according to the data released as part of the Minns government’s review of short-term rentals including Stayz and Airbnb.
Seriously how does this happen?
https://www.9news.com.au/national/sydney-mardi-gras-fair-day-cancelled-due-to-asbestos-concerns/7e756c4a-fb7f-45c6-bd91-714464f8dfd3
I was polled 6 weeks ago on whether it was preferable for a PM to be married and what I thought of the name Jodie in comparison to Jenny.
NO HOPE for them… none
Gun violence has been falling in some parts of the country, but Kansas City saw a record number of homicides in 2023. There were 183 murders last year, more than the previous record of 179 in 2020.
Population of Kansas City….500,000!
MelbourneMammoth @ #623 Thursday, February 15th, 2024 – 9:54 am
More bullshit from you, Melbourne Mammoth to try and justify your unnatural obsession with a Republican win at the end of the year. Why don’t you educate yourself before you commit finger to keyboard? Here is the electorate of NY03. It is centred on Long Island. For the hard of seeing the wood for the trees, Long Island is NOT Manhattan, or any other urban enclave of New York. New York is a state as well as a city:
The NY03 electoral district is here:
In some places it’s closer to Connecticut than New York City!
It’s like you trying to say that Geelong is a part of ‘urban Melbourne’. And then trying to base a specious conclusion on that. It’s just not. And you’re 100% wrong about it.
There you go nath has independently confirmed it.
Victoria @ #644 Thursday, February 15th, 2024 – 10:35 am
The Inner West Mayor, Darcy Byrne, is organising an alternative site to enable it to still go ahead. 🙂
BHP has signalled it is considering mothballing the entirety of its WA nickel division, putting about 3000 jobs at risk, with the company slashing the value of its Nickel West division in WA and flagging more than $US6.5bn worth of impairments in its half-year accounts.
The grim news comes on the back of a wave of mine closures in the WA nickel sector in the face of soaring exports of cheap nickel from Indonesia. The tumbling price of the steel and battery making commodity has already sent Panoramic Resources under, forced Andrew Forrest’s Wyloo Metals to close the underground nickel operation bought through the takeover of Mincor Resources, and stopped construction of IGO’s Cosmos nickel operation. The closure of Nickel West would be an effective death knell for the Australian nickel industry, given BHP operates the country’s only nickel smelter and also controls the only Australian refinery.
BHP said on Thursday it is reviewing its spending at Nickel West, “which includes the potential to place Nickel West into a period of care and maintenance”.
https://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/mining-energy/3000-jobs-at-risk-as-bhp-weighs-closure-of-wa-nickel-operations/news-story/5e93974709c9316b083a8e2c98b17c49?amp