The Australian reports Newspoll has Labor’s lead back up to 57-43 after two fortnights at 55-45. No figures yet provided to back up its headline “Costello wanted as leader”. Hat tip yet again to James J.
UPDATE: Graphic here. It shows Peter Costello’s rating as preferred Liberal leader up to 41 per cent from 23 per cent in April (wrongly labelled in the graphic as April 2007), Brendan Nelson up from 15 per cent to 18 per cent and Malcolm Turnbull down from 25 per cent to 24 per cent – bearing in mind that 19 per cent has been freed up because Julie Bishop and Tony Abbott were not included in the question this time.
UPDATE 2 (31/7/08): Further attitudinal polling, including the finding that the Prime Minister is 3 per cent less experienced than he was six months ago.
UPDATE 3: Suggested Newspoll question format for next time: Is Rudd experienced? Has he ever been experienced?
1,444 Comments
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Jen
and they drag their knuckles along the ground behind them when they walk
Sounds like Bolt himself has given up on the Libs. I thought that would happen, given his stance on CC and the expectation he prospered that Nelson would produce a “courageous” CC/ETS policy. Expectations heightened then deflated badly.
Classified Says:
July 30th, 2008 at 2:04 pm
wow… well, I’m never going in there again… bolts place is like a big room full of nazi’s on crystal meth shouting at each other
Classified yous civilised people don’t think like a Barbarian You should hav gone there under th pen name of “Andrewe Bolte” , proceed to put some far left ideas up that you state that Brenda (the ex Laborite you think reely bleieves in ) , and state that toffy Turnbull supports gay legislaton , and that thats how he won his seat on the ‘back’ of gay votes
The possibilites ar endless to creat havocs , maybe i will , beinfg such an affiable guy and all
Yes Bolt’s blog is an “interesting place” and like Classified I don’t think I’ll venture there again. You can see where Bolt gets his finely honed sense of balance and impartiality from.
Still it had some entertainment value. I particularly like one poster who looked back with envy on when Latham was opposition leader. That is, he thought Latham showed more fibre as a leader than the Liberal hierarchy. Thats funny
Good point Ron, a lot of possibilities. Perhaps I could call myself “Warren of Toorak” and bitterly deride the takeover of the liberal party by bounders from Sydney who have never even set foot in Geelong Grammar or Scots College! Menzies would never had stood for it.
Yes, just one brief experience of Bolt’s pack of rabid fanboys in full foaming-at-the-mouth mode is enough to leave a vivid, disturbing and life-long memory.
He must be so proud of the quality of his supporters.
Would be funny ron, but if you do go in there, make sure you’ve got overalls on and something to wipe the seats. You dont want to get any of whats flying around in there on you
BTW, are there any banking industry insiders out there? Noting the recent disclosure of further sub-prime losses by Merril Lynch and flow-on effects here, I can’t help wonder what will happen with Lehman Brthers, who as I understand it still have not revealed the full extent of their sub-prime losses, despite a large exposure. The contracts must be coming due soon, in which case the gig will be up for them I would expect. But interested if others have better info than I.
I should add, I do NOT believe the Australian banking industry or economy is about to collapse. I am just interested as to what might happen to the US economy. If a few banks here get embarrassed for making high risk decisions without adequate checkind good, I say. The regrettable part is that the fact they believe they can sqeeze customers to make up the loss without fear and thus illustrates how much of a monopoly they have become, and that they need to be re-regulated.
Alan Kohler made a few good points about this.
While the US banks had written down the CDOs to some degree, NAB essentially wrote them down to 10% of face value. Much further than the US banks had previousl done. (Though Merills have now started).
There’s a lot more to go if all the banks take them there – conversely NAB may make a reaonasbly significant wind-fall gain if they subsequently get to write-up the value of the securities. Even if they only get back 30 cents in the dollar, that’s a lot more than 10.
You should be greatful Australian have the ability to squeeze customers like that, to be honest. It’s that ability that keeps them looking OK in the current environment. If all the banks were running losses on their entire mortgage books of 1% per annum then they would be bankrupt very quickly. I’d prefer to pay the extra basis points than to have wholesale collapse of the banking sector.
The more scary story is the European banks. This “sub-prime crisis” is not really a sub-prime crisis any more, it’s a credit issue. And it’s global. The difference is that the European accounting and disclosure laws are less strict than the US… Heard this morning that many European banks would be subject to forcible closure if they were under the US rules. They have insufficient capital when measured under the US standards
Socrates @ 308 said:
Totally agree, We pay for their mistakes, but even the current govt doesn’t have the balls to take them on like they should. It’s the one area where I think PM Rudd should and could show so initiative.
Won’t happen though.
Socrates
$308
agree re more regulation & our banks ar not at risk , they hav more liqidity than th fragile US unregulated system But th cost of funds will rise , and we’ll (consumers ultimately pay
According to th Citibank assesment , re CO’s collaterised debt exposure etc ANZ has 23 billion , Wespac 9 billion CBA 3 billion , don’t hav NAB’s buts well above Westapac’s , and this is th area that ANZ hav proved most of there 2.2 billion bad provisions & Nab there 1.2 billion
The freeze on liquidity is worse in th US , according to US Reserve last 12 months has dropped 80 billion and annualised this year heading to 150 billion , and both US candidates still suport a laissez fair unregulated capitalist system , th American way , despite th Wall Street mess
Rates , the problem with th US is th degree of exposure the US system has taken on greedily without proper credit principals , and the bottom may not hav been reached Think “Capital’ needs some regulation to protect istself from its own greed , and more importantley protect small bus and th folks
vera Says:
July 30th, 2008 at 1:40 pm
“Could it be time for another Pauline Hanson reserection?”
If your a labor supporter wish for it, the last round did untold damage to the Liberal party as it lurched to the right to pick up a vote that would have come back to them through preferences anyway.
There is no doubt in my mind that about 10% of the population supports Andrew Bolt’s nonsense and the crap the Sydney shock jocks go on with, just as there is 10% that support the greens, but you don’t win elections pandering to either group.
Amigo Ronnie, the great satan is selfish again at the WTO talk:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/7532302.stm
As usual the great satan wants to protect its “poor” farmers with subsidies. Thankfully, OZ is on a good solid ground as it has or on the way to have many bilateral FTAs with key trading partners:
Australia’s Free Trade Agreements
* Singapore – Australia FTA
* Thailand – Australia FTA
* Australia – United States FTA
* Australia New Zealand Closer Economic Relations
* Australia-Chile FTA
Free Trade Agreements under Negotiation
* Australia-ASEAN-New Zealand FTA Negotiations
* Australia-China FTA Negotiations
* Australia-Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) FTA Negotiations
* Australia-Japan FTA Negotiations
* Australia-Malaysia FTA Negotiations
Free Trade Agreements under Consideration
* Australia-India FTA Feasibility Study
* Australia-Korea FTA Study
* Indonesia-Australia FTA Feasibility Study
http://www.dfat.gov.au/trade/ftas.html
Haven’t you noticed? They usually use names of the Apostles, or Biblical names, e.g.:
“James of …”
“Peter of…”
“John of …”
“Adam of…”
“Warren” is too atheistic. Like the “… of Toorak” though.
To be fair, Australian banks have made comapratively few mistakes.
One of the vaguaries of the Australian System was that the banks fund your mortgage primarily by borrowing in the short term money market. The banks passed this risk on to you when you signed a floating mortgage. This exposed you to the changes in short term rates.
Hence, when the RBA raised short term rates, your mortgage went up.
However, when the price of short term money rose for other reasons, your mortgage also went up.
The banks have not changed the fixed rate loans – becuase they didn’t need to. When you sign a fixed rate loan the bank borrows money for a longer time frame and so is unaffected by the subsequent increases in rates.
The broader Australian public was probably unaware that this could happen, but it was there in the contracts.
Go Bolt, what is he billed as? Australia’s most talked about columnist. I don’t see left wing Blogocracy getting that sort of treatment
Finally a bit of movement in Mayo.
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,24093560-5006787,00.html
Rates Analyst welcome back I haven’t seen your posts for a while either that or I ahven’t been paying attention. How do you see the current property market will housing prices drop?
JOM @ #316: Indeed, Andrew Bolt has been mentioned on this thread nearly twice as often as Kevin Rudd. If anyone cares what I think, I’m getting a bit bloody sick of hearing about him.
Will Brenda have a different version of his ETS today after Iron Bar has a quiet word?
OK William, I hear you
Kevin Rudd, Kevin Rudd, Kevin Rudd
314
Bushfire Bill Says:
July 30th, 2008 at 3:25 pm
… Ron, a lot of possibilities. Perhaps I could call myself “Warren of Toorak”
Haven’t you noticed? They usually use names of the Apostles, or Biblical names
Well Bushfire , obviously th name “Ron” needs some fluffing up ! Also whilst we ar discussing names , th ‘oz’ expressions for idiots is usualy ‘quack’ , “quack quack” or “wanker” , so we should crown th climate denier guy , seeing we hav ‘Cossie’/Captain Smirk & Dolly
JOM,
I’ve been reading, but I tend to only comment when I think I’m better informed than the average blogger… hence I’ve been quiet until the topic turned to Finance / Banking.
Housing is in a slightly precarious state…
I think the upper end housing will fall. Too much money lost in shares and reduced salaries for bankers.
The more mid-level housing I’m not sure. Not looking for massive rises but could well do better than shares (for example) over the next little while. Falling petrol prices will put a bit of money back into the budget of these buyers.
Also, there is a really strong bid for rents. It indicates latent housing demand and the ability to pay up.
The final reason I think we won’t see the massive falls in the property market we’ve seen overseas is that we haven’t had a shift in credit standards too much – only a shift in price. People with reasonable credit can still get loans in Australia, if they want them. In the US, the tightening credit standards have removed whole swathes of borrowers who can no longer access credit.
If the RBA starts easing rates next year I think there could be a fair number of people who start looking to stop renting and buy.
So property flat for a year before recovering later on.
But back to more psephological issues…
Ron can I please ask you to place the letter ‘e’ in words ending in e, as your posts are difficult to read. Thank you
Pies’ blog is much worse than the one I musn’t mention
319 WB
agreed.
Far more wind than required ’round here.
Rationally discussing the irrational is silly.
Banking:
I’m not a banking insider, but I did notice John Stewart’s replacement was mentioned today – sounds like they’ve named their scapegoat, or more likely from what I know of him that he’s going to fix the problems before he leaves of his own accord, whether the board likes it or not. That might mean they think the end of their problems, or ability to control them, is close at hand. Otherwise his replacement will be in for a short ride, and that’s not a good look for anyone.
JoM
alot of swear words end in ‘e’ , especially regarding Liberals , so was taught to avoid that letter
As I mentioned above NAB were pretty brutal in their assessment of the value of their CDOs…
Not too much scoep for further losses there. Their presentation (available from asx.com) does mention another $4.5bn of corporate lending, but so long as this is not structured it would be difficutl to see the portfolio losing more than about 20%….
What was so horrific in the CDOs was that the tranching of the structure means entire securities can be wiped out in one go. Much harder to have that happen in a portfolio of normal loans. Even defulting companies normally pay back something…
323 Rates
I reckon it’ll be a lot worse than that, otherwise on a global scale we’ll be left with some of the poorest quality, but highest price housing in the western world.
I can’t see that happening.
The independent study last week that puts Sydney well in rental oversupply and the 30% per month drops in value in the US at present are closer to the mark for mine. There are most definitely areas that are still tight though.
Remember the IMF rated our stock at 62% overvalued earlier this year. I can’t see us avoiding a global repricing, and what’s worse is that it’d kill off future investment too.
Well, in truth, people, any time after I’ve visited the Bolt blogsite, I invariably feel like a long, hot, thoroughly cleansing shower. Ooh, it’s a nasty little place, eh?
324 JoM, All you have to watch out for is that ‘Pineapple’ doesn’t migrate down to your political local area because then you will really have something to worry about with words ending in ‘e’.
That’s good work Ron
Stevs can you explain the pineapple term please.
ron@327
racking my brain , but can’t come up with one.
‘t’s and ‘k’s no probs, but e’s have got me beat.
zillow.com is a great site to see that the u.s housing market is rooted.
omigod,
We also have the most property-benefiting tax system in the world…. (CGT exemptions and Negative Gearing)
Our foreclosure laws are different too, so there’s far less reason to dump properties. No “jingle mail” here and for good reason.
The tax system was a significant reason for the run up in prices and will help keep a bid in them.
One of my pet peeves is the comparison of Australian housing averages to the US. When the US has 50% of it’s population in 2 cities their data will look different too!
The Pineapple Party was the working name for the merged LNP in Queensland.
Amigo FINNS
#313
July 30th, 2008 at 3:23 pm
“Amigo Ronnie, the great satan is selfish again at the WTO talk:”
Washington said ‘that the “safeguard clause” protecting developing nations from unrestricted imports had been set too low”.
Absolutely , they still want to flood poor developing countries with there subsidized agricuture etc , often at expense of ‘OZ’ more price competitive (without subsidies) business’s Anti CC , anti WTO , financial anti regulation = greed , and all US politicans end there speechs with ‘God bless America’
Also looked at that CC problem for India & China you raied , was surprised there’s 600 million Indians alone without electricity !! Yet almost all of th US citizens do hav elecricity Both have unacceptable high emmissions & without both cut over time , CC success is unlikely
But Kyoto provided for ‘less developed countries’ like India to get emmissions targets dispensations vs developed countries like USA Therefore th USA stanse on Kyoto (that India must start at day one at th same emmissions target criteria as USA is not only selfish & unfair when Kyoto allows for th India’s , but is deliberatley giving them a “mafia” offer , knowing they will refuse , so that means th USA has an excuse to get out of Kyoto ?
and Brenda’s policy taken to its logical conclusion is actualy supporting that unfair USA stanse , as he knows India can not agree
I do like Nelson I think he is personable unfortunately he has to realise you can’t be all things to all men.
The Oz has the heading Nelson strikes another climate change position.
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,24101583-601,00.html
I suppose this is what happens when your leadership is balanced on a knife edge. Brendan just be yourself if you fall you fell because you were yourself, then there will be no misgivings.
and FINNS ,
US stanse on WTC of course as you already knows stops poor countries to be financially independednt developig there own food & agric industries
Very funny response JoM after reading this:
Steve, as I said before Nelsons problem is he wants to be all things to all men, unfortunately that can never happen.
336
I agree that things here are different. I just find it hard to believe that we’ll trend away from the rest of the world. I think reality is already fairly well disconnected from the current story. I’ll have to hunt that IMF data – but I don’t believe it was a US comparison at all – I think it was based upon looking at the difference between the relatively recent spike vs the long term trend.
And yes, I’m a cynic when it comes to the RE industry. The idea that RE has gone from a long term investment to a guaranteed short-medium profit machine doesn’t stack up as far as I’m concerned. At the very least it’s pricing a lot of Australians out of a better standard of living and I don’t believe that’s good for the community in general.
More likely out of his depth.
That’s because the Ruddmeister is just a little dull WB.
The ‘B’ man is never dull. Scary and often unintentionally amusing, but never dull.
JoM the one consistency about Nelson and the ETS is his inconsistency. It just gets worse each time he tries to explain it.
Onimod I agree with you when you say, “At the very least it’s pricing a lot of Australians out of a better standard of living and I don’t believe that’s good for the community in general.”
Steve he’s out of his depth becasue he wants to appeal to everybody. If you want to be everybodies friend in the end you’ll be nobody’s friend.
Yes, but with inflation runnning at 5% another year or so of flat prices counts as another 5% reduction (in real terms).
Our prices were also far more contained over the period 2005-2007 which makes the need for a substantial fall now less compelling.
Steve #346 I agree
Apostle “John” of Melbourne… Nelson is doomed.
The seeds of his damnation will be seen as his practice of trying to please whoever-it-was-he-was-last-speaking-to.
That’s OK for a while, to excite a bit of interest, but you can’t keep it up forever.
He was never leadership material: weak, vacillating, inconsistent, and a known traitor to many of the causes he took up. Once he was Labor. He vowed he’d never voted Liberal in his life. But we know now he was already negotiating to become a Liberal party member. Far too opportunistic and a real amateur in the midst of hard-bitten professionals like Minchin and his bovver boys.
Other leadership contenders…
Costello has well-known fatal flaws: mainly being that he has jelly for a backbone, disguised as “enigmatic silence”. A bully through and through and noth worth commenting on further.
Turnbull: not a politician. Smart, brilliant even… but not cut out to lead a party or a country.
Havern’t got a clue who else the Libs are going to put forward as their Great White Hope, but if any of the above get the guernsey, the party will be decimated at any election where they are the leader.
The Libs need to go through a period of penance and revitalisation. There’s no easy path back to power. Until they say their Hail Marys (and for a good while after they finally do) they’re wandering in the wilderness.
This is a party that today proudly claimed they had reset their policy on GW back to the one they took to the election last year. But they lost that election… I mean, what kind of fools are they to be proud of reintroducing a failed policy?
Really, they’re in a terrible situation.
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