This fortnight’s Newspoll shows Labor’s two-party lead unchanged on 56-44. Kevin Rudd’s approval rating is down three points to 62 per cent, while Brendan Nelson’s is up two to 16 per cent.
The weekly Essential Research survey has Labor retaining its 59-41 lead. Peter Costello is rated best person to lead the Liberals by 26 per cent against 13 per cent for Malcolm Turnbull, 8 per cent for Julie Bishop and 7 per cent for Brendan Nelson. However, Kevin Rudd is preferred to Peter Costello head-to-head 53 per cent to 27 per cent.
916 Comments
Pages: « 1 … 13 14 [15] 16 17 … 19 » Show All
The one thing people should be asking Nelson is “How come, duiring your years in government you kept the pension so low?”
More humbug from Gary Bruce at 701.
Gary Bruce at 701
Unfortunately for pensioners as a group, a lot of their number are conservative supporters, so would never dream of asking that very reasonable question, even if it did occur to them to do so.
ESJ, why is it humbug to ask Nelson why he is suddenly so keen on increasing the age pension when he didn’t think it important only 10 months ago? It seems a very fair question to me. Another fair question is where will the money come from, since every dollar week the pension is raised costs $104 million a year.
Caroline O has kindly summarised the Costello Memoirs so we don’t have to bother reading them.
http://blogs.theaustralian.news.com.au/coverington/index.php/theaustralian/comments/costellos_memoirs/
As a pensioner myself (Disability Support) I agree with what Rudd is doing – the timing may be late but the whole pension area is a mess.
People keep talking about the base rate of pension but this also contains a pension supplement, pharmacuetical allowance etc plus people who rent get rent assistance – which is never mentioned.
The income and asset tests are a shambles.
Many nursing home rents are worked out on a % of the OAP. So increasing the OAP just puts money into the hands of the nursing home operators.
Sure pensioners can earn $138 per fortnight gross before they lose any pension but after that they lose 40% in the dollar.
Brenda’s solution is stupid.
I should add that she is in the Turnbull camp so she hates Tip as much as we do.
ESJ #702
No. Wrong again.
Why didn’t rodent et al do more for pensioners ?
This is a good site for current up to date opinion polls for the US election –
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2008/latestpolls/index.html
Backtracking to the main page will give you lots of articles to read as well.
# 701 Pensioners look to their present and future wellbeing and it is the party now in government which affects their interests by the implementation of its policies. Your (rhetorical) question may engender some nodding of heads among the gurus here but it does little else.
Adam,
1. It seems the Labor supporters only have relativism to hide behind, ie at least we are better than the Libs. Some things are moral imperatives like food and clothing
2. If Labor cant make the case for fairness who will? Presumably we can all agree that as a wealthy society we can ensure all have food clothing and shelter? Just because the Liberals did something bad doesnt mean Labor should be justified in continuing an unfairness.
3. The ALP’s own cabinet agrees the pension is too low. Given thats the case why should these people be made to wait until February for fairness? Because the ALP is too scared to govern and is deficit fetishism personified?
#711
Another hollow response.
In line with the “howard years”
I note Brenda is talking about a rise of $30 per week for Aged Pensioners – wait for the “what about me” from Carers and DSPs.
Yes ruawake how dare desperate people ask for help?
Adam
May I ask you an ethics question? As a member of the Labor Party who is well-known and identified on this (and other) blogs, do you have to keep to Labor Party policy (or fairly close variations thereof) when you comment or can you say pretty much what you want?
Hey Diogenes,
Did you catch Cardinal Dulles birthday celebrations last week?
http://insightscoop.typepad.com/2004/2008/09/happy-birthday.html
No 630
Zoom, you are completely incorrect. Read Telstra’s website. Claimed coverage for NextG is over 99% of the population.
By government intervention, I was referring to government subsidies and the like.
Of course Adam is bound by the pledge including to publicly support ALP policy.
Diogenes, I say what I please on an “at my own risk” basis. But unlike many Labor people here I actually support Labor policy on most issues so I am rarely placed at risk
ESJ, there are two issues here. The first is whether the Rudd government ought or ought not to increase the age pension. The second is the damned hypocrisy and effrontery of Nelson in urging that Rudd increase spending by $3.1 billion a year (which is what a $30/week increase would cost, and rising over time), when he never suggested any such thing in government, and without suggesting how this would be paid for. Which would you like to debate first?
The pledge only applies to ALP parliamentarians. Members make no such commitment.
No 645
Socrates, two points
1. $96 billion of debt
2. Public transport is a state responsibility.
No 701
That’s right, unfortunately. The argument Nelson is mounting is untenable. Voter memory might be short, but it isn’t that short.
Well Adam,
On your 2 issues:
1) Happy to agree to your adjectives “damned hypocrisy and effrontery” about Nelson.
2) On the first its a guns vs butter argument. My point is in this case its fiscal discipline vs compassion. Surely the ALP should back compassion when its sitting on a $20 Billion surplus. If I accept $1 per week is $100 million as per your case surely $10 per week and more pending a review is just?
Adam
Brenda says it will cost $1.3 billion a year.
Surely he cocked up his arithmetic?
This story just won’t go away. Kim Jong Il fails to attend the parade for North Korea’s 60th anniversary. There are reports he’s been dead for years or that he’s dying. And with food shortages and a nuclear capacity, instability in North Korea is not a good thing.
Korean Dictator’s Health Is Questioned
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122096793304014739.html?mod=hpp_us_whats_news
I get Brenda’s sums it is only for single aged pensioners.
So now a single pensioner will be getting $606.80 pf where a member of a couple will still get $456.80 pf.
Look for the divorce rate to go through the roof.
Another story I have raised before and might go away spectularly tomorrow: Lehman Brothers bank is still in trouble with sub-prime losses. It might not go bust as such now teh Fed guarantee is in place, but shareholders have already lost 90% of its value since early 2007 and taxpayes might take another hit:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/10/business/10place.html?hp
Lehman Brothers was one of the most aggressive marketers of sub-prime derivatives and never disclosed their full liaibility, so why anyone thinks they weren’t in trouble is beyond me. This is the cause of the Wall Street dip on Monday; quite irrational that it should affect our market to the same extent.
The problem is that if one of the Brokers goes down it negatively influences the entire banking system globally.
Our stock exchange is heavily tilted to banks.
LYNE Update
For an election that produced little local reaction pre-poll, the outfall has been impressive. This is particularly in the case of the National’s excuses
Today’s Port Macquarie News with an interview with Andrew Stoner included the following;
1. The people of Lyne did not know how hard Rob Drew worked for them. he deserved better treatment
2. The Nationals were not prepared for the election and did not have enough time to find the best candidate (the election WAS caused by Mark Vaile’s resignation)
3. The Glasshouse should not have been an issue as this was a Federal poll and really was a referendum on Rudd’s poor performance
4. The Glasshouse was an issue but Rob Drew should not have been targeted with it
5. The Glasshouse was an issue and Rob Drew was therefore not the best candidate
6. Oakeshott is a “clever politician”
7. Oakeshott played dirty. Someone painted “Out Drew” on the roadway at one of the booths
8. In regard to the Port Macquarie by-election the National’s Leslie Williams is entirely different – she’s a member of community organisations, she listens to people and isn’t at all arrogant
From this I conclude;
1. If Stoner is a friend of Drew I would hate to meet his enemies
2. There is a lot of self-denial going on in the Nationals
3. There is some concern about their candidate for PMQ
Meanwhile another 2 independent candidates have put their hands up for PMQ – this makes at least 7 and the Liberals are expected to make a decision tomorrow on whether they will stand.
Diogenes @ 725 – I assume the old codgers I saw on the TV news taking the salute for the 60th anniversary are the leading members of the NK Politburo. If so, the situation in NK may be even worse than it appears. I doubt any of them will make it to Christmas. Not even with hourly injections of monkey glands and/or resveratrol.
On so many fronts these are indeed ‘interesting’ times.
730,
Interesting times indeed. Has anyone mentioned lately that the Queen is 80+?
Julie
Is David Flint really that old?
Interesting:
Warned by the Court
Obviously, not someone you want to cross. I hope Ahmadinejad, bin Laden and Putin is taking note….and cover!
No 733
Senseless fluff.
GB @ 701
David Spears on Agenda asked the question to Tony Abbott. His reply was that inflation was not at 5%
The Pensioner Assoc is now asking for an increase of $80 pw. Can I also have some?
Nor is it now, to be fair. CPI is forecast to rise to 5% shortly.
But inflation can only make a tiny difference over 11 months…..
MayoFerral
Thanks, intersting on Palin and just what we need – another hothead. Shes not really going to help negotiate a solution in Iraq/Iran or understand Pakistan. Without wanting to underestimate the stupidity of the average American, you would think they had learnt by now that these sort of people (Rumsfeld/ Cheney/ Bush/ McCain/ Palin) cause more problems than they fix. None of them have ever run a (succesful) military campaign. They are politicians playing at being generals. Saakashvilli talked tough too, until quite recently.
Lets hope trooper gate comes back before the election.
Plus pensions are linked to CPI, the next increase is on 20th Sept. Rudd increased pensions by $8 a week via the utilities allowance and $6 in the March CPI increase.
So since the election of the Rudd Govt, the base for ALL pensions will have risen by about $22 a week.
Brenda is playing to his last strong demographic, single old women.
GP @ 734
I think it is going a bit far to call Palin ‘Senseless fluff’.
She has a vindicative streak and so on, but is arguably not entirely senseless and it would be a while since anyone detected anything very fluffy about her, except if they were focusing on what may occupy the space between her ears.
What Abbott and others omit to mention is that inflation is not always a fair measure for pensioners. The price of food and services like phone, water and electricity has been rising at well above CPIU for several years in a row. This affects pensioners disproportionately. A better journalist would have asked him a better question.
There’s a pledge on my membership ticket, but maybe it’s different where you are.
I am very glad Rudd is sticking to a proper review.
Can someone please point me to a decent review of all Centrelink support payments under the Howard Government?
People are too used to JH throwing money at people who scream the loudest!
For the information of members and their guests.
I’ve compared the first nine months of polling of the Howard Government in 1996 with the Rudd Government in 2007/8. Complete tables here:
http://www.ozforums.com.au/viewtopic.php?id=3938
Two things stand out:
1. At the same stage (6 – 9 months since the elections), both winning parties increased their primary vote, L/NP 1996 (+ 1.5%) ALP 2008 (+ 2.1%) and both losing parties had lost considerable support ALP 1996 (- 3.3%) and L/NP 2008
(- 4.5%).
2. Both new Governments held similar two party preferred leads, L/NP 1996 (56/44) and ALP 2008 (56.3/43.7).
Pollsters used were AC Nielsen, Newspoll and Morgan.
The Afghan president is upset because the US can’t count. He thinks the US slaughtered about 90 civilians in one go. The US at first said nope, no civilians were killed, and are now saying, well, maybe seven civilians. The lines of corpses in some admittedly bad quality footage appear to indicate that the US is incapable or unwilling to count to more than seven dead kids. Another problem with the US calculations may have been whether the bodies of the women indicated that they too must have been Taliban warriors. This is the sort of behaviour that ensured that the Russians were eventually defeated in Afghanistan.
BTW, I wonder whether Putin is giving a bit of thought to providing the Taliban with some shoulder fired ground-to-air missiles? The ones the US provided to the Afghanis when they were fighting the Russians helped to tip the balance. Now that South Ossetia and Abhkazia are firmly in Russian hands, and there is a bit of mishievous cocking a snoot at the Monroe doctrine by doing some joint naval exercises with Venezuela, it might be time for yet another favour to be returned to the US?
Socrates
The big problem is accomodation – I live on the now “infamous” $273 a week and do so without missing out on food, beer, pay TV, broadband internet.
The reason is that I own my home and live in a climate where heating, cooling bills are small.
Brenda will get crucified over this piss weak attempt to shore up his leadership.
#743
With “costello week” all but upon us plus their ongoing leadership problems etc the fibs need all the distractions they can get.
Rodent will then weigh-in rebutting tip probably even before his book comes out later this year. Hopefully the nation will witness a conservative blood bath.
So much for all the denials that there was no deal between them on the leadership.
Whatever the fibs put forward re immediate increase for pensioners, they still have to face up to doing nothing themselves. The inflation problems pensioners now face were caused by the fibs as well.
5mins to doom, down the black hole.
Ruawake 746
Agreed – the issue is to distinguish between those with those things and without. There are some self-funded retirees who definitely shouldn’t be getting the pension, havign received numerous tax concessions on their super payments in order to take them off this system. Getting the pension as well is a clear “double-dip”.
But overall my point was simply that the claim of 3% inflation hence no problem was spurious.
Do we all now as a nation just accept that our pollies. are liars?
How can Costello & howard claim that there was no deal to hand over th pmship last year on tv and now costello is saying ” yes there was a deal.” I mean how can they be taken seriously.
Maybe the chinese are lucky at least they accept what they get.
Pages: « 1 … 13 14 [15] 16 17 … 19 » Show All