The latest monthly ACNielsen poll has produced an encouraging debut performance for new Liberal leader Malcolm Turnbull, with the Coalition leading Labor on the primary vote 42 per cent to 41 per cent. However, Labor maintains a 52-48 lead after preferences. Kevin Rudd leads Turnbull as preferred leader 56 per cent to 33 per cent. The poll also finds 33 per cent believe Peter Costello should quit politics against 29 per cent who think he should stay. Last month’s ACNielsen poll had Labor leading 55-45, from primary votes of 43 per cent and 39 per cent.
There are rumours of an early Newspoll this evening, so stay tuned.
UPDATE: Newspoll says 55-45, down only marginally from 56-44 last fortnight. Labor is down two points on the primary vote to 42 per cent and the Coalition up one to 38 per cent. Kevin Rudd’s personal ratings are continuing their long-term move southwards: this time his approval rating is down four points to 50 per cent, while his disapproval is up five points to 37 per cent. Consistent with the Galaxy poll, Rudd heads Turnbull as preferred leader 54 per cent to 24 per cent, after leading Brendan Nelson 62 per cent to 16 per cent a fortnight ago. No straightforward approval rating for Turnbull at this stage, but he has scored a remarkable 74 per cent on being “decisive and strong”, the flip-side of his much vaunted arrogance.
UPDATE 2: New shadow cabinet announced. Main changes: Julie Bishop in treasury, Helen Coonan in foreign affairs, Christopher Pyne in education, Andrew Robb in “a new portfolio covering infrastructure, COAG and an emissions trading scheme” and Joe Hockey in finance. No-brainer: Bronwyn Bishop dropped.
663 Comments
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Have a read of this Whirlpool forum for some more discussion of the filter:
http://forums.whirlpool.net.au/forum-replies-archive.cfm/967413.html
This post from an ISP representative is particularly pertinent:
SNIP: Poor quality comment deleted. Explain your point, please – The Management.
/sarcasm on
Are you sure? Isn’t it possible that politicians and judges swear an oath to her, and we put her face on our coins for fun because we couldn’t think of anyone else to pay tribute to? Like I mean our politicians could say that they swear loyalty to the Australian people, but that would be too mushy. And we put the Queen’s face on coins to remind ourselves that there are people in the world uglier than ourselves.
/sarcasm off
SNIP: Cheap shot deleted – The Management.
Am I right in thinking that the GG-is-head-of-state idea was popularised by David Flint?
Utter twaddle GP. How would these people be potential ‘targets’ of investigation?
Yes I think so. I can recall Turnbull debating the point against him at the Con-Con in 1998.
No 404
Yes.
And David Flint is, of course, a complete fool.
I see.
To try to link the Republic issue to the last few days of Australian politics …
I’m in the “couldn’t care less” camp on the Republic (voted yes in 1999, will decide how to vote in future referenda solely based on the appropriateness of the model).
As a Liberal I don’t give a stuff what position Turnbull takes on the Republic whilst he is leader, as long as he doesn’t waste too much time thinking or speaking about it.
now, now Adam, compared to Kerry Jones he comes across as quite intelligent.
Is the Australian Republican Movement still around?
Speaking as a republican who is still very angry at the way Cleary and co colluded with the monarchists to sabotage the referendum, I am resigned to the fact that nothing will happen on the republic until the Queen dies, which (given that her mother lived to be 102) may not be for many years.
No 408
Rubbish. You haven’t even met the man or talked with him. Certainly his reasons for retaining our current constitutional arrangements are more convincing than anything the ARM could mount both in 1999 and now.
He has a veneer of intellectuality, but in fact he’s a complete simpleton.
And you’ve met Rudd, Gillard and Swan, I suppose?
No 405
Simple. If you were an online law-enforcement officer, your first point of call would be the “opt-out” list. It’s common sense.
No 415
Adam, I don’t think you’re an arbiter on intellectual capacity of others.
I have never understood why we can’t talk about the Republic while there are economic concerns? It’s not like we can only handle one issue at a time. WHen ever will there not be economic issues (ahh now I see why…).
What’s the problem? If we start on the Repbulic road does Treasuray shut down so everyone there can think about what model we’ll have for the head of state?
Somehow I think the RBA won’t waste too much time on the issue. I can just see the minutes of the RBA Board meeting:
“Board member were given some data on inflation, but didn’t take it all in because they were so preoccupied with whether Australia should be a republic. This issue was made even more complicated when Ken Henry brought up the example of Andorra”
Which is just sad, the whole point of becoming a republic is so that our constitution has nothing to do with people who choose to live in other countries.
HAHAHAHAH you flip from saying that the 1999 referendum failed because the model was wrong, to saying that the monarchists won it thanks to the quality of their ‘arguments’. Make up your mind.
Adam,
I could never understand why the Cleary mob did that. It just seemed utterly perverse.
I would be very loath to vote for the direct election model, as it seems to me to have the potential to create some kind of mandate for the President to “do things”. This would be an utterly pointless, and possibly dangerous, change to our current system IMO.
On the other hand a figurehead Australian President would suit me just fine.
Or the non-opt-in list GP. Your assertion is ridiculous.
No 419
It won’t be talked about now because there is no solid support for the republic.
Of course, Turnbull’s claim that we should only be talking about the economy was just his attempt to shift the debate to an issue that the Liberals are somewhat less divided on.
No 422
No it is not ridiculous – an opt-out list would likely be much smaller.
True, but why did the media lay down like dead dogs. Surely someone could ask why a man of his obvious intelligence can’t handle two issues at once?
Like everyone else here, and particularly you GP, I make judgements about the capacity of public figures based on their public performance.
David Flint’s public performances have been uniformly ridiculous, which is why he had to resign from whatever sinecure Howard gave him (I forget now what it was). His political partisanship was blatant, and yet so naive as to be laughable. His efforts at pretending that Australia was already a republic or whatever nonsense it was he tried to run were equally risible, as well as grossly dishonest.
ShowsOn,
Whereas Rudd’s attempt to get a discussion going on the Republic, was, no doubt, based on the purest of motives?
Grog,
Why doesn’t Rudd put up a Republican model if it’s such a priority?
David Flint has this really strange habit of adopting a pseudo-British accent which has never been explained
Well put.
Yeah, motivated by a desire to make Australia a republic. Can’t get purer than that.
Head of the Australian Communications Authority. He was retired after he got Jones and Laws off of their Cash for Comment cases.
I will let Flint mount his own defence:
http://www.norepublic.com.au/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=280&Itemid=1
You have no idea what size either list would be, nor whether either would be of the size ‘processable’ by an investigator, nor whether such an investigator would be able to obtain anything from such a fact of being on a list or not on a list. One of the more ridiculous things you’ve come up with GP, and there have been plenty.
No doubt because first there will have to be a shirt load of consultations and that would not be a good look at the minute. And anyway there’s no point doing these things if the oppostion is going to sand bag them from the start.
ShowsOn,
Well, if Rudd’s motives are so pure, he’ll be putting up a model for the Republic, won’t he?
I’m waiting …
He has stated on several occasions that it is not an immediate priority for the government
this is hilarious, talculm’s ideas as a lad.
http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/master-turnbulls-liberal-spray/2008/09/22/1221935530521.html
I think Flint went to a missionary school in Indonesia where he acquired his accent. I don’t criticise him for his accent, but for the really dumb things he says and does.
I really couldn’t care less about the Republic … the key question for the week is what’s going to happen to the economy.
Heard a guy on 702 tonight (Steve Keen) saying that the US is going to have a Depression. He was talking massive reductions in GDP, prolonged deflation, the whole bit.
Then some listener called in to ask about his investment properties, whether they’d do ok. The answer?
“Australian property is currently priced, on average, at twice the value that it should be”.
Strewth!
[I will let Flint mount his own defence:
http://www.norepublic.com.au/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=280&Itemid=1
HAHAHAHAHAH Why is it that there is no explanation in there for why we shouldn’t be a republic? Flint always seems to ignore the most important point whenever he writes something.
The best it says is that the proposed republic model was poor. Well I guess that makes sense, if the referendum in 1999 was for a direct election model, we would already be a republic. That’s what people wanted, the queen lovers just played up that division.
People didn’t vote for the monarchy, they demonstrated that they wanted to directly elect the president.
I loved how on 7:30 Report when Kerry Asked Turnbull about the republic, he replied:
“I don’t remember Kevin Rudd being on the barricades in ‘99″
Barricades?? If only.
The closest Turnbull would have been to a barricade was opening night of Les Miserables.
Nothing new about that news…
That’s for the population to decide, and they will choose a direct election model, and it will win every state by about 60/40. When the population thinks “President” they think “President of the U.S.”, which they associate with direct election (even though technically it isn’t).
The only reason the 1999 model failed was because it wasn’t direct election.
It would stupid and bloody inappropriate of Rudd to put up his own model.
He ain’t the dictator.
A direct election model is a crock, ShowsOn. That’s the only aspect of the Republican debate I feel passionate about.
Adam:
It was Malcolm Turnbull that first made fun of Flint’s accent back in ‘99
For Flint as with Sophie Pano-bella I agree with you that their actions defy explanation
Grog,
It’s got nothing to do with being a dictator, all it’s got to do with is framing a question for a referendum.
Turnbull did the right thing to brush it off. I hope he keeps doing that.
Once again, the Australian media prove how totally inept and biased they are!
I swear some of these characters have forgotten that there was a change of government on November 24!
Today’s headline in the AUSTRALIAN was one of the worst examples of misrepresentation I’ve seen in a while, because their latest Newspoll hardly showed a huge swing back to the Liberals, despite what Shamahan was trying to imply.
Well that’s what we will get so get ready for it. You’ve got about 6 years.
I was there handing out Yes cards at the referendum in 1999, and dozens of people said they would vote for a radical model, but not where the President was appointed by parliament. So they were voting NO because they thought it would get them a direct election model sooner.
They didn’t seem to see the irony that the G-G is effectively appointed by 2 people – the prime minister and the queen, but that’s not surprising given that only 50% of the population even knows we have a written constitution.
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