Brisbane’s Courier-Mail today carries a Galaxy poll of 800 Queensland voters showing Labor leading 51-49 on two-party preferred, compared with 50.4-49.6 at the November 2007 election. Both parties are down on the primary vote – Labor from 42.9 per cent to 41 per cent and the Coalition from 44.5 per cent to 44 per cent – while the Greens are up from 5.6 per cent to 9 per cent. Also included are questions on preferred leader (Kevin Rudd 57 per cent, Malcolm Turnbull 34 per cent) and economic management.
The first Essential Research poll conducted entirely on Malcolm Turnbull’s watch should be through either this afternoon or tomorrow morning.
UPDATE: No bounce for Turnbull from Essential Research, whose two-week rolling average has moved a point in Labor’s favour to the Nelson-era level of 58-42. Also featured are leadership approval ratings and questions on preferred Treasurer (Swan 34 per cent, Bishop 19 per cent), Kevin Rudd’s overseas travel (51 per cent believe he should have gone to the US, 30 per cent say he shouldn’t) and the value of a non-permanent seat on the UN Security Council.
442 Comments
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I must confess I am a bit dumbfounded by the negativity about paid maternity leave. If you look at a country with the best maternity/paternity leave (Sweden) this is a country that also has the highest female participation rate in the world (or close to). Maternity leave keeps women connected to the labour force, something that is crucial for a country like Australia with a low overall participation rate.
Another thing is we need babies. Have a look what the working / dependant ratio will be in 50 years time. We need workers and migration is not enough to deal with this problem. So you can either give these kids the best chance of a good start in life, giving them time to bond with their parents and doing something about parents’ financial insecurities, or you can throw them to the wolfes hoping they luck out and become good contributing citizens (mothers being forced to return to the workforce for financial reasons within 3 months of births is disgraceful). A small investment at the start can bring benefits in the 100,000s of $$ to the community.
And compared to the other investments we make in kids,$12,000 in maternity leave is peanuts. If you don’t want to pay to invest in Australian kids, you’ll probably save more by opposing public schools, health clinics, youth centres etc.
People will have kids, the country needs kids, so why not rebate mothers’ tax liabilites for a short time while they nurture the people that will be paying for the upkeep of public roads, hospitals and defence when you are feeding the ducks at the nursing home.
Ah, Jonsson, our conservatives are much stupider than yours.
Let me say this:
Do I believe that parents should spend as much time raising their children from an early age as possible? YES.
Should parents keep their employment if they take time off to raise their children? YES.
Should parents receive the minimum weekly wage funded by the taxpayer to take maternity leave regardless of their wealth or income? NO. Cut the economics benefit spin! Their is no reason to receive any more than the equivalent of the dole from government purses. And only if you are on a lower than a very high income at that.
The liberals have opposed labor on everything so far except maybe this? You would’nt believe it!
Paid maternity leave is a nonsense. Your choice to have kids is yours only.
Oh no! I’m agreeing with GP again
Jonsson The reason we don’t want paid maternity leave and all those other services you mention, is- we are not prepared to pay the necessary taxes.Elections are fought promising lower taxes then blaming the previous government for lack of services. Low tax, means low tax and we prefer low tax.
The trouble is its one of those policies that wont benefit everybody and leave some rather pissed off.
Rudd should be focusing on IR that’s what he was elected for.
No 156
That’s one of the funny things about comparisons with Sweden, held up as a social paradise. The reality is that the Government steals much of your wage to fund it.
On tonight’s Media Watch was a story which was perhaps the first to make me unambiguously concerned about an aspect of Rudd’s style – one that was far too Howardesque for my liking. It concerned the AFP raids on individuals in Canberra and the Gold Coast regarding investigation of PS leaks. The Canberra one was on the pretext of national security; the Gold Coast one was purely about the employment security fo an embarrassed bureaucrat. This concerned me.
The misuse of security powers to muzzle honest whistle blowing, even when clearly in the public interest, was one of the worst features of Howard’s rule. It became so prevalent that many careerist, unprincipled public servants in Canberra turned into self-censoring doers of their master’s bidding in this regard. SES seemed to stand for Stalins Eager Students.
I felt that Rudd made a mistake in being too nice not getting rid of some of these people when he took office. They gave teh whole CPS a bad name. Those in charge of Immigration and the AFP should have been amoung the first to go, as teh Rau and Haneef inquiries have shown. But if it turns out that Rudd only kept them on so that they could perform the same antics at his bidding, then our new PM will rapidly lose his ethical gloss. He will be lucky to last longer than Whitlam. Australia has always had comparatively low standards of legal protection for free speech and individual rights. If Rudd only intends to govern to the legal minimum, then he is setting the bar far too low. He had promised legal reform in this area, not continuation of Howard’s abuses of power.
Not happy Kevin.
To be fair Glen, most policies are like that
I agree with Jonnson, our lack of paid maternity leave is economically irrational regardless of your personal preference or political philosophy.
Chris, it can’t be explained by tax takes either. Overall our tax take in the OECD is about mid field (2/3 of nations more, 1/3 less) but only 2 other nations don’t have this provision. The older and more retirees we get, the more we are going to need this reform.
like workchoices
like workchoices, the baby bonus, chaplains in schools, HECS, and the list goes on
What ever happened to the joys of having a baby for the beauty of it LOL? Now everbody needs a monetry incentive to do it – double LOL.
Are people aware that it is possible to claim Howard’s wonderful baby bonus as soon as pregnancy is confirmed, pocket the money, then have an abortion? That’s what I call targetted social policy!
Dont we already have the BB which has been increased???
Is it Adam, then i guess it depends on how much an abortion is then as to how economically viable such an option would be.
Does Britain or Canada or New Zealand have ML? Because they are the best examples to follow as those countries are so similar to ours, if they arent going for it we should ask why we are?
Centre
I think for the common man (and woman) having a baby for the joy of it is a luxury brought on by the economic good times of the last half a century. Before then, and still in the developing world, having a baby (many babies) is a way to secure your economic future. Kids=the first super funds:)
For low-income people first trimester abortions are effectively free.
I thought you get the money when you deliver so to speak?
Glen
UK, Ireland, Canada and NZ all have paid parental or maternity leave of varying lengths. Only the US and ourselves don’t, amoung OECD nations.
Apparently not.
Or if it is, then you don’t have to prove that delievery was effected.
Well it’ll never happen in America even if Obama wins, but it is obviously seen as a way of getting women to have children despite the difficulties with work and the like after all in Western Countries women have far fewer children than in poorer African or Middle Eastern countries so i suppose we should do what we can. But i dont think it is something we should rush into.
Yes Glen, and it doesn’t benefit everyone, and not everyone thinks its a great idea
Adam
Are you sure about that. Centrelink webpage says “you have a newborn baby … you have a stillborn child or a child who dies shortly after being born”. Seems a bit different from abortion.
I think we need to disentangle two issues here. The baby bonus was a populist measure that coudl do with some reform in how it is targetted. But that doesn’t speak against the idea of paid maternity leave. If we introduced the latter we could reform the former at the same time.
Yes but Jonsson, we were supposedly having the boomest of economic times under Howard, yet he still felt the need to introduce a baby bonus.
Centre
A boom can increase the need for paid ML. The boom in housing prices meant that it was harder than ever for a single income family to pay for a house. In real terms this has become far more difficult in the 25 years since Hawke became PM. A whole generation of women in the workforce meant that house prices adjsuted ot teh icome of a two working parent family. We even switched from reporting average earnings to average family income to hide the unpleasant truth. Only the poor and the wealthy have non-working parents these days. The middle 70% can’t afford to.
Boom times led to less need to have kids for economic reasons, rather kids became a financial disincentive [extreme generalisation warning on this one]. The baby bonus was a response to Costello’s PPP equation (population, participation, productivity) where population was not holding up (looking decades ahead). Now, I don’t think you can necessarily credit the baby bonus for reversing what was a falling fertility rate, but it is actually rising. Maybe cheap alcopops have helped as well…
Socrates, I will stick to my 153 post on this issue. The policy is a little too far to the left for me. I would prefer to see government revenues invested in health, infrastructure, transport, and business incentives to benefit the economy further.
I’m crashing, nite guys.
The following from good friend of mine commenting on McKerras’s view that Menzies was our greatest PM – (I couldn’t put it better myself)
This is the sort of thing that raises one’s Blood Pressure to extremely dangerous levels. (McKerras article).
Even for mad Malcolm it’s a bit rich!
Firstly, to have RGM even ON a list of great PM’s is practically an obscenity, let alone as No.1!!
Here’s a man who, in his country’s greatest hour of need, spat the dummy, took his bat & ball & went home to spend EIGHT YEARS plotting his own triumphal return! (So MM breaks his own rule that ‘leadership in War’ etc. counts for something).
If he’s a Liberal icon, that more or less equates to being a political nobody. (cf Howard). He successfully sent/kept the country asleep for 20+ years until EGW awoke them/us.
Then Mr.Curtin: his main/only claim to fame ’standing up to Churchill’ & bringing the troops home to defend Australia. Made easier by being 12,000m from WSC at the time & possibly being pissed or with his mistress (or both).
In reality was just the ‘Administrator’ of the Commonwealth taking his orders from from that other fatally flawed character Gen.MacArthur. (Rather than saying “I will return”, some (esp.soldiers) ask why he left! cf. Menzies?).
So the REAL No.1 is simply Deakin, by a long way. Established much of the political/civil ’structure’ that has endured for 100 years. Went mad later, but then the line between genius and . . .?
Fisher more of an enigma, but if he established the RAN can’t be all bad!
My ‘Greats’ simply include Billy Hughes; a great war-time leader who then stood up for Australia’s rights at Versailles etc. Maligned & villified by the ALP later (so must have done something right!) & generally a pain in the a**e for 51 years in Parlt., but the man for the ‘hour’ when it counted.
And of course Gough. Dragged us, kicking & screaming, from our slumber, to try & reclaim a rightful place in the wider world. Undone by dunderheads and a drunk!
QLD State Galaxy: 52/48
http://media01.couriermail.com.au/multimedia/2008/09/080930_poll/StateTables.doc
Article for the above poll: http://www.news.com.au/couriermail/story/0,23739,24422534-952,00.html
New post up on the Queensland poll: great work as always, James.
It is an absolute outrage that Sharon Burrows believes employers should not only have to keep a vacant position for a new mother, but also “top up” any government maternity payment. It proves Ms Burrows is truly unearthly. Why should employers pay for a woman’s choice to have a child?
Because employers want and need women workers, and it’s a fact of life that women have babies. Baby-having can’t be outsourced, so employers have to deal with this situation as it is. Our birthrate will continue to fall, and the quality of parenting and socialisation of children will suffer, unless it is made bearable for women to work and have children at the same time. This is called social policy, GP. You should read up about it.
Strong performance by Swan on AM this morning. He sounds very firm and confident these days.
I’m interested to hear people’s take on Senator Faulkner’s ideas floated in regard to the reforms to the electoral system (4 year fixed terms; full Senate elections at each election).
He should be confident. He’s essentiall bulletproof as of last week (if he doesn’t completely drop the ball). The whole ball game has changed.
Turnbull is just about begging Swan and Rudd to do the bi-partisanship thing. This is because the only way Truffles can get a look-in on the economy for quite a while is to agree with Labor. He’ll have to quit brainstorming out loud in TV interviews, too.
Although he’s got skills economically, Turnbull runs the risk of being seen as an armchair general if he kibbitzes too much more.
Rudd is at a press conference right now shovelling all our economic woes straight into the Sub-Prime bin. He emphasized that S-P has been around “for over 12 months now” (i.e. before the election), and talked about poor economic conditions we have been suffering “for some time”.
Wrapping it all up into his trip to the US last week he said our people had been in touch with their people in Washington (implying through contacts made last week, and probably so, at least in part) and generally that our banks are in good shape compared to the rest of the world.
Let’s see Truffles top that!
Maybe the meeja has really changed horses in the last few days. Even the West Australian has apparently had a rush of blood:
Who said the Age of Miracles was over!
Itep, four-year terms for both Houses is actually Labor policy, although no-one seems to realise this. It’ll never get up at a referendum. In fact I don’t think any electoral reform that requires a referendum will get up, because the Libs will oppose whatever Labor does just for the sake of opposition.
Meanwhile The Daily Telegraph draws our attention to weightier issues:
* “Matilda Rose and missing $12 million”
* “Britney Spears Sex Tape Shock”
* “Public Mischief Charge for Bird”
* “Ex-Liberal Councillor Admits To Child Sex”
* “TV’s Love Affair With The Girls Is OVer”
oh, and yes,
* “World Crisis: How It Hurts You”
Malcolm Farr has a half-hearted go at our Prime Tourist:
Oh, OK, so the gauge of success of Rudd’s trip is now whether he single-handedly managed to turn Congress around to vote the way he sugested. But one suspects that if the vote had gotten through, we would have been hearing the story about how Rudd can’t brag, it was always going to get up anyway. I suppose Farr’s point, if he was pressed, would be that no matter which way the vote went Rudd’s presence could have had no possible effect. So let’s not even try. I mean, he hasn’t even met Nick Xenophon yet… a much more important matter. Perhaps Phil Coorey’s idea that it was unforgiveable not to attend the AFL Grand Final breakfast is all the buzz in Melbourne today. Who knows what they’ll come up with next?
Bushfire Bill @189 An actor and part owner of an NRL club recently said that Mr. Rudd now has to deal with many difficult and challenging problems of governance, and a lot of them are not of his own making so he should be given reasonable time to address them. This is a fair appraisal and one apparently shared by the public at the moment as reflected in opinion polling. Other than a few partisans on either side of politics, no one can really say yet whether Australia is in ‘good’, ‘bad’ or ‘indifferent’ hands but most hope it is the first of those alternatives.
Name one that is of his own making, and which would stick today, 30/9/2008.
Adam I’m sure the Liberals would not block electoral reforms if they included non complusory voting and a First Past the Post system
!
Glenn not even most in the Liberal Party support non-compulsory voting or first past the post otherwise it’d be law by now.
I have to agree that the proposed changes are highly unlikely to be successful, but I was more interested in public good those changes would have if they were successful. I have no objection, on the face of it, to 4 year terms, it’s really arbitrary as to whether 3 or 4 years are what term lengths should be. I strongly oppose lengths of 2 years (as in the US) or 5 years (as in the UK) as I think one of those is far too short and the other far too long.
The full election of senators at each election, again, has benefits. For instance the Senate we see now reflects not the choice of the people now or from the last election, but the choice of the people from the last 2 elections. You could also argue that opening all slots to election will allow for a better representation of a proportion of the community’s views in Parliament, no matter how batty or objectionable they seem from a centrist perspective. As I flagged earlier though, I’m weary as to how such a system would incorporate provisions for the resolution of disagreements between houses. The current system at least preserves the idea that a government ought to seek approval from the people of specific legislation at an election before passage at a joint sitting.
# 194 As at 30/11/08, I would say Mr. Rudd gets the benefit of the doubt for the time being. At the moment, he is in the public’s mind, entitled to a ‘fair go’ to deal with all or any problems of governance in this country whether or not of his own making.
This Poll is interesting.
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,24424318-12377,00.html
Just browsing the ‘Financial Review Magazine’ October 2008 that someone left in my office. It has section where a panel chooses the most powerful people in Australia. What I found interesting is the glowing praise of Julie Gillard at No.2 from one Peter Shergold who was on the panel.
I reckon they will be dissapointed given who Turnbull picked as his environmental shadows
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