The latest federal ACNielsen poll, published in today’s Fairfax broadsheets, has Labor’s two-party lead down to 55-45 from 56-44 last month. Malcolm Turnbull’s approval rating is down four points to 51 per cent and his disapproval is up five to 35 per cent, while Kevin Rudd is more or less steady on 70 per cent and 22 per cent. Also included are questions on the government’s economic management (positive) and expectations about the economy (surprisingly optimistic).
UPDATE: Galaxy has also produced a poll showing Labor leading 55-45. The poll has Labor on 43 per cent of the primary vote, the Coalition on 40 per cent and the Greens on 11 per cent. No mention of a sample size that I can see, but in Galaxy’s case it’s usually about 800 (UPDATE: It’s 1004 for Galaxy, 1400 for ACNielsen).
UPDATE 2: A surprise from Essential Research: they too have Labor’s lead at 55-45 in their weekly survey. This is down from 59-41 last week, and as far as I’m aware is the closest result they have thus far produced. Also featured are questions on which party is deemed best to handle various issues (huge leads to Labor on climate change, environment and industrial relations, narrow ones to Liberal on inflation, national security and economic management) and the car manufacturing industry assistance package (47 per cent approve, 35 per cent disapprove).
1,045 Comments
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Adam
You need o be a little bit careful with NZ it gets a mention in our constitution. The way I read it they can become a state and there is little Australia could do to stop them.
I just posted on the US thread some links about the US economic situation. It is looking pretty dire for GM, Ford and Chrysler. This is not necessarily a disaster for their Oz operations, which could be sold and taken over by more competitive makers. Indeed, if someone like Honda took over one and started making economical cars here, it wouldn’t be a bad thing.
However there is one obvious consequence of this – with all due respect to Kym Carr, the government should be very cautious in actually handing money over to Holden or Ford right now. We don’t want to be in the situation of a german Bank, or Lehamns UK, which were looted by the New York parents for billions shortly before going bust.
fredn, on my reading New Zealand isn’t an original state as defined in s 6 so for a new state to be added to the Commonwealth there would need to be parliamentary approval (under s 121). Your statement that there’s nothing Australia could do to stop them isn’t really correct.
All of which is not really worth commenting on as New Zealand would never want to become a state of Australia in any case.
And indeed, would we want them?
well, at least it still rains in NZ
http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSTRE4AI11B20081119
Dunno if some already posted this.
Cheney and Gonzales indicted by a Texas grand jury for “organized criminal activity” related to alleged abuse of inmates in private prisons.
Boerwar,
Just did a quick bit of research and found that in some states in the US it costs as much as $69,000 per year to house each prisoner.
With a prison population of 1 in 100 of the general population, no wonder the US economy is so bad.
Australia,
Great Brittan,
Certainly this seems to be extraordinary sums of money spent on incarceration, especially when you take into consideration the cost of indicting and the trial process.
The amount spent on rehabilitation is minuscule in comparison.
Yes, but try and explain that to victims of crime or people scared such crimes will be committed to them. That type of logic doesn’t hold much sway with those people.
All it would take is for one serious crime to be committed by someone released under a lighter penal system and the critics would feel vindicated and the media would have a field day. It’s not going to happen.
I would much rather my tax dollars be spent in rehabilitating suitable offenders than have them institutionalized in a university of crime as well as alienating them from society and becoming resentful of that society and wanting to hit back at it. Which is what is happening presently.
An interesting take on it from the NZ Hansard.
REPLY;
And this on “Privatisation” of Prisons.
And this on rehabilitation, which Australian Authorities might pay to have a look at. This under a “Labour” Government too. The Nationals will probably unwind the progress made in search of a few votes.
http://theyworkforyou.co.nz/portfolios/corrections/2006/jul/18/prisoners
SMACK:
Reminds me of something.
they still hav’nt learned anything, what a bunch of pratts.
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,24678507-5013948,00.html
Apparently it’s not all bad here!
http://theyworkforyou.co.nz/portfolios/corrections/2006/jul/18/prisoners
Hopefully, Obama will reverse this injustice.
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,24679282-12377,00.html
Judith Barnes @ 812,
You couldn’t expect much different from that waste of space, Helen Coonan, could you?
That argument is so poor, it is almost beyond stupid.
That could mean that because he had not made it clear that he was against pedophilia or pretty well any other such thing, that he might actually be in favour of it!
Bah humbug! What a mob of clowns.
Socrates
I agree totally GM, Ford and Crysler are 3 of the worst run motor companies in the world. They have been made obsolete by the Japanese. The companies have been run the same way for the last 40 years, they have been left behind by technology.
If you look at the power, fuel consumption ratio, manoeuvrability and cost, they lags significantly behind the Japanese.
It would be a mistake to keep them going in the US, by keeping the tariff on import and giving them millions from the tariff to subsidise them.
Unless both the companies and the workforce modernises, they will revisit this again in a few years
What Australia does not want to do is give them $6 billion, so they can continue to subsidise their incompetitive American workforce.
I thought Obama had already said he will close Guantanamo:
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/11/17/2421702.htm
Obama can’t do anything about it. The control order was imposed by a judge at the request of the Australian federal government.
I don’t have much sympathy for Hicks. Of course his ‘trial’ was a joke, but at the end of the day, he plead guilty to aiding a terrorist organisation.
According to Coonan, there must be two Barack Obama’s.
I can’t remember there being a previous “president-elect Obama”, and I am so glad that the Libs have “no lingering concern about it.”
They must be trying to see if they can get the 2PP back above 60%. It shouldn’t be too hard the way they are going.
If Obama declares the Tribunal that accepted the plea bargain illegal and unconstitutional as he has indicated, then the Australian Order would have no legal standing either.
How can actions of the U.S. government effect control orders imposed by an Australian court under Australian anti-terrorism legislation? That makes absolutely no sense to me. The President of the U.S. has no standing in an Australian court.
The only way Hicks’ control order will be lifted is if the Australian government either via the AFP or the Attorney General requests it. I doubt that will happen any time soon.
Wasn’t the control order issued by an Australian court?
Australia 1/13, Hayden caught at slip.
Yes. It was probably part of the agreement with the U.S. (You can let him out after 8 months if you put a control order on him). But it was the Australian government that actually did it under Australian laws.
ltep, read 821 again!
I wish Coonan would just shut up
ltep, if the reason for the control order is no longer applicable because the US has had the Presidential Decrees rescinded that were the reason for that order being applied, then it stands to reason that the order would no longer apply according to Australian law.
The Order would have to be rescinded!
I have re-read it. The legal standing the control order has is that it was issued in a proper way by a court. Obama declaring something or other would not change that in itself.
2/22 oh boy
3/23
ltep, I’ll take a little bet with you.
When Obama rescinds the Decrees, Hicks’ Lawyers will immediately apply for the Order to be quashed and it will be.
Well that would in part depend on the Australian Government’s position on the matter. It’s not as simple as you’re making it out to be.
There’s just no pleasing some people…
http://news.smh.com.au/national/pensioners-call-for-boost-in-age-pension-20081120-6c8o.html
Ford changes it’s decision and will keep it’s Geelong plant open
http://news.smh.com.au/national/ford-backflips-on-vic-plant-closure-20081120-6c8f.html
Not much of a crowd, if it was organised by a shock jock however…..
Dario@834
I’m surprised they weren’t naked.
Surely its obvious that the “pensioner lobby” is just a Liberal front? Howard did very little for pensioners, other than a series of one-off payments, yet we didn’t hear a peep out of these people. Many non-aged pensioners under Howard didn’t even get the one off payments.
Or that Steve Fielding didn’t turn up in a koala suit or something
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/11/20/2425038.htm?section=justin
Which is exactly what the government has committed to doing: make it viable and long-term. (As opposed to the Coalition’s band-aid approach).
The government has also said that some measures talked about earlier may have to be looked at twice in light of the economic crisis, but the promised pension review is sacrosanct.
So what is the point of the Pensioners’ Coalition protest?
Oh, that’s right, it’s the pensioners’ coalition. Attended by NSW opposition spokesman for ageing Andrew Constance. Hmmmm, another coalition beat-up on behalf of they who never seem to get enough.
Magic Tuesday morphs into Magic Wednesday.
http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/petrol-tuesdays-now-wednesday/2008/11/20/1226770605806.html
And these jokers still can’t see the sense in Fuelwatch?
apart from those “one off” payments
pension payment was exempt from tax
Tax threshold got increased substantially, as did tax offset.
Imputation credit got refunded from investments
That added to the fact that inflation was low, means that there is not many complains
Fuel watch LOL
Name another country that has it? Even the govenment report said there is no prove it works
Trade practice act would normally deem any law that does not allow a company to change the prices they charge as anti-competitive
How many times have you been to check out Groscery watch
Dovif your spin won’t convince me. I’ve thought about it and recognise the significant strengths to Fuelwatch. It’s nothing like the Grocery Choice sham. I have no sympathy for the petrol companies, it’s the consumer that I’m interested in.
I want to know where the cheapest petrol near me is every day thank you very much
I want to know that the price quoted on the website will be the price charged when I get there.
Dovif
None of the Howard measures you mentioned affected the income of pensioners reliant on the pension – which is precisely the point of the current protesters. The main effect was that those with additional income got to keep it. Some already very wealthy self-funded retirees got to claim the pension when they never had it before. Given that their super payments had already been exempted from tax this was an obvious double dip. Meanwhile the imputation credits also applied to non-pensioners, so would have had no impact on the proportion of average incomes that pensioners received. Thus Howard made the pension system less equitable, while not reducing its cost to taxpayers. Yet still no protesters? Again, they are a Liberal front; only someone more senile than themselves would believe a word of it.
I want to know where the cheapest petrol NEAR ME is every day thank you very much
That is the point, most area have very similar prices, and we are not going to drive an hour to get cheaper petrol
Fuel watch is a bad idea for the following reason
+A petrol station cannot change their prices for a whole day, ie if I am an independant operator, and no one come to my service station for a whole day I am going to struggle staying competitive.
+All the caltex/BP etc has to do is incurred losses for a few month and all the independant is out of business, if everyone finds out they are cheapest and do not use the independant ones
+2 day FM gives out this information for free, why are you not using it! When I was in Melbourne the same happened
+While a Caltex/BP can report the price for all their petrol stations, all the independant operatior has to report theirs every day
+I put in petrol when I run out, I normally do not plan on when I run out of petrol
dovif, then you should set the cheapest price possible that you think you can trade at.
Of course all the nonsense about independent retailers is just that. Perth, which has a FuelWatch scheme has the same proportion of independent retailers as other states. The sky has not fallen in.
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