The latest fortnightly Morgan face-to-face poll has not replicated the Newspoll bounce, but that’s cold comfort for the Coalition as they still trail 59.5-40.5, unchanged from last time. The Greens are up three points on the primary vote to 10.5 per cent. Labor’s primary vote is down from 50.5 per cent to 48.5 per cent and the Coalition is down from 35.5 per cent to 34.5 per cent.
We also have Newspoll’s latest quarterly aggregation of polling broken down by state and age group. The outstanding features is a picture of relative Labor weakness in New South Wales, consistent with the theme that the state government is damaging their brand there. Charts galore from Possum.
In other news, 65-year-old back-bencher Philip Ruddock has made the surprise announcement that he plans to run again in his blue-ribbon Sydney seat of Berowra. However, he seems in some danger of being blasted out by the state party’s vigorous Right faction, which did so much to contribute to the party’s success at the last election.
UPDATE: By popular demand, here’s a chart showing how Labor’s two-party vote has tracked across Newspoll, Morgan and Essential Research this year. I only have figures going back to June for Essential, and have generally only used every second poll for Morgan and Essential to keep the figures concurrent with Newspoll. Alternatively, you could just look at Possum’s chart dump, which includes ACNielsen.
923 Comments
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Be afraid, and be very very afraid. No wonder the Chinese are not interested in the so called “Big Three” afterall. they are the dodo of the car industry already.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/from_our_own_correspondent/7779261.stm
Gezz! That didn’t take long!
After posting a story, just three hours ago, about Rudd fast-tracking the solar energy fund to be spent over the next 18 months instead of the next six years, the ABC has replaced it with a carping, whining, whinge list from the Coalition saying:
not just as any story, or a side bar,m but as the front page lead, in place of the original good news.
Once again it has only taken three hours for the Opposition to see through the sham and confidence trick that is the Rudd government and point to a fatal weakness that renders the hundreds of millions of dollars being invested down to the level of “meaningless”. That is, no meaning, totally useless, a complete failure, waste of money. Poor fella my country: you’re doomed with Rudd.
What else could the ABC news gurus do but bring this devastating criticism to the forefront so that we may know our government has failed us again?
Thanks for the good idea aknowledgment all. Each sign of the zodiac has a different symbol which you would badge at the back, front, steering wheel and removable head rest embroided. Can’t patent an idea. Love to see someone run with it though- tell GM bushfire Bill. The colours might be too constricting.
On the political front many of my Liberal friends are glad that ALP is in at the momment. The ability to spend is one of our strengths (sometimes not at the right times). They believe that had Cossie been in he would still be waiting and far to slow to act. Everything would have crumbled and Xmas would be very bleak for many. Except for the fuelwatch and grocery watch blunders this government has been exceptional. An A+ for effort so far and a B for achievment.
Check out the opt out clauses in this story. It will be amazing if this lot could set a target under any circumstances.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/12/14/2445911.htm
Another perspective on saving the auto industry in the US.
http://clubtroppo.com.au/2008/12/11/the-rise-and-fall-of-the-us-piano-industry/
GG
Strongly agree!! From the first book written on modern economics (Adam Smith) transport and infrastructure were textbook examples of public goods: things that were needed for a society to function/progress but for which a market mechanism wouldn’t deliver an adequate supply. The whole ethos and rhetoric of business invaded my field (transport infrastructure) from about the late 80s onwards. It certainly didn’t improve the quality of the decision making. Prior to this there had been problems with some engineers building things there wasn’t a need for (eg Tasmanian dams). But now we have gotten to the point where we havn’t been building things we badly need (eg Sydney rail).
Its interesting too, that I have never seen any papers on the viability of employing economists, or how much we might save by cutting executive workforces by 50%.
What’s sad about the NSW government and their continued addiction to roads, tunnels and tollways is that there’s actually significant political capital to be gained by investing in public transport. It would be a popular move.
They aren’t not doing it to appeal to motorists, they’re doing it because they’re behove to the roads lobby.
Is anyone going to hazard a guess what the emissions reduction target for 2020 is going to be tomorrow (we’ll use reductions based on 1990 levels as that seems the most commonly used, dunno how they plan to phrase it)? The Greens are asking for 40%, the mining industry for 5%. The Climate Institute wants 25%. I’m going with a 10% reduction dressed up as 15%, but with a caveat that another 10% can be added depending on whether the US, China and India make an effort.
Climate change plans released tomorrow
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,24797998-601,00.html
Oz
How does the truck delivering to Woolies or the tanker delivering fuel or the courier delivering just about everything catch public transport?
Bit of a simplistic argument old chum.
Oz!!
I don’t know enough about NSW but from a Melbourne point of view the Car is King and will foreve be so, does that mean we should not invest in Public Transport, of course notn and until we seriously invest in what is an ourdated system that is find if your are a tourist or have all day to get to point A to point B.
Melbourne’s system is pathetic, the irony is we are forever telling oversea people about how great the Trams are but in reality they are a joke.
For this reason Governemnt s should be willing to invest in Road projects for while a lot can be done with Public Transport but at the end of the day we are a large nation which has a great need for well constructed roads.
Public transport is fine for people to commute to an office job, for students to get to their place of learning and really not much else.
It can only operate at a frequency neccessary to be used in urban areas. So are we wasting money on public transport?
Can a tradesman carry his tools of trade on the train? No.
Can an outbound sales person use public transport? No
Can anyone do the weekly shop using a bus, train or tram? No
The public transport lobby cannot or will not address these issues.
Oz I’ll bet on a 15% reduction to go to 20% when the others come on board.
I agree that public transport investment would be a good step forward but the main game for GW is still what we do with power generation. That is over 50% of our CO2 emissions whereas transport is only about 16%.
Just to prove what is happening in GM (USA) can’t happen here, Vauxhall (GM England) has just announced job cuts (900) and is asking employees to take a “holiday” on reduced pay for several months. They have a large stockpile of unsold cars.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/4988616.stm
Ruawake you’re acting like we have a brilliant public transport system and not enough roads for our trucks… when it’s the other way around.
You think there aren’t any trucks in London? Hong Kong? Tokyo? Shanghai? Copenhagen? Berlin?
Being a “large nation” has nothing to do with having decent public transport for urban areas.
ruawake
Its horses for courses – more PT in inner city areas and on main transport spines, more roads with better bus facilities in outer suburbs. What you say is why we need more economical cars though – we will still have 70% of trips by car, so if they aren’t made more efficient we will never meet any CO2 targets.
What you say of Melbourne is true there and elsewhere. However the reason I say that we need more PT investment is that there is a desire to shift more peopel to PT now and its impossible – underinvestment has meant that our trains and buses are so full there is no room for more peopel on them. Our investment record on PT is very poor.
Yep, Bushfire Bill, just went and checked the ABC Online News. It’s extraordinary that the lead story is the Opposition’s reduction of the government’s announcement to “meaningless”. I guess I’ll just keep complaining.
Oz
Have a look at population density in the cities you mention – then compare them to Sydney.
Sydney = 2058/km²
London = 4,761/km²
Hong Kong = 6,352/km²
Tokyo = 5796/km²
Copenhagen = 5,777/km²
Berlin = 3,831 /km²
You see the problem? To have decent public transport you need high population densities. Even our most densely populated city does not come close.
Please show me which public transport feasibility studies state that as a fact?
Exclude to suburbs of Sydney and see what the population density is then.
Higher density cities make a more compelling case for public transport but it doesn’t mean “You must have so and so population density before you can be serviced with public transport”.
I should have said that Vauxhall proved the GM collapse COULD happen here
Here is the link to the Vauxhall story – they are offering staff “sabaticals” where tehy get 30% pay while taking 9 months off!
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/merseyside/7781345.stm
http://www.demographia.com/db-sydney-dense.htm
Look at the population densities of those areas where a significant percentage of the population live. Higher even, then those cities you listed above. Public transport? Waverly has what, one bus service?
More info about the high density “myth”.
http://www.ptua.org.au/myths/density.shtml
Your “low density” argument doesn’t explain we had so many tram lines in Sydney 50 years ago.
Oz and Ruawake you are both partly right. Yes you do make PT more viable with higher population density. But our cities compare poorly to other cities with similar density. Compare us to Canadian or Scandinavian cities with similar density (say Ottawa, Vancouver, Toronto, Helsinki, Stockholm) and our use of public trnasport is generally lower. The reason is simple – our investment rate in infrastructure was low, even in % terms, through mostof the 90s (and a lot of earlier decades too).
All I am saying is that many more people need to use roads than public transport. Public Transport use is limited to those who do not need to carry much or only travel to and from work – education.
It may make Inner City Greenies feel warm and fuzzy but it solves nothing.
My perception is from living in a regional area.
“if just 20 per cent of people make just one return trip each by public transport per day.”
Yes and Pigs may Fly.
I don’t even think that’s correct. You talked about tradies and salespeople before but they are not the majority of the population, far from. And even if 60, 70% of people needed to use cars (which I dispute, but for arguments sake) it’s not like the other 30-40% who don’t need cars are using public transport.
I would suggest many kids are not allowed to catch PT and are driven to school. So I think we can realistically rule out the majority of the population under 12.
Then we could look at the over 65s. Some may use PT but I suggest many would not leave the house most days.
Then we have the 40% of Australian’s who live in rural and regional areas with little or no PT to speak of.
Then lets rule out people with disabilities and their carers, shiftworkers and people who work more than one job.
You get my drift? Public transport is a luxury for the few. Can we afford it?
Ruake, no one is talking about mass transit systems for rural areas.
Your post is full of strawmen.
Ruawake #627
I hope your wink indicated sarcasm.
If not I suggest you jump on a bus sometime and just see who is using public transport; the elderly, disabled, their carers, and that most privileged of groups, students.
free public transport-with unlimited advertising onboard and outside.
0.5% levy on High Income earners and business to pay ongoings
Fed Gvt chips 5 yrly to upgrade/expand network
Is there any sort of tipping competition going on around about what targets the Gov will set ie: green house targets?
20% is my bet
polyquats
The likelyhood of me walking 3k to the nearest bus stop in the hope that it actually appears and that it takes me anywhere near where I want to go is Zero.
Or maybe I could drive for 20 mins to the nearest train station?
I agree students make up a large proportion of PT use (see my previous posts). Disabled, Carers and Pensioners use PT but not every day.
PT is for commuters and students in urban areas in the main. Is this fair?
Spam Inbox
I went with 10% (based on 1990 emissions) dressed up as 15% with a further 10% possible if the Big Boys cut their emissions.
Socrates went 15% possibly going to 20% in the same circumstances.
I’d be very surprised, but pleased, if Rudd goes for 20% (based on 1990). That would match the EU.
We made the asia version of the FT
Australia to spend A$4.7bn on infrastructure
http://www.ft.com/home/asia
ruawake
I can appreciate you are speaking from a rural/regional POV but the vast majoriyt of travel demand (over 85% of population and trips) is in major cities. In those cases PT is viable for over 50% of trips (work, shopping, education and recreation/personal business). In Australia no city gets near that, but it has been achieved elsewhere. So there is a great deal of room for improvement. My understanding of PT mode shares in Australian cities now is as follows:
Sydney 18-20% (hard to get uncensored recent reporting!)
Melbourne 12%
Brisbane/SEQ 10%/6%
Perth 6%
Adelaide 5%
Yoru example of trips to school is a case where behavious has changed as you have said, but could be changed back, to the health benefit of the kids (they would be better off walking to the school or walking to a bus stop). So it is not a valid argument to do nothing.
Cost wise PT does cost more than building roads, but only for government, who do not pay for us all buying a second car. Transport is a classic case in recent decades of where governments have saved themselves $5 but cost the community $10 (for the real numbers you can multiply that by billions). Sydney’s dodgy PPP road deals and their tolls well demonstrate this problem.
Excellent Dio – I apologize as I haven’t had the time right now to read back through comments. The fact that I hate all these people visiting/staying in my house right now doesn’t help
so thanks for that.. I reckon the Ruddsters good for 20% – 1990’s style
My daughter (disabled) and I (carer) use public transport every day. We walk 600 m to a major bus stop and there is a train station 1800 m away. There is an infrequent (hourly, 6 days pw) bus by our door if we chose to use it.
I decided not to replace our car after it was written off (rear-ended while stopped at traffic lights) over 12 months ago. The insurance payout is still in the bank, and I now have a full time job, so I can afford to replace it.
If there is an efficient public transport system, sensible planing (where you put childcare centres, shopping centres etc relative to the transport and each other is important), then many people won’t need a car. We just haven’t realised it yet.
polyquats
It’s hard to make that happen here in OZ. So much land. We can go out forever… It’s not pretty or a good thing, but it is easy to do and cheap….the space is there
That’s the problem
SNIP: Unconstructive comment deleted – The Management.
It is true our cities can still expand furher, and regrettably our more inept state governments are still allowing that to happen. Yet there are still very large areas of suburbia that already exist and can be serviced by public transport but are not, or at least note adequately. Consider the following list:
- NW Sydney
- Sunshine Coast, Qld
- outer west Melbourne
All have populations in the hundreds of thousands, no passenger rail service and often infrequent buses. If we are not going to build adequate infrastructure any more, then we should at least restrict the development to within a km or two of where it is adequate. They do that with land use in a few Canadian cities and it works.
Spam Box,
I live in Brisbane.
I’d be very surprised, but pleased, if Rudd goes for 20% (based on 1990). That would match the EU.
I too would be surprised, but pleased, at 20%. I’ve detected a subtle shift in the body language of relevant ministers which makes me think the government is going to squib this and it’s going to be more like 5% dressed up as 10%.
Hope I’m wrong. With the EU committed to 20% anything less from us is going to send a very wrong message to less interested countries.
The problem with being a pessimist is that you’re even more depressed when proven right, and on GW I’m very pessimistic about humanity treating the problem seriously soon enough to do any good.
We find out tomorrow don’t we?
Senator Wong will be at the press club.
polyquats
yeah my bad, I didn’t think (rushed tonight)
I live in a small *8000pop* coastal town. 2 local bus’s a day (2klm route) is 4 klm’s to the nearest stop. There’s one bus to take the dialysis patients which leaves at 7.30am to go 275klm – then it comes back the same 275klm arriving at 9.00pm
3 times a week we do this
Rudd could cut emissions by a bucket load if he had the balls to go for Nuclear Energy…
I agree.
If the major parties gave their members a conscience vote, I think it would narrowly pass. More Liberals (by percentage) would vote for it though.
Everyone set your VCR / DVD recorders / TIVOs for ABC1, at 2:18 AM. They are showing The Locket (1946) http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0038700/
It is famous for featuring a flashback within a flashback within a flashback within a flashback within a flashback.
(I think that is the right number of flashbacks.)
Fortunately he’s got the brains not to go that way.
No why would Rudd want to cut emissions and stop coal fired power plants to save the environment, if he’s a greenie?
Don’t worry Glen! We will just rely on clean coal instead in 10 years! It will save us!
We just have to make LOTS and LOTS of Coca-Cola, so we have something to put all that CO2 into.
Glen
Actually going nuclear wouldn’t help reach our 2020 targets at all. The 15 years to build one would take us past 2020.
MF
5% dressed up as 10% would be seriously pathetic. We’d be in the Climate Change Deniers Club based on that. Even the US will do 5% or more. Obama actually believes in investing in renewable energy, something that Rudd has been very slow to embrace.
I love all this crap from the OO about “why should Oz lead the world?”. We are rated sixth bottom in the 60 or so developed countries. We’re at the back of the class, sitting next to the US. Tomorrow we’ll find out if we stay there.
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