The latest weekly Essential Research survey shows Labor’s lead moderating slightly to 61-39 from 63-37 in the previous two surveys. In other findings, 54 per cent approve of the government’s national broadband network, while 62 per cent think Australia’s economy “better than most countries” in the current global financial crisis. For this, equal credit is given to “the actions of the Rudd government – including the stimulus packages” and a well-regulated finance and banking sector. “The Howard government’s handling of the economy” ranks somewhat lower. Also featured are questions on potential budget measures, the role of human rights in international trade, and China’s human rights record.
What’s more:
• George Megalogenis of The Australian charts the rise of the centre left with reference to long-term Newspoll trends.
• Glenn Milne of The Australian has written a skeptically received article which speaks of plotting against Julie Bishop partly motivated by Senator Matthias Cormann’s designs on her blue-ribbon seat of Curtin. Andrew Bolt has published Cormann’s denial.
• Electoral Commissioner Ed Killesteyn advises the government to get hip by allowing voters to enrol online.
• Rick Wallace of The Australian notes the Victorian ALP is struggling to meet its affirmative action quota of 35 per cent female candidates in winnable seats, making it “almost imperative that a woman replaces a retiring woman, and that at least one in two of all retiring men are replaced by women”. While little action is expected ahead of the next federal election, speculation is said to surround the state seats of Craig Langdon (Ivanhoe), Peter Batchelor (Thomastown), Lynne Kosky (Altona) and John Pandazopoulos (Dandenong). More substantially, “former speaker Judy Maddigan has confirmed she will retire and she is expected to support former Labor staffer Natalie Sykes-Hutchins to replace her in the seat of Essendon”.
• Adelaide’s Independent Weekly reports on Malcolm Mackerras’s tip for next year’s state election: Labor to be comfortably returned, with the loss of only Norwood, Mawson and Light. The report notes something I had neglected to relate previously: SA Murray Irrigators Association chair Tim Whetstone was preselected in November as the Liberal candidate for Nationals MP Karlene Maywald’s seat of Chaffey, ahead of Citrus Growers of SA president Mark Chown and businessman Brian Barnett. Mackerras tips Whetstone to win.
• Ben Raue at The Tally Room has a post on whether the federal parliament should be enlarged, with reference to international practice.
• Possum notes the cubic polynomial distribution of two-party electorate results, and its implications for interpreting marginal seat exit polls.
Courtesy of the April edition of the invaluable Democratic Audit Update:
• The Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters will hold a “roundtable public hearing” on submissions to the green paper on campaign finance at Parliament House on Thursday, from 9.30am to 1pm.
• The Greens’ “parliamentary contract” with Labor’s minority government in the Australian Capital Territory is reviewed by Jenny Stewart in the Canberra Times.
• Brian Costar examines Electoral Commissioner Ed Killesteyn’s demolition of the spurious justifications for the Howard government’s 2005 electoral “reforms” at Inside Story.
• The Australian Parliamentary Library has published a research paper on the electoral demise of the Australian Democrats by Cathy Madden.
1,454 Comments
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GP
no, being different in your art, culture, civics etc is not superior.
Aboriginal art, culture etc was ‘just as good’ as their European equivalent, but very different. Difference is not inferiority.
Being able to bash a whole civilisation up because you’ve developed weapons they don’t yet have is not a sign of superiority. It’s exactly the kind of behaviour we discourage in the school yard and call ‘bullying’.
But then, bullies think they’re superior to their victims, too.
This is a rather culture-bound and circular statement, since it assumes that how European cultures evolved is more “advanced” than how non-European cultures evolved. Obviously if you take European culture as your definition of “advanced” then Europeans come out as more advanced than others. But if I choose to take, say, degree of spiritual affinity with the land as my definition of “advanced”, then Aboriginal culture was more advanced than European. I think what GP *meant* to say was that Europeans had a more advanced *material culture*, which is obviously true.
No 1352
Yes, this is what I meant and I thankyou for better articulating my stance.
It doesn’t matter if you lock up the people-smugglers. If you allow the smuggled people automatic entry, then they will feel they have spent their money well, and others will seek to emulate them, and we will have more SIVEXes. That’s why Labor introduced mandatory detention. Don’t forget that Labor supported most of Howard’s border protection measures. If there is a renewed campaign of people-smuggling to Australia, Labor will once again strengthen the border-protection regime.
1331,
GP,
Ok, then so if the Europeans weren’t superior, then you wouldn’t mind trading shoes with the Aborigines had you lived here at the time of Captain Cook?
1339,
poly, we won’t let him off the hook on this one …..
Scorpio,
He did say rot in hell, too. ABC NewsRadio played an extended grab of what, I assume, was a media conference the PM gave.
No 1355
Julie, just what is the point of that question?
GP your post at 1307 made me laugh at loud. What, like Howard corrected the record when he found out that children overboard was false?? Youve got to be joking
It’s ridiculous to say that any culture’s art or language is more “advanced” than any other culture’s. If GP said *that* then he is seriously misguided. All languages are adapted to the needs of the people who use them. No doubt Pitjantjatjara has more words to describe kangaroo behaviour than French does.
What I find disappointing is that the average Australian doesn’t realise that the Aboriginal people of this continent are the most studied by anthropologists of any culture on the planet.
The level of understanding of those people and their highly developed and complex culture, which has stood them in good stead for 60,000 years or so is appalling.
A good read of the massive amount of information in publications such as Encyclopaedia Britannica and visits to places such as Adelaide Museum which has an outstanding display of Aboriginal culture would enlighten many.
Backward and primitive, no. Different and practical in the manner in which they utilised and managed the resources of this land and the manner in which they developed laws and customs to allow for a practical and ordered society, yes!
1342,
bob, one labor policy I really do NOT like …. but you don’t have to like every last one of them do you?
…..
To GP, Glen and all the conservatives salivating and hyperventilating about boat people. Two numbers: 61 and 39. Love, Essential and Morgan.
GP,
Your problem is that your inability to articulate your stance here gets you in trouble. As you are one of the many that would lampoon Ron for not being clear and helped drive him off the reservation, you aren’t going to get much sympathy from me.
Most of the PBers can read and they actually respond to what is posted. So, maybe you better hire Adam as your interpreter or better still get him to post on your behalf.
Frank @1303
lol wasn’t Jacko Warick Cappa’s campaign manager in the QLD election?
No. But it’s good as a retort to people like GP who call Labor soft
Andrew yes it is disheartening that Nelson had the Coalition on a Primary vote of 39 while Turnbull has us on 33 but that is the result of Turnbull having no policies.
No 1364
GG, I don’t recall lampooning Ron. I simply could not understand him.
No doubt the poll was taken before the incident.
But even David Spears from Skynoos was saying the majority of Australians support Rudd’s changes to immigration.
We live in 2009, not 2001. Let the Libs live in the past, at their own peril.
1346,
Scorpio, that makes more sense. Thanks for setting those facts straight. I’ve got sick children here today and school holidays to boot so the TV is off-limits to mum at the moment as we’ve got it blocked off tonight for sports. TV sharing over the course of the day when the kids are home and prone on the couch to boot, they get it now, parents get it later
…..
Oh please please please give us Costello! It’ll be the final straw for many Libs who’ll finally crack when they see the reality of Liberal leader and leader of the opposition Peter Costello!
I decline the honour. I wasn’t here for last night’s debate, but GP needs to be aware that this is a field which requires very careful phrasing. Others ought to be careful in loosely throwing accusations of racism. Ignorance is usually a more likely explanation.
No 1371
The difference is that Costello actually has a principled stance on issues. Turnbull does not.
Cuppa @ 1357,
I would assume it was a slip of the tongue as he seemed very particular about his emphasis on “jail”‘
I got the impression he was trying to neutralise the Coalition’s attack on the issue and was fairly forceful in his argument at times so it could easily have slipped out.
Its it amazing how the conservatives and their media friends are pilloring Debus and Rudd for refusing to blame the boat people. They have learnt SO MUCH from overboard havent they?? Methinks the only thing they regret about overboard was being found out…
Nelson actually increased our vote based on Morgans polling.
Turnbull has decreased our vote according to Morgan.
But i dont take Morgan or Essential Research seriously not like i do with Galaxy and Newspoll.
I have my first Twitter post from William!
1371 – Couldn’t agree more bob. Bring him on.
That is indeed the case
1358,
That if the Europeans were not in a superior/inferior relationship with the Aborigines, that you wouldn’t mind trading places and being in a pair of Aboriginal shoes.
Morgan and Essential are always biased toward Labor. Never in Australia’s history has any party actually secured 61% of the vote in an election.
Adam, if you are going to defend GP, I suggest you read the crap he wrote last night first.
New thread. However, I’m leaving this one open so the existing discussion can continue on its merry way. Hopefully the new thread will thus be preserved for the things which unite us, rather than divide us.
No 1380
Europeans were superior for other reasons, but not by virtue of their race. That is the distinction you continually ignore.
Adam
Can you explain how “country of fist asylum” relates to UN conventions on refugees? I can find no mention of the fact that moving from country to country negates anyones prospects of being granted refugee status.
I may be wrong – heck I got the premier of WA wrong last night.
I decline that honour also. Off to the new thread.
Then it’s time to break some records GP. C’mon fielding make our day!!!
Adam,
I’m disappointed you decline the offer.
How often do you get the opportunity to don a cape, twirl your moustache and talk with a menacing cackle?
As for Newspoll then?
Which poll has given a party 61% of the 2pp days before an election?
None of them.
Polls are a snapshot in time. Not a prediction of what the next election result will be. Wake up.
And GP at 1384 it’s in the bible “the Greek will inherit the earth” and we are europeans
GP – NOT superior. Different.
I have a thesis which says that those who stayed with the hunter/gatherer lifestyle were the ’successes’.
They didn’t need to change (in essentials) because things were just hunky dory. It was the failures in their society who were pushed out and colonised elsewhere. Some successfully transplanted the old culture, others had to change (not by desire but by necessity).
Surely a conservative would understand that you don’t need to change unless there are problems and that therefore the societies which saw the greatest rates of change were the ones which faced the most problems?
Different, GP, not superior.
Scorpio, It sounded deliberate, not a slip of the tongue. At least once he said “These scum of the earth should … in my opinion*, rot in hell”.
___
* I think the qualifier he used was “in my opinion”. It might have been “in my view”.
GP,
Does NOT matter, you can use the tag “superior” and flag alternate reasons if you like to avoid using the “bad” word(s). EXACTLY like Howard’s “non-core” promises. Saying something in a different way doesn’t make it a different THING if the meaning is the same, mate.
GP, the way your mob are going at the moment, if things don’t improve with their approach, then that record is in grave danger of being broken.
Galaxy polls far too infrequently to be taken seriously
No 1391
Zoomster, I’m not a historica revisionist.
It’s quite self-evident that Europeans were miles ahead in terms of science, and not to mention their ability to record their histories and reprint them via the printing press etc etc etc.
I’m calling a spade a spade. If you think that’s racism, well I give up.
Rudd was cool and relaxed in that press conference
he even asked a reporter (don’t know who) “what’s that you’re decked out in” and had a smile at the answer. ( which we couldn’t hear.)
If the Libs are hoping to rattle Rudd it’s going to be one more failure in an ever increasing list.
No 1393
Of course it bloody well matters julie. I don’t believe Europeans are biologically or genetically superior to Aborigines. However, the Europeans were technologically and scientifically superior.
Vera, he suits the position, and the position suits him.
It isn’t really that Europeans are scientifically superior, it’s that their culture resulted in a greater focus on science which “evolved” faster scientifically than other cultures for a whole lot of reasons. Aboriginal culture evolved to allow it to be “superior” in other ways, like understanding the bush and how to survive in it.
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