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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BARNETT: Petrol? No, sorry. I meant “petrel”
Vera, they sat around for twelve months watching Rudd reduce Howard to a trembling wreck of a man and in the process, destroying him and his “legacy” at the November, 2007 election.
They have sat around and watched as he records poll after poll at stratospheric levels, all the while throwing everything including the kitchen sink at him and nothing has worked.
I can’t see anything changing in this respect as it is becoming clearer that the Libs enjoy failure and irrelevance. If that summation is incorrect, then they better hurry up and develop a strategy that actually works for them and not to enhance the standing of the Rudd Government.
No 1400
Diogenes, in 1788, the Europeans were more scientifically advanced than the Aborigines. Is that to say that Aborigines were incapable of the same scientific development? No.
But let’s not kid ourselves by saying that the Aborigines were the scientific equals of Europeans at the time of settlement.
GP
The distinction I’m drawing is a fine one and probably not very important. I’m saying that European culture was more scientifically advanced than Aboriginal culture, and has been for hundreds if not thousands of years. That’s a little bit different from saying Europeans are more scientifically advanced.
Adam said a few pages ago:
This doesn’t apply in this circumstance for two reasons:
a) Pakistan is not a country that you would consider being safe enough to seek asylum into.
b) Pakistan has expelled refugees.
Pakistan is also not a signatory to the UN convention on status of refugees
["It is not my view that the Government has gone soft. The Government has continued with the Howard government's program of border protection. There are more movements of refugees throughout the world and Australia is getting a tiny proportion of what is happening," he told The Age, adding that there should be a bipartisan policy on the issue."
Before reading below, who said this?
http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/there-and-back-again-on-refugees-20090416-a8xm.html?page=3
Why Andrew Bolt should be Sodomised with a Calculator – Part 142
http://blogs.crikey.com.au/pollytics/2009/04/17/why-andrew-bolt-should-be-sodomised-with-a-calculator-–-part-142/
This argument needs to end before it begins.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/04/17/2545961.htm
Liberal MP backs Rudd.
Thanks zombie mao (from the new thread).
The Libs are split on this.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/04/17/2545961.htm?section=justin
We didn’t need this bit of news. How long before we hear about “hordes of boat-people”?
http://www.news.com.au/adelaidenow/story/0,22606,25346858-5005962,00.html
Judi v Sharman cagefight. Poor old Malcolm in the middle.
Snap Oz.
So they have been arrested in Indonesia? The problem is?
GP, I would guess that the average convict -and the average overseer- were pretty much scientifically illiterate. And even Joseph Banks would have lasted less than a week in the Australian bush without help from the natives. These kinds of comparisons are entirely spurious. In the “science” of survival in the Australian environment, the aboriginal culture was immeasurably “superior”.
Rudd also made mention of Broadbent’s comments and “his old mate Joe’s” (or similar words
), what a refreshing difference from the majority of the nasty hate filled Lib comments.
#1331
GP, I would dispute that everytime and everywhere. You are talking thru your arxse. And what is this “etc etc” bit, spell it our old boy.
#1333 GG, i know. that’s where i got it from.
GB
I agree but the extreme Right won’t.
Possum
Love your work. Great article.
GP
you’re chosing the grounds on which to judge superiority in order to prove your own case.
If the Aborigines defined what made a culture superior, then obviously they could do the same.
That the Europeans were ‘more advanced’ in an area they invented and which the Aborigines were entirely unaware is fairly obvious.
No 1419
Zoomster, show me the groundbreaking scientific/technological progression in Aboriginal society. Even the Incas and Aztecs appear markedly ahead.
Liberal MP backs Rudd on asylum policy
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/04/17/2545961.htm
whoops, old news, but gold nevertheless
Way to be the fourth person to link to that article =P
1396,
Now we have the same as Howard’s non core promises. “I didn’t say ‘T H A T’. And because I didn’t say so, it isn’t so.” Sorry again, mate. That is the logic of the Emperor who has no clothes on. The rest of the pack sees your attitude for what it is. If you don’t see it, a la the Emperor, time to look in the mirror for a reality check.
Malcolm in the middle HAHAHA
No 1424
Sorry Julie, I’m not a racist. You’re the one with the problem: no evidence, just insinuation.
Except, you are sounding exactly like Richard Nixon: “I’m not a crook”. And we know he was a crook.
No 1427
Except, you know I’m not a racist.
I’m not currently posting on pollbludger.
Just cause a person says something, doesn’t necessarily mean it’s true.
GP, yes, you are.
“I am not a crock”
“I did not have sexual relations with that woman”
“never, ever” introduce the gst
“I’m not racist”
GP
name 200 different plants in your area. Identify which ones are edible and explain where you are most likely to find them, when they are best harvested and the steps you must take to prepare them.
Gather enough food from your local area within 12 hours to feed yourself and your family for three days (gather, not hunt).
This is all science – unless you don’t count people such as Banks etc as scientists.
No 1432
That is information that I could learn should I wish to reduce my standard of living to that of 40,000 years ago.
GP,
Well you do support the LIbs. So, you are halfway there.
Right up there with Ruddocks “They hadn’t even invented the wheel”
The oldest civilisation on earth GP, 50,000 years, some say 80,000 years.
Your stance is similar to past excuses used, “They are just savages”.
Could be used against Orstralia, undeveloped resources, oil in the Barrier reef, uranium in the ground, drugging infants with phernergen teens with malcopops and adults fixated on sort and pokies. Savages I say, savages.
Jared Diamond’s “Guns, Germs and Steel” should be required reading for some of these commentators.
No 1435
Let it be remembered that you’re the one who called them savages, not me. You racist pig.
seeing the Libs (including the ones on here and commentators like Bolt) flailing around with their indignant rage at asylum seekers, it really drives home how LOST and OUT OF TOUCH they are. Brilliant powers of denial to ignore all these pesky polls and ratings
Goodness, a person has a tech. malfunction ( the wretched connection into the wall fell out – how pathetic – takes us days to find – really. It’s like finding the “on” button eventually = massive humiliation), only to find huge fight about asylum seekers yet again, and whether or not GP understands anything at all about other cultures – nah, epic fail, does the Coalition understand anything at all about why they’re trailing so badly in the polls, nay, epic fail.
Fabulous post from Possum.
GP @ 1381:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Australian_state_election,_1993
David Walsh, that’s very funny given the claim by GP.
I’m confused to how those first preference votes turn into that 2PP.
Did SA not have compulsory preferencing?
G.P. on Thursday night (post 1141):
But let’s not kid ourselves by thinking that Australian Aboriginal societies were primitive, simple, and uncomplicated.
Only people who are primitive, simple, uncomplicated AND uneducated believe such nonsense.
Only people who have no understanding of human nature, and who are willfully ignorant of it could make such a claim.
Only people who have no idea how humans developed language, art, traditions and customs would propose such a ridiculous interpretation of human pre-history.
That’s easy to see, the Liberals got nearly all of the non-Democrat minor party preferences, and some of the Democrat preferences.
I added it up and makes sense. Just looked strange to me.
It should look strange, figures like that happen once every 40+ years!
Yes, DW the polls are BIASED!! Yes, Rudd is on a HONEYMOON!! Yes, the Howard government is going to be REELECTED!!! Yippee
Julie Bishop says the government should change its policies on immigration but doesn’t explain to what.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/04/18/2546481.htm
That’s because they don’t know what they believe in, and are racked with division.
Then they should stfu.
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