Newspoll: 54-46 to Coalition
GhostWhoVotes tweets that the latest Newspoll has the Coalition two-party lead at 54-46, down from an aberrant 57-43 a fortnight ago. The Coalition is down four points on the primary vote to 44 per cent, which in fact returns them to where they were in the poll before last. Labor is up a point to 31 per cent, which is still a point shy of the previous poll, and the Greens are on 13 per cent, which compares with 10 per cent last time and 12 per cent the time before. Julia Gillard has consolidated the lead she opened up as preferred prime minister a fortnight ago, which ended five months of ascendancy for Tony Abbott: she is now up three to 43 per cent, with Abbott up one to 36 per cent. Gillard also has a less bad net approval rating than Abbott for the first time in eight months, with her approval up two points to 36 per cent (its highest in eight months) and disapproval up one to 56 per cent. Abbott is down one on approval to 33 per cent and up two on disapproval to 57 per cent, in both cases equalling his previous worst results and collectively producing his lowest ever net rating of minus 24.
UPDATE: Essential Research likewise has it at 54-46, unchanged from last week, with primary votes of 47 per cent for the Coalition (down one), 34 per cent for Labor (steady) and 10 per cent for the Greens (down one). Encouragingly for Labor, there has been a shift in sentiment in favour of the government seeing out its full term: support is up seven points since early September to 47 per cent, with “hold election now” down seven to 41 per cent. Less happily for them, a question on best party to handle 15 issues has Labor leading only on industrial relations, and then only slightly – the Liberals hold leads approaching 20 per cent for all economic questions, as well as “political leadership”. On the question of which issues will most influence vote choice, there has been little change since June.
UPDATE 2: Possum charts polling showing a shift in sentiment away from an early election:
However, the apparently radical nature of the shift from the first two polls to the last three is largely a function of the poorly framed question posed by Galaxy in the earlier cases, when respondents were offered the false dichotomy of “Gillard has a mandate for the carbon tax” and “an early election should be called”. Australia’s worst and least trusted major newspaper, the Daily Telegraph, used these obviously flawed results to run a front page lead claiming Australians were “demanding Julia Gillard call a fresh election” and an editorial headlined “voters demand a carbon tax ballot”. It will be interesting to see how the paper reports today’s contrary finding from Essential Research.
Categories: Federal Politics 2010-
JohD -
Ah, so the fact that I hope that Julian Assange goes to Sweden and is subject to the fair application of the law of Sweden, means that I am now no longer a human being.
Excellent.
Explain how Sweden is a ‘lick-spittle’ exactly?
I see your reference links ran out at about the point your points became seriously deranged.
No doubt.
Sigh – whatever happens to Julian Assange will be on full view for the world to see. Do you honestly think that Sweden and the USA, conspiring together, will put a sham trial together that no one will believe, and then execute him? While technically in the realms of possibility, if things have gotten to that stage then we should just start building a big wall all the way around Australia and shut the gate for the next 400 years or so until the 2nd dark ages have passed.
by Jackol on Dec 7, 2011 at 4:26 pm
William Bowe@2494
Yes. Yes they would: 1 Timothy 2:12
by Musrum on Dec 7, 2011 at 4:27 pm
‘A shameless water carrier for fascism…’
Let alone not a decent human being.
I always KNEW there was something wrong with me!!
by zoomster on Dec 7, 2011 at 4:28 pm
Thank you, Musrum, for alerting me to that valuable new addition to biblical scholarship.
by William Bowe on Dec 7, 2011 at 4:29 pm
Michelle Grattan hates Julia Gillard because Julia is a woman – it’s that simple. For decades MG has enjoyed the attention she has received from male PMs, now she has to deal with a woman and she doesn’t like it one bit. It shows. If we had a Labor bloke as PM then MG would not be nearly as anti as she is with Gillard.
by leone on Dec 7, 2011 at 4:29 pm
Interesting debate about the value of Green preferences.
I can’t speak for what is happening elsewhere in Oz, but certainly in the Perth electorate – Stephen Smith’s – between the 2007 and 2010 election – at the polling place I was working at – there was a uplift of the Green vote from about 7-8% Primary to about 15%.
Now, I can’t say that all these came from former Labor voters, but sure as hell when the second preferences came back, they ensured Smith got in. This, mind you, in what is considered a bedrock Labor seat in WA.
I would contend that at this polling place there was a leak of at least 6% of the primary vote from Labor to Green which suggests Labor does have something to worry about bleeding to the Left this way.
On the other hand, the Liberal vote was on or about the same over the two election periods but in 2010, the Liberal candidate actually out-polled Smith in this particular polling place – just – on first preferences.
To this extent, the flow back of Green preferences to Labor was critical.
However, what Labor really needs is to get back the 5-6% which seems to be residing with the conservatives.
Not an impossible task but a challenge nonetheless.
What seems to be heartening is that despite Labor doing it tough in 2011, the actual vote for the conservatives is no higher now (according to the polls) than the 44% of the vote they got at the last election. A high watermark I suppose.
Acknowledging this does not get that 6% back, nor does it mean WA and Queensland, any time soon, are going to be a bit friendlier.
Labor needs all of two years to get some kind of improvement in the “dig it up” States.
Not sure how this is to be done.
by Tricot on Dec 7, 2011 at 4:30 pm
Religious Loonies
___________
We know from the USA just how poisonous these evangelical Christians are,but Court just illustrates how awful they are here too.
BTW …there was a splendid attack on Pell by a local priest,for spending millions on turning a Rome appartment block into an Hotel for(well-off pigrims)…with a suite for Pell on his many visits to Romel….
Millions gouged from local Catholics to feed Pell delusions of grandeur.
by deblonay on Dec 7, 2011 at 4:31 pm
The US hasn’t (yet!) initiated any moves to get him to the USA. Beyond the conspiracy theories presented here, there is nothing to suggest that they will.
Grand Juries are a bit of a black sheep in a legal system, but the fact that one has been set up to look into potential charges against Julian Assange doesn’t mean they will find anything to charge him with, and it certainly doesn’t mean that he won’t have full access to the American legal system and protection of freedom of speech etc if they are stupid enough to try something on.
by Jackol on Dec 7, 2011 at 4:31 pm
Bilbo @ 2494
Spectacular!
Mate if academia starts getting to you consider the stage young man – I think you may have missed your calling!
by grantplant on Dec 7, 2011 at 4:31 pm
leone,
I’m wondering which deity made you the official arbitor of who is and isn’t a Christian? Are you a member of some ort of God squad that goes around checking the bona fides.
If so, you’re more scary than Court will ever be.
by Greensborough Growler on Dec 7, 2011 at 4:31 pm
William
seriously, you haven’t yet encountered the lolcats version of the Bible?
It’s the only one I’ve read which makes any sense of Revelations.
by zoomster on Dec 7, 2011 at 4:32 pm
Thefinnigans TheFinnigans天地有道人无道
People are saving more, so the Banks have more deposits. OS CBs are printing moneys. So i want to know how the cost of moneys has gone up
11 seconds ago
by The Finnigans on Dec 7, 2011 at 4:32 pm
Julian Assange is in the business of information for cash. A highly secretive organization at that. Now, why is that?
Because privacy & secrecy are necessary to protect people, the very people who run Wikileaks & those who divulge the information.
The same right to protection byway of privacy he denies others.
He has also been accused by former colleagues of running a political agenda.
Some here confuse my refusal to support Assange as support for non-disclosure & secrecy.
Utter bullshit!
I’m all for transparency to a degree. Some things ‘must’ remain protected.
There is no such thing as absolute about it.
As far as the sexual charges go, he is innocent until proven otherwise.
btw, Assange supported Bolt’s right to publish information that was factually incorrect.
What about the rights of the people targeted by such scurrillous & deliberate lies?
I find Assange to be a walking contradiction.
by Dee on Dec 7, 2011 at 4:34 pm
2326
It is very much a problem in English-speaking countries everywhere. I put a lot of the blame on the business community’s automatic acceptance and enthusiasm for the Harvard MBA. Somewhere during that process there has been a ‘passport’-like acceptance of that qualification for executive people.
What concerned me once was some research done with budding graduates. When asked what they considered their priorities as a corporate executive I think that something like 92% came in with maximising the company share price, dividend and bonuses (which were somewhat tied to the others).
There seemed to be no reference, certainly no priority, to producing a product or a service that people would want. Yet without either one or both of those, how long can companies remain viable? A lot of what our tycoons do seems to be little more than asset stripping. I fear Allan Joyce posses that type of attitude with Qantas, although the best example was the character Gordon Gecko in Oliver Stone’s “Wall Street”.
The risk is that such attitudes ignore what differentiates a product or service and makes it desirable.
by Gorgeous Dunny on Dec 7, 2011 at 4:36 pm
I believe HoJo is in Canada and that is why the snake charmer Cormann is making press statements regarding the latest figures.
by Gaffhook on Dec 7, 2011 at 4:37 pm
Finns,
I think the Banks buy their funds off shore and no one is game to open the brown paper bags they come in just in case the lumpy contents prove to be of an equine nature.
by Greensborough Growler on Dec 7, 2011 at 4:37 pm
I find him boring as batshit. Why do people trust a self proclaimed journalist?
by ruawake on Dec 7, 2011 at 4:40 pm
GG, surely not my beloved Horsey
by The Finnigans on Dec 7, 2011 at 4:40 pm
I have to say that “water carrier” lacks of bit of rhetorical “oomph”. Whatever happened to good old “running dog”?
by William Bowe on Dec 7, 2011 at 4:40 pm
He’ll have to compete with this local comic:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_bVTIJJY9v0
by Frank Calabrese on Dec 7, 2011 at 4:41 pm
A hypothesis: Michelle Grattan is a Labor supporter who did not like the way the change of leader was done hence her alleged anti-Gillardism.
by Scarpat on Dec 7, 2011 at 4:41 pm
Ru, i find this endless blah blah blah about Assange is getting very boring, just like the endless blah blah blah about Gillard Vs Rudd.
Let do the blah blah blah about Tony Abbott
by The Finnigans on Dec 7, 2011 at 4:42 pm
His legs go in different directions?
by Scarpat on Dec 7, 2011 at 4:42 pm
It is not the application of Swedish Law. That is where you are wrong. He has not been charged, and for good reason; the charges would most likely be thrown out without him even appearing in court. So what you are probably supporting is the twisting of Swedish legal process to engineer a situation where Assange could be extradited to the USA. Assange will most probably never stand trail for rape in Sweden at all – whether he is extradited from London or not.
I’m working and don’t have too much time for stoopid.
Sweden had approved U.S. rendition flights both from and through Sweden.
So, your stance on this issue is dubious at best. Why would you want him to be extradited? What is it to you? Do you just hate people for the fun of it? Why wish misfortune on others?
1. He is not charged with a crime.
2. He is not accused of a crime.
3. You are a definitely some kind of weirdo to wish this on somebody who is not even accused of anything. He is beyond being assumed to be innocent, he IS innocent. What is your case? That where ther is smoke there’s fire?
Bradley Manning is on full view for the world to see. Alwaki // was on full view for the world to see. His 15 year son and 16 year old nephew was on full view for the world to see. Jose Padilla was on full view – what is your point? That the US admin will exercise caution because we a re all watching? Are you for real? You want to risk Assange life for your bullsh*t theory?
Why are you so gung-ho about Assange getting what you consider to be his just deserts? Are you some version of crazy?
by JohD on Dec 7, 2011 at 4:43 pm
The best way to run a profitable business is not to pursue money as an end.
by ruawake on Dec 7, 2011 at 4:43 pm
Finns,
Makes you glad Peg is only a myth doesn’t it?
by Greensborough Growler on Dec 7, 2011 at 4:43 pm
Just got an email from Paypal, Dick Smith will ship online purchases free this month, does Gerry Harvey know.
by ruawake on Dec 7, 2011 at 4:44 pm
Bilbo, as political PhD student, that is pretty piss weak. The “running dog” only applies to the “capitalist running dog” from the Comrades.
by The Finnigans on Dec 7, 2011 at 4:45 pm
GG, she is my blah blah blah
by The Finnigans on Dec 7, 2011 at 4:46 pm
I thought the comrades viewed capitalist and fascist as interchangeable.
by William Bowe on Dec 7, 2011 at 4:46 pm
Why are you typing then?
by ruawake on Dec 7, 2011 at 4:46 pm
leone,
You could be right but, given Ms Gratten’s background in high-quality journalism, unlikely. However, if true, Ms Gratten should retire gracefully.
by Scringler on Dec 7, 2011 at 4:47 pm
bilbo, how can it be because the comrades are the real capitalist
by The Finnigans on Dec 7, 2011 at 4:48 pm
Scringler,
Re Grattan.
I think Leone is spot on.
by Puff, the Magic Dragon. on Dec 7, 2011 at 4:48 pm
Finns
Was going to say the same thing about capitalist running dogs.
I’m reading a Judge Dee book set in the Tan dynasty and their main insult is “dogs-head”.
What’s this Chinese antipathy to dogs?
by Diogenes on Dec 7, 2011 at 4:51 pm
William Bowe@2529
The new comrades use the term ‘fungible’.
by Musrum on Dec 7, 2011 at 4:52 pm
In the ALP we use Maaaaaate!
by Greensborough Growler on Dec 7, 2011 at 4:54 pm
[What’s this Chinese antipathy to dogs?[
Diog, very tasty apparently
by The Finnigans on Dec 7, 2011 at 4:54 pm
btw Diog, that’s Tang Dynasty
by The Finnigans on Dec 7, 2011 at 4:55 pm
Thefinnigans TheFinnigans天地有道人无道
Australia, STOP THE WHINGING, you are one very very Lucky Fuacking Country #auspol
2 minutes ago
by The Finnigans on Dec 7, 2011 at 4:56 pm
Do these clowns talk to each other?
by ruawake on Dec 7, 2011 at 4:57 pm
I found this interesting re: Assange. Unfortunately it doesn’t have his quote about his disdain for left-wing governments, but still…
[In April freelance journalist Johannes Wahlstrom conducted a grovelling interview in the left-wing culture pages of the Stockholm tabloid Aftonbladet, in which his hero appeared almost supernatural: ”To meet Julian Assange is a bit like meeting James Bond … His age is uncertain. He has no fixed address. No one has seen him in the hotel where he is staying, and when we finally meet he suddenly appears half a metre in front of me.”
The journalist who wrote this later became the WikiLeaks representative in Sweden and Norway, while his father – the notorious anti-semitic propagandist Israel Shamir – ran the site’s dealings with Russia. Assange has subsequently called Sweden ”the Saudi Arabia of feminism”; Shamir had earlier talked about ”the CIA feminism” that he claimed lay behind the two women who reported Assange to the police.
Assange The Hero vanished somewhere in that anti-feminist slime. Sweden’s relatively high measure of sexual equality and consciousness in gender questions is a matter of national pride. That a dodgy hacker from Australia started knocking it was not popular.
Last Tuesday, two women journalists who started a Twitter campaign against Assange’s contemptuous remarks about Swedish women were nominated for the most prestigious prize in Swedish journalism. The ”Let’s Talk About It” campaign got thousands of people discussing the grey areas of sexual conduct, and was copied in many countries.
Not even the culture pages of Aftonbladet, which kept up their uncritical admiration for Assange longer than anyone else, can keep it up now. Noted left-wing commentator Dan Josefsson admitted recently that Assange was not the radical hero he had supposed, but ”a solitary and shabby libertarian who wants to tear down democratic societies”.
Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/politics/from-sweden-without-love-assange-is-no-james-bond-20111106-1n1t6.html#ixzz1fpG1Dwz1
by rishane on Dec 7, 2011 at 4:58 pm
It most certainly is. Prosecutors are part of the Swedish legal system, arrest warrants are part of the Swedish legal system.
I certainly am not supporting a “situation where Assange could be extradited to the USA”, so please stop suggesting that I am.
Oh I see, it must be that I hate people for the fun of it. What kind of argument is that?
I support the operation of legal systems that operate within well defined parameters appropriate for Western liberal social democratic societies. Sweden’s legal system applies. How that means that “I hate people for the fun of it” I will never know.
That is true currently.
That is NOT true – he has certainly been accused of a crime, and a European arrest warrant issued to allow him to be questioned in Sweden. An accusation of a crime is a requirement, and in this case he has been accused of a type of sexual assault.
“I am definitely some kind of weirdo” following on from not being human – you’re scoring runs all around the ground today. And again, he IS accused of something, so maybe adjust your rhetoric slightly.
Again, as with Patrick Bateman earlier, I’m glad that justice can be meted out from some disconnected party in Australia to those people in Sweden. Internet justice for everyone! Hurrah!
My case is that there is due process in Sweden, and in Europe, and that at the moment, that process is being followed. I think that process should continue in a regular and transparent way.
I do not think that the Swedish justice system is acting as a corrupt agent of US policy as you are suggesting, and I do not see any reason to expect that Julian Assange will be extradited to the USA from Sweden in some sort of rendition as you are suggesting. I would not support such a thing, and if it happens then I will join the protests in the streets. This whole notion that “well we speculate that X might happen, so therefore we should just abort the legal processes underway – do we have any evidence of X, well no, we’re just suspicious” is no way to run a legal system.
I’ll see your bullshit theory and raise you one…
Oh and now I’m some version of crazy for letting the justice systems of free democratic countries proceed on their course without interference…
Do I get a prize for being non-human, fascist, weirdo who hates people for fun, version of crazy? Collect the set, win a prize?
Re: extraditions from Sweden – I believe that the UK has been significantly more complicit about quick quiet extraditions to the USA on request than any other country – I would try to find references, but I can’t be bothered given the name calling and general crap arguments you’ve put up.
by Jackol on Dec 7, 2011 at 4:59 pm
leone
I’ve been saying the same thing for months – I’m pleased to see that I’m not the only one.
by Steve K on Dec 7, 2011 at 5:02 pm
I reckon Assange should be renditioned to Dubbo, where he can furiously write stuff to win wankleys.
by ruawake on Dec 7, 2011 at 5:04 pm
Jackol
Two asylum seekers in Sweden:
November 10, 2006: The UN Human Rights Committee ruled that
http://www.unhchr.ch/tbs/doc.nsf/0/13fac9ce4f35d66dc12572220049e394?Opendocument
Then there’s Ahmed Agiza who was rendered from Sweden to Egypt by U.S. agents through Bromma airport. However the U.S. agents were assisted by the Swedish secret service. He was tortured in Egypt and sentenced to 25 years later reduced to 15. His lawyers sued in Sweden for damages and won. He was awarded 330,000 Euros.
This is a post on New Matilda re Assange
http://newmatilda.com/2011/11/24/can-you-be-pro-wikileaks-and-antirpe
by kezza2 on Dec 7, 2011 at 5:06 pm
We don’t have Guantanamo but we have got Dubbo Zoo.
by Scarpat on Dec 7, 2011 at 5:06 pm
Finns,
And the endless blah blah blah about gay marriage.
I second that!
by Cuppa on Dec 7, 2011 at 5:08 pm
MG’s good years were when howard was in power. She seemed to *get* the good stories very regularly and now she doesn’t.
Was she on the drip from howard/ costello ? I think probably and shes now bitter and twisted its all stopped.
by dave on Dec 7, 2011 at 5:08 pm
Ru,
He could take up vegetable share cropping and start up a new enteprise called Wagga Leaks.
by Greensborough Growler on Dec 7, 2011 at 5:08 pm