Newspoll: 57-43 to Coalition
A bad result for the government in the latest fortnightly Newspoll, with the Coalition’s two-party lead out from 54-46 to 57-43. The primary votes are 28 per cent for Labor (down three) and 47 per cent for the Coalition (up four). Julia Gillard at least has the consolation that her personal ratings have improved from the previous fortnight’s dismal result, with her approval up three to 31 per cent and disapproval down four to 58 per cent. Tony Abbott’s ratings are unchanged at 32 per cent approval and 58 per cent disapproval, and there is likewise essentially no change on preferred prime minister (Gillard leads 40-37, up from 39-37).
Another consolation for Labor is the possibility that a bit of static might be expected from a poll conducted over the same weekend as a state election such as the one in Queensland. They can be fortified in this view by the fact that their standing improved in this week’s Essential Research poll, the most recent weekly component of which was conducted over a longer period than Newspoll (Wednesday to Sunday rather than Friday to Sunday). Very unusually, given that Essential is a two-week rolling average, this showed a two-point shift on two-party preferred, with the Coalition lead shrinking from 56-44 to 54-46. Given that Essential spiked to 57-43 a fortnight ago, and the sample which sent it there has now washed out of the rolling average, this is not entirely surprising. Labor’s primary vote is up two to 34 per cent, and the Coalition’s is down one to 47 per cent. Further questions featured in the poll cover the economy, its prospects, best party to handle it and personal financial situation (slightly more optimism than six months ago, and Labor up in line with its overall improvement since then), job security, Kony 2012, taking sickies and the impact of the high dollar.
Categories: Federal Politics 2010-
My morning pick of the articles:
http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/politics/a-nanny-doesnt-always-know-whats-best-for-children-20120328-1vxn4.html#ixzz1qRs2vx00
The article goes on to point out that it is almost impossible to monitor workers’ conditions when they are employed in a private residence, leading to exploitation; that nannies are likely to be poorly educated, and often have poor language skills; and that one single person, even if they’re well educated and well renumerated, cannot deliver the same experience that a well run child care centre, staffed by professionals, can do, or provide the socialisation experience that interacting with other children does.
On climate change, the Municipal Association of Victoria has done a study
http://www.bordermail.com.au/news/local/news/general/impact-on-council-costs-low/2504667.aspx
…which concludes…
Meanwhile, Liberal state governments across the wide brown land are dumping ‘Direct Action’ style policies – because they believe that carbon pricing is going to work.
by zoomster on Mar 29, 2012 at 8:55 am
by confessions on Mar 29, 2012 at 8:57 am
Boerwar
Geologists – I think it’s in the long view attitude they are trained to look at – don’t see a mere century as v. important.
My OH was originally trained as geologist and his first reaction to sealevels rising was “it’s happened before, the evidence is all around the coastline”. Fortunately he is also dedicated to studying weather and climate effects on species, and he had no argument with the theory of AGW.
But I can see that those old buffers who haven’t moved very far from the rocks have calcified their thinking.
by lizzie on Mar 29, 2012 at 8:59 am
ABC reporting on radio this am that electricty companies find setting out carbon cost on bill impossible to do
by shellbell on Mar 29, 2012 at 9:00 am
shellbell
Can’t or won’t, I wonder?
by lizzie on Mar 29, 2012 at 9:01 am
shellbell
If that is the case, then these companies cannot pass on the cost to the consumer
by victoria on Mar 29, 2012 at 9:03 am
Can’t with maybe a bit of won’t
by shellbell on Mar 29, 2012 at 9:05 am
Well that’s interesting!
by confessions on Mar 29, 2012 at 9:08 am
Boers,
Swan has not ‘presaged a slash and burn budget’ at all.
Some in the MSM have pushed this line, but it’s crap. One example of such a skewed and incorrect subbied headline to this effect was exposed here on PB for the lazy lying guff it was yesterday.
To quote the Kouk’s article as posted by victoria, Swan’s plamns are
http://stephenkoukoulas.blogspot.com.au/2012/03/swan-delivers-powerful-message.html
Don’t listen to the headlines, mate. Especially MSM headlines.
by smithe on Mar 29, 2012 at 9:09 am
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by Son of foro on Mar 29, 2012 at 9:21 am
Morning Bludgers – is this the laugh of the day?
Watched Swannie’s speech and Q&A. He was quite passionate about his work. We need to see more of it, especially the bit about being optimistic. I reckon he is going to have a pretty good record to stack up against Costello’s supposed skills.
by BH on Mar 29, 2012 at 9:24 am
http://www.afr.com/rw/2009-2014/AFR/2012/03/28/Photos/33012696-7921-11e1-b6f6-4dffe80bc872_Swan%20ABE%20speech.pdf
Swan’s address to be delivered today
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/mining-energy/settle-the-pricing-row-minister-to-exporters/story-e6frg9df-1226312896629
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/state-politics/states-told-to-lift-their-game-on-public-private-project-planning/story-e6frgczx-1226312897026
by Leroy on Mar 29, 2012 at 9:26 am
Zoomster
My wife and I have employed nannies for 10 years initially because of the shortage of places and then because they have proved to be excellent, one and all.
Having said that, it is a deregulated market which carries with it risks and pitfalls.
The regulated side of the market, childcare centres, is subject to low margins and low wages for workers.
Any subsidies should flow to the regulated side of the market.
by shellbell on Mar 29, 2012 at 9:27 am
Kouk is talking absolute BS.
He thinks that a budget surplus can be put in place by solely looking at the spending side. Its total BS. Firstly, there is SFA that can be cut from the Australian budget (will comment on this later) and secondly any variation in revenue will swamp any contraction in spending.
The budget forecasts for future revenue are heroic. The imply that revenue will return to normal at a monumentally fast rate. Faster than any historic recession. A return to normality one to two years faster in revenue than ever before.
Its total BS.
by bluegreen on Mar 29, 2012 at 9:28 am
Kouk is talking absolute BS.
He thinks that a budget surplus can be put in place by solely looking at the spending side. Its total BS. Firstly, there is SFA that can be cut from the Australian budget (will comment on this later) and secondly any variation in revenue will swamp any contraction in spending.
The budget forecasts for future revenue are heroic. The imply that revenue will return to normal at a monumentally fast rate. Faster than any historic recession. A return to normality one to two years faster in revenue than ever before.
Its total BS.
by bluegreen on Mar 29, 2012 at 9:29 am
On Abbott’s nanny scheme.
I really need a babysitter for the weekend. Can I send an invoice to the coalition in advance?
by bluegreen on Mar 29, 2012 at 9:30 am
Not just Australian gologists Boers, but a lot of them worldwide, too.
You identify a few possible contributing factors, but I suspect, like Lizzie, they’re area of expertise somewhat inures them to AGW and it’s probable consequences. They’ll all tell you that the climate has been up and down like a yo-yo for the last 4 billion years and that there’s evidence for higher sea levels all around us. They’ll probably also acknowledge that such events are linked with serial species extinction events.
They’re right too, so far as it goes.
The problem is that these changes and rises have never happened on our watch to the degree we’re seeing now. And they seem rather readier than most other scientists to dismiss the probability that our activities are accelerating these deadly changes.
There seems to be asort of rock-headed fatalism to it all: It’s happened before, nuthin’ we can do…….meh.
I dunno about you, but when my house starts burning-down around me, I’d be more interested in stifling the blaze than in wondering whether I should bother, given that 20 or so previous houses have burned down taking their occupnats with them on this same spot over the last few thousand millennia.
If we can stopit or slow it down by our own hand, it surely stands to reason that we give it a go.
Beats extinction.
by smithe on Mar 29, 2012 at 9:32 am
I assumed the Kouk was going to tell us about the economic imperative when, to moi, the surplus, is really a political imperative.
by shellbell on Mar 29, 2012 at 9:33 am
Someone should send this article to Media Watch.
When the Tele ran an article on food prices to skyrocket, they failed to mention that they had personally interviewed an expert and received precise statistics that food prices would hardly move.
http://www.climatespectator.com.au/commentary/could-cost-living-be-abbott-s-undoing
by bluegreen on Mar 29, 2012 at 9:35 am
Boers and smithe:
the other ‘over represented’ area when it comes to climate scepticism appears to be engineers.
It has ceased to cause me any surprise (although I still don’t understand it) when someone who disputes climate change with me and tells me that they’re a ‘scientist’ turns out to be an engineer.
by zoomster on Mar 29, 2012 at 9:38 am
I thought soccer was a relatively safe game to play:
http://soccernet.espn.go.com/news/story/_/id/1001859/gillingham-player-has-scrotum-ripped-open?cc=3436
by shellbell on Mar 29, 2012 at 9:38 am
Music to my ears, zoomster.
This is widening some lovely fracture lines within the Coalition: The Central Planning Commissariat vs The Marketeers. Fascinating to watch.
by smithe on Mar 29, 2012 at 9:39 am
A surplus is entirely a political figment of someones imagination. It means reduced services and investment in infrastructure now for miniscule reduction in interest payments over the next few years.
Even on his economics, Kouk is out by an order of magnitude. The govt could retract by a few billion dollars at the most. The Aust economy is one and a half trillion $ in size. That sort of reduction in services will do SFA to interest rates and the private economy.
But the political hits of reducing programs by that much for a spurious political goal is nonsense.
The political and policy pain will be enormous if the government has to cut anything.
by bluegreen on Mar 29, 2012 at 9:41 am
Today’s front pages
http://twitpic.com/92jbo9 The Canberra Times
http://twitpic.com/92ja21 NT News
http://twitpic.com/92j9hb Courier Mail
http://twitpic.com/92j9fk Herald Sun
http://twitpic.com/92j9cb The West Australian
http://twitpic.com/92j96k The Australian
http://twitpic.com/92j948 The Age
http://twitpic.com/92j920 The Advertiser
http://twitpic.com/92j8zx Mercury
http://twitpic.com/92j8x4 Daily Telegraph
http://twitpic.com/92j8vh SMH
by Leroy on Mar 29, 2012 at 9:41 am
WHAT’S RUPERT’S GAME IN SCOTLAND?
http://www.theglobalmail.org/feature/whats-ruperts-game-in-scotland/151/
by victoria on Mar 29, 2012 at 9:43 am
A brief article in The West Australian
http://au.news.yahoo.com/thewest/a/-/national/13291513/news-piracy-claims-probed/
by Leroy on Mar 29, 2012 at 9:45 am
As to my earlier post re electricity companies and carbon price here is a reference albeit in an embarrassingly skewed article by the usual suspects:
http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/national/australian-families-in-the-dark-on-real-cost-of-carbon-tax/story-e6freuzr-1226312943016
by shellbell on Mar 29, 2012 at 9:49 am
Leroy
Not surprised that the Herald Sun is focussed on the AFL. Now that it is footy season here in Melbourne, the paper is going to be AFLcentric. AFL news is the paper’s biggest drawcard
by victoria on Mar 29, 2012 at 9:50 am
It seems the Coalition’s strategy of talking down the economy has had some serious effects on the budget bottom line…
http://au.news.yahoo.com/thewest/a/-/breaking/13292914/swan-warns-of-big-budget-cuts/
The MSM and loud-mouthed retailers like Gerry Harvey have been complicit in the Coalition’s strategy, even though it has negative effects on their own bottom lines. To my mind, this is a dirty and dangerous way to play the political/economic game. May the bastards reap what they sow.
by Ozymandias on Mar 29, 2012 at 9:51 am
http://www.climatespectator.com.au/commentary/could-cost-living-be-abbott-s-undoing
That’s a very naughty one BG.
Especially as the dodgied figures the Tele did eventually run with in it’s ‘skyrocket’ article were later admitted by their source, the Australian Food and Grocery Council, to have been completely false and unreliable.
The truth from the Government and their own expert wasn’t good enough for the Tele, apparently. They had to ‘sex it-up’ with a bit of confected crud from those opposed to the carbon scheme, passing that-off as fact.
They might as well have pulled the figures out of their arsk.
by smithe on Mar 29, 2012 at 9:52 am
NBN 3 year rollout plan will be released around 11-12 today.
by zoidlord on Mar 29, 2012 at 9:53 am
Whilst Turnbull is out of the country…
by bluegreen on Mar 29, 2012 at 9:58 am
l
That crossed my mind during the Time Traveller show. But it begs a question – aren’t climate scientists trained to take the long view? The relentless quest for data stretching back millions and billions of years by climate reconstruction folk must surely mean they take the long view as well.
by Boerwar on Mar 29, 2012 at 10:00 am
Just ask the APS whether they are feeling slashed and burned. The ramped up Inefficiency Dividend alone will cause significant job losses.
But it will not be enough. Programs are going to have to be cut substantially. Big ticket items will have to be postponed.
by Boerwar on Mar 29, 2012 at 10:02 am
z
I had not realised that about engineers. I suppose the difference between the engineers and the geologists is the latter are manning the last ditch publicly. They get stuck into the polemics of it all.
by Boerwar on Mar 29, 2012 at 10:04 am
Boer
which is why people like Tim Flannery – a paleotolongist – tend to ‘get’ climate change.
by zoomster on Mar 29, 2012 at 10:05 am
Funny that my electricity bill already shows my CO2 emissions in tonnes. All they have to do is multiply that by $23.
My guess is that the electricity companies will argue that their prices will be inflated due the carbon tax increasing their costs by indirect means.
Just between you and me, I reckon they would rather not let people know how little the carbon tax is and would rather let their customers blame the Feds for any major increase in prices.
by trawler on Mar 29, 2012 at 10:06 am
So, Mr Costello is going to help Mr Newman. I suppose there was no process in the choice. After all, we’ve been processed to death.
And I do hope Mr Costello is not being paid a consultancy fee. After all, we don’t need consultancies.
Apart from that, if Queenslanders follow Mr Costello’s recommendation, they will be well and truly BISONed.
by Boerwar on Mar 29, 2012 at 10:07 am
s
Yes. I think your suggestion that fatalism might be relevant is a good one.
by Boerwar on Mar 29, 2012 at 10:09 am
Boewar
Here are some of the spending options that won’t effect Australian people’s standard of living immediately:
-cut defence spending/delay purchase of new boats/planes
-cut international aid
-Cut environmental programs (caring for our country/national reserve system etc)
- cancel Australian antarctic program
- delay murray darling water buy back program
- cut school chaplaincy program
- delay infrastructure spending on major highways
- cut bureau of meteorology budget
- close Tourism Australia
- delay university infrastructure spending
- reduce spending on spooks ANAO, ASIO, ASIS etc
-Cancel arts grants programs
-cut medical and science research spending
I will talk about the revenue side in a second.
by bluegreen on Mar 29, 2012 at 10:11 am
Well I just back from talking with Vision-stream tech – another fault was found 80m away.
So he’s going to vouch for me and will wait to see what happens (i.e. waiting on Telstra).
I do so hope I’m on that 3 year list!
by zoidlord on Mar 29, 2012 at 10:12 am
Because people like Flannery studied the Holocene as well as dinosaur periods. Time of rapid climate change where everything got ecologically turned upside as the climate changed.
I went to one of Flannery’s unis and pretty much had the same lecturers as he would have had. It was impossible to leave the place with a degree without ‘getting it’.
by bluegreen on Mar 29, 2012 at 10:14 am
http://au.finance.yahoo.com/news/conroy-urges-probe-news-corp-044703817.html
Blue Green 2269
I think that is a good one on DT for Media Watch that you found , please send it to Media Watch
by mari on Mar 29, 2012 at 10:17 am
b
Already happening. Defence is already grouching that Mr Smith is delaying decisions not because he has insufficient information but because he has a secret agenda to delay government spending. Pulling out of Afghanistan would be a nice little saver as well.
Agree.
Not a lot of fat left in environmental programs.
- cancel Australian antarctic program
- delay murray darling water buy back program
Amen.
Agreed.
Which bits?
Agreed. It is failing.
Especially where they are cross-subsidising the mining industry.
Yep.
Yep.
Yep.
I notice that you avoided the middle and upper class rorts in Super etc, etc, etc.
I suggest that means testing all social payments would glean a tidy dollar without any effect on the lifestyle of those who have far more than they spend. Ditto for schools.
by Boerwar on Mar 29, 2012 at 10:18 am
zoidlord
Hope so too!
by victoria on Mar 29, 2012 at 10:18 am
Boerwar,
I just listed all the things that could be done without immediately becoming apparent to people’s hip pocket.
I will get onto revenue measures in a second.
Other programs that could be trimmed include:
the bureau of statistics
Australian Heritage Council
Geoscience Australia
Could also privatise and tender out various operational aspects of the ATO and the Australian Mint.
I am sure Stephen Kouk can find some other similarly easy spending-side savings
by bluegreen on Mar 29, 2012 at 10:24 am
Sell medicare.
by Boerwar on Mar 29, 2012 at 10:26 am
b
The efficiency dividends are already biting pretty well all those agencies and will, over time, demolish them. The problem with chopping them all in one go is that the payouts would cut much of the savings in year 1.
by Boerwar on Mar 29, 2012 at 10:27 am
or medibank private. I can never figure them out.
by Boerwar on Mar 29, 2012 at 10:28 am
b
It looks a bit as if you have been privy to the Coalition’s savings plan.
by Boerwar on Mar 29, 2012 at 10:28 am