Essential Research: 56-44 to Coalition
The latest Essential Research result has Labor gaining a point on two-party preferred for the second week in a row, with the Coalition now leading 56-44, and has Labor gaining three points on the primary vote – a very unusual occurrence in this series, which publishes weekly results derived from a two-week rolling average. Labor’s primary vote is at 33%, with the Coalition and the Greens each down a point to 49% and 10% respectively.
The first of the supplementary questions measures respondents’ knowledge rather than opinions: namely, the question of whether interest rates are higher or lower now than they were when Labor came to power, the purpose presumably being to determine whether misapprehensions are behind Labor’s diabolical polling. A majority (35% to 20%) were in fact aware that they were now lower, but only 10% thought they were a little lower against 25% for a lot, when the official interest rate has in fact gone from 6.75% to 3.75%. Respondents were then asked how much credit they gave Labor for the drop: 7% said a lot, 19% a fair amount, 27% a little and 35% none. Further questions cover the casualisation of the workforce, the mining boom, the value of various industries to average Australians, and the notion that the government is engaged in “class warfare” (28% agree, 46% disagree).
Further polling snippets:
• Yesterday’s Sunday Mail reported that the Galaxy poll of Queensland respondents covered in the previous post also found that Kevin Rudd’s lead over Julia Gillard in the state at 67-21, and at 62-37 among Labor voters.
• News Limited tabloids carried another Galaxy poll yesterday, this one conducted online from a national sample of 606, which showed support for gay marriage at 50% against 33% opposed. However, 26% of respondents said legislation to allow gay marriage would make them less likely to vote Labor, against only 22% who said more likely.
• Labor has gone public with polling conducted for it by UMR Research, which apparently found that 25% of respondents “would vote for” Julian Assange if he ran for a Senate seat. This tendency was fairly evenly spread among supporters of different parties: 39% for Greens, 26% for Labor and 23% for Coalition. The combined figure is similar to the 23% of respondents to a Galaxy poll in September last year who rated themselves “likely” to vote for Katter’s Australian Party at the Queensland state election: 11.5% would actually do so. It is not clear if the poll was entirely national, as the report from Phillip Coorey in the Sydney Morning Herald only spoke of results from New South Wales and Victoria, which perhaps surprisingly showed slightly stronger support for Assange in the former.
Preselection:
• Tasmanian Labor Senator Nick Sherry, who had already announced he would not contest the next election, has brought forward his retirement. David Killick of The Mercury reports the vacancy looks set to be filled by Lin Thorp, member for the state upper house seat of Rumney from 1999 until her defeat in 2011. Thorp has the backing of Sherry’s Left faction, including from Premier Lara Giddings. However, earlier reports suggested others in the Left wanted a younger candidate, and that a move was on to have the party’s administrative committee reserve the position for a candidate from northern Tasmanian – with Launceston commercial lawyer Ross Hart fitting the bill on both counts. Notably, Unions Tasmania secretary Kevin Harkins, who was said to have been locked out preselection in 2007 because Kevin Rudd had him confused with Kevin Reynolds, and again in 2010 because Rudd did not want to admit to his mistake, had ruled himself out because “we’re likely to have a very conservative government in just a tad over 12 months’ time, (and) the best place for me is with the union movement”.
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Categories: Federal Politics 2010-
Rupert Murdoch is 81.
According to the this actuarial table he has a 7% chance of dying this year.
He is on averge now expected to live another 7 years.
http://www.ssa.gov/OACT/STATS/table4c6.html
by bluegreen on May 24, 2012 at 11:48 am
ACA Exec Producer on with Hadley a little while ago saying they have a stat dec from the hooker in question that yes, she seviced Thomson.
He also said that ACA have uncovered further hitherto unknown info on Thomson that is also explosive.
May air tonight, may not. My guess is it will.
Labor better get Slipper back into the chair asap methinks.
by Henry on May 24, 2012 at 11:48 am
Good position from the Greens the Nationals if sensible would be worried
by guytaur on May 24, 2012 at 11:49 am
Who was it yesterday who said they’d donate to Thomson’s legal fund. I’m joining in. If he’s guilty or innocent I couldn’t care less but the rules of justice are being trashed and I’m not letting that go by.
by BH on May 24, 2012 at 11:49 am
thanks for posting the link, bluegreen
by Danny Lewis on May 24, 2012 at 11:49 am
Nah. best thing to do is to provide information to channel 7 who will bend over backwards to discredit the story and to discredit channel 9. Perhaps then get some sponsors to threaten withdrawal.
by bluegreen on May 24, 2012 at 11:49 am
bg
Ratings are only a means to make money.
If the story is crap, at the least Ch 9 will look even worse than they do now.
If it’s really crap, Thomson can sue them for a truckload.
by Diogenes on May 24, 2012 at 11:49 am
Maybe CT has a tattoo “Adam” (sorry “Amsterdam”). That might have awakened the prossy’s memory.
by psyclaw on May 24, 2012 at 11:50 am
Second part comments similar to Howes
by guytaur on May 24, 2012 at 11:50 am
Victoria,
I know a lot of people reckon Howes is useless, but I have been thinking for some time now that he’s either grown up or has been a victim of warped perceptions that happen to people who front the media on a regular basis. He certainly laid out the importance of the issue in his presser and didn’t hold back on telling the media pack he is only interested in the jobs of those who are losing them.
by janice2 on May 24, 2012 at 11:51 am
Thems fighting words.
by bluegreen on May 24, 2012 at 11:51 am
it is getting very serious me thinks
by victoria on May 24, 2012 at 11:51 am
ACA is probably arranging to have the former (or soon to be former) escort confront Thomson in public.
by ltep on May 24, 2012 at 11:52 am
This is why Ch9 is saying they have more evidence of other visits. They cannot link to the credit card statements.
by ruawake on May 24, 2012 at 11:53 am
Given the $ values alleged, we should expect to see a pretty classy prossy on ACA.
by psyclaw on May 24, 2012 at 11:54 am
Now, If I recall Ms Jackson is up to her neck in the HSU fraud and that some of the reports into the “HSU Affair” have recomended that she face charges. Yet she is being painted as some sort of innocent victim at the hands of a villianous Crag Thomson. Go Figure
by Mick Collins on May 24, 2012 at 11:54 am
ltep
with Mark Latham?
by bluegreen on May 24, 2012 at 11:54 am
janice2
Remember Howes is only 30. Certainly has had some growing up to do
by victoria on May 24, 2012 at 11:55 am
The masters of the black arts are these Fibs.
Getting their man Scott to defend claims of left wing ABC bias, again, when they royally rogered Aunty, with loyal right wing moles, long ago.
Bet they all went out for a drink at a favoured dive once the charade was over.
by joe2 on May 24, 2012 at 11:55 am
Smaug #4445, yeah but along the way if Thomson has anything, anything at all, in his life that he would rather the public or his family didnt know, he can be sure that it will be dragged out by the disgusting MSM. Just think of all the UK hacking stuff. Hope he is prepared for that.
by Marrickville Mauler on May 24, 2012 at 11:55 am
by Bushfire Bill on May 24, 2012 at 11:56 am
We now have journos tweeting their concerns. This has gone too far.
by victoria on May 24, 2012 at 11:56 am
ru
If he went to a prostitute at a time other than the HSU allegations refer to, it’s completely irrelevant.
by Diogenes on May 24, 2012 at 11:57 am
BG we dogs fight tough.
However that does look bad without the qualification that followed it.
I hope William doesn’t take it the wrong way
by davidwh on May 24, 2012 at 11:57 am
IOW Depends on their lawyers & possibility of a big writ/
by OzPol Tragic on May 24, 2012 at 11:58 am
but you do kinda like him?
by Tom Hawkins on May 24, 2012 at 11:59 am
Dio except it’s about character destruction and not any search for the truth.
by davidwh on May 24, 2012 at 11:59 am
I alays like ms charles and her news reading ‘
She always looks sincere
by my say on May 24, 2012 at 12:01 pm
Seriously Tom if you haven’t worked out by now how I feel about Abbott then anything I say is unlikely to convince you today. But for the record I don’t have any respect for the way Abbott has acted since September 2010 and I have great respect for our parliamentary system and conventions.
by davidwh on May 24, 2012 at 12:03 pm
Thanks Bg, Leroy for the link to the “leak” article. I had missed it.
Someone should be able to stamp down hard on Ch 9 ACA before they add to the character assassination of Craig Thomson.
by janice2 on May 24, 2012 at 12:04 pm
If the worst happens to Thomson, I doubt the voters of Dobell would exactly want to reward the Liberals in the resulting by-election for their monstrous behaviour.
If they do, then I don’t know if I’ll ever feel good about this country again. What sort of precedent would that set?
“Don’t like a government, media? Then hound MP’s and their families in marginal seats until they commit suicide or resign. Results prove that this is the most effective way of bringing your preferred party to the government benches”
by Von Kirsdarke on May 24, 2012 at 12:05 pm
the government needs to bring in the new media laws now
by Meguire Bob on May 24, 2012 at 12:07 pm
von Kirsdarke
All the vox pops I have seen done in Dobell have the punters supporting Thomson. So do not think that will happen. In fact having a by election might be the best thing for the government and Thomson. Pressure off Thomson and a new Labor member would cut of this frenzy at the knees.
by guytaur on May 24, 2012 at 12:08 pm
committee.”
AEC commissioner quizzed
In another meeting last night, Opposition members in Senate estimates hearings turned up the heat on the Australian Electoral Commission (AEC), which concluded Mr Thomson did not breach the Electoral Act in the lead-up to the 2007 election.
The AEC assessment appears to fly in the face of damning findings by Fair Work Australia, which said Mr Thomson had misused hundreds of thousands of union dollars to help his campaign.
In his statement to Parliament Mr Thomson said the AEC report “destroyed the credibility” of the Fair Work Australia findings.
Last night Opposition Senate leader Eric Abetz wanted to know if electoral commissioner Ed Killesteyn agreed.
“If it is asserted that your report has destroyed the credibility of another government agency’s report, aren’t you willing to tell us whether your report actually did that or didn’t do that?” Mr Abetz asked Mr Killesteyn.
Mr Killesteyn said the AEC report does not “carry any implications for the veracity or otherwise of the findings of the Fair Work Australia report in terms of the charter that Fair Work Australia has to carry out”.
The AEC first examined the case against Mr Thomson in 2009.
Coalition senators spent another several hours last night quizzing the commission about the extent of its inquiries.
Liberal Senator Concetta Fierravanti-Wells was not impressed.
“It is very clear on the evidence that has been given before this commission that you didn’t make reasonable enquiries because if you’d made reasonable enquiries, you would have found a lot of the material that I found quite readily and quite easily,” she said.
Mr Killesteyn replied that he was not allowed to go fishing for documents. End of abc post.
So what was abetz comment about during the news report
by my say on May 24, 2012 at 12:08 pm
mb
Totally agree.
by guytaur on May 24, 2012 at 12:08 pm
I thought the PPL scheme was done and dusted long ago:
by triton on May 24, 2012 at 12:09 pm
[Latika Bourke @latikambourke
Yikes, you can be fined or jailed for leaking from Privileges: http://corrigan.austlii.edu.au/au/legis/cth/consol_act/ppa1987273/s13.html
tee hee hee
bring in the federal police, or is it the clerk of the house, or the sargeant-at-arms.
Now this is surely something that parliament can be jury and judge for.
by bluegreen on May 24, 2012 at 12:09 pm
View details ·
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by victoria on May 24, 2012 at 12:10 pm
Will Grattan have to front up to the Privileges Committee?
And get done for contempt of parliament when she won’t reveal her source?
by kezza2 on May 24, 2012 at 12:10 pm
bg
Is there any mention of the jail term being for more than a year?
by guytaur on May 24, 2012 at 12:10 pm
davidwh @ 4478,
I am convinced. I do wonder though where all the other compassionate liberals have gone. Surely you can’t be the only one left who is willing to stand up to the rotten apples in the lib barrel.
by janice2 on May 24, 2012 at 12:11 pm
by joe2 on May 24, 2012 at 12:11 pm
Ruddock?
by Space Kidette on May 24, 2012 at 12:12 pm
janice2
Malcolm Fraser has stood against them. Considering 1975 it shows how low Fraser thinks Abbott is.
by guytaur on May 24, 2012 at 12:12 pm
Anyone see the Craig Thomsom presser?
ABC reporting that he was clearly rattled.
Listening to it, he doesn’t sound rattled.
by kezza2 on May 24, 2012 at 12:12 pm
That amendment almost got up. Votes 70-70. Burke then voted No (in accordance with convention).
by triton on May 24, 2012 at 12:13 pm
May be all tweeters tweet 9 and indicate not watching.
by my say on May 24, 2012 at 12:13 pm
Norty bludgers at work:
by Space Kidette on May 24, 2012 at 12:13 pm
guytaur
i dont know about the priveledges stuff but parliament only has the ability to jail someone for six months.
by bluegreen on May 24, 2012 at 12:13 pm
by Bushfire Bill on May 24, 2012 at 12:13 pm