The major polls currently have Labor ahead 53-47 at bothNewspoll and Essential Report on a Two-Party Preferred basis. Andrew Beaumont has commentary. Labor would have 82 seats to the LNP’s 63, with 5 Other.
Essentially Turnbull and the LNP are going nowhere. However, the leaders approval ratings are dreadful. In Essential Turnbull is net -11 and Shorten -14. In Newspoll Turnbull is -19, and Shorten -20, both up a bit, with Turnbull’s the best since September 2015.
Margaret Court, tennis legend, later Pentecostal Christian minister in 1991 and now a minister at Perth’s Victory Life Church, brought a storm upon her head when she said she would no longer fly Qantas because of Alan Joyce’s advocacy for same-sex marriage. Continue reading Saturday salon 27/5→
That’s the story from David Graham at The Atlantic, who details fully the events over just 10 days, some of which haven’t been picked up by our media.
The bottom line is that Trump is not up to the job, his minions are not up to saving him, often mislead him or don’t tell him the truth, he doesn’t take much notice of them, and the place leaks like a sieve. This will play out over a long period, but there are serious questions about whether his presidency can achieve anything. Continue reading Saturday salon 20/5→
Yassmin Abdel-Magied found out that speech in Australia is not free if the political right do not agree with what you say, or when you choose to say it. She does some part-time work for the ABC, so it was front page on the Daily Tele and:
Conservative commentators Andrew Bolt and Gerard Henderson have both questioned whether Abdel-Magied has the qualifications to hold her job at the ABC.
Acting PM Barnaby Joyce said the ABC should take “further action” against Abdel-Magied. The immigration minister, Peter Dutton, has labelled her a “disgrace”, Senator Eriz Abetz called her comments “reprehensible” while Liberal MP George Christensen called for her to be sacked, adding that “self-deportation should also be considered”.
The biggest question is what comes next? There are Russian troops on the ground. The Syrians and Russians have anti-aircraft weapons capable of bringing American planes down, which have been flying freely to strike ISIS targets. Continue reading Saturday salon 8/4→
This is the story about an Indian couple in Melbourne, who desperately wanted to stay in Australia. They moved to Adelaide, where the wife was offered a three-year contract as a cook in an Indian restaurant for $52,500 pa under a 457 visa.
What happened is that she ended up working for years for nothing, and sums of $30,000 and then $20,000 were extorted on threat of ending 457 sponsorship. Then the authorities cancelled the company’s right to sponsor, so their visa was cancelled. Continue reading Saturday salon 1/4→
I’ve been advised by the host of Climate Plus that they will be taking time out for maintenance for about two hours from 2pm PDT (whatever that means, they are based in the USA) on Saturday March 25. It’s about MySQL and they say connectivity could be affected during that time.
2. Who pays and who gets the loot?
Laura Tingle has an interesting graph about who pays the bills and who gets cash and kind from the government:
There’s been a bit of a kerfuffle over Leigh Sales ‘gotcha’ question about supporting the rule of law on the 7.30 Report. McManus took the bait head-on by stating that there was no obligation to obey an unjust law. Christopher Pyne called it “anarcho-Marxist claptrap”. Bill Shorten took the easy road and said “We believe in changing bad laws not breaking them.”
I haven’t followed the WA election closely, but the main impression is of chaos and farce. Newspoll has Labor ahead 54-46 TPP, with Labor winning 34 of the 59 seats in the lower house on a uniform swing. One Nation has tanked from 13% to 8% over the last six weeks.
Colin Barnett’s punishment for the upper house preference swap deal with ON was having to explain the reasons to the media 35 days in a row. Continue reading Saturday salon 10/3→
Climate change, sustainability, plus sundry other stuff
That’s the story from David Graham at The Atlantic, who details fully the events over just 10 days, some of which haven’t been picked up by our media.