Polls Show Abbott On Track, But He May Escape Before The Train Arrives!
Ok, the front page isn’t real. Apparently, there’s a “Daily Telegraph” Headline generator, and I got that one by selecting random. Here’s another random one:
See, you do have to explain that it’s not an actual headline. Particularly with Andrew Bolt’s “if we don’t stop the boats the carbon tax could make a comeback” in the red bit at the top!
But unlike the headline generator, there have been some things in the media recently that I’d be tempted to condemn as improbable were it not for the fact that they’re real.
I read somewhere recently that Abbott had a jump in his approval rating of three percent!
Let’s not quibble about the fact that 3% is still within the margin of error. Or even the fact that the ABC has taken to mentioning the 3% margin of error every time a poll favours Labor, but failing to mention this when the polls favour the Liberals.
No, let’s just accept the fact that – according to the poll being quoted – there are now 28% of people in Australia who think that Tony is doing a good or very good job. Which is slightly higher than the number of Australians considered overweight, but lower than the number of Australians “freelancing” in the workforce.
But hey, his polls are on the rise. And why wouldn’t they be? I mean, he’s hardly been in the news lately. Now, I’m not repeating any insider leaking here – though surely Liberal strategists must have noticed it – whenever Abbott disappears from the news for a while, their poll numbers go up. Like the Christmas break. Or when the Liberals make absolutely no new policy announcements. Actually, it’d probably help if they made no announcements of any kind.
Like when Joe Hockey steps up and, without even announcing a government initiative to reduce the “mess left by Labor”, enlighten us with some of his homespun wisdom with suggestions like the poor don’t have to worry about an increase in the GST because, after we’ve finished with them, they won’t have any money to spend anyway. (No, he didn’t actually say that. Like “The Daily Telegraph” headline, I feel that I have to let you know that it’s not actually real!)
Which brings me to penalty rates. Apparently, there’s a couple of posters (see example below) being distributed by a business group where businesses can either post that they’d like to be open, but due to the high cost of penalty rates they can’t, or – if they are open – they can tell us that they’d like to employ more staff, but due to the high cost of penalty rates they can’t.
Not that I’d encourage graffiti but if I saw one on an actual business, I’d be tempted to write on it, I’d like to eat/shop here but due to the cut in my wages recently, I can’t afford it.
The issue of penalty rates is probably worth a long discussion. But hey, let’s simplify it to “Higher wages = less employment”, which one only has to pursue to its logical conclusion to see that it’s absurd. If employers could get people to work for nothing, most would go out of business because they’d have so few customers. The question becomes one of finding an equilibrium point.
Simply asserting that some businesses don’t find it worth opening on a Sunday doesn’t really do much for the debate. I’m sure many businesses wouldn’t find it financially viable to open till 2am, but it’s not solely due to penalty rates. As someone suggested, we should all write to Liberal MPs suggesting that we rang their office to support the idea that everyone should be open seven days a week, but for some reason, it seemed to be closed on the weekend.
And, of course, if penalty rates were removed in some industries, you can already predict the complaints about there be a shortage of workers because people don’t want to work unsociable hours when they can get just as much working more civilised hours. “Choosing when you want to work? People shouldn’t be allowed to do that they should be available 24//7!”
Ah, WorkChoices “dead, buried and cremated! Though not in that order one presumes…
Ok, one more to finish.
Mm, there’s a whole new parlour game. Generate a whole lot of these and people have to compare them to real front pages and pick which is real. Hours of fun for the whole family.
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12 comments
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flohri1754 -
Florence nee Fedup -
CMMC -
Wun Farlung -
hemingway13 -
Lee -
stephentardrew -
Wun Farlung -
Lee -
helvityni -
Roswell -
Rossleigh
Return to home pageAgree … how can a business model be viable if it would be pushed into unprofitability by paying its employees decent wages?
Abbott on track for what?
What is the difference, Shorten taking his running orders from unions, which represent workers, even those not members with Abbott who takes his from big corporations, IPA and Murdoch?
Not that I agree that Labor is dominated by unions.
I got ‘Boat People spend Welfare on Wind Turbines’. My God, does Murdoch know about this site? He could sack all those mediocrities he has scribbling for him.
What about ” We will SCRAP THE HALAL TAX ” …I know it’s 4 words and a few days late, sorry Rupert
This is a sagacious satire. Saddeningly, you’ve provided an accurate preview of hatchet jobs on Shorten and Milne that Murdoch’s propagandists are concocting fiendishly. With so much at stake for Murdoch’s empire, money is no object. He not only has the lion’s share of MSM outlets for his adventure playgrounds, but two opinion polls to release at strategic moments (one of which sets up public forum ambushes along with SkyNews camerawork to make Abbott look masterful).
And let’s not forget the former Labor heavyweights who Murdoch resurrects every campaign like ghosts in Charles Dickens’ “Carol” to torpedo ALP Leaders at key moments. Mark Latham is always good for a 3% increase in Coalition support, and Martin Ferguson is their latest weapon of mass deception.
Top off these diabolical spewings by Murdoch’s minions with some prissy Tories at Fauxfax media using “anonymous sources” to sledge Shorten as well as the inevitable ABC Copycatters auditioning for lucrative jobs like those earned during the last election by Latika Bourke with the SMH and Mark Simkin with Abbott’s media mob.
Only an impossibly flawless campaign with brilliant strategies from both Labor and the Greens could succeed. So, fasten your seat belts. It’s going to be a bumpy ride for the rest of the decade under the rule of our Coalition/Murdoch/Rinehart/IPA masters.
I saw something on Facebook this morning about the failed campaign featuring two hands in front of a face with “I’m” written on the palm of one hand and “sorry” on the palm of the other, meaning this business is closed because we can’t afford the penalty rates and the manager isn’t interested in giving up his/her weekend to serve you. It was intended to encourage Australians to complain about penalty rates eating into business owners’ profits but promptly backfired when customers threatened to boycott those businesses refusing to pay their staff decent wages. Kate Carnell stated that people didn’t have the right to boycott businesses. Um… my money..I’ll spend it where I want, thank you very much. Kate Carnell doesn’t have the right to tell anyone which businesses they should be patronising.
Here’s Bill Mitchell’s blog post from the weekend about penalty rates. They’re still warranted. http://bilbo.economicoutlook.net/blog/?p=30576
Hemingway it’s so bloody bumpy I am sick of scraping my arse on the ground for nothing other than to assuage the greed of corporate fascists.
Ross great piece of satire.
Lee
Thanks for the link
I find it laughable that all the mouthpieces calling for penalty rates to be abolished and working hours de-regulated are in highly paid jobs or running highly profitable businesses with others doing most of their dirty work for them
I have just emailed my local MP asking why his office wasn’t open on the weekend given his Governments support for de-regulating business trading hours,
I’ll keep breathing
The ABC ran an article yesterday featuring a Darwin-based pub owner whining about having to work over the Easter weekend because he couldn’t afford to pay his staff penalty rates. Cry me a river. If you’re a pub owner in Australia and you can’t rake in a profit on a 4 day weekend then you’re a lousy businessman.
Finally the men have seen the light, and have stopped liking Abbott, women never did. The liking/disliking was mutual, Abbott kept women out, and favoured men in his government.
It’s a downhill track, Rossleigh.
Gee Lee, that poor pub owner! Imagine having to work over Easter. You’d think that there’d be something to compensate him for doing so…