1 I have always said that polls at this time of the election cycle only ever tell us what people are thinking at the time, and Monday’s Newspoll tells us that during times of crisis the electorate generally sticks with the incumbent government, at least in the short period.

At 51/49 in favour of the Coalition this poll shows a normal fluctuation but in the longevity of a recession I would expect it to turn against the Coalition.

Analysing the numbers, The Poll Bludger also tells us that:

“Scott Morrison’s personal ratings are little changed, up one on approval to 65% and down one on disapproval to 31%, while Anthony Albanese is respectively down four to 39% and down one to 40%, and Morrison’s lead as preferred prime minister is out from 58-29 to 59-27.”

In addition, The Poll Bludger also provides us with some interesting information on COVID-19 and some international polling:

“An international poll by the Pew Research Centre finds 94% of Australians believe their country has handled the pandemic well and 6% badly, whereas 85% think the United States has handled it badly and 14% well, while the respective numbers for China are 25% and 73%.”

“Twenty-three per cent have confidence in Donald Trump to do the right thing for world affairs, down from 35% last year, equalling a previous low recorded for George W. Bush in 2008.”

“Only 33% of Australians have a favourable view of the United States, down from 50% last year, a change similar to that for all other nations surveyed.”

2 The USA is nearing 2000,000 pandemic deaths. Many of which could have been saved had Trump acted earlier. Remember the blond buffoon had earlier said that keeping deaths to 100,000 would represent “a very good job”.

3 US President Donald Trump in complete disregard of the Supreme Court judge’s dying wish that her replacement be appointed after the election says he will pick a woman to fill the seat left vacant by the death of Ruth Bader Ginsburg and expects to reveal his nominee within days.

Convention, ethics and respect for her final judgement would suggest that only a few weeks out from the election whoever is elected should make the appointment. Not Trump, of course, he wants dead-set conservatives to control the agenda. Most normal people would find this form of politics objectionable, but not Trump.

Could it be that Trump wants a conservative majority court to give him the presidency if the vote is close? Add to that the hypocrisy of the GOP given that they took away the right of Obama to make an appointment in a similar situation.

As an Australian what l find remarkable is that judges are appointed on the basis of their politics rather than their impartiality.

4 On Insiders last Sunday the Prime Minister let the cat out of the bag with yet more lies by omission. Last week we needed another gas fired power station to produce 1000 megawatts of power to replace the Liddell power station, now we find it is 250.

He also repeated that other oft told lie that we will reach our 2020 emissions targets in a cantor which is categorically untrue.

It has to be said that this bombardment technique of Morrison’s when talking about issues is wearing a bit thin. He bombards the media like a talkfest. Nothing is said about policy, just talk about announcements, that may or may not happen.

There are no concrete plans, just ideas and proposals involving the private sector or public investment that amounted to bluff.

With Morrison talking in a non-committal mode it’s difficult to know what he is serious about.

5 The Member for Banks has been away from work for 9 months or more. It does seem to be an inordinate amount of time without any explanation.

6 Back to the David Speers interview with the Prime Minister: For what It’s worth, I thought, given that he rarely appears on Insiders, that the segment might have been given more time.

Obviously, there are a multitude of questions that Speers could have asked but didn’t. Aged Care and the controversy surrounding it required some attention but received none.

Some prompting as to what may be in the budget would also have been worth some questions.

The Prime Minister was his usual self with quick fire answers to everything. Speers did however (as I mentioned earlier) extract from him some repeats of previous lies but it was all over before it began.

The major thing to come out of it I suppose it that coal has at long last been defeated.

7 Joe Biden plans to re-join Kyoto and spend trillions on renewable energy. In doing so Morrison would find himself under great pressure.

That being so, the US would expect us to dramatically improve our climate change policies. If we don’t, we will be out of step with our nearest ally. If he wins, we could see a whole new era of climate change leadership.

8 Now about my state Victoria. Not so long ago the daily figure of new COVID-19 cases was about 700, and Premier Danial Andrews put in place new rules to combat a problem that was becoming catastrophic. On Monday 20 September we were down to 11. No other democracy to my knowledge has been able to do that in the space of five weeks.

9 The true test of any nation surely must be the manner in which it treats its most vulnerable, but I think our November 6 budget will see the poor giving to the rich.