Government approves Santos Barossa pipeline and sea dumping

The Australia Institute Media Release Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek’s Department has approved a…

If The Jackboots Actually Fit …

By Jane Salmon If The Jackboots Actually Fit … Why Does Labor Keep…

Distinctions Without Difference: The Security Council on Gaza…

The UN Security Council presents one of the great contradictions of power…

How the supermarkets lost their way in Oz

By Callen Sorensen Karklis Many Australians are heard saying that they’re feeling the…

Purgatorial Torments: Assange and the UK High Court

What is it about British justice that has a certain rankness to…

Why A Punch In The Face May Be…

Now I'm not one who believes in violence as a solution to…

Does God condone genocide?

By Bert Hetebry Stan Grant points out in his book The Queen is…

As Yemen enters tenth year of war, militarisation…

Oxfam Australia Media Release As Yemen enters its tenth year of war, its…

«
»
Facebook

The Strange Case Of The Prime Minister Who Won Support With The Electorate While Losing It With His Backbench!

“JUST as Tony Abbott gains a significant shift in the polls that sees him showing a heartbeat after his “near-death experience” earlier this month, the Prime Minister has once again come under attack from his own party.

Voters could be forgiven for thinking the leaks against the Prime Minister are being co-ordinated.

The authoritative Newspoll survey has the Coalition lifting its primary vote by three points and its two-party-preferred vote by four points, while Labor slid by similar margins based on 2013 elections flows. The Coalition and Labor are now neck and neck on 38 per cent of primary votes and the Coalition has turned a 43 to 57 per cent deficit on two-party-preferred votes to a more competitive 47 to 53, and all in a fortnight.”

The Herald-Sun Editorial. 23rd February, 2015

 

Ok, I know I’m repeating myself but opinion polls all acknowledge that they have a three percent margin of error.

Got that, Herald Sun editors.

Or to put this so simply that even Herald Sun readers can understand.

If the full electorate stood at exactly 50/50 on a given issue and you ran a poll. 47/53 would still be within the poll’s accepted margin of error. As would 53/47.

So, now stick with this, Andrew Bolt fans, that means that – in consecutive polls – that if people were asked will the coin land heads or tails, then 47% of people saying “Heads” in one poll, followed by 53% saying “Heads” in the next poll is still within the margin of error!

It doesn’t mean that Heads has had a 6% surge in popularity!

Now, let’s move on from the poll. Even though it’s the “authorative” Newspoll. Let’s not even ask why they consider Newspoll authorative, even though it’s nowhere near as accurate as several others, and generally swings more widely and wildly than Morgan.

Let’s just accept the poll as totally accurate and not subject to the accepted potential inaccuracies of all polls – as The Herald Sun seems to have done – and ask ourselves a two simple, common sense questions:

  1. Are there lots of people out there thinking, “Wow, Abbott survived a spill from his own party, then went on the attack, announced a very clear policy on the building of submarines, showed fierce loyalty to Peta Credlin, then sacked his whip after promising not to be vindictive and to consult more widely, I just got the man all wrong and while my support for him was wavering a few weeks ago, now I’m throwing my support back to the Liberals, even though some of them are treacherous bastards who tried to stab their leader!” OR
  2. Is the surge in Liberal support because voters think that any party considering dumping Abbott is more worthy of support?

But after some nonsense about the “enemy within” (the Liberal Party) making Tony Abbott a “lame duck” and reminding us of our “unsustainable debt” (even you accept the idea that our debt is too large, it’s certainly sustainable, but there’s a whole blog in that), the editorial shared the following:

“No one should doubt Mr Abbott’s patriotism and loyalty. Whatever his faults, these values are not among them.”

 

Yep, that’s what they said.

All right, some people may not see patriotism and loyalty as faults, but I wonder why the paper is suggesting that Mr Abbott doesn’t have patriotism and loyalty among his values when he’s been so loyal to Peta and so patriotic to Britain!

You can check it out here (‘click’ on it for a clearer image), until someone with a grasp of English who works at the paper (I know we’re talking the Murdoch Media here, so that’s an oxymoron) actually reads and understands the implications of what they’ve written and the whole thing is edited out of history, just as Winston was paid to do in 1984.

herald sun jpeg

16 comments

Login here Register here
  1. Blanik

    Get it together Shorten. Jesuit or not, if you don’t start talking you are rooted, and so you should be. This isn’t a mine disaster, it’s a national disaster.

  2. Rafe Falkiner

    Patriotism & Loyalty?????????????????? abbott??????????????? the bastard is a Pom!!!!!!!!!!! Piss him off ASAP

  3. guest

    The results of polls depend on the questions asked and who is asked. On-line phone calls only will come up with different results compared to a mix of on-line phone calls. mobiles and personal interviews. Newscorpse is dead set on putting lipstick on the pig.

  4. Artur from Mudgee

    Hey, lay off Herald Sun and Bolt readers. It’s not their fault they were born dumb.

  5. rossleighbrisbane

    Some are born dumb, some achieve dumbness and others have dumbness thrust upon them!

  6. CMMC

    When I see Shorten talking on TV I am reminded of the film ‘The Kings Speech’.

    He doesn’t stutter, but every pause is awkward, every emphasis just trails off, he has no rythym.

    Can Geofferry Rush please help out.

  7. DanDark

    Rossleigh said “Some are born dumb, some achieve dumbness and others have dumbness thrust upon them!”
    It looks like Abbott won the trifecta in that case then 🙂

  8. Phi

    Holy shit !!! So that was written by the ‘editor’ of the Herald-Sun? Holy cow !!

    And there it is, inserted into what is mistakenly called an ‘editorial’, and basking in pusillanimous bile is that old Georgie Bushism “those who would do us harm” !!!! – that foetid chestnut is still doing the rounds of brain dead editors in the MSM?? – holy friggin’ white man!!

    Once again, thanks Rossleigh for reading and interpreting all that mind numbing crap so as to keep us informed without the need for us to seek self-immolation. You really are the brave one. I don’t know how you journos do it – all that reading and digesting of right-wing bile, sitting though hours of video of the most excruciating footage of manics like Abbott, Dutton, Andrews and Morrison, and you are still sane – OMG !!!

  9. Phi

    There is no independent review of Newspoll so it can publish whatever it wishes – and that is exactly what it does. Is there any research on the effects of published polls on voting intention and voting outcome?.

    I have no doubt that certain polls are corruptly manipulated so as to influence voting rather than to reflect voter sentiment. Because of Murdoch’s unfettered manipulation of Australian politics to suit his own ends, it’s reasonable to assume that Newspoll is a corruptly manipulated polling system.

  10. Audioio

    Bob Ellis claims that Newspoll rings only land-lines in the evenings, when all young people (none of whom have landlines) are absent or busy with their young families. He also claims that PUP and Katter preferences are given to the LNP, which is probably no longer likely.

  11. Bilal

    A loyal patriot would never even consider sending over 3000 troops alone into the Iraqi hellhole to confront the Baathist generals of Daesh. Lyons, although a Murdoch employee, has a reputation for sound journalism and has never been proven to be a liar. That cannot be said for our temporary PM.

  12. lawrencewinder

    Rabid-the-Hun, Australia’s Prime Miniature received, unusually, some good news for once. His propaganda pamphlet in Sydney run by “The Ugly American”, Murdoch, informed the Captain that although SS Liarbril was still sinking, it wasn’t going down as fast.

    In material that read more like “Push-Polling” than a real survey and which made some odd assertions from the figures given; this news has cheered the Captain who recently had been strongly advised to abandon ship.

    It remains to be seen whether “the-storm-in-a-teacup” over his Party’s federal treasurer threatening to jump ship over concerns about fundraising and the malignant cabal of Rabid’s Chief of Staff, “Bloody-Idiot” Credlin and her hubby, federal director, “Brain” Loughnane will cause the becalmed vessel to ship more water.

    Hmmm… sailing too far to the right, to right?

    More at Shane Wombat goes off….

  13. Jexpat

    Australians (if they still believe these “News” poll bits -one way or another) are bigger suckers than Americans.

    And in other “news” writers for Fairfax publications like the Shitty Morning Herald have long since come to that conclusion too- and are also treating readers that way, albeit with a different slant: Malcolm Turnbull is new neoliberal our savior.

    Pox on both their houses.

  14. bilko

    The word on the hill is that Abbott and his minder are no longer close like fingers crossed you can make up your mind who is on top, and what we are seeing now is Abbott unchained, keep watching it could get ugly.

  15. grey&grumpy

    Oh dear! “Some are born dumb, some achieve dumbness and others have dumbness thrust upon them!” I laughed so hard I spilled my morning coffee – thanks a lot!!

  16. DanDark

    Abbott thinks his daughters are his best asset to win election

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

The maximum upload file size: 2 MB. You can upload: image, audio, video, document, spreadsheet, interactive, text, archive, code, other. Links to YouTube, Facebook, Twitter and other services inserted in the comment text will be automatically embedded. Drop file here

Return to home page