Another dud poll for Do-Labor Malcolm:
From Richo today:
The PM became so desperate that he chanced it all on a giveaway, supposedly popular budget. The expected bounce in the polls, however, just didn’t happen. He threw caution, not to mention his and his party’s reputation as safe minders of the national till, to the wind.
He banked everything on breaking the cycle of losing Newspolls. Just one poll where the government was in the lead would stop the media and his caucus from keeping watch on the ever-growing number of negative Newspolls.
…Don’t be fooled by the government spin merchants telling you that they had never expected a lift. On the night before the post-budget Newspoll was published, half the Cabinet and a host of PM staffers and Liberal officials were ringing around anyone they knew who worked for The Australian desperately trying to get an early reading on the result. They were all certain that the boost would come and were devastated when it didn’t.
…The very same bedwetters who unseated Tony Abbott in favour of Malcolm Turnbull are once again buying nappies and padded underpants. The more vulnerable backbenchers will focus more and more on losing their seats. Self-interest remains a mighty force to be reckoned with.
Meanwhile, the Coalition’s great hope, Creepy Pete, is lurking in the shadows doing what he does best, terrorising the unwary, via The New York Times:
The advice for Australian Muslims traveling overseas, in a booklet from a legal rights group, was straightforward: If anything on your phone could be construed as advocating violence, delete it.
When the immigration minister, Peter Dutton, learned about it — from The Australian, a newspaper that published an article on Tuesday headlined “Muslim tips to evade airport security” — he wrote to the Muslim Legal Network NSW, which published the booklet, demanding an explanation.
“In the current international climate, I am very concerned this guidance could be interpreted as advice to evade Border Force and conceal illegal activity,” Mr. Dutton wrote in the letter.
“I seek your urgent clarification on what purpose is served in providing this advice.”
Zaahir Edries, the president of the legal rights group, was taken aback — since the advice had originally come from Mr. Dutton’s own department.
A 2015 fact sheet for Australian hajj pilgrims on re-entering the country, from the Department of Immigration and Border Protection, includes the heading “Know what is on your electronic devices,” noting that it is illegal to bring in “material that advocates or praises acts of terrorism.”
“By keeping images like this on your electronic devices such as a hard drive, computer or mobile phone, even if someone has sent them to you, you may be committing an offense,” the fact sheet says.
Mr. Edries said his group had received similar advice in 2015 from representatives of the Border Force, which is under Mr. Dutton’s authority, in a training session. He said he was dismayed by Mr. Dutton’s letter Tuesday and by how the network’s guide, “Anti-Terrorism Laws: ASIO, the Police and You,” had been depicted in the news media. (A.S.I.O. stands for the Australian Security Intelligence Organization, a national security agency.)
“It was pretty upsetting for it be portrayed as anything other than an education piece, particularly because we used information provided by the government,” Mr. Edries said.
It was not the first time Mr. Dutton, a conservative, had offended Muslim communities. Last year, he caused an outcry after asserting that former Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser should not have allowed Lebanese Muslim migrants into Australia.
Yes, they are scraping the bottom of the barrel.
And war is brewing, via The Conversation:
The activist group GetUp has raised almost A$200,000 in less than a week for a campaign to unseat Immigration Minister Peter Dutton in his marginal Brisbane electorate of Dickson.
An email appealing for funds that was sent to about 350,000 GetUp members last Thursday received donations from more than 5,000 people. By Tuesday night, it had raised $196,911.
At the 2016 election a big GetUp effort helped cut Dutton’s margin from 6.7% to 1.6%. The swing against him was much greater than the statewide swing against the government of 2.9%. Dutton held on by fewer than 3,000 votes. In that election Labor had a very strong candidate in Linda Lavarch, a former Queensland attorney-general.
If Dutton lost his seat it would be a major blow to the conservative wing of the Liberal Party. He is a leadership aspirant, and would be an obvious contender if the Coalition lost the election.
Dutton is likely to receive some help next time in the form of the redistribution of boundaries before the election, which is due in 2019. But even with a favourable boundary change the seat would remain vulnerable to a significant swing.
The latest GetUp funds will be used for research in the electorate and, as the poll gets nearer, for various forms of advertising.
Creepy Pete will not save the Coalition.
