Miscellaneous

For all of those that suffered with the Shark through decades of trauma, finally some deliverance today with Adam Scott just winning the US Masters!

Lot’s of press coverage today about high speed rail.

  Cross-posted from the Conversation. If the UK Financial Services Authority (FSA) had been a dog, it would have been about 86 years old when it was put down on April Fool’s Day this year.

While Labor’s election chances posted new lows heading into the Easter weekend, they largely flat-lined for much of last week.

Cross-posted from Mark the Ballot. This week we have a new Morgan poll and a new Essential poll. Both polls see movement away from the government. We start our analysis with the localised regression of all the polls (next chart).

This morning is the official launch of the mining election campaign.

By Leith van Onselen Please find below the transcript of an interview with Professor Ross Garnaut by Lateline Business’ Tony Jones on the outlook for the Chinese economy and what it means for Australia.

The failure to change leaders on March 21 has seen Labor’s perceived election chances hit a new low.

Those with a finely tuned political snout may already have discovered MB’s new real time election poll.

Cross-posted from Mark the Ballot.

So maybe I’m wrong then.

The media is a dunce.

Noon From the AFR: Senior Labor minister Simon Crean has brought the Labor leadership issue to a head, calling on Prime Minister Julia Gillard to call a spill of all leadership positions and, if not, called on the Caucus to petition her to do so.

The media is full of reports that Kevin Rudd may launch  a leadership challenge as soon as Friday as support for Julia Gillard crumbles.

Cross-posted from Mark the Ballot. What are the polls doing? Is Labor heading south, scraping the bottom or on the rebound? I ask the question because today’s Nielsen looks like a bottom feeding story and today’s Essential is a rebound (at least over the last two independent polls).

God help me I’m becoming a cricket troll.

Cross-posted from Mark the Ballot.

Today channels Nine and Ten are still caught in a bidding war for Australia cricket broadcasting rights.

Presented without comment from The Australian: The Newspoll, conducted exclusively for The Australian at the weekend, revealed Ms Gillard’s support as preferred prime minister jumped six points to 42 per cent as support for the Opposition Leader slipped from 40 per cent to 38 per cent.

Earlier this week I argued the folly of several Coalition policies that aimed to wind back the best of the Labor government’s reforms for no reason other than Tony Abbott’s strategy of mindless objection to everything.

Cross-posted from Mark the Ballot.

From the AFR: Whatever you do, don’t call it unsinkable.

Cross-posted from Mark the Ballot. I have been thinking on how to calibrate the Bayesian aggregation to get a better understanding of the actual national two-party preferred (TPP) voting intention.