As Australia prepares to go to the 2013 federal general election on Saturday 7 September, Andrew Catsaras, Polling Analyst, on ABC TV The Insiders on 4 August 2013 was presenting these July predictive polling graphics:
Sunday, 4 August 2013
Australian Federal Election 7 September 2013: Will it be neck and neck to the ballot box?
Nats candidate Kevin Hogan is going to pay your bills at the click of a mouse?
This Facebook snapshot and comment turned up in my Inbox……….
Is liking Hogan’s page really going to help me pay my bills, really?
Hat tip to a certain pen-wielding young woman.
Some 'memorable' lines from Tony Abbott you may have missed
No, I don't claim to have immersed myself deeply in all of these documents. I'm a politician [Tony Abbott, ABC Lateline interview, 19 November 2009]
unemployment benefit can become a “conscience payment” to people we’d rather not know [Tony Abbott, Jobs Australia Conference, 16 May 2001]
I suppose at this point I should confess, I should own up, if you like, to a certain lack of moral standing [Tony Abbott, Speech to Work for the Dole Community Work Co-ordinators Conference, 26 July 2000]
Saturday, 3 August 2013
"All of them disgraced. The stench from Labor is matched by the stink from the spivs at the big end of town."
Mike Carlton in today's Sydney Morning Herald has very neatly summed up what most rational people are thinking about recent events at the NSW ICAC.
Labor richly deserves the savaging it is getting over the Eddie Obeid and Ian Macdonald scandals. It tolerated these scoundrels in its ranks far too long. A conga line of NSW ALP grandees and apparatchiks turned a cynical blind eye to their sordid intrigues.
The Australian Productivity Commission looks at deep and persistent disadvantage
Excerpt from the Australian Productivity Commission’s report Deep and Persistent Disadvantage in Australia 11 July 2013:
Key points
• Australia has experienced two decades of economic growth and rising average
incomes, but some in the community continue to be ‘left behind’.
• Disadvantage is a multi-dimensional concept. It is about ‘impoverished lives’
(including a lack of opportunities), not just low income. Poverty, deprivation,
capabilities and social exclusion are different lenses to view and measure
disadvantage.
• A number of researchers produce estimates of the extent of disadvantage in
Australia. Each relies on contestable assumptions and thresholds.
• Around 5 per cent of Australians aged 15 plus are estimated to have experienced deep social exclusion in 2010, fewer than in 2001 (7 per cent). The rate of very deep exclusion was stable at around 1 per cent (Social Exclusion Monitor).
• Fewer people experience ongoing disadvantage — 3 per cent of Australians
experienced deep social exclusion for five or more years (between 2001 and 2010)
and just under 1 per cent for seven or more years.
• People who are more likely to experience deep and persistent disadvantage include: lone parents; Indigenous Australians; people with a long-term health condition or disability; and people with low educational attainment. Many are public housing tenants and are weakly attached to the labour market.
• Disadvantage has its roots in a complex interplay of factors. Many of these factors, when combined, can have a compounding effect. The probability that any one person will experience disadvantage is influenced by: their personal capabilities and family circumstances; the support they receive; the community where they live (and the opportunities it offers); life events; and the broader economic and social
environment.
• A child’s earliest years fundamentally shape their life chances. Gaps in capabilities between children from socioeconomically disadvantaged families and their more advantaged peers appear early in life. Starting school ‘behind the eight ball’ can begin a cycle of disadvantage that sets a trajectory for poorer outcomes later in life.
• Education is a foundation capability. It improves a person’s employment prospects and earning capacity, and the evidence points to a relationship between education and better health and raised civic and social engagement.
• Employment is the route out of disadvantage for most people of working age.
• Disadvantage imposes costs on people and families who experience it and on the broader community. Only avoidable costs (reductions in disadvantage that are
realistically possible) should be included when estimating the costs of disadvantage.
• Longitudinal data is critical to understanding the dynamics of disadvantage. But
people who are most disadvantaged are often not well represented in such studies.
Administrative data has the potential to provide new knowledge to inform
researchers and policy makers about deep and persistent disadvantage.
Full report here.
Northern Rivers 'weed' needs to carry a health warning
Ballina Shire Advocate 27 July 2013:
Cannabis from the Northern Rivers is among the most potent in the world, sparking fears users could be at risk of developing mental health problems and dependency.
As Australia has one of the highest per-capita rates of cannabis use worldwide, a National Drug and Alcohol Research Centre study, the first of its kind in Australia, analysed levels of THC.
THC, the main psychoactive component of the drug that gets users "stoned", is linked to mental health problems and anxiety.
Researchers examined 232 samples of cannabis seized by NSW police from recreational users and in large outdoor and indoor cultivations.
Study leader Dr Wendy Swift said samples seized from users at Lismore, Byron Bay and Tweed Heads were found to have some of the highest levels of THC.
Cannabis tested also had extremely low levels of cannabidiol, which is thought to counteract some negative effects of THC…….
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