Weighing up the poll-driven media

Sometimes it is hard to decide whether media reporting driven by opinion polls represents solid fact or ephemeral fancy………

On 18 April 2011 The Age published an article based on the results of Nielsen survey from 14-16 April 2011 based on 1,400 respondents:

a carbon price has become steadily more unpopular

On the same day The New Zealand Herald told the world that:

Prime Minister Julia Gillard's fragile minority Government continues to sink in the polls as Australians increasingly turn against her proposed carbon tax.

While ABC Radio AM online echoed these reports with:

Criticism of Julia Gillard's carbon tax has broadened, with the latest Sydney Morning Herald/Age AC Nielsen poll showing that opposition to a price on carbon has jumped three points to 59 per cent…..

Based on the same Nielsen poll used by the mainstream media, Crikey opined:

opposition has mounted

Then the BusinessGreen news site on 18 April decided to muddy waters by mentioning a second survey taken in March 2011:

The Australian government's flagship plans for a new carbon tax and emissions trading scheme are facing growing opposition, according to two new polls suggesting that public and business support for the proposals is wavering. A survey of 1,400 people commissioned by Fairfax newspapers and published earlier today found that 59 per cent of respondents opposed the government's proposals, up three points on the last survey in March. Another Essential Media poll of just over 1,000 people carried out late last month reported that 51 per cent of respondents opposed the plan while only 34 per cent supported it.

However on the very same day all of the above articles were published, Essential Research released results of an online survey from 13-17 April 2011 based on 1,002 respondents showing another way of gauging support:

With compensation for low and middle income earners and small businesses, support for the Government’s carbon pricing scheme increased to 51% and opposition dropped to 33%. This is a slight fall in support since this question was last asked in mid-March.

With compensation, support among Labor voters increases 15% to 78% and for Liberal/National voters increases 13% to 34%.

Support among men increased from 39% to 47% and for women increases from 38% to 55%.

It will be interesting to see how the media responds to this particular Essential Research survey, given that it runs somewhat counter to the main narrative when compensation for any price rise is factored into the equation. At the time of writing only Crikey had bothered to mention this second survey.

So what does one believe with regard to the Australian electorate’s sentiment concerning placing a price on carbon pollution?

I suspect that, faced with conflicting information, we all believe that the majority agrees with whatever is our own personal position.

Just by putting itself out there @Centrelink invites unhappy comment

Can't wait to see how many unhappy Centrelink 'clients' home in on this Twitter account once the word spreads that the Oz government agency everyone loves to hate is offering its head for the washing.

Snapshot 19th April 2011

As skennedybooks said: Who the hell would want @Centrelink tweets showing up in their stream? about 2 hours ago via Echofon
(http://twitter.com/#search?q=%40Centrelink)

Is Australia's food security failsafe measure under threat?

In January 2011 Australia had donated USD $13,047,051 to the Global Crop Diversity Trust’s Svalbard seed vault in Norway, with another USD $8.1 million.

Australia is currently the third largest national government financial donor to the Trust after Norway, Britain, and the United States. Chairperson of the Cooperative Research Centre for National Plant Biosecurity (Australia), Professor John Lovett, sits on its board.

Among the individual foundation/corporation donations to the Trust so far, only the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation/UN Foundation has given more than Australia or Norway, Britain and America.

In February this year Victorian farmer Dr. Tony Gregson travelled to Norway with 301 samples of field peas and 42 rare chickpeas, presumably for inclusion in the Australian Gene Banks held in the vault.

The Svalbard seed vault has been in operation for three years and has been plagued with budgetary and operational problems which seriously threaten ongoing seed viability.

Climate change impacts are predicted to hit Australia hard and those successive natural disasters we have experienced since late 2010 have shown us the possible scale of these impacts.

So what is the Australian Government doing to ensure that all these well-meaning geneticists, biologists, farmers and other seed collectors (attempting to insure that the country’s food security is assured) are not working hard in vain? Are the Global Crop Biodiversity Trust’s activities being monitored closely at ministerial level?

Photograph from Google Images

Sol Trujillo joins the pudding club

Pic from Bloomberg interview on 11th January 2011

Sol is obviously living off the fat of the land since leaving Telstra and is beginning to look as padded as the popular cartoon image of the merchant banker he's become:
Garcia Trujillo Holdings LLC....After being CEO of three $45 billion market cap companies on three different continents, Sol Trujillo who serves on the board of directors of Target (NYSE:TGT) and WPP Group (NASDAQ: WPP) says that companies have a “domestic emerging market” with just as great a potential as other international markets. Trujillo joined forces with Charles P. Garcia, a member of the Board of Directors of Winn-Dixie Stores (NASDAQ:WINN) as well as Nina Vaca, Gary Trujillo who sits on Blue Cross Blue Shield of Arizona and Well Fargo Bank Desert Region, Alejandro Silva, who sits on the Board of Directors of Walgreen’s (NYSE: WAG), and other Hispanic business leaders in this new venture.