The readers still say Labor

The readers still say Labor. Our readers have Labor and the Coalition running neck and neck on primary votes when it comes to predicting the result of next week’s Newspoll. At midday today the calculations put Labor on 41%, Liberals on 37% and the Nationals 4% (to give the Coalition a combined 41%.) The predicted primary vote the Greens is 11% with others on 7%.

The guesstimate of how that will work out in two-party preferred terms is Labor 53% to the Coalition’s 47%.

Perhaps we have a bias towards the lefties among the entrants because the expectation is that Kevin Rudd’s approval rating will go back up to 53% from the 50% mark actually recorded in the last Newspoll while those satisfied with how Tony Abbott is doing his job as Opposition leader is expected to be recorded at 39% compared with his last actual figure of 41%.

The pledges are in and the result is … Nothing has changed. With the January 31 deadline for nations to put in their proposals for inclusion in the Copenhagen Accord passed, the Climate Institute has recalculated its Climate Scoreboard. And the result is that the institute’s best guess of the temperature increase likely by the end of the century is 3.9 degrees Centigrade.

Before the Copenhagen Conference began the Scoreboard showed a 3.8 degree C increase. All that talk and all the solemn promises and things have actually gone backwards!

A Cairns tragedy. If Peter Garrett’s political future is in any real danger then it is the grieving Cairns mother Wendy Sweeney who is responsible. She it was featuring on the television news bulletins last night saying that the Environment Minister should be dismissed because of his role in the death of her son, Mitchell, who was electrocuted last month at the age of 22 while working on the insulation of a house roof being paid for under a federal Government scheme. Sweeney’s dignified criticism of the Minister will have had far more impact on the general public than any of the words of criticism mouthed on the subject by Coalition politicians.

But not too much influence on the editor of the Cairns Post. While their local resident was achieving national recognition, this example of the Murdoch tabloids had other things on its news agenda. Covering the whole of page one this morning was the story of a little dog saved by the blood transfusion from a big dog. A touching story and a delightful picture but it does make you wonder about editorial priorities up north.