MIXED OPINIONS

Opinion polls this morning have created two conflicting pictures of public attitudes towards the federal budget and its $140 billion in tax cuts over the next decade.

The Sydney Morning Herald’s Fairfax/Ipsos poll has found that Labor now leads the Coalition 46-54%, and has increased its primary vote from 34% to 37% over the past five weeks. While 38% of respondents believed they would be better off under the Coalition’s federal budget, the poll also found that 57% of people would prefer funds to be used to pay off government debt and only 37% preferred the income tax cuts.

However, The Australian’s ($) Newspoll has found that the Coalition has repeated a recent, minor gain to now just trail Labor 51-49% and Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull has jumped eight points as preferred PM since April 22. Turnbull now holds a 14-point lead over Opposition Leader Bill Shorten, who fell three points to 32%.

Which paper is correct? Flip a coin! (Or, better yet, wait for the Poll Bludger’s take).

13 DEAD IN FAMILY SUICIDE BOMBING

At least 13 people have been killed and over 40 injured after suicide bombers attacked three churches in Indonesia. 

According to the ABC, Indonesian police believe a single family was responsible for three separate attacks on Surabaya’s Christian community yesterday. The family, who The Australian ($) reports were deported from Turkey after trying to join the Islamic State in Syria, included two parents, two teenagers and two children, aged 12 and nine.

TASSIE RESIDENTS STILL CUT OFF

Tasmanian residents have been delivered air-dropped supplies as they remain isolated more than three days after record storms and floods damaged roads across the state.

The Mercury ($) reports that at least 30 Derwent Valley residents have been cut off from both people and power (until TasNetworks staff managed to restore connections yesterday) since last Thursday. Essential supplies were airlifted to the community via helicopter yesterday, although residents are still in for a long haul as the prime suspect, a broken wooden bridge, remains badly damaged and clogged with debris. 

THEY REALLY SAID THAT?

This is the thing about politics, we all put ourselves forward every three years, and if you’ve got a genuine rank and file party then they get to make these decisions about who represents them.

Scott Morrison

The Treasurer explains that he “couldn’t see why” Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull should intervene to rescue Jane Prentice, one of the Liberal Party’s few female ministers, from a failed Queensland preselection battle over the weekend. Which is a real failure of imagination for ScoMo, considering senior party figures did that exact thing for him in 2007.

CRIKEY QUICKIE: THE BEST OF YESTERDAY

Are the major parties dealing with the central problem of neoliberalism?Bernard Keane

“It’s been a tough time to be in government for the Liberals. When Malcolm Turnbull became Prime Minister, he could promise a ‘thoroughly liberal government’. But his has been the most interventionist government in decades, with a ramp up in protectionism, de facto nationalisation of energy assets, a banking royal commission that looks set to wind back key elements of the banking business model and an acceptance of the Gonski education funding agenda, in an even more pure form than Julia Gillard implemented.”

Razer: Hillary Clinton’s religious, if nonsensical, performance to Melbourne’s true believersHelen Razer

“Last night outside the civic wound that is Melbourne’s Convention and Exhibition Centre, five thousand persons in near-freezing conditions found their heat inside a long, long queue. That I felt none of this arterial warmth may make me a ‘misogynist’. We’d learn later that misogyny is just about everywhere, and the basis for every critique of Hillary Rodham Clinton ever. My stone-cold observation: warmth for women of the white knowledge class is the product of friction between (a) privilege and (b) the privileged belief that all women are unified by a totalising experience of ‘misogyny’.”

Najib Razak
Australia’s hopeless response to landmark Malaysian electionMichael Sainsbury

“But the final result, speaks for itself, a riposte to despots who believe they can exploit weak democratic systems. It’s also a lesson for their enablers and one the increasingly craven and silent Australian government should heed. The Australian government not merely stands by, mute, but offers encouragement to the region’s most brutal and shocking regimes: training soldiers from Myanmar’s murderous military; and upgrading relations with the dictatorship in Cambodia only weeks before it finally obliterated the strongest opposition it had ever faced, earlier this year.”

READ ALL ABOUT IT

Bill Shorten rebukes Pauline Hanson over threat to deny Labor preferences

Tasmanian Premier Will Hodgman to brings rebel Speaker into fold ($)

Gold Coast kidnapping: Manhunt for kidnap suspect goes global ($)

Warning Cape York land-clearing approval puts Great Barrier Reef at risk

Bankrupt ex-winemaker Andrew Morton Garrett accused $6 million tax fraud million by ATO ($)

NT Labor Party divisions revealed as majority vote to ban fracking

A six pack of beer could be the purchasing limit for town caught in controversy ($)

Solar and wind could ease Australia’s water shortage

‘People have never heard of the word’: Plan to tackle endometriosis

New space agency boss predicts booming sector could produce 20,000 Australian jobs

WHAT’S ON TODAY

Melbourne

  • First Nations elders will gather at Victorian Parliament to give guidance and take their seat at the table discussing the state-based treaty process, before announcing their resolutions later today. Victorian Greens spokesperson for Aboriginal Justice Lidia Thorpe and clan elders will address media beforehand.

  • Bunjil Place Gallery will launch an exhibition showcasing the famous Boyd family dynasty, centred around three generations of Australia’s revered artists and their family property at Narre Warren.

  • Olivia Newton-John will receive an Honorary Doctorate of Letters, in recognition of her support for cancer research and holistic health as well as entertainment achievements, at a special graduation ceremony at La Trobe University.

Brisbane

  • Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk and Innovation Minister Kate Jones will welcome 360 of Silicon Valley’s brightest minds the Queensland government has flown in for the Myriad festival, a three-day technology and innovation event starting this Wednesday May 18th. Guests will include Jeremy Bloom from CNBC’s Adventure Capitalists, Ian Thorpe, former CIA analyst Yael Eisenstat and Myriad CEO Martin Talvari.

  • Federal Treasurer Scott Morrison will answer questions from more than 120 voters live from the North Lakes Sports Club for Paul Murray Live.

  • Queensland Agricultural Industry Development Minister Mark Furner will visit the Brisbane Produce Markets to discuss how the state’s rockmelon industry is recovering from February’s listeria scare. Mark Daunt, chair of the Australian Melon Association, will also attend.

Sydney

  • NSW Veterans Affairs Minister David Elliott and Rear Admiral Jonathan Mead will hold a ceremony and collect a sample of soil from the Garden Island Defence precinct to commemorate the sailors who died in the 1942 Japanese midget submarine attack on Sydney Harbour.

  • The NSW Independent Commission Against Corruption “Operation Skyline” public inquiry will resume for one week and further investigate allegations concerning public officials and the Awabakal Local Aboriginal Land Council.

  • Former Treasurer Peter Costello will deliver a post-budget address to the Centre for Independent Studies.

  • Day two of Sydney Fashion Week, to run until Saturday May 19.

  • A six-month trial for the accused perpetrator of the 1984 Parramatta Family Court bombings and murders, Leonard John Warwick, will begin today.

Tasmania

  • The University of Tasmania and schools will re-open today after record flooding in the state.

Perth

  • The first patients will be admitted at the new Perth Children’s Hospital. Problems at the overdue facility had included asbestos in ceiling panels and lead/Legionella found in the drinking water.

Adelaide

  • Day one of the four day APPEA oil and gas industry conference.

Australia

  • Today marks the 75th anniversary of Australian Hospital Ship (AHS) Centaur being torpedoed and sunk by a Japanese submarine off the Queensland coast while sailing from Sydney to Port Moresby. 

THE COMMENTARIAT

Ireland’s abortion referendum: ‘It’s painful and it’s personal’ — Kitty Holland (The Guardian): “Social change used to come slowly in Ireland. Now, it cannot seem to come fast enough. Three years ago this month, the Republic voted in favour of same-sex marriage – and became the first country in the world to do so. A year later, Leo Varadkar, who was a number of firsts rolled into one, became taoiseach. At 38, he was the country’s youngest ever prime minister, the first from an ethnic minority background and the first to have come out as gay. Now, voters are about to go to the polls to have their say on arguably the most bitterly and repeatedly contested issue in modern Ireland: abortion.”

Measures to tackle black economy are suspiciously totalitarian — Matthew Lesh (The Age): “The Turnbull government’s proposed ban on cash payments above $10,000 is a disturbing breach of our right to privacy, an attack on the basic liberty of free exchange, and will worsen Australia’s red tape crisis. The aim of the ban, which was announced in the budget with other measures to tackle the ‘black economy’, is to prevent money laundering and tax cheats. These are genuine goals. However, there is nothing inherently immoral or harmful about cash. The government is punishing the vast majority who do nothing wrong in an ill-fated attempt to prevent a small number of people acting illegally.”

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