General World News

When the chips are down, those Frenchies will give you the good oil.

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And that’s why they call 'em French Fries. It’s coming home!

Belgian ones are better. The best hot chips in France come from the old Flemish region of northern France. The winner was probably ethnic Flemish,
Wotabout those Japanese runner ups, are the hot chips in Japan good?

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Yeah I always thought the Belgians did them first.

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Hokkaido is a big potato growing area, and they take their spuds seriously. I had potato flavoured ice cream there once. (Once was enough.)

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Yannos Varoufakis declared Capitalism is dead. The New order is a techno- feudal economy.
( Probably formed from the time he spent in Oz)

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Better grow spuds. I favour the Irish Lumper.

Racist!

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It’s a good read

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I couldn’t find a dedicated NZ politics thread, given covid management was seen as a defining driver of the outcome I have put the likely NZ general election result here.

Appears highly likely a National / ACT
coalition will form a new centre right government. Covid and cost of living were among the hot topics over there apparently.

As a NZ resident, the result isn’t a surprise. There has been a huge swing against Labour and the “woke” movement over the past 18 months. National’s policies arent very dissimilar to Labour but ACT is considerably more right wing so it will be interesting to see what changes eventuate.

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It’s a wake up call for the left who I think believed forever winning was a given. Can’t take electorate for granted. Those overused lockdowns, mismanagement of the economy (compared to Australia), higher inflation, divisive social policies have conspired to deliver the reality check. Albo, take note. You could be next.

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Not while Dutton is still leader.

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It may not matter if Albo makes no meaningful headway in cost of living relief, housing affordability, energy cost increases, inflation etc. if he’s seen as not delivering on what matters to Australians he could be gone. He needs to step up on domestic economic issues now, the polls are indicating this.

Meanwhile, in actual poll land:

https://www.pollbludger.net/2023/10/15/newspoll-54-46-to-labor-yougov-53-47-open-thread/

• There was a bonus Newspoll result in The Australian less than a fortnight after the last, showing Labor’s lead out from 53-47 to 54-46 on two-party preferred, from primary votes of Labor 36% (up two), Coalition 35% (down one), Greens 12% (steady) and One Nation 6% (up one). Anthony Albanese was up one on approval to 46% and steady on disapproval at 46%, while Peter Dutton was down two to 35% and up three to 53%. Albanese led 51-31 as preferred prime minister, out from 50-33. The poll was conducted October 4 to 12, overlapping the previous polling period from October 3 to 6, from an expanded sample of 2638.

• What looks to be the second instalment of a weekly polling series from YouGov (which I will incorporate into BludgerTrack when it gets a few more runs on the board) had Labor’s lead steady at 53-47, from primary votes of Labor 33% (steady), Coalition 36% (up one), Greens 14% (up one) and One Nation on 6%. Anthony Albanese’s net approval was steady at minus 3%, while Peter Dutton improved from minus 17% to minus 12%. Preferred prime minister was little changed, Albanese’s lead shifting from 50-33 to 50-34. The poll was conducted Friday to Tuesday from a sample of 1519.

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I was referring more to Labors primary vote. Pretty certain it fell from 34% to 32% in latest polling?

pretty sure there’s an auspol thread for this

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The legislation that has gone through, reforms to the RBA, the inquiries to address the shocking rorts, the work being done in Senate Committees ( some bipartisan). They aren’t given priority in the MSM, ignored on social media.
All these important policy programs are accorded low to zero priority in public presentations by the LNP and the MSM.

How quickly people forget the horrors of that first strain of COVID. NZ did an amazing job keeping it out until there was a vax. My father is probably alive because of it.

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They’re not the issues majority of Australians deem most important. And to me, that’s the risk Albo is taking. He’s becoming disconnected from mainstream Australia. Not making progress on the main issues impacting most Australians. Frankly, the MSM are only interested in the issues that create division, anger because they’re chasing identity politics, scandals and ‘clicks’.

Most families around the dinner table right now are grappling with cost of living pressures, housing affordability (or rents), escalating energy prices, a health system that’s failing etc. they’re less interested in Rorts, governance or the RBA. If rorts were such a big issue, Andrews would’ve been thrown out a long time ago as he was more culpable of ‘transparency’ and rorting than any.

BTW regarding RBA, Lowes big error was his misleading call on rates going up. On his actions, he (RBA Board) have actually done a good job navigating a soft landing to this point with inflation generally lower and rates lower than most comparable developed nations. His actions were better than his words.