Newspoll: ALP 57-LNP 43

Well so much for Julie Bishop's punishment and Malcolm Turnbull's disillusionment.

No change from last time - and why would there be? Nothing will change until the Libs change their leader. But really, there's not much reason to change now anyway. Might as well keep Nelson there till Christmas, and start 2009 afresh with Turnbull.

Peter Martin (economics correspondent for The Age) noticed this headline on the front page of today's The Australian: RBA warns 100,000 jobs at risk from economic slowdown

Unfortunately the story is (to be perfectly blunt) bullshit. The Oz writes in its first paragraph:
THE Reserve Bank is predicting an economic slowdown so severe that 100,000 people will be thrown out of work in the next 12 months.

However, as Martin points out the RBA predicts nothing of the sort - in fact it predicts the opposite:
Annual employment growth is forecast to average ¾ per cent over the next year, before picking up gradually. With the rate of employment growth expected to remain below that of the working-age population, the unemployment rate is expected to rise.

So yes the unemployment rate will grow - why? Because more kids are coming into the work force than there will be jobs for them to take up. So in fact the 100,000 figure The Oz came up with is a 100,000 theoretical people not getting 100,000 theoretical jobs. Which is not quite the same as losing your job...

Now I read The Australian everyday, but I always read another source (SMH or The Age, ABC) before trusting what it says (especially if the article heading seems to have been taken from a press release out of Julie Bishop's office - which this one seems to be).