First up, the obligatory opposition leadership speculation chart.
091126_opponetsats

Next up, a few people have asked whether anyone runs a “Country heading in the right/wrong direction?” question in the polls and how it stacks up. Well, Morgan does and it pretty much walks hand-in-hand with PM satisfaction ratings.

091126_rightwrongsats

Finally, the ABS released some analytical cost-of-living indices on Monday that they measure quarterly. What they do is attempt to estimate how the cost of living has changed over any given period, for various types of households. If we look at the annual percentage change in the estimated cost of living, we get:

091126_costofliving

What’s interesting here is that in the 12 months to September this year, the cost of living for employees has actually reduced by 1% compared to increases experienced by age pensioners (2.4%), other government transfer recipients such as disability support pensioners and unemployment benefit recipients (1.6%) and self-funded retirees (1.6%).