1. Newspoll
The latest Newspoll, according to Twitter, so it must be right, was Federal Primary Votes: L/NP 38 (-1) ALP 37 (0) GRN 9 (0) UAP 4 (0) ON 3 (-1). Seriously, Kevin Bonham said on Twitter, that with those numbers, Labor would be unlucky to lose. The Newspoll site has Labor in front 51.5-48.5.
Bludger Track has Labor gaining 11 since 2016 to land on 80, with the LNP on 65 and Others on 6.
The suggestion is that the LNP’s primary vote of 38 going into the election is the lowest ever on Newspoll.
I think we should wait for the count.
2. Lethal Heating on climate
Lethal Heating has been blogging up a storm on the election recently. It republishes material published elsewhere, but adds a series of related links at the end. Here are some recent ones:
- 62 Experts Urge Next Parliament to Make Climate Action a Top Priority – Australia Institute
- Climate Change Election: Where Do Parties Stand And What Can We Expect After Saturday? – RenewEconomy
Both interesting, but neither mentions Labor’s revival of the Climate Change Authority and the Australian Climate Audit it will be tasked to undertake. I found that item the most exciting part of the policy.
This post Climate Change Is This Election’s Top Issue. Guardian Australia Tells You What You Need To Know contains a couple of dozen links to articles published in The Guardian.
It includes Katharine Murphy’s Buying international permits is a cheap way to cut emissions. It’s that simple. I’m still scratching my head as to why the Greens went hard on that one (see Labor’s climate action plan 2019 – a “dog’s breakfast?”
See also Climate Code Red and Support for action surges, majority say we face climate emergency.
3. Budget matters
I still need to do a post on the budget, no matter who wins. Just now I’ll link to Explainer: is the Coalition planning $40bn of secret spending cuts?.
That’s about a Grattan Institute study which found that by 2030 the LNP budget would see $40 billion cut off existing expenditure programs every year.
Grattan has also done a piece saying the Labor’s Early Childhood Education policy would add $25 billion pa to GDP. How? By expanding our workforce, same as immigration does. I’ll post the link when I find it.
Tom Switzer thinks Labor will end up with 79, but points out the Bandt and Wilkie are also lefties.
The Courier Mail this morning is saying Labor will win, Dennis Atkins, who I have a lot of time for, also. However, he thinks Labor might only pick up a couple in Qld and is looking to Victoria for the decisive swing.
He points out that elections are often won and lost in Qld. In 1975 and 1996 Labor ended up with only one or two seats. Certainly in 2016 Qld had little taste for Shorten, so the LNP’s 21/30 was decisive.
Shorten is married to a Queenslander, and has been here at least 50 times in the last three years, but the LNP has done well in sandbagging the vulnerable seats. I’m hoping the youth of Greater Brisbane will come out in force, and I think they might have if Di Natale had played the climate change thing as a global emergency rather than focussing on local bits and pieces that tended to embarrass Labor. In Qld Herbert based on Townsville held by Labor will go, but there are about 8 winnable seats, of which Labor should win 5. But we probably won’t.
Mark is coming around tonight to help us watch the counting. My worst experience was in 1996. It was daylight saving, and I was mowing a lawn in Milton. By 5.20 it was all over.
My election day story.
I gathered all of the offers from the leafletters. When I got to the LNP guy, I said “I made a promise to myself that if the NBN was on at my place when the election came around I would vote Liberal”. The LNP leafletter knew that the NBN, which was meant to be on in our area by now, wasn’t even close, and grimaced. I carried on”…Liberals broke their promise to me, so as the NBN isn’t on I can’t vote Liberal”,…to which the LNP leafletter instinctively responded “..well YOU could always break your promise!!”. I sensed the wild failing of invisible hands attempting to yank those words back. Too late.
Brian, please say hello to Mark from BilB. So many people miss LP, particularly at this part of the political cycle.
During the dull part of the evening before it all gets under way, for a nostalgic look back to the days of LP when atmospheric CO2 was well under 400 ppm, click into
http://arctic-news.blogspot.com/
It was totally offensive the LNP having a sign up at the High School Polling Station claiming “LNP Solid Action on Climate Change”. Hrmmphh. Solid only in their efforts to exacerbate it.
In a little over a week I will be a Netherlands resident, all things going well.
Also today as I was streaming the senate paper back and forwards about to enter my last number from the party guide I came across the housing party, which I note was not on the voting guide. A quick read of their policies highlights the very conclusion that I came to,….politicians are hopelessly entangled in property speculation and therefore only give lip service to affordable housing issues.
https://www.affordable-housing-party.org/policies
However things turn out with this election, everyone will have successes and disappointments.
If we give equal weight to both then Democracy should be accepted Nationwide.
Let’s not be like the UK and US.
Yes Bilb, similar comment from me to the LNP HTW handler. On the NBN alone they deserve to be whacked from here to my totally congested FW tower. I too look back fondly to LP days and the the 2007 election. Today I follow many ex-LPrs on twitter or Facebook, that crowd is still good value.
How’s it going folks?
Well that’s all totally depressing.
Australian political IQ has slumped towards that of the average Trump supporter. Gullible indifference. At least Warringah got it right.
Perhaps Russia collusion by Morrison BilB?
A Royal Commission into it perhaps?
Anyway, stay strong, you’ve decided to be a Netherlandathol anyway.
Not your monkeys, not your circus.
“ This is an unmitigated disaster “
Sam Dastyari.
Good on the AEC.
But let’ s see what those pre-poll votes say.
The results are a bit funny at the moment. For example, the SMH claimed that
Time for some paranoia.
At the moment it looks like the outcome will be a hung parliament. More scope for paranoia and grumbles about corruption if the resolution of the hung parliament doesn’t go to our liking.
Bit hard to see how the dark empire could hack a hand counted system.
In addition, my understanding is that the prepolls haven’t been counted yet.
True, Jumpy, and the rest of the family has the option to move to New Zealand (one daughter moved there just recently and took up citizenship).
I stick to my prediction that within thirty years China will annex Australia, and everyone will have dual citizenship. Its hard to see that President Kushner (then in his 22 year as Dictator) would be interested in coming to Australian’s aid with the US economy in free fall, against China’s massive military power.
It will be interesting to see the reaction should China immediately impose 99 year leases to all property with the lease commencing retrospectively from when each property was acquired.
That might sound far fetched, but then so did the notion of a US president claiming to be above the law, or that Syria would become a rubble pile, or that an oil rich country Venezuela would become a poverty stricken State, or that Climate Change Action would be ignored by the richest and most able States.
You will know that it is game on when China establishes bases on a series of Pacific Islands with the last ones being Cocos Keeling and Christmas Islands. It will be a very short and invisible war as it will all occur out to sea.
But that is a way off. Until then for at least 3 years Australians will have to live with the smug arrogance of Scott Morrison. Enjoy!
Green has called it but I’m not sure yet.
Well Albo just gave his best ALP leadership speech.
He’ll be thrashing that out perhaps with Plibers the drug dealers wife.
But I’ll wait till the final result first, as yet it’s not decided.
Billy boy is goorrnn.
I’m guessing he’ll be chasing a sweet industry Super fund directorship or three for good coin.
Unless Chloe wants a diplomatic slush fund job in her preferred exotic location.
Clive just bought himself a mine approval in the Galilee Basin at a bargain price of $60m.
How good is that! Meanwhile our newly elected prime minister believes in miracles. He needs to bloody well walk on water and be capable of doing the 5 loaves and 2 fish trick to get his budget surplus while handing out tax breaks to high income earners. It’s a pyrrhic victory at a great opportunity cost to our nation.
Palmer used Youtube extensively to push a bunch of rubbish arguments and false promises to a highly targeted audience. I think the political use of social media which has the property of knowing personal information about the users should be banned in elections. Google allowed its platform to be used in an unbalanced way, and in future such platforms need to be regulated.
I’m really saddened that Australia has progressed from being “the lucky country” to now the “to hell with you, I’m alright” country.
One thing I sense in the Dutch psychology is that everyone there grows up knowing that half the country is below sea level, and to prevent the sea inundating the land everyone has a responsibility to do their part to keep the system and the machinery that holds the sea at bay working. That sense of common responsibility permeates the social psyche in a positive and stabilising way, and this is reflected in the high quality of life there.
Australia’s wealth obsession at all costs is having a negative impact on national sense of well being as reflected in the national happiness rankings as Australia continues to follow the US in a steady slide towards the bottom of developed nations.
Do I sense an expanding empty space of hopelessness, Brian?
Does this mean the end of ClimatePlus?
Zoot: Palmer has only got 0.23 quotas. Definitely not going to the Senate. May get his approval because because the procoal party is forming government.
Bilb: Europe has a growing problem with far right. Don’t be so smug about the superiority of Europe.
It is worth noting that Hewson lost against Keating because, it is claimed, he presented a detailed plan that Keating was able to attack. Also worth noting that Keating lost the next election and we started 12 yrs of Howard.
Keatings problem was that he wanted to be prime minister but didn’t really have things left that he really wanted to do by then.
I live in hope.
Remember what a brilliant job Labor did of protecting Aus from the damage of the GFC. And how little credit they got for it.
A friend of mine with interesting ideas says Labor got lucky when it lost this one and thus avoided an impending disaster. His logic goes:
JohnD, Far right problem, you are completely correct. They are being fed a stream of utter ideological and false factual garbage from somewhere and taking it all verbatim. The people vulnerable to this are those who look for conspiracies, or who are some how groomed to accept them, I believe.
There is one very vocal guy at the warehouse in Maasland who is the perfect example. And then there is the whole Brexit fiasco. But I suspect that this morning is Australia’s Brexit morning moment.
As to Palmer it looks to me like he sucked off enough votes with his saturation Youtube advertising promise of $150 per week (?) for pensioners (a promise he would never be in a position to fulfil) handing those votes to LNP to skew the election outcome. I don’t have enough years left to sit around living in hope that a wave of great understanding will sweep across the land and it will all come out right. I have learned from this and other blogs that most people have extremely limited social and technical comprehension, and real meaningful debate is rare.
That is a good analysis, JohnD. Time will tell.
The situation in the US though is on a knife edge with US possibly slipping into a dictatorship. There are dark forces at work there, too many hidden agendas. Trump’s trade war is a distraction to draw attention away from his perversion of the entire system of government there. There is a coup under way in the US and it follows the pattern that Idi Amin used to infiltrate, weaken, and undermine the government system in Uganda.
John Birmingham expresses my feelings:
Exactly so, zoot!
Zoot: Today I need something to cheer me up even if it is optimistic bullshit.
Wow, ALP first preference vote in QLD was sub 28% with a State election next year.
Hi! I’ve just logged on for the first time in about 28 hours. We have a bit of a crisis going on which I’d best not talk about, and I have been spending some time giving encouragement to those around me. I haven’t read the whole thread yet, but this one from BilB caught my eye:
BilB, I survived about two decades working in the public service when Jo Bjelke was premier, and I had to actually listen to every word he said on the public media to see whether it had implications for my work. In the end I was shafted by Goss’s Labor, with Kevin Rudd heading his office (he was known as “Doctor Death” in the public service).
So, no, there will be no “empty space of hopelessness” here. It’s not where we wanted to be, but when all looks hopeless you need to take the first step.
Nevertheless, we need to consider how we got where we are, and where in fact we are. I’ve been getting some good help from my wife, my young son, my older son, and my younger brother.
I should call my older bro, the one who gave succor to the young Barnaby Joyce, encouraging him to go into politics, and who once told me I was the only person he knew who believed in the human-caused climate change stuff.
In part the story of yesterday is that we had a coal election rather than a climate change election.
On managing the economy some-one quoted PJK recently. He said Labor has always come to power to be hit by an economic crisis. The tories come to power with a rainbow up their arse. This time they won’t be so lucky, but frankly I don’t think they have the balls to do what Labor has done in the past to meet the crisis.
Unfortunately when the economy goes to shite, the people whose vote makes the difference are even more likely to vote for those who they falsely deem to be better managers of the economy. They voted against their own best interests this time and could easily do so again.
Unless they come to see that we are under existential threat, that with 1.5°C the Great Barrier Reef will likely dissolve before their eyes, and with a metre sea level rise, it’s not just Pacific Islands in trouble, Cairns, Bribie Island, where my bro-in-law lives, the Brisbane Airport and the whole Gold Coast strip will be in play, with a prospect of ice sheet decay becoming unstoppable, which would see the sea in Betoota:
The next election must be a fair dinkum climate change election. I’ll do what I can to help, but please GM, Quincelanders don’t need people living south of them telling them what to do. That is one of the big messages that came out of yesterday.
Sometimes they react with a massive “up yours”.
I don’t mind being told what to do, but please understand my life is my own project.
Jumpy:
Wow indeed, but Qld has been down to 1 or 2 federal Labor seats before, and it doesn’t necessarily translate.
Next state election is November next year. At state level Greater Brisbane often votes for the best conservative party available, and sometimes that is Labor. That happened last time. Nevertheless I think Palaszczuk’s prospects right now do not look bright.
I need a coffee now, then some exercise, then Mark is coming around to help us watch a French spy series, second episode, with about 5 series and 40 episodes to go. The first was rivetting!
Brian
I agree totally.
She must be scratching her head wondering what to campaign on with Health, Education, Energy, Road infrastructure and Water being hijacked and flogged by the Feds constantly.
It’s almost like the State Governments, who are responsible for these thing, are seen as irrelevant nowadays.
I’ll take heart from three things:
1 – Palmer spent $80 million or so and got no result (good luck to the nickel workers trying to collect the money he owes them)
2 – The extreme right is not flourishing. The Liberal Democrats (LDP) Senate primary vote was down in every state except Tasmania, and the parties of Cory Bernardi and Fraser Anning received buggerall primary votes
3 – Nationally there was a swing to the Greens in the Senate, albeit a small one.
Addendum: I still think we’re stuffed.
Wow, Brian, your are a superman to my BS tolerance level. I can’t watch conservative speakers without having a thumb hovering the mute button. I’m pleased that you are not deterred.
Regarding Quincelanders, their huge leap forward to the past, and sharing, I think that pleas for a flood of cyclone bailout in future will fall on disinterested ears. “Use your coal royalties”, will likely be the mood.
Most of the royalties are spent way south of the cyclone belt.
None at all on disaster insurance like other States.
We pay that individually up here.
Born and bred Northeners would probably be looked at as bomb shelter preppers in comparison to the “ Great Southeasterners “
Quinceland Labor voters have no need to apologise to anyone. Victoria had “winnable” seats which were not won. It was a national election. The H of R is supposed to represent us all, on pretty much a fair distribution of seats.
Labor needs a thorough review of its policies and MPs.
Labor Coasting to Victory was never a good look.
A Caravan of Complaint by Southern Busybodies.was quite possibly an error: what say you, Dr di Natale??
By the way, the voters never get it wrong: the first principle of representative government. We all have to live with the government we elected. Except possibly BilB.
It seems a solution has already been found.
Found…
https://www.google.com/search?q=we+demand+quexit&rlz=1C9BKJA_enAU749AU749&hl=en-GB&prmd=inv&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjzvfLBmqfiAhVb7HMBHWZ-ACEQ_AUoAXoECAwQAQ&biw=1112&bih=725#imgrc=JvLmrgjrlGtd3M
I wouldn’t mind a National border along the Tropic of Capricorn between North Australia and Southern Australia.
Trouble is the Tropic of Capricorn is moving northward by 15 meters per year.
Interestingly enough the Tropic of Cancer is moving southward at the same rate.
Bizarrely, the technical tropical region of the Wolrd is shrinking by thousands of km2 each year.
Well A thousand if my math is correct.
And that’s not guaranteed.
Anyway, it seem the only cause for ALP celebrations was a seat they didn’t win ( Warringah ) and one contested by their ex- President ( Gilmore ) that they did.
You haven’t quoted your source, but according to James Cook University a decade ago the tropical region (i.e. the area of the globe which experiences tropical climate) was expanding due to climate change. At that stage the tropical region covered roughly 30 degrees north and south of the equator.
Since in my understanding the actual tropics are always 23.5 degrees north and south of the equator, I don’t really understand what you are saying. Sorry.
Warren Mundine was “parachuted in” as a Captain’s Pick. About as successful as Mr Abbott’s knighting of the Prince consort of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II. (But just a sideshow to the main event.)
When Mr Howard lost his seat, and to Labor, he was the PM rather than an ex-PM.
Patricia Karvelas noted this morning that PM Morrison will have an easier task in government, at least insofar as both Mr Turnbull and Mr Abbott have now departed.
The creeping tropic lines: at that rate Mr J, they move about 1.5 km every century? So they should both reach the equator after a few thousand centuries?
Not my era, not my concern.
But actually I’m just as puzzled as zoot on this.
Us kiddies in Primary School were led to believe certain geographical features, determined by the rotation of the Earth as much as by human intellect, were fixed:
North Pole
South Pole
Equator
Tropic lines (Cancer, Capricorn)
Later we learnt that the magnetic Poles wander, and eventually science accepted Wegener’s Continental Drift hypothesis. That took ages, but not as long as your Eventual Merger of Tropics with the Equator…. [Or will the Tropic lines simply pass each other and each move into the opposite hemisphere?]
Please humour us, Jumpy.
It may help us stop thinking about Electile Dysfunction.
😉
Funny thing is that, in the week before the election I had real concerns that the LNP would win despite the polls.
Funny thing now is that despite the claims that that Morrison has won Labor will end up forming government after agreeing with the independents to remove or water down a fair slab of their tax change proposals.
OK, perhaps this is wishful thinking and nightmare denial coming from an ageing Greenie. However, there are a lot of votes still to count with some of those being cast well before election day. In addition, many of the independents were stronger on climate action compared with the LNP. (Would not be hard.)
I’d like an explanation of why the exit polls got it so wrong. Were people ashamed to admit they’d voted for the shambles that was the Coalition?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tropic_of_Capricorn
It’s unfortunate that the knee jerk reaction to everything I say is total confusion and disbelief.
“ Wait, what, the polls were were wrong!!???!! “
Whoda Thunkit.
Why does it seem the polls are always inaccurately favouring the left side of things ?
Hmmmm…
Like the time they confidently predicted the overwhelming re-election of Jeff Kennett?
The disbelief is in your own imagination and had you supplied the link there would have been no confusion. We all would have understood you were referring to changes in the tilt of the earth’s axis relative to the Sun (although I wouldn’t be surprised if you didn’t realise that)
BilB, good to hear your feisty remarks, and Ootz good to hear from you too. Mark didn’t come over tonight, but I’ll pass on your greetings, BilB. His Facebook has possibly 1000 friends, some oldies and a lot of newbies. Lots of discussion on the election, albeit one-liners as the format goes. I’ve had a long text exchange with Mark, and commented on his FB, so I’ll get to some of that when I do an election wrap, perhaps in a day or two’s time.
Meanwhile John D, I do believe that ScoMo will have 76 at least and more likely 77-79. Let’s just wait and see. With 76, he can elect a speaker can govern, and has the assurance that Bob Katter will always support him or is easily bought by a few 100 million.
At which point the indies from Indi and Warringah, and Wentworth still in doubt, become bystanders. ScoMo won’t be consulting them about climate change.
The best we can realistically hope is that Angus Taylor will be given a portfolio that keeps him away from energy.
Arthur Sinodinos said we’ve got ScoMo with a policy vacuum and ScoMo should steal Labor’s best policies, especially climate change.
The fact is ScoMo has no money to do anything at all, and the Nats are not going to wear any climate change nonsense.
A “miracle” is indeed needed with a looming international debt crisis, trade wars, restructuring of international trade, worsening financial regulatory standards and increasing cyber threads (rough summary here, happy to expand on). Yet our new federal government is a one man show, just like the election campaign was. Morrison made it emphatically clear to Leigh sales who will be in charge in the party room if he wins: “I will”.
We only know two minister positions that have been assured by Morrison, treasury and environment. Many of the previous cabinet ministers are gone and there is a considerable lack of depth and experience in the government. The prepared ‘blue book’, the thorough briefing papers for incoming ministers in the event of a coalition win, is extremely slim. As Arthur Sinodinos said on the night “Nature abhors a vacuum” and even blatantly suggested, that with Morrison’s single handed victory he can do what he wants and should perhaps look into some of the Labor policies to see what people found attractive there. This was prefaced and followed with more than a few hints re climate change by Arthur.
Now Arthur is a seriously nifty operator, who’s been around the block a few times, and even with Morrison’s newly won hero status in the liberal party, the question remains: how will such centrist policy moves go down in the crazed right punterland and the buoyed National Party, never mind with Palmer and Murdoch/IPA wielding a minted IOU they earned with their campaign assault?
Interesting times ahead.
Polls are now officially irrelevant and the betting markets no better. Seems the demise of the White Pages and landlines have snookered the sampling. Morgan used to do door to door, but that is probably too expensive now.
Mark thought the exit poll should have been accurate, and we’ve been given no clues as to why not. I’d guess either incompetent sampling, or people telling lies.
BilB there were a few problems with your links. Here is Greenhouse Gas Levels Keep Accelerating. Your link was to the blog site ‘home’.
It’s deeply disturbing, especially on methane.
Ha cross posted comments Brian, I forgot to mention the senate composition, which I think will not be very accommodating given the sentiments expressed by Lambie and The Greens wins.
But quell suprise we agree largely 🙂
Here’s Australians joke that Queensland should be ‘cut loose’ in ‘Quexit’ after the state’s voters rally behind the Coalition and ditch Labor.
At the Betoota Advocate they are having a field day including Manila Sofitel Concierge Finally Locates A Sunbaking George Christensen To Relay The Good News and Clive Palmer’s Failed Election Campaign Leaves Nation Facing Critical Yellow Ink Shortage.
The real Clive Palmer says he succeeded in suppressing Labor’s vote with his ‘shifty Bill’ adds. He’s possibly right, but the Libs and a lot of outside bodies did the same.
Jumpy
Cool it, cobber.
I had merely never heard of the creeping Capricorn. Thanks for the information.
Now, as to polls, the pollsters have a serious problem, which perhaps Brian’s mathematician son might advise on.
As I understand it, the key is sampling. For best results, the poll must use a sample of the population which accurately represents the whole. If gender affects voting intentions, the sample needs to have 50:50 in M:F respondents. Likewise for other factors, for instance geographical location, income level, age, etc. Not 50:50, clearly, but representing the various proportions as they exist in Australia.
(For instance, if 9% of the population live in regional cities, the sample should include 9% of such folk.)
Now you can see that it may be tricky to find and tailor that sample but that’s the task.
Meredith Burgmann on ABC TV on Sunday claimed the ALP in NSW had stopped trying to poll inner city voters many years ago, because landlines had dwindled as mobiles rose. So you couldn’t phone a person, knowing their suburb.
*****
Years ago a statistician told me there is a classic story from USA, possibly around 1940, when a political pollster got a result badly wrong. Why? They used telephone polling. Relatively few homes had a telephone. They were sampling from a small, more affluent pool. As it happened, the wider electorate voted the other way.
A telling anecdote about the importance of getting your sampling right.
++++++
Also, why should a respondent tell the truth?
If phoned, you might impersonate a different character….. mightn’t you?? Just for fun.
There’s a nice statistician’s joke in a headline in Nine newspapers online:
“Pollsters 95% unsure how they got the election wrong”
Neat.
A trickier question is how Parties’ reliance on the polling shaped the campaigns. Another article by Michael Koziol (in “The Age”) says the Liberal Party polled twenty marginal seats repeatedly; instead of asking “which Party will you vote for?” the staff asked “which candidate will you vote for?” The claim is, that this method gives more accurate tallies.
Could it be as simple as this?
Voters heard Chris Bowen say, “If you don’t like Labor policies, don’t vote for us!” and decided it was very good advice.
An academic from ANU said on Sunday, that with a primary vote as low as 26% or 27% in some Queensland seats, it was time for Labor persons to stop “bleating on” about Palmer preferences. Seems a fair point.
By the way, Mr Koziol wrote that the ALP franking credits policy gave some voters ‘a selfish reason’ to vote against Labor. Apparently on Planet Koziol, it’s fine for the underemployed, the cancer patients, the parents needing childcare, those who’ve had penalty rates cut, to ‘vote for selfish reasons’ but not OK for other citizens to look to self-interest.
Who said it? “If there are several horses in a race, back Self Interest every time. At least you know it’s trying!”.
Which Jumpy claimed to have done on at least two occasions.
Yes, but “she” was alone in that sample…. wasn’t she???
How will we ever know?
Ootz, I didn’t see your comments last night, but yes we largely agree.
Right now it looks as though the LNP will have a working majority in the House. In the senate it looks like Labor and Greens together with 34, the LNP 34, and on the cross bench ON and Centre Alliance (CA) on 2 each, Jacquie Lambie and Cory Bernardi.
That would mean ScoMo would need 5 of 6 of those, and he can’t ignore ON or CA.
Along with the climate deniers in the National party it is foolish to say that ScoMo has open slather on policy. But whatever comes out of it, the indies, Greens and Labor have no power to stop him.
Senate counting is only about half done so that might change, but not much.
Ambi, when the franking credits policy was formulated, Labor did a calculus that if those affected voted against Labor it would have about zero effect electorally. I think that was what was behind Bowen’s remark.
However, ScoMo made it into a generalised “retiree tax”, which was a lie, and then said, that’s just the beginning, Shifty is coming after the rest of your money.
And BTW he’ll be beholden to the Greens and they will force him to bring in a death tax. Which was simply untrue.
Unfortunately lies, personal character demolition and scare campaigns have become the main toolkit on the conservative side. Bad behaviour has been rewarded.
Labor thought it couldn’t work, which was wrong, but ScoMo did it all with enthusiasm, good humour and style. He seems a good bloke.
So people in nursing homes voted against getting their teeth fixed and voted for a mob that had removed $3 billion from the sector, which is why they have to wait to get their sanitary pads changed.
ScoMo will never have enough money to make a real difference.
I could go on, but ordinary folk and the people on the fringe largely voted against their own best interests.
I don’t think people made an active choice to turn away from something approaching the Nordic model, and opt for the American model, but that is effectively what they did.
Jumpy, I need to say to you that I didn’t appreciate your sniping at the top of the thread. It’s not pretty and it reflects on you.
If you want to know about Tanya Plibersek’s husband, you could start here.
Apparently he’s been appointed Secretary of the Department of Justice by a Liberal government. Your behaviour on this count is part of what’s wrong with political discourse in Australia.
An apology is warranted.
Brian:
Looks like enough to block coal fired power.
The Libs have had a near death experience with climate action. If Morrison is smart he will do quite a bit to get away from the climate inaction label even if it means pissing of the Qld Nationals.
Yes Brian
It was untrue to call it a retiree tax.
But some commentators were saying it was too complicated to understand and that the angry grey-haired shareholders didn’t understand it either.
Both of these assertions were incorrect. You explained the “franking credits” arithmetic on this blog. And a politician said on Sunday that every retired elector who spoke to him knew to the nearest cent how much lower their “refund cheque” would be. (It isn’t rocket science to go and look up last year’s income tax return.)
On Sunday, Ms Plibersek opined that Labor hadn’t had enough time to explain their policies. She can’t have it both ways, having claimed the moral/electoral high ground by announcing policies early, being upfront with the public, blah blah blah… It’s the job of senior politicians to speak to and persuade the electors. Labor gave themselves ample time. Many voters applauded them for that very thing.
I’m not an ALP member, so I have no reason to be involved in their leadership scuffle. Not my monkeys.
But I do wish our politicians in every major Party would be more intelligent. Starting with not attempting to serve up foolish excuses.
Your critique of Dr di Natale has been apt and well-focussed.
In my opinion it’s high time the Liberals stopped revering John Howard. Learn from his skills and adaptability, fine. But he had flaws. We all do.
In my opinion it’s high time Labor ceased to worship at the shrines they’ve built to Gough Whitlam, to Bob Hawke; to Kevin Rudd, Julia Gillard and Paul Keating. Every one of these leaders had achievements to remember and qualities to admire. But every one of them had human frailties and made mistakes. Learn from their skills, and stop whitewashing their errors which in some cases were huge.
I recognise it’s difficult to be clear sighted about political questions. …
“Excuses are like a***holes. They’re very useful, and everybody has one.”
Labor and Greens alone can’t block the Coalition, but get a few Indies lined up, …..
{Jumpy: please look up West Indies, East Indies, and Dutch East Indies. }
terima kasih
Brian
And that is going to be extremely difficult.
The standing Centre Alliance Senators are Rex Patrick and Stirling Griff.
If you click on either of those and scroll to the very bottom, then click [ all possible friends ] it’ll show who they most often vote with.
( lovely little tool )
Consistently greens first then ALP and last LNP.
Getting 5 of the 6 theyll have to give SA their first borns or better.
Hope that cheers you up. My comments above I thought were LPesque in spirit. The type of thing almost everyone was reminiscing about before the election. I’m not sure to whom I’m supposed to apologise too, it was totally factual.
Brian: The AEC Senate results at 3.05 PM 20/5 had the Greens on a National swing of +2.6% with all states on a positive swing including +4.8% for Qld. Labor nationally was down 0.3% and -2.82% in Qld. The Greens appear to have been doing something right. The results suggest that Labor was doing something wrong and that blaming the Greens is not completely fair.
Labors policies would frighten a lot of people faced with falling house prices and scared a lot of pensioners who found it hard to understand what Bowen was on about beyond “Bowen is attacking pensions.” Lost count of the number of Labor red “stop the retiree tax” signs at polling booths – some strategically cutting off the view of Labor party signs. The death tax lie didn’t help either.
One other thing I noticed was the amount of green that was on the National, Labor and independent signs. You had to read the writing to realize it wasn’t a Green party sign.
Jumpy: One picture to annoy, one to please Shame we didn’t do a Central Qld version of Quexit before the election so that most Australians would havebeen able to enjoy good government.
(Lived in Central Qld for a year. Found the natives almost as foreign as the ones on Groote Eylandt.)
Doubt that Queenslanders in SE Qld would want to Quexit.
As a matter of interest I believe that state boundaries should be moved so that the are equi distant from the nearest capital.
Also think it is strange that Bris is capital of Qld given that it is closer to Launceston than large parts of Qld.
Also believe we need more states to help decentralization. Much easier to grow the new capital cities than ordinary old towns.
Best hope for Qld Labor is to kill Adani now and stop Adani being an issue. (Worth noting that Adani is already producing solar power in Aus.)
Sorry to be a bore about the franking credits, but after the discussion here, I saw a comment in another forum which clarified the position for me. I’ll try to reproduce it.
The crux of this argument is that franking credits were created to ensure investment income is only taxed once.
When people with income which included dividends had a tax liability their income from dividends was in effect being taxed twice – at the company rate and then at the personal rate.
Claiming the franking credit as a deduction from the investor’s tax liability removed this double taxation, ensuring their income from investments was only being taxed once.
People with no overall income tax liability can’t possibly be taxed twice on their investment income.
When Howard/Costello decided to make the franking credit a cash payment to these people they were actually refunding to them a portion of the company’s tax liability, making the effective tax rate on that portion 0%.
This is what makes it a rort.
Here endeth the sermon.
No it wasn’t. to be totally factual it would have read
I’ll bet you’re one of those who believes every immigrant should be fluent in English.
Jumpy, zoot has nailed it. The first chance you got you dissed Plibers about something her husband did before she married him. Probably before they met.
Whether it is accurate or not is not the point. It’s not relevant to Plibers suitability to serve now, and is raising it is an implicit claim that it is indeed an impediment.
It’s vexatious.
BTW, Plibers has said she won’t be standing for leader, because it’s incompatible with family responsibilities.
The Oz has already paid out on Albo, calling him a hard-left factional leader, and anyone who thinks he’s appropriate has rocks in their head.
If Labor chooses Albo, the deputy would normally be somebody from the right and a different state. I’m hoping for Jim Chalmers, who is from Rankin in Qld and holds a PhD in political science and international relations from the Australian National University, and did a good job as campaign spokesperson.
Labor needs someone who understands Qld. Actually there are not a lot of Queenslanders who understand Qld. John D is right. We need more states, not less.
Thanks zoot.
That was as clear and succinct an explanation as I’ve seen.
Now, if I may sink the slipper into a frequent commentator?
Judith Brett built a career by writing about the Liberal Party, though she once had a gig with Arena magazine.
Not really horses for courses, but I digress.
In “The Monthly” she published a short piece on the recent election campaign: “The government’s appeal to self-interest groups“, which includes this –
This is a complicated area to navigate for people without a share portfolio or self-managed superannuation fund (i.e. the majority.) Nonetheless there are two key facts to consider when judging the moral worth of Labor’s policy. First, since 2006 self-managed superannuation funds pay no tax at all on their income when the trustees are receiving a pension. A retiree can have an annual income of $100,000 or more and pay no tax. Second, since 2000, franking credits (tax refunds to shareholders in Australian-owned companies for company tax already paid) have been given as cash refunds to people (and superannuation funds) who pay no tax. Prior to this franking credits were only used to reduce tax. These cash refunds are thus a reliable source of income for people living on their self-managed super funds. Both of these policies were introduced when Howard was prime minister and Peter Costello was treasurer, in part to shore up the Liberal Party’s electoral support among older Australians.
Alert readers will see that part of this accords with zoot’s excellent narrative.
What do I object to?
Dr Brett seems to believe that the only losers were going to be owners of ‘self managed super funds’ (SMSFs).
Incorrect.
1. The vast majority of superannuants draw their incomes either directly as a pension from some huge super fund, private or industry; or receive an income stream from a superannuation lump sum they’ve invested with a big funds managing firm. Being income derived from superannuation sources, this is tax free in both cases. [Frankly, I think that’s a needless concession; but thanks are due to Treasurer Costello.] NB: These people do not have a ‘SMSF’.
2. Only a tiny proportion of superannuants ever had a SMSF. Yet that tiny group of voters are not the only folk who would have lost ‘refund cheques’ under Labor’s policy, because
3. Some people from 1. above also own some shares that pay fully-franked dividends. These people are liable to pay income tax on dividends, but many have modest shareholdings and hence their total dividend income may well be below the (income) tax threshold.
4. And so, due to the Howard/Costello generosity, some people in 1. and 3. have been receiving ‘refund cheques’.
Dr Brett seems to suggest the only losers from Labor’s franking credits reforms would be SMSF owners (read, “wealthy, top end, too wealthy for their own good” etc.
Brian Bahnisch and Prof zoot understand the topic. Dr Brett displays a superficial grasp, and then blunders.
Many of the retirees who complained to TV interviewers about the prospective change were on fairly modest incomes. The Labor policy could have been refined to avoid catching those people: arithmetic is not a difficult field of human endeavour. And who knows?, a semi-hostile Senate might have forced Labor to alter it in any case.
zoot, on franking credits, whatever the arguments, it was quite offensive for rich people to be using super as a tax haven, paying no tax at all, then getting a cheque from the tax office.
Labor probably should have grandfathered the changes.
Shorten said, if you don’t understand franking credits, don’t worry because you won’t be affected.
Banks have jumped 8% on the stock exchange today, because they were materially affected, or so people think, by Labor’s policies. Consumer stocks have gone up, because people were worried about Shifty coming and stealing all their money.
It’s true, however, that consumer spending always dips before an election, and we’ve been in pre-election mode since last August.
Stock markets are highly irrational, based on fear and greed as well as ‘fundamentals’.
Any way, a listed early childhood provider (a notion I find offensive) saw their price go down by over 2%.
Swings and roundabouts.
Apologies Brian.
Mine and yours crossed.
As far as I can see the old “hard left” was gradually, but long ago, excised from Federal Labor. The late Gough helped some ALP enthusiasts in Victoria remove the undemocratic and Stalinist Hartley/Crawford regime many decades ago. Gough had to fight various ‘Left’ warlords in other States to achieve the cleaning out of the Victorian stables. The horsesh*t was piled so high in Carlton, that no-one but the ‘Left’ in-crowd could breathe.
State election after State election lost.
Rigid ideological ‘purity’ maintained.
Ambi, there is a further category of people who benefit from franking credits. They are people not old enough to have a pension, do paid work (or not) and own some shares. Many (some) of these will not get a cheque, but will have their tax liabilities reduced.
Brian: I must have misunderstood the ALP policy – I thought these people would not be affected (but I’m nowhere near as close to the topic as you are).
Was it ALP policy to do away with franking credits altogether, or was that just the Lieberal’s spin on it?
I just checked, and no, the policy was only to remove refunds of excess franking credits.
From here.
Brian
Firstly, zoot never nails anything.
Secondly, you are reading into my comment invective, malice, and motive that wasn’t there.
Rather than ask me what I meant you seem to have let emotion and imagination create blanks that didn’t exist and fill them in incorrectly.
Perhaps it’s best I don’t comment till your post election mourning period is over.
Hope it’s before the next election, please let me know when.
Even if you are a relatively affluent retiree there is a bit of unease about whether you have enough resources to carry you through to the end of your life. (You retire at 65 and may live to 100 and may have to pay for expensive medical procedures or may face very long delays for getting disabling or painful medical problems fixed and may want to help your children or may…..AND you cannot go back to work because you have lost the skills, contacts etc.) So having someone threatening future income and security can be a bit of a worry even if it is not completely logical. The other problem as you get older can be a reduced ability to understand some complicated problem such as understanding the franking issue. Even more difficult when that nice man from the xxxxx party deliberately adds to the confusion. Basic lesson: It is particularly dangerous to try and take money of the elderly even if what is proposed does make sense. Labor was stupid and we a stuck with the results of that stupidity.
So now Jumpy is disputing the meaning of the phrase “totally factual” (or is it the words “totally” & “factual”) – this could prove amusing.
JD I’m confident I have enough to last me until I die – as long as I die sometime near the end of next year 🙂
Jumpy:
Sounds like a good idea. I am sure we can extend the mourning for a long , long time given the offer you just made.
Jumpy:
No need to talk about what you meant. You simply should not have said what you did.
Now you are making stuff up. I’m not mourning. That would be a waste of time and energy.
Pointless asking what you mean boyo.
If you deign to respond you either obfuscate or bluster. Up thread we asked you what you meant with your comment about the tropics receding and your response was a huge dollop of self pity:
I’m happy to stay in mourning for the next three years (if anybody cares) but it will keep me pretty busy since I’m still completely occupied with mourning Hillary’s loss.
/sarc
Can we for once not make this thread about a petulant immature individual who relishes in upsetting and derailing decent and pertinent discussions, thanks. This latest outburst is just the tip of an iceberg that floats through the history of C+ and LP. Why engage with freewheeling sociopaths, it is not that we don’t have bigger issues at hand, please.
There was always hope with the increasing voices from business and industry for a rational approach to energy and climate, which was repeatedly taken up by A. Sinodinos, that we may see some sanity. It looks like the voices of the ‘quite’ Australians drowning out these sentiments. As an article in afr puts it Tell em they’re dreamin’
Ootz, in Monday’s AFR there was an article that identifies Angus Taylor as a funds-raising tyro, who funnelled funds to help in a number of electorates. ScoMo owes him, and is likely to give him the portfolio he wants.
It will be highly interventionist, with the Feds thinking they run electricity in important ways.
Basically a huge negative for business, and investment in any sector where the price of electricity is important.
Yes Brian, and thus the ‘quite’ Australian will be facing the pollution – reliability – prices trifecta.
Not sure if I can share the muted optimism of Ben Oquis in SMH. But if Labor is clever, they’ll let the government ‘own’ the jackpot and go to war with itself.
Again, zoot, by going to the actual policy you have nailed it.
Quite correct, Brian.
Anyone owning shares which happen to offer franking credits (not all do), can benefit by having their income tax liability reduced.
There then arise several problems for Labor or any Party proposing redistributive policies.
Every worker has an indirect investment in Australian shares through their superannuation account(s).
Old folk may well be concerned about their basic living expenses, as John points out, upon retiring and especially in the early years when they are still adjusting to new financial circumstances.
Every worker hopes eventually to become an older, retired person; those with foresight will be interested to know of superannuation and pension policies that may affect them decades down the track.
Many Australians now have direct ownership of small parcels of shares; perhaps more so now, than decades ago when this was more the province of the well-to-do??
Most retirees have an extended family who will hear of their grandparents’ or parents’ concerns about income.
Once a benefit has been extended to a large group of citizens, it is politically difficult to withdraw it. This is so, whether the group is ‘wealthy’ or ‘poor’.
It may be that older voters are now more likely to be in the “swinging” zone and willing to jump onto a single issue when voting.
/Here endeth the sermon.
Ambi, probably the whole franking credits cheques should have been grandfathered, or restricted to those born before 1965 (younger than 55 yr), or those with less than median income in retirement.
The senate would have modified Labor’s plans, if they allowed them at all.
Ootz, ScoMo is an economic geographer by training, whatever that is, but I don’t think he has a minimal understanding of atmospheric physics or anything remotely relevant to global warming.
Climate denialists in any case are quite impervious to scientific information and 100% sure of their position.
ScoMo doesn’t have a chance of achieving any kind of ‘consensus’ except around the Greg Hunt inspired notion that we can pretend to do something while doing nothing (or worse). ScoMo is not going to be taken seriously internationally on climate, I’m wondering whether he will be taken seriously at all.
Chris Bowen has entered the Labor leadership race. I don’t thing he is gregarious enough. On Q&A last night it appeared to be suggested that a necessary qualification for being PM was to be beer-swilling, and able to kick a football, or swing a tennis racquet, even if badly.
Jim Chalmers (Rankin SEQ) doesn’t qualify on these grounds either. He seems a really nice guy and high on IQ (emotional intelligence) but would have trouble connecting in provincial Qld, whereas Albo would, as given witness by Bob Katter, who is an open fan.
Has anyone thought about how the LNP leaders must pre-arrange their visits to turn them into a free add, with ScoMo picking up the Abbott tradition of doing something active that humanises him?
Gillard, Rudd and Shorten I think just went there and what happened happened, if wasn’t confected, almost scripted to the same degree.
Correct, Brian
The Labor franking credits policy could have been grandfathered, and restricted in some other ways.
I agree that the Senate would likely have amended it; strikes me that both Senator Lambie and Senator Hinch are looking to help the lower paid.
How good are broken promises!
72 hrs after being reelected the tax cuts are gone, even though ATO said the could be issued post tax year ending and they were already fully included in the projected growth by RBA used for budget forecast.
Meanwhile RBA minutes of latest meeting downgraded growth rate in the face of growing jobless figures and lack of consumption. So increasingly the prospect of the quite Australians are having to forgo smashed Avocado to pay for their poor prices … BLAME LABOUR!!
Make that last sentence “power prices”
Brian (Re: MAY 21, 2019 AT 11:20 AM)
I would suggest you look at who is advising ScoMo. Dirty Power says under heading Scott Morrison and the Prime Minister’s Office (on page 12) begins with:
Control the information and you control the agenda.
Not all. Former climate ‘denier’ regrets ‘how wrongheaded but certain I was’
How good is your opening sentence at 1.15pm Ootz!
🙂
Ootz (Re: MAY 21, 2019 AT 1:15 PM & MAY 21, 2019 AT 1:16 PM)
Posted yesterday at the SMH is an article by Cole Latimer headlined Morrison win sparks sharp lift in wholesale electricity prices. It begins with:
Didn’t the COALition promise, if they were returned to government, to bring power prices down?
Posted today at ClimateCodeRed is an article by David Spratt headlined “Climate emergency”: Evolution of a global campaign. It begins with:
Change the language; change the perceptions.
Posted late yesterday at The Guardian is an article headlined Arthur Sinodinos urges Liberals to use renewables to boost environmental credentials. It begins with:
Interesting to see whether this leads to anything significant.
I’m thinking the modern left in general doesn’t apply to the Kubler-Ross model.
We rarely see the 3rd stage and even more rarely the 5th with them.
( just kidding, I had a great day and am joshing around a bit. 😉 )
zoot, you are in full mourning for Hillary?
What about the failed candidate George McGovern? I mourn his loss.
But you, sir, apparently do not.
“Have you no decency, sir?”
Ambi, when your heart is broken it’s impossible to concentrate properly, of course I mourn George, I was just too overcome by emotion when composing my comment.
And I still occasionally weep when I remember how cruelly history treated Thomas Dewey, even though he was a Republican.
And in Nine’s SMH news I see that the now emeritus member for Warringah still hankers for a career in public life.
I am reminded of a Steve Bell (Guardian) cartoon published when Tony Blair retired. It featured Mr Blair opening the gifts his supporters had presented to him to mark the occasion.
The descriptions were all puns of the type (and here I’m really stretching my memory) “faux coffin dye”. My sentiments entirely when it comes to the onion muncher.
Stephen Fry on Brexit and honesty.
https://youtu.be/_HDFegpX5gI
Stephen Fry should stick with comedy and Greek mythology.
Oh wait, he is….
SCMO has just had a near death experience that some would say he avoided by the grace of some of his opponents. If he is smart he will be looking for ways to demonstrate that the conservatives can change their minds and do a good job of managing the transition to a lean economy.
At the moment business is ignoring the LNP and getting on with cleaning up Aus.
I just want to remind people that on present counting Labor has lost just 2 seats in Qld, and 1 in the rest of Australia.
From the opinion polls a little more than 1 in 50 in net terms changed their vote. There are 15 to 20% in the middle whose votes are quite volatile.
Rebecca Huntley reckons that a three-second sighting of an ad or a billboard could do the trick, and the reasons why people do what they do are legion, and possibly irrelevant to rational political discourse.
zoot at 8pm.
There, there, dry your tears.
Feeling better now?
I hesitate to remind you of the treacherous murder of our fine leader Julius Caesar. They didn’t call that conniving b*stard “Brutal” for nothing.
And to think that Tiberius these days is mentioned only for “Tiberius On The Telephone”!!! Pipsqueaks, the lot of them.
Ha ha Ambi you always manage to crack me up. nothing. Now I am compelled to bring up Agamemnon king of Mycenae and his pursuit of power and mammon. So here we go from the Trojan wars and infanticide to Brexit and the looming sixth extinction.
Thanks Bilb for that interesting take by Mr Fry. As it happened I as just finished a slow read by my favourite French poststructuralist philosopher Pierre Bourdieu Utopia of endless exploitation – The essence of neoliberalism. This short, though admittedly dense piece was translated and published in Le Monde in 1998. Written to be read slowly …
Brian, the narrowness of Morrisons win is overshadowed by the unexpectedness of it. The other aspect of it is that it will not resolve the internal power struggles within the government. If anything it will get worse. Morrison can’t govern decisively he has too many IOUs out there and massive conflicting interests. As John said, businesses will have to go on its own venturing into the various transitions required. Moreover we as individuals have to go on our own. An economy is a complex abstract beast with many variables, most of which have been or are pushed to extreme. Most people forget that we had decades without serious economic fallouts and think they are flat out coping with other fundamental changes in our society and personal life. Also how can voters make better political decisions when we are on a forced political diet of Game of Thrones. It is easier to disengage and watch the ‘real’ thing on telly.
To pick up John’s pertinent last sentence in his comment above I ask, has business the capacity to transition to a leaner economy and more to the point have we as individuals got the capacity to succeed in such transition? As well as, are we going to be allowed by the demagogues of our times to forsake the pull of mammon?
Ambi:
I said cleaner economy.
Business has started doing this for both reputational and economic reasons.
The problem is that some form or state government control is required to create a reliable, cost effective system. Business on its own driven by an inappropriate market system can’t do this.
In the last half hour the Courier Mail has reported:
Posted earlier this month (May 10) at Reuters is an article by Melanie Burton & Henning Gloystein headlined In a sunset industry, economics of Adani’s Australian coal mine questioned. It begins with:
Further along it includes (bold text my emphasis):
Looking at the thermal coal price chart for the period, 1 Jan 2019 to present, prices have dropped from an apparent peak of $101.52/tonne (Jan 17) to $82.52/tonne (May 21).
Existing thermal coal mines in the Bowen & Surat Basins in Southern Queensland and the coalfields in NSW should be very worried if Carmichael actually starts operating.
Oh sorry John to misquote you, but your comment does say
“lean economy”. Given the wider context it is interchangeable I’d suggest.
Re Adani, for those familiar with far North Queensland affairs, it was a very similar situation with the mega $8-9b Aquis development scheme in the flood plane of the Barron River in Cairns. Despite of all the huffing and puffing about jobs and economic growth it was an absolute furphy and the punters were strung along for any other purpose than that.
I’ll trust John Quiggin’s succinct analysis of the Adani situation, to the point as ever and weighted by significant runs on the board. See his previous post on that topic for further reference.
It was Ootz, sir.
It was Ootz, not me!
Please sir, I didn’t.
But to take up the serious points, a leaner operation is often cleaner, as Ootzi said. Some emissions represent sheer waste. Any smart enterprise which can minimise waste will usually minimise costs thereby.
Pollution can be reduced by regulation and by elightened self-interest (on the part of a manufacturer, a transport company, a power supplier, a farmer, a processor….)
Over here in Queen Victoria’s State [sorry guys: we too failed to deliver extra seats to Bill’s Crew] there’s a legend saying that certain enlightened company directors urged Premier Dick Hamer to inaugurate the Environment Protection Agency around 1970, so that cleaning up their companys’ acts would be a legal requirement. Then the shareholders and other directors couldn’t whinge about the costs incurred.
It’s a cute story, illustrating the unexpected paths that social progress sometimes takes. And once introduced, no Vic Govt could abolish the EPA. Might reduce its funding….
Posted this afternoon at the SMH is a good explainer by Peter Hannam (with contributions from Cole Latimer) headlined What’s next for the coal mine that helped to return Morrison to power? The sub-headline is:
Sub-headings include:
– First, what exactly is the project?
– How many jobs would the Adani mine create?
– What’s been the hold-up?
– What’s happening now?
– What do groundwater and springs have to do with it?
– And what about those finches?
– And there’s a rail link still being debated too?
– What does Adani say?
– And Canberra?
– Are anti-mine activists about to give up?
Worth a look if you can.
Geoff M: it seems that the Qld Premier wishes to expedite the environmental approvals process for a new coal mine.
She’s “had a gutful”.
Is that faint sound I hear, the sound of a Premier sniffing the political wind?
+ – + – + – +
Ootz: How good is Agamemnon?
😉
Mr A.
They’ll crunch the electorate numbers in QLD, as they should.
This last Federal election was predominantly fought on State issue anyway so she’s got some job ahead to distance QLD ALP from Fed ALP policies.
Then again, it’s 15 months away and attention spans and memories don’t seem to be that long anymore politically.
She could promise repealing those draconian VLAD laws again.
VLAD sir?
Do you refer to VLAD The Impaler?
Has he moved to Queensland…. Welcome to the historical forum Mr J.
And many thanks for adding VLAD to the list: Secretary Clinton, Senator McGovern, Thomas Dewey, Tsar Julius, and that merry old King Agamemnon. This is going rather well. Thank you, sir.
Sarah Henderson has conceded defeat in Corangamite.
Libby Coker, the ALP member, lives in Airey’s Inlet, a small town on the Great Ocean Road between Anglesey and Lorne.
VLAD laws Mr A.
Noddy brought that abomination of freedom in and Palacechook vowed to eliminate them.
Instead she just retained and strengthened them under a new name.
http://statements.qld.gov.au/Statement/2016/11/29/queensland-adopts-australias-toughest-serious-organised-crime-laws
No wonder politicians are not trusted.
I stand corrected.
Veritably Impaled Upon My Ignorance.
Vicious Lawless Associations sound to me, as a non-Queenslander, like the type of organisation that could fall foul of the law. Might get closed down.
But one problem is the old “guilt by association” principle.
Exhibit A: nice Mr Menzies introduced a Bill to penalise the Communist Party back in the early 1950s. Problem was, it was going to punish members of “communistic organisations”, as defined by the Govt of the day. Punishing not only the actual commos, but potentially every fellow traveller or sympathiser. If the commos urged violent revolution, were the sympathisers “guilty by association”? By result of a national referendum, Australia answered, “No.”
Exhibit B: a similar method was used to harrass and blacklist actual commos and comm symps in USA during the McCarthy era, early 1950s.
Exhibit C: anti bikie gang laws in Australia. Some civil libertarians harked back to Exhibit A in opposing the laws.
I still mourn Tsar Julius, no bikie lasted long in the Coloseum Dirt Bike Lion Races.
To repeat what GM posted:
She’s been playing this thing by the book with a straight bat, as has Bill Shorten, if you listen to what he actually says. I believe Stacia made the announcement standing on a coal wharf.
As Premier it would be inappropriate for her to interfere.
Stephen Fry on Brexit
https://youtu.be/_HDFegpX5gI
May 21 9.16 Jumpy dissing Stephen Fry. Now that is a joke. Branching out into comedy are we Jumpy?
Moving on to something serious, and which will make Australians appreciate our connection with the crown….
(What happens if Donald Trump refuses to leave the White House)
https://youtu.be/SLN_3zN9cOY
And the next one is downright scary
https://youtu.be/M_Su1taUG_U
In our system the Trump solution would come from the Governor General, or the Queen herself. This level of separation provides options and stability.
Keep your eyes on the ball folks …
It has been obvious for a long time, JQ said a much and now Qld Premier call Adani out. She .. we had all enough of the long winded charade to boost Adani’s corporate portfolio which divided our country as well as gave LNP opportunity to peddle fake hope in NQ and to bash greenies and ALP.
Meanwhile others decide to go quietly least we cause an investor stampede.
Fascinating insight in how wealth can be created in the whole Adani saga. Alex Turnbull, yes the son and investment banker, earlier on twitter:
Meanwhile I pity the poor folks in NQ who lost their jobs and still waiting to get paid meanwhile put on hold while fed on all this horse poo about jobs and growth, billions, kid you not, billions buckaroos in northern development fund, stadiums, labor labor labor, lunatic greenies, death tax etc. etc.
Yes Ambi, but Alcibiades runs a close second to Agamemnon, at least he is not ‘mythical’ which some people despise.
Oh what a burden being struck by Cassandra’s curse. So how good is that now, when the lunatic greenies were demanding $1bn fund from Labor for ‘just transition’ of coal workers?
Jim Chalmers has pulled out of Labor leadership, leaving Albo as uncontested. It may have been good for Albo to have to explain himself against a worthy contender, but that is not going to happen.
Chalmers for deputy? Deputy needs to be from the right and from another state.
And now this Top Miner BHP Sees an End to the Era of Coal
In other news British Steel collapse: Thousands of jobs at risk as firm becomes ‘first major Brexit casualty’
X X Politburo Mess.
Your eyes only.
A. Albanese stop.
Now ruling.
No candidates other.
Never were other nomination.
Q&A onto banned list see Alan Jones, filthy Murdoch Sewer.
Jim Chalmers no go for Politburo. He no Charmer. Pilberserk no. No berserk. Two Wongs don’t make it Right. A Calwell correct. C. Bowen no go. Stop. No experience. Banned word is “Albo” sound liking “Scomo”. Spit wash out mouth.
No bullcrap of generational changing.
Only generational changing for solar rooftop wind tidal. Gettit?? Politburo make joke. You laugh now.
Great Tradition continue Light on Hill, no Chinee work gold mines.
Women problem? What.
FU democracy we no need.
Politburo good have nice days all pipple.
END MESS.
HOW GOOD IS THIS Medicare bulk-billing changes will lead to reduced services, doctors warn
AND HOW GOOD IS OSTRAYA Medevac law repeal a priority, Coalition says, as self-harm rises among refugees
Oh and apparently the solutions to no policies is to ‘address bureaucratic blockages’. Meanwhile hear several times this morning on RN Breakfast by #Fran_tic_Nelly that LABOR GOT SMASHED at the elections. After decades of listening to RNBreakfast I am off listening to the birds, more value.
I have two offerings today which almost kept me awake the whole night.
First one aptly pulled the whole thermal coal issue together and brought it to the point Dirty Power a well produced summary of Michael West’s investigation into the issue. I knew bits and pieces but to see it nicely and plainly laid out in front of me … I got such a strong bout of hiccup which made Ms Ootz complain that she could not sleep.
So in need of distraction I started to read a paper I came across recently through an interesting contact I made on twitter Deep Adaptation: A Map for Navigating ClimateTragedy . It is another slow read, partly it summarised many issues we are very familiar, like in the chapter Systems of Denial, in a shocking way. In other parts because Deep Adaption has to address and juggle societal, technical, environmental constraints in a rapidly changing situation. It describes the perceived conventional approaches of adaption as “like trying to walk up a landslide”.
Since the Rio Earth Summit I have been ‘haunted ‘ by the question of what if we don’t get our collective act together. Twenty or so years ago in discussion on the topicI was introduced by a former neighbour and head of Rainforest CRC at JCU to the concept of resilience. Many of you might be familiar with Richard Heinberg at resilience.org. It sounded good at the time but nothing really happened on a broader scale. Will deep adaption go the same way? Quid facere debemus??
How does one sleep being struck with Cassandra’s curse?
Ootz, I’ve had a draft post on deep adaptation in the works for about four months now.
We’ve been having a family issue with my sister in hospital in rural Qld. The COALition has taken 5% off the top in hospital funding. The agreement is 50/50 state/Commonwealth, which the Feds have unilaterally turned into 50/45.
This has tangible effects on hospital staffing. I’d like to take what my sister has been experiencing and shove it up the noses of ScoMo, Cormann, Frydenberg and Greg Hunt.
Sorry, no new post last night and I have to go out again today. A few things to think about.
First, Bernard Keane points out the the Palmer vote Australia wide was 3.37%. In Qld it was 3.47% and in Victoria it was 3.59%. What are we to make of that?
Keane downplayed the Palmer effect, but in the article made no mention of the ‘death tax, and ‘shifty Bill’ advertising Palmer was blasting everyone with.
“The Bill we can’t afford” was an attack Labor never came to grips with.
Pamela Williams in the AFR says the ‘death tax’ hare was actually set running by ScoMo and Frydenberg. They must be well-pleased with the effects of their unethical scare campaign.
Ben Phillips, director of the Australian National University’s Centre for Economic Policy Research, did some analysis that showed that electorates that had a high share of blue collar workers, who typically were lower-income, lower educated, and perhaps more likely to be Christian shifted to the LNP. OTH electorates with higher incomes were more likely to swing towards Labor. The franking credits thing didn’t show up at the electorate level.
However, I strongly suspect the ‘retiree tax’ was a factor in Longman, where there are lots of retirees, including Bribie Island, where my wife’s bro lives. Longman was one of only 2 seats lost in Qld by Labor, (Herbert the other) although Swan’s former seat of Lilley is still in doubt.
Given that the seats directly affected by Adani (Herbert, Dawson, Capricornia and Flynn) suffered swings against Labor in the 7-11% range, you would be a mug if you thought the StopAdani cavalcade had no effect.
Palaszczuk didn’t do a backflip, she knocked some heads together to speed up the decision. I strongly suspect she also gave the Qld environment dept as the regulator an offer they could not refuse. The department itself is almost 100% certain to be deeply infested by greenies (it definitely was in theBeattie/Bligh years). I heard yesterday from a good source that Dr Tim Selig had been appointed official advisor to the dept. I’d need to check what he is up to these days, but he was Wilderness Society back in the ‘Wild Rivers’ days.
Such people never change their minds about anything. However, Stacia must have given them an offer they couldn’t refuse, because I heard her say on NewsRadio yesterday, how good it was to be opening up a whole new coal province, and all those jobs would flow.
Fair dinkum, I heard her say it.
Jackie Trad is saying that Commonwealth environment legislation (from 1998) lacks any climate change criterion, a fact confirmed and lamented by Tony Burke. Under these circumstances, Burke said, it would have been illegal for a Shorten govt the review the Adani decision, already made before the election was called, and to say they would do it before the election would have landed them in the High Court and raised the spectre of sovereign risk.
BTW, Bob Brown thinks China can be contained by instituting a world (democratic) government. That’s what he said the other day on The Drum. I’m afraid he’s turning into a fruit loop.
Have a good day!
On yesterday’s ABC The World Today was a segment titled Qld Govt meets with Adani as another company withdraws.
From about time interval 03:05 there’s an audio segment with Martina Linnenluecke, professor of environmental finance, Macquarie Business School. She says the Queensland Government needs to stop and think about the long-term future of jobs in the coal industry. She says research suggests investment in coal will be written down in less than ten years.
The Australia Institute released new research (May 23) showing Adani is not “ready to go” with its Carmichael coal mine and there are a number of significant reasons why Adani is not ready to proceed with its mine.
False hope for ill-informed voters, perhaps? Richard Denniss also says:
Perhaps if Carmichael does get the green light, Queenslanders will see before the next election who has been playing politics with their futures?
Brian
Just on your second paragraph at 11.04pm, I was wrong.
I had suggested Victorians mostly regarded Clive as an utter shonk who couldn’t be trusted with anything, let alone a person’s vote.
No Victorian can now pretend we live in “the progressive State” as lazy journalists are wont to describe Her Majesty’s Very Own State….. What’s that you say? Queen Victoria no longer reigns?? No-one at the Club bothered to let us chaps know. Harrumph.
Neither may we self-righteous Victorians sneer at Quincelanders. The votes are in; percentages cannot lie. If anyone regards a vote for Clive’s Party as a foolish waste of time, then clearly there are more fools here in Victoria than in Quinceland.
The only excuse I can think of, is that fewer of us were directly affected by the smelter closure or the dilapidation of the Coolum resort, than you Northerners.
Another snapshot, this time from regional Victoria.
First preference vote % from highest to lowest
Liberal 46.8
Labor 29.6
ON 7.5
Green 6.5
UAP 4.0
Ind. 2.9
Ind. 2.7
Labor vote rose from 27.8%, Green vote fell from 10.1%.
(The latter possibly due to the very youthful candidate, scarcely out of secondary school).
This voters in this seat, now called Monash, have re-elected Russell Broadbent (Liberal) several times. He is said to be a “moderate” Liberal.
Mr A
Clearly.
By more than 20% given the population difference.
Pricktorians are a strange bunch, could be the cold.
Cold, sir?
Cold?
We have cool, measured, moderate and very liberal temperatures…. You’ll not find snow falling in Swanston Street. No icebergs in Westernport Bay. No Polar Bears at Lorne.
We at least have seasons, sir.
Occasionally four in one day.
A surfeit of seasons.
Must toddle off to fill the hot water bottles and check for drafts at the doorways.
Cheerio
The ABC ran Inside Scott Morrison’s Donald Trump-like election victory That pointed out that, like in the US it was the lower income seats that tended to swing to the LNP and the wealthier seats that swung towards the left.
My take is that the wealthy can afford to be idealistic and to look at longer term things like climate action. In the case of the poor there are a number factors that might explain what has happened:
1. They get sick of the educated middle class talking down to them.
2. Left/green policies will often disadvantage the working class, particularly well paid workers like coal miners.
3. They simply cannot afford the short term losses being asked for in return for long term things like climate change.
Any other theories?
The other problem is that that the conservatives think they have a god given right to lie as long as it keeps them in power.
Ambi: We lived in Melbourne for year a long , long time ago. Found the natives a bit strange with things like their obsession with what school one had gone to.
They struggled to come to grips with the idea that my wife could have studied French, Latin and German at a coal mining town non-selective government school.
We struggled with the idea that some people should be addressed by their family name instead of their given name. Even more so since we moved there from a mine where referring to the manager as Mr….. was a way of taking the mickey. Then there were the dress rules…..
Hi John
Not sure where I saw it yesterday, may have been a comment on a story about a dating website designed for young humans who had attended private schools:
Brisbane “G’day!”
Sydney “Where do you live?”
Melbourne “Which school did you go to?”
Adelaide “Which church do you go to?”
Perth “G’day!”
In Newcastle where we came from the people were smart enough to know what time of day it was so the norm was “good morning” etc. In addition, the private schools were second rate so it would be rude to ask these people what school they came from.
We moved to Melbourne after years living on a multicultural island in the NT that was outside of mainstream NT culture. Greetings varied because of the multiculturalism but “wanna beer” was fairly common in a town where the average person drank 3 gallons of beer a week topped up with stronger stuff.
The kids didn’t like the loss of freedom entailed with moving to Melbourne. Eldest son referred to it as “that hellhole”. I didn’t like the lack of good fishing but became addicted to canoeing on the Yarra. (Canoeing on a river where you didn’t have to keep a lookout for crocodiles has its attractions.)
Lacking crocs, we specialise in crocks.
Crocks are just petrochemical sandals for the proletariat aren’t they ?
Sandals made of Crocs are for the uppity metropolitan Vaintorians.
Don Farrell?
Who?
Senator Don Farrell.
Nup, you’ve still got me stumped.