Bill Shorten looked comfortable with Annabel Crabb in Kitchen Cabinet. He seems fresh as a daisy this late in the campaign. I think he has found the way of being in the moment, so nothing knocks him off balance, not even the bossy Sarah Ferguson, who seemed to get under Malcolm Turnbull’s skin in her Four Corners interviews. On Thursday he sailed through a disgraceful interview with Patricia Karvelas on ABC RN Drive intended to humiliate him, and another spiky and mostly irrelevant interview with the airhead Leigh Sales. He almost looks born to run.
Same sex marriage
The big story mid-week was said to be same sex marriage, I think because The Australianran a story (paywalled – Google Dennis Shanahan Bill Shorten flips on gay marriage plebiscite) saying he’s flipped in his views from 2103 about a plebiscite. Apparently it’s a character weakness to change your mind. Continue reading Election 2016 open thread: nearly there!→
more than at any time in the past 20 years, the two parties have presented strongly opposed policy platforms reflecting underlying ideological differences on economic policy, symbolic (bankers vs unionists) and substantive (upper income tax cuts) class issues, climate policy, equal marriage and more.
But, he says, none of the big issues have been debated. Labor have beavered away with their 100 policies, but have struggled to be heard. The LNP have used slogans and smooth words, oft repeated, which according to electioneering theory is what you may well remember as you wander into the polling booth.
The basic story of Labor’s costings could be told in one graph, but because of their media incompetence I couldn’t find a square-on shot of it on the net on Sunday. Here it is from the AFR:
The story is really quite simple. Labor makes structural improvements to the budget which lead to larger and growing surpluses over the longer term. The Coalition’s company tax makes the budget progressively more difficult in the out years. Continue reading Labor’s costings go phut!→
In modern Australia, no-one should have to justify their sexuality or their love to anyone else.
And under Labor, instead of providing a taxpayer-funded platform for homophobia, Parliament will do its job and deliver marriage equality within 100 days.
In revving up his election spiel Shorten said spending on health was an investment, not a cost. He says investment in health is basic to economic growth. It would be an important battleground if Turnbull would engage. The pointy end is that Labor is choosing to invest in Medicare and the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme rather than spending money on company tax relief. Continue reading The giant Medicare scare campaign→
In the third last week, with pre-polls open and the electorate yet to become engaged, or so it is said, the Coalition became more shrill, and the policies still roll out. Of particular importance, I think, were Labor’s restoration of funds to the CSIRO and Labor’s NBN alternative. I’ll deal with those two and then tell you who is going to win the election. Continue reading Election 2016 open thread: third last week→
Three weeks to go and the biggest story electionwise for me wasn’t the 10-year Labor budget plan, it was Turnbull’s pork barrel strategy.
Turnbull’s $1.7 billion pork barrel strategy
Phillip Coorey in the AFR has reported that the LNP are carpet bombing marginal seats with small vote-buying grants. We’ve had 58 “micro-announcements” in Coalition seats for projects like revamped football club change rooms, new netball courts, fixing mobile phone black spots. Some $1.3 billion has been used to sandbag LNP marginal seats. Funds have also been allocated to nine Labor seats and Denison, held by independent Andrew Wilke. Continue reading Election 2016 open thread: budgets and pork barrels→
Economy up, living standards down, and ScoMo starts a war as a distraction. Only 29 more days to go!
The national accounts figures were ostensibly good news for the Government. GDP growth at an annual rate of 3.1 per cent is brilliant. The next OECD economy I think is the UK with 2.1 per cent.
The election campaign grinds on, and we are not yet half way there. In this post I look at some of the claims being made on the economy, and it can serve as an open thread on the election.
The Coalition has made a big play on jobs and growth, plus Labor’s said recklessness and inability to manage the economy, finding huge ‘black holes’ in their costings. Of course, Labor is yet to supply it’s costings, which in 2013 the LNP only released on the Thursday before the election. So, always helpful to a fault, they’ve done Labor’s work for them.
The AFR Fairfax-Ipsos page helpfully reminds us that Kim Beazley gained 50.98% of the vote in the 1998 election but did not win. So with the two-party preferred vote now at 51-49 to the LNP, officially it’s too close to call. Anyway that slight lead is offset by Newspoll which came in at 51-49 to Labor for the fourth time in a row. So a couple of weeks of electioneering appear to have made no difference overall. Yet there are, I think, some important messages to be mined from the polls.
In revving up his election spiel Shorten said spending on health was an investment, not a cost. He says investment in health is basic to economic growth. It would be an important battleground if Turnbull would engage. The pointy end is that Labor is choosing to invest in Medicare and the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme rather than spending money on company tax relief.
In revving up his election spiel Shorten said spending on