Last week Newspoll with a 50-50 two party preferred vote looked like an outlier. This week it has been joined by the Essential Report.
The Essential Report averages the past two weeks for its new result each week. Last week it had the LNP ahead 52-48, which indicates a strong underlying shift may be at play. Continue reading Poll stuff: is the worm turning?
It’s been simmering below the surface for weeks, but has now burst forth. A plan to rid the Senate of the pesky cross bench and make government safe for the major parties.
Lenore Taylor was onto it last Friday. The LNP government have plotted with the Greens and Nick Xenophon to change the senate voting system, presumably to their advantage. I suspect the real winner may be Xenophon, having turned himself into a party and able to pull from left and right. He may end up controlling the balance of power in the senate no matter who wins the Reps. Certainly the micro parties are up for the chop. Continue reading A July election to clear out the unrepresentative swill?
There are a few things we need to bear in mind when discussing the effects of proposed changes to negative gearing.
According to the AFR median weekly incomes in Sydney have increased by 17 per cent in the past eight years, while house prices have nearly doubled from $546,000 to more than $1 million. In Melbourne over the past six years median incomes have increased by 10 per cent while house prices have risen by 70 per cent, from $442,000 to $749,999. Prices are high and are due for a correction. Continue reading Negative gearing
Laura Tingle talking to Phillip Adams gave Scott Morrison 3 out of 10 for his speech to the National Press Club. We were promised vision and leadership when they turfed out Tony, now it looks like tinkering at the edges.
Teflon Turnbull had a bad week. Continue reading Saturday salon 20/2
Kate Carnell, wearing her Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry hat, recently called for budget cuts to what it calls “runaway spending” on the aged pension, family tax benefits and childcare, lest we become an economic basket case like Greece. It contained this little gem:
A key part of the ACCI submission is to review the aged pension and to force retirees who own homes to transform the pension into a loan that would be repaid when the home is sold. Continue reading More asset stripping of the aged
The US Supreme Court has just given the finger to the EPA’s Clean Power Plan, with implications for US democracy as well as the planet. Continue reading US climate action, and democracy, at a tipping point
Stuart Robert had to go. Ben Eltham goes through the detail and finds his defence “is somewhere between threadbare and farcical.” So Malcolm told him to resign, and he did.
So with Mal Brough and Jamie Briggs in the naughty corner, plus Warren Truss and Andrew Robb giving the game away, we now have five vacancies. Continue reading Saturday salon 13/2
New Hampshire told the political establishment they need to change or die.
American voters are grumpy, even angry with the politics that has been served up to them in recent years. Trump and Sanders prospered over the rest, who are seen as representing politics as they know it. Here are the results: Continue reading Poll stuff: New Hampshire edition
When Malcolm Turnbull was Minister for Communication he was often refreshingly honest about LNP policies he didn’t agree with, leading to an expectation that when he became PM policies would be modified. Now that politics is alive again after the summer torpor, several well-known commentators have taken a look at what the change to Turnbull means. Continue reading Turnbull: old policies immovable?
Newspoll came out 53-47 in favour of the LNP, so support for Turnbull looks solid and enduring. Bill Shorten’s personal ratings were a smidgeon better but still disastrous at 57 points behind Turnbull. To make matters worse, internal ALP polling on Bill has been leaked. Continue reading Poll stuff 2/2
We really didn’t need to see what Mitchell Pearce did with a dog on a couch. But we did, on the evening news, and it wasn’t pretty.
Peter FitzSimons raises some pertinent questions. Continue reading Saturday salon 30/1
As far as I know Clive Palmer’s two main cash producing assets were Queensland Nickel and the Coolum Resort, known now mainly for the fibreglass dinosaurs he installed all over the place. Coolum is presently shut, and Queensland Nickel has gone into receivership. Terry Barnes thinks “Palmer and his political influence are going the way of the fibreglass dinosaurs inhabiting his defunct resort at Coolum.” Continue reading Will Clive Palmer and QNI go the way of the fibreglass dinosaurs?
