The latest Essential Research survey is out, but they’ve sent it as a Word document rather than a PDF and for some reason WordPress won’t let me upload it (UPDATE: The good people at Essential have sent through a PDF). It has the Coalition maintaining its 51-49 lead for a third week running, though down a point on the primary vote to 44 per cent with Labor steady on 38 per cent and the Greens up one to 11 per cent. Other questions relate to gay marriage, which 50 per cent support but only 37 per cent consider important, and the National Broadband Network, with 69 per cent agreeing it is important that it be built.
Legal matters:
• The New South Wales government last week passed significant campaign finance reforms through parliament with the support of the Greens in the upper house, including several measures new to Australian practice which could set trends for the federal and other parliaments. Imre Salusinszky of The Australian described the bill, no doubt correctly, as “an intriguing mix of progressive public policy and political rat cunning”. To deal with its major features in turn:
Spending caps. Salusinszky’s “rat cunning” lies in the government’s decision to impose limits on electoral communication expenditure just as corporate donors fall over themselves to curry favour with a soon-to-be-victorious Coalition. More predictably and still more contentiously, the bill defines trade unions as third parties whose campaigning will not be affected by caps on party spending, even if they are affiliated with Labor (Barry O’Farrell has peddled legal advice claiming this to be unconstitutional), and treats the Coalition as a single party. Party spending in the six months up to an election will be limited to $9.3 million centrally and $100,000, amounting to another $9.3 million given there are 93 electorates. It should be noted that “electoral communication expenditure” excludes such expensive party operations as polling and other research, and there is a view abroad that this means it is not as restrictive as it should be.
Donation caps. Apart from the largely symbolic $50,000 cap on donations from the gaming industry in Victoria, these have previously been unknown in Australia. The legislation caps donations at $5000 per financial year to parties, not counting party subscriptions of up to $2000, or $2000 a year to candidates or elected members. Furthermore, donations have been banned altogether from the alcohol and gambling sectors (together with the tobacco industry at the suggestion of the Greens), which have done so much to fill NSW Labor’s coffers over the years. This move is particularly interesting in light of recent retirement announcements by Paul Gibson and Joe Tripodi, who are renowned for having built their influence as conduits for such funding. This will apply not only to hotels and the Australian Hotels Association, but also to Coles and Woolworths owing to their liquor retailing activities. However, a late agreement between Labor and the Greens saw the exemption of non-profit registered clubs.
Public funding. The parties have compensated themselves for donations caps with what will amount to a hefty increase in public funding, under new arrangements that rupture the traditional link between votes cast and funding received. Parties that score more than 4 per cent of the vote will instead be reimbursed for their electoral communication expenditure to a maximum of a bit under $10 million. Parties or candidates only running in the Council have been treated more generously at the insistence of the Greens – constitutional expert Anne Twomey says this might create legal problems as one type of political entity will be favoured over another, though George Williams says this is “arguable”.
Further north:
• AAP reports Queensland Opposition Leader John-Paul Langbroek has committed to sweeping electoral reforms if elected to government, including truth-in-advertising laws, campaign spending caps, electronic voting and a referendum on fixed terms if elected to government. In contrast to the spending cap just introduced in New South Wales, Langbroek proposes that campaign spending by (presumably Labor-affiliated) unions would count as part of Labor expenditure. In addition to these largely laudable measures, Langbroek also proposes to require that voters provide photo identification at the polling booth, citing spurious concerns about voting fraud to justify an effective restriction on the franchise to his own party’s electoral advantage.
• Jeremy Pierce of the Courier-Mail reports that a Gold Coast couple is challenging a fine for failure to vote in last year’s state election on the grounds that they did not know the election was on, having “never received one bit of information about it”. University of Queensland Law School academic Graeme Orr’s newly published The Law of Politics: Elections, parties and Money in Australia (available now from Federation Press) relates a number of unsuccessful challenges against fines brought by voters on the basis that they lacked a genuine preference between the candidates on offer, but nothing of this kind. UPDATE: Graeme Orr writes in comments: “There is case law rejecting a defense of ‘I had no information about the candidates’. They might win by arguing the general criminal law defense of honest mistake of fact.”
robot,
Keep trying. One day when you turn and look back, the ricepaper will be untorn.
[s it a slow news day? Or is Australia’s the worst, most trivial, bunch of fakes and trivializers masquerading as “The Fourth Estate” in the entire civilized world?]
The latter, BB – this wonderfully intelligent ‘fourth estate’ barely murmured when Bishop said we needed to stand over China on the Stern Hu issue. None of them are challenging her today either.
[I fail to see why China needs to be contained, or indeed, how one can morally justify such containment when the US and its allies has bases all over the world. Even if such justification can be found, it is not up to a minor military power like Australia to take up this role. ]
robot
china has is and will be contained- such is the western hegemony
that is the realpolitik
kev was acknowledging what is patently obvious
“ If you cannot have private conversations at the highest level of governments.(or inta Govt) How do you expect them to conduct business together? “
Wikileaks suporters expects Govt to hav no State secrets , and Govt’s should publish everything on a public Web Site that a Govt says or does with anybody with any Dept or with any foreign Govt
you end up with with govt domextically not being able to function , and externally with unintended trade wars , and also unintended military wars
[b_g I think you’d be surprised on how many things we do agree on.]
I’d like to know.
[The way the Coalition and the OO are going into bat for Assange – totally against type, to my way of thinking – strikes me as curious strange. Could the whole thing be a set-up to damage current left of centre governments, not expose previous conservative ones?
I may have missed something in the leaks back story, but I’m starting to think Assange may have been set-up. He may be a patsy.]
I heard the same comments around the weekend barbies. If nothing comes out before 2008 then it smells something awful.
I reckon Kev should drop a few insights into what happened with Howard & Downer on all things Bush, Iraq and AWB. Can’t hurt him so why not. Come on Kev, leak some good stuff.
Ron,
I find myself in vociferous agreement.
@Kersebleptes
It’s the Vibe 🙂
BH,
Thats some conspiracy.
Bushfire Bill @ 4121
[Yet a few barely uttered words from an ex-spook and current back-bencher on an early morning radio show have taken the nation’s news outlets by storm. Julie Bishop is “demanding” Gillard clarify the situation. Boy, Rudd sure does sound like he’s in trouble from the marmiest of School Marms. The government could even be “reeling” by now, in “damage control”, “lurching from crisis to crisi”, trying to avoid a “debacle”… or maybe it’s even reached “catastrope” stage? I mean: if they can’t do pink batts, how can they do China?
Was it only a few months ago that Julie Bishop was advocating an all-out diplomatic assault on China for arresting Stern Hu? It seems like just yesterday that she was smiling that “I’ve got a secret” smile at a reporter and telling-it-like-it-is on forged passports]
I really like your posts, Bushfire Bill.
I think that by trying to play politics with this issue, Abbott & Bishop have proved that they’re utterly unfit to run the country.
[I think that by trying to play politics with this issue, Abbott & Bishop have proved that they’re utterly unfit to run the country.]
vik, the Libs won that award a long time ago…
[I reckon Kev should drop a few insights into what happened with Howard & Downer on all things Bush, Iraq and AWB. Can’t hurt him so why not. Come on Kev, leak some good stuff.]
We can only live in hope.
[Really, can we please have an “edit” function for a grammar no-hoper like me?]
An “idiot” function would be handy sometimes also! 😉
One weekend barbie and I’m full as a stuffed goose for days.
And you attended plural BH?
[I think that by trying to play politics with this issue, Abbott & Bishop have proved that they’re utterly unfit to run the country.]
Awful, isn’t it? They want to run the joint, even if they have to wreck it first.
I believe they have 250000 documents to redact, time consuming. Wondering if they are working back from most recent then backwards. And who knows the extent of these files.
As many have noted, especially in the US, things didn’t heat up for Assange until he mentioned they had material on the banks. That is when the trouble started with more passion. Have to wonder if there is concrete evidence of corruption that includes the regulatory bodies and Senators, which is very likely since that is the new standard there.
I hope Wilkie continues to make his position on this known. He has considerable leverage.
z
[I believe Hillary – one of those loudest in condemning Wikileaks – was involved in drawing up the case against Nixon.]
Hillary was tossed off the legal team for unethical behaviour.
Has anyone considered that Rudd’s comments may have been a lot more “nuanced” than the American notes of the meeting.
Agreed Ron.
But it’s the possibility that these leaks might be selective (or perhaps “selected” is better word) that worries me.
The way the media is harumphing-on and tut-tutting about perfectly reasonable chats between leaders, you’d think Howard and his mob never had a dirty little secret in their lives, and would actually welcome Assange as a long-lost brother at any Young Liberal barbeque you care to nominate.
It’s the selectivity I suspect. The implication – if all we hear about is what Rudd said, or Gillard hasn’t said – is that Howard’s mob never said anything nasty about anyone and indeed celebrate the leaking of confidential diplomatic documents as part and parcel of our robust democracy.
[things didn’t heat up for Assange until he mentioned they had material on the banks]
bingo. Let’s wait and see what that will be, but methinks this will be some really “interesting” info. One thing to be concerned “about American lives” and how wikileaks will put them in jeopardy… another to threaten the money stream of powerful Americans.
TP,
It makes one wonder. They have be careful in targetting Assange or the lot might come out without any redacting. Even redacted, WL still have the original data.
That big lurch is the world shifting. Who would have thought all that information would end up on a cd, put there by some unhappy flunkie?
Now how many unhappy flunkies are there out in the world.
Is Assange a CIA Patsy ?
http://www.bbsradio.com/cgi-bin/webbbs/webbbs_config.pl?md=read;id=10936
[That big lurch is the world shifting]
As evidenced by who won the next three world cups.
[WikiLeaks has sustained and triumphed against legal and political attacks designed to silence our publishing organisation, our journalists and our anonymous sources. The broader principles on which our work is based are the defence of freedom of speech and media publishing, the improvement of our common historical record and the support of the rights of all people to create new history. We derive these principles from the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. In particular, Article 19 inspires the work of our journalists and other volunteers. It states that everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers. We agree, and we seek to uphold this and the other Articles of the Declaration.]
http://wikileaks.ch/about.html
but it is the white cat that is really freaking you out, right?
👿
Classy diog you have a foxnews clipping to support that smear I assume.
[?Bank Julius Baer: Grand Larceny via Grand Cayman – How the largest private Swiss bank avoids paying tax to the Swiss government
?Der Fall Moonstone Trust – Cayman Islands Swiss bank trust exposed
?Over 40 billion euro in 28167 claims made against the Kaupthing Bank, 23 Jan 2010 – List of Kaupthing claimants after Icelandic banking crash
?Northern Rock vs. WikiLeaks – Northern Rock Bank UK failed legal injunctions over the ¡Ì24,000,000,000 collapse
?Whistleblower exposes insider trading program at JP Morgan – Legal insider trading in three easy steps, brought to you by JP Morgan and the SEC ]
norty wikileaks
http://wikileaks.ch/about.html
Top of th most absurb Wikileaks defences is that there is NO harm publishing Govt’s FA , trade & defence private confidential conversations
but they is confidential classifed conversations precisely because they will do harm if published , thats why they is confidential and classified !
But then Wikileaker unmoderate libartarien supporters believe in no State secrets at all , but contradictorilly still expect a Govt to operate effectively localy , in defence & security and in Trade & FA
lack of Wuki defenders any sense of balanse of th need for State secrets and a public importance rite to know is frightening
bg
[As evidenced by who won the next three world cups.]
On that, Qatar and al-Jazeera look pretty grubby.
[Qatar is using the Arabic news channel al-Jazeera as a bargaining chip in foreign policy negotiations by adapting its coverage to suit other foreign leaders and offering to cease critical transmissions in exchange for major concessions, US embassy cables released by WikiLeaks claim.
The memos flatly contradict al-Jazeera’s insistence that it is editorially independent despite being heavily subsidised by the Gulf state.]
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/dec/05/wikileaks-cables-al-jazeera-qatari-foreign-policy
Essential Poll
ALP = Mud on Climate
http://m.crikey.com.au/2010/12/06/essential-climate-change-more-people-dont-know-and-dont-trust-labor/
Gusface@4153
“china has is and will be contained- such is the western hegemony”
I have very little difficulty in accepting this. However, I do have major difficulty in accepting that Australia should play anything but a very minor role in such effort of containment. Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, India, SEA countries, one would have thought this is ample containment without Australia volunteering for a part in this.
How long till the middle east run out of oil?
Support for Assange from Reporters Without Borders.
http://en.rsf.org/wikileaks-hounded-04-12-2010,38958.html
WeWantPaul
Cry and sook all you want to.
These are the words of Jerry Zeifman who fired her.
[My own reaction was of regret that, when I terminated her employment on the Nixon impeachment staff, I had not reported her unethical practices to the appropriate bar associations.]
http://foro.univision.com/t5/WQBA-1140-AM/Jerry-Zeifman-He-fired-Hillary-from-Nixon-impeachment-committee/m-p/244252863
And much of the leaked material, in common with most diplomatic exchanges, are based on rumour and innuendo. I mean, someone doesn’t just walk up to a diplomat and tell them how many ships there are in their fleet, or whatever. They piece together all sorts of bits and pieces to arrive at that information, which is why rumours and innuendo are important politically.
Dio, I’ve never heard of Hillary being kicked off a team for unethical behaviour. Sounds a bit like a Republican smear to me, particularly as she later became a partner in a major law firm. They don’t give out those jobs to lawyers with any kind of cloud hanging over them.
I think you missed ‘had not reported’ so there was no investigation and no finding …. Not impressed. But not surprised.
Thishas to take the cake:
Talk about telegraphing your punches.
[china has is and will be contained- such is the western hegemony]
Compadre, didnt they say the same thing about Rome, before Sulaiman the Magnificent took over.
Meanwhile back at the ranch, the Comrades will go on making money and becoming rich while the containment basket weavers are becoming poorer.
[Boost China’s financial power – China’s stake in the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has become the third largest. Malaysia’s central bank has bought yuan-denominated bonds for its reserves, representing a significant step toward the internationalization of China’s currency. And a pilot plan, “mini-QFII” (Qualified Foreign Institutional Investor) in Hong Kong, could create channels for overseas institutional investors to participate in the Chinese mainland’s capital market.
These developments have come about because of the reform of the global financial system, and have boosted China’s financial power.
Yet there is no reason to be overjoyed or complacent. China is in the early stages of increasing its influence in the global financial market, and despite being the world’s second-largest economy and one of the biggest manufacturing centers, it has limited influence in the international banking system and capital markets. ]
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/opinion/2010-12/03/content_11646276.htm
[Belief in human-caused climate change has waned over the past year?—?53% of people believed climate change was happening and caused by human activity in November 2009, but only 45% now. Most of that shift has been into “Don’t Know”; those saying they believed climate change was “just a normal fluctuation in the earth’s climate” rose 2 points to 36%; those saying “Don’t Know” rose 6 points to 19%.]
Appalling. And mystifying.
WWP
It confirms that she was tossed for unethical behaviour which is exactly the comment I made.
[Dio, I’ve never heard of Hillary being kicked off a team for unethical behaviour. Sounds a bit like a Republican smear to me, particularly as she later became a partner in a major law firm.]
Was big news in the primaries after her “sniper fire” moment, which indicates that the story might have been embellished. But from memory it was broken by a lifelong Democrat.
[And you attended plural BH?]
Yes BB – and I feel like more than a stuffed goose, thanks! OH and I slept like logs in front of the telly last night but I got all the news from Friday thru to 7.30 Sunday night. Lot of interesting views and quite a few along the ‘Assange has been set up line.
I read the link. It is political gossip it proves nothing at all except that guy didn’t like Hilary and you don’t either. Big deal. Gossip and smear really please – you
Can’t be serious.
[Really, can we please have an “edit” function for a grammar no-hoper like me?]
Robot, not to worry. write it in Chinese. These jokers here will get it more.
[Appalling. And mystifying.]
We are safe. If nobody believes it; it can’t affect us.
Climate change
As the evidence gets stronger, the support gets weaker.
Now tell me, how many years did it take to defeat the tobacco lobby?
This doesn’t look good for the planet.
WWP
Umm, no. It confirms that she was sacked from the Nixon Impeachment Committee for unethical conduct. It’s there in black and white by the person who sacked her.
Denial is a river in Egypt.
[Denial is a river in Egypt.]
Perhaps that’s drying up too, Diog.
@ Confessions
Not really when you consider the drought has broken in most parts of Australia and a belief in AGW would compel one to accept the need for a carbon tax. It’s the hip pocket nerve reaction which at the end opf the day most people use to gauge who they will vote for.
Global Warming/Climate Change is on the nose for any govt who entertains it especially when the dams are full and rivers are flowing. Humans have convenient memories and issues like the MDB will fade as well and become a millstone for Labor.
lizzie
[Now tell me, how many years did it take to defeat the tobacco lobby?]
They still haven’t been beaten.
It took about 25 years for people to accept that smoking caused cancer.