This week’s reading of the BludgerTrack poll aggregate again records a fairly solid shift in favour of the Coalition, although it’s only yielded them one extra seat on the seat projection – that being in New South Wales, where the Coalition is now being credited with one more seat than it won in 2013. The aggregate is back to being determined through a trend calculation, using only the polling from the Turnbull era (note that this isn’t the case on the charts shown on the sidebar, which suggest a much higher result at present for the Coalition). However, the bias adjustments for Essential Research and Roy Morgan are still being determined in a very crude fashion. This is particularly an issue for the latter, given its idiosyncratic Turnbull era results. Both pollsters have been determined simply on the basis of the flurry of polling that emerged the week after the leadership change, the benchmark being provided by Newspoll, Galaxy and ReachTEL, which remain subject to the same bias adjustments used in the Abbott era. The adjustment to the Labor primary vote for Morgan is particularly pronounced (over +5%), which also means it’s getting a very low weighting in the trend determination. These bias adjustments will be recalculated as new results from the other pollsters become available to benchmark them against.
Also worth noting:
• Heath Aston of the Sydney Morning Herald reports it is “all but certain” that Joe Hockey will be succeeded as the Liberal candidate for North Sydney by Trent Zimmerman, factional moderate and the party’s New South Wales state president. Hockey’s support for Zimmerman is said to have sealed the deal, although it is also reported that he had earlier approached the state Treasurer, Gladys Berejiklian. Other mooted candidates are Tim James, chief executive of Medicines Australia, and John Hart, chief executive of Restaurant and Catering Australia. James is a member for the Right, and is also mentioned as a potential candidate to succeed Tony Abbott in Warringah, or Jillian Skinner in the state seat of North Shore.
• The issue of Senate electoral reform could be heading towards a compromise more conducive to minor parties than the proposal of straightforward optional preferential voting above and below the line, as was proposed last year by the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters. Key to the argument is whether group voting tickets should be abolished, a path favoured by Nick Xenophon but fiercely opposed by the micro-party Senators, the most active being David Leyonhjelm. Xenophon has approached the government with a proposal that would require above-the-line voters to number at least three boxes, and below-the-line voters to number at least 12, resulting in a greater flow of preferences to smaller players. Antony Green also argues that the resulting increase in the number of live votes in the final stages of the count would reduce the chances of the final seat being decided in a random fashion. Leyonhjelm has sought a middle path by proposing the retention of group voting tickets and one number above-the-line voting, while relieving the burden on below-the-line voters by requiring that they number a minimum of six boxes – very much the same as applies for the Victorian upper house, except that the minimum number of boxes there is five. At the November 2014 state election, 94% of voters went above-the-line in the upper house, helping to elect two members of Shooters & Fishers and one each from the Sex Party, the DLP and Vote 1 Local Jobs.
Sometimes you just have to get out of the way and let your opponent fool himself into thinking he’s winning.
Despite the polls, Abbott believed he had Bill Shorten’s measure. Amazingly, he STILL believes it!
Bill played Abbott like a trumpet. He let him think he was the macho man, the big swaggerer, the delight of the Daily Telegraph. Andrew Bolt lauded him and so did Bolt’s drones. Abbott swallowed and continues to swallow his own publicity.
When someone is so self-deluded as that, the best thing to let him do is keep on deluding himself… until he deludes himself out of office.
Shorten played a blinder, never losing his temper, never giving in to the smear or the insult. He just let Abbott go about whacking himself.
Sure, Turnbull has an ascendancy in the public’s minds right now, and will have for a while yet. That’s par for the course, a normal, routine honeymoon period. But if Shorten had been a raving ratbag like Abbott, he’d now have to be unwinding it, trying to slough off the reputation he’d have built up for being a boofhead.
But instead Shorten is getting stuck into policy, arguing ideas, confronting Turnbull intellectually and he’s being recognized for it. The Murdoch papers will never warm to him, but no-one can accuse Shorten of being a hysterical rabble rouser.
One of Abbott’s greatest problems was switching from “bovver boy” to “statesman”. To do so he tried those ridiculous suits, that embarrasssing new hair do (“regulation Liberal”), those blue ties that everybody mocked, and those idiotic flags. more and more as he ramped up fear.
He got his urgers and sleeve-tuggers in the media to write him up as “now, a real statesman” that he became a national laughing stock. Mark Kenny, who has now joined the ranks of Abbott Hecklers, was pnce promoting Abbott as a statesman back in 2013 simply because he didn’t actually fart in front of the Indonesian President and knew how to use chopsticks. The next week the rorts scandal started and Abbott wasn’t a statesman again. No-one’s accused Shorten of being a statesman, but no-one’s accused him of being a boofhead either.
He is about as well-placed to debate Turnbull as he could be, with his reputation unsullied by petty politics and with a full suite of policies to take to an election.
Eventually even show ponies have to tread in their own shit, and Turnbull will do this for sure. He always has. He’s proved himself incapable of running in a big agenda, falling victim to Abbott twice now, once on the republic debate and the other on who got to be leader of the opposition.
All Shorten has to do is wait, like he waited for Gillard and Rudd to knock each other out, like he waited for Abbott to self-immolate and as Turnbull certasinly will.
GG
[Twenty years after being chucked out of the party, she dribbles on about her party connections and portrays herself as some sort of Labor icon.]
I was not chucked out of the party at all. I thought that thirty eight years was long enough and resigned.
Do you have any friends?
[Human Rights Commissioner Gillian Triggs has called for sweeping law reform that would require companies to take responsibility for human rights breaches in the same manner as governments.
In her latest intervention in offshore detention policy, Ms Triggs said Australia was explicitly breaching human rights law with its boat turn-backs and activities on Nauru and Manus Island.
But given that the government was effectively able to operate with impunity, the companies doing its bidding should be held responsible.
…
Ms Triggs said some corporates had greater turnover than small countries, yet they bore no responsibility for human rights.
“Despite the economic power of companies, it remains true that the law has not yet caught up,” she said.
“It is the sovereign state and its government that bears the legal duty for human rights compliance, not the company, despite the fact that often business wields greater power and influence over the communities in which they operate and have a genuine capacity to protect the human rights of the people whose lives they affect at a practical level.
“In the Commission’s view, such economic power and capacity of the private business sector brings legal and ethical responsibility and opportunity to protect and promote human rights.”]
http://www.afr.com/news/politics/national/gillian-triggs-says-companies-as-culpable-as-governments-20151009-gk5is7?stb=twt#ixzz3oER3SwPo
Nicky,
Brown the colour of your bullshit!
Just Me,
Good analysis.
https://twitter.com/johndory49/status/653069665665597440/photo/1
Classy.
MTBW,
38 years is a good start as far as I am concerned.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-10-11/active-emergency-beacon-dumped-at-tip-sparks-rescue-search/6844956
[Senior Sergeant Mike Gillies of the Northern Police Search and Rescue said a number of valuable local and national search and rescue resources were put at unnecessary risk because of the careless disposal.
He said emergency beacons must be deactivated by staff at a battery shop before they could be thrown out.]
lizzie
Great to see the Doctors gathering in protest over the children in detention.
What will Malcolm do?
Lizzie @ 1370
[Sometimes a bit of thought works better than brute force.
Do you think Shorten/Abbott would agree?]
Even Julius Caesar knew when brute force was not a good idea!
TPOF,
Too bad Brutus did not!
Thanks for your support DTT.
[And unlike Roozendal I have never been called before ICAC or anything else.]
Neither have I. But then I have never had enough power for anyone to bother trying to buy my influence.
Sorry. Being meek and anodyne while your opponent serially screws up is not leadership, now matter how you spin it.
TPOF
Neither have I!
An American view (not Obama’s).
[Consider the following:
1. Omitting currency rules from TPP will undermine all of its touted market-opening benefits. Currency manipulation has already caused thousands of U.S. factories to close and millions of workers to lose their jobs. A TPP without currency rules turns a mighty river of offshoring into a tsunami.
2. The inclusion of corporate courts (for investor-to-state dispute settlement) is a win for global business. Giant firms who use the U.S. as a flag of convenience but produce little here can now invest in Australia, Japan and Malaysia, then sue over laws and regulations they don’t like. They will be able to collect billions from taxpayers to compensate for lost profits.
3. It could hurt U.S. automakers. Japanese auto manufacturers are thrilled with the new rules because TPP will reduce U.S. tariffs on cars and trucks Japan sends to the U.S. Those cars may have a Japanese name on the outside, but everything that actually makes it a working car could be Chinese. I don’t know how U.S. Trade Representative Mike Froman can look at any auto supply chain worker in the U.S. (or Canada or Mexico for that matter) and tell them with a straight face that TPP is a good deal.
4. It’s unclear whether the labor provisions will benefit workers. While there may be some small improvements to the labor chapter, we have first-hand experience that rules are worthless without enforcement. Until we see the actual text, we won’t know how much these promises live up to their hype.
Sadly, terrible trade deals have affected working people for the past four decades. Based on past performance, those who believe the same old promises will suffer, while those who wish to abuse and exploit workers with little pushback from governments will profit.]
http://time.com/4065267/trans-pacific-partnership-american-workers/?xid=tcoshare
MTBW #1410
[Great to see the Doctors gathering in protest over the children in detention.
What will Malcolm do?]
I think a better question is:
What will Peter Dutton do?
[1399
Nicholas
Green, the colour of renewal and growth.
Red, the colour of acute embarrassment.]
lol
The rouge is worn with pride by this bludger, N. I have a vision….tens of thousands of red shirts, campaigners in crimson, heads and hearts for Labor, the agents of renewal, justice, prosperity and reason…
Nicky,
Keeping your mouth shut while your opponent is copping the heat is a well known and very successful political tactic.
You should quit while you are behind.
Nicholas
[ Sorry. Being meek and anodyne while your opponent serially screws up is not leadership, now matter how you spin it.
]
This from a Green? LOL!
I see Royce Millar and Ben Schneiders are writing their old shit in The Age again.
[Bill Shorten’s prime ministerial ambitions face a new challenge in coming days as the trade union Royal Commission tests his account of controversial deals done in his former role as Australian Workers Union chief.
Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/national/investigations/bill-shorten-braces-for-renewed-commission-scrutiny-20151009-gk5qln.html#ixzz3oEUxjpeO ]
briefly,
Can I call you Darius?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cjp-Gyo5tNM
[Crediting Abbott with her downfall is as absurd as crediting Shorten with Abbott’s.]
Yes, of course. Abbott and the Coalition members in the lower house were only there to make up the numbers. And the press never reported his stinking sulphurous brain farts as though they were the pronouncements of a buddha in a high vis vest. And the Liberals never voted against the Malaysian people swap, nor drove an hysterical mindset that our borders were out of control and we needed our armed forces engaged before the hordes swarmed down from Asia with their babes in arms crowded on unseaworthy boats. And the daily circus over the Carbon Tax that was going to wipe us all out and Craig Thomson, whose escapades with a couple of escorts on the tab of his union was the most catastrophic moral challenge the Australian political scene had ever faced.
Nope! Nope! Nope! none of that had any impact on the political scene at all. It was all Gillard and Rudd. And the BUDGET EMERGENCY!!!!
Yeah. That had no impact at all.
Millennial
I don’t think Dutton has the strength to do anything. And he has a very weak face.
Jolyon Wagg@1393
I now rarely attend branch meetings as there are so many other ways of staying connected and being involved.
I would sooner d a couple of hours campaigning than attend a branch meeting and it is much more productive.
I used to have to go to branch meetings to keep up to date with what is going on. But with email and social media, that is no longer necessary.
1403
lizzie
This is an excellent idea. I was thinking along similar lines in relation to the duties of Directors with respect to the protection of the rights of employees.
“Rights” should be given effect by concrete actions….
[It’s not based on boring old facts, information or experience.]
Occam’s Razor applied ingeniously. Ignore irrelevant complications in favour of theoretical purity.
[1423
Greensborough Growler
briefly,
Can I call you Darius?]
You may. Lol. It’s a pity I can’t sing as well as your revolutionary.
(I’m serious. I want to change everything…!)
http://www.theage.com.au/national/investigations/bill-shorten-braces-for-renewed-commission-scrutiny-20151009-gk5qln.html
TPOF,
We will, we will, Occam……
briefly,
Go out and get a new hairdo!
That’s what my wife says works for her.
[1426
bemused
Jolyon Wagg@1393
Player1
Well I would just be one more old fart but hopefully less fatuous than some. I do know what you mean though. The idea of attending branch meetings again is not a big draw-card.
I now rarely attend branch meetings as there are so many other ways of staying connected and being involved.
I would sooner d a couple of hours campaigning than attend a branch meeting and it is much more productive.
I used to have to go to branch meetings to keep up to date with what is going on. But with email and social media, that is no longer necessary.]
I agree completely. I’m a direct member these days. I want the Party be “people-facing” rather than “self-facing”. To do this, we have to change membership modes and we have to become a campaign-oriented, grass-roots-powered organ. This is hard work…but immensely gratifying and energising.
[1432
Greensborough Growler
briefly,
Go out and get a new hairdo!
That’s what my wife says works for her.]
Is your wife also nearly bald?
bemused #1364
Projecting again I see.
1417
lizzie
I reckon we should take the TPP for a dud…until proven otherwise.
briefly,
Your enthusiasm for change isn’t flagging, is it?
It’s a vital part of Nicky’s universal everything political system. So it has to be true.
You’ll just have to go with blue a rinse and damn the consequences.
[I now rarely attend branch meetings as there are so many other ways of staying connected and being involved.]
I had a notion that there might be some disincentive for persistent non-attendance, in the way of ineligibility to participate in party ballots. Was this ever the case?
briefly@1433
Branches still matter and I will retain my branch membership.
It is really only the branch meetings that I think are becoming less relevant and local branches are a presence on the ground out in the electorates.
Local branches can utilise social media to boost their engagement with their members in a better way than branch meetings.
rd @ 1430
There is a market, I suppose, for that sort of hyped up stuff. Predictions of Shorten’s demise at the TURC are about as meaningful as Bob Ellis’s predictions of Labor victories at sundry elections.
Mind you, the TURC is starting to look like that Congressional committee investigating Hilary Clinton’s personal responsibility for what happened in Benghazi. It finally claimed a victim – the Republican who was a shoo-in for next Speaker of the House of Representatives.
William Bowe@1438
It certainly used to be in Victoria, but the threshold was low and apologies counted the same as attendances.
I am not sure if that is still the case but I am not aware of any changes.
William
[ I had a notion that there might be some disincentive for persistent non-attendance, in the way of ineligibility to participate in party ballots. Was this ever the case? ]
I also seem to recall there was some mechanism intended to enforce attendance. Can’t remember the details now. Perhaps some current member can remind us?
TPOF,
Those who throw mud usually end up covered in mud!
TPOF:I generally prefer your line of reasoning to that of those lined up against you today, but I can’t agree that Shorten should be given much credit for Abbott’s demise, which was mainly an inevitable consequence of his manifest incapacity for the job of PM.
His own party knew this; the slender majority who voted him in as leader in 2009 never saw his as a likely winner. They were mainly trying to wrest control of the party’s direction and policies over that of the too-liberal Turnbull. Abbott, merely their puppet, was then incredibly and unexpectedly lucky to have the R-G-R stuff fall into his lap. The idea that he was a fabulous opposition leader is a load of Press Gallery BS. He was lucky enough to be standing there when his opponents started endlessly punching themselves in the face. Like Snedden (who almost won in 1974) and Fraser in 1975.
Or like Shorten for the last two years: albeit that the Coalition Government wasn’t particularly disunited, merely was being led by a total drongo. Albo, Tanya P, even a Latham would have looked pretty good as opposition leader against Abbott. There really wasn’t much to it.
Shorten’s problem now is that he seems unable to project much In the way of a positive image. The past Labor leader whom he most reminds me of is Barrie Unsworth: another backroom hero who, when he injudiciously stepped into centre stage, was unable to form any sort of image in the mind of the ordinary voters other than that of a shadowy manipulator.
I think Labor would be crazy to try to replace him now, and hope that they can withstand the Albo “challenge” being stirred up by the Press Gallery (and which I don’t think Albo has done enough to stamp out).
But I don’t think Shorten will become PM after the next election. Indeed, it isn’t at all clear who the next Labor PM might be. I don’t think it will be Albo or Tanya. But then, I do expect Labor to be a better than 50/50 shot to win in 2019 or so. It’s something of a puzzle.
bemused
[ … apologies counted the same as attendances … ]
Really? I wonder if it is the same in NSW. I could just send in a permanent “apology”!
Greensborough Growler@1443
You aren’t known as the ‘mud man’ for nothing. 😐
Player One@1445
Need to check your rules, but I bet they do allow it.
Otherwise branch stacking would be much harder.
[1437
Greensborough Growler]
I think we can change the way politics is carried out. We can change political connections and communications; we can make these far more effective and durable; we can ensure the values of egalitarian democracy, social and economic justice, and personal freedom are at the centre of politics, law and culture.
We can do this. We are the only ones who both want to do it and have the means to carry it out. We should not delay.
Thanks Bemused – I just looked through the Victorian party rules and couldn’t find anything to that effect. The closest to it was that you had to attend once upon joining a branch.
When the Xmas party counts as a Branch Meeting there are clearly ways to get around such formalities.
The only impediment to voting in internal elections is if you allow your membership to lapse and you lose continuity.
Lord knows how, but I agree with Bemused. There are plenty of better ways to be an active Party Member than attend every Branch meeting