The BludgerTrack poll aggregate moves half a point in favour of the Coalition this week, which is presumably to do with those long lost 50-50 results fading out of the system, because there was no real movement from either Essential Research and Roy Morgan this week. With this they chalk up another two on the seat projection – one in Queensland, and one in Western Australia – and surpass their currently parliamentary tally of 90 seats. Nothing new this week on leadership ratings.
A beefy selection of preselection news this week:
• With its preselections to be determined next weekend, Labor’s struggling Western Australian operation is undergoing an imbroglio encompassing two of its three sitting members, and its yet-to-be-determined candidate for the state’s most marginal Liberal seat. Gary Gray, who has held the seat of Brand since 2007, has been refusing to sign a pledge that binds nominating candidates to the state platform and state conference as well as their national equivalents, and commits them to “obey the directions” of the state secretary in campaigning for their prospective office. As far as I can tell, fealty to the state platform is a not unusual feature of pledges required by Labor’s state branches, but it is generally phrased it in a way that places a higher premium on caucus solidarity. However, obedience of the state secretary appears to be peculiar to the Western Australian branch. The pledge is not new, but Gray objected to signing it on this occasion because the state platform opposes uranium mining and coal seam gas development, and struck out the offending sections on submitting his form. Consequently, the state party administration ruled the applications inadmissible. Complicating the matter is that Perth MP Alannah MacTiernan likewise made amendments to the pledge on her nomination form. Gray is taking his stand in the face of a united front of Left unions who want him to make way in Brand for Adam Woodage, described by Andrew Probyn of The West Australian as “a 28-year-old fly-in, fly out electrician on the Gorgon project”. However, the party’s national executive, including its most powerful representative of the Left, Anthony Albanese, is having none of it. As well as ordering the state branch to accept the nominations, invoking legal advice that the state pledge is inconsistent with national party rules, it has made clear it will intervene on Gray’s behalf if the matter is pursued any further.
• The Left unions in Western Australia have also irritated the party’s national heavyweights in pushing for Gosnells councillor Pierre Yang to take the nomination for the newly created seat of Burt in Perth’s south-west. This would involve the defeat of Labor’s Right-backed candidate for September’s Canning by-election, Matt Keogh, and the wastage of a lot of effort the party put into promoting him to voters in Armadale, which stands to be transferred from Canning to the new seat. Andrew Probyn of The West Australian reports there are “expectations” within the party that the national executive will also intervene here if Keogh is not selected.
• Phillip Coorey of the Financial Review reports that the New South Wales draft redistribution has resulted in two Labor heavyweights eyeing off neighbouring seats. One is Anthony Albanese, who is said to be looking at moving south from Grayndler to Barton. Barton was gained for the Liberals at the 2013 election by Nick Varvaris, but the new boundaries turn a 0.3% Liberal margin into a notional Labor margin of 7.5% by detaching Liberal-voting Sans Souci and adding southern Marrickville from Grayndler. Albanese’s exit would present a golden opportunity to the Greens, who now dominate the area at state level but have never looked like overcoming Albanese’s personal vote federally. Heath Aston of Fairfax reports Jim Casey, state secretary of the Fire Brigade Employees Union, is seeking Greens preselection for the seat. Bruce Knobloch, said to be aligned with Senator Lee Rhiannon and her hard Left tendency, reportedly had designs on the Grayndler preselection but will now seek to run in Sydney, which would pit him against Tanya Plibersek.
• At the other end of town, Chris Bowen is reportedly looking at moving on from his western Sydney seat of McMahon, where the loss of the Labor stronghold of Fairfield has cut his margin from 5.4% to 2.1%. Fairfield is set to be transferred to Fowler, which is held for Labor by the rather lower-profile figure of Chris Hayes. However, Hayes is reportedly reluctant to make way for Bowen.
• The Liberals in South Australia have preselected Nicolle Flint, a former columnist for The Advertiser, to succeed Andrew Southcott as their candidate for Boothby when he retires at the next election. Sheradyn Holderhead of The Advertiser reports Flint has “worked as an adviser to state and federal Liberal leaders as well as the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry”. There were six nominees for the preselection, of whom Flint’s most fancied rival was Carolyn Habib, a youth worker and former Marion councillor who ran unsuccessfully in the marginal seat of Elder at last year’s state election.
It’s a funny thing. I used to watch JG in QT because we were always on the edge of a (sometimes fabricated) crisis and the battles between Albo and Pyney were funny. I used to watch TA in QT because he was horrifyingly entertaining.
I can’t watch Turnbull. He’s boring, somehow, and he hasn’t farted a rainbow once 🙁
Lizzie
MT reminds me of Rudd. Not a good thing ultimately…..
Ross @2192
Jericho’s article contains a link to the Treasury paper, here:
http://www.treasury.gov.au/PublicationsAndMedia/Publications/2015/working-paper-2015-01
PDF version here:
http://www.treasury.gov.au/~/media/Treasury/Publications%20and%20Media/Publications/2015/Working%20Paper%202015%2001/Documents/PDF/TWP2015-01.ashx
From the second paragraph on page 53 (and completely missed by Jericho):
Yes – due to land tax unavoidably applying to foriegn owned Australian land the marginal excess burden on the domestic economy is negative: the domestic economy gains 10 cents for each $1 of land tax collected!
The rest of the paper is worth reading too – in particular it provides plausible explanation of the observed data that show company income tax is principally borne by reduction of real wages.
victoria
Yes. I was thinking that. Very wordy.
Senator Penny Wong @SenatorWong 4m4 minutes ago
“Discovery phase” appears to be the new spin for Turnbull Govt plan to increase GST. #senateqt
I said before Truffles got the gig that a Turnbull Prime Ministership would be far more popular in the prospect than in the reality. I didn’t think he’d get quite as strong a honeymoon as he has, but we are really still in the Turnbull in prospect phase. Lots of waffle that lets the audience project their desires on him, not a lot of substance.
But by tying himself to ‘Fightback’ Mk III with a push for a higher GST and gutting medicare, well some rethinking of the prospect might be about to start in earnest.
lizzie@2252
I mute QT regularly but would always turn the sound off when MT got up because he always thought he was being sooo clever & entertaining. Not so easy to ignore now he’s PM.
Seen this?
http://www.theage.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/the-institute-with-no-members-embarrasses-senate-committee-20151029-gkm71n.html
[The Family Office Institute Australia, whose submission informed large parts of a Senate report recommending the government shield privately owned companies from increased transparency, actually has no members, it can be revealed.
The institute was established in August by two lawyers and a Canberra lobbyist who represent Australia’s ultra-rich in disputes with the Australian Tax Office.]
[Rowan
Rowan – @MalSplaining
Malcolm in one breathe says we are listening to the Australian people, families with child care complaints and he doesn’t want to listen #qt]
Victoria/Lizzy
Yes Turnbull IS like Rudd. That is why the public like them BOTH.
I think too many in Labor are anti intellectual ie they actively dislike people who use big words and speak well because it makes them feel inadequate.
The general public however does not care about that – they are not competing so are happy to have the “class brainiac” do the hard work.
Turnbull is still riding high but things may be about to bite him in the bum. We will see.
However I do so wish people would stop waxing lyrical about the glorious NBN and how it will save the day for Labor. I am not sure there are many votes in it. Even trying to show Turnbull is incompetant is too compex and fiddly for the public to get all worked up about. The GST is however much more likely to be Turnbull’s bane. (along with Dutton and Morrison).
[That he is already talking American style health – is he insane?]
no – he’s arrogant and knows he’ll almost certainly beat shorten. he’s dry economically, but he’s more like NZs Keys or the UK’s Cameron on social policies. by not being tea party crazy he looks more moderate. the big end of town and the wealthy inner city liberals and light greens will back him over shorten. he is banking on his small l liberalism to get some very radical economic changes through. let’s hope hubris brings him down. the problem is that the ALP has many who’d probably support many of his neo-classical ‘reforms’ – albeit with appropriate ‘softeners’. I trust labor to do such reforms and look after people (carbon price tax breaks and pension increases being a good example) – I don’t trust the libs at all. the ALP needs to decide what it thinks and what it will support and be on the front foot about how they’d do it more fairly than the libs. if they oppose for opposition’s sake they will lose and the LNP will have a mandate to promote inequality.
dtt
You mean the public really liked Rudd so much that he won in September 2013?
Agent 006.5 causing havoc on the Sinai?
😆
[I think too many in Labor are anti intellectual ie they actively dislike people who use big words and speak well because it makes them feel inadequate.]
Wow! That’s put me in my place – not!!
dtt
[However I do so wish people would stop waxing lyrical …]
No. We’ll talk about what we want to talk about. If you disagree, you can just say so (as you did in subsequent sentences) without asking others to shut up.
lizzie
I’m amazed I can drag my knuckles to the keyboard.
Just as well I get my talking points from Head Office, otherwise there’s no way I could put my thoughts together.
So, Labor is going to keep asking questions about a GST and Malcolm’s going to keep saying that nothing has been decided yet. Good strategy from Labor. Malcolm should never have let this cat out of the bag so early. Now Labor can run a scare campaign for months and months.
DTT – Using “big words” is not the sign of an intellectual. It’s the sign of a pseudo-intellectual.
K17
There is going to be a tax summit on 11 December with the Premiers
Whilst Abbott adopted the three word slogan, Truffles has gone for the 300 word one!!
The reason why talking about the NBN now might (and I only say might) work is because the consequences of the Turnbull’s plan change are now coming out.
Before, just like Abbott, Turnbull could say whatever he liked, the media would go along with it and critics (mostly in the tech industry) were dismissed because all the problems they talked about were potential and non-obvious to laypersons. Abstract rather than concrete.
Now that they’re being hit with those problems, concretely, it may be a different matter.
zoomster
Better stop using words of more than three syllables, too 😉
lizzie
Three syllable words, three word slogans.
All the same.
.@RitaPanahi nails @TurnbullMalcolm beautifully. The nation’s ‘buyer’s remorse’ starts now. #auspol
http://www.news.com.au/news/opinion/rita-panahi/all-at-sea-as-malcolm-turnbull-channels-kevin-rudd/news-story/71ecec0e36980ef5b44384f53b9be304 …
Mal big werds hurt hed ug 🙁
Zoid @2218
Good Morrow, Nuncle!
K17
I agree. The GST debate has come out too early and may well hurt Turnbull.
Display
Yes you can keep talking about the NBN and I can wish you will not (quite so much). It is just that a lot of posters here seem to think it is a huge electoral issue. I am not convinced. We all know that Labor’s NBN was better and turnbull’s useless but I am still not sure it is a big electoral issue. I think the same about Gonski too.
People can now see that Turnbull’s plan is no less expensive than Labor’s. It is also obvious that it’s not a simpler upgrade, but a more complicated upgrade down a dead end technology path.
It’s like arguing that you’ll save spending on road infrastructure by investing in the most advanced horse breeding techniques to squeeze those few extra mph out of horses when you could be investing in roads that will take cars.
If Labor draws such a comparison now, people may be able to relate to it better than they would have before, when it was all abstract talk and he-said she-said stuff about what might happen in the future.
Tasmanian EMRS poll thread:
http://blogs.crikey.com.au/pollbludger/2015/11/09/emrs-liberal-48-labor-25-greens-20-in-tasmania/
Victoria.
Rudd pulled the vote up by about 2%, but by that time it was far, far too late.
He was not on his game in the election. The budget deficit knocked the stuffing out.
I note elsewhere Ed Husic asked MT a question about a GST on fresh fruit and vegetables.
Turnbull batted the question away without saying much at all. Surprised? No.
But if it had been a labor pm the MSM have its headline for the rest of the day: labor refuses to rule out GST on fresh fruit and vegetables.
dtt
Or perhaps the hollowman had been exposed. As I said Truffles is in the same league
http://www.theage.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/labor-figures-jostle-as-kelvin-thomson-to-quit-safe-seat-of-wills-20151108-gku1lp.html
[Long-standing Labor MP and former frontbencher Kelvin Thomson is set to retire from the prize electorate of Wills, opening up a vigorous internal contest for the seat.
It is understood Mr Thomson is set to announce his decision shortly for the safe seat – once held by former prime minister Bob Hawke – which takes in Coburg, Pascoe Vale and Brunswick.
In 2013, Mr Thomson won the seat with 65 per cent of the two-party preferred vote from the Greens.
It is believed former Senator Mehmet Tillem is a leading candidate for pre-selection for the seat, which is a stronghold of the Labor Right, which is bitterly divided with a number of competing sub-factions having a strong presence in ALP branches in Wills.
Another name being touted, although she is not from Labor’s Right, is ACTU President Ged Kearney.]
Other names mentioned by Labor sources are included.
rossmcg
You know the msm is crook when it is the Murdoch press calling out Truffles
Had a nice chat with Kelvin only the other day – he rang up personally to apologise because he wasn’t able to get up here for a fundraiser. He’s a really nice person.
https://newmatilda.com/2015/11/09/in-the-pursuit-of-power-another-day-another-dead-asylum-seeker/
[What is happening today on Christmas Island might sound incredible, but it’s not. ‘Riots’ – which in many cases should more accurately be called uprisings – are just as fundamentally a part of Australia’s immigration policies and militarised borders as the deaths that coincide with them.
But the background of those in the centre is in some ways irrelevant. Indefinite detention has and always will engender responses such as this. It is a coercive system for which violence, potential or realised, is integral to its operation.
It has always led to self-harm, it has always caused deaths, and it has, and always will, provoke protest and physical resistance.
With the ‘deaths at sea’ argument used to delegitimise any debate about Australia’s border militarisation and punitive onshore policies, the question now has to be asked: how many more ‘disturbances’ in centres until we can talk about ending mandatory detention? How many deaths in the community and in detention until we say something has to change?]
This is fascinating, civil war has broken out in the MSM about which faction of the Libs to support. Fairfax have sided with Malcolm, but the Murdoch media have had enough of him already. The ABC is blowing in the wind – they are happy as long as their master is a tory.
It’s also more relevant now not so much because yay NBN, but because it is one of the few counters to the story we’re being fed about Turnbull’s progressive, forward vision and understanding of the future – future technology among things.
I doubt Labor will flick any switches (in voters) by talking about it, but maybe they can start building up a counter narrative over the long term.
Didn’t watch q.t. Just can’t listen to Tones. But I understand he was getting a bit, well, bitchy about all the GST questions.
Kelvin Thompson has been a very good local MP, considering the safe nature of Wills, he deserves credit for being an active local member.
Kelvin Thomson is one of the more authentic ALP war horses. He often courted controversy both within the ALP and beyond. He was not timid about speaking publicly on a range of issues with honesty.
For example: 2013 – http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/victoria/populate-and-perish-warns-federal-labor-mp-kelvin-thomson-as-he-sets-up-victoria-first/story-fni0fit3-1226752374255
[I always worried about population but I believed the demographers who
said it would take care of itself. They were wrong, so I stopped listening to
them.
I kicked off a national debate about this issue in 2009. The points I made
were about endangered species, climate change, traffic, housing, and the
cost of living and the problems of Australia at 36 million. ]
[A controversial federal Labor MP is launching a grassroots group to fight high population growth and overdevelopment.
Melbourne MP Kelvin Thomson said he was setting up Victoria First “to safeguard and enhance Victoria’s way of life”.
Mr Thomson, who was parliamentary secretary for trade in the previous Labor government, wants immigration to be slashed on environmental and urban amenity grounds.
Following Labor’s election loss in September, he attacked the party’s poor political management and said the trend “to leave everything to a messiah leads to poor decisions”.
Mr Thomson, the MHR for Wills in the city’s inner north, opted to return to the backbench in Opposition so he would not be gagged for speaking his mind.]
PDF of his speech at Victoria First’s inaugural general meeting
http://www.kelvinthomson.com.au/Editor/assets/speeches_2013/131201%20victoria%20first%20inaugural%20meeting.pdf
CIGS UP!
Couldn’t help myself.
[
Labor is planning to raise taxes on cigarettes if elected to pay for the so-called Gonski education reforms, potentially pitting a slug on smokers against any Coalition plan to increase the GST rate or impose it on fresh food.
Sources have told Fairfax Media that the federal opposition has agreed to another round of 12.5 per cent increases, which sources said would net $40 billion over 10 years.
The increase would push up the cost of cigarettes in Australia to well beyond $1 per stick, making Australia’s tobacco among the most expensive in the world.
]
Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/labor-to-raise-tobacco-taxes-again-to-pay-for-gonski-reforms-20151109-gku8lj.html#ixzz3qxzgihB3
I think Abbott’s dismal performance masked some of the story of why Labor lost in 2013. A story people hadn’t forgotten, just put aside because of Abbott. Labor need to recast their thoughts with that as a starting point.
Part of the story was that Labor were not trusted to manage things. Even with many of their own initiatives that people liked, the Coalition were trusted to deliver them over Labor.
oops…correction required….
[I always worried about population but I believed the demographers who
said it would take care of itself. They were wrong, so I stopped listening to them.
I kicked off a national debate about this issue in 2009. The points I made were about endangered species, climate change, traffic, housing, and the cost of living and the problems of Australia at 36 million.]
http://www.kelvinthomson.com.au/Editor/assets/speeches_2013/131201%20victoria%20first%20inaugural%20meeting.pdf
“Sources” have told Fairfax. Mmmm, sources in which party?
Good to see the Rudd haters in full voice maintaining their rage this afternoon.
K17 @ 2267
[Now Labor can run a scare campaign for months and months.]
Turnbull has put everything on the table re tax. In those circumstances, it is not a scare campaign to simply look at the likely impact of the mainstream options being discussed. Labor is not talking about a 25% GST (which has not been suggested), nor is it suggesting that raising the GST will result in $100 lamb roasts (which Joyce falsely claimed re the carbon price).
It’s all very good for Turbot to say he does not want to rule in or rule out, but anything feasible that is on the table that is not ruled out is a genuine prospect – and not just a fear campaign.
TPOF – I know it’s not a “scare” campaign, but it’s as good as the real thing!
It will be almost impossible for him now, having marched up the hill, to turn around and say there will be no GST.
Yet we are repeatedly told that this psychotically greedy self-promoter is “brilliant”. Bullshit.
DN @ 2293
[the Coalition were trusted to deliver them over Labor.]
Trusted? Labor might not have been trusted because they appeared mainly interested in their internal squabbles, rather than the national interest, but the Liberals definitely did not have much trust themselves. Which showed in the very short honeymoon after its election. It started with no political capital and borrowed heavily against the future until the Coalition declared bankruptcy by dumping its leader and tried to restart with a new figurehead.
MB,
Same goes for Anna Burke who is my local MP.
She is out and about working her electorate, doing the hard yards as she always is doing.
I will have no hesitation in handing out her HTVs during pre-polling in the absence of any ALP supporters as I did for the ALP candidate during the 2014 Vic election.
Some ALP supporters couldn’t bring themselves to reciprocate for the Greens and they were not always polite about it. Sad.