As best as I can tell, we have a lean weak ahead for opinion polling (at federal level, at least), as media outlets hold their fire ahead of the resumption of parliament next week. In lieu of that then, here’s a fresh new post-about-nothing – except perhaps for the following preselection news of the past 24 hours:
• The WA Liberals’ state council has overturned the result of last weekend’s local preselection vote in the new seat of Burt, at which Liz Storer, a Gosnells councillor linked to a rising religious conservative faction centred around state upper house MP Nick Goiran, defeated Matt O’Sullivan, who runs mining magnate Andrew Forrest’s GenerationOne indigenous employment scheme. Gareth Parker of The West Australian reports that state council will now determine the matter for itself, on the basis that the 25 branch delegates that determined the vote were insufficient in number. State council otherwise confirmed last week’s locally selected candidates, including Ben Morton who has deposed Dennis Jensen in Tangney. Also decided was a fiercely contested preselection for the state seat of Bateman, in which members of neighbouring seats sought the safer of two berths as set by the redistribution. This resulted in a victory for Dean Nalder, Transport Minister and member for abolished Alfred Cove, over the existing member for Bateman, Matt Taylor. Like the decision in Burt, this represented a defeat for the Goiran faction.
• The Toowoomba-based seat of Groom will be contested for the Liberal National Party by state MP John McVeigh, who won a preselection vote yesterday ahead of David van Gend, a local general practitioner noted for socially conservative views. This will necessitate a by-election in McVeigh’s state seat of Toowoomba South, which McVeigh held on a margin of 8.9%.
• Another important Liberal National Party preselection will be held today in Wide Bay, the seat of retiring former Nationals leader Warren Truss. The candidates are Damien Massingham, chief executive of Tourism Noosa; Tim Langmead, director of external relations at Fortescue Metals; and Llew O’Brien, a police officer. Steven Scott of the Courier-Mail reports Massingham is supported mostly by Liberals, and in particular by Attorney-General George Brandis; Langmead’s backers include Matthias Cormann, along with Fortescue Metals boss Andrew Forrest; and O’Brien is (ahem) supported by Truss.
This link should work
https://amp.twimg.com/v/b6862358-b32d-481c-bb03-7816a1e51dbc
Chris Berg from the ABC ( why do they employ him ?) pointing out how good tax havens are for us all. Maybe I’m not terribly logical, but if everyone in a tax haven paid their fair share, wouldn’t that put downward pressure on domestic tax rates ?
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-04-12/berg-are-the-panama-papers-really-such-a-scandal/7316618
Had a look and Dr Jennifer Oriel is a political scientist who has no particular qualifications in education.
Tom.
VP – It is absolutely revolting that the ABC gives any space to any organisations (like the IPA) which do not reveal their donors and are therefore just well-dressed PR firms.
Vogon
That doesn’t make any sense to me, either.
[ Vogon Poet
Posted Tuesday, April 12, 2016 at 9:44 am | Permalink
Chris Berg from the ABC ( why do they employ him ?) ]
He is from the IPA writing an article for the drum
[ Chris Berg is a Research Fellow with the Institute of Public Affairs.
He is a regular columnist with ABC’s The Drum ]
http://www.abc.net.au/news/chris-berg/28138
lizzie@986:
Charles Murray and the White Sheets ride again.
John Reidy@989
[ Similar to the DT but a bit more upmarket, the GG has 2 articles in the prime middle left of the front page. ]
Has anyone else noticed that there is more real news in the GG than in the Age or the SMH?
I have found this repeatedly over the last couple of months in the dead tree versions.
Yes, for the Australian newspaper you have to read between the lines and ignore the bias. Yes, articles against the LNP tend to get buried in non-prime locations.
But they are there. The SMH and Age have become very lightweight.
dave
He’s from the Drum writing an article for the IPA.
I’m sure he doesn’t give articles to the ABC for free.
shiftaling@981
Mmmm. I wonder why ?
[ Mr Medcraft also said he was seeking reappointment in his role as ASIC chairman, which expires in a month….
“I want to continue on with the job. It’s a matter for government. I am focused on the next four weeks and we’re very busy over the next four weeks.” ]
Read more: http://www.afr.com/news/policy/asics-greg-medcraft-downplays-royal-commission-call-20160411-go3rde#ixzz45Z9mui42
Apparently Jennifer Oriel really does believe this proto eugenics stuff:
From her Linked In page https://www.linkedin.com/in/dr-jennifer-oriel-a58a3a78 comes this example of where her head’s at:
“No madman’s manifesto” (Anders Breivik)
It seems to be the usual Howard/Costello/Windschuttle Culture Wars/Anti Cultural Marxism fangirl pap:
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/higher-education/opinion/no-madmans-manifesto/story-e6frgcko-1226111937663
And she appears to have built her profile on the Right by riding the RW Neu Feminist wave in all it’s philosophically contradictory glory:
https://www.amherst.edu/media/view/248654/original/sexual+pleasure+as+a+HR.pdf
But maybe Jennifer should heed her own advice to Breivik from 2011 in light of her effort yesterday:
[ If we consider how often in the 21st century we fail to think out the underlying principles of our beliefs or actions, how often we are victimised by unanalysed ideas, how indifferent we are to knowledge, how careless of truth, how ready to lose our temper and say things that turn discussions into partisan quarrels, then we shall see how much we have still to learn from Socrates. ]
The ABC doesn’t have to pay Berg for his articles. IPA donors pay for them. He just needs a platform.
Vogon Poet@1009
He works for the IPA as a Senior Fellow at the Institute of Public Affairs.
https://ipa.org.au/people/chris-berg
He ‘contributes’ to the ABC via the Drom seeking to further the IPA’s agenda.
The ABC may feel it needs another RWNJ for ‘balance’.
Maybe he get a small fee from the ABC who knows ?
But the KPI’s of the IPA were and probably still are the number of public articles/ appearances they can disseminate etc.
But his day job is the IPA.
Good Morning
There is no doubt despite the spin from the right an RC into banks is a winner.
Best of all is that now Labor’s call for an RC into Finance is gaining status as a leadershit stalking horse. Its the best one for the undermining of Turnbull because the Nationals are on the side of having an RC all those stories about banks mistreating farmers have had their electoral effect
strom_m: This is very good.
#panamapapers told us what we already knew. How we respond will be the story I @Jeff_Sparrow https://t.co/vGzH5jvIyx
The big news of the day so far
GuardianAus: Clive Palmer’s Queensland Nickel should be liquidated, say administrators https://t.co/60enSqkXvY
[It is absolutely revolting that the ABC gives any space to any organisations (like the IPA) which do not reveal their donors and are therefore just well-dressed PR firms.]
It may be revolting, but it is decidedly par for the course. The ABC has an increasingly narrow range of views on display, and that range is continually shifting to the right.
“Chris Berg is a Research Fellow with the Institute of Public Affairs.”
Doug Cameron exposes underqualified IPA
https://independentaustralia.net/politics/politics-display/doug-cameron-exposes-the-callow-ipa,6011
Research Fellow is IPA speak for chief propagandist, ABC division.
The internal polling must be pretty dire as the Daily Telegraph has boats and labor on its front page. Pretty early I would have thought.
I rarely get anything out of Berg’s articles, but he is an important voice for balance. There’s no shortage of lefty and centre lefty views on the ABC, and however wrong right wingers are, they need to be reflected in the national broadcaster as well.
Only a truly committed neocon could argue that tax dodging is good because it keeps taxes low with a straight face, mind.
[ however wrong right wingers are, they need to be reflected in the national broadcaster as well. ]
The ABC should insist on disclose by the IPA as to its ‘faceless’ financial backers as a pre-requisite to access to the National Broadcaster.
Most voters would eschew the 100 matters the IPA want changed in our society – if they knew who the IPA is and what the 100 matters are.
But the IPA are getting more of its employees into tory selection etc and thats another reason disclose should happen.
The backing of Big Tobacco particularly is an issue for me, the employer unions etc as well.
Jeebus!
During a short statement peppered with ity buzzwords (livability, connectibility etc etc) Turnbull pronounces “these are the most exciting times of human history”.
Faaaaaarrrrrrroooouuuutttttttt!
If they’re not lying they’re exaggerating to the point of ‘laughability’
With the introduction of the HSR, properties with 200K value will increase to 600K. This means that more and more young people will lose the opportunity to own houses. This government surely continues with its thought bubbles and hope that they will get one right and that it will be enough to win an election. Now they might be right in the end but what a disastrous way to run a country.
http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/the-real-point-of-high-speed-rail-property-development-20160411-go3gxj.html
TD
More fantasy stuff from the right. Keeping tax rates low has not helped the US.
Having high taxes has not hurt the likes of Finland and Norway.
However tax havens allowing Terrorists; People Traffickers; Drug Dealers is far more damaging to the Western economies than high tax rates could ever be.
Actual Safety and security of the western states could be at stake. How long before a link is made between a tax haven and the money hidden by IS to fund its terror campaigns?
[“Darryn Lyons has been great for Geelong. But for governance, he’s been bloody hopeless,” Cr Ellis told 3AW.
But he agreed with Cr Lyons in saying that the state government had an agenda to sack the council, regardless of what the commission had found.
He said the direct election of a mayor in Geelong had been a failed experiment.]
http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/geelong-mayor-darryn-lyons-says-council-sacking-is-all-about-party-politics-20160411-go41kh.html
From a purely rational/practical point of view that sees competition as a method of producing the best solution to a problem, or as an experiment in promoting the capable and weeding out those less so, you can’t properly measure and compare the results if everyone started in a different place and ran a different race.
jenauthor
[Turnbull pronounces “these are the most exciting times of human history”.]
His ego has exploded.
teh_drewski
[I rarely get anything out of Berg’s articles, but he is an important voice for balance. There’s no shortage of lefty and centre lefty views on the ABC, and however wrong right wingers are, they need to be reflected in the national broadcaster as well.]
You are spot on! Some comments on here are just ridiculous.
Lizzie, he reminds me of a little kid trying to look important to his family by gushing feigned self-confidence
SabraLane: Important study: based on research in Australia. https://t.co/fYvFOmudKh
[This means that more and more young people will lose the opportunity to own houses. ]
The problem is that neither young people nor older people will buy houses if they need to work to pay the bills and the house is not a feasible location to live and get to work each day.
If the value of a house triples because of the impact of the amenity of a high speed rail service along the way, that is because the house is now a more practical option for buyers.
That’s the point about the idea of value capture – that the price of the house is going to go up and therefore the government should be able to share in (capture) the windfall that accrues to the owner of the property.
Next hour has Turnbull and Shorten pressers. In the meantime at 11:30 AEST Chris Bowen will hold a RC into Finance presser.
[Some comments on here are just ridiculous.]
Indeed. Of course there is no agreement whatsoever as to which comments are ridiculous (at least not since Truthie was banned).
Turnbull presser now
dave@1022:
I suspect that IPA association alone is sufficient to identify a one as a conscienceless shill for spivs – there is no need to quantify or qualify their guilt any further.
I suspect that the post-election period will be a bit like Nuremberg in 1946 – enlivened by the spectacle of a great many of the IPA acolytes vying with each other to pretend that they were in the resistance all along. Clive the Hut is currently demonstrating just how easy that will be.
Turnbull pronounces “these are the most exciting times of human history”.
Doubling down on the ‘Exciting Times’ mantra because the original one has run out of steam.
Jason
Snelling has completely botched Transforming Health. That combined with the RAH fiasco would normally mean resigning. But no one wants the job. 85% of doctors and nurses oppose it. Even Mark Butler wants it put on hold.
It’s this generations State Bank.
Now an attack on Bowen. Turnbull citing BIS Shrapnel report.
[Turnbull pronounces “these are the most exciting times of human history”.]
F*ck you Renaissance!
UberX to become legal in SA.
Good move by Weatherill.
http://www.macrobusiness.com.au/2016/04/consumer-confidence-falls-for-4th-straight-week/
The Turnbott effect…falling consumer confidence. Households are worried about incomes, taxes, budget cuts, jobs and the incompetence of the LNP.
[During a short statement peppered with ity buzzwords (livability, connectibility etc etc) Turnbull pronounces “these are the most exciting times of human history”.]
Its the Investor’s Creed: “In confusion is profit”.
Albo presser now
Turnbull went on with half truths and misrepresentations again and again. It seems to be all he has.
If his own government had a record of ‘good’ government – even with a low definitional threshold for the term – some of the Labor bad, boo, hiss stuff might stick. I just don’t see how a do nothing government that seems to have no sense of what is really bothering middle class, middle income voters in Australia and is squabbling very loudly with itself is going to get re-elected.
[1037
C@tmomma
Turnbull pronounces “these are the most exciting times of human history”.
Doubling down on the ‘Exciting Times’ mantra because the original one has run out of steam.]
It sure doesn’t feel thrilling for most people. Real incomes have advanced by just 1% per capita in the last 5 years. Household indebtedness has never been higher. Savings rates have been falling again. The tax take for households on median-average incomes has been increasing even as social incomes have been cut.
GuardianAus: The Guardian view on David Cameron and tax havens: a dodgy day at the office | Editorial https://t.co/Z7YuYTtfLz
Bowen Presser now
Guytaur
[Now an attack on Bowen. Turnbull citing BIS Shrapnel report.]
That wouldn’t happen to be the same BIS Shrapnel report that Scott Morrison was trying to use a few months back to attack Labor’s negative gearing policy?
Mill
I know of no other BIS Shrapnel report and missed which Turnbull was referring to