First up, the latest dispatches from the front:
• The preference deal with the Greens being pursued by the Victorian Liberals at the behest of the party’s state president, Michael Kroger, is meeting resistance from other branches of the party. Rick Wallace of The Australian today cites unidentified Liberal sources expressing displeasure at the idea, and gets Tasmanian Senator Eric Abetz to reiterate that the “very strong view” of his own state division was that the Greens should be put last. The party’s federal director, Tony Nutt, issued a statement yesterday stressing that no decision had been made.
• Labor hit a spot of bother today in the Townsville electorate of Herbert, which it has never quite been able to pick off since it fell to the Liberals in the 1996 landslide. Bill Shorten’s Queensland road trip brought him to the electorate today, but a doorstop he conducted together with the Labor candidate, Cathy O’Toole, was dominated by O’Toole’s involving in a protest at Liberal member Ewen Jones’s electorate office in February pleading for “a more humane policy for refugees”.
• Apropos Dennis Jensen’s announcement he will run as an independent in Tangney, the Australian Parliamentary Library reviews “the electoral fortunes of MPs who left major parties and contested the next election as Independents”, going back to 1949. Out of 17 identified examples, 12 failed to win their seats (several of whom left office under a cloud); three won re-election but were then defeated at the next election subsequently; and another won re-election and then retired at the election subsequently. Only Bob Katter went on to lasting electoral success.
Now to polling. BludgerTrack has been updated with the latest Essential Research, along with state data from Ipsos, Essential and ReachTEL. The Coalition is now credited with a lead of 50.5-49.5, which is full point better than the pre-budget reading from last week. That translates into a net gain of three since last week on the seat projection, with two gains in New South Wales and one each in Victoria and the Northern Territory balanced by a loss in Queensland. At some point in the not distant future, I’ll start including state-level primary vote breakdowns and two-party results from respondent-allocated trends as well as previous election preferences, but for the time being the display looks like so:
Two new polls were released yesterday, and I have a bit left to say about one from the day before:
• Essential Research’s fortnightly rolling average has the Labor lead down from 52-48 to 51-49, with the Coalition up a point on the primary vote to 42%, Labor steady on 38% and the Greens steady on 10%. The poll also records 20% approval and 29% disapproval of the budget, with 35% opting for neither and 15% for don’t know. Twenty-one per cent felt the budget had made them more confident in the government, compared with 32% for less confident and 35% for makes no difference. However, most of the specific measures were well supported; 69% for internships for the young unemployed versus 14% opposed; 72% for the higher tax on cigarettes, versus 21% against; 62% for capping super tax concessions, versus 21% against; and 50% in favour of company tax cuts, versus 34% against. Opinion was evenly divided on the tax cut for those on more than $80,000, at 43% for and 44% against, and there was a predictable result for “cuts of $1.2 billion to aged care providers”. A bonus survey question provided exclusively to SBS recorded a view that the budget would make it harder for young people looking to buy their first home and gain a higher education, migrant families seeking education jobs, and people saving for their retirement – but there was a relatively good result for “young people trying to find a job”, presumably reflecting the internships scheme. The poll also recorded 48% opposition to bringing asylum seekers from Manus Island to Australia with 30% in support, and 39% holding the view that conditions in detention centres were poor, versus 32% for good.
• The Guardian Australia yesterday published a poll by Lonergan Research showing 50-50 on two-party preferred, from primary votes of Coalition 42%, Labor 35% and Greens 12%. It also found only 12% felt they would be better off because of the budget compared with 38% for worse off, and that 29% said it made them more likely to vote for the Coalition compared with 47% for less likely. The poll was automated phone survey of 1841 respondents conducted Friday to Sunday.
• I hadn’t mentioned the budget response results from Newspoll, which are worth a closer look. Among other things, there are breakdowns by income cohort, which you don’t often see in published polling. Those on higher incomes ($100,000 and lower) were more disposed to have an overall favourable view than those on lower incomes ($50,000 or less), but not by a great order of magnitude: 39% good and 22% in the former case, 31% good and 22% bad in the latter. However, bigger disparities were recorded on personal impact, with 11% of low-income earners expecting to be better off and 45% expecting to be worse off, compared with 29% and 27% for higher income earners. There are also interesting differences by age, with the most favourable responses coming from the young and the least favourable from the middle-aged, with the older cohort landing in between. Charts below put all this into the context of the regular post-budget Newspoll questions going back to 1988 (although there’s a slight change this year and that there are no longer neutral as distinct from uncommitted response options), and show the historic relationship between the “own financial position” and “economic impact” questions, with this year’s question identified in red. On pretty much every measure, this was an average response to a budget, although the plus 5% net rating for economic impact compares slightly unfavourably with an average of plus 10.9%. Its also a weaker than usual result for a Coalition budget, which have had historically better results (part of which is to do with the Howard government holding the reins in the pre-GFC boom years).
That should be
The logical end point of the argument that there is no point to taxing companies because something, something, trickle down …
Shellbell,
A Justice Blow would almost be life imitating art as a “Rumpolean” character. Imagine if he was a hardliner.
Just watching the drum.
The banker gentleman has mastered the art of looking shifty by quick sideways glances at the camera. He will not be selling me a used car.
Fairly innocuous today although I have the benefit of being quite deaf and unless one of the obvious RW twits is spouting the usual nonsense I don’t pay much attention. In the last instance (RW twits) I mostly feed the dog and get out my trust EReader.
Hooro
You can be very sure that former PUP voters will not vote Green. PUP tended to do well where the G’s did poorly. NXT? also not likely.
PUP attracted votes away from Labor and the LNP and this is where they will tend to return. Considering the disaffiliation from the LNP that has been occurring, these voters will likely coalesce with Labor this time even if they route their support through other proxies.
EG T
An interesting bit of history. Thanks.
I dunno about NXT’s IR policies…in any case the correct strategy for Labor is to feed the split in centre right opinion rather than to reward the schismatics on the centre left. This is particularly the case if NXT is unstable. The more turmoil there is on the right the better.
Airlines – I wondered why Sen ‘X’ wanted an offsider. Now I know.
From the end of today’s Crikey, if you are old enough (sorry Millennial), you will remember the last time retrospective tax legislation came to the fore, in 1982, and in the midst of the bottom of the harbour scandal, one liberal treasurer John Winston Howard changed legislation which resulted in taxation lawyers being prosecuted for giving advice that was legal at the time. The writer wonders what role that had in the election of Hawke Labor in 1983.
daretotread:
Given Xenophon’s history of picking rather poor candidates in the past (and still doing so, if that genital-acupuncture advocating anti-vaxxer is anything to go by), you may be right. It will be interesting to see how Xenophon, a man who’s used to being a lone wolf in parliament who can do what he wants, when he wants, will adjust to leading a caucus of potentially 4-5 other MPs, some of whom may heavily disagree with the party line on certain issues. While his party certainly has a more coherent platform and ideology than PUP did, he will have to be very careful that NXT doesn’t fall into same traps that befell PUP (and One Nation before them) when a bunch of disparate, inexperienced MPs were all simultaneously elected to parliament with only some rather vague ideological values or policy positions to unite them.
That said, there is clearly a significant cohort of alienated centrist and right-leaning voters out there looking for a party or movement to hang their hat on. Its just that so far most of the parties that attempted to capitalise on this have been either laughably incompetent (PUP, One Nation), preoccupied with niche issues (Katter), or have a narrow state/regional-based focus (Katter and Xenophon, hough in the latter’s case, that maychange in time), so they tend to just grit their teeth and vote Lib or Nat. If as ridiculous an entity as PUP could get 5-6% of the vote in 2013, just imagine what a vaguely sensible and united centre-right party with actual policies and the like could achieve.
Time will tell if Xenophon’s the one who achieves this, I suppose. One thing I am pretty confident in predicting, however, is that if Team Xenophon does wind up being the kingmaker in a minority government on July 2, it will almost certainly end in tears for all involved – Xenophon would likely personally survive the carnage, but it would probably be the end of his party.
Fiona Katauskas @FionaKatauskas · 3h3 hours ago
Just caught the visual of Malcolm talking about the Panama stuff.
His body language is all wrong.
He should be treating it as a serious issue, and talking with gravity.
Instead, he’s almost smirking; his attitude is one of amusement.
Doesn’t come across well.
Re Chris Brown, Shorten can say that there’s a party process being followed and that he isn’t going to step in and make a “captains pick”
Sounds good to me, especially in the context of a new Labor Government with a strong contingent of Senators. Labor’s opponents – the G’s, NXT, the LNP and any other strays – would be left to try to manouvre for advantage against each other. Labor would be able to govern from strength; its opponents would play from their weakness. Excellent prospect…!
ABC News Online:
He’s right.
Everyone knew he’d do anything possible to avoid having to pay tax.
Tingle —
If anyone thinks Malcolm has empathy…
Michael Dowling @MeckeringBoy · 2m2 minutes ago
Briefly, this is what the NXT website has to say about IR policy:
And here’s his position on refugees:
https://nxt.org.au/whats-nxt/policy-principles/
From what I can see, Xenophon is trying to strike a moderate, middle-of-the-road tone there, so I think if Shorten won government, NXT would be actually be a good negotiating partner for getting things done.
Asha Leu’s prediction that NXT could end in tears does ring true though, as many vanity projects do.
We are less than a week into the formal campaign and already the deficiencies in the LNP offering are clear. They have no policies other than a budget that is already out of date and unraveling. Their laziness and incompetence is there for all to see. As well they have False Promise as a leader in name only. It’s hard to the campaign going their way.
jimmydoyle @ #1317 Thursday, May 12, 2016 at 6:12 pm
Cheers Jimmy….food for thought…seems a bit light on..but definitely pitched at the centre…
https://newmatilda.com/2016/05/12/the-pursuit-of-duncan-storrar-reveals-the-savagery-of-australias-class-warfare/?utm_campaign=shareaholic&utm_medium=twitter&utm_source=socialnetwork
I look forward to a Shorten Labor Government introducing its climate change policies. The Senate will have to decide whether to pass them. If they refuse, then this time a DD on a real issue will certainly ensue. It may be the moment when the splitters finally cave in.
Got an interesting letter in the post today form the LNP but it looks like it’s from the electoral commission. I’m in Griffith, Queensland (Terri Butler’s seat)
https://www.dropbox.com/s/dzac81239wpt5fo/LNP%20Fed%20Postal%20Vote%20Letter%202016.pdf?dl=0
All that was visible in the window of the envelope was “Information for the resident” which was printed on the letter from Malcolm Turnbull inside.
Not sure if the return addresses are AEC or LNP addresses. The PO Box 960 Archerfield used to belong to Dennings the bus manufacturing people (from a Google search). The return address on the Postal Vote application form “Reply Paid 9867 in your capital city” is different from the address on the Reply Paid envelope.
I saw something on Twitter today about this happening elsewhere in Australia so they’re probably doing the whole country.
It doesn’t strictly have the LNP or Liberal Party or National Party name on it anywhere. The closest is “Turnbull Liberal National Team” on the letter. In particular the envelope doesn’t bear any identification. There is nothing to indicate that Fiona Ward is an LNP candidate – she is just described as “candidate”. The authorisation does not have a party name.
ajm @ #1322 Thursday, May 12, 2016 at 6:23 pm
Electoral trickery by the Greens’ trading partners.
Pyne and Payne don’t seem to realise the parliament has been dissolved!
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-05-12/fact-check-is-the-government-not-yet-in-caretaker-mode/7409042
Alan Moir celebrates the freedom given to Manus Island refugees.
Crank #1284 As I expected, no attempt to even begin to understand the point being made. There is no such thing as a ‘logical end point’ to a model of a situation referring to a particular range of a few particular variables, which in this case involves small businesses with a turnover in the $2 million range, with private owners, and operating in a tax regime which includes dividend imputation. As I expected you don’t begin to understand that on which you choose to pontificate. You are, in a word, thick, and in another, delusional, and you wouldn’t know a logical conclusion if it bit you on the bum. As I believe I have told you before, I build very large financial and optimisation models for a living, and have done so for over 30 years. The very idea that a particular set of algorithms, which are effective and sufficiently accurate in the context of operations of a particular scale in a particular industry, could be be applied to operations of a different scale in a different industry/economy/legal/tax framework is just inane, like you.
The biggest problems with the econometric models which are espoused by mobs like Access Economics and Shrapnel, is that they do not take account of the completely different earning and spending behaviours of groups in the economy with different asset/savings/age/training/experience characteristics. No one size fits all approach will ever work. As has been proven in spades in the USA, and UK, trickle down DOES NOT WORK. The end result is a disintegration of civil society, as is being demonstrated in the USA.
The Thatcherite mantra, that ‘there is no such thing as society’, leads to government action that is self fulfilling. The 2 and bit years of Abbott insanity illustrated that here, and election of Turnbull will continue the slow descent into nastiness, division and social unrest that people like you apparently look forward to.
Crank
That was Arthur Laffer’s logic – he’s still around, apparently.
With imputation the tax extracted before income reaches domestic owners is the same irrespective of the corps rate. Assuming imputation is refundable what would happen (in principle) with 100% corps tax is that shareholders would get huge franking credits and then get an enormous cheque from the ATO (but no normal dividend payments). In practice this would have problems such as carousel fraud opportunities (inherent in all net refund schemes?), be an international embarrassment, encourage unwise reinvestment and no doubt lead to other distortions.
The imputation scheme removes sensitivity of owners returns to the corps rate but does not render the corps rate irrelevant in that it changes the balance between reinvestment on the one hand and extraction and recycling (into other investment opportunities) on the other.
It is argued (and there is evidence) that imputation both increases the volume of capital recycling and accelerates its velocity. In particular there is a recycling process where dividend streams (typically from large firms) get re-invested into small and promising firms, and this is almost certainly beneficial.
Higher effective corps rate (for a given entity) makes it more likely that that entity will return dividends (with franking credits attached) to shareholders. Lower corps rate (thus lower franking credits attached) makes reinvestment more likely (so in that sense I now agree partly with what you said previously).
However, investment opportunities are not distributed evenly. Promising startup firms in particular have more good investment opportunities than do established firms. Large established firms are particularly subject to the agency problem and to executive management preferring to invest unwisely due to ego etc. Mom and Pop stores are a different category to both, in effect the owner and the management are the same so the rate does make no difference in this case even if it applies (only if the firm is incorporated).
So one would like to encourage reinvestment in promising startups whilst encouraging dividend payment in established firms (to promote recycling of the capital into promising startups). This would be achieved by a lower corps rate for startups and a higher corps rate for established. The question (as always) is how to identify the startups. One possibility is combine a revenue threshold ($10m, $20m?) with a choice for those below between:
A – lower corps rate but non-refundable imputation
B – higher corps rate but refundable imputation
And make it easy to change from A to B but change to move from B to A.
Or a more continuous scheme where % refundability is determine by a combination of the corps rate choice and the revenue on a sliding basis.
Just got robopolled by ReachTel. It was a seat specific poll (easy to tell when you live in Denison, Tas). Was interesting that one of the questions was which out of the three tiers of government would you abolish in Tasmania.
LOL – Melbourne University Press has this to say about Shorten’s newly released book (I have ordered it and am eagerly awaiting its arrival):
https://www.mup.com.au/items/189576#sthash.Ug8IwMpE.dpu
Zoomster
Australians are looking to Malcolm Turnbull – the famous merchant banker – to provide guidance on the issue of tax havens
Most people would not be comfortable that they understood tax havens well enough to form an objective view. Malcolm, with all his experience, must surely have the knowledge and thus must have a view.
People expect him to lead on this. Either explain why they’re good (or a necessary evil) overall or that they’re bad (and if so what is he going to do about it).
Instead he just says “everyone is doing it” so let’s talk about something else. That’s not leadership, it’s following the herd. On an issue where he has inside knowledge, that’s a very bad look.
RECEIVED today a postal vote letter featuring Malcolm Turnbull in federal Adelaide. Disappointing. Surely Labor had heaps of warning and should not have been left at the post.
What do people think would happen if Australians on average paid net taxation over the long term?
AJM, those letters are supposedly a copy of one for the AEC and is onsent to the AEC AFTER the Libs gather info about you. Look at the ‘disclaimer’ at the bottom of the page about intercepting information.
We got the same. My hubby does postal vote and went directly to the AEC website instead.
Deary me i was in city all day and missed seeing Malcolm do lunch at the Athaneum Club. Of course, it is not a place where women can attend
[Collins St in Melbourne, it’s described on its website as “a private social club for gentlemen of good character, attainment or promise”]
EG Theodore
Thursday, May 12, 2016 at 6:45 pm
<blockquote
No net taxation …
What do people think would happen if Australians on average paid net taxation over the long term?
Dave Donovan
Dave Donovan @davrosz
Malcolm Turnbull Has Lunch At Gentleman-Only Athenaeum Club http://www.huffingtonpost.com.au/2016/05/12/malcolm-turnbull-has-lunch-at-gentleman-only-athenaeum-club/ …
Some art work for home in lieu of the mantle piece
http://www.standard.co.uk/goingout/exhibitions/turner-prize-judges-shortlist-10metre-high-sculpture-of-a-mans-backside-a3246106.html
Toorak Toff:
Have a look at the poster with Malcolm Turnbull and the Adelaide candidate. Malcolm Turnbull is in front and seems to be Photoshopped in. The result is that Chairman Mal has a sort of shiny look, a bit like Chairman Mao or even Kim Il-sung. Really weird.
shellbell
Looks like an invitation to enter.
Yeah, the “no net tax” analysis should be extended just a little bit farther.
Given we have been running deficits for quite a few years now it’s clear that Australians, collectively, pay “no net tax”.
There will, of course, be some people who pay a fair amount of “net tax” and many many many people who are “net beneficiaries”.
But will the Oz go to town on the fact that significantly more than half of the country “pays no net tax” with the implication that we’re, by and large, bludgers who don’t deserve to ask questions or have opinions on taxation policy? I don’t think so somehow.
Personally, the tax haven nonsense is not going to hurt Turnbull.
What hurts him is “small talk” ineptitude. Basically, he’s failing the “Good Bloke ” test in his dealings with the community. Women, strangely, seem to be a particular weakness.
TT,
No one is going to return a vote for an election in July in May.
First out, long forgotten.
Labor has finalised its Senate ticket in WA, with Louise Pratt at number four.
Anthony Stewart @anthonystewart
WA CANDIDATES: @walabor has finalised its #senate ticket. 1. @linessue 2.@GlennSterle 3. Pat Dodson 4. @Louise_Pratt 5. @markreedwa #auspol
WB,
Just curious why you haven’t given the preference deal between Labor and the Sex Party any prominence or consideration. Could make a difference in countering the Greens.
Hi All,
Some of you may remember me being a complete pest about the death penalty last year, when Indonesia decided for reasons of domestic politics that it would be great fun to take some people convicted of drug smuggling out and shoot them, turning the whole even into a circus the most bloodthirsty Roman emperor would have been proud of.
Afterward, Indonesia cited “economic conditions” as a reason for calling a moratorium on executions. I read this as ” we actually did ourselves economic harm by this circus, and so we should stop doing this”.
However, Indonesia are now (oh so quietly), preparing to shoot some more people.
I give the link here for an Amnesty International petition requesting Widoko not to proceed with the executions: http://www.amnesty.org.au/action/action/41770/?utm_source=CIC&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=CIC737_20160512_indDP&utm_content=button1
If any of you could sign it I would be grateful.
The fact that the Indonesian government did put a moratorium on executions because of international pressure, even if it was only for 12 months, shows that they can be swayed by pressure on this issue.
Call it kismet, but tomorrow I am meeting with a work colleague of mine to discuss some internet teaching stuff. When I meet with him, I always remember how much I admire his father. My colleague is the son of Rupert (Dick) Hamer, who was Premier of Victoria, after the ghastly Henry Bolte. Rupert Hamer abolished the death penalty in Victoria after succeeding Bolte as Liberal leader in Victoria. The last person to be hung in Australia was Ronald Ryan in 1967, under Bolte. As usual with Capital Punishment, it was a sad story all round. People still talk of Hamer Liberals, and these people have my utmost respect.
So, now seems like a really good time to me to remember what a travesty of human rights the death penalty is, and to work hard for its abolition.
greensborough growler @ #1345 Thursday, May 12, 2016 at 7:13 pm
The Sex Party doesn’t have as many volunteers etc and is therefore less likely to have impact than the Greens/ALP/Coalition engaging in preference deals, because the Sex Party are less likely to spread the message via HTVs etc.
William —
NSW
1. Sam Dastyari
2. Jennifer McAllister
3. Deborah O’Neill
4. Doug Cameron
5. Tara Moriarty
6. Vivien Thomson
VICTORIA
1. Kim Carr
2. Stephen Conroy
3. Jacinta Collins
4. Gavin Marshall
5. Jennifer Yang
6. Louise Persse
QLD
1. Murray Watt
2. Anthony Chisholm
3. Claire Moore
4. Chris Ketter
5. Jane Casey
6. Cheryl Thompson
WA
1. Sue Lines
2. Glenn Sterle
3. Patrick Dodson
4. Louise Pratt
5. Mark Reed
6. Susan Bowers
SA
1. Penny Wong
2. Don Farrell
3. Alex Gallacher
4. Anne McEwen
5. Michael Allison
6. Bronwyn Gallacher
TASMANIA
1. Anne Urquhart
2. Helen Polley
3. Carol Brown
4. Catryna Bilyk
5. John Short
6. Lisa Singh
ACT
1. Katy Gallagher
2. David Smith
NT
1. Nova Peris
2. Pat Honan
Waleed being very mean to Albo on The Project telling him that his stance on asylum seekers means he may lose his seat to The Greens.
Not even sure that was a thing the last time I posted, GG. I’d like to be doing daily updates here, but stuff gets in the way. The one I post tonight will have a lot of what seems like old news in it, having happened all of one day ago.