Noteworthy developments since my last federal election post 24 hours ago:
• Ahead of the High Court’s ruling on Senator Bob Day’s challenge to the constitutionality of Senate electoral reform, to be delivered at 10am today, Jeremy Gans at the University of Melbourne portends its rejection. Gans notes the court has failed to issue orders in advance of written reasons, as it likely would have done if its ruling was anything the Australian Electoral Commission needed to know about.
• Another, less publicised election-related High Court challenge met an unsuccessful conclusion last night, with the rejection of a bid to keep the electoral roll open beyond its scheduled close of 8pm on Monday. The challenge sought to build on the High Court’s ruling during the 2010 campaign which invalidated Howard-era amendments that closed the roll to new enrolments on the evening the writs were issued, and to updating of addresses three days subsequently.
• A report by Rick Wallace of The Australian talks up Labor’s prospects in the Liberal-held outer Melbourne seat of Dunkley. The seat is being vacated with the retirement of Liberal member Bruce Billson, who narrowly retained it through the Rudd-Gillard years and bequeaths a 5.6% margin to the new Liberal candidate, Chris Crewther. According to Labor sources cited in the report, “one recent sample of a tracking poll in the southeast Melbourne seat had the ALP in front 52-48 per cent after preferences” – though based on what I know of tracking polling, the sample in question would have been about 200. Nonetheless, the Prime Minister is taking the seat seriously enough that he campaigned there yesterday. Notwithstanding Labor’s apparently strong show in this seat, the report also relates that concerns remain about the Melbourne seats of Chisholm and Bruce, where Labor is losing sitting members with the retirements of Anna Burke and Alan Griffin.
• The Australian’s report also says the Nationals are “increasingly optimistic” that their candidate for the seat of Murray, state upper house MP Damian Drum, will win the rural seat of Murray, which is being vacated with the retirement of Liberal member Sharman Stone. However, Labor is said to be dangling a carrot before the Liberals by offering to direct preferences to their candidate ahead of Drum, in exchange for the Liberals dropping their plans to preference the Greens ahead of Labor in the inner northern Melbourne seat of Wills.
• Labor has a new candidate for Fremantle following the disendorsement of Maritime Union of Australia organiser Chris Brown, who failed to disclose past convictions on his candidate nomination form. The national executive convened yesterday to replace him with Josh Wilson, deputy mayor of Fremantle and a staffer for the seat’s outgoing member, Melissa Parke. Brown won the initial preselection through the support of the Left unions on the party’s state executive, despite Wilson defeating him by a 155-110 margin in the ballot of the local membership. On Tuesday it emerged that Brown had spent convictions dating from his late teenage years for assaulting a police officer and driving under the influence. Brown claims to have raised the matter with party officials in April, only to be told spent convictions did not have to be disclosed (although the question on the nomination form is whether the prospective candidate has “ever been found guilty of any offence”). He also claimed his contact with the police officer arose accidentally while he was defending himself from an unprovoked attack by three assailants, and said the court had recognised mitigating circumstances when it gave him a good behaviour bond. I had a lot more to say about this in a paywalled article in Crikey today. One of the issues dealt with was the notion that Labor’s troubles might cause the seat to fall to the Greens, despite their modest 11.9% share of the vote in 2013. While the Greens were sufficiently strong in the immediate vicinity of Fremantle to win the state seat at a by-election in 2009, support for the party is a good deal lower on those parts of the federal electorate not covered by the state seat. This is indicated by the map below, which shows federal boundaries in red and state boundaries in blue, with numbers indicating polling booth locations and the Greens primary vote.
• Labor’s national executive has signed off on its Senate preselections today, capping a process that has produced two particularly contentious outcomes: the return of Don Farrell in second position in South Australia, and the sixth placing given to incumbent Lisa Singh in Tasmania. In turn:
New South Wales: 1. Sam Dastyari (Right), factional powerbroker and former general secretary of the state party branch, who filled the casual vacancy created when his predecessor as general secretary, Matt Thistlethwaite, moved to the lower house seat of Kingsford Smith at the 2013 election; 2. Jenny McAllister (Left), former party national president and technical director of a civil engineering firm, who came to the Senate in May last year in place of John Faulkner; 3. Deborah O’Neill (Right), member for the Central Coast seat of Robertson from 2010 until her defeat in 2013, who filled Bob Carr’s Senate vacancy in November 2013; 4. Doug Cameron (Left), former Australian Manufacturing Workers Union national secretary who was elected from number two in 2007 and 2013; 5. Tara Moriarty (Right), state secretary of United Voice.
Victoria: 1. Kim Carr (Left), leading figure in the Victorian Left, elected from number two in 1993 and 1998, and number one in 2004 and 2010; 2. Stephen Conroy (Right), an ally of Bill Shorten’s in the dominant sub-faction of the Victorian Right, who filled a casual vacancy in 1996, held top position in 1998, then second position in 2004 and 2010; 3. Jacinta Collins (Right), a former official with the Shop Distributive and Allied Employees Association who entered the Senate in 1995, lost her seat from the number three position at the 2004 election after the party’s preference deal with Family First backfired (ironically, given her renown as a social conservative), won it back from top position in 2007, and held second position in 2013; 4. Gavin Marshall (Left), former Electrical Trades Union official who entered the Senate in 2002, and had top position in 2013; 5. Jennifer Yang (unaligned), scientist and former mayor of Manningham who unsuccessfully sought preselection for the lower house seat of Chisholm, and ran for the state seat of Mount Waverley in 2014; 6. Louise Persse (Left, I assume), former national secretary of the Community and Public Sector Union.
Queensland: 1. Murray Watt (Left), Maurice Blackburn lawyer and state member for Everton from 2009 until his defeat in the cleanout of 2012, who last year defeated incumbent Jan McLucas to win the Left’s endorsement for top position on the half-Senate ticket; 2. Anthony Chisholm (Right), former party state secretary who last year won Right endorsement to succeed Joe Ludwig after he announced he would not seek another term; 3. Claire Moore (Left), who was first elected in 2001 and held second position on the ticket in 2001, 2007 and 2013; 4. Chris Ketter (Right), former state secretary of the Shop Distributive and Allied Employees Association, who was first elected from top of the ticket in 2013; 5. Jane Casey, who I can’t tell you much about, except that she’s fron Mackay.
Western Australia: 1. Sue Lines (Left), former assistant national secretary of United Voice, who filled Chris Evans’ Senate vacancy in May 2013; 2. Glenn Sterle (Right), former Transport Workers Union organiser, elected from number two in 2004 and 2010; 3. Pat Dodson (unaligned), indigenous leader and former Roman Catholic priest, anointed by Bill Shorten to fill Joe Bullock’s Senate vacancy in March, which he eventually filled a fortnight ago; 4. Louise Pratt (Left), state upper house member from 2001 and 2007, elected to the Senate from top of the ticket in 2007, then relegated to what proved to be the losing proposition of number two in 2013; 5. Mark Reed (Left), director of campaigns and communications at United Voice.
South Australia: 1. Penny Wong (Left), the Leader of the Opposition in the Senate, first elected from top of the ticket in 2001, relegated to number two in 2007, and promoted to number one only after a backlash against Don Farrell’s initial preselection win in 2013; 2. Don Farrell (Right), former state secretary and national president of the Shop Distributive and Allied Employees Union, elected to the Senate from number one in 2007, then voluntarily bumped to number two in 2013 (see above), from which he was unexpectedly defeated; 3. Alex Gallacher (Right), former state secretary of the Transport Workers Union, elected from top of the ticket in 2010; 4. Anne McEwen (Left), former state secretary of the Australian Services Union, elected from number on 2004, re-elected from number two in 2010, and now shunted to number four to accommodate Farrell; 5. Michael Allison (not known), network controller for SA Power Networks and delegate for the Communications Electrical and Plumbing Union.
Tasmania: 1. Anne Urquhart (Left), former state secretary of the Australian Manufacturing Workers Union, first elected from number two in 2010; 2. Helen Polley (Right), former staffer to Premiers Jim Bacon and Paul Lennon, first elected from number two in 2004, re-elected from number two in 2010; 3. Carol Brown (Left), who filled a casual vacancy in August 2005, was elected from number two in 2007, and re-elected from number one in 2013; 4. Catryna Bilyk (Right), a former state political staffer, elected from number three in 2007 and number two in 2013; 5. John Short (Left), state secretary of the Australian Manufacturing Workers Union; 6. Lisa Singh (Left), elected to the state lower house in Denison at the 2006 election, defeated in 2010, and elected to the Senate from third position in 2013, then contentiously dumped to fourth position at the half-Senate preselection in June last year.
Australian Capital Territory: 1. Katy Gallagher (Left), the territory’s Chief Minister from 2011 until her resignation in 2014, when she resigned pending her transfer to Senate in March 2015 on the retirement of Kate Lundy.
Northern Territory: 1. Nova Peris, former Olympic hockey player and sprinter, who was installed as candidate at the 2013 on the insistence of then Prime Minister Julia Gillard at the expense of the incumbent, Trish Crossin.
zoomster:
I hate to say it, but I’m beginning to agree on this point. He’s demonstrated some serious lapses of judgement on the campaign trail so far. Those comments about Beaconsfield were an absolute shocker! I’ve been growing rather concerned about it, to be honest.
phoenixRED
I would mind $1.7m worth of ‘rags’ to start out with.
Phoenix Red,
It seems very much that Cormann and Morrison are very much Malcolm’s Praetorian Guard.
If only a journo at the Morrison presser came out with the fact about Malcolm’s $2 Million present from his Dad. It can buy some mighty fine rags!
Shorten is doing well:
What does he think of Mark Latham’s piece on his supposed “man boobs”?
I think I’d put Mark Latham’s fashion advice in the same box I put Scott Morrison’s.
Last Updated: 10:54
44m ago
From the guardian blog
[I agree with your point, but you could go further. ]
It’s the combination of free-ish trade, capitalist allocation of resources and parliamentary democracy wot did it.
E.g. Bismark introduced the first welfare state, and he said explicitly it was to keep the poor on side. Knew a bit about realpolitik too, the damn pragmatist.
c@tmomma @ #97 Friday, May 13, 2016 at 10:23 am
It’s astounding, isn’t it? How can someone so thick rise through the party to become a candidate … oh, I forgot – it’s the Greens!
And on the power of the election campaign to influence votes:
The conventional wisdom is that campaigns make little difference. That conventional wisdom is based on rough past experience but, like all conventional wisdom, does not try to understand why.
My view is that a typical campaign, where both parties and their leaders have been known and followed for some time, tends to reinforce existing perceptions and prejudices about the candidates and their parties.
This time, though, those of us who watch politics closely know that, in fact, the existing public perception of both Turnbull and Shorten and, to a lesser extent, their respective parties are fundamentally wrong.
Turnbull is not the great orator and communicator with a golden touch – he is a waffler who does not answer questions, cannot deal with detail and gets really tetchy. And he’s out of touch with middle Australia and below.
Shorten is not the grey union leader and hack with dad jokes who will be hard-pressed to get Labor’s position across over an 8 week campaign. In fact, he is a sharp and clear communicator, with enormous reserves of stamina, and an ability to convey relatively complex ideas simply without losing the sharpness of his message.
Tonight, even with a small audience, will be a turning point. The first time anyone but inveterate politics and Parliament watchers, will see Turnbull and Shorten go head to head. My strong expectation is that Turnbull will be out of his league.
An Australian Security Guard has been killed in a Shooting in the Australian-Iraq Embassy in Baghdad:
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/may/13/shooting-at-australian-embassy-in-baghdad-leaves-security-contractor-dead-reports
Zoomster
Unless it’s Arfur.
Under OPV nobody gets “forced back” to the majors and the Greens. If you prefer micro-parties, you give your preferences to them. Simple.
To be fair, Mark Latham probably does have significant expertise when it comes to man-boobs.
I hadn’t noticed Shorten’s alleged issue in this area, but then I suppose I don’t spend a lot of time ogling the chests of middle-aged male politicians.
Edward
The thing is that the voter landscape has changed massivly since 2007. It is partly the emergence of the Greens which has cut and extra 4% out of the Labor vote, but is also the tendency for voters to choose microparties. I think labor getting 35% in the Senate will not hpappen anywhere very often. It is not just the greens although Labor chooses to dump on them, but Sex, Hemp, Animal Justice, Pirates etc all cut into the ALP vote. So if you take an extra 4% to the greens and 3% to the micros, then the ALP is down about 7% on its 2007 high water mark. Now Labor should get a lot of the micro vote back in preferences, but it is no sure thing and they have to compete with the Greens as well as the leading micros – Hemp and Sex.
In Australia the progressive/Conservative vote swings between 53/47 to 47/53 so you can mostly assume that the senate will come out at 6 progressives and six conservatives in every state in a DD and 3/3 in a normal election. However the actual arrangment of the places may change. Labor can be sure of three spots in a DD and the greens of 1. The other two progressive spots will go to either a second greens, fourth ALP, or a progressive micro. The Greens need to get 14% to win their second spot and labor about 28%. This assumes that labor in the final allocations gets a much bigger share of the preferences from Liberala and other RW parties than the Greens.
Excellent presser from Shorten
And on Turnbull’s supposed rags to riches, the real story is not the inheritance from his father. The real story is that he had one of the best educations that money can buy as he went to Sydney Grammar School
This story plays into Labor’s education narrative. Why should you have to go to Sydney Grammar to get a great education and great prospects? Every Australian child should have a great education and great prospects.
Millenial
The Press have their ‘little ways’ of conveying their opinion on people.
The article says ‘The prime minister, Malcolm Turnbull, when asked about the reports on Friday morning refused to comment’.
What he actually indicated was that he didn’t know enough about it to be able to.
What would you Green haters do if the election was so close that the Green preferences got the ALP up?
I suspect that you all may take their preferences with glee.
Asha @ 11.46
Not reported, but Shorten then went on to say the whole issue was of no interest because policies are what matters.
Labor is putting the idea of policies as a real thing, not a cover for inaction as Abbott did in 2013, front and centre in this campaign. I think it is one of the elements that will lead to a Labor victory. It’s one thing to harp on about a ‘plan’. It’s another to talk about policies. People have enough intelligence to know that a lot of policies that work together make up a plan.
mtbw @ #166 Friday, May 13, 2016 at 11:39 am
TPOF
Splitting the votes of progressive voters means Labor may not be able to form a government in its own right.
They are calculating that the Greens will have at least two seats in the HOR in these predictions. So this talk about one seat is just BS.
The predictions can be wrong. However the talk comes from the assumption the Greens will have more seats in the HOR. This assumes as well that the fall in the LNP vote which is occurring will be enough to for the LNP to lose a majority but not the chance to form government.
The takeout for me on this talk is different from what I have been reading here. The takeout to me is the pundits are seeing the fall of the LNP vote and calculating a 1 in 5 chance of a hung parliament. The right wing trump this calculation to try and shore up their vote.
The question is does the fear campaign of a hung parliament scare enough swinging votes to save the LNP from losing government?
My gut reaction is that if the LNP and the right wing are going so hard on this it means they see real danger of not being in government. Given the odds of a hung parliament this shows a weakness of the LNP in voting terms.
This confirms to me the way Labor is going about its campaigning. Labor is campaigning to win in its own right. That I have no doubt about.
The LNP and Murdoch are running defensive not offensive campaigns. Not offensive ones. As the election gets closer the polls will tighten. This means there will be more talk of a hung parliament. However that while the chances of that may increase for a week or two that will pass as voters see the LNP weakness and some buy the LNP fear campaign and vote Labor to avoid it.
So do not think the talk of hung parliaments just benefits the Greens. It could be driving voters to vote Labor who otherwise vote LNP because they are the voters that buy fear the fear campaign and want Labor outright rather than see the Greens anywhere near the levers of power.
The more you see News and the LNP talking about hung parliaments the more I suspect the Green and Labor vote is going to go up. After all its swinging voters that count not the base of the LNP.
MTBW @ #166 Friday, May 13, 2016 at 11:39 am
https://youtu.be/0Tqa4sxJVY8?t=3
Sorry MTBW. Couldn’t resist. 😉
TPOF
Have you ever stayed on in a polling booth till one in the morning sorting preferences?
Speaking as someone who lives on the opposite side of the country and visited Perth once when I was about three years old, with the way the trend seems to be moving in WA, I’d be very surprised if Labor polled below 30% in the Senate.
IMO, the most likely line-up of WA Senators after July 2 would be 5 Liberal, 4 Labor, 2 Green and 1 right-leaning micro, with a WA Nat possibly being elected instead of the 5th Liberal or the micro candidate. Dio Wang doesn’t have a chance.
In my last post to be crystal clear. The more you hear about hung parliament it means the more Labor has had an increase in its vote. That talk will only die again when its clear from polling that the LNP have no chance to form government
Millennial
You have nothing to be sorry for and I looked at your link.
mtbw @ #166 Friday, May 13, 2016 at 11:39 am
Given that every such preference comes from a Green that didn’t manage to con their way into parliament … abso-bloody-lutely!
daretotread @ #142 Friday, May 13, 2016 at 11:18 am
You keep missing the point abut WA. Here, very many voters want to change both the State Government and their Federal representation. There is just one way to do this – swap from supporting the Liberals (as they have in the past) to supporting Labor. Voting NXT, Green, ASP, ACP, HEMP, Hunters & Fishers or what-have-you simply deflects from achieving change. Voters who want change will mostly just shift their support to Labor. This shift will be large – even seismic. The Liberals have shown they cannot be relied on to serve the people of WA and are going to be removed. It’s really that simple.
You ask why the G vote will fall. The answer is mainly because they have no relevant policy resonance with the overwhelming majority of voters. Their one main theme from 2013 – Asylum Seekers – is no longer topical. It has evaporated. Their other would-be themes have been largely subsumed by Labor. So there is no reason for voters to think about and give support to the Greens. The Greens know it.
As well, by their totally endless anti-Labor campaigning, the G’s have alienated a lot of Labor voters. This will cost the Greens votes. There have been plenty of Labor supporters who have been willing to encourage the Greens in the past. At least some of this encouragement will be withdrawn this time. These recent G-voters will just go back to Labor. The Greens have a tiny franchise. It is mostly comprised of Labor-positive voters and yet the G’s spend most of their time insulting Labor and are now conspiring to defeat Labor. So it is inevitable that at a time when voters want to choose a Labor Government over a Liberal one, they will leave the Greens. You cannot retain public support by insulting people. It’s very simple. The Greens will have insulted their way to defeat – an excellent result as far as I’m concerned.
dtt
The trouble is we can’t make many confident predictions about Senate outcomes – the old rules no longer apply. We don’t know how many votes will exhaust because voters just put a 1 next to their preferred party. We don’t know if preference deals will have any impact at all, and if they do, how much they will, because it’s hard to predict whether, when people only have to number 1 to 6, they’ll bother with HTVs at all.
It is quite possible, for example – and it wouldn’t at all surprise me, based on my (anecdotal) knowledge of this kind of voter – that those voting for micro parties don’t preference the majors at all.
The majors will, I expect, do quite nicely, because most of those who vote for them in the Lower House will vote for them in the Upper. The whole purpose of the changes was to advantage the majors, after all.
Morning everyone,
Regarding the Herald Scum beat-up of Duncan, just read a comment from someone who shared the article on Facebook – and I agree completely:
What a disgraceful article from the Herald Sun. His arguments on Q & A spoke for all struggling on minimum incomes whilst using himself as the example. I agree money raised for Duncan individually should go elsewhere but don’t shame the man for his past sins. This hate article is a blatant attempt at putting his valid points out of the limelight by those who are earn a hell of a lot of money and have way too much influence and power.
I’ve never seen the person comment on anything political before. If this is widespread then it really looks like many non-politically oriented people are siding with Duncan – and Limited News has stuffed it up big time (unsurprising of course).
Bring it on, Shorten tells realty agents
If real estate agents wanted to scare Bill Shorten into waving the white flag on his planned crackdown of tax breaks for property investors, the Labor leader isn’t shaking in his boots.
Some of the nation’s biggest realty firms are launching a grassroots campaign to attack Labor’s plans to curb negative gearing, warning families, renters and homeowners the policy is an “economy killer”.
But Mr Shorten says he’ll take the advice of the central bank over real estate agents crying out about losing their $10 billion yearly perk in concessions.
http://www.news.com.au/national/breaking-news/real-estate-campaign-against-labor/news-story/38e93f553674b3096d16419ce9f2c772
Millenial
> Isn’t Socialism just a certain type of Capitalism?
No, it’s the opposite of capitalism. But that doesn’t mean what you think it means, until you understand what socialism and capitalism actually are.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ysZC0JOYYWw
I will put my point another way. Labor supporters should smile every time the LNP tries scaring over hung parliaments. The LNP is telling voters they the LNP don’t think they can win in their own right.
Daretotread @11:36
I agree that Labor’s WA Senate vote may not get back to 35% given the recent growth in minor parties, so winning 5 seats may or may not happen.
I do think Labor will get over 30% on the primary vote and lock in 4 seats. Partly based on polling, partly based on reports from WA posters here, e.g. briefly.
mtbw @ #171 Friday, May 13, 2016 at 11:43 am
No I haven’t. What’s the point of that question?
delimiterau: AT&T continues 1Gbps FTTP rollout across US: https://t.co/VE4codhxlB https://t.co/LmoRQcd6fg
privi izumo @ #180 Friday, May 13, 2016 at 12:01 pm
My (perhaps shallow) understanding of Capitalism is that it’s an economic system based upon private ownership of the means of production and property and the exchange of goods and services for profit, while Socialism is an economic system based upon large-scale public ownership of the means of production, however, private ownership of production is still prevalent, albeit much less than there is public ownership, and the exchange of goods and services for profit is still available.
I consider Marxism to be the opposite of Capitalism, where there is no private ownership of production or property, and no goods and services are exchanged for profit, to the point where money and the nation-state is non-existent.
zoomster @ #177 Friday, May 13, 2016 at 11:51 am
Yes, the Major shares of non-exhausting votes will rise. There will be fewer non-Major Senators elected, hopefully including a lot fewer Greens, a party that will have contrived in its own dissolution.
briefly
I disagree with you. From the scare campaign the LNP disagrees with you.
I see both Labor and Green votes going up. LNP does not run scared for no reason.
Good point Guytar, they are campaigning defensively, which will not last in a long campaign, the hiding of the logos on the campaign posters and corflutes is another manifestation of this.
Millennial, your understanding should actually be more simplistic. Capitalism is individualism, and socialism is collectivism.
The reality is that there is no country in the world that is capitalist. All countries are socialist, and the only debating point is how socialist they are. In order to satisfy the definition of a socialist enterprise, the state must own the means of production, and if we’re talking about Australia specifically, there are many enterprises that satisfy that criteria.
– ABC and SBS
– Air Services
– The Future Fund
– Australia Post
– NBN
– Snowy Hydro, Hydro Tasmania, PowerWater
– Vic Track, QLD Rail, Railcorp, Capital Metro
– Sydney Water, Hunter Water, SunWater
– Port of Melbourne
– Energex, Ergon Energy, Western Power, Powerlink QLD, Tarong Energy
… and that’s not even close to a definitive list. Australia is very socialist, and if you actually understand that, you’ll understand that so is America.
And let’s not forget Medicare.
JR
My point about Green scare mongering is clear when you look at the polling for the ALP in Victoria where the LNP are most active with their scare campaign.
Well much as i know that briefly (alias Bagdad Bob) is an enthusiastic believer in the swing to the ALP, I suggest it might be wise to wait until we get more accurate assessment from William.
Bagdad Bob has unrealistic expectations. I am quite quite sure there will be a big swing to Labor, but in the Senate a 6% swing will be huge. In the HoR a 10% swing in TPP is not impossible (although I think a more realistic 7% would still be wonderful).
mtbw @ #171 Friday, May 13, 2016 at 11:43 am
Yes. And?
And for you and I to have done so makes neither of our opinions more worthy than anyone else’s. Especially TPOF, who contributes way more meat on the bones of our conversations than you do.
privi izumo @ #190 Friday, May 13, 2016 at 12:34 pm
How much of Medicare is actually ‘owned’ by the State, and how much is franchised out to the Health Providers, who make their income in a not wholly dependent way ?
Is there any chance that we ordinary mortals, who do not have the privilege of receiving Skywhatsit, might be able to watch (or even listen) to Debate No. 1?
I seem to remember that we only got grabs of the Gillard one? And it was only after the fact that we discovered how the cards had been stacked against her.
Lizzie
I have just tweeted that very question to ABC News 24. I asked them are they covering or locked out so only pay subscribers can view.
I will let you know when I do.
I would think the LNP would want as many covering as possible unless of course they think Shorten will win hehehe 👿
The leaders’ debate sound be available for all to watch. It’s been mentioned here that it might be available in the Daily Telegraph website
So “the vibe of the matter” doesn’t rate as an argument in the HCoA?
Who knew?
SKY news headlines include “Malcolm Turnbull walked through a shopping centre today”.
So he’s not out of touch at all.
Michael West @MichaelWestBiz May 10
NSW sells power assets to Li Ka-Shing. Li Ka-Shing just named in #panamapapers – power profits to Caymans