Three bits of opinion polling news:
• As you can see in the post below this one, there is a poll of Queensland state voting intention in today’s Sunday Mail newspaper. This presumably means a result on federal voting intention from the same poll can be expected this evening.
• An in-house survey from The Australia Institute examines “public attitudes to the federal government’s handling of the global financial crisis, ten years on”. The Labor government of the time is remembered as having done a good job, with 57-24 breaking in favour of the proposition that “Australians should be proud of how its government handled the GFC”. Other findings are a 62-22 split in favour of the proposition that a recession would have unfolded without “large fiscal stimulus”; 48-31 considering borrowing to fund the stimulus was the right thing to do; 45-37 lining up against the proposition that it would have been better to go without stimulus to avoid further debt; and, more narrowly, 42-37 opposed to the notion that the fiscal stimulus policies were “poorly designed and excessive”.
• A ReachTEL poll for GetUp! on same-sex marriage, targeting six seats in Queensland and Western Australia with Coalition MPs with undeclared positions on the subject, finds support for same-sex marriage at over 50% in Hasluck, Moncrieff, Ryan, Swan and Tangney, and at 48% in Stirling with 42% opposed. Similar proportions of respondents favour a free vote being held in parliament “as soon as possible”.
And a whole bunch on preselection, where balls are already starting to roll ahead of a federal election still nearly two years away:
• Western Australia’s Liberal Party has confirmed Slade Brockman, former chief-of-staff to Mathias Cormann, to fill the casual Senate vacancy created by the retirement of Chris Back. Brockman won 89 votes out of 131 at a vote of the party’s state council held on July 22, from a field that also included former state MPs Michael Sutherland and Mark Lewis.
• The New South Wales ALP’s Left faction has endorsed Tim Ayres, state secretary of the Australian Manufacturing Workers Union, to take a factionally reserved Senate position presently occupied by Doug Cameron, who will not contest the next election. The Australian reports the ballot was boycotted by the Construction Forestry Mining and Energy Union and the Maritime Union of Australia, who were apparently angered by the AMWU’s lock on a seat that stands to be filled consecutively by three of the union’s leaders (George Campbell, Doug Cameron and now Tim Ayres).
• Samantha Hutchison of The Australian reports that Michael Danby, Labor’s member for Melbourne Ports since 1998, is “facing pressure to bow out” at the next election. Labor has held the seat since 1906, but Danby was given a two-pronged scare at the last election, only narrowly edging the Greens by 24,340 votes to 23,387 to survive to the final count, and then emerging with a 1.4% margin over the Liberals, down from 2.2% in 2013. According to the report, Ari Suss, a Linfox executive and former staffer to Steve Bracks who shares Danby’s Jewish background (together with Malcolm Turnbull’s seat of Wentworth, Melbourne is one of two seats in the country where over 10% of the population identifies as Jewish). The Greens have already preselected their candidate from 2016, Steph Hodgins-May, whom Danby placed last on his how-to-vote card after she pulled out of a debate organised by Zionism Victoria.
• Katie Burgess of the Canberra Times reports preselection reforms in Labor’s Australian Capital Territory branch have been “criticised by the party’s right as a way for the left to gain control of a possible third federal seat”, which the territory stands to gain with the latest population-related entitlement determination. The changes have dispensed with requirements that members be branch members for at least 12 months and attend a certain number of meetings in a year to be eligible to vote in preselection ballots, which will reportedly triple the voter base. Kirsten Lawson of the Canberra Times earlier reported that the most commonly mentioned name for a new position secured by the Left was Angie Drake, staffer to Deputy Chief Minister Yvette Berry and unsuccessful candidate for Brindabella at last year’s territory election.
• Sky News reports that John Ruddick, a prominent proponent of reforms to democratise the party’s preselection process, as endorsed a fortnight ago at a special party convention, will challenge Trent Zimmerman for preselection in his seat of North Sydney. Zimmerman is a moderate factional operative, and one of the Liberals’ four openly gay federal MPs.
• State upper house MP Mehreen Faruqi has announced she will seek preselection to lead the party’s Senate ticket at the next election, setting up a contest with Lee Rhiannon should she choose to nominate again, which is yet to be determined.
“Burning” hydrogen produces water.
“Burning” flatulence gas (assumed to be mostly methane) gives CO2 plus water.
[Steve777
Re Guytaur @10:53.
Creation of a category of ‘religious marriage celebrant’ – that actually looks like a sensible compromise.
On the other hand, there is no need for a category of ‘religious cake vendor’.]
I think you misread guytaur’s post.
They are not creating a new category, it already exists for ministers of smaller religions.
What the bill proposes is that existing civil celebrants can nominate to register under this category.
New civil celebrants would not have this right.
a r @ #196 Sunday, August 6th, 2017 – 2:49 pm
Excellent post a r!
The fact that this is not a true P2P trading system (and therefor does not really require blockchain technology at all) is demonstrated in this quote (from https://rac.com.au/home-life/info/future_selling-your-surplus-solar-power):
So there are at least two “special” parties in this supposed P2P network – the network operator and Power Ledger – at least one of which necessarily participates in each transaction (i.e. the network operator – it is not clear whether Power Ledger just has a fixed fee, or one that is also transaction based) . Given this, blockchain technology may not even be particularly appropriate – it is just being “bolted on” to make the project look trendy. It is also clear that this type of system could never be run without the participation of the network operators. That’s like proposing a bitcoin system that requires the participation of the banks!
Surely the right approach is to follow the French and German models of marriage. All marriages are performed by a civil servant (I have a particular liking for the French mayor wearing his sash) and if you want another ceremony civil or religious go for it but that has no effect on the registration of the marriage
OC:
I like the French model too. Secular, which is what government policy should be.
An interesting piece of info into the header article: that 9 years down the track, Australians by and large believe the stimulus package in response to the GFC was good policy. That’s ‘pink batts’ and ‘school halls’. And yet at every opportunity Right Wing politicians on interviews on any topic will slip in ‘batts’ or ‘school halls’ as a byword for wasteful incompetence and go unchallenged, by either the interviewer or Labor.
This should not be allowed. Right Wing politicians will be instructed to do this during the next election campaign. Labor needs to counter. A response along the lines of how it was a successful initiative that allowed Australia to avoid the worst of the GFC. “What would you have done? Allowed double digit unemployment no doubt”. That is unprovable but at least it isn’t a lie.
Barney in GD: point taken. It still looks like a good idea.
OC,
We effectively have that here.
The marriage is the signing and witnessing by an authorised person and two witnesses of the marriage certificate.
Any other mumbo jumbo is irrelevant and purely for aesthetics.
And of course the two people getting married.
Oakeshott Country
It would be but as it it does not ‘privilege’ the church resistance from that corner will be “Yuuuge”
Smart play from Burke to rule out any confidence shenanigans. No reason to scare the libs away from the trap set.
Labor will genuinely be happy to see marriage equality enacted for it’s own sake, but sitting back and watching the Coalition go to war with itself if a few Libs cross the floor will be high on their viewing list for the next few weeks.
No Labor won’t move no confidence if the Libs split. No need to. They loons will do all the work for them. Burke is just trying to lure a few bunnies out of the hutch.
poroti
Oakeshott Country
It would be but as it it does not ‘privilege’ the church resistance from that corner will be “Yuuuge”
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In Trumpland – the operative word is “BIGLY” ( Bigly inaug and support crowds, bigly promises, bigly world solutions – bigly BS )
Steve777 @ #216 Sunday, August 6th, 2017 – 3:07 pm
I understand what you mean by being ‘unprovable’ in the sense that since the alternative never happened, it is just hypothetical.
But I do recall that there has been modelling of what otherwise would have happened and some credibility attaches to that.
In addition, a number of international bodies and experts have described Australia’s response to the GFC as ‘best practice’ or WTTE.
I am sure a strong case can be mounted, but the challenge is to condense it into something punchy that can be used to counter 3 word slogans.
With regards the poll that most regard Labor’s handling of the GFC as a positive. One of the reasons why the 2010 election turned out as it did was because Labor hardly campaigned on it. Why? Because you could hardly play it up when the person who headed that government had just been replaced. To do so would have opened up the question of why did you replace him and thus snookered Labor on the best economic manager question.
PhoenixRed:
Plus “foolproof”, “100%” and “extraordinary”!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=35T9jC_MASQ&list=PLAF22812129BFCD50&index=15
I am not too sure that the resistance from priests/faith based marriage celebrants will be that “Yuuuge”. I know that within the Uniting Church there are a number of high ranking clergy who would prefer the legal side of “marriage” to be solely the responsibility of the State, as is the case in many European countries, where couples undergo, if they choose, two ceremonies. One is officiated by a representative of the State, and the other is, in effect, is in the form of a blessing of that union conducted by a minister or priest. As a person of faith, whilst at the same time a strong believer in the separation of Church and State*, I believe that this is the best solution to the problem of whether or not a “church” or religious institution should have the right to refuse to marry a couple – as they will not have the legal status to perform the “marriage” in the first place.
*In this respect, I firmly believe that a government should never enact/refuse to enact legislation if the only reason is that it goes against/is strongly supported by the tenets of any particular faith. Well might we express concern over the possibility of the introduction of Sharia Law, however we need to be equally concerned about any governance based on the religious “laws”. We live in a democracy not a theocracy and besides, even if I support one particular religious practice which is enacted through a bill of Parliament, one day it may not be my theological view which prevails – and I will not have a reason to object – having already supported the basic principal of faith based legislation.
Sorry not extraordinary, but “everything!”
Sunday, August 6th, 2017 – 3:33 pm
Comment #216
the religious “laws” = any religions “laws”
ratsak
Smart play from Burke to rule out any confidence shenanigans.
There will be other opportunities to move no confidence.
ronzy
I was thinking more about the resistance from the self appointed ‘church warriors ‘. The Andrews.Abbotts and Niles of the world . As you suggest the actual churches are likely to be far more ‘on board’ .
confessions
PhoenixRed:
Plus “foolproof”, “100%” and “extraordinary”!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=35T9jC_MASQ&list=PLAF22812129BFCD50&index=15
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Ha Ha – THANKS Confessions – a bait and switch, winning snake oil flim – flam huckster BIGLY f**ktard indeed
The zealots will resist a settlement of the ME dispute purely because it gives them campaign opportunities. If this issue did not exist they would have to invent another one. They’ve lost climate change. They’ve lost on 18c. They’re trying but will fail on immigration and religious bigotry. The next issue they will seize on will likely involve indigenous rights. They surely must lose on that one too!
A lol from Ingurland politics. A Tory MP asks “why is it the left who have all the fun in politics?’ and so wants to organise……It will be fun…………….a ………… ‘Tory Glastonbury’.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/tory-glastonbury-jeremy-corbyn-george-freeman-conservatives-theresa-may-a7878181.html
Fox News just unwittingly tipped off that Donald Trump knows he’s about to be proven guilty on Russia By Bill Palmer
The latest headline from the Fox News website is an astonishing one, even by its standards: “Would you even care if he was guilty?” It makes the argument that, because things are supposedly going so wonderfully in America under Donald Trump, perhaps no one should care if it turns out that Trump is guilty of conspiring with Russia to rig the election
Has a newspaper asked Trump for advance comment on a story that proves his guilt? Has Trump tipped off his allies at Fox so they can begin laying cover? Is this why Trump is hiding out in New Jersey? Stay tuned.
I’m fine with celebrants and/or priests having the right to refuse to do ssm services. As if an LGBT couple wants to get married by a bigoted homophobic priest anyway.
ar
The centralised RDBMS is what we need to avoid if we are to get rid of parasite intermediaries. The blockchain effectively functions as a distributed RDBMS, which more closely fits the business model of distributed generation and storage, which is what we want to achieve if the energy system is to be democratised.
The fact that the computer power is distributed is a strength not a weakness. It makes the system a lot more efficient, as the energy intensive computational work is done at the source. Meters can feed energy data directly into the blockchain in local systems.
The blockchain provides a single, verifiable atomic record of each transaction.
Comparing blockchain with a central relational database (RDBMS) is like comparing energy generation from a central power station with all the separate small “power stations” on people’s roofs. They are completely different concepts.
If you know anything about distributed relational databases, you will also know that trying to keep them in sync is an IT nightmare, and prone to errors, so you can’t reliably substitute distributed RDBMS for distributed blockchain.
White House as crime scene: how Robert Mueller is closing in on Trump
There is a grand jury in Washington DC. The special counsel’s team is full of experts in financial crime. On Russia, the president can feel the net closing
In the Watergate scandal, to which the Russian influence affair is drawing inevitable comparisons, it was the cover-up that ultimately proved fatal to Richard Nixon’s presidency. It is increasingly possible the same fate could befall Trump.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/aug/05/robert-mueller-donald-trump-russia
FalconWA @ #224 Sunday, August 6th, 2017 – 3:28 pm
Oh dear… that will not be a popular comment here, despite being absolutely true.
The coup plotters did enormous damage to Labour by their stupid self indulgence.
The first question any marrying couple should ask a prospective celebrant is whether they are registered as a homophobic whoops I mean “religious marriage celebrant”. Whoever says yes shouldn’t get the job and should be publicly blacklisted. Hopefully this will allow non-homophobic priests the ability to be financially rewarded for their lack of prejudice and intolerance.
I am assuming this is true.
Trog Sorrenson @ #226 Sunday, August 6th, 2017 – 4:00 pm
And how are you planning to get rid of the electricity network operators that are necessarily involved in every transaction? Teleport your electrons between participating households?
PhoenixRed:
What doesn’t add up for me with all this stuff is that the story by Team Trump keeps changing. Their lies keep getting outed meaning they have to shift ground and admit that ‘well yes, that is true BUT…!’ only for a rinse and repeat when the facts emerge.
The question I have is this: if there really is nothing to hide in terms of the meetings with Russians, why do they keep lying about them?
A few years ago my son and his partner to be decided they would have a commitment ceremony instead of the marriage ceremony went to births deaths and marriages for the paper work and proceeded to get a gob full of crap from person behind the desk saying they didn’t believe in all this other nonsense and why they should get married.
Said no of your business,person refused them the paperwork they then lodged a complaint with the department,and someone else issued the necessary paperwork.
P1
If you don’t understand something P1, don’t comment on it. The block chain technology is not just “bolted on” it is integral to the system.
Do you know why they put wheels on golf carts P1? It’s not just to make them look like “real” cars, the wheels are actually important.
https://pbs.twimg.com/card_img/893111805622583298/jVsFnmvO?format=jpg&name=600×314
Damn it didn’t work 🙁
Player One @ #241 Sunday, August 6th, 2017 – 4:15 pm
That is actually a valid point P1 has.
The owners of the network are not going to provide a free service.
P1
The network operators role is to maintain the integrity of the system – maintain quality and quantity of supply. Therefore trading would need to follow rules that achieve these aims – i.e. software.
If a microgrid is involved then there is no “network operator”, just some software.
Labor Saved Australia
bemused @ #213 Sunday, August 6th, 2017 – 2:57 pm
Confessions
PhoenixRed:
The question I have is this: if there really is nothing to hide in terms of the meetings with Russians, why do they keep lying about them?
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Trump has historically and reportedly lied his whole way through life – so he is master of it – and hires his lawyers to do the same – hence no major or respectable lawyer in the US will support him.
Mueller & Schneiderman already have all the documents and facts on him – any attempt to lie/cover up only implicates his crimes deeper
bemused
The owners of the network and the network operators are not the same beast. The owners of the network would need to receive a fee on each transaction – or a fixed connection fee – more likely – which may well be completely separate from trading.
Network operators will eventually be taken out of the equation in the sense of physically managing the network. Software can manage the system according to market rules. On a microgrid – we will see a lot of these being built – particularly in regional areas – these issues are greatly reduced.
Trog Sorrenson @ #234 Sunday, August 6th, 2017 – 4:20 pm
You should take your own advice. It has already been pointed out by a r that the blockchain technology is not integral at all. You could do exactly the same thing with other technologies. My point is that these other technologies may actually be more appropriate.
PhoenixRed:
From that Guardian article you linked to it doesn’t sound as if Mueller is mucking about. Hopefully we’ll get some answers sooner rather than later.
P1
Hey P1, we’ll see what the market delivers. It’s a bit like the gas versus renewables debate.
Trog Sorrenson @ #238 Sunday, August 6th, 2017 – 4:24 pm
This is a ludicrous answer. If you have a microgrid you can only trade with others on your microgrid without involving the network operator, so you wouldn’t need blockchain technology. And if you don’t have a microgrid you have to trade via the network operator, so this is not true P2P and blockchain technology is both unnecessary and inappropriate.
Trog Sorrenson @ #244 Sunday, August 6th, 2017 – 4:39 pm
Hey P1, we’ll see what the market delivers. It’s a bit like the gas versus renewables debate.
It is inasmuch as you don’t seem to understand that debate either.
ratsak
Smart play from Burke to rule out any confidence shenanigans.
Very smart in light of the below.
The conservative “shoppies”, the largest private-sector union in the country, and the ALP’s biggest union affiliate, is the last bastion of conservative Catholicism in the Australian labour movement.
In the last few weeks, federal MPs aligned to the SDA have threatened to blow up any bid by Liberal rebels to vote to legalise same-sex marriage.
confessions
PhoenixRed:
From that Guardian article you linked to it doesn’t sound as if Mueller is mucking about. Hopefully we’ll get some answers sooner rather than later.
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From what I have read Mueller has a crack track proven expert team of PROSECUTERS ( not investigators ) and they mean business. NYAG Eric Schneiderman has a personal vendetta on Trump & Family on the shame they bring to NY through their racketeering and mob association (RICO ) ….. and even more recently possible people trafficking …..
taylormade
Good point about Burke’s comment and the
DLP‘Shoppies” union .P1
You don’t understand what blockchain is used for. It is to record and verify energy transactions. If you are on a microgrid you still want to get paid for the energy you produce.
The involvement, or non-involvement of a network operator, is a function of the market rules and design of the system.