I don’t believe we’ll be getting any sort of a federal opinion poll this week, with Newspoll presumably holding off through South Australian election week to return before the resumption of parliament next week, and Essential Research having an off-week in their fortnightly schedule. You can find a post updating progress in late counting in South Australia here; other than that, for the sake of a new general post, I relate the following:
• Ben Raue at The Tally Room has a very illuminating map showing the pattern of swings within Batman, showing a largely status quo result north of the Bell Street curtain, but a quite substantial swing to Labor in the presumed Greens stronghold area in the south. I’ll have more on the Batman by-election in today’s Crikey, if you’re a subscriber.
• Lost in the excitement, the weekend’s other by-election has entirely escaped mention on this site. It was held in the blue-ribbon Western Australian state seat of Cottesloe, to replace Colin Barnett. This produced the predicted walkover for Liberal candidate David Honey, an 59-year-old Alcoa executive and former state party president. Honey finished the night on 59.8% of the primary vote, and 70.2% on two-party preferred over the Greens. At the time of Barnett’s resignation in January, it was generally assumed the party could not let pass an opportunity to add a woman to a parliamentary ranks, but Honey nonetheless won a preselection vote by twenty to eight ahead of BHP Billiton lawyer Emma Roberts. The Liberals elected only two women out of thirteen to the lower house in 2017, along with one out of eight to the upper. At the 2013 election, the party’s lower house contingent included only four women out of thirty-one in the lower house, along with five out of seventen in the upper house, two of whom suffered preselection defeats going into last year’s election.
• A reallocation of Senators’ three-year and six-year terms has been conducted after the Section 44 disqualifications, affecting every state except Victoria. This involved allocating six-year terms to the first six elected candidates in the recounts conducted to fill the vacancies, and three-year terms going to those elected to positions seven through twelve, who will be facing re-election (almost certainly) at the next federal election.
There are two pieces of good news for the Liberals, who gain a long-term seat in New South Wales at the expense of the Nationals, and in Tasmania go from two long-term and two short-term seats to three and one. Fiona Nash’s long-term vacancy in New South Wales goes to Concetta Fierravanti-Wells, whose short-term vacancy has been filled by splashy newcomer Jim Molan. The vacancies in Tasmania, Stephen Perry of the Liberals and Jacqui Lambie of Jacqui Lambie, were both long-term, and have both gone to lower order Liberals, Bushby and Duniam. The one short-term Liberal position goes to Richard Colbeck, returning to parliament after his (provisional) defeat in 2016.
In Western Australia, the Greens order shuffles after Scott Ludlam’s departure with Rachel Siewert taking his long term, and Jordon Steele-John filling Siewert’s short-term vacancy. The loss of Skye Kakoschke-Moore in South Australia has cost the Nick Xenophon Team a seat because the successor to her short term, Tim Storer, has become estranged from the party since the election. It’s a similar story for One Nation in Queensland, where Malcolm Roberts’ short-term vacancy has been filled by the party’s number three candidate, Fraser Anning, who has eventually resolved to sit as an independent after a dispute with Pauline Hanson.
zoomster
Having skimmed over the explanation for pension alterations, I can understand why the winners are the ones who can afford to pay accountants.
Ricoh might think that the SA Libs have done a Bradbury but for mine Marshall resembles the Peter Sellers character Chance the Gardener in “Being There”.
Thanks BK
There are some great pics in the attached link. But viewers are advised to exercise discretion. What you are looking at will not be to eveyone’s taste.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/gallery/2018/mar/19/big-farming-across-australia-in-pictures
Don’t forget folks, ALP policy is to limit what people can get refunded on accountants etc. to manage their financial dealings.
When you take the suite of policies from ALP so far, it appears aimed at recalibrating the financial rorts sector.
Z,
Absolutely. I’ve said for almost two years now what Shorten was saying on Adani was smart (and has been consistent).
He knows it will fall over on it’s own so no need to get his hands dirty.
That poll showing that position as least preferred asked completely the wrong question. The point of the position was never to make out Adani was that big a deal. A mine that has no hope of happening is the ultimate nothingburger.
The Coalition and Greens wanted to make an issue of it precisely because they have nothing substantial to offer. Labor’s position was simply to not play ball, have a position that neither extreme was excited about but the vast majority could accept as at least second best, and get on with talking about stuff that actually matters.
Of course the media that is always complaining that there’s no nuance in politics bagged the only nuanced position on offer. More fool the Greens for listening to those idiots.
lizzie
I read somewhere that, by now, the cost to the taxpayer for this scheme should be $800,000. Instead, it’s around $5 billion.
Obviously something’s gone wrong and needs to be fixed.
peg
So you seem to be saying that it’s better for 20% of pensioners to lose all their pension than for some pensioners to lose some money.
‘jenauthor says:
Monday, March 19, 2018 at 9:05 am
Don’t forget folks, ALP policy is to limit what people can get refunded on accountants etc. to manage their financial dealings.
When you take the suite of policies from ALP so far, it appears aimed at recalibrating the financial rorts sector.’
Just so. You can bet on a couple of things. The first is that the Coalition will always start off by thinking how to make the rich richer and how to cut public health, public education and public transport.
Labor will always start of by thinking how to support those who need it most, how to make sure workers get a decent wage and how to support public health, public education and public transport.
That is the guts of it.
Pegasus @ #40 Monday, March 19th, 2018 – 8:45 am
Nonsense.
Postal campaigns do not take too much effort and they have a very high return.
People who seek assistance from a party in applying for a postal vote will almost certainly vote for that party. The return on effort is very high.
Older Australians could be spared the full burden of Bill Shorten’s $59 billion tax revenue grab, as the Opposition Leader seizes on an emphatic win in the Batman byelection to forge ahead with the contentious reform.
The federal victory has offset Labor’s defeat in the South Australian state election to embolden Mr Shorten and his colleagues to restore “fairness” to the federal budget by targeting tax breaks for wealthier Australians despite political fury over the new policy.
New modelling reveals the scope to adjust the Labor plan so it spares hundreds of thousands of taxpayers who stand to lose cash refunds from the Australian Taxation Office to cover the franking credits on their dividend income.
The analysis shows that 350,000 retirees would escape the revenue hike if Labor adjusted its plan to put a $1,000 cap on the cash refunds rather than cancelling them entirely.
The findings, prepared by former Treasury officials for Industry Super Australia, will be put to the ISA board today in a discussion about the impact of the policy on their eight million super fund members.
Mr Shorten signalled plans to adjust the policy on Sunday, saying he would have “more to say” on help for pensioners and would make sure the most vulnerable people were looked after.
http://www.canberratimes.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/bill-shorten-emboldened-as-scope-emerges-to-soften-labor-59-billion-revenue-grab-20180318-p4z4yz.html
‘The analysis shows that 350,000 retirees would escape the revenue hike if Labor adjusted its plan to put a $1,000 cap on the cash refunds rather than cancelling them entirely.’
Given that Labor’s figures suggest only 200,000 pensioners are affected by this scheme, someone’s figures are iffy.
“The first is that the Coalition will always start off by thinking how to make the rich richer and how to cut public health, public education and public transport.”
That’s their normal behaviour and i see no evidence that Scomo or Corman have anything different in mind for 2018.
But……..They cant be totally blind to what the ALP is doing, accumulating revenue sources for THEIR budget in reply can they??
And if they acknowledge that they have to be cognisant of the problems that will give them in framing a narrative and policy for the rest of 2018 and the lead up to an election.
I think the ALP is well on to blowing away the Coalition argument that the way to get the budget back to or approaching surplus is through spending cuts and business tax breaks. Coalition are going to lose huge unless they change their tack.
lol
.
@Shorten_Suite
https://twitter.com/Shorten_Suite/status/975298537452847104
5:11 PM – Mar 18, 2018
‘Mr Shorten signalled plans to adjust the policy on Sunday, saying he would have “more to say” on help for pensioners and would make sure the most vulnerable people were looked after.’
And actually, no, Shorten saying those things and adjusting the policy are not necessarily related.
For example, raising the government pension would both help pensioners and look after vulnerable people without adjusting the imputations policy.
I like the assumption:
Shorten has more to say …. becomes …. Shorten signalled plans to adjust the policy
We are SO POORLY served
Snap Zoom!
@ zoomster
“‘The analysis shows that 350,000 retirees would escape the revenue hike if Labor adjusted its plan to put a $1,000 cap on the cash refunds rather than cancelling them entirely.’
Given that Labor’s figures suggest only 200,000 pensioners are affected by this scheme, someone’s figures are iffy.”
retirees = pensioners + superannuants.
So it could be saying 200k pensioners would escape the impact, and that there are 150,000 people that aren’t eligible for the pension, with a super scheme that gives $1,000 or less is tax refunds from dividend imputation. Presumably this would be people who have a small amount of stock, but primarily use their super funds for housing or other non stock related investments.
Because closing a tax rort is both a grab and a burden.
Holden Hillybilly – I raised the possibility of a pivot on franking dividend cash backs last week – I suggested a double cap. I still think that folk with large retirement savings should not get the cash payment – so if the cap for the payment is to be $1000 it should only be accessible for folk with super balances of under $200000.
I’m not sure it’s necessary to keep the scheme – even in a capped form – but folk have cut their cloth according to rules that have been in place for some 18 years now, so there seems to be a good case for those who are less well of – and hence lack the means to draw down on their retirement pool or alter their investment portfolios significantly. …
PhoenixRed
Revealing more and more on Imbroglio is most definitely ramping up.
Easy to see why Trump is going on a full blown purge.
Wont help him though
Given that Labor’s figures suggest only 200,000 pensioners are affected by this scheme, someone’s figures are iffy.
But the idea of a cap puts all the SMSFs back on the teat.
I reckon the writer and Industry Super Australia have tried adding 2 + 2 and got banana.
Boerwar @ #50 Monday, March 19th, 2018 – 8:58 am
Reminds me of the old joke about the tourist lost in the countryside asking directions from a local who replies ‘Well I wouldn’t start from here”.
imacca
The Coalition knows that it cannot openly give everything to the rich so they do two things: create rules that enable the rich to get richer and the wealth gap to grow while bribing selected poor people to con them into thinking that the Coalition really, truly, cares about old people, young people, women, etc, etc, etc.
ratsak @ #71 Monday, March 19th, 2018 – 9:29 am
A cap is not good policy as it simply complicates the tax arrangements further.
But sometimes politics and policy do not fit well. Labor may well have to appease the majority of individuals who get this benefit in order to recoup 90% of the money lost by Treasury in paying out the minority who have organised their super schemes.
“I reckon the writer and Industry Super Australia have tried adding 2 + 2 and got banana.”
I reckon its just a case of “well they would say that wouldn’t they”.
Really, all Shorten has to do is say that they are hearing peoples response to all the policy that the ALP is getting out there, and incorporating that into their plans as the alternative Gov that will be clear well before the next election. There will be “swings and roundabouts” where some people may lose something in one area and gain in another. But, the package comes together as sustainable and as fair as possible.
I’d really like to see them do an increase in Newstart though. Drop that is just after the 30 Newspoll thing when the Libs are consumed by talking about themselves?? 🙂
In all the hue and cry about the pension it is worth noting it goes up this week.
The full single rate, including energy supplements will be $907.60 (up from $894.60) and $1368.20 (1348.80) for couples.
The asset test limits also rise by a few thousand dollars. A single homeowner will be able to have $556,500 in assets before the pension cuts out. The figure for couples is $837,000.
It’s possible that Labor could do something like a cap, but I’d suggest that would have been an idea for if the plan bombed out.
It clearly hasn’t (thanks for putting all those millionaires on TV and in print to whinge MSM, you sold Labor’s policy for them!), so there is no need for Labor to make such an expensive (and easy to spin as desperate) concession. 350,000 at up to $1000 pa isn’t a huge bite out of the projected revenue, but still $350 million pa (and growing) can pay for a lot of goodies.
I reckon Labor will do something that compensates the pensioners that lose out but is also a benefit to all pensioners. Much more bang for your buck. Leaving a capped benefit in place just encourages creative accountancy to maximise the number of people on it. (Split a couple’s SMSF into two for instance?)
Shovelling $150 million (on this analysis) at SMSFs that are already making out like bandits thanks to 0% taxation is really a waste for Labor. These people ain’t voting for Bill anyway.
It’s been said numerous times that Labor’s on the ground campaign in Batman was far superior to the Greens’. This is a feature of Labor campaigns as we’ve see elsewhere many times before.
The Greens whingeing about their being smashed in the by-election is just sour grapes. They ran a poor campaign with a poor candidate. End of story.
Good Morning
I doubt that Mr Shorten will change much with his Franking refund policy. There is too much money to save and he has had the polling results due to the by election and knows that did not impact the polling.
So why change it when you have done the hard work and not had a backlash from voters.
The only changes will be fine tuning not a return to allowing the rorts. The fine tuning will be to fit in with other policies that help pensioners. The real ones not the fake ones we have seen presented by the MSM as if they are battlers.
Some thoughts on the weekend’s election results, shamelessly cut and pasted from my posts on the relevant threads.
The SA election was supposed to break open the two-party system, but ended up being pretty conventional: a 16-year-old government proved that it’s next to impossible to keep defying the rules of electoral gravity, and we’ve seen an orderly transfer of power from one of the major parties to the other.
Meanwhile, the new kid on the block, SA Best, which started with hopes of gaining a significant amount of seats, enough to hold the balance of power, or even win the most seats and maybe even win government, ended up winning none. While they did pick up a significant vote, preferential voting has meant that this was basically recycled back to the majors.
SA Best do look to have picked up a few seats in the Upper House, the traditional place for minor party representation in Australia, but this is not especially groundbreaking. It will be interesting to see if Sharkie can hold Mayo at the next Federal election, or whether the Xenophon phenomenon has peaked.
The Libs probably deserve to gain office, given that they have won the two-party vote at the last three state elections. However, this is not an especially impressive victory, eking out just enough votes in the right places to win overall, but probably an insufficient mandate to really put their stamp on things. At this stage, you’d probably put a small wager on them being oncers.
In regards to Batman, this is quite a pleasing result, for at least two reasons.
First, I am a Laborite at heart, and I am always happy to see my party win, especially in such a close race, and especially with such an impressive candidate. Kearney will be a good addition to both the parliament and the Caucus.
It is also the case that this win strengthens Labor, and Shorten’s leadership. If the Greens had won (quite possible, given the demographics of the seat), we would be hearing no end of stories about how Labor needs to change this or that, and the knives would be out for Shorten – Kill Bill would be back in force. Instead, Shorten has been vindicated.
Second, it’s a victory for serious policy. The ALP has put forward several items of significant policy reforms, and we can probably start to feel confident that the Shorten government will be the first in 20-odd years to seriously grapple with important budgetary issues.
The Greens, on the other hand, ran a campaign heavy of slogans and generalities (Adani, refugees), but very light on specifics. It is pleasing that serious policy considerations won in the end.
If you can get a volunteer to knock on someone’s door you can run an effective postal campaign.
It’s bullshit really. It assumes the vote would have been different if someone else had helped them with their postal ballot. Maybe on the fringes in aged care homes (again how hard is it to organise some volunteers to pop into an aged care facility, put on tea and bickies and maybe a bit of entertainment and help with some postals?) but really if the vote went to Party Y as a postal it almost certainly would have gone to Party Y as a pre-poll or an absent or an ordinary vote.
Guardian front page, Monday 19 March 2018: Pressure grows on Facebook and data firm over mass breach of personal files https://twitter.com/guardiannews/status/975503790924271618/photo/1
@Shorten_Suite
https://twitter.com/Shorten_Suite/status/975298537452847104
I like Sam’s response…
Turnbull can’t help being a flog. It’s the only authentic thing about him.
pithy
What about just grandfathering existing (before March 2018) individual shareholders (no SMSFs) with a cap of $1000.
That would make a carve out very targeted and would also reduce in cost over time.
Alternatively, forget any carve out and just increase the basic rate of the pension. More costly but also better overall and more aligned with Labor values.
imacca
I’d really like to see them do an increase in Newstart though. Drop that is just after the 30 Newspoll thing when the Libs are consumed by talking about themselves??
_________________________________
The only time to do that is in an election campaign. The last thing Labor should be doing is distracting from Coalition internal warfare.
Victoria says: Monday, March 19, 2018 at 9:28 am
PhoenixRed
Revealing more and more on Imbroglio is most definitely ramping up.
Easy to see why Trump is going on a full blown purge.
Wont help him though
******************************************************
I sense a shift in the support that he has previously had from his own Republicans – today, people like Gowdy, Flake, Ryan, Graham etc ……. all are out there saying the Mueller investigations should continue till its conclusion and appear to be at odds with Trumps fervent attempts to shut it down
Interesting points in this article – https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/greens-leader-richard-di-natale-blames-sabotage-for-batman-loss-20180318-p4z4xf.html
And the comments are also interesting. I wondered about this one myself …
… and …
I think the takeaway for the Greens is that there is a limit as to how far you can get just by virtue signalling, and the Greens have already reached that limit. To get any further traction they have to get down and dirty and actually do stuff.
Good morning all,
There are numerous ways to ” compensate ” pensioners and other legitimate low taxable income earners who may face some income reduction under the labor policy apart from tinkering with its framework. Introducing caps and other tinkering will just open other complications and complexity that accountants and taxation advisers would jump on to protect their more well off clients. In simple terms, a mad dogs breakfast.
Reduce the deeming rate, for example, is just one avenue open to labor. This would help not only those pensioners affected by the policy but also help all pensioners across the board.
There are many options available to labor to assist legitimate low income earners across the board.
The MSM, true to form, refuse to look outside the box . They are just salivating at the prospect of labor tinkering around the edges on this. It is all about the ” labor backflipping ” and ” policy chaos ” headlines for them rather than labor offering help across the board to all low income earners by closing loopholes such as this that assist the wealthy.
Cheers.
Jim
Nope. Labor needs those savings out of the budget. Its a rort and the pensioners concerned can readjust to the new policy suite that Labor brings in.
Labor will hold firm on this. Be in no doubt. When polling tells Labor they have had no effect don’t expect them to almost reverse the policy.
Thats what grandfathering will do. It will lock in Costello’s money spigot and keep blowing out the budget.
Actually a cap would not be particularly expensive, as most of the drain is from relatively few people. The real problem is that creating exceptions to fundamental closures of loopholes just complicates things further and opens up further loopholes. It would be bad policy and should only be applied if things got desperate.
I am reminded of what Julia Gillard was alleged to have asked in Cabinet (helpfully leaked before the 2010 election by a rat): Why should we give the pensioners an increase? They all vote Liberal anyway. 🙂
I’m surprised that this observation hadn’t occurred to Richard Di Natale before he went the full-Stalin. He obviously went the the Malcolm Turnbull School of Political Judgement.
Kimberley Kitching
@kimbakit
Greens party solution to toxic faction-ridden culture in Batman: hunt down & expel “scores” of whistleblowers who made bullying complaints against their former candidate #auspol #batmanvotes
Every party has internal drama but you can’t solve a bullying saga with more bullying. https://twitter.com/abcnews/status/975469460499742720 …
This ex-Green points the finger at those responsible for disharmony in Batman. nasty former ALP members!
https://www.theage.com.au/politics/federal/the-batman-campaign-was-the-final-straw-why-i-quit-the-greens-20180318-p4z4yx.html
PhoenixRed
Not sure of exact process Trump has in order to fire Mueller
No doubt Mueller and co are prepared for any eventuality
P1
‘I think the takeaway for the Greens is that there is a limit as to how far you can get just by virtue signalling, and the Greens have already reached that limit. To get any further traction they have to get down and dirty and actually do stuff.’
Agree with these observations. I would add:
Australian voters might just have twigged that if you vote for the minors you are voting for nothing but chaos. The very latest twist in the rolling shambles of the minors is that the X senator in the Senate has gone Indie.
The Greens have proven adept at stopping and spoiling, but they face a structural problem: they can’t actually do anything. The cognitive dissonance between what they say (‘going to’, ‘proposing’, ‘having conversations about’, ‘promising’ and even ‘demanding’… etc, etc, etc) and what they do, is growing by the decade.
Year 35, Day 77. De nada.
lizzie @ #2 Monday, March 19th, 2018 – 3:42 am
Ploppy is more appropriate.
The Gs ran a policy-weak, anti-Labor campaign in Batman. Predictably, this alienated Labor-positive voters who swung from G to Labor.
The Gs have outlived their usefulness in Australian politics. They should vote to wind themselves up.
Last weeks of mainstream media commentary on Tas Election, SA Election, Batman, ALP’s tax measure & so much more – shows we have to act! I’ll be printing these off & placing around my community – appropriately – where I can. Please feel free to do same #auspol #auspolacts https://twitter.com/deniseshrivell/status/975507190646583296/photo/1
Jim,
Option 2.
The only time to do that is in an election campaign.
Actually the best time to do something on Newstart would be after assuming office.
Sad as it is increasing welfare payments to the unemployed has no electoral dividend. Those that would be happy with it are voting Labor anyway and those that could be conned by the Right’s blame the victims rhetoric shouldn’t be given any excuse to look outside Labor’s tent.
So long as Shorten and Bowen leave a nice big chunk of the revenue measures they’ve announced (and are yet to announce) in reserve they can quite easily bring this about in government. You don’t lose the trust of the public by handing out goodies you didn’t promise before an election.
Settle in, go through the books, hopefully get a bit of an economic boost and then say we can afford this and it’s the right thing to do. After lots of others have got goodies only the minority that have been clipped to pay for it will complain, and no one’s listening to them any more.
That piece by Russell is an absolute hoot.
The bad behaviour by some Greens was because they were ex-Labor and behaved like Labor does!
Well, that certainly explains it all!
Player One @ #86 Monday, March 19th, 2018 – 9:52 am
Clearly, the Greens were telling all including their electorate what the issues were. Labor, on the other hand focussed on the bread and butter issues. Adani was never the answer to questions of health, education and jobs.
Di Natale’s response today is further evidence they haven’t learnt a thing from their loss in Batman.
Threatening a purge and expulsions is a guarantee that the leaks and disunity will continue. A better approach might be to sort out the toxic internal culture which seems at the heart of the Green’s problems.