With the fortnightly cycles of Newspoll and Essential Research in sync for the time being, we would appear to be in another off week for federal polling (although ReachTEL are about due to come through, perhaps at the end of the week). However, there is a fair bit of preselection news to report, with Malcolm Turnbull having told the state party branches to get candidates in place sooner rather than later. That might appear to suggest he at least wishes to keep his options open for an early election, although betting markets rate that a long shot, with Ladbrokes offering $1.14 on an election next year and only $5 for this year.
• With the creation of a third seat in the Australian Capital Territory, the Canberra Times reports the member for Canberra, Gai Brodtmann, will contest the seat of Bean – new in theory, but in reality the seat that corresponds most closely with her existing seat – while Andrew Leigh will remain in Fenner. The ACT Chief Minister, Andrew Barr, said he contemplated running in the Canberra electorate “maybe for a moment”. The other name mentioned is Kel Watt, “a member of ACT Labor’s right faction and lobbyist for the Canberra Greyhound Racing”.
• The Courier-Mail reported a fortnight ago that Jane Prentice, Liberal National Party member for the Brisbane seat of Ryan, is likely to lose preselection to Julian Simmonds, a Brisbane councillor and former staffer to both Prentice and her predecessor, Michael Johnson. Despite Prentice being a moderate and a Turnbull supporter, the move against her has reportedly “outraged” Campbell Newman.
• Elections for administrative positions in the Victorian Liberal Party have seen Michael Kroger easily face down a challenge to his position as president, and conservative young turk Marcus Bastiaan much strengthened, including through his own election to a vice-president position. The Australian reports Bastiaan is “largely regarded as Mr Kroger’s numbers man”, but his use of his new influence to cancel an early Senate preselection process suggests the situation may be more complex than that. According to James Campbell of the Herald Sun, the preselections had been initiated at the behest of Kroger, consistent with Malcolm Turnbull’s aforementioned call for them to be handled expeditiously. The report further says Bastiaan’s determination to delay proceedings suggests a threat to James Patterson or Jane Hume, the two Senators who will face re-election at the next election. However, a report by Aaron Patrick of the Financial Review suggest the bigger threat from the conservative ascendancy is likely to be faced by factional moderates in the state parliament.
• The Toowoomba Chronicle reports John McVeigh, the Liberal National Party member for Groom, has easily seen off a preselection challenge by Isaac Moody, business manager of Gabbinbar Homestead. Moody accused McVeigh of having “betrayed” his constituents by voting yes in the same-sex marriage plebiscite (49.2% of those constituents did the same).
• The Clarence Valley Daily Examiner reports Labor’s preselection for the north coast New South Wales seat of Page will be contested by Isaac Smith, the mayor of Lismore, and Patrick Deegan, who works for a domestic violence support service. Page has been held for the Nationals since 2013 by Kevin Hogan, whose margin after the 2016 election was 2.3%. Smith is backed by Janelle Saffin, who held the seat for Labor from 2007 to 2013 and is now the preselected candidate for the state seat of Lismore.
• The Townsville Bulletin reports that Ewen Jones, who lost the seat of Herbert to Labor’s Cathy O’Toole in 2016 by 37 votes, has again nominated for Liberal National Party preselection in the Townsville-based seat of Herbert.
• The Courier-Mail reported a fortnight ago that George Christensen might face a preselection challenge for his north Queensland seat of Dawson from Jason Costigan, member for the state seat of Whitsunday, but Costigan announced a few days later that he had chosen not to proceed.
guytaur @ #586 Wednesday, May 2nd, 2018 – 6:58 am
But if the liars already have a platform then it is the media’s responsibility to expose those lies on an appropriate platform with the appropriate prominence.
zoomster @ #535 Wednesday, May 2nd, 2018 – 8:17 am
Except if you’re the kid who goes to Uni, incurs the expense of a Student Debt, then finds themselves unable to get a job in a hyper-competitive market! Especially when you are also competing against recent migrants with qualifications the same as yours and experience and connections, or simply students who have the connections built up throughout their school days or via their parents. To which you can add that a Batchelors degree just doesn’t cut it in the job market as much as it used to. Nowadays you need a Masters or PhD to get to the front of the job queue. Even then, if you manage to get a job in your specialty, you get started on a basic income the same as if you just had a Batchelors degree.
I’d also like to torpedo the fallacy that you can just do an Arts or other degree then stick a Grad Dip Ed on top of it and voila! a teaching position falls at your feet.
Not in NSW it doesn’t. In NSW there is such a surplus of Teaching graduates that you can’t even start your career by going bush and working your way back into the city. These days, if you get a job offer at all, and many graduates do not even get that far, then you must start on the bottom rung of being On Call if a teacher calls in sick. Very precarious.
You might then get work for a short period, not necessarily in your chosen subject, filling in while a teacher is on holiday, though that doesn’t happen much because teachers do get a lot of time off to go on holiday when the students are not at school, or Long Service Leave.
Then, if you receive a positive assessment, you may be offered a Permanent Casual position, covering a couple of days a week.
Eventually you might snag a Permanent Full Time position somewhere.
It’s hardly a Yellow Brick Road rosy picture painters would have you believe in.
Socrates
Yeah, it’s sending them to economic hell in a hand basket.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-germany-economy-trade/germany-trumps-asia-with-worlds-largest-current-account-surplus-idUSKBN1F50WP
Poroti
Exactly right. An example of non financial benefits of education in my own line of work is road safety. Want to double your chance of dying in a road crash? Drop out of high school. Want to halve it? Finish a degree – any degree.
Working towards a goal like completing a degree over several years teaches people life skills in planning and self discipline that are inherently useful.
It’s their ABC. Although, as Father Bob tweeted “Brand booster?” for Wil.
‘Wil Anderson
Verified account
@Wil_Anderson
Just got escorted out of the ABC lobby by security because the interview I was doing was too loud. Watch Gruen tonight, it might be the final episode if I’m not allowed back in the building’
Socrates says:
Wednesday, May 2, 2018 at 10:04 am
France and Germany already have free uni. Germany is hardly going broke from it.
This policy results in the more rapid accumulation of capital in the economies than would otherwise be the case. They have removed barriers to capital development, diffusion and application. Very good policy.
Bill Presser
Bill Shorten presser now attacking on Education.
Working towards a goal like completing a degree over several years teaches people life skills in planning and self discipline that are inherently useful.
Yeah, like how to do 2 Minute Noodles multiple ways. When Coles and Woolworths put their Reduced Price food out, and how to juggle 3 or 4 part time jobs with your study.
Plus, how to cope with rejection when you try and find a job after you graduate.
Trump doctor: President ‘dictated’ glowing letter claiming ‘he’d be the healthiest individual ever elected’
Dr. Harold Bornstein said that President Trump influenced his health evaluation, according to CNN.
In an interview with CNN, Bornstein said that he didn’t write any of Trump’s health documents and that Trump wrote the glowing letters himself.
“He dictated that whole letter. I didn’t write that letter,” Bornstein said. “I just made it up as I went along.”
The letter stated: The letter stated: “His physical strength and stamina are extraordinary. If elected, Mr. Trump, I can state unequivocally, will be the healthiest individual ever elected to the presidency.”
This story is still developing.
https://www.rawstory.com/2018/05/trump-doctor-president-dictated-glowing-letter-claiming-hed-healthiest-individual-ever-elected/
As a final comment, this attack on the benefits of education is a huge beat up. It is impossible to prove in advance that current students will benefit more or less than predecessors. They may or may not. But EVERY long term study I have ever seen shows that they benefit compared to their peers.
The real problem is our dead wage market, and record low wage growth. Yes that is hurting uni graduates. But it is hurting everyone else too. Junking education will not fix it. Changing governments might…
Guytaur
Having seen the economic and political success of the Greens free uni policy in NZ, I must concede they are correct on this one. Labor should adopt it here too.
The push to ‘junk’ the benefits of higher education I imagine is being led by the same IPA and BCA types- they want desperate, fauning, low-wage fodder for their businesses, and for the end of government subsidies for universities.
No country ever made itself great by making itself dumb.
Socrates
Paul Keating has stated neo liberalism is dead. If he was in power now I doubt he would be for introducing HECS.
Keating was a great Treasurer and Prime Minister. He was of course captured by the politics of the time.
In the 80’s Thatcher and Reagan were at their peak policy of pushing neo liberalism on the world.
We are now seeing the damage and realise that you can go way too far.
Ditching Whitlam’s policy on education by Labor was one of those too far bridges.
Education and Health have been strong suits for Labor due to Whitlam’s policies.
It does Labor no favours to forget the reasons why Whitlam brought in free university in the first place.
I’ve commented before on this but to me the major point to come out of the RC so far is that penalties for breaching regulations, (i.e breaking the law,) are just seen as a cost of business and if they can make more money doing something than the penalty then they will do that thing.
Westacott goes on about what business gives to the Society, and she’s largely right, but she is very quiet when it comes to what the Society gives to business.
It’s only as a result of the Society we have built that the conditions exist that allow business to prosper.
While business continues to disregard this, by minimising the taxes they pay and flaunting regulations with only one interest, their bottom line, it’s hard to suggest we have a system works for the mutual interests of both.
It seems there are two ways to help business success in Australia.m
Find a business that is subsidised by government this guaranteeing some of the income.
Or find a business that can be structured so that the profits are shifted overseas and minimal tax is paid where the money is earned.
Now if you can combine the two …
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2018/may/02/australian-nursing-home-giants-shifting-millions-in-profits-offshore-report-finds
we are being played for mugs by big business.
Barney
Yes. The BCA has been captured by the neo liberals.
Until they start promoting renewables on the facts they are good for the economy as job creating industries instead of continuing to support coal you will know facts don’t count with that lot.
The fact they have been ignoring the Insurance industries and not campaigning on the risks of climate change daily says it all.
They are neo liberals advocating that we work for the economy. Not that the economy is to work for us.
Sorry, but which Parly is Tim Hammond?
“”Macron is on my television he just lectured Turnbull on Climate Change.””
He should avoid any TREE planting, as it will probably disappear over night!.
c@t:
I’d also like to torpedo the fallacy that you can just do an Arts or other degree then stick a Grad Dip Ed on top of it and voila! a teaching position falls at your feet.
My understanding is that there is a big shortage of qualified maths and science teachers in NSW. That is certainly the case in rural areas. If you had Maths, even just first year maths, you would get a teaching position in a secondary school.
guytaur @ #614 Wednesday, May 2nd, 2018 – 7:38 am
I’d like them to start by conforming to the law and paying tax!
KISS 🙂
Barney in Go Dau @ #580 Wednesday, May 2nd, 2018 – 7:44 am
I got a HD for both units that covered ethics and corporate governance during my CPA. Doing the course doesn’t mean much. It’s corporate culture that is important.
OK, as you were.
Socrates @ #586 Wednesday, May 2nd, 2018 – 7:56 am
What they want is someone else to bear the financial burden of the (potential) employee being ready to start at 100% in their specific business.
don @ #619 Wednesday, May 2nd, 2018 – 10:40 am
Your understanding is incorrect.
I did a Grad Dip Ed in Science. Too many of us graduated to be all offered a job. This was mainly because turnover is very low. Once people get a job they hang onto it and have to be blasted out. Even in the country. It’s not so bad to live there now, as you would know! And many young graduates see it as a way to get into the property market too these days, which is almost impossible in the city.
sprocket_ says:
Tuesday, May 1, 2018 at 8:26 pm
…”Conservative wishful thinkers say the One Nation voters are peeled off LNP natural voters. Some are, but most are society’s losers who have no natural home, and are more likely to vote against incumbency of whatever stripe because they hate their lives, hates immigrants, hate Malcolm Turnbull etc”…
Very accurate in my opinion.
Where Newspoll is correct, is in the fact that more Queensland One Nation voters than usual voted against the incumbent Labor government at our recent state election.
Where Newspoll has made a grave error, is to assume this can be interpreted as a negative for Labor at the next Federal election.
One Nation voters are anti-government/establishment generally and in greater numbers than they are anti-Labor.
They will ignore HTV’s and vote hard against a government that is clearly on the nose.
I would be stunned if One Nation preference flows TO Labor didn’t improve over 2016.
Tim Hammond
Barney
Yes. I am on that train as well.
We need to ditch Thatcherism and Reaganism. That does not mean we return to the over regulation that allowed the build up of fortified positions behind that regulation that Keating dismantled.
It means being clear eyed about what needs to change.
When Andrew leigh is on the same page as me on looking at what Scandinavia is doing and not what the US is doing I know I am on the right track.
Iceland is the standout country on dealing wth the big end of town with its jailing of bankers.
The other Scandinavian Countries are no slouches either when it comes to using regulation wisely.
Thats enforceable regulation.
There is a reason that when the Facebook drama came up everyone started suddenly saying they were looking at the EU regulation of the tech industry as their guide.
Neo Liberalism get the government out of the market has to go. We need to restore the balance. The tricky part is not to go too far the other way as happened in the past.
Tim Hammond Labor Member for Perth
So another by election?
C@t
I wonder how soon there will be a by-election, and what effect it will have on Labor…
C@
‘Except if you’re the kid who goes to Uni, incurs the expense of a Student Debt, then finds themselves unable to get a job in a hyper-competitive market…’
In which case the debt is irrelevant, because you’ll never have to repay it.
Both you and dtt seem to be arguing from the position of ‘my kids missed out, therefore the data is hokum’. Whilst it’s perfectly understandable why you would do this, it’s not an objective position.
As an unemployed teacher, relying on tutoring and stints of casual work, I could conclude that getting a teaching degree was useless. But I accept that my individual circumstances are just that; my two sisters are doing very well out of their Dip Eds. And I recognise that (when I do get work) I get paid a lot more for a more enjoyable job than I would if I went out and cleaned toilets.
lizzie @ #622 Wednesday, May 2nd, 2018 – 8:44 am
Seems to be confirmed by other news sources:
https://www.communitynews.com.au/guardian-express/news/federal-mp-perth-tim-hammond-announces-resignation
https://www.sbs.com.au/news/wa-federal-labor-mp-tim-hammond-to-resign
Doesn’t say if he’s doing so immediately. I hope not. Perth is a safe Labor seat.
Soc
‘Working towards a goal like completing a degree over several years teaches people life skills in planning and self discipline that are inherently useful.’
I know the attitude in the Defence Forces used to be that getting a degree, any degree, was proof that you could learn basically anything you needed to.
Rachel Dunn@racheledunn_94
Being inclusive isn’t hard to do. The new gender neutral toilet signs for @womenslibrary. I came to the conclusion that the best way to signpost a gender-neutral toilet, keeping with the GWL spirit (equality, diversity, inclusion) was to simply have a symbol of a toilet. https://twitter.com/racheledunn_94/status/991050299447152640/photo/1
Absence of Empathy @ #625 Wednesday, May 2nd, 2018 – 8:49 am
I disagree. I met a few self described PHON voters while I was door knocking in the 2017 WA state election and I would not describe them as “losers”. Economically they were doing very, very well.
@guytaur – instructions unclear.
The male toilets have a picture of a male.
The female toilets have a picture of a female.
By that logic, that sign indicates a room where toilets can go to go to the toilet.
don
Concur. I’m on the NSW School Jobs email list, which means I get an update on available positions on a weekly basis. They frequently offer scholarships for teachers to retrain in Maths/Science – so full wages whilst you’re back at Uni -with a guaranteed job at the end.
I can’t take up the option because I didn’t do Maths/Science at HSC level.
Ronald Mizen
Tim Hammond confirms support has been offered by the Labor Party e.g. going to the backbench until the next election. But he says: “I know what I need to do to be the dad I need to be.”
Stephanie Peatling
Mr Hammond says he will go back to the bar and “keep trying to make a difference, just in a different way”.
Erik Bagshaw
.@MathiasCormann says he is genuinely sad to hear Tim Hammond is stepping down as the member for Perth. “It is our State’s loss that Tim will now not continue to pursue his federal political career to its full potential.” #auspol
Both you and dtt seem to be arguing from the position of ‘my kids missed out, therefore the data is hokum’. Whilst it’s perfectly understandable why you would do this, it’s not an objective position.
No, that isn’t the case, actually, but thanks for the free condescension zoomster.
My eldest son, who did Arts and Science, is quite happy as a writer now. He could have been a Teacher but that wasn’t what he really wanted to be in life. He learnt very well how to write and that’s all he wanted from his Arts degree at the end of the day.
My other son is employed at the same hourly rate that employed Pharmacists get now. He ‘only’ has a Cert 4 in Warehousing and Logistics. That is real world examples.
However, I was mainly reflecting on the other kids that are friends of theirs and what they have related to me about their own personal situation.
Also, I don’t know why you think Teaching is superior to cleaning toilets. I know some very nice people who clean toilets for a living. Not to mention the fact that there are plenty of students who are real little shitheads and dealing with them on a daily basis is inferior to cleaning their toilets at school! Just sayin’
In 2016 Labor won Perth 53.33 – 46.67. Bludgetrack is predicting a Labor win 62.2 – 37.8.
lizzie @ #630 Wednesday, May 2nd, 2018 – 10:52 am
Depends on the candidate they choose I guess.
Just hope it’s not Steven Smith again! 😀
C@
I don’t think teaching is superior to cleaning toilets. I just prefer teaching kids to cleaning toilets (I’m allergic to just about every known cleaning product). And it pays better.
Mike Carlton
The teachers at my son’s NSW State public school work bloody hard. They don’t need insults from half-arsed Liberal Party backbenchers – especially Laming, whose chief claim to fame is his ability to drink a can of beer while standing on his head. https://twitter.com/tanya_plibersek/status/991440733822373888
Tanya Plibersek
Malcolm Turnbull’s Liberals: defending banks, attacking teachers
https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/teachers-need-fewer-holidays-more-work-coalition-mp-andrew-laming-20180501-p4zcog.html
‘However, I was mainly reflecting on the other kids that are friends of theirs and what they have related to me about their own personal situation.’
Which is still anecdotal. Which is why we go to data. Which was my point.
C@tmomma @ #643 Wednesday, May 2nd, 2018 – 9:04 am
I respectfully contend that someone working as a pharmacist enjoys far greater *conditions* of employment than someone working in a warehouse, not to mention the greater social status.
And from my seat at work I enjoy a wonderful view of the warehouse through the internal windows.
I know which job I’d much rather have.
(AFR) https://outline.com/XryHWg