We are having one of the poll-free weeks that have occasionally bedevilled us since Essential Research moved from weekly to fortnightly, with Newspoll having one of its occasional three-week gaps so its next poll coincides with the resumption of parliament. So here’s some random bits of electoral news:
• A polling nugget I forgot to relate a fortnight ago: according to a report by Nick Butterly of The West Australian, a Labor internal poll recorded a neck-and-neck result in the Perth seat of Stirling, which Michael Keenan holds for the Liberals by a margin of 6.1%. After excluding the 10.8% undecided, the primary votes were Liberal 40.2% (49.5% in 2016), Labor 37.6% (32.2%), Greens 9.0% (11.7%) and One Nation 5.3%. The poll was conducted by Community Engagement from a large sample of 1735.
• Gareth Parker in the Sunday Times reports that Matt O’Sullivan, who ran unsuccessfully in the lower house seat of Burt at the 2016 election, has narrowly won preselection for the third position on the Liberals’ Western Australian Senate ticket, behind incumbents Linda Reynolds and Slade Brockman. O’Sullivan emerged with 56 votes to 54 for Trish Botha, co-founder with her husband of an evangelical church in Perth’s northern suburbs. The closeness of the result surprised party observers, especially given Christian conservative numbers man Nick Goiran backed O’Sullivan. As Gareth Parker noted in his weekly column, Botha appears to have attracted support from “non God-botherers” opposed to Goiran’s alliance with Mathias Cormann and Peter Collier, who may not have been aware of the messianic language employed by Botha’s church.
• Katy Gallagher has announced she will seek preselection to recover the Australian Capital Territory Senate seat from which she was disqualified last month over Section 44 complications, after speculation she might instead seek the territory’s newly created third lower house seat. However, it appears she will face opposition from the newly anointed successor to her Senate seat, David Smith, former local director of Professionals Australia.
• As for the lower house situation in the Australian Capital Territory, Andrew Leigh will remain in Fenner and Gai Brodtmann will go from Canberra to the nominally new seat of Bean, leaving a vacancy available in Canberra. Smith appears set to run if he loses the Senate preselection to Gallagher; Sally Whyte of Fairfax reports he will be opposed by Kel Watt, a lobbyist who has lately made a name for himself campaigning against the territory Labor government’s ban on greyhound racing. Other potential starters include John Falzon, chief executive of the St Vincent de Paul Society; Jacob Ingram, a staffer to Chief Minister Andrew Barr; and Jacob White, a staffer to Andrew Leigh.
• Occasional Poll Bludger contributor Adrian Beaumont has launched his own website of local and international election and polling news.
More rats are leaving the sinking ship of Trump’s Presidency.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/sarah-sanders-raj-shah-planning-to-depart-the-white-house/?ftag=CNM-00-10aab7e&linkId=52982815
Now that the Australian Govt. will install the undersea cable for the Solomon Islands instead of Huawei, can we expect it to deliver Australian NBN quality to the islands given that the last kilometre or so will obviously be copper.
Although it does not appear to be imminent CBS are reporting that Sarah Sanders is leaving the WH
Tea Pain @TeaPainUSA Retweeted CBS News
They must be all lied out.
Sarah Sanders, Raj Shah planning to depart the White House
Two of the most visible members of the Trump administration are planning their departures, the latest sign of upheaval in a White House marked by turmoil.
Press secretary Sarah Sanders and principal deputy press secretary Raj Shah are both heading for the exits, according to sources inside the White House and close to the administration.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/sarah-sanders-raj-shah-planning-to-depart-the-white-house/?ftag=CNM-00-10aab7e&linkId=52982815
The garage owner guy on QandA last month asked Bill about the 3.5% increase in basic wage he had to fork out to his employees. How could he pay for it? Increase prices (which he said would have to go up 10%), increased productivity or out of his own pocket? Bill answered it poorly and mentioned productivity increase with some improved deductibility policy.
But he should have been tackled the owner about the increase in prices. The wage increase would be about a dollar and hour, increase the prices by a dollar an hour, to cover the wage increase. No-one will blink and eye paying $396 for an oil and filter change as opposed to $395.
He should also have asked the owner if he was willing to pay his workers below what is considered a living wage by not passing on the increase. And if so, what sort of salary would he be prepared to go down to.
SNAP GG 🙂
“only one One Nation MP has ever been re-elected.”
And it wasn’t Pauline Hanson 🙂
Rossmcg
The striking thing about that article is the systematic way in which those making comments are trying to forgive the criminals and convict those who are doing their jobs. Despite what they say,
1. There have been substantive allegations.
2. These allegations are being investigated.
3. Those doing the judgements in any criminal prosecutions will take into account the exigencies of war fighting.
4. Yes, the investigations must be stressful for those being investigated and their families. This is the norm in civilian justice as well as in military justice systems.
5. One of the reasons the investigations have taken so long is that those near the incidents failed AT THE TIME to report them to the ADF hierarchy.
What is totally lacking from that article is any sense that war criminals should be accountable.
Disgusting, IMO.
guytaur says:
Thursday, June 14, 2018 at 10:11 am
Antony Green tweets
30 MPs have been elected to represent One Nation. Six are current members. 19 resigned in their first term, two were disqualified in first term, only three lasted long enough to face re-election, two were defeated and only one One Nation MP has ever been re-elected.
Anti-hero politics can only take you so far. The outsider who is actually on the outside is possibly authentic. But once elected, they can no longer really claim to be on the outside and they lose their main claim to attention. They lose their protester status and become part of the set that includes “all politicians”, soon becoming politically invisible.
Archbishop Mark Coleridge, head of the Australian Catholic Bishops Conference, tipped a bucket of shit on the Royal Commission findings.
“immediately offered a bristling response by saying the church did not view the sacramental seal as incompatible with maintaining child safety”
“There has been no compelling evidence to suggest that legal abolition of the seal of confession will help in that regard,” he said.
“Australia’s Catholic leaders maintain the seal of confession cannot be broken, even if priests face criminal charges for failing to reveal child abuse, as recommended by the final report of the $500 million Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse.”
And what did the commissioners find.
The final report stated the commissioners were “satisfied” the practice of the “sacrament of reconciliation” (confession) contributed to the occurrence of sexual abuse and to “inadequate institutional responses to abuse”.
“In case studies and private sessions we heard that disclosures of child sexual abuse by perpetrators or victims during confession were not reported to civil authorities,” the report found.
“We heard that the sacrament is based on a theology of sin and forgiveness and that same Catholic Church leaders have viewed child sexual abuse as a sin to be dealt with through private absolution and penance rather than a crime to be reported to police.”
The commissioners also recommended that confession for children should be conducted in an open space and in the line of sight of another adult.
Leading child abuse advocates have responded with anger and dismay after the Catholic Church immediately pushed back against new laws that would force priests to break the seal of confession.
https://thenewdaily.com.au/news/national/2018/06/13/child-abuse-royal-commission-advocate-outrage/
And the process of deceit continues.
From the initial church responses of its all lies, childrens imagination, grudge against the church, in it for the money, its only isolated incidences, the rate of abuse is far lower than that in society, abortion is a greater problem and sin, think of all the good we have done, we have it under control, we don’t have assets to pay compensation, the poor will suffer if we have to pay compensation, an inquiry is not needed, it is a witch hunt, we didn’t realise that the abuse hurt children.
We now have reached the end game and turned full circle with the bishops saying there is no evidence of causes despite the Royal Commission findings.
Next will come the commissions findings were flawed, the number of victims were overstated, it is part of an agenda against the church.
PeeBee @ #54 Thursday, June 14th, 2018 – 7:46 am
You could listen to the answer.
The policy that Shorten mentioned was to force the car companies to release their diagnostic information so that garages like this guys could make repairs as opposed to owners being forced to use dealers for their repairs.
This would bring competition to the industry by opening up to garages a segment of business that they are largely excluded from at the moment.
No need to challenge the guy, he highlighted a direct benefit Labor would bring in that would help grow his business which would then mean that any wage concerns were not relevant. 🙂
Another observation from the US on preferential voting system in Maine:
https://www.opednews.com/articles/A-First-Experience-with-Ra-by-Paul-Cohen-Election_Ranked-Choice_Ranked-Choice-Voting_Ranked-Voting-180613-498.html
If the “garage guy” had asked such a dodgy question of Turnbull the Murdoch media would have been camped outside his workshop before he opened on Tuesday morning looking to discredit him.
As others have pointed out the 3.5 percent minimum wage increase would be unlikely to apply to his workers.
More rats are leaving the sinking ship of Trump’s Presidency.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/sarah-sanders-raj-shah-planning-to-depart-the-white-house/?ftag=CNM-00-10aab7e&linkId=52982815
___
Yes, right at the height of her popularity!
BK @ #63 Thursday, June 14th, 2018 – 11:09 am
How soon till DTT joins them?
Interesting that he thought all the votes for the last ranked candidate would go to the next lowest in the first elimination!!
Howard is chairman of the Ramsay Centre,
Must be disappointed at ANU knocking back the course.
His book of speeches could have been put forward as a required text to study in defense of judeo christian values and western civilisation.
It is not so much the speeches in the book that are of interest but the ones that may not be.
His impassioned speeches defending Hollingsworth and the churches that saw an inquiry delayed 10 years.
The speeches on WMD that took Australia to war at the same time saving it from USA sanctions for its $300million donation to Saddam.
The speeches on refugees throwing their kids overboard and who likely were terrorists that did so much to set back multiculturalism.
John Warhurst has his say on the high stakes Ramsay Centre controversy.
https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/ramsay-centre-controversy-a-high-stakes-affair-20180612-p4zl1d.html
The Americans need another satellite TV channel: The Whitehouse Channel
24 hours scandal, gossip and resignation speeches 🙂
Boer….I think the depiction of soldiers/soldiering is very conflicted. First of all, there is very little recognition of the fundamentally brutalising nature of warring, and of the really very high incidence of PTSD among ex-ADF personnel. The ADF create warriors, who are glorified in public and then abandoned in private. There are huge add-on costs to the killing that are largely ignored by the public, who prefer to think of soldiers as figures in bronze. These costs are borne by the servants and their families in civilian life.
Beyond that, the mystifying of war-making both denies and permits every depravity. The ritualised killings reported recently, and the failure to investigate them, are parts of this mystification. Breaker Morant was reputedly executed after a show trial by the English. The ADF have been running the opposite – a No Show trial, lest another soldier be scapegoated. This is all part of the mechanics of killing. There is exultation in courage to the point where its obverse – the most cowardly acts – cannot be directly addressed and justice is subordinated to horror.
We should all re-read Joseph Conrad on shame, terror, fear and horror and the denial of these portents, not least because the war in Afghanistan is, at the end of the day, a colonial war.
Shorten might have found the right button to push here!
https://twitter.com/i/status/1006695808039702528
I do hope they find the ignorant, vindictive perpetrator of this crime.
[There are two main categories of wedge-tailed eagles, based on their age class: sedentary breeding adults, which stay in a home range with nest sites; and highly nomadic juvenile birds that can cover huge distances. There are usually fewer adult birds in one place, because they are territorial.
The very high number of birds affected make it likely that they were largely juveniles. There is currently no accurate data on how many wedge-tailed eagles are in Australia, but this single culling event could have serious effects on future generations’ breeding capacity.
Sites of persecution can have impacts to eagle populations if they become “ecological sinks”. These are places that draw birds in from a wide area, perhaps because of an unnaturally abundant food source, and then result in birds dying. If these ongoing “mortality black holes” cause hundreds of birds to die in relatively short periods of time, this can start impacting the population.]
https://theconversation.com/mass-slaughter-of-wedge-tailed-eagles-could-have-australia-wide-consequences-98011
BK @ #63 Thursday, June 14th, 2018 – 11:09 am
Strange though. I wouldn’t have thought “heaping praise on a brutal dictator” would be the thing that finally crossed Sanders’s threshold of moral outrage.
Perhaps there’s something else afoot.
Tribute to Cohen..
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RJ0hOKCSuns
GG
No I leave that sort of behaviour to groupers.
For those genuinely interested and not scoring points like two bit brawlers:
The hard cold reality is that Trump is winning the PR war. It is strange but true. He is an odd ball for sure and is breaking every rule in the book. He is totally unpredictable and what he says today has no relation with what he may say or do tomorrow.
I think the ONLY way to judge Trump will be at the end of his presidency. What we can say is this
1. On all environmental matters he is a bloody disaster
2. On social matters he lets Pence do the running and is thus also a total disaster
3. On economic matters he is a fairly predictable Republican which means very bad and giving money to the rich. However he is a good salesman and the signs are that the general public have not yet
`marked him down. – I would.
4. On his much vaunted”wall” and immigration he is not having much success
5. On trade matters he is all over the place. Totally unfathomable
6. On foreign affairs I think I agree with Bob Carr. He is surprisingly good at it. His instincts seem to be to make money not war. so far there has not been a hot war with russia – tick, we seem to have averted a nuclear strike on NK – tick, Iran has gone backwards – cross, he is in the pocket of Israel cross, he is in the pocket of Saudi -cross, he has upset the allies in europe – while this may be bad for the USA for the world long term it is probably good if they learn to stand for themselves.. As for China – I have no bloody idea. i think he has delegated it to Turnbull – heaven help us..
The whole practice of ‘confession’ is bollocks.
If I understand it correctly, the basic tenet is that the confessor if the agent of (a) God, and acting for (the) God, dispenses forgiveness, imposes a penalty, and thereby the soul of the penitent is cleansed.
What God needs a agent? It is a medieval power play by a Church to self impose relevance where none is necessary.
And that’s without looking at just what ‘sin” is, let alone ‘forgiveness’.
booleanbach says:
Thursday, June 14, 2018 at 10:22 am
They certainly put a lot of thought into the design of this Mars rover:
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/nasa-mars-rover-opportunity-loses-contact-dust-storm/
———————————————————————
Considering it has lasted 14 years longer than its planned life of 90 days I don’t think the designers did too bad a job.
Greensborough Growler @ #69 Thursday, June 14th, 2018 – 8:17 am
If this means WA get more than the formula determines, who will get less?
Barney
Victoria, I think, has never been fairly treated on GST. I hope that Shorten doesn’t try to buy WA votes by disadvantaging us more.
30 MPs have been elected to represent One Nation. Six are current members. 19 resigned in their first term, two were disqualified in first term, only three lasted long enough to face re-election, two were defeated and only one One Nation MP has ever been re-elected.
But they keep coming back.
There does seem a yearning for a 3rd party like the Australian Democrats.
The Palmers, Xs, Lambies all appear to show this.
The Democrats founded by a former lib minister were supposed to be a fit between liberal and labor but disintegrated when a former leader went to labor and a serving leader aligned too closley to Howard.
The greens dont seem to be it, positioning themselves as a replacement to labor .
Maybe if the LNP gets a good thumping at the next election we could see such a third party emerge from the recriminations.
The GST formula as put together by Howard and Costello was a breach of the federation settlement, which always allowed that grants to States would come from the Commonwealth and not by shuffling cash between the States. State finances should not be a zero-sum game.
Shorten has nailed it.
I like to think I’ve had a small part in this. I have been making this argument inside WA Labor and it seems it has been heard.
a r says: Thursday, June 14, 2018 at 11:21 am
Strange though. I wouldn’t have thought “heaping praise on a brutal dictator” would be the thing that finally crossed Sanders’s threshold of moral outrage.
Perhaps there’s something else afoot.
**************************************************************
US political commentator Bill Palmer :
Huckabee Sanders seemed to relish the chance to get up there and tell ridiculous lies each day on Donald Trump’s behalf. It gave her a chance to bully the reporters in the room while getting to spew any nonsense she wanted, and much of the time she seemed to be having devious fun. As the Trump administration collapses and the rats head for the exits, we always thought Huckabee Sanders would be one of the last to go.
This news about her departure is surfacing just hours after Donald Trump’s longtime fixer Michael Cohen took the first steps toward a plea deal against Trump. It looks like Huckabee Sanders thinks this is going to finish Trump off fairly soon. Once Trump is ousted, she’d be out of a job anyway.
briefly
In what way has Shorten ‘nailed it’? I’m not aware of the detail.
Barney in Go Dau @ #76 Thursday, June 14th, 2018 – 11:27 am
It’s well known that labor has a bigger warchest because of their proposed closing of tax loopholes. So, I imagine there be an allocation of funds from central revenue to implement this initiative.
lizzie, to make it very clear, any extra funds paid to WA or other States by the Commonwealth will not come from Victoria’s GST allocations. They will come from the Commonwealth, as was always the case prior to Howard’s rigging of the GST rules.
Howard hated giving the States any cash. Just hated it. He hates the whole idea of States funding public services. His view was they could be made to fight among themselves and he would hang on to the Commonwealth’s cash. This was a betrayal – an absolute betrayal – of the Federation deal that underwrote the development of the country through the 20th century.
briefly
Thanks, that makes it clear. 🙂
lizzie, Shorten has revoked Howard’s rules. Great. They should be abolished.
briefly @ #79 Thursday, June 14th, 2018 – 8:32 am
If the former State Government had not spent the excess at the beginning of the boom, the money would be there to make up for the deficiency after the boom.
All this was known at the time but due to negligence or wilful denial that the boom would end no measures were taken to mitigate this eventuality!
WA Labor are certainly putting an effort into Darling Range. There have been huge, truck-borne ads up and down Great Eastern Highway for the last week or two.
In contrast, all I’ve seen for the opposition is one solitary, small corflute on the verge.
Dunno what’s happening further south but at the Mundaring end of the electorate the Labor campaign definitely appears more serious.
Lizzie
The author didn’t mention it in that article but I have read elsewhere that a juvenile wedgie he tracked flew from Lorna Glen, east of Wiluna in WA, to far north SA and then back to 80-mile beach on WA’s northwest coast in just a couple of months
Probably looking for a place to call home.
Lucky he didn’t venture to Gippsland.
https://www.google.com.au/amp/s/theconversation.com/amp/trump-kim-summit-north-korean-leader-emerges-a-clear-winner-as-donald-trump-reverts-to-type-98182
briefly @ #68 Thursday, June 14th, 2018 – 11:15 am
Well said.
adrian
You beat me to it. Plus one on briefly’s post.
Barney in Go Dau says:
Thursday, June 14, 2018 at 11:39 am
briefly @ #79 Thursday, June 14th, 2018 – 8:32 am
The GST formula as put together by Howard and Costello was a breach of the federation settlement, which always allowed that grants to States would come from the Commonwealth and not by shuffling cash between the States. State finances should not be a zero-sum game.
Shorten has nailed it.
I like to think I’ve had a small part in this. I have been making this argument inside WA Labor and it seems it has been heard.
If the former State Government had not spent the excess at the beginning of the boom, the money would be there to make up for the deficiency after the boom.
All this was known at the time but due to negligence or wilful denial that the boom would end no measures were taken to mitigate this eventuality!
The real problem in State finance is the recurrent deficit. This is not directly attributable to the misallocation of GST between the States so much as it is du to the misallocation of income between the States and the Commonwealth. The system effectively siphons resources royalties between States and does not allow States to properly meet their investment and recurrent spending requirements.
We have a very tough-minded Treasurer here, Ben Wyatt, who will fix State finances. But this will be much more painful than it should be because of Howard’s idiotic hatred of the States.
Rossmcg
It will be interesting if those carcasses can be age-identified.
Wedgies in Tassie are already endangered, I think. The effect of the destruction of the top predators all over the world is only recently being realised. Fools.
Briefly
Interesting you should mention Conrad. Soldiers may read him also. One story about the SAS’s alleged transgressions said that those who may have done wrong were said to have “gone up the river”, a reference to Heart of Darkness (but you would have known that).
BiGD
“If the former State Government had not spent the excess at the beginning of the boom, the money would be there to make up for the deficiency after the boom.”
WA got a double hit from the boom coming and going.
As well as the increased mining royalties it got huge increases in stamp duties when house prices went through the roof because of the mining boom.
When the mining boom ended house prices crashed so did revenue from stamp duty.
But where did all the money go??????????
rossmcg says:
Thursday, June 14, 2018 at 11:55 am
Briefly
Interesting you should mention Conrad. Soldiers may read him also. One story about the SAS’s alleged transgressions said that those who may have done wrong were said to have “gone up the river”, a reference to Heart of Darkness (but you would have known that).
….yes….incredible work…just indelible…indispensable
Lizzie
When I was in Alaska and Canada recently it was a thrill to see as many bald eagles as I did.
Raptors are wonderful. There are several sites around the Swan River near central Perth where ospreys nest. They can often be seen perched on light poles beside the river or on bridges.
Boris
The Barnett government, with Christian Porter as Treasurer, budgeted on the GST distribution continuing at the same level as before the mining boom and borrowed and spent accordingly.
They were warned by the Treasury that the GST share was likely to be cut in future years and went ahead anyway.
This is the party of better economic managers.
Thanks rossmcg
Many hurt by the boom and bust in mining and house prices, also in Qld.
Met a bloke who was making a motza by turning over luxury goods that FIFOs had to sell after the slowdown, stuff like harleys and boats.
These blokes splurged during the boom buying expensive toys and when over had to sell them cheap to keep up with house and other payments,
Bloke I met was buying them cheap and onselling for good profits.
You can see people like the FIFOs being caught out by living in the moment but you would expect more from state governments.
Pee Bee
The business operator you refer to is an uneducated fool
Reason?
On a National TV programme he says that he can not afford to increase the wages to his employees by 3.5%, being the Fair Work Commission judgement
So if you were a Trade Creditor to that business, supplying goods and services, what would that presentation on National TV say to you?
What confidence would you have as a supplier of goods and services to that business that you are going to be paid as and when due?
Do you want to become an Unsecured Creditor – noting Romalpa and Receivers attempting to charge you for the storage of your goods (with the Auction House judgement awaited but the practice being adopted)?
If his business can not afford to pay its employees a fair day’s pay for a fair day’s work the business is terminal
Simple as that
And as an employee I would firstly be checking that my superannuation remittances are current and I would be covertly seeking an alternate employer
To present as this business proprietor has to a National TV audience was lunacy of the first order
Including because in a very tight lending climate where banks have stopped lending and are navel gazing at the potential for bad and doubtful debt provisioning, his bankers will now be seeking YTD financial statements to test profitability, lending covenants and liquidity
So get ready for the bank appointing – and rightly so
Because people are business proprietors never assume they are in any way educated