First up, please note the threads below this one dealing with state politics in South Australia and New South Wales.
The BludgerTrack poll aggregate continues to inch in the Coalition’s direction with the addition of the Essential Research poll, the only one published this week. Whereas Labor finished 2018 with a lead of 54.4-45.6, the latest result has it at 53.1-46.9, which is a 0.4% shift compared with a week ago. However, this only makes one seat’s difference on the seat projection, with a projected gain for the Coalition in New South Wales. No new results for the leadership ratings this week.
Full results are available through the link below. There is a bit of bug here that often stops the state breakdowns from loading when you click on the tabs – I will get around to fixing this one day, but for the time being, it should work if you do a hard refresh.
jenauthor @ #821 Sunday, February 10th, 2019 – 8:32 am
I will not reproduce your comments (they are above), but I agree 100%
Political analysis and debate deserves a little respect of others.
If a fact is incorrect, expose it. If an opinion is not shared, discuss it – respectfully.
Yeah only thing that confuses me about Probyn was his strong Murdoch / Stokes story. It was so courageous and out of character for a middling West Australian hack.
Tom
If the “Malaysia Solution” was the answer to all things asylum, and achievable without legal challenge, you would expect it to be part of present Labor policy. I am interested in your considered views, not just Greens-bashing.
Sceptic
Probyn is someone who is more fluent when writing than speaking. I find Laura Tingle the same.
Good posting jenauthor, both on your call re the state of this blog and re how the newspoll being a reflection of how awake the general populous is or is not.
“Hilarious. Just watching News 24, Probyn with the sound offf ( only way he makes sense) , they cross to Greg Hunt I notice every time he needs to emphasise a word ( every 3rd by my count) he tips up & forward onto his toes… must be short persons syndrome”
Turnbull has the same tippy-toe tic – maybe it is some born-to-rule mannerism we don’t know about?
Mavis Smith: “Greg Jericho’s take:
‘Boasting that their economic management has not resulted in better living standards or much hope of better ones in the next three years is not going to win votes.’:
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/feb/09/with-an-election-looming-the-governments-fear-is-palpable”
Jericho seems to find the Libs’ fear campaign about dividend imputation and asylum seekers to be morally reprehensible. I wonder how, with the benefit of hindsight, he would judge the grandaddy of all Australian political fear campaigns: Keating in 1993.
Jenauthor,
I was going to make a post like yours just yesterday but as I have not contributed/donated to the site I thought it was not my place to do so.
Now that you said I have to agree with you. Current PB is worse than it was during RG wars during Gillard PMship and that was some awful time for PB. I can barely find a post here anymore that is not some obvious trolling by nath or Rex (who I think is worse than Mod Lib was when it comes to trolling) or responses to them.
Going through 4-5 pages of comments used to take a decent amount of time in past now takes less than a minute or so as I exercise my scroll button more often than not.
It is a real shame though, as once upon a time this was really an insightful place to visit for anyone interested in politics.
I remarked before Christmas that the latest deterioration came with the advent of nath, who seems very spiteful. (Maybe I didn’t post that. I often delete my posts that might cause trouble. 😉 )
meher baba:
[‘And, because I consider that Labor have had a dreadful couple of weeks, I’m predicting 52/48 for the next Newspoll, and I wouldn’t be completely surprised by 51/49.’]
You may be right about Newspoll’s 2PP (my prediction is also 52:48) but how you’ve come to the view that Labor’s had a ‘dreadful couple of weeks’ is unsound. Granted, the tax policies need to be better articulated and will be once the election is announced. As for the Phelps’ bill, Labor, though keeping its powder dry, has the chance to defeat the Morrison Government on the floor, a feat not achieved for nearly ninety years; this, if it happens, will suck the confidence from the Government. And do remember what the bill’s about. And also bear in mind that Labor’s led polling for some two years – a trend which will unlikely change.
lovey: “If the “Malaysia Solution” was the answer to all things asylum, and achievable without legal challenge, you would expect it to be part of present Labor policy. I am interested in your considered views, not just Greens-bashing.”
The Malaysia Solution is not currently relevant: it’s modus operandum is to send newly-arrived boat people to Malaysia before they are processed. For as long as the boat turnback policy continues to work, it won’t be needed. If that situation were to change, I would expect a Labor Government to consider attempting to revive it. It’s a good policy IMO: Malaysia is both a strong Islamic country and a highly successful multicultural society with a high level of demand for additional skilled and unskilled workers. It would provide a safe haven for Muslim asylum seekers from the Middle East who, as we are continually told by the Greens and others, are fleeing desperate circumstances and are certainly not simply seeking to come to Australia as economic migrants.
I can’t understand why no one is asking this question:
How much of the $1.4b cost to bring medical transfers to Xmas island is offset by savings of not accommodating & treating them on another island?
Mavis Smith: “As for the Phelps’ bill, Labor, though keeping its powder dry, has the chance to defeat the Morrison Government on the floor, a feat not achieved for nearly ninety years; this, if it happens, will suck the confidence from the Government. ”
I could be wrong, but I think that a defeat of the Government on the floor of the house, while exciting for the cognoscenti, won’t matter all that much to the general public: in the same manner that voters never seemed to get all that excited about the many bills that the Gillard Government managed to get passed through the House and Senate.
And, if it can be successfully portrayed by the Government as a case of Labor siding with the bleeding heart brigade to trash its strong border protection policy, then it will be a negative for the Government: particularly if one or more boats show up subsequent to the bill passing.
Mavis Smith
Is Pyneocchio using the HoJo Eleventy (pat. pending) calculator ?
I mentioned this last week. Our local member hosted a public forum to talk about Labor’s ‘retiree tax’ yesterday. The adverts in the paper said Matthias Cormann would be there too, but it doesn’t look like it in the photos.
https://www.facebook.com/RickWilsonMP/photos/pcb.997885830413009/997885790413013/?type=3&theater
I’m still unsure what the Nats stand for, other than Barnaby and B&S balls.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-02-10/matters-of-state-regional-nsw-key-battleground-for-election/10784552
Malaysian Solution??
“it was a terrible idea and doomed to embarrass labor in perpetuity if passed. Bow down and THANK the Greens.”
Ok..has dtt actually now actually overtaken nath in the race for official PB village idiot status?? 🙂
One problem with nested comments is you need an easy way to check if someone has responded to your comment.
If you look at the Guardian site you can go to your account and see your comments and any responses.
Without that sort of feature your comment quickly gets lost in the background. 🙂
Benjamin Studebaker outlines four tests for evaluating the worthiness of candidates who claim to be progressive:
“If a candidate has a history of misrepresenting themselves, if they have run as a progressive before and governed like a centrist, you know they are lying (Cory Booker). If a candidate is running as a progressive for the first time, having always to this point run as a centrist, you have a reason to be suspicious (Kirsten Gillibrand). If a candidate takes money from banks (Kamala Harris, Booker) or has tried to win the support of bankers (Gillibrand), you know it could be very costly to them to do what they are saying they would do. If a candidate has a history of refusing to challenge the Democratic Party establishment, of seeking to compromise with it rather than compete with it for control of the party, you know that candidate isn’t tough enough to overcome institutional resistance (Elizabeth Warren). If a candidate polls terribly and has a weak favorability rating, you know that they are seeking to promote themselves and aren’t worried about taking resources and votes from other progressive candidates (Warren, Tulsi Gabbard).
If a candidate has always run as a progressive, always governed that way, always gets the bulk of their resources from ordinary people, has a history of standing up to the party elite when it’s in the wrong, and performs well in polls and favorability metrics, that’s a serious candidate worthy of your support. Right now, the only current or potential candidate whom I believe meets this criteria is Bernie Sanders.
Think there’s someone else? Run those four tests. History, Money, Institutions, Seriousness.”
https://benjaminstudebaker.com/2019/02/09/how-to-evaluate-a-us-presidential-candidate/
Meher Baba
In that case Labor should not have stuffed around with the Malaysia solution and done boat turn backs themselves. Seeing it “works”. So all the reservations about international law, sovereignty, Indonesian sensibilities were overblown? It just needed some orange lifeboats, eh?
One day we will know the truth of “on water matters”.
meher baba @ #849 Sunday, February 10th, 2019 – 10:55 am
Intelligent comment Meher
I agree about excess worry to the left.
I also agree the tax policies have been badly sold. While I agree they are good policies FFS you MUST grandfather these things in or do it gradually. So IF Labor had said something like anyone getting an income above say $75,000 pa would have to pay say a reduced imputation tax and those above $150 pay in full then I think you would have had no problems.
I hope you are wrong.
“I can’t understand why no one is asking this question:
How much of the $1.4b cost to bring medical transfers to Xmas island is offset by savings of not accommodating & treating them on another island?”
Its a good point lizzie, and i suspect it will be made next week as the arguments hot up.
Confessions could I suggest you ring around for a better deal on your electricity.
In my case I contracted simply energy over two years ago. If I paid on time, billed monthly, accepted electronic invoices and had direct debt to my bank, I would recieve 40% off a base rate of 31cents per kWh. (Normal discount was 35%, but as a RACV member, ?I got 40%).
A couple of months ago I got a letter saying my contract was running out but not to worry as my discount would remain.
So I was puzzled when my first bill on the new scenario was more than I normally recieved. Checking the bill carefully, I noted that despite maintaining my discount, my base rate had risen to had risen to 39 cents per kWh!
On the phone to Simply, “too much” I cried and I was immediately switched to a base rate of 30 cents per kWh (one cent less that my previous rate) AND my discount was raised to 45%.
It is a pain, but worth the phone call.
Naturally, your situation in WA will be different, but ask around your friends what they pay. Or ring up you exisiting retailer and ask for the best deal they have, I am sure you could do better than what you are doing now.
imacca @ #877 Sunday, February 10th, 2019 – 11:34 am
say Imacca
Can you please explain clearly what is wrong with my analysis or are you just being a reflexive kicker. I am happy to hear rational arguments but please stupidly like this post deserves ridicule not respect.
I might be wrong in my analysis but respect this block me and your own intellect by explaining why my comment gets village idiot status.
Or are you only able to read one line at a time.
I consider offshore detention a waste of time to be honest, boats kept coming under the Liberals until they did the turn backs.
As it turns out the answer to the problem was the simplest one, which was just to not accept them at all and turn them back.
And this is coming from someone who use to think turn backs were too unsafe, but it seems to be the best solution of a list of what is a awful choice what ever you choose.
meher baba:
[I wonder how, with the benefit of hindsight, he would judge the grandaddy of all Australian political fear campaigns: Keating in 1993.’]
I hazard a guess that he’d think that it was Hewson who scored an own goal, more than anything Labor did:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WndWM71-jSQ
A topical programmer on Sky. Today’s Simpsons episode featured mortgage brokers, banks and Homer losing his house. Our bankster CEOs won’t be too far off the fate of the fictional one……………..
.
.
Bank/Mortgage guy: Now don’t be sore at the bank. Hell, we fired our CEO and he barely got out with $50 million.
Homer: ( Gasp )The poor man. Is he OK ?
Mortgage guy: Well as OK as you can be in the NORTH of France.
PeeBee:
We don’t have choice when it comes to electricity providers so I’m not sure Synergy would be down with me phoning to demand a lower price from them. But I’ll give it a go.
lizzie
The turd just added a bit to the current cost. Can’t have it looking cheaper can we ?
Offshore detention cost taxpayers $5bn in four years – and asylum seekers remain in limbo
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2017/jul/19/offshore-detention-cost-taxpayers-5bn-in-four-years-and-asylum-seekers-remain-in-limbo
Struggling to explain the rationale? Not so much, it is pretty clear.
Companies pay company tax. There is an investment incentive to invest where they pretend that company tax was really paid by shareholders, and can be used to offset the shareholders income tax. Howard and Costello ever the wreckers added a cash rebate so in effect it is paying a govt pension to shareholders who pay not tax. Labor are protecting pensioners and otherwise pulling back this indefensible rort.
People who’ve paid any attention at all, are beginning to question why shareholders should get any dividend imputation at all. It seems to be a bad investment incentive that is driving bad behaviours.
dtt: Thanks
“I also agree the tax policies have been badly sold. While I agree they are good policies FFS you MUST grandfather these things in or do it gradually. So IF Labor had said something like anyone getting an income above say $75,000 pa would have to pay say a reduced imputation tax and those above $150 pay in full then I think you would have had no problems.”
Yep, grandparenting was definitely the way to go with this policy. This would have been consistent with other aspects of policy around the taxation of retirees. Eg, people are limited to $1.6 million of tax free accumulated superannuation, but are not taxed on defined benefit pensions no matter how high they might be (and a defined benefit pension of $150,000 per annum, which is by no means unusual, would be equivalent to accumulated super of around $2.4 million).
The policy rationale here is that retired people have relatively little opportunity to move their money around: eg, it would be well-nigh impossible for someone to divest themselves of a defined benefit pension. Likewise, somebody for whom share dividends contribute a substantial part of their retirement income would be unable to switch many of their assets into a more tax friendly super scheme (I think that, for older people this is limited to a transfer of $100,000 in assets per annum).
When their policy was criticised as being unfair, Shorten and Bowen’s only response was to exempt pensioners from the changes. This move will have done nothing other than to make the self-funded retiree brigade even angrier. These people feel that they are very hard done by compared to pensioners, whom they see as profligates who made no provision for their retirement, and are now unduly benefited by health care cards, generous asset test limits in terms of family homes, etc.
When challenged on the policy, Shorten and Bowen have demonstrated little understanding of, or empathy with, the position of the affected self-funded retirees. Instead, as we have seen, they have been inclined to lash out. It’s been one of the worst policy sales jobs I can remember. And, from my perspective, a wholly unnecessary one: the replacement of Turnbull by ScoMo provided Labor with an ideal opportunity to drop it, which for reasons I cannot understand, Labor failed to take up.
The Greens must be cock-a-hoop that they voted the Malaysian Solution down.
It has given the Coalition the ‘asylum seeker bat’ to bash Labor with during the election campaign.
After all, that is the Greens main aim. Get the Coalition back in power so it can continue to stuff the environment.
lizzie @ #861 Sunday, February 10th, 2019 – 11:30 am
Or the fact they need medical attention in the first place, or that once needing it they need to be “transported”.
I am not up on the dollar costs of the AS policy, but I think it is quite high. What about decent care and building and staffing a medical facility where it’s needed?
rhwombat @ #770 Sunday, February 10th, 2019 – 10:34 am
Judith Curry is also a climate criminal. This article is not just mostly bullshit, it embodies the latest form of denial, which I am seeing more and more often … “yes, climate change is real, yes it is already happening, yes it is man-made, yes it is dangerous … but we shouldn’t do anything about it just yet because a better technological solution is just around the corner …”
From the article …
I agree with Curry that we cannot – as yet – power our current economy with renewables alone. It is simply not feasible yet, and will take decades (decades that we simply don’t have!) to become feasible. Decades during which we will continue to burn coal.
But she fails to point out that there is of course a fourth option, which is the one that the IPCC has told us we must choose – i.e. that we implement “rapid, far-reaching and unprecedented changes in all aspects of society”
If we worked – right now – to reduce our individual carbon footprints (especially those of us in advanced countries with the largest footprints), then we could expect to both eliminate coal powered generation in time to do some real good, and power our entire economy with renewables.
This is in fact the only option with any chance of success.
Which is why it is attracting the latest form of denial.
DTT
Get over the malaysian solution.
it was a terrible idea and doomed to embarrass labor in perpetuity if passed. Bow down and THANK the Greens.
Now it was NOT the fault of the idea, or the policy that caused it to be a bat shit bonkers idea but the fact that MALAYSIA was not on board. it was stupid beyond measure because for that sort of a thing to work you need BOTH sides of parliament in MALAYSIA. Now what we NOW know is that in Malaysia you would bloody well want to have had Mahatir on board, not his corrupt predecessor.
______________________________
Malaysia was totally on board. I know this for a fact because I know this from people who were centrally involved in negotiating the agreement. In addition, there was enough in the offer to be very attractive to the Malaysians. I cannot discuss the rest of your ‘analysis’ because it makes no sense – in particular that it time shifts 2019 circumstances to 2012.
Finally, given the vicious mentality of the then Opposition, if if wasn’t going to work (and as obvious as you make it) you can guarantee they would be 100% behind it. They were in total business partnership with the people smugglers.
Our Gladys is feeling the heat:
https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/biggest-shake-up-in-building-laws-in-our-state-s-history-follows-opal-tower-debacle-20190210-p50wtd.html
Disturbing that there are probably numerous buildings shabbily built, certified by cowboys.
mb
The policy rationale here is that retired people have relatively little opportunity to move their money around: eg, it would be well-nigh impossible for someone to divest themselves of a defined benefit pension.
______________________________
How is a defined benefit pension relevant to Labor’s proposals?
What? How? Why?
It was a rort costing 5 billion dollars effectively paying a pension to filthy rich extraordinarily well off people. i hope everyone gets to see the videos from Friday they came across as just the most greedy selfish tax cheats you could ever meet.
I think just end dividend imputation entirely is the conclusion most thinking people have come to.
WeWantPaul is correct. Not every old person is a nice old person.
MB
Eg, people are limited to $1.6 million of tax free accumulated superannuation, but are not taxed on defined benefit pensions no matter how high they might be (and a defined benefit pension of $150,000 per annum, which is by no means unusual, would be equivalent to accumulated super of around $2.4 million).
___________________________________
Speaking from actual knowledge, a defined benefit pension is valued for the purposes of the $1.6 million TBAR. And a defined benefit pension of $150k is quite unusual, though not impossible. A person would have to been earning well over $200k on retirement to even possibly qualify (and then a lot of other factors would have to come into it). I’m speaking across the workforce – you might know a small cohort who have managed to wangle such a pension.
Also saw a really good suggestion that superfund payments to kids (either while alive or on death) should be taxed at the top marginal rate. The purpose of super was retirement, not the indulgences of the fabulously rich leaners and their children.
WWP: “People who’ve paid any attention at all, are beginning to question why shareholders should get any dividend imputation at all. It seems to be a bad investment incentive that is driving bad behaviours.”
I think imputation has some value as an incentive to direct investment away from housing. However, I agree that its time might have passed (it’s not a policy adopted by many advanced economies).
But Labor’s policy is not to wind back dividend imputation altogether. It’s to take it away only from a particularly vulnerable group of beneficiaries: that is, retired people who have a very limited ability to save any more money. Sure, it’s a little weird to provide a tax rebate to people who don’t pay tax, although the process of setting up the current system of family payments involved extending what were formerly tax rebates to all low-to-middle income families, regardless of how much tax they paid.
As I posted in response to dtt’s comments, I think Labor is having a lot of problems explaining this policy because it is a standalone change that they don’t intend to grandparent. They can say that it is inequitable as many times as they like, but their educated audience – self-funded retirees – knows that cash dividend imputation is by no means the only inequitable/inconsistent policy affecting retirement incomes. There is also the tax exempt status of defined benefit superannuation pensions no matter how large they might be, the tax concessions for accumulated super above $1.6 m (which will still be only taxed at 15 per cent), the generous treatment of the family home in the age pension asset test, etc.
I think someone persuaded Labor that this measure would be a magic bullet along the lines of the introduction of the FBT and GST back in the 1980s: that is, a policy that generates a lot of revenue by removing a rort that is so obvious that almost nobody would dare to defend it.
This measure isn’t quite like those ones: it might arguably be a rort, but a lot of the beneficiaries are going to struggle without it. And they are angry, and so are their offspring and other family and friends. And that all adds up to quite a lot of people.
Meher Baba seems to think that the Labor Party are being deficient and negligent in not going the hyper aggressive Tony Abbott route in Opposition. That by not doing so they will lose the chance to gain government because of that.
I wish to respectfully disagree because it is my impression that the electorate is well and truly over that hyper nasty, hyper masculine style of politics.
You only have to look at the results that the Democrats in America got last year in their Mid Term elections against the hyper aggressive Republican Party and Donald Trump, where they concentrated on telling the electorate what they stood FOR, rather than who and what they stood AGAINST. It paid off for them handsomely.
I can only assume that the Labor Party in Australia have seen how successful that strategy was and are replicating it, as opposed to getting into a shouting match with Scott Morrison, Tony Abbott and Co.
jen
I’m tired of the nasty, sniping attacks as well.
RD
I’m tired of the nasty, sniping attacks as well.
_______________________________
Can I suggest that you stop doing them then?
lizzie @ #847 Sunday, February 10th, 2019 – 12:04 pm
William in particular.
Rex Douglas @ #894 Sunday, February 10th, 2019 – 1:14 pm
Only you can stop your own.
And don’t try and come the raw prawn that you’re not as guilty as others here, Rex Douglas!
TPOF: “How is a defined benefit pension relevant to Labor’s proposals?”
The Turnbull Government’s decision – supported by Labor – to put a cap of $1.6m on the tax free status of accumulated funds but no cap on the tax free status of defined benefit pensions was based on a principle of grandparenting. That is, because people living on defined benefit pensions generally have no way of earning additional income or otherwise favourably adjusting their financial circumstances.
Arguably, the same situation applies to retired people whose financial well-being depends in part or whole on the receipt of these imputation payments.
Banking reform won’t happen until after the election, Christopher Pyne says:
Minister says government won’t be pressured to do a ‘rushed job’ when responding to royal commission recommendations.
Dodging the commissions recommendations already. Wonder what would have happened if it had been recommendations against unions?
C@tmomma @ #906 Sunday, February 10th, 2019 – 1:13 pm
There’s a big difference between going the ‘Abbott’ style of opposition and opposing with vigorous well-reasoned and intelligent alternatives.