There haven’t been any new polls this week, so the headline to this post isn’t news as such – the point is that a new thread is needed, and this is it. Developments worth noting:
• We do have one new poll, but it was privately conducted and so doesn’t count as canonical so far as BludgerTrack is concerned. The poll in question was conducted by uComms/ReachTEL for Greenpeace last Wednesday from a sample of 2134, and has primary votes of Coalition 38.8%, Labor 36.7%, Greens 9.7% and One Nation 6.1%. A 53-47 two-party split is reported based on respondent-allocated preferences, but it would actually have been around 51.5-48.5 based on preferences from 2016. The poll also features attitudinal questions on carbon emissions and government priorities, which you can read all about here.
• The Greens have landed a high-profile candidate in Julian Burnside, human rights lawyer and refugee advocate, to run against Josh Frydenberg in the normally blue-ribbon Melbourne seat of Kooyong. This further complicates a contest that already featured independent hopeful Oliver Yates, former Liberal Party member and chief executive of the Clean Energy Finance Corporation.
• The Liberal preselection to choose a successor to Julie Bishop in Curtin will be determined by a vote of 60 delegates on Sunday. Initial reports suggested the front-runners were Celia Hammond, former vice-chancellor of Notre Dame University, and Erin Watson-Lynn, director of Asialink Diplomacy at the University of Melbourne, which some interpreted as a proxy battle between bitter rivals Mathias Cormann and Julie Bishop. However, both have hit heavy weather over the past week, with concerns raised over Hammond’s social conservatism and Watson-Lynn’s past tweets critical of the Liberal Party. Andrew Tillett of the Financial Review reports that some within the party believe a third nominee, Aurizon manager Anna Dartnell, could skate through the middle.
• Tom Richardson of InDaily reports moderate faction efforts to install a male candidate – James Stevens, chief-of-staff to Premier Steve Marshall – in Christopher Pyne’s seat of Sturt are prompting a slew of conservative-aligned women to nominate against him. These include Deepa Mathew, a manager at the Commonwealth Bank and state candidate for Enfield last year; Joanna Andrew, a partner with law firm Mellor Olsson; and Jocelyn Sutcliffe, a lawyer with Tindall Gask Bentley. However, Stevens remains the “overwhelming favourite”.
The use of penal provisions in industrial matters has always ended badly. Historically, the tensions inherent in industrial matters were resolved by the inclusion in the Constitution of the Conciliation and Arbitration power. In the 1960s the use of penal provisions against unions and their members gave rise to very substantial industrial conflict. The LNP have revived penal provisions in the ABCC Act. It’s now proposed to create penal provisions aimed at employers.
Imo, this is treacherous ground for workers. All penal provisions should be repealed and the powers of the Fair Work Commission should be strengthened. The role of the Commission in determining wages should be reinstated and its power to make orders in relation to wages and other matters should be reasserted. The industrial jurisdiction rather than civil or criminal jurisdictions is the right place to hear and settle claims.
So they would be happy to see criminal sanctions against building unions totally abolished and the ABCC wound up?
(Thoughts on the NSW stadium demolition.) In graphics there is a concept called “white space”. It is the gaps between things, and it is part of the image. Sometimes it provides contrast, sometimes context, sometimes it is the story. In politics not talking about something is similar, but worse. You allow others to fill the space you’ve left.
‘Late Riser says:
Thursday, March 7, 2019 at 7:20 pm
Boerwar, your description of how AI has impacted you personally reminds me of reading (a long time ago) about worker grievances at the outset of the industrial revolution. I don’t have an answer except to hope that the type of deep expertise that you have ought to be used to underpin and guide what is essentially an idiot savant. You should have the ability to see what surrounds the box, not just what is in it. Is there a possibility for your role to be elevated to an expert supervisory role? (I’ll look forward to [?]andy Murray’s thoughts.)’
By and large humans like me are still more useful than the machines. I suspect it is because we can still do the more complex things. For example, it would be possible to AI individual bird calls. But what happens when there are a hundred individual birds belonging to a dozen species at the same time? I can manage that complexity easily. But the microphones have difficulty separating the calls. Then you get situations where I glimpse half a bird among some branches and hear just the faintest of, say, contact calls. For me, easy. To combine camera and microphone, not so easy.
Then there are the mimics (many, many more than just the Lyrebird) and then there are the regional dialects in calls.
Here is just one example where AI still needs development. The Lyrebirds which were introduced to Tasmania had, as part of their song repertoire, the calls of Eastern Whipbirds. This translocation happened in, I think, the 1930s. But there are no whipbirds in Tasmania. If you hear a whipbird in Tasmania you are listening to a Lyrebird. On the mainland you might hear a whipbird and you then listen carefully for what else is going on. You can generally then say ‘whipbird’ or ‘Lyrebird’ without having to see the bird.
Eventually the AI sophistication will reach such as stage that bird surveys can be done far more cheaply and far more comprehensively using remote cameras and remote sound recording equipment. Given our problems with getting a handle on trends in bird populations on a continental scale, this will be good.
I have virtually retired from doing occasional paid survey work. I have, instead, developed a passion for bird photography. My best day is when I get a request for one of my images to be used for conservation purposes.
My purpose in putting up the AI post was by way of example for Dio’s interest. IMO, doctors who make a living out of doing disease IDs had better think about retraining.
You only have to look at the empty shops and commercial for lease that in our local paper now run over several pages rather than just the one or two, to know that retail is doing it tough.
Our main street has lost at least 6 retailers in the last year, probably more. The two shopping malls we have are now only half occupied. But a new Italian restaurant has opened in the main street, as has a pop up cafe in one of the malls.
‘Confessions says:
Thursday, March 7, 2019 at 7:44 pm
You only have to look at the empty shops and commercial for lease that in our local paper now run over several pages rather than just the one or two, to know that retail is doing it tough.’
What I don’t understand is how they measure the leakage to online sales and how do they integrate online and shop floor sales into one big picture.
“The use of penal provisions in industrial matters has always ended badly. Historically, the tensions inherent in industrial matters were resolved by the inclusion in the Constitution of the Conciliation and Arbitration power. In the 1960s the use of penal provisions against unions and their members gave rise to very substantial industrial conflict. The LNP have revived penal provisions in the ABCC Act. It’s now proposed to create penal provisions aimed at employers.
Imo, this is treacherous ground for workers. All penal provisions should be repealed and the powers of the Fair Work Commission should be strengthened. The role of the Commission in determining wages should be reinstated and its power to make orders in relation to wages and other matters should be reasserted. The industrial jurisdiction rather than civil or criminal jurisdictions is the right place to hear and settle claims.”
Stop talking sense, Briefly.
How is underpayment of wages different to an employee stealing from their employer?
It looks like the Liberals may need to spend money defending Selesja in the ACT. Unions ACT has pledged to spend $100,000 to try and dislodge him. While he is almost certain to retain his Senate seat, he would be feeling nervous and the ACT Liberals would need to decide whether to spend some of the money that would otherwise be allocated to the ACT election in October next year.
Just so everyone knows where the real blame lies.
Barney in Cà Mau @ #558 Thursday, March 7th, 2019 – 7:52 pm
One gets you a place on the board and the other gets you a place in prison?
WA Premier Mark McGowan was in NSW for some business last month including a labor fundraiser.
https://www.watoday.com.au/politics/western-australia/mark-mcgowan-under-fire-for-taxpayer-funded-intimate-dinner-20190221-p50z9y.html
Maybe he told Daley how pledging to stop work on a freeway project an arrogant and out of touch premier was determined to push through turned into a vote winner.
A-E….I can’t seem to put a foot right some days 🙂
Boerwar:
It’s anecdotal, but chatting with friends I know that most of us purchase clothes, books, shoes, kitchen items and appliances online. The last time I bought a pair of shoes in a shop was at least 4 years ago. I bought our coffee machine online, and bought a new chef’s knife set online.
The shops that seem to survive or thrive all have a point of difference to them; we lost our only Dymocks bookshop last year, but the only other bookshop survives because in addition to selling books it sells unique items that tourists love, hosts author talks and the like, and doubles as a ticketing outlet for local events. Same with clothing shops which sell high end unique stuff that you can’t get online or anywhere else.
The malls are a different story as lease space is likely more expensive. The pop-up cafe seems to work as it doesn’t occupy a premises as such and has fold up tables and chairs, but no crockery so it’s akin to a drive by, something that seems to work in that particular mall.
citizen
Goodness no. Criminal laws in IR are for the lesser people.
Greensborough Growler @ #558 Thursday, March 7th, 2019 – 4:57 pm
Who is that?
Harking back I had an Uncle in the days of Milk Rounds being horse and cart overnight – people leaving their money out
He had his Round in proximity to various manufacturers and Cheltenham Racecourse
Those factories worked 24/7
But, when there was a strike (and there were) what he did notice was that the money being left out was being stolen (from going back to some of the houses after stabling the horse)
So desperate people do desperate things
Is this the reason for the raft of thefts MSM love to give coverage to?
So the “crime wave” is a side product of Recession?
As my Uncle claimed all those years ago
Recession does impact
@Confessions……..That is Steve Mortimer or as known in Rugby League circles……Turvey
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Mortimer
The big shopping centre owners seem to be moving towards developing restaurants, cafes and takeaway outlets to compensate for retailers closing.
Westfield Woden in Canberra (aka Woden Plaza to oldtimers like me) is constructing space for about six fancy restaurants in what was formerly a car park. Presumably they are hoping enough people will choose to eat out, even if they are cutting back on other purchases.
Steve Mortimer.
briefly
But that of course will not happen. Until then the employers need a bit of cold steel up ’em to make them see sense on the issue.
sonar, outside left:
Oh, my bad I’ve obviously come into a midway conversation.
Carry on, don’t mind me!
Stadium…… seen as an inner city northshore thing pushed with indecent haste…..will be unpopular in the western and south west suburbs of Sydney
and also in country areas.
I’ve always found Phil Coorey a bit obsequious. But, this hits all the buttons. Definitely worth the read.
https://www.afr.com/news/economy/rapists-recessions-and-wages-welcome-to-emoji-politics-20190307-h1c37q?&utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=nc&eid=socialn:twi-14omn0055-optim-nnn:nonpaid-27/06/2014-social_traffic-all-organicpost-nnn-afr-o&campaign_code=nocode&promote_channel=social_twitter
Poor bugger my country
Boerwar: “IMO, doctors who make a living out of doing disease IDs had better think about retraining.”
I was recently examined by a radiologist. It turns out they are proper physicians (ha ha)! She was palpating things (and other things done during a physical examination), but also directing the sonographer as to how to manoeuvre the probe (?) in unusual ways. All very impressive, and I would think in many ways rather more rewarding than looking at a screen, and also not something AI will be able to do in the medium term. So part of the future for radiologists might involve far more patient interaction. Of course radiologists also do other high-level things invisible to patients in concert with their peers, and this will have to continue (and increase)
As someone said, if it can be done in less than half a second it’s at threat from AI, otherwise it’s quite a way beyond current state of the art (driverless cars and a few other things are somewhat exceptional, or perhaps it’s just how one measures it.)
Some MIT economists have teamed up with one of the machine learning professors from CMU to study this. Broadly their conclusions is that tasks will be replaced but jobs will be redefined so as to focus more on higher level tasks.
Can someone please Outline that Phil Coorey article from the AFR?
Ta.
AFP on the ball it would seem https://www.canberratimes.com.au/politics/federal/afp-deputy-commissioner-ramzi-jabbour-stood-down-amid-internal-investigation-20190307-p512jo.html
Not related to Haneef apparently, damage control anyone?
What’s happening here? Is there a rift in the Morrison & Dutton boats combo?
C@t
Here it is.
https://www.outline.com/8s3vkT
EGT
Interesting story. It looks as if the sensing requires more than one sense in a boundary less context (in your case vision and touch) the AI becomes more of a challenge. In this case the boundaries are what the specialist is trying to establish.
Driverless cars require vision (spatial sensor) and a world full of defined boundaries.
If you look at automated container movements in large ports, driverless cars have been going for years.
Barney in Cà Mau @ #555 Thursday, March 7th, 2019 – 6:52 pm
Your odds of getting away with the first thing are significantly higher because the employee needs their paltry underpaid wage to survive far more than the business needs the employee.
What I don’t understand is why Scotty went on his grandstanding fly in/fly out to Christmas Is – and did not take Dutton?
Who is running Border Protection? Isn’t it Dutton?
I can point to an example from the industry in which I work, where a manager of a company has been charged with stealing as a servant. The sums involved exceed $1mill. Charges were laid more than a year ago. They’ve been denied st a preliminary hearing. The case will not get to a trial for at least another 2 years, and will probably never be tried anyway. There will probably be a plea bargain and a reduced sentence imposed. No one will get any money.
In the case of unpaid wages, the defendants will usually be companies. Even if convicted they cannot be imprisoned, for obvious reasons. They could be fined, but fines may not be collectible and in any case this would not help the complainants.
The standard of proof, the delays and the nature of penalties involved mean the criminal jurisdiction is just not going to help workers collect unpaid wages.
This might not satisfy people. But it’s the way it is. The better thing to do is to strengthen the powers of the Commission to make orders for restitution. The standard of proof, the time frames and the nature of the orders that can be made really will better serve workers than the criminal jurisdiction…imo.
Fwiw, I have been the beneficiary of restitution orders made in a criminal matter. This was some years ago. I think I received $250 out of an award of $180,000. The culprit has vanished. There’s nothing I can do about it….precisely because it was a criminal matter.
sprocket_ @ #584 Thursday, March 7th, 2019 – 8:33 pm
Scotty has been told to f off and go places he can’t do anymore damage than what has already been done.
It’s not working!
Re the Coorey piece, FWIW my view is that comparisons of Hewson losing the so-called unloseable election aren’t analogous for the simple reason that Shorten is not facing a Prime Minister Keating. Or even a Prime Minister Howard.
Just look at Morrison’s campaign record: WTF announcements, scattergun approach with no coherent narrative – domestic violence one day, something else the day after, boats the day after that with nothing to tie either to the conscience of voters.
The only true narrative the coalition have that resonates with voters is one of chaos and dysfunction.
How is Shorten going to lose the election?The press have told him not to say much and he is a shoo in.
Newspoll 53/47 to ALP
Essential. 53/47 to ALP
IPSOS. 51/49 to ALP
steve davis @ #587 Thursday, March 7th, 2019 – 8:38 pm
The message is stability and purpose built on a team of people entirely focussed on delivering for the Australian community.
That’s out there now and resonating with voters.
LR Thanks
Newspoll 54/46 to ALP
Essential. 53/47 to ALP
IPSOS. Use a random number generator
I’m all in favour of unions but this is just handing bullets to Morrison to fire surely. I really thought Sally McManus had a better political compass than that.
If people think Morrison is doing a headless chook act now just imagine what is ahead when we get to the campaign proper.
Shorten showed in 2013 he can run a disciplined campaign. And what was it, eight weeks?
Morrison will just be running.
Boerwar @ #2981 Thursday, March 7th, 2019 – 7:44 pm
Great post BW, but medicine has, and will, prove the stumbling block for AI for some time to come.
Dio is a surgeon – his diagnostic skills (read rules of engagement) won’t be replaced by AI until well after the robot surgeons can deal with complex 3-D technical problems on infinitely more dimensions than prostates. In fact I think we’ll have battlefield AIs well before we replace the less restricted surgical specialties (like orthopaedics and vascular surgery).
I’m a physician (an ID physician – I’m absolutely certain the hoofbeats I hear are neither horses, nor zebra, but unicorns). I do abstruse diagnosis for a living. The problem is not the process- it is more accurate to sum data over large numbers. The problem is that disease identification is not like population species identification (which can be digital and quantized), it is analogue. Disease is a subjective definition that is very difficult to pick in a single instant, or instance, and it’s defining characteristics are protean and fuzzy. No algorithm survives contact with reality. Life is not just more complex than models, it is more complex than can be modeled. All the big data medical applications being spruiked depend on multiple instantiation in populations, not collections of interacting analogue systems that think they possess consciousness called individual humans. I don’t think I’m going to be replaced by AI any time soon – but what would I know? I’m only human.
Maybe Dutton is trying to do the numbers ….. again – hence Morrison going it alone.
Scott Morrison says he hopes the Christmas Island detention centre, which the government has reopened at a cost to taxpayers of $1.44 billion over four years, will not get “that much use” from asylum-seekers on Manus Island and Nauru seeking medical treatment in Australia.
A week after the Labor-backed medivac bill was given royal assent, handing doctors new powers to recommend transfers on medical grounds, the Prime Minister also conceded he was not expecting the people-smuggling boats to start again.
His comments contradict Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton who last month warned “hundreds of people will come from Manus and Nauru literally overnight” and “the boats will restart in that circumstance”.
Mr Morrison told 2GB radio: “(Christmas Island) is ready to receive (asylum-seekers for medical treatment) but my hope is the way we’ve dealt with this and firmed up our border protection regime to cater for when Bill Shorten sought to weaken it, that hopefully it won’t get that much use.”
Asked he if was expecting boats to come now that the medivac bill was law, Mr Morrison said: “Not under us, no.”
“People smugglers know when they come up against me they’ve got a brick wall and when they come up against Bill Shorten they’ve got an open door. The one thing standing between those boats and Australia is our government,” he said.
Opposition immigration spokesman Shayne Neumann seized on Mr Morrison’s comments on Thursday night, saying they were proof of a “desperate and shrill scare campaign”.
“The only person selling the wrong message to the evil people smugglers is Scott Morrison and his desperate Liberal government,” Mr Neumann said.
“Peter Dutton is a shameless media tart and a walking, talking billboard for the people smugglers every time he lies about Labor’s strong position on border protection.
“Labor will never let the people smugglers back into business. We will maintain offshore processing, turnbacks when safe to do so, and regional resettlement.”
https://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/immigration/hopefully-it-wont-get-much-use/news-story/fdaa90c43cfe578c1c348fa20f08e822
@Darn
If the Government can hide, then the workers can strike.
Simple fact.
Thank you, BK. 🙂
rhw
Thanks.
Its good to see Labor turning the boats into the business model.
That’s how their Regional Settlement Plan works.
You look at the substance not the scare campaign.
Well done Labor well done.
Why would Dutton do the numbers when he knows he’s cooked?
Greensborough Growler says:
Thursday, March 7, 2019 at 8:59 pm
Why would Dutton do the numbers when he knows he’s cooked?
———————————————————————————-
Drive in C1 a couple of weeks and go out in a higher pension.