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”.
They be crazy to run a union campaign during the election campaign.
dwh
Strikes during the election campaign would be a disaster, IMO.
Dutton and Morrison might be getting ready for the post-election LOTO fight.
davidwh @ #601 Thursday, March 7th, 2019 – 9:01 pm
They’d be crazy not to run a campaign on restoration of penalty rates and general pay rise.
Does anyone think it is a “rookies mistake” along the lines of Burnside’s “rookie mistake” as GG and other fellow travellers opined here today?
Boerwar, sorry for the slow response. (dinner)
That was clever. You showed me another aspect of human intelligence, adaptability. 😉
More seriously though, there is an analogy where mechanisation boosted muscle power and allowed humans to build faster bigger stronger. That should apply to AI as well. (I think of the “A” as “Augmented” and not “Artificial”.) So I expect we will turn from doing these jobs by ourselves to using these new tools to … do these jobs faster, fuller, and more accurately. And while there may be a loss of social kudos for some, there will be an overall improvement for our society.
Is Augmented Intelligence the next revolution?
davidwh @ #599 Thursday, March 7th, 2019 – 6:01 pm
Unless it involves restoring penalty rates and wages growth. Both of those issues are serious negative territory for the coalition.
I am happy with a campaign about stagnant wages and penalty rate cuts by the Coalition.
Except if it involves strikes.
I dont think Sally McManus is that stupid.I think it will be more of a protest day than a strike.
Leave it to Shorten and Labor they have it under control. Don’t cloud the message.
Gawd I’m starting to sound like a PBLaborite 🙁
@Davidwh exactly.
How it is being reported:
https://thenewdaily.com.au/news/national/2019/03/07/actu-strike-end-incomes-recession/
davidwh says:
Thursday, March 7, 2019 at 9:11 pm
Gawd I’m starting to sound like a PBLaborite
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Let the force guide you davidwh – away from the dark side.
Most of the Union ‘strikes’ that have occurred since Sally McManus has taken over the ACTU, such as with the Child Care workers, have been done sensitively and with as little real disruption as possible to the lives of the people who use the service that the employees work in.
I wouldn’t be jumping to conclusions and catastrophising about it just yet.
I just have to think about the areas where there are still a high number of people in a unionised workforce, such as Aged Care, and I know that it would be a bad look if the elderly were abandoned during the election campaign so the workers could strike, and I’m sure Sally McManus would know it wouldn’t be a good look either, and one that would be leaped on by Morrison et al. So I don’t think it’s going to be a strike like those which occurred in the past. It will be a strategic strike.
davidwh @ #610 Thursday, March 7th, 2019 – 6:11 pm
It suits you! 😀
We are all scary socialists on here!!
Pegasus @ #614 Thursday, March 7th, 2019 – 9:12 pm
Suddenly, Peg realises she’s on the wrong side of the argument.
Cut and paste! Cut and paste!
Let your heart guide you, davidwh. 🙂
Unreconcilable circular reference. It does not compute.
davidwh @ #620 Thursday, March 7th, 2019 – 9:19 pm
She loves you. Just get on with it!
Those facts are eating into your brain, davidwh.
🙂
@ davidwh
As a fellow QLD’er – Do you think Dutton is toast in Dickson?
A Scottish american journo said this in 1883 at a press diner. Have things changed ? ……..Nah.
.
.
“There is no such a thing in America as an independent press, unless it is out in country towns. You are all slaves. You know it, and I know it. There is not one of you who dares to express an honest opinion. If you expressed it, you would know beforehand that it would never appear in print. I am paid $150 for keeping honest opinions out of the paper I am connected with. Others of you are paid similar salaries for doing similar things. If I should allow honest opinions to be printed in one issue of my paper, I would be like Othello before twenty-four hours: my occupation would be gone. The man who would be so foolish as to write honest opinions would be out on the street hunting for another job. The business of a New York journalist is to distort the truth, to lie outright, to pervert, to villify, to fawn at the feet of Mammon, and to sell his country and his race for his daily bread, or for what is about the same — his salary. You know this, and I know it; and what foolery to be toasting an “Independent Press”! We are the tools and vassals of rich men behind the scenes. We are jumping-jacks. They pull the string and we dance. Our time, our talents, our lives, our possibilities, are all the property of other men. We are intellectual prostitutes.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Swinton_(journalist)
Up north he should but I can’t quite let myself believe it. Abbott as well would be the perfect quinella.
Some belated outline success (like BK I’ve been having increasing problems with The Australian)
Nikki Savva – “Huffing and puffing his way to the poll”
https://outline.com/KgK3BL
Some nice lines –
If both Abbott and Scott Morrison are gone, it will be the first time in decades that NSW will be unable to field a candidate for the federal leadership.
…
…It [the release of the national accounts] also didn’t stop Labor claiming Morrison and Frydenberg had delivered a per capita recession.
Even though he was too squeamish to use it himself, Morrison was desperate to get the R-word out there. He got what he wished for.
No idea who this person is, but I thought the govt had effectively punted the disability services RC to the next govt. If true then interesting they can draft up ToR for an RC and get that going in a week, but can’t draft up legislation to respond to the banking RC recommendations when there are weeks until the next parliametary sitting.
Thanks davidwh – fingers and toes crossed
Upnorth, davidwh
Nikki Savva said this
Meanwhile, the Right remains confident Peter Dutton will hang on to his seat of Dickson. If he does, and there are so many ifs, probabilities and possibilities tied up with Dutton’s future, then it will leave him well placed to challenge again for the Liberal leadership, perhaps with greater success than last time.
Hopefully that means he doesn’t parachute to Ciobo’s safer seat of Moncrieff!
Rocket:
Savva’s article seems to be more hope that the moderates left in the partyroom step up post election. My own view is this is unlikely to happen, as the footprint of the reactionaries will be larger over the party, not less.
Who takes over as opposition leader if both Dutton and Abbot are gone?
Cud Chewer @ #631 Thursday, March 7th, 2019 – 6:44 pm
Josh!
Fess
Yes I tend to agree – and any ‘moderates’ left will be too scared to rock the boat.
Leadership thoughts if they lose election-
1. Abbott – unless he loses Warringah, in which case it is
2. Dutton – unless he loses Dickson, in which case it is
3. Morrison – for about a year until someone steps up to topple him
Boerwar @ #600 Thursday, March 7th, 2019 – 8:03 pm
Courageous of them to think that they’ll both still be around post-election.
27 February 2019: https://theconversation.com/royal-commission-on-the-abuse-of-disabled-people-to-be-announced-soon-112621
The Morrison government is about to establish a royal commission into violence and abuse of people with a disability.
The aim is to have the terms of reference finalised before the election. The disability area is a shared one, so the royal commission would be set up jointly with the states and territories.
As of late Wednesday, Queensland, Victoria, NSW, South Australia and Tasmania had agreed to the inquiry; Western Australia and the two territories are expected to do so soon.
Scott Morrison, campaigning in Tasmania, flagged a very extensive scope for the commission.
:::
In a letter to state and territory leaders Morrison said the scope of the inquiry being proposed by disabled people and advocates “is broad, including mainstream services that are regulated by state and territory governments such as health, mental health and education services provided prior to the establishment of the NDIS.
If both Abbott and Dutton lose then whoever ends up OL will be an improvement.
Rocket:
Frydenberg as LOTO?
rhwombat @ #593 Thursday, March 7th, 2019 – 8:53 pm
rhw I have been working on various aspects of AI, interfaced with complex data analysis tools, and various optimisation algorithms for many years, and I must say that I agree with you. Where the human mind excels is in the ability to handle many variables at once, and to draw upon experience to generate complex mental pictures of situations, weighing multiple interacting and overlapping factors and drawing subtle inferences. Expert diagnosticians in many fields have difficulty in describing in detail how they reach their conclusions. Simulating such processes is the major challenge for AI, which is still nowhere near being achieved.
Have you read Godel, Escher Bach by Douglas Hofstadter?
Where the Libs go for leadership post the election is an interesting question that depends on the final representation post the election.
My guess is that Morrison will survive as leader if Abbott is defeated. But, he’ll hand over to either Tehan or Taylor before the next election.
BCA said we can’t afford wage increase who needs enemies when you got friends lol
I think people on PB are worry worts, or enemies.
Cud Chewer says:
Thursday, March 7, 2019 at 9:44 pm
Who takes over as opposition leader if both Dutton and Abbot are gone?
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Kevin Andrews
Upnorth that is a scary thought.
Hah. An oldy. And bedside reading still! I’m not smart enough to read it quickly.
Humans have used non-human intelligence since we domesticated animals, maybe even before then. Non-human intelligence is not a problem in itself. My problem with AI research is an ethical one. I worry that the urge to develop AI is inherently a power seeking urge. By creating something “intelligent” to do the mundane stuff we may end up re-inventing slavery. I have no fundamental ethical problem with Augmented Intelligence, such as self-driving cars.
davidwh @ #375 Thursday, March 7th, 2019 – 9:02 pm
George Christensen
Confessions @ #640 Thursday, March 7th, 2019 – 8:54 pm
My pick too. 🙂 Once upon a time there was a “Colt from Kooyong”. F is a bit old for the descriptor these days, but the echo remains.
Confessions @9:40.
“Savva’s article seems to be more hope that the moderates left in the partyroom step up post election”
I also think that unlikely. It’s (relative) moderates who have been quitting the party or announced their retirement. The Right will be even more dominant if the Coalition loses. They and their media allies will blame the loss on they’re being not right wing enough and will double down.
Steve777
I did the numbers ages ago of swing versus Liberal balance post election. From memory there was a “sweet spot” for Abbott of about 4-5% where he would seemingly have the numbers. But all the resignations will have trashed my model, and I think the Abbott/Dutton forces are likely to triumph.
I think Frydenberg is unlikely – Morrison staying on for a year or so more likely.
Yep, I expect the Coalition to be even more batshit insane after the election, not less.
Late Riser:
Porter is designated future leader, hence Labor doing their level best to ensure he is defeated at the next election. Frydenberg is the next one up.
The question is whether the Libs want to burn Porter or Frydenberg in the early opposition years.