There seems to be a hardening view that Scott Morrison will take advantage of what he hopes will be a positive response to tonight’s budget by calling the election later this week, for either May 11 or May 18. Whenever the election may be called, its proximity makes this an awkward time for us to go a week without new poll results. Newspoll is set for a highly unusual four-week gap, having held off last week due to the New South Wales election and this week due to the budget, while Essential Research is in an off week in its fortnightly cycle. The dam is set to burst next week, with Ipsos joining the two aforementioned with post-budget poll results.
For now, all I can do for you in the way of poll news is to relate what James Campbell of the Herald Sun offered on Liberal internal polling last Thursday: that Pauline Hanson scores net approval ratings of minus 62% and minus 63% in the Melbourne seats of Deakin and Chisholm – and, incidentally, that Peter Dutton has been known to record minus 50% in Melbourne. Beyond that, there is one item of important preselection news to relate, in that the New South Wales Liberals are set to endorse child psychologist Fiona Martin as their successor to the retiring Craig Laundy in Reid. The Australian reports Martin has been chosen ahead of Tanveer Ahmed, a psychiatrist, and Scott Yung, candidate for Kogarah at last week’s state election.
Oops “we’re ……were” …. i give up. Who can beat a dumb yankee spell check.
I voted for Shorten in the leadership ballot. Haven’t been given reason to doubt my decision yet.
Hello, just a brief comment after seeing some football. Terrific speech by Shorten! Nailed Labor policy with positive alternatives to the Fibs and he really nailed ScumMo with his reference to fear mongering at the end. Highlights for me:
– correct calls on the tax cuts, accept the fair one but reject the unfair one, saving Labor a lot of room for budget measures
– correct calls to describe negative gearing and dividend reforms as inter generational equity reforms, not tax grabs
– correct calls to both put money back into public hospitals and schools
– underlining that Labor will act on climate change (renewables and EVs)
– highlighting that some of the Liberal promises would be several PMs away when people need help now.
My thoughts on the Cancer cover is that it will go down very well in rural Australia, which is political territory that is traditionally very hard for Labor to reach, but have already been softened up by Lib&Nat failure.
Not sure it will make a difference in a seat, but helps to keep the pressure on, and keeps them defensive in their safe place.
And re-funding the ABC with extra!!!!
It’s interesting that several budgets ago one of the few, possibly only visionary thing the Liberals announced was the medical research fund.
Now patients will actually have the ability to access any new drugs, scans or techniques coming out of it.
I don’t know either, but we have the minerals: lithium for batteries, rare earth elements (esp. Neodymium) for magnets etc.
Hopefully we have the nous to produce the finished product here, then export it.
The evidence of how ‘penetrating and effective’ Shorten’s speech was in the immediate reflex posts (some quite hysterical) on twitter, SKY and here trying to decry Shorten in other ways because they know there is no real way to criticise the speech or the policies it elucidated
I should add, I dont know the statistics, but i expect cancer rates are significantly higher for farmers, who also have significantly more difficulty getting treatment because of distance, and its probably much harder for them to leave the farm.
e.g. One of my mates 3 neighbours, all died of cancer within 10 years, similar age, probably related to chemicals they all used, im sure its not surprising to anyone who knows farmers.
It will be interesting to hear the Nats take on in.
Countries with the death penalty for homosexuals.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-04-03/ten-countries-have-introduced-the-death-penalty-for-being-lgbt,/10963860
swamprat @ #2201 Thursday, April 4th, 2019 – 10:12 pm
Set you language to proper (Australian) English.
I see the pathetic one is unable to criticise what Shorten said tonight and so retreats 6 years to regurgitate his irrelevant bile.
Goll
says:
Thursday, April 4, 2019 at 10:09 pm
Nathpoleon
Its Elba for you for the now and St Helena post election.
An army you will not raise!
_________________________
Actually Napoleon is Bill Shorten’s hero. He reads about him and talks of him often. Some of Napoloen’s quotes that I’m sure Bill has treasured:
Power is my mistress. I have worked too hard at her conquest to allow anyone to take her away from me.
If you wish to be a success in the world, promise everything, deliver nothing.
I wonder if it’s dawning on the PM and coterie that they’ve made a giant strategic balls-up of their timing – it really couldn’t have set the Labor party up for an election campaign on their turf any better than it has.
Paula Mathewson….
Sky News panellists saying election won’t be called this weekend. Kroger says Govt wouldn’t want to stat the campaign with the losing Newspoll expected on Monday. #auspol #ausvotes2019
“So what is the thinking on Shorten’s suggestion that we make EV tech here? It sounds exciting, but I’m not techie enough to understand the issues.”
Technically it is possible. We have built cars before and electric motors are simple. All the skills are here. Battery tech is the key, plus getting the right ownership. The US companies here before only ever milked us for support and then used the employment as a bargaining chip. They never really wanted to develop and build their key models here. Toyota tried to.
Make no mistake though, even if successful, car manufacture is not the mass employer it was in the past. Its a good idea in terms of economics and balance of payments, but if successful will employ engineers and skilled technicians, not thousands of production line workers. These days any efficient production line is staffed with robots.
If we have a more consistent program of light and heavy rail projects making passenger rail rolling stock here is quite feasible too. More so.
Kroger says Govt wouldn’t want to stat the campaign with the losing Newspoll
On that logic we won’t be having an election then
It must be the 18th then.
ALP should introduce a public health system where private health insurance is NOT an important part of the health system.
Shorten said tonight that private health insurance is an important part of the health system.
After paying for it all my life, i now have to give it up. All that money wasted. Why should that mean i have a second rate access to health services?
Why are my current taxes used to subsidise rich peoples access to private health insurance and not my access to better health services?
Labor is very neo-liberal on this matter.
So what is the thinking on Shorten’s suggestion that we make EV tech here? It sounds exciting, but I’m not techie enough to understand the issues.
We have the raw materials (lithium and rare metals), expertise (electrical engineering), track experience (automotives and power electronics) and economics (most urbanised country on earth) for it to work.
We need capital and a committed strategy to invest in supporting infrastructure.
We could do it.
“So what is the thinking on Shorten’s suggestion that we make EV tech here? It sounds exciting, but I’m not techie enough to understand the issues.”
One Aussie start up is already assembling EVs – a van and a Ute for sale to companies (not to the public yet) for $40K. Later this year a 4 seater hatchback will launch. Again, probably around the $40K mark.
https://www.ace-ev.com.au/ace-urban/
If we make batteries here, then Gupta, Musk and the Swedish company Uniti will start producing EVs here within 18 months.
https://thedriven.io/2018/09/05/uniti-electric-car/
If wall batteries come down in price from about $12000 (installed) for 15MWH to under $6K then public demand for plug ins should see Toyota reverse its decision not to sell its plug in range in Australia – which should see the Prius C and Corolla plug-ins on the market for about $26K and $32K respectively. As these plug ins have a 9MWH battery they have an effective range of about 60km in pure EV mode. Other manufacturers will then follow suit and I’d expect a small plug-in vehicle with an EV range of about 100km for around $20K within about 5 years. In my view a plug in hybrid with a pure EV range of 100km is effectively a 100% EV vehicle for most people’s day to day needs.
I’m far more optimistic than I was just a few days ago when the pathway for afforadable real world EVs did not seem to be particularly bright over the next decade.
It’s all happening. Unless the dead hand of the LNP shut it down, and I note their chosen industry Darling Tony Shepperd – he of the commission of Audit and Allianz stadium demolition fame – rubbishing EVs in the Australian (of course) just days ago.
Who says there’s a losing Newspoll?
Also, if that’s the criteria then we’re never having another election.
If they don’t call the election this weekend Senate estimates next week will be a hoot.
Yeah Soc – pundits saying Morrison can’t afford to risk another week of estimates
Even the dumbest can see that there is no Govt at work, literally and every which way. To not call an election after all the budget broohahaha and members farewell speeches, makes them look, mmm, completely piss weak, I think is the expression.
Fools, trapped in their own painted corner.
100% it is time. Shorten has exceeded my expectations but only just. He is good in town halls, but his policy and approach is generally still very quiet small target stuff. I am very concerned that Mark McGowan took this really weak pathetic posture into Government, and is running a Lib-lite Govt, for no good reason I can imagine. I just hope Shorten has more of the leader and less of the scared small target coward in him as PM.
swamprat @ #2219 Thursday, April 4th, 2019 – 10:39 pm
I think we should be like Canada with no private health insurance.
But while we are stuck with it, it would be good if people abandoned the for profit insurance in favour of the not for profits like HCF.
Shell / Sonnen is already making batteries in Adelaide, and there is the possibility of a battery manufacturer in WA.
100% agree, yet another really big Howard fail.
Shell is in the early stages of rolling out a mass battery production line.
Another 1.3 gigabyte factory is planned for Darwin:
https://www.aumanufacturing.com.au/energy-renaissance-plans-massive-darwin-battery-factory
Nath
That’s called scuttlebutt. A fine line between it and bullshit.
The battery making is the key, because they have markets in both home storage and EVs, both of whcih are huge long term markets.
Shell Sonnen factory:
https://www.aumanufacturing.com.au/16485-2
Howard strongly subsidised private health insurance asa way of destroying public health.
That useless waste of space Rudd-Gillard government kept it up as they did for most of the Howard stuff.
When they said Shorten was making a big announcement on Medicare, i thought it was going to be a restoration of a fully public health system. So while good, no change in basic structures. Disappointing.
Surely the round of final speeches indicates parliament isn’t resuming until after the election. Also there were a heap of final committee reports released on franking credits, religious freedom and others that I’ve forgotten.
The thing that has me most intrigued is the suggestion of building EV batteries in Australia. Its a very good idea. But if its about bringing down the cost of batteries two things are needed.
One is scale. A battery plant is going to cost billions. Is the government going to essentially underwrite/co-invest?
The other is technology/IP. You won’t get very far building last year’s battery chemistry. You have to deliberately partner with the right companies. That’s hard to do.
swamprat @ #2233 Thursday, April 4th, 2019 – 10:54 pm
When did Australia ever have a fully public health system?
Goll
says:
Thursday, April 4, 2019 at 10:50 pm
Nath
That’s called scuttlebutt. A fine line between it and bullshit.
______________________________
Well it is conjecture that those quotes were his favourites, but that Napoleon is a hero of Shorten has been written upon:
But Napoleon is his hero and over coffee he once again cites the Corsican’s maxim: find your enemy’s weakest point and concentrate
Faction Man: Bill Shorten’s Pursuit of Power, by David Marr.
If wall batteries come down in price from about $12000 (installed) for 15MWH to under $6K …
Not if. When. And soon.
Swanson’s law: Mass production tends to input costs. Silicon PV modules cost ~$75 per watt in 1977, now ~$0.2o per watt. Lithium cells are doing similar, while high-power power electronics have a fair way to go yet. EVs are going to be cheap!
Diogenes @ #2080 Thursday, April 4th, 2019 – 8:44 pm
Thank you Bill!
Another thing we could be doing in Australian is building trains and competing with the likes of Bombardier and Hyundai in actually selling trains on a world market.
We could be world leaders in selling trains that feature the ability to run exclusively on batteries for long distances (tens of km).
In fact we could build our own high speed trains.
Napoleon Bonaparte has looked down on Bill Shorten for the entire time he’s been Labor leader. And his horse. Napoleon’s horse, that is.
Shorten is a big admirer of the little Corsican. When in Paris, he has chosen to dine at Napoleon’s favourite restaurant, Le Procope.
On the shelf behind his desk in the Leader of the Opposition’s parliamentary suite, he has a set of hand-painted figurines based on Napoleon’s 1812 retreat from Moscow, the culmination of one of the greatest military disasters.
https://thewest.com.au/opinion/andrew-probyn/shorten-tests-napoleon-tactics-in-federal-elections-final-days-ng-ya-110849
Andy its that input costs thing. Lithium chemistries still involve things like Cobalt. To get the next big advance we need more than just maturity and scale, we need to move to cheaper materials.
To me the dual carbon battery looks promising (it can run on either lithium or sodium).
EGW
Well no we never had a fully public system. But Medibank could have developed into one. The Hawke Government should have gone further when re-establishing it. At least it did nor subsidise private health insurance.
shiftaling- Indeed, and the Christchurch events have blown their whole election strategy (bastardry) out the water…..Plan B should be interesting.
A-E
That’s good news.
1. Batteries being made here.
2. Sonnen batteries being made here.
Anyone who has done the research knows Sonnen is the Rolls Royce of batteries.
So Goll. not scuttlebutt, but the truth my friend.
The other is technology/IP. You won’t get very far building last year’s battery chemistry. You have to deliberately partner with the right companies. That’s hard to do.
The chemistry is relatively stable. So now scale, true scale, comes from establishing reliable supply chains. It looks like we are dealing ourselves into that process in a big way.
nath
Are you writing a biography of Shorten? You seem extraordinarily preoccupied by him.
I have long since resigned myself to the fact, in a two-party State, there is only ever a choice between two.
The two major parties will fight to the death to prevent a more accurately representative Parliament. Frustrating, limiting and unfair, but there you are.
“When they said Shorten was making a big announcement on Medicare, i thought it was going to be a restoration of a fully public health system. “
That’s something that will have to be phased in. Can’t be done in one hit. I agree that Health should be fully public. If rich people don’t want that they can pay for their own health services. Ditto education. We know this Government wants to get rid of Medicare, get rid of the ABC and cut public health and education. They’re not going to announce it in an election campaign, they’ll do it by stealth, like Howard, given the chance and enough time. With a biased media, Labor will need to get where it wants, one step at a time.