The night before Christmas

There is no polling to report, and I have my head buried too deep in my forthcoming federal election to report anything of substance on my own account. But with the announcement of the election universally anticipated on the weekend for either May 11 or May 18, a new open thread is very much in order, so here it is.

Author: William Bowe

William Bowe is a Perth-based election analyst and occasional teacher of political science. His blog, The Poll Bludger, has existed in one form or another since 2004, and is one of the most heavily trafficked websites on Australian politics.

801 comments on “The night before Christmas”

Comments Page 3 of 17
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  1. Attorney General William P. Barr has shown hints of frustration with how the rollout of the special counsel’s chief findings has unfolded.

    His cunning plan not going to plan. 😆

  2. It is commendable that in his Budget Reply speech of April 2019 Bill Shorten did not target a particular fiscal balance for the federal government.

    No macroeconomically informed person would make a fiscal surplus a target of policy.

    The fiscal balance by itself says nothing about how well the macroeconomy is serving the needs of the people and restoring the health of the natural ecosystems on which we depend.

    The federal government’s fiscal balance is best thought of as a floating variable that moves to whatever level is needed to accommodate the spending and saving desires of the non-government sector and the priorities of the government (which should include full employment, price stability, sustainable resource use, and a healthy society).

    The fiscal balance is largely a non-discretionary variable outside of the federal government’s control. It is determined mostly by the spending and saving decisions of millions of agents in the non-government sector, both domestically and externally.

    The constraints on the federal government’s spending are real resource availability and inflation risk, not solvency risk.

    This is because the federal government is a currency issuer that allows its currency to float in foreign exchange markets, and the federal government has no net debts denominated in foreign currencies.

    The federal government is not a mere currency user like a household, a firm, a state government, a local government, or a Eurozone member nation.

  6. Liberal party disinformation unit headed by Sir Lynto Crosby being investigated again in the UK.

    Will Scott guarantee the primacy of Australian Democracy & order Crosby not to do the same here?

    Damian Collins, the Conservative MP who this week confirmed the launch of a permanent House of Commons sub-committee on disinformation, said he would be discussing the Crosby-linked Facebook advertising campaigns with the UK information commissioner, Elizabeth Denham, at a hearing later this month

    https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/apr/04/inquiry-launched-into-data-use-from-no-deal-brexit-ads-on-facebook

  7. David Gates estimated that 5,000,000 died in the Napoleonic Wars. He does not specify if this number includes civilians or is just military.[16]
    Charles Esdaile says 5,000,000–7,000,000 died overall, including civilians.[17] These numbers are subject to considerable variation. Erik Durschmied, in his book The Hinge Factor, gives a figure of 1.4 million French military deaths of all causes. Adam Zamoyski estimates that around 400,000 Russian soldiers died in the 1812 campaign alone—a figure backed up by other sources….
    civilian deaths are impossible to accurately estimate. While military deaths are invariably put at between 2.5 million and 3.5 million, civilian death tolls vary from 750,000 to 3 million. Thus estimates of total dead, both military and civilian, range from 3,250,000 to 6,500,000.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Napoleonic_Wars_casualties

  8. When I was in hospital for that week the times I was awake enough to be able to watch the TV all I wanted to do was walk the halls to prove to the nurses I was recovered enough to be able to go home.

    Yep. And at the nRAH (new Adelaide hospital) you are never more than a 2 minute walk to a fresh air vegetated sitting area and less to a floor to ceiling window. The other benefit of the nRAH is opening windows in each ward room.

    I also remember a midwife telling me that she didnt expect we would be in overnight for the birth of our kids (birth was in the midwifery clinic attached to the Womens and Childrens). ‘Hospitals are for sick people, you wife is not sick’ she said. ‘What about after birth care?’ I asked. ‘I will visit you this afternoon, and tomorrow and the next day and then after a few days…. Great service. No hospital bed needed. And no 3 nights at a fancy hotel paid for by private health insurer and subsidised by the tax payer.

  11. Fess/c@t

    Trump was obstructing justice and giving comfort to Russia in plain sight. Of course the Barr summary was crapola.
    Anyhoo as said ad nauseum it isnt just a Ruskie issue. China and Saudia Arabia feature strongly in this saga.

    Fess

    It is a fire in an industrial area. OH was at a site about 100 metres away when it happened. Had to assist one of the guys who escaped fire. Anyhoo, fire spreading In direction of warehouse he was located at, and they left
    It is not a good situation at present

  12. Napoleon is still revered by the French. He probably gets worse press than he deserves from ‘English’ slanted history because he fought the English as part of the 6th coalition against him. He was a brilliant tactician and looked after his troops with hospitals and pensions that still exist today. It took a coalition of half of Europe and others to defeat him.

    He emerged from bastardisation of the French Revolution and we should never judge historical figures on our current values and mores as every single one of them would appear to fall short.

    Napoleon’s tactical excellence is still taught in military schools (as is Alexander).

    I suspect the tactical aspect of Napoleon is what Shorten admires, and anyone in Australian politics should take a moment and think how tactically brilliant Shorten has been with each of his moves to ‘disarm’ each of his opponents.

  13. jenauthor
    says:
    Friday, April 5, 2019 at 9:15 am
    Napoleon is still revered by the French. He probably gets worse press than he deserves from ‘English’ slanted history because he fought the English as part of the 6th coalition against him.
    _______________________
    Yeah maybe. Made himself Emperor of France and King of Italy. He invaded Spain to make his brother Joseph King of Spain. Fair enough. He invaded Holland to make his brother Louis King of Holland. Fair enough. Invaded West Germany to make his brother Jerome King of Westphalia. Fair enough. Invaded Prussia, Austria and Russia just for kicks. And the English are the bad guys! hilarious.

  14. Confessions @ #94 Friday, April 5th, 2019 – 7:55 am

    Barr’s summary tells only enough of the story that enables Trump to carry on as if he’s been exonerated without mentioning the other stuff about obstruction and so on.

    The summary was always a bit strange, because on the subject of obstruction it didn’t say “there wasn’t any”, it effectively said “technically there can be no obstruction if there was no collusion, so there“. Or in other words “yep, there was plenty of obstruction, but because we’re not going to indict over collusion we just pretend like it doesn’t count”.

  16. “David Gates estimated that 5,000,000 died in the Napoleonic Wars. He does not specify if this number includes civilians or is just military.[16]
    Charles Esdaile says 5,000,000–7,000,000 died overall, including civilians.[17] These numbers are subject to considerable variation. Erik Durschmied, in his book The Hinge Factor, gives a figure of 1.4 million French military deaths of all causes. Adam Zamoyski estimates that around 400,000 Russian soldiers died in the 1812 campaign alone—a figure backed up by other sources….
    civilian deaths are impossible to accurately estimate. While military deaths are invariably put at between 2.5 million and 3.5 million, civilian death tolls vary from 750,000 to 3 million. Thus estimates of total dead, both military and civilian, range from 3,250,000 to 6,500,000.”

    A useful comparison benchmark. I reckon a number of Romans and other ancients would have come close to matching that. Of course all European strongmen were mere amateurs in the masss murder stakes (up to Hitler and Stalin) when compared to various Chinese despots.

  17. Laura Jayes
    ‏
    Verified account

    @ljayes
    Following Following @ljayes
    More
    BREAKING: Resources Minister @mattjcan threatened to quit Cabinet over the delay in approval to Adani. @SkyNewsAust

  18. Andrew_Earlwood
    says:
    A useful comparison benchmark. I reckon a number of Romans and other ancients would have come close to matching that. Of course all European strongmen were mere amateurs in the masss murder stakes (up to Hitler and Stalin) when compared to various Chinese despots.
    _________________________________________
    Of course Gaul etc had a much lower population in ancient times than in the 19th century. Probably the whole sum of Roman atrocities would reach the millions, but that’s 500 years. Napoleon did most of it in a concise 12 year career.

  19. John Schindler
    @20committee
    ·
    7h
    Anybody foolish enough to push AG Barr’s 4-pager as the Last Word on the SCO investigation into Trump and the Russians is going to be sorely disappointed….rather soon.

    John Schindler
    @20committee
    ·
    7h
    No kidding
    Quote Tweet

    Ken Dilanian
    @KenDilanianNBC
    · 8h
    NBC News is also reporting that some on the Mueller team say his findings paint a picture of a campaign whose members were was manipulated by a sophisticated Russian intelligence operation. Some of that information may be classified.

  20. Andrew_Earlwood @ #115 Friday, April 5th, 2019 – 9:23 am

    “David Gates estimated that 5,000,000 died in the Napoleonic Wars. He does not specify if this number includes civilians or is just military.[16]
    Charles Esdaile says 5,000,000–7,000,000 died overall, including civilians.[17] These numbers are subject to considerable variation. Erik Durschmied, in his book The Hinge Factor, gives a figure of 1.4 million French military deaths of all causes. Adam Zamoyski estimates that around 400,000 Russian soldiers died in the 1812 campaign alone—a figure backed up by other sources….
    civilian deaths are impossible to accurately estimate. While military deaths are invariably put at between 2.5 million and 3.5 million, civilian death tolls vary from 750,000 to 3 million. Thus estimates of total dead, both military and civilian, range from 3,250,000 to 6,500,000.”

    A good benchmark. I reckon a number of Romans and other ancients would have come close to matching that. Of course all European strongmen were mere amateurs in the masss murder stakes (up to Hitler and Stalin) when compared to various Chinese despots.

    Mao would be the biggest mass murderer.

  21. Dennis Atkins
    @ScottMorrisonMP would be a dill to wait a week to announce the election. A week of estimates too dangerous for the government. Public want the election held yesterday. They’ll go nuts if they have to wait to suit the LNP. Waiting is dumb, so they might do it

    The November option is still available…

  22. SK:

    Opening windows in the rooms is a wonderful inclusion. You don’t realise how good fresh air is until you don’t get it for days on end.

    GG:

    LOL so true!

  28. Good Morning

    William

    News poll letting psephologists down. Maybe its so bad for the LNP they wanted to give the budget clear air. Its as good an explanation as any until we know the facts to go with a conspiracy theory 🙂

  29. grimace @ #77 Friday, April 5th, 2019 – 8:43 am

    C@tmomma @ #41 Friday, April 5th, 2019 – 5:16 am

    grimace,
    Wembley Private Hospital is where I stayed. Plus my mum used to work for Ramsay Health on the North Shore of Sydney. This also is our local Private Hospital:

    http://brisbanewatersprivate.com.au/patients/your-stay

    I seem to have left out the hairdresser. 🙂

    A question for the more learned and worldly bludgers here, as I’m clearly missing something.

    How does one be simultaneously have a problem sufficiently bad to be admitted to hospital and be kept ther yet be healthy enough to enjoy things such as high quality meals, a hair dresser, podiatry and the wonders of Wi-Fi?

    In well-resourced metropolitan centres the Private “Health” systems are selling both access to inessential services for the worried well, and the perception of exclusivity and priority for procedures, and well as unsubsidised “nursing” care. In the regional and rural centres Private Insurance provides access to what the cities would consider essential services – like oncology. That’s why the ALP must be considered to have played such a blinder last night, to the wonderful consternation of Billophobes of all flavours.

  31. Politically, it will be pretty difficult for the Tories to attack a policy which helps cancer sufferers. Even if someone from Labor doesn’t say it, the inference is there – this lot are against cancer sufferers. Quite apart from thw merits of the proposal itself, it’s a beautiful political move.

  32. Greensborough Growler says:
    Friday, April 5, 2019 at 8:54 am
    Why anyone would take any notice of anything posted by this nath idiot has me amazed.

    nath is the PB equivalent of one of those zoo chimps, probably driven mad by confinement, who furiously masturbate in front of tourists.
    ——————–
    An excellent simile

  34. guytaur:

    [‘Maybe its so bad for the LNP they wanted to give the budget clear air.’]

    I very much doubt that polling is sparse at this time for the reason you suggest.

  35. The LNP are not happy.

    Firstly it was the ON call by Morrison. Now it is Morrison trying to bury Adani as a election issue by putting a hold on federal environmental approval. And if anyone thinks they were calmed by the Morrison offer of a feasibility study into the possibility of considering sometime in the next hundred years a new coal fired power station in Queensland then they belong in the MSM. Not happy, Jan !

    The LNP are rumbling.

  36. When considering the scale of atrocities, does one include battlefield casualties, or does one focus on the torture, enslavement and mass murder off the battlefield.

    If one focuses on the later, then I’d suggest Caesar would outstrip Napoleon by a large margin. And he was noted for his clemency. Gaul did not have the population of modern France and Belgium, yet it was home to millions. Caesar didn’t stop with his conquest of Gaul either.

    Then there is Attila – like a scyth across both Roman Empires for over a decade. Even allowing for Catholic propaganda, his reign of terror was epic.

  39. Those scurvy knaves in the LNP in Queensland just want to get Adani approved before they are unceremoniously dumped from government by the electorate. Probably so they can move onto post-politics positions there.

  41. Once Morrison gets past next Monday the election essentially has to be 18th May. So I expect him to announce it on next Monday for the 18th, maybe to decrease the press that Sunday’s Newspoll will attract .

  44. @lijayes tweets

    BREAKING: Resources Minister @mattjcan threatened to quit Cabinet over the delay in approval to Adani. @SkyNewsAust

  49. It will be interesting to see if the Coalition decide to bite into their projected surpluses – which are after all fantasies built on unrealistic wage forecasts anyway- and just match the Medicare Cancer policy to try and neutralise it.

    While admitting that Labor has a good idea is anathema to the Coalition, blind Freddie can see that this is both a good policy and good politics and it absolutely snookers the Coalition’s usual attack lines lest they look like they are being assholes to cancer patients. Just as they had to eventually do the Banking and Finance Royal Commission, I suspect the Coalition must grudgingly accept this is a good policy and copy it and hope that is enough to prevent swinging voters going over to Labor.

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