Despite the onset of the election campaign, there is only one new data point to add to BludgerTrack this week, which is a status quo 52-48 result from Newspoll that has duly little effect on the national vote trends. Such movement as there is is away from One Nation and towards the Coalition on the primary vote, with next to no impact on two-party preferred or the seat projection, where the Coalition makes a single gain in Victoria.
Since there is no new state-level data this week, the breakdowns continue to record an unnatural looking lurch to the Coalition in New South Wales, which I would want to see corroborated by more data. The leadership trends are interesting in that an upswing in Scott Morrison’s net approval has returned him, just barely, to net positive territory. The effect on preferred prime minister is more modest, but there appears to be a slight trend in his favour there too.
However, the biggest news in BludgerTrack this week as far as I’m concerned is that a helpful reader has told me how to fix the bug that was preventing the state breakdown tabs from working much of the time. If this was causing you grief before, there is a very good chance it will not be doing so if you try again now, which you can do through the link below.
@Victoria
Barrie Cassidy retweeted Hamish’s video on TP and said “it’s complicated. But take the time. This is important.” David Marr will also be on.
Rational/Leftist
Here is an idea. How about looking at traditional Labour values.
I will repeat what Wayne Swan keeps tweeting
Neo Liberalism trickle down economics is dead.
The Democrats have issued a subpoena for the full Mueller Report.
The Greens are kept out of Government by single-member electorates. Where some form of proportional representation applies, Greens win seats commensurate with their support, for example the Senate. In the case of the ACT, Tasmania, the and some local councils they do get into Government. On the ither hand, the Nationals with a vote languishing around 5% would often struggle to meet the threshold for winning seats in many polities using proportional representation (e.g. most EU nations).
Ophuph Hucksake
To quote Leo DiCaprio in ‘Catch me if you can’ – “I concur”.
There are four weeks to go – next few days taken up by Easter and then Anzac Day.
After this Labor will start using the image that worked ‘bigly’ in Victoria – Liberal candidates with Abbott, Dutton and Morrison next to them. These ads really got up the noses of Liberal Party operatives – because they knew that they worked.
The deliberately ‘shortened’ election period (due to Easter and Anzac Day) really just makes the status-quo more likely, the same 52-53 that Labor’s TPP has generally been on for some time.
Late Middle English (meaning ‘with great force’): from big + -ly. A few years ago, it looked like the adverb bigly was sliding inexorably toward obsolescence. It had been used in English since around 1400, but after 600 years its use had dwindled, so that when the historical Oxford English Dictionary revised its entry in 2008 the word was described as ‘now rare’. Rare from the late 19th century until 2016, it was revived as a result of its association with President Donald Trump, whose adverbial use of big league in speech (to mean ‘by a considerable amount’) was widely misinterpreted as ‘bigly’. (Oxford Dictionary)
“After this Labor will start using the image that worked ‘bigly’ in Victoria – Liberal candidates with Abbott, Dutton and Morrison next to them.”
It didn’t work in NSW.
Ophuph Hucksake
….the Coalition might try to re-imagine themselves as something bigger than the willing instrument of undeserved favor to the powerful and injustice to the marginalised and young. At the moment they are simply incapable of comprehending and meeting the profound social and environmental choices facing the world over the next 20-50 years….
OH….the LNP and their outriders, the Cories, ON and the other sundry reactionaries reflect the escapism that is common among their constituents. They have neither the capacity nor the intention of facing the future. They would rather just re-tell and re-do the past. I suspect this is not because they are sure of the future, but rather because they fear it. Fear runs through the veins; through what remains of their degraded imaginations.
The Gs, of course, also trade in fear…..but that is another story.
“If Labor don’t want to negotiate with the Greens and instead choose to negotiate with the right then that’s entirely on them. The way it’s shaping up there may be three paths for Labor to pass legislation in the Senate.
1. Labor can negotiate with the Greens and maybe a couple of others, such as Centre Alliance.
2. Labor can negotiate with the far right members of the cross bench, such as Hanson, Bernardi, etc…
3. Labor can negotiate with the other half of the two party establishment, the Coalition.
Your choice Labor.”
Firefly – you are incoherent.
Not half an hour before that post you were declaiming that the Greens must hold Labor to account, by which you mean getting Labor to shift towards the Greens policy platform. Especially on climate change.
One problem – each of the negotiating pathway alternatives you listed will take Labor further away from the Greens policy platform.
Therein lies the conundrum – the same one as existed in 2009: Labor + Greens = a number less than 39 in the senate and hence legislative defeat. Far from ‘holding Labor to account’, the Greens will likely have to compromise further than even the labor policy platform you are so willing to shit can, or face policy gridlock, yet again.
How do you like those apples?
I’m betting that when faced with the 2009 conundrum the Greens will … chose poorly … again.
Jordan
Thanks!
Rational/Leftist
Don’t gatekeep. My views are probably more left-wing than yours (definitely more than Sanders.) I just have no time for performative narcissists who think winning Twitter and Reddit is winning in real life, and whose plan to actually change things is just waiting for that day when everything aligns perfectly for them – and view anybody who might actually want to see some results and not just posturing as a dirty neoliberal centrist worse than the actual hard rightists that are running the show.
I don’t care.
Clearly. I don’t see a single successful politician advocating for it anymore. The Centre-Right, who have universally embraced that brand of economics, have struggled to get elected anywhere since everybody “woke up.”
https://newmatilda.com/2019/04/16/the-people-with-power-versus-julian-assange/
Powerful interests are lining up to condemn Wikileaks’ Julian Assange to an ongoing life of incarceration. Stuart Rees wonders aloud whether Australian leaders will discover a backbone.
:::
Reaction to Assange’s arrest shows the orthodoxy of powerful people who think they’ve been ordained to protect establishment interests. Over the centuries, such interests have involved lying, deceit, corruption, wars and other forms of violence.
In the Assange case, ‘establishment’ includes US, UK and Australian military and intelligence operatives, politicians and journalists who say that Assange does not belong in their community.
As an alternative to accepting Hunt’s and Snow’s views, it’s reasonable to ask whether privileged individuals ever comprehend the values of those who expose the brutality of US foreign policy, whether they perceive the gutless collusion of other governments who do not question US violence.
:::
Prime Minister Scott Morrison and Labor leader Bill Shorten say that Assange will receive the usual consulate assistance, possibly of the same kind that ‘protected’ David Hicks and Mamdouh Habib in their years of torture and incarceration in Guantanamo.
:::
The fate of Julian Assange and the re-arrest of Chelsea Manning show US swagger and violence being deployed to maintain establishment interests.
This is not a legal controversy. It is a massive political issue. The US culture of revenge has to be exposed and challenged. Grass roots outrage needs to be mobilized. But if Australian politicians are to join community protests, it looks as though large doses dozes of gumption will be required.
Guytaur, I don’t mean to come across as hostile to you. I respect you and think you make a lot of good points. Just some of the people who you think are the good guys here don’t have the same genuineness and seem to be motivated by bad-natured spite, performative narcissism and a dash of ur-fascism. This is who I am calling out. I apologise for pulling you into the crossfire here.
Andrew Earlwood.
No Firefox is not incoherent. He/she sees the difference of electing as many progressive Senators as possible in the election and dealing with the reality of what we know the numbers will be from already present Senators not up for election.
Vote progressive and improve the math for Labor.
For Labor in the Senate that Labor 1 Greens 2. For those not voting Labor that’s Labor 2.
Also unlike your rhetoric FF understands as the Greens have shown with passing of actual legislation they do compromise
sprocket_ @ #1477 Friday, April 19th, 2019 – 10:45 pm
I would have thought that for accuracy Ab bott would be fourth – corresponding with Judas in the original.
beguiledagain
Just catching up – thanks for the interesting background of the Chifley stuff and the origins of the Canadian healtchcare system. Very interesting. I think Finland also has a system similar to Norway, with a big emphasis on GP primary care.
By 2007 there were a raft of issues variously feeding into broad public concern
Not every issue resonated with everyone, obviously, but enough of those issues resonated with enough of the population to result in the change of government
Plus Howard had run his race on a personal note reduced to the offer of tax cuts and selective spending to attract personal support and support for his government
The final hammer blow was the RBA increasing interest rates during an election campaign, impacting on Cost of Living pressures due to the astronomical 350% growth in the amount we owed to our home mortgage lenders, to the same size as our GDP, total private debt then at 170% of GDP including because privatisation has transitioned debt to the private sector from the public sector
It is my view that a similar list of issues could be drawn up today
There are core issues such as the RBA Governor confirmed flat to recessionary wages growth, now 18 months of falling house prices in the 2 largest Capital Cities, the ASX being exactly where it was over 9 months ago at the start of the Fiscal Year (acknowledging that the prospect of Labor legislation has seen Companies give recognition to their Shareholder financiers by transitioning Reserves to Shareholders – but why only as a result of pending Labor legislation noting the transition must be supportable because it has happened) and the Cash Rate remaining at 1.5% as indicative of the economic demise of the Nation – these are emergency settings and they persist
The result is that the interest rate settings are conducive to debt repayment – but wealth accrual is most difficult, the repayment of debt factored against property prices declining as reported
Then you get to Climate and a sensible, achievable resolution including providing relief to cost of living pressures
Then the Royal Commissions – opposed as they have been
And the List goes on – impacting on the demographic they impact on
Plus, I would believe, the sheer optics of Franking Credits being remitted when you have no tax payment obligation, tax cuts promised 5 years out to the demographic targeted and the objections to the tax benefits available to a demographic including those able to contribute as a lump sum to superannuation amounts in excess of the accruals of a significant number of our citizens
Plus tax cuts to “big business”, on the back burner now but adding to the consistency of the optics – for Capital and the well off looking for trickle down
Then there is Ad Man from Mad Men and his very presentation which to many lacks any substance on the issues of concern and is grating in the extreme
So when Bowen talks to the sheer size of our home mortgage debt (since 2000) being the 2nd highest on a World scale and refers to the 10 Year Bond Yield being where it is at you have the difference
Addressing significant concerns not indulging in windy rhetoric for consumption by media – and no solutions
But we have the last days of Howard being revisited – the last resort being a tax bribe (but at what cost and to who?)
To whom is paying tax a disincentive to achieving promotion and monetary rewards courtesy of promotion and accepting greater responsibility?
Who responds “No thanks because recognition and reward only results in me paying more tax”
No matter that more money is put in your pocket regardless because the tax rate is not 100% – so money actually finishes in your pocket
Do Companies not do business because they are obliged to remit tax on their profit?
And, of course Menzies and Holt increased Company and personal tax rates – and increased the pension
Liberal DNA, hey?
EGW
says:
Friday, April 19, 2019 at 10:43 pm
nath @ #1469 Friday, April 19th, 2019 – 10:38 pm
Judging from the title, a very mendacious book.
__________________________________
Really? I have not read it yet but I assume It’s about the emergence of the social democratic tradition in Australia. Worthy of some research I would have thought.
The ‘social democratic tradition’ in Australia was well established before Whitlam.
Whitlam did not suffer fools gladly and would have been very dismissive of clowns like the Greens.
_____________________________________
Fascinating. If you could show where social democracy manifested itself before Whitlam I would be very interested.
Before I go to bed I will keep repeating my mantra –
“We want polls, we want polls, we want polls….”
(sad face that Morgan did not supply one today)
AE
Your penchant to use belittling nicknames reveals your arrogance and condescension. By doing so you do a disservice to the points you are trying to make.
nath @ #1517 Friday, April 19th, 2019 – 11:24 pm
The Labor Party from its inception has been strongly Democratic Socialist / Social Democratic in its outlook and policies.
Read some history of the Labor party such as ‘How Labour Governs’ by V. Gordon Childe or ‘Things Worth Fighting For’ Ed A. W. Stargardt for example.
Observer
Labor calculated that losing votes on Franking Credits was worth it for the revenue needed to implement their policies.
I agree with them.
I also agree with Mr Shorten’s media strategy.
I agree with you it’s a build up of negativity that brings down a government.
This government going to the radical right I think puts the LNP in a worse position than Howard.
Plus due to the Christchurch tragedy. Racist dog whistling is out for them.
We have had our black swan event. This time it’s worked for Labor not the LNP
briefly
says:
Friday, April 19, 2019 at 11:02 pm
The problem with Sanders is not what he stands for. It is what – or rather, who – he stands against. He campaigns against his natural allies in the Democratic Party. He is a figure of division. In this respect he is Trumpy. The US needs a figurehead who represents not only reform but also unity. Sanders is not such a figure. He is an insult.
___________________________________
It must be tempting for William to say ‘fuck it’ and just ban everyone. Start again. My advice, do it!
Sprocket @10:45.
Oh dear, someone’s going to Hell
Rocket
Avoiding polling was probably behind Morrison’s timing over holidays.
Polling doesn’t typically happen over holidays.
Might be self defeating. Journalists are having to talk about issues!
“Your penchant to use belittling nicknames reveals your arrogance and condescension. By doing so you do a disservice to the points you are trying to make.”
Full on Princess Pegasus mode. Firefox = Firefly and you bleat like a ruptured choirboy. How about climbing off that high horse and engaging with the point I made? I’d say it’s actually beyond you, Let me suggest: Other than self righteousness, all you are really good for is cutting and pasting article written by others into an anti labor screed.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/mueller-report-updates/2019/04/19/1d76fa72-623e-11e9-9ff2-abc984dc9eec_story.html?utm_term=.0f49e93be2b8
Edit: The Mueller Report Subpoena story
AE
What a raging case of projection you’ve got going there. Perhaps a warm milk with honey might help in soothing your obvious angst.
Speaking of incoherence, up bobs Guytaur.
Mate – your Pollyanna hagiography of Firefox doesn’t actually engage with the points he attempted to make or my rebuttal of said points.
“What a raging case of projection you’ve got going there. Perhaps a warm milk with honey might help in soothing your obvious angst.”
I’m polarising. Smug fools, tolerated I have not. It’s why I’m not a politician.
Want to actually have a crack at the points I made, or do you want to simply prove me right – you’re not up to it.
On Labor being strong. This is an example of what I am talking about. Kudos to Mr Shorten and the party agreeing.
https://www.smh.com.au/federal-election-2019/scare-campaigns-and-propaganda-why-a-fed-up-bill-shorten-has-turned-on-news-corp-20190418-p51fe6.html
EGW
The Labor Party from its inception has been strongly Democratic Socialist / Social Democratic in its outlook and policies.
Read some history of the Labor party such as ‘How Labour Governs’ by V. Gordon Childe or ‘Things Worth Fighting For’ Ed A. W. Stargardt for example.
__________________________________
You can go on forever about the nature of the pre 50s ALP. labourist, socialist. I’m talking about post war, post materialist Keynesian Social Democracy, which Whitlam advanced and attempted to implement.
AE
You might not like it but it’s a fact that the Greens do compromise.
That’s how Climate Legislation got passed in 2015.
No matter how you try and spin it that fact remains.
AE
I prefer face to face engagement not the tedious, slow tapping away on a keyboard to effect unreal conversations with internet cyphers.
I really do not care what you think of me. By all means revel in your intellectual superiority if it makes you feel better about yourself.
Robert Mueller Gave Us Everything We Need to Know
Once again, the president is exactly who he presents himself to be.
It’s as if Mueller was just saying, “You all know this happened and continues to happen. Now you decide what to do about it.”
After two years without facts, we now have facts. Thus far the White House and Trump boosters haven’t disputed the facts. What they say is “no collusion,” because that’s what they were going to say, no matter what. But the facts in this movie are devastating. They paint a picture of Trump campaign members helping Russia steal an election, with polling data and secret meetings, and of a lawless and King Lear–like Trump trying desperately to obscure what was really happening. Mueller may not have taken the American public anywhere specific on questions of law. But he sure as hell took us all to the same place on the question of reality. And the facts that the American public—at least those who don’t have an intravenous hookup to Tucker Carlson’s worldview—are seeing today, whether by way of quotes, or hot takes, or television punditry, is a walk down the well-trod lane of how Trump operates. He lies. He tells others to lie. He fires people. He threatens. He demands loyalty. In some ways, I’m enjoying this movie more this time around precisely because, as 448-page encapsulations of all the facts I thought I’d become insensible to go, this is a hell of a read. And in its own pointillist and nuanced way, that story makes the conclusions of law somewhat less frustrating. It’s as if Mueller was just saying, “You all know this happened and continues to happen. Now you decide what to do about it.”
Congress now has its road map, should it decide to pursue inquiries into the matters about which Mueller could not make conclusions. Despite what Attorney General William Barr has asserted, Mueller makes it very clear that Congress is entitled to act on this report. But despite the heavy lawyering and the very lawyerly parsing, I actually read the Mueller report as a fundamentally political document as much as a legal one. It’s a delineation, chapter and verse, of how Trump has conducted himself in office, and for anyone who believes that the president should not be above the law, this is a damning report of presidential lawlessness. It’s lawlessness sometimes erased by staff, lawlessness sometimes declined by underlings, lawlessness sometimes erased by cluelessness and stupidity, lawlessness sometimes elided by technical definitions. But while Mueller may have avoided making explicit legal conclusions about criminality, he has sealed into amber a story that we all needed to hear. The fact that elites are arguing about the mental states required for criminal obstruction doesn’t change the fact that the American public is seeing, yet again, that Donald Trump is exactly who he presents himself to be.
For some proportion of the public, that means today confirms, once again, that the president is a valorous and heroic leader, triumphing against all odds. Barr had them at his first claims, in announcing the conclusions of the report, that the president feels he has been treated very unfairly. But for Americans who are weary of Donald Trump, bored of the lies, fatigued by the ugliness and rancor, there is nothing good about this report, which essentially says, “This guy is appalling, I can’t say whether he’s a criminal.”
Congress needs to do its job now and follow where Mueller has led. But the American public can no longer claim that nothing has happened. Mueller has shown us what is true. Nobody in the White House has disputed it. We can decide we’re fine with it or that we are not fine with it. That’s a political question, not a legal one. I think that may be what needed to happen all along.
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2019/04/mueller-report-gives-us-everything-we-need-to-know.html
Charles
Fair use for copyright is about ten per cent. Must be a long article. 🙂
guytaur says:
Friday, April 19, 2019 at 11:50 pm
On Labor being strong. This is an example of what I am talking about. Kudos to Mr Shorten and the party agreeing.
Phooey. The Liblings will continue to campaign against Labor. They are not only Libling, they are Murdoch’s mercenaries. Labor have to fight hard to win. They have to fight on all sides, including against those who pose as their betters, the G’s.
“You might not like it but it’s a fact that the Greens do compromise.
That’s how Climate Legislation got passed in 2015.
No matter how you try and spin it that fact remains.”
On this faux Christian Holliday, even I – confirmed atheist- can only scream: CHRIST!!!
FFS mate – read what Firefox actually wrote – he was opining about the senario where Labor + Greens did not equal a senate majority. One of his negotiation pathways in that scenario was Labor + Greens + Centre Alliance (based presumably on the not unreasonable assumption that all the other cross benchers will be RWNJs).
That pathway would inevitably take the negotiations further away from the Greens platform on climate change. As would the other two negotiating pathways Firefox nominated.
Hence the ‘incoherence’ with the line that the Greens task in the next parliament is to “hold labor to account”. Get it?
FFS. Read man. Read!
Briefly.
You disagree with the Labor party.
Thanks for coming out of the closet. Now everyone knows where you are coming from. You are pro Murdoch?
g is incapable of admitting that a vote for the Liblings is a vote against Labor. g wants to have their cake and eat it, vote-wise. This is a furphy. A vote against Labor is a vote against Labor.
“I prefer face to face engagement not the tedious, slow tapping away on a keyboard to effect unreal conversations with internet cyphers.
I really do not care what you think of me. By all means revel in your intellectual superiority if it makes you feel better about yourself.”
Ha. cognative dissonance on an epic scale. You spend heaps of time carefully collecting and editing your anti labor screeds on Bludger. Writing an argument down allows you to order you thoughts and points, if you actually have any of your own to offer. You don’t. Clearly.
Sweet dreams Andrew_Earlwood. Tomorrow is another day to smell the roses and take joy in the colours of Autumn.
Briefly is an anti-Green gizmo. He fights at all times and places against the only party championing social justice in Australia. He is therefore a Tory-kin, or a Tory-ling. His efforts for the ALP are self defeating. The ALP right wingers will take his support and turn it into neo-liberal lite. He is therefore a Murdoch puppet.
“Sweet dreams Andrew_Earlwood. Tomorrow is another day to smell the roses and take joy in the colours of Autumn.”
And with that, the Princess mounted her magical horse and flew home to Mandalay.
House Finance chairwoman subpoenaed nine banks for Trump financial records in money laundering probe
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2019/4/18/1851223/-House-Finance-Chairwoman-subpoenaed-nine-banks-for-Trump-financial-records-in-money-laundering-probe
AE
That’s not incoherence.
That’s dealing with reality.
Remember Windsor and Oakshott were conservative too.
Also remember that Labor will be proposing the legislation. It will want to get it passed. Those are the choices from Labor’s perspective.
The Greens like Labor will have to hold their nose and compromise with someone on their right. That’s exactly why the Labor rhetoric has been unhinged.
All the Greens have said is it can’t be fake. It has to be real.
I don’t get the outrage at this sensible observation.
Unless you think Labor’s legislation won’t be real action on climate change.
latest pic of Briefly at his ALP branch meeting.
“The Greens like Labor will have to hold their nose and compromise with someone on their right.”
If you had actually read Firefox’s posts and then mine and then engaged your thinking apparatus before posting, you’d realise that the sentence you wrote and quoted faithfully above by me is actually MY point and then realise the incoherence between THAT and Firefox’s main point about the Greens holding Labor to account, especially on climate change because any outcome that relies upon CA and Labor will see the compromise fall between Labor’s policy (much maligned as ‘weak’ by the Greens) and Fry-the-planets NEG, which is CA’s policy.
“The Greens have never been in Government outside of the mickey mouse city state of Canberra. In the ACT the government is certainly a Labor government with some appendages.”
You uninformed Labor trolls make this too easy sometimes.
The current ACT government in Canberra – the most important city in the country – is most certainly a Greens/Labor government. It has been a minority Greens/Labor government for a whopping THREE TERMS (2008-current). Now that’s stability! ACT Greens leader Shane Rattenbury is even a “super minister” with multiple portfolios (Minister for Climate Change and Sustainability, Minister for Justice, Consumer Affairs and Road Safety, Minister for Corrections, and Minister for Mental Health). During the 2008-2012 term he was also nominated as the Speaker, making him the first Green anywhere in the world to hold that position in a parliament.
List of governments the Greens have been part of:
TAS 1989-92
TAS 1996-98
ACT 2001-04
ACT 2008-12
FEDERAL GOVERNMENT 2010-13
TAS 2010-14
ACT 2012-16
ACT 2016-Current
That’s no less than EIGHT (8) times that the Greens have been part of governments in this country.
I’m so saving this post and I’m just going to copy and paste it every time one of you try and spin this type of ridiculous BS that completely ignores historical facts.
AE
What is your objection to the Greens holding Labor to account?
The realisation that means that Labor right loses?
What’s the problem?
If the Greens don’t think it’s real then they will vote against the legislation.
That means Labor will have to work with the Greens if Labor wants Green support.
Its not that hard to understand really.
Unless you are a Labor partisan who just want the Greens to roll over and say how high do we jump for you?
“The Greens like Labor will have to hold their nose and compromise with someone on their right. That’s exactly why the Labor rhetoric has been unhinged.”
Two further points. The first sentence I’ve quoted above is proof positive that it is The Black Wiggle’s rhetoric about Labor’s climate change policy that is unhinged: given the likely composition of the senate it will be a dream realised IF labor can get its policy up.
Secondly, Labor + Green + CA is 2009 all over again – not your nirvana of 2011. If the Greens can’t get their way, will they settle for Labor’s ‘weak’ second best optional? When the two liberal senators defected in 2009 the Greens didn’t grab that opportunity. Given the wiggle’s entrenched and rabid positioning, why do you think the Greens will settle for second best this time? Or third best – if CA can’t be shifted beyond the NEG?