Sundry updates and developments:
• As noted in the regularly updated late counting post, Labor has taken a 67 vote lead in Macquarie, after trailing 39 at the close of counting yesterday. However, there is no guarantee that this represents an ongoing trend to Labor, since most of the gain came from the counting of absents, which would now be just about done. Most of the outstanding votes are out-of-division pre-polls, which could go either way. The result will determine whether the Coalition governs with 77 or 78 seats out of 151, while Labor will have either 67 or 68.
• Labor is reportedly preparing to challenge the result in Chisholm under the “misleading or deceptive publications” provision of the Electoral Act, a much ploughed but largely unproductive tillage for litigants over the years. The Victorian authorities have been rather activist in upholding “misleading or deceptive publications” complaints, but this is in the lower stakes context of challenges to the registration of how-to-vote cards, rather than to the result of an election. At issue on this occasion is Liberal Party material circulated on Chinese language social media service WeChat, which instructed readers to fill out the ballot paper in the manner recommended “to avoid an informal vote”. I await for a court to find otherwise, but this strikes me as pretty thin gruel. The Chinese community is surely aware that Australian elections presume to present voters with a choice, so the words can only be understood as an address to those who have decided to vote Liberal. Labor also have a beef with Liberal material that looked like Australian Electoral Commission material, in Chisholm and elsewhere.
• Political science heavyweights Simon Jackman and Shaun Ratcliff of the University of Sydney’s United States Studies Centre has breakdowns from a big sample campaign survey in The Guardian, noting that only survey data can circumvent the ecological fallacy, a matter raised in my previous post. The survey was derived from 10,316 respondents from a YouGov online panel, and conducted from April 18 to May 12. The results suggest the Coalition won through their dominance of the high income cohort (taken here to mean an annual household income of over $208,000), particularly among the self-employed, for which their primary vote is recorded as approaching 80%. Among business and trust owners on incomes of over $200,000, the Coalition outpolled Labor 60% to 10%, with the Greens on next to nothing. However, for those in the high income bracket who didn’t own business or trusts, the Coalition was in the low forties, Labor the high thirties, and the Greens the low teens. While Ratcliff in The Guardian seeks to rebut the notion that “battlers” decided the election for the Coalition, the big picture impression for low-income earners is that Labor were less than overwhelmingly dominant.
• As reported in the Financial Review on Friday, post-election polling for JWS Research found Coalition voters tended to rate tax and economic management as the most important campaign issue, against climate change, health and education for Labor voters. Perhaps more interestingly, it found Coalition voters more than twice as likely to nominate “free-to-air” television as “ABC, SBS television” as their favoured election news source, whereas Labor voters plumped for both fairly evenly. Coalition voters were also significantly more likely to identify “major newspapers (print/online)”.
• Two impending resignations from Liberal Senators create openings for losing election candidates. The Financial Review reports Mitch Fifield’s Victorian vacancy looks set to be of interest not only to Sarah Henderson, outgoing Corangamite MP and presumed front-runner, but also to Indi candidate Steve Martin, Macnamara candidate Kate Ashmor and former state MP Inga Peulich.
• In New South Wales, Arthur Sinodinos’s Senate seat will fall vacant later this year, when he takes up the position of ambassador to the United States. The most widely invoked interested party to succeed him has been Jim Molan, who is publicly holding out hope that below-the-line votes will elect him to the third Coalition seat off fourth position on the ballot paper, although this is assuredly not going to happen. As canvassed in the Sydney Morning Herald and the Financial Review, other possible starters include Warren Mundine, freshly unsuccessful in his lower house bid for Gilmore; James Brown, chief executive of Catholic Schools NSW, state RSL president and the husband of Daisy Turnbull Brown, daughter of the former Prime Minister; Michael Hughes, state party treasurer and the brother of Lucy Turnbull; Kent Johns, the state party vice-president who appeared set to depose Craig Kelly for preselection in Hughes, but was prevailed on not to proceed; Richard Sheilds, chief lobbyist at the Insurance Council of Australia; Mary-Lou Jarvis, Woollahra councillor and unsuccessful preselection contender in Wentworth; and Michael Feneley, heart surgeon and twice-unsuccessful candidate for Kingsford Smith.
• Federal Labor may have evaded a party membership ballot through Anthony Albanese’s sole nomination, but a ballot is pending for the party’s new state leader in New South Wales, which will pit Kogarah MP Chris Minns against Strathfield MP Jodi McKay. The members’ ballot will be conducted over the next month, the parliamentary party will hold its vote on June 29, and the result will be announced the following day. Members’ ballots in leadership contests are now provided for federally and in most states (as best as I can tell, South Australia is an exception), but this is only the second time one has actually been conducted after the Shorten-Albanese bout that followed the 2013 election. As the Albanese experience demonstrates, the ballots can be circumvented if a candidate emerges unopposed, and the New South Wales branch, for one, has an exception if the vacancy arises six months before an election. Such was the case when Michael Daley succeeded Luke Foley in November, when he won a party room vote ahead of Chris Minns by 33 votes to 12.
there seems to be a rush to expel;an why labor lost.
this is mot due to any one person , it is as apolitical party & the blame should covers all members & advisers. My lifebelts the ire mistake was rot tell the truth,show the costings & explain where the money where there savings would supply this was possible
It may have happened but it went under my radar that I never heard the question asked about the nlp claim that they only party that could manage the economy. – For me the reply should have been how did your government inheriting medium debt from labor w which was necessary because it made AuSTRALIA the wonder of the world & double this in 6 years while cutting ser vices in all directions . Nice people do not win arguments, I found this out as a teenager in a boxing ring. The government were full on attack including the news barons & AP did not return the attack although I think there was fertile ground to plow in this area.
“Those criticising the greens and the convoy are angry because they don’t know what to do.”
No, I will make it simple.
We are angry
because
the fuken stupid
Greens
convoy
cost the
ALP
votes in Qld seats
which
helped
lose
us
the
fuken
election.
Now think on that until comprehension dawns, or the Earth stops turning. I am betting on Mother E putting the brakes on first.
“A gas pipeline through qld creates no permanent jobs for qlders, fyi.”
Indeed, though stop being rational. It’s the vibe. Coal and mining produce visible jobs now. It’s ready for people to believe in them. Policies about jobs in future renewables won’t win votes on those areas until people can actually touch them.
Labor should have gone in with something as detailed as “how good are jobs”.
Increasing the tax threshold sounds good. No need to talk about increasing Newstart. That’s what you do when you win power.
Also, of the Greens policies are so popular, why aren’t we about to see the installation of a Greens government?
Will Joe Bullock be replacing Dodson as WA Senator?
Australian 10-year bond yields traded below the cash rate on Wednesday for only the first time since 2012, which tells you the market thinks the Reserve Bank will cut rates and the economy is soft.
The theory used to be that an inverse yield curve means the economy will fall into a recession but we haven’t had one of those for 27 years, and while no one is expecting one any time soon the reality is, recent hype aside, the Morrison government has presided over a weakening in the Australian economy.
CBA boss Matt Comyn was talking up the housing market earlier this week, Mirvac’s Susan Lloyd-Hurwitz did likewise on Wednesday, and hopefully they will both be right, but a bank boss and a property chief talking up home loans and property is a bit like this column talking up newspaper sales. Everyone has some self-interest in the outcome.
Wednesday’s bond market trade was driven by a fall in global yields, which of itself is not exactly bullish because the latest US economic data is likely to be weak and we are in the middle of a US-China trade war trying to work through the new global order.
Heading into last night’s trade, even with yesterday’s 0.7 per cent fall, the S&P 200 index was up 14.1 per cent year-to-date against the US S&P 500 index, which in Australian dollar terms was up 13.7 per cent, and that also doesn’t happen very often.
The ScoMo bounce has helped create confidence, built around a sense of certainty and continuity, but the reality is inflation is weak because the economy is going nowhere fast.
The S&P 200 index is trading at 15.5 times forecast earnings and the industrial index about 17.5 times, both of which are above their long-term average.
This tells you the market is overvalued but, then again, with bond yields below 1.5 per cent in relative terms, the stockmarket is arguably fairly valued.
Australia has arguably been a short-term beneficiary of the trade tensions because each US penalty is being matched by increased domestic stimulus in China that is helping Australian exports.
Longer term, of course, no one wins from a trade war.
All these mixed factors suggest that what has been a great start to the year for stock prices is about to run into some reality-based headwinds.
Next week will see the first of what will be two rate cuts, which is a positive for stocks, but their impact, while important for short-term sentiment, will be less profound.
ScoMo’s tax cuts will help more, but with the economy just ticking along, now is the ideal time for a reformist government to hit the road with productivity-generating changes to drive sustainable improvements in the economy.
We are all waiting for the Miracle Man to embark down this road.
Radguy@10:03 – dunno how long you’ve been around or lurking, but the faction of ALP crazies on this blog (and I don’t mean all ALP supporters either on this blog or elsewhere) bloviate about the Greens anywhere, anytime and at any pretext. The current rubbish is just the latest chapter. If it wasn’t this it would be something else, and it will be something else next week, and the one after that and so on. As the crazies are not constrained by any considerations of objectivity or intellectual honesty, but are just intent on beating the tribal war drum, it’s impossible to view anything they screech about as a serious contribution to discussion on this blog. It doesn’t worry me personally. I just scroll past to the good bits. Viewing comments by more rational posters, it would appear that the Labor luvvie unhingement is in full flourishing this fine evening.
Radguy
The Greens did not just lose an election. As fence-sitters and environmental-pretenders, you would never have anything at stake.
Get back to me when you find your progressive passion and enough spine to put in on the line.
My assessment about the Greens is the same now as before the election. I knew it would be a ‘thanks for nothing’ scenario.
Puff, I’m not part of your “us”. You don’t know what to do short of sitting on the fence. No one here who supports the ALP really does. You can’t just get angry at people for doing the right thing that might happen to inconvenience a slightly less blue party.
The only issue I see people having is that a full throated environmental stance is inconvenient for a slightly less blue party, as if the variation in hue of the ALP that lost the election makes much difference to the environment.
To see the difficulties the ALP has with environmental issues, one only needs tool back at the arguments around the 2009 CPRS where the ALP supporters have presented it as both real action on climate change while criticising the greens for being too pure to pass this shitty originally LNP compatible legislation.
At the same time, I don’t envy the ALP’s position. At least on this issue, the ALP aren’t deliberately working against the public interest.
Radguy,
OK. not you.
Sorry.
Any lurking Greens though….
Max – I know the turf here well enough.
Puffy, if you want to explain the ALP’s backing of Trump’s policy on Venezuela, go right ahead. Let’s see how your progressive spirit explains that. Then you can tell me about how good the AABill is. Then the TPP. Then the ALP contempt for Assange. We could go all night with you telling me how wrong I am with a barrage of compelling responses from you and others.
I can see the Greens are making a heap of difference to the environment … just not in the way they intend.
Where are the outcomes for these decades of Greens’ ‘good work’?
If the CPRS had been enacted we would, right now, have seen it in action over 10 years. It could have been monitored and tweaked over that 10 years to ensure the emissions reductions that it was intended to result in actually eventuated.
Instead what we have, 10 years on, is NOTHING. Worse than nothing.
Radguy.
I forgot. The Greens have not made one iota of difference to stopping environmental degradation of Australia, in the 21st Century.
Just saying.
What have The Greens done?
And what has that to do with the environment? Stop shifting goalposts.
Holy hell, you’re still all screeching about the awful Greens?
Seriously, get a grip!
Come on then.
List your achievements. The Great Green Surge.
The stuff you have stopped. the stuff you got up. The people you freed. The mines you stopped.
The living monuments to your effectiveness.
Go for it. I have all evening.
No.
Talk about Boring!
Have a nice screechy time on your own
Labor should have focused on a special policy for each state. The Murray-Darling fiasco is dynamite in SA and if properly exploited would certainly have brought home Boothby and quite possibly Sturt as well.
No, I am replying to Greens who are posting. Talking about me ‘screeching’ is very non-green, btw It could be construed as sexist, as in ‘screetching harpie’ who dares venture a contrary opinion. Just sayin’.
“Get back to me when you find your progressive passion and enough spine to put in on the line.”
Right back at you Puff.
If we’re keeping the goal posts where you’re comfortable, I’m not going to repeat myself.
Turn and run? Wow, that’ll save a lot of rainforest.
Thank fuck I didn’t turn and run in those protests of yore. You would have a nuclear missile up your arese by now.
Astrobleme @ #468 Wednesday, May 29th, 2019 – 10:15 pm
Weak.
Radguy @ #471 Wednesday, May 29th, 2019 – 10:16 pm
We are talking about convoys of green flatulance, mines in Qld and the environment. Don’t get antsey because I am not following your smelly red herring into the denuded forest.
Now, how about you answer my question about the Greens Hall of Fame in the 21st Century? Stick to environmental if you want, but do not feel constrained please. I have all night to read it.
Plus I would like to see the costings for the major Greens policies and how we are to fund them, if you could be so kind.
Radguy….I’m not angry. Not a bit. I’m just telling it like it is. Dysfunction on the Left is responsible for the election of the Libs.
One element of dysfunction is denial that it exists. It does exist. It is deliberately fostered by the Lib-kin.
They scored too much of a win this time. Like everyone, they believed the polls. The values they purport to believe in are now poll-kill. They have been run into the dirt.
Get used to it.
Until dysfunction on the Left is resolved, nothing can be achieved in this country on terms that favour working people or that will enable a rational response to climate change.
This is for sure. Totally for sure. But go ahead….green ant to your heart’s content. The 20th century is over. This one is off to a very bad start too.
Puff, I speak up about foreign interference in our politics. You play it safe. Also, well over half of my tweets are me going toe to toe with the right. I wouldn’t want to think what would happen if the right were able to overwhelm social media.
If that’s weak, colour me weak.
Radguy says:
Wednesday, May 29, 2019 at 10:29 pm
Puff, I’m not part of your “us”. You don’t know what to do short of sitting on the fence. No one here who supports the ALP really does.
I know what to do. It’s crystal clear. Labor has to defeat its opponents on the Right and on the Pop-Left. The easiest to defeat are the Lib-kin. But all the Lib-clones have to be taken on and defeated. They will be.
There is no way to finesse this. The rogues have to be obliterated. They will be.
Radguy
Well done, the Right have to be challenged on social media. I am currently battling anti-vaxxers there.
But money where mouth is, Green achievements in 21st Century please.
The US interferes in the politics and elections of most nations.
Makes me laugh when they complain about some Russian and Chinese bloggers doing tweets and having facebook pages, whilst the Democrats fraudulently sideline Sanders. Meanwhile there Israel and US organise the coup in Ukraine and fomenting war near the Russian border. But it is ok if they do it…in Iraq, Iran, Egypt, Libya, Venezuela, Syria, Ukraine…along with the usual killing.
Looks like more anti-Lib Kin activities. Was the ‘Brigade’ involved?
An envelope containing an unknown powder and addressed to Greens senator Sarah Hanson-Young has been sent to the party’s South Australian state office.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-05-20/sarah-hanson-young-sent-package-containing-powder-suspicious/11131900?pfmredir=sm
PuffyTMD says:
Wednesday, May 29, 2019 at 10:37 pm
Radguy.
I forgot. The Greens have not made one iota of difference to stopping environmental degradation of Australia, in the 21st Century.
Just saying.
If only it were true that they have made no difference. This does them a dis-service. They have made everything so much more difficult.
Briefly
I am playing nice.
The Greens are total loonies and on their way to being US loony types – the extremist shouting left in the US, totally irrational lost it, everybody looking for a triviality to be offended by.
They attract people who are fanatical about environmental issues, but another half who are just fanatical about having something to hate or rebel against. Like acting out teenagers, refusing to be rational.
Radguy,
BTW
How does helping elect a Coalition gov’t help stop foreign interference in our government? At least you might be able to shame a Labor gov’t into action.
I’m into politics, nath. Pure and simple politics. I’m not into anything that hints of violence or physical threat.
But meme on. Meme as much as you like.
Salk @ #479 Wednesday, May 29th, 2019 – 11:09 pm
Yeah, that’s not what Russia did. What Russia actually did (among other things) was hack into the servers of one side (illegal), copy off a bunch of emails (illegal), offer them to the other side, have the other side express great enthusiasm in getting them and quite probably offer to drop sanctions on Russia in exchange (illegal, probably treason), and then coordinate their release to maximize political damage to the first side.
The behaviour of the Greens has the opposite effect of what they apparently want to happen.
Showing yourself to be extremists means most will discount you as being irrational, over the top, and your policies being thus dangerous to the country. Their own behavior and approach costs them credibility with the general public, being closer to a religious group than political.
Yes – How interesting, just reading about the history of the casualisation of the Australian work force via ABC fact check.
These are the views on the matter of Professor John Quiggin from QLD University
“In general the period from the 1980’s to the mid 1990’s was one in which workers lost ground over working conditions” he said
The prevalence of long working hours unpaid overtime and casualisation all increased”
“Now who was in power through the eighties and early nineties”? “I can’t quite remember… oh that’s right it was Labor”.
If you want to find the root cause of Federal Labor’s woes the Hawke Keating years are a good place to start.
I don’t do win at any cost.
briefly
says:
Wednesday, May 29, 2019 at 11:16 pm
I’m into politics, nath. Pure and simple politics. I’m not into anything that hints of violence or physical threat.
But meme on. Meme as much as you like.
_______________________
Don’t undersell yourself. Forming a Brigade to combat the Greens, obliterating them as you just posted. You’re only a really bad day away I suspect.
Lucky Creed,
That one was done to death on this blog a little while ago.
You are late to the party.
It’s over.
The beer is flat.
Well this was patently false.
“Yeah, that’s not what Russia did. What Russia actually did (among other things) was hack into the servers of one side (illegal), copy off a bunch of emails (illegal), offer them to the other side, have the other side express great enthusiasm in getting them and quite probably offer to drop sanctions on Russia in exchange (illegal, probably treason), and then coordinate their release to maximize political damage to the first side.”
The Democrat emails copied (and you may note the DNC refused to allow the FBI to look at their server) were done so on to a USB stick, that recent timing analysis showed could be the only possible method of their being taken, from the logging.
And of course it was Seth Rich, the DNC guy who did it, handed it on, then get killed not long after, in a ‘hit’. And sadly even one of the leaked emails mentioned a ‘wetworks’ going down, and to hang tight. (wetworks is euphemism for a planned murder/hit…and I wonder who it was…….)
I think they only people who now believe the nonsense you posted are the very people who know who exactly took the data.
Salk, this isn’t true, and I’m not going to let you persist with this sort of garbage.
A R
That is a good summary of the matter. But it’s Lock Her Up for some reason, not the treasonous warts that did it.
Yup. The labour market is a shocker. It needs to be reformed.
This will not happen unless a Labor Government is elected. This cannot happen as long as dysfunction on the Left persists.
Get used to it.
It’s bad enough now. It can get worse. It will get worse with the Libs in power.
Northern Ireland has a long history of paramilitary Brigades involvement in violence and politics
labels like “brigades” or “army council” combine political and military violence in a coordinated effort to control streets and suburbs:
Salk
That is getting into tin-foil-hat territory.
“What Russia actually did (among other things) was hack into the servers of one side (illegal),”
According to Crowdstrike, a Clinton affiliate who destroyed the data on the servers without forwarding it to the FBI for forensic analysis.
That’s what the people who lied us into war are using as evidence.
“How does helping elect a Coalition gov’t help stop foreign interference in our government? At least you might be able to shame a Labor gov’t into action.”
What difference does it make when you have supposed lefties here advocating for the US right wing empire?