I had a paywalled article in Crikey on the conclusion of the Senate election result, which among other things had this to say:
The Coalition went into the election with 31 senators out of 76 and comes out with 35 — and may be about to go one better if there is anything behind suggestions that Cory Bernardi is set to rejoin the Liberal Party. That would leave the government needing the support of only three crossbenchers to win contested votes.
That could be achieved with the two votes of the Centre Alliance plus that of Jacqui Lambie, who is newly restored to the Senate after falling victim to the Section 44 imbroglio in late 2017. Lambie appears to be co-operating closely with the Centre Alliance, having long enjoyed a warm relationship with the party’s founder Nick Xenophon.
Such a voting bloc would relieve the Morrison government of the need to dirty its hands in dealing with One Nation — though it could certainly do that any time the Centre Alliance members felt inspired to take liberal positions on such issues as asylum seekers and expansion of the national security state.
Since then, talk of Cory Bernardi rejoining the Liberal Party has moved on to suggestions he will leave parliament altogether, creating a casual vacancy that would stand to be filled by the Liberal Party. Bernardi announced he would deregister his Australian Conservatives party on Thursday following its failure to make an impression at the election, and told Sky News the next day that it “might be best for me to leave parliament in the next six months”, although he also said he was “unresolved”. Paul Starick of The Advertiser reports that sources on both sides of the SA Liberal Party’s factional divide say the front-runner would be Georgina Downer, daughter of the former Foreign Minister and twice-unsuccessful lower house candidate for Mayo. The party’s Senate tickets usually pair moderate and Right faction members in the top two positions, and Downer would take a place for the Right that was filled in 2016 by Bernardi, with the other incumbent up for re-election in 2022 being moderate-aligned Simon Birmingham.
In other news, Simon Jackman and Luke Mansillo of the University of Sydney have posted slides from a detailed conference presentation on the great opinion poll failure. Once you get past the technical detail on the first few slides, this shows trend measures that attempt to ascertain the true underlying position throughout the parliamentary term, based on both polling and the actual results from both 2016 and 2019. This suggests the Coalition had its nose in front in Malcolm Turnbull’s last months, and that Labor only led by around 51-49 after he was dumped. An improving trend for the Coalition began in December and accelerated during the April-May campaign period. Also included is an analysis of pollster herding effects, which were particularly pronounced for the Coalition primary vote during the campaign period. Labor and Greens primary vote readings were more dispersed, in large part due to Ipsos’s pecularity of having low primary votes for Labor (accurately, as it turned out) and high ones for the Greens (rather less so).
And “red tape”. Remember the last attack on red tape in Abbott’s time? It produced a lot of small spelling and grammar corrections, and not much else. I’m more worried about them attacking “green tape”, relaxing restrictions on development and clearing.
@lizzie
Yup!
Listening to this clip of Mike Pence, it could be Morrison, Frydenberg or Angus Taylor.
China and India doing nothing: Tick
Increasing household utility bills for Americans: Tick
Clean coal technology: Tick
Natural gas: Tick
Nuclear energy: Tick
From the BK files. Thanks BK for the ✔ Dawn Patrol. ✔
Former Australian captain Liz Ellis has hit out against Netball Australia’s stance on the Folau issue.
https://www.smh.com.au/national/serious-concerns-judge-faces-scrutiny-over-alleged-unfairness-20190619-p51z4v.htmlhttps://www.smh.com.au/sport/rugby-union/not-good-enough-ellis-slams-netball-s-inaction-over-maria-folau-s-support-for-husband-20190623-p520gh.html
In a statement on Sunday just before the Thunderbirds’ match against the NSW Swifts in Adelaide, Netball South Australia chief executive Bronwyn Klei said: “I want to be very clear that Netball South Australia is fiercely determined to provide an inclusive environment that allows anyone to participate in the great game of netball regardless of gender, religious belief, age, race or sexual orientation. We also believe in fairness and perspective.
This may be a case of eating one’s triple layer sponge cake (with whipped cream and ice cream) and keeping it as well.
Cold and wet in Newcastle this morning. Currently 12℃. ☕
This is a great column by Carole Cadwalladr about the links between Boris Johnson and Steve Bannon and Bannon’s project to inject White Nationalism into Europe and the UK via Populist leaders:
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/jun/22/boris-johnson-steve-bannon-texts-foreign-secretary-resignation-speech
Confessions @ #353 Monday, June 24th, 2019 – 8:06 am
Notice how the words, ‘Renewable Energy’, are NEVER mentioned? Too Socialist I s’pose. 😐
Gittins sounding a bit ‘Nicholas’ with ……………….
C@t:
Like many jesus freaks Pence believes that god will fix it.
I would hazard a guess that it is because we don’t undermine the quality of the blog.
What a contrast between Ash Barty and Israel Folau. They have both reached the pinnacle of their chosen sport but that is where the comparison ends.
Ah yes, Toned Ab’s ‘war on red tape’ , almost as big a flop as his PMship
.
.
To date, the Government has claimed red tape savings of $870,000 from three Statute Law Revision bills as part of its Red Tape Repeal Days, some of which involve updating spelling, grammar and punctuation. For example, changing “e-mail” to “email” and “facsimile” to “fax”. On a current count, these three bills remove: 40 hyphens, 2 commas, 1 inverted comma; change 2 full stops to semi-colons, 1 semi-colon to a full stop; and insert 1 full stop, 1 colon, 1 hyphen and 1 comma.
https://www.tonyburke.com.au/media-releases/2017/9/29/media-release-more-red-tape-repeal-incompetence
citizen
A ‘YUGER’ contrast is that between Barty and male brats Australia has on court.
“The Coalition went into the election with 31 senators out of 76 and comes out with 35″…
Yet another mystery wrapped up in a conundrum….
The voting morons have been just a whisker away from excelling themselves by giving this pathetic bunch of Neoliberal-Conservative lunatics full control of Parliament…
It won’t be difficult for ScuMo to give to whatever specific crossbenchers what they want, in order to pay for their vote…. No silly little bastardisation of whatever policies he has is an obstacle strong enough to deter him keeping hold on power…
Three more years of nonsense and decay….. Enjoy, everybody, and stay safe, only a big fat GFC-2 can clean the air in Australia, the morons, on their own, won’t!
From the SMH
[Franchisees have been invited to register with Britain’s biggest litigation funder Augusta, currently funding a class action against National Australia Bank and its former subsidiary Clydesdale Bank, agreeing to bankroll the class action.]
Ripped off franchisees seeing their recoverable losses shared with overseas funders is disturbing.
The goings-on at the US – Mexico border where children have been detained.
https://www.newyorker.com/news/q-and-a/inside-a-texas-building-where-the-government-is-holding-immigrant-children
A more contemporary view of the Fukushima contamination by the Washington Post. Most evacuees are back and the fishing and agricultural industries have restarted but the total cost of decontamination will be about $200 Billion and stretches into the unforeseeable future
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/eight-years-after-fukushimas-meltdown-the-land-is-recovering-but-public-trust-has-not/2019/02/19/0bb29756-255d-11e9-b5b4-1d18dfb7b084_story.html?noredirect=on&utm_term=.bb6805fd96e2
The economy falls through our shopping bag:
https://amp.theaustralian.com.au/nation/economy-falls-through-our-shopping-bags/news-story/c9fcea40c72881fa950f722a6c6500d0
The economy is awful but good for investors:
https://amp.abc.net.au/article/11239398
…itching (cough) to correct that writer’s misconceptions about lice treatment but realise that would be nitpicking. (Sorry).
Morning all
BK
The daily dawn patrol is always very appreciated
So, wake up to the economic illiterates doing Unions BOO!!….again……
FFS that there are actually people out there who are stupid enough to suck their kool-aid amazes me. 🙁
And just for balance Joel Fitzgibbon being an arsehole looking to his post politics career. 🙁
Hope he gets well crushed in caucus.
Getting rid of Setka, and sidelining Fitzgibbon would be a good way of cleaning out some of the idiot self interested elements the ALP has accumulated.
Sadly I think it might be time to cut up my Labor membership card if reports of them waving through the tax cuts are correct. Pity when I’d just renewed a few weeks ago.
Fess
As Australians, we have asylum seekers I
Nauru and manus island. And despite the reports that they are being mistreated, I doubt they go without reasonable care etc.
Several children have died in the US border camps.
When all is exposed, there will be lawsuits that will go on for years.
Shameful conduct by Trump and co.
Not another evacuation, on such a cold night.
https://www.theage.com.au/national/victoria/hundreds-evacuated-from-cbd-apartment-building-after-water-leak-20190624-p520ld.html
Wayfarer
Nah, when Labor’s making bad decisions, that’s the time to stay in and fight.
D&M….thanks. You’re a kind-hearted bludger. I hope the travels continue to delight.
Meanwhile I know that GG hasn’t been around
Since election, but is it simply due to hiatus after election result or something else?
ABC RN Breakfast’s interview with Fitzgibbon:
https://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/breakfast/morrison-govt-income-tax-cuts-remain-a-dilemma-for-labor/11239816
Lizzie
I have a family member who lives in the burbs and is thinking of making lifestyle change and live in CBD in apartment. I personally dont believe it will work for them for several reasons.
I’m hoping its situations like this, that may give this person pause.
Victoria:
There are still reportedly kids being held in cages, even though Trump said they weren’t doing this anymore. Incidentally, this was from a year ago and likely still sums up Trumpist views of the issue.
Victoria @ #377 Monday, June 24th, 2019 – 9:01 am
I keep thinking it may be due to the very successful campaign Mortgage Brokers ran against Labor in the federal election and he is embarrassed to be one of them right about now.
Peg
Thanks for the audio link.
I’m very wary of “we’ll fix it when we get back in charge”. Makes me wonder which ‘strategist’ is advising the Shadow Cabinet.
Meanwhile Boy Wonder’s attempts to bring peace in the Middle East are going so well he can’t even get Israelis and Palestinians together in the same room.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/investment-conference-is-latest-example-of-trump-administrations-struggle-to-advance-mideast-peace-plan/2019/06/22/c0c94764-936e-11e9-aadb-74e6b2b46f6a_story.html?utm_term=.1b0f68debfd7
Alpo says:
Monday, June 24, 2019 at 8:25 am
“The Coalition went into the election with 31 senators out of 76 and comes out with 35″…
Yet another mystery wrapped up in a conundrum….
The voting morons have been just a whisker away from excelling themselves by giving this pathetic bunch of Neoliberal-Conservative lunatics full control of Parliament…
There’s no point blaming voters for the result. The result reflects the action in politics and the economy over a prolonged period. Dysfunction on the left-of-centre is fanning support for the far right. This has happened before. As long as the dysfunction persists, the Right will continue to improve their standing.
This is now institutionally entrenched. The Right will implement their agenda. They have the means to do so now. The Australia we know will be unmade, top to bottom.
Victoria
It’s certainly made me sure I’d never want to live in a high rise. No lifts, no elec, water. 🙂
“You may wonder why people do not pick up Nicholas and Pegasus for the same offence – driving people away from the blog. ”
I scroll past most of Nicolas but at least those two are not the consistently gratuitously nasty gits that are some other posters.
“Nah, when Labor’s making bad decisions, that’s the time to stay in and fight.”
Agreed zoom. And the IR stuff is going to be shit. Even if they dont get the support to change laws, this is going to encourage employers to continue the nasty shit they have been doing in exploiting the legal loophole in the current laws.
On Tax, yeah i can see the ALP negotiating on stage 2, but we will be setting ourselves up for crap in the next campaign if we agree to stage 3….which is crap policy anyway. Bugger any silly argument on the question of mandate on this one. Its just crap policy.
So. Morrison is going to try and make life harder for all those twits who voted Coalition by using the majority to propose IR Reform (which is just code for ‘squash workers further to feather the collective nests of big business’).
Australians are getting the government they deserve, it seems.
“There’s no point blaming voters for the result. ”
Yes there is. They voted against their interests and we got a crap result for the country.
That said we now have to convince enough of those idiots to change their vote and still put up policy thats good for the country. Difficult marketing job i’ll admit but thats the task ahead.
Fess
It is appalling. Not to excuse our own conduct with asylum seekers, but we have a very different problem with people smugglers putting people on leaky boats, which had to be dealt with. The deterrents we have put in place are harsh and very costly to the taxpayer.
Whereas this cruelty by the US is just disgraceful.
C@t
Most likely. I just figured after a month, he would be back on board.
Eight Australian children, including the offspring of notorious Australian terrorist Khaled Sharrouf, have been evacuated from a Syrian refugee camp in a highly secret operation to rescue the orphaned children of slain Australian Islamic State fighters from the remnants of the so-called caliphate.
Yesterday, about 4.30pm Australian time, a convoy of vehicles moved into a refugee camp in northern Syria and picked up eight children, including Zaynab Sharrouf, Khaled’s heavily pregnant daughter.
In what amounts to the first organised return of Australians from the conflict zone, the children were collected by staff from a local aid agency, and driven overland into a coalition-controlled area of Iraq.
The Australian has been asked to withhold the exact location of the children’s final destination for security reasons.
It was the first stage in a long journey that will involve them being flown through transit hubs in the Middle East and elsewhere, then home to Australia where state authorities — and the community — will begin the challenging task of reintegrating broken and traumatised children into the society their parents abandoned. Scott Morrison confirmed the operation, welcoming the fact that children had been freed from the “bleak and complicated’’ situation in Syria.
“Repatriating these children was not a decision the Australian government made lightly,’’ the Prime Minister said. “Australia’s national security and the safety of our people and personnel have always been our most important considerations in this matter.’’
The children were Humzeh, 8, Hoda, 16, and Zaynab Sharrouf, 17, Khaled’s eldest daughter. Abdullah, 12, and Zarqawi, 11, were believed to have been killed with their father in 2017.
Also in the convoy were Zaynab’s two children, three-year-old Ayesha and two-year-old Fatima.
The three orphaned children of slain Australian Islamic State fighter Yasin Rizvic and his wife, Fauzia Khamal Bacha, also dead, were also among those evacuated.
Those children, two boys and a girl, are aged between six and 12.
They are expected to be resettled in Melbourne, where they lived with their family before decamping to the battlefields of Syria. A fourth child, the eldest, is believed to have been killed in Syria.
The operation was the culmination of weeks of careful planning by Australian government officials who have been working in secret with aid agencies and the Syrian government to evacuate Australian children stranded in the conflict zone.
The Morrison government has been adamant that no Australian official will be put in harm’s way to assist Australians who threw their lot in with Islamic State.
Privately, however, considerable efforts have been under way to repatriate unaccompanied Australian children, considered by the government to be the victims of their parents’ decisions. “The fact that parents put their children into harm’s way by taking them into a war zone was a despicable act,’’ Mr Morrison said. “However, children should not be punished for the crimes of their parent.”
Hmmm….glad to see QLD go down to NSW on the weekend. 🙂
The less stairs to walk up and down every day, the better for me. Plus closeness to the real world outside. 🙂
Behind the scenes: How Trump’s team staffed the U.S. government.
https://www.axios.com/donald-trump-presidential-transition-vetting-rnc-686f1655-8731-43fe-964b-819e541eaee3.html
imacca, the reasons we lost are:
– we campaigned against ourselves
– the Liberals ran a very effective campaign to rally their mob
– Palmer attracted working class voters away from Labor and routed them to the Liberals
– ON did the same thing in QLD and WA
– the Greens campaigned very effectively against Labor in QLD and this had spillover effects in NSW and WA
– we absolutely failed to focus on the three things that matter most to those voters that moved to the Liberals: jobs, household incomes, income security.
We tricked ourselves into thinking it would all be easy, would be fun, would be like the Victorian election. We let ourselves down. We let the country down. I’m only relieved it wasn’t much worse.
Briefly, considering that a few weeks before the election you were claiming the result would be a generational destruction for the Coalition perhaps political/electoral analysis is not your forte.
“Listening to this clip of Mike Pence, it could be Morrison, Frydenberg or Angus Taylor.
China and India doing nothing: Tick
Increasing household utility bills for Americans: Tick
Clean coal technology: Tick
Natural gas: Tick
Nuclear energy: Tick”
End-0f-Days pentacostal nutbag: Tick
Major beneficiary of fossil fuel sector donations and political support: Tick
Ashleigh Barty is the first Australian woman to be the world number one tennis player since Evonne Goolagong Cawley in 1976. It is a prodigious achievement.
‘poroti says:
Monday, June 24, 2019 at 8:20 am
Ah yes, Toned Ab’s ‘war on red tape’ , almost as big a flop as his PMship
.
.
‘ On a current count, these three bills remove: 40 hyphens, 2 commas, 1 inverted comma; change 2 full stops to semi-colons, 1 semi-colon to a full stop; and insert 1 full stop, 1 colon, 1 hyphen and 1 comma.’
This is genuinely funny stuff. These lunatics are accelerating Australia’s contribution to global warming and to the Anthropocene Extinction Event while waging war on commas and colons. Future generations are not going to judge them kindly.
Morrison is to give a speech in Perth today in which he will repeat the formula….it’s investment/jobs vs the environment/unions/taxes.
This is the mantra the Liberals have been using for 40 years in WA. It registers strongly with voters in WA, particularly because unemployment is high and rising. It is sufficiently persuasive that Labor’s PV here fell below 30% last month. The aggregate Labor+Green/Labor-positive plurality here is around 36%….way too low for WA to contribute to the election of a majority Federal Labor Government. We also have a large bunch of Lib-clones here that amplify Lib themes, meaning we have no allies here at all. We are beset by foes.
All told, Labor have not found a way to answer the Liberals that can deliver change in WA.