Foreign affairs and Senate preferences

A comprehensive new survey on attitudes to foreign affairs, and deeper-than-ever dive into Senate voting and the preference question.

We’re still yet to have a new poll of federal voting intention after the election, for whatever that may still be worth, but I would imagine Newspoll will be breaking its drought to mark next week’s resumption of parliament. We do, however, have one of the Lowy Institute’s occasional surveys on attitudes to foreign affairs, the results of which are attractively presented on the organisation’s website.

The headline topic of the poll is Sino-American relations, and the results point to a sharp decline in trust towards China, which a clear majority of respondents rated the “world’s leading economic power”. Even clearer majorities, of around three-quarters, believed China was pursuing regional domination, and that Australia should do more to resist its military activities even if it affected our too-close economic relationship.

However, the poll also finds a further decline in trust in the United States, to add to the body-blow it took when Donald Trump was elected. Of particular interest here are the age breakdowns. Whereas there was little to distinguish the age cohorts in their positive view of the US on Obama’s watch, respondents in their youth and early middle-age now take a substantially more negative view than older ones.

Relatedly, the highly negative and worsening view of Trump personally, while evident across all age cohorts, is most pronounced among the young. This carries through to a head-to-head question on whether respondents should prioritise strong relations with the United States or China, with a majority of those aged 18-30 favouring China, and a large majority of the 60-plus cohort favouring the United States.

Beyond that, the survey offers no end of interesting material:

• Respondents were asked about their satisfaction with democracy – which, one often reads, is in freefall throughout the western world, particularly among the young. However, the Lowy Institute’s yearly tracking of this question going back to 2012 doesn’t show any such thing. If anything, there seems to be a slight trend in favour of the response that “democracy is preferable to any other kind of government”, which is up three on last year at 65%. While the young are less sold on this notion than the old, there has been a solid improving trend among the 18-to-30 cohort, with this year’s result up six on last year’s to 55%, a new high over the course of the series.

• Evaluations were sought on a limited sample of foreign leaders, specifically concerning whether they could be trusted in world affairs. Donald Trump ranked down alongside Vladimir Putin, while Jacinda Ardern recorded near-unanimous acclaim, with 88% expressing either a lot of or some confidence. New Zealand was rated “Australia’s best friend” out of six available options by 59%, up from six since 2017.

• Brexit was rated a bad thing for the United Kingdom by 62%, a bad thing for the European Union by 70%, and a bad thing for the West in general by 58%. The UK’s rating on a “feelings thermometer” fell six points, to 76.

• Concern about climate change maintained an upward trajectory, with 61% favouring action “even if this involves significant costs”. The long-range trend on this question going back to 2006 suggests climate change is less of a problem when Labor are in office.

• Views on immigration were less negative than last year, after a significant hardening of opinion between 2014 and 2018. However, the immigration rate was still held to be too high by 48% of all respondents, and a very large majority of older ones.

The survey was conducted online and by telephone from March 12 to 25 from a sample of 2130.

The second part of today’s lesson relates to Senate preference flows, from which we can obtain no end of information thanks to the Australian Electoral Commission’s publication of the data files containing the preference order for every single ballot paper. By contrast, we’re still waiting on the two-party preference splits the AEC eventually publishes for each party in the House of Representatives. There will be a lot of analysis of this information here over the coming weeks, but for starters I offer the following:

This shows, from left to right, the rate of voters’ adherence to their favoured party’s how-to-vote-card; the rate at which minor party voters’ preference orders favoured Labor over the Coalition or vice-versa, or neither in the event that they did not number either party (“two-party”); and a similar three-way measure that throws the Greens into the mix (“three-party”).

This shows that United Australia Party voters heavily favoured the Coalition over Labor, but not because they were following the party’s how-to-vote cards, a course followed by around 0.1% of the total electorate. One Nation preferences were only slightly less favourable to the Coalition, and even fewer of the party’s voters followed the card. Since One Nation’s preferences in the lower house split almost evenly in 2016, out of the 15 seats where they ran, it seems safe to assume a shift in One Nation preferences accounted for a substantial chunk of the two-party swing to the Coalition. I will calculate Senate preference flows from 2016 for comparison over the next few days.

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.

1,777 comments on “Foreign affairs and Senate preferences”

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  1. Opposition Leader Anthony Albanese has told shadow cabinet the Labor Party needs to “gut” the policy platform, citing the need to streamline “LGBTIQ” references to gay rights.
    …
    During the shadow cabinet meeting, Mr Albanese also complained about leaks to journalists.

    The Labor leader told the shadow ministers they might have noticed the material for the meeting was distributed only an hour before the meeting and he said there was a reason for that.

    Mr Albanese indicated there had been more leaks in the past three weeks – largely about shadow cabinet’s position on the tax cuts, including to The New Daily – than there had been in the past six years. He indicated that needed to stop.

    https://thenewdaily.com.au/news/2019/06/30/gay-rights-labor-party/

  2. Peter FitzSimons@Peter_Fitz
    10h10 hours ago

    FANTASTIC speech by Kerry O’Brien at #Logies2019 defending the #ABC and blowing away among other things the tawdry journalism of denying climate change, while he also eloquently spoke on the virtues of the #Uluru Statement From the Heart.
    A speech of real substance. Bravo.

  3. So what do these 3 countries with despotic rulers have in common?

    Brazil – Balsanaro
    Turkey – Erdogan
    Australia – Morrison

    Answer? Donald Trump targeted these 3 at the G20 conference to join him in ratting in their Paris climate change commitments.

  4. ‘… there had been more leaks in the past three weeks – largely about shadow cabinet’s position on the tax cuts, including to The New Daily – than there had been in the past six years. He indicated that needed to stop.’

    Labor MPs know better than anyone how Albo got the leadership, and it wasn’t in a way that builds unity or trust. I’ve said it before – at this stage in his leadership, that’s what he should be focusing on.

  5. Good morning Dawn Patrollers.

    David Crowe writes that Morrison has vowed to take his $158 billion income tax package to the Senate within days to force a decision on his flagship policy, as the new Parliament meets amid another storm over the leadership spill that placed him in power.
    https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/morrison-goes-hard-on-tax-as-turnbull-ancient-history-dogs-the-government-20190630-p522om.html
    But the Grattan Institute says the final stage of the government’s tax plans would reduce progressivity and risk crowding out more substantive reforms for years.
    https://www.outline.com/jR7a7G
    “So where were all these Morrison mantras during the election campaign?”, asks Greg Jericho.
    https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/jun/30/so-where-were-all-these-morrison-mantras-during-the-election-campaign
    The Conversation has assembled a forecasting panel of 20 leading economists from 12 universities across six states and asked them for their views on the Australian economy and its various parameters.
    https://theconversation.com/buckle-up-2019-20-survey-finds-the-economy-weak-and-heading-down-and-thats-ahead-of-surprises-119455
    Katharine Murphy explains how when Malcolm Turnbull planned to bring on legislation giving effect to the national energy guarantee to stare down opposition from conservative dissidents in the Coalition party room, but pulled back after Peter Dutton and Christopher Pyne “went nuts”.
    https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2019/jul/01/malcolm-turnbull-pulled-back-from-neg-legislation-after-dutton-and-pyne-went-nuts
    In an excellent contribution Tony Walker warns us that acting on Iran has painful shades of joining the US in Iraq.
    https://www.smh.com.au/world/middle-east/acting-on-iran-has-painful-shades-of-joining-the-us-in-iraq-20190628-p5227h.html
    Sam Maiden explains how Anthony Albanese has told shadow cabinet the Labor Party needs to “gut” the policy platform, citing the need to streamline “LGBTIQ” references to gay rights.
    https://thenewdaily.com.au/news/2019/06/30/gay-rights-labor-party/
    David Crowe tells us that Trump has taken celebrity diplomacy to another astonishing level by strolling into a forbidden kingdom to meet “little rocket man” Kim Jong-un. He says Trump has built his political career on an outrageous ability to get attention for moments that are easily dismissed as stunts.
    https://www.smh.com.au/world/asia/trump-kim-meeting-stunts-and-bombast-in-high-stakes-reality-show-20190630-p522t0.html
    And Crowe says that when the world economy needs progress, the G20 summit is just a retreat.
    https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/when-the-world-economy-needs-progress-the-g20-summit-is-just-a-retreat-20190628-p522b8.html
    Shane Wright reports that world governments, including Australia, have been urged by the globe’s peak banking authority to stop relying on cheap money to boost their economies, with a warning about the build-up of major financial threats from low interest rates.
    https://www.theage.com.au/politics/federal/you-can-t-fly-on-one-wing-government-told-stop-relying-on-cheap-money-20190630-p522nr.html
    Karl Quinn reports on a fiery and well aim3d speech from Kerry O’Brien at the Logies last night.
    https://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/tv-and-radio/kerry-o-brien-issues-fiery-call-to-action-in-logies-hall-of-fame-speech-20190701-p522td.html
    Eryk Bagshaw says there is little political gain in opposing the full suite of tax cuts for Labor.
    https://www.smh.com.au/business/the-economy/little-political-gain-in-opposing-tax-cuts-for-labor-20190628-p5227d.html
    If we want to raise fearless, informed and capable children, we need to make sure that our desire to maintain their innocence doesn’t deny them important facts, writes Kasey Edwards.
    https://www.smh.com.au/lifestyle/life-and-relationships/maintaining-kids-innocence-doesn-t-mean-keeping-them-ignorant-20190629-p522ku.html
    The controversial scheme set up by George Pell to handle sex abuse claims against Melbourne’s Catholic Church spent almost as much money paying its independent commissioner as it did compensating hundreds of victims, reveals Farrah Tomazin.
    https://www.smh.com.au/politics/victoria/revealed-the-true-costs-of-george-pell-s-abuse-compensation-scheme-20190629-p522ju.html
    Michelle Grattan explains Scott Morrison’s religious freedom quagmire.
    https://www.canberratimes.com.au/story/6244950/scott-morrisons-religious-freedom-quagmire/?cs=14350
    According to The Guardian toxic coal waste has been found to be a ‘ticking time bomb’ across Australia.
    https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/jul/01/toxic-coal-waste-found-to-be-a-ticking-time-bomb-across-australia
    Afterpay is set to face its third query from the ASX within as many weeks after its shares dived after Visa revealed plans to enter the ‘buy now, pay later’ market.
    https://www.smh.com.au/business/companies/afterpay-expected-to-explain-visa-pain-20190630-p522oy.html
    A regional airline, Rex, has labelled accusations over its safety protocols as a “cowardly” and “malicious” attack from a leak the company believes came from within the national aviation watchdog.
    https://thenewdaily.com.au/news/2019/06/30/rex-safety-concerns/
    Daniel Burdon reports that DHS, the Commonwealth department in charge of Centrelink, has spent more than $800 million in the past two years on labour hire contractors to outsource thousands of public service jobs in call centres and compliance. What could possibly go wrong?
    https://www.canberratimes.com.au/story/6247607/dhs-outsources-881-million-worth-of-public-service-jobs/?cs=14350
    Gay Alcorn outlines five things Australia could do now to end poverty.
    https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2019/jul/01/it-is-not-a-pipe-dream-five-things-australia-could-do-now-to-end-poverty
    Domino’s has taken a battering on the share market since it hit its peak in 2016 and some investors are concerned there is more to come, writes Adele Ferguson.
    https://www.outline.com/GvEETk

    Cartoon Corner

    David Rowe at the DMZ.

    Pat Campbell on freedoms.

    Two good ones from Alan Moir.


    Matt Golding asks us to pick the liar.

    And he thinks The Logies have run their course.

    A cracker from Peter Broelman.

    Some catch up from Sean Leahy.





    Jon Kudelka and the Tassie health minister.

    From the US

    This effort got a cartoonist sacked from one paper.








  6. “A lot of people, who I know, would prefer to go back to jail compared to spending another winter on the street in Ballarat,” Mr Crockford said.

    “I’d be in jail, I’m not going to lie. If I had have been on the street, I probably wouldn’t have been able to do another winter.

    “Trouble was, I had nothing for them to get me for, so I couldn’t go back there.”

    Australian Council of Social Service senior adviser for community services and health, John Mikelsons, said community services across the country were experiencing budget cuts and funding freezes, as demand soared.

    “What we’ve seen is billions of dollars cut from programs and services that all of us rely on,” Mr Mikelsons said.

    https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-07-01/homeless-services-in-ballarat-stretched-to-double-capacity/11249132

  8. lizzie @ #1456 Monday, July 1st, 2019 – 7:34 am

    “A lot of people, who I know, would prefer to go back to jail compared to spending another winter on the street in Ballarat,” Mr Crockford said.

    “I’d be in jail, I’m not going to lie. If I had have been on the street, I probably wouldn’t have been able to do another winter.

    “Trouble was, I had nothing for them to get me for, so I couldn’t go back there.”

    Australian Council of Social Service senior adviser for community services and health, John Mikelsons, said community services across the country were experiencing budget cuts and funding freezes, as demand soared.

    “What we’ve seen is billions of dollars cut from programs and services that all of us rely on,” Mr Mikelsons said.

    https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-07-01/homeless-services-in-ballarat-stretched-to-double-capacity/11249132

    lizzie,
    Just to balance the despondency about homelessness in Victoria a little bit, I came across this good news story the other day:

    “There’s going to be snorers, of course, there’s always snorers. It’s so depressing, you’re sleeping with your sneakers, everything you own, because it will be stolen.

    “They’re nothing like this at all.”

    Damien is referring to Ozanam House, the new 10-level homelessness supercentre on Flemington Road in North Melbourne. It will be Australia’s largest accommodation service for rough sleepers when it opens its doors in the coming weeks.

    https://www.theage.com.au/politics/victoria/would-we-want-to-live-here-inside-australia-s-newest-largest-homeless-shelter-20190628-p522ch.html

    And it looks amazing!

  9. zoomster

    I don’t know how they’ll deal with the demand!

    Meanwhile, the crazy bureaucracy is wasting money on labour hire contractors to outsource thousands of public service jobs.

  10. Let me get this straight. When Labor were decapitating federal leaders/PMs, it was all the Coalition in Opposition, and the media they fed their lines to, could talk about. Day after day, after month, after year.

    On the other hand, when the Coalition do it to their own, well, that’s ‘ancient history’ and everyone is encouraged to assume the goldfish position and swim on!?!

    So, can the media in this country just start ignoring what Scott Morrison tells them to do? Because he wants to whip you into a malleable shape, and we really don’t need things to be that way with this guy.

  13. Doug Cameron
    @SenatorDoug
    46m46 minutes ago

    The former Labor minister Martin Ferguson is once again promoting @LiberalAus policy on tax cuts. He is a highly paid mouthpiece for the business sector who has forgotten where he came from! Never thought much of him, even less now.

  14. “…But the Grattan Institute says the final stage of the government’s tax plans would reduce progressivity and risk crowding out more substantive reforms for years.”

    That’s exactly what they are intended to achieve, especially the latter.

  15. Emma Dawson@DawsonEJ
    12h12 hours ago

    Don’t pass stage 3, @JacquiLambie. Make the government send it to a senate inquiry so you can all do what the senate is there for and examine the impact of the loss of that $95 billion on government hospitals, pensions, schools and infrastructure. That’s the responsible course.

  17. One of the first two cabinet ministers to quit parliament after last year’s Liberal leadership coup described Prime Minister Scott Morrison as an “absolute arsehole,” an explosive new book claims.

    Michael Keenan, who served as justice minister under Scott Morrison when he was immigration minister, made the comments to colleagues at a lunch at the Garum Restaurant in Perth in April 2018, just months before Mr Morrison became leader.

    According to Plots and Prayers, political commentator Niki Savva’s new book about last year’s leadership stoush, Mr Keenan told his West Australian colleagues, including Finance Minister Mathias Cormann, Attorney-General Christian Porter and Mr Morrison’s chief ally Ben Morton, that Mr Morrison was an “absolute arsehole”.

    “Porter joined in, saying he did not think Morrison was a team player. Cormann said he had seen Morrison up close now, and, in his opinion, Dutton was better,” Savva wrote in her book to be released on Tuesday.

    https://www.theage.com.au/politics/federal/former-government-minister-offers-explosive-character-assessment-of-scott-morrison-in-new-book-20190630-p522sy.html

  22. Remember that Kevin Rudd’s wife sold her business, just to be sure.

    @AaronDodd
    11h11 hours ago

    .@PeterDutton_MP, having been through a divorce I can most certainly assure you that you have a substantial personal financial interest in your wife’s business. To pretend otherwise is insulting to our collective intelligence. #auspol

  24. From the 8:36 am link a warning Malcolm should have heeded.
    .
    .
    As the editor of this biography, it falls to me to make a personal judgement on the life of the man I am studying……………He seems to me to be a combative, greedy and uncaring person who has brutally clawed his way up through the heirarchies of each of his employers leaving many behind who would rue having met him. He seems to be applying the same skill-set to his political life and it would be well for Tony Abbott to watch his back.

  25. Excerpt from an open letter to their Trump supporting family. You see similar things happening here: people only engaging with views that align with their own, hyper partisanship.

    You’ve stopped paying attention to anyone who doesn’t agree with your crystallized view of the world. You’re the mosquito of the Reagan era, completely unaware the sap has long hardened around you into amber. And frankly, it’s not even particularly pretty amber. It’s dull, opaque, muffled. You can’t see or hear through it and you don’t want to.

    But to be honest with you, I’ve lost all interest in trying to break you free. At first, I really wanted to. I wanted you to understand how the promise of America was broken. I wanted you to see so we could find some way to fix it. But every time I tried, you trotted out some line you heard Trump spew (none of which make any sense whatsoever, by the way) or that some Fox News commentator has conned you into thinking reflects reality. So I’m done.

    The America I believed in doesn’t exist. Instead, it’s a different country now, irretrievably. I get a bit melancholy about it sometimes, because promise and hope and opportunity are like political endorphins, and I miss them. And I miss you. I miss having conversations about our lives as though you hadn’t abandoned everything we ever believed in. I miss seeing your smiling faces without having to hold back a political tirade. I miss spending time with you without constantly wondering how you sleep at night knowing what this country is doing to the defenseless.

    Surely by now you’ve seen the AP’s recent photo of an El Salvadoran man and his two and a half year-old daughter who drowned as they fled the violence in their home country, hoping to seek asylum in America. They drowned because Trump won’t let them claim asylum at the border entry points. He’s denying them the safety and promise that America used to stand for. Many observers who haven’t yet fully recognized their prior delusions are saying, “This isn’t what we stand for.” But it is. It’s exactly what America stands for.

    And that is why I’m done with you and your ilk. We’re still family; you raised me; we share the same blood. But we come from and live in two different countries.

    Sincerely,

    Matthew

    http://mydaughtersarmy.org/open-letter-to-my-trump-supporting-family/

  28. Confessions @ #1475 Monday, July 1st, 2019 – 8:49 am

    Excerpt from an open letter to their Trump supporting family. You see similar things happening here: people only engaging with views that align with their own, hyper partisanship.

    Matthew comes across as quite reasonable. It’s only his Trump-supporting family that’s doing the hyper-partisanship. May they be forever disowned. 🙂

  29. ETTD no. 702,984.

    In an alternative universe — let’s call it Earth 2 — the Singapore summit in June 2018 between President Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un was swiftly followed by a full and complete accounting of North Korea’s weapons of mass destruction. Teams of lower-level U.S. and North Korean negotiators then spent the next seven months hammering out the details of “complete, verifiable, irreversible denuclearization” — the goal set by the Trump administration. At every turn, the North Korean side proved more accommodating than expected. Clearly Kim was a different ruler from his father and grandfather. So determined was he to kick-start North Korea’s economic development that he was willing to give up the nuclear weapons that his regime had spent decades and countless billions of dollars developing.

    Only a few final issues remained to be negotiated when Kim and Trump met again in Hanoi in February. But after several days of arduous, painstaking negotiations, the two leaders reached a breakthrough. And then, on June 30, 2019, Trump traveled to the demilitarized zone separating North Korea and South Korea to sign a denuclearization treaty with Kim. Shortly thereafter, teams of international inspectors began swarming all over North Korea to begin dismantling and carting away its nuclear, chemical, biological and missile facilities. Trump won the Nobel Peace Prize and claimed vindication for writing, after the Singapore summit, “There is no longer a Nuclear Threat from North Korea.”

    Back on Earth 1, needless to say, events have followed a different path. More than a year after the Singapore summit, North Korea still has not delivered an accounting of its weapons of mass destruction programs — the prerequisite for real progress on dismantlement. North Korea has continued to build nuclear weapons and missiles; it is now more dangerous than it was a year ago.

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2019/06/30/crossing-dmz-road-nowhere/?utm_term=.bb57a71ee363

  30. a r:

    Yes it’s pretty obvious that Matthew’s time in the Navy, seeing places and people beyond US shores has given him a perspective on things that his family are desperately lacking. His family are stuck in a Trumpist/Fox News bubble. I’d disown them too!

  31. Confessions says: Monday, July 1, 2019 at 9:12 am

    Back on Earth 1, needless to say, events have followed a different path. More than a year after the Singapore summit, North Korea still has not delivered an accounting of its weapons of mass destruction programs — the prerequisite for real progress on dismantlement. North Korea has continued to build nuclear weapons and missiles; it is now more dangerous than it was a year ago.

    ********************************************************************

    Trump Has Gotten Less From North Korea Than Any Previous President

    Don’t be fooled by the photo ops, Donald Trump is doing more for North Korea and getting less from them than any previous president.

    Look this comparison of how presidents over the last quarter century have done with North Korea compared to Trump:

    Trump got conned into being the first president to set foot on North Korean soil and then bragged about getting suckered.

    Donald Trump has left negotiations to get North Korea to end their nuclear program with nowhere to go. He has already given Kim Jong-un all of the biggest incentives for compliance while getting zilch in return.

    https://www.politicususa.com/2019/06/30/trump-dmz-north-koirea.html

  32. ‘One of the first two cabinet ministers to quit Parliament after last year’s Liberal leadership coup described Prime Minister Scott Morrison as an “absolute arsehole,” an explosive new book claims….’

    Come on Dutters, you know you want it……

  33. The ALP were able to drop the CPRS and Carbon Tax following election losses despite it being the Greatest blah blah blah. The MRRT disappeared along with Grocery Watch, People’s Summit and many other failed policies.
    But! The ALP is maintaining opposition to the Tax Cuts that it lost the election opposing.
    Geniuses.
    I do hope they continue with these tactics. #winning

  35. Bucephalus

    You just want it because you are one of the 3.8% who will get, what was it 25% , 30% ? , of the cut.

  36. Confessions says: Monday, July 1, 2019 at 9:29 am

    phoenixRed:

    Everything Trump Touches Dies!

    **********************************************

    ……. and so does anyone who upsets his ‘mates’ …..

  37. Confessions says:
    Monday, July 1, 2019 at 9:14 am

    Alternatively, in such a large organisation it is unsurprising that there is a diverse range of political views. I went to Duntroon with a guy who is an avowed Marxist.

  39. Don’t be fooled by the photo ops, Donald Trump is doing more for North Korea and getting less from them than any previous president.

    There’s a saying for that:

    ‘All show, no go.’

    Trump is the master of that sort of political fakery. Scott ‘AA’ Morrison gives him a run for his money.

  41. Bucephalus @ #1487 Monday, July 1st, 2019 – 9:33 am

    Confessions says:
    Monday, July 1, 2019 at 9:14 am

    Alternatively, in such a large organisation it is unsurprising that there is a diverse range of political views. I went to Duntroon with a guy who is an avowed Marxist.

    Oh god, I should have known you were an Army berk.

  43. Urban Wronski@UrbanWronski
    18m18 minutes ago

    Niki Savva wrong about Morrison still living “in a modest house in Sutherland Shire” during the election campaign. ScoMo had already moved out of Port Hacking and installed himself in Kirribilli House barely four weeks after the coup.

  44. 😆 😆 😆

    “BEING SOMEONE’S DAUGHTER ISN’T A CAREER QUALIFICATION”: AOC RIPS IVANKA AT G20

    A viral video of Ivanka Trump’s awkward exchange with foreign leaders has Democrats questioning her role in the Trump administration.

    BY KEVIN FITZPATRICK
    JUNE 30, 2019

    The G20 circus continues—this time without President Trump as its ringleader. Capping off a whiplash-inducing weekend of her father laughing off Russian election meddling and sparring with Jimmy Carter, Ivanka Trump assumed the spotlight Saturday with an awkward interjection toward Canadian and U.K. leaders, earning a solid burn by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in the process.

    It all started when footage of Trump’s eldest daughter at the G20 summit went viral, showcasing Ivanka’s labored attempt to join a conversation circle that included French President Emmanuel Macron, British Prime Minister Theresa May, and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. The expression on International Monetary Fund director Christine Lagarde, who seemed especially determined to ignore the fashion designer-turned-presidential adviser, was particularly cringe-inducing.

    https://twitter.com/ParhamGhobadi/status/1145074623035449357

    Ivanka’s questionable role in her father’s administration is nothing new, but Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez put a fine point on the embarrassing exchange over Twitter. “It may be shocking to some, but being someone’s daughter actually isn’t a career qualification,” Ocasio-Cortez wrote. “It hurts our diplomatic standing when the President phones it in & the world moves on. The US needs our President working the G20. Bringing a qualified diplomat couldn’t hurt either.”

    https://twitter.com/aoc/status/1145164720242118656

    California representative Ted Lieu likewise questioned Ivanka’s purpose in attending the G20 summit, simultaneously noting that she’d blocked him on social media.

    https://twitter.com/tedlieu/status/1145198686219038720

    Trump otherwise participated in the weekend’s G20 summit by speaking in the Special Event on Women’s Empowerment forum. “Every nation, including the United States, can — and should — do more,” she said of elevating women in the workforce, according to The Japan Times. “If we propose bold solutions and challenge the limits of the past, we’ll empower women to lift their families out of poverty, to grow the economies in their countries and to deliver greater peace and prosperity to millions around the world.”

    The White House has yet to respond to Ocasio-Cortez’s words, but a presidential tweet or heckling from the Trump boys can’t be far behind.

    The video is cringeworthy. But worth watching for the looks on the faces of the leaders of actual substance.

  45. Perhaps he is suffering from one of the current seasonal maladies, but Matthias Cormann’s throat clearing in his interview with Fran Kelly this morning sounded as if he were somewhat uncomfortable with aspects of her questioning.

    https://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/breakfast/new-book-plots-and-prayers-dissects-malcolm-turnbulls-demise/11266386

    Later on in the program Fran also interviewed Nikki Sava about her new book on last year’s leadership coup. Fran had based some of her questions to Cormann on material in this book.

    https://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/breakfast/new-book-plots-and-prayers-dissects-malcolm-turnbulls-demise/11266386

  46. Who rules Twitter? What connection do they have with our RW govt? They seem very trigger happy atm.

    There is no basis in law for keeping unsolicited threats “Private and Confidential“. Stockbroker and writer Ben Pauley got one of these emails from Minter Ellison last week.

    At law, this is no different than sending a letter to somebody saying you are going to come around and kick their dog unless they pay you money – while expecting they won’t tell anybody because you have put “Private and Confidential” at the top of your letter.

    We subsequently took a screen shot of the threat and tweeted it. Twitter then slapped @michaelwestbiz with a 12 hour ban – no tweeting, no reasonable explanation, muzzled – and demanded the supposedly offending post be removed on grounds that the tweet broke the Twitter rules on “privacy”. We were advised by Twitter that we had published the letter without permission.

    In fact, we did have permission and, further, we did not republish the defamatory imputations, just the top of the letter.

    Minters was acting on behalf of David Mendelawitz, the chief executive of speculative Perth mining company, Indiaore, whose shares are suspended (last trade 0.069c per share, market value $16.5 million, return versus ASX200 over the past year -60.5 per cent).

    Having subsequently checked this company, Indiaore, we discovered they were trying to raise money from their shareholders without producing, as is required, audited financial statements for 180 days. On behalf of Indiore shareholders therefore, we have lodged a complaints with the corporate regulator.

    https://www.michaelwest.com.au/indiaore-and-twitter-one-good-suspension-deserves-another/

  47. Piers Morgan lashes out at ‘annoying’ AOC for attacking ‘brilliant’ Ivanka as ‘not qualified’

    ……….. bigoted has-been Piers Morgan quipped that it “Could be worse… Ivanka could have been a bar-tender 18 months ago.

    True to form, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez ended up delivering the smartest retort: “Actually, that would make government better – not worse. Imagine if more people in power spent years of their lives actually working for a living. We’d probably have healthcare and living wages by now.”

  49. Jacqueline Phillips, director of policy and advocacy at Acoss, says our system is riddled with the notion that poverty is the fault of the poor.

    “The community sector points to the structural drivers of poverty and disadvantage and others emphasise personal responsibility,” she says. “That’s partly why we’ve ended up with all these programs like income management which are all based on the assumption that individuals on welfare are somehow defective. There’s individual behaviour issues at play and policies are designed to change those behaviours rather than changing the structure.”

    There is evidence that none of these assumptions is true and that poverty cannot be addressed without changing them. Bregman outlines the theories of Eldar Shafir, a psychologist at Princeton University, and his “science of scarcity”. Poverty consumes people to such an extent that they can focus only on the short term – how to pay the rent, how to pay the bills, buying a needed pair of shoes. There’s never a break, never the space to think about the longer term. Poor people “are not making dumb decisions because they are dumb, but because they are living in a context in which anyone would make dumb decisions”.

    https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2019/jul/01/it-is-not-a-pipe-dream-five-things-australia-could-do-now-to-end-poverty?CMP=share_btn_tw

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