The latest of Essential Research’s fortnightly polls, which continue to limit themselves to issue questions in the wake of the great pollster failure, focuses mostly on the Israel Folau controversy. Respondents registered high levels of recognition of the matter, with 22% saying they had been following it closely, 46% that they had “read or seen some news”, and another 17% saying they were at least “aware”.
Probing further, the poll records very strong support for what seem at first blush to be some rather illiberal propositions, including 64% agreement with the notion that people “should not be allowed to argue religious freedom to abuse others”. However, question wording would seem to be very important here, as other questions find an even split on whether Folau “has the right to voice his religious views, regardless of the hurt it could cause others” (34% agree, 36% disagree), and whether there should be “stronger laws to protect people who express their religious views in public” (38% agree, 38% disagree). Furthermore, 58% agreed that “employers should not have the right to dictate what their employees say outside work”, which would seem to encompass the Folau situation.
Respondents were also asked who would benefit and suffer from the federal government’s policies over the next three years, which, typically for a Coalition government, found large companies and corporations expected to do best (54% good, 11% bad). Other results were fairly evenly balanced, the most negative findings relating to the environment (26% good, 33% bad) and, funnily enough, “older Australians” (26% good, 38% bad). The economy came in at 33% good and 29% bad, and “Australia in general” at 36% good and 27% bad. The poll was conducted last Tuesday to Saturday from a sample of 1099.
Also of note:
• A referendum on indigenous recognition may be held before the next election, after Aboriginal Affairs Minister Ken Wyatt’s announcement on Wednesday that he would pursue a consensus option for a proposal to go before voters “during the current parliamentary term”. It is clear the government would not be willing to countenance anything that went further than recognition, contrary to the Uluru Statement from the Heart’s call for a “First Nations Voice enshrined in the Constitution” – a notion derided as a “third chamber of parliament” by critics, including Scott Morrison.
• A paper in the University of Western Australia Law Review keeps the Section 44 pot astir by suggesting 26 current members of federal parliament may fall foul by maintaining a “right of abode” in the United Kingdom – a status allowing “practically the same rights” as citizenship even where citizenship has been formally renounced. The status has only been available to British citizens since 1983, but is maintained by citizens of Commonwealth countries who held it before that time, which they could do through marriage or descent. This could potentially be interpreted as among “the rights or privileges of a subject or citizen of a foreign power”, as per the disqualifying clause in Section 44. Anyone concerned by this has until the end of the month to challenge an election result within the 40 day period that began with the return of the writs on June 21. Action beyond that point would require referral by the House of Representatives or the Senate, as appropriate.
And that cut in the Deeming Rate is pathetic. Pensioners and their lobby groups shouldn’t allow themselves to be fobbed off and placated with it.
It will be fun watching the Coalition fundies and assorted god nuts realising one by one the danger such laws will impinge upon what they see as their ‘god given right’ to practise/inflict religious discrimination on others. 👿
zoom,
I wasn’t actually thinking about religious wingnut groups hassling the poor patients per se but just setting up a general protest about the hospital performing abortions, or even in Victoria, euthanasia. You’d think that the hospital wouldn’t be able to’discriminate’ about them carrying out what would then be their legal right to enter the premises and not be ‘discriminated against’ because of their religious views.
poroti @ #952 Sunday, July 14th, 2019 – 8:52 am
Although at the last election it seems they have twigged that getting the Muslims onside benefits them electorally as well.
poroti:
Exactly what I was thinking: unintended consequences.
Will a person with no stated or formal religious belief or adherence be afforded the same rights as the religious? What is a religious belief or adherence anyway? Will atheists be able to refuse to employ non-atheists on the grounds of belief?
C@tmomma
Poorleene would be popping open a bottle of Krug to celebrate if it happened. The Coalition just wrote her ‘SHARIA LAW IS COMING’ scare campaign . An electoral gift.
C@
I think you’d be removed from the hospital pretty quickly. As I said, schools are public institutions but you can’t just wander onto school grounds at will.
I had an interesting experience when teaching at a community operated organisation – a student was expelled for the day, but she sat outside the classroom and continued to hassle us. I was told she couldn’t be removed because it was a public space. It would not have been allowed at a school – she would have been removed by the police if necessary.
So public schools, though clearly public spaces, can restrict who enters.
zoomster @ #958 Sunday, July 14th, 2019 – 9:12 am
And I get that, however I’m just thinking ahead and wondering whether, once it’s enshrined in law, will it be a different kettle of fish?
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/jul/14/alastair-campbell-on-the-populist-virus-and-why-bill-shorten-lost
poroti @ #957 Sunday, July 14th, 2019 – 9:12 am
The Coalition are nothing if not subtle and they seem to have done this outreach into the Islamic community without Pauline Hanson twigging. Though that wouldn’t be too hard to do I admit. The Coalition appear to have done it via their community liaisons.
https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/he-s-a-strong-leader-morrison-accepts-invitation-to-visit-trump-in-us-20190713-p526w7.html
You thinking what I’m thinking?
Confessions @ #955 Sunday, July 14th, 2019 – 8:58 am
For example, Rastafarians smoke dope to allow them to communicate with Jah.
Rastafarians believe in the Judeo-Christian God and call him Jah. They believe Christ came to Earth as a divine manifestation of Jah. Some Rastafarians believe that Christ was black, while many focus on Emperor Haile Selassie of Ethiopia as the black messiah and rebirth of Christ. The Second Coming has already happened according to Rastafari.
Communal meetings are known as “groundations”, and are typified by music, chanting, discussions, and the smoking of cannabis, the latter being regarded as a sacrament with beneficial properties. Rastas place emphasis on what they regard as living “naturally”, adhering to ital dietary requirements, twisting their hair into dreadlocks, and following patriarchal gender roles.
Frydenberg just doesn’t sound competent. He never comes across as though he’s confident or across his portfolio.
Mike Pence labeled a ‘fake Christian’ for defending inhumane conditions at Trump’s concentration camps
Vice President Mike Pence’s defense of his administration’s detention camps was criticized so heavily on Saturday that the hashtag #FakeChristian trended nationwide on Twitter.
Pence was subjected to an overwhelming stench of urine during his visit to a Customs and Border Patrol facility in McAllen, Texas.
The public relations trip appeared to have backfired on the VP.
https://www.rawstory.com/2019/07/mike-pence-labeled-a-fake-christian-for-defending-inhumane-conditions-at-trumps-concentration-camps/
C@
No. It’s why he’s stressing reasonable restrictions.
Porter is avoiding talking about the actual aims of the bill, which is to allow religious people to say whatever they want to without consequence. He can’t use that as his example, because most people disagree with that, so he’s come up with a ‘look over here, this is what I’m talking about’ distraction instead.
Of course, when you apply to idea of reasonable restrictions to free speech, you basically end up where we are anyway.
“I wouldn’t be so condescending” says Josh, sounding perfectly condescending.
Josh says don’t get your hopes up about the surplus. I thought we were already back in black!
Alistair Campbell:
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/jul/14/alastair-campbell-on-the-populist-virus-and-why-bill-shorten-lost
A federal government surplus is the dumbest goal to pursue. It is meaningless. The people who see it as a good thing are under the impression that a surplus will give the federal government more spending power in the future. That is not the case. The federal government’s financial capacity in its own currency is always infinite. Always inexhaustible. The federal government is the only entity on Earth that can spend Australian dollars into existence and tax Australian dollars out of existence. Of course, its real purchasing power can decline because of currency depreciation and shortages of real goods and services. But financially there is never a limit and it makes no difference whether the fiscal balance is a deficit or a surplus.
And that big scary thing called the public debt and the national debt? It is just dollars that the Australian government has spent into the non-government sector and hasn’t taxed away yet. That’s all it is. The Australian Government makes available to the non-government sector a zero risk, interest-bearing asset called Commonwealth Government Securities. These securities pay an interest rate that is 0.25 percent higher than the interest rate that the government pays on reserve deposits at the Reserve Bank. So obviously investors keep their reserve deposits to a minimum and prefer to hold the securities. And how does the government service those securities? On the maturity date the Reserve Bank does a data entry that puts the owed amount (principal plus interest) into the investor’s reserve account. The interest is newly created dollars that the government has just keystroked into existence.
Beats watching Friedthing
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cfzpVqeayNs
Confessions @ #968 Sunday, July 14th, 2019 – 9:27 am
In the red instead. 😆
I used to have dreadlocks. One 0f the first in Oz I think. Back in 1980. No hairdresser knew how to do them. 🙂
Shane Wright: ‘1.4% GDP is not a strong economy by any stretch of any imagination.’
It’s worth bearing in mind that Australia has a current account deficit with regard to the rest of the world.
That means that the federal government can only run a surplus if the domestic private sector is in deficit.
Do we really want the domestic private sector to be in deficit? That is not a sustainable condition. PRIVATE debt is actually a problem if its size becomes a burden. Private debt can grow to the point that households are cutting back their spending, causing a recession.
It is not a problem for the federal government to run a deficit year after year forever.
But it IS a problem for the domestic private sector to run a deficit forever. At some point a private debt burden becomes so large that debt service is the biggest expense. Eventually it will cause the borrowers to become insolvent.
Ben Oquist – The ACT’s Labor–Greens government has put in place progressive, bold policies – and is winning:
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2019/jul/14/canberra-has-the-answers-just-not-where-you-might-expect-them
Meanwhile in Victoria at local government level the Andrews government has introduced the Local Government Bill into parliament.
Fears Victorian plan to boost local council diversity will see fewer minorities elected:
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-07-14/fears-victorian-plan-boost-local-council-diversity-will-backfire/11305706
Pretty much.
Nicholas, of course all the currency that’s held by the private sector in their accounts or as cash came from somewhere. It came from accounts in the public sector. Currency is an asset in the hands of those who hold it and a liability in the accounts of the issuer. Currency is no different from any other ‘debt’ of the government.
The government routinely creates currency – creates new liabilities – for the purpose of managing the economy. It has great flexibility in this. Economic conditions are determined by the creation/cancellation of public sector liabilities. The myth is that it’s possible to suspend the creation of liabilities (run the budget with a nil balance) without affecting the economy. This is just wrong. Every financial act of the Commonwealth affects the liquidity of the private sector and therefore the potential demand and supply available in the economy. Every single act of the Commonwealth is causative.
People need to know this.
The current high levels of repression in the labour market are a consequence of Commonwealth financial policies. The financial hardship experienced by working people is deliberately imposed. This can only be changed by changing the government. But this will not happen because of dysfunction on the Left. Knowing this, we should say the Left are also contributors to the repression of labour. They are more concerned about themselves than they are about working people. They could change themselves, just as the Liberals could change themselves. But they refuse to do it. We will all suffer in Green Valley as a result.
2 green members and 12 labor members and it is a Labor/Green Government. Another case of the Greens feeding of Labor.
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2019/jul/14/canberra-has-the-answers-just-not-where-you-might-expect-them
I was wondering when Insiders would get onto the MDB.
Good to hear the Pensioners and Seniors lobby groups aren’t going to be placated with the small Deeming Rate cut bone the Coalition has thrown them.
Pegasus says:
Sunday, July 14, 2019 at 9:41 am
It is certainly the case that the electoral system in the ACT has shaped the political culture. This is true federally as well. The Federal electoral system has helped keep the Reactionaries in power for most of last century. As things stand, there will likely never be another powerful and effective reforming government elected in Australia. We have had just two of these. Curtin first came to power without winning an election. Hawke came to power from Opposition and ran a strong and durable reforming government. No other Labor Government lasted long. They have all either collapsed or been torn to pieces by their many enemies.
Australia is run by the Liberals. This will not change. It is the subtext in the Constitution, which embeds a powerful and reactionary Senate, a chamber that has more power than the House of Representatives, and a legislature that is inherently subordinate to a hereditary monarch. None of this will change. The stagnation in Australian politics is as inevitable as climate change.
‘Like the Upper House in Parliament, councillors in these wards are elected via proportional voting.
But Local Government Minister Adem Somyurek wants change, proposing that all wards become smaller and have only one councillor for each spot.’
Yeah, disagree with this. What if your two best councillors happen to live in the same ward?
Our council doesn’t have wards. Representation tends to sort itself out, as each town/area votes for someone from their own community. So, even without a ward system, we end up with roughly proportional representation for each area.
Peg
“Ben Oquist – The ACT’s Labor–Greens government has put in place progressive, bold policies – and is winning:”
____________________________________
There is a lot of disaffection with the current government here. The main obstacle to them losing is that the conservative opposition is just ghastly. I have considered voting elsewhere at the next election, but there is just no sane alternative. Others, less rusted on Labor (or Greens), may have no such qualms.
C@t and z
I think there are still quite a few clubs that only allow male or female members. Some barbers only do males, some fitness centres are female only etc. I think those snobby clubs like the Adelaide Club and Melbourne Club are male only.
Thanks again BK for the news roundup.
Michael West’s website spills the beans on Australia’s national parks management.
https://www.michaelwest.com.au/extinction-crisis-director-of-national-parks-slammed-by-audit-amid-decade-funding-squeeze/
From this I now know that complete fuckups should be annotated and documented in colour coded segments and that an amount equal to the traditional 4/5 of 5/8 of SFA should be the perfect amount to safeguard the environment and endangered species. (Also the Gummint now has a Department of Dead Parrots).
In other news — the idea that reason has been attached to statements from the government is, to me, completely unfathomable.
Elevenses. Over and out. ☕
George Christensen has an answer to drug taking at festivals… pants down and whack ‘em
https://mobile.twitter.com/slpng_giants_oz/status/1150200326902784000/video/1
Pegasus says:
Sunday, July 14, 2019 at 9:27 am
Alistair Campbell:
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/jul/14/alastair-campbell-on-the-populist-virus-and-why-bill-shorten-lost
“I wondered about your election, because I follow it from afar, but I just wonder if maybe what happens – at a deeper level sometimes, a country sometimes makes a judgment about people over time, and I just wonder if they just decided ‘we are not electing Bill Shorten’,” he says. “And I think there is a risk they have done that with Jeremy Corbyn already.”
___________________________-
I saw that too – I think he’s on the money, the Australian people said Littlefinger? yeah, nah!
Of course turtle Bowen didn’t help either.
The actual survey information shows that voters who moved to the Liberals in the May election were mostly motivated by economic factors – jobs, wages, income security. This was most pronounced in the marginals where the pro-Lib swings were the most pronounced.
Of course, it practically goes without saying that the Greens – who are a byword for sabotage in the labour market – exhibit no interest in this information but prefer to deflect from it.
Unless and until the so-called left – the pop-Left – explicitly oppose the repression of labour they will continue to be rejected by working people. Working people will not entrust their well-being to candidates who so directly oppose their interests.
Barnyard denies rorting his tax free electorate allowance….
The Sunday Mail understands Mr Joyce has this year made regular deposits of $415 a week to First National Real Estate Armidale from a bank account which receives almost $4000 a month in electoral allowance payments.
Under parliamentary guidelines, Mr Joyce is eligible for the maximum $46,000 in annual electorate allowances due to the large area of his New England seat.
Mr Joyce, who has previously been cleared of claims he misused travel allowances, said the account was used for many purposes and also received income from other sources, including farming transactions.
“This bank account was given this name in 2005, but it has long since been used for multiple purposes and is used for farm business, private and electorate transactions, as are other accounts I hold, including my private credit card, which is also used to pay electorate expenses,” he said in a statement.
“Income is transacted to this account from a range of other accounts I hold and non-parliamentary sources including, for example, sheep sales. I am extremely disappointed that someone would disclose a misrepresentation of my private financial affairs for malicious and false purpose.”
He said he would now rename the account “Account Number 2”.
I would love it if the voter demographics and political sensibilities of Australia as a whole matched those of the ACT. In such a land a Labor-Greens coalition would make perfect sense. Regrettably that is simply not the case.
The biggest problem for progressive politics in Australia as a whole is the lost ability to bring the real centre heartland of Australia along for the ride. At least Labor realises the task, even if it has proven incapable in recent decades in doing this consistently.
The Greens of course imagine Australia to be a reflection of their own image. This is simply indulging in magical thinking.
Diogenes @ #986 Sunday, July 14th, 2019 – 10:33 am
Dio,
As was pointed out on Insiders this morning, Australia is one of the few, so-called liberal democracies, which doesn’t have a Bill of Rights. So it seems a bit cute that the Morrison government is pursuing a Right enshrined in legislation for one Human Right only, the Right to freely practise your religion, when all other Rights are being ignored in legislative terms.
Yes, I too, am constantly amused at Greens who put up the ACT as some sort of Australian exemplar as if the ACT is some sort of microcosm of Australia as a whole.
The Sunday Mail…has pinged Mr Joyce. 😆
I wonder if Mr Joyce, as Shane Wright mused, could provide receipts to prove that his ‘love nest’ rent was being paid for solely from farm income?
Andrew_Earlwood says:
Sunday, July 14, 2019 at 11:02 am
I would love it if the voter demographics and political sensibilities of Australia as a whole matched those of the ACT. In such a land a Labor-Greens coalition would make perfect sense. Regrettably that is simply not the case.
The biggest problem for progressive politics in Australia as a whole is the lost ability to bring the real centre heartland of Australia along for the ride. At least Labor realises the task, even if it has proven incapable in recent decades in doing this consistently.
The Greens of course imagine Australia to be a reflection of their own image. This is simply indulging in magical thinking.
Andrew, the biggest problem ‘we-for-change’ have is ourselves. We are divided. We tear at each other. To the onlooker, we are a rabble. There is no way the electorate will entrust power and their well-being to such an incoherent and incompetent-seeming mob.
It’s not as if the electorate like the Liberals. On the whole, the Liberals are deeply disliked. But the Liberals are very very good at holding their ground. They know how to campaign to their constituencies. Those of us who want change spend a lot of time actually campaigning against ourselves. It is no wonder we lose so often.
Personally I think the privileges granted to religious organs should be abolished. Their exemptions from tax and the other obligations that apply in secular society should be repealed. Subscription to the existence of a supernatural being is not a reason for privileges to be conferred. The atheists among us – I am one – are paying for the privileges of the religiously pious. This is just rubbish.
briefly
Are sports clubs equivalent to religious bodies?
Sorry to disagree with you briefly, but Labor was been very disciplined and united over the last 6 years and yet it all turned to shit on election night. Further, the anti-labor noiseworks confected by the Greens was entirely irrelevant outside Queensland, where its anti Adani campaign cost labor 3-4 seats at most: we would have still fallen short without the Greens.
Only a message of non threatening Hope seems to cut through to the low interest voters who determine elections. Unfortunately our poll driven data and focus group feedback was oblivious to what in hindsight should have been obvious: these folk are easily scared by any talk of the government taking money and goodies off people, even if they are not directly affected. The lessons of 1993 and 2004 were forgotten. A triumph of bad polling over political instinct and judgement.
Some of the posters this morning who are keen to quote Alastair Campbell should pay close attention to this statement.
“What I fear is too many people on what you would say is the progressive side of politics, I think, have learned the wrong lessons about the [global financial] crash. I think there is a feeling that, as a consequence of the crash, the world, the public, moved to the left. And I am not persuaded that is the case. And if you look at what is happening in elections around the world, the opposite would appear to be the case.”
He’s very much on the right track here, although I would disagree that the public have actually moved to the right. What has actually happened is that the educated elites – knowledge workers such as academics, journalists, senior public servants, etc. – have steadily moved to the left over recent decades, and they mistakenly believe that the broader public has come on this journey with them. But the broader public have obstinately stayed where they have always been: focused on trying to build lives of greater opportunity and wealth for themselves and their families.
The parents and grandparents of contemporary suburban Australians never had any time for concepts such as socialism and the redistribution of wealth through the tax system, and they voted resolutely against these ideas during the 1950s and 1960s. The current generation of Australian-born suburbanites still feel much the same way, and the predominantly Asian-born migrants to our suburbia are mostly even more antagonistic to left-wing economic ideas.
But, as the SSM survey results showed, a majority of ordinary Australians will support social change when they feel it is justified. And I reckon a majority feels the same way about global warming and quite possibly the idea of some sort of constitutional change to recognise Indigenous Australians.
But, any time Labor and the Greens go hard on socialism and using taxation to redistribute wealth, the suburban voters will kick them in the teeth. The political left around the Western world needs to learn to stop conflating contemporary issues such as environmental protection and individual rights with archaic, discredited concepts such as socialism: not to mention the third world idea of using identity politics to appeal to groups of people with particular racial backgrounds (something we thankfully haven’t seen too much of in Australia to date, but which is now a big thing in many other Western democracies).
Until the Labor Party wakes up to the fact that it needs to campaign from the centre, we are likely to see the Coalition in power nationally for a long time to come. And it’s no use blaming the Greens for this: they’d be irrelevant (and potentially even helpful to Labor’s chances) if Labor could stop itself veering over the left side of the road.