Federal election plus two months

Western Australia and the Northern Territory set to lose seats in the House of Reps; Liberals jockey for Senate preselection; foul cried in Kooyong; and latest despatches from the great pollster crisis.

Quite a bit to report of late, starting out with federal redistribution prospects for the coming term:

• The Australian Parliamentary Library has published a research paper on the likely outcome of the state and territory seat entitlement determinations when they are calculated in the middle of the next year. The conclusion reached is as it was when I did something similar in January: that Western Australia is sure to lose the sixteenth seat it gained in 2016; that Victoria will sneak over the line to gain a thirty-ninth (and its second in consecutive electoral cycles, a prodigiousness once associated with Queensland); and the Northern Territory will fall below it and lose one of its two seats.

The West Australian reports Liberal and Labor will respectively be lobbying for Burt and Hasluck to be abolished, though given the two are neighbours, this is perhaps a fine distinction – the effect of either might be to put Matt Keogh and Ken Wyatt in competition for an effectively merged seat. The view seems to be that an eastern suburbs seat would be easiest to cut, as the core electorates of the metropolitan area are strongly defined by rivers and the sea, and three seats are needed to account for the state’s periphery. (There was also a new set of state boundaries for Western Australia published on Friday, which you can read all about here).

• The predicted outcome in the Northern Territory, whose population has taken a battering since the end of the resources construction boom, would leave its single electorate with an enrolment nearly 30% above the national norm – an awkward look for what would also be the country’s most heavily indigenous electorate. The Northern Territory has had two electorates since 1996, but came close to losing one in 2003 when its population fell just 295 below the entitlement threshold. This was averted through a light legislative tweak, but this time the population shortfall is projected to approach 5000.

Poll news:

• The word from Essential Research that its voting intention numbers will resume in “a month or two”. Curiously, its public line is that its reform efforts are focused on its “two-party preferred modelling”, when the pollsters’ critical failures came on the primary vote.

Kevin Bonham laments the crisis-what-crisis stance adopted by The Australian and YouGov Galaxy upon the return of Newspoll. My own coverage of the matter was featured in a paywalled Crikey article on Monday, which concluded thus:

In the past, YouGov Galaxy has felt able to justify the opaqueness of its methods on the grounds that its “track record speaks for itself”. That justification will be finding far fewer takers today than it did before the great shock of May 18.

• Liberal insiders have been spruiking their success in winning back the support of working mothers as the key to their election win, as related through an account of internal party research in the Age/Herald. However, Jill Sheppard at the Australian National University retorts that the numbers cited are quantitative data drawn from qualitative research (specifically focus groups), which is assuredly not the right idea.

Preselection news:

• There are six preselection nominees for Mitch Fifield’s Liberal Senate vacancy in Victoria: Sarah Henderson, until recently the member for the Corangamite, and generally reckoned the favourite; Greg Mirabella, former state party vice-president and the husband of Sophie Mirabella, whose prospects were talked up in The Australian last week; Chris Crewther, recently defeated member for Dunkley; state politics veteran and 2018 election casualty Inga Peulich; and, less familiarly, Kyle Hoppitt, John MacIsaac and Mimmie Watts.

• The Australian last week reported a timeline had yet to be set for the preselection to replace Arthur Sinodinos in New South Wales. The Sydney Morning Herald reports Liberal moderates might be planning on backing a candidate of the hard Right, rather than one of their own in James Brown, state RSL president and son-in-law of Malcolm Turnbull. The idea is apparently that the nominee will then go on to muscle aside factional colleague Connie Fierravanti-Wells at preselection for the next election. However, all that’s known of that potential candidate is that it won’t be Jim Molan, who is opposed by feared moderate operator Michael Photios.

• The Sydney Morning Herald report also relates that former Premier Mike Baird’s withdrawal from the race to become chief executive of the National Australia Bank has prompted suggestions he might have his eye on a federal berth in Warringah at the next election. Also said to be interested is state upper house MP Natalie Ward.

Electoral law news:

The Guardian reports that Oliver Yates, independent candidate for Kooyong, is challenging Josh Frydenberg’s win on the grounds that Chinese language signs demonstrating how to vote Liberal looked rather a lot like instructions from the Australian Electoral Commission. The complainant must establish that the communication was “likely to mislead or deceive an elector in relation to the casting of a vote”, which has provided a rich seem of unsuccessful litigation over the decades. It seems it is acknowledged that this is only the test case, in that it is not anticipated the court will overturn the result. Such might have been the case in Chisholm, which was the focal point of complaints about the signs, and where the result was much closer. However, Labor has opted not to press the issue, no doubt because it has little cause to think a by-election would go well for them. Yates’s challenge has been launched days prior to today’s expiry of the 40-day deadline for challenges before the Court of Disputed Returns.

• The difficulty of getting such actions to stick, together with the general tenor of election campaigning in recent years, have encouraged suggestions that a truth-in-advertising regime may be in order, such as operates at state level in South Australia. More from Mike Steketee in Inside Story.

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.

993 comments on “Federal election plus two months”

Comments Page 14 of 20
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  1. Vic:

    We aren’t the only ones despairing at the Democrats!

    Max BootVerified account@MaxBoot
    4h4 hours ago
    .@PaulBegala is right: “Most Democrats think there’s a steaming pile of poop on my kitchen table, and you’re telling me you’re going to build a new house? Just get rid of the poop! That’s the message!”

    My @PostOpinions column:

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2019/08/01/dont-mess-this-up-democrats-we-need-get-rid-trump/?utm_term=.f2ff91a57133

  2. As usual, Pegasus puts the spin of a misleading miscreant onto national affairs:

    For a decade and longer, both major parties have been complicit in obstructing the implementation of a federal ICAC.

    Since 2018 both major parties have belatedly joined the bandwagon due to growing and persistent pressure from the public, legal practitioners, Greens, and other crossbenchers who have kept the issue on the boil.

    Both major parties would have preferred business as usual that entails hoovering up political donations from vested interests, including the gambling industry, and participating in the revolving door between ex-politicians and these same vested interests who seek to influence policy.

    Now, if you actually read what Anthony Albanese and other senior Labor figures said wrt their misgivings towards having a Federal ICAC, you would see that the experience of the Coalition pulling its teeth and turning it into a Get Labor Commission, weighed heavily on their minds. A result of the NSW experience:

    Several Labor shadow cabinet members have told The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age that Mr Shorten faced “strong resistance” in his attempts to convince colleagues of the merits of taking a powerful new corruption fighting body to the May election.

    Some in shadow cabinet, including members of the NSW Right faction, drew on the “disastrous” experience of the NSW Independent Commission Against Corruption and its “political show trials”.

    Valid points I would have thought.

    Also, there was this aspect:

    Others had warned as early as 2016 that a new body would discourage “frank and fearless advice” from senior public servants and “make it very hard to govern” if Labor had won the May 18 poll.’

    However, the debate went on in the ALP, with Mark Dreyfus leading the charge, it was pointed out in the article that:

    “They pushed back and back, and while there was some sympathy about some of the arguments they clearly did not understand the public mood around this stuff.”

    Another said: “Bill was adamant it was needed. Others were not. They made it known very strongly but the leader won out, as he should have.”

    To the point the ALP are at now where:

    A spokesman for Mr Burke said the claims were “wrong” while Mr Albanese’s office pointed to comments he made Thursday calling for the government to speed up its plans for an anti-corruption agency.

    Mr Shorten told The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age: “Everyone supported the position we took to the election.”

    Labor attempted to suspend Parliament on Thursday to call on the Morrison government to fast-track its proposed commission, which was announced in December after months of intense public pressure.

    Mr Albanese said it was “very clear that there’s support out there in the Australian public for a National Integrity Commission”.

    “We need to ensure that there’s continued confidence in our institutions and a capacity to have appropriate investigations by a body at the national level,” he told Sky News Australia.

    Recalling the deliberations inside Labor’s shadow cabinet, one current frontbencher said: “There were concerns. We worked through them and settled on a reasonably sensible plan. Yes, there was some very strong views on both sides… that’s politics.”

    https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/senior-labor-figures-including-anthony-albanese-argued-against-anti-corruption-watchdog-20190801-p52d15.html

    So, you can believe Pegasuss’ propaganda, meant to disparage Labor with another dose of Bothism, or you can believe the truth.

  3. My hypothesis before the election was that the rulings on S44 would decrease the number of indies running (it would make life too hard for them, and rule out ‘on the moment’ decisions to run).

    Does anyone know if this happened?

    We only had one indie run in Indi, which is unusual, but which we explained away as the effect of having one very strong indie candidate.

    I’ve only just remembered my predicted impact of S44!

  4. Victoria @ #640 Friday, August 2nd, 2019 – 8:36 am

    Trump and his merry travellers are appalling in every which way.
    Yet we have the hopeless Democrats ready to shoot themselves in the foot.
    They are so bad at politics. You could say they are even worse than our federal Labor team when it comes to the politics.
    Sigh…..

    And here we had the hopeless ALP taking aim and shooting themselves in the head.
    It really is like they don’t care that the country is heading now towards a decade of nothingness.
    If they did care they’d doing everything they can to bring on an early election.
    Crash through or crash.

  5. Analysis of voter turnout by Nick Economou:

    https://theconversation.com/renters-hold-the-key-to-low-voter-turn-out-at-federal-elections-120494

    Among the litany of divisions with the lowest participation rates, two distinct electorate clusters emerge of what might be thought of as under-performing seats.
    :::
    Were the parliament to be truly concerned about participation it could seek to alter the act and strengthen the hand of the AEC.

    By far the most consistent under-performing seats are remote regional districts including Lingiari and Solomon (Northern Territory), Durack (Western Australia and previously known as Kalgoorlie) and Leichhardt (Queensland).

    These are also the four federal seats with the highest proportion of voters who identify as Indigenous, according to the 2016 Australian census. In the case of Lingiari, 44.5% of residents identified as being Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islanders, 17.9% in Durack, 9% in Solomon and 6% in Leichhardt.
    :::
    The next cluster of persistent under-performing seats are inner urban divisions whose residents are among the best educated and most affluent in the nation. This includes Sydney, Wentworth, Melbourne and Melbourne Ports (these days known as Macnamara).

    They are also characterised by their comparative youthfulness. These are seats that have significantly larger proportions of citizens in the 19 to 39 year age groups than the national age distribution and, indeed, seats like Lingiari and Durack.
    :::
    These two clusters of seats could not be more different from each other. And yet they do share a significant socioeconomic characteristic.

    Both the inner urban and remote seat clusters are characterised by the comparatively large number of citizens with rented, rather than purchased, accommodation.

  6. Fess

    It is very depressing. With everything that is going on with Trump and his acolytes including tax cuts for the top end that has resulted in a blow out with deficit and the impending cuts to services that people rely on.

    The Democrats appear to be even more hopeless than our federal Labor team. Very depressing.

  7. Federal ICAC:

    June 4, 2019: https://www.canberratimes.com.au/story/6190957/a-government-of-integrity/

    Where does the return of the Morrison government leave the federal government’s integrity agenda? Immediate attention will focus on the future of the Coalition’s proposed anti-corruption body, the Commonwealth integrity commission, which was announced in an Attorney-General’s Department discussion paper in the dying days of the last Parliament and is yet to come before the Parliament.

    The commission was the Coalition’s minimalist response to the persistent campaign for a federal independent commission against corruption (like NSW’s ICAC), which was led by the Greens, the Australia Institute and several influential lawyers. These advocates eventually wore down the resistance of Labor, which became a committed backer of a powerful, well-resourced ICAC (though, as Attorney-General Christian Porter pointed out, Labor failed to provide a budget for an ICAC in its election policy costings).

  8. Spot on

    Rick Wilson
    @TheRickWilson
    ·
    10h
    1. This election is a referendum on Trump and nothing else. Policy is completely irrelevant.

    2. Only the electoral college matters. If your campaign isn’t focused on the 15 swing States you’re helping Trump.

    The beatings will continue until morale improves.

  9. Greens senator Larissa Waters on fracking

    “This August will mark 8 years since I first introduced a bill to our parliament to ban fracking and give landholders and traditional owners the right to say ‘no’ to exploration and extraction of coal and gas from their properties.

    Eight years on, the Greens continue to stand with the community against fracking.

    I will continue to work to gain support from the Government, Opposition and cross bench to see this Bill pass.

    Sadly, the major parties are more interested in doing the bidding of the massive coal, oil and gas companies that donate to their election campaigns than protecting our environment.

    This is why I am also committed to banning donations from the fossil fuel and resources sectors to political parties, and why The Greens want to see tighter regulations on ex-ministers going to work in the very industries they were previously meant to regulate – such as with the case of former Resources Minister Ian MacFarlane going to work for the Queensland Resources Council shortly after retiring from politics.”

  10. @ ar, re the latest UK opinion polls:

    “Labor, Lib Dem, and Greens on a combined 50% sounds like a winning Coalition.

    The brexit idiots only get 43% between themselves.”

    ________________________

    Are you trying to delude yourself or others mate. You must realise that in a first past the post electoral based system a split that big in the non Tory-Brexit forces would equal disaster at a GE.

    Unless the unimaginable happened and ‘for the good of the country’ Labour, LibDems and the Greens agreed not to run candidates against each other in seats that one of them would likely win on some sort of unity ticket.

  11. Vic:

    This is spot on too.

    To win in 2020, a Democratic nominee needs to tap into widespread unease with Trump and show that he or she will be a safe pair of hands on the tiller — someone who will not steer the ship of state too far to the left after it’s gone too far to the right. But don’t take my word for it. Listen to Paul Begala, a canny strategist who helped Bill Clinton get elected. “Most Democrats think there’s a steaming pile of poop on my kitchen table, and you’re telling me you’re going to build a new house?” Begala said on CNN. “Just get rid of the poop! That’s the message!”

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2019/08/01/dont-mess-this-up-democrats-we-need-get-rid-trump/?utm_term=.f2ff91a57133

  12. Manhattan D.A. Subpoenas Trump Organization Over Stormy Daniels Hush Money

    Cyrus R. Vance Jr., the Manhattan district attorney, is reviving an investigation into payments made to two women during the 2016 campaign.

    The subpoena, issued by the Manhattan district attorney’s office, demanded the Trump Organization provide documents related to money that had been used to buy the silence of Stormy Daniels, a pornographic film actress who said she had an affair with Mr. Trump.

    https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/01/nyregion/trump-cohen-stormy-daniels-vance.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share

  13. What a great roundup this morning BK.

    I was very interested in this item 👇👇👇👇👇

    The Guardian reveals how George Christensen is palling up with alt.right types.
    https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2019/aug/02/george-christensen-expenses-trip-to-meet-alt-right-figure-lauren-southern-but-she-doesnt-show

    As the last tiny paragraph in this article comes this 👇

    Christensen’s office was approached for comment.
    This article was amended on 2 August 2019. It originally said Lauren Southern didn’t show up to a meeting with George Christensen, when she did.

    In the body of the article we find

    Southern began her Australian tour by arriving in an “it’s OK to be white” T-shirt – a slogan sharing a long affiliation with white supremacist groups overseas, including the Ku Klux Klan and neo-Nazis.

    The rest of the article is a little bit of this and some more of that. Mr. Geo Christensen seems to get around and has friends who say they pay his bills. Ms. Southern also has friends (Mr. Stefan Molyneux for instance) and does not pay her bills.

    Should I never more (quoth the raven) hear of any of the protagonists mentioned in this article I believe I would be quite content.

    Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary,
    Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore—
    While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,
    As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door.
    “’Tis some visitor,” I muttered, “tapping at my chamber door—
    Only this and nothing more.”

    Thought for the day.

    Time for some remedial mowing of a section of the yard where the wild 💮 freesias 💮 will appear in their own good time. Just how wild they will be remains to be seen. 😇☕

  14. In Australia there are a staggering three million people below the poverty line. Bear in mind that poverty is like polio: entirely preventable with the right systems in place. It is disgusting that so much poverty exists.

    In Australia the poverty line for a single person is $62 per day. For a couple with two kids, without considering housing costs, the poverty line is $130 per day.

    To lift a single Newstart recipient above the poverty line it is necessary to increase Newstart by least $150 per week.

    Newstart has fallen far below the poverty line because it is only indexed to the CPI, which is too general a measure for the specific circumstances of Newstart recipients.

    The last time the federal government made a discretionary increase to Newstart was a quarter century ago, way back in 1994.

    Note that the Rudd and Gillard Labor Governments could have lifted Newstart but chose not to for the same reasons as the current government (a misguided pursuit of a fiscal surplus; the false idea that the root problem is the deficiencies of the unemployed rather than the chronic shortage of jobs).

    Ideally the minimum wage and all pensions and income support would be indexed to average labour productivity. This would guarantee that increased prosperity of our society as a whole would directly and automatically benefit people at the bottom of the income distribution.

    Indexing those low incomes to average weekly earnings would be the second best approach.

    Indexing the low incomes to the ABS price index that is designed specifically for the circumstances of income support recipients would be the third best approach.

    Indexing to the CPI is a distant fourth.

  15. Funny to see the Catholics and the Happy Clappers going at each other in the Folausphere.

    Gives the Godless Rugger Buggers and the Gays some breathing space until the next outrage.

    But an interesting point has been raised… the Micks and fellow God-botherers all want the right to sack Gays for being gay. But what’s the score when they start getting stuck into each other for their various shades of Christian religious beliefs?

  16. AE
    An electoral pact in the UK is exactly what should happen so that a pro vs anti Brexit vote could occur.
    But it want and in any case Labour would still be in the pro-Brexit side beacuse the people have spoken

  17. Andrew_Earlwood @ #662 Friday, August 2nd, 2019 – 9:26 am

    Unless the unimaginable happened and ‘for the good of the country’ Labour, LibDems and the Greens agreed not to run candidates against each other in seats that one of them would likely win on some sort of unity ticket.

    I like that strategy. They should go with it.

    The point was that Brexit’s support is anemic, with the majority of people getting behind various ‘remain’ flavored options. That the democratic process is set up in a way that can/will produce an unrepresentative outcome that will drag everyone off the Brexit cliff anyways is neither here nor there.

    The left losing because of disorganization, disunity, and not understanding that “the enemy of my enemy is my friend” would be nothing new.

  18. And the Happy Clappers that run this government haven’t even turned their attention to the Seventh Day Adventists, the Mormons, the Anglicans, the Uniting Church, the Scientologists, the Methodists, the Jews or the Muslims! 😆

  19. “Some in shadow cabinet, including members of the NSW Right faction, drew on the “disastrous” experience of the NSW Independent Commission Against Corruption and its “political show trials”.

    Valid points I would have thought.”
    ————————————–

    Ha, a valid point to corrupt parties worried about actually getting caught with their hands in the money trough or exposed as acting against the public interests for some mates.

    The COAL-ition of the willing to keep their mates safe, in the hope of future kickbacks or job opportunities. That’s the LNP-ALP on Crown, and shooting wombats it seems too.

  20. Some in shadow cabinet, including members of the NSW Right faction, drew on the “disastrous” experience of the NSW Independent Commission Against Corruption and its “political show trials”.

    I hope that the SMH has made this up.
    Labor must get behind the Federal ICAC and insist that Margaret Cunneen is appointed commissioner

  21. AR
    You do know that Labour is pro-Brexit don’t you?
    Because a failure to deliver on the referendum result would be a betrayal of democracy

  22. Oakeshott Country @ #672 Friday, August 2nd, 2019 – 9:50 am

    Some in shadow cabinet, including members of the NSW Right faction, drew on the “disastrous” experience of the NSW Independent Commission Against Corruption and its “political show trials”.

    I hope that the SMH has made this up.
    Labor must get behind the Federal ICAC and insist that Margaret Cunneen is appointed commissioner

    If you had actually read the article, rather than relying on the misleading bs that Quoll and Pegasus post in their carefully selected way, you would know that the answer to that question is, yes, Labor are whole-heartedly behind a federal ICAC.

  23. sprocket_ says:
    Friday, August 2, 2019 at 7:03 am
    “Waiting for the ‘free speech’ lobby to come out hard in defence of Israel Folau’s cousin”

    I am an advocate for free speech in particular for those I disagree with.

    In the case of Mr I Folau’s cousin the employer has acted appropriately and in accordance with the law. I am not concerned about this and agree with Mr Tim Costello that religious and political organisations should continue to be able to require their employees to support their ethos and not do anything detrimental in that regard.

    In the case of Mr I Folau I agree with Gillian Trigg that it appears that the employer has breached the anti-religious discrimination section of the FWA and that the courts will be the final say in the matter unless settled before which looks doubtful.

  24. The drag of fossil fuel subsidies:

    https://reneweconomy.com.au/global-fossil-fuel-subsidies-reach-5-2-trillion-and-29-billion-in-australia-91592/

    New analysis commissioned by the International Monetary Fund has shown that global fossil fuel subsidies continue to grow, despite the growing urgency of the need to decarbonise the global economy.

    The working paper prepared by the IMF Fiscal Affairs Department estimated that, in 2017, global fossil fuel subsidies grew to $5.2 trillion, representing 6.5 per cent of combined global GDP.
    :::
    The IMF estimates that annual energy subsidies in Australia total $29 billion, representing 2.3 per cent of Australian GDP. On a per capita basis, Australian fossil fuel subsidies amount to $1,198 per person.

  25. mundo says:
    Friday, August 2, 2019 at 8:05 am

    So Scrotty rules out increasing Newstart.
    Labor’s first big test for the ‘new’ team.
    Economists agree, industry, business and community groups agree….Labor agrees.
    Now all Labor has to do is craft an argument that the punters find irresistible and one which skewers Scrotty.
    Piece of cake.
    Step one; what would Scrotty do.
    Over to you Anthony and Jim.

    Why, would you want, or, is there any need to make increasing Newstart a central part of your platform?

    Morrison is right when he implies that there are few votes in it, but he is wrong thinking that is a reason not to increase it when in Government.

    Sometimes you just do things because it’s the right thing to do!

  26. Fossil fuel subsidies

    https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/aug/01/fossil-fuel-subsidy-cash-pay-green-energy-transition

    Switching just some of the huge subsidies supporting fossil fuels to renewables would unleash a runaway clean energy revolution, according to a new report, significantly cutting the carbon emissions that are driving the climate crisis.

    Coal, oil and gas get more than $370bn (£305bn) a year in support, compared with $100bn for renewables, the International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD) report found. Just 10-30% of the fossil fuel subsidies would pay for a global transition to clean energy, the IISD said.

    Ending fossil fuel subsidies has long been seen as vital to tackling the climate emergency, with the G20 nations pledging in 2009 to phase them out, but progress has been limited. In May, the UN secretary general, António Guterres, attacked subsidies, saying: “What we are doing is using taxpayers’ money – which means our money – to boost hurricanes, to spread droughts, to melt glaciers, to bleach corals. In one word: to destroy the world.”

  27. Bushfire Bill says:
    Friday, August 2, 2019 at 9:38 am

    “But an interesting point has been raised… the Micks and fellow God-botherers all want the right to sack Gays for being gay.”

    I have never heard of this. Can you provide any evidence for this claim?

  28. Margaret Cunneen:

    https://www.smh.com.au/cbd/fake-news-margaret-cunneen-rules-out-federal-court-or-anti-corruption-gig-20190801-p52cx2.html

    And it wouldn’t be too much of a surprise. Attorney-General Christian Porter raised eyebrows late last year when he appointed Cunneen – a vocal critic of the Independent Commission Against Corruption – to an expert panel advising the government’s creation of a national corruption watchdog.

    Cunneen, of course, had it out for ICAC ever since she was investigated over false allegations she perverted the course of justice by telling her son’s girlfriend to fake chest pains to avoid getting breath-tested after a car crash.
    :::
    Indeed, take it from the horse’s mouth – Cunneen tells CBD the murmurings are “fake news”. She also rules out accepting any offer to sit on the forthcoming National Integrity Commission.

  29. More canaries in the coal mine, as the cracks don’t just simply appear in the buildings:

    The cracks first appeared in the buildings. Now they have begun to spread across the industry.

    The collapse of two high-rise apartment developers — the Sydney-based Ralan Group and Melbourne’s Stellar Group — within the past month has ignited the property industry’s worst fears: that large numbers of would-be buyers either are unable or unwilling to settle on pre-sold apartments.

    Lured by the prospect of easy profits in a booming market, property investors snapped up units off the plan, armed with a small deposit and in many cases a non-binding assurance from a financier, usually a bank.

    But the property downturn in the past two years has seen sharp falls in apartment prices in Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne, adding to the already depressed markets in Perth and Darwin.

    Off-the-plan buyers in a sticky situation
    That’s put many would-be investors under water, left holding agreements to pay boomtime prices, usually well above the current market rate.

    And that’s when things get sticky.

    https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-08-01/construction-industry-cracks-showing-as-major-developer-falls/11374464

  30. Oakeshott Country says:
    Friday, August 2, 2019 at 9:54 am

    I believe you are wasting your time on AR who clearly knows very little about UK Politics.

  31. Tom NicholsVerified account@RadioFreeTom
    8m8 minutes ago
    I hope the woke Democrats are watching this Trump rally right now. Remember: his goal now is to win the Electoral College, while gladly losing millions in the popular vote again. Proceed accordingly, and by “accordingly,” I mean “stop huffing your own politics and get to 270.”

  32. Oakeshott Country @ #674 Friday, August 2nd, 2019 – 9:54 am

    You do know that Labour is pro-Brexit don’t you?
    Because a failure to deliver on the referendum result would be a betrayal of democracy

    I know that Corbyn likes to sit on the fence about it. And that it’s working about as well for him as it has for everyone else that’s tried it.

    Even with Corbyn screwing it up, UK Labour isn’t pro- anything that Johnson and the Brexit party are selling. Labour would go for either a soft Brexit (softer than May’s Brexit, even) or no Brexit at all.

  33. @C@tmomma

    I argue that Corbyn and the Labour can only win, if they advocate a ‘Remain and Reform’ agenda like the Green Party under Caroline Lucas is arguing for. Since a lot of those young people who rallied behind Jeremy Corbyn are passionately against Brexit.

  34. Pegasus says:
    Friday, August 2, 2019 at 9:22 am
    Greens senator Larissa Waters on fracking

    “This August will mark 8 years since I first introduced a bill to our parliament to ban fracking and give landholders and traditional owners the right to say ‘no’ to exploration and extraction of coal and gas from their properties.

    While no new fracking permits will be issued in WA as a result of the policy of the McGowan government, one of the consequences has been to take away the rights of traditional owners to receive new permits. They have the right, along with others, to say No to fracking. But they no longer have the right to say Yes to new permits that would be to their economic advantage. This is an issue in economic self-determination for First Peoples as well as an environmental issue and has been live in WA Labor for many years.

    Things are not as simple as the Lib-kin like to make out.

  35. Meanwhile in Canada, the Conservative Party appear to be in a position to win the election defeating the one-term Trudeau Government with perhaps 33-35% of the vote in a first past the post system, where the ~60% of the electorate will vote for anti-Conservative parties.

    Isn’t it wonderful! Canada step forward! Latte-sippers step out!

  36. Barney in Makassar says:
    Friday, August 2, 2019 at 10:04 am
    mundo says:
    Friday, August 2, 2019 at 8:05 am

    So Scrotty rules out increasing Newstart.
    Labor’s first big test for the ‘new’ team.
    Economists agree, industry, business and community groups agree….Labor agrees.
    Now all Labor has to do is craft an argument that the punters find irresistible and one which skewers Scrotty.
    Piece of cake.
    Step one; what would Scrotty do.
    Over to you Anthony and Jim.
    Why, would you want, or, is there any need to make increasing Newstart a central part of your platform?

    Morrison is right when he implies that there are few votes in it, but he is wrong thinking that is a reason not to increase it when in Government.

    Sometimes you just do things because it’s the right thing to do!

    The LNP will continue to undermine and erode Social Security. They have no intention of strengthening it. This system was one of the very great achievements of Curtin and Chifley. The Liberals will destroy it if they can.

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