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.
Richard Di Natalie has some tough words for senior Labor figures who have argued against a federal ICAC:
If I were in the government I think it’s high time we should consider the ULTIMATE wedge – legislatively restoring the death penalty.
Oakeshott Country @ #657 Friday, August 2nd, 2019 – 9:10 am
And we were bell ringers, little red slippers, cassocks and surplice. Hypnosis was the thing – incense, chanting, repetition. The mystery and the faith.
We went to Oscar and Lucinda last night – Sydney Chamber Opera – based on the Carey novel (Booker prize and all) : gambling, chance, and the pursuit of the will of God, with the glass cathedral carried through the bush and floated along the Bellingen River.
Where I’m going is that one line jumped out at me:
FAITH IS A GAMBLE
Much there in those four words, and many an explanation for the investment the ‘faithful’ put into their call, which really risks all, and many a reason why they work hard to see the other side loses. It, to me, explains why so frequently they are so defensive, almost frantic about it. Hysterical came to mind, but that might be an overreach.
Yet there are those who insist that Shorten was the untrustworthy one. Now that he is not in command, the leakers are out, as are the nitpickers.
https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/senior-labor-figures-including-anthony-albanese-argued-against-anti-corruption-watchdog-20190801-p52d15.html
lizzie says:
Friday, August 2, 2019 at 10:57 am
Isn’t that the common thread with right-to-lifers, more concerned with a fetus than an independently living person, be it the mother or the resulting child.
Yes, but lizzie, if you read the entirety of that article you will find out that eventually Mark Dreyfus and Bill Shorten assuaged the fears of the reluctant and everyone came on board by the end of the robust debate. And Tony Bourke says he was misquoted anyway.
I think that’s how a political party not run by the massive ego of one man operates. Unlike the Coalition and Scott Morrison.
Barney in Makassar @ #706 Friday, August 2nd, 2019 – 11:04 am
Because, what they’re really concerned about is getting back control over women’s bodies.
“Dutton: so moved by a fetus, yet remarkably disinterested in a 2yr old child with all her teeth rotting in her head & a vitamin deficiency from lack of sunlight.”
Once a fetus is born, it’s on its own, unless it at some future time becomes terminally ill and in pain, in which case the Duttons of the world will insist on keeping him/her alive regardless of their wishes.
C@tmomma @ #676 Friday, August 2nd, 2019 – 7:57 am
Labor are also whole-heartedly against ISDS clauses in trade agreements – it says so on their website. For reasons which neither you, nor anyone else, including the Labor Party itself has ever explained, they voted to include them in the TPP.
Don’t bother with the “didn’t have the numbers” crap as I’ve pointed out previously that if Labor had voted to have them excluded there would’ve been 41 Senate votes. Even One Nation Nation and Fraser Anning voted to have them excluded. Thanks to Labor though they are part and parcel of the corporate coup de tat that is the TPP.
So yeah, nah. Until it’s actually voted on in parliament “whole-heartedly” means nothing.
I predict that when (if?) they ever get around to it, the Libs will propose a toothless watchdog which Labor, The Greens and all the other cross benchers will try to amend before Labor votes with the LNP and it becomes set in concrete. Labor will promise to upgrade it when they become the government, but they won’t, assuming they ever get into government again.
Of course an idiot like nath would say,
Look at how Shorten bullied and intimidated Labor Members to support such a self serving position as a real federal ICAC with teeth¿
Edit: added, self, to make, self serving. 🙂
The Liberals run government as a protection racket for their mates. The Lib-kin attack Labor. Business as usual in Green Valley.
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!
Ah yes, once upon a time religious biffo was simple: everyone was prejudiced against the Jews. You couldn’t be a member of The Australian Club, for one thing. Imagine not being able to rub shoulders with old fossils like John Howard on meat raffle night!
Now, with Muslims hated even more than Jews, it’s OK to be a “son of Solomon” (as the euphemism used to have it). In fact the Jews have a key function in the Happy Clappersphere: they must restore the Kingdom of David between the Jordan and the Meditterranean (including full restitution of Jerusalem as the seat of government) in order to enable Christ to Second Come. Then we can go back to hating them again, as in use them as stepping stone on the way to Glory. After all, they’re the reason the First Coming didn’t turn out too well.
Until that Happy Day, the Clappers tolerate Jews, who also provide temporal political side benefits, ranging from the micro – reliable safe seats in Vaucluse and Rose Bay – to macro millions in donations to the likes of Team Trump.
Israel (funny choice of name for a fundy Christian) Folau believes that “only Jesus” can show us the path to salvation, so I guess his chosen few wouldn’t be feeling too friendly towards the original Chosen People – and if not, why not? Just who is more chosen?
Complicating matters are mumblings that Josh Frydenberg is being picked on in an anti-semitic campaign to un-araldite him from his seat of Kooyong. The corollary of this allegation is that even the descendants of Holocaust survivors are exempt from the provisions of the Constitution, unlike the descendants of Pommies, Kiwis, Italians and the constellations of other nationalities that have bestowed retrospective citizenship (and worlds of political pain) on their various diasporas.
I’m not sure that idea has legs, not before the hanging judges of our High Court at least who, in seeking to purify our Australian parliament from the evil influences of foreign governments, have succeeded in right royally fucking things so badly up that they appear to have accomplished the exact opposite of that which they set out to accomplish. Nowadays, any tin pot furreners in government in some distant land can have the final say on who’s whom in Oz politics, just by offering to bestow, in fits of belated reconciliation, some future domiciliatory benefits to the sons, grandsons and great-grandsons (or daughters) of emigrants who left their country of birth despite vowing, as they walked up the 3rd Class gangplank, that they never wanted to set eyes on the wretched places, ever again.
Into this mix come the Culture Warriors, ranging from nephews of Nazi heavyweights, to kiddy-fiddling Catholics, to happy-clapping fundies, to descendants of Dutch immigrants, to the athiest crazies of The Spectator, Sky News and the IPA, telling everyone else how the country should be run and organized along moral lines.
You really would need the wisdom of Solomon to write the legislation, the ruthlessness of the Gestapo to enforce it, plus the cynical hypocracy of the Australian right-wing media to defend it, to make any sense of where we’re headed religious freedom-wize circa 2019.
Thank you lizzie, Confessions and C@tmomma for yesterday’s kind words. (Still on break.)
C@t
What concerns me is that the worst interpretation is always placed on anything that Labor does, and Shorten was not given credit for his support of integrity.
A response from a public servant of over 30 years.
“Because, what they’re really concerned about is getting back control over women’s bodies.”
I think that plus ensuring control of reproduction by Society’s “patriarchs”. It sometimes seems to me that organised religion is mainly focused on the strengthening and ongoing support patriarchal control.
Dan Gulberry
Ah but they had a cunning plan. Reform it after they won the election. I wonder how that worked out for them ?
lizzie
I think it is just the natural reaction whenever any of the words “corruption” ,”New South Wales”, “Labor” or “politician” are seen within a mile of each other.
Hey Lately…good to see you. Please come back soon.
Lemon is a good read. And he seems to be enjoying his job.
I used to read his blog Heathen Scripture. From pre-election 2013….
I asked last night who was having a worse day at the cricket.
After Smith’s magnificence it clearly ended up being the umpires.
What an effort to finish the day with the match back at evenly poised. Great support from Siddle, Lyon and Head.
As for the rest, at least it would be very difficult for them to do worse. 🙂
Matthias is shocked – SHOCKED – to discover that the NAB has been knowingly ripping off its own customers.
He plans to allow them to provide “context” to the revelation first, and then to find the largest lettuce leaf he can put his hands on and flog them mercilessly with it.
https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/finance-minister-tells-nab-to-respond-to-bombshell-ken-henry-revelations-20190802-p52d6d.html
Good to know that DanG and poroti would rather poke their tongues out at Labor forever and a day, just like The Greens.
However, DanG appears to have, conveniently?, forgotten that, in order to get the votes of Pauline Hanson and Fraser Anning, Labor, and The Greens don’t forget, who wanted the ISDS clauses in the TPP removed as well, would have had to agree to do a deal with the devil, so to speak, and guarantee some contra in exchange for those votes. Along the lines of, I’ll guarantee you my TPP votes, if you vote for my Burqa ban.
I guess, at the end of the day, it becomes a matter of what you think is more important.
But, you know, it gives the perennially cranky something to selectively arc up about when they feel the need.
Bushfire Bill says:
Friday, August 2, 2019 at 11:22 am
Just shows how much attention he was paying to the RC.
The country is run by the Liberal Party. But somehow this escapes those players who lay all the blame for the faults in the system at Labor’s feet. This is business as usual. It’s intended to prevent working people ever exercising power in Australia. It works nearly all the time. We live in a quasi-one party State.
There will be no reform in Green Valley.
@C@tmomma
I argue Labor should not waste it’s time, trying to win over One Nation type voters. They voted for One Nation. Because they are at least somewhat racist or bigoted in some way especially towards Muslims.
However Labor should attack the current immigration system as exploitative of immigrants, because it is. Since the 457 Visa system is currently designed to provide a source of cheap, easily exploitable labor and not addressing genuine skills shortages in the economy. Not to mention the erroneous requirements that have been placed on legal immigrants.
Actually, at the time I think it was a loosening of the Gun Laws that was being bandied about by Leyonhjelm, Anning and Hansen as the price they demanded for their support.
Tristo,
I believe that’s what Labor’s focus is, in fact.
The Liberals fly the banner “jobs at any cost”. This applies to the environment, to taxes, to social justice, to social spending of all kinds. And it applies to trade deals as well. The trade deals that Abbott and others signed have almost no merit. But they are sold as being ‘good for the economy and good for jobs’. This is nonsense but it works for the Liberals. Labor could not bring on the defeat of a trade deal without also painting themselves as being hostile to the economy and jobs.
Labor lost the election on these themes. They’re very powerful vote aggregating devices. Labor was trying to win the election and fell short precisely because the Liberals smashed them on jobs. The ISDS topic is another Lib-Lib and Lib-kin splitting device. It will be used forever and a day against Labor and will ensure business as usual continues without interruption in this country.
The will be ISDS provisions in trade deals done in Green Valley.
Hey Tristo: do you have like, an actual plan for the progressive side of politics to win back the votes of the voters who determine elections in this country? Or just endless wunderwaffe?
BB @ 11:13am: some of your best work I think.
Tristo says:
Friday, August 2, 2019 at 11:30 am
@C@tmomma
I argue Labor should not waste it’s time, trying to win over One Nation type voters. They voted for One Nation. Because they are at least somewhat racist or bigoted in some way especially towards Muslims.
However Labor should attack the current immigration system as exploitative of immigrants, because it is. Since the 457 Visa system is currently designed to provide a source of cheap, easily exploitable labor and not addressing genuine skills shortages in the economy. Not to mention the erroneous requirements that have been placed on legal immigrants.
The 457 system was abolished and replaced with some alternatives visa types. To bring in a worker on a temporary working visa an employer has to guarantee a wage ($50k min I think) and pay a fee for the visa. The fee is intended to be used to fund skill training. The number of visas issued and of fees collected have been so low that the training budget will never be met.
The workers who are exploited in the temp labour market are those on working holiday visas, student visas and on bridging visas issued to those who have claimed asylum. These people usually work in casual jobs doing unskilled or semi-skilled work. They are lumpen. They have no rights to speak of. They have no tenure, no security. They are highly exploited in the labour market and in the overseas student market.
There is absolutely no reason for the market to bid up the price of labour when an endless supply of lumpen workers is available.
C@tmomma @ #724 Friday, August 2nd, 2019 – 9:26 am
There isn’t a single shred of evidence to support that claim, and it’s a very poor attempt to rewrite history. Labor did absolutely nothing to woo the crossbench for the amendments to the TPP. The amendment(s) were proposed by the Greens and supported by the crossbench, and with the combined 41 votes would’ve made the deal align with Labor’s stated policy on ISDS clauses.
Labor wasn’t trying to win anyone over, and we subsequently found out why. Labor is 100% behind the TPP and all of its abominable anti-democratic clauses. It was the Greens and crossbenchers that MIGHT have had some horse-trading to do, although there is no evidence of that either.
Exactly my point.
Is there really any difference between “my country love it or leave it” and “my party love it or leave it”?
I would’ve thought that a staunch party member would be even more disappointed by this and other events rather than just blind worship at the altar of The Party. But no, Big Brother loves them and has their best interests at heart.
DG
Judging by past and present actions, there would be a high probability of that happening.
Both major parties have been dragged kicking and screaming to be seen to be supporting a federal ICAC after a decade of pressure from the community, Australia Institute, prominent judges and lawyers, the Greens and other crossbenchers et al.
By their actions, not words, shall their promises be assessed.
Working people have started to vote for the Far Right in the current era in the same way as they did in the 1930s. The alternative framework is social democracy. But social democracy has been construed as an anti-jobs and therefore anti-worker project. Workers who are the most vulnerable – who have the most tenuous incomes, the weakest incomes and who are unable to develop solidarity with other workers – are the most likely to be wooed by the Right.
Decades of labour repression have driven many workers away from social democracy. The Liberals really do get this. They know how to use it. They will intensify this.
The Lib-kin continue to peddle Labor-blame. As long as dysfunction on the centre-left persists there will be no reform in Green Valley. We will be always utterly fucked. They know this. It’s their plan in action. The dysfunction we can see is the full flowering of their success. The fruits that ripen in Green Valley are sorrow, frustration and defeat. We will have salad forever.
I don’t know what problem Labor has with a Federal ICAC. Do they have in mind what happened to NSW Liberal Premier Nick Griener, who set up the NSW ICAC? A few years later it bit him on the bum. But that’s just all the more reason to be careful once in office. Federally, they’ve been out of office for 6 years and there should be lots of stuff to investigate on Abbott/Turnbull/Morrisons’ watch.
Is it tha they distrust an ICAC type body in the hands of this Government? Certainly the Government’s proposed secretive model is no good. They’d sic it onto Labor and the unions, bury anything unfavourable to them or their friends while leaking anything that could be construed damaging to Labor to Newscrap.
(more religious rant alert)
I think it is more than controlling women’s bodies. There is the belief by some fundies, and I mean Catholics in particular, that life begins at conception, when God infuses the fertilised egg with a ‘soul’, and therein is its ‘life’, eternal or otherwise. It is not ‘our’ life, but God’s life. He gave it, and only He can take it away. That’s why suicide is a mortal sin – an absolute offence against God – it is not ‘your’ life to take; you are taking a ‘God given’ life.
I don’t see any real interest in the foetus. I see guilt at work, and fear of retribution.
If their real concern was the welfare of the individual, then the obscene way they treat children (Nauru; Mexican border) would be otherwise inexplicable. But they duplicitously shift their guilt about these situation onto outside factors ‘beyond their control’.
It was interesting to hear the Rev Costello this morning talking about fear, and quoting Ghandi:
““Fear paralyses us. I actually think Gandhi got it right, he said, ‘we think the real enemy is hate, it’s not. The real enemy is fear’. Fear of others leads to hate.”
The opposite of love is fear.
In that old hippie book by Ram Dass ‘Remember Be Here Now’, he has Jesus looking down from the Cross, and saying: ‘look at all those frightened people and what they are doing to me’.
(God references capitalised for convention.)
DanG,
This is the actual position of Labor at that time:
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2018/sep/11/labor-drops-opposition-to-trans-pacific-partnership-trade-deal
But it’s a lot easier to just poke your tongue out at Labor, and me, as opposed to outlining the complexities of the situation, isn’t it?
Barney in Makassar @ #723 Friday, August 2nd, 2019 – 11:27 am
Jim Chalmers will be on the front foot today…..any time now……..here it comes…..just a minute……..come on Jim….time to push back Jim……………………….any time now…..
And speaking about poking your tongue out at Labor in a juvenile way, mundo swings by with his latest inanity.
Unions and ACTU reaction to TPP enabling legislation to be passed with bipartisan support
https://www.smh.com.au/business/workplace/unions-accuse-labor-of-selling-them-out-over-tpp-20180912-p503bx.html
Unions are angry and feel betrayed by the ALP’s support for the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade agreement, accusing their affiliated party of selling them out.
Labor resolved to support the partnership despite internal resistance over fears about its impact on Australian workers and scepticism about its economic value.
After lengthy debate, Labor’s trade spokesman Jason Clare was successful in overcoming opposition within caucus to ensure the Morrison government will have the votes it needs to pass the enabling legislation.
:::
“This dodgy deal is opposed by the majority of the Senate crossbench, meaning it can only pass through the parliament if Labor gives it the green light.
“The Opposition not only has an unprecedented ability to demand a better deal, failing to do so will see them forced to accept responsibility for the significant failings of this agreement.”
:::
Australian Council of Trade Unions national secretary Sally McManus said the ACTU and the union movement “are disappointed by the ALP’s decision to vote for the TPP enabling legislation”.
Concerns within Labor and unions centre on increased labour mobility for foreign workers, weak protections for Australians and whether the TPP-11 was consistent with Labor’s policy platform.
There is also resistance to allowing foreign multinationals to sue the government under investor-state dispute settlement provisions.
TPP
https://aftinet.org.au/cms/node/1622
September 10, 2018: The Australian reports that Senator Rex Patrick has said the Centre Alliance will block the implementing legislation for the TPP-11 unless the deal is significantly amended, which would require re-opening of negotiations with 10 other countries.
The Greens have publicly opposed the TPP-11. The Katter Australian Party have also said they will oppose it, meaning that if Labor says no, the legislation will not pass the Senate.
The Australian Council of Trade Unions opposes the TPP-11, arguing it will weaken labour-market testing and empower multinational companies to sue governments using investor-state dispute settlement.
ACTU president Michele O’Neil told The Australian on September 9: “We believe it’s a bad deal for working people and encourage all parties to vote against the enabling legislation”.
KayJay @ #5229 Friday, August 2nd, 2019 – 9:32 am
G’day KayJay. I remember the wild freesias adorning the best view of Newcastle – from Braye Park on a clear winters morning.