Time for part four in the series that reviews the result of the May 18 election seat by seat, one chunk at a time. As will be the routine in posts covering the capital cities, we start with a colour-coded map showing the two-party preferred swing at polling booth level, with each booth allocated a geographic catchment area by means explained in the first post in this series. Click for an enlarged image.
Now to compare actual election results to those predicted by a demographic linear regression model, to help identify where candidate or local factors might be needed to explain the result. I now offer a new-and-improved form of the model that includes interaction effects to account for the differences in demographic effects between the cities and the regions. The utility of the change, if any, will become more apparent when I apply it to regional seats, which confounded the original version of the model. The coefficients and what-have-you can be viewed here – the table below shows the modelled predictions and actual results for Labor two-party preferred, ranked in order of difference between the result and the prediction of the model.
The main eyebrow-raisers are that the model anticipates a stronger performance by Labor in nearly every Liberal-held seats, to the extent that blue-ribbon Higgins and Goldstein are both rated as naturally highly marginal. While this could prove a portent of things to come in these seats, it might equally reflect a model leaning too heavily on the “secular/no religion” variable to cancel out the association between income and Liberal support in the inner cities.
As in Sydney, the numbers provide strong indications of incumbency advantages, with both Labor and Liberal members tending to outperform the model and thus appear at opposite ends of the table. I suspect this reflects both the obvious explanation, namely personal votes for sitting members, and a lack of effort by the parties into each other’s safe seats. A tendency for parties to perform more modestly when a seat is being vacated is not so overwhelming as to prevent strong results relative to the model for Labor in Jagajaga and Liberal in Higgins.
With that out of the way:
Aston (Liberal 10.1%; 2.7% swing to Liberal): Aston attracted a lot of discussion after the 2004 election when the Liberals recorded a higher two-party vote than they did in their jewel-in-the-crown seat of Kooyong. Now, for the first time since then, it’s happened again, and by a fairly substantial margin (the Liberal-versus-Labor margin in Kooyong having been 6.7%). As illustrated in the above table, the swing places Alan Tudge’s margin well beyond what the seat’s demographic indicators would lead you to expect.
Bruce (Labor 14.2%; 0.1% swing to Labor): Located at the point of the outer suburbs where the Labor swing dries up, cancelling out any half-sophomore effect that may have been coming Julian Hill’s way after he came to the seat in 2016.
Calwell (Labor 18.8%; 0.9% swing to Liberal): Among the modest number of Melbourne seats to swing to the Liberals, reflecting its multiculturalism and location at the city’s edge. Maria Vamvakinou nonetheless retains the fifth biggest Labor margin in the country.
Chisholm (Liberal 0.6%; 2.3% swing to Labor): Labor’s failure to win Chisholm after it was vacated by Julia Banks was among their most disappointing results of the election, but the result was entirely within the normal range both for Melbourne’s middle suburbs and a seat of its particular demographic profile. The swing to Labor was concentrated at the northern end of the electorate, which may or may not have something to do with this being the slightly less Chinese end of the electorate.
Cooper (Labor 14.6% versus Greens; 13.4% swing to Labor): With David Feeney gone and Ged Kearney entrenched, the door seems to have slammed shut on the Greens in the seat formerly known as Batman. After recording high thirties primary votes at both the 2016 election and 2018 by-election, the Greens crashed to 21.1%, while Kearney was up from 43.1% at the by-election to 46.8%, despite the fact the Liberals were in the field this time and polling 19.5%. In Labor-versus-Liberal terms, a 4.2% swing to Labor boosted the margin to 25.9%, the highest in the country.
Deakin (Liberal 4.8%; 1.7% swing to Labor): While Melburnian backers of the coup against Malcolm Turnbull did not suffer the retribution anticipated after the state election, it may at least be noted that Michael Sukkar’s seat swung the other way from its demographically similar neighbour, Aston. That said, Sukkar’s 4.8% margin strongly outperforms the prediction of the demographic model, which picks the seat for marginal Labor.
Dunkley (LABOR NOTIONAL GAIN 2.7%; 1.7% swing to Labor): Together with Corangamite, Dunkley was one of only two Victorian seats gained by Labor on any reckoning, and even they can be excluded if post-redistribution margins are counted as the starting point. With quite a few other outer urban seats going the other way, and a part-sophomore effect to be anticipated after he succeeded Bruce Billson in 2016, it might be thought an under-achievement on Chris Crewther’s part that he failed to hold out the tide, notwithstanding the near universal expectation he would lose. However, his performance was well beyond that predicted by the demographic model, which estimates the Labor margin at 6.6%.
Fraser (Labor 14.2%; 6.1% swing to Liberal): Newly created seat in safe Labor territory in western Melbourne, it seemed Labor felt the loss here of its sitting members: Bill Shorten in Maribyrnong, which provided 34% of the voters; Maria Vamvakinou in Calwell, providing 29%; Tim Watts in Gellibrand, providing 20%; and Brendan O’Connor in Gorton, providing 16%. The newly elected member, Daniel Mulino, copped the biggest swing against Labor in Victoria, reducing the seat from first to eleventh on the national list of safest Labor seats.
Gellibrand (Labor 14.8%; 0.3% swing to Liberal): The city end of Gellibrand followed the inner urban pattern in swinging to Labor, but the suburbia at the Point Cook end of the electorate tended to lean the other way, producing a stable result for third-term Labor member Tim Watts.
Goldstein (Liberal 7.8%; 4.9% swing to Labor): Tim Wilson met the full force of the inner urban swing against the Liberals, more than accounting for any sophomore effect he might have enjoyed in the seat where he succeeded Andrew Robb in 2016. Nonetheless, he maintained a primary vote majority in a seat which, since its creation in 1984, has only failed to do when David Kemp muscled Ian Macphee aside in 1990.
Gorton (Labor 15.4%; 3.0% swing to Liberal): The swing against Brendan O’Connor was fairly typical of the outer suburbs. An independent, Jarrod Bingham, managed 8.8%, with 59.2% of his preferences going to Labor.
Higgins (Liberal 3.9%; 6.1% swing to Labor): One of many blue-ribbon seats that swung hard against the Liberals without putting them in serious danger. Nonetheless, it is notable that the 3.9% debut margin for Katie Allen, who succeeds Kelly O’Dwyer, is the lowest the Liberals have recorded since the seat’s creation in 1949, surpassing Peter Costello’s 7.0% with the defeat of the Howard government in 2007. Labor returned to second place after falling to third in 2016, their primary up from 14.9% to 25.4%, while the Greens were down from 25.3% to 22.5%. This reflected a pattern through much of inner Melbourne, excepting Melbourne and Kooyong.
Holt (Labor 8.7%; 1.2% swing to Liberal): The populous, northern end of Holt formed part of a band of south-eastern suburbia that defied the Melbourne trend in swinging to Liberal, causing a manageable cut to Anthony Byrne’s margin.
Hotham (Labor 5.9%; 1.7% swing to Labor): The swing to third-term Labor member Clare O’Neil was concentrated at the northern end of the electorate, with the lower-income Vietnamese area around Springvale in the south went the other way.
Isaacs (Labor 12.7%; 3.4% swing to Labor): What I have frequently referred to as an inner urban effect actually extended all along the bayside, contributing to a healthy swing to Mark Dreyfus. The Liberal primary vote was down 7.4%, partly reflecting more minor party competition than in 2016. This was an interesting case where the map shows a clear change in temperature coinciding with the boundaries, with swings to Labor in Isaacs promptly giving way to Liberal swings across much of Hotham, Bruce and Holt.
Jagajaga (Labor 6.6%; 1.0% swing to Labor): Jenny Macklin’s retirement didn’t have any discernible impact on the result in Jagajaga, which recorded a modest swing to her Labor successor, Kate Thwaites.
Kooyong (Liberal 5.7% versus Greens): Julian Burnside defied a general Melburnian trend in adding 2.6% to the Greens primary vote, and did so in the face of competition for the environmental vote from independent Oliver Yates, whose high profile campaign yielded only 9.0%. Labor was down 3.7% to 16.8%, adrift of Burnside’s 21.2%. But with Josh Frydenberg still commanding 49.4% of the primary vote even after an 8.3% swing, the result was never in doubt. The Liberal-versus-Labor two-party margin was 6.7%, a 6.2% swing to Labor.
Lalor (Labor 12.4%; 1.8% swing to Liberal): The area around Werribee marks a Liberal swing hot spot in Melbourne’s west, showing up as a slight swing in Lalor against Labor’s Joanne Ryan.
Macnamara (Labor 6.2%; 5.0% swing to Labor): Talked up before the event as a three-horse race, this proved an easy win for Labor, who outpolled the Greens 31.8% to 24.2%, compared with 27.0% to 23.8% last time, then landed 6.2% clear after preferences of the Liberals, who were off 4.6% to 37.4%. The retirement of Michael Danby presumably explains the relatively weak 5.0% primary vote swing to Labor in the seven booths around Caulfield and Elsternwick at the southern end of the electorate, the focal point of its Jewish community. The result for the remainder of the election day booths was 9.7%.
Maribyrnong (Labor 11.2%; 0.8% swing to Liberal): Nothing out of the ordinary happened in the seat of Bill Shorten, who probably owes most of his 5.0% primary vote swing to the fact that there were fewer candidates this time. Typifying the overall result, the Liberals gained swings around Keilor at the electorate’s outer reaches, while Labor was up closer to the city.
Melbourne (Greens 21.8% versus Liberal; 2.8% swing to Greens): The Greens primary vote in Melbourne increased for the seventh successive election, having gone from 6.1% in 1998 to 22.8% when Adam Bandt first ran unsuccessfully in 2007, and now up from 43.7% to 49.3%. I await to be corrected, but I believed this brought Bandt to within an ace of becoming the first Green ever to win a primary vote majority. For the second election in a row, Bandt’s dominance of the left-of-centre vote reduced Labor to third place. On the Labor-versus-Liberal count, Labor gained a negligible 0.1% swing, unusually for a central city seat.
Menzies (Liberal 7.2%; 0.3% swing to Labor): Very little to report from Kevin Andrews’ seat, where the main parties were up slightly on the primary vote against a smaller field, and next to no swing on two-party preferred, with slight Liberal swings around Templestowe in the west of the electorate giving way to slight Labor ones around Warrandyte in the east.
Scullin (Labor 21.7%; 2.1% swing to Labor): Third-term Labor member Andrew Giles managed a swing that was rather against the outer urban trend in his northern Melbourne seat.
Wills (Labor 8.2% versus Greens; 3.2% swing to Labor): The Greens likely missed their opportunity in Wills when Kelvin Thomson retired in 2016, when Labor’s margin was reduced to 4.9%. Peter Khalil having established himself as member, he picked up 6.2% on the primary vote this time while the Greens fell 4.3%. Khalil also picked up a 4.2% swing on the Labor-versus-Liberal count, strong even by inner urban standards, leaving him with the biggest margin on that measure after Ged Kearney in Cooper.
Bernard Keane in today’s Crikey email on the CPAC hilarity.
And I agree with him that it is incredibly disappointing to see John Anderson getting amongst it all, getting his kit on with One Nation, a party he led from the front in order to denounce when he was Deputy PM and Nationals leader. How times have changed, we’re all Trumpists now.
Talking of self determination, the situation in Hong Kong seems to be becoming parlous. How long will Xi and the brutal elite of the CCP hold back the troops?
I hope not but it’s possible it could be another Tiananmen Square incident.
The bullies of this world hate self determination.
“AE
One day you’ll have to tell me the inside story of the fall of him and his missus”
I really don’t know all the details, although at one stage I counted them, especially Kathy, as friends. They were odd balls. They slowly drifted out of my personal orbit after about 1998. In dispatches, I heard that he rubbed Steve Hutchins up the wrong way when trying to stack Lindsay and Greenway FECs with Filipino postal workers. Then he had a falling out with Jim Metcher. He was close to Joe Tripodi who arranged for him to ‘stack’ Fishos boat club at Brighton and he took over as the GM for a while. For some reason he had a falling out with Tripodi and was also suspected of various shenanigans at Fishos. The next thing he turns up at the head of the No Land Tax Party ticket – which was a property developers front – and very nearly won a seat in the NSW upper house in 2015.
Scotland wants out of the Thatcherite project.
In my view a military crackdown by China is inevitable if it continues.
Frednyk
It is precisely because the writer has used grammar correctly that the wrongly spelled words can be predicted.
I am sure you would be aware that grammar and spelling are two entirely different aspects of language, although interdependent.
If in a piece of text both grammar rules and spelling rules are disregarded, then it is impossible to interpret the desired meaning.
eg. Gril dncae byo het afetr het flloewd het.
“In my view a military crackdown by China is inevitable if it continues.”
I agree. China will do whatever it takes to ensure tha the protest isn’t successful.
Media Watch is doing press freedom in Hong Kong.
Steve777
Scotland has never wanted to be part of the Thatcherite project.
The Scottish Government pays about £50 million a year to mitigate the Westminster imposed “bedroom tax” on Scottish public housing tenants.
Scotland is the only nation in the UK that maintains free university education.
Peter Jones never paid his election day workers. Not a Labor man. At. All. He also sounds like he was around and about the sort of grubs who tried to take Emma Husar down in Lindsay.
AE
I was at the South Kingswood Branch meeting when he turned up with about 30 Filipino postal workers demanding admittance. After much buggerising around he and Kathy established the Claremont Meadows branch – very much a ghost branch.
Their sworn enemy was “the Fireman” who eventually became the Member for Fong Lim and was purged from the party during the recent Territory shenanigans – Eric was right about him all along
With Hong Kong, Kashmere, Yemen, to name a few crucial world issues, i noticed yesterday that SBS 6:30 news (or USBS, i call it) had as first item of world significance was nearly 10 mins on some rich US Paedophile’s suicide.
The yankee cult runs deep at SBS. It should be funded by the US embassy not by Australian taxpayers.
The people’s panellist appears to be a pro-China advocate.
“Peter Jones never paid his election day workers. Not a Labor man. At. All. He also sounds like he was around and about the sort of grubs who tried to take Emma Husar down in Lindsay.”
There are many a would be feudal lord in Lindsay. Emma simply didn’t pay homage to any of them, although she did make the mistake of employing and then treating rather poorly the scion of one local clan.
Peter Jones hasn’t been in the party for a decade or more, and when he was, to my understanding he had nothing to do with the clan that went gunning for Emma.
Cameron Bancroft shows his technique against Worcestershire in a tour game…
I must admit I was surprised to see the reserection of Diane Beamer in Lindsay – surely an indication of the sickness in NSW Labor. As this was a must retain seat for Labor, it was a factor in the Morrison Miracle
Nicholas:
And how does it determine what [i.e. how much] the state and local governments need?
If Eddie Obeid were the Mayor, I’m sure he’d say he needs more!
From http://www.cirje.e.u-tokyo.ac.jp/research/dp/2010/2010cf773.pdf
Application of the HGT drives cities to their optimal size (surely a laudable goal) and does so in a way that is both self funding (development of the city is funded by the increase in land values arising from
that development) and self limiting (since the city will run a fiscal deficit whenever it exceeds the optimal size, and as the local government is not a currency issuer, it has no capacity to do this for any significant length of time)
Oakeshott Country @ #1015 Monday, August 12th, 2019 – 9:58 pm
You really would love nothing more than to see ‘Labor dead by 2030’, wouldn’t you OC?
Never any comment about the similar rot in the timbers of the Liberal Party though, nor a similar desire for their demise. You almost sound as if you are in awe of them.
Andrew_Earlwood @ #1013 Monday, August 12th, 2019 – 9:46 pm
The way you were going on it sounded like everyone knew each other in a small foetid pool with only a few big fish, up there.
Morrison is Prime Minister at least partially due to Labor’s performance in Lindsay and Roberson
I dont see China choosing to carry out a Tiananmen style crack down in HK. Or even Xinjiang style crackdown. They have a lot to lose. The world is watching.
Crackdown, yes. Military involvement or widespread ‘re-education’…. unlikely.
That assumes the various arms of PRC HQ stay rational. And comes with the caveat that I would advise against a holiday to join the HK protesters. With the disclaimer that I am a hack.
A long time since I cared but weren’t Jones/O’Toole and Beamer “made men” for the Terrigals while the Andersons were leaders of the Troglodytes?
I understand that the majority of english as polled don’t mind if Scotland and NI go their own ways.
Oakeshott Country @ #1019 Monday, August 12th, 2019 – 10:25 pm
As you have said repeatedly. Whilst leaving out WA, Tasmania and Queensland. 😐
OC,
I was working at the UWS North Werrington campus while the Claremont Meadows branch stacking was happening, and like you I was gobsmacked to see Diane Beamer be resurrected as a candidate for the recent Federal election.
I was member of the Glenbrook / Lapstone branch of the ALP at the time, and at the time really glad I lived in Macquarie. There is no way I would have handed out for Labor in Lindsay at that time.
Now, I am in the inner city, and as a branch we are demanding far more say in policy development and preselection of members. As a submission I saw tot he ALP review of the last election put it “The ALP has an excellent ready-made focus group in our branches, and if they would just consult us, we could give them a good picture of what is happening in the ground.”
This is because ALP members are very diverse, and are spread across all electorates. We sign up for many reasons, and all of us are politically aware. We encompass the full gamut from academics, researchers, small business owners, retirees, pensioners, unemployed people and those on disability support. We have family and friends who have different political opinions, and who vote differently.
Quite a few of us thought that Labor was struggling during the Federal election campaign, particularly after coming across the Clive Palmer ads (anyone with young children watching Youtube), and for me in particular, even when I was out of Australia, ads at the top of every website I visited showing a newborn baby in 1960s knitted bonnet, booties and shawl, telling me that a Federal Labor government would allow late-term abortions.
Despite this, we hoped Labor would get over the line, but alas it was not to be. We really do now need to hold a no-holds-barred inquiry into why we did not win the “unloseable” election. Better to have the blood-letting now, while the next Federal election is 3 years in the future.
Boerwar
I understand that the majority of english as polled don’t mind if Scotland and NI go their own ways.
——————-
Certainly a poll showed a majority of Tory members preferred Brexit to maintaining a union with Scotland.
May they get both their preferences 🙂
I fixed it for you.
When China finally clamps down hard it won’t be because of anything the protesters have done (or haven’t done). An autonomous Hong Kong has never been part of China’s plan. If they can’t subvert the populace by quietly infiltrating the local government, they’ll do it the other way.
It seems inevitable that China will be one country, one system, in the not too distant future.
a r:
China’s is accusing the US and Taiwan of “orchestrating ‘well-organised’ recent protests”
This does not seem consistent with the fact that the current US administration couldn’t organise a pissup in a brewery. Nor is it likely that in 2019 Taiwan would do anything so provocative
They do make a rather pertinent point, however: the protests are individually ‘well organised’ but also sporadic in nature, and there appears to no organisation all between protests. With an endogenous (“homegrown”) protest movement, one would expect the level of organisation initially to be low, but to increase as time went on – i.e the level of organisation would increase organically as the movement sorted itself out. We are not seeing that in this case, which suggests an outside origin.
Consider the possibility that the Pot is Calling the Kettle Black – i.e. China itself is organising the protests (as well as the counter protests) in order to generate overwhelming impetus for intervention and put an end to the two systems regime.
It is sadly ironic how communist governments all seem to both attack imperialists while being ruthless enablers of the imperialist State.
That should be “… practioners of the Imperial State.”
Communists being practitioners of imperial states is hardly a surprise. Communism only became a practised ideology because the Russian Empire was collapsing (due to German, Ottoman, Danish and from 1916 Swedish obstruction of Russia`s main shipping routes and railway and ice problems with getting to the open ports) and the German Empire taking advantage by giving passage and funding to take over the Russian Empire, followed by them retaining power through a civil war and the hostility of major foreign powers and then later taking over China, another former Empire.
Psyclaw
Following the rules of the first and last letter being in the right place I get
Girl dance boy het after het followed het
from your statement. How close was I?
I cannot imagine writing a scientific/medical/theoretical paper with no grammar or spelling rules.
The Mooch has flipped…
During his CNN appearance, Scaramucci compared Trump to the Wicked Witch of the West in the movie The Wizard of Oz, a character who melted away when Dorothy threw water on her. Scaramucci drew a parallel between Republican supporters of Trump to soldiers in the movie who had previously protected the witch.
“Remember when the water got thrown on the green witch and she started melting?” Scaramucci said. “What happened to all those soldiers, right? . . . Let’s throw some water on the green witch, and let’s watch what the soldiers do, which is they’ll team up with Dorothy.”
During the interview, Scaramucci predicted there could be a “groundswell” of other Republicans speaking out publicly about Trump as he is doing.
“Sound and reasonably minded men and women in the Republican Party will say, ‘Wait a minute, we can’t do this,'” Scaramucci said. “He is giving people a license to hate, to provide a source of anger, to go after each other, and does it on his Twitter account.'”
https://www.smh.com.au/world/north-america/wait-a-minute-we-can-t-do-this-gop-should-consider-replacing-trump-on-2020-ticket-says-scaramucci-20190813-p52gfv.html
The more I read of Farage, the more ridiculous he seems.
The federal government will establish a new, “high-skilled migration stream” to expedite the visas of 5,000 of the “best and brightest” workers from around the world each year. The Global Talent Independent Program will look to an elite panel of the nation’s “high achievers” in academia and business to help establish which industries most need to entice leading international talent. Government officials will soon swarm Berlin, Boston, Singapore, Shanghai and Dubai to spruik the program and draft recruits from institutions like MIT, Stanford and Oxford. Here’s what people are saying.
Morning all. So we need a permanent boom in infrastructure spending. Really?
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2019/aug/13/600bn-of-spending-needed-over-next-15-years-infrastructure-australia-says
Even though we could use more work in Adelaide, it is time to call foul on this. This report proposes to spend $45 billion per year on urban infrastructure even though traffic congestion is a problem that costs us around $18 billion per year now. Why spend twice as much on fixing a problem as it is worth? And what about demand management, or reducing urban sprawl? Meanwhile road crashes cost us $30 billion per year and we have no plan to fix that. Nor HSR or interstate freight being addressed. I see no coherent national infrastructure plan here, just a desire to spend lots of money, having realised the economy is stagnating. Yes we need to spend more, but please don’t waste billions Scomo.
The mooch is just a talking head.
Didnt the soldiers only turn away from the witch after she was dead?
Good morning Dawn Patrollers.
Infrastructure Australia is predicting that congestion is at breaking point in Sydney and Melbourne, threatening to reduce the quality of life for residents.
https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/sydney-melbourne-coming-to-a-standstill-as-infrastructure-struggles-20190812-p52g9n.html
And it has declared that the end of the suburban sprawl across Australia’s east coast and warned the biggest challenge facing government will be providing enough inner-city services to cope with the surging population.
https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/the-end-of-the-suburban-sprawl-20190812-p52gad.html
Greg Jericho warns that if the task is left to the Reserve Bank alone, we won’t be getting a pay rise any time soon. He also pulls apart a number of the now heroic budget assumptions.
https://www.theguardian.com/business/grogonomics/2019/aug/13/if-the-task-is-left-to-the-reserve-bank-alone-we-wont-be-getting-a-pay-rise-any-time-soon
Nigel Gladstone reveals that the private building certifier who has been fined more than any other in NSW was among the people “primarily responsible” for privatising the supervision of building standards in the 1980s and 90s.
https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/state-s-most-fined-certifier-behind-building-standards-reforms-20190809-p52f1t.html
AC Grayling tells us why Brexit is a futile tragedy that will be reversed in a few years.
https://www.smh.com.au/world/europe/brexit-is-a-futile-tragedy-that-will-be-reversed-in-a-few-years-20190811-p52g15.html
Eryk Bagshaw explains how Australian producers of Feta, Gruyere and Scotch steaks face being barred from using the names of their products under a list of demands made by the European Union as part of a $100 billion trade deal. The Morrison government will on Tuesday release the list of names the EU wants banned and prepare itself for a lobbying blitz from industry as it moves into the final stages of negotiation.
https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/eu-gets-tough-on-australian-name-dropping-of-feta-gruyere-20190812-p52g9z.html
Neil McMahon reports on Last night’s Q and A.
https://www.canberratimes.com.au/story/6324710/examining-president-trump-qa-ponders-the-biggest-question/?cs=14231
The suspension of flights into and out of Honk Kong has had knock on effects. Kirsty Needham reports on yesterday’s protests.
https://www.smh.com.au/world/asia/hong-kong-international-airport-suspends-flights-amid-protests-20190812-p52ge3.html
Peter Hartcher writes that undaunted by giants, by space, even by outer space, the Australian Space Agency now has its chance to explore Australia’s full potential. If it can survive the near-space challenge known as Canberra, of course.
https://www.smh.com.au/national/astronauts-on-mars-australia-might-help-put-them-there-20190812-p52g6k.html
The general secretary of the Pacific Conference of Churches gives Morrison and his government a serve over inaction on climate change.
https://www.smh.com.au/environment/climate-change/a-climate-plea-to-scott-morrison-from-a-churchman-of-the-pacific-s-sinking-nations-20190808-p52f4a.html
The Washington Post reports that the former short-lived White House communications director Anthony Scaramucci said on Monday that President Donald Trump is “giving people a license to hate” and called on Republicans to consider replacing him on the top of the ticket next year.
https://www.smh.com.au/world/north-america/wait-a-minute-we-can-t-do-this-gop-should-consider-replacing-trump-on-2020-ticket-says-scaramucci-20190813-p52gfv.html
The future of one of Victoria’s biggest coal-fired power stations is in doubt as energy giant Alinta warns it is “unlikely” that its Loy Yang B generator in the Latrobe Valley will see out the full length of its licence.
https://www.smh.com.au/business/companies/energy-giant-alinta-flags-early-coal-shutdown-in-victoria-20190812-p52gdz.html
Corrine Schoch uses Germany’s example to show how coal-fired power stations can be closed down without job losses.
https://www.theage.com.au/national/victoria/we-can-close-coal-fired-plants-without-job-losses-germany-did-20190812-p52g8o.html
Meanwhile an Australian coalmine has nearly doubled its greenhouse gas emissions in two years without penalty under a Coalition climate policy that promised to put a limit on industrial pollution. Mining company Anglo American was given the green light to increase emissions at its Moranbah North mine, in central Queensland, twice since 2016, according to documents released under freedom of information laws.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/aug/13/coal-mine-increases-greenhouse-gas-emissions-without-penalty-foi-reveals
And John Quiggin tells us coal is on the road to becoming completely uninsurable.
https://theconversation.com/adani-beware-coal-is-on-the-road-to-becoming-completely-uninsurable-121552
After the passing of NSW abortion bill in the lower house the Guardian wonders if we are seeing a naked attempt to forge a new front in the culture wars led by the Daily Telegraph and Sky News.
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2019/aug/13/is-the-revolt-against-gladys-berejiklian-over-the-abortion-bill-real
Stephen Bartholomeusz says that bonds, a barometer of fear, are signalling something awful might lie ahead.
https://www.smh.com.au/business/markets/barometer-of-fear-bonds-are-signalling-something-awful-might-lie-ahead-20190812-p52g7c.html
Michael Pascoe wades into the US mass shootings and the staggering paradox that drives them.
https://thenewdaily.com.au/news/world/2019/08/10/assault-rifle-usa-shootings/
Last week’s hearings at the aged care royal commission in Brisbane looked at regulation in aged care. While rules and regulations are designed to safeguard residents, bureaucratic “red tape” also contributes to the failings in aged care.
https://theconversation.com/red-tape-in-aged-care-shouldnt-force-staff-to-prioritise-ticking-boxes-over-residents-outcomes-121561
Superannuation fund offerings will be rated red, yellow or green when APRA publishes its first publicly available performance assessment later this year.
https://outline.com/WnwwJj
Israel Folau’s social media accounts appear to have been deleted on the eve of a court hearing into his sacking by Rugby Australia. His Twitter and Instagram accounts disappeared on Monday, 24 hours before he is due to appear at in Melbourne’s Federal Circuit Court for a directions hearing.
https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2019/aug/12/israel-folau-social-media-twitter-instagram-accounts-disappear-before-rugby-australia-court-hearing
All Australians are poorer as the world devalues Australia’s currency further and further. Alan Austin reports from London.
https://independentaustralia.net/politics/politics-display/coalition-economic-management-a-huge-fail,12991
The US, along with the rest of the world, is obsessed by Donald Trump’s antics. But many Americans find it easier not to talk about him in polite company says Jennifer Hewett.
https://outline.com/gNHr7n
Emma Koehn outlines how the Australian Taxation Office will have an unprecedented view of how much cleaning and courier contractors are making as payment details start to flow through for a new reporting scheme designed to prevent taxpayers from under-reporting income.
https://www.smh.com.au/business/small-business/level-playing-field-cleaner-courier-pay-under-ato-microscope-20190812-p52g5a.html
Fatbergs are clogging Sydney’s sewer system. Dry wipes are a major culprit.
https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/how-fatbergs-are-clogging-sydney-s-sewerage-system-20190808-p52f9p.html
US Attorney General William Barr said the federal jail where Jeffrey Epstein died had “serious irregularities,” and he vowed to pursue justice for the financier’s victims.
https://www.smh.com.au/world/north-america/prison-where-jeffrey-epstein-died-has-serious-irregularities-barr-says-20190813-p52gfn.html
Jeffrey Epstein was enabled – he did not operate in a vacuum writes Suzanne Moore.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/aug/12/jeffrey-epstein-was-enabled-he-did-not-operate-in-a-vacuum
Cartoon Corner
David Rowe with our switched on PM.
David Pope and Morrison’s policy problems.
From Matt Golding.
Cathy Wilcox and our big friends.
Zanetti with our weather man.
Hastie inspired this one from Jon Kudelka.
https://cdn.newsapi.com.au/image/v1/aa89e7cba78490624f3506e58116a753?width=1024
From the US
Oakeshott Country @ #1020 Monday, August 12th, 2019 – 10:25 pm
Morrison is Prime Minister at least due to Labor’s performance.
Fixed it.
Wow, someone who has the guts to stand up to Donald Trump. Though The Mooch’s contribution today is only the first move in the Death Match Chess game between him and Trump.
Game on!
mundo @ #1041 Tuesday, August 13th, 2019 – 7:59 am
Morrison is Prime Minister due to Labor’s performance.
Fixed it some more.
mundo @ #1041 Tuesday, August 13th, 2019 – 7:59 am
mundo @ #1043 Tuesday, August 13th, 2019 – 8:00 am
Mundi blames everything on Labor
Zoidlord @ #1044 Tuesday, August 13th, 2019 – 8:07 am
Wrong.
I blame Labor for losing the May 18 election.
That’s one thing.
(is Mundi the collective noun for more than one Mundo?)
mundo @ #1047 Tuesday, August 13th, 2019 – 8:09 am
And mundo feels it gives him free reign to keep bagging and slagging Labor ad infinitum. I wish my ego was so big I thought I could direct traffic like that from a politics blog because I thought I was doing Labor a favour by doing it.
wRONg
@Mundo
The image above shows why Labor lost.
Breaking :
Infrastructure Australia wants endless mindless infrastructure funding.
The Mooch has a book to sell. Someone has to pay for the plastic surgery and whatever else consumes his resources.