Call of the board: Melbourne

More gory detail on the result of the May 18 federal election, this time focusing on Melbourne, where an anticipated election-winning swing to Labor crucially failed to materialise.

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.

Author: William Bowe

William Bowe is a Perth-based election analyst and occasional teacher of political science. His blog, The Poll Bludger, has existed in one form or another since 2004, and is one of the most heavily trafficked websites on Australian politics.

1,431 comments on “Call of the board: Melbourne”

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  1. Bushfire Bill @ #331 Saturday, August 10th, 2019 – 10:50 am

    Frankly, Morrison is probably looked upon as a “dickhead” by many of his MPs.

    For a start, he’s religious. Not mainstream religious, but nutty religious, a Happy Clapper. Athiest (which would account for most), Catholic and High Church Anglican MPs will see him as peculiar, to be tolerated at best. Jews don’t like Happy Clappers because Happy Clappers put up with Jews only as stepping stones to the End Times (to be discarded once their biblical role is played out).

    Second, he’s dorky. Morrison’s “Daggy Dad” personna is real, unsophisticated, unpopular and unattractive. He’s not a leader, but more of a loner. In fact whenever he has found himself in leadership positions, he’s been sacked.

    Third, related to the last point, because he’s a loner he doesn’t consult (and maybe a good dollop of the converse too). If you see media stories written about how consultative he is in Cabinet (which are starting to appear), then he’s not consulting, rather reverting to type. Turnbull was supposed to have run a consultative Cabinet. That didn’t do him much good, nor will it do Morrison any good.

    Fourthly, Morrison is tricky, not to be trusted. He got to where he is by backstabbing Turnbull. While useful to the hard men of the right, it was supposed to be Dutton who got the gig. Morrison’s trickery will have been noted.

    Fifthly, he has an overwhelming intensity, a manic personality. He comes on way too strong, all the time. This is tiring, except in very small doses. Morrison thinks he overwhelms people with his combination of intellect, glibness, charm, intensity and force of argument. But he just pisses them off. He’s vain about his personality, but has none. Hands up those who can sit through a Morrison TV interview and make any sense of it afterwards? Anyone? Thought not.

    In summary, Morrison is classic “dickhead” material. Now, there are lots of dickheads around, some even on this board, but they’re not Prime Minister, and they’re not trying to convey an impression of unassailable authority based on a majority of precisely one vote in the House.

    Morrison was supposed to lead the Party to defeat, not victory; to make a go of campaigning for show, lose, and then let Dutton take over. Morrison as PM is NOT the plan. He will only frustrate the hardliners and piss off the voters, probably sooner rather than later.

    He is not likeable, personable or team-spirited. He blathers so much it’s exhausting to be near him. He follows one of those funny American religions. He is a loner, and too secretive. He’s tricky and untrustworthy. He patronises people. He has no sense of humour (can you imagine him successfully carrying a joke all the way through to the punchline?).

    And he has a political margin of one vote. Why else do you think he changed the Liberal Party leadership rules? He knows he vulnerable.

    You’d have to believe in miracles to think he’ll last too long.

    emailed this to me mum to lift her spirits…

  2. nath
    “I noticed that ‘Mad as Hell’ has been showing a portrait of Shorten dressed up as Napoleon. Where’s my royalties?”
    Are you sick in the head?.

  3. 1934pc says:
    Are you sick in the head?.
    ______________
    Oh sorry. Did I upset the last of the Shorten loyalists? What a sad bunch they are.

  5. Background on the development of the Crown Casino. Kennett now “can’t remember how it happened”.

    “In the early and middle 1980s the Labor government planned for Southbank to be one of the first redevelopment areas on the fringes of Melbourne,” said Michael Buxton, a long-time commentator on planning and previously an RMIT professor.

    “It was intended to be this type of three-to-seven level, dense European style of housing,” he said, that would then link to a similar development in neighbouring Docklands.

    This vision was replaced by a totally contrary view of urban development – massive high-rise towers designed to impress.

    …After Crown won the tender in 1993 to run the casino, almost every single aspect of the project changed; the size of the building was increased dramatically and the company that was to run the casino, Federal Hotels, was dumped. The builder also changed to Grocon. “Every element of the tender process was changed,” said journalist and anti-gambling campaigner Stephen Mayne, who worked for the Kennett government.
    …

    The casino opened in 1997 when Melbourne, leaving behind the recession that started in 1991, was also opening up the lanes and liquor laws that it today markets itself on. By the time Kennett cut the ribbon on the new casino, his “On The Move” persona had become synonymous with the massive development at Southbank. But the casino in particular became emblematic of his government’s lack of transparency.

    Mayne said (Lloyd) Williams and Kennett worked together to “gold-plate” the casino. Williams in particular was strident about it being “the biggest and best in Australia to attract” high rollers, Mayne said.

    https://www.theage.com.au/politics/victoria/the-troubled-birth-of-crown-casino-we-were-warned-20190808-p52fa1.html

  6. Another potential terrorist, this time thwarted.

    Tom WinterVerified account@Tom_Winter
    3h3 hours ago
    BREAKING / NBC News: The FBI has arrested Conor Climo, age 23, of Las Vegas Nevada for possession of an unregistered firearm.

    He allegedly had an AR-15, rifle, and bomb making materials. He discussed attacks on a synagogue, and Jews. He drew attacks of a gay bar in Vegas.

    But if only there’d been signs….

    Tom WinterVerified account@Tom_Winter
    3h3 hours ago
    The FBI says the person featured in a @KTNV report in 2016, carrying 120 rounds of ammo and his AR-15 on an armed patrol of a neighborhood is the same person they arrested today:

  10. Asked to respond to Mr Hastie’s comparison, rather than comment on actual developments in China, the Prime Minister downplayed his backbencher’s comments.

    But in doing so, Scott Morrison seemed to betray the bitter reality that the Government doesn’t actually have any idea what to do about either the growing US/China tensions, or the growing Chinese belligerence, which it now believes extends to building a new military base in Cambodia.

    “I just refer to the speech I gave a few months ago, before I went to the G20, and I set out pretty clearly what the challenges were there and continuing to successfully manage our strategic allies and comprehensive strategic partners”, Mr Morrison said.

    Yep, “see above” is always such powerful bit of persuasive leadership.

    https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-08-10/hastie-dismissal-betrays-governments-lack-of-plan-on-china/11400710

  12. lizzie @ #360 Saturday, August 10th, 2019 – 12:21 pm

    Asked to respond to Mr Hastie’s comparison, rather than comment on actual developments in China, the Prime Minister downplayed his backbencher’s comments.

    But in doing so, Scott Morrison seemed to betray the bitter reality that the Government doesn’t actually have any idea what to do about either the growing US/China tensions, or the growing Chinese belligerence, which it now believes extends to building a new military base in Cambodia.

    “I just refer to the speech I gave a few months ago, before I went to the G20, and I set out pretty clearly what the challenges were there and continuing to successfully manage our strategic allies and comprehensive strategic partners”, Mr Morrison said.

    Yep, “see above” is always such powerful bit of persuasive leadership.

    https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-08-10/hastie-dismissal-betrays-governments-lack-of-plan-on-china/11400710

    Morrison is keeping stum on this for the usual reason.

    People may well think you are a fool with no idea and no plan.

    But, if you open your mouth, they will know for sure.

  14. Rosalind Garcia @GarciaRosalind
    · 4h
    My husband, the US historian, who studies Mex immig., just told me about agricultural employers who called Immig. Enforcement on the last day of harvest so they didn’t pay their undocumented workers. Makes you wonder about the recent raids. Want those jobs?

  15. This deciding China is a threat would have been a legitimate conversation to have had 25 years ago. IMHO it is much more about racism now, but we could have had genuine legitimate conversations about whether or not we should trade with a party with such poor human rights.

    We can’t now, we have significant human rights issues of our own, and they are a massive trading partner.

    The biggest anti-China stuff seems to be coming for weak scared fairly stupid middle aged and older white men.

  16. British politician Nigel Farage has revelled in the demise of former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull while commending Australia’s tough stance on immigration.

    The Brexit Party leader is in Sydney this weekend to headline the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), billed as one of the country’s largest gatherings of conservatives.

    Speaking with SBS News, Mr Farage celebrated the fall of conservative leaders who he said were not true conservatives, including former UK prime ministers David Cameron and Theresa May, and Australia’s Malcolm Turnbull.
    …
    “Mr Turnbull was masquerading as a conservative,” he said, adding that Prime Minister Scott Morrison was a “decent, honest, sincere guy”.

    https://www.sbs.com.au/news/a-snake-nigel-farage-celebrates-the-demise-of-malcolm-turnbull?cid=newsapp:socialshare:twitter

  18. Unless something catastrophic occurs, the Tory rules for regime change* will see Morrison serve out his term. The likes of Dutton, Frydenberg, Porter will no doubt be white-anting him, but a two-thirds majority will prove to be a bridge too far. Like it or lump it, he’s here for three long, torturous years

    [*’Mr Morrison secured the endorsement of his party room at a late-night unscheduled meeting on Monday night for rules that state a Liberal prime minister in their first term cannot be removed unless there is a two-thirds majority of the party room for a change. The rules cannot be changed unless a two-thirds majority of the party room agrees.’]

  19. WeWantPaul:

    [‘The biggest anti-China stuff seems to be coming for weak scared fairly stupid middle aged and older white men.’]

    And here’s me thinking the ‘anti-China stuff’ is predominantly coming from inhabitants of Hong Kong.

  21. BK

    TBH I didn’t know much about Farage (except that his name reminds me of the Frenchwoman who knitted during the executions). I hadn’t realised until now what a nasty little conservative he is.

  22. Re that Farage guy.

    Mr Farage celebrated the fall of conservative leaders who he said were not true conservatives, including former UK prime ministers David Cameron and Theresa May, and Australia’s Malcolm Turnbull. … “Mr Turnbull was masquerading as a conservative.”

    Effectively he’s saying they weren’t “real” conservatives. It’s good they’re gone. Purity is a dangerous motivation.

  23. WeWantPaul says:
    Saturday, August 10, 2019 at 12:45 pm
    The biggest anti-China stuff seems to be coming for weak scared fairly stupid middle aged and older white men.
    ________________________
    They have grown up believing that British or American older white men run things, and they take an ownership stake in that. The rise of China upends all this.

  24. Perhaps ministers should be asked if, compounding CPI backwards, just how long ago was it that the Newstart allowance went from excessive to just right.

  25. Bill Maher imagines what it’s like to be a gun massacre victim and waking up to a Trump visit

    HBO “Real Time” host Bill Maher ripped President Donald Trump for failing to console the nation after multiple mass shootings.

    “Whenever there’s a tragedy, it’s all about how he’s feeling,” Maher said.

    “He’s the only president who thinks consoler-in-chief means you console him,” Maher said. “And also he’s a whiney little b*tch.”

    He imagined what it is like for the victims.

    “These poor people, imagine waking up from surgery and standing over you is a grinning, gaseous blob and his scowling trophy wife,” he said. “People are like, “sh*t, I must have died and gone to hell.’”

    https://www.rawstory.com/2019/08/watch-bill-maher-imaging-what-its-like-to-be-a-gun-massacre-victim-and-waking-up-to-a-trump-visit/

  26. It would be good to tax imported goods that were produced in ways that violated environmental and labour standards. This would be perfectly legitimate and totally consistent with the transformations we need to avert the worst of global warming.

    We also have to toughen up the labour and environmental standards for local production.

  27. Lizzie:

    from Chris Kenny .. “if you are going to heed the IPCC advice to turn vegetarian for the climate, what are you going to feed your rottweiler?”

    The answer is “Wagyu”!

    I first enountered artificial meat (made from plants)in 2010. It was $100,000/kg

    Now it’s cost and quality competitive for human consumption – one can buy a “gourmet burger” with conventional meat for $US 20 and likewise buy a “gourmet burger” with artificial meat for $US 20. And the two are indistinguishable.

    The cost will keep falling (maybe $2/kg retail?) and the quality will continue to improve (perfectly marbled Wagyu – same as $200/kg traditional meat).

    I hope the Rottweiler likes Wagyu…

  28. Confessions:

    [‘Is this Morrison’s first term as PM? He was PM in the previous term of govt.’]

    The period following the knifing of Turnbull did not count:

    [‘These changes don’t protect Scott Morrison from being ousted between now and an election, likewise they don’t affect the party if it’s in opposition.’]

    https://www.9news.com.au/national/scott-morrison-liberal-leadership-party-rule-changes/c704dc65-c5f5-456d-9e0e-08226c15637e

  29. E. G. Theodore says: Saturday, August 10, 2019 at 1:07 pm

    Lizzie:

    from Chris Kenny .. “if you are going to heed the IPCC advice to turn vegetarian for the climate, what are you going to feed your rottweiler?”

    The answer is “Wagyu”!

    I first enountered artificial meat (made from plants)in 2010. It was $100,000/kg

    Now it’s cost and quality competitive for human consumption – one can buy a “gourmet burger” with conventional meat for $US 20 and likewise buy a “gourmet burger” with artificial meat for $US 20. And the two are indistinguishable.

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

    Excellent ‘Foreign Correspondent’ this week on this :

    Craig Reucassel puts ‘impossible meat’ to the test as synthesized meat enters the mainstream market in the United States.

    https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-08-06/craig-reucassel-puts-impossible-meat-to-the-test/11379502

  30. Prison authorities are investigating whether disgraced cardinal George Pell broke prison rules after a letter he apparently wrote to supporters, comparing his suffering to that of Jesus, was posted on social media.

    Not quite comparing, that’s journalist licence, but still…

    Pell wrote in the letter he has “reason to be disturbed” by the instrumentum laboris, a document prepared by the Vatican for October’s Synod of Bishops for the Pan-Amazon region.

    The document has been controversial, as it has floated the possibility of married men becoming priests in South America, due to a shortage of unmarried men in the region wanting to take the cloth. It also deals with ecological issues in the Amazon, such as deforestation.

    I suppose at his age Pell cannot change.

    https://www.theage.com.au/national/victoria/pell-s-letter-from-prison-being-investigated-by-justice-department-20190810-p52fsk.html

  33. Mavis Davis @ #368 Saturday, August 10th, 2019 – 12:55 pm

    Unless something catastrophic occurs, the Tory rules for regime change* will see Morrison serve out his term. The likes of Dutton, Frydenberg, Porter will no doubt be white-anting him, but a two-thirds majority will prove to be a bridge too far. Like it or lump it, he’s here for three long, torturous years

    [*’Mr Morrison secured the endorsement of his party room at a late-night unscheduled meeting on Monday night for rules that state a Liberal prime minister in their first term cannot be removed unless there is a two-thirds majority of the party room for a change. The rules cannot be changed unless a two-thirds majority of the party room agrees.’]

    The Abbott catastrophe
    The Turnbull catastrophe
    The Morris……ya never know……

  35. E.G.

    If I was Chris Kenny’s Rottweiler, I would be worried about what meat I was getting 🙂

    On a more serious and less libellous note, plant based ‘meat’ is getting better and better. If you haven’t tried Beyond Meat or Alternative Meat, next time in Coles or Woolies pick some up and ‘have a go’. The Beyond Meat in particular has nailed the juicy hamburger patty to perfection, plant based, and along with similar competitors is revolutionising fast food in the US, and soon the world.

    As for the dog, we feed our American PitBull/Staffie Cross roo meat mixed with biscuits and she loves it, or so she says.

  37. The most vocal, local critic of China’s expansionism is not an old white man. It’s a 37-year-old pollie. And, I’m sure I’ve seen the odd young man, woman protesting in Hong Kong.

  39. If you haven’t tried Beyond Meat or Alternative Meat, next time in Coles or Woolies pick some up and ‘have a go’.

    Thanks sprocket_ , I’ll keep an eye out for it. On the Coles website it was listed as ‘sold out’.

  40. Nigel Farage is the former leader of the UK Independence Party, a far right outfit that broadly occupied a similar position on the political spectrum in the UK to One Nation here.

  41. The crushing rejection of a parliamentary push for an investigation into Crown Casino highlights how much the major parties are in the thrall of the gambling lobby. By Mike Seccombe.

    https://www.thesaturdaypaper.com.au/news/politics/2019/08/10/political-parties-cash-gambling-largesse/15653592008585

    Just five members of the house of representatives, lined up in a row on one side of the chamber last week, voting for the establishment of a powerful joint parliamentary committee to investigate the detailed and many allegations of corruption and criminality by Crown Casino.
    :::
    The motion they were advocating was detailed, setting out matters to be investigated including Crown’s links to “organised crime, money laundering, tampering with poker machines, and domestic violence and drug trafficking on Crown property”, as well as alleged improper activity by consular officials and other federal and state officials and agencies.

    They were proposing a multipartisan super committee, comprising 16 members – three MPs from each of Labor and the Coalition, three senators from each of Labor and the Coalition, and four members drawn from the minor parties and independents.

    The votes were taken and the motion was lost: 127 to 5.

    A clue as to why might be found in the terms of reference, specifically number 1(c), which called for the committee to investigate “the relationship between Crown Casino and governments, including the role of former members of state and federal parliaments”.

    Among the members voting, there were only five who could claim no relationship with Crown Casino: Bandt, Haines, Steggall, Wilkie and Sharkie.

    And so, instead, by rapid agreement of the major parties, the job of investigating the allegations was flicked to a small body most Australians would have never heard of: the Australian Commission for Law Enforcement Integrity (ACLEI).
    :::
    Which is to say, it was the perfect vehicle for this investigation, as far as the major parties were concerned. For they have many strong reasons to favour only a limited inquiry. Millions of reasons. Billions of them.
    :::
    On top of the direct donations, there are the large amounts of money that are funnelled into political parties via their “associated entities” from people and entities associated with Crown.
    :::
    The 2010 election produced a hung parliament, and in order to gain the numbers to govern, Julia Gillard negotiated a deal with Andrew Wilkie, under which he would support Labor in return for gambling reforms.
    :::
    But, as Livingstone elaborates: “Even at the height of their anti-Gillard campaigning in 2010-11, they [ClubsNSW] still had a bunch of people on the Labor side, including Joel Fitzgibbon, Chris Bowen and others, kept on the donations drip feed.”
    :::
    Bottom line, Labor betrayed Wilkie and watered down its reforms, and later voted with the new Abbott government to kill them off.
    :::
    They are dependent not only on the donations as political parties, but also dependent on the revenue they get as governments from gambling. Some $6 billion a year, in total, is harvested by state and territory governments, most of it coming indirectly to them from the pockets of those struggling with gambling addiction.

    The symbiotic relationship between politics and the industry has turned Australians into the biggest, and losing-est, gamblers in the world.
    :::
    “You saw it in NSW with those pre-election deals; you saw it here in Tasmania with the support of the Liberals at the state election. You see it in the fact that Labor owns and runs poker machine venues – the ACT, the Randwick Labor Club in Sydney. And you see it in the fact that both major parties opposed my push last week for the inquiry.

    “These are all examples of the remarkably cosy relationship between the gambling industry and the political establishment.”
    :::
    A distinction that’s also made by Anthony Whealy, QC, former judge and previously chairman of Transparency International in Australia. He is now chair of the Centre for Public Integrity, a group of eminent former judges and lawyers pushing for a strong federal anti-corruption commission.

    Behaviour does not have to be illegal to be corrupt, he says.

    “The lobbying and benefits that flow from making generous donations are fundamental to the way the gambling industry operates,” he says.

    “And on the face of it, they act in accordance with the law. It’s not criminal conduct. But it is conduct that, I have always argued, should be under the umbrella of corrupt conduct.”
    :::
    All signs suggest that to break Australia’s gambling addiction, we need not only a much more robust anti-corruption body but also reform to the regime of political donations.
    :::
    This week another eminent legal figure, former High Court justice Kenneth Hayne, of banking royal commission fame, joined the chorus of people lamenting the decline of public trust in our national institutions.

    In a speech made in July, but only reported on Wednesday, he complained that government decision-making processes had become “skewed, if not captured” by powerful vested interests.

    And there is no better evidence of that than the 127-5 vote in the house of representatives last week.

  44. Confessions says: Saturday, August 10, 2019 at 1:20 pm

    The Mooch is copping a pasting from WaPo columnist Katherine Rampell.

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

    Bill explained his theory that Trump suffers from a malignant narcissistic personality disorder.

    Former White House press secretary Anthony Scaramucci then attempted to defend his “friend.”

    “What I’m astonished by is the lack of courage of Republican elected leaders, not to pick up the phone and call him out or call him out on TV,” Scaramucci said.

    “It’s beyond they need to pick up the phone and tell him to stop saying the stupid racist sh*t,” Washington Post columnist Catherine Rampell replied.

    “They need to distance themselves from him, and so do you, frankly,” she continued, to cheers from the audience.

    “I’m an American, I love my country,” Scaramucci replied.

    “You can love your country and hate the racism,” Rampell scolded. “But you act like this is a one-off slip of the tongue, this is his whole career.”

    https://www.rawstory.com/2019/08/watch-trump-supporter-hilariously-shut-down-for-defending-racism-on-hbos-real-time/

  45. No need to go for plant-based ‘meat’, scientists have figured out how to grow strands of animal meat in a test tube. Which can then be combined into meat patties, having never been part of the body of an animal. They just haven’t gotten to the point of being able to produce whole muscle tissue in a lab yet but they are working on it.

  47. We’ll need to require most of the nation’s meat and dairy producers to transition to producing sustainable plant-based foods, or to other industries. We’ll need to provide income support and public sector job creation to ease that transition.

    We’ll need to monitor and enforce high standards of sustainability for all food production.

    We’ll need to limit the use of personal cars to certain days of the week.

    We’ll need to increase massively the frequency, comfort, and convenience of public transport, and we must make public transport free for everyone. We should provide free wi-fi on all public transport.

    We’ll need to reforest our nation.

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