Various stuff that’s happening

Sarah Henderson reportedly struggling in her Senate preselection comeback bid, plus yet more on the great pollster failure, and other things besides.

Newspoll’s no-show this week suggests last fortnight’s poll may not have portended a return to the familiar schedule. Amid a general post-election psephological malaise, there is at least the following to relate:

• The great pollster failure was the subject of a two-parter by Bernard Keane in Crikey yesterday, one part examining the methodological nuts and bolts, the other the influence of polling on journalism and political culture.

• Richard Willingham of the ABC reports former Corangamite MP Sarah Henderson is having a harder-than-expected time securing Liberal preselection to replace Mitch Fifield in the Senate, despite backing from Scott Morrison, Josh Frydenberg and Michael Kroger. According to the report, some of Henderson’s backers concede that Greg Mirabella, former state party vice-president and the husband of Sophie Mirabella, may have the edge.

• The Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters has invited submissions for its regular inquiry into the 2019 election, which will be accepted until Friday, September 2019. Queensland LNP Senator James McGrath continues to chair the committee, which consists of five Coalition, two Labor and one Greens member.

• Daniella White of the Canberra Times reports Labor is struggling to find candidates for next October’s Australian Capital Territory election, said by “some insiders” to reflect pessimism about the government’s chances of extending its reign to a sixth term.

• The Federation Press has published a second edition of the most heavily thumbed tome in my psephological library, Graeme Orr’s The Law of Politics: Election, Parties and Money in Australia. A good deal of water has passed under the bridge since the first edition in 2010, most notably in relation to Section 44, which now accounts for the better part of half a chapter.

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.

1,701 comments on “Various stuff that’s happening”

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  2. BK
    You would want to nail down a fixed rate for as long as possible ! I’m wondering what there will be to stop house prices going ‘stupid’ .

  3. “My new guitar sounds lovely.

    Pity I’m still crap.

    Anyway it’s fun! ”

    BB reckons that guitars should be banned before you hurt someone Barnie …

  4. Further to my bouncers post.

    I didnt post anything when Eddie Jones raged against the red card given to the All Black who shoulder charged the head of a tackled player. I didnt post because Eddie Jones is a well known f wit. Everyone knew it when he was playing grade rugby (and cricket). Everyone still knows it. But imagine for a minute a CEO or manager talking so carelessly that the profits of the company (in our example – the spectacle of the game) is paramount over the lives of the staff.

    FFS Eddie, we dont need head high shoulder charges in rugby you d.head.

    I get that there is risk in playing sport. There always has been and always will be. That does not excuse the administration, leaders and commentators of the game from blithely dismissing it. When the consequence is so high, a risk (no matter how low) needs to be seriously evaluated… and regularly reevaluated.

  6. BB reckons that guitars should be banned before you hurt someone Barnie …

    Have you seen the photo of Abbott holding the prone Hughes’ head? There isnt a funny side to this particular issue.

  7. Oh we’re from Tigerland
    A fighting fury
    We’re from Tigerland
    In any weather you will see us with a grin
    Risking head and shin
    If we’re behind then never mind
    We’ll fight and fight and win
    For we’re from Tigerland
    We never weaken til the final siren’s gone
    Like the Tiger of old
    We’re strong and we’re bold
    For we’re from Tiger
    Yellow and Black
    We’re from Tigerland.

  8. poroti @ #1550 Sunday, August 18th, 2019 – 2:52 pm

    Now how will this work ?
    ………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

    Danish bank launches world’s first negative interest rate mortgage
    Jyske Bank will effectively pay borrowers 0.5% a year to take out a loan
    https://www.theguardian.com/money/2019/aug/13/danish-bank-launches-worlds-first-negative-interest-rate-mortgage

    The article explains it quite well. You make repayments as normal, but for each repayment you make, the bank also kicks in a small amount, meaning you don’t actually end up repaying the full amount of the loan.

    And it points out that the downside is likely to be negative interest on your deposits – i.e. you will be charged a fee for the privilege of having the bank hold onto your money.

  9. In accusing me of misquoting him Andrew Earlwood has accused me of wanting to limit F1 cars to 60kph, get rid of bowlers altogether, ban guitars (?), and turn cricket into a game played by robots (or was it Barney who reckons I said that last one?).

    I didn’t say any of the above, of course. Andrew and Barney are making it up.

    Andrew also pointed out that Smith only got hit because he played a “poor shot” ( which would have been a comfort to all the tail-enders who have bouncers bowled at them). This seems to be a “blame the victim” argument, to me.

    Fast bowling is fine, and part of cricket. Most fast balls bowled, probably 80-90%, are not bouncers anyway. All I’m suggesting is that this percentage should be increased to 100%, before someone else gets killed trying to please spectators who get their rocks off watching life-and-safety-threatening behaviour in the workplace. Mustn’t upset the fans.

    Alternatively, we could perhaps make it permissable for batsmen to sue for damages bowlers who deliberately hurt them. Let’s see how many bowlers persist in bowling deliberately at batsmens’ heads in order to cause fear of grevious bodily harm. And any that still do bowl bouncers could always use the, “Piss poor shot” explanation as a legal excuse. Let’s try it out in court!

    Why not take this to a wider application? The casual king-hitter in Kings Cross could always say it wasn’t his fault the victim tripped and hit his head after being coward-punched. Or the mass murderer with an ARM-15 could argue that his victims “ducked poorly”.

    Can anyone explain why bouncers are bowled (apart from being used as a physical threat, that is).

  10. This is a most eloquent answer to this question:
    Can anyone explain why bouncers are bowled (apart from being used as a physical threat, that is).

    Some sports have a fundamental stupidity, and a few of them an equally fundamental hypocrisy. Many cricket folk look down their noses at the barbarity of boxing, or bullfighting, or the rugby codes, where trying to hit someone in the head gets you sent off. In cricket, you can try to hit someone in the head with a ball travelling 150 kilometres an hour, a proven killer, but you can only do it twice an over. And then twice the next over. And so on until you get tired or you hit him.

    https://www.smh.com.au/sport/cricket/smith-returning-to-bat-was-brave-but-only-if-you-leave-your-head-inside-cricket-s-glass-box-20190818-p52i75.html

    Well said, Malcolm Knox.

  11. After sitting through a 7 day judge only trial of a clergyman recently (historical child sexual assault) I am now tending to the view that Pell will lose.

    Like most sexual assaults there were no direct witnesses.

    Evidence came from 3 sources, the alleged victim, other people from the school (verifying school organisation, timetables , layout etc), and tendency evidence from 3 or 4 separate victims of the same clergyman, who had not previously reported their attacks. These victims were separated over 300 Klm and 8 years, and were unknown to each other.

    In his judgement his honour said he believed the evidence of these “tendency” witnesses.

    However the judge said that the complainant in the case had performed badly under cross examination (I didn’t hear ….. court closed for his testimony). He had not only asserted times and places which the school staff witnesses had said would not have been possible 25 years ago, but apparently defended the accuracy of his memory very very strenuously.

    In the end, the judge said that although he accepted the tendency evidence (ie that this man had offended against children over the years), he could not allow that evidence to determine guilt in this case because even true tendency evidence “could not overwhelm the unreliability of the complainant’s evidence.” So the verdict was “not guilty”.

    Now in relation to Pell (a) his decision is also being made by judge(s) and (b) in the case I have described, the judge put great weight on the complainant’s evidence (that it was unreliable).

    Given that the Pell complainant is reported to have been a highly credible witness, the judges might well be prepared to find that no doubt exists. In other words, credible evidence is credible evidence. So the only source of possible doubt might be Pell’s protestations when compared with excellent complainant evidence.

    It is a bit difficult to express clearly, but what I took from the judge here is that despite many sexual assault cases being “he said Vs he said”, good complainant evidence can actually prevail, without other direct corroboration.

  12. “What happened to me was not unique – it’s been happening to small, medium and some large businesses all over the country.”

    Oliver added that caring about ethical sources of food and fair treatment of staff was not a lucrative business model.

    “In business… it’s not a level playing field.”

    A handful of restaurants bearing the celebrity chef’s name survive in Australia.

    https://www.theage.com.au/world/europe/not-a-level-playing-field-jamie-oliver-laments-business-collapse-20190818-p52i8d.html

  14. Andrew_Earlwood says:
    Sunday, August 18, 2019 at 3:10 pm

    “My new guitar sounds lovely.

    Pity I’m still crap.

    Anyway it’s fun! ”

    BB reckons that guitars should be banned before you hurt someone Barnie …

    He could be right.

    After more than 6 months not playing, my fingers tips are already hurting. 😆

  15. Senator Penny Wong @SenatorWong
    9m
    The Morrison Government’s refusal to take climate change seriously has diminished our influence in the Pacific. We have to recognise that Pacific Island nations can choose who they work with. What we must do is work to be the partner of choice.

    A larger section of the Guardian piece quoted by Peg.

    Wong also continued Labor’s critique that the government’s record of rising emissions and attempts to use Kyoto carryover credits left it with little credibility discussing climate change, arguing that Scott Morrison had diminished Australia’s influence at the Pacific Islands Forum where it was roundly criticised by Pacific leaders. China will “continue to expand its influence” as a result, she warned.

    Wong confirmed that “of course” Labor would also have rejected attempts at the PIF to phase out the coal export industry, describing it as an “important industry” and noting coal “remains part of the global energy mix”.

    Currently Global steel production is dependent on coking coal.

  16. @ShortInterlude2
    5h
    The climate deniers are saying China is building more coal polluting power plants in the hope of recharging the bleak outlook for coal. CHINA has a very strict anti pollution policy even extending to motor and all types of transport. FAKE NEWS ALERT.

  17. Pegasus @ #1563 Sunday, August 18th, 2019 – 4:25 pm

    Penny Wong

    https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2019/aug/18/labor-says-government-failing-to-lead-on-china-as-more-backbenchers-speak-out

    Wong confirmed that “of course” Labor would also have rejected attempts at the PIF to phase out the coal export industry, describing it as an “important industry” and noting coal “remains part of the global energy mix”.

    Don’t you get embarrassed being so nakedly anti Labor? lizzie has exposed your premeditated malevolence today and you’d think that would be enough to give you pause for thought, but we all know it never will.

  18. Urban Wronski is on fire today. He rips Morrison and his little Evo mate, Alex Hawke, a new one in his latest missive:

    Morrison insists the Forum is a “family gathering” and that “when families come together they talk about the stuff that matters, that’s most important to them. Over the next few days that’s exactly what we’ll do.” It’s ScoMo code, Newspeak for insulting, alienating and bullying the leaders; trashing their hopes and aspirations.

    Let the Pacific Islanders worry about rising sea levels and increasing salinity which is rapidly making their homes uninhabitable. In Australia, government energy policy is dictated by a powerful coal lobby – with powerful allies in the media. The PM who brings a lump of coal into parliament also has an assistant recruited from Peabody Coal and has his fossil-fuel lobby and a daft hard right with the upper hand in mind all week.

    https://urbanwronski.com/2019/08/18/morrisons-monumental-pacific-family-failure/

  19. C@tmomma @ #1567 Sunday, August 18th, 2019 – 5:01 pm

    Pegasus @ #1563 Sunday, August 18th, 2019 – 4:25 pm

    Penny Wong

    https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2019/aug/18/labor-says-government-failing-to-lead-on-china-as-more-backbenchers-speak-out

    Wong confirmed that “of course” Labor would also have rejected attempts at the PIF to phase out the coal export industry, describing it as an “important industry” and noting coal “remains part of the global energy mix”.

    Don’t you get embarrassed being so nakedly anti Labor? lizzie has exposed your premeditated malevolence today and you’d think that would be enough to give you pause for thought, but we all know it never will.

    But there are many Labor partisans who would consider that a pro-Labor post from Peg.

  20. Only in Cat’s mind can someone posting an excerpt from an article, while providing a link to the article so that it can be read in context, can be viewed as malevolent.

    Projection much.

    I posted the salient bottom line point that Labor would also have rejected attempts at the Pacific Islands Forum to phase out the coal export industry which is the same position as the Coalition.

  21. Australia accused of putting coal before Pacific ‘family’ as region calls for climate change action

    https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-08-16/australia-slammed-watering-down-action-climate-change-pacific/11420986

    Pacific leaders have slammed Australia for putting politics ahead of their island neighbours after they undermined a consensus on a climate change communique.

    After marathon talks at the Pacific Islands Forum (PIF) in Tuvalu, Australia could not reach an agreement on the Tuvalu Declaration made by smaller Pacific countries, one that called for a rapid phase-out of coal.
    :::
    Labor leader Anthony Albanese has maintained that exporting coal is an important part of Australia’s economy.

    But Mr Conroy said a Labor government could have respectfully disagreed on the Pacific’s coal requests if it had tackled other climate concerns.

    “If we’d gone to the PIF with genuinely responsible targets … I’m confident a sensible compromise could have been achieved,” he said.

  22. Pegasus @ #1571 Sunday, August 18th, 2019 – 5:29 pm

    Australia accused of putting coal before Pacific ‘family’ as region calls for climate change action

    https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-08-16/australia-slammed-watering-down-action-climate-change-pacific/11420986

    Pacific leaders have slammed Australia for putting politics ahead of their island neighbours after they undermined a consensus on a climate change communique.

    After marathon talks at the Pacific Islands Forum (PIF) in Tuvalu, Australia could not reach an agreement on the Tuvalu Declaration made by smaller Pacific countries, one that called for a rapid phase-out of coal.
    :::
    Labor leader Anthony Albanese has maintained that exporting coal is an important part of Australia’s economy.

    But Mr Conroy said a Labor government could have respectfully disagreed on the Pacific’s coal requests if it had tackled other climate concerns.

    “If we’d gone to the PIF with genuinely responsible targets … I’m confident a sensible compromise could have been achieved,” he said.

    It’s just another example of an inhumane policy position from our two major parties.

  23. John Quiggin:

    Looking at the array of ignorant and vindictive old men attacking Greta Thunberg and other young climate activists, the case for lowering the voting age is just about unanswerable. Anything that could be urged in justification of stopping 16 year olds, as a group, from voting, is equally applicable to those over 60 (a group to which I belong). Over 60 voters are, on average, poorly educated (the school leaving age in Australia was 15 when they went through and I assume similar in most places), and more likely to hold a wide range of false beliefs (notably in relation to climate change).

    Worse, as voters the over 60s have ceased to act, if they ever did, as wise elders seeking the best for the future. Rather (on average) they vote in a frivolous and irresponsible way, forming the support base for loudmouthed bigots and clowns like Trump, Johnson and Hanson (the last of whom, unsurprisingly, supports an increase in the voting age). Substantively, they respond to unrealistic appeals to nostalgia, wanting to Make America Great Again, and restore the glories of the British Empire, while dismissing concerns about the future. If my age cohort were to be assessed on the criteria applied to 16 year olds, we would be disenfranchised en masse.

  24. Paddy Manning has written a book on the history of the Greens in Australia.

    In Inside The Greens, Manning (who previously worked at Crikey) reports the debate as various groups attempted to mold the party’s philosophy. The real problem to be fought, argues one attendee, “is the patriarchal ego”, while another says an early draft of the credo is too “eco-human-centred”. Both are defensible positions, and both sound like a parody of left-wing politics.

    …

    Inside the Greens takes us through the 1970s and 1980s, the incipience of the party. It moves from the steady growth since the party’s federation, to the current mixture of federal stability (or stagnation, depending on who you ask) and state level calamity in Victoria and New South Wales.

    https://www.crikey.com.au/2019/08/15/new-greens-book-takes-on-the-tussle-at-the-core-of-a-movement/?ft=TjYzSTFtVGlJcG16TFNIQm5wZnJadz09&utm_campaign=FreeTrialConfirmation&utm_medium=FreeTrialConfirmation&utm_source=newsletter&utm_content=success

  25. Pegasus @ #1570 Sunday, August 18th, 2019 – 5:23 pm

    Only in Cat’s mind can someone posting an excerpt from an article, while providing a link to the article so that it can be read in context, can be viewed as malevolent.

    Projection much.

    I posted the salient bottom line point that Labor would also have rejected attempts at the Pacific Islands Forum to phase out the coal export industry which is the same position as the Coalition.

    ‘The salient bottom line’ is very much in the eye of the beholder.

  26. Over 60 voters are, on average, poorly educated (the school leaving age in Australia was 15 when they went through and I assume similar in most places), and more likely to hold a wide range of false beliefs (notably in relation to climate change).

    I read somewhere recently that these people are also the most susceptible to social media fake news and conspiracy theories.

  27. Has anyone put it to Mr Quiggin that there are plenty of those who are >60 that support Greta Thunberg wholeheartedly and our votes are important to her cause?

  28. Anyway, Mr Quiggin has his cut-off age wrong. If you calculate when Whitlam’s changes to Tertiary Education came through then you would find that it more likely is the 70+ cohort that he is referring to.

  29. Penny Wong made the point that if Australia (the LNP) had a decent policy on climate change, they would have had a stronger position when arguing their case.

    Labor’s Pat Conroy, Shadow Minister for International Development and Pacific and a spokesman on climate change, said Mr Morrison’s Pacific “step-up”‘ had been “completely undermined by his intransigence on climate change”.

    LNP and Labor are NOT same-same on this.

  32. This is the most hilarious story you’ll read all day, but it also shows that creative Progressives in political positions of power are putting their minds towards outwitting the Alt Right in effective and creative ways:

    Proud Boys Wander Lost Through Portland as Police Allow Wild Goose Chase by Antifascists
    Police strategy allowed the groups broad leeway to move along streets and sidewalks, so long as they remained far apart from each other.

    The Proud Boys and antifascists talked of little but each other all day. But they couldn’t find each other.

    …The result? A game of cat-and-mouse that felt more like a Tom and Jerry cartoon—and kept the two groups more than a mile apart at all times, even as some said they wanted a confrontation.

    https://www.wweek.com/news/2019/08/17/proud-boys-wander-lost-through-portland-as-police-allow-wild-goose-chase-by-antifascists/

    😀

  38. William Bowe @ #1573 Sunday, August 18th, 2019 – 5:47 pm

    John Quiggin:

    Looking at the array of ignorant and vindictive old men attacking Greta Thunberg and other young climate activists, the case for lowering the voting age is just about unanswerable. Anything that could be urged in justification of stopping 16 year olds, as a group, from voting, is equally applicable to those over 60 (a group to which I belong). Over 60 voters are, on average, poorly educated (the school leaving age in Australia was 15 when they went through and I assume similar in most places), and more likely to hold a wide range of false beliefs (notably in relation to climate change).

    Worse, as voters the over 60s have ceased to act, if they ever did, as wise elders seeking the best for the future. Rather (on average) they vote in a frivolous and irresponsible way, forming the support base for loudmouthed bigots and clowns like Trump, Johnson and Hanson (the last of whom, unsurprisingly, supports an increase in the voting age). Substantively, they respond to unrealistic appeals to nostalgia, wanting to Make America Great Again, and restore the glories of the British Empire, while dismissing concerns about the future. If my age cohort were to be assessed on the criteria applied to 16 year olds, we would be disenfranchised en masse.

    https://theconversation.com/more-grey-tsunami-than-youthquake-despite-record-youth-enrolments-australias-voter-base-is-ageing-115842

    ?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=642&fit=crop&dpr=1

  39. Psyclaw:

    [‘After sitting through a 7 day judge-only trial of a clergyman recently (historical child sexual assault) I am now tending to the view that Pell will lose.’]

    I have to agree with your analysis, but not on the basis of you sitting through a ‘7-day judge-only trial’;
    but more so on the basis that prisoner Pell was not released pending the outcome of his appeal – that’s telling. Anyway, we’ll know the outcome on Wednesday next. Incidentally, I would always choose a jury trial over a judge-only – one dissenting voice could make the difference.

  41. I love this. How often have we seen comments here from older PBers denigrating young people with sweeping generalisations? Yet when someone makes an accurate observation about the older generations, suddenly it’s unfair and unfounded.

  44. C@t

    Whitlam may have made the changes but leaving school at 15 was still very much the norm for quite a while after that .

  47. Latest attempt to lower voting age

    29/3/2019: https://www.sbs.com.au/news/bill-to-lower-voting-age-to-16-shut-down-by-parliamentary-inquiry

    A parliamentary inquiry has shut down the idea of lowering Australia’s voting age.

    On Friday, the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters tabled its report examining a Greens bill that would give 16 and 17-year-olds the option to vote.

    “Despite trends in Europe and Latin America towards lowering the voting age, the committee is not convinced that it is warranted in Australia,” it said.

    “The committee has seen no evidence that there is a significant concern or trend towards non-voting that justifies extending the franchise” and therefore recommended the bill not be passed.

    Instead, it noted that there are many other “avenues to political participation” for young people, such as “joining a political party, or be engaged in the many youth leadership forums run by local, state and federal governments and schools”.

    Several other countries and jurisdictions have lowered their voting age to 16 including Austria, Brazil, Malta and Scotland. While 17-year-olds can vote in Indonesia, South Korea and others.

    The bill was proposed by 24-year-old Greens senator Jordon Steele-John last year.

    While the committee came down against the bill, parliament may still pass it at some point in the future.

    ———
    https://www.sbs.com.au/news/we-asked-five-experts-should-australia-lower-the-voting-age-to-16

    Voting in federal elections and referendums is compulsory for every Australian aged 18 and over, but should that age be lowered to 16? Here’s what five experts think.

    Legal and political voices have long called for Australia to lower the voting age to 16.

    After all, people under 18 can leave school, get a job, drive a car and pay taxes. So why not vote?

    Five out of five experts said yes

  49. Confessions:

    You make a sound point. With age, in most cases, comes maturity, reasonably sound logic. I had a thin-skin when young; I’ve toughened up now. Young posters must be encouraged, no put-downs unless they’re deserved. I refuse to cite recalcitrants apart from young Rex, Peg.

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