Possible (or possibly not) federal by-election news:
• The Australian Electoral Commission has petitioned the Federal Court to reject challenges against the federal election results in Chisholm and Kooyong. The challenges relate to Chinese-language Liberal Party signage that appeared to mimic the AEC’s branding, and advised voters that giving a first preference to the Liberal candidates was “the correct voting method”. As reported by The Guardian, the AEC argues that “the petition fails to set out at all, let alone with sufficient particularity, any facts or matters on the basis of which it might be concluded that it was likely that on polling day, electors able to read Chinese characters, upon seeing and reading the corflute, cast their vote in a manner different from what they had previously intended”. This seems rather puzzling to my mind, unless it should be taken to mean that no individuals have been identified who are ready to confirm that they were indeed so deceived. Academic electoral law expert Graeme Orr argued on Twitter that the AEC had “no need to intervene on the substance of a case where partisan litigants are well represented”.
• Talk of a by-election elsewhere in Melbourne was stimulated by Monday’s column ($) from acerbic Financial Review columnist Joe Aston, which related “positively feverish speculation” that Labor’s Shadow Attorney-General, Mark Dreyfus, would shortly quit his Melbourne bayside seat of Isaacs with an eye to a position on Victoria’s Court of Appeal. Aston further reported that Dreyfus hoped to be succeeded by Fiona McLeod, the prominent barrister who gained a 6.1% swing as Labor’s candidate for Higgins in May. Dreyfus emphatically rejected such “ridiculous suggestions” in late August, saying he was “absolutely committed to serving out this term of parliament”, and again took to Twitter on Monday to say he would be “staying and fighting the next election”. Aston remains unconvinced, writing in Tuesday’s column ($) that the suggestions derived from “high-level discussions Dreyfus has held on Spring Street with everyone from Premier Daniel Andrews, former Attorney-General Martin Pakula, his successor Jill Hennessy and his caucus colleagues”, along with his “indiscreet utterances around the traps”.
Federal preselection news:
• Jim Molan has won the endorsement of both Scott Morrison and the conservative faction of the New South Wales Liberal Party to fill the Senate vacancy created by Arthur Sinodinos’s departure to become ambassador to the United States. However, the Sydney Morning Herald reports this is not dissuading rival nominee Richard Shields, former deputy state party director and Insurance Council of Australia manager, and the runner-up to Dave Sharma in last year’s keenly fought Wentworth preselection. Shields’ backers are said to include Helen Coonan, former Senator and Howard government minister, and Mark Neeham, a former state party director. Earlier reports suggested the moderate faction had been reconciled to Molan’s ascendancy by a pledge that he would only serve out the remainder of Sinodinos’s two-year term, and would not seek re-election in 2022.
• Rob Harris of The Age reports the Victorian Liberals are considering a plan to complete their preselections for the 2022 election much earlier than usual – and especially soon for Liberal-held seats. The idea in the latter case is for challengers to incumbents to declare their hands by January 15, with the matter to be wrapped up by late February or early March. This comes after the party’s administrative committee warded off threats to members ahead of the last election, most notably factional conservative Kevin Andrews in Menzies, by rubber-stamping the preselections of all incumbents, much to the displeasure of party members. Other preselections are to be held from April through to October. Also proposed is a toughening of candidate vetting procedures, after no fewer than seven candidates in Labor-held seats were disendorsed during the period of the campaign.
Self-promotion corner:
• I had a paywalled piece in Crikey yesterday which noted the stances adopted of late by James McGrath, ideological warror extraordinaire and scourge of the cockatoo, in his capacity as chair of the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters, which is presently conducting its broad-ranging inquiry into the May federal election. These include the end of proportional representation in the Senate, the notion that parliamentarians who quit their parties should be required to forfeit their seats, and — more plausibly — the need to curtail pre-poll voting.
https://www.smh.com.au/politics/nsw/suspended-labor-boss-kaila-murnain-s-payout-to-top-700-000-20191015-p530x3.html
Developing …….
Fitzgibbon is all over the shop on Karvelis RN Drive now…
Something about Labor apparatchik dna – it’s politically smart to sell-out your supporters.
Sad!
Boerwar @ #2055 Tuesday, October 15th, 2019 – 4:20 pm
FMD. Our rates in Banyule are less than $2k per annum.
Test allrounder Mitch Marsh has vowed never to punch a wall again after breaking his hand in bizarre fashion on Sunday.
It came as Marsh revealed Aussie coach Justin Langer had contacted him to “tell me I’m an idiot, basically”.
Marsh will miss four to six weeks after scans confirmed he broke his right hand when he punched a wall in frustration after getting dismissed against Tasmania.
phoenixRED @ #2064 Tuesday, October 15th, 2019 – 4:42 pm
I don’t believe it’s any co-incidence that the whole facade crumbled after Bolton was sacked.
Holden Hillbilly @ #2105 Tuesday, October 15th, 2019 – 6:23 pm
Don’t be too harsh. It was the first thing he’d hit for quite awhile.
Could be worse.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D3xT1d9r238
Boerwarsays:
Tuesday, October 15, 2019 at 5:39 pm
M
Always happy to abolish a level of government!
I would get rid of the states and territories and replace them with regional governments for tips, sewers and the like, and a national government for the rest.
SECONDED
Boerwar @ #2094 Tuesday, October 15th, 2019 – 5:39 pm
Don Quixote is you!
This is politics and unlikely to happen in your lifetime.
If you’d dedicated your whole life to this quest you’d be impaled on a windmill going round and round. But, you didn’t and you’re still going round and round that windmill!
Lars
‘Climate Change Policies – Labor preparing to sell out.’
Ah, yes. Saying you are going to introduce a motion declaring a climate emergency is the first step…
Apparently the factional meetings yesterday were united in their condemnation of Joel Fitzgibbon and the NSW Right made it clear he didn’t speak for them.
Saw a small (about 5) male protestors + some hanger ons outside the Family Law Court this arvo. Placards such as “The Family Law Lies” or something like that.
What amazes me is the Government will launch into yet another review based on this small cohort of whiners but if 3-400,000 hit the street to demand action on the climate catastrophe – crickets.
Only a incredibly weak government would have bowed to these demands to prop up it’s vote with PHON in the senate.
‘Joel Fitzgibbon has copped a blast in the left and right caucus meetings for declaring Labor should adopt the Coalition’s Paris emissions reduction target rather than pursue ambitious cuts to carbon pollution.’
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2019/oct/14/labor-mps-condemn-suggestion-they-adopt-coalition-climate-change-policy
And, just for the laughs..
‘The discussion in the national Right meeting grew so vigorous that MPs expressed concerns that word would get out about their argument, but senior factional figure Tony Burke defended the robust debate. “The national Right doesn’t leak,” he told the meeting, according to two colleagues.’
https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/ill-considered-and-ill-timed-labor-savages-fitzgibbon-over-climate-retreat-20191014-p530n6.html
@mikehilliard
“Men’s Rights Activists” are among those people Scott Morrison told, when he first became Prime Minister that his government ‘was on their side’, People involved in the Extinction Rebellion aren’t.
Anyway if I was Morrison I would seriously listen to the concerns of people in the bush, especially farmers about the government’s lack of action concerning the drought. When the government is being savaged by callers on the Alan Jones show, then it is a problem for the government.
Such needless anxiety. I do understand that people feel strongly about this, but I think we also have to take stock, we have to ensure we get a proper context and perspective. These men should feel positive about their future, that they will not only have a wonderful country and pristine environment to live in, that they will also have an economy to live in as well.
Will Joel Fitzgibbon become the next Mar’n Ferguson?
Yes zoomster, just like rogue labor mps who endorsed the liberals regressive tax cuts got shouted down – until they weren’t.
Why would you swing your bat at the pickets on the way out to the crease?
mikehilliard @ #2114 Tuesday, October 15th, 2019 – 7:03 pm
Scott Morrison is walking a very dangerous tightrope associating himself with men like this:
https://www.smh.com.au/national/western-australia/she-should-have-been-safe-perth-father-jailed-for-life-over-courthouse-murder-of-ex-partner-20191015-p530vs.html
shellbell
You have just nailed something that has been nagging at me since I saw that clip.
Was it Dirk Wellham?
Always a bit of a contrarian.
A good article about market land values in the UK. We need big reforms in Australia to bring about an equitable allocation of housing and wealth. An indispensable one is to increase massively the percentage of the housing stock that is publicly owned. Something in the order of 20 to 30 percent would be enough to keep land values and rents under control. A lower population growth rate would also help. A Commonwealth land value tax is a must.
https://evonomics.com/unproductive-rent-housing-macfarlane/?fbclid=IwAR2o30ShcqcYn7JljCXsxVnWZZUn5hKgiyyg6DK7JxrkYctCV1aViFDJY2Q
“When the government is being savaged by callers on the Alan Jones show, then it is a problem for the government.”
Maybe they’ll start voting Labor.
C@t
FMD. The sort I saw today looked similar.
Jones has brainwashed his listeners into believing that the whole farm crisis can be resolved by the government paying for all the cattle to be fed and the army carting water around while the Bradfield scheme is being constructed
Johnson’s UK Tories are planning to make photo ID compulsory when people cast a vote. It’s in the Queen’s speech. UK Labour has come out strongly against.
The Conservatives have obviously observed how the US Republicans have used the same tactics and much more besides, to disenfranchise people who they consider will not vote for them.
It won’t be long before Morrison tries the same trick, given earlier calls by LNP luminaries to do this in Australia.
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-50051178
The young people today are afraid of hard work. There are jobs available if you really want one.
There is one way to solve the problem of the earth turning into a brown dustbowl during this incredibly severe, climate change induced drought.
Take a leaf from the playbook of Cate Carnell (Liberal) when she was the Chief Minister of the ACT prior to the 2000 Olympics. Spray everything green. People will be so much happier.
Albo makes a point!
https://twitter.com/i/status/1184028537096790016
Mystery solved
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dirk_Wellham
There is outrage in old Melbourne Town!
https://www.news.com.au/finance/business/media/the-mystery-of-diana-davenport-from-toorak-a-prolific-author-of-letters-to-the-editor/news-story/13141269543ecd7e56f05c133cc3db5e
I caught up with yesterday’s leaked ‘Liberal” talking points accidentally released by a staffer (or now ex-staffer) in the PM’s office. The section on the Paris Agreement says that the Government has it all in hand, they’re spending $3.5 billion to remove 900 thousand trillion tons of carbon emissions, or something like that.
When numbers are thrown around like that, with no comparison or context, they are intended to impress, hide, bamboozle, distract or deceive, anything but inform. And the $3.5 billion. That’s a bit more than the number of seconds in a century, a bit less then the distance to the Sun in feet. Is that each week, each year, over the forward estimates? Over a decade? Is it calculated over the same period as the 888 thousand billion trillion in new taxes Labor wants to introduce?
https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/in-campsie-hundreds-on-welfare-could-soon-be-drug-tested-they-aren-t-happy-20191014-p530p4.html
Soon to be Labor policy ? (Once the Labor “hardheads” decide this would be a smart tactical move?)
All it does is make me angry. Essentially the coalition has made taxpayers responsible for the carbon pollution of private entities and corporations. And our GHGEs are not abating either.
Confessions says:
Tuesday, October 15, 2019 at 8:17 pm
When numbers are thrown around like that, with no comparison or context, they are intended to impress, hide, bamboozle, distract or deceive, anything but inform.
All it does is make me angry. Essentially the coalition has made taxpayers responsible for the carbon pollution of private entities and corporations. And our GHGEs are not abating either.
__________________________________________________
and now Labor meekly submits to the Government on the same …………………………………
‘shellbell says:
Tuesday, October 15, 2019 at 7:34 pm
Jones has brainwashed his listeners into believing that the whole farm crisis can be resolved by the government paying for all the cattle to be fed and the army carting water around while the Bradfield scheme is being constructed’
There is enough drinking water in the system to ensure that no cow dies of thirst. The army could carry the water needed to stop cattle dying of thirst over the five years of the Drought. Water is heavy and it is expensive to cart. Using Army transport which is not generally designed to get water at the least cost from place to place would make them the most expensive cows in history.
Say that there are 5 million cattle in the drought area. Say that they drink 50 litres a day. That is 250,000,000 liters per day. That is 250,000 metric tons. Say 40 metric tons to the truckload. That is 6250 truckloads a say. Say, very conservatively, $500 per truckload, bearing in mind some cattle are a long way from the nearest remaining water. $3,125,000 per day – around $1,140,625,000 per year. Over a five year drought that is $5.7 billion. $1140 per head. Just to stop them dying from first. Stopping them from dying of starvation you could probably double that.
Lars
Good to see your outrage is directed at the people who are actually implementing the policies…
Boerwar:
I think my head has just exploded trying to process the water to cows cost!
Lars
“Soon to be Labor policy ? (Once the Labor “hardheads” decide this would be a smart tactical move?)”
Whatever Labor ends up with, it will be better than what we have now (nothing plus promoting coal).
Targets for 2030 gave to be rethought in the basis of 4 more years of inaction, either standing still it going backwards – the current Parliamentary term then effectively starting from scratch. That plus the Opposition will try to block all legislation for the new Government, regardless of any mandate.
I’d stick with zero by 2050, with something like 50% reduction by 2035.
Boer
I once organised a policy forum locally. Alas, the only contribution was that the helicopters used for fire fighting should be delivering water to farm dams. I could not make the gentleman understand the astronomic costs involved.
To be fair, though, I’ve found that people have a lot of difficulty understanding water volumes.
Tax receipts and bond sales do not finance the federal government’s spending. Rather, the money that the private sector uses to pay taxes and buy the government’s bonds comes from prior government spending.
Federal taxes exist to control inflation, control inequality, and modify behaviour. That is the tax trinity. If it doesn’t contribute to at least one of those purposes, it is a bad tax and should be scrapped.
Other policy levers can achieve those goals as well – I’m not saying that it all comes down to taxes. For instance, one of the best ways of controlling inflation is to use market interventions to prevent cartel behaviour. One of the best ways of reducing inequality is to use appropriate predistribution measures to reduce inequality of income in the first place, at the pre-tax stage. In some circumstances the best way of influencing behaviours is to simply ban the activities that are deemed too harmful to tolerate.
The current system of funding state governments is a mess. The state governments are under-funded for the scale of the service responsibilities that they have. We may as well recognize the reality that the federal government is in the best position to fund the services, and that the role of the state and local governments should be to administer and manage their budgets, and to design and deliver the services and public works in their jurisdictions, and to be held accountable by voters for how well they do those tasks. Forcing the states to monkey about with raising revenue is just a massive waste of time and completely unnecessary.
What are the High Court cases that hold that the Commonwealth Parliament cannot impose land vacancy taxes and parking taxes?
This doesn’t matter anyway because even if there are a handful of such taxes that can only be imposed by state governments, or by local governments that have had that power delegated to them by the states, just have the state and local governments continue to manage those taxes, and get rid of the rest. The thing to note about those taxes is that they are all for the purpose of behaviour modification. Vacant building taxes deter building owners from leaving their buildings vacant. Parking fees deter people from using their cars when they could use public or active transport instead. It is best to have those taxes imposed by a government that is not revenue-constrained. Ideally you want the receipts from these taxes to be as low as possible. The purpose of a tax on gambling, for instance, is to deter gambling; the purpose of a tax on tobacco is to decrease the amount of smoking – so if the tax is working, the receipts will be low. One of the obstacles to cracking down on problem gambling is that state governments rely on gambling taxes for revenue. That defeats the purpose of the tax.
Have the federal government guarantee the budgets of the state and local governments. Then if state and local governments have to manage a few behaviour modification taxes because the Commonwealth lacks the constitutional power to do so, they will have the right motive i.e. to see the receipts from those taxes go down because we want the problem behaviour targeted by the tax to become less common.
https://www.sbs.com.au/news/survey-finds-labor-voters-back-welfare-drug-testing-despite-party-s-opposition
It’s pretty clear Labor will end up supporting the testing. Read and ye shall understand!
Am hearing some interesting things about Peter Dutton. Look for some softening of the tough guy image, empathy for the less fortunate (not refugees). And more freelancing off the Home Affairs patch.
Not quite the remake, but it appears a concerted effort to position Dutton, just in case something happens to Morrison.
The world we live in!
https://twitter.com/i/status/1183927546301292549
https://www.rawstory.com/2019/10/hes-cooked-sam-donaldson-warns-trump-the-senate-may-vote-to-convict-him-after-impeachment-trial/
Mitch McConnell, et al, might be evil, but they are not stupid. They know Trump is rapidly approaching his use-by date for the Repubs, and starting to become a serious liability.
Their options are limited to either convict, or 25th him on mental incapacity grounds (dementia).
They will be left with those options because Trump will never resign, because the Repubs cannot offer him pardons for the truckload of state crimes charges he will be facing the moment he is not president.
Trump’s only other option is to flee the country – which is the outcome I put my money on.
lizzie:
[‘I said she’d been Duttoned. ‘]
I reckon she’s been Duttonholed. Having been a former military screw she’d have something in common with the MO of a former QPS drug detective. I’ve been there; it’s hard at times to discard ones uniform.
JM:
McConnell will abandon Trump if his Senate majority is imperilled.
One ex Republican columnist has posited a deal brokered with Pence whereby Trump is given the option of resign or be convicted, Pence becomes President, but agrees not to run next year, paving the way for Romney or Kasich to wrest the party back from the crazies.
Steve777, Melinda Pavement from the NSW coal was on 7 tonight pulling that stunt.
For it’s part 7 was trying to pull at the heart strings and get people agitated that environmental flows on the Murray were shock horror being used to save river red gums.
Pavement said 3,000 million megalitres was being used for flows. And then Victoria and South Australia copped a kick to the gonads for good measure.
[‘Look for some softening of the tough guy image, empathy for the less fortunate (not refugees).’]
Well, there’s some evidence of that of late – to wit, his rather laconic demeanor in QT. I know intuitively there’s more to Dutton than meets the eye?
zoomster
Water by chopper!