At what’s normally a dull time for electoral news, the Federal Court has decided to beat Santa to the punch by announcing its judgement in the challenges to the Chisholm and Kooyong results at 2:15pm today. I’ll add a dedicated post when that happens, but for the time being, here’s the latest thread for general political discussion, it being long past time for a new one.
Two other items of news I can think to mention: the United States Studies Centre has published a report that compares survey results on political attitudes in Australia and the United States, which reaches the intuitive conclusions that Australians are both less conservative and less polarised by partisanship; and GhostWhoVotes offers a neat presentation of the states’ House of Representatives seat entitlements based on current population numbers, six months out from the final determination.
C@tmomma:
🙂
Volunteer firefighters who are also Federal Government employees will be given four weeks’ paid leave to help contain the nation’s bushfire catastrophe.
What does Morrison have against private sector employees? What does he have against tradies and other self-employed?
BB
Looking after his own as usual.What do you expect from a Liberal?
swampie
IMO those bar graphs are comparing unlike with unlike for the following reasons:
1. There are more voters as time rolls on.
2 The turnouts are uneven.
3. The opposing parties have varied.
I am not sure what it all means.
Shouldn’t that graph be Number of Seats won on the x axis and Labour leader on the y axis? It would tell a different story.
Boerwar says:
Tuesday, December 24, 2019 at 2:49 pm
‘TPOF says:
Tuesday, December 24, 2019 at 2:39 pm
Unlike most comments on this site, this one is worth repeating:
Thunberg’s activism may not have reduced CO2 emissions…’
True.
______________________________
BW. That is the sort of trite gotcha on this site that makes it a pretty poor experience for me and, I think, others.
I’ve just listened to Morrison’s “I luvs youse all” presser in Adelaide. The man’s a motor-mouth. True it is that the firies’ morale must be taken into account. But that would be better served by compensating them rather than listening to his blather.
‘steve davis says:
Tuesday, December 24, 2019 at 2:59 pm
BB
Looking after his own as usual.What do you expect from a Liberal?’
uh huh.
The overarching lesson for the APS from the Abbott, Turnbull and Morrison governments is that they despise the APS. They have cut 15,000 jobs from the APS. For no other reason than pork barreling they have shunted agencies and parts of agencies and APS staff to the sticks – sometimes with appalling consequences for efficiency and for effectiveness.
They have put in a motsa in the forward estimates of the 2019 budget to cut thousands more jobs. Morrison casually sacked five department heads. The APS is routinely abused for the failings of ministers. APS skills are being systematically gutted by privatization which costs more and delivers less. And so on and so forth.
Looking after his own? Pig’s Arse.
Meanwhile the real luvvies are sitting cute. The PM’s office has 70 staff. Average pay is north of $200,000 a year.
Morrison has rested the button on public servants simply because it will cost the government nothing.
You can expect the departments will have to pony up out of their existing budgets.
If he extended any support to the private sector and the self employed it would be a hit on the budget.
All PR.
BTW,
Paid maternal and paternal leave is paid by the Commenwealth so it should not be rocket science to put in place a mechanism to front up with some sort of payment or support for non public service volunteers.
Problem is that will cost the budget.
TPOF
I was merely noting that we agreed on a basic fact of the matter. The rest is up for interpretation.
How would you rate Thunberg’s success at COP25?
The rain radar for NE NSW is showing thunderstorms, quite intense ones, rather than smoke, over NE NSW.
“How would you rate Thunberg’s success at COP25?”
How would you rate yours as a pollbludger activist?
Let’s say that there will be seventy five thousand firey weeks for this fire season.
I am not sure what the average wage is these days. Say $1250 a week.
That’s around $100,000,000 a year.
And, as someone noted, if it is good enough for the fireys, it has to be good enough for those who pitched in and made sangers and washed the truck and made sure that there was a snake in each lolly bag.
Boerwar
All relevant but if anything factors were more in Blair’s favour than in Corbyn.
Blair faced a Tory Party in disarray with 5 leaders over a short period – John Major, Iain Duncan Smith, William Hague, Michael Howard and finally David Cameron, who took over in 2005.
Blair lead a relatively united Labour Party compared with Corbyn who was undermined from the day he was elected (ironically largely by Blair’s legacy).
But the media narrative is to see Blair as an all-conquering hero and Corbyn as an extremist liability. While Corbyn was an electoral drag this year, he still leaves the party a million votes (and hundreds of thousands of members) better off than he found it, while Blair left it two million WORSE off.
https://wingsoverscotland.com/the-failure/#more-113668
swamprat
I think I could understand what you were saying better if Blair had failed repeatedly to win an election and Corbyn had been elected prime minister twice.
Greta Thunberg has done an extraordinary thing by being proactive, assertive, and charismatic. Few people achieve the influence that she has at any stage in life, let alone when they are 16.
The weakness that I see in her approach so far is that she doesn’t put her weight behind political organizing with concrete strategies and goals. She is deliberately staying out of politics, and sticking with a message of, “I just want politicians to listen to the scientists and figure out what needs to be done. I leave the politics to others.”
Perhaps in the years ahead she will take an interest in building political movements, recruiting candidates to challenge incumbents, running insurgent candidates within major political parties, and putting the fear of God into politicians who aren’t doing anything to reduce emissions. What she is doing at the moment is very impressive on a personal level, but she isn’t really thinking or acting politically at this stage.
C@t,
The current situation is more “World Destruction” than “World Party”
https://youtu.be/4VgLkk_drx4
‘Blobbit says:
Tuesday, December 24, 2019 at 3:12 pm
“How would you rate Thunberg’s success at COP25?”
How would you rate yours as a pollbludger activist?’
False analogy for the obvious reasons.
Which brings us back to the original question:
“How would you rate Ms Thunberg’s success at COP25?”
Nicholas
A most perceptive comment, IMO.
This leads to the next question, ‘Are political parties seeking to skive off Thunberg?’
swamprat
Let me guess, the population in England has risen in 40 years, 1979 to 2019. When you lie with statistics you have to be subtle.
steve davis says:
Tuesday, December 24, 2019 at 2:39 pm
Looking after his own again.I doubt many public service workers are out fighting fires.Too bloody lazy.
——————————-
Thanks for the LOL you probably think private sector workers work nonstop but they don’t.
“False analogy for the obvious reasons.”
Oh no it isn’t
Had a chat with a non-political that thinks all politicians suck relative who with no prompting from me brought up Morrison going on holidays and Albo went to the shops to buy stuff for the firies.
Boerwar
Perhaps I am being obtuse but I can’t see what makes it a false analogy.
Nicholas
The problem is that the moment Greta selects one side, the other side will dismiss her. Image if she came out as a conservative then the left would disown her on the spot and if she came out on the left then the reactionaries will say we told you so.
As BB said:
Why is it only public service workers that are getting any compensation.? Are other workers livelihoods and lives less important ?
Another BTW,
Federal Public service leave entitlements for volunteer/ emergency work were already in place and were at the discretion of the Commissoner as to whether they would paid or not.
Morrison has just put in place a time limit for paid leave for volunteer fire fighters.
Cost the budget nothing extra.
No effect at all on services? Really?
bakunin @ #364 Tuesday, December 24th, 2019 – 3:19 pm
I’m guessing it was tongue-in-cheek.
nath:
If that is so then one wonders how it is that you can see them…
Steve,
It is only public servants because the hit to the budget will be zero. Departments will pony up out of their existing budgets.
If Morrison did extend it to the private sector there would be a huge hit to the budget.
He will not do that so he has now created a two tier volunteer system. One group gets compensated because volunteers are doing it tough as recognised today by Morrison and everyone else can look after themselves despite doing it tough financially as well.
Not a knee jerk response to political pressure at all !
steve davis says:
Tuesday, December 24, 2019 at 3:29 pm
As BB said:
Why is it only public service workers that are getting any compensation.? Are other workers livelihoods and lives less important ?
——————————–
Because the public servants are employees of the government so it is easier for the government to enact measures. Many firies are self-employed small business owners or farmers and there is widespread opposition to being paid because many believe it will lead to less incentive to get the fire put out. There was a story after the major Sydney fires when a CFA unit turned up to a small flank and went to put it out only for one of the locals say let it burn a bit and when the CFA guys asked why would you do that the local said because we are being paid to stand here.
PeeBee says:
Tuesday, December 24, 2019 at 1:57 pm
…”What?”…
PeeBee,
The comment you referred to was 10.5 hours after the conversation that has gotten your knickers in a bunch had finished.
In other words, of no consequence.
If you insist on slandering a half dozen people, in defense of your Messiah (gang of thugs, akin to a stoning etc.) It would be for best if you could at least keep your manipulations chronologically relevant.
‘Blobbit says:
Tuesday, December 24, 2019 at 3:24 pm
“False analogy for the obvious reasons.”
Oh no it isn’t’
Oh, all right, then.
I have some real world achievements under the belt. I am talking about practical positive differences for many, many real people. I was far from the only person involved in generating the outcomes. But I was a leader of various processes that got us over the line in the end. It took decades.
And only yesterday I saved a Blue-tongued Lizard from dying of the drought.
Ms Thunberg has yet to make any practical difference to even one Blue-tongued Lizard. She may yet do so. I sincerely hope she does.
‘E. G. Theodore says:
Tuesday, December 24, 2019 at 3:33 pm
nath:
Briefly and his little parrot sidekick have literally disappeared up each others arses.
If that is so then one wonders how it is that you can see them…’
Hoo hoo! Ripper!
Doyley
It actually saves the budget money because unused leave is a cost.
Nicholas says:
Tuesday, December 24, 2019 at 3:19 pm
….
Perhaps in the years ahead she will take an interest in building political movements, recruiting candidates to challenge incumbents, running insurgent candidates within major political parties, and putting the fear of God into politicians who aren’t doing anything to reduce emissions. What she is doing at the moment is very impressive on a personal level, but she isn’t really thinking or acting politically at this stage.
Building a political movement is fraught with dangers. You don’t have to look further than the Greens. It was supposed to be a political force to build on past successes. It ended up destroying the old structures that brought the successes, a party that has not moved environmental aims at all, a party that has blocked progress on very pressing issues, a party that has become little more than RDN’s play thing.
E. G. Theodore @ #377 Tuesday, December 24th, 2019 – 3:33 pm
It’s his natural habitat? 🙂
Frednk
swamprat
Let me guess, the population in England has risen in 40 years, 1979 to 2019. When you lie with statistics you have to be subtle.
————-
Gross voting numbers are not a “lie”. They are what they are.
Of course population changes over time.
The average gross number of votes per Labour leader where much higher under the earlier leaders (Atlee, Gaitskill and Wilson) when the population was lower than under your sainted Tony!!
The annoying thing about Smoko’s pronouncements is that all he is announcing could have been considered, and begun to be implemented weeks ago. Home Affairs apparently had their report in highlighting issues that have actually now arisen back in May?
So, religious freedom takes priority over disaster planning? 🙁
An Smoko doing the whole “we will talk about this @ COAG in March” ? Not good enough. Ok, state premiers wont be out there handling a hose, but our pollies could be meeting and at least deciding on the frameworks for administration to deliver the immediate compensation needed by volunteers.
OK, Banks have come out and will put off load repayments for 3 months. Great. So by end Feb / March when Smoko wants to start talking about things there will be lots of vollies having to start making up mortgage payments and having trouble doing it.
I reckon they are just going to have to face reality and accept the Budget Surplus is fwarked, and the bushfire season this year, along with water supply / drought issues means serious but appropriate deficit.
bakunin,
I will always Rage Against the Machine, it just may be that it will be in different ways to you. 🙂
https://youtu.be/bWXazVhlyxQ
Mexicanbeemer,
Thanks for that information.
Cheers.
Mexican
I sort of understand what you mean, but using up leave entitlements in order to fight fires doesn’t seem very restful. 🙁
90% of the people on the ground are volunteers. Amazing people.
Maybe the Kooyong/Chisholm appeals will actually have the hoped-for impact, even if the headline judgment of leaving the election results as they stand was as expected:
From the ABC report, with “More to come”; I certainly hope there is more detail to come.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-12-24/josh-frydenberg-gladys-liu-election-dispute-judgment/11824734
I am curious as to what the court thinks “further action” would be … you’d have to think it would be in terms of violating the Electoral Act provisions about deceptive or misleading electoral material, and if so that both says that the AEC should have been more ballsy in enforcement on the day, and that hopefully this judgment might give them the legal backing to be more proactive about this in future? Here’s hoping.
Love your work Mexican. Christmas wishes to you and meher baba. My 2 favourite posters on here.
Does this mean that in future elections, displaying misleading elections that look like they’ve come from the AEC will be no problem at all, in as many languages as possible, and posting lies on Facebook also acceptable?
Interesting that just before the last Victorian state election the liberals were running around screaming and shouting how Andrews and labor were attacking CFA volunteer fire fighters and putting a huge division between paid and volunteer firefighters with their divisive EBA.
Today Morrison announces a policy that will see volunteers employed in Federal public service jobs being financially compensated for their time off work while those volunteers working in the private sector, running a small business or self employed can look after themselves despite both groups standing side by side in the front line.
And all because Morrison wants to protect his “ precious” surplus.