Three things:
• The Victorian parliament has passed contentious legislation to change the process by which boundaries are drawn for local government elections, the effect of which will be an end to proportional representation in many councils and a return to single-member wards. This was passed through the upper house with the support of both major parties, and fairly obviously targets the Greens, whose local government footprint expanded considerably in 2016. The legislation is covered in greater detail by Ben Raue at The Tally Room. Relatedly, The Age reports Labor plans to endorse candidates across metropolitan councils at the elections in October, after doing so in only three councils in 2016. The Liberals in Victoria have never endorsed candidates.
• The closure of nominations for Queensland’s March 28 by-election for Bundamba on Tuesday revealed a field of four candidates representing the Labor, the LNP, the Greens in One Nation, just as there will be in Currumbin on the same day. You can read all about it in my election guides for the two seats, which are linked to on the sidebar.
• For those who have forgotten what a Labor election win looks like, Malcolm Farnsworth has posted four hours of ABC election night coverage from 1983 in two parts, here and here. The broadcast predates results at polling booth level and indicative two-party preference counts, which would have to wait until the 1990s, and without which it was difficult for analysts to read the breeze from partial counts in any but the most homogenous seats.
Diogenes @ #1297 Monday, March 9th, 2020 – 7:03 pm
You might think so.
But, probably not how the politics works.
Even I was shocked when I read this. Absolutely abhorrent.
Joe Biden’s long evolution on abortion rights still holds surprises
SNIP: Can you not do this, please – The Management.
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2020-election/biden-s-long-evolution-abortion-rights-still-holds-surprises-n1013846
Bushfire Bill @ #1298 Monday, March 9th, 2020 – 7:05 pm
Imagine this government designing, building and running a complex IT system Remember the Census?
Do you seriously expect anyone to read that cut and paste job, Firefox?
Lucky we’ve got the ace money managers in government.
Just imagine if Labor had won the election.
But seriously….
This is one Labor will be counting their lucky stars they aren’t in charge of.
Nathan Robinson has done a detailed story about Joe Biden’s very conservative policy record. Biden has long promoted Republican Party policy goals – such as trying to cut Social Security, creating a vast carceral state, massively expanding the criminalisation of drug use instead of taking a public health approach, making it harder for women to get abortions, making it easier for predatory lenders to exploit people, pushing trade agreements that are very harmful to workers, supporting extremely destructive and counterproductive military interventions. Bernie has identified as an Independent for his entire career but he is far more of a Democrat than Biden is. I strongly recommend Robinson’s article.
This is a great section about the problems presented by Biden’s verbal infelicities:
https://www.currentaffairs.org/2020/03/democrats-you-really-do-not-want-to-nominate-joe-biden/
I see Firefox is still working extra hard to win that crucial Australian politics blog vote for Sanders.
‘mikehilliard says:
Monday, March 9, 2020 at 6:39 pm
BW
I don’t want to suggest you’re indulging in a bit of fear mongering but give it a break.’
I would appreciate the new national coordinating thingie being a lot more upfront in terms of numbers. The daily score is fine, as far as it goes which is not all that far. For example, we don’t know how many people have been asked to stay home for a fortnight.
I don’t expect them to give exact figures. At all. But I would like some transparent scenario analyses which include orders of magnitude outcomes complete with all the reasonable caveats.
Apart from anything else it would give us all a bit of a better handle on how to be accountable for our own health and that of others.
Taking WHO death and critical disease rates as a rough guide, It would only take 500,000 Australian infections to deliver a WW2 scale of casualties.
It would also give us better and more transparent benchmarks by which to judge government decision making which is, ATM, totally opaque.
“SNIP: Can you not do this, please – The Management.”
***
As a senator from Delaware, he once supported stripping exceptions for rape and incest from federal funding.
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2020-election/biden-s-long-evolution-abortion-rights-still-holds-surprises-n1013846
Sorry for being inconvenient and telling the truth.
Nicholas
The Dems are not buying what Sanders is selling.
It is time to fall in behind Biden and get the Monster out of the White House.
It is time for the Sanders Claque to do the decent thing by all Americans.
If Biden achieves nothing more than evicting the Monster, then that will be worth doing.
The ASX lays an egg.
It’s sad to see Firefox mentally disintegrating before our very eyes.
Nicholas warned everyone at the last election that Clinton was way worse than Trump.
At it again.
The revolution will surely happen with Trump II.
Syria has yet to report a case of C19.
It must be the safest place on earth.
Boerwar @ #1323 Monday, March 9th, 2020 – 6:22 pm
And PNG. No cases there either!
It’s pretty simple: find the people who wrote the Fires Near Me app, bang their heads together, and set them to work.
They know by now where they went wrong, what needed tweaking, what did work. The My Coronavirus app should be a corker.
Do it NOW!
Firefox, I didn’t read and don’t care about what you posted. You aren’t allowed to paste articles in their entirety, and not just by me.
Incidentally, the official Egyptian response to their couple of tourist boat C19 cases shows, IMO, a somewhat disquieting tendency to prioritize the Egyptian tourism industry first, and potential C19 infections second.
Seriously… If PNG (or Fiji, or Samoa, or Indonesia, or New Zealand) was an infection source, we’d have inbound flights turned around licketty-split.
It rather looks as if the Italians have spared Morrison the political difficulties inherent in banning travel from any country but in particular a country with very many family links to Australia.
The defence that was offered was that the Iranian figures were a shonk and that the Iranians were not in control of the situation.
It turns out that the early Italian figures were a shonk (possibly due to a lax approach which caused the Virus to course through the population unchecked) and that the situation for at least 16 million Italians is now virtually out of control. The stories from the medical establishment about what is happening in ICU are tragic.
I have done some checking and our two different sets of (very, very) distant Italian relations are bunkering down and staying at home.
There was footage of Rome airport on the ABC News just now. It rather looked as if it had been cleared out completely by the caribinieri.
But it was entirely voluntary.
It would appear that Scotty from Marketing is considering a bit of a K. Rudd “cash splash” in the unstimulating package according, unsurpisingly, to news.com.au. (no mention from any other outlets yet, must let The Murdoch slease media have, I suppose, the “exclusive” first) –
https://www.news.com.au/finance/economy/morrison-governments-substantial-coronavirus-stimulus-package-could-include-ruddstyle-cash-handouts/news-story/280c34a1bf15166d0a8edc38d2b98e0e
My favourite line is “Clennell said “even cash handouts to ordinary citizens” were still “on the table” but the idea was facing fierce opposition from Finance and Treasury officials who were reluctant to offer the package to ordinary citizens.” Another, “Screw the oiks and peasants! Let ’em suffer.”
Jeez, they’re still going on about the magic non-existent bonus and how they are going to sacrifice it for the good of the country. “In a telling response, the Treasurer said: “I know that we’re in balance, and that’s a significant achievement.”
“It’s taken six and a half years but we’ve brought the Budget back to balance, and that’s part of the economic plan for Australians to live within its means,” Mr Frydenberg said.” The bullshit never ends.
We are stuck on #20 below Malaysia and above Bahrain in the World League of Gross Number of Cases.
Petrol under a $1 a litre coming up!
Bloomberg
@business
· 10h
OPEC and Russia have started an oil price war that could push crude into the $20s, according to Goldman Sachs https://trib.al/Y4alNGD
My favourite line is “Clennell said “even cash handouts to ordinary citizens” were still “on the table”
Is that the same ”table” that Malcolm had lots of stuff on a few years ago?
No doubt towards the top, through some “trickle down” justification.
GG – our ULP price generally tracks the Singapore ULP Price adjusted for exchange rate movements. With the AUD falling I am not so sure it will go that low. Russia might come back to the table now and agree to collude.
I don’t understand why the Labor Right don’t want to talk about the record of Biden the chosen one anymore? What’s wrong? Aren’t happy with your candidate anymore?
The fact that you’ve felt the need to personally attack me over the last few days says it all. I’m not the one supporting a war criminal. You lot got yourselves into this terrible mess so don’t blame me.
I mean, you could have just said something like “hey, I didn’t know how evil Biden is, I’m done with him” and nobody would’ve held it against you. In fact you’d probably gain a lot of respect. But nah. You’d rather support a war criminal than support someone like Sanders. Disgusting.
“It’s taken six and a half years but we’ve brought the Budget back to balance, and that’s part of the economic plan for Australians to live within its means,” Mr Frydenberg said.” The bullshit never ends.
Labor just has to Call this bullshit every time. The coalition government doubled the debt and deficit before things started to turn around mostly as a result of high commodity prices, plus cuts to health, education, welfare and other Government programs.
Perhaps I was right not to buy property recently.
How long till Australian money is worth less than toilet paper?
Steve777 @ #1334 Monday, March 9th, 2020 – 7:54 pm
Labor just has to Call this bullshit every time
Labor just has to Call this bullshit every time
Labor just has to Call this bullshit every time
Labor just has to Call this bullshit every time
Labor just has to Call this bullshit every time
But never will.
This looks like it could be an interesting Qanda. And trend seems to be an absence of govt MPs on the show since Molan embarrassed himself so thoroughly.
On a completely different subject…
As some of you know, I’m heavily involved with high speed rail. I’m promoting a new network design that focuses on the needs of ordinary commuters and is very much about taking cars off roads.
I’ve identified a network design that directly services Woy Woy and Gosford (as well as Newcastle city and a station in the Lower Hunter).
The most interesting problem has proven to be where to locate a high speed main line station for the benefit of the rest of the Central Coast (not the Gosford/Woy Woy conurbation).
Recently I’ve been looking at having a high speed rail station just east of the M1 motorway and next to Wyong Road, at Tuggerah. If you look on the map, its just up the road from Westfield Tuggerah.
Does anyone have any comments they wish to share on this?
Bonza
Australian money being plastic means it isn’t very absorbent.
Bonza @ #1338 Monday, March 9th, 2020 – 6:57 pm
Toilet paper? You mean that stuff everyone is hoarding?
Ditch the ABC Comedy Channel (which nobody much watches) and turn it into the Coronavirus Channel (ABCCC).
It’ll rate its tits off. ABC will be heros.
Firefox
As I wrote earlier much of what you are raising doesn’t change the issues that will be central to the upcoming US election. Biden wasn’t my choice but then I am not an American.
ABC Australian Story now on about a Chinese ex-pat Vicki Chou being monstered by Chinese government agents in Australia.
Forgive the racist undertones.
mundo, you must have missed Jim Chalmers statement today – excerpts were on multiple media outlets…
JIM CHALMERS, SHADOW TREASURER: Good afternoon, everybody. It’s a heartbreaking day here in Brisbane as Hannah Clarke and her three gorgeous little kids are laid to rest at their funeral today. It must be another excruciatingly sad day for everybody who loved Hannah and her kids. Our thoughts are with all of her family and friends as we all turn our minds again to redoubling our efforts to eliminate the scourge of family violence in our society.
I want to say a few things about the state of the economy following the outbreak of the Coronavirus and in anticipation of the Government’s stimulus package which they’ll be announcing later this week. I’m conscious that the stock market has taken a big hit as confidence here and around the world suffers from the outbreak of the virus and our dollar is lower again. There’s a lot of anxiety and concern in our economy and in our community.
This Coronavirus will have a big impact on our economy so it warrants and demands a substantial response from our Government. The economy was already weak heading into the challenges of the fire season and the Coronavirus and now it’s getting weaker. Before the virus hit we had slowing quarterly growth, annual growth was well below average, business investment went backwards for three quarters in a row. We’ve got stagnant wages, very high household debt and issues with consumption and productivity. Under the life of this Liberal-National Government net debt has more than doubled from $175 billion to $430 billion. Australia approaches these challenges from the Coronavirus from a position of relative weakness, not strength because of a long period of inaction and incompetence from Scott Morrison and Josh Frydenberg.
Australia needs this Government to do a better job managing these challenges than they have done managing the economy in recent years. Every single Australian has a stake, and an interest, in the Government doing a better job dealing with the challenge of Coronavirus in our economy than they’ve done over recent years, which have been characterised by insecure work, stagnant wages, slowing growth and weak business investment.
The Labor Party will examine what they announce tomorrow. We will be constructive, responsible and supportive where we can. Our priority will always be the workers and the employers in this economy and the communities around them.
Our preference is to support what they announce in coming days, but we haven’t seen it yet and we need to make sure that the package is big enough, fast enough and of sufficient quality that it is worthy of our support. We also have a responsibility to point out if we think the package that they announce is insufficient or deficient in any way. Our responsibility is to be as constructive as we can to support where we can, but also to point out where we think the Government could have done a better job.
We need to make sure that whatever the Government announces is not too little, too late. We need to make sure that whatever they announce is big enough and fast enough to make a genuine difference in a floundering economy. We need the Government to focus on those most affected by these challenges whether it be workers without paid sick leave or businesses in affected sectors having trouble with cash flow. We need the Government to address the long-standing challenges in the economy which have been left unattended for too long.
We need the Government to do a better job getting this support out the door than they have done when it’s come to getting drought assistance, fire assistance or infrastructure money out the door in recent times. We’ll see what the Government announces. It needs to be big enough and fast enough to make a difference. We’ll support it if it’s a good package when it’s announced. Our interests will always be workers, businesses and communities. We will always put the interests of Australians in the economy above politics. That’s the difference between us and the Liberal-National Government in Canberra. We will look at what they announce and we’ll respond in due course.
https://www.jimchalmers.org/media/transcripts/brisbane-press-conference-090320/
Hey, Morrison! What have you done to my super!
__
Well what’s left of mine is severely compromised!
Firefox says:
Monday, March 9, 2020 at 7:54 pm
I don’t understand why the Labor Right don’t want to talk about the record of Biden the chosen one anymore? What’s wrong? Aren’t happy with your candidate anymore?
1. If you’re intending to address the Labor Right, you’re in the wrong forum.
2. No-one really cares what you think about Biden.
3. Biden is a candidate in the US presidential race.
4. This has nothing whatsoever to do with PB.
5. You’re campaigning for Trump.
6. No-one really cares about that either.
7. You’re attempting to use Biden to make a political attack on your cyber-foes here at PB.
8. No-one gives a rats about your current revival of Libkinitis.
“Mexicanbeemersays:
Monday, March 9, 2020 at 8:04 pm
Firefox
As I wrote earlier much of what you are raising doesn’t change the issues that will be central to the upcoming US election”
Also, Firefox, you’re proselytizing to a group who can’t vote.
We get it, Biden is pretty terrible. Quite a lot of people probably agree with you. It’s just they happen to think Biden is more electable.
“Firefox, I didn’t read and don’t care about what you posted. You aren’t allowed to paste articles in their entirety, and not just by me.”
***
Sorry. My bad. Must be pro-Biden. Got it.
Well said, Briefly.
“We get it, Biden is pretty terrible.”
***
You know, since you’re the first person to actually admit that (to my knowledge), I’ll give you credit for being honest. 🙂
Or is just the better of the two because, regardless of his faults (of which there are quite a few), he isn’t some miserable, frail, curmudgeon who brings the worst out of people and doesn’t have a cult of personality that harasses and copypastes all day.
Edit: And that’s all I have to say in this thread about that. Because there is a US politics thread open and I don’t think anybody wants this to be hijacked by taking the bait of a salty fanatic.
Firefox… give up. You lost.
What you’re doing now is just sour grapes. You aren’t changing any minds. You’re pissing off the management. You’re making a lot of noise that’s distracting, seemingly out of pure pique.
Classic tantrum. No-one cares what you think.
Re CC @8:00PM.
Yes, let’s look beyond the Virus.
The existing Tuggerah Station serves the Tuggerah, Berkeley Vale, Entrance and Bateau Bay areas, another small conurbation, together with Wyong. It would be logical to place a new HSR station nearby.
The area to the West is mostly rural, but will no doubt be subject to urban development in coming years.
WA (or I should say Perth) is opening 3 special clinics for coronavirus from tomorrow. They’ll do testing and offer other support for people infected, 7 days per week, 8am to 8pm.
Also the WA government has banned school excursions to the US and Europe, added to China and other countries last week.
ABC criticising China.
Where’s Horsey? What does Box Hill think?
Firefox says:
Monday, March 9, 2020 at 7:54 pm
I don’t understand why the Labor Right don’t want to talk about the record of Biden the chosen one anymore?
You have a serious problem with reality. Nobody cares about Biden one way or the other. News flash Australia is not the 53 state of the USA, we don’t get a vote.