Democracy in the time of COVID-19

Queensland council elections and state by-elections to proceed in spite of everything; two polls on attitudes to coronavirus; and Josh Frydenberg off the Section 44 hook.

I had a paywalled article in Crikey yesterday considering the implications of coronavirus for the electoral process. For what it’s worth, the New York Times today reports that research finds no evidence that elections act as vectors for disease. Apropos next Saturday’s local government elections and state by-elections in Queensland, my article had this to say:

According to Graeme Orr, University of Queensland law professor and a noted authority on electoral law, it is still within the power of Local Government Minister Stirling Hinchliffe to postpone the council elections. The byelections for the state seats of Currumbin and Bundamba could also theoretically be called off if the speaker rescinded the writs. Since a state election will be held in October in any case, it might well be argued that filling the latter vacancies for a few months is not worth the bother. However, the official position is that neither pre-poll nor election day booths will experience activity amounting to a gathering of more than 500 people, as per the latest advice of the chief medical officer — advice that will surely be showing its age well before next Saturday.

In other by-election news, the Liberal National Party has put Labor last on its how-to-vote cards in Currumbin and Bundamba, and thus behind One Nation, a move that has evidently lost its taboo since the issue of One Nation preferences tore the state’s Coalition parties apart around the turn of the century. This could potentially be consequential in Bundamba, where it is conceivable that One Nation could outpoll the LNP and defeat Labor with their preferences.

Elsewhere:

• The Federal Court has dismissed a Section 44 challenge against Treasurer Josh Frydenberg’s eligibility to sit in parliament on grounds of dual Hungarian citizenship, to which he was allegedly entitled via his Hungarian-born mother. The petitioner, Michael Staindl, initially pointed to Australian documentation suggesting her family arrived in Australia in 1950 with Hungarian passports, having fled the country the previous year as the post-war communist regime tightened its grip. However, it was established that this arose from loose definitions used at the time by the Australian authorities, and that what the family actually had was “a form of single use emigrant exit passport”. This led Staindl to twice reformulate his argument, eventually settling on the contention that Frydenberg’s mother was left with the “shell” of a citizenship that had been emptied only by the communist regime’s arbitrary and capricious “pseudo-law”, a factor that ceased to apply with its demise in 1989. This did not impress the court, which dismissed the petition and ordered Staindl to pay costs.

• The Age/Herald has polling results from Newgate Research on which aspects of coronavirus are of greatest public concern. The results are reasonably consistent across the board, but top of the list is “the overall economic impact”, with which 41% express themselves extremely concerned, 36% quite concerned, 19% slightly concerned and 4% not at all concerned. “Regular health services not being available” produces similar results of 35%, 32%, 25% and 8%. There are slightly more moderate results for other questions on health impacts and “shortages of food, toilet paper and other essentials”, although in all cases the combination for extremely concerned and quite concerned is well above 50%. The poll is an “online tracking study of more than 1000 Australians, taken between Wednesday and Saturday last week”.

• The West Australian ($) also has a WA-only coronavirus poll, which finds 66% supporting cancellation of large sporting events, 45% for night venues, 35% for cinemas and theatres, 34% for gyms and leisure centres, 29% for schools, 28% for universities, 22% for shopping centres and 16% apiece for restaurants and cafes and public transport. Fifty-one per cent of respondents agreed the government had been fully open and honest about the risks and implications of the virus, with 25% disagreeing. The poll was conducted Friday and Saturday by Painted Dog Research from a sample of 890.

• The count for the Northern Territory’s Johnston by-election was finalised on Friday, with Labor’s Joel Bowden winning at the final count over Steven Klose of the Territory Alliance by 1731 votes (52.6%) to (47.4%), in the absence of any surprises in the full preference count. With no candidate polling more than 29.9% on the primary vote, the latter was always an abstract possibility, but the result after the previous exclusion was not particularly close, with Bowden on 1275 (38.7%), Klose on 1110 (33.7%) and Greens candidate Aiya Goodrich Carttling on 907 (27.6%). It seems unlikely that preferences would have favoured the Greens even if it had been otherwise. My live results facility now records the final numbers – there will be more where this came from on this site with the Queensland elections on Saturday week, certainly with the state by-elections, and perhaps also for the Brisbane City Council elections, depending on how things go.

Note also two new posts below this one, one dealing with a new poll of state voting intention in Tasmania, the other being Adrian Beaumont’s latest contribution on the Democratic primaries in the United States.

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.

3,538 comments on “Democracy in the time of COVID-19”

Comments Page 6 of 71
1 … 5 6 7 … 71

  1. laughtong
    Wednesday, March 18th, 2020 – 11:46 am
    Comment #238

    Thanks for you information re oldies shopping with concession card. How would anyone know if the carer got some goodies ❓

    I think I need a bex and a good lie down.

    “Hoarder Force” clever Jaeger.✔

  3. The claytons we want to stop the virus from spreading plan

    Allow the public in shops, shopping mall, work places , schools , airports, train station and other public transport , .government departments etc

  5. citizen says:
    Wednesday, March 18, 2020 at 11:39 am

    Morrison….“There is no reason for people to be hoarding supplies in fear of a lockdown or anything like this,” he said.

    Morrison rules out doing the very thing that will make the most difference to the scope and pace of the pandemic. He is an idiot. It won’t be long, however, before lockdown becomes unstoppable, just as by now the pandemic is unstoppable.

  6. Westpac is now predicting a deeper recession and an unemployment rate of 7%.

    We have increased our estimate of the shock to the most exposed component of consumer spending (hotels; restaurants and cafes; recreational services; and air travel) to minus 40% over the two quarters from minus 25%.

    We have increased the expected shock to consumer durables to minus 7% and revised up the negative impact on home renovations and additions.

    We expect outbound and inbound tourism to contract by 80% over the two quarters. Overall we now see consumer spending contracting by 0.1% (March quarter) and 2.8% (June quarter) before recovering by 1.9% in the September quarter and 1.0% in the December quarter.

  7. Mindful that most spread is within the household, immediately someone tests positive said someone is removed forcibly if necessary to barbed wired happy camps to where the school children have been transferred and need supervision in their singing and dancing and synchronised ribbon twirling with three meals a day plus all the toilet paper you don’t need and camp stretchers in segregated quarters.

  8. Good news.
    Four of our immediate family out of home pokey as a test comes back negative.
    Six remain locked down for a month inside Manila.

  12. AM
    It says that the managerial peeps whose jobs are on the line are OK with playing with the lives of players and their loved ones.

  15. If hoarding is unAustralian why are so many Australians hoarding?

    If being corrupt is unAustralian why is this government so corrupt?

    So many questions. So few answers.

  16. Feds’ 100-page coronavirus plan warns it will ‘last 18 months’ and cause ‘critical shortages’: report

    The federal government’s plan for responding to the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic was obtained by The New York Times.

    “A federal government plan to combat the coronavirus warned policymakers last week that a pandemic ‘will last 18 months or longer’ and could include ‘multiple waves,’ resulting in widespread shortages that would strain consumers and the nation’s health care system,” the newspaper reported.

    The document warned of ongoing shortages.

    The document was marked, “For Official Use Only // Not For Public Distribution or Release.”

    https://www.rawstory.com/2020/03/feds-100-page-coronavirus-plan-warns-it-will-last-18-months-and-cause-critical-shortages-report/

  17. Cat

    Wow I am a Bernie Bro for saying Biden will win the Democratic Nomination. Very interesting.

    You as usual are free with the slurs as a device for a put down instead of addressing the point being made.

    Edit: By the way. The UBI was promoted in the US by Andrew Yang not Bernie Sanders.

  22. My trite post on segregation once tested positive was pointing out the flaw in the whole quarantine thing – home isolation is nearly impossible.

  25. Morrison should stop accepting free groceries, sanitiser and toilet paper at Kirribilli House and go into any supermarket to see for himself what ordinary Australians are experiencing.

    Perhaps a journo could suggest to him that he do this.

  29. Cat

    Biden is giving a victory speech. So far he has talked only about the virus to his credit.

    Denying what Trump is doing and What Biden is doing won’t help Biden win the Presidency.

    Edit: Or our commenting on that.

    Networks are declaring Biden has won Florida and Illinois.

  31. Confessions:

    Our govt hasn’t bungled coronavirus anywhere near as badly as Trump or Boris have. Which is why it’s so concerning that Scotty is now mirroring whatever Trump does.

    I think it’s cargo cult behaviour. He sees Trump being forgiven by his base for all manner of sins, seemingly untouchable among Republican voters, and doesn’t know why – so he seeks to gain that for himself by imitating Trump’s positioning and decisions.

  33. C@t
    “Because they are the ones ignoring the qualified medical advice.”
    so is the DNC. Many are now viewing today’s primaries as illegitimate, not to mention dangerous

  36. citizen,

    Good idea re Morrison ( and others ) actually stepping into the real world and see what is actually going on. Bit late now to call for calm.

    The MSM can pat Morrison on the back as much as they like every time he rolls out his announceables but just as it is re the bushfire recovery the lived experience re the virus will get Morrison in the end. The huge chasm between what Morrison and his MSM team are saying and what Australians are living will play out for a long long time especially as things get worse and once Australians start to work out who is actually getting most of the financial support

    A bit early yet I would think to start calling Morrison a winner. Long way to go.

  38. doyley

    When the extreme right in the White House is moving left and following Australia’s approach of direct cash to workers and vulnerable people that Labor pioneered you know the neo liberal case is dire.

    Here it’s less stark than in the US and we don’t have right wing politicians arguing for a UBI as we do have social security that can rescue people.

    In the US. It’s instant homelessness for millions. It may take longer here but those same pressures are going to hit people.

    The political landscape is going to be very very different by the time of the Queensland State election let alone the next Federal election.

  39. Bonza @ #283 Wednesday, March 18th, 2020 – 12:49 pm

    C@t
    “Because they are the ones ignoring the qualified medical advice.”
    so is the DNC. Many are now viewing today’s primaries as illegitimate, not to mention dangerous

    So, why is Bernie Sanders vowing to go on then? As if he can’t work out that Coronovirus will last to the election and beyond.

  40. Anyway, Bonza, if Bernie Sanders was leading in the polls against Joe Biden you’d find a way to find legitimacy in the Primaries and some sort of excuse for them to go ahead.

  41. Cat

    Sanders can stay in right up to the convention. It’s symbolic to letting his voters have their say. Plus it helps turnout.

    Or he can drop out. Just don’t expect it due to Sanders ethics of every vote counting. It galls the party hacks. It’s fair to every voter.

  42. Morrison’s criticism of people stocking up at this time, lumping it all in as panic buying, is a criticism of a significant proportion of the community, including many who voted for him.

    A political mis-step for sure.

  44. Bonza

    It’s going to be very interesting how left wing Biden is going to be.

    The right wing White House considering seriously adopting the UBI concept is a seismic earthquake for US politics.

    As recently as two weeks ago I would not believe that would be happening.

  46. Nice point in that cartoon above re. the golden retriever.

    One of the pleasant aspects of life in a seaside hamlet is that dogs just wander about.

    The streets are quiet, the dogs don’t fight each other, and people who’ve had their hearts broken too many times, from having to put loved pets down, get to have a Rent-A-Dog for the day when they visit.

    Not so anymore.

    No amount of tail-wagging will get me to relent and pat a local peripatetic pooch nowadays. I’m immune even to the charms of Lucy the Jack Russell when she trots around from the next street, knocks on the door with her nose, tail flashing, ears akimbo, and offers an old tennis ball in her mouth ready for play.

    That’s serious social distancing.

  47. The longer Sanders stays in the contest the more he hurts his revolution. He is about 250 delegates behind and the gap is getting larger with every contest. If hangs on until April 28th when the next large group of states vote, he will be as popular as coronavirus with the majority of the American democrats.

  48. Bonza
    “Many are now viewing today’s primaries as illegitimate, not to mention dangerous”

    By “many” do you mean vocal Sanders supporters who won’t admit Sanders lost fair and square?

  49. A sensible idea:

    Federal Labor is calling on local councils to immediately lift truck delivery curfews, saying they are restricting the ability of supermarkets to restock.

    The shadow local government minister, Jason Clare, said a temporary relaxation of curfews could help supermarkets restock shelves and keep up with the increase in demand.

    “To respond to the current surge in demand, expected to last for at least several weeks, it is important that local governments’ temporarily lift these curfews,” Clare said.

    From The Graunaid live blog.

  50. Significant non-Covid news:The Andrews government is setting up a Stolen Generations Redress scheme to tackle the trauma by the forced removal of aboriginal children. A range of redress options will be considered.The scheme will begin in 2021. @abcmelbourne #springst— Richard Willingham (@rwillingham) March 18, 2020

Comments Page 6 of 71
1 … 5 6 7 … 71

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *