No Newspoll this week it seems. News you can use:
• Queensland’s elections on the weekend are covered in extensive and ongoing detail here. To cut a long story short: the state by-elections of Bundamba and Currumbin resulted in victories for the incumbent parties, namely Labor and the Liberal National Party respectively; Adrian Schrinner of the LNP was re-elected as lord mayor of Brisbane; and the LNP have almost certainly retained a healthy majority on Brisbane City Council. In Bundamba, the LNP ran third behind One Nation (and probably shouldn’t have bothered to run), whose presence in the field also took a bite out of the Labor primary vote. Labor did manage to improve their primary vote at the LNP’s expense in Currumbin, where One Nation is a lot weaker, but the latter’s presence means they will get a lower share of the combined preferences and thus fail to bite into the LNP’s existing 3.3% margin. There has been no notional two-party count, but scrutineers’ figures cited by Antony Green suggest Labor received an uncommonly weak 71% share of Greens preferences.
• Roy Morgan’s promise that it would provide further detail on its half-way intriguing findings on trust in political and business leaders (see here and here) has borne disappointing fruit. Rather than provide the trust and distrust scores as most of us would have hoped, a follow-up release offers only blurry impressions as to the specific attributes that caused the various leaders to be trusted or distrusted, in which “honest/genuine” and “integrity/sincerity” were uselessly listed as distinct response options.
• The Tasmanian government has delayed the date for the periodical Legislative Council elections, which this year encompass the seats of Huon and Rosevears, but only from May 2 to May 30. The Tasmanian Electoral Commission says this will give it more time to “ensure electors have access to the voting process and to maintain the integrity of the 2020 Legislative Council elections during the COVID-19 pandemic”, which presumably means a greater emphasis on postal, pre-poll and maybe telephone voting.
Now, at one level it’s easy to explain, clusters in Sydney that extend outwards into the regions. But isolated cases are spread far and wide all over the place, Wagga, Griffith, Goulburn, Dubbo, Orange etc etc. How have so many isolated, unexplained cases travelled so far and can we really be confident that we’ve picked up the contacts of these patients, both prior to and after transmission?
My guess is that this is a mix of students from Sydney returning home and wealthy travelers returning from OS.
It’s a completed guess – let’s call it a “Daley.”
“Mate I have a friend who has the cough and his wife has the full range of symptoms, including breathing issues. Can they get tested? No.”
Yes. That doesn’t really engage with my comment. If there were large numbers of people in the community with Covid19 who aren’t being picked up by the current testing, then there should be increasing numbers of people
1. Getting sick
2. Needing hospital care
3. Needing ICU care
Does anyone know if 2 or 3 are happening?
Any worker who is losing income because of the health emergency should get financial support from the federal government. That includes casuals employed for fewer than 12 months, gig workers, and non-citizens. There is no good reason to exclude those groups. I think the government is probably excluding those groups because they wrongly believe that they need to minimise the financial price tag of the scheme. The only issue to consider with federal spending is inflation risk, and we are very unlikely to get an inflationary episode from programs that are about helping households and businesses to pay recurring fixed expenses (rent, mortgage, utilities, phone bill) and buy essential commodities (groceries and medicines). These programs are about enabling people to survive. The programs are not providing so much spending power that people are going to go crazy with discretionary purchases – and most discretionary goods and services are not available for sale at the moment anyway, so even if people had the money they wouldn’t be able to spend it.
Andrew_Earlwood @ #798 Monday, March 30th, 2020 – 5:29 pm
Has a single dollar even gone out to impacted businesses or individuals yet?
Agreed, Nicholas. Agreed.
My view is that Morrison has made some courageous decisions in recent times
He’s swinging in the breeze with his arse fully exposed for his traditional supporters.
How he deals with his betrayal of his backers is another story.
OC
The reason for putting a HSR station at Tuggerah is that this is the best location for people in the northern end of the Central Coast. Remember also that Gosford and Woy HSR stations cater to the southern end of the Central Coast.
The location for the Tuggerah HSR station is just east of the M1/Wyong Road interchange. There is a reason why there is a Westfield just down the road and its the same reason why its a good location for a HSR station.
Its possible to give Tuggerah HSR a clockface 10 minute timetable. In answer to your question about bus frequency, this is a question for detailed study. Its not necessary to have every bus route meet every train, though it would be good in peak.
As for where a bus from The Entrance would stop. Again, this is matter for detailed study. The minimal set of stops would be The Entrance, Tumbi Umbi and then Tuggerah HSR and the reason for Tumbi Umbi is distributed parking. Other routes and off peak services would include Killarney Vale and Chittaway Point. I’m also assuming that there would be a separate Terrigal to Tuggerah via Bateau Bay service and this would tend to attract park and ride from the Bateau Bay/Shelley Beach area.
Just got Fraudenberg in SA. Paying back a fortune for years. Politics don’t matter. So that’s it then.
Questions like that don’t apply to us.
From Tradings economics…
The number of people infected with the Covid-19 around the world surpassed 720,000, of which 34,000 died and over 150,000 have recovered….
United States 142735
https://tradingeconomics.com/country-list/coronavirus-cases
Some of the comments on here tonight about the job keeper scheme remind me of an old vaudeville joke in which one guy plays some music to the other and then asks him what he thought and gets the response “Man, even if that was good, I wouldn’t like it”.
I recommend tonight’s episode of Australian Story if it is available on Iview.
Some very inspiring peeps, IMO.
shellbell
So, my generous reading of those rules that you posted is you need to be pretty sick to have a chance of being tested.
If you have a mild case then you’re free to remain undiagnosed and quite likely other people will have caught it from you and won’t be tracked/traced.
This is still bullshit. Its cleaning up the mess after its happened rather than aggressively chasing the virus. Its always staying two steps behind and it means the official figures are bunk.
Tonight’s Qanda:
Oh fuck.. economists and the BCA.
Time to go back to watching Doom Eternal playthroughs..
Sounds like Mavis.
DM
Thanks for the reply. Yes, that’s possible. It’s hard to tell from a graph how well the health authorities are chasing these issues up, but they seem to be getting a lot of things right to me.
Discriminating between workers on the basis of their length and conditions of employment is just idiotic. It’s self-defeating.
So we’ve tanked our Children’s credit cards, now we will start on our Granchildren.
The world has created a nightmare with massive sovereign debt, open borders, and indiscriminate privatization and rationalization.
After all this, I can only hope people will bloody well grow up.
meher baba
In the Bludger Lounge an event vying with Halley’s Comet for frequency 🙂
Cud Chewer
Not ESO ?
‘Greensborough Growler says:
Monday, March 30, 2020 at 8:34 pm
My view is that Morrison has made some courageous decisions in recent times
He’s swinging in the breeze with his arse fully exposed for his traditional supporters.
How he deals with his betrayal of his backers is another story.’
We get very small hints from time-to-time that there have been heavy disagreements in Cabinet.
We screwed the grandkids when our government reversed the meaningful action to address our GHGEs initiated by the Gillard Labor govt.
Very good four corners on atm
poroti
I just prefer blowing shit up.. or watching experts blowing lots of shit up 🙂
Redlands Mowerman says:
Monday, March 30, 2020 at 8:47 pm
So we’ve tanked our Children’s credit cards, now we will start on our Granchildren.
The world has created a nightmare with massive sovereign debt, open borders, and indiscriminate privatization and rationalization.
Bollocks.
Well this is rather awkward. Despite the fact that the government hasn’t adopted MMT they’ve still managed to spend an amazing amount of money without offsetting it with tax revenue.
I realise of course that LNP debt is completely different to Labor debt (the LNP debt will be turned into private debt ASAP). However MMT is not to blame. It’s merely a tool for describing our situation and it does provide some hope that our children’s children need not suffer unduly.
NathanA @ #796 Monday, March 30th, 2020 – 8:25 pm
Cruises. Train home.
brett
Oh yeah, but they’ll observe the orthodoxy and insist on austerity in good time..
The modern capitalist system claims that it can bring everyone along with it. A few victims left by the wayside, and they can be blamed for their own circumanstace. A lot more people dumped by the curb during a crisis, for what is quite clearly no fault of theirs, and the lie would be revealed.
I don’t think Morrison has much of a choice. We can see the results of going with the right’s natural inclinations in the USA. Though they are quite clearly itching for the darwinian solution, our right are not so brazen and confident in their power as the Republicans and Trump in the USA, to think they can get away it.
There are currently 35 cases in the Northern NSW LHD, 33 are overseas travellers of which 25 are from cruise ships. The other 2 are close contacts. None require hospitalisation. The population of NNSWLHD is 288,000
Noddy Murphy asked straight-out: “Was Morrison wrong to say he was still going to the footy?”
“That’s a matter for him.”
I picked that plonker for a Yes Man 6 weeks ago, just on first principles: no-one gets to be SECHEALTH in a Morrison government without being politically one of the boys.
The one before Murphy merely covered up for SportsRorts by burning her notes. Murphy has a whole nation’s health to look out for.
After WW2 there was a huge “debt”. This was reduced by the combination of growth and by having the Commonwealth Bank (which was then also the Reserve Bank, until 1960) purchase some of the government debt, causing it to disappear.
The Reserve Bank of Canada continues this practice to this day (typically it purchases 20% of all Canadian Treasury Bonds, so if the Canadian Government borrows 10B its net position is only altered by 8B). The percentage can be varied; nothing prevents the Reserve Bank from purchasing 100% of the bonds, except that:
– private sector would get upset as they want the bonds
– people who don’t understand might panic, or might listen to bullshitters preaching austerity (in their own interests)
It’s generally though that denying the private sector opportunities to buy bonds is a bad thing, so need to give them some. Probably at least 20%…
Whether people panic depends mainly on the recent history:
– after a war*, people have been through shit, therefore are tough and don’t panic, and they want to rebuild so they don’t listen to the bullshitters
– after COVID19, ????
* Unless they are the UK, in which case they impoverish themselves via austerity so as to lose the peace after having won the war…
Cud,
Bugger all commuters live in The Entrance, which is on a skinny peninsula. Long Jetty, Bateau Bay, Killarney Vale, Tumbi and Berkeley Vale have the resident numbers. The current buses are a joke, trailing all over the place through back streets in crazy zig zags. The 26 takes 44 minutes from The Entrance to Tuggerah Station. By car, about 16-18 minutes, depending on whether you crack the traffic lights.
Nath:’NY ICU nurses doing 5 13 hour shifts in a row. A day in the life:’
If that surprises you, you obviously don’t know any junior doctors in a Victorian public hospital.
Bushfire Bill @ #833 Monday, March 30th, 2020 – 9:19 pm
Mate,
The Libs are going to go through serious conniptions as they implement Labor policy.
6 weeks ain’t enough.
Confessions @ #813 Monday, March 30th, 2020 – 7:41 pm
Four right-wingers, an opposition member who’s not the shadow Treasurer, and a wildcard. Lovely.
Instructive:
Ok. I am the worst economist in the world…. Maybe not the worst…. I got sent to Europe instead of fronting a senate inquiry in 2010 about the Rudd’s stimulus package…. Seriously, Czech Girls or senate inquiry? I choose the former.
My guess is GDP is down 15% this quarter and 25% the next. The bounce back will be fast but not as large.
I wonder how cheap the comrades found him to buy ?
https://www.smh.com.au/politics/nsw/unswerving-leadership-nsw-labor-mp-praises-china-s-coronavirus-response-20200330-p54fbg.html
Meanwhile in psephological news counting has started in the regular election for Seanad Éireann (the Irish Senate).
https://www.rte.ie/news/politics/2020/0330/1127212-seanad-election/
One of the world’s truly bizarre election processes. Of the 60 senators:
11 are nominated by the Taoiseach
3 are elected by graduates of Trinity College
3 are elected by graduates of National University
The remaining 43 are elected using Hare-Clarke by an electoral college of members of the Dáil, retiring members of the Seanad and all members of city and county councils.
This is were it gets bizarre:
The candidates are elected from 5 vocational panels who are nominated by either members of the parliament or appropriate community organisations, e.g
The Irish Countrywomen’s Association can nominate candidates for the Cultural and Education Panel.
Fortunately the Seanad has only a minimal ability to hold up legislation and the 11 members nominated by the Taoiseach ensure government legislation is rarely defeated
Oakeshott Country @ #842 Monday, March 30th, 2020 – 9:36 pm
Kevin Bonham would be in ecstacy.
a r:
I’ve enjoyed Q&A since MacDonald took over, and I’m sure he’ll manage the panel well.
I am waiting for his analysis.
An attempt has been made to abolish the Seanad at referendum but for unknown reasons the vote was defeated perhaps the people just wanted to say FU to the government.
On face value the job keeper payment seems to be one of this governments better ideas but it seems harsh against casuals since many wouldn’t meet the 12 months requirement and still nothing substantial for the disabled.
yabba
Completely agree. Bus planners are dot-joiners. They’re interested in connectivity and establishing that people have a bus stop within a given walking distance. Buses are therefore a back stop option for those who can’t drive (like me). And that’s true in general, not just on the Central Coast. Difficult geography can only make things worse.
If you build a high speed rail network, most people are naturally going to attempt to drive to the HSR station. To avert that, you need a limited/express bus service connecting what amounts to a distributed car park. In future (2030s which is realistically when this will happen) we will have cars that are autonomous enough to drop us off at the station and then park themselves somewhere else. In some cases your self driving car will drop you off at a bus stop and then the express bus will take you to the HSR station.
As for timing, I figure that a limited/express bus from The Entrance will have to leave about 45 minutes before the scheduled train departure – at least in peak. Out of peak it can be a bit faster. Considering that Tuggerah HSR station is 30 minutes removed from the Sydney CBD or Parramatta, that opens up a range of opportunities – it induces demand. I’m not saying its something you would want to do daily, but certainly if for instance you visited a University in Sydney 3 days a week or went shopping in Parramatta, then its a clear option.
Also, one of the things I’m trying to achieve is to get cars off major arterials and motorways. A certain proportion of people from the Central Coast (even some from The Entrance) do drive semi-regularly to Sydney. With a HSR station at Tuggerah, they will (mostly) take the train.
There are of course lots of other cases to consider than the Entrance. Of more interest is Wyong/Tuggerah and the closer and highly populated areas such as Gorokan. I mention The Entrance because OC asked me.
😆
BTW who here has watched Four Corners?
How is Qanda meeting the new measures of max 2 people in a space when they have 5 – 4 panel members and the host.
William @9:28
Thanks, very useful.
Coronavirus Infections Per 100,000 Since First Case in Australia vs Japan vs Singapore
https://coronavirusgraphs.com/?c=da&y=log&t=line&f=7&ct=&co=21,118,206
Nordics are (all) similar, but started later.