There are two situations vacant currently in the federal parliament: member for Eden-Monaro, with Mike Kelly’s successor to be chosen at a by-election on a date to be determined, and Victorian Greens Senator, with Richard Di Natale’s vacancy to be filled by a party membership ballot following a timeline I’m not privy to. The latest developments on these fronts are as follows:
• With Andrew Constance now in the rear mirror, the Liberals are going through a preselection process that has brought them to the closure of nominations, with the candidates not yet formally announced. David Crowe of the Sydney Morning Herald reported three likely starters: the presumed front-runner, Fiona Kotvojs, who ran in 2019 and remains popular in local branches; Jerry Nockles, an international relations expert and former Navy seaman; and Pru Gordon, a manager at the National Farmers Federation. Canberra news magazine CityNews reported that names being tested in Liberal polling included Nichole Overall, a Queanbeyan freelance journalist. Please note that there’s a dedicated Eden-Monaro by-election thread below this one.
• The Victorian Greens have attracted nine nominees to fill Richard Di Natale’s Senate vacancy, and helpfully laid them out on their website. The highest profile is human rights lawyer Julian Burnside, who ran unsuccessfully for the party in the seat of Cooper at last year’s federal election. However, Noel Towell of The Age reported in March that Lidia Thorpe, who won Northcote in a by-election in November 2017 but failed to retain it at the general election a year later, is also rated highly. The report said the same of Huong Truong, who held an upper house seat in Western Metropolitan region in the nine months before the election, but she is not among the nominees.
Blobbit
I would guess one big difference will be each country had a different beast to contend with. Right from the start NZ had a small fraction of the numbers in hospital and ICU . Which points to Australia having a much older infection base than NZ. All of which likely means 2 different approaches were required.
”America will only help other nations if it is in her interests to do so. Previous military alliances will count for zilch.”
Just ask the Kurds.
“Cud Chewersays:
Monday, May 11, 2020 at 6:26 pm
“I think the response in both NZ and Australia has been about as successful as each other.”
As I said, it is far too early to tell this. That’s all I’m going to say for now.’
But you haven’t been saying that. You’ve been quite happy previously to tell us that the response here has been a failure and that the people running it are idiots.
Can things get worse from here as restrictions change- yes, they can. Can things get worse in NZ as restrictions change – yes, they can.
“porotisays:
Monday, May 11, 2020 at 6:29 pm
Blobbit
I would guess one big difference will be each country had a different beast to contend with. Right from the start NZ had a small fraction of the numbers in hospital and ICU . Which points to Australia having a much older infection base than NZ. All of which likely means 2 different approaches were required.”
If anything, the cases initially in NZ seemed to be growing much faster, for whatever reason. That was probably enough to justify their tighter lockdown. Saying Australia had an older infection base would, if anything, argue that the NZ approach was too extreme.
CC
Get a grip. Stop attributing rubbish like this to me (not for the first time) I simply supplied the latest info about the app to PeeBee. I have never expressed a personal opinion about the app. To suggest what you are saying here indicates you know absolutely nothing about me and what I think.
Cud Chewersays:
Monday, May 11, 2020 at 6:24 pm
“Even if this were the number of actual, operational users, the app would be capturing at most 5 percent of contacts. Of course we know that the limitations of the app mean that there is less than this.”
How do you arrive at that number?
There’s about 16 million smart phones so 5.5 million is about 35% of smart phone owners. There’s about 20 million adults in australia so 5.5 million is a little over 25%.
I don’t see where 5% comes from?
Good observation. But I don’t think it’s just a lack of education. I see it as conservative v progressive way of thinking. From my observations more conservative people tend to be less inclined to embrace the arts and vice versa for progressives. Of course conservatives do enjoy the arts, but only those forms endorsed by the likes of Brandis. They don’t like “weird stuff”.
The G
A final very important question for those of us watching the snowfalls at the start of this month: will we be able to go skiing in Victoria?
Sutton says yes – to the extent that you can socially distance while skiing, so daytrips and groups of less than 10. But no staying overnight, no dorms, possibly only cross-country skiing at this point. The full details are likely to be worked out later. The ski season doesn’t open until the Queen’s birthday weekend in June.
Perhaps Cud can inform us the exact point in time, a precise date if possible, where going into lockdown transitioned from being redneck, “White Australia” racism, to unquestionably wise, vital and necessary public policy.
When was it a good thing, the right moral and social choice, to attend a footy match, an ethnic precinct, or a restaurant? And when did this become a bad thing, symbolic of everything that is allegedly ugly and vile about Australians?
Lastly, who gets to decide these moral and medical cut-off dates? What are the requisite qualifications?
Pegasus:
Wrong information which might the set the “privacy” people off again.
It doesn’t record “details” of people, and it doesn’t “encrypt” those details (it can’t because it doesn’t have them).
It records cryptographically generated anonymous and temporary “ID”s (not really correct to call them IDs as they’re not identifying in the real world, that’s part of the point) so it (the App) doesn’t need to encrypt them (they’re already encrypted). The cryptographic process generating the anonymous and temporary “ID”s might need to have time (at some granularity) as an input and it might be that it encrypts something else as well (though that’s not necessary)
The last thing needed is incorrect information that implies everyone running the App is tracking everyone with whom they come into contact. That’s not what’s happening.
Why would the LNP call an early election? – the 2PP needle has hardly moved and given Australian’s general dislike of elections and with the current shit sandwich so many are experiencing now I can’t see them risking it within at least the next year and then we are on the count down to the normal timing within the following 12 months (and the LNP have bugger all money).
Victorian schools set for ‘gradual, staged return’ during term two
https://www.theage.com.au/politics/victoria/victorian-schools-set-for-gradual-staged-return-during-term-two-20200511-p54rxb.html
“Victorian students will make a “gradual, staged return” to face-to-face classes in term two, the Andrews government says, though no return dates have been announced.
Parents, students and teachers were left hanging on Monday about when classes will resume as part of Victoria’s progressive easing of COVID-19 restrictions.
Victoria is the only state or territory that is yet to set a date on a return to classes.
Premier Daniel Andrews said the government was “close to finalising a plan to see face-to-face learning return before the end of term two”.
Bushfire Bill @ #1110 Monday, May 11th, 2020 – 6:34 pm
That’s easy. When it went from being a lockdown of just travel from China to being a lockdown of all travel from everywhere.
The former thing was never an effective strategy, or even part of one. The latter can be.
MikeHilliard
It is all part of the phony culture war that paints the arts as left wing when in reality much like the ABC a large percentage of the people that go to the arts or watch the ABC are actually Liberals. The Melbourne art sense in the northern suburbs has a left wing lend but that doesn’t apply to other parts of the arts community but the Liberals are unable or unwilling to tell the difference.
EGT,
No ifs, buts, or maybes… For all your nit-picking about the app, have you installed it?
Steve777 says:
Monday, May 11, 2020 at 6:29 pm
“”America will only help other nations if it is in her interests to do so. Previous military alliances will count for zilch.”
Just ask the Kurds.”
The Kurds aren’t a nation and their situation is centuries old and hardly the place for the US to sort out as seen from their other misadventures in the region – or are you calling for the US to fully back the formation of a Kurdish Nation? And what do you think Iraq, Iran, Syria, Russia and Turkey might say about that?
The Kurds were never offered any long term commitments in return for their help.
EGT
That is what the Guardian reported. Good luck with getting millions of people understanding what you know. When the name CovidSafe was adopted any chance of communicating to the masses what the app does and does not do was lost.
Bucephalus
The one advantage of going early would be to avoid the next round of redistribution.
I doubt the Liberals will go early but if they won the E-M bi-election easily then it could be temping particularly if the economy starts to perform better than expected.
Blobbit that’s outrageous spin on what I did say.
Bucephalus
When it comes to the Kurds, giving them Northern Iraq and Northern Syria and making it clear that they must give up any claims on lands in Turkey or Iran should be doable.
That would be sometime in March, I think.
So, anyone who thought stopping incoming flights from China was a good start – given that, at the time, 99% of all cases were in or associated with China – was just using that as a cover for being a racist, until they lumped for a total ban?
That’s an awful lot of people, including (I think) all major political parties.
mikehilliardsays:
Monday, May 11, 2020 at 6:34 pm
“People like Morrison who presumably support the lack of attention to the plight of the arts industries, reveal their basic dislike of the finer things in life. Uneducated plebs, the lot of them.
Good observation. But I don’t think it’s just a lack of education. I see it as conservative v progressive way of thinking. From my observations more conservative people tend to be less inclined to embrace the arts and vice versa for progressives. Of course conservatives do enjoy the arts, but only those forms endorsed by the likes of Brandis. They don’t like “weird stuff”.”
Conservatives do support the arts and that has been demonstrated time and again through both government funding levels and private philanthropy. It’s a credit to them given the ongoing antipathy from so many in the Arts community.
Name a Conservative organisation that is as aggressively opposed to the ALP as the Arts sector is to Conservatives but that ALP Governments have maintained significant fund to. Just one?
“The former thing was never an effective strategy, or even part of one. The latter can be.”
a r
Precisely. It was pretty clear in January we needed to as quickly as possible lock down the border and quarantine everyone.
Again, look at Vietnam. They sealed the border sooner. They locked down sooner. Now they have no virus and their economy is most of the way back to normal. This is a country around 3-4 times our size. This is where Australia could be now had our PM/CMO done the right thing.
Mexicanbeemersays:
Monday, May 11, 2020 at 6:46 pm
Bucephalus
“When it comes to the Kurds, giving them Northern Iraq and Northern Syria and making it clear that they must give up any claims on lands in Turkey or Iran should be doable.”
That would require a permanent US Protectorate.
The Turks would go spare.
As long as Russia kept their warm water port they’d huff and puff and do a few stupid things.
Iraq might become ungovernable and fall further in with Iran.
Real Politik dictates that the Kurds are left as is unfortunately.
“Cud Chewersays:
Monday, May 11, 2020 at 6:45 pm
Blobbit that’s outrageous spin on what I did say.”
I genuinely read your criticism of Morrison, Murphy et al as saying they were dangerous idiots.
If I’ve misunderstood, perhaps the issue is with your communication style?
Cud Chewersays:
Monday, May 11, 2020 at 6:48 pm
“It was pretty clear in January we needed to as quickly as possible lock down the border and quarantine everyone.”
No, it wasn’t or it would have been done.
“Again, look at Vietnam.”
They aren’t a democracy nor a Federation of States. Being a Totalitarian Regime gives them a lot more policy flexibility than a democracy has that has to convince the vast majority of the population that it is doing the right thing.
Blobbit their record speaks for itself…
Buce had we closed our borders sooner we would have had a fraction of the cases and today we would weeks ahead of where we are now, by any objective meausre.
Suck it up. Your Scomo failed.
Bucephalus
There is a fair bit of truth in that because they do tend to follow different forms of art. The left or progressives usually follow the local comedy or performant sense found around Brunswick and Northcote while the right or conservatives tend to follow you more mainstream arts at the NGV or the Arts Centre.
David Leyonhjelm’s comments about Sarah Hanson-Young not malicious, lawyer says
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-05-11/david-leyonhjelm-defamation-case-appeal-sarah-hanson-young/12234094
Blobbit
The sparsely populated lower region of the Sth Island had more cases than Auckland. It is of course “tourist central’ . So a lot of the people getting infected would be young(ish) people in the service industries . They of course being a lot more “party animal’ would have done a heap of spreading among their friends. The tourist angle and the younger service industry vs the older Cruise Ship demographics is my stab at an explanation.
C@tmomma @ #917 Monday, May 11th, 2020 – 3:46 pm
She now lives in Kulnura.
When I looked at the app I saw regular communication with the server and thought shit this is not as advertised; it goes.
My son who develops this sort of shit has also looked at it. It’s quite neat apparently. If communicates with the server to get a time based token, it is this token you send to the other phone. I suppose the idea being you need more than the central DB with names and phone numbers to sort it out if you want to know what is going on.
It does store a local file that requires phone actions to upload, you don’t hand over your phone no-one else gets the data.
I will now find out if you can reinstall if you have deleted it as I will try and put it back on.
If they used the GPL code then they have not followed the copyright, you can’t change the license as they have.
If they didn’t use a GPL version,why?
People like Clementine Ford and Catherine Deveny would spend little time outside their inner northern suburb bubbles.
“Cud Chewersays:
Monday, May 11, 2020 at 6:58 pm
Blobbit their record speaks for itself…”
And that’s my problem with your stance. And given this, I’m not sure what my outrageous spin was then.
I await similar approbation of the NZ government when they reopen cinemas.
“porotisays:
Monday, May 11, 2020 at 7:03 pm
Blobbit
The sparsely populated lower region of the Sth Island had more cases than Auckland…”
Sounds plausible
Cud Chewersays:
Monday, May 11, 2020 at 6:59 pm
“Your Scomo failed.”
Hindsight is a lovely thing but a fantasy.
Your assessment isn’t supported by anyone that matters.
Comet C/2019 Y4 (ATLAS) was a bust – literally.
What’s the go with C/2020 F8 (SWAN) in SE Australia?
Worth a look? Too late? etc.
Mexicanbeemersays:
Monday, May 11, 2020 at 7:10 pm
I believe Ford recently picked up a +$20,000 Arts Grant from the Feds because they hate her so much.
Anyways, went to the office today. Perth CBD is still pretty bloody dead. 5 people on the bus right now, instead of the usual 30.
Most lunch places around me still closed. The one cafe open was doing OK business, nowhere near their usual crowd though.
Train had 4 people on the carriage I was on this morning.
So far the one major failing seems to have been the Ruby Princess. It’s hard not to see that as a failure of Australia’s border control system.
Frednk “If they used the GPL code then they have not followed the copyright, you can’t change the license as they have.”
Yes. I think they’ve screwed this up. I suspect the government lawyers have no understanding of the GPL or assume that there won’t be any come back from changing the license.
I suspect the former.
Incitatus
Hindsight is a lovely thing but a fantasy.
____________________________
Not when it comes to fascists bagging the Labor Party. Then, not only should they have known but whatever they did would never be good enough.
Bushfire Bill @ #1122 Monday, May 11th, 2020 – 6:46 pm
There were probably some of those. And probably some who just didn’t get that when detection lags infection by two weeks (or more) it doesn’t matter where 99% of the confirmed cases are; it matters where all the undetected carriers might have gone. And likely a bunch who didn’t engage with the problem in a critical-thinking kind of way in the first place and just went along with whatever the leaders/experts were saying.
Takes all kinds.
Blobbitsays:
Monday, May 11, 2020 at 7:17 pm
“So far the one major failing seems to have been the Ruby Princess. It’s hard not to see that as a failure of Australia’s border control system.”
It’s clear from the publicly available information that NSW Health made the call and it was based on inaccurate information supplied by the Ship. You can only make decisions based on the information you have available. I’m not saying that Border Force didn’t stuff up in that case. We will have a clearer picture once the Inquiry is completed.
Cud Chewer @ #1003 Monday, May 11th, 2020 – 5:18 pm
I meant, at least Adblock plus. I truly do not understand how anybody can bear being bombarded with inane crap. My point was, just blocking ads so simply will disable Google Analytics as a bonus.
I installed Scriptsafe for a while on recommendation from a mate, but some months ago it started to not play nicely with Firefox, as Ff updated. I gave up.
MexB
Interesting thought. The “vibe” I get at the moment is that the Coalition will win Eden-Monaro, and probably fairly handsomely.
This is partly because of the statistics that Antony Green has been looking at: if people in E-M had voted in the lower house the same way they voted in the upper house, then the Coalition would have won the seat. Also, at the state level, the overlapping state seats are held by the Coalition.
I also think that Morrison and Co will get a boost because of Australia’s almost miraculous escape from the horrors of COVID-19. Their response has actually been OK, especially c.f. the US and the UK. This does not mean I want Morrison and Co. running the country – I think that is about as helpful for Australia as Trump wining the 2020 Presidential election will be for the US – i.e. a disaster.
But, if the rumours are true that Matthias Corman (a true disciple of Thatcher by his own boast) wants extra stimulus such as the COVID-19 Jobseeker supplement and the Job-keeper program gone by July, then Morrison may be forced into holding a federal general election as a “referendum” on whether to go back to austerity or not.
The pro-austerity case the current government will pursue: Let the many newly unemployed (including those left over from the bushfires) crash, holding out the idea that the Coalition can get the economy moving quickly enough again so that all these people will have jobs soon in the coming boom. Also make the assumption that those who became unemployed because of the bushfires and COVID-19 will see themselves as different to the long-term unemployed, who tend to come from impoverished backgrounds. Another assumption is that the middle class who became unemployed in this time will have enough superannuation to access / family to rely on, that they will not actually become homeless and starving.
The anti-austerity case that the Coalition will demonise: Labor debt and deficit will will leave our children and grandchildren in penury.
We could be in for another 3.5 years of C-Street / The Family rule.
OC, I know you do not like people criticising Scott Morrison’s religious affiliations, but having been vicariously associated with that particular band of White US Christian fundamentalism since the late 1970s, they are a dangerous influence on our polity. They are very much into mass rallies, and I do not believe that when Morrison appears on stage with Brian Houston (of Hillsong), and they give the pseudo-fascist salute while “praising” that they are unaware of the symbolism.
If this does not frighten educated Australian people, well I guess that I too will need to welcome our new clerico-fascist overlords.
Cud wrote:
So, someone advocating this, and keeping away from travellers from “hotspot” countries who had already entered the country (e.g. Lunar New Year revellers, tourists, cruise ship passengers and returning secondary and tertiary students) from late January on, would have been acting rationally, and in keeping with sensible personal behaviour (and eventual legislated public policy)?
Such people would have been, in fact, ahead of the curve?
Bucephalous
The whole Catholic education sector!
An early election, don’t believe it will happen, would be a disaster. We have enough to deal with already. Won’t happen.
Re the current Jobseeker and Jobkeeper programs, these are covered by legislation and can’t be ended earlier than the legislated date without going back to a vote in both houses.