The Association of Market and Social Research Organisations has published a discussion paper for its review into last year’s federal election polling failure. It notes that existing standards set by the Australian Press Council are too lax and readily ignored in any case, and suggests a familiar retinue of suggested new standards including full disclosure of weightings used and detail of how preference flows were determined. While the inquiry’s committee and advisory group are impressively credentialled, it should be noted that most actual pollsters aren’t members of the AMSRO. The recent announcement that YouGov, Essential Research and uComms would establish an Australian Polling Council occurred independently of its process, and is likely to be the more consequential development.
Meanwhile, a parliamentary inquiry has been putting the blowtorch to the Electoral Commission of Queensland over the failure of its results reporting facilities at the local government elections and state by-elections on March 28. Excuses include disruption arising from COVID-19, which extended to “coding resources” being locked down in Wuhan, and the complication of combining elections for two state parliament seats with the statewide council elections. It also appears an American firm contracted to provide a new election management system, Konnech, has found itself bamboozled by what the electoral commissioner described as “the complexity of Queensland electoral law”, which “far exceeded that of any other Konnech customer” (a conclusion it would no doubt have reached in any Australian jurisdiction).
The new results website went belly-up on testing a week out from election day, prompting the ECQ to hurriedly concoct the unfamiliar-looking results website that appeared on the night. Polling booth officials were required to submit results through a shareable spreadsheet application, which threw up formating inconsistencies upon transfer to the ECQ system. The ECQ’s technical staff spent the night dealing with the results website issues, leaving corresponding issues with a horrifyingly complex XML results feed to one side. Consequently, the ABC’s results displays remained stuck on a tiny share of the count all night, and updates remained infrequent beyond election night. It is to be hoped that this will all be sorted out before a state election that will be held on October 31.
Guardian seems to have merged its Aussie only live coverage with its worldwide stuff. Shame
confessions
That NYT front page will send Trump troppo!
BK
It shows a technical flaw in his swing and in his grip.
It shows a technical flaw in his swing and in his grip.
_____
Even MORE troppo then!
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2020/may/24/labor-calls-on-josh-frydenberg-to-front-covid-19-inquiry-to-explain-jobkeeper-60bn-black-hole?utm_term=Autofeed&CMP=soc_568&utm_medium=Social&utm_source=Twitter#Echobox=1590287378
BK @ #251 Sunday, May 24th, 2020 – 10:27 am
Here’s hoping!
nath says:
Sunday, May 24, 2020 at 12:05 pm
C@tmomma
says:
Monday, April 23, 2018 at 4:04 pm
Take it from me, Albo as leader of the FPLP would be a disaster. I know why but I’m not going to tell the likes of you.
__________________________
It was the dirt dossier wot wun it!
Dr Quilty makes an excellent point, IMO:
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-05-24/climate-change-related-heat-deaths-going-unnoticed-doctor-says/12276064
Confessions
It will certainly get under his orange skin!
Spot the unscientific hyperbole in this article?
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-05-24/wildlife-and-vegetation-show-signs-of-life-along-darling-river/12276662
It is this sort of low level bullshit that keeps otherwise-rational people supporting a larger population.
Wow ..!
Robyn Rowe chocolates is in Murrumbateman, along the Barton Highway from Canberra to Yass. http://www.robynrowechocolates.com.au
We can probably expect Morrison to announce (or probably re-announce) a heap of money for this road which has been underfunded for years. It carries heavy commuter traffic into Canberra and has a terrible crash record. It may suddenly be propelled into the “sports rorts” category of Morrison government funding.
Windhover: “Ok, have me intrigued. Please explain how that “harsh dividend imputation “ tax change would take back from people they wealth [they] created.”
I don’t know exactly why I’m taking up this invitation, but it’s Sunday and what the heck. Sorry it’s so long, but, having written it, I find I don’t have the time to edit it.
I think the dividend imputation measure introduced by Keating was a great idea. It is effectively a reduction in company tax, but one which was only provided to Australian taxpayers rather than – as a normal company tax reduction would have been – also to overseas investors. Some have criticised the measure on the grounds that most other countries don’t have it, and that we’d do better to scrap it and just go with a lower rate of company tax, which would have more appeal to the ratings agencies and the OECD and the like. I beg to differ.
The idea of extending the benefits of imputation to people who paid little or no tax through a system of credits came up under the Howard Government, and received bipartisan support at the time. A high proportion of the people who have benefited are not from the “big end of town”, but are self-funded retirees on post-tax incomes in the range of $50-100k per annum. (Almost all of them have taxable incomes of less than $40k, but this is misleading as it doesn’t take account of tax-free superannuation income). And I think it’s fair for them to receive this benefit which is, as I said at the outset, should be seen not so much as an income tax credit, but as a form of targeted company tax rebate. And, like the Labor leaders who supported the introduction of imputation credits, I can’t see why this targeted credit shouldn’t be made available to all Australians who own shares, including older people who have provision for the costs of their retirement.
Of course, the benefits of imputation credits also flow to many people with self-managed superannuation schemes in the accumulation stage (much less so for people in private or industry super funds, for reasons I’m happy to explain in a later post if you wish). Some of these people have very high current incomes, and you could argue that giving them more benefits is a waste of taxpayers’ money. And I would agree, but my solution to that problem wouldn’t be to abolish imputation credits but to change the rules around self-managed super (or, indeed, get rid of it altogether: and, yes, I’m aware of the argument that self-employed people require it, but I reckon there’d be ways of getting around that particular problem).
Obviously most self-funded retirees are earning higher incomes than most age pensioners, but self-funded retirees are using their own savings to generate these incomes, and they also pay a lot more than age pensioners for a wide range of things: from prescription medicines to the entrance fees to tourist attractions.
Despite this, you might be of the view that the relatively wealthier self-funded retirees deserve a haircut on their incomes, but you will never get them to agree to this. And there are a lot of self-funded retirees, and they also have offspring who often pay close attention to their financial situation (sometimes for altruistic reasons and quite often out of self-interest).
So the idea of abolishing franking credits was really bad politics. And I don’t think Labor fully appreciated this. I suspect that those who advised them to run with the policy didn’t fully appreciate the main types of people who were benefiting from them and/or – particularly in the case of the broadly anti-superannuation Grattan Institute – didn’t care all that much. This came through in the inappropriate “big end of town” rhetoric: you might think a self-funded retiree living on $50-100k per annum post tax is quite well off, but it’s hardly a level of income that will get you into the BRW top 100.
But, you might argue, it was still a worthwhile reform. Perhaps it is, but I also think it’s a hard concept for ordinary people to grasp. I have read on here many times that “if you don’t pay tax, you shouldn’t be provided with a tax credit.” But, in fact, the system of family payments – under which a number of benefits that used to be paid as tax rebates have been transformed into cash payments available to everyone, not just taxpayers – effectively does just that. And many people will struggle to understand why a young working person with a taxable income of hundreds of thousands per annum who owns a bunch of shares receives government largesse that’s not available to an old person effectively living on their savings who owns the same bunch of shares.
I see that Ford has done a low rent, look-at-moi jump onto the population debate bandwagon.
Arse is not always clarse.
Lars Von Trier @ #256 Sunday, May 24th, 2020 – 12:36 pm
I’m not as down on Albanese as C@tmomma is, but I don’t think he’s getting enough traction to change Labors fortunes enough.
Still, there’s two more yrs for something drastic to occur.
MB
What dividends?
Tens of thousands of additional wannabe part- and full- pensioners are clogging the Robert’ Centrelink Halls of Infamy.
Nice Ms Ford.
Normally I agree with some of Ms Ford’s more rational rantings but not that.
A stupid and ill-timed comment.
Rex Douglas @ #255 Sunday, May 24th, 2020 – 12:43 pm
Scote will go early. Drastic enough fer ya.
I apologise unreservedly to shellbell for my intemperate language.
Trump playing golf overlayed onto the names of the Covid dead – that cant be the real NYT front page.
Or did we know that.
boerwar: “Spot the unscientific hyperbole in this article?
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-05-24/wildlife-and-vegetation-show-signs-of-life-along-darling-river/12276662
It is this sort of low level bullshit that keeps otherwise-rational people supporting a larger population.”
You’re jumping at shadows.
I thought it was pretty balanced. It’s perfectly reasonable for people who live along the
Barwon /Darling to be excited about the current condition of the river. None of them would ever dream of suggesting that the current good situation is in any sense “normal”, and I didn’t feel that the journo was doing this either. Yes, the environment of the region was described as “resilient”, which indeed it is and always has been.
Xi has had a greater impact on Australian thermal coal exports than thirty years of Greens’ fulminations:
https://www.afr.com/companies/mining/coal-s-price-collapse-threatens-australian-mines-20200507-p54qyv
Rex Douglas @ #255 Sunday, May 24th, 2020 – 12:43 pm
Unfortunately Anthony just isn’t Front of House material.
CI @ #204 Sunday, May 24th, 2020 – 11:19 am
Mundo makes more sense than many other posters here. He points out the vacuity of Labor.
I can understand why some here find that annoying.
mb
Ah, nothing like a wildlife expert!
Please advise the several hundred endangered species that were pushed closer to extinction as a result of the drought.
Please advise which of them had an opportunity to show the fantastic resilience being touted in article.
boerwar: “What dividends?
Tens of thousands of additional wannabe part- and full- pensioners are clogging the Robert’ Centrelink Halls of Infamy.”
Look on the bright side: the amount of franking credits paid out in this and next financial year will be way, way down. Something to add to the $60 billion that was found in the bottom drawer the other day. 🙂
C@tmomma says:
Sunday, May 24, 2020 at 12:46 pm
I apologise unreservedly to shellbell for my intemperate language.
_____________________
You really do need to work on your impulse control Madam!
If you reflected I think you’d acknowledge many of your posts are intemperate and hostile.
You play the hand you have. The ALP dont have a Hawke or a Keating – and they ejected Rudd and Gillard.
Ryan StruykVerified account @ryanstruyk
Reported US coronavirus cases:
Feb. 23: 35 cases
Mar. 23: 42,663 cases
Apr. 23: 868,395 cases
May 23: 1,666,828 cases
Reported US coronavirus deaths:
Feb. 23: 0 deaths
Mar. 23: 541 deaths
Apr. 23: 49,861 deaths
May 23: 98, 683 deaths
Simon Katich @ #269 Sunday, May 24th, 2020 – 10:46 am
We knew that.
boerwar @ #274 Sunday, May 24th, 2020 – 12:49 pm
Have you driven the wombat into extinction yet with your big long shiny weapon ..?
And how fast is Ford backtracking on her Twit(ter) feed re her comment.
If you can’t say anything nice don’t say say it.
Relevancy deprivation syndrome …
Boerwar
“Resilience” is the word of the year for Morrison and his crew.
The Australian people are resilient and the land is resilient and that’s all we need. Resilience.
Has the Bush Bandit said anything about Xi’s genocidal megalomania yet?
Or are the Greens being soft on their ideological pals, the Chicom?
lizzie @ #282 Sunday, May 24th, 2020 – 12:53 pm
Yeah. A word.
Probably a slick ad as well.
Latest Joe Biden ad doesn’t waste an opportunity!
https://twitter.com/JoeBiden/status/1264374557860716544
boerwar: “Ah, nothing like a wildlife expert!
Please advise the several hundred endangered species that were pushed closer to extinction as a result of the drought. Please advise which of them had an opportunity to show the fantastic resilience being touted in article.”
I haven’t seen any published studies on the effects of the recent drought: can you please provide links to the ones of which you are aware? Oh, it’s too early and none have been published yet? What I thought: get back to me when you know more.
There’ll be some areas of concern, but most of the species of plants and animals in Western NSW are pretty resilient. They’ve come through many prolonged droughts in the past. It’s obviously a worry that we have had two pretty prolonged droughts in a 20 year period, but it’s possible that this too has happened in the past: our knowledge of the environment of the area goes back only around 150 years.
The people I know who work with endangered species are far, far more concerned about the impact of last summer’s bushfires in regions further east than they are about the effect of drought on the western plains.
It upsets me. WIldlife has extreme resilience. They live in a dog eat dog world of unimaginable hardship. We share this planet – they are part of us and our heritage. And then we come along and bulldoze their habitats, steal their water and change their climate… often for no better reason than to add to our demand for luxury and thirst for easy, lazy profit.
The picture of the hare in the snow still makes me emotional.
I knew that.
Lars Von Trier @ #276 Sunday, May 24th, 2020 – 12:50 pm
You’re the last person who should be handing out advice on intemperate language.
“ Mug Morrison has managed to get us overtly bullied by the US AND China at the same time.
That is a well-rounded achievement.”
That’s the consequence of the ‘friendly, yet naive and intellectually disengaged’ “policy” framework that has passed for our foreign policy for the last 7 odd years.
Facepalm
CI @ #208 Sunday, May 24th, 2020 – 11:37 am
Who would trust Australia with an IT project these days?
Most IT literate people – worldwide – will know all about our many embarrassing fiascos.
lizzie
We are going to need more resilience than we have needed at any time since the Great Depression, IMO. I would say that the vast majority of Australians still don’t have a clue about what is about to hit them.
Many are acting as if it is already All Over Red Rover.
Apart from that, our biodiversity is going to need even more resilience after Scotty’s ‘Get More Gas Plan’ for the entire Eastern Seaboard.
Fancy a government which, faced with the biggest economic crisis in nearly a century, comes up with a plan to open gas exploration and exploitation! Having launched the Plan, the guy in charge of putting it together steps aside because of a possible perception of a conflict of interest!
This is by far and away the most corrupt government since Federation.
All the mineral industry operatives pepperpotted among the ministerial offices are earning their keep!
Who’s Clementine Ford?
I’ve Never heard of her.
A-E
The causes are many and varied. But the consistent driver is that the minerals industry has only one plan: to extract and sell as much iron ore, gas and coal to China as it can before it all falls to pieces.
And it is the minerals industry that runs Australian foreign and trade policy.
https://twitter.com/i/status/1263928225811632135
Latest The Lincoln Project ad on Memorial Day weekend in the US. Subtly directed at Captain Bone Spurs.
See no evil….
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/may/08/australian-government-stops-listing-major-threats-to-species-under-environment-laws
Ford
Feminist
Commentator
Author
A controversial figure.
Lars Von Trier @ #256 Sunday, May 24th, 2020 – 12:36 pm
This shows a level of obsession with me that is just plain creepy.
An influenc(z)a?
I enjoy her writing. DOnt always agree… but thought provoking.
Should we silence her? Free (hate) speech for the right to be protected, wokeness for the left to be eradicated?