Together with the usual suite of questions on coronavirus, the latest weekly Essential Research survey offers findings on the government’s robodebt the recent disturbances in the United States. The former make grim reading for the government, or might do if Newspoll hadn’t suggested the debacle had made no difference on voting intention: 74% say the government should apologise to those negatively impacted, with only 11% disagreeing; 66% support interest and damages for those who wrongly repaid money, with 13% disagreeing; 55% supported a royal commission, with 23% disagreeing; and only 32% agreed the automated notifications were a good idea “even if it was poorly implemented”, with 43% disagreeing.
Regarding the protests in the United States, the propositions that “protesters are right to demand better protection and treatment of African Americans in society” and that “the protesters want to loot and cause property damage, more than they want social change” both received majority support, though far more emphatically in the former case, with 80% agreeing and 11% disagreeing, compared with 54% and 33% for the latter. There were likewise large majorities in favour of the notions that “authorities in America have been unwilling to deal with institutional racism” (78% to 10%) and that the death of George Floyd pointed to “wider discrimination against minority cultures in society” (72% to 16%), while only 33% considered Floyd’s death isolated and not illustrative of institutional police racism, compared with 54% who disagreed.
As for coronavirus, the number who are “very concerned” maintains a steady decline, down five to 27%, with quite concerned down one to 48%, not that concerned up six to 21% and not at all concerned up one to 5%. Approval of the government’s handling of the matter is little changed, with 70% rating it good (up two) and 12% poor (steady). Small-sample state breakdowns provide a further increment of support for the notion that the Western Australian government has done best out of the crisis, with the good rating at 84% and poor at 6%, with other states ranging from 67% to 79% on good and 8% to 13% on poor. Queensland respondents were most likely to say their government was moving too slowly in easing restrictions, although even here the result was only 23% compared with 63% for “about the right speed”. The poll was conducted online from Thursday to Sunday from a sample of 1073.
Elsewhere, yesterday’s declaration of candidates and ballot paper draw for the July 4 Eden-Monaro by-election revealed a field of 14 candidates. Along with Labor candidate Kristy McBain and Liberal candidate Fiona Kotvojs, there are starters for the Nationals (Trevor Hicks, who won a preselection vote on Saturday), the Greens, Shooters Fishers and Farmers, the Liberal Democrats, the Christian Democrats, Help End Marijuana Prohibition, the Science Party, Sustainable Australia, something called the Australian Federation Party and three independents.
poroti
I think that Victoria’s “testing blitz” was picking up a disturbing number of hidden infections the week before that cow-killing facility had a cluster.
Its probably time that Gladys announced that if you’re coming to NSW from Victoria then you should get tested.
_____
A form of border closure, no less.
MB
TBH, the eyes glazed over a bit (well in fact a lot) but I think the view of the Court of Appeal was that the Commissioner, having said yes, could not change his mind in the way he did.
The Commissioner will presumably not make the same mistake at today’s hearing and now has the case in Victoria in his quiver.
guytaur
“ we are supposed to admire the Empire of the Mother Country.”
————
Are we?
But isn’t it also bad to admire the Empire of the Nasty Uncle Country?
Rakali says: Thursday, June 11, 2020 at 11:28 am
Christensen is worried about “Antifa, a group that engages in terror tactics.
I wonder if George meant to say “Antifat”?
Morrison declares Chinese should not be intimidated by any threats they may receive when visiting or studying in Australia …
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-06-11/australia-morrison-china-respond-coercion-on-universities/12342924
“A form of border closure, no less.”
BK yes the optics would be interesting, but it is indeed what Gladys should be doing right about now.
GoldenSmaug:
Your experience is similar to mine, and it’s not confined to some servicemen and women. Recently I was talking to an 82-year-old woman, whose family was originally on the land in North Qld. The conversation centered on the protests in the US and here. She referred to Aborigines as “Abos”, claiming they had no right to protest and were “dole bludgers”. I explained to her that there has not been one conviction with respect to deaths in custody and that they have faced systemic racism for a couple of hundred years. She then went on about how she was referred to as a “white bitch” by an Aboriginal woman for not giving her $2. At that point, I thought it better to change the subject, other than pointing out that how would she feel if she went to, say, David Jones and all eyes were upon her? She didn’t get it.
Bluebottle says:
Thursday, June 11, 2020 at 9:55 am
“It’s not your call, Scotty.”
An interesting view point – Constitutionally accurate but completely at odds at the criticism and demands for Federal leadership on State matters during both the Bushfires and the Virus.
It appears that the default position is Federal Leadership is required on everything unless you disagree with the leadership.
Meher Baba says ” there are quite a few ideas on the right-wing of the political spectrum that are worth hearing and thinking about.”
Where do I go to read about these ideas or perhaps you could expand on them yourself. I have been talking to libertarians and listening to all their arguments and their faux philosophy for many years and as I said earlier they are not rational or convincing and do not accord with my experiences about the way the world works.
I note that a few days ago you were not impressed with the current opinion writers on the Oz and wished there were some younger people who could take the arguments up to the leftists. Why do you think there are so few or none? There is of course Jennifer Oriel..a former feminist – well she did her PhD with a leftist feminist supervisor . Check it out.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0277539505000440
Then there is Shari Markson.. hmmm. Have you tried Quadrant for any rightie ideas that have a rational and logical reply to the leftist ideas that are destroying our western way of life?
You suggest Meher Baba that “Some examples of right wing ways of thinking that haven’t been explored include “free market economics (but I’ve been around PB long enough not to expect too much enthusiasm on here for this concept);”
It’s not a matter of ‘enthusiasm’- calling the arguments against free markets a matter of ‘enthusiasms” is a good example of the intellectual dishonesty you indulge in to protect your old discredited ideas. Surely you can understand that the idea of free markets has been comprehensively debunked. It doesn’t trickle down. You might want to try John Quiggin’s blog and the Crooked Timber blog to see how lacking in rigor and truth right wing ideas are.
Quiggin’s book Zombie economics set it out years ago and his latest book, “Economics in Two Lessons: Why Markets Work So Well, and Why They Can Fail So Badly” goes further and makes a more complete explanation about why these free market will make the world a better place ideas are bs.
https://www.blackincbooks.com.au/books/zombie-economics
https://www.amazon.com.au/Economics-Two-Lessons-Markets-Badly-ebook/dp/B07JQ676JQ
I make the same complaint about your idea re ” libertarianism”. Good grief … Mills had some great ideas for his time but surely you understand that he didn’t know what we now know about how human beings actually function and the nature of ‘choice’ and ‘interfering in lives’.
You really do need to update your knowledge about the way the world really works if you think these old white philosophers knew it all.
You write that “the idea, as expressed by Edmund Burke, that good government must be based on a sense of a contract between past generations, the people who are alive now and the generations yet to come”. Yes so what? How is leftist thinking opposed to this? Oh I see because Lenin said something different and bad, it must be leftist dogma?
But when you say “that there are principles of government and human behaviour that are beyond questions purely of economics” of course I agree but when you go to specifics your choice of the things that bother you leads us right back to the understanding that what you and rightists really want is “the right of someone to hold onto property which they or their ancestors worked hard to accumulate”. I’d like to hear you tell me why anyone has that right. Even if the property was stolen? etc.
Such an expert you are on economic history – all the really important stuff. So important to know that “Marx would have despised Keynesian economics (and, likewise, the nicest thing Keynes ever said about Marx was that he was “confused”).” That like totally convinces me that Keynes was an idiot.
And you say that “Environmentalism is another idea that ought to appeal to right-wingers” So why doesn’t it? What is their problem do you think?
“The problem today with the political right is that it is a very broad church which tries to bring together a lot of totally contradictory ideas: conservatism and the ludicrous, miltaristic neo-conservatism; libertarianism and extreme social conservatism; free market economics and the sort of populist nonsense that underpins Trumpism (“we hate big government but you ought to massively subsidise industries so we can get jobs and we hate welfare dependence but please increase the rate of pension”), not to mention the absurdity of Brexit.”
So true about the right. You really should think more about the paradox and why the conservatives and libertarians are not getting along as well as they used to.
But you are wrong that “The political left is heading the same way, but is still a bit more coherent IMO.” The left is the only possible coherent answer to the problems and is not faced with the same paradox that the right is.
And lastly your platitude is so predictable. “I reckon the old left-right divide in politics has basically failed us and urgently needs an adjustment/re-alignment. A good example of this is the rather extraordinary union-bashing coming from the US at the moment in relation to the police unions. Left-wing anti-unionism is certainly a novel development.”
Why does union bashing excite you and why would you think that the example you give shows anyone anywhere that the left-right divide is not working. So disappointing that this is the best you can do.
Bucephalus @ #209 Thursday, June 11th, 2020 – 11:36 am
“Federal Leadership”? What “Federal Leadership” would that be?
In both the bushfires and the coronavirus crises, the feds have had to essentially be overridden by the states because of the appalling lack of Federal Leadership.
C@tmomma says:
Thursday, June 11, 2020 at 10:04 am
“Tripitaka,
Yes it basically boils down to, because I, RW person, believe it, it is right.”
To you both:
Matthew 7:3-5 New International Version (NIV)
3 “Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? 4 How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? 5 You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.
I wouldn’t say Keynes was right or left wing and to some extent he and Marx agreed that unfretted capitalism was unstable but unlike Marx, Keynes thought it could be managed by the state stepping into the void while the private sector recovered. Adam Smith also argued capitalism needed to be managed.
shellbell: “TBH, the eyes glazed over a bit (well in fact a lot). I think the view of the Court of Appeal was that the Commissioner, having said yes, could not change his mind in the way he did.”
So it sounds like I was right that it was a pretty out there decision: one that, if it had come from the High Court, senior Canberra bureaucrats would probably call a “results-based ruling.”
Dr Sandro Demaio
@SandroDemaio
·
20h
Massive news for #health, globally.
#Australia wins plain packaging #tobacco case at World Trade Organisation.
Well done
@MrKRudd
,
@JuliaGillard
and many for leading the charge, protecting the lives of millions.
https://afr.com/world/europe/australia-wins-tobacco-case-at-world-trade-organisation-20200610-p5511o #auspol
@DrBronKing
@SarahWhisar
@ARobM
Victoria
No matter what you say about Rudd and Gillard and not forgetting Roxon, they were willing to fight an industry for the common good.
MB
Opposite I think. Strict construction of legislation relating to public health and order.
Guytaur
Much better than this current excuse of a govt
It is an affront to deposit robodebt repayments into the Indue card.
And I wonder if there is an Indue service fee based upon the amounts deposited.
Not much point pondering over the political bent of those who were/are in the military.
After WW1 those millions in the UK in uniform were also part of the Hunger Marches.
In WW2 and after, millions in uniform in the democracies again – yet Labo(u)r voted into office in Oz, and Churchill thrown out in the UK. In the UK, the memory of the “Land Fit for Heroes” crap fed to them by the ruling classes, lived long in the memories in the UK, and those who voted after WW2 there, had long memories.
In Oz, seeing someone mentioned Vietnam, forcing 20 year-olds into uniform went down a real treat in a country where the tradition was one of volunteer service – the referendum to change was shot down while the 14-18 War was still going. And, Oz did not shoot those who were deemed “cowards” as did the British, French and Canadians……………….
In the US, Ike was a successful Republican President while Harry Truman, on the other side of politics, was a tough and able President also who had seen the horrors of WW1 in close up.
That some former military types can become tame-cat Governors-General or turn into Colonel Blimps is just the luck of the draw………………………….
Where’s Ita on ABC cuts?
@earthma23
they’re also paying back unlawfully taken robodebt money onto the Indue card, instead of paying cash sums into bank accounts, this should not be allowed at all.
Surely slater and gordon can get an injunction against this?
Bucephalus says:
Thursday, June 11, 2020 at 11:43 am
C@tmomma says:
Thursday, June 11, 2020 at 10:04 am
“Tripitaka,
One can always cherry-pick a passage from the Bible – in this case, the patron saint of tax collectors and accountants.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xgy6TWuUkK0
tipitaka: Yours was a long and interesting post, and I can’t answer all of it, but here are a few thoughts.
“Where do I go to read about these ideas or perhaps you could expand on them yourself. ”
John Stuart Mill and Edmund Burke, as I mentioned. Also Roger Scruton (who died earlier this year) and Michael Oakeshott (who died in 1990).
Also – and highly relevant given the current global shift of power from the West to the East – the writings of Confucius.
I’m not saying I agree with everything these writers had to say, but they’re well worth reading.
“what you and rightists really want is “the right of someone to hold onto property which they or their ancestors worked hard to accumulate”. I’d like to hear you tell me why anyone has that right. Even if the property was stolen? etc.”
Of course not if it was stolen. What I was trying to refer to there was a bit of a merger between the Burkean concept of intergenerational responsibility and the Confucian concept that it is virtuous for people to strive to accumulate wealth to enhance the lives of their families and later descendants, and wrong for them to squander all of their savings in their lifetime. And also wrong for others who did not accumulate wealth through their own, or their ancestors’, hard work to come and take it all away from them. Of course it’s a concept open to debate, and one that left-wingers often dismiss out of hand. But Australian left-wingers need to take note of the ever-growing proportion of our population who come from a cultural background influenced by the ideas of Confucianism.
“And you say that “Environmentalism is another idea that ought to appeal to right-wingers” So why doesn’t it? What is their problem do you think?”
The main problem is that a lot of right-wingers seem to be highly motivated by a hatred of all ideas coming from the left. In its early days, the environmental movement was an upper middle class sort of pursuit (led by people who had sufficient leisure time to get out in the bush and seek out flora and fauna), but from the 1970s – and particularly since the issue of climate change came to the forefront – the movement has been dominated by the left side of politics, some of whom see the environmental issue as potentially transformational for society as a whole. This has alienated the right. It’s a shame IMO: the environment should be seen as something intrinsically worth protecting in and of itself, regardless of how you think the economy and society should otherwise be arranged.
“The left is the only possible coherent answer to the problems and is not faced with the same paradox that the right is.”
I don’t see that. To me, the left is also becoming divided, as a rather bored, rather privileged bunch of millenials, especially in the English-speaking countries, are trying to push the leadership further and further to the left, and also more and more into the universe of wokeness, with its rampant culture of “cancelling” ever more people and cultural artefacts: in the past 24 hours we appear to have lost Gone with the Wind, Little Britain, Chris Lilley (although, really, it’s a surprise he survived as long as he did) and JK Rowlings, among others. William Gladstone, arguably the most progressive nineteenth century British PM, is cancelled because his father owned a slave plantation. History shows that, once a political movement gets into the politics of denunciation in a major way, they quickly start turning on each other.
And then there’s globalisation: the western left doesn’t really know what to do with it. Just look at how Labour Corbyn struggled to come up with any sort of coherent policy towards Brexit. The current position of the left is that they are in favour of globalisation of people (eg, the pretty much universal support for an open southern border on the part of all candidates in the Democrat primaries), but much less so for trade.
BK @ #220 Thursday, June 11th, 2020 – 12:03 pm
This is a government that always clips the ticket.
The way 2020 is going. Does anyone have alien invasion on their bingo card?
Xi has flushed Morrison out on the issues discussed on Bludger yesterday evening.
Morrison has now stated publicly that Australia will neither surrender its values nor its sovereignty.
boerwar @ #228 Thursday, June 11th, 2020 – 10:22 am
We don’t have any, we already did.
The most corrupt governments since Federation wants to ignore Indigenous deaths in custody. Didn’t happen. No slavery.
It is using Black Lives Matter protests for party partisan political advantage.
At the same time it asserts that Chinese people have nothing to fear from racism in Australia.
Not only financially corrupt but thoroughly and systematically morally corrupt.
unfretted capitalism
Capitalism that hasn’t frayed at the edges!?! 😆
Bucephalus @ #212 Thursday, June 11th, 2020 – 11:43 am
You first. 🙂
WWP
You are backing economic peace in our time?
shellbell: “Opposite I think. Strict construction of legislation relating to public health and order.”
So an interpretation that, in the same way that decisions to withhold permission cannot be appealed, decisions to grant permission cannot be rescinded. Or something like that?
I think that it ought to be possible for permission to be withdrawn in the light of growing risk or other new information. Perhaps legislative change is required.
boerwar @ #228 Thursday, June 11th, 2020 – 12:22 pm
All is well. Mr. M. Canavan put his two cents worth into the mix yesterday on one of the commercial TV channels.
Proud. I’ll tell the world. United effwits on parade.
Trump is suing CNN for publishing a poll that would see him ousted in a landslide. The unhinging continues.
Mavis @ #236 Thursday, June 11th, 2020 – 12:38 pm
Nah, it’s been his go to strategy for his whole life. Intimidate into silence by legal means and tieing up your opponents in legal cases.
meher baba long long post below, I’m just diving into what i think is a really important point
Obviously if we get to the point where guillotines are setup at every ANZAC memorial park all bets are off, and obviously if we go the other way and get to a dictatorship you’ve got to stay on the side of the authority to keep your property but lets assume we keep to our current neo-feudal ruling class structure or move back towards actual democracy where the political class responds to democratic will, I think this is a really important point.
The current problem is that massive inequality of distribution of wealth creates a natural attraction to inheritance taxes, and you could set the bar very high (say $2 million) and pull a vast majority of people out of the net. The very few very wealthy who’ll be left in the net have massively disproportionate influence so I don’t think our current neo-feudal system will allow it. Which is both a good and a bad thing.
What you really want is a vast middle class most of whom is growing and sharing real inter-generational wealth. You are only going to get that through a leftish policy mix, we’ve seen what the right policy mix gives us.
So I’d go for no inheritance tax, even though one could be very well targeted, but quarantine all super from inheritance. Super is given a light touch tax wise because it is FOR retirement. I’m sure with an data engine like alteryx and some historical data you could calculate the hit superfunds should get on inheritance, to even them up with tax income and then you could then also require those taxed funds go into super funds of the inheritor, for their retirement. Kind of a double win for the community.
I think we need to treat couples as a single entity for tax / super / benefits, well and I’m open minded not just couples any relationship of whatever number of people should be able to be treated as a single taxpayer if they are really living as a single taxpayer.
Then all you’d need is a cradle to grave retirement / education / unemployment support strategy with appropriate means caps and asset tests, and you can target the taxpayer subsidies and assistance to those who really need it to build that inter-generational wealth, and away from those who don’t need it. Might they have to sell a chateau in France if they lose some of the massive taxpayer transfer of wealth they get, yeah sure, but such is life.
What of the ostensibly Confucianist society that has appropriated Capitalism for it’s own ends? Do we allow them to apply Confucianist principles when it suits them and Capitalist principles when it suits them at other times convenient to them and their goals?
BK @ #221 Thursday, June 11th, 2020 – 10:03 am
For mine the only consideration here should be where the original payment to Centrelink came from, so the refund should go to that same account.
ar: “It wasn’t the left telling the gays that they can’t get married or women that they can’t have an abortion, or terminally ill people that they can’t end their lives humanely at a time and in a manner of their choosing.”
The story is more complex than that. Until quite recently, the left was lukewarm about marriage in general, and inclined to think that marriage should be a private ceremony with no official significance. Until quite recently, there was a strong belief on the left that there should be no discrimination against people on the basis of marital status. This view was strongly held by, among others, both Julia Gillard and Penny Wong (until the latter changed her mind).
It was Andrew Sullivan, a gay conservative activist in the US (and who, incidentally, got cancelled the other day for not expressing his views on Black Lives Matter in precisely the correct language) who persuaded the US LGBT+ movement that gay marriage was a worthwhile cause.
Re abortion and euthanasia (both pretty fraught issues IMO): there are many people on the right of politics with a libertarian bent who support both of these causes, particularly the latter. The first Australian politician to take forward the voluntary euthanasia issue was the conservative Chief Minister of the Northern Territory, Marshall Perron.
“It wasn’t a left-wing president who deployed tear gas and rubber bullets against peaceful protesters for a photo op, threatened them with vicious dogs and gunfire, declared the press the “enemy of the people”, and threatened to sue a news outlet for publishing a poll he didn’t like.”
Trump might be right-wing in some sense, but he’s a populist. I don’t think it is fair to the causes of free market economics, libertarianism or even conservatism to try to associate Trump closely with them: in the same way that many posters on here get a bit hot under the collar when I use the achievements of Stalin or Mao Tse Tung as grounds for criticising socialism.
But most of all, Trump is just a big bag of wind. If I were a committed US conservative, I’d be incredibly disappointed in how little he has achieved for the cause.
United States :
Coronavirus Cases:
2,066,401
Deaths:
115,130
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/us/
boerwar @ #233 Thursday, June 11th, 2020 – 10:28 am
I didn’t mean too. Maybe I did. I just want us to fight smart as we possibly can, we are currently just being racist idiots and doomed to lose.
I don’t like losing.
Our behavior is a bit like being a Czech leader in Sudetenland and just yelling abuse at Germany every day while at the same time doing all we can to discourage European cooperation to stop Hitler. Munich wouldn’t even have been needed everyone would have asked Hilter to take us just to get rid of the problem we were.
Where if you didn’t want to lose you would unite Europe earlier, build a strong consensus and make sure Munich agreement wasn’t ever possible.
I’m playing loosely with the history there trying to make a point you understand. I don’t want, necessarily, for you to agree with me, but i don’t even get a sense you accept that the Abbott / Turnbull / Morrison approach to China from the Darwin Port fiasco onwards is really really stupid and counterproductive. You seem fixated on what China is doing, which without building very strong international institutions and alliances, is outside our control, but not even considering what the best way for us to behave to try and get the win is?
Exact opposite of a football coach.
Mavis @ #236 Thursday, June 11th, 2020 – 12:38 pm
You mean he’s gone beyond threats, and is actually suing?
Know if he’s paying the legal costs himself or using taxpayer funds for his nonsense?
Perhaps his assumption and/or plan is that since he’s stacked the Supreme Court he can just keep appealing until it gets that far and his lackeys hand him a favorable ruling. Stupid idea though, because that would almost certainly take more time than is left between now and the election.
C@tmomma says:
Thursday, June 11, 2020 at 12:42 pm
I wonder if he’s familiar with the First Amendment? – probably not.
One delightful bit of our history was that the first Australian born Governor General, Sir Isaac Alfred Isaacs GCB, GCMG, PC, KC (6 August 1855 – 11 February 1948), was Jewish and GG from 1931 to 1936 during the Nazi regime.
🙂
You’d be thumping your forehead on the desk if you were from Vic Health and fit the call that a BLM protester tester positive.
a r:
Yes, according to CNN’s Don Lemon. But it’s merely a bluff, playing to his shrinking supporters.
Cassandra Goldie:
Morrison gov: Go and get a job. You’re not trying hard enough.
Diogenes @ #247 Thursday, June 11th, 2020 – 11:03 am
Is that definitely the case or is it the Cth CMO spreading rumors to try and bolster support for Morrison again?