Three entirely unrelated bits of information that don’t involve the Eden-Monaro by-election, for which another dedicated post is assuredly not far away (the most recent, and its attendant discussion thread, is here):
• This week’s Essential Research poll looks at indigenous issues and gender equality, finding broadly liberal viewpoints prevailing in each case. On the former count, most agreed that indigenous Australians and Pacific islanders had been “forced to work in Australia in conditions that amounted to slavery”, but 42% agreed that “many of the new cases of Covid-19 in Victoria have been from people who attended the Black Lives Matter protest” compared with 37% who believed it to be false. On gender equality, majorities somehow managed to agree both that there was “still a long way to go” and that it had “already been mostly achieved”, though a lot more emphatically in the former case. Respondents were also asked who got paid too much (bankers and lawyers) and too little (nurses and teachers).
• Tom Richardson of InDaily reports on an imminent package of electoral reform in South Australia, which may include the introduction of optional preferential voting. Labor leader Peter Malinauskas has accused Premier Steven Marshall of a move to “rig the next election”, and invoked the bogey of “the polarisation of our democracy in the way we have seen in the United States”. Malinauskas’s real concern is more likely to do with Greens preferences, the system having raised no such concerns for the Labor governments that introduced them in New South Wales and Queensland, back when its main impact was to weaken intra-Coalition preference flows in three-cornerned contests. The Greens have also declared their opposition, which would leave its upper house fate in the hands of the three survivors of the Nick Xenophon disturbance. The government’s reforms may also include crackdowns on corflutes (which seem to be particularly popular in South Australia) and dissemination of how-to-vote cards at polling booths.
• Justin Hendry of IT News reports the Australian Electoral Commission is looking into a full rollout of the electronic certified list system for marking off voters, which operated at around 10% of polling places at last year’s election. This replaces the more familiar method of paper lists marked off by pencil, which offer no guarantee the prospective voter has not already voted somewhere else beyond the requisite verbal assurance. As such, it can genuinely help prevent multiple voting, unlike a lot of other supposed electoral reforms that are invoked in its name. However, it may also constitute a point of vulnerability to nefarious actors.
Bedtime for me.
point is nath is the people targeted were people that had worked. Not the dole bludgers you great big fat clownfish. Anyway, dole bludger is a label you people give to to people you exploit.
A few days later after voting against the Greens motion for a robodebt RC, Labor began demanding a RC. Of course, an investigation pre-dating 2015 was not in the mix.
So much for the hardship of these people who suffered erroneous debts pre-2015. All people are not equal.
——–
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-06-23/labor-calls-for-robodebt-royal-commission/12381456#:~:text=Robodebt%20refers%20to%20the%20Government,records%2C%20a%20notice%20was%20issued.
John Burn-Murdoch
·
2h
The data coming out of Melbourne is exactly what you *don’t* want to see:
• New cases accelerating, soaring past the levels seen at the height of the initial outbreak in March/April
• New cases now coming from local community spread, not overseas
https://ft.com/content/652a945c-1684-442a-a451-ce6502978412…
All Centrelink debts raised using income averaging unlawful, Christian Porter concedes
Admission about decades-long practice opens door to influx of claims predating robodebt
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2020/may/31/all-centrelink-debts-raised-using-income-averaging-unlawful-christian-porter-concedes
“The income averaging method was found to be unlawful by the federal court in November. The system involved Centrelink staff using ATO pay information to calculate a debt by dividing a yearly income summary into 26 fortnights and data-matching the results against what a welfare recipient reported to the agency.
It had been done manually until 2011 when it was automated on a smaller scale by the former Labor government, and was only used as a “last resort” until 2015 when the Coalition turbocharged the income compliance program.”
nath
Yeah, right.
This will be exactly as useful as the French third republic in ay 1940 sacking General Maurice Gamelin because the Nazi’s were advancing so fast, that obviously disrupting the French military command structure was a sure-fire way to stop the panzer blitzkrieg.
General Maxime Weygand was recalled from retirement to replace Gamelin, and undertook exactly what Gamelin had proposed as strategy. In other words, he did the same things as Gamelin would have, but 72 hours later. Those 72 lost hours worsened the French position.
But FFS, how can toppling a premier help the ground situation in Melbourne?
Daniel Andrews will face an election some time in the future, and then Victorian voters can pass judgement on his handling of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Christian Porter is an evil bastard. Nath loves him. Pegasus, if you are trying to spin that the ALP is responsible for robodebt that’s pretty pathetic, even for you. Try it though, see how you go.
From the BBC –
‘ Only 22% of people testing positive for coronavirus reported having symptoms on the day of their test, according to the Office for National Statistics.
This hammers home the importance of “asymptomatic transmission” – spread of the virus by people who aren’t aware they’re carrying it.’
https://www.bbc.com/news/health-53320155
bill
It’s pretty pathetic, but not unexpected, that you are misrepresenting the point I am making re robodebt or, perhaps you need to work on your reading comprehension skills.
Either way, you are spinning away.
Pegasus, do you know anyone that has been affected by robodebt?
bill
My concern is for all the people who endured hardship due to erroneous debts not just those post-2015. It’s not that hard to understand.
(Sighs) well Australia hasn’t had a decent Prime Minister since Kevin Rudd …
McGowan has fucked up big time letting Collingwood into the State.
but it is, hard to understand. Why aren’t the Greens the champion of the underdog out there fighting for the poor bastards who cant fight back.? Because it’s not politically expedient, thats why.
Don’t get you guy’s, like you have been neutered or something.
Buce
Complete troll.
I agree with nath. What was obviously needed for controlling vicious returning overseas passengers was the army and the police. Who in their right would have thought that mere security guards would fail to control these renegades, still less that they would understand the need for personal hygiene and social distancing every Victorian was required to exercise during the first pandemic.
Oh, what fun to criticise with retrospecs.
Surely now all that all the Victorian Police are otherwise occupied it is time for BLM, Extinction Rebellion and Occupy to have a massive protest.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=amtxyPO7At8
Bucephalus
Not if he doesn’t ever let them out again!
The ABC are reporting that Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro says he has tested positive for coronavirus.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-07-08/brazil-president-jair-bolsonaro-positive-coronavirus-covid19/12432578
“Racism in America is like dust in the air. It seems invisible — even if you’re choking on it — until you let the sun in. Then you see it’s everywhere.”
https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2020-05-30/dont-understand-the-protests-what-youre-seeing-is-people-pushed-to-the-edge?_amp=true&__twitter_impression=true
Wayne Swan
@SwannyQLD
Those anti-lockdown demonstrations weren’t spontaneous, grass-roots affairs. Many were organized and coordinated by conservative political activists, some with close ties to the Trump campaign, and financed in part by right-wing billionaires.
Opinion | How America Lost the War on Covid-19
nytimes.com
Dio
[I’m sure there is mismanagement going on in every state but Victoria got unlucky as well as mismanaging it.]
Not convinced about this.
Victoria overwhelmingly had the most daily cases and community transmissions from early May onwards which heightens, obviously, the risk of an outbreak.
Why it was in that position in May has not been addressed. That is significant in terms of predicting what might happen under the current lockdown.
Victoria presumably will be able to reduce the large number of new cases down to small numbers like it did in March and April but can it reduce the small numbers even further when it failed to do so in May?
New thread.