Around the traps

As the government approaches the middle of its term, the first sighting of early election speculation in the wild.

Dennis Shanahan of The Australian reckons “two basic assumptions are driving the economic and political debate in 2021”, and that one of these is that there will be an election late next year. The other is that COVID-19 restrictions will start to ease in the coming months; “neither is certain”. The government’s election window opens in the middle of the year, at which point the Senators given six-year terms after the 2016 double dissolution will enter the final year of the terms, the period in which the half-Senate election to replace them may be held.

That will do as a kick-off for a new open thread, which is needed because there are so many other posts flying around at the moment. For convenience, these include:

• Adrian Beaumont’s New Zealand live election count post, which will begin in earnest when polls close at 7pm New Zealand time and 5pm Australian eastern daylight time – to be followed an hour later by my own live commentary post on the Australian Territory election. And if you’re a Crikey subscriber, you can read my collective preview of the two here.

• Also from Adrian Beaumont, a review of the US situation.

• A post on a Newspoll result showing Labor leading 52-48 in Queensland.

• Another post on the Queensland campaigning detailing relevant recent developments.

• A post on a Ten News uComms poll from New South Wales showing strong support for Gladys Berejiklian.

Author: William Bowe

William Bowe is a Perth-based election analyst and occasional teacher of political science. His blog, The Poll Bludger, has existed in one form or another since 2004, and is one of the most heavily trafficked websites on Australian politics.

1,347 comments on “Around the traps”

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  1. Disgusting, but in line with our government’s cruelty.

    In the teeth of the worst recession since the Great Depression, Dept of Home Affairs wrote to more than 500 refugees and asylum-seekers medically evacuated to Australia and gave them three weeks to find a job. Income support, housing terminated.

  2. Chuckle. How to be first with the “news”.

    Ewart Dave
    @davidbewart
    ·
    5m
    Abc reports that the polling booths in Canberra were pretty quiet around 8 this morning. I’m not surprised given that the polling begins at 9

  3. I am interested in what happened to those NZ travellers.
    Looking at the various reports it seems everyone was busy passing the buck on what happened and their current location(s)
    Surely Border Farce should be held responsible.
    Comments on the Age news story saying the bubble broken on the first day!

  6. Shut up, Greg.

    Greg Hunt
    @GregHuntMP
    ·
    34m
    Great news for Vic- the rolling average of new cases is now well below 10. The epidemiological conditions for a Covid Safe reopening of hospitality, movement & family reunions among others, have now been firmly met. Vic should now be able to move to the next step in line w NSW

  8. laughtong
    I reckon they did not think of the possibility. Passing the parcel at the moment…

    Victoria’s Department of Health and Human Services confirmed it did “not have legal authority to detain the travellers on arrival”.

    .

    The Australian Border Force said “domestic border restrictions are a matter for states and territories”.

    .

    “The Victorian Government has made it clear to the Commonwealth that we expect NZ passengers who have not undertaken quarantine will not be permitted to board flights in Sydney bound for Melbourne.”

    https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/travel-bubble-bursts-up-to-17-kiwis-detained-in-melbourne/QYVSW6WUZVQ62HIWAP5UYOCVNI/

  10. “The Victorian Government has made it clear to the Commonwealth that we expect NZ passengers who have not undertaken quarantine will not be permitted to board flights in Sydney bound for Melbourne.”
    ______
    A perfect thing to thrash out at yesterday’s National Cabinet meeting . . . oh, wait!

  18. This ProPublica article on the Trumpist’s deliberate destruction of the CDC is worth the time and the required traumatic counselling. We have to call out and repudiate these monsters or lose our humanity. Sian Prior’s excellent and highly personal piece in The Saturday Paper, cited by BK, illustrates the local point.

    By the way – the year’s old proposal by the Australasian Society for Infectious Diseases to establish an Australian CDC has been stymied, yet again, by the vested interests of the existing balkanised Federal agencies and the Spiv Marketers. You’d think we could have learned from this year…

  20. laughtong @ #52 Saturday, October 17th, 2020 – 6:25 am

    I am interested in what happened to those NZ travellers.
    Looking at the various reports it seems everyone was busy passing the buck on what happened and their current location(s)
    Surely Border Farce should be held responsible.
    Comments on the Age news story saying the bubble broken on the first day!

    How can it be Border Forces responsibility?

    Once someone enters the Country they have no further role.

    Surely it’s the responsibility of the airline to ensure that passengers meet any travel requirements.

  21. @DocAvvers
    ·
    13m
    There is one swear word in the Greek-language Bible. It is σκύβαλον, skubalon, used by the Apostle Paul in his Letter to the Philippians. It means ‘stable sweepings’ if you are polite, and ‘bullshit’ if you’re not. A godly response to Australian MSM and LNP politicians.

  24. rhwombat @ #67 Saturday, October 17th, 2020 – 9:43 am

    This ProPublica article on the Trumpist’s deliberate destruction of the CDC is worth the time and the required traumatic counselling. We have to call out and repudiate these monsters or lose our humanity. Sian Prior’s excellent and highly personal piece in The Saturday Paper, cited by BK, illustrates the local point.

    By the way – the year’s old proposal by the Australasian Society for Infectious Diseases to establish an Australian CDC has been stymied, yet again, by the vested interests of the existing balkanised Federal agencies and the Spiv Marketers. You’d think we could have learned from this year…

    It’s put aside for later, to not further ruin the day. The piece on the refugees was too much already; sickening. Someone mentioned Boris as one who would welcome a Trump reelection. Add Morrison to that nefarious category.

  25. rhwombat

    an Australian CDC has been stymied, yet again, by the vested interests of the existing balkanised Federal agencies and the Spiv Marketers. You’d think we could have learned from this year…

    You would but we voted in the Spivarchy’s standard bearers.

  28. Yeah I could imagine.

    RonniSalt
    @RonniSalt
    ·
    12h
    Can you imagine if the Victorian Premier’s partner was running an immigration scam scheme, received cash in bags in her office, ran an undeclared business profiting from her political connections & offered access to the Premier for money?

    Why the protection for #Gladys?

  29. https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/10/16/billionaire-robert-brockman-tax-evasion/

    Robert T. Brockman was so paranoid that the Internal Revenue Service would catch on to his scheme, prosecutors said, that in June 2016 the Texas billionaire allegedly ordered his offshore money handler to travel the United States destroying paper evidence and “electronic media” with shredders and hammers.

    But on Thursday, prosecutors alleged that his decades-long tax fraud scheme, the largest in American history, had finally caught up to him. A federal grand jury in San Francisco indicted Brockman, 79, on 39 charges, including tax fraud, wire fraud, evidence tampering and money laundering

    Is it just greed that motivates such people ❓

  31. And further to that. Surely GladysB would remember the year and month at the very least of when she entered into a secret relationship with McGuire. Why is there a discrepancy?

  33. Nicholas was peddling some idiotic line about blaming voters. This was a transparently stupid, intellectually dishonest attempt by a Faux voice to deflect responsibility from the part they played in the political victories of the Right. The Faux are allowed to run interference. Not a problem. This is their perfect right. They set out to derail Democratic candidates. They have succeeded as often as not. The problem is they’re not prepared to own the consequences of their actions. Instead they blame the victims of their actions. The Faux are good at victim-blaming. They specialise in it.

  34. Watch Dotard lose his shit over these numbers…

    FINAL Nielsen numbers are in: Biden’s town hall bests Trump and NBC by a million and a half viewers

    Biden (ABC): 15.1 million
    Trump (NBC): 13.5 million

    Story with @grynbaum

  35. Cities Sue the Trump Administration Over Federal Agents in Portland

    With fears swirling about deployments of federal officers around the election, cities are challenging past actions as illegal and unconstitutional.

    In the months since camouflage-clad federal agents appeared in Portland, Oregon, during racial justice protests, President Donald Trump has reiterated his commitment to send more federal agents to cities in a number of different contexts. He has pledged to send federal agents in communities “plagued by crime” and to cities “run by liberal Democrats,” and hinted that he could even deploy them to polling places around the election.

    A new lawsuit filed by the cities of Oakland, California, and Portland questions the legal justification for these deployments, alleging that they are both a violation of federal law and unconstitutional.

    “The use of federal agents on the streets of Portland appeared to be a precursor for unknown future events, whether related to the election or beyond,” said Jonathan Miller, the legal director for the Public Rights Project, a nonprofit serving as co-counsel in the lawsuit. “The administration needs to be held accountable for trying to expand its authority beyond what’s a reasonable scope.”

    https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-10-15/cities-challenge-legality-of-federal-agents-in-cities?srnd=premium-asia

  36. Here’s a new theory. But is it really true that Morrison “gets on the beers?” Just because you hold a cold one in your hand for every picture opportunity doesn’t really prove anything does it?

    @MarkLangham2
    ·
    42m
    So,
    @ScottMorrisonMP
    cancelled the COVID Comm meeting because, like a modern-day Yeltsin, he was too drunk to fly. His irrational performance at yesterday’s presser leaves no doubt that he needs some professional help.

  37. lizzie @ #85 Saturday, October 17th, 2020 – 10:00 am

    Here’s a new theory. But is it really true that Morrison “gets on the beers?” Just because you hold a cold one in your hand for every picture opportunity doesn’t really prove anything does it?

    @MarkLangham2
    ·
    42m
    So,
    @ScottMorrisonMP
    cancelled the COVID Comm meeting because, like a modern-day Yeltsin, he was too drunk to fly. His irrational performance at yesterday’s presser leaves no doubt that he needs some professional help.

    incontinence might be another clue

  39. sprocket_ @ #83 Saturday, October 17th, 2020 – 9:59 am

    Watch Dotard lose his shit over these numbers…

    FINAL Nielsen numbers are in: Biden’s town hall bests Trump and NBC by a million and a half viewers

    Biden (ABC): 15.1 million
    Trump (NBC): 13.5 million

    Story with @grynbaum

    and ….

    17.7 million already voted
    total vote expected to be a record 160 million
    (ref Lincoln Project)

  41. Alan Joyce’s push for payment ignored by Qld Premier

    Alan Joyce wrote to Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk pushing her to pay the state government’s travel expenses to Qantas in advance and unwind specific regulatory requirements to help ease the pressure of COVID-19.

    Qantas CEO Alan Joyce has previously questioned the motivation behind hard state border closures, saying they were driven by politics.

    The private letters, obtained under right to information laws, are a window into one of the many ways Qantas and its chief executive have sought to pressure state and territory leaders to help prop up its operations during COVID-19 with state borders heavily restricted.

    One letter, dated August 17, from Mr Joyce urges the Premier to adopt a nationally consistent framework to govern when borders are opened and closed, attaching a framework developed by lobby group Airlines for Australia and New Zealand (A4ANZ).

    This request is consistent with the public messaging from Qantas, which has been devastated by the pandemic and subsequent travel restraints.

    But the letter also demands a forward payment to all domestic airlines of the Queensland government’s travel costs, which officials could claim and redeem, effective from November 1.

    “The forward payment would be based on 50 per cent of FY19 domestic and international flying activity for all Australian airlines,” Mr Joyce said, noting he had made similar requests to the federal government and other states and territories.

    The direct cash benefit to Qantas was redacted.

    Qantas said it had not received any reply on either the request for more consistent border rules or on the advance payment of travel costs.

    Further, regulators rejected a third request to reduce premiums on bank guarantees required to secure a self-insurance permit for workers’ compensation in Queensland.

    https://www.afr.com/companies/transport/alan-joyce-s-push-for-payment-ignored-by-qld-premier-20201016-p565rx

  42. Invent a new crime so that the old ones are no longer investigated? This government slithers away from investigation every time.

    Attorney-General Christian Porter blames Covid-19 for his failure to deliver a corruption commission, even though he boasted in January the “draft consultation bill is now all but complete”. But the sad fact is that if the final bill emerges as earlier outlined by Porter, then, as shadow attorney-general Mark Dreyfus told parliament in August, it will be “a sham”. Under the Coalition’s plan, politicians would receive special treatment, the commission could not initiate inquiries but would have to wait for a government reference, and there would be no public hearings.

    One legal source says Porter is also proposing to have a new crime of “official corruption”, which means that even if he does get around to establishing some sort of integrity commission, it could not retrospectively look into the Morrison government.

    Fresh from his visit to Queensland, the prime minister has little if any appetite to give an independent body the sort of ammunition it would need to hold him and his government to real account.

    https://www.thesaturdaypaper.com.au/opinion/topic/2020/10/17/dark-clouds-descend-pm-the-sunshine-state/160285320010582

  44. Firefox

    ‘You’re the ones who are lashing out in bitterness and anger at people like Nicholas and I for daring to have opinions and views that don’t align with yours.’

    You do know that lumping people into a group is the essence of prejudice? (“You are a Labor supporter, therefore…” is just a prejudiced as “You have black skin, therefore…”)

    I’m an individual. I don’t post as a group, or a part of one. You should respect the individual worth of each poster here, instead of doing the lumping them all together thing.

    To me, that’s not only prejudiced (see above) but it’s wimpy. It suggests you’re unable to refute individual arguments, so you lump everyone you disagree with together so that noone’s sure if you’re referring them or not.

    Secondly, I (given you have lumped me in with others) didn’t ‘lash out’ at Nicholas. He posted something which was incorrect. I fact checked it. Instead of defending his initial argument, he went on the attack.

    I pointed that out, too.

    Apparently Nicholas and yourself can’t be fact checked.

    As I said, you’d think Nicholas would welcome debate. You’d think he’d show tolerance for difference.

    You’d also think that both of you would value truth over partisanship.

  50. Michael Pascoe
    @MichaelPascoe01
    Federal Liberal MP, “Franking” Wilson, doesn’t like the ICAC. Zero surprise. He’s the fella who perverted the parliamentary committee system into a coalition election stunt at public’s expense.

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