The year ahead

Informed speculation suggests a federal election will be held in the second half of this year, though views differ as to whether it will be sooner or later.

Dennis Shanahan of The Australian, who is always well plugged into government’s line of tactical thinking, wrote on Monday on the likelihood of a federal election in the second half of this year ($) rather than the first half of the next, that being the full extent of the window for a normal election of the House of Representatives and half the Senate. This basically boils down to a view that the government’s perceived current dominance means the sooner it goes the better, tempered by a desire to avoid an election in winter.

An unidentified Liberal MP quoted in The Australian ($) said they were “almost certain” they were “almost certain” the election would be in August or September, although another felt November more likely since an earlier election would be seen as too opportunistic. Why November would be a whole lot better on that count is unclear, since there seems to be no particular obstacle to Morrison holding out until May next year, by which time it will have been a full three years since the last election. For what it’s worth, the latter MP was also quoted saying it “also depends on if Labor ditch Anthony Albanese and get someone more electable”.

In more definite news for the year ahead, the Western Australian state election is set for March 13 — I am presently furiously hard at work on my election guide, which I can assure those of you who like that kind of thing will be a classic of its genre. As for opinion polling, the silly season proved no obstacle to Newspoll last year, which opened its account with a poll conducted from Wednesday, January 8 and Saturday, January 11, so there may be action on that front this or (probably more likely) next weekend.

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.

3,782 comments on “The year ahead”

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  1. Q
    `Curiouser and curiouser!’ cried Alice (she was so much surprised, that for the moment she quite forgot how to speak good English); `now I’m opening out like the largest telescope that ever was! Good-bye, feet!’ (for when she looked down at her feet, they seemed to be almost out of sight, they were getting so far off). `Oh, my poor little feet, I wonder who will put on your shoes and stockings for you now, dears? I’m sure I shan’t be able! I shall be a great deal too far off to trouble myself about you: you must manage the best way you can; –but I must be kind to them,’ thought Alice, `or perhaps they won’t walk the way I want to go! Let me see: I’ll give them a new pair of boots every Christmas.’

    https://www.cs.cmu.edu/~rgs/alice-II.html

  2. By now I’m less convinced that McConnell will move on Trump. Wednesday isn’t quite over in across the entire US so there’s still a chance, but I think McConnell is just another opportunist, running down the clock. Waiting is a useful strategy when difficult choices need to be made. Waiting narrows your options until the least worst option presents itself, the decision becomes obvious to everyone, and deciding shows leadership. McConnell isn’t alone in this. Trump has gone quiet. Pence has always been quiet.

  3. boerwar says: Thursday, January 14, 2021 at 4:20 pm
    Kr
    That the same guy who bragged about how he could go out in the street shoot somebody and get away with it?
    Nah. Gotta be a different guy, right?

    Yep, it was a different person. It was a Donald hater and impersonator out to cause trouble for The Trump. I saw it on OANN and Newsmax, who we know are unimpeachable sources of the truth.

  4. My in-laws are Trump voters. In case you were wondering.

    My parents, who would be Trump voters if they were American, has closed her facebook account in sympathy with The Donald’s banning. 🙄

  7. Lily D’Ambrosio MP
    @LilyDAmbrosioMP
    We’re taking another step to achieving our Victorian Renewable Energy Target #VRET with the Solar on Public Buildings Program. Volunteer committees of management on public land are set to save thousands of dollars on power bills thanks to (9.2 million) funding to install solar PV systems.

  9. C@tmomma
    “My parents, who would be Trump voters if they were American, has closed her facebook account in sympathy with The Donald’s banning”

    I’m sure Mark Zuckerberg will cry himself to sleep. That’ll learn him!

  11. Perhaps we could start a campaign to convince Trump supporters to refuse to vote in any election from now on, in perpetual protest.

  12. Don’t trust anything Mitch does or says.

    He has kicked the can to Chuck and teased Biden to pursue it possibly at the expense of other things. McConnell may, deep down, want Trump convicted. But he wants nothing more than to be back in charge in two years time.

  13. ‘Shellbell says:
    Thursday, January 14, 2021 at 4:40 pm

    My mum is spending her days watching CNN. She is mostly a New Zealander’

    Uh huh. Plenty of scope for you to develop character and plot from these two opening sentences with, perhaps, a leitmotif of wantonly ignoring full stops.

  15. Yesterday I thought that McConnell was preparing to excise Trump from the GOP. But he didn’t. Also from yesterday, I wonder if McConnell is preparing the GOP to “live with” Trump. I can only hope it progresses to palliative care. And has anyone seen Ivanka recently?

  16. Accepting the question whether a President may pardon themselves has not yet been tested in by the SCOTUS, from first principles the result must be that this cannot be done.

    Giving the President the power to pardon himself places the President above the laws of the land. Under the Constitution the laws of the land are those made by the processes it dictates involving the HofR and the Senate. Those laws apply to everyone, including the President (otherwise there would be no need for a pardon).

    Under the US Constitution the President is NOT above the law. Upon inauguration the President under Article II Section 1 provides:

    Before he enter on the Execution of his Office, he shall take the following Oath or Affirmation:—”I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my Ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.”

    The US Constitution is the fundamental rule book of the Nation. What the President has sworn to preserve, protect and defend is not several sheaves of paper written in 1776. It is the laws of the Nation as authorised by the Constitution.

    If the President has the power to pardon himself then this would give him the power to avoid the very thing under the Constitution he is required to do, namely preserve protect and defend the Constitution.

  17. ‘Windhover says:
    Thursday, January 14, 2021 at 5:00 pm

    Accepting the question whether a President may pardon themselves has not yet been tested in by the SCOTUS, from first principles the result must be that this cannot be done.’

    I hadn’t realized that Trump does first principles.

  19. Windhover

    Giving the President the power to pardon himself places the President above the laws of the land.

    So does that mean giving the President the power to pardon anyone places the President above the laws of the land?

  20. boerwarsays:
    Thursday, January 14, 2021 at 5:02 pm
    ‘Windhover says:
    Thursday, January 14, 2021 at 5:00 pm

    Accepting the question whether a President may pardon themselves has not yet been tested in by the SCOTUS, from first principles the result must be that this cannot be done.’

    I hadn’t realized that Trump does first principles.
    …………………………………………………………………………………….
    Trump does first principles alright. His problem (for those not Trump) is that he does not do anything other than his first principles.

  22. Late Risersays:
    Thursday, January 14, 2021 at 5:07 pm
    Windhover

    Giving the President the power to pardon himself places the President above the laws of the land.

    So does that mean giving the President the power to pardon anyone places the President above the laws of the land?
    …………………………………………………………..
    Good question.

    The answer is no. If we gave Late Riser the power to pardon everyone but LR then, if LR were amenable, we could all have a bloody good time without fear of repercussion. But poor old LR is not above the law and should still get done for every smallest misdemeanor.

  23. boerwarsays:
    Thursday, January 14, 2021 at 5:12 pm
    W
    haha. Just the one: the moi principle?
    …………………………………………..
    Its just my opinion. I could be wrong.

  24. Just saw Trump on News with his pouty little mouth and his sideways tilted head, mouthing clichés about peace, and the law, and how nothing is his fault. He is a REVOLTING person.

  25. boerwar

    Is banning Trump a de facto recognition that Twitter is a publisher?

    That is where they may well have shot themselves in the foot wallet. They have been dancing a fine legal line claiming they are not publishers. Enabled them to make and save $Bazillions.

  28. W

    I hadn’t thought of that. My character (LR) doesn’t think it’s at all fair that he’s the only one that can’t be pardoned. Further, LR thinks that in that case no-one should be pardoned, and can LR rescind the pardons already granted?

  29. The power of pardon vested in a head of state, whether monarch or president, is a long-standing tradition in many nations. In the UK and many former colonies, it’s the Royal Pardon (in Australia delegated to the GG).

  33. There’s a joke in here somewhere, about guests, fish, and three days.

    Goods sent off on day 1, for example from Larkhall near Glasgow, are now being scheduled to arrive in Boulogne on day 3 – one to two days longer than it took to send goods to France before Brexit.
    https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2021/jan/13/fresh-seafood-exports-scotland-eu-halted-fishing-brexit

    The report is about new post-Brexit problems when attempting to export fresh fish to the EU.

  34. https://www.pollbludger.net/2021/01/08/the-year-ahead/comment-page-65/#comment-3541914

    +1
    … sounds like a win win to me.
    I don’t like Fxyzbook (original idea some dork that tried to get l…., the why matters IMHO) or that Instagram and Whatsapp are in its stable, though at some stage had to get it for children[s’] school, though managed to go their portal instead, Cambridge Analytica (or HaveIBeenPawned.com not withstanding)!
    Prefer Google (Don’t be evil?) for my cloud, some Microsoft (LinkedIn), Signal, Aldi or Apple or Canon for devices etc.

  40. Frydenberg attacking Google et al – perhaps his next move to help Murdoch et al is to force us to buy newspapers?

    Treasurer Josh Frydenberg has warned Google it should be paying Australian news websites, not banning them from search results, after the company admitted to intermittently blocking some content.

    The technology giant said on Wednesday it had been running “experiments” on searches for newspaper websites, including The Sydney Morning Herald, affecting a small number of its Australian users.

    Treasurer Josh Frydenberg has warned Google to pay Australian news websites for content instead of blocking them for some users.

    Mr Frydenberg rebuked Google for preventing some local users from seeing the news websites through its search engine, which runs more than 94 per cent of search traffic in Australia.

    “Google, Facebook, other digital giants should focus not on blocking users in Australia accessing domestic content, they should focus on paying for it,” Mr Frydenberg told reporters on Thursday.

    https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/pay-for-content-don-t-block-it-frydenberg-warns-google-over-news-results-20210114-p56u48.html

  41. boerwar says:
    Thursday, January 14, 2021 at 6:02 pm
    LR

    Thanks for the link.

    The Best of British seafood is now free to go off.

    Sounds like the EU is requiring British seafood to be “aged” for a more intense flavour and aroma??

  45. Is an electricity network owner a publisher? If a child puts a lost kitten notice on a power pole, is the power company liable if the notice also advocates overthrow of the government?

    What if the notice is on the public noticeboard in the shopping centre? Are the shopping centre owners publishers? Are they allowed to remove the notice, and ban the child from posting in the future. Does their stating their intention to do so make them publishers, or were they publishers all along, or just providers of a public notice board, who, by some weird transmogrification, became publishers when they decided that a particular notice poster was persona non grata?

  46. Is it just me or do others find Rachel Maddows – in my opinion a smug, sanctimonious, goody-two-shoes wearing her bleeding heart firmly on her sleeve – completely unwatchable?

    This also goes for Chris Hayes and Keith Olbermann (for the same reasons): sanctimonious moralizers no better than the ideologues on the Right they so condescendingly hold in perpetual judgement.

    The anti-Trump forces would be FAR better served by relatively straight commentary rather than the preachy, emotive, repetitive sermons these bigots churn out hour after hour.

  48. Nicholas Gruen just flew into the UK. This was his experience…

    ‘ The ineptitude of Britain’s COVID response hits u when you arrive

    All I had to do was place my passport in an unsupervised machine, pass through an unmanned customs point, and go about my business. Not what I expected reclaiming control would look like’

  49. BB

    The MSNBC crew are a direct alternate to the FoxNews opinionaters Tucker Carlson, Sean Hannity etc. it’s what the Americans want and expect, not news, opinions and a spin to bolster their preconceptions.

    In my opinion, Maddow is one of the best of the lefty spinners – though I agree she can be unwatchable if you take in the whole program rather than just the snippets they put on YouTube.

    For what it’s worth, the audience share over the last week had:

    1. CNN
    2. mSNBC
    3. FoxNews

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