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. Labor lining up with LNP numbskulls “always has a plan” McCormack and Pitt, with their Carbon Club sponsors, for the media announcement
    To drop another $200+ million of public money to grease the creaking wheels for their mates in the fossil fuel industry
    For our kids futures, does anyone believe that?

    Fast-tracked gas industry road upgrades prompt outrage
    https://www.katherinetimes.com.au/story/7086651/fast-tracked-gas-industry-road-upgrades-prompt-outrage/

    The upgrades will provide infrastructure to support gas development and other industries in and around the Beetaloo Sub-basin.

    And according to Mr Pitt will support industry and business by providing more reliable freight links that will reduce the cost of doing business.

    During a press conference in Darwin today, a plan to offset potential emissions from fracking activity – estimated to reach 117 million tonnes every year – could not be outlined in detail.

    “Well, we’ve always got a plan,” Mr McCormack said.

    “We ensure that we are going to meet and beat our international requirements as far as reducing emissions. We always do that. I mean, that’s a no-brainer. But I’ll get Keith to add to those remarks,” he said.

    Mr Pitt defended his government’s stand on climate change, reasserting Australia’s target for 2030 of making a 26-28 per cent reduction in its emissions compared with 2005 levels.

    “We will deliver on those commitments,” he said, “and as we’ve said any number of times, we are on track to meet that 2030 target.”

  2. ‘Quoll says:
    Friday, January 15, 2021 at 4:38 pm

    Labor lining up with…’

    Just as well the Greens are going to form Government in the next elections.

  3. In case I have not made it clear. We will not see the political paradigm change until after Biden is sworn in. We are still in the transition phase. Obama still set the agenda with a week to go.

    Trump is still setting the agenda even though we can see flashes of the narrative for the next four years.

    The return of strong institutional government starts when Biden is sworn in not before.

    In March or July the current Trump base will break up as the reality of what happened sinks in. Even Fox News will be telling a different story as it tries to distance itself from White Supremacy.

    The reality of the new calendar and legislation being set by the Democrats will have struck home.

    The Democrats themselves will have realised they have to act to bolster the fairness of America by scrapping the Filibuster a tool created to defend slavery. They will have to pack the Supreme Court and give statehood to Peurto Rico and Washington DC.

    Tackling Gerrymandering and voter suppression will need many more Stacey Abrahams organisers across the country to replicate the Georgia Senate results.

    Even impeaching a Supreme Court Justice or two may have to happen to address the abuse of power by McConnell in blocking Senate nominations to courts in the Obama era.

    The conditions of the minority holding back the majority is just going to increase as the White Supremacy movement keeps losing power due to the changing demographics. The political pressure on the Democrats is not going to go away and will increase as the disenfranchised part of Trumps base that were fooled and not true haters wakes up.

    In four years time it’s going to be a very different US to the one that we see as Trump leaves office. A fact the insurrectionist’s recognised by staging the coup attempt.

  4. Cud Chewer @ #3636 Friday, January 15th, 2021 – 4:22 pm

    dave

    Morisson has offered what exactly?

    Take your pick –

    The AFR says China has blasted Scott Morrison’s offer of a pathway to permanent residency in Australia for more than 12,000 Hongkongers and suspension of an extradition treaty as deplorable, with the government privately bracing for a trade backlash as punishment.

    https://www.afr.com/politics/federal/china-s-fury-over-australia-s-embrace-of-hongkongers-20200709-p55ai1

    Michael Pascoe has a close affinity to Hong Kong and says it will never runout of matyrs.
    https://thenewdaily.com.au/news/2020/07/10/michael-pascoe-hong-kong/

    Courageous Hong Kong visas will come at a price
    July 9, 2020 — 4.22pm

    Australia has just told the residents of its largest trading partner that it no longer believes they are safe at home.

    Thursday’s decision to offer up to 10,000 Hong Kong students and workers already in Australia safe haven from draconian new national security legislation imposed by Beijing is the right thing to do. But it will come at a cost.

    In making this assessment the Morrison government has judged that China-Australia relations are now so dire it has little more to lose. Beijing has already hit the tourism, student and agriculture sectors with trade strikes. Coal is vulnerable but so are human rights in what was once China’s most liberal territory.
    The speed at which the Chinese government has moved to impose its authority on Asia’s once-liberal finance hub has shocked many of the city’s 7.5 million residents.

    This is the most diplomatically heated migration decision by an Australian Prime Minister since Bob Hawke offered 27,000 Chinese students refuge after the Tiananmen Square massacre in 1989.

    The Hong Kong square where the yearly Tiananmen vigil is held is now watched over by the Orwellian 266-room, 33-storey Office for Safeguarding National Security. Flags, chants, and singing “Glory to Hong Kong” are banned.

    So too are blank pieces of paper that replaced forbidden independence signs in the former British colony.

    https://www.smh.com.au/world/asia/courageous-hong-kong-visas-will-come-at-a-price-20200709-p55aje.html

    Australia financial hub push to replace Hong Kong
    John Kehoe
    John KehoeSenior writer
    Jul 16, 2020 – 12.00am

    The federal government will consider tax and regulatory concessions to help attract capital and skilled workers fleeing Hong Kong and to make Australia an international financial services hub.

    Prime Minister Scott Morrison said last week the government would “look at new incentives and arrangements to attract export-oriented Hong Kong-based businesses to relocate to Australia” and headhunt entrepreneurial Hongkongers.

    The government also offered a pathway to permanent residency in Australia for more than 12,000 Hongkongers in response to Beijing’s national security crackdown undermining the territory’s political autonomy. The move angered China’s government.

    Mark Johnson, a former Macquarie Bank executive who led the Rudd government’s 2009 report, Australia as a Financial Centre, said clearer tax rules for private equity and venture capital could help attract more investment managers and capital to Australia

    Mark Johnson says an opportunity exists for Australia. Michel O’Sullivan
    “Geopolitically, we are becoming more and more attractive with our good government, strong institutions and burgeoning superannuation sector,” Mr Johnson said.

    “We just have to polish the apple.”

    https://www.afr.com/companies/financial-services/australia-financial-hub-push-to-replace-hong-kong-20200714-p55byv

  5. ‘dave says:
    Friday, January 15, 2021 at 4:39 pm
    ….
    Mark Johnson says an opportunity exists for Australia. Michel O’Sullivan
    “Geopolitically, we are becoming more and more attractive with our good government, strong institutions and burgeoning superannuation sector,” Mr Johnson said.
    …’

    Morrison’s Government is not, IMO, a good government. It is, IMO, the most corrupt federal government ever. It systematically seeks to undermine institutional strength. It is systematically seeking to gut the superannuation section.

    Apart from those, Johnson has some good points, IMO.

  6. Serious question. Does Morrison really drink a little more beer than is good for him, or does he just hold a beer for every photo opp to enhance his Daggy Dad image?

  7. The AFR says China has blasted Scott Morrison’s offer of a pathway to permanent residency in Australia for more than 12,000 Hongkongers and suspension of an extradition treaty as deplorable, with the government privately bracing for a trade backlash as punishment.

    They did the same thing after Tiananmen Square. Just bluff, bluster and attempted intimidation. Eventually trade came back to normal.

  8. Lizzie: “..or does he [Morrison] just hold a beer for every photo opp to enhance his Daggy Dad image?”

    I never associated being a piss-pot with being a daggy dad. Maybe it’s a Cronulla thing?

  9. Lizzie Cat and Sohar

    I don’t like the marketing. However those billions of dollars are not going to waste. The drinking beer image did not hurt Bob Hawke and is worth bearing in mind when considering attacking Morrison for drinking.

    As BB would rightly put it. You don’t want to appear a wowser instead of attacking incompetence and corruption

    Edit, Tie it into the ScottyfromMarketing tag instead. It would be great if you could propose he is actually a wowser pretending to be a drinker instead. Being anti gay fed into that cultural wowser religious type image. That’s what Labor needs to remake Morrison’s image to.

  10. guytaur @ #3497 Friday, January 15th, 2021 – 5:25 pm

    Cat and Sohar

    I don’t like the marketing. However those billions of dollars are not going to waste. The drinking beer image did not hurt Bob Hawke and is worth bearing in mind when considering attacking Morrison for drinking.

    As BB would rightly put it. You don’t want to appear a wowser instead of attacking incompetence and corruption

    I’m not saying the guy can’t have a drink, but does it need to be emblematic of the man?

  11. A succinct summary of POTUS-Elect Biden’s ‘American Rescue Plan’:

    The big picture: Biden has said COVID-19 and its economic effects are the two biggest problems Americans are currently facing. Less than a week before becoming president, he’s giving a pre-inaugural address outlining his legislative plan for coping with them, as well as previewing what he plans to do administratively.

    “Next week, we’ll take action to extend nationwide restrictions on evictions and foreclosures,” he said.
    His spending proposal will be divided into three parts:

    *$400 billion to address the virus.
    *$1 trillion in direct relief to families and individuals.
    *$440 billion to help communities and businesses hit the hardest by the pandemic.
    Within those baskets, he’ll seek:

    *The $1,400 payments, to be added to the $600 checks Congress passed last month, for $2,000 in overall relief.
    *Raising unemployment insurance from $300 to $400 per week, and extending it through September.
    *Roughly $20 billion for a national vaccination program, and another $140 billion for testing and other public health investments.
    *Fourteen weeks of paid leave for caregivers, payable to those coping with school closures and caring for people with COVID-19 symptoms.
    *Raising the national minimum wage to $15 per hour, and abolishing the tipped minimum wage and the sub-minimum wage for people with disabilities.

    https://www.axios.com/biden-seeks-2-trillion-covid-relief-41ad7898-14f8-4a03-b1a6-35ec0925c22d.html

    Certainly makes Scott Morrison and Josh Frydenburg look stingy with JobKeeper and JobSeeker cut backs coming.

  12. Cat

    As I said I don’t like the marketing.

    All I am saying is that Labor has to avoid appearing like wowsers by attacking the drinking.

    Remember I don’t drink and I am particularly sensitive to the over saturation marketing of our drinking culture. However I can see how attacking Morrison for drinking could backfire.

    Years spent on attacking Barnaby Joyce on drinking. It was not his drinking that got him into political trouble. It was other aspects of his personal life especially showing the hypocrisy making Joyce look like a hypocritical party pooper at the least.

  13. The Shoalhaven Heads pub has some memories for me. None more so than 15 years ago when I murdered a plate of nachos and about a dozen Corona after a 195km cycle and 2km swim in 35 degree heat early that day … 15 years and 20 kilograms ago … sigh.

  14. I’m not suggesting that Morrison shouldn’t have a beer. I’d just like to know whether clutching a can is just part of his marketing.

  15. guytaur @ #3666 Friday, January 15th, 2021 – 3:58 pm

    Here is a view from a populist right commentator that used to work with Tucker Carlson about the future of the GOP.

    I stopped listening about half way, so perhaps he goes on but I think his main points were made by then. It rhymes with my own developing thoughts on Biden, namely that he has a huge opportunity.

    First, the US is in a mess but it isn’t broken. The infrastructure is aging and failing, but it’s still there. The clever people are still there. In some ways it feels similar to the 1930s. (Historians please help me out here.) Build stuff. Start new things. Pay people more. Give money to the poorest. They’ll spend it back into the economy and thank you for it.

    Second, the GOP are in trouble. They are strategically and morally discredited. (95% are OK with an armed attack on the Capitol building) They openly disagree among themselves. Their election fuel is culture wars. But Biden won’t give them one. And if they start a real war (militias, Qanon, etc) Biden assumes the mantle of War President.

    Third, Biden isn’t Trump. That’s a very low bar to exceed. Just not worrying about the President’s mood will settle the horses. Halloween one night per year is enough. Relief feels good.

    Fourth, covid is killing thousands each day. Biden gets a second term just by fixing that.

  16. “More than two-thirds of the city’s population would be eligible for a path to British citizenship, according to the U.K government, which has offered the immigration route in its response to the law that was rapidly enacted in the former British colony last summer.”

    That’s around 5 million people based on the latest estimate.

    Given that xenophobic British heads exploded given the few tens of thousands of Poles and Romanians who made their way to the UK and given that that was a major factor in Brexit (“we want control of our borders back”) I can’t imagine what their reaction will be to so many Chinese.

  17. Xi has also recently announced a bar on elected HK legislators who hold British Overseas Citizenship from being in the HK Legislatory Assembly.

  18. Ballantyne,
    I think the Brits feel a greater sense of affinity with the Hong Kongers, no matter that they are Asian and not Caucasian, in the same way they felt affinity for Indians and Jamaicans. A shared historical heritage binds them together.

  19. LR

    Yes. I don’t care if you are on the right centre or left being able to see how the extremism of Trump has damaged his Republican Party is important.

    It’s his Republican Party not McConnell’s or Rubio etc.

    Trump is a loser and so is his party.

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