Before proceeding with the latest preselection news, I have a still-active post with daily updates on the progress of Tasmanian state election count; a live results feature that I can’t promote often enough, since it remains by some distance the most detailed source of results data available; and a lengthy plea for cash from Friday from which I’m still vaguely hopeful of squeezing another donation or two.
On with the show:
• The long-awaited Liberal National Party Senate preselection has allocated top position on the Queensland ticket to James McGrath while relegating Amanda Stoker to third, maintaining an impressive bipartisan run of preselectors never getting anything right. Michael McKenna of The Australian relates that McGrath secured a sweeping 212-101 win from the “biggest ever turnout for a State Council Senate vote”. The second position is designated to the Nationals, and is duly a lock for Matt Canavan.
• Paul Starick of The Advertiser reports that Leah Blyth, who has the backing of the South Australian Liberal Party’s conservative faction to replace the retiring Nicolle Flint in the Adelaide seat of Boothby, may be poleaxed by the Section 44 of the Constitution. Blyth’s efforts to renounce a dual British citizenship even this far out from the election could fall foul of extended processing times arising from COVID-19, although others quoted in the report express doubt that it will really be a problem. Rival contenders include Rachel Swift, moderate-aligned proprietor of a health consultancy firm, and Shaun Osborn, a police officer who ran in the seat of Adelaide in 2019. However, Osborn is hampered by the optics of putting a man forward to replace Flint, whose experiences have been a key element in Liberal efforts to parry suggestions that disrespect for women is particularly a problem on their own side of politics.
• John Ferguson of The Australian reports dissension within Victorian Labor over the likelihood that former state secretary Sam Rae will secure preselection for the new seat of Hawke on Melbourne’s north-western fringe. The report says a draft preselection agreement reserves the seat for the Right faction Transport Workers Union, which remains associated with party powerbroker and former Senator Stephen Conroy. While Conroy evidently backs Rae, “other parts” of the Right are said to favour the position going to a woman, specifically Natalie Hutchins, the Andrews government Corrections Minister and member for the seat of Sydenham.
• Matthew Denholm of The Australian reported last week that “wholesale ALP federal intervention” loomed for the party’s Tasmanian branch, “barring a shock win for the party” at Saturday’s state election – which, for those of you who have just joined us, didn’t happen. The concern is that Left unions use their excessive weight within the branch’s affairs to do foolish things like deny preselection to Dean Winter, who was able to achieve his thumping win in Franklin on Saturday only because the national executive intervened to give him a place on the ticket. This would appear to be relevant to Labor’s preselections for the federal seat of Bass and Braddon, which it lost at the 2019 election, and also to the fate of twice-defeated state leader Rebecca White. The aforesaid Left unions are apparently keen on replacing her with David O’Byrne, who was outpolled in Franklin on Saturday by the aforesaid Dean Winter.
• The Liberal Party has done tellingly extensive research for its submission opposing the registration of a party under the name New Liberals, which included CT Group polling indicating that 69% of respondents believed a party thus named sounded like it had a connection with the other Liberal Party.
Quoll
If you weren’t yourself a sensitive petal, unable to defend a point of view by argument rather than invective, you’d respond to posters by name, rather than using the cowardly device of labelling a lot of individuals.
Lumping individuals under one heading and then whacking a label on them is, after all, the essence of discrimination and prejudice.
As for blind partisanship, I invite you to prove you don’t indulge in it by outlining one area – it can be tiny – where you disagree with the Greens and think they should lift their game.
Cartoons from around the globe:
Canada:
USA:
Ireland:
India – Bengal Election on the weekend:
South Africa:
New Zealand
Netherlands:
Mexico:
Russia:
France:
At least 100 #migrants drowned off the Libyan coast on 23 April on their attempts to reach Europe.
Macron announces the end of Restrictions in May:
This reminds me of Leunig’s Farting and No Farting sections on the train:
Germany:
Quoll,
As you’re the most blind of partisan here on PB, it must be very satisfying not to take any notice of what you say, think and do.
Andrew_Earlwood @ #NaN Monday, May 3rd, 2021 – 9:15 am
Oh, I thought that was Gerard Hayes. 🙄
It seems as though everyone is campaigning against Jodi, which Jodi didn’t seem to be troubled by on Saturday when I saw her. Maybe that’s because she has nothing to worry about? In reality.
Oh, and before Oakeshott Country chimes in with his, it’s because Gerard wants to replace Jodi bs, no, that’s not true either.
Quoll @ #NaN Monday, May 3rd, 2021 – 9:35 am
Which just proves what a blinkered partisan YOU are that you are incapable of responding to rational argument and explanation.
zoomster @ #NaN Monday, May 3rd, 2021 – 8:59 am
So you know who Natalie Hutchins is I presume? Just not how she got her married name, ie who she was married to?
Oh, and I presumed, as a protege of Bill Shorten, that Daniel Walton was a Victorian, but it seems he is based in NSW. Oh well, you didn’t know who former NSW Labor Senator, Steve Hutchins was, so, 1-all. 🙂
He is still doing great work though:
https://www.miragenews.com/awu-national-secretary-speaks-at-sydney-530927/
citizen @ #47 Monday, May 3rd, 2021 – 9:27 am
What they should do in all states is apply a small per km charge to all vehicles, but not reduce the fuel levy. Instead, reduce registration cost or some other charge to compensate (or as Victoria has done, introduce a direct subsidy for EVs, but not numerically capped). Hence, the fuel levy becomes a de-facto carbon tax on fossil-fueled transport, and would be a very strong incentive to switch to an EV. The per km charge should then be ramped up slowly as the fleet shifts from fossil-fueled to EVs until it has completely replaced the income from the declining fuel levy.
C@
Strangely enough, the marital history of Labor MPs is not really one of my greatest interests.
Walton is apparently a member of the NSW Labor admin committee.
P1
Another who only sees EV’s as a way of avoiding tax. So sad.
$375 for one year, so basically the Victorian Labor government is offering a full refund for you first vehicle.
Where has Scott Morrison disappeared to ?
frednk @ #59 Monday, May 3rd, 2021 – 10:03 am
If you had actually read my post, you wouldn’t have embarrassed yourself with such a stupid comment.
zoomster @ #NaN Monday, May 3rd, 2021 – 10:02 am
Um, as I originally thought she was his daughter, not his wife, I guess I mustn’t be that interested in that sort of thing either, simply going to google to find out the correct relationship when I think it was you who questioned me about it? Kind of suggests you knew more than me, huh? 🙂
Oh, and enough with this snarky comebacks zoomster. I didn’t bite at the original sarc about non-scientific healers (thinks, who has a son whose business is built around faith in astrology? Oh wait, that’s me! Hmm, I wonder if that had anything to do with it for whatever bizarre reason?). I get that you have a bee in your bonnet about fact-checking people to the nth degree. Like it’s sooo important, as opposed to agreeing or not with the general sentiment of a post. Sheesh! (Note to self, must research every comment I make in order to satisfy the fact police). 🙄
frednk,
Virtue signaling must be a free for all! 😆
C@
I wasn’t the one who made the query about Natalie Hutchins (this from the person who told me to read posts more carefully).
Astrology is bunk. If your son is into it, that doesn’t mean you have to defend it. Neither does it mean that posts saying it is bunk are directed at you.
Roads improve the economy. They essentially pay for themselves by making the economy more efficient. If we want to recover their construction and maintenance costs, place the impost on the heavy transport sector and the courier industry. By far, trucks cause most of the wear and damage to roads. These cost can be passed on to the users/buyers of freight services, meaning that road costs will be reflected in the cost of goods and transport services. Roads are an external cost of production. The prices of goods and services should reflect these costs – like many other costs – which would then be “internalised”.
There should be no need to tax motorists/commuters for their road use. Existing motorist taxes are really like a flat surcharge on income tax.
Quoll rejoices in the prospect of failure. Dismal.
zoomster @ #NaN Monday, May 3rd, 2021 – 10:18 am
No, I didn’t ‘make a query about Natalie Hutchins’. At 6.32am I made a comment:
‘Other parts of the Right’ in Victoria. Otherwise known as Bill Shorten. The Short Cons are no more, they are a dead parrot, so even though it makes sense to have Natalie,
daughterwife of Steve, it may not happen.Over which you have now spent 4 hours nitpicking about it. Haven’t you got anything better to do!?!
I simply agreed she sounded like a good choice. Daniel Walton, albeit from NSW I guess, also sounds like he would be a sound choice for a political career for Labor.
That I should be shot down repeatedly for expressing an opinion like that seems bizarre, at the very least, from you.
Oh, and astrology may be bunkum, but so is a lot of other stuff that people have believed in when they were younger, like Pentecostalism. 🙂
Yes P1, that’s why it is rarely worth the bother
At least Giordano and Ketan can have a reasonable discussion on the many aspects around decarbonisation of transport and Australia’s policy idiocy so far
C@
You’ve misunderstood me. It was another poster who questioned your statement on Hutchins, not me.
You then responded as if I’d made the comment.
I’ve been a bit bewildered by this throughout.
Quoll
But apparently you can’t.
Hint: discussions don’t usually kick off by insulting people.
The intent of someone who drives an EV may be to virtual signal but that does not change the fact that it is a real signal to the market.
pukka @ #71 Monday, May 3rd, 2021 – 10:49 am
I don’t really understand how driving an EV can be regarded as ‘virtue signalling’.
Can anyone explain?
Scott
I believe he’s done an interview with Ray on 2GB, who signed off with “We’re lucky to have you.”
Quoll @ #68 Monday, May 3rd, 2021 – 10:35 am
Not entirely their fault – it’s hard to have a rational discussion on policy when your party’s position is not to have one.
lizzie
“I believe he’s done an interview with Ray on 2GB, who signed off with “We’re lucky to have you.””
Scotty got his tummy tickled again.
Kakuru
The only reason why he goes on there. To get his arse licked.
@hughriminton
Andrew Bolt says he is “ashamed” that the government is “making it a crime for Indian-Australians to come back home”.
He says it “stinks of racism.”
__________________________________
The Warren Brown Cartoon is quite stark too.
Two cheers to Victoria for announcing the EV purchase subsidies after days of embarrassing publicity about the appallingly badly timed and targeted EV usage tax.
I am generally in favour of road usage charges; most transport planners are. But they should apply to all vehicles using vehicles, not only EVs.
The suggestion that falling petrol excise revenue (a Federal tax) justifies a state tax grab is laughable. EVs do reduce petrol tax revenue. But they also reduce health and environmental costs from less GHGs and less pollution. Those were the original justifications for the petrol tax excise (go back and ask Ros Kelly; she increased it for leaded petrol). So there is no tax avoidance in an EV not paying petrol excise.
Road maintenance costs are supposed to be paid for by vehicle registration fees, which EVs still pay. Though many cash-strapped states spend some of the rego money on new construction, which relates more to population growth. Make the developers pay that.
Trucks, not EVs, pay far less in registration fees than they should, because they do most of the damage to roads. But politically no government, Labor or Liberal, wants to tax trucks more.
The EV tax smacks more of class warfare, assuming all EV owners are wealthy and can afford it. For many environmentalists who have bought a second hand Nissan Leaf, that is plainly false, but dumb policy is usually fact-free. They can vote Green.
As for the subsidy in EVs, like new house construction, we will see a price spike, but little or no change in market. What if demand exceeds the subsidies allocated? Do people draw lots? This smacks as a band aid fix to buying back better PR, after the original announcement got so much deserved derision.
So Tim Pallas, you get the Frydenberg award for bad policy motivated by ideology and ignorance. Your stated reasons for your dumb EV policy are plainly false. As others have said, if you want to understand the issue quickly and clearly, here is the best source:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fLflYkgnNBY
FWIW the ACT Labor-Greens govt decarbonising transport and EV policies
https://www.environment.act.gov.au/cc/zero-emissions-vehicles
No road use charge in sight
Transport contributes more than 60% of the ACT’s greenhouse gas emissions, making it the single largest contributor to emissions in the ACT. Private cars contribute the most to ACT transport emissions.
Government is committed to addressing transport emissions by supporting Zero Emissions Vehicle (ZEV) uptake together with measures to increase uptake of active travel and public transport.
pukka @ #NaN Monday, May 3rd, 2021 – 10:49 am
No it doesn’t. It also doesn’t change the fact that user pays applies to EV road users as well.
A deeply philosophical question 😉 .
Does providing a gov grant towards a purchase always send the price up?
It does in real estate, but with solar systems?
I’m sorry, Soc., but that woman in the Juice videos, and her cosmetically-enhanced perfect teeth and the silly voice over which always sounds like someone else doing it for her, means I can never stomach their videos.
I guess that’s just another fatal flaw of mine. 😉
zoomster @ #NaN Monday, May 3rd, 2021 – 10:37 am
No, but you were the one who kept on retorting, which kind of bewildered me, tbh.
I think we should get Hutcho’s first wife into Canberra – what could go wrong?
lizzie
I’d say no as the supply is from overseas. Well basically China. Greater demand can easily be met by importing more. Real Estate doesn’t have that option.
Lizzie
I think technological change is driving solar costs down and efficiency up despite any subsidy or what any government does now
With huge global competition and interests
EV and transport options seems much the same, many global players and rapid technological development
Real estate in Australia is now more like a ponzi scheme with all sorts of rorts and interests built in, and more competition from customers than providers, who are all local, limited land upon which to build where everyone might be required to be for work… unless we had say a great nationwide internet and more decentralised population and industry
No-one is talking about any subsidy for ever, just for rapid change
There is a lot of total rubbish and verballing here on all this
Unfortunately Australia sold itself out of being a part of most of the global solar and EV-tech industries years ago, through pig-headed stupidity and lack of backing research some one here had often been leading the world on
C@
It’s called responding. When someone addresses a post to you, I think it’s polite to respond.
Greens’ JobKeeper payback scheme could reap more than $1 billion
A proposal to make companies who made large profits while on JobKeeper pay back the government subsidy to the Treasury could bring more than $1 billion to the economy.
Parliamentary Budget Office costings, commissioned by The Greens, revealed an extra $1.1 billion would be made available next financial year if 65 companies that made excessive profits or paid out executive bonuses while receiving JobKeeper payments returned the amount they received from the government.
Businesses listed in the group of 65 companies include Harvey Norman, Lendlease Group, Tabcorp, Seek and Michael Hill.
It comes as Greens leader Adam Bandt said the party sought to amend the upcoming federal budget to force the repayment of JobKeeper subsidies from companies.
“It’s not enough to just ask them to pay back JobKeeper, Parliament has to make them do it,” Mr Bandt said.
“Simply appealing to these billionaires’ better nature won’t work, because they don’t have one.
“We will be naming and shaming these corporations with debt collection notices in the coming weeks.”
https://www.canberratimes.com.au/story/7234502/push-for-businesses-to-pay-back-jobkeeper-funds-could-reap-1-billion/
Do yourselves a massive favour and never walk into a Harvey Norman store, or visit their website for that matter. Doing so is asking to be ripped off by an complete so-and-so…
Quoll
Thanks to arsehole Howard. Australia was at the forefront of solar tech and one of the #$#@#! Rodent’s early moves was to stop funding renewables research. So within 2 years, Voom!, off to Japan,Germany,US and China went all the tech and scientists/engineers as there was no longer a future in solar here for them.
Scott: “Where has Scott Morrison disappeared to ?
Talking with Ray Hadley, who ends the friendly chat with, “Well done, we’re lucky to have you. Thanks so much.”
Good Morning
I see it’s uncomfortable for Labor partisan warriors. The Greens are back.
As I said on election night. The speech by Cassy O Connor reminded me of the Greens of the Franklin Dam and Gay Law Reform era. The political landscape was worse for them then.
Today the Greens are back they are not going away despite N’s WA fantasies.
I am hoping that the slight chance of the second independent gets up to not only give Labor power in Tasmania but also massively embarrass Morrison.
If as expected the Liberals do win that does not change the win for the Greens and the morale boost and confidence that gives the national party.
A lot of Tasmanians voted against the Liberals you must have a majority party in government campaign.
There is a warning to Labor partisans in that too.
I understand the marketing merit of finding a target to help hammer home a point. Gerry Harvey is certainly deserving of attention.
But this campaign is overly complicated and, well, misdirected. IMO, highlighting that big corps get plenty of tax payer assistance is a great way to sell your case for a fairer tax (and closing loopholes) of both the wealthy execs and companies (and shareholders). You know how it would go – ordinary mums and dads helped out Gerry during the pandemic, now pay your goddamn fair share of tax you uber rich fat cat.
And, we should be careful not to target too hard companies that actually hire Australians and have bricks and mortar assets in Australia.
Jobkeeper was indeed quite blunt and wasteful (and this bluntness went on way too long). But it is an uphill battle to attack something that was broadly popular.
West Coast Eagles team seems to have it fair share of white supremists, or does the hand sign mean something else for the team?
Morrison is a blatant liar. Gods work indeed.
You just can’t trust the Libs with ANYTHING !
https://www.news.com.au/finance/economy/federal-budget/more-than-half-of-aussie-families-wont-benefit-from-pms-new-childcard-scheme/news-story/4a3a3a13e61be17380bc41647dece7a4
Commentator on ABC says it will do for an election promise. But does it match Labor’s policy?
SK
It’s not just Harvey Norman that gets targeted. It’s a consistent attack on the rich. Be that Google Murdoch or Harvey Norman.
Fixed it. You’d think after all his other promises of help they’d know it by now.
Fixed it. You’d think after all his other promises of help they’d know it by now.
guytaur
‘ The Greens are back.’
Where had they gone?