I had a piece yesterday on Campbell Newman’s break with the Liberal National Party and plans to run for the Senate in Crikey, which I believe has its paywall down for a limited time only. The upshot is that Newman’s anti-lockdown message may struggle to gain traction in a state that hasn’t had many of them; that he is unlikely to benefit the conservative cause even if he wins; and that his presence on the ballot paper could even contribute to a seat currently held by the Liberal National Party (specifically Amanda Stoker) or Pauline Hanson instead going to Labor or the Greens.
The article includes a reference to a poll conducted by Ipsos in June from a sample of 500 Queensland respondents for conservative podcast host Damian Coory, who published approval ratings for state political figures among its small sample of 173 LNP voters. Newman was credited with an approval rating of nearly 60%, substantially higher than any of his four successors as party leader, which may have encouraged him in his present course. Newman has also maintained high name recognition, with only around 20% of respondents uncommitted, compared with around 40% for Lawrence Springborg and Deb Frecklington and 60% for David Crisafulli, who replaced Frecklington after the election defeat in October.
Rightly or wrongly, some media accounts have tied Newman’s abandonment of the LNP to a crisis in the party that was laid bare by Saturday’s Stretton by-election, which delivered it an unimpressive swing of 1.6%. My live results display for the by-election continues to be updated here, if on a somewhat irregular basis. The Electoral Commission of Queensland helpfully publishes preference flows by candidate, which may be of some interest: these show that preferences of the Informed Medical Options Party broke 60-40 to the LNP, while the Greens went 82-18 to Labor and Animal Justice went 56-44.
Elsewhere, Antony Green offers his estimated new margins for the finalised federal redistribution of Victoria.
4 weeks more of lockdown in greater Sydney. 177 new cases in NSW. 46 in the community.
GoldenSmaug at 10:54 am
The Morrison government could keep ICACs and RCs at work for a decade
Gladys is pinning everything on Kerry Chant’s advice.
Goodness 56 in ICU
At some stage Gladys will have more of Sydney in LGA lockdown than not… so why the hell wait.. put all of Sydney in hard lockdown.. the longer she waits the longer it will take to get out of this mess.
Victoria – that looks bad and it is, but remember that NSW has about 1200 ICU beds in total. If we were on rest-of-the-world levels, our ICUs would be overwhelmed. It’s still a drop in the ocean compared to our northern neighbours.
Good Morning
AL
I think Labor has made a mistake abandoning progressive taxation. I am disappointed in Labor. I am not surprised the Greens are talking about it big time. They have already gone with tax the billionaires. Nailed their colours to the mast.
I support the Greens on this one. Long term they will likely be correct. It’s a principled policy like Medicare with equity at the core of its concept.
Fighting an election campaign keeping it Labor has managed to do for over 50 years.
We have one of the worst governments in our history and a pandemic showing why fairness and equity is important.
So I think it’s a mistake to abandon such policy today.
I know Labor is not going to change because of this post for this election. I am hoping at some time in the near future Labor will realise it’s mistake.
In the meantime Labor people will have to suffer because they have dumped a policy principle that was true Labor values as the Greens make the most of it.
All these new restrictions were eminently enforceable 5 weeks ago.
46 fully out in the community, 22 in the community for part of the time and a whopping 62 still under investigation.
Rex:
Political communication is a very tricky art. You are trying to explain some very complicated subjects to people who typically are not experts in that field (it’s got nothing to do with the voters’ intelligence, just that most people arn’t economists or climate scientists or health professionals or whatever), while everyone and their dog is doing their best to distort, exaggerate, and tear down your proposals.
On top of that, it’s never just about salesmanship. You also need a product you can actually sell.
I would love to see some of the armchair experts here front up a press conference or town hall and try to successfully sell some of these policies.
ItzaDream @ #809 Wednesday, July 28th, 2021 – 11:08 am
They luckily have what Victoria didn’t have last year – vaccine.
BK @ #810 Wednesday, July 28th, 2021 – 11:09 am
Contact tracers overwhelmed ..?
The greens and their billionaires.
Listening to the dopey greens you would think there were thousands of billionaires but what the dopey greens don’t get is they were not impacted by the ALP’s franking credit policy or negative gearing policy.
GT:
They haven’t done anything of the sort. They’ve abandoned their opposition to this particular suite of tax cuts that have already been legislated.
Have a sense of perspective.
Contact tracers overwhelmed ..?
____
It would appear so, Rex.
Asha says:
Wednesday, July 28, 2021 at 11:09 am
I would love to see some of the armchair experts here front up a press conference or town hall and try to successfully sell some of these policies.
Agree .. but don’t forget that in most cases these politicians have been doing it most of their professional lives… so they should be expert at it
The Greens policies include:
1. Disarming the ADF
2. Killing off mining.
3. Killing of the poultry industry.
4. Gutting irrigation production.
5. Locking up large new areas of the bush from production.
6. Killing off the timber industry.
7. Killing off rodeos.
8. Getting rid of glyphosate and with that, much production.
9. Killing off the cotton industry.
10. Killing off the almond industry.
11. Killing off live export trade.
12. Getting rid of GMOS, gutting Australian export competitiveness.
13. Killing of the wool industry.
14. Killing off horse racing.
15. Killing off greyhound racing.
Asha @ #811 Wednesday, July 28th, 2021 – 11:09 am
The pool of union hacks they draw from clearly is pretty much bone dry are far as elite communicators go.
The unions’ hold on power is a drag on the Labor vote.
Somehow, a recruitment drive to install social progressives outside of the unions, is needed.
Rex Douglas @ #812 Wednesday, July 28th, 2021 – 11:10 am
Yes, too true. And it’s like finally some ‘get your shit together’ switch has been flicked, probably marked by an end to cabinet in-fighting, and the stark evidence that hubris actually help. Duh.
*doesn’t* help
NSW man shows no remorse over Brisbane COVID-19 scare after escaping Sydney lockdown
https://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/national/queensland/nsw-man-shows-no-remorse-over-brisbane-covid-19-scare-after-escaping-sydney-lockdown-20210728-p58djs.html
Sydney tradesman George Thompson sparked Queensland COVID alert after border breach with flight attendant
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-07-28/queensland-coronavirus-george-thompson-fined-border-breach/100325698
AL
https://www.macrobusiness.com.au/2021/05/does-labor-even-support-progressive-taxation/
The Greens get the votes of people who don’t care about money or at least don’t regard it as the most important thing in life – about 10% of the voters. Labor needs to attract votes from the other 90%.
Australia still has a progressive tax system.
The Greens want to introduce a UBI.
The Greens want to reduce wild caught fish catch.
Would a UBI apply even to those who are on a million a year?
While a liveable basic income is an admirable idea, those who don’t need it should have to fend for themselves.
high % of ITU ventilated
22 / 56
not unexpected
The trend of the proportion in isolation is not pretty. Down to 27% today.
Guytaur:
You’ll forgive me if I take the opinions of a person who claims that Labor lost the 2019 election because they didn’t “adopt genuine working-class policies while becoming more woke” with a grain of salt.
@AdamBandt tweets
This is the end of progressive taxation in Australia.
With Labor backing the Liberals’ $184bn trickle-down nightmare, Gough Whitlam must be rolling in his grave.
https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/stage-3-tax-cuts-to-cost-184-billion-as-decade-of-deficits-looms-20210727-p58dd1.html
Universal means universal. It eliminates the interminable shifting of thresholds and politics therein. It isn’t difficult to recoup it, and a lot more, thank you very much, from high income earners
The Greens want to weaken terrorism laws.
The Greens want to reduce non-lethal methods of control currently available to police.
The Greens want customary law to be taken into account. They are unclear as to whether this should include: promised marriages, leg spearing, exile or other customary laws.
Cameron C
Yep the Greens are happy to support handouts when it suits.
Asha Lau
Green stooge will tell you that his beloved Biden has turned the world woke.
I understand every life is precious to their family and friends but look at the number of deaths when compared to number of tests, number of positive cases and when compared to deaths to first wave. They are less (11) when compared against all those parameters.
9 out of 11 deaths are in their 70s, 80s and 90s. One in 50s (recent migrant) and a foreign student in 30s.
Could this be the reason why Gladys is not as unpopular as Morrison.?
‘@AdamBandt tweets
This is the end of progressive taxation in Australia. ‘
_______________________________
This is a blatant Greens lie.
Green stooge and Adam Bandt don’t know how the tax system works.
Mexicanbeemer at 11:26 am
Well of course not. The people running the place would have been among the easiest to directly tax. They and their wealthy mates wouldn’t make rules that ‘disadvantaged’ them would they ? Not that the technology of the time would have been up to the task.
Poroti
The Romans didn’t charge tax to any resident of Rome but they made up for it by taxing other parts of the empire and through trade.
I’m not saying we should go Roman because there are many reasons to charge tax but its interesting how successful they were.
According the Bludgertrack Labor has picked up 4% on their Primary and 3.5% on TPP since the last Election.
So the change of Leadership team and the jettisoning of non vote winning policies has clearly worked to Labor’s advantage so far.
There’s a way to go. But Labor can be heartened by the current situation and the good prospects for Winning the next election.
hazza4257 @ #761 Wednesday, July 28th, 2021 – 10:16 am
That’s a really good question. The only reason you stockpile anything is because you’ll need it later. Clearly if there’s a stockpile of something then it’s not needed now.
But these vaccines require two doses to be “fully vaccinated”. Perhaps the stockpile isn’t really a stockpile at all, just the second half of the 2-jab vaccine, which if you give as a first jab means you don’t have enough to get people fully vaccinated, but which you might do anyway in certain scenarios as a public health effort, or if you think your supply of second jabs can be comfortably replenished in time, and so on.
Like most things so far in this pandemic, it’s complicated. Did Aly perhaps ask poor questions? Or was the general merely out of his depth?
Self justification by spruiking what didn’t happen doesn’t explain why the more than could have been done wasn’t.
Greensborough Growler @ #842 Wednesday, July 28th, 2021 – 11:36 am
You left out the bit about people waking up to Morrison’s inadequacies.
Before the dismissal, Gough Whitlam was loathed by many in the left for his efforts to modernise the ALP and abandon the sacred cows that had kept them in opposition for so long.
Were Poll Bludger a thing in the 60s and 70s, we’d likely hear much the same arguments being made about things like the White Australia policy, funding for private schools, taking the Victorian branch back from the Hartley faction, and the Whitlam government’s efforts to combat the financial crises of the early 70s.
Bandt needs to study up on his history.
I think the Roman tax system was far more complicated than that. Of course it changed during the course of the Republic and the Empire. I don’t know the details of it all, but I do recall that Augustus implemented an inheritance tax, and that this applied to people living in Rome too. It was in fact aimed at the elites.
We need to be careful not to confuse apples with oranges.
Wealthy Romans were expected to be philanthropic. This could reach massive proportions.
Some emperors ran a little scam where wealthy Romans were ‘convicted’ of something and their property was then confiscated.
Taxation was outsourced by way of tax farming. Inter alia this rendered large parts of Sicily a wasteland as the inhabitants became unable to make a living.
Greg Jericho savages Labor …
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/jul/27/labors-capitulation-on-tax-cuts-shows-the-price-it-will-pay-to-win-power
As he concludes – “Madness”.
The comments on this article are also interesting – very negative for Labor, as one might expect. And most don’t seem to think this backflip will achieve anything anyway, since those who will benefit from it don’t vote Labor anyway.
One comment sums it up nicely … “Stand for nothing, fall for anything.”
Whatever else the stockpile is (or isn’t), its presence must underline uncertainty of supply.
Half a century ago
.
Dave Scott was not about to pass by an interesting rock without stopping. It was July 31, 1971, and he and Jim Irwin, his fellow Apollo 15 astronaut, were the first people to drive on the moon. After a 6-hour inaugural jaunt in the new lunar rover, the two were heading back to their lander, the Falcon, when Mr. Scott made an unscheduled pit stop.
West of a crater called Rhysling, Mr. Scott scrambled out of the rover and quickly picked up a black lava rock, full of holes formed by escaping gas. Mr. Scott and Mr. Irwin had been trained in geology and knew the specimen, a vesicular rock, would be valuable to scientists on Earth. They also knew that if they asked for permission to stop and get it, clock-watching mission managers would say no. So Mr. Scott made up a story that they stopped the rover because he was fidgeting with his seatbelt. The sample was discovered when the astronauts returned to Earth, Mr. Scott described what he’d done, and “Seatbelt Rock” became one of the most prized geologic finds from Apollo 15.
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/27/science/lunar-rover-apollo-nasa.html?action=click&module=Well&pgtype=Homepage§ion=Science