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.
meher baba says:
Wednesday, July 28, 2021 at 4:00 pm
‘
… war is not a public relations campaign.’
_________________________
Whatever else it is or is not, it is definitely and always a public relations campaign.
Recon
The Taliban had Osama under virtual house arrest in the months before the ‘crusade’. They even offered to hand him over* if the US showed them evidence bin Laden was involved in 9/11. Unless the guest does something norty Pashtuns are very big on protecting guests at all costs. Hence the request for evidence.True story. Anyway I guess ‘we’ wanted war more than we wanted ‘Osama’
*To Qatar or the UAE or some such .
Justice Jagot’s decision re the suppression of the ABC’s defence in the Christian Porter v ABC judgment will be handed down at 9.30am this Friday, July 30. A live feed will be available to the public.
MB
Sun Tzu might disagree with that.
boerwar 1 at 4:03 pm
The pinnacle of PR campaigns , before, after and during.
Poroti
The evidence was pretty clear because we all saw 9/11.
The Taliban should have handed Osama over.
What worries me about BRS and his view of himself as a “crusader” is that it indicates he is at best … ummm … unbalanced …. and at worst has a dangerously distorted view of both himself and his mission. He should probably not be serving in our military in any capacity at all.
The 4th Crusade was a mercenary rabble…
Fourth Crusade
Part of the Crusades
ConquestOfConstantinopleByTheCrusadersIn1204.jpg
Conquest of Constantinople by the Crusaders in 1204
Date 1202–1204
Location
Balkans, Anatolia
Result
Partition of the Byzantine Empire
The establishment of the Latin Empire and other crusader states by the Crusaders
Formation of Byzantine Greek rump states
The Empire of Nicaea in western Anatolia
The Despotate of Epirus in Epirus
The Empire of Trebizond in the Pontus and southern Crimea
Belligerents
Crusaders from:
France
County of Champagne
County of Blois
Duchy of Burgundy
County of Flanders
Holy Roman Empire
March of Montferrat
County of Hainaut
Republic of Venice
In Europe:
Byzantine Empire
Kingdom of Hungary
Holy Land:
Ayyubid Sultanate
Commanders and leaders
Boniface of Montferrat
Enrico Dandolo
Theobald III of Champagne
Balduin of Flanders
Louis of Blois
Hugh IV of Saint-Pol
Conrad of Halberstadt
Martin of Pairis
Alexios IV Angelos Executed
Alexios III Angelos
Alexios V Doukas Executed
Al-Adil
Strength
4-5,000 knights
8,000 infantry
300 siege weapons
10,000 sailors and marines
60 war galleys
100 horse transports
50 troop transports
10,000 Byzantine infantry
5,000 Varangians
20 war galleys
In late 1202, financial issues led to the Crusader army conducting the siege of Zara, sacking the Catholic city of Zara (Zadar) on the Adriatic Sea, which was then brought under Venetian control. When the Pope heard of this, he excommunicated the Crusader army. In January 1203, en route to Jerusalem, the Crusader leadership entered into an agreement with the Byzantine prince Alexios Angelos to divert the Crusade to Constantinople and restore his deposed father Isaac II Angelos as emperor. The intent of the Crusaders was then to continue to Jerusalem with promised Byzantine financial and military aid. On 23 June 1203, the main Crusader army reached Constantinople, while other contingents (perhaps a majority of all crusaders) continued to Acre.
In August 1203, following the siege of Constantinople, Alexios was crowned co-emperor. However, in January 1204 he was deposed by a popular uprising. The Crusaders were no longer able to receive their promised payments from Alexios. Following the murder of Alexios on 8 February, the Crusaders decided on the outright conquest of the city. In April 1204, they captured and plundered the city’s enormous wealth. Only a handful of the Crusaders continued to the Holy Land thereafter.
Player Onesays:
Wednesday, July 28, 2021 at 4:08 pm
What worries me about BRS and his view of himself as a “crusader” is that it indicates he is at best … ummm … unbalanced …. and at worst has a dangerously distorted view of both himself and his mission. He should probably not be serving in our military in any capacity at all.
_________
No doubt, but soldiers do silly things. I blame his superior commanders for allowing him to do it.
meher baba
This is a weak comparison. The goals and outcomes for a war will be decided by … politicians? generals? the public? In other words, war is not any specific thing, and it’s also not not (yes, double negative) any specific thing. It depends on the set of outcomes they (whoever they are) are trying to achieve.
The question is, what was *this* war about, and what effect (if any) does wearing that symbol have on the stated outcomes.
All of the above is simply your opinion on what the war was about, and I doubt wearing that symbol would have had any effect with respect to the enemy’s capabilities. It may, though, have an effect on outcomes as desired by other people.
Ooops! A bit overzealous with the cut and paste…
meher baba –
You’re just being insulting and ridiculous now.
Right, so what about BRS then? If he were a “quietist, moderate religious person” he should not bring his religious view into his thinking about politics and history right? So by your logic we should have suspicions about how extreme his views might be?
War may or may not be – there are certainly heavy PR/propaganda aspects to all war, but setting that aside.
Peace keeping, trying to create a culture shift, very much is a PR campaign. Hearts and minds and all that. The ADF, including BRS, were representatives of the Australian government and Australian people, and it wasn’t BRS’ place to decide what was or was not an appropriate “spin” to put on their activities. We demand our soldiers adhere to certain levels of professionalism, integrity and adherence to the ideals of our country and our defence forces. Wearing a crusader medal violates basically all of that if we claim to be a secular country acting in some capacity as promoting peace, prosperity, tolerance etc. The fact that some evil dudes were trying to disrupt all that is no excuse for not doing the job without injecting non-sanctioned culture war shit into the mix.
There seems to be a direct correlation at the moment between a gold medal win and Morrison suddenly appearing from nowhere to announce something.
Presumably he wants people to make this connection:
gold medal -> Morrison announcement -> people love Morrison.
Well it’s an interesting debate anyway. Obviously there are things that are out-and-out war crimes. But, assuming those actions are ruled out, surely war needs to be no holds barred fight to the death between combatants.
It’s not as if Al Qaeda and the Taliban are noble opponents: they had no qualms about performing acts of aggression against non-combatants both at home and abroad. Indeed, Islamists are arguably a bunch of cowards who greatly prefer to attack civilians than armed opponents. I’m struck by the suggestion that Pashtuns are bound to be honourable towards their guests and were therefore unable to hand over OBL to the US. Personally, I’d be more impressed by the Taliban displaying a sense of honour towards women and minority groups such as the Ahmadiyya.
How respectful should we expect our soldiers to be towards the likes of the Taliban and Al Qaeda?
Jackol: “Right, so what about BRS then? If he were a “quietist, moderate religious person” he should not bring his religious view into his thinking about politics and history right? So by your logic we should have suspicions about how extreme his views might be?”
Is he religious? I haven’t heard that he is.
When the Australian swimming relay team at the 2000 Olympics played air guitar at the US team, were they demonstrating that they like playing air guitar? Or were they just trying to mess with the minds of their opponents?
‘sprocket_ says:
Wednesday, July 28, 2021 at 4:10 pm
Ooops! A bit overzealous with the cut and paste…’
__________________________
On a bit of a crusade, are you?
Smokocchio now has a roadmap according to the Oz
Morrison unveils vaccine roadmap to Christmas
PM says all Australians will have had chance to have shots by year end; NSW Premier reveals Greater Sydney remains locked down with shopping limited and more LGAs designated hotspots.
meher baba –
pathetic response.
Go to the substance or go home.
The first casualty of war is the truth; big lies don’t come cheap.
poroti
Interesting article but doesn’t really attempt to answer the question.
Its interesting that a lot of back of envelope calculations regarding the threshold of vaccine induced herd immunity seem to assume that the rate at which a vaccine reduces re-transmission is the same as its efficacy against symptomatic illness.
I think there is an argument that rate of reduction is higher based on the way it reduces viral load. But I can’t find enough leads on this.
I would assume that there is now enough real world data for the modellers to make an inferrence.
Still intrigued by the difference between US and UK. In the US if you die then you’re 99 percent likely to be non vaccinate. In the UK, vaccinated people make up a higher proportiin of deaths. Why?
guytaur says:
Wednesday, July 28, 2021 at 11:07 am
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.
The farther away from Green positions that Labor set themselves the more likely are they to win the election.
Labor can win only as long as they are not associated with the Greens in the minds of voters. The Greens will do their very best to conflate their policies with Labor’s. Hopefully they will fail and Labor will win.
Mexicanbeeme at 4:07 pm
If it was cut and dry that Osama did it then there would have been no probs providing some evidence. It was a reasonable request as it provided an excuse for the Taliban to break their strong cultural rules. It would have been no sweat* but the US chose not to take such an easy option and chose war and 20years later here we are.
* Especially as the Taliban had been getting increasingly pissed off with him for a while even before 9/11. He was attracting unwanted attention.
IMO the Greens should spend more effort in selling three things:
1. Bandt’s connection with the bush by way of ICE utes.
2. Their billionaire’s tax.
3. New and improved spears for the ADF.
Name one single good useful thing ever achieved by the Taliban.
A question of equity. Why is Sydney being treated better than SA and Vic?
Frydenberg using his media training to present a brick wall against Karvelas.
Cud Chewer
Perhaps the US-UK differences arise, in part, from the 2 health care systems. There wold be shit loads in the US unable to afford the sort of medical care that even the poorest folk can get in the UK courtesy of the NHS.
One for MB:
$500,000,000. Per annum.
https://reason.com/2016/10/10/the-pentagon-accounts-for-more-than-half/
‘lizzie says:
Wednesday, July 28, 2021 at 4:26 pm
A question of inequity. Why is Sydney being treated better than SA and Vic?’
Fixed.
Is there any better moment in the day when the power comes back on after 16 hours?
Recon @ #1059 Wednesday, July 28th, 2021 – 4:09 pm
Yup. That they knew how bad it was can be inferred from the fact that they had the photo retouched to try and hide it.
Sounds like Morrison wants to copy Boris by declaring “freedom day” on 25 December. Luckily the Premiers and Chief Ministers have the final say here.
poroti
I’m not sure how to connect that..
“Sounds like Morrison wants to copy Boris by declaring “freedom day” on 25 December. Luckily the Premiers and Chief Ministers have the final say here.”
Surely Morrison has learnt by now not to set dates for anything. He’s failed to meet a single target for anything since this pandemic began.
Jackol: “Go to the substance or go home.”
Your post raised quite a few issues, so I’m not exactly sure what you mean by “the substance”.
Perhaps you know more about it than me, but I’m far from certain where the leadership of the SAS draws a line in terms what they will sanction from their troops and what they won’t: my understanding is that they tend to operate at the edge, so perhaps BRS wearing a crusader cross was seen as no big deal. It is arguable that the SAS has a bit of a culture problem, although that idea does raise the question of what sort of culture a unit like the SAS should have.
Recon’s reference to the KKK earlier reminded me of Mississippi Burning: a movie which, like more than a few Hollywood classics, raised some really interesting moral questions. Two FBI agents – played by Willem Dafoe and the peerless Gene Hackman – are getting nowhere in their investigations of murders carried out by the KKK. Until Hackman decides that it’s time to start engaging in some serious Sweeney-style police brutality. After which Dafoe says to him “Don’t drag me into your gutter Mr Anderson.”
And Hackman responds with the memorable line: “These people are crawling out of the sewer Mr Ward! Maybe the gutter’s where we outta be!”
I’m sure many of you have seen this movie. Do any of you recall thinking: “Oh my god, Hackman is abusing the human rights of those Klan guys. How outrageous! I won’t watch another minute of this movie.” I very much doubt it.
I can’t help drawing some sort of parallel in my mind between the Islamists and the KKK. Which is why I was somewhat taken aback by Recon’s earlier comment.
Mystery case in Melbourne….
Lizzie
“A question of equity. Why is Sydney being treated better than SA and Vic?
Frydenberg using his media training to present a brick wall against Karvelas.”
Even in terms of his own self-interest as a Melbourne based MP, I would have thought Frydenberg would have had a better answer prepared for that one. It was an obvious question he was going to get after Melbourne businesses got no financial assistance in lockdown just a few weeks ago.
None of the possible interpretations are very flattering for Josh:
– He thinks his margin is unassailable?
– He just doesn’t give a damn about Melbourne residents?
– He can’t be bothered preparing for interviews?
– Scomo has him under the thumb and Josh has no real power?
With his puerile stuff about the Olympic gold medals today, Morrison has reduced himself to the level of a third rate sideshow spruiker.
Cud Chewer
Something along the lines that uninsured people in the US may also be less likely to have been vaccinated. What people get in the UK for free re treatment/hospital may well be unaffordable for them. Just a guess. The difference is so stark . I hope someone comes up with an explanation why.
BW: “One for MB:
$500,000,000. Per annum.
https://reason.com/2016/10/10/the-pentagon-accounts-for-more-than-half/”
I think the at best mediocre results they get for all the money they spend actually helps to prove my point. Dating back to the “win hearts and minds” nonsense of the Vietnam War, I think it is absolutely pointless for any military fighting a war to try to represent itself as “nice guys.”
A war is about identifying your enemies and defeating them. You should have very strong grounds for your decision to identify any nation or group of insurgent as your enemies, but, having done so, why on earth would you want to be apologetic about what you have to do (within the acceptable rules of war) about getting the job done? It’s not as if our enemies in Afghanistan were anything other than ruthless and unapologetic.
The best way to win hearts and minds is to win the war as quickly as possible and then to win the peace, by doing all that you can to make the future lives of the affected civilians as good as you can. That’s what the US and its allies haven’t been very successful at doing in recent wars: particularly the second war with Iraq. Some good work was done in Afghanistan, but now the US and Australia and other allies have simply walked away and left the poor populace with the job of trying to fight off the brutal tyranny of the Taliban. No amount of PR expenditure can gloss over that outcome.
Socrates
It’s either (1) or (4).
I find Frydenberg’s attitude unbelievable. There’s an arrogance combined with a stubborn refusal to change. Well done Karvelas for trying to batter him down.
‘meher baba says:
Wednesday, July 28, 2021 at 4:50 pm
BW: “One for MB:
$500,000,000. Per annum.
https://reason.com/2016/10/10/the-pentagon-accounts-for-more-than-half/”
I think the at best mediocre results they get for all the money they spend actually helps to prove my point.
…’
_____________________________________
Double somersault from the high board.
The dark history of Ben Roberts-Smith’s hidden Crusader patch
But any embarrassment that defense may have about the image makes sense. Crusaders Crusaders and other medieval iconography have a long history in the far right circle. White supremacists worship the Middle Ages and view the Crusaders as a glorious ethnic conflict. Send amazing messages to wear Australian soldiers while deployed in Islamic countries.
https://eminetra.com.au/the-dark-history-of-ben-roberts-smiths-hidden-crusader-patch/204541/
https://www.crikey.com.au/2021/07/27/the-dark-history-of-ben-roberts-smiths-hidden-crusader-patch/
BRS motivation will count against him, at least with the rational public.. naturally the judge will ignore it & stick to the facts.
lizzie
Lucky you, the power went out.
All arvo we’ve been subjected to boys and their war game toys. We’ve been entertained with the wooden/plastic soldiers who have been shifted all over the map by the male PB contingent (in the safety of their lockdown homes). And, lol, they still can’t agree.
My very minuscule opinion on what Labor have done regarding policies, drop them now and implement once in government. It’s way easier to explain and take people along once you have the reins. Or do as the fibs do, deny all knowledge and implement anyway even when presented with audio visual evidence. Deny, deny, deny they ever had such a program.
Didn’t Scott Morrison promise something else by Christmas last year? I think all the nation ended up with was a lump of coal from Santa Scott, again, instead of Aussies Home by Xmas.
So, how much store to put in the latest temptation? Don’t bet on it.
‘Bert says:
Wednesday, July 28, 2021 at 4:54 pm
My very minuscule opinion on what Labor have done regarding policies, drop them now and implement once in government.
…’
__________________
SOP for the Coalition. Of course this does leave Labor open to being tarred with the Greens brush.
kezza2
I spent the time trying to keep my aquarium fish warm and my freezer contents cold. My occasional venture into PB provided no distraction. 🙂
meher baba
“It is arguable that the SAS has a bit of a culture problem”
It is arguable only by a few, meher baba. Like yourself. And Dutton.
As for the sense of entitlement that you have to consider yourself in a position to tell a moderate muslim what to think about a person who wore a Templar cross on a military campaign in Afghanistan, that is currently under investigation by the AFP for war crimes, I now understand why you think the SAS “bit of a culture problem” is arguable.
Disgusting.
kezza2,
You would have been better entertained watching the Olympics. 😐
meher baba @ #1087 Wednesday, July 28th, 2021 – 4:50 pm
A war is about defending yourself from attack. Actual, non-hypothetical, attack.
Because when you start invading nations and overthrowing regimes that haven’t attacked you, or even tried to attack you, you’re not waging war for a justifiable purpose.
Well yes, we attacked them. Purely because they wouldn’t hand over one person who did attack the US. They were supposed to have just been cool with that?