The latest fortnightly federal voting intention poll from Roy Morgan finds the series continuing to bounce around within a range of 52.5-47.5 to 54.5-45.5 in favour of Labor, as it has through seven polls since July. The result this time is 53-47, in from 54-46 last fortnight, from primary votes of Coalition 37.5% (up one-and-a-half points), Labor 36% (steady), Greens 11.5% (down one) and One Nation 3% (down half).
The state two-party breakdowns, which range from respectable sub-samples in the case of the large states to a tiny one in the case of Tasmania, have Labor leading 53.5-46.5 in New South Wales (unchanged on the last poll, a swing of about 5.5%), 56-44 in Victoria (unchanged, a swing of about 3%), 55-45 in Western Australia (out from 54.5-45.5, a swing of about 10.5%), 54.5-45.5 in South Australia (in from 58.5-41.5, a swing of around 4%) and 53-47 in Tasmania (out from 52-48, a swing to the Liberals of about 3%). In Queensland, the Coalition is credited with a lead of 55-45 (out from 52.5-47.5, a swing to Labor of about 3.5%). The poll was conducted over the past two weekends from a sample of 2794.
Also of note, particularly in relation to state politics in New South Wales:
• There is now a fourth by-election on the way, following yesterday’s announcement by Holsworthy MP Melanie Gibbons that she will seek preselection for the federal seat of Hughes, where former Liberal incumbent Craig Kelly has defected to Clive Palmer’s United Australia Party. Holsworthy is far the most marginal of the four seats that will be vacated, having been retained by Gibbons in 2019 by 3.2%. However, the Sydney Morning Herald reports that Labor leader Chris Minns has said Labor “needs to consider whether to run in Holsworthy”, having “already suggested to his shadow cabinet that they should not run a candidate in Monaro or Bega”.
• The Sydney Morning Herald further reports that Willoughby mayor Gail Giles-Gidney is the front-runner for Liberal preselection in Gladys Berejiklian’s particularly safe seat of Willoughby. Based on the comments from Chris Minns noted above, it can presumably be taken as read that Labor will not run.
• As for Melanie Gibbons’ hopes for Hughes, both the Sydney Morning Herald and Daily Telegraph today report a view among senior Liberals that she would, in the words of the latter, “face difficulty securing preselection in a vote of party members”.
• If my thoughts on the federal election landscape are of interest to you, I have lately been providing material to CGM Communications’ state-by-state analyses, which have recently covered New South Wales and Victoria, and was interrogated for an election preview that aired on Nine News over the weekend.
Australian Mercantile Association?
Sceptic @ Thursday, October 14, 2021 at 9:04 pm
Very high unsure. But the 50% increased support of a Federal ICAC as a result of the GB situation in the 55+ cohort is surprisingly high. The cut is low however. 65+ would be nice to see.
State response comparing NSW and Vic from mid Sept to mid Oct is interesting.
Maybe Uhlmann was right.
You say mercantile, I say mercenary!
You say neither, I say neither!
Mercantile! Mercenary!
Neither! Neither!
Let’s call the whole thing off 🙂
Jaeger
The ABC is in a pretty sad state isn’t it..
Taylormade @ Thursday, October 14, 2021 at 9:11 pm
“Maybe Uhlmann was right”
Is this one of the two times? Stopped clocks cannot waste being right on any old thing 🙂
Taylormade @ #452 Thursday, October 14th, 2021 – 9:11 pm
So maybe NSW shouldn’t have seeded the virus into Victoria then via slack enforcement of its almost non-existent rules?
More Labor voters than Greens voters believe in the need for for a federal ICAC. 🙂
The AMA guy isn’t as bad if you read it in context. And he taught me this
“ And of course, 7 per cent of males can’t have sex [after getting COVID-19], they have erectile dysfunction, that’s not age-related, that’s young men.”
I’d never heard that before. Dunno how true it is.
Diogenes @ #246 Thursday, October 14th, 2021 – 9:01 pm
One way or another, you’ll need yer Pfizer. (Wink.) But yes, the AMA bloke was misrepresented, slightly, with a misleading headline and opening paragraphs. His actual point has merit. Covid will get you, and time is running out to save yourself. Get vaccinated.
As if to shamelessly reinforce just how pathetically sold out both Lib and Labor are to gambling interests, on the same day some actually good ABC investigation is published
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-10-14/how-the-gambling-industry-cashed-in-on-political-donations/100509026
in Tassie
Alex Johnston @swegen31
All Labor MPs (including David O’Byrne) vote with the government on the second reading of its gaming bill. The legislation keeps pokies in pubs and clubs for at least another 20 years. #politas
Kristie Johnston MP @KrisJJohnston
Government & Labor vote to reject $1 max bet limits & slow spin speed despite overwhelming plea from community sector to support it. Shame on them. #politas
Alice Giblin @giblinite
#politas celebrates #Mentalhealth week with a Bill that’ll inflict harm for generations.
Pokies cause and prey upon mental ill health. They destroy lives and livelihoods.
Handwringing won’t save lives. Nor will spin and lies.
Also seemingly reinforces, despite all the bleating of the PB Labor clique, just how gutless and craven Labor can be
Seems even after that, Labor will still sell itself for far cheaper than anyone could believe and deliver far more for private over public interests than anyone could imagine, and still lose
C@tmomma says:
Thursday, October 14, 2021 at 9:51 pm
More Labor voters than Greens voters believe in the need for for a federal ICAC.
Q given the spread in undecided by gender… do the Greens have more proportionately more support from women than Labor?
Coronavirus Lingers in Penis and Could Cause Impotence
By Dennis Thompson
HealthDay Reporter
THURSDAY, May 13, 2021 (HealthDay News) — Men now have one more compelling reason to get a COVID-19 vaccine — doctors suspect the new coronavirus could make it hard to perform in the bedroom.
Another eye watering reason for antivaxers to get vaxed
Rikali says:
Thursday, October 14, 2021 at 8:28 pm
I bet Rikali pines for the return of real Socialism untrammelled by inconvenient red tape leading to 100 million deaths under Stalin and Mao.
You plonker.
”
Jaegersays:
Thursday, October 14, 2021 at 9:08 pm
I never thought this quote would emerge from the mouth of an AMA spokesperson:
“We’re all going to get COVID, we have to keep our tourist industry going.”
Australian Mercantile Association?
”
As Abbott once said “Shit happens”
Quoll @ Thursday, October 14, 2021 at 10:19 pm
This is presented as an urgent and terrible problem. Do you also present a solution?
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/jan-6-bannon-subpoenas/2021/10/14/c6001fc8-2cf0-11ec-baf4-d7a4e075eb90_story.html
He should be right now sitting in jail for money laundering.
It should be interesting to watch the Liberals & Country Party unfold their aspirational Carbon Tax…
Sink or swim: why Barnaby Joyce has to accept net zero
One problem: Joyce has left it so late he will cop ridicule for a brazen backflip. That could be a gift to Pauline Hanson or Clive Palmer. More likely, however, is an outcome where Joyce gets a handsome deal without claiming a conversion. He can do this at the Nationals party room meeting this Sunday when he tells colleagues he has extracted his price. Then the policy could go to the Liberals in the full Coalition party room on Tuesday. Only then would it be safe to announce.
https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/sink-or-swim-why-barnaby-joyce-has-to-accept-net-zero-20211014-p59010.html
This one will be a massive gift for Labor…. It just needs to keep Albo away from it, they have much better communicators than him on this issue.
Edit. A Q for Beetrooter after plan for plan announced..
“ Is this a $100,$200 or $300 leg of lamb plan “
‘fess,
I’ve been watching the members of the Select Committee on CNN and MSNBC explain their thinking. They are not going to be patsies for the American Revolutionary Anarchists like Steve Bannon (I just learnt the other day that as well as Benito Mussolini, Bannon’s other hero is Lenin!).
Also, the one I want to see cooling the bone spurs in his heels in a jail cell, is Donald J.Trump.
Sceptic,
Chris Bowen is doing well as lead communicator on Climate Change, I reckon. His line to Scott Morrison, ‘This is a Solar Panel, don’t be afraid of it!’ was a killer diller.
Griff @ #466 Thursday, October 14th, 2021 – 11:55 pm
Greens can’t. 🙂
C@t:
Wouldn’t it be great if Republicans, esp MAGAers followed Trump’s advice and stayed home in 2022 and 2024?! 😆
Regional Liberals praise ‘upsides’ of climate action as some Nationals continue scare campaign
Federal Liberal MP Rowan Ramsey says ‘we have to face up to what the world is doing and … have an intelligent debate’
Sure after 20 years of doing SFA!
Labor needs to be you were a year late on vacation, still late on ICAC & 20 years late on Climate Change… just late on everything… Liberal & Country Party late on everything except Pork Barreling
‘fess,
I’m sitting back with the popcorn and waiting to see how he and the Repugs square that circle. Though he could change his mind tomorrow. He’s crazy like a fox that way.
I’m also looking forward to watching the seat of Flynn in Queensland 🙂
https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/sink-or-swim-why-barnaby-joyce-has-to-accept-net-zero-20211014-p59010.html#comments
Sceptic,
‘A day late and a dollar short’ is the line I’m hearing about Morrison, and his government but they are secondary. Morrison wants a presidential election. So make it all about him.
If Tasmanians wanted pokie reform, they would have voted Labor into government when that was Labor’s key policy.
They didn’t.
In a democracy, the people rule.
Which is why the Greens aren’t going to be in government any time soon, because they want to rule the people.
C@t
And that is something of a Catch-22.
https://www.theage.com.au/politics/victoria/pokies-jackpot-helps-fund-daniel-andrews-re-election-20200203-p53x7u.html
C@t:
I’m also watching those blue ribbon Liberal seats in Sydney that the indies have targeted.
Wisdom of hindsight of course but poker machines should never have been legalised.
Steve777 @ #480 Friday, October 15th, 2021 – 7:15 am
Whilst pokies have never been without their problems, they were probably less of a problem when you had to feed one coin at a time into them and before the advent of $1 & $2 coins and electronic pokies with multi line bets.
A woman I worked with used to take a half day flex on the Thursday payday.
It was not unusual for her to turn up the next day dishevelled and wearing the clothes from the day before.
bakunin
‘Victoria’s pokies and pubs lobby gave a record $761,000 to the Daniel Andrews-led ALP as part of a $1 million campaign to deny the Greens the balance of power at the state election last November.’
The language used in just this sentence shows how biased the reporting is.
‘deny the Greens the balance of power’ sort of suggests that the Greens are entitled to the balance of power and it was illegally stolen from them.
The Greens didn’t win enough seats. That may have been because of the evil machinations of donors to the Labor party or it might simply have been that not enough Victorians wanted to vote for them.
I don’t recall any anti Green advertising material from Labor during the campaign, so I would suggest that the donation helped ‘deny’ the Liberals more seats.
My husband had a short stint running bingo – it was a long term fundraiser for the school.
He did it purely out of charity (it would have been harder to find someone more anti gambling than he was).
The vast majority of the people at bingo saw gambling as a form of entertainment, and genuinely loved it. They didn’t expect to win. They put aside a certain amount of money each week, and when it was lost they stopped.
They told him that, to their mind, it was no different to going to the movies (and no one criticises that as a way of spending money). It cost about the same and gave them the equivalent hours of entertainment.
It’s not something I understand, but I also don’t understand why people play golf or parachute out of planes or go mountain climbing (and at least two of those are expensive and dangerous).
I have come to regard SOME of the attacks on pokies as class snobbery – it’s OK for me to do this expensive and pointless thing, even though it has risks, but it’s not OK for those people to do an expensive and pointless thing because of the risks.
(And, of course, the risks should be mitigated, just as they are for mountain climbing and parachuting and other ‘acceptable’ forms of entertainment).
Good morning Dawn Patrollers
David Crowe reckons that it’s “sink or swim” for Barnaby Joyce and he tell us that he must accept net zero.
https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/sink-or-swim-why-barnaby-joyce-has-to-accept-net-zero-20211014-p59010.html
“Australian business talks big on climate, but who’s walking the talk?”, asks Andrew Charlton. He points to a new analysis that shows three-quarters of Australian companies currently emit at a rate that would lead to temperature increases above 1.5 degrees. And more than a third have emission consistent with a pathway to dangerous levels of warming above 3 degrees.
https://www.smh.com.au/environment/climate-change/australian-business-talks-big-on-climate-but-who-s-walking-the-talk-20211014-p58zuc.html
Meanwhile, the ACTU’s Michelle O’Neill and the BCA’s Jennifer Westacott combine to write that jobs and trade will benefit if Australia acts on its wealth of clean energy resources. The say though, that doing this will require genuine and far-sighted political leadership. Over to you, Scott!
https://www.smh.com.au/national/jobs-trade-to-benefit-if-australia-acts-on-wealth-of-clean-energy-resources-20211013-p58zju.html
In The Australian we see that the Reserve Bank’s warning that climate-conscious global investors will “significantly divest” from Australia has received backing from Josh Frydenberg, Labor and billionaire iron ore miner Andrew Forrest, as the economic case builds for the Nationals to accept a 2050 net-zero emissions target.
https://www.theaustralian.com.au/nation/politics/warning-to-nationals-on-net-zero-failure/news-story/8c8917e4a7de4d058251043fcdd42f99
Phil Coorey says that Scott Morrison is not about to inflame the anti-immigration right while wrangling the Nationals to achieve the meaningful climate policy no Liberal leader has.
https://www.afr.com/politics/federal/pm-won-t-entertain-a-big-australia-on-cusp-of-net-zero-20211013-p58zrh
Rural Liberals are backing a move towards a net zero emissions target despite warnings from some within the federal Nationals that regional Australia would “pay the cost” of decarbonising the economy, write Sarah Martin and Adam Morton.
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2021/oct/15/regional-liberals-praise-upsides-of-climate-action-as-some-nationals-continue-scare-campaign
The editorial in the SMH implores Morrison to not outsource climate policy to the Nationals. Again, over to you, Scott!
https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/morrison-must-not-outsource-climate-policy-to-the-nationals-20211014-p5903h.html
Alan Finkel declares that blue or green, our future with hydrogen is bright. He says he is working with the federal government to help develop a domestic and global “guarantee of origin” scheme based on numbers, not colours. The existing colour code that refers to blue, green and other colours of hydrogen is emotive rather than focused on the only thing that counts – atmospheric emissions of carbon dioxide.
https://www.smh.com.au/environment/climate-change/blue-or-green-our-future-with-hydrogen-is-bright-20211014-p58zug.html
News Corp climate campaign pledged ‘positive stories’ only but it has also excluded any mea culpas, says Graham Readfearn.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/oct/14/news-corp-climate-campaign-pledged-positive-stories-only-also-excluded-any-mea-culpas
Not only does News Corp’s new climate change campaign come after years of spreading climate misinformation, it is also simply replacing its last fraud with another, argues Bronwyn Kelly.
https://johnmenadue.com/news-corps-climate-pivot-perpetrates-a-new-fraud-and-draws-us-closer-to-climate-catastrophe/
Shane Wright and Katina Curtis report that the Infrastructure Department was unable to tell the federal government whether its plans to spend almost $400 million on car parks at suburban railway stations had merit or could even be built just days before Prime Minister Scott Morrison signed off on the promises. Shameless!
https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/internal-documents-show-department-was-unsure-if-commuter-car-park-projects-had-merit-20211014-p58zwn.html
Losing one (Victorian) cabinet minister is unfortunate, but seven is just careless, says Annika Smethurst.
https://www.theage.com.au/politics/victoria/losing-one-cabinet-minister-is-unfortunate-but-seven-is-just-careless-20211014-p59042.html
Federal Labor MP Anthony Byrne has quit as deputy chair of Parliament’s powerful intelligence and security committee amid scrutiny over his admission of branch stacking during an anti-corruption inquiry.
https://www.theage.com.au/politics/federal/federal-labor-mp-who-helped-branch-stacking-investigation-quits-intelligence-committee-role-20211014-p59031.html
Anthony Albanese has diminished his own, and Labor’s, credibility on integrity issues by declining to act immediately against MP Anthony Byrne, who this week admitted to participating extensively in branch stacking, says Michelle Grattan.
https://theconversation.com/grattan-on-friday-anthony-albanese-needed-to-walk-the-talk-on-labor-integrity-issue-169957
Paul Starick tells us that senior Liberals have opened a new personal front to criticise Steven Marshall, urging him to curb late-night functions and a perceived growing arrogance fuelled by high public approval for his pandemic performance.
https://www.adelaidenow.com.au/news/south-australia/senior-liberals-caution-premier-to-curb-partying-and-claimed-arrogance/news-story/609005e40e6dc36bd27f364c19c85c9a
Experts are warning past failures at the voting booths with tax promises and a lack of courage will keep necessary reforms off the table at the 2022 election, write Shane Wright and Jennifer Duke in this continuation of their series.
https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/the-hardest-thing-you-can-do-why-there-s-little-progress-on-tax-reform-20211004-p58wwl.html
Shane Wright headlines this effort with, “From brandy to housing … tax reform beholden to vested interests”.
https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/from-brandy-to-housing-tax-reform-beholden-to-vested-interests-20211006-p58xlo.html
Nick Bonyhady writes that Labor will go to the next election vowing to address what it views as increasingly uncertain hours for part-time staff in an attempt to help workers, especially women, balance family and employment responsibilities.
https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/an-erosion-of-part-time-work-labor-opens-new-front-in-job-security-debate-20211014-p5901j.html
Tony Wright reckons our pandemic border wars reveal the state of our nationhood.
https://www.smh.com.au/national/pandemic-border-wars-reveal-the-state-of-our-nationhood-20211014-p59020.html
Just how insurance companies will price their premiums to account for the COVID-unvaccinated is a thorny issue, a bit like the decisions being made by companies about whether their staff should be jabbed or not, writes Elizabeth Knight.
https://www.smh.com.au/business/banking-and-finance/banks-play-vaccination-state-of-origin-while-insurers-sit-on-sidelines-20211014-p5902k.html
For epidemiologists advising politicians and debating control measures in the public arena: excess haste, over-simplification and exaggeration will lead us into dangerous waters, warns Ewan Cameron, himself an epidemiologist.
https://www.smh.com.au/national/beware-the-promise-of-easy-answers-when-it-comes-to-covid-20211014-p58zud.html
Blessed are the rich, for theirs are the taxes of the poor! Elite private schools gorged themselves on JobKeeper despite their profits, on top of Pandemic stimulus payments, and as well as trousering a bigger slice of the federal funding pie at the expense of public schools. Trevor Cobbold investigates the latest hand-outs which he brands as “Bratkeeper”.
https://www.michaelwest.com.au/bratkeeper-profitable-private-schools-purloin-jobkeeper-pandemic-payments-too/
Australian home prices will surge 22 per cent this year, economists at Westpac said, upgrading their forecast from a previous 18 per cent and warning it could force regulators to try to further rein in credit growth.
https://www.smh.com.au/business/banking-and-finance/house-prices-to-surge-by-22-per-cent-this-year-says-westpac-20211014-p5904h.html
Nick McKenzie tells us that a top security official has warned that 90 per cent of Australia’s organised crime groups are operating with relative impunity, as police say employees of the Australian arm of Dubai’s government air services company have been used to infiltrate Sydney airport and smuggle drugs.
https://www.smh.com.au/national/organised-crime-going-undetected-says-afp-as-australian-hits-us-most-wanted-list-20211014-p5903r.html
John Watkins, who chairs Catholic Health Australia, is pushing to stop NSW becoming the final state in the country to legalise euthanasia. Figures.
https://www.smh.com.au/politics/nsw/labor-elder-john-watkins-urges-mps-to-oppose-assisted-dying-bill-20211014-p59004.html
International borders are about to open, but these researchers explain how the plight of stranded Australians is not over.
https://theconversation.com/international-borders-are-about-to-open-but-our-research-shows-the-plight-of-stranded-australians-is-not-over-169646
Matt O’Sullivan reveals that the structural engineer who raised serious concerns about the risk of a Sydney apartment tower collapsing said his fears were amplified by key structural documents for the building being withheld for 18 months.
https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/key-safety-documents-withheld-from-apartment-building-engineer-says-20211014-p58zvw.html
The prices of oil, gas and coal have skyrocketed through this year to levels not seen for years. The reasons why are complex, explains Stephen Bartholomeusz.
https://www.smh.com.au/business/markets/energy-crisis-puzzle-why-fossil-fuel-prices-are-surging-20211014-p58zyy.html
Big tobacco got caught in a lie by Congress. Now it’s the oil industry’s turn, opines Mark Hertsgaard.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/oct/14/congress-hearing-oil-exxon-bp-shell-chevron
The nuclear submarine deal with the US and the UK upends Australia’s carefully thought out forward planning in defence, without a clear explanation to the nation of the ramifications, writes Andrew Podger who says we don’t know the costs and we don’t know the risks of having nuclear submarines.
https://johnmenadue.com/nuclear-submarines-we-dont-know-the-costs-and-we-dont-know-the-risks/
In Bruce Haigh’s opinion, Tony Abbott delivered a most imprudent speech to the Yushan Regional Security Forum in the Taiwanese capital Taipei last Friday.
https://www.canberratimes.com.au/story/7470275/who-let-abbott-loose-in-the-china-shop/?cs=14258
Britain will offer six-month emergency visas to 800 foreign butchers to avoid a mass pig cull, it said yesterday, after farmers complained that an exodus of workers from abattoirs and meat processors had left the pork sector fighting for survival. What a surprise!
https://www.theage.com.au/world/europe/britain-opens-door-for-800-foreign-butchers-to-process-backlog-of-pigs-20211015-p5906p.html
The New York Times explains how China is trying to cool its costly and dangerously debt-ridden housing market, where high prices and go-go levels of borrowing and spending are increasingly seen as a national threat.
https://www.smh.com.au/business/the-economy/china-s-spiralling-property-crisis-leaves-millions-in-limbo-20211013-p58zgd.html
Cartoon Corner – David Rowe’s rooting kangaroos cartoon I linked last night appears to have been taken down.
Glen Le Lievre
Matt Golding
Cathy Wilcox
Simon Letch
Andrew Dyson
Jim Pavlidis
Jamie Brown
John Shakespeare
Mark Knight
Leak
From the US
I believe that when it comes to gambling it’s a question of addiction. The risks are psychological (or maybe biochemical) and relate to potentially impairing your ability to make decisions, simultaneous to prompting you to make those decisions. Hence it may be fairer to compare gambling to drugs, rather than to mountain climbing.
(though I’m sure there’s an endorphin thrill that results from mountain climbing, it takes a fair while to plan, budget for and climb one mountain, you’re not being hit with a deliberately designed addictive experience prompting you to keep shelling out money once a minute or whatever the feedback loop provided by pokies is)
I think it’s better for Victoria that the Reason Party has the Balance of Power.
DN
You could describe any behaviour which humans indulge in regularly as an addiction.
There is a constant in history – what the lower classes find entertaining, the upper ones regard as aberrant and harmful, whilst their own forms of entertainment are sacrosanct.
My brother in law gambles on horse racing. This is, apparently, an acceptable form of gambling, but I bet he (proportionately) loses as much money as the average pokie player.
Paul Toole has walked back the regional explosion from Sydney till November 1. We travelled to Burradoo over the last two days and it seems that highway traffic is low and even maccas aren’t allowing eat-in dining so the travellers aren’t flocking there but I think the exclusion of unvaccinated people in the opening up is not right. We saw old folk standing outside cafes unable to access their double dose info looking quite confused of sad. They don’t have smart-phones or printers to produce proof and with the extra burden on staff plus aggro, there is no real gain.
Labor learned in 2010 that there’s absolutely no way that the Pubs and Clubs industry will allow poker machines to be taken away (and even if they were physically removed from clubs and pubs there’s still online gambling promoted in Australia from other countries that is impossible to police and legislate against), not to mention the surfeit of online gambling promoted by Australian gambling companies, and which are very popular. And which, between them all, employ a lot of Australians.
So to advocate for the elimination of pokies is risible and doesn’t encompass the totality of the situation. Better to educate and attempt to ameliorate with regulation. Daily Limits, no $50 or $100 bills through the machines, clubs being socially responsible, similar to the Responsible Service of Alcohol, and training staff to recognise Problem Gamblers (I know, and pigs might fly) and point people towards counselling.
zoom
A questionable claim and even if true is completely irrelevant to my point, which is to propose that a comparison between gambling and drugs is fairer than a comparison between gambling and mountain climbing. Which if true, would mean that gambling should be regulated in the fashion of drugs and not regulated in the fashion of mountain climbing.
And so you pre-empt any counter argument by going straight to the character of the people you’re debating with. Or what else is this meant to imply?
Raf Epstein @Raf_Epstein
Hearing the Vic Covid number for Friday is similar to yday but not higher.
Watching hospitalisations
NSW had 1000 people in hospital almost every day of Sept.
The Greens have more reason to blame Glenn Druery and Group Voting than the Labor Party for their poor Upper House Result. Unfortunately for them, and for all Victorians, this influence will continue.
Of course Labor obsessing over doing over the Greens has created some spectacular disasters, such as the election of a Family First Senator in 2004.
Labor don’t need to play friendly with the Greens, and why should they, seeing that the Greens are eating into their Lower House numbers. But things will change if the Lower House gets tighter.
Sooner or later, at a close election, Labor will need the Greens to form government, or at least to help in creating a stable thin majority government.
But this is besides the point, the Greens need to do a better job of harvesting from micro parties seeing that we are living under the Druery regime here.
zoomster,
Quibbling over the wording of the article doesn’t really change the fact that $761,000 was donated to Labor because the gaming industry feared that The Greens would win balance of power. The amount was four times what they had donated at the previous election, so they obviously believed there was a risk.
There was a highly targeted dirt and smear campaign waged by Labor in the seats where Greens were a threat. On the ground there was saturation coverage posters and billboards carrying and letter boxing plus supporting website. None of the smear material carried obvious Labor branding or identification but doubled down on the “Toxic Greens” messaging being deployed by Andrews et al.
The smear campaign had no real visibility outside the targeted seats, and all trace of it was purged from the internet shortly after the election. I’d requested that archive.org mirror the site for future reference. That copy was removed, and removal can only be requested by the site owner. There was a concerted effort by Labor to cover their tracks.
That kind of campaign does not come cheap. $250,000 was being floated for a by-election recently. The coverage and letter boxing was far in excess of what I’ve seen for any candidate in the 30 years I’ve lived in the area.
Would Labor have been able to run that level of campaign across 4 or 5 seats without an injection of $761,000 from the gaming industry? It seems very unlikely.
Just waiting for GG to come along with his personal remarks and label me self righteous and a Greens now :P.
DN
I started off writing the post with an agreement with you about addiction, but I found that I couldn’t. The people I described weren’t addicted, they had control over their behaviour and chose to gamble.
So yes, there are problem gamblers, and they are suffering a form of addiction, but not all gamblers – in any field – are ‘addicted’ in the same way that someone is addicted to caffeine (mea culpa) or alcohol (and I’m prone to regard the majority of people around me as alcoholics, because they ‘have’ to have a drink with their evening meal or go to the pub after work…
And no, I wasn’t slurring you personally, but raising a question about why we treat the entertainment of the lower classes differently to other forms. It seems patronising to me. If you felt it applied to you, I can’t help that.
‘ Unfortunately for them, and for all Victorians, this influence will continue.’
If the Reason Party having the balance of power in the Upper House is the result, then let it be so.
Victorian Labor made a deliberate decision some time ago to sideline the Greens. Most Victorians seem quite happy with that decision.
bakunin
So you have no evidence that the material came from Labor, but you just assumed it did.
If it was unauthorised, it should have gone straight to the VEC for investigation.
zoomster says:
Friday, October 15, 2021 at 8:09 am
‘ Unfortunately for them, and for all Victorians, this influence will continue.’
If the Reason Party having the balance of power in the Upper House is the result, then let it be so.
Victorian Labor made a deliberate decision some time ago to sideline the Greens. Most Victorians seem quite happy with that decision.
________________________
You support the continuation of Group Voting, ok then.
Which is a feature not a bug of the Abbott visit . Whoever was behind getting him to Taiwan knew that was exactly what he’d do. Someone wanted to add a little more heat rather than light.
Sydney dodged a bullet yesterday afternoon, but Armidale wasn’t so lucky.
Tornado lashes NSW town of Armidale
https://www.canberratimes.com.au/story/7470538/tornado-lashes-nsw-town-of-armidale/?cs=14264
VIDEO: Tornado visible amid lightning storm in Armidale
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-10-15/tornado-visible-amid-lightning-storm-in-armidale/13587572