Seemingly nothing doing on the polling front this week, though I would have thought we were due the monthly Resolve Strategic poll from the Age/Herald. That may yet come – perhaps even very shortly – given the publisher’s unpredictable past treatment of it. I need a new post sooner than that though, so here are some relevant recent developments:
• Anthony Albanese has reportedly told his party to be prepared for the possibility that Scott Morrison will call an election for December 11 after he returns from the Glasgow climate summit early next month. Andrew Clennell of Sky News describes this as a “ploy”, and says the genuine view within Labor is that the election will most likely be held in March. Kevin Bonham notes that the proximity of this date to Christmas and New Year would complicate the protracted process of Senate counting, and that it would not allow time for new laws requiring registered parties to have at least 1500 members to take effect.
• The Victorian Supreme Court has thrown out a legal challenge against the Labor national executive’s takeover of the Victorian branch’s federal preselection process. This had been pursued by the factional bloc of the Right associated with Bill Shorten, which The Age reports is considering an appeal. Assuming the ruling holds, it confirms the preselection of former state party secretary Sam Rae in the new seat of Hawke, and allows the party to proceed with other federal preselections that have so far been in limbo.
• The Sydney Morning Herald reports that candidates for Liberal preselection in Hughes are likely to include Jenny Ware, moderate-backed director of legal services at Georges River Council, and that there is also likely to be a factional conservative in the field. This complicates matters for Melanie Gibbons, who will quit her state seat of Holsworthy to run, and has the backing of Scott Morrison.
New South Wales by-election latest:
• There is now a fifth state by-election on the way in New South Wales, and the first in a Labor-held seat, after Jodi McKay announced her intention to resign five months after losing the leadership to Chris Minns. This will create a vacancy in her seat of Strathfield, which she held at the 2019 election by a 5.0% margin. Anton Rose of Inner West Courier reports potential preselection candidates include Sravya Abbineni, multiculturalism adviser at NSW Government Health and former staffer to McKay; John Faker, mayor of Burwood; and Jennifer Light, the party’s national assistant secretary.
• The Nationals have preselected Nichole Overall, a local historian, communications consultant and freelance writer, to succeed John Barilaro as the party’s candidate in Monaro.
• In addition to the previously noted Gail Giles-Gidney, the mayor of Willoughby, the Sydney Morning Herald reports candidates for the preselection to succeed Gladys Berejiklian in Willoughby will include Tim James, factional conservative and executive general manager of the Menzies Research Centre.
And on that, I generally agree. Especially given the nature of how lower houses are usually treated as rubber stamps under majority governments, a bit of crossbench influence wouldn’t hurt (with the caveat that the crossbenchers aren’t loons, the far right or Clive Palmer.)
I’m actually in favour of proportional representation systems. I don’t know how well it could be effectively implemented in the House of Representatives (without changing the constitution) but, on a state level, I’d love to see it happen in the lower house (probably in a Hare-Clark manner, rather than just a single list.)
😆 terrible
Yeah, I thought so too.
Player One says:
“No, they only decided who would be PM and form a government.”
Player1’s definition of democracy…
Nothing in the Constitution stopping PR,as far as I know, just an Act to enable it. Of course it would be PR based on each states electorate quota.
“Those independents resisted great temptation when Abbott offered his arse to them.”
What?? Some of them had rough ended pineapples to hand then??
So under PR the quotas would be pretty low in NSW and Vic, higher in other states. Unless I’m missing something.
As we inch forward to opening up in Victoria, some strange new restrictions are happening.
If we ever did move to PR in the House of Reps, the bigger states would almost certainly be divided into smaller proportional electorates, like Tasmania and the ACT are now. Can you imagine the size of the ballot paper if all 47 New South Wales MPs were elected from a single list!?
GG:
All I want to do is have a naked coffee with my penguin, but the MAN won’t let me!
Parramatta Moderate
It’s worth considering how in apparently more mature democracies like Germany, parties recognise they have to work with what they are given and who the voters deliver to parliament.
Rather than squealing like children and issuing hollow threats of throwing their toys out of the cot if they don’t get everything they want. When it’s obvious the major parties will sell their arses to get into power, usually to the corporate or vested interests they think will help them get there.
Scholz here below, well before the election simply admitting that the Greens and SPD have worked in successful governments previously.
Imagine such a thing being said by anyone here, it would seem to be the cause of total mental meltdown for the ALP partisans and particularly some bludgers. Like you might see of some childhood tantrum of a toddler. Oh no ‘teh Greens’ will be the end of everything.
Frankly the sooner that neither Lib nor Labor can demand or take a majority for granted the better.
From the German Daily Mirror (literal translation), Der Tagesspiegel, well before the election
Scholz didn’t get what he said he wanted here before the election, but seems likely to be chancellor in a very climate active coalition government with the Greens and perhaps surprisingly the FDP. With the CDU/CSU on the way out apparently. Despite quite a few German connections over the years I’m not so sure of exactly where the FDP are at, but seems they’ve had to accept more to be on board this time, rather than walk as they did last time.
Scholz relies on the red-green majority – and three core projects after the election
https://www.tagesspiegel.de/politik/spd-kanzlerkandidat-im-interview-scholz-setzt-auf-rot-gruene-mehrheit-und-drei-kernprojekte-nach-der-wahl/27581934.html
SPD chancellor candidate Olaf Scholz is counting on a majority for a red-green coalition after the federal election on September 26th in view of rising polls. “I would like to govern together with the Greens,” said the Federal Finance Minister and Vice Chancellor in an interview with the “Tagesspiegel”.
“I have already worked with the Greens in various governments, both in the federal government and in Hamburg. We are different parties, we have different objectives, but we have a lot of overlaps, “said Scholz.
And they are important for the future of our country. Green Chancellor candidate Annalena Baerbock had recently emphasized several times that she would prefer to govern with the SPD.
Insiders Panel for Sunday is as good as it gets imho.
The lead question is:-
How many years since 1948 have the Coalition occupied the treasury benches?
And for how many years have Labor ?
Noting that Labor administrations (including Hawke and Keating) have always been attacked relentlessly by the MSM and business organisations
Think Whitlam, Rudd and Gillard
So government being undermined by vested interests – people with money and influence because they get reported in the media
How many organisations, starting from the IPA support the Liberal Party?
And they all get a voice
We know Unions, by and large, support Labor
But Unions are attacked as they are (noting they represent their membership)
Perhaps, just perhaps an extended period of a Labor administration is the answer
And not one undermined as we have seen on every occasion during my lifetime
Liberal/National apologists all.
I’m personally inclined towards MMP-style electoral systems, though it would probably be pretty tricky to implement something like that here federally.
That said, I actually think the combination of single member electorates in the House and proportional representation in Senate really isn’t too bad on the whole, especially compared to the electoral systems in some countries (*cough* the United States *cough*). What’s really needed, IMO, is a move to “one vote, one value” in the Senate. The malapportionment is a relic of federation that should have been nixed decades ago.
And another question
Why has the inference that if you vote Labor you get a Greens government been such a successful election strategy for the Liberal Party?
One they are yet again promoting courtesy of Smuthurst today?
IF the Greens are so wildly popular why don’t we see a Labor/Greens Coalition competing with a Liberal/National Coalition – and easily holding government?
Yes, there is the ACT
But, equally there is Tasmania
Both with populations of 400,000)
Wat Tyler @ #1083 Thursday, October 21st, 2021 – 10:15 pm
May I note for the record that Wat Tyler has not upbraided nath, who takes swipes at all and sundry at a whim.
Has Player One convinced anyone by convincingly explaining how Independent cats could be herded for the greater good of the nation?
C@tmomma, it is well beyond pathetic that you are determined to pursue your quarrel with Wat Tyler after he apologised to you twice for saying something that wasn’t one tenth as unpleasant as what you trot out every day of the week.
C@tmomma @ #1119 Thursday, October 21st, 2021 – 10:20 pm
To realise one has stood on well trodden soil is unfortunate. To see that one does not see the lines of demarcation is a sign to withdraw…
I see Flaneur, everybodys favourite post box has arrived with the daily mail.
Greensborough Growler @ #1123 Thursday, October 21st, 2021 – 10:37 pm
Cheers.
Chris Bowen:
“But 2050 is not enough. What will really determine whether we can hold the world to 1.5 degrees of warming is what happens over the next decade. And that’s why medium-term targets are so important. That’s why the government should be increasing its mid-term target at Glasgow.”
So is Labor signalling that they will have a more ambitious mid-term target than the government? Or if the government refuses to budge, will Labor do the same?
The Labor Party strategists should’ve worked out by now, as Peta Credlin did, that the worst thing for Morrison would be for Labor to adopt the exact same targets as him and take away the capacity for a scare campaign. It would come off as a vindication that Labor has been right all along, and that the Coalition are changing their position due more to politics than anything else.
Teleconference finished. Tick!
Hard liquor imbibed. Tick!
View Pollbludger. Hilarity!
Cheers Goll
Finally, someone calls out the government’s lies about reducing emissions.
Simon Holmes à Court to Tim Wilson:
“Let’s set aside land clearing. In the economy that we have to transform, you’ve reduced emissions by 3%. Yes, the land sector has been an area where we have made some progress. We stopped land clearing, not because the government made it happen but because the Queensland
government shut down land clearing. We are hiding behind that fig leaf. We can’t stop land clearing again. You have made no inroads on transforming the rest of the economy and you have no plan going through from here.”
Why hasn’t the media called this out? Instead they’re stenographers for Morrison and his bullshit spin about “meeting and beating” our targets. The Queensland LNP literally voted against the land clearing measures that the Federal Coalition are using to promote themselves.
https://www.pollbludger.net/2021/10/20/the-fortnight-before-christmas/comment-page-23/#comment-3731095
The malapportionment in the Senate is baked in. Reducing the proportionate representation of any state in either chamber requires a referendum that passes in the state loosing representation. So even if a proposal to reduce the proportion of senators from smaller states was unanimously supported on the mainland*, it would still fail.
* It would fail on the mainland as well, this scenario is just a hypothetical.
Bowen:
“We think it should be better than 26-28%, because that’s not enough to hold the world to 1.5 degrees. It is not in keeping with our Paris commitments. We need to do better.”
“What is important is that at the next election, the Australian people will have a very clear choice. Not only will we be outlining our medium-term targets, we’ll be outlining how we’ll achieve them.”
My suspicion is that Labor expects Morrison to come out with a half-hearted plan which is more spin than substance. In turn they will come out with a more detailed and ambitious plan and argue that Morrison’s is nothing but a farce.
So Barnyard & the Country Party have invented a new term for Pork Barrelling….. Parochial Projects.
SMH ..
But the Nationals agreed their list would exclude “parochial projects” in favour of policies with a national scope, with a preference for doing more with existing policies and funding schemes.
Looks like instead of new Parochial Projects they are going to top up the existing Pork Barrels
If Oakeshott and Windsor had represented the beliefs of the electorate, they wouldn’t have been voted out.
A train line between one state and another could be considered to have ‘national scope’. 😐
“National scope” means stuff that helps the Nationals.
Peace and love in Vic Liberal land, as O’Brien is accused of being the Homophobegate Leaker….
————-
Mr Guy, and those close to him, blamed Mr O’Brien and his allies for leaking the audio in which Nationals leader and Deputy Opposition leader Peter Walsh told Mr Newbury to “get f—ed”, and conservative MP Bernie Finn called shadow attorney-general Tim Smith a “f—ing idiot”.
“For Matthew to make this allegation clearly demonstrates his own insecurity as leader,” one MP said. “Leaders don’t chase shadows, they focus on winning elections.
“Matthew’s problem isn’t that the party room is leaking, his problem is that he says different things to different people.”
Zoomster @6.38am
“If Oakeshott and Windsor had represented the beliefs of the electorate, they wouldn’t have been voted out.”
The considered, well intentioned and politically active voters are a fine bunch zoom .
Textbook democracy at work :-
House of Representatives votes to send criminal contempt charges against Steve Bannon to DOJ
Trump ally Steve Bannon is now one step closer to being criminally prosecuted — and former President Donald Trump isn’t there to give him a pardon anymore.
The House of Representatives on Thursday voted to refer criminal contempt charges against Bannon to the United States Department of Justice.
The measure passed on a bipartisan basis as nine Republican lawmakers — including Reps. Liz Cheney (R-WY), Adam Kinzinger (R-IL), and Anthony Gonzalez (R-OH) — voted with all House Democrats in favor of the referral.
Bannon has completely refused to comply with subpoenas issued by the House Select Committee investigating the riot at the United States Capitol building.
https://www.rawstory.com/steve-bannon-crime-2655336675/
Ah yes, they left out an ‘s’, Steve777. 🙂
The late Peter Andren , member for Calare , was another genuine Independent , along with the likes of John Hatton.
Steve Bannon is getting his moment in the sun.
Quasar @ #1138 Friday, October 22nd, 2021 – 7:20 am
And that’s not in question. However, how much did he achieve during his legislative career?
Independents are better off gaining a seat in the Senate, like Brian Harradine, Jacqui Lambie, and yes, Pauline Hanson, if they want to achieve anything. The House isn’t the place where momentous changes can be affected if you’re an Independent.
And as I pointed out last night, a House full of Independents would function along the lines of herding cats. And as someone else pointed out, you can’t pick and choose your Independents to be ideologically-aligned with your beliefs because electorates can and do choose differently. Bob Katter and Craig Kelly are Independents in the Lower House.
Scout @ #1139 Friday, October 22nd, 2021 – 7:22 am
I just watched the vote. 9 Republicans voted to hold him in Contempt of Congress. So, though he may have his time in the sun now, the alternative of letting him get away with cocking a snook at the laws of the land and Congress, would have been more wrong.
C@t,
Peter Andren announced he would run for the Senate but was then diagnosed with Pancreatic cancer and died soon after.
Craig Kelly is the worst type of Independent and wouldn’t have succeeded had he stood as an Independent from the beginning.
Where does all this Covid misinformation come from? And why are these neo-nazis and social media influencers so keen to spread the anti-vax message? As Lenin said, the ‘useful idiots’ can be co-opted.
17:47
A systematic disinformation campaign in Russian media to foster doubts and misgivings about western coronavirus vaccines has backfired as the death toll in Russia rises to record daily tolls, a European Union (EU) report said.
The EU study said Russian state broadcaster RT and other media outlets had sown mistrust about the efficacy and safety of vaccines on their European websites in a number of languages, including Russian.
“Disinformation can kill. That should be kept in mind when we see Kremlin media continue spreading lies on Covid-19 and the vaccines, even as the death tolls in Russia are surging,” said the EU study, entitled “Disinformation Review”.
The Kremlin denies all disinformation allegations by the EU, which produces regular reports and seeks to work with Google, Facebook, Twitter and Microsoft to limit the spread of fake news, Reuters reported.
The EU has documented what it says is Russian disinformation since early on in the pandemic in January 2020, via the bloc’s foreign service EEAS. It is part of what the EU says is a broader Russian effort to weaken and divide western societies.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2021/oct/21/coronavirus-news-live-india-administers-1bn-vaccine-doses-singapore-at-risk-of-being-overwhelmed-amid-record-deaths
Donald Trump’s joke of a social network is already crashing and burning – Bill Palmer
Is Donald Trump merely going through the motions of launching his own social network as a new way of trying to scam people out of money before it goes belly up, or does he delusionally believe he can somehow compete with the sites like Twitter and Facebook that banned him?
Donald Trump’s own page on his new social network has already been defaced by pranksters, and now the entire social network has already been temporarily pulled offline, according to the Washington Post. That didn’t take long. As Trump continues to fall to pieces, he keeps finding new ways to fail and embarrass himself.
https://www.palmerreport.com/analysis/donald-trumps-joke-of-a-social-network-is-already-crashing-and-burning/42164/
The Green/Liberal coalition must be really worried. They are starting their scare campaign early.
https://www.theage.com.au/politics/victoria/greens-eyeing-off-four-melbourne-seats-in-hopes-of-hung-parliament-20211020-p591ps.html
Is that really all they have to contribute to Australian politics?
Rise in Cases and Deaths Tests Britain’s Gamble on Few Virus Restrictions
The country’s grand experiment — opening up with hardly any restrictions — is facing its toughest test yet.
LONDON — For the last four months, Britain has run a grand epidemiological experiment, lifting virtually all coronavirus restrictions, even in the face of a high daily rate of infections. Its leaders justified the approach on the grounds that the country’s rapid rollout of vaccines had weakened the link between infection and serious illness.
Now, with cases, hospital admissions and deaths all rising again; the effect of vaccines beginning to wear off; and winter looming, Britain’s strategy of learning to live with the virus is coming under its stiffest test yet.
The sudden resurgence of the virus is a rude jolt for a country that believed it had put the worst of the pandemic behind it. After a remarkably successful vaccine deployment and a characteristically British resolve to get on with it, Britons have been bought up short, vexed by a virus that isn’t ready to relinquish its grip.
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/21/world/europe/britain-virus.html?smid=tw-nytimesworld&smtyp=cur
Craig Kelly isn’t an independent, he’s the “leader” of Clive Palmer’s fake “party”. He was too right-wing for today’s “Liberals”, which is really saying something.
Covid seems to be a winter problem, I hope we are allowed boosters before next winter.
It’s not ‘learning to live with the virus’, it’s learning to die with the virus.
It’s fairly easy to understand why the two Australian “parties of government” – both of whom are fundamentally centerist/conservative – are not fond of actual democracy.
In Australia, electing a government is a bit like selling your house at auction. In the end, the price you end up getting is not what the highest bidder was willing to offer, but what the second highest bidder was willing to offer.
In Australia, where the policies of the major parties are generally very similar, the policies you end up getting are not what the winning party was willing to offer, but what the losing party was willing to offer.
Climate change is not the only example of this, but it is a classic one. The government has no credible climate policy partly because the opposition has none. In the end, the Liberals kept offering up policies, and Labor kept agreeing to them. The Liberals eventually realized they didn’t actually have to implement anything at all – they just had to dangle the policies, and Labor would jump and wag their tail. This has been going on for years now – Labor has either never cottoned on to it, or has but doesn’t care.
Even now, with the world about to negotiate what may be the most significant international agreement we will see in our shortened lifetimes, and us without even a seat at the table, the government will only offer the minimum the opposition will accept.
We desperately need independents to put some policy backbone back into our parliament.