A consensus has locked in over the past week behind the notion that the federal election will not be until May, with John Kehoe of the Financial Review reporting public servants have been told to cut short summer holiday plans to help prepare a pre-election budget in April. The government will then be able to “fight the poll on an expected economic bounce-back from COVID-19”.
Also:
• Liberal member John Alexander has announced he will not seek re-election in his Sydney seat of Bennelong, which he recovered for the Liberals in 2010 following John Howard’s historic defeat in 2007. The Sydney Morning Herald reports contenders for the preselection are likely to include Gisele Kapterian, a former chief-of-staff to Michaelia Cash and current executive at software company Salesforce, and City of Sydney councillor Craig Chung. Kapterian was mentioned as a possible challenger to Alexander’s preselection earlier in the year.
• The federal government seems to be struggling to get the numbers it will need to pass its voter identification bill through the Senate before the election. With One Nation for and Labor, the Greens and independent Senator Rex Patrick vehemently opposed, the swing votes in the Senate are Centre Alliance Senator Stirling Griff and independent Jacqui Lambie. While Griff supports the idea in principle, the Financial Review reports that Lambie and the Centre Alliance’s lower house member, Mayo MP Rebekha Sharkie, has criticised the short time frame and the government’s prioritisation of the matter over issues including the establishment a federal integrity commission. Independent MP Bob Katter added to the momentum against the measure when he declared it “blatantly racist” due to its disproportionate impact on indigenous voters.
• In the period between his drink driving misadventure a fortnight ago and announcement at the start of this week that he would bow out at the next election, Tim Smith’s Victorian state seat of Kew was the subject of a comprehensive poll by Redbridge Group which had Liberal on 39%, Labor on 31% and the Greens on 12%, suggesting a close contest between Liberal and Labor at the final count to be determined by the unknown quantity of independent and small party preferences. However, the poll also recorded a 40.2% “very unfavourable” rating for state Labor, along with 44.9% for Smith and 49.5% for one of his backers, Tony Abbott. The poll was conducted November 4 to 7 from a sample of 920.
• The Liberals have confirmed candidates for two Hunter region seats that swung heavily against Labor in 2019. In Paterson, where the margin was cut from 10.7% to 5.0% in 2019, the candidate will be Brooke Vitnell, a family law solicitor and former ministerial staffer to Paul Fletcher and Senator Concetta Fierravanti-Wells. Shortland will again be contested by Nell McGill, a commercial litigator at Sparke Helmore Lawyers, who cut the margin from 9.9% to 4.4% in 2019.
• It has come to my attention that US pollster Morning Consult conducts a weekly tracking poll of approval and disapproval for 13 world leaders including Scott Morrison, who has lately fallen into net negative territory.
In relation to democracy in China and democracy in the West, some of you bludgers are in line with the official mouthpiece of the CPC and some of you are diverging from the Thought of Xi Jinping:
https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202111/1238849.shtml
P1 writes:
Then why do you end every second post you make with “Vote Independent”? Not “check out” independents’ policies, but actually vote for one of them.
What if an Independent has QAnon as part of their platform? Or is anti-vaxx? Or wants all National Parks cleared of trees to prevent bushfires? Or thinks Muslims should all be put in jail?
Just saying “Vote Independent” is an empty statement. It implies the voter should look to an independent, any independent rather than any mainstream party candidate, then cast a vote for him or her.
This also doesn’t square with your stated practice of voting for the Coalition if it looks like they will be elected, as you’ll score bigger prizes by having a local member that’s from the government. No talk about independents there, was there?
But you don’t apply the same logic to voting for Labor if Labor looks like winning the election, (and also because you clearly detest anything to do with Labor).
Gee, Labor always seems to lose out. Fancy that!
Whoever a voter votes for, it’s not up to that voter to seek out the candidate. It’s the other way around: the candidate gets off their arse and seeks out the voter, especially if they are an independent and this more likely than not to be a crackpot with a chip on their shoulder.
You are all over the place, P1. Throughout this year, you’ve gone from being a Greens supporter, to Liberal supporter, to now how urging others to find an independent and vote for them.
It seems your strategy is to take any course, and recommend any option but voting for Labor. If you can’t get a Green or a Lib in, then use an independent to cruel Labor’s chances. Which is fair enough, but don’t think your strategy isn’t noticed. You’re not nearly as clever as you fancy yourself to be. You’re very clumsy at covering your tracks.
In all this confusion you also manage to be also one of the most condescending, judgemental snobs on the blog. If you were a horse, you’d win the trifecta all by yourself.
Who was talking about ‘democracy in China’ Boer?
It might help your health to wean yourself off ChiComm propaganda …
Global Times vs Readers Digest is a very … Marvel Comics level of information gathering and analysis …
The last bloody people I want in control of our nation’s agenda are a bunch of Tree Tory independents. People who have the ego and self-importance of any other politician but without any rudder, discipline with the EXTRA egoism of thinking they’re on a higher plain because they’re independent.
Independents are the electoral equivalent of swing voters. People who think they’re better – when in reality they’re basically without a core and just want the best deal for themselves.
I’m glad P1 spends the time to throw out her ‘vote 1’ independent rubbish on Bludger; it could do some real damage as LNP proxy material in the real world.
love… kindred spirits… Neil Mitchell…
“ basically without a core and just want the best deal for themselves.”
And usually crypto Tories or crypto Trots (sometimes, because they are invariably from petite bourgeoise stock, both at the same time …).
Bushfire Bill just summed up my thoughts to a tee, regarding P1’s “Vote Independent” mantra. Thanks BB – you saved me a post.
Andrew_Earlwood @ #644 Sunday, November 14th, 2021 – 11:51 am
That North Carolina redistrict map is a doozy.
But those tactics are only viable in a polarised system of identity politics. A false cultural divide, not one based on true core values but supplanted by political ones, curated for political advantage by politicians and political parties who are all about personal gain and no f’ing interest in public or civic duty. The dry rot of adversarial politics.
Oooooooh, looking forward muchly to P1s reply. You’re such a Gibbon, BB.,
“If you bother trolling back, I’ve never NOT supported a carbon price.”
***
Not trolling you and I never claimed that you didn’t. I said it was refreshing to see someone from Labor defend the ETS. Was actually a compliment of sorts. You are right to defend it as a good policy.
The Greens took the ETS/Carbon Price/Tax to the 2010 Election. Labor took a policy of a “Citizens Assembly” to the same election.
Not all but many. It depends on the individual. There are plenty of examples right here on PB of people who just blindly go along with whatever Labor does no matter what it is or how much damage it does.
Yeah Firefox, but I can’t remember any times that you have gone against the Greens. In fact you have been a partisan mouth piece for the Greens without any acknowledgement of their short comings.
There has never been ‘the Greens could have done this better’ or in ‘hindsight they could have worked with Labor on this’. The CPRS that the Greens blocked with the Liberals you have continuously held the line it was the right thing to do.
Seriously, you giving lectures that Labor posters on here just go along blindly with anything Labor does is actually quite hypocritical.
Newspoll tonight?
It’ll be a cracker!
Make the frame of aluminium and put it on a longer pole – the tramway overhead wires will do the rest.
Boerwar @ #569 Sunday, November 14th, 2021 – 7:37 am
And yet you apparently have Xi’s brain mapped perfectly!
If the USA is the main obstacle to Chinese ambitions regarding Taiwan, it would make sense for China to wait a bit, until the USA experiences the collapse of its own political system which is looking increasingly likely. The Chinese would have taken note of the way in which the UK’s ability to act in response to their move against democracy in Hong Kong was limited because of British preoccupation with Brexit.
Vote independent is an admission by a small L liberal that their party is lost. What I can’t fathom is it took them a decade to work that out.
Firefox
‘The Greens took the ETS/Carbon Price/Tax to the 2010 Election. Labor took a policy of a “Citizens Assembly” to the same election.’
1. The Greens did not take a carbon price to the 2010 election. They were firm on a carbon tax.
2. As I explained, the group think – I can’t think of any commentator anywhere who disputed it – was that a carbon price of any kind would be undeliverable until the Senate changed (remember, the Greens were against a carbon price going into the election; they were firm on a tax).
Gillard basically had to find a way to fill in the gap between the election and being able to deliver a carbon price, operating on exactly the same assumptions everyone else accepted at the time.
She chose to propose using that time to educate people on the issues. She said several times that she was certain that this would result in their support for a carbon price (I’m pretty sure but not absolutely certain that she also said tough bananas if it didn’t, Labor was going for one anyway).
Circumstances changed and several people changed their minds, making a carbon price possible.
Bushfire Bill @ #652 Sunday, November 14th, 2021 – 12:30 pm
I keep trying to make my posts simple enough for people like you to understand.
I can only promise to try harder.
There is ofcourse an alternative to voting independent/3rd parties to improve our democracies. You could have more independent minded MPs in major parties. Ideally, you would have both.
I walk the talk. I was in favour of the ALP keeping Fitzgibbon and allowing him to express his views and even crossing the floor (yes yes, easy for me to say as I am not an ALP member). You cant have members crossing the floor all the time, but surely there is room for far more of it that we currently see. Instead we have a system that selects and rewards allegiance to party. What sort of MP will that produce over time?
Greg Hunt can’t say that they will have an updated 2030 emission reduction target until Morrison asks Barnaby for permission to act.
So, ABC news reporting a swift water rescue from a stranded car in Wuk Wuk. 🙂
Does that make is a genuine Wuk Up on the part of the driver?
So…dont drive into floodwaters! If you do people will make bad jokes about you!! 🙂
“Yeah Firefox, but I can’t remember any times that you have gone against the Greens. In fact you have been a partisan mouth piece for the Greens without any acknowledgement of their short comings.”
***
Yeah well the Greens don’t support environmental vandalism, tax cuts for the rich, leaving people in poverty, or abusing asylum seekers, do we.
I know what I am and I don’t shy away from it. I’m proud to be a passionate progressive lefty voting for a party like the Greens. They represent my views far better than any other.
But don’t pretend like I’m just some blind fanatic like some of you who is incapable of supporting anyone else other than “Team Green”. May I remind you that for two elections in a row I strongly supported UK Labour under Jeremy Corbyn rather than the UK Greens. Of course, the situation in the UK has changed entirely now – Labour has lurched back to the right and the Greens are surging all over the place – but that’s another story.
Back to Australia, and what do you know? Our comes the poor old CPRS for another flogging! What a surprise! Honestly, it’s just comical at this point. Labor refused to work with the Greens and tried to pass their dud policy with the Coalition instead, yet now they turn around and try to blame us for it’s failure and call us hypocrites!
“Just saying “Vote Independent” is an empty statement. It implies the voter should look to an independent, any independent rather than any mainstream party candidate, then cast a vote for him or her.”
Some indies worth looking at come the election but i am always very wary of the “preference harvesting” thing and whether a purported ” independent” is actually a Tory with a different colored jacket for the day, but the blue one sitting in the wardrobe. 🙁
Do lots of research on background before voting Indie.
Firefox
We’re not pretending.
Of course it would have been so much easier for many if Labor had not joined the LNP to introduce it
https://theyvoteforyou.org.au/divisions/senate/2015-10-14/4
Only the Greens and Ricky Muir opposed the introduction and trial of cashless debit cards at the time
On the Voices for Independents, it seems candidates are preselected on the basis of many voters in the actual electorate voting directly from a field of local candidates. Which is far more democratic and arguably representative and accountable to locals than the party HQ executive selection of former staffers and party hacks that the Libs and Labor seem to have going on.
All Greens candidates are pre-selected by one member one vote of all eligible members in each electorate, again more democratic and with more direct accountability to local members and voters than either the Lib or Labor party HQ appointed candidates.
Ironic to see Labor hacks particularly from Vic making any claim about candidate selections and quality when due to the branch stacking BS all Vic members have been specifically excluded from any voting or participation in pre-selections or any control over their local candidates for years. What a joke.
The idea that party hack candidates are somehow more accountable to their electorates, the people, and not the party machine is of course ridiculous.
To the point that it is a feature of the campaigning already where the hypocrisy of some MPs stated position and how they vote entirely with their party and against some stated position they might have said to their electorate. A vote Dave Sharma is a vote for Barnaby Joyce, which is a vote for Gina Reinhart and fossil fuel interests etc.
Seems that a large sentiment that Voices for Independents are trying to tap into is precisely this situation where party candidates are first loyal to the party machine that put them there, rather than their electorate or the national interest.
Call to stop the shadowy preselections & give members their rightful vote – 9 July 2021
15/07/2021
https://www.openlabor.net.au/2021/07/15/give-members-their-rightful-vote/
Give members their rightful vote in preselections: Open Labor and the Independents propose an online members’ meeting 19 July 2021 to call for the ALP National Executive to stop the Victorian shadowy preselections.
Since 1993 the ALP has held 140 preselections for safe or winnable seats in Victoria. We think only NINE or TEN have gone to a ballot by members.
The current flashpoint is the federal seat of Melbourne. Under the secret Stability Pact between the Right and Left factions and their many sub-factions, Melbourne is allocated to the Left, and therefore the Left will choose the party’s candidate through a process that is hidden to ordinary members.
Why it is totally unsurprising that a complaint about the Greens not helping Labor goes and digs up the rotting dead horse of CPRS and tries to flog it once again?… it’s like a crack in the timeline of reality for Labor, where nothing has happened since and the truth of what happened with them exclusively working with the LNP is lost in a fog… well at least it seems in some minds everything else has been erased in a blind rage induced amnesia
“Firefox
‘The Greens took the ETS/Carbon Price/Tax to the 2010 Election. Labor took a policy of a “Citizens Assembly” to the same election.’
1. The Greens did not take a carbon price to the 2010 election. They were firm on a carbon tax.”
***
Profile: Adam Bandt
August 23, 2010
Key issues:
■ Creation of a $4.2 billion Denticare scheme to provide universal basic dental care.
■ A ban on $2 ATM transaction fees.
■ Free kindergarten and more community childcare places.
■ An increase in Newstart to $486 a fortnight.
■ Discounts for energy efficiency in low-income homes.
■ High-speed rail from Melbourne to Sydney.
■ Introduce a price on carbon.
https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/profile-adam-bandt-20100822-13azi.html
A carbon price was part of Bandt’s election platform.
mundo:
Sunday, November 14, 2021 at 11:19 am
[‘Rudd may well be retired and in his dotage before the next incoming Labor government.’]
At age 64 Rudd won’t be in his dotage when Labor returns to the Treasury Benches in the first half of next year.
______________________________________
Boerwar:
Sunday, November 14, 2021 at 11:20 am
If China takes Taiwan by force, I doubt Uncle Sam will go to war over it. And as Keating said at the NPC, ANZUS is only activated
if one of the parties to the Treaty is threatened. In other words,
if the US attempted to retake Taiwan from China, it (the US) would be the aggressor, in consequence of which Australia would not be obligated to join the conflict. And as others have said, Dutton wants to lift his profile for a stab at the top gig – the LOTO. In his mind, he thinks saber-rattling will do the job.
‘Barney in Tanjung Bunga says:
Sunday, November 14, 2021 at 12:53 pm
Boerwar @ #569 Sunday, November 14th, 2021 – 7:37 am
A-E
I am desisting from engaging in your amateurish pop psychology.
Always happy to to discuss substantive reality.
And yet you apparently have Xi’s brain mapped perfectly!’
—————————————
Strawman.
The greens are taking the same environment policies to the election. Do nothing. The greens because the can’t, the liberals because they are happy with their previous efforts to destroy labor policies.
Firefox
I beg your pardon.
This was the Greens’ position —
‘If Gillard’s Labor government is re-elected at polls expected within months, the Greens said they would help her pass a carbon tax through a hostile Senate within three months of polling day.’
Their idea was that this would then lead into a carbon price.
‘If the Greens win the balance of power at the coming election, as the polls suggest, then Labor and the Greens will have the numbers to pass legislation after July 1, 2011.’
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-australia-carbon-greens-idUSTRE65S2U920100629
Which is what I was referring to.
So the Greens position was a carbon tax (rejected by Labor) with a carbon price down the track.
Labor’s was to have nothing to do with a carbon tax and go straight for a carbon price in 2011.
So the Greens went into the election committed to a carbon tax, with a carbon price down the track.
Labor wanted the carbon price down the track. It was never interested in a carbon tax (hence Gillard’s words, referring specifically to the Greens’ scheme, not to carbon taxing per se).
Sorry, it’s been a while!
‘Mavis says:
Sunday, November 14, 2021 at 1:22 pm
mundo:
Sunday, November 14, 2021 at 11:19 am
[‘Rudd may well be retired and in his dotage before the next incoming Labor government.’]
At age 64 Rudd won’t be in his dotage when Labor’s returns to the Treasury Benches in the first half of next year.
______________________________________
Boerwar:
Sunday, November 14, 2021 at 11:20 am
If China takes Taiwan by force, I doubt Uncle Sam will go to war over it….’
——————————————————-
Who knows? Apart from A_E who is omniscient.
Much of the current ‘debate’ is based on guesses about how Xi or Biden or Trump or some other POTUS would behave. It is also based on an assumption that nations go to war ‘rationally’. It is also based on assumptions that some mid level operative won’t go off half-cocked and trigger a war.
Boerwar @ #680 Sunday, November 14th, 2021 – 10:25 am
Yes you are, aren’t you?
“So the Greens position was a carbon tax (rejected by Labor) with a carbon price down the track.”
***
Same thing. We’re playing semantics here. ETS/Carbon Price/Tax, whatever you want to call the damn thing that was implemented. It was an ETS with a fixed price period which became commonly known as the Carbon Tax thanks to Abbott’s campaign against it. Not that semantics don’t matter of course, as Gillard herself points out…
Julia Gillard writes on power, purpose and Labor’s future
I erred by not contesting the label “tax” for the fixed price period of the emissions trading scheme I introduced. I feared the media would end up playing constant silly word games with me, trying to get me to say the word “tax”. I wanted to be on the substance of the policy, not playing “gotcha”. But I made the wrong choice and, politically, it hurt me terribly.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/sep/13/julia-gillard-labor-purpose-future
Barney in Tanjung Bunga says:
Sunday, November 14, 2021 at 1:30 pm
Boerwar @ #680 Sunday, November 14th, 2021 – 10:25 am
‘Barney in Tanjung Bunga says:
Sunday, November 14, 2021 at 12:53 pm
Boerwar @ #569 Sunday, November 14th, 2021 – 7:37 am
A-E
I am desisting from engaging in your amateurish pop psychology.
Always happy to to discuss substantive reality.
And yet you apparently have Xi’s brain mapped perfectly!’
—————————————
Strawman.
Yes you are, aren’t you?
=====================
Personal abuse.
In terms of ‘knowing’ what is in Xi’s brain. Who knows? I have repeatedly stated that he is unpredictable. Ten years ago most China watchers, including presumably the omniscient A-E, predicted that China was going to become more liberal and more open. Instead Xi consolidates power and the exact opposite happens.
Also, as I have repeatedly stated, don’t go by what the comrades say. Go by what they do. So, if you want to know how Xi’s brain works, then have a look at the difference between the promises that Xi made about not militarizing the South China Sea land grabs and the subsequent militarization of same.
frednk @ #681 Sunday, November 14th, 2021 – 1:27 pm
And Labor because they don’t have the courage to stand for anything 🙁
ABC chair Ita Buttrose has accused the Morrison government of
political interference – Guardian.
The Greens cocked up their BOP plan last federal election and the signs are that they are just as determined to cock it up for the next election.
UAP delivered the Coalition victory last election and the signs are that they are just as determined to deliver it in the next election.
Spot the difference.
Vote independent you get no known policies and no ability to get things done.
Vote greens you get a known policy ( not what labor are doing) and no ability to get things done.
Greens would be a good fit for small l liberals.
ABC chair Ita Buttrose has accused the government of political interference over a decision to launch a Senate inquiry into the way it and SBS handles complaints from the public.
Ms Buttrose will ask the government to suspend or terminate the inquiry, which was announced by Liberal senator Andrew Bragg, chair of the Senate Standing Committee on Environment and Communications, last Thursday night. She said the review of the ABC’s processes undermined the public broadcaster and was a clear example of interference by the government.
“This is an act of political interference designed to intimidate the ABC and mute its role as this country’s most trusted source of public interest journalism. If politicians determine the operation of the national broadcaster’s complaints system, they can influence what is reported by the ABC,” Ms Buttrose said.
FF,
There is an interesting article written by Aynsley Kellow* in the Spring/Summer 2010 issue of Australian Parliamentary Review titled “The Australian Parliament and Climate Change: Are the Institutions Inadequate?” which covers the period in 2007-10 in some detail.
*[School of Government, University of Tasmania. Professor Kellow, an expert reviewer for the IPCC is author of Science and Public Policy: The Virtuous Corruption of Virtual Environmental Science, co-author of International Environmental Policy: Interests and the Failure of the Kyoto Protocol, and co-editor of The International Politics of Climate Change.]
https://www.aspg.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/04-Kellow-Climate-APR-elaines-copy.pdf
This is how all-pervasive QAnon has become.
So Morrison trying to tell the ABC what to do then.
As I have stated repeatedly my preference is for Australia not to have defense treaties and to be a heavily armed neutral state.
This would leave Australia as an unpredictable middle rank power with good prospects of being able to mediate conflicts between others in good faith.
We have similar geopolitical advantages to Switzerland and Sweden which have used this model to stay out of wars for around two centuries.
The Coalition is doing the exact opposite -weakening our defence capability while wedding ourselves to one side which is increasingly prone to erratic behaviour and which does not have much of a clue about how to move from being a dominant hegemon to a sharing hegemon.
Labor is not all that much better.
The Greens are fucking hopeless on the matter.
More Ita in SMH.
https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/political-interference-designed-to-intimidate-abc-s-ita-buttrose-lashes-government-inquiry-20211112-p598eo.html?btis
About time, Ita! But better late than never.
We have similar geopolitical advantages to Switzerland and Sweden which have used this model to stay out of wars for around two centuries.
Plus we have a giant moat.
This makes for very interesting reading.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Switzerland_during_the_World_Wars#Interwar_period
Boerwar @ #686 Sunday, November 14th, 2021 – 10:36 am
And yet you’re so sure of your position.
As for Chinese society becoming more open. you’ve obviously never been there.
Why does this have to be seen as aggressive, it could be, and it would fit fit much better with Chinese culture as a, defensive positioning.