As the campaign enters a lull over the Easter extended weekend, there is at least the following to report:
• The first leaders’ debate of the campaign will be held on Wednesday, to be hosted in Brisbane by Kieran Gilbert of Sky News and with the leaders to face questions from 100 undecided voters.
• Stephen Lunn of The Australian reports the Australian Electoral Commission will be operating 550 pre-poll booths at this election, up from 515 in 2019. The period for pre-poll voting has been reduced since the last election from three weeks to two.
• Liberal Ben Small has had to resign from his Western Australian Senate seat after becoming aware he was a dual citizen of New Zealand, where his father was born, which somehow escaped the notice of all concerned when he filled Mathias Cormann’s vacancy in November 2020. His term was shortly to expire in any case, and he will return if elected from third on the party’s Senate ticket at the election.
• Paul Starick of The Advertiser reports that Liz Habermann, who came close to winning the regional seat of Flinders from the Liberals at last month’s South Australian state election, will shortly announce her candidacy for the corresponding federal seat of Grey, held for the Liberals by Rowan Ramsey.
• The Age reports Zoe Daniel, the former ABC journalist challenging Liberal MP Tim Wilson as an independent in Goldstein, has apologised over an article she wrote in 2017 in which she said then US President Donald Trump was “satisfying his wealthy Jewish donors” when he declared Jerusalem to be the capital of Israel. The electorate’s 6.8% Jewish population as of the 2016 census was the third highest in the country, behind Wentworth and neighbouring Macnamara.
• A spokesperson for the Law Society of New South Wales told the Daily Telegraph that Sarah Richards, the Liberal candidate for the marginal Labor seat of Macquarie in outer Sydney, may have broken the law in describing herself as a qualified solicitor on her LinkedIn profile. Richards holds a law degree, but ceased to be a practising solicitor in 2007.
I wouldn’t believe a Murdoch outlet referring to some random potential grab bag of ‘labor sources’ – they could and would find a guy with a grievance who once worked at a coffee shop who served coffee to Simon Crean in 1997 and call the barista-with-a-grudge a ‘labor source’.
Morrison, of course, doesn’t have to deal with policy briefing documents having no policies or policy briefings.
BK
Thanks so much for today’s Dawn Patrol.
Player One says:
Saturday, April 16, 2022 at 8:51 am
John Hewson, with some potentially good news for all of us …
https://www.thesaturdaypaper.com.au/opinion/topic/2022/04/16/independents-vs-broken-system/165003120013719#mtr
I believe that it will be difficult for either the LNP or Labor to win in their own right.
—————————————————-
He must be talking about the senate , Labor wins the federal election by a comfortable majority in the house of reps , if the lib/nats combined primary vote is lower than 40%
It’s very early in the campaign for the Murdoch media, the Seven network and the usual protagonists to be panicking.
But there you have it!
Morrison in close personal protection from himself, Cash disappearing from view,(intended pun), Dutton mouse like and the entire Cabinet on sabbatical leave.
Barnaby out there leading with the chin!
A very strange campaign is developing as the entire 35 % of the voting population, all Liberal/ National voters realize that their shonky leader and the sundry shambles of a government is to be shown the door.
LNP corruption is the name and a corrupt campaign is the game .
The Morrison LNP government is so bad that enough voters realize that they have no option but to” put the trash out”.
“Poor Fellow My Country”
This will also be relevant to today’s savage attack on Albo by Murdoch. Too many people are fearful of the big purge if Labor are elected. It’s not just Gaetjens who would go.
Player One @ #NaN Saturday, April 16th, 2022 – 6:51 am
The increase in the support for independents seems to reflect that moderate Liberals with concerns around climate change have a more palatable option than previously. The Labor vote doesn’t seem effected by this much at all.
Goll, I totally agree. Corruption is the achilles heel of the tories.
That Katherine Murphy article is simply astonishing. But entire on par with the whole media pack. Morrison isn’t a brilliant campaigner. He’s proven hopeless – every time the vanish comes off. It simply that they – the CPG – have deemed him to be brilliant and behold THAT is how his week has been reported.
FICAC? Who cares.
Captain’s pick Deves? Who Cares.
Trudge? Who cares.
$55.6 billion of grants being managed directly out of Ministerial offices with no criteria or accountability? Who cares.
$5.5 billion on subs that were cancelled. Who cares.
$35 billion (at last count) on JobKeeper payments for corporations that did not suffer a downturn in turnover? Who cares.
The fact that when piling into Albo over a memory blank he overstates the size of the Australian economy by $20 trillion dollars? Who cares.
The fact that every single ScoMo event is cosplay – without any engagement with real votes? Who cares.
And, to rebut Murphy’s declaration of brilliance: whenever the cosplay goes off piste and scomo meets real people: he’s terrible. He got run out of Lismore. Just last month. Think about THAT for a second.
But compare: Albo has a memory blank on day one. The pile on hasn’t stopped.
But in reality, who cares about a simple memory blank. Or as Howard candidly said on Monday, so what? But whenever Morrison has a gaff, it actually hurts real people. Or ends up costing us tens of billions. And the presstitudes simply don’t care about that at all. Why would they. ‘Journalism’ is a sport, paid for by their rich proprietors. And all they have to do is play along.
citizen @ #NaN Saturday, April 16th, 2022 – 6:56 am
Oh no!!!!
We must save Phil.
Lars
Re the S@#tshow, you first have to make an assumption that anybody out side the Telegraph said anything at all. I imagine it’s simply the journalist or editor given that tabloid’s record that is making that statement themselves and not anybody from within the party.
Victoria @ #97 Saturday, April 16th, 2022 – 8:47 am
Always expect the worst I say. It makes the best that much sweeter.
Katherine Deves was a deliberate tactical move by the Shire Bigot.
Having failed to deliver to the religious right & no prospect of being able to he needed another bait to rehook their support.
Pandering to homophonic & transgender prejudice was THE plan…
“ Katherine is, you know, an outstanding individual … and she’s standing up for things that she believes in, and I share her views on those topics,”
“And I’ll have more to say about that at another time.” Morrison said.
It’s only with the complicity of the MSM that he’s been able to dodge the blowback.
Matt Kean has other ideas…
The NSW treasurer, Matt Kean, last night told News.com.au the Liberals should disendorse Warringah candidate Katherine Deves over anti-trans comments that have surfaced over the past week.
Matt Kean MP
(@Matt_KeanMP)
There is no place in a mainstream political party for bigotry. Coming out as Trans would be hugely challenging, especially for kids, and political leaders should be condemning the persecution of people based on their gender, not participating in it. https://t.co/3gMymtzvz3
April 15, 2022
Will the MSM follow up & ask what Scotty meant by this ?
“And I’ll have more to say about that at another time.”
I noticed that the Herald Sun seems particularly feral today as well.
Not only that article by James Campbell but several others that were pretty negative.
Are they worried about the potential for the Rudd Royal Commission in to Murdoch???
So Scott,
You’ve shared the view that the libs need a primary of 40% or more to win.
How low can the Labor primary go and Albo still win? I think it’s 37% now in newspoll, could it go as low as 33% and Labor still wins? What do you think?
OC –
You keep making reference to this being ‘rehashed’, already tried and mostly failed etc. But the policy is being described as being based on a NZ implementation:
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-04-13/labor-anthony-albanese-election-funding-medical-centres/100986486
Is the NZ version also some sort of policy failure? It could be; I have no information on it, but it seems strange to me that you keep referring to this in the context of previous Australian attempts. Is Albo describing it as a NZ model just some sort of sleight of hand?
Sprocket
“ Lars, the Daily ToiletPaper is embedded in the Liberal Party Dirt Unit.
Their job is to manufacture stories against Albo and the Labor Party. I would advise not believing a word in any of the Murdoch press.”
Agreed, my feelings exactly. Bereft of attributable sources I lean towards the story being entirely manufactured. I’m not sure why readers make the initial assumption that it must be true.
Prince Planet at 7.25am
The lamestream media don’t even compare Albo’s ‘gaffes’ with the Coalition’s well-documented incompetence.
Apparently, as of the start of the campaign, the last 3 years disappeared.
As for ‘who is Albo’ – that fallacy has been cooked up to avoid ‘well, we know Morrison’.
The 2020 US election was a referendum on Trump, who lost. If the media co-conspirators allow this election to be a referendum on Morrison, he will lose.
2 problems: 1) Every so often, Morrison makes the mistake of interacting with the public, like the polite young woman wanting to question him on climate change. It gets videoed and uploaded, then goes viral. The lamestream media try to ignore but its out there now. 2) Lamestream media outlets have constituencies they can’t afford to offend – like 9Fax with Teal voters. The Sydney Morning Herald HAD to ‘blast’ Morrison over FICAC because it is the Teal paper in Sydney. The fact that this issue is a clear winner for Labor is an unintended consequence.
Itep
A balanced coverage of the campaign would pay attention to shortcomings from both sides. That includes the govt’s record.
If Labor haven’t properly costed a $135m announcement, that should be set in the context of car porks, JobRorter and disappeared $5.5bn submarines. The Coalition’s unfitness for govt is demonstrable from its record and of a royally different order of magnitude to any Labor policy errors.
Maybe Cronus – I’d say former leaders should leave or be made to leave parly.
Clearly that is the plan – given the Victorian high court challenge but it wasn’t ruthlessly prosecuted enough notwithstanding the hit on somyurek.
I think the assumption was a quiet retirement post 22 to an ambassadorial gig or similar. Should have been done pre 22 with a vic govt job.
Fulvio Sammut
I don’t know why she wasn’t just honest, declaring herself as a former practitioner and leave it at that. She has sullied herself, intentionally or otherwise by not simply being unambiguously honest.
laughtongsays:
Saturday, April 16, 2022 at 9:04 am
I noticed that the Herald Sun seems particularly feral today as well.
Not only that article by James Campbell but several others that were pretty negative.
Are they worried about the potential for the Rudd Royal Commission in to Murdoch???
————
I think it is pretty clear now that the Murdoch press are aware that the only way to overcome the poor image of Morrison is to try to destroy Albanese integrity and competence and they are going to get more savage and ludicrous as the campaign goes along – I expect some thick black headline like “ALBANESE TO REINTRODUCE THE DEATH TAX, LABOR SOURCES TELL” to come along a week before the election.
Today is when the fight becomes really dirty. Hence Murdoch’s front page attacks.
“ I noticed that the Herald Sun seems particularly feral today as well.
Not only that article by James Campbell but several others that were pretty negative.
Are they worried about the potential for the Rudd Royal Commission in to Murdoch???”
______
I notice that L’arse has been claiming that Albo and Gatrell made a strategic decision to not court the media at the beginning of the campaign. There is no evidence to back up that claim. From what i can tell Albo has gone out of his way to signal a détente with the media proprietors: namely that there wont be any Murdoch royal commission or mores to break up 9/Fairfax as long as labor get a fair shake of the sauce bottle. Until about lunchtime on. Monday that seemed to be working. Then the media went feral and hasn’t stopped the pile on.
I suspect that if the campaign survives and Albo manages to win that both a media royal commission and divestment of the cartel may be under active consideration in the first few weeks of Government. Pity that they wont have the balls to actually do anything about it:
IMO – Murdoch must be run out of Australia. He’s a foreign agent of malignancy. 9/Faix must be broken up into its constituent parts. More protection should be given to independent media to use social media platforms to get around the natural monopolistic tendencies in the traditional media landscape. ABC news and current affairs division should be abolished and its funding redirected to the SBS. Won’t happen of course.
Read Kevin Rudd’s two books about how the Murdoch dirt unit works in collaboration with the Liberal Party, remember how the Murdoch press went after Therese Rein over her business interests and even dared to suggest that the Rudd family was never really made homeless after his father died.
Albo is copping more of the same from this mob today!
How does Labor deal with a hostile media? By putting the head down and campaigning hard and well, go around them in other words.
Victoria
“ Meanwhile the plague has found its way into my household after two years of vigilance.
Youngest has covid. Means cancelled easter celebrations for us. Sigh…..”
Best of luck to you all. Bloody covid.
Victoria:
All the very best. What rotten timing to get it over an extra long weekend!
The West has been feral all week and you will be pleased to know that already having given the election to Morrison, he is leading 5 nil in the “Who won the day?” poll they seem to love…They struggled yesterday claiming a lay day or something.
However, oddly, the L-to-the-editor pages show very little enthusiasm for Morrison…There is no sense, yet, of “Thank god for the another Morrison Miracle to save us….” line…..In fact, a clever little letter from one correspondent took the piss out of Gemma Tonglini.
I think too, this is the first time in a week that the West has not gone full tilt on the front page against Albanese.
There is a sense from some that the West has already over-played its hand…..I mean if it is game/set/match to Morrison already, what else can they write about for the next 30 or days or so?
In any event, the Murdoch lot are happy to continue the attempted hatchet job elsewhere so I guess the West can rest on its oars.
Oh, I failed to mention our local obnoxious Paul Murray has a spray (with the tongue out picture of Albo for good measure) but as he has been so pro-Liberal for so long (but pretending to be a balance commentator) he only appeals to the older, rusted-ons who are the main recipients of the West newspaper…
Take heart from the following: Only one member of the Q&A audience on Thursday night thought the Albanese “gaffe” on the unemployment rate was at all important. And, the letters page of the Sydney Morning Herald all week has been almost 100% anti Morrison and begging for a substantial discussion of policy instead of the superficial approach the media takes.
Arky at 8.34am
The non-Murdoch lamestream media’s concerns about Murdoch’s attacks on Turnbull show us that the rest of the lamestream media are ‘moderate Liberal/Teal’ in orientation.
That represents a vulnerability for Morrison – especially on FICAC.
BK
Welcome to QLD Murdoch style. Every day, week and year we tolerate this tripe.
Jesus – people have got to give themselves a break.
I open and see this froth expecting something has happened… aaaand no.
None of this is new or news.
Also, Murdoch papers and commercial media in state elections recently have run heavily in favour of the Liberals and against the incumbant Labor Governments or Labor Opposition leaders(in the case of South Australia not too long ago), yet McGowan, Andrews, Anastacia and Malanauskas have all won elections.
Maybe the power of the Murdoch machine to control election results is waning?
Commercial TV? Kerry Stokes and Peter Costello are Liberals, enough said about Seven and Nine’s approach. Channel 10 is perhaps a bit more balanced.
The ABC is the big disappointment this time round, too many commentators on the Morrison bandwagon, News 24 cutting off Albanese news conferences, Stan Grant on Thursday night being overly aggressive towards Chris Bowen etc.
Victoria :
Victoria has recorded another eight COVID-related deaths.
There are 403 patients in hospital after contracting the virus, the first time that number has risen above 400 since mid-February.
Of those patients, 21 are in intensive care units and eight are receiving ventilation.
There were 9,559 new cases reported across the state.
………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
New South Wales :
NSW has recorded 18 new COVID-related deaths.
The state has recorded another 13,601 new cases.
There are 1,491 people with COVID-19 in hospital, with 72 patients in ICU.
jt1983 @ #129 Saturday, April 16th, 2022 – 9:24 am
I was only saying earlier today that there’s reality and then there’s the PB bubble. Most of the froth this morning appears to be people responding to baiting rather than any objective assessment of the state of play.
This morning the local supermarket was giving away a free newspaper with every $20+ purchase. Which newspapers, I asked, thinking I could get the SMH or AFR for free. Nope, only the Daily Telegraph or Australian were on offer. I politely declined.
Victoria
“ The scandals swirling around the fiberals will also be of a financial nature. Just sayin…..”
Your teasing and I’m intrigued. I wonder if information might be released the day before the debate?
I think that’s right Evan re the media.
As long as Albo can hold the opinion polls at 53-47 he’ll be fine.
Should they slip it could be another story…
Deves is bait for the shoals of evangelicals. Can’t win Warringah because of climate change sensibilities? Plant a dummy candidate there anyway and use them to rouse the phobic vote.
The cynicism of the Lying Reactionaries is matched only by their corruption.
Confessions says:
Saturday, April 16, 2022 at 9:29 am
Really, they could offer me $20 and I would still decline to read that shit.
Bludging at 9.32am
Yes, I’ve been wondering if Deves is a candidate never intended to win, but send culture war signals to voters in other electorates – like Western Sydney marginals.
Let’s see how Morrison and the media cheersquad deals with this today
https://www.thesaturdaypaper.com.au/news/politics/2022/04/16/exclusive-harassment-claims-against-another-liberal-mp/165003120013707#mtr
Morning all. Thanks for the roundup BK. I think easter gives Albo a timely break to reset the Labor campaign. Gotchas aside, Morrison is still very vulnerable on issues like corruption and no Federal ICAC.
Lars Von Trier
Hypothetically
If lib/nats combined primary vote 39%
Labor primary vote 35% , labor gets a majority
Jackol
You seem to have come to the wrong place. This is the place where we endlessly complain about how badly Labor is treated by the bias of the corrupt press, not discuss policy.
However,
Albanese’s plan is to finance GP clinics near ED departments outside office hours to take triage 4 and 5 patients who really don’t need to be seen in ED (0r do they? T4 patients are often those in which things are missed and results are bad)
Any trainee hospital administrator will have this as one of the lesser items in their essay on resolving ED bottlenecks
NSW Health has been trying this idea for at least 20 years with generally poor results because:
1. Getting GPs to work unsocial hours for Medicare fees without a guaranteed income is impossible. If you guarantee their income, it is going to be a lot more than $135 M
2. Many patients will still insist on waiting hours in ED because they know they can have direct access to diagnostics and specialists and believe a GP in that sort of clinic is an unknown quality
3. Governance can be difficult and quality poor.
I have been involved in several attempts to set these clinics up. One was relatively successful at Canterbury Hospital (but only on the second attempt when it became culturally safe and changed to an unusual funding model) but it had minimal effect on Canterbury’s ED bottleneck.
The “it works in NZ” is a common meme that politicians pull out of their asses but often has no relevance and is difficult to check. ED definitions and the funding of GPs in NZ is very different to Australia and I assume they employ the GPs to run a clinic in the hospital. We also do that in NSW Health with “SMART” units (and other names) within EDs. Once again this is included in the trainee’s essay but it has only a marginal effect.
As an aside, the last time I was involved with this type of “solution” the CE decided to call it “Project T4” (after triage 4). I pointed out that this was inappropriate as students of German history will understand. Maybe the CE was thinking of a final solution.
Clearly this Grauniad journalist was on holidays in Hawaii for the first week of the campaign. Unbe-f’n-lievable!
Katharine Murphy
The prime minister has been in trouble for so long I’d almost forgotten the Scott Morrison that surfaced this week – the Morrison that barnstorms around the country with impeccable message discipline. But in true Easter spirit, Campaign Morrison rose from the dead, locked and loaded for his next big May miracle.
Anthony Albanese, not so much.
No matter what way to look at it
There is more Pressure on the lib/nats who are caretaker minority government with 75 seats
To increase their combined primary vote , to hold and gain seats
Highly inappropriate OC.
@LvT – setting the benchmark eh?
I fully expect a 52-48, maybe even a 51-49 during the campaign, that’s polling and campaigns, but no doubt you’ll have the perfect storm of panic here, miserable trolls feeding it and the cycle continues.
Again – nothing has fundamentally changed. Morrison is still the point and the problem. An election victory was always an IF over WHEN – but nothing in my mind has changed my view of what’s happening in the real word and my expectations as to what will happen.
LVT…Nice little line you have constructed for yourself over the last little while….I have lost track of the number of times you have used it….
Goes….. Well it looks like Labor should win (makes you sound good) but always with the addendum…..wtte …..But, if the polls drop back from 53-47 for Labor well, let me tell you, the end is at hand for Labor.
The punch line being ….if Labor loses…”Well I told you this would happen….”
Your position is a phoney one……..Or, does it merely belie your real position, which is to drop into gloat mode if Labor should lose…..
Sohar @ #108 Saturday, April 16th, 2022 – 9:42 am
C’mon people we saw this coming we knew it would turn out this way why the mock surprisement.
THE STORY IS THE MIRACLE 2.0
THAT’S ALL THE CPG AND THE MSM ARE INTERESTED IN NOW.
They have nothing invested in Albanese.
Albo on the campaign trail is no match for a snake oil salesman like Morrison.
In 2025 we might have a better shot with a better leader.
That’s what I said – how people without a sense of history get to run hospitals is beyond me
OC – thanks for the response. It sounds like an idea that everyone understands has potential but actually getting the details right is very challenging, and in terms of an election announceable there is not really any chance of the details being right.