Facing seven days in isolation after testing positive for COVID-19, Anthony Albanese will “postpone a punishing schedule of marginal seat visits in the next week and instead do media appearances from home”, according to the ABC. That headline-grabber aside, there is also the following to report:
• The West Australian has a poll from Painted Dog Research showing Anthony Albanese leading Scott Morrison 54-46 as best leader to handle the economy, out of a sample of 1241 Western Australian respondents polled on Wednesday. Personal ratings were even better for Albanese in relative terms, his 38% approval and disapproval and 38% disapproval comparing with Morrison’s 26% and 55%. Asked “which is your least desired outcome from the election”, 39% went for a Coalition majority, 22% for a Labor majority and 39% for a hung parliament. It should be noted that this outfit’s accuracy has never been properly tested since it has never conducted voting intention polling, and its numbers are quite a lot difference from those of the last Newspoll breakdown, which gave both leaders a net rating of minus five in the state.
• In her weekly column in the Age/Herald, Niki Savva wrote yesterday that Liberal insiders weren’t raising their hopes far beyond a hung parliament, and believed themselves to be “in trouble in Bennelong, Reid, North Sydney and Wentworth in NSW, Chisholm and Goldstein in Victoria, Boothby in South Australia and a slew of seats in Western Australia including Curtin”. In the inner urban seats where the party faces an independent insurgency, Morrison’s net negatives were at “a horrendous minus 30” as the campaign began. Labor strategists acknowledged the possibility of a hung parliament, but believed the election was still “there for the taking”, depending on the quality of Anthony Albanese’s performance.
• The Greens are claiming they are poised to win the Brisbane seat of Griffith from Labor’s Terri Butler, based on 25,000 responses they have received through their door-knocking campaign. Labor may well be right when they dismiss this is a “Greens party hype campaign”, but the Greens claim the method provided an accurate measure ahead of their successes in the state seats of South Brisbane and Maiwar and the Brisbane council ward of The Gabba.
• The Australian Electoral Commission has published finalised enrolment statistics following the closure of the roll on Monday. Another milestone on the road to the election is reached with the ballot paper draws at noon today in each division, hopefully to be followed in the afternoon by the full publication of candidates.
Further Clarifications:
And playing the pandemic like it was a private school yard football where you could also further dollar bucks, as Bluey calls it, to Harvey Norms et al., while people starved and lined up at soup kitchens?
How about asking food relief charities how great that “unemployment figure” really is??????
CarefullyRushed: thanks, I know the etymology of Cis. As far as I know, an obscure Latin term completely absent from Western literature and politics for 2000+ years but in the last 10 years the latest bon motif of the Peoples Front of Judea.
I had been thinking that if elected Albanese would be the first Australian PM with at least one non Angl0-Saxon parent.
Then I realised Chris Watson, the first Labor PM, had a German Chilean father, Johan Cristian Tanck. Though I think this was covered up and his mother’s second husband who was a Irish-born New Zealander was recorded as his father because otherwise he may have been ineligible to be in Parliament.
This now in the DT.
Albo accused of abandoning transgender people
Opposition leader Anthony Albanese appears on the ABC after having contracted COVID 19 during the 2022 election campaign
Anthony Albanese is abandoning transgender people because it’s “politically convenient”, a leading LGBTI group has claimed, as he recovers from Covid-19.
There’s also 5 articles in the Australian about marles and how sent a pre copy of his book to china. The boots are getting a workout
Freya Stark says:
Friday, April 22, 2022 at 9:00 pm
“I actually don’t think Katherine Deves …. But for the cost of sacrificing herself, Macquarie, Gilmore, Blair and Lilley may flip to Liberal.”
So the bigootry unleashed by choosing Deves is purely tactical, and deliberate, by the Liberal Party.
I don’t understand the logic behind Deves being about sureing up voters in other suburban and regional electorates. Like surely disengaged swing voters there are more worried about other issues then what some North shore lady thinks about transgender people
Isn’t dt pest spray
Scout I am of a certain vintage, happily retired, and no longer in a workplace where, it seems, one’s preferred pronoun, is a rather hot topic. Fair enough. Sort of like the Ms, Miss, Mrs wars of the 70s and 80s I guess. But it’s not something I loose sleep about.
Yes, of course Deves was picked not to win Warringah (which she is a terrible choice for, a sign they know Stegall is entrenched) but to try and sucker Labor into making trans rights a campaign issue, the classic “why are they spending time on this and not telling me how they will improve my cost of living, my wages, my life?” thing. If MORRISON makes it an issue, he wears that opprobrium from the electorate. If Deves raises it, and Albo answers, he wears it.
In a year that the Libs weren’t already under siege from socially progressive, economic conservative independents, this would be a no-lose proposition for Morrison, but this year it’s going to cost them, and thus far Labor hasn’t been dumb enough to do more than play a straight bat and mostly let other Liberals do the complaining about Deves.
Socrates: Yes. And she might win them Hunter and Shortland as well.
A ruthless and cynical masterstroke from a master of deception and fraud extraordinaire.
Speaking of classic political own-goals, Finnish and Swedish parliaments are now formally debating proposals to join NATO. The Finnish parliament already has an overwhelming majority in favour. They are just waiting for Sweden to decide, as it would be safer for both to apply at the same time.
https://www.helsinkitimes.fi/finland/finland-news/domestic/21413-finnish-and-swedish-policy-makers-discussed-nato-matters-in-sweden.html
Of course, stopping NATO expansion was one of Putin’s stated reasons for invading Ukraine.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9MFu_CfEKq8
The problem for Libs politicising gender issues is it once again shows they will stoop to any level if they think it will gain votes, with no care that it will cause harm to some vulnerable people in the process. And it probably isn’t going to be the net political benefit they want, it *might* make them more competitive in some outer suburban marginals, but it will probably weaken them in inner suburban and teal marginals. Maybe I’m missing something but it’s not something most people really think about and I can’t see much upside politically for the LNP more broadly in pushing this tactic. Perhaps it’s just a ploy for Morrison to try and strengthen his position as leader by losing some moderates and gaining some conservatives and hoping he can cobble enough seats together to be re-elected, but it seems like more of a hope than a reality.
Can we please stop using ‘one hour of work in the last week’ as the definition of employed? Please? Underemployment is the issue. Our unemployment figure is frogshit of the highest order. It allows the political class to pretend it is not a problem.
1203 HoR candidates over the 151 electorates means an average of just shy of 8 candidates per seat.
Chisholm has the most with 12 and at the other end 10 seats have only 5 candidates.
Surprisingly only 97 candidates listed as Independent.
ALP, Greens and UAP running in all seats. LNP is of course running more candidates than seats due to 3 sided contests.
PHON running in all but 2 seats (Kennedy and Higgins…. I understand the former but not the later).
Liberal Democrats running in 100, Australian Federation Party in 61 and Animal Justice in 48
All the other parties are running in less than 2 dozen seats each.
Rather enjoyed this BBC podcast series on Putin and his origins on the long drive back from Bluesfest to Melbourne: https://open.spotify.com/episode/6snvikxMGu5nQQ7t6hSAwI?si=YNK23bMpQKqVUd-lZ2n3Kg
Putin’s heroes were Peter and Catherine the Great which kind of explains Ukraine, I think.
Why does Russia seem to produce so many iconoclasts?
@Soc – stop feeding it lol
This is who I have previously associated with the name ‘Freya’.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UEahYrt_Rfo
Ms. Stark is causing some serious cognitive dissonance for me.
A ruthless and cynical masterstroke from a master of deception and fraud extraordinaire.
Or as I prefer to call him- a complete and utter religious nutjob fuckwit.
Socrates
And I see Vickie Chapman is quitting. A future as an ABC election panellist beckons?
Pretty sure Scotty from Marketing’s version of God is himself and how lucky he is, certainly it don’t reflect any helping, holding hoses/mops/ holding finances for fire or flood victims?
For the Deves mess to work as a 4D chess move, it really needed to happen before the religious bill debate, as going after kids is far less of a rallying point than going after trans athletes. Even within conservative framing trans kids are still innocent victims of something at least. So it’s very easy to paint this as continuing that attack on kids (made easier by every other one of Deves’ statements) and the bait topic of sport doesn’t even need to be mentioned.
I think this “strategy” works way better in America where riling up fanatics and baiting your sole opponent into wasting energy on such a topic is always sound. Even the people actually being wedged make sense if you see moderate Liberals as more or less Democrats in terms of their base.
Meh – Vikings/Game of Thrones mishmash troll.
Who are all these voters meant to be who weren’t already voting Lib but will now that a Liberal has once again (hardly for the first time) gone in with boots on against trans people, as if it’s the key issue for them and yet the Libs hadn’t already done enough to win their vote?
Come on now.
No, the risk is the same risk that has existed in the past – working class voters don’t want to hear the majors talking predominantly about “inner city wanker stuff” and not about their issues. This factor is a big reason for Shorten almost beating Turnbull in 2016 and also for Morrison outperforming Turnbull in 2019 which seemed like anathema to political junkies and perceived wisdom that being closer to the political centre was more advantageous that being further to the extremes. Morrison pitched to what working class voters wanted to hear (like Trump or Boris Johnson) and successfully painted the other side as more interested in lefty trendy stuff than in Your Job and Your House.
This is just part of the same tactic all over again. The Libs and their media buddies are desperate to make Labor bite. Labor is overjoyed everytime Morrison feels the need to use airtime to attach himself to it.
Rocket
“And I see Vickie Chapman is quitting. A future as an ABC election panellist beckons?”
Certainly its her greatest remaining career opportunity.
With SA Labor winning big at the last election, I assume Chapman concluded that it would be two terms or more (2030) before the SA Liberals might be in government again. She wasn’t prepared to wait.
Seadog says:
Friday, April 22, 2022 at 11:33 pm
A ruthless and cynical masterstroke from a master of deception and fraud extraordinaire.
Or as I prefer to call him- a complete and utter religious nutjob fuckwit.
———————————————————
Yep. Morrison pre-selected Deves because in his eyes she is right, she will win and she will secure his leadership. It is all God’s plan in preparation for the Rapture. LNP voters: This is what your party has become. She is them and they are she. They need to lose in a landslide and be rebuilt from the bottom up.
When I was reminded just now, in a post above, of the name “Scotty from Marketing” I realised it’s fallen by the wayside somewhat. The reason, surely, is that epithet no longer begins to encompass the awfulness of Morrison’s governing.
Vickie Chapman wouldn’t do bad with Lady Peta at Sky News. But maybe she might want to run at a Labor marginal federally!
@alias
To be fair, there is no greater awfulness in any office job than dealing with “X from marketing”. He is the epitome of a mediocre middle manager who should have been fired 3 promotions ago but now runs the place. Many such cases.
well there is no better example of truly fucken awful
I don’t think there are additional votes to be won going hard against Trans people. There are possibly votes to be lost if a party starts spending large amounts of time on the issue to exclusion of other pressing issues. A simply reply of not wanting to enter in a public discourse because of its effect on the mental health of those with gender identity issues should enough of an excuse to kill the issue..
Arky, that’s the thing Labor aren’t going to bite that bait, so there’s nothing to be gained continually pushing it out there. The LNP seem to have run out of things to talk about 2 weeks in.
Deves wasn’t 4D chess. It will cost the liberals votes compared to a 2d chess move of Having the same culture war with a less idiotic spokesperson.
The move was about earning one vote, God’s. With that vote on side, sfm thinks he can’t lose. It’s about half a d chess
Take off the high vis! You shat all over Endagine Maccas! To quote Jabberjaw “No Respect!”
1D chess is really boring.
Actually is 1D chess the One Direction version with the pieces figurines of the band members?
The LNP want to pretend they care about the economic concerns of the regular working folk who may vote for them. Yet the majority of the media coverage so far in this campaign has been about a gaffe, and a transphobe. Scomo may want what Deve’s is selling but it’s a vote killer out there.
@Arky
Pretty good summary of the state of play.The Tories have been at high tide in the west for a long time, they are no doubt resigned to dropping seats there and at least one in SA as well as probably one or two to the teals.
So Morrisson knows he must gamble to have any chance of holding on, he must win some seats off Labor and the most likely suspects are seats that swing hard to him last time. He has no choice but to play this card.
If Labor stay out of it and leave it as a hard right tree Tory squabble it will fail but if Labor start beating their chests about the results are unpredictable if I was Labor I wouldn’t touch it with a barge poll.
If Labor stay out the media will get bored with it and then will come the last desperate ploy a reds under the bed China scare.
Jaeger says:
Friday, April 22, 2022 at 11:24 pm
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9MFu_CfEKq8
………
Will the verified disarming of Steve n’ Seagulls be a condition of Finland’s accession to NATO?
Freya at 11.54pm
I would love to see Chapman – or you – contest a Labor marginal on behalf of the L/NP.
Just love it.
Voodoo Blues
Morrison must be praying China don’t send any ‘boats’ to the Solomons in the next four weeks.
The “I stopped these” little Indonesian fishing boat model on his desk would look a bit (more) lame.
“The “I stopped these” little Indonesian fishing boat model on his desk would look a bit (more) lame.”
Someone will send him a model of a Chinese Destroyer with the label..” I Started These ” to make a set.
One funny thing about Devesgate is that I really doubt it’s doing any favours in Kooyong. Or Chisholm for that matter.
Quotes by Barnaby Joyce vs What the Science Says….I Mean…………..
https://skepticalscience.com/skepticquotes.php?s=81
”
From about 1940 to 1980 it was cooling.
”
1 April 2011 (Source)
Mid-century cooling involved aerosols and is irrelevant for recent global warming.
”
Between about 1908 to 1940 the world was warming, then from about 1940 to 1980 it was cooling, now it’s slightly warming again. So what? […] If it was warming between 1908 and 1940, what was happening then?
”
1 April 2011 (Source)
Early 20th century warming is due to several causes, including rising CO2.
”
The way this debate works, Chris, is they work on a division of labor theory. They say “very smart people say the world is warming, and if you say anything different you’re a fool”. And people generally go: “Oh, well, I don’t have the time to actually research it, so I’ll just sit back and say nothing and I’ll agree with them, because agreeing is a very safe place to be, even though I have the sneaking suspicion that what they say is not correct, because I don’t feel the world is coming to a catastrophic end. I just feel that this is just another one of those pitches […] Western society always has, to come up with some disaster; something we’ve got to be scared of; something that we’ve apparently got to fix up right now, and the way we fix it up is by paying a certain group of people a lot of money.” That’s generally how it works.
”
1 April 2011 (Source)
97% of climate experts agree humans are causing global warming.
”
The models that the IPC (sic) put up are wrong. What they initially put up were wrong. The calamity that was supposed to happen, when you look at the modeling process, is not correct.
”
1 April 2011 (Source)
Models successfully reproduce temperatures since 1900 globally, by land, in the air and the ocean.
”
Because it’s warming by an extremely small amount there’s virtually nothing you can do about it, and definitely nothing you can do about it from Australia by yourself, except stuff up your economy.
”
1 April 2011 (Source)
If every nation agrees to limit CO2 emissions, we can achieve significant cuts on a global scale.
”
What [John Christy is] saying is, basically, if it’s warming it’s warming by an extremely small amount.
”
1 April 2011 (Source)
This argument ignores the cooling effect of aerosols and the planet’s
A bit late because I’ve been out for most of the afternoon and evening.
The Game of Thrones in regards to Scotty was hell funny.
He’s the High Sparrow!
It’s going to be a difficult few years for whoever wins govt with interest rates looking to rise significantly and people already struggling with their debts as it is. No one wants to talk about it but an economic crisis caused by the absurd state of the housing market seems likely in the next few years. The Liberal party as it is may be defunct by 2030 as chief architects of this.
@mj Yes interest rates will rise rapidly over the next few years and the electorate is not used to normal interest rates..
There really isn’t a fag paper between the Tories and Labor on basic economic philosophy at this election,a bit more money for aged care is about the only thing that has penetrated out into the real world.
Labor are not going small target but microscopic.They really are putting all their money on a popularity contest.
Complete crap. If you think the ALP doesn’t have policies, it means you haven’t looked. You know who is going small target? The LNP. Yet literally have no policies. None. The only thing they have is culture wars. And corruption.
Hodor.
“I didn’t stop these.”
Dunno – you’ll have to talk to William about that. His blog filter doesn’t like Steve ‘n’ Seagulls.