Sticky wicket (open thread)

Schemes hatched by WA Liberals seeking a quick path out of the wilderness; a new Tasmanian state poll; nothing doing on the federal poll front.

I was hoping Newspoll might be back in the game three weeks after election day, but it seems normal service is yet to resume. Presumably Essential Research will have numbers of some sort tomorrow, but it remains to be seen if they will encompass voting intention. I hope to have more to offer shortly on whether other pollsters are still in the game in the immediate term, or whether they have pulled stumps for the time being. That just leaves me with the following miscellany to relate by way of a new open thread post:

• Joe Spagnolo of the Sunday Times reported yesterday on a plan within the Western Australian Liberals to have former test cricketer and national team coach Justin Langer lead the party into the next state election in 2025. The suggestion is that the current leader, David Honey, might be persuaded to relinquish his seat of Cottesloe, one of only two lower house seats the party retained at the 2021 election. It is an any case “widely accepted that Dr Honey won’t lead the WA Liberals to the next election”, with Vasse MP Libby Mettams “his likely replacement” – indeed his only possible replacement out of the existing ranks of the Liberals’ lower house contingent.

• Katina Curtis and Shane Wright of the Sydney Morning Herald have taken the trouble to compile the results of the 75,368 telephone votes cast by those in COVID-19 isolation, finding that Labor, Greens or independents candidates out-performed on them on two-candidate preferred relative to the overall results in all but eight lower house seats. Kevin Bonham is quoted in the article noting that infections are more prevalent of left-leaning demographics, namely the young and those employed in exposed occupations, though I also tend to think there may be a greater tendency for those on the right of politics to keep their illnesses to themselves.

• One bit of poll news at least: the latest quarterly Tasmanian state poll from EMRS has been published, the first since Jeremy Rockliff succeeded Peter Gutwein as Premier. It finds the Liberals down two points since March to 39%, Labor down one to 30%, the Greens up one to 13% and others up two to 18%. Rockliff leads Labor’s Rebecca White 47-34 as preferred premier, compared with Gutwein’s lead of 52-33 in March. The poll was conducted May 27 to June 2 through telephone interviews from a sample of 1000.

• Lydia Lynch of The Australian reports that Julie-Ann Campbell, Queensland Labor’s outgoing state secretary and now associate partner with consultancy firm EY, is “expected to run for federal politics” – specifically for the seat of Moreton, which Graham Perrett has held for Labor since 2007.

There’s a fair bit going on at the site at the moment, so here’s a quick run-through the subjects of recent posts with on-topic discussion threads, as opposed to the open thread on this post:

• The future direction of the Liberal Party, with debate raging as to whether it should focus on recovering blue-ribbon seats from the teal independents or cutting them loose and pursuing a new course through suburban and regional seats traditionally held by Labor;

• The three state by-elections looming in the Queensland seat of Callide, the South Australian seat of Bragg and the Western Australian seat of North West Central;

• The ongoing count from the federal election, which remains of interest in relation to several Senate contests, with the pressing of the button looking reasonably imminent in South Australia and the two territories.

Author: William Bowe

William Bowe is a Perth-based election analyst and occasional teacher of political science. His blog, The Poll Bludger, has existed in one form or another since 2004, and is one of the most heavily trafficked websites on Australian politics.

727 comments on “Sticky wicket (open thread)”

Comments Page 8 of 15
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  1. https://www.theguardian.com/business/2022/jun/13/wall-street-stock-markets-bear-market

    Fears about a possible recession pounded stock markets worldwide on Monday, and Wall Street’s S&P 500 tumbled into the maw of what’s known as a bear market after sinking more than 20% below its record set early this year.

    The S&P 500 dropped 3.9% to a new low for the year as investors resumed trading after the weekend and reflected on Friday’s stunning news that inflation is getting worse, not better.

    The Dow Jones was down more than 875 points, or 2.8%, and the tech-heavy Nasdaq composite crumpled 4.7% as investors continued to sour on once high-flying tech stocks.

  3. The Crypto tide has certainly gone out and it is becoming evident that everyone was swimming naked. Various “exchanges” are freezing withdraws of real currencies and so it is creating basically a bank run like situation which will only get worse. Lots of people who got sucked into this pyramid scheme are going to get burnt.

  4. I was just reading an article from soon after the election about the Archibalds by John McDonald, the Sydney art critic, and something he said popped out at me and resonated:

    The teal revolution allows one to hope that Australia is still the land of the fair go, and the success of these candidates should motivate the Labor Party to govern more boldly in key areas. It suggests we are not, after all, a nation of “quiet Australians” who will let our political masters do whatever they please with taxpayers’ money.

    https://www.smh.com.au/culture/art-and-design/the-reject-shop-the-works-the-archibalds-didn-t-want-20220523-p5antq.html

  5. BK
    “ Anthony Albanese is considering whether to attend a NATO summit as part of a show of support from Asia Pacific partners for the response to Russia and China, writes David Rowe.”
    https://www.theage.com.au/politics/federal/australia-answers-nato-call-on-russia-china-threat-20220613-p5atbx.html

    I finished reading Kevin Rudd’s book and it has a lot of juicy details to show just how badly Liberal governments have failed the nation in terms of defence policy in our region over many years. Labor should highlight a lot of this stuff. In a way it is doing so now by doing the opposite of what the Liberals did in office.

    The first time a Quad alliance was suggested was when Howard was PM back in 2003. Howard as PM was one of the first leaders to reject it. Howard still thought links to Europe and USA meant we did not need to focus on regional security partners.

    China has been trying to buy influence in Pacific island countries for almost ten years. Liberal government policy on many issues – not only climate change and aid cuts – rankled them over many years. Visa arrangements for seasonal workers (whereby the islanders get underpaid in Australia) is a big issue, and also undercuts the market for low skilled workers in Australia. There is a big opportunity for Labor to improve PI links via climate change and visa policy.

  6. ‘C@tmomma says:
    Tuesday, June 14, 2022 at 8:42 am

    I was just reading an article from soon after the election about the Archibalds by John McDonald, the Sydney art critic, and something he said popped out at me and resonated:

    The teal revolution allows one to hope that Australia is still the land of the fair go, and the success of these candidates should motivate the Labor Party to govern more boldly in key areas. It suggests we are not, after all, a nation of “quiet Australians” who will let our political masters do whatever they please with taxpayers’ money.’
    —————————-
    McDonald is making stuff up. The ‘Teal Revolution’ got less than 6% of the total vote. 77% of Australians gave their primary vote to parties that promised no new taxes or promised to cut taxes. Labor promised no new taxes.

  7. BS Fairman

    “ Lots of people who got sucked into this pyramid scheme are going to get burnt.”

    Tragic victims of their own greed and stupidity.

    I could now work out why crypto currency should be so valuable for (legal) transactions a few years ago. Warren Buffett always said if you can’t work out how it makes money don’t invest.

    The best investment we made last year was ripping out our gas (AC, cooktop, hot water) and replacing with electric, more solar and big battery. We now enjoy guilt free warmth and are saving money 🙂

  9. Boerwar @ #255 Tuesday, June 14th, 2022 – 8:49 am

    ‘C@tmomma says:
    Tuesday, June 14, 2022 at 8:42 am

    I was just reading an article from soon after the election about the Archibalds by John McDonald, the Sydney art critic, and something he said popped out at me and resonated:

    The teal revolution allows one to hope that Australia is still the land of the fair go, and the success of these candidates should motivate the Labor Party to govern more boldly in key areas. It suggests we are not, after all, a nation of “quiet Australians” who will let our political masters do whatever they please with taxpayers’ money.’
    —————————-
    McDonald is making stuff up. The ‘Teal Revolution’ got less than 6% of the total vote. 77% of Australians gave their primary vote to parties that promised no new taxes or promised to cut taxes. Labor promised no new taxes.

    And your perspective can remain tethered to viewing politics through paradigms of the past, or you can look for the green shoots of new attitudes. Your choice.

  10. Sandman @ #257 Tuesday, June 14th, 2022 – 8:52 am

    An economist on ABC said the ASX is expected to drop 4% today …hello recession ?

    I think it would be the best time to forge ahead with nation building projects, if so, such as the massive project of integrating Renewables into the national grid network. It would enable a lot of people to stay working through any recession. With the government as a sovereign buffer.

  11. I do hope the Greens are watching what happens to your own side, to your own civilians, to your own infrastructure, to your own schools, to your own hospitals and to your own soldiers when the enemy has heavy weapons and all you can do is squat in cellars, bunkers and caves and hope the enemy misses.

    The Greens are still promising to get rid of all of Australia’s heavy weapons and to turn the ADF into mincemeat in any war.

    The Greens must revisit their ‘Light Mobile Force’ defence doctrine and start strongly and publicly supporting heavy weapons purchases.

    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jun/13/ukraine-russian-forces-pound-sievierodonetsk-as-fears-grow-for-stranded-civilians

  12. BK

    Thanks for the links to the articles on subs by John Menadue and the Canberra Times. Apologies if I have gone on too much about this but, like Angus Taylor’s gas market, the sub deal has been rigged in favour of the most expensive option.

    IMO we do need SSNs but if it is not recommended an existing design to build at a reasonable price Labor should go back and ask the French for a counter offer.

    The costs quoted throughout by Defence for both SSKs and now SSNs have been suspiciously high. This has nothing to do with building in Adelaide. The cost premium for local build is up to 30% (less for a stable long term contract) yet we are being quoted costs double the UK SSN program cost??

    Transparency is also essential. Costs and program should not be military secrets.

  13. ‘C@tmomma says:
    Tuesday, June 14, 2022 at 8:55 am

    ….

    And your perspective can remain tethered to viewing politics through paradigms of the past, or you can look for the green shoots of new attitudes. Your choice.’
    ————————–
    The fact is that the ‘Teal Revolution’ garnered less than 6% of the total vote. The other 94% of Australians gave their primary vote to anybody but the Teals.

  15. Sandman @ #358 Tuesday, June 14th, 2022 – 8:52 am

    An economist on ABC said the ASX is expected to drop 4% today …hello recession ?

    It could be that expectations of a recession are the reason for the US market sell-off; as per usual the ASX will follow in a sort of combined sheep/arbitrage way.

    There will be a few bargains out there.

  16. If there was a Teal revolution it is very hard to judge how large it could have been. Teal candidates were successful in 7 seats; these were all high income urban type seats. Another seat a “Teal” got close in was Bradfield that falls into this category. But there were no other seats of this type that had a “teal” candidate. It would have been interesting to see what would have happened to a “teal” candidate somewhere like Menzies, Aston or Mitchell.

    Other seats were “teals” did well were Wannon & Cowper which are different fish kettles. They were more like Indi in being regional seats that had gripes about the way they were being represented. But this is not unique as this has happened before in regional areas (Tony Windsor, Rob Oaksott). And elsewhere the “teals” in these type seats failed to get momentum.

    And then the others, Flinders was messed up by candidate stuff up and it would have been interesting otherwise. Latrobe was a complete fizzer. So it is fairly evident that the “teal” phenomenon is inner city and high income based. From an inner city art writer, it is possibly a revolution but for the vast majority of Australia it is not.

  18. Yep. In a nutshell

    —-

    Ari Melber

    Thrust of this second Jan 6 Hearing:

    Trump tried to steal an election from Biden and money from Trump fans.

    He only succeeded at one.

  20. BSF
    True. People are confusing a concentrated effect of high primary and preference votes in selected seats with a general phenomenon. A similar effect produced a so-called ‘Greenslide’ for a national vote increase of less than 2%.

  23. AZ
    Crypto? This fuddy duddy investor went with ‘If you don’t understand it, don’t buy it.’ What I couldn’t understand was why everyone was pretending that thin air was somehow ‘worth’ much more than gold.

  24. Socrates

    I understand we here in QLD are home to a third of the nation’s coal fired power stations. We also have so much sun to spare. We who live by the sword die by the sword. We are reaping what we’ve sown and should be the last state to complain with regard to energy supply and prices.

  25. The brightest winter sunshine you could imagine here on the Brisbane Waters of the Central Coast. Giving a hard edge to the shadow lines created as the sun passes through the plantation blinds and onto a chair, creating a beautiful diagonal stripe effect. The temperature has struggled manfully to 10 whole degrees. Double digits. I’ll take it. 🙂

  26. AZ

    ‘…
    Conservative leadership candidate Pierre Poilievre said Monday a government led by him would do more to normalize cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin:
    …’
    ——————————————–
    A conservative who tells the truth before any election is a rare bird indeed.

  27. ”
    Alpha Zerosays:
    Tuesday, June 14, 2022 at 9:18 am
    CrpytoCrash Memes – I quite enjoy these as my total Crypto investment = $0:
    ”

    Nath
    This is how you post on Bitcoin without attacking Pi. 🙂

  28. C@T

    “And your perspective can remain tethered to viewing politics through paradigms of the past, or you can look for the green shoots of new attitudes. Your choice.”

    +1. The tethering to old politics is the central paradigm that sunk the Coalition.

  29. I have friends who just emailed me yesterday from Britain to say that they might have decided to come back to Australia to live. They sold their house when this area had the highest year on year increases in real estate in the country, and now they may return to a crashing market. Lucky.

  30. ”

    Boerwarsays:
    Tuesday, June 14, 2022 at 9:26 am
    AZ
    Crypto? This fuddy duddy investor went with ‘If you don’t understand it, don’t buy it.’ What I couldn’t understand was why everyone was pretending that thin air was somehow ‘worth’ much more than gold.
    ”

    Some of the biggest hits came for cryptocurrencies, which soared early in the pandemic when record-low interest rates encouraged some investors to pile into the riskiest investments. Bitcoin tumbled more than 18% and dropped below $22,700, according to Coindesk. It’s back to where it was in late 2020 and down from a peak of $68,990 late last year.

  31. “I have friends who just emailed me yesterday from Britain to say that they might have decided to come back to Australia to live. They sold their house when this area had the highest year on year increases in real estate in the country, and now they may return to a crashing market. Lucky.”

    Then next 12 months will be very interesting, the sharper and sooner the crash the better for labor, the slower the crash the shallower it needs to be for Labor to survive it.

  34. Early on, I gained a basic understanding of how the crypto currencies functioned and it never seem to be an answer to a problem (other than transferring funds against the law). The old concept about what makes a fiat currency worth anything is that it can be used to pay taxes still basically applies. No major country went close to legalising the payment of taxes by bitcoin. El Salvador and Central African Republic did but their economies combined are smaller than South Australia’s and the theoretical value of bitcoin was tens of times larger than the entire economies.
    It then just became speculation and a “greater fool” situation….
    And don’t get me started on NFTs.

  37. “Price caps for wholesale electricity prices have been implemented across Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria and South Australia following prices soaring – however, that has prompted some concerns generators may refuse to put electricity into the network because they are unable to cover costs.”

    Somebody needs to set these generators straight quick smart. They don’t run the country and shouldn’t attempt to hold it to ransom. Time for real action.

    https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-06-14/cold-snap-energy-blackouts-load-shedding-bowen/101149732

  38. ”
    C@tmommasays:
    Tuesday, June 14, 2022 at 9:39 am
    I have friends who just emailed me yesterday from Britain to say that they might have decided to come back to Australia to live. They sold their house when this area had the highest year on year increases in real estate in the country, and now they may return to a crashing market. Lucky.
    ”

    C@tmomma
    Although better than Britain, your friends will be coming to a country where
    1. Inflation is galloping
    2. Interest rates are increasing
    3. Energy crisis is upon us with higher gas and electricity prices
    4. Stock market is going down like a lead balloon
    5. Aged care in disrepair
    6. NDIS in crisis because spivs and cons have siphoned a lot of the NDIS funds
    6. Skills shortages
    7. Low wages growth.
    8. NBN needs major repair.
    9. China is about to set up major base in Pacific Islands threatening our National security.
    10. Trillion dollar Debt with interest payment about 20 billion dollars a month and increasing because Interest rates are increasing all around the world.
    11. Recession is looming in the background

  40. Ven @ #283 Tuesday, June 14th, 2022 – 9:58 am

    ”
    C@tmommasays:
    Tuesday, June 14, 2022 at 9:39 am
    I have friends who just emailed me yesterday from Britain to say that they might have decided to come back to Australia to live. They sold their house when this area had the highest year on year increases in real estate in the country, and now they may return to a crashing market. Lucky.
    ”

    C@tmomma
    Although better than Britain, your friends will be coming to a country where
    1. Inflation is galloping
    2. Interest rates are increasing
    3. Energy crisis is upon us with higher gas and electricity prices
    4. Stock market is going down like a lead balloon
    5. Aged care in disrepair
    6. NDIS in crisis because spivs and cons have siphoned a lot of the NDIS funds
    6. Skills shortages
    7. Low wages growth.
    8. NBN needs major repair.
    9. China is about to set up major base in Pacific Islands threatening our National security.
    10. Trillion dollar Debt with interest payment about 20 billion dollars a month and increasing because Interest rates are increasing all around the world.

    They are recently retired and can afford to buy a house for cash. The husband is a former CEO of a multinational company. I think they’ll be okay.

    Anyway, Britain is worse. They still have Boris Johnson! 😆

  41. All Ords is plumetting now down 3.75% or 298 points after 7 minutes.

    All Ords plumetting to new depths down 5% after 10 minutes.

  42. The AFL isn’t going to appoint Frydenburg.

    However, there is an excellent opportunity awaiting him. I hear Guide Dogs Australia is looking for a new CEO 😉

  43. AEC ✏️
    @AusElectoralCom
    ·
    22s
    Senators for the ACT have been decided. The successful candidates, in order of their election, are:

    1. Gallagher, Katy – Australian Labor Party
    2. Pocock, David – David Pocock

    The full result and count will be available on our website later today.

  44. Boerwar at 9:26 am

    What I couldn’t understand was why everyone was pretending that thin air was somehow ‘worth’ much more than gold.

    ‘Thin air’ being valuable, like when teh government ‘ creates’ money with a few keyboard strokes ? The ‘value’ was it was secure and there is a limited supply. So no government ‘firing up the printing presses’.

    Nearly bought $20 worth just for fun back when it was about $1.It seemed a good idea for replacing money online and to make transactions easier. If it was a dud , no great $ loss on my part. Didn’t get around to it, next time I saw it the price was well over $20 for 1 so didn’t bother. I try not to think about what might have been 😆

  50. Lovely sunny morning in my part of world.

    Meanwhile looks like Trump will be looking at fraud charges.
    It was obvious he was grifting on the big lie.

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