There are posts above on state politics in New South Wales and below on the slow motion demise of Boris Johnson. This one covers local electoral news relevant to (mostly) the federal tier:
• In an article for The Monthly by George Megalogenis, Shaun Ratcliff of the University of Sydney relates research suggesting home owners were nearly twice as likely to vote Coalition than non-home owners after controlling for income. However, there was a marked exception for those under 35, who were twice as likely to vote Labor and Greens than the Coalition, which played a major role in the latter’s disastrous showing in the big cities. The Coalition had just 16% support among renters, compared with 38% for Labor and 35% for the Greens. Home owners were only half as likely to vote for the Greens as renters, while distinctions among Labor were more modest. This was based on the Australian Cooperative Election Survey, conducted during the campaign from a sample of around 5800 by YouGov and various universities, which we will be hearing a lot more from in future.
• The Guardian reports Senator Andrew Bragg is pushing for changes to the New South Wales Liberal Party’s rules at its annual general meeting later this month to allow preselections to proceed without the involvement of the leader’s representative in the nomination review process. This seemingly arcane point lay at the centre of the long-running logjam in its preselection process before the federal election, when Scott Morrison’s centre right faction ally Alex Hawke persistently failed to show at meetings to move the process forward. Factional rivals said this was a deliberate effort to force the national executive to intervene to protect centre right incumbents from preselection defeats. Bragg’s proposal has been criticised by Hollie Hughes, Liberal Senator and centre right member, who instead blames reforms championed by Tony Abbott that required the concurrence of 90% of state executive members to certify factional deals that would have broken the deadlock.
• Matthew Knott of the Sydney Morning Herald reports members of Labor’s Cabramatta branch have reacted to Kristina Keneally’s parachute malfunction in Fowler by calling for those who “white-anted” her to be disciplined. This included passage of a motion calling on the party administration to consider expelling Tu Le, whose own aspirations for the seat were thwarted by the Keneally manoeuvre. Local sources cited by Knott said members were “peeved by the presumption Le would have won a rank-and-file ballot given she had only moved to the electorate a year earlier herself and was not well-known in the area”.
• Poll Bludger regular Adrian Beaumont has a piece in The Conversation on the performance of the polls at the federal election, which I mean to get around covering myself in depth eventually.
• Matt Martino of the ABC drew upon my supposed expertise in a fact check on claims made by Barnaby Joyce about the federal election result. I rated him no pinocchios, but told him to watch it anyway.
• Late counting has shown the Liberals’ performance in Saturday’s Bragg state by-election in South Australia to have been a bit less bad than it appeared on the night. There has actually been a 2.8% swing in their favour on postals and pre-polls, compared with a 6.0% swing on the election day votes that were all we had to go on on Saturday. This leaves the Liberal margin at 5.5%, down from 8.2% at the March election (and 16.8% at the election before).
”
Mavissays:
Sunday, July 10, 2022 at 11:48 am
If as it seems Johnson’s motivation to stay on until October is to exact revenge on those who’ve ousted him, the Tories have a way out: vote with Labour in a no-confidence motion.
”
Mavis
Let us say Tories will do as you propose. Do you know Then what happens? That was the question I asked last night.
And the next dinosaur cancelled is…..
Itza: “Hello Pi : https://youtu.be/E7MQb9Y4FAE”
See? Much better use of his time than starting flame-wars on social media. Most advanced rocket engine in the world, and unlike any alternative, they’re mass-producing them. Apparently they’re getting close to producing 40 a month. That’s an entire starship/booster engine compliment.
We is gonna see some fireworks. They’re going to keep firing these things into the sky; one a month. Until they perfect their landings. As soon as they do that, they’ll be launching more than one a month; the new ones + the already landed ones. The ball-park figure for the total amount of payload launched to orbit is 16K tonnes. Each of these babies will take 100 tonnes to orbit, and within a year of starting spacex will be launching 1.2K; 8%. Even without landing any. If they land them all, the next year that will be double. They’ll launch more payload to orbit in about 5 years than has ever been launched.
For about 1/1000th the price of all of the previous payloads.
Griff @ #807 Sunday, July 10th, 2022 – 11:55 am
Yep, that’s why I choose to be fully vaxxed and masked up in crowds.
Macca RB says:
“July 3rd – a day to celebrate both Jim Morrison & Brian Jones”
Jim Morrison: Mr Mojo Risin’
Scott Morrison: Mr ScoMo Sinkin’
Ven @ #691 Sunday, July 10th, 2022 – 10:06 am
Simply untrue. ie False. ie Just plain wrong!
Labor has a majority in its own right. Didn’t you notice?
Teals replacing Liberals had no effect on this fact.
Cronus: ” have a friend who lives only 5km away and is a senior manager within the NBN. He can’t get the NBN so he uses Starlink and is delighted with it.”
Starlink is the quintessential Musk endeavour. It only came about because Spacex had developed so much launch capability that they needed to figure out how to use it. I’ve suggested it before; The thing that Musk has a singular ability in, is in the production of factories. He doesn’t so much build cars as he builds factories that build cars. He doesn’t so much build rockets as he builds factories that build rockets. It’s a common theme in all the things he does.
Let’s build a car! Build ourselves a factory. Crap, we’re running out of batteries! Build ourselves a battery factory. Crap, we’re producing too many batteries. Let’s create a product for household battery storage. Oh crap! Now we’re running out of lithium. And on it goes. Let’s build rockets! Hmm… let’s build a factory for that. Damn, the materials aren’t good enough! Hmm… let’s build a factory that makes steel for our rockets. Oh crap, we’re building so many rockets we don’t even have the requirements for that many rockets. Hmm… let’s build ourselves a factory for satellites aka starlink.
So if there are issues that are found with the rockets, it will be about fixing the manufacturing process. This is really about building those factories. By the time he’s finished, I would expect that orgs are just going to buy the rockets off SpaceX, and like the aim of Tesla, they will manage the self-driving component. And like the Tesla cars, the resale value should be maintained because so much effort went into the production process. Meanwhile China, India, ULA/Boeing are throwing away everything with every launch.
I just don’t know how anyone can compete unless they do the same thing.
C@tmomma says:
Sunday, July 10, 2022 at 8:30 am
Speaking of super IQ humans, here’s a fun fact: Albert Einstein and Abraham Lincoln were born on the same day.
As has been pointed out, Lincoln was not born on same day as Einstein
Further fun fact: A tale of two great physicists – Albert Einstein was born on 14th March while Steven Hawking died on 14th March
Further minor fun fact (which explains why I know fun fact 1): imaxxxxxandivote was also born on 14th March
cheers
Truth in media releases.
I can understand how polling can gauge the popularity of something, but how can it determine whether something is possible or practical? 🙂
Ven says:
Sunday, July 10, 2022 at 12:03 pm
”
Mavissays:
Sunday, July 10, 2022 at 11:48 am
If as it seems Johnson’s motivation to stay on until October is to exact revenge on those who’ve ousted him, the Tories have a way out: vote with Labour in a no-confidence motion.
”
[‘Mavis
Let us say Tories will do as you propose. Do you know Then what happens? That was the question I asked last night.’]
The prospective leader would visit the Queen informing her that he or she could form a majority government. As I said recently if Johnson fell under a bus, a new PM would be installed asap. Johnson has no substantive reason to stay in the job until October. And due to the Tory’s majority, Labour’s not in the running.
Make no mistake, The LNP in NSW want to raise the dam wall to be able to excite the housing developers to free up more land to create several more of those Marsden Park- type atrocities. Entire ground up suburbs with 10, 20 thousand people on marginal and flood prone grounds. Kilometre after kilometre of giant American style grids with no natural features or lank marks to differentiate one part from the other- just anonymous lines of suburban sprawl on so flat and featureless terrain you’d be forgiven fir thinking you were in one of the Dutch flat as a pancake farming northern provinces like Frysland.
The fact that it may also lessen the severity of future floods is just a convenient bonus to run with
Shaun seems mad as hell about turning 60.
Shaun Micallef
@shaunmicallef
re: #MadAsHell
The show HASN’T been axed. In fact, we have a NEW SEASON starting on Wednesday July 20. The only change is the time slot (8:40 – Bloody Gruen).
Best wishes,
Shaun Micallef
xxxxx
11:14 AM · Jul 10, 2022·Twitter Web App
Shaun Micallef
@shaunmicallef
PS Also, I haven’t jumped ship to a commercial network. I enjoy a great working relationship with the ABC and have done for many years. Sometimes I make shows for other stations, that’s all. The ABC is cool with this.
#BrainEisteddfodLaunchesJuly20onChannelTEN
11:16 AM · Jul 10, 2022·Twitter Web App
Shaun Micallef
@shaunmicallef
PPS Okay, it is true we’ll not be returning next year, BUT this is entirely down to me, okay? After 11 years and 15 seasons, I just felt it was time for someone younger to take advantage of the resources and opportunities on offer. I’m turning 60 in a week for fuck’s sake.
11:28 AM · Jul 10, 2022·Twitter Web App
He continues…but we get the idea.
Given the Constitutional mandates re State House/Senate delegation sizes (min. 5 HoR seats per State, all States have equal Senatorial delegations), “tackling malapportionment” can only be done in one practical way. Specifically, by increasing the size of the House such that Tasmania’s mandated 5 HoR seats is approximately what they’d get on a per-population basis.
Doing the numbers: Each of Tasmania’s 5 HoR divisions had an average of 70,000 votes cast last election. With ~14,310,000 votes cast outside of Tasmania, we’d need 204.4 non-Tasmanian HoR seats to get the same ratios. Call it 205 so the NT keeps its 2nd seat at an enrolment of ~50,000 electors. Currently, there are 146 non-Tas HoR seats – which means we’d need to increase the size of the House by 64 seats, or about 40%. And since the Senate would also need to increase to 105 Senators, per s.24 of the Constitution, this means we’d be adding 29 Senators as well.
The last time Parliament was expanded, it was by Hawke. But the Australian public – never overfond of bloviating politicians – are vastly more cynical now than we were then. Whoever seriously proposes employing another 90+ mostly-useless MPs, with all their worthless lackeys and minions and hangers-on, will be pelted out of the public square.
You’d have a better chance of amending the Constitution to strike out the five-seat minimum, since that involves convincing voters in 5 States to gang up on the 6th State. While you don’t need a Constitutional imprimatur to simply increase the size of Parliament, the attack ads practically write themselves for the next election – and the past 30-odd years of Australian politics has shown that we’re always happy to gang up on whatever group the Powers That Be designate as “outsiders” and kick ’em good and hard.
In sum: Expanding Parliament would be the practical option, but it’s political suicide. Amending the Constitution to nerf Tasmania is less practical, but politically far cheaper.
ItzaDreamsays:
Sunday, July 10, 2022 at 8:23 am
Good afternoon, Thanks for the link, just finished watching and encourage others to do so:
https://youtu.be/EEDDVbnYoP8
Just might stir up those super critics.
A good year for pop ≠ the greatest year of music. Take out prince and it’s just like any other.
What the mid 80s does have is the start of a broad diversification of music in both bands and audience (prince being just one). New styles and a greater acceptance of existing underground styles that broke the humdrum tunes of 80s pop.
I still hold the 90s as the pinnacle decade as all these styles matured yet maintained an edginess. And pop survived and often (not always – spice girls!) worked harder to impress.
Mrs Jan6 disagrees with me tho. As do my nephews who assure me all the cool retro music young peeps play these days are pop from the 80s.
For truth in advertising to be effective there needs to be a vetting body that approves all advertising before it is released publicly.
For advertising to be approved the advertiser would need to provide clear evidence supporting any claims being made and the source of any data being used. The threshold should be high such that anything remotely ambiguous would be disallowed.
I think something like the above would take much of the negative advertising out of elections and force Parties to focus on their own policies.
Anyway they’re my thoughts. 🙂
Jan6: “What the mid 80s does have is the start of a broad diversification of music in both bands and audience (prince being just one). New styles and a greater acceptance of existing underground styles that broke the humdrum tunes of 80s pop.”
’tis the time when music charts were changed from the easily manipulated singles sales, which no one really bought since the early 70s, to CD sales. It was a well known tactic; in order to get a #1 song, a record company would simply buy 10K singles. Presto; instant #1. Single sales were only a fraction of music sales. In the mid 80s chart rankings were changed to include CD sales, which is what everyone was actually buying.
Upshot? Hard rock and country music catapulted up the rankings. Was never much of a country fan, even while I had many friends that were. But for hard rock, before this time no radio station would have ever broadcast Metallica and Guns n Roses. But that all changed when these songs were top of the music ranking charts.
Same sort of change has now occurred again with streaming music.
And then there’s the man who spanned every decade of his musical career like a colossus with THE song for 1984, ‘1984’:
https://youtu.be/iNPHU_ro-1U
Might be difficult for some to get these antiviral Covid medications. They apparently only good if you take at start of symptoms. The timeframe to see your GP can be up to 4 days and your supposed to be isolated and not to go out if you have symptoms.
This is a reasonable and recent assessment of the effectiveness truth in political advertising regimes – which as the author notes were also recommended by Jay Weatherill and Craig Emerson as part of the ALP’s post 2019 election review, as well as, on the other side of the fence by Jason Falinski and Zali Stegall:
https://australiainstitute.org.au/post/it-it-time-to-talk-about-truth-in-political-advertising/
I’d be interested to know if the assessment that the SA State laws, passed in the 80s, have been effective is widely shared.
The writer makes the point that corporations throughout Australia are already prohibited from engaging in misleading and deceptive conduct and that although there are plenty of grey areas, the courts deal with those sorts of hard question every day. There’s no obvious reason in principle why it couldn’t work in the context of political campaigns.
A very good point is that, even if the regime won’t eliminate all dodgy conduct- it certainly won’t- it can eliminate the most egregious examples. It can also mean parties are much more circumspect because of the risk that statements or implications with no reasonable basis might get them pinged.
If the penalty regime included a power to reduce or withhold public funding, or could require it to be repaid, I reckon parties would think twice about some of their conduct
It wouldn’t be a panacea, but as they say letting the perfect be the enemy of the good isn’t usually the best approach to policy making.
@Barney: Awful idea; what happens when the next Coalition Government gets into office and stacks the Truth-In-Advertising Tribunal with ultra-partisan hacks the way they did everything else under A/T/M? Every Labor advertisement would have to face scrutiny by said hacks, who could (a) forward them to their Parliamentary colleagues to get a quick-start on counter-ads, (b) delay approving the ads to give (a) more time to work, and (c) simply turn down any and all remotely-effective Labor ads, while rubber-stamping the most outrageous lies the Coalition can dredge up out of their imaginations.
First rule of regulatory regimes for democracies: Never give yourself a regulatory power that you don’t trust your opponents to have when its their turn in office.
Late Riser:
Sunday, July 10, 2022 at 1:00 pm
I rarely miss Micallef’s show. In the last season, he really took the mickey out of the Morrison government. It’ll be interesting to see how he’ll deal with the new one.
The truth in media laws just need regulation that defines what truth is.
The arc isn’t partisan. Build off that sort of medel.
Anyway, you pair the truth in media laws with a damaging royal commission in Murdoch first
@South: Defining “truth” is most certainly not as simple as you say. Not outside of mathematics, anyway – and not always even there! And since no Murdoch Royal Commission is ever, ever going to be called, your argument is moot anyway.
Mavis, further down thread Shaun M writes (wtte) that since this will be his last series he’s going to do what the ‘bloody ABC’ never let him try before.
‘Mavis says:
Sunday, July 10, 2022 at 1:19 pm
Late Riser:
Sunday, July 10, 2022 at 1:00 pm
I rarely miss Micallef’s show. In the last season, he really took the mickey out of the Morrison government. It’ll be interesting to see how he’ll deal with the new one.’
———————————–
I hope he does not miss a beat in taking the mickey out of the Albanese Government. He is one of the few hubris busters in the business.
What to look forward to at the next J6C hearings.
The January 6th Committee did just announce that its next public hearing, taking place this upcoming Tuesday, will focus on the Oath Keepers and such.
https://www.palmerreport.com/analysis/trump-stooge-ronny-jackson-has-frantic-meltdown-about-january-6th-committee-ahead-of-its-next-public-hearing/46077/
It is expected to be led by Representative Jamie Raskin, Democrat of Maryland, and Representative Stephanie Murphy, Democrat of Florida, who plan to chart the rise of the right-wing domestic violent extremist groups that attacked the Capitol and how Mr. Trump amassed and inspired the mob. The panel also plans to detail known links and conversations between political actors close to Mr. Trump and extremists.
…
“Donald Trump solicited the mob; he summoned the mob to Washington,” Mr. Raskin said, adding, “All of this was targeted on the joint session of Congress.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/07/05/us/politics/jan-6-hearings.html
Matt, why would they need to be appointed by the Government of the day?
It could be incorporated into the AEC with them choosing the members.
Boerwar
:
Sunday, July 10, 2022 at 1:27 pm
‘Mavis says:
Sunday, July 10, 2022 at 1:19 pm
Late Riser:
Sunday, July 10, 2022 at 1:00 pm
I rarely miss Micallef’s show. In the last season, he really took the mickey out of the Morrison government. It’ll be interesting to see how he’ll deal with the new one.’
———————————–
[‘I hope he does not miss a beat in taking the mickey out of the Albanese Government. He is one of the few hubris busters in the business.’]
I guess that depends on if the Albanese government provides him with the requisite material. So far, go good. It goes without saying that Morrison & his team gave Micallef an unending supply…
The WA Libs aren’t getting along it would seem. The have 2 MLA’s but thanks to the rural weighted upper house voting system, have 7 MLC’s. The leaders is one of the MLA’s, David Honey. The other MLA, Libby Mettam is being encouraged to challenge;
https://thewest.com.au/politics/liberal/libby-mettam-urged-to-take-on-david-honey-for-wa-liberal-party-leadership–c-7463870
The upper house malapportionment has been abolished by the McGowan Government and from the next election in 2025 we will vote for upper house members from a single statewide electorate.
Barney in Cherating @ #878 Sunday, July 10th, 2022 – 1:39 pm
The AEC has already stated that they don’t want to do it.
C@t,
That’s talking about it in their current form, give them the appropriate resources why couldn’t they?
Late Riser @ #875 Sunday, July 10th, 2022 – 1:24 pm
Comedy?
”
Mavissays:
Sunday, July 10, 2022 at 12:40 pm
Ven says:
Sunday, July 10, 2022 at 12:03 pm
”
Mavissays:
Sunday, July 10, 2022 at 11:48 am
If as it seems Johnson’s motivation to stay on until October is to exact revenge on those who’ve ousted him, the Tories have a way out: vote with Labour in a no-confidence motion.
”
[‘Mavis
Let us say Tories will do as you propose. Do you know Then what happens? That was the question I asked last night.’]
The prospective leader would visit the Queen informing her that he or she could form a majority government. As I said recently if Johnson fell under a bus, a new PM would be installed asap. Johnson has no substantive reason to stay in the job until October. And due to the Tory’s majority, Labour’s not in the running.
”
Mavis
What prospective leader? Currently there is no leader available other than BOJO from Tory side. Hence, who will go to the Queen asking to be installed as PM?
Pi at 12.07
See? Much better use of his time than starting flame-wars on social media. Most advanced rocket engine in the world, and unlike any alternative, they’re mass-producing them. Apparently they’re getting close to producing 40 a month. That’s an entire starship/booster engine compliment.
____________
You forgot to add: I want my space rocket, damnit!
…now upgraded to ‘stark raving barking mad’
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2022/jul/10/stark-raving-barking-mad-experts-question-the-building-of-homes-below-worst-case-flood-levels-in-western-sydney
Windsor Climate Blues:
can’t insure mah house
can’t sell mah house
can’t live in mah house.
Great to see this finally given charity status.
https://www.thegracetamefoundation.org.au/
I have been to Mparntwe many, many times.
But I did not know it.
The pattern continues: nothing is ever good enough for the Greens.
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2022/jul/10/greens-to-seek-changes-to-labors-integrity-commission-legislation-to-protect-whistleblowers
Matt at 1.04
…You’d have a better chance of amending the Constitution to strike out the five-seat minimum, since that involves convincing voters in 5 States to gang up on the 6th State.
____________
Except that the Constitution also mandates that measures which would reduce the powers granted to any particular state require the consent of that state. So, either persuade Taswegians to reduce their number of HoR seats (good luck!) or expand the HoR.
Snappy: “You forgot to add: I want my space rocket, damnit!”
I try to mix it up a little. But I DO want my space-rocket godammit.
Hmmm… everyone over 70 to have access to anti-covid virals, regardless of existing conditions.
Shoebridge
“This new parliament has a once-in-a-generation opportunity to create an Icac that will future-proof the institution from governments that may not be so keen on scrutiny.
…’
——————————————-
Shoebridge is smart enough to know that this statement is based on a lie. No current government can constrain a future government.
It is ironic that Shoebridge is stunting on integrity while basing his arguments on quite a big lie.
Boerwar @ #848 Sunday, July 10th, 2022 – 2:40 pm
Thankyou for the link.
I’m actually quite shocked the Labor bill is missing these most crucial aspects.
My anxiety levels have dropped dramatically since the election of a mostly sensible crossbench that will oversee the major parties.
Barney in Cherating @ #882 Sunday, July 10th, 2022 – 2:14 pm
Likely a new arm of the AEC could be legislated for. However, as with the PBO I imagine Labor would want to create a new unit whose sole purpose would be policing advertising during elections. Maybe they could expand their reach to encompass state and territory elections as well?
@Matt,
No, ganging up on Tassie won’t work either. Its constitutionally protected over-representation in the House is all but impossible to get rid of because Tasmanians themselves would have to vote for it – see the penultimate paragraph of section 128 of the Constitution:
“No alteration diminishing the proportionate representation of any State in either House of the Parliament, or the minimum number of representatives of a State in the House of Representatives, or increasing, diminishing, or otherwise altering the limits of the State, or in any manner affecting the provisions of the Constitution in relation thereto, shall become law unless the majority of the electors voting in that State approve the proposed law.”
Boerwar at 2:40 pm
Sure they moan a lot but IF the protection of whistle blowers is deficient then it damned well does need someone to make a fuss. Given the Coalition’s ocd when it comes to ignoring intentions and conventions then we need to make sure it is water tight. As to the sufficiency or deficiency of what is currently proposed I am Sgt. Shultz
Johnson seems a devisive person even some of the strongist brecksit suporters are his harshist criticks liam fox william rag david davis still think sunack is a weak option only been in parliament since 2015 and had junier positions until 2019 wonder if hes behind the ben wallace rummers
Until ucraine wallace had a low profile and did not seek media how ever he emerged a couple times once into be one of johnsonscampaign bos and wrote a article in teligraph atacking goave for pulling out of deal to run as johnsons runiing mate and in 2019 backed him again and was rewardewd with defence rease mog is another key backer but until johnson resiggned walace was not mentiond as a future leader