We’re not likely to see anything on the polling front this week, but there is other electoral news to relate following recent parliamentary vacancies and party defections:
• The Sydney Morning Herald reports preselection nominees to fill the late Jim Molan’s New South Wales Liberal Senate vacancy are likely to include Andrew Constance, former state minister and unsuccessful candidate for Gilmore, and Fiona Scott, who held the lower house seat of Lindsay from 2013 to 2016, together with reported front-runner Dallas McInerney, chief executive of Catholic Schools NSW. Constance and Scott are associated with the moderation faction, while McInerney is a conservative. Mary-Lou Jarvis, lawyer and Woollahra councillor, has also written to senior party figures staking her claim as a qualified woman and the third candidate on the ticket at last year’s election, while also criticising the party’s apparent intention to leave the position vacant until after the state election on March 25.
• The Australian reports the Liberal hierarchy’s hopes of fielding a female candidate for the Aston by-election stand to be complicated by the entry into the field of Emanuele Cicchiello, who is rated a strong chance by sources close to eastern suburbs conservative powerbroker and Deakin MP Michael Sukkar. However, other unidentified sources, “including some with strong Right faction allegiances”, rubbished the notion. Cicchiello is deputy prinicipal of Lighthouse Christian College, a former mayor of Knox and contestant for the seat of Bruce in 2013 and numerous preselections since. All other noted contenders have been women with the exception of Andrew Asten, a former staffer to Alan Tudge, who has since ruled himself out. Anthony Galloway of the Age/Herald reports the matter could be determined by a plebisicite of local members, which have lately proved resistant to female candidates, if the by-election is set for a date that allows sufficient time.
• Victorian Senator Lidia Thorpe’s resignation from the Greens last week marked the first change to party representation in parliament since the election, with the Senate numbers now at Coalition 32, Labor 26, Greens 11, One Nation two, Jacqui Lambie Network two, United Australia Party one and two independents, namely Thorpe and David Pocock. This leaves the government needing two extra votes when the Greens are on board and the Coalition are not, where formerly it needed only one. Thorpe was elected to a six-year term at the election last May, which will extend to the middle of 2028.
The look on Morrison’s face says it all:
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-02-14/scott-morrison-pep-11-gas-licence-quashed/101971912
Aaron newton @ #185 Tuesday, February 14th, 2023 – 3:44 pm
Yep, funny how Mike Pezzulo didn’t tell Claire O’Neil, after she asked him SIX times about the Nauru agreement expiring. Not. And then the Coalition take up the issue in parliament.
Oh well, he just signed his Public Service ‘Use By Date’ notice methinks. he was probably as popular as a pork chop in a synagogue when Labor came to power anyway and has only just reinforced their suspicions about him.
Phoenix : “Each Sidewinder missile costs over $400,000”
For the military though, this is pure gold. All your equipment gets put through its paces, in a live operational use of weapons. The operation itself would have cost so much more. That’s a foot note. Imagine if the missile missed and it really mattered.
“The Netherlands’ Defense Ministry reported late on Feb. 13 that two Dutch F-35 fighters intercepted a formation of three Russian military aircraft over Poland and escorted them out.
“The then unknown aircraft approached the Polish NATO area of responsibility from Kaliningrad,” according to Reuters’ translation of the ministry’s statement. The identified aircraft used by Russia was the Ilyushin Il-20M reconnaissance aircraft and the Sukhoi Su-28 fighter aircraft.
Kaliningrad is a Russian Baltic coast enclave located between NATO and European Union members Poland and Lithuania.”
https://kyivindependent.com/news-feed/reuters-3-russian-military-aircraft-intercepted-over-poland
NATO is playing this very cool and calm. If only Russia had kept a like posture themselves and not erupted in a frenzy of violence against Ukraine last February, a lot of people on both sides would still be alive today who aren’t.
Mavis @ #201 Tuesday, February 14th, 2023 – 4:42 pm
It’s certainly been Scott Morrison Day today, and not in a good way. The Morrison Multiple Ministries Bill has also come up today.
phoenixRED @ #177 Tuesday, February 14th, 2023 – 3:20 pm
I’m assuming the planes concerned have guns. Why waste a missile?
Snappy Tom @ #197 Tuesday, February 14th, 2023 – 4:39 pm
It’s still pretty good to be at 56.5% though. 🙂
I imagine that it may also be the case that the government are between a rock and a hard place due to the fact that the Budget, which will provide relief measures, and the electricity bill relief, haven’t come through yet for people to notice.
Do fighter jets still have guns?
I think the interest rate increases ARE biting:
ANZ-Roy Morgan Consumer Confidence drops to lowest since early April 2020 at only 78.1 after RBA increases interest rates to decade high
These are also some interesting stats out of the Roy Morgan survey:
In January unemployment increased 1.4% points to 10.7%, according to the latest Roy Morgan employment series data. Unemployment increased due to two factors, part-time employment decreasing after the Christmas retailing season along with more people joining the workforce to look for both part-time and full-time work.
Unemployment in January increased 223,000 to 1.61 million Australians (10.7% of the workforce) and under-employment was up by 65,000 to 1.43 million (9.5% of the workforce). Overall unemployment and under-employment was up a large 288,000 to 3.03 million (20.2% of the workforce).
Aqualung: “I’m assuming the planes concerned have guns. Why waste a missile?”
In order to get to that altitude of the balloon, which I’m not sure they can do, they’d have to be pointing up at a pretty steep angle. Not sure the bullets would even get that high.
EDIT: Says F-14 max altitude is 54K. Balloons are at 60K+. Not really that close.
F22: The fighter jet also sports an AM61A2 20-millimeter cannon with 480 round
Left wing Albo from the block chugging beers at the tennis with A-listers and giving S3 tax cuts to the rich.
Thanks Pi. Just seemed like expensive overkill.
Very interesting look in the Washington Post at how Washington and Kyiv have been debating the best military strategy to be employed during this coming spring/summer campaigning season:
“The frank discussions in Kyiv last month reflected an effort by the Biden administration to bring Ukraine’s goals in line with what the West can sustain as the war approaches its one-year mark. Getting Ukraine on the same page has not always been easy, according to people familiar with the discussions, speaking on the condition of anonymity to describe private talks.
For months, Ukraine has expended significant resources and troops defending Bakhmut in the eastern Donbas region. American military analysts and planners have argued that it is unrealistic to simultaneously defend Bakhmut and launch a spring counteroffensive to retake what the United States views as more critical territory.
Zelensky, however, attaches symbolic importance to Bakhmut, two senior administration officials said, and believes it would be a blow to Ukrainian morale to lose the city. On Friday, Zelensky said his country’s forces would “fight as long as we can” to hold the embattled city that Russia is on the brink of capturing.
While U.S. officials said they respect that Zelensky knows how best to rally his country, they have expressed concerns that if Ukraine keeps fighting everywhere Russia sends troops, it will work to Moscow’s advantage. Instead, they have urged Ukraine to prioritize the timing and execution of the spring counteroffensive, particularly as the United States and Europe train Ukrainian fighters on some of the more complex weaponry making its way to the battlefield.
“Generally, our view is they should take enough time that they can benefit from what we’ve provided in material and training,” a senior administration official said. If Russia takes Bakhmut, the official said, it “will not result in any significant strategic shift in the battlefield. Russians will try to claim it as such,
it’s a dot on the map for which they
have expended an extraordinary amount of blood and treasure.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/02/13/us-ukraine-war-critical-moment/
So much is at stake in the outcomes of these strategic deliberations and Russia is not going to let up while they still have warm-blooded bodies to order to the frontline. This leak to the WaPo may be an attempt by Washington to provide President Zelenskyy with political cover to decide to tactically withdraw from Bakhmut and still keep up his people’s morale, military and civilian, as well as their confidence in him and his government.
Pi @ #211 Tuesday, February 14th, 2023 – 4:59 pm
Ah, gravity. 🙂
If its a big balloon, guns may not be enough.
https://apnews.com/article/268893fddde785d029d5a51b136951eb
Canada Research Balloon Floats Away
August 30, 1998
OTTAWA (AP) _ A runaway weather balloon floating toward Britain over the North Atlantic is proving a tough target for some of Canada’s top guns.
The helium-filled balloon, a 25-story high unmanned research station used to measure ozone levels over Canada, was launched Monday from Vanscoy, Saskatchewan.
……………………..
Jet fighters trying to bring the balloon down fired more than 1,000 rounds into it Thursday, but it remained aloft. The air force hopes the now-leaking balloon will eventually come down.
I expect everyone will be genuinely interested, either for or against, in this court case. Does the state government have the right to tax you for the use of your vehicle?
https://thenewdaily.com.au/news/state/vic/2023/02/14/future-victorian-electric-vehicle-tax
It’s great that it is two Labor governments asking this question. Imagine the clusterfuck this would be if either one was LNP and ALP.
c@t: “Ah, gravity. ”
Bastard never lets up.
The AUD 10 Year Bond Yield spiked some 40 Basis Points last week on Inflation fears and consequent presumed RBA Interest Rate hikes to arrest that inflation trend.
The ASX 200 was down 1.6% for the week (so Funds under Management took a bit of a hit on both fronts, Treasury and equities)
There is inflation data due for release in the USA tonight (Australian time).
Ahead of this data, and after a lackluster week courtesy of the focus on inflation and interest rates, the DJIA was actually up 160 Points on Friday night and a further 330 Points this morning, so optimism re a slowing in interest rate increases as inflation “cools” and some Corporate reporting.
The ASX, in response to this 500 Point movement in the DJIA over 2 days, has remained flat, absolutely flat.
The AUD 10 Year Bond Yield has eased by 4 Basis Points, to 3.76% this week
ALL eyes are on the USA.
We trust that data will instruct that inflation is easing (continues to ease), and that monetary policy will adjust accordingly (altho I do not expect any change in the Fed Reserve language, regardless)
If it does not, there will be fall out.
Regardless of the Corporate reporting season and any positive reporting.
And the Liberal Party, typically, blames the ALP in Australia.
The very same Liberal Party which saw the Cash Rate at 7.25% in 2007, not because of International pressures but because of domestic policy, splashing the proceeds of the Mining Boom Phase 1 as they did to buy re-election.
And overseeing the explosion in home mortgage debt by a lazy 350%, from $335 Billion in 2000 to $1.226 Trillion in 2010 (actually 2008 when fractured Capital Markets with the GFC saw banks stop lending)
But they evaded a recession following the introduction of the GST.
The result being to burden with our future generations with housing affordability.
Debt drove house prices.
Dutton, devoid of ideas of his own, follows the Abbott playbook meticulously.
Albanese metaphorically swats him aside every question time.
You bet you are, you bet I am that Dutton dreams of shirtfronting Albanese.
Rex Douglas says:
Tuesday, February 14, 2023 at 5:01 pm
Left wing Albo from the block chugging beers at the tennis with A-listers and giving S3 tax cuts to the rich.
____________
Yes, Albo really screwed up. Should’ve been chardonnay.
fwiw, I didn’t know the max altitude of those things, but i do know that engines stop functioning because they don’t have oxygen in the upper atmosphere. Balloons go way way higher than anything using an engine that requires oxygen. Balloons only need volume and the weight of the air will push them up. People jump from balloons where you can clearly see the curvature of the earth.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=FHtvDA0W34I
That’s why space-rockets rock. When they want to get past that point they carry their oxygen with them.
Pi says:
Tuesday, February 14, 2023 at 5:16 pm
I expect everyone will be genuinely interested, either for or against, in this court case. Does the state government have the right to tax you for the use of your vehicle?
https://thenewdaily.com.au/news/state/vic/2023/02/14/future-victorian-electric-vehicle-tax
It’s great that it is two Labor governments asking this question. Imagine the clusterfuck this would be if either one was LNP and ALP.
*********
It’s not to use the vehicle. It’s to use the roads.
Dutton, like Abbott is just “devoid”.
Rex Douglas says:
Tuesday, February 14, 2023 at 5:01 pm
Left wing Albo from the block chugging beers at the tennis with A-listers and giving S3 tax cuts to the rich.
Is that the best he can come up with today? 😆
Lol Rex Douglas.
goll @ #226 Tuesday, February 14th, 2023 – 5:50 pm
As in, charisma black hole? 😉
andrewmck: “It’s not to use the vehicle. It’s to use the roads.”
It’s putting the regulatory burden upon the taxpayer to prove an expense. aka like income tax. One of the bunfights of the GST was the recognition that the GST is a federal tax, the proceeds of which are (theoretically) distributed to states. I don’t think states are allowed to do that in oz.
We’re going to find out!
How does Roy Morgan calculate its unemployment series?
Hmmmm….
Does the UBI apply?
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2023/feb/13/full-time-part-time-work-no-longer-pays-uk-economy
I just had a left-field (on thinking about it, a very left-field) thought about how Ukraine can both secure a just peace and cede Crimea to Russia. Say Ukraine offers to give up Crimea’s 27,000 sq.km of land area to Russia and stop fighting against Russian forces. In return, Russia should at least stop attacking Ukraine and withdraw their troops from Ukrainian territory, but if that is all they’re asked to do that is hardly an equal swap. How about Russia, if it is so keen to be given legal sovereignty over Crimea, offers Ukraine an equal area of land elsewhere? That would at least be fair. It might also be a way Russia goes at least some of the way towards making reparations to Ukraine for the devastation they have unjustifiably inflicted there. It so happens that Belgorod Oblast – right on Ukraine’s eastern border, near Kharhkiv, and from where many missiles and shells were launched to strike civilian targets within Ukraine – also has a land area of about 27,000 sq.km.
Rex, you are such a concern troll, always raining on Albanese’s parade, I think you enjoy any poll that shows Labor losing 2 points.
I watched Question Time today and my impression was of a Government in control, talented team of backbenchers, and the Liberals behaving badly – thank goodness Speaker Dick is finally throwing people out.
Dandy Murray @ #132 Tuesday, February 14th, 2023 – 5:56 pm
By asking their interviewees whether they are employed, and if they are not, whether they are looking for work. If they say they are employed, they ask whether full or part time, permanent or casual, self-employed or have an employer, contract or not, and whether they are underemployed ie, would like more hours.
The Bureau figures count anyone who has work at least one hour in the previous week as being employed, and are thus misleading, while always understating real unemployment. They do this to be internationally compatible, and to allow time series analysis over an extended period on the same basis.
Thanks Yabba.
Hmm. That’s quite the difference, both in level and movement, for a subtle change in question.
“I expect everyone will be genuinely interested, either for or against, in this court case. Does the state government have the right to tax you for the use of your vehicle?
https://thenewdaily.com.au/news/state/vic/2023/02/14/future-victorian-electric-vehicle-tax”
It is clearly a proxy for a road user charge, and the only problem I have with it, is that it should be imposed at 10x the rate on ICE engines (the fuel excise should still exist and should be increased, the rebates should be wound back).
We’ve subsidised roads too much for too long. Lets gets some cars off the road, and start building seriously good public transport, without car parks.
@yabba
In addition, for the ABS, they record you as unemployed only if you are actively looking for work in the reference period and are able to start. So if you are unemployed but unable for an immediate start for, say, sickness, caring responsibilities you are classified a not in the labor force. Same thing if you have been unemployed for a while and not been looking in the last week. The latter are often described in the literature as ‘discouraged job seekers’.
“We’ve subsidised roads too much for too long. Lets gets some cars off the road, and start building seriously good public transport, without car parks.”
Yes!
Musk is great at producing lots of EVs, but that is solving the wrong problem.
The answer is fewer vehicles.
Ven
“ Do wives of high level military officials work for security reasons? Just asking.”
——————————————————————————————
The wife of the General I worked for 20 years ago worked in Brisbane CBD purely by choice and presumably for the social and professional pleasure. They were a delightful couple, great company, and just like any other professional working couple from my observations.
Thanks Fumbles,
Is there a way to reconcile RM’s methodology with the ABS series, based on the extra info collected by the ABS?
The movement seems so much more pronounced with RM, which I find intriguing.
David Rowe with another cracker!
The unemployment figure published by the ABS is part of a set of figures, which need to be read together to get a true feel about what’s happening in the workforce.
Of course if you only look at one figure in isolation, you’re going to get a distorted view.
Dandy: “The answer is fewer vehicles.”
That will be solved by $10/litre petrol. Be good to have a plan B though…
…I looked at this in some detail with a Commerce class last year.
Interestingly – and it’s a difficult one to explain – something like 1/3 of those working one hour a week said that they didn’t want to work more than that.
Evan @ #233 Tuesday, February 14th, 2023 – 5:58 pm
He gave them enough rope to show their true colours.
Ven says:
Tuesday, February 14, 2023 at 11:02 am
”
Cronussays:
Tuesday, February 14, 2023 at 10:13 am
Ven says:
Tuesday, February 14, 2023 at 8:46 am
”
Peter Dutton may be sorry for not saying sorry, but he’s still in no man’s land on the voice, declares Katherine Murphy.
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2023/feb/13/peter-dutton-may-be-sorry-for-not-saying-sorry-but-hes-still-in-no-mans-land-on-the-voice
”
Did anyone notice that
Peter Dutton may be sorry for not saying sorry, but he still did not say sorry to Stolen generations.
——————————————-
And he can’t bring himself to support The Voice because, well, he’s not really sorry.
”
Patricia Karvales said on ABC TV that Dutton said sorry to Stolen generation people in the Parliament gallery. If that is case, I stand corrected.
———————————————————————————————
And if Karvales said that, it makes me wonder whether she bothered to ask Dutton why the clear anomaly then that he doesn’t outright support The Voice. To not ask that question begs the question.
Elizabeth Knight’s piece in Fairfax confirms that everyone out in the field measuring consumer confidence and retail spending has seen it fall off a cliff in response to the Reserve Bank basically promising rate rises as far as the eye can see without respite on the horizon.
People will need to see Albanese doing something about it fairly soon or support will flake off and they will need to feel at least like we’re doing better than other countries or it will flake off even further. Fair or not, the government will pay for people feeling the pinch.
Previously I thought Lowe might be allowed to see out his scheduled tenure and then replaced but increasingly I think the forthcoming report into the RBA will be used as a cause celebre to spill the board.
Absolutely nobody is out there doing a sell job to persuade the public that the interest rate hikes are the best way to go about fighting inflation. What the public sees in fact is rate rises contributing to the vicious circle of inflation as businesses and landlords
need to cover increased borrowing costs and raise rents and prices to cover.
Better get used to it – Swan 2.0 is in force.
The good thing about keeping someone like Pezullo around is that you have someone you’re more than happy to sacrifice when a situation calls for it.
Here we go again says:
Tuesday, February 14, 2023 at 12:52 pm
And in regards the daily headlines re “mortgage stress”
The eldest of our 4 children across our blended family is now approaching 40 (how did that happen?)
When purchasing their homes, they borrowed to 80% of the purchase price (80% LVR being the maximum borrowing).
Despite not requiring all of the amount borrowed to settle the transaction.
The borrowings were between $425,000- and $550,000- respectively.
I have asked them re any “mortgage stress”.
“Nah, we did what you said and have been servicing the principal plus interest borrowing as if the interest rate was 6%, so we now have a very handy buffer”
A hug and a thumbs up.
My wife and I?
We have been mortgage free since we married, so for over 25 years.
The difference being debt free makes to your life style is dramatic.
We have told our children that also.
No doubt they will tell their children.
The media do not publish stories such as this – just not a headline which sells their rubbish
———————————————————————————————
We share a very similar scenario with both our children (even similar ages) who saved hard then borrowed <$450k under strict instructions from us to account comfortably for at least 7% rates. I thought this was just commonsense but maybe not so.
Russians KIA Feb 14: 740
Total Russians KIA: 139,080
Daily average Russians KIA: 390.7
Source: General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine
https://www.pravda.com.ua/eng/news/2023/02/14/7389225/