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.
Mavissays:
Tuesday, February 14, 2023 at 9:28 pm
98.6:
Tuesday, February 14, 2023 at 9:02 pm
?.
………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..
Mavis, Did you run out of ink?
caf
Indeed. With Pezullo it might be a case of keep your friends close and your enemies closer.
Or he might just be a good administrator who, if kept on the leash by a competent Minister, can get things done.
Dr Doolittle:
Tuesday, February 14, 2023 at 9:55 pm
Mavis at 9.23 pm
“Generally Labor doesn’t do payback very well – to its detriment.”
Undoubtedly so but by the same token, Labor’s been slow in getting rid of PS mandarins such as Pezzluzo & statutory office holders such as Lowe, who wouldn’t know a hammer from a lettice leaf.
Steve777 @ #301 Tuesday, February 14th, 2023 – 10:09 pm
Yep. Slowly, slowly catchee monkey. No, ‘night of the long knives’. That only gives the Coalition and their sympathetic media a hook to hang their hats on and a narrative to undermine the government with. When these people’s terms are up they can be replaced and that is due within the first term of the government, and that will be soon enough.
”… who wouldn’t know a hammer from a lettice leaf.”
That would be terribly confusing if you were putting up a shelf or making a salad sandwich.
98.6:
Tuesday, February 14, 2023 at 10:13 pm
Mavis:
Tuesday, February 14, 2023 at 9:28 pm
98.6:
Tuesday, February 14, 2023 at 9:02 pm
?.
………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..
Touché. Nothing personal.
” When these people’s terms are up they can be replaced and that is due within the first term of the government,” — C@tmomma
It is slowly dawning on me, and hopefully a much wider audience too, that Albanese is governing for the long term, confident in his style and his future, and that this is deliberate, because Labor will be seen as the natural mature party of government. You don’t achieve that by upending all the carts at once.
https://www.smh.com.au/sport/tennis/how-a-storm-over-djokovic-s-dad-uncovered-melbourne-s-pro-putin-night-wolves-20230206-p5ciaw.html
😯
Late Riser,
And scaring the horses. 🙂
Phillip Lowe has got to go as he is pushing Australia into a recession in order to control “inflation” complete madness!
… Albanese is governing for the long term, confident in his style and his future, and that this is deliberate, because Labor will be seen as the natural mature party of government. You don’t achieve that by upending all the carts at once.
Yes. The Administrative Affairs Tribunal was an exception, so egregiously stacked that that particular cart had to be upended. There might be others but for the most part senior appointments can be filled as they fall due. The Ambassador to the USA, two ABC board positions and the Governor of the Reserve Bank this year among others; the Governor General and Chair of the ABC next year.
It might pay for Labor to do a bit of ”Liberal-proofing” before the next election, legislating against some of the more egregious abuses of appointments, while not themselves practicing them.
Maybe I was just lucky but I like to think that I was also smart.
I bought a house in ’75 for $24,000 on $8,000 deposit (that’s what banks demanded then) on a 16 year term and did not even notice Keating’s 17% interest rate period.
Sold house 37 years later for $600,000 and paid cash for a brand new home.
Young home buyers, my advice is to tighten up your purse strings while rates are rising and stay where you are for at least 20 years.
You will look back later and laugh at what you thought were hard times.
Late Riser:
Tuesday, February 14, 2023 at 10:38 pm
Yes, I agree with your assessment though Labor must address the ever increasing cash rate, starting with a new RBA governor, whose carriage thereof has been at best pedestrian. If mortgages continue to rise, nearly everything else becomes a side issue save for those who are profiting from a number of indicators such as term deposits, now attracting four per cent. Pepsy.
Re 98.6 @ 11:03 PM.
$24,000 in 1975 (about 3-4 times a typical annual salary) to $600,000 in 2012 (about 8 times annual salary). That represents an average escalation of 9% per annum. That’s unsustainable while incomes are stagnant, or even if they were keeping up with inflation. Something will have to give. Unfortunately it won’t just be
speculatorsinvestors who’ll be burnt when it all collapses in a heap.Everyone brace for an underwhelming senate estimates tomorrow.
So what about the other heads of Central Banks?
Inflation is Global
All Central Banks are raising interest rates to arrest the trend
The CPI data in the USA are due out at 8.30AM New York time
The figure has come down from the mid year figure and that trend is being looked at to continue such as the cycle of interest rate increases slows and concludes
Given Global conditions, which are dictating and exacerbated by the continuing impact of the Pandemic on supply and the impact of the border conflict between Russia and Ukraine, what would any replacement for Lowe do exactly?
Would they reverse course, taking the Cash Rate back to 0.1%?
Inflation drives interest rates up – inflation being a factor of interest rates
In the same way a moribund GDP and recession drives interest rates down, to encourage economic activity by making borrowing cheaper
Nothing is ever static – as the history of the Cash Rate testifies
There is a lot of pile on re Lowe (and the Board?) but that pile on misses the point
Lowe is a professional banker doing what every other banker occupying a position commensurate with his own is doing
It is interesting that, in the USA, which confronts similar challenges, Biden has signed into Law a raft of initiatives to provide relief to renters, faced with rental increases and evictions
So guess what people
Australia may be an Island of States and Territories
But we are part of the Global economy
China, in a position to recalibrate its Covid mitigation strategies across its 1.4 trillion population, should improve supply interruptions
But, as we see in Australia, people are still off work with Covid ratcheting up the pressures on others able to work
China will replicate this scenario
Then you get to logistics – because to order is one thing but to receive is another (and Australia is far flung so last on the list – why ship to a Country of just 25 million when you can ship to Europe or the USA or India or wherever with vastly more population?)
These supply and logistics problems are with us for some time yet
This is why the government is banging on about local capacities and are doing something about it – but Rome was not built in a day
We once had Ford in Geelong, GMH at Elizabeth (from Hindmarsh) and Mitsubishi at Tonsley Park (where they took over from Chrysler)
Now we have nothing
Look further afield from Lowe – and I would expect him to acquit himself well at Senate estimates
It is just a matter of how brutal he wants to be when describing the period of his tenure as Governor
And 98.6, why reference Keating but leave out Fraser and Howard when Grandfathered Housing Loans were capped at 13.5% but new loans were 17.5%
That was before Keating and the Savings & Loans bust – borrowing curtailed by interest rates rising Globally
Get your facts right
Ukrainian partisans continue to target Russian occupiers in Ukrainian territory:
“Ukrainian partisans blew up a car with four Russians inside in the temporarily occupied city of Nova Kakhovka, Kherson Oblast.
Source: National Resistance Centre
Quote: “Partisans continue to resist the occupiers in the temporarily occupied territories. In particular, in Nova Kakhovka, members of the Atesh partisan movement blew up a car with Russian servicemen and representatives of the special services inside.”
Details: The explosion thundered in the morning of 10 February on Dniprovskyi avenue near the police station, but it became known only on 14 February.
As a result, two occupiers died, the other two were hospitalised in serious condition.
The National Resistance Centre reminds that the partisans continue to destroy the railway infrastructure in the temporarily occupied territories of Luhansk Oblast.”
https://www.pravda.com.ua/eng/news/2023/02/14/7389292/
Russian occupiers should think how many more attacks on them there would be if the ranks of the partisans were to be swelled from the ranks of demobilised soldiers, in the event a premature ‘peace’ was imposed upon Ukraine with much of its territory still under hostile occupation. And those demobilised soldiers will have Western training and battle-hardened experience.
Talking about getting facts right.
Housing interest rates hit 17.5 per cent around 1990. Labor was in power.
https://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/the-year-of-record-interest-rates-1990/3oir2lrnc
I got a Commonwealth Bank housing loan at 13.5 percent in March 1986, just before Keating abolished the cap.
We were waiting to settle on the house and I recall a nervous conversation at the bank as to whether my rate was still fixed.
It was. I never paid more than 13.5 per cent on that loan.
And I never told my mates.
Talk about good timing,
It’s not that under Lowe’s leadership the RBA hiked 9 times in a row. The issue is that:
1. Lowe oversaw the RBA cut rates, aggressively, during the COVID crisis, when there was little need to because fiscal policy was absolutely pumping out the stimulus, resulting in massive consumer, producer and asset price inflation, then
2. He communicated a delay in raising rates, which he didn’t stick to, and instead,
3. He saw the RBA increased rates at the quickest rate ever seen.
Needless to say, this sequence of actions and communications caught a lot of debtors by surprise, and more to the point, it has undermined trust in the RBA governor. He can’t stay in the role.
In reply to STEVE 777
$24,000 in 1975 (about 3-4 times a typical annual salary) to $600,000 in 2012 (about 8 times annual salary). That represents an average escalation of 9% per annum. That’s unsustainable while incomes are stagnant, or even if they were keeping up with inflation. Something will have to give. Unfortunately it won’t just be speculators investors who’ll be burnt when it all collapses in a heap.
“”””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””
777, I would not question your maths or economics as to how you arrived at those figures or your conclusions.
But I learnt in a real estate course many years ago that the average Australian moves home every 7 years.
While this may keep the real estate industry going, depending on when when people sell in the cycle they could profit or in some cases lose money in what would be a short period of real estate time.
At present if you sell today, your most probably losing money than if you sold 12 months ago.
My message is if you stay in the same home for 20 years or more you won’t be affected by stagnant wages, high interest rates or inflation.
If you stay in your home for 37 years you will be laughing all the way to the bank.
‘When these people’s terms are up they can be replaced and that is due within the first term of the government,” — C@tmomma
I have never understood this argument. If your intention is to replace a CEO, why not do it straight away. What is gained by keeping them there for another 12-18 months. At best a little continuity, but presumably you actually want change.
I can’t speak for anyone but myself, but from what I’ve seen, our economy is going gangbusters. Australia is building a lot of stuff. These things getting built are going to change a lot of things for the better. Australia shouldn’t be reliant upon anyone for anything. So… inflation?
I haven’t seen much evidence yet of a cooling. I see people leaving for higher paying jobs and advancement because of the lack of skillset in those roles across the industry. In engineering and construction that is.
Rossmcg: “Talk about good timing,”
Ha. Great story.
Pi, you are not wrong.
The issue I have with the RBA’s handling of inflation and IRs and is that they have induced a larger transitory shock than they should have.
That the money market needs higher IR’s to cool prices and encourage more capital accumulation, which will be directed into the investment we need to reduce price growth in the long run, is a given. It’s orthodox monetary economics, which will have someone cream “neo-liberal!!” but meh.
The money markets are all out of wack, mainly in response to international events, but cutting IRs to 0.1% at the end of 2019 was a mistake, and misguiding the market as to the timing of future IR increases was a mistake. Ramping up IRs really quickly might not have been a mistake given where they found themselves, but it certainly highlighted the first two errors. People don’t understand why the RBA is doing what its doing, so Lowe has lost trust and eroded trust in the RBA.
He’s got to go.
It’s a family affair: the two brothers, and the mother and son, hiding out from a parliamentary inquiry …
… and the Sydney property developer ‘currently in a rural part of Lebanon’:
‘… “multiple attempts” by parliamentary staff to contact the Perrottet brothers and two other potential witnesses – the Liberal party powerbroker Christian Ellis and his mother, the Hills Shire councillor Virginia Ellis – … had been “unsuccessful”.‘
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2023/feb/14/nsw-parliamentary-inquiry-to-use-firm-to-track-down-key-witnesses-including-two-of-dominic-perrottets-brothers
They seek them here
They seek them there
The bailiffs seek them everywhere!
Have you seen Jean-Claude?
Or have you seen Chas?
What shady brothers Dom’nic has!
In news which surprises nobody, it turns out Russians were not only “listening” to the 2016 US Presidential election, they were “speaking” as well:
“Yevgeny Prigozhin, the head of Russia’s Wagner mercenary group, has admitted that he founded and financed a company the US has described as a “Russian troll farm” which meddled in the 2016 presidential election.
Prigozhin, a close ally of Vladimir Putin, has previously admitted to interfering in US elections, but his statement today outlined his specific links to the Internet Research Agency (IRA).
The St Petersburg-based company was central to Russian efforts to sway the 2016 presidential election, US intelligence officials have said.”
https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2023/feb/14/russia-ukraine-war-nato-defence-ministers-to-meet-in-brussels-bakhmut-under-heavy-fire-live?page=with:block-63eba9948f08bb2550a97b9c&filterKeyEvents=false
I wonder how Trump will squirm out of this one.
“The UK says it will mark the first anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine with a national moment of silence.
Prime minister Rishi Sunak will lead a one-minute silence at 1100 GMT on 24 February, in an expression of solidarity with Ukraine.”
https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2023/feb/14/russia-ukraine-war-nato-defence-ministers-to-meet-in-brussels-bakhmut-under-heavy-fire-live?page=with:block-63eba9948f08bb2550a97b9c&filterKeyEvents=false
We should do that here as well. I’m going to suggest that to my local MP.
Now, sinister balloons are possibly being deployed across Eastern Europe:
“Romania has reported that it deployed two MiG-21 Lancer planes to seek out what looked like a weather balloon on radar, but that they could not confirm the target, Reuters reports.
Earlier neighbouring Moldova closed its airspace without specifying a reason.”
https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2023/feb/14/russia-ukraine-war-nato-defence-ministers-to-meet-in-brussels-bakhmut-under-heavy-fire-live?page=with:block-63eba9948f08bb2550a97b9c&filterKeyEvents=false
I think this one is Russian, rather than Chinese. But that doesn’t necessarily go for the North American ones.
A very positive signal from Poland on the possible supply of NATO fighter jets to Ukraine:
“Talks on supplying F-16 fighter jets to Ukraine will probably bear fruit, but pressure is necessary, the Polish defence minister said on Tuesday.
“We are aware that our potential in this area is limited, because we have only 48 F-16 aircraft, but the allies have much more potential, so I think that this conversation will … end with positive decisions,” Reuters reports Mariusz Blaszczak told the media in Brussels. “You just have to apply pressure.”
https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2023/feb/14/russia-ukraine-war-nato-defence-ministers-to-meet-in-brussels-bakhmut-under-heavy-fire-live?page=with:block-63eba9948f08bb2550a97b9c&filterKeyEvents=false
I realise that these are not the most pressing need right now, but I still think they are a crucial component in the sort of combined arms operations which other NATO weapons systems were always intended to be used in. For starters, they will reduce the reliance on artillery seen thus far, with its insatiable appetite for ammunition.
The latest official statement from the US Defence Secretary:
“The US secretary of defence, Lloyd Austin, has been speaking at a news conference in Brussels, following a meeting of the Ukraine defence contact group, a US-initiative that convenes more than 50 countries supporting Kyiv in its defence against Russian aggression.
The world will mark a “grim milestone” next week during the anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, he says. Moscow has “inflicted a year of tragedy and terror” on its neighbour, he says.
He said he expected Ukraine to conduct an offensive against Russia in spring. He said:
“Ukraine wants to create momentum … We expect to see them conduct an offensive sometime in the spring.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2023/feb/14/russia-ukraine-war-nato-defence-ministers-to-meet-in-brussels-bakhmut-under-heavy-fire-live?page=with:block-63eba9948f08bb2550a97b9c&filterKeyEvents=false
This tells me that the US is wanting to progress events on the front very quickly this year. This also implies they will be pressing for an acceleration in the supply of offensive weapons systems to enable this.
General Mark Milley, chairman of America’s joint chiefs of staff:
“
was wrong. Ukraine remains free. They remain independent. Nato and its coalition has never been stronger.
Now, Russia is a global pariah and the world remains inspired by Ukrainian bravery and resilience. In short, Russia has lost – they’ve lost strategically, operationally and tactically and they are paying an enormous price on the battlefield.”
https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2023/feb/14/russia-ukraine-war-nato-defence-ministers-to-meet-in-brussels-bakhmut-under-heavy-fire-live?page=with:block-63eba9948f08bb2550a97b9c&filterKeyEvents=false
Given Milley has sometimes been a more cautious American voice about Ukrainian military prospects, this is an effort from him to more clearly project 100% commitment to Ukraine’s cause. This is an exercise in America projecting a team of rowers all now pulling together very much in time with each other, and in the same direction.
A question for the PB legal eagles (or anyone else in the know)……..
Is there any way to bring some sort of action like a class action against the RBA? I think you could make a solid argument that it is failing to live up to its mandated purpose under the RBA act, namely full employment (no mention of the NAIRU in that act), price stability, and the general economic well being of Australia.
Surely the Act has more legal power than whatever agreement exists between the RBA and the treasurer of the day?
A telling admission from the head of Wagner on the true state of Russia’s inadequate offensive around Bakhmut:
“Yevgeny Prigozhin, the head of the Wagner group whose mercenaries have been fighting for months to take the eastern city of Bakhmut, has said the battle is far from over.
In a Telegram post, Prigozhin said Ukraine was reinforcing with up to 500 new fighters a day.
According to his press service, Prigozhin said:
Bakhmut will not be taken tomorrow, because there is heavy resistance and grinding, the meat grinder is working.
“We will not be celebrating in the near future,” he added.”
https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2023/feb/14/russia-ukraine-war-nato-defence-ministers-to-meet-in-brussels-bakhmut-under-heavy-fire-live?filterKeyEvents=false
That “meat grinder” he seems so proud of is not yielding anything like the results which would “justify” their sacrifice of so many Russian lives.
“Russian forces do not currently have the capacity to threaten a new offensive on Kyiv, U.S. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley said on Feb. 14.”
https://kyivindependent.com/news-feed/ukrinform-us-general-says-russians-dont-have-the-capacity-to-capture-kyiv
Nor did they a year ago, as it turned out.
My letter in The Age, 14th Feb.
“Imagine if restaurants took the same approach to their customers as Anthony Albanese does with the ‘Voice’ referendum. There would be no menus, only ‘nourishing’ food on offer, with no specifics as to what each dish is or what the ingredients are. Customers would only find out that information after they had eaten. The cost too, would be a post meal surprise. By the time the customers feel the first unsettling pangs of indigestion after the referendum it is far too late. “
I think Dutton would be best served by an extremely aggressive approach to ‘The Voice’. Chiefly,
1, It is appallingly racist. Race isn’t mentioned anywhere in our Consititution. Yet, the proposal wants a separate body for members of one race only. Where is the representative body for Asian people, Anglo Saxon people, etc?
2, Albanese will not tell us what’s in it until AFTER the referendum. Who will actually vote for it when this information is deliberately kept hidden? What’s the big secret?
3, Aboriginal people already have a voice in the parliament. ‘The Voice’ cynically implies that they are currently silenced. How did Price, Thorpe, etc get elected without a voice?
4, It won’t actually make the slightest difference to aboriginal people. The big issue in aboriginal communities is law and order. No one fears the law in these communities. They are effectively lawless. All this does is entrench racism. What happened to the idea that we are all Australians regardless of our racial origins? I thought race was an illusion anyway?
5, Anyone who votes for ‘The Voice’ is a racist, apartheid supporter. I thought racism was always wrong?
6, What happened to one vote, one value? I thought that was essential in any democracy?
Over to you Peter. Ignore the polls. Declare total war on this virtue signaling, disgraceful proposal that pits Australians against each other because of their race.
#weatheronPB
Sluiced clean by the rain,
crisp air laps against the clouds,
just shallow reefs now.
According to Sky News, Labor thinks it’s ‘untouchable’ and can ‘break any promise’.
I think Skewed Views came out with exactly the same lines after 2007. 😐
#getsomenewmaterial
Re: Jeremy @ 6.39am
My, my, the standards at The Age have really gone downhill if they really published that rubbish.
Your further 6 points are too ridiculous and stupid to waste time, refuting.
Jeremy C.Browne,
False equivalence and a load of garbage. The Voice is NOT a restaurant menu, nor anything even vaguely approaching it. And it’s not the Voice that’s racist, it’s you.
To the ignorant poster a few minutes ago. Please read the Uluru Statement From The Heart and tell us what in the statement is so repelling to you. But you are right about Peter D. He should definitely ignore the polls and make a decision. Who knows? He may still pass the test.
Re: Question Time – 14th February.
It was great to see The Speaker, Milton Dick, treat the LNP Parliamentarians with the closed fist, they deserved.
Hopefully, he’ll continue to treat their continual contempt for parliamentary process and standing orders in the same manner.
It is unfortunate that a members’ ejection isn’t for a full 24 hours.
The voice is nothing more than a constitutionally created advisory body to advise on legislation dealing with first nation people. It’s creation is no skin off anyone’s nose.
Jeremy C.Browne, you are a sad sack, and to what end?
when does pezzullos contract up he is hardly a good administrater reports show his staff are the mostdesatisfid in the publick service with low morale and his admin skills are hardly good with evry project he has been involved in blowing out if the only reason to keep him in the job is he could have imformation he ciould leak to damage labor lookslike it is not a very convincing reason to keep him the longer he stays the worse it will be and the australian reported that senyor home affairs oficials warned labor against the tpv desition some one senyorwould have had to leak this to the new papper they could come up with an agreement that after he ggoes he is band from talking about sensative imformation
Aaron newton,
Do Public Servants/Department Secretaries have contracts or are they permanently employed unless they face disciplinary action?
frednk @ #213 Wednesday, February 15th, 2023 – 6:57 am
Maintenance of the status quo.
Keep digging that hole, JCB.
Honestly, instead of the actual wars that the Colonists fought with the FN people, now we are seeing a Culture War being fought against them, with just as devastating consequences.
For we won’t see the uplifting of FN people, so that, as Linda Burney so eloquently put it yesterday whereby a little girl who is born into an Alice Springs’ Town Camp, can have a dream of growing up to be a Software Programmer and live a successful, upwardly mobile life in the city, until that dream becomes a reality. The Voice is but the first step along that road.
5, Anyone who votes for ‘The Voice’ is a racist, apartheid supporter. I thought racism was always wrong?
White grievance should have NO place in Australia!
Re: Jeremy
And to think that after the Victorian Election, many of us thought, or hoped, that Jeremy may have slunk back into his cubicle at LP Headquarters and not resurfaced again until the next election.
Nikki Haley, the former South Carolina governor and ambassador to the United Nations, announced her candidacy for president on Tuesday, becoming the first major challenger to former president Donald Trump for the 2024 Republican nomination.