The Financial Review had a set of federal voting intention numbers on Friday from Freshwater Strategy, which were highly distinctive in having Labor leading by only 52-48, compared with 54-46 from the last such poll in December. The primary votes were Labor 34% (down three), Coalition 37% (steady), Greens 12% (steady) and 17% for the rest. Anthony Albanese was on 42% approval (down six) and 37% disapproval (up seven), a substantially narrower net positive rating than recorded by other pollsters, while Peter Dutton had less anomalous numbers of 30% (up one) and 42% (up four). A preferred prime minister question had Albanese with an usually narrow lead of 51-33, in from 55-29. The poll was conducted Monday to Wednesday from a sample of 1005.
Further findings from the poll:
• Support for the Indigenous Voice was down two since December to 48% while opposition was up ten to 39%, including a 20-point increase among Coalition voters and a seven point increase among Labor and Greens voters. This converted to 55-45 after exclusion of the undecided, in from 65-35.
• Only nine per cent felt the budget would put downward pressure on inflation and interest rates, compared with 52% who thought the opposite and 23% who said it would have no effect. Forty-eight per cent felt the country was heading in the wrong direction, up six, compared with 37% for right direction, down seven.
• Seventy per cent supported Peter Dutton’s call for sport gambling ads to be curtailed, with 13% opposed, and 59% supported his proposal to allow the unemployed to earn $150 a fortnight more without affecting their JobSeeker rate.
By-election latest:
• Amy Remeikis of The Guardian reports five candidates have emerged for Liberal National Party preselection in Fadden, with nominations having closed last Friday and a ballot of eligible local members to be conducted this Friday. The Gold Coast Bulletin identifies four of them: Gold Coast councillor Cameron Caldwell, who is widely rated the front-runner; Dinesh Palipana, emergency doctor at Gold Coast University Hospital and the state’s first quadriplegic medical graduate; Fran Ward, founder of a charity supporting distressed farmers; and Owen Carterer, who would appear to have a low profile. “Long-term members” were backing Caldwell, but Palipana had support from “Young LNP party members linked to state MP Sam O’Connor”, though critics were arguing he would do better to run at the state election.
• The Age/Herald reported a spokesperson for Scott Morrison saying his departure from parliament was “not imminent”, and would certainly not be soon enough to allow for joint by-elections in Fadden and his seat of Cook. However, it could “possibly come at the end of the year”.
Other news from around the place:
• David Penberthy of The Australian reported last week that bitterly fought Liberal Senate preselection looms in South Australia, the flashpoint being the position of Senator Alex Antic. Together with like-minded Queensland Senator Gerard Rennick, Antic withdrew parliamentary support from the Morrison government in protest against mandatory vaccinations, and has lately courted far right sentiment by mocking Volodomyr Zelenskyy in parliament and following it up with a theatrically disingenuous apology. Antic was elected from third position on the ticket in 2019, behind Anne Ruston and David Fawcett. As religious conservatives make headway in a push to take control of a party that took a distinctly moderate turn under Steven Marshall’s one-term state government, there are said to be some hoping Antic might be pushed to the top of the ticket (though an unidentified and presumably conservative party figure is quoted denying it), and others hoping he might be dumped altogether.
• Sumeyya Ilanbey of The Age reports Victorian Liberal state president Greg Mirabella told state council yesterday that an external report into the Aston by-election found defeated candidate Roshena Campbell had “the highest recognition and positivity among Liberal names, even when compared with outgoing federal Liberal MP Alan Tudge”. This would not seem to sit will with a view that has taken hold in the party that Campbell’s lack of local connection to the seat explained the result, as reflected in Peter Dutton’s determination that a local should succeed Stuart Robert in Fadden.
• RedBridge Group has results from polling of Victorian voters on federal voting intention, which after exclusion of the undecided finds Labor on 41% (32.9% at the election), the Coalition on 34% (33.1%) and the Greens on 12% (13.7%). The pollster’s high-profile director of strategy and analytics, Kos Samaras, argues the Liberals’ dismal levels of support in the state among non-religous voters, Indian Australians and Buddhists in general puts it in an unwinnable position.
• In his column in the Age/Herald on Saturday, George Megalogenis wrote that “private polling for the Yes campaign is more encouraging” than this week’s Resolve Strategic result of 53-47 (although Kos Samaras of RedBridge argues social desirability bias effects in polling on such questions means proponents should not feel comfortable of even a national majority unless polling has it clear of 55-45). However, Megalogenis says “Queensland is now assumed as lost, with Western Australia doubtful”, with “Tasmania as the potential swing state”.
• The West Australian provides a sketchy report of polling by Painted Dog Research gauging the opinions of 1409 voters in Western Australia on Anthony Albanese, Peter Dutton and Jim Chalmers. Albanese recorded an approval rating of “just under half”, with 26% dissatisfied, with Peter Dutton apparently scoring a parlous 16% approval and 48% disapproval. “About a third” approved of Jim Chalmers’ performance as Treasurer, while “just under a quarter disapproved”.
• The Age/Herald yesterday reported results on issue salience from last week’s Resolve Strategic poll, finding the cost of living with a huge lead as the highest priority issue, identified as such by 48% compared with 11% for health care, 10% for the environment and climate change and 8% for management of the economy. Cost of living has ascended to its present level from 16% last January and 25% at the time of the federal election in May.
Morning all
Sounds like there might be a few sore heads this morning after the Sydney PB lunch yesterday
Alex Antic at the top of the ticket would be peak something
From above: “Senator Alex Antic … has lately courted far right sentiment by mocking Volodomyr Zelenskyy in parliament and following it up with a theatrically disingenuous apology.”
===================
I suspect most here will not be surprised who the main target of my ire is this morning. 😐
There is only one sort of government whose policies Antic can have a direct influence upon: a Coalition one. Thank God they are out of office now, and are likely to remain so at least until Ukraine liberates its territories and humiliates Russia’s armed forces out of trying to conquer them again for the foreseeable future. It should go without saying that, while Antic and anyone of his fellow travellers is in the Parliament in the Coalition, anyone who opposes Putin’s assault upon democracy, human rights and the rule of law simply cannot vote for the Coalition, anywhere around Australia at any level of government.
Mistake:
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2023/may/22/nsw-to-lift-stamp-duty-thresholds-for-first-home-buyers-and-undo-perrottet-reforms
The likes of Antic and whomever on the far right in Australia he thinks he can appeal to by mocking President Zelenskyy need to listen to points like this:
“Rishi Sunak has said a ceasefire in Ukraine would not be enough, as any end to the war will need to recognise the country’s territorial integrity and include a plan for “just and durable” peace.
The UK prime minister said the last session at the G7 summit in Japan had involved a “conversation about peace” in Ukraine and what it should look like, with more neutral countries India and Brazil also taking part.
Speaking after the end of the gathering in Hiroshima, the site of one of the US atomic bombings in 1945, Sunak said G7 leaders had been united about “making it very clear about what the principles of peace should be based on” in Ukraine.
“Those calling for peace that is really a ceasefire should recognise that is not a just and durable peace. I think that is recognised in the statement that a just and durable peace is one that should be based on the UN charter about respect for territorial respect and sovereignty. Those are the values that underpin the international system … no one wants peace more than President Zelenskiy and the people of Ukraine but they have to be based on these principles.”
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/may/21/ukraine-ceasefire-not-enough-without-just-durable-peace-rishi-sunak
Freezing the conflict where it is right now means Putin has been gifted territory and people he has no right to, in a manner all who love and desire peace should abhor: violent military invasion. The precedent tis sets means the rejection of justice and law as norms which should be aspired to in relations between nations.
“ Treasurer Jim Chalmers on Sunday issued a Treasury analysis of ABS employment data showing the government has had the “strongest start for jobs growth” of any Australian government at their first anniversary.
According to these figures, between May 2022 and April 2023, 333,000 more Australians were employed. The next-highest first year number was 198,600 under the Rudd government.
Female employment is at “record highs”, with female unemployment down to 3.3%, the lowest since August 1973.”
More examples of a same ol same ol government I presume?
https://theconversation.com/view-from-the-hill-quad-without-hoopla-still-worked-while-china-visit-will-require-delicate-diplomacy-206071
shellbell @ #2 Monday, May 22nd, 2023 – 6:29 am
Peak Antic.
Or was that the PB Lunch into Dinner into barely constrained mayhem? 😉
But boy, to use an Australianism, it was a beauty bottler!
Thank you all for your delightful company yesterday. *kissesandhugs*
Shellbell:
Thank you for putting some drinks on the tab for us yesterday. It was a great PB lunch which descended into dinner. Which descended into I can’t remember how I got home.
But seriously, it was a great catch up.
aparently caldwell is close to robbert but aparently he wanted the wife of the goldcoast liberal party chief to run
‘fess,
One of the highlights of the day was meeting you. You are a very urbane, warm, friendly, knowledgeable young woman. 🙂
I don’t know how I made it home either! But I was lucky to walk onto a train that was just about to pull out of Central for the Coast and then I have a vague recollection of being able to point the car in the direction of my home. Not much in the way of traffic around my parts on a Sunday night so it was made as easy as possible for me. 😉
There was movement at the station …
United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres backed the reform of the U.N. Security Council and the international financial system to align them with the “realities of today’s world.”
Both the U.N. body and the financial architecture reflect the power relations of 1945 and need to be updated, Guterres told a press conference Sunday on the margins of the G7 summit in Hiroshima, Japan, according to Reuters.
https://www.politico.eu/article/united-nations-secretary-general-antonio-guterres-backs-reform-security-council-financial-system/
C@t:
Same to you. And didn’t Sydney put on a show last night!
C@tmommasays:
Monday, May 22, 2023 at 7:07 am
_____________________
You better not have drunk drive.
That is so irresponsible.
Good morning Dawn Patrollers
“If you think getting inflation down is our one big economic worry, you have a cockeyed view of economic success”, says Ross Gittins who says that unless we can get it under control without returning to the 5 to 6 per cent unemployment rate we lived with in recent decades, we’ll have lost our one great gain from the travails of pandemic: our return to full employment.
https://www.smh.com.au/business/the-economy/our-big-risk-fix-inflation-but-kiss-goodbye-to-full-employment-20230521-p5d9yo.html
The Victorian Liberal Party is facing a demographic time bomb that it cannot tackle unless it overcomes its “cultural cancer” of disunity and scrutinises why the party’s brand is so trashed among young voters, the party’s state president has said. Sumeyya Ilanbey tells us that his scathing assessment at the party’s state council meeting in Bendigo on Sunday drew applause from the floor, a day after some Liberal members booed and heckled Opposition Leader John Pesutto over the expulsion of rebel MP Moira Deeming from the parliamentary team.
https://www.theage.com.au/politics/victoria/cultural-cancer-victorian-liberal-president-warns-of-demographic-time-bomb-20230521-p5da07.html
The challenge for Peter Dutton is to be honest with Australians about the condition of the nation and still get elected, rather than blamed, says John Roskam.
https://www.afr.com/politics/federal/the-liberals-need-a-truth-telling-game-plan-20230516-p5d8rb
The AFR tells us that Australian mining and energy companies could get expanded access to billions of dollars worth of subsidies from US President Joe Biden’s signature Inflation Reduction Act, under deals to grant special status to the country’s defence manufacturing and critical minerals industries.
https://www.afr.com/world/asia/g7-condemns-economic-coercion-in-veiled-dig-at-china-20230521-p5d9zw
The building and mining industries will wage war against the Albanese government if it bends to union pressure and captures self-employed tradies, truckies and engineers under its second wave of industrial relations reforms, writes Geoff Chambers.
https://www.theaustralian.com.au/nation/politics/builders-miners-unite-for-war-with-albanese-government-over-industrial-relations/news-story/491587d550bf4049bc5931cbf492ac26?amp
Australia’s big supermarket chains persistently increased their margins on their food businesses throughout the pandemic and cost-of-living crisis, with critics arguing the pricing decisions are evidence of inflationary profiteering.
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2023/may/22/australias-big-supermarkets-increased-profit-margins-through-pandemic-and-cost-of-living-crisis-analysis-reveals
Michael McGowan reports that the NSW government will introduce legislation ending the state’s short-lived optional land tax for first home buyers when parliament resumes this week, setting up the first major fight of the new term as it seeks to repeal one of former Coalition premier Dominic Perrottet’s flagship reforms.
https://www.smh.com.au/politics/nsw/perrottet-s-flagship-land-tax-to-go-as-minns-introduces-stamp-duty-reform-20230521-p5da1j.html
Sean Kelly says that Stan Grant’s monarchy truth bombs were perfectly timed.
https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/stan-grant-s-monarchy-truth-bombs-were-perfectly-timed-if-not-now-then-when-20230518-p5d9dd.html
Stuart Littlemore and David Salter wonder if the ABC threw Stan Grant under the bus.
https://www.smh.com.au/national/did-the-abc-throw-stan-grant-under-the-bus-it-s-a-matter-of-opinion-20230521-p5da0b.html
Meanwhile, Nick Bonyhady reports that ABC managing director David Anderson has apologised to journalist Stan Grant after the Q+A presenter quit the show and said he felt the broadcaster abandoned him to face persistent racist attacks alone.
https://www.theage.com.au/national/indigenous-broadcaster-abandons-twitter-after-stan-grant-calls-out-abuse-20230521-p5da1b.html
James Ayres reports that Buy now, pay later will be regulated under credit laws and companies in the sector will have to determine that products are suitable for their users under responsible lending obligations, Financial Services Minister Stephen Jones will say in a speech today.
https://www.afr.com/companies/financial-services/buy-now-pay-later-to-be-regulated-as-credit-20230521-p5d9zs
The big four consulting firms have increased their federal business by 400 per cent over a decade while donating steadily to the major political parties that shape big decisions on government projects, report David Crowe and Matthew Knott.
https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/big-four-consultancies-win-1-4-billion-a-year-in-taxpayer-funded-contracts-20230521-p5d9za.html
Parliament is the only hope to unmask partners and clients involved in the tax leaks scandal. The AFR’s Nick Chenoweth explains how it could happen.
https://www.afr.com/companies/financial-services/the-senate-s-path-to-unmasking-pwc-partners-20230519-p5d9st
In the 1980s, then Prime Minister Bob Hawke told us we should try to become the clever country. Instead, we have become the stupid country. We now have the trade pattern of a poor developing nation. It is obvious that the decade of Coalition government has moved us away from that goal, giving us instead a country that is less caring, less fair, less focussed on community and less able to respond to accelerating climate change, laments Ian Lowe.
https://johnmenadue.com/australia-the-clever-country/
University professors have railed against the rising corporatisation of Australia’s universities. Mass redundancies, lack of accountability and diminishing quality of eduction are just some of the issues, as vice-chancellors turn the focus to the gigantic market for Indian students. Michael Sainsbury reports.
https://michaelwest.com.au/professors-rebuke-uni-bosses-for-profit-obsession-foreign-students-sagging-standards/
NineFax thinks the internal probe into how grandmother Clare Nowland was Tasered will join a long list of unfinished internal investigations by police.
https://www.smh.com.au/politics/nsw/nsw-government-refuses-to-back-calls-for-release-of-taser-investigation-20230521-p5da16.html
We’ve become a bystander in the Ukraine war, and China will notice, opines Mick Ryan.
https://www.smh.com.au/world/europe/we-ve-become-a-bystander-in-the-ukraine-war-and-china-will-notice-20230518-p5d9de.html
Alan Kohler writes that the debt ceiling was increased or suspended three times during Trump’s presidency without a peep from either side of politics in Congress. Now the Republicans are threatening to force America to default on its debt if there isn’t a crackdown on welfare for the poor.
https://thenewdaily.com.au/news/world/us-news/2023/05/22/america-us-debt-alan-kohler/
China is rising. America is in decline. It is a statement of fact, writes William Briggs.
https://independentaustralia.net/politics/politics-display/quality-of-life-in-us-in-freefall-chinas-rising,17533
Cartoon Corner
David Rowe
Peter Broelman
Jim Pavlidis
Badiucao
Spooner
From the US
If you drink and drive you are a bloody idiot.
Taylormade @ #15 Monday, May 22nd, 2023 – 7:38 am
If you are under the limit you’re not.
Thanks BK.
And those claiming C@t drove while drunk can rest assured that she pretty much stopped drinking once we hit the Opera Bar. And the train ride back to the Central Coast isn’t a short one. There’s no way she’d have been over the limit.
The diversity of opinion among the Indian diaspora in Australia will be on display during Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit next week to Sydney where a mega community event on Tuesday will be followed by a screening of the BBC documentary India: The Modi Question in Canberra the next evening.
The screening will be held by a group of diaspora organisations — which have been trying to draw attention to India’s turning away from the founding principles of the Constitution under the Modi government — in Australia’s Parliament House in Canberra. Australia’s Parliament offers several of its spaces for hire, and the screening is a wholly private enterprise organised by diaspora groups along with the human rights organisation, Amnesty International.
Besides Amnesty, the organisations involved in the screening include Hindus for Human Rights Australia & New Zealand and Muslim Collective.
https://www.telegraphindia.com/world/bbc-documentary-on-narendra-modi-to-be-screened-at-australian-parliament-house-in-canberra/cid/1938444
”
shellbellsays:
Monday, May 22, 2023 at 6:29 am
Alex Antic at the top of the ticket would be peak something
”
Peak stupid and moronic decision?
#weatheronPB
Cold air in my throat.
The warm sun rising slowly.
A beautiful day.
Examined closely,
perfect is never the goal,
but it’s here today.
Morning all
Thanks BK!
Great to hear that the catch up went wonderfully well!
”
Enough Alreadysays:
Monday, May 22, 2023 at 6:41 am
From above: “Senator Alex Antic … has lately courted far right sentiment by mocking Volodomyr Zelenskyy in parliament and following it up with a theatrically disingenuous apology.”
===================
I suspect most here will not be surprised who the main target of my ire is this morning.
There is only one sort of government whose policies Antic can have a direct influence upon: a Coalition one. Thank God they are out of office now, and are likely to remain so at least until Ukraine liberates its territories and humiliates Russia’s armed forces out of trying to conquer them again for the foreseeable future. It should go without saying that, while Antic and anyone of his fellow travellers is in the Parliament in the Coalition, anyone who opposes Putin’s assault upon democracy, human rights and the rule of law simply cannot vote for the Coalition, anywhere around Australia at any level of government.
”
Well EA
According to Freshwater strategy polling 37% Australians are ready to vote for coalition and only 34% for ALP as PV and 48% 2PP vote for coalition whether you like it or not.
PM Modi receives warm welcome in Papua New Guinea as counterpart touches his feet | Watch
https://www.indiatoday.in/india/story/pm-modi-in-papua-new-guinea-james-marape-welcomes-watch-2382247-2023-05-21
Taylormade says:
Monday, May 22, 2023 at 7:28 am
C@tmommasays:
Monday, May 22, 2023 at 7:07 am
_____________________
You better not have drunk drive.
That is so irresponsible.
==============================
So Lars was right, she is a lush. As if there was ever any doubt.
And a drunk driver as well. What an idiot.
Re this item from Dawn Patrol:
” Alan Kohler writes that the debt ceiling was increased or suspended three times during Trump’s presidency without a peep from either side of politics in Congress. Now the Republicans are threatening to force America to default on its debt if there isn’t a crackdown on welfare for the poor.”
Here’s something I came across:
Debt is only a problem when the Right are not in power.
I think the idiots are those who claim to know what went on, even though they weren’t there. 😐
One swallow does not a summer make, Ven. But if you want to hang your hat on the Freshwater poll, then be my guest.
G’day Bludgers, very happy those who turned up to the lunch in Sydney yesterday had a great time!
In response to Rex and Playerone, who keep running this line that the Albanese Government has done nothing good over the past 12 months – do you actually prefer the alternative, a Peter Dutton Coalition Government? I’m rather over so called progressives constantly denigrating the PM and Treasurer Chalmers and so on.
UK Cartoons:
”
In the 1980s, then Prime Minister Bob Hawke told us we should try to become the clever country. Instead, we have become the stupid country. We now have the trade pattern of a poor developing nation. It is obvious that the decade of Coalition government has moved us away from that goal, giving us instead a country that is less caring, less fair, less focussed on community and less able to respond to accelerating climate change, laments Ian Lowe.
https://johnmenadue.com/australia-the-clever-country/
”
Lars keeps quoting Hawke for his convenience to mock ALP supporters on PB that Australian always get it right about their voting.
Well Hawke is right in that aspect.
” do you actually prefer the alternative, a Peter Dutton Coalition Government? I’m rather over so called progressives constantly denigrating the PM and Treasurer Chalmers and so on.”
If you have to reduce it to a Dutton / Albo binary, good / bad, black / white thing then it is so much worse that I thought.
I (I don’t purport to talk for the others) I’m so very sick of a Party whose two ambitions are to win and to be slightly better than Dutton. A party that is all Richo and no Whitlam.
I wondered the other day why those Richos of the right, even though they’ve won so clearly always seem so butthurt, why they carry such a great chip on their shoulder, and I think it is because in the dark lonely teatimes of their souls they know they are just Richo, they know what they’ve given up and lost, the beliefs they’ve burned and the souls they’ve killed.
Morning all. Glad to hear the PB Sydney catchup went well.
This ABC factcheck article on the Albanese government election promises seems fair. 18 of 64 promises have been fulfilled, 6 stalled (looking at you Mr Dutton) and 40 still in progress. None broken.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/factcheck/promisetracker
Thanks, WB, for this polling update.
Who would have thought that a poll, commissioned by the let it rip business mouthpiece, The AFR, would have produced such a result?
A result, so out of kilter with those of the consistently, reliable Morgan, Newspoll, Resolve or even the Essential organisations that it has brought a laugh and a smile to my morning.
And as for those results for Dutton. It couldn’t be serious.
”
The AFR tells us that Australian mining and energy companies could get expanded access to billions of dollars worth of subsidies from US President Joe Biden’s signature Inflation Reduction Act, under deals to grant special status to the country’s defence manufacturing and critical minerals industries.
https://www.afr.com/world/asia/g7-condemns-economic-coercion-in-veiled-dig-at-china-20230521-p5d9zw
”
Am I cynical in saying that US is signing this deal because it wants to capture Lithium minerals import for its industries in US and thwart China and others from getting access to that mineral.
”
We’ve become a bystander in the Ukraine war, and China will notice, opines Mick Ryan.
https://www.smh.com.au/world/europe/we-ve-become-a-bystander-in-the-ukraine-war-and-china-will-notice-20230518-p5d9de.html
”
So?
Confessions says:
Monday, May 22, 2023 at 7:00 am
Shellbell:
Thank you for putting some drinks on the tab for us yesterday. It was a great PB lunch which descended into dinner. Which descended into I can’t remember how I got home.
中华人民共和国
Well a top day then night. I can assure all Madam C@t was the best behaved of the team. Her early posts and my sleep in a testament to exactly what happened.
Great day and great to meet fellow Bludgers.
Confessions says:
Monday, May 22, 2023 at 7:00 am
Shellbell:
Thank you for putting some drinks on the tab for us yesterday. It was a great PB lunch which descended into dinner. Which descended into I can’t remember how I got home.
中华人民共和国
Well a top day then night. I can assure all Madam C@t was the best behaved of the team. Her early posts and my sleep in a testament to exactly what happened.
Great day and great to meet fellow Bludgers.
WWP:
If you don’t win you don’t get to legislate your policy agenda. And as we’ve seen, you need at least two terms in government to make legislation stick.
So yes, when you break it down, it really does come down to winning.
Upnorth:
And thank you for picking up the lunch bill!
From WB above:
“… courted far right sentiment [here in Australa] by mocking Volodomyr Zelenskyy in parliament …”
==========
First, “Z” T-shirt wearing thugs flooding out of a Russian music concert in Sydney, then Coalition Senator Antic’s antics pitching towards an audience he certainly regards as existing. Anyone here still think Putin-philia is not a problem in this country worth opposing? We should not complacently tire of putting the case against rolling over to Putin’s aggression and genocide.
Thank you BK for this morning’s read.
On Stan Grant, his “sin” appears to be that he embarrassed people and made them uncomfortable. He didn’t follow the narrative. And that can never be forgiven, because it requires changing who you are. And that takes courage.
And that blends effortlessly into WB’s summary above. “Support for the Indigenous Voice was down two since December to 48% while opposition was up ten to 39%, including a 20-point increase among Coalition voters and a seven point increase among Labor and Greens voters. This converted to 55-45 after exclusion of the undecided, in from 65-35.” The so-called undecided on the voice were merely working out how to say NO without looking like knee-jerk racists. Put another way, it’s what you have to do when you’re told racism is bad, but you don’t know why.
I remember another ABC journalist, non-male, non-white, and non-Christian, who had the temerity to express non-standard thoughts about ANZAC day, on ANZAC day, and who had to leave Australia because of it, to the delight of some. (Remember Yassmin?)
”
Alan Kohler writes that the debt ceiling was increased or suspended three times during Trump’s presidency without a peep from either side of politics in Congress. Now the Republicans are threatening to force America to default on its debt if there isn’t a crackdown on welfare for the poor.
https://thenewdaily.com.au/news/world/us-news/2023/05/22/america-us-debt-alan-kohler/
”
Biden and Democrats should never assume that poor people (mostly blacks) will vote for Democrats come what may because after the last Debt ceiling drama during Obama time people either stayed away or voted for Trump and Republicans in 2014 and 2016 after Obama gave ground on Republican demands.
When was the last US debt crisis?
The 2013 crisis was temporarily resolved on February 4, 2013, when President Barack Obama signed the No Budget, No Pay Act of 2013 which suspended the debt ceiling until May 19, 2013. On May 19, the debt ceiling was raised to approximately $16.699 trillion to accommodate the borrowing done during the suspension period.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org › wiki
United States debt ceiling – Wikipedia
Russian Su-35 fighter jet has been shot down over the Black Sea
Confessions says:
Monday, May 22, 2023 at 8:33 am
Upnorth:
And thank you for picking up the lunch bill!
中华人民共和国
A pleasure my dear! Very good fun. Thank you for coming
Thanks for the roundup BK. On this one: go hard Labor! Don’t cave in! Big mining and construction firms, including engineering, only drive costs in one direction, and wages in the opposite direction.
“ The building and mining industries will wage war against the Albanese government if it bends to union pressure and captures self-employed tradies, truckies and engineers under its second wave of industrial relations reforms, writes Geoff Chambers.”
https://www.theaustralian.com.au/nation/politics/builders-miners-unite-for-war-with-albanese-government-over-industrial-relations/news-story/491587d550bf4049bc5931cbf492ac26?amp
I plead guilty to being one of the self employed engineers. Yet it was to avoid working on projects that were a waste of money, and writing guides to send work to India that should have been here that I left. It wasn’t to make more money.
Australian unions have faithfully avoided engaging with the engineering profession for 30 years. I’m sure many engineers would support it if they finally tried to represent the interest of engineers as workers. The forthcoming expansion of engineering in new areas in energy, electrified transport and defence makes this a great time to restart this conversation.
From Dawn patrol
Reminds me of old Hollywood movies.
”
C@tmommasays:
Monday, May 22, 2023 at 8:15 am
One swallow does not a summer make, Ven. But if you want to hang your hat on the Freshwater poll, then be my guest.
”
This is Freshwater strategy polling thread and I was discussing its number in relation to what EA posted.
EA: It should go without saying that, while Antic and anyone of his fellow travellers is in the Parliament in the Coalition, anyone who opposes Putin’s assault upon democracy, human rights and the rule of law simply cannot vote for the Coalition, anywhere around Australia at any level of government.
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I find LNP PV of 37% hard to believe but if it is what it is then LNP PV has increased by 1.5%, which is very very hard to comprehend.
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Evansays:
Monday, May 22, 2023 at 8:16 am
G’day Bludgers, very happy those who turned up to the lunch in Sydney yesterday had a great time!
In response to Rex and Playerone, who keep running this line that the Albanese Government has done nothing good over the past 12 months – do you actually prefer the alternative, a Peter Dutton Coalition Government?
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I suppose so.
ABC discussed Albanese government promisetracker factcheck
They already kept 18 of them, 40 of them in progress and 6 stalled. Not a single promise is broken.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/factcheck/promisetracker
C@tmomma @ #10 Monday, May 22nd, 2023 – 7:07 am
I certainly enjoyed myself, and it was very good to get to know all of the assembled company, plus our ring in at the Opera Bar, the delightful Kate, from London. I did not partake of quite the same quantities of wine etc. as several of the other participants. This was a good thing, as I was pulled over for a breathalyser test, on the way home, just before the turn onto the expressway at Wahroongah, at 10.25 pm. No probs.
Hearty thanks to c@t for organising, to Upnorth for infectious exuberance, and to everybody for being really good company, and sources of wisdom and matters for thought.
It has gladdened my sad heart at the moment to hear of the lovely get together of bludgers yesterday. Well done guys!