Before we proceed to a brief summary of electorally relevant current events in federal politics, please note the other quality content that it’s pushing down the order: a guest post from Adrian Beaumont on the threat of US debt default and other international events, a post on a Tasmanian poll with a summary of recent events in that state, and a detailed analysis of results from last year’s federal election in thirteen seats in inner Melbourne.
• The Fadden by-election has been set for July 25, with nominations to close on June 23. As was covered in the previous post, a Liberal National Party preselection that has attracted five nominees will be conducted today. Phillip Coorey of the Financial Review reports that Anthony Albanese would rather Labor forfeit the by-election for a seat the LNP holds on a 10.6% margin, but must reckon with a local branch “agitating to run a candidate”.
• The New South Wales Liberal Party will hold its preselection this weekend to fill the Senate vacancy resulting from the death of Jim Molan in January. The field have candidates has narrowed to three: former state Transport Minister Andrew Constance, former state party president Maria Kovacic and Space Industry Association chief executive James Brown. The Sydney Morning Herald reports the latter has a long list of high-profile backers including John Howard, Julie Bishop and Dave Sharma.
• The Byron Shire Echo reports comedian Mandy Nolan will again run as the Greens candidate for the Byron Bay and Tweed Heads region seat of Richmond at the next federal election. Nolan added 5.0% to the party’s primary vote share last May to outpoll the Nationals, although preferences from right-wing minor parties pushed the Nationals candidate ahead of her at the final exclusion.
‘Bugger it’. Incredible.
———————————–
The police officer who tasered a 95-year-old great grandmother before she died allegedly said ‘no, bugger it’ before firing the weapon, it will be alleged in court.
Senior Constable Kristian White, 33, was charged with recklessly causing grievous bodily harm, assault occasioning actual bodily harm and common assault on Wednesday evening. Mr White is expected to fight the charges.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12124101/Great-grandmother-Clare-Nowland-tasered-Police-officer-Kristian-White-allegedly-said-bugger-it.html
“Bugger it”. That’s the words of a man frustrated with a dementia patient. Not one fearing for the safety of himself or others. It’s the words of laziness, unprofessionalism and the failure to imagine another way. Of which there were plenty.
Something I haven’t forgotten when inter alia studying and being lectured macroeconomics at Melbourne Uni –
The most important industry and must have for an economy was the automobile industry.
The major reason the MULTIPLIER EFFECT.
”
Dr Johnsays:
Friday, May 26, 2023 at 11:56 am
Something I haven’t forgotten when inter alia studying and being lectured macroeconomics at Melbourne Uni –
The most important industry and must have for an economy was the automobile industry.
The major reason the MULTIPLIER EFFECT.
”
Bugger it. 🙂
I think there were probably a myriad of errors in previous car manufacturing support, but allowing the industry to be local outposts of foreign corporations must be near the top, they had every reason to extort the Australian taxpayet and lost nothing by leaving.
If you were going to try to do a successful local car manufacturing, and were going to subsidise it, you’d be bonkers not to ban foreign ownership.
But we won’t we don’t do vision or courage in Australia we do dumb.
EA
Asked about Ukraine, DeSantis blathers about ‘gender ideology’
https://m.dailykos.com/stories/2023/5/25/2171391/-DeSantis-position-on-Ukraine-is-our-military-is-too-woke
Aaron Rupar
@atrupar
GOWDY: If you’re president, how would you address the war in Ukraine?
DESANTIS: First, I think what we need to do as a veteran is recognize that our military has become politicized. You talk about gender ideology …
(Watch the video. The reply is so astoundingly stupid. It beggers belief. See I am blabbering after watching that video.)
Solidarity for the Voice by major sporting codes is a welcomed development:
https://www.news.com.au/sport/australias-sport-codes-unite-in-support-of-indigenous-voice-to-parliament/news-story/c95011ad29c44681a0363da339be8a0e
WeWantPaul says:
If you were going to try to do a successful local car manufacturing, and were going to subsidise it, you’d be bonkers not to ban foreign ownership.
_______________________
we’ve already lived through decades of nationalist protectionism. It did us no good.
Fortunately no one serious is actually advocating this stuff.
Labor should be establishing a national gas reserve for domestic use and capping the price.
But instead Labor let the gas industry write the rules and gouge Australians to make massive profits for their industry superfund execs.
“we’ve already lived through decades of nationalist protectionism. It did us no good.
Fortunately no one serious is actually advocating this stuff.”
It works well in other countries, are we just too dumb?
Perhaps we could reserve enough of the critical minerals required to underpin a local EV manufacturing industry to make it globally competitive …?
Putin is moving (has moved?) nuclear weapons into Belarus –
Aunty.
Mavis @ #112 Friday, May 26th, 2023 – 12:20 pm
Nuclear war.
Well I guess that’s it then…
nath @ Friday, May 26, 2023 at 11:53 am:
““Bugger it”. That’s the words of a man frustrated with a dementia patient. Not one fearing for the safety of himself or others. It’s the words of laziness, unprofessionalism and the failure to imagine another way. Of which there were plenty.”
==============
Nath, they are the words of a cop annoyed he might miss the breakfast menu at Macca’s if the ‘incident’ dragged on too long. 😡
Boerwar:
I trust things are all good with you.
ABC reporting that two 13 year old have handed themselves in, in regard to the fire in Sydney
Rex & Mavis, this is just a militarily meaningless gesture designed to spook Westerners out of further supporting Ukraine. For a host of reasons military analysts have related at great length if you care to look, Putin will not pre-emptively pull that trigger, no matter how many ‘red lines’ of his the West crosses. Remember, both the West and Ukraine have crossed dozens of these so-called ‘red lines’ these past 15 months, and nothing has happened. I advise you both take a deep breath, count to ten, then relax and enjoy the day.
Rex Douglas:
Friday, May 26, 2023 at 12:22 pm
Mavis @ #112 Friday, May 26th, 2023 – 12:20 pm
Putin is moving (has moved?) nuclear weapons into Belarus –
Aunty.
[‘Nuclear war.
Well I guess that’s it then…’
More a case of sabre-rattling I think. But with two unhinged leaders – Putin & Lukashenko – you never know. I’m off to build an Anderson shelter just in case.
https://www.pollbludger.net/2023/05/26/miscellany-fadden-by-election-liberal-and-greens-candidate-selection-open-thread/comment-page-3/#comment-4115051
Desantis and Vlad should get on fabulously …?
I don’t understand why posters think that MAGAs are not capable of allowing US to default on their debt. They don’t understand the consequences of that and they don’t care about the consequences.
MAGAs got elected to trash the joint and this is an opportunity to do so. They went home for holidays till June 5th. Whereas the Debt ceiling dead line is June 1st.
Fine. Let the Housing Future Fund sink in the Senate and add $10 Billion to the 2022/23 Budget surplus.
In the lead up to late 2024 / 2025 Federal Election, announce the HFF as policy.
Campaign up until that point against the Greens & the Noalition for destroying a meaningful policy to create affordable housing, for those in need of such accommodation.
The below headline should send shudder through us. Remember that Arnold Schwarzenegger movie “Total Recall”
Elon Musk’s Neuralink gets FDA approval for study of brain implants in humans
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-05-26/elon-musk-neuralink-fda-approval-to-implant-chips-in-brains/102396662
Elon Musk’s brain-implant company Neuralink says it has received a green light from the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to kickstart its first-in-human clinical study, a critical milestone after earlier struggles to gain approval.
Key points:
Neuralink, which was founded in 2016, sought FDA approval for the first time in early 2022
Back then the agency rejected the application, former employees of the company said
Elon Musk envisions both disabled and healthy individuals getting surgical implants to cure a range of different conditions
aqualung: ” I must have missed the chapter where he [Disney] supported Hitler.”
Maybe you shouldnt have asked him after the war, and instead asked people about his actions before it. It is on record that he attended American Nazi Party meetings.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/entertainment/books/1993/07/18/the-mogul-behind-the-mouse/8d7a370e-706a-49cb-8338-b3886cff4137/
“Disney’s bigotry was disclosed in Leonard Mosley’s 1985 biography, but Eliot enlarges the catalogue of Disney’s antisemitism. He even quotes animator Art Babbitt as saying that Disney was spotted at meetings of the American Nazi Party prior to World War II. Walt’s famous paternalism toward his employees disguised, for some people, his sexism — he promised that women would never be animators in his studio. Eliot says that the only permanent African-American employee at the studio during Disney’s lifetime shined shoes.”
All of which is effectively ancient history. My point is that people blue/red team all of the time, and all of these accusations are coloured by narratives of the tellers. Just like today. The problem happens when people refuse to see objective fact because they see someone as a ‘bad guy’. It renders whatever positive someone might say as irrelevant.
aqualung: “He did, unfortunately, support Joseph McCarthy.”
He hated communists, which in context meant any trade unionist, with the white hot rage of a nazi.
Ven @ Friday, May 26, 2023 at 12:04 pm:
“EA
Asked about Ukraine, DeSantis blathers about ‘gender ideology’”
==========
Ven, like you, DeSantis’ performance here answering the question has left me speechless. I honestly think DeSantis needs daily reminders there is actually a world outside America’s borders, reminders he clearly has great reluctance believing.
God help us all if this clown ever gets in the White House. I think I see SpaceX’s Elon Musk’s long game with DeSantis now…
Comments from Colonel Richard Kemp a former British Army officer. He was an infantry battalion commander:
If this war does lead to fundamental change in the Russian Federation it is likely to follow a much rockier road than the break-up of the Soviet Union. One thing we should not expect to see is an emergent regime that wants to end the war, usher in a new democracy and establish cordial relations with the West. Don’t expect another Mikhail Gorbachev. Instead, we could well be looking at a protracted scenario of chaos, violence, rebellion and repression, with fighting between the Russian army, national guard, security services, the plethora of private armies and perhaps Prighozin’s vision of mobs on the streets with pitchforks. Even if it doesn’t collapse into ethnic fiefdoms, it will be fought over by competing hardliners incensed by the betrayal of their forces by a corrupt elite.
Real incomes in Western Australia are certainly much higher than they would be if protection-based auto-manufacturing were reinstated. Protected manufacturing transfers income from the unprotected to the protected. Why would we do that? What is the case for taking income from groups of workers in less-populated states and giving it to groups of workers in more populated states?
”
Enough Alreadysays:
Friday, May 26, 2023 at 12:46 pm
Ven @ Friday, May 26, 2023 at 12:04 pm:
“EA
Asked about Ukraine, DeSantis blathers about ‘gender ideology’”
==========
Ven, like you, DeSantis’ performance here answering the question has left me speechless. I honestly think DeSantis needs daily reminders there is actually a world outside America’s borders, reminders he clearly has great reluctance believing.
God help us all if this clown ever gets in the White House. I think I see SpaceX’s Elon Musk’s long game with DeSantis now…
”
EA
Imagine this scenario
Musk just got permission for brain implants in humans.
Let us say DeSantis becomes POTUS. He wants brain implants in US people to control them. I shudder at that scenario.
Ven, you would be one of the first to be offered a brain implant. Surely.
Ven @ Friday, May 26, 2023 at 12:54 pm:
“EA
Imagine this scenario
Musk just got permission for brain implants in humans.
Let us say DeSantis becomes POTUS. He wants brain implants in US people to control them. I shudder at that scenario.”
============
Ven, I was mainly just suggesting we’ll all urgently want to book flights departing Planet Earth, but I agree with the concern you’re raising. We (especially Americans here, in this case) need to be very careful what they sleepwalk into.
By Jim Tankersley and Catie Edmondson
Reporting from Washington
May 25, 2023
Updated 10:01 p.m. ET
Top White House officials and Republican lawmakers were closing in Thursday on a deal that would raise the debt limit for two years while imposing strict caps on discretionary spending not related to the military or veterans for the same period. Officials were racing to cement an agreement in time to avert a federal default that is projected in just one week.
The deal taking shape would allow Republicans to say that they were reducing some federal spending — even as spending on the military and veterans’ programs would continue to grow — and allow Democrats to say they had spared most domestic programs from significant cuts.
Negotiators from both sides were talking into the evening and beginning to draft legislative text, though some details remained in flux.
“We’ve been talking to the White House all day, we’ve been going back and forth, and it’s not easy,” Speaker Kevin McCarthy told reporters as he left the Capitol on Thursday evening, declining to divulge what was under discussion. “It takes a while to make it happen, and we are working hard to make it happen.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/25/us/politics/republicans-debt-limit-talks-biden.html
Manufacturing makes up about 6% of the Australian economy. This compares with he 1960s, when secondary industries comprised 30% of the economy. The factors that inhibit auto making here also inhibit most other manufacturing. Is this a problem? Not really. The cost of manufactures globally continues to decline, which is to say that real incomes continue to rise as the prices of manufactures fall.
We can specialise in things where our advantages lie. We have a very diversified economy and a very open one. We should concentrate on making sure the economy remains open and responsive to the new.
Hwrald Sun 26/05
Victoria’s infrastructure Big Build has been rocked by bombshell allegations of multimillion-dollar rorts that include taxpayers charged for unfilled “ghost” shifts and unpaid allowances.
_____________________
No wonder we are broke.
Looks like a bunch of teenagers were responsible for the Sydney building fire.
Those who think that developers were behind the fire need to explain why they employed school kids to do the work.
The modern superpower of the US is its USD dominance. It will be interesting to see if they blow that up now through this debt ceiling mess.
It will be terrible for the world if it happens. It does highlight a need for an orderly transition away from the US. It is not entirely clear what the solution is but it is time to be having those discussions and plans now if they have not already done so internally in Govt. Perhaps PWC has been commissioned to write a paper?
The is not a romantic version of the West Wing where Martin Sheen comes in to sweetalk it through. It is pretty serious.
I find it interesting that when Estonia perceived its sovereignty to be under threat, it responds by
– seeking protection through alliances in the form of NATO and the EU (as did Latvia, Lithuania and further west)
– backing up its digital government in a data embassy in Luxembourg.
When Russia claims its sovereignty is under threat, it supports a coup in its neighbour country, invades and occupies parts of two other neighbouring countries, and then coercively ships nuclear weapons to the neighbour under its patronage.
And yet Russia was doing perfectly well as a corrupt oligarchy, under sovereign threat from no-one until they decided to menace their neighbours.
Ven: “Imagine this scenario: Musk just got permission for brain implants in humans. Let us say DeSantis becomes POTUS. He wants brain implants in US people to control them. I shudder at that scenario.”
That’s cray cray dawg. Like seriously.
Imagine this scenario; Quadriplegic’s gaining the use of their limbs. That’s the primary use-case for that technology. Are you going to be the one to say to the person trapped in their body that they are not permitted to access that technology because you hate Musk so much?
I have my differences with Briefly, but when it comes to international trade and economics he is clear eyed and a voice of reason on here.
Holdenhillbilly @ Friday, May 26, 2023 at 12:49 pm:
===========
Good. Russia needs to be negated as a threat to its neighbours by being significantly weakened both militarily and economically. The scenarios Ret. Col. Kemp lays out look admirably suited to that objective.
I think franky jumping straight to protectionism limits severely the range of tools a smart govt would have to incentivise local industry and minimise the risks of that value being offshored.
The IRA is essentially a bunch of stuff that is creating capital assets in the USA, including moving capital from Europe, and lets say Australia, it will result in productive capacity in the USA that might have been elsewhere.
I understand Europe was not happy about it, and I also understand Keirs Labor promised to emulate it in the UK, although being a tory party they are already backing away from that on affordability grounds.
Tarriffs and pouring money into foreign multinationals isn’t the only possible options.
And capital isn’t as scarce as it used to be we don’t need to sacrifice Australian babies to attract foreign captial, so I’m no seeing strong foreign investment restrictions having the same negative impact as tarriffs.
But as I said if there is a dumb option we will choose it. Like AUKUS.
If sleepy
That’s not a condition specific to Desantis. A solid majority of Americans share that affliction. For all the globetrotting the US military gets up to, Americans in general are remarkably insular.
Taylormadesays:
Friday, May 26, 2023 at 1:05 pm
Hwrald Sun 26/05
Victoria’s infrastructure Big Build has been rocked by bombshell allegations of multimillion-dollar rorts that include taxpayers charged for unfilled “ghost” shifts and unpaid allowances.
_____________________
No wonder we are broke.
I don’t think any of the big build is being done on a cost plus basis. If the allegations are true (it is after all the Herald sun) it is not a problem for the government, it is a problem for the contactor.
Socrates @ #50 Friday, May 26th, 2023 – 9:07 am
Sorry, I’ve been away making Spanakopita and then eating it. :}
But I cannot let this sentence stand without comment, Soc:
Sorry, caving into the PR campaign is the weakness.
It’s not weakness, it’s smart. I saw, up close and personal, how a campaign by the Clubs and Pubs destroyed the government of Julia Gillard and the Lower House career of my Local Labor MP, Deborah O’Neill. Then we got 10 years of a crappy Coalition government. Now, you can be all sanctimonious about the requirements that the new federal Labor government needs to fulfill to get your tick of approval, but I’m going to stick with my requirement for the new Labor government to stay in power, for 2 terms at least. And the way to do that is to make sure that they don’t go over the top with legislation that would be quickly unpicked by an incoming Coalition government after a brutally effective PR campaign by an industry who can afford to hire the best in the business, aided and abetted by the Murdoch media and the Coalition, in order to defeat a Labor federal government again.
I’m sorry, but political reality’s a bitch. It shatters the hopes and dreams of the most idealistic of us.
So I’m happy to let the experts navigate this issue.
If Putin explodes a nuclear bomb he will die. All his efforts to date are to stay on power.
Is Trump’s goose finally cooked over the coals of the documents case? Looks like the DoJ, in addition to willful retention, may be in a position to indict him on charges of obstruction, conspiracy and unlawful dissemination.
(Information from the disconcertingly redneck-looking but wonderfully informed and progressive YouTuber Beau of the Fifth Column)
Taylormade @ #134 Friday, May 26th, 2023 – 1:05 pm
Oh god, another baseless slogan from Taylormade.
Also, not addressing the rip offs obviously being made by the Contractor, supposedly the base of the … checks notes … the Liberal Party.
Anyway, Taylormade, how about you prove your outrageous statement that ‘we are broke’. I doubt that you will. You’ll just evaporate when challenged. Again.
Bellwether @ #146 Friday, May 26th, 2023 – 1:46 pm
My favourite is Texas Paul of The Meidas Touch 🙂
For the first time I’m feeling that the ‘Collective West’ have drawn a line in the sand and are effectively telling Putin and his band of rag-tag acolytes…. ENOUGH!!!
“Unless we act soon we will commit ourselves to changes that we’d really rather avoid,” he said. “We need to act to reduce emissions and we need to do everything we can as fast as we can.”
The study, whose first author is Kathryn Gunn of the CSIRO and the University of Southampton, was published in the journal Nature Climate Change.
I am surprised that the Liberals have taken so long to fill Jim Molan’s seat. Yes, they probably didn’t want an open war occurring within the party during the state election campaign. But it has been 4 months since he passed away, it strikes me as a very long time to leave the seat open. I assume Labor has been giving them a pair the whole time?
A party where there was internal trust could have put someone forward as a senator as a temporary solution for the four months, done the pre-selection and then had the temporary senator resign and replaced.
Holdenhillbilly @ #127 Friday, May 26th, 2023 – 12:49 pm
And China will go, thank you very much guys! Playing the long game.