Two new items of opinion polling:
• RedBridge Group has a poll of voting intention from Western Australia, encompassing both a federal result and a state one you can read about in the post immediately above. Both are encouraging for Labor, the federal result crediting them with a 55.2-44.8 lead, effectively unchanged on a 2022 election result of 55.0-45.0. The primary votes are Labor 39% (36.8% at the election), Coalition 37% (34.8%), Greens 12% (12.5%) and One Nation 5% (4.0%). Field work dates are not provided, but the sample was 1200.
• Roy Morgan has an SMS poll on politicians’ trustworthiness, and while only scarce detail is offered, we are told three out of twenty-four had net positive results: Penny Wong, Jacinta Price and Jim Chalmers. Anthony Albanese recorded minus three, while Peter Dutton was on minus fourteen. The poll was conducted November 16 to 20 from a sample of 1095.
Preselection latest:
• Varun Ghosh, a Right-aligned barrister at Francis Burt Chambers, has been confirmed as Labor’s successor to the Western Australian Senate vacancy that will be created next month by the retirement of Pat Dodson.
• Steph Hodgins-May, former senior campaigner at Greenpeace Australia Pacific, won a Greens preselection vote to fill the Victorian Senate vacancy that will be created when Janet Rice retires in the second half of next year. Hodgins-May ran three times in the inner Melbourne seat of Macnamara, where she came very close to unseating Labor’s Josh Burns in 2022. Broede Carmody of The Age reports the other candidates were “City of Monash councillor Josh Fergeus, former Melbourne lord mayoral candidate Apsara Sabaratnam, former Legislative Council MP Huong Truong, Coburg-based surrogacy lawyer Sarah Jefford and barrister David Risstrom”.
• Nola Marino, who has held the seat of Forrest for the Liberals in Western Australia’s South West region since 2007, announced last week that she will retire at the next election. The West Australian reports former Senator Ben Small is “believed to have the inside track” to succeed her as Liberal candidate. Small is a former logistics manager at Woodside Energy and owner of a Bunbury bar and restaurant. He came to the Senate when he filled Mathias Cormann’s vacancy in November 2020 and failed to win re-election from third on the ticket in 2022.
• Katina Curtis of The West Australian reports Ian Goodenough, the Liberal member for Moore, may face a second preselection challenger in Matt Moran, an Afghanistan veteran, former journalist and former staffer to Malcolm Turnbull and Christopher Pyne. Moran now works in government relations for shipbuilder Luerssen. It has long been anticipated Goodenough will be challenged by RSLWA chief executive Vince Connelly, who held the seat of Stirling before its abolition in 2022 and then run unsuccessfully in Cowan after losing a preselection ballot against Goodenough by 39 votes to 36.
• Paul Sakkal of The Age reports Susan Morris, who runs a vascular surgery practice in Kew, will run for Liberal preselection in Kooyong. She is the second nominee after Amelia Hamer, director of strategy at tech start-up Airwallex.
Nicholas @ #282 Sunday, December 17th, 2023 – 11:15 am
Comprehension escapes you. To the extent that they were sitting in the seats they’d paid for to see the play, they were captive to the curtain calls, and therefore the protest.
Many recent migrants come from conservative societies so it isn’t Murdoch causing any shift but there’s no evidence they are flocking to the Liberals.
Mexicanbeemer: This sort of thinking is nuts. Centre-left governments have fought and won the socially conservative migrant vote on economic (and not-being-racist-towards-them, ala the Labor campaign in Chinese migrant heavy seats at the last election) issues for decades.
Just ceding their loss is a given is an inexplicable gift to Dutton.
A 100 year old man who has lived in a nursing home for 15 years receives an $11,000 debt on his Veteran’s pension. The debt dates from (or started accumulating in) 2016. Minimal detail was provided.
Now this man is unlikely to have worked since 2016. He is unlikely to have received inheritances and doesn’t seem to have a lot of assets – some term deposits. He would have what’s left of the proceeds of the sale of his house (2008) that hasn’t been paid to the nursing home. He wouldn’t be an active investor (or have anyone actively investing on his behalf), so he’s unlikely to have made big profits or had asset value increases that would have significantly affected his pension.
So the issues are:
– Did anyone check the notice before it went out? (Rhetorical question)
– Why wasn’t this picked up years ago, in 2017?
– Was it accumulating at about $1,500-2,000 per annum without anyone noticing?
– Is it a result of system error? Seems a distinct possibility to me.
The principle that you can’t send bills to people without providing evidence that they actually owe money applies.
Robodebt is gone but many of the structures and processes set up under the previous Government remain – too many. The Augean Stables can’t be cleaned overnight but we should be progressing faster.
I think telling people they were ‘aspirational’ and therefore the lesser for being who they are and the better for becoming more like ‘them’, projected as their betters, decamped voters into a debt and Conservative voting death spiral.
Steve777:
Sunday, December 17, 2023 at 10:54 am
[‘All this is generalisation of course.’]
I’m in earnest agreement with you.
So in other words, they were free to leave at any time. Curtain calls don’t stop you from leaving a theatre.
Steve777 @ #258 Sunday, December 17th, 2023 – 12:26 pm
C’mon, this is robodebt style nastiness and a disgrace.
Labor has been in office going on 2 yrs and this sh*t is still going on.
Too busy serving their political donors than cleaning up this stuff.
VA minister Keogh should be managed out of the position.
A senior federal minister has expressed new caution about sending a warship to the Middle East to help the United States protect shipping lanes from attack, saying Australia would generally focus instead on its own region.
Trade Minister Don Farrell said the Royal Australia Navy was focused on priorities such as the South China Sea and said the government was still considering the US request for help in the Red Sea to guard against rebels backed by Iran.
But the Opposition is trying to intensify pressure on Labor to make a decision as soon as possible, although Liberal Party deputy leader Sussan Ley stopped short of calling on the government to commit to sending a Navy vessel.
https://www.theage.com.au/politics/federal/senior-federal-minister-expresses-new-caution-about-us-request-for-ships-in-red-sea-20231217-p5eryo.html
What a grub you are Integrity.
Nicholas @ #307 Sunday, December 17th, 2023 – 12:31 pm
No, not in other words, in my original words:
Fortunate to have Zoe Daniel overseeing this.
Trade Minister Don Farrell expects China’s restrictions on Australian wine and lobster to be lifted early next year – the final step in normalising trade relations between Beijing and Canberra.
The Chinese government last week announced it would end its import ban on Australian barley, after Canberra suspended a World Trade Organisation action over the 2020 decision.
Beijing also lifted bans on meat imports from three local abattoirs run by Teys, the Australian Lamb Company and JBS, though bans remain on eight red meat processing facilities.
But Mr Farrell suggested those restrictions were unrelated to the China-Australia trade dispute that began in 2018 and which, at the height of tensions, covered $20 billion of trade.
“Bit by bit we’ve whittled that down,” he said, adding it was not an “unreasonable prediction” that all restrictions would end in the new year.
The Labor government has worked tirelessly to normalise relations with China since coming to office in 2022. Anthony Mr Albanese last month became the first prime minister in seven years to visit Australia’s largest trading partner.
Mr Farrell said the only product not yet allowed back into China was lobster, but he expects that ban to be lifted “in the near future”. That would also bring to an end the lucrative black market trade between Hong Kong and the Chinese mainland estimated to be worth about $80 million a month.
He also talked up the prospect of a trade agreement with the United Arab Emirates in 2024, which he indicated was more about assisting the UAE sovereign wealth fund make investments in key minerals projects. “We don’t have a huge amount of trade with the UAE, it represents about $12 billion a year, but if we can get a free trade agreement, then that means all of the products we sell into the UAE come in with no tariffs. “I think the opportunity is to get investment from the UAE, particularly into the critical minerals sector. “Anthony Albanese wants Australia to be a renewable energy superpower, and we are going to need overseas investment to bring that about, and of course, the UAE has got a very large sovereign wealth fund.”
https://www.afr.com/politics/federal/all-china-trade-restrictions-gone-in-2024-farrell-predicts-20231217-p5eryz
I understand what you’re saying, but I can’t help but wonder that if the actors had done curtain call wearing Vote Yes or marriage equality t-shirts, there wouldn’t have been such a fuss about it.
I hope they’re not planning to send HMAS Stuart (III) to the Red Sea as my sister will never forgive me. To placate her, I said it’s more likely that it will deployed to the South China Sea for freedom of navigation exercises. She said, “Thanks a shit bin.”
https://www.navy.gov.au/hmas-stuart-iii
Rebeccasays:
Sunday, December 17, 2023 at 12:25 pm
Mexicanbeemer: This sort of thinking is nuts. Centre-left governments have fought and won the socially conservative migrant vote on economic (and not-being-racist-towards-them, ala the Labor campaign in Chinese migrant heavy seats at the last election) issues for decades.
Just ceding their loss is a given is an inexplicable gift to Dutton.
—————
Its not gifting Dutton anything but seeing the difference between newer migrants and earlier migrants. The Irish hated the English and the Europeans brought their class divisions but newer migrants come with a different set of values and experiences.
And which new migrants would those be, who’ve somehow miraculously managed to keep voting for Labor for at least a couple decades to date, but are simultaneously lost causes? Recent Chinese Christian migrants, who probably best fit that descriptor, were still the target of a pretty great (and successful) example of of how to fight and win with migrant communities at the last election.
Webb appears to be exceeding her mandate:
https://www.sydneycriminallawyers.com.au/blog/nsw-police-commissioner-seeks-to-influence-composition-of-coroners-court/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=week-51
Rebeccasays:
Sunday, December 17, 2023 at 1:01 pm
And which new migrants would those be, who’ve somehow miraculously managed to keep voting for Labor for at least a couple decades to date, but are simultaneously lost causes? Recent Chinese Christian migrants, who probably best fit that descriptor, were still the target of a pretty great (and successful) example of of how to fight and win with migrant communities at the last election.
—————
The changing migrant mix is affecting both sides because wealthier migrants are not flocking to the Liberals.
Just because a group of people vote for the ALP doesn’t mean they support the same progressive causes favored by the ALP.
Confessions @ #315 Sunday, December 17th, 2023 – 12:43 pm
Absolutely. I’m just making a point. It depends on what your beliefs are. I have Jewish friends who go to STC as subscribers, who are strongly pro-Israel with a whatever-it-takes mindset, and if they were there, they would have been pretty pissed off to be clapping the performers as they came out for curtain calls, to then see what they saw. I have not spoken to them about this. I don’t go there. As I posted a while back, I think many are dealing with this by retreating into silence, self-censorship.
I’ve had one experience. We were at Muriel’s Wedding (The Musical), same theatre, on the night the Marriage Equality legislation went through. Curtain calls were with performers waving Rainbow Flags and cheers and waves. It was a big night, for some. (On the way in we were stuck in traffic in Hunter Street listening to Parliament being boradcast when it passed. We both teared up, silently, as the public gallery erupted). But, if I were a fundamentalist christian do no gooder, I’d have been pissed off I suppose. But fair to say, I don’t think there were many there that night.
If I were to go (say) to an orchestral concert, and the guest violinist came back for his curtain calls waving a Russian flag, I think I’d be questioning his abuse of my paid for presence. But if it were Ukrainian …..
The wonderful conductor Daniel Barenboim (amongst many great achievements, he started to East West Divan orchestra, Israeli and Palestinian young musicians playing together) guested here and addressed the audience about our indigenous neglect. Should he have? (I thought it was great).
Round and round we go. The question is about the legitimacy of using a paid up audience who have come specifically for one thing for another purpose.
The last time an attempt was made to play Wagner in Israel
https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=526945405928505
The NSW police commissioner could seek some guidance.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/dec/17/jimmy-lai-trial-begins-hong-kong
Steve Smith out of his 87th ball, with the score at 2-87.
“Steve Smith out of his 87th ball, with the score at 2-87.”
I have been listening, this morning, to a person describe how their psychic’s revelation that this person and their close friend were married in a former life makes so much sense because they’re always so in sync with each other.
Sprocket
I wasn’t watching but I believe Smith spat the dummy. As usual.
Geoff Lemon of The guardian tweets: One of the funnier bits of weirdness in cricket is players getting mad at being given out lbw to balls that are hitting.
Itza:
I am one who hasn’t bought a 2024 season ticket to the STC because of how they’ve handled this issue. I may change my mind, but at present I feel ambivalent towards the STC and not inclined to support its work.
As Louise Adler says, the STC response was really nothing to do with the audience that night and more to do with the STC donors and potential donors.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mlCPm9Q3wf0&ab_channel=ABCNewsIn-depth
If the play is advertised as Hamlet and you show up to find that it’s actually Sodom and Gomorrah you’d be confused and annoyed by the bait-and-switch. If it’s the play you were expecting but the actors are making a political statement that is incidental to the performance, well, living in a society does require a basic degree of tolerance and robustness. You have options if you are annoyed by the performers’ political views. You can leave the theatre, you can boycott those performers or that theatre company in the future, or you can let it go. We are all entitled to our thoughts and emotions and we need to take some responsibility for how we manage them. It isn’t healthy for people to refuse to accept that responsibility.
Oakeshott country @ #323 Sunday, December 17th, 2023 – 1:27 pm
Ah yes. Thanks. I’d not seen that. Amazing footage.
You’ll be sorry. Rave alert.
Israeli born Asher Fisch, principle conductor and artistic director of WASO, and here side more next year, and a Barenboim protege, conducted the fantastic 2004 Elke Neidhardt Ring in Adelaide. One of his aims was / is to ‘bring Wagner to Israel’. Said he.
More recently, the SSO Rheingold (Simone Young) was a sensation. She had cast as Erda (my favourite character in anything ever) the Tel Aviv born young singer Noa Beinart, who was phenomenal. Ms Beinart flats with an Australian singer (one of the Rhinemaidens) in Vienna, where she sang Auntie in Peter Grimes for Young. Un. Believe. Able.
Anyway, reception afterwards (you know the scene) and she (Erda) introduces me to her mother and father out from Tel Aviv. Beautiful people. She’s a paediatrician, and he, I somehow think, might be a teacher. (He knew all about the potato famine and the Irish in Australia). We got onto Wagner and Israel, somehow, and I brought Ashe Fisch into the conversation, and huge smiles all round. They know him and his family. And where an I going with this — they agree, no Wagner in Israel anytime soon. They loved loved Sydney, mainly for the people, although he thought the ferry to Manly was pretty good!
Thanks Itza –
I think the change in demographics in Israel since 1981 have made it even less tolerant than it was then.
Wonderful memories of the Neidhardt Ring – i was not aware of that side of Fisch. Her Tannhäuser at the Opera House is also one of my better experiences. I was bemused that the fulsome obituaries after her death did not mention her seminal (sic) roles in Alvin Purple and the True Story of Eskimo Nell. Masterpieces of the Australian fillum renaissance.
Your all time favourite character is Erda!!?? Tell me more – she seems to me to pop in and out without adding much
Confessions @ #328 Sunday, December 17th, 2023 – 2:18 pm
Me neither, but tapering back as much as anything. The company will be feeling it (donor loss). They’re not exactly flush I hear.
Thanks. I hadn’t seen that, and Adler’s good value. The issue remains blurred for me, and she didn’t address it. Yes, the Arts are fundamental. But does being an artist give you special licence to declare your politics in the workplace, which is what the actors were doing. What if the bus driver was wearing the scarf. Can I wear one to Day Surgery? Are those situations comparable? I’m getting from Adler that Arts and Artists are political beings, very much, and therefore because they are artists who have a long history of political activism, all bets are therefore off.
Rebecca @ #296 Sunday, December 17th, 2023 – 11:48 am
A few things in response to this thoughtful reply, Rebecca.
1. About the taxation notices. I Believe that I said when I first heard about it that it was a bad look for a government that had campaigned so effectively in Opposition against Robodebt. And if I didn’t say it then, I am now. I’m thinking that the Finance Minister and the Treasurer were so preoccupied with MYEFO that this slipped under the radar. I also have a recollection that, once they found out what had happened, they resolved to stop it.
2. The defence of Shorten is because he is making the NDIS sustainable. It was fast becoming derailed and economically unsustainable. He has done what any responsible Minister in charge of it should have done. Launched a taskforce to make recommendations about how that can be done, which involved not allowing people onto the NDIS if they have a particular condition, but assessing each one as to the severity of that condition and then arranging for those who aren’t severely impacted to obtain appropriate therapy instead. He has also reinvigorated the complaints hotline about dodgy NDIS providers who have been rorting the system. So he’s not really taking an axe to the NDIS. What he is doing is fixing up another mess the Coalition got us into.
Maybe you would be interested in this explanatory video?
https://youtu.be/IOAomqtXGGY?si=TVtRItC5PGwBUwV-
I just thought it was ‘interesting’ that none of the STC actors wore a Jewish flag draped over their shoulders. It was the citizens of that country that suffered the initial massacre, after all.
Rex Douglas @ #309 Sunday, December 17th, 2023 – 12:34 pm
As if anyone in the government will take direction from you.
Oakeshott Country @ #331 Sunday, December 17th, 2023 – 2:46 pm
Earth Mother ! What’s not to like! And a know all. And been around the block and back, off srping littered along the way. I like the placement. Lovely sound. I love the short comings and goings, only there for the big announcement, then I’m off. I love conceptualising characters beyond time. And she’s a great one. This Sydney Erda I mentioned (cast a long shadow over Brisbane’s) had a big voice, commanding but warm, as honey, was both forthright and humble, gave instruction without pleading, knew Wotan would fail at the hurdle, and the final test – absolutely riveting stage presence, stature and voice. Much breath holding in the auditorium.
But most of all, I like what she says.
All that e’er was know I;
how all things are, how all things will be
see I too:
the endless world’s all-wise one, Erda,
warneth thee now.
Ere the world was,
daughters three of my womb were born;
what mine eyes see,
nightly the Norns ever tell thee.
But danger most dire calleth me hither today.
Hear me! Hear me! Hear me!
All that e’er was endeth!
A darksome day dawns for your godhood:
be counseled, give up the ring!
https://youtu.be/zQkTo5D_yYY?si=DzbMfH1OLb-0iqfL
(play it at my funeral – give up the Ring)
Rebecca @ #303 Sunday, December 17th, 2023 – 12:25 pm
How have Labor ‘ceded their loss’? I’ve seen Tony Bourke, Ed Husic, Dr Mike Freelander, Michelle Rowland and Chris Bowen, just to name a few NSW MPs who represent those sort of constituents, really going into bat for their concerns, legislatively especially. They also do that when the culture warriors of the Right attack them (then want their votes by appealing to their socially conservative side). I’d also point out that Labor has THREE Muslim MPs, and the Coalition have ZERO. Labor walks the walk, and Peter Dutton just talks the talk.
C@tmommasays:
Sunday, December 17, 2023 at 3:01 pm
I just thought it was ‘interesting’ that none of the STC actors wore a Jewish flag draped over their shoulders. It was the citizens of that country that suffered the initial massacre, after all.
—————————————————————————–
#Moratorium
Reposting. Devotees only. That link is a bit wonky I think.
This is a Voice. I’d give up the ring and get my dick back in my pants quick smart. The promise of betterment in the music and the voice is absolutely compelling.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zQkTo5D_yYY
Perhaps.
My mother and I had this argument at the time. At the time I felt pretty much like you do, that they would’ve been better taking to social media to protest, but have tempered my opinion over the last few weeks.
Mum is very much on the side of the actors arguing they absolutely have licence to express their opinions freely as artists as has been numerous examples through the ages (the Louise Adler argument).
And to that end I guess she has a point. Many people don’t hang around for the curtain call, taking the opportunity once lights dim and the curtain comes down to get out quickly before the throng. If someone really was offended there was nothing keeping them from leaving the venue – at that point they weren’t missing any of the performance by doing so. It would be different if the actors had worn the keffiyeh during the actual performance or gone off script with words of support for Gazans – then it would be a workplace issue in my view.
What goes around comes around @ #338 Sunday, December 17th, 2023 – 3:22 pm
#local
Confessions @ #340 Sunday, December 17th, 2023 – 3:23 pm
Not easy. You see, I think being on stage in costume is still part of performance. The play per se is over but curtain calls are performance, and choreographed. Literally. My initial post included the suggestion that maybe if they had stood outside the theatre in the street in scarves …. removes them from the Company for starters.
(Think this has run its course. Thanks)
C@tmomma
“#local”
Shall we take that fig leaf to its logical conclusion?
Maybe the artists felt that the slow motion genocide of the Palestinian people was the forerunning, ‘initial massacre’.
I mean, if we’re speculating…
C@t: “… let Bogans be Bogans …”
Pay that one! 🙂
Rewi @ #343 Sunday, December 17th, 2023 – 3:32 pm
By way of explanation: I put that tag up. It was meant to say that the discussion was beyond the moratorium because of local content.
Every Democrat should be tagging these inhumane laws to every Republican including Trump right up until the elections next year. After all, it is Trump’s supreme court that has given rise to laws such as these.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-12-17/ohio-woman-charged-after-miscarriage/103238764
Rishi Sunak has been accused of adopting the “toxic” rhetoric of his former home secretary Suella Braverman, after he warned that migration would “overwhelm” European countries without firm action. In remarks that will further inflame the Tory row over migration that has been raging for weeks, the prime minister said that “enemies” were “deliberately driving people to our shores to try to destabilise our society”.
Sunak made the comments at a festival in Rome organised by the far-right Brothers of Italy party, led by the Italian premier Giorgia Meloni. He said that both he and Meloni, with whom he has been forging a close relationship over hardline migration policies, were taking inspiration from Margaret Thatcher’s steadfast radicalism in their quest to do “whatever it takes” to “stop the boats”. “Criminal gangs find the ugliest ways to exploit our humanity and don’t have a problem with putting people’s lives at risk by putting them on boats,” he said. “If we do not tackle this problem, the numbers will only grow. It will overwhelm our countries and our capacity to help those who actually need our help the most.”
The prime minister also said changes to postwar asylum rules could be required to resolve the issue. “Because if we don’t fix this problem now, the boats will keep coming and more lives will be lost at sea,” he said. The comments will alarm moderate Tories already concerned at the hard line Sunak has adopted over migrants crossing the Channel.
Off now. Thanks. Sorry if I hogged the board. And remember folks, Give Up The Ring.
(Too late I think – the joint is burning down already)
C@tmomma
I apologise for attributing ItzaDream’s rationale for your flagrant provocation to you.
ItzaDreamsays:
Sunday, December 17, 2023 at 3:24 pm
What goes around comes around @ #338 Sunday, December 17th, 2023 – 3:22 pm
C@tmommasays:
Sunday, December 17, 2023 at 3:01 pm
I just thought it was ‘interesting’ that none of the STC actors wore a Jewish flag draped over their shoulders. It was the citizens of that country that suffered the initial massacre, after all.
—————————————————————————–
#Moratorium
#local
————————————————————————-
I have no problem with nearly all of the discussion as a local event. It is just a certain statement using the word initial that i think should not have been made. Initial implies the beginning of a chronology. I don’t believe the event was the beginning of the chronology. If it is were, where does the Nakba sit in this chronology?.