The Financial Review has a federal poll from Freshwater Strategy, the pollster’s first for the paper since mid-December, though it conducted one for the News Corp papers in early January. It has Labor leading 51-49, after its previous two polls both recorded a dead heat. There is little change on the primary vote, with Labor on 31% and the Coalition on 38%, respectively steady and down one from both the two previous polls, and the Greens on 14%, up one from the December poll and steady from January.
A preferred prime minister measure has Anthony Albanese leading Peter Dutton 42-38, little changed from 43-39 in December. A question on the tax cut amendments finds 44% supportive, 26% indifferent and 15% opposed, with 32% expecting to be better off, 12% worse off and 43% anticipating no difference. The poll was conducted Friday to Sunday from a sample of 1049.
The lost decade is receiving attention – except in our mainstream media which instead gives currency to Trump and Dutton.
The lost decade has seen the stagnation of wages
The lost decade has seen a decline in productivity and a decline in economic activity.
The lost decade has seen the asbestos problem in NSW
The cause of the lost decade is the Liberal Party, now being replaced in their former “blue ribbon” seats by Independents those former Liberal Party “blue ribbon” seats containing educated populations who have, basically, departed MSM.
Look at the 30 Year Graph of the Cash Rate and detail the reasons for those settings across the 30 years – because it really is as simple as that.
We had the GST, leading to a 9% quarterly decline in GDP, a figure which put panic into a government fearing the headline “GST puts Nation into recession” hence impetus was given to the easiest sector to stimulate – the housing sector and by way of Grants and other incentives along with the Capital Gains Tax reduction to attract Investors (Negative Gearing has been around for time in memorial).
Plus the Cash Rate went from having a 6 in front of it to having a 4 in front of it.
That impetus given to the Housing Sector saw what we owed to our home mortgage lenders increase from $335 BILLION in the year 2000 to $1.226 TRILLION in the year 2010 – and that impetus which drove the extraordinary increase in our home mortgage debt drove house prices upwards – a cycle which can not be reversed because how do you then unwind such a movement without collapsing the Nation and its citizens, all then worthless with debt?
From there, and leading into 2007, there was inflation, financed by debt and with the Cash Rate returning to having a 7 in front of it.
Then the GST, ironically caused by sub-prime home mortgage lending.
And, as Garnaut, Henry, Sims and Fels now publish, in 2013, the commencement of another lost decade across the raft of measures and responses, principal among which was flat to recessionary wages growth (noting the mortgage debt needing to be serviced AND making entry to the property market prohibited to our younger generations, the true victims of this decade of flat to recessionary wages growth.
With the GFC, the Cash Rate went from having a 7 in front of it to having a 3 in front of it, saving indebted households from their lenders moving to call in the debt because it could not be serviced in an inflationary cycle, driving interest rates higher and higher.
We saw stabilization, with the Cash Rate returning to having a 4 in front of it.
Then came the real lost decade, starting in 2013 with an austerity response, austerity delivering confidence and that confidence trickling down, or so we were sold!
And the Cash Rate reduced from having a 4 in front of it to having a 1 in front of it – and persisted until the Pandemic, then reducing to ZERO.
And I repeat, across this lost decade (on all fronts), wages were flat to recessionary.
With the government increasingly wedded to tax on wages and salaries for revenue, the business sector stimulated by tax cuts (to compete globally we were told!!)
In a flat to negative wages growth decade, tax on wages and salaries became the major source of government revenue.
And productivity (yes, that word again) delivered exclusively to Company Balance Sheets, not to community including because 2 incomes are required to service the home mortgage debt post the year 2000, feeding another industry of Child Care (hullo ABC Learning – a Liberal Party benefactor no less!!)
And this is where we are today, with all the complaining voices.
Housing costs, cost of living pressures etc etc
The debt we owe to our home mortgage lenders is not going to go away.
It is ONLY with Labor, with Hawke and Keating and with Rudd and the Henry Review that the economic model, taking water as it is, is addressed.
Then in wades the Liberal Party and their media, reeking bias, a bias in favor of Corporations at the expense of individuals.
And boats!!!!
It has taken near a quarter of a century to get into this mess.
The question is how long to get out of the mess – noting the references to lost decades refers exclusively to periods of Coalition governments.
There was also some confusion yesterday about that GoFundMe woman calling herself, ‘a wife’ of her husband. The truth of the matter is not that she is maybe one wife among many, but that that is how those who have bought a ticket to La La Religionland refer to their occupation. A wife. Sad but true.
nath: “I’d probably rather a beer with Abbott over Rudd. But that’s not saying much.”
I’ll probably incur the wrath of AE again by saying this but, at a personal level, Abbott was a pretty nice guy and reasonably good company: loved a laugh and a bit of a gossip. That’s why he got on so well with the Press Gallery (although I also suspect that when he was with them, he paid for a lot of the drinks, which always goes down well).
I only met Rudd a couple of times, and he was perfectly polite and friendly (although everyone tells me that he was a bit of a terror to work for). Like many people who have come up through the diplomatic service, I suspect that, even in social settings, he would have constantly had his antenna out for any information or opportunity that might have been helpful to him. That sort of person can become rather exhausting to spend any amount of time around.
So I think you’ve made the right call.
Per Freshwater Poll – Good pickup last night Pied Piper! I kept checking the Freshwater site, but it looks like they release to their customer first and then put the full details on their own site.
Regardless, I can’t see a break-down of the numbers between Indies and ONP in the AFR.
AFR is also highlighting crime as a major issue – interesting because this is a state issue and the Feds don’t run a state based police force.
I’ve also found another poll – this time by Ipsos – their methodology doc says they asked about vote intention, but won’t publish, so no primaries. It measures trends in Australia, and crime also features as an issue alongside C.O.L., especially in QLD & W.A.
I’ll keep an eye on Ipsos – they used to poll many years ago, I think with the SMH/Age. Looks like they may have returned to the field. There is a link at the top of their home page which is inviting people to be on their interview panels so they may be building a polling database to get back into the Primaries game.
Link: https://www.ipsos.com/en-au/issuesmonitor
c@t: “Who cares what a bunch of randoms thinks about this or that politician? Talk about trivial!”
Well, you clearly do, having had a go at me about my view of Abbott (where I committed the sin of considering him to be a bit of a joke rather than Satan incarnate).
Only 32% of respondents thought they were a little or a lot better off under the Stage 3 Tax changes, despite 84% of people mathematically being better off.
The MSM parroting the LNP lines are responsible for this.
I too have met Abbott and can attest that he is likeable. Although my views of him were tempered by his overt religiosity which I always find a little creepy, regardless of who the person is.
c@t: “The truth of the matter is not that she is maybe one wife among many…”
Sorry, I seemed to have missed this juicy morsel. Are we talking about a polygamous Christian cult? Here? In Australia? How thrilling! Where I can I learn more?
If Labor doesn’t remind voters of the lost decade…constantly, no one else will.
It’s the message.
MadHouse says:
“Only 32% of respondents thought they were a little or a lot better off under the Stage 3 Tax changes, despite 84% of people mathematically being better off.”
84% of *taxpayers*. Not the same thing at all as voters.
And many of those taxpayers better off only by a couple of dollars a week, which may not feel like being materially better off.
Labor must use the advantage of government to educate the voting public.
The MSM must face some competition.
Here we go again,
I appreciate your thesis about the Coalition relying on ‘taxes on wages and salaries’. However, how do you square that with the Morrison government’s decision to offer the biggest tax cuts in a generation to wage and salary earners? Just an electoral bribe doesn’t work for me when you consider the aims of the Flat Tax movement. Which then stands in contrast to your thesis of the Coalition tactics to milk the wage and salary earners. Also, if they were not getting wage increases for a decade, that also goes against the grain of your thesis that the Coalition viewed them as a cash cow.
Antony Green on Dunkley:
Candidate how-to-vote recommendations have been added to the profiles for all candidates. The order of recommended preferences for each can be checked using the links.
Some candidates have placed other minor party and independent candidates in their recommended sequence ahead of the two major parties. In terms of who will win Dunkley, these intermediary preferences will be of little importance. Dunkley will be a two-party preferred contest between Liberal and Labor. It is the order in which Labor and Liberal are listed in the preference sequence that is more important than the recommended number of the preference. The recommendations of the other six candidates are:
Animal Justice – to Labor at preference 2, Liberal preference 6. Originally the recommendation was Liberal 6, Labor 7, the party upset about the state Labor government’s decision not to ban duck shooting. The how-to-vote recommendation was changed before the start of pre-poll voting on 19 February.
Libertarian – to Liberal 2 then Labor 3
Victorian Socialists – Labor 4, Liberal 6
Bergwerf (IND) – Liberal 6, Labor 8
Greens – Labor 5, Liberal 6
Australian Democrats – split ticket, voter choice of Labor 4/Liberal 5 or Liberal 4/Labor 5.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/elections/dunkley-by-election-2024
Ah. The Cassandra of the lower Huon has returned to PB. Hi Mundo.
The thing about politicians that is surprising, is that face to face they are usually quite personable. I’ve met Peter Dutton several times whilst campaigning for his Labor opponent. Not a single set of horns sticking out of his head.
This is interesting … a good example of why carbon sequestration is not the answer …
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2024/feb/19/saturation-point-australias-best-known-carbon-neutral-farm-can-no-longer-offset-its-emissions
The article is specifically about one cattle farm, but the conclusion applies across all industries …
I must say, I find the vitriolic reaction to Meher Baba’s quite reasonable posts this morning to be more than a bit unseemly. I wouldn’t say I entirely agree with him, but – Jesus – have a sense of perspective.
At the recent Munich Security Conference, this was Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), leader of one of the
congressional delegations:
“Whitehouse argued Ukraine would never stop resisting against Russia, even if it doesn’t receive more support: “There is literally zero chance that the Ukrainians will peacefully abide Russian occupation.””
https://www.politico.com/news/2024/02/18/munich-ukraine-security-conference-00142077
The ferocity of their resistance will dwarf anything the IRA ever did. And the Russian occupiers will deserve every single drop of it.
meher baba @ #64 Monday, February 19th, 2024 – 9:23 am
The lower Huon?
Would that be Geeveston or Cygnet. Do you recall when 60 minutes would truck up citizens from both towns to meet in the Huonville town hall, throw petrol onto the crowd with a question about logging, light a match and then film the results?
Good times.
meher baba,
The GoFundMe woman is in Florida. And no,there is no polygamous religious cult she is a part of, as I attempted to explain and which you seem to have misunderstood. She calls herself ‘a wife’, as you used to call yourself, ‘a Public Servant’. To her mind that is her job description. A wife. Now do you understand?
I see Bludgertrack has ticked the ALP primary up a significant 0.9% in a month – I thought the S3 revision had been met well in the community and I thought BT might tick up to around 32.3. Note also the ONP primary has also ticked up a reasonably significant 0.7% in a month too.
Only note of caution is the 31% primary recorded for the 2nd poll in the past week (Essential last Tues and now Freshwater today). The real deal comes out next Sunday night.
* Morgan due out this afternoon around 4.30pm Canberra time.
* Resolve Strategic. This is the link for their last poll.
https://www.smh.com.au/national/resolve-political-monitor-20210322-p57cvx.html
* Can’t wait for Newspoll next Sunday. Talk about a week being a long time in politics.
Most Liberal politicians that I’ve interacted with have been quite friendly and likeable in person. I imagine they would be pretty crappy politicians if they weren’t!
Asha, don’t be so willing to excuse mehers Tory pollyanism and his subtle undermining of Albo by his lukewarm words on Abbott. Underneath those mild statement lie a serious case of a Labor bad.
Thanks Asha
As one of the great minds of the current era has put it:
“The haters gonna hate, hate, hate, hate, hate…”
p1
You are a bit late, but it is good to see that you are finally agreeing with what I have been saying all along. The world needs to cull its domestic livestock to get to zero net fifty. That is between 2 and 3 billion animals. There are issues. Several hundred million people depend on domestic animals for subsistence livelihoods.
We need to stop eating meat and dairy. We need to stop flying. We need to stop touristing.
Now.
If the world eventually gets to net zero by way of cutting fossil fuels we might be able to go back to the self-indulgence of flying and touristing but even then touristing would have massive biodiversity, housing opportunity cost, and wealth maldistribution costs which cannot be solved through zero net fifty.
nath.
Oh dear, you’re onto me. If only I can persuade the PB readership that Abbott, while being a total ass clown, was at heart quite a nice bloke, then the Dunkley by-election will be ours.
I will now return to Menzies House to await further orders.
I’ll get you my pretties, and your little dog too (evil laughter).
And just in case of party political bias being leveled against my contributions
The REASON the Hawke Administration was able to reform and achieve was exclusively because it inherited a lost decade.
A lost decade resulting in double digit unemployment, double digit inflation and a “non grandfathered” home mortgage rate of 17.5%
AND
The FREEZING of wages and salary increases – fault for the economic demise put front and square with workers.
The data speaks.
Always has, always will.
Today we have the voices of Garnaut, Henry, Sims and Fels referring to lost decades.
And encouraging the economists of today think and project – not parrot Business lobbies and the IPA.
To actually use their educations to the benefit of a cohesive and functioning society.
Ashasays:
Monday, February 19, 2024 at 9:26 am
Good call Asha.
There are something like five persons inside every politician.
1. When they are schmoozing the public.
2. When they are bossing subordinates.
3. When they are with fellow politicians.
4. When they are at home.
5. When they are out and believe themselves to be out of sight of all of the above.
The shifts between boxes can be enormous and abrupt.
Navy needs more ships faster to meet China threat: review
Andrew Tillett
Andrew TillettForeign affairs, defence correspondent
Feb 18, 2024
Australia’s navy will get extra warships that are more lethal on a faster timetable to counter the threat posed by a rapidly militarising China under a major review of the surface fleet to be released on Tuesday.
——
‘The threat poses by a rapidly militarising China ‘.
Yes. Keep many naive voters scared so to justify a build up of naval defences against our biggest trading partner.
Who allows us to have an excellent standard of living.
China is no threat to us. But the USA thinks it is a threat to their world superiority.
Australia has to follow our masters.
The plan of the last LNP government. Eagerly agreed to by Labor. Still opinion polling at 31%.
Meanwhile in Coolangatta, many parts of Australia, people are homeless. Sleeping in parks on the street.
Labor and the Liberals causing this increase in homelessness by their lack of interest in many Australians.
The biggest threat to any of us is another Australian citizen. Through many forms of violence.
But spending more money on social services, mentoring, better public education, health including mental health is considered wasting money. The surplus is more important.
Re Mundo @9:08.
” While in government the ALP should take every opportunity to school the voting public in just how little coalition governments actually do for them and spruiking Labor reforms/achievements.
The average voter is pretty much at pre-school level and needs to be spoon fed.”
Yes. They need to say how they’re cleaning up the Augean Stables left behind after 9 years or neglect and incompetence – Medicare, NDIS, the Budget, immigration, defence…
They definitely won’t find out from the mainstream media.
Boerwar @ #75 Monday, February 19th, 2024 – 9:41 am
Wrong. None of those things are either necessary nor sufficient. Sure, do them if you want, but don’t try and pretend they are part of the solution – they are not. They are just your particular obsessions.
There is only one solution: We need to stop burning fossil fuels. Coal now, gas as soon as possible, then other fossil fuels.
@nath:
“ I’d probably rather a beer with Abbott over Rudd. But that’s not saying much.”
Having imbibed with both, I’d stick with KRudd. … ‘people skills’ Abbott always left me cold. … a hearty maaate to those he considered his peer, but very condescending to mere prols. Honesty, who cares whether he was the life of the party with other stale and pale hombres.
His ‘sincerity’ as meher counts his virtues was either blatantly fake, or reserved for churchy and DLP matters. His is at heart the quintessential Riverview prat that is the subject of caricature.
Irene
As usual, swings in behind the CPC lines du jour.
China is engaged in the largest naval build up in world peace time history.
China has by far the world’s largest army.
China is militarizing islands in the South China Sea.
China has a large and expanding international program of so-called ‘dual-basing’.
In Irene’s world none of the above is happening.
well most people know about theremp from the media like on the news it does not seem to help duttons poleing that he might present betterface to face then on tv
The deep hypocrisy of the pro-life Right. This is the same state.
@ Irene:
The spin from Andrew Tillet over ‘threat from China’ hides a greater reality: the rise of China requires an appropriate response to Australia’s foreign policy and defence policies. Even Keating ‘saw china coming’ which is why he was in Beasley’s corner and financed both the Anzac class frigates and Collins class boats as treasurer and then negotiated a security agreement with Indonesia as PM.
Defence procurement in the face of ‘threats’ is stupid. Were china an actual threat to australia, then it is too late to do anything about it. Proper defence planning looks to what is on the board of possibilities overt the medium to long term THEN makes policy accordingly.
Before my time.
Both towns are quiet and full of blow-ins from the mainland like me. Best sushi in the southern hemisphere
I see that p1 still does not get it.
We agree that we need to shift to renewables asap. So there is no argument there at all.
But, globally, that will take time.
In the interim we should stop eating meat and dairy, stop flying and stop touristing.
This can be done more or less by fiat. It does not require hundreds of billions of investments.
It could be done within, say, a year.
It would instantly cut global emissions by between a fifth and a quarter. It is, therefore, responsive to the increasingly urgent nature of how we need to respond.
The added benefits would include dramatic reductions of pressures on biodiversity, housing the world’s homeless and release of vast amounts of capital that could be redirected to poor countries to facilitate the development of renewables. Not to forget the increase of life expectancy resulting from a meat and dairy-free diet.
win win win win
People have been killing people for quite a while.
You would think that they could get something right.
I’ve brought this one over to the main thread as I am curious about what people generally think on this kind of ‘housing policy’.
The state Libs have pitched a housing policy leveraging off several taxes. The first is to abolish stamp duty for first home buyers for properties under $750k, costing the state about $60m in revenue (not sure over how many years). The second is to introduce a 5% tax on users of short stay accommodation, with funds to go directly to overset the loss of stamp duty, pulling in an estimated $11m a year.
So a good or bad policy?
I can see the abolition of stamp duty for a small subset of home buyers wouldn’t be the worst idea in the world, that shouldn’t mean an equal raise in house prices as seller cash in on the removal of stamp duty. But there’s only 1,100 first home buyers in Tasmanian each year.
The short stay tax? Again not the worst idea in the world as we all know the dire impact this business model has had on housing across the world. I’d have questions on how it will be collected, would the short stay sites collect it as a separate charge? Would it be apparent that this is being added to costs for a tourist? Does the short stay operator have to administer the whole collection and then distribution back to the state? Would this impact on overall tourist numbers, therefore impacting the state’s economy? Would this tax see any additional housing stock come back into the market?
On the surface it feels like a minor tweak of the states tax incomes to targeting a small set of voters. But actual good policy?
The Mercury https://archive.md/ywwHv
Driving in to Hobart this morning was distracted by a bunch of Liberal yahoos twirling Erica Betz signs.
Andrew_Earlwood @ Monday, February 19, 2024 at 10:01 am:
“Defence procurement in the face of ‘threats’ is stupid.”
=====================
As Europe is realising only just now, 10 years after they should have. Hence their panicked mood all this year. Meanwhile, it is the Ukrainians who are paying the highest price for that lost decade.
Holdenhillbilly at 9.22 am
Re: “Bergwerf (IND) – Liberal 6, Labor 8”
Bergwerf the conspiracy nutter did that last time and yet his voters went 50.65% to Labor.
After Nemesis, light as it was on policy failures, Democrats doing a fence-sit shows they are irrelevant.
The business press has noted that a community campaign against high rise in Frankston is brewing:
https://www.afr.com/politics/federal/great-wall-of-frankston-revs-up-dunkley-campaign-20240216-p5f5hi
Irene
Did you forget to notice that China’s airforce is growing by something like the equivalent of the Australian air force every year?
Mundo at 10.05 am
I presume those Abetz yahoos were not singing something relevant, like: “Don’t You Want Me Baby”:
https://au.video.search.yahoo.com/search/video?ei=UTF-8&p=spooky+men+dancing+queen&type=E210US739G0#id=3&vid=44eafbe891ddd50d39af91da9785158a&action=click
The question is, does ScoMo have a bad case of Islamophobia …?
Boerwar, did you notice that China’s economy is multiple times the size of ours and its strategic rivals are the US and Japan? If we try to match the size of China’s defense forces we will bankrupt ourselves even allowing for the ADFs near pathological incapability on procurement (there are a lot of people questioning whether ordering the most expensive frigates in the world is value for money for good reason).
That report frankly reads like idiocy on par with Dutton’s nuclear reactor in every backyard.
It is terrible policy to allow short term rental in residential zones. It should be banned. No brainer.
On the flipside, it’s time for commercial zones to be opened up to high rise apartment development for either owner occupancy or short/long term rental.
Cat
The population has grown (as always) so employment has grown to accommodate the demands of an increasing population which is the trend except for Nations which restrict birth rates (and which now have particular problems including funding an ageing population as an add on, noting both Japan and China have now reversed these policies but impact a generation away, at soonest if population growth can be achieved absent living longer)
Plus, there is now a reliance on double income households including part time positions (hence Child Care Centres on every corner and more being built, these for pre-school children so not 5 year olds at school).
In regard tax cuts, these have been to the benefit of high income earners as the Stages leading to the Stage 3 of the Tax Cuts recently amended instruct.
High income earners were ALSO the beneficiaries of Stage 1 and Stage 2 as bands and the levy across those bands impact – then very significantly Stage 3.
Look at the break up of collection sources provided by the ATO.
Simply, there is an over reliance on taxing workers incomes and workers are now shouldering far more of the tax burden that they were 15 years ago because other taxes had been generating less revenue over time.
Then you get to pricing practices of Australia’s largest companies.
All this in a decade of low to recessionary wages growth, that decade commencing in 2013 (and delivering exclusively to Company Balance Sheets)
Then you get to the changes in the terms and conditions of employment – including Contract work (Kennett, yes a Liberal, and how he decimated the teaching profession including as a career).
I am one who accepts that Companies are required to make profit, to at least part fund expansion and the costs of expansion and to remit a dividend to the Shareholders who invest into the business model which is these Companies.
But it is all about balance, and an equitable society.
The lost decades post 1975 have not delivered an equitable society – for the raft of reasons they have not.
And here we are today.
Unable to afford yet another lost decade – but noting that remedy and the result of remedy takes focus, time and patience.
When we last achieved the statistical status of “full employment”, so when Whitlam was in government, what was the work place demographic versus now, having once again achieved statistical “full employment” a generation later?