We’re entering the final week of the Tasmanian election campaign, with a hotly contested by-election for the South Australian state seat of Dunstan to be held the same day. On the federal polling front though, it’s likely to be a quiet week. There is the following federally relevant electoral news to relate:
• Arch-conservative South Australian Liberal Senator Alex Antic, who was elected in 2019 from third position on the party ticket, will be the lead candidate after a preselection vote on Saturday that will reduce fellow incumbents Anne Ruston from first to second and David Fawcett from second to third. Paul Starick of The Advertiser reports Antic won the ballot for top position ahead of Ruston by 108 votes to 98. This was despite Ruston’s greater seniority within the parliamentary party as Shadow Health Minister, and Peter Dutton reportedly “using his personal authority” to protect her. A conservative challenger, Leah Blyth, lost to Ruston by 118 votes to 82 in a vote for second position and to Fawcett by 106 to 103 in the vote for third.
• New South Wales Nationals Senator Perin Davey, who made headlines last month after a tired and emotional performance at Senate estimates, narrowly survived a preselection challenge at a party ballot held on March 8. Andrew Clennell of Sky News reports Davey scored 42 votes against 37 for Juliana McArthur, the party’s federal secretary.
• Liberal sources cited by Paul Starick of The Advertiser say Nicolle Flint has been declaring interest in returning to the Adelaide seat of Boothby, which Labor won when she vacated it in 2022. Flint “appears to have effectively ruled out” a run for the state seat of MacKillop, which it was long thought she was planning in pursuit of leadership ambitions.
• It was reported last week that Labor is developing legislation to place caps on political donations, to be balanced by greater public funding. This would be most consequential with respect to Clive Palmer, whose company Mineralogy gave $117 million to his United Australia Party before the last election, and businessman Mike Cannon-Brookes, who donated $1.2 million to Climate 200. The cap is “likely to be in the tens of thousands of dollars”, with the government concerned it be able to survive the kind of High Court challenge that Palmer says he is “absolutely considering”. It is also proposed that a cap be imposed on the amount that can be spent on campaigning in any given electorate, which teals and the Greens complain would disproportionately affect those who target small numbers of the seats. Any changes would not take effect until after the next election.
Entropy says:
Thursday, March 21, 2024 at 9:45 pm
“I bet plenty of the people running the slave trade were also family businesses. Certainly, Elizabeth 1 and her Royal family were.”
Elizabeth I managed to get a licence from Phillip II of Spain for two slave ships from Africa. The Slave trade at that time was run by the King Spain and sanction by Rome.
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‘British involvement in the transatlantic slave trade began in 1562, and by the 1730s Britain was the world’s biggest slave-trading nation.’
Source: heritagecollections.parliament.uk
Oakeshott Country @ #1436 Thursday, March 21st, 2024 – 9:34 pm
His 15yo daughter still goes to school and has a part time job as a dish pig. As do many young people.
Note, ‘dish pig’ is not a pejorative. It’s what the young people call the job.
Though if TK finds it offensive then I’ll withdraw the reference. I’m simply using the vernacular.
She goes to school, does her homework, plays sport, helps around the house and works a night job washing dishes. Hours vary. A couple of evening this week.
All her friends have jobs. I see maybe one out of the lot of them that might be planning to be an adolescent into their mid twenties.
I see plenty of adolescent boomers strutting around swimming in the cash of their early retirement handouts after working a cushy job with guaranteed tenure. Lounging in pubs and cafes, whinging about the youth of today. Not a single one volunteering for anything. Just gorging themselves on their good fortune. (Yes, not all boomers were this lucky).
Sure, many of them probably did it tough early on. And they were smartish with their retirement investments. But society was good to them on the whole. And it pisses me off to hear them bagging millennials who, only the whole, face a future that is a great deal less certain and less prosperous.
Rainmansays:
Thursday, March 21, 2024 at 10:05 pm
Entropy says:
Thursday, March 21, 2024 at 9:45 pm
“I bet plenty of the people running the slave trade were also family businesses. Certainly, Elizabeth 1 and her Royal family were.”
Elizabeth I managed to get a licence from Phillip II of Spain for two slave ships from Africa. The Slave trade at that time was run by the King Spain and sanction by Rome.
——————————————————————
‘British involvement in the transatlantic slave trade began in 1562, and by the 1730s Britain was the world’s biggest slave-trading nation.’
Source: heritagecollections.parliament.uk
===================================================
Which is irrelevant as far as your comment on Elizabeth I is concerned, to which i was responding. As she ruled from 1558 and i already mentioned she was involved in two slave trades. Which were carried out with the permission of Spain. The European slave trade was setup by the Portuguese and Spanish with the permission of the Catholic Church. Only slave trades Elizabeth was involved in was via the Roman Catholic operation franchise at the time Spain. She certainly never set up her own operation.
Michael Quinlivan at 9.47 pm
For Dr Bonham’s latest commentary see:
https://kevinbonham.blogspot.com/2024/03/tasmania-2024-yet-another-mystery-poll.html
Given that oodles were spent some years ago by the Sydney family that controls most Tassie gambling to protect their vested interests, and to impoverish many locals, assisted by their stupidity, the paucity of polling about the Tassie election shows what little interest the mainland media have in the place, sans tourism.
Meanwhile even the Electoral Commission is suffering from poor proof-reading:
‘The Tasmanian Electoral Commission has misspelled the Premier’s surname as “Rockliffe” in at least two emails asking people to cease using his image without consent, and also incorrectly referred to the current Act as the 1985 Act (it is 2004) in at least one.’
https://kevinbonham.blogspot.com/2024/02/2024-tasmanian-state-election-guide.html (Gaffes)
Remarkably few scratched candidates during the campaign, only one indie, one local, one Shooter.
With such limited polling it is hard to gauge whether there will be a gender gap, similar to what has been likely at federal elections (as documented by the Australian Election Study). However:
“The preselection of just 11 women in a team of 35 candidates, including a pathetic 1/7 in Franklin, has not helped the Liberals on this issue.”
https://kevinbonham.blogspot.com/2024/02/2024-tasmanian-state-election-guide.html
Been There says:
Thursday, March 21, 2024 at 9:48 pm
“I was never a Union member and I never will be.”
==========================================================
Why’s that Ven?
Do you negotiate your own pay rises and working conditions with your employer.
Or do you just ride on the back the back of the Union and it’s members?
It’s just too easy for so many people to claim the benefits but not pay, very selfish indeed.
Also shows a big lack of social conscience.
Unfortunately, there are a lot like you out there.
The lot of you should be ashamed of yourselves!
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Couldn’t agree more. I was a Union workplace rep during a two year struggle to make casual employees permanent. The management had had some employees on three months casual contracts for ten years, with no security and no benefits. It was a heavily unionised workforce but we had a few who wouldn’t join the union. They paid nothing toward the fight and the considerable legal bills. They complained about the union but they never complained about the permanent positions they got along with everyone else.
Team Katich at 10.15 am
“I see plenty of adolescent boomers strutting around swimming in the cash of their early retirement handouts after working a cushy job with guaranteed tenure.”
The environmentally disastrous cruise industry would have collapsed in recent years without such types.
gympie: ‘Ainslie Gotto quit at Junior, was P.M. Gorton’s Chief of Staff at 21.’
Private secretary, actually. Not quite the same thing.
‘It wiggles, it’s shapely and its name is Ainsley Gotto.”
— Dudley Erwin’s explanation of his omission from Gorton’s second ministry
Was Gotto the proto-Peta? Discuss …
TK
Is your daughter a dish pig to support the family or is what she earns her own?
Ven well good on you for negotiating a deal!
Your bargaining powers and skills offered must be amazing!
Obviously, you work in an industry many levels above the average PAYG so good luck to you!
No need to dismiss unions though, they play an important role to those beneath you.
A union campaigning with fossil fuel companies for more fossil fuel projects when it’s the families of workers and the unemployed who will suffer the most from catastrophic climate change is perverse.
Well bloody said, TK.
It would take a lot for you to offend me C@t. 😉
And yeah, they call themselves exactly that.
This place does give them opportunities to plate up. They can’t afford to pay 18yo wages to dish’ies. So they move on to waiting tables or in the kitchen. Or other areas. Some get traineeships if that’s what they want to do.
I may have spent the odd hour or two lounging about in a pub or a cafe, but never have I whinged about “the youth of today”. They’re OK.
Entropy
This is so typical of your combative style toward me. You pick one throw away line from a post about animal factory farming, and want to argue it to the death by tying it into your obsessive hatred of the Catholic Church.
I’m not playing your game and will no longer engage with you.
Been There says:
Thursday, March 21, 2024 at 10:23 pm
Ven well good on you for negotiating a deal!
Your bargaining powers and skills offered must be amazing!
Obviously, you work in an industry many levels above the average PAYG so good luck to you!
No need to dismiss unions though, they play an important role to those beneath you.
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Been There
I think there’s some confusion here. It was me, not Ven, who posted about the union fight for permanent positions.
Now, I’m confused about who does and doesn’t support unions.
Rainman is definitely a Union man!
Ronzy: “I used to live around the corner in Silkstone and remember when the Marsden’s first opened said shop – the best fish and chips in town. I also was served by Pauline herself …”
You may well have crossed paths with my wife (born 1957) back in the day.
Both her parents were Silkstone born and bred (or, indeed, bread — descended from a line of bakers). Lived in the same house off Blackstone Rd their entire married life.
I commuted the 40 km from northside Brisbane to visit my girlfriend for a couple of years, until she came to live with me. We got married in the Baptist church just down the road from Marsden Seafood.
And went back there a couple of times in recent years to farewell her mum and dad.
Yo Rainman!
The word concerning “a rough surface made of dried blood that forms over a cut or broken skin while it is healing” comes to mind whenever I see an anti-union post!
Particularly from anyone who enjoys the benefits of union representation without paying the fees.
When announcements go into overdrive you can be sure that not much progress is happening on an issue, or there is an attempt tpo counter negative publicity.
So to with AUKUS. Today Marles announced defence will do what it was always going to do under AUKUS – built SSN maintenance facilities in Perth.
https://www.defenceconnect.com.au/naval/11609-western-australia-to-house-upgraded-aukus-submarine-base
And with the AUKMIN meetings with UK ministers, there is an announcement of a “Status of Forces” (SOF) agreement between UK and Australia.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-03-21/uk-and-australian-to-strengthen-military-ties/103613164
Calling this a “Nato-like” agreement is lay it on pretty thick. There is no guarantee of mutual defence (Article 5). RN and RAN forces have operated together since the 1950s.
Much ado about nothing.
Rainmansays:
Thursday, March 21, 2024 at 10:27 pm
Entropy
This is so typical of your combative style toward me. You pick one throw away line from a post about animal factory farming, and want to argue it to the death by tying it into your obsessive hatred of the Catholic Church.
I’m not playing your game and will no longer engage with you.
=================================================
In this case it appears to be your obsessive hatred of a Protestant Queen, though i guess that was a papal decree too (see link below). If it was her sister Mary, the bloody one, that did it instead. I bet you wouldn’t even have mentioned it. Though it is not like 16th century Britain was major player in the European slave trade at that time.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regnans_in_Excelsis
Rainman, it was a response to Ven, not you.
Ven was mentioned in the fine print but not obviously, my mistake.
The problem that so-called progressive left people have with unions is that unions actually do what they are legally and ethically required to do – represent its members.
This means they do not get involved with “progressive left” causes that are likely to screw income and job prospects for union members.
The right, of course, hate unions for representing its members too.
While we are waxing lyrical on Qld upbringings, I finished grade 12 in Brisbane in 1980. I also recall that back then they told us just under 50% of 18 year olds finished Senior.
Expat: “The complete nonsense stories people tell about Einstein are astounding…”
=====
‘Half of the stuff you read about me on the Internet is fake news’
— Albert Einstein 😉
Been There says:
Thursday, March 21, 2024 at 10:41 pm
All’s good mate. Thanks for clearing that up.
Rewi
So, you don’t like unions because they represent workers rights in fossil mining industries?
Very interesting take that one!
Unions have an obligation to look after their workers, no matter what industry it is.
Asked it was the Irish in him that made him dislike the monarchy, Keating said no. “It’s probably, in some respects, the Catholic in me”
Not that I bear any animosity or dislike towards Charles or his mother, but I can relate to that.
Asked about his support for the Voice referendum, Albanese said,
“I think that Catholic social justice position is one of the things that is driving my support for constitutional recognition.”
I can definitely relate to that. It seems a logical outworking of the Christian message. Like Clement Attlee, I believe the ethics, not the “mumbo jumbo”. How you get from Christianity to dog-eat-dog capitalism is beyond me.
Socratse at 10.37 pm
“Much ado about nothing.” Indeed, deception is a key theme of Shakespeare’s play of that name.
See bottom of 4th last page: Claudio – “For this I owe you: here comes other reckonings.” (Penguin p 120).
Further to my 10:36pm post, I see new UK foreign minister David Cameron, right on cue, warns of the dangerous world. Gosh, well then we better buy some UK subs even if the US bit of AUKUS falls through!
Cameron’s motive is not subtle:
“Mr Cameron said that despite the massive cost to Australia and the submarines not being expected to be ready until the 2040s, he believed the nation had acted in its best interests.
“Australia has rightly in my view bought into this idea and we’ll spend what’s necessary to deliver the submarines.”
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-03-21/david-cameron-730-china-blockade-taiwan-calamitous-gaza-war/103615650
Mr Hogan will not be elected as a senator for
Maryland. This is too big an ask…. Maryland will elect a democrat
Oliver Sutton says:
Thursday, March 21, 2024 at 10:32 pm
I moved to Ipswich in 1982 (Silkstone) having married a North Booval man. Left Ipswich in 2013 (One Mile) and am now living in Kingaroy. My story is the reverse of yours. I used to commute from north Brisbane (Aspley). I wouldn’t be surprised if your wife and my ex (born 1955) knew each other. His father used to teach Maths at Bremer High School. Also I have a very good friend (now in her 80’s) whose father was a Baker in Booval (possibly Silkstone)- Larsen. They were very active in the Silkstone Methodist Church.
I know the Silkstone Baptist Church quite well – attended many ecumenical ladies fellowship functions there.
What does it matter OC? Is this a month python sketch? You ate warm bitumen for breakfast?
They are young hard working conscientious kids.
Most of them spent their first few pay cheques on junk. They live in a world where consumerism is in their faces like no other generation has had to deal with. And their Gen x parents are cheap arses who either don’t or can’t buy them junk in the first place. So they went on a spree. All are now saving up.
meher baba says:
Thursday, March 21, 2024 at 7:07 pm
Rewi ; “I don’t much care for, and don’t use, the term First Nations for that reason.”
Well blow me down, something we can agree upon. I don’t like the term much either…
But if the people to whom it applies continue to insist on First Nations, then that’s what it will have to be.
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I once attended a professional development session about Indigenous Australians, organised because many in the workforce were migrants with little knowledge. The speaker was Indigenous and clearly stated that First Nations was one of their preferred terms.
Irrespective of this context, it’s just courteous and polite to refer to people/peoples by their preferred name.
I’m a First Nations person and First Nations is a pretty fine descriptor, thanks for those concerned!
Oliver Sutton / Ronzy
Small world. I also grew up in Aspley where we lived from when I started school in 1969 to moving out to share house with Uni friends in the mid 80s. I went to the St Dympna’s catholic school. Mum and Dad’s home was not far from Marchant Park.
Thanks, Ronzy.
I’m not religious, and neither is Mrs S: but her parents were lifelong active members of the Silkstone Baptist congregation, which we respected.
Mrs S attended Bremer High (to Year 10, as was customary then): her matriculation, bachelor’s and master’s degrees came after marriage (and after children, in the latter cases). A formidable role model for our daughters.
Which takes me off on a tangent. Today brings the sad news of ABC broadcaster James Valentine’s oesophageal cancer diagnosis.
Back around 2005, on the strength of her Masters thesis topic, Mrs S found herself invited to Sydney as an expert witness at a House of Representatives committee chaired by none other than Bronwyn Bishop.
During a break, Bronnie was supposed to do a phone interview on Sydney radio with James Valentine. But, apparently liking what she’d heard, she passed the phone over to my wife.
doyley says:
Thursday, March 21, 2024 at 3:30 pm
Our intake of legitimate overseas students is fine.
The problems lies with the significant number of overseas ‘ students” coming to Australia with no intention of study or who are enrolled in dodgy training courses at dodgy training colleges and who are being exploited and forced to work for less than minimum wage and under terrible conditions by dodgy operators. A practice , I should add, that was left untouched by the previous coalition government for nine years.
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I once briefly worked at one of these ‘dodgy training colleges’ teaching English. They learnt basic English downstairs and then moved upstairs to learn cooking, because it was on a Howard government list of required skills. Very few of the students had any intention of becoming cooks. It was all about gaining visa points.
The Liberals liked private trading colleges because they hated tafe. And they hated tafe because it was one of Gough Whitlam’s overlooked achievements.
CBS news
1 in 2 Millennials and Gen Z voters are willing to vote for Trump.
”
Team Katichsays:
Thursday, March 21, 2024 at 10:15 pm
She goes to school, does her homework, plays sport, helps around the house and works a night job washing dishes. Hours vary. A couple of evening this week.
All her friends have jobs. I see maybe one out of the lot of them that might be planning to be an adolescent into their mid twenties.
I see plenty of adolescent boomers strutting around swimming in the cash of their early retirement handouts after working a cushy job with guaranteed tenure. Lounging in pubs and cafes, whinging about the youth of today. Not a single one volunteering for anything. Just gorging themselves on their good fortune. (Yes, not all boomers were this lucky).
Sure, many of them probably did it tough early on. And they were smartish with their retirement investments. But society was good to them on the whole. And it pisses me off to hear them bagging millennials who, only the whole, face a future that is a great deal less certain and less prosperous.
”
TK
Below is a poll about happiness among various age groups in USA. May be it is some what applicable to Australian people.
Democrats and President Biden voters report more happiness than GOP and Trump supporters, poll found
https://www-cbsnews-com.cdn.ampproject.org/v/s/www.cbsnews.com/amp/miami/news/democrats-and-president-biden-voters-report-more-happiness-than-gop-and-trump-supporters-poll-found/?amp_gsa=1&_js_v=a9&usqp=mq331AQGsAEggAID#amp_tf=From%20%251%24s&aoh=17110216988836&csi=0&referrer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com&share=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.cbsnews.com%2Fmiami%2Fnews%2Fdemocrats-and-president-biden-voters-report-more-happiness-than-gop-and-trump-supporters-poll-found%2F
“When it comes to happiness, Democratic voters and President Joe Biden appear to be happier than Republican voters and former President Donald Trump.
That’s according to a new Florida Atlantic University PolCom and Mainstreet Research happiness poll released in advance of the United Nations’ International Day of Happiness on March 20.
The university’s Happiness Thermometer poll used five items designed to assess overall happiness.
“Through its application in the poll, the thermometer measures connections between happiness and politics, revealing measurable differences in happiness among age and economic groups, as well as party affiliation and voter intention,” according to a statement from FAU.
According to the poll findings, 69 percent of Democratic voters reported they’re at least “slightly satisfied” with their lives compared to 66 percent of Republican voters who said the same. Among voters who would vote for Biden in 2024, 75 percent answered that they were at least “slightly satisfied” with their lives, while 62 percent of Trump voters said the same.
“Happiness is important to understand as it influences the well-being and satisfaction of citizens, which in turn shapes their voting behavior,” said Carol Bishop Mills, Ph.D., FAU’s communication professor, PolCom co-director, and expert in relational communication.
The poll also found that while people were happy overall, older and wealthier adult voters are happier than younger and less wealthy ones.
While two-thirds of respondents said respondents expressed satisfaction with their lives, 89 percent of people over 65 and nearly 67 percent of people ages 50 to 64 reported being “happy.”
“”Roughly 56 percent of younger respondents 18 to 34 (millennials and Generation Z) indicated that they were ‘dissatisfied’ with their lives, and only 21 percent of this age group indicated that they were ‘extremely satisfied’ or ‘satisfied.’ According to the poll, 49 percent voted Democrat in the 2020 presidential election and 42 percent voted Republican,” according to the university.
As we head into the 2024 presidential election, that voting trend appears to be reversing itself.
Fifty-four percent of likely millennial and Gen Z voters indicated they would vote for Trump, while only 37 percent reported they’d vote for Biden. Among all voters in this age group, 50 percent indicated they would vote for Trump and 34 percent indicated they would vote for Biden.”
I’m happy with the term “First Nations”, mainly because it’s our First Nations people’s preferred designation.
It’s an accurate term for the descendants of those who lived here before 1788. It is inclusive of the Torres Strait Islanders. The original inhabitants comprised diverse cultural groups with different customs, languages, shared history and beliefs, the original meaning of “nations”.
Looking at the earlier designation “Aborigine”, that is a neutral, generic word that means “original inhabitant”. However, like “Negro”, another neutral term applied to sub-Saharan Africans and their descendants (it means “black”), it seems to have acquired negative connotations, so best not to use it.
Hi, Soc.
I lived in the Mitchelton area through my teens and early twenties (mid 1960s to mid 1970s). I think Asha is from those parts, too (later).
I knew Aspley mainly as a suburb we drove through to get to the Sunshine Coast. Although I did work a few months on the driveway of the Country Club Hotel in Strathpine around Christmas 1974.
Back when you could get a carton of a dozen large Fourex for $5. (Or for free, if you drove around the back in a police car.)
Ask Mrs. S. if her maths teacher had the same surname as a rather controversial Australian radio host, shock jock and television personality on Sydney’s radio station KIIS 106.5 (no relation).
I have no doubt that although we may not have met, we would have mutual friends.
Regarding lack of interest in the Tassie state election and lack of polling for it – the population of Tassie is about the same as greater Newcastle or two Geelongs, and we don’t pay attention to the mayoral elections there either. It’s just very small and nobody up here wants to spend time on a Hare-Clark explainer infographic.
https://kevinbonham.blogspot.com/2024/03/2024-tasmanian-polling-aggregate.html
2024 Tasmanian Polling Aggregate
My aggregate of all polling is that the polls collectively say approx 15 Lib 10 ALP 4 Green 3 JLN 3 IND. #politas
The Tasmanian government’s budget is seventeen times bigger than the City of Geelong’s.
”
Been Theresays:
Thursday, March 21, 2024 at 10:23 pm
Ven well good on you for negotiating a deal!
Your bargaining powers and skills offered must be amazing!
Obviously, you work in an industry many levels above the average PAYG so good luck to you!
No need to dismiss unions though, they play an important role to those beneath you.
”
Been there
Either you stopped reading my post after first sentence or you didn’t care what I posted after that.
I did not criticise the Unions. I criticised FUBAR for comparing Unions with the far-right outfit ‘Advance Australia’
We have got Premier Potatohead in Tasmania now:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K64JNg4Nwqk
Apparently another Tassie poll of some kind coming tomorrow night.
Kevin Bonham
Will you adjust your predictions after that poll is released?
Sohar says:
Thursday, March 21, 2024 at 5:50 pm
It is just as well for ol’ Joe that he’s not sentient enough to comprehend what the Irish PM is saying.
https://x.com/RnaudBertrand/status/1769928764715401715?s=20
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Thanks Solar. Only just saw this. 30 seconds of telling it how it is.
I’m guessing you too missed this bit: “Mr. President, we also see Israel’s history reflected in our eyes: a diaspora whose heart never left home, no matter how many generations passed; a nation state that was reborn; and a language revived.”