The Australian reports that Newspoll has a tied result on two-party preferred, unchanged on three weeks ago. The primary votes are Labor 32% (steady), Coalition 38% (down one), Greens 12% (steady) and One Nation 7% (up one). Anthony Albanese is down two on approval to 41% and up three on disapproval to 54%, his equal worst net result as Prime Minister, while Peter Dutton is down one to 39% and up two to 52%. Albanese’s lead as preferred prime minister shifts from 46-39 to 45-37. The poll also finds “only a quarter” connsider inflation would be lower under the Coalition, with 18% believing it would be higher and 41% opting for neither. The poll was conducted Monday to Friday from a sample of 1263.
and regarding the tax discussion I do agree with others that companies should be encouraged to pay the taxes they already owe. As an aside it’s crazy that there are barely any countries with a tax rate over 40%, considering that once was the norm. Is it even possible to raise corporate taxes in a global market?
Speaking of motor vehicles, if there is one seriously good thing to come from action on climate change it is the advent of hybrid vehicles.
You can travel as far as 1,000 km before needing to refuel and people drive more economically and safer as a result.
Don’t buy that electrical nonsense needing to recharge – get yourself a hybrid.
Lordbain
Trump cut corporate taxes – their economy boomed. Fact!
Centre, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XZUoCpx8jag
Federal cabinet is poised to consider gambling advertising reforms that would almost immediately ban online ads, while giving broadcasters two years to see out their contracts with bookmakers, Sky News has reported. According to Sky News, a blanket ban is not in the plan, despite it being recommended by a parliamentary committee headed by the late Labor MP Peta Murphy.
The bans under the reforms, spearheaded by Communications Minister Michelle Rowland, will target three areas of concerns: saturation of gambling ads, exposure of children to gambling ads and gambling promotion during sporting matches.
Hybrid vehicles are a huge threat to Australia’s capacity to get to Zero Net Fifty.
‘Centre says:
Tuesday, September 3, 2024 at 1:18 pm
Lordbain
Trump cut corporate taxes – their economy boomed. Fact!’
————————-
Trump added, what, $8 trillion to the US debt.
Quiet day on the markets with the US Labour Day yesterday.
Here’s a thought, the Australian holiday calendar should read the following:
* Dec 25, Dec 26, Jan 1, approximately three months to
* Good Fri, Easter Mon, April 25, approx three months to
School Holidays, approximately three months to
* Oct 1 (Australia Day), Oct 2 (Indigenous Aust Day replacing Queen’s Birthday)
National Labour Day (first Mon in Oct)
What a celebration with the NRL and AFL grand finals on that weekend.
We fix everything, perfect spacing and we move Australia Day 🙂
Patent, Centre.
‘Bean says:
Tuesday, September 3, 2024 at 1:13 pm
I’m obviously horrified by antisemitism and islamophobia (even got suspended once for calling out another students islamophobia in Year 7), the delaying of important diplomatic steps that are crucial to bringing an end to the war seems a bit ridiculous in contrast to the daily horror we are all being exposed to, and that people are living through.
If we can’t get it together and do the right thing and stand against what the ICJ acknowledges could be genocide, then what are we doing? why do we even have a foreign affairs department if we are just going to look out for our own. It seems like we only weaken ourselves by refusing to stand for anything.’
————————
Hello?
Is some one still trying to justify the fostering of Islamophobia by the Coalition and of Anti-Semitism by the Greens?
Really?
1. It is a Great Big Fat Lie that Australia stands for ‘nothing’. My advice is that you just keep lying great big fat lies like Goebbels. It worked for him. Until it didn’t.
2. Neither Iran plus nor Israel support a two state solution. Both want from the River to the Sea. All of it. With that as a starting point there can be no two state solution. One lot wants to push the jews into the sea. Senior members of the Israeli Government have espoused or are espousing and/or are actively working on eliminating arabs from the West Bank, have openly opined that this round of Gaza was an opportunity to push Gazans into Egypt and have speculated openly about the need to shove Israeli arabs out of Israel.
3. The ICJ does not, I believe, ‘do’ non-state actors. Because if it did it would certainly have to address the genocidal intent and genocidal actions of Hamas, Heshbollah and the Houthis. In any event, the ICJ ought to ‘Do’ Iran like it has ‘Done’ Israel because Iran is both genocidal in intent, is arming, training and funding Hamas, Heshbollah and the Houthis and has fired hundreds of missiles at Israel.
Based on current experience, if the Labor Government tried to regulate car sizes and weights it would certainly be wedged.
Dutton would say that it is an infringement of Australian liberties.
And, regardless of the proposed regulations, the Greens would denounce the regulations as not good enough.
Such is the quality of Australia’s obstructionist opposition parties and their leaders.
We truly do have some strong Don Quixote energy by the way some of us are ready to charge at windmills… or in this case strawmen…
OC
“worsening road toll
isn’t this a false premise”
The road toll is subject to quite a lot of random variation from year to year. So it is more reliable to look at trends over five years or more. But overall, the trend in road safety recent decades has been unmistakable.
From Whitlam introducing compulsory seat belts in the 1970s up to the 2010s Australia was a world leader in road safety, with one of the biggest reductions in deaths against 1960s crash rates and one of the lowest road crash death rates in the OECD.
From the mid-2010s we started plateauing and in the past five years the average has started going back up for serious injuries and fatalities. There was a blip during Covid lockdown but we are now back to the worst total number of road deaths seen in a decade. See
https://www.aaa.asn.au/newsroom/australia-records-worst-road-toll-in-more-than-a-decade/
and
https://theconversation.com/are-australias-roads-becoming-more-dangerous-heres-what-the-data-says-213240
Road crashes are complex and often multi-causal. I would not suggest vehicles getting bigger is the only cause of the recent reversal in safety trends. But it is certainly one of the causes.
From the Guardian
‘Peter Hannam
Trade numbers underscore likely weak June GDP figures (and hint at more woes)
The ABS will release June quarter GDP figures tomorrow and today’s data on trade for that period suggest the economic story will be a gloomy one.
Economists had expected a current account deficit of $5bn but it came in at double that, $10.7bn. (The March quarter deficit was also revised to be more than $1bn worse at $6.3bn).
According to the way the ABS factors trade into GDP, the net export result will contribute 0.2 percentage points to the June quarter GDP growth number. That might sound good, but economists had tipped it would be more like 0.6pp.
Perhaps, then, we might get a negative GDP figure, the first since the Covid disruptions. And given the March quarter GDP figure was just 0.1%, that might be revised lower too.
Perhaps this time tomorrow, the headlines will be “Australia in recession” if it transpires there were two negative quarters in a row (according to a simplistic “recession” definition).
The ABS will release June quarter GDP figures tomorrow.
The ABS will release June quarter GDP figures tomorrow. Photograph: Con Chronis/AAP
Anyway, Australia’s current account deficit was the largest in six years, reflecting lower commodity prices and more income heading offshore, the ABS says. Goods export prices were 5.4% lower than a year ago. And that’s where some of the portents aren’t great.
Commodity prices have lately been sinking, particularly as hints of China’s economic funk intensify. More of the same won’t be good for the federal budget either (and the ability for public demand to keep shoring-up economic activity in Australia.)’
———————
Clearly, the most useful thing for the Greens to do in the circumstances is to frighten investors out of housing construction and out of investing in Australia at all.
Centresays:
Tuesday, September 3, 2024 at 1:16 pm
Speaking of motor vehicles, if there is one seriously good thing to come from action on climate change it is the advent of hybrid vehicles.
You can travel as far as 1,000 km before needing to refuel and people drive more economically and safer as a result.
Don’t buy that electrical nonsense needing to recharge – get yourself a hybrid.
==========================================================
Even if you are scientifically illiterate and don’t believe climate change is true. I would of thought getting rid of smog caused by petrochemicals would be a considered a seriously good thing too. How many peoples lives are impacted by that?
https://www.who.int/teams/environment-climate-change-and-health/air-quality-and-health/health-impacts/types-of-pollutants
Liberal v Liberal
Feds.
It is Reynold’s lawyer’s turn to sink the slipper. Bennet reckons that Reynold’s was ‘no ordinary employer’. I wouldn’t exactly have followed this line…
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/live/2024/sep/03/australia-news-live-wild-weather-flooding-winds-power-outages-brittany-higgins-linda-reynolds-immigration-protection-visas-foreign-policy-cost-of-living#top-of-blog
Meanwhile Liberal v Liberal, Vic Division, is hotting up as well. Something about documents not quite getting to where they should.
Add in the federal liberal party take over of the NSW liberal party
It is chaos for federal liberal party leader Peter Dutton , he isn’t the leader capable of getting the federal lib/nats out of the political hole, they are finding themselves at federal/state/territory levels
The New Vehicle Efficiency Standards (NVES) will have a significant escalating effect, year on year, on most (new) light vehicles. A politically driven sweetheart arrangement will allow 4WD tow vehicles and tradie utes to be sold at lesser impost than pure passenger cars, but there will otherwise be a powerful cost impact on heavy, less efficient cars like SUVs.
Car manufacturers will still be able to import and sell heavy inefficient passenger vehicles if they wish, but they will become more expensive year on year. My guess is that we will see the big luxury SUVs vanish from suburban streets over a decade or so.
The next important step will be for the actual use of a vehicle to be identified so that the soccer mums don’t all switch to Toyota Landcruisers instead of Range Rovers and Audi Q8s.
Soc
I had a brother in law who was in the research branch of Vic Roads. Retired now but he used to astound me that the 4 main factors in road fatalities are all preventable – drinking, tired, speeding and the one that really got me no seatbelt.
I asked about suicide by road accident and he said “we don’t talk about it”. Poor quality roads and wet weather were fairly minor factors.
For me limiting large vehicles is a no-brainer but my 4o year old trainer who drives a RAM tells me he needs it for going off road, which he might do once a year. As for electric cars, they are to be avoided:
1. range
2. they explode
3. Cost
4. the fast acceleration is a danger for young drivers
5. Individuals can’t do anything about climate change – even if it exists.
I’m still confused about how Linda Reynolds comes to be Brittany Higgins’s employer. I thought that the Department of Finance was the employer of ministerial staff.
From the Guardian
”Fines for feeding crocodiles bite harder
People who feed and interact with crocodiles face harsher penalties as Queensland authorities crack down on risk-taking behaviour, AAP reports.
Knowingly staying near a crocodile which is on or partly on land can now cost $806 on the spot while interfering with crocodile traps attracts a $2580 fine on the spot, or up to $26,615 in court.
…’
————————
Good. Feeding crocs and habituating them to humans is, IMO, the equivalent to manslaughter.
The Full Mooners are in action.
First, they want to take money off working Australians by taxing companies at 40%, and now they tell you what cars you need to drive and how often you need to recharge.
Next, they’ll tell you electric cars are cheaper and that they don’t catch on fire.
Stick around, Full Mooners in full flight soon!
Luigi Smithsays:
Tuesday, September 3, 2024 at 2:40 pm
I’m still confused about how Linda Reynolds comes to be Brittany Higgins’s employer. I thought that the Department of Finance was the employer of ministerial staff.
——————
Ministerial offices and departments are separate.
Oakeshott Country says:
Tuesday, September 3, 2024 at 2:21 pm
Correct on the drinking, speeding etc. Remove motorcyclists, single vehicle country accidents, police pursuits and drugged and the remaining road toll for normal people doing their normal driving is exceptionally low -yet we are all punished for it.
Oakeshott Countrysays:
Tuesday, September 3, 2024 at 2:21 pm
Soc
I had a brother in law who was in the research branch of Vic Roads. Retired now but he used to astound me that the 4 main factors in road fatalities are all preventable – drinking, tired, speeding and the one that really got me no seatbelt.
I asked about suicide by road accident and he said “we don’t talk about it”. Poor quality roads and wet weather were fairly minor factors.
For me limiting large vehicles is a no-brainer but my 4o year old trainer who drives a RAM tells me he needs it for going off road, which he might do once a year. As for electric cars, they are to be avoided:
================================================
My little Suzuki 4WD can get to most places. So some of the only places it can’t is where big tank like 4WD have churned up the place and made huge ruts. The fact that your car is much lighter and doesn’t sink nearly as deep in sand or mud is a good thing. Except if you end up in the wheel ruts of a tank like 4WD in some deep mud they have churned up.
Obviously it can’t do some flowing water crossings that bigger ones can do. Due to less weight and lower clearance.
Mexicanbeemer says:
Tuesday, September 3, 2024 at 2:53 pm
Luigi is correct. Parliamentary staff including political staffers are employed by the Department of Finance. The use of the term employer is used because the Staffers are selected by the Ministers and serve at their pleasure. Reynolds wasn’t legally Higgins employer, but was her boss.
They still feed the jumping crocs on the Adelaide River. NT.
FUBARsays:
Tuesday, September 3, 2024 at 2:59 pm
Mexicanbeemer says:
Tuesday, September 3, 2024 at 2:53 pm
Luigi is correct. Parliamentary staff including political staffers are employed by the Department of Finance. The use of the term employer is used because the Staffers are selected by the Ministers and serve at their pleasure. Reynolds wasn’t legally Higgins employer, but was her boss.
—————————-
They employed by the department but the minister’s office is separate.
‘FUBAR says:
Tuesday, September 3, 2024 at 3:01 pm
They still feed the jumping crocs on the Adelaide River. NT.’
———————
Indeed. But there is one law for the tourism industry and another for the rest of us.
For anyone claiming the Greens voted against ‘recognising the state of Palestine’ (sorry I’m a bit late on this one, I only just caught up) Kevin Bonham wrote about it here;
https://kevinbonham.blogspot.com/2024/07/the-payman-suspension.html
Look under the heading ‘The Trigger Motion’, and pay special attention to the screenshot with ‘MISLEADING’ in big red letters.
It feels dishonest to say that electric 4WDs need to happen before electric cars can be a thing. I’m a westie and I’ve known many many people with 4WDs and they have all offroaded no more than 3 times about 7 years ago. I think it really is an ego thing, I’ve even tried to get them to go 4WDing but none of them are interested, yet they still hold onto these things like it’s their pride and joy. No doubt there are some diehards out there, but I don’t know any. It’s also just ridiculous how much these things shred up the natural environment.
And before BW accuses me of being Goebbels, I’ll say I’m not fully onboard with electrics. It’s great for fixing pollution as we’ve seen in China but it doesn’t really solve the root of the problem which is the continued use of fossil fuels in mining and manufacturing, as well as the limited natural resources problem.
The greens don’t get you have to fix bad policies before thinking about taxes.
@Socrates: The Conversation article makes a lot of sense. Road death rates track closely with road usage (as measured by fuel usage, which remains a pretty good measure until electric vehicles take up a higher percentage of road traffic), so down during the pandemic years in most states, back up since. Total number of deaths will increase with increasing number of drivers (correlated with increasing population), so road safety improvements to reduce the headline road toll need to overcome that natural increase.
At the moment, as we are basically following the same road safety policies as we have for a while, there’s probably only marginal gains left to get, so the road toll drifting up slightly with increased population numbers is fairly predictable.
I suspect, as it was with aviation, automation is the best path to making a big dent in crash figures. Cars that resist crashing themselves when miscontrolled by the drunk, dozy, high or just plain stupid would make a huge dent in the road toll.
Yes, there will be the odd case where the automation – or humans fucking up around the automation -causes the accident. It’s the price of progress. Aviation was similar – a real improvement in the 2000s as fly by wire became the norm, with a few dreadful accidents generally due to humans seizing control away from the system with inadequate training, and now barely any fatal accidents in the past decade.
Entropy @ #474 Tuesday, September 3rd, 2024 – 2:58 pm
My daughter is a senior PS in the NT Dept of National Parks etc. The departmental rangers (which she and her husband used to be) go off-road all of the time as a matter of course. Their vehicles are Toyota Prados. Any wider than that and they simply do not fit on many tracks; trees too close together. They laugh at Landcruisers.
The idea that you need a RAM, or other joke monster truck to go off-road is inane bullshit. Little Suzuki’s are excellent. My previous Kombi T3 4WD window van (ex Telstra) was brilliant.
Hasn’t happened.
Thanks Ante.
Heres something worth a read if you missed it;
https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/every-generation-of-my-family-has-voted-labor-here-s-how-my-kids-plan-to-vote-20240827-p5k5p8.html
My family has always voted Labor, but here’s how my kids plan to vote
I think its on to something (at least anecdotally based on my experience and my family and friends).
But then we are an odd bunch here in the Capital
Other MB: “They employed by the department but the minister’s office is separate.”
—————————————————————————
FUBAR is correct, most Ministerial office staff – regardless of which department the Minister is responsible for – are employed by the Department of Finance. There are usually also 2-3 staff who are employed by the Minister’s own department and who sit in the Minister’s office: these are titled something like “Departmental Liaison Officer.” Theoretically they report back to the Department rather than to the Minister, but lines can get blurred. Every now and then you come across someone working in the Ministerial wing who is employed by a political party, but nowadays there isn’t much desk space for these people.
As a public affairs officer in the Minister’s office, Higgins would have been employed by the Department of Finance. But, as FUBAR said, she would have reported to the Minister through the Chief of Staff (who is also employed by the Department of Finance).
It’s an odd system, but I think it was established to limit the amount of taxpayers’ money that a Minister can spend on their own staff: the Department of Finance being in a far better position to say “no” than is the Minister’s line department.
However, under this arrangement, the HR side of things doesn’t operate very well: lines of responsibility are far from clear. As we have seen.
I see that the Vic/Tas branch of the TWU has been managed out by the national TWU office.
Some of these big unions have lost their way, it seems.
meher babasays:
Tuesday, September 3, 2024 at 3:25 pm
Other MB: “They employed by the department but the minister’s office is separate.”
—————————————————————————
FUBAR is correct, most Ministerial office staff – regardless of which department the Minister is responsible for – are employed by the Department of Finance. There are usually also 2-3 staff who are employed by the Minister’s own department and who sit in the Minister’s office: these are titled something like “Departmental Liaison Officer.” Theoretically they report back to the Department rather than to the Minister, but lines can get blurred. Every now and then you come across someone working in the Ministerial wing who is employed by a political party, but nowadays there isn’t much desk space for these people.
As a public affairs officer in the Minister’s office, Higgins would have been employed by the Department of Finance. But, as FUBAR said, she would have reported to the Minister through the Chief of Staff (who is also employed by the Department of Finance).
It’s an odd system, but I think it was established to limit the amount of taxpayers’ money that a Minister can spend on their own staff: the Department of Finance being in a far better position to say “no” than is the Minister’s line department.
However, under this arrangement, the HR side of things doesn’t operate very well: lines of responsibility are far from clear. As we have seen.
—————
That’s right but answering Luigi Smith’s question it was the separation between the two.
More unnecessary waste of taxpayer monies by hauling the whole of federal Labor cabinet over to WA for a meeting.
It’s just a self-promotional grandstanding at taxpayers expense.
There’s also the issue of their collective carbon footprint, which I’m sure will be of concern to fellow bludgers.
It’s an odd system, but I think it was established to limit the amount of taxpayers’ money that a Minister can spend on their own staff: the Department of Finance being in a far better position to say “no” than is the Minister’s line department.
=====================================================
Pretty well the same as in any business. Which the HR and Finance departments is always responsible for employing and paying staff. Independent of what section of the company or organisation they work for.
yabba: “The idea that you need a RAM, or other joke monster truck to go off-road is inane bullshit. Little Suzuki’s are excellent. My previous Kombi T3 4WD window van (ex Telstra) was brilliant.”
—————————————————————————–
Yep. The only reason so many non-business people are now buying these monster vehicles is because they feel safe and powerful driving around our city streets in tanks. And they don’t worry too much about the high cost of purchasing and operating these vehicles because they have access to a range of tax subsidies (novated leases, asset write-offs, etc), which those of us who don’t drive these juggernauts end up paying for.
Most shopping mall carparks were designed for an era in which most people drove sedans and even a few total losers like me drove pocket-sized cars (as I continue to do). I have been to shopping malls in several different parts of Australia in the past few years in which weaving your way through the maze of trucks that stick halfway out of their parking spots is quite a challenge.
Change will be difficult, but a sensible first step would be for registration costs to be increased significantly for vehicles above a certain size, with an exemption for people who need them to conduct their business. I would also suggest removing petrol from the deductible aspects of novated leases. We need to send some price signals to these people.
I’m sure that this Albanese Govt will find a way to upset everyone with their resolution on gambling ads, rather than just doing the right thing by following through on all the excellent recommendations of the Peta Murphy report
Rex Douglas says:
Tuesday, September 3, 2024 at 3:35 pm
Particularly when they really don’t care about WA. They just want to get the Tax revenue out of it and that’s it.
Poor old George Alex
https://www.smh.com.au/national/i-love-a-cunning-plan-how-crime-boss-cut-cfmeu-endorsed-and-tax-dodging-deals-20240829-p5k69o.html
Just helping out the guys at the CFMEU who are being picked on.
Mexicanbeemer, I apologise. I was being deliberately obtuse to spark a discussion about the extent to which Linda Reynolds was actually Brittany Higgins employer at law.
As has also been explained to you now by Fubar and Meher Baba, ministerial staff are employed by the Department of Finance. We three are all aware that Linda Reynolds’s department (Defence) did not employ Higgins in any way. She was employed – as are all other ministerial staff – by the Department of Finance.
That’s just a fact. Sorry.
‘offroad’ involves definitional issues which alter the policy discussion.
A key variable in the NT is time of year and where you want to, need to, or must travel.
We had a four wheel drive vehicles. We always drove using two wheel drive. The point of having four wheel drive was to get us out of trouble when stuck in truly remote locations – particularly when we had toddlers and/or babies on board.
Several of my friends were injured or killed driving the earlier Suzis. Short wheel base and flimsy construction did not always suit Territory conditions.
Rex D
Albo took his mate Vlandys (boss of gamblings horse racing industry) over with him to meet the President of the US.
I believe that Vlandys wants to tap into the gambling on Rugby League market in the US.
Yep, don’t hold your breath for that weak PM of ours to do something good for Australians and ban gambling advertising in its entirety.
By the way, anybody reading this; don’t bet on horse racing – the odds are disgraceful! You can do better with your money.
IMHO, I think Brittany Higgins and Moira Deeming have both been wronged and deserve to win their respective court cases.
Centre
I’m sure the influence of Vlandys and Murdoch will be very large factors in Labor’s gambling ad resolution.
Rex D, yes, you can show so much strength by banning gambling advertising in its entirety. Shades of John Howard banning guns.
And couldn’t Albo do with the popularity and the votes – what a cream puff!