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.
Fair enough, I think.
Luigi Smithsays:
Tuesday, September 3, 2024 at 3:51 pm
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.
———————–
It was you that was confused.
Centre
Sadly, Albanese has been seduced and captured by the powerful elite captains of industry, IMHO.
OC (and Yabba and Entropy)
“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:”
————————————————————
I think we are agreed on the absurdity of the monster trucks. As others have said (and I have also worked in rugged areas of NT and Cape York years ago) they are not bought by genuine off-roaders anyway.
I would contend that changes in tax law would eliminate more than half the market for these vehicles. Most of them are not bought by tradies either. It is all about the ego and perhaps chasing the image of a tradie. Most are bought as absurdly over-sized suburban runabouts. Most will never see off-road driving, which is demonstrated by Toyota now having a non-4WD option Landcruiser wagon, for those who simply want a very large station wagon.
So we don’t need to wait for EV utes and large SUVs before these are phased out. Given the right incentives, people will soon switch.
Last year Australian new car sales hit a record high (1.2 million vehicles). The average new car price was $55,000, more than our Nissan Leaf. The average new EV price was $61,000, dominated by Tesla. The point is, a large proportion of new car buyers are already spending enough to buy an EV.
You can get a new MG EV SUV for around $35k, drive away.
Why would a young family with a mortgage bother looking at a new ICE SUV ..??
Bean
“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.”
———————————-
I respectfully disagree. Transport is now 21% of total Australian GHG emissions. It is the second largest cause after electricity production. If Labor’s renewable power targets are met, Transport will be the largest cause by 2035. Of transport GHGs, 85% is from cars and trucks. The rest – sea, air and rail – are <15%. Transport GHG emissions in Australia already exceed use of fossil fuels in mining and manufacturing. Australia will not meet 2035 targets, never mind zero by 2050, unless we start reducing transport GHG emissions.
Arky
"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."
————————————-
That is not quite right any more. Best practice countries in road safety have serious crash rates per km driven half that of Australia now. We have fallen a long way behind best practice. We need action in vehicle safety rules, driver training, heavy vehicle driver regulation, fatigue regulation enforcement, speed management in urban areas, and road design in urban and rural areas.
‘meher baba says:
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.’
—————————
The HR side is clear. Lines of responsibility are crystal clear. The relevant codes of conduct have been extensively updated.
Some managers are good at this sort of thing.
Some of the reported discussions between Reynolds and others are, IMO, gobsmacking.
Consistent with ACT OH&S laws, managers who fail to deliver can be criminally liable.
Ministers can actually employ as many staff as they want to. Fitting them all in would end up being a problem. But the taxpayer will only pay up to a limit and ministers can then go and find their own funds for the rest.
Typically Ministers have two sets of staff: the Canberra Office lot and their electorate office lot. There can be a bit of interplay between the two particularly during elections and during shifts between sitting and non-sitting weeks.
The number of DLOs varies. They are especially handy immediately after either a change of government or after a ministerial reshuffle. A top DLO is gold for everyone concerned. Good DLOs and their secretaries make sure the boundaries are crystal clear. DLOs may also be particularly useful during implementation phases of major programs. There is rarely more than one DLO per office – office space in Ministerial offices is chronically short. There may be no DLO in the office at all.
Ministerial staff vary hugely in experience, education and personal characteristics. The best of them are wonderful. They are critical cogs in the machine. Some of them are considerably worse than a waste of space: incompetent careerist hacks who lack a moral compass and who have nothing much better to offer than making trouble and causing confusion.
T
TWU shuts down Victorian and Tasmanian branch – no squeals about due process or natural justice etc.
Nothing to see here, move along.
These are not the Union Bosses and ALP Delegates that you seek.
TWU seems to have a habit of doing this. But they’re all good blokes. Obviously.
I was involved in a team that reviewed road safety trends and recommended policies to improve for the former SA Liberal Transport Minister Stephen Knowles (the oen who got busted for expense rorts).
The report got shelved by Knowles and was never published. Too many embarrassing facts. Knowles then ceased being Minister. We requested the Department of Transport if we could quote the report, or at least the research findings, in an academic forum. We never got an answer back.
I don’t know where you’re getting your price from but having recently been in the market for a new vehicle there weren’t any electric MGs anywhere near that price.
Calling them an SUV is stretching the description – shrinking it, actually.
MGs are now such poor quality you may as well burn $20,000 and then see what you can buy rather than getting an MG.
Grattan on Chalmers v Reserve Bank.
https://citynews.com.au/2024/smashed-nowhere-to-turn-to-get-out-of-the-economic-impasse/?utm_source=mailpoet&utm_medium=email&utm_source_platform=mailpoet&utm_campaign=canberra-daily-today-s-news-today_7801
Why would Palestinians who were previously living in Gaza under Hamas rule now need Permanent Protection visas?
Why would Hamas want to kill them now?
I will never understand why somebody would want some enormous SUV. They are just… annoying: chew through fuel, take up so much space, much more dangerous to both the driver and others on the road.
Small cars are where it’s at. My little Corolla does me very well. Very fuel efficient and a dream to park.
Asha says:
Tuesday, September 3, 2024 at 4:46 pm
You’re welcome to drive whatever you want.
We like our vehicles. I’m a tall person and I like legroom and I like the power to tow and do long drives in comfort.
Good luck with an election on taking away 4WDs, Utes and SUVs.
Asha @ #513 Tuesday, September 3rd, 2024 – 4:46 pm
Pretty much just status symbols for the Prues and Trudes of the world.
(Pressed “Submit” too early)
I live over the road from a big prestigious private school, roughly 75% of the vehicles parked there in school traffic hours are giant SUV’s.
@Scorates:
“That is not quite right any more. Best practice countries in road safety have serious crash rates per km driven half that of Australia now. We have fallen a long way behind best practice. We need action in vehicle safety rules, driver training, heavy vehicle driver regulation, fatigue regulation enforcement, speed management in urban areas, and road design in urban and rural areas.”
I wasn’t quite clear – I meant there’s only marginal gains to be realised from continuing our CURRENT road safety policies. There’s definitely gains to be made from new policies.
That said I would like to see citation needed on the crash rates per km. The data I looked up was extremely limited on that front. Australia was 23rd in the world based on per 100,000 inhabitants, but that’s a measure where little tiny countries where people drive little tiny distances have a built-in advantage. All the countries ahead of us are much, much smaller in land area (islands, European countries, Japan, Singapore, Israel).
I think there’s clearly a lot of room for improvement in driver training and always has been, we’re very lax in enabling people to obtain and keep driver’s licences who simply aren’t very good at it and don’t try to learn.
@FUBAR:
“TWU shuts down Victorian and Tasmanian branch – no squeals about due process or natural justice etc.”
Well, there’s no angle for the squealers to attack Labor on that one.
Feds take charge of NSW Libs.
https://www.smh.com.au/politics/nsw/nsw-liberals-forced-into-10-month-federal-takeover-after-council-fiasco-20240903-p5k7l3.html
Is this a crisis?
FUBAR says:
We like our vehicles. I’m a tall person and I like legroom and I like the power to tow and do long drives in comfort.
_________
Me too. I’m a very tall powerful heterosexual man as well and I think a SUV reflects that. Cheers.
“From Whitlam introducing compulsory seat belts in the 1970s up to the 2010s Australia was a world leader in road safety”
The Victorian Liberal government introduced the world’s first compulsory seatbelts in 1970 (front seat), and subsequently the first for all passengers as well.
Victoria had the highest road toll per capita in the world before that. South Australia followed in 1971. It became general for Australia in 1973.
Rossmcg says:
Tuesday, September 3, 2024 at 5:04 pm
Feds take charge of NSW Libs.
https://www.smh.com.au/politics/nsw/nsw-liberals-forced-into-10-month-federal-takeover-after-council-fiasco-20240903-p5k7l3.html
Is this a crisis?
————————–
Yes, and Peter Dutton is not the leader which will get them out of the political hole
Latest Morgan.
Federal voting intention: ALP (50.5%) now marginally ahead of the Coalition (49.5%) after Albanese Government’s strong stance on putting the CFMEU into administration.
https://roymorganresearch.cmail20.com/t/j-l-giytldy-ouhituihd-r/
I’m going to continue my policy of not giving a shit either way about Morgan, and privately chortling at the people who for some reason do and who were absolutely panting at the idea of the Morgan showing 49-51 or 48-52 or something but who will now be silent or dismiss it.
https://www.watoday.com.au/national/western-australia/labor-selects-perth-hills-councillor-to-contest-sought-after-seat-20240903-p5k7lc.html
Labor selects Perth Hills councillor to contest sought-after seat
By Hamish Hastie
September 3, 2024 — 3.10pm
A Perth Hills shire councillor has leapfrogged a sitting state MP as Labor’s candidate for the newly created federal seat of Bullwinkel.
Shire of Mundaring councillor of six years and current deputy president Trish Cook has been preselected to run for the must-win seat with the backing of the federal tranche of the party.
Cook’s preselection dashes the hopes of state upper house MP Kyle McGinn, who announced his nomination in July for the new seat that covers much of the Perth Hills area and a large chunk of the farming Wheatbelt region.
The party’s federal executive confirmed Cook’s preselection on Monday. This masthead understands McGinn was the only other party member to nominate.
A Labor insider not authorised to speak publicly on preselection matters said some in the party were surprised by the decision and by the federal arm of the party’s intervention in the preselection, which in normal circumstances would have been dealt with by state party administration.
McGinn declined to comment.
Cook declined an invitation to comment, deferring to WA Labor, which has been contacted.
Bullwinkel is a must-win state for both major parties in the West and is shaping up as one of the most interesting political contests in the state.
FUBAR:
Nobody is trying to take away any of those vehicles. I’m not saying the government should be stepping in to stop this from happening or anything (though I’m not necessarily opposed to soft persuasion via tax and/or registration costs), just stating my own opinion on this irritating trend towards unnecessarily huge cars.
I would be stunned if something like 1 in 100 of the spotless designer tiny-penis-mobiles I see driving through inner Brisbane have ever gone past the outer suburbs. Fair enough if people want them for actual offroading, camping, whatever – I have no issue with that – but that is not what most people are using them for. A 4WD is not needed for a person’s daily commute between their between their leafy suburban home and their comfy inner-city office job. It’s very easy to tell the difference between one that’s been used to haul a fishing boat up to Inskip every other weekend and one that’s mainly used to go down the street to Woollies and Dan Murphies.
Oh, and I happen to be pretty tall myself. Possibly taller than you. You can adjust your car’s seats, you know? I need more legroom than most on account of long legs combined with an old knee injury, and my Corolla has never given me issues there.
Since the federal lib/nats and propaganda media units making conspiracy theories about who tried to bring down the federal lib/nats government , no wonder why they were quiet on one of their own
Higgins’ lawyer, Rachael Young SC, finished off her closing arguments by saying the trial had heard a lot about the word “agency”.
Young read out Higgins’ statement on Tuesday morning:
The prime minister has repeatedly told the parliament that I should be given ‘agency’ going forward. I don’t believe that agency was provided to me over the past two years but I seize it now. I was failed repeatedly, but I now have my voice, and I am determined to use [it] to ensure that this is never allowed to happen to another member of staff again.
Bennett said the words in the statement weren’t crafted by Higgins alone – they were drafted with the help of the Sky News columnist Peta Credlin.
The court was shown an email thread between Higgins, her partner David Sharaz and Credlin.
On 19 February 2021, Sharaz and Higgins wrote to Credlin asking for assistance: “Hi Peta, Thank-you again for your help. Please see below the initial draft – feel free to completely rework wherever you see fit.”
Credlin responded with some suggestions and another exhibit showed a final version of the statement was texted to Higgins by Sharaz. Bennett said the correspondence demonstrated the level of media planning Higgins engaged in following the publication of her rape allegations.
Dave:
If my car is really big, everyone will surely understand how big my penis is, right?
Asha
“I will never understand why somebody would want some enormous SUV. They are just… annoying: chew through fuel, take up so much space, much more dangerous to both the driver and others on the road.
Small cars are where it’s at. My little Corolla does me very well. Very fuel efficient and a dream to park.”
——————————————–
Some people need large utes and SUVs to fit their egos in. (I’m 6 feet tall and never felt uncomfortable in the driving position of a Honda Civic or Prius C hatch.)
Arky
If DIT had published our report I could have shown you all the crash rates per km driven! Anyway Federal transport now have comparisons published
https://www.bitre.gov.au/sites/default/files/documents/international_comparisons_2022.pdf
Fatal Road Crash Rate per 100 million VKT (2022 data)
Norway. 0.26
Sweden. 0.28
Germany 0.40
Australia 0.49
OECD Average 0.49
Our rate has gotten worse since.
Lordbain @ #485 Tuesday, September 3rd, 2024 – 3:24 pm
The things one reads. Poor old Ned must be having a failure of memory. The story of his father, Alan:
My father was famously so disillusioned with Arthur Calwell’s Labor Party, particularly over immigration, that he announced he was going to vote Liberal. When he emerged from the polling booth having cast his vote, he shrugged his shoulders.
“I couldn’t do it,” he said. “I went to put an ‘x’ next to the Lib, but my hand started shaking, and I couldn’t hold the pencil still.”
“What did you do?”
“I voted Labor, of course.”
Forgets that, despite being a protestant, Alan Manning formed and was the initial President of the DLP in NSW. He has been described as the most inept leader of a political party in the history of NSW. When I knew Ned, 50 years ago, he was very proud of this but I guess it doesn’t fit into this story about the degeneration of Labor.
One thing that really stuck me during my travels in Asia was how the design of Australian cities and towns – even in those with decent public transport services – really forces one to have a car to get around at all conveniently. It amazed by how often I could go weeks to over a month in some Asian cities without ever going inside or on the back of a vehicle. Near everything I needed was within a half hour’s walk. Good luck finding that even right in the midst of the inner city in Australia.
Heh, thanks Oakeshott.
I didn’t bother reading the story because I thought it was going to be some stupid “I vote Labor, but my student kids are shock horror attracted to the Greens!”piece as if student-age kids being attracted to the Greens is some new phenomenon that has only started since Albo became PM. So it turns out to be that, plus revisionist family history involving the DLP? Dearie me.
@Scott:
Heh, I imagine it was previously reported but I’d never heard that before. Higgins was getting help from Peta Credlin? Man, I imagine that makes it uncomfortable now in the staff canteen at Sky News, where they’re as obsessive about shitting on Higgins as their UK cousins are about shitting on Meghan Markle.
The New Vehicle Efficiency Standards Bill was passed in May. The rules come into effect early next year, I think.
The NVES does not “take away” any kind of vehicle. It taxes new passenger vehicles that do not meet specific efficiency standards and sets different standards for regular (ordinary) passenger cars and lesser standards for light commercial vehicles (including some specific 4WDs and utes) up to a certain weight limit. The kinder limits were set for 4WDs and utes to curry favour with grey nomads and people from the bush and to reduce the opportunity for the Dutton to accuse the government of taking utes away from tradies or ruining the weekend or whatever.
The standards for efficiency are not particularly onerous in the first year, but get dramatically stricter year by year thereafter. They have been accepted by several major manufacturers – happily by some (Tesla), grudgingly be others (Toyota – who benefit from the kinder rules for Landcruisers and HiLux). I recall a big press announcement attended by Albanese, Bowen and the local bosses of Toyota and Ford.
Manufacturers will be required to meet an aggregate efficiency standard for all vehicles they sell. For a company like Tesla that will be a doddle. They’ll therefore earn credits which they can sell to other “dirtier” manufacturers who are finding it harder to meet the standards. Overall, it will force all manufacturers to sell a larger number of cleaner vehicles to compensate for any insufficiently clean cars they sell. The escalating level of taxes will punish manufacturers who do not meet the aggregate targets. The higher taxes for inefficient vehicles will inevitably be passed on to buyers.
Weight/size targets are not expressly in the regulations. They don’t need to be. The efficiency (CO2 emmission) targets will compel the sale of smaller, more efficient vehicles.
It’s a happening thing. If you want to drive a Ford F250 or a Dodge Ram, buy it now.
Arky:
Wasn’t it Credlin who leaked the stuff about Parliament House moonlighting as a brothel for Liberal ministers during the height of the Morrison sex scandal?
I have a 4wd wagon (hate the American SUV label) and it’s got nothing to do with my ego or the size of my manhood.
It’s because I like to travel remote areas of Australia where Toyota Corollas are not really suitable.
In between times I rarely venture out in it beyond my immediate neighbourhoods and even less often into city centres.
So don’t sneer at all of us.
‘Quoting a 60s Motown song, The Tracks of My Tears, [Reynolds’ lawyer] Bennett said there weren’t tears behind Higgins’ smile.’
[Guardian blog]
Pointedly omitting the first verse:
‘People say I’m the life of the party
Cause I tell a joke or two
Although I might be laughing loud and hearty
Deep inside, I’m blue’
Rossmcg:
See, that’s totally fair, and a legitimate use for such a vehicle.
Leroy 5.24pm
[Bullwinkel is a must-win state for both major parties in the West and is shaping up as one of the most interesting political contests in the state.]
Would you or somebody else care to explain this comment?
Liberal federal executive:
“We owe it to our thousands of members in the state to address the challenges within the organisational wing of the NSW Division. More importantly, we owe it to the millions of Australians who are relying on the Liberal Party to return Australia to good government after the next election to get our house in order.”
(Guardian blog)
A management committee — Alston, Stokes & Stockdale [ASS?] — has been appointed for 10 months.
So the NSW Libs will be under administration through the Federal election.
Not a good look …
So the Federal Liberals are taking over the NSW branch for 10 months,giving Dutton control of the pre-selection process for election 2025. The moderate faction dominated NSW branch could find themselves put out in the cold by right faction Dutton picked nominees. Why ha ? Because the NSW branch screwed up council elections nominations and 140 missed the bus. It smacks of opportunism by Dutton but that’s politics for you. The moderate faction of the Liberals lost several sitting members to Teals etc in 2022. More to come in 2025 under challenge. Dutton is dragging what is left of the Liberal Party, propped up by Qld mostly, further to the right and trying populist tropes to bring Labor Party seats into the camp. Good luck with that.
NSW Libs couldn’t organise a root in a brothel.
@Asha – I remember something about Credlin making a point that while she was in charge, she sacked some Liberal staffer who filmed himself masturbating on the desk of an MP (you can bet a female MP although I don’t think it was stated) and did crack into Morrison a bit over the culture there. But more recently she’s run the Murdoch party line.
Interestingly, a quick Google revealed an Annika Smethurst article from 2021 reporting a rumor that Credlin was advising Higgins behind the scenes but that Credlin declined to comment when asked.
Back in 2021 or so, one had a sense Credlin was preparing to push for a career in politics and maybe she thought this was her angle – cleaning up the Liberals’ problem with being full of misogynist fuckwits. At any rate, she seems to have dropped both the attempt to enter politics herself and the interest in challenging the Liberal party line on their mistreatment of women.
Asha
Oh thanks. But why did you say this:
“I will never understand why somebody would want some enormous SUV. They are just… annoying: chew through fuel, take up so much space, much more dangerous to both the driver and others on the road.”
Rash generalisation. Of which there is a fair bit around here.
Well Australia had preferential voting when Manning was voting so if he put an ‘x’ anywhere he voted informally anyway.
Arky
I believe the desk in question was Julie Bishop’s?
Rossmcg:
Fair cop. My own urban myopia at work, I confess. I was more referring to regular day-to-day driving and the blight of enormous brand-new gleaming SUVs cluttering up city roads, not the actual off-road purposes they are designed for (allegedly, I mean – the ones I typically see don’t look like the sort of thing you’d actually want to take off road) but in hindsight I didn’t clarify that at all.
@goll:
“Would you or somebody else care to explain this comment?”
Assuming the comment meant to say Bullwinkel is a must-win SEAT, not state, it’s fairly self-explanatory? The next election is not likely to be a landslide, so every marginal seat could be relevant either to who forms government or whether it is majority or minority government; and it’s a new seat to boot so while psephs have made predictions about its behaviour we haven’t seen it in action yet.
Oliver Sutton
It’s hard to think of a 60s Motown song less relevant to the Reynolds case and simultaneously precisely on point for the Higgins side.
The CFMEU has filed a High Court challenge over the union being
put in the hands of an administrator. This will be interesting as the
core right of natural justice should be a central issue. The construction boss who has been found guilty of tax fraud, the details of which I posted up thread, was certainly afforded it via full discovery and having the evidence in the brief assessed by a jury of his peers.