First up, note that the post below this one covers a new Victorian state poll from RedBridge Group. On to the latest from the federal campaign:
• Paul Sakkal of Nine Newspapers reports Labor is experiencing a surge of donations both from wealthy backers hoping to court favour with the party now favoured to win, and from small donors galvanised by hostility to Donald Trump.
• Ellen Ransley of The Nightly reports Labor is dedicating an extra $130,000 to campaigning in Peter Dutton’s seat of Dickson after its research suggested the race there was “closer than originally thought”. As with the last report broaching the possibility, it also notes that “LNP insiders insist they aren’t worried about the seat”.
• Local news site Fremantle Shipping News reports, without going into much detail, that independent hopeful Kate Hulett has successfully renounced her British citizenship and will be able to proceed as planned with her run for the federal seat of Fremantle. Hulett came within 424 votes of unseating state government minister Simone McGurk in the state seat of Fremantle last month. Last week she related on her podcast that she had been making multiple representations to British parliamentarians and to the Home Office and High Commission in an effort to get the matter resolved in time.
• Jeremy Neal, Liberal National Party candidate from the far north Queensland seat of Leichhardt, is distancing himself from “poorly worded” social media posts from between 2020 and 2022 in which he railed against COVID restrictions and vaccines, called for the ABC to be defunded, and expressed more enthusiasm for Donald Trump than is now considered politic. Labor is hoping the retirement of veteran incumbent Warren Entsch will give it a shot of overhauling the seat’s 3.4% margin.
• The Financial Review reports a uComms poll for Climate 200 has Allegra Spender, teal incumbent candidate for Wentworth, leading Liberal challenger Ro Knox 58-42 in Wentworth. The primary votes have Spender on 32.9%, Knox on 32.5% and Labor candidate Savanna Peake on 12.2%, with “nearly 7%” undecided. The report says the poll had a sample of 1015 but does not specify field work dates.
• The Australian reports a poll of Chris Bowen’s western Sydney seat of McMahon by Compass has independent Matt Camenzuli on 41%, the Liberals on 20% and Bowen on just 19%, as compared with 48.0% in 2022. Labor sources are said to be “dismissive”, and expect Camenzuli to come third. Camenzuli is an IT entrepreneur and former conservative Liberal activist who took Scott Morrison and others to court in 2022 after the party’s national executive took control of the federal preselection process. Compass is chiefly noted for finding strong support for conservative culture war positions for suitably disposed clients. The only voting intention poll I know it to have conducted was in North Sydney during the 2022 campaign, which found the eventual winner, teal independent Kylea Tink, running third on 13.6%, or barely more than half her actual result of 25.2%. The report does not identify who commissioned the poll, which was conducted by MMS and SMS from a sample of 1003 on dates unspecified, but I think I can guess.
Bevo from the Herald seems to have turned on OHFUCKUS. Will his ‘Red Alert’ squad get the memo:
https://www.smh.com.au/world/europe/trump-s-chaos-makes-an-australian-inquiry-into-aukus-common-sense-20250409-p5lqeq.html
Someone was asking about the caretaker conventions the other day – apparently, they effect Radar – who knew?
This from the BOM.
Like others I am sick of hearing about the US and their chosen leader’s behavior, so I’ll just pop in with this opinion which seems to align with most other sensible posters on this blog.
The damage to the US and world economies is a measurable item – if not now then certainly within a few months.
The damage to the US reputation, whilst perhaps less quantifiable is undoubtably far worse.
They can’t be trusted. They won’t be trusted for decades, if ever, regardless of future administrations.
Trump has exposed the rot of the US system for all to see. Extremist capitalism, the arrogance of US exceptionalism and their current and historical dalliance with isolationism.
Trump has killed the US, with severe wounds suffered by the rest of the world – but the rest of the world will recover.
Victoria: “After Trump going on a two hour rant at a dinner that the tariffs were essential. He hits the pause button.”
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As I have been predicting, at some point in the past 12 hours or so Trump received a message from one or more individuals in the US who are, when push comes to shove, far more powerful than he is. Trump and his merry band of ratbags like to give out the impression that nobody will be able to stop them. But that’s as much of a con as the idea that he was a canny businessman.
Trump was no doubt informed in no uncertain terms that all the crazy tariffs had to disappear. His announcement of a 90 day pause and his churlish upping of the tariffs on China was his way of saying to himself and his supporters “I’m still in control here.” But he isn’t, and I doubt that the China tariffs will persist for much longer either.
The incredibly-wealthy individuals who told Trump yesterday that his time for having fun with the tariffs was over no doubt have access to all sorts of ways of damaging Trump and his family if they were to choose to use them. Even with things like his crypto coin raking huge amounts of money out of the gullible, he isn’t actually all that wealthy. Not quite FY money. So he’s vulnerable. There’d be people from his past who could rolled out to tell stories about him. Photos. Etc. Nobody will wish to use these things, but if he continues to behave like a mad bull in a china shop, they might feel that they have no choice.
As Gore Vidal once said, the history of the true rulers of the United States would feature an entirely different list of names to the recorded Presidents. An exception was when Nelson Rockefeller became V-P under Gerald Ford, but Nelson was a younger son whom the family did not find particularly useful with their business activities. Apart from Nelson, the uber rich have preferred to stay in the shadows and manipulate various politicians into doing their bidding. But I would expect that they are currently feeling like they might need to do a fair bit more than this.
The next few days are going to be very interesting to watch. The extremely wealthy class of the US are no doubt still very angry with Trump. I reckon that the nonchalant way in which, having trashed the markets, he chuffed off to Florida to play golf for three days would particularly grate with them.
It’s far too early for some sort of move to be made to eject Trump from the White House: things need to reach the point at which the gun-totin’ MAGA morons of the boondocks are sufficiently bewildered as to what is going on as to unlikely to come out in force to try to save their beloved Donald.
But I reckon it’s coming.
China has been flushed out the world can see they are the enemy great strategy by grey haired trump – not orange!
Geez Tesla up 22% in a day!
Buy a Tesla labor luvvies you know it makes sense.
Trump approval rating out last night is the same as a month ago he is doing what 77 million people were told he would do.
Lots of good deals with dozens of countries coming.
Musk is the only one getting us into space. I want my galactic republic.
Thanks for the roundups Cat and HH.
I remain of the view that AUKUS must be withdrawn from by Australia. Trump cannot be relied upon to act in USA’s interest, let alone Australia’s.
The decision of Australia to join the UK Japan GCAT fighter program rather than buy more F35s is a step forward here. Australia should look to do something similar for subs. On cost grounds alone AUKUS was unjustifiable. Now it is unreliable too.
Have a good day all.
Matt Novak @paleofuture.bsky.social
“Who was dumping the bonds? Somebody asked him if it was China, right? It wasn’t. It was Japan,” said Charlie Gasparino on Fox Business.
”
sprocket_says:
Thursday, April 10, 2025 at 6:31 am
From ‘MY POLICIES WONT CHANGE’ to flip-flopping when the bond market showed signs of collapsing.
All so that the world would come and ‘kiss my ass’.
”
Trump said that ‘kiss my ass’ in public about International leaders.
Nations without any power/ very less power on the international scene will swallow that insult but other international leaders with some standing won’t take it lying down.
Imagine if Xi and Modi said such thing. All hell will break loose.
A ’90 Day Pause on Tariffs’ is the same as a ’99 year Lease on the Port of Darwin’.
Conservatives attempting to bury the lede.
Scepticsays:
Wednesday, April 9, 2025 at 2:16 pm
Meanwhile the ASX is drinking the KoolAid only falling 1.8% today instead of 10%.. reality will catch up with them shortly … tomorrow will see the ASX fall the most in one day in the last 30 years, they are too afraid to get ahead of the NYSE.
____________________________________________________________
DJIA up 7.87% Nasdaq up 12.16 .
On Wall Street, the S&P 500 climbed 9.5 per cent for its best session since 2008.
Nasdaq had its second best day in history.
ASX 200 futures: +6.6% to 7,893 points
“tomorrow will see the ASX fall the most in one day in the last 30 years” I mean how completely wrong can you get.
“ As Gore Vidal once said, the history of the true rulers of the United States would feature an entirely different list of names to the recorded Presidents. An exception was when Nelson Rockefeller became V-P under Gerald Ford”
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I think that you perhaps understate the role of the Kennedy and Roosevelt clans, who were both in public office, but also key parts of the ‘shadow power’ of the United States. Not that the ‘shadow powers’ were really unknown. The playas were all pretty known, and even had their own public profiles.
Andrew_Earlwood says:
Thursday, April 10, 2025 at 8:18 am
“ Poorest urban fringe electorates gain most from Labor’s first-term tax and welfare reform, ANU research shows. Exclusive: The wealthiest households on average will be nearly $800 worse off, modelling reveals, as a result of the re-jigged stage-three tax cuts
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2025/apr/10/poorest-urban-fringe-electorates-gain-most-from-labors-first-term-tax-and-welfare-reform-anu-research-shows”
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Stick that up your arse, you anti-labor ‘social justice’ concern trolls (Integrity, Irene, Pageboi and now that he has returned, Vlad get a special mention: the rest of y’ll – you know who you are, so do we – give yourselves an uppercut).
______________________
More NSW Labor style hackery.
Completely ignorant of those left behind living below the poverty and those flooding the food banks and living in tents and cars.
@ Sprocket 653am
A ” Socratic” response. Brilliant.
Centre appears absolutely masochistic . ( appears to be a common thread amongst the remaining Liberal bloggers here.)
PS. Another good one from C@t. @620am 🙂
Mavis @ #79 Thursday, April 10th, 2025 – 8:06 am
The SEC is responsible for insider trading, and I don’t think they come under DoJ.
“ Musk is the only one getting us into space. I want my galactic republic.”
You’d only end up with a galactic empire. Choose your poison: one ruled from Trantor or Coruscant?With Elon XXX ruling a genetic dynasty.
nath: “Why would anyone care about traders getting margin calls. If they are then they have got leverage and are therefore players not mom and pop investors.”
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Well I don’t know much about what happens in the US, but there are tens, if not hundreds of thousands of middle to upper middle class mom and pop investors in Australia who buy shares on borrowed money as a means of reducing their tax liabilities through neg gearing and the capital gains tax discount.
The sums invested are typically in the hundreds of thousands of dollars. The Australian housing market has been so lucrative in recent years, that I suspect the negatively-geared share schemes are not as popular as they once were. And a lot of the ones that operated before the mid-2000s were rolled into self-managed super funds when the Howard Government allowed for that. But the big banks still advertise these, so there must be plenty of them around.
I’m not sure of the extent to which people with such schemes have had margin calls made on their portfolios in recent days, but I would expect that it’s going on. And there must surely be similar schemes in operation in the US.
“ Completely ignorant of those left behind living below the poverty and those flooding the food banks and living in tents and cars.”
Breaking news from the Smaug Horde. Please do tell us more, Integrity.
nath, in the space bit I’m all behind Elon, I dont really care if he gets to own Mars and becomes the solar system’s first Quadrillionaire, good luck to him. But having someone driven without that nasty safety red tape of NASA is not the worst thing to happen in terms of getting access to the solar system’s resources/wealth.
Here’s one for the Military stans for a bit of light relief from the Mad King Donald chaos:
China is Learning About Western Decision Making from the Ukraine War
A Special Assessment on Ukraine and how Western decision-making is informing the strategic calculus of Chairman Xi and the CCP
Mick Ryan
https://mickryan.substack.com/p/china-is-learning-about-western-decision
China reaching out to Australia:
https://www.smh.com.au/world/asia/us-tariffs-of-104-percent-on-chinese-goods-now-in-force-20250409-p5lqgz.html
Australia commitment to free trade and not bending the knee will serve us well. Now is not the time for Trump lite or capital control greens.
Meher @ 8:50am – apparently amongst the hardest hit were 401(K) funds. Now THAT is really is hitting the middle-working class, and lower middle classes in the nuts. Hard.
Victoria @ #69 Thursday, April 10th, 2025 – 7:57 am
Victoria I agree. As a librarian I would not subscribe for my library any longer. I will drop my home sub (for OH) soon. It is obviously very biased but also no longer covering much in the way of actual news.
Their app fails a lot of the time as well.
Gotta love how pied pipsqueak and the rest of the gormless Trump goon squad are cheering an American President turning governing into a non-stop dealorama. 😐
So what happens in July?
Have we had any Americans turning up at the border claiming refugee status yet? 😐
”
Centresays:
Thursday, April 10, 2025 at 6:09 am
Here’s your real news today: – more than 75 Countries have called the US to negotiate tariffs.
The Dow goes “Whooshka” up around 3,000 points. WOW, well played Donald, what a legend. Bad luck lefties, not your day, better luck next time.
The election is still there to be won. One more Whooshka to go on May 3, the icing on the cake!
”
You think our livelihoods and hard earned savings in Superannuation and Allocated pension funds, which we saved over a period of over 30 years, are a joke to you, You heartless moron.
With the mission of owning the libs, you completely lost the plot.
Adam Schiff on twitter. Good luck with that I say
———-
Trump is creating giant market fluctuations with his on-again, off-again tariffs.
These constant gyrations in policy provide dangerous opportunities for insider trading.
Who in the administration knew about Trump’s latest tariff flip flop ahead of time? Did anyone buy or sell stocks, and profit at the public’s expense?
I’m writing to the White House — the public has a right to know.
B. S. Fairmansays:
Thursday, April 10, 2025 at 9:01 am
So what happens in July?
Episode 396 of Trump’s Political Reality TV show?
RFK article interesting USA life expectancy terrible for a long time and obesity and disease rife.
So 10,000 get sacked from the so called health department and Dems complaint etc is wait for it”they sacked the people who ran the place”.
Hmmm err ummm err wtf???
Dems would have promoted the failures! Trumps sane compared to Dems!
Rebound in super balances etc today!
All good US getting stronger each day.
Laughtong
It has been a pathetic publication for decades
Good move
The really farcically capricious approach exhibited by Trump will only reinforce Labor’s credentials as a safe port. The Reactionaries are conspicuously unreliable. They will pay the price.
Who in the administration knew about Trump’s latest tariff flip flop ahead of time?
I’d be tracking down Kelly Loeffler, renowned Republican Inside Trader. Trump appointed her to something in his Administration pdq upon coming to office.
A_E: “I think that you perhaps understate the role of the Kennedy and Roosevelt clans, who were both in public office, but also key parts of the ‘shadow power’ of the United States. Not that the ‘shadow powers’ were really unknown. The playas were all pretty known, and even had their own public profiles.”
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I think the Kennedys were of a simliar character to the Trump family: rich and important, but not plutocrats. And they were Catholics, which still matters a bit, even now.
The Roosevelts were Protestants, and more powerful economically than the Kennedys, but, without their political significance, I don’t think they’d have been automatic invitees to lunch at any of the large houses of Newport, RI.
What the Trumps, Kennedys and Roosevelts all have in common is that they have used politics and media exposure as a means of leveraging their status in the business world. The really powerful plutocrats of the US have never felt the need to do this, and indeed look down upon such activities. Some of them would even consider the likes of the Rockefellers, or more recently the Koch brothers, to have exposed themselves to the broad mass of humanity a little more than they should have done.
You won’t find many of the sorts of people I’m talking about at the top of the Forbes Magazine rich list in a given year. But while the rich list features a lot of shooting stars, the genuine plutocrats have built up their wealth over generations. And, more importantly, they control the extent to which the likes of Musk, Bezos, Zuckerberg and co. have access to the borrowed money that underpins their reported net wealth in the here and now.
I’m not floating conspiracy theories here. These people truly exist, and I have been expecting them to make a move about the tariff lunacy at some point. And I reckon they have done so.
autocrat:
Thursday, April 10, 2025 at 8:49 am
Mavis @ #79 Thursday, April 10th, 2025 – 8:06 am
Trump would have directed the D of J not to investigate insider trading allegations. He & his buddies would’ve made a mint.
The SEC focuses on civil enforcement of insider trading; the D of J has the carriage of criminal prosecutions.
Looks like Albanese was right to not negotiate on any the gripes the US had with Australia over so-called “trade barriers”.
10% tariff paused now anyway and we conceded nothing. What would Dutton have done? What was he suggesting that Albanese should have conceded on those phone calls he was demanding should have been made? Why would protecting under 5% of our total export trade – that in current global circumstances we could easily have made up elsewhere by stealing the USA’s business with other countries they have pissed off – have been more important than protecting the measures we have in place to benefit Australians?
Albanese 1, Trump/Dutton 0.
”
Rex Douglassays:
Thursday, April 10, 2025 at 7:39 am
I see Littleproud is eyeing of billions worth of federal pork for regional seats through a ‘regional future fund’.
I wish the federal Govt would stay in its lane and leave state and local responsibilities for them to manage.
”
That will happen only if you preference ALP ABOVE LNP although it appears your Ian McPhee Liberal credentials made you decide to preference LNP over ALP after so-called LNP ‘gas policy ‘ even though you it is ‘gaslighting’
Imagine gloating over a 10% drop in people’s retirement wealth. As dumb as a box of Trumps.
A realities of Trump’s tariff game by Greg Jericho in Amy’s live blog.
The facts behind the Trump tariff ‘pause’
https://live.australiainstitute.org.au/2025/04/australia-institute-live-day-13-of-the-2025-election-campaign/#48def408c7
A_E, Sprocket, C@tmomma
Do you remember another Liberal opposition leader with initials PD, who was ideological to the core, against an uncharismatic Labor leader?
I don’t think it’s right to say the bond market fell bc of Japan selling. There was definitely domestic selling too. And still seeing stories China was involved.
Victoria at 9.01am: “Adam Schiff on twitter. Good luck with that I say”
I think it will be difficult for anyone to stop the truth about these things from coming out. Some people close to Trump are likely to have made an absolute motza. It’s difficult to keep that quiet.
And some members of the Trump extended family aren’t the sharpest tools in the shed, so might not appreciate the need to keep totally shtum.
Blind Freddy would’ve known Trump would backflip on tariffs within a week or so. The interest now is how China will deal with them. Xi is not the type who backs down, especially where his major economic & military rival is concerned.
Full rate “reciprocal” tariffs (China excluded) lasted less than a day, for zero deals done and damage to USA’s reputation and longer term economic prospects. The art of the deal.
Team Katich,
Is it a possibility that, with their new tripartite arrangement between China, South Korea and Japan, that China agreed to let Japan lead the way with the Bond sell-off to see whether Trump caved, before the Big Kahuna, China, stepped in to truly monster the guy?
As it’s all become a game of cards, maybe China plays by the old Kenny Rogers dictum of, ‘You’ve got to know when to hold ’em, Know when to fold ’em, and know when to walk away’ ?
Stand-up Maths: Explaining the Trump Tariff Equation
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j04IAbWCszg
WB,
the funny thing about that Compass poll of North Sydney was that the result for every other candidate was not that bad – the ALP vote was spot on and the Liberal vote only 2% high. The GRN vote was too high, indicating what I suspected – that the boomer eco warriors fled the Greens and went to the Teal. Tink also aggregated a few of the other minor party primary votes. So whilst I don’t say this new poll isn’t crap, to say its crap based solely on the North Sydney 2022 might not be sensible
A_E: “Meher @ 8:50am – apparently amongst the hardest hit were 401(K) funds. Now THAT is really is hitting the middle-working class, and lower middle classes in the nuts. Hard.”
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Yes, although they’ll eventually get over it if average share values rise back up again to, say, somewhere within 5 per cent of their peak earlier this year. And stay there (and, in normal years, there usually isn’t a lot of fluctuation in US markets during the May to October period). But there’s no consolation for those forced by margin calls to sell during the dip.
The big questions now are 1) whether or not the 90 day pause is going to turn into a permanent pause and 2) whether or not there will be a reduction in the tariffs on Chinese goods.
Continuing uncertainty about these issues will create ongoing market volatility. Trump will be required to do more than he has done so far. I suspect that in the end we’ll be left with a 10 per cent tariff on everyone (except for the countries run by authoritarian thugs), and a bit higher on selected products coming from Europe, China, Canada, Mexico and possibly Taiwan. The markets will probably tolerate that scenario.
Ven,
Peter Debnam?
Meher’s shadow plutocracy probably started with ‘the 400’ of ole’ New York (maybe stretching back as far as New Amsterdam), but this club has always had room to add new members – and shed old ones – over the past 350 odd years. Meher likes to equate it to an ancient coven of vampires. It isn’t that esoteric. Sure, being catholic was/is a thing, but in the end money binds and by the early 20th century there were enough prosperous micks in New England that made the Kennedy’s ascension into ‘the club’ inevitable. In fact there was a famous marriage brokered by the mid century.
One other thing to mention: this club of plutocrats is also a faux aristocracy. They are all nouveau riche when measured in historical terms. For example the four extant branches of the Rothchilds can all trace their lineage to a 16th century Frankfurt banker. …