It’s too late! Josh Recessionberg has already put Australia into per capita recession: But he says he can handle it, at the AFR: A large component of the government’s pro-growth strategy rested on the passage of the $158 billion in extra income tax cuts announced in the April 2 budget and which the Coalition, should
Via Domain: Shadow foreign minister Penny Wong attacks the government over the Liberal Party’s alleged involvement in “fake news” campaigns on Wechat. “We don’t have major political parties engaging in fake news on this media platform or any other media platform. It is incumbent upon Scott Morrison to rule out any Liberal Party involvement in
I have a working theory that overall betting odds on elections are affected by what people wish would happen as much as what people think will happen. However, my theory is individual seat odds are less likely to be affected by the casual gambler and the betting odds are likely to be dominated by either
Herein lies the problem, via The Australian: Peter Dutton said Australians should be concerned at Mr Keating’s call for Mr Shorten, who is yet to name who would take the crucial home affairs ministry in government, to unpick Australia’s national security apparatus “which has disrupted 15 major terrorist attack plots since September 2014”. “Has Mr
Let’s start with the AFR which always demands reform but then attacks it when it comes: Bill Shorten’s spending spree has topped $60 billion in the election campaign and is set to rise further, putting Labor on track to lift federal spending as a share of the economy to nearly as much as the Rudd
Via The Guardian: Labor has maintained its election-winning lead over the Coalition as the election campaign enters its final fortnight, according to a new Guardian Essential poll. The survey of 1,079 people shows Labor is leading the Coalition on a two-party preferred basis 52% to 48%, a slight lift within the poll’s margin of error compared
Paul Keating’s China rant has triggered serious divisions within Labor about how to deal with China, via the ABC: Bill Shorten says he does not share former Labor prime minister Paul Keating’s views that Australia’s spy chiefs are “nutters” who should be sacked to help improve relations with China. The extraordinary rebuke of senior intelligence
Via Domian: New polling commissioned by GetUp suggests former prime minister Tony Abbott is on track for a defeat by independent candidate Zali Steggall in his blue ribbon Sydney seat of Warringah. A Lonergan poll of 805 Warringah voters shows Mr Abbott trailing Ms Steggall 56-44 on a two party-preferred basis. GetUp is campaigning against
Via the ABC: Former prime minister Paul Keating says Australia’s spy chiefs are “nutters” and should be sacked to help improve relations with China. The extraordinary rebuke of senior intelligence figures was made on the sidelines of Labor’s federal election campaign launch, but immediately drew comparisons with US President Donald Trump, who has regularly clashed with America’s spy chiefs. Mr
Via the Saturday Paper’s Mike Seccombe: Clive Palmer is not delusional. Those too-good-to-be-true promises, the 151 hapless, hopeless candidates running in every lower house seat, the risible “shadow minister” titles, have been set up to create the illusion of a serious party with a broad suite of policies and deep interest in the disparate concerns
Newspoll puts lippy on the pig: Popular support for Labor has fallen to its lowest level since Scott Morrison became Prime Minister in August last year, with voters turning sharply against Bill Shorten despite $16 billion in further spending promises. As the campaign enters its final two weeks, an exclusive Newspoll conducted for The Australian
I grew up a Keating child. By that I mean I was politicised in the Keating era. As such, I was strong fan of liberal economics with a social conscience and engagement with Asia. Keating’s flair and quick wit has always charmed as well. But, in recent, years I have found myself more and more
We’ve had plenty of them this week: LNP’s Jeremy Hearn and Jessica Whelan hating on Muslims LNP’s Peter Killin and Gurpal Singh hating on LGBTI; ALP’s Luke Creasey joking about rape; ALP Wayne Kurnorth hating on Jews; LNP’s Sachin Joshi hating on women; ON’s Ross MacDonald and Steve Dickson going the grope; ON’s James Ashby doing an NRA
Poor old Tony is taking a whooping, via Domain: Former prime minister Tony Abbott says that in Australia “we sub-contract too much out to experts already”, and that we should not “save our planet at the expense of our neighbour”, in comments made in a debate with his independent rival for his seat of Warringah,
Via Penny Wong at the Lowy Institute last night: Labor’s foreign policy is founded on the belief that we deal with the world as it is and we seek to change it for the better. Australia is an independent, multicultural nation, confident of our place in the world. We know our values – compassion, fairness,
Via the ABC: It has been over a year since Labor announced its policy to scrap franking credit cash refunds, but anger towards the proposal in some quarters remains white hot. “The franking credit proposal is the most unfair proposal and hostile proposal I’ve ever heard of or seen in my life,” Perth retiree Steve
How do you spell “Oztraeliare” again? Via Crikey: Two Liberal Victorian candidates have stood down over, respectively, Islamophobic and homophobic comments written in 2018, while, in what has become a stacked 48-hours for social media political controversies, Labor’s Melbourne candidate Luke Creasey has apologised for sharing a rape joke on Facebook in 2012. Days after Labor NT candidate Wayne Kurnorth stood
Editor-in-chief of the AFR, Michael Stutchbury, has his say on the election today: Let’s bury this idea that Australian capitalism is broken and needs to be fixed to make sure workers get a fair go. Amid dire warnings about precarious gig economy jobs, 290,000 extra full-time jobs were created last year, helping push down the unemployment
If you’re such a great manager of money then why are you running election ads like this (which, ironically, keep popping up on MB): Seriously, the money raised can’t possibly cover the cost of the ad and the brand damage is priceless. Maybe they’re funded by Labor.
I suppose it was inevitable, via News: Another candidate for Pauline Hanson’s One Nation party is embroiled in a sleazy scandal, after sexist social media posts emerged overnight. Ross Macdonald is running in the north Queensland seat of Leichhardt for the right-wing party and is the latest headache for the embattled Senator Hanson. The Cairns Post today
Via Mark the Ballot: This morning’s read from prediction markets for the Federal election outcome shows a marked change on yesterday. Yesterday I had the mean Coalition win probability across the three houses I follow (Beteasy, Ladbrokes and Sportsbet) at 25.3 per cent. This morning it had jumped to 29.2 per cent. If we turn
Via Domain comes Scummo’s endorsement of Make Australia Stupid Again (MASA): “At the end of the day when we have to decide, do we think that the United Australia Party would be more dangerous to the Australian economy than Bill Shorten, the Labor Party and the Greens? Well I’m sorry, I think Bill Shorten the
Seven of the cross-bench have banded together to produce a declaration: Labor can deliver on all of that easy enough, so long as it breaks the east coast gas cartel to prevent utility price shocks as more intermittent energy hits the grid without increased dispatchable gas. Otherwise it will be chaos. But many of the
More Scummo corruption, via The Guardian: Scott Morrison has sidestepped a question about whether he sought assurances from Clive Palmer that Queensland Nickel workers will be paid the $7m they are owed at the time the Liberal party entered a preference dealwith the controversial businessman’s United Australia party. Morrison’s deflection on the hustings in Perth came
Via perennial young leader Jason Yat-sen Li on the Labor senate ticket at Domain: “As a principle I would love to see Parliament broadly reflective of the Australian population,” Mr Li told The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age days after being selected as a candidate. “I like targets because you know you are working towards
Via Domain: Opposition Leader Bill Shorten has won the popular vote in the first leaders’ debate of the federal election campaign after using his closing remarks to tell Australians the economy was not working for them. While 25 audience members declared Mr Shorten the winner, only 12 voted for Mr Morrison and another 11 were
Bill Shorten has released his dam wall of billions from tax reform reforms savings, via New Daily: Childcare will be offered for “free” for working families earning under $69,000-a-year under Labor’s new plan to make daycare cheaper for nearly one million families. Every family in Australia with a combined income under $175,000 will secure cheaper
By Leith van Onselen MB has previously lambasted the immigration ‘bait-and-switch’ deployed by former Prime Minister John Howard whereby he slammed the door shut on the relatively small number of refugees arriving into Australia by boat all the while stealthily shoving open the door to economic migrants arriving here by plane. The ultimate result was
According to The Australian: An exclusive Newspoll conducted for The Australian with three weeks to polling day shows the Coalition improving its position by a point to now trail Labor 49-51 on a two-party-preferred vote. It is the best result for the government under Scott Morrison’s leadership, but would still result in defeat and a loss of
Cross-posted from The Saturday Paper’s Mike Seccombe: Under the influence of religious conservatives, the vote of ethnic minorities won the 2016 election for the Coalition. It’s a bold statement, but the evidence is there in the data, says Andrew Jakubowicz, professor of sociology at the University of Technology Sydney. More specifically, he says, Malcolm Turnbull’s
