Australia General Discussion

[Smid]

I think you can put Senator Conroy in the Shorten camp. He made comments in an interview a couple of weeks ago, I think I commented on them higher up the thread.

Done! Another issue is what to do with MPs/Senators like Rudd, who won't announce their preference in public, but will almost certainly vote one way. Probably best to err on the side of caution.

Perhaps a "likely" column, or "unconfirmed" column?

[Smid]

So... rumbles I've heard is that Shorten has won the Caucus vote by 49-37 - so 57-43%, which is actually at the lower end of what I was expecting.

That means that Albanese would need to get somewhere around 59% of the membership vote to win. I believe Albo's grasp had slipped from about 60-63% to somewhere around 57-59%... I think this is going to be razor, razor thin. 

Interesting. You tend to have good sources in the Caucus, so my assumption is it's accurate - how confident are you in your sources on this information?

[Smid]

Are they the same sources who said Labor was going to have a net gain of seats in Queensland?

From Wikipedia, these are the relevant definitions:

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There is a fairly obvious difference between speculation about election results before a poll, and knowledge of the numbers of a leadership ballot that has already taken place.

Sources prior to the election may have been able to provide observations of the allocation of campaign resources, and Polnut may have made assumptions based on the analysis of that allocation, however I don't think anyone told him decisively that Labor would be gaining seats in Queensland. Predicted, perhaps, but not stated it to be actual.

[Smid]

Miranda state by-election in NSW tomorrow... who do you think will win?

I think the Liberals will hold, although there will be a large swing, given that Barry Collier is running for Labor again.

Libs will hold, the margin is too large, massively over-inflated of course, but still too large.

There was a leaked internal poll suggesting the ALP ahead 54-46... but it's internal polling and the Libs are CLEARLY trying to play the expectations game... I think Libs win by the reverse of that poll 54-46...

Not going to try to guess who will win, but the margin is less than the swing at the last election (ie, the seat changed hands at the last election)...

[Smid]

Isn't Miranda a 21% Lib margin?

Something like that. Just looked up my figures for 2007, and I may have entered them incorrectly in my spreadsheet, but looks like it was 50.76% Labor.

[Smid]

First Newspoll released since the election.

Primary Vote (bracketted number represents election result):

Coalition 47% (45.6%)
Labor      31% (33.3%)
Greens    10% (8.7%)
Others     12% (12.4%)

Two Party Preferred:
Coalition 56% (53.5%) vs Labor 44% (46.5%)



In other news, Tasmanian Labor is contemplating dumping the Greens Ministers once the Parliament goes into recess, as they won't be sitting again prior to the writs being issued for the election, but other members of caucus are apparently warning that it may be viewed by voters as a cynical attempt to swing votes, or as an addmission of the coalition agreement being a mistake.



Also, Australian soldiers are leaving Afghanistan. The Prime Minister took the Opposition Leader with him when he went to address troops, which is the first time both a PM and Opposition Leader have been on the same trip to Afghanistan.

[Smid]

The most interesting number for me is the total collapse of the 'other'. I'm not a polling geek, but my memory suggests that 'other' tends to rise significantly following an election and stays high until voter's minds are focussed by an election campaign. Instead, the figure has essentially halved compared to the election result, which I think may be a sign that Palmer's on the nose with his voters as much as with the rest of the country?

All in all it means very little. The Libs are never going to turf Abbott over poll numbers. The only real take-away for me is that I have gone from expecting Griffith to fall to the coalition in the by-election quite handsomely to somewhere about 50-50.

I only caught the topline numbers on the news this morning, and haven't looked at the finer detail yet. I tend to trust Nielson (my general assumption is if you get recent polls from Newspoll, Nielson and Galaxy, the real number is probably somewhere in the middle - and if two agree and one is off, the one that's off probably has a bad sample), so I'll assume this is correct, unless the next Newspoll disagrees, in which case I'll assume it's somewhere in the middle, unless there's a bounce in the next Nielson.

Having not seen the "others" poll number, I'll agree with your analysis of this figure and agree with it at face value. I may be wrong, but I also recall that "others" tend to over-poll/under-perform at the election. Same goes for the Greens, but to a lesser extent. Nationals tend to be the reverse, and I don't know why - perhaps voters in incumbent-held seats say "Liberal" when asked for their primary vote intention as a quick response, but given the Coalition Agreement, there is no Liberal candidate on election day? Anyway, I'm not sure of the reason for it, but the "others" always seem to be polling a good few percent - probably 5% above election results, Greens are often about 2% higher than election results, and Nationals about 2-3% below election results. I sort of make those assumptions in my head when looking at the numbers for myself.

I think "others" in the polls are people expressing an attitude of "a pox on both your houses" - a real protest vote of people who will end up voting one way or another on election day, but in the meantime are not prepared to support any of the parties individually reported (Liberal/Labor/Greens/Nationals). If that number has collapsed in this poll, I agree you're probably right - it's people who are looking at Clive Palmer and thinking "what an idiot" and not wanting to sound like they're supporting him. I think such people thought he was a bit of a joke before the election - he made plenty of outlandish comments and stunts during the campaign - but had rather written him off as a safe place to park a non-vote/protest vote (you can vote for Palmer as an alternative to voting informally, because he's not going to get up). Now that he's been elected, people are less willing to support him.

[Smid]

Question for you Aussies:

Do you guys fill out your entire ballot or does it look more like:

[3] LNP
[1] Greens
[] Family First
[2] Labor
[] Katter's Australian
[] Palmer United

?

The short answer is no, that would be an informal ballot at a federal election.

It would also be an informal ballot in Victorian state elections, however would be formal in Queensland and NSW state elections, which operate under Optional Preferential Voting (OPV) rules. I can't answer about the other states.

Federal rules allow one box to remain blank, so long as all other boxes have been consecutively numbered, starting with a "1" (the blank box being assumed to be the voter's final preference). In that case, a blank box doesn't act as a "wild card" though - it can't be used to substitute any missing number, only the final missing number.

[Smid]

I might also add further - the final box, although allowed to be blank, cannot have anything else in it... it either has to be blank, or have the final number in it. In the example you gave of 6 candidates: the boxes can be consecutively numbered 1-6, or consecutively numbered 1-5 and one box blank, but they cannot be numbered "1,2,3,5,6,blank" (4 is missing), nor could they be "1,2,3,4,5,99" nor "1,2,3,4,5, " (note, that frowny face is deliberate in this example).

Those final three examples there are all informal in federal elections, if my memory serves me correct (for OPV elections, the first one would be formal for the first three preferences, and the second and third examples would be formal for the first five preferences and therefore remain in the count at every step).

[Smid]

All in all, it seems like most people - especially in that area, which was hit on Back Saturday, but throughout the state - are both more tolerant of road closures and more willing to leave their houses early than they were in 2009.

This is good. As they emphasise in the literature, leaving early is the safest option.

I have four close friends on the fireline today. One was flown into East Gippsland last night and is on a five-day deployment, the other three left this morning on a one-day deployment to Morwell.

[Smid]

Yeah, I can't talk about much of that, but especially not the automotive manufacturing side of things, as you understand.

Cheers for my mates, they'll be right: well trained, well drilled; conditions today don't seem too bad from what I can tell (not much wind from what I can see, but I'm at my desk, a couple of hundred km from them). Your cousins in the CFA, how are they doing? Thoughts and prayers for your family up country.

[Smid]

I wonder why Shorten's approval is in free fall. AFAIK he hasn't made any major missteps for his approval to fall by that much.

There is a certain observable pro-Government bias in January/early-February polls, and I think also July/early-August polls, too. This was the case throughout the previous Government, but also through the Howard years. Seems to correlate with parliamentary recess, when Oppositions don't get the benefit of Question Time, plus plenty of MPs go away, so fewer media interviews... I think Governments tend to do better when politics isn't in the news.

[Smid]

Last year, I met my local Palmer candidate at the railway station and told him how disappointed I was that I hadn't received the DVD and he promised to try to get me one. He failed to deliver. If you're not going to keep it, I think the National Library has a collection of election-related materials.

[Smid]

Former independent Senator Brian Harradine has passed away

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[Smid]

I suspect this was a genuine mistake on his part, rather than a deliberate lie, however lying under oath is lying under oath, and that's what's brought him down - not that he accepted a bottle of wine. I suspect he won't have the book thrown at him, perhaps a plea bargain, or even if not, a not especially heavy sentence.

[Smid]

I suspect this was a genuine mistake on his part, rather than a deliberate lie, however lying under oath is lying under oath, and that's what's brought him down - not that he accepted a bottle of wine. I suspect he won't have the book thrown at him, perhaps a plea bargain, or even if not, a not especially heavy sentence.

I hope it was a genuine mistake too. As you said though, lying under oath is lying under oath.

Again... I'm conflicted. The general view is... how the hell do you forget receiving a bottle of Grange, let alone one that is that rare and valuable AND writing a thank you note, to someone that you're in fairy regular contact with?

That's the part that bothers me... it just makes so little sense. Plus, if he was unsure... why make such a strong and clear denial? 'I'm not 100% sure, please let me check records so I can be accurate in my testimony' - the media wouldn't like it... but it at least would be accurate. The look of horror on his face when the phone record was produced last night ... was special.

So, part of me thinks he either genuinely forgot (which I find odd and little disturbing) or he oversold his denial thinking he could get away with it.

I agree with almost all of this (I think it can make a bit more sense, and that there may be a reason he felt he didn't need to check records before responding, but I'll come back to that). I have also heard the look on his face was something to behold - but I think it was due to a high level of stress at realising he'd completely painted himself into a corner with strong denials that have turned out to be untrue. I still think it was mistake, rather than malicious, but regardless, he realised he'd made very strong denials and evidence has come out that they are untrue. I can understand a look of horror.

Not only is it a weird thing to lie over, it doesn't feel like it's resignation material. Very good chance that this isn't the end of it. Could just be the beginning.

I do understand... when you've spent the last what? 5-7 years running around saying "they're corrupt, we are (and most importantly I am) clean..." The scent, the whiff of something off, was going to kill his brand.

I also agree with both points raised here, well, minus the "not the end/just the beginning" bit. I think Polnut absolutely hits the nail on the head, that he has made such a stand on integrity, made it his number one issue, he really needed to put his money where his mouth is when confronted with lying under oath.


I suspect he forgot because delegations from all over bring gifts to meetings with Ministers, Premiers, Prime Ministers, even meetings with backbenchers. They do receive a fair number of gifts, and I don't think it completely unreasonable to forget it - we found a bottle of wine in our wine rack on the weekend, which was very clearly a gift, and I have absolutely no idea from whom I received it nor when (Grange, I'd probably remember, but then again, perhaps Grange isn't as big a deal to someone who has reached the top of state politics). Anyway, this is the reason we have a Register of Members' Interests in all Parliaments across Australia - to avoid gifts being used as bribes, it's harder to do that if you have to declare gifts.

Members do forget (occasionally) to enter something into the Register. They normally add it on at a later date, when they realise, and make a very brief statement to Parliament in which they apologise for the error. It's no big deal to occasionally forget to add something, at least, not if you remember to add it later.

Given that he received it as a "congratulatory gift" following the election, it doesn't strike me as odd to think he received probably a fair number of gifts and notes and the like at about that time, plus all the briefings to get him up to speed on forming government - that transitional period is very busy. I can completely understand why he may have forgotten receiving it.

I think he felt he could make such a strong statement, both to ICAC and to the media, because he checked his Pecuniary Interests forms beforehand - he was called to give evidence, not just for the sake of giving evidence, but because a previous witness testified that he'd sent this bottle of wine. I think that as soon as that witness's testimony was given, someone in the Premier's Office would have been checking the Register for that item, and not finding it. The Premier would have been fully briefed that it doesn't appear on the Register, and he would have prepared specifically for that question prior to giving evidence. Remember: the question didn't just pop up at a media conference, or when a journalist asked to follow up a lead - he wouldn't have needed to say "I'll go and check my records" because he would already have done so. His failure here doesn't relate to not giving a tentative answer when he should have, the failure is in the record keeping.


I am most likely biased, and I do have a tendency to trust people and take them at their word - or at the very least, look for a way in which they aren't deliberately being untruthful, but maybe through a misunderstanding or through miscommunication may be attempting to be honest but mistakingly giving a false answer. I try to over-ride my biases when it comes to MPs caught out on issues in their personal lives (as opposed to policy - and I consider bribery and corruption a personal flaw, not a policy flaw) by trying to objectively ask myself how I'd respond if the MP was on the opposite side - if a criticism is levelled at a Liberal MP, I ask myself if I'd be defending their actions if they were a Labor MP, and if it's a Labor MP, I ask myself if I'd be criticising them if they were a Liberal. I may not actively criticise a Liberal/defend a Labor MP publicly, or here on the Forum, but I certainly would in private with close friends (and the absence of recording devices!!!). Indeed, there was a Labor MP criticised for something in the past twelve months, where I refused to comment on the allegations because I believed the MP's version of events, and in private I did comment on them because when people asked me what I thought, I thought it important to voice my opinion that I thought the MP was being a bit hard-done-by (for reference, I don't think anyone on here would even remember the MP/incident, it was in the paper for about a day or two before it died down).

Anyway, that said, I may be biased in this, but I honestly think O'Farrell has done nothing maliciously wrong. I certainly don't believe he acted corruptly: there is nothing wrong with accepting a bottle of wine, even a $3,000 bottle of wine (assuming it is declared). There is also nothing wrong with honestly forgetting to declare it (though there are very important reasons why it needs to be declared, especially when it's received from someone so caught up in corruption allegations - I don't think it's resign-worthy, though). I think he honestly had forgotten that he'd received the wine, that he checked to make sure, that he felt he could make these statements under oath and again to the media. I think that the mention of the phonecall and his look of horror was not that he'd failed to bury the evidence, but that moment when the penny dropped that obviously he had received it and that he was now in the position where his entire career was unravelling before his eyes. I feel terribly and utterly sorry for the man and I empathise with that punch to the guts he must have been feeling.

Having therefore lied under oath, even if unintentionally, although I think he may have been able to weather the storm (at a greatly reduced popularity in the polls), he really had to resign. I think most people would have tried going on, but I think O'Farrell knew the horrible decision he had to make and I think he followed his conscience and felt it was the only way he could maintain at least part of his integrity.

If further evidence comes out that he had, in fact, acted corruptly, I reserve my right to change my opinion of O'Farrell, but I honestly believe he did the right, honourable and noble thing in resigning, and that he did so at great personal cost, and I think that demonstrates the importance he places in his own integrity.

[Smid]

I can't say much about Victorian politics, those who know me know my reasons. 

Won't say much about Labor's candidate in Macedon, but there is an excellent Liberal candidate there.

Redistribution isn't as cut and dried as Hifly suggests. Benefits the government in some areas and the opposition in others. Overall, reasonably balanced.

I could elaborate further but not in writing and not on a public forum.

[Smid]

No time to elaborate, but Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters makes excellent recommendations regarding Senate voting: Optional Preferential, including for Above-the-Line voting. See Antony Green's blog for details.

[Smid]

You have that completely around the wrong way.

The person jeopardising the future of Victoria is Daniel Andrews, who has shown exceptionally poor judgement over the past couple of weeks, as demonstrated by his bad decisions. You can't simply tear up contracts following an election and think it won't affect the State's future ability to attract investment - if you could, the Myki and Desal contracts would have been torn up long ago. It's not the Liberals who are risking billions - it's Labor. If they tear up the contracts, the state will lose billions in infrastructure funding from Canberra and have to pay compensation and damages. The East West Link was originally proposed by Sir Rod Eddington in his Report to the previous Labor Government. Daniel Andrews has said throughout the year how only an irresponsible government would tear up contracts, and now he said he will do exactly that. He will say and do anything to try to win votes. He is risking the future of the state for political point scoring. That's why a wide range of groups over the past few days have rubbished his backflip. Daniel Andrews is willing to gamble billions of dollars and thousands of jobs because he thinks it will win him votes.

[Smid]

The Desal contract may have been signed well before the election, but at the previous election, Labor had said that they would not build a Desal plant, and rubbished the Liberal water policy for proposing to build one. Labor didn't have the guts to take that horrendous contract to the people, they just built it and put that millstone around the necks of Victorians. By comparison, nobody ruled out East West Link prior to the last election. Furthermore, funding was announced in the 2013/14 Budget - eighteen months ago. There has been a process. It's not a last-minute thought-bubble, raced through before the election. There is already a caretaker period before an election, in which a Government cannot make decisions which bind a future Government. That already exists, it's a long-established tradition of the Westminster system. You are proposing changing that - pushing it back to two Budgets prior to an election in a four-year term.

If this was like the GST, or the Carbon Tax, where there had been an unequivocal statement of the Government explicitly ruling it out, than yes, the Government should then not change a clearly stated and committed policy - it would need to be taken to the electorate. There was no such statement prior to the 2010 election, there is no need to delay a policy that has already seen substantial planning and pre-development work.

Labor has previously supported East West Link. When the Government announced Stage 1, which will complete the Eastern half of the missing link, Labor said that the priority should be the Western half. When the Government announced Stage 2, the Western half of the missing link, Labor suddenly opposed the whole project. Here is an endorsement from the Leader of the Opposition for Stage 2 of the East West Link, which he now opposes, taken from his address to the Press Club:

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You will note that he even acknowledges the productivity benefits of East West Link.

What we can see from this is that Labor's opposition to East West Link is not from a policy perspective, not a measured and considered position - it's more about fighting off the threat of the Greens in the inner-city seats. That's why Daniel Andrews will say and do anything on East West Link now, like trash Victoria's reputation in international investment markets by proposing to tear up contracts between the State and industry, which would result in less value for money in future infrastructure projects.

This is why the announcement by Daniel Andrews has little to do with East West Link as a policy and more to do with his character and his judgement and the sorts of decisions he makes.

I think the people see through it, too. There was a Morgan poll on Friday - "Regardless of who you intend to vote for at the State Election in November, should the construction of the East-West Tunnel link proceed?" - which found that almost two-thirds (63.5%) of voters support the Tunnel construction, including more than half of voters supporting Labor. Victorians, including Labor voters, don't want Daniel Andrews to trash the State's reputation for his own political gain.

Daniel Andrews is willing to risk jobs, infrastructure improvements, productivity gains and the State's reputation in his desperate gamble for votes.

[Smid]

Both parties did not support the Desal plant as built by Labor. The Liberals had proposed a modest Desal plant, Labor rubbished the idea prior to the election and then afterwards, they immediately built a massive Desal plant, the size of which is completely unnecessary. It will cost Victorians almost $20 billion over 30 years, even if no water has been ordered (and to date, no water has been ordered).

The size of the plant and the contract is completely disproportionate to Victoria's water needs, but despite that, the contract has not been torn up, unlike the irresponsible threats made by Daniel Andrews in the past week.

Daniel Andrews had previously said that if elected, he would honour the contracts. Indeed, he said:

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A fortnight later and now he says:

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By his own previous standards and comments, he does not value Victoria's reputation, he admits that he'll be telling the World that Victoria is closed for business, but he just doesn't care. He admits that it will cost jobs but that's a price he's willing to pay in order to win votes.

[Smid]

I recall that dam levels were low. That was why the Liberals were the only party that went to the 2006 election with a policy of building a desalination plant - a policy that Labor rubbished and then implemented, except that the Liberal plan was for a smaller and less-expensive plant. Not the $20 billion white elephant built by Labor. Labor's desalination plant did not make sense.

Much like how Labor now opposes East West Link, they originally opposed the Liberal-proposed desal plant. They also opposed CitiLink in 1995/96 - indeed, the Labor Opposition Leader at the time, John Brumby, threatened to tear up those contracts as well. Those projects were needed and built despite Labor's opposition to them. Congestion is bad enough already, let alone if CitiLink wasn't built.

There is also a need for East West Link. That's why VECCI, AIG and Infrastructure Australia all expressed concern at the irresponsible threats made by Daniel Andrews. Even the AWU is concerned about the jobs his new position now threatens. There is also a deep rift within his Shadow Cabinet - several senior Shadow Ministers were unaware of his new position prior to reading about it on his Twitter account and have been not-so-quietly grumbling about his lack of leadership.

The position you've attributed to Andrews is actually the position he held prior to last week's backflip. That's not surprising, though, he's been all over the shop since the project was first announced.

You are still forgetting the point - this isn't a newly-announced project. It was included in the Victorian Budget eighteen months ago. Since then, there has been considerable work carried out. Private enterprise has spent millions on the work needed to complete the tendering process. To say that the contracts need to be delayed further, rejects the entire notion of the caretaker period, which prevents governments from making decisions that bind a future government during the final period prior to an election, while allowing governments to make decisions and commitments prior to the caretaker period. We are not yet in caretaker therefore the Government is perfectly entitled to enter into contracts to implement policy that was announced eighteen months ago.

Daniel Andrews admitted that Labor lost the 2010 election because it failed to invest in infrastructure for Melbourne's growing population. He hasn't learnt from the past and is threatening to repeat it. As I've already mentioned, he recognises "there'll be obviously jobs that could potentially be at risk" from his policy, that he'll "send a message to the World that we're closed for business" and that he is proposing "a very silly thing to do" that would not be done by "a government that actually values our state's reputation and good name", nor even "a responsible party that wants to govern." Now we can see that he's also willing to gamble the ability to cope with population growth.

[Smid]

What exactly is confusing you?

From what I understand, people seeking asylum in Australia are kept at detention centres in Nauru while their claims are processed, when they are done processing them, most are sent to PNG or Cambodia.

People are mad about the very poor conditions at the centres in Nauru, which pretty much everyone agrees are terrible. There is also an undercurrent that some don't want such centres existing at all, even if they were run better. They just want Australia to accept pretty much all the asylum seekers.

Additionally, some human rights workers in the camps have been caught encouraging people to self-harm in order to create a "Desperate refugee attempts suicide due to inhumane laws" news story.

[Smid]

RIP

[Smid]

The 13 year old daughter of the Victorian Agriculture Minister passed away this morning. A tragedy for any family, but I am especially saddened because Jaala Pulford is a genuinely nice person.