We continue to await the return of Newspoll for the year, which I imagine might be forthcoming ahead of the return of parliament next week. With Essential Research having an off week in the fortnightly cycle, this leaves me with nothing to report on the poll front. Two bits of electoral news worth noting are that the Liberals won the supplementary election for the Victorian state seat of Narracan as expected on Saturday, confirming lower house numbers of 56 for Labor, 19 for the Liberals, nine for the Nationals and four for the Greens; and that Northern Territory Chief Minister Natasha Fyles has announced that the by-election for the seat of Arafura, following the death of Labor member Lawrence Costa on December 17, will be held on March 18. With that, over to you.
I read once that when Abbott confided to a member of the select few his plan to restore knighthoods and honour the Duke of Edinburgh in the first round it was suggested to him by one brave soul that it wasn’t really a good idea.
“Yeah, but it will upset the left” he was said to have responded.
People who have written about Abbott’s life from his days at Uni through to the Prime Minister’s office, have said that was one of his missions.
To anger his opponents.
I view today’s speech through the same prism.
His supporters and fans will have loved it. I’m not the least surprised by it.
Rossmcg says:
Thursday, February 2, 2023 at 9:11 pm
I read once that when Abbott confided to a member of the select few his plan to restore knighthoods and honour the Duke of Edinburgh in the first round it was suggested to him by one brave soul that it wasn’t really a good idea.
“Yeah, but it will upset the left” he was said to have responded.
People who have written about Abbott’s life from his days at Uni through to the Prime Minister’s office, have said that was one of his missions.
To anger his opponents.
I view today’s speech through the same prism.
His supporters and fans will have loved it. I’m not the least surprised by it.
———————————————————————————————
He has always been adversarial and appeared devoid of substance or genuine intellect. Always an ideologue just looking for a fight.
Cronus 9.19pm I think that’s a fair comment.
Cronus
And his legacy is the modern Liberal Party. Totally bereft of ideas and just looking to start a fight on everything.
Even the bloody $5 note.
Quite a good article here by Malcolm Mackerras on the prospects of a Voice referendum.
Apparently we even voted down aviation as a Commonwealth power in 1937.
https://www.malcolmmackerras.com/articles/2023/2/1/the-past-is-not-a-foreign-country
Who could forget this character reference for RAbott
https://www.smh.com.au/national/abbott-lame-gay-churchy-loser-says-his-daughter-20090813-eiu1.html
Leon @ #1733 Thursday, February 2nd, 2023 – 7:40 pm
What Scott Ritter has to say is as believable as Donald Trump. He’s just another good man, gone bad.
At least Tony Abbott can’t award George Pell a Sainthood…
I think it was apposite that the Prime Minister, a Catholic, stayed away from George Pell’s funeral today.
Proving, you can be a Catholic, but not have to fall to your knees and pay tribute to someone of the same faith who you believe doesn’t deserve it.
Steve777_says:
Thursday, February 2, 2023 at 9:30 pm
“At least Tony Abbott can’t award George Pell a Sainthood…”
I think he tried.
The devil was in the detail.
Rossmcg says:
Thursday, February 2, 2023 at 9:11 pm
I read once that when Abbott confided to a member of the select few his plan to restore knighthoods and honour the Duke of Edinburgh in the first round it was suggested to him by one brave soul that it wasn’t really a good idea.
“Yeah, but it will upset the left” he was said to have responded.
The totally unemployable Abbott has to play to his support crowd.. it’s his only source of funds
How did Porter go in tbe RC today?
“Lars Von Trier says:
Thursday, February 2, 2023 at 9:25 pm
Quite a good article here by Malcolm Mackerras on the prospects of a Voice referendum.
Apparently we even voted down aviation as a Commonwealth power in 1937.”
Thanks Lars.
Conclusion: Learn from your past mistakes!
Vote YES to the Voice…
Boerwar @ #1750 Thursday, February 2nd, 2023 – 9:04 pm
Goodness me. Where to begin … 🙁
WWP
Porter was not the train wreck that was Tudge.
This is pretty fair summation.
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2023/feb/02/christian-porter-tells-inquiry-someone-in-department-assured-him-robodebt-was-legal-but-i-cant-recall-who
The focus was the period of Christmas New Year 2016-17 when it was hitting the fan and Porter was acting minister while Tudge was on leave (in England with his young family in case you had forgotten).
Porter was sent out with the talking points but he said as January came he realised he’d been sold a pup. Not happy. Said getting information from public servants was difficult.
Drive by of the day from Commissioner Holmes was to ask why, as a lawyer, he didn’t look at this through a lawyer’s eyes.
He said he didn’t think there were legal issues to be addressed …
But I would have asked him if he had concerns why was it simply handballed back to his junior minister Tudge and allowed to run for the best part of two years.
citizen says:
Thursday, February 2, 2023 at 9:51 pm
……..Mr Leeser described the working group’s presentation as comprehensive but said he still had questions that needed answering.
“I didn’t learn anything today that I didn’t already know,” he said. …….
**********
That’s because the originators of the Statement from the Heart have from the start of this process have been open and forthcoming. There’s only one side of this debate that’s playing games.
News from the Voice front:
“Peter Dutton has committed to more meetings with the referendum working group on the voice to parliament, but claims his first briefing from the Indigenous panel has done nothing to answer his questions about the constitutional change.
The group pushed back on calls from the shadow minister for Indigenous Australians, Julian Leeser, for further extensive consultation. Thomas Mayo, a key member of the working group, noted the voice had already been subject to years of inquiries, including from Leeser himself.
But Leeser, a long-term advocate of Indigenous constitutional recognition, hinted the Liberals were no closer to deciding to support the referendum, even after the meeting.”
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2023/feb/02/indigenous-voice-to-parliament-peter-dutton-liberal-julian-leeser-referendum-working-group
How many meetings do Dutton and Leeser still need in order for their questions to be answered to their satisfaction?… It’s all a political game for you, eh Dutton and Leeser?
Stalin was an amateur compared to Hitler if we are talking about deaths caused by one man.
Well if the Voice loses, based on Mackerras logic the High Court will find it exists in the Constitution anyway.
Cronus as you are an hour behind listen to the interview with Craig Stockings about his massive East Timor operation history on RN Late Night Live starting 10.05 pm (on now Sydney time).
Background to Stockings’ book at:
https://www.themandarin.com.au/210195-government-accused-of-silencing-australias-official-war-history-on-east-timor/
Lars at 9.25 pm
Malcolm Mackerras said the Libs would not lose the Bega by-election.
“Anger as Shell makes ‘obscene’ $40bn in profits.
Calls for larger windfall tax after surge in gas prices fuels ‘outrageous’ doubling of profits at Anglo-Dutch group.”
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2023/feb/02/shell-profits-2022-surging-oil-prices-gas-ukraine
So, better taxing the Multinationals isn’t such a bad idea, after all, eh?
“Labor multinationals policy ‘aligns with global agenda’
The incoming government’s tax policy aims to make global companies pay their fair share, says RSM Australia.
By Josh Needs•25 May 2022”
https://www.accountantsdaily.com.au/tax-compliance/17044-labor-multinationals-policy-aligns-with-global-agenda
Mackerras or slaughtered chicken entrails I guess Dr D.
The future cloudy it is as Master Yoda said.
“Lars Von Trier says:
Thursday, February 2, 2023 at 10:09 pm
Well if the Voice loses, based on Mackerras logic the High Court will find it exists in the Constitution anyway.”
But the YES to the Voice will win, hence the High Court won’t have to worry.
sprocket at 6.46 pm
Woolcott spent more than 3 crucial months ensuring Australia would not oppose the Indonesian incorporation of Portuguese Timor in 1975. His aim, reiterated in numerous cables from Jakarta, where he was ambassador, was to ensure that Australia did not, in his words, become a “party principal”.
Dr Doolittlesays:
Thursday, February 2, 2023 at 10:14 pm
Lars at 9.25 pm
Malcolm Mackerras said the Libs would not lose the Bega by-election.
——–
Mackerras was the founding father of australian psephology but i suspect his best days are behind him
citizensays:
Thursday, February 2, 2023 at 9:51 pm
For all the times that they state there are unanswered questions, they never seem to articulate them.
The most perverse result was in 1988. 70% of electors voted against the states being forced to give fair compensation for compulsorily acquiring property
Cronus
“ “ Anthony Albanese is expected to detail Australia’s preferred nuclear submarine option on American soil next month, alongside US President Joe Biden and his British counterpart Rishi Sunak – raising the prospect of a potential new boat design involving all three allies.”
And there’s the answer.”
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-02-02/joe-biden-tipped-to-host-aukus-announcement-albanese/101922328
Thanks. As I suggested yesterday the new British design SSNR, with US combat system and modified US design (S9G) reactor would fit this description. No other option does fit it. That is this one.
https://www.navalnews.com/naval-news/2023/01/britains-new-attack-submarine-to-be-first-with-vertical-launch-system/
The real question is timing and when construction starts. There is cost and timing risk in any new or modified design that the ADF is traditionally blind to.
That being said, if this is an expanded Astute with VLS and fixed reactor it will be an excellent sub, and we will have more control over it than if we built Virginias.
Presumably the entire reactor compartment will be built in Barrow, UK and transported to ASC as a module to be welded into rest of hull built at ASC. I’m guessing an outturn cost for eight of $130 billion.
So this is the best SSN option between UK and US options we have now. It will be superior to any known Russian or Chinese SSN, though so would Suffrens or Virginias. And hopefully a fair bit cheaper than the US option. They should be around $5 billion per sub in 2023 dollars.
Barney in Cherating @ #1778 Thursday, February 2nd, 2023 – 10:22 pm
Not to mention, did you notice, that, given the opportunity to have all their questions answered, they then turn around and say they didn’t learn anything they didn’t already know? But they ‘still have questions that need answering’!?!
“Leon says:
Thursday, February 2, 2023 at 10:07 pm
Stalin was an amateur compared to Hitler if we are talking about deaths caused by one man.”
Stalin: “A Soviet weekly newspaper today published the most detailed accounting of Stalin’s victims yet presented to a mass audience here, indicating that about 20 million died in labor camps, forced collectivization, famine and executions.”
https://www.nytimes.com/1989/02/04/world/major-soviet-paper-says-20-million-died-as-victims-of-stalin.html
Hitler: “By genocide, the murder of hostages, reprisal raids, forced labor, “euthanasia,” starvation, exposure, medical experiments, and terror bombing, and in the concentration and death camps, the Nazis murdered from 15,003,000 to 31,595,000 people, most likely 20,946,000 men, women, handicapped, aged, sick, prisoners of war, forced laborers, camp inmates, critics, homosexuals, Jews, Slavs, Serbs, Germans, Czechs, Italians, Poles, French, Ukrainians, and many others. Among them 1,000,000 were children under eighteen years of age.1 And none of these monstrous figures even include civilian and military combat or war-deaths.”
https://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/NAZIS.CHAP1.HTM
So, who killed more people: Stalin or Hitler?…. The numbers are about the same and they are HUGE! None of those two monsters was an “amateur”!
Socrates at 6.57 pm
It’s a bit obscured in that photo but the statue shows Stalin without a heart.
See lower view at: https://www.imago-images.com/st/0201477997
Even the nastiest distorted Great Patriotic War nostalgia reveals something.
OC thoughts on the Pontifical Requiem Mass today?
The new $5 banknote will feature Indigenous history instead of King Charles.
Good.
Oakeshott Country at 10.23 pm
That was Peter Reith, the mongrel oppositionist. Dutton cannot match him.
So Socrates based on your post its pretty clear that Labor’s campaign about the wasted $5bn on the French contract was BS. Labor would have taken exactly the same decision as ScoMo if they had originally been offered AUKUS – Albo said as much this week.
LVT
As a graduate of St Peter Pheils, Adamstown, (3 priests in prison at last count) I decided not to attend.
Abbott’s eulogy while showing some wit would have embarrassed much of the congregation. The singing of Ave Maria by those in the cortege was particularly dispirited.
As an aside:
My still observant sister took her country grandchildren to the cathedral for their end of holiday treat last weekend. Very disappointed that she couldn’t take them to the crypt. No doubt they were digging the hole to put him in.
Dr Doolittle
Thanks, well spotted on the Stalin photo.
This is a historical photo of Stalin at age 50 so you can see how flattering the bust is.
Lars
I see historical revisionism isn’t confined to Russia.
Night all.
Is Abbott stil looking for children he sired?
I note of Dutton, Howard and Abbott were present for Pell
Their right
But really, the 3 Stooges
The intention was to never allow same sex marriage and they did everything to oppose including filibuster citing an opinion process where they were looking to divide the question aka the Republic vote (so including models not the yes or no answer)
The real reason Turnbull was removed was that he progressed the same sex marriage question as a yes or no question
And that was the end of Turnbull
The presence of Howard, Abbott and Dutton (no doubt clapping Abbott’s bizarre address – bizarre because there was a complainant who was interrogated in regards his allegations AND was seen by the Court which actually saw him in the witness box as credible hence the guilty verdict The High Court only read transcripts of the evidence) says it all
Howard and Abbott, Morrison (another endorsed by Howard) and Dutton have seen the Liberal Party high jacked and no longer electable
The reasons were on display today
”
Scepticsays:
Thursday, February 2, 2023 at 9:38 pm
Rossmcg says:
Thursday, February 2, 2023 at 9:11 pm
I read once that when Abbott confided to a member of the select few his plan to restore knighthoods and honour the Duke of Edinburgh in the first round it was suggested to him by one brave soul that it wasn’t really a good idea.
“Yeah, but it will upset the left” he was said to have responded.
The totally unemployable Abbott has to play to his support crowd.. it’s his only source of funds
”
Abbott and Morrison are unemployable as of today yet they wanted to screw the unemployed of Australia.
“Lars Von Trier says:
Thursday, February 2, 2023 at 10:40 pm
So Socrates based on your post its pretty clear that Labor’s campaign about the wasted $5bn on the French contract was BS. Labor would have taken exactly the same decision as ScoMo if they had originally been offered AUKUS – Albo said as much this week.”
This week?… “Would have”?…. Lars, read here: “Aukus was championed by Morrison, who had claimed in the run-up to the 2022 election that “only this government would have initiated” it. Labor endorsed the arrangement in opposition”.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/feb/02/malcolm-turnbull-says-labor-has-failed-to-answer-if-aukus-deal-compromises-australian-sovereignty
Hence Labor went to the election endorsing Aukus. Why are you surprised that Labor endorses Aukus after the election?
What about “wasted $5bn on the French contract was BS.”?
“Earlier this month, the new Labor government announced it had agreed to pay French shipbuilder Naval Group $835 million in compensation for the scrapped deal. In total, $3.4 billion was spent on the program, a figure Mr Albanese labelled an “extraordinary waste” of taxpayer money.”
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-06-23/albanese-visit-to-paris-to-reset-australia-france-relationship/101176896#:~:text=Earlier%20this%20month%2C%20the%20new%20Labor%20government%20announced,Albanese%20labelled%20an%20%22extraordinary%20waste%22%20of%20taxpayer%20money.
It was a waste of money, because the billions spent produced nothing, and some of that money was paid due to the scrapped deal with the French…. Who scrapped the deal? … Who was the target of Macron’s accusation of being a liar?… Who is bullshitting!
The figure of 20M deaths attributed to Stalin seems to have been plucked from the first few lines in the Wikipedia entry.
Obviously few people have bothered to read any further.
But then we’re all programmed to read the headline and not worry about any of the possibly factual detail.
“Leon says:
Thursday, February 2, 2023 at 10:59 pm
The figure of 20M deaths attributed to Stalin seems to have been plucked from the first few lines in the Wikipedia entry.”
This is the quote:
“Stalin: “A Soviet weekly newspaper today published the most detailed accounting of Stalin’s victims yet presented to a mass audience here, indicating that about 20 million died in labor camps, forced collectivization, famine and executions.”
https://www.nytimes.com/1989/02/04/world/major-soviet-paper-says-20-million-died-as-victims-of-stalin.html
Where is the Wikipedia entry? In 1989 Wikipedia didn’t even exist, as it was created in 2001!
… Another one who needs an urgent course in rational posting…
Gees, should I start charging a fee for the service?
I’ve had a very busy day so just started to read through from the top of the morning but this was the first post so it’s going to be a long read haha!. The questions were great about the Voice and the Liberal party so I felt the need to respond. Sorry to those that have dissected and moved on already…
Mostly Interestedsays:
Thursday, February 2, 2023 at 9:14 am
You asked some great questions early this morning. I’m guessing the answer is in just how many high profile Liberal ‘elders’ (ex party members, donors, pollsters etc) are joining the ‘Yes’ camp already.
I feel ( hope?) this last week has been a turning point. Dutton joining in the voice working group and Lidia Thorpe backing off a little.
My view (again hope) is that the room has been read and they’ve been told. The Yes vote is on and they have to decide very quickly which side of history they’ll be on.
Imagine you’re the opposition leader that opposed a referendum question on an indigenous voice and it won in all states…oops
Imagine you’re the Greens representative that voted against what your people asked for and the Australian people delivered…oops
My day was busy because I’m working towards a definite ‘Yes’ over hope!
Sorry Alpo. I haven’t got enough time to teach you how to use Google tonight.
C@tmommasays:
Thursday, February 2, 2023 at 7:03 pm
Your post was David Rowe’s cartoon which was yet again cracker. The best cartoonist in the country for mine.
I am on the cusp of being offered a job in Canberra. If I get said job it will be a mission I’ll take on to see if I can meet him (though not sure if he’s still in Canberra or if he’s based elsewhere). Anyway I’ll be on mission from God (with all due deference to the Jake and Elwood)!
Russians KIA Feb 2: 920
Total Russians KIA: 129,030
Daily average Russians KIA: 375.1
Source: General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine
https://www.pravda.com.ua/eng/
Thanks for the summary Rossmcg appreciate it:
“Porter was sent out with the talking points but he said as January came he realised he’d been sold a pup. Not happy. Said getting information from public servants was difficult.
Drive by of the day from Commissioner Holmes was to ask why, as a lawyer, he didn’t look at this through a lawyer’s eyes.
He said he didn’t think there were legal issues to be addressed …
But I would have asked him if he had concerns why was it simply handballed back to his junior minister Tudge and allowed to run for the best part of two years.”
Yeah Trudge thinks he is smart, notwithstanding all his many many many failures and sins, I think Porter actually is quite smart. Hubris still got him, which is great, but it was a lot of hubris.