James Massola of the Age/Herald reports that “expectations (are) growing that former Prime Minister Scott Morrison will quit politics”, probably between the May budget and the end of the year, entailing a by-election for his seat of Cook. Please let it be so, because a valley of death stretches before those of us in the election industry out to the second half of next year, to be followed by a flood encompassing the Northern Territory on August 24, the Australian Capital Territory on October 19, Queensland on October 26 and Western Australia on March 8 the following year (UPDATE: It’s noted that the Queensland local government elections next March, inclusive as they are of the unusually significant Brisbane City Council and lord mayoralty, should rate a mention). A normal federal election for the House of Representatives and half the Senate could happen in the second half of 2024 or the first of 2025, the alternative of a double dissolution being presumably unlikely.
Redistributions will offer some diversion in the interim, particularly after the Electoral Commissioner calculates how many House of Representatives seats each state is entitled to in the next parliament on June 27. This is likely to result in Western Australia gaining a seat and New South Wales and Victoria each losing one (respectively putting them at 16, 46 and 38), initiating redistribution processes that are likely to take around a year. There is also an outside chance that Queensland will gain a thirty-first seat. The Northern Territory will also have a redistribution on grounds of it having been seven years since one was last conducted, although this will involve either a minimal tweak to the boundary between Solomon and Lingiari or no change at all. At state level, a redistribution process was recently initiated in Western Australia and should conclude near the end of the year. The other state that conducts a redistribution every term, South Australia, gives its boundaries commission wide latitude on when it gets the ball rolling, but past experience suggests it’s likely to be near the end of the year.
However, the main electoral event of the foreseeable future is undoubtedly the Indigenous Voice referendum, which is likely to be held between October and December. Kevin Bonham has a post on polling for referendum in which he standardises the various results, which differ markedly in terms of their questions and response structures, and divines a fall in support from around 65% in the middle of last year to around 58% at present. For those of you with access to academic journals, there is also a paper by Murray Goot of Macquarie University in the Journal of Australian Studies entitled “Support in the Polls for an Indigenous Constitutional Voice: How Broad, How Strong, How Vulnerable?” In narrowing it down to credible polls with non-binary response options (i.e. those allowing for uncommitted responses of some kind, as distinct from forced response polls), Goot finds support has fallen from around 58% to 51% from the period of May to September to the period of October to January, while opposition had risen from 18% to 27%. The change was concentrated among Coalition supporters: whereas Labor and especially Greens supporters were consistently and strongly in favour, support among Coalition fell from around 45% to 36%.
Forced response questions consistently found between 60% and 65% in favour regardless of question wording, while non-binary polls (i.e. allowing for various kind of uncommitted response) have almost invariably had at over 50%. Goot notes that forced response polls have found respondents breaking between for and against in similar proportion to the rest, which “confounds the idea that, when push comes to shove, ‘undecided’ voters will necessarily vote no”. However, he also notes that questions in non-binary polls that have produced active majorities in favour have either mentioned an Indigenous Voice or the Uluru Statement from the Heart, or “rehearsed the Prime Minister’s proposal to amend the Constitution”. One that conspicuously did not do any of these things was a Dynata poll for the Institute of Public Affairs, which got a positive result of just 28% by priming respondents with a leading question and then emphasised that the proposal would involve “laws for every Australian”. JWS Research got only 43% in favour and 23% against, but its response structure was faulted by Goot for including a “need more information” option, which ruled the 20% who chose it out of contention one way or the other.
98.6
Spear fishing on dive wrecks?
Not in WA
HMAS Swan sunk off Dunsborough in WA supports a good recreational dive business I believe.
No fishing within 200m of wreck.
”
WeWantPaulsays:
Thursday, April 13, 2023 at 6:08 pm
Lovely to see Dutton’s ‘dog act’ getting called out as it should.
The nasty fascist was part of a Government that had more than a decade to take actions to close the gap. He is an utter disgrace and unfit to be a lollipop attendant, let alone leader of his majestys opposition. What a scum bag.
”
“Boofhead” – that is what Albanese called him once in parliament.
That is as famous in Australia as Gillard misogyny speech. 🙂
The IGA company must be extremely reckless to allow three IGA supermarkets in Alice Springs to be run by out-of-control violent drunken mobs. No wonder Dutton refused to talk to any of their shoppers.
When is the next Newspoll due? will be keen to see the impact on polls of Duttons stunts and voice opposition
”
Socratessays:
Thursday, April 13, 2023 at 6:35 pm
Arky
On Bridget Joyce
“The university grad, 22, is now a senior parliamentary adviser for John Barilaro”
Yeah, the title of “senior adviser” is meaningless in politics isn’t it. 22 years old fresh out of uni, daughter of Barnaby, straight to “senior adviser”. Are the junior advisers only there when they get out of primary school for the day?”
In systems where incomes are fixed and tied to levels, inflating position levels is simply a way of boosting salaries. I’d bet the percentage of ministerial staff rated “Senior” has gone steadily up under the LNP.
Still at least 22 year old Ms Joyce had a degree. Former staffer Bruce Lehrman was made “senior adviser” in defence at age 23 as a uni drop out.
When I started as an engineer in the public service back in the 1980s, there were fixed progression scales for each year of practice and training from when you started as a graduate, with salary increments. Going from “Graduate Engineer” to “Engineer” took a minimum of 5 years, assuming satisfactory performance. It took another 4 years to go from “Engineer” to “Senior Engineer”. Even if you did a PhD, it was impossible to become a Senior Engineer before you turned 30. I managed to make Principle Engineer when I was 36, by which time I had completed 3 degrees.
”
Socrates
I have a similar story. I sometimes wonder whether we Engineers are naive to believe that world works on or should work on meritocracy.
This Bruce Lehrman gets more and more intriguing. Was he thought of as the next Morrison? The more you fail the more you are kicked upstairs i.e the more successful you become.
@Ven
In my naivety I always thought you actually need some skills or expertise to be an advisor or senior advisor but for the LNP, if your have the right parents that is all that counts, guess the born to rule mantra still hold for the National party.
2 g b were carying on about jacinta price being the spokesman only rproblim is the indiginis leadership do not like her she is to contravercial and only apeels to the hard right and plus she is in the nationals and leecer is a liberal hpow can she be a effective spokesmanwhen she dislikes all themain indiginis leaders she is similar toa sertain president what was she doing on alice springs cowncil from 2015 to 2021 that is 6 years including serving as deputy mayor was she interested in solving the problims or using this as a platform for a federal run her mother was also briefly a nt mp from 2012 to 2016 when the devided clp government was thrown out after a single term after 4 years of infighting andprice nelly lost the clp senate seat with there worst result ever
isnt there a court case in regional qld hopefuly that might proced the staffer worked there way up through lnp and worked for brandis as well thecontravercial mp ross vasta also worked for brandis who appointed his former chief of staff as one of the stacked aat apart from porter and cash brandis is our worst agterney general trashed rule of law he is a good interlect and a goodcolumnist but that does not stop his undermining of the huuman rights comition plus the liberals cut programs designed toreduce violents in places like alice springs desbite the warnings frrom kenn whyatt im glad to see 2 gb by forcing all the moderits to leaves is turning the liberals in toa extreme us party which is un electible how ever it is bad for democrasy when one party has total control look at qld 2012 2015 at least mcgowan seems like he hasnt got power hungrey imagin morrison if he had a land slide he would be minister for evrything
Boerwar says:
Thursday, April 13, 2023 at 7:35 pm
pi
As you know, I am a generous poster.
________________________\Actually your a sanctimonious hypocrite.
Dutton’s approach to the Voice goes to the heart of the Coalition’s corruption: bad faith lying. There can be no trust. There is no integrity. Anyone can be sacrificed. Politics is a form of anti-social Darwinism with the Coalition’s inner scum rising to the surface and the nastiest, most conniving and most vicious rising to the top. ﹰPrograms are corrupted. ﹰManagement is corrupted. ﹰPolicy is corrupted. National security is compromised. The environment is trashed. Time itself is trashed. The past is put away. The future is eaten. There is only a savage ever-rolling present of dog eat dog and the devil take the hindmost.
Envy, cynicism, fear and loathing debase the social coinage.
Larsland.
Thanks for that info re avatar C@t.
Slept in and straight out the door for the day.
Will check it out.
Cheers!
Perhaps Dutton’s clearly limited number of brain cells keep telling him that he is still Minister for Home Affairs. The guy is only programmed one way. A one trick pony who will walk straight into each and every political trap set for him.
About the falling birth rate in Japan (and South Korea):
1) The primary reason, among many, is the emancipation of women. Young women today just refuse to live the same life as their mothers insofar as their after work jobs of childbearer, childminder, teacher, wife, cook, cleaner, blow-up doll, punching bag and the whole thing were a tad too taxing. Japanese/Korean men are expected to spend 12 or more hours 6 days a week at the office followed by untold hours at bars and …er… establishments of ill-repute – all in the name of team bonding.
As post WWII educational standards increased for men and women, and as wages and home prices increased with greater capitalist prosperity, women’s wage packets became integral in the pursuit of more and more affluence. Therefore, the role of women has become more and more powerful – hence their rejection of the ‘old ways’.
It’s no wonder that the marriage rate has fallen commensurate with the declining birthrate. Why on Earth would a modern, educated, sophisticated Japanese/Korean woman want marriage to a man who comes home in the early hours wanting his dinner and a dud root before he falls into a drunken stupor and snores and farts away the rest of the night.
2) The stresses and competition for status in the most Confucianised countries on Earth are intense. Even in modern times, mothers are expected to rise at dawn to awaken their children throughout their final year of High School. They spur their child on by preparing breakfast and get them to study harder and harder for their final exams. Most kids study for 15 hours a day or more! The kids go to school, then any number of private academies for after-school tuition in an attempt to get ahead of the pack. If they do well in these exams, they get to enter a university of a high standard and their career is laid out accordingly. Confucianism means hierarchy and education is the best way to raise your status in terms of employment and marriage prospects. It’s utterly brutal. As women are at the bottom of the hierarchical periodical table, can you blame them for not wanting marriage or motherhood in such societies?
I dated one such woman in a decade of teaching in Korea. She had no idea about such western concepts as ‘equality’ or ‘respect’. If I may be allowed a little boast, I changed her outlook on life.
Jeez I miss her…
Aaron Newton
The degree of restraint within and between Indigenous leaders is in marked contrast to that evident in non-Indigenous leaders, ATM. No Indigenous leader has accused any other Indigenous leader of a ‘dog act’ for example.
There has been silence on Mundine and on Price.
Langton did argue the toss about Thorpe’s views when Thorpe’s views were those of the Greens.
What SHOULD worry Dutton is that Little has piled in on him, that Wyatt has deserted him and that the elders of Alice Springs are uniformly getting stuck into him in one way or another.
His pretence that he was nobly going out into the regions to talk to elders about fixing child sex abuse and domestic violence as compared to Albanese who was indulging in a Canberra Bubble vanity project has collapsed around Dutton’s ears.
Bwana Dutton’s White Man’s Burden Act is dead in the water.
even if dutton was to take up cris kenneys sugestion of defecting to the liberals which is not her desition which have to be aproved by clp which would block itshe is to extreme that she would be not able to convince any body other then sky news and 2gb types as to aposing the voice keryn little might be a more main stream option if dutton wants any chance of staying as leader how ever his leadership is finished reguardlis he is the mmost openly raceist opposition leader sincethe labor leader before whitlam basickly very similar to hanson if dutton wants his party completely distroyed and all the inner sity and suburbin seats wiped out he should appoint the devisive jacinta price who isabout as effective as a sertain former us president and about as inteligent to
Good to see Dutton being called out for his dog whistling from a variety of sources. I think he’s lost more than he’s gained from this disingenuous visit.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-04-13/peter-dutton-alice-springs-nt-crime-violence-crisis/102217208
Santa
Thanks. Interesting post.
dutton has a rather creepy obsetion with sexualizing woman portrayingbasickly de huminizing themthis is way worse then morrisons ishues with female votersapart from the negative no to evrything dutton realy has one mode evin lacking the personality that makes trump tolerable and abott could compensate his unlikable extreme conservatizm with being a bloakey footy fan fire fighting and his stunt on payed perential leaves to seem more sensative dutton lacks any likability he is probaly one of the most unlikable leaders ever i think ferivanti wells speech discribes dutton more then morrison at least morrison had some likability the daggy dad sharkes persona and a sence of humour dutton lacks this
‘Aaron newton says:
Thursday, April 13, 2023 at 8:50 pm
dutton has a rather creepy obsetion with sexualizing… ‘ politics in general.
the damage is dun duttonis not smart and the liberals need to get rid of him imeditly for our democrasy as a labor supporter i want a long term government and fear if we win in a land slide we might get a bit complasent like the terible qld lib and clp governments which fell apart after one term if thethe onlyperson that can save the libs now is kean
Dr Fumbles Mcstupidsays:
Thursday, April 13, 2023 at 8:24 pm
@Ven
In my naivety I always thought you actually need some skills or expertise to be an advisor or senior advisor but for the LNP, if your have the right parents that is all that counts, guess the born to rule mantra still hold for the National party.
——————-
Ministerial staffers are normally in their 20s but the CoS is normally older and the department will allocates additional resources to support the minister’s office.
nowel pearson did attack price once pointing her links with liberal hard right think tanks center for independent studies foundid by our abcs switser and ipa
if price did not serve a long stint on the alice springs cowncil where the violents is occuring and happind for years while dutton was in cabenit and did nothing six years2015 to 2021is a reasonable time to have atempted to address the problims given the clp controled the cowncil maybi she is genuwonly concerned about this but what about the mayor she served under damian ryan who was mayor from 12008 to 2021 a 14 year stint only steped down to run for federal parliament using the crime ishue to play politics
They are getting a little carried away, its just another cyclone.
https://earth.nullschool.net/#current/wind/surface/level/orthographic=-239.25,-19.98,6574/loc=118.480,-19.048
Re the Senior Advisor thing, many years ago in my failed hack stage I briefly explored political staffer as a way to escape my then big 5 role.
In essence unless you had a good public service level where you would keep your level the pay was appalling, a massive pay cut compared to a not very senior big role. And as Ms Rugg has claimed it was no secret the demands were absurd and would be illegal in any industry.
On the positive side there was no risk the stupid and incompetent ministers would ever find themselves smarter staffers for the money.
If you didn’t think of it an an unpaid internship leading to pre-selection it was a very unappealing possibility.
And on the positive side little Barnaby could be a worse person or a worse minister than her father if she tried.
Asha says about Dutton :
Opposition Leader of Queensland may be open to him in a few years.
Though, probably not if he leads the Liberals to a thumping loss federally.
……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
98.6 says :
How dare you even think about inflicting on us QLDers that horrible scenario.
Its bad enough now that he calls himself a QLDer.
He may think he has a chance at beating Albanese but he knows he will never
unseat Annastacia.
Could NOT!
Apropos of nothing in particular, here’s the satellite view of Cyclone Ilsa a little while ago, from Weatherzone, Day/Night view:
Been There @ #1312 Thursday, April 13th, 2023 – 8:40 pm
My pleasure. Can’t wait to see what you come up with! 🙂
Steve777
The current wind speeds are well below 200km an hour.
https://earth.nullschool.net/#current/wind/surface/level/orthographic=-239.25,-19.98,6574/loc=118.480,-19.048
Its a category 3.
Boerwar says :
Bwana Dutton’s White Man’s Burden Act is dead in the water.
……………………………………………………………………………………………………..
98.6 says :
Everyday I find a little gem among PBs and Boerwar’s ‘Bwana’ is today’s gem.
Describes Dutton to a tee.
”Its a category 3.”
It’s developed rapidly. It’s now a Category 5, wind gusts up to 285 kph.
Frednk
There’s been a gust to 195kmh at the BoM recorder on Bedout Island off the Pilbara coast.
But Gerard Rennick reckons the BoM falsifies things …
Edit: truth is there’s nobody there so nobody knows and nobody probably wants to find out.
Rossmcg says:
Thursday, April 13, 2023 at 9:25 pm
Frednk
There’s been a gust to 195kmh at the BoM recorder on Bedout Island off the Pilbara coast.
That I believe.
Category 4 is 225 to 279, it might make it.
Among a litany of really vile things that Peter Dutton said while he has been in Alice Springs, this takes the cake:
During his visit, Mr Dutton repeated claims that sexual abuse was occurring around Alice Springs and not being addressed.
“[Police and social workers] have kids taking them back into homes where they’ve been sexually assaulted and six-year-olds grabbing onto their legs begging not to be left there,” Mr Dutton said.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-04-13/peter-dutton-alice-springs-nt-crime-violence-crisis/102217208
Webb’s Marvel: Each dot in this picture is a galaxy, each galaxy has billions of suns
https://www.indiatoday.in/science/story/james-webb-telescope-hubble-deep-field-view-galaxies-star-formation-suns-solar-system-2359399-2023-04-13
Steve777 says:
Thursday, April 13, 2023 at 9:16 pm
Apropos of nothing in particular, here’s the satellite view of Cyclone Ilsa a little while ago, from Weatherzone, Day/Night view:
………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
Congratulations Steve, I see from the ultra sound photo that you posted that you are soon to be a daddy
to Ilsa.
frednk @ #1330 Thursday, April 13th, 2023 – 9:19 pm
Not as of 30 minutes ago they aren’t.
Steve777 says:
Thursday, April 13, 2023 at 9:25 pm
”Its a category 3.”
It’s developed rapidly. It’s now a Category 5, wind gusts up to 285 kph.
From the reporting I was expecting great things when I went to look at nullschool, was not happening.
“ Dominion’s lawyers are now asserting Fox had belatedly divulged that Murdoch was not only executive chairman of Fox Corp but also the executive chair of Fox News.
Fox’s legal team countered that the late disclosure was due to ignorance rather than duplicity and (bizarrely) that Murdoch himself had no idea until recently that he was the channel’s executive chair.”
Sounds just like Morrison. 😆
https://www.smh.com.au/business/companies/the-murdoch-brand-is-on-trial-as-dominion-pressure-escalates-20230413-p5d07o.html
224kmh 121mph at Bedout.
Latest forecast on abc update is for gusts up to 315kph.
Rossmcg says:
Thursday, April 13, 2023 at 9:40 pm
224kmh 121mph at Bedout.
Only just, but still category 3.
Rain radar is pretty wild.
http://www.bom.gov.au/products/IDR163.loop.shtml#skip
RP says:
Thursday, April 13, 2023 at 9:52 pm
Latest forecast on abc update is for gusts up to 315kph.
As the highest recorded to hit Australia (monica 2006 ) was 250Km/hour, I wouldn’t put money on it.
Fred
Cat 3 or cat 5?
It’s windy and it will threaten property and lives
Hopefully anybody in the vicinity can keep safe
That’s really all that matters
Dr Fumbles Mcstupid says:
Thursday, April 13, 2023 at 7:55 pm
@98.6
I also saw a documentary of the Indian ship recycling with all the pollution ans waste from it and the impoverished workers and dangerous working conditions, certainly not something to applaud
………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….
98.6 says :
Could have been the same doco as I think I remember some of those things you mention.
No, certainly not something to applaud.
Unfortunately, I’ve seen too many similar docos on plastic, clothing, rubbish etc re-cycling and its not a pretty sight.
With India about to overtake China as the world’s most populous nation I doubt we will see any better working conditions for their people this century.
Still, if India can show the world how to recycle a ship, maybe other countries like China can do the same without the drawbacks we have mentioned.
Certainly, better than polluting our oceans and sea life by sinking them so some one can dive down and swim around them instead of looking at what nature has provided under the sea.
Rossmcg says:
Thursday, April 13, 2023 at 10:04 pm
Fred
Cat 3 or cat 5?
It’s windy and it will threaten property and lives
Yep. You need a 5 to start blowing semitrailers around.
Fred
Google is your friend
Severe Tropical Cyclone Vance was a tropical cyclone that struck Western Australia during the active 1998–99 Australian region cyclone season, and was also one of six tropical cyclones to form off the coast of Australia during that season. When making landfall the Learmonth Meteorological Office (35 km south of Exmouth) recorded the highest Australian wind gust of 267 km/h (166 mph).[1] The previous highest gust was 259 km/h (161 mph) at nearby Mardie during Cyclone Trixie.[2] This record was surpassed in 2010 after a world record wind-gust of 408 km/h (254 mph) at Barrow Island during Cyclone Olivia in 1996 was declared official by the World Meteorological Organisation.
It baffles me why so many in the Murdoch empire worship Senator Price, to me she is just a rather nasty loudmouth who I doubt speaks for the vast majority of indigenous people in Australia.
Peter Dutton is a race baiter, he is doing it again in Alice Springs, it is similar to his claim that African gangs were apparently invading Melbourne. The bloke appeals to the worst instincts of those on the far right, no wonder Pauline Hanson now thinks she is an unofficial member of the Shadow Cabinet.