Aussies and NZers: Four seasons in one protest

[Wall Flower]

3 hours ago, karaddin said:

Yeah I have a healthy distrust of polling which shows the right wing party trailing after the last 5 or 6 years, whether people lie or simply change their minds as the moment of truth arrives it never stays safe right up to the end. That said there should be real, concrete issues hurting the coalition but I won't assume the public will actually be consistent on that. 

Not just the public, unfortunately. A lot of the media is letting the Gov't off the hook on those issues - deliberately in the case of Murdoch journos at Pravda and through laziness or love of their insider status in other cases.

[Jeor]

It'll be a close one come election day. Labor ahead but in terms of campaigning, this is ScoMo's bread and butter (even if he is damaged goods at this time) whereas as @Paxter points out, not necessarily Albo's strong point. The more I think about it, Albo's gaffes were made worse given the fact the Cpalition had telegraphed pretty early on they'd be attacking Labor on the economic front.

I still think the zeitgeist is with Labor and that people are tired of the Coalition - Morrison in particular - but it's obviously not done and dusted yet. Albo is going to be fighting an uphill battle after those early mistakes and the Coalition will use it to distract from their own lack of policies and vision.

In a way, it plays into ScoMo's playbook of 2019. Back then, he was also a small target and made it all about Labor (with Shorten's overambitious policies), convincing the voting public they didn't want a Labor government even if they didn't really know what a Coalition one stood for. I'm sure Scott Morrison is angling for that vibe again - make it all about Labor, this time highlighting their supposed economic inexperience with Albo's gaffes as the centerpiece.

[karaddin]

I think at this point Morrison is fucked even if he wins, so I have to double down on hoping Dutton's electorate finally turns on him. I don't have any faith that the coalition would choose Frydenberg over him even if they've been wary of him in the past.

I think my number 2 pick for losing their seat in the election independent of outcome is Albo. It's the only scenario that I think has a chance of sending the right message to Labor if they win.

Also hoping Pocock gets up in the ACT even if that's a big ask given it only gets 2 seats. His priority matches what I think is number 1 at this point, he lines up pretty well with me on the social issues I know his stance on, and he's actually demonstrated conviction standing up for what he thinks is right when he could have simply stayed silent with no repercussions.

[Jeor]

2 hours ago, karaddin said:

I think at this point Morrison is fucked even if he wins, so I have to double down on hoping Dutton's electorate finally turns on him. I don't have any faith that the coalition would choose Frydenberg over him even if they've been wary of him in the past.

I think my number 2 pick for losing their seat in the election independent of outcome is Albo. It's the only scenario that I think has a chance of sending the right message to Labor if they win.

The Liberal party rules were recently changed so that a sitting PM who wins an election could only be removed by a two-thirds vote (not a 50% spill motion). This gives ScoMo some security if he wins the election and you'd think he would have enough numbers to see off Dutton at al for a couple of years.

Incidentally, Rudd also changed the rules so Labor needs a 75% vote to spill an election-winning PM or a 60% vote for an opposition leader. So both major parties have tightened up the rules for knifing the leader. If Albo loses this, I'm almost certain he'll be rolled (if he doesn't resign, which he probably would). His performance has not been good these first few days, so he needs to regather himself quickly.

The election is still very much in the balance (though momentum shifting away from Albo who was leading). But Labor are a bit hamstrung in that economic affairs are clearly the focus of this election and, rightly or wrongly, the Coalition is perceived to be better at it and Albo's performance has just reinforced that. If the primary focus of the election was health, education, and the environment, Labor would be much better off and I suspect Albo would be in his element. But in this current period, economics (and defence/national security) are playing highly and those are the Liberal stomping grounds.

[Wall Flower]

6 hours ago, karaddin said:

I think at this point Morrison is fucked even if he wins, so I have to double down on hoping Dutton's electorate finally turns on him. I don't have any faith that the coalition would choose Frydenberg over him even if they've been wary of him in the past.

I think my number 2 pick for losing their seat in the election independent of outcome is Albo. It's the only scenario that I think has a chance of sending the right message to Labor if they win.

Also hoping Pocock gets up in the ACT even if that's a big ask given it only gets 2 seats. His priority matches what I think is number 1 at this point, he lines up pretty well with me on the social issues I know his stance on, and he's actually demonstrated conviction standing up for what he thinks is right when he could have simply stayed silent with no repercussions.

The LNP senator looks to be in a lot of well-deserved trouble so I think Pocock or the Green candidate are both in with a chance. I certainly won't be sad to see the back of Zed.

[Jeor]

Labor have ditched the Jobseeker rise in the name of fiscal responsibility. I'm not sure why they did that - it doesn't benefit them to side with the Coalition on this and they've been hammering away at it for a long time now that Jobseeker should be increased. Even if it was just a modest increase that didn't dent the budget bottom line too much, they could have held to that and I'm sure it would have been both good policy and good politics coming up to an election. 

Amusing to hear ScoMo repeatedly say that the Coalition stand for something and the Labor party doesn't. I'm still not sure what he stands for apart from winning an election...

[Wall Flower]

2 minutes ago, Jeor said:

Labor have ditched the Jobseeker rise in the name of fiscal responsibility. I'm not sure why they did that - it doesn't benefit them to side with the Coalition on this and they've been hammering away at it for a long time now that Jobseeker should be increased. Even if it was just a modest increase that didn't dent the budget bottom line too much, they could have held to that and I'm sure it would have been both good policy and good politics coming up to an election. 

Amusing to hear ScoMo repeatedly say that the Coalition stand for something and the Labor party doesn't. I'm still not sure what he stands for apart from winning an election...

The Jobseeker rise should be a no-brainer. On the other hand, Labor are already being asked relentlessly where the money is coming from to keep those apparently useless old people alive.

[karaddin]

7 hours ago, Jeor said:

The Liberal party rules were recently changed so that a sitting PM who wins an election could only be removed by a two-thirds vote (not a 50% spill motion). This gives ScoMo some security if he wins the election and you'd think he would have enough numbers to see off Dutton at al for a couple of years.

If the primary focus of the election was health, education, and the environment...

First part - I'd actually forgotten they made that change as well, you're right.

Second part just re-emphasizes this to me

On 4/12/2022 at 5:40 PM, Wall Flower said:

Not just the public, unfortunately. A lot of the media is letting the Gov't off the hook on those issues - deliberately in the case of Murdoch journos at Pravda and through laziness or love of their insider status in other cases.

If the media had even a shred of concern about serving the public interest, the way they're supposed to and still try to claim the prestige and respect of doing so, climate would be far and away the most important issue of the election. Instead they're just interested in helping their friends, look at how clearly PVO established his priorities in the last year. And that's an asshole that pretended to be within the woke media sphere.

2 hours ago, Jeor said:

Labor have ditched the Jobseeker rise in the name of fiscal responsibility. I'm not sure why they did that - it doesn't benefit them to side with the Coalition on this and they've been hammering away at it for a long time now that Jobseeker should be increased.

They can't possibly find anything in the budget for desperate people in need, but they'll steamroll ahead with the yet another round of tax cuts they helped the coalition pass and haven't even gone into effect yet. Maybe if we hadn't cut taxes to the bone over the last 25 years we could let people have some dignity in desperate times and spend the extra on the military you know they're both going to insist on. But instead we'll make sure over half of what we actually spend on welfare is wasted on punitive and inefficient job seeker providers and shit like the cashless welfare cards. Funneling more wealth to Twiggy Forester while punishing poor people and fucking over indigenous people hits everything they want in one go!

But instead let's have the media talk about what curry ScoMo is cooking tonight.

[The Anti-Targ]

Govt minister says the supermarket duopoly in NZ needs to be reined in after huge food price rises...ummm...you're the govt minister, so get a move on with the reining in then. We've had the commerce commission report, the public is generally pissed off at the supermarkets making big profits and hiking food prices. Why does the minister need to still be talking big but not doing anything?

Though I would also observe that the govt is making us all pay 15% tax for all food. Take GST off at least single ingredient raw foods and that will do quite a bit without having to get all messy with regulating food retailers. I don't know how much more expensive our groceries are than Aus, but I bet a decent proportion of that difference is GST.

What's the cheapest can of baked beans cost over there? Here it's about 95c for a 400g can, I think, for the nasty, watery budget supermarket brands. The quality brands are $2.30-$3.00 per 400gm can. I buy middle of the road $1.60 beans.

[karaddin]

Just checked and the cheapest is 65c for the supermarket brand, but there's an organic one at $1.50 so it looks like the bigger difference may be the regular options rather than the cheapest option.

[The Anti-Targ]

Dang, and considering median wage in Aus is higher than NZ that price difference is even worse for us ($62K vs $57K via quick and lazy Googling).

Edit: I must correct the record. The cheapest and nastiest budget baked beans are (currently on special) 50c. It seems like there is price parity at that low end. But we definitely have brands that are north of $3. Dunno if baked beans are an ideal comparative, but they are an everyday food that most families would buy if they can afford it here, and I assume it's similar in Aus.

[Jeor]

11 hours ago, karaddin said:

They can't possibly find anything in the budget for desperate people in need, but they'll steamroll ahead with the yet another round of tax cuts they helped the coalition pass and haven't even gone into effect yet.

This is what I don't get from Labor.

On the political side of things, going for a Jobseeker rise is an absolute no-brainer. Labor created lots of expectations that they would do it (after hammering the government on how low it was) and by ditching it (yet preserving the egregious tax cuts), they're betraying a lot of their traditional constituency of lower-income earners. This was probably one area where Labor would have created some significant difference from the Coalition, but now politically they've sold out their base for very little gain. 

On the policy side of things, raising the Jobseeker rate is a good idea as it's both socially humane and economically sensible. Lower income earners are going to spend all of that money and it'll cycle through the economy, whereas those high-income tax cuts will just be stashed away. The minimum wage is $772 per week, being single with no children gets you Jobseeker of $321 per week ($642 per fortnight). There is no basis in fact to the argument that people would rather be on Jobseeker than have a job when the rate is less than half of the minimum wage.

The Coalition could take a chunk out of the Labor base if it committed to reviewing Jobseeker itself and potentially raising it again based on cost of living pressures. The government revenue is going to come in higher than anticipated - government estimates iron ore to have a six-month average of $55 when it's much more likely to be around $100.

[The Anti-Targ]

On the Jobseeker side (who came up with that term first, you or us? The 2009-2017 National Govt some time in its first term in govt changed the name of the main benefit to that), our govt raised that and the superannuation benefit by $20 per week this year (as at 1 April). My brother who seems to be basically unemployable is on the jobseeker benefit (has applied for many jobs over the years, always turned down, has largely stopped applying for jobs because receiving multiple rejection letters without even an interview is not good for one's mental health. Unless an employer is basically forced to give him a job his employment history and age are both now so old that no one will consider him). Hitherto the increases he recalls over the years have been more in the order of 50c/week.

[karaddin]

@Jeor they honestly seem to think "coalition voter" is their core constituency, then turn around and act like considering voting for the Greens as a result is high treason. They seem incapable of grasping "we'll do everything the coalition will do, we just don't actually believe in it but think it's what you want" isn't as compelling a pitch as they think. For people that want those policies, the coalition having some conviction in them is a selling point not a bug.

[karaddin]

1 hour ago, The Anti-Targ said:

 receiving multiple rejection letters without even an interview is not good for one's mental health. 

Absolutely soul crushing, I think he's right with the response there

[Paxter]

Now Albo has COVID. And we thought things couldn't get worse in Week 2!

My ballot papers should arrive in the mail soon. I will be doing my level best in my WA marginal to eject the sitting Liberal member :P. Who knows when the ballot will be received though!

[Impmk2]

5 hours ago, Paxter said:

Now Albo has COVID. And we thought things couldn't get worse in Week 2!

My ballot papers should arrive in the mail soon. I will be doing my level best in my WA marginal to eject the sitting Liberal member :P. Who knows when the ballot will be received though!

I actually think sidelining Albo could be a plus for the Labor campaign. Shifts the focus away from him and his gaffes, generates sympathy, and lets his generally more popular front bench become the face of the campaign while running down the clock. But that's just my take - not the biggest fan of Albo in the first place (though far prefer him to ScoMo).

[Jeor]

Yes, I also think Albo's COVID positive is a blessing in disguise for Labor. Gives him time to regroup, takes the focus off him and gives Labor a defined period and media attention to showcase the shadow frontbench, which most people don't know. 

This Solomon Islands thing is a bit of a mess. It sounds dodgy as - with no details of the agreement and just the Prime Minister Sogavare's weak protestations that there is no military base in the agreement (details of which have not been disclosed at all and which the parliamentary opposition did not receive). It sounds like a hefty amount of bribery came in, and Australia would not have won a bidding war with China. There already were protests about this last year so our best chance is probably to hope an anti-Chinese government comes to power in the Solomon Islands.

Not good timing for either side of politics in Australia. It undermines the Coalition's national security credentials, but some Labor bigwigs (eg Marles) have come under fire for some sympathetic comments welcoming Chinese engagement with the Solomon Islands.

[Paxter]

On 4/23/2022 at 2:57 AM, Jeor said:

This Solomon Islands thing is a bit of a mess. It sounds dodgy as - with no details of the agreement and just the Prime Minister Sogavare's weak protestations that there is no military base in the agreement (details of which have not been disclosed at all and which the parliamentary opposition did not receive). It sounds like a hefty amount of bribery came in, and Australia would not have won a bidding war with China. There already were protests about this last year so our best chance is probably to hope an anti-Chinese government comes to power in the Solomon Islands.

I still think smarter diplomacy and aid in the Pacific could have at least forestalled this development if not avoided it entirely. ScoMo’s whole “Pacific family” approach is incredibly paternalistic and we haven’t helped ourselves by being poor supporters of global climate policy (a big policy issue across the Pacific). 

[Paxter]

Forecasters were tipping 4.6% for headline inflation, with the core figure set to come in above the target range. And instead we got a sizeable headline beat at over 5.1% and a trimmed mean of 3.7%.

Time for the Reserve to take a hike, (regardless of the election).