Abbott/Liberal Govt Watch

[Q.]

The hysteria from LWNJs is hysterical

Damned if you do, damned if you dont

What is the context of each article?

[Q.]

Richard Flanagan eviscerates "Scotty from Marketing":

Before this cruellest of summers is over more innocent people will be dead. More homes will be lost. More families and friends will be grieving. More towns and farmers will have no water. More people will have lost their livelihoods.

Australia will have become become Ground Zero for global heating and Scott from Marketing will have moved on to booking his next family holiday with Jenny and the kids.

Morrison’s Pentecostal faith teaches that the end of days is signalled by a time of fire, flood and famine, known as the Tribulation. This is a wonderful time for the elect, who ascend to heaven in the Rapture.

If Morrison is genuine in such beliefs, is he in any way a fit person to lead our country at this time of crisis that his religion sees as a joyous moment? Either he is sincere in his faith or he is sincere in his oath to office, but he cannot be both.

Which is it, Prime Minister?

[Q.]

Even the leftist bastion ( ) that is the Financial Times is weighing in:

Mr Morrison often argues that Australia accounts for just 1.3 per cent of global carbon emissions. Setting aside the fact that its per capita emissions are among the world’s highest, it is true that cutting pollution in Australia alone would not physically prevent its bushfires, or the devastating floods and drought it has endured in recent times. Global warming requires a global response. But that response will never come if wealthy nations such as Australia continue to behave as if climate breakdown is a problem for others. Mr Morrison is now paying a political cost for his inaction. A far higher price will be paid in future for the bleak litany of climate failures his government represents.


https://www.ft.com/content/5082d45c-232e-11ea-b8a1-584213ee7b2b

[Jimmy_041]

Interesting op-ed from a high up Labor insider.
“**** the regional workers - Australia’s Deplorables”
https://www.smh.com.au/national/labor-s ... 53kde.html

[Jimmy_041]

And the view from the other end of the tunnel
Interesting shift in the left of politics.

Working-class Labor voters in the party’s regional Queensland heartland feel they have been left to compete against the demands of the inner-city elite.
That was the message from several pub-goers in the federal seat of Blair, which includes Ipswich­, who spoke to The Australian on Thursday.
Ipswich, southwest of Brisbane, has long been the epitome of what Labor stands for — working-class and hardworking.
It is seats such as Blair, currently held by Labor’s Shayne Neumann, that the party needs to maintain connections with to claw back regional Queensland voters, who largely turned away from Labor at the May election.
On a warm Boxing Day afternoon, Ken Bischof, 72, and Roy Stirling, 75, stayed cool with a schooner at the Raceview Hotel in Ipswich. Raised as a self-proclaimed “Labor kid”, Mr Bischof spent more than 25 years in the aviation industry before retiring.
At the May election he abandoned his roots and sided with the Coalition, which he felt better represented his values.
“They have gone away from the working man and have lost their base. Labor is becoming the yuppie, inner-city party and is siding­ with the greenies,” Mr Bischo­f said. That was a common view expressed by voters across the Blair electorate who spoke to The Australian.
Blair is Labor’s only regional seat in the state after it lost ­Herbert, in north Queensland, and Longman, north of Brisbane, to the Liberal National Party.
Labor’s win in Blair came despite a 6.93 per cent swing towards the LNP, meaning longstanding incumbent Mr Neumann scraped home with a two-party-preferred vote of 51 per cent. He has held the seat since 2007.
Mr Bischof said the changing demographics of the area would not help Labor’s cause, with the ageing working-class population making way for younger people and families from the city.
The seat briefly flirted with One Nation in 1998, when Pauline Hanson moved from Oxley and ran for the lower house. She ultimately lost to the Coalition, which held the seat for nine years.
Mr Stirling, a longtime Telstra worker before his retirement, said that, while he supports Labor, he would support Ms Hanson in a heartbeat.
But the younger generation is not as jaded. At the Hotel Metropole, local meatpacker and small-business owner Brock Harders, 26, said he voted Labor at the last election but did not know much about its current leader, Anthony­ Albanese. “I reckon I’m middle-class. I’m not well off but I’ve got money,” Mr Harders said.
“Labor is younger and for the working class. The guys that are currently there now (the Coal­ition) are for big business, you know, they are for the guy that is making one million dollars.
“Scott Morrison seems like a chill kind of guy. I’d want to have a beer with him and learn how to get rich. I don't know much about the other one (Mr Albanese).”
At the Prince of Wales Hotel in the heart of the Ipswich CBD, patro­n Stephen Caldwell, 59, said Labor’s lurch to the left had alienated voters not only in Australia, but also in his native Britain.
“Unless the Liberals make the biggest mistake, they won’t lose the next election because no one is game enough to vote them (Labor) in,” he said.

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/nation ... 808853d91e

[Jimmy_041]

Politics in the 2020s: the economy, the planet and trust
http://www.afr.com/news/politics/nation ... 53klw?btis

Other than an obvious affinity for politics, federal Labor's deputy leader Richard Marles and British Conservative Prime Minister Boris Johnson don't have a great amount in common.

In recent times, however, both men have identified a new attribute that has emerged in the wake of their respective elections – the hover factor.

The British and Australian elections were similar insofar as Labour/Labor oppositions failed to unseat conservative governments which, on paper, deserved to be tossed given both had behaved appallingly and bowled up three prime ministers in four years.

Yet the conservatives won both contests, due largely to traditional low-income Labor/Labour voters switching sides. But only after significant hesitation in the polling booth.

Two days after the British election, Johnson travelled to Tony Blair's old northern-English seat of Sedgefield, held by Labour since 1935, to thank those who had shifted.

"I know how difficult it was, and it can be, to make that kind of decision. And I can imagine people's pencils hovering over the ballot paper and wavering, before coming down for us, the Conservatives," he said.

"I know that people may have been breaking the voting habits of generations to vote for us; and I want the people of the north-east to know that we in the Conservative Party, and I, will repay your trust."

The hover factor

Back in October, Marles, too, spoke of those Labor voters whose hands hovered over the ballot paper as they agonised over their decision.

He spoke of a coalminer he met at an ALP branch meeting in Moranbah in the seat of Capricornia, one of the swag of Queensland coal seats, which rejected Labor emphatically at the May 18 election.

"A third-generation coalminer, who was Labor born-and-raised, through and through, told me of his inner angst at what would normally be a matter- of-fact putting a ‘one’ in the Labor square,'' Marles said.

"To the point where he laboured over the ballot paper in his hand for 10 minutes, just staring at it.

"Because, he wondered to himself, 'why would I vote for Labor, when Laboraren’t for me?' ''

In the end, the man voted for Labor but it was, said Marles, a vote "cast not out of hope but despair''.

The miner's concern was Labor's anti-aspirational message. Hundreds of thousands like him also hovered before voting Liberal.

Since the British election, sections of the commentariat have bloviated that it served as another wake-up call for Australian Labor.

However, Labor had already woken up and was not the least bit surprised at the drubbing handed out to the hapless Jeremy Corbyn.

Clear and simple message

About three weeks before that election, Labor's new national secretary, Paul Erickson, returned from Britain convinced Corbyn would be defeated by the same voters who turned on Australian Labor.

"There were significant differences between the UK election and ours, but from the voters’ perspective the picture was similar,'' Erickson says.

"Labour made big spending promises that ultimately unnerved many of the voters they were designed to appeal to, and didn’t bring their campaign together into a compelling narrative that met the electorate where it is.

"This contrasted with a clear and simple message on constant repeat from the conservative side of politics."

As politics enters a new year and a new decade, the instability that marred the past 10 years seems over. A new battle has begun – for the centre.

Scott Morrison has his nose in front but just as Labor's challenge is to win back those voters who deserted it, Morrison's challenge is to keep them.

As this newspaper observed on the eve of the federal election, Labor was making its task harder than it otherwise should have been against what had been a rabble of a government.

The tightening opinion polls and the deadlocked qualitative analysis showed Labor's tax and redistribution agenda had given progressive middle voters pause for thought when they otherwise would have dumped the Coalition without a second thought.

People who cared passionately about the environment and climate change, two policy fails for the Coalition, also cared about their personal economic circumstances.

Neither party had overwhelmingly appealed to a progressive middle, which wants the environment taken seriously, along with a small-government approach to economic management.

For the middle, it was a case of having to make a choice between which priority they value most. They hovered before opting for the economy.

Morrison is aware of the power of the centre and the need to woo it.

Atypically for a conservative, he is a strong supporter of compulsory voting because he believes it keeps Australian politics centred and far less radical than that in Britain and the United States, where non-compulsory voting requires parties to appeal to the fringes just to prod people into turning up.

And look at the polarised mess they have become.

Won in the middle

Morrison noted recently that compulsory voting ensures everyone turns up and limits the influence of the fringes on the left and right.

Malcolm Turnbull, whose oft-stated mantra that elections are won in the middle, was the last prime minister to appeal overtly to the centre. He was an economic conservative but socially and environmentally aware.

Before him, it was Kevin Rudd. Both Rudd and Turnbull at their height enjoyed stratospheric public approval ratings. But they failed on delivery.

Going forward, Labor leader Anthony Albanese has openly acknowledged his party is striving for economic credibility in order to shift back to the centre.

The poor figures released in the mid-year budget update just before Christmas give Labor hope on this front that it can neutralise what is a traditional Coalition strength.

"They won't vote for you if they think you are a risk,'' said a Labor strategist.

"It's not about ideology. They want to know you won't wreck the joint.''

At the same time, Morrison is seriously lacking on the environmental front and efforts to redress this shortfall are less obvious.

This is being highlighted by the ravaging effects of climate change, which has the nation firmly in its grip. Yet many in the Coalition are still too frightened or stubborn to even acknowledge climate change is a driving factor.

With neither side successfully appealing to the middle, the electorate is polarised and trust in government is terrible.

In early December, a major post-election study by the Australian National University found trust in government was at its lowest level on record, with just one in four Australians saying they had confidence in their political leaders and institutions.

Confidence in the state of our democracy was at similar crisis levels.

"I've been studying elections for 40 years, and never have I seen such poor returns for public trust in and satisfaction with democratic institutions," lead researcher Professor Ian McAllister says.

The findings, he says, "were a clear warning the nation's politicians needed to do better in their efforts to represent and win the confidence of everyday Australians.

"With faith in democracy taking major hits all over the globe, winning back the people's trust and satisfaction would appear to be one of the most pressing and urgent challenges facing our political leaders and institutions."

Least worse option

The study reinforced the fact that neither party appealed on both the economy and the environment.

The Coalition had a strong advantage when it came to voters' perceptions on who could manage the economy, while Labor had the advantage on environmental issues.

"Voters swung to the Coalition based on the economy, tax and leadership. Voters swung to Labor on the environment," says Dr Jill Sheppard who worked on the study.

"What the study shows is that a key concern for voters was the economy. And this is what tipped the balance in favour of the Coalition."

Similarly, a post-election study conducted in late May by JWS Research found those who voted for the victor did so predominantly on issues of economic management (25 per cent), while those who voted for Labor were motivated predominantly by climate change (30 per cent).

Respected researcher Tony Mitchelmore of Visibility Consultants says he was not the least bit surprised by the ANU findings regarding trust.

"I've been saying that strongly for some time,'' he says.

While Morrison won the election and the Coalition has maintained a lead in the polls ever since, Mitchelmore says, "it's more precarious for Morrison than he realises".

"The underlying disgruntlement on all the issues, which drove the expectation of change [at the last election], the economy, climate change, are still there.

"Labor lost that election but it doesn't mean people are happy with the government.

"Morrison was the least worse option, or they were more scared of [Bill] Shorten.''

Mitchelmore is not a big fan of quantitative polling, the type that gives you percentages for parties and leaders. His strength is qualitative polling, otherwise known as focus groups.

So much so, that he and the late Neil Lawrence masterminded South Australian Labor's highly improbable victory in 2014 using nothing but messages gleaned from focus groups.

Mitchelmore says the focus groups he's doing at the moment detect a frustration with both major parties not connecting with the centre.

"It rings absolutely true with what I see in focus groups,'' he says. "You seem to have this situation at the moment where people are more at the extremes. It's a contest of who do you least like.''

Climate change reluctance

He finds it perplexing and says if someone were to start a political party today from scratch, it would be fairly straightforward.

"They have to listen to the people and not to the extremes of their parties,'' he says.

Mitchelmore likened the climate change reluctance inside the Coalition to those who were out of touch with community sentiment on same-sex marriage.

"They are being held hostage by their base. It's not research driven.''

Yet, while climate change is a signature concern, he says "the economy triumphs".

"People want action on climate change for sure but the economy and cost of living and jobs and private health cover all still dominate."

Neutralising the Coalition on economic management, as Kevin Rudd managed to do before the 2007 election with his "I'm an economic conservative'' commercials, is a "condition of entry'', says Mitchelmore.

"That's where Albo is trying to get to as well.''

Turnbull would have been more successful had he been able to stretch his legs on the environment and social issues "but his party held him back from that''.

As the summer progresses and the droughts and fires worsen, the line between the economy and the climate will, however, continue to blur.

In 2007, John Howard lost power in part because he was viewed as being out of touch on climate change at the same time Australia was in the midst of a severe drought.

"It was a big card for Labor to play in '07,'' Mitchelmore says.

"The place was in drought, dam levels were dangerously low, [desalination] plants were being built."

Mitchelmore sees similarities ahead of the next election, especially as this drought is more severe and shows no sign of abating.

"It's getting there again. Everyone's backyard looks terrible, I love my lawn. It's dangerous for Morrison to be ideological on the issue''

Ill-timed holidays aside, Morrison is attuned to the electoral concerns over climate but it remains to be seen whether his party will allow him to respond as necessary.

The battle for the centre is under way.

[Q.]

Scott Morrison’s conspiracy-theorist friend claims he has the PM’s ear — and can influence what he says

Tim Stewart has denied that he uses his access to Scott Morrison to influence the prime minister on policy. In early October, speaking as Burn Notice, he told The Guardian, “I have never spoken to Scott about anything of a political nature. I’m not an adviser. The idea of me talking to him about this … it’s just not true.”

Yet that is the opposite of what he has told at least one close confidante. In the past few weeks a former fellow traveller, Eliahi Priest, has published his text exchanges with Stewart, conducted through encrypted messaging app Signal.

Priest points to more than 50 mentions of “Scott” in text exchanges with Stewart. He has signed a statutory declaration which claims Stewart told him he had passed on “several” letters to Morrison via Stewart’s wife. Stewart is on the record telling Priest of a “massive connection with Scott tonight”. “We are moving fast,” he texted. “Scott is awakening.”

In one exchange Priest points out a reference in the Victorian schools curriculum that 13 year olds will be taught about anal intercourse. “I am in shock,” Stewart responds. “This is going straight to Scott.”

In better days Priest and Stewart together hosted a leading US proponent of the QAnon movement, Isaac Kappy, an actor who alleged that Hollywood was run by paedophile rings. Priest is no stranger to the world of conspiracy theories and he has been the subject of counter-terrorism investigations. Yet he shakes his head at the idea that Stewart has any influence at all with Scott Morrison.

“He is embroiling the prime minister of Australia in a conspiracy theory that exists on [defunct extremist-linked site] 8chan,” he says, “the very same 8Chan that Scott Morrison banned because of [the shootings] in New Zealand.

“This is happening outside official process.”

Inq approached Tim Stewart for comment but he declined to respond.

Inq has also established that tweets by both Tim Stewart and his son Jesse which refer to Morrison’s apology speech have now been deleted. This occurred after Inq put questions to the Stewarts and the Prime Minister’s office.

Inq took the precaution of saving copies of the relevant tweets and will publish these as needed and can share them with other journalists.

[Q.]

NSW police investigation into Cayman Angus over the use of doctored documents used to attack Sydney’s lord mayor has been referred to the AFP.

[mighty_tiger_79]

ScoMo made a mess of handling the bushfires....

[Magellan]

ScoMo made a mess of handling the bushfires....

If there was an election held this weekend I reckon he’d lose by the length of the strait.

[Magellan]

NSW police investigation into Cayman Angus over the use of doctored documents used to attack Sydney’s lord mayor has been referred to the AFP.

According to a press release from Angus Taylor’s office, the AFP will be seeking a jail sentence of 15.4 million years.

[Wedgie]

ScoMo made a mess of handling the bushfires....

If there was an election held this weekend I reckon he’d lose by the length of the strait.

The only people I know who voted for him were senile. Except for a couple dying off I doubt much would change.

[Jim05]

ScoMo made a mess of handling the bushfires....

If there was an election held this weekend I reckon he’d lose by the length of the strait.

The only people I know who voted for him were senile. Except for a couple dying off I doubt much would change.

I don’t like the bloke myself but I vote for the party not the leader so Labor will never get my vote regardless of their leader

[Wedgie]

ScoMo made a mess of handling the bushfires....

If there was an election held this weekend I reckon he’d lose by the length of the strait.

The only people I know who voted for him were senile. Except for a couple dying off I doubt much would change.

I don’t like the bloke myself but I vote for the party not the leader so Labor will never get my vote regardless of their leader

Reminds me of how Hitler came into power.

[Jim05]

[quote="mighty_tiger_79"]ScoMo made a mess of handling the bushfires....

If there was an election held this weekend I reckon he’d lose by the length of the strait.

The only people I know who voted for him were senile. Except for a couple dying off I doubt much would change.

I don’t like the bloke myself but I vote for the party not the leader so Labor will never get my vote regardless of their leader

Reminds me of how Hitler came into power. [/quote]
Lol, nice comparison.
I’ve always voted for the party not the leader and in Australia the leader hardly lasts their term anyway!
No way on Earth I’d ever vote Labor

[Q.]

ScoMo made a mess of handling the bushfires....

If there was an election held this weekend I reckon he’d lose by the length of the strait.

The only people I know who voted for him were senile. Except for a couple dying off I doubt much would change.

I don’t like the bloke myself but I vote for the party not the leader so Labor will never get my vote regardless of their leader

Lol, they aren't footy clubs

[Q.]

Not only is Scotty from Marketing our worst PM, he is now also our most reviled PM.

Check out the video in the link - actually forces a bushfire victim to shake his hand and then turns his back on her when she asks for help. He is a sociopath.

Angry Cobargo residents explode at Scott Morrison as PM tours fire-ravaged towns

Prime Minister Scott Morrison has hastily left a meeting with bushfire victims in the town of Cobargo after angry residents began yelling furiously.

Mr Morrison was touring the devastated region after fire tore through the township on Monday night, tragically killing a father and son.

After taking snaps with a few locals, Mr Morrison was ushered into a waiting car after locals began yelling their disapproval of the PM.

"You won't be getting any votes down here buddy," one resident can be heard yelling.

"Who votes Liberal around here? Nobody."

Another can be heard referring to the recent Sydney Harbour New Year's Eve fireworks display, which the PM watched from his government residence at Kirribilli.

"Go home to Kirribilli. Why won't that burn down?" another local yelled.

"I don't see Kirribilli burning after the fireworks."

[Jim05]

[quote="mighty_tiger_79"]ScoMo made a mess of handling the bushfires....

If there was an election held this weekend I reckon he’d lose by the length of the strait.

The only people I know who voted for him were senile. Except for a couple dying off I doubt much would change.

I don’t like the bloke myself but I vote for the party not the leader so Labor will never get my vote regardless of their leader

Lol, they aren't footy clubs[/quote]
Who said they were?
I know many Labor supporters who hated Shorten but still voted for the Labor party at the last election.
I’m not a Morrison fan by any stretch but the LNP best suit me and so got my vote. Perhaps one day a decent alternative will come along but I will never vote Labor

[Magellan]

I’m not a Morrison fan by any stretch but the LNP best suit me and so got my vote. Perhaps one day a decent alternative will come along but I will never vote Labor

Quick question: who might that alternative be if its not the only other party with the capacity to govern in its own right?

[Magellan]

Not only is Scotty from Marketing our worst PM, he is now also our most reviled PM.

Check out the video in the link - actually forces a bushfire victim to shake his hand and then turns his back on her when she asks for help. He is a sociopath.

Angry Cobargo residents explode at Scott Morrison as PM tours fire-ravaged towns

Prime Minister Scott Morrison has hastily left a meeting with bushfire victims in the town of Cobargo after angry residents began yelling furiously.

Mr Morrison was touring the devastated region after fire tore through the township on Monday night, tragically killing a father and son.

After taking snaps with a few locals, Mr Morrison was ushered into a waiting car after locals began yelling their disapproval of the PM.

"You won't be getting any votes down here buddy," one resident can be heard yelling.

"Who votes Liberal around here? Nobody."

Another can be heard referring to the recent Sydney Harbour New Year's Eve fireworks display, which the PM watched from his government residence at Kirribilli.

"Go home to Kirribilli. Why won't that burn down?" another local yelled.

"I don't see Kirribilli burning after the fireworks."

The handshake thing was very odd, and a bit creepy. Why force physical contact with someone who clearly doesn’t want to reciprocate, particularly in a highly charged environment?

Being told off by his ‘minder’ (or whoever the other bloke in the hat was) directly after she vented her frustration was also unnecessary.