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AusPoliGaf |Early 2016 Election| - the government's term has been... Shortened

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danm999

Member
Elaugaufein said:
Its hard to think of a reason to go from Fed to State when you're already Party Leader short of some kind of major personal or family issue.
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Especially when the balance of power in the Senate is decided by the cross bench and your party has three seats on that cross bench that is entirely built on your own personal brand.

Very difficult for me to believe he's going willingly.
 
D.Lo

D.Lo

Member
danm999 said:
Especially when the balance of power in the Senate is decided by the cross bench and your party has three seats on that cross bench that is entirely built on your own personal brand.

Very difficult for me to believe he's going willingly.
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Yeah it reminds me of that Seinfeld bit about how you can never spin moving back in with your parents positively.
 
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Elaugaufein

Member
Dryk said:
Considering the competition anyone has a shot
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Given his Senate Performance it's not completely unreasonable but his inability to win more than one Federal Lower House seat suggests he has a state version of the Greens problem: while his general support might theoretically let him get X seats it's to dispersed to convert in the Single Member elections.

Also it's not unheard of for Coalition and Labor to effectively collude to freeze out potential threats, and Xenophon certainly is in SA.
 
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danm999

Member
D.Lo said:
Yeah it reminds me of that Seinfeld bit about how you can never spin moving back in with your parents positively.
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Yeah I've read his reasoning for leaving and uh, the timeline he is insisting on is interesting.

Says the SA blackouts of 2016 were the catalyst and the High Court case is a distraction that delayed the announcement.

Except the "distraction" only manifested in August 2017, almost 12 months after the blackouts. And despite waiting 11 months, he simply couldn't wait until mid October when he was cleared by the High Court.

The late August-early October 2017 window for announcement was really, really important for some reason, even though the SA election isn't until March 2018.
 
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Elaugaufein

Member
danm999 said:
Yeah I've read his reasoning for leaving and uh, the timeline he is insisting on is interesting.

Says the SA blackouts of 2016 were the catalyst and the High Court case is a distraction that delayed the announcement.

Except the "distraction" only manifested in August 2017, almost 12 months after the blackouts. And despite waiting 11 months, he simply couldn't wait until mid October when he was cleared by the High Court.

The late August-early October 2017 window for announcement was really, really important for some reason, even though the SA election isn't until March 2018.
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It's possible his advice was it's something like 60-90% probable the court would clear him and he didn't want to risk that they don't. Going back to State politics after being turfed looks weaker and for someone like Xenophon who relies on his personal brand and went to impressive lengths to build it, that's potentially fatal.
 
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Candescence

Member
And of course Turnbull and Frydenberg have thrown the clean energy target in the "too hard" basket, and desperately trying to justify it with "clean energy prices are going down anyway tho, so no point subsidising it" even though they've still got fossil fuel subsidies in place, fucking hypocrites.
 
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Elaugaufein

Member
Candescence said:
And of course Turnbull and Frydenberg have thrown the clean energy target in the "too hard" basket, and desperately trying to justify it with "clean energy prices are going down anyway tho, so no point subsidising it" even though they've still got fossil fuel subsidies in place, fucking hypocrites.
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Is anyone surprised ? It didn't get passed with the rest of the recommendations so it wasn't going to happen.
 
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Candescence

Member
No, it isn't surprising, but I'm honestly wondering if they actually expect any political benefit from this outside of hardcore climate change deniers. The public are sick of the status quo, and Labor extended an olive branch of bipartisanship when the Finkel Review was released - some may say it was possibly cynical and opportunistic, but after this, Labor can easily shrug their shoulders and say "hey, don't look at us, we supported the review's measures including the CET, but the government won't get its act together because the right-wing loonies have Turnbull dancing to their tune. Vote Labor in at the next election, though, and we'll fix all your energy woes, because this government obviously can't!"

Nine more newspolls to go before the line Turnbull set to justify outing Abbot is passed. The status quo is untenable, but there's no way the government can turn this around barring a catastrophic error on Labor's part or a huge incident that plays to the Coalition's "strengths" politically.
 
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danm999

Member
High Court is hearing the seven MPs case now

The court already has an idea of the arguments – the submissions each MP’s counsel was obliged to provide lay out the defence. The government MPs have grouped their cases together with Larissa Waters and Nick Xenophon as not being in breach.

Waters is a complication for the government – not only is she disputing the government’s defence and maintaining she, and the others, were in breach of the constitution, she was also born overseas.

So far, that has been the first question in Canavan’s case, which is being laid out by the solicitor general – how does Waters fit in, given she was born in Canada?

He agrees it is a “complication” but plans to explain that more fully as they go on.
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The solicitor general, Stephen Donaghue, has described the situation Canavan has found himself as the fault of a “quirk” of Italian law. His grandparents became Australian citizens, and his mother was an Australian citizen, but in 1983, the Italian courts passed a law that gave citizenship to Canavan’s mother, which automatically passed on to a two-year-old Canavan.
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Joyce’s father, James, left New Zealand before New Zealand citizenship existed. But when New Zealand citizenship was created, it was granted to Joyce Sr as a matter of course.

Joyce the elder discovered he was a New Zealand citizen in 1978, when our Joyce was 10, when he went to become a justice of the peace and learnt he still carried New Zealand citizenship, and renounced it.
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Fiona Nash’s case is now being outlined. She was born in Sydney, but her father was born in Scotland. They were estranged and she didn’t know the exact date of her father’s birth, or details about her grandparents.

Donaghue believes that is an important point, given that family background is important when it comes to citizenship. Nash did not know, he argues, that you could receive citizenship by descent from Scotland.
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Like, these all seem like bad arguments to me.

Nobody seriously expects them to have figured out their citizenship status when they were 2, 10 or at birth, but when they ran for Parliament and signed a declaration as adults. Waters basically throwing them all under the bus saying she's also not eligible seems like a blow as well.
 
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Elaugaufein

Member
I am willing to cut some slack on grounds that checking citizenship 3 generations back in ~200 countries is manifest idiocy. But that must a) apply universally and b) be added to the Constitution.

The Government's argument isn't even internally consistent allowing good faith error for acquisition but requiring revocation on reasonable suspicioun. 2) clearly constrains 1) more than 1) can allow and be valid.
 
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Quasar

Member
I see Tony Abbott supergenius is at again.

Tony Abbott thinks climate change action is like trying to "appease the volcano gods", and global warming is probably going to do more good than harm anyway. (ABC story here: he gave a speech to the Global Warming Policy Foundation in London; it was a "non-media event", so the ABC wasn't allowed in, but he released a transcript.)
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and

In most countries, far more people die in cold snaps than in heat waves, so a gradual lift in global temperatures, especially if it's accompanied by more prosperity and more capacity to adapt to change, might even be beneficial."
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Jintor

Member
https://www.buzzfeed.com/bradesposito/charles-smith-one-nation?utm_term=.kmb1m3A1L#.rtaVylPVe

A Facebook account in the name of Western Australian One Nation politician Charles Smith posted and then deleted a video of Smith telling ABC boss Michelle Guthrie to "go back to Singapore", before claiming the national broadcaster is communist.
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Is ON getting steadily more fucking insane?
In the video, which is edited with jarring jump cuts, Smith appears to be at a racecourse or park.

"The ABC is a communist front and needs to be shut down immediately," he says. "All the ABC does is promote political correctness and incite hatred against white Australians.

"Michelle Guthrie is an out of touch baby boomer stuck in the 1970s."

Later in the video Smith says Guthrie should "go back to Singapore" before a voice-over declares "and eat some dim-sims".
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I don't think the chaser could do a better job
 
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Elaugaufein

Member
It seems a little unbelievable. Sadly mostly because I don't see many PHON supporter's calling someone an out of touch baby-boomer stuck in the 1970s than anything else.
 
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danm999

Member
Out of touch baby boomers stuck in the last century are PHON's base.

Also got to love that immigrant telling an Australian born woman to go back to Malaysia.

Not about race though. no no no
 
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Jintor

Member
Singapore ain't Malaysia!

But you can tell the racial discrimination commissioner to go back to Laos, if you're a fucking racist
 
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danm999

Member
Malcolm Roberts lawyer argued his case at the High Court today. It went about as well as you might expect;

Newlinds suggested it was “un-Australian” to recognise a difference between “natural-born” and naturalised Australians, who he termed “immigrant Australians”, and said that in 1974 there was no concept of “British citizenship” because “we all had the same sovereign, and none of us were a foreign power”.
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Newlinds said that, according to the 1999 case of Sue v Hill, Britain was defined as a foreign power in 1986 but at the time “no bells rang out in the community” to alert people of the legal change.

“Without doing anything, [Roberts] went from qualified to disqualified,” Newlinds said in what amounted to a “mystical process” decided by the high court.
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I dunno what's better. PHON complaining you shouldn't discriminate against immigrants, or PHON arguing the Sue v Hill precedent, which involved a UK foreign born citizen One Nation candidate in exactly the same boat as Roberts, was a circumstance Roberts and PHON were never alerted to.
 
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bobnowhere

Member
I suspect Xenophon going back to SA state politics is more about the lack of penetration of his party outside of SA. Better to be a big fish in a small pond than a medium fish in a huge pond. There's a very good chance he'll be kingmaker at the next SA election and whomever he chooses to go into coalition with will be in charge ignoring the ALP and Libs saying they won't do a deal, they'll be desperate to make a deal the next morning.
 
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Elaugaufein

Member
bobnowhere said:
I suspect Xenophon going back to SA state politics is more about the lack of penetration of his party outside of SA. Better to be a big fish in a small pond than a medium fish in a huge pond. There's a very good chance he'll be kingmaker at the next SA election and whomever he chooses to go into coalition with will be in charge ignoring the ALP and Libs saying they won't do a deal, they'll be desperate to make a deal the next morning.
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The polls are actually showing he could potentially by the largest or second largest party, which makes him as Premier an actual possibility (either in his own right or the senior partner in a minority government). The world or at least SA is a strange place.
 
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Dryk

Member
Elaugaufein said:
The polls are actually showing he could potentially by the largest or second largest party, which makes him as Premier an actual possibility (either in his own right or the senior partner in a minority government). The world or at least SA is a strange place.
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The Liberals have managed to mount a half-assed campaign every few years before imploding right before election day. Absent worthy opposition Labor have atrophied. Considering how weak our two majors are and have been for a while, with the public mood tending to be that both of them are worthless and can get fucked, it's a good time for a new challenger to throw his hat in the ring.
 
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Candescence

Member
A worthy challenger to either major party in any state that isn't PHON? Sounds good to me. Jay Weatherill has been on a bloody roll as premier when it comes to energy, though, so I'd honestly consider him better than Xenophon, who actually entertains the nonsense shrieked about wind turbines.
 
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bobnowhere

Member
Quasar said:
Listened to a episode of Late Night Live today. It featured a long chat with one of fave pollies, Barry Jones, chatting about his and Malcolm Frasers idea of a new party, the Courage party.

http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/latenightlive/barry-joness-big-political-idea/9038148

Dunno what their stance on the headphone jack is.

Kind of shocked that he's 85.
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Fraser had been talking about setting up a new party not long before his sudden death, sad it never came to light.



I can't help but think Xenophon is going to be worse for the Libs than Labor, he himself is targeting a Liberal seat and he did much better federally in Lib seats even with the swing to Labor. Even the last poll I saw still had it at 50/50 with the concentrated BS campaign from the Feds.

I suspect federally NXT will die a slow death, has anyone even heard the other two NXT senators even speak? Do they have opinions outside of Nick's? Even Sharkie in the House seems to have very little profile. Whatever you say about ONP, they are hard to miss. Not making better use of the underlings will be the undoing of the Nick Xenophon Self-Indulgence Experience.

Oh yeah, fuck Nick and his windmill nonsense.
 
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Elaugaufein

Member
bobnowhere said:
Fraser had been talking about setting up a new party not long before his sudden death, sad it never came to light.



I can't help but think Xenophon is going to be worse for the Libs than Labor, he himself is targeting a Liberal seat and he did much better federally in Lib seats even with the swing to Labor. Even the last poll I saw still had it at 50/50 with the concentrated BS campaign from the Feds.

I suspect federally NXT will die a slow death, has anyone even heard the other two NXT senators even speak? Do they have opinions outside of Nick's? Even Sharkie in the House seems to have very little profile. Whatever you say about ONP, they are hard to miss. Not making better use of the underlings will be the undoing of the Nick Xenophon Self-Indulgence Experience.

Oh yeah, fuck Nick and his windmill nonsense.
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Yup, the polls I was referring to before show him winning Hartley which isn't even in his top 10 strongest seats , and his 10 most favorable seats are like 80% Liberal. You can pretty hear the broken dreams of Steven Marshall falling to the ground.
 
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bobnowhere

Member
Elaugaufein said:
Yup, the polls I was referring to before show him winning Hartley which isn't even in his top 10 strongest seats , and his 10 most favorable seats are like 80% Liberal. You can pretty hear the broken dreams of Steven Marshall falling to the ground.
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I still think we'll see some sort of Liberal/Sa Best coalition, however loose, but Marshall will end up with very little authority and it might completely destroy the libs for a generation if they are the minority partner. Enough Labor votes will go SA Best to advantage the Libs in close races and I wonder if those wacky affluent moderate libs that float between the Liberal party and the Greens will see SA Best as a better option or maybe that is just a Melbourne Inner city NSW coastal phenomenon.

I can't see a Labor/SA Best coalition, Labor won't want it and neither would Nick's voters. Labor would probably see 4 years of Liberal/SA Best madness as an easy way to victory at the next election.

Also don't forget Labor won the last one 47-53 such was the disparity between safe and marginal seats between the majors. Labor has a lot of marginals.

And also no one will notice or care about Cory Bernardi's party.

And finally, the pill testing experiment is off in the ACT mainly as the festival is inside the Parliamentary Triangle and in the order of things, the National Capital Planning Authority sits somewhere above the GG and the clowncar organisation that is the NCPA is a law unto themselves.
 
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Elaugaufein

Member
bobnowhere said:
I still think we'll see some sort of Liberal/Sa Best coalition, however loose, but Marshall will end up with very little authority and it might completely destroy the libs for a generation if they are the minority partner. Enough Labor votes will go SA Best to advantage the Libs in close races and I wonder if those wacky affluent moderate libs that float between the Liberal party and the Greens will see SA Best as a better option or maybe that is just a Melbourne Inner city NSW coastal phenomenon.

I can't see a Labor/SA Best coalition, Labor won't want it and neither would Nick's voters. Labor would probably see 4 years of Liberal/SA Best madness as an easy way to victory at the next election.

Also don't forget Labor won the last one 47-53 such was the disparity between safe and marginal seats between the majors. Labor has a lot of marginals.

And no one will notice or care about Cory Bernardi's party.
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I would have pegged a Liberal / SA Best coalition as least likely on current outlook where Labor is in for a rout. If Xenophon needs a Coalition partner the Liberals probably managed to finished first, but given what Dryk said about the Liberals falling over their own faces at the end of the campaign maybe it will end Labor/SA Best/Liberals.

I think the Liberals would rather pull the trigger on a second election if they finished first/second with SA Best in 3rd, it would solidify his hold on too many of their voters. It'd be the same issue that Labor is now having with the Greens except less a creeping doom in certain errors and more an existential threat of annihilation. Unless of course SA Best does terribly and proves itself not a threat merely an annoyance / opportunity , in which case yeah.
 
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Dryk

Member
Candescence said:
A worthy challenger to either major party in any state that isn't PHON? Sounds good to me. Jay Weatherill has been on a bloody roll as premier when it comes to energy, though, so I'd honestly consider him better than Xenophon, who actually entertains the nonsense shrieked about wind turbines.
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If you think it's bad as a layperson try having a PhD on the topic :p
 
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Jintor

Member
coalition joining PHON bleating for ABC salaries

of course, give $30 mil to Foxtel and don't have any paperwork, don't hear a fucking peep about that
 
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bobnowhere

Member
Elaugaufein said:
I would have pegged a Liberal / SA Best coalition as least likely on current outlook where Labor is in for a rout. If Xenophon needs a Coalition partner the Liberals probably managed to finished first, but given what Dryk said about the Liberals falling over their own faces at the end of the campaign maybe it will end Labor/SA Best/Liberals.

I think the Liberals would rather pull the trigger on a second election if they finished first/second with SA Best in 3rd, it would solidify his hold on too many of their voters. It'd be the same issue that Labor is now having with the Greens except less a creeping doom in certain errors and more an existential threat of annihilation. Unless of course SA Best does terribly and proves itself not a threat merely an annoyance / opportunity , in which case yeah.
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There is a comical amount of incompetence going on in the SA Libs but Nick represents change and when people vote for change they tend to preference against the incumbent down ticket. Also, most of Nick's lot are ex-mod libs anyway. Unless it ends with Labor>>>>Libs in primary, I can't see SA Best backing Labor against the Libs.
 
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Dryk

Member
Surprising nobody Xenophon's first policy release is focused on entrenching the power of small personality-led parties by reducing the number of MPs. I guess he's well aware that he can't hold together a large party with his face alone then.
 
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bobnowhere

Member
Dryk said:
Surprising nobody Xenophon's first policy release is focused on entrenching the power of small personality-led parties by reducing the number of MPs. I guess he's well aware that he can't hold together a large party with his face alone then.
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He does seem to be having trouble finding candidates that aren't weirdly obsessed with feeling up wax models.

Happy 21st Malcolm!

giphy.gif
 
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Elaugaufein

Member
Dryk said:
Surprising nobody Xenophon's first policy release is focused on entrenching the power of small personality-led parties by reducing the number of MPs. I guess he's well aware that he can't hold together a large party with his face alone then.
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Would that actually help him though ? It's generally harder for small personality / issue led parties to win larger Single Member Electorates unless you're the Nationals or similar with the sort of electorates that give the Commission nightmares. It's not like he controls which ones get removed or how they are merged.
 
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bobnowhere

Member
Looks like Kelly O'dwyer let it slip in QT, "power prices are not expected to go up as much as they would have" instead of sticking to the vague line that power prices will go down but they won't say by how much or when. $110/year maybe at some point in the 2020's?

Turnbull, assuming he makes it that far, is set for a massacre if prices don't go down by the 2019 election having stated his entire PM'ship on it.
 
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danm999

Member
He's set for a massacre anyway.

Last election proved he's a dud campaigner. This time he'll be starting even further behind.
 
C

Candescence

Member
...

Sigh. I don't know what else I expected. Dropping a CET that would've had bipartisan support in favor of this convoluted mess was expected, but you'd think they would've thought the acronym through more.
 
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