Debates, Policy Nitpicking and now the Candidates are Dropping Like Flies

With the public holidays now out of the way, the election campaign is finally gaining some steam and things are happening.

You may remember from last week, there was an anti-Adani convoy driving around Queensland and they’d arrived in a town that was fairly pro-coal mining. Well, in the early part of this week, while camped near the town there were reports of gunshots in the area. Even more shocking, during one of their rallies a man on horseback came tearing through the crowns and ended up knocking over a woman and injuring her. Organisers, including Bob Brown are very concerned about these actions, but they’re also somewhat relieved that more people weren’t injured, especially as there were children travelling with their parents on this convoy.

Meanwhile, people are trying to get clarity on Labor’s Early Childhood policies. Labor wants to increase the subsidies for parents sending their children to childcare, making it free for low-income earners and increasing the rebates for those on higher incomes. Labor has also said they will increase the income of Early Childhood Educators by 20%, apparently using taxpayer money. There will be no difference between the private and the public childcare centres however there are some questions over whether government intervention might stop private providers from raising their employees’ wages of their own volition. Labor says that it won’t finalise everything until they’re in government and they’ve consulted with everyone.

There were two debates this week, one on Monday in Western Australia aired on a Seven Network multichannel and the second later in the week aired on Sky News (a pay TV channel). Bill Shorten won the audience in both debates, which suggests his 80 or so “town hall” style events have also served as good practice for explaining things.

The second debate also gave us this moment:

Tanya Plibersek called it Morrison’s “Mark Latham Moment” – a flashback to the 2004 election and the rather aggressive handshake then Labor Leader Mark Latham (who is now a One Nation MLC in NSW) gave John Howard after leaving a radio studio that Howard was about to enter.

There have been a few things that have become apparent during these leaders’ debates. First, the government really has painted itself into a corner on their campaign points – all they appear to have is economic management and an anti-Labor sentiment, while the Labor party appears to have this war chest of promises, offers and policies. ABC Political Editor Andrew Probyn has suggested that the government’s campaign appears hollow and that they need to start inspiring voters rather than scaring them.

Second, the Labor party does need to be more clear on some of their policies. More than once, Labor has had to clarify a policy, and they are constantly questioned on the cost of some of their other policies. Now, as the Opposition, they do get cut a bit of slack when it comes to promises and their costs – but they have promised to release some costings in the next week.

Finally this week, eight candidates have either resigned or been disendorsed from their candidacies. It is now too late to replace any of them, and so they will still appear on the ballot paper. One Nation lost Steve Dickson over inappropriate behaviour at a strip club while on the infamous NRA trip to the USA. Al Jazeera, who put together the NRA sting say that the footage from the strip club was never part of the program because it wasn’t in the public interest. They also said that the footage from the strip club was aired without their permission. Regardless, Dickson is gone, along with another One Nation candidate Ross McDonald for inappropriate sexist Facebook posts.

Meanwhile Liberal candidates Jeremy Hearn, Peter Killin, Jessica Whelan have all resigned or been dumped for anti-Muslim and/or homophobic comments, and Labor candidates Luke Creasey and Wayne Kurnorth who have lost endorsement for sexist and anti-Semitic social media posts respectively. Finally the Katter’s Australia Party candidate for Dawson Brendan Bunyan has been disendorsed for comments that sort of cover all of the above. I’ll admit, Annabel Crabb’s election emails have helped me keep track of this, and you can sign up for the emails here.

Tweet of the Week

At the first debate, people were poking fun at the staging:

https://twitter.com/leachitup/status/1122789573082222592

Things I’ve Been Looking at Online

If you haven’t done Vote Compass yet, give it a go – ABC Vote Compass

Vote Compass shows the key election split is now age, not left and right – ABC Online

Zoë Norton Lodge on winning your seat “like a man” – ABC Online

The Week That Was – February 24 to March 2

With the Federal Election due to be called sometime after the Federal Budget on April 2nd, politicians are getting ready for the battle ahead. The Coalition have announced their climate change reduction policy, which is a re-animation of Tony Abbott’s scheme, which essentially gave out grants for emissions reduction actions like not cutting down trees. This plan had no real impact last time it was implemented, with research showing that Australia’s emissions have continued to climb. On the plus side, the “Snowy Hydro 2.0” – basically an upgrade to the Snowy Mountains Hydroelectric Scheme to improve its energy generation capacity.

Meanwhile the Labor Party have announced that they will continue with the Turnbull-era National Energy Guarantee (NEG) that they agreed to support before Turnbull was overthrown because of it. Labor is copping criticism for using the NEG, but they’ve been more consistent in their support for any sort of climate reduction policy that might actually work and is also feasible. Labor also announced a plan to support the building of several merchant ships that would be commercially operated, but could be seconded and captained by the military in a national security emergency. The government has framed this as the Labor party bowing to the MUA (the maritime industry union).

This week, two more ministers joined the stream of Liberal Cabinet ministers retiring from politics. Defence Minister Christopher Pyne and Defence Industries Minister Steve Ciobo have joined Nigel Scullion, Kelly O’Dwyer and Michael Keenan in deciding to leave parliament at the next election. Ciobo’s seat of Moncrieff on Queensland’s Gold Coast is safe Liberal (on a margin of around 14%), leaving some to suspect that the LNP may reshuffle their candidates and parachute Peter Dutton into the seat to keep him in politics. Pyne’s electorate of Sturt in South Australia is also safe Liberal (around 10%), and it appears the South Australian Premier’s chief of staff will run for pre-selection in the seat.

Ciobo also left his ministerial position, so Scott Morrison has replaced him as Defence Industries Minister with Senator Linda Reynolds, who is a former Brigadier. It has also been suggested that should the Coalition win the next election she will become the Defence Minister. While Reynolds’ appointment does increase the number of women in cabinet to the highest number ever, there is concern that her appointment was more a political point scoring exercise to get another women in cabinet and break the record for the most number of women in an Australian Cabinet ever. All of this change also gives the perception that these ministers are evacuating a sinking ship. The Labor party is also jumping on this perception, and I’m tempted to agree, if only because I’m inclined to believe that if my spidey senses are anything to go by the Coalition are likely to lose the next election.

Meanwhile, the Liberal Party have had pre-selection challenges for candidates in Kelly O’Dwyer’s electorate of Higgins and Michael Keenan’s electorate of Stirling. Dr Katie Allen has been selected for Higgins, and Vince Connelly has been selected for Stirling.

This week, the ABC announced that they had settled the unfair dismissal case with former Managing Director Michelle Guthrie. Meanwhile, the Government has announced the new Chairperson for the ABC’s Board as Ita Buttrose. The media doyenne, whose father was an executive at the ABC when her career in magazines was taking off, is the second woman to become Chairperson since Dame Leonie Kramer in 1982. Buttrose has said that she wants to stabilise the management at the ABC – they still need an MD – and that if the ABC does need more money, she’s not afraid to ask for it.

Finally this week, Cardinal George Pell was found guilty of historical child sexual abuse offences dating back to 1996 at the end of last year. The trial was not public knowledge because of an injunction placed on the case by the Judge, who felt that media coverage would not allow Pell a fair trial in a second case that was due to go ahead this week – but charges were dropped. He’s had his bail revoked and is now awaiting sentencing, with former Prime Minister John Howard announced as one of ten character witnesses for Pell’s sentencing.

Tweet of the Week

Here is an exchange between @leighsales and Cardinal George Pell from a press conference in 2012. #Pell was responding to the Gillard government’s decision to hold a royal commission into historical child sex abuse within institutions. #abc730 pic.twitter.com/6AZDXH4rs9

— abc730 (@abc730) February 26, 2019

Things I’ve Been Looking at Online

Those who feel Pell is being hard done by are disrespecting the justice system – SMH

The reaction of Pell’s defenders just displays their power – The Guardian

Both Steggall and Abbott will need to work to woo Warringah’s voters – ABC Online

Babies, Wombats and Resignation

Here we go again.

Sunday saw Tony Abbott unveil his Paid Parental Leave Scheme. Women will get up to 26 weeks leave at their current wage with super. If you were on the higher end of the income spectrum, you could get seven times the amount you would under Labor. However, it seems that some Liberals, not to mention most of the Nationals, do not like this plan. Joe Hockey said something along the lines of ‘I’m following Tony’s beliefs’ – which makes me think that he doesn’t like it.

Kevin Rudd says it will damage the economy, and people from the country aren’t happy about it either. Not only that, but the Business Council and the ACTU don’t like it either. It appears that the Greens might like it – although they think it needs fine tuning.

There were also some strange preferences going on – it’s a bit tough to explain, so if you want to look at how it works you can look at what Antony Green has to say about it here – he makes way more sense than I ever will.

On Monday, the opinion polls came out again. Despite dropping to a new low poll result for Kevin Rudd, he is still technically ahead. He was told by one old bloke “Them polls are a bunch of wombats!” – you can watch that here.

It’s come to the point in the election where repetition is constant and the trend is key words repeated three times – e.g. “cut, cut, cut”, “build, build, build” – and I feel like yelling, yelling, yelling.

CEOs have made their position on Abbott’s Paid Parental Leave Scheme clear – they don’t like it. Neither do economists – and when the economists think it isn’t a good idea because it may blow out the budget, you should be concerned. The experts have spoken. In related economical news, Joe Hockey didn’t do to well when interviewed about his budget recently.

On Tuesday, Abbott’s Paid Parental Leave was being criticised again. That was the least of his worries though, given that his candidate for the seat of Charlton (Greg Combet’s seat) has pulled out of the running after a website was unearthed. As the ballots are already printed, his name will still be on there, but he will not be campaigning and will essentially give the seat to Labor.

We are now halfway there.

The Election Campaign Begins…

Well, it’s Tuesday. Since the election was called on Sunday, Tony has been on the ABC a few times: Sunday night and this morning.

But first, Tony spent Monday evening in Western Sydney at a function with minority leaders.

This morning, he was on 702 ABC Sydney being interviewed by Breakfast host Adam Spencer – it wasn’t brilliant work from either side, and Tony didn’t really answer all the questions he was asked, but it’s given me some valuable insight. Joe Hockey was interviewed for ABC Radio’s AM, and spoke about the economy. More insight.

Kevin Rudd, on the other hand, debated the Greens and Liberal candidates in his electorate of Griffith this morning. From the tweets, it appears that all three made an impression, and Kevin seemed to have some policy to talk about.

There was an interest rate cut this afternoon, and it has become apparent that the economy is a key point in this election. Oh boy. My interest in economics only goes so far, so if I make it to the end of the election without getting frustrated, it’ll be a miracle. Labor has made it clear that the interest rate cut is a good thing, particularly for those who have a mortgage. The Coalition appears to be less optimistic. Apparently having low interest rates is a bad thing, as it means our economy is falling apart.

Back in the early 2000s, John Howard used to say that there would be “low interest rates under a Coalition government” – there really wasn’t, and Tony Abbott, Joe Hockey and other Coalition politicians have been saying that the “economy would be stronger under a Coalition government”

Rudd says that “this speaks volumes” about the Coalition – how? I don’t know. He’s also annoyed at Rupert Murdoch, who tweeted this:

Oz politics! We all like ideal of NBN, especially perfect for Foxtel. But first how can it be financed in present situation?

— Rupert Murdoch (@rupertmurdoch) August 5, 2013

It probably doesn’t help that the Daily Telegraph’s headline on Monday morning was something along the lines of “Get this Mob Out!”. He says that Murdoch is probably worried that the NBN will affect Foxtel (Australian Pay TV) and is also trying to get Tony Abbott into power – apparently their friends. Kevin also thinks that Murdoch is enjoying himself in the USA – far, far away from Australia.

If that wasn’t enough, Labor announced a large contribution to the renovation Brookvale Oval (home of the Manly Warringah Sea Eagles), right in the middle of Abbott’s electorate.

I mentioned that I had gained some valuable insight this morning…. Abbott seems to be about putting down the incumbent government and telling us how bad they are. We aren’t getting any policy from him.

So far on the policy count….

COALITION: 0

LABOR: 1

These adverts were the first on TV since the election was called….You can bet that they have been ready for MONTHS!

Coalition

Labor