At least that’s what I’m reading. As I’ve argued before, I think this is a mistake for a number of reasons. In fact, I spent a fair bit of yesterday working up a piece arguing the case for allowing Parliament to sit again, and holding an election in October. [Irony on] If only I had run it on Friday, the course of history would doubtless have been changed [Irony off]. It’s now only of academic interest, in the pejorative sense of the term, so I’ll turn my attention to issues that actually matter.
My views on the election are simple. Whatever the weaknesses of the Rudd government, it’s far preferable to the disaster that Abbott would give us. So, I’ll certainly be putting Labor ahead of the Coalition in the House of Representatives. I’ll probably give my first preference to the Greens, though if my vote matters in Ryan, Labor will have swept Queensland. Both Labor and Greens have good local candidates, so I’d happily support either, and I’ll equally happily give my last preference to the LNP incumbent, unless someone truly awful runs.
The big issue is the Senate. Regardless of the Lower House outcome, it’s critical that a Labor-Green majority should be returned, and therefore that Labor and the Greens work together. This was one of Rudd’s big weaknesses last time round, and hasn’t been helped by some statements from his frontbench, or from perceptions on both sides of the way the last Labor-Green deal worked out.
John Quiggin 
http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/bandt-has-strong-chance-of-holding-seat-poll-shows-20130803-2r6fn.html
Small poll in Bandt’s electorate (400) suggests refugee policy working for him there – his chances of retaining the seat should not be written off to early
According to the ABC news website, it’s on for the 7th Sep.
I have to concede, JQ, that Kevin Rudd has covered a huge amount of ground in just a handfull of weeks as PM, and really turned Labour’s fortunes around. And not just from appearances but with punchy action, however controversial. I certainly did not think that amount of change was possible.
He seems to have effectively trimmed his verboseness and benefited from a more energetic delivery. Just what a campaign needs. I really do hope that he pulls this off even if just for the satisation that Labour will have delivered one of the best political tag team wins in history. An exciting relay with the “Hope for Future Generations through Climate Action” batton being passed forward to a responsible Australian Leadership.
According to something I heard on ABC today, there is still some hope for a hung house of reps again.
I’d prefer that, although most legislation will still get passed by ALP/LNP voting together.
What, you’re not voting for Clive Palmer? But he’s so telegenic in those advertisements!
Somewhat more seriously, there’s an old saying that “the only good government is a bad government in a hell of a fright”. In the light of that, people should vote for minor parties in a pattern that effectively deadlocks any attempts to cobble together a government resting on a coherent pattern of minorities with overlapping interests, so no spurious claims of mandates can be credible.
Kev is on the box so I guess it’s on. He is trying being honest (more or less) about the budget. It might work. After all, honesty from a polly is a real surprise tactic.
I see the projected budget deficit is now expected to be $30.1 billion. Some journo wrote on the ABC site “How to Lose $30 billion in 10 weeks” and pitched it as such. Total tripe of course. There was always deficit and an estimate. Estimates don’t always come in right. The “lost” money is not lost. Indeed, all that money remains in the hands of tax payers except perhaps for that debt money not created if lending has dropped.
The shortfall will be made up by printing fiat money; the exact thing all conventional economists have conniptions about, hyperventilating about hyperinflation. But in a downturn, tax reciepts drop and outgoing payments (welfare etc.) go up. The automatic stabilisers do their work. Though just about everyone hypcritically hyperventilates about hyperinflation the govt just runs a deficit. Who is going to let starve if it doesn’t run a deficit? The unemployed? The elderley?
The deficit will be run, a slack economy will benefit and no hyperinflation will eventuate. Lesson of the day for Monetarists and their close cousins the hard Keynesians. The government does not even have to borrow all this. It can print money, borrow money, raise money and cut some programs in any combination. If it doesnt borrow, printed money does not ever have to be paid back to anyone. Balanced budgets (not surpluses) in good time will whittle back the money supply. Oh and how about throttling back excess debt money creation by banks? I NEVER hear the Monetarists and the hard Keynesians admit that that is an issue.
How many seats will the greens win from Labor?
Even one more green house seat increases the chances of a minority government if Rudd 2.0 otherwise pulls it off. What are the long term implications of Labor having to rely on the greens for house majorities in 2016 onwards?
Milne has already said that the senate will be decided in SA and WA. I have seen no news reports on katter’s chances in the senate in Qld.
The DLP, Nick X and Katter’s mob will control the senate.
I’ll be putting ALP first and the coalition last.
Still thinking this will be a 54/46 Coalition victory. The Coalition will have a great time linking Ruddster’s team with Fast Eddie and Big Macca.
Anyway, it’s usually best to expect the worst but hope for the best.
I am one who doesnt get Rudds popularity other than that he is not Gillard or Abbott (maybe that is enough). I know politicians must be able to compromise but he seems a moral contortionist . Perhaps the end justifies the means ,with the main goal being to keep Abbott out. In any case its good to see Rudds team swinging hard punches and landing some .The coalition has been in hyper-agressive mode for years.
This is a big moment ,how the defecit is dealt with will be decided . As G Meglogenis says -weve been paying ourselves too much .Abbott has Tea Party style fundamentalists on his team who may well act on their rhetoric .
And as noted, I’ll be adopting my usual posture — 1 for the Greens and the ALP-LNP with the same low ordinal value, Langer-style. Sadly, that means my vote won’t be counted.
Ah democracy! Don’t you love it?
I don’t know who will win the election, but I do know that a repulsive spiv will win and declare himself determined to govern “for all Australians”. Perhaps he will even throw in something about having a “kinder, gentler polity”. I will have to be quick on the button to ensure I miss pronouncements like that.
I would have preferred a late election date. IMO this maximises the chance of a landslide one way or another. That way, at least one repulsive spiv will be finished and there is a notional opening for at least one of the parties to remake itself. Given how bad they are, tnat can only be a good thing.
Mind you, they probably won’t. While neither party will consider radical experimental surgery if they are within a bull’s roar of office, if they aren’t they will probably be in no fit state to try it. There will always be an argument for continuing to do what you know with whom you know. To whom else but the traditional sources will either turn?
So a wipeout is probably more a necessary condition rather than a sufficient one for change a bit like entering a lottery in the hope of winning. You can’t win if you don’t enter, but even if you do enter, your chances are remote.
Hello Everybody,
While we are on the subject of who Rudd is popular with….
KEVIN RUDD, THERESE REIN AND THEIR COMPANY INGEUS LTD. THE OBEIDS OF THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT.
http://kangaroocourtofaustralia.com/2013/08/04/kevin-rudd-therese-rein-and-their-company-ingeus-ltd-the-obeids-of-the-federal-government/
The stench continues, when will someone drive a stake into the corrupt ALP.
Kind regards,
phoenix
Fran I presume you mean in the lower house? Don’t do it in the senate at least. Do a real vote for the greens. Write horrible things on the ballot paper if you like, but at least do a real vote for the senate. Whichever of the two horrible men wins, there has got to be a check on them in the senate.
You were probably going to do that anyway, but just in case …
The thing about the Senate, at least in NSW, is that magnifying glass may be essential. I hope they have been road tested. For some reason there is a maximum length of 1.02 m for the Senate voting paper, and the font is reduced to accommodate the candidates. It would seem, voting below the line will be the same perilous adventure it was last election. I am hoping to find Senate preferences set out somewhere on the AEC site.
@Val
Sadly, even in the Senate, you must vote either ALP or LNP for your vote to be formal. I simply can’t do that.
@Jim Rose
That raises an interesting permutation I hadn’t thought of.
Let’s say ALP gets one less than LNP but Greens (having been screwed by the ALP so comprehensively) refuse to form government with the ALP or the LNP?
Would the LNP then form government but (unless they can do one of their all-too-common deals with the ALP) need to deal with the cross-benchers – including the Greens – for contentious legislation?
That might be more effective than the Greens just giving the ALP a “deal” (one which history proves the ALP would welch on, lying scum that they are!).
The very fact that there is not only something called the “ALP Right” but that it actually controls the notionally “left” ALP is, to my mind, confounding in a country that considers itself democratic.
Fran – I like the idea of a landslide/wipeout, but when we had one in Qld. the LNP slammed through some midnight legislation to ensure that nobody but the ALP could become the official “Opposition” and they did this with the completely irrelevant support of the six or so ALP members left in our uni-cameral parliament – just to let everyone know it was bipartisan.
The other danger is the (pointless) claim of a “mandate” which seems to have some cache for excusing the otherwise inexcusable.
I’ll be voting for the most socialist party first and the most capitalist party last in a standard preferential ballot with no gratuitious markings or abuse which might allow the forces of reaction to challenge my vote. Needless to say this will mean voting Socialist, Green, Labor, Liberal, National, Katterites, Palmerites in that order. Surely for Palmerites there is a joke in order. I won’t mention it though. A Rudd Labor Govt will be the least worst realistic outcome which I will be hoping for. I’ll be voting the same way in the Senate in an effort to give Labor a workable majority or coalition with Greens etc. in both houses.
Labor needs to realise the Greens are friends not enemies and mend bridges there with genuine good will and intentions.
I would caution against a Langer-stlye vote. One, I have serious doubts that it is valid even in the lower house. Two, you would be throwing away the chance to give one more vote to the least worst realistic option. Nobody deplores the Labor-Liberal political duopoly more than I especially since they are both far right wing in theory and sometimes in practice on some policies e.g. the obsession with neoliberal economics. However, in practice Rudd will run a deficit when the cycle requires it. If Abbott gets in prepare for austerity policies and deep recession. The labour, financial and social ills of Australia will increase manyfold under Abbott.
Postscript, it’s wonderful that Abbott has said he won’t form a minority governement. However, I guess that is not worth the paper it isn’t written on. Hang on, even when Tony writes it and signs it, it’s not worth the paper it is written on.
Remember people,
http://www.theguardian.com/society/2013/may/15/recessions-hurt-but-austerity-kills
It’s empirically proven that the Iceland approach works (closer to moderate Keynesianism and MMT policies) and the EU Troika austerity approach (neoliberalism) fails, Check the progress of Iceland vs. the PIGS. It’s no longer the PIIGS of course.
@Ikonoclast
Assumes what needs to be proven — that there is a least worst option. There isn’t. Both sides are repusive political criminals trading in human abuse and surviving on political blackmail of just the kind you describe in your post. Not only is it a duopoly — but unlike Coles and Woolies, this one is backed by linking choice of one of them with vote formality.
oops … “repulsive”
Ikon #16, I’ve scrutineered and my understanding is it doesn’t matter what you write on the paper as long as your preferences are clear. Scrutineers do sometimes see the messages and report them back to the party if there’s a lot of them. Feel free to check this if you like though.
Fran I just think you should bite the bullet and do a formal vote for the greens (or the socialist alliance if you have them as we do in the people’s republic if brunswick). Maybe you could toss a coin to see which of the bad parties you put first?
@Val
How could I face my students — some of whom were “boat people” — and explain why people like them ought to be locked up (for their own good!) for trying to flee brutality?
Hitherto I’ve told them they are welcome here, even if some people are “confused”. I could hardly say that if I’d voted to endorse some of their putative jailers as somehow ethically preferable to others. How would that be?
I’d have to avoid eye contact. The deceit, hypocrisy and guilt would make me wither inside.
@Ikonoclast
Yep. I’ve used Stuckler & Basu’s work to counter claims that the pink batts killed 4 people. The Liberals anti-stimulus stance could have killed more as Stuckler & Basu’s research finds that there have been 4000+ “excess” suicides in the US as a result of the poor economy and austerity policies.
I’m surprised that there aren’t more people using this kind of defense. It does seem to be an effective counterargument. Although it may be rather macabre and insensitive to be measuring policy failures by the amount of deaths it would generate.
Calling an election early is a mistake. Bugger the “political imperatives”, Rudd has staked his claim on a policy to stop the boats at Indonesia/Sri Lanka etc., and I want the Aust public to grow up and engage their brains in their attitude towards policy making ie. giving it a chance before condemning it. Six weeks or so isn’t a fair trial because this is a game of staring down the people moving trade, not blinking first. (The crap about “Why can’t Treasury predict the future accurately?” is a variation of this ignorance, which must be challenged.)
When Fed Treasury announces an interest rate change, it doesn’t have to fight the banks to achieve it, they know who’s got the market power so they fall in line. Rudd and co. need to also present a “credible threat”, not undermine the policy by canvassing the “what if it doesn’t work?” scenario.
So many cynics won’t give this circuit breaker a chance because they don’t want it to work. They assume that Step 1 (stopping embarkations) will fail, and jump to Step 2 (offshore detention), which provides a comfort zone to display their emotions rather than acknowledge the policy as aimed at preventing mass detention by stopping the boats through a loud campaign of threat and bluff. To give it a chance, of course govt members need to be forceful and uncompromising in communicating the message – this is a game of staring at the enemy and not blinking.
But if it works, then mass detention offshore doesn’t happen – does this outcome not fit the Left’s preferred narrative of a govt of brutish and disgusting politicians? For example, Julian Burnside at The Conversation this week: “The major political parties in Australia are engaged in a competition to outdo each other in their promises to mistreat boat people” . Yeah right, I suppose that’s why Labor increased the humanitarian intake from 13,500 to 20,000 last year, and has flagged raising it again to 27,000. (Cf. Christine Milne’s aim of 30,000.)
My concern is that Labor in an admitted attempt to wrong-foot conservative voters (I have previously reported the Monash Uni. Social Cohesion Research Program’s surveys which show only one voter in four supports perm residency for boat arrivals) is now going to ignore the leakage from the left. It seems that Green voters have been assumed by Labor to come back as prefs are distributed, but this time the anti-Labor vitriol and Clive Palmer’s “fly them here” thought bubbles may not lead to that. Parties not aiming at getting 51% of voter support of course don’t care about electoralism, but can take positions which benefit themselves.
There is a Regional process which may provide a new direction to refugee support e.g. the mass uplifts I mentioned previously in the post “Is there a solution to the refugee problem?”, and outlined by Malcolm Fraser, Andrew Jabukowicz and John Menadue. Later on, govt policy may indeed need to be revisited. Duh!
In a contest where the result will often be tight, Labor needs to shore up its own base by getting a story out about its policy which is defensible and principled, as I believe it is.
@kevin1
Please note that I (kevin1) am not, and have never been new commenter Kevin so please don’t confuse me with whatever he says!
Great point. I never thought of that.
On topic, despite not liking Kevin, I shall vote for Labor (even though I said I wouldn’t). The thought of Tony and the Libs getting in is too much to stomach.
Fran B:
Ultimately the ALP, for all its faults, looks after the working class better than the Coalition. I don’t care if you sabotage your own vote but lets not pretend that doing so isn’t a reactionary thing to do.
IMO one of the best things the ALP under Rudd/Gillard did was introduce paid parental leave. America is now the only western capitalist democracy without a state mandated paid parental leave scheme. Sure the scheme is paltry but it can be built on.
In a conservative country like Australia, where social trust has largely broken down thanks to the rampant multiculturalism and cultural relativism supported by folk like yourself and our unusually misguided Dear Leader PrQ, this is the best we can hope for (1).
Baby steps. It’s all about those Fabianesque little baby steps.
(1) Having said that I do like the idea of ethnic mixing producing a beige coloured non-race, but this must be done slowly.
@kevin1
Now that you mention it, your monikers are rather similar. But there really isn’t much difference apart from that!
(jokey icon thing I can’t do goes here).
@Mel
You’re looking for a fight, right?
If not, you’ll need to explain in precise terms what this “social trust” was, before it became “largely broken down”.
@Megan
Have you heard of Nate Silver who predicted the US pres election results? In The Signal and the Noise he talks a bit about hedgehogs and foxes. I won’t say more as I want to encourage you to read a book. I know it subtracts from the quantity of your talking time but it might raise the quality.
@Fran Barlow
Fair enough. Coming from that position you probably can’t give them a vote. Some will no doubt tag me as a reactionary because I say Australia needs a population cap. However, I have also indicated I would support Australia taking up to 50,000 refugees a year if we cut voluntary immigration by the same amount. There is after all no moral requirement for us to take voluntary economic migrants. The criteria are rather more to do with the national interest in that case.
Coming back to the population cap issue. It is surely a Green policy par excellence to advocate stabilising the population to protect the environment. In a world that is indubitably approaching its limits (to human population and its encroachments) it is surely wiser to undershoot than overshoot our continent’s capacity. If we undershoot, we leave the natural world and its species more space. This would be no bad thing when we should be trying to arrest the current mass extinction event. If we overshoot, extinctions go into overdrive with homo sapiens on the list also.
@Ikonoclast
The thing is that on average we consume I forget how much exactly but maybe seven times as much as people in poor countries. So maybe we could fit more people if we stopped consuming so bloody much.
As you can see I am sick of this stupid argument. It’s just off shoring the problem of climate change.
And before anyone asks, I live at a sustainable level myself, unlike most of my country folk.
@Val
Though in all honesty I have to admit that my self righteousness is potentially weakened by the fact that I’m heading off to Europe today.
By my calculations though (using the Moreland energy foundation’s emissions calculator) my emissions rate is so low I can afford to go and see my daughter every couple of years without compromising myself too much!
@Val
I take your point but why do we want to fit more people? I would hazard a guess that seven times the population living at 1/7th the living standand would do even more environmental damage.
The whole point is that world needs a lot less people. Three billion living at a much less consumerist but more social product level would be sufficient and might even be sustainable.
@Ikonoclast
We don’t need to have seven times as many people, here or in the world. Natural population in most wealthy countries, including Australia, natural rates of population growth are below replacement level.
We can still have an enviable life while living sustainably, and expect immigrant populations in Australia to follow the normal demographic transition and having less children.
Sorry for clumsy repetitive expression – didn’t read before posting
@kevin1
I read lots of books, I’ll try to get hold of Silver’s.
Of course he was essentially referencing Tetlock who in turn was taking the idea from Isaih Berlin who got it from ancient Greeks. I’ve seen it summarised thus:
I imagine it’s a bit like the “above average driver”, which something like 80% of people believe they are. A hedgehog who thinks they are a fox might call a fox a hedgehog if they are blinded by ideology or other prejudice.
Hobson’s choice, really. Do I want the next PM to be a narcissistic sociopath, or a sociopathic bullsh!tter? Decisions, decisions.
@Megan
Wow! A system for categorising people which is more simple than the star signs! Two types of people versus twelve! Of course, for defending generational analysis I could be accused of going simpler still; one type for a whole cohort!!! Hoist on my own petard.
@Mel
I disagree. It’s much of a muchness, as I see it — and certainly, whatever balance of advantages might conceivably flow to the workers from ALP rule would be trivial, permanently at risk and purchased in a zero sum game waged against workers and their allies outside the country. I’m interested in the empowerment of working humanity now and into the future, and that part of it in Australia merely as a subset of that larger picture. Clearly, advantaging the latter at the expense of the former would not be a coherent policy, assuming even that some advantage was flowing.
I’m opposed to pretence. Not enabling those acting to coerce working people is an ethical obligation. Sacrificing a vote is a trivial price to pay to honour that obligation.
It’s a defensible scheme, but nothing to jump up and down about.
This claim needs better specification. In its present form, it sounds like some reactionary appeal for a return to the usages of The Bulletin c. 1880. Please clarify this.
I assume this was an attempt at humour. It wasn’t amusing, if so.
Fran B:
If you are a true internationalist you will join John Quiggin and Tad Teitze (and far right libertarians like Terje) in pushing for open borders.
Sure, the Australian working class would be reduced to hitherto unimaginable poverty and the welfare state would collapse, but tens of millions of malnourished poor people in developing countries would have a chance to be better off.
What say you Fran? Should we dispense with bourgeois nation-state fetishism and open the borders to the global proletariat?
@Mel #27
I didn’t have an opinion about you before but this offensive stuff makes you sound ugly. If there’s more to come you need to find a low-life forum for talk like this. Please don’t pollute this one.
Kevin1:
You might like to explain why that comment offends you. What have you got against miscegenation? Are you some type of white supremacist?
@Mel
I knew Dr Tad had this position, but I missed PrQ’s advocacy of it.
Personally, as appealing as it sounds, I regard the position as utopian. One shouldn’t advocate positions for which the material and political prerequisites neither exist nor can be contrived on any timeline that is germane. An open borders position that would advantage working humanity presumes the disappearance of class rule, which in turn depends on the achievement of or approach of material abundance based on an equitable division of labour on a world scale. A first step in this country and in similarly advanced industrial countries would be the achievement of inclusive governance where it would be least problematic, yet we are nowhere near that position, and probably won’t be for centuries, if we make it at all.
Other more immediate challenges (apart from inclusive governance) concern the achievement of mass literacy and numeracy in the developing world, and adequate housing, water. Inter-communal slaughter continues over in Africa, the Middle East, the Sub-continent, Asia and in the Caucasus.
I really do like the lyrics of John Lennon’s Imagine but a beautiful wish and the vehicle for realising it are distinctly different things.
@kevin1
Don’t be disingenuous, you discredit yourself.
So would say “no” to the 852 million hungry people in the developing world while saying “yes” to the probably several hundred million who could probably wrangle a case for asylum under the Refugee Convention, most of whom have access to resources unimaginable to the hungry.
@Mel
Rather than conjuring strawmen, you’d be better off relying on what I’ve written on this matter, including in this place.
Who started the myth that Rudd is a good campaigner?
Seeing off a tired, smelly 4th term government in 2007 is no more than meeting expectations in any performance evaluation of an opposition leader.
Rudd was dumped in 2010 because his colleagues judged that he could not fight his way out of a hole nor recover from the voter perception that he was a phoney because he backed out on what he called the great moral issue of our time.
His PNG solution will remind voters of this phoniness because Rudd backed down on another major moral issue out of weakness and fear of defeat rather than from the strength to admit an error. Weakness never wins votes.
So Tony Abbott says he is on a “unity ticket” with Rudd on education. Ha ha ha!
Does anyone remember what unity ticket means? It was the swapping of prefs or joint slate by Communist Party and ALP members in various union elections up to I suppose the 1990s before the CPA fizzled out eg. in the ARU, WWF, AMWU, NSWTF, FIA etc. (Those who wonder about the alphabet soup can do their own research and will find it fascinating.)
Because Santamaria’s “Movement” was the mirror image of the stalinist CPA – in its conspiratorial behaviour, ruthless ends/means logic, and destruction of doubters – Tony is still channelling his mentor. (see Melb poet Vincent Buckley’s “Cutting Green Hay” for an inside view of Santa’s behaviour.)
And I see today he gave a speech at a Ramadan event in yes, western Sydney about an oppressed religious minority in Australian history called…..Catholicism. Bad call Tony, I don’t think they’ll like that. You really need some advisers who are in touch.
There’s an unreconstructed 60s grouper heart still beating inside that athletic torso – Tony may fall over the line by default, but his lack of talent in every department is showing up under the spotlight.
I guess there’s always Joe Hockey as the stand-in. Hang on, that’s the guy who thought John Nguyen the Lib candidate for Chisholm was of Chinese descent.? Have you ever met a Nguyen who wasn’t Vietnamese? Where have you been for the last 30 years Joe
@kevin1
Not on “education” as such, they are as one on the desire to give Australia charter schools and vouchers.