Like everyone else, I expected a Labor victory in the election. I expected good things from that, and I see lots of bad consequences from the actual outcome.
Still, my personal disappointment is muted by the fact that I found the campaign so utterly depressing. The shift to positivity I noted a couple of weeks ago only lasted for a day. I saw the positive ad I wrote about only once. By election day, like the majority of the Australian public, I just wanted it to be over.
The lesson I draw from this election, and from Clinton’s failure in 2016, is that negative campaigning doesn’t work for the left. It hardens the resolve of the other side, and obscures the fact that most people agree with you on the issues.
But that’s not the lesson that the political class, (for whom the two sides are always interchangeable) and especially the hardheads who ran the campaign, will learn. They will conclude that the small target strategy has been vindicated once again.
John Quiggin 
Jack Strocchi: the carbon sewuestration measures that have failed have been the ones that rely on big chemical engineering. The more promising ones, many tested in field trials, rely on amping up existing natural pricesses, in a widely distributed way: reafforestation, biochar, spreading basalt on farmland, olivine windrows, ocean dumping of seaweed or land plant matter. No big visible holes, but they do indeed need massive public spending or subsidy – the magic of the free market cannot work for something that has no positive market value.
There is a recession coming …..first to the global economy then to Australia. The Coalition government will make a mess of handling Australia’s first recession since 1994. Those of us who worked through a period of double digit unemployment rates will know how hard it is to haul an economy out of such a economic mire. I know I should not be the atypical dismal scientist in this but reality does have a habit of being harsh.
1994???
I suggest the recession we had to have was much earlier than that
The last hope of timely action is gone. This election confirms that neoliberal policies will remain in place in Australia until the environment and then the economy collapse. There clearly is no hope of any preemptive change in direction. The political economy will continue on its current course (that of intensifying neoliberalism) until we suffer the demonstration effect of a salutary systems collapse (natural systems followed by economic and social systems) induced by the unsustainable nature of our economic system. People under the current system are made too greedy, too selfish and too purblind to understand the real situation. The current socioeconomic system operates to make them like this. It is a self-reinforcing loop. Only an exogenous shock (ecological collapse) can change our system now. The exogenous shock (climate and ecological collapse) will happen. It is 100% certain on our current course and it will be devastating.
Here’s a hot take. The new Labor leadership will make a decisive break from the past by supporting a certain mine in Queensland.
This will trigger an all-out war on its left, but it’s a war they are willing to fight and at least they will be fighting on just one front. Inner city seats will be endangered, to be sure, but the message to those voters will be: support us or you’ll get a fourth term of the Liberals and Nationals.
Many people will find this hard to accept but the Labor Party has moved to its right after bitter defeats again and again.
Same with tax. We won’t be hearing anything about taxing distributions from family trusts or paring back negative gearing deductions for a long time, if ever.
Jack Strocchi wrote:
“Put it thus way: The local success of Phelps and Stegall show that a green policy is saleable to the Right-wing voters, but not by Green salespersons.”
I think this is an important point. The question then becomes what kind of political agent can repeat Steggall’s success on a wider scale. I don’t think we in the Greens can be it and I think we would only do ourselves a mischief by trying to reinvent ourselves as such a formation.
The day after, the smh reported Professor Bela Stantic, University of Griffith, analysed 2 million social media comments, from more than half a million unique accounts, relating to 50 key terms, and predicted that Scott Morrison would win.
The polls and the betting markets failed miserably.
The three methods are, IMHO, not very helpful for anything other than getting confirmation that the future is unpredictable in social science, where ‘predictability’ is understood in a similar if not identical fashion to that in natural science.
Professor Stantic’s prediction is based on the analysis of 1 month data before the election. This is too late for any substantial policy formation. It is a reminder of the qualifications attached to the notion of ‘evidence based decision making’.
The long series of polls show a graph reminiscent of that of the share market.
The betting market experienced a crash.
I still believe the ALP had the ‘better’ policy agenda than the Coalition. But my opinion is ‘biased’. It is biased not because I prefer the ALP to the Coalition or the Greens but because as a retiree with an educational background in analytical economics and with easy access to empirical data I had more time than an election cycle to form an opinion on the fundamental contemporary economic problems (which includes the environment) and the direction of policy changes required that would reduce the magnitude of these problem, using a broad brush. The ALP’s policy agenda ticked the boxes in this regard and it is financially credible. The Coalition, by contrast, is still on the wrong track, assuming their planned policies had been put on the table. But no society exists that consists exclusively of retired analytical economists; such a society cannot exist – who would grow the potatoes.
In reply to Harry Clarke’s comment on a comment by Chris Bowen, the ‘bias’ I have mentioned above is not due to elitism. The ‘bias’ is due to asymmetric information, which in turn is due to the division of labour.
There must be an easier way to conduct an election campaign. The human energy and the money spent on creating essentially a cacophony of messages that builds on messages and creates more and is shadowed by an even bigger cacophony of messages on social media is mind boggling.
How is anybody going to find the questions to which the ALP provided an answer in this cacophony of messages unless they have the questions in their mind before the campaign? Is this why the personality of ‘the leader’ appears to be of great importance? Someone with whom people feel they have at least something in common to simplify the choice problem? (Not the same thing in my mind as identity politics.)
I felt sorry for almost all politicians of the two major parties (ALP, LP) by the end of this campaign. I felt sorry for the ALP team because of the work they had done and the disappointment of the reward. I felt sorry for Mr Morrison because the “miracle” outcome may exceed anybody’s capacity to work miracles for 3 years. In some sense I admire anybody who is prepared to be a politician. It is not an easy job.
Iko
you really are a ball of misery. In this 40th anniversary of Monty Python’s Life of Brian, try to Always Look on the Brighter Side of Life (in the Eric Idle accent, of course). You can find it on Youtube.
and now for something completely different.
The ALP policy was a very christian document. Those early pioneers such as Andrew fisher would have heartily endorsed it whilst telling Shorten if you do not believe in hell you aint a christian. Why so?
God judges governments by how they treat their poor.
The ALP had a policy of broadening the tax system and making it more progressive. A progressive tax system is a very christian thing to believe in. amos and micah shows this and it heavily influenced people such as Tawney and Temple..
The higher expenditure on hospitals, schools, dental care et al was also aimed at the least well off.
I love it when Christianity meets neo-liberalism
@Ernestine
“The polls and the betting markets failed miserably.”
The betting markets followed the polls so there was really just one failure. The only information the betting markets had was the polls, and it was false information.
Of course you are right about becoming informed about tax policies. Tax is inherently difficult and complex and any tax policy can be successfully distorted or lied about. The average person is not going to take the time to find out about whether a tax affects them. They will just assume the worst.
It was just so naive, so incompetent, so stupid of the Labor Party to think that if their tax policies only directly affected a small number of people (which was objectively true) that everybody else would either not care or approve. We know from history that you can’t sell tax increases from opposition and we also know that people are extremely suspect to accepting relentless messaging – including straight out lies, let alone messages that contain a kernel of truth – on social media.
Whoever in the Labor Party sold Shorten on the idea that you can win an election by promising to increase (at least) four different taxes, should be driven to the airport and given a one way ticket to Antarctica.
@Paul Norton
“The question then becomes what kind of political agent can repeat Steggall’s success on a wider scale.”
It’s not the agent, it’s the message. People in electorates like Warringah (and beyond) accept that climate change is a problem, but that doesn’t mean that they think we’re in the midst of a “climate emergency”. Most people are not going to be receptive to what they perceive to be hyperbole. (Whether the emergency is true or hyperbole is not the point here.) They will not be receptive to a Tony Abbott “climate change is crap” rhetoric either.
And while people do say that climate change is a problem, that doesn’t mean they are prepared to make economic sacrifices to do anything about it. (Whether they really would need to make economic sacrifices or whether their children will make even bigger economic sacrifices if climate change is not addressed, is also not the point here.) It is instructive that the only climate change-addressing action that has received demonstrable mass support is putting solar panels on the roofs of houses. People have done this thinking not that it’s a economic sacrifice for the greater good but because it’s been sold to them as a way of saving money.
I’ve never been convinced on their Franking Credit policy. Speaking from my personal experience: I know retirees on very low incomes who relied heavily on that refund. These are genuine low asset owning, low income earning people who would be paying company tax under this policy, whereas a high income earner can claim it against their income tax. This was a policy that not only unfairly provided them with a tax burden, but also discouraged them from investing in the real economy.
One of these retirees is in his 70s and *never* voted for anyone but the ALP for his entire life. Until this election!
For me personally, I understood the rationale of the sales pitch for this policy, but it was never backed up with cold hard numbers. Like, if there’s a significant portion of the electroate gaming the system – who are they (generically); how many are there; how are they doing it (in detail) and why address it this way????
I’m yet to hear an ALP representative articulate any detail beyond (to paraphase) ‘the top end of town is gaming it by minimising their “declared” income’.
Smith9
I was campaigning at the Nerang West polling booth on Saturday. I lived in the area for five years so I know that it has quite a high uptake of solar roof installations. My impression on Saturday (confirmed by studying the AEC figures for the booth) was that a good fraction of the residents of the homes with solar panels weren’t voting Labor, Greens or Animal Justice Party.
https://johnquiggin.com/2019/05/19/the-day-after-2/comment-page-3/#comment-210616 “Here’s a hot take. The new Labor leadership will make a decisive break from the past by supporting a certain mine in Queensland.”
Smith9, Labor already has been supporting that “certain mine in Queensland” simply by not opposong it. Labor already is funding the massive $1.64billion Port of Townsville expansion to facilitate seaborne coal exports from other presently existing, and certain future coal mines in the North Galileee Basin just inland from Townsville. That massive coal mining expansion has existing Queensland rail close by, but has up to now been blocked only by not having a suitable port on the coast. Palaszczuk even now will likely still block a billion dollar taxpayer funded rail connection for Adani, but TerraCom is set to get their taxpayer paid billion dollar site for an export coal loader courtesy of Labor.
“who are they (generically)”
That one’s easy. A partner in a large law firm (which is not actually a partnership but a company limited by shares) gets paid (mostly) by his share of the distribution of profits, that is, fully franked dividends. The distributions go his self managed super fund, and are taxed at 15%. On a $500,000 distribution (which is what a junior partner would get) the cash back on the franking credits is around $90,000. That’s per year.
Svante
no doubt, but all of that is sotto voce. Henceforth they will be loud.
Thanks for the explanation Smith. You do have a knack of articulating your points very clearly and concisely which I appreciate and enjoy reading. Pity the ALP didn’t have someone on their cabinet with similar skills.
Ikomoklast,
PrQ may use his reason, may even ‘worship’ rationality, but where is your evidence that any active Australian politician is rational?
IMHO, rationality has yet to be tested in practice. The Enlightenment would have been a good idea.
Actually it’s $107000 cash back, calculated as
Franking credit = 10/7*500000 -500000 = $214000
Tax payable = 0.15*(500000+214000) – 214000 = -107000.
This will pay for private school fees for three kids and a holiday to Aspen for the family.
It’s the mother of all rorts, and it’s not going anywhere.
Smith9 @ 10:12 AM
1. “The betting markets followed the polls so there was really just one failure. The only information the betting markets had was the polls, and it was false information.” Well this should settle the usefulness of a market as an aggregator of individuals’ expectations!
But I note the AllOrd and the S&P ASX200 have been up by over 1.5% by 10:40 this morning even though the international tensions between the USA and China, the USA and Iran and the USA and Europe, all of which may have an influence on Australia have not dissipated over the week-end, nor has anything else happened that could be seen as ‘brighter prospects’ for all Australians. But then, the stock exchange indices reflect only the expectations of those who trade there.
While I don’t wish to argue this point at great length, as far as prediction is concerned, the betting market failed.
2. You mention tax policy as an example of my general point. But my point was not about individuals “becoming informed about tax policies” being difficult. My intention was to convey the idea that people have to first gain an understanding why tax policies matter for their own good, not tomorrow or the following day, but over their life cycle. The same applies to environmental policies.
I am obviously not a politician by nature and I don’t know what the Labor Party’s thoughts were. But I do know from my teaching experience as well as from research, asking the question, that is ‘what is the problem’, is helpful for the former and necessary for the latter before presenting an answer. This communication method is, IMO, extremely difficult to carry out within a cacophony of messages (ie noise), in particular if transparency is also an objective. .)
3. I have already expressed my reservations about the relevancy of prediction based on history (unqualified evidence based decision making). To give an example, I noticed the Labor party stressed they had learned the lesson from the Rudd-Gillard-Rudd era while the Coalition was in disarray due to their changes of leaders. There is one small difference, however. Rudd won an election in 2007 in what is called a land-slide. Mr Turnbull scraped across the line in 2016.
Troy ,
I find your claim of low income retirees hard to understand.
A person who has money to invest will put it into Superannuation as it is very tax effective
In your explanation you are alleging any excess money goes into a modest share portfolio instead of Super.
A person like that would be getting some sort of part pension from the government thus still getting imputation credits.
Any person affected by the ALP policy would have a lot of disposable income whilst working.
Imputation credits was middle to upper class welfare
Ernestine
But the betting market did aggregate everybody’s expectations. It’s just that everybody was wrong. As I understand it, the betting market doesn’t have to make correct predictions to be called efficient, it has to use all the available information, which it did. It’s a shame that guy who analyses millions of tweets or whatever didn’t make it known before the event he thought the L&NP were going to win. (Maybe he put his money where his big data algorithm was and bet on the coalition.)
nottrampis,
Sounds like it’s an ignorance issue – from my part and the retirees I was refering to. Thanks for the clarification. Again, I never heard any of this explained (clearly anyway) by the ALP.
Troy Prideaux, something I was not aware of until yesterday when I heard John Hewson say that the COALition were considering doing something about the budget cost of franking credit largesse up until Bowen announced Labor’s proposed changes to franking credit policy in March last year at 25:04 here: https***www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/the-roundtable/the-roundtable-the-election/11125142
I think Labor and others did provide sufficient numbers with the rationale, but they lacked a simple sales pitch to get it past the hurdle of even just the bit of complexity involved. It needed a simple catch phrase, a simple graphic like a coloured table of cost/benefits/winners/losers, a short simple funny cartoon graphic posted on YouTube…
“Never underestimate the difficulty of changing false beliefs by facts”- Henry Rosovsky
“You can never underestimate the stupidity of the general public” – Scott Adams
“Never underestimate the power of stupid people in large groups.” – George Carlin
“Never underestimate the power of human stupidity” – Robert A. Heinlein
The irony is that with more of the same from government to continue it is likely more stupid for full and part pensioners to stick with shares here.
The average person does not have enough knowledge to know what is correct (sustainable) for the whole system. He/she is deliberately kept ignorant of the facts in this political system. The average person has merely enough knowledge, in most cases, to proximally satisfice his/her own situation and trajectory. The combining of atomistic proximal satisficing (via markets and self-interested political pressure) does not compositionally sum to the correct actions needed to deal with system wide problems.
Can I add another thing that occurred after 1993.
Keating went from a successful politician who did all the right things to being insufferable. He was the master political strategist by winning the unwinnable election.
Will Morrison do a Keating.
I am betting he does
Smith9 says May 19, 2019 at 12:18 pm johnquiggin.com/2019/05/19/the-day-after-2/comment-page-2/#comment-210571
“I see the Dawson Deplorables rewarded Jabba the Christensen’s sterling representation with a 10% swing in his favour.
Hmmm… could it be that the Bob Brown caravan was a tad counterproductive? With friends like these …”
Surely it was a warm up regardless of any election outcome?
Civil action, environmental groups and protest demonstrations preserved the Queensland Wet Tropics, Shelbourne Bay, and GBR in the 1980s despite the majority opposition of Queensland regional locals. Sure it wasn’t like Tweedle-dum and Tweedle-dummer now, Hawke got on board against Joh, but the regional environmental groups couldn’t have done it without supporters down in Brisbane and those foreigners even deeper in the South. In the end majority local opinion on the issues, largely based on conservative self interest economic misperception and propaganda, did shift.
Yes, Svante, but how much economic prosperity (real or imagined) was at stake with the Queensland Wet Tropics etc? The unemployment rate in Townsville is nearly double the national average, and here comes Bob Brown with his pot of gold parliamentary pension telling people their local industry should be shut down for the good of the planet (an abstract concept) and for the good of future generations (an even more abstract concept). (I don’t know whether he actually said that but that would have been the impression.)
Emmanuel Macron had his come to Jesus moment recently after talking to the yellow vests, when he realised that people who worry about fin du moi [end of the month, when the bills are due] don’t have the capacity to worry about the fin du monde [end of the world]. Bob Brown with his illusions of infallibility (which is to say, his own) is not capable of a come to Jesus moment because in his mind he is Jesus.
Are the great unwashed myopic, mistaken, perhaps even a bit selfish? Maybe. But that is how it is and these people vote.
eva cox (@evacox) says May 19, 2019 at 12:20 pm johnquiggin.com/2019/05/19/the-day-after-2/comment-page-2/#comment-210573
Eva, recently in conversation with Phillip Adams ***www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/latenightlive/eva-cox/10994428 you briefly mentioned a C19 sociologist’s work and their insight into the ubiquitously inherent mechanisms of resistance to any status quo change within human institutions saying, iirc, that you could have benefitted by paying more attention to their work early on than to that of Marx. Could you elaborate on that? How are such mechanisms better overcome or bypassed?
Sorry to hear about the leg. I hope it soon mends.
Ikonoclast says May 20, 2019 at 8:51 am johnquiggin.com/2019/05/19/the-day-after-2/comment-page-3/#comment-210615
..”People under the current system are made too greedy, too selfish and too purblind to understand the real situation. The current socioeconomic system operates to make them like this. It is a self-reinforcing loop.”
Nature always bats last. But selfish genes shall remain in the loop if not those for understanding.
The most convincing argument will be a comparison of the realistic forecast of job creation with Adani, and an equally forecast of job creation in renewables, tourism, primary industries, and infrastructure, with a rich sprinkling of ‘climate change fear’ added!
Smith9 says May 20, 2019 at 1:59 pm “Yes, Svante, but how much economic prosperity (real or imagined) was at stake with the Queensland Wet Tropics etc? The unemployment rate in Townsville is nearly double the national average, and here comes Bob Brown”
Brownsville was somewhat out of it. Brownsville is an island linked to the dry outback and an outpost of Southern Big Government. Elsewhere in the wet tropics as I recall unemployment was regionally up to 25 and 30%
Tanya Plibersek has pulled out of the leadership race, saying
“At this point, I cannot reconcile the important responsibilities I have to my family with the additional responsibilities of the Labor leadership.”
Who does she think she’s kidding? If Labor had won the election, she would have been Deputy Prime Minister and a senior cabinet minister which would have taken up at least as much time as being Labor leader in opposition.
She have said, honestly, “I don’t have the numbers”.
Tanya Plibersek announced yesterday she is considering the possibility to being a candidate for the ALP leadership and she will announce her decision today. She has done so.
Therefore, the statement “Tanya Plibersek has pulled out of the leadership race” is false because she wasn’t in it.
@Ernestine
Because yesterday she didn’t know how much time is involved in being leader of the opposition. But today she does.
In the alternative, she’s discovered the Left is supporting Albo, the Right is supporting someone else and no one is supporting her.
It’s not so much that “nature bats last”. It’s more that nature bats with a tremendous and powerful club whereas humanity bats alternately with two different twigs. The first twig is called myth. It’s marvelously effective at motivating humans, usually to do really stupid things, but totally ineffective against natural forces. The second twig is science. It confers some limited ability to command nature but paradoxically only when it obeys nature.
Humans, like any animal species, always take the easy meal over the hard meal. The easy meal requires the lowest effort (disutility) for the greatest proximal, satisficing return. Humans, in the main, cannot overcome their bounded, satisificing rationality to solve global problems. The proof, if one is needed, is in our failure to date to solve a single one of the serious global problems we face. The evidence of our serious peril is clear. Our actions remain wholly inadequate compared to the perils we face.
“The evidence of our serious peril is clear. Our actions remain wholly inadequate compared to the perils we face.”
Like Dracarys?
All will soon be revealed.
Climate fire! It’s worse than dragon fire. 😉
Smith9 @4:06pm
You are of course free to make as many assumptions about other people, like Tanya Plibersek in this case, as you like as long as you say you are presenting your assumptions, or your hypothesis if you like, or your belief or your suspicion. You have made an assertion (the one I quoted), which is logically false, and then insinuated that Plibersek is not telling the truth on ground which may well make sense to you but not necessarily to Plibersek.
This is my little contribution to counter the cacophony of messages I have complained about.
(As an aside, I don’t agree with your conclusion regarding the betting market but I don’t care whether or not you continue with your belief or not.)
Iko, that’s a good one.
Franking credits: devil’s advocate here: if you want to tax profits once, in the company’s hands, logically that means the dividend should be tax free in the shareholder’s hands.
If you want to tax dividends once, as personal income in the shareholder’s hands, logically that leads to the current system – including the refund of unused franking credits. Allowing franking credits as a rebate of tax down to zero but not beyond makes no sense.
If the concern is that the benefits go excessively to people with high incomes but low taxable incomes, you should be attacking tax free super pensions, not franking credit refunds.
What am I missing?
Rude language warning!
Bill Nye ~The Planet Is On F@ck!ng Fire
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gnYHJpxfPcw
@Julian
for one thing, the point of dividend imputation is that profit should be taxed once, in the shareholder’s hands (once it has been distributed as dividends) with company tax merely being a withholding tax. (Except in the many cases where it isn’t merely a withholding tax.)
The thrust of your argument though is the one that has been made for refunding unused franking credits. Taken in isolation, it has merit, but there are many considerations, such as the need to raise revenue in a tax system that is already full of inconsistencies and faults.
It is true that if super pensions were taxed properly none of these arguments would be needed. But they’re not taxed properly and there is no prospect that they will be. There is also no prospect that the franking credit issue will be fixed either. So that is that, and on to other battles.
George Carlin – Saving the (F@ck!ng) Planet.
Oops. The planet isn’t going anywhere, we are.
George Carlin – Saving the (F@ck!ng) Planet.
Chris Bowen is reported to be considering a run for Labor leader. If Bowen thinks he is leadership material then he is either on ice or might as well be.
Haven’t been here for ages…
Summary of points from huge ALP supporter “First Dog” (from pro-war Guardian), in reverse order:
– “The born to rule boys of the ALP are just as bad as their Tory counterparts. They made a gormless wooden factional warlord their leader”
– “One grinning pentecostal in a baseball cap and he beat the ALP and union movement all by himself”
– “Look out here comes Adani! Also more of the same for Manus and Nauru”
-“What do you think you are doing Australia?”
(Those are actual quotes)
So, in summary, we were supposed to vote for a gormless wooden Tory-type, who never said he would stop Adani, and who was the key architect of the refugee concentration camp policy for Manus and Nauru, and because we didn’t we should be berated.
Had a look at “Independent Australia” (totally pro-ALP too) and saw that they will gleefully watch the demise to homelessness and poverty of everyone who was evil enough to not vote ALP.
This election was our equivalent of Milliband’s 2015, but there is no way we’ll be allowed a Corbyn.
See you all after the ALP gets slaughtered again in 3 years.
Geeez.
Smithy, totally agree, he was the economic spokesman and large player of the leadership group.
@D:
Did you cast a valid vote for the House of Representatives?
Did you preference the Coalition ahead of Labor?
George Carlin forgot about subduction. That’s how the earth will deal with the most persistent plastic. However, he conflates the biosphere with the entire earth, for the purposes of comedy I guess. We can’t damage the earth in any substantial way but we can damage the biosphere. Yes, it’s true that a large asteroid or a vast lava outflow (a Siberian Shield sized event) can seriously wreck the current biosphere but that’s no reason we should damage it ourselves right now. It’s true that one day my house will collapse, meet an accident or be demolished. That’s no reason for me to burn it down right now.
It’s true that the biosphere could right itself to a new balance and create an entirely new biosphere biome in say one hundred million years. That’s not on a timescale which would be of any use to us. What we wreck, stays wrecked for our species existence, right until our extinction. Indeed, if we keep wrecking at the current rate, some scientists estimate that we will be extinct by 2100.