Tag Archive for 'Labor'

The Costa Diaries

Published
by
Kim
1 month, 1 week ago
in Books, Writers & Writing, Economics, Media and NSW Government
. 41 Comments

Michael Costa has taken a leaf out of Mark Latham’s book… Forced out of office and Parliament? Write op/eds attacking your former party!

LISTENING to Kevin Rudd at Council of Australian Governments meetings as he tried to connect the global economic situation to the more mundane items on the national reform agenda was often excruciating.

Anybody with a rudimentary understanding of economics would have quickly concluded, as I did, that the Prime Minister didn’t have a good understanding of these issues.

Can a tell all book be far behind? Would it need to be a three volume set to contain slurs on all the people Michael Costa doesn’t like?

Here’s a suggestion for the under-employed former pollie - why not join the Liberal Party? You’ve already got News Limited Columnists eating out of your hand (you actually are one too!)… And your right-wing views should see you fit in nicely. Perhaps with your added ruthlessness, you could spark endless speculation about Malcolm Turnbull’s polling and leadership and unlike the Great Pretender seize the top job by the power of the Word!

The state of capitalism today

Published
by
Mark
1 month, 1 week ago
in Activism, Consumerism, Culture, Economics, Ethics, International, Markets, Media, Politics, Poverty, Sociology and USA
. 89 Comments

Iceland may be a barometer for what’s changing in the world economy. It was only very recently that the Milton Friedman fan club was hailing Iceland as a “Nordic Tiger”, lauding its flat taxes and praising its “economic freedom”. “Economic miracle” was a common phrase. What’s it looking like after the credit crisis?

Iceland right now is apparently in a state of shock and gives a snapshot of what a depression with the Great in it will look like everywhere - “cafes were half-empty, real estate agents sat idle, and retailers reported few sales” says the AP.

This after the government basically took over its banking sector, with Russian money, which as noted in the linked post, has real geopolitical implications.

Meanwhile, the British government is laying out 500 billion pounds to take equity in its banking sector, but basically proposing business as usual. Co-ordinated interest rate cuts are having very little impact on the stock market, and more worryingly, on the liquidity crisis. Paul Krugman writes:

We’re way past the point at which conventional monetary policy has much traction.

In America, in the eye of the economic storm, the Fed has basically become the financial system, but to little avail:

The time for a recession was 2005. At that time simple macroeconomic policy; simply raising interest rates, would have ended the bubbles in credit and housing at the cost of a standard if somewhat nasty recession. Trillions of dollars of intervention would not have been needed. Just standard macro policy. Even in 2006 it might still have worked. The Fed blew it, and they broke the system, and now with the system broken they may have to either buy it all out (and Paulson may be considering that after all) or just become the system. And even if they do that may not work, because, well, who wants to borrow and invest right now?

Bernanke and Greenspan are certainly in the “worst Fed chairman of all time” stakes in a big, big way.

Continue reading ‘The state of capitalism today’

Essential Research Labor 58-42; Interest rates cut by 100 basis points

Published
by
Kim
1 month, 2 weeks ago
in Economics, Markets, Media and Polls
. 10 Comments

As a bit of an update to my post last night, the Essential Research poll is now out, basically showing no change from last time. Possum has more on all the other questions asked. So, we can now be more confident about suggesting that Malcolm Turnbull’s leadership has yet to really shift any of the trends that were evident under Nelson - this also highlights the vast over-inflation of the importance of Preferred PM and Opposition Leader approval ratings in most of the punditariat’s commentary. It will be very interesting to see what the delayed Newspoll says - since this is apparently the only poll the punditariat focus on. Where to now for the famous “media narrative”?

Peter Martin has all the wonky stuff worth reading on the Reserve Bank’s 1% rates cut, which a number of banks and lending institutions have indicated will lead to a .8% cut in their variable mortgage rates. Dennis Atkins, writing at Party Games, thinks that the Reserve has given the Rudd government political breathing space.

No early Newspoll; interest rates to be cut

Published
by
Kim
1 month, 2 weeks ago
in Economics, Markets, Media and Polls
. 17 Comments

I wonder if no Newspoll is bad news for the pollsters and those who own them. This must be the first Monday in living memory (well, since anyone started paying attention to this stuff before last year’s campaign) when there hasn’t been an early release of selected Newspoll numbers. It couldn’t possibly be because the numbers don’t show any leadership bounce for Malcolm Turnbull, could it? [Update: Or could it be because NSW had a public holiday yesterday?] After all, last week’s Morgan face to face poll showed a straight swap of primary vote from the Coalition to Labor - 1.5%, with Labor on 57.5% 2PP. And ACNielsen and Newspoll a fortnight ago showed a very poor bounce by historical standards for the Opposition.

No doubt we’ll find out.

Malcolm Turnbull has been playing a dangerous game on interest rates. Continue reading ‘No early Newspoll; interest rates to be cut’

Daylight saving in Queensland

Published
by
Kim
1 month, 2 weeks ago
in Politics and Queensland
. 49 Comments

Daylight saving has begun in some Southern states, but here in sunny Queensland, our political masters have decreed that we’re having none of it, despite government commissioned research which shows 60% in favour and 69% in the South East Corner.

When Anna Bligh became premier, she was quick to rule out daylight saving - a decision which was supposed to symbolise, well, decisiveness and a desire to govern for the cows and the blinds that might fade as well as for pesky urbanites.

It’s not looking like such a good call now. LNP members were instructed by the Borg’s office to avoid the subject when questioned, and flicking the switch to daylight saving would be a deft wedge to expose divisions between the Nats and the Libs in the LNP, as well as to highlight the lack of Brisbane representation on the LNP front bench.

Happy World Teachers’ Day!

Published
by
Kim
1 month, 2 weeks ago
in Education
. 7 Comments

A bit of a shoutout to all the teachers out there on the intertubes - we love youse all!

Today is World Teachers’ Day. I’m sure there are very few of us who don’t remember teachers who made significant differences in our lives. It might be a neat way to celebrate to tell some of those stories on this post - you never know, your favourite chalkies might even be reading.

That might also be a useful corrective to the constant attacks in the political realm teachers have to confront - not to mention working conditions which are far from ideal, and having all sorts of social problems heaped on them to solve when no one else will apparently take responsibility. In Mark’s post the other day, discussing “Wicked Problems” in public policy, he mentioned Judith Brett’s consideration of this theme in her article in the current edition of The Monthly. Brett referred to education as one domain where a whole set of inter-related issues meet which make neat objectives like “better schools” almost impossible to achieve through magical policy transformations pollies of all stripes are in the habit of promising. In practice, whatever you think about the schools policy stuff announced by Julia Gillard recently (and I don’t think much of it), you should be able to agree that teachers are only one part of the educational policy mix. But - perhaps because unions are also a convenient can to kick for both conservative and “Third Way” style pols - they tend to get blamed for everything. I’m sure anyone who’s worked in the education game will agree that it’s a really demanding job, and one that takes a degree of commitment beyond most vocations. Let’s recognise that!

Indooroopilly Labor MP Ronan Lee joins Greens

Published
by
Mark
1 month, 2 weeks ago
in Local Elections, Queensland and State/Territory Elections
. 257 Comments

As noted here and here in comments, there’s an extremely interesting development in Queensland state politics today - Indooroopilly MP Ronan Lee has defected from the ALP to join The Greens.

Lee has been something of a maverick during his time in Parliament, causing both Peter Beattie and Anna Bligh a few headaches, and having switched factional allegiance from one right wing faction - the Old Guard (”Labor Unity”) to the other - the AWU (”Labor Forum”). He might have expected ministerial promotion, particularly if Anna Bligh had had the determination and the support to put the broom through Cabinet that is needed - rather than just talking about “renewal” - but has had to content himself with the position of Parliamentary Secretary to the Attorney-General. Lee has been a very active local member, as his website demonstrates, and a position of some independence with regard to his party (Lee’s election paraphernalia and office signage have radically downplayed his ALP affiliation) must have assisted him in retaining a very marginal seat in traditional Western Suburbs leafy Liberal heartland he first won in 2001. Lee has also been outspoken on environmental and transport issues, and recently took a swipe at Anna Bligh for not being serious about green issues.

Lee’s defection is not necessarily unexpected, and as Dennis Atkins notes at Party Games, may not be unrelated to the difficulty of holding Indooroopilly if the LNP vote does improve in Brisbane. Continue reading ‘Indooroopilly Labor MP Ronan Lee joins Greens’

The state of Rudd Nation

Published
by
Mark
1 month, 2 weeks ago
in Climate change, Economics, Education, Federal Elections, Policy, Polls and Water
. 29 Comments

This time last year, we were all feverishly anticipating the calling of the federal election, which was less than a fortnight away. Now, courtesy of the quarterly Newspoll geographical and demographic analysis we can track where and with whom the Rudd government has been travelling well and less well from January to September 2008 and compare the poll numbers with the election result in November 2007.

Possum has all the spiffy graphs.

As The Poll Bludger notes, there are two really interesting trends in the aggregate poll. First, the Rudd honeymoon is still very much alive for the 18-34 demographic (and it will be intriguing to see some good data on how Turnbull’s elevation shifts this - if at all - down the track.) Secondly, Labor is still doing poorly in the West, and has gone a fair way backward in South Australia. (Incidentally, the data supports the point Kim made here the other day about Labor trending upwards in Queensland federally while Anna Bligh’s state regime goes into a slump - albeit a slump which is still of election winning dimensions even if it’s not a Beattie style landslide. And federal Labor hasn’t been hurt in New South Wales by the implosion of the Iemma government.)

A lot of folks are attributing Labor’s performance in South Australia to the Murray-Darling basin issue. Again, it’s worth noting that Labor still has a primary lead of 3 points over the Coalition, but it is no doubt significant to see eight points knocked off its lead so quickly in the last quarter, after having been stable at 49% more or less since the election. I’d be interested to hear from South Australian LP-ers about what they think is going on.

If it is the Murray-Darling, this might say something interesting about the Rudd government’s ability to deal with relatively intractable problems through its preferred mode of governance. Continue reading ‘The state of Rudd Nation’

Emissions vs. Allocations

Published
by
Robert Merkel
1 month, 3 weeks ago
in Climate change, Energy and Environment
. 20 Comments

figure_23point6.gif

Australia’s total greenhouse emissions, assuming a 450ppm target and “backstop technology”. Source: Garnaut Review Final Report, Figure 23.6

Continue reading ‘Emissions vs. Allocations’

Open Garnaut Review report thread

Published
by
Mark
1 month, 3 weeks ago
in Climate change, Economics, Energy, Environment, International and Markets
. 63 Comments

It’s out today. LP bloggers will have more during the day as it’s digested, but here’s an open thread for instant analysis and commentary. Please also feel free to link in comments to other posts or articles.

By way of preview, a number of climate scientists have released an open letter to Kevin Rudd (text here):

The Garnaut Review concluded that an emission reduction target for Australia of 25% below 1990 levels by 2020 would be an equitable contribution to the international effort required to achieving this outcome. As a group of Australia’s leading climate change scientists, we urge you to adopt this target as the minimum requirement for Australia’s contribution to an effective global climate agreement.

In Crikey yesterday, Bernard Keane contrasted the apocalyptic prophesies of doom emanating from business with the rather lame reality of the government’s proposals to date.

Nightmare stuff. Imagine how bad it would be the Government had actually proposed a serious effort to reduce our carbon emissions?

As Keane notes in another article, the release of the Treasury modelling today:

should provide a welcome corrective to much of the hysteria generated by modelling commissioned by rentseeking industry groups.

Keane also observes that Garnaut will be talking about adaptation strategies and costs in this report as well.

Note: Related post from dk.au on public opinion, polls and climate change.

Update: The report has now been released and can be downloaded from here.

Update: From Crikey, Bernard Keane on Garnaut at a glance and Clive Hamilton on politics trumping science.

Elsewhere [dk.au]: Barry Brooks is also running an open thread at his blog Climate Dilemma [ht: Peter Wood in comments]

Joshua Gans comments on Chapter 14 (TEEIIs) which he argues is “dramatically superior” to the Green Paper solution of free permits. He also renews his call for border adjustment taxes:

In my opinion, it would be better to bite the bullet and, at least for imports, assess the carbon cost of those imports and tax them. This will get the price signals right and also put pressure on trading partners to put in their own emissions trading schemes so as to avoid that tax.

Productivity Commission interim report on paid parental leave

Published
by
Mark
1 month, 3 weeks ago
in Industrial Relations, Parenting and Policy
. 20 Comments

I discussed some of the issues around paid parental leave in an earlier post. The Productivity Commission has now released its interim report, recommending a model which would see the government pay for 18 weeks of parental leave at the level of the federal minimum wage (with 2 weeks for partners, and with employers only contributing compulsory super). Some criticism has revolved around the failure to mandate payment by employers of current salary levels as a top up, but it’s likely that this would occur anyway for skilled workers, and the whole point of the scheme is to extend rights that skilled workers already enjoy or have the bargaining power to access to all.

The baby bonus would be abolished and replaced with a $5000 parental allowance.

Polls mean whatever journalists want them to mean

Published
by
Kim
1 month, 3 weeks ago
in Media, Polls and Queensland
. 8 Comments

The Courier-Mail trumpets a Galaxy poll of Queenslanders on federal voting intentions:

Opposition Leader Malcolm Turnbull a hit in Queensland

If you look at the tables, Labor is in a (slightly) better position on the two party preferred than it was in the federal election, on 51-49 in the state (the ALP’s 2PP in Queensland in November was 50.4%). And the Coalition’s primary vote has fallen by .5%.

But:

The fact that Labor’s advantage in the home state of Prime Minister Kevin Rudd and Treasurer Wayne Swan could be eroded so quickly is likely to send shockwaves through the Federal Government.

Hardly.

All this is based on some improvement in the ratings on economic management (but with the Coalition still behind Labor). Last year, the Coalition had better poll numbers on economic management - and lost the election.

[Via Oz Politics]

Coalition voters wanted, apply within

Published
by
Phil
1 month, 3 weeks ago
in Film, TV, Video etc and Media
. 23 Comments

Eric Abetz is at it again.

Senior Liberal Eric Abetz believes the ABC TV political talk show Q&A has failed in its attempt to provide a representative cross-section of the community because the audience was overwhelmingly made up of Labor and Greens voters.

Rather than seeing conspiracy everywhere, has Abetz considered the possibility that Coalition leaning voters have not applied to join the Q&A audience in the same numbers as Greens and Labor voters?

So, the important question for Abetz to ask of the ABC is how many self-identified Coalition voters have applied to participate as a Q&A audience member?

I’m sure the sign up form database would provide him with the answers he’s looking for, though I suspect he may not like what it reveals.

Or is it that Abetz prefers to take a free kick at alleged bias and lack of balance at the ABC rather than a deeper look at what may be a statistical or political (cultural) anomaly?

By the way, I presume he’s been happy with the panel representation to date.

Labor takes a hit in the polls in Queensland and South Australia

Published
by
Mark
1 month, 3 weeks ago
in Elections, Federal Elections, Polls, Queensland and State/Territory Elections
. 23 Comments

I’m planning at some stage in the reasonably near future to write a longish post about Anna Bligh’s prospects (and I wouldn’t comment on Mike Rann’s, not being a resident of South Australia, and thus I don’t think able to assess them with any authority). But there’s a bit of an indicator of the trend from Newspoll which finds a dead heat in South Australia (50-50 down from 54-46 in the last quarterly poll) and only a slight advantage to Labor in Queensland (51-49 down from 55-45).

However, I don’t buy the whole “balancing state and federal governments” argument. States have political cycles of their own which are substantially independent of federal swings of the pendulum. In Queensland, changes of government are very rare, with only six since 1915. That might give you some idea of why Peter Beattie hung on in 2006 when by rights (and he knew it) he should have lost. And the LNP is still looking quite messy. Aside from the internal shenanigans associated with the Nats takeover, Lawrence Springborg has made a couple of big mistakes by not following up on his teaser campaign with any substantial policy in areas such as infrastructure, health and education and by going relatively silent since his great conservative union was kinda consummated. The Borg is now back in a no policy, carping oppo leader zone - with internal rumblings. So I think 2009 in Queensland is still Labor’s to lose.

Continue reading ‘Labor takes a hit in the polls in Queensland and South Australia’