Tag Archive for ‘Senate’ at Larvatus Prodeo

Tag Archive for 'Senate'

US election: The Senate - race towards 60 Democratic seats?

Published

2 weeks, 1 day ago

. 6 Comments

A sign of a campaign in trouble is normally the plea to make sure the winner doesn’t win too big. In the Australian context, we’ve often had the “send a message” ploy from Oppositions in state elections - Premier X and Party Y is bound to win big, so vote your grumbles and make them more responsive. When the incumbent’s support is soft, it can win you the election - two examples that come to mind are Wayne Goss in Queensland in 1995 (though strictly speaking it took a contested election and a subsequent by-election, etc, etc) and Jeff Kennett in Victoria in 1999. There was a twist on this tactic last year from the Liberals federally - with the “Labor coast to coast” scare, though that was despair from the incumbent rather than an insurgent Opposition. In America, where the legislative and executive branches are elected separately, it’s easy to run this sort of thing - hence the ploy from the McCain/Palin campaign to start a furore over “leftest government ever” if Obama is added to big Democratic majorities in both houses of Congress.

Mind you, I can’t see personally how anyone would be scared of Harry Reid, or why he’s some ultra-liberal commie pinko. And Nancy Pelosi and “San Francisco values”? Well, look what happened in ‘06. In the House, the Democrats are hunting deep in red state territory and in the Republican suburbs and exurbs, actively campaigning in over 60 GOP held districts, while the Republicans play defence. Gains of 20-30 seats are expected.

But there’s probably more interest in the Senate contest. The Senators up for election this time around were elected in 2002 - a good year for Republicans. There’s some hope that the Democrats will increase their current majority from 51, perhaps reaching 60 - a point at which the minority can no longer hold legislation hostage through filibuster threats. (Note, though, that party discipline is nowhere near as tight as it is in parliamentary systems, though it’s much tighter among the Republicans than it used to be since they became more ideologically unified.) The Dems now include among their wafer thin majority two independents - Socialist (more like European style social democrat) Bernie Sanders of Vermont and “Independent Democrat” Joe Lieberman of Connecticut. Lieberman may well lose his committee chair after the election, but in terms of his re-election prospects, he’s still got some incentive to caucus with the majority.

Nate Silver has all the good oil on which races to watch. Stirling Newberry also has a worthwhile analysis of the contests in the South - Virginia, where former Governor Mark Warner (D) (and former 08 presidential hopeful) should easily take Richard Lugar’s seat after retirement, Georgia, where Jim Martin (D) looks good against Saxy Chambliss (R) (and where there might be a runoff under state law if the Libertarian candidate can prevent either the Dem or Repub from getting 50%), and North Carolina where Elizabeth Dole (R) looks to be in trouble. Longer shots are one of the two races in Mississippi (to fill the unexpired part of Trent Lott’s term), and Kentucky where GOP Minority Leader Mitch McConnell is vulnerable. John Cormyn’s seat in Texas is a really long shot, but turnout - if it’s big and big for Obama - may well be a factor in making a lot of the races tighter than they appear to be.

Continue reading ‘US election: The Senate - race towards 60 Democratic seats?’

Affirmative action needed

Published

Phil

1 month ago

in Film, TV, Video etc and Media

. 47 Comments

Just a follow up to a previous post.

It appears that no matter what the ABC does it just can’t find enough sympathetic Coalition voters to balance a Q&A studio audience and keep Senator Abetz happy.

Mr Scott said the ABC pursued “a number of different strategies” to bring together a more diverse audience, including contacting law and accounting firms, the Australian Retailers Association, the Sydney Chamber of Commerce, the Australian Christian Lobby, the Australian Family Association, Young Liberal groups and every state Liberal MP within one hour’s drive of the ABC’s Sydney studios.

“We have tried a number of different things to try and ensure that we have all the viewpoints represented in the audience and I think we have,” he said.

“I understand that Liberal MPs were approached asking whether in fact they were aware of people who might like to come and join our audience.”

Of course he forgot to memo the ABC board and I’m surprised the Young Liberals couldn’t find a bus load of guys like this charming young chap within an hours drive of the ABC studios?

Or maybe it’s just that they are all too busy charting the complicated metrics of bias in our cultural institutions and ~~wasting everyone’s time~~ making Senate submissions to attend.

Julia Gillard and the unions

Published

Mark

2 months ago

in Industrial Relations

. 12 Comments

Earlier in the year, writing in On Line Opinion, I thought that Labor’s “Forward With Fairness” industrial relations policy was best interpreted as an attempt to entrench a new workplace settlement acceptable to all parties - and I still think that’s the Rudd government’s main game. However, it’s now becoming clearer that an element of union bashing is involved - the tired old Third Way game of establishing supposedly electorally popular distance from teh evil labour movement, and also that the “balance” being struck is tilted quite significantly in the direction of employers. Among other things, this explains the dissent in the ranks of unions toward the lacklustre public performance in holding Labor accountable from Sharan Burrow and Jeff Lawrence. It’s also becoming clearer - with the resurrection of demands for “statutory individual contracts” by Julie Bishop as a condition of Senate passage - that the model hasn’t succeeded in producing consensus.

Julia Gillard outlined the results of consultations and more of the shape of the policy which will be embodied in legislation soon to be introduced into Parliament in an address to the National Press Club yesterday. The transcript is here. Commentary is largely focused on the unfair dismissal changes for small business, and there’s a sample of the reaction in a good article summarising union and academic views in The Age. But equally important are the machinations going on in the Industrial Relations Commission over “modern awards”, where employers have been presenting what are basically award-stripping ambit claims, and some odd interventions from Gillard herself [the process was examined in a previous LP post by Senator Rachel Siewert of The Greens] and the rather weak protections for collective bargaining that have been outlined.

It’s all very well to say that Fair Work Australia will be able to make good faith bargaining orders, but if they’re only weakly enforceable, and if there’s no power to arbitrate in the face of, well, bad faith, then it seems somewhat of a fig leaf. The ongoing legal maneouvring Telstra have engaged in, which has just had a setback with employees rejecting a non-union collective agreement in a Commission ordered ballot, is a case in point. Differential pay offers (which have nothing to do with rewarding merit and performance and everything to do with de-unionisation), legal stalling, failure to recognise bargaining agents and “wait them out” negotiating are all weapons in the armoury of management strategy, and it’s far from clear from what Gillard had to say that these tactics couldn’t be employed by business under the new laws.

Continue reading ‘Julia Gillard and the unions’

Ending or reviving the blame game?

Published

Mark

2 months, 1 week ago

in Federal Elections, Government, Media, Policy and State/Territory Elections

. 5 Comments

When it appeared likely that the Libs might win in WA, much of the commentary focused on how a non-Labor state government would play havoc with Kevin Rudd’s “cooperative federalism”. As with so much political analysis around the traps, this is lazy commentary shaped by myths and cliches and not by reality. Rudd’s “ending the blame game” theme was always somewhat tentative - people seem to forget the stick and carrot approach never went away. Indeed, it was explicitly highlighted before the election with regard to health and the possibility of a Commonwealth hospitals takeover. Implicitly, it’s raised its head as “argy bargy” on issues such as IR, education and water, among others. The feds still have the power of the purse strings, and this and the fear of breaking ranks among Labor premiers, and being seen to do so, is a very effective method of shaping outcomes while maintaining the political high ground.

A possible Barnett premiership would shift the dynamics somewhat, but Barnett would still have considerable incentive to cooperate. Rudd’s template for COAG reform comes from the 90s when Liberal premiers such as Kennett, Greiner and Court worked with Labor premiers such as Goss and Paul Keating’s government.

It’s also worth remembering that Rudd’s “ending the blame game” promise was explicitly defined as a response to the “coast to coast Labor” scare. A Liberal state government or two would allow Rudd to sharpen the almighty Narrative some, as well as enabling him to adopt a somewhat tougher political persona, just as Labor will probably benefit politically from Liberal Senate obstructionism. It would be very far from the disaster some short sighted commentators with short memories seem to think it would be.

Guest post by Jason Wilson: GetUp!’s Project Democracy

Published

Guest Poster

2 months, 2 weeks ago

in Activism, Blogging and Media

. 11 Comments

The new Senate is our focus in this iteration of a new feature on our website - Project Democracy. That’s nice because, on the organisation’s third birthday, this returns GetUp! to our initial emphasis on making the Senate a genuine house of review. (We’ll bring the Reps on-stream later). PD brings a new emphasis on offering tools for political engagement alongside GetUp’s established practice of campaigning on issues that matter to Australians. We hope it will make our representatives less remote from all of us - we all know that Senators can sometimes appear slightly detached from their State-wide contituencies.

The site will include a number of tools that we hope will break down some of the barriers in Australian political life – between citizens, and between communities and their representatives. PD rolls together a number of features that might be familiar from other places. But by putting them together, we hope we’ll be more of a “one-stop shop” for citizen engagement with the parliament, and building local activist networks.

Continue reading ‘Guest post by Jason Wilson: GetUp!’s Project Democracy’

Senate Economics Committee reports on Medicare Levy Surcharge Bills

Published

Mark

2 months, 3 weeks ago

in Economics, Health and Howardia

. 21 Comments

Among the many bills the Coalition are committed to opposing in the new Senate is the legislation to change the threshold where a higher level of Medicare levy cuts in for those who don’t have private hospital insurance from 50k to 100k. The bill, introduced in May, was referred to the Senate Economics Committee which held extensive hearings and took submissions. The report [link to pdf] is out in time for the Senate’s spring sitting.

The majority report from the Labor Senators is careful to quote several comments from Peter Costello in his second reading speech back in 1996 and the explanatory memorandum in order to demonstrate that its stated purpose was to provide an incentive only to higher income earners. However, the grounds for defending the levy have shifted, reflecting over a decade of Howard era support for the private health industry. We’re now told that it would have a catastrophic impact on health funds. These concerns are largely dispelled by evidence from health policy experts and health economists cited in the report. There’s scepticism that the much heralded exodus from private health will actually take place, for two reasons - that the life time cover provisions are likely to provide the stronger disincentive, and that those who actually value private health won’t leave. In addition, the best estimate is that the costs to the public sector would be around 1.6% of inpatient expenditure, an increase relatively easy to absorb.

Continue reading ‘Senate Economics Committee reports on Medicare Levy Surcharge Bills’

Emissions trading and rent seeking: round two

Published

Mark

2 months, 3 weeks ago

in Climate change, Energy, Environment, Howardia and Markets

. 25 Comments

The Fin Review reported yesterday that a host of resource company execs are descending on Canberra on Friday for a pow wow with Martin Ferguson. Initially this meeting was being presented as a way of circumventing the BCA, who released a doom and gloom laden report last week basically threatening a capital strike. But it’s now clear that it’s nothing of the sort, as Marn’s department have also sent the BCA an invite. Industry sources expressed pleasure at Ferguson’s involvement, telling the Fin that they found him easier to deal with and more amenable to their views than Climate Change Minister Penny Wong. Hardly surprising…

Further reports today (as well as Stephen Mayne’s piece in Crikey) reinforce what was being said yesterday - that the polluters and the “skeptics” are making the running on the business response to the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme Green Paper. What looks like being the outcome is, in my view, a default back to the Howard position. Continue reading ‘Emissions trading and rent seeking: round two’

GreensBlog moves

Published

Mark

2 months, 3 weeks ago

in Activism, Blogging, Politics and The Web

. 2 Comments

As well as OpenAustralia being tweaked to focus on the Senate, the folks at GreensBlog have also welcomed in the first sitting of the new Senate tomorrow with a new address and look for the blog and a new website which should facilitate greater transparency and interactivity with the Greens Senators.

OpenAustralia opens up the Senate

Published

Kim

2 months, 4 weeks ago

in Politics and The Web

. 4 Comments

When I noted the establishment of OpenAustralia as a new initiative in facilitating public scrutiny of Parliament, I expressed a wish that the Senate would be included as well as the House - because that’s where a lot of the action is in terms of committees and bills. I’m very pleased to read that just in time for the first sitting of the new Senate next week - when The Greens, Nick Xenophon and Steve Fielding will hold the balance of power - they’ve added the Senate to their website.

Liberal media lunacy III

Published

Kim

3 months, 4 weeks ago

in Climate change, Disasters, Economics, Energy, Environment, Ethics, Media, Politics, Science and Sociology

. 32 Comments

While it’s reasonable to ask, as Lyn at Public Opinion does, whether tracing every twist and turn of the opposition’s twisted trajectory towards some sort of agreed position on an emissions trading scheme, is to pay too much attention to a “policy cycle of sometimes less than 24 hours [which stretches] the notion of novelty a little far.” However, it could also be suggested that the interest lies in watching the moment that a “media narrative” switches, and as with the Costello crud, observing the process of constructing one, as a few bits and pieces of disconnected nonsense get tied together by assorted columnists and reporters and woven into a new thread that will then become - hey presto! - conventional wisdom, dignified as such on Sundays by the usual Insider suspects. You can shine a light on the way the press gallery mob do “the wisdom of ~~crowds~~ each other” by building a story arc, which then shapes the way the story is moved on.

Continue reading ‘~~Liberal~~ media lunacy III’

Liberal lunacy II

Published

Mark

3 months, 4 weeks ago

in Climate change, Energy, Environment, Howardia, Markets and Media

. 58 Comments

Brendan Nelson’s office is denying reports - discussed on an earlier post - that he will be having a “showdown” with Malcolm Turnbull and Greg Hunt over the Coalition’s stance on emissions trading.

Some were reporting yesterday that Nelson would next week “take on” Malcolm Turnbull over climate change. His office claims that is “nonsense” and, given his tenuous hold on the leadership, it does seem unlikely he would be seeking a showdown with anyone. But he and Turnbull are “consulting”, which suggests he is trying to inch the party as far as he can towards a more sceptical line, in a bid to keep everyone happy.

However, Nelson is apparently “negotiating” with Turnbull to “harden” the Coalition’s position, and in an attempt to keep the denialists in his ranks happy, came out with this gem:

Now Nelson’s rhetoric is sounding more sceptical again. “I see there is an emerging body of scientific opinion which questions the role of carbon in all of this, but I’m strongly of the view that we give the planet the benefit of the doubt,” he said yesterday.

Sure, scientists differ about the degree and speed of global warming, but if it is not caused by carbon, why on earth are we contemplating support for an emissions trading scheme at all?

Quite. And that difference is between more catastrophic and slightly less catastrophic outlooks. Continue reading ‘Liberal lunacy II’

Liberal lunacy

Published

Mark

4 months ago

in Climate change, Energy, Environment, Markets and Media

. 47 Comments

Tim Watts has posted at Tree of Knowledge on Andrew Bolt’s claim that the forces of the hardline right in the Liberal Party are planning to monster Malcolm Turnbull and Greg Hunt and push for an oppositional stance to the Rudd Government’s emissions trading scheme. Brendan Nelson’s latest confused comments about delaying the ETS might be some confirmation of this, but on the other hand Nelson’s line on climate change is a moveable feast at the best of times, and Turnbull was singing from the same song sheet today. Watts is no doubt right that such a stance would be political stupidity on the part of the opposition, but it’s just as likely that the story represents wishful thinking on Bolt’s part, obsessed as he is with climate change denialism. However, nutty calls from the Nats for a Royal Commission to examine the science certainly do highlight the continuing divisions within the Coalition.

Continue reading ‘Liberal lunacy’

He’s from Queensland and he’s here to help cave in before the debate starts

Published

Mark

4 months ago

in Climate change, Economics, Energy, Environment, Markets and Polls

. Closed

This was my response to the argument that Kevin Rudd’s Emissions Trading Scheme Green Paper was a fine piece of pragmatic politics: Continue reading ‘He’s from Queensland and he’s here to ~~help~~ cave in before the debate starts’

Bait and switch

Published

Mark

4 months, 1 week ago

in Climate change, Economics, Energy, Environment and Markets

. Closed

dk.au’s quite right that from a policy angle, the ETS Green Paper is highly problematic. In the short term, politically, obviously what Kevin Rudd is doing is stealing Malcolm Turnbull’s clothes on petrol, adopting his proposal of an excise cut. This snookers the Libs on petrol, but then, they were hardly getting any political traction on that issue anyway. It’s a missed opportunity in more senses than one - it plays to the populist narrative and avoids the much more important task of communicating why an ETS - and a rigorous ETS - is necessary. You can’t do short term populism and long term policy at the same time. Ross Garnaut made that point effectively last week. The government might have done well to take note.

More broadly, I think the context for this is that Labor is looking to cut the Greens out of the Senate equation on emissions trading. Continue reading ‘Bait and switch’

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