North Korea – How close are we to a Nuclear War?

As most Australian’s continued to grapple with the issue of Same Sex Marriage and whether to partake or not in the Postal Plebiscite that will now take place in North Korea things have deteriorated as both Kim Jong-un and Donald Trump have ratcheted up the rhetoric on potential military action. This increased tension has come about after another sanction being passed by the UN after North Korea carried out their latest Nuclear test (1). People have talked about these sanctions being the toughest sanctions to be implemented ever on a country and that Russia and China have supported this resolution however that should be taken with the grain of salt that the last resolution passed by the UN was also the toughest resolution and it has clearly had limited impact on North Korea’s Nuclear Program. This is because while Russia and China broadly support the resolutions in practice they have still maintained a large portion of their economic ties. As a result of the sanctions North Korea threatened to make an attack on America, specifically on Guam which is an important military base for the US. This threat has caused Donald Trump to make several threats in return threatening to bring fire and fury to North Korea if any action was taken on Guam and then when the international community wanted Trump to backdown his comments he doubled down and said that the US were locked and loaded and ready to bring fury like never seen before on North Korea in response to any attacks on Guam. This increased rhetoric along with North Koreas nuclear programming progressing at a faster rate than many predicted has left the world feeling more nervous than in a while at the prospect of Nuclear War. As a result of various UN arrangements and also the ANZUS alliance Australia have stepped in behind America in opposing North Korea’s latest actions and any action by North Korea against the US would lead to a conflict with Australia.

As with a lot of issues it’s important to get some historical perspective before discussing the current situation. (2) gives a pretty good summary of the history between North Korea and South Korea that I will summarise myself here. So at the end of WW2 as with a lot of conquered land there were disputes between Russia and the Western Alliance of the US, UK and France over how to divide the land that both Allies had claimed and so as with Germany there was a split in half with the US claiming the South of Korea and Russia the North of Korea. In the following years as the Communist regimes of Russia and China started to lay claim on being a World Force this led to a natural conflict with the Western Societies like America and Britain who wanted to maintain their world dominance. This culminated in the North Koreans and South Koreans both wanted to have their own nation and that split led to North Korea invading South Korea which started the Korean War. Now as the war went on China decided to enter the War to protect their interests in North Korea and as result of advanced War technology that the Brits had given them to help fight Japan in WW2 and sheer numbers their entrance into the conflict led to the Korean War ending in an armistice with no clear winner from the war.

From that point to the early nineties there was 40 years in which the Kim dynasty was pledged to be passed down to it’s second iteration Kim Jong-il and for most part their relative peace with both nations joining the UN in 1991. In 1993 and 1994 North Korea fire it’s first ballistic missile and the UN accused North Korea of breaking the Nuclear Non-Proliferation agreement. This agreement (3) essentially seeks to stop the spread of Nations acquiring or creating Nuclear Weapons and seeking to reduce the amount of Nuclear Weapons available. This push by North Korea is ended temporarily in 1994 by agreeing to stop further action on it’s nuclear programme in exchange for economic assistance in the form of oil. The mid to late nineties saw the new regime under Kim Jong-il flex it’s muscles and end the armistice agreement by sending troops into the demilitarised zone that was meant to act as a border between the North and South, it also showed some capability in advancement of it’s weaponry by firing a multistage rocket over to the Japanese sea. In 2002 and 2003 more evidence is shown that the North Koreans are starting their Nuclear Weapon program again and indeed the North Koreans pull out of both Nuclear Non Proliferation agreement and the armistice they signed with South Korea in relation to having no Nuclear Weapons within Korea. This leads to China, the Koreans, US, Russia and Japan starting talks that seek to come up with a solution to the nuclear issue, talks that until this day are continuing off and  on with some subset of these nations. The rest of the 2000’s continued this pattern of some progress on the issue being wiped out by North Korea then restarting some form of their nuclear program again. This then leads to this decade where in 2011 Kim Jong-Un took over from his father the rule of North Korea. Because of some tensions within his family and the military this succession has seen a ramping up of Nuclear Proliferation because his link to power is not as secure as his dad or grandfather. Indeed his brother was poisoned and his uncle assassinated in signs of this unrest. The first half of this decade has seen various threats made by the new leader at the US while also seeing more shows of increasing power by carrying out various weapons testing. This culminated in 2015 with the nuclear plant in Yongbyon reopening and that has led to a rapid improvement in the ability to create a larger scale nuclear weapon device. It is in the last few years that the rapid advancement has added concrete evidence to the years of rhetoric that has led to more concern with the current outbreak.

So a lot of intrigue with North Korea is based on their ability to use an Intercontinental Ballistic Missile. Their ability to now fit miniaturised nuclear warheads into longer range weapons is a significant development from previous action (4). Having anywhere up to 60 missiles that can reach America or areas like Guam and even Australia means that when North Korea make threats now they actually have to be taken more seriously than previously. Also of issue is that if North Korea were to carry out an attack on Guam, America could and would strike back with an arsenal that is far greater than North Korea, however that would lead to North Korea then launching retaliatory action on South Korea. (5) Shows that while South Korea and USA can limit the damage that a retaliatory strike could do, any attack would still look at up to tens of thousands of deaths and potentially millions of injuries. I think that’s why Donald Trump is not the ideal leader for this situation. Again I think a lot of the rhetoric and military plans that Donald Trump and his team have suggested are not bad ideas, the problem is that he is going public with these issues and exaggerating what America plans to do in response to North Korea with language that inflames a North Korea leader that is not know for rational decision making. America probably would win any conflict that were to start between North Korea and itself and other allies however the cost in life and loss of territory to attacks would be significant and as a result some form of negotiation should still be the first choice of action.

The one caveat to my last comment is what do China do in any conflict. Yesterday a China  friendly newspaper came out and said that China would stay neutral in any dispute that was started by North Korea however they would intervene and assist North Korea if America initiated an attack on North Korea. This would suggest that other than agreeing to economic sanctions any thoughts of China helping the West in a military dispute is questionable. I think there are a few good reasons for that, firstly if North Korea were to be heavily attacked by America there would be a large amount of displaced citizens that would seek refuge in China. Now China are a rising economic power however it is still a great divide between the do’s and the do nots and they can’t afford to have to take in displaced citizens. Secondly in North Korea China have a good buffer in terms of a country that has similar worldwide views Economically and socially to itself in comparison to the more Western based countries in South Korea and Japan. Lastly China and North Korea have strong economic ties, China use a lot of North Koreans for cheap Labour as well as trade exports and imports with each other, I also think China have some empathy for the plight of an impoverished nation and see itself as someone who wants to help the people as elaborated in (6). All this being said I think China do realise that to rise up as an international force they can’t completely flout international resolutions and so that’s why you seem them tow the line on UN resolutions to some degree.

There are a few more things I’ve been seeing in the media and the public that are worth commenting on. Firstly I have seen a lot of comments saying why is the public getting a say on the Same Sex Marriage Postal Plebiscite and not on whether we go to war, which of course has come back up as we talk about potential action against North Korea. I repeat what I said in response to one such raising of the issue: No offence but to compare voting on SSM with oh wait Hitlers invading Poland, just give us three months to work out the publics mind on this one… in three months Hitler had conquered Poland and with Russia had made advances on several Balkan countries. Similarly if North Korea have taken action against Guam, the escalation may then involve Nuclear Weapons and so having a three month conversation on the merits of dealing with a Nuclear War is hardly appropriate. Now the debate on whether Parliament is informed is a more interesting one but I think the sudden nature of War may mean it’s more appropriate just to have sign off from the major party leaders. There’s also been the attacks on Donald Trump for somehow being at fault for the latest flare up between the North and South. I again think this is more of a cheap shot at Donald and while as I said above I don’t think he’s helping the situation I also think that it is North Koreas actions that are making this situation where it is now.

In terms of what I think will happen now I do again feel sorry for the North Korean People. While North Korea continue to build on their arsenal of weapons Nuclear or otherwise the people are forced to live in poverty and despite all this have been essentially brainwashed by leadership into believing that the only way they will become a worldwide force again is to build up military force to then be able to gain more territory to be able to gain economic credibility. I think I agree with Kim Beazley’s general takeaway that while we may not be about to go to War, we are in a very vulnerable situation and one where a small miscalculation from either side might lead to one side overreacting and carrying one action that would then lead to chain of events with an ending that could wipe out a good percentage of the earth via some nuclear bombs.

 

References

(1): https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2017/08/07/what-the-new-u-n-sanctions-on-north-korea-mean/?utm_term=.a2c3bcf0962a

(2): http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-pacific-15278612

(3): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_on_the_Non-Proliferation_of_Nuclear_Weapons

(4): http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/08/11/542837087/as-rhetoric-escalates-what-do-we-know-about-north-korea-s-nuclear-arsenal

(5): https://worldview.stratfor.com/article/how-north-korea-would-retaliate

(6): https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/china-north-korea-relationship

 

Marriage Equality – The Political Take on a social issue

Marriage Equality has been a policy topic that has been in the news for a while now and I’ve been reluctant to cover it due to the divisiveness of the issue with proponents on both sides of the debate taking stances that cross the line of civil debate. However with the move of several Liberal backbenchers moving to support a private members bill and before that a suspension of standing orders to bring on discussion on the issue I think it’s worth discussing the political manoeuvrings behind this issue.

In 2004 John Howard changed the marriage act to ensure that the definition of marriage was between 1 man and 1 woman. This was moved through Parliament in order to ensure that if a debate was to be had in the future on whether Gay marriage should be allowed then it would have to involve a law change. Now in a way that fact has been used by many to advocate Parliament being the vehicle to bring in marriage equality. Indeed that is the view of John Howard (1) who believes it should be the Parliament and not the public who changes a law like this. Now I will elaborate below the political issues with that but (2) shows that since the 2004 marriage definition change there have been 22 bills introduced into Parliament debating changes to the marriage act and none of them have even passed through the lower house let alone reach the upper house. This then acts as a big reasoning for a Plebiscite, if the Parliament can’t reach an agreement on the issue but the public want action on the issue then a Plebiscite can be used to vote on the issue and assuming it passes it would be a brave Parliament that rejects the voice of the public especially with the cost involved in running a Plebiscite.

I think the first point to make is where the major parties stand on the issue. The Greens and the Democrats Party when they were in Parliament are known supporters of Gay marriage and indeed a lot of earlier post 2004 moves for marriage equality have come from these members. The Labor Party are an interesting case for marriage equality because they have flown the Political stances on the issue. Before 2010 the Labor Parties stance on marriage equality was to oppose any bill that came into Parliament which ensured that any bill by the cross bench had no chance of passing. As of 2010 Julia Gillard announced that she would allow a conscious vote in Parliament on the matter despite personally being against the issue. Now she has changed her mind on the issue of Gay marriage since then but the number one argument I hear on Gay marriage is that only Christians and people of religion disagree with marriage equality and that clearly isn’t the case. (3) I think Julia Gillard and other people’s argument on marriage is that the act of two people getting married has a symbolic meaning to it that doesn’t blend with modern society as much, indeed there are a lot of Atheists who are moving away from being married and are instead opting for civil services outside of the church setting. It is with these positions and in attacking the Coalition’s policy on a forced vote that I found their conference position (4) reached in their 2015 Labor conference perplexing. Until the end of the current term of Parliament the Labor Party advocate a conscious vote on the issue but from next term onwards any MP or Senator must vote in favour of Marriage Equality, a rather hypocritical position if they continue to attack the Liberal Party on not having a free vote. Indeed this change in policy has already seen a Western Australian Labor Senator resign due to the policy position change (5).

The Liberal Party until 2015 had a straight binding vote on Marriage Equality that said they had to vote down any attempts to introduce legislation on Marriage Equality. Now in the Liberal Party there are supposed leniencies to voting against party policy so there has been the odd senator who has crossed the floor on marriage equality but not enough to influence any results. Now I’ll come back to the specifics on crossing the floor for Liberal Parties members on any upcoming policy but 2015 saw an important policy shift on marriage equality. In 2015 to placate more moderate Liberal MPS Tony Abbott suggested a Plebiscite(6). The idea behind a plebiscite was for the Liberal Party to hold their policy line on marriage equality until the 2016 election and then push for a public vote on Marriage Equality post election. If as many polls suggested the plebiscite passed then MPS would vote in the lower house and senate to pass a marriage equality act into law and as I commented above a free vote for both parties would ensure that marriage equality passed into law as I don’t believe enough members would want to vote against public opinion. When Malcolm Turnbull took the role of PM from Tony Abbott in 2015 this remained the policy much to the disappointment of some in the community who had hoped Malcolm Turnbull’s personal view of support would see a change in policy. This simple narrative that gets parroted a lot by supporters of marriage equality ignores two basic realities that I will touch on now and elaborate further later on. If Malcolm Turnbull changed policy then conservative would pull support from Turnbull and seek Peter Dutton out as leader in a leadership spill. Alternatively if as is widely reported Turnbull made a pledge to keep a plebiscite as party policy in part of the deal with the National Party to maintain their support post leadership change then them pulling their support would also see the Liberal Party lose the balance of power on the floor of the house which would lead them open to a vote of No Confidence.

So with the policy positions now established I will return to the issues of the last week. Gay Liberal MPs and Senators as well as Warren Entsch have looked to resolve the issue of marriage equality before the next election (7). In their views the Plebiscite is a failed policy that will not pass the Parliament and so isn’t a viable solution to resolve the matter, with that in mind a free vote where members can vote on their conscious is the only way to get marriage equality through. In their minds and it’s a sound argument marriage equality is clearly going to eventually pass into law and while it’s not the most important issue to most people it’s an issue that generates a lot of public debate and so it distracts from other issues being discussed. A clear example of this came this week when Tim Wilson was questioned on the marriage equality debate and when he tried to sidestep to another issue the interview was promptly ended. As a result of this renewed push Conservative MPs have tried to seek another vote in Parliament on the issue of a Plebiscite and in the case of that failing again they would then seek to have a postal vote on the issue (8). There are many issues with a postal vote and indeed the strongest argument against postal plebiscites came from Malcolm Turnbull when he was leading the case for the country to become a Republic. A postal plebiscite can be held with Parliamentary approval because it can use money set aside for Government assigned surveying, however it is not binding so MPS can vote against the result and it is not compulsory which I believe would mean it would be voted down as the largest demographic in favour of marriage equality tend to be the most disengaged in voting in elections. It would also be up for legal challenges about appropriate use of Government money akin to what occurred when a parent challenged the Government funding of chaplains in public schools. So that leaves the prospects of either staying put or having a vote on marriage equality in the Parliament however that has it’s own wrinkles. Firstly the Leader of the House is in control of what legislation goes before the house and so they can effectively push any marriage equality to the bottom of Government Business where it would then expire at the end of the current term of Parliament. The way around that is to suspend standing orders which then allows government business to be suspended in order to debate a motion that is not currently next on the notice paper. For instance parliament is flowing with it’s usual robustness and then at 2:45 AEST Bill Shorten gets up and goes I seek to suspend the standing orders to censure the PM for being a Toffee Nosed Tory (not far off an actual suspension order :P). The problem with this passing the Parliament is an unknown constitutional section. (9) suggests that a lost vote on the floor of Parliament could be considered as a vote in loss of confidence in the Parliament. This would then lead to the government potentially resigning and if Labor then couldn’t elect a speaker an election to resolve the impasse. Now the wording suggests that it has to be considered an important issue and the Government could spin that it isn’t, indeed both the Labor Party in minority and the Liberal Party already in this term have lost votes on the floor of the house and that hasn’t led to a change of Government, it does however mark a significant dent on the standing of the Liberal Parties grasp of Parliament and that could lead to recriminations against those who crossed the floor. Now that last part might cause confusion because didn’t you say that the Liberal Party allowed members to cross the floor. Well the truth appears to be mixed, certainly (10) suggests that because this issue is so divisive crossing the floor on this issue seems to be no go with threats of challenges to the preselections of said members at the next election. The other issue is would a vote on marriage equality then pass the lower house and senate? The analysis on the impact of a passing of the policy on Turnbull’s leadership has already been largely commented on and there appears to be an assumption the policy would pass both houses with a passing of the suspension orders. However even if no Labor MP in the lower house voted against marriage equality the Senate appears to be a different can of worms. Indeed (11) shows that both in the Lower and Upper House there are members of the Labor Party opposed to marriage equality and when combined with Jacquie Lambie, Pauline Hanson and One Nation and Bob Katter in the lower house it cannot be assumed that marriage equality would just seemingly pass if the rest of the Liberal Party vote against marriage equality.

 

I have gotten to the end of this post and my final thought is that marriage equality is still a way off because as I have mentioned above there are still a lot of hurdles to climb. To those who want to use this as a stick to smack the Liberal Party sure go ahead however as I’ve elaborated above it ignores a lot of grey areas on this political issue and also ignores that other parties are also divided on this issue. In my mind that’s normal with social issues, I think we need to be more ok with disagreeing on some issues and not be so quick to bash those who don’t agree with them on everything.

 

References

(1): http://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/gay-marriage/former-prime-minister-john-howard-says-politicians-in-fear-of-marriage-equality/news-story/d000c28a0d79c6e443353ef1ee73283b

(2): http://www.aph.gov.au/About_Parliament/Parliamentary_Departments/Parliamentary_Library/pubs/rp/rp1617/Quick_Guides/SSMarriageBills

(3): http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/love-isnt-all-about-marriage-says-pm-julia-gillard-as-she-defends-her-same-sex-marriage-stan/news-story/2c2909cad241e29da5c17d1707bc832a

(4): https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2015/jul/26/alp-conference-backs-binding-vote-on-same-sex-marriage-after-two-terms

(5): http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-03-01/labor-senator-joe-bullock-quits/7212324

(6): http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/tony-abbott-flags-plebiscite-on-samesex-marriage-in-bid-to-defuse-anger-20150811-giwyg1.html

(7) http://www.skynews.com.au/news/top-stories/2017/07/31/liberal-mp-to-bring-on-same-sex-marriage-vote.html

(8) http://www.skynews.com.au/news/top-stories/2017/08/02/conservative-liberals-push-for-plebiscite.html

(9): https://www.buzzfeed.com/markdistefano/rules-glorious-rules?utm_term=.ey66M0MDW#.gfMNpxp45

(10): http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/all-im-asking-for-is-to-have-a-bloody-vote-liberal-mp-warren-entsch-20170802-gxnomk.html

(11): http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/the-labor-mps-who-could-blow-up-rebel-liberals-samesex-marriage-plans-20170802-gxnkp7.html

Donald Trump: 6 months on

When I was researching articles for this blog on the 6 months of Donald Trumps presidency I came across an interesting article on what 6 months of a Hilary Clinton presidency would have looked like(1). The key things from the article is the Supreme Court would have had Hilary’s choice Merrick Garland as the vacant supreme courts nominee rather than the Republican’s choice Neil Gorsouch. This is a big deal because a lot of the big human rights such as abortion rights can be determined by the Supreme Court. Having a more Conservative or Liberal Supreme Court therefore is a considerable voting issue for the public and is seen as one reason people voted for Donald Trump as traditional Republican’s despite not personally liking Donald himself. Another takeaway is that America is divided, as much as the Democrats have been very active about protesting Hilary Clinton losing to an insert personal insult here President; if the roles were reversed Republican’s would have been complaining about a Hilary win. I think much like Donald Trump Hilary Clinton would have also been unpopular and unlike Donald Trump she would have been going into a midterm election next year with an already lame duck status, so passing any form of policy would have been difficult for her too. The advantage of a Hilary Clinton presidency would obviously be an improved international standing with a greater respect for the US still from other world leaders and the US would not have exited the Paris Climate agreement, an important respect given the world needs a strong US in the current uncertainty. Obamacare would also have been left alone which would ensure that the issue would remain a poisoned chalice. I think overall my takeaway point from this article is that while Donald Trump is not helping a divided American public and I would argue is probably aggravating divides, Hilary Clinton is not the saviour of division either and so you would still have an America in deep flux.

With that in mind I will now focus on Trump and the first thing to look at is the polls because despite the attacks on polling accuracy there is still always a narrative to tell from polls flawed or otherwise. (2) So Trump is currently sitting at 37 percent approval and fifty eight percent disapproval, this number is historically low for a president and is close to his all time low of 35 percent approval just after his first Obamacare initiative was blocked. One interesting comparison though is to look at why Trump is considered unpopular and this is something that the Gallup poll looked at. For Obama and Bush the disapproval ratings related to policy or job performance whereas for Trump his disapproval is based on people disliking Trump personally. Given the nature of Donald Trumps campaign and presidency thus far this should hardly be surprising but it does offer some positives for him as well as some potential lessons for the Democrats. Donald Trumps policies seem to be being embraced and so while he maybe personally unpopular a Democrat who just stood opposing Trumps policy platform might still find themselves in trouble in 2020 because policy is not what is polarising Americans. Also of interest in the poll is that the reasons people are supporting Trumps presidency is broadly the same as Obama, again suggesting that those supporting Trumps performance as President are ignoring the criticisms being labelled at him, similar to what Obama faced in 2009.

I think the main policies to focus on for Trump so far are Health Care, Economy, Climate Change and International Relations. If we first look at Health Care, this is the one policy issue that has most dogged Trump locally with several attempts of the Trump administration to repeal Obamacare now being blocked. (3) suggests that Obamacare is not going to be repealed in the near future as more moderate Republican are not convinced that Trump and the Republicans  have an appropriate replacement to Obamacare. I suspect that the articles suggestion that Trump will continue his steps to make the current system less functioning and put more pressure on the Republican’s and Democrats to find an appropriate replacement to something that has failed. This is not to say that the current system is flawed or not, I can see the arguments of the people who have serious health issues that would not be covered under a repealed Obamacare, but if the system loses funding or is not appropriately advertised then it may become failed.

Economy is the big issue that Donald Trump campaigned for. The narrative is that while Obama focussed on finding people new jobs in modern job areas this left people behind. Certainly for people in places like Detroit manufacturing jobs have shut down and while there are jobs in modern technology sectors, these require higher education and different skill sets. Trying to tell someone who has worked in one industry for thirty years and has had generations of family do the same thing that they need to go to university for the first time ever and just deal with finding new work has alienated them from society. This is the biggest driver of Trump voters last November. Economy has been the biggest policy success for the administration however as with everything Trump related the story is mixed. (4) shows that the Economical indicators under Donald Trump have improved since the election although this is probably more indicative of a global economical situation improvement. Still an improvement in the financial markets, better jobs numbers and improved GDP are impressive feats. Also as with any Conservative government there is always a focus on smaller governments and Trumps move to remove two economic regulations for every regulation added has seen that implemented. As (5) has shown however a lot of this economic improvement maybe because some of Trumps big tax breaks for big business has not passed yet and so it has allowed a mainly business as usual approach with improved confidence that tends to occur with a Conservative president taking hold. This also opens up the whole trickle down economics argument with the adversity of this approach being that if business don’t pass on their extra money to hiring more employees money has then been shifted from public services without the improved economic growth from added employment and productivity. I think this is more of an issue on how the economy is being implemented than the principles behind the economic principle.

Climate change and international relations are somewhat linked but I think there is a specific focus on Climate Change from both Trump supporters and detractors that makes it a seperate issue worth discussing. The decision of Trump to pull America from the Paris agreement is a surprising move in that it puts America out of step with the 19 other G20 countries but is unsurprising in that it matches his campaign rhetoric. For Donald Trump and a lot of rural Americans a pledge to reducing emissions to zero percent and contributing money to helping nations that are going to be directly impacted by climate change goes against the protectionist nature that they want to run. The issue with climate change feeds back into an economic one that I addressed in the last paragraph. If old manufacturing workplaces have to close that costs jobs and if money is being placed to other nations it is money that can’t be directed to their own nation, now America are in a strong place economically compared to nations like Fiji or Samoa but trying to say that to people struggling economically is like saying to a homeless person in Australia that chin up it could be worse, you could be homeless in an African nation. For all of those who would say that being opposed to climate change is Conservative Michael Gove’s contribution in (6) shows that by the nature of conservatism people should be open to whatever market mechanism produces the most efficient and effective results and so as renewable energy becomes cheaper and mechanisms such as battery storage make renewable energy more reliable it is not a Conservative policy to stick with the old mechanism for the pure reasoning of protectionism. I think this is another element where Donald Trump shows he is not a true Conservative by economic reasonings.

The recent G20 summit was a key insight into the fall of America as a superpower under Trump on the international arena. (7) has Chris Uhlman’s takedown on Trump and I think it sums up the way a lot of people feel about Trump when you remove the extreme voices on both side of the political spectrum. His criticism on Trump not using the G20 as a venue to publicly call out Russia and China or there nothing to see here approach on North Korea was in large contrast to his grandstanding in America where he made many calls for Russia and China to be firmer on North Korea because they have closer ties that could be used to pull in their naughty neighbour. This was disappointing because Trumps forceful stance on calling out the atrocities of Bashar Al Assad using chemical weapons on the public in Syria won praise. Indeed the attack of important military bases in Syria is an action that Hilary Clinton herself commented that she would have done. It’s in this light that Trump’s withdrawal of support for Syria in the last few weeks is also surprising and is a sign of continued alliance with Russia. This last comment leads onto the issue of Russia interference in the Election which continues to be the big issue that could be a smoking gun to push for possible impeachment although this is unlikely with the composite of the Senate and Congress being Republican controlled. I think the issue of whether there was hacking or not has been well discussed and it appears clear that some interference occurred in the election. However the question now is was Donald Trump directly involved in the efforts by Russians to interfere in the election and the revelations of Donald Trump Jr meeting with Russian officials adds to the possibility of a direct link which would then be a trigger for criminal offence and impeachment. The other issue with protectionism is that it leads to less economic and formal ties with International countries and the isolation at the G20 is a consequence of this, other countries do not appreciate being penalised when dealing with a nation in the name of protecting your own countries skin. It is that isolation that leaves a vacuum for another nation to become a global powerhouse and both China and Russia have the potential to fill this vacuum. This might be cheered on by some but it ignores the fact that China and Russia are both flawed democracies with legal and social policies that would be abhorrent to most Western civilisations.

So what happens next? The first big test of any presidents term is how they perform in the midterm elections. (8) breaks down the midterm election quite well. It is historic that the ruling party tends to perform poorly in midterm election and the Trump element added in adds to that likelihood of a Midterm whack. The problem for the Democrats as pointed out is turnout, people are less motivated to vote in midterm elections and that tends to go against the Democrats whose target demographics tend not to turn up to votes. The other issue for the Democrats and one I’ve pointed out in previous blog posts is that they seem more focussed at the moment with saying that Trump is useless, he shouldn’t have won and that’s it, at some stage they will need to actually offer tangible ideas on what they plan to do. After that it will be important for Trump to be able to implement some of his policy to avoid the label of being all talk and no action, specifically a policy win on healthcare would help his polling numbers. The other issue is the Russian interference, the issue has already seen the firing of FBI director James Comey. If this issue continues to fester on it will make it increasingly difficult for Trump to sell his message and the longer it goes the more likely something impactful will be turned up that could be grounds for impeachment. Lastly the focus after the midterms in 2018 will start to turn to the 2020 reelection of Donald Trump, at this stage with no evidence of a Democratic Party having learnt enough of their lessons of their loss last year I would be not surprised if Trump were to be reelected in 2020, indeed one thing I’d be intrigued by is if the Republican Party put up a nominee against Trump in 2020. This would lose the incumbency advantage of not facing a gruelling dogfight in the nominee process but could be a necessary evil if the Republicans don’t want 4 more years of Trump come 2020.

 

References

(1) https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/if-clinton-had-won/

(2) http://www.gallup.com/poll/214091/trump-disapproval-rooted-character-concerns.aspx

(3) http://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/343222-what-trump-can-do-to-cripple-obamacare

(4) http://fortune.com/2017/07/20/donald-trump-twitter-news-drain-swamp-6-months/

(5) https://www.bostonglobe.com/business/2017/07/20/six-months-trump-economy-looks-awfully-familiar/TXnEuVvlHa2vS9v7p7n3tO/story.html

(6) http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/michael-gove-donald-trump-climate-change-us-walk-out-heat-on-paris-agreement-fossil-fuels-a7852626.html

(7) https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/jul/09/biggest-threat-to-the-west-australian-journalist-demolishes-trump-after-g20

(8) https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/what-do-we-know-about-the-2018-midterms-right-now/

Section 44 – Otherwise known as the Australian Senator career destroyer

Yesterday with the resignation of Larissa Waters due to an negligent oversight of having dual citizenship of Canada; Section 44 of the Constitution claimed it’s 4th victim since the 2016 election and 2nd victim in the last week with the resignation of Scott Ludlum due to his dual citizenship of New Zealand. The loss of two highly respected and competent Greens senators in a week has seen for an overhaul of the section in the constitution by many in the public. Before I return to the specific cases of the senators who have been caught out by Section 44 of the Constitution it is worth looking at what the relevant section says.

(1) essentially states that to stand for parliament a Senator has to ensure they don’t do any of the following:
(i) Have dual citizenship or no citizenship of Australia and that where dual citizenship is present they do not make sufficient efforts to renounce their citizenship to a foreign allegiance.

(ii) That the member of parliament has committed treason or if you are current serving time for a criminal offence or are in the middle of criminal proceedings that is longer than one year in length.

(iii) Is currently bankrupt or insolvent

(iv) Is currently working and making a profit from the crown (i.e working in the public service).

(v) That the Parliamentarian is making a monetary arrangement in a Public Service of the Commonwealth of Australia, so for example in (2) Dr Gillespie has faced questions about his eligibility due to the fact that he leased out one of his owned businesses to Australia Post which is a Government owned entity.

So the first element of section 44 of the constitution is what has caused the resignation of Scott Ludlum and Larissa Waters. The reasoning for this part of the constitution is that it is a conflict of interest whether real or perceived to be voting on laws that are passing into land while also having citizenship of another nation. A fictitious example of this would be say we wanted to impose a tariff on the importation of lamb to New Zealand then it could be a conflict of interest to someone who still holds dual citizenship of New Zealand to be debating such a law. I also think that due to the public scrutiny that an elected member of parliament holds any perceived issues of conflict are as bad as if an actual conflict did exist.

Bob Day’s case which interestingly did not receive the same outrage for his removal from the Senate came under two sections of the constitution. Before (3) became an extra constitutional issue Bob Day had already resigned from the senate because of having to claim bankruptcy. However it was later discovered that Bob Day had been leased a building for his electoral office that was already privately owned which is in clear breach of line (v) of section 44 of the Constitution.

Rod Culleton one of the 4 One Nation Senators elected also fell foul of section 44 of the Constitution and his case again did not receive the same outrage that was levelled to the Greens Senators. Again (4) shows that Rod Culleton lost his seat in the senate due to two elements of section 44, firstly he was facing charges of larceny which carried a penalty of over 1 year penalty. He also was declared to be bankrupt when he failed to pay back an outstanding loan.

Line (iv) of the section is something that has not recently been tested. However in 1993 (5) Phil Cleary was ruled ineligible to stand in the by election of Wills which was caused by the retirement of Bob Hawke. Phil won the by election as an independent however because he was public school teacher at the time he was technically a paid member of the crown and therefore was ineligible, this is despite him being on unpaid leave at the time. This could trip up a number of potential parliamentarians although this part of the constitution has been worked around by public servants being allowed to quit their jobs, stand for election and if unsuccessful then be able to automatically reenter their jobs upon the completion of the election.

There are a few added points for me to make on this constitution given the public reaction to the Greens resignations. A lot of people have called for section 44(i) to be scrapped in the wake of the resignations, the biggest issue with that is that because it is part of the Australian Constitution then to change the section we would need a referendum. This of course brings a hefty cost of running the referendum as well as any advertising delegated to prosecuting the cases of a yes or no vote for the question. I have also seen a lot of fingers pointed at relevant Labor or Liberal members who were born overseas by the same people who are upset at the resignations of Scott Ludlum and Larissa Waters, the most noted example being Tony Abbott. I think that is hypocritical and points out that one of the big differences between major parties and smaller parties is that the major parties do a much better job of vetting potential candidates for potential issues that could preclude eligibility of election in comparison to smaller parties. There has also been questions raised as to whether votes taken by members should be excluded and if salary paid to the senator should be repaid. (6) which is another excellent post by the Psephologist Yoda Antony Green points out that the high court has previously ruled that votes taken by ineligible members can not be retrospectively discounted and that the practice of the government is not to push for salary to be chased from ineligible members. The reason for this I suspect is self preservation in that if you chase one senator for returned salary you open the pandoras box of having that come back to bite you if one of your pack are found to be ineligible. I think my last point would be that the Greens are facing some real issues at the moment. Now a lot of the attention has been on the infighting between Tony Abbott and Malcolm Turnbull, however if the Greens were a major party they’d be getting the coverage of a party in crisis. They have now lost two deputy leaders and senators in a week and have a member in Lee Rhiannon who has been excluded from attending contentious party room discussions. This same senator has responded by pulling on her state branch pushing back against that decision and by her calling the current leader a real disappointment. Now the two senators who will replace Ludlum and Waters will still be.Greens members due to the recount of the senate ballots flowing their votes onto the next eligible Greens ticket member but to lose roughly 15 years of parliamentary experience in a group of 10 senators/MPS is a real loss!

 

References

(1) http://www.aph.gov.au/About_Parliament/Parliamentary_Departments/Parliamentary_Library/Publications_Archive/archive/Section44

(2) http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-04-07/opposition-intensifies-campaign-against-david-gillespie/8423600

(3) http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-04-05/family-first-bob-day-election-ruled-invalid-by-high-court/8417204

(4)  http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/rod-culleton-ineligible-to-be-elected-to-senate-high-court-rules/news-story/7eae79c15f652c2d3673c20c11d08c00

(5) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phil_Cleary

(6) http://blogs.abc.net.au/antonygreen/2017/07/scott-ludlam-resigns-what-happens-to-his-senate-seat.html#more

South Australian Politics – Are we about to go to an election?

My home state managed to break into the political news this week as a blocked budget measure by the Liberal’s and the Senate cross bench has left the budget potentially in danger of not passing. This would have significant impact as any public service worker is then in danger of not being paid. As a result of this breakdown in Parliament Jay Weatherill the premier has a few options (1). Option 1 is for the Labor party to do what they did in 2014 and scrap the bank levy; this would cost the budget 370 million dollars that would then have to be replaced in some form by another measure. The second option is to try and reintroduce the bill in the upper house and hope that they can convince the cross bench of the merits of passing the budget as a whole and not putting at risk the whole budget to oppose one measure. The last option is to declare the bill is a special measure and call something akin to a double dissolution election on the matter. This would then allow the Labor Party to try and get the measure through a special sitting post an election, this is a risky move given that the Weatherill Government has been on the nose increasingly in the last 12 months and there is no guarantee they would win the election leaving the comparisons to Theresa May or Malcolm Turnbull calling an early election. This option allows me to discuss below the recent poll that has come out.

(2) Suggests a very tight election race with a 50-50 2PP vote and when you consider that the Liberal Party lost the 2014 election with a 53 percent 2 Party Preferred vote one might assume that the Liberal Party are in some trouble. The elephant in the room however continues to be the Nick Xenophon SA Best Party. They are polling at 21 percent and so they will be in a position to determine the party that wins the election. The other interesting change from the last election is a large seat redistribution that has changed the landscape of the state. (3) Now has the Liberal Party with an election winning 27 seats as opposed to 20 notional seats for the Labor Party. Four Labor seats are notionally Liberal namely being Newland, Mawson, Colton and Elder. Now these seats are held by long term Labor MPs so incumbency will help those members out except in Colton where the member has announced they are retiring which probably makes that an easier seat for the Liberal Party to win. The Labor party have 7 seats under 5 percent including some in the North East of Adelaide and given the prosperity of these areas relative to most of metropolitan Adelaide is a concern for the Liberal Parties prospects of winning an election if they can’t grab a seat or two there. The Xenophon Party rather than the Labor Party might also make life difficult because as was seen in the federal election his vote travelled better in the country and the hills than the metropolitan area. Where his vote was in the mid teens for metropolitan areas, that vote increased to 30 percent in the country and hills areas and saw his party take the Federal seat of Mayo. This hurts the Liberal Party as most of their seats are concentrated in the country and hills areas. Indeed for all of the complaints I have heard about the Labor party winning the election unfairly and that the party who gets the highest 2PP should win the election they miss this basic point! South Australia has around 1.7 million people (4) of which 1.3 million people live in Adelaide and in metropolitan Adelaide the Labor Party won the 2PP vote 51.3 percent to 48.7 percent. That is the figure that the Liberal Party will have to improve on in the next election and with the Xenophon party polling at 20 percent if those numbers flow back more to the Labor Party then they may still hold on in a similar setup to the current Parliament.

The other important issue from this week is the official announcement of the Tesla company ran by Elon Musk to build a lithium ion battery to connect with a wind farm currently being constructed (5).  The battery is being made to try and ease the issues of blackouts and power shedding that have been prevalent in SA over the last 12 months. In the event of a significant outage the hope is that the battery would allow for backup power to avoid long lasting blackouts. The added bonus for the SA government is the announcement of Musk that if the battery is not built within 100 days then the cost would be free to the government. If this 3 months build target is met then the government might be able to avoid a repeat of the power losses that impacted the state over the last summer which would be a large political boost to the re election chances of the Weatherill Government.

 

 

References

(1) http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-07-04/sa-bank-levy-budget-bill-explainer/8676140

(2) http://www.galaxyresearch.com.au/polling/

(3) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Australian_state_election,_2018

(4) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Australian_state_election,_2014

(5) http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-07-07/what-is-tesla-big-sa-battery-and-how-will-it-work/8688992

The Week that was in Politics – What were the Liberal Party thinking (Again!)

In last weeks blog I was rather scathing of the Labor and the Green Party, one week on and it’s the Liberal Party who have had a bad week. They say nothing good happens after drinking at midnight and Christopher Pyne may do well to heed that advice. Tony Abbott has been continuing to attack Malcolm Turnbull’s leadership openly and not so openly; and so Christopher Pyne’s late night admission that he wants to see marriage equality pass through the house sooner than later and that he never voted for Tony Abbott was just the opportunity Tony Abbott needed to come and attack the Liberal Party and it’s leadership under Turnbull again.

Earlier this year Scott Morrison would appear on Ray Hadley’s conservative radio program weekly to discuss politics however that appearance ended due to Scott Morrison appearing on a seperate ABC program to discuss the budget rather than to appear on his show. This opened up a slot for a Liberal MP to appear on the weekly spot and Tony Abbott happily accepted the opportunity to appear on the show. In a similar fashion to Kevin Rudd after the 2010 election Tony Abbott can now use that radio spot to advance his views on policy issues that are shaping the country and show how that differentiates from the leader, in this case Malcom Turnbull. The big difference between Tony Abbott and Kevin Rudd is that Kevin Rudd held public support in the period between his first leadership loss and regaining the leadership whereas Tony Abbott has not had that public support. So when Tony Abbott came out this week with a new manifesto a lot of the political issues he raised are popular with his political base however they don’t have broad public support besides a tougher stance on national security and that already is a policy shift that Malcolm Turnbull has been making this year. You don’t fix national security issues however by getting up on a national platform surrounded by flags lecturing people, it requires a delicate nuanced approach.

One big claim by right wing commentators and Corey Bernadi/ Tony Abbott is that by moving to the centre on issues the Liberal Party have lost votes to the One Nation and Conservatives Party. As (1) shows this is a valid claim however it’s use is exaggerated in it’s impact on the Liberal Party vote share. I think it’s clear that Liberal are leaking votes to right wing parties like the One Nation Party and other conservative parties however if the Liberal’s move to far to the right then they risk losing votes to the Labor Party or the Greens particularly in more metropolitan seats. At first glance Wentworth, Bennelong, Higgins, Brisbane, Sturt and Reid are all potential greens targets longer term that the Liberal Party risk losing if they were to move to far too the right. The One Nation threat shouldn’t be an issue in a preferential voting system because most of the lost votes should come back to the Liberal Party through preferences, however this didn’t happen in 2016, the preferences split closer to 50-50 between the Liberal Party and the Labor Party. This is the real problem for the Liberal Party, that unlike the Labor Party who receive about 80 percent of Greens preferences when disenfranchised voters are voting away from the Liberal Party they aren’t getting those votes back. This means you can’t just assume that taking on a more right wing approach will get you all of these votes back, because you are essentially chasing protest votes and they don’t split as logically to one particular party. I think it’s important to look at the polls going into Tony Abbott’s demise as PM; The Liberal Party were anywhere from 55-45 to 58-42 behind in two party preferred votes and were in real danger of losing all South Australian seats to match the wipeout that eventuated in NT and Tasmania. With this in mind it’s a bit disingenuous of right wing commentators to attack Malcolm Turnbull’s leadership in the face of 53-47 polls because he won the 2016 election despite that looking impossible before the 2015 leadership spill and a lot of Malcolm Turnbull’s issues have come from needing to placate the party to avoid losing his leadership again. I know speaking to voters they say well Turnbull show just muscle up and show some leadership but this would then lead to captains calls and this was something that the public despised Tony Abbott for. There’s also no point taking a position on an issue that can’t pass the party room because all that will do is leave you without the leadership and with the issue then reversed to an even less favourable position. I also think the public share some blame for the paralysis on big policy issues. I remember when Mike Baird introduced the greyhound ban there was not much of a whimper from those who supported the decision but the opposition groups were very loud and manifested a strong opposition to the policy. As a result of this and an Orange By Election loss Mike Baird reversed his policy decision and only then did animal rights groups speak up about what a horrible decision this was from Mike Baird. Well if you had spoken up with your views earlier Mike Baird might of had a stronger position to defend his decision.

How do I think the latest Abbott vs Turnbull dispute will end. Well I think Malcolm Turnbull will continue to spin the line that he is only focussed on policy outcomes and not the distractions of the personal politics, this is evidenced by (2) however the last 7 years suggests that the media will continue to chase the sound bite and there are going to be a lot of these sound bites still to come. I don’t think Tony Abbott will return to the leadership, I think he only gets 10-15 votes now in a leadership spill however I don’t think this concerns Abbott. He has such a personal vengeance against Malcolm Turnbull that he would rather lose the next election than let Turnbull implement his chosen policy platform. The problem this has then is who leads the Liberal Party should they lose the next election, Malcolm Turnbull has pledged to leave Parliament if the Liberal Party lose the next election and Scott Morrison has lost a lot of his shine from his not so effective stint now as Treasurer. That leaves Peter Dutton who is a popular base candidate but who is very divisive in the public and holds a marginal seat, there is a possibility he loses his Queensland seat at the next election. After that your next candidates are probably still a few years off with Christian Porter probably the most likely to be the next Liberal Prime Minister when Liberal re take office.

Elsewhere in Politics the Greens have had another difficult internal week and would indeed be in some crisis if they were a major party with the increased media criticism. Senator Lee Rhiannon has been suspended from attending contentious party room meetings for the foreseeable future although has not been expelled from the Greens as some sources were expecting. This has led to an Insiders appearance by Lee Rhiannon this morning to reiterate her criticism on Richard Di Natale as party leader and an insistence that the Greens are a party for the members and not for the MPs. This statement is essentially why the Greens have split at the moment. As I have alluded to in previous posts Di Natale seeks to make the Greens more electable and be able to win seats from both the Labor and Liberals in metropolitan seats. This is opposed to Lee Rhiannon and the more left wing of the New South Wales division particularly who want to see the party reach it’s members and let policy be influenced by their base. This split became public when Lee Rhiannon supported the Greens Base members for their opposition to the Liberal’s Gonski policy while Di Natale and Sarah Hanson Young were working on amendments to support the governments policy. The fact that 9 MPs were in favour of this approach and 1 Senator opposing the deal stops any progress on the matter suggests to me that the Greens have some issues to deal with going forward.

 

References

(1) http://www.abc.net.au/news/factcheck/2017-06-19/fact-check-did-the-coalition-lose-a-million-votes-last-election/8538370

(2) https://twitter.com/TurnbullMalcolm/status/881258930361344001/video/1

Education – I hope I spelt that right

This week in parliament the government were finally able to pass their school funding reform through the senate and then the lower house. For the government this helps alleviate an area of concern with the public being that Liberal governments look to cut funding in public services, particularly education and health. In order to pass the legislation through the senate the Government needed to do a deal with the senate cross bench/ the Greens and the backbench to ensure it’s passage. This essentially boiled down to the amount of money pledged to schools increasing by 5 billion dollars from the 18.9 billion dollars which helped get the independents on board particularly with the money being spent over 6 years rather than 10 years which meant the money would be spent sooner. To placate the backbench and the Catholic schools sector they were then promised to have their current arrangement of funding kept for an extra year. This was needed as the Catholic sector were unhappy with losing money from some of the richer schools which by nature of the needs based funding arrangement meant for schools to receive money some schools needed to lose money.

Sadly although not completely surprising under the current political environment the Labor and the Greens were both opposed to the measure, although in the case of the Greens this opposition came late. Now the argument the Labor party gave was that they were committed to the spending proposed under Gonski 1.0 and that the government were now walking away from a commitment to match the spending back in the 2013 election. Now that commitment from Tony Abbott was a mistake but the Labor party are also culpable because their plan of funding was over 10 years and what they don’t mention is that the Liberal Party only planned to match the first four years of spending. The other issue with the first Gonski deal was that in the dying days of the second Kevin Rudd government Bill Shorten the then Education minister made special arrangements with individual states to get the policy agreed too, this meant that only 4 states and the ACT agreed to the Gonski arrangements and the other states then had a seperate arrangement. This meant that Christopher Pyne the Education minister under Tony Abbot was able to claim that because the deal done by Bill Shorten was not nationally agreed by the states and territories the Liberal party could pull their support for the deal and implement their own policy that saved the government money to fix the budget issues that they claimed to have inherited. This allowed the Labor party to run the line then as they did with this version of the Gonski deal that the Liberal party were cutting money from Education. From (1) and (2) we see that these claims are slightly misleading, now the Labor can claim they are going to spend more money on Education however that does not mean the Liberal Party are cutting money from the budget, a cut suggests that the current amount of money given to schools will reduce in the next year not increase at a slower rate. The take away line from (2) was that the Labor party wanted to claim that the government had cut 22 million dollars from Education which would cause 22 thousand teachers would lose their jobs, this is not true, the correct phrase would be to say that because of the policy differences 22 thousand teachers could not be hired. The other flaw with the Labor policy is that they continue to offer budget figures for 10 years even though yearly budgets are meant to be forecast over 4 years only which means that funding amounts for 10 years are hard to project past the 4 years officially included in the budget. This is a growing trend by both sides of government on big ticket issues to plan spending over longer year amounts and then push a lot of the money into the latter years of the plan which allows them to save more money immediately and push out the higher spending to later on when the other side of politics might be in Parliament and have to wear the bill. A similar thing appears to have happened on spending on the National Disability Insurance Scheme where the big spending money in the budget was pushed out to the later years of the forecast amount when the Labor Party had a high suspicion they’d be in opposition. The Labor Party also made the strange move in Parliament of asking question after question of why the Liberal Party were cutting money from rich Catholic schools and not allowing parents to choose where they send their kids to school. This line of attack along with the Education Unions attack on this issue is strange because Labor parties tend to be pro public education and always looking to hammer home the attack that Right side of centre parties seek to be anti Public Education. Indeed over in the UK I was following a post 2017 budget attack by Jeremy Corbyn asking why more money was being pledged by Theresa May and the Conservatives on private tuition education instead of public school spending a complete opposite argument to what Labor appeared to be pushing in Australia, I might comment that at least in Australia public school spending is actually mainly done by state governments and then federal governments provide money to the Catholic and Independent schools as states aren’t generally responsible for these sectors. This fact is relevant because the government pledged to introduce an independent umpire to ensure states still provide adequate funding to public schools something that people were concerned might not happen under this Gonski arrangement. The Greens eventual opposition to this deal and I suspect at least part of the Labor’s disagreement with this issue was because of the Education Unions opposition to this deal. Again the Education Union don’t claim to be good friends of the Catholic and Independent schooling system but they seemed to not want to give the Coalition government a win on this issue because the appearance of the government being stuck on this issue allowed the Labor Party to run the line that the Government couldn’t achieve any big policy wins.

 

It’s that last line that sets up a lot of what I think will determine where this policy heads to now. It was clear watching the Parliament proceedings for the bill passing the lower house that the Labor Party will want to make this an election issue by claiming they plan to spend more money on schools. How effective an attack this will be now that the policy has passed the house will be intriguing to see, the Government remain stuck on 47 or 48 percent 2 party preferred which would see them comfortably lose the next election so if the Labor party attack does not work it might allow the Government to make inroads on those polling numbers (again it is my suspicion voters may have switched off this government despite not viewing Bill Shorten as someone they want to be PM). I am hoping that this issue along with some of the other big policy issues can become settled now because it is not a good thing that over the last 10 years Governments have passed policy through Parliament and then the opposition plays politics and runs a scare campaign on the issue and unwind that policy when they win office. I’ve thought for a while that Bill Shorten will win the next election but if he continues to play the negative politics game that Tony Abbott used from late 2009 to winning office in 2013 then he will find it hard to transition into becoming a Prime Minister that can govern for a longer period of time.

 

References

(1) http://www.abc.net.au/news/factcheck/2014-07-02/kate-ellis-using-rubbery-school-funding-figures/5543330

(2) http://www.abc.net.au/news/factcheck/2017-06-05/fact-check-has-the-government-cut-22bn-from-schools/8526768