What a week in Global Politics – AusPol is back, US Politics continues to be insane and Tassies are off to the polls

It has been an insanely busy week in World Politics, I will do my usual weekly review of Australian Politics in a little while but first I need to cover an insane week in USA Politics and a busy week in Tasmanian Politics. So in USA Politics this week you had a failed impeachment in the House of the Secretary for Border Control and then in breaking news you had the Vote re-held in the House this morning Australian time and the impeachment passed making it the second time only in USA History that a Secretary of a State has been impeached. So what happens now? Well, it now goes to the Senate where it needs to convince a number of Democrats to support the impeachment, a 2/3’s majority to impeach the Mayorkas in the Senate and I can guarantee you that given the Democrats hold the Senate 51-49, that aint happening. It’s a dangerous precedent that the Republicans have set here with this impeachment now opening the door for anyone who disagrees with the job a Secretary of State is doing can now be impeached based on partisan lines. You would have thought that the Republicans would have taken that more into account, but no siree and now they have made a bed that they have to lie in. Its comes at a dangerous time for House Republicans who dropped another seat in the House as George Santos who was expelled from the House for allegedly making up his career resume amongst other things lost his seat to a Democrat candidate. That now means there are 219 Republicans to 213 Democrats. It comes also as the RNC Head has faced calls to resign due to a lacklustre Fundraising efforts towards a likely Trump campaign for this November. Indeed the Democrats have outspent the Republicans by double the amount through to the end of December and that’s a potential concern given that ad money still can make a difference to the final result. In other news the House scuppered plans for an Immigration Border deal that was set up by the Democrats to try and alleviate the Border problems for pure Political purposes. How can I say that with such confidence? Well, Donald Trump basically admitted he didn’t want the plan to pass because it would be seen as a political win for Biden on a real problem area for the Democrats going into November. The problem for the Republicans is it might be seen as them blocking progress on an area everyone wants to see action on and as such slightly neutralise the policy area to the voting public. In Donald Trump news the last week saw the Former President hear that he didn’t have immunity to facing criminal charges and would have to face the proceedings on the Election Interference case. In better news for Trump though he did hear opening arguments from the Supreme Court on the Section 14 part 3 amendment on being struck down from the States for inciting allegedly an insurrection. In Joe Biden News and the news isn’t great for him either, he had the Special Counsel come out with their findings on his secret documents case and while they wont prosecute him, the reason for not prosecuting him was a hammer blow to his presidential hopes in that they would not prosecute him because he appeared to be a well meaning old man who struggles with his memory including when his son died in interviews with the Counsel. That last part particularly caused an angry outburst from Biden in response although it wasn’t helped that he then proceeded to confuse the Egypt and Mexican President in his speech. The worry for Biden though continues to be in the form of National polls coming out in the last few days showing Trump with a small lead over Biden in the national poll. I think the Five Thirty Eight Poll had a good point on a podcast the other day though, how will the Independents or we don’t like either guy break to the main candidates in this election, in 2016 they broke to Trump, 2020 they broke to Biden and how they go in 2024 may well decide this election. Now onto Tasmanian Politics and the worst kept secret has finally been conceded with the Tasmanian Population to go to the polls on the 23rd of March 2024. This comes as the Relationship between the two ex government MP’s turned Independents and the Rockliff government and in particular with Rockliff hit a terminal patch. Some context to how we reached this point is needed, In 2023 two Government MPs went to the Cross-Bench over the decision by the Jeremy Rockliff government to build a new AFL Stadium for the new AFL team to be based in Tasmania. Now you can argue over the merits of the AFL Stadium and I have done so in a previous blog but the two Independents promised a confidence and supply deal with the government that had mostly held until late last week when Rockliff issued a new ultimatum to the Cross-Bench saying they had to support all issues that came to a vote or else he’d go to the polls. That went down like a lead balloon and the real impetus came yesterday morning when Lara Alexander said that the Liberal Party was like an abusive boyfriend. With that the Liberals held an urgent meeting and it was quickly decided that Tasmania would be going to the polls. It’s intriguing to me that Tasmania is the last state/territory/federal jurisdiction to be Liberal Held when Federally at least, it has long held a history of voting for left wing parties. We also recently had a Bill pass to expand the Parliament lower house from 25 to 35 seats, ie 7 members per 5 electorates. With the Liberal Party in chaos and the Labor Party in turmoil of their own, their most recent leader before their current leader was expelled from the party for alleged misbehaviour. I can almost guarantee that this will be a hung parliament and that’s a problem given both major parties have now already ruled out doing deals with minor parties. I think that Labor start the election campaign as favourites to form a minority government with not the Greens but maybe the Jacqui Lambie Network but things change very quickly in Tasmanian Politics.

Now onto Australian Politics, and we’re back….. The Parliamentary sitting year started as always on a Tuesday rather than on a Monday and it started with the Coalition adopting the Bitch and Fold approach on the Stage Three Tax Cuts. This is a pure political decision that they don’t like the new Tax Cut methods and they’ll scream bloody murder about them but they know opposing these new cuts would be electoral suicide in seats like Dunkley where oh yeah, there’s an important by-election approaching. In IR News the Labor Party got their latest tranch of IR Reform through the Parliament this time on the right to disconnect laws. Essentially it is a law to stop employees who choose to sign off from work after hours from being hassled and if they are then there will be consequences for Employers. Unfortunately for Labor they made a mistake with the legislation and agreed to Greens amendments that would include criminal penalties for Employers and that passed through the Parliament meaning the Labor Party now need to introduce a new bill to address this oversight. Then we had the latest in the Climate Wars as a number of Nats joined an anti-renewables rally to protest the growing phasing in of Renewable Energy at the cost of existing dirtier energy sources. We now have a huge fight looming on the next phase in Climate Bills on cleaner vehicle emissions which the Coalition have helpfully labelled a tax on Utes. This for me is more stupidity on policy move but devilishly clever on the politics. What I mean by that is that from a policy point of view we are one of two countries other than Russia in the Advanced world to not have a Fuel Emissions standards on vehicles being sold in the country so that needs to change. It’s clever politically however because despite the protesting of Labor that it wont increase the cost of dirty emitting cars it obviously will and that’s kind of the point, its meant to send a cost signal in one direction to increase the popularity of cleaner emitting cars. From a politics point of view though in a cost of living crisis its smart politics, because people don’t like paying more for basic necessary items. Now I will do my usual analysing the week in politics before analysing the Numbers where they currently stand polling wise.

So Monday started with the Chinese Ambassador to Australia summoned over his countries recent decision to hand a suspended death sentence to an Australian living in China who was accused of writing derogatory things about the Chinese Government. Analysis showed that a fuel emissions standard for vehicles could mean all vehicles sold in Australia by 2035 could be EV’s. Labor’s review into Price Gouging by Supermarkets will see if suppliers are too scared to complain about the current pricing system. Lastly, Many politicians and very few Australians tuned into Nemesis Episode 2 to see the Coalition bitching about the Turnbull government.

So Tuesday saw two major things happen, first it was Interest Rate watch day and the Interest Rates were left on hold, it comes as the RBA Governor predicted Inflation would return to the target range of 2 to 3% by 2025. Parliament Returned officially on Tuesday and Peter Dutton confirmed the Coalition would not stand in the way of the Interest Rate changes of the Government but would instead question what would be the next tax reform the Government planned to do. New Analysis shows government spending to Private Schools has increased by 15% in the last year and is vastly outpacing spending in public schools. Penny Wong has accused the Greens of weaponising the war in Palestine, it comes as the Greens Senator Mehreen Faruqi criticised the Government for its pausing of giving aid to a Pro Palestine Aid charity. David LittleProud addressed an anti renewables protest and said that there were times to pause aid to Renewable energy projects. The NSW Labor Government will introduce a bill to ban offshore gas and mineral exploration to protect the environment. The Queensland Labor Government introduced a measure to ban rent bidding as part of a new housing affordability package this week. Now onto question time and the first Coalition Question was on the potential for negative gearing tax reform. After a number of questions on that topic the Nats Leader asked a question on the Renewable Energy platform in Regional areas. And that finishes the first QT of the year.

Labor had a win on Wednesday with their latest IR Laws set to pass the Parliament after a deal was struck with the Greens on the issue. An ACTU Report said that there was not enough competition in the markets and that too many companies were acting as Monopolies. The Greens Leader tried but ultimately failed to suspend standing orders on the Issue of Israel and Gaza, on that topic the Labor Backbenchers were privately downplaying how much of an impact the pause in giving funding to the Palestine UN Aid fund. The latest Closing the Gap Report was delivered and got the usual calls for more action on Indigenous issues in the community. In Queensland Politics Labor have announced the approval of a new coalmine, this comes in the face of a proposed 75% Emissions reduction bill to be introduced. The Queensland Government will also introduce yearly targets to reduce Youth Crime a big issue currently in the state. Onto Question Time and the first Question from the Opposition was from Peter Dutton on the Cost of Living Pressures. The Opposition then shifted slightly to the theme of tax reform and broken promises and after a few questions on this issue the Nats leader asked a question about the family home and whether there was planned reform on that issue. Then it was back to stage three tax cuts and the spectre of the broken promise and that was the end of QT Number two.

That takes us to the final sitting day of the week Thursday and the Right to Disconnect Amendment Bill on IR passed the Parliament. The BOM said that the Country has warmed by 1.5 degrees since 1910. Government Backbencher Josh Wilson has broken ranks with the Labor Party and called for an end of the barbarism of the Israelites towards Gaza citizens. AGL has posted a profit in the last period but has rejected calls it is price gouging customers during a cost of living crisis. That takes us to question time and the first question was from a Queensland Liberal Backbencher on youth crime in Queensland. Then there was a question from the Manager of Opposition Business on the Greens failed motion on Israel and Hamas in Parliament yesterday. It was then back to whether Labor had plans to change Negative Gearing reform. Then there was a question about the state of the Department of Defence. Then there was a question on the clean vehicles emissions changes. After another few questions on this topic the Opposition ended their question time attack asking about the Stage Three Tax Cut changes.

Friday saw a Housing Summit hear about Regional population members having to sleep rough for the first time ever. The RBA Governor said that the changes to the Stage Three Tax Cuts would not have a material impact on inflation. The Coalition have flagged moves to force the government into paying compensation for passengers that have their flights delayed.

That takes us to the weekend and the battle for Dunkley is heating up on Saturday with access to housing and cost of living shaping to be the battleground issues for the election. Saturday also saw the Pro Palestinian pen a letter asking for aid to the Pro Palestine UN Charity group. That takes us to Sunday, which was Insiders day and the guest Politician on the Show was the Shadow Treasurer Angus Taylor and he recommitted his pledge to introduce tax reform to the next election Coalition Policy package. Otherwise the interview was the old fashioned rule in rule out game that Politicians just love playing. Peter Dutton did say Sunday that the Coalition would repeal the right to disconnect legislation that the Government passed on Thursday in the Senate. The Treasurer used an interview to rule out the changes to Negative Gearing and Capital Gains tax and Teals are finding it hard to find candidates in Queensland as all parties start too look ahead to the 2025 Federal Election.

So where do we stand from a numbers point of view at the end of the first sitting week of the year? Well, Newspoll came out Sunday last week showing the Government ahead 2PP at 52-48, that matches a lot of polling from other sources in the last few weeks and shows the Government recovering somewhat from the malaise it had of the end of last year, very start of this year. There was a poll out in Dunkley last week which showed Labor leading 52-48 2PP which would be a 4% approximately swing to the Libs in the seat. This would be an encouraging result but not enough to win the seat. Meanwhile there was further polling in a few of the Teal seats which was encouraging to the Teals in that it showed the Teals were on track to hold their seats in all of those polled. The one thing I would note on that was that the poll named the Teals but not their LNP Opponent so the poll has somewhat limited use at this stage if the Liberals end up naming high profile candidates in these seats.

Thanks for reading blog, stay tuned next week for my next blog on Federal Politics and anything else that happens to pop up politically in the meantime.

Biden wins South Carolina Primary and are young voters getting more progressive

It’s been a quieter week and a half in World and Local Politics, hence the reason for the length between my last post and now but as the year heads into February things are starting to kick back into gear and we head into a year with two very important global elections and quite a few Australian Elections too. In this blog I will analyse the South Carolina Primary Results which gave a large endorsement to Joe Biden in a state that in 2020 resuscitated Biden’s Run and launched him into the Oval Office. Meanwhile a lot has been said recently about the Youth vote and whether it is getting more progressive so in this blog I will analyse that and see how much merit is in that statement.

So Joe Biden won South Carolina and it wasn’t even close, he ended up with 96.1% of the vote which is a great result for him. Marianne Williamson got 2.1% and finished second while Dean Phillips who in Dean Phillips mind was going to push Biden early on got 1.7% of the vote and finished a disappointing third. The turnout which was 16% in the 2020 race of the registered Democratic voters in 2020 was only 4% of the Democratic registered vote this time which would be of a slight concern to Biden in that the much worried about enthusiasm for the candidate is not there this time. That being said 2020 was a contested primary and a win is a win is a win and this was a blowout win to the nature that despite the lack of enthusiasm for Biden may give Biden some much needed momentum heading into the General Election. And lets be clear this is al about the General Election now and Biden who is energised every time he discusses Trump called him a loser who will lose again this November. I know there’s been scuttlebutt about Michelle Obama running for the Presidency under the Democrats name but that’s a pipe dream that isn’t going to happen. Now South Carolina is an important state because despite it being a solid Republican state it has a large African American population and in 2020 they voted 90% for Biden in South Carolina. Given that African Americans and particularly younger male African Americans are deserting Biden in droves according to the polls this is an important win for Biden in a population that he needs to re-energise to win in November. This week some Democrats got excited with National Polling from YouGov showing a 1% lead to Biden over Trump in the general election but before you get carried away there’s a few points too make, firstly its one poll and every other poll this week showed Trump leading Biden by a non-insignificant amount, secondly Biden will possibly win the National vote thanks to running up the score in California and New York, its the swing states that will decide this election and they still show Trump with a solid lead. Immigration is a hot button issue in America at the moment, and that favours Trump who has promised a harsh and possibly illegal approach to Immigration should he win the White House in November. Its a concern to me that Trump is now pushing Republicans to scrap an Immigration Bill before the Congress that would be a lot harsher than anything currently enacted for the political win of this still looking like a shit show come November. For me the Republican’s could be overplaying their hand here, in that in chasing a political win the Democrats can say well we tried to fix this issue but couldn’t because of the Republicans playing politics on this issue.

Now onto Youth Progressiveness and this would seem like a natural conclusion, young people have always been more progressive than older people and that’s the ballgame and to a point that’s fair to assume, what I’m more interested in here is the pattern that younger people appear to be staying more progressive as they get older now rather than becoming more Conservative as they age as has been the case in previous generations. Indeed the saying that has always held to me growing up is if you are under 30 and vote Conservative you have no heart and if you vote Left wing over 30 you have no brain. I think the reason for this past shift in attitudes on the whole as you age is as you age you tend to have more assets you want to conserve and that tends to see you vote more for Economic issues than Social Issues that may have driven you more when you are younger. That trend seems to be changing though, particularly as Home Ownership is increasingly becoming a pipe dream for younger people and so as a result people are more likely to vote for Leftwing parties even as they age. The real worry for right wing parties is younger woman who are really moving to the left and this is a trend that is showing up not just in Australia but across the world in Democratic societies. The real trend though is a sign that as younger woman are becoming more Educated than their previous generations they are voting further left and are staying left even as they age. This is a trend across the world for those who live in big cities which has been trending to the left in droves in the last few years as that is the home of the young college voters. The real interest to me is that there’s a lesson here for Centre Left Governments as well, not just the far right and centre right parties. There’s a growing trend that the younger generations aren’t just stopping at centre left parties but are going more progressive too far left parties. Be that the Greens in Australia, and like minded far left candidates of major parties across the world. It’s intriguing to me then that as we are getting further along the line that we aren’t seeing the death though of far right parties across the developed democracies, indeed what we are seeing is far right parties having a re-emergence across the globe. The reason for this is that the polarisation of the society on the whole of both sides of the political spectrum means that people are digging further into their trenches than previously. It’s interesting that while both Men and Young Women are trending left, there’s a growing smaller population particularly of young men that you’d think would also go further left are embracing the far right parties, be it Donald Trump garnering more young African American Men than usual in the USA or young uneducated men embracing Peter Dutton more than usual in Australia. And I think that’s also worth mentioning in the shifts to the right, whereas in the past uneducated working class people would be more likely to vote for left wing Socially Progressive parties, they seem to be now more open to embracing further right socially conservative and aspirational economic parties now to the right of centre.

Thanks for reading my blog, stay tuned next week for my next blog on the first week of the sitting year for Australian Politics.

USA Politics, The Gift that keeps on giving, Trump wins New Hampshire, Ron DeSantis drops out and endorses Trump, Tim Scott Endorses Trump and Nikki Haley finally comes out swinging Plus the Latest in Australian Politics

It’s been a very hectic 48 hours in USA and Australian Politics. In USA Politics Ron DeSantis bid adieu to the Republican Primary Race and Endorsed Donald Trump, Tim Scott also endorsed Trump and those two events helped Trump win New Hampshire and despite the media’s best efforts effectively ended whatever contest was left in the Republican Primary. Someone forgot to tell Nikki Haley this however and she decided to finally go full on attack mode on Trump in her New Hampshire Concession Speech. Meanwhile in the Democratic side Joe Biden won the New Hampshire Primary with an effective write in campaign after he refused to appear on the official ballot for reasons I will discuss later in my blog. Meanwhile it has been chaotic in Australian Politics too in the last 48 hours. You had Anthony Albanese finally confirm the worst kept secret in politics and curtail the Stage Three Tax-Cuts, you also had polling out showing Labor stretching their lead over the Coalition again after early polls in the year showed the Coalition drawing level with the Labor Party in the polls. You had the Coalition pre-select a very popular mayor in Dunkley to set up a juicy contest in that seat and you had former PM and State Premier Scott Morrison and Steven Marshall announcing they will retire from Politics very shortly, both cases confirming long thought rumours. So in this blog I will start by discussing USA Politics before moving onto Australian Politics.

So let’s not bury the lead here on USA Politics, Donald Trump won New Hampshire today about an hour and a half ago in a move that shocked very few serious political pundits despite the media trying to hype up a tight contest to keep clicks being generated on the contest. Everyone will go, oh Trump only won by 10-12% points maybe it could be close going forward… I got news for you it wont be. Trump is leading Haley by 35% points in South Carolina which is Nikki Haley’s home state and she got a further body blow in the last 48 hours as Tim Scott who was appointed by Haley to the Senate endorsed Donald Trump as the only viable candidate to take on Joe Biden come November. This also came as Ron DeSantis officially suspended his campaign and also endorsed Donald Trump and he too gave Haley a broadside on the way out. So you’d think with those two body blows Trump would have kowtowed Haley out of the race but no siree, Haley in her concession speech that I must admit sounded more like a victory speech took the attack to the Former President Finally and said he has an issue with memory, temperament and didn’t deliver enough for the Country, she also said that he is the Democrats best hope, indeed he is the only candidate that Biden can actually beat at this point. Now there’s an argument on that last point, Trump has been tied or is leading Biden by a small margin in most recent polls but New Hampshire is not following that trend, indeed Biden is currently leading in New Hampshire by just over double digits, so while Trump is leading well in most swing states, New Hampshire is not one of those states. Now I said earlier that this ends the Primary race as a contest but Nikki Haley has courageously I think decided, no there is a non insignificant portion of the Country that would like someone other than Trump to be the Republican Nominee and she feels she owes it to them to continue fighting it out with Trump even if it ends her career as a Republican which given the Victory Speech of Trump tonight and how nasty he was tonight is a real possibility. Unfortunately the reason I say the race is now officially finished is there just aren’t enough votes in the Republican Primaries/Caucuses who aren’t rusted on Trump voters. New Hampshire really was Haley best chance as the amount of Independents in that state who vote in the Republican Primary is almost equal to the amount of pure Republicans. In the Republican voters Trump won that demographic 3 to 1 and if he replicates that in other states where the Independent vote is significantly lower then he will win easily. One more thing about the Republican Primary and I thought it was very intriguing that Vivek Ramaswamy and Tim Scott were both standing behind Trump as he gave his victory speech tonight and that both Tim Scott and Vivek were referenced and then Ramaswamy was given the chance to speak in the victory speech tonight. I know everyone wants Trump to pick a Woman for VP as that would make sense from a softening of the Trump brand view but I don’t think Trump does sensible in the traditional sense, I believe one of Vivek Ramaswamy or Tim Scott will be the eventual VP Pick and my money at present is on Vivek Ramaswamy. Now onto the Democratic Race and yes there was a New Hampshire Primary for the Democrats tonight also. It was won by Joe Biden thanks to a large campaign to write him in as the winning candidate for this state after he refused to appear on the official ballot. The reason for this is that the Democrats changed the rules this year on what State would come first in the Democratic Nomination Process and said no South Carolina has to be the first state to vote in the Primaries for 2024 to which New Hampshire said screw that we are going to go first anyway which was in violation of the official Democratic Primary rules. As a result of this Joe Biden refused to appear on the official ballot but then organised his supporters to mount a write-in nomination that would ensure he still won New Hampshire while not violating the new Democrat rules. So Joe Biden ended up winning the New Hampshire Primary with a projected final vote of about 68%. Dean Phillips has come second with around 20% of the vote. So the Democratic race is still as uncompetitive as we thought although Dean Phillips will try and spin his 20% of the vote as a rejection of the current President, although that’s muted given Joe Biden didn’t do any “official” campaigning in New Hampshire. The two most recent General Election Polls have shown Biden trailing the former President Donald Trump by 5% and I think as a recent pod said, you have start taking the threat of Donald Trump becoming President again in November seriously because he is leading Biden, he is well on track to wrapping up the Republican Nomination before Super Tuesday and the closer it gets to the Election the less likely the Criminal Proceedings will catch up with Trump.

Now onto Australian Politics and a lot has been happening here too recently. The candidates for the Dunkley By-Election have been set and the date for the By-Election has been set, namely the 2nd of March. Now I think the race will be very close but I think Kos Samaras hit the nail on the head, Dutton is back in the ballgame and given the characteristics of Dunkley which is a high amount of suburban working class tafe educated personalities the Liberals deserve to start favourites in this seat. Indeed both sides of the political pendulum are talking down their hopes in this seat. I will be very intrigued in this seat where the 5% of the United Australian Party votes go, you’d assume that it wouldn’t matter much because at the last election surely most of those votes went to the LNP on preferences anyway, but that’s not quite true, while Greens to Labor have a high preference flow, the flows from right of centre parties do not always flow as heavily back to the Coalition, if most of those voters at this election however to go straight to the Coalition then that may give the LNP the edge in this seat. But the real news of the last 48 hours was the leaking to the Media of an apparent change to the Stage three Tax Cuts. This was quickly denied by Labor but surprise surprise fast forward too today and there were indeed changes being made to the Stage Three Tax Cuts. The changes are as followed there will now be more tax benefits for lower income earners with an increase to the Tax Free Threshold as well as an increase in how much tax is given back to lower to middle income earners. This comes at a cost though and it is too higher income earners who have to pay the higher tax bracket that they were promised too not have to do anymore. The Coalition have said this is the mother of all broken promises and indeed the PM Anthony Albanese said indirectly or directly that the Stage 3 Tax Cuts would not break changed on more than 100 occasions. Now if you are asking my view, I thought these Stage 3 Tax Cuts were terrible from an inflationary point of view and also took away from the progressive tax system that redistributes wealth in a fair and reasonable way. That’s my view as an economist but Politically, this is a stinker of a decision, I really do believe that Peter Dutton and the Coalition will now attack Labor for breaking a core Election Promise and yes there’s the point that they may be wedged on whether too support the increased gains for lower and middle income workers but they are already pivoting to the attack line that if you can’t trust Labor on this promise how can you trust Labor on other more contentious issues. I think this decision is going to cost Labor Dunkley, and yes sometimes you have to make the right decision even if it is not popular, but that also has to be balanced with staying in power and not losing to ability to make decisions. I see a lot of comparisons here to the GST Decision and that Howard changed his mind on this and still won further elections, that’s true but you have to remember Howard nearly lost the 1998 General Election after the GST Decision, he did lose the popular vote in that election and only won subsequent elections more comfortably on the back of other issues. Now to amend these tax changes the Government will have to pass this through the Parliament and I think it will pass both houses, but I will be very intrigued by how the Teal Independents vote on this issue in the lower house. I think this might split them and that could open the door to attacks by the Coalition to try and win some of the teal seats back at the next Election. I mentioned the Polls earlier and the Labor Party have recently clawed some of their lead back after early polls in the year showed a tie or small Liberal Lead. I would imagine this decision on Stage Three Tax Cuts will change that dynamic polling wise. Lastly, I want to talk about two recent high profile departures from Politics, one Federally and one from my home state of South Australia. In Australia Scott Morrison confirmed the worst kept secret and announced his soon to be intention to resign from Federal Politics. That will open up a race to succeed him that will be very interesting because while the Liberals will win that seat, it will be just as interesting in who that Liberal will be, will it be a Moderate, Conservative or a Female. Also in South Australia Steven Marshall has announced his intention to leave State Politics and this will be a very intriguing by-election because it will give some numerical evidence of how the Peter Malinauskas government is going in a state where we are badly lacking numerical polling data. Dunstan is currently a very marginal seat, indeed on Election Night it looked like it might fall to Labor at various times, but the ramping issue which is biting hard here in SA may do enough to keep the seat in Liberals hands.

Thanks for reading my blog, stay tuned next week on my next Political Blog.

Iowa goes Chalk and Cheese – Donald Trump wins comfortably, Ramaswamy bids adieu to the Presidential Race and Endorses Trump… Plus the latest in Australian Federal Polling

Its been an exciting week in USA Politics as Iowa Burgers finally got the chance to go and vote in the Iowa Caucus. The results basically mirrored the polls, Trump got 51%, Ron DeSantis won the race for second with 21.2% of the vote and Nikki Haley won 19.2% of the vote. So the final poll was bang on for Haley, 2% too high for Trump and undersold DeSantis by around 4%. Ramaswamy came a distant 4th with 8% of the vote and he dropped out and surprise surprise he endorsed the Former President Donald Trump. That endorsement of Ramaswamy for Trump is probably enough to guarantee Trump a win in New Hampshire the only competitive state currently polling wise and if that happens its a wrap for the Republican Primary barring Trump’s legal woes catching up with him, which the closer we get to November the less likely that is too occur. A last poll in New Hampshire had Haley and Trump tied post Christie dropping out at 40-40 but Vivek was polling 4% and I’d assume his vote would push Trump just over the top. I think DeSantis finishing in Second gives his campaign some life for later states but New Hampshire, the second state to vote has DeSantis at 4-5% which will stunt his momentum very quickly. Really at this point the race for second is a cute story to keep the media happy but its arithmetic unless Trump drops out due to legal issues.

Now onto Australian Politics and there have been a number of Polls out to start the year from all sorts of places besides Newspoll which I suspect will come back at the end of January. Most of these polls have shown either a slightly LNP lead or a Tied ball game at 50-50. Importantly they show the Coalition creeping back towards a primary of 40% which I think is what is needed to win the next Federal Election. In this blog I am going to go through some of the swing seats that I think will decide the next election. On the Labor side I can see a number of Labor seats in some peril next election, starting in WA you have to assume that 2022 was a low point for the Coalition and that post Mark McGowan the LNP may be able to make some ground up there, I think the LNP grab back Tangney and everything else stays the same. Then NT which has been a bloodbath for Labor at a Territory level recently and I think that both seats there are in play although I think Lingiari is a safer bet than Solomon, so I’ll give LNP 1 seat gain there. Then in SA you don’t have much in the way of marginal seats so I reckon the Labor Party hold all their seats here, more on what I think about the LNP here later. Then in Tassie I think Labor have been close to losing Lyons the last few Federal Elections so I have Labor dropping that seat and keeping their others. Victoria is a tough one, The LNP Division is in a state of peril here so I may await judgement on this state until after the Dunkley By-Election. Then there’s NSW the perennial Bell-weather state and Gilmore and Bennelong are the two seats that immediately jump out to me as potential Labor losses. Robertson is also another interesting seat to watch, so I reckon Labor drop 1-3 of these seats. Then there’s Queensland and I can’t see the Labor Party going further backwards here as they are already in an atrociously poor position here. ACT is a Labor Nirvana so that wont change at this coming election. So with these seats in mind I have Labor at 73 seats at present which puts them in minority government relying on the Greens to stay in power. Now onto the LNP Side and the WA results were a disaster last time and I can’t see the LNP going further backwards there. NT as I said before has no LNP Member currently. SA, the seat of Sturt is on a thin margin and could go Labor but at this stage I think the polls suggest a status quo result here. Tasmania I have Bass as the wildcard, if Bridget Archer is expelled from the LNP as the member for Braddon wants then I think Archer wins the seat as an independent taking a seat away from the LNP. Victoria has the seats of Deakin, Menzies and Casey as marginals and obviously the Libs have already lost Aston in a by-election earlier this term. I again want to see what happens in Dunkley before judging the lie of the land here. Then there’s NSW and the real risk for the Libs here is teal independents and I look to the seat of Bradfield which went marginal last election and was the only Lib seat to vote Yes in the Voice to Parliament Referendum. Queensland is the last state the Libs have to worry about and Peter Dutton’s seat is the most marginal seat in the country so I think the LNP will be safe in Queensland with the exception of Leichhardt which if Entsch does indeed retire could be in play. So I have the LNP going from 55 seats current to 58-59 seats. Lastly is the cross bench seats and at current I think the best bet is a status quo result for the Cross bench in that they all hold their seats.

Thanks for reading my blog, stay tuned next week for my next Political Blog.

USA Politics latest – Iowa Primary incoming and Chris Christie Bids adieu to the Republican race, also a Tasmanian Update

It has been a quiet few weeks in Politics as people take a pause over the Christmas and New Years break. It is now the 11th of January and Politics is starting to ramp up again, firstly there’s US Politics where the Iowa Caucus Primary is now just a few days away and in breaking news Chris Christie has suspended his Campaign, which is not entirely surprising in the sense of he is polling under water and he does not fit in the modern Republican Party but I did think despite that, that he would stay in the race to bite at Trump’s heels a bit longer seeing as none of the other candidates had the gall to do that directly. The interesting thing now is where will that vote go and my thought is that most of Chris Christie’s vote will go to Nikki Haley and that may become useful in New Hampshire where Trump’s lead is now in some polls in single digits which would be small enough that Chris Christie’s 11% could shift the lead there to Nikki Haley. Then there’s the Southern Isle of Australia and Tasmania is keeping things very interesting, over the Christmas New Years period you had one of the Liberal turned Independent MP’s threaten to support a no confidence motion and then in the first poll of the year for Tasmania you had Liberal go backwards 17% from the election but that vote was not going to Labor but instead to the Jacqui Lambie Network who were on 20!!! percent. Now onto my main blog and I will first talk about USA Politics before moving into the Tasmanian Politics.

So, we are now just 5 days away American time from the first Iowa Primary for the Presidential race for the Republican nominee. Donald Trump leads this race by a large percentage polling well over 50% to the 17.2% for Ron DeSantis and 16.8% for Nikki Haley. The battle in Iowa is for second place as I can’t see a realistic scenario where Trump is defeated in Iowa. That race for second is critical though because that gap between DeSantis and Haley has really narrowed to the point where a second place for Haley in Iowa which she has not prioritised to the same level as DeSantis who has visited every section of Iowa would be I think terminal for the DeSantis campaign. That job for DeSantis finishing second in any state was made harder I think this morning by the news of Chris Christie suspending his presidential campaign. Now I think almost all of his vote will go to the next most anti-Trump candidate which is clearly Nikki Haley. Now Chris Christie knew he wouldn’t win, his place in the race was always to try and drag Trump down and he in my mind has now made the calculation that he is better off dropping out of the race, coalescing his vote to the next best option which I think he believes is Nikki Haley and then continuing to snipe at Trump from the sidelines. Now as I said I don’t think it helps defeat Trump in Iowa, I think the 34% gap in Iowa is too much of a bridge to climb in Iowa but there was a poll in New Hampshire the other day that had Trump at 38% Haley at 31% and Christie about 13% which if his vote mostly goes to Haley as I suspect it will would mean Haley could win New Hampshire and give herself some momentum too chase Trump for the rest of the Republican Primary. I think to me the one clear thing of the last few months of campaigning is that DeSantis’s campaign is now at a near terminal point, which given only last summer there were moments that DeSantis was leading Trump in the polls is quite the slippage. I still think Trump wins the Republican Nomination and even losing New Hampshire is not the end of the world because if it is that close there but Trump is nationally leading Haley by about 48% then there’s other states where Trump has even bigger than 48% of a lead. I think the DeSantis dropping out of the race actually favours Trump more so than Haley as DeSantis more aligns with Trump’s world views than Haley’s. I think the attention for most people is gradually starting to shift to the National Race and the early polls of the year show a Tie between Trump and Biden with both on 42-43% each. The story of the race though is in the swing states and in those Trump continues to hold a stubbornly non insignificant lead. The question that continues to stubbornly hold is will these two (Biden and Trump) be the nominees that face the Electorate in November. I think the significant odds are that they are but there’s a non zero chance that something happens in either camp that stops that from happening. For Trump it continues to be his legal woes and again during the Christmas-New Years Break Trump was disqualified by the Maine State from appearing on their presidential ballot under the Insurrection amendment. Now the Supreme Court have now said they will hear that case very shortly and I know a lot of traditional media sources were like ooooh this might spell trouble for Trump but I’m not convinced of that and nor is Trump who said that was a good thing and it would clear him from the legal witch hunt that the Democrats were apparently running against him. Now I believe as a Democratic Talking Head said the other day that you can’t get rid of Trump on a legal technicality but you have to get rid of him at the ballot box. I think the more interesting question surrounds Joe Biden and he has always had the age question hanging around, this week there was more speculation that he might drop out of the race, citing poor health and age as a reason, I don’t think that will happen as Biden in his mind believes he is the only Democrat who can beat Trump but if the polls worsen and Biden’s Approval rating stays at around -20 maybe he does drop out and drafts a replacement of his choosing to take down Trump, Ala someone like Gavin Newsom.

Now onto Tasmanian Politics and a lot is happening in Tassie right now. As I alluded to above over the holiday period John Tucker said that unless the Government took urgent action over the Live Trade Export Industry and unless it took urgent action over the AFL Stadium issue that he would support a No Confidence Motion in the Government. This is a continuing saga for the Liberal Party which is split between the Moderates which is led by the current leader Jeremy Rockliffe and then the Conservatives which are split into two factions, the Eric Abetz Faction and the Johnathon Dunheim faction and all of these sides hate each other with much gusto. Indeed speaking on Eric Abetz for a minute he is now trying to seek preselection for the State region of Franklin at the next Election which will be intriguing given his outspokenness on social issues particularly. He said that it was unfair that he was demoted from the Federal Senate and that he was cast aside for being a white old man…. for a party known as having far too many old white men in it I thought that was just a tad odd. So with all this being said you’d think the Liberals would be in dire straits and that Labor would be waltzing into power but you’d be wrong. Labor in the latest poll which shocked political pundits continue to trail the Liberals 31% to 27% and the Jacqui Lambie Network is the big winners at an amazing 20%!. The Greens meanwhile are at 15%. I have a few comments on this poll, firstly it shows the Liberals have nosedived since the last state election which given their internal nightmares is not surprising, it also shows that Labor have not picked up on that nightmarish internal problem which is an inditement on the once most powerful state in the land for Labor. The Jacqui Lambie vote is almost hard to believe and I will say I am sceptical it will pick up that vote at an actual election in the lower house when the Jacqui Lambie Network Candidates will not be Jacqui Lambie. As Dr Kevin Bonham said this is a trend for disaffected voters to park their vote with a third party in an election mid cycle before returning home to the majors at the election itself, be that SA Best in SA or One Nation in Queensland. I do think on current numbers Labor would probably win a minority government, but if it is with 5,6 Greens and 7 Jacqui Lambie MPs on the Crossbench, that would be messy. One thing to note about Tasmanian Politics before I finish up is that the Liberal Government recently passed legislation to reinstall the Parliament to 35 seats rather than the current 25 seats, so basically 7MPs per region rather than the current 5MPs per region.

Thanks for reading my blog, stay tuned for my next blog next week summing up the Iowa Primary in the US and maybe an update on where we stand Federally in Australian Politics too.

We bid adieu to Annastacia Palaszczuk and Natasha Fyles plus Donald Trump…. the Gift that keeps on giving

I know I’m a bit late to the party on the first bit of news but in the last few weeks we have bid adieu to a Premier and NT Chief Minister. The Queensland Premier now is Steven Miles who has tried to do a hard reset for a Government that is almost 9 years old and is trailing an uninspired but at least not incompetent Opposition. Meanwhile the NT Chief Minister Natasha Fyles fell on her sword yesterday after some controversies over share holdings in a Gas Company that she refused to investigate into the health effects of and shortly after she announced she would divest her shares in Woodside another Gas Company. This is the reason she gave…… it had nothing to do apparently with the disaster NT Territory Polls which showed Labor at 19.7! percent primary poll over 20 points behind the Country Liberal Party who were 40.3%. Meanwhile over in the USA in some breaking news Colorado have announced that Donald Trump can’t be on the Colorado Primary ballot because of his alleged role in the Capitol Hill Insurrection which is the only real way a President can be precluded from running for office again. This comes in the wake of the controversy also in the last few days of the Mass Deportation of Muslims the largest program in history that Donald Trump pledged to implement which immediately ran comparisons to Nazi Germany. So in this blog I will talk about Queensland and NT Politics before discussing the latest in the Donald Trump saga.

So first too Queensland Politics and Steven Miles swore in his new cabinet yesterday as part of a hard reset to keep Labor in Power in Queensland after a messy last year. To give some context on what that mess was, you had the famously contentious Detention laws which were designed to keep young offenders detained indefinitely which included Child offenders. That went down like a lead balloon with the Other parties for being too draconian although as I said at the time the LNP probably wished they could do the same thing secretly. The biggest change to the Ministry was the giving of three Portfolio roles to Meghan Scanlon to create a super Housing Portfolio. That’s a big move because along with crime in the Northern Parts of the State particularly, Housing and Cost of Living are seen as the other weak points of the Labor Party. The Labor Party also now have a By-Election in the seat of Inala to contend with although I don’t see any problems for the Labor Party there. The reason I don’t see a problem in that seat is due to the fact that the seat of Inala was one of the seven seats Labor held in the 2012 election wipeout. The Polls for the State of Queensland have all seen a consistent lead for the LNP since the middle of this year albeit mostly by a small enough margin that it could be turned around. With the Federal Drag of the Labor Party in power federally now though, I can see this being a difficult next state election for the Labor Party. The main advantage the Labor Party have is that their not the LNP though which still have the tainted brush of Campbell Newman on their record.

Now onto NT Politics and the Labor Party are a mess over there. They have the major issue of being forever struggling Economically, Darwin is overly reliant on the Public Service, They have a near on permanent crime issue in the big cities particularly in Alice Springs and they have the major issue of the division from the failed Voice to Parliament Referendum Result where the big towns/cities voted no overwhelmingly while the Remote Indigenous Communities voted Yes. You also had that poll I referenced earlier which showed NT Labor both at a Territory and Federal level in dire straits. As I said that poll had Labor at 19.7% to the Country Liberal Party 40.3% and if repeated at a Territory level would see Labor wiped out of the Territory. This is interesting poll wise because it goes contrary to the fact that in the most recent by-election Labor got a swing to it, with the by-election in Arafura resulting in a swing to Labor of nearly 18% primary and close to 15.5% 2PP. I think it goes to show a few things in NT Politics, firstly results are wildly volatile and can swing wildly from election to election, secondly a good candidate in the NT Election is huge because name recognition means a lot more in the smaller electorates and lastly Polling in the NT is hard to be reliable due to the large remote communities that are hard to poll. That all being said you’d still rather be in the Country Liberal Parties shoes right now, as those four issues of Indigenous Reconciliation, Cost of Living, Crime and Energy really is hitting the Labor Party hard currently. Add to that now is Natasha Fyles resigning who has had two big scandals in a few weeks on shares and the conflicts of interest they have with some of her policy decisions. The one that really broke the camels back was the finding that Fyles had shares in a company that she had refused to do a health check into the dangers the mine caused. Add to that the shares she had to divest in from Woodside and also the recent polling numbers and her leadership was always terminal. Unfortunately for Natasha Fyles she had the unenviable task of following a highly popular leader in Michael Gunner who had led the territory well during Covid-19. The candidates in the running to replace Fyles are Nicole Manison and also Eva Lawler. This would be the third Chief Minister since Labor were re-elected in 2020.

Finally in USA Politics and Donald Trump has again given me more fodder for my Political Blog. This time it is for two reasons, first is the Colorado decision to not allow Trump on the Colorado Primary Ballot, and the second was his plans for the largest ever deportation scheme to deport Muslims on mass from the Country. All this comes in the background of the first Republican Primary Ballot in Iowa coming in less than a month away. So Colorado with its Democratic majority Law Makers voted 4-3 against the former President to bar him from running in the state of Colorado in the Republican Primary that is scheduled to take place on Super Tuesday on March 5th. Now this is due to the little used Section 3 of the 14th Amendment of the Constitution which is meant to bar people who have committed an insurrection for running for an office of Government. Now this was originally meant to be used to ban Rebels from the American Civil War from running for Government after the War ended but has never actually been successfully argued before, until now obviously. Now I fully expect this to be appealed at the Supreme Court and I expect it will probably overturned due to the Conservative leaning of the Supreme Court but a few counts to make on this. Firstly it sets the precedent for other states where similar filings have already been made to do the same thing and secondly it further muddies the water for Former President Trump in regards to his legal woes. This is on top of the Former President at a rally a few days ago saying America would have to implement the largest Deportation of Americans in history with a particular bent on deporting Muslim “Illegal” Immigrants. This is a dangerous new low for the Former President and it was immediately compared to the 1930’s and the actions of Adolf Hitler with Jewish people. Unfortunately it says a lot about the current state of the world that this did not come as a surprise to me, indeed several of the Republican Primary Candidates have promised something similar albeit not as explicitly as Trump now has. You’d think with all of these controversies that Biden would be sailing along merrily in the polls but no, if anything Trump has opened a wider lead Nationally over Biden in polling released in the last week. At a primary level its an even bleaker story for the Anti-Trumpers with Trump holding now a 55% lead nationally over his competitors and a growing lead in the early states.

Thanks for reading my blog, unless more crazy shit happens, I will now take a few weeks off blogging Politics in the Christmas and New Year Break but I will be back early next year to preview the Iowa Republican Primary Race.

End of Year UK And USA Political Update Plus an Upcoming By-Election in Australian Politics

It has been another very busy week in International Politics, and it has been a hectic 24 hours in UK Politics where Rishi Sunak’s leadership was in real peril and while he ended up winning the battle last night, few believe he will ultimately win the war, both within his party and with the broader General Electorate. In USA Politics it has been another busy week, again I watched the 4th Republican Debate (so you didn’t have to) it was an attack the hell out of Nikki Haley night with both Ron DeSantis and Vivek Ramaswamy really going after Nikki Haley, meanwhile Trump is in the spotlight again (when isn’t he) and the Special Council Prosecution chiefs made a push to see with the Supreme Court if Trump could actually claim immunity or not from his legal woes. This is huge, because if he can’t claim immunity then he will have to face the full force of the legal law and from a quicker point of view too, one that may see some cases wrap up before Americans head to the polls next November. Meanwhile the Focus in the USA is on the Iowa Caucus of Republican voters which is now under 6 weeks away, Ron DeSantis finished his whirlwind tour of all Iowa spots and that was enough to solidify ever so slightly his distant second in Iowa to Donald Trump, who is now over 50% in Iowa Polling a marked improvement. Lastly, in Australian Politics there was some truly sad news last week as the Labor member for Dunkley Peta Murphy lost her battle to Breast Cancer. This is sad news because by all reports Peta Murphy was a much loved and respected member of Parliament who was respected for her hard work across the aisle, a rare feat for Politicians. It now sets up an interesting early 2024 By-Election Test in Dunkley where Labor hold the seat comfortably now but it has been Liberal held in the past making it an interesting test for a Labor Government that had some challenges to end 2023. In this blog I will start with UK Politics, move onto USA Politics and then finish with Australian Politics.

So it’s been a whirlwind 24 hours in UK Politics. Rishi Sunak at one stage was looking like he might not see out the UK Day as PM, as he had a potential revolt on his hands on the Rwanda Immigration Bill. Just to backtrack for a minute the Rwanda Immigration Bill is the latest in a line of policies from the UK to try and curb rising Migration and particularly to curb the issue of people arriving “illegally” by boat. The Rwanda Solution was seen as a Political fix to the issue that was plaguing the Government and all looked to be smooth sailing on the issue until Suella Braverman was sacked by the PM Rishi Sunak who then gave a blistering blindside on the issue and other woke policies in a nasty letter on her way out as Minister. That was the warning bells that things might not be smooth sailing on the bill but things really hit the fan when Immigration Minister Rob Jenrick resigned late last week with him saying the Rwanda Immigration Bill was too weak and wouldn’t solve the problem. That led to a splintering on the issue in the Party as Far Right Conservatives threatened to abstain or even worse cross the floor and vote against the Bill. That looked like being a real prospect as late as early yesterday morning UK Time when the Tory Prime Minister called in some of the most vocal opponents of the bill for a breakfast kiss and make up. It worked because the Bill ended up passing the Parliament with only just shy of 30 abstainees and no-one crossing the floor on the vote. Now comes the fun part and while Rishi Sunak has won the first battle there’s real doubts he will win the war. In getting the bill to pass the Parliament Sunak has had to promise amendments to the bill in its committee stage in order to get the far rights supports and that basically means he has said he is open to tightening the bill to make it harsher. That could be a bigger problem for Sunak, as there’s another faction of the Party who have problems with the bill. Those are the more moderate and in most cases more senior members in terms of experience in Parliament Politicians. They think the bill already goes too far, and although they don’t want too see a huge political loss for the PM, they are already warning that if this bill goes further to the right and further puts the UK in danger of breaking their conventions with International Law then their support may no longer be there. If this sounds remarkably like the issue of Brexit again, then you aren’t mistaken, this is a huge problem for the Tories and threatens to tear apart a party that is already gashing at the knees. In terms of the Polling we haven’t seen any recent polls since this farcical vote situation but the Tories were trailing Labour in most polls by an average of the late teens to early 20% points. 

Now onto USA Politics and as I said earlier the Fourth Republican Primary Debate was held last week, again without the talents of Former President Donald Trump. The Debate turned into a slanging match, with both Ron DeSantis and Vivek Ramaswamy hammering Nikki Haley which meant that she was on the defensive for much of the debate which I don’t think looked as strong for her. The moment of the night was when Vivek Ramaswamy held up a Nikki=Corrupt sign and when Nikki Haley was asked if she had a response to all that, she said she wasn’t going to justify that with a response. The other moment that stuck to my mind was the Donald Trump electability question and after Ron DeSantis politefully didn’t answer the question Chris Christie attacked him for not answering the question which led to Vivek Ramaswamy attacking Chris Christie saying he should get off the stage and go eat something, because he had no relevance in the party. While fat shaming a candidate is not ok, I do think Vivek has a point, insofar as Chris Christie isn’t a relevant force in the modern Republican Party that is beholden to Donald Trump. Nikki Haley by showing she was not going to go low when her opponents went low probably won the debate by the analysts books as she looked the most presidential, from a voters point of view though it probably came across as looking weak and that probably wont help her numbers. Indeed the polls released in Iowa straight after the debate have shown a small regression in Haley’s numbers with DeSantis holding a clearer second place lead. The good news for DeSantis in the race for Second ends there though as Haley holds a clear lead over DeSantis in New Hampshire and South Carolina albeit still around 30% points below the numbers of Donald Trump. On Donald Trump its been another busy week for him as Trump again caused a stir with public comments that he would be a “Dictator” on day one of his second term. Now the joke was clearly a throw away line on a friendly Interview but it confirmed the worst fears of the left of how he may act in his second term. The last few days also saw the Special Counsel try and lodge the Supreme Court as to whether Trump had Immunity as Former President in terms of his criminal charges as Trump seeks to delay his legal woes until after the election when he can get his attorney general to drop all Federal Charges against him. This is a huge decision that will say a lot about where the Supreme Court is at in the USA because obviously not only is there a Conservative lean on the Benches currently but three of those appointees were nominated under Donald Trump. In terms of the latest National Polling Donald Trump continues to hold a slender but not insignificant lead over the Current President Joe Biden and that lead is wider in some of the key battleground states.

Lastly, to Australian Politics and we had some sad news this last week as I said with the Passing of well liked and respected colleague Peta Murphy. That leaves a necessary By-Election in the seat of Dunkley in 2024, most likely I’d guess in March-April. This is on current margins a safe Labor seat held by 6.2% by the Labor Party. That however hides the fact that the Liberals won this seat from 1996-2019 and that even when won by the Labor Party in 2019 it was by a slim margin. The 2022 Result can be largely seen as a major endorsement of the Labor Member Peta Murphy and a repudiation of Brand Morrison in 2022. With Peta Murphy no longer there and Scott Morrison no longer leader it will be interesting to see if the Liberals can gain some traction to perform better in Victoria. That obviously wasn’t the case with Aston where the Libs lost that seat shortly into Anthony Albanese’s first term of Government but the Government back then were riding high on an extended honeymoon which post the Voice to Parliament and with cost of living still on the minds of most voters will be an intriguing test for the Labor Party. Despite this my first guess is that this is still a Labor hold for two reasons, firstly by-elections caused by the death of a popular member generally result in Sympathy to the Party holding the seat because they can see that this wasn’t a forced by-election, secondly its Brand Liberal in Victoria and that’s still a massive problem.

Thanks for reading my blog, stay tuned next week when I sum up the recent resignation of Anastasia Palaszczuck the Queensland Premier and the election of her successor Stephen Miles.

The week in Australian Politics – That got personal and nasty

It’s been a torrid week in Australian Politics, and with the Lower House only sitting on Thursday it was the last full sitting week for the Lower House for the year. It went places the sitting week in Parliament, On Monday Labor tried to pass new laws on the Indefinite Detention Immigrants and the Greens blocked it due to it being too strident and harsh while the Coalition blocked the reforms on the basis of it not being tough enough, but interestingly enough they did not offer any amendments to the bill this time which meant that Labor saw an opportunity to attack the Coalition for talking tough while not taking action on the matter. This went down well in Parliament where Claire O’Neill the Home Affairs Minister alleged that Peter Dutton was standing with pedophiles and hardened sex offenders which went down like a lead balloon with the Coalition who immediately called for an apology from the Minister, which as of me writing has not been forthcoming. That really was the theme of the week of an unedifying week in Politics where both sides got down in the mud and fought ugly. This has been a growing theme from the Labor Party who as their honeymoon period has ended has gone for the jugular on Peter Dutton with the rhetoric that he was tough on talk but limited in action as the Home Affairs and Defence Minister. Labor also pointed out that the Coalition and Dutton in particular used similar language as a Minister but I’d say a few things on that, firstly two wrongs don’t make a right and secondly Labor were elected in part to be better than the Alternative and this looks entirely to me like being like the old guy which isn’t good. Meanwhile in other news and the Government has been picking off fights with the States on a number of issues which sets the stage for some interesting National Cabinet meetings this week. First there was the obvious scrap with particularly the Queensland Government over the Transport and Infrastructure spends and the changes to the funding calculator for how the governments split the bill. This last week the fights split to two new areas each with potential nasty political side effects. The first was on the NDIS and the plan by Bill Shorten to change the funding arrangements to give States back some of the power on NDIS Spending. This would be a partial return at least to the old days of State Disability Services being the major provider of services and Federal Government being able to make the NDIS more sustainable by returning some clients back to state care. This went down like a lead balloon with the States who are quite enjoying the way things are with the Federal Government now footing the entire NDIS/Disability tab. The other issue that has come up is in the Treasury Portfolio and its the oldie but the goodie GST Distribution. That became an Issue under the Mathias Cormann and Joe Hockey days when fearing a retribution in WA Particularly the Feds came to an agreement that GST funding would be distributed in such a way that no states were left worse off. This was an electorally popular move but is completely unsustainable from a budget point of view which is why the Government are now looking to revamp the structure to make it more sustainable. As you can guess, the states don’t like this new proposal and are seeking to fight tooth and nail to stop this proposed change from going through. What makes this more embarrassing for the Labor Party is that besides Tasmania every state and Territory is now Labor held but if there’s one thing that doesn’t get partisan its the old fashioned bashing of the feds. Another issue of the Parliament that got raised in the last week was the issue that doesn’t get enough attention in Parliament and that is the issue of Domestic Violence. It has particularly gained prominence in South Australia where 6 people have allegedly been murdered in 18 days due to DV and as a result it got national media attention this week when two Independent MPs asked about it in QT. Lastly, the being the halfway point of the Political term preselections and retirements start to kick up and there was an important departure and arrival to Politics this last week, both from the Senate. From the Labor side you had Pat Dodson, sometimes referred to as the Father of Reconciliation announce he was resigning from Politics after a long Cancer battle, he chose the 26th of January as his departure date which was interesting given his role in Indigenous Affairs and the long protracted battle over the date of Australia Day. Then from the Liberals side you had Dave Sharma the former member for Wentworth re-enter the Senate as the Senator for NSW as he won preselection over two Dutton hand picked nominees, namely that of former ACT Senator Zed Seselja and also more Moderate former Senior NSW Minister Andrew Constance. The addition of Dave Sharma is a boon for Politics in my eyes as he is a former diplomat and has a wealth of knowledge in the Foreign Affairs Portfolio. In the rest of my blog I will talk about the events of the last week of Politics before moving onto the numbers as they stand as the Political Year comes to a close.

The now former head of the Department of Home Affairs was shown the door of his job as Chief Secretary of the Department of Home Affairs on Monday as the fallout from his alleged impartiality while being the Head was fallen out. The Federal Government and the Greens reached a landmark deal on the Murray Darling Basin plan on Monday which will flow more water through for environmental purposes, the Nats and the more Conservative Liberals were less than impressed at this deal. On Newspoll everyone was atwitter at the fact that Newspoll showed the 2 Parties locked at 50-50 2PP. Adam Bandt has warned there would be more Climate Protests if Labor approved new Gas and Coal Projects. Andrew Giles the Immigration Minister announced more laws to place even more restrictions on Immigrants who had been released from Indefinite Detention. Finally Former Bank of England Expert Andrew Hauser will serve as Chief Deputy of the RBA for the next five years. That takes us to Question Time and the first question was from the Leader Of the Opposition on the Chinese Alleged Navy encounter. After another question from the LOTO on that topic it was the Shadow Treasurers turn to get a question on core inflation levels. The Shadow Climate Change and Energy Minister had the next question and it was on the topic of Renewables Scheme. There was then the daily Deputy Leader of the Opposition Question and it was on the Failed Voice to Parliament Referendum. After two more questions on Climate Change and also on if there were any Policies upcoming to change taxation on the Family Home, Question Time ended.

Onto Tuesday and the High Court released its reasoning for why the High Court unanimously ruled against the Governments argument and said Indefinite Detainees would need to be released, it comes as refugee advocates continue their call for a Royal Commission into Indefinite Detention. Stephanie Foster has been revealed as the new Home Affairs Secretary. Pat Conroy was the attendee of the National Press Club Gallery and he called out former PM Paul Keating and other Senior Liberal Figures who have been critical of the AUKUS Agreement. Pat Dodson will resign as Labor Senator for WA next year due to ongoing struggles with health and lastly Relatives of Hamas Prisoners gave an impassioned speech to continue the fight to get them released. Question Time started with an impassioned question and answer on the matter of Charles Stevens son the son of the SA Police Commissioner losing his life on the road. After that moment of Seriousness it was back to the normal shiz of asking about the Chinese Alleged Submarine issue. There was then a question on the issue of whether the family home would ever be taxed. Then it was the Shadow Immigration Minister on the Indefinite Detainees High Court Decision. After a question on Inflation and the Economy from Angus Taylor that ended QT.

Onto Hump Day, otherwise known as Wednesday. The PM said it would reopen the Morrison Thalidomide Survival Program. The Government have said they would be open to an extension of the truce between Israel and Hamas. Tanya Plibersek the Environment Minister has reached an agreement with Independent Senator David Pocock on passing the Murray Darling Basin plan through the Parliament. The October CPI data came in and showed Inflation was further slowing at an even faster rate than what Economists were predicting increasing the odds of the Interest Rates being kept on hold in December. Lastly, Pat Dodson gave his final speech to the Senate. That takes us to QT and the Labor Party were asked by Angus Taylor on if the Governments position on implementing the Stage 3 Tax Cuts had changed. Then the Nats had a question on the new Murray Darling Basin Plan. Then there was an Opposition Question on the release of Indefinite Detainees. The rest of the Coalitions Questions in QT were on this topic.

That takes us to the last sitting day of Federal Parliament for the week. The day started with the fallout of the Hamas Israel War, where family of Hamas Hostages had to take coverage in a Melbourne Police Station after Pro Palestine protesters tried to hold them up. Tanya Plibersek has said she would reconsider the future of a controversial Salmon Farm in Tasmania. Lastly, Jim Chalmers met with Backbenchers to discuss the future of the Stage 3 Tax Cuts, it came as the Independent member of Kooyong said she would support the rolling back of stage 3 tax cuts. Onto Question Time and the first question from the Leader of the Opposition was again on the alleged Chinese Submarine Navy incident. Then the leader of the Nationals asked a question on the proposal of having more Senators and MPs in the House as part of the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters recommending an increase to the number of Politicians. It was then onto the Dan Tehan show on a number of questions on the release of Indefinite Detained Detainees. That culminated in a Suspension of Standing Orders on this matter which ultimately led to the Leader of the House moving for the debate to happen after the Matter of Public Importance. Then after one last Opposition Question on this topic, question time ended and thank goodness for that.

That takes us to Friday and the day started with the fallout from the nasty and ugly QT on Thursday. Anthony Albanese refused to apologise for the attacks of Claire O’Neill on Peter Dutton while the Shadow Minister James Paterson took to X/Twitter to ask Claire O’Neill to apologise to Peter Dutton for her comments. The Foreign Affairs Minister Penny Wong attacked North Korea for its Missile Launch and issued new sanctions on the state. The NSW Premier said he would ask the government to reconsider its approach to GST Distribution at National Cabinet next week.

That takes us to the Weekend and the Saturday saw the EU and Australia talk about what the region in Gaza will look like after the war finishes and the move to a permanent two state solution in the area. Sunday was Insiders day and the guest on the show this week was Sarah Hanson Young, the Greens Senator, she said the tone of debate from both sides on Immigration regarding the High Court had hit a new low. She also gave a wide range answer to topics like the New Murray Darling Basin plan and also the potential changes to TV Regulation and a broader conversation on Media Regulation more generally. The Shadow Immigration Minister Dan Tehan was also doing the rounds on TV and said the government continued to have questions to answer on the Indefinite Detention Detainees being released into the community.

So where do we stand at the end of an ugly and vile week of Federal Politics? Well, from a numbers point of view everyone was hyperventilating on Sunday Night into Monday of Last week as Newspoll showed the Coalition and Labor Tied at 50-50 2PP. Those same pundits particularly of the Labor variety were then gloating on Tuesday when a poll that had showed Labor behind last time 49.5 50.5 was now showing Labor ahead 52.5-47.5. This same biased against Labor Poll from last time was now a darling to be worshipped at the altar of. The Honeymoon has definitely ended for the Labor Government and Resolve polling in Queensland and SA Seats, three of which were Greens held showed a growing perception that Albanese is not a strong leader. I’m not sure that’s entirely fair but in Politics perception is a powerful thing and the fact is Anthony Albanese was largely elected at the last Federal Election for not being Scott Morrison and because Albanese has tried to run a traditional Cabinet government where he outsources decisions to his Ministers, there’s a perception he isn’t running the show. And say what you want about Peter Dutton, but being weak is not something you’d use to describe Peter Dutton despite what the Labor Party are trying to smear against the Opposition Leader in Parliament. I went through the Seats for the next election and its not good viewing for the Labor Party at present. They will go backwards or stay even in WA where I think most pundits would admit last election with an omnipresent Mark McGowan was a high watermark for Labor there. NT could be a bloodbath, I think its not inconceivable that the Local Territory is so on the nose that Labor could lose both of its NT seat at the next election. SA is an interesting case, Sturt and Boothby are the only real marginal seats in the State and I think either could fall either way. Tasmania has been a graveyard for Labor for many years now, Victoria is a wait and see, but without Dan Andrews could also have reached a high watermark for Labor, NSW is an intriguing one too, I don’t have a read of which way that state is going to go and Queensland continues too be difficult for the Labor Party.

Thanks for reading my blog, stay tuned for my next blog on USA Politics and anything that may happen in Australia Politics in the last week of the sitting year.

Around the grounds International edition – Plus the Climate Wars in Australia continues in earnest

It’s been a hectic week in global politics, even as in Australian Politics Parliament takes a week off before its final week of the sitting year. Overseas you have had an election in Netherlands which particularly caught the interest of political pundits, you had the continued fallout of the NZ Election where a deal was finally struck between the Nationals, ACT and NZ First to form a coalition government. Lastly, in UK Politics you had the Autumn Statement, which is essentially a budget update that is a long hour policy update by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, you also had the continued fallout of Suella Bravermann resigning and her vindictive nature since doing so. Then in Australia Politics you had the Climate Change and Energy Minister release information about the latest scheme to encourage renewable energy in the country, it comes as the argy bargy over Nuclear Power continues in earnest. In this blog I will start with international Politics before moving onto the Australian Politics.

So we will start with the Netherlands Election which caused a seismic reaction from the Political Pundits. The far right Party for Freedom led by Geert Wilders “won” the election by winning the most seats with 37 seats. I use win in inverted commas because though he won the most seats forming a coalition government when he is under halfway to the majority number of seats needed to form majority government. This is particularly the case because Geert Wilders an avowed far right wing politically and is unashamedly anti-Islam has pretty much had every other major party say they would not form a coalition government with the Far right Party for Freedom group. It was not a good start for the far right party as the first scout to negotiate the forming of a coalition government had to resign in disgrace after facing alleged fraud charges. Onto NZ Politics and with the Port Waikato By-Election having been comfortably won by the Conservative Nationals Party it was another feather in the cap for the government which finally came to a Coalition agreement with NZ First and ACT Far Right Party. It will be an interesting marriage between the far right populist party ACT, the Populist protectionist party NZ First and the Conservative NZ Nationals Party. The agreement included the sharing of Deputy PM between the leaders of the NZ First and ACT Party. The new government started controversially in its first week with the change of repealing the smoking ban for a generation that gradually outlaws people born after 2008 from taking up smoking. The reason given for this was the declined Budget conditions of the country but health advocates rightfully smashed the decision saying it would decline health condition for New Zealanders which would end up costing the health budget more in the long run. Lastly, on the International front and UK Politics heated up again this week with the Autumn Statement to the House by the Chancellor of the Exchequer. As I said earlier the Autumn Statement is essentially a Budget Update and an opportunity for Jeremy Hunt in this case to outline sweeteners to the public that will hopefully save a woeful vote for the Tories that is currently being polled. As for the Autumn Statement itself, I thought it was a plea from the Tory leadership to the base, Tax Cuts for the income earners and for small, medium and larger businesses was a sweetener to try and get Tories who have been miserable and thinking about not voting for the last few years to actually turn up and vote at the next election. As with every budget there are controversial measures though and there were two noticed by me here. Firstly, there is the effective cut to the public service in year 4 of the forward estimates of the budget where public service spending is meant to flat-line, that will push the UK back into Austerity which while popular with the base will probably not be so appreciated by the general voting populace. Secondly there was the move to stop giving welfare benefits to those who could work but refused to engage with job service providers. This is controversial because it is up to the government who is fit to work and if they have made a mistake then that’s a problem because people may end up losing benefits who shouldn’t be. Again a popular move with the base, less so with the general population me thinks. Meanwhile, in UK Politics the fallout from Suella Bravermann getting sacked as Home Affairs Secretary continued this week in a distraction that is not needed for this Tory government. This time it was the supposed deal set up to deal with the Rwanda Asylum Seekers situation where there was apparently a deal in place to get around the High Court challenge, this is denied by the Leadership of the PM but again is a messy distraction for a government taking on water. On the polling the Labour Party still hold a commanding high teens lead on average over the Conservatives and if repeated at a General Election would lead to a Tory wipeout and Labour Landslide win. As I keep saying there’s a lot of Tony Blair about Sir Keir Starmer and while that may not be popular with the far left base of the party, too implement change you actually need to be in power something that Sir Keir Starmer understands and the base seemingly does not.

Now onto Australian Politics and sigh climate wars is back in the news this week as Chris Bowen announced a scheme to further encourage investment into Renewables. The Coalition were surprise, surprise opposed to this and continued with their grandstanding sideshow spruiking the benefits of Nuclear Power. This on Sunday was ruled out by Chris Bowen as a fantasy wrapped up in political delusion which was not taken so well by some Labor backbenchers who are like, hang on a minute should we be so routinely ruling something out that may yet be needed as a transitioned stop gap measure as we transition to full reliance on Renewable Energy. So onto Chris Bowen’s Climate Scheme that the Opposition have labelled as a Ponzi scheme and essentially it seeks to phase coal out and underwrite investment into renewable energy by getting taxpayers to fund the transition from coal to Renewables. Ted O’Brien was immediate against the idea because you know that locks us into one method of transition which from the governments point of view is kinda the point. Ted O’Brien is still smoking the Nuclear train which this week took a hit because the Nats Leader David Littleproud said it would take more than ten years to implement Nuclear into the energy mix but that was okay because we don’t have to act on Energy until 2050, for a party slammed as doing little on Climate Policy in the last 10 years, that was not a good look I thought. The fact of the matter is, while there’s the obvious question of how much money taxpayers will have to pay on this scheme, which the Energy Minister has said is Confidential in Policy, something needed to happen because investment in Renewables had significantly slowed to the point where Australia may not meet its Climate Renewables target. I want to take a brief detour onto Nuclear for a second here, and I am broadly positive about the use of Nuclear Energy as part of our transition to Renewable Energy. Yes, there’s the huge capital required to build the reactors but Interest Rates are still relatively low and if we all stopped this obsession with getting a National Surplus we could actually invest in shit that will change the lives of our future for the better long term. The other argument against Small Modular Nuclear Reactors is that there’s limited information about how effective they are at reducing emissions but again we can be a global leader at this, get the job done and be the case test to using this. The last opposition to this move is purely political and that is the obvious scare campaign to oppose Nuclear Power Plants because of Fukushima and the impacts of Nuclear Reactor Meltdowns and that’s a scare campaign, really there’s risks with most sources of energy and if we want to get this done then we can, this opposition is frankly political and should be called out as such.

Thanks for reading my blog, stay tuned next week for my blog summing up the last sitting week of the Parliamentary year in Australia.

The week in Federal Politics- It’s all about the economy, no wait the Security of our nation

It’s been another busy and shitshow of a week in Australian Federal Politics as we hastily head to the end of the Parliamentary sitting year. The first week of the sitting week was again messy and nasty for the government as the fallout from the high courts decision to overturn indefinite detention led to the worst type of politics again show and rear its ugly head. I think the first thing to note and the Government certainly wanted to make this point was that it was a High Court decision and not a government decision but the Opposition didn’t care about semantics here, they smelt blood in the water and went for the jugular on this decision first asking why so many “hardened” criminals had been released into the community and then after that, why the Government had been so slow to react to the high courts decision and then why did they only make a decision to pass legislation to close the apparent loophole after the Opposition’s attacks on the government over the high court decision. I use “” because that is the Opposition’s language, not mine and indeed not all the members being released into the community are hardened criminals or indeed criminals at all. There’s also and this was raised on Insiders on Sunday the fact that Australian’s committing this sort of crimes wouldn’t be indefinitely detained either so there’s that hypocrisy too. However if you look at the politics this is perfect territory for the Liberal Party and they knew that overreach or not they were onto a political winner here. Labor realised this too and it was why by Thursday they rushed through legislation on the matter through the Parliament and accepted in principle all 6 Coalition Ammendments. As I said though because it is Peter Dutton there was still political overreach and the motion on Wednesday Afternoon linking Anti-Semitism being on the rise in the community and the high court decision was a low moment for Peter Dutton and it was very noticeable that Anti-Semitism was not referenced again by the Opposition in that context for the rest of the week. The Political Overreach from Peter Dutton overshadowed I think an important point which is that Anti-Semitism is on the rise in the community and had of it been made in a non political way then it would have been a fair point to make. Of course Pro-Palestine marches continued this week as well as the odd Pro-Israel Protest and what I noticed from the Pro-Palestine marches is it all about protecting Gaza lives which is all well and good but nothing about the loss of Israel lives from Hamas which started the conflict and the fact that it is Hamas that are essentially using Palestinian’s as human shields which is also atrocious. Onto non security issues this week and the long awaited report into Infrastructure Projects was sort of made public with the Executive Summary released and with it a number of projects were given the heave ho. That went down like a lead balloon with the states particularly Queensland who launched a grenade at the Federal Government both in State Parliament and then on X(Formerly known as Twitter). The Federal Government, screamed well we have to do this because of the mess the former Government made and that is true to an extent but that doesn’t mean that people wont be angry in the affected areas at losing their projects. I would also note as put on Insiders yesterday that there weren’t too many upset Labor MP’s or Labor marginal prospective candidates upset at the projects that were cancelled. Another Controversial move that came on the weekend was the Government announcing it would tighten the eligibility criteria for people with Autism to enter the NDIS Scheme as a way of making the funding of the NDIS more sustainable. This came only a week or so after a report came out showing a so called link between increasing rates of Autism diagnosis and the increased spending of NDIS on Autism Participants. So from that point of view I was not surprised at the Government’s decision but its a bad one nonetheless. The reason its a bad decision is the previous government already tightened the screws on eligibility for NDIS for people on the Autism Spectrum and so this is a further harsh cut to the scheme, especially when for a lot of Autism Spectrum People there are no alternatives to get help as States no longer do disability support. Lastly, before I move onto the main part of my blog and the Cross-Bench expanded by one this week as Russell Broadbent the member for Monash who lost preselection 162-13 the previous weekend decided to quit the Liberal Party and sit on the cross-bench for the remainder of the Parliamentary term however long that is. It’s another blow to Peter Dutton who loses his third Coalition member of the term, after losing the member for Aston to Labor at a by-election and then also losing the Nats member for Calare to the Cross-Bench over the Coalitions opposition of the Voice to Parliament referendum. It led to the government having some fun at the end of QT on Thursday to make fun of the seating arrangements of the Parliament as it currently stands with the references to the number of members that the Coalition had lost this term, that didn’t sit well with the Coalition who staged a walkout from Parliament after a move to gag the Speaker didn’t work. Now onto the main part of the blog and I will again discuss the week in Politics, before moving onto where the Polling numbers as we edge closer to the end of Parliament sitting for 2023.

So Monday was the start of the Parliamentary sitting week and it started with Monique Ryan the Teal Independent for Kooyong questioning why Michelle Rowland the communications minister had been dining with interest groups from the gambling community. The government responded to the Robodebt Royal Commission with an acceptance of all recommendations of the royal commission report. The PM said the parliament has a responsibility not to politicise the Israel-Hamas conflict, which came as the Opposition used Senate QT to continue its questioning of Penny Wong on the governments position on the conflict. Finally, Josh Burns a local inner Melbourne MP for Labor warned pro Palestinian protesters to not intimidate the local Jewish community, this came in the wake of the Caulfield protests turning ugly. That takes us to question time and the first question was on Penny Wong’s comments on Insiders on Sunday and whether her stance on Israel and Hamas was the governments position. There was then a question on the cost of living pressures of the People. After another two questions on cost of living, there was then a question on the Live Sheep Export Ban by the Nats Leader. There was then a question on the release of “hardcore” criminals from indefinite detention. And that ends question time.

That takes us to Tuesday and Protestors rocked up to Parliament House calling for the release of Israeli Hostages. Russell Broadbent quit the Liberal Party in a dummy spit for losing preselection in his seat. In Economic News, Consumer Confidence has taken a real hit as a result of the latest interest rate hike. Lastly, Labor accused the Coalition of playing politics on the matter of the high court decision on Indefinite Detention. That takes us to QT and the first question was from Peter Dutton to the Immigration Minister about the release of criminals from Indefinite Detention. And every Liberal Opposition Question in Question Time continued to be on this theme.

Onto Wednesday, hump day and it was a fiery QT where Peter Dutton was accused of stoking fears of Anti-Semitism for political gains. Claire O’Neill the Home Affairs Minister said that the people being released from indefinite detention would face very strict visa conditions. Albanese is back on the airplane again this time to the USA to attend the APEC Summit. Deputy PM Richard Marles said Israel had a right to defend itself against Hamas and that any ceasefire could not be one sided. Lastly, Don Farrell the Trade Minister said that the last of the China diplomatic freezes and product tariffs should be removed by Christmas. That takes us to QT and the first Opposition Question was on the topic of Indefinite Detention being ended and that was the topic for all of QT culminating in a suspension of standing orders which linked the high court decision to rising Anti-Semitism in the country and also criticising the PM for jet setting off to the USA again.

That takes us to Thursday and Richard Marles was acting PM for the day as Anthony Albanese was off to the USA. State Premiers learnt which Infrastructure Projects would be slashed as a result of the Infrastructure Review, it led to a lot of anger from the Queensland Labor Government. Two Labor MP’s and a Nats MP along with the Greens and the Australian Palestine Advocacy Group stood together to call for an immediate ceasefire between Israel and Hamas. It came as the fallout from the shitshow in QT came to be yesterday with Josh Burns saying Peter Dutton shouldn’t conflate antisemitism for Political Purposes and Tony Burke leader of the House said it was one of Dutton’s worst performances of his political career. That takes us to QT and the first question was asking for an update on the legislation being passed to deal with the release of criminals as a result of the High Courts decision on the Indefinite Detention. And Again QT was the same theme from the Opposition for every Question in QT.

Onto Friday and it was a quieter day with only the Senate sitting, Zoe Daniels another of the teal Independents said there was great anxiety in her community about the Israel-Hamas Conflict. Thousands of School Students took to the streets to protest the lack of climate action in the community, this was despite several politicians telling them not to do so. The Queensland Treasurer Cameron Dick has reiterated his dislike of the Infrastructure changes too Queensland.

That takes us to the weekend. Saturday saw the release of information saying that Australian Submarine divers had been allegedly targeted by Chinese sonars. It comes as the new legislation on Indefinite Detention came into effect. Sunday as always was Insiders day and it saw the Shadow Home Affairs Minister James Patterson be on the show. He is a Chinese Hawk and very Pro Israel so a lot of his rhetoric on those issues were not surprising. In other news the Government have announced double funding for the local councils for its roads to recovery program. Thousands gathered across the country for a march for Pro-Palestine rallies. Home Affairs Minister Claire O’Neil said the government may take additional steps on the returning of indefinite detainees to indefinite detention once the courts full explanation of its decision becomes clear. And former Hawke and Keating Minister Gerry Hand passed away.

So where do we stand in Australian Politics after the week in Politics? Well, there were a number of polls out this week which showed a continued narrowing of the Labor Lead with Labor leading by as little as 51-49 2PP in a couple of polls over the last few weeks, You still have the one outlier poll in Resolve showing Labor ahead 57-43 2PP but as I just said that seems to be an outlier at this point and not reflective of the closing gap that seems to be taking hold in the upcoming election. As I’ve said the Coalition have so many fronts they are fighting fires on, be it Labor, the Greens and Independents that I can’t see them getting to 76 seats at the next election, that would require a net gain of 21 seats at the next election a tall task. However Labor are currently on 78 seats so a loss of 3 seats by them would get them into minority government which is a much more realistic expectation. With the Queensland Government on the nose as a Labor point of view its becoming harder to imagine Labor making too many gains from their low base of 5 seats in Queensland already and that could be a problem if the Labor Party start losing ground in other states. I think Labor still deserve favouritism going into the next election but the honeymoon is finally over I reckon.

Thanks for reading my blog, with Australian Federal Politics off this week, I will probably do another international blog next week unless something crazy happens in Australian Politics.