The Australian politics thread

[Spark]

Local Liberal politician adding to the Heydon allegations here...

 

[Burgey]

Yeah I saw that. She’ll lose preselection you'd reckon. Truly, when I said the other day his behaviour was the worst kept secret on Phillip St, I wasn’t joking.

Fmd I did work experience on 8 Selborne in 85. I think he was there then. Certainly by the 90s the nickname had stuck.

 

[Starfighter]

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1051137720300449?dgcid=author

Interesting and relevant paper that fell out of the sky today (though I wouldn't say that the author's unbiased).

 

[Redbacks]

It will be interesting to see how targeted lockdowns go in Victoria. There's some suggestion that the spike doesn't necessarily show a daily increase in cases, more that the blitz in testing is picking up more cases for people showing no/weak symptoms who may have never got a test normally. I hope that's true as it means getting the numbers under control will be more achievable with the new testing blitz.

 

[Starfighter]

If the NSW govt wants extra revenue - the begging for more GST clearly accompanies a decline in expected stamp duties - how about a specific tax on the vacant land that developers are holding, and on vacant investment properties. If you want to transition to a land tax system may as well start there.

Oh wait, that might mean developers have to build rather than drip-feeding and investors have to rent out. We can't have cheaper housing can we.

 

[Burgey]

Indeed. And in terms of commercial premises, landlords get a huge tax break if their premises sit empty, so there's no incentive to lower commercial rents to fill premises. Weird.

 

[Burgey]

Worker at Balmain Woolies has tested positive, which is pretty cool cos it's about 150 metres from my place, if that, and we literally go there about 4 days per week.

Might go and get my sniffly self dirve-thru tested.

 

[Burgey]

Went and had the drive thru test, as did about 2/3 of Balmain judging by the queue at Rozelle. Given we were one of the top five suburbs in Australia for panic toilet paper buying, this is not surprising.

 

[vcs]

Hopefully it comes out negative. Isn't the test very unpleasant?

 

[Burgey]

It wasn't too bad tbh. I've got a bit of the sniffles and some runny eyes which I'e only got in the last 24 hours or so. Mrs Burgey the same. Probably just a winter cold, but had to get it done in the circs. Drove through the clinic and the lady said it's not as bad now as it was - the nose part of the test is nowhere near as far up the nostril as it used to be apparently, and wasn't too bad.

The tonsil part was pretty average - basically like the worst tongue depressor you can imagine. Felt like I was gonna throw up. But I say that as someone who's not really used to having their tonsils tickled

 

[Burgey]

Meanwhile, Jackie Trad thoroughly vindicated. Qld LNP as odious and ineffective as their Victorian counterparts it seems.

 

[Spark]

https://www.theguardian.com/austral...-voted-labor-ahead-of-liberals-in-eden-monaro

With friends like these...

 

[Burgey]

Both negative. Happy days.

 

[GotSpin]

On another note, the coalitions insistence on handouts to businesses on the basis of this trickle down theory is quite frustrating. I imagine many other small business owners like myself just simply put any of these tax handouts in the back pocket

That's lovely and all but what we'd really like is consumer confidence restored. Get people out there spending!

End of rant here but this year has been a continued case of financial destruction that started with the country going down in flames from bushfires in December

 

[Spark]

Labor should hold E-M but I don’t see a lot for anyone to be happy about in these results unless you’re John Barilaro

 

[Line and Length]

Both negative. Happy days.

Good to hear.

 

[Starfighter]

On another note, the coalitions insistence on handouts to businesses on the basis of this trickle down theory is quite frustrating. I imagine many other small business owners like myself just simply put any of these tax handouts in the back pocket

That's lovely and all but what we'd really like is consumer confidence restored. Get people out there spending!

End of rant here but this year has been a continued case of financial destruction that started with the country going down in flames from bushfires in December

Mate, if you think the fiscal is trickle down you haven't seen the monetary. The financial destruction started well before December.

 

[Redbacks]

Bit of a 0-0 in EM. It would be a surprise if the Gov got a swing in a bi-election, especially when they haven't done anything too amazing to earn more popularity. I think the efficacy of the Albo strategy of getting out of the media and not being so negative will have to hinge on a good policy direction in the next year or so. Backed with some sort of easily explainable narrative to tie it together which Shorten ultimately lacked.

 

[Prince EWS]

Labor should hold E-M but I don’t see a lot for anyone to be happy about in these results unless you’re John Barilaro

SFF will be happy. Their volunteers I spoke to in Yass and Queanbeyan were expecting 3.5-4%. Druery thought they'd get 10% though weirdly. They ended up somewhere in between but they'll be stoked I think.

 

[Spark]

In fairness, one year after losing an election where you went backwards and had to start all over is probably the worst time to try and get oxygen as an opposition