Category

Election Cycle

8
Nov
2017
0

Rekindling Urgently Needed

Many of us are still recovering from the wrong decisions we made in making a bet on the Melbourne Cup (mine came last!). Who would have thought that two horses from Ireland would have come first and second and that they both came from Tipperary , to which it’s a long way to go according to the song whose joint author was a Williams. News Ltd Cartoonist, Mark Night has today brilliantly captured the contrast between Lloyd Williams’s sixth cup winner (Rekindling) and what one can only describe as Turnbull’s continued run of losers (and who should now “pack up his troubles in the old kit bag” and move along).At the end of this Commentary I have included today’s Knight cartoon along with his of 7 November, where he pictures Turnbull “having fun”.
5
Nov
2017
0

Turnbull’s Leadership Dwindles Further

As soon as Turnbull arrived back in Australia from his visit to Israel for the BeerSheba, he held a press conference in Perth at which he rejected the idea of having an audit to determine whether MPs have complied with the constitutional requirement of having no foreign ancestry or, if so, of having renounced it before becoming federal MPs. He particularly attacked reports that Frydenberg might be deemed to be of Hungarian ancestry because his mother was born in Hungary but escaped the killing of Jews there and migrated to Australia. Frydenberg is reported as telling the ABC that “I did seek some advice and I am very confident with that ­advice but also contacted the embassy here and I was very comforted by conversations with them”.
27
Oct
2017
0

In The Right Direction?

The kerfuffle over the ministerial handling of the Australian Federal Police raids on the Australian Workers Union raises serious questions about why the Turnbull government timed such action now and whether Turnbull himself was more closely involved than appears in the media. It followed Turnbull’s decision to announce a new energy policy with important details absent and a promise that these will be “explained” in due course. These “rush” decisions by Turnbull may well be connected with an attempt to lift his continued disastrous polling in Newspoll and prevent any move to replace him before Christmas. Yet an examination of recent developments suggests the polling is now more likely to fall than even stay put.
22
Oct
2017
0

A Victory for Turnbull?

The week-end’s Media assessment of Turnbull’s New Energy Guarantee (NEG) is generally favourable, but withTerry McCrann predicting an extremely unfavourable outcome for the Coalition viz “Malcolm Turnbull and Josh Frydenberg have made a deliberate decision to lose the next election and to lose it badly. The rest of the joint party room voted to endorse the decision, an indeterminate number of Liberal and National members voting for an early retirement. This is the irresistible and even more the irredeemable political consequence of the Turnbull-Frydenberg decision to opt for a policy of (only trying) “to keep the lights on” over a policy of significantly and quickly cutting both electricity and gas prices. Far less, the third, but first-best, option — the option, begging to be embraced by a half-rational government that had the most minimalist understanding of political dynamics — of aggressively aiming to deliver both more and more reliable power and cheaper and sustainably cheaper power”.
20
Oct
2017
0

The New Energy Policy Has No Substance

In Wednesday’s Commentary I suggested that the explanation given by an “expert” as to how Turnbull’s NEG would work, and how NEG would save $110-115 pa in costs, was incomprehensible. This expert (John Pierce) was making the explanation at Turnbull’s request to a press conference whose attendants included Frydenberg and board members of the recently established Economic Security Board (ESB), and whose role appears to be to ensure the provision of reliable power and the achievement of the emissions reduction target of 26-28% by 2030 (the text of the press conference is now attached to Wednesday’s Commentary on my web and is a “must read”). My guess is that the two ministers put together a group of “experts” as members of the ESB who are sympathetic to the need for government intervention to reduce carbon emissions.
15
Oct
2017
0

Where Can Turnbull Go Now?

My Commentary of last Thursday reported that the (scientist) President of the US SEPP group had described Abbott’s address on Daring to Doubt as “one of the best talks given by a politician in decades”. I also reported that the US EPA head had announced the repeal of the Clean Power Plan initiated by Obama but rejected by the US Supreme Court. Here in Australia, leading journalist Terry McCrann had described Abbott’s address as “seminal”.
9
Oct
2017
0

Newspoll Shows Coalition Stuck on Low Rating

The (normally) two weekly Newspoll on 25 September showed the Coalition’s TPP had fallen by 1 percentage point to 46/54. Today’s Newspoll is a quarterly one that shows the TPP at 47/53 but this is the same as the previous two quarterly ones and, while Turnbull’s performance improved from 33 to 35 “satisfied”, Shorten’s “satisfied” also improved (from 32 to 34). Turnbull’s rating as PM fell fractionally to 43 (from 44) while Shorten’s stayed at 32.
1
Oct
2017
0

Gas Crisis & Fly Me to the Moon

My Commentary last Thursday 28 Sept questioned whether the “agreement” between Turnbull and three big gas exporters to have the latter supply additional gas domestically has solved the gas crisis. Yesterday the media took up the issue, with an editorial in Weekend Australian suggesting that Turnbull has made “an interim breakthrough this week when Australia’s three big gas exporters agreed to fix the ‘emergency’ shortfall that threatens to send prices soaring and shut down factories. A formal agreement in the coming week with Santos, Origin Energy and Shell appears likely to avert dire shortages next year and in 2019. The deal will avoid the need for the government to impose drastic controls on overseas shipments” (see Oz Editorial on Energy Crisis)