Australia General Discussion

[Barnes]

Is this good news for Abbott or are people assuming he'll be ousted?

The fact that the Coalition has been trailing in every poll for months is the important point at the moment.

[Barnes]

The Senate censured the Attorney General, Senator George Brandis, by a vote of 35 to 32 earlier today over the Gillian Triggs affair.

Labor, the Greens, PUP, and Jackie Lambie supported the motion while Nick Xenophon and Bob Day sided with the Coalition.

[Barnes]

It's nice to see some polling in the Terriotory after that fabricated crisis of the CLP. After that disaster, a polling collapse was fairly certain - which makes the aborted snap election all the more lamentable.

[Barnes]

Senator Glenn Lazarus, who was the Palmer United leader in the Senate, has quit the party and will now sit as an independent. This leaves only one PUP senator.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-03-13/glenn-lazarus-quits-palmer-united-party/6312002?pfm=ms

[Barnes]

Abbott's penchant for Nazi-themed barbs continued today when he called Bill Shorten the "Dr. Goebbels of economic policy" during Question Time.

[Barnes]

Vale Malcolm. Regardless of the way he came to office, Fraser is someone whom I deeply admire.

[Barnes]

Vale Fraser. Had no idea he was even unwell.

While I didn't like how he became PM, the Liberal party desperately need more people like him. RIP.

Neither did I. I believe this was pretty sudden.

[Barnes]

Yeah, this certainly isn't pleasant. If a second Labor MP falls, it's only a matter of time before Palaszczuk would have to go to an early election. Perhaps she could hold out past the budget to show some semblance of government as usual.

Regardless, this doesn't really shake my confidence in her as premier.

[Barnes]

What a lovely poll!

The further drop in Abbott's fortunes in the other round of polls puts to rest the silly idea that he was on a "comeback."

[Barnes]

There's going to be a spill for the Labor leadership in the NT tomorrow.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-04-14/nt-labor-mla-ken-vowles-prepared-to-contest-labor-leadership/6391660?section=nt

[Barnes]

The Greens are just a bunch of young inner-city Liberals who don't understand how economics work.

[Barnes]

I was being somewhat facetious myself, but the basic critique is the idea of the new Greens (not Bob Brown's generation you see) emerging in city centers as being children of affluent Liberals with an environmental conscious.

In all fairness, I was a little annoyed at their aforementioned foolishness.

[Barnes]

The Greens are just a bunch of young inner-city Liberals who don't understand how economics work.

wtf m8

Please see my second post. 

And just for reference: Economy over environmentalism: meet the new Greens scaring Labor.

[Barnes]

The Greens are just a bunch of young inner-city Liberals who don't understand how economics work.

wtf m8

Please see my second post. 

And just for reference: Economy over environmentalism: meet the new Greens scaring Labor.

I was joking. I'm a bit pissed off that you consider me a Liberal who doesn't understand economics though

It's not a personal judgement, friend.   And anyway, I'm not exactly won over by that entire article, but I found the idea amsuing and thought I'd share it here!

[Barnes]

Christine Milne resigns as Greens Leader, effective immediately, leadership ballot at 11:30am

That's a bit of a surprise, but I hadn't realized before how long she's been in politics.  I suppose her obvious successor would be Bandt, but with only one MP the Greens might not find that the best option logistically.

[Barnes]

The party room is meeting now, so an announcement should be fairly soon.

[Barnes]

Bandt's faction got rolled.

What part of the Greens caucus would be characterized as his faction?

[Barnes]

Thanks for pointing those out! I knew there were pretty clear divisions between the Bob Brown generation and the newer inner city greenies, but it's nice to see them laid out factionally.

[Barnes]

This might not be the best place to ask this, but does the repeal of a law in Australia only need a simple majority like in the UK?

It does. To my knowledge, nothing really requires a larger majority to pass in Australia.

[Barnes]

A new poll shows the Country Liberals facing a complete wipeout at the next Territory election. Labor is ahead 59-41 on 2PP and the CLP is projected to lose every seat.

Not a moment too soon, in my opinion.

Territorians have a pretty grim assessment of the present state of affairs:

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[Barnes]

I wonder if ChopperGate (haha) has increased Abbott's desire to not see the Parliament resume in August?  Having to deal with Labor's no-confidence motion will surely not be pleasant for him.

[Barnes]

So, all in all a successful conference.  The asylum debate was never going to be easy, but it was done in a dignified manner by both sides and the result seems to be accepted by most.  Shorten, I believe, handled himself very well throughout all of this and though I doubt his polling will take much relief, he's certainly in a stronger position than at the end of the last parliamentary sitting week.

[Barnes]

The smart thing to do would be to get her to resign and let the government move on...but that's never been the Abbott way.

Most certainly.  Dig in for the long haul.  We'll see how that works for them.

Apparently, Julie Bishop is claiming that Labor is planning a strategy of coordinated disruption during question time until this is resolved - so even more fun than usual!

[Barnes]

And she's resigned.

I wonder who her successor will be.

I expect Bruce Scott (currently Dep speaker) will be speaker until the election (he's not seeking re-election).

The Deputy Speaker will I suppose be able to temporarily administer her role in the operations of the House, but the election of a new Speaker will have to be the first order of business next week with the Clerk presiding over the election.

[Barnes]

^Ah, yes, yes.  The practices of the House always interest me so I thought I'd focus on that for that post.

Do you think Kevin Andrews would run into the problem of being someone in a highly political position being asked to serve as the independent arbiter of the House? Not that any Speaker has been extremely independent, but still as the recent example shows...