This looks to be a hostile parliament in which the combative politics of Tony Abbott will come to the fore, writes Michael Brull. The Coalition: Abbott Is The Winner At time of writing, the Coalition has 67 seats, with 7 in doubt. That includes Chisholm, where the margin at time of writing is 66 votes.More
Source: What The Election Means For The Parties (And The Bigots) – New Matilda
Far-right One Nation leader Pauline Hanson is pushing for a royal commission into climate science and Islam and wants to abolish the Family Law Court, in an extreme policy agenda set to frustrate a future government trying to pass laws through the Senate.
Source: Election 2016: Pauline Hanson’s big Senate win, and what she plans to do with it
If you awoke on Sunday to a feeling of deja vu, you weren’t imagining it. Six years ago Australia awoke to something spookily similar.
Source: Federal Election 2016: Deja vu. Amid the howling, Malcolm Turnbull becomes Julia Gillard
The best Malcolm Turnbull can expect from the Australian election is a wafer-thin majority. That is not nearly enough to pacify his critics on the right
Labor’s Linda Burney has claimed the seat of Barton, becoming the first indigenous woman to enter the house of representatives.
Source: Australian federal election 2016: Linda Burney makes history for Labor
There is an historic rejection of the political establishment underway.
Source: We’ve stopped believing that elections mean anything, but who can blame us?
Australian Electoral Commission regional manager, Mark Eachbox
By James Moylan I am standing in the current election as a candidate for the Senate in Queensland, but do not panic – I am not about to launch into a ‘vote for me’ pitch. Rather I thought I’d talk a little about the email traffic that every candidate receives. Having been a candidate a…
Source: The covert anti-Gay email campaign – » The Australian Independent Media Network
The Prime Minister confirms Coalition MPs will be given a conscience vote on same-sex marriage.
Last week Andrew Bolt interviewed James Mathison – an independent candidate for the seat of Warringah which is currently held by Tony Abbott. Because nobody watches Andrew Bolt the interview slipped under the radar, and we may never have known it ever existed if not for one of our readers stumbling across it on Facebook.…
Source: James Mathison takes it up to Andrew Bolt – » The Australian Independent Media Network
Bulk billing is smarter than widely realised.
Source: Election 2016: Who’s Medicare’s friend? Examine bulk-billing
1 As if to support my contention yesterday that if the Coalition wins the election Tony Abbott will at some time challenge for the leadership of the Liberal Party, Peter Dutton confirms it. Dutton says that Turnbull will be under pressure to give Abbott a portfolio. If Turnbull was to consider it, it would raise…
This week the Liberal Party were caught stealing from taxpayers and laundering the money through a Liberal Party owned company called Parakeelia. After that you would think things could not get wor…
A Coalition candidate has quit after it emerged he owns a brothel called Paradise Playmates.
Source: Liberal candidate resigns over Frankston brothel ownership
Ok, first we had those people trying to impose Safe Schools on our children. If God had meant schools to be safe, he wouldn’t have invented bullies. While that was bad enough, today I read a story about an overseas celebrity trying to impose a radical Marxist philosophy on all of us. Apparently, Ellen DeGeneres…
Source: Ellen DeGeneres Tries To Impose Marxist Agenda! – » The Australian Independent Media Network
The Liberal campaign is resisting calls for greater transparency about its financial relationship with a voter monitoring company run by the party, as it can be revealed state MPs also use taxpayer money to pay it amounts likely exceeding $100,000 a year.
Source: Federal election 2016: Mystery deepens over Parakeelia as Cormann ducks question
Reports indicating that the life-expectancy gap between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians is narrowing, are hopeful at best and do little to effect change, says Gerry Georgatos.
Source: Indigenous Australians are still dying 20 years younger
The Liberal Democratic Party of NSW Senator David Leyonhjelm considered entering an agreement to accept $500,000 from an Adelaide businessman in return for making him a lead Senate candidate for the party at the July 2 election.
ABS data show private sector business investment and company profits boomed under Labor but have collapsed under the Coalition
Source: The anti-business Labor hyperbole is wrong. Just look at the facts | Business | The Guardian
Tony Abbott vows to be ‘useful’ and stand up for conservative positions if the Coalition is returned to power.
Source: Election 2016: Tony Abbott not expecting ‘advancement’ in cabinet if Coalition wins
On the face of it, Marty Corboy, the National Party’s candidate for Indi in north-eastern Victoria, has at best a ringside seat to one of the more keenly anticipated battles of this coming election. In the blue corner is the Liberal Party’s Sophie Mirabella, keen to avenge the 2013 result, which robbed her not only of her seat of 12 years but also of a ministerial prize in Tony Abbott’s cabinet.
Source: In dispute | The Monthly
Obviously thinking of their success at the last election, the Coalition have trotted out basically the same marketing strategy this time – we stopped the boats and we used to have a surplus – but who would have thought they would have the sheer gall to run with the ‘disunity’ angle again. After knifing their…
Steve Ciobo’s dismissive response to coffee shop owner Nathan Scholz question about company tax cuts further uncovers the Government’s real big business agenda.
More than one-in-five South Australians plan to vote for the Nick Xenophon Team, an analysis of the opinion poll Newspoll finds.
A group of retired politicians trying to claw bigger pensions and more free travel from the taxpayer will get their day in court next month.
Source: Politicians’ perks: High Court will hear former MPs’ bid for bigger pensions
Election 2016: ALP picks up 52% of two-party preferred vote as latest ReachTel poll suggests Coalition’s economic attack is not working
Source: Labor pulling further ahead of Coalition, new poll shows | Australia news | The Guardian
A Liberal candidate’s plan to gatecrash one of Bill Shorten’s campaign events has backfired spectacularly with a car crash media interview.
Source: Election 2016: Liberal candidate Chris Jermyn implodes at Bill Shorten event
There are flashpoints – negative gearing, maybe some health funding, possibly even boats – but there’s no central, definitive theme.
Source: Three weeks in, it’s still an election about nothing in particular
It is looking ever-more likely that climate change is to be placed way down the order of business – at least for the major parties.
Source: Why has climate change disappeared from the Australian election radar?
Monday 23 May 2016 1 “This is my legacy, this is Malcolm Turnbull’s legacy, this is our legacy, and that’s why it’s so important that we re-elect a Coalition government on July 2.” (Tony Abbott). A legacy as I understand it is a gift by will, of money or personal property, something handed down or received…
Source: Day to Day Politics: Abbott still living in dreamland. – » The Australian Independent Media Network
The notion of “public interest” has been officially abandoned. The interests of the government are now paramount and they intend to keep a very tight control on information whilst being selectively ruthless about who they pursue. In 2006, Lateline aired a program called Sexual slavery reported in Indigenous community in which an unnamed youth worker…
Source: Public interest be damned – » The Australian Independent Media Network
Humility is the first step towards redemption, and as a religious man, no one knows this better than Tony Abbott.
Source: Tony Abbott is haunting Malcolm Turnbull as surely as Rudd haunted Gillard
By Denis Bright For the first time in generations, issues about social class are intruding into the 2016 election agenda. Barnaby Joyce made an unintended contribution to the politics of class in his assessment of Bill Shorten in a RN Breakfast interview with Fran Kelly: People are going to have a clear choice between someone…
It is Tuesday night and I have had a very hard day with my business which STILL, after almost two months, is having problems with Telstra and the NBN. It’s been so stressful I have avoided looking at politics while I try to deal with it. But today I have seen/read two things which I…
Peta Credlin, said Tony Abbott in awe, is the fiercest political warrior he has ever known. And it appears that the vengeful soldier has lost none of her belligerence. The problem for the Liberals is that she is still fighting the war from last September, or even earlier. Credlin’s crack at Malcolm Turnbull as “Mr Harbourside Mansion” is far more lethal than Bill Shorten’s mild innuendo about the prime minister’s wealth and apartness.
Source: Friends like these | The Monthly
Your personally curated news with six things you need to know before you get going.
Source: Backpacker tax to go as Credlin attacks Turnbull again
Despite taking heat from their left, Labor may be happy to see Sunday penalty rates talked about, writes Ben Eltham. Once again, penalty rates are on the agenda. Ever since WorkChoices made industrial relations the central issue of the 2007 campaign, penalty rates have popped up as a reliable Labor scare campaign. In 2010, forMore
Source: When Penalties Rate A Mention, Labor’s Chances Improve – New Matilda
By Christian Marx Over the past three decades, the political and sociological narrative has become narrower than ever. Sensible social policies are now trumpeted as “dangerously communist”. The most basic social systems are labelled “hand outs for bludgers”. The Murdoch press is a hateful echo chamber for the intellectually stunted and the shallow thinkers. It…
Source: The system is the problem – » The Australian Independent Media Network
John Menadue concludes his unmasking of the claim by Malcolm Turnbull, the media and others, that conservatives are better economic managers.
Source: No, conservatives are not better economic managers (Part 2)
The first debate of the election campaign, a “people’s forum” of 100 undecided voters in western Sydney that was a relatively free-flowing affair, saw Bill Shorten come out ahead. After the encounter…
Source: Shorten wins first debate
Company leaders defend their huge salaries by saying bonuses incentivise CEOs to perform better. Doesn’t this same principle apply all the way down to the shop assistant and their Sunday penalty rate?
Source: Why penalty rates are just like CEO bonuses – The Drum (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)
Kelly O’Dwyer’s considered response on Q&A to questions about the rich v poor divide neatly illustrates what this election, in economic terms, is really all about.
Source: We’re being sold the trickle-down economics con – The Drum (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)
The post-budget back-and-forth between government and opposition can easily seem vague, with both sides trading soundbites about “growth” and “fairness” that probably leave most voters unmoved.
Source: Election 2016: Q&A star Duncan Storrar puts a human face on the budget battle
The Coalition has some things right. They are right when they say we must invest to create a better future for our children. Unfortunately, they think this means buying your one year old, or your twenty year old, a negatively geared property. They are right when they say we should utilise our untapped resources. Unfortunately,…
Source: The Coalition has some things right – » The Australian Independent Media Network
Duncan Storrar’s question about the fairness of tax cuts for those who earn more than $80,000 polarised the ABC show’s panel but united social media
Source: Crowdfunding raises $20,000 to buy Duncan from Q&A a toaster | Australia news | The Guardian
Our statistical model combines all opinion polls to get a better estimate of the Coalition’s two-party preferred vote
Source: Poll of polls: who will win the Australian election? | News | The Guardian
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