some Crikey bastard posted:

Bill Shorten appears to be edging closer to Kirribilli House with every passing day as Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull and the Coalition melts down following the defection of rogue Cory Bernardi and with questions swirling around the Liberal Party's approach to One Nation preferences.

All is not as it seems, however.

The Murdoch media has been desperately trying draw attention to the fact the National Left within the Australian Labor Party are moving rapidly towards ascendancy for the first time since the era of Gough Whitlam. The National Left has changed significantly since the late 1960s and early '70s, and now represents the solid centre-left progressive views of the vast majority of Labor members and voters.

The Australian Labor Party is on the cusp of a new age of National Left dominance within the national conference and national executive, as well as an era of National Left leaders like the popular Anthony Albanese or Tanya Plibersek contesting general elections as leader of the party.

The Right now only control New South Wales branch comfortably. In both South Australia and Victoria the Right require alliance partners to ensure stability. Every other branch is dominated by the Left.

If the New South Wales and/or Victorian state conferences were to fall to the Left that would spell complete national control for the Left, such is their importance. But the Left don't even need to take control of those two branches in order to assert dominance in the next few years. It has already been reported that the National Left now controls the crucial National Policy Forum, which will formulate the next federal election policy platform.

I can reveal most of the names of those who will make up that powerful deliberative body. The list of names excludes two Right-aligned parliamentary delegates and three national conference elected officials whose names I was unable to attain.

The Australian Manufacturing Workers' Union and United Voice dominate the Left majority, and together they will carry the Left. Anthony Albanese and Tanya Plibersek have significant sway within the AMWU Left and along with National AMWU president Andrew Dettmer will largely determine the Left's positions, in conjunction with UV's Mark Butler and national UV secretary Joanne Schofield.

The once untouchable Kim Carr is aligned with AMWU, however nationally the AMWU back the Albanese and Plibersek national bloc over Carr's small breakaway Left faction. It's almost certain he will not be a power player this time around, but the man known as Kim Il-Carr has a way of getting what he wants.

All over the Shoppies

The increasingly less influential Shop, Distributive and Allied Employees Association, by sheer weight of their rank-and-file numbers, dominate the minority Right-aligned grouping. So that's the National Policy Forum covered.

Albo: 1, Shorten: 0

Next comes national conference floor and its 400 delegates. Until last national conference each branch's conference elected their entire delegation to national conference. New rules dictate that each branch must directly elect by ballot of the rank-and-file at least as many delegates as there are federal seats in each respective state or territory.

Bad news for the Right.

The rank-and-file on the whole have a history of voting for Left principles, as was the case when 60% voted for Anthony Albanese as federal leader.
Labor branch stacking becomes an arms race, with Stability Pact a possible casualty of war

If we assume current branch conference floor proportions remain the same and add to that the realistic result of 66% of rank-and-file elected delegates falling for the Left. Not including the fairly even smattering of leaders and officials who are delegates, Left would hold 113 to the Right's 122 state and territory elected delegate positions. While a result of 66% to the Left in rank-and-file delegate elections would gift them 99 delegates to the Right's 51 delegates. All up, Left would hold 219 of 400 delegate positions or 54% of national conference floor.

Albo: 2, Shorten: 0

This at a time when recent votes appear to indicate the New South Wales Left might be looking at an increase in their next delegation to state conference. Shorten may be the Right's last shot out of the locker. Should he flounder Albanese will gladly inherit a party controlled lock, stock and barrel by the National Left, while the Right lick their wounds and wonder how and where it all went wrong. We could be looking at the awkward possibility of a Prime Minister Shorten, an AWU Right stalwart and former moderate union leader, implementing a Left faction-driven agenda in government. Just one of the many things that must be on his mind as he takes it up to the wounded Turnbull government and goes in for the kill.

open24hours posted:

quote:

Look, not one of the fairer sex showed any interest in me before I started in the media, nor have they shown any interest since.

quote:

they effectively get paid "less than $50 an hour".

Concatenation posted:

hahahaha





what, me worry?

ewe2 posted:

et voila!

Concatenation posted:

hahahaha





what, me worry?

hooman posted:

hahahahah

"outlaw negative gearing"

Jesus these guys have such weaselly language. Oh we have a budget problem maybe we should stop giving people a massive discount on their tax just because they own an appreciating asset? Maybe we should get rid of the massive concessions for flipping that appreciating asset? Maybe we should do all this because we have a housing bubble and totally unaffordable housing?

NAH WOULDN'T WANT TO MAKE ALL THOSE MUMS AND DADS OUTLAWS

EDIT: As if negative gearing is some natural thing that they're banning rather than a loving tax break they're phasing out.

gay picnic defence posted:

The CGT discount exists for a good reason, I guess they're happy to sacrifice that as long as they get to keep their precious negative gearing though

Concatenation posted:

hahahaha





what, me worry?

Capt.Whorebags posted:

Reading List: The Alan Jones Style Guide

I would blow Dane Cook posted:

https://twitter.com/nonstoptom/status/831991997585989632

Concatenation posted:

hahahaha





what, me worry?

I would blow Dane Cook posted:

lol why's that?

gay picnic defence posted:

Because it is intended to ensure people aren't taxed for gains arising from inflation. Even if you don't agree with it, at least there is some rationale unlike negative gearing which exists purely because some cunts in suits want more money

I would blow Dane Cook posted:

Yeah but inflation isn't 50%

Starshark posted:

Got to say, this took balls.

Starshark posted:

Got to say, this took balls.

gay picnic defence posted:

There was an article in The Conversation about it and the deductions when indexation was were higher than today.

Concatenation posted:

hahahaha





what, me worry?

Mr Chips posted:

Did they cherry pick short periods of high inflation to come to that conclusion?

SuddenCactus posted:

He's holding a ballpoint pen. Surely they could have asked him to hold a fountain pen.

Concatenation posted:

hahahaha





what, me worry?

gay picnic defence posted:

I don't think it works the way you think it does.

Actually the effect is usually more than 50% of capital gains. There was an article in The Conversation about it and the deductions when indexation was were higher than today.

Nibbles! posted:

Theres a lot of qualifiers to that. It depends what inflation is doing. If inflation is low, which it has been for recent history, then the 50% discount is much more generous than if you used indexation.

You're really just talking about housing. If you have long-term assets and high inflation the discount is worse. They majority of people that utilise the discount though are flipping this short-term where the discount is very generous.

Tokamak posted:

So, the SDA is propping up the Labor Right faction based off membership numbers (and large party donations). Which are driven by places like Coles and Woolworths who receive commissions from memberships and sweetheart collective agreements that leave the workers worse off.

Zenithe posted:

I'm currently under an SDA work agreement, here are some of its greatest hits:

-possible to work 10 hour shifts with no break (token break, no time spent not working)
-only public holiday that gets extra pay is Christmas day, everything else standard weekend rates regardless.
-expired in 2014, meaning that the last three years everyone under the agreement has been getting an effective paycut as inflation goes up.

Solemn Sloth posted:

Hahahahahaha

Turnbull threatens that if the senate doesn't pass his welfare cuts he'll just have to raise taxes

The senate tells him to loving do it idiot

Abbott warns him off doing even the most tokenistic rollback of tax deductions

What a loving pathetic embarassment of a PM.