Cartoon posted:

On the face of it this would appear to be clearly within the intended remit of the ICAC even if the legislation is questionable.

Cunneen seems to be guilty as gently caress and her subsequent perjury (or is it just lying) should result in some consequences. Who deems it worth the candle to protect her?

Ragingsheep posted:

I get the feeling that the Cuneen thing has a bit of the legal establishment closing ranks with each other?

ewe2 posted:

They're not raising the GST it says here on page 12 of the Hun. Apparently the money raised would have to be spent on welfare so no income tax cuts (oh and its not popular with marginal seat Libs) but gosh if we don't do SOMETHING about INCOME TAX we'll LOSE 0.35 OF GDP GUYS!!!!!!

The numbers must be looking poo poo

Peter Martin posted:

The most shocking thing in the Treasury analysis delivered to Scott Morrison on January 25 isn't the finding that a cut in income tax funded by a lift in the goods and services tax wouldn't boost the economy at all.
He asked it to model a lift in GST from 10 to 15 per cent and then the handing back of every possible cent in income tax cuts. Because boosting the GST automatically results in extra spending on benefits such as Newstart, family allowances and pensions as prices climb it isn't possible to give all of it back.

But it is possible to hand back $30 billion of the $35 billion as tax cuts, and that's what Morrison asked the Treasury to model in the first instance, not legislated increases in benefits of the kind delivered by his predecessor Peter Costello when introducing the GST.

The impact is horrific.

High earning households do very well. In the top fifth, 81 per cent are better off. In the fifth below that, 80 per cent are better off.

In the bottom fifth, only 9 per cent are better off. Put another way, the change makes 91 per cent of the lowest-earning households worse off.

It makes 79 per cent of the next lowest earning households worse off, and 60 per cent of middle earning households better off.

Morrison had asked the Treasury to model a change that enriched middle and high earners at the expense of the least-well off. And the results tell us something about the nature of the change. It appears to have been one that cut tax rates or adjusted thresholds at the top more than the bottom. All of the Prime Minister's talk about how any change must be fair appears to not have sunk in.

At his request Treasury and its consultants Econtech and KPMG also did sensitivity analysis. What would happen if, say, $6 billion of the tax cuts were diverted to low earners in extra benefits? They found that the more the tax cuts were diverted to benefits, the worse the economic payoff. Econtech found the payoff turned negative. KPMG found it was positive but got weaker the more low earners were compensated.

Morrison will make much of the finding in a later Treasury brief that doing nothing and allowing bracket creep to push people into ever higher tax brackets is set to take 0.35 per cent from GDP over four years. But tax cuts funded by a hike in the GST wouldn't have halted bracket creep, they would have postponed it. And during the time they postponed it, the projected budget deficit would have swelled.

Morrison will be able to deliver income tax cuts, but they will be smaller, funded by a tightening up of superannuation and other tax concessions. There's no realistic prospect of tax cuts being funded by slashing government spending. Treasury believes that at the moment the economy couldn't stand it. Cabinet ministers believe that spending cuts of the size needed to pay for big tax cuts just aren't possible.

hooman posted:

Increasing the GST and cutting tax for the rich fucks the poor?

WELL I NEVER.

Anidav posted:

Isn't all these resignations exactly what Turdball wants? A reshuffle with a bunch of small L no names so he can sail into an election without a face the public can hate?

"[s posted:

Leaked Captain Planet script[/s] the SMH"]A prized $120 million CSIRO ship built to study marine science has been hired out to international energy giants Chevron and BP to help them search for oil and gas in the Great Australian Bight.

Anidav posted:

Wagering against Turnbull is suicide. An election would be called at the first sign of polls heading towards 50 50

gay picnic defence posted:

That's what those senate reforms are for. Didn't they get passed the other day?

EvilElmo posted:

It doesn't reduce it a bit it basically removes the chance. Only Minor party to get senators will be the Greens and Xenophon (+1 maybe) under the changes proposed.

EvilElmo posted:

So candidates with under x% (can't remember the exact number) of the vote get ignored, so the weird preference deals that allowed Muir to get up won't matter anymore.

quote:

It will certainly turn it from being near impossible to very hard. They'd need a big personal following and voter turnout. If all the racist UPF etc. groups get together and get behind 1 candidate in NSW and QLD they might get a senator in each state. But that isn't going to happen. All the vanity candidates will flock to the senate ticket in the view it's easy to get elected, which will kill their respective chances of getting up.

EvilElmo posted:

Wasn't Latika off to some cushy overseas job?

tithin posted:

That Tim Wilson resigning thing isn't news is it? I remember reading something last week from here that he was going to do it, and a tweet from a (female?) politician that it was time to shut down the human rights commission?

thatfatkid posted:

There's going to be an election before the budget. The libs want to get elected again so that they'll have a "mandate" to "reform" the economy i.e. GST increases.

thatfatkid posted:

Early election? The election is due this year, and both parties are clearly gearing up for an election right now.

Gorbash posted:

Weren't they near broke a couple of years ago?

open24hours posted:

Couldn't they take the power to legislate away from the states at the same time? Or make it illegal for a state to have a marriage act that excludes same sex couples?

ewe2 posted:

Catallaxy Q&A Trip Report:

The catallaxy crowd have an "interruption bingo" to count how many times lefties interrupt rightys to Stop Them Saying Righty Things (the winner had 55). We have a new category of conservative too, there's Conservative and Malcolm Conservative. Ciobo is a Malcolm Conservative.

Quantum Mechanic posted:

I assume you mean Lower North Shore? I basically know everyone active in it.

Solemn Sloth posted:

Weird that a guy who makes his money from shuffling micro party preferences would release a report scaring the greens away from abolishing micro party preferencing

AgentF posted:

What is the basis for the Greens' commitment to senate reform?

Amoeba102 posted:

Make drivers pay for the roads they use, tracked how? What put a toll both at the end of every street? The fuel excise is a way of making you pay for the driving you do that is relatively simple to implement. Without details it seems pretty dumb. Anyone read the report?

Amoeba102 posted:

I suppose that's one way, but it's different from how the article presented it. Problem with reporting, I guess.

Anidav posted:

The Turnbull government would seize a rare, absolute majority in the Senate if it finalises a deal on voting reform and calls a double-dissolution election, according to two experts on the preference system.
The Greens - who are negotiating with the Coalition to end "preference harvesting" among minor parties - would likely lose two of its current 10 senators if it agrees to support reforms and both houses of Parliament are dissolved.
A review of voting data by Graham Askey and Peter Breen, veteran players in minor party preference negotiations, forecasts the Coalition would win 40 Senate seats - a gain of seven - while Labor would remain anchored at 25 under the proposed changes being sought by the government.

Antony Green posted:

Could voting reform lead to the Coalition winning a Senate majority at a double dissolution? It is a claim that has set the dogs running this morning after analysis by the Renewable Energy Party claimed it would. (See Sydney Morning Herald article here.) The claim is the Coalition would win 7 of the 12 vacancies in three states delivering the Turnbull government a Senate majority.

It is a claim that doesn't stand up to analysis.

First let me point out that the self-interest here on the part of the two who have done the analysis, Peter Breen and Graham Askey. Both are part of the Renewable Energy Party, a micro-party currently applying for registration. Both have been involved in previous micro-parties and Breen was one of the micro-party members elected from the famous 1999 NSW Legislative Council tablecloth ballot paper. Breen, along with preference 'whisperer' Glenn Druery, worked briefly on the staff of Victorian Motoring Enthusiast Senator Ricky Muir after his surprise election in 2013.

So Breen has some self-interest in opposing the suggested Senate reform as it would destroy the micro-party business model.

Let me deal with the suggestion that the Coalition can win 7 seats in a single state.

To elect six Senators at a double dissolution, the Coalition would need to reach 46.2% of the first preference vote. If they poll more than 46.2%, they have a candidate in the race for a seventh seat, but realistically the Coalition would need close to 50% of the first preference vote to elect seven Senators. But if the Coalition poll less than 46.2% of the vote, it would be impossible for it to elect seven members from a single ticket. For Breen to claim the Coalition will win seven seats in NSW, Queensland and WA is to say the party will poll more than 46.2% of the vote.

How often has the Coalition done that at Senate elections? Here's the list of first preference Coalition votes above 46.2% since 1990.

Queensland 1996 50.3%
Western Australia 1990 46.2%
Western Australia 1993 50.1%
Western Australia 1996 47.5%
Western Australia 2004 50.2%
Western Australia 2007 47.7%
Western Australia 2010 46.4%
South Australia 2004 47.5%

The above cases are the only instances in the last quarter century where the Coalition could have won seven seats at a double dissolution, yet Breen and Askey are claiming it will happen in three states in 2016, including NSW and Victoria. If the Liberals and Nationals ran separate tickets in WA and Queensland, they could in special circumstances get an extra Senate seat by splitting their vote across two tickets. This was how the Coalition won four seats in Queensland at the 2004 half-Senate election.

Yet in their analysis, Breen and Askey claim that Labor and the Greens risk losing seats to a single Coalition ticket because of split votes, so it would be odd to reverse the argument and say splitting votes wouldn't disadvantage the Coalition.

In his argument explaining why Labor and the Greens could help the Coalition, Breen quotes a half-Senate race where Labor and the Greens split the 'left' vote and allow the Coalition to win, but he assumes the Coalition would get 53.6% of the vote.

Let's face facts. If the Coalition get the 50% of the vote to win seven Senate seats in NSW, Victoria and WA, then the Turnbull government would be returned to office with a massive House majority.

Under both the current and the proposed electoral system, a party would come close to winning seven Senate seats if its vote was above 50%. This system is proportional representation, and if a party gets more than half of the vote, there is always a reasonable chance it will get a proportionate outcome which is more than half the seats.

The current Senate electoral system could just as easily produce the same result. However, you would have to work out the labyrinthine preference flows and factor in the random factors produce by voters needing to use magnifying glasses on the over-sized ballot papers in under-sized fonts.

Anidav posted:

Amethyst posted:

Something tells me this is a flawed analysis from a bunch of clowns.

Jumpingmanjim posted:

theaustralian.com.au/qualityjournalism

ewe2 posted:

Smells like a big nudge to see if the early election DD idea will swing.

Skellybones posted:

Why is he so invested in Pell?

BlitzkriegOfColour posted:

Is there any sort of physical principle upholding this? I would imagine it would be the opposite and that the gravitational pull of the sun, no matter how weak from 1AU, would still make things a little easier than shooting in literally any other direction?

Solemn Sloth posted:

I have no words