Here’s the new LP home

Head on over thisaway.

As said on my earlier announcement, we are about to switch the larvatusprodeo.net domain to point at the new server, but propagation may take some time.

Don’t groan: we’re moving you all again

We have a new server for LP up and running, and are about to switch the larvatusprodeo.net domain to point at it.

This means that I need to migrate all these latest Exile posts over there for you to enjoy alongside our previous archives.

Which also means that I need to shut down comments on all posts here for now so that I don’t lose any recent comments in the shift.

I’ll let you all know the new provisional domain once I’ve ported over the latest posts. It should take only ~10-15 minutes.

ADDENDUM: I put up a new post to point you over to the new site, but in case you didn’t see that, you should head on over here.

Open 2010 Election Thread #3

Please keep the general election campaign talk (breaking news etc) on these Election Open Threads, and keep discussions on the other posts focussed on the topic presented by the author.

Saturday Salon

An open thread, where at your weekend leisure, you can discuss anything you like.

Carbon Price Now!

So, now we know. Labor has wimped out on a carbon price – either from reintroducing the CPRS, or through an interim carbon price as proposed by the Greens. Instead, we’re going to get the delaying tactics of a focus group with pretensions so we can get a “community consensus”.

So where does that leave those of us who think that we’ve all been consulted to death on this issue, and it’s time for polluters to start paying? More to the point, how can we use the upcoming election to send that message?

Below the fold, a little idea I’d like to float for discussion.

Nicholas Stuart’s Rudd’s Way and the spectre of Kevin07

There’s been extensive discussion of Nicholas Stuart’s new book, Rudd’s Way on Brian’s thread about the political demise of Kevin Rudd.

I’ve been dipping into it and have written a post about it for the ABC’s Campaign Diary blog. I think Stuart shows us that the accepted narrative of Kevin Rudd’s failure, now ‘overshadowing’ the issues of this year’s federal election, is only a partial one, and without much nuance. You can read why here.

Blanche D’Alpuget’s Bob Hawke PM

I’ve had a review of Blanche D’Alpuget’s new book, Hawke: The Prime Minister, published at The Drum. You can read it here.

The Trotskyism of Julia Gillard

According to Piers Akerman, Julia Gillard is a closet Trot:

There has not been and will not be a similar examination of Gillard’s long involvement as a key member of the extreme Left group, the Socialist Alliance formed by members of the old Communist Party of Australia.

Nice to see Piers holding himself to the same punctiliousness on points of fact that he demands of others.

2006 called…

…and wants its climate change policy back. Rather than actually doing taking an emissions trading scheme policy to an election, we’re getting a “Citizens’ Assembly – to examine over 12 months the evidence on climate change, the case for action and the possible consequences of introducing a market-based approach to limiting and reducing carbon emissions.”

There’s coverage everywhere, but frankly you’d be better off reading Gillard’s actual speech.

National Security Committee Meetings and past and present PMs

Kevin Rudd with Alister Jordan in 2008

Question: if, (as I suspect), on the occasions that Kevin Rudd had his senior staffer sit in for him on National Security Committee of Cabinet meetings, either Julia Gillard as Deputy PM and/or the Minister of Defence was there, is there really any problem at all with the judgement of any of the senior government ministers involved?

To take a limited lead from a fictional example set in a different country with a not-entirely-identical system, didn’t we all see Chief of Staff Leo McGarry chair JCS security meetings in the White House Situation Room while Jed Bartlet dealt with the presidential schedule on West Wing? None of the stock Republicans on The Hill rose in the House to excoriate President Bartlett for this, did they? If the Head Of Government not attending every such security meeting really is such a big deal, wouldn’t a TV drama based on how such things get spun as part of partisan politics have played at least once with the idea in 7(?) seasons?
 

Seriously, just how many senior members of Cabinet really need to be present for every single NSCC meeting?

This leak smacks totally of senior defence and/or police personnel feeling slighted by the age of Alister Jordan sitting in as Rudd’s representative. Jordan may “only” be 31, but he was Rudd’s Chief of Staff, the most senior person in the PMO after Rudd himself, not some junior office boy. The Chief of Staff of the Prime Minister’s Office is surely entirely the right person for Rudd to delegate as his representative at meetings that he cannot himself attend.

The view from Channel 9 III

I was supposed to continue Kim’s excellent work covering what the commercial news networks have had to say about the campaign each night.

Unfortunately, I didn’t get home in time.

But, moving forward, I’m taking real action by reporting what I heard on ABC Local Radio in Melbourne. Julia and Tony weren’t campaigning, as they were at a funeral for an Australian soldier killed in Afghanistan. Meanwhile, Kevin Rudd has confirmed he’s been offered a seat on a UN panel; however, the panel meets infrequently and he claims he could combine it with his job as an MP or minister. Julie Bishop thinks that a minister, in particular, should be fully committed to his job. Oh, and Christopher Pyne isn’t going to run a billboard featuring a quote from Nick Xenophon saying that Pyne is “An incredibly effective politician”, after bumping into Xenophon at a coffee shop, running the idea by him, and finding out that Xenophon was (surprise surprise) less than thrilled.

This was, however, not the top story on the local news – that was reserved for the verdict in the retrial of Robert Farquharson, who was found guilty of murdering his three sons.

Did anybody happen to catch a commercial news bulletin tonight?

2010 Open Election Thread #2

Please keep the general election campaign talk (breaking news etc) on these Election Open Threads, and keep discussions on the other posts focussed on the topic presented by the author.

Upload your election leaflets!

The other day I wrote a post asking people to describe election leaflets they’re receiving. These are important indicators of what’s going on, because they distil the messages the campaigns want to send to voters, and they’re often tweaked to appeal to particular regions, seats and demographics – which tells us something about how a national election is playing out at the micro-level.

Now, the folks at Open Australia have put up a site where you can scan in and upload leaflets. It’s here.

How important are campaigns?

Political scientist and Macquarie University Professorial Fellow Murray Goot has a very interesting article in the Sydney Morning Herald today:

In the past 10 elections, the gap in the level of electoral support for Labor and the Coalition reported by the polls at the start of a campaign, more often than not, has differed significantly from the gap recorded at the election.

The last election was no exception, but there were three – 1996 with Labor in office and 1998 and 2004 with the Coalition – where the gap in early polls proved a good guide to the outcome.

Where campaigns produced significant changes in party support, the pattern was always the same: the lead either narrowed or was reversed. There were no cases of an initial advantage increasing.

He finds no evidence of either an incumbency or an underdog effect.

If the pattern he discern holds for this election, it makes a fair bit of difference whether Labor really is starting at 50-50 or 55-45.

The future of China

Graeme Dobell at the Lowy Interpreter notes the report of the China Update conference – you can read the proceedings here.

Dobell is particularly interested in the work of Ross Garnaut (chapter 2 of the proceedings). The key finding?

There is now compelling evidence that the period of labour surplus andr easonably steady real wages for unskilled workers—supported by continuing large-scale movement of people from agriculture to industry and from the countryside to the cities—has come to an end. The implications of this change for all aspects of Chinese development will be profound.