Longman – Australia 2019

Wine Diamond
Under which section of Constitution are the withdrawal of Franking credits in Constitutional.
My feeling is that the removal of franking credits is a political blunder by ALP but three is nothing illegal about such a withdrawal.

Andrew
i’m no lawyer. But i do have complete faith in Bowen’s arrogance , stupidity, & incompetence. I copied & pasted a post in the McMahon thread :Section 51 i believe. The point is that labor are extremely unlikely to have done due diligence. Consider this, that they had to immediately introduce a March 2018 cutoff for pensioners. What does that suggest ? This in itself could be open to a legal challenge, as it is fundamentally discriminatory.

This whole policy is ridiculously sloppy & ill conceived. Whatever revenue is raised (& it will be far less) will be massively eclipsed by rises in pension costs, health cards etc. Just plain stupid

WD
Agree with last paragraphs completely but that does not make it unconstitutional.
S51 is a page and a half long but S51(2) gives Commonwealth Parliament power to legislate on taxation with only restriction being that it can not vary tax for a State or part of a state. If refunding (or not refunding) franking credits were deemed to fall under no regional variation all taxpayers would have to pay rate imposed on richest tax payers and deductions for expenses
,family, or any other thing would also be unconstitutional. This certainly was not intention of founding fathers.
I suggest you concentrate on th inequity of withdrawal of franking credits and not get into conspiracy theorists thought bubbles. Ask any one who says something is unconstitutional to specify the Section in Constitution which makes it unconstitutional.
S51 does not authorise Commonwealth to give tax refunds. How about going to an election advocating an end to tax refunds.
If this is the argument and it is revealed before the election all of ALP will go to Parliament in a clappped our Austin 7.

Wine Diamond I saw the post on McMahon in which you cite S51(xxxi) as the reason for Franking credits being unconstitutional. David Waldheim has adequately refuted the claim of unconstitutionality in McMahon thread.
Ben
I am happy for you to remove my comment in which I mistakenly assumed WD was talking about S51(ii).

Andrew
Thanks for your customary diligence, & intellectual rigour. i think my point is that there MAY be a constitutional challenge. Whether it would be successful or not might be beside the point.

i am glad we agree on the fundamental nature of this stupid policy. I do however strongly disagree on your assessment of the numbers affected (by it). 1.3 MILLION people + their families etc. I’d estimate 3 million + voters at least will be influenced.
Even my Greenie, Get up EX will be given pause !!. My profoundly disabled daughter was bequeathed a small share portfolio, from WD snr, & consequently receives an annual cash refund of several $K. Labor propose to steal this from her, because she “pays no tax” . No doubt the EX will focus on far more profound inequities, as she always has, she is after all, an insufferable ideologue. However the point is that she will think twice, which is remarkable in itself !!. Others will choose more wisely !!.

No sign of campaign activity on Morayfield Rd between Morayfield and Burpengary.
Contrasts with Dickson and Petrie where ALP now active and LNP have Bill boards up.
No sign of any candidates other than the three listed by Ben above.
Australian Conservatives and Greens active on line but no evidence human campaigning. With 90 days to go you would think all parties would have finalised preparation and be past candidate training stage but this is not the case. Amazing how much less Longman is of interest in General Election than by election.

One week after last comment . Took a drive through Longman Dickson and Western part of Petrie. Only sign that an election is taking place is large LNP truck parked just North of Traditional Funerals. No humans just the truck. No activity in Strathpine
Or Kallangur and my better half says no activity on Anzac Av. Therefore ALP workers had a day off , burning out or did they descend on mass like vultures on Northern NSW.
Caboolture Herald not showing much interest in Election. 1 page advert on road infrastructure spending by Federal Government clearly abuse of taxes by government and usual photo of local member Susan Lamb.
Do local paper journalists do anything other than take advertising bookings and re-publish press releases?
8 to 10 weeks from election they should be interviewing candidates about what they do not want to talk about.
Andrew Jackson
apjackson2@bigpond.com
at Solar panel event

Andrew – the once great local newspaper sector is nearly dead. No letters to the editor for the last 12 months in our two glossy “newspapers” in Macnamara either. They are now just junk mail and real estate ads. If real estate go further online and the paper ads disappear then the local rags will disappear too. Some political party ads but even they are fewer too. The exception is Clive Palmers UAP.

Received first election material not paid for with government resources yesterday. First not delivered by commercial distributors in a long time.
“You Desrve Better” Leaflet from Australian Conservatives.
Bernardi is likely to be one vote higher than majors for me. I agree with most of his social policies but his economic policies are horrible. I say most of his social policies because he seems to be going to be going a bit anti- Islamic. Nothing that I disagree with but policies that are best just universally agreed with by all registered parties even Greens “Clamp down on Islamic extremism” no one disagrees with this they just disagree with what clamp down should be and what is Islamic extremism. “One rule for all Australians- no to Sharia Law” No party wants to do a Brunei and replace existing laws with Sharia law but what is in disagreement is how far Sharia Law practice should be tolerated by Australians when practiced by Islamic adherents. No party wants to make Islamic women wear the Burqa but they disagree over should Islamic women be allowed to wear Burqa and where.
However I am glad to see some activity by Australian Conservatives but I would liked to have asked them how they are going to “Support affordable and reliable electricity”.
No
Mention of their candidate in Longman. Having a candidate ensures that material is letterboxed.

Received a UAP pamphlet yesterday. Unlike AC pamphlet previous day Clive’s pamphlet wrapped up in roll of twenty junk mail catalogues.
Suelllen Wrightson is Clive’s Candidate.
No local content relating to Longman.
Content all fits in with what will make greatest financial contribution to Clive Palmer’s pockets. End to provisional tax no doubt will appeal to all business proprietors but is this beneficial for economy as a whole in long term.
Palmer will be above majors on my ballot paper but only just.
His pamphlet has no info about his candidate other than her name.

Andrew Jackson
Yes. Provisional tax is an interest free loan from business to the govt. The bureaucracy resists it’s abolition because it would have a cost in bad debts to the ATO. This is however totally insignificant, when weighed against the benefits.
Imagine if Rudd had abolished Provisional tax instead of the mad stimulus MK2 in the so called GFC . By my reckoning the country would be $400+ billion better off. Back of envelope stuff i know, but compounding growth, profit, & interest is awesome .
At the height of “the recession we had to have” (1989?) PJK did the opposite & brought FORWARD the payments of provisional tax by 9 months !!. In order to create a measly surplus he created mass destruction. At the time we had to find $150 k in about 6 months to pay for this robbery. Then listen to PJK SKITE about HIS surplus, covered with the blood of business, & sacked workers.

This event illustrates why Costello was a better & more successful Treasurer than the more brilliant PJK. No equivalent dark chapters, & PC acknowledges his (govts !) mistakes, ALTHOUGH PS didn’t personally make many !!.

Sorry i didn’t have much to reply to your Capricornia post (to me)

Every time I have a shower I think of the Rudd giveaway. It paid for an Australian made solar water heater on the roof. Something I could not have afforded at the time.

Activity this week
Susan Lamb and local MLA doorknocking not sure where
LNP have a few Corflutes and truck on Morayfield Rd. Someone should tell the driver that putting truck behind a tree and angled to catch Northbound traffic makes truck near invisible for Southbound traffic.
ALP have A frame street stalls up in Morayfield Rd this morning with two blokes caring for them.
PHON hanging around Buchanan Park. Must be off putting to the lone male drivers who inhabit the space.
PHON had a couple of blokes as well.
Both majors now have negative billboards about others policy Labor on cuts to Caboolture and Liberal on Shorten’s supposed tax increases.
No evidence of Aust Conservatives or UAP yet other than on line and Palmer’s adverts which I think are doing him more harm than good. In Reps looks like I will have to vote for Palmer as no Katter, Country Party or DLP Candidate. Unconfirmed rumours that John Reece Australian People’s Party standing but no evidence of this yet.

My comment 2 April stating that Suellen Wright is UAP Candidate is inaccurate. Bailey Maher is in fact UAP Candidate.

I was told yesterday that Palmer had been extremely thorough in vetting his candidates.
I have been amazed at failure of 2 Major parties to not pick up S 44 problems.
As an unpaid party volunteer I picked up problems with Citizennship and employment in
2007 American standing for DLP
2010 Brit standing for Katter
2013 Taiwanese standing for Katter

In all of these cases steps taken prior to election to remove S 44 problem.

Steps taken in 2007 satisfied AEC but would fail current AEC checklist. Political party administrators should not get job without a thorough knowledge of Electoral law.

Party executives have no choice but to accede to administrators on this type of issue. If DLP and Katter can get it right so can ALP and Liberal party.
No candidate should ever be endorsed unless they have knowledge of Australian Constitution and Public Candidate forums should be used to make mincemeat of the ignorant.

So if you are standing in Longman be prepared for me to ask questions relating to Constitution.

One of Clive Palmer’s policies is clearly unconstitutional and Anning and Pauline Hanson sail close to wind.

No significant campaigning in Longman Easter weekend although I think anti- coal development convoy will pass through on way North to capture point in Clermont 950km away.
Un-manned Liberal truck in same place as last week.
Some Liberal Corflutes up in East Burpengary.
No new candidates detected.
Looks like I will have to vote for Palmer.

.

What a choice. 3 extreme right wing 2 extreme left wing the 2 majors and the closest to the centre a Palmer candidate.
4 deserving the last place and 3 nearly worthy of this spot.
My preferred order at moment.
Palmer,
Majors, ( yet to decide which is the worse of them)
Australian Progressives
Ashby-Hanson
Anning
Greens
Australia First

In 47 years voting I have never had such a poor choice to choose from.

Senate is vital whoever has control of House must need to fight to get every piece of legislation through Senate.

With the polls tightening to 49-51 & the minors preferencing the LNP, this seat is starting to look as much of a coin toss as Forde.

Have a look at the skinny finger bit of the electorate. Reaches out to grab a strong labor booth or two..

I doubt if LNP will win.
1) electorate voted 12 months ago and nothing has really changed since by election.
2) Overall National swing is to ALP and therefore towards sitting member.
3) New voters ( new. Suburbs and coming of age voters more left wing than old crocks like me and I suspect you.
4) I suspect slight swing to ALP in most of electorate.
With no middle party candidate DLP, Katter or Country Party these voters will split between majors.
Most of us have great difficulty in supporting either major party and it should be remembered that only ex uniformed NAZI and Greens below PHON on Country Party HTV a year ago.

Andrew, the one factor you haven’t mentioned is preferences from One Nation at the by election. Will there be as many of them? Will they split better for the LNP?

Queensland Observor
I have no idea how One Nation Preferences will go?
One Nation ran a very good campaign in By-election using local and Brisbane wide resources.
Whether the night time activities of Ashby and Dickson will impact on Vote is difficult to say. It should but I suspect that Ashby-Hanson voters are as tolerant of moral failure as Greens voters.
I will be back in Longman tomorrow
and will be working pre poll for DLP on Friday.
My reason for refusing to hand out KAP HTV is their appalling decision to Preference Hanson and CEC over DLP and major Parties. Even placing Australian Conservatives above DLP is offensive.Katter has gone down in my mind. KAP does not support Cory zbernsrdo’d economics over DLP Distributist so preferencing Australian Conservatives over DLP is a morally bankrupt decision.
AECwill hate my Senate Ballot Paper because I will flit from one party to another in MY PREFERENCE order.

Preferences should be decided on ideology using Vote Compass or Fairfax Australia Votes type tools.

These tools favour major parties but are eccellent for comparing parties.
Andrew Jackson
apjackson2@bigpond.com

Andrew
Old crocks like us !!. You may have a point there !!.
Whats changed ?
1/ the PM
2/ THE POLLS
3/This is not a by election, No free kick against the govt
4/ Southerners telling QLDer’s what to do Adani, EV’s etc
5/ PHON preferences
6/ Palmer UAP
I’d say a bit has changed

The voters will be same voters and changing who you vote for requires a voter to admit they made a mistake.

Some very valid changes but my prediction is Susan Lamb Victory.
Reasons outlined in my May 6 post.

Labor retain but could be surprisingly close.

Prepoll today
MORAYFIELD
ALP LNP pHON and Anning
Far fewer major party workers than by election
BURPENGARY
Only ALP and LNP

Morayfield Prepoll Saturday as above plus DLP, Greens and independent Senate Hetty Johnson number 1 Candidate.
Definitely far fewer LNP workers than previously. One ALP worker told me that LNP had pushed large numbers into Dickson and Petrie especially Dickson.

I am worried that extreme Right are doing much better than would expect in decent society.

Was it Hetty herself or a volunteer?

The extreme right are doing well because the LNP and their media mates have spent so long normalising them. At least Howard did the right thing saying no to Hanson back in the 90s… since then it’s been all about the Libs trying to court ON votes.

Back to the topic at hand though, LNP’s numbers indicate they are at risk of losing a few SEQ seats. If the figure in the CM is correct and there’s a 3% swing to Labor since 2016, that’s probably only a 1% Labor swing in the bush, but closer to a 5% swing to Labor in the Brisbane metro area – which would see Petrie, Dickson, Forde etc all fall next Saturday. Pushing numbers into Dickson is more about trying to save Dutton than it being more at risk of the others.

I saw a Facebook interview between Fraser Anning and his Longman candidate in which they managed to talk each other into believing that the will win Morayfield pre poll with 76% of votes. In 50 years of political campaigning I have never heard such delusional rubbish.
I know or at least strongly suspect that ALP will win booth. I have worked the booth for KAP Country Party and DLP and any candidate claiming they will get 76% of the vote in this area is totally delusional.
This level of delusion comes about because of ignorance of history
Lack of listening skills and an unwillingness to face up to reality. Clearly Anning and his candidate are totally incapable of facing reality. If he gets 1/10 of 76% he will be lucky.
From interactions on Facebook their only response to criticism is half sentence answers consisting of an obscenity and inaccuracy. No doubt their 76% really means that 24% are treating them like vermin and they are making assumption that those who ignore them will vote for them. I remind you all Fraser Anning says he is getting 76% of votes at Morayfield prepoll. If this were the case all of Australia will be in Anning’s hands on Sunday morning.
I doubt if Anning will get a quota but he is not popular in the way that his original party leader was he is just seen as part of loony right. Unfortunately
Election Day is a full moon.

Andrew J
Longman mentioned again on SKY multiple times as being in play. The proposition was that retirees/ older voters, had turned out in big numbers at pre- poll to vote against “Retiree tax”. This is unconvincing. What do you think ?

WD I have not kept numbers this time. Also I have not done the full days I did the last few years. My impression is that demography of pre poll voters getting younger not older. More rejecting all HTV. LNP voters not coming with their HTV in same numbers as 2013 but far more have HTV on phone. Not sure if these are party HTV or self created HTV.
My impression ALP doing better than by election.
Malcolm Roberts has been on booth. For most of day. Gone now. Susan Lamb still here. Anning candidate been here all day no doubt working to get 24% of Vote he thinks he is not getting.
Liberals handing out a Australian Christian Lobby pamphlet that misses out detailing two parties that got 100% ticks DLP and Aust Christians and misses out questions Liberals got less than 100% in. A pamphlet authorised by ACL that is full of half truths and further half truths.
Whoever produced this document is telling half truths.

Andrew J
Thanks i wondered if people were getting overexcited . Interesting about the HTVs Wonder what that might mean ?

Morayfield Pre poll today
All of the info in this post is hear say. I witnessed none of it myself. ALP had one of their workers hexed by a spell from one of the other parties today. ALP fellow has 6 months to live. Guess which party has a witch at their disposal.
In 50 years on booths I have never previously had the company of a witch before.
ALP understandably greatly amused. Story got around booths. We even had visitors from other booths to view the famous ALP volunteer.

The difficulty is that Longman is that it is essentially three seats – the Caboolture/Morayfield core with a large proportion of single parent families and higher welfare dependancy; a farming/acreage/middle class area in Woodford and Narangba; and a huge block of mostly older voters on Bribie Island.

So the impressions you get from prepolling in Caboolture are worlds away from handing out HTVs on Bribie. Longman is an incredibly difficult seat to read unless a major swing is on.

Mark Yore
A very timely reminder of the complexities involved in real analysis. Would be interested in your best/educated “guess”.

Mark Yore I agree. You will notice I did not apply my comments to Longman but to Morayfield pre poll.

I have not been to Bribie this election but have spoken to both ALP and Liberal volunteers about the booth.

I am comparing Morayfield Prepoll 2016/ By election and this election.

No sign of Palmer or Australia First at any booth.

LNP Candidate has been a regular worker at Morayfield.

We had a single visit by a mobile neon sign Truck from Change the Rules. This thing must be hired by day for election. Far outshines my single A Frame to shame.

AEC far less officious than recent years. I thought we were all getting on till the Hex incident.

Morayfield prepoll
Very steady poll numbers but in contrast to previous days virtually none of them taking HTV. ie they are the most disengaged pre poll voters. Lib Democrats turned up today therefore 30% of voters have voted before Lib Dems handed out a HTV. On this basis their preferences need to be reduced in value to 70% of other parties manning the booths. This is 70% more than KAP Palmer
HEMp or ???? Families 2 who have yet to man a booth. Last General Election KAP manned pre polls most booths most days this time zero booths. They clearly have lost interest in SE Qld or winning Senate.

I got the feeling today and from people i have spoken to that this one will return to the lnp.
The ALP camp certainly aren’t confident but if one looks at all the HTV’s the majority are going straight to LNP.
The Wyatt Roy factor is gone and this should return to its traditional owners the LNP. Though a lot of people are ignoring HTV’s a lot more than usual pre-poll.

Tony was right and I was wrong on this. On leaving Morayfield East State School this afternoon I still thought ALP was going to win.

I agree with Tony that in 2016 Wyatt Roy lost rather than Susan Lamb. Winning.

The claim made on TV tonight that Liberals put resources into Longman in last few days was not evident. In fact there was more evidence of ALP doing this. ALP had workers from Kedron and Middle Park on Morayfield East today.