Current Morrison Federal Government

[Skids]

[David]

The main point, I think, is that a massive detention centre that was dropped on the island has been reopened for no good reason with huge fanfare and then closed four months later. As we've seen with other prison islands like Manus and Nauru, these detention centres end up having a significant impact on the lives of locals.

What must be most galling to them is that the Australian government surely knew from the beginning that this was nothing more than a phoney electoral ploy, and that they were always going to backtrack if it didn't work (which, thankfully, it doesn't seem to have). Never a nice feeling to be used as mere political pawns.

[stui magpie]

Sounds like the place is ripe for a small scale eco tourism venture. Just need an investor who can deal with all the red tape.

[watt price tully]

More on Morrison’s Christmas Island debacle:

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfr ... mas-island

In early March the prime minister flew a media cohort to the facility, a 10,000km round trip from Canberra. He got what he wanted: footage of him inspecting gleaming palisade fences and scrolls of razor wire, and some soundbites from a vacuous press conference. Then everyone returned to Australia.

On budget night, the kicker: the centre will be closed by July. The flood of opportunistic refugees and their bleeding-heart lawyers never materialised. The government has torched more than $180m dollars ramping up security and services at the site, in anticipation of a deluge of people who only ever existed as a talking point to hurl at Labor and the crossbench.

One hundred and eighty million dollars. The figure didn’t feature in the treasurers’ budget night speech, and nor does it seem to exist anywhere in the excruciating “back in black” budget rebrand. The government is no doubt counting on the story to go under the wheels of tax cuts that nobody asked for and the jumble of an oncoming election campaign. They are banking on political amnesia to erase the short-term memory of what must count as the most costly press conference in history.

Christmas Islanders are furious, too:

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-n ... -islanders

It’s almost as if cynical political decisions have real-life consequences.

More than 150 guards paid for by the Morrison Goverment are guarding let me see, 2000? 1000? 100? 10? not even 1 detainee.

I feel so much safer now. Good job we can trust the Morrison Libs to manage the money well.

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-n ... ators-told

Morrison Liberal Govermenet policy decsions informed by the writers of "Yes Minister"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eyf97LAjjcY

[Pies4shaw]

https://www.theage.com.au/politics/fede ... 51b63.html

[Pies4shaw]

https://www.theage.com.au/politics/fede ... 51bpq.html

[Jezza]

^ So the same results of every other poll for the last 2.5 years.

[David]

It’s been quite a run, hasn’t it? I think this one is particularly demoralising news for the government though as Fairfax/Ipsos has usually been more favourable to them than, say, Newspoll.

Anyway, May can’t come soon enough.

[Jezza]

It reminds me of Labor's bad run after the minority government was formed in 2010.

[David]

[Jezza]

Ipsos polls since the 2016 election (TPP):

November 24-26 2016 = Liberal 49-51 Labor
March 22-25 2017 = Liberal 45-55 Labor
May 10-11 2017 = Liberal 47-53 Labor
September 6-9 2017 = Liberal 47-53 Labor
April 3-5 2018 = Liberal 48-52 Labor
May 10-12 2018 = Liberal 46-54 Labor
June 21-24 2018 = Liberal 47-53 Labor
August 15-18 2018 = Liberal 45-55 Labor
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Morrison replaces Turnbull as PM
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September 12-15 2018 = Liberal 47-53 Labor
October 10-13 2018 = Liberal 45-55 Labor
November 15-17 2018 = Liberal 48-52 Labor
December 13-15 2018 = Liberal 46-54 Labor
February 12-15 2019 = Liberal 49-51 Labor
April 3-6 2019 = Liberal 47-53 Labor

[Jezza]

[David]

I feel like they’ll be more stable owing to both major parties’ having changed their rules around replacing sitting prime ministers. Otherwise, I doubt anything else would have arrested the trend of prime ministers struggling to make it through a single parliamentary term without a challenger.

The irony of that is that the history books will make Shorten, surely among the blandest major party leaders in decades, look like one of the greats simply for having survived for six years (if indeed he does). He’s already only a couple of months off serving the longest unbroken term as Labor leader since Bob Hawke.

[regan is true fullback]

If these rules were in 55 years ago, we would have been stuck with Arthur Calwell...

No Whitlam government, no forgiveness for conscientious objectors, conscription would have lasted until the next decade, we would still be administering PNG, no sanctions against South Africa, no Aboriginal rights and Australia would be up to it's earballs in Nixon's latest adventures in Cambodia and Laos.

Australia would be a very different place. I know that many in this place would rejoice, but the point about democracy, unless your name is Putin or Mugabe, is to give both sides of the fence a go.

As far as the contestants on Conservative Island goes, its time to go. There will be a next time.

[watt price tully]