Scott Morrison & his government soundly booted from office at the May 2022 Australian federal election

 

Voting closed in the Australia federal general election at 6pm on 21 May 2022. 

It didn't take long to realise that Independent candidates were having an impact on first preference votes and that there was a swing against the Coalition Government developing in Liberal-held electorates.

It was all over bar the shouting by 10pm when it became increasingly evident that the Coalition was never going to gain enough seats to form government in its own right or as a minority government.

It was the Liberal Party itself which suffered the most electoral losses on the night - what looks like 23 seats predominately in New South Wales and Victoria. With the Liberal National Party of Queensland down another 3 seats.

Scott Morrison officially conceded defeat about an hour later.

  

The Labor MP for Grayndler for the last 28 years, Anthony Norman Albanese, is now the 31st Prime Minister of Australia.

The official Australian Electoral Commission (AEC) seat count at 2:11am on Sunday 22 May 2022 stood at:

Labor - 75 seats

Liberal-Nationals Coalition - 51 seats

Independents - 10 seats

it is not yet certain if Labor will gain enough seats to govern in its own right or will need to form a minority government with the assistance of the Greens and Independents.

This will perhaps become a little clearer as the vote count progresses today and during the coming week.

Interested readers can go to the AEC Tally Room to follow the count at:

https://tallyroom.aec.gov.au/HousePartyRepresentationLeading-27966.htm

Last Newspoll of the 2022 federal election campaign

The Australian, Newspoll, published evening of 20 May2022
Click on image to enlarge

Primary Vote Percentages

Labor - 36 (down 2)

Coalition - 35 (no change)

Greens - 12 ( up 1) 

One Nation - 5 (down 1)

United Australia Party - 3 (no change)

Others - 8 (no change)

Two Party Preferred Percentages 

Labor - 53 (down 1)

Coalition - 47 (up 1) 

If the election had been held on 20 May 2022 then it is likely Labor would have won government with est. 80 seats to the Coalition's est. 65 seats.

However, this prediction is based on 2019 preference flows and the list of independent & minor party candidates was not as long in that federal general election nor the public appetite seemingly so strong for unaligned candidates.

Tweets of the Week

The Age editorial 20 May 2022: "For integrity’s sake, Australia needs a change of government". "It is about trust in our political system to act in the public interest...." 2/2 https://t.co/280Y84cQB3

— no_filter_Yamba (@no_filter_Yamba) May 20, 2022

TRUST THE PMO 🎵👨🏻‍💼 the Prime Minister's Office can sort out any problem ... of Scott's, not Australia's, obviously 😅
Huge thanks to @mad6duck for vocals 🙏🏻 (I've got a cold) #auspol #Coverup #LNPCorruptionParty #PMO #PerniciousMaleOperatives pic.twitter.com/sglNtKVb3n

— Nathleigh (@Nathleigh) May 19, 2022

Australian Federal Election 2022: giving Wilcox, Moir and Rowe the last word before polling day

Cathy Wilcox

Alan Moir

 

David Rowe

Climate change impacts even affect official labour force statistics in 2022

Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS), 19 May 2021:

Impacts from floods in New South Wales and Queensland 

Flooding in New South Wales and Queensland in late February 2022 resulted in a major disruption to the operation of the Labour Force Survey. As a result, there was lower than usual numbers of responding households in some of the affected regions in March 2022. 

Given the severity of these disruptions and to ensure this loss of sample did not affect data for Australia, New South Wales and Queensland, the ABS imputed some sample within 15 statistical area level 4 (SA4s) regions for March 2022. This imputation approach drew upon previous information that had recently been collected from people in the affected areas, following the approach used for February 2019 for the Townsville Flood. 

The ABS has re-assessed this imputation, with reference to April 2022 data for the affected areas, and has not revised the imputed data for March. The ABS will continue to monitor the data over coming months and undertake additional analysis of the imputed data as further data becomes available. Data for all SA4s will be published in Labour Force, Australia, Detailed on 26 May 2022. 

[my yellow highlighting]

What the Australian Bureau of Statistics is politely saying is that Labour Force, Australia for April 2022, released on 19 May 2022 – containing headline estimates of employment, unemployment, underemployment, participation and hours worked from the monthly Labour Force Survey – is educated guesswork and voters won’t know if the figures and percentage changes hold until 5 days after the federal general election at the earliest.

From Sept 2013 to March 2022 the Abbott-Turnbull-Morrison Coalition Government's Political Appointments to Federal Government Agencies were as High as 1 in 3

 

“Make no mistake, a returned Morrison Government will take victory as an endorsement of every corrupt and corrupting thing they have done, and they will double down.” [Writer, academic, author Tim Dunlop, “Death of a Salesman?” , 19 May 2022]

The Australia Institute, media release, 16 May 2022:

A new report from the Australia Institute’s Democracy & Accountability Program represents the largest and most comprehensive domestic study of the practice of cronyism in relation to appointments to a government agency ever conducted in Australia.

This detailed deep dive report has investigated every single appointment made to the Administrative Appeals Tribunal (AAT) since 1996 – almost 1,000 appointments in total, and reveals that the proportion of political appointments to the AAT has skyrocketed from ~5-6% under the Howard, Rudd and Gillard Governments, to almost one in three appointments (32%) across the Abbott/Turnbull/Morrison Governments, and two in every five appointments (40%) under the current government alone.

Key Findings:

• The research analyses every single appointment (974 appointments in total) to the Administrative Appeals Tribunal and its precursors between 1996 and 2022.

• The share of political appointments to the AAT has skyrocketed from 6% under the Howard Government and 5% under the Rudd/Gillard Government to 32% under the Abbott/Turnbull/Morrison term of government.

• Under John Howard political appointments were 6 in 100, current Government 2 in 5.

• Under the current Government, the share of political appointments has surged from 23% in 2013–2016 to 40% in 2019–2022.

• AAT Senior Members who are political appointments are much more likely to have no legal qualifications than Senior Members who are non-political appointments (26% vs 1%).

• Political appointees were more likely to be appointed on a full-time basis (47% of political appointees) than non-political appointees (22%).

• Most political appointees had served the party or parties that appointed them.

• 10% of political appointees had education levels below the level of a bachelor’s degree, compared with 2% of non-political appointees.

• Since 2016, the current Coalition Government has appointed seven Senior Members without legal qualifications, and all were political appointments.

• Of the 61 Senior Members appointed by the Coalition Government since 2013, 22 were political appointees.

• The report makes 10 recommendations for improving the AAT selection process.

“Across almost 1,000 appointments to the AAT since 1996, a worrying pattern emerges: appointments have become increasingly political under the current government,” said Ben Oquist, executive director of the Australia Institute.

“When John Howard was Prime Minister, only 6% of appointments to the AAT were political, but in the most recent term of the current Government 40% of appointments were political.

“These political appointments are much more likely to have no legal qualifications than non-political appointments, even though AAT decisions must consider facts, laws, and policy.

“The AAT is responsible for reviewing life-changing decisions by the federal government including deportations, migration visas, NDIS payments, welfare payments, workers’ compensation, and veterans’ entitlements.

“Members of the public should be able to trust that their case will be heard by a tribunal member who is qualified and not appointed for political reasons.

“A complete overhaul is needed to ensure that the AAT selection process is open and transparent, and not subject to political manipulation. This is now not only important for the AAT but is essential to fix integrity, accountability in government and protect democracy itself.”

Lead author of the report, Deb Wilkinson is an expert in the study of cronyism and is completing her doctorate at the Australian National University.

RELATED RESEARCH

Cronyism in appointments to the AAT

FULL REPORT

Besides political appointments, there are other ways of perverting the function of government agencies and influencing decisions/outcomes.

This was Morrison & Co's response to the Australian National Audit Office fulfilling its legislated brief.

ABC News, 19 February 2021:

The Australian National Audit Office (ANAO) runs the rule over the operations of government department and agencies, checking whether taxpayer funds are being used appropriately.

The profile of the agency has risen considerably in the last year after it uncovered the so-called "sports rorts" saga in early 2020 — revealing the Coalition disproportionately awarded community grants to sports clubs in marginal Liberal and National seats ahead of the 2019 election.

The ANAO also uncovered flaws with the purchase of a plot of land at the site of the new Western Sydney airport, called the "Leppington Triangle".

The Commonwealth paid close to $30 million for a 12-hectare parcel worth just $3 million, with Auditor-General Grant Hehir ultimately referring the land deal to the Australian Federal Police for investigation.….

The October 2020 budget showed a cut of $14 million to the ANAO's yearly funding, something the Auditor-General described as "uncomfortable".

Appearing before a parliamentary committee on Friday, Mr Hehir said his team would have to cut the number of major performance audits it undertook each year to deal with those constraints.

"Historically, for the last two decades, the ANAO has provided the Parliament with an average of 47 performance audit reports per year," he said in his opening statement…...

State of Play COVID-19 Pandemic 2022: fewer Australians taking COVID-19 precautions by April 2022

www.covid19data.com.au
11am 18 May 2022


Cumulative Deaths from COVID-19 by Age Group & Gender

Australian Dept. of Health
18 May 2022

On Saturday 14 May 2022 there were est. 52 COVID-19 deaths in the previous 24 hours across Australia, on Sunday 15 May est. 21 deaths, on Monday 16 May est. 13 deaths, on Tuesday 17 May est. 66 deaths and on Wednesday 18 May est. 53 deaths. 

Australia is experiencing daily COVID-19 death numbers never seen in 2020 or 2021. According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics; After cancers, doctor-certified deaths due to COVID-19 were the second most common cause of death in January 2022.

And yet governments urged on by Prime Minister Scott Morrison have all but abandoned public health measures and, he is currently framing the narrative that Australia has entered the post-pandemic phase and that deaths occurring are in men and women whose COVID-19 diagnosis was merely incidental to their deaths - and in almost the same breath saying that COVID-19 deaths are occurring as expected.

This is a gross misrepresentation by Morrison.

The Australian Bureau of Statistics clearly reported that between January 2020 and March 2022 COVID-19 was the underlying cause of death in 90.8% of all deaths having a COVID-19 diagnosis. 

On 16 May 2022 the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners observed that; COVID-19 cases and deaths are many times the amount modelled ahead of Australia’s re-opening. Further stating that; In the past six months from mid-November 2021 – when inter-state travel restrictions began to be lifted – there have been 5,906 deaths attributed to COVID-19, more than quadruple the amount that was predicted by the Doherty Institute modelling.

However, with publicly available information on official COVID-19 infection numbers, transmission rates, locations and deaths now being deliberately redefined, fragmented, less frequent or ceasing entirely, most people now only have a vague awareness of how the pandemic continues to play out in their local government area.

This is the result.....

Australian Bureau of Statistics, media release, 17 May 2022:

Fewer Australians taking COVID-19 precautions

Source Household Impacts of COVID-19 Survey, April 2022

More Australians reported household members returning positive COVID-19 tests in April, but fewer reported taking precautions against the spread of COVID-19, according to survey results released today by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS).

ABS Head of Household Surveys, David Zago, said: “Our latest Household Impacts of COVID-19 Survey, conducted between 19 and 28 April 2022, showed 62 per cent of households had a COVID-19 test in the past four weeks, up from 46 per cent in March 2022.”

Of those households where someone had a COVID-19 test, 23 per cent reported one or more household members had tested positive in April, up from 14 per cent in March.

“However, only 78 per cent of Australians in April reported wearing a face mask in the previous week, down from 98 per cent in February.

“In April, Australians were also less likely in the week before the survey was conducted to have taken precautions by washing their hands or using hand sanitiser regularly (92 per cent down from 95 per cent in February), and physically distancing themselves from other people (75 per cent down from 85 per cent),” said Mr Zago.

The results, released as part of a suite of ABS products to measure the impacts of COVID-19 on households from 2020 to 2022, also provide insight into social activities and working from home arrangements of people compared with before COVID-19 restrictions were introduced in Australia.

“Almost twice as many employed Australians worked from home one or more times a week in April compared to before COVID-19 restrictions were introduced in March 2020 (46 per cent up from 24 per cent). Meanwhile, fewer Australians exercised at a gym or played sport in April compared to March 2020 (29 per cent down from 38 per cent).”

Australians in April were also less likely to attended social gatherings one or more times a week than before restrictions were introduced (20 per cent down from 27 per cent).

The ABS would like to thank the Australian households that contributed to results for the duration of this survey.

Media notes

• COVID-19 tests refer to both Rapid Antigen Tests (RATs) and Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) tests.