FINAL DAY OF CAMPAIGNING
It’s the day before the US election and Donald Trump and Kamala Harris are making their final, final, final pitches as the most extraordinary of campaigns comes to an end.
Harris is spending the final day of her campaign in Pennsylvania, making four stops throughout the battleground state on Monday (US time), the BBC reports. Trump has started his day in North Carolina and will head on to Pennsylvania and Michigan.
The fact both are spending the final hours of their campaigns in Pennsylvania is not surprising, with The Financial Times reminding us that the state’s 19 electoral votes have long been viewed as key for both candidates in their potential paths to the White House. Trump won there in 2016 but lost by 80,000 votes at the last election.
The Guardian reports Trump used his event in Raleigh, North Carolina, on Monday to say he would impose tariffs on Mexico if it did not stop migrants from crossing the countries’ shared border.
Referring to Mexico’s new President Claudia Sheinbaum, Trump said: “I haven’t met her, and I’m going to inform her on day one or sooner, that if they don’t stop this onslaught of criminals and drugs coming into our country, I’m going to immediately impose a 25% tariff on everything they send in to the United States of America.”
The New York Times highlights how voters in swing states have been bombarded with adverts, phone calls and knocks on their doors during the final days of the campaign. An analysis of the last-ditch pitches by the paper claims Harris’ messages focus on the economy, abortion rights and Trump’s rhetoric, while Trump’s messages largely focus on fear.
The blitz of campaigning comes as the polls still suggest the election is basically a dead heat at present, with both sides trying to spin momentum and anxiety out of every last poll. Of note is the figure the BBC highlights which is that more than 78 million people have already voted ahead of election day on Tuesday, representing more than half of the 150 million Americans who are expected to cast their ballot.
The current US President Joe Biden, who announced he would not be running for a second term 106 days ago, is apparently not due to join Harris when she appears at his childhood hometown of Scranton on her final day of campaigning, The Guardian reports. The paper says the 81-year-old spent the weekend at his home in Wilmington, Delaware, and will spend the day at the White House where he will speak with military members involved in fighting the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria.
In highlighting the remarkable nature of this election campaign, The New York Times flags it’s been 720 days since 78-year-old Trump announced he would be running for president again and just 91 days since 60-year-old Harris secured the Democratic nomination.
INTEREST RATES
Back home, the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) will announce its latest interest rate decision later today. As mentioned yesterday, pretty much everyone expects the board to hold the cash rate steady at 4.35%, despite inflation falling.
With most analysts predicting the RBA won’t cut rates before next year, the AAP says some are still (perhaps a tad optimistically) dangling the prospect of a cut next month. The newswire quotes AMP chief economist Shane Oliver as saying a December cut remains possible if underlying inflation in October falls sharply and unemployment rises — although in literally the same paragraph it also reports Oliver thinks the central bank’s first cut will most likely come next February.
In a survey of 38 economists by Finder, all predicted rates would be held today. Some are suggesting the post-meeting statement may be a bit more dovish though, with Nomura Australia economists Andrew Ticehurst and David Seif saying: “We think the board could remove its observation that inflation was ‘proving persistent’, and note that ‘welcome progress’ is being made in its battle to return inflation to target.” They added: “Aside from the inflation comments, we think that comments around the supply side are the key things to watch, in terms of rate-cut timing. Finally, with this meeting coming just hours before the US election, it would not be a surprise to see communication highlight global uncertainties and risks.”
Others have gone in a different direction when it comes to interest rates. The Australian led overnight on the Albanese government’s recent education pledges and says certain economists have claimed the spending will “further delay interest rate cuts, keep inflation higher for longer and saddle Australia with higher debt”.
UNSW economics Professor Richard Holden calls the policy of a 20% cut to student debt “blatant vote-buying”, adding: “The government’s just acting like this doesn’t count, it’s just Monopoly money, of course it does count – it’s going to add up to another $16 billion to net debt.” Former RBA board member Warwick McKibbin is quoted by the paper as saying there will be no interest rate cuts in the near term because “there’s too much spending in the economy”.
On the recent education announcements, the Australian Financial Review adds the Morrison government’s policy of increased fees for arts and humanities degrees could be rolled back. The paper quotes sources saying the Albanese government is looking to “unscramble” the previous administration’s Job-ready Graduates scheme.
Elsewhere, the AAP this morning has highlighted ASIO Director-General Mike Burgess saying there have been nine terror attacks, disruptions or incidents in 2024, adding that one-third involved religiously motivated violent extremism. The majority of the cases were motivated by racist or nationalist ideologies or a mix of ideologies. The newswire adds all the cases involved young people, alone or in small groups and with simple weapons.
Meanwhile, news.com.au highlights the 2024 Defence Workforce Plan set to be released today which will include an extra $600 million for Defence recruitment and staff retention. The site said the report will outline what the ADF needs to do to reach its target of 69,000 personnel by early 2030, and a combined ADF and public service target of about 100,000 by 2040.
The Sydney Morning Herald meanwhile reports plans for the sale of Defence real estate sites have been “shelved until next year, and probably until after the election”. The paper quotes the Australian Strategic Policy Institute in claiming the resale value of the Defence estate could be up to $68 billion.
ON A LIGHTER NOTE…
The death of the largest saltwater crocodile in captivity was announced at the weekend.
Cassius was almost 5.5 metres long and weighed nearly one tonne, the BBC reports. The record-holding reptile lived on Green Island in the Great Barrier Reef.
Marineland Melanesia Crocodile Habitat posted on social media that Cassius was “our beloved mate” and “a cherished member of our family”. The ABC previously reported the habitat’s founder, George Craig, paid $10,000 for the crocodile in 1987 after it had been captured in the Northern Territory.
Cassius’s actual age appears unknown with the ABC at the weekend saying he was between 30 and 80 years old when he was captured, while the BBC states he was thought to be at least 110 years old.
The BBC flags Craig relocated to Cairns last month and Cassius’ health declined soon after.
Say What?
And although this is an incredible loss for our family, we celebrate the great life that he lived and know there will never be another like him.
Quincy Jones’ family
The American musician and producer, who worked with the likes of Michael Jackson and Frank Sinatra, has died aged 91. He won 28 Grammy awards during a career spanning more than 75 years.
CRIKEY RECAP
In an election that essentially no-one wants to call one way or the other — pollsters are herding around neck-and-neck figures — both parties are convinced Pennsylvania might sway the whole thing.
Mason, an Uber driver and one of the many, many locals who have been generous with their conversation and time, points out the two interlocking trapezoids that adorn all Pennsylvania’s road sounds.
“So that’s a keystone shape, because Pennsylvania is called the ‘keystone state’,” he says. “The keystone is the stone at the peak of an arch, and without it, the whole arch collapses.”
Then again, the Coalition is the party of old people, so it’s unsurprising. One of the few policies it has committed to — other than to burden young people and future generations not merely with the cost of the climate crisis but the hundreds of billions of dollars in taxpayer debt from its proposed nuclear power stations — is its policy to allow people to access their superannuation for home purchases, which will pump billions of dollars into housing demand and inflate house prices. The result of that policy will be a direct transfer of wealth from younger people to older people who own homes, in effect shifting young people’s superannuation savings directly to asset owners, leaving the former no better off.
But in the absence of reforms to housing supply and affordability, that’s the fate of any scheme that increases the income of younger people. Cutting HECS debts for young people will simply free up money for them to direct to a housing purchase, once again pumping billions into housing demand and inflating prices, leaving them in a position not much better than when they started, unless we start building a lot more housing.
Boomers and gen Xers have got the game rigged — until we fix housing, nothing that makes life easier for young people is going to go anywhere except to older asset owners.
After I’d finally convinced myself that the judge’s measured reasoning didn’t have a sting for us in its tail, I turned around in my seat, looked to the back of the courtroom and mouthed to my client, “we won.”
That moment is a buzz for any litigation lawyer: when you realise you’ve landed on the right side of the zero-sum court game. For those whose names become legal precedents — in this case, Faruqi v Hanson — such a case is many things, but fun isn’t one of them.
As Justice Angus Stewart of the Federal Court read out his judgment summary — which determined conclusively that One Nation Senator Pauline Hanson had racially vilified my client, Greens Senator Mehreen Faruqi, and contravened section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act when she told her to “piss off back to Pakistan” — his evident humanity and compassion helped bring home that this case was both the engine of future consequence and the product of past hurt.
READ ALL ABOUT IT
Spain floods: Searchers scour car parks and malls amid fears death toll will rise (The Guardian)
With North Korea’s troops in Russia, South Koreans weigh role in Ukraine (Al Jazeera)
The dark last days of Donald Trump’s election campaign (The Financial Times) ($)
Coldplay’s Chris Martin falls through stage in Australia (Sky News)
University tuition fees rising to £9,535 in England next year (BBC)
THE COMMENTARIAT
Prepare for the longest election campaign in Australia’s history — Dennis Shanahan (The Australian): In the first parliamentary question time since the damaging allegations of the prime minister seeking free Qantas upgrades worth thousands of dollars and fallout on all politicians seen as having their snouts in the trough, there was not a single question on politicians’ flight upgrades.
The raw parliamentary politics were: One, a Coalition concession that the Qantas saga was hurting all sides and; two, a Labor declaration that it’s got nothing left for its first term of government.
Australia’s political leaders have embarked on an election campaign complete with a Labor launch in Adelaide on Sunday and a strategic and rhetorical pivot after the Labor and Greens’ loss in the Queensland state election.
There will be no “early” election this year and whether it is in March next year or May, when it must be held, Australia faces an unofficial campaign of four to six months.
How the Melbourne Cup became the race that bores the nation — Bianca O’Neill (The Sydney Morning Herald): But more recently, a change has been afoot. Slowly but surely, more Australians have been turning away from the Melbourne Cup. For some, it was looking back on those early rose-tinted, childhood memories where the induction into gambling was normalised, and knowing as an adult the havoc an addiction can wreak on people’s lives. For others, myself included, it came after we saw a run of seven horses die on Cup Day over eight years, and which culminated in Taylor Swift cancelling her performance at the carnival in 2019.
But those hoping to lay blame for the Cup’s cultural decline solely on Tay Tay, animal protesters or COVID-19 aren’t paying attention. Attendance levels have been declining for over a decade — long before the #NuptotheCup movement gained traction. After peaks topping 120,000 attendees in 2000 and 2003, crowds have been steadily dropping since 2011, with just 73,816 people attending in 2022. There was an uptick last year (84,492 attendees), but it still wasn’t enough to up the three-year profit loss on the Victoria Racing Club balance sheet.
Legendary commentator Bruce McAvaney put it best last week when he declared the Melbourne Cup “no longer stops the nation”, noting that while it was once the biggest sporting event in Victoria, today, it doesn’t even “come close” to the AFL grand final.
