Scott Morrison needed the Budget to change the game for the election. But its political impact has seemed tepid rather than transformative.

And Bill Shorten has shown that having the last parliamentary word in Budget week can be used to grab the mic from your opponent.

By the time Parliament broke on Thursday night, everything was in place for the election, except the announcement of the date, with the three options Mr Morrison had earlier canvassed — May 11, 18 or 25 — hanging out there.

In his Thursday Budget reply, Mr Shorten delivered a carefully-targeted pitch to voters that invoked hope and promised fairness. 

He came up with a big Medicare initiative, and he outsmarted the government on its tax cuts, the Budget's centrepiece.

Read more:

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-04-05/labors-budget-reply-was-a-careful...

Meanwhile, Tony Abbott "might" sneak One Nation above Labor in his preference ticket by "accident"... (see image at top)

Lobby group the Pharmacy Guild of Australia, which represents community pharmacists, has defended making a $15,000 donation to Pauline Hanson’s One Nation.

Payments of $7,500 were made to the political party by the guild’s Queensland branch in June and July. In March, the branch made a $1,450 donation to Katter’s Australian party. While the guild has also made donations to Labor, the Liberals and the Nationals, no donations have been made to the Queensland Greens.

Hanson has previously made controversial comments about vaccination. Last week a secretly filmed al-Jazeera documentary showed senior One Nation figures meeting with the National Rifle Association in the United States and discussing ways to roll back Australia’s strict gun laws.

Read more:

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2019/apr/06/pharmacy-guild-of...

Read from top.

Speculation is swirling around when Mr Morrison will call on the Governor-General to dissolve Parliament and call a general election, given the Budget and Opposition reply have now been delivered.

He has previously stated a poll could be held on May 11, 18 or 25 — although the first two dates appear more likely, given the pressure a later election would place on the Australian Electoral Commission (AEC) to count the votes before the constitutional deadline to return the results.

"We're ready whenever he decides to call the election on a Sunday this week or a Sunday next week," Mr Shorten told reporters in Launceston.

"Quite frankly, if the Prime Minister wants to play games about when he calls the election, I'm just not interested.

"We can't waste any more time of the nation."

Read more: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-04-06/bill-shorten-says-scott-morrison-playing-games-election-date/10978324

I believe Scummo is waiting for the bureau of meteorology report on which will be the coldest of the above mentioned days in May. Here we (Gus and I) speculate that the colder the day, the less people are likely to "believe" in global warming and therefore would not oppose Scummo's coal as much. The weather could have an influence on the elections worth about two points, one way or the other... As Scummo needs all the help he can get, we'll stick steel bars in the election spokes of his square wheels...

Sadly, democracy rely on the swinging votes of the what's-in-it-for me people rather than be in favour of the best for the country. Often these swinging monkeys are against helping those in need. On a cold election day, any swinging voter will be swayed by having to wear an overcoat, forgetting that in the following summer, they will cook like crisps on the sunny beach in half the exponentially decreasing time as before...

In regard to comment above:

11 MAY

22°HI

11°LO

Precipitation 0%

Mostly sunny

--------------------

18 MAY

19°HI

10°LO

Shower and

Thunderstorm

---------------------------

25 MAY

19°HI

10°LO

cloudy

Note: no weather prediction can be accurate more than 14 days ahead.

See also:

http://www.yourdemocracy.net.au/drupal/node/36250

and

Now, one of the hardest things about the Budget coming out is that to really get our heads around what's being promised for women, someone has to read the damn thing. 

Have you seen the Budget? It's like reading Gone With the Wind four times!

Or, you can read the government's Women's Budget Snapshot, which I guess is like the Spark notes version.

Although, it's a bit harder to tell precisely what's going on these days. We used to have a Women's Budget Statement. A 300-page analysis of the impact of the Budget on women. 

It was a great Australian initiative copied in no less than 90 countries, abolished in 2014 by Tony Abbott as part of his glittering legacy as minister for women.

Read more:

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-04-07/women-have-a-serious-beef-with-th...

Read from top.