John Roskam from the Institute of Public Affairs highlights the failures of the fourth estate to hold our politicians (and other institutions) to account.
The political polls are becoming increasingly unreliable but here are a couple of useful tools with a strong track record of forecasting political results correctly.
It is three months until the most important US Presidential election in modern history. The result will determine the political and economic path of the United States and will shape global affairs.
I wrote a similar thing four years ago when I was one of the few in Australian politics prepared to back anyone against Hillary Clinton and predict a Trump victory.
For the record, unlike many others, I predicted it before it happened rather than after the event!
It never ceases to amaze me how many people are shamelessly prepared to adopt the winning position even though they spent previous months cheering against it.
I saw that a lot in politics. A few of my colleagues 'always' backed the winning leadership candidate no matter who it was. They achieved this miraculous feat because they pledged their unwavering loyalty and support to whomever was in the contest! The most amazing thing was that the leadership contenders all fell for it, even knowing how duplicitous and untrustworthy these individuals were.
It was similar to convicted conman Peter Foster manages to convince people to give him money even though they know of his history.
Anyway, back to the real world of predicting the outcome of political contests. We know the polls are unreliable. People seem more prepared to respond in the manner expected of them rather than how they really think.
It's the equivalent of the 'smile and nod' process of avoiding unnecessary argument.
However there are a couple of more reliable ways to predict the outcome of political contests. Both are a measure of real commitment because they involve people's money.
The first is the betting markets. They have a pretty good track record of getting it right. Here's the latest track of the Biden v Trump sentiment is at.
You can see that Trump is entering the final three months of the contest as the underdog.
Another indicator with a pretty good track record of success began today. It's the performance of the Dow Jones Industrial Index over the three months immediately prior to election day.
It's another version of how people voting sentiments align with their hip pocket and the theory goes like this.
If the Dow Jones rises in the three months leading up to election day, the incumbent is re-elected. If the index falls over that period, the opposition candidate wins.
The simple premise has around an 87% success rate. So here's he rub. As of writing the Dow Jones stands at 26,664 points. History suggests if it closes higher than that on Monday November 2, 2020 President Trump will win another term.
Cory Bernardi is the author of seven books and has been a member of the Australian rowing team, a publican, an investment portfolio manager and spent nearly 14 years as an Australian Senator.
Australia is being let down by a government that doesn't know what to do or how to do it. The pressure of underperformance is starting to show and we are all paying the price.
The Prime Minister has a delicate balancing act ahead of him. He needs to muscle up to China while re-establishing important trade markets for our products.
