Did you know you can lay a wager on Australian politics? At least one betting agency is happy to make a meal of a spare lobster or pineapple should you hunger for a bet.
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Next female Prime Minister? Dollar fifty on Julie Bishop, $2.50 Tanya Plibersek; Penny Wong and Pauline Hanson an outside chance at $11 a piece; and Sarah Hanson-Young or Jackie Lambie, surely a late scratching at $501.
Next leader to go? The market has priced Malcolm Turnbull as favourite at $1.75 to Bill Shorten’s $2.75 (but the market also says Turnbull is more likely to retain the top job until 2019 ($2.75) as opposed to 2017 ($3).
Your bet is as good as mine. There are too many factors at play in the political arena for this punter’s hard-earned.
Besides, if recent history has shown us anything, it’s that the bookies are no better than pollsters at predicting political wins and losses: to wit, Trump and Clinton.
Don’t believe anyone who says they saw it coming (except one British businessman who won $124,000 on a Trump win; though another Brit lost $597,000 on Clinton).
The world was largely blind – and deaf, and dumb – to a nearly 61-million-strong movement in America that day, stumbling a little short of the popular vote, but most vocal and steady-footed in the convoluted US electoral college.
At home, the Baird government was equally benighted of community sentiment towards greyhound racing. It took weeks of mounting protests and legal challenges and thousands of voices raised in appeal to reverse the ban.
"My personal convictions have not changed at all,” the Premier said on announcing the reversal, “but it is clear, listening to the feedback … we did not give the good people of the industry a chance to respond and reform.”
Here in Goulburn, the state and its sponsored agencies similarly muzzled “the good people of the industry” – this time, the health industry – in declaring major changes to services and facilities without notice nor consultation. Yet again it took mounting protest – from health workers and public patients – to reverse a unilateral declaration.
Silent majorities speak up when the stakes are high, and political leaders have shown they’re keen to cut their losses when held to account for backing a losing idea. So here’s a hot tip: “listening to feedback” is the odds-on favourite for any politician who wants to stay in the race.