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Malcolm Turnbull listens to the former Australian prime minister Tony Abbott. The push for Liberals preselection reform has been used by some as a proxy leadership war. Photograph: Lukas Coch/AAP

The Liberal party will split unless the looming New South Wales convention on preselection rules allows ordinary members to vote for candidates, former party president candidate John Ruddick has warned.

Guardian Australia has confirmed Cory Bernardi will host a meeting in Sydney less than a week after the Liberal convention to allow his Australian Conservatives party to potentially capitalise on disaffected members.

It is understood Bernardis event, on 28 July, was sold out within days, having reached a venue capacity of 450 attendees. Australian Conservatives already has 4,000 members signed up in NSW out of a total party national membership base of 12,000.

Ruddick, a former candidate for Liberal party president, warned that if reforms contained in the Warringah motion from Tony Abbotts home branch were rejected, its supporters would leave the party. Ruddick quit the party, calling for plebiscites and membership-wide leadership ballots in 2015.

This is the grand final, Ruddick told Guardian Australia. If simple democratic reform embodied in the Warringah motion is rejected or watered down, I promise there will be a historic split in the Liberal party. The lobbyists can have the party logo, well take 80% of the party.

NSW remains one of only two state divisions of the Liberal party that do not routinely allow each party member a vote on preselections. Opponents of plebiscites say the change will allow branch stacking. Currently, preselections are voted on by a much smaller group of party delegates.

The convention at Rosehill racecourse at the weekend promises to spark heated debate over the future of the party and by extension its leadership, with 1,500 members attending following the close of registrations last week.

Liberal sources confirmed that supporters of the Warringah motion had paid for some 20-something hardship registrations for members who wanted to attend but could not afford it. The convention registration allows any members to pay for other members to attend the meeting opening the way for supporters and opponents of reform to stack the meeting.

The Liberal party futures convention arose from a push at the partys last annual general meeting to support the Warringah motion based on the Howard recommendations. Three years ago John Howards party reform report recommended a plebiscite system for choosing candidates in the lower houses of the NSW and federal parliament.

Ruddick and Abbotts federal electorate conference president, Walter Villatora have long campaigned for reforms reflected in the Warringah motion. While Abbott commissioned the Howard report, he did not act on it as prime minister, but he has taken up the issue since he was dumped as leader.

As a result and combined with the former prime ministers constant attacks on Malcolm Turnbull, the push for reform has been used by some as a proxy leadership war. While Turnbull has said in the past he supported reform, the NSW division is controlled by moderate members who generally support Turnbull over Abbott.

But other high-profile members, including the assistant cities minister, Angus Taylor, and the retired major general Jim Molan, have also pushed for change. Weeks ago, Taylor urged a reform convention not to turn the process into a proxy war for other issues.

It is not about conservatives versus progressives, Taylor said. We are the trustees of two great philosophical traditions in this party conservatism and liberalism, [Edmund] Burke and [John Stuart] Mill.

And it is not about Malcolm Turnbull versus Tony Abbott. This issue is too important for the future of our party to be seen through the lens of personality.

Even if the Warringah motion passes, it is not binding on the NSW division and would need approval from the state executive, which has resisted the push for plebiscites to date.

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Liberals warned party will split if NSW preselection reforms rejected - The Guardian

B.C. Green Party leader Andrew Weaver and Premier-designate John Horgan (Black Press)

Premier-designate John Horgans new department to manage its relationship between the B.C. NDP and Green Party is a political function that should not be added to public service staff, B.C. Liberal MLA Andrew Wilkinson says.

Wilkinson sent a letter Monday to the Comptroller Generals office, asking for an urgent opinion on the Confidence and Supply Agreement Secretariat, announced July 11 by Horgan as part of the premiers office.

The agreement is the political agreement upon which the incoming NDP minority governments political survival is predicated, as Mr. Horgans NDP caucus alone does not have enough seats to survive a basic confidence motion, having failed to secure a plurality of seats in the recent provincial election, Wilkinson wrote.

By placing this so-called Secretariat within the Office of the Premier, this political office would be funded and supported by B.C. Public Service resources. They are not employed to oversee and support political agreements between parties.

Wilkinson referred to the public service code of conduct that staff are not to engage in political activities during working hours or use government facilities.

NDP spokesperson Jen Holmwood issued the following statement in response to Wilkinsons letter:

Our commitment to work with the BC Greens lays the foundation for our new government, and thats why were appointing a small team to support the policy priorities in the Confidence and Supply Agreement. This team will help deliver stable government that works for people, and we will follow any advice from the Comptroller-General to ensure the activities of the office fall within acceptable practices.

Letter From Andrew Wilkinson MLA by Tom Fletcher on Scribd

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NDP-Green office 'misuse of public funds,' BC Liberals say - Surrey Now-Leader

Since I still take in a fair amount of non-political entertainment, particularly from Comedy Central and similar outlets, it hasnt been hard for me to pick up on the trend towards doom and gloom among liberal thought leaders this year. The tears shed on election night last November have dried, only to be replaced by a feeling of depression. Everything is terrible. The world is a much darker place. Disaffected communities are living in fear under a new authoritarian regime. Its an endless refrain on many outlets.

This idea showed up yet again when long-time talk show icon Phil Donahue showed up on MSNBC to declare that the country had fallen into the modern equivalent of an Edgar Allan Poe story. (The Hill)

Former talk-show host Phil Donahue on Saturday reflected on President Trumps administration, calling it the darkest political moment in American history.

This is the darkest political moment in American history, Donahue said on MSNBC Saturday. Whos going to argue that?

When asked about whether he thought Trump could be impeached, Donahue said that Trump is too popular and it wouldnt be a good decision for lawmakers popularity. Donahue compared Trump to Elvis saying his base will not tolerate criticism of the president.

Yes, clearly President Trump has ruined everything so you can all mope about, dreaming of the beautiful American landscape which has fallen into ruin. But just to make sure that were all on the same page here, precisely what is it thats changed since noon on January 20th of this year? Im not trying to pester you too much during your period of mourning, but could you provide me with some specifics?

Ive heard endless commentators talking about how various people are living in fear under the new regime particularly gays, minorities, women, Muslims and puppies for all I know. But how is life currently any different? To answer that question wed have to look to a list of the Presidents accomplishments. I suppose the easiest, big ticket item would be on immigration. Refugees, illegal aliens and, one presumes, legal immigrants are all facing hard times under Trump, right? But the numbers dont really support it. The Travel Ban remains a huge topic of discussion but it never even went into effect until a couple of weeks ago. And how about those deportation forces that have everyone living in fear? Actually, while the number of arrests of illegal aliens has gone up in some areas as part of more aggressive investigations, the actual number of deportations is pretty much the same as it was under Barack Obama. The laws are the same. The numbers are pretty much the same. The only thing which has really changed is the reporting on the subject. (The press was famously shy about talking very much about deportations under the previous administration.)

LGBT issues? Are gays suddenly being discriminated against under a raft of new laws and policies? Aside from failing to release a gay pride month statement (as if that affects anything) what has changed? Weve seen the rolling back of one portion of Title IX for school bathroom policies, but apart from that this is the President who is apparently still moving forward with transgender soldiers and a host of other Obama era political detrius.

Really, the only area where you could point to any substantive changes would be on environmental regulations. Yeah, a couple of pipelines were approved and some other hugely burdensome EPA regulations were rolled back, but not much else. And is that really the driving factor determining day-to-day life quality for any measurable number of Americans?

Lets be realistic here. Aside from foreign policy tone (not starting new wars or breaking alliances) and a couple of executive orders, Trump hasnt managed to change much of anything in terms of the quality of life for anyone. Its true that Trump has signed more bills into law thus far in his term than any president in decades, but most of them outside of relaxing regulatory burdens are more symbolic than game changing. (Though we did manage to name the Federal Building in Nashville after Fred Thompson.) Progress on major, kitchen-table issues like tax reform and health care have been stymied thus far. More people have jobs right now than at any time in recent memory and the anticipated armies of jack-booted storm troopers dragging all of the CNN and MSNBC news desk anchors off to reeducation camps have failed to appear.

The idea that these are dark days and that things have gotten so much worse is entirely a matter of perception, driven largely by the media. The day-to-day realities of life for virtually anyone in the country grind on much as they have for quite some time now. The chief difference is all the feelings and how liberals talk about life. Hating the president has grown from something of a cottage industry under both Bush administrations to a social justice juggernaut in 2017. But for all the running declarations that the doors are about to be kicked in at any moment, its simply not happening.

Angry and depressed people tend to die younger and experience a host of health problems which they might have otherwise avoided. Try to relax a bit and wait until the President actually does some of the things youre so sure that hes planning before you spiral into despair. And yes, Phil Donahue, Im talking to you, too.

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For liberals, the shadow of Donald Trump looms far larger than the man - Hot Air

The federal Liberals are looking for answers after the governments program to help workers in hard-hit economic regions of the country blew past budget expectations, with spending now topping $1.3-billion.

The government figured that just 235,000 people would use extra weeks of employment insurance benefits when they unveiled the program last year to help workers in 15 regions of the country with stubborn unemployment rates.

That was projected to cost the government $827.4-million between April 2016 and March 2019.

But as of July 9, Employment and Social Development Canada said that it had spent just under $1.31-billion on the extra weeks of benefits for 317,261 claimants.

The spending figure may yet change as officials pore over the last few claims that trickled in by last weeks deadline for program eligibility.

A report will be coming out in September with a revised cost for the program.

A spokesman for Social Development Minister Jean-Yves Duclos said that the high cost for the program was one of the reasons it wasnt renewed and that a review is underway to determine why costs exceeded estimates.

Opposition critics argued the fault lay in the Liberals economic policy.

Conservative critic Pierre Poilievre said the governments moves to increase taxes had a negative effect on hiring, which meant more spending on employment insurance programs.

The government should, instead, cut payroll taxes so employers can afford to hire more and employees can enjoy the rewards of their labour.

NDP jobs critic Brigitte Sansoucy said the Liberals were right to extend EI benefits, but the numbers suggest Canadians are struggling more than the Liberals are willing to admit.

She called on the government to make more permanent improvements to EI, suggesting the high spending and claimant figures show such changes are badly needed.

The program was rolled out in 2016 for workers in 15 economic regions of the country that had seen a hard and sustained drop in employment as a result of the sharp downturn in energy prices.

Eligible workers received an extra five weeks of regular benefits effective July 2016 but retroactive to January 2015.

Long-tenured workers in the regions were also eligible for an extra 20 weeks of benefits, to a maximum of 70 weeks again, starting last July but retroactive to January 2015.

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

A by-the-numbers look at extended EI benefits to hard-hit economic regions

Last years federal budget unveiled a program to help eligible workers in 12 regions of the country hard hit by a downturn in commodity prices. Three regions were added in May.

Here is a breakdown, by region, of the number of claims and how much they have cost as of July 9, the day after eligibility closed.

Claims for an extra five weeks of EI:

Total: 92,012

Extra benefits paid:

Total: $1.306 billion

(Source: Employment and Social Development Canada)

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Liberals' extended EI benefits program exceeds budget projections - The Globe and Mail

South Africa hasthe world's most progressive tax system, according to a new report.South Africa is also,by another measure, the world's most unequal country -- making ita cautionary example for U.S. liberals about the limited power of taxation to remedy inequality.

Yes, taxing the rich more and the poor less can have benefits, but many experts argue inequality is more meaningfully addressed by spending on public programs that provide for people's basic needs while giving them an opportunity to get ahead.

In particular, that requires ensuring people have access toeducation, training, transportation and healthcare.And funding those enterprises requires more than just soaking the rich. In northern European countries -- where economists have found that people who are born poor are more likely to make it into the middle class -- governmentsalso rely on broad taxes that force the middle class to pay more as well.

"The basic story is taxes do not change the income distribution," said Graham Glenday, a tax scholar at Duke University who was born in Cape Town, South Africa and plans to retire there.

"Changing the income distribution is much more of a dynamic thing that comes about if poor people can actually move up," he said. "That obviously takes, sometimes, generations."

The new report, published Sunday by Oxfam, ranks 152 countries on how well their economic policies are designed to address inequality. South Africa ranks first on taxation.The rich pay steeperrates, the corporate tax is hard to shirkand a national value-added taxincludes exemptions for food and other staples thatare major expenses for the poor.

"Its quite an efficient system that tries, to the extent thats possible, to really, kind of, balance the equation," said Sipho Mthathi, the director of Oxfam South Africa. "It is one of the most efficient tax systems in the world."

But despite ranking first in tax redistribution, South Africa ranksslides to 21st in the overall measure of addressing inequality, just ahead of the United States at 23rd. A poor score onthe labor market -- SouthAfrica does not have a minimum wage, for example -- brings down the country's general ranking.

The other countries in the top 25 are all developed nations, almost all of them in Europe.Sweden ranks first, followed by Belgium, Denmark and Norway.

There are many methods of measuring inequality, but among the most common is the Gini coefficient --a measure of the share of income that would have to be redistributed to achieve perfect equality.Based on the Gini coefficient, South Africa is the most unequal country in the world among those for which data are available, according to the World Bank.

As of 2011-- the most recent year for which data are available from the bank-- the coefficientwas 0.63 in South Africa.Data from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) show that inequality has increased in South Africa since 2000, when the Gini coefficient was 0.58.

The coefficient for the United States wasjust 0.41 as of 2013, but thatfigure is still relatively high for a rich country.

It is difficult to compare economic policies across countries. Different approaches may work better for some countries than others, and the data is not always available in the same form. Any ranking necessarily involves a degree of subjective judgment.

For instance, Oxfam did not rank countries' systems of taxation according to a strict measure of fiscal progressivity -- that is, the distribution of the burden on people of different levels of income. (The northern European and Scandinavian tax systems also perform well in the report, despite the relatively high taxes paid by the middle class in those countries.)

Instead, the authors of the report considered several factors. South Africa performed well on all of them.

The South African government consistently collects between 27 percent and 29 percent of the country's gross domestic product in revenue, Glenday said. He added that those numbers are comparable to those for the United States -- where general government revenue totaled 33.5 percent of GDP in 2015, according to the OECD.

That is despite the fact that the United States is a much richer country, where taxpayers can afford to pay much more. In the United States, GDP per person is more than 10 times that of South Africa.

Indeed, Americans pay only 68 percent to 71 percent of the maximum amount of taxes that the government could theoretically collect, according to researchers at the International Monetary Fund. The estimates for South Africa are higher -- between 75 percent and 76 percent, depending on how the maximum is calculated.

South Africa is able to collect so much in taxes in part because of a bureaucracy that is unusually effective for a developing country. While corruption is a serious problem in South Africa, the tax authorities have a reputation for professionalism.

"They collect it very competently," Glenday said.

Hefty penalties for cheating the system discourage abuse, according to Mthathi. "Its created a culture where its not easy for people to just not follow the rules," she said.

Another factor that might make South Africa's tax system particularly progressive is that about one fifth of tax revenue comes from taxes on corporate income. That is roughly twice the share of U.S. taxes that is paid by corporations.

People who own corporations, whether privately or in the form of publicly traded stock, tend to be wealthier, and most economists believe that steeper corporate taxes tend to favor the poor and the middle class. An important exception is Kevin Hassett, President Trump's nominee to serve as chairman of the White House's Council of Economic Advisers. Hassett has argued that workers wind up paying a substantial share of corporate taxes in the form of reduced wages.

By Oxfam's reckoning, though, the United States would fall in the rankings from 23rd to 29th if Trump's agenda were implemented.

Despite decades of progressive, efficient tax policy in South Africa, the country's extreme inequality is stubbornly persistent. "It doesnt mean that the country doesnt have problems," Mthathi said.

In particular, she said, South Africa could spend the money that it collects more efficiently to reduce poverty and create opportunity. The problem of corruption makes it more difficult for the government to achieve those aims.

And as Glenday pointed out, South Africa's public education system is notoriously poor -- a grave obstacle to economic development over the long term. That is arguably a legacy of the era of apartheid, when schools for white students were much better than those for students of other ethnicities.

Without good tax policy, South Africans might be much worse off, but that country's example suggests that progressive taxes on their own are not a solution to inequality.

"Its not just about collecting money, and making sure that is done is fairly and progressively," Mthathi said.

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What American liberals could learn from South Africa - Washington Post