It looked for a while as if Roy Morgan had returned to its weekly polling schedule, but that may have just been a short-term response to the stimulus package kerfuffle. In any event, there was no poll today. That being so, this week’s news nuggets will have to survive on their own:
• Alicia Bowie of the Campbelltown Macarthur Advertiser reports on Labor aspirants for Macarthur, whose Liberal member Pat Farmer has long since stopped behaving like a man who cares if he gets re-elected. The narrowly unsuccessful candidate from 2007, local carpenter Nick Bleasdale, is again in the running, but faces competition from Camden councillor Greg Warren. However, “the ALP will wait until the new boundaries are decided late this year before selecting its candidates for local electorates”.
• Col Allison of the Hills News reports that David Elliott, former Australian Hotels Association deputy chief executive and staffer to John Howard – or as Allison would have it, “the ambitious Liberal Party stalwart lusting for a parliamentary career”, – has denied he will stand for preselection in Brendan Nelson’s seat of Bradfield. However, “insiders say he will try to win preselection for a State Liberal seat in the North-West at the May 2011 elections, upsetting the ambitions of other card-carrying right-wing conservatives, or even a sitting MP”. The seats mentioned are Riverstone, which is reasonably safe for Labor, and “even Baulkham Hills, in the unlikely event Wayne Merton, decides to step down”. Allison reports that Elliott “has the support of MLC David Clarke, controversial leader of the so-called Christian Right of the party and a back-room wheeler-dealer”, which is odd because he was put forward as the moderate candidate against Clarke protege Alex Hawke in Mitchell before the 2007 federal election.
• Peter Tucker at Tasmanian Politics reports that Michael Ferguson, defeated in Bass at the 2007 federal election, will run for the state seat at the March 2010 election.
• Matthew Franklin of The Australian reports that “Kevin Rudd has renewed his backing for four-year, fixed parliamentary terms but refused to criticise Queensland Premier Anna Bligh’s decision to call a state election six months before it was due”.
• Alex Mitchell in Crikey tells us we should “forget the nonsense written in The Australian about an early election being impossible”, because “the advance of Costello has spooked Labor which is now quietly preparing for an early election later this year”. We’ll see.
• There is a Queensland state election campaign in progress.
[Communications should never have been opened up to competition by that dud Beazley.]
But if that never happened we would be paying a fortune for mobile phone services AS WELL as broadband internet services.
Letting Optus, Vodafone, Virgin, 3 etc in is why our mobile phone prices are much better than our broadband internet prices compared to other places in the world.
3 wickets to go! 😀
Markets work, that is why the world economy is stuffed we have let the markets rip and look what they have done. If Obama had not provided funds to IAG, some banks and Car Industry many of us would be eating from the tip, except you GP who would busy living on Caymans enjoying yourself.
[Letting Optus, Vodafone, Virgin, 3 etc in is why our mobile phone prices are much better than our broadband internet prices compared to other places in the world.]
Shows
with respect,Ii think you are confusing Total control with Active participation
ie:the gvt is a player not the only player.
🙂
People are arguing different things.
Gusface is suggesting that the government can own businesses within a market.
Others are saying that a government monopoly in all areas of business is a bad idea.
They aren’t the same thing. There’s a difference between the government owning the Commonwealth Bank and owning all banks.
New thread.