No Morgan poll this week. Here’s some of the other mail:
• The Launceston Examiner reports that Brigadier Andrew Nikolic, veteran of numerous overseas postings and until recently the Australian Defence Force’s director-general of public affairs, has “confirmed that he is interested” in Liberal preselection for the federal seat of Bass. Also said to have his eye on the preselection is Senator Guy Barnett, who will otherwise have to settle for the slighly less appealing prospect of number three on the Liberal ticket.
• Michelle Grattan reports on a “glowing reference” for Kooyong preselection aspirant Josh Frydenberg from John Howard. Another of Frydenberg’s backers is Andrew Peacock. His principal rival, industrial relations lawyer John Pesutto, is supported by Institute of Public Affairs executive director John Roskam, who was himself sniffing the breeze before deciding not to proceed. Former Liberal president and Fraser government minister Tony Staley has given his seal of approval to Peter Jonson, a 62-year-old former Reserve Bank official known to the web at large as Henry Thornton.
• The Townsville Bulletin reports there are rumours that prodigious McDonald’s franchiser George Colbran again hopes to run for Labor in Herbert, where he narrowly failed to unseat Peter Lindsay in 2007. Colbran reportedly says he “won’t commit either way”.
• David Rood of The Age reports that John Brumby has “cleared the way” for Keilor MP George Seitz to be dumped at the next election, amid the fallout from the Ombudsman’s recent report into Brimbank City Council. The party’s administrative committee will decide this evening whether to take preselections for western suburbs seats out of the hands of local branches, in which Seitz and others remain powerful. Also affected will be Kororoit MP Marlene Kairouz, whose preselection ahead of last year’s by-election formed the backdrop of much of the shenanigans investigated by the Ombudsman, and Derrimut MP Telmo Languiller. Labor sources quoted in the article wonder why both Languiller and Western Metropolitan MLC Theo Theophanous aren’t equally being targeted along with Seitz, so it evidently should not be taken for granted that either Languiller or Kairouz are endangered.
• Taking his cue from Manmohan Singh’s assumption of the Indian prime ministership from the upper house, Malcolm Mackerras argues for an end to the convention that Australia’s party leaders must sit in the lower house, which he relates to the anachronistic presumption that it is the more democratic chamber.
• Final score from the Fremantle by-election: Carles 10,664, Tagliaferri 9,100. Margin: 3.96 per cent. I expected Labor would rein it in a little on late counting, but no.
• With the whiff of a dying government in the air, talk of electoral reform is very much in vogue in London this season, just as was when the scandal-ridden Major government was breathing its last. Conservative leader David Cameron opposes proportional representation but promises to “look seriously” at fixed terms. Health Secretary Alan Johnson – “still the favourite to lead Labour if Gordon Brown is removed from the top job“ – has suggested the government at last look seriously at the “Alternative Vote Plus” model which has been floating around since the 1998 report of the Jenkins commission, which was set up when Tony Blair came to power. It proposes a slightly watered down version of German/NZ style MMP, combining constituency members with party list members to produce a proportional result. Unlike Germany and NZ however, there would be a cap on the number of party list members which might make results less than fully proportional. The “Alternative Vote” part of the title refers to Australian-style preferential voting for the constituency seats, which the Jenkins commission appeared to be taken with as it had just helped defeat Pauline Hanson. From the Jenkins commission report, a “note of reservation by Lord Alexander”:
My colleagues also think that AV will contribute to a less confrontational style of politics because candidates will be inhibited from attacking rivals too strongly as they wish to gain their second votes. I do not see it as particularly desirable that candidates from different parties, who are different precisely because they do not agree on all issues, should be pulling their punches in order to seek approval from voters who support other parties. In any event, from my observation of Australia, which is the only single large country to use AV, their politicians tend to be, if anything, more blunt and outspoken than our own.
From the previous thread:
Frank:
[Do you have shares in Tamiflu and Surgical Masks ? ]
Do you specialise in ad hominem, Frank, or is this just a one off?
[Do you specialise in ad hominem, Frank, or is this just a one off?]
No, I note yor super seriousness as a sign that you may have some sort of vested interest when attacking those who are quite rightly suggesting that there is a degree of over-reacting to the Swine Flu, as compared to regular influenza.
[Former Liberal president and Fraser government minister Tony Staley has given his seal of approval to Peter Jonson, a 62-year-old former Reserve Bank official.]
WHAT? A senior Liberal insider thinks it is in his party’s interests to pre-select a 62 year old?
Another name for the cytokine storm is systemic inflammatory response syndrome (SIRS). It’s often triggered by a second hit, ie someone who is already sick (from a burn etc) and has a “primed” immune system gets a complication (like a chest infection) and the immune system goes nuts killing everything in it’s path. The question about anti-inflammatories is a really good one, dyno. None of them have been shown to work except one whose name I forget which helps a little (45% mortality cf 50% if you get SIRS). It costs about $10,000 for a course.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SIRS
The GFC is not an infectious disease.
The fact is that the horse flu outbreak killed no horses, and it too was a massive media beat-up. Of course we don’t want horses getting flu, but shutting down the whole horse industry for months was a massive over-reaction. We are seeing the same thing now. I gather about 2,000 people die of complications of flu every year in Australia – mostly frail elderly. So far this virus hasn’t even made anyone seriously will. There’s no evidence so far that H1N1 is any more dangerous than the flu we get every winter.
I’ll leave the Urban Dictionary the last word on the “virii” issue. It agrees with Adam, of course.
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=virii
Frank I’m sure the teachers arent complaining either 🙂
[seriously will.]
= seriously ill. A typo, not a pun, William.
On the Mackerras article…
I thought the PM was theoretically elected by the HOR. Could the HOR simply just choose to elect someone in the senate? Are there any procedural impediments to a senator being PM (other than the convention that Mackerras notes)?
Showson @ 3
Are you suggesting that a 62 year old should not be in Parliament?
Doesn’t Kev want us to work til 67 now?
Not as a first term MP Winston…No!
[Doesn’t Kev want us to work til 67 now?]
No, one can retire at any age – they just cannot claim the Pension until they are 67. 🙂
Psephos
The problem with horse flu was not it’s mortality rate (1-2%) but it’s morbidity. Affected horses are sick for 2-3 months and cannot race. Given that Oz and NZ had never had it, there was no herd immunity so it would have spread like wildfire (it’s much more contagious than swine flu). Almost every horse would have been out for ages.
The HUGE problem for the racing industry is that it is reliant on gambling. No-one would bet on horse races where you were really betting on which horse was healthier rather than faster.
The PM is not elected by anyone. He or she is commissioned by the Governor-General, on the assurance that he or she commands a majority in the House of Representatives.
There are no procedual impediments to a Senator being PM, just ones of convention.
[The problem with horse flu was not it’s mortality rate (1-2%) but it’s morbidity.]
TWO errant apostrophes in the one sentence! Dr Dio gets the prize for tonight, narrowly topping “virii.”
I take your point about the poor sick horsies, Dio.
[Are you suggesting that a 62 year old should not be in Parliament?]
No. I just can’t see how it would help the Liberals show that they are different to the party that was voted out in 2007.
The Liberals shouldn’t pre-select anyone new over the age of 45.
[There are no procedual impediments to a Senator being PM, just ones of convention.]
Well in thinking about it further, if a Senator was to become PM their party would have to already be in government. I imagine it would be incredibly difficult to set an agenda from the senate….
Dio,
Thanks for your response on SIRS. Sounds nasty. Interesting too that this is the reason why some of the really nasty flus are actually worse for the young and healthy than they are for the old and frail.
ShowsOn agree with you 100%…
Interesting article from the NYT – Krugman saying inflation risk is not such a big deal right now:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/29/opinion/29krugman.html?_r=2
I don’t know what to think.
dyno
Elderly people have “weaker” immune systems and are much less likely to get SIRS. My experience with the indigenous population has been terrible if they get SIRS. Almost none survive. It’s meant to have something to do with lots of indigenous people having a degree of chronic inflammation from their chronic infections making them very prone to it.
[I imagine it would be incredibly difficult to set an agenda from the senate]
Suppose the Libs were to elect Nick Minchin as Leader and he were to win the 2010 election. He would sit in the Senate, he would answer questions from Opposition Senate frontbenchers. Whoever was the senior minister in the Reps would answer questions there, just as the senior minister in the Senate does now, on behalf of the government. I can’t see any practical difficulties at all. It’s just a convention, inherited from the UK where the lower house is elected and the upper house is not, that the PM must be in the lower house. The authors of the Constitution clearly intended the Reps to be the house of government, because they prescribed that the Senate cannot initiate or amend money bills.
That’s pretty extraordinary Showson. Nobody over 45 should be preselected?
Because ……. ?
Doesn’t that limit their job prospects?
Any other professions you’d like to put an age limit on?
Please don’t be sarcastic about the effects of equine influenza on the horse industry.
It was a shattering event.
Horses did die, and most of those who did were quality livestock.
Horses which came down with the flu and survived have in most cases seen an effective end to their ‘careers’. It’s shattering to spend years training and conditioning a horse for a particular event and then find it’s all for nothing.
As a horsebreeder, I can attest it was a knock out blow for many in the industry, especially combined with drought.
I checked several online sources before making that comment, and I saw no references to deaths from equine flu, nor do I recall any references to deaths at the time. Do you have a source on this question?
[That’s pretty extraordinary Showson. Nobody over 45 should be preselected?
Because ……. ?]
Because the Liberals need younger people with new ideas.
[Any other professions you’d like to put an age limit on?]
Justices of the High Court
[Any other professions you’d like to put an age limit on?]
Children’s Television Performers 🙂
Showson @ 26
Barack Obama is 47.
Rosanna Capolingua the next Lib PM? 😉
[Rosanna Capolingua the next Lib PM? ]
She’s 58 and divorced 🙂 Doesn’t fit the prototype of a Typical Liberal Famly person.
Barack isn’t lining up to 10 years in the political wilderness…
[Barack Obama is 47.]
Great, he is in Government. If the Liberals are dumb enough to pre-select this 62 year old, he could be in his 70s before they are back in government.
Frank, thank Heavens fo that then 🙂
[Barack isn’t lining up to 10 years in the political wilderness…]
Precisely.
If Labor lost the 2007 election, a heap of them would’ve moved on. I doubt Tanner and Swan would’ve hung around for example.
How many search engines do you need before you can find anything,
Then answer my friend, it’s binging in the wind,
the answer is binging in the wind.
[“Why don’t you Bing it?” – A year from now, if you hear someone say that — and actually understand what it means — Bill Gates will be a happy billionaire.
That is because it will be a sign that Microsoft is finally making progress in its quest to challenge Google in the Internet search business.
Bing, the name Microsoft gave to the new search service it unveiled Thursday, is its answer to Google — a noun that once meant little but has become part of the language as a verb that is a synonym for executing a Web search. After months of, uh, searching, Microsoft settled on Bing to replace the all-too-forgettable Live Search, which itself replaced MSN Search. ]
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/29/technology/internet/29bing.html?em
But then again, it’s a case of another El Stuffo from Microsoft:
[Meanwhile, some tech people were already noting that Bing is also an unfortunate acronym: “But It’s Not Google.”]
As I noted earlier, next year the Coalition will have 21 MHRs and Senators over 65, all of them backbenchers and likely to remain so, while Labor will have two, one a minister and one the Chief Whip. Apart from the fact that they are keeping younger and more talented people out, figures like Tuckey, Heffernan, Bishop and Boswell create a public image for the Coalition as being a bunch of angry, bitter, ignorant, reactionary, silly old men and women which is extremely harmful.
The Republicans have a similar problem. Their party membership is starting to match their major support base – old white men.
[a Typical Liberal Famly person.]
There’s a vision I could do without.
Psephos, A vet in Brisbane died of horse flu, earlier this year.
re the mini series True Believers. I asked ABC Commercial if they had any copies for sales. This was the response:
[Thank you for your enquiry regarding the above program which was broadcast on the ABC. Due to copyright restrictions this program is unavailable for sale as it was produced on a broadcast only basis; thus restricting ABC Commercial from selling the material. ]
The producers are Roadshow Coote & Carroll – who also did Brides of Christ, which is avaliable on DVD.
As the father of a 2 year old girl who has had a history of respitory illness, I certainly take the threat of Swine Flu seriously. Perhaps no more seriously than the “normal” flu, or bronchiolitis etc, but I’ll be very happy to get through this winter without it coming near my household.
[Thank you for your enquiry regarding the above program which was broadcast on the ABC. Due to copyright restrictions this program is unavailable for sale as it was produced on a broadcast only basis; thus restricting ABC Commercial from selling the material.]
If I am not mistaken, you MAY find a copy at your local University Library as I believe that a few years back it was available for sale to approved Educational Institutions, or more likely, that said insitutions may under the fair use provisions of the Copyright Act, may have recorded it off air.
Well if you live in Victoria Grog good luck…
We’ve got 100+ out of 200 down here.
Nope – ACT. We got 3.
[As the father of a 2 year old girl who has had a history of respitory illness, I certainly take the threat of Swine Flu seriously.]
Is your daughter entitled to a free flu vaccination because of her history?
[re the mini series True Believers. I asked ABC Commercial if they had any copies for sales. This was the response:]
I want the ABC to reissue Labor in Power on DVD. They put The Howard Years out immediately, but I believe Labor in Power has only ever been released on VHS.
Re my 42, I wonder if William is aware of the UWA Politics Dept having a copy ?
Well that’s a good bit of luck you should be a ok 🙂
Are either Rudd or Turnbull going to get on with their jobs next week instead of using stupid props next week we do have a lot to keep us busy with let’s hope they get their act together.
I haven’t seen any media references to how many people in Australia are actually *sick* with swine flu, as opposed to testing postive for H1N1. Does anyone have any knowledge about this? Is anyone seriously ill with this flu?
[I want the ABC to reissue Labor in Power on DVD. They put The Howard Years out immediately, but I believe Labor in Power has only ever been released on VHS.]
If the ABC won’t reissue this on DVD, then we can rightly claim that the ABC is genuinely biased towards the Right 🙂