The latest Morgan face-to-face survey (the accompanying spiel says telephone, but I believe this is a mistake) was conducted over the previous two weekends, and it shows no change worth mentioning on two-party preferred, with Labor’s lead down from 58-42 to 57.5-42.5. Both major parties have gained on the primary vote, Labor up 1.5 per cent to 48 per cent and the Coalition up 2.5 per cent to 37.5 per cent. These gains are at the expense of the Greens, down from 11.5 per cent to 8 per cent. Other news:
• The numbers in Western Australia’s finely balanced Legislative Assembly have changed for the second time in as many months following North West MP Vince Catania’s shock defection from Labor to the Nationals. Labor now has 26 seats out of 59 after the double blow of the Catania defection and the Fremantle by-election, while the Nationals are up from four to five – the same as they had in the last parliament, before one-vote one-value was introduced (at which time they had one member in the upper house, compared with their current five). The Liberals remain on 24, with the Greens on one and three independents. The influence of the latter has accordingly diminished, as the governing parties are now only one short of a majority in their own right. Catania’s defection has inevitably been interpreted as a blow for Labor leader Eric Ripper and another triumph for all-conquering Nationals leader Brendon Grylls. Against the latter interpretation must be weighed the fact that the Nationals have chosen to associate themselves with a man responsible for one of the most grotesque acts of disloyalty in Australia’s recent political history.
• The big loser from the proposed Queensland federal electoral boundaries published yesterday is up-and-coming Liberal MP Peter Dutton, whose electorate of Dickson is set to exchange urban hinterland areas for a Labor-voting chunk of suburbia around Kallangur. Antony Green, who writes at length on the curse of Dickson, calculates that Dutton’s existing margin of 0.1 per cent has turned into a notional Labor margin of 1.3 per cent. Peter Lindsay’s Townsville-based seat of Herbert has also crossed the divide, from 0.2 per cent Liberal to 0.4 per cent Labor. The Courier-Mail reports that one early hopeful for the new Gold Coast hinterland seat slated to be called Wright (although AAP reports the name might suffer the same fate as it did the last time it was suggested) is Logan councillor Hajnal Ban, who attracted a fair bit of attention as the Nationals candidate for Forde in 2007 and now hopes to get the nod from the Liberal National Party. Ban was more recently in the news when it emerged she had undergone an alarming sounding surgical procedure to increase the length of her legs.
• Former Peter Costello staffer Kelly O’Dwyer now looks all but certain to replace her old boss as Liberal candidate for Higgins after the withdrawal of her main rival, Tim Wilson. Rick Wallace of The Australian reports that Wilson “is believed to have pulled out to maintain his focus on advocacy in free trade and climate change through the IPA”. Nominations close next week.
• Phillip Coorey of the Sydney Morning Herald reports Philip Ruddock is “almost certain to be challenged for preselection for his safe seat of Berowra”. His likely challenger is former Young Liberals president Noel McCoy, with the local numbers believed to be evenly poised. Another source quoted by Coorey says McCoy might challenge Bill Heffernan’s Senate position if unsuccessful in Berowra. The Herald’s Mark Davis reports Heffernan’s position is in jeopardy in any case as he has earned the displeasure of the leadership of the “religious right”.
• Phillip Coorey further provides a list of possible candidates to replace Brendan Nelson in Bradfield in addition to the oft-mentioned Arthur Sinodinos and Tom Switzer: Julian Leeser, Paul Fletcher and David Coleman.
• The West Australian reports that Tangney MP Dennis Jensen’s pleas to today’s Liberal Party state council meeting for his preselection defeat by Glenn Piggott to be overturned “will fall on deaf ears”, and that he is likely to run as an independent. UPDATE: The West Australian reports that the state council has in fact decided to hear submissions from each of the three candidates (which interestingly keeps Libby Lyons in the loop) over the coming weeks before reaching a final decision.
• Michael Owen of The Australian reports that Mia Handshin, Labor’s narrowly unsuccessful candidate for the Adelaide seat of Sturt at the 2007 federal election, is a shoo-in to contest the seat again if she wishes to do so, having locked in the support of Senator and Right faction powerbroker Don Farrell. Handshin says she is “still very carefully considering”. The front-runner for Labor preselection in Boothby is Annabel Digance, a former nurse and member of the SA Water Board.
• Labor’s member for Ivanhoe in Victoria, Craig Langdon, has been defeated for preselection by Anthony Carbines, Banyule councillor, chief-of-staff to Education Minister Bronwyn Pike and step-son of upper house MP Elaine Carbines. Langdon apparently finished one vote behind his Labor Unity colleague after the votes of the party’s Public Office Selection Committee were added to those from local branches, the latter of which I’m told favoured Langdon 71 votes to 46.
• Following the blunt dismissal of a rape charge against him in Melbourne Magistrates Court, it remains unclear if Victorian Labor MP Theo Theophanous will seek to retain preselection for his upper house region of Northern Metropolitan. Not surprisingly, The Age reports that “senior party figures – including supporters of Mr Theophanous – hope he decides to quit politics and give Mr Brumby ‘clear air’ in the lead-up to next year’s election”. Nonetheless, Theophanous has re-nominated for his position. Rick Wallace of The Australian reports that the fight to replace Theophanous is between “forces aligned with federal Communications Minister Stephen Conroy, who want Treasury official Vasko Nastevski, and those aligned with federal parliamentary secretary Bill Shorten, who want plumbers’ union official Nathan Murphy”.
• Wallace further reports that John Brumby is moving to protect Eastern Metropolitan MLC Shaun Leane from Electrical Trades Union assistant secretary Howard Worthing. Worthing’s challenge is said to be supported by ETU secretary Dean Mighell, who was expelled from the ALP after emerging as a political liability in the lead-up to the 2007 federal election, along with a “small pocket of the Right”.
• Imre Salusinszky of The Australian reports that federal Liberal Hume MP Alby Schultz has “lost the battle to convince his party to field a candidate in the southeast NSW state seat of Monaro”. This follows an agreement to avoid three-cornered contests which the Liberals’ state executive signed off on last Friday, which also gives the Nationals free rein in the independent-held seats of Tamworth and Dubbo and Labor-held Bathurst. For their part, the Liberals will contest Water Minister Phil Costa’s marginal outer Sydney seat of Wollondilly and get the ninth position on the upper house ticket, which looks highly winnable on current form. The decision by the party’s state council to refer the matter to the executive was behind Schultz’s party-room altercation with Aston MP Chris Pearce.
UPDATE: CityBlue in comments notes that Jane Garrett has won the Labor preselection in Brunswick, as expected, and that Christine Campbell fended off a challenge from Joe Italiano in Pascoe Vale.
With many past referenda falling victim to the dismissive eye of the electorate, Rudd’s personal popularity might well provide the Commonwealth with opportunity enough to avoid such positioning on healthcare reform.
My reason for suggesting this relies upon ALP state-branch strategy, resident in Victoria, South Australia, Tasmania (and possibly New South Wales), to use the unfailing popularity of the Rudd Labor government to bolster support for state election campaigns run by the respective Labor vehicles in all relevant states. To advance under the cover of Rudd in 2010 will prove difficult if federal-state relations are soured over Health. And the states understand exactly who would come off second best in any contest between themselves and the Commonwealth.
I’m not suggesting that Rann, Brumby or Bartlett would submit willingly to the abandonment of states’ rights – but with Rudd set to romp easily into a second term of office, in may just be easier to let this one go without a real struggle.
[If the States oppose them, then the government will take them to a referendum at the next election to get a mandate to force the states to accept them.]
I gather that if it is popular among the public Labor thinks it will also help their vote (especially if the Liberals take the opposing position. Another wedge?) If it looks like being a negative factor I wonder if the referendum will be bought forward or delayed.
I suspect it will be popular with the public since there seems to be significant beefs about health care in all States.
What the hell is Turnbull doing? Opposing it right off the bat? The Libs will be facing oblivion at the next election if they weren’t already…
Socrates – has nothing changed. Happened to me in 1973 at that Hospital. Was very painful as I recall and I hated the draining part.
Liberal Talking Points in Comments on Our ABC re lowering the Voting Age.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/07/27/2637245.htm?section=justin
Dio @444
Love it, that’s PB allright 😀
BH
Sorry to hear that. In this modern age of hospitals filled with drug-resistant strains of golden staph the consequences for this person have been quite a bit worse 🙁
Socrates – I was one of the lucky ones. I feel for your friend. Have one up here who is suffering effects of golden staph 6 years later. It seems to be well entrenched.
I think there is quite a good point to 17 yr olds having a choice to vote or not. It will help make them more aware even if they choose to wait til they are over 18. Can’t hurt. They can drive at 17 and have to be responsible for that so thinking about their vote could be OK.
From Franks article at 455
[Federal Opposition Leader Malcolm Turnbull says he is not in favour of a new push to lower the voting age.]
Malcolm says NO (agaaaainn!)
Well another surprise, who’d have thunk? 🙂
I take it that lowering the voting age from 18 to 16 would lower the provisional enrolment age from 17 to 15. Why have the voting voluntary for 16 and 17 year olds? Presumably this would cause the enrolments to rise more in some areas than others and thus effect redistributions. Presumably most states and territories would follow.
Can anyone tell me how I change the time of my internet connection on dialup please.
Son is in Indonesia at the moment so can’t ask him. Tired sick of the connection dropping out and redialling while I am doing other stuff besides reading PB.
[Can anyone tell me how I change the time of my internet connection on dialup please.]
It’s not possible. The modem you connect to has been set to hang up after a certain time.
[I’m not suggesting that Rann, Brumby or Bartlett would submit willingly to the abandonment of states’ rights – but with Rudd set to romp easily into a second term of office, in may just be easier to let this one go without a real struggle.]
I would prefer a system where the federal government gets to reform things the way it wants rather than a system completely watered down so that all the state and territory governments agree to it.
I agree with Tony Abbott that on health the federal government is currently in a hopeless situation, it controls the money, but not the administration. He gets blamed for problems, but can’t directly fix things.
[It’s not possible. The modem you connect to has been set to hang up after a certain time.]
That doesn’t sound right. BH, which ISP are you with?
[That doesn’t sound right. BH, which ISP are you with?]
Lots of dial up ISPs have connection time limits of a few hours.
Or it could just be a bad line or bad modem causing connection drop outs.
local one in NSW Dario – I jut had a feeling that when son set up this thing he asked me how long I wanted to be on the web and then set an hourly thing. Modem is inside computer.
Doesn’t matter really except that sometimes I am doing heaps of typing for something else so I am at computer for ages. Read web in between the typing.
Only thing with the redialling is that I get charged for an extra telephone call.
BH,
Control Panel
Internet Options
Connections
Settings
Advanced
untick auto disconnect
PAAPTSEF – thanks. Will give it a go.
[Everything to do with University’s at the moment is completely stuffed.
Funding, governance, staff-student ratios and student services.]
The situation is so critical, I wonder at Julia’s decision to tackle education reform from prep upwards. It will be so long before anything gets done at university level.
And we get a generational split – those coming into prep now getting to go through a completely new system (providing she can keep up the reform rate), and students already in the system condemned to the old completely stuffed system. If she had started at the top and reformed the university sector, everyone would get to move into the shining new improved system at some point in their education.
Not too mention the importance of the tertiary sector as an export earner – we all know how that’s going at the moment.
Psephos’s advice for the day: never underestimate Bangkok traffic. I missed check-in time for my flight to Siem Reap by ten minutes, and am now stuck at Supanapoum for four hours. Still they have free food and free wifi in the lounge so it could be worse. I expect y’all to keep me entertained.
SO:
[Or it could just be a bad line or bad modem causing connection drop outs.]
Yes. Cost me a fortune until I got ISDN, which has free dialups, the line to the local exchange was dodgy.
I am now on broadband, and it is no longer an issue. (though of course Oz broadband is world narrowband)
Psephos, is this your first time to Siem Reap?
No, I was there briefly five years ago. This time I’m doing it properly having done the reading first.
Psephos – I always book my last night at the airport hotel.
Great! I really liked both the town (at least the central part in the vicinity of the market) as well as the sights around the place. How far afield are you planning to go?
Siem Reap itself holds no great interest. It’s only redeeming feature is that it’s not as miserably poor as the rest of Cambodia – I found Phnom Penh quite upsetting, though I gather things have improved since then.
Last time I only went to Angkor and the area immediately around it. This time I want to go to Bantei Srei and Beng Mealea, which is about 70km away.
[Psephos’s advice for the day: never underestimate Bangkok traffic. I missed check-in time for my flight to Siem Reap by ten minutes, and am now stuck at Supanapoum for four hours. Still they have free food and free wifi in the lounge so it could be worse. I expect y’all to keep me entertained.]
But is it as bad as LA International Airport ?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Aj8f30Iguw0
Yes, it’s possible that my memory of Siem Reap is favourably coloured having gone there immediately after Phnom Penh.
If you can manage Kbal Spean, that is also quite nice though less imposing.
Erm, forgive the unsolicited advice…
I’ve never tried to get to LAX by taxi from downtown LA. The problem in Bkk is not the airport, which is magnificent, or the new expressway to it; it’s getting from your hotel to the start of the expressway through the tangle of central Bkk.
All advice welcome. My book says that Kbal Spean involves a 2km uphill walk, which at this time of year might not be a good idea for the middle-aged traveller!
Keep googling, Don @ 410 I told you the link was simplistic. Find out how volcanic activity + vegetation + mud/sediment + lava flows go together. Surely you’ve been through museums (or books/ on-line etc) with pictures of perfectly carbonised ferns & other vegetation etc and wondered why, since swamps naturally rot all vegetation into peat these survived. Why are some carbonised intact? Swamps do not create coal all by themselves, they need help.
Like the “Carbon Cycle” (of which quite a few Greens profess ignorance, and about which others are abusively rude) Carbon metamorphic processes, used to be taught in schools – in fact, in primary school in the 1940s-50s when I attended & in high school. I checked with son (attended y1-12 late 70s-80s) and he could recite them. Either schools really have gone to the dogs in the last decade, or some people weren’t paying much attention in class.
Schools also taught (& still teach) that one should examine all sides of an issue thoroughly before taking a stance – a basic principle of debating (since, as well as one’s own position, one has to know what the opposition will argue whilst preparing one’s rebuttal). And if you didn’t study this sort of thing at school, you weren’t being taught the curriculum fully; because it’s intrinsic.
Well that’s true… but you can take it at a reasonably sedate pace if you’ve got your own driver/tuktuk. I went the tuktuk option, which meant stopping at a stall on the way to buy a face mask (mine featured a picture of Barbie and words ‘Youth Nation’- the roads were unpaved and dust was an issue.
ShowsOn
No luck to be had at all on that front. Our constitution dictates a specific allocation of powers to the Commonwealth, leaving the remainder of which under control of the states. Only way to transfer power is for state governments to do so voluntarily – or else, by way of referendum.
And in terms of being able to “fix things,” r u (468) sure you meant former Health Minister Tony Abbott?
Good advice thanx. Half of Bkk is in facemasks anyway because of the flu.
Will a tuktuk go that far out, or would a car be better?
OzPol Tragic: There is no such thing as a carbon cycle. We have “carbon leaching”: a global conspiracy by by the greenies (the sun sucking ones) to take as much of the free carbon in the atmosphere as they can. If left unchecked, this plan would see O2 levels rise to such an extent that the whole world would spontaneously erupt in flame.
It is only through the tireless and unselfish work of big oil and big coal that this nefarious plan has been checked, and at last: reversed!
A tuktuk will go that far, but a car would undoubtedly be better if the roads are in the same condition, though part of the reason for the dustiness was road works that were underway (this was 18 months ago). I’m not sure if that was because asphalt was being laid, or just the normal gradation work that has to be done periodically for unsurfaced roads. If still unsurfaced, the corrugations were an additional factor supporting a car if possible.
It was OK for Howard to raise the Medicare Levy for the Gun buyback and for Timor, but it not OK to raise it for teeth.
Geez Malcolm you really are a dill. 🙁
Yes I remember those corrugations. Last time I came from Bkk by bus, and the road from Poipet to Siem Reap in a minibus nearly killed me. The story is that the airlines bribe the government not to fix the road so people will choose to fly. If so it is money well spent on their part.
Re various comments on Administrators in Health and Education… I can only sympathise, having suffered the surfeit of Arts Administrators over the years. Ten years ago I found out that several arts organisations here in WA had state and/or federal funding to employ administrators but *zero* performers! So I wrote a play “Admin Is Traitor” which was well-received by many local artists. But guess what? It received *zero* funding from those it satirised. Why are we *doers* so beholden to imported management models?
[Only way to transfer power is for state governments to do so voluntarily – or else, by way of referendum.]
That’s what Rudd is proposing to do.
[And in terms of being able to “fix things,” r u (468) sure you meant former Health Minister Tony Abbott?]
I think Abbott is right, the federal government is in a lose-lose position on health. The only way it can get outcomes is by asking the states to do things in exchange for bribes. Why can’t we just get rid of the bribes and get things done?
[So I wrote a play “Admin Is Traitor” which was well-received by many local artists. But guess what? It received *zero* funding from those it satirised. Why are we *doers* so beholden to imported management models?]
If local artists liked the play, then you should’ve got together and put it together yourselves. Doers do things.
OzPol Tragic
I think your theory of volcanic activity and coal may have some merit, but not for the reason you think.
Coal requires: lots of organic matter, rapid desposition, a cover material. You need to cover the organic matter so that it doesn’t oxidise. It’s actually not that hard for coal to form baturally – that’s why we have so much of it. Most coal is unassociated with volcanic rocks. However volcanic rocks would help as they would provide the cover material to prevent oxidation, or they could provide additional sulfur that could oxidise instead. Other common materials that prevent oxidation are water, sand, carbonates, mud. Most coal measures are found between shales, limestones, or sandstones, and typically formed in saturated environments.
The fossil thing is unusual, but also quite rare. It is possible that your volcanic answer explains the fossils, but there is no reason that burial in anaerobic conditions wouldn’t create the same result.
Surely it would be a dream come true for State Govts, if they gave control of health to the Federal Govt?
Essential Research: 57-43, up from 56-44. Also featured: better party for handling issues, which finds the Liberals have gone backwards since June 1; government’s handling of relations with various countries; how safe you would feel visiting various countries; what is Australia’s top security threat.
Fossilised forest found in a coal mine:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18279510/
[what is Australia’s top security threat]
Andrew Flintoff.
ShowsOn
How cool is that!
great headlines: “150 dogs found dead in freezers in Michigan home”
[How cool is that!]
Anything that reminds us that humans have only been here for a fraction of a second (metaphorically speaking) is useful.
If that doesn’t do it, try the Pale Blue Dot:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2pfwY2TNehw
Peter Dutton is a genius.
“The Prime Minister knew what was wrong with hospitals at the last election and that’s why he promised to fix them, and if they weren’t fixed that he’d take them over..”
If St Kev knew what was wrong with the health system – surely the Rabble are admitting they left hospitals in a mess.