The federal redistribution of New South Wales has been completed, with a final determination that turns up fewer surprises than the recent effort in Queensland. Antony Green has as always given the new boundaries the once-over; all margins quoted herein are as calculated by him.
• The commissioners have responded to widespread criticism of the original proposal to put the electorate name of Reid out of commission, the general feeling being that Australia’s fourth prime minister deserved better. It has been decided that instead of changing the name of its eastern neighbour Lowe to McMahon (which under the redistribution takes in 32 per cent of the voters from abolished Reid), it will instead change to Reid and the new name of McMahon will be given to Prospect, located further to the west.
• To maintain continuity with local government boundaries, the frequently redrawn Calare will recover the western shires of Parkes and Forbes it was to lose to Parkes, and lose the areas of Wellington Shire Council (including Mumbi and Neurea) and Mid-Western Regional Council (Mudgee and Gulgong) it was to gain from it. This is great news for Calare’s National Party member John Cobb, whose margin is now cut from 12.1 per cent to 3.5 per cent rather than the originally proposed 1.2 per cent.
• The vast interior electorate of Farrer, which was originally to remain unchanged, will now absorb a part of the Shire of Central Darling including Wilcannia from Parkes, with no impact on its margin. Parkes in turn will gain the balance of the Shire of Parkes around Lake Cargelligo from its southern neighbour Riverina.
• A transfer of 1100 voters in the north-eastern part of the Shire of Tenterfield from New England to Page has been reversed. This has been counter-balanced by the transfer of the Shire of Lachlan from New England to its western neigbour Parkes. The collective changes to Parkes cut the Nationals margin from 13.8 per cent to 13.6 per cent.
• A transfer from Hume to Throsby south of Sydney has been slightly clipped so the town of Bundanoon remains in Hume. Hume also has its gain from Macarthur further to the north expanded to bring the boundary into alignment with the Nepean River and Sickles Creek, adding Theresa Park, Orangeville and Brownlow Hill in Sydney’s outskirts. None of the margins are affected.
• A transfer around Duckenfield on the west-east boundary between Newcastle and Paterson has been reversed, returning that area to Newcastle, which has further gained the adjacent area of Millers Forest.
• There have been minor adjustments to boundaries betweeen Cunningham and Macarthur, which have been tidied with elimination of a salient that formerly extended into Macarthur at Darkes Forest; Grayndler and what will now be called Reid, the latter of which gains a few blocks of territory to keep Croydon within one electorate; Bennelong and Berowra, where a proposed transfer of 1900 voters in Beecroft from the former to the latter has been reversed; and to the new boundary between Blaxland and Parramatta (in territory previously covered by Reid), adding three blocks of territory to the former at Granville.
• Other adjustments are more incidental still: a transfer of the unpopulated Spring Hill industrial area north of Port Kembla from Throsby to Cunningham has been reversed; Hughes’s boundary with Cook and Cunningham has been altered to follow the Illawarra Railway rather than nearby roads; and the boundary between Mitchell and Parramatta will now follow North Rocks Road rather than nearby Darling Mills Creek.
Other news:
• According to the ABC, the decision to maintain the name Reid increases the likelihood that its nominal member, Laurie Ferguson, will seek to continue his political career through a preselection challenge against John Murphy, the member for what is currently called Lowe. Ferguson is demanding that the matter be determined by a local ballot rather than the state or national executive processes which tend to prevail in contentious circumstances.
• Thwarted in McPherson, Liberal MP Peter Dutton now confirms he will attempt to retain Dickson, which he earlier swore he wouldn’t do.
• Imre Salusinszky of The Australian reports “sources across all factions” agree that Macarthur MP Pat Farmer is certain to lose Liberal preselection at next Thursday’s ballot to former Campbelltown mayor Russell Matheson. It is further said by Salusinszky’s sources that Farmer, who dumped a bucket on his own constituents on election night and has since moved far away from them to the expensive north shore suburb of Mosman, is only running to be eligible for parliamentary superannuation granted to those who serve three terms followed by “involuntary departure”. Soraiya Gharahkhani of the Camden Advertiser reports Labor’s preselection for the seat looms as a four-way contest between Nick Bleasdale (local carpenter and narrowly unsuccessful candidate from 2007), Greg Warren (the deputy mayor of Camden), Michael Freelander (a Campbelltown pediatrician) and Paul Nunnari (a wheelchair athlete). Ben Raue at The Tally Room offers an informed overview of the local political situation. The redistribution has turned the seat from 0.7 per cent Liberal to 0.1 per cent Labor.
• The Courier Mail says the Liberal preselection for new Gold Coast hinterland seat of Wright will be “a five-way affair” involving Cameron Thompson, who lost Blair to Labor’s Shayne Neumann in 2007; Hajnal Ban, Logan City councillor and Nationals candidate for Forde in 2007; and Bob La Castra, Gold Coast councillor and former presenter of the 1980s children’s television show Wombat.
• Andrew Clennell of the Sydney Morning Herald reports the New South Wales Liberal Party is “talking about recruiting everyone from the former ABC broadcaster Sally Loane to the former right-hand man to John Howard, Arthur Sinodinos”. Loane’s services are reportedly sought in Coogee, while Sinodinos might replace the outgoing Peter Debnam in Vaucluse. Conservative Sydney Morning Herald columnist Miranda Devine is apparently not interested.
• Former NRL player Hazem El Masri has also reportedly been approached by the Liberal Party to stand in the ultra-safe Labor seat of Lakemba. However, Andrew Clennell in the Herald relates that “Liberal sources said yesterday they believed Mr El Masri would not agree to stand for Parliament”. Labor is also said to have its sights on El Masri, with earlier conjecture he might succeed Tony Stewart in Bankstown.
• The Progress Leader reports Graham Watt, the owner of a local carpet cleaning business, has been preselected as the Liberal candidate for Jeff Kennett’s old seat of Burwood, currently held by Labor’s Bob Stensholt on a margin of 3.7 per cent. Watt reportedly received 70 votes against 45 for former Hawthorn AFL player Steve Lawrence (who was given a reference by Kennett) and five for David Solly, IT manager and one-time Nationals member.
Too early to right off Obama. All this self congratulations is making me ill. I’ll make up my mind at the end of his first term.
[Too early to right off Obama.]
I agree. What are his major aims? At home, it’s the health care reforms, doing something about climate change, managing the financial crisis and seeing the economy return to growth. Too early to judge on any.
Abroad, it’s re-engage with the world and its institutions (already achieved to a fair extent), reach an agreement on climate change (let’s wait a few weeks, then we’ll have more idea where that’s going), pull out of Iraq without leaving behind complete anarchy (still in the don’t know basket), beat the Taliban in Afghanistan (not looking good but not over yet), defeat terrorism (probably impossible), bring peace in the ME (almost certainly impossible).
If you ignore the last two (which probably require divine powers), he’s still in the hunt on all the key aims.
[What about the ethics of it?]
I think it’s a reasonable response to a pretty impossible situation, not (with the possible exception of Iraqi refugees) at all of Australia’s making.
Diogenes
[Is there something wrong with finding short-comings in someone’s policies? I often think that many posters here aren’t really interested in issues and only staying in or getting in power.]
There’s nothing wrong with identifying what one sees as a shortcoming in a policy. The difficulty here is that it is subjective to the world view or viewpoint of the individual reviewer. ie Different people having different viewpoints on particular issues or policies.
With the Coalition having virtually no policy positions on any issue, they get a leave pass. Labor and the Greens on the other hand, do.
Labor, being the Party in power is of course the one most closely scrutinised. Of course, many commenter’s realise that “no” policy can be enacted by a political party until or unless they are actually in Government.
In Labor’s case, their policy options are limited by the fact that they 1) can only enact them as a party in government, 2) Labor is trying to implement their policy agenda with a hostile Senate and an Opposition which refuses to be cooperative in any policy endevour and actively opposes all and any Labor policy initiatives.
The Labor supporters here realise that, although some of Labor’s policies don’t quite meet their understandable high standards, they are nevertheless far superior to what the Opposition offer. After nearly 12 years of Howard, they do not wish to revisit that era.
Labor’s electoral position is not unassailable and people realise that the Opposition takes full advantage of “any” critical comment coming from the left and they do not wish to see them get “any” advantage which could allow them to scrape back into government and take us back to another improved, version of Howardism which was hated so vehemently and which I hope we never see again.
Well said Dyno.
I know, I know “right” should have been “write”.
dyno
Obama will probably achieve quite a few good things but he’s not going to be the reforming progressive president I was hoping for during the primaries. Hillary made him look better than he was.
I don’t think there’s ever been a sitting, elected, President defeated for renomination at his own party’s convention. Chester A Arthur was an accidental President, having succeeded on Garfield’s assassination. He was defeated for renomination in 1884 by James G Blaine. Taft would have been dumped in 1912 but the party bosses rigged the convention. Harding would probably have been dumped in 1924, but he died first.
dyno, to be serious, I think that’s a fair assessment of Obama’s situation. I acknowledge that he is being measured unfairly against the messianic expectations that surrounded him. In that regard the committee of Norwegian socialists who awarded him the Peace Prize did him a major disservice, by reinforcing the “empty celebrity” meme which he needs to get away from.
Psephos
It was Franklin Pierce. The Democrats replaced him with Buchanan. And he would have been up against the Know Nothing Party. How hard could that have been?
and the fact is Obama only has to beat his GOP rival.
And what do you think the chances of them coming up with a candidate acceptable to the middle?
[And what do you think the chances of them coming up with a candidate acceptable to the middle?]
I don’t know, Grog, it probably depends on how Obama is going two years from now. If he’s going well, the Repubs will probably choose Palin, or someone equally daft. But if he’s going not so well, and the Repubs scent a chance of victory, it’s more likely that good people will put themselves forward and the requisite financial backing will materialise.
[In that regard the committee of Norwegian socialists who awarded him the Peace Prize did him a major disservice]
What they did was extraordinarily foolish and irresponsible, even by the standards of Norwegian socialists. They have managed to:
– embarrass Obama
– make it harder for him to make progress on his goals, when presumably the aim was to make it easier
– degrade the prize itself.
I hope he finds a polite way to tell them off in his acceptance speech.
Diogenes, I stand corrected.
The general view is that Romney will run again if he thinks there is any chance of beating Obama. Otherwise the moderates will sit out 2012 and hope to regain control of the party in time for 2016, when the Dems will have to find a new candidate.
[I hope he finds a polite way to tell them off in his acceptance speech.]
It’s too late now. He should have said “Thanks, but no thank”. But his celebrity side got the better of him.
Dio@99:
[Where were the Arcade Fire, the Decemberists]
Who are they?
And Bob Dylan could well have launched into “Here comes Santa Claus” given his latest album.
👿
[But if he’s going not so well, and the Repubs scent a chance of victory, it’s more likely that good people will put themselves forward and the requisite financial backing will materialise.]
Yes… but the GOP seems pretty split at the moment – and mostly split to the far right.
Palin… oh please let it be so!
[I hope he finds a polite way to tell them off in his acceptance speech.]
My bet – the speech is a ripper that makes it seem like he is accepting the award on behalf of America, and that it is a call to arms (so to speak).
I’m thinking JFK’s American University speech
http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/jfkamericanuniversityaddress.html
The acceptance speech may well coincide with the climax of the Iran nukes dispute, in which either the US or (more likely) the Israelis do a bit of unilateral aerial disarming of Iran. That would make for an entertaining speech.
Yes, The Obamas are suffering the same disease.
[Price of fame could be sky high – What would you do for fame? Would you allow cameras to follow you around? Would you blog about the most intimate moments of your life? Would you recruit your reluctant spouse to face the unforgiving limelight? Would you drag your children along?
In our celebrity-obsessed culture, these questions have long ceased to be rhetorical. They are part of everyday life. Thanks to technology, everybody can plug into Andy Warhol’s 15 minutes of fame, and then some. You no longer need talent, education or social pedigree to achieve the kind of prominence once reserved for those who had actually achieved something.
And yes, I’m referring to the Balloon Boy incident, the most recent reminder that we’ve forgotten the difference between notoriety and accomplishment.]
http://www.miamiherald.com/living/story/1296331.html
I still want to know what a wombat presenter is.
In this case, a phrase lazily cut-and-pasted from the Courier-Mail. I have added some explanatory detail.
don
The Arcade Fire and the Decemberists played for free at some of the big Obama rallies. The Arcade Fire are pretty huge and have supported Obama pretty vocally and did a lot to get out the “youth vote”.
I suspect their liberal politics were the reason they were overlooked. Still, they are hardly Rage Against The Machine.
Thanks William. My next guess was that the Wombats are a local rugball team and that the “presenter” in rugball is the guy who presents himself to be leapt on top of by all the other rugballists.
Gary B
[JV, anyone who wants to totally dismiss the effects an issue has on the polls on a bloody site called “Poll Bludger”, which looks at polls and the issues affecting them, really is missing the point.]
I totally agree. But surely the tension between (a) what parties do to maximise the polls and (b) the moral and intellectual merits of what they do to that end, is an integral part of your description?
j.v., part of politics is recognising that the ideal isn’t always possible.
Years ago, when I was on local council, a lefty type badgered me as to why council wasn’t taking some sort of stand on refugees. I tried to explain that, to do anything, there would need to be a majority of councillors in favour of it (which there wasn’t, not by a long way) and that, anyway, there wasn’t much council could do.
Obviously disbelieving me (or just thinking I was too wimpy to do anything) this person ran for council and won. Within six months he was totally disillusioned. The difference between what he wanted to do and he could do was too great.
So yes, we could and should demand high standards of ethics from our politicians, to keep them striving, but we also need to balance these against the realities of politics.
We all know that there are areas of our own lives where our ethics and principles are not borne out in reality (oh, come on, be honest!) — I had an interesting argument with someone who wandered around with candles during EarthHour but left all their electronic devices on standby, for example —- and need to understand that politics is about people and is only as capable of perfection as they are.
Stephen D @93
[I’ve just returned from shopping in Chatswood (NSW). On the edge of the (outside) mall were a couple of bottom-feeding sc… sorry, Young Liberals, filling and handing out helium balloons to kiddies. They were the usual blue Liberal balloons, with the Liberal logo on one side, and everything the Liberals believe in written on the other. I assume this is all in aid of pre-Bradfield spruiking]
Public campaigning perhaps 7 weeks out from the election…I wonder if this is usual, or are the Liberals going to special efforts to maintain the Bradfield margin?
I reject this view that Rudd’s actions in relation to boat arrivals are motivated solely by politics, and that if it weren’t for the incorrigible racism of the Australian electorate, he would gladly throw open our shores to all comers. Rudd’s actions are certainly being presented in a politically astute way, but behind the politics is a clear policy position, which has several elements:
* Australia is a sovereign state which has the right to control its borders and decide who will and who won’t be admitted to it.
* Australia has an orderly immigration program, including a generous refugee component, and we cannot run our immigration program on a first-come-first-served basis.
* It is inhumane and unethical to allow people to believe that if they pay people-smugglers to pack them into unseaworthy ships and abandon them at Ashmore Reef, that will get them into Australia.
* Many of the people at our borders claiming to be refugees are in fact would-be economic immigrants (although in practice it is usually impossible to tell them apart), and letting them all in deprives other refugees of the possibility of entry.
* Accepting everyone who claims to be a refugee encourages governments like Sri Lanka to believe that they can export their ethnic problems rather than deal with them domestically.
A different slant on Obama, the AFR on Friday had a short article on the war between the White House and Fox. Quoting Obama at a dinner roast attended by inter alia, Murdoch…
[“…some of the rumours getting out there are getting a bit crazy. I mean, Rupert, the other day, Fox News actually accused me of fathering two African-American childrem in wedlock”…The President, for all his cool, has a thinnish skin when it comes to persistent criticisim from one direction]
“Thinnish”???? I dont know where these journalists get off, but my one and only visit to Fox News site was an eyeopener of the most outrageous commentary I have seen. Methinks the thinnish skinned ones are actually the media.
Some parallels here between Rudd and The Australian
Adam:
You hit the nail on the head
zoomster
[So yes, we could and should demand high standards of ethics from our politicians, to keep them striving, but we also need to balance these against the realities of politics.]
That’s exactly what I’m saying is the essence of this debate. And I’m saying that the ethics is being glossed in favour of the politics, at the expense displaced persons’ human rights. The point is, this isn’t an issue suitable for (in Ruddspeak) “getting the balance right” – because that means trading off human rights for political capital.
I would have thought it was common ground – at least until this discussion – that human rights are inviolable.
Fix the Human Rights Commissioner’s 22 points and THEN ‘get the balance right’ on the edges.
[And I’m saying that the ethics is being glossed in favour of the politics, at the expense displaced persons’ human rights.]
There is no human right of being allowed to migrate to Australia. That is a right which Australia grants or declines to grant as it sees fit, as is the case with every other sovereign state. What is in the interests of displaced persons is that the situation which caused them to be displaced is rectified so that they can be un-displaced. That was what was done in Kosovo (with great success), and in Afghanistan (with considerable, though not perfect) success, and it is what ought to be done in Sri Lanka.
Stephen D,
I’m glad I missed that, but I did see Susie Gemmell there handing out 350 delicious cup cakes.
I don’t know what the recipe was but I feel better now just to think The Greens are standing up and speaking out to save our environment.
http://greens.org.au/bradfield
I wish the government would listen to the scientists and act appropriatly.
130
If the whole world was a developed democracy would you support abolition of controls on the movement of people?
[I wish the government would listen to the scientists and act appropriatly.]
I am pretty sure they have, and are, listening to the scientists.
As for the last bit, could you enlighten us as to what action is appropriate and more importantly, what is possible to enact?
[If the whole world was a developed democracy would you support abolition of controls on the movement of people?]
Probably, because then there’d hardly be any. Of course, the whole world becoming a developed democracy implies the disappearance of dictatorship, communism and political Islam, which would solve most of the world’s problems.
psephos
[There is no human right of being allowed to migrate to Australia.]
Er, well, no. That formulation belongs in the pantheon with, “We will decide who comes to this country and the circumstances in which they come.”
That isn’t the issue anyway. It’s about the treatment of one small segment of asylum seekers before a decision is made on whether they can be refugee migrants or not. I’m talking about the 22 points of the Human Rights Commissioner within what she sees as a breach of our obligations. It’s only those arriving by boat, that’s all. And it isn’t about ‘throwing open the borders’ or the numbers overall – that is controlled by government decision separately.
I hoestly can’t believe that people can’t see the discrimination against boat arrivals.
134
The disappearance of dictatorship (including Communist ones) and seriously political religion (of all stripes) would solve a lot of problems. This would require the world to be majority middle class. This would be a big a big economic shift. The world is moving in this direction with the emergence of China and India as on the fast (but still long) track to being developed. One they are developed and have high wage economies, they will start to look to import the products of cheap labour from the remaining developing nations and the shear volume of this will cause major economic development in the cheap labour areas and this would gradually eliminate cheap labour.
The threat to this happening is climate change and resource depletion.
scorpio
[… could you enlighten us as to what action is appropriate and more importantly, what is possible to enact?]
so easy
http://greensmps.org.au/the-safe-climate-bills
marg
[“It’s no use saying we are doing our best, we have to succeed in doing what is necessary.” Winston Churchill]
I like that quote from that page. That’s the sort of thing real leaders say. Our Cabinet members should have to write it on the wall before every meeting, and after every focus group report.
[That formulation belongs in the pantheon with, “We will decide who comes to this country and the circumstances in which they come.”]
Quite so. That was a correct formulation from which Labor did not dissent at the time.
[It’s about the treatment of one small segment of asylum seekers before a decision is made on whether they can be refugee migrants or not.]
What so terrible about they way they are being treated? Are they being left to drown at sea? Are they being fired on to make them go away? No, they are being rescued, taken to safety, fed, clothed and given medical attention, all at the expense of Australian taxpayers. In the assessment process they are given the benefit of every doubt, despite the certainty that some of them are lying about where they come from and why they are here.
[I honestly can’t believe that people can’t see the discrimination against boat arrivals.]
They are being “discriminated against”, in the sense of being treated differently, because they are arriving unlawfully in our territorial waters (Migration Act 1958, s14), in many cases without documentation as to who they are and where they’re from, as part of a criminal people-smuggling operation. This makes them qualitatively different from, say, a lawful arrival by air who overstays their visa.
psephos
[This makes them qualitatively different from, say, a lawful arrival by air who overstays their visa.]
I don’t agree. The overstayer is being dishonest as to their intentions, whereas the displaced boat people just want their asylum seeking requests to be determined and
90% are genuine refugees. But they are being treated in breach of international standards. Did you see what the Commissioner said, or is that irrelevant?
[I don’t think there’s ever been a sitting, elected, President defeated for renomination at his own party’s convention. Chester A Arthur was an accidental President, having succeeded on Garfield’s assassination. He was defeated for renomination in 1884 by James G Blaine. Taft would have been dumped in 1912 but the party bosses rigged the convention. Harding would probably have been dumped in 1924, but he died first.]
[It was Franklin Pierce. The Democrats replaced him with Buchanan. And he would have been up against the Know Nothing Party. How hard could that have been?]
In fact no sitting president was re-endorsed by their party between Martin Van Buren’s failed run for a second term in 1840 and Lincoln’s re-election in 1864.
Accidental presidents (to borrow Psephos term) John Tyler and Millard Fillmore weren’t renominated. James Polk was content with one term (and died soon after). Pierce and Buchanan were both awful presidents and weren’t renominated.
Rutherford Hayes (arguably another accidental president) wasn’t renominated in 1880.
Diogenese, 1856 was a three way race between the Democrats, the Know Nothing Party and the newly minted Republican Party. But you’re correct to imply it was easy for the former because the old Whig vote split between the latter two.
An overstayer has previously passed sufficient health and security checks to allow them entry into Australia. Surely a boat person should also meet such requirements before being allowed access into Australia. In the meantime, detention conditions should be humane and reasonable.
marg,
[so easy]
Great answer. Now I understand fully. All Labor has to do is turn your policy into legislative form, have it passed in the House of Reps and then have it rejected in the Senate and then, and then, and then?????
What?????? Let it get presented after 3 Months, have it rejected again, go to a DD election over it and get smashed electorally, allowing the Coalition to waltz back into office and then, and then??? Lose forever an opportunity to introduce an ETS that can be gradually ramped up and modified as circumstances and public opinion allow.
Yeah, so easy, indeed!!!
[Did you see what the Commissioner said, or is that irrelevant?]
I saw the Age report. She said we were violating the 1951 refugee convention, which is factually false, as I’ve said many times. There is nothing in the convention about the admission of people claiming to be refugees. If we are in violation of the convention, which is part of Australian domestic law, let someone litigate the point. In any case the HRC’s job is the protection of the human rights of Australian citizens, not offering commentary on our immigration policies.
Scorpio,
That Churchill quote is so ironical when applied to the Greens.
They have never succeeded in achieving anything of note let alone what is necessary.
There are many problems with the Green suggestions about tackling climate change
(see eg http://greensmps.org.au/the-safe-climate-bills)
but their claim that they are following what “Science” says we should do is a simplistic bit of spin like that from any other political party.
For example, very prominent in that document is the implication that Science says that Australia should reduce its GHG pollution by 40% by 2020.
I can’t say I have seen any Scientific document that says that.
Sure 40% is probably very marginally better than 25% but Science would say that such reductions for Australia will make very little difference to the world.
146
The Greens have achieved more election victories than the Democrats in The HoR, LCNSW, LCV, LCWA, LAWA, HAT and overall. The have also achieved amendments to legislation.
Marg@144:
[go to a DD election over it and get smashed electorally, allowing the Coalition to waltz back into office]
You can’t be serious. Do you know what the polls are saying? Visit Possum’s site and find out, or just look at the various poll figures on the front page of william’s (this) site.
Come off the grass.
There is a summary of the Human Rights commissioner’s report here:
http://www.hreoc.gov.au/about/media/media_releases/2009/100_09.html
I think Australia has a pretty poor record in helping the world’s refugees but that report doesn’t seem to be adding anything. What was the fuss about?