Tony Abbott has emerged victorious from this morning’s Liberal leadership showdown after defeating Malcolm Turnbull 42 votes to 41, with Joe Hockey unexpectedly knocked out in the first round. The result joins 1971’s tied no-confidence motion against John Gorton and Mark Latham’s 47-45 win over Kim Beazley in 2003 in the pantheon of leadership ballot cliffhangers. Whether this episode is likely to end more happily than the other two, I leave to others to judge (UPDATE: Tim Blair identifies a more auspicious example). Two factors of immediate electoral significance: a secret ballot held immediately after the leadership vote decisively determined that the Coalition would oppose the emissions trading scheme, confirming the government will receive its double dissolution trigger; and Malcolm Turnbull has announced he will not resign from parliament, thus depriving us of a by-election in Wentworth.
If anyone’s interested, here are some more mundane electoral developments of the past week or so:
• The NSW Greens have chosen Nature Conservation Council executive director Cate Faehrmann to fill the state upper house vacancy that will be created when Lee Rhiannon runs for the Senate at the next federal election. Andrew Clennell of the Sydney Morning Herald notes that Faehrmann ran unsuccessfully for Senate preselection against Rhiannon with the backing of Bob Brown. The party has also finalised its upper house ticket for the next state election: David Shoebridge, barrister and Woollahra councillor, will take the unloseable first position; Byron Bay mayor Jan Barham will take the highly winnable second position; and Orange City councillor Jeremy Buckingham will get the rather more difficult third position. Clennell reports this as a defeat for the “harder left” tendency assoociated with Rhiannon, which backed Rockdale councillor Lesa de Leau. Faehrmann will not be required to run at the next election due to the chamber’s staggered eight-year terms.
• Michael Stedman of The Mercury reports that the Left has endorsed Jonathan Jackson, chartered accountant and son of former state attorney-general Judy Jackson, to replace retiring factional colleague Duncan Kerr in the Hobart-based federal seat of Denison. Stedman also names as a possible starter Australian Manufacturing Workers Union secretary Anne Urquhart, previously mentioned as the Left’s nominee for a Senate position after Kevin Rudd vetoed Electrical Trades Union secretary Kevin Harkins. Apparently still in contention are constitutional lawyer George Williams, Kerr staffer and state Lyons candidate Rebecca White, and local state member Lisa Singh.
• Speaking to reporter James Carleton on Radio National Breakfast with Fran Kelly yesterday, local branch president and Wran government minister Rodney Cavalier complained Stephen Jones was to be given the Throsby preselection as reward for affiliating his Community and Public Sector Union with the ALP. Jones has been the only nominee for a position the national executive will rubber-stamp on Friday, having decided to deny local branches a ballot. Sources cited by Carleton also say outgoing member Jennie George was “pushed into retirement under threat of disendorsement”, although George denies this.
• Nigel Adlam of the Northern Territory News reports three candidates are believed to be interested in the Country Liberal Party preselection for the ultra-marginal Darwin-based seat of Solomon, where Labor’s Damian Hale narrowly defeated sitting member David Tollner (now in the Territory parliament) in 2007. The three are “Darwin City Council alderman Garry Lambert, Palmerston Deputy Mayor Natasha Griggs and Tourism Top End head Tony Clementson”. Tennant Creek businessman Tony Civitarese is mentioned as the likely candidate to run against Warren Snowdon in the Territory’s other electorate, Lingiari.
• Rebecca Lollback of the Northern Star reports Clunes businessman Kevin Hogan has been preselected unopposed as Nationals candidate for Page.
• Shannon Crane of the Border Mail reports the Victorian Nationals have preselected Moira deputy mayor Tim McCurdy to replace the retiring Ken Jasper in the state seat of Murray Valley. McMurdy reportedly saw off eight rival candidates, although the only one I can put a name to is former Olympic cyclist Dean Woods.
[If I buy a $2.00 litre of Rev how much will it cost post ETS and how much compensation will I get? Your answer is…………..???]
The answer is it’s not a tax on everything.
[The last thing Aussie families want is to hand over $1100 a year to Kev]
Good thing they won’t have to
[With Abbott in the chair, it certainly is shaping up as a GST in reverse election. At least, that’s what the Libs will try to do.]
And Labor will be well and truly ready for it.
I ask again:
[DF, what is the alternative?]
I don’t know if it’s been posted already, but Barry Brook had a column on the nuclear future in today’s Oz.
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/opinion/clean-future-in-nuclear-power/story-e6frg6zo-1225806766579
[How much money? Complete this sentence. If I buy a $2.00 litre of Rev how much will it cost post ETS and how much compensation will I get? Your answer is…………..???]
The price of food is expected to increase on average by 5%.
The amount of compensation you receive is determined by what the combined income of your household.
[The last thing Aussie families want is to hand over $1100 a year to Kev. ]
They aren’t handing it to Kev at all. They are FOR THE FIRST TIME IN HISTORY paying for the damage caused to the environment when they purchase goods and services.
Only households with taxable incomes around $140,000 a year will pay $1100 more.
[With Abbott in the chair, it certainly is shaping up as a GST in reverse election. At least, that’s what the Libs will try to do.]
No one will pay attention to the scare campaign if the Liberals go to the election without a credible climate change policy.
A BS figure??? How is it incorrect? The point is that the Liberals can say anything they like about it because it will be impossible to refute. If Rudd says it’s not $1100 then the obvious question is what will it be?
What’s a litre of Rev? Is this some eastern states thing?
All the prices will change depending on the targets anyway. If the targets go up, the price increases will be more.
[If Rudd says it’s not $1100 then the obvious question is what will it be?]
Are you trying to be willfully ignorant? Treasury has modeled the increase in prices:
http://www.climatechange.gov.au/government/initiatives/cprs/who-affected/~/media/publications/cprs/CPRS_ESAS/091124%20Final%20cameos%20for%20publication.ashx
[IMPACT ON HOUSEHOLD PRICES
The Treasury modelling found that the CPRS would increases household costs by 1.1 per cent – as
measured by the consumer price index (CPI).
This occurs over two years:
• 0.4 per cent in 2011-12 – based on a $10 per tonne fixed carbon price in 2011-12
• 0.7 per cent in 2012-13 – based on a flexible carbon price in 2012-13, which is estimated to
be $26 per tonne.
Household food prices are expected to rise by less than 1 per cent over these two years.
Price increases will be greatest for emission intensive goods.
Household electricity prices could rise by 7 per cent in 2011-12 and 12 per cent in 2012-13. Gas
prices could rise by 4 per cent in 2011-12 and 7 per cent in 2012-13.
The overall price impact to households is estimated to be $12 a week or $624 a year by 2012-13. ]
http://www.climatechange.gov.au/~/media/Files/minister/wong/2009/media-releases/November/mr20091125.ashx
[What’s a litre of Rev? Is this some eastern states thing?]
It’s a skim type milk in the ACT I think
Abbott has his own targets which will see Rev (a type of skinny milk) go up anyway if that is what happens.
Stanpower@3891:
[Twenty years ago, mainframe computers were the back bone of the IT and Data Processing industry.
Today, PCs & servers are networked and farmed together to provide processing power that is far exceeding any mainframe, with scalability and cost effectiveness.
You guys are still debating “mainframe” like solutions for the power needs. You are behind the times.]
What are you, an echo?
Finns@3859 posted the identical question:
[Twenty years ago, mainframe computers were the back bone of the IT and Data Processing industry.
Today, PCs & servers are networked and farmed together to provide processing power that is far exceeding any mainframe, with scalability and cost effectiveness.
You guys are still debating “mainframe” like solutions for the power needs. You are behind the times.]
William, is Stanpower an artefact of the board, or does that poster exist?
Finns once is lovely. Finns twice is too much.
😆
[Are you trying to be willfully ignorant?]
I think we all know the answer to that is yes
As the economists say, there’s no such thing as a free lunch, or a magic pudding.
SO
I’m assuming those cost increases are based on the 5% target.
Don, i know:
[There is an imposter loose on PB. Bilbo might want to kill him.] 😉
With Abbott’s No ETS, No Carbon Tax. It will cost Australian household: $2500 each for the Govt to provide the direct action subsidies.
[I’m assuming those cost increases are based on the 5% target.]
Yes. But once the target is increased, companies need more permits, so the government makes more revenue from them, so it can fund another round of income tax cuts and welfare increases.
[Twenty years ago, mainframe computers were the back bone of the IT and Data Processing industry.
Today, PCs & servers are networked and farmed together to provide processing power that is far exceeding any mainframe, with scalability and cost effectiveness.
You guys are still debating “mainframe” like solutions for the power needs. You are behind the times.]
3 times is never enough
Btw
what finns is saying is that instead of 19C thinking regarding power get with the 21C
most of what is being said on this topic is like debating whether one’s head would fly off if we went more than 20mph or whether man was meant to fly
sheesh people
[It will cost Australian household: $2500 each for the Govt to provide the direct action subsidies.]
Well as a start it seems Abbott wants to cancel the last tranch of the stimulus package.
But the problem is, if we go to the election in August, then those projects will already start being built! Is he going to cancel them part way through construction?
Gus, like Obama’s Whitehouse Security setup where a couple of imposters crashed the party as well as to get to shakehand with Obama.
I just proof Bilbo’s security system is just as crap. You can double in the IP as well as the content. No wonder GP is on the loose again and again.
Finns et al
[It will cost Australian household: $2500 each for the Govt to provide the direct action subsidies.]
Is that the correct term for my wacky plan of last night (the Govt building lots of nuclear/solar/wind/geothermal power stations) ?
Gus@3919:
[most of what is being said on this topic is like debating whether one’s head would fly off if we went more than 20mph or whether man was meant to fly]
For crying out loud, now there’s three of the so and sos.
Get the fly swatter, somebody. There’s a bug loose.
In the meantime, Gus, your breakthrough in energy production is?
Enquiring minds need to know.
Finns is talking underwater, and you are talking through your hat, and that other bloke is nowhere to be seen, a little sir echo.
At least the GST was theoretically simple. You simply add 10 % to the cost of everything at the retail level. With the ETS how much you pay depends on how much carbon went into it’s production. And that carbon price is courtesy of the market, which will change on a daily basis. In short, no-one has the faintest idea how much anything will cost!
PS: I saw my first ‘No EST Tax’ bumper sticker yesterday.
PSS: What Mcnair poll? – where is it’s details? What exactly is an online poll???
[I just proof Bilbo’s security system is just as crap]
Blame Crikey, not Mr B
It’s a lot easier to conduct a scare campaign from government than opposition IMHO. The government will be able to point to more “scary things” than the opposition. Just what will those ‘pesky Libs’ change in government? The government will also point to the Libs inconsistent messagesof the past and present. Can you trust them? The fear of the unknown.
Of course the government will have its own “unknown”, the ETS, but with much education and money handouts this fear can be minimised.
DF, there is no simple solution other than to do nothing. Is that what you propose? Again, what is the alternative?
Don, one DIOG is enough.
I wonder if this is catching………….
http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/current_events/environment_energy/americans_skeptical_of_science_behind_global_warming
Don
I was suggesting we harness the bolta as an inexhaustable power source.
I mean the sun shines out his …., or so bolta would have us believe
😉
Finns@3921:
[I just proof Bilbo’s security system is just as crap. You can double in the IP as well as the content. No wonder GP is on the loose again and again.]
So it was you playing silly buggers?
What’s the cetacean equivalent of a fly swat? A Japanese whaling ship?
Look out, Finns, is that William’s boat on the horizon?
😆
[It’s a lot easier to conduct a scare campaign from government than opposition IMHO]
Agreed. And it’s also a lot harder to conduct a scare campaign when half your party disagrees with you, and they were a bee’s proverbial from passing the law in the first place.
[With the ETS how much you pay depends on how much carbon went into it’s production.]
Not necessarily. It depends on how much of the cost of permits is passed on.
[With the ETS how much you pay depends on how much carbon went into it’s production. And that carbon price is courtesy of the market, which will change on a daily basis.]
This is just moronic. The price of sugar fluctuates on a daily basis, does that mean you have no idea how much an icecream will cost?
[In short, no-one has the faintest idea how much anything will cost!]
Wrong. If no one had the faintest idea, then there wouldn’t be pages and pages of economic modeling that you simply refuse to read. So I’ll link to it again:
http://www.climatechange.gov.au/government/initiatives/cprs/who-affected/~/media/publications/cprs/CPRS_ESAS/091124%20Final%20cameos%20for%20publication.ashx
It seems DF has no alternative other than to pretend it will all go away. Good luck with that, and enjoy your time in political oblivion.
Gus@3930:
[I mean the sun shines out his …., or so bolta would have us believe]
Nah.
Poss has knocked that approach to the world’s energy problems on its head.
There’s a calculator blocking it!
😆
[Sehwag is now 16 runs short of becoming the first cricketer to score three triple centuries in Tests. His triple centuries have come against Pakistan (Multan, 2004) and South Africa (Chennai, 2008). Australia’s Don Bradman and West Indies’ Brian Lara have also two scores in excess of 300 each.]
http://www.hindu.com/2009/12/04/stories/2009120456870100.htm
The new Hindu God Sehwag is born. If India beat Sri Lanka, India will be no: 1 in Test Cricket and they will declare public holidays.
Is DF short for TTH?
Don
🙂
[PSS: What Mcnair poll? – where is it’s details? What exactly is an online poll???]
normally a poll conducted exclusively Online
ie via a website or somesuch
usually a single issue Q.
Oxymoron of the day:
[Shane Watson into the attack.]
Desert Fox – 3929
[Most Americans (52%) believe that there continues to be significant disagreement within the scientific community over global warming.]
But also…
[According to a 2001 Gallup poll,[101] about 45% of Americans believe that “God created human beings pretty much in their present form at one time within the last 10,000 years or so.”]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creationism#United_States
Dario Do nothing??? Why do anything? The world’s been cooling for eight years. The idea that I’m polluting the planet by breathing is ridiculous. Plants love CO2. They can’t get enough of the stuff. (Of course, they also exhale oxygen which we then breathe.) Did you know that only in very recent times has there been ice at the poles at all? If all the ice melted it would just be staus quo as far as the earth is concerned. Antarctica is really a frozen jungle that’s going through a chilly patch.
Whew! Now that I’ve got all that off my chest hwo about this for some light reading?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8392611.stm
[According to a 2001 Gallup poll,[101] about 45% of Americans believe that “God created human beings pretty much in their present form at one time within the last 10,000 years or so.”]
Sadly I know a few Australians who believe the same thing, and surprise surprise they also don’t believe in AGW
[Dario Do nothing??? Why do anything?]
And there we have it. Andrew Bolt is on our blog.
[The world’s been cooling for eight years]
Whatever, moron. If you believe that crap then you’re a lost cause.
Abbott’s magic pudding will $2500 per household for the direct subsidies, the bureaucracy needs to support this will cost another $300 per household. So far the pudding will cost $2800. The Rosary tightens another knot.
[ Antarctica is really a frozen jungle that’s going through a chilly patch]
ROFL
BTW, not wanting to be irreligious…
[Polls since 1966 have consistently reflected the public’s belief that Kennedy was murdered as the result of a conspiracy. For example, according to a 2003 ABC poll, “seven in 10 Americans think the assassination of John F. Kennedy was the result of a plot, not the act of a lone killer]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kennedy_assassination_conspiracy_theories
More about the credulous nature of public opinion.
As an example a bit closer to home for me…”Oh, a nice wooden horse” says public opinion…
Well as I recall Andrew Robb’s second-from-last great contribution on the debate, prior to ceasing working, was that instead of an ETS we should simply introduce a carbon-tax.
But I guess it’s more difficult to sell a bumper sticker that says ‘Carbon tax not ETS tax’.
[The world’s been cooling for eight years. ]
No it hasn’t. It’s been warming.
I can’t believe that Abbott thinks he can out guess the operation of the market. That he thinks a new big government department making a bunch of regulations is preferred to just saying that businesses now have to pay for CO2-e pollution, or figure out a way to avoid causing it.
3941 Desert Fox
Hey GP you’ve got to laugh though. The Lib you most dreaded taking on the leadership as got the job! What a hoot!