Abbott 42, Turnbull 41

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.

Author: William Bowe

William Bowe is a Perth-based election analyst and occasional teacher of political science. His blog, The Poll Bludger, has existed in one form or another since 2004, and is one of the most heavily trafficked websites on Australian politics.

4,087 comments on “Abbott 42, Turnbull 41”

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  1. GP is not in fact “on the loose”. Any comment by him goes into moderation, to be released or not released at my whim. What if anything am I missing with this “imposter” business?

  4. [What if anything am I missing with this “imposter” business?]

    Bilbo, accident does happen and it ends well :kiss:

  5. Steve@3950:

    [3950.

    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!
    ]

    Nah. My bet is that DF is TTH.

  6. [Someone copied one of finns posts and the chooks started!]

    Gus, i have found that SOMEONE and he has committed hara-kiri for being so naughty.

  9. DF 3924

    [PS: I saw my first ‘No EST Tax’ bumper sticker yesterday.]

    Hehehe I knew the opponents were stupid. No Emissions Scheme Trading? Do we swap schemes with New Zealand? 🙂

    Maybe a new bumper sticker for Liberals: “I can’t spill und I vote!”

  14. [Why do the right wingers here use so many aliases?]

    Because their opinions are worth 2x (,3x, 4x … nx) more that the garden variety lefty…

  15. Shows On wrote ;

    [ The amount of compensation you receive is determined by what the combined income of your household. ]

    Any idea of the proposed delivery system for the compensation ? ie tax credits or actual cash ?

  16. Desert Fox said-
    [I wonder if this is catching………….
    americans_skeptical_of_science_behind_global_warming]
    70% of Americans believe the world began 6000 years ago. Of course they will engage with climate change denial. They are no doubt setting up a new church in Waco, Texas, called “The World Pentecostal Church of Cooling” with an inverted hockey stick over the alter. Their logo will be a coconut palm growing on an ice-floe. Tongues will be spoken over the IPCC reports, and ritual burnings of straw mock-ups of Sir Nicholas Stern will occur weekly.

  17. [Any idea of the proposed delivery system for the compensation ? ie tax credits or actual cash ?]
    Carbon credits. They can be redeemed when you sequester your carbon.
    You heirs will thank you.

  18. [Any idea of the proposed delivery system for the compensation ? ie tax credits or actual cash ?]
    Income tax cuts and increases to welfare payments.

  19. From Tone’s DT blog:

    [Comments are submitted for possible publication on the condition that they may be edited]

    From pro-ETS to anti-ETS?

  20. [70% of Americans believe the world began 6000 years ago. Of course they will engage with climate change denial.]

    I saw a comment on a newslimited blog recently by someone who suggested that sea level rises are merely the Second Inundation as part of God’s great Plan.

  22. [ Any idea of the proposed delivery system for the compensation ? ie tax credits or actual cash ?

    Income tax cuts and increases to welfare payments. ]

    Any idea if you are self funded retiree, paying nominal tax and getting no welfare ?

  23. Evidently the invisible planet Nibiru is going to end the world on 21st Dec 2012 anyway so this global warming stuff will just spoil our last few years on the planet.

  26. [I saw a comment on a newslimited blog recently by someone who suggested that sea level rises are merely the Second Inundation as part of God’s great Plan.]
    The truth always beats fiction. 🙂
    And what a Plan! Those evil devil worshippers on Kiribati,Tuvulu and the Marshall Islands must be the first to go. The last in line for ritual inundation are those wonderful God-fearing folk of Texas and Utah. 🙂

  27. Diogenes,

    NASA recently made a statement pointing out that if a bloody great planet was about to hit us we’d have seen it by now.

    It’s not the information itself that’s interesting, I think, but the fact that they felt moved to make a statement at all presumably for their domestic audience.

  28. Can us atheists avoid the sacrificing of this earth bit then? I don’t really believe in heaven, so it seems a bit harsh I have to go through their hell.

    OTOH, if the fundies really believe this earth is coming to an end soon, they won’t mind selling me all their property now will they? After al, they say they can’t take it with them. 🙂

    Just make the checks payable to the “Socrates Retire in Style Fund”.

  29. [Any idea if you are self funded retiree, paying nominal tax and getting no welfare ?]
    Full compensation up to $80,000 combined income, then it declines until there is no compensation for self funded retirees who earn more than $160,000.

  31. [OTOH, if the fundies really believe this earth is coming to an end soon, they won’t mind selling me all their property now will they? After al, they say they can’t take it with them.]

    It’s a very good point. Whatever happened to ‘charity begins at home’?

  32. [God said he would not bring a second flood]
    In fact, at Revelation 21:1 we find:
    “And there was no more sea.”

    That particualr prophecy appears to be on hold. 🙂

  33. JV @ 3982

    Not if there was run away climate change of the type throught to have been experienced by Venus. The seas would evaporate!

  34. [I saw a comment on a newslimited blog recently by someone who suggested that sea level rises are merely the Second Inundation as part of God’s great Plan.]

    [God said he would not bring a second flood; Genesis 9:11]

    This produces an interesting question!

    If doG said he would not bring on a second flood and there is one; He would have told a lie!

    If the Liberals said there would never ever be a gst and they bring in a gst; They would have told a lie!

    Is doG a Liberal? 😉

  35. Rewi

    Evidently Nibiru is hiding behind the sun so we can’t see it. Either that or it’s a conspiracy of all astronomers in the world.

    And there are photos of Nibiru on the net. 😉

    The other theories about why we will all die in 2012 are;

    1. The Earth’s rotational axis will reverse
    2. The Mayan calendar ends in 2012
    3. The planets align and there is a pole shift
    4. The Earth’s magnetic field will reverse
    5. Severe solar storms
    6. A Dark Rift in the galaxy will swallow us

  38. Eratosthanes
    [Not if there was run away climate change of the type throught to have been experienced by Venus. The seas would evaporate!]

    So, the answer to all our problems could be in Venus’ experience. All we have to do is wait until the balance between melting and evaporation is reached, hold it there, and we’ll get our land back. I imagine that it would only be only about 20 degrees hotter at that point. Don’t tell the skeptics, they’ll be on to it 🙂

  40. Well, they’ve found Adam! Now for the second deluge! 😉

    [MORE than 25,000 Australians have volunteered their DNA as part of a project to trace their “deep ancestry” back to Africa.

    While the typical family tree can go back hundreds of years, a family tree in the Genographic Project goes back 60,000 years and it shows that every man walking around today has the same ancestor.

    Project director Dr Spencer Wells, who will give a free lecture at Melbourne University on Sunday on his five year study, says men’s Y chromosome can be traced back to a single man in Africa, who’s been given the name Y-Chromosomal Adam.]
    http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/national/australians-give-dna-to-deep-ancestry-project-as-60000-year-old-adam-traced/story-e6frf7l6-1225806850305

  42. There is an adage in medicine that if there are lots of treatments for a disease, it’s likely that all of them don’t work.

    I assume that if they need seven Doomsday scenarios that none of them are worth considering.

  43. If we are about to die, I prefer this one:

    [After millennia of battle the surviving G’Gugvuntt and Vl’hurg realised what had actually happened, and joined forces to attack the Milky Way in retaliation. They crossed vast reaches of space in a journey lasting thousands of years before reaching their target where they attacked the first planet they encountered, Earth. Due to a terrible miscalculation of scale the entire battle fleet was swallowed by a small dog. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy states that this sort of thing happens all the time.]

  44. Some white RWDB’s aren’t going to be very happy finding out their great grandfather x 100 or whatever times was “BLACK”!!!!!

  45. [It’s official: Hey Hey It’s Saturday will be back next year. The Nine Network today lifted the lid on the least secret TV deal of the year to announce it had reached an agreement with Somers Carroll, the production company responsible for the show, to bring Hey Hey back to Australian TV screens on a regular basis for the first time since 1999.]

    http://www.theage.com.au/news/entertainment/tv-radio/articles/2009/12/04/1259429472671.html

    Oh dear, this is like the IT Industry going back to the mainframe. Like the print media, the TV media is also facing demise on the onslaught by the new media such as the mobiles, social (twitter, facebook) and other emerging new media. People want their media to be on demand, aggregate, location driven and independent.

    Nobody will sit in front of the TVs and waited to be served anymore.

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