The latest Roy Morgan face-to-face poll shows little change on the previous result from a fortnight ago. It again presents the poll blog headline writer with a difficulty in showing a huge disparity between the two-party results according to respondent allocation (54-46 in the Coalition’s favour) and by the generally favoured method of allocation according to the previous election result (51.5-48.5). On the primary vote, Labor is steady on 36 per cent, the Coalition is up a point to 45.5 per cent and the Greens are down one to 12 per cent. The poll combines results from the previous two weekends of polling, covering a sample of 1746.
The first rumblings of preselection action for the current federal electoral cycle:
• Michael McKenna of The Australian noted last month that Mal Brough has been “working the party hierarchy and branches” with an eye to succeeding Peter Slipper as member for Fisher. Slipper’s chances of hanging on to LNP preselection, which were presumably already slim after his acceptance of the government’s offer of the Deputy Speaker position after the election, are said to have vanished altogether after he conducted a six-week tour of Europe and Morocco in the lead-up to the budget. This is said to have given powerful impetus to a party recruitment drive by Mal Brough, “who hopes to triple membership numbers and overwhelm Slipper’s local supporters”.
• The other development in Queensland LNP preselection jockeying is a push for Nationals veteran Bruce Scott, who has held the seat of Maranoa since 1990, to make way for Barnaby Joyce. Weighing in to support the idea was Niki Savva of The Australian, who said the existing plan for Joyce to cross the border and take on Tony Windsor in New England was looking an “increasingly bad idea”. By way of explanation, Savva offered that Windsor has been “sandbagging his seat” with “large dollops of lard from the Labor government”, a mixed metaphor crying out for a response from Bernard Woolley. The Sydney Morning Herald reports that Richard Torbay, popular state independent member for Northern Tablelands and former Legislative Assembly Speaker, was “likely to contest the federal seat as an independent should Mr Windsor not stand”.
• Christian Kerr of The Australian reports a flood of membership applications has been received in Phillip Ruddock’s electorate of Berowra, as part of a move by “factional forces linked to the conservative Catholic group Opus Dei” who hope to control the preselection upon Ruddock’s retirement. Liberal sources speak of 88 applications in three weeks, of which “many have direct links with Opus Dei through the Tangara School for Girls and Redfield College and their parent organisation, PARED, or Parents for Education”. Ruddock himself however reportedly hopes to be succeeded by the factionally unaligned Julian Lesser, Menzies Research Centre director and 2008 preselection candidate for Bradfield. To this end he is resisting the recent membership encroachment, seeking to block the applications of brother and sister Christian and Sam Ellis, who respectively ran against Ruddock as Family First candidates in 2010 and 2007. The first hints of rising Right power in the electorate came in 2009, when there was talk of either Hunters Hill councillor Richard Quinn or former Young Liberals president Noel McCoy assuming the seat with backing from Right potentate David Clarke.
• John Ferguson of The Australian reports a preselection battle looms between Victorian Liberal Senators Helen Kroger and Scott Ryan for the second position on the ticket at the next election. In 2007, Kroger was elected from the second position and Ryan from the third, but Ryan has since risen above Kroger on the pecking order by virtue of attaining a shadow parliamentary secretary position. Both have traditionally been associated with the Kroger-Costello faction (Helen Kroger being the ex-wife of powerbroker Michael Kroger), but both of its principals are now said to exist above the fray of factional politics.
• Jessica Wright of the Sunday Age reported last week that Attorney-General and Barton MP Robert McClelland had been told by “factional organisers” he should step aside to avoid a “messy preselection brawl”. An improbable sounding line-up of possible successors has been mentioned around the place, including Paul Howes, Morris Iemma and Mark Arbib (the latter two named by the St George and Sutherland Shire Leader). Howes at least has since taken a step back, which sources say resulted from a “widely held view in the national executive that he had been tainted in the eyes of voters over the Rudd coup”.
• The Sunshine Coast Daily reports on a “conga line” of 11 candidates hoping for Liberal National Party preselection in Fairfax, current member Alex Somlyay having long ago made it clear the present term would be his last. The only one covered in the article was Peter Yeo, a former AFL and SANFL who became a quadriplegic after a fall in 2002.
Post-NSW election detritus:
• Labor vacancies in the NSW Legislative Council, created by the retirements of Eddie Obeid and John Hatzistergos, have been filled by Walt Secord, a former staffer to Kevin Rudd and Bob Carr, and Adam Searle, former mayor of Blue Mountains. Searle in particular has had a complicated journey to parliament: originally associated with the “soft Left”, he won the backing of the Right for the Blue Mountains preselection before the 2007 state election against “hard Left” rival Naomi Perry, but the situation was defused after the party drafted Rural Fire Service chief Phil Koperberg. He subsequently joined the Right during his bid to succeed Bob Debus as member for Macquarie, but he withdrew from the contest as it became clear the Left’s Susan Templeman would prevail (though in the event she was defeated by Liberal member Louise Markus). The anointment of Secord and Searle by the Right has caused outgoing Senator Steve Hutchins to quit the faction, apparently complaining it had become “little more than a job agency for party hacks” – though it may not be immediately clear why this appellation applies to them more than him.
• Pauline Hanson continues to pursue an appeal against her narrow defeat in the Legislative Council election. Her case rests on an allegation that “dodgy staff” deliberately misplaced 1200 votes, which was allegedly the subject of an email exchange between two officials at the NSW Electoral Commission. As AAP reports, these emails have been made available to Hanson via a Queensland construction worker who says they were forwarded to him by a girlfriend who works at the NSWEC, whom the mysterious construction worker is unwilling to identify. According to the ABC, Electoral Commissioner Colin Barry says “nothing has been shown to him suggesting the allegation has any substance”.
Miscellany:
• The Australian Electoral Commission has released a report into informal voting at last year’s federal election, at which the rate shot up to 5.5 per cent – 1.6 per cent higher than in 2007, and the worst result since voters were befuddled by the introduction of above-the-line voting in the Senate in 1984. Exactly half of the increase was accounted for by a doubling of ballot papers left entirely blank, from 0.8 per cent to 1.6 per cent. Many have blamed/thanked Mark Latham, who in his late-campaign report on 60 Minutes recommended voters do just that.
• Antony Green has published estimated margins for the Victorian federal redistribution, which he was unable to attend to at the time the boundaries were first published as they appeared in the middle of the election campaign.
• Draft boundaries for a Western Australian state redistribution will be announced next week. I’ll be having quite a lot to say about this soon, and hope to have estimated margins of my own published in fairly short order after the announcement.
• Former ACT Chief Minister Jon Stahope’s parliamentary vacancy in his seat of Ginninderra has been filled by Chris Bourke following a recount of the votes which got Stanhope elected in 2008. Bourke scored 323 votes to 247 for Labor colleague Adina Cirson. The other Labor candidate from the election, David Peebles, did not nominate as he has taken up a job as Deputy High Commissioner to the Solomon Islands.
• Canada’s Conservative government, which moved from minority to majority at last month’s election, is moving to reform the country’s Senate, a weakly empowered chamber which has hitherto been chosen by appointment. The plan is to choose by popular election members serving very long terms, of perhaps as much as 12 years, by a method to be determined at provincial level. Among the hurdles it faces are opposition from the government of Quebec, which is “concerned that elected senators would usurp provincial governments as the foremost representatives of their citizens”; opposition from those who believe the chamber should be abolished, which is apparently a constitutional impossibility; and legal issues resulting from variability in provincial rules for election.
• Malcolm Mackerras wrote last week that he was “quite confident in predicting there will be no by-elections during the current term”, since “Members of Parliament do not die these days”. I thought this rather a big call. The Sydney Morning Herald had this last year:
But what can be run through the abacus is the likelihood of one of the 150 MPs elected last month to the House of Representatives keeling over. And without sticking pins in any particular voodoo doll, the risk is high.
Story continues below According to Michael Sherris, professor of actuarial studies at the University of NSW, there is every chance Ms Gillard’s wafer-thin majority will be threatened with a byelection that would become an unwanted referendum on her government.
”I would be pretty confident there’s likely to be someone die in the next three years – what we don’t know is who it will be,” he said.
The average age of our new crop of MPs – both men and women – is a smidgin under 50, suggesting, said Professor Sherris, a 75 per cent chance one of the 150 will die in office, with cancer and heart disease the most likely killers. Body surfers among them will doubtless be directed to swim between the flags.
History tips the balance even more in favour of a state funeral. Professor Sherris points out that in Australia’s federal history there have been on average 1.5 deaths causing byelections in each Parliament.
Highlights from the latest Democratic Audit Update:
• Melbourne University Press will this month publish a book entitled Electoral Democracy: Australian Prospects, edited by Joo-Cheong Tham, Brian Costar and Graeme Orr, which will examine “pressing debates about the regulation of political finance, parties and representation in Australia”.
• Submissions are invited for the Victorian parliamentary Electoral Matters Committee’s inquiry into the November state election.
• The Queensland Parliament last month passed legislation imposing caps on political donations and electoral expenditure, and raising public funding of parties and candidates.
JV,
Apart from your criminal behaviour in reproducing an article inappropriately, it’s a big “So What!
I have written to the Leader of the Opposition as follows:
Dear Mr Abbott
May I with respect draw your attention to this report from today’s media
http://www.smh.com.au/environment/climate-change/religious-leaders-back-carbon-tax-20110602-1fie4.html
Given your background and your expressions of faith and belief in the teachings of the Catholic Church and the Pope, will you continue to deny climate change,that which your colleagues in the Christian faith, including your spiritual leader the Pope accept as Gospel truth? Or will you continue to deny and stay outside your church, the existence of climate change and the need for a price on carbon.
Even the great denialist St Thomas saw the error of his ways. Are you above even that holy man’s humility?
Perhaps now that even those of your own faith oppose your views, the time has come for an act of humility on your part and acceptance of the science as expressed by the Holy Father. Surely his words you accept as the final truth.
Yours Sincerely
etc…
Otiose
Yep, know that all males have oxygen deprivation around their nostrils (couldn’t smell a bad smell from close quarters, if you know what I mean).
Our boy/girl is so pale there is no colour. So can’t tell by the usual way.
Still, any ideas about the side-head-droop?
It’s bloody terrible, watching it trying to eat sideways from the feeder.
And, I know it sounds pathetic, but I can’t afford a vet bill for something not much bigger than a mouse.
[Apart from your criminal behaviour in reproducing an article inappropriately]
????????
j6p
My biggest payday was training Dept of Agriculture staff to transition from Apple Computers to Windows based.
Bought a house with that one. 🙂
“Slipper’s chances of hanging on to LNP preselection, which were presumably already slim after his acceptance of the government’s offer of the Deputy Speaker position after the election, are said to have vanished altogether after he conducted a six-week tour of Europe and Morocco in the lead-up to the budget.”
Good catch William and doesn’t that explain everything.
Tony is a fan of Harry’s but maybe he should let the rest of his team know, more clearly, why he loves him so much. Maybe they can then learn why they need to show a little respect, if not for the office, but for their own, group, arse.
Misfit
sorry
that is the sum total of budgie knowledge
my dad judst made me feed n water them, while waiting for them to breed
[Greensborough Growler
Posted Thursday, June 2, 2011 at 7:16 pm | Permalink
JV,
Apart from your criminal behaviour in reproducing an article inappropriately, it’s a big “So What!
]
apparently certain former MP’s aren’t allowed to still be an ALP Memmber and partkae in their right to be a delegate.
Especially from people who aren’t even ALP members dictating here how the ALP should run thier affairs.
In earlier blogs I sense some PBers are much too optimistic in predicting the likely fall of TA from grace in the near future.
As some of our intrepid conservative friends who come to this site have said, he is popular among a slab of the electorate.
A quick look at the conservative side of politics shows what a disparate group they are – composed of rural socialists, Archie Bunker/Alf Garnett voters (who can forget the timber guys in Tassie in JWH’s day?), associated hayseeds, rednecks, racists, elements of the Big End of Town, not to mention the Flat-Earthers and other associated climate change deniers. They all get a vote. They will always be there. When they lose and election they get 48% of the vote. When they win, they get more
Quite frankly, I am astounded a man of TA’s intellect can (a) associate himself with this lot and (b) actually hold them together. He has done so very effectively by (1) offering no policies at all (2) providing a small target (3) being negative to everything and (4) by being a destroyer rather than a builder. In the process, he has destroyed the left of his own party.
He has found a simple message to sell and, in my view, he has done it well. He has managed to tap into the psyche of every whinger and “hard-done-by” voter in the country. Isn’t this everyone?
What the conservatives find hard to swallow is that while there is a lot of support for their boy, more than half the electorate detest him. Baring accident, the conservatives will be in opposition until at least 2013. They will soon become irrelevant in the Senate and could stay that way for more than another 4 years. The might well be still in opposition in 2014.
No wonder they are sounding shrill and hysterical the closer July 1 gets.
I think we should continue to be astounded by TA’s leadership. He has done well and the progressive side of politics wish him to continue as leader of the opposition for some time to come.
Abbott spent six weeks on a bike and the Liberal response to the Budget shows.
Who are the other 4 delegates from Ms Neale’s area?
[54
Gusface
Posted Thursday, June 2, 2011 at 7:18 pm | Permalink
Apart from your criminal behaviour in reproducing an article inappropriately
????????
]
It was from the Crikey Sealed Section, and under your terms of membership, unless you wrote it like Bilbo, you cannot reproduce it without the permission of the editor.
[ruawake
Posted Thursday, June 2, 2011 at 7:23 pm | Permalink
Who are the other 4 delegates from Ms Neale’s area?
]
Exactly.
Frank,
Next thing you know, JV will be telling all and sundry that Cate Blanchett shouldn’t have an opinion because she’s rich and famous.
frank
cheers
GG
[Apart from your criminal behaviour in reproducing an article inappropriately, it’s a big “So What!]
Criminal behaviour – really? What crime? Confessions too I suppose for extracting one of today’s subscription pieces? But you needn’t be concerned on my behalf or confessions’ – both are much less than 10% of the whole.
The whole of the right-wing says “So what?” to that sort of behaviour, and your comment is entirely predictable. They say that, and them wonder why the members are deserting en masse, and the branches closing one after the other. They must be short of mirrors on the right.
46 janice2
Posted Thursday, June 2, 2011 at 7:12 pm | Permalink
[The budgie is very sick but sorry, can’t say what is wrong. You need to keep it warm so you can use a wheat heat pack and put the bird on it – sick birds lose body heat and that makes any illness much worse.
A male budgie has a blue cere whilst the female cere is more pinkish brown.]
Thanks janice2
I have it near the wood stove – btw we named her/him Budget. I think Budget’s blind, although s/he doesn’t have pink eyes. Flies flat out into any wall if we take it out of the cage. Takes no notice if anyone is near the cage, but hates being touched. Furiously denying any help. Tough little buggers, aren’t they.
(PS. Loves the towel we put down. Hops off the perch every now and then and has a lie down. I’m thinking burial at the moment).
Mark Tomasz,
If you remove the media from the equation, he wouldn’t have been able to do a thing. It’s they, not him, that deserve the ‘credit’ for where the Liberals are at the moment. In saying that, there is no clear line between the Coalition and the media; the two verge together seamlessly on fronts such as talkback radio and much of the ABC’s political coverage.
JV,
Typical thuggery.
You’re pinged for intellectual crimes against humanity and you fall back on your old chestnuts.
That windmills starting to turn again.
wasnt there a bad morgan and why today its not friday where was last week
[68
Cuppa
Posted Thursday, June 2, 2011 at 7:27 pm | Permalink
Mark Tomasz,
If you remove the media from the equation, he wouldn’t have been able to do a thing. It’s they, not him, that deserve the ‘credit’ for where the Liberals are at the moment. In saying that, there is no clear line between the Coalition and the media; the two verge together seamlessly on fronts such as talkback radio and much of the ABC’s political coverage.
]
Exactly.
Our media make the Russian Polit beauru look like a small time PR company.
[The whole of the right-wing says “So what?” to that sort of behaviour, and your comment is entirely predictable. They say that, and them wonder why the members are deserting en masse, and the branches closing one after the other. They must be short of mirrors on the right.]
Branches are closing for more thsn one reason – have you tried people are time poor to commit to joining a political party and attending meetings ?
9organ: 54.5-45.5 to Coalition
Friday, May 13, 2011 – 5:10 pm, by William Bowe ]
this one was face to face
The poor budgie on the bottom of the cage reminds me of an old joke involving a kid, his father, his wife and the milkman. I think the budgie was dead though, lying on its back with its legs in the air. You can guess the rest. 😀
see you later – time for roast duck breast, sweet potato/beetroot salad n beans – yum
Joe6pack @ 22:
Agree.
Defence has always been a law unto itself.
The brass and bureaucrats regularly change but the ethos doesn’t.
The Collins’ class subs. debacle (eg, the signature noise) was monumental in scope, and if any other department had stuffed up similarly, heads would’ve rolled.
Save for keelhauling some of the top-brass I don’t think Defence will ever be accountable.
Frank
How many progressive new members with the time to join and attend in range of Belinda and her head office hoodlums will hang around in the party to experience more of the manipulations Crook reported? and why should they?
My only interaction with a budgie was in a taxidermy class at tech when I first left school. I could say that the transition from a cage of live birds to various versions of stuffed ones was traumatic.
But I do know a quick painless way to end them. 🙁
frank
2gb should be used as a case study in any future media studies
alongside lord haw haw and tokyo rose
Just saw a replay of the Hawke/Julia presser today.
What a class act Hawkie was and still is. He is spot on that Abbott is still madder than a cut snake.
When Hawkie was asked about Julia telling fibbs to the people about a carbon tax at the election campaign, he basically said “that if circumstances change politicians must respond to those circumstances. Pricing carbon is too big an issue to be trivialised”.
The Julya spin sure has been trivialised.
[10 Aristotle
Posted Thursday, June 2, 2011 at 6:36 pm | Permalink
For the interest of evening bludgers a new post today ]
“Conscience: The ripple of hope” http://bit.ly/fB8fAP
thank you ari, so so true, lets hope more prominant people speak out very soon
Misfit,
[Flies flat out into any wall ]
It wouldn’t have had a crash into a wall recently would it? If its droppings are ok, no sign of respiratory problems and the feathers look ‘well’, then it may well have injured itself. The eyes should be beady and bright and since it doesn’t react to movement near its cage it may have limited vision and possibly limited hearing. The cause of this could be a tumour which is not all that uncommon in birds.
[77
jaundiced view
Posted Thursday, June 2, 2011 at 7:35 pm | Permalink
Frank
How many progressive new members with the time to join and attend in range of Belinda and her head office hoodlums will hang around in the party to experience more of the manipulations Crook reported? and why should they?
]
Nice bit of slandering.
But why don’t you put your money where your big mouth is and becomne a member ?
Or are you as big as “Bully” as you accuse Neale of ?
ru,
Get JV to bore them to death with his mythical knowledge of the ALP.
ruawake
[But I do know a quick painless way to end them.]
The kids think we can save it.
But s/he is still hanging in there.
I’m sort of Buddhist.
Let everyone die their own death.
OH wants to wring its neck while we’re out with the soup.
Is that what you’re saying?
Cuppa 68.
Agree all this hairy chested thumping about how effective a communicator Abbott is, always neglect to mention the effect the 24/7 hate media support he gets and the derision (much to do with the PM’s gender) that PM Gillard gets affects the bogan vote.
To my disgust it’s an unfortuneate fact of life and admire the way in which the PM carries on.
Abbott would fall apart under the same scrutiny..remember the nodding dog act.
http://greensmps.org.au/blog/cut-pollution-make-clean-energy-cheaper
reminder about sunday.
Apparently 13 of the country’s highest paid economists have passed on their support for a carbon tax, headed by the best in the business, Bill Evans from Westpac.
So we have the economists, celebrities, and past Liberal leaders all supporting a price on carbon.
So who is on Tone’s side, George Pell and Murdoch. The Monkey will be gone by Nov/Dec 2012 for sure!
Frank
The answer to your gracious question is just above it in the same post.
http://www.getup.org.au/campaigns/animals/live-export/ban-live-export
please sign petition and please pass on this link and the Sunday Rally link and put
on your face book and twitter
[jaundiced view
Posted Thursday, June 2, 2011 at 7:43 pm | Permalink
Frank
The answer to your gracious question is just above it in the same post.
]
In other words you are just like Belin da Neal.
Figures.
[When Social Inclusion Minister Tanya Plibersek raised the issue in Parliament it was always going to be Julie Bishop who stood up and tried to shout her down. As a white mainstream woman and beneficiary of the status quo it is disturbing to see the balance of power threatened. It is sad to see women used as unwitting pawns for men to maintain business as usual.
But yesterday’s events fall in a wider context of consistent attack and merciless scrutiny of our (female) prime minister. It is testament to Australia’s poor progress on men and women sharing power. We want women to move up, or so we say, yet we are not willing to give anything up. Can we handle women standing up to men; not being demur or putting up with our chest beating?]
http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/2742508.html
Misfit
If the worse comes to the worse, dont lie about the point of burial.
When my daughter’s goldfish “passed” she conducted a tearful vigil at the point where I had declared the fish to be dead (not cremated) and buried. I did not have the heart to say I had binned Nemo.
In the dark I had to exhume Nemo and bury him in the vigil site.
82 janice2
Posted Thursday, June 2, 2011 at 7:36 pm | Permalink
Misfit,
[Flies flat out into any wall]
Happened a couple of months ago. I refused to let it out after that. It obviously couldn’t see where it was going.
Re respiratory stuff: now has a whopping, throbbing pulse in the side of its neck (that we can see).
Never noticed that before. S/he’s obviously distressed, but trying to help makes her/him worse. I’m just hoping that it’s an ear infection. There are no avian vets round here. I do know a farmer who has (illegally) penicillin for his cattle. But I’m not going to pay $60 for a vet consult. I know that sounds cruel, but just can’t afford it.
The bird is just resting
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4vuW6tQ0218
[So we have the economists, celebrities, and past Liberal leaders all supporting a price on carbon.]
And the nation’s religious leaders.
The only friends Tone has on pricing GHGEs are those groups and individuals who are compromised.
Abbott is ALREADY starting to back track from his policy of rolling back the carbon tax.
In his presser today, he was trying to claim that the tax was toxic and the best way for its removal is for it never to be introduced.
Roll back the carbon tax after business has made the appropriate investments and received their compensation? What a farcical Opposition Leader Abbott truly is, worse than Downer and worse than Latham, the worst I have ever seen.
Cuppa 68
I take the media as a given.
The “Melbourne Argus” which went out of business many, many moons ago and the ALP’s ownership of radio stations way back when, are testimony to the battle Labor has always had getting its message out.
On the other hand, there is always a LOTO and whether we like it or not, the negative anti-progressive vote – ie the “conservative” vote, is a block which will never be won across. This is as it should be. The left does not have a mortgage on being correct – just correct on more important things more often!
confessions,
Abbott was always bungy jumping without a rope on CC. It’s just the stopping point has come up rather suddenly.
Centre
Excerpts
[Monks and rabbis have stood alongside Catholics and Anglicans in Canberra to show support for the federal government’s plan to tackle climate change.
Leaders from the Australian Religious Response to Climate Change (ARRCC) met Prime Minister Julia Gillard in support of the carbon tax today.
Anglican representative George Browning said the group wanted to assist politicians to create good legislation and the message to Ms Gillard was that the issue was a moral one.]
[Sister Geraldine Kearney from Catholic Religious Australia said there was a tremendous groundswell for action on climate change in Catholic congregations.
Pope Benedict has called for movement on climate change but the cardinal of the Australian Catholic church, George Pell, has expressed doubts about the science.
“I do believe that we are struggling to keep up with even what the Pope is saying,” Ms Kearney said.
“We continue to fight and put forward our belief that this is what the normal grassroots level of the Catholic congregation believe in.”]
Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/environment/climate-change/religious-leaders-back-carbon-tax-20110602-1fie4.html#ixzz1O6vRknhm