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.
Frank
I see your conclusion, but cannot quite grasp your reasoning process.
93 shellbell
Posted Thursday, June 2, 2011 at 7:45 pm | Permalink
[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.]
Shellbell, lol
No, we will have the standard funeral.
appropriate readings (from the latest human funeral attended) and similar solemntiy (shoebox decorated etc).
See you all later, thanks for your help
I think the homeless and unemployed are more important than a budgie, after all.
They love hot soup.
Misfit,
I’m afraid you will have to take up your OH’s offer – I am inclined to think the culprit is a tumour and if I were in your shoes I would do the kindest thing and stop its misery (and then bawl my eyes out). Penicillin is not good for birds – you would have to get a sulphur or neomycin antibiotic for an infection.
“I did not have the heart to say I had binned Nemo.”
We went for the matchbox coffin with time for appropriate viewings.
[And the nation’s religious leaders]
Reall, I didn’t know that. Surely not Pell?
I suspect the Great Big Mining Tax will be resurrected shortly.
Arunta,
[Abbott would fall apart under the same scrutiny..remember the nodding dog act.]
It was really striking how his spin team swung into action following that incident. They swamped blogs, talkback sessions and letters to the editor demanding Riley be sacked for the impudence of daring to ask the Rabbott a curly question. The whole Abbott leadership thing is a farce; he’s stage-managed to the nth degree, primed with slogans, and has had the softest run from the media of any politician in history. The fact that he needs all this life support, and yet still has poor personal polling, shows his utter hollowness and repellance.
Don’t go to the dentist.
http://www.defamer.com.au/2011/06/woman-leaves-dentists-office-with-foreign-accent/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+DefamerAustralia+%28Defamer+Australia%29
Thanks Dee @ 100, no wonder Abbott is looking sicker and sicker by the day 😀
[Cuppa
Posted Thursday, June 2, 2011 at 7:54 pm | Permalink
Arunta,
Abbott would fall apart under the same scrutiny..remember the nodding dog act.
It was really striking how his spin team swung into action following that incident. They swamped blogs, talkback sessions and letters to the editor demanding Riley be sacked for the impudence of daring to ask the Rabbott a curly question. The whole Abbott leadership thing is a farce; he’s stage-managed to the nth degree, primed with slogans, and has had the softest run from the media of any politician in history. The fact that he needs all this life support, and yet still has poor personal polling, shows his utter hollowness and repellance.
]
Same with the Turnbull appearance on Lateline.
Dee:
I just read that article. I especially liked this bit:
[If the men and women in the highly visible and symbolic stage of politics share power so poorly do we wonder why there is violence between men and women in family homes? What are we modelling? On both sides of politics? In industry as well as in our communities?]
Tone invoking rape and sexual assault with his ‘no means no’ from the campaign, and his sexist way of interacting with his own colleagues (‘Julie’s a loyal girl’) is truly disgusting when viewed in this context. I even heard Ian MacFarlane say to a female Labor MP in Parliamentary debate today “You’ll get your chance, honey”. Honey? To a peer?
Evening all, following is a link to a further iteration in my quest to have complaints of political bias taken seriously at our ABC. I have been asked to provide specific examples of bias toward Labor and Green MPs. As I have largely turned off their product I wonder if any here would like to oblige Keiran Doyle of ABC’s Audience and Consumer Affairs area:
http://seekingasylumdownunder2.blogspot.com/2011/06/further-iteration-of-abc-complaints.html
The fact that a true moronic imbocile like Tony Abbott could win 49.88% of the vote confirms the power of the media, especially newspapers and radio.
It is a worry!
Centre:
I don’t know if Pell was one of the leaders who spoke out today. But as someone said earlier, if the Pope is now embracing the scientific reality of AGW, then Pell is even more on his own.
Thanks MTBW
I will post it again if Dee comes back as it was in reply to her
You may like to look at the very last post on the thread before the last (just before William closed it down)
I had been out and had a few wines and responded to some earlier posts. Felt rather cross. Calmer now so definitely will not repost.
[Centre
Posted Thursday, June 2, 2011 at 8:00 pm | Permalink
The fact that a true moronic imbocile like Tony Abbott could win 49.88% of the vote confirms the power of the media, especially newspapers and radio.
It is a worry!
]
Indeed.
Truss and Brendon O’Connor are on the Nation tonight with Speers. They are joined by Gerard Henderson and GetUp’s Simon Sheikh.
jv,
It’s a bit rich for an illegal copy and paste merchant to be trying to take the high ground. You should hang your head in shame and learn a bit from the law abiding posters here on PB.
I should have provided the email address of Keiran Doyle at ABC’s Corporate Affairs:
Corporate_Affairs5.ABC@abc.net.au
Good night and good luck!
Centre
[Reall, I didn’t know that. Surely not Pell?]
No, not Pell. He will need a huge conversion on the road to Abbott’s confessional to extract him from his position alongside Plimer, Monckton and the other wilfully ignorant types. He’ll probably come around when Tony does.
The Nation doing the big issues tonight: income threshold for commentary on a carbon price.
Seriously, this is tabloid stuff.
Thefinnigans The Finnigans
Looking at Gerry Henderson is just as depressing as looking at Andrew Robb #auspol
4 seconds ago
Truss is running the trope that Australia acting unilaterally on global warming. Why does nobody pull him up on this very basic untruth!
Ah. Sorry. Centre, do you mind that I copied and pasted your earlier comment at 105 so as to comment upon it in turn? I seek retrospective permission, as I extracted more than 10% of your original. 😀
Truss comes across as a second rate Sunday school teacher.
Speers has pushed him to name one economist coming out in favour of the Coalition’s direct approach. But to no avail.
[jaundiced view
Posted Thursday, June 2, 2011 at 8:11 pm | Permalink
Ah. Sorry. Centre, do you mind that I copied and pasted your earlier comment at 105 so as to comment upon it in turn? I seek retrospective permission, as I extracted more than 10% of your original.
]
smaal problem – This ain’t the sealed section.
But nice try at being funny.
Misfit,
My Dad who, has kept birds, forever, said it has probably had a fit, it could get better but it is not likely.
daretotread
[Thanks MTBW
I will post it again if Dee comes back as it was in reply to her]
Daretotread be my guest!
A fine post but one which I do not entirely agree. 🙂
Dee
Copied from the last thread.
I honestly do not think that Anna Bligh is treated any other way than equally by the media. Her clothes and looks are not much discussed (no more than JWH’s eyebrows or Abbotts smugglers). To the extent that she has a negative label it is “Captain Bligh” certainly not a sexist image.
Sadly I think that for Julia it was the comparison with Anna during the Qld floods that did her damage. It is hard to see how this is sexist exactly. Mind you I think JG’s minders had her doing rather bimboist stunts at the time – serving tea etc while Anna was making the big decisions. A very hard call to make so I do not wish to be too critical – but it did not work well. My point is that it is NOT sexism or anti woman as such.
This is not to say that there is NO anti woman bias it is just that it is unwise to assume that it is the most important issue. It may be issue no 8 for most people with issues like the, carbon tax, assylum seekers, health care, interest rates, jobs, NBN, or live exports taking the top spots. There is evidence that suggests her lack of religion may be a much bigger issue than her sex. (I am also a confirmed atheist so this is not meant to be negative just a statement of fact)
JV,
Just fess up to being a criminal copy pasting plagiarist who has no remorse about stealling someone elses intellectual property.
It would be good for your soul.
LATIKAMBOURKE | 1 minute ago
[Gerard Henderson on Sky says he’s not in favour of TAbbott’s Direct Action policy because it is too expensive. Supports waiting for the US.]
LATIKAMBOURKE | 2 minutes ago
[Warren Truss, when asked to name an economist supporting coalition’s policy, said many people support it particularly those in industry.]
Well, at least Henderson is balanced. 😆
He doesn’t like either partys policies.
Maggie Thatcher had the classic answer to George Negus on that question along the lines of “Name names. Tell me who they are”.
Any copyright infringement involved in publishing material from Crikey on, er, Crikey would surely be a civil rather than criminal matter – so even if civility is too much to ask, can we please lay off this “criminal behaviour” nonsense for the sake of factual accuracy.
Good Evening everyone. Just popping back for a while after a couple of months break after being tired of the negative talk re Julia/Kevin. Hope that one has been put to bed and the real issues are being addressed.
I’ve had a chance to follow QT more recently, and feel a lot of the problems in QT fall fairly and squarely on Harry Jenkins. He is simply an appalling Speaker. Have had this view for a long time.
Constant chants of “order, order”, “warning” MPs (some more than once) and long, involved rulings, have weakened his position. The Opposition knows they can get away with political murder. Speaker Hawker never was so kind to the Labor Opposition.
It came as no surprise when the “crisis” occurred this week. Harry’s main problem is that he wants to be liked by everybody and this highlights even more his weakness.
He should reconsider his position, have a chat to the Government, and resign ASAP. Peter Slipper, if he wants it, would be a far better Speaker. I’ve seen him as Acting Speaker and his rulings are clear, concise and authoritative. In other words, he doesn’t take any crap!!
Come on Harry, do the right thing by everybody, particularly yourself, and stuff Abbott and his false praise of you as Speaker.
kraken at #112
Here try this as an example of ABC bias with your ABC PR fella.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/05/05/2890397.htm
William,
Depends whether Mr Crook perceives it as a theft of his intellectual property and makes a complaint to the police.
However, my point has has been made, and I will move on.
Re palin and Trump,etc
___________________
A US academic/writer looks at the Repub. Party(the party of Trump and Palin) which he dubs” the party of madness”….
and sees it headed to a great defeat
..notwithstanding the depth of the US financial crisis.(.depression ????) currently being experienced(see also today big fall on Wall Street)..and the inability of Obama to do much about anything…or the fact that about One voter in Eight now depends of Food Stamps to put an few basics on the dinner table..
..
Green on US Repub Party…
Despatches from the end of Empire..
_________
http://www.counterpunch.org/green05312011.html
deblonay,
Any chance you are going to post on Australian political life?
[Greensborough Growler
Posted Thursday, June 2, 2011 at 8:30 pm | Permalink
deblonay,
Any chance you are going to post on Australian political life?
]
Only after midnight WA Time with the latest BS bashing labor.
Cuppa
“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.”
I love how you blame the media. Labor has been laughable over the last three years and is the root of all your troubles.
Kev the “greatest moral challenge” of our time sat on the ETS for over a year to slap Turncoat with it. Kev refused to negotiate with the greens about the ETS then Jules our current fearless leader made Kev pull the ETS before an election. Wow that is some leadership for our “great moral challenge” and now after the “no carbon tax under the government i lead” Labor says Libs are the party of No! Its laughable because Labor has been preventing action on climate change more then any other group.
Its great watching labor flop around blaming every thing that moves, Its going to be a great 2-3 years to the next election watching NSW Labor a second time.
[Sadly I think that for Julia it was the comparison with Anna during the Qld floods that did her damage.]
Gillard was attacked from day 1 of her PMship by the Murdoch press. And you can’t tell me that the screeds of words written about her earlobes, her clothes, her hair, her hands, no handbag (by Murdochcracy women btw: Savva, Albrechtsten and some other nonentity – see the Drum piece Dee linked to earlier) were not sexist.
[This is not to say that there is NO anti woman bias it is just that it is unwise to assume that it is the most important issue. ]
Roughly 50% of voters are women. This is a very important issue, and interwoven with Tone’s ratings among women voters. You may not think it’s important, but to many women it is. I maintain that Tone is a drag on the coalition vote, for the simple reason that his misogynist dog whistling and blokiness is a turn off to women voters.
GG
Complete ignorance of the law, as you’ve demonstrated, is always a bad place from which to start a campaign, whatever the motivation.
If you were correct – and you aren’t – we’d all sharing the same cell. 😀
Thefinnigans The Finnigans
people just have NO idea as how to the Indonesian systems work. dont sell to them if you worry how they are being treated #auspol
8 seconds ago
daretotread @129,
I believe the fall in popularity for the PM has a lot to do with the CC announcement in February and little to do with her “performance” during the floods. I think it has been as simple as that.
The only people who had a problem with her during the floods were the MSM and a few other commentators including some posting here at the time.
Newspoll 18/20 February had her satisfaction / dissatisfaction at 50/39. 18/20 February had PPM AT 53/31 in her favor. Seeing as the floods etc were over by this stage shows that her so called wooden appearence was mainly in the minds of those who did not like her to start with, including sections of the MSM, and not the public.
If you then have a look at Newspoll 4/6 March you find satisfaction/disatisfaction at 39/51. What happened between the two Newspolls ? Not the floods but the CC anouncement and the liar liar MSM attack.
My take anyway.
cheers.
JV,
William has asked me to desist from further comment. As always, I will oblige with our exalted moderators desires. You, of course, can continue unabated, apparently.
Lucky you.
feeney
Welcome back!
Before I hand over the computer to OH.
I don’t know what was more annoying. The opposition rabble screaming down the PM or Harry’s repeated shouts of ‘order’.
He needs to restore order to parliament or resign.
Would Slipper still want the gig?
Seems Labor MP’s were having a chat with him on Tuesday night.
[rummel
Posted Thursday, June 2, 2011 at 8:32 pm | Permalink
Cuppa
“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.”
I love how you blame the media. Labor has been laughable over the last three years and is the root of all your troubles.
Kev the “greatest moral challenge” of our time sat on the ETS for over a year to slap Turncoat with it. Kev refused to negotiate with the greens about the ETS then Jules our current fearless leader made Kev pull the ETS before an election. Wow that is some leadership for our “great moral challenge” and now after the “no carbon tax under the government i lead” Labor says Libs are the party of No! Its laughable because Labor has been preventing action on climate change more then any other group.
Its great watching labor flop around blaming every thing that moves, Its going to be a great 2-3 years to the next election watching NSW Labor a second time.
]
To quote one Mr Cocker:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SMwXPueu-RM