Sunday preselection snippets

Further dispatches to keep the ball rolling until the glorious day when paged comments return:

• Nicole Hasham of the Illawarra Mercury reports on possible successor to Liberal MP Joanna Gash in the southern NSW seat of Gilmore. The front-runner is said to be Shoalhaven deputy mayor Andrew Guile, a one-time staffer to Gash who is evidently not on good terms with his former employer. According to the report, the South Coast Register published a letter from Gash in August which criticised Guile for sharing a $1080 meal with other councillors at a Sydney restaurants at which various preselections were said to be discussed, including her own. Also named as a possible contender is Gash’s “close Liberal associate” Clive Brooks, who “owns South Nowra business Great Southern Motorcycles”.

• The Daily Telegraph reports Craig Laundy, “general manager of his father Arthur’s $500 million hotel empire”, has Tony Abbott’s backing for preselection in the central western Sydney seat of Reid. According to the report, “a senior Liberal source said Mr Laundy had been to see Mr Abbott, party president Arthur Sinodinos, state director Mark Neeham and moderate faction leader Michael Photios about his run for the seat”. He may face opposition in the shape of Dai Le, ABC Radio National producer and two-time state candidate for Cabramatta.

• Christian Kerr and Lauren Wilson of The Australian report that some in the Nationals camp hope the party might be able to poach the New South Wales seat of Hume from the Liberals if Alby Schultz retires as expected at the next election, by fielding Senator Fiona Nash as their candidate. One virtue of the plan is said to be that Nash is seen as “a possible party leader, a more stable alternative to (Barnaby) Joyce”.

• Similarly, the WA Nationals are said to be hopeful of winning Durack if the current Liberal member Barry Haase does not contest the next election, “as many predict”.

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.

469 comments on “Sunday preselection snippets”

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  1. victoria – thanks for that. I did miss but no worries because I remember it all so well. A close friend of mine was Peter Abeles PA. Hawkie and Abeles got on very well together. The Murdoch press did give media support and the coverage was all about bad Unions.

    Let’s see how they do it this time.

  5. jackol

    [Qantas don’t have the cash to do this for more than 2 to 3 weeks. I’d be interested to see if anyone believes their bluff.]

    I don’t think they’re bluffing. they could be happy to see the qantas brand, and the company which employs the 30,000 odd employees to fold.

  6. For Qantas, this is an all or nothing bet. Clearly, they are prepared to close or massively re-figure their operations. They lose money on their international routes, so will benefit from closing them anyway. Maybe Joyce is willing to leave Qantas in shut-down and develop its Jetstar flyer. Qantas has been struggling for a number of years, and its domestic business is being cannibalized by its own discount operator. Joyce clearly understands the discount model, and already has an international discount operator.

    I think there must be at least some probability that Qantas will never fly again.

  8. [leigh_howard
    @leigh_howard
    Pilots: the only person in #Qantas who can make a decision as to whether Q will fly again is Joyce. In good faith we suggested a120 suspensn]

  10. [leigh_howard
    @leigh_howard
    Pilots: Qantas have said that any result other than a termination will result in grounding. #Qantas is threatening FWA]

  11. [leigh_howard leigh_howard
    Pilots: Qantas have said that any result other than a termination will result in grounding. #Qantas is threatening FWA]

  13. dave:

    [But, that said, if one were to chose betwixt the executive and the judiciary, I’d invariably rely on the the latter.

    At least with a politician they can be voted out. Mistakes in choosing Judges are basically for life. Also they are political appointees to start with, or put differently appointed by politicians.]

    Judges, unlike politicians, once appointed, don’t have to worry about re-election.

    Absent such an imperative they are more likely in my view to react more objectively.

    A long time ago I was asked to compare & contract executive & judicial power & mistakenly
    sided with the former.

    I’m now convinced that the judiciary, the weakest arm of government, is the arm most likely to protect our basic rights.

  15. [The cynicism in the journo pack is something to behold and it spoils democracy for us. The reporting of CHOGM as achieving nothing said it all. Of course it wasn’t earth shattering but who in their right mind expected it to be. It did give all those people access to our country and to get a taste of our hospitality. I thought Perth and WA did us proud by what I saw of it.]

    Its one of the successes of the Coalition’s rhetoric about anything the Government says being ‘spin’. It lets journalists feel like they’re above it and not roped in like average people, when really they’re just falling for projected Coalition spin instead.

  18. [geeksrulz Kinder Gentler Geek
    Off to a great start RT @NeilMcMahon: Qantas channelling Abbott. ‘We have only one position. Agree to it or we’ll wreck the joint.’]

  20. If Qantas board was smart enough, they would have given their employees the payrise instead of their CEO.

    Obviously they are dumb buggers, who think this is still the 80s.

  23. If Qantas refuses to put its planes in the air despite a FWA suspension of industrial action, then I reckon they’re conduct could amount to deliberate sabotage the Australian transportation system.

    If one of Osama’s followers managed such a stunt he’d be arrested and locked-up before you could say allahu akbar.

    Perhaps it’s time for the Government to start treating this as a national security issue.

    Instead of our coppers busting-up OWS demos, perhaps it’s time to raid a particular Board Room and black-bag a few terrorists.

  24. leigh_howard leigh_howard
    Pilots: the threat, re: grounding if suspension, is inconsistent w prior evidence given by #Qantas
    19 seconds ago

  27. confessions – I don’t really equate the two because the arbitration system was so different. I always had the feeling that if Abeles and Hawkie hadn’t been such great mates that the action may not have been so heavy. Having the media on board meant that the Govt. couldn’t lose out of it. A bit like Howard and his stuff.

    This time I think the Unions can make a fair bit out of Joyce’s heavy handedness and the atrocious way he got his payrise the day before he lost it and inconvenienced so many people.

    I think I read somewhere that the actual strike hours throughout this whole episode has been quite minor.

  29. [I think I read somewhere that the actual strike hours throughout this whole episode has been quite minor.]

    Six hours in the last seven months.

  30. [Latika Bourke
    @latikambourke
    Counsel for Engineers now – question of damage to #Qantas is irrelevant as Qantas never applied to FWA citing harm as it is entitled to do.]

  31. [leigh_howard
    @leigh_howard
    Engineers: tribunal should place little or no weight regarding damage caused to #Qantas. This damage is self inflicted]

  33. BH:

    Thanks. The blog has been fixed, and this is the comment:

    [What amazing deja vu!

    Sir Peter Abeles pulled much the same stunt in 1989 during the Airline Pilots Dispute by shutting down the airline system rather than negotiating with the pilots.

    Abeles’ good mate PM Hawke then taxpayer-funded the airlines for their ‘lost business’ to the tune of $100 million and provided Abeles with military aircraft at well below cost price to transport passengers around. Abeles’ other good mate and joint-owner Rupert Murdoch, also provided lots of sympathetic media coverage for the actions of Abeles and Hawke, as well as lots of boo-hiss coverage of the pilots for ‘holding the nation to ransom’ and bankrupting the travel industry.

    Interesting to see if a similar scenario plays itself out again.]
    http://larvatusprodeo.net/2011/10/30/qantas-industrial-action-open-thread/#comment-343267

  35. The big difference with the 1989 was that the pilot’s resigned. Captain McCarthy ( otherwise known as Biggles) feared that Abeles would sue them under the punitive clauses of the Arbitration Act – they were confident that they could not be replaced and that this would precipitate a resolution. Of course Abeles accepted the resignations with alacrity and started recruiting from overseas – the RAAF filled in until he had enough pilots. Talk about a turkey calling for an early Christmas!

  37. In the end their will only be one winner and that winner will be Qantas management. They will win because our laws are built to ensure that employers will win.
    Whilst unions can hardly strike in this country because of the laws the system is staked against them.
    We have situation where the elite 1 percent runs the other 99.

  42. i am here to stick up for working people who have been let done by the workers party and i thought they were called the Labor Party.
    Why does the workers party continue to crawl to people to do not vote them and never will vote them.

  45. [marky marky

    Posted Sunday, October 30, 2011 at 11:10 pm | Permalink

    i am here to stick up for working people who have been let done by the workers party and i thought they were called the Labor Party.
    Why does the workers party continue to crawl to people to do not vote them and never will vote them.
    ]

    If you believe that Twaddle above then I have this Airline going cheap.

  48. [leigh_howard
    @leigh_howard
    TWU: no evidence of pshycological effect of industrial action upon pilots. The argument that this was done for safety reasons is dubious]

  49. [TWU what are they doing for ordinary truck drivers? i know some and they have done absolutely nothing.]

    The truck drivers have done absolutely nothing?

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