Gilmore covers a stretch of southern coastal New South Wales, starting in the north with Shellharbour and Kiama at the southern tip of the Illawarra, and extending southwards through Nowra to Ulladulla. According to the 2011 census results, Gilmore has the equal second highest median age out of the 150 House of Representatives electorates, along with the fifteenth lowest median family income. Such is its combination of urban Labor and conservative rural areas that it is actually the wealthier areas where support for Labor is the strongest.
Labor has only won the seat once since its creation in 1984, and has trod water electorally despite very favourable redistributions in 1993 and 2010. Both involved the addition of territory in the Illawarra, most recently with a gain of 20,000 voters around Shellharbour to counter-balance the transfer of the Batemans Bay area to Eden-Monaro. That turned a Liberal margin from the 2007 election of 4.1% into a notional Labor margin of 0.4%, but the Liberals easily retained the seat on the back of a 5.7% swing. This was especially concentrated in the Illawarra booths, where margins that had been inflated by a working class backlash against WorkChoices in 2007 were slashed by around 10%.
Gilmore originally extended deep inland through Goulburn to Young and Cowra, and was held for the Nationals by John Sharp from 1984 to 1993. Sharp moved to Hume after the Nationals-voting interior areas were transferred to it in 1993. Gilmore absorbed Labor-voting Kiama in exchange, which made Labor competitive for the first time and further weakened the Nationals relative to the Liberals. A 1.1% swing to Labor at the 1993 election saw their candidate Peter Knott emerge a surprise winner, with the Nationals only able to poll 5.1%. The Nationals left the field clear for the Liberals at the 1996 election, at which Knott’s 0.5% margin was obliterated by a swing of 6.7%.
The incoming Liberal member was Joanna Gash, a Wingecarribee councillor who had been hand-picked by the party’s state executive to target what at the time was a key front-line seat. Despite retaining a fairly low profile nationally, Gash achieved strong electoral performances both in 1998, where a swing to Labor of 2.2% compared with a statewide result of 4.1%, and especially at the 2001 election, at which a swing in her favour of 10.1% was the biggest in the country. Labor’s candidate on that occasion was Peter Knott, attempting a comeback two elections after his defeat in 1996, who was reckoned to have aided the Liberal cause by asserting American foreign policy had “come back to bite them” in the immediate aftermath of the September 11 attacks. Further evidence for the Knott effect was provided by the 4.6% correction in Labor’s favour in 2004. Labor picked up a further 5.3% swing in 2007, roughly in line with the state average, which reduced Gash’s margin to 4.1%.
In January 2012 Gash announced she would be scaling back her political career by running for mayor of Shoalhaven in the September local government election, at which she was duly succeeded with 63.2% of the vote, and bowing out of federal politics after serving out her term. Gash’s simultaneous performance of both roles in the interim had internal critics calling for the newly introduced regime excluding state parliamentarians from serving in local government to be extended to the federal sphere. George Williams, University of New South Wales law professor and unsuccessful Labor preselection candidate, further raised concerns that doing so might fall foul of the Constitution’s injunction that federal members must not hold an “office of profit under the Crown”.
The new Liberal candidate is Ann Sudmalis, a former Kiama councillor and staffer to Gash who won a fiercely contested April 2012 preselection with the backing of her old boss. Opposing Sudmalis was Andrew Guile, a Shoalhaven councillor and education administrator who was supported by Kiama MP and factional moderate Gareth Ward. Guile had also once been a staffer to Gash, but the two had since fallen out. Sudmalis prevailed at the preselection vote with the support of 16 delegates against 10 for Guile, along with four for Grant Schultz, Ulladulla resident and son of Hume MP Alby Schultz, and one for Catherine Shields, a marketing consultant from Meroo Meadow. Guile went on to run against Gash in the mayoral election but polled only 5.7%, while still retaining his ward seat.
Labor’s candidate for the third successive election will be local party activist Neil Reilly, who was preselected unopposed. Reilly was initially rebuffed by the party’s national executive before the 2010 election, which rejected his endorsement by local branches and installed former South Sydney rugby league player David Boyle. However, fierce local resistance to the move prompted Boyle to withdraw. The Nationals threatened to field a candidate as it positioned itself for coalition negotiations, with the highly visible former rock singer Gary “Angry” Anderson mentioned as a potential contender, but the arrangement eventually reached has left the seat vacant for the Liberals.
Good morning, Bludgers.
WOW! Does Michelle have a ghost writer, or has PM Gillard’s demolition of Abbott been her Damascene Moment?
Given the appallingly sexist way she was treated after her appointment as editor, that speech must have struck home, making er think wtte She’s calling out sexism & misogyny, and a sexist/ mysogynist, in his own words! I wish I’d be able to do that, or someone had done it for me.
Damascene Moments often aren’t immediate attitude changers. Usually there’s a fair deal of questioning similar to playboy St Augustine’s Make me pure … but not yet. But over 2,000,000 viewers and countless international articles & comments, in newspapers, on blogs and twitter – and the thought that the PM was doing the heavy lifting for women around the world – may resurrect the old Michelle Grattan, though at still at the Make me the well-researched, analytical, balanced journo I used to be … but not yet stage.
I hope so. I really miss the old Michelle!
thanks Lizzie re 38
i get quite annoyed and mystified when i here silly things like the wedding will cost 20 th or even 5 thousand.
A well planned wedding with economies in mind is just a beautiful as any i have ever been to.
So many things can be done by the couple themselves.
and if they ask for help willing parents.
I think its a look at me things sometimes,. I havent forgotten our son in laws comment, that the ceremony was the main game to put in to young man language.
of course we paid our share but they did most of the work it can be done.
[New2This
Posted Saturday, October 20, 2012 at 9:00 am | Permalink
Fudged surplus in doubt, Rudd McKew team back in action, boats streaming in, businesses going to the wall… Well folks we do have a seat on the UNSC and a new meaning for a word. A word I can’t mention for fear of retraining.]
And for all the bullshit and miss-representation of the facts, polls steadly returning to labor. The unhinging is fun to watch, please keep it up.
OPT,
Wow indeed. Why the hell doesn’t she write like that all the time?
Megas piece on that video. Shows, he at least gets it!
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/opinion/columnists/online-sensation-exposes-abbotts-gender-card-play-to-millions/story-e6frg7ex-1226499493184
I loved MegaGeorge’s description of Abbott’s “blokey laugh”. It’s so artificial. Good article.
[What Gillard’s speech clarified is that Abbott doesn’t understand his opponent, even if he once got on well with her. He mistook her silence before last week as weakness. She didn’t react to the taunts because she didn’t want to seem shrill. He kept pressing, expecting that she would eventually crack. But she was biding her time, waiting for the opportunity when he over-reached.]
guytaur
[I was referring to the way to get around Limited News paywall]
I’m not aware of that method. I went to that article from the link in GM’s tweet before I saw your post. I don’t think it’s behind the paywall.
take no notice of My Say
there are some who pretend not to live for rudd.
I totally agree with you.
@washingtonpost: Banana Boat recalls certain sunscreens after reports of skin igniting: http://t.co/uzbSYTjI
The fact that Maxine McKew chose the Daily Tele (or did they “choose” her?) to attack the PM says a lot.
Have you noticed, in anti-Labor comments by journos, a “Labor supporter” becomes “Gillard supporter” becomes “the PM” or “the PM’s office denied”. So easy!
triton
Posted Saturday, October 20, 2012 at 9:11 am | Permalink
guytaur
[I was referring to the way to get around Limited News paywall
I’m not aware of that method
]
To jump over Rupert’s paywall copy the web address of the article and paste it into google and search. Just click on the search result and you are over the paywall.
In the early stages of her prime ministership, Gillard famously admitted she would be more at home in a classroom than on the international stage. Now she is at ease on the foreign circuit, comporting herself competently. The ground is well prepared for her; she has a friendly style that engages other leaders. As Barack Obama has said, she is a quick study. She has learnt a lot in a short time.
Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/politics/pm-abbott-on-a-steep-foreign-learning-curve-20121018-27ttm.html#ixzz29mnfbEjE
http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/politics/pm-abbott-
on-a-steep-foreign-learning-curve-20121018-27ttm.html
lizzie,
The gang of four journos drip fed by Rudd during his pathetic leadership challenge were Hudson, Coorey, Uhlmann and Simpkin. Guess which ones still keep the Ruddstoration flames fanned?
Morning bludgers
I have looked through the hard copy of today’s Herald Sun. one article regarding the UN Seat won by the govt was on page 39
heading
WALKING TALL IN THE WORLD
If you bllinked you would miss it, and even so, it is not a positive piece. See if I can find if online
[
Megas said:
The theatre was the story;]
My view when I saw “the speech”, the words mattered, but it was the theatre that made it great. It i=was a Utube speech, turn of the vision and the impact is not there.
New2This
I thought Abbott said reopen Nauru and hey presto the boats would stop….it worked before and all that…..
And the Dept of Immig. advised the government it wouldn’t again.
I guess we know who was right now.
Poor Tone. Just can’t take a trick.
I reckon there are maybe 2 screws left in the bottom hinge. Maybe.
Also, ‘fudged surplus’? You mean like Hokey Joe’s fudged ‘audit? Or something different. Your evidence?
Thanks Oz poll.
Michelle does not have an email address while some others do.
I had actully forgotten why i use to read her articles.
still wondering why the change..
did she really get to know Julia our PM in India
as she was with her this week, perhaps they even chatted
Maxine McKew in The Telegraph, Kevin Rudd in The Australian.
Nudge, nudge, wink, wink, say no more, say no more. 🙂
my say
The main drift of Bronwyn Pike’s article was how much the “female equality” has gone backwards since the seventies, in spite of legislation. And much of it has been driven by commercial interests who have resisted any cultural change. In fact, in my opinion we have gone backwards, a long way.
IOW, he Gillarded Romney! Magic!
Must be all those phone calls, texts & meetings of the I’m the first black POTUS, you’re the first female Aussie PM, and we’re both under constant vicious attack by our oppositions, right-wing whackjobs and Murdoch media; so let’s vent together type. 😀
Here is the online article. The hard copy has no pictures and is written against a light grey background which makes it an unappealing read
http://www.heraldsun.com.au/opinion/walking-tall-in-the-world-as-australia-wins-seat-on-the-united-nations-security-council/story-e6frfhqo-1226499612169
‘Fudged Surplus’ is just another Right Wing Talking Point in lieu of anything actually intelligent to say. Like a discussion about Conservative policy. Because there are no thoughtful Coalition policies, just populism.
SK
You must go on that ride where you stand on a little platform in a tube, there is a count down, the platform drops and you are projected at maximum G forces down, up and down again.
just on a personal note. our george is one today.
we are having more than a party, its a celebration
i also want to get my daugher and son in law a special gift
they have had so much on their plate this year , and hardly a complaint.
i suppose in one way they dont need one, just george’s improving health a bit of the way to go yet.
on going care for some years.
but the smile and cuddles as he loves to throw himself on your shoulder then turn his head and smile.
he has blonde red hair which is a family trait.
a georgeous boy
so have good weekend.
re polling which electorate do they poll in i have always thought that should be listed.
my say
Hugs and kisses to George on his birthday, and also best wishes to the rest of the family. Enjoy the celebrations. You all deserve it.
Well, well… this explains a few things.
The Age states the bleedin obvious, but it’s nice to see it anyway.
[Storm of change: coming soon to TV
October 20, 2012
Adele Ferguson
Business columnist
74 reading now
2020 online now
…
The most protected sector in Australian business, television enjoys cheap access to broadband spectrum, tough anti-siphoning rules designed to prevent the pay TV industry from spoiling its exclusive control of sport, free spectrum to open up multichannels and juicy TV licence rebates.
But free-to-air television is approaching an evolutionary crossroads.
…
Coupled with the looming shadow of dramatic structural ownership changes across the industry, audience fragmentation, TV piracy and dwindling advertising revenues are conspiring to crush the traditional business model.
…
Change is not just coming, it is coming fast. ”By 2014 online will overtake TV, which is the greatest change in the history of media,” says media buyer Harold Mitchell. To survive, networks ”will have to get hold of the digital dollars”.
…
The biggest threat TV faces is clearly the internet.
Besides appealing to advertisers because it produces detailed information of who is watching and, more importantly, what else they do, it also appeals to viewers due to its easy availability and portability.
It is this ease of availability that is wreaking havoc on the traditional business model. This was no better illustrated than the disappointing ratings of the six-time Emmy award winner Homeland, which began its second season on the Ten Network last Sunday night.
Although Ten fast-tracked Homeland from its home market, it wasn’t enough.
…
Viewers, it seems, had already caught up – ad free.
…
In the US, … cable companies have seen subscriber numbers fall as internet subscribers have increased. In the US most homes use ”cable” to deliver both free and pay TV, so ”cutting the cable” is, in effect, a comprehensive rejection of both in favour of non-traditional platforms.
In this scenario, Australia’s proposed national broadband network – the ”NBN” – becomes a game-changing, almost nuclear, event, delivering broadcast-grade internet services to Australian homes.
Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/business/storm-of-change-coming-soon-to-tv-20121019-27wrn.html#ixzz29mZwkHAf ]
They’ve really got something to fight for this time: survival.
Rather than trying to adapt, the big media companies are attempting to stifle the NBN by nobbling the government that’s introducing it.
This nobbling is in favour of an Opposition that’s promised to hand over the NBN to the nobblers and their mates, in exchange for their support.
Cosy.
The newspapers have the same problem. Look at the lines under “Business columnist”
[74 reading now
2020 online now]
That’s 2020 people that have NOT bought The Age, and most likely the majority of them have stopped doing so altogether, or will in the future.
Once you can obtain the product you want, when you want it, bypassing the means of production and distribution that – it’s now been realised – only hamper the timeliness and relevance of content, why go back?
Once you’ve been insulted in the morning by Karl Stefanovic defending his mates Abbott and Jones, why bother with a dose of the same thing tomorrow?
If you don’t think John Howard is something to be hankered for (he’s been out of power for 5 years now), why read Peter Hartcher’s paen in favour of him?
If you finally get jack of paying substantial sums of money to view TV commercials – 15 minutes in every 30 at peak times – on Pay TV, why not cancel your subscription?
If you can get the show you want to watch downloaded from the internet (even illegally, because FTA TV refuses to adapt to the digital age) why go back.
If you get sick of reading “Rudd’s Return” columns from Phil Coorey, why would you want to read another? Or a piece de resistance from Grattan about the Prime Minister’s shoes? Or a turgid op-ed by Hartcher on how John Howard’s everyone’s favourite politician, and we all made a terrible mistake in 2007. Or a rant by Sheridan on how membership of the UN Security Council is a joke? Let us count the ways in which they try to talk this government and our nation down. But let’s not feel obliged to read them, or watch them, at their spruikers’ convenience.
Their infrastructure problems, and the elaborate constructions and concoctions they have erected around them in self-justification for their very existence are their problem. Not ours.
We have busy lives after all.
The internet is presently like a 6 lane highway into your house and a goat track out.
With the NBN, it’ll be bi-directional – 6 lanes as far as the eye can see, in both directions. You can even start your own TV station. Or your own newspaper. Or a blog. Or go on YouTube.
A few big media companies that got big because only they could afford the infrastructure of production and distribution will soon have been bypassed by the new highway.
Insulting their readers’ and viewers’ intelligence (or their even illogical political preference) won’t help.
The last few weeks have been a watershed, when the non-linear media and its participants on both sides of the fence took on the old linear media. The non-linear media got mocked for its trouble, but it won that battle.
When you don’t need a billion dollars to control the means of production and distribution – a billion dollars just to set up shop – then you’re a danger to the linear model of the old media.
The old media has turned the limitations of its means of production and distribution into a virtue.
Columns in newspapers are necessarily short because they compete for space with other columns. News is therefore, of necessity, abbreviated. Someone has to decide what to leave in and what to leave out. Voila! This becomes the virtue of “succinctness”. I call it dumbing-down, myself. We have the opinion writer, or the sub-editor under instructions from management to follow a certain “line”.
Deadlines have to be met because the presses and the trucks can’t wait forever. Thus, decisions need to be taken in haste. This becomes the virtue of “punditry”.
Live interviews on television have a certain time slot, timed to the second. The commercial breaks and program schedules demand it. It’s a non-linear medium, after all. Congratulations! The “gotcha” has been born. There’s not enough time for a proper interview (how often do we hear the words “We’re nearly out of time” preceding yet another gotcha?), so they go for the cheap trick, often insultingly so.
How can this old model, bogged down by its means of production and distribution, forced to adhere to a strict timeline, necessarily requiring huge investment up-front, with accompanying governance by a board of conservative bizoid types who are part of the boardroom set, appeal to an audience that is becoming more and more used to television, news and opinion – in both directions – on demand?
It can’t. The first stage of the fight back is traditional: they use their power to nobble the government that allows this change to happen.
But in doing so, they upset the half of their readers who actually appreciate what the government is doing. Bye-bye that half.
To talk the government down it is necessary to talk the economy (and even governance) down. Bye-bye confidence. Bye-bye advertisers. Bye-bye revenue.
The second stage is a plea for relevance.
“You need us,” we hear.
“We guide you through the context, to a correct interpretation of events!” they plead.
When you argue back, put a counter view, you get mocked and denigrated. You’re just “a social media thing”. Then you get blocked by them. It’s as if they’re putting their hands up to their ears, shutting out the noise. Or perhaps burying their ears, and the rest of their nodding heads in the sand. Pick your own metaphor… you don’t have to accept theirs anymore.
The only question is, how long we’ll have to wait until we can say:
“Bye-bye Old Media. You need us, but we don’t need you anymore.”
shellbell
Btw congratulations to you and your oH on the wonderful awards!
The Unhinging has been an interesting study this week. The normal ‘go to’ talking points have people yawning – which means people are no longer listening.
The fact that Abbott is repeating old news, and further, warned of a dirty campaign tells me there is nothing left in the bottom of that dirty tricks campaign barrel except smear and innuendo.
Question becomes if Abbott’s huge lead is leaking steadily away, will the LNP revisit leadership? Personally, I think they will make the mistake of believing Tony is a winner but more and more I think the LNP will make a big mistake backing Abbott through the 2013 election.
shellbell
[You must go on that ride where you stand on a little platform in a tube, there is a count down, the platform drops and you are projected at maximum G forces down, up and down again.]
Sounds like something to avoid!
@vexnews: Abbott’s position on UN backfired badly #auspol http://t.co/qCZ6z2tW
Abbott to rue his rhetoric. Not in this life time.
http://afr.com/p/opinion/labor_un_triumph_leaves_abbott_to_7TUjbxOgVgfZ9fAwvt965J
:izzie
totally agree with you and the weddings show that
the young woman well a lot of them dont seem to get,it
or is it the parents, who want the biggest and the best.
IF they had to pay for their own wedding i think you would see the difference.
but as i said some mothers cannot help themselves either.
this money should go to the deposit on a home ect.
and thinking you have to invite every one under the sun becauce if you dont they want speak to you again
ive heard that comment too.
i remember many garden weddings in the 60/70 a simple dress that could even be dyed and worn elsewhere was often the thought.
lizzie,
I believe the reason practices like Weddings have come back into vogue, and have superceded the critique of them as examples of female subjugation to male ceremonies, is because they went via the ‘Cheesecloth dress on the beach’ ceremonies, with vows written by the bride and groom that eschewed the old promises to ‘Love, Honour & Obey’.
So marriage ceremonies again gained the validation, through the back door, that they had lost via the feminist’s critique. From there it was simply a short hop, skip and a jump, via the work of the marketers and the religious organisations, to again imbue it with all the old symbolism. Overlayed with a Post Modern/Post Truth wink of the eye about what the White Dress should mean.
PWNED by MegaGeorge!
While we’re watching the MSM and evaluating the mood from newspapers etc, thought I’d let you know the attitude alternative radio are taking. I switched onto RRR yesterday, and the only political topic of interest was the the cut to single mother payments. Same thing this morning. I don’t know who the guy talking about it this morning was – he was a bit troppo, talking about mothers sleeping in cars, and some claim that Newstart hasn’t gone up since 1994 (that can’t be right, can it?).
I found it interesting not because it was in any way informative – it wasn’t – but because it gives an indication of how political news filters down to the less-engaged in the community, which is most people. They only take out of it what is directly relevant to them or people they know.
What bothers me most about that – and it’s a common thing on the station – is that whenever any regular (this guy sounded like a regular phone-in guest) starts making wild claims or dire predictions based on nothing, it’s all just uncritically accepted.
Anyway, on that basis, I don’t expect our SC seat to mean much to most people. They’re too busy complaining about things. Julia’s speech is the big news of the past couple of weeks, and will continue to resonate for a while longer. Other than that, people just aren’t in the mood to take pride in the country’s achievements.
art from anything else, investments actual and pledged by Australian mining companies in Africa are upwards of $50 billion. This would seem to provide reasonable justification for engaging leaders of African countries in a globalising environment.
Abbott might also employ a fact checker in his remarks about the “millions and millions of dollars’’ expended on a successful UN Security Council bid and the “extraordinary dislocation of diplomatic priorities’’ involved.http://afr.com/p/opinion/labor_un_triumph_leaves_abbott_to_7TUjbxOgVgfZ9fAwvt965J
BB
Brilliant! As I said yesterday, Murdoch needs the govt to fail so he can get his dirty paws on the NBN. His foxtel model is going to suffer a death by a thousand cuts otherwise.
In my own household, we barely watch free to air programs, and if we do, we record them without the advertisements. Usually we download a whole series on a USB, and watch it whenever we feel like it. Foxtel is viable for the live sports which at present cannot be streamed without payment. Remember the Optus ruling recently etc.
I am convinced that the msm in this country expect the coalition to help them keep control of the medium.
The media must know – even if they don’t admit it – that Tony the Successful Opposition Leader is largely a creature of their own creation, with his party only leading in the polls because their virtues are hyped and their failures ignored.
They’ve brought him this far.
We know – from everything BB sets out, as well as our own observation and experience – that they’d rather denigrate those criticising them than listen to them, so there’s no way they’re going to learn and change.
So the media is going to cling stubbornly to the belief that what has worked up til now will still work, and all that they have to do is ramp it all up a bit.
my say
For both of my weddings I wore a two piece outfit, one a brown and cream chanel linen suit and the other a coffee-coloured silk, and I catered for a small number of guests myself. No white weddings for me!!!
OPT
Did you see the video comments by Christian Kerr of the Oz during last week re the speech?
If not, here it is . He should have had a chat to Mega first
http://video.theaustralian.com.au/2289902086/Gallery-1-Twitter-0?area=videohighlights1
thankyou victoria,
BB ive never noticed these figures before,
so is this
2020 online now the amount of people who are reading the age on line at this minute. please
Victoria, looks like your prediction from yesterday was right on the spot. HeraldSun wouldn’t have the UNSC on the front page even with 24 hours notice. We just can’t have any positives about this government advertised, can we! Pfft
lizzie
and you got to wear the out fit again, yes agree totally
lizzie,
And you got to keep the Chanel suit to wear again. Bonus! 🙂
Good morning all.
[Andrew Elder @awelder
@WhileyAndrew After @latikambourke’s lie yesterday about non-recognition of Rudd, you need no longer regard her as a credible source. ]
Latika telling fibs?
Aguirre
How can Australians have pride in their nation, when for eg. The papers dont even mention this. If there was a headline on even say page 3 or 5 lauding our successful bid, it could infiltrate the minds of people, but of course, the only front pages we have gotten is Slipper the rat. Thomson and prostitutes.
Slav G
As I just mentioned in my previous post, there is never any positive news printed in the papers only negative stuff re the govt.
[2020 online now the amount of people who are reading the age on line at this minute. please]
You can see the number at the very top of the web page, next to the time and date.
Off shopping now. See yas later.
@PamelaScully: GOP voter registration scandal is HUGE. This would have been a Watergate in the days the press really did their job, & citizens cared.