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.
Can anyone from ACT tell me anything about the Motorists and Bullet Train parties?
Who did they preference? Were they fronts for one of the major parties?
Tony at one of his Tory dinner parties!!!!!!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8LBXWjVEpDc&feature=youtu.be
[FORMER prime minister Kevin Rudd has shrugged off suggestions that he ghostwrote ex-MP Maxine McKew’s tell-all political book, saying the claim “verges on sexism”.
The denial came after Ms McKew, who at the 2010 election lost the Sydney seat of Bennelong which three years earlier she had captured from then prime minister John Howard, also rejected claims Mr Rudd had ghostwritten her book Tales From The Trenches.
“For anyone to accuse a prominent journalist such as Ms McKew of not being able to write her own book I think verges on sexism,” Mr Rudd told reporters today after giving a speech in Mandarin at a Chinese cultural event in Sydney.]
http://www.news.com.au/entertainment/books/pm-julia-gillard-stitched-up-kevin-rudd/story-fn9412vp-1226499866236
Lead story on news.com.au is Ruddstoration. And Kevin is doing everything in his ken to keep the flames aburning.
To OzPol:
The Chinese authorities seem to have employed a psychologist to advise on security pat-downs. My recent experience was that external body searches using a hand-held scanner are generally performed by young female officers on females and males alike. Female passengers cannot complain and most male passengers are unlikely to complain!
I want to see Kevin Rudd flip over these accusations RE: Leadership issues…
This way the media can finally put to bed.
zoomster, bemused
Thanks
I’m too interested in politics to stay an angry moderate ex Liberal forever.
sprocket_@1303
Yeah, shocking stuff sprocket_!
Like this bit which you didn’t quote.
[Mr Rudd upstaged Mr Abbott by delivering his speech in Mandarin.
He said Mr Abbott was all about creating any type of diversion strategy rather than outlining his policy vision.
“Mr Abbott can rabbit on as much as he likes about all these sort of things. I’m concerned about a policy debate for the future,” Mr Rudd told reporters.]
Truly shocking.
I presume you and others of like mind wanted it left for Abbott to have a clear run.
Of course Ed Husic, whose seat is at stake, obviously saw the benefit of having Kev there at a Chinese community function.
Of course our MSM will make up whatever story suits them. Just as they would have if Kev had been invited and didn’t show up.
You people are just deranged. 😡
frednk@1306
Well there sure isn’t any moderate Liberal Party for you to find a home in.
And you will find a broad range of views in the ALP despite what you may have heard among Libs.
Why, it is even broad enough to accommodate zoomster and me! 😀
mysay #1249, while the papers present drops in revenue with breathless excitement as some sort of criticism of the government, this is what (1) a GFC and (2) a mining investment boom look like – more investment = more deductions short / medium term’
The MSM make me puke. May they all join the unemployed.
I’ve had a gutful of Gutful of KFC Joe.
But I have great trust in my fellow public servants at Treasury and in Swannie.
BK@1299
1 – 2 – 3 – 4 – hrair (in RAbbott language)
Bemused
Kevin Rudd could have said to Maxine McKew – put the book aside, don’t publish it now. It will only excite the press and give ammo to Abbott.
But no.
tlbd # 1310 that is pure gold.
After all hrair = anything from 5 to eleventy and beyond.
I dont have the cretivity to come up with a Mr Rabbott’s Watership (Talk the economy) Down, C@tmomma maybe?
Labor
FFs leave Rudd alone . the more you all put shit on him the more you lose any chance of qld.votes. He is cranky and with good reason but what do you want. He is now playing the game and has endorsed pmjg A lib.govt. that you can blame on Rudd or lay off him and direct your anger on abott
Bemused, preference directions and “front parties” are of limited value in the ACT, because there’s no ticket voting under Hare-Clark and you’re not allowed to disseminate how-to-vote material at polling places.
Bit tough to blame Kev for Max’s publishing a book.
sprocket_@1311
Yep sure, I’m sure she involved him in all the commercial arrangements with the publisher, who by the way, isn’t Maxine McKew.
So tell me, when would be a good time to publish it?
I expect never according to you and the other reflexive ‘Rudd Haters’ who are just in the grip of a paranoia that makes you see everything as a plot.
Do you really think Maxine McKew isn’t her own woman?
Get over it. It may have some impact within the ALP but I don’t see it having any effect on the next election either positive or negative. Only a tiny percentage of the electorate will ever read it. And most of those will have fixed convictions already.
The Robson rotation would be perfect in a 100% engaged electorate.
[sprocket_
Posted Sunday, October 21, 2012 at 8:26 pm | PERMALINK
Bemused
Kevin Rudd could have said to Maxine McKew – put the book aside, don’t publish it now. It will only excite the press and give ammo to Abbott.
But no.]
I imagine Confessions is about to make a post about how sexist it is to have a man tell a woman when to publish her own book.
….
….
…no comment Confessions?
And if you where Prime Minister of Australia an was shafted by little union pricks like one Paul Howes would you not be just a little bit pissed off.
Sometimes you people need to get real and think.
As it is, in the ACT, you vote for a party but the successful ones from that party could be drawn from a barrel, leaving aside the personal recognition factor.
Confessions has gone abit far on this.
But I don’t think it’s a good idea in politics in general to release books.
Defamation and would go crazy lawsuits.
@Mod Lib,
I don’t think your post will help the conversation.
William Bowe@1314
Thanks for that, but I am not quite sure how to interpret it.
Can you explain “no ticket voting under Hare-Clark”? Surely it is a preferential system and preferences flow?
If there is no distribution of how-to-vote material at polling places, then surely parties get out the message by some other means?
[saying the claim “verges on sexism”.]
That line, I’m afraid, verges on stupidity!
Joe6pack,
My comment about Ford was because I prefer Holden.
The funny thing is that it started decades ago about the small matter of the shape of the headlights.
Mod Lib@1318
That would place her in the position of agreeing with me so there is no chance. 😉
what time does Nielsen normally arrive???
[OzPol Tragic
Posted Sunday, October 21, 2012 at 6:38 pm | PERMALINK
Hello again.
Still very smokey. No wind. Storm clouds, but rain bands moving north & south of us, so little chance of a drenching to clear the air. Oppressive.
Read your post (below) bemused and wanted to post this:
Has he tried going through a metal scanner at an airport yet?
If the metal is titanium and/ or chrome (I’ve plates of each) they shouldn’t alert the scanners. I’ve had chrome since early 1982 and titanium since 1996. Never had the slightest peep from a scanner!
In an odd way, I rather hoped they would set off the scanners; but Nyaaah!
Not the same with medications. Got insanely barked at by a mean-looking dog in 1998. Handler yelled “Drop the bag! Drop the bag!” Big scene. I get led up to the security counter. Handbag & carry on luggage contents scanned & pawed over. And the culprit was …? Cortisone ointments, 4 tubes 2X.02 & 2x.05. Interestingly, I had pseudoephedrine to manage the bad sinus. Not then a drug of interest!
How things change! 2003, 2010 – no dramas over cortisone. But pseudoephedrine !!!!!!
Oh & in Aug 2010 I was wearing my moneybelt (everything small I didn’t want to lose, like mobile, cash, cash cards,jewellery etc) under my blouse, next to my skin. Like where else would one wear a moneybelt in crowded Heathrow, which is abso-bluddy-lutely ca-raaawling with really loud scruffy students & families flying to & from N Hemisphere summer holidays?
Where the security staff insisted it should be – over my clothes, in plain sight, where they (& loads of other people) could clearly see it!
My lapse earned me a detector & pat-down body-search by 2 women in a tiny room with a door that locked! OH thought it was hilarious! Told everyone (several times).
Youse have all been warned!}
You poor darling, my worst experience was in US where I was accused of having different fingerprints to the ones they had on record, funny now but not when you spend a couple of hours in a room with all the other “suspects” as there was a plane to catch, only transiting. Anyway there was a call to Washington about me and they decided to let me through and gave me back my passport, to be told next time I go back to the US I was to go to the US consulate in Sydney and tell them to ring Washington and I would be issued with a special visa, haven’t tried
@womble/1326
Usually around 10-11pm? the last one arrived that.
thanks Zoidlord
[So what are your views on the issues you listed?]
I’m a pacifist, unless Australia is actually under attack, as it was during the Pacific War (at least that’s what Aussies believed & many still do).
Though I know nuclear medicine’s unique uses (my biennial scans involve radioactive isotopes & nuclear diagnostic machines), I’m still hoping for non-nuclear alternatives. As for power stations; there are viable alternatives, so risk is indefensible. As for weapons; NO WAY!
I also marched, lobbied etc (60s,70s) for fee-free unis, esp for undergrads. For 15 years (inc 8 years married, with a mortgage & a sick child in an area with only private Drs & hospital) my uni studies (almost all external) – fees, SRC, books, vac schools inc accommodation fees, seminars etc transport, fares to access libraries and archives inc interstate (esp post-grad) cost 50% of my (v good) salary. Had I not worked, I couldn’t have afforded it. Nor could my family or OH afford to support me.
Not that I lost anything educationally by working my way through uni, or as an external student; quite the contrary! But if Dad were a professional & our family smaller, I’d have been a full-time student, with no need to earn my board, lodgings & fees etc. Nor do I support less well-off students’ being burdened with big loan repayments.
I should add I’m fully aware of fee-free era’s enormous (an understatement!) waste of money caused by huge numbers of drop-outs with no good reason, usually without notifying the uni; but that could have been limited by requiring a defensible reason for dropping out; perhaps with financial penalties if none could be provided – maybe an initial deposit forfeited on drop-out.
I also want to stop most of the taxpayers’ money wasted on bankrolling sports-persons, with no provisions of the taxpayers’ recouping a fair share; or subsidising players, coaches, grounds & facilities for sports that rake in huge revenue from TV broadcasts & other media. Pay players lower salaries & use TV etc revenues to build facilities. Then the gov should spend the savings where it really counts – grossly underfunded pure research to augment grants and help far more people internationally (eg medical research) and/or advance scientific, technological & other research which pushes the boundaries of knowledge (eg IT, physics, pharmaceutical, engineering etc)
At 70, I doubt anything but advanced dementia will change my views – and I wouldn’t even know that had happened 😉
Bemused, what I mean is that there’s no above-the-line option which causes 95% of the votes to be funneled in a particular direction at the behest of the parties. Voters are only required to number as many boxes as there are seats, so minor party voters can very easily have their votes exhaust rather than go to a major party. I don’t think publicising your favoured preference order ahead of time has much impact on what people do in the polling booth, unlike how-to-vote cards. So there might be some value to running a front party, but it would amount to very little compared with the Senate or state upper house systems.
bemused@1322
In Tassie they largely don’t, but a constraint here is you can’t name another candidate without their permission, so publishing a full HTV card is impossible. The Greens sometimes publish ads with a set order for their voters to put their candidates 1-5 in. A lot of Greens voters still don’t follow it.
It seems that attempts to direct preferences to outside the party in HC via advance announcement are close to futile. The voters on whom HTV cards work are not paying enough attention before they go to vote for anything else to be effective.
[I’m a pacifist, unless Australia is actually under attack, as it was during the Pacific War (at least that’s what Aussies believed & many still do).]
The ones who were at Darwin seem particularly stubborn in their attachment to that belief.
Bemused,
http://www.elections.act.gov.au/education/act_electoral_commission_fact_sheets/elections_act_factsheet_hare-clark_electoral_system
and
http://www.elections.act.gov.au/elections_and_voting/ballot_papers_for_the_legislative_assembly
The claim that Maxine McKew’s book has been ghostwritten by Kevin Rudd for the purposes of destabilising the party are as absurd as many of Tony Abbott’s claims in regards to the carbon price
[The claim that Maxine McKew’s book has been ghostwritten by Kevin Rudd for the purposes of destabilising the party are as absurd as many of Tony Abbott’s claims in regards to the carbon price]
Has anyone been named/attributed as even saying that? I’ve seen the very vague ‘Gillard supporters’ mentioned, but I’d want stronger proof than that before trusting it as something people actually believe. It almost seems too convenient…
[The ones who were at Darwin seem particularly stubborn in their attachment to that belief.]
The photo of the post office at the time it took a direct hit killing the post master and his family (and six young women sheltering near by)is an enduring image.
You definitly can’t accuse Minchin of not being small minded.
http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/political-news/minchin-says-un-seat-win-disgusting-20121021-27z4u.html
WB @ 1333
[The ones who were at Darwin seem particularly stubborn in their attachment to that belief.]
And the friends and relatives of the 21 sailors killed on board the HMAS Kuttabul in Sydney Harbour on 31st May 1942 by a Japanese midget submarine.
I’ve seen the very vague ‘Gillard supporters’ mentioned, but I’d want stronger proof than that before trusting it as something people actually believe. It almost seems too convenient…
It is just plain stupid…
what time can we expect James J with the Nielsen?
OPT @ 1330
Some of my sentiments are like yours but in terms of hard practical reality, I differ.
I marched against the Vietnam War and opposed the war in Iraq and initially was ambivalent about Afghanistan, mainly because of the horrors of the Taliban. I now believe we should get out.
The genie is out of the bottle with nuclear and not much can be done to put it back. For the foreseeable future the world will be blighted with nuclear weapons and the bast we can hope for is non-proliferation.
Some countries depend on nuclear power and that won’t be turned around any time soon, but there is no need for us to go down that path.
Free university, in fact all education free is a great idea, except someone has to pay.
In the times you refer to, about 4% went to university, now it is more like 40% so vastly more expensive to run the tertiary sector. It is not unreasonable for those who benefit from a tertiary education to make some contribution toward the cost.
Most of my tertiary studies have been part time and I paid fees.
I agree on the sports persons and in fact I cringe at how some prominent people exalt in the placing of sporting prowess ahead of all other forms of human endeavour. I always enjoyed my sport, but knew other things mattered more.
After reading many of your posts, I can’t see any sign of dementia and don’t expect to any time soon. 😀
You would be comfortable in your local ALP branch. There is usually more tolerance there than on PB. 😉
docantk
Not sure James J does Nielsen. I know he does Newspoll though.
GhostWhoVotes is usually first with the Nielsen when they come out
John Eales:
[The hope is that an inexperienced (Wallaby) team has just put a stake in the ground. Old hands like Nathan Sharpe and Tatafu Polota-Nau have delivered]
In Polota-Nau’s case he delivered a few knock ons and the worst line out throw in history straight into the guts of an All Black a few yards from the try line.
Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/rugby-union/union-news/critical-misjudgments-cost-wallabies-famous-win-20121021-27zps.html#ixzz29vac2gFg
The whole ‘ghost writer in the sky ‘ theme was written by Simon Benson based on ‘labor sources’ as was the whole PM office leaking against McKew rubbish.
Not one identified labor person has actually stated either of the above.
FWIW I am still to read what the PM’s office was supposed to have leaked.
I have read nothing seen nothing or heard nothing of any leaked detail except from McKew which I have no problem with. She is trying to sell a book and make some money.
Labor should just squat it aside.
AS far as I am concerned the whole thing is just News Ltd stirring up this rubbish. Nothing more nothing less.
Not the first time Benson and Madden have been guilty of making shit up. So easy to quote ‘unnamed sources “.
I still remember the rubbish written by Madden about Tanners first book. She wrote a whole article based on one paragraph or chapter I think it was.
William @ 1331
Thanks William, it makes sense now.
But there might still be some value in it to ‘bleed’ votes off an opposition group if you pitched your message right. You might not get them, but if you don’t and they exhaust, they are denied to your opponents too.
I am used to such antics in Council elections which are closer to an ACT election than ‘real’ State elections are.
[GhostWhoVotes @GhostWhoVotes
#Nielsen Poll 2 Party Preferred: ALP 48 (+1) L/NP 52 (-1) #auspol
9:30 PM – 21 Oct 12]
[GhostWhoVotes @GhostWhoVotes
#Nielsen Poll 2 Party Preferred: ALP 48 (+1) L/NP 52 (-1) #auspol ]
Kevin Bonham @ 1332
Thank you for that contribution too.
Seems a fairly strange way to run an election.
Leroy
Now that’s more like it!