Still famous 15 years later as the former electorate of Pauline Hanson, the modern seat of Oxley was created around the satellite city of Ipswich west of Brisbane in 1949 (a seat bearing the name earlier existed in southern Brisbane, before being renamed Griffith in 1934). Redistributions in 2004, 2007 and 2010 sent the electorate’s remaining share of Ipswich to Blair, pushing Oxley towards Brisbane with the addition of Middle Park and Jindalee in the north and Algester to the east. The changes before the 2010 election garnished the margin from 14.1% to 11.3%, and the punishing statewide swing against Labor that followed pared it back to 5.6%.
Oxley was was held for the Liberals on fairly comfortable margins for a decade after its creation by Donald Cameron, who served as Health Minister in the Menzies government. However, a 9.4% swing in the near-miss election of 1961 portended a long-term shift, delivering the seat to Labor’s Bill Hayden. Hayden did extraordinarily well to lift his margin to 19.1% by 1969, but Queensland’s reaction against the Whitlam government was enough to cut it back to 3.8% in 1975. By the time Hayden resigned to become Governor-General in 1988, the seat was safe enough for Labor that Les Scott was able to survive a sharp swing at the resulting by-election with a 4.0% margin.
After retaining a margin of 12.6% at the 1993 election, few suspected that Scott would be in serious danger despite the hostile environment Labor faced in 1996. However, trouble came in the form of Liberal candidate Pauline Hanson, whose campaign remarks about Aboriginal welfare saw her disendorsed by a party sensitive about its leader’s complicated history on racial issues. The voters by contrast rewarded her with an astonishing 48.6% of the primary vote, resulting in a 4.7% win after preferences. Unfortunately for Hanson, Oxley was substantially redrawn with the 1998 redistribution, losing its rural areas beyond Ipswich to newly created Blair along with parts of Ipswich itself, while absorbing the very safe Labor urban area of Inala. Rightly or wrongly, Hanson decided the new seat offered her the better prospects and Labor’s Bernie Ripoll had no trouble regaining Oxley at the 1998 election.
A member of the Australian Workers Union/Labor Forum faction, Ripoll served as a parliamentary secretary in opposition after the 2004 election, but was passed over when Labor came to office in 2007. His preselected Liberal National Party opponent for the coming election is Andrew Nyugen, a 28-year-old policy adviser to Brisbane lord mayor Graham Quirk.
What a Rogues Gallery:
http://www.couriermail.com.au/news/queensland/details-tabled-in-parliament-reveal-access-lnp-aligned-lobbyists-have-to-newman-ministers/story-e6freoof-1226523380931
@Thomas Paine/150
Is that some sort of Nazi reference to Gillard?
[Jessica Wright @jesswrightstuff
I spoke to Bruce Wilson this evening. He says he has had a gutful. Here is what else he had to say…http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/political-news/former-boyfriend-defends-prime-minister-20121124-2a0vp.html … #auspol #awu #wilson ]
Thomas. Paine.@145
I couldn’t give a rat’s, either way.
So much for generational change:
[A party strategist and Barnaby Joyce’s chief of staff will join long-serving senator Ian Macdonald on the Liberal National Party’s (LNP) Queensland senate ticket.
LNP official James McGrath and Joyce staffer Matthew Canavan were chosen to run second and third on the ballot by the LNP State Council in Brisbane on Saturday from a field of 16 candidates.
Their selection puts them in line to replace out-going LNP senators Sue Boyce and Ron Boswell in parliament after they retire at the end of their term in 2014 if the LNP can retain three senate seats.]
http://au.news.yahoo.com/thewest/a/-/national/15465969/lnp-selects-top-three-for-senate-bid/
There goes News “exclusive” down the crapper
[Julia Gillard’s former boyfriend and one time Australian Workers Union boss Bruce Wilson has broken his silence on the 17-year-old union slush fund saga declaring the Prime Minister has “absolutely nothing to answer for” and “did no wrong”.
“Let me make this absolutely clear; apart from the initial legal advice Julia Gillard provided on the AWU Workplace Reform Association fund, she had nothing to do with any of it,” he told Fairfax Media.
“Julia Gillard had absolutely no knowledge of anything that went after and people can search and continue this hunt all they like but they will find nothing. Nothing.”]
Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/political-news/former-boyfriend-defends-prime-minister-20121124-2a0vp.html#ixzz2D8or3dPg
So The Age has illegally obtained the Prime Minister of Australia’s Bank Statements, huh?
I imagine it WILL be interesting to see them squirm away from having the lawyers for the PM crawling all over them for their source of that information. Especially considering the other legal problem they are having to deal with at the moment wrt hacking into the ALP database.
I think the whole thing calls for a full AFP investigation.
Now, let’s start with a question for Thomas Paine. Where did YOU get your information about this development to do with the PM’s Bank Statements from?
Looks like Bishop the Younger wants to keep on digging….
[Opposition deputy leader Julie Bishop, who has led the coalition’s attack on Ms Gillard and the affair, said last night Mr Wilson’s comments clearing Ms Gillard were “part of his continuing cover-up” and she called on him to give a “frank and full statement” of the 17 year old episode.]
Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/political-news/former-boyfriend-defends-prime-minister-20121124-2a0vp.html#ixzz2D8ptGDva
Anyone seen Thomas Paine and Peter Hartcher together in the same room?
@Conffessions/155
I wonder if the Federal Coalition are afraid of loosing QLD? Due to Newman and defectors?
That could be why the likes of McDonald and Joyce are being thrown in.
C@tmomma@157
Yeah, Tom. Answer the questions, there are questions to be answered and if you can’t answer them that means something is wiffy.
The ABC was weak in allowing itself to be goaded by News Ltd. If the ABC had continued to report objectively without descending into the sewer it would be deserving of praise. Instead it has again shown itself to be just another shallow news service that is afraid to stand up for proper journalist standards.
C@tmomma,
[Now, let’s start with a question for Thomas Paine. Where did YOU get your information about this development to do with the PM’s Bank Statements from?]
How could you be so indelicate? Let alone so unwomanly?
(Yes, yes, I’m cleaning my teeth v slowly tonite.)
zoidlord@160
Did someone find a spare sewage pit?
If the $5000 is all that is left to try and bring down the PM, these conspiracy loonies are even more loony than I first thought.
The fools. Did they not learn anything from the Grech saga? Why do we have to endure these dunces?
fiona,
You’ll fall asleep cleaning your teeth if you don’t watch out. 😀
zoid:
Sadly the LNP seems to need Barnaby types in order to remain competitive in Qld.
@Puff/164
Sewage pit? I think your being too nice to them, Mosh Pit sounds better – fully of angry QLDers!
@Confessoins/167
Probably Because Clive wouldn’t be their money pit.
This is a hypocritical joke from the party of the Wall Puncher, and the women who are complicit in his hypocrisy:
Sen. Michaelia Cash: Australian women deserve a stronger commitment to eliminating violence.
Don’t look to your leader, luv.
Or their remote controlled Doll.
The way Bishop’s going she’ll soon be claiming facts are part of the cover up. The fact that Gillard has no questions to answer only raises more questions. If she’s innocent of all the claims, then why is everyone talking about it huh? Huh? Why did we fly Blewitt all the way down here, eh?
C@tmomma,
Snnnorrrre, snnnnooorrre, BRUSH…
Oh dear, I see what you mean 😉
Aquirre,
“Why do we get out of bed in the morning?”
http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/political-news/former-boyfriend-defends-prime-minister-20121124-2a0vp.html
[Former boyfriend defends Prime Minister
November 24, 2012 – 10:57PM
Jessica Wright
federal political correspondent for The Sunday Age and the Sun-Herald.
Julia Gillard’s former boyfriend and one time Australian Workers Union boss Bruce Wilson has broken his silence on the 17-year-old union slush fund saga declaring the Prime Minister has “absolutely nothing to answer for” and “did no wrong”.
…………
Speaking from his NSW north coast home on Saturday night, Mr Wilson told said his decision to speak out had come in the wake of a constant media pressure.
“Today I was trying to put my 10 month old to sleep and reporters were constantly pressing the bell so I decided I had had a gutful and I spoke out so the media would stop,” he said.]
This has just been written (speaking on “Saturday night”), Wilson gave the News Ltd interview after pressure.
Aguirre
The way Bishop is going, she is going to damage her credibility beyond repair
IIRC Clive Palmer bankrolled the Nationals in WA during the last federal election. Remember in WA the Libs and Nats are separate parties, so there’s no hypocracy on Clive’s part.
From what some have said there are important necessary particulars missing from the documents already presented as proof of ‘something’ against the PM.
Surely, they couldn’t be stupid enough to go down the Grech path again, surely not!
Ummm……what makes anyone here think TP is not just speculating?
Exactly, Puff. That’s the kind of question Gillard has been stonewalling on. She needs to give a full and frank account of how getting out of bed is impacting on Australians who are doing it hard.
Zoidlord,
[Mosh Pit sounds better – fully of angry QLDers!]
Try this on for size:
[
MoshMoz pit sounds better …]Bishop has a lot to answer for with her attempts to stall claims from asbestos sufferers in the hope that they die before their cases were heard. Time to call on a few widows and widowers to make a statement on how low her actions were when all they and their partners were seeking was a reasonable settlement so that their partner could die with some peace of mind.
Leroy
Has TP predicted anything accurately in the past?
Julie Bishop will be the sacrificial anode to protect the empty hull of Abbott. (there you go scarpat, some boat lingo for ya!)
[
C@tmomma
Posted Saturday, November 24, 2012 at 8:29 pm | Permalink
…
Why don’t you just be honest, [
C@tmomma
Posted Saturday, November 24, 2012 at 8:29 pm | Permalink
…
Why don’t you just be honest, like frednk, and say that you don’t really care if asylum seekers die at sea, as they don’t conveniently fit into the Green frame of ‘compassion for asylum seekers’?
…
]
If all actions had a moral absolute there would be no war, there is war and there are decisions that have to be taken where people die. International politics is not kind.
We would be in a lot less of a mess if there was a little more honesty in the debate.
We are not responsible for humanity outside our boarders, we do have responsibility inside and we have signed the refugee convention.
The current solution saves no lives as we still get refuges coming by boat, the current solution breaks the refugee convention, justified by splitting hairs over definitions and costs about a billion dollars a year.
Failing to be honest has brought us nothing.
It means nothing; but I find attempts to justify this failed policy on moral grounds quite repugnant.
What would be the fun in assuming that?
victoria@183
He even gets his bedtime wrong.
On he question of the cricket and Shane Watson …
I’m not a believer in the theory that every well-balanced cricket team needs an all-rounder. It’s a great thing for a team to have one, but if the best you can come up with is someone who isn’t particularly good at either batting or bowling you’d be better off with an extra specialist bat or bowler.
At test level a standard set of attributes for a good all-rounder is someone good enough to have a batting average the high side of 30 and a bowling average the low side of 30. If the player can hit a half century or better from 6 once every 8-10 innings completed innings and take 1 wicket per innings at and bowl with an economy of about 3 runs per over for 15 overs an innings, (s)he’s a real asset to the side.
So with this in mind:
______________________________
Watson with the bat …
Tests Innings Ave 100 50
35 64 37.54 2 18
Watson with the ball in hand …
Innings Wkts Ave Econ 5W(i) 4W(i)
55 59 28.91 2.92 1 2
_______________________________________________
Watson is ticking most of the boxes. Admittedly, he’s averaging only about 10 overs per innings, but he’s going at less than 3 RPO averaging under 30 per wicket over 55 innings and taking a tick over 1 wicket per innings. He can bowl in the low 140km range.
He has batted as opener for substantial parts of his test career, facing the new ball and shielding other strokemakers from it while scoring at a good rate overall and averaging well above 30. As he demonstrated recently in T20 he also has an attacking game when batting for a declaration and is a very good fielder, including from the deep (where bowlers often field). His ability and strokemaking against the new ball also makes him an asset at 6 when the new ball is taken post the 80th over.
If he is fit, he deserves a place in the side, IMO
Who is TP?
Just got a great idea from somebody on Twitter. Whenever you see the words ‘unnamed sources’ in a News Ltd piece, read it as ‘imaginary friends’.
c@tmomma
[Why don’t you just be honest, like frednk, and say that you don’t really care if asylum seekers die at sea, as they don’t conveniently fit into the Green frame of ‘compassion for asylum seekers’]
The question is better directed at you. Like the rest of your tribe, your principal concern is the integrity of ALP spin, and if citing drownings is needed, you will say it loud and often, even when it is at odds with other concerns you ticky tack on to your special pleading.
Really though, saying one ‘cares’ is cheap. Anyone can say that, and most feel a need to do so, whether they do or not. Certainly it sounds better than affecting indifference if you are pushing for a policy aimed at brutalising those 96% who avoid drowning.
What you don’t acknowledge is that the palpable but small risk of drowning is taken on by those who presumably see their alternative life prospects as inferior to the risk of drowning. You imply that you know their interests better than them, but of course you don’t, and can’t. Yours are crocodile tears uttered with arrogant disregard not just for the IMAs but reason as well. You believe those boats are sinking your preferred regime. That’s all that matters to you and you and your tribe will utter shameful nonsense in defence of it if you think it needed.
If you really cared primarily about the safety of IMAs you’d press for them being processed more rapidly at aggregation points. You’d insist on rapidly shipping the successful ones here by orthodox means. You’d press for conditions in the camps that were protective of vulnerable people. You’d be arguing for the first world especially to contribute much more to the relief of FDPs.
I hear none of this from you or your tribe. When foreign aid was cut, I heard no protest from you. When Carr said more of it would be spent in this region I heard no pleas for “those languishing in camps in Africa” from you.
Your tribe is big on cant — not the type with a “K” obviously. You have no standing at all to hector me or the Greens about “getting real”. There’s not a skerrick of honesty or integrity in any of your pleading on this issue.
confessions
Thomas Paine
Leroy@179
There is the matter of his abiding ongoing hatred of gillard effecting whatever judgement he might ever have had.
To wit – his posts here.
But time will tell.
It comes down to trust.
A reforming Labor PM.
or a turd?
zoidlord
I did say, back during the newman “coup”, the “N” for Nats part of the LNP up this way were the opposite of happy about it; and that was before he won the election and cut loose.
Today’s Toowoomba Telegraph’s (not on line yet) banner frontpage headlines Double blow for Cancer patients headlines:
[First St Andrews, now the Toowoomba Hospital. A cloud hangs over the public system’s cancer care centre with the loss of one specialist and the end of palliative care outreach service.]
The Toowoomba Hospital Regional Cancer Centre was opened by Minister lawrence Springborg & Qld Senator Claire Moore on 29 July 2012!
Palliative care’s only qualified full-time physician’s contract was not renewed by Queensland Health. Funding has also ceased for the Outreach Palliative Care service.
That service allowed OH to spend his final days at home with us, as he and we had wanted. Given how much cheaper than hospital care ‘cancer end stage’ home care is, I can’t see any sanity in that nasty little apology for a man’s decision to shut it down – and it would have been his decision, not Lawrence Springbord’s (Toowoomba’s medical centres, inc its St A’s and TBH oncology units service his electorate and he’s been a keen supporter. He’d be ropeable.)
After Ian McFarlane’s sterling work at getting the linear-accelerators and nuclear bunkers for St Andrews, and strengthening the Base Hospital’s Oncology unit, he’ll be even more incendiary. So is the local & regional community. T’mba is a medical “hub” for all the Downs, SW Qld, and further if needed. UQ Faculty of medicine has recently established the Toowoomba Rural Clinical School.
Little wonder LNP OpPoll figures are crashing and rumours that members of “Nat” section of the LNP (which has the numbers as well as the money) intend to roll Newman are growing!
Thomas Paine’s hatred of PM Gillard parallel Peter Hartcher’s. Just as their initial support for PM Gillard when Rudd was rolled.
It makes perfect sense now.
Greetings bludgers, I’m back in Melbourne after 10 weeks in Europe. I see little has changed. William, I don’t think a margin can be “garnished.” Also, you might in fairness mention that the reason Ripoll was passed over in 2007 was that he wasn’t sufficiently deferential to He Who Must be Treated Deferentially. With the end of the Reign of Terror, he has been made Parl Sec to the Treasurer, where his enthusiasm and grasp of detail are standing him in good stead.
Well, what an evening it seems! Not quite sure what to make of it all…
vic:
Sorry, thought he was banned.
[Another facet of Opposition Leader Tony Abbott’s student activist days has surfaced with a speaker at a pro-Palestine rally in Canberra declaring him a “raving Zionist”]
The hits just keep coming.
http://au.news.yahoo.com/thewest/a/-/national/15465553/abbott-a-raving-zionist-gaza-rally-told/
OzPolT,
One can only hope that the fools will be even more foolish, and that good people like you and all the rest of the PBer QLD contingent keep emphasising this slight lacuna in such an essential service.
Tom
I was outraged with Doug Cameron virtually ostracizing his colleagues for taking swings at JB.
This ‘let’s be polite’ crap was to neutralize the growing effectiveness of the counter attack.
Of course, JB had to do her best when representing her clients.
However, her rhetoric that there was no reason for dying claimants to have speedy hearings ‘just’ because they are dying was unnecessary both from a professional capacity and morally reprehensible.