As one of Tasmania’s constitutionally mandated five House of Representatives seats, Franklin has a lower than normal enrolment (72,500 compared with a national average of about 96,000) and has existed without interruption since the state was first divided into electorates in 1903. With Denison accommodating central Hobart and the suburbs on the western bank of the Derwent River, Franklin covers the eastern bank suburbs and areas immediately south of Hobart, starting from the outskirts township of Kingston, together with the unpopulated southern part of the World Heritage area in Tasmania’s south-west.
Labor first won Franklin at a by-election held two months after the election of Jim Scullin’s government in 1929, before losing it again amid the party’s debacle of 1931. It subsequently changed hands in 1934, 1946, 1969 and 1975, before remaining in the Liberal fold throughout the Fraser years and the first 10 years of the Hawke-Keating government. Labor finally won the seat when colourful Liberal member Bruce Goodluck retired at the 1993 election, which together a strong statewide shift to Labor delivered a 9.5% swing to their candidate Harry Quick. Quick maintained the seat with only mild swings either way at subsequent elections, although there were occasional suggestions he might be brought undone by internal party machinations. When his preselection appeared in danger ahead of the 2004 election, he was able to see off the threat partly by indicating that he might run as an independent.
After choosing his own time of departure at the 2007 election, Quick sought to keep the seat out of factional hands by promoting his staffer Roger Joseph as his successor. This was thwarted when a deal assigned Franklin to Kevin Harkins, state secretary of the Left faction Electrical Trades Union, and Bass to the Right-backed Steve Reissig. Objecting that Harkins was a “right thuggish bastard” who would lose the seat, Quick declared he would vote for the Greens. His attacks drew blood as newly anointed Labor leader Kevin Rudd sought to distance the party from unsavoury union associations, with Harkins carrying baggage from the 2003 Cole royal commission into the building and construction industry. Harkins’ position ultimately became untenable in July 2007 when the Australian Building and Construction Commission brought charges against him over an illegal strike. When he won preselection for the Senate ahead of the 2010 election, he was again rolled by the intervention of Kevin Rudd.
With Harkins gone and the election looming, the preselection was referred to the party’s national executive, which maintained the factional balance in choosing the Left’s Julie Collins, state party secretary and a strongly performing though unsuccessful candidate at the March 2006 state election. The loss of Quick’s personal vote combined with the manner of his departure resulted in Collins suffering a 3.1% swing to the Liberals, one of only four swings to the Coalition at that election. Coming off a suppressed base, she went on to enjoy a 6.8% swing at the 2010 election, the selection highest recorded by a Labor candidate. Collins was made a parliamentary secretary after the election, winning further promotion to the outer ministry in December 2011 as Community Services Minister.
The Liberals have preselected Bernadette Black, a Kingborough councillor who according to the Mercury “has made a name for herself as a spokesman for teenage mums after having her first child aged 16”. Black won preselection ahead of another Kingborough councillor, Nic Street.
[Shows
I will admit, it’s a very cool way to be mentioned in twitter.
Like, this guy everyone knows, who I hang around with, because I’m nearly as cool as he is…]
Don’t you mean mentioned in Hansard!?
muttleymcgee@1091
Knowledge of is not experience of.
Your condition speaks for itself.
Zoom – I guess that what he does on here is an ‘outlet’ while he is thinking serious thoughts. I gather he is well regarded and after being a bit intrigued I left it at that.
[If we can’t win Denison, I hope he does. He seems a pretty honourable fellow. He’d probably get my second or third preference (assuming “Socialist Alliance was running) if I lived in that electorate.]
Wilkie is Liberal blue blood, Duntroon, Military, Military Spook, ONA spook, cranky cause ASIS told him to nick off, blab your mouth off, I expect he will join the Libs eventually, its the only party that will have him.
Hansard. Sorry.
Didn’t you have a photo on TV as well?
There is going to be a Galaxy Poll n the tele tomorrow according to Samantha Maiden.
[Hansard. Sorry.
Didn’t you have a photo on TV as well?]
/
Yes. The ABC weather segment!
And here’s a photo I took at the Big Day Out of the Red Hot Chili Peppers:
This is the story
http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/political-news/abbotts-goon-squad-threw-me-against-a-wall-20120913-25ty2.html#ixzz26KXjMGAb
Not a bunch of abandoned Rudd Indians trying to justify their sad existence.
[There is going to be a Galaxy Poll n the tele tomorrow according to Samantha Maiden.]
I would not be surprised if every pollster in the known universe is not polling this weekend. They will mean nothing.
End of May is when they start to mean anything.
I’ve had 31 re-tweets of Julias magnificent speech saying sorry for forced adoptions …and all tweeted comments are strongly admiring of it and of Julia….
People do respond favourably to Julia …she must be given a fair go by all Labor members and supporters…she deserves our support…she is the Prime Minister of Australia …she is the duly and democratically elected leader of the Labor party …the party I have been proud to support all my working life …without a nano-second of hesitation …or regret!!
Here’s the link to the speech for those who missed it:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5hVbokTpYeg
There is one thing that will NOT go away, especially after recent events and that is Labor’s and Gillard’s poor polling.
I would be very surprised if it didn’t trend down a few points now and hang around the 55-56 mark going into an election campaign (for which she has shown she is awful at).
This WILL have to be dealt with prior to the election. The maths will scare far too many MPs to death, if not the safe seat factional bosses.
People here must be insane if they think things are now on the up and up. That will only happen if Abbott does something truly truly stupid.
So the Leadership issue WILL become a very pressing issue again ..probably some time after the budget, though the polls will start stinking before then.
Option will be again raised….they will be desperate, and of course if he likes it or not Rudd’s name will be raised.
An alternative might be a Albanese Rudd ticket at that time…
The presidential-style focus on Rudd and Gillard continues; and continues. It’s mostly peurile, personal, vitriolic, and a complete waste of time and effort.
It’s about the party, chaps. I don’t believe we’ve seen the end of it yet either – not Rudd having another go – but from those who got behind him as a strategy for reform and for sidelining the AWU/SDA et al graduates. As Latham put it in his Quarterly Essay (49) said the party is “concentrating power in an oligarchy of union-based factional leaders” from “a culture of nepotism and financial abuse”.
The desire to retrieve the party from these values-free ‘2010 Groupers’ is still there. It hasn’t died because Rudd didn’t get the numbers. It isn’t about him at all. It will continue without him.
[Yes, I am on medication that kind of flattens the mood.]
[Knowledge of is not experience of.]
QED
Mr Pain, you asked if anyone had heard from Albo.
He said prior to the caucus meeting, as clear as a bell, that he still adhered to the previously stated policy that he would never vote against a sitting PM (if you remember he only voted Rudd last time because he thought 2010 was wrong and he was righting a wrong even though he knew Rudd wouldn’t win … thus it was a gesture).
Now, instead of maintaining the obsessive, fan-like adoration of Rudd … why not choose some TV star, or singer, to direct said adoration to if you can’t abide the PM.
Might be healthy for your future perhaps?
[There is going to be a Galaxy Poll n the tele tomorrow according to Samantha Maiden.]
I think the polls to watch are about in 4 weeks time, to see how much if any damage has been added to what is already pretty bad polling.
TP and Bemused put me in mind of evangelical Xians awaiting the second coming of Jesus.
…It didn’t happen today, or yesterday, or the day before that, or the thousand days before that…but just you wait! Tomorrow for sure! The signs! The portents! The prophecy must be fulfilled!
zoom/shows
I’m in Hansard as well – getting flogged in Senate Estimates.
Many times – over numerous years.
Shit happens.
jv,
Tis a pity you are not a member and have never been a member.
Your opinions might have soem credibility then.
jv
Nice try but Crean and Ferguson were union bosses and Carr was the faction leader of the Victorian Left.
You really need some consistency in your argument.
[Now, instead of maintaining the obsessive, fan-like adoration of Rudd … why not choose some TV star, or singer, to direct said adoration to if you can’t abide the PM.]
I think you are refering to the Gillard fanboys on here.
But their’s and possibly your failure to face the simple reality of maths is interesting….we will see the hand wringing in time.
Al,
I see them more as Daleks wandering the universe spreading their evil.
[But their’s and possibly your failure to face the simple reality of maths is interesting….we will see the hand wringing in time.]
What part of zero chance of having the numbers do you fail to comprehend. The simple maths is what you are weeping over.
Acceptance will come with time. 😆
Greensborough Growler@1118
jv was a longtime party member and union official as she has explained here before.
She is now bitter and twisted – which is fitting for a green.
this may have been already mentioned up the thread, but I enjoyed this Button Jr piece:
http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/politics/beyond-the-kinginexile-20130322-2gl70.html
Ch9 news:
Laurie Ferguson has a stupid untimely brain explosion on Facebook.
Joel Fitzgibbon still bitching and moaning. His looming irrelevance can’t come soon enough.
Can’t these people just unite for the good of the party and forget their silly petty grievances?
Honestly!
dave,
JV was never a member of the Party.
It’s sole claim to ALP fame was doing a mail drop for Gough back in about 1972.
[It’s about the party, chaps. ]
Well I don’t that is true at all for the electorate.
Labor has lead as the best to handle most issues for many years… but has never done them any good.
People voted for Hawke, for not a scary Fight back package, for not Keating, for Rudd, and for no one last time…
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/breaking-news/us-senate-agrees-tax-increases/story-fn3dxix6-1226604134251
US Senate just passed $1 trillion in tax increases.
Pica:
Thank you for that. An interesting read. 🙂
TP, I admit I like the PM. I have found her personable, eloquent, highly intelligent and of course strong.
That said, if, for whatever reason she is no longer PM, I don’t think I’d turn into some obsessive maniac who has lost all perspective.
I stopped coming here for quite a few months, and thus wasted my money, because the insanity of such obsessiveness was extremely wearying.
Few here have the REAL inside story. We must rely on what they say and news coverage. The news coverage has been sadly lacking & often downright dishonest in many ways and that has fed the obsessive chooks all the corn they need. What has come to light in the last few days should, should make those so obsessed by Rudd feel betrayed.
You’ve spent 3 years feeling angry and venting … and the former staffers and pollies coming out of the woodwork now are blatantly saying that your loyalty was misplaced.
Think about that.
TP, I admit I like the PM. I have found her personable, eloquent, highly intelligent and of course strong.
That said, if, for whatever reason she is no longer PM, I don’t think I’d turn into some obsessive maniac who has lost all perspective.
I stopped coming here for quite a few months, and thus wasted my money, because the insanity of such obsessiveness was extremely wearying.
Few here have the REAL inside story. We must rely on what they say and news coverage. The news coverage has been sadly lacking & often downright dishonest in many ways and that has fed the obsessive chooks all the corn they need. What has come to light in the last few days should, should make those so obsessed by Rudd feel betrayed.
You’ve spent 3 years feeling angry and venting … and the former staffers and pollies coming out of the woodwork now are blatantly saying that your loyalty was misplaced.
Think about that.
Pica
Ripper article. This spells it out:
At the time of his 2012 challenge, seven ministers went public with fierce criticisms of Rudd’s governing style. When most of them made it clear they would not serve again in a Rudd cabinet, many commentators wrote this up as slander and character assassination of Rudd, or as one of those vicious but mysterious internal brawls that afflict the Labor Party from time to time. They missed the essential points: that the criticisms came from a diverse and representative set of ministers, and they had substance.
If the word of these seven ministers is not enough, consider the reporting of Rudd’s treatment of colleagues by Fairfax journalist David Marr in his 2010 Quarterly Essay, Power Trip. Or the words of Glover, who wrote last year that as a ”member of the Gang of Four Hundred or So (advisers and speechwriters) I can assure you that the chaos and frustration described by Gillard supporters during February’s failed leadership challenge rang very, very true with about 375 of us.”
Consider the reporting of Rudd’s downfall by ABC journalist Barrie Cassidy in his book, Party Thieves. Never had numbers tumbled so quickly, Cassidy wrote. ”That’s because Rudd himself drove them. His own behaviour had caused deep-seated resentment to take root.” Leaders had survived slumps before and would again. But ”Rudd was treated differently because he was different: autocratic, exclusive, disrespectful and at times flat-out abusive”. Former Labor minister Barry Cohen told Cassidy: ”If Rudd was a better bloke he would still be leader. But he pissed everybody off.”
Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/politics/beyond-the-kinginexile-20130322-2gl70.html#ixzz2OMBXq5DP
Kevin Rudd spoke several times to the editor of the OO last week.
Kevin Rudd spoke several times to the editor of the OO last week.
Kevin Rudd spoke several times to the editor of the OO last week.
Greensborough Growler@1126
You may be correct on the party membership – but she was labor through and through as much as I disagree with her these days –
[ Posted Wednesday, March 13, 2013 at 9:07 pm | Permalink
I worked all my life as a union stalwart, including being a full-time official for eight years, and delegate to the then Labor Council of NSW. I’m coming from the ‘left’, if that means anything now.]
fairs fair…..
GG
No, I don’t have to be a member to express opinions about political parties. They aren’t a cult like Opus Dei. They have no standing under the Constitution, but wield immense power in the electoral system.
They should be very public organisations, and members and non-members alike have every right to carry out constant due diligence on, to have opinions about, and to criticise. Their behaviour affects us all. I know Labor’s current centralised-control groupers don’t like light shone on their machinations, but that’s just too bad.
I also reckon a know a lot more about the party than most rank-and-file members; those that remain.
dave,
I refer you to my earlier post.
I was correct.
My comment stands.
TP, you are starting to remind me of an old bloke that once used to walk up and down St George’s Terrace, or position himself at the corner of Barack Street and The Esplanade during the morning rush hour. He looked sincere. Heartfelt. Unshaven, usually, and ill-dressed. He wore a full length A-Frame bill-board, suspended by shoulder straps. He was lean and moved only slowly, weighed down by the burden of the sign and the sorrows that afflicted him.
He was obviously well-meaning. He cared. Yes, care was written in the lines of his brow and defined by the curve of his mouth; in the grey, uncut hair that sprang from his sun-struck scalp. Poor man. On a mission. A daily spectacle; an awkward plea to the indifferent, the puzzled and the sane.
Poor old man, lumping his heartache up and down the streets of Perth every morning and every night too; his hand-painted red-and-white imprecations: “Repent All Ye – Sinners Repent” and, most pitiable, “Give up Red Meat, Ye Sinners, For Meat Causes Fornication”
Poor Tom, forlorn, estranged and full of woe, bearing your cross for all to see, crying aloud “Repent All Ye – Ye Factions, Ye Slime! Repent! In the name of Rudd, Repent!” How goes it with those weary shoulders, Tom, how goes it with those torn shoes and broken hopes?
Thom’ Paine “An alternative might be a Albanese Rudd ticket at that time…”
Maaan!…I’ll definately have some of what he’s on!
Shorter JV:
I have never been a member of the Labor Party.
[I also reckon a know a lot more about the party than most rank-and-file members; those that remain.]
You are aware that the membership drive target was reached n less than a year?
I believe Mark Latham relinquished his membership of the party back in 2004, yet his opinions are carrying a lot of weight lately. How dare he!
Mod, has the House also passed it?
muttleymcgee there is overwhelming evidence that Rudd was truly awful. Sorry TP and Bemused, read the accounts of people that actually worked in his government. I heard an account from a minister that revealed an obsessive control freak.
Quite simply, if he wasnt so awful and had no alienated so many in Caucus, he would have not been rolled.
I think Gillard made a huge mistake trying to sugar coat it. She has never, properly told the people why he was removed and her role in the events.
jv, you’re obviously not saying the right things :P.
TP talking about an Albanese Rudd ticket is plain delusional. Psychotic, no other word for it.
Your man is DEAD. His party HATES him. He is NEVER coming back
Is Elisabeth Kübler-Ross observing PB from on high thinking how correct she was?
[No, I don’t have to be a member to express opinions about political parties. ]
I agree.
bemused’s earlier whingeing that non-member Labor voters (dilettantes I think he called us) have no business offering advice to the party is frankly ridiculous.
ATE TOO MANY SPRING ROLLS.
[GhostWhoVotes @GhostWhoVotes
#Galaxy Poll 2 Party Preferred: ALP 45 (0) L/NP 55 (0) #auspol]
Not meaningful – but wouldn’t be
j.v.
No, you think you know more about the party than the average member – which explains why I’ve corrected you a few times and you haven’t accepted that.