The recruitment of Peter Beattie to run for Labor in the crucial marginal seat of Forde was without question yesterday’s play of the day. However, Beattie will be far from the only Labor newcomer should his bid succeed, the weeks before the election announcement having seen an avalanche of preselection action as Labor scrambled to cover an exodus of senior figures in safe seats. In turn:
Kingsford Smith: Peter Garrett will be succeeded as Labor’s candidate by Senator Matt Thistlethwaite, who had a 136-105 victory in a local ballot held last month over Tony Bowen, Randwick mayor and son of Hawke-era deputy prime minister Lionel Bowen. Thistlethwaite first aspired to the seat when previous member Laurie Brereton retired at the 2004 election, at which time he was vice-president of the state branch of the Australian Workers Union. However, he was frozen out by then leader Mark Latham’s insistence that the seat go to Garrett. Thistlethwaite went on to serve as the party’s state secretary and convenor of the Right faction from 2008 until he was eased out of both roles with the promise of a Senate berth in 2010, having ruffled feathers by backing then Premier Nathan Rees in his determination to choose his own cabinet (which Rees used to dump Right potentate Joe Tripodi, together with the now notorious Mineral and Forest Resources Minister Ian Macdonald) and throwing his support behind Environment Minister Frank Sartor to replace Rees as Premier rather than Kristina Keneally. His Senate seat was secured in relatively bloodless fashion when incumbent Michael Forshaw chose not to contest the 2010 election, although this resulted in Graeme Wedderburn, who has been Bob Carr’s chief-of-staff both as Premier and Foreign Minister, being denied the seat promised him when he was lured from the private sector to serve as chief-of-staff to Rees.
New South Wales Senate: Matt Thistlethwaite’s Senate vacancy will now go to his successor as state secretary, Sam Dastyari, who today hands over the reins in that position to the erstwhile assistant state secretary, Jamie Clements.
Charlton: Greg Combet’s successor in the Hunter region seat is his deputy chief of staff, former Australian Metal Workers Union official Pat Conroy, who easily won a local preselection ballot with 57 out of 90 votes. Conroy’s path was smoothed by the late withdrawal of Daniel Wallace, a Lake Macquarie councillor and Australian Manufacturing Workers Union organiser said to have had strong support locally. Wallace reportedly faced pressure from factional leaders concerned about his two convictions for assault. An earlier withdrawal had been Sonia Hornery, member for the corresponding state seat of Wallsend. The three unsuccessful candidates who saw out the process were Joshua Brown, a Muswellbrook Council policy officer and former staffer to Combet’s predecessor Kelly Hoare; Marcus Mariani, assistant director at the Department of Defence; and Chris Osborne, a local party activities. Mark Coultan of The Australian reported rumours that “key factional players• wanted the local preselection process to be overridden to impose the party’s assistant national secretary, Nick Martin, a Left faction member who unsuccessfully sought preselection for the ACT seat of Fraser before the 2010 election.
Rankin: In a rebuff to Kevin Rudd, the preselection to replace Craig Emerson was won by Jim Chalmers, former chief-of-staff to Wayne Swan, ahead of his favoured candidate Brett Raguse, who held Forde for Labor from 2007 to 2010. A ballot of local branch members reportedly ended in a 74-74 tie, which rendered decisive a 36-14 majority for Chalmers among the electoral college of union delegates which determined 50% of the final result. The preselection caused a split between the two main right unions, the Australian Workers Union having supported Chalmers and the Shop Distributive and Allied Employees Association backing Raguse, and also within the Left, with the Electrical Trades Union backing Raguse but the rest supporting Chalmers.
Hotham: Simon Crean will be succeeded as Labor candidate in Hotham by Geoff Lake, a Minter Ellison lawyer and former Municipal Association of Victoria president who shares Crean’s association with the National Union Workers. Lake won the preselection ahead of Rosemary Barker, a disability worker with the Office of the Public Advocate, winning firstly the local party ballot 252-117 and then the public office selection committee vote 41-22 (with each accounting for 50% of the final total). Lake’s win was partly down to a split between Right potentates Bill Shorten and Stephen Conroy, who had long been the pillars of a “stability pact” with the Socialist Left from which the NUW had been frozen out. Tensions between Shorten and Conroy emerged during the preselection to replace Nicola Roxon in Gellibrand, in which Conroy failed to support the Shorten-backed Kimberley Kitching, and inflamed considerably when Shorten decisively defected to the Kevin Rudd camp. The Left pleaded that the split made adherence to the stability pact a practical impossibility and abstained from the vote. John Ferguson of The Australian reports that a further layer of complexity was added by the fact that Lake and Barker had respectively had success in courting support from the local Cambodian and Vietnamese communities, in the former case with help from state Clayton MP Hong Lim.
Lalor: The candidate Julia Gillard backed to succeed her in her western Melbourne electorate, Moonee Ponds Primary School principal Joanne Ryan, emerged an easy winner after her stronger opponents fell by the wayside prior to the vote. The Australian reported that factional and gender balance considerations meant the seat was always likely to go to a woman from the Right, early contenders in that mould including Kimberley Kitching and Lisa Clutterham, who respectively had the support of erstwhile allies Bill Shorten and Stephen Conroy. Clutterham withdrew after a disastrous radio interview with the ABC’s Jon Faine, in which she appeared stumped as to how to finesse her obvious lack of connection to the electorate, while Kitching pulled out and threw her support behind Ryan. Kitching had reportedly won support to seek the number three position on the Senate ticket instead, but here too she ended up falling short (more on which below). Yet another withdrawal was Sandra Willis, the daughter of Keating government Treasurer Ralph Willis. Facing only low-key opposition from two local party members, Andrew Crook of Crikey reported that Ryan ended up securing 74 votes out of 88 in the local party ballot and all but one of the 100 votes from the public office seleection committee.
Victorian Senate: The number three candidate on Labor’s Victorian Senate ticket will be Mehmet Tillem, Turkish-born electorate officer to Senator Stephen Conroy, who won 37 votes from the public office selection committee to 25 for the aforementioned Kimberley Kitching, a former Melbourne City councillor, current Health Services Union No. 1 branch acting general manager, and the wife of controversial former VexNews blogger Andrew Landeryou. The result was another rebuff for Kitching and her backer Bill Shorten following unsuccessful tilts at the Gellibrand and Lalor preselections. As had been the case in Hotham, the Socialist Left abstained from the vote on the grounds that the Shorten-Conroy split meant the Right had failed to fill its end of the “stability pact” bargain. Tillem will at the very least serve out the remainder of Feeney’s Senate term, which expires in the middle of next year, although his prospects for extending his tenure beyond that by winning a third Senate seat for Labor at the election appear slim (hence Feeney’s determination to abandon the spot for a move to the lower house).
MB – Of course Keane would write that
he is an abbott apologist
Yeah I know. I left a suitably caustic comment, whether it pass through moderation remains to be seen.
[’m told Sonya Kilkenny is a better candidate than the last two, which wouldn’t be hard. But Billson is hard-working and well-known.]
Psephos Thanks. Billson is a bit creepy to me.His manner of invading others’ space during interviews is hard to watch. I usually turn off when he’s on.
George Brandis is having a whinge about the DIAC advertising campaign in Australia. Thanks George, please keep reminding people that PNG is working. Dunce.
So far Rudd has spent very little. (the childcare $450 million was pre-election).
Abbott has decreased revenue by $2-3 billion a year.
I wonder when the Libs will announce the asset sales? Given they are as toxic as fluoroantimonic acid in Qld.
Bloomberg business news has a good story on Williams’ departure from News Corp. It links Murdoch, Col Allen and the “get rid of Rudd” aim. Note that it quotes a leaked internal email.
[News Corp.’s Australia chief, Kim Williams, resigned from the company as New York Post Editor-in – Chief Col Allan reviews its local newspapers amid pre-election clashes with the country’s Prime Minister Kevin Rudd.
Allan will be “providing extra editorial leadership” to News Corp.’s local papers for two to three months, according to an internal e-mail from Group Chief Executive Officer Robert Thomson sent July 26 seen by Bloomberg News.
Murdoch is seeking to “get rid of” Australia’s government in a Sept. 7 election, Rudd said this week after Sydney’s best-selling Daily Telegraph urged readers to “Kick This Mob Out” in a front-page editorial Aug. 5.
“It certainly appears to be a very political decision,” Angus Gluskie, managing director of White Funds Management Pty., said by telephone from Sydney. “It certainly seems as though Murdoch wants a particular viewpoint expressed, and that’s got a number of issues. It’s right at the heart of the independence of the press.”
There may be connections between Williams’ departure, the editorial stance of News Corp. newspapers, and Murdoch’s business interests in Foxtel, Rudd told reporters in Melbourne today.
“If you look at the front pages of the News Ltd. tabloid papers, as well as the Australian” there is a “fairly consistent pattern” he said, referring to the former business name of News Corp.’s local publishing unit. Allan had told local editors to “go hard” in attacking the government and not back off, Rudd told reporters, without saying where he got the information.]
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-08-09/news-corp-australian-ceo-williams-resigns-amid-local-review.html
Puff, the Magic Dragon.
Not to mention reminding people of what a pompous twit he is.
The Newman Govt. is a lovely piece of work, isn’t it?
[#RupertRooters @FlatEarthGang 14m
Tragic story on @612brisbane at the moment as 18 blind people are sacked because of Newman Govt stopping funding. CEO keeps job.]
mikehilliard
Posted Friday, August 9, 2013 at 3:47 pm | PERMALINK
Yeah I know. I left a suitably caustic comment, whether it pass through moderation remains to be seen.
————-
lol
So why was that Lib hack vandalising Rick Sarre (ALP candidate for Sturt SA) posters and replacing them with Pyne ones, if the seat is a most probable Lib retain. All that little bit of illegal vigilantism has done is made the Libs look a little less confident of their chances.
Wow, the Lib-liars are really scared that people will notice their big ‘boats boats boats’ scare campaign is dead as a Morriscum’s brain.
The FAIR DINKUM test…invented by a pom blow-in
@BH/557
Yup.
Newman looks after mates to keep his job, bugger everyone else.
Don’t you just love the way the LNP can get up in front of the cameras & accuse Labor of blatant vote grabbing. The must think we’re f–king idiots.
Apart from pollies does anyone use the term “fair dinkum” these days ?
Brandis is splutteringly enraged that the ALP gov’t totally ignored the Libs.
Guytaur:
[Yes Hogans heroes was very clever satire in no way promoting nazism.]
Not really. It was a risible sitcom that trivialised the extraordinary brutality of the period in order to stay within the light entertainment category. Anyone who knew the history would have been entitled to get very upset at playing the Nazis as merely officious jingoistic buffoons with a mean streak or as bumbling self-deluded bullies just for sh|ts & giggles.
only dinkum aussies apparently
sorry…. only dinkum askholes that should read
Does anyone have a link to the ALP parody of the Liberal Party ad? The link I have for the one on FaceBook no longer seems to be working.
poroti
Posted Friday, August 9, 2013 at 3:57 pm | Permalink
Apart from pollies does anyone use the term “fair dinkum” these days ?
I do, but only in private. 😛
[I wonder when the Libs will announce the asset sales? Given they are as toxic as fluoroantimonic acid in Qld.]
Rudd should announce it for them as part of his tactic to flush them out on how they are going to pay for their promises.Should go down very well in QLD – Medibank, Australia Post, government schools etc.
Carey Moore
[So why was that Lib hack vandalising Rick Sarre (ALP candidate for Sturt SA) posters and replacing them with Pyne ones, if the seat is a most probable Lib retain. All that little bit of illegal vigilantism has done is made the Libs look a little less confident of their chances.]
You’re assuming that all political behaviour is rational, when you surely must know that much of it is emotional or tribal or driven by fear and loathing.
[Yes, but it’s like predicting a coin toss. You have a 50-50 chance of being right. If you call it right, does that make you prophetic? No, just lucky.]
I guess thats what Im trying to get across to certain pessimists.
Its about 50-50.
Two of my biggest hates. Scrote Morriscum and George Brandis D.H. on ABC24 together.
Yes Hogans heroes was very clever satire in no way promoting nazism.
‘Not really. It was a risible sitcom that trivialised the extraordinary brutality of the period in order to stay within the light entertainment category. Anyone who knew the history would have been entitled to get very upset at playing the Nazis as merely officious jingoistic buffoons with a mean streak or as bumbling self-deluded bullies just for sh|ts & giggles.’
Yes, and it takes a group of demented morons to think it worthwhile to put a parody on the front page of a so-called newspaper on the flimsiest of pretexts.
I’m waiting for the next installment. How much lower can you go than portraying the PM of the country as a Nazi? I’m sure they’ll find a way?
Which is why Labor has to win, to expel Murdoch and his mob of cronies from the last remaining country over which they have some influence.
If the Libs think having JWH visible is a bonus they are now in panic mode.
[You’re assuming that all political behaviour is rational, when you surely must know that much of it is emotional or tribal or driven by fear and loathing.]
Yeah, I am pretty much assuming it was stupidity and fanaticism. It just still stuns me that they thought it would help their guy.
mike hilliard
[Apart from pollies does anyone use the term “fair dinkum” these days?]
Nobody in my circle of acquaintances and family has uttered that term within earshot since about 1973. “FFS” gets a run along with “FMD”. I occasionally use for pity’s sake and others will say “give me a break” or occasionally Christ almighty!.
Fran Barlow
True BUT. However it could be argued that their aura of power and efficiency plays a big part in the allure they have to latter day Nazi wannabes. So changing the image to one of bumbling fools and buffoons although totally wRONg factually would remove that allure .
BC
Try http://afrankview.net/
Carey Moore
[Yeah, I am pretty much assuming it was stupidity and fanaticism. It just still stuns me that they thought it would help their guy.]
Maybe they were doing it to make themselves feel better. Few people think stamping on someone’s images or yelling at the TV will hurt them as much as slapping them in the face, but the former are legal whereas the latter are not.
Unusual to have this sort of thing reported –
[ The Coalition campaign has been left red-faced by a bungle in which it urged journalists to quiz Kevin Rudd on the death of a young tradesman during the home insulation scheme – only to get the man’s family name wrong.
The email from Liberal Campaign Headquarters to reporters travelling with Mr Rudd recommends five questions, including: “When will Mr Rudd meet with Kevin and Christine Foster to personally apologise for his bungled pink batts scheme?”
The name “Foster” should have read “Fuller”. Kevin and Christine Fuller’s son Matthew was one of four installers who died during the government-sponsored roof installation program. ]
Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/federal-election-2013/coalition-team-makes-embarrassing-gaffe-on-insulation-scheme-20130809-2rmrn.html#ixzz2bRw0SVyv
[Abbott went on to say that Rudd did not save Australia from the “Global Financial Crisis” ]
that is a big step for Abbott, previously he and Hockey have denied that there was such a thing as the GFC. Like carbon it is weightless, odourless etc.
Poroti
[However it could be argued that their aura of power and efficiency plays a big part in the allure they have to latter day Nazi wannabes.]
True, but you’d have to be extraodinarily silly to take Hogans Heroes as a useful source on the usages of the Nazis.
[Maybe they were doing it to make themselves feel better. Few people think stamping on someone’s images or yelling at the TV will hurt them as much as slapping them in the face, but the former are legal whereas the latter are not.]
Probably. Then again, I do see some irrational bullshit online from supporters (of all sides) that would make any candidate want them to disappear!
wondering at the genius who came up with Hitler joke at the DT. Never been done before especially not in the attached slab of comedy Hitlers. Maybe a Pulitzer prize for this insight?
[Some South Park episodes deal with the subject such as “The Passion of the Jew”. A fictional version of Hitler (in Hell) sings a Christmas song in “Mr. Hankey’s Christmas Classics”.
In Archer it is highly implied that Dr. Krieger is a clone of Adolf Hitler and one of the Boys from Brazil.
Hilter (sic) is portrayed by John Cleese in a Monty Python sketch as staying with his friends Ron (Ribbentrop) and Reg (Himmler) at a boarding house in Somerset and being introduced to other guests by the landlady as they plot the reunification of Taunton and Minehead.[9][10]
Matt Groening’s animated sitcom The Simpsons deals with the subject in a couple of episodes. In the episode “Bart vs. Australia” (1995), it is suggested that Hitler is still alive and living in Santiago, Chile[11] when Bart Simpson (voiced by Nancy Cartwright) randomly makes a collect call to his car phone. In “The Curse of the Flying Hellfish” (1996), Sergeant Abraham Simpson (Dan Castellaneta) attempts to assassinate Hitler who is inspecting his troops, but is thwarted when a tennis ball flying off of Monty Burn’s racket spoils his aim, resulting only in Hitler’s hat being set spinning. In “Viva Ned Flanders” (1999), Homer (Castellaneta) states that Hitler and Barney Gumble (Castellaneta) share the same birthdate (April 20) – a revised joke about the similar birthdays of Hitler and Charlie Chaplin. Voiced over the years by Castellaneta and by Harry Shearer, Hitler also makes brief minor appearances in the course of jokes in “Whacking Day” (1993), “Rosebud” (1993), “The Trouble with Trillions” (1998) and “New Kids on the Blecch” (2001).
Groening’s other series, sci-fi comedy Futurama, contains several references to Hitler. In the episode “A Clone of My Own” (2000), the Professor (Billy West) regards the public as being hypocritical for being in favor of saving Hitler’s brain, but transplanting it into the body of a great white shark is “suddenly going too far”. In the episode “The Honking” (2000), Calculon (Maurice LaMarche) claims Project Satan was built with the most evil parts of the most evil people’s cars, including the steering wheel from Hitler’s staff car. In the episode “I Dated a Robot” (2001), an in-universe episode of The Scary Door features a man who suddenly becomes Hitler, parodying the episode The Man in the Bottle of The Twilight Zone. The 2010 episode “The Late Philip J. Fry” sees the Professor make a pit-stop to shoot and kill Hitler when traveling the course of history following a Big Bounce.
Heil Honey I’m Home! was a controversial 1950s-styled British sitcom about Hitler and Eva Braun living in suburbia, with Jewish next door neighbors. Eight episodes were produced, but only one, the pilot, was ever broadcast (in 1990), as both television executives and the viewers alike thought the show in deplorably bad taste.
Hitler was prominently featured in various other episodes and sketches such as Father Ted , Dragon Ball Z, Histeria!, Family Guy, Hey Arnold!, Aqua Teen Hunger Force or the Mexican TV superhero comedy El Chapulin Colorado.
In the Australian satirical comedy show The Chaser’s War on Everything, comedian Andrew Hansen enters the offices at Foxtel dressed as Adolf Hitler to complain about the removal of the documentary Hitler’s War by David Irving, claiming “you can’t just kill something off because you disagree with it! I did, but you can’t!”]
Zoidlord
Newman and his bunch of troublemaking pollies must make decent Qlders despair.
It’s bad enough watching from afar. They might outdo NSW Labor.
Time to go home and drink
[WeWantPaul
Posted Friday, August 9, 2013 at 3:31 pm | Permalink
Mumble doesn’t claim to know – and not withstanding 2010 he record is very impressive. If only labor caucus read him more.]
At the time he made that prediction Labour seemed to be heading for a majority government. They ended up winning by a short half head, after managing to cobble together a minority government nearly three weeks after polling day. The point being that he wasn’t very far wrong. Probably closer than most people at the time.
Politifact finds this FALSE
http://www.politifact.com.au/truth-o-meter/statements/2013/aug/08/liberal-party-australia/labor-labor-only-party-introduces-new-taxes-or-inc/
@BH/586
I think they have already, I think it was 6 resigned, changed sides to Katter, sacked?
[The email sent by the Liberal campaign to reporters also urged them to ask Mr Rudd about…]
As if journalists can’t think up questions for themselves?
Maybe the Libs should limit the email list to News Corpse.
banned ad
http://goo.gl/s2uzKV
good to go.
[Yes Hogans heroes was very clever satire in no way promoting nazism.
Not really. It was a risible sitcom that trivialised the extraordinary brutality of the period in order to stay within the light entertainment category. Anyone who knew the history would have been entitled to get very upset at playing the Nazis as merely officious jingoistic buffoons with a mean streak or as bumbling self-deluded bullies just for sh|ts & giggles.]
I think Hogans Heroes was in the same mould as McHale’s Navy (WW2) and F Troop (Cowboys and Indians). As someone who grew up in the 50s and 60s the context meant nothing to me as I had learnt nothing of the Nazis, WW2 or the wild west. Accordingly all these TV series were just entertainment where the good guy eventually always beat the bad guy. In that period the cold war was in full swing and the Russian and Chinese ‘threat’ was not the stuff of comedy TV series.
Murdoch’s (or more likely Allen’s) use of Hogans Heroes probably betrays his age more than anything. If Abbott wants to associate with people of that calibre, then…
[The email from Liberal Campaign Headquarters to reporters travelling with Mr Rudd recommends five questions, including: “When will Mr Rudd meet with Kevin and Christine Foster to personally apologise for his bungled pink batts scheme?”
The name “Foster” should have read “Fuller”. Kevin and Christine Fuller’s son Matthew was one of four installers who died during the government-sponsored roof installation program.]
Anthony and Christine Foster’s daughters, Emma and Katie, were raped by Melbourne priest, Father Kevin O’Donnell when they were in primary school.
Early in 2008, Emma Foster died of a medication overdose at the age of 26. Katie had become a binge drinker as a result of her abuse and was hit by a drunk driver in 1999. She was left physically and mentally disabled, requiring 24-hour care.
Abbott voiced concerns over the Royal Commission into child abuse and did not want it to focus unduly on the catholic church.
Be good if journos could quiz Abbott about his insensitivity to the Fosters and their children whose lives were destroyed.
Why has Abbott placed the reputation of Pell and the church ahead of the horrendous damage done by their priests.
Fran Barlow
[True, but you’d have to be extraordinarily silly to take Hogan’s Heroes ]
It would be the kids and their image of them . When they get a little older they should/would/could be less likely to want to hang out with any local wannabes. At least that is one theory.
Mike Carlton @MikeCarlton01 22m
The Brisbane cafe which refuses to provide “trash” News Corp papers is @Sl1ghtlyTw1sted
==================================================================
please retweet and tweet the owners to show suport
Aside from the obvious grubbiness of attacking Labor over unfortunate work place deaths resulting from the home insulation scheme & the complete arse up of getting the name wrong (shows the Libs REALLY care), is the more frightening reality that politicians are emailing journos the questions to ask their opponents.
“That’s interesting. Yiddish is a dialect of Middle High German, with various non-German words thrown in. In German schmecken is to taste, so the sense must have drifted since German and Yiddish parted company. Smell and taste are of course closely associated, so that’s not surprising. In German to smell is riechen (cognate with to reek).”
Compare the etymology of ‘schmuck’, and think of the pun possibilities had Benny Hill/Julian Clary been Yiddish…
The worm has been released.