Bordered to the north by the Murray River, the electorate of Indi covers an area of northern Victoria including Wangaratta, Benalla and the border town of Wodonga. It produced one of the biggest boilovers of the 2013 election with the defeat of cabinet minister-in-waiting Sophie Mirabella at the hands of conservative independent Cathy McGowan, whose win marked the first time since 1931 that the seat was not in the hands of one of the main coalition parties. Indi has existed without interruption since federation and only ever won by Labor in 1910, 1914, 1928 (when Labor’s Paul Jones was elected unopposed after Country Party incumbent Robert Cook forgot to nominate) and 1929, from which time it shifted decisively to the conservatives. It was thereafter fought over between the Country Party and the Liberal Party (together with its predecessor the United Australia Party), the member from 1937 to 1949 being Country Party titan John “Black Jack” McEwen, who moved to the new seat of Murray with the expansion of parliament in 1949. The Nationals last held the seat in 1977, when their incumbent Mac Holten was defeated by Liberal candidate Ewen Cameron on Labor preferences. The Nationals contested in 2001 when Cameron’s successor Lou Lieberman retired, but managed only 12.3%.
The new Liberal member in 2001 was Sophie Panopoulos, a barrister and Australians for Constititutional Monarchy activist. Panopoulos married in 2006 and assumed her husband’s surname of Mirabella. Mirabella became noted for her aggressive parliamentary style, and was promoted to shadow cabinet in the innovation, industry, science and research portfolio when Tony Abbott became leader in December 2009. McGowan’s challenge to Mirabella arose out of a local activist group called Voice for Indi, which initially declared itself set on “improving the political process in the electorate” rather than mounting an electoral challenge. The group says it resolved to field a candidate after Mirabella gave their concerns short shrift, informing them that the real concerns of her constituents aligned with her party leader’s oft-repeated soundbites.
The candidate nominated by Voice for Indi was Cathy McGowan, a rural affairs consultant and former regional councillor for the Victorian Farmers Federation who had once worked for Liberal member Ewen Cameron. With McGowan to rally behind, the organisation proved adept at fund-raising and use of social media, and it soon became apparent that it was succeeding in tapping into a perception that Mirabella was a Melburnian careerist with an insufficient connection to the local area. McGowan’s profile was further lifted when retiring New England independent Tony Windsor told the ABC’s Insiders program that the “nasty” Mirabella was the person he would least miss in politics, and that McGowan was an “excellent independent” whose campaign he might lend support.
Also lending McGowan support was Ken Jasper, who served Wangaratta and surrounding areas in state parliament for 34 years, retiring as member for Murray Valley at the 2010 election. McGowan appeared to benefit from friction between the coalition parties spilling over from the contest for Mallee, which the Liberals were seeking to win upon the retirement of Nationals member John Forrest. Reports indicated that local Nationals had been quietly told they would not face disciplinary action if they lent support to McGowan.
McGowan went on to prevail after polling 31.2% to Mirabella’s 44.7%, which was down from 51.8% in 2010. This left McGowan well clear of the Labor candidate on 11.6%, down from 28.2%, and she was narrowly able to close the primary vote gap after picking up 79% of Labor and minor party preferences.
NB: Hat tip to Ben Raue at The Tally Room, whose Google Earth maps I’m using for the electoral boundaries displayed in the map above. Raue does tremendous work on his blog and deserves donations. Note also that you can get a slightly bigger image of the above map by clicking on it.
82
Compact Crank
You can pretend that climate change is not happening, but then you would be completely mistaken. The weather we’ve experienced in WA in recent weeks, for example, is directly attributable to higher sea surface temperatures in the Indian Ocean which has resulted in higher evaporation and much increased rainfall through August and September.
While the rain is very welcome, the higher sea surface temps will likely result in more inshore marine heatwaves through summer. We’ve already see widespread destruction of marine habitat that has affected commercially important fisheries from NW Cape to the Spencer Gulf. This will become more and more pronounced as time goes on.
These consequences of climate change are undeniable and measurable. The LNP, in pretending they are not occurring, are actively betraying the interests of all Australians, including their most loyal supporters.
[AGENCIES responsible for tackling obesity, capital city planning and security advice on asylum seekers are to be slashed as Tony Abbott takes the axe to Labor’s reform agenda.
Less than a week after taking office, the Coalition Government has scrapped plans to build a multimillion-dollar embassy in Africa, and will also wipe $100 million off research funding.
The Prime Minister has also pulled the pin on a key Kevin Rudd initiative – Community Cabinet – as he instructs his new ministry team to put the broom through the bureaucracy.
Key elements of Labor’s reform agenda are being dismantled.
The Major Cities Unit – which provided advice on developing Australia’s 18 biggest cities – and the Social Inclusion Unit in Mr Abbott’s own Department of Prime Minister & Cabinet will be dismantled.]
Read more: http://www.news.com.au/national-news/commonwealth-agencies-to-be-cut-by-abbott-government/story-fncynjr2-1226724733088#ixzz2ffgwhKoi
briefly
It also sees warmer and drier winters. The future of large swathes of wheat farms looks pretty grim.
mari @96
I said I was taking a break until some polling lured me back.
O’Farrel and Merkel kicking lefty butt all over the shop has lured me back – but probably only for a short time.
[99…Sean Tisme]
ST, you are completely mistaken. From an Indonesian viewpoint, the problems we have with AS flow directly from provisions of our laws and from internationally accepted maritime law. To the extent they cause problems in Indonesia, they can rightly say we are responsible.
The Indonesians might very easily say to Abbott “This is your problem. You fix it.” Were this to happen – were Indonesia to withdraw its cooperation – we would see many tens of thousands arriving here and there would be nothing at all we could do about it.
[These consequences of climate change are undeniable and measurable. The LNP, in pretending they are not occurring, are actively betraying the interests of all Australians, including their most loyal supporters.]
As a climate change warrior, what are you doing to stop global warming?
Solar Panels on your roof?
Drive a Prius?
Take the bus to work?
I don’t know how the left expect anyone to take them seriously when they refuse to lead by example.
Senator Cash is a very talented person – I look forward to tracking her rise through the ranks.
[Alarming report – new
coal megamines will drain 2.5x Sydney Harbours of groundwater from central QLD’s #GalileeBasin.
http://www.lockthegate.org.au/draining_the_lifeblood … ]
[103
poroti
briefly
It also sees warmer and drier winters. The future of large swathes of wheat farms looks pretty grim.]
Inland farming in WA is cactus, basically…lost already.
CC
Last I heard from you, you were claiming that you’d vanish and return to stir up the ALP crowd in three years. Couldn’t keep away from the place, eh?
[If environmentalists want to target that then go your hardest – but saying that it justifies reducing CO2 emissions is a political spin message and the average voter knows that.]
I don’t accept thta you have standing to speak to what “the average voter knows”, but that aside, you miss the point, as usual.
Reductions in airborne pollutants associated with the phase out of fossil hydrocarbons from the energy cycle are a bonus benefit large enough to warrant the program all on their own. Respource depletion would be another, because easy to recover fossil HC will be in short supply over the next three decades, putting the EROEI into sharp decline.
Trying to capture all of the airborne particulate from fossil HC would be very expensive — far more expensive than simply switching to non-fossil-HC fuels. In addition, trying to stop ocean acidification from fossil thermal HC plants would also be very expensive and prejudice the thermal efficiency of plants — so a campaign based purely on these pollutants would have far less NPV than one that evaluates the benefit from known Charney sensitivity.
What this means of course, is that even those who for some reason remain unenthusiastic or agnostic on the benefits of CO2 abatement on ecosystem services but who say that they are interested in abateing “real pollution” can support fossil HC substitution without regrets. They absolutely will be handing a cleaner environmental commons to future humanity and begin to benefit almost immediately.
M/s Cash’s dad is quite a nice bloke.
He was quite an effective Attorney-General in a Liberal government in WA from some long time ago.
Clearly M/s Cash did not get any of the “nice” genes.
Her style is more in keeping with a fish seller at a market.
Is it true, by the way, that over half the Abbott cabinet is Catholic? Not that it matters.
Is is true there is not one mother in the cabinet? Not that it matters.
Is it true that all the cabinet went to so-called “private schools”? Not that it matters.
Is it true that nobody in the cabinet has had a real job before going in politics? Not that it matters.
It is true there is nobody from an Asian or non-Anglo-Saxon background in the cabinet? Not that it matters.
Is it true the cabinet really wasn’t selected on merit as we are lead to believe but is actually an amalgam of political pay-offs? Not that it matters.
It is true that the only woman in cabinet got there by “merit” though other, male, members did not? Not that it matters.
Is it true that the current cabinet is not the slightest bit representative of the ordinary folk of Oz?
Not that it matters.
The recent description of the cabinet as a rugby club about sums it up.
Dog help us all!
Sean T
Of all the provocative rubbish you have posted, there is one thing that you have said that I can agree with, so I feel I owe it to you to acknowledge it. Of course I don’t know whether you were just copy/pasting or had thought of it yourself, but…
You said that one of the major problems of the world is overpopulation.
Are you going to lead by example by having no children yourself?
briefly @82 Where have I said that climate Change isn’t occurring?
The climate has always changed and always will. The question that is unresolved is man’s impact on the rate of change and whether or not it is politcially and economically possible to ameliorate that impact.
Compact Crank
Senator Cash is an overbearing bore and an ego maniac.
How does this make you all feel:
Mick Jagger is about to become a great grandfather!!!
Tricot
I saw this on twitter
[New cabinet is 40% lawyers, 47% Catholic, 78% private school-educated, 95% male & 100% white. ♫ I am, you are, we are Australy-aaaan! ♪]
vic
So Abbott is reflecting himself in his ministry?
Geez!
briefly @109
BOLLOCKS
A few of the marginal areas have had a tough time recently – that’s why they are called MARGINAL.
Cranky@113
[ The climate has always changed and always will. The question that is unresolved is man’s impact on the rate of change and whether or not it is politcially and economically possible to ameliorate that impact. ]
So you have reached stage 4 of the 5 stages of climate denial now?
How soon before you get to stage 5?
[ http://www.theguardian.com/environment/climate-consensus-97-per-cent/2013/sep/16/climate-change-contrarians-5-stages-denial ]
Compact Crank@113
Answers to your questions:
Yes
Yes
Lizzie @ 108
Always amused by the “Sydney Harbour” measure for water volume. It is hard to imagine a more difficult analogy for water volume, given the shape of SH and the fact that no one knows how much it is.
I suppose it is just ‘a lot’ , or is it a metric measure?
[106….Sean Tisme]
I report what I know to be true here in WA, and hope it will influence thinking and, eventually, policy on climate change, among other small things an individual can do to mitigate their own emissions.
At least I do not tell lies and/or fantasies for ideological and/or political reasons, which, as your own contributions show, is the usual LNP gambit here and elsewhere.
By the by, I am not the generic lefty of the LNP’s imagination. Far from it. I run a business that depends on the environment for its continued existence. I and those with whom I have commercial dealings can see with our own eyes the lived-consequences of climate change. We know it is not a fluke of the data or a political conspiracy. It is all too real. Believe me, I wish it were not so. But wishing for something does not change reality, no matter the policies of pretense offered by the LNP.
So when there is a 1000 yer flood in Colorado the “sceptics” say: “it often rains”.
Vic
You get the drift.
A truly representative group – not.
I could accept their “all there on merit” crap if it were true, but the the lame, halt and stupid have been there for six years for us all to see – though there are, of course, some with an IQ larger than their shoe number.
The cabinet is what it is – white, male, middle-aged and conservative.
It will prove to be weak.
If you could add talented and meritorious, then the other criteria would not count for much.
But six years of a rugby scrum says it all.
swamprat
Only the goddess of estuaries knows the answer !
CONSERVATION groups seeking boycotts of products linked to alleged poor environmental practices may soon be liable for prosecution under consumer law.
The move, which could severely hamper market-based campaigns by groups such as Markets for Change and GetUp!, is to be pursued by the Abbott government.Parliamentary secretary for agriculture Richard Colbeck told The Australian the move would prevent green groups from holding companies to ransom in their markets.”We’ll be looking at the way some of the environmental groups work because we are very concerned about some of the activities they conduct in the markets,” Senator Colbeck said. “They have exemptions for secondary boycott activities under the Consumer and Competition Act. We are going to have a complete review of the act.”And one of the things I’d be looking at would be to bring a level playing field back so that environment groups are required to comply with the same requirements as business and industry.” The move has strong backing within the Liberal and Nationals parties, as well as among sections of the ALP, concerned about groups targeting the customers of timber and agricultural products in campaigns against old-growth logging and live-animal exports. –
========================================================
Just another attack on the freedoms of Australians. And with this one they have completely missed the fact that many people in other countries also boycott products.
People are looking for products that are not manufactured from timber harvested from old growth forests.
Activists in other countries boycott and campaign against distributors/importers of goods made from timber harvested from old growth forests.
Abbott and his Coalition-of-Four can attack and remove the rights and freedoms of Australians but they cannot restrict the freedoms of people in other nations.
Australian activist groups can move their protests overseas and target that market.
This further atack on the fredoms on Australians will not achieve anything except a warm fuzzy feeling in the groins of those who are pushing Australian towards a totalitarian Govt
Player One @119
That tripe you linked to is a load of bollocks.
MTBW:
[So Abbott is reflecting himself in his ministry?]
L’état, c’est moi! 😉
Tricot
[The cabinet is what it is – white, male, middle-aged and conservative.
It will prove to be weak.]
Even weak people know how to steal others’ policies and sign letters to cancel contracts 🙁
113…Compact Crank
This is a convenient lie. It is about as useful to economics as homeopathy is to medicine.
In contrast to climate science, you can offer no explanation at all for observable climate change. Your reaction is a feeble shrug of the intellectual shoulders – an attempt to excuse a preference for ignorance. The irrefutable facts are the climate is changing very rapidly. There are measures that can be taken to ameliorate this, yet for political reasons you have chosen to join in frustrating these measures. This is betrayal. There is no other word for it.
Fran
🙂
[ That tripe you linked to is a load of bollocks. ]
I defer to your expertise on bollocks, and look forward to your detailed refutation of the IPCC report.
lizzie
Posted Monday, September 23, 2013 at 10:39 am | Permalink
Sean T
Of all the provocative rubbish you have posted, there is one thing that you have said that I can agree with, so I feel I owe it to you to acknowledge it. Of course I don’t know whether you were just copy/pasting or had thought of it yourself, but…
You said that one of the major problems of the world is overpopulation.
Are you going to lead by example by having no children yourself?
====================================================
I also agree with Sean on the over population and hope that he leads by example.
Fran Barlow
That gets a Gold !
[ It is hard to imagine a more difficult analogy for water volume, given the shape of SH and the fact that no one knows how much it is.]
As well it is full of bottom of the harbour tax schemes and a large tunnel
Mind you Vic, with all those blokes there in cabinet, when it comes to the war with Indonesia, with all that testosterone flowing, they will love it.
Nothing a conservative loves more than dressing up in a uniform and saluting some kind of flag.
They love it…..all “Your Country Needs You” stuff.
Was in Ypres a few weeks ago.
In the museum there the most telling display was one showing the hundreds of wars that have take place since the “War to End All Wars” came to an end in 1918.
The saddest thing was the dozens and dozens of graves of essentially young men who died for an Imperialist war.
As I said, the conservatives love their uniforms and flags.
swamprat @121 – it doesn’t matter how many “Sydeny Harbours’ in volume – whether it’s a material impact is what matters – and if that material impact is acceptable.
The Eco-lunacy has gone beyond a joke – on Project in the Pilbara and the maintenance guys are not allowed to powerwash the aircons because the water and dust falls to the ground – even though the rain and dust fails to the ground. And if the aircons aren’t maintained they are inefficient – burning more energy – and could result in failures and fires – causing pollution. Idiots.
With permission of William who will snip this if he so desires ….c’est la vie.
I have read all of Tism’s contribuions this morning and can confirdently say that he:
1) Is a fuckwitted dickhead who
2) Has the intellectual capacity equivalent to my pet stone and
3) Has yet to have an original thought, and
4) Must almost have worn out the cut/paste facilities on his computer by now
All in all he’s a waste of space who I scroll by usually and glance at only when I am bored and/or want a bit of a laugh.
For the millions who care about the NT, from the NT News.
[SUPPORT for the Country Liberals in the bush has collapsed, with startling results showing that local indigenous members Alison Anderson, Larisa Lee, Bess Price and Francis Xavier would all have lost their seats on the day of the federal election]
[Federal results from Ms Anderson’s home base of Papunya, and the neighbouring communities of Haasts Bluff and Mt Liebig, which are part of Ms Anderson’s local seat of Namatjira, showed an extraordinary 39.7 per cent swing to Labor]
[Mr Xavier picked up Arafura in a 15 per cent swing in 2012, leaving Labor with only 49 per cent of the vote. On September 7, Labor won Arafura booths with 59.5 per cent of the vote]
[In 2012, Ms Lee won Arnhem with 55.3 per cent of the vote. On September 7, Labor won 61.3 per cent of the federal vote]
[In Stuart, Ms Price won the seat with an 18.6 per cent gain over Labor in 2012, which got 46.6 per cent of the vote. On September 7, Labor won 62.8 per cent of the federal vote in Stuart]
CC
[one Project in the Pilbara and the maintenance guys are not allowed to powerwash the aircons because the water and dust falls to the ground ]
This sounds bogus. Do you have a link so we can examine the exact thing you claim?
Welcom back Crank,
You’re mate Colin’s tearing up a storm hey? Outstanding performance.
The modern liberal party and it’s new government is like the primary school bullies taking over. Infantile, not academically gifted, probably with a few disorders.
If you don’t like science, it doesn’t exist. If you don’t like information just suppress it. Bully, remove funding and legislate against any criticism.
Australia is already the land of the flies.
Abbott is Lord of the Flies.
Tricot
Abbott and his cronies deserve the two finger salute from indonesia.
Have errands to run. Talk later…..
Fran
Oui!
Whether or not you believe in climate change; How could anyone believe that continuing to pump billions of tonnes of pollutions into our atmosphere, billions of tonnes of crap into our oceans and dumping pollutioning rubbish on our land is a good thing?
There is no chimney, no extraction fans to remove the pollutants from the atmosphere. There is no air tank to replace what air we have.
The water we have on earth is all we have. There is no more water, there is no magical water pipe from outer space to replanish what we have.
And if we keep polluting the land it will degrade to the point that we cannot grow the food we need.
Irrespective of climate change we need to reduce the pollutions we are putting into the atmosphere, oceans and land.
[I have read all of Tism’s contribuions this morning and can confirdently say that he:]
Thanks for the kind words, but did you read my bit about overpopulation of the world being the major cause of global warming?
Seems to be getting rave reviews here this morning 🙂
Malthusians Day Out!
Briefly 109
[Inland farming in WA is cactus, basically…lost already.]
You just had the wettest month since 1996 and you are set to have another wet month.
You will find that the next 3-7 years (maybe more) will be good for WA.
Inland farming will spring back to life.
After that you will go back into a drought cycle for another 5-10 years and inland farming will suffer. Then You will come here and hearld that this is all part of climate change.
AA @145 – economic development leads to improved environmental outcomes – cleaner air, cleaner water and improvements in soil managmeent, reafforestation and fauna rejuvination.
Sean Tisme
Posted Monday, September 23, 2013 at 11:08 am | Permalink
I have read all of Tism’s contribuions this morning and can confirdently say that he:
Thanks for the kind words, but did you read my bit about overpopulation of the world being the major cause of global warming?
Seems to be getting rave reviews here this morning
=======================================================
Agreement is not a rave review.