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| Red and blue numbers respectively indicate booths with two-party majorities for Liberal and Labor. Click for larger image. Map boundaries courtesy of Ben Raue at The Tally Room. |
The electorate of Grey has covered the bulk of South Australia’s land mass since the state was first divided into electorates in 1903, and it currently encompasses much the same territory as it did on its creation. The state’s eastern regions north of the Riverland were at times accommodated by Wakefield, but Grey has at all times accommodated the state’s west together with the “iron triangle” cities of Whyalla, Port Augusta and Port Pirie. Labor-voting Whyalla is the electorate’s largest centre with a population of around 22,000, while increasingly marginal Port Augusta and Port Pirie together with strongly conservative Port Lincoln on the lower Eyre Peninsula each have populations of slightly over 13,000. About 60 per cent of the electorate’s population is scattered through the remainder, the strongest concentration being in the rural conservative Yorke Peninsula. The latter area was added to the electorate from Wakefield when South Australia’s representation was reduced from 12 seats to 11 in 2004.
Grey’s industrial centres once made it a reliable seat for Labor, but their decline over recent decades has effected a decisive shift to the Liberals. Labor held the seat for all but one term between 1943 and 1993, the exception being after the landslide defeat of 1966. Laurie Wallis recovered the seat for Labor in 1969 and retained it by margins of 563 votes in 1975 and 65 votes in 1977, surviving on the latter occasion in the face of an unfavourable redistribution, and bequeathed the seat to Lloyd O’Neil in 1983. The turning point arrived in 1993, when the addition of the Clare Valley (since transferred to Wakefield) and the retirement of O’Neil opened the way for Barry Wakelin to win the seat for the Liberals on the back of a 4.3% swing. The Liberals’ position has been strengthening ever since, helping Wakelin to achieve swings of 6.4% in 1996, 1.9% in 2001 and 3.2% in 2004, with a correction of only 0.5% to Labor in 1998. Wakelin’s retirement in 2007 combined with the overall swing to Labor cut the margin that year from 13.8% to 4.4%, but the Liberal ascendancy has since been firmly re-established by successive swings of 6.7% and 2.4% in 2010 and 2013. The member since 2007 has been Rowan Ramsey, who runs a farming property at Buckleboo on the Eyre Peninsula.
Morning all
We watched Agenda this morning and caught Turnbull projecting his various personas. We got the angry spiel over Labor wasting money in its fantasyland NBN. How dare Conroy lie about HFC being a dud for apartment blocks. His testing shows that 103megabits or whatevers are a goer
now with no StrataTitle problems.
We got his oh so sorrowful and mournful face over
Holden workers losing jobs but the upside is, says
MT, that we can all be millionaires so the Govt will
help us get there.
Of course that leftie ABC is not all bad even if Sarah
Henderson says it is. Mal at his charming best
knowing that his electorate won’t wear ABC
bashing.
Indignant Mal was aghast that Tanya let slip secret talks on SSM.
Mal’s barristerlike flourishes are looking too insincere lately.
poroti
Clearly the UK, NZ and Canada bringing in SSM under conservative governments has made the Libs look on the wrong side of history.
bemused
[Too many Australians see our Asian-Australians as not really Australians.]
It always amuses me when pommie coppers describe someone as being of Asian appearance – covers about half the world’s population.
Diogs
Would Bolt approve of clubs investing their talents, time and resources in developing players to their full potential only to lose them to rich clubs because they have more money to buy them?
Bolt is an idiot full stop!
Centre
Bolt is not a complete idiot. He’s saying Abbott needs to change or he’ll be a one term Tony,
[As I say, I am confident Abbott can change, and we must hope he does. For Labor, unrepentant and unreformed, to return in three years would mean only a completion of the destruction Labor wrought over the past six. ]
Dio, tories do hate sooooo good.
There are likely to be way more Abbott-types in the Liberal partyroom now, so it’s unlikely a conscience vote on amending the Marriage Act will see it pass.
Btw, now that SSM is official Labor policy, shouldn’t all Labor MPs be voting in favour of amending the Marriage Act?
[As I say, I am confident Abbott can change]
What to? There’s no evidence, after 20 years in parliament that Abbott has the ability to be anything other than the bully boy thug that he is.
[As I say, I am confident Abbott can change]
The instant Peta and Rupes tell him to.
Centre
[Would Bolt approve of clubs investing their talents, time and resources in developing players to their full potential only to lose them to rich clubs because they have more money to buy them?]
The question of having a socialist sports league is actually very interesting. The most famous and successful sporting clubs in the world are soccer clubs like Barcelona, Real Madrid, Man U etc. They don’t have any of this salary cap stuff. Europe doesn’t believe in salary caps.
It’s the US bizarrely that has championed salary caps. All their big sports leagues have it; gridiron, basketball, baseball and ice hockey.
fess
[Btw, now that SSM is official Labor policy, shouldn’t all Labor MPs be voting in favour of amending the Marriage Act?]
It’s still a conscience vote for Labor.
I can’t see Abbott allowing a conscience vote on SSM if it would be likely to succeed.
I’m now in favour of SSM (great to oppose the religious nutters) but the issue should be resolved on a conscience vote and not along party lines.
Diogs, Abbott could change but he’d probably need a brain transplant.
Fran
[Plainly, the whole renewable/green sector is wide open for engineering innovation.]
Fat chance under the Coalition, unfortunately. Labor got it half right, but Libs determined to kill off the remnants.
Fess
Turnbull did mention the changes in the Party room makeup so that gives no certainty of a yes SSM vote.
How many of the new pollies will go with Ab bott on a conscience vote. They have a lot to thank him for, don’t they?
poroti
[ As I say, I am confident Abbott can change
The instant Peta and Rupes tell him to.]
To the Real Tony
Bolt can rail against Demetriou and the socialist AFL but he needs to understand that without the restricting rules, salary caps and drafts,the AFL would be halved in size overnight as clubs went broke. And that would flow through to his main outlet, the Herald sun which lives on its AFL coverage … Although he probably thinks its sales are because of his columns.
rossmcg
[And that would flow through to his main outlet, the Herald sun which lives on its AFL coverage …]
Good point.
BH:
I wonder if Turnbull sees the irony that each election there are fewer and fewer moderates in his partyroom.
Diogs @ 160 yes some sports adopt a salary cap and some don’t.
The necessity of a salary cap really depends on the structural wealth of the sport.
I actually designed a new system to supersede the salary cap and draft systems currently in place.
There is no way that I’m going to reveal it as I don’t want them to copy it without any financial benefit 😛
Correct me if I’m wrong, but don’t the Americans refer to “Irish-Americans” amongst others? Are we not allowed to remain proud of our heritage in the same way?
CTar1@153
It is interesting how to the pommy cops, that implies Indian/Pakistani whereas we think more East Asian and would refer more specifically to Indian appearance.
Liberal party members would ‘rather eat cut glass than make Mal Turnbull leader”.
Rough but reasonably accurate paraphrase of Laura Tingle’s response to ‘business types’ who recently asked why Mal couldn’t be Leader of the LIBs.
Tony Abbott – Wrecking Ball:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kxq__3z9zGM
Sums it up.
Attacking Disabled has started:
http://www.afr.com/p/national/ministers_asked_to_cut_or_cap_disability_WZ4fzRL0C4deMM2npIeVaP
RE NDIS:
“Federal and state leaders have signalled they are looking for ways to pare back or cap the cost of the national disability insurance scheme, the largest new spending commitment made in decades.”
[I can’t see Abbott allowing a conscience vote on SSM if it would be likely to succeed.]
Abbott opposes SSM but he doesn’t really care. In fact I don’t think he actually cares about anything any more (if he ever did). Even his religious values are expendable these days I would say.
He will vote against SSM but he has no passion for it (against it). He has no passion for anything.
Mad Max movies will never be the same
[As I say, I am confident Abbott can change, and we must hope he does. ]
Bolt is wrong on that one. All the personality card regarding Abbott have been dealt.
He’s been a bully-boy, a priest, a back-stabber, a (self-confessed) liar, a promise breaker, a minister, a fitness junkie, a father AND a deserter of the mother of his children, a minister, a shadow minister, a Prime Minister, and even has had a go at having himself reinvented as a “statesman”.
He’s gotten the country at Christmas into a malaise of doom and gloom, prospective unemployment, lack of connectivity, blundering and broken promises, confused educational funding, low-paid workers having higher wages rescinded for the good of the nation”, rich superannuants having their privileges restored, international relations with our three nearest neighbours in the trash can, petty rorting, making others look bad so he can look good by comparison, vindictiveness, show trials, increased and untrammeled debt, blame, plus abysmal polling.
All the evidence about Abbott is in.
The jury – the voting public – will now retire to consider its verdict over what was promised to be a happy Christmas, but has now turned to shit.
[Correct me if I’m wrong, but don’t the Americans refer to “Irish-Americans” amongst others?]
Some Americans who have (or think they have) Irish background just call themselves Irish! Even though they know absolutely nothing about Ireland and would probably need a translator just to have a conversation with a real Irishman.
lizzie@170
You have completely missed the point.
Re-read the posts and return when you have got it.
[Federal and state leaders have signalled they are looking for ways to pare back or cap the cost of the national disability insurance scheme, the largest new spending commitment made in decades.]
They need to make sure it is restricted to real disabilities and people who have things like depression and anxiety are kept away from it. Otherwise in twenty years half the population will be accessing it.
bemused
I have not missed “the point”. I was making an different one.
R Turkey
I think Abbott holds many of the superstitious, religious and conservative values of the 1950s and 60s at the latest.
Abbott is holding us back with technological development, economic management for today and all aspects of good social policy.
lizzie@181
The problem is not people being denied any right to maintain their past heritage, it is the implicit denial of their new status as Aussies.
So much for the education funding promise
As Mr Hockey prepares to unveil a horror budget update on Tuesday that will confirm a massive blowout in the deficit of up to $50 billion and rising unemployment, the Abbott government will shut down future plans for trades training centres in schools.
The Sunday Mail can reveal the decision to end the program will deliver a $400 million spending cut. The program offers vocational training at high school for students in Year 9 to Year 12.
[Abbott is holding us back with technological development, economic management for today and all aspects of good social policy.]
Well firstly that is just your opinion. And to the extent that you’re correct I’m not sure that Abbott is the driving force behind it. He just wants to be Prime Minister. It is others in his party who really care about their little culture wars and ideological stupidities.
Jonathan Green on Sunday Extra had Graeme Samuel furiously polishing the turd that is the Abbot government.
I am surprised when people such as Samuel are introduced that their roles such as chairing the ACCC get trotted out to identify them, but their roles as Liberal Party apparatchiks are apparently forgotten.
Cough.
[The state government has withheld from the Commonwealth a survey of rare and threatened plants of an area of the Alpine National Park earmarked for a cattle grazing trial.]
[It is believed scientists at the state’s biodiversity research body – the Arthur Rylah Institute – were asked to look for for rare and threatened plants in different parts of the alpine park as part of research for the high country grazing project. Their results were outlined in an unreleased report from May 2012. But the survey was not included in a recent application by Victoria to the federal government for environmental approval of a grazing trial.
Instead an older desktop study – drawing on previously recorded data – was used to identify the extent of endangered species in the low-lying Wonnangatta Valley, where the latest trial is planned.]
Now, why would they do that?
[The report suggests that fencing to protect the orchids, grassland and spreading knawel would be impractical and would not mitigate against the impacts of grazing.]
Oh.
[A new cattle grazing trial was announced last month. If approved by federal Environment Minister Greg Hunt, it will see 60 head of cattle released into Wonnangatta Valley over three years to see if grazing reduces the risk of bushfire.]
Why not use one of the many studies done over the last century or so, which answer this question?
[Graeme Stoney of the Mountain Cattlemen’s Association said the management of the high country had to be reassessed, and in some areas grazing could assist with planned burning for fuel reduction.]
That would be the Graeme Stoney who is a former State National party MP (not relevant information, obviously) who is the brother in law of former State Liberal Premier Ted Ballieu (not relevant information, obviously).
Note the ‘in some areas’ and the ‘could’.
It’s not disputed – by any of the studies done over the last century or so – that grazing on the lower slopes reduces the fuel load. But of course, it’s almost impossible to restrict cattle to the lower slopes (and certainly would be uneconomic).
Note the location of the proposed trial, too – it’s a valley. You can’t use data obtained from grazing in a valley to determine whether grazing should be allowed on the High Plains. But, of course, when you’re trying to rig the science, you have to give it your best shot.
Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/state-kept-alpine-park-rareplant-survey-to-itself-20131214-2zeav.html#ixzz2nV8rI0lG
I call myself Australian.
My heritage is Lithuanian.
I don’t see a need to describe myself as Lithuanian/Australian.
That does not make me any less proud of my heritage. I do that in many other ways.
I find people describing themselves in this manner ‘annoying’.
bemused
Posted Sunday, December 15, 2013 at 12:06 pm | Permalink
lizzie@181
bemused
I have not missed “the point”. I was making an different one.
The problem is not people being denied any right to maintain their past heritage, it is the implicit denial of their new status as Aussies.
=====================================================
I whole heartedly agree with you on this.
AA
Of course shutting down trades training centres in schools would be a priority for the Abbott/Liberals. Trades training is something far too practical for the students to learn in the real world.
They have to learn about religion, propaganda and saluting the flag.
AA
well, there you go.
My maiden name is Samatauskas.
[Abbott is holding us back with technological development, economic management for today and all aspects of good social policy.]
Well said Centre!
[166
rossmcg
Bolt can rail against Demetriou and the socialist AFL but he needs to understand that without the restricting rules, salary caps and drafts,the AFL would be halved in size overnight as clubs went broke.]
The AFL is organised to maximise competition between the clubs and to permit the entry of new clubs into the contest. If it was run like a “market”, stronger clubs would buy out the weaker ones, new entrants would not emerge and eventually the contest would be confined to just a couple of teams. Of course, this would eventually kill the whole contest. It would cease to have any value. The reason the AFL is set up with salary caps, a draft system and trading rules is because it is on the interest of each club that all other clubs survive and prosper.
It is very definitely a case where the value of the whole far exceeds the sum of the parts. As well, it is the “value of the whole” that is monetized through broadcast and marketing revenues, which would collapse if the inter-club competition failed.
Bolt also really misunderstands the actual competitive field, which is not the contest between AFL clubs, but between the AFL and the other codes. It is this competition that conditions the internal rules that apply inside each code.
R Turkey @ 185
No, I think Abbott holds firm views on his ideological stupidities.
Yes, that is only my view just like you have yours!
Even more annoying are those who come to Australia to escape religious/political persecution or troubles and then continue the battles in Australia
AussieAchmed@188
I suppose it might be kind of expected of new arrivals, but after a generation or so it makes little sense.
Everyone’s heritage is of some interest but in an ethnically and culturally diverse country such as Australia, does not really make anyone exceptional.
Where it really pisses me off is with the sort of behaviour we have seen by supporters of SOME ethnically based soccer teams.
AussieAchmed 188
I am proud of my Dutch heritage but ever since my nationalisation ceremony I call myself “Australian” and am much prouder of my Australian heritage!
Resurgent Turkeys @185
Perhaps Abbott still has a residue of his first political mentor B.A. Santamaria’s attitude to modernity and progress ? We were all happy little god botherers until all this education, industrialisation and urbanistaion came along.
Centre
The Liberals alternative to trade training centres in schools (circa 2007, I’m not sure what their present policy is…if they have one) was to have separate tech schools.
This would be disastrous for many rural/regional secondary colleges, which are in many cases just hanging on as it is. Sending students to the tech in a regional centre, rather than having them undertake technical studies at their local school, reduces the number of students in these schools. Reducing the number of students means a further reduction in the subjects the school is able to offer, which means that a drift of the remaining (non technical orientated) students to the bigger regional schools.
Centre
Posted Sunday, December 15, 2013 at 12:18 pm | Permalink
AA
Of course shutting down trades training centres in schools would be a priority for the Abbott/Liberals. Trades training is something far too practical for the students to learn in the real world.
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Less Aussies with trade qualifications will provide the reason for Gina etc to access more and more 457 visa workers.