 |
| Blue and red 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. |
Barker encompasses South Australia along the Victorian border from Mount Gambier north to the Riverland and its population centres of Renmark, Loxton, Berri and Waikerie, extending westwards to the mouth of the Murray River and the towns of Angaston and Murray Bridge 75 kilometres to the east of Adelaide. It has existed since South Australia was first divided into single-member electorates in 1903, at all times encompassing the state’s south-eastern corner including Mount Gambier, Bordertown and Keith. From there it has generally extended either westwards to the Fleurieu Peninsula and Kangaroo Island or, as at present, northwards to the Riverland. The former territories were lost when Mayo was created with the expansion of parliament in 1984, but recovered from 1993 to 2004 as Mayo was drawn into Adelaide’s outskirts. The Riverland was accommodated by Angas prior to its abolition in 1977, and by Wakefield from 1993 to 2004. Barker’s present dimensions were established when South Australia’s representation was cut from twelve seats to eleven at the 2004 election, causing Barker to take back the Riverland from a radically redrawn Wakefield, while Mayo recovered the Fleurieu Peninsula and Kangaroo Island.
The areas covered by Barker presently and in the past have long been safe for the conservatives, the Riverland last having had Labor representation when Albert Smith held Wakefield for a term after the 1943 landslide. Barker has never been in Labor hands, nor come close to doing so since territory in southern Adelaide was ceded to the new seat of Kingston in 1949. Archie Cameron held the seat for the Country Party from 1934 to 1940, having been effectively granted it after helping facilitate a merger of the state’s conservative forces as the Liberal Country League while serving as the Country Party’s state parliamentary leader. Cameron succeeded Earle Page as federal parliamentary leader in 1939 but was deposed after the election the following year, causing him to quit the party and align himself with the United Australia Party and then the Liberal Party, which has held Barker ever since. He was succeeded in Barker on his retirement in 1956 by Jim Forbes, who was in turn succeeded in 1975 by James Porter.
Porter was defeated for preselection in 1990 by Ian McLachlan, a former high-profile National Farmers Federation president whom some were touting as a future prime minister. He would instead serve only a single term as a cabinet minister, holding the defence portfolio in the first term of the Howard government, before retiring at the 1998 election. McLachlan’s successor was Patrick Secker, who led a generally low-profile parliamentary career before being unseated for preselection before the 2013 election. Despite endorsement from Tony Abbott and moderate factional powerbroker Christopher Pyne, Secker reportedly lost a local ballot to Mount Gambier lawyer Tony Pasin by 164 votes to 78, with a further 40 recorded for Millicent real estate agent and Wattle Range councillor Ben Treloar. Pasin picked up a 3.5% swing at the election and holds the seat with a margin of 16.5%.
Well, it bears saying again, the Tory mantra is “God, Queen and Country” and this has not changed in the last 100 years.
Abbott and his lot are currently living the dream.
The invocation of “war” against AS, “prayers” in schools and old war-horses likely to be made GG, are depressingly true to form.
Reduction of taxes for the rich and redirection of government largess to the Big End of Town and the well-off are part of the scheme.
Who is surprised?
A Compassionate Conservative is a contradiction in terms.
Conservatism is essentially a selfish credo and those who support it put the greater good of self above the greater good of the many.
Simplistic true, accurate also.
[Lets hope the NSW Government can rush this legislation through to take care of this character:]
If the offence has been committed you can’t change the law to change the penalty now.
ST
Quite right.
It is high time that the ADF is called in and a blanket of operational secrecy is cast over the whole issue until such time as the war on roids has been won and the enemy have been annihilated and driven into the sea.
Guytaur
Zoomster is correct, historically or the word Zoomster used “Traditionally” the ALP base has been made up by mostly white or European Migrants who are mostly uneducated working class.
This only started to change in the 1970s when Whitlam moved the ALP more towards the educated progressive centre which had previously been solid Liberal in their thinking.
The interesting thing will be as the LNP becomes more Tea Party will the traditionally progressive or Liberal thinkers stay with the LNP or go to the ALP or the Greens.
This will largely be determined by class and policy.
ModLib
[I thought you were the expert on this and you were lecturing me on being across the detail better?????]
I’m not claiming to be an expert, but you are very clearly ignorant.
When I’m fairly sure of something, but can’t be bothered looking it up to verify it, I will use phrases such as ‘my understanding is…’ .
I try to be honest in my postings here, and not to claim I know something when I don’t.
(I do admit to over generalising at times, mainly because qualifying every second sentence with ‘there are exceptions’ seems very tedious).
MB
Oh I missed the traditionally. Zoomster my apologies to you.
@Mod Lib/3291
How was the Coalition Party Policy any different to Malaysia?
@Mod Lib/3300
Your own posts are lacking in detail, don’t talk about other’s in lacking their detail.
…and if you’re resorting to taking apart my posts for internal inconsistencies (being a human being, I’m sure there are many) then it’s clear you’ve basically thrown in the towel.
You don’t seem to have actually challenged a single claim I’ve made, which reassures me that I’ve basically got it right.
@Boerwar 3266
[Snap.
I was actually referring to the last six years of being told that Labor and the Liberals were the same and that the only genuine alternative was the Greens Party.]
Well, I certainly don’t agree with that notion either, despite my misgivings about areas of Labor policy. Its an argument I would probably prefer Greens MPs didn’t resort to, but its a pretty standard line for all minor parties.
Myself, I think the best possible government we can get under present circumstances is a Labor government (majority or minority) with the Greens holding the balance in the Senate, and the last parliamentary term has done nothing to persuade me not to keep voting for that outcome.
[I didn’t assert, BTW, that the Greens do not have an influence at the margins.
In fact, I have repeatedly argued that they do.
It is quite clear that, by dividing the left of centre vote and spending most of their time attacking the Labor Party, they are having a significant but deleterious effect on the prospect of Australia ever having a centre-left government again.
This wrecking operation, coupled with the fact that the Greens will never form government in their own right, ensures that the Greens’ core activity will always be ethical hand-wringing, at which, IMHO, the Greens excel]
Boerwar, I have a lot of time and respect for your contributions here, but this is a point I vehementally disagree with.
In a preferential system, the “spoiler” effect of minor parties is virtually non-existent. More so when something like 90% of Green votes go back to Labor anyway (and I’d argue that the remaining 10% are wet Libs or general protest voters unlikely to vote Labor anyway).
I also dispute that they spend “most of their time” attacking Labor. I would agree that in the previous term, the Greens probably should have been more pragmatic at times and avoiding adding to the sheer volume of negativity being piled onto Julia Gillard. I’m no fan of Christine Milne, nor do I have much time for SHY’s histrionics. However, its not like Labor didn’t give as good as they got. As Centre loves to remind us, there’s plenty of examples of high-profile Labor figures railing against the Greens. That’s politics.
But in cases where the party generally disagrees with Labor’s actions – especially when Labor happens to be the government of the day at the time – what would you have them do? Just hold their tongue and be happy little vegemites, just to avoid causing inconveniences for Labor? Vote for everything their major party betters put to parliament despite how much it goes against their own platform? They have their own base to think about, their own set of policies they bring to each election, their own credibility as a party that stands by their promises.
Being in government naturally means copping a whole lot of criticism from a whole lot of different interest groups – it would be no different if the Greens somehow managed to form government in the future. Hell, the Nationals – who are in a far more formal coalition with the Libs than the Greens ever were with Labor in 2010-2013 – will happily attack the Liberal government if they feel it is neccesary.
And I dispute that – even when Labor were in government – the Greens were somehow singling them out over the Coalition. The government of the day is always going to find thesmelves subject to more criticism than the opposition, because its the government who is actually capable of doing stuff. The Greens may not have ever actively campaigned for the Labor leader (why would they?), but they were pretty adamantally campaigning against Tony Abbott becoming PM. The party may have often been highly critical of various Labor policies, but they still always supported the election of a Labor government over a Liberal one, and the proof is in much of their rhetoric over the last term. They were certainly more loyal than Wilkie was, if nothing else. And with a Liberal government now in power, I can’t say I recall a single instance of the Greens attacking Labor or Shorten (I could easily be wrong, of course).
Ultimately, the argument you’re making always seems to come down to: “I don’t like the Greens, the Greens keep taking votes that should rightfully be Labor’s, therefore the Greens really should just pack it in and join the Labor party, because there’re never going to form government anyway.” It feels as though I must have been observing a very different parliament in 2010-2013, because what I saw was the Greens being continually willing to comprise on their positions, contributing a (IMO) lot of good to the legislation put forward that term, and – despite many disagreements as the term wore on – unfailingly supporting supply and confidence for the Gillard government.
And, come on… “a significant but deleterious effect on the prospect of Australia ever having a centre-left government again”? Its just a few months since the last election, and Shorten’s already in front!
g
[bw
The last six years prove you wrong about Green thinking. They voted for a Gillard Labor Government and kept voting that way.
They sure saw a difference we know that.
You will have to try something new in the face of the fact we have had PM Gillard.]
I am not accusing the Greens of being consistent – except insofar as they consistently prefer hand-wringing over forming government in their own right.
On the one hand they keeping saying (including dozens of time on Bludger) that there is no difference between Labor and the Liberals, and on the other hand, they occasionally mess around with Labor governments and Liberal governments.
On the one hand they say there is no difference between Labor and the Liberals but then they spent most of the past six years attacking and undermining labor governments.
[If the offence has been committed you can’t change the law to change the penalty now.]
This is a new dickhead… not the previous dickhead.
It will be before the courts shortly, hence why I said it should be rushed through.
Oh you meant the offence… I’m pretty sure you can make it retrospective so this character is dealt with by the new law.
@Sean/3311
Laws do not fix.
DN
[So how do you explain the last minority government? Nothing was changed by people voting Green? Pull the other one.]
I meant that nothing was changed in the drivers of ALP policy. Obviously, the presence in a hung parliament of Greens changed things, but mainly because the ALP did far worse against the LNP than it had done in 2007. Had it won government in its own right, there would probably have been little difference in policy compared with 2007, even if the Greens had performed as well as they did.
Sean
You are a funny Conservative as they don’t normally like retrospective laws.
bw
I still don’t get Labor people like you attacking the Greens when in reality it is the LNP that is the danger to Labor as far as forming government goes.
If you truly believe the Greens will never form government ignore them
ModLib
sorry, missed your earlier post.
There may be some refugees who are batshit crazy enough to think that it’s worth forking out money and risking their lives to marginally improve their lot in Malaysia. I would suggest, however, that most rational beings would direct that money and effort in ways which would lead them to more reliable outcomes.
I didn’t question why you were raising the issue of caning. It’s a standard argument brought up by those who are anti the Malaysian solution. As I have shown, it is a complete furphy. Agonising over refugees being caned in Malaysia is akin to agonising over whether or not my son (who is presently at the cricket) has been taken up in a UFO and is currently being probed in indelicate places by aliens. I can’t totally rule out that this is not happening to him as I type, but it’s highly unlikely.
I also clearly believe that it’s not a case of stopping drownings at all costs. I have made it clear I disapprove of the Manus/Nauru solution implemented by Rudd. I believe drownings can be stopped AND refugees treated with dignity.
IF the Malaysian solution had been implemented, I believe both would have happened. The boats would have stopped. We would have taken more refugees, from areas of greater need (including more from Malaysia). We would have improved conditions for refugees currently living in Malaysia (whose fate seems not to trouble you at all). And we would, in all likelihood, be negotiating with other countries to implement similar schemes more widely.
Of course, I can’t prove any of that, just as I can’t prove that my son won’t be taken up by a UFO and probed any time soon.
Asha Leu
I have voted for the Greens from time-to-time but the past six years have taught me the error of their ways.
I don’t expect the Greens to agree with Labor for the simple reason that the Greens are never going to form government and Labor, in order to make any difference, has to try to form, or keep, government. BUT the Greens see themselves as being in competition for votes with Labor. This lies at the heart of why I have abandoned the Greens. It is this contradiction at the heart of the Greens’ stance that helped deliver Abbott&Co.
Essentially, one party has to compromise to compete for real government. The other party can take the ethical high ground, wring its hands about any shocking moral compromises, demand perfection, act as a spoiler, undermine Labor by wedging it repeatedly, and so on and so forth.
To rationalise this wrecking behaviour to themselves, the Greens have NO CHOICE but to tell themselves, and everyone else, that there is no difference between Labor and the Liberals.
Based on 11 years of Howard and 4 months of Abbott, I call bullshit on that.
The Greens position on boats seems to be to encourage people paying tens of thousands to jump on a dangerous leaky boat to get here. Those that can’t afford to pay stay in some run down UN camp in Africa, Pakistan, etc.
Clearly then there is a much better way of implementing Greens policy… cut out the middleman. Setup shop in Afghanistan, Africa, Middle East… and Auction off Australian Humanitarian Visas off to the highest bidder to fill the quota.
Nice little money earner for the Government, no dangerous boat trips, people smugglers shut down and the Greens can be happy in knowing only the top 1% got a humanitarian spot which is the truth of their position.
g
[bw
I still don’t get Labor people like you attacking the Greens when in reality it is the LNP that is the danger to Labor as far as forming government goes.
If you truly believe the Greens will never form government ignore them]
It would be lovely to ignore the Greens. But when their main achievement is to divide the centre left vote and act as spoilers on behalf of the likes of Abbott&Co then it is a bit hard to actually ignore them.
@Sean/3319
And your position is to deport them all, which costs us alot of money as I told you last night.
There are millions of parents of school children and the poorer superannuants who are already out of pocket as a result of the Abbott Government.
But the Greens will tell you that there is no difference between Labor and the Liberals.
bw
Projecting onto Greens problems of Labor is a failure on your part.
Labor can get those voters back. If it wants to.
g
[bw
Projecting onto Greens problems of Labor is a failure on your part.
Labor can get those voters back. If it wants to.]
I don’t have to project anything onto anybody. What a senseless thing to say.
Posters will recall that I advocated for the Informal Party throughout the last election period.
Fran
[They are with this non-trivial difference: they appeal to substantially different albeit overlapping demographics. That both predisposes how each frames its policies and limits the credibility of each outside their demographic.]
So we agree they’re not the same then, good.
[I meant that nothing was changed in the drivers of ALP policy.]
You believe that the prospect of having to form government with the Greens changes *nothing* within the ALP?
[Obviously, the presence in a hung parliament of Greens changed things …]
So we agree that voting Green does have an effect, good.
[… but mainly because the ALP did far worse against the LNP than it had done in 2007. Had it won government in its own right, there would probably have been little difference in policy compared with 2007, even if the Greens had performed as well as they did.]
Oh this is just ridiculous. Voting Green has no effect because in some alternate universe they didn’t get enough votes to influence the outcome. Ok, you’re probably not saying that but then this is totally irrelevant. All I need is one example of where voting Green has an effect to disprove your assertion to the contrary, and we’ve just had one for the past 3 or so years.
Dr Donnelly is right about the Judeo- Christian heritage: kids in schools should certainly be taught about paedophile priests.
[Oh you meant the offence… I’m pretty sure you can make it retrospective so this character is dealt with by the new law.]
I am pretty sure that even if you can change the law to alter punishments after the crime has been committed you don’t do it because it is fundamentally unjust. Think North Korean.
Mexicanbeemer
J Howard’s name was mud in WA with the Tories caught up in his retrospective legislation aimed at cleaning up the bottom of the harbour tax rorts.
The legislation they need in NSW to stop people being bashed in the streets needs to be aimed at the liquor industry but we know that chances of that happening. zero .
BW
Yes you are projecting. Any problem about attracting voters to the Labor party is the problem of the Labor party.
@Leroy_Lynch: How the pink batts royal commission could rebound on Abbott http://t.co/G2rm0rtSDC #auslaw #auspol #qldpol Lots of good points
[zoomster
Posted Saturday, January 11, 2014 at 3:48 pm | PERMALINK
…and if you’re resorting to taking apart my posts for internal inconsistencies (being a human being, I’m sure there are many) then it’s clear you’ve basically thrown in the towel.
You don’t seem to have actually challenged a single claim I’ve made, which reassures me that I’ve basically got it right.]
oh dear! First the above and then a post about UFOs…….you seem to be dissolving before our very eyes!
Interesting that you say I am not able to challenge a single claim you have made in the very post where you accuse me of taking apart your posts for internal inconsistencies!!!!
Do you even see the howlers you are posting?
I note that you admit that there could be push factors for AS. However, you have still not answered the point about the push factors for those running the boats. Why is that not a push factor?
[I didn’t question why you were raising the issue of caning.]
Oh really? You didn’t raise the question of whether it was racist to raise it????? No….OK, if you say so.
Well, I know you are not going to provide anything more of substance so I might take up the opportunity to have a swim myself!
Have a great weekend everyone……stay consistent won’t you? :devil:
What the eff is the ‘Judao-Christian heritage’ and where the eff did it come from? Why has this phrase suddenly become the favoured form of the reactionaries’ fervid value set?
‘Judao’? Should we start getting ready to sacrifice our first born sons, circumsize our kids, abstain from pork, and cut the throats of living animals in order to get our lamb chops in a righteous fashion?
If not, what do they really mean?
Whatever happened to our dear old Graeco-Romano heritage?
g
[Yes you are ‘projecting’.]
What does that actually mean?
bw
You are projecting Labor problems and making out they are because of the Greens. If Labor had policies that attracted those people they would vote Labor not Green that is what it means.
Boerwar, it means you are casting shadows of your own psyche.
@Mod Lib/3331
Mod Lib telling someone they been posting inconsistencies? Me thinks people need to look in the mirror imho.
(and no, voting for someone else doesn’t mean you get away with it).
ModLib
accusing you of racism for stereotyping Malaysian policeman as thugs who beat the cr*p out of all and sundry for no reason whatsoever wasn’t asking why you had raised the subject.
And yes, I’m at the point of treating your posts with utter contempt – hence the outrageous analogies.
Although I’d still say that a refugee under Australian protection in Malaysia has as much chance of being caned as my son has of being abducted by aliens.
@WeWantPaul 3272
[Yeah Abbott’s nothing is going to be so much better. That opposition by the greens still supported by you has to be in the running for the stupidest own goal in Australian Political History, right up there with Labor getting rid of the Upper House in Qld]
Well, it was an own goal alright, but I’m not sure you and I will agree on who kicked it.
Should the Greens have been pragamatic with Rudd and Turnbull’s carbon scheme? Maybe. I was torn on the decision at the time and I’m still not entirely certain they made the right move. A half-arsed emissions reduction scheme was probably better than none, and, yeah, it could always have ben ammended and improved in later terms.
Or maybe Abbott’s “Great Big New Tax” line would have gained traction earlier and he would have won in 2010 and repealed in. Or perhaps the leglislation would have turned out to be textbook-Rudd and all sorts of problems would have emerged later on to bite Labor in the arse. Maybe after all the policital heartache they suffered for it, Labor would have been to afraid to alter it at all in the future and we would have been stuck with that ineffective legislation until such time as the Libs won goverment and scrapped it.
Or maybe Rudd would have called a double-dissolution in early 2010, won a definitive victory and then – basking in his new mandate – negiotiated new legislation with the BoP-holding Greens. Certainly, that’s what most people would have assumed to be the likely outcome from the events of late ’09 at the time.
That’s the trouble with hypotheticals. They can be twisted to prove whatever you want them to prove.
However, I will note that the Labor/Greens/Indis carbon scheme is still in place and doing its thing four months after Abbott’s victory, and doesn’t seem to be going anywhere any time soon. By the time he manages to negotiate a deal with the new Crazy Crossbench (assuming Master Negotiator Abbott manages that at all), we may well be not too far away from a Shorten victory.
@smh: PM Abbott’s secretive ways have gone too far, says former Liberal Party leader John Hewson. http://t.co/UyY4H1xrCu #auspol
[Interesting that you say I am not able to challenge a single claim you have made in the very post where you accuse me of taking apart your posts for internal inconsistencies!!!!]
Er, what? An inconsistency in argument is not the same as an error of fact.
If you don’t understand that, I do apologise – you are even more ignorant than I supposed, and I’m taking unfair advantage of that.
The Greens Party are as intolerant, irresponsible and arrogant as the Conservatives are.
[Should the Greens have been pragamatic with Rudd and Turnbull’s carbon scheme? ]
Yes. It was a good scheme that could have been and would have been accepted, made better over time. The ethical line would have been “We think we can do better but this is important and it is urgent so we are going to support it 110% and work as hard as we can in the future to improve it, we urge all Australians to get behind it with us.”
Instead Abbott said ‘its cr*p’ and the greens said ‘its cr*p’ and every week 1000’s of Australians who previously supported a price on carbon stopped supporting it.
Wow the LNP must be going really bad. The attacks on the Greens have stepped the most since the election,
…and, of course, I haven’t been inconsistent – unless qualifying a statement you’re not totally sure of is a sign of inconsistency. In other circles, that would be seen as honesty.
oh and the Informal Party are just a bunch of spoilt quitters
@Boerwar 3318
I guess this is where you and I are unlikely to ever agree.
To my eyes, the Greens were very pragmatic during the previous term, and were willing to compromise on a lot of different issues. Barely anything would have passed the senate if they hadn’t. Even the carbon price negotiated with Gillard involved big compromises, despite the “Bob Brown is the real PM!” histrionics from the right.
What the eff is the ‘Judao-Christian heritage’; and why doesn’t it include the other great Abrahamic religion.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abrahamic_religions
[The Greens Party are as intolerant, irresponsible and arrogant as the Conservatives are.]
And just as smug and superior as well.
funny how the Conservative/Green cartel claims to now occupy the ‘sensible centre’… 😆
@WeWantPaul 3342
Well, it was crap. Just because many in the Libs agreed doesn’t change that fact. Broken clocks and all.
And I would add that the stimying of the Malaysia solution – and the recent scrapping of the debt ceiling for that matter – are arguably cases where the Coalition is siding with the Greens, not the other way around. Both are perfectly consistant with Greens policy – its the Coalition who backflipped for political gain.