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| Red and blue numbers respectively indicate booths with two-party majorities for Labor and Liberal. Click for larger image. Map boundaries courtesy of Ben Raue at The Tally Room. |
The north-eastern Adelaide seat of Makin extends from Pooraka near the city to Tea Tree Gully and Greenwith at the limits of the metropolitan area. Labor is especially strong in the areas nearer the city, from Walkley Heights north to Salibsury East, beyond which are generally newer suburbs with more mortgage payers and families, who have helped keep the Liberals competitive or better for most of the seat’s history. Together with Kingston in the south of the city and Wakefield in its outer north, Makin is one of three Adelaide seats which the Liberals held in the final term of the Howard government before blowing out to double-digit Labor margins at the 2010 election, and which remain securely in the Labor fold despite the 2013 election defeat. In Makin’s case the Labor margin reached 12.0% in 2010, before the 2013 swing reduced it to 5.1%.
Makin was created with the expansion of parliament in 1984 from an area that had mostly formed the southern end of the safe Labor seat of Bonython, the majority of which was in turn absorbed by Wakefield when it was abolished in 2004. It was held for Labor by uncomfortable margins from 1984 to 1996 by Peter Duncan, a former Attorney-General in Don Dunstan’s state government. A 4.8% swing put Duncan on the Keating government casualty list in 1996, and he returned to the headlines in 2007 after being charged with fraudulently obtaining government grants for his plastics recycling company. The seat was then held for the Liberals by Trish Draper, who emerged as a prime ministerial favourite after strong performances at the next two elections. A swing against Draper of 0.2% in 1998 compared with a statewide swing of 4.2%, and she consolidated her margin by 3.0% in 2001. Draper hit trouble in the lead-up to the 2004 election when it emerged she had breached parliamentary rules by taking a boyfriend on a study trip to Europe at taxpayers’ expense, but she survived by 0.9% in the face of a swing that was not reflected in neighbouring seats. Draper retired at the 2007 election citing an illness in the family, before unsuccessfully attempting a comeback in the state seat of Newland at the March 2010 election.
The seat was then won for Labor on the second attempt by Tony Zappia, who had been the mayor of Salisbury since 1997, a councillor for many years beforehand, and was at one time a weightlifting champion. Zappia was widely thought to have been a victim of his factional non-alignment when the Right’s Julie Woodman defeated him for preselection in 2001, and a repeat performance appeared on the cards when a deal ahead of the 2004 election reserved the seat for Dana Wortley of the “hard Left”. The arrangement displeased local branches as well as party hard-heads concerned that a crucial marginal seat should be contested by the most appealing candidate, and Premier Mike Rann successfully prevailed upon Wortley’s backers to throw their weight behind Zappia. The move appeared a dead end for Zappia in the short term as he proved unable to win the seat, whereas Wortley was elected from the number three Senate position she was offered as consolation. However, Zappia performed considerably better with the electoral breeze at his back in 2007, demolishing the 0.9% Liberal margin with a swing of 8.6%. This was achieved in the face of a high-impact publicity campaign by Liberal candidate Bob Day, housing tycoon and national president of the Housing Industry Association who has since been elected as a Senator for Family First.
The once non-aligned Zappia is now a member of the Left, and is believed to have been a backer of Kevin Rudd’s leadership challenges, and of Anthony Albanese over Bill Shorten in the post-election leadership contest. After spending the period in government on the back bench, he won promotion after the election defeat to shadow parliamentary secretary for manufacturing.
LSL
[And he hasn’t even done anything lately!]
That is entirely the point.
david
[Until then I’m free to express an opinion]
Oh yeah? Show us your license!
Geoff
Hate is implanted in the soul of many far right wingers.
Again, discriminate double standards from your lot.
[144
mexicanbeemer
I don’t think there is anything medically wrong with Tone, but what i did notice particularly with his speech when hosting the Australian and English cricket team was a very robotic and slow speech.]
He was trying to keep his style of speech consistent with the cricket commentary genre – that is, generally redundant and predictable blather. Abbott is good at that.
Briefly @123 – interesting analysis. This Government will find it hard to get away with becoming too ‘activist’, e.g. if it starts to wind back Medicare, even with the protection of most of the media.
AA @116 and others – re climate cycles – deniers refer to climate cycles as if they somehow disprove global warming. They also allege that ‘warmists’ deny the existence of natural climate cycles. What they don’t seem to get is that anthropogenic warming is in addition to any natural cycles that do occur. In any case most of these natural cycles and their impacts are not that well understood. It is a heroic assumption to make that natural cycles will somehow come to our rescue. And what cycles down eventually cycles back up.
If human civilisation is to continue and thrive for thousands of years, it will need to adapt to temperatures much hotter and much colder than those that have prevailed in the last few thousand years. But at the moment, because of human activity, we have a big problem getting through the next 100 years. Humanity will muddle through but it won’t be pretty and action now can mitigate the worst effects.
I’ll be off for a bit. Have a good day all.
Geoff
A leader sets the policy debate tone, the PM has been a very aggressive leader and its achieved his aspirations so good on him but now he has become top dog he cannot complain about the loud barking.
Sure i cringe at some comments but then i do prefer to play the ball, not the man
Davidwh
Did Ellis make anything up on his article that Leone linked at 130?
Centre
“Astro
So what are you saying @ 130, that emitting the CO2 has been a blessing in disguise?
Oh the Greens are going good 😆 ”
No. Not after this: http://www.wunderground.com/blog/JeffMasters/comment.html?entrynum=2612
Wish RT was around to read that. I remember he was claiming that the insurers had seen no increasing trend in weather-related damages and had just jacked up their prices to profiteer.
[146….confessions]
sounds good, confessions…bright, warm and calm here…placid enough, but heat developing
mexican
Speaking a little slower gives you time to think and thus dramatically reduce um aah’s when speaking.
Record yourself speaking. Then do the same when you get instant feedback. in music/entertainment industry its called foldback.
Professionals do this so you don’t notice.
Politics is a tough game. If you can’t tolerate criticism of your side, get off your computer and do something else with your life (that goes for supporters of all sides of politics) – nobody is forcing you to post here.
And nobody’s committing treason. That’s a coward’s accusation.
Guytaur
Thanks, yes imaged it was a technique but has he cut down on the ums and ahs.
mexican
I shudder to think what h would be llke not using the technique.
Centre Ellis is they type of person who starts with his desired outcome, digs up snippets of information which he can manipulate to support his desired outcomes and then writes up his articles without any respect for truth. No I don’t personally know if all he wrote is factual and don’t really need to know to arrive at my personal view of Abbott the person. However I am pretty confident the facts as described by Ellis will be distorted to suit his version of things.
LSL is the redoubtable Roberto. His daddy just doesn’t want his cantina slagged.
I use the word redoubtable in the in his own lunchbox sense.
Fulvio
[LSL is the redoubtable Roberto.]
From a black and white checked shirt to a Lounge Suit?
You wear an apron when you’re washing dishes.
Here are Abbott’s self-imposed tests:
(1) no more lies
(2) no pathetic excuses
(3) no suprises
(4) more accountability
(5) more transparency
(6) downward pressure on the COL
(7) budget surplus
(8) you can trust Abbott.
While some of Abbott’s ‘achievements’ in these areas are a work in progress, to date I make it zero out of eight.
[155
Steve777
Briefly @123 – interesting analysis. This Government will find it hard to get away with becoming too ‘activist’, e.g. if it starts to wind back Medicare, even with the protection of most of the media.]
The LNP certainly would like to take Medicare apart. It is anathema to them.
I don’t agree with dragging politicians’ personal lives or their families into the public arena.
The exceptions are (a) where they do it themselves for their own political purposes and (b) where they espouse a set of values publicly and publicly attack those who do not conform to that set of values, while all the while privately flouting the same set of values.
168
Boerwar
I give Abbott 1/8. Nothing he has done so far has surprised me. He is an idiot and will completely wreck things in pursuit of his ideological objectives.
There is an Elvis impersonator, a cowboy and some clown in a superhero suit doing cricket commentary.
This really has been THE worst cricket commentary Ch9 has ever offered.
Kitney has a couple of page analysis on the political scene which comes up with Hockey good, Abbott so-so.
He is not quite saying that there is serious leadershit stuff out there and that Abbott is on notice from the Dries.
Complicating the picture is Joyce, whom some of you would recall being touted by Abbott as the greatest retail politician of our time, and who failed abysmally as Shadow spokesperson for money when he couldn’t work out the difference between his millions and his billions.
Joyce is gunning for Truss’s job and he is doing it by abandoning Dry Ecorat stuff for populist rural socialism. Not only that, but Joyce is doing it somewhat beyond the bounds of the general direction that Hockey wants to take economic management, and he is doing so publicly.
Shorter Kitney, there is trouble in the pig pen.
[172
confessions
There is an Elvis impersonator, a cowboy and some clown in a superhero suit doing cricket commentary.
This really has been THE worst cricket commentary Ch9 has ever offered.]
In their hearts, most cricket tragics imagine they could call the play. Perhaps 9 is saying they agree – it is a role anyone can aspire to fill, even the terminally inarticulate, like Abbott or any other clown.
Davidwh
I don’t consider betraying Peter Slipper or failing to keep a commitment to Bernie Banton, just to name two, as manipulating information.
According to my judgement of Abbott, I have no problems in accepting Ellis’s version of events.
Abbott should put up or shut up if there were reasons to believe otherwise.
Abbott has chosen to shut up, therefore no reason to believe otherwise.
briefly:
It’s like they’re pitching at kiddies rather than adults. This season has been especially woeful.
[176
confessions
briefly:
It’s like they’re pitching at kiddies rather than adults. This season has been especially woeful.]
I think you could say that of commercial tv in general. It is pitched at 12-yo’s, if that.
no wonder people are fleeing tv-land in droves
briefly:
Very true. I hardly watch any TV anymore, just the news and the cricket or footy.
confessions, I absconded from tv ages ago. I prefer to read or write, listen to music, spend time with my friends and play in the garden or at the beach. It is now just a very minor part of my diet and I suspect this is increasingly true for most people.
[176
confessions
briefly:
It’s like they’re pitching at kiddies rather than adults. This season has been especially woeful.]
You could just as well be talking of the Government, too.
davidwh@164
Murdoch’s media do the above on a daily basis in many countries including our own.
Intolerance (rather than hate) is implanted in the soul of many far right winger AND far left wingers.
[ Shorter Kitney, there is trouble in the pig pen.]
Plus they have achieved very little so far, except create problems for themselves and others.
The things they want to do should take them lower in the polls if they are ever able to pass their legislation.
Is Thunderbird Bill and his ALP serious about holding this destructive Govt to account ?
Where the hell are they ???
[185….Rex Douglas]
So far so good. The Abbotteurs can be seen for what they really are: incompetent crooks and liars. Labor have been very adroit so far. Increasingly, “the issue” is not the soap-opera surrounding the previous Government, but is becoming the ineptitude, incoherence and deceptions of this one.
[
Rex Douglas
Posted Sunday, January 19, 2014 at 2:14 pm | Permalink
Is Thunderbird Bill and his ALP serious about holding this destructive Govt to account ?
Where the hell are they ???
]
Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake.
Napoleon Bonaparte
Thunderbird Bill needs to draw the casual observers attention to just how destructive this Govt is.
The ALP are MIA… !!
Rex Douglas
Posted Sunday, January 19, 2014 at 2:24 pm | Permalink
Thunderbird Bill needs to draw the casual observers attention to just how destructive this Govt is.
The ALP are MIA… !!
====================
Thanks to Fred
Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake.
Napoleon Bonaparte
[188
Rex Douglas
Thunderbird Bill needs to draw the casual observers attention to just how destructive this Govt is.
The ALP are MIA… !!]
Bollocks. When Parliament resumes public attention will return to the follies. In the meantime, less is more as far as politics is concerned.
This looks the earliest version but it is just as applicable. From a quote nerd site.
[An 1836 multi-volume history book titled “French Revolution” contains a version of the quotation that is similar to the one given in 1852. This history book dates the quotation to a battle in 1805. These words may have been transformed into the modern maxim (F):
“In that case,” said Napoleon, “let us wait twenty minutes; when the enemy is making a false movement we must take good care not to interrupt him.” ]
There is a 24hr news cycle hungry for content.
Thunderbird Bill needs to use it and connect with the casual observer.
The ALP need to climb out of their hammocks and get with the program !!
1805, the year in which Napoleon won at Austerlitz…
[The Battle of Austerlitz was the deciding engagement of the War of the Third Coalition (1805) during the Napoleonic Wars (1803-1815)]
http://militaryhistory.about.com/od/napoleonicwars/p/austerlitz.htm
[Battle of Austerlitz – Aftermath
One of Napoleon’s greatest victories, Austerlitz effectively ended the War of the Third Coalition. Two days later, with their territory overrun and their armies destroyed, Austria made peace through the Treaty of Pressburg. In addition to territorial concessions, the Austrians were required to pay a war indemnity of 40 million francs. The remains of the Russian army withdrew east, while Napoleon’s forces went into camp in southern Germany. Having taken much of Germany, Napoleon abolished the Holy Roman Empire and established the Confederation of the Rhine as a buffer state between France and Prussia. French losses at Austerlitz numbered 1,305 killed, 6,940 wounded, and 573 captured. Allied casualties were massive and included 15,000 killed and wounded, as well as 12,000 captured.]
Let’s hope for equally memorable political casualties among the ranks of the LNP.
Awww I see Coalition Supporters don’t like taking a little flack or criticism, how very dictatorship of them.
Oh and Labor does not need to draw to it’s own attention on the current matters, what they doing now is the correct tactic.
Yeah people who use the term “Thunderbird Bill” and have been pushing for Paul Howes to be ALP leader aren’t exactly those I’d go to for analysis of political performance.
While LSL is probably not Sean, it is of course difficult to say, given the Sean character was likely operated by multiple persons on a roster basis.
At least the LSL character (operated by Candles?) plays a semblance of engaging, the Sean character just posted randomly and only sporadically and haphazardly engaged with issues or other posters.
Will be interesting to see what other LNP character is sent our way soon, I do hope it has better scripts and programming!
It’ll be interesting to see how the Press report Parliament when it resumes.
Many of them seem pissed-off by the information black-out so they may take some actual interest in QT.
Boewar
I said a few days ago that the idea that Joyce would hang around to give truss a long run at being deputy PM was fanciful. He will be rounding up the horses
[192
Rex Douglas
There is a 24hr news cycle hungry for content.
Thunderbird Bill needs to use it and connect with the casual observer.
The ALP need to climb out of their hammocks and get with the program !!]
You seem never to tire of faulting the ALP.
Bill Shorten has recently been on the news a few times, he doesn’t need to go that hard at the moment as he is traveling well.
The opposition knows that there will be plenty to work with as the budget is handed down and if the economy weakens any further which is already discouraging many unemployed workers.