It’s been as quiet a week as they come so far as federal polling is concerned, with only the reliable weekly Essential Research to keep us amused. Newspoll and Roy Morgan were both in an off week in their fortnightly cycles, and neither Galaxy nor ReachTEL stepped forward to fill the gap, presumably because their clients at News Corporation and the Seven Network blew their budget on double-up polls during the Liberal leadership excitement in early February. Since the Essential Research result landed well on trend, the BludgerTrack poll aggregate has recorded only the most negligible of changes on voting intention, with the marginal exception of a 0.3% lift for the Greens. Labor also makes a gain on the seat projection, having tipped over the line for a seventh seat in Western Australia (do keep in mind though that the electoral furniture there will shortly be rearranged by the redistribution to accommodate the state’s newly acquired entitlement to sixteenth seat).
If an absence of polling is a problem for you, you can at least enjoy yesterday’s semi-regular state voting intention results from Roy Morgan, based on SMS polling of samples ranging from 432 in Tasmania to 1287 in New South Wales. These have Labor leading 56-44 in Victoria, 50.5-49.5 in Western Australia, 53-47 in South Australia and 55.5-44.5 in Tasmania (not that two-party preferred means anything under Hare-Clark). However, the recently defeated Liberal National Party is credited with an improbable 51-49 lead in Queensland. New South Wales is not included in the mix as the result was published a day before the rest, which you can read all about on my latest state election thread.
In other news, federal preselection action is beginning to warm up, spurred in part by the possibility that Liberal leadership turmoil might cause the election to be held well ahead of schedule. Troy Bramston of The Australian reports that Labor “has ordered its state and territory branches to urgently preselect parliamentary candidates by the end of June”, with exemptions for New South Wales and Western Australia owing to their looming redistributions (the latter process is presently at the stage of receiving public suggestions, which may be submitted by April 10). Some notable happenings on that count:
• Labor has conducted local ballots for preselections in the three Victorian seats it lost to the Liberals in 2013. Darren Cheeseman appears to have failed in his bid for another crack at Corangamite, where the ballot was won by Libby Coker, a Surf Coast councillor and former mayor who ran in Polwarth at the November state election. Also in the field was Tony White, an economic development manager at Colac Otway Shire and former adviser to various ministers and premiers in Bracks-Brumby ogvernment. In La Trobe, former Casey councillor Simon Curtis outpaced the rather higher profile Damien Kingsbury, the director of La Trobe University’s Centre for Citizenship, Development and Human Rights. The vote in Deakin was won by Tony Clarke, of whom I can’t tell you much. It now remains for the state party’s public office selection committee to determine its 50% share of the vote total, but the talk seems to be that Coker in particular is home and hosed.
• Joe Ludwig, who has held a Queensland Senate seat for Labor since 1999, has announced he will not seek another term at the next election. He is set to be succeeded by Anthony Chisholm, the party’s state secretary from 2008 until 2014, when the Left’s unprecedented success in scoring majority control at the party’s state conference caused the position to pass to Evan Moorhead. Chisholm was given the short-term and now-expired role as director of the state election campaign, and also has Left faction support to fill Ludwig’s position, which remains in the hands of the AWU/Labor Forum faction. A potential rival contender was Chisholm’s predecessor as state secretary, Cameron Milner, but AWU support consolidated behind Chisholm in part because he had the backing of Wayne Swan, which reportedly led to a falling out between Swan and Milner. For more on both Swan and Milner, see further below.
• There is also a widely held expectation that Ludwig will shortly be joined in the departure lounge by the Left faction’s Jan McLucas, the other Queensland Labor Senator due to face the voters at the next half-Senate election. The favourite to replace her is Murray Watt, a Bligh government minister who lost his seat of Everton in the 2012 landslide, and more recently a lawyer with Maurice Blackburn. However, Michael McKenna of The Australian reports this could raise affirmative action issues, with Townsville mayor Jenny Hill mooted as an alternative contender if so. Another aspirant mentioned in McKenna’s report is Michael Ravbar, state secretary of the Construction Forestry Mining and Energy Union.
• Michael McKenna of The Australian reports that Wayne Swan and Bernie Ripoll are “being stalked as targets of possible preselection challenges”. In Swan’s inner northern Brisbane seat of Lilley, the aforementioned Cameron Milner is said to be “considering” a challenge to the former Treasurer. On the western side of town in Oxley, Brisbane City Council opposition leader Milton Dick is “preparing to roll Mr Ripoll”, and has “cross-factional support” to do so.
• The Australian reports Sophie Mirabella is keen to run again in Indi, which she famously lost in 2013 to independent Cathy McGowan. However, the report says the party is “deeply pessimistic about the chance of regaining the seat, and the contest is complicated by the Nationals being able to contest it”.
6 West Papuans killed by Indonesian police for peaceful fundraising for Vanuatu cyclone victims.
i.e. killed for showing pan-Melanesian solidarity.
Colonialism is alive and well in our region.
Re interviews: I think that most of those interviews of Abbott done by the ABC were pre-recorded.
Steve777
Indeed. Pre-recorded by Credlin and then fed to Abbott during filming via an earphone.
And even so the moron doesn’t have enough brain cells to get the lines right.
dave
Putin very dangerous.
It’s all Bear bombers and threats to turn off the gas. If they did what’s left of the Russian economy would disappear in 2 minutes.
Back to the 1930’s.
BishJr being very illuminating this morning on HMAS Tobruk arriving in Port Villa … ‘She has “Landing Gear”‘
This is really surprising … Tobruk is an LSH (Landing Ship Heavy and standard gear includes a ramp on its stern and two helicopters).
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-03-22/germany-gives-greece-one-final-ultimatum-after-fridays-optimistic-talks-devolve-disa
Good Morning
The writer in the SMH on Shorten doing small target is lying. Already two policies out. Policy direction provided in the SSO on Thursday.
The fact the media is not reporting the facts does not make Mr Shorten pursuing a small target strategy.
Its a propaganda piece amplifying the LNP desire for Labor to give them some policies.
CTar
Yep.
“@ABCNews24: Bob Carr: I have to say, electricity privatisation is an awesomely unpopular policy proposition #NSWVotes”
From Katharine Murphy’s live politics blog at the Guardian:
Sounds like a leak from the PMO or Hockey. My guess is that is certainly what it sounded like to JBish. Normally Ministers refuse to say anything about the Budget. Sounds like JBish is making a pointed comment here.
“@billshortenmp: Disgraceful homeless & domestic violence services had to tell staff they’d lose their jobs before @ScottMorrisonMP renewed existing funding”
guytaur@2657
Are they both together on one site somewhere? Be useful to refer to them.
Taking on the re-writing of history about Fraser.
gt
If we never heard from him again I wouldn’t be sorry.
Don
Not that I can find at the moment. The Labor website is all policy policy at the moment as they seek input for National Conference.
Zoomster:
This is not correct. Refugees in Indonesia are not “safe” as Indonesia is not a signatory to the convention. Refugees are only safe once they have found a “durable solution”. Durable solution is a legal term with a very specific meaning under international human rights law. Until a refugee has found a durable solution they remain at risk and are entitled to seek protection in a convention state regardless of how long they’ve been in Indonesia so long as they still meet the definition of a refugee as outlined in Article 1.
We don’t take refugees from Indonesia because of this the mistaken belief that it will encourage more people to come the region. As to Malaysia, as Lefty has correctly noted there is no Zoomster:
This is not correct. Refugees in Indonesia are not “safe” as Indonesia is not a signatory to the convention. Refugees are only safe once they have found a “durable solution”. Durable solution is a legal term with a very specific meaning under international human rights law. Until a refugee has found a durable solution they remain at risk and are entitled to seek protection in a convention state regardless of how long they’ve been in Indonesia so long as they still meet the definition of a refugee as outlined in Article 1.
guytaur@2665
Can you summarise them?
Vale Lee Kuan Yew.
A former PM of my birth country, Singapore.
I wouldn’t call him a founder of modern Singapore but he was a pioneering statesment in the fledging republic. I never agreed with many of his policies but he deserves some credit for the services rendered to the people of Singapore.
CT @ 2664
Nor would I.
p.s. Tobruk must be very tired now. Built by Swan Todd in Newcastle in the very early 1980’s from memory.
Re privatisation of ‘poles and wires’ in NSW: numbers cited by former Foreign Minister and former NSW Premier Bob Carr on RN this morning indicate that NSW would get a one-off payment of $11 billion for a 99 year lease of and asset that produced $1.7 billion in revenue per annum. This does not sound like a very good deal.
As far as I am concerned, essential services in public ownership should not be privatised ever, especially if they are profitable.
Don
One was putting the PBO in charge of some budget honesty provisions so that PEFO MYEFO and Intergenerational reports are done by them completely independent of the Treasurer of the day.
The actual details you can find at the National Press Club Address that Chris Bowen did early in the year.
I have a mental blank on the second at the moment sorry.
raaraa
Condolences then. A strong man but maybe he had to be to manage the separation from Malaysia.
Abbott on his feet for condolence motion for Malcolm Fraser
guytaur @ 2672
The second policy was resurrecting the one the Liberals abandoned about clawing back some money from multinationals and the way they turn profits into intra-corporate loans and payments – at least that is how I remember it.
In any case, screaming shrilly, which is what Abbott was doing at this (and every other) point in the electoral cycle, is not a policy. At least Shorten is not doing that.
No QT today re condolence motions for Fraser
Steve777@2671
Plus its not really clear if taxpayers will have to pay for maintenance for the poles and wires for those 99 years.
Voters look like paying a huge price to draw forward a fraction of the dividends on ‘our’ poles & wires.
Ontop of that the *new* infructure etc will have tolls as well.
TPOF
Thank You.
The writer in the SMH did not look at the Labor website. No small target strategy there.
Unless they happened to be advocates for human rights…
gt
I’ve got the sound off but no doubt our PM will insult Tammie on the way past.
by Phillip Coorey
Foreign Minister Julie Bishop says she will confront Treasurer Joe Hockey over reports the foreign aid budget is to be hit again at the May budget.
A clearly peeved Ms Bishop told Radio National on Monday the first she knew about plans to hit the aid budget for a third-successive time was when she read a report it was “likely to suffer a further small cut in the May budget”.
“Well I’m not aware of that detail so I read that for the first time in (journalist) Greg Sheridan’s column today,” Ms Bishop said.
Asked if she was aware of more cuts to the aid budget, she said: “Well you’d hope I would be wouldn’t you, so I’ll certainly be taking that up with the Treasurer to find out the source of that story.”
http://www.afr.com/news/politics/julie-bishop-issues-please-explain-to-joe-hockey-on-aid-cuts-20150322-1m59gl
Great article from Piping Shrike @ 2663. Apart from the content, which is refreshingly accurate, his writing is excellent. Why can’t we have paid journos in MSM half as good as this:
briefly@2617
I wonder under what circumstances she was reported as burning the book.
Just like some national flags, the proper disposal for the Quran is by ritual burning.
This Piping Shrike seems to have a dislike for unions; no wonder Katharine Murphy likes him/her.
And where would the good Senator place himself on the left right sliding scale?….
Senator Leyonhjelm also doubted many MPs would even want to give a speech about Mr Fraser and said he would not be adding his voice to the tributes.
“He was a right-wing extremist when I first knew him and he was a left-wing extremist when he died,” Senator Leyonhjelm said.
Socrates@2630
I think it actually came out of Tony Burkes office.
He must have a smart staffer capable of producing such masterpieces. May there be many more! 😀
bemused
It came out of the ABC
Bishop using condolence motion to highlight funding of aid. I think Fraser would approve
sohar:
Not sure how you arrive at that conclusion?
Someone is impressed.
Steve
I did the same calculation a few days ago and calculated that if there was DD then you would see Coalition fall from 33 to 29, ALP stay the same, greens lose 1, the right wing parties (including Madigan) would go from 3-5 and the Independents from 5-8.
This assumed a 3% swing to ALP.
On the other hand if there were a normal half senate election then the greens would probably stay the same, Labor lose one, LNP lose 4/5, all going to independents
guytaur @ 2674
‘The writer in the SMH did not look at the Labor website.’
They are all lazy – just like they were when Abbott was LOTO. Anything that smacks of research, even just googling on the internet, is beyond them. They all seem to be too interested, as Massola is in this article, in assisting the agendas of anonymous ‘sources’.
fess
was that irony again?
Labor are being classy. Paying attention even while Truzz is speaking.
Look at Abbott he looks like he is nodding off
“Brilliant speech” in the same sentence as “Tony Abbott” ..an obvious p*ss-take fron PvO..
lizzie:
Am assuming no, but having not heard Abbott’s speech, it’s hard to say for sure.
TPOF
‘Anonymous sources’ are the only advantage they have over the common punter. 😀
guytaut
Did you hear Abbott’s speech? Was it brilliant?
victoria
No gaffes in Abbotts speech to the condolence motion so yes I suppose that can count as brilliant for him
sceptic Seems Leyonhjelm is disappointed that Fraser reversed the ‘normal’ situation- rabid leftie in youth, stodgy conservative in old age.
Nice words from Shorten in his condolence speech. I’ve yet to read Abbott’s.