Another bad Newspoll this week has kept the pressure on Tony Abbott, but the latest reading of the BludgerTrack poll aggregate has taken some of the edge off the formidable lead Labor opened up last week, thanks to softer results from Roy Morgan and Essential Research. The 0.7% shift on two-party preferred results in five seats changing hands on the seat projection, including one in every state except Western Australia. Despite that, the leadership ratings record further improvement for Bill Shorten, since Newspoll is the only one of the three to have provided a new result. Shorten has now opened up a small but clear lead over Tony Abbott as preferred prime minister, and there has been a solid uptick in his net approval rating while Tony Abbott continues to flounder.
Further:
• Keep an eye on this post for all your Canning by-election news needs, including a fresh batch of snippets posted just now, and a fairly intensive account of yesterday’s slightly perplexing ReachTEL result.
• Tasmanian Labor Senator Lisa Singh has been dumped to a theoretically unwinnable fourth position on the party’s Senate ticket, behind incumbents Anne Urquhart of the Left and Helen Polley of the Right, and – most contentiously – non-incumbent John Short, state secretary of the Left faction Australian Manufacturing Workers Union, who is set to take third place. The elevation of Short ahead of a factionally unaligned woman front-bencher (Singh is shadow parliamentary secretary for the environment, climate change and water) has not been well-received, but Bill Shorten says he will not seek to have the decision overturned by the party’s national executive. It’s worth noting, albeit just barely, that Tasmania is the state where it is least implausible that below-the-line voters might trump the order of the party-mandated Senate ticket, owing to the smaller number of candidates and voters’ familiarity with choosing between party candidates under the Hare-Clark system in state elections. This was known to happen in Tasmania in the decade after the present Senate electoral system was introduced in 1949, but it hasn’t come anywhere near occurring since the above-the-line voting option was introduced in 1984. The below-the-line voting rate was 10.34% in Tasmania at the 2013 election, compared with 3.51% nationally.
• The Greens in South Australia have suffered the embarrassment of having candidate interview reports for its Senate preselection leaked to the media. The contents suggest that the front-runner for a preselection to be determined on September 6 is Robert Simms, an Adelaide City councillor who was rated as “highly recommended” owing to a “combination of experience, vision and political skills”. Bension Siebert of InDaily reports that the remaining contenders were ranked into two categories, the more flattering of which was headed “competent”. This included “former Greens state parliamentary candidate Matthew Carey, state Hindmarsh Greens branch convenor Rebecca Galdies, and former federal Greens candidate and environmental lawyer Ruth Beach”. Then came “needs further development”, which applied to Sam Taylor, media adviser to state upper house MP Mark Parnell, and Adelaide Hills councillor Lynton Vonow. The report was the work of a panel including Mark Parnell and three other figures in the state party.
• Tom Richardson of InDaily reports that Jo Chapley, in-house legal counsel for Foodland supermarkets, has “firmed as a Labor frontrunner to take on Christopher Pyne in Sturt”. However, the report also says that “other party figures are reluctant to push her for the Sturt pre-selection unless they can guarantee a lavish warchest from Labor’s national head office to run a genuine ‘marginal-seat-style’ campaign”.
• Steve Georganas has been confirmed as Labor candidate for the Adelaide seat of Hindmarsh, which he held from 2004 until his defeat at the hands of current Liberal member Matt Williams in 2013, after the withdrawal of his sole preselection rival, Delia Brennan.
• My recent paywalled contributions to Crikey offer an account of the recent recovery in Bill Shorten’s personal ratings, and early impressions of the Western Australian federal redistribution (despite what the headline says).
I look forward to the first anguished announcement that 12 people have been burned to a crisp and 70 others partially scorched in a church or a maccas or a movie theatre.
Where ever.
Whenever.
Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/prime-ministers-verbal-gymnastics-over-syria-20150826-gj8ojp.html#ixzz3jy8L6C1B
Apart from lies and more lies, the lack of a clear war aim, the billions, the 30,000 Aussies with PTSD, the civilian deaths, the millions displaced, the civilians blown to bits, what Abbott is playing around with is downed Australian pilots being burned alive.
Just to wedge Labor.
phoenix @ 91: Robert Manne picked up on the increasing militarisation of Australian politics about 9 years ago: see https://www.themonthly.com.au/monthly-essays-robert-manne-little-america-how-john-howard-has-changed-australia-184.
rhwombat@96
I only read the other day that Australian Brigadier Ted Sarong is said to have been the “inspiration” for the Col Kurtz character in Apocalypse Now.
Mr Kurtz being one of the main characters in Joseph Conrad’s, Heart of Darkness.
Sarong worked for the CIA in Vietnam after he left the Australian Army and was involved in the Phoenix Program.
It’s just a pity she got there the way she did and then turned out to be a dud. 🙁
[STORIES don’t come better than this for political journalists. Damien Mantach, the man who was in charge of last year’s doomed attempt to re-elect the Napthine government, is accused of helping himself to $1.5 million and rising during the four years he worked at the Liberal Party’s headquarters at 104 Exhibition Street.
But wait — it gets better! It seems that when Mantach was state director on the Apple Isle, he’d had some issues with a credit card. Indeed, it turned out that he’d repaid almost $48,000 before he’d sought his fortune across Bass Strait.
When the news broke about this incident early in the Mantach career, the line from those who were around when he got taken on here as assistant campaign director in 2008 was that, now you mention it, their colleagues in Van Diemen’s Land might have said something about a problem about an overspend on a credit card.
But it was only a few hundred bucks. Small stuff. If they’d known about the $48,000, he wouldn’t have been employed here. No way!
Then on Friday, up pops Dale Archer, president of the Tasmanian Liberals at the time Mantach left, saying he had phoned Brian Loughnane — then and now federal director of the party — to tell him the circumstances of Mantach’s exit.
Archer could not have been clearer about what went down: “I requested Mr Mantach’s resignation, effective immediately, which was received … Brian Loughnane was informed by me of the full extent of the circumstances surrounding Mr Mantach’s departure. There is a file note that confirms in writing that the federal director was advised of this issue on the 6th of March, 2008.”
For his part, Loughnane’s only public statement, so far, has been to stick to the line that no one told him the full details of the Tasmanian situation.
“I was informed there had been a credit card overspend and that he’d repaid the money,” he told the Herald Sun on the day the Archer story broke.
If that wasn’t fun enough, on Tuesday it emerged that Mantach hadn’t been acting alone as we were told last week. Rather than simply pushing through dodgy invoices to non-existent companies, Mantach allegedly had been receiving kickbacks from the firm that has been doing most of the party’s printing for the better part of a decade.
Worse, these kickback arrangements appear to have been in place for money spent by MPs from their taxpayer-funded printing allowances.
On Tuesday night, Victorian Liberal Party president Michael Kroger emailed members saying that it would be reimbursing us $196k that we had been overcharged. In other Mantach news of the day, we learned that Federal Workplace Relations Minister Eric Abetz — a man notoriously hot on union corruption wherever he spots it — had also been told about the $48,000 Mantach had paid back. Our source for this little gem was none other than the Premier of Tasmania, Will Hodgman, who got it off his chest in the Parliament down there.
Yesterday in Melbourne, Abetz was having none of it: “There are assertions on how much I knew. There has been misreporting on that.”
He’s not the first person to offer up that excuse, it has to be said, but at least he’s fronted the media, unlike Loughnane. Although, according to AAP: “Clearly annoyed by the line of questioning … the senator ended the press conference abruptly before rushing off to his vehicle parked nearby.”
Where this is going is anyone’s guess. Loughnane’s assertions that he didn’t know about the Tasmanian matter are looking more shopsoiled by the day. In any other organisation you would have thought people would be baying for his blood by now.
If Archer is telling the truth, then what does that say about the ethics of the men the Liberal Party employs as its servants? Is the Liberal Party really an organisation where you can repay $48,000 and thrive? And if it is, who the hell are these people to lecture the ALP and unions about anything?
But although state and federal Liberals are seething in private, none of them has had the guts so far to state the obvious: Loughnane needs to accept responsibility for what has happened here and go.
JAMES CAMPBELL IS STATE POLITICS EDITOR
james.campbell@news.com.au
@j_c_campbell
Boerwar@95
Thats right most of that money is long gone.
So after the election they tell the EU etc they want to “negotiate” again ??
Apologies for posting whole article above. I was attempting to paste a paragraph!
All good stuff Vic 🙂
KILL THE DEATH CULT!
hmmmm, why doesn’t that work as a slogan.
time for shorten to call for commit to taking any decision to put aust military personnel harms way in O.S. operations to parliament for debate and conscience vote.
the revelation that abbott asked to be asked to commit to bombing has precedent with Howard in Iraq and LBJ in viet nam. the PM should not be able to play politics with the lives of our servicepeople.
a new theme for labor to pursue? – “Everything Mr Abbott does is about playing politics. everything Mr Abbott does is about saving his skin. Everything Mr abbott does is about short-term political advantage and NOTHNG about good governance and planning for a fair and sustainable future for Australia.”
TBA @ 98
There is a popular vote coming up already, no need to arrange one specifically.
dave
🙂
Just the thing to immolate a burglar or home invader!
Small disadvantage as your home burns down. 🙁
THANKS Pedant – a most interesting article
Latham – like him of hate him summed it all up …
‘In July 2002 in a Bulletin interview, Latham had described John Howard as “an arse-licker”. All hell had broken loose. Latham told his diary that, if anything, his comment was “restrained”. Seven months later, as the invasion of Iraq approached, while a junior shadow minister, Latham described George W Bush as the most dangerous and incompetent US President in recent history and the Australians who followed him as “a conga-line of suck-holes”.’
Why not a plebiscite? Or a referendum?
Well, there you go. If the Liberals think Latham was right on Shorten (as the they happily asserted in Parliament last week, they would happily subscribe to this description of their eminence gris.
You are correct in your evaluation. I recall the former VicPol commissioner mentioning the psychology of black uniforms. It conveys ‘authority’.
Labor of course wouldn’t touch that with a barge pole, but someone could make a very effective little video making that point. So much for always having the military’s back, unless Hastie meant having them back in body bags of course.
…. and with separate handbags …..
or a plebiscite or referendum about all future decisions to be made by plebiscite or referendum. 🙂
Fran Kelly this morning was gushing about “how good it looked on our TV screens for the PM to be on a bus out collecting students”.
Every so often she shows some real loving appreciation for her DLP soulmate.
The irony is we need an ALP government to rein in the Coalition’s massively expanding public debt
http://www.crikey.com.au/2015/02/03/remember-labors-skyrocketing-debt-the-coalitions-is-much-worse/
Ah. I have it. Abbott is a reincarnation of Michael Rimmer.
Good Morning
On Julia Gillard. She has been living in the US as part of her work. She has seen the Supreme Court decision and most likely read the statements of the judges.
As a result she has likely come to understand how its a right and this has changed her mind.
As such I think its good she has taken the time to say this publicly.
This is not hypocrisy. Its a personal journey.
I would be saying very different things if she had not let a conscience vote come through and had stopped Rainbow Labor from advocating as well as they have by using her political influence.
You only have to look at what Tony Abbott is doing to see how on this issue even when she did not agree Julia Gillard has been a superior leader than Abbott.
gt @ 125
Careful, you will rouse the cult of hatred again.
TPOF
Nah. Same applies to Rudd. Before he changed his mind to support ME he did not do an Abbott and actively try and squash the issue from even being debated.
@GuardianAus: NewsLtd & minister should actually watch #GaybyBaby. They might learn something abt love&respect,writes @SenatorWong http://t.co/wFdek0JjDy
Mr Shorten science presser
Pretty good questions being asked in the comments section on abbott’s latest stuff up.
Remember when the media actually used to ask this sort of stuff – the ABC in particular ?
Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/prime-ministers-verbal-gymnastics-over-syria-20150826-gj8ojp.html#ixzz3jyJDkmTU
“@joshgnosis: Shorten: “I welcome Julia Gillard joining the ranks of 70 percent of Australians” in supporting marriage equality.”
“@ABCNews24: Shorten: We need to have #science at the centre of national political debate.
#auspol #STEM”
ABC will not be ignoring Mantach anymore Mr Shorten has commented in a presser.
The SA Greens posted the candidate profiles out to all members, so it is hardly surprising some of it was leaked. Personally I found it interesting that the preferred candidate it a “party man” and political type whereas some of the others were on the ground dedicated old style Greens.
I never said Gillard was anywhere near as bad as Abbott but she was bad enough that we ended up with Abbott.
Shorten
When Mr Abbott gets up in the morning you get the sense that he’s looking for someone to fight with. That’s not the way…
Good on Mr Andrews a classy statement in my view
@Get_Shortened: Good to see @DanielAndrewsMP show support for LGBTI community and screenings of #gaybybaby at schools http://t.co/KuFxEagBzo
Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/dont-expect-a-republic-any-time-soon-tony-abbott-20150826-gj8pzx.html#ixzz3jyOrM9JE
Follow us: @theage on Twitter | theageAustralia on Facebook
Jo Chapley is one of the proponents of a development in Norwood, in Chris Pyne’s electorate. There’s an article about another adjacent one here http://www.sensational-adelaide.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=5560
Guytaur at 137.
Yes, it’s an impressive statement
I might try and see this movie myself.
Diogenes
I don’t care what you think of Gillard. Her political judgement lapsed only on a few occasions. You do not get to be PM as leader of the Labor party by having bad political judgement.
The mistake she made was the same one the whole Labor party made. Letting the media off the hook thinking they would not attack Labor in the way they did.
I understand it because the attacks over media regulation were immensely politically damaging. Yet media regulation is the only way Labor is going to get a fair hearing.
When Newspapers have to join the electronic media standards that will mean no Daily Toilet Paper photoshop front pages that they do.
They will have to report truthfully on science and not just parrot denial line like its gospel etc.
The Labor Herald is a recognition that Labor has to counter this biased bile from the right with the money to spread its propaganda.
Abbott, the fool on the hill. Spooner.
I should say, that cartoon at 142 referred to privacy, but I relate it equally to the fool at the top of our parliamentary hill.
Prime Minister Tony Abbott says Australia is not likely to become a republic any time soon, with his government having “bigger things” on its mind than Australia’s head of state.
but there was plenty of time for his “knights and dames” bubble.
Diogenes@135
Democracy is not free ride.
It never was.
abbott is what Australia earned.
abbott is what Australia deserved.
abbott is voters reckoning.
Its up to voters to correct their own poor decisions and wear the consequences.
That is incorrect. You can work party politics very well but have lousy political judgement when it comes to being PM.
AA
Abbott commenting on the republic is giving it more momentum. Its a parliamentary working party. One of many, that Hockey is involved with.
It highlights disunity when nothing about the republic will be happening for years. The date for referendum vote aimed for is the 250th year of settlement of the country.
It seems you can be leader of the Liberal Party and have bad political judgement
zoomster
Misogyny.
And supporting another woman in a role, just because that woman adheres more closely to the beheld idea of what a woman should be like, does not make the attitude any less a hatred of women. Particularly this applies when the favoured woman did not do a favoured man out of a job. That is a line a woman cannot cross.
Diogenes
The fact you ignored my comments on the media says it all.
The media frothing at the mouth like rabid dogs during the Labor minority government was only matched by the ridiculous antics of Abbott and Pyne running out of parliament.
That alone if it had been Labor leaders would have guaranteed no winning an election.
In the anniversary of Anne Summers excellent book, Damned Whores and God’s Police, it is interesting that we now, in some minds, have the Damned Whore, Julia G, and the God’s Police, Anna P.