New year’s news snippets

Some festive season preselection news, plus one minor scrap of new polling.

With another two weeks to go before the break in the festive season polling drought:

• The closest thing we’ve had to a new poll over the break has been a ReachTEL survey of Tony Abbott’s electorate of Warringah, conducted for the Australia Institute. The automated phone poll of 743 respondents was conducted on December 17, and found support for the Liberals at 62.1% (up from 60.9% at the September 2013 election), the Greens at 16.1% (up from 15.5%) and Labor at 14.6% (down from 19.3%). The poll also found 50.9% believed Tony Abbott should retire from politics, with no time frame specified, while 35.4% preferring that he remain. When asked if his departure would make them more likely to vote Liberal, 36.7% said it would, compared with 17.5% who opted for less likely. A hike in the goods and services tax from 10% and 15% recorded 39.4% support and 46.5% opposition, whereas support for “gradually transitioning to 100 per cent renewable energy by the year 2030” was at 77.2%, with 16.7% opposed.

• James Robertson at Fairfax reports that the factional warfare engulfing the New South Wales Liberal Party is posing a threat to Craig Kelly, Liberal member for the seat of Hughes in Sydney’s outer south. Kelly would appear to have been undermined by a redistribution proposal that excises the Liverpool end of the electorate, reportedly home to two branches loyal to him and the arch-conservative tendency he represents, and adds a moderate-controlled branch at the Sutherland end of the seat. The most likely challenger is said to be Kent Johns, an influential moderate who sits on Sutherland Shire Council, followed by Liverpool mayor Ned Mannoun. Further complicating matters is a membership recruitment drive that conservatives have been conducting among the Macedonian community, which led the party’s moderate-dominated state executive to freeze membership at the Liverpool branch.

• Sarah Martin of The Australian reports on “heightened speculation” that dumped minister Jamie Briggs may be set to vacate his seat of Mayo at the election. The report says that Right faction MPs were meeting to discuss a possible successor, amid fears his ongoing presence could exacerbate the threat posed in the seat by the Nick Xenophon Team. The NXT has fortuitously preselected a disaffected former staffer to Briggs, Rebekha Sharkie.

• Daniel Wills of The Advertiser reports that six candidates will seek Liberal preselection for the seat of Adelaide, held for Labor by Kate Ellis, at a ballot of 500 party members to be held on February 6. Houssam Abiad, deputy Lord Mayor of Adelaide, had been attracting the most attention, but the report says the “front-runners” are David Colovic, a partner with HWL Ebsworth Lawyers, and Beth Loveday, a dentist. The report identifies the other contenders as Shaun Osborn, a policeman, Kent Aughey, a commercial consultant, and Emma Flowerdew, a small businesswoman.

• Matthew Dixon of the Ballarat Courier reports two candidates have nominated for Liberal preselection in Ballarat, held for Labor by Catherine King: Nick Shady, a farmer and mental health advocate, and Sarah Wade, a lawyer. The report also says the Nationals are planning to field candidates in all Labor-held Victorian regional seats, which is to say Ballarat, Bendigo and McEwen.

UPDATE: Channel Seven in Adelaide has results of a ReachTEL poll from Jamie Briggs’ electorate of Mayo, with better results than he might have feared: a Liberal primary vote of 43.9%, compared with 53.8% at the 2013 election, with Labor on 17.2% and the Nick Xenophon Team on 15.4%. This probably includes an unallocated undecided result of around 8%, suggesting all concerned would in fact be a few points higher – with Briggs close enough to 50% to get him home, even if the NXT got ahead of Labor. A two-party Liberal-versus-Labor result shows Briggs leading 59-41, compared with 62.5-37.5 at the election.

Author: William Bowe

William Bowe is a Perth-based election analyst and occasional teacher of political science. His blog, The Poll Bludger, has existed in one form or another since 2004, and is one of the most heavily trafficked websites on Australian politics.

2,337 comments on “New year’s news snippets”

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  4. poroti at 2036

    “I saw a piece on TV about Trump a week or so back. We hear all about his outrageous comments re muslims , Mexicans etc but in this program I sawa couple of other message he pushes and I reckon they are a big vote winner.”

    Yes, I have no doubt he can harness a proportion of the vote. I suspect however that he is a version of Leyonjhelm in that amongst some almost sensible ideas, he also has a smattering of outlandish & crazy ones that probably tell folk what he’s really like. If he is successful enough, it will be interesting to see whether the GOP gamble on him or consider him to be too much of a risk to their core beliefs. Of course, a similar thing could be said about Cruz.

  6. [ When in China I noticed that the traffic lights where I was had a stopwatch countdown light showing in seconds how long left till it was changing – say from from green to red etc – I thought it was a sensible addition. I guess other places have this feature ???? ]

    There are a few sets near where i live that have yellow lights a couple of hundred meters before the traffic lights. When they are flashing it means that the lights are about to go from green to orange. Put on intersections where experience shows that people have a tendency to run the lights i think.

  10. Player One: must be at least as clever as a microchip. TBA wouldn’t qualify.

    Now correct me if I am right, the logic circuit of a micro chip switches between off and on, are you saying TBA can only be one of those states permanently to be less cleverer than a microchip?

  11. [I gave Trump a 1% chance until remembering their voters re-elected Dubya !]

    All the Republican front runners are scary, but even Trump is worse than Dubya.

  12. They have the countdown lights in the Sydney CBD and Chatswood

    they are a great idea

    it’s amazing how far you can cover in a couple of seconds

  13. The Australian’s front page contains this teaser:

    [Downpour renews desert heart
    VICTORIA LAURIE
    An almost biblical downpour has transformed vast desert expanses to create a once-in-a-generation spectacular. ]

    “Once in a generation”? Utter crap!

    Lake Eyre and the inland in general have flooded umpteen times since I was there in 1998 to see Lake Eyre full.

    It’s an amazing sight, unforgettable to see a sea with no horizon in the middle of the desert. But “once in a generation” it ain’t… anymore.

  21. [Federal Labor leader Bill Shorten has issued a rebuke to his NSW counterpart Luke Foley, saying it would be “wrong” to hike the GST and slug every family in Australia to raise money for education and health.

    Mr Foley, the NSW Labor opposition leader, said he would consider supporting an increase in the GST from 10 to 15 per cent as long as the funds were used solely for health and education and to compensate low-income earners.

    The position is at direct odds with that of federal Labor, which vehemently opposes a GST increase.

    …”​Of course, state leaders are under pressure to find more money – that’s because the Turnbull Liberals in Canberra have cut $80 billion from schools and hospitals,” Mr Shorten said, referring to cuts in the 2014 federal budget.]

    http://www.theage.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/labor-leader-bill-shorten-rebukes-nsw-opposition-leader-luke-foley-over-gst-comments-20160110-gm2uaf.html

  22. [More than thirty businesses have lined up to buy Dick Smith Holdings even before receiver Ferrier Hodgson launches the sale campaign for the troubled retail chain.

    The strong buyer interest in the electronics business in Australia and New Zealand is likely to fuel criticism from within the senior ranks of Dick Smith that its bankers, National Australia Bank and HSBC were hasty and the chain should have been allowed to trade through its difficulties.

    The line up of would-be buyers range from businesses keen to outright own the chain as well as opportunistic operators, looking to pick off the most profitable stores.

    Dick Smith owes more than $140 million to its banks as well as more than $200 million to creditors but sources close to the company claim its debt always spikes at this time of year and the banks acted ‘hastily” in installing receivers on Tuesday.

    It’s understood a number of senior personnel at Dick Smith were shocked when their bankers signalled they could no longer support the business.]

    http://www.theage.com.au/business/retail/buyers-queue-up-for-a-shot-at-dick-smith-20160108-gm222d.html

  23. it’s amazing how far you can cover in a couple of seconds

    I sometimes thought that it would make sense for speedometers in cars to show metres per second instead of or in addition to kilometres per hour. In driving around Sydney (and I expect other big cities), you only average 40 km per hour*, no matter how fast you drive when the opportunity allows. You might do better if nearly all of your journey is on a freeway.

    A quick conversion:
    * Freeway speed 110 km/h = 30 m/sec approx
    * Main road built up speed 60 km/h = 17 m/sec approx.

    Another rough equivalence for those who grew up pre-metric: speed in km/h is roughly equal to feet per second. It’s actually about 10% higher, so 60 km/h = 55 feet per sec.

    * on a good day outside of peak hours

  25. The article linked above about Trump seemed to be implying that working class are over represented in the US military.

    Now, the Heritage Foundation seems to me to be very likely to stuff around with the stats (most likely by picking recruitment years that bolster its ideology), but the results in this link are interesting.

  28. Drones are becoming quite common in TV news footage. The most recent examples I have noted: the WA fires, the Oregan Terrorist Revolt, refugees struggling to get across the water from Turkey to Greece.

  30. Steve777@2074

    Almost biblical?

    It didn’t last for 40 days and 40 nights nor did it cover the highest mountains.

    I once heard that when missionaries came to Vancouver Island, and told the story of the great flood, and that it had rained for forty days and nights, the locals said “Yeah? and?”

  31. lizzie

    Looks like a combination of pushpolling and misinterpretation of the results.

    An indication that this is not straight polling and straight analysis comes from the following sentence from the article:

    [When the firmed showed respondents the Trump ad, and assessed their responses to each moment of it, it found “the primary messages of Trump’s ad resonated more than Democratic elites would hope.”]

    cue: ‘elites’

  32. Boerwar

    [seemed to be implying that working class are over represented in the US military.]
    No surprise there , would likely be SOP. With employment so crap in many places , higher education financially crippling and health care so expensive the military career can offer what they cannot afford.

    Meanwhile for the wealthy take the example of the Bush regime . Chockers with sons of the wealthy who received serial deferrals from serving in Vietnam. What a surprise the chickens turned out to be the most enthusiastic for war.

  33. poroti at 2058

    “I gave Trump a 1% chance until remembering their voters re-elected Dubya !”

    And I once thought Abbott was no chance because Australian’s were too sensible. Since then I’ve decided nothing is impossible.

  34. BW
    I think that Michael Moore pretty well showed us that kids from very poor towns are the ones entering the military, because there is no other employment. He used Flint (his own town) as a case study i think.

    Has anyone else been following how in Flint because of the price of water the town “council” switched to a dirtier water supply, added a chemical to help clean the water which corroded the pipes and gave all the residents lead poisoning. This is very recent stuff but many, many people with lead poisoning!!!!!!

  35. poroti
    Yep.

    daretotread

    [Posted Sunday, January 10, 2016 at 6:02 pm | Permalink

    BW
    I think that Michael Moore pretty well showed us that kids from very poor towns are the ones entering the military, because there is no other employment. He used Flint (his own town) as a case study i think.]

    Mr Moore appears to have been overtaken by events.

  37. The ABC employee and a helicopter pilot and one other were killed in an accident filming Lake Eyre in flood a few years ago

  38. daretotread

    During economic downturns here ads pushing the army/navy/air force as “exciting career opportunities” for young people proliferate.

  39. PeeBee

    [ Now correct me if I am right, the logic circuit of a micro chip switches between off and on, are you saying TBA can only be one of those states permanently to be less cleverer than a microchip? ]

    TBA’s brain only has one logic circuit, and it appears to have frozen in the “closed” position.

  40. Boerwar at 2075

    From my time in the US, I seem to recall that African Americans made up 12% of the population but 25% of the military.

  45. Re BW @2081cue: ‘elites’

    It always amazes* me how the Right are able to get away with labelling as ‘elites’ groups that in effect they regard as their ‘class enemies’.

    Who are these ‘elites’? Those acedemics they don’t approve of; climate scientists (in fact pretty much all scientists); the public sector, which they set about cowering and trashing when their proxies (or should that be ‘poxies’) are in power; the ABC – ditto; the Arts and Literary communities; anyone who doesn’t think that increasing the wealth of the real elites (those with money) isn’t the greatest social good; and pretty much anyone else they don’t like.

    The Right of course represent the only elites that count in the political power stakes, those with money, those who control big corporations and the media. Well, they don’t need any help. As the French might say, they can go boil an egg.

    * well actually, it doesn’t, since they control the mainstream media outside the ABC

  46. dtt at 2092

    Thanks for those figures. My time predates these 2012 figures by a considerable period & clearly the figures have changed.

    Interesting that Latinos (who make up 50% of California) are not specifically represented.

  47. [Charlie Edwards

    Posted Sunday, January 10, 2016 at 6:10 pm | Permalink

    Boerwar at 2075

    From my time in the US, I seem to recall that African Americans made up 12% of the population but 25% of the military.]

    I suspect that the GFC and he ongoing destruction of the middle class in the US might have changed things so that poor rich folk now find the military more appealing than formerly and that they are outcompeting real poor folk for the available positions.

  50. Charlie

    In a later table they break down Latino into their respective “races.” So Black Latinos are separately identified as are Indian.

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