Newspoll’s surprise this week has caused a minor landslip in the BludgerTrack poll aggregate, which moves 0.8% to Labor on two-party preferred, while delivering only a modest gain of three on the seat projection (one each in New South Wales, Queensland and Western Australia). The leadership results from the poll have also caused Malcolm Turnbull’s net approval rating to continue its downward trajectory, and given a very slight impression of Bill Shorten pulling out of his slump. Also in the mix this week were results from Roy Morgan and Essential Research, neither of which recorded much movement, although the former found Labor hanging on to a big gain the previous fortnight.
In other news, the big story at the moment is obviously the introduction this week of Senate reform legislation to the Senate, for which there is a dedicated thread here for you to comment on, together with my paywalled contribution to Crikey on Tuesday. Then there’s preselection news:
• Nominations for the hotly contested Liberal preselection in Mackellar closed on Friday, with seven challengers coming forward to take on Bronwyn Bishop. Joe Kelly of The Australian reports the field includes the widely touted Walter Villatora and Jason Falinksi (see this earlier post for further detail), along with Bill Calcraft, a former Wallabies player described by the Sydney Morning Herald as having “returned to Australia after a long career in business in Europe”. For what it may be worth in well-heeled Mackellar, Calcraft has the support of talk radio broadcaster Alan Jones, who coached him when he played for Manly in the 1980s. The other candidates are Campbell Welsh, a stockbroker; Vicky McGahey, a school teacher; and Alan Clarke, founder of Street Mission.
• Sarah Martin of The Australian reports that while Craig Kelly no longer faces opposition from Sutherland Shire mayor Kent Johns in the Liberal preselection for Hughes, two other local party members have nominated against him: Jeffrey Clarke, a barrister, and Michael Medway, noted only as the candidate for Werriwa in 2004.
• The Liberal preselection to replace Andrew Robb in Goldstein, which was covered here in detail last week, looms as a contest between Georgina Downer and Tim Wilson, after another highly rated candidate, local software entrepreneur Marcus Bastiaan, ruled himself out. Christian Kerr of The Australian reports on a move by locals to throw their weight behind Denis Dragovic, a “former hostage negotiator, academic and global development worker”. Also expected to nominate by Kerr’s Liberal sources are Jeremy Samuel, chairman of the party’s Caulfield electorate committee, and John Osborn, director of economics and industry policy for the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry.
• The Liberal preselection to replace Bruce Billson in the outer south-eastern Melbourne seat of Dunkley has been won by Chris Crewther, a Frankston-based business consultant. Steve Lillebuen of Fairfax reports that Crewther won in the final round over Donna Bauer, who held the state seat of Carrum for the Liberals from 2010 to 2014. Crewther unsuccessfully attempted to win the rural seat of Mallee for the Liberals when Nationals member John Forrest retired in 2013, but was defeated by Nationals candidate Andrew Broad.
• The retirement of Warren Truss creates a preselection vacancy in the Nationals stronghold of Wide Bay in central Queensland. Among those to express interest are Jeff Seeney, who entered state politics in 1998 and served as Opposition Leader from March 2011 to March 2012, and as Deputy Premier through the period of Campbell Newman’s government from March 2012 to February 2015. Also said to be in the mix is Tim Langmead, a former adviser to Truss.
• Also vacant is Ian Macfarlane’s Toowoomba-based seat of Groom, where the state member for Toowoomba South, John McVeigh, has confirmed he will seek Liberal National Party preselection.
• Sally Cripps of the North Queensland Register reports four candidates have nominated for Liberal National Party preselection in Bob Katter’s seat of Kennedy: Michael Trout, who held the state seat of Barron River from 2012 to 2015; Shane Meteyard, grazier and owner of Milray Contracting; Jonathan Pavetto, economic advisor for the Alliance of Electricity Consumers; and Karina Samperi, a Cairns management consultant. The narrowly unsuccessful candidate from 2013, Noeline Ikin, has withdrawn after being diagnosed with cancer.
Rob_Stott: You Can Now Show Your Support For Marriage Equality With A Special Facebook Profile Pic https://t.co/wojTXszlVf https://t.co/OzNXGJ3SIq
A stream of parents knew. Children knew. Nuns knew. Three parishes full of concerned parents knew. Father Nolan, first cousin of Pell, knew.
Pell did not know.
The Commissioner, getting jack of Pell’s self-exculpatory Jesuistical ruminations about whether people were reticent about what they knew.
Lots of yellow banner on 24 re’ Abbott addressing party room.
Carr alleging that part of the discussions between the Liberals and the Greens includes Liberals preferencing the Greens in inner city seats in exchange for their support for the proposed legislation.
So the Greens look like they’re trading Senate positions for Lower House ones.
BernardKeane: Wow thanks for that great explainer Mike! https://t.co/cMk20bbFxB
g
Note that Abbott is leering in one window and a Turnbull’s black cat is leering in the other window.
Mr Abbott’s sniping is front and centre as yellow ticker on 24 under Pell testimony.
Appropriate two friends on screen at once.
psyclaw back at 2897,
I don’t think I was saying or implying that people’s ability to recognise child abuse has evolved. I certainly don’t think that.
Child abuse isn’t just one thing for starters. Are we speaking of physical, psychological, sexual or a combination of the above. Add in the age of the child when the abuse begins, the duration and severity of the forms of abuse as confounding factors and the abuse may be more or less difficult to detect.
For example, a child care worker became suspicious about A 3 year old girl being sexually abused and brought her to our service. The child was in the care of her father, mother had left the home. There was some physical evidence, but ambiguous, the child’s ability to describe what had happened was limited and the father flat out denied anything had happened. The child had limited contact with other adults. The child also became overwhelmed by the various investigatory activities even though we tried to be as gentle and responsive as time would allow us.
We asked for a supervision order but the father fought it to the County Court and succeeded.
Pell admits to actually sometimes talking to parishioners after giving mass when he did not have to rush off to the next mass.
Pell getting some strong stuff now and is flustered.
For days Labor was running a scare campaign about senate voting reform viz the Coalition and the Greens would be advantaged.
Then they changed the line to Labor would be advantaged too.
Now the line is Greens will lose senators. Dastyari on RN Breakfast calling the Greens “turkeys” for voting for something where the Greens will lose out.
It’s a ‘moving feast’.
Pell cannot remember ‘explicitly’, ‘didn’t remember’ a meeting where Ridsdale was discussed. Until confronted with the minutes when he recovered his memory.
[2949
ratsak
Chris Uhlmann ✔ @CUhlmann
Reports from inside Coalition Party Room: Tony Abbott “laid down the challenge on tax”. Calling on leadership to make savings not lift taxes
10:46 AM – 1 Mar 2016
Yeah and people said the RWNJs wouldn’t be able to create problems for Talcum. Keep up the good work Tones.]
The right are calling for economic contraction. They are setting Labor up for a come-back win. The shortage of jobs and the stagnation in incomes are real issues for voters in Perth. The more the right stonewall on reform, the better it will be for Labor.
2962 – Ok Peg which is it, will you lose or gain with the change?
News items from BBC suggested last night that unless the EU can get its act together, the persistent influx of refugees – heading to the north – but increasingly stuck in Greece – could lead to the unwinding of the whole EU set up.
One comment was telling: The reporter mentioned that up to 1800 people a day were ending up in Greece with the comment ‘No one to greet them and no one to stop them’.
It seems that while the Germans were in a position to show their largesse, countries like Poland – which should know something about refugees, have put plugs in their collective ears.
There is a touch of irony that the Germans were a touch holier-than-thou when it came to wagging the finger at Greek laxity when it came to budgeting, but at the moment the inability of Greece to cope could bring the whole of the EU – as a political/economic idea, tumbling down.
The current failure of the EU countries to come to grips with the problem makes our attempts – at least from a right wing political perspective – to deal with AS, look positively brilliant.
The sort of tactics used against Lee Rhiannon:
https://newmatilda.com/2016/02/29/far-right-group-accidentally-confuses-greens-senator-with-random-vaguely-similar-looking-woman/
[The woman in the image was not Lee Rhiannon, something anyone who has ever seen a photo of the MP should have been able to realise.
One person saw an unfortunate irony to the mistake.
“You’d think racists would at least be able to tell white people apart,” Tom Raue wrote.
The strange thing is that Rhiannon has quite openly spoken at anti-Reclaim rallies, and her office provided the following image of her at a Sydney event last year.]
Grubby Greens complaining about grubby behaviour is hypocritical.
I can’t remember explicitly… I don’t have a recollection of that…
KKeneally: RC:it is implausible given the knowledge of three consultors, conduct of Risdale, the minutes, that you did not know why he was being moved
The greens are hypocrites.
On one hand they are supporting legislation that has as its base political intention the removal of preference deals between minor parties and individuals in the Senate as a legitimate and purposeful tool yet continues to negotiate behind closed doors preference deals for HOR seats.
The greens and the coalition talk about how this legislation is all about setting the voters free. That is absolute crap.
The coalition are all about doing what is best for them and the greens are willing partners in this fraud either seeking benefit for themselves or at the very least being guilty of ignorance and stupidity in their rush for relevance.
The greens have shown themselves as nothing more than another political party playing in the mud with the coalition.
Cheers.
I don’t have a clear recollection of this meeting at all except that acts of paedophilia were definitely not mentioned.
2907
Nicholas
…once again demonstrating the Greens prefer to parlay with and on behalf of the LNP. The Greens know their themes are fading from prominence. It’s ironic really. One of the losers from “stopping the boats” will be the Greens. Their drum has been punctured. So what have they decided to do? Team up with the LNP.
They will rue the day. They may expect a DD this year and feel they will have a good chance of retaining most of their Senators. But Turnbull is not likely to go to a DD. He would be taking and large and unnecessary gamble if he were to try that. Instead, there will be a normal half-Senate election. The quota for Senate seats will be 14-odd%. The Greens will fail to pass this threshold in most States and they will then likely fail to attract enough preferences to win at all. In WA, they will likely lose both their Senators.
Excellent result.
Kevin Bonham: http://kevinbonham.blogspot.com.au/
[Classic ALP defeatism. They conclude that since the system slightly increases the Government’s chances of a workable Senate that therefore it must disadvantage the Labor Party. They don’t even consider that it would have helped the Labor Party achieve a more workable Senate itself, for instance by ridding it of Steven Fielding (who was put there, by, er, the ALP). They also seem to think there is some actual difference between a Senate completely controlled by the Coalition and one in which it falls a few seats short of a majority and governs with a leg up from Bob Day or David Leyonhjelm.
Of course the real problem is that the ALP so dreams of a Senate where it doesn’t have to work with the Greens that it cannot see even an easier path to an ALP-Greens Senate as a win.]
The more I think about it, the more sense it makes.
If the Senate changes don’t advantage the Greens, then why would the Greens support them? (Yeah, principles. So why aren’t they delivering on the other principles, such as OPV below the line?)
However, the Greens want to become a major. You can’t do that from the Senate. So they desperately want lower House seats (and have been increasingly more sensible in the way they go about winning these).
So sacrificing a couple of positions in the Upper House in exchange for Liberal preferences in targetted seats in the Lower House would seem a perfectly sensible strategy for the Greens.
It also solves other problems. It has been suggested here that SHY, for example, would be voting against her own best interests by supporting the supposed changes. If, however, she has the option of running in the Lower House, in a seat where Liberal preferences make it ‘safe’, then she isn’t being as crazy brave as it appears.
Would it not be interesting if Abbott or someone in his circle is giving labor a heads up on what his plans and intentions are for a particular day or event ?
Just a thought.
Cheers.
The consensus now here seems to be the Greens Party is now a major party.
How ironic.
His recollections are shifting.
MayneReport: 17 year veteran preference whisperer Glenn Druery takes his seat. Said he is only here because committee invited him https://t.co/TTrw5pb8w0
[ Chris Uhlmann ✔ @CUhlmann
Reports from inside Coalition Party Room: Tony Abbott “laid down the challenge on tax”. Calling on leadership to make savings not lift taxes
10:46 AM – 1 Mar 2016 ]
Ahh…so Tony wants the Coalition to go with his “badge of honour” 2014 Budget for their 2016 tactic.
Yes, Please, You should listen to Tony your not so elder statesman and proper elected PM. The 2014 Budget was wonderful and is the way to go if you want to win the election…… 🙂
[ Doyley
Posted Tuesday, March 1, 2016 at 11:24 am | Permalink
Would it not be interesting if Abbott or someone in his circle is giving labor a heads up on what his plans and intentions are for a particular day or event ?
Just a thought.
Cheers.
]
….. 27th of March may figure 😉
geoff_p_wade: Australia: Andrew Robb approached by 3 firms desperate to privately finance & build Australian high-speed railway
https://t.co/seqWWAaw7l
Zoomster, I do not see that there are any South Australian House of Representatives seats that would be winnable for the Greens even with Liberal preferences.
Have been watching the JCSEM. Conroy and Carr astonishingly cynical. Rhiannon pretty ineffective in questioning (asking each witness to dispute “just vote 1” and “Liberal majority” – in which both are pretty obviously already discredited). The crossbench, oddly, is focusing on the lack of BTL OPV – which seems to undermine their whole argument pretty strongly.
Kevin Bonham is correct about this. Labor don’t see a Senate with an ALP plus Green majority as a win. It’s the best they are ever going to get, and it’s pretty damn good. But for tribal reasons they don’t see it as a win.
MayneReport: Druery claims Labor and Greens will need to go into a formal coalition and that “coalition snare” for DD will hurt unions.
Lizzie
cf cowbirds, you got it.
rpy: Imagine if elected conservatives didn’t immediately throw accusations of bias when a journalist disagrees with them https://t.co/0F2f8N0lvc
phoenix @2981,
In the mind of Abbott anything is possible.
This week was always going to be a rinse and repeat for the coalition as Turnbull s forced further and further into a corner.
He either stands up to the agitators or folds. Either way he looses internally.
As far ad I am concerned Turnbull will revert to his fault position and fold or at the very least do little to ruffle the feathers and look impotent.
It really would not surprise if Abbott was on a direct link to labor either personally or more probably through someone in his circle.
Cheers
The ‘yes, buts’ mount.
Labor has been claiming that OPV above the line will both boost the Greens and destroy the Greens in the Senate. It’s like the Coalition claiming that restricting negative gearing will result in house prices plummeting and rising simultaneously.
Labor is not opposing the changes on principle because they understand and support the principle of OPV. That’s what they did when this issue was examined exhaustively in 2014. But now that it’s an election year Labor has chosen to run an ineffectual campaign of tribal posturing.
Without the Labor GVT who would we blame for everything in the Senate? 😮
Counsel:
You have said that you have no recollection of what was said but you do have a recollection of what was not said.
Spot the contradiction.
z
I don’t think SA would figure highly in the Greens calculations as Mr X is the third force here. They would be better concentrating on the eastern states.
Maybe the Greens should have got more votes if they wanted to be elected to the Senate in 2004.
Pell was a consultor on a committee of 7 which met and concluded it was “necessary” to transfer Ridsdale. Apart from Mulkearns there were 2 other committee members who knew of Ridsdale’s paedophilia.
Pell’s defence is that he can infer from the prestigious position to which Ridsdale was moved that it could not have been for paedophilia.
The question that needs to be asked is “Had you been asked a week after the meeting why was it necessary to move Ridsdale” his answer would have made plain that as a consultor he had not been told by Nolan or Mulkearns the real reason. In other words his evidence that he knew nothing requires a presumption that he was being lied to deliberately as to the reason for the necessity for moving Ridsdale.
But why would Mulkearns and Nolan lie to Pell when Ridsdale’s paedophilia in Mortlake was a matter of local notoriety?
It doesn’t make any sense.
MayneReport: There was 81 parties set up for the 1999 NSW election and Druery admitted he set up “a lot” of them.
@2994, yes they should have. So let’s change it so that they would have been required to!
[In the mind of Abbott anything is possible.]
Say what you want about Abbott (Lord knows I’ve said a lot that was both derogatory and factual), but he has got one thing 100% right. He knows Turnbull is weak.
Another contradiction.
[ Doyley
Posted Tuesday, March 1, 2016 at 11:36 am | Permalink
phoenix @2981,
In the mind of Abbott anything is possible.
]
I have no doubt that *one day* he will mount a challenge to Mr Flim-Flam Waffle ….. but only he and God know when exactly ….