Double dissolution (maybe) minus 14 weeks

Senate preselection wreaks more discord among the NSW Liberals; Tim Wilson snatches victory in Goldstein; Stan Grant fields approaches from the Liberals; preselection challenges aplenty to sitting Liberals in WA; and Bronwyn Bishop reportedly in strife in Mackellar.

As the likelihood of a July 2 election firms, the preselection treadmill gathers pace. All the action this week is on the conservative side of the fence:

• New discord has emerged in the fractious New South Wales branch of the Liberal Party over its preselection for the Senate, after a party vote on Saturday delivered top position to Hollie Hughes, Moree-based autism support advocate and the state party’s country vice-president. This reduced the remaining incumbent, Concetta Fierravanti-Wells, to number two, in defiance of the wishes of the Prime Minister, who had recently signalled his support by promoting her to the ministry. With number three reserved for Nationals Senator Fiona Nash, the result also meant neither of the Liberals’ winnable positions was available to Jim Molan, a former senior army officer who was heavily involved in the government’s efforts against unauthorised boat arrivals. Hughes has since forestalled a looming state executive intervention by agreeing to be relegated to number two. At issue was the presence on the preselection panel of two lobbyists and moderate factional operatives, Michael Photios and Nick Campbell, two years after Photios had been forced off the state executive by a Tony Abbott-sponsored rule forbidding the involvement of lobbyists. Opponents of the moderates cited in a report by David Crowe of The Australian claim that without the involvement of Photios and Campbell, Fierravanti-Wells and Molan might have taken the top two spots, with number three going to Andrew Bragg, policy director at the Financial Services Council. Tony Abbott described the outcome of the vote as “another exercise of stitching up”, which had been “tainted” by the involvement of Photios. If a double dissolution elections is called, the entire process will need to be revisited in a way that also accounts for Marise Payne, John Williams and Arthur Sinodinos, who were elected in 2013.

• Outgoing Human Rights Commissioner Tim Wilson has been preselected to succeed Andrew Robb as Liberal candidate for the Melbourne seat of Goldstein. The Australian reports Wilson prevailed in the local party ballot over Denis Dragovic, a “lecturer, former hostage negotiator and columnist”, by the paper-thin margin of 142 votes to 140. Eliminated in the first round were Georgina Downer, with 66 votes, and Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry chief executive John Osborn, on 18 votes. The vote came shortly after a pamphlet was distributed to preselectors describing Wilson as “a danger to our families, schools and the local community”, owing to his “unrelenting campaign for gay rights issues”.

• The Daily Telegraph reports Bronwyn Bishop faces defeat in the Mackellar preselection at the hands of Jason Falinski, owner of aged care business Carewell Health. Falinski was Malcolm Turnbull’s Wentworth campaign manager in 2004, and has worked for John Hewson and Barry O’Farrell. While Falinski is strongly associated with the moderates faction, the Telegraph reports he “will get the support of much of the Right because of an anyone-but-Bronwyn attitude caused by her switching sides on Tony Abbott”.

• A further three challenges have emerged against federal Liberals in Western Australia, in addition to the widely reported contest between Tangney MP Dennis Jensen and the state party’s former director, Ben Morton. Liberal sources invoked by Andrew Burrell of The Australian suggest Nola Marino is under pressure from Ben Small, although all I can discern of Small is that he lives in Bunbury. Elsewhere, Swan MP Steve Irons faces Carl Pallier, state manager of Suncorp Insurance, and Durack MP Melissa Price is opposed by David Archibald, a geologist.

• Seven Liberal Party members have nominated for preselection in the new southern Perth seat of Burt. Andrew Burrell of The Australian suggests the front-runner is Matthew O’Sullivan, “who runs Andrew Forrest’s GenerationOne philanthropic movement aimed at ending indigenous disparity”. However, Gosnells councillor Liz Storer is reported to be “backed by conservative forces”. Also in the field are Marisa Hislop, a small business owner; Daniel Nikolic, a company director; Lance Scott, the party’s divisional president; and a low-profile figure named Lesley Boyd.

Sarah Martin of The Australian reports the Liberal Party has approached indigenous journalist Stan Grant about running for preselection against Labor’s Julie Owens in her highly marginal seat of Parramatta. The Liberals will be choosing their candidate for the seat through a trial plebiscite of local party members of more than two years’ standing, amid an ongoing brawl within the party over the power of head office in the party’s preselections.

• Melissa Grant of AAP reports on a second contestant for the Liberal National Party preselection to succeed Ian MacFarlane in the Queensland seat of Groom, joining the widely touted state member for Toowoomba South, John McVeigh. The candidate is Toowoomba general practitioner David van Gend, who describes himself on his Twitter bio as a “combatant on matters of life and death: euthanasia, cloning, abortion, gay ‘marriage’, faith and freedom” – his perspective on such matters being conservative.

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.

1,390 comments on “Double dissolution (maybe) minus 14 weeks”

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  1. Lizzie.
    At last the police are taking ‘domestics’ as seriously as any other crime.
    From someone who knows Police always took domestics very seriously the problem has always been and still is that the legal system never took it seriously. Lawyers in particular are allowed to bring up so much in mitigating circumstances from a bad child hood to being drunk from stress to being unemployed, suffering anxiety disorders and depression the list goes on and on and they use whatever they can. Then when and if there is a conviction its usually a good behavior bond, you need to beat your wife a good two to three times for you to get jail time. It is Magistrates that must start taking this issue seriously.

  2. Tom

    And Sanders could be hit by a bus.

    Lots of things could hypothetically derail any candidate.

    Most of what I’ve read is wistful musing that Clinton might be indicted, which concludes that she is unlikely to be.

    Strangely, this is one of her strengths as a candidate – she’s survived so many scandals, had so much dirt thrown at her, and she’s still outpolling Sanders and Trump, neither of whom have had in their lifetimes a tenth of the scrutiny she has.

    Thus she is more likely to survive a presidential campaign, with its relentless focus on the candidates (merited or otherwise) than either of those two.

  3. I should add that I was also surprised the LNP supposedly support universal dental care, given their desire to destroy universal health care in general.

    But apparently all three parties support universal dental care.

  4. 92% Greens, 75% Labor, 13% Coalition (with the note that I side with the Coal on ‘no major issues’ – Not surprising.)

    Anyone worried about their high Green component should remember that the issues were almost purely environmental green, not social green.

  5. Dan

    [It really surprises (and disappoints me) that Labor seem to support selling our food and water assets to foreigners]

    We’ve been selling our land to foreigners since 1788. Lord Vestey’s landholdings were so vast that you could walk from Queensland to Western Australia and never leave his land.

    The land doesn’t go anywhere. Its owners are still subject to the laws of Australia. In a worst case scenario, the land can be compulsorily acquired by the government (as some of the Vestey’s land was).

    Selling it to overseas owners brings in foreign money and provides employment for Australians.

    It is a plus for Australia – obviously the foreign owner is paying more for the land than any Australian is willing to. (If you’re a retiring farmer, you’d appreciate that).

    That we happily allowed the British (and others) to own vast tracks of land in Australia for centuries but object when other countries nationals start doing the same seems just a little hypocritical (to put it kindly).

  6. Dan. Why and it is not just you have the tendency of the left for gross exaggeration bordering on yes I will say it lies ” given their desire to destroy universal health care in general”. That statement is complete and utter bullshit and whats more I think you know it, but what is perplexing is why you say it. Universal health care is a core Liberal policy.

  7. [http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/tony-abbott-to-hit-the-road-to-campaign-on-national-tour-in-marginal-seats/news-story/f6fda199a99bb2b7ca7337f202080ec3]

    Nice Smeagol, always helps.

    It still amuses me that anyone ever thought Abbott would do anything other than try to destroy Turnbull.

    Shorten can have another sleep in today.

  8. Steelydan

    ‘Universal health care’ may mean ‘privately provided’.

    And as for ‘the police have always taken domestic violence seriously’ – perhaps you have missed the discussions on the subject in Victoria.

  9. Whether or not Bronwyn wins LNP selection i still think Dick Smith should run as an independent, if only to prove that independents have the chops necessary to beat up terrorists too.

  10. Excellent point by Matt Taibbi:

    Young people don’t see the Sanders-Clinton race as a choice between idealism and incremental progress. The choice they see is between an honest politician, and one who is so profoundly a part of the problem that she can’t even see it anymore.

    They’ve seen in the last decades that politicians who promise they can deliver change while also taking the money, mostly just end up taking the money.

    And they’re voting for Sanders because his idea of an entirely voter-funded electoral “revolution” that bars corporate money is, no matter what its objective chances of success, the only practical road left to break what they perceive to be an inexorable pattern of corruption.

    Young people aren’t dreaming. They’re thinking. And we should listen to them.

    http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/why-young-people-are-right-about-hillary-clinton-20160325#ixzz443udoVFo

  11. I am also reminded that another Nobel prize winning economist Joseph Stiglitz is a non-official advisor to Hillary Clinton.
    Hardly someone who could be accused of peddling in ‘economic hawkery’.

  12. [Paul Krugman has called Sanders out on his economic illiteracy on many occasions.]

    And Krugman and his conservative mates [yes, Krugman is on the conservative side of the spectrum], have since been called out for their illiterate criticisms.
    Here for example:
    http://mikethemadbiologist.com/2016/02/21/when-very-serious-economists/

    And James Galbraith in particular is not impressed with Klugman

    [The Sanders program is big, and when you run it through a standard model, you get a big result.

    That, by the way, is the lesson of the Reagan era – like it or not. It is a lesson that, among today’s political leaders, only Senator Sanders has learned.]

  13. zoomster

    [We’ve been selling our land to foreigners since 1788.]
    In 1788, and for a fair while afterwards, Britain “owned” the land, it didn’t have to be sold to them.

  14. Abbot on the campaign trail?? 🙁 I thought that the “Vote for Mal, Get Tony” think was a bit of humorous silliness that would never be taken seriously. But..if Abbott is out and about FFS, that theme may grow some serious legs. How can the Libs let this happen??

  15. For me it wa 94% Green, 87% ALP and 5% LNP. If there were some questions regarding pragmatism in the pursuit of goals I suspect the Greens/ALP numbers would be reversed 🙂

  16. These election pendulums (pendula?) are very interesting, but they are based on past results. There’s a lot of mobility in many electorates. Maybe things balance out on average but there’s the capacity for quite a bit of error.

  17. Shea Mcduff,

    You call Krugman a conservative?
    Well whatever. He is known as pretty liberal on economics.
    What about Joseph Stiglitz? Do you call him conservative?
    You the link to some blog by someone called Mike the mad biologist. Really?

    Then you link to James Galbraith.
    You do know that Galbraith was one of the dunces who was advising the Greek government and nearly led them down the path of complete ruin?
    Any economist who proudly boasts of being friends with Yanis Varoufakis is not worth listening to by any serious person.

  18. Lizzie.
    Police have a vital role in curbing domestic violence but it is the legal system that must be overhauled to take domestic violence seriously, how do you get a good behavior bond for beating your wife, and domestic violence order’s are useless police can not guard people 24 hours a day. I doubt you would find police against any new rules on how to treat domestic violence incidence, getting Magistrates to increase sentencing or introduce mandatory sentencing is another story.

  19. [Britain “owned” the land, it didn’t have to be sold to them.]

    The Vesteys were happily operating in the late 1970s.

    If that’s your only rebuttal, though, perhaps you should rethink your stance on the issue. What is your problem with foreign ownership of Australian land?

  20. Shea Mcduff,

    Here is the bio of Mike the mad biologist that you linked to,
    in his own words-

    ‘I’m Mike, and I’m Mad, not crazy (too much anyway). I write about evolution, microbiology, politics, and other stuff–not necessarily in that order’.

    My god. How very credible.

    His last post was titled ‘The science against selfies’

    So yeah, the potential US presidential candidates should be listening to that guy on economic issues instead of Nobel prize winning economists like Krugman and Stiglitz.

    If you want to prove a serious point you will have to do much better than that.

  21. Steelydan @ 1059

    [Universal health care is a core Liberal policy.]

    Some of us here are old enough and have good enough memories to recall Malcolm Fraser declaring unequivocally that Medibank (the original universal health care system introduced by Whitlam) would be ‘maintained and improved’. A couple of years into his reign, it had been converted into a private health care fund owned by the government but operating on the same principles as the other private health care funds in operation then. That’s where Medibank Private came from.

    And when Labor was re-elected in 1983, the Liberals fought tooth and nail against the reintroduction of another universal health care system – which became Medicare (to avoid confusion with the by then debauched Medibank name).

    Universal health care is fundamentally contrary to Liberal principles. Liberals believe that government programs should be safety nets, not universal, because they believe that society is best served by competition and freedom for the private sector against competition in the most profitable businesses and areas from the public sector. Medicare as somewhere that the richest can go and get the same service as the poorest and not pay is simply anathema to economic conservatives.

  22. I was similar to Joylon above … but it didn’t ask the key question:

    Which party do you think can achieve any of the policy directions stated.

    That disclaimer should be at the end bc the Greens would then rate right down.

    If it was a true test, then it should have had the Nats included.

  23. [What is your problem with foreign ownership of Australian land?]
    Nothing if the past was to be replicate din the future.

    One of the upcoming potential crises facing the world is food security. Each nation needs to secure its agricultural land for its own citizens.

    You can claim that the land can be re-nationalised, however under the terms of the TPP and other “free trade” dela with ISDS clauses, the ability of Australia to secure its own food bowl would be negated by a foreign corporations ability to make a profit. The foreign owned corporations can take Australia to trial at a secret tribunal and override any national interest.

    All your arguments are based on what has happened in the past. I’m worried about what will happen in the future. The ISDS clauses in the trade deals are toxic for Australia’s well being.

    Oh and BTW:
    [The Vesteys were happily operating in the late 1970s.]
    Terrific. When did they “acquire” it though?

  24. Dan Gulberry@1028

    An interesting quiz – Which Australian Political Party Shares Your Beliefs.

    http://australia.isidewith.com/political-quiz

    (Me – 77% ALP, 23% LNP)

    Seems a bit dated and/or wrong in saying that asylum seeker resettlement is currently “the highest ranked “most important” issue of the election.”

    These things usually match me to the Greens, mainly because of my social-issues positions, however I’m not usually a Greens voter.

  25. I came through as an out and out Green.

    But that won’t change the way I vote.

    The candidates they put up here and that they don’t have the grunt to implement their policies puts me off them.

  26. [And they’re voting for Sanders because his idea of an entirely voter-funded electoral “revolution” that bars corporate money is, no matter what its objective chances of success, the only practical road left to break what they perceive to be an inexorable pattern of corruption.

    Young people aren’t dreaming. They’re thinking.]

    But isn’t the fact that they’re aiming for something regardless of its ‘objective chances of success’ a sign that they are in fact dreaming.  At the end of the day you do have to just get real.

    There’s only so much a President can and should be able to unilaterally achieve. In the absence of a plan for broader political change all that Sanders offers is a dream.

  27. Colton
    A Clinton Democrat economist [Friedman] wrote a paper showing massive benefits from Sander’s economic programme.
    A bunch of prestigious economists slammed that paper. Krugman joined the chorus.

    But they cited no specific criticisms of the paper when doing so and considered no evidence – just assertions.

    Since then a bunch of prestigious economists have criticised the opponents of Friedman for failing to take note of orthodox economic theory and looking at history eg the Reagan economic experiment.

    Mike the Mad Biologist has simply collected a few of those in the blog article that I linked to.
    [You didn’t actually read that blog/article did you?]

    One was from Galbraith who is probably recognised as the second top economist in the world [such things are always debatable but he is certainly very highly regarded] next to, again probably uno numero economist, Joe Stiglitz.
    I don’t know if Stiglitz has specifically endorsed Sanders but here is just one link to a conversation where he praises Sanders above all others, Hilary Clinton included.

    [Which candidate (or potential candidate) do you think is best for the economy in 2016?

    JS: As far as I know, all three of the announced Democratic candidates — Bernie Sanders, Hilary Clinton — and…has [Martin] O’Malley announced? They have all actually announced that they’re very concerned about the issue. And they have begun to roll out agendas.
    Bernie Sanders is the most progressive and has been most articulate over a longer period of time, laying out a pro-equality agenda.
    I think everybody hopes that the pressure is being put on Hillary to match]

    Google “stiglitz sanders’ and you will get more like that one.

  28. isidewith.com is less comprehensive with its Australian election quizzes than it is with its US election quizzes, and that might be affecting this too.

  29. I also was regarded as more Green than Labor. At first I was taken aback and then I thought about what the survey did not ask. It did not ask which political party was more capable of achieving its policies and managing their implementation against entrenched opposition. It also did not measure where there were going to be inevitable compromises in order to achieve all the policy objectives and who would be judged as best able to achieve them.

    There is a parallel to the Clinton and Sanders competition here. I think for most of us here, Sanders’s vision for America is more attractive than Clinton’s. But at least we know that Clinton has the smarts and experience to deliver some of what she aims for. Sanders unfortunately will have no idea if he were to become President. Clinton, for example, learnt in the 1990s that having a great national health care revamp is not enough when there is so much entrenched opposition to her (and the then President, Bill Clinton) and to anything that can affect the profits of those who are doing very well out of the current scheme.

    In the Australian experience, we almost all feel outraged about the treatment of asylum seekers on Nauru and Manus and very unhappy about the treatment of boat arrivals generally. But most of us know that taking an openly humane and humanitarian approach will overwhelm our structures, finances and social cohesion. So we struggle to find the right space. Personally, I think the Greens asylum policies are downright unreal. We need to manage entry to avoid being overwhelmed. And we can only manage entry by ensuring the fences and gates are well constructed. The real question then becomes one of generosity in the number we let through the gates and how we best ensure that the best applicants are the ones we bring in the gates.

    And on it goes. Same about mining and fracking and the environment. Most of us want to do the utmost to maintain nature as it is and to avoid the risks and dangers involved in upending the landscape. We understand the implications for the long term. But we are also concerned about the short and medium term catastrophe that awaits if we simply close things down and put people out of work and socially and physically isolated. The Labor Party, as the party of working people, has to carry their concerns. The Greens do not. Which is why the Greens make much greater inroads in inner city seats where few low paid workers actually live, than in outer suburban seats where the bulk of low and middle income employees live.

    And on it goes.

    So, yeah. I like Greens policies. But it is only, and will only be for the foreseeable future, a ginger group. It has neither the policies nor the political skills (as evidenced by the way that the Liberals, who otherwise could not arrange a piss-up in a brewery, got them to sign up for the Senate reforms with nothing in return).

  30. Dan

    even in a drought we export something like 70% of the food we produce. Food security is such a low order problem for Australia it shouldn’t be a consideration for anybody.

    If we reached a point in the future where it was, the planet would be in such a crisis that free trade agreements would be irrelevant.

  31. http://www.electoral-vote.com :

    [the Democratic side, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) can win states where a small number of enthusiastic voters can carry the day (in other words, caucus states) or those that are at least 90% white. Failing that, Hillary Clinton wins. Though Sanders won two states, Clinton took almost 100,000 more votes across the three contests, because she dominated the largest state to vote on Tuesday. Consequently, she took considerably more delegates than the Vermont Senator.
    ]
    Posted after Tuesday’s results…

    Hence why Sanders will do well today in caucus states.

    Obama in 2008 also did well in caucus states in 2008, because he too enjoyed young almost evangelical supporters who were willing to storm caucuses — but the difference is that Obama could still win in large primaries with diverse electorates too. Sanders has limited appear in big state primaries that are not white.

    In 2016, it is funny to see the poor white American folk squeal when they finally realised the system was stacked against them — blacks and latinos have had to put up with it for decades, and are used to working around it rather than trying to “blow the system up” with Sanderian and Trumpist revolutions…

  32. [ Universal health care is a core Liberal policy. ]

    Until they decide its non-core. They do that kind of shit dont cha know Steamsteely.

    And always remember the evidence based truism:

    Its Liberal, It Lies.

  33. It’s funny to watch the Clinton lovers here and more generally start to cling to the deligate numbers that include super deligates, who are not bound to vote how they have stated they will, as Hillary’s real deligate lead starts to slide. The cold hard reality is, that if Hillary’s real deligate lead vanishes, which is still very possible, the super deligates will not ignore the numbers of popularly elected deligates and go for Clinton, because they know very well what the result of that would be. The result of that would be a huge write in Sanders campaign and a Republican victory regardless of candidate, a result which would be thoroughly deserved if it actually did happen. There is already a lot of anger about the process as it is, particularly after the Arizona debacle.

    The facts are that Hillary is just another centrist candidate, who does not inspire and will not bring about a high Democratic turn out. Her approval and trustworthy ratings outside of non rusted on Democrats are very low. Her biggest wins have been in southern states that the Democrats cannot win whoever is their candidate.

  34. It has neither the policies nor the political skills (as evidenced by the way that the Liberals, who otherwise could not arrange a piss-up in a brewery, got them to sign up for the Senate reforms with nothing in return).

    The Greens got an electoral system that is less arbitrary and more driven by conscious voter decisions. They weren’t supporting something they didn’t want. That would be the situation in which you would demand something in return. You don’t seem to grasp how rare it is for a major party to agree to an electoral reform that takes some power away from parties and assigns it to voters instead. The old system was in place for 32 years, despite the overwhelming testimony of impartial rigororous experts that it was flawed.

    OPV deserved to get up on its merits. There was no basis for imperilling the reform by demanding extraneous shit. Threatening to walk away from a once-in-a-generation opportunity to improve the electoral system would have been reckless, and it wouldn’t have worked as a bluff.

  35. As far as that quiz goes, as I said it was merely interesting and certainly not definitive.

    No matter what an internet quiz says, I (and I suspect everyone else on here) will vote for the local candidate they feel will represent them the best.

    In all the electorates I’ve lived in since turning 18 (Perth Grayndler, Perth again), the ALP candidate has always been the one I felt would represent me the best, as well as the electorate and nation.

    It was a no-brainer to vote for (in order) Charlesworth, Smith, Albanese and McTiernan at each federal election.

    Also there’s the fact that on many of the issues raised in that quiz there is no difference at all between the ALP and the Greens.

  36. An election role for Tony Abbott – of course, that’s the solution.

    [Tony Abbott is likely to haunt Malcolm Turnbull during an election campaign, so you might as well give him a role, former Liberal leader John Hewson says.

    The former prime minister quickly made his presence felt when Mr Turnbull indicated that a double dissolution election was likely on July 2 last week, saying the government would be campaigning on policies that were introduced under his leadership.

    “He won’t go away, so I think you give him a role. Define the role very carefully and encourage him to be judged by his performance,” Mr Hewson told Sky News on Sunday.]

    Encourage him to be judged by his performance – what’s that about? Give him an elephant stamp or a bag of mixed lollies if he does well?

    Google: tony-abbott-should-be-given-election-role-by-malcolm-turnbull/

  37. zoomster

    The Chinese, who take a much longer term view of things than any other nation on Earth do think that food security is going to be an issue. That’s why they’ve been snapping up prime agricultural land around the world over the last decade.

    That’s some (ahem) food for thought.

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