After a few weeks where it appeared the trend to Labor had tapered off, the BludgerTrack poll aggregate records a solid nudge to Labor this week on the back a Newspoll result crediting it with a 51-49 lead. BludgerTrack doesn’t go quite so far, but it does have the Coalition losing a full point off the primary vote since last week. This translates into a surprisingly mild net gain of one for Labor on the seat projection, with gains in New South Wales, Victoria and Tasmania being balanced by losses in Queensland and the Northern Territory – the latter being the result of a methodological tweak (I continue to have very limited faith in my Northern Territory projections one way or the other). Newspoll also provided a new set of data for the leadership ratings, which have maintained their existing trajectories – headlong downward in Malcolm Turnbull’s case, and steadily upwards in Bill Shorten’s.
Two further items of polling floating around in the past few days:
• The Australian has a second tranche of results from Newspoll, relating to the Liberal leadership. The poll finds 57% believe the Liberals were right to depose Tony Abbott, down five since October, with still only 31% opposed, up four. A question on preferred Liberal leader found Malcolm Turnbull leading on 35%, Julie Bishop on 22%, Tony Abbott on 14% and Scott Morrison on 8%. This suggests only modest change since an Essential Research poll in mid-March which had Malcolm Turnbull on 39% (down from 42% in December), Julie Bishop (down one) on 13% and Tony Abbott on 9% (steady), along with high “someone else” and “don’t know” components. Roy Morgan got a very different and much stronger result for Turnbull in October, presumably because respondents were asked who they would favour if they were Liberal or Nationals voters.
• A poll conducted by Research Now by the progressive Australia Institute think tank found 63.4% of 1412 respondents felt Tony Abbott should retire, compared with only 26.3% who preferred that he remain.
Much preselection news to report this week, largely thanks to the Western Australian Liberals, who have conducted a number of important preselection ballots, results of which remain to be confirmed by the party’s state council this weekend:
• The Liberal member for the Perth seat of Tangney, Dennis Jensen, suffered a resounding preselection defeat on the weekend at the hands of the party’s former state director, Ben Morton. Morton’s winning margin in the ballot of local party delegates was 57 to seven. This was the third time Jensen had lost a local preselection vote in a parliamentary career going back to 2004, earlier results having been reversed by the intervention of John Howard in 2007 and the party’s state executive in 2010. Jensen concedes he is unlikely to appeal this time, which would surely be futile given the scale of the defeat and the enthusiasm for Morton among the party hierarchy. Jensen has claimed to be a victim of “dirty tricks” from the Morton camp after news reports emerged last week concerning a novel he had written containing a graphic sex scene, which he says was designed to damage his standing in the eyes of religious conservatives. He has also launched defamation proceedings against The Australian over a report on Friday that he had moved out of the family home to live with his girlfriend at a property located outside the electorate.
• A second WA Liberal preselection on the weekend, for the new Perth seat of Burt, was won by Liz Storer, a Gosnells councillor and staffer for two state MPs prominent in the southern suburban “Christian Right” – upper house member Nick Goiran and Southern River MP Peter Abetz, who is the brother of Tasmanian Senator Eric Abetz. Storer’s win came at the expense of Matt O’Sullivan, who runs mining magnate Andrew Forrest’s GenerationOne indigenous employment scheme. Another preselection vote for the Perth electorate was won by employment consultant Jeremy Quinn over a field that included Darryl Moore, the candidate from 2013; Leona Gu, a property developer and real estate agent; and Trudi Lang, who has recently had roles in France and Switzerland with the OECD and World Economic Forum.
• Liberal MP Nola Marino has seen off a preselection challenge in her seat of Forrest, which covers south-western Western Australia. Marino ultimately enjoyed a 51-16 winning margin over Ben Small, a Bunbury businessman who had “worked in commercial shipping and as a property developer”. Small had the support of Marino’s precedessor, Geoff Prosser, and there were suggestions he was serious threat. However, The West Australian also reported this week that the party’s state council would be “under pressure to rescue Mrs Marino” if Small carried the day.
• The ABC reports there are four candidates for the Liberal preselection to replace Sharman Stone in the regional Victorian seat of Murray: Duncan McGauchie, former policy adviser to the then Victorian premier, Ted Baillieu; Emma Bradbury, Campaspe Shire councillor and chief executive of the Murray Darling Association; Camillus O’Kane, an urban planner; and Andrew Bragg, policy director at the Financial Services Council and an unsuccessful candidate in the Victorian Liberals’ recent Senate preselection.
• Ninety-six preselectors will vote in the Liberals’ Mackellar preselection next weekend, drawn equally from local branches and head office. Contentiously, the former contingent includes four of Bronwyn Bishop’s own staff members. Heath Aston of Fairfax hears Bronwyn Bishop and Jason Falinski are approaching 40 votes each, with 10 to 15 backers of Walter Villatora set to decide it for Falinski on the second round.
God you lot are cynical.
The work Shorten did on Beaconsfield was exemplary. It made those guys friends for life.
The learjet would have come no strings attached. We’re talking life & death situation FFS!
I have friends who are staunch Libs (not many) but just because they have an insane political persuasion, doesn’t mean they are the devil incarnate.
The adversarial aspect of our political system makes people cynical and suspicious of everything the other side does.
If Turnbull hears about Green’s comments on a half-Senate being a better option for his mob, then he is likely to do a double-double-dither. Chickening out on a DD is only going to diminish his reputation future.
Our ‘End of the World’ commenter is probably well into this –
http://www.abc.net.au/triplej/programs/hack/meet-survivalists-massing-bee-pollen-preparing-for-apocalypse/7303642
Adrian #91
I know a pretty articulate and intelligent bloke who loves smoking dope and is 101% un-ambitious. i think Labor should parachute him in, and make him leader.
Since he’s unambitious he is therefore without fault, and a perfect potential candidate to lead the country.
zoomster@94
Yeah, right. Contrary to all the reporting, the 4C program and The Killing Season reports.
Future = further
I didnt know about the stockpiling of pollen, but someone is doing it with pine nuts and vanilla pods and its driving the price through the roof. Not happy Jan.
[The learjet would have come no strings attached. We’re talking life & death situation FFS!]
Not sure about either of those sentences. How important to the rescue was Shorten and his regular attendance?
Everything has strings attached. Its my political version of String Theory.
[Good luck with finding a candidate for PM without immense ambition.]
Reminds me of Churchill’s put-down of Attlee: A modest man who has much to be modest about.
At the risk of sounding like a mystic – at every point in life there are choices. The choices we make determines both our path and how people perceive us. The fact that there are underlying (but generally unknown by others) factors that guide our choices can skew the resultant perception.
Malcolm recently made a choice. It appears that choice is looking ‘untimely’ in that he jumped too soon without the appropriate foundation.
Shorten didn’t do any jumping for himself until the time was right. Yes Albo is a great Labor warrior and I voted for him in the ballot. But looking at how things stand now, I am glad Shorten won the top job from his peers. The know more about the inner workings and the underlying imperatives and chose well.
While many of us like to be loud and proud Labor warriors ourselves, Shorten’s measured and steady rise in the perception of the public is drawing a strong line in the sand between the insanity that was Tony Abbott’s tenure as Opp leader/PM and a more sensible, well-thought-out form of government.
I think many saw Malcolm as being this figure … but Shorten has done what Malcolm hasn’t: shown substance.
In a way, love him or hate him, Howard was like that. He projected surety. Shorten is now projecting surety.
V1J
[One could say the same thing about a police commissioner and a mafia boss. It is about perception. It is not a good look.]
It is not a criminal offence (yet) to head a right wing think tank.
bemused
I had a Labor mate once who was involved with the movement to return water to the Snowy.
A few years later, another friend – a journo – wrote a definitive history on the subject.
A month or so later, I met up with a couple of the Labor types from down the Snowy way. The jist of the conversation was that the account of what happened diverged significantly from our own memories of the time, particularly as it related to my Labor mate’s involvement.
“Nup,” he said. “It doesn’t matter what any of you think you remember. It’s what’s in the book that counts – that’s what history will say.”
So I’m not quite as trusting of you about statements made on the public record, by people protecting their reputations.
Bemused Comrade #104
“Yeah, right. Contrary to all the reporting, the 4C program and The Killing Season reports.”
I invite you to thoroughly research that bit in both shows which focuses on the phone call to Gillard which she stepped out of the meeting with Rudd to take, and her change of mind regarding the assurances she’d given Rudd a few minutes earlier.
She was placed by “others” firmly between a rock and a hard place ie WTTE “we’re going ahead with or without you…. we don’t give a stuff about the assurances you just gave Rudd”
I refute your recollection that those shows showed either Shorten or Gillard as prime movers. I am not suggesting that they were victims of the circumstances, but as I said earlier, their roles are greatly exaggerated by media and folklore and others with an axe to grind.
psyclaw@112
I have commented on the reservations I had about Shorten and how his performance has now caused me to set those aside.
I don’t really want to be dragged back into the past.
psyclaw and zoomster
My position re Shorten is pretty much the same as Bemused. I had/have great disquiet about some of his friends, but he is doing pretty well just now.
But research all you like.
My pretty oimpeccable sources tell me Shorten DID play a big role, along with the rest of the powerful AWU. Possibly Bill and Wayne and the repulsive Howes (alias worm tongue) were simply doing as they were told by the big daddy, but a hand in it they most certainly DID. Shorten was definitely up to his eyeballs in the 2012 leadership debacle and i was told in the weeks leading to it, that Shorten had cleaverly manipulated Rudd into making a challenge when it was too early and he would certainly lose. My impeccable source seemed to ber on the money as events transpired.
But hey it is ALP politics and by an large I know it for political reality. However when you play the game you betta bloody win.
Zoomster out of interset (and I am denying their role, so it is a genuine question) which section of the Victorian left are we talking of. this has long puzzeld me- my roots are NSW left and my Vic knowledge scanty. We know it was not the tanner group. Are we talking Kim Carr? I do know the SA left had a bit of (large) role and some sections of the NSW left.
There were some interesting interactions in the Senate hearing on budget measures this morning with the new head of CSIRO being pressed hard by a number of senators. The hearing will be continued at a later date.
FWIW despite what the media and LNP say if Shorten was the point person for numbers in deciding PM when Labor was in government that speaks well for his political skills.
Both times he was on the winning side. A plus for any politician surely.
Thats if you buy the narrative that being seen to have two phones when out dining means you are a powerbroker. No reason at all for anyone to have a personal phone and a work phone none at all.
7NewsQueensland: Federal Court judge labells lawsuit against the CFMEU as an “abuse of process”: https://t.co/DbZlfT3MXz #7News
sspencer_63: Pollie Pedal is a preview of the Election campaign, where media follow Abbott seeking a 2nd opinion on every Turnbull pronouncement.
[I do know the SA left had a bit of (large) role]
Okay, now I know for certain you’re either taking out your arse or you so-called “impeccable” source is.
Speaking on behalf of the SA Labor Left, I can assure you that Don Farrell isn’t and never has been a member of our faction.
Try again.
Criticising Shorten for who he’s friends with is just ridiculous. How many bludgers here are friends with Liberals? I have a friend who I’m quite fond of, despite his being a hard-core Liberal. Does that mean my progressive credentials are somehow lessened? I’ve heard that Albanese and Pyne are quite good friends out of office – does that lessen Albanese’s lefist credentials?
Attacking Shorten for who his friends are is pretty much identical to criticism from right-wingers at TURC over his exemplary negotiation with Thiess/EastLink that managed to satisfy the employees, the employer, and deliver the EastLink ahead of schedule, because he had the temerity to negotiate rather than engage in conflict.
I would’ve thought that the fact that Shorten is able to get on with people with very different ideological worldviews would a sign of intellectual strength, not weakness.
On this Shorten bit, some comments as I see it:
1. John Roskam. It is possible to be very good friends with someone who sees the world completely different from you – it’s just harder. It is well known that Antonin Scalia’s closest friend on the US Supreme Court was Ruth Bader Ginsburg, his political and judicial philosophical opposite. Roskam was a friend of Shorten’s from school and the friendship has stuck.
2. I paid no attention to Beaconsfield at the time, seeing it as largely cheap reality TV by the time all the networks had finished with it. However, not long after I was told by someone associated closely with the rescue (but not the company) that Shorten’s presence and grandstanding was a real problem with the rescue. That comment coloured my view of Shorten. Of course, from the perspective of the family and friends, his presence and involvement may have been incredibly reassuring in all the uncertainty, which is why they have supported him ever since. We can see how difficult perspective becomes in these situations as each of the Sydney siege victims gives their personal perspective to the coroner’s court.
3. I didn’t have a vote because I am not a Labor Party member, but I did watch the leadership debates. Like most Labor supporters, I favoured Albanese because he was far more likely to take the fight up to the Liberals the way Abbott did for them when LOTO. However, to my surprise Shorten did seem to be the most convincing and committed to my ears when listening to the debates.
4. Since then, he has defied demands that he give back to the Coalition what Labor got from 2010 to 2013. Initially, I was in that camp, but it became obvious that it would not work because the media would not report every comment the way they did with Abbott. In fact, it became clear that Abbott got a uniquely special pass from the media. So Shorten and co worked on a 3 year game plan, because that was the real time frame for the term. As time has gone on it has become obvious to me that this was absolutely the right way to go, rather than try and do the same as Abbott and pursue the Liberals to the bottom of the cesspit.
5. In an echo of Sherlock Holmes’s curious incident of the dog in the night time, what did not happen can be more significant than what did. In the case of Labor, what did not happen was the historically inevitable bloodletting following a disastrous defeat. Indeed, there has not been a whiff of leadershit from within the Parliamentary Party. All we have heard from are nervous nellies, policy purists (with a belief that only their hobby horse is important), people who have the worst interests of Labor at heart, and the lazy press looking for copy ghosted by political game players.
Unlike a few people here, I have not clung to my prejudices. Where the events unfolding before my eyes are inconsistent with my prejudices, I tested those prejudices and found them wanting in the case of Bill Shorten. They were also wanting in the case of Turnbull, whose only achievement is to dash the expectations of everyone except the right of his own party. Abbott, however, reinforced them in spades.
A few others here need to look at their own prejudices and let go of past grievances. Gillard and Rudd have moved on, despite their ill-judgement in agreeing to be interviewed by Sarah Ferguson for the Killing Season. Shorten showed his superior judgement by having nothing to do with the program. Both Gillard and Rudd have done the right thing by Labor by keeping well away from Australian politics for now, leaving the Coalition’s desperate attempts to tie Bill Shorten and Labor now back to them – especially repeating Julia Gillard’s name as though she was the bogeyman.
[I would’ve thought that the fact that Shorten is able to get on with people with very different ideological worldviews would a sign of intellectual strength, not weakness.]
It has always been a sign of weakness for ideologues and fanatics and something to be despised by them. Montaigne and other centrists in the time of the extreme Protestant-Catholic violence in France at the end of the 16th century were despised by both sides as ‘politiques’ because they thought peace and cooperation were better for the country.
chinda63@119
Fascinating! You are the SA Labor Left official spokesperson.
Poor Don, he must be terribly disappointed to not be one of your members. 😛
[sspencer_63: Pollie Pedal is a preview of the Election campaign, where media follow Abbott seeking a 2nd opinion on every Turnbull pronouncement.]
I can just see news crews haunting one of the safest electorates in the country as the sitting member makes a great show of campaigning to win it again.
MayneReport: With Xenophon a big threat in SA, watch Pyne lead bail out push for Whyalla steel works after Abbott’s callous disregard on subs & cars.
guytaur @ 117
[7NewsQueensland: Federal Court judge labells lawsuit against the CFMEU as an “abuse of process”: https://t.co/DbZlfT3MXz #7News]
I bet you won’t see Cash quoting THAT Federal Court judge!
dtt
I was told Kim Carr less than a week after the coup. My sources are more than impeccable.
But, as I said earlier, history will say what those who went on the record want it to say – regardless.
political_alert: Opposition Leader @billshortenmp @SenKimCarr & @NickChampionMP have released a statement on Arrium #saparli #auspol https://t.co/BOS3JtZ9AJ
Re TPOF @121: you make some good points, especially point number 4. Tony Abbott’s style of leadership doesn’t work if you don’t have the media onside. Abbott, of course, had not only nearly all of the mainstream media onside but the nation’s biggest media organisation actively pushing his cause. Had any Labor Opposition Leader who came to the post after the 2013 election behaved like Tony Abbott, his or her antics would have been either ignored, reported very negatively or ridiculed.
Labor presser now
Adrian
[Good luck with finding a candidate for PM without immense ambition.]
10.4
Wasn’t the very blessed St Kev the epitome.
Great points being made by Senator Carr
Sorry Karr
I just placed a small bet on the election ALP winning at 3.5 to 1. Victorian TAB. I think get in quick before the odds change again.
TPOF at 121:
Top post.
I would only add that the obvious conclusion to reach regarding Shorten’s friendship with Roskam is that both men have, since their youth, been interested (passionate) in what might be good for Australia. This joint interest, albeit from different perspectives, is a perfectly sensible basis for a committed friendship.
Indeed, that their friendship remains despite very different perspectives is to the credit of each. It shows a willingness to tolerate the legitimacy of alternative paradigms to one’s own. To me, this trait is far to be preferred over dogmatic rejection – apart from anything else, because there is always more than one legitimate way to look at any political problem.
political_alert: .@SenKimCarr: The Government has to have the bottle to defend communities & industries that depend on Australian steel #auspol #Arrium
JD@120: Agree wholeheartedly. By all accounts, when the parliament was in the Old Parlaiment building just down the slope towards the lake, the pollies used to mingle far more and many across the party divide were good friends.
We seem to have lost some civility since, and have forgotten that all of them are still Australian; even if we would never vote for many of them in a fit.
Abbott’s much vaunted trade agreements may not be looking too good as a vote winner (if they ever were) in light of the extent to which Arrium’s woes are due to dumping of foreign steel.
Sportsbet has Coalition $1.25, Labor $3.90, implying about a 25% probability of a Labor win.
guytaur@133
??? Who?
ABCNews24: .@SenKimCarr: The #steel industry has been subject to a vigorous assault by Chinese steel companies. #Arrium #auspol
guytaur
You were right the first time it is Carr.
bemused
I was right the first time. Just ignore the 133
guytaur@143
I can safely ignore a lot of your posts.
G
You were getting him mixed up with Kim Kardashian. Easy mistake.
SK
😆
_________________________
Pyne presser now
Listening to Pyne on Arrium now.
You can tell how terrified he is of this development in that he did not bag Labor once (apart from an apolitical reference to repealing the carbon tax) in his press conference.
Shorten has outsmarted them all.
A bloke I had dinner with last night said that this was what he couldn’t stand about Shorten: he was an AWU backstabber, brought up in the School For Scoundrels that the AWU was, is and always will be etc. etc.
I pointed out to him that Shorten had united a savagely defeated, decimated party with persuasion and calm management, and was projecting this onto potential future national leadership. He wasn’t a fanatic, or a spruiker, or a braggart.
But even decent people have to act harshly sometimes. I’ve just read a delightful autobiography by Sir David Attenborough. At one stage he was promoted to Head Of BBC2, at its very inception as a broadcast network. Yes, he did lots of good things – commissioning this groundbreaking TV series, backing that unlikely idea that has now become a world standard for television excellence and so on – but he also had to fire people. There were no “I hated doing this” statements, or emotional anguish episodes from Attenborough. These people had to be fired and he did it as part of the job. Many of them he certainly knew, and you can be sure he did it in a decent, fair manner. But he did it. Sometimes you have to.
Sometimes Bill Shorten would certainly have had to do things he would rather not have done – like voting against Gillard in 2013, who had given him such support with the NDIS. Certainly he might have forseen as one commentator at the time did (I’ve forgotten who it was now), who said: get rid of Rudd, then withdraw support from Gillard knowing Rudd will fail again, then be Opposition leader, then serve your time rebuilding, and finally you become PM. This prophecy is becoming increasingly accurate. The next month or two will tell us for sure.
But so what? Others have said above that if you don’t have ambition, you certainly aren’t fit to be PM in this modern world. Perhaps there were some previous PMs who were drafted, modest men (always men), humble and self-effacing, who nevertheless got the job. But in the end someone had to win and someone had to lose. Ambition and self-confidence were required. You don’t get that by hiding your light under a bush. It’s very hard to get to the top without wanting to, and taking steps at the right time.
I don’t begrudge Bill shorten his ambition, and the smarts to see the way ahead for himself. In fact, I don’t think I’d want a PM who didn’t have those qualities, and who didn’t have the ability to borrow a Lear jet or two when the occasion demanded it, especially from a class enemy.
Whatever you think about Shorten, he’s played a very smart hand, with very poor cards, at a very shabby table. his enemies have tried to involve him in all kinds of scandals, calling for his resignation “for the good of the party” (as if!), and generally trying to denigrate him with faint praise.
But look who’s laughing now!
To be Prime Minister you have to be able to listen to all points of view, and to make contact with all kinds of people. You have to do that pretty genuinely. Someone who can get along with a broad spectrum of associates and acquaintances is necessary as a PM. As is someone who can plan ahead without scaring the horses, thinking several moves in advance.
So far Shorten has made every move one that takes him, his party and the nation closer to the almost impossible dream of a 1-term Labor resurgence. He deserves a lot of credit for that, and a lot ore regard than some here are giving him.
Bob Hawke and Sir Peter Abeles anyone?
Did that friendship make Hawkie any less than one of Australia’s best ever PMs? No!
So, Vote1Julia and MTBW could you both give the dog a bone!?!
Bill Shorten has what it takes to be the next Hawkie in my book.