As best as I can tell, we have a lean weak ahead for opinion polling (at federal level, at least), as media outlets hold their fire ahead of the resumption of parliament next week. In lieu of that then, here’s a fresh new post-about-nothing – except perhaps for the following preselection news of the past 24 hours:
• The WA Liberals’ state council has overturned the result of last weekend’s local preselection vote in the new seat of Burt, at which Liz Storer, a Gosnells councillor linked to a rising religious conservative faction centred around state upper house MP Nick Goiran, defeated Matt O’Sullivan, who runs mining magnate Andrew Forrest’s GenerationOne indigenous employment scheme. Gareth Parker of The West Australian reports that state council will now determine the matter for itself, on the basis that the 25 branch delegates that determined the vote were insufficient in number. State council otherwise confirmed last week’s locally selected candidates, including Ben Morton who has deposed Dennis Jensen in Tangney. Also decided was a fiercely contested preselection for the state seat of Bateman, in which members of neighbouring seats sought the safer of two berths as set by the redistribution. This resulted in a victory for Dean Nalder, Transport Minister and member for abolished Alfred Cove, over the existing member for Bateman, Matt Taylor. Like the decision in Burt, this represented a defeat for the Goiran faction.
• The Toowoomba-based seat of Groom will be contested for the Liberal National Party by state MP John McVeigh, who won a preselection vote yesterday ahead of David van Gend, a local general practitioner noted for socially conservative views. This will necessitate a by-election in McVeigh’s state seat of Toowoomba South, which McVeigh held on a margin of 8.9%.
• Another important Liberal National Party preselection will be held today in Wide Bay, the seat of retiring former Nationals leader Warren Truss. The candidates are Damien Massingham, chief executive of Tourism Noosa; Tim Langmead, director of external relations at Fortescue Metals; and Llew O’Brien, a police officer. Steven Scott of the Courier-Mail reports Massingham is supported mostly by Liberals, and in particular by Attorney-General George Brandis; Langmead’s backers include Matthias Cormann, along with Fortescue Metals boss Andrew Forrest; and O’Brien is (ahem) supported by Truss.
Agree with ABC giving too much voice to RWNJ’s.
But I think there is a sensible right too that have valid points re: waste and management.
The nut jobs discredit the right in the same way that SHY discredits the left.
All in all the ABC is not helping Australians develop sensible opinions on things. Just fostering ignorance, delusion and mistrust.
Australia badly needs a popular non-ideologically aligned party to pick and enact the best parts of policy from both sides.
Ironically this has somewhat been achieved by the cross bench in the senate in this term.
Fighting Labor’s bank royal commission a no-win for Coalition
It is hard to think of a front on which the Turnbull government’s objections to Labor’s push for a royal commission into the banks works at a political level, whatever the policy arguments.
People love to hate banks of course. But the current cauldron of political considerations makes arguing against a royal commission a particularly difficult row to hoe.
Read more: http://www.afr.com/news/politics/fighting-labors-bank-royal-commission-a-nowin-for-coalition-20160411-go3n6v#ixzz45Zx3S5Nd
-10pts on the netsats for Truffles,
+6 to the netsats for Shorto.
Sometimes the trend just isn’t your friend Mal.
How recalling Parliament could backfire
Monday’s return of Senate and House of Representatives opens potential for massive disruption
IMAGINE a disruptive and unprecedented series of power plays over just a few days in which Parliament is shut down, reopened, shut down, reopened and shut down.
That is the potential chaos from Monday when the Senate and the House of Representatives are recalled following the prorogation — the suspension — of Parliament by vice-regal declaration, announced on March 21.
It could be the ultimate revenge by Labor and the Greens and some crossbench senators on Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, and could bring on campaigning for a double dissolution election earlier than anticipated.
http://www.news.com.au/finance/work/leaders/mondays-return-of-senate-and-house-of-representatives-opens-potential-for-massive-disruption/news-story/4bae374e43d04681f0b4014e33fcd94a
Raara
I think that the fluidity between Green and ALP reflects the reality that there IS fluidity (sorry to give GG and Bemused conniptions). There is a demographic who vote either green or labor, knowing that they preference one another and it makes no practical difference. They may be green today and labor tomorrow, or their partner is green/labor, but fundamentally it is of no great import to them. The main thing is that they would nver vote LNP.
As far as ABC bias goes, we have had 2 ALP guests in a row on 7.30. Before that, I had been making official complaints about the fact that 17 of the prior 19 main interviews on 7.30 were with Government Ministers, only 2 with ALP shadows, since January.
The two ALP were Shorten and Bowen, each following an interview with Turnbull and Morrison the evening before. In other words, only 2 interviews in over 2 months.
The same sort of appearance ratio is seen on AM and Breakfast News almost invariably replays Gov’t Minister i’views from AM or Radio National in full, while usually ignoring ALP appearances. Again, this changed a little this week, no doubt not connected at all with my complaints.
The IPA is given pride of place on The Drum, of course and where Insiders used to alternate ALP/Lib interviews, they changed that late last year to have more Gov’t guests.
It’s difficult to escape the conclusion the ABC has either been ‘nobbled’ or are so cowed by funding cut threats that they fear for their jobs if they don’t favour the Government.
That’s not even counting the numerous Liberal appointees.
Even after that, we have Leigh Sales giggling her way through interviews with Turnbull and becoming the feared interrogator with any ALP guest.
Then, on Lateline, we have Tony Jones, who has an obvious problem with Labor women guests.
New thread.
Really , Labor should hold a Royal Commission into the IPA when elected.
The rouges list of member is frightening & shows LNP corruption in appointments to government bodies ..
John Lloyd – Australian Public Service Commissioner and the former Australian Building and Construction Commissioner[24]
Gina Rinehart – Chairman of Hancock Prospecting
Tim Wilson – former Policy Director of the IPA, former Australian Human Rights Commissioner
Bob Day – Australian Senator from the Family First Party[25]
David Leyonhjelm – Australian Senator from the Liberal Democratic Party[25]
John Elliott – Australian businessman and former president of the Liberal Party, and former president of Carlton Football Club
Kevan Gosper – Former Vice President of the International Olympic Committee
David Penington – Former Vice Chancellor of Melbourne University
James Paterson – Liberal Party Senator for Victoria[26]
Boerwar
A very cute friend for Bluey. :;
oops forgot link
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-03-06/adorable-octopus/7224740
😉 🙂
Caught by the new thread thingy again:
From the previous thread:
Thanks very much for that. A relative’s mother was in a factory, a refugee from Europe after WWII, arrived in Oz about 1950, and it was normal for all of the female workers to have an APC (or two?) at morning break, lunch, and afternoon break. They said it kept them going.
I am interested in the caffeine part. I drink very strong turkish coffee, maybe three or four cups, or more, in the morning, and usually tea after that at lunch and afternoon tea. But even when I don’t have my coffee fix, I don’t get headaches or other symptoms of withdrawal.
I can’t work out why tea would dehydrate you. When I was a kid in Brisbane, nobody drank water, tea was all they ever drank. If it dehydrated you, my family would have died. As a kid the only thing I drank was milk and tea. Lots of tea. Water at school, where there was no tea to be had, but at the weekend and after school, it was just tea, and some milk.
Hey!
blockquote and /blockquote, enclosed in pointy brackets, works on this iteration of PB as a quote!
Does bold work?
Yep, it does.
b and /b enclosed in pointy brackets.