I’ve finally gotten around to updating BludgerTrack with the leadership ratings from Monday’s Newspoll, so the finalised weekly reading of that can be found at the bottom of the post. As well as that, a small number of campaign news snippets to relate:
• The Coalition parties in New South Wales are still yet to resolve the order of their Senate ticket, which is proving problematic with respect to the balance between the Liberals and the Nationals, and competing Liberal factions. Liberal incumbents needing to be accommodated are Connie Fierravanti-Wells, Marise Payne and Arthur Sinodinos, and they are joined by Nationals Senators Fiona Nash and John Williams of the Nationals, for whom inter-party arrangements appear to have secured the second and fifth spot respectively. However, the Centre Right faction of the Liberal Party is also very keen to find a place for newcomer Hollie Hughes, who won top position for the half-Senate ticket at a preselection vote in March, before agreeing to a swap with second-placed Fierravanti-Wells, a member of the hard Right. With a full ticket now required for a double dissolution, Hughes and Fierravanti-Wells are battling for fourth place, with the loser set to be relegated to sixth, with first and third set to go to Payne and Sinodinos. Joe Aston of the Financial Review today reports that Hughes is likely to miss out, with both Malcolm Turnbull and Scott Morrison pushing for Fierravanti-Wells, despite Morrison’s factional alignment with Hughes. However, Sarah Martin of The Australian reported earlier this week that the situation was up in the air because moderates were split between competing desires to honour their alliance with the Centre Right by favouring Hughes, or support the leadership by favouring Fierravanti-Wells. The matter is being determined through a ballot of the party’s state executive conducted by email, the result of which is expected at any tick of the clock.
• The Northern Territory News reports that two candidates have formally declared for the preselection to replace Nova Peris as Labor’s Senate candidate in the Northern Territory: Malarndirri McCarthy, a former ABC journalist and member of the Northern Territory parliament from 2005 to 2012, and Kon Vatksalis, president of the Northern Territory Leukaemia Foundation and a member of the territory parliament from 2001 to 2014. Also considering there options are Marion Scrymgour, a former Deputy Chief Minister and member from 2001 and 2012, and Ursula Raymond, Peris’s chief-of-staff. Fleur Anderson of the Financial Review noted that Scrymgour was “regarded as an unpredictable candidate” because she had sat as an independent for a period in 2009 following a disagreement over government policy concerning remote communities. Katskalis presumably starts from a disadvantage in that all other candidates are indigenous women. The matter will be determined by the party’s chief executive.
• After lingering rather too long on its starting odds of $1.35 for Labor and $3 for the Greens, Sportsbet is now offering $1.50 on the Greens and $2.50 on Labor in David Feeney’s seat of Batman.
Day 67
DOUG THE DUGONG’S DAILY DELUSIONS: Day 67 of the long march of Emperor Malcayman’s Grande Armée.
BLUEY WITHDRAWAL DAY 6 (and counting):
CEPHALOPODS RULE
Doug is not saying that all dugongs are as stupid as he is (even if they are JS Mill’s conservatives) but less than a week into the acerbic comments biz and Doug is scratching for ideas – and the brevity that is the soul of wit. Doug doesn’t know how Bluey does it, but looks forward to his return.
SWIMMING IN CIRCLES
Doug has to concede that his right flipper is but a shrivelled stump and he grazes on sea Greens, so he tends to get his delusions of adequacy by foraging in media less contaminated by toxic runoff from the Murdoch propaganda farms, like the Gruniad, the PBtariat, BK, IA, cartoonists and some of the less polluted areas of Their ABC, leading to a certain bias.
Despite this, Doug has noticed a distinct tendency to visually vallorize HD Bill, and a corresponding diminishment in the Wentworth Gelding (risible Rupertatian photoshopping and brain-damaged Leaks excepted). Doug notes that HD Bill can actually handball a footie as well as being a shoulder to cry on. Contrast this with rooting for tubers with a beetroot and pissing off wee country kids, and Doug is beginning to think that even the CPG knows where this campaign is going.
And so to work…
BURIED TREASURE(R)S
Doug reckons the poor, rough beasts of the CPG, bored out of their tiny brains by a campaign longer than their collective attention spans, found the debate between Scummo and Cleanskin Bowen insufficiently uncivilised. Nothing much happened. How surprisement. Scummo kept claiming that there were more fat poor people to flense for the delectation of his owners. Bowen kept barking about getting AAA’s for education. Scum claimed that Malware had already produced all the Wabbits he had his top hat in the invisible budget of less than a month ago, and that a black hole ate his calculator. Cleanskin pointed out that Scummo should know how much his owners wanted from the rest of us. Scum said” How would I know? I’m only the Treasurer”.
OK. Quickly now.
MAD DOGS AND…
Doug notes that empty MT objected to HD Bills characterisation of ProtoPresident Drumpf as barking mad. MT reserves that category for his Deputy, the Barking Beetroot.
GHUUUUUUUNT!
And now, a story very close to Doug’s heart. Will Steffen and the Climate Council pointed out the runaway bleaching event that is currently affecting Australia in UN Climate Reports.
BRAIN SALAD SURGERY
Doug salutes Brian Owler as he ends his AMA Presidency with a comprehensive turnip ablation.
Turnbull will be glad to see the departure of Brian Owler.
A “bug”might have been the cause of the Telstra outage but not the cause of its abominable handling of the issue!
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-05-27/telstra-executive-apologises-for-latest-network-outage/7453546
1m
Nick Ross @NickRossTech
I missed this $60bn reason for building an ‘nbn’ #NBN (link: http://www.abc.net.au/technology/articles/2013/02/21/3695094.htm) abc.net.au/technology/art…
I thought Marion Scrymgour might have harmed her chances when she quit the party. She also made comments that she wouldn’t rule out running as an independent when Nova Peris was chosen for the senate. Scrymgour has alot of abilty, but the party can’t hand seats to people who are not going to be loyal to the party whether you think Scrymgour was right or wrong. Chief of staff to Nova Peris Ursula Raymond is front runner to replace Peris in the senate.
“Ms McCarthy and Ms Scrymgour both have experience as Northern Territory Labor ministers but could be set back by some of their decisions in government.
In 2007, Ms McCarthy crossed the floor to vote against Labor’s legislation to allow the expansion of the McArthur River Mine near Borroloola.
Ms Scrymgour quit the Labor Party in 2009 but rejoined two months later.”
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-05-27/election-2016-senator-nova-peris-replacement/7455180
don @ #364 Friday, May 27, 2016 at 4:01 pm
Thanks for that. I knew that molluscs were directly affected, but wasn’t sure about crustaceans.
“Very few people vote for the candidate, most people in Batman will vote for the ALP or Libs or Greens etc. Do you think the people in Northcote who have million dollar homes are worried he is one of them? May be worth 3% against him.”
Phurt, the Northcote millionaires are already solidly Green.
http://results.aec.gov.au/17496/website/HouseDivisionTcpByPollingPlace-17496-199.htm
It’s Preston, Regent and Reservoir that keeps Feeney. But yes, there as well, I think he’s done enough to remind those few people who pay attention why they don’t like him.
Turnbull really is a terrible campaigner, isn’t he?
I’m the smartest guy in the room is not a good campaign strategy.
Martin B
Friday, May 27, 2016 at 10:56 pm
Turnbull really is a terrible campaigner, isn’t he?
David @10:00
I’d say that Ms. Scrymgoeur has done rather worse by her chances than Ms. McCarthy has. Her stuffup is both newer and larger – crossing the floor on one bill isn’t anything like quitting the party altogether!
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