Monday miscellany

An assembly of Section 44 detritus and recent federal preselection news.

Some Section 44 and recent preselection news to kick off a sorely needed new federal politics thread:

• The Australian Electoral Commission will today push the button on Senate recounts mandated by the High Court to determine replacements for Fiona Nash (New South Wales, Nationals), Larissa Waters (Greens, Queensland) and Scott Ludlam (Greens, Western Australia). It is a known known that this will result in the election of, respectively, Hollie Hughes, Andrew Bartlett and Jordon Steele-John. The first of these raises a complication in that Hughes is from the Liberals rather than Nationals, which upsets finely calibrated provisions of the coalition agreement.

• Tasmanian Liberal Senator Stephen Parry’s Section 44-related vacancy is set to be filled by Richard Colbeck, the highest placed unelected candidate on the Liberal Senate ticket last year, in keeping with the established precedent of dealing with disqualifications by recounting the votes as if the disqualified member had not been on the ballot paper. Colbeck was a Senator from 2002 until his defeat in 2016, which followed his dumping from top of the ticket in 2013 to fifth place. This was widely seen as an exercise of power by Senator Eric Abetz against the only Liberal MP in the state who had supported Malcolm Turnbull’s challenge to Tony Abbott. Many Liberal voters rebelled against this arrangement by voting for Colbeck by the line, although he failed to match Labor’s Lisa Singh achievement in defeating the party colleague listed above him.

• Parry’s departure also opens a can of worms in that a recount would not just result in Colbeck being elected in his stead. As a recount from the published raw data conducted by Grahame Bowland shows, the vagaries of below-the-line preferences are such that the final spot would be won not by Greens Senator Nick McKim, who made it to the final seat by a margin of 141 votes, but by Kate McCulloch of One Nation, who on the new count would finish 227 votes ahead of McKim. As Kevin Bonham explains, it is debatable whether the High Court would indeed declare McKim retrospectively unelected, or if it would deem his election beyond its remit on the grounds that only Parry had had his election annulled by disqualification (the latter being Antony Green’s view).

• An earlier report on the Tasmanian Liberals’ Senate preselection in The Mercury indicated Claire Chandler, a risk adviser at Deloitte Australia, had emerged as a challenger for the next election to incumbents Jonathon Duniam and David Bushby. Chandler could potentially lay a strong claim if only by promising to break the persistent male domination of the Tasmanian Liberals’ federal contingent, which stood at seven out of seven before three lost their seats in 2016.

• Voting is to open this Friday on the preselection for the Greens Senate preselection in New South Wales, in which incumbent Lee Rhiannon faces a challenge from state upper house MP Mehreen Faruqi. According to Sean Nicholls in the Sydney Morning Herald, this is being a viewed as a challenge by the party’s moderate tendency, associated with Faruqi’s Legislative Council colleague Jeremy Buckingham, against Rhiannon’s hard left faction.

The Guardian reports that “Greens internal processes” appear to encourage Senators to make way for their preselected successors before their election, by vacating their seats and having them fill the casual vacancy. On this basis, Larissa Waters, who has confirmed she will again seek preselection after losing her seat to the vagaries of Section 44, may replace her designed successor, Andrew Bartlett, following a preselection to be held over the coming months. However, Bartlett appears non-committal as to his own longer term aspirations. The report also notes that Lee Rhiannon might be expected to relinquish her seat to Mehreen Faruqi if she loses the New South Wales preselection discussed above.

Andrew Clennell of The Australian reports that Lucy Mannering, a Commonwealth Bank lawyer and ex-wife of former Australian Workers Union national secretary Paul Howes, is emerging as a potential compromise candidate for Labor preselection candidate for the Sydney seat of Banks, which the party uncharacteristically lost in 2013 and 2016. The preselection has loomed as a contest between Chris Gambian, a union official favoured by the CFMEU, and Paul Garratt, who has the backing of the Maritime Union of Australia, of which he is an assistant secretary. Another potential contender is Jason Yat-Sen Li, a Chinese community leader and unsuccessful candidate for Bennelong in 2013.

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.

940 comments on “Monday miscellany”

Comments Page 19 of 19
1 18 19
  1. Even the ABC has caught up finally and are wondering if something or nothing is going on in Saudi Arabia.

    I think the confluence of events there are just coincidence.

    The Crown Prince is doing exactly what he said he’d do – try to decrease the influence of radical Islamic sects and move the country towards being like a more modern and moderate ‘western’ society.

    No coup / no conspiracy.

  2. The Constitution is the highest law of Australia. It clearly states that if you are entitled to the rights or privileges of a citizen of a foreign power you are not entitled to sit in parliament until you show you are fully committed to Australia by simply renouncing or attempting to renounce. What someone believes or wants to believe is not relevant.

    It may be an irrelevant law, however it is easy to comply with and not preventing anyone from running. The simply need to sacrifice their citizenship that they say is not important to them.

  3. daretotread says:

    The US economy is in trouble No it’s not.

    Firstly it has lost its place as the manufacturing nation. US manufacturing is about 15% of world manufacturing. So what? You just don’t understand the international division of labour and capital or the nature of economic development.

    Secondly it spends more than it earns, hence its huge current account deficit and debt levels. This is false. The US current account deficit has been stable or falling for years, while the balance of trade has been stable for a long time in absolute terms and falling in relative terms. This also fails to take account of production by US firms in external domains for supply in those domains, and the role of US workers in running those firms. The US economy is extra-national.

    In any case, movement in the current account is by definition balanced by opposite movements in the capital account. As long as some economies are in surplus, others must be in deficit. But what this actually means is the surplus economies are cycling their excess national savings into the economies of the deficit economies. In fact, the excess national savings of Chinese households are financing capital accumulation and investment in America. As these excess savings decline, so too are capital flows out of China and as trans-border capital flows decline so too are transfers on the current account.

    This is all actually bad news in a certain way. It reflects the decline in the growth rate of world trade, which is a much bigger problem for trade-dependant economies like ours than it is for continentally self-reliant economies like the US.

    The US debt to GDP ratios are high No they are not. This is a specious assertion.

    Thirdly wages have stagnated Nominal wages have barely moved for many years in industrial economies. This signifies recurrent global deflationary pressures, a function of weak investment, declining rates of technology transfer, fiscal failures, a generalised unwillingness to reflate demand, environmental failures, endemic political weakness, the failure to resolve military conflicts, ubiquitous economic nationalism…and so on…

    Fourthly inequality has risen sharply Nowhere more so than in Russia, by far the least equal and most corrupt industrial economy.

    Fifthly job insecurity is higher and in the US this means loss of health care which can be life or death.And which has been prosecuted by your and Putin’s choice for President.

  4. CTar1 says:
    Tuesday, November 7, 2017 at 12:11 am
    briefly

    It is just fatuous to suppose that anyone in Alexander’s situation would see themselves as anything but solely Australian.
    Malcolm Roberts to a tee.

    Not at all. He could well have died before he could have been legally found to be an alien for the purposes of 44(i). He will have lived his entire life as either a non-alien British subject (prior to 1948) or as a solely Australian citizen (between 1948 and 1999).

    This is all just rubbish.

  5. Kold

    Yep.

    The purpose of the requirement is open to question but for now it is the requirement and there is no excuse for those in breech of it other that what has been set out by the HC.

    A won referendum is required to make the situation different and I simply say ‘good luck’ to those wanting to change it.

  6. I can’t stand Malcolm Roberts and I wish he’d die horribly, but…

    The drawback of democracy is that even idiots are entitled to representation. Roberts was elected because enough people voted for him (or his party, anyway). Then he was disqualified on a piddly techinicality. If we applaud the system because it produced an outcome we agree with, we have to be prepared to cop it sweet when the next decision goes against us.

    Or, we could grit our teeth, and try for a system that’s fair to everyone, no matter how much we hate a particular result.

  7. I know that’s not what it says. I’m suggesting that’s what I believe it should say. That’s how I would change the constitution, if I could.

    And yes, I realise it’s not going to happen.

  8. It is peculiar but worth noting that the Australian Citizenship Act of 1948 deemed that Australian citizens were also British Subjects. I dunno how that worked from a jurisdictional perspective. But it is in the Act…Australia created its own citizens as subjects of a power that 51 years later would be found to be an alien power….such a shambles.

  9. And I should add that, no, Australian law isn’t presently the arbitur. It depends on the law of other countries, under what circumstances they grant citizenship. That should be unacceptable. Our law should decide, and no other.

  10. a r says:
    That’s just not what it says. It says you must 1) be a citizen, and 2) have no allegiance other than to Australia.

    That’s not really what 44(i) says. The section is in 3 parts. Only the first relates to allegiance. The HC clearly noted it was not concerned with allegiance; merely with the discoverable facts of foreign citizenship. It explicitly booted Deane on this point.

    The allegiance of none of the 7 has been called in to question at any time.

  11. briefly

    He could well have died before he could have been legally found to be an alien for the purposes of 44(i). He will have lived his entire life as either a non-alien British subject (prior to 1948) or as a solely Australian citizen (between 1948 and 1999).

    You seem to be talking of Gilbert Alexander – what he believed is not germane at all.

    John Alexander could not have been unaware that his father was born in the UK.

    John Alexander has also spent many years overseas working as a tennis coach so would also have a knowledge and working understanding of citizenship requirements.

    You’re flogging a dead horse. If John Alexander didn’t understand what ‘ticking the box’ meant he should have asked.

  12. Ante Meridian @ #909 Monday, November 6th, 2017 – 11:41 pm

    And I should add that, no, Australian law isn’t presently the arbitur. It depends on the law of other countries, under what circumstances they grant citizenship. That should be unacceptable. Our law should decide, and no other.

    I think that’s a matter of perspective. I see it as Australian law explicitly stating that international law is relevant to the decision. It’s still Australian law that makes the final decision, and Australian law that prescribes how the decision is to be made.

    briefly @ #910 Monday, November 6th, 2017 – 11:44 pm

    a r says:
    That’s just not what it says. It says you must 1) be a citizen, and 2) have no allegiance other than to Australia.

    That’s not really what 44(i) says. The section is in 3 parts. Only the first relates to allegiance. The HC clearly noted it was not concerned with allegiance; merely with the discoverable facts of foreign citizenship. It explicitly booted Deane on this point.

    Yes. I was summarizing. Perhaps poorly, but I think s44 is generally well understood here.

  13. Australian Law is currently the arbiter. Australian Law is, you have to renounce or take all reasonable steps to renounce. Even if a foreign country made all Australian’s citizens of their fair nation, we would all be aware of that fact and could take reasonable steps to renounce. Done.

    All Australian Law is asking, which should not to be too much for someone wishing to represent the country they love and hold dear, is to renounce or attempt to renounce.

    Someone unwilling to sacrifice a foreign held allegiance before running for the privilege of sitting in our nations parliament probably shouldn’t be there based on that fact alone.

  14. CTar1 says:
    Tuesday, November 7, 2017 at 12:45 am
    briefly

    The point is in fact that belief or surmise were not relevant. It was simply the case that until 1999 British Subjects were not aliens at all. The matter of dual citizenship in the case of British citizens seemingly did not arise until after the finding by the HC in 1999. Alexander’s father could have been an Australian sole-citizen for as long as he lived here – for almost his entire life – and then been found to have been a UK citizen after he had died. What use is a posthumous citizenship?

  15. I understand what you’re saying a r , but I don’t see it that way.

    If I ruled the world – or Australia, at least – we would set the test for Australian citizenship and that would be that. Pass and you’re in, fail and you’re out. If another country claims you as a citizen, that’s up to them, but it has no bearing on our decision.

  16. It depends on the law of other countries, under what circumstances they grant citizenship.

    This is my beef with S44 as it stands. You can essentially be born in and lived and worked in Australia your entire life, never having travelled overseas at all, and yet through the lottery of parental or grandparental biology be claimed as a technical citizen of another country.

    And seeing as countries are constantly changing their laws, is it reasonable to ask sitting MPs, even those who have been members for decades to keep their fingers on the pulse of those legislative changes to citizenship in countries they’ve never been to and maybe never will visit?

  17. Ctar1

    John Gorton was born in Wellington, NZ. He will never have renounced anything. He would have been created an Australian Citizen by the Act of 1948. As a British Subject he would not have been legally regarded as an alien – as a dual citizen – until the finding in 1999, long after he left the Parliament (1975). He will likely only have become a dual citizen three years before his death, and not as a result of anything he did or did not do.

  18. On a different subject, although debate on whether weather is Australian or not is possible (I’m starting to think rain is not), I am very disappointed in today’s rain event.

    The BoM had us on a strong promise that here in Canberra we’d get better than 50mm. We got a whole 18mm of nuisance rain this morning and outside the paving is dry as the proverbial witches boob and the sky clear.

    I’m pi##ed off as I still, until now, had some hopes for some oats and barley crops a little west of here. That the Wheat was buggered was obvious weeks ago when it ‘flagged’ and the flags had small wrinkles on their ends.

    I guess there’s always next year, f$ck it!

  19. Gorgeous days in Perth…mid 30’s, easterly winds, mild evenings and well-lit by the full moon; blue heavens, unmarked by clouds and radiant…

  20. CTari,

    Your tale of woe sound woeful. My sympathies. Even though I don’t understand what “flag” is. Or why small wrinkles on the ends are a problem.

    Anyway, better luck next year.

  21. Confessions,

    There is that problem, however that would not affect many people at all. Most cases by far are because of parental citizenship and/or their place of birth, as has been shown by the cases so far.
    People can’t claim ignorance with regards to their parents, nor where they themselves were born.

    I would be interested to see a case before the HC where citizenship has been transferred from a grandparent or great-grandparent and whether they draw a line at the parent, grandparent or other.

    There is a limit somewhere, it just has not been defined yet.

  22. AM – The Wheat ‘flag’ is a special leaf. It, rather than stay straight, has a bend in it. It heralds the arrival of the flower (or not 🙁 ) which becomes the head of seed.

    I know where I can get some goats for free (in a National Park but the bloody goats shouldn’t be there at all and no one will miss the smelly things).

    You wouldn’t know, by chance, if there’s a volcano nearby?

    I’m seriously thinking I might schedule this activity in early May next year. At least it would give us something to do while we’re waiting/hoping for rain. 😀

  23. Sorry, but there seems to be a paucity of volcanoes on this continent. Active ones, anyway. But getting rid of goats from national parks seems like a good idea. Maybe a backyard barbecue would do the trick.

    In any event, I’m off to bed.

    Show Me The Way To Go Hoooooome…
    I’m Tired And I want To Go To Beeeeeed….

    Bye all.

  24. Kold

    The ‘line’ generally was considered grandparents is my understanding.

    Therefore people a little surprised at Fizzer requiring birthplace of parents but no mention of grandparents. I think most people would be aware generally of birth place of most of their grandparents (?). I know of the birthplace of three of my grandparents and approximate year and could find the actual for all of them without leaving my house.

  25. Sure, Wilbur. That what is in the US’s best interest should be paramount in everyone’s mind. The British shouldn’t seek at all for the BREXIT to be good for them as long as things are hunky-dory for the US.

    What a wan#er!

    LONDON (Reuters) – U.S. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross said on Monday it was vital that any Brexit deal between Britain and the European Union is in the commercial interests of the United States.

    http://www.reuters.com/article/us-britain-eu-usa-ross/vital-that-uks-brexit-deal-is-in-u-s-interests-says-commerce-chief-ross-idUSKBN1D61WF?il=0

  26. briefly – PB seems to have gained some more interesting commentors with the relaxation of posting ID requirements.

    It’s good that we have more having their say regardless of agreeing with them or not.

    Unless, of course, they’re ‘grenade throwers’ or conspiracy idea pushers.

  27. Given that Irish citizenship descendancy reverts back as far as grandparent, I would think there would be many Australians with an Irish grandparent who may be caught.

    There are a few other countries who also go back to grandparent but most (if through Jus sanguinis) only go back as far as parent.

    It is not that hard to comply with the law. The nations lawmakers should be able to comply, whether you agree with the law or not.

  28. CTar1 says:
    Tuesday, November 7, 2017 at 2:07 am
    briefly – PB seems to have gained some more interesting commentors with the relaxation of posting ID requirements.

    It’s good that we have more having their say regardless of agreeing with them or not.

    Unless, of course, they’re ‘grenade throwers’ or conspiracy idea pushers.

    Yes…I think trade is picking up for William. I hope so. Clearly, the political pressure is rising now too, which will help.

  29. CTar1 says:
    Tuesday, November 7, 2017 at 2:02 am
    Sure, Wilbur. That what is in the US’s best interest should be paramount in everyone’s mind. The British shouldn’t seek at all for the BREXIT to be good for them as long as things are hunky-dory for the US.

    What a wan#er!

    LONDON (Reuters) – U.S. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross said on Monday it was vital that any Brexit deal between Britain and the European Union is in the commercial interests of the United States.

    Just about any Brexit deal will be bad for the UK and good for the US, who can only gain from fragmentation in the markets of its competitors.

  30. I haven’t seen it mentioned before but it’s no surprise that the only member of Trump’s cabinet who appears to actually be doing what the public would expect them to be doing, Rex Tillerson, rates loads of mentions in the Paradise Papers.

  31. The South Koreans should strap Trump to the underside of an F4 Phantom (they’ve still got 70 of them!) and drop him on Pyongyang.

    That’ll fix them.

    The U.S. leader, who will visit South Korea on the trip, has rattled some allies with his vow to “totally destroy” North Korea if it threatens the United States and with his dismissal of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un as a “rocket man” on a suicide mission.

    http://www.reuters.com/article/us-trump-asia-japan/trump-says-japan-would-shoot-north-korean-missiles-out-of-sky-if-it-bought-u-s-weaponry-idUSKBN1D602F

    https://youtu.be/vuP6KbIsNK4

  32. We have no place in Australia for “witch hunts” says “Brian Trumble

    while

    RoboDEBT hounds poor battlers ‘eeking’ out an existence on welfare…

  33. Dear Mr A.R.
    Can you fix your FANTASTIC chrome/firefox addon so that it can block (Posted Anonymously) users as well, as i wish to block the #US_election crank whatever he/she appears as THANKS A.R.
    ALSO can you supply the source code as I would wish to learn how to do that stuff you do, and do that stuff you do so well :O) hehe :OP

Comments Page 19 of 19
1 18 19

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *