Ring in the new year with two months of accumulated news concerning preselections for the next federal election – not counting matters arising from Section 44, which will be dealt with in a separate post during the January lull in opinion poll news.
• After falling short in the Bennelong by-election, Kristina Keneally’s most immediate pathway to federal parliament is the Senate vacancy created by the resignation of Sam Dastyari. However, The Australian reports the position is being eyed by Tony Sheldon, national secretary of the Transport Workers Union, and Tara Moriarty, state secretary of United Voice – either in opposition to Keneally or in her absence, since it is not clear she would not prefer to await a lower house berth. The Canberra Times reports the looming creation of a third electorate for the Australian Capital Territory could present such an opportunity. Other possibilities mentioned for the new seat are Thomas McMahon, economic adviser to Bill Shorten; Taimus Werner-Gibbings, chief-of-staff to Tasmanian Senator Lisa Singh; Jacob Ingram, 23-year-old staffer to Chief Minister Andrew Barr; Jacob White, staffer to Fenner MP and Shadow Assistant Trade Minister Andrew Leigh; and Kim Fischer, former territory ministerial staffer and current communications consultant.
• Another soon-to-be-created seat has been central to factional convulsions in the Victorian ALP in recent months. As in the ACT, population growth has entitled Victoria to an extra seat, which is expected to be established in Melbourne’s booming and strongly Labor-voting north-east. The Construction Mining Forestry and Energy Union wants it to go to Jane Garrett, who recently failed in a bid to move from her state seat of Brunswick to the Legislative Council after losing a Left faction ballot. Garrett feared Brunswick would be lost to the Greens, in part because of the efforts of the United Firefighters Union, whose dispute with Garrett over a pay deal caused her resignation as Emergency Services Minister in 2016. In tandem with other “industrial Left” unions, the CFMEU has walked out of the Left, which is dominated by Senator Kim Carr, and sought an alliance with the Right, which looks likely to proceed with the blessing of Bill Shorten. This will mean an end to the long-standing “stability pact” between the Carr forces and the Right, which has protected members including Jenny Macklin in Jagajaga and Andrew Giles in Scullin. However, Shorten insists he will ensure no sitting members are threatened.
• With George Brandis resigning from his Queensland Senate seat to take up the popular posting of high commissioner in London, The Australian reports a big field of potential successors includes three names from state politics: Scott Emerson, the former Shadow Treasurer who lost his seat of Maiwar to the Greens; John-Paul Langbroek, a former Opposition Leader who remains the state member for Surfers Paradise, but was unsuccessful in the post-election leadership vote; and Lawrence Springborg, repeatedly unsuccessful state Opposition Leader who did not contest the election in November (who would presumably faces a difficulty in being from the Nationals). Also in the mix are Joanna Lindgren, who had an earlier stint in the Senate when she filled Brett Mason’s vacancy in May 2015, but was unsuccessful as the sixth candidate on the Liberal National Party ticket in 2016; Teresa Harding, director of the Queensland government’s open data policy and twice unsuccessful candidate for Blair; and Amanda Stoker, a barrister.
• Surf Coast councillor Libby Coker has again been preselected as Labor’s candidate for the Victorian seat of Corangamite, after winning a local party vote over Geelong businesswoman Diana Taylor by 116 votes to 39. Coker ran unsuccessfully in 2016 against Sarah Henderson, who gained the seat for the Liberals in 2013.
• Mehreen Faruqi, a state upper house member, was preselected to lead the Greens’ New South Wales ticket in late November, winning an online vote of party members by a margin variously identified as 1301 to 843, and 1032 to 742. The preselection took place against a backdrop of conflict between the more moderate environmentalist tendency associated with the parliamentary leadership and Rhiannon’s hard left base in New South Wales. Anne Davies of The Guardian observes that Rhiannon will face “intense pressure to step down early”, so Faruqi can fill her vacancy and raise her profile ahead of the election.
Labor has completed preselections for the brace of Liberal-held seats where it is now reckoned to be competitive in Western Australia, after the resurgence in its fortunes in the state – all of which have gone to women:
• Hannah Beazley, policy adviser to Mark McGowan and daughter of Kim Beazley, will run against Steve Irons in Swan, which her father held from 1980 to 1996 before seeking a safer refuge in Brand. Hannah Beazley ran unsuccessfully for the state seat of Riverton in 2013.
• Lauren Palmer of the Maritime Union of Australia has been selected to run against Ken Wyatt in Hasluck, winning out over the Left-backed Bill Leadbetter, a history lecturer who ran in the seat in 2016, and very briefly served in the state upper house earlier this year. This comes after the MUA threw its lot in with the now dominant Right (“Progressive Labor”) faction in pursuit of its oft-thwarted ambitions to establish a parliamentary power base, together with the Construction Forestry Mining and Energy Union.
• Decorated police superintendent and Left faction member Kim Travers has been chosen to run against newly anointed Attorney-General Christian Porter in Pearce. Sarah Martin of The West Australian reported Labor’s administrative committee knocked back a nomination from Ann O’Neill, a campaigner against domestic violence whose estranged husband shot her and murdered her two children in 1994, who had not been a party member for the required period and was not granted a waiver.
• A little further up the pendulum, Melita Markey, chief executive of the Asbestos Diseases Society, will run against Michael Keenan in Stirling, and Melissa Teede, former head of the Peel Development Commission, will run against Andrew Hastie in Canning.
don
Coming out as a “martyr” always encourages your fans.
I will come to those four points in a moment. But first I want to talk about global greening, the gradual, but large, increase in green vegetation on the planet.
Except, of course, in those parts of the world that are cutting down trees for agriculture and to displace native peoples.
Many thanks for the tireless morning patrols BK.
The link today to the Robert Doyle counterattack to the Councillor Oke allegations is interesting.
On the one hand that, if it be the case, Oke emailed a photo of herself in a bikini with her son in July 2017, in September 2017 referred to Doyle as “Darl” in an email and that they often greeted each other with a kiss may be taken to be evidence of her comfort in and about Doyle.
But it is hardly evidence that Doyle did not try to kiss her in his office in February 2017 or that he grabbed her upper thigh in a restaurant. On the contrary, IMO it makes the Oke allegations all the more plausible for the following reasons.
First the Doyle counterattack material paint Oke as a strong and confident woman, (evidenced by her ease in circulating the bikini shot) well capable of handling even an aggressively randy, (i.e. harassing) man.
Secondly, the counterattack material alleges Oke and Doyle had a”very warm, collegiate and professional relationship”. If this is true (and there seems no reason to doubt it) all it demonstrates is that Oke is able to work on a professional level with Doyle despite (or perhaps even leveraging) his unwanted attentions. If it is true they had a very warm professional relationship it does NOT explain why Oke would suddenly fabricate allegations against Doyle. The very fact Oke and Doyle had a very warm professional relationship adds to the credibility of her allegations in their personal relationship.
Desperate times for Doyle indeed.
Some good news out of the US.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2018/01/08/trump-appointed-regulators-reject-plan-to-rescue-coal-and-nuclear-plants/?hpid=hp_hp-top-table-main_ferc-507pm%3Ahomepage%2Fstory&utm_term=.16705eb59a47
don @ #2896 Tuesday, January 9th, 2018 – 9:52 am
Thanks Don. I got as far through these links as I could before throwing up. I think his “technology” is to burn more fossil fuels to generate more C02, because C02 is “plant food”. Or something.
Clearly he has been talking to Tony Abbott.
Voice Endeavour @ #2897 Tuesday, January 9th, 2018 – 9:57 am
Indeed. I got this far …
And then there is this …
BB
Thank goodness for some common sense!
Victoria
Why in the name of dog do you think Trump is in anyway a Russian asset. To be an asset you need to be actually paid for and committed to another government/business etc. That is not the same as receiving money for influence or doing deals etc.
Why in the name of dog would Russia purchase a person like Trump as an “asset.” He is known to be untrustworthy, impulsive, narcissistic and with poor impulse control. He is just NOT asset material. He is also so sure of himself and oblivious to public opinion re his behaviours that he is not even readily blackmailable. Asset material he ain’t.
Now if you think Russian interests chucked a bit of cash to Trump as an opponent of Hillary – yes probably but I suspect they would have covered their paper trail. But then there were other players of which Ukraine, Saudi and Israel are the leaders but possibly also China, Turkey and UK.
Would Russia delight in promoting via internet or media or any other method candidates whom they prefer (in this case Trump)? Yes of course, just as the US does in a hundred other elections including ours. But that is a very far cry from idiotic comments about someone being an “asset”
Basically the Australian article is saying that ice ages are cyclic.
We are not in an ice age at the moment.
So in some 10s of thousands of years we can expect to be in another ice age.
This means the Earth is heading towards a cooling event and so the Earth is cooling and not warming.
You know it makes sense!!!! 🙂
This link should work for the Cooling article.
https://hotcopper.com.au/threads/global-cooling-a-reality-but-technology-will-help-earth-survive.3951050/#.WlP34K6WawU
dtt
It is of great benefit to Putin to portray democracy – and particularly American democracy – as a failure.
Electing Trump helps do this.
Hence Trump is an asset. And the more erratic and irrational he is, the better he is as an asset.
I never liked Craig McLachlan. Mainly because of his role in the worst song ever to make its way into the charts. But also because he came across as a first rate knob.
And surely this is this biggest Russia-Trump news for some time….
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-01-09/donald-trump-likely-to-face-mueller-interview-on-russia/9313578
zoomster
Putin does not need to “portray” US democracy as a pile of merde. The Americans are doing a bang up job of it themselves.
SK
😆
Good description.
It’s always been the case that Mueller would need to speak to the president, VP and senior WH staff. What’s ‘news’ about this has been remarked upon by this lawyer at least:
poroti
And having Trump there undoubtedly helps.
Simon Katich says: Tuesday, January 9, 2018 at 10:21 am
And surely this is this biggest Russia-Trump news for some time….
Donald Trump warned of likely interview with Mueller on Russian interference
*********************************************************
Mueller vs. Trump: Time for the White House to ‘Unleash the Genius’
How do I know Trump is a genius? Simple. It’s a well-established fact that all geniuses self-identify.
There’s no way for us nongeniuses to argue with that, so it must be true. Also, since former FBI Director Mueller has never publicly claimed to be a genius, he must not be one.
This gives us an obvious intellectual mismatch. And you don’t have to be a genius to see that the Trump administration can bring the Russia investigation to a swift conclusion by using a tactic I’ve dubbed “Unleashing the Genius.”
I’m sure it wouldn’t even be a fair fight for Mueller to face off against Trump who is, like, very smart and known for mental stability.
So let’s do it, Trump believers. Call on the administration to Unleash the Genius.
Let’s get this Russia business over with so Trump can continue his presidency unburdened, free to remind us, in fits of unrivaled mental stability, that he is probably the most intelligent president of all time.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/huppke/ct-met-trump-genius-mueller-russia-huppke-20180108-story.html
F & F gives an interesting account of the Comey sacking and how Mueller came to be appointed special Prosecuter –
Barney in Go Dau @ #2906 Tuesday, January 9th, 2018 – 10:16 am
Yes, thanks BiGD. Just a regurgitation of previously discredited crap, as I suspected.
My view is that Mueller, for a few reasons, would have avoided this if at all possible.
The Australian newspaper is the countries pre-eminent satirical news publication. Best used for bonfire lighting or lining litter trays.
Zoomster
Yes obviously it helps many foreign powers when USA democracy looks silly or non existent. But why do you assume that USA needs help from abroad. They are quite capable of doing it all by their lonesome.
Look it seemed to me that the first sign of US political weakness was the assassination of Kennedy, followed in quick succession by the Nixon debacle, the election of Reagan, (another celebrity of limited intellectual stature), Spiro Agnew, George Bush, Sarah Palin, the budget impasses and finally the tea party movement. This is a heady mix and clearly there is something unhealthy in the body politic. Yes Russia, China, Iran, Israel, EU etc would have tried to use this decline the further their own interests. Probably even Australia did via its unofficial powerful ambassador aka Rupert.
But using a weakness to do a little damage to your enemies is normal international behaviour and not some weirdo power grab by the evil empire.
As I understand it Russia favoured Trump because:
1 he was not Hillary, with whom they had history
2. As a person more interested in trade and deals and money he seemed a safer bet that someone more interested in empire and US expansion/power
3. They may well have had a suspicion that he could be “persuaded” to a more sympathetic view on sanctions if he and his mates could get a cut of the action
4. He talked the talk re pulling back of troops etc
5. He was a lazy odd ball and obviously every foreign government hopes for just such a leader in their rivals.
However favouring a preferred candidate is just common diplomatic practice, eg we played favourites in East Timor and PNG and Julie Bishop was doing a Putin when she threatened Adern over the Barnyard matter. The US has done it a thousand times including probably the removal of Whitlam, the removal of Allende and attempted assassinations of Castro, to name just three that have had a bit of media exposure.
It seems to me that USA and its acolytes is reacting like a typical schoolyard bully. Thy have been used to demanding everyone else does their bidding but go screaming to the teacher when another bully comes to town and throws their shoes over the power line ignoring the reality that last month they had done the exact same thing to three smaller kids.
What is it with Coalition ‘watchdogs’ and not following the rules they are there to enforce.
The ABCC guy that breached the FWA
This IPA dickhead.
http://www.canberratimes.com.au/national/public-service/aps-commission-refuses-to-release-records-of-john-lloyds-contacts-with-ipa-20180107-h0evs7.html
dtt,
You are like a historic novel, fluttering from reality to fantasy, often in the same sentence. 🙂
Simon
“My view is that Mueller, for a few reasons, would have avoided this if at all possible.”
In the legal systems of western democracies an investigator has no choice but to at least offer an interview with the accused, if they want the case to proceed/succeed.
Mueller was always going to offer an interview to Trump.
Anyone’s guess if Trump accepts and cooperates.
And if he does cooperate, a snowflakes chance in hell of him actually telling the truth.
Simon Katich @ #2917 Tuesday, January 9th, 2018 – 10:39 am
I once tried using it to line the bottom of my bird cage. My budgerigar sued me for mental cruelty.
DTT, don’t verbal me please.
Psyclaw says: Tuesday, January 9, 2018 at 11:03 am
Simon
“My view is that Mueller, for a few reasons, would have avoided this if at all possible.”
In the legal systems of western democracies an investigator has no choice but to at least offer an interview with the accused, if they want the case to proceed/succeed.
Mueller was always going to offer an interview to Trump.
Anyone’s guess if Trump accepts and cooperates.
And if he does cooperate, a snowflakes chance in hell of him actually telling the truth.
************************************************
The *truth* – THAT seems to be the whole point of the intended interview ……. In classic mobster -takedown fashion Mueller ( with his own sources beforehand knowing exactly ) has probably squeezed the *truth* out of his underlings on pain of jail time for non-cooperation/lying …… and IF Trump lies then Mueller will have what he wants to take him down ……
Barney in Go Dau says:
Tuesday, January 9, 2018 at 10:13 am
Basically the Australian article is saying that ice ages are cyclic.
We are not in an ice age at the moment.
So in some 10s of thousands of years we can expect to be in another ice age.
This means the Earth is heading towards a cooling event and so the Earth is cooling and not warming.
Ice ages are certainly cyclic, with the ice ages lasting about 100,000 years, and the interglacials, or warm periods, lasting roughly 10,000 years, with wide variations.
The last interglacial was the Riss-Würm, which lasted about 15,000 years.
Glaciation started up again about 115,000 years ago, what we call the ‘last ice age’.
It reached its peak about 19 – 20,000 years ago, during the human culture of the Solutrean. Curiously, this culture had the best stone tools of all, and made them so well that some were more status objects than useful points. Egyptians recreated the techniques, as did Australian aborigines a long time before that, and who have produced some superb stuff, especially after white contact and they had access to the thick (at that time) bases of glass bottles, a superb material.
The climate warmed considerably about 15,000 years ago during the Magdelanian, a flowering of human artistic culture, but with a few cold blips, before the ice completely retreated to its approximate present stage about 12,000 years ago, definitions vary.
But don’t bet the house on this interglacial ending any time soon.
The problem that Trump will have with any ‘chat’ with Mueller is that, first it is under oath, and second he is not allowed to have his attorneys present in the (interrogation) discussion; it just him & the prosecutors.
If Trump is so badly demented as some are saying (particularly following the publication of Wolff’s book) then the Trump team are in a bind – do they declare him so far gone as to be unable to testify or do they let him proceed? knowing the outcome will almost certainly be catastrophic.
Does this mean that ABC headlines will blindly follow their leader???
don @ #2926 Tuesday, January 9th, 2018 – 7:13 am
https://youtu.be/M9EjE4qm7b8
There were reports a few months ago (6?) that Trump was personally under investigation-
likely wrt the Comey firing.
Only if Mueller believed there was a case against Trump and the case had legs. So, after 6 months of investigation, we have the news of a request for interview. This is not a ‘lets just get your version of events’ interview; this is a ‘we got dirt on you buddy’ interview. That news is blowing my trumpet.
The Russians have paid for an interest in, corrupted and otherwise hacked US democracy. The Putinist suckhole and Trumpette, dtt, would like us to believe this is self-inflicted US politics as usual. This is, of course, just more fabrication to add to the degeneracy we’ve already seen. It’s going to end badly for Trump, for Putin, for their cronies, clients and apologists.
BB
Eh what!!! I was agreeing with you!!!!!!
Was I being too thick to grasp your irony. Hope so because i was NOT verballing you in any way shape or form.
Briefly
The US paid for and corrupted Australian democracy in 1975, if you believe the Falcon and the Snowman which has a lot mere cred that the Steele dossier paid for by the Clinton campaign.
Where is your outrage or is it OK if the white hats undermine democracy with socialist leanings but mean and nasty if anyone undermines democracy with capitalist leanings.
Give it a rest boyo.
The cyclical nature of Ice Ages is the Deniers’ last line of defence.
The Ice Age will return, no one has any idea when. We need to get through the next hundred years first, and that critically depends upon what we do or don’t do about burning fossil fuels.
1975 was a very long time ago…but aside from that has nothing whatsoever to do with the corruption of the US order by Putin.
We know you are a hater of the US, which allows you to waive every objection to the crimes of the Russian State. You prefer the thuggery, the nationalist militarism, the secretive despotism of the Putinists to constitutional democracy.
“”So in some 10s of thousands of years we can expect to be in another ice age.””
I think Stephen Hawkins has stated we Humans won’t be around then!.
‘citizen says:
Tuesday, January 9, 2018 at 8:32 am
Someone at Murdoch’s Oz has a case of very bad timing. While we have been sweltering through record high temperatures, this headline is accompanied by a picture of snowfall.
We’re now in global cooling
MATT RIDLEY
In essence, the world is slipping back into an ice age after a balmy 10,000 years. (currently paywalled)
I’m starting to think that some of the staff at the Oz just don’t have their hearts in writing the trash that is demanded of them on a daily basis. But, hey, we need the money.’
Ridley’s heart is in it alright. So is his hip pocket nerve.
Ridley makes money out of fossil fuels and is one of The Australian’s Go To writers on global warming. He never acknowledges that there may be, or is, a conflict of interest in his writing.
The standard (tobacco, coal, sugar) technique here is not to actually to argue the scientific toss in too much detail. It is to imply that the scientific debate is alive and well and that there is reasonable doubt.
You can spot the bastardization of scientific global warming debate because:
(a) Yhey invariably use discredited lines. In this case Ridley trots out the Melankovich cycles. Real scientists acknowledge the Melankovich cycles in their climate calculations. But Ridley ignores the massive energy discrepancies between the M cycles and what is happening in real-time climate.
(b) They invariably avoid discussing any evidence contrary to their assertions. In this case Ridley asserts that we are in a cooling phase because solar radiation is weakening. But he ignores that the three hottest years on record are all occurring while solar radiation is near the weakest on record.
(d) They invariably play the victim. Sure enough, in this article, Ridley squeals that people have said awful things about him.
(e) They are published by The Australian.
Ridley does (a)-(d) in this article. ‘The Australian’ does the rest.
Another clue is this: You will never in a thousand years catch the Ridleys of this world, or The Australian, discussing acidification of the oceans.
No attorneys at a meeting with a Special Prosecutor?
That doesn’t sound correct.
Whether the return of the Ice Age will be need to be dealt with by a technologically advanced civilisation, isolated settlements of subsistence farmers and bands of hunter-gatherers, or no one, will depend upon how humanity responds to climate change in the coming decades.
The Coalition is going to have to make a few things go away.
1. Most Australians are experiencing falling real wages.
2. The Coalition has skived $350 million from its own workers.
3. The Coalition voted for penalty rate cuts.
4. The Coalition has systematically strengthened all institutions that suppress wages.
5. The Coalition is systematically bleeding the wages of the poorest of the poor – those on CDEP.
6. The Coalition gave a 2% tax break to Australia’s wealthiest people.
“The Australian newspaper is … best used for bonfire lighting or lining litter trays.” (Simon K)
That’s assuming you somehow have a copy of it at hand in your household. We have avoided that for the last 40 years or so.
s777
It would take well less than a per cent of the current human population to keep scientific progress ticking along very nicely indeed. And that is not taking into consideration that all the technologies needed for a substantial number of humans to survive the next Ice Age in style and comfort are available now.
The two main issues are the degree to which natural systems are smashed and the degree to which resources are shared across humanity.
Booleanbach
Of course he would be able to have his brief present at any interview.
On what basis do you say otherwise.
BB
Were I Mueller, I would begin the intereview thusly:
‘Mr President, first let me congratulate you on your famous election victory over that traitorous Clinton pussy bitch. It is profoundly gratifying to me that you, the most able, the most intelligent and the effective president the US has ever had has found some time to help the United States once again.
I am extremely grateful that you have made some of your precious time available so that together we can nail those ungrateful, lying snivelling rats with small dicks who have turned on you…
Psyclaw says: Tuesday, January 9, 2018 at 12:12 pm
Booleanbach
Of course he would be able to have his brief present at any interview.
On what basis do you say otherwise.
*******************************************************
How the President talks to prosecutors would be just as important….. that a meeting would likely be negotiated between the lawyers. Because of the dignity of the presidency, it’s less likely the special counsel would subpoena a sitting president
For the most part, interviews in criminal investigations are voluntary. Trump couldn’t be forced to speak directly to Mueller or the FBI; he could only be compelled to testify before a grand jury.
Trump’s lawyers could be present for an interview with Mueller’s team. Grand juries don’t allow defense attorneys in the room during proceedings.
http://edition.cnn.com/2018/01/08/politics/trump-lawyers-mueller-interview-request/index.html