Friday free-for-all

As the wheels begin to turn ahead of a federal election that might be held later this year, a round-up of recent preselection news.

No BludgerTrack update this week as there were no new opinion polls, which might be an issue from time to time now that Essential Research has gone from weekly to fortnightly. Newspoll and Essential will presumably both report next week, followed by a week off for Easter. So in lieu of any polling to analyse, I offer one of my occasional updates on federal preselection action.

Most of this relates to Queensland, where a federal redistribution will formally take effect next week – not that you would notice, as my calculations at the time the draft was published last year found no seat’s margin had changed by more than 0.6%. Nonetheless, BludgerTrack will henceforth be using the post-redistribution margins for it seats result projections. Redistributions for Victoria and the Australian Capital Territory, which will each gain a new seat, and South Australia, which will lose one, are presently in their early stages, and are likely to be finalised around September.

• Following his appointment as High Commissioner to the United Kingdom, George Brandis’s Queensland Liberal Senate vacancy has been filled by Brisbane barrister Amanda Stoker. Stoker won a vote of the Liberal National Party state council from a field of 12, of whom the other reported frontrunners were Joanna Lindgren, who had a stint in the Senate after filling a casual vacancy in May 2015, but was unsuccessful as the sixth candidate on the LNP ticket in 2016; Amanda Camm, a Mackay regional councillor; Andrew Wines, a Brisbane City councillor; and Teresa Harding, director of the Queensland government’s open data policy and twice unsuccessful candidate for Blair. Stoker was a favourite candidate of religious conservatives, and emphasised the point by speaking at a pro-life rally on Sunday. In this she makes a contrast with Brandis, a noted moderate.

• Labor’s candidate to take on Peter Dutton in his Brisbane seat of Dickson is Ali France, a motivational speaker and former television producer who lost a leg in a car accident in 2011, whose father is former Bligh government minister Peter Lawlor. France is aligned with the Left, and won preselection ahead of the Right’s Linda Lavarch, former state Attorney-General and wife of Keating government Attorney-General Michael Lavarch, who cut Dutton’s margin from 6.7% to 1.6% when she ran in 2016. The redistribution has slightly improved Dutton’s position, increasing his margin to 2.0%. Since winning preselection, France has faced media scrutiny over her past pronouncements against offshore detention, which have since been removed from her social media accounts.

• The Cairns Post reports Elida Faith, of the Left faction Community and Public Sector Union, has won Labor preselection for the Cairns and Cape York Peninsula seat of Leichhardt. Faith first won endorsement to run as the Left’s candidate ahead of Tania Major, an indigenous youth advocate and former Young Australian of the Year, and Allan Templeton, an electrician. She then won the preselection vote over Richie Bates, a Cairns Regional Councillor and member of the Right. Leichhardt has been held for the Liberals and then the LNP since 1996 by Warren Entsch, except following his temporary retirement in 2007, after which the seat was held for a term by Jim Turnour of Labor.

• Jo Briskey, chief executive of parent advocacy organisation The Parenthood and a former organiser with the Left faction United Voice union, will be Labor’s candidate in the Brisbane seat of Bonner. Briskey won preselection ahead of Delena Amsters, a physiotherapist aligned with the Right. While Bonner is a naturally marginal seat, Labor’s only win since its creation in 2004 came in 2007, and it has at all other times been held by the present LNP incumbent, Ross Vasta.

• Anika Wells, a lawyer with Maurice Blackburn, appears set to succeed the retiring Wayne Swan in Lilley. Wells has Swan’s endorsement, and shares his alignment with the Australian Workers Union sub-faction of the Right.

• Zac Beers, former industrial painter and scaffolder and organiser for the Right faction Australian Workers Union, has been preselected for a second run at the central Queensland seat of Flynn, where he cut LNP member Ken O’Dowd’s margin from 6.5% to 1.0% in 2016. Beers won preselection ahead of Gordon Earnshaw, a worker for Bechtel Power Corporation.

• Andrew Bartlett, who filled the Greens’ Queensland Senate vacancy arising from Larissa Waters’ Section 44 disqualification last year, will seek and presumably win preselection in the lower house seat of Brisbane. This leaves the field clear for Waters to seek to recover her Senate seat. Brisbane has been in conservative hands since 2010, and has been held for the LNP since 2016 by Trevor Evans. Bartlett ran for the Greens in 2010, his first entry with the party after his former life as leader of the Australian Democrats.

Meanwhile in New South Wales, Labor has preselected its candidates for the Sydney seats of Banks and Reid, where it suffered historically unusual defeats in 2013 and 2016. In turn:

• The candidate in Banks will again be Chris Gambian, an official with the Left faction Community and Public Sector Union, who halved the 2.8% Liberal margin when he ran in 2016. The Australian reports Gambian won a preselection ballot ahead of Lucy Mannering, a lawyer and the ex-wife of former Australian Workers Union national secretary Paul Howes, by 139 votes to 116, as adjusted by the affirmative action loading. The member for the seat is David Coleman, who became the first Liberal to win the seat since 1949 when he gained it in 2013.

• Labor’s candidate in Reid will be Sam Crosby, executive director of Labor think tank the McKell Institute. Crosby easily won preselection ahead of local branch member Frank Alafaci, by 120 votes to 19. Reid has been held by Craig Laundy since 2013, when he became the first Liberal ever to win the seat.

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.

1,530 comments on “Friday free-for-all”

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  4. “I won’t be stepping down. I still think I’m the best person to lead the team.”
    Steve Smith

    Well, he would say that, wouldn’t he?

  5. “And as for Turnbull, I daresay he commented because somebody asked him. Bit rich of him though to call for strong action, not being one for strong action on anything himself.”

    Turnbull should probably just have given the sort of non-answer he usually gives for awkward questions he should be answering. No, not that it’s due to “Labor incompetence” or whatever, but something like “that’s really a matter for Cricket Australia” or similar. At least in this instance that would be the appropriate response.

  6. “How can our team be engaged in cheating like this!?!”
    Malcolm Turnbull

    Maybe the answer is in your own government’s behaviour?

  8. sprocket_

    Feck him, when you are earning $300,000 plus a week for chasing a ball around it is hard to feel sorry for him.

  9. ‘Nothing compares to this confessed conspiracy of ball tampering.’ This is according to the analysis of Mary Gearin just now on the ABC.

  11. The test match has to continue as normal, the team has to bowl and then bat. However I think they should be captained by someone outside the leadership group, Paine or Shaun Marsh. They are very experienced players who have not be named anywhere as being in the leadership group, either of them would be reasonable temporary captains.

  12. ‘Nothing compares to this confessed conspiracy of ball tampering.’ This is according to the analysis of Mary Gearin just now on the ABC.

    What, in Australian sport, or all of recorded history?

  15. ‘Nothing compares to this confessed conspiracy of ball tampering.’

    The Trump Imbroglio beats it hands down.

  18. I cannot stand expression leadership group

    Part of the problem At the moment is working out who is clean

    We need a coach who installs uron discipline probably Ponting.

    We were dominant in the series until warner wanted to get physical and it has been a shitheap ever since.

  20. I have zero interest in sport, not even these ‘scandals’, and would rather watch paint dry than read page upon page of this.

    Newspoll better be out tonight.

  28. Very good move, exactly what I said should happen has happened. We have someone not involved in the incident captaining the side and the rest playing to complete the game and then face the consquences.

  30. This has to be the end of Warner if he is found guilty, he has had far too many chances.
    How in dogs name did he become T20 captain?

  31. C@tmomma says:
    Sunday, March 25, 2018 at 7:05 pm
    “I won’t be stepping down. I still think I’m the best person to lead the team.”
    Steve Smith

    Well, he would say that, wouldn’t he?

    Sadly, yes.

    And in answer to another poster earlier, the cricket team have not let me down.

    I never expected anything the least bit moral or ethical from them in the first place.

    They are there for the money, nothing else. I have no idea why anyone would think otherwise.

    May they rot, slowly and excruciatingly painfully, from their sandpapered balls out.

  33. poroti (Block)
    Sunday, March 25th, 2018 – 7:16 pm
    Comment #1414

    Eek ! , decimal point error.

    K1W1’s and Maths.

    FFS

  36. “Newspoll better be out tonight.”

    Parliament is back tomorrow (Reps – the Senate sat on its own last week), so I’d say there probably will be one, given it’s been 3 weeks.

  38. Did anyone hear the NewsRadio interview with Kim Hughes just before midday today?

    He referred to how Australians like to see themselves, giving a mate a helping hand etc etc then unloaded about this current government in a succinct comment

    Hughes hit the nail on the head in my view – and probably the view of 54% of voting Australians according to Polls

    The interview is worth listening to – mainly for opinion on cricket but then his reference to the Federal Government

    On cricket, precedence is set because similar ball tampering incidents have set precedence in regards penalty – including the South African captain on their last tour of Australia

    Any legal challenge to any inconsistent penalty from established will see legal recourse and successfully on precedence (which is the law) aka the South African player in the last week

    Hughes mentioned the ICC needing to look at itself – and I would add in regards pitches being presented where, in some Countries we see slow bowlers taking the new ball on strips of dirt

    And why sides are unbeatable at home (supported by vociferous media attempting to mentally disintegrate the opposition and incite public response)

    Hughes then covered that the DRS should be terminated (and I would include also in media) with control of the game handed back to Umpires (and Match Referees – feeling for Jeff Crowe and the position he has been placed in) recounting a story from Ian Chappell referring to Dennis Lillee and Tom Brooks approaching Chappell as captain

    “Dennis, if you want to swear and curse swear and curse at your feet or at your team mates, not the batsman”

    Priceless

    The ABC noted to Hughes he was subservient to no one, and it showed

    Worth a listen – in full

    That said the absence of reporting of Oakshott’s comments in MSM is noted

    That those Turnbull trotted out as low income retirees were a long way short of the mark – Turnbull’s props known to Oakshott

  40. Bolton is someone I don’t want anywhere near the levers of power. Especially if the USA starts a war, this Government will think about it for 3 nanoseconds and say “All the way with DJT”.

  41. God you lot are cricket tragics. Can we get back to the energy wars?

    Now do we have a Newspoll tonight or not?

  42. This has to be the end of Warner if he is found guilty, he has had far too many chances.

    Here’s hoping. I’ve never thought much of him either tbh.

  45. I think the results of these polls are released to the political parties an hour or three before they are publicly announced, on condition they are not revealed by the parties.

  46. So, just to ease the impact of a pending Newspoll has truffles come out and blamed Bill Shorten for the ball tampering #TamperGate yet?

    Tom

  47. Cheating in sport is more horrifying to Turnbull than children attempting suicide.
    ______
    Cheating in sport is more horrifying to Turnbull than big companies paying no tax.

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