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.
BK @ #196 Friday, March 23rd, 2018 – 1:02 pm
Mr. Turnbull’s conduct reminds me of the joke where:-
Donald say to Daisy “I never said your were crazy, I said you were fucking Goofy”.
C@t
Turnbull’s greatest evil is to tolerate the Canavans and their confreres, and even the Frydenbergs in his ministry.
lizzie @ #181 Friday, March 23rd, 2018 – 8:47 am
I vividly remember when my father turned 40, I was 8.
I couldn’t imagine anyone being that old!!!.
32 years later and chance had me strolling around Petra in Jordan on my 40th.
I was living a fuller life than in my 20s and early 30s, and age had little bearing on it.
One thing I have learnt since becoming a teacher,
So, don’t waste you time trying to do so.
A year is just an arbitrary measure, one lap around Sol!
Big deal, just live your life!!!! 🙂
Missed this from PvO on Insiders 😆
We used to think Fraser was a turd.
Liberal Party Prime Ministers definitely look like they’re following some sort of reverse evolution.
although tbf I suspect Abbott is the last one in the image. Trumble is so insubstantial that he casts no shadow.
adrian says:
Friday, March 23, 2018 at 12:58 pm
So free trade, a long term economic tenant of the former Liberal Party, has been ditched by our cardboard cutout PM.
Another reset…
I’m not a spelling Nazi….but this is the right word. It is an entirely different word from the one that appears above
…..tenet
Firefox – @firefox: THIS: “It’s important to acknowledge that privacy isn’t about hiding — it’s about having and exercising more agency over who sees our personal information,” — @mozilla Open Web Fellow @baricks
https://mzl.la/2Gcjlv9
poroti @ #204 Friday, March 23rd, 2018 – 9:12 am
Yeah, I liked that comment.
I don’t think he’s looking for his job back!
He seems pretty open and honest with his opinions.
Good start, so far!! 🙂
ratsak @ #205 Friday, March 23rd, 2018 – 9:15 am
Well it is Party policy!!! 🙂
Tom Rabe – @Rabe9: “Secretly everyone in the coalition is hoping Malcolm faces some sort of crisis and goes in November or December.” Via @AAPNewswire #auspol
https://www.sbs.com.au/news/coalition-hoping-pm-faces-a-crisis-nsw-mp
lizzie @ #202 Friday, March 23rd, 2018 – 1:08 pm
It’s all about supporting Liberal donors at the end of the day. They are their representatives in parliament.
briefly
A common mistake in speech…
Should we laugh or cry at Malcolm (Australia) being cheated on the trade deals.
https://www.theage.com.au/world/north-america/tariff-exemption-only-temporary-for-australia-new-quotas-introduced-20180323-p4z5vv.html?platform=hootsuite
I reckon Kristina Kenneally was a big influence on PvO cutting the cord with Sky.
C@t
Something has to be done about the donors who control policy. This is far from democracy as I know it.
poroti says: Friday, March 23, 2018 at 1:12 pm
Missed this from PvO on Insiders
Since departing Sky Van Onselen has been a little cheeky when discussing his old employer, mocking the lack of a budget and the excessive airtime given to Coalition announcements. On Insiders he said: “Spare a thought for me – I used to have to sit and take that drivel and then try to take it at least moderately seriously.”
*******************************************************************
Sounds exactly like Lt Col. Ralph Peters who just quit FOX NEWS – Calling Network a ‘Propaganda Machine’ in a sycophantic reporting of Trump as well as Fox News’s prime-time anchors “dismiss facts and empirical reality to launch profoundly dishonest assaults on the F.B.I., the Justice Department, the courts, the intelligence community (in which I served) and, not least, a model public servant and genuine war hero such as Robert Mueller.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/20/business/media/fox-news-analyst-ralph-peters.html
briefly @ #206 Friday, March 23rd, 2018 – 1:16 pm
Well spotted Briefly – just checking someone’s paying attention. Can I blame auto-correct?
Advanced photography techniques have captured an image of Brian Trumble
lizzie @ #214 Friday, March 23rd, 2018 – 9:22 am
The problem is that they’re their core constituency.
It’s just that they’ve deluded enough voters into thinking otherwise! 🙁
adrian says:
Friday, March 23, 2018 at 1:23 pm
…..tenet
Well spotted Briefly – just checking someone’s paying attention. Can I blame auto-correct?
By all means! Auto-correct is constantly re-writing my ideas too.
Should we laugh or cry at Malcolm (Australia) being cheated on the trade deals.
Los Angeles: President Donald Trump will slap import quotas on Australian steel and aluminium and the tariff exemption he granted Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull may only be temporary.
“US Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer and Mr Trump’s policy adviser Peter Navarro offered new details on the tariffs on Thursday, US time.”
Read that article. Oh dear Malcolm. You have now been openly and completely screwed over by your mate Trump.
Time to deploy the ultimate weapon of the Mesma Death Stare against the US?? 🙂
Lol! What a clusterf#ck. Time till #30 Newspoll meltdown?? Seems to me that if the Libs cant find a way to do the usual fwark things up late in the week, their mates will do it for them.
The Washington Post educating Americans on Australia
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/theworldpost/wp/2018/03/22/ranked-choice-voting/?utm_term=.04133018fb19
More Diesel Reporting Cheating, BMW:
https://arstechnica.com/cars/2018/03/bmws-offices-raided-by-munich-police-in-search-of-diesel-cheating/
US Congress Oks possible Censorship Bill:
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2018/03/congress-oks-sex-trafficking-bill-that-critics-say-will-censor-the-internet/
Lawsuits are coming in fast:
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2018/03/cambridge-analytica-breach-results-in-lawsuits-filed-by-angry-facebook-users/
Trump Tariffts could have big impact on tech:
https://www.engadget.com/2018/03/22/trumps-chinese-tariffs-could-have-a-big-impact-on-the-tech-indu/
ATO Outage:
https://www.itnews.com.au/news/root-cause-of-ato-outages-still-unclear-487602
More evidence for Russia interference:
https://techcrunch.com/2018/03/22/more-evidence-ties-guccifer-2-0-to-russian-intelligence/
Barney in Go Dau @ #165 Friday, March 23rd, 2018 – 12:26 pm
Our population increase is drive by migration. Our own natural birth rate is barely sufficient to keep our population stable, not increase it – as is true for most developed countries.
So our increasing population is a choice we have made – it is not a natural occurrence. Do you remember agreeing to this choice? I don’t!
If Turnbull believed Trump then he’s as gullible as Hansen taking the Business Council’s letter seriously!
🙂
@imacca:
China hits back:
http://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy-defence/article/2138533/china-strikes-back-after-trump-targets-chinese-imports
LAUGH, Trump is a liar, LNP took it as truth.
Trump’s back flip on steel can’t happen now, we are midway through a Turnbull Reset™
Also
Tom Rabe – @Rabe9: “Secretly everyone in the coalition is hoping Malcolm faces some sort of crisis and goes in November or December.” Via @AAPNewswire
They should talk to Lucy.
And
So if Rosenstein is giving an announcement tomorrow what is his partner Guildenstern doing?
Saying Brian Trumble is an idiot isn’t hyperbole.
He comes out this morning backing the Tangerine Toddler that most Australians view as a freak show that yay Trade Wars are fun! (and won’t hurt us a bit, despite all the crowing about supposed Free Trade Agreements)
Nek Minit Trump shows his thanks by upping the tariffs on Australian metal exports that Trumble foolishly thought he’d got Trump to forget all about and was crowing about how clever he is. (oh and then throwing the EU under the bus by not backing their WTO case)
Saying Trumble is an idiot doesn’t even scratch the surface of what a complete and under fuckwit he is.
Oh well there’ll be another reset next week I ‘spose.
Zoidlord @ #168 Friday, March 23rd, 2018 – 12:27 pm
So what do you call it when the number of people living in a country exceeds the carrying capacity of that country … and is growing by a record amount?
“Trump’s back flip on steel can’t happen now, we are midway through a Turnbull Resets™”
Expect Truffles to keep a low profile today. Doesn’t matter what he wants to talk about, any questions from journos will be about this. Poor petal just cant pull a trick.
Wonder if the Chinese will take to opportunity to express sympathy for us on this? 🙂
Player One @ #223 Friday, March 23rd, 2018 – 9:28 am
Yes, I do.
I actively put Parties advocating anti-migrant policies after the Libs and the Nats when voting in the Senate!
I’m not anti-migrant.
It’s where most of us came from after all! 🙂
lizzie @ #214 Friday, March 23rd, 2018 – 1:22 pm
We only have our vote, lizzie. Labor needs to campaign wisely to win enough of them to govern.
As you can see, Malcolm Turnbull is doing his little facebook, ‘I’m the journo’ vignettes to get around the MSM filter but Labor won’t do that I think, but they do need to do more. What Turnbull is doing shows that his team are thinking outside the box. Labor needs to do that too.
I think if Turnbull thinks about Trump as the ultimate flibbertigibbet he might get a better handle on him. 🙂
Player One @ #228 Friday, March 23rd, 2018 – 9:32 am
Bangladesh!
@Player One
The same stuff, infrastructure in rural/regional was never properly maintained or properly planned for expansion.
This is why NBN under it’s current form failed, because the LNP changed the policy to MTM policy, which relies on satellites more, than upgrading the fixed networks.
And because the LNP changed the policy as a whole (instead of keeping the FTTP bit) the entire project is failing.
This is one of many inefficiencies of the Liberal Party, because their main target is to make a quick buck for themselves or their lobby mates.
Being wined and dined by Twiggy Forrest seemed to persuade her. I wonder who paid for her travel to WA and if she will declare it.
citizen @ #235 Friday, March 23rd, 2018 – 9:41 am
She’s cheaper than a bar girl in Patpong!!! 🙂
The appointment of Bolton by Trump strikes me as mainly theatrical. Trump is a Russian puppet and is therefore most unlikely to carry out any kind of hostile acts against Russian satellites, which include N Korea and Iran, even though Bolton has in the past called for their obliteration. Bolton’s reputation as a strategic wildcatter will work positively with Trump’s nationalist base.
Trump is cultivating an image as a strong-man, increasing military spending substantially and adopting publicly aggressive foreign postures. I suspect this is simply exploiting US military power for domestic political purposes.
Bolton is a show-off. He’s an iconoclast. In this respect, he’s readymade for Trump-ville.
Guytaur – if you are listening maybe you can post a pic for me ( sorry I can’t seem to post them )
‘We’re gonna need a bigger wall’: Maddow mocks Trump dumping McMaster and filling up her massive list of departures
SNBC host Rachel Maddow smirked her way through the announcement that President Donald Trump has cut yet another cabinet member loose from his administration by turning to her big board of departures and wondering where she could fit H.R. McMaster’s name.
“Nothing in the news, a quiet night,” Maddow began with a knowing smile. “The president fired his lead lawyer for the Russia scandal — maybe for a very specific reason. The secretary of state said good-bye and left his job and the president hired yet another Fox News personality to join the Russia legal team and hired another Fox News personality to become the new national security advisor, which means he’s firing the existing national security advisor right now.”
https://www.rawstory.com/2018/03/gonna-need-bigger-wall-maddow-mocks-trump-dumping-mcmaster-filling-massive-list-departures/
Barney in Go Dau @ #230 Friday, March 23rd, 2018 – 1:34 pm
Neither am I against migration. However, it is clear our current migration levels are unsustainable, and should be lower than they currently are. Much lower.
So – and this is an honest question – why would you vote against decreasing them?
Zoidlord @ #234 Friday, March 23rd, 2018 – 1:37 pm
If this is in answer to my question, I’m struggling to find the relevance 🙁
@Player One
The problem with you’re suggestion of decreasing migration levels is that, where would they go?
Just like the Refugee crises problems, all you want to do is hide it from plain view.
Our country needs constant development (like China and other Asian countries).
But because of vested lobbyists we are only focused on tax cuts and building roads.
That is how pathetic we are.
Player One @ #239 Friday, March 23rd, 2018 – 9:48 am
I disagree that our migrant levels are unsustainable.
The problems in this area are mainly the result of Government inaction and poor planning.
Any deflection by Government onto migrants is just a a cover for their own deficiencies!
Batteries too fast: Telsa.
https://www.engadget.com/2018/03/22/tesla-says-underpaid-because-batteries-too-fast/
Zoidlord @ #241 Friday, March 23rd, 2018 – 1:53 pm
The problem with this argument is that it begs the question. That is, it assumes that growth is necessary, and therefore concludes that we need to grow.
But try telling that to a person with cancer.
Zoidlord
Population will be the cause of the of The Sixth Mass Extinction!.
There is 4.5 Billion years in which this will happen.
Trump’s interference with the global trading order is obviously aimed at harming both China and the EU, both of which are Russian rivals. This is far more serious than Trump’s other policies, which mainly have domestic impacts. Protectionist impulses, if carried to their logical conclusion, will cause very deep harm to the world’s peoples, specially in the industrial economies, and will drive national and trans-national political turbulence.
This is decidedly contrary to Australia’s interests. It is therefore absolutely amazing that Turnbull is granting a kind of waiver to Trump. This is an abject failure to represent our interests. It is the usual thoroughly gutless performance we have seen before from the coward now masquerading as a PM.
@Player One
What the hell does a person has to do with cancer dealing with migration?
If you are arguing for more spending on Health, then you should also blame the Liberal Party.
Barney in Go Dau @ #242 Friday, March 23rd, 2018 – 1:56 pm
Are you aware that Australia’s long term carrying capacity is only about 10 million?
Try this site, and press the “long term defaults” button – http://dashboard.carryingcapacity.com.au/
What are your plans for the remaining 30 million?
Another way of looking at the population issue: biocapacity.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_ecological_footprint
Batteries too fast: Telsa.
https://www.engadget.com/2018/03/22/tesla-says-underpaid-because-batteries-too-fast/
This is a highly technical area, so I won’t go into details, but I suggest that Tesla are being disingenuous when saying their response is “too fast”.
The FCAS service provision model has a precise specification. If you do not stick to the spec, you don’t get paid, and you may even incur costs for provoking a control response elsewhere in the system.
There is an argument to be made that this spec needs reform – and AEMO is working through this at the moment, with excellent input from industry.
But this is simply a case of Tesla knowing the spec but not delivering to it, so they don’t get paid.