With the fortnightly cycles of Newspoll and Essential Research in sync for the time being, we would appear to be in another off week for federal polling (although ReachTEL are about due to come through, perhaps at the end of the week). However, there is a fair bit of preselection news to report, with Malcolm Turnbull having told the state party branches to get candidates in place sooner rather than later. That might appear to suggest he at least wishes to keep his options open for an early election, although betting markets rate that a long shot, with Ladbrokes offering $1.14 on an election next year and only $5 for this year.
• With the creation of a third seat in the Australian Capital Territory, the Canberra Times reports the member for Canberra, Gai Brodtmann, will contest the seat of Bean – new in theory, but in reality the seat that corresponds most closely with her existing seat – while Andrew Leigh will remain in Fenner. The ACT Chief Minister, Andrew Barr, said he contemplated running in the Canberra electorate “maybe for a moment”. The other name mentioned is Kel Watt, “a member of ACT Labor’s right faction and lobbyist for the Canberra Greyhound Racing”.
• The Courier-Mail reported a fortnight ago that Jane Prentice, Liberal National Party member for the Brisbane seat of Ryan, is likely to lose preselection to Julian Simmonds, a Brisbane councillor and former staffer to both Prentice and her predecessor, Michael Johnson. Despite Prentice being a moderate and a Turnbull supporter, the move against her has reportedly “outraged” Campbell Newman.
• Elections for administrative positions in the Victorian Liberal Party have seen Michael Kroger easily face down a challenge to his position as president, and conservative young turk Marcus Bastiaan much strengthened, including through his own election to a vice-president position. The Australian reports Bastiaan is “largely regarded as Mr Kroger’s numbers man”, but his use of his new influence to cancel an early Senate preselection process suggests the situation may be more complex than that. According to James Campbell of the Herald Sun, the preselections had been initiated at the behest of Kroger, consistent with Malcolm Turnbull’s aforementioned call for them to be handled expeditiously. The report further says Bastiaan’s determination to delay proceedings suggests a threat to James Patterson or Jane Hume, the two Senators who will face re-election at the next election. However, a report by Aaron Patrick of the Financial Review suggest the bigger threat from the conservative ascendancy is likely to be faced by factional moderates in the state parliament.
• The Toowoomba Chronicle reports John McVeigh, the Liberal National Party member for Groom, has easily seen off a preselection challenge by Isaac Moody, business manager of Gabbinbar Homestead. Moody accused McVeigh of having “betrayed” his constituents by voting yes in the same-sex marriage plebiscite (49.2% of those constituents did the same).
• The Clarence Valley Daily Examiner reports Labor’s preselection for the north coast New South Wales seat of Page will be contested by Isaac Smith, the mayor of Lismore, and Patrick Deegan, who works for a domestic violence support service. Page has been held for the Nationals since 2013 by Kevin Hogan, whose margin after the 2016 election was 2.3%. Smith is backed by Janelle Saffin, who held the seat for Labor from 2007 to 2013 and is now the preselected candidate for the state seat of Lismore.
• The Townsville Bulletin reports that Ewen Jones, who lost the seat of Herbert to Labor’s Cathy O’Toole in 2016 by 37 votes, has again nominated for Liberal National Party preselection in the Townsville-based seat of Herbert.
• The Courier-Mail reported a fortnight ago that George Christensen might face a preselection challenge for his north Queensland seat of Dawson from Jason Costigan, member for the state seat of Whitsunday, but Costigan announced a few days later that he had chosen not to proceed.
Alice Workman tweets
Macron just said he wanted to thank Malcolm Turnbull and his “delicious wife”.
You can take the man out of France but…
I bet that’s a first for Lucy. 😆
C@tmomma @ #747 Wednesday, May 2nd, 2018 – 11:49 am
The $45 is a misconception that really annoys me. When you clean for whatever *charge* rate, you don’t get to keep anywhere near that. Even where chemicals and consumable are provided, there are the whole range of normal business costs (insurance, administration, advertising & promotion) which have to come out of your $45.
On top of the normal business costs, taking into account non recoverable time you spend working on your business (doing quotes, chasing up payment, travelling between jobs, allocation of cost for paid absences) you’d be lucky to be getting gross earnings of half that $45.
The bosses weren’t so bad, it was dealing with the completely and utterly unrealistic expectations of the client that was the problem. The last house I ever did was an exit clean for a two bedroom apartment where the tenant (a senior person in one of the companies we cleaned for) hadn’t done anything but very basic cleaning for the two years he lived in the apartment. The job was disgusting and the rate was a fair bit lower than we were getting to do the office where he worked. It took four of us five hours to do the exit clean and the guy spat the dummy when he got the bill and it took ages to get our money.
Pauline Hanson tweets
Government Senator & Chair of the Education & Employment Legislation Committee Lucy Gichuhi has called the Gov’s $320 MILLION DOLLAR foreign student scholarship giveaway #FAKENEWS!
Will @TurnbullMalcolm & @JulieBishopMP please explain? -PH #auspol
LINK: http://dfat.gov.au/people-to-people/australia-awards/pages/australia-awards.aspx https://twitter.com/PaulineHansonOz/status/991501152716898304/photo/1
ABC apologises over Tony Abbott comments:
http://www.theshovel.com.au/2018/05/01/heres-the-official-apology-from-the-abc-regarding-their-description-of-tony-abbott/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=here_s_the_official_apology_from_the_abc_regarding_their_description_of_tony_abbott&utm_term=2018-05-02
I was watching Sky news at 12 noon and the new Reachtel poll was the headline story.Sky must have been slow on their internet link to the new poll.
lizzie @ #573 Wednesday, May 2nd, 2018 – 9:27 am
Excellent News. He should live the rest of his life experiencing the ignominy he deserves, the evil grub. The way he treated the victims of his ‘church”s organised and facilitated child abuse was, and remains, vile.
@guytaur
I am totally in favour a modern day Colombo plan to help develop Sub-Saharan African countries develop by allowing a number of the best and brightest young people from those countries to study here. Not to mention those from the Pacific Islands as well.
This would bring more benefits to the world, than say the large number of Indian students who generally are just here to get permanent residency and help the cash strapped universities.
Also Lucy Turnbull at least not old enough to be Malcolm Turnbull’s mother, unlike Marcon’s wife. Since Macron and his wife first met when he was 15, not to mention she was his teacher. I am not making this stuff up!
I do. I think teaching is ‘superior’ to a whole host of jobs, because if done well it can have a positive effect in peoples’ lives.
Wich doesn’t sound like what zoomster does:
And I get $60 an hour as a casual teacher. I arrive, the work is given to me, I give it to the kids, I sit there and play on the laptop they provide to me free of charge, I put the work back in the teachers’ pigeonholes, I go home. And I don’t break out in skin rashes afterwards.
Not a bloody one of you commented on the Assad interview
How about this
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yw4sVGIeQNU
Interesting background on the BCA’s new Boy Wonder, Andrew Bragg:
Former and future staffers from all sides of politics often end up working as spinners or corporate affairs types in the sector too. One of the most interesting examples in recent years is Andrew Bragg. Bragg, formerly from the Commonwealth Bank, was a senior executive at the Financial Services Council. He then shifted to the Liberal Party think tank Menzies Research Centre, before becoming acting federal director of the Liberal Party last year after Brian Loughnane’s departure. He then moved to the Business Council of Australia where he is now working with Loughnane on the Council’s campaign for the government’s company tax cuts.
Scratch a Liberal and you get a Corporate carpetbagger.
Jay @ #760 Wednesday, May 2nd, 2018 – 2:16 pm
Jay
I can only support Colombo plan IF the students are never permitted to work in Australia or any other OECD country.
If we are going to support Somalian doctorsand nurses they MUST go back home to support their countries, otherwise all we a re doing is stealing the best and brightest from poor African countries.
Upon reading the news of Senator Gichuhi’s defection to the Liberal Party I predicted that she’d be more trouble than her guaranteed vote was worth.
I love the schadenfreude of being right when it comes to Brian Trumble’s cunning plans.
Jay
I am just highlighting in fighting amongst the “conservative” right.
@daretotread
Broadly I agree with you, although I imagine these students would come from countries such as Nigeria, Ghana, Kenya, Zambia, Botswana and Tanzania (countries which were part of the former British Empire) rather than Somalia.
With the Indian overseas students the best and brightest generally go to Universities in the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom rather than Australia.
Labor not happy with Trumble.
So, was it Fake News, or was Lucy Gichuhi on a promise for the Scholarships, let the cat out of the bag, and then had to retract after Pauline Hanson and more likely than not, Peter Dutton, found out?
lizzie @ #766 Wednesday, May 2nd, 2018 – 2:22 pm
So, Victorian Labor should play hardball and refuse to back Turnbull’s NEG.
C@
I also tutor small groups of dyslexic students. So I get to do the ‘turning lives around’ stuff as well.
However, it’s similar in that I do work on a walk -in, walk – out basis – which, if you remember, was the original point of the discussion.
Lol! 😆
Another former Financial Services Council executive, Martin Codina of BT Financial, became Josh Frydenberg’s chief of staff when the latter was appointed Assistant Treasurer in 2015, with responsibility for financial services (although, amusingly, Frydenberg had moved his super into an industry super fund).
@guytaur
Noted
Cat
The infighting is great. In Tasmania today Labor with the Greens voting for Speaker just got closer to being the government.
If Hickey decides she has had enough and quits the Liberals Tasmania will have a hung parliament.
Such strong and stable government the right delivers. 🙂
C@t
Labor were not invited to the signing, to the surprise of the French.
Jay
On actual doctors. Train them here. Spend on education not visas.
Meanwhile in the short term I suspect that there is a benefit to both Australia and the African countries.
@guytaur
You should see how things are in Victoria where the Conservatives (who are increasingly comprised of a large number of Fundamentalist Christians) are taking over the Liberal party.
That is going to ensure at least another decade or two of being in opposition or the Greens become the second party in Victoria as Labor picks up disaffected Centrist Liberal voters.
Is this man’s IQ any bigger than his collar size?
Jay
As President Macron says. Delicious. 🙂
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2018/may/02/company-tax-cut-plan-doomed-head-of-directors-group-says?CMP=soc_568
@lizzie
He is among the sizeable faction in the Coalition who don’t believe anthropogenic climate change is a reality. Therefore; they are generally opposed to any subsides to develop renewable power and believe that building more coal fired power stations will bring electricity prices down.
This faction has enough support in the Coalition that Malcolm Turnbull got rolled as Liberal Party leader first time around for support Labor’s carbon trading emissions scheme. I predict in Opposition this faction could even have more influence and continue with any oppositions to any meaningful reduction in Australia’s greenhouse emissions.
lizzie @ #776 Wednesday, May 2nd, 2018 – 11:30 am
I think not!
He has a large collar!!!! 🙂
Zoomster,
However, it’s similar in that I do work on a walk -in, walk – out basis – which, if you remember, was the original point of the discussion.
ONE of the original points of the discussion. Another was the pointlessness to an increasing number of Uni students, of their University education. Especially when their pay upon graduation, IF they can get a job in their chosen field, is hardly anything to write home about.
lizzie @ #773 Wednesday, May 2nd, 2018 – 2:28 pm
I was told last night to expect Turnbull’s crew to play very dirty hardball in the run-up to the next federal election. This is just one example of what that means.
Cat
Yes. You just have to see how the Tories campaigned against Labour in the UK to know that to expect from the LNP campaign. Same guy in charge after all.
C@
Right. And what I described was an easier, better paying job than cleaning, which is an option available to me because I completed my University education.
I repeat: if a University student is not getting an above average salary, they never ever have to pay a cent of their debt off. So it’s only if their University education has been of benefit to them that they pay for it.
Zoomster
Education is an investment. Its time we started treating it like one and return to Whitlam’s policy of Free Education and reject the Neo Liberal charge up front ideology.
Much more affordable than $65 Billion in tax cuts.
guytaur @ #772 Wednesday, May 2nd, 2018 – 2:26 pm
It cuts both ways, guytaur. We have a 15 member Council. Labor got 6 Councillors, the Liberals 4, no Greens, 2 Green-tinged Independents(one of whom was the former CEO of our local Environment Network and got our preferences), plus 3 Right-aligned Independents. You would have expected the Green-tinged Independents to have voted for a Labor Mayor, especially as one of them only got elected off the back of our preferences. One of them did. The other one became Mayor after doing a deal with the Liberals and the Right Independants!
guytaur
Except it was Paul Keating who re introduced fees. And it isn’t up front.
I don’t disagree with you, but on the other hand (having gone through Uni during that period) I did see people who didn’t care if they failed because it didn’t cost them anything if they did. (I thought it was funny when friends of mine went into Maths exams and wrote out pi to 100 places; I’m not sure it was a good use of taxpayer dollars, however…)
My sons are both at Uni (one’s on a break) at present. Neither seem too phased by HECS. One of them is talking of taking on extra debt, so he can study overseas. He doesn’t need to; he could cover the expense, but it actually (apparently) makes sense financially.
Cat
True. Division is death
I am just hoping for a hung parliament. Murdoch hates them. All the reason I need to love them.
Voters get listened to more.
G
Based on the experience of the past six years, hung parliaments are a recipe for chaos, hopeless compromises, sluggish decision-making, rank populism and fiscal irresponsibility.
Which is why the Greens love hung parliaments.
I sneer at the anglophone climate-ignorant pig dog, Craig Kelly.
zoomster @ #785 Wednesday, May 2nd, 2018 – 2:47 pm
And the point I made, which you don’t appear willing to acknowledge, is that there are lots of kids out there who have done a degree at Uni and found that it was next to useless and a waste of time because they are unable to get a job in their chosen area of study at the end of it! They would happily pay their loan back if they could get a job.
Not to mention the fact that if they get a job doing something else, they have to pay the money back anyway, and so what was the point of getting the debt in the first instance!?! That’s what I’m hearing. There’s a lot of disillusionment with Tertiary Education out there.
Another complaint I hear is that in the Medical Technology and Science fields the pay is really poor. That is if you can get a job at all.
BW
Still talking like a Murdoch Hack I see.
The only chaos and dysfunction of the Gillard government was internal Labor party divisions.
Unlike the majority LNP government they lost not one vote
dtt
I spit on Assad.
If they have the same kind of success here as they did over there all I can say is, BRING IT ON.
g
Still talking like Di Natale’s au pair, I see.
I wonder what position Lucy will end up on the SA Senate ticket this/next year?
I suspect it’ll be a lot lower than promised.
BW
Yep a Murdoch Hack response. Presented with facts go with the personal attack
GP – I was asking myself the same questions. Surely, there is no chance she will get a winnable slot, no matter what she was told.