By-elections, preselections and Section 44

A round-up of the latest news on by-election and related fronts.

A little extra polling:

• The Australian on Tuesday provided an extra finding from the weekend Newspoll: that opposition to reforming Section 44 has hardened since August, when Barnaby Joyce’s difficulty first emerged. Fifty-one per cent now believe dual citizens should be disqualified from parliament, up seven, with 38% opposed, down five. Forty-six per cent opposed a referendum being held on the matter, with 43% in support.

By-election latest:

• Western Australia’s Darling Range state by-election will be held on June 23. Nathan Hondros of Fairfax reports the Liberal preselection, which will be determined by the party’s state council on Saturday, will be contested by Alyssa Hayden, who unexpectedly lost her upper house seat for East Metropolitan region to One Nation in 2017, and Rob Coales, a police sergeant and Serpentine-Jarrahdale councillor. The early mail was that Coales was favourite, but according to Hondros, it is “understood party powerbrokers are supporting Ms Hayden”.

• David Crowe of Fairfax reports the date for the Super Saturday by-elections could be pushed back to July 7, as the government looks at an Australian Electoral Commission recommendation to implement an online tool for candidates to lodge declarations and supporting documentation, so as to avoid further issues arising from Section 44. This had caused initial plans for a date of June 16 to be scotched, although concerns linger about the electoral impact of an eight-week campaign.

• Speaking of, Michael McKenna of The Australian reports the Liberal National Party preselection for Longman is being held off until next Tuesday to ensure frontrunner Trevor Ruthenberg was able to clear up his own Section 44 issue, arising from his being born in Papua New Guinea.

• Georgia Downer has emerged unopposed for Liberal preselection in Mayo. The Australian reports “ambitious conservative” Michael van Dissel was another potential nominee, but withdrew as it became clear the Right was solid behind Downer. In contrast to the Liberals in WA, Labor will be contested Mayo, despite never having held hte saet before. A Labor source quoted by Philip Coorey said the party believed its preferences could assist Rebekha Sharkie, and that failing to run would suppress the party’s Senate vote at the next election.

• Braddon will again be contested for the Liberals by Brett Whiteley, who held the seat from 2013 until his defeat by Labor’s Justine Keay in 2016, and served in the state seat of Braddon from 2002 until his defeat in 2010. The Burnie Advocate reports former McDonald’s licensee Craig Brakey and Wynyard RSL president Gavin Pearce also contested the state executive vote, but Whiteley was chosen unanimously.

• The Western Australian Liberals’ decision to forfeit the Perth by-election, said to have been instigated by Matthias Cormann, has been widely criticised in the party. Following Tim Hammond’s resignation announcement on May 1, Christian Porter told Sky News Australia the party would “undoubtedly” run, and state Opposition Leader Mike Nahan, who had mocked Labor’s unsurprising decision not to field a candidate in the recent by-election for Colin Barnett’s old seat of Cottesloe, said the by-election was “one we need to contest”.

• The Western Australian Greens have announced their by-elections candidates: Caroline Perks, senior sustainability officer at the City of Perth, in Perth; and Dorinda Cox, domestic violence campaigner and former police officer, in Fremantle.

Other preselection news:

• Jane Prentice’s preselection defeat in her Brisbane seat of Ryan has roused controversy over the lack of gender balance in the Coalition. The winner was Julian Simmonds, a Brisbane councillor who once worked on Prentice’s staff when she herself was on council. Simmons, who is identified with the Right, won a local party ballot by 256 votes to 103 over Prentice, a moderate and early backer of Malcolm Turnbull. Charlie Peel of The Australian reports the vote was “roughly split along traditional party lines, with Nationals backing Ms Prentice”. Critics of the decision include Campbell Newman, Leichhardt MP Warren Entsch and Capricornia MP Michelle Landry.

• Jared Owens of The Australian reports Ian Macdonald and Barry O’Sullivan, who respectively hold Queensland Senate seats for the Liberals and the Nationals, face preselection challenges from Scott Emerson, the former state Shadow Treasurer who lost his seat of Maiwar to the Greens last November, and Susan McDonald, managing director of a chain of butcher’s shops and a member of “one of Queensland’s grazing families”.

• Michael Owen of The Australian reports on a “strong challenge” for Liberal Senate preselection in South Australia from Alex Antic, an Adelaide councillor. This apparently poses a threat to another female Liberal MP, Anne Ruston, who might otherwise be expected to lead the ticket, but not to the mooted number two candidate, David Fawcett. It might also endanger Lucy Gichuhi’s hold on number three, long shot proposition though that may be.

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.

1,071 comments on “By-elections, preselections and Section 44”

Comments Page 19 of 22
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  1. The only ascertained area of Australia that did not have an Aboriginal presence is Kangaroo Island…..They were everywhere else without exception. Learn your history.

    I think you are wrong there.

    Kangaroo Island separated from mainland Australia around 10,000 years ago, due to rising sea level after the last glacial period. Known as Karta (“Island of the Dead”) by the mainland Aboriginal tribes, the existence of stone tools and shell middens show that Aboriginal people once lived on Kangaroo Island.[2] It is thought that they occupied it as long ago as 16,000 years before the present, and may have only disappeared from the island as recently as 2000 years ago.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kangaroo_Island#Aboriginal_use

  2. Confessions says:
    Saturday, May 19, 2018 at 6:25 pm
    Boerwar @ #877 Saturday, May 19th, 2018 – 4:21 pm

    The invaders ran an Indigenous sustainability program?

    Incredible isn’t it, that there are still Australians who have no idea about Australia’s colonial history and what it meant for the first Australians.

    ____________________________

    Invaders throughout history have killed and conducted genocide on the original inhabitants.

    In the christian bible, the Israelites conducted genocide on the people who were living there, because ‘God had given it to them’.

    In 1 Samuel 15:2-3, God commanded Saul and the Israelites, “This is what the LORD Almighty says: ‘I will punish the Amalekites for what they did to Israel when they waylaid them as they came up from Egypt. Now go, attack the Amalekites and totally destroy everything that belongs to them. Do not spare them; put to death men and women, children and infants, cattle and sheep, camels and donkeys.'” God ordered similar things when the Israelites were invading the promised land (Deuteronomy 2:34; 3:6; 20:16-18)

    The Romans invaded Britain around AD 43. They took possession, and subdued the locals.

    In 1066, William the conqueror invaded England, and took over the government of the land. The French language became the language of the court, and gave many French words to the english language – beef, mutton, and many others.

    Pizarro was a Spanish conquistador who led an expedition that conquered the Inca Empire. He captured and killed the Incan emperor Atahualpa, and claimed the lands for Spain. The locals had to like it or lump it.

    Cortez was a Spanish Conquistador who led an expedition that caused the fall of the Aztec Empire and brought large portions of what is now mainland Mexico under the rule of Spain. The locals had no say in the matter.

    In the US, the europeans killed and dispossessed the native inhabitants, they signed treaties which they did not honour.

    In Australia, similar things happened. The invaders, the English, had superior weapons and organisation, and took the land from the original inhabitants.

    Australia is not going to be given back to the original inhabitants. The Australian aborigines lost the war, the Europeans won it.

    To the winners go the spoils.

    ‘Twas ever thus.

  3. Only two countries voted against the proposal: Australia and the United States, although another 14 abstained.

    FMD our government sucks

  4. Tristo

    Did a quick google, and think I was wrong, too!!

    Relying on a vague memory when your memory is getting vaguer is not always a good idea.

  7. zoomster says:
    Saturday, May 19, 2018 at 7:15 pm
    Yeah, don – again, not the point.

    ______________________

    So the point is?

  8. don whines about some irrelevancy going back to AD 43 and 1066 as if this means anything in Australia for our first nations peoples today. Of course it doesn’t because (shock horror!) time and society moves on.

    The Noongar people of the country’s south west are about to have handed over to them the largest native title settlement in the nation’s history in recognition for being the original inhabitants of the land stolen from them at the time of colonisation.

    You can continue to live your life in AD 43 or you can join the real world where those of us with empathy are recognising the sins of the past, and making amends through legislation, repatriation and symbolism such as the Rudd govt’s national apology.

  9. Confessions @ #900 Saturday, May 19th, 2018 – 7:09 pm

    Tristo @ #894 Saturday, May 19th, 2018 – 4:58 pm

    @pica

    There were no people on either Flinders or King Islands also when the Europeans arrived. Although they did have Aboriginal populations until a few thousand years ago, until they died out. I believe the same occurred on Kangaroo Island, because it was once a part of the Australian mainland.

    But this has nothing to do with the ignorantly expressed viewpoint that .

    They clearly were. And this isn’t just a unique experience to Australian indigenous peoples, but indigenous peoples who lived in Canada, the US and NZ at the time of European colonisation.

    Here we go again, the ignorant one engaging in her fabrications.
    No-one has said “indigenous Australians were never forced into places (lands) like what has happened in the Middle East” Of course there were plenty of dispossessions, massacres etc, but not on the scale of an entire population.

  12. Bushfire Bill @ #871 Saturday, May 19th, 2018 – 6:08 pm

    C@tmomna, I remind you that YOU chose to respond to a post of mine, with regulation “male” reference and drive-by moral assessment, plus some kind of gratuitous reference to where I live.

    Now you tell us it’s not about “males”. So why the fuck make such a big deal out of mentioning the gender of those you disagree with?

    Lastly we see your self-appointed co-stewardship of this blog via your recommendation that others “feck off”. Just because you spend 3/4 of your waking hours trawling this site for other peoples’ arguments to buy into doesn’t give you any rights at all to recommend anyone does anything around here.

    Hey, Mr Thin-skinned Snowflake. You can’t handle it when it gets dished up back at you, can you? 🙂

    Oh, and fyi, if you actually bothered to look, I haven’t been on the blog very much lately at all. Mostly in the morning and at night when I have a bit of spare time. It’s because I have this thing called a life outside of the blog. However, as you appear to have arrogated unto yourself the role of gatekeeper and timekeeper, I guess that says more about your lack of one than it does about me. 🙂

  13. Confessions @ #908 Saturday, May 19th, 2018 – 7:24 pm

    don whines about some irrelevancy going back to AD 43 and 1066 as if this means anything in Australia for our first nations peoples today. Of course it doesn’t because (shock horror!) time and society moves on.

    The Noongar people of the country’s south west are about to have handed over to them the largest native title settlement in the nation’s history in recognition for being the original inhabitants of the land stolen from them at the time of colonisation.

    You can continue to live your life in AD 43 or you can join the real world where those of us with empathy are recognising the sins of the past, and making amends through legislation, repatriation and symbolism such as the Rudd govt’s national apology.

    Exactly!

  15. don,
    I haven’t shed one tear for the innocents who lost their lives in Texas today. Nor will I. Doesn’t mean I can’t express my sympathy for the senseless loss of life there today. You can’t seem to make that distinction.

  16. OK
    I am shamed

    There is nothing else to watch but the wedding.

    Now in keeping with this decline into low life banality, Annabelle Crabb looks bloody awful

  23. Have you even looked at the article?

    Your comments say, no

    Of course I didn’t read the article. Why would I? The fed Libs are on the way out, yet it would appear the Vic Libs are heading into govt.

    Hence my comment re their leader.

  24. Perhaps the Liberal’s will split into moderates & conservatives who can no longer work together, then the whole job lot can be relegated to the historical dustbin.

  25. Confessions @ #923 Saturday, May 19th, 2018 – 4:53 pm

    Have you even looked at the article?

    Your comments say, no

    Of course I didn’t read the article. Why would I? The fed Libs are on the way out, yet it would appear the Vic Libs are heading into govt.

    Hence my comment re their leader.

    So why respond to the article when your response was nothing about the article?

  26. ‘..Julia Banks – the MP who managed to snatch the seat of Chisholm from Labor at the 2016 election, against the political tide andgiving the Coalition the seat it needed to command a lower house majority…’

    Hang on, I thought that was Ann Sudmalis….

  27. “I think you are wrong there.”

    I’m not, so when you understand that I am not wrong, please apologize. (It’s not like I know about this stuff….sark). ‘Island of the Dead’ is not the same as human occupation. Actually it’s usually the opposite. You Numpty.

  28. So why respond to the article when your response was nothing about the article?

    Because I wanted to comment about the Victorian Liberal leader and you gave me the perfect opening for doing so.

  29. mikehilliard @ #924 Saturday, May 19th, 2018 – 4:54 pm

    Perhaps the Liberal’s will split into moderates & conservatives who can no longer work together, then the whole job lot can be relegated to the historical dustbin.

    It would be interesting to see who would come out strongest of the two in the electorate and which way the moderates preferences would leak.
    or
    Would it be like the DLP-Labor split and relegate them to medium term obscurity.

  30. ‘Are you retarded?’

    We have been asked not to use this term. And it’s unnecessary, anyway.

    I’m not bold enough to diagnose someone with a mental illness on the basis of newspaper reports.

    I have, however, provided a couple of links here today which suggest that these kinds of killings are not due to any recognised kind of mental illness, assertions made by people far more skilled than I ever will be in this field.

  31. zoomster @ #926 Saturday, May 19th, 2018 – 7:58 pm

    ‘..Julia Banks – the MP who managed to snatch the seat of Chisholm from Labor at the 2016 election, against the political tide andgiving the Coalition the seat it needed to command a lower house majority…’

    Hang on, I thought that was Ann Sudmalis….

    You haven’t been paying attention.
    Sudmalis held a seat the Libs already had.
    Banks won Chisholm off Labor. The only seat Labor lost in the 2016 election I believe.

  32. Australia is not going to be given back to the original inhabitants. The Australian aborigines lost the war, the Europeans won it.

    To the winners go the spoils.

    ‘Twas ever thus.

    As moral/ethical justifications go, that one’s about a weak as they come.

  33. I’m not, so when you understand that I am not wrong, please apologize. (It’s not like I know about this stuff….sark). ‘Island of the Dead’ is not the same as human occupation. Actually it’s usually the opposite. You Numpty.

    Did you click on the link?, Middens surely means someone was there a long time.
    So if Wikipedia is wrong, sure, I’ll apologise.

  34. pica @ #927 Saturday, May 19th, 2018 – 7:59 pm

    “I think you are wrong there.”

    I’m not, so when you understand that I am not wrong, please apologize. (It’s not like I know about this stuff….sark). ‘Island of the Dead’ is not the same as human occupation. Actually it’s usually the opposite. You Numpty.

    Numpty is a word William has forbidden except for one person.

  35. mikehilliard @ #924 Saturday, May 19th, 2018 – 7:54 pm

    Perhaps the Liberal’s will split into moderates & conservatives who can no longer work together, then the whole job lot can be relegated to the historical dustbin.

    Likely. It appears that, with the demise of Family First, a lot of those people have been looking for a new political home. They don’t think Cory Bernardi’s Conservtaives have much hope of gaining real power any time soon, so they have thrown in their lot with the Liberals. However, as also stated, Malcolm Turnbull is, to them, Public Enemy Number 1, due to his being a Progressive. 😆

    So, Splitsville appears to be the logical consequence. It may not happen before the next election, but if they lose the federal election and go into Opposition, I think it will be on for young and old.

  36. zoomster @ #930 Saturday, May 19th, 2018 – 8:02 pm

    ‘Are you retarded?’

    We have been asked not to use this term. And it’s unnecessary, anyway.

    I’m not bold enough to diagnose someone with a mental illness on the basis of newspaper reports.

    I have, however, provided a couple of links here today which suggest that these kinds of killings are not due to any recognised kind of mental illness, assertions made by people far more skilled than I ever will be in this field.

    So people just get up one day and decide to become a mass murderer without any underlying cause?
    That is the thinking of a normal person?
    Seriously?

  37. A R

    It may be morally weak but it is reality since forever. Your ancestors would have been the beneficiaries and victims of that reality dozens of times. Just as various Aboriginal tribes would have been pre Whities turning up.

  38. zoomster @ #930 Saturday, May 19th, 2018 – 8:02 pm

    ‘Are you retarded?’

    We have been asked not to use this term. And it’s unnecessary, anyway.

    I’m not bold enough to diagnose someone with a mental illness on the basis of newspaper reports.

    I have, however, provided a couple of links here today which suggest that these kinds of killings are not due to any recognised kind of mental illness, assertions made by people far more skilled than I ever will be in this field.

    Only a dickhead uses the term ‘retarded’ these days.

  39. bemused @ #934 Saturday, May 19th, 2018 – 8:04 pm

    pica @ #927 Saturday, May 19th, 2018 – 7:59 pm

    “I think you are wrong there.”

    I’m not, so when you understand that I am not wrong, please apologize. (It’s not like I know about this stuff….sark). ‘Island of the Dead’ is not the same as human occupation. Actually it’s usually the opposite. You Numpty.

    Numpty is a word William has forbidden except for one person.

    Get over yourself Bemused, you numpty.

  40. Did I click on the link? Wikipedia? No I didn’t and if stone tools and wiki inks are your fall back, then you are in the shit. Keep on digging, just keep on digging. Sorry to lambaste you, as I usually enjoy your posts. But….”At contact’ there was no aboriginal presence Kangaroo Island…..End of story.

  41. adrian @ #939 Saturday, May 19th, 2018 – 8:10 pm

    bemused @ #934 Saturday, May 19th, 2018 – 8:04 pm

    pica @ #927 Saturday, May 19th, 2018 – 7:59 pm

    “I think you are wrong there.”

    I’m not, so when you understand that I am not wrong, please apologize. (It’s not like I know about this stuff….sark). ‘Island of the Dead’ is not the same as human occupation. Actually it’s usually the opposite. You Numpty.

    Numpty is a word William has forbidden except for one person.

    Get over yourself Bemused, you numpty.

    Well, you were warned. May the wrath of William descend upon you! 😆

  42. zoomster @ #927 Saturday, May 19th, 2018 – 7:58 pm

    ‘..Julia Banks – the MP who managed to snatch the seat of Chisholm from Labor at the 2016 election, against the political tide andgiving the Coalition the seat it needed to command a lower house majority…’

    Hang on, I thought that was Ann Sudmalis….

    Or, Michelle Landry. 🙂

  43. C@tmomma @ #936 Saturday, May 19th, 2018 – 5:04 pm

    mikehilliard @ #924 Saturday, May 19th, 2018 – 7:54 pm

    Perhaps the Liberal’s will split into moderates & conservatives who can no longer work together, then the whole job lot can be relegated to the historical dustbin.

    Likely. It appears that, with the demise of Family First, a lot of those people have been looking for a new political home. They don’t think Cory Bernardi’s Conservtaives have much hope of gaining real power any time soon, so they have thrown in their lot with the Liberals. However, as also stated, Malcolm Turnbull is, to them, Public Enemy Number 1, due to his being a Progressive. 😆

    So, Splitsville appears to be the logical consequence. It may not happen before the next election, but if they lose the federal election and go into Opposition, I think it will be on for young and old.

    It says much about the Libs membership numbers if branches can be taken over so relatively easily!

    I’m also surprised by the Family First reference. I thought they were mainly an SA thing with not much support elsewhere. 🙂

  44. adrian

    Only a dickhead uses the term ‘retarded’ these days.

    Ah the LOL, ‘retarded’ was introduced as a PC term . My how times change.

  45. poroti @ #937 Saturday, May 19th, 2018 – 8:07 pm

    A R

    It may be morally weak but it is reality since forever. Your ancestors would have been the beneficiaries and victims of that reality dozens of times. Just as various Aboriginal tribes would have been pre Whities turning up.

    Lots of things have been ‘reality’ in the past and present. Doesn’t mean that we just accept that this reality cannot be changed and wallow in our smug self satisfaction, that I’m alright Jack.

    Otherwise, nothing would friggin’ change for the better. I’m sure that you can think of your own examples.

  47. C@t

    So, Splitsville appears to be the logical consequence. It may not happen before the next election, but if they lose the federal election and go into Opposition, I think it will be on for young and old.

    Fingers crossed!

  48. ‘‘retarded’ was introduced as a PC term ‘

    It was? We were using it as an insult in primary school back in the sixties, long before PC was on the scene.

  50. If the children at the school who are complaining about being shot at by their peers really wanted to stop it, they would stop bullying the shooters in the playground, or otherwise picking on them, or otherwise giving them cause to be upset. They would be nice and polite to the unsettled ones among them just in case those disturbed people went and bought an Armalite rifle and started shooting.

    This might sound cynical, but it’s not. It’s what any rational person would do.

    If you live in a society where guns are freely available, even to young people otherwise under-aged, to mentally disturbed people, or to just anyone in general without background, age or character checks, then you should make sure you are exceedingly polite and caring towards them, in case they snap and murder you along with a couple of dozen of your schoolmates. I would be most polite to the loner type, in case he marked me for execution. You (if you are reading this, whoever “you” are) would be too.

    The NRA types have a saying: “An armed society is a polite society”. It’s awful to say it, but never a truer word was spoken, given the armed society as a starting point. I am not for one second saying things should be like this, or approving of a society that is like this, or claiming that it’s a good thing to nice to people just in case they want to shoot you, but it appears that this is the way things are, in reality, in America, as at May 19th 2018.

    Why else would supposedly sane law enforcement officers be suggesting limiting entrances and exits to schools so that not only will mass murderers be more easily intercepted, but also because if they do get by the armed security guards there will be cleare “free-fire” zones where these child murderers can be gunned down before they kill even more of their peers? It’s a practical method of dealing with the reality.

    Kids are notoriously thoughtless and cruel. I’d like to think most of us try (and tried) hard not to be, but there’s always room for misinterpretation of even innocent motives, especially in the case of a paranoid adolescent full of hormones pulling him this way and that. Almost anywhere on the planet this is merely a social problem, a matter of etiquette and manners. In America it’s killing kids, as mentally disturbed children and teenagers are following their parents’ example (and their leaders’ outright encouragement) by going to obtain massively lethal firearms, in order to settle grudges by dealing death to those who taunt them.

    They see this mortal method of conflict resolution everywhere they go, and in almost everything they experience in the media, for one thing. Guns are pulled and pointed at people at random in TV shows, films, and lately even reality TV. Their country goes about the world killing innocent bystanders at weddings, or even just driving down the road, by firing missiles from drones. This is done by remote control from a converted shipping container in, for example, Tampa, Florida. The target is half way around the world, designated as such by someone they have never met, who is sitting in an air-conditioned office eating a sandwich.

    If that’s not enough, criminals – a significant majority of them black – are executed by the state, literally at random (according to cold case statistics), simply because of their ethnicity. Nuclear weapons are developed by the US military that can wipe out the world 50 times over (down from 100 times over, but who’s counting?). Paranoia and the dealing of death are ways of life in America.

    Is it any wonder that right from the cradle to the grave American kids are subjected to a relentless imperative to kill others as a solution to the more intractable of Life’s problems? Or at least to consider it as a serious option?

    It is not being cynical or callous to see this as both an unsolvable problem and to consequently avoid concerning oneself with the consequences of this quite deliberate, constitutionally-enshrined policy choice (dare I say “lifestyle choice”?) of the American people. It does no good for us to wring our hands and cry “Pity the children!”, because those children are already growing up into the kinds of adults who will advocate for 2nd amendment rights” to continue the slaughter, if they aren’t already doing so. All those Good Ol’ Boy gun nuts you see spouting NRA bullshit were children once.

    In a very real way, America is a living example of what happens when “liberty” turns into “libertarianism”, and thence to “licence”. They have the freedom and liberty to blast each other to hell, based on a half-cocked fantasy born of unscrupulous, malignant myth-making that one day “the Redcoats” or “The Government” are coming to take it all away from them again. Best to be armed in readiness for the day, and in the meantime…

    Why we here in Australia (who made the correct choice on guns – that is, to substantially get rid of them – and keep them gone) should give a damn about the moral trainwreck that America has gotten itself into by following its “freedoms” to their logical conclusion is beyond me. We cannot do anything about it, so why waste tears and emotional energy on it?

    Like many others here I too have good American friends, fantastic men and women. I’ve known them over decades since we were backpackers in the 1970s. We remain great friends and will be until we start dying off. I implore them to come here to live. But you can only implore for so long until you give up and concede that the way their country is, is the way they want it to be.

    You can only shrug your shoulders and wish them safe passage..

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