Mid-week miscellany

Federal electoral news nuggets, sourced from Western Australia and the Australian Capital Territory.

We are having one of the poll-free weeks that have occasionally bedevilled us since Essential Research moved from weekly to fortnightly, with Newspoll having one of its occasional three-week gaps so its next poll coincides with the resumption of parliament. So here’s some random bits of electoral news:

• A polling nugget I forgot to relate a fortnight ago: according to a report by Nick Butterly of The West Australian, a Labor internal poll recorded a neck-and-neck result in the Perth seat of Stirling, which Michael Keenan holds for the Liberals by a margin of 6.1%. After excluding the 10.8% undecided, the primary votes were Liberal 40.2% (49.5% in 2016), Labor 37.6% (32.2%), Greens 9.0% (11.7%) and One Nation 5.3%. The poll was conducted by Community Engagement from a large sample of 1735.

• Gareth Parker in the Sunday Times reports that Matt O’Sullivan, who ran unsuccessfully in the lower house seat of Burt at the 2016 election, has narrowly won preselection for the third position on the Liberals’ Western Australian Senate ticket, behind incumbents Linda Reynolds and Slade Brockman. O’Sullivan emerged with 56 votes to 54 for Trish Botha, co-founder with her husband of an evangelical church in Perth’s northern suburbs. The closeness of the result surprised party observers, especially given Christian conservative numbers man Nick Goiran backed O’Sullivan. As Gareth Parker noted in his weekly column, Botha appears to have attracted support from “non God-botherers” opposed to Goiran’s alliance with Mathias Cormann and Peter Collier, who may not have been aware of the messianic language employed by Botha’s church.

• Katy Gallagher has announced she will seek preselection to recover the Australian Capital Territory Senate seat from which she was disqualified last month over Section 44 complications, after speculation she might instead seek the territory’s newly created third lower house seat. However, it appears she will face opposition from the newly anointed successor to her Senate seat, David Smith, former local director of Professionals Australia.

• As for the lower house situation in the Australian Capital Territory, Andrew Leigh will remain in Fenner and Gai Brodtmann will go from Canberra to the nominally new seat of Bean, leaving a vacancy available in Canberra. Smith appears set to run if he loses the Senate preselection to Gallagher; Sally Whyte of Fairfax reports he will be opposed by Kel Watt, a lobbyist who has lately made a name for himself campaigning against the territory Labor government’s ban on greyhound racing. Other potential starters include John Falzon, chief executive of the St Vincent de Paul Society; Jacob Ingram, a staffer to Chief Minister Andrew Barr; and Jacob White, a staffer to Andrew Leigh.

• Occasional Poll Bludger contributor Adrian Beaumont has launched his own website of local and international election and polling news.

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.

1,992 comments on “Mid-week miscellany”

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  1. Someone mentioned earlier that a precursor to privatisation involved running down a government organisation so that people would be unhappy with the service provided and not care if it were privatised.

    This seems to be happening to the ABC right now.

  2. And, conversely, it seems that, no matter how many kitchen sinks and ‘Kill Bill’ tactics the Coalition throw at Bill Shorten, Labor still remain ahead in Newspoll. 🙂

  3. Diogenes @ #1916 Sunday, June 17th, 2018 – 9:36 pm

    The best investigative journalism in the world is done by private news media like the NYT and WaPo. Hardly anyone watches the ABC and those that do only watch it to complain. Like lots of people here.

    There is a vocal, irrational, ABC hating small group on PB.
    Their bleats far outweigh their numbers, but a few more are silly enough to follow their lead.
    I suspect most on PB watch or listen to the ABC extensively. I do. There is only SBS to compete with it. The rest is rubbish.

  4. So now we are going to get more terror and boats from the LNP.

    Has worked a treat for them in the polling hasn’t it 🙂

  5. ‘Mystery Road’ would NEVER be commissioned by a commercial TV station.

    Just another reason we need the ABC.

  6. Early start tomorrow – just had to stay up to see this. Together with the Saints’ miracle win (yes – like a drop of water in a VERY big desert) this will keep me going for another fortnight. Goodnight all.

    One last thought – maybe those Young Libs at their convention really are trying to get rid of as many incumbent Liberals as possible so that they themselves can seek preselection at the subsequent election. Or else they are just plain stupid – hard to be certain which.

  7. So, Labor has built up a huge election war chest so it can close the dealt at the election and it is still streets ahead. The Libs usually do better when parliament is not sitting. Not anymore.

  9. Benson slogging away to please his US media mogul boss:

    NEWSPOLL
    PM’s support highest since election

    9:30PMSIMON BENSON
    Popular support for Malcolm Turnbull has hit its highest level since the last election but his government continues to trail Labor. (Oz headline)

  10. The newspoll figure (after the Rupe constant is extracted) looks spookily like the Essential 54 – 46. The only reason Malcy will go this year is because he thinks he might be axed.

  11. So Newspoll – basically no change.

    LNP 38 ALP 38 GRN 10 PHON 6 OTH 8

    I get Labor 2PP = 38 + 8 from GRN + 2 from PHON + 4 from OTH = 52.

  13. The reason why the ABC is seen as not delivering on journalism is … oh wait, the gutting of the news division.

  15. Cat

    Yes I like Tonightly too.

    I hope the allegations against Ballard are in fact false.

    I haven’t heard anything so hopefully thats whats happened for my selfish entertainment diet.

  18. Rocket Rocket @ #1949 Sunday, June 17th, 2018 – 9:50 pm

    Dio – I heard on the radio recently some of ABC “Blood on the Tracks” about the death of Mark Haines in Tamworth 30 years ago. Worth listening to – I think it was on TV also. Good investigative journalism (of very poor police effort at the time). Very sad listening to it unfold.

    Seconded.

  21. guytaur,
    Tom Ballard’s explanation wrt the incident had the ring of truth to me. That is, it was an attempt to exploit him.

  24. A privatised ABC will just be another commercial outlet broadcasting crap interrupted every few minutes by different crap.

  26. Dio

    Harrow is fun to watch
    Mystery road is good.
    The slap was excellent
    Dr Blake was wonderful (so dad it is over)
    Friany Fisher was fun

    Playschool of course!!!!!!!!!! The commercial equivalents are CRAP
    There are a few very good kids programs – Little Lunch is excellent

  29. “Dio – I heard on the radio recently some of ABC “Blood on the Tracks” about the death of Mark Haines in Tamworth 30 years ago. Worth listening to – I think it was on TV also. Good investigative journalism (of very poor police effort at the time). Very sad listening to it unfold.”

    I caught it on ABC Radio National.

    Thirded.

  30. Cat

    Yeah same here.

    I am hoping that the silence is the realisation of that. Not that its just slow court processes.

    I make no guilty judgement until proven of course.

  31. So the ALP is running a “petition” to protect the ABC and SBS. I’d be quite inclined to support it, were it not for the fact that by including “email” as a required field, they’ve let the cat out of the bag that this is yet another rather shonky effort to capture individuals’ data for their party database.

  35. Pedant — I might be wrong but I think if you want to present petitions to parlt/ministers, you have to identify to avoid corruption (i.e. 1 person doing multiples with bogus names etc.)

    Not saying a political party would not utilise, mind you.

  37. Pedant @ #1981 Sunday, June 17th, 2018 – 10:10 pm

    So the ALP is running a “petition” to protect the ABC and SBS. I’d be quite inclined to support it, were it not for the fact that by including “email” as a required field, they’ve let the cat out of the bag that this is yet another rather shonky effort to capture individuals’ data for their party database.

    Anything wrong with that?
    If you are on the Electoral Roll, you are on the database for all parties.

  40. sustainable future says:
    Sunday, June 17, 2018 at 8:50 pm

    Boer – so labor should continue to stay silent? If the left/centre left doesn’t speak out then dutton and co have won. Beasley stuffed this up completely by going to water and labor has continued their appeasement policy ever since. The Greens speak up about this and if that hurts labor it it because they are as weak as piss on the issue.

    It’s probable that anti-Labor moaning by the G on this issue is actually positive for Labor these days. It certainly would not “hurt” Labor.

  42. pedant

    If you’re so worried about them having your email address, open a free account with yahoo or gmail just for that purpose. If you don’t want to be barraged with marketing/campaign emails simply never log into it again.

    Simples.

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