The spilling season

A review of the situation as it appeared overnight, plus polling suggesting voters would far prefer Bishop to Dutton if they really can’t have Turnbull.

“The Herald Sun understands Peter Dutton has reached 43 names and the petition will be presented to the Prime Minister tomorrow morning calling for a leadership spill”, runs the one indication I am aware of that the Peter Dutton camp did not in fact spend last night butting its collective head against a ceiling of 40 signatures. That would ensure the proposed party room meeting goes ahead at noon; it is not clear Turnbull will be able to head off organisational pressure to have the situation resolved in any case. If so, a leadership ballot will proceed between Peter Dutton, Scott Morrison and Julie Bishop. The situation is fluid, but the prevailing view seems to be that Bishop will be excluded after a first round vote, setting up a decisive showdown between Dutton and Morrison. A lot may depend on the Solicitor-General’s advice on Dutton’s Section 44 issue, expected this morning.

It also appears to established that this will be immediately followed by Malcolm Turnbull resigning from parliament, and Nationals MP Kevin Hogan moving to the cross-bench. Hogan would continue voting with confidence and supply, but Turnbull’s absence could cause other votes to be lost if the cross bench was united against the government, unless Labor granted a pairing arrangement. Then there is the question of a by-election in Wentworth, which would not be a foregone conclusion for the Liberals – particularly, one suspects, if Dutton is leader. Labor was starting to look almost competitive in the seat before Turnbull made his mark there; failing that, there would seem to be a strong chance of a conservative independent emerging. While there will undoubtedly be a clamour for an early election, the scale of the Liberals’ unreadiness for one suggests it will not be so early as to preclude the need for the by-election.

Poll news:

• A ReachTEL poll for the CFMEU finds 55.5% rating themselves less likely to vote Liberal if Peter Dutton was leader, compared with 22.9% for more likely and 21.5% for no difference. A question on preferred Liberal leader had Peter Dutton on just 10.2%, behind Turnbull on 38.1%, Julie Bishop on 29.2%, Tony Abbott on 14.0% and Scott Morrison on 8.6%. This is consistent with other such polling of recent times, though perhaps a little stronger for Julie Bishop. On voting intention, Labor led 53-47; we haven’t had a ReachTEL poll from Sky News for three months now, but the last one had Labor leading 52-48. After allocating results of a forced response question for the undecided, the primary votes are Coalition 36.1%, Labor 35.0%, Greens 10.8% and One Nation 9.0%. The poll was conducted Wednesday night from a sample of 2430.

• Further bolstering Julie Bishop’s claim is another Morgan SMS poll, finding her favoured 64-36 over Bill Shorten as preferred prime minister, while Shorten held a bare 50.5-49.5 lead over Scott Morrison. The poll was conducted yesterday from a sample of 1126. Unlike Wednesday’s poll, which matched Bill Shorten against Malcolm Turnbull (unfavourably) and Peter Dutton (favourably), this one did not include an undecided option. Bishop’s lead was fairly consistent across the age spectrum, whereas Morrison did much better among older respondents.

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.

1,025 comments on “The spilling season”

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  1. The spilling season. Very witty, William.

    I don’t know why Morrison should do better among older respondents. He talks so fast the hard of hearing would find him intelligible.
    OTOH Perhaps that’s the reason.

  2. Well, we may have a new PM by the end of the day but as a supporter of the good guys, I can only hope that the advice to the PM is Dutton is ineligible .
    This would mean Turnbull will go the full tropo on Dutton and declare him unable to stand, as there are doubts ,and the clusterf*ck will continue.
    The longer this goes on the better for the ALP it will be.

  3. Good Morning Bludgers

    So 43 turkeys have decided to vote for Christmas? They are convinced that the way to victory at the next election is to chase PHON’s voters?

    Senator Seselja said he was supporting change to reverse the drift of traditional coalition supporters to fringe parties, particularly Pauline Hanson’s One Nation. He cited the Longman byelection where Hanson’s candidate polled 17 per cent and the LNP polled a primary of 29 per cent.

    “If we’re getting a primary vote around that it would very, very difficult to hold onto seats in Queensland, it would be very, very difficult to hold on to government.

    “In order to win elections you have to start by securing your base … it is very, very difficult to win elections without your traditional supporters behind you and that is one of the reasons why a number of people have come to the conclusion that Peter Dutton is the best man to lead us,” he said.

    https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/i-was-not-in-breach-peter-dutton-releases-new-legal-advice-on-eligibility-to-be-mp-20180823-p4zzft.html

    However, the arithmetic doesn’t stack up.

    Not all PHON voters even give their second preference to the LNP in Queensland now. So with a 1 seat majority, chasing down all their votes, will see the Coalition lose ground. Not to mention that Pauline Hanson might have something to say about having her voters poached. As well as the fact that people vote for Pauline because she has been true to her positions for decades and she is that ‘conviction politician’ that some people love. The Coalition doing it at 5 minutes to midnight doesn’t have the same sense of authenticity about it.

    And that’s before you get onto the votes south of the Tweed that the Coalition are going to definitely lose under Joh 2.0, Peter Dutton.

  6. I’ll run my musings on today’s events again on this thread. I’m assuming the Solicitor-General will find in favour of Dutton.

    Assuming that 43 signatures have been found, this will mean a three-way contest at lunchtime. It’s difficult to predict. Yesterday, I thought Dutton – if eligible to remain in Parliament – was a certainty. However, the struggle to get to 43 signatures doesn’t seem to bode all that well for him. From the press reports about who voted for him on Tuesday, it would appear that he has a hard core base of 31 conservatives, plus the three formerly pro-Turnbull conservatives who came across to his side yesterday – Cash, Cormann and Fyfield – plus Hunt, Keenan, McGrath and Laming who are supporting him for other reasons. That makes a totla of 38.

    It’s possible that Cash, Cormann and Fyfield have brought some others with them, although the suggestion that Cash and Cormann were campaigning hard for signatures yesterday, and that they had still only got to “about 40” by yesterday evening, doesn’t suggest so.

    It’s also in the nature of these leadership contests that some people flip flop, so it’s possible that some who voted for Dutton on Tuesday have now had second thoughts, eg: News Corp listed Van Manen among Dutton’s strongest supporters, but he was sounding mightily annoyed on Wednesday. Being a loyal LNP footsoldier, he’ll probably fall into line, but there are others who could possibly drift.

    Anyway, there does seem to be a rather firm upper limit on Dutton’s support base of about 40 MPs and Senators. Of course, if it had come down to a straight Turnbull vs Dutton contest, Dutton would certainly have won, because some people would have decided to shift from Turnbull to Dutton simply to put an end to the civil war (eg, the same reason that Shorten, Wong and others decided to vote for Rudd in 2013).

    But it’s a whole new ball game now. Dutton’s only chance is to promise plum jobs to some of the Turnbull supporters. But, now, Morrison and Bishop, have an equal opportunity to do the same thing to some of the conservatives. And there might be a few of these who would be feeling that the push to get rid of Turnbull has been self-destructive, and that an election loss is pretty much certain. And, therefore, that Morrison or Bishop have a better chance of “saving the furniture.”

    And it would appear that it’s Bishop who now has the inside running over Morrison. And it’s also possible that Abbott will also jump in front of Dutton proclaiming an “I’ll save the furniture” line. Anyway, the last round looks set to be a head-to-head clash between a conservative and a moderate, and I reckon both will get 40+ votes.

    Marx’s famous quote about events happening twice in history first as tragedy (eg, Rudd-Gillard-Rudd) and second as farce (Abbott-Turnbull-?) didn’t go anywhere near far enough. This is beyond farce. It could eventually become an HBO series.

  7. Yep hoping Dutton ineligible, he would make us even more divided and insular.

    It has taken too long for Turnbull to show some spine he should have done so earlier.

    Election now

  8. Geoff Cousins, vocal advocate for action on Climate Change, should run in Wentworth.
    That would really put the cat among the pigeons!

  10. If MT holds his nerve he could survive this by the narrowest of margins.

    SG is very likely to find there is doubt about Dutton and MT is able claim he is serving the greater good by referring to HC.

    Next scheduled party room meeting is Tuesday in two weeks.

    SM is the powerful Home Affairs Minister and able to investigate PD and further weaken his position.

    If PD does not back off MT can, with a willing opposition, refer him on the Monday.

  11. From my comment on the previous thread, the Sol G has to advise whether there is a reasonable argument that the HC would rule Dutton ineligible, not whether if he the Sol G would decide Dutton was not ineligible without the benefit of full contrary argument.

  12. The Solicitor General will be equivocal, and say there are doubts about the members eligibility. The advice should be released by the AG, not the PM. It’s a better look.

  13. Very strange that Morgan is only releasing head-to-head polling and not the TPP. Sounds like it is desperately bad for the libs.

  14. I love this report from the front line of the Jewellery Bishop camp last night:

    Ms Bishop’s boyfriend, David Panton, said at a fashion show in Sydney on Thursday evening that the Foreign Minister and deputy would be elevated into the Lodge by lunchtime and laughed aside suggestions he would become the country’s “first man”.

    😀

  15. If Rupert had decided that Turnbull had to go, why in heaven’s name did he allow the Potato to be the successor?

    Anyone who doubts Rupert Murdoch’s role in the political chaos that has played out in recent days has never worked for him at a senior level.
    …
    Murdoch flew in on August 10 and set about doing what he always does: he attended the annual News Awards, which fete the company’s best and brightest journalists, conducted one-on-ones with his editors and then signed off on the inevitable promotions, demotions and executions of the company’s most senior staff.

    (I once endured all three on one of his visits – surviving a relatively benign one-on-one with Murdoch, accepting a News Award and then getting sacked, all in a matter of days.)

    For good measure Murdoch also attended the 75th birthday of the Institute of Public Affairs on Monday night and was interviewed on stage with former Liberal PM, John Howard, by one of the media tycoon’s preferred columnists, Janet Albrechtsen.

    …This week’s events and Murdoch’s role in them were another reminder that recent law changes have created media monsters that even prime ministers have reason to fear.

    It seems certain that sometime Friday Turnbull will pay with his job because on some level he failed Murdoch and his minions. The simplest explanation is he was perceived as just too liberal.

    The real beneficiary of all this is Bill Shorten. But he shouldn’t dwell on his good fortune for too long.

    That’s because the treatment of Turnbull by News Corp inevitably throws up this question: If Murdoch and Co will go to such lengths to oust a Liberal leader, what will they do to keep Labor from power?

    https://thenewdaily.com.au/news/national/2018/08/23/hello-rupert-bye-bye-malcolm/?utm_source=Adestra&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Morning%20News%2020180824

  16. Would it not be the case that if the SG finds that PDuddy is eligible to sit in parliament that that would open the floodgates for all parliamentarians to set themselves up in businesses that directly benefit from the Commonwealth!?!

  17. William – what institutional pressure for Malcolm to call a meeting? He paid for the job. He’s not going anywhere until, at least, he gets a refund. He’ll tell them all to get nicked.

  18. William

    I thought your ABC interview on the state of play was excellent, played this morning on ABCNewsRadio. You mentioned Banks in Sydney as at risk with a Dutton dogwhistler at the helm. Reid is another on 4.7 and even Hughes and Bennelong on 9% required

  19. Here’s hoping Bishop doesn’t get the leadership – she might save enough furniture for minority Liberal (and probably divided and unstable) government.

  23. That’s because the treatment of Turnbull by News Corp inevitably throws up this question: If Murdoch and Co will go to such lengths to oust a Liberal leader, what will they do to keep Labor from power?

    Turnbull didn’t lose because News Corpse went after him. He lost because people saw him walk away from his once devoutly espoused principles, even watered-down ones like the NEG, so they abandoned him in Longman and Ipsos and Murdoch’s minions just jumped aboard that bandwagon with the megaphone and made every post a winner with their man. Though not without needing more effort than usual because the tabloid megaphone ain’t what she used to be.

    Which is also why Bill Shorten has already started the media workaround to cut the dirty old bastard’s legs out from under him.

  24. Very strange that Morgan is only releasing head-to-head polling and not the TPP. Sounds like it is desperately bad for the libs.

    Since before Morgan dropped out of scheduled polling it was inaccurate, why should it be taken at all seriously. It is probably as accurate as ABC Vox pop street polling

  27. Shanners also had a huge dummy spit at Malcolm in the Airport Giveway. Rupe is obviously totally pissed. Why isn’t this done yet? This is making him look really bad in front of Jerry

  32. As Tim Colebatch mentions below, don’t be at all surprise (if there are 43 votes and a meeting) if Malcolm does contest a spill. He said he would not against Abbott, and did.

  33. Because ScoMo is now running against PDuddy, the winner will blame the other for not having a clear run to the election when he loses against Labor.

    This has the potential to set up another decade of personality driven revenge politics within the LNP. Delightful

  34. Sprocket

    Thems the old days

    All the barristers are in the seat of North Sydney with the odd pro bono inclined types in Sydney.

  37. @Cat

    Geoff Cousins, vocal advocate for action on Climate Change, should run in Wentworth.
    That would really put the cat among the pigeons!

    Could this be who the tweet from David Shoebridge (Greens), 20 or so mins ago was referring to:


    David Shoebridge
    ‏Verified account @ShoebridgeMLC
    22m22 minutes ago

    Looking forward to announcing our @GreensNSW candidate for Wentworth today at 10am at the Bondi Pavillon. Very popular local, believes in climate change, First Nations rights, fairness, multiculturalism, freeing refugees and has 100% support of party.

    If the greens already have a candidate, I vote Labor goes with Lee Lin Ching.

  39. Fool Gilbert…

    Breaking: Liberal Party President Nick Greiner has messaged PM saying there is a unanimous decision of state presidents that the matter needs to be resolved today #libspill #auspol

  40. “Breaking: Liberal Party President Nick Greiner has messaged PM saying there is a unanimous decision of state presidents that the matter needs to be resolved today #libspill #auspol”

    Shanner’s was having a huge dummy spit today about Malcy the wrecker.

    Talk about Pot. Kettle. Black.

    Go Malcy! You brought it. You can smash it!

    (Just like a yet to be identified couple in their 60s did to PDuddy’s electorate office last night whilst some hired goons looked on before speeding off in a late model BMW sedan. Eyewitnesses have provided a partial number plate – C1. Please call Border Force if you know more …)

  41. Darren Chester MP‏Verified account @DarrenChesterMP

    Australia. We owe you an apology. I’m sorry. You deserve better than many of the things our Federal Parliament has served up to you for the past 10 years. Believe me: there’s a lot of good people on both sides of the chamber and we can do better. Don’t give up. #auspol #shitday

  43. Sharri Markson…

    How the coup unfolded – with exclusive detail on a private phone call between Dutton and Turnbull where the PM blamed him for the Longman result, saying Trevor Ruthenberg was Dutton’s candidate. dailytelegraph.com.au/news/nsw/insid…

  44. lizzie @ #40 Friday, August 24th, 2018 – 7:23 am

    Darren Chester MP‏Verified account @DarrenChesterMP

    Australia. We owe you an apology. I’m sorry. You deserve better than many of the things our Federal Parliament has served up to you for the past 10 years. Believe me: there’s a lot of good people on both sides of the chamber and we can do better. Don’t give up. #auspol #shitday

    Chester is just trying to save his sorry arse. He’s been a willing participant of the LNP pogram

  45. @Shellbell

    I think a liberal independent would run better in Wentworth than a conservative independent

    Alex Greenwich (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alex_Greenwich) is thinking about running, and I think he would have a good chance – although after skimming that Wikipedia article he had better make sure he is not an NZ citizen!

    I had thought about Clover Moore, one of Greenwich’s backers, and of course the Lord Mayor of Sydney, who took over Lucy Turnbull’s Living Sydney party (assets rather than name I think), but I suspect she is happy where she is.

  48. Andrew_Earlwood says:
    Friday, August 24, 2018 at 7:22 am

    (Just like a yet to be identified couple in their 60s did to PDuddy’s electorate office last night whilst some hired goons looked on before speeding off in a late model BMW sedan. Eyewitnesses have provided a partial number plate – C1. Please call Border Force if you know more …)

    ______________________________

    Just in case you didn’t realise that this post is a spoof:

    ____________________
    The Prime Ministerial Limousine is the official vehicle used by the Prime Minister of Australia. … The vehicles are often referred to in the media and the community as “C1”, which is the numberplate that the limousines feature.

  50. Alex Greenwich unlikely to give up safe & high profile position in NSW Parliament to be an irrelevant player in federal politics even if he had a chance of winning.. Wentworth will revert to being a seat for a Liberal hack, maybe one that plays golf or sails in Sydney to Hobart

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