Après le déluge

Situations vacant for aspiring Liberals, first in Wentworth, now in Chisholm, and perhaps soon in Curtin. Also: polls for the ACT Senate and next weekend’s New South Wales state by-election in Wagga Wagga, neither good for the Libs.

Post-leadership change turbulence costs the Liberals a sitting MP in a crucial marginal seat, as preselection hopefuls jockey for safe seat vacancies:

• Liberal MP Julia Banks yesterday announced she will not recontest her Melbourne seat of Chisholm, citing bullying she was subjected to ahead of last week’s leadership vote by the anti-Malcolm Turnbull camp. Banks won the seat on the retirement of Labor member Anna Burke in 2016, making her the only Coalition member to gain a seat from Labor at the election. Rob Harris of the Herald Sun reports the Liberals will choose their new candidate in a community preselection, which presumably entails an open primary style arrangement in which anyone on the electoral roll can participate. Labor has endorsed Jennifer Yang, former adviser to Bill Shorten and mayor of Manningham who ran second as a candidate in the Melbourne lord mayoral election in May, finishing 3.0% behind winning candidate Sally Capp after preferences. The party initially preselected the unsuccessful candidate from 2016, former Monash mayor Stefanie Perri, but she announced her withdrawal in May, saying she had been deterred by the expreience of Tim Hammond.

• Alexandra Smith of the Sydney Morning Herald cites “several senior Liberals” who say the “only real contenders” for the Wentworth preselection are Dave Sharma, former ambassador to Israel, and Andrew Bragg, a director at the Business Council of Australia and former leader of the Yes same-sex marriage survey campaign. The report says Sharma has moderate factional support, including from powerbroker Michael Photios, while Bragg is supported in local branches. It also says it is no foregone conclusion that Labor will contest the seat, despite having an election candidate in place in Tim Murray, managing partner of investment research firm J Capital. An earlier report by Alexandra Smith suggested Christine Forster’s bid for Liberal preselection appeared doomed in part because, as an unidentified Liberal source put it: “She is an Abbott and how does that play in a Wentworth byelection? Not well I would suggest.”

• Primrose Riordan of The Australian identifies three potential candidates to succeed Julie Bishop in Curtin, assuming she retires. They are Emma Roberts, a BHP corporate lawyer who contested the preselection to succeed Colin Barnett in the state seat of Cottesloe, but was defeated by David Honey; Erin Watson-Lynn, director of Asialink Diplomacy at the University of Melbourne; and Rick Newnham, chief econmist at the Chamber of Commerce and Industry.

• Sally Whyte of the Canberra Times reports a Greens-commissioned ReachTEL poll of the Canberra electorate suggests ACT Liberal Senator Zed Seselja’s role in Malcolm Turnbull’s demise may have put his seat in danger. Elections for the ACT’s two Senate seats have always resulted in one seat each for Labor, but the Liberal seat could potentially fall to the Greens if its vote fell significantly below one third. After allocating results of a forced response question for the initially undecided, the results are Labor 39.6%, the Greens 24.2%, Liberal 23.7% and One Nation 2.8%. Even accounting for the fact that the Canberra electorate is particularly strong for the Greens, these numbers suggest there would be a strong possibility of Greens candidate Penny Kyburz overhauling Seselja on preferences. The poll also finds 64.6% of voters saying Seselja’s role in Turnbull’s downfall made them less likely to vote for him, with only 13.0% saying it made them more likely to, and 22.4% saying it made no difference. Among Liberal voters, the respective figures were 38.7%, 29.6% and 31.7%.

In other news, the Liberals in New South Wales are managing expectations ahead of a feared defeat in Saturday week’s Wagga Wagga state by-election, most likely at the hands of independent Joe McGirr. Andrew Clennell of The Australian reports a ReachTEL poll commissioned by Shooters Fishers and Farmers has the Liberals on 30.2%, Labor on 23.8%, McGirr on 18.4% and Shooters Fishers and Farmers on 10.9%, after exclusion of the 7.4% undecided. However, McGirr faces a complication in Shooters Fishers and Farmers’ unusual decision to direct preferences to Labor, which could potentially prevent him from overtaking them to make the final count. According to Clennell’s report, “any government loss post-mortem would be expected to focus on why the Liberals did not let the Nationals run for the seat”.

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.

1,383 comments on “Après le déluge”

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  3. The problem with Dutton is that when he left the QPS, he never took off his uniform, oblivious to the findings of Fitzgerald. Now, given he almost got the top gig, the MSM is starting to take a closer look at him, and it’s finding that he is a very flawed individual, who prima facie uses his high office arbitrarily. Sure, he can hind behind the veil of ministerial discretion, but the time line between his overturning of the primary decision maker re. the nanny makes him very vulnerable – the Senate inquiry into his machinations little doubt finding what a rogue he is.

  5. There would be less issue with such powers being exercised by the Minister if there was more transparency in its exercise and the times its exercise had been requested and refused. I find it hard to imagine I would be so successful if I requested the minister’s intervention – this is what people will find inappropriate and unfair.

  6. Observer

    https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2018/aug/29/sydney-dam-levels-plummeting-as-desalination-plant-stalls

    Ironic – Liberals have wanted to get rid of it since 2012, and now its restart is causing some difficulty. It reminds of some Victorian Liberal (?Louise Asher) who said that if they were elected they would never use the North-South pipeline [a promise they soon retracted as drought and low dam levels made her promise untenable]. Can’t remember if the Liberals ever made a similar promise about the desal plant here, which has been quietly helping Victoria’s water supply.

  7. Observer @ #494 Thursday, August 30th, 2018 – 7:22 pm

    A question

    And the reason is the attacks on the desalination plant in Victoria by the Liberal Party, attacks which continue

    In NSW I thought I saw a headline referring to water supplies, the unavailability of the desalination plant and a reference to the State government which inferred a delay in water availability from the desalination plant due to government

    But when having the time to peruse more than the headline I can no longer find it

    So, what is the story in NSW?

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sydney_Desalination_Plant

    There have been a couple of stories about the desalination plant in The Daily Telegraph and The Australian neither of which I can currently locate.

    Amendment 1.

    Sydney dam water levels dropping rapidly but Kurnell desalination plant may not be ready
    August 29, 2018
    https://outline.com/b4xftT

    😍

  8. I reckon most of the dirt on Dutton is coming from inside the public service from people who disagree with his militarisation of the departments and who have direct knowledge of what went on.

    They would be acutely aware of how much harder their job becomes when ministers start making lots of arbitrary decisions but the public servants are obliged to follow the law.

    I used to work for the ATO but at one point I was actually doing liaison with Immigration on a new system and actually sat in the department a fair bit. It was a major culture shock coming from an agency where politicians were legislatively barred from interfering in individual case outcomes (the ATO) to a department where you always had to be aware that a ministerial override hung over the head of decision maker. It actually led to a much more toxic culture overall.

  9. Rocket Rocket @ #606 Thursday, August 30th, 2018 – 5:40 pm

    Observer

    https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2018/aug/29/sydney-dam-levels-plummeting-as-desalination-plant-stalls

    Ironic – Liberals have wanted to get rid of it since 2012, and now its restart is causing some difficulty. It reminds of some Victorian Liberal (?Louise Asher) who said that if they were elected they would never use the North-South pipeline [a promise they soon retracted as drought and low dam levels made her promise untenable]. Can’t remember if the Liberals ever made a similar promise about the desal plant here, which has been quietly helping Victoria’s water supply.

    We have (I think) two desal plants in WA and don’t recall the Liberals when they were in govt ever thinking of decommissioning them.

  13. A Rupert orc spills the beans on the real reason they are Boo Hiss Marieke Hardy.
    .
    In part because many of the nation’s best writers, editors, humorists, and columnists weren’t invited.

    Look as hard as you want, you won’t find The Weekend Australian Magazine’s Trent Dalton, whose novel Boy Swallows Universe has become a publishing sensation; you won’t find The Australian’s Sketch writer, James Jeffrey, whose My Family and Other Animus about the calamitous effect of divorce on children, came out this year; The Australian’s social affairs writer, Rick Morton, whose One Hundred Years of Dirt about the divide between the rich and the working class is out right now; you certainly won’t find Greg Sheridan, a close friend of Tony Abbott, whose book about Christian values was launched by Abbott’s fiercest rival, Malcolm Turnbull, last month.

    What a missed opportunity!

    It wasn’t only The Australian that got snubbed: of 447 artists and writers on the Melbourne Writers Festival program, there was only one full-time employee from all of News Corp: the gifted reviewer and editor, Shelley Hadfield, from Melbourne.
    https://outline.com/qAF8Kg

  14. I wonder if Mark Lathm still has Tony Morris QC in his stable. The man who single handedly fucked up the Bundaberg Royal Commission (Jayant Patel).

  15. poroti:

    The News Corp war on culture was old a decade and a half ago. It must surely be on its last legs now.

    The mainstream simply aren’t paying attention.

  16. After speaking to a few average punters over dinner, Dutton’s career is now a smoking ruin. It is o-o-over. You can slice and dice ministerial discretions all you like. The average punter knows that helping your mate’s employees get into the country totally stinks. Our new PM has to get rid of him, pronto. So he’s about to fail his first big test. And wait till the govt protects him from the HC!

  23. Hello, Shellbell:

    [‘I wonder if Mark Lathm still has Tony Morris QC in his stable.’]

    He’d do well to have Dutton as a client; he can aways fall back on the cab-rank rule. Indeed, Morris will make a motza resulting from portended litigation pursuant to s.44(V), other matters apropos of his (Dutton’s) carriage of his former portfolio.

  24. I remember when the NSW desalination plan was still running, well after the early 00s drought had passed. The reported reason why was because ‘it would be difficult to restart if it was stopped for a length of time’.
    Later when Warragamba dam was at 90%, it was stopped.

    So this appears to be the case, the desalination plant is designed for more or less continuous operation.

  25. So its Faruqi represented by Bornstein, who was part of the team which ill advised Slipper on his defence to Ashby’s claim, v Latham represented by Morris who also pissed in the pocket of the Newman Government on sex offenders.

    Bet there won’t be many “No Comments” emerging from this crowd going forward.

  26. I wondered today if the leakers of the Dutton stuff had been holding onto it in case he became PM, and had planned to then release it drip by drip.

    Whatever the case, Morrison is soon going to realise that this sort of story cannot be got rid of (not even by Bronny’s helicopter) and I think eventually Dutton will resign as Minister or be sacked. Someone else here noted that if you “follow the self-interest”, Abbott himself probably has a lot to gain from Dutton going. Because Abbott can claim more persecution of the “base” (amply backed up by the usual media suspects), and then if Dutton does lose Dickson at the election in a Coalition loss the way is clear for Abbott to re-ascend as leader of whoever remains in the parliamentary Liberal Party.

    A picture of how it could be

    https://www.eater.com/2017/12/12/16757660/doomsday-biscuit-all-purpose-survival-cracker

    Of course if Dutton stays it is actually much better for Labor because as others here have said it very much dilutes his “tough borders” stance, and invites all sorts of memes featuring attractive young white European women.

  27. Duttons problem might be amplified if the media can find similar cases where people with no mates in high places to lobby for them were On the next plane out of the country.

    They are sure to be out there.

  28. So its Faruqi represented by Bornstein, who was part of the team which ill advised Slipper on his defence to Ashby’s claim, v Latham represented by Morris who also pissed in the pocket of the Newman Government on sex offenders.

    The real question however: will SHY engage Bornstein and square both cases off as a job lot?

  29. The story under that fallout shelter picture is actually very informative and funny. It is about the US Government’s “Survival Crackers” – we’d call them dry biscuits (biscuits in the US refer to something more akin to a scone in the unusual Southern dish ‘biscuits and gravy’)

    I particularly liked this line :

    Whether the crackers were preferable to starving seemed entirely debatable.

  30. Re ACT Senate quota – there is actually not that much in it – a Liberal vote that dropped under 31% could be enough to ensure the second senate seat went to the Greens. The strategic impact in the Senate of that seat going to a “left” candidate makes it worth the effort – even if the likelihood is low. Liberals certainly are usually outnumbered at most booths by the Greens as well as the ALP

  33. Dutton’s emblamtic of this tired, discredited government, evidenced inter alia by his propensity to favour white Seth Africans over the coloured, his baiting of PHON supporters. The man’s a pric, not fit for high office – and just to advise, I’m a WASP, born in ’49, in Portsmouth, UK.

  36. Alex Turnbull has some interesting stuff to say on Twitter…
    ————————
    @mattjcan
    I see that Alex Turnbull reckons that Adani should just get its coal from Indonesia not Queensland. Good luck to him but I am an Australian Minister and I want to see Australian coal support Australian jobs!

    ———————
    @alexbhturnbull
    . @mattjcan Or they could get it from your brother pending asset sale etc etc https://www.afr.com/street-talk/glencore-unearths-new-coal-hopeful-for-rolleston-mine-20180628-h11ywz @jacksongs

  37. c@t

    Only ever seen Border Patrol a few times many moons ago but I guess only the really dodgy types, with no hotline to AFL House, Queensland Police HQ or Menzies house make the final edit.

  40. Shellbell

    I think the one of the most disappointing aspects of what happened at Bundaberg Base Hospital is that some nurses raised concerns very early on concerning Jayant Patel, and these concerns were not taken as seriously as they should have been. I have heard anecdotally that in regional NSW at least, such concerns in hospitals about specialists on short term contracts seem now to be much more likely to be escalated to administrators.

  45. Dutton is going to have issues i think with the timeline on the 3rd au pair thing. From the report on the ABC i gather that he made his decision, knowing that there was further information to come from his department with advice that he shouldn’t grant her entry.

    At best, not a good look. And people still haven’t got to the bottom of the who what and when of the other au pair’s he allowed entry. Reckon Morrison is going to come under some pressure to actually dump him as a minister OR have to endorse his decisions. Not a lot of room for him to fence sit.

  46. I think William title of this article “Après le déluge” is because we there is a lot of discussions on “au pairs”..What is with Dutton & “au pairs” anyway? I totally understand with Minister’s discretionary powers. Why did he use his powers for “au pairs” repeatedly? Don’t we have people in this country with “au pairs” skills?
    Something does not add up/ fishy about this “au pairs” issue. How can he justify using discretionary powers for “au pairs” so many times?

  48. [‘I wondered today if the leakers of the Dutton stuff had been holding onto it in case he became PM, and had planned to then release it drip by drip.’]

    Surely, Rocket, it woud be too late had Dutton prevailed – once elected, he’d speak with a good deal of authority. That doG we dogged a bullet.

  49. “the unusual Southern dish ‘biscuits and gravy”

    Scones and Gravy?? Seriously?

    And Sepo’s complain about pineapple on a pizza?

  50. Ven:

    Yes the au pair thing is weird. Why has it been au pair cases that Dutton has intervened in so quickly and authoritatively?

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