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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  1. Rocket Rocket @ #1241 Friday, August 31st, 2018 – 4:35 pm

    don – yes remarkably improved. German very good.

    Occasionally wanting to send something in a language I have little familiarity with I have done the “translate” back and forth for each paragraph, making slight alterations until they match going back into English. Possibly gets a stilted version in the other language but I am reassured if it translates back exactly into what I wrote.

    Plus de pluie?

    Don’t try Vietnamese, it’s as bad as me trying to speak it. 🙂

  2. BigD:

    Some stayed in France while others returned to Laos, great people although breakfast was horrible.
    ____________________

    The French have no idea what breakfast means. The Germans, on the other hand, pretty much invented the decent breakfast.

    If you want to eat well, go to Germany.

  3. A police source has confirmed Malcolm Turnbull and Julie Bishop were among a list of potential targets allegedly documented in the notebook of a Sri Lankan man charged with a terrorism-related offence today.
    Mohamed Nizamdeen, 25, was today charged with possessing a blueprint to target several “symbolic” Sydney locations, after officers from NSW’s Joint Counter Terrorism Team (JCTT) arrested him at Kensington, in Sydney’s south-east.

    The University of New South Wales contractor appeared in Waverley Local Court today where he was refused bail, with the matter adjourned to October 24.

  4. The French article uses the phrase “putsch interne” to describe the recent shenanigans . I would have thought something like “coup de palais” would be more in keeping with the policy of not using borrowed words. Perhaps the policy oonly applies to English

  5. don @ #1251 Friday, August 31st, 2018 – 4:43 pm

    BigD:

    Some stayed in France while others returned to Laos, great people although breakfast was horrible.
    ____________________

    The French have no idea what breakfast means. The Germans, on the other hand, pretty much invented the decent breakfast.

    If you want to eat well, go to Germany.

    Nah, this was a traditional Laos breakfast, lots of pickled vegetables amongst other things.

    Not pleasant!

    The sticky rice was great as usual! 🙂

  6. Some stayed in France while others returned to Laos, great people although breakfast was horrible.

    I cannot recall horrible breakfasts in either Vietnam or Laos.

  7. sprocket_ @ #1163 Friday, August 31st, 2018 – 6:06 pm

    Loving the French coverage…

    Le ministre australien de l’Intérieur était sur la sellette vendredi à la suite de révélations selon lesquelles il était personnellement intervenu pour venir en aide à des jeunes filles au pair française et italienne dont le visa touristique avait été annulé.

    Peter Dutton, principal architecte d’un putsch interne au parti conservateur qui vient d’avoir raison de l’ex-Premier ministre Malcolm Turnbull et chantre de la politique d’immigration draconienne mise en oeuvre par Canberra, nie farouchement tout agissement répréhensible. Mais il n’a pas réussi à apaiser le scandale. Une commission sénatoriale doit enquêter sur l’affaire la semaine prochaine à la demande de l’opposition.

    Babysitter française pour un riche donateur

    Dans le premier cas, Peter Dutton, qui était alors ministre de l’Immigration, a usé de ses pouvoirs discrétionnaires en novembre 2015 pour faire libérer une Française en détention et lui permettre de rester en Australie. Selon des documents obtenus par la chaîne publique ABC et d’autres médias australiens, le ministre répondait à une demande d’intervention du patron de la Ligue australienne de football Gillon McLachlan.

    https://www.bfmtv.com/international/australie-un-scandale-de-jeunes-filles-au-pair-frappe-l-artisan-de-la-tolerance-zero-envers-les-clandestins-1514793.html#page/contribution/index

    Way to go french teacher 45 years ago!!!

    I could read it – mostly

    Wow!!!!!!

    Loved the word putch!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

  8. Rocket Rocket says:
    Friday, August 31, 2018 at 7:35 pm
    don – yes remarkably improved. German very good.

    Occasionally wanting to send something in a language I have little familiarity with I have done the “translate” back and forth for each paragraph, making slight alterations until they match going back into English. Possibly gets a stilted version in the other language but I am reassured if it translates back exactly into what I wrote.

    _________________

    Yes, I do exactly the same thing. Works well, you are confident that at least it will be understood if it passes that test.

    ____________

    Plus de pluie?
    __________

    Un petit peu!

    Total of 20 mm, very welcome.

    BBQ for Wattle Day tomorrow, hope the wind dies down a bit, and it turns sunny.

    But it looks like the back of winter is broken, spring is on the way.

    #weatheronPB

  9. Barney

    Interesting about French. I knew some Australians who lived in Hanoi about 20 years ago and their kids went to a French language primary school.

    Have never used google for Vietnamese. The other funny thing is if you turn on the sound – some languages are pretty good but some are just that computerised Stephen Hawking voice!

  10. don, 7:39 pm.

    Dinner intervened, so to answer your unspoken, I don’t know where they got their numbers. If you are into German this is the original link. http://www.spiegel.de/wirtschaft/soziales/rauchen-in-australien-zigaretten-kosten-bald-16-80-euro-pro-packung-a-1225833.html
    and they also link our ATO: https://www.ato.gov.au/Business/Excise-and-excise-equivalent-goods/Tobacco-excise/Excise-rates-for-tobacco/

    Perhaps the increase in tax more than offsets the reduced consumption?

    But our approach to tobacco is something Australia is known or even celebrated for.

  11. Jaeger says:
    Friday, August 31, 2018 at 7:55 pm
    But it looks like the back of winter is broken, spring is on the way.

    Ha! Get back to me after the Spring equinox. 🙂

    _________________

    Please leave me my hopes and dreams!

  12. On how history will judge Turnbull – Tom Switzer hosting Murphy and Albrechtsen. Interestingly Albrechtsen comes across as someone who thought MT would be a better PM than Abbott. I’d have thought she’d be a firm Abbottobod, but she makes some not unreasonable points in my view.

    Katharine Murphy
    2 hrs ·
    I had a chat to Tom Switzer and Janet Albrechtsen about Malcolm Turnbull. Link here if you’d like to listen.

    http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/betweenthelines/malcolm-turnbull-legacy/10182506

  13. Rocket Rocket @ #1260 Friday, August 31st, 2018 – 4:54 pm

    Barnes

    Interesting about French. I knew some Australians who lived in Hanoi about 20 years ago and their kids went to a French language primary school.

    Have never used google for Vietnamese. The other funny thing is if you turn on the sound – some languages are pretty good but some are just that computerised Stephen Hawking voice!

    Yep, your right there are some French international schools in HCMC too.

    I met a family from Vietnam on holiday in Cambodia, she was an Aussie and he was Vietnamese. Their children were going to a French school in HCMC, so they spoke great English, good Vietnamese and were studying in French. 🙂

  14. “I was born in ’40’s – pursuant to which: could anyone tell me how I could obtain an avatar of my choosing?
    Go here and click “Create your own gravatar”, and use the same email address you use when logging on to PB. Give it about 10 minutes to start working.
    https://en.gravatar.com/”

    Thank you my Lord and God.

    I now have a gravatar!

    Ya’ll like?

  15. don

    A ‘Yuuge’ surprise discovery for me is that our sequence of courses at meals is the ‘fault’ of the Russians. Service à la russe as the French say.

    At Napoleon’s Table – Service a la Russe

    While Tolstoy detailed the impact of the Napoleonic era on Tsarist society, en France the impacts of the Patriotic War of 1812 reached well beyond the borders of la Russie. Today the French dine daily à la russe—perhaps the greatest impact Napoleon made on modern French culture. While French courtly cultures historically dined à la française, Napoleon and his armies adopted the idea of course-by-course dining while en campagne, bringing back to la République a Russian tradition that changed the way the French—and therefore the world—eat.
    https://bonjourparis.com/archives/napoleons-table-service-la-russe/

  16. Late Riser:

    Perhaps the increase in tax more than offsets the reduced consumption?

    ______________________

    I think you must be right, but I don’t remember them bumping up the tax.

    May the tax go through the roof.

    _____________

    But our approach to tobacco is something Australia is known or even celebrated for.
    ______________

    Yes, it is amazing that we made that stick, against the might of the big tobacco companies. It opened the way for other countries to do the same, which is marvellous.

    In Europe, people are still smoking a lot. It really jars to see a handsome/beautiful teenager lighting up.

    I can’t help the thought that springs to mind “No! What are you thinking! Toss it in the bin!”

  17. don @ #1263 Friday, August 31st, 2018 – 4:58 pm

    Jaeger says:
    Friday, August 31, 2018 at 7:55 pm
    But it looks like the back of winter is broken, spring is on the way.

    Ha! Get back to me after the Spring equinox.

    _________________

    Please leave me my hopes and dreams!

    What’s this winter and spring thing?

    I hate seasons especially when you’re trying to explain them to people who think 25 is freezing.

    I disagree for me it’s about 22. 🙂

  18. I can’t help the thought that springs to mind “No! What are you thinking! Toss it in the bin!”
    _____________________

    My grandfather gave up cigarettes in 1939 when living in Paris. He was stranded there through the war and started up again 3 years later when half of Europe was dead/dying.

  19. The French come second with croissants.

    I’ve never been to France, but French ‘breakfasts’ in Vietnam and Laos that I’ve had are more than just croissants. I think it’s incredibly civilised to select cheeses, cold meats, different breads and pickled veg for breakfast. Sometimes on weekends we’ll have brunch consisting of a grazing platter of cheese, meats, salami, smoked salmon, capers, olives, sun-dried tomatoes and various breads and lavosh.

  20. “Is that Caligula?”

    Nope.

    Where is ESJ these days? Still in “Super Saturday” shock therapy? When she gets back she’ll be sure to know who it is, given her expertise in Roman History. …

  21. Confessions @ #1273 Friday, August 31st, 2018 – 5:07 pm

    The French come second with croissants.

    I’ve never been to France, but French ‘breakfasts’ in Vietnam and Laos that I’ve had are more than just croissants. I think it’s incredibly civilised to select cheeses, cold meats, different breads and pickled veg for breakfast. Sometimes on weekends we’ll have brunch consisting of a grazing platter of cheese, meats, salami, smoked salmon, capers, olives, sun-dried tomatoes and various breads and lavosh.

    Sounds like you were staying in pretty flash digs.

    I’ve never seen anything like that! 🙂

  22. Indeed Nath. Now he was a proper political hater. Unlike the total amateurs we are lumbered with these days. …

  23. poroti says:
    Friday, August 31, 2018 at 8:04 pm
    don

    A ‘Yuuge’ surprise discovery for me is that our sequence of courses at meals is the ‘fault’ of the Russians. Service à la russe as the French say.

    __________________

    I didn’t know that – but at the same time, in France the food available in anything but good restaurants paying top dollar is uniformly terrible.

    There is no point in paying for breakfast at a French hotel, all you get is typically coffee and croissants. In Germany, the breakfast in similar hotels is great.

    The best meals I have had in France have been at restaurants specialising in other country’s food – I had a great meal at a Turkish sidewalk restaurant at Saint-Germain outside of Paris, and an even better one at a restaurant specialising in German/Austrian food – the spätzle, a type of egg noodle or macaroni, was superb.

  24. Rocket Rocket @ #1276 Friday, August 31st, 2018 – 5:11 pm

    Barney

    Interestingly our friends only realised after a few years that their kids understood basic Vietnamese courtesy of their maid and taxi drivers!

    That’s why you have to watch what you say around then.

    They’re bloody good at picking things up, shame you start to lose it! 🙂

  25. Please leave me my hopes and dreams!

    😉

    The seasons may be kinder in Armidale – but it’s definitely still Winter in Canberra.
    Min. of -6.4C yesterday; max. of 9.1C today – with 12.2mm of rain since 9am.

  26. The electorate of Wagga Wagga covers around 12,500 square kilometres of southern New South Wales and is largely inhabited by cocky’s

  27. Oh well, it looked a lot more impressive than scummo’s

    Yep; it might just be an aide-mémoire for which side he’s on.

  28. BigD:

    I met a family from Vietnam on holiday in Cambodia, she was an Aussie and he was Vietnamese. Their children were going to a French school in HCMC, so they spoke great English, good Vietnamese and were studying in French. 🙂

    ______________________

    Those are very lucky kids.

    And being multilingual will increase their IQ, apart from employment and cultural aspects.

  29. The electorate of Wagga Wagga covers around 12,500 square kilometres of southern New South Wales and is largely inhabited by cocky’s
    _________________________________
    Do you mean the birds or the farmers?

  30. Oh well, it looked a lot more impressive than scummo’s

    Was it rightside up? Remembering Di Natale’s efforts with his Aboriginal flag pin that was upside down when he appeared on Insiders last.

  31. So Adelaide Bank and Suncorp have raised their variable home loan rates by up to 40BBP’s – noting Westpac raised theirs by 14BBP’s

    There is no doubt that over the cycle which will encompsss the period of the next government, interest rates will gravitate to a neutral bias from the current accommodative bias

    The fact that rates are commencing to rise on the watch of this government gives some relief because the Howard line of interest rates will always be less under a Liberal Government will be an attack instrument by the Liberal’s in Opposition

    Of course, low or accommodative interest rates are reflective of an under performing economy in need of stimulation but the Liberal’s dine out on the average Australian being economically illiterate hence the polling on economic Managers giving advantage to the Liberals – which on my analysis is a misplaced assessment and significantly misplaced

  32. Vogon Poet @ #1291 Friday, August 31st, 2018 – 5:25 pm

    Barney in Go Dau @ #1289 Friday, August 31st, 2018 – 8:22 pm

    Confessions @ #1284 Friday, August 31st, 2018 – 5:17 pm

    Barney:

    Not really. I was a student on a university study tour, so our accommodation was pretty basic.

    It sounds about 14 stars higher than what I’d go for. 🙂

    ‘ole in the ground
    luxury

    Nah, although I do remember a mattress in Morocco which seemed to have been modelled on the surrounding mountains.

    Fortunately there was a valley and if you curled up right it wasn’t too bad.

    I only stayed there for about 3 weeks. 🙂

  33. Tom the first and best says:
    Friday, August 31, 2018 at 8:31 pm
    https://www.pollbludger.net/2018/08/30/apres-le-deluge/comment-page-26/#comment-2888725

    Of course French breakfasts are more than croissants, they are however the best bit by far.

    _____________________

    Unfortunately, you are correct.

    No doubt if a pastry chef starts from scratch with butter and flour and so on, they are wonderful, they would never have gained their reputation otherwise.

    But the modern iteration in France and elsewhere is abominable.

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