Updated with this week’s Newspoll, the BludgerTrack poll aggregate records a half-point gain for Labor on the two-party preferred, along with two gains on the seat projection, one each in New South Wales and Queensland. Bill Shorten also seems to be enjoying a modest upswing in his net approval trend; I still haven’t found time to sort out a trend for Scott Morrison, despite the fact that I probably have enough data to work with now. Another feature of BludgerTrack this week is that I’m now counting Wentworth as an independent seat, and following my usual policy of assuming elected minor party and independent incumbents will be re-elected.
Speaking of Wentworth, there has been no further progress in the count since last week, presumably because the Australian Electoral Commission has been waiting for the last eligible postal votes to trickle in before yesterday’s deadline. This should mean a few hundred votes will shortly be added to a score line that has Kerryn Phelps with a lead of 1783. You can find my detailed results display for Wentworth here, and BludgerTrack through the link below.
Note also the post below this one, an extensive summary of news from the Victorian election campaign. Not to mention the post below that, in which I plead for donations.
The meaning and derivation of the word ‘cabal’: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cabal
It’s one of those words with sinister connotations. Normal people have clubs, associations, groups, whatever, while those with evil intentions form ‘cabals’. Just as normal people might have staff, contractors, agents or whatever, while crime bosses, distators and supervillians have ‘minions’.
DaretoTread says:
Monday, November 5, 2018 at 9:31 am
briefly @ #1208 Monday, November 5th, 2018 – 8:24 am
The Greens did JUST that in Maiwar last year. Grabbed a seat from the Liberals. It was close between ALP and Labor i agree but we are talking about a very, very,wealthy LNP area which is not natural Labor heartland. The ALP candidate was fantastic so it was a pity but still the seat tripped to the left.
This illustrates the point. The Gs will not take Labor heartland seats. Can anyone imagine they might win Scullin, for example? The Gs draw their best support from higher-income cohorts, rather than from working people. So their best chances to take house seats are in affluent areas. Quite a lot of these areas have been safe-Lib. Increasingly, anti-Lib expression can be tapped by conservatively-identifying Independents.
There are now three in the House, including Indi, Mayo and Wentworth. The Gs must be scratching their heads, wondering how they can out-perform Independents in Lib-country, and whether Independents stand between them and their chances generally in the House.
One thing I love about PB groupings, cabals, alliances, illuminati, etc is that no one knows who’s in them.
Especially those supposedly in them!!
From the Monty Python boys’ Pirhana Brothers sketch:
Vercotti: Doug (takes a drink) Well, I was terrified. Everyone was terrified of Doug. I’ve seen grown men pull their own heads off rather than see Doug. Even Dinsdale was frightened of Doug.
2nd Interviewer: What did he do?
Vercotti: He used… sarcasm. He knew all the tricks, dramatic irony, metaphor, pathos, puns, parody, litotes and… satire. He was vicious.
Oh I forgot about Barney. Put him under minor functionary!
I haz instruments of torture!
I suppose the only hope for the US is that more and more progressive women are elected and hopefully one day there’ll be enough to change the gun culture.
New meaning of cabal : people who are frequent posters.
ABC is showing its independence. Not only the 7:30 Report commenting on Murdoch. Now this on African Gangs
@4corners tweets
“People would rather stand than sit next to me.” Melbourne’s South Sudanese community feels under siege. Watch Crime and Panic tonight on #4Corners https://twitter.com/4corners/status/1059173438827327488/video/1
guytaur says:
Monday, November 5, 2018 at 8:50 am
Good Morning
Pegasus
Its also a relief not having to say Antony Green called an election wrong
Victoria and Cat
A start can be made with media reform Give us Canada style laws and most of the excessive bias of the media will go away. Canada has shown the way and it certainly has not hurt its democracy as they still reported the Mayor Mr Ford and his drug taking.
-0-
Yes, but unfortunately the good voters of Ontario, Canada’s biggest province, earlier this year elected the late Toronto Mayor Ford’s Trumpian big brother Doug as their Premier. Rob, before he died, could only affect the people of Toronto with his zany behavior. Doug, on the other hand, has the whole province, 14 million people, as his canvas for ideas such as “bring back $1 beer” and cutting the excise tax on petrol by 10 cents a liter. He even looks like a more squat version of the Donald.
Fortunately, Canadians also elected a progressive centrist federal government led by Justin Trudeau that is in no danger of being replaced at the forthcoming federal election.
Steve777
I strongly object to ‘cabal’. I have no evil intent, and do not always agree with others.
Nath tries to remove our personalities so that he can mock us.
@workmanalice tweets
Scott Morrison is heading to a strawberry farm.
lizzie
says:
Monday, November 5, 2018 at 10:13 am
New meaning of cabal : people who are frequent posters.
_____________________________
For PB purposes I am defining Cabal as a ‘faction’. It’s not so much about frequency of posts. Note that zoomster is not included.
It’s more about those not tolerating anti-ALP sentiment, of any kind, and pursuing others over it.
I am aware that Lizzie does not technically fit that mould. But she sits on the Politburo because of seniority and because C@tmomma wants her there.
briefly
Nonsense… and an insult to the blue collar sector
Also I think it was Peg that introduced the term cabal. I just know a good thing when I see it.
BA
Oh dear. What were people thinking? The perennial cry of sane followers of politics when crazies get elected. Poor Ontario.
In light of the bashing murder of the son of a high profile anti violence campaigner in the up market Northern beaches of NSW, me thinks that the fibs should shut the heck up re crime, law and order here in Victoria.
I think it was either DTT or bemused who used a sexist term to collectively refer to the women who comment here. I cannot recall what it was though.
lizzie,
… who don’t hold pathetic arbitrary grudges against a politician despite extensive public scrutiny of much of that person’s public life. 🙂
Michael A –
There is no question that if Shorten and the ALP wanted a higher traditional media profile than they currently have, there are things that they could do about it.
An Abbott style opposition would be stunting so hard right now in flouro vests and dog whistling and personality bashing to get those headlines and that media attention. It is a choice that the ALP have made (and one I commend them for) that they are choosing not to do this, but it is still a choice, and it has a consequence in the borked media landscape in that it does result in less headlines, lower newspaper/TV profile.
The article that you are saying is so outrageous acknowledges that the ALP have done the policy work, it acknowledges that the ALP are putting all the relevant information detail out there, and it acknowledges that the traditional news media is not doing the job of providing voters with the information that they should have.
So, yeah, I don’t buy that it’s an anti-ALP or msm-excusing piece of work.
guytaur
Seriously. Morrison is going to a strawberry farm? In light of the connections established re the sabotage recently, I would stay away
Victoria @ #1263 Monday, November 5th, 2018 – 10:18 am
No-one’s listening to them anymore.
briefly @ #1208 Monday, November 5th, 2018 – 8:24 am
Sorry for taking the liberty to remove some words from your post to change its meaning, but it says what I’m feeling. Where I live in a safe comfortable middle class Liberal (but never National) corner of Australia the Greens are the feel good party. Labor is the sweat and grunt (loud and smelly). Liberals are professional services (quiet and air-conditioned). Greens are educated and caring. Greens should be looking to win over the safe and comfortable.
Rallies will be next.
Toowoomba to Cunnamulla.
Propped up locals with signs declaiming
GOD LOVES COAL
JESUS WANTS ME FOR A SUNBEAM
Is Morrison visiting Wyatt Roy’s strawberry farm?
Jackol
I disagree with your point about Zoomster’s comment. Even if you doubted it she has made clear since exactly what she meant.
lizzie….my musings last night….
nath says:
Sunday, November 4, 2018 at 3:38 pm
Cheers, nath. I’m glad you like the morsels I put on the table. They’re not a feast, but they are tasty, like feta, best enjoyed hot with spinach from the garden, or with tomatoes and basil, some olives, sardines, oil, salt, a red.
I’m puzzled by the idea of “cabal”. I don’t see a cabal – a college of like minds and purposes. Far from it. I see difference, ambition and contest. I see impulses and temptations, results, goading and gloating. I see shame in the pockets and the purses. I see regret and sorrow, and insufficient redemption.
I see hopes. I see envy and reluctance. I see lost innocence and tears of remorse. I see greed and conspiracy. I hear the blues and broken hearts. I see the feet of dancers.
Steve777 @ #1251 Monday, November 5th, 2018 – 10:07 am
Aha! From that definition …
Using this theory, we can now deduce that the PB ‘cabal’ consists of …
C@tmomma
Andrew Earlwood
Bushfire Bill
Adrian
Lizzie!
I always wanted to be a functionary when I grew up.
“JESUS WANTS ME FOR A SUNBEAM”
What, solar energy? Don't think so.
Confessions @ #1268 Monday, November 5th, 2018 – 10:18 am
The term coterie got a run for a while.
Both coterie and cabal and similar should be consigned to the dustbin of PB history. They are simply terms to assert superiority.
Enuff mes enfant.
I have to see an eye specialist this afternoon.
My usual means of dealing with unwanted situations is to hide under the bed (figurative) but through a succession of texts, phone calls and email my senior executive daughter will take me to keep my appointment.
Fear and trepidation R us (me).
Youse may be interested to know that Monsieur William at about 3 A.M. a couple of nights ago said a word or two about banning a particular poster. He then deleted his post.
The said poster is not someone involved in today’s humorous/
bullshitposts.nath seems to define just who has full Politburo status by reference to the size of each member of the Cabal’s dacha.
I have no need of a dacha: a simple camp bedside my desk on the third floor of the Lubyanka is enough to sustain me.
KayJay @ #1281 Monday, November 5th, 2018 – 10:28 am
As did ‘sorority’.
I hope it all goes well KayJay and it turns into a nice day.
briefly
Although I do not always agree with your political posts, I do appreciate your creative use of English (in the best sense). 🙂
I do disagree with the theme (by some) that we are all just paper cutouts and therefore words cannot hurt us. After a number of years of posting we do get to know each other and sympathise with personal circumstances, bereavements, or sad disappearances. Even our so-called enemies are familiar. I gained immense comfort from kind messages when my OH died. This is why I am angry with someone who comes here deliberately to mock and sow discord.
P1
Sorority is not bad. After all it refers to college educated women 🙂
Ah yes, it was sorority. Not sexist, but intended to be derogatory.
Confessions @ #1268 Monday, November 5th, 2018 – 9:18 am
Oh confessions
I used the term “mean Girls” from the movie. Yes YOU and others behave like a clique of girls, being mean to those not in the clique. I do not in any way retract the comment. You do have a few make fellow travellers. Not sure what to call them. I guess clique is not a gender based word so they can be in the clique.
What makes you a clique (or a cabal) is that you jolly each other along and encourage each other. You NEVER call out any member of the clique or cabal for bad behaviour and either actively or passively enable them.
Jackol:
Monday, November 5, 2018 at 10:19 am
—————————————
I think you and I agree with the correctness of Bill Shorten and Labor in their strategy for messaging, given the greater policy groundwork they have done relative to previous Oppositions. And Mathewson is doubtlessly correct in her observations that, were it not for Labor’s policy program being prodigiously issued through social media, the public would never know.
But I don’t quite agree she sees this as the MSM denying Labor a megaphone, as much as her seeing the MSM as “letting Labor off the hook”. She embedded her comment about Shorten “keeping a low news media profile” in the context of other comments which raised the spectre of a horrified voting public waking up the day after the election to be told that they had voted in favour of some policy program they might have rejected had they known more about it beforehand. This is a sly way of insinuating that Labor’s policy program is something to be apprehensive about. I see this as really just a somewhat more subtle version of Terry McCrann scaremongering.
But, this is a matter of contextual interpretation, so I am open to persuasion that this inference I’ve drawn is not the best one.
nath @ #1283 Monday, November 5th, 2018 – 10:36 am
I’m a nozzie boy (79). She’ll be right mate.
We went to see Degenerate Art at the Old Fitz (Woolloomooloo) last week. You can save some money and stick your head in a big steel pipe and get six others to bang it with hammers for 100 mins. But I digress. At dinner at the pub, delicious chicken parmi and fat chips for me, and we had to finish the bottle, show time a comin’, D, the husband of J, a retired English nurse of particularly good disposition who now works in voluntary home care and has weekly out of house meetings with people in need of company and others, a cup of tea and the comfort of conversation, — oh yes, D asked: “And what do you think of Bill Shorten”. I said what I said, along the lines of he is showing incredibly good sense, good manners, good timing, and good teaming, and good policy platforming, and that I was looking forward to his very good and quite possibly outstandingly good prime ministership. To which: “But, what about the faux sincerity?” he asked. FMD. And they are both rabid Labor voters, Manly residents, and with one mission in life – to get Abbott out of the People’s House.
Just sayin’.
Lizzie
It is so damn obvious.
Teenagers do a better job
Ain’t worth one iota of attention.
Ignoring is best way to go with these pests
Fess
Yes the people that used the term sorority were being derogatory in case you missed my humour pointing out why you should take pride in being called a college educated woman. 🙂
Victoria:
Spot on!
Confessions
Stop being a precious petal. Sorority is in no way offesnsive and describes a group of women with shared purpose or intent. You would NOT have called brotherhood or fraternity offensive so stop being over sensitive.
When it comes to all issues associated with the RGR wars. Sorority is the perfect word to describe it and that is without any sense of being attacked or belittled.
Jackol, just one extra point to my last post: I see Mathewson’s article as “anti-ALP”, but also MSM-bashing (for being what she sees as too accommodating to some construed Labor political interest).
ItzaDream
Where does this ‘faux sincerity’ meme come from? I see nervous strain sometimes, especially in QT. He seems more relaxed in front of a crowd than a camera. Let’s compare ScoMo. 😮
With Morrison doing so much blatant campaigning shouldn’t the government be in caretaker mode?
“Rallies will be next.
Toowoomba to Cunnamulla.”
I’m anticipating another Convoy to Canberra for the RWFW’s to have a whinge should the ALP win and do actual policy stuff. 🙂
RWFW’s deploy the Delegation of Deplorable’s.
Who, if we get the numbers in parliament, are irrelevant. 🙂
Yes guytaur, got that.