Midweek mélange

New fronts open in the Liberal Party’s internal warfare as it scrambles to prepare for an election looking increasingly to be in May.

As we wait for the 2019 polling machine to get cranking, a review of recent happenings:

• Indigenous leader Warren Mundine is to be installed as the new Liberal candidate for the marginal seat of Gilmore in southern New South Wales, supplanting the existing candidate, Grant Schultz, by decree of the party’s state executive acting at the behest of the Prime Minister. Schultz promptly quit the Liberal Party when the news broke yesterday and announced he would run as an independent. Schultz’s dumping was also blasted by Shelley Hancock, member for the corresponding state seat of South Coast, who spoke of “one of the darkest days of the Liberal Party”. A local real estate agent and son of the late Alby Schultz, former member for Hume, Schultz was preparing a challenge to the preselection of incumbent Ann Sudmalis last year, and was the only remaining nominee after she announced her retirement in September. Mundine was national president of the ALP in 2006 and 2007, but quit the party in 2012 and moved ever further into the conservative orbit thereafter. It is expected the seat will be contested for the Nationals by Katrina Hodgkinson, former state member for Burrinjuck and Cootamundra.

• Following Kelly O’Dwyer’s retirement announcement on the weekend, it appears accepted within the Liberal Party that it needs to pick a woman to succeed her. Katie Allen, a paediatrician and medical researcher who ran unsuccessfully in Prahran at the November state election, has confirmed she will nominate. Michael Koziol of The Age reports other names being discussed include Caroline Elliott, state party vice-president and daughter of businessman John Elliott, and Margaret Fitzherbert, who lost her upper house seat for Southern Metropolitan region at the state election. Senator Jane Hume has reportedly encouraged to put her name forward, but announced yesterday she would not do so.

• Anne Webster, founder of young mother support organisation Zoe Support, was chosen as the Nationals candidate for Mallee at a local preselection vote on Saturday. Webster will succeed one-term member Andrew Broad, who announced his impending retirement last month after he became embroiled in the “sugar baby” affair. Rachel Baxendale of The Australian reports Webster won in the second round of voting over Birchip accountant and farmer Bernadette Hogan and Mildura police domestic violence taskforce head Paul Matheson, with three other candidates excluded in the first round.

• Nationals Senator Bridget McKenzie has announced she will not contest the lower house seat of Indi, contrary to expectations she would do so if independent incumbent Cathy McGowan announced her retirement, which she did last weekend.

• Two notable independents have emerged to challenge Tony Abbott in Warringah: Alice Thompson, a KPMG manager who worked in the Prime Minister’s Office under Malcolm Turnbull, and Susan Moylan-Coombs, founder and director of indigenous advocacy organisation the Gaimaragal Group.

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.

1,977 comments on “Midweek mélange”

Comments Page 2 of 40
1 2 3 … 40

  2. I agreed with Barney that the Greens ‘policy ‘ on the economy is a whole lot of motherhood statements that mean little. I used to vote 1.Greens and am sad that they have become a group of opportunists who grab any ‘social problem’ and run with it, then make smug remarks about purity and love. They seem to be a very mixed bag of idealistic do-gooders. I am sorry it has ended this way.

  3. Steve,

    It helps Indigenous people reconcile the fact that their world changed with the arrival of Captain Cook on our shores.

  5. I used to vote 1.Greens and am sad that they have become a group of opportunists who grab any ‘social problem’ and run with it, then make smug remarks about purity and love. They seem to be a very mixed bag of idealistic do-gooders. I am sorry it has ended this way.

    I used to vote Greens in the Senate. But no more for the reasons you state.

  6. At least there are more women nominating for preselection in Higgins. What chance the PM will make another blunder of a captain’s call like he did in Gilmore and insist on a man getting the nod, running roughshod over the process?

  8. James Cook circumnavigated NZ…whipped along Australia and Southern PNG and went to Indonesia (Batavia)…wouldn’t it be better to have a 250th friendship commemoration of our neighbours and region….linked together by Cook’s journeys of discovery in 1768-71?

    At least it would be more accurate than an Australian circumnavigation.

    How come Australia seems to need to own Cook anyway? Culture Wars are a bit pathetic.

  9. Good Morning

    I see the Greens are evil myths being bandied about again.

    Never realising that the Greens know they don’t have to put much detail into things. This while ignoring that the Greens in power are a different kettle of fish. See ACT and NZ. See Nick McKim as Education Minister in the Labor Minority government in Tasmania.

    Thats why the Greens are evil stuff posted here is such a myth. As is the one that the Greens voted against the environment when voting against the Rudd CPRS.

    Claiming the Greens do not care about the environment and going back to the CPRS decision is an example of this myth making.

    For those that have forgot look at who was leading the Greens at the time. You can’t laud Bob Brown for his leadership of the Greens and ignore the timeline of when he was leading the party. Facts do count.

    https://www.smh.com.au/national/we-were-right-to-block-rudds-ets-brown-20111012-1lk8n.html

  10. Attenborough said that at the start of his career, it was nearly inconceivable that the environment would be in such a state of crisis and even pockets of animal extinction seemed like the exception rather than the norm.

    “To be truthful I don’t think there was anyone in the mid-50s who thought there was a danger that we would annihilate parts of the natural world. There were animals that were in danger, that’s true and there were animals that we could see if we didn’t do something they were going to become extinct.

    “And the notion that human beings might exterminate a whole species … you just hadn’t thought about it,” he said.

    “Now of course we’re only too well aware that the whole of the natural world is at our disposal, as it were. We can do things accidentally that exterminate a whole area of the natural world and species that live within it.”

    https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/jan/22/david-attenborough-and-prince-william-take-world-leaders-to-task-on-environment?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

  11. Confessions says:
    Tuesday, January 22, 2019 at 11:39 pm
    phoenixRed:
    Your favourite New York Congress member was on Stephen Colbert recently.

    ******************************************

    Hi Confessions – apologies for taking so long to get back to your naughty and cheeky post from last night but I usually log off around 5.30 Vic time and leave the evening bloodbath to others – BUT

    there was an excellent article yesterday with a historical perspective of how conservatives and extreme RWNJ uses things like ‘colour’ and ‘movement’ to discredit and put down political opponents and individuals that they have a set against – and they used Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez as a prime target :

    https://www.rawstory.com/2019/01/historian-reveals-origins-unintelligent-right-wing-attacks-alexandria-ocasio-cortezs-dancing-identity/

    example :

    In more recent days, President Trump’s awkward participation in a traditional all-male Saudi sword dance drew attention on social media, while CNN’s Jake Tapper criticized former President Barrack Obama for his carefree dancing at a Beyoncé concert. In both cases, commentators drew on standard racial stereotypes of dancing men. The powerful white man’s uncompromising self-control translated to hip immobility, while the unrestrained black man’s free movements revealed his lack of personal restraint.

    Critics of Ocasio-Cortez have also relied on stereotypical gender norms, evoking beliefs that a woman’s bodily movements reveal her true character. Conservative fixation with exposing Ocasio-Cortez as a fraud have also extended to mocking her clothes, calling her a “little girl,” and implying that a high school nickname proves that she is not the person she claims to be, and most recently, a nude phtoto hoax. Because Ocasio-Cortez’s ideas represent a threat to the traditional standards of wealth, race, gender, and social power, her critics argue that her unrestrained body reveals the truth about her self—that she is not the capable young politician she appears to be but is instead an unintelligent and frivolous woman woefully ill-equipped for power.

  13. GG

    A few years ago someone from the NSW North Coast told me that when the Endeavour went past fairly close to shore (Iluka or Yamba or somewhere near there), that a group of aboriginal people walking along the beach looked across at the ship then kept walking.

    They said that someone noted in their journal that these people seemed to have seen such a sight before.

    In Cook’s journals he mainly talks about seeing fires burning where people are living, but not often people (until of course they beach the damaged ship on the banks of the river in what is now Cooktown and are forced to stay there for some weeks repairing the hull)

  15. Cook’s account of their time in Tahiti is fairly racy – reading between the lines you find his crew (and even Joseph Banks) were probably increasing the genetic diversity of the local population.

  16. phoenixRed:

    Interesting remarks about Trump and Obama dancing.

    I completely agree that critics of Ocasio-Cortez have been hysterical while at the same time shallow. Far better to criticise the things she said, as Max Boot did recently in his column.
    https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2019/01/08/alexandria-ocasio-cortez-shouldnt-approach-her-facts-way-trump-does/?utm_term=.5a03b1772c0e

    I watched her interview with Stephen Colbert and thought she did very well. She was obviously in supportive company, and didn’t have the nerves that often make her appear insincere during her media appearances and speeches.

  17. As for Morrison I think that has been covered well.

    For those that are saying Labor is being small target and has to not scare the horses.

    You obviously missed the last election campaign. Labor was anything but small target. The same is true of Labor today.

    My view is Labor should be stronger on some issues.
    That is I am hoping Labor is going to be more Alexandra Olivia Cortez than Joe Biden. Bearing in mind I thought Biden made a great Vice President.

    This is just a recognition of how the politics has changed. Yes that means Labor is getting massive swings to it as the young people join with others in making sure Labor wins government not the LNP. Thats how much they hate the LNP.

    Don’t for a minute think thats voters saying be LNP light let Murdoch’s agenda rule the roost.

    When the Democrat party in the US is gaining by going left I would have thought that would make a few Labor people think.

    The GOP is using Alexandria Olivia Cortez as the poster girl to attack Just as when they did it with Pelosi they are just making her arguments stronger.

    Its time some in the political bubble started paying attention to all those Essential polls.

    This one from the US is instructive on how people think of things and how a political machine can be out of touch. Rather like here with Marriage Equality for so long.

    As Public Shouts Approval for Ocasio-Cortez’s 70% Tax Rate for Ultra-Rich, Elites at Davos Admit: “It’s Scary”
    “It’s wild that some people are more scared of a marginal tax rate than the fact that 40 percent of Americans struggle to pay for at least one basic need, like food or rent.”

    https://www.commondreams.org/news/2019/01/22/public-shouts-approval-ocasio-cortezs-70-tax-rate-ultra-rich-elites-davos-admit-its

  18. Confessions says: Wednesday, January 23, 2019 at 9:11 am

    phoenixRed:

    I watched her interview with Stephen Colbert and thought she did very well. She was obviously in supportive company, and didn’t have the nerves that often make her appear insincere during her media appearances and speeches.

    **************************************************

    I think its all about TIME – she perhaps needs to slow down a bit and take time to learn the ropes and integrate herself into the system and we need time to work out an honest opinion of her – pretender or dedicated voice with something useful to say ……

  20. I have to admit Beto O’Rourke lost me when he took his Facebook followers to the dentist. But it would appear he’s become more self-indulgent.

    The problem is the stream of consciousness, verging-on-self-parody narration. The voice sounds more like a college freshman than a contender for leader of the free world. Grousing that he’s in a “funk” and pining to “break out of the loops I’ve been stuck in” seems weirdly tone deaf at a time that hundreds of thousands of Americans have a real reason for complaint, namely a month without a paycheck.

    When others are paying tribute to the legacy of Martin Luther King Jr., he’s telling us his cellphone ran out of juice and comparing his Senate campaign unfavorably to his current jaunt. (“The schedule had become too intense, too much in a day to spend enough time to hear someone’s story all the way through. Too may [sic] stops, so many people.”)

    …

    And many of those college-educated women and suburbanites who fled the GOP in 2018 — the ones who have real jobs and serious responsibilities — aren’t necessarily impressed with a guy who jumps in his car, heads out on his road without his wife and small kids, and pours out his innermost thoughts in a public diary. Among their beefs with Trump was his failure to do his job, perform competently and meet the basic requirements of civility and common sense they must display in their own lives.

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2019/01/22/beto-needs-get-off-road/?utm_term=.f211d7d3920f

  21. Far better to criticise the things she said, as Max Boot did recently in his column

    His article seemed really unbalanced. Yeah the President of the United States, the Senate Majority leader can lie through their teeth but young woman cannot. Was an inescapable theme.

  23. Sorkin suggested that instead Democrats must show that they care about broader issues, such as the “economic anxiety of the middle class.”

    Ocasio-Cortez, the youngest Congresswoman in history, responded through the medium that has become the hallmark of her style — Twitter.

    “News Flash: Medicare for All and equal rights aren’t trends,” Ocasio-Cortez wrote. “When people complain about low turnout in some demos, it’s not because communities are apathetic, it’s because they don’t see you fighting for them. If we don’t show up for people, why should you feel entitled to their vote?”

    http://time.com/5508629/aaron-sorkin-alexandria-ocasio-cortez/

  25. WWP:

    If you think Max Boot gives the Toddler in Chief or even the GOP leadership a pass for lying and their behaviour, you’d be very wrong.

  27. C@t and Frednk.

    Neither of you points are mutually exclusive.

    Zoe support seems to focus purely on young pregnant women, who go on to give birth, and young mothers.

    A very worthy cause.

    But I can’t see any reference to counselling pregnant women as to their available options.

    So, an anti-abortion stance for what ever reason would not conflict with what they do.

    More info required!

    https://www.zoesupport.com.au/

  28. What a fine mess FauxMo’s got his party into. Disendorsed Tory candidate for Gilmore Grant Schultz, now standing as an independent, told Fran Kelly this morning that he won’t necessarily direct his preferences to the Tory candidate, and that many in the local branch are as mad as hell with the way in which he and Sudmalis have been treated. Morrison has the political judgment of a cane toad. I predict that Gilmore will be called early in the night for Labor.

  30. Trump is getting his money’s worth from his two Scotus picks.

    The Supreme Court on Tuesday revived the Trump administration’s policy of barring most transgender people from serving in the military. In a brief, unsigned order, the justices temporarily allowed the ban to go into effect while cases challenging it move forward.

    The vote was 5 to 4, with the court’s five conservative members in the majority and its four liberal members in dissent.

    https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/22/us/politics/transgender-ban-military-supreme-court.html?action=click&module=Top%20Stories&pgtype=Homepage

  31. C@t:

    I think he just needs a good advisor. He’s posted some good material – those interviews at the border provided great factual counters to the rubbish Trump and co were throwing out there. But then there’s been some very weird stuff, which as Jennifer Rubin notes looks out of touch when there are Americans who haven’t been paid for over a month and have legitimate reason for concern.

  32. WeWantPaul says: Wednesday, January 23, 2019 at 9:20 am

    Far better to criticise the things she said, as Max Boot did recently in his column

    His article seemed really unbalanced. Yeah the President of the United States, the Senate Majority leader can lie through their teeth but young woman cannot. Was an inescapable theme.

    *************************************************

    I thought Max Boot gave AOC a fair dusting up – comparing her to Sarah Palin ( now that’s an insult of the first order ) – someone bursting on the scene but neglecting such things as FACTS and he said of Trump and others that “celebrity” people are behind a lot of issues and unrest in the US ….

  33. guytaur @ 8.59

    I see the Greens are evil myths being bandied about again.

    _________________________________________

    I know that some here are aggressively anti-Greens, but a lot of posters like me are just sick to death of endless repetitions of same-same Lib-Lab bullshit moralising that actually adds nothing to real debate or discussion. Plus lashings of outrage at perceived ad hominem attacks while indulging like pigs in swill at their own ad hominem attacks.

    I don’t regard you as one of those people and we have had some serious debates, but some of the others are just tedious.

  34. PR

    The problem for those attacking AOC is that her policies are popular with voters as well as having economic credibility.

    The problem has always been in the US that socialist style policies like Universal Medicare Free Education etc have been successfully demonised as a communist plot.

    The massive change in politics is that argument from the right is failing around the world as the crock of bs it always was. Yes we too can have higher taxing economies that have greater equality just like the Scandinavian countries.

  35. I’m wondering what the point of Morrison’s Gilmore coup was. Is it simply that he doesn’t think Shultz is electable and that he needs someone with high profile name recognition to have a chance? Or is there some factional power games going on?

  36. guytaur says: Wednesday, January 23, 2019 at 9:41 am

    PR

    The problem for those attacking AOC is that her policies are popular with voters as well as having economic credibility.

    The problem has always been in the US that socialist style policies like Universal Medicare Free Education etc have been successfully demonised as a communist plot.

    ****************************************************

    I agree Guytaur – she has had a lot of support from many respected and intelligent peoples in the US – people like Paul Krugman and she certainly has a “peoples” view of many social issues of the poor and downtrodden in the US …… she just needs time as Max Boot says :

    She is a politician of immense gifts who can have an outsize impact — but only if she masters the intricacies of policy and curbs her fatal attraction to political celebrity and vacuous soundbites. Trump has gone dismayingly far with his reliance on “alternative facts,” but it’s not a formula that his opponents should emulate.

    We learned yesterday – that 26 billionaires ( mostly Americans ) own more than half of the rest of the worlds wealth ……. its understandable why the US conservatives don’t like “little girls’ with too much to say about BALANCE and SOCIAL JUSTICE like AOC

  39. TPOF

    Thats doing both sides are the same. I agree on the same same bs. I am just trying to stop a Labor myth the the Greens are evil and can do no wrong and just don’t care about the environment.

    I think people arguing that about the Greens are just ridiculous.

    If instead people said the Greens have a bad leader and need to change due to his letting the spotlight being taken by Labor on Green issues while he bangs on about his expertise area (As a GP he of course has an opinion) of pill testing then they might have a point. Of course this also goes to the media coverage of the Greens too.

    The reason I say Senator Di Natalie is a bad leader is because no matter what your view of the Greens is we don’t get the messages from them like Pauline Hanson has managed to do. Thats where Senator Di Natalie is falling down.

    Instead its been a few good members of his team getting occasional mentions when they get the chance. Bob Brown never let the media take its focus off of what the policies of the party are. Still to this day he gets as much media attention as a retired politician as when he was leader.

    With a minor party this is more important than with a major party because there is just so much inertia to fight against.

    The vacuum has been filled by others trying to redefine the Greens into their image and not that of the Greens and it to me is one example of why their attraction to voters is not great.
    To me it gives an impression of the Greens being weak. Add to that the real problems within the party due to division and scandals of course.

    The point is some myths are being created by some Labor people that does not reflect reality.

  40. Big A

    You have summed it up perfectly.
    Shultz may not have been everybody’s choice, Sudmalis was quite pointed in her criticisms, but he was the local choice.
    When you need to hold every seat you have to even continue as a minority government stunts like this would seem incomprehensible.
    But it is Morrison we are dealing with.

  41. On this morning’s The “Ask A Liberal” Show on ABC radio, a breathless Kim Landers asked Marise Payne whether new Indon hesitation over releasing Abu Bakur Bashir was “a feather in the cap for Prime Minister Scott Morrison”, the answer was:

    “Uhm… aaarrr… it’s not really about that.”

    Even the FM was embarrassed by the question.

  42. Sudmalis pulling out was a big slap in the face for Morrison who enthusiastically supported her. Schultz was unforgiven.

    Nose cut off, face spiten.

  43. PR

    The more time argument to gain “gravitas” was the core of the Aaron Sorkin argument.

    Times in the US have changed. AOC is popular and has credible policies. Thats it. The more time stuff is just bs argument.

    Its not like she is going to run for President.

  44. PR

    The more time argument to gain “gravitas” was the core of the Aaron Sorkin argument.

    Times in the US have changed. AOC is popular and has credible policies. Thats it. The more time stuff is just bs argument.

    Its not like she is going to run for President.

  46. Not that it matters anywhere east of the Rabbit Proof, but the local Labor outfit in WA is attempting – clumsily – to question why rock lobsters (crays locally) are virtually unattainable for the locals and when they are, are priced such that only millionaires can afford them
    Meantime, nearly all the catch is headed to China and the local crayfishers have done very nicely over the last few years as stocks have increased (and due to a policy of the previous LNP government).
    The rub is that the local minister is trying to ensure more crays are available for the local market by making 17% of an increased catch available to locals.
    The opposition to this from the local well-off rock lobster fishermen (haven’t seen a poor one yet) has verged on the hysterical with death threats to the minister and dire warnings of “socialisation” of the industry with added fears of wondering “Who’s next?”..
    Cue the Greens………………………………in they come, and as of today’s West, they are not willing to support Labor on this one…………………..
    Their reasoning is hard to fathom but those who criticise the Greens for being great on the bleeding heart side and weak on the actual tough governing side, have a point in my view.

  47. Some very general impressions re the US:

    1. At this point in time I think that Kamala Harris is the most impressive candidate for the Democrat nomination.

    2. I like AOC. She is standing up to the alt-right and Republican bullies generally in a way that others haven’t. She is offering young people hope that there is a place for them in a US democratic society by doing so. Her arguments are gaining traction because she is saying what she thinks and feels (whether accurate or not) and these resound with many people who feel alienated from the system.

    3. I can’t see Donald Trump being the candidate in 2020, whether or not he leaves earlier. While his base remains solid, and may do so as long as he stays President and beyond, it does well to remember that his actual vote margin in the key states that gave him the Presidency was very small. While his base has not shrunk that much, it has not grown at all. Indeed both those who approve and those who disapprove have become totally solidified, and even a national crisis like 9/11 will not make a difference now. What was needed then was someone to unify the country behind him – and Bush was capable of that. Trump only knows one thing – to divide and conquer.

  48. She is a politician of immense gifts who can have an outsize impact — but only if she masters the intricacies of policy and curbs her fatal attraction to political celebrity and vacuous soundbites. Trump has gone dismayingly far with his reliance on “alternative facts,” but it’s not a formula that his opponents should emulate.

    Yep. She actually does herself and her platform a disservice by doing this.

    I’ve noticed that she does seem to be learning about using social media – she is posting more vacuous inane Instagram content as stories rather than in her feed, so they only appear for 24hrs and are then gone. Perhaps Beto O’Rourke could learn a thing or two from her.

    But you are right; she will presumably mature and grow into the role and this will happen over her term.

  49. guytaur says:
    Wednesday, January 23, 2019 at 9:53 am

    As long as the Gs devote their campaign efforts towards opposing and defaming Labor, they will get a lot of blow-back. They are essentially just one thing these days. They are an anti-Labor front. Their supporters are gradually leaving them and they’re not being replaced by fresh support. They play tag with the LNP in trying to assail Labor. They are effectively campaigning against themselves. I hope they keep it up. They will eventually disappear into the obscurity they so obviously deserve.

Comments Page 2 of 40
1 2 3 … 40

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *