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.
I call the IPA, the Institute for Prehistoric Affairs.
poroti @ #1681 Friday, January 25th, 2019 – 1:57 pm
More time for people to read it then. 😆
Really? Until just now I felt guilty i hadn’t subscribed to the Saturday Paper.
The PB site was not set up to be a Labor blog by William I’m sure,but if the posters here are Labor leaning so be it. It is what it has become. If Coalition et al minded posters cannot handle this democratic site its hardly the Labor leaning posters fault.
Quoll,
Just another Greens apologist who attacks the messengers pointing out, with evidence, how lame a lot of his party’s policy positions are and their silence on really important environmental matters.
It was ever thus.
For cricket followers, interesting news from Barbados where the West Indies skittled England for 77. Kemar Roach took 5/4 in 27 balls after lunch as England went from 1/30 to 7/49. Anothe player to watch is 22 year old Guyanan Shimron Hetmyer – he steadied the West Indies first innings with an impressive 81, and saved them in the second innings when they had gone from 1/60 to 5/61.
Meanwhile Australia is 4/84 v Sri Lanka’s 144.
Really it is a bit disappointing William didn’t use the Bowe Family Tax Avoidance Trust trading as PollBludger to get a grant to investigate whether it is possible to post innovative digital content and get and maintain some kind of innovative digital record of interaction with people who read the content, by hiring a consultant to ensure the patreaon is better supported.
zoomster @ #1696 Friday, January 25th, 2019 – 2:19 pm
Yes, I have heard that too. It fits in with the stories of the mahogany ship wrecked on the Victorian Coast, that the Portuguese were out and about in this area.
Trump Rammed Through Jared Kushner’s Security Clearance After It Was Rejected As Too Risky
Even though Jared Kushner’s top secret security clearance request was rejected by career White House security specialists due to concerns over his foreign entanglements, an official hand-picked by Donald Trump approved the application.
According to NBC News, “The official, Carl Kline, is a former Pentagon employee who was installed as director of the personnel security office in the Executive Office of the President in May 2017.”
Kushner’s case wasn’t the only one in which Kline ignored security concerns. The report notes that he overruled the concerns of career officials dozens of times.
To sum this up: Trump installed someone who knowingly approved the security clearances of Jared Kushner and dozens of other individuals, despite the fact that career officials were raising alarm bells. This is a president who has put American national security at risk repeatedly, but few instances have been so egregious.
https://www.politicususa.com/2019/01/24/trump-kushner-security-clearance-risky.html
steve davis @ #1703 Friday, January 25th, 2019 – 10:26 am
Maybe it’s a desire for evidence and facts, which doesn’t seem a strong quality of the Right at the moment. 🙂
Mundine was decidedly the wrong call by Morrison ( and by the ALP some time back). The back stories about his personal life will continue. His business dealings will come under scrutiny. His complicated links into the mining industry could well be resurrected.
I predict it will rebound on the Liberals. The ALP had a lucky escape.
Barney
Always been my theory!
I expect to continue to see Mundine sipping coffee and shopping in the seat of North Sydney
He’ll have a lot of spare time after the election. Perhaps Morrison will be able to join him.
Robert Gottliebsen wishes he be and his tax thieves merry men to be above the law.
@Shellbell
Please don’t, I don’t want to see Liberals in Sydney.
WeWantPaul @ #1713 Friday, January 25th, 2019 – 11:08 am
Long drive from the Shire! 🙂
don, zoomster
The “Mahogany Ship” is interesting because unlike many other legends, something certainly did exist there. There was an old wreck in the dunes between Warrnabool and Port Fairy that was eventually covered with the shifting sands in the late 19th Century. Subsequent efforts at finding it have been unsuccessful, but I do like to imagine it was one maybe abandoned by Cristóvão de Mendonça, a Portuguese explorer in the early 1500s (and who would have been there in secret as that half of the world was “Spanish” because of the Papal treaty between Spain and Portugal.)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mahogany_Ship
In 1990 the City of Warrnambool installed a Portuguese padrão (monument). I think it has seven lines radiating from it to represent the “Seven Seas”. The insciption is from Os Lusíadas (epic poem by Luís Vaz de Camões)
Assim fomos abrindo aqueles mares,
Que geração alguma não abriu.
(We have opened the seas, as no generation before us has done)
http://monumentaustralia.org.au/themes/landscape/exploration/display/33923-portuguese-explorers-memorial
Having lived in Warrnambool in the past, we have often contemplated a mini tourism boom if the old wreck were to be found, and found to predate 1770 at least. You can always dream!
He is just a servant, and not a very bright one, of the rich and powerful.
Barney in Go Dau @ #1648 Friday, January 25th, 2019 – 12:23 pm
Barney
have you heard the rumour about D notices placed on reporting the French yellow vests. I am not sure if it is true or not but I would be careful about being too smug
Morrison’s OH recently complained she needed a home handyman to deal with things like doors falling off. After the election he will have plenty of time to enrol in a couple of DIY courses.
Dutton likewise – the family’s child care centres will always need a handyman around.
DaretoTread @ #1719 Friday, January 25th, 2019 – 11:18 am
I’ve heard nothing of the sort. Did you just make that up.
So you try to refute a story with rumour now.
Getting desperate!
Zoidlord
Wee Robbie and his employers all have Ms Helmsley’s quote hanging on their office walls.
Remember what happened the last time Dutton tried a bit of DIY. Can’t see the missus looking to him for any help.
citizen @ #1720 Friday, January 25th, 2019 – 11:23 am
Well considering his recent injury, I think the Potato should just pay someone for any maintenance needs.
England must recall Sir Alistair Cooke. Better still, Colin Cowdery, as they did in the 1974-75 Ashes series.
https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2019/jan/24/west-indies-england-first-test-day-two-match-report
So as it stands now, James Cook and the Endeavour were likely at least the twelfth European ship to sight or land in Australia. “Recreating” lots of circumnavigations could keep Morrison busy for years – then again I expect he will soon have time on his hands.
1606 – Willem Janszoon
1606- Luis Vaz de Torres
1616- Dirk Hartog
1619- Frederick de Houtman
1622- John Brooke
1623- Jan Carstensz
1627- François Thijssen
1629- Francisco Pelsaert (the Batavia)
1642- Abel Tasman
1688- William Dampier
1696- Willem de Vlamingh
Speaking of Dutton the “Dump Dutton” billboard put up by the ETU that I drive past on my way to work is still there, but the one for the Qld LNP senators on the other side of that billboard has now gone. They mustn’t have liked the competition.
“I predict it will rebound on the Liberals. The ALP had a lucky escape.”
Yup, i am glad that over the years the ALP has NOT given pre-selection to people like Mundine, Pearson and Stan Grant even though they seem to have sniffed around for it. To me, those three in particular come across as bloody pompous gits. And, they have brought in people like Pat Dodson who i well approve of and seems more focused on getting stuff done than doing the “look at me” profile stuff.
Was interesting that Tanya P has been pretty forthright, without going into detail that Mundine was not a good candidate. I’d be inclined to respect her position on this as she is pretty smart.
Situation i think with Mundine is that the Libs are going to cop all the negative crap for having pre-selected him in the way they have…and then not win the seat anyway. Good planning by ScoMo wot??
🙂
kevjohnno @ #1727 Friday, January 25th, 2019 – 11:36 am
More likely they ran out of funds for that campaign. 😆
Oops! I forgot about Dutton’s recent DIY problems.
don @ 2:09 pm
There is an enigmatic entry in cook’s diary about the Endeavour River, where he repaired his ship after running into the reef, saying, if I remember correctly, that it was not so big as he had been led to believe.
Cook’s journal entry is not at all enigmatic, if you read what he wrote prior to that. He had sent a ship’s boat to scout for suitable locations to careen the Endeavour for repairs. He was referring to the report he had received from those men.
The notion that Cook might have had a Portuguese map under the counter was put about by Kenneth McIntyre in his book “The Secret Discovery of Australia”. An interesting read in some ways, but highly inaccurate, even misleading, on many points, including the one you mention. Its key “findings” have long been found wanting.
Mundine was preselected twice by Labor – once to run in the ‘unwinnable’ state seat of Dubbo and once on the winnable 3 position for the 2001 half senate election. 2001 was the only time over the past 20 years that NSW Labor failed to pick up 3 seats at a half senate election. Tampa and 9-11 saw to that. Mundine must of thought he had some moral claim to another go in 2013, so had a massive dummy spit when Bob Carr took Mark Arbib’s senate seat in the 2012 casual vacancy. That was Julia Gillard’s captain’s call and probably goes a long way to explain why Mundine broke hard right and cleaved to the likes of Tony Abbott and the skynoos crowd thereafter.
Andrew_Earlwood @ #1732 Friday, January 25th, 2019 – 11:51 am
Well done Julia! 🙂
“Was interesting that Tanya P has been pretty forthright, without going into detail that Mundine was not a good candidate. I’d be inclined to respect her position on this as she is pretty smart.”
I like Tanya, but sometimes she lets the inner student politician loose. That’s the kind of joke I’d make on a blog. It’s yhe kind of language that isn’t helpful in the Deputy Leader of the federal opposition in the lead up to a federal election. It also undercut the conciliatory line that shorten took to Mundine the man. You might have noticed that Bill was forced to spend the first two minutes of his interview on ABC News Breakfast trying to explain Tanya’s remarks. Mundine is not bright, but he’s not as dumb as some other politicians. He did achieve preselection and really didn’t put a foot wrong as a Labor candidate. He just lacked luck and timing. He then blew his Labor party career out of the water with a massive dummy spit.
In my books he’s a rat without moral compass, and I wish he’d stop trying to hit onto my wife every time he see her, but it’s best for Labor to allow the LNP bury him with their own antics rather attack the man personally. Tanya really should have known better.
Rocket Rocket @ 3:11 pm
Re the Mahogany Ship. There certainly was a ship there – after all, none other than Mrs Thomas Manifold attested to it! However, whalers and sealers from Sydney and elsewhere had been visiting that coast on a seasonal basis, long before any permanent settlement, and the wreck was probably one of theirs.
There’s a strong belief that a local farmer burnt the remains towards the end of the 19th century to salvage the metal scrap from it.
Barney in Go Dau @ #1720 Friday, January 25th, 2019 – 2:26 pm
Well obviously Barney Boy
If there is a D notice it is NOT made public so you would NOT hear about it..
I read it was in place on some unreliable website which is why i said RUMOUR. Now to test the idea i have done a few google searches and it does seem that coverage is very thin in the MSM. But that is not evidence.
However it would not particularly surprise me as I have been reliably told that back in 1980 or so, the Australian government slapped a D notice on race riots between Vietnamese and Turkish workers at Ford (i think). So there is precedent for such notices to prevent spread of social unrest.
What some Labor supporters need to understand is that with Pegasus and Rex Douglas that they are comfortable like the Labor supporters that it is over for the liberal/national party at the up coming federal election.
Pegasus and Rex are commenting on how they would like to see a Shorten led labor government to govern.
Hooray! Here comes the rain. Still hot, though.
DaretoTread @ #1736 Friday, January 25th, 2019 – 12:06 pm
More rumour!!! 😆
DaretoTread:
I’m not quite with you. A D-notice is ‘a government notice issued to news editors requiring them not to publicise certain information for reasons of national security.’ How does that work with Vietnamese and Turkish workers at Ford?
On more recent history:-
In a regulated economy
Inflation at double digits, unemployment at double digits and the non Grandfathered Home Mortgage interest rate at 17% (Grandfathered at 13.5%)
At their peak, Commercial Bills were discounting at 25%
Wages and salary increases were frozen as the remedy to inflation
Real Estate valuations fell, and we saw 7 Free Enterprise Banks consolidate to 3 (the CBA maintaining) as their Balance Sheets could not accomodate the asset write downs
The Nation was in recession
There was a change in government in 1983
There was the introduction of the GST, leading to one (significant) quarter of GDP, with impetus given to the home construction industry to avert a recession
There was then the Mining Boom Phase 1 from 2004, where the resultant revenue along with the sale of public assets saw the government awash with funds, disbursed as those funds were
Private debt increased as it did, house prices increased at 20% PA and the ASX likewise recorded successive 20% PA gains
Noting the extraordinary growth in private debt, inflation became a factor with the RBA increasing interest rates during an election year but during an election campaign both unprecedented and putting pressure of household budgets (along with increasing utility, health care costs etc etc)
There was a change of government in 2007 (then sub prime morphing into the GFC with interest rates reducing to emergency support levels, which maintain 11 years on)
So what is the lead up to 2019?
I would suggest that the enduring levels of private debt and the entrenchment of flat and recessionary wages growth are the factors (as the lead factor in pressure on households) plus that the accommodative interest rate settings are not seeing inflationary pressures, and to the contrary confirming the pressure households are under, hence polling showing we anticipate a change in government in 2019
Simply, the right wing ideology that austerity delivers confidence and that confidence will “trickle down” has again been shown to be flawed
And not only in Australia
So that is my take
The Shorten government will face similar challenges to those that confronted the Hawke Government in 1983
The Rudd government addressed entrenched problems – but the GFC – and interest rates which were increasing due to inflation -provided a solution in regards the servicing of significantly increased personal debt levels because interest rates were reduced as they were
So the major problem which confronted the Rudd government was addressed in a manner which was not anticipated (although the prospects of a GFC had been canvassed in the back of sub prime and the packaging and sale but not anticipating the sheer level of the problem being where that debt finished up) being the shift to accommodative interest rate settings – globally
The problems of neutral settings remains – exacerbated by continuing flat wages growth
Hopefully the financial expertise of the Nation has seen debt paid down over the 11 years of the lowest interest rates in history – so households are well provisioned accordingly including advance repayments
If this has been the case the much hyped house valuation falls will have minimal impact – because of equity
So the very great majority of people will ride out the cycle as cyclical
These observations lead to other impacts of course but there are always collaterals
Good Indie lineup,on Qanda when they return on Feb 4. No spot for the Clown from Cloncurry.
And the SkyFoxNews crew are melting down over the lack of balance!
“And the SkyFoxNews crew are melting down over the lack of balance!”
Considering they will be people of som einfluence in the brief parliament of early 2019, i’d like to see what they have to say.
Mundine was already leading the high life on the lower North Shore with Hendo’s daughter in 2o13 so he would have been an odd senate candidate.
Here to reason
And that is why Rex post personal attacks on Shorten, again and again and again?
And that is why Pegasus spends his life posting negative Labor articles.
If they are Liberal trolls them fair enough; if the represent where the Greens are at, then the Greens have a problem. I suspect they represent where the greens are at; but i am happy to be convinced they are Liberal trolls
Here to reason @ #1737 Friday, January 25th, 2019 – 12:06 pm
That’s not how our democracy works.
10%, or about, doesn’t allow you to dictate policy.
The Bunyip
@WrittenOnWater
2m2 minutes ago
“Victorian energy minister, Lily D’Ambrosio has sung the praises of Victoria’s renewable energy during the heatwave, saying it was coal and thermal generators that failed the state. Wind power came through today. Renewable energy is the way of the future”
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/live/2019/jan/25/australia-extreme-heatwave-victoria-tasmania-bushfires-live?CMP=share_btn_tw
sprocket_ says:
Troppo Melt Down over that would be guaranteed on this program……………..
.
Sky’s eye on journalism: Chris Kenny launches Media Watch rival
https://www.theguardian.com/media/2019/jan/25/skys-eye-on-journalism-chris-kenny-launches-media-watch-rival
BiGD
It also sure as hell does not mean the ‘10%’ cannot go about “commenting on how they would like to see a Shorten led labor government to govern.”