We may not get a new federal poll this week, with the fortnightly Newspoll and Essential Research having reported last week, and the monthly Ipsos doing so the week before. However, two further Liberal resignations (with widespread suggestions Craig Laundy will shortly follow in Reid) are keeping the preselection news treadmill rolling:
• Christopher Pyne’s departure announcements opens a vacancy in the eastern Adelaide seat of Sturt, which he has held since 1993, when he was 25. However, the loss of his personal vote may damage the Liberals’ chances of defending the seat’s 5.4% post-redistribution margin, with Phillip Coorey of the Financial Review reporting a “senior South Australian Liberal” saying the party was in “big trouble” in the seat. Luke Griffiths of The Australian cites “multiple Liberal sources” as saying the preselection is “almost certain” to go to James Stevens, the chief-of-staff to Premier Steven Marshall, who is aligned with Pyne’s moderate faction and has his personal support. However, Pyne’s own former chief-of-staff, Adam Howard, is “considered an outside chance”, and there “might be a push by branch members to preselect a female candidate”.
• The Gold Coast seat of Moncrieff will be vacated by the retirement of Steve Ciobo, who came to the seat in 2001 at the age of 27. The aforesaid report in The Australian identifies four potential nominees: Karly Abbott, a staffer to Ciobo and the reputed front-runner; John-Paul Langbroek, who holds the state seat of Surfers Paradise and served as Opposition Leader from 2009 to 2011; Tim Rawlings, former chief-of-staff to Tracy Davis, then a minister in Campbell Newman’s government; and Bibe Roadley, managing director of a training company.
Also:
• The West Australian reports five nominees for preselection in Curtin: Celia Hammond, until recently the vice-chancellor of Notre Dame University, whom media reports suggest is the front-runner; Erin Watson-Lynn, director of Asialink Diplomacy at the University of Melbourne, who is said to have backing from Julie Bishop; Anna Dartnell, an executive for resources company Aurizon; Karen Caddy, Stirling councillor and management consultant for BusinX Consulting; and the sole male candidate, Andres Timmermanis, Cambridge councillor and manager for IT firm Scantek Solutions, who has been mentioned in relation to a number of western suburbs preselections over the years.
• The Saturday Paper reports a uComms poll conducted for UnionsACT on January 23 suggested ACT Liberal Senator Zed Seselja was in danger of losing his seat to an independent or the Greens. The polling is said to show Liberal support at 22.4%, down from 33.2% at the 2016 election and 24.2% in a poll conducted in October; Labor on 33.1%, down from 37.9% in 2016 and 39.3% in the October; the Greens on 19.9%, up from 16.1% in 2016 and 17.0% in October; and independent/other on 17.7%, up from 12.7% in 2016 and 13.9% in October. This leaves 6.9% undecided in the January poll, and 5.6% in the October poll. Seselja is also credited with an approval rating of just 29%, compared with 59% disapproval. Anthony Pesec, “local businessman, former investment banker and renewable energy developer”, announced last week he would run as an independent. Were Seselja to lose, it would be the first time in either of the two territories that the two Senate seats did not split between the two major parties.
Wow
Some Labor people are reacting as if the Greens had a chance of having the balance of power in the HOR.
Otherwise I don’t see the point of the vitriol.
It says more about Labor people than the Greens who are currently polling their steady 9% or so.
poroti @ #2290 Wednesday, March 6th, 2019 – 10:52 am
No, The Greens didn’t exist as a party when Labor were supportive of all these things. However, it’s true to say that it has been a struggle within the party to get enough votes at national conference to make it our policy. 🙂
Zoomster,
It’s usually better to keep quiet than speak on subjects you don’t know much about, ignorance is not something that looks great.
While the MMBW used to protect Melbourne’s water catchments, that is not true of most Victorian catchments. The Otway’s catchment, Daylesford are just two that spring to mind.
There has been a lot of work done to show that Old Growth Forest does not burn in a catastrophic fire. For example the Canberra fires started in Vic and went through NSW into Canberra. Every time those fires hit old growth forests the fire stopped. The fires that went around the forest propagated, but the did not burn the old growth itself.
The studies in the Otways and East Gippsland show that the average time between fires is 300-500 years. These fires were thought to be started by lightning strikes that set fire to a tree and a the fire would go for a few acres then die out. These forests are too wet to burn.
Logged forests, on the other hand, are burnt by the loggers after. The clearfelling techniques ensure that the forests that regrow are fire prone and will burn catastrophically. The fires you see now are man made, not natural to the Australian landscape.
These are not the arguments you would use against plantations. That is farming, not forestry.
I wouldn’t place much faith in that type of fencing keeping anybody in or out. It’s now compulsory in Canberra to use it at building sites, even individual houses. The panels are easily knocked over, even by the wind, especially with the large sign attached.
Obviously a Dutton gimmick at taxpayers’ expense.
Cat
I am glad Labor has the policy.
I don’t care who had it first. I care that Labor and the Greens can work together to get other Senators to support the policy in the Senate when as I expect Labor wins government barring a surprise changing the polling.
Jaeger @ #2289 Wednesday, March 6th, 2019 – 10:51 am
Well, I guess the fencing might stop him. 🙂
Love Labor’s abortion and contraception access policies- really trying to stir the RWNJ into a frenzy and incite a global wedge.
Their little brains must be exploding!
Ahh abortion battles.
It’s good to see the ALP make the policy announcement today. Meanwhile the liberals keep dumping money in to pro-life err I mean Perinatal support ventures.
The value in the greens is that they can propose legislation or policy direction a decade or 2 before it becomes accepted law and policy for the ALP.
Same, not same.
Pegasus @ #2269 Wednesday, March 6th, 2019 – 9:32 am
Sure.
However facts like “it was our policy first” have little merit, especially when everyone agrees that it’s good policy. There are no points for being “first” to propose this or that policy. Points are awarded for getting enough people to agree with the policy to actually get it passed.
Which makes arguments over whose idea it was self-defeating at worst, and not worth getting bent out of shape over, at best. We’re not talking IP here. There are no patents or royalties for political policies. The only reason to have a political policy is to see it implemented, so the more people/parties that “steal” it, the better.
Dovey
Hence the qualifications – ‘some’ forests are designed to burn regularly. I have, in previous posts, argued the case for NOT burning others.
Gittins was fairly obviously talking about Melbourne’s water supplies, whose catchments are protected.
Hi Zoomster, I just wanted to say that your post about forestry contains some of the dumbest and most uninformed comments I have seen in the history of the internet itself.
I would love to stick around and point out the myriad problems with your post but I must return to my home planet now.
+1
The old town of Khiva is also nice.
Ar
Exactly. The problem has been the culture war from the right. Not if Labor or the Greens fought to get the issue on the agenda first.
Success with Marriage Equality was LGBTI groups advocating to parties and over coming Howard’s and then Abbott’s cynical attempts to block it.
The support of mainstream non LGBTI people was critical in getting it to the point where even the LNP could not oppose it.
Its the same with a Women’s right to choose and access to contraception. A fight the feminist movement has been in for decades.
They are happy with both Labor and the Greens supporting it.
Maxine McHugh was a celebrity blowin candidate who did nothing after she won her seat, but Labor still celebrate her famous victory. A normal Labor candidate wouldn’t have knocked Howard over in his own seat, even in 2007.
Could a Labor candidate win Kooyong this time? More possible than ever before, OK, but still unlikely
All this toing and froing over Burnside is ridiculous. If Burnside is elected Labor will still have a thumping majority, and Burnside will have done them the favour of clearing Frydenberg (a leadership contender) from parliament. Whoever wins it now, it will most likely (definitely if the winner is Labor)revert to whatever party represents the big end of town the election after
Labor’s policies on abortion and contraception were discussed at branches across the country before winning support at National Conference. They have very widespread support in Labor, at all levels and across the spectrum of opinion.
Their little brains must be exploding!
——
Lyle Shelton, come on down!
McKew
I have been critical of her post election efforts on here before.
GDP only +0.2% in the third quarter.Figures described as soft.
steve davis @ #2317 Wednesday, March 6th, 2019 – 11:33 am
Annualised growth 1% in first half of 2018-19 financial year according to the Kouk.
And, apparently, a 1.1% bounce from the March data last year will fall out of the figures in the next quarter.
Steve Davis
There goes the budget “surplus”
Also any recession can be blamed on the LNP.
Guytaur
Earlier in the week they were forecasting +0.6%, then it was downgraded to +0.3%,ended up +0.2% for Q3.
I bet Morrison is wishing today he called the election.
Yet another economic fact directly contradicts the LNP narrative.
Sad!
All this means is that Morrison will make sneaky cuts and use “clever” accounting tricks in order to announce a surplus.
Banks. Partly.
That’s a very fair criticism.
Steve
Yes I remember. It was brave forecasting with the IPhone sales fall being linked to a China slowdown.
I truly don’t get the obsession over the Greens Labor’s friend in the Senate.
The Liblings are not ‘Labor’s friend’. They are among Labor’s foes. They campaign alongside the LNP against Labor at all times. They will set out to prevent the election of a majority Labor government. If Labor win office, they will set out to oppose and frustrate Labor’s program.
They have every right to do all this, of course. But they cannot claim ‘friendship’ with Labor while also trying to wreck Labor. They cannot have it both ways.
Australia’s economy slowed sharply in the second half of 2018, confounding an optimistic message from the country’s central bank and stoking the case for interest-rate cuts before the end of the year.
Gross domestic product grew by 0.2 per cent in the fourth quarter from the previous three months and by 2.3 per cent from a year earlier, the Australian Bureau of Statistics said.
The soft result follows growth of just 0.3 per cent in the third quarter, marking the weakest consecutive quarters of expansion since the Reserve Bank of Australia last cut interest rates in mid-2016.
‘Pegasus says:
Wednesday, March 6, 2019 at 10:27 am
Greens , 24.5.2016 – Greens announce national plan for legal, accessible and affordable abortion…’
Uh huh. First they announce it. Then they announce it again. Then they announce it some more. Thirty years later they are still announcing it.
Briefly
Change the record. The Greens have been Labor’s friend on issues like Marriage Equality
Even Climate Change despite the myth making of Labor.
The Greens are no One Nation or Australian Conservatives
Alex Joiner
@IFM_Economist
Australia officially enters a “per capita” GDP recession, the first since 2006. We are clearly too reliant on population growth to support economic activity and both monetary and fiscal policy makers should be concerned #ausbiz #auspol
Incredible.
https://newmatilda.com/2019/02/28/off-court-wrecking-campaign-inside-greens-nsw-escalated/
guytaur
says:
Wednesday, March 6, 2019 at 11:51 am
Briefly
Change the record. The Greens have been Labor’s friend on issues like Marriage Equality
Even Climate Change despite the myth making of Labor.
The Greens are no One Nation or Australian Conservatives
_____________________________________
A lot of the Labor rhetoric against the Greens started in earnest after the Greens started winning Lower House seats. It obviously scares them, as it should.
A technical recession is 2 negative quarters of GDP, which we should have last had post the introduction of the GST.
No doubt there are areas of our 70% plus Service Industry economy doing well, aka restaurants and coffee shops.
But the remainder are in recession – right now.
Hence the 0.2% growth for the quarter – and the now near certainty that the Cash Rate will be further reduced.
Labor’s wages policy will be keenly awaited – but it will have to feed into consumer confidence and employment opportunities which will take time from a very low start point
I thought The Greens were one big, happy family? And it was only the Lib-Lab Same Same duopoly parties that were riven by factionalism? 🙂
I think Burnside will only split the not-tory vote and make the seat safe for the LNP, well done Greens….Happy to be disabused of this position if PBers have any other views.
“started winning lower house seats”
How many exactly do they hold in the House of Government in the National Parliament?
Some should learn how to count so they can change hands at 99
No wonder they can not find meaningful employment and enter the home ownership market – living in their Share houses – or accrue wealth
I am doubting Dee Madigan was front and centre on schools’ air conditioning between 1995 and 2011.
Reserve Bank of Australia governor Philip Lowe has downplayed the seriousness of any softness in the national accounts, saying shortly before the GDP figure was released that it was a “puzzle” why softer economic output and spending data clashed with widespread signs of strong employment conditions.
“Taken together the September and the December quarters will show growth significantly below trend and substantially below the first half of [last] year,” Dr Lowe said at The Australian Financial Review Business Summit.
“If you look at other indicators of the economy you don’t see that slowdown.”
“The labour market data suggest the economy is growing quite well.” “Lowest unemployment rate in a long time, highest vacancy rates and every business saying it’s hard to get workers.”
Dr Lowe said in several countries there was growing tension between strong labour market data and softer GDP.”We are devoting significant resources to understanding this tension,” Dr Lowe said.
Cat
Only for the same people that believed the LNP don’t have factions.
I think we call them the press gallery.
Holden Hillbilly @ #2339 Wednesday, March 6th, 2019 – 12:02 pm
It’s just a flesh wound!
C@momma
RE “Struggle within the party” . That would be a nomination for ‘Understatement of the Year” 😆
Pics
See The Melbourne papers. Frydenberg putting $1 million into saving his “safe” seat.
Primary vote fall must be immense.
Here’s Frydenberg presser
Frydbrain starting his bullshit session now.
Or more fully….
😆
Still spruiking tax cuts as people will really feel lack of government services and flat wages
The few ministers left are going to need to spend most of their election time in their own seats rather than propping up marginals …. karma rules