Sturtin’ over

As Liberal MPs stampede for the exit, some detail on a number of looming preselections.

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.

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.

2,872 comments on “Sturtin’ over”

Comments Page 52 of 58
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  3. I always wonder how the paying audiences at Milo’s events would react if he introduced them onstage to his African-American husband? I can’t imagine that would be a part of their worldview for most of them.

  5. Scott on ABC24 is dog whistling his heart out on Christmas Island , all about stopping those awful brown people ‘gaming’ the system FFS!

  7. “Labor is $1.33 in Dickson and Dutton $3.00 couldn’t happen surely?”

    if he stays in dickson (& I think he almost has to at this stage?) then he is toast.

    there’s speculation he’ll try to head to Ciobo’s seat, but it could be too late

  8. Outsider says:
    Wednesday, March 6, 2019 at 3:02 pm
    This Victorian case illustrates how the Court of Appeal will approach its task in the pell appeal, and also serves as an example of a case where a jury verdict was overturned on appeal leading to the defendat’s acquittal http://classic.austlii.edu.au/au/cases/vic/VSCA/2008/75.html. Obviously, the factual circumstances in R v Klamo are very different from those in R v Pell.

    ___________________________________

    Thanks. That was a really interesting indication of what it takes to overturn a jury decision on ‘unsafe’ grounds.

    I note that the cases referred to in the course of the judgement went to the extent of what juries made of expert forensic or medical witnesses (shades of the Chamberlain case too).

    The issues in the Pell case were quite different. It was whether the jury would accept the recollections of other witnesses as sufficiently undermining the evidence of the accuser to create reasonable doubt. I don’t see how the appeals court could do this without actually being in the court room while the evidence was being given and doing the site visits that the jury undertook.

    I don’t know about the other grounds of appeal but this one seems like a dead end.

  9. ‘Rocket Rocket says:
    Wednesday, March 6, 2019 at 3:31 pm

    I always wonder how the paying audiences at Milo’s events would react if he introduced them onstage to his African-American husband? I can’t imagine that would be a part of their worldview for most of them.’

    The After Dark Shouters loved wedging the ‘Left Luvvies’ with that one.

  11. I have no doubt if Burnside had declared his candidature before Yates, GetUp would be also indirectly supporting him, which they may still do from now on.

  12. C@tmomma @ #2534 Wednesday, March 6th, 2019 – 3:12 pm

    It seems as though the Liberal Party have decided on their slogan for the upcoming federal election, as emblazoned across the front of the flyer it said,
    ‘A Stronger Economy. A Secure Future’

    I. Don’t. Think. So.

    The Economy has got the wobbles. And a secure future? Now when they are letting in 27000 visa overstayers every year to make the future for our citizens less secure.

    That was their (only) schtick in Wentworth.

    The problem with the Cons mentioning ‘the future’, the minute you say it, any reasonably cognisant being immediately thinks Climate Change and The Children.

  13. Confessions @ #2488 Wednesday, March 6th, 2019 – 11:35 am

    PvO says Labor have 35 of the 74 govt held seats on their target seat list. Canning is one of them, and he believes that is in play to switch to Labor.

    I hope this happens. I’d love to see another religious reactionary in Hastie booted out from parliament.

    Canning is indeed a targeted seat. Mellisa Teede is the Labor candidate and the campaign is going well.

  14. Understood Shellbell. The manual is merely a summary of some very complex matters. The Pell appeal will be interesting because the Court of Appeal will need to consider key evidence which is not publicly available. It is therefore impossible for any commentator to say that the appeal will – or will not – be successful, because there is no basis for knowing whether or not, from that evidence, a reasonable doubt must have emerged. I understand that the appeal will also raise issues around the admissibility of some other evidence, and directions given by the judge to the jury. I have no truck for Pell and his ilk, but he has the same entitlement as any person convicted of a criminal offence to appeal the conviction.

  15. Currently, Julian Burnside is leading a class action against the Commonwealth of Australia on behalf of a group of refugees being held on Nauru and Manus Island.

    He talks the talk and walks the walk.

    Honest and authentic.

  16. Davidwh says:
    Wednesday, March 6, 2019 at 3:29 pm
    Labor is $1.33 in Dickson and Dutton $3.00 couldn’t happen surely?
    —
    I think that’s based on leaked internal polling that has Dutton 6% behind the eight ball. Wouldn’t it be nice.

  17. Psyclaw @ #2510 Wednesday, March 6th, 2019 – 11:46 am

    Bishop Kennedy of Armidale expresses blind support for Pell at Sunday mass. He demeans every aspect of the case in doing so.

    However his letter about not asking priests to provide their Working with Kids ticket is just an admin issue. He states quite clearly that all priests must have the ticket and they are officially recorded at the diocesan office.

    So I don’t know what exemption from HR laws Socrates is referring to.

    Now whilst it is primarily an admin matter in fact, Kennedy might be using this letter to put pressure on schools to put the problematic issue of priests and kids off the agenda and into everyone’s back of mind.

    “Where’s your ticket” if asked on every priestly visit keeps related sentiments alive in minds.

    Undoubtedly Kennedy’s words on Sunday cast him as a Pellist, and on that basis his bona fides re child protection are wanting.

    I wonder if he then watched 4C on Monday.

    There are a number of places I go to for work where my site issued identification card must be visible on my person at all times. Having worked at airports and seaports I’ve been required to carry at all times and have available for inspection on demand my ASIC/MSIC. Just one more area where the religious are demanding a level of privilege not afforded to the rest of us.

  20. Excellent political analysis by Nancy Fraser:

    In a recently published essay in American Affairs, I argue that the defining features of Trump’s agenda did not come out of nowhere. What enabled his ascent was first, the rise, and then, the unraveling, of what I call progressive neoliberalism. Progressive neoliberalism tied a finance-centered political economy to a progressive politics of recognition. Grafting neoliberal economics onto mainstream liberal currents of apparently egalitarian social movements, such as feminism, anti-racism, multiculturalism, and LGBTQ rights, it forged a hegemonic bloc that dominated American politics for several decades. Beyond the United States, progressive-neoliberal formations governed many other liberal democracies through center-left parties that made similar deals with bankers and bondholders to gain or maintain power.

    Progressive neoliberalism’s main competitor was what I call reactionary neoliberalism, which tied an exclusionary politics of recognition to the same neoliberal political economy.While reactionary neoliberalism was defeated by progressive neoliberalism, it offered no alternative to the latter’s project of Goldman-Sachsifying the US economy. Absent any organized opposition on a national scale, progressive neoliberals from Bill Clinton to Barack Obama were free to promote policies that metastasized finance and gutted manufacturing.They eviscerated unions and drove down real wages, proliferated precarious service-sector jobs and promoted predatory debt to enable the purchase of cheap stuff produced elsewhere. The result was to dramatically worsen the life conditions of the bottom two-thirds of Americans, especially (but not only) in rustbelt, southern, and rural communities, even as soaring stock markets fattened not just the one percent but also the upper reaches of the professional-managerial class. In due course, many harmed by these policies came to reject not only neoliberal political economy, but also the more inclusive view of recognition they associated with it.

    https://lpeblog.org/2018/01/25/the-crisis-of-progressive-neoliberalism/amp/?__twitter_impression=true&fbclid=IwAR3ycPsgjcMHLyH516oKrHSOrhTss67irO066SGQP1f5DMkx2UQjXmLdERw

  21. LR

    I was going to stick with my prediction for Newspoll of 99/1. However over the last night Labor have had a shocker, and Morrison is getting some runs on the board. Therefore the polls will have gotten tighter. Put me down for Labor 98, Bastards 2.

    Essential prediction:
    ALP 54.9182736
    Bastards 45.0817264

  22. if scumo and frydenberg try to deliver a budget with a promised return to surplus based on growth projections – as they have been hyping – they are going to look pretty bloody silly. Labor will have revenue from closing tax loopholes to protect spending on services, but the LNP are going to have cut, sell, up the GST or just make up bullshit about future economic growth. Perhaps morrison will decide it is time for an election before the budget? Labor can go with a ‘we will protect jobs – just as we did during the GFC’ campaign.

  24. Barney – have you seen this photo from 1970 (colorised by artist Marina Amaral)

    A young fighter from the Danh Son Huol Cambodian ethnic group was taken to a field hospital in the forest of U Minh after being wounded in a United States air raid. The hospital stood hidden in a swamp on the Viet Cong-controlled peninsula of Cà Mau. Sept. 15, 1970.

    I just read that Cà Mau peninsula province is on average seven feet above sea level. You better get down there while it is still above water!

  25. Burnside :

    Before the 2016 election, Burnside advocated that voters give the Greens their first preference and handed out how-to-vote cards for the Greens candidate in Higgins, Jason Ball, but denied being affiliated with the party.

    Explaining his change of heart, Burnside told ABC News Breakfast the Greens were now a “mature party” with policies on a range of issues beyond the environment.

    Because after Batman and the greens infighting and court cases in NSW and Vic you’d come to the conclusion that the greens were now “mature”
    Honest and authentic
    LOL

  27. “Per capita recession”

    As I have put on this site and spoken to elsewhere, Australia is in recession and has been for a considerable period of time – the source being those who transact business in Australia and speak to the difficulties they are encountering due to consumers keeping their hands in their pockets.

    Again Lowe has spoken to the “recession” in wages growth.

    We live in a 70% plus Service Industry economy.

    The economy is not being nurtured being instead hostage to the right wing ideology that austerity begets confidence and that confidence trickles down.

    We see the same result elsewhere around the Globe where this right wing ideology is the benchmark of governments.

    The dysfunctional government needs to resign in the interests of the Nation.

    Frydenberg’s presentation today, going back to the first half of 2018 for comfort (???), was an abject disgrace by someone with absolutely no credibility except for wearing a suit (and a lapel badge?)

  29. Apparently companies in Australia made a 9.8% profit overall for the year, but wages only went up 1.7%.Trickledown economics fail again.

  31. VP

    It’s just as well I and others do not generalise and tar the entire Labor party Australia-wide on the basis of what recently happened to Emma Husar, or on the basis of any number of Labor preselection stoushes and infighting reported since time immemorial. Not to mention Labor politicians who have been jailed….

  33. Terminator @ #2527 Wednesday, March 6th, 2019 – 12:03 pm

    Rex Douglas says:
    Wednesday, March 6, 2019 at 2:19 pm
    https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2019/mar/06/deal-huge-coal-fired-power-plant-hunter-hong-kong

    Idiocy, stupidity, nonsense….
    _____
    ……and a stunt.

    I don’t know what their game is, but it is not to make money from funding their own coal-fired power plant built from scratch.
    __________________________
    and about 10 ks from my home.
    IMHO supporting the Libs mates aka coal companies and more land mines from Morrison and co before they are voted out of office. They will sign contracts now then when Labor get in it will cost tax payers billions of dollars to can this insanity.

    I’ve read the article. The probability of this going anywhere is somewhere between diddly squat and nothing. Nobody in Australia has heard of the proposal before, its been “brokered” by an investment company with no presence or history in Australia, a Chinese state investment company with no presence or history in Australia and an Australian company that pretty much exists only on paper.

    I’ll take all bets anyone wants to place for this brain fart.

  35. Pegasus @ #2761 Wednesday, March 6th, 2019 – 2:54 pm

    VP

    It’s just as well I and others do not generalise and tar the entire Labor party Australia-wide on the basis of what recently happened to Emma Husar, or on the basis of any number of Labor preselection stoushes and infighting reported since time immemorial. Not to mention Labor politicians who have been jailed….

    You’re the one claiming honest and authentic

  36. How, or why, might Mr Morrison’s Christmas Island stunt ‘work’?

    1. It gets boats on the agenda for another day. Tick.
    2. It reaffirms for the true believers in marginal Queensland electorates that he is tough on boat people. Tick.
    3. It draws attention to his propensity to use taxpayer funds to do political stunts. Untick.
    4. It draws attention to his inability to make it to Nauru. Untick.
    5. The jail that he will visit will reinforce the feelings of all those who want a stop to gratuitous cruelty. Untick.
    6. It will change absolutely nothing real.

  37. The Libs/nats had a shocker of a fortnight , one of their worst this year

    News poll

    Labor 55%.
    Libs/nats 45%

    Essential poll
    Labor 53%
    Libs/nats 47%

  42. steve davis says:
    Wednesday, March 6, 2019 at 3:46 pm
    Labor is $1.75 in Herbert and Coalition $3.75. Is this the Adani electorate

    —
    Memory says not directly geographically but indirectly with fly in-fly out workers.

  46. EB says:
    Wednesday, March 6, 2019 at 4:06 pm
    steve davis says:
    Wednesday, March 6, 2019 at 3:46 pm
    Labor is $1.75 in Herbert and Coalition $3.75. Is this the Adani electorate

    —
    Memory says not directly geographically but indirectly with fly in-fly out workers.

    Look to Capricornia, Dawson, Flynn and Hinkler for more direct ADANI mine effect and Maranoa from memory.

  48. Pell will not get bail pending the final hearing of the appeal unless he develops a fatal disease with a a prognosis measured in months

  49. Bulldust – Nope. I also strongly suspect that the “leave” argument and the “final” argument will be heard together.

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