There haven’t been any new polls this week, so the headline to this post isn’t news as such – the point is that a new thread is needed, and this is it. Developments worth noting:
• We do have one new poll, but it was privately conducted and so doesn’t count as canonical so far as BludgerTrack is concerned. The poll in question was conducted by uComms/ReachTEL for Greenpeace last Wednesday from a sample of 2134, and has primary votes of Coalition 38.8%, Labor 36.7%, Greens 9.7% and One Nation 6.1%. A 53-47 two-party split is reported based on respondent-allocated preferences, but it would actually have been around 51.5-48.5 based on preferences from 2016. The poll also features attitudinal questions on carbon emissions and government priorities, which you can read all about here.
• The Greens have landed a high-profile candidate in Julian Burnside, human rights lawyer and refugee advocate, to run against Josh Frydenberg in the normally blue-ribbon Melbourne seat of Kooyong. This further complicates a contest that already featured independent hopeful Oliver Yates, former Liberal Party member and chief executive of the Clean Energy Finance Corporation.
• The Liberal preselection to choose a successor to Julie Bishop in Curtin will be determined by a vote of 60 delegates on Sunday. Initial reports suggested the front-runners were Celia Hammond, former vice-chancellor of Notre Dame University, and Erin Watson-Lynn, director of Asialink Diplomacy at the University of Melbourne, which some interpreted as a proxy battle between bitter rivals Mathias Cormann and Julie Bishop. However, both have hit heavy weather over the past week, with concerns raised over Hammond’s social conservatism and Watson-Lynn’s past tweets critical of the Liberal Party. Andrew Tillett of the Financial Review reports that some within the party believe a third nominee, Aurizon manager Anna Dartnell, could skate through the middle.
• Tom Richardson of InDaily reports moderate faction efforts to install a male candidate – James Stevens, chief-of-staff to Premier Steve Marshall – in Christopher Pyne’s seat of Sturt are prompting a slew of conservative-aligned women to nominate against him. These include Deepa Mathew, a manager at the Commonwealth Bank and state candidate for Enfield last year; Joanna Andrew, a partner with law firm Mellor Olsson; and Jocelyn Sutcliffe, a lawyer with Tindall Gask Bentley. However, Stevens remains the “overwhelming favourite”.
Greens/LNP same same…
Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk says she expects her deputy, Jackie Trad, to fight and win the seat of South Brisbane at the next Queensland election rather than cutting and running to a safer seat.
The Liberal National Party state executive yesterday resolved to direct preferences to the Greens ahead of Ms Trad in her inner-city electorate in a bid to oust the powerful Left faction leader from parliament.
Speculation was rife among Labor insiders that Ms Trad could switch to a safer seat to prolong her political career and succeed Ms Palaszczuk as premier. But sources close to the Treasurer insisted she was determined to fight the LNP-bolstered Greens.
Ms Palaszczuk, who heads Labor’s minority Right faction, today said she “absolutely” expected Ms Trad to recontest South Brisbane at the election due in October next year.
https://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/trad-wont-cut-and-run-premier/news-story/ac068f0ff731bd2554552c5c00e644da
The Savage Club is just a pompous version of a Men’s Shed. No one berates men who gather to whittle or work on an engine. 🙂
Ha, they are going to to smash Burnside.
I’m sure he’s a fine bloke, but politics and dilettantes rarely mix well. The pros play for keeps.
Burnside is irrelevant in the electorate that he is standing.
I’d hardly call him a dilettante. Unlike Tony Burke, Burnside actually was a ‘top Barrister’ 😛
Breaking it down.
Julian Burnside is an Old White Male. A lifelong Liberal party voter, and a member of a mens-only club for the last 40 years, who struggled to articulate what he’d done to actively break down those membership barriers to women joining that club when directly asked by a woman.
He’s also now denied that he backed the Greens party policies on inheritance taxes, when media reports at the time quoted him verbatim as saying he supported them.
https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/julian-burnside-backs-greens-on-death-duties-and-drugs-in-battle-for-kooyong-20190305-p511v8.html
Are we going to see his candidacy blow up and wither to smithereens? The early signs aren’t looking good.
Rocket Rocket @ #1196 Friday, March 8th, 2019 – 8:34 pm
If a tree falls in the forest………………
Julian….natural candidate for the Liblings…
ratsak @ #1201 Friday, March 8th, 2019 – 6:46 pm
That article I posted the other day from many years ago where he came across all bemused at his wife’s left-leaning views and raised eyebrows at the possibility he’d even switch from his lifelong Liberal voting ways was kinda eye opening.
If the Greens had fielded him in that Higgins by-election when Costello retired, I think he’d have won.
BK
Your beloved cricketer has gone for 7.
As predicted – Australia has totally lost momentum in the cricket. 5/263 after 3 wickets in 11 balls.
Rocket Rocket @ #1196 Friday, March 8th, 2019 – 9:34 pm
Wouldn’t it be smarter to say that they are an explosive combination? What the players are doing is wrong. It is made much worse by filming what they are doing and then sharing it around.
The Liberal National Party state executive yesterday resolved to direct preferences to the Greens ahead of Ms Trad in her inner-city electorate in a bid to oust the powerful Left faction leader from parliament.
It takes two to tango. Will The Greens accept the LNP preferences?
YES!! Finally, someone in the Liberal Party has belled the cat:
https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/tony-abbott-s-paris-backflip-reveals-the-emptiness-of-last-year-s-leadership-madness-20190308-p512sn.html
What a flaming, opportunistic hypocrite Tony Abbott is!
How can they not accept them C@t?
kevjohnno @ #1215 Friday, March 8th, 2019 – 10:28 pm
Can’t they tell them they don’t want them?
C@t…the Liberals and the Liblings have a common existential competitor – Labor. It makes sense for them to try to defeat Labor by playing tag in various ways. The oblique message is very simple. There’s Labor and there’s everyone else. They are all defined by their Labor-aversion.
Yeah I’m sure that would work 🙂
Anyways it’s up the LNP voters to decide on their preferences.
RR
How many times do you see someone getting shot unprovoked or running away, often by US police, on an iPhone or dash cam and it is the only reason the shooter gets done? In the past they got a story straight with a smart lawyer and got off. That still probably happens the 90% of the time no one it gets footage.
This policeman would have gotten off for sure.
WARNING VIOLENT FOOTAGE
https://youtu.be/XKQqgVlk0NQ
And what does the LNP expect from the Greens in return? Will they expect Greens preferences in marginal Labor electorates?
Conservative parties directing preferences to the Greens ahead of Labor tends to blunt their own attacks on the Greens being the worst threat to “civilisation” – and it then hounds them through the campaign, with their leader being forced repeatedly to defend the decision in view of what else they say about the Greens.
I would not be surprised if they did it in South Brisbane, but then their own vote in the seat may go down and it may not have such a great effect.
Overall it may cost Labor that one seat, but the damage to the LNP would prbably gain Labor a few marginal seats they may not otherwise have won. Part of the problem is that the LNP would be telegraphing these signals –
1. We came first on primaries in this seat in 2012, then second in 2015, then third in 2017 but now we have given up completely.
2. We want the Greens to win (even though we oppose everything they stand for) because we want to get rid of Jackie Trad.
3. We want to get rid of Jackie Trad to stop her being Deputy Premier and maybe taking over from Annastacia Palaszczuk.
4. We can’t stop her being Deputy Premier or Premier by actually winning Government, so this is our only way to do it.
It may work – they may ‘win’ the battle, but they will lose the war.
I expect Jackie Trad to recontest South Brisbane, and I think she will still probably win it. But I expect the internal fights that erupt in the L+NP will result in a very solid Labor majority with well over 50 out of the 93 seats.
If the Greens win the seat – that is democracy and preferential voting – the voters decide.
The LNP will favour the Gs in order to try to inflict losses on Labor; a tactic that reflects Lib weakness as much as anything.
Rockets, if Trad loses to a G, the G will sit alongside the Libs, together as an anti-Labor bloc, fused by their hostility to Labor. Can only be good in the long run…
How sad and small-minded political partisanship can be. Julian Burnside is a candidate for the Greens and for that crime, his character must, of course, be asassinated by a gaggle of ALP keyboard warriors who collectively would not have devoted one tenth of the time, commitment and energy to defending the interests of asylum seekers that Burnside has. What a miserable attitude. How reminiscent of the dishonesty and destructiveness of Abbott, Dutton and Abetz. Same same.
C@tmomma @ #1216 Friday, March 8th, 2019 – 9:29 pm
They can do that, but it’s not like the AEC will care about that when they’re tallying up the votes. So for all practical purposes, they can’t.
G’s and Tories same same. They exist to oppose Labor.
I was just thinking that Labor have made a point in the past of saying that they won’t do a deal with PHON for preferences. So I thought The Greens could say the same thing about LNP preferences as a matter of principle. 🙂
Diogenes
Absolutely. Video footage streamed around the world can be pretty powerful. I wonder if some of the horrors of the twentieth century may have had earlier intervention had these technologies been available.
I read a sci-fi book years ago called “October the first is too late” by Fred Hoyle. Some inexplicable cosmic cataclysm causes the world to instantly be divided into zones from different times/eras. It is set in the UK in 1966, but Europe is in the middle of the First World War. TV reporters are showing footage of the slaughter in the trenches and the British public are outraged and demand an instant end to the War. The British Generals in France/Belgium initially think that all this stuff about ‘time shifting’ is some ‘cunning plan’ devised by ‘Gerry’ to win the War. Almost Blackadder-ish!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/October_the_First_Is_Too_Late
It’s Time
It’s time for freedom,
It’s time for moving, It’s time to begin,
Yes It’s time
It’s time Australia,
It’s time for moving, It’s time for proving,
Yes It’s time
It’s time for all folk,
It’s time for moving, It’s time to give,
Yes It’s time
It’s time for children,
It’s time to show them, Time to look ahead,
Yes It’s time
Time for freedom,
Time for moving, Time to be clear,
Yes It’s time
Time Australia,
Time for moving, It’s time for proving,
Yes It’s time
Time for better,
Come together, It’s time to move,
Yes It’s time
Time to stand up,
Time to shout it, Time, Time, Time,
Yes It’s time
Time to move on,
Time to stand up, time to say ‘yes’,
Yes It’s time
Jon Kudelka in the SmearStralian – amazed he doesn’t get the sack for this heresy
max…Burnside is a candidate in an election. He has been promoted as a champ. He’s gonna get a bit of flak. Why would he be exempted? He’s just another politician now…notably, Labor have been silent on him, as usual. They will give him no attention whatsoever. The Liberals will do the same. Soon he’ll be wondering how to get any coverage at all.
Exactly.
In 2017 Trad won off Liberal preferences.
According to Upnorth’s (il)logic Labor LNP – same same.
According to Cat’s (il)logic – It takes two to tango. Will Labor accept the LNP preferences? What an absurd question. Can the AEC rip up voters’ ballots?
According to Citizen assumes, with no knowledge whatsoever, a deal must already have been struck between the two parties so can we assume a deal was struck between LNP and Labor in 2017?
But of course to these same partisans any deals, or whatever, between Labor and the LNP is fine and dandy because you know we must preserve the status quo of the political duopoly – a unity ticket to preserve the political business as usual model above all else.
beguiledagain @ 6.35pm
Wow! Many thanks for all three of these clips. I have several versions of Amor ti Vietta but Björling is peerless.
The Gigli, de Luca (not di Stefano, he’d only have been 6 yo – spellcheck problem? LOL) duet from the Pearlfishers is sublime, although I agree that the Björling/Merrill version is also superb.
Hand-in-glove, politics of the political duopoly and the MSM – character assassination, smear, innuendo.
Debating policy, not so much.
In South Brisbane the choice will be between Labor and a Lib/Libling fusion. There will be a lot more of this. Both the Libs and the Liblings are threatened by Labor and the Indy-Libs. They will play tag….they have no choice….but this will not save them.
Burnside would be far more likely to win a Melbourne seat by running as an Indy-Lib….as a G he will probably lose.
Voting records indicate the Greens are more likely to vote with Labor than would an independent Liberal.
Why would an avowed Labor supporter prefer an independent Liberal to a progressive Greens being elected?
Why would an avowed Labor supporter prefer an independent Liberal get up in a solidly Liberal leaning seat rather than a progressive Greens?
The Liblings are decoys. The Indy-Libs will drive the reconstruction of the Right.
On Queensland – winning an election is more important than winning any particular seat.
In the lead-up to the 2010 Victorian election, where Labor was hot favourite, I was hoping that the Liberals were going to announce they were preferencing the Greens above Labor in all the inner city seats. It may have cost Labor a few seats to the Greens but overall I thought it would benefit Labor.
Instead the Nationals leader Peter Ryan persuaded Ted Baillieu that “put the Greens last” as a universal Coalition policy would be of greater benefit (as in the Coalition winning other seats, rather than worrying about Labor/Greens in inner city seats that were never going to won by the Liberals).
In the end the Coalition won an upset narrow victory 45 seats to 43 (they were still over 3.00 with the bookies the night before), and I feel that if they had instead preferenced the Greens in those seats they would not have won the election as their messaging would have been blunted.
So I look forward to the LNP trying this in Queensland – Labor will retain government easily.
The Bohobian prince is a member of the Savage club ?
LOL
Peg….by now it should be clear to you. I don’t think the Gs are a part of the solution. They’re part of the problem. You’d be doing everyone a service if you voted yourselves out of existence.
VP….very amusing….Julian is a Savage. I took him for a cabbage.
Then according to your (il)logic – Labor and the Coalition same same. They exist to oppose the Greens.
If the Labor plurality were restored to its historic 46-48%, Labor could more effectively prosecute all the reforms that await us.
The Gs set out to prevent this. They are an impediment to change. After 30 years this is totally proven.
The scales are falling from the eyes of an increasing number of voters, as evidenced by the trend in a decreasing vote-share gained by the two major parties.
Public trust in politicians is at an all time low.
Grassroots activism is on the rise.
Hello to disruption by the citizenry who now are beginning to see the problem is the dominance of the two major parties and adversarial politics.
Pegasus says:
Friday, March 8, 2019 at 11:36 pm
G’s and Tories same same. They exist to oppose Labor.
Then according to your (il)logic – Labor and the Coalition same same. They exist to oppose the Greens.
———————————————————————————-
What tripe. The Labor Party was born in the 1890’s well before the Liberal’s and nearly a century before the Greens. Labor exists to make Australia a better place to live. You can’t change history. No matter what you smoke.
Peg….for the very little it’s worth, none of the rise in activism is translating into support for the Liblings. None of it. Your business model is failing. Totally. Some of the action is in the centre and on the Right. None of it is among the decoys. Labor is also a beneficiary of this activism.
Face it.
I think the IWD lesson from ScoMo is clear: if a complete zero like Morrison can be PM, the average woman can do anything.
Upnorth
According to your (il)logic only 2 parties are allowed to exist in Australia, or do you prefer a one-party state ruled by the dictatorship of a ‘benevolent’ Labor party who naturally “only exists to make Australia a better place”.
Your undemocratic tendencies are showing.
RR
“I wonder if some of the horrors of the twentieth century may have had earlier intervention had these technologies been available.”
The Rohinyan refugees gave videos taken on smartphones to prosecutors to help them go after the Myanmar regime. I don’t know how much good it has done. You’d hope that potentially widely available footage on iphones would discourage massacres but I don’t know if it has helped or not.
Was the Myanmar massacre stopped earlier because of today’s technology compared to 50 years ago? Someone probably knows the answer.(Not me)
From what I can gather, widespread CCTV and mobile phone tracking and data seems to make it easier to catch murderers but it doesn’t seem to make them less likely to happen. My guess is massacres are the same.