Federal election minus two months

No new federal poll, but preselection latest from Curtin, Moncrieff and Sturt in the House, and the Northern Territory in the Senate.

In an off week in the fortnightly cycle of Newspoll and Essential Research, and no Ipsos poll overnight in Nine Newspapers, it looks like poll junkies will have to make do with New South Wales this week. We do have a poll of Senate voting intention from The Australia Institute, encompassing by Dynata from 2019 voters through February and March, which has Labor on 33%, the Coalition on 28%, the Greens on 12% and One Nation on 8%, from which a post-election outcome is projected of 30 to 32 seats for the Coalition, 28 to 29 seats for Labor, eight to nine seats for the Greens, four to five seats for the One Nation, two to three for the Centre Alliance, one for Australian Conservatives, and possibly one for Derryn Hinch, Jacqui Lambie or Tasmanian independent Craig Garland. The poll was the subject of a paywalled report in the Financial Review, and a full report featuring detailed breakdowns will shortly be available on The Australia Institute’s website.

Other than that, some recent preselection developments to relate:

• Last week’s Liberal preselection to choose a successor to Julie Bishop in Curtin was won by Celia Hammond, former University of Notre Dame vice-chancellor, who secured victory in the first round with 51 votes out of 82. The only other competitive contender was Anna Dartnell, an executive for resources company Aurizon, who received 28 votes. Erin Watson-Lynn, who was said to have been favoured by Bishop, received only one vote, after receiving substantial unhelpful publicity for past social media comments critical of the Liberal Party. It has been widely suggested that Hammond’s socially conservative views make her an ill fit for the electorate, which recorded a 72% yes vote in the same-sex marriage referendum – hoping to take advantage of the situation is Louise Stewart, who established a chain of health care clinics, and identifies as a moderate and “independent Liberal”.

• Andrew Potts of the Gold Coast Bulletin reports eight candidates have nominated for the preselection to succeed Steve Ciobo as the Liberal National Party candidate in Moncrieff, which is expected to be held in a few weeks. Gold Coast councillor Cameron Caldwell is reckoned to be the frontrunner, with other candidates including Karly Abbott, a staffer to Ciobo, and Fran Ward, a “local businesswoman”.

• Labor has preselected Cressida O’Hanlon, a family dispute resolution practitioner, as its candidate for the Adelaide seat of Sturt, which will be vacated with the retirement of Christopher Pyne. The Liberal preselection will be held on Saturday – the presumed front-runner, James Stevens, is backed by Pyne and other factional moderates, and faces opposition from two conservatives, Joanna Andrew and Deepa Mathew.

• The Country Liberal Party in the Northern Territory has preselected Sam McMahon, a Katherine-based veterinarian, out of a field of 12 to succeed the retiring Nigel Scullion as its Senate candidate.

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.

2,745 comments on “Federal election minus two months”

Comments Page 47 of 55
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  1. The Onion
    @TheOnion
    Son Needs Costume, 30 Individually Wrapped Treats Tomorrow Morning For Some School Celebration https://trib.al/89zTlWI

    Adam Liaw @adamliaw
    No kidding, but my son has been as school for exactly ONE TERM and this has already happened about 9 times.
    ***

    @adamliaw
    I am going to write a recipe for something that you can make 25 portions of in 5 minutes that can keep unrefrigerated for 8 hours and contains no dairy, nuts or eggs. I don’t know what it is yet but I will make it work for the good of us all.

    @adamliaw
    It will also fit in a standard Tupperware, cost less than $10 in ingredients, weigh less than 1 kg for transport, and be able to survive a bus ride in a school backpack without destroying its integrity. I GOT YOU ON THIS PARENTS.

  2. It is extraordinary that Channel 7 provide a platform for ON at all. ON campaigns for measures that constitute the official persecution of a religious minority. They are bigots. They advocate hatred as a policy. Channel 7 are a broadcasters of bigotry. Implicitly, they broadcast calls for political and religious violence. They should have their licence removed.

  4. ABC Emergency
    2000 people will be evacuated from remote NT communities. This is the largest evacuation since Cyclone Tracy. #CycloneTrevor

  8. Jaeger

    🙂

    I’ve no idea, but I was thinking that this “education is free” nonsense is fine for the well-to-do, but can cause intense stress for others.

  9. ar – I reckon those are good odds to lay a lobster on Labor. Most of the action in this election has always been outside Sydney. That remains the case. Only 2-6 Sydney seats were ever up for grabs. That remains the case. I reckon the bookies are getting caught in the MSM-LNP talking points feedback loop, which is what happened in Victoria and various byelections over the past 12 months as well.

  10. One thing that is becoming increasingly clear (at least to me) after the terrorist attack in Christchurch, and this subsequent action by Ardern to ban the category of guns used in that terrorist attack, is that Australia’s strict gun laws have absolutely, 100%, prevented gun massacres, school shootings, and terrorist attacks in this country – they have saved countless lives, and undeniably made Australia a much, much safer place to live.

    The other thing that is crystal clear is that the terrorist (who I refuse to name) would very likely have carried out his terrorist attack in this country if he had been able to do so. The terrorist, frustrated by Australia’s strict gun laws, abused the lax nature of the laws in NZ to carry out his depraved actions.

  12. JimmyD….I think you’re right. I also think there’s a case for further strengthening gun laws in Australia. There’s also a case for requiring social media channels to make their sites/posts/communicators more searchable and more urgently responsive to shutdown orders.

  15. Crikey.
    “The gap between Australia and New Zealand is now a chasm.”

    Then I see an alert on my phone: a message from a Muslim man, an asylum seeker I will call “L”, who has been held in various Australian detention centres since 2012. A week before the attack, L had asked me if it was true that NZ didn’t have detention centres. I confirmed it was true. An uncomfortable silence followed — at least, it was uncomfortable for me.

    When L found out about the Christchurch attack, he sent me a series of emojis: praying hands, a heart and a crying face. When L found out about Fraser Anning’s encounter last weekend two new emojis appeared: an egg and a laughing face.

    After the presser, many of us receive another alert: Morrison is going live to announce cuts to migration in Australia. There are quiet groans in certain corners.

  16. Whitehaven Coal mine out bidding farmers for water, paying double market value.

    A WATER stoush is brewing between Whitehaven Coal and irrigators, after the mining company bought up groundwater for more than twice the usual market value.

    The Leader understands Whitehaven forked out more than $650,000 on water licences, purchasing 460 megalitres of temporary water in Zone 4 for $950 a megalitre and 43 megalitres of permanent water in Zone 5 for $5100 a megalitre.

    In these dry conditions, the price of groundwater is already inflated. Namoi Water executive officer Jon-Maree Baker said about $400 a megalitre was previously the highest price paid for temporary water.

    “Even then, you’re expecting that to be paid by someone who has crop in-ground they need to finish off, and they’ve got no other option,” she said.

    “For the last decade, permanent water had traded at about $3500 a megalitre.”

    Boggabri farmer David Watt said it wasn’t unusual to sell off excess water, but it was “normally sold over the fence”.

    “We’re being totally outbid in the water market by mining giants,” Mr Watt said.

    https://www.northerndailyleader.com.au/story/5929528/mine-out-bidding-farmers-for-water-paying-double-market-value/

  17. Ardern says they do not know how many of these military-style semi-automatic weapons are in circulation in New Zealand and will need to be bought back.
    “We’re very much in the dark as to how many of these are in circulation,” says Ardern.

    Weren’t all of these weapons imported & didn’t they have to pass through customs?
    The same goes for Australia…

  18. I have been seriously concerned for some time that the LNP hard-right and the AFP have had a ‘nod-and-wink’ attitude towards these fascist groups.The fact that one of those goons was out in public with Anning when there was a warrant out for his Gosford church disruption shows how little effort is made to take these guys in.
    We know that Abbott lived with the AFP and his motives always troubled me.
    However the last straw is the police strip searching people on the Central Station platform and it has now been reported that police can search my home without a warrant.
    Am I the only one alarmed by this massive shift to a Police State?

  22. lizzie @ #2316 Thursday, March 21st, 2019 – 1:40 pm

    Whitehaven Coal mine out bidding farmers for water, paying double market value.

    A WATER stoush is brewing between Whitehaven Coal and irrigators, after the mining company bought up groundwater for more than twice the usual market value.

    The Leader understands Whitehaven forked out more than $650,000 on water licences, purchasing 460 megalitres of temporary water in Zone 4 for $950 a megalitre and 43 megalitres of permanent water in Zone 5 for $5100 a megalitre.

    In these dry conditions, the price of groundwater is already inflated. Namoi Water executive officer Jon-Maree Baker said about $400 a megalitre was previously the highest price paid for temporary water.

    “Even then, you’re expecting that to be paid by someone who has crop in-ground they need to finish off, and they’ve got no other option,” she said.

    “For the last decade, permanent water had traded at about $3500 a megalitre.”

    Boggabri farmer David Watt said it wasn’t unusual to sell off excess water, but it was “normally sold over the fence”.

    “We’re being totally outbid in the water market by mining giants,” Mr Watt said.

    https://www.northerndailyleader.com.au/story/5929528/mine-out-bidding-farmers-for-water-paying-double-market-value/

    Isn’t this how it is supposed to work in a market economy? – you know, supply & demand.
    I am sure some LNP boffins will be able to explain all this to the farmers, and they will naturally accept the situation once they realise this is what they vote for in each & every federal election.

  23. Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton has laid the boot into Australian students who skipped school to rally against inaction on climate change.

    Hypocritical as usual.They sit in parliament for 2 weeks in 8 months and he talks about kids missing school for one day.

  24. Melissa Price MP @Melissa4Durack

    Today is #IntlForestDay, recognising of the importance of forests for #people & #environment. For its part, the Government is planting #20MTrees by 2020 to re-establish green corridors & habitat for threatened species, & sequestering around 1.6 million tonnes of CO2.

    Could we suggest to the great forest guru, Ms Price, that preventing the current clearing regimes would have better effect, and faster, while the threatened species remain in situ? Tree planting does not replace “habitat”.

  25. HoJo doing ok..

    “for auction
    MARCH 21, 2019
    The contents of former federal treasurer Joe Hockey’s previous Hunters Hill mansion will be auctioned off this weekend.

    52 Woolwich Road in Sydney’s Hunters Hill.
    Hockey sold ‘Te Roma’ last year for almost $8 million to Judy Boyd, the former wife of property developer John Boyd.

    The contents of the historic Hunters Hill mansion will be sold to the highest bidder on Sunday, 24 March.

    Artwork by Marc Chagall and Salvador Dali are up for grabs.

    Among the 365 lots up for sale are a 1ct Diamond tennis bracelet channel set in rose gold with a value of $3,000, a signed Salvador Dali Tearful Soft Watch Colour Giclee that comes with a certificate of authenticity and French Louis XV style cabinets.

    https://outline.com/aV8zwq

  26. We have one marginal seat in SA – Boothby. All we’re hearing at the moment is that Nicolle Flint is being targeted by the terrible trifecta of Labor, the left-wing terrorists GetUp! and the bullies of the Union Movement.

    Poor little thing.

  27. The Price is wRONg

    1. They won’t plant 20,000,000 trees by 2020.
    2. The record drought is killing what they already planted.
    3. It would be far, far cheaper to stop clearing trees in the first place.

  28. Just saw Daleys latest gaffe re tafe. Nasty. He’s doing a terrific job stuffing this election up.

    Seriously, if people vote Liberal because of that, then they deserve what they get. I havent caught up much today but from what little I heard he made two mistakes on figures. GOTCHA! Maybe he should have grabbed someone by the pussy or cleared hundreds of thousands of hectares of native bush or plan to do nicks on climate change.

  29. briefly
    I also think there’s a case for further strengthening gun laws in Australia. There’s also a case for requiring social media channels to make their sites/posts/communicators more searchable and more urgently responsive to shutdown orders.

    100% agree. And, unfortunately, Australians have to be constantly vigilant about attempts to undermine our gun laws. It seems to me that the NRA has a vested interest in undermining our laws by stealth so as to undermine the compelling example Australia offers to the gun control debate in the U.S.

  30. The Coalition Government has launched a new assault on probity.
    Details of conservation programs are being forwarded only to Coalition MPs.

  31. I like the idea that purchase of ammo be restricted to the type of gun they are actually licensed to own, I think it might have been the AFP commissioner suggested it?

  32. Anyone who utters a threat in any circumstances should be banned from having guns for life.

    They are too risky for the rest of us.

    Those circumstances are: at work, on the sports field, in the pub, at work, on the road, at home.
    The nanosecond someone utters a threat they have demonstrated they are unfit to have permanent access to a deadly weapon.
    This is for two reasons.
    Access to a weapon multiplies the terror value of the threat.
    Every now and then one of them will carry out the threat.

  34. https://www.theage.com.au/politics/victoria/conflict-of-interest-101-pallas-mauled-over-transurban-shareholding-20190321-p5166w.html

    Victorian Treasurer Tim Pallas has been revealed as a shareholder in Transurban, the giant toll road operator set to reap tens of billions dollars from its deal with the Andrews Labor government to build the West Gate Tunnel.

    Mr Pallas said on Thursday that the shares were in a “set-and-forget” discretionary portfolio that held stock in up to 20 companies and that he did not even know he had Transurban holdings until Wednesday.
    :::
    It was revealed on Thursday that Mr Pallas owns the shares in Transurban which is set to earn about $37 billion in tolls on Melbourne roads from its deal to build the West Gate Tunnel, according to research by the Parliamentary Library.

  35. booleanbach

    The ‘law’ of supply and demand works very differently for the party of the ‘free market’ . Shortage of workers means higher wages to attract workers ? How quaint ,we’ll just get the government to let us unload another plane full of 457s to exploit.

  36. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-03-19/cost-to-motorists-of-westgate-tunnel-deal-revealed/10915998

    By 2045, Melbourne drivers will pay nearly $100 extra a week to regularly use CityLink under the Victorian Government’s plan for toll increases on the roadway, analysis shows.

    A report by Parliament’s independent budget office says that, by 2044–45, some heavy users will have paid more than $51,000 to regularly use the tollway.
    :::
    The Andrews Government granted operator Transurban a 10-year extension of tolls on CityLink to 2044-45, to help fund the $6.7-billion West Gate Tunnel, which is under construction.

    Under the deal, Transurban is spending $4 billion to build the West Gate Tunnel, along with a contribution from taxpayers.

    Tolls on CityLink will increase by 4.25 per cent every year until 2029, then rise by CPI.

    Labor had refused to say how much the deal would reap for Transurban.
    :::
    A bid from the Opposition and some crossbenchers to revoke the toll extension in Parliament failed earlier this month.

  38. Both major parties are beneficiaries of political donations from Transurban.

    February 2018: https://greensmps.org.au/articles/transurban%E2%80%99s-donations-old-parties-put-mega-toll-roads-question-say-greens

    Political donations data released this week shows that private toll road giant Transurban has made significant donations to both the Labor and Liberal parties in this reporting period, putting into question both parties’ unquestioning support for mega private toll roads across Australia, say the Greens.

    “Companies like Transurban ‘invest’ money in the old political parties because it’s good bang for buck,” said Senator Janet Rice, Australian Greens transport spokesperson.

    “We see decisions made that are favourable to companies like Transurban, at the expense of the public, even where the case for the project doesn’t stack up.”

    “Big corporations like Transurban shouldn’t be able to buy political influence to get the policy outcomes they want.”
    :::
    During this donations reporting period, Transurban controlled 13 of the 15 private toll roads in Australia.

    2017/2018 data: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-02-01/donations-australia-federal-politics-foreign/10768226

  40. It looks like they did have a handle on numbers.
    .
    ban will apply to all firearms that are now defined as military-style semi-automatics (MSSAs)

    There are 13,500 firearms which require the owner to have an E-Category licence, this is effectively the known number of MSSAs before today’s changes

    Of these, 7,500 are E-Category licences and 485 are dealer licences
    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/mar/21/explainer-how-are-new-zealands-gun-laws-changing

  41. The MSM expects Labor leaders to be absolutely perfect in what they do and say,whilst Coalition leaders can say and do whatever they like without hardly any scrutiny.

  42. It appears that the EU will only grant an extension if the Parliament first passes the deal they have agreed with May. The Parliament has twice voted against May’s Deal while also voting overwhelmingly against a No Deal Brexit and in favour of an extension. None of these votes are consistent with each other.

    I guess it’s a question of what the Parliament dislikes the least – May’s Deal or No Deal. Either way, Brexit appears irrevocable. Of course, there is the procedural matter of getting a vote to happen at all.

    The negotiated deal at least protects the essential features of the Good Friday Agreement. The UK Parliament would be crazy to think they will ever get a better deal than this. They are in danger of becoming the Parliament that could never say Yes to anything.

  44. Anning

    https://www.theage.com.au/politics/federal/how-the-british-parliament-would-have-dealt-with-the-fraser-anning-petition-20190321-p5160n.html

    On Thursday, the Greens senator Mehreen Faruqi will receive a petition signed by more than 1.3 million Australians calling for Senator Fraser Anning’s removal from Parliament.

    While there are no powers for such an expulsion under the constitution, Kate Ahmad’s petition has garnered the largest number of signatures in the history of online petitions in Australia.
    :::
    Petitions of more than a certain size in Britain, for example, actually demand a response from the government.
    ::::
    If a petition attracts 10 times more signatures, 100,000, it is considered for debate in Parliament. And these debates are not always meaningless, tick-and-flick exercises.
    :::
    But at a time when disaffection and polarisation are disintegrating the politics of the centre, it would do the Parliament no harm to listen harder when the Australian people decide they have something to say.

  46. Pegasus @ #2325 Thursday, March 21st, 2019 – 2:30 pm

    https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-03-19/cost-to-motorists-of-westgate-tunnel-deal-revealed/10915998

    By 2045, Melbourne drivers will pay nearly $100 extra a week to regularly use CityLink under the Victorian Government’s plan for toll increases on the roadway, analysis shows.

    A report by Parliament’s independent budget office says that, by 2044–45, some heavy users will have paid more than $51,000 to regularly use the tollway.
    :::
    The Andrews Government granted operator Transurban a 10-year extension of tolls on CityLink to 2044-45, to help fund the $6.7-billion West Gate Tunnel, which is under construction.

    Under the deal, Transurban is spending $4 billion to build the West Gate Tunnel, along with a contribution from taxpayers.

    Tolls on CityLink will increase by 4.25 per cent every year until 2029, then rise by CPI.

    Labor had refused to say how much the deal would reap for Transurban.
    :::
    A bid from the Opposition and some crossbenchers to revoke the toll extension in Parliament failed earlier this month.

    The state should have funded the construction and the state should be collecting the tolls.

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