Monday morning madness

Sturt preselection and election date talk – but above all, a new venue for general discussion of the political situation.

Newspoll have held off this week owing to the New South Wales election, resulting in one of the occasional three week gaps in their schedule. However, the fortnightly Essential Research will come through as normal this (i.e. Monday) evening. In other non-New South Wales news, moderate faction nominee and Christopher Pyne ally James Stewart won the Liberal preselection for Sturt on Saturday, consistent with expectations and despite resistance from conservatives who sought to make hay from the fact that the moderates had chosen not to back a woman. We also have a front page headline in The Australian this morning that reads, “Gladys triumph: PM eyes May 11”. Beyond that, over to you.

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.

569 comments on “Monday morning madness”

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  1. Lots of stories about house price falls in Melb, maybe feeding into negative gearing issue. Can’t think of any other reason for the fall in ALP vote in Vic.

  3. Lengthy anti Morrison piece by Har
    tcher has appeared in Brisbane Times (and probably on other ninefax outlets). Makes him seem untrustworthy and ambitious. (on my phone, sorry no link)

  5. From @ghostwhovotes, there has primary shift from ON to Coalition in Qld, NSW & Vic. Labor vote has held pretty firm. Greens lost 3 on primary in WA for some reason. Overall sounds like a shift nationwide to about 53/47.

  6. Wow, someone’s taken the hatchet to Morrison. That front page on the SMH won’t make for fun times in the PMO tomorrow morning.

  12. Watching QANDA in W.A.

    FFS…who is this Liberal?? She is way way out of her depth and being made look like an arrogant fool.

  14. My god, Tina McQueen was the worst train wreck I have ever seen on QANDA. Ignorant, insular, dim-witted, ill-informed and rude. Is she really the Federal vice-president of the Liberal Party?

  15. “Ignorant, insular, dim-witted, ill-informed and rude. ”

    She comes across as a parody of everything that is wrong with the Liberals…but she’s not actually a parody at all. This is amazingly sad.

  17. https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/mar/25/mps-poised-to-take-control-and-vote-on-brexit-options

    Parliamentary sovereignty is going to get a workout this week in the UK. The PM, who really exercises the executive powers of the monarch in all but name, is no longer able to command the affairs of the legislature, which will soon set about determining what the executive will be permitted to do.

    The Tory party is so badly split it can no longer determine the legislative program. In normal circumstances this would prompt the fall of the PM and probably the dissolution of the legislature. But circumstances are anything but normal. The PM will remain in office precisely because of their Party’s weakness in the legislature, a weakness that any successor would also face. None of the possible candidates for PM could hope to demonstrate the confidence of the House. The Tories have dethroned their own crown surrogate.

    Necessarily, an incapacitated executive – for the purposes of the week, a practically vacant executive -is to be made subordinate to the democratic chamber. It’s been a while. It will be very interesting to see what the Commons comes up with and whether the currently acknowledged party of the executive, the Tories, survives the upheaval.

  18. Went down to the Christchurch mosque late afternoon yesterday.

    You could smell the flowers from 50 metres away.

    There were literally thousands of tributes on the footpath outside the mosque’s fence. There were 100 metres of flowers with cards, of course, signed on behalf of individuals, streets, suburbs and even whole towns. Written posters from schools, community groups, socially conscious companies. Some were rough and ready. Some were professionally presented, such as those from the ” Muslims of the United States” and “UK Muslims”. Candles, mostly blown out by the breeze, but one or two still alight. Chalked tributes written directly on the footpath featured as well.

    The faces of the visitors were sombre, reflective, sad. Several had tears in their eyes as they walked slowly down the path, stopping occasionally, leaning forward, to read something more closely.

    Two police were at the gate. This was the gate that the murderer came through, before and after his rampage. The police both had very black, very lethal-looking automatic rifles, slung in that “At Ease” way that you see rifles carried by soldiers in the front line: a casual finger on the trigger, the weapon resting forward over the other arm.

    The very first photograph I took, the afternoon I arrived in Christchurch three weeks ago was of something I’d never seen before: a medium-sized van, very professionally presented, with logos and bright colors, parked near to where we spent our first night, 10 kilometres north of the city.

    It was the work vehicle of a forensic cleaning company. The lettering on the side advised that the company’s services were available for crime scene cleanups, shampooing of carpets, furniture, swabbing away blood and body parts, suicides, homicides, meth lab detox and hoarding messes.

    I thought this was the funniest thing I’d ever seen. Not that such companies should exist, but that they would advertise their services in a flashy, ostentatious manner akin to a pest control or a pizza delivery van. Surely the appropriate authorities would know about this company, or even have their own forensic cleanup services? Why advertise so explicitly, in such detail? Hence the photo. This was New Zealand, not Syria!

    By the time we’d finished our time here I’d forgotten about that van and that first photograph. But when I went back to my car after visiting the mosque I recalled it in the most direct way possible. There it was again, parked in the same side street that I was, four cars away from mine. The operator was in the car, asleep. I guess he was exhausted. It had been a busy week for him.

    My question from the first day of my trip – about the need for such services – had been answered on the last day of my time here, in the most banal of ways: somebody always has to clean up the mess.

    Let us hope the many other messes surrounding this tragedy are cleaned up just as quickly and professionally.

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