Happy trails: episode two

Another look at where the campaign has taken the two leaders, and what that might tell us about the state of play.

Click on the image at the bottom of the post and you will see an updated account of the electorates visited by the leaders during the campaign, more or less (there is an element of subjectivity as to what constitutes a visit). One of the salient points to emerge is the rather intensive focus on Tasmania, which remarkably played host to both leaders yesterday. Scott Morrison has spent three days over two visits – exactly equal to his record for Victoria, where he has targeted the five Liberal-held seats on margins of up to 6.4%, but not wasted effort on Dunkley, which is Liberal-held but notionally Labor. Bill Shorten’s visit to the state was likewise his second, but so far he’s spent two days in the state to Morrison’s three.

Western Australia also logged up some points this week, but this is largely due to the debate having been held there on Monday, and the practicality of hanging around afterwards given the distance involved. Nonetheless, it is notable that Morrison spent fully three days campaigning their compared with Shorten’s two, and that Morrison felt it worth his while to conduct a street walk in the electorate of Canning, situated well up the pendulum at 6.8%.

Bill Shorten is overdue for a visit to New South Wales, where he hasn’t been since he spent the first three full days of the campaign in Sydney. Nonetheless, the prize for the most targeted seat of the campaign so far would appear to be the Sydney seat of Reid, which has been visited three times by Scott Morrison, most recently on Sunday, and was also visited by Shorten on each of his three days in Sydney.

And while you’re about, note also the other new post below this one: episode three of Seat du Jour, covering the Melbourne seat of La Trobe.

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.

1,298 comments on “Happy trails: episode two”

Comments Page 3 of 26
1 2 3 4 … 26

  2. Disendorsing means that (officially) the party no longer backs the candidate. Their names will still be on the ballot papers (I’m not even sure if the AEC removes the party logo from next to their names) but they won’t be sent HTVs from Head Office and in theory no party member should hand out for them.

    If they get elected, they sit as an independent.

  3. Fozzie,

    Clearly, you have none. So, you and the MSM are on a unity ticket?

    I’m more forgiving if there is a plausible explanation which there seems to be in this case.

  4. Tristo,

    You forgot the Greens and possibly Hinch and Lambie.

    Anyway it sounds like the normal situation in the Senate, so what’s you’re point?

  5. Back on election issues, and the Queensland department of environment has rejected Adani’s plan to protect the black throated-finch, sending the company back to the drawing board, and delaying construction even further.

  6. Given that all these dumped candidates will remain on the ballot, will the Liberals still be handing out how-to-vote cards in the affected electorates?

    Surely if they don’t provide HoR how-to-vote cards, Liberal voters will provide preferences all over the place?

    Or will the Liberals be at booths handing out only Senate how-to-vote cards?

  7. “If Whelan had fessed up and apologised for her indiscretions, it would have worked out better for her”
    The things Whelan said were so vile, confessing would not have made any difference.

  8. Tristo I read that somewhere yesterday (New Daily?) but I love this very concise totally definitive bit “it could be likely there could be” wow thats exact.

  10. There’s a story on our seat in the Sydney Morning Herald today!

    As a steady stream of locals head into a polling station on the NSW Central Coast, the two leading candidates for the marginal electorate of Robertson are standing awkwardly close to each other handing flyers to early voters.

    Liberal MP Lucy Wicks and Labor’s Anne Charlton are rivals in a seat that could well reflect who is prime minister in just over two weeks given that whichever party has won the seat has won government for the last 13 elections.

    https://www.smh.com.au/federal-election-2019/heroin-crime-depression-and-illness-the-human-face-of-the-candidates-for-robertson-20190501-p51iwu.html

  12. Burgey @ #2 Friday, May 3rd, 2019 – 6:19 am

    Without wanting to in anyway upstage BK, if you do nothing else today, have a look at Dave Pope’s cartoon in the Canberra Times

    (Sorry, I still haven’t worked out how to post pics on WordPress and frankly cbf, because as with quoting posts, whenever someone explains it, it looks ridiculously complicated).

    We don’t deserve our cartoonists, They are a national treasure.

    Ofttimes we deserve Paul Zanetti.

  13. Vic,

    It’s the lies and cover up that get them every time.

    However, there was also no evidence that she had rejected the views she posted which made her continued candidacy unacceptable.

  16. “Anyway it sounds like the normal situation in the Senate, so what’s you’re point?”

    What’s the point campaigning on an unpopular policy that likely won’t get passed anyway?

  17. Fozzie Logic@7:44am
    Yesterday Michael Rowland of ABC News Breakfast went to Townsville to report on Herbert electorate. ALP incumbent Cathy O’ Toole fronted up for an interview with Rowland, where she refused to say the word ‘Adani’. But LNP candidate Philip Thompson was not allowed to be interviewed by LNP. Instead LNP minister Littleproud (because there is little to be proud of) was interviewed by Rowland from Tasmania (where everything went pear shaped yesterday).

  18. How kosher is Whelan’s excuse that her phone’s bluetooth was switched on and that’s why her Fb account was enabled to be hacked? It doesn’t sound right to me.

  19. So whatserface Whelan has resigned from the Lib party, whoop de friggin do. She’s still on the ballot paper and could still influence the outcome of the election. If she happens to get elected will she resign her seat? I don’t think so. Same with all the other candidates who have resigned, been dis-endorsed or whatever. If it happened after the close of nominations they are still on the ballot paper.

  20. ltep says:
    Friday, May 3, 2019 at 8:31 am

    The Liberal candidate’s preferences won’t be distributed so that’s academic anyway.

    What rot.

    They are on the ballot and will be treated the same as any other candidate by the AEC.

    How do you think Hansen got elected the first time?

  22. Hanson’s preferences were not distributed as she was one of the final two candidates in the count.

    As the Lyons candidate will still appear on the ballot paper as the Liberal candidate she will be in the final count as well and her preferences will not be distributed.

  23. It is too late for the LNP to pick another candidate to replace Whelan. She will appear on the ballot paper as a Liberal, like Pauline Hanson did in 1996.
    Far from being a negative, it might actually work in her favour. Lyons is not a highly educated inner-city electorate like Erskinville or East Melbourne. It is full of lower-income, working-class people who are socially conservative and rural, who wouldn’t be out of place in “Make-America-Great-Again” America. In addition, Jessica Whelan is younger, and prettier, than Pauline Hanson, even when the latter was first elected.
    As for the LNP itself, many of its constituents – and its leadership – hold identical views to this disendorsed candidate. They would have no trouble at all working with her if she’s elected as a nominal independent, which I predict is a distinct possibility!
    Heh heh heh!!!

  24. Confessions@7:46am
    Unbelievable that LNP volunteer later becomes Palmer volunteer. Do you see how much pressure Palmer is putting on LNP. He must have told them that he will not pay for any volunteers and it is upto LNP to provide volunteers. At the sametime he is attacking LNP in his ads.

  26. ltep says:
    Friday, May 3, 2019 at 8:40 am

    Hanson’s preferences were not distributed as she was one of the final two candidates in the count.

    So, you expect the same to happen with Whelan?

  27. Nostradamus,
    So you believe in legitmising bigotry for political gain for the Liberal Party in our federal parliament then?

  30. If Whelan has been axed, it’s only fair that Luke Creasey in Melbourne is axed aswell.

    It would have made no difference if Whelan had admitted and apologised. The same standards should apply to Creasey.

    The greens despite collapsing membership stand to substantially increase their margin in Melbourne.

  34. Nostradamus

    I think Hanson benefited from the publicity of her dusendorsement among some Oxley voters. And also benefited by still having ‘Liberal Party’ under her name on the ballot paper among those voters not paying much attention.

  35. ltep says:
    Friday, May 3, 2019 at 8:45 am

    Barney, yes except she will (unlike Hanson) will not be elected.

    Has she indicated that she will continue campaigning?

  36. How kosher is Whelan’s excuse that her phone’s bluetooth was switched on and that’s why her Fb account was enabled to be hacked?

    100% porkies.

  37. Unitary State (AnonBlock)
    Friday, May 3rd, 2019 – 8:16 am
    Comment #130
    If Whelan has been axed, it’s only fair that Luke Creasey in Melbourne is axed aswell.>/i>

    ..false equivalence..

  38. Unitary State @ #130 Friday, May 3rd, 2019 – 8:46 am

    If Whelan has been axed, it’s only fair that Luke Creasey in Melbourne is axed aswell.

    It would have made no difference if Whelan had admitted and apologised. The same standards should apply to Creasey.

    The greens despite collapsing membership stand to substantially increase their margin in Melbourne.

    Are The Greens that timid and lacking in self confidence about winning Melbourne that they have to try and eliminate their main competitor like this for posts that are nowhere in the same league of putridness as Jessica Whelan’s?

    Pa-thetic.

  39. Annika SmethurstVerified account @annikasmethurst
    26m26 minutes ago

    I hope the folk that have bought tickets to this get a refund

    :large

  40. C@tmomma@8:30am
    State seat ‘Terrigal’ in Robertson is a solid Libs seat. Isn’t it true that all the other state seats in Robertson held by ALP? Why is ‘Terrigal’ such a solid LNP seat? Do you have any insider polling on Robertson? Did you get inclination during pre-polling?

  41. Tristo @ 8.19

    Oh well, they better not bother trying. Best just to let the nutbags have their way.

    Your worst day in govt is better than your best day in opposition. Every time.

  42. It doesn’t matter if she continues campaigning or doesn’t campaign, she will still end up as one of the two highest vote-getters if it says Liberal Party of Australia below her name. Most voters are disengaged and will not even know she is no longer endorsed.

    Although the Nationals are running a candidate in Lyons so the Liberals could always hand out HTVs asking their supporters to vote for the Nationals candidate.

  43. Nostradamus, like his real namesake, lives in a Skrying bowl fantasy land.
    Sorry chum, politically Whelan is gone. She isn’t going to save anyone now.

  45. If Shorten is feeling the pressure of the campaign as some in the media have been carping on about, it certainly didn’t seem like it in that 7.30 interview with Leigh Sales. He was very relaxed and confident that he had all his ducks in line. It was a very good sign for the remaining two weeks of the campaign IMO.

  46. Someone raised the question of whether the $2 per vote will now go to Whelan rather than the Liberal Party now she has been disendorsed. Does anyone have the answer?

  47. Barnaby JoyceVerified account @Barnaby_Joyce

    Well the best of luck now to @The_Nationals candidate Deanna Hutchinson in the Tasmanian seat of Lyons. Deanna at position 1 is now definitely the favoured Coalition candidate.

  48. The young labor candidate in Melbourne needs to resign for the good of the party. Yes, the original reposting of comments was from 2012 and I agreed with benefit of the doubt on that but overnight more posts have surfaced he actually wrote himself.

    I find it hard to see how Penny Wong, Tanya P. and others could continue to front up and defend the latest posts.

    Time for him to go. The MSM will follow the coalition line of labor hypocracy at every presser and interview until he steps down. That is the simple political truth of the matter.

    I am sure more posts are floating around ready to be dropped.

    The hard reality of politics.

  49. Thanks BK for today’s Dawn Patrol.

    Fabulous item from The Australian. My fellow Orstrayans – in ordinary circumstances this is a genuine MUST MISS item – but – could Mr. Ergas be a harbinger, a Cassandra – a message to the heart ❓ *

    https://www.theaustralian.com.au/commentary/maliciously-selfish-motives-behind-actus-ad-splurge/news-story/3280c4a4c2d54be3c89fca607d3282a1

    If the ACTU has launched the largest advertising campaign in its history, it is hardly out of altruism. It is because it is on a promise, and a good one at that.

    Labor will not only remove what few constraints there are on union corruption; it also will override the umpire when the Fair Work Commission takes decisions the unions don’t like.

    The Registered Organisations Commission, set up in the wake of the Health Services Union scandal to bring at least a degree of transparency into the unions’ management of their members’ money, will simply be abolished.

    So will the Australian Building and Construction Commission, which Labor and the unions accuse of being a star chamber — even though its investigative powers are no greater than those the Australian Securities & Investments Commission and the Australian Competition & Consumer Commission have long enjoyed and routinely employ.

    At the same time, Labor will hobble the competition that the unions detest. Labour hire companies, which top the list, will be hit with an avalanche of regulatory requirements, increasing their costs to the point where many will go out of business.

    Self-employed truckers, who are the transport union’s bugbear, can look forward to the re-establishment of the so-called Road Safety Remuneration Tribunal, which the Gillard government created to undermine their viability. And the Construction Forestry Maritime Mining and Energy Union is already boasting that Labor will allow it to force workers and subcontractors off building sites unless they join the union and accept its demands.

    A quiet chat with my favourite daughter about various bits and bobs showed that – if penalty rates are restored – she wasn’t getting her entitlement way back and she won’t be getting the imaginary restoration- she does not know about payments for tax not paid – the clever family trusts – the multi houses negatively geared – and whoever wins government – her life (she thinks) won’t be improved.

    Deeper meaning – such as funding for Hospital, Schools, NDIS, can’t compete with Netflix or Youtube.

    *Short answer —No ❗ ☮ ☕

  50. GG:

    If the Libs have no candidate in Lyons, how can the party expect to pick up the electoral funding?

Comments Page 3 of 26
1 2 3 4 … 26

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *