Three months on from their defeat in the state election, the ALP in New South Wales has chosen Jodi McKay to succeed Michael Daley as leader. As is the case federally, the party rules in New South Wales divide the vote equally between the parliamentary party and the rank and file. But whereas the vote in 2013 saw Shorten win the party room and Albanese the rank-and-file, this time both sides of the equation have delivered majorities to McKay over her rival, Chris Minns. As reported in The Australian, McKay won the party room vote by 29 votes to 21 and the rank-and-file ballot by 6821 to 4001, for a weighted final result of 60.5-39.5.
This was only the second occasion when a party leader in Australia was chosen through a process that involved the party membership, the first having been Bill Shorten’s win over Anthony Albanese for the federal Labor leadership in 2013. Labor now has such a system in place federally and (I believe) in every state other than South Australia, but on other occasions such as the recent federal leadership transition, no contest transpired because only one candidate emerged.
Yay! Go Jodi! She will be a fierce warrior for Labor and a dogged opponent of the Coalition and Gladys Berejiklian and her Transactional Coalition government.
She also, like Dan Andrews, is from the country area of NSW and so can directly relate to the people who live outside of Sydney and its suburbs but she represents a suburban seat. It is also a seat with a large Korean, Indian and Chinese population and is near to the other large Chinese-Australian areas of Eastwood and Epping. So she will be able to mend fences as well.
Despite the disparaging comments from others, Jodi is actually quite intelligent and able to get across a brief quickly. She is a good motivator and doesn’t suffer fools gladly.
This is the first election where the members overruled the MP’s. It will be interesting to see how she goes.
I wonder what the Greens complaint will be, with about 70% of Green members being unhappy with the process that elected Di Natale you would think it would be silence. Bet it isn’t.
The NSW Greens don’t even have close to 11000 members, let alone 11000 willing to get of their but to vote, yet yesterday we had post after post bagging the counters taking a few hours to count them.
Extraordinary the length the Green posters will go to to bag Labor.
“This is the first election where the members overruled the MP’s. It will be interesting to see how she goes.”
Huh? The membership vote was broadly in line with the caucus vote. As opposed to the 2013 federal leadership contest when Albo won the the membership vote, but lost the caucus vote by a bigger percentage margin.
Andrew_Earlwood says:
Sunday, June 30, 2019 at 8:39 am
…
Huh? The membership vote was broadly in line with the caucus vote. As opposed to the 2013 federal leadership contest when Albo won the the membership vote, but lost the caucus vote by a bigger percentage margin.
You are right my mistake.
“The NSW Greens don’t even have close to 11000 members, let alone 11000 willing to get of their but to vote, yet yesterday we had post after post bagging the counters taking a few hours to count them.”
I’m a 30 year ALP member, and I think I got the ball rolling complaining as to the delay. It seems the process of matching the ID on the outside envelop to party records did not start until yesterday morning.
Surely this could have been done progressively last week so that yesterday all that had to happen was for the envelopes to be opened, the ballot papers counted and scrutinised in the usual fashion.
If this had happened, then with sufficient tellers and scrutineers the count should not have taken more than 3 hours. This is an inefficiency that needs to be rectified. For no other reason than it denied the winner some clear air to make a statement for the evening news to start the ball rolling.
Earlwood , do you think Minns will stick around the State Parliament or move Federal?
He seems to have done his dash at the State level.
Andrew_Earlwood
I don’t agree, a day makes no difference.
Why is it always up to someone else to do better? It is easy to whinge, the doers a doing a lot more.
A vote of nearly 11,000 is impresssive. Rodney Cavalier’s claim that there are less 1,000 “interested” members in the state looks doubtful
Well – OC think of the SDA , ETU, AWU , AMWU etc organising vote filling-in sessions for individual members and you get much closer to your 11,000 active members.
lars don’t think so .. Rank and file members would not tolerate this
Lars Von Trier @ #9 Sunday, June 30th, 2019 – 9:55 am
Excuse me while I report you to Head Office for suggesting this in a public forum. I’m sure Mr Bowe WILL be pleased.
Well… I often wondered.
Having not renewed when the ICAC revelations started, for the next several years I used to get phone calls canvassing for the presidential vote. These were never for the candidate with Sussex St backing. I used to ask the earnest Young Labor Apparatchik if perhaps someone had taken control of my membership. This was obviously just paranoia as the answer was always that the party had trouble keeping its list of members up to date
I’ve taken a screenshot and Saved it to a file, in case the post is removed.
Excuse me while I report you to Head Office for suggesting this in a public forum. I’m sure Mr Bowe WILL be pleased.
____________________
I’m looking forward to the oucome of this legal controversy. 🙂
You’re in BIG trouble Lars
Or you can retract your slanderous assertion and ask Mr Bowe to delete it, LVT.
The ball’s in your court.
Lars you have been reported to Head Office. Put down any pens and pencils and wait outside ready for transport and internment.
C@t, you have already admitted to large scale corruption in your own branch. What Lars said is not slanderous.
At last a glimmer of hope for NSW Labor supporters.
Lars Von Trier:
Cat’s advice to you is sound. Purge thyself of a prima facie libellous post, in the manner she suggests.
Incidentally, and bearing in mind the two can overlap, libel is a specific form of defamation. Libel refers to defamation in written form, as opposed to defamation in spoken form, known as slander.
Er, unless Lars is a Labor party member, I’m not sure there’s a great deal that “head office” can do about this. Nor can I really see them expending a whole lot of effort in dealing with a random, unfounded allegation from a total nobody in the comment section of a psephology blog.
C@t,
Just saw the above posts – throwing around accusations that a post amounts to defamation are obviously designed to intimidate and shut down anybody who is opposed to your bloviation – and shows your arrogant contempt for the blog owner who obviously would be affected by any claims. Think about your posts last night about baggage and the like and think who is trading in defamation – that would be you.
Secondly defamation is something that happens to individuals – not corporate entities like a union.
Thirdly all of the unions endorsed a candidate in this election, unions maximising the votes amongst its members who are ALP members is hardly exceptional and the circle which revolves around each union – organisers, committe members, delegates etc. I think the SMH reported the same accusation regarding 2 MP’s showing each other their ballots to vote in conformity with a union position.
Best,
Lars
Mind you, Lars’ comment is clearly designed to provoke, and I’m not seeing a lick of evidence to support his accusations – but get some goddamn perspective, people.
Just saw the above posts – throwing around accusations that a post amounts to defamation are obviously designed to intimidate and shut down anybody who is opposed to your bloviation – and shows your arrogant contempt for the blog owner who obviously would be affected by any claims.
Projection much? I’m not the one who originally suggested, with absolutely no evidence at all, that various unions were guilty of vote-rigging by commandeering the vote in illicit ways.
Btw, suggesting someone in politics has ‘baggage’ is in no way equivalent to suggesting illegality on a massive scale which engineers a vote the way certain unions want it to eventuate.
Asha Leu:
[‘Secondly defamation is something that happens to individuals – not corporate entities like a union.’]
Little knowledge can be dangerous.
Thank you, Mavis. Libel it is then. 🙂
Asha Leu @ #20 Sunday, June 30th, 2019 – 11:41 am
Attempting to trivialise the issue isn’t going to cut it with me, Asha Leu. This blog is read by people unknown and they may take the assertion seriously. A lie has gone around the world before the truth catches up. Well I want this lie retracted.
And you don’t have to be a Labor Party member to be guilty of libel of the party. Nor is it impossible to determine a person’s identity here.
Yes, it may have ‘just’ been one of those especially egregious slurs that happen on social media, too often, these days, but this person has form, also as far as libellous assertions about myself is concerned and I just want that person to get the message that it has to stop.
If Tweets are legal, and John Setka is legally liable for the abusive messages to his wife, then the posts to this blog that suggest illegal activity by parties are legally actionable too.
Imagine a case of libel against NSW ALP over potential corrupt practices! 🙂
Mavis:
That wasn’t me.
C@t:
As is usual, your laughably over-the-top tribalism has made you unable to see the forest from the trees.
IANAL, but, yes, there possibly could be a case for defamation or libel or whatever (yes, I realize I may be using one or both of those words incorrectly, and I do not care) in what ESJ/Lars wrote. The same thing could be said a good deal of the stuff that gets posted here – in fact, on basically any online venue where people are discussing politics. But I can tell you right now that neither federal nor NSW Labor would ever think of persuing action on such a thing, because the people in charge are (I sincerely hope) not total fucking morons, and would quite rightly not give a fuck.
Think about it this way. Basically every day, there are numerous posts on this blog about how corrupt and how treasonous Donald Trump, his family, and his underlings are. Now, I’m somewhat sympathetic to that viewpoint myself, but – let’s be honest – there tend to be a whole lot of allegations thrown out about the US President and his administration withoout an enormous amount of evidence backing them up. Imagine, for a second, if said bludgers were to suddenly found themselves served with subpoenas from the White House for what they had written here. The reaction would be a mix of outrage at the abuse of power and amusement at how petty and thin-skinned someone would has to be to take action on total nobodies on a relatively obscure Australian political blog.
Or, to take things closer to home, what about all the various allegations and insinuations that get tossed around here about the Coalition? You know, that they just exist to give jobs to mates, that they’re lining their pockets with taxpayers’ funds, the many outright allegations of corruption against certain ministers and MPs, and so on? Would the Liberal or National party executives be then justified in pursuing legal action against the (at a rough estimate) 30+ members here who regularly make such accusations? How would you react then, C@t? Hell, just imagine what you’d think if one of the Liberal supporters here threatened to report you to Liberal head office next time you talked about how corrupt Stuart Robert was? You would just laugh at them, and for good reason.
Because, except in truly extreme cases, the Labor party are never going to sue Lars/ESJ and the Coalition are never going to sue the numerous bludgers who make allegations against them (Trump, on the other hand, possible would, if he had the faintest idea what Poll Bludger was (he does not), but that’s because Trump is a narcissistic idiot), because the people in charge tend to be reasonably intelligent, rational people who understand that people on the internet make crazy accusations against politicians and political parties every goddamn day, and the vast majority inevitably gets quickly forgotten about unless someone were to do something truly stupid like, say, causing the allegation to become national news by suing the private citizen responsible!
Finally, the Setka comparison is ridiculous. John Setka is a public figure. People actually listen to what he says. Lars/ESJ is an anonymous nobody on the internet, doing what a billion people on the internet do every day – talking shit about political figures.
Asha I think you are downplaying the seriousness of Lars’ offence. The NSW ALP is not just any organisation. To impugn its honour, to imply that in any way corrupt or illegal practices occurs in that noble body would not be tolerated by thinking people. Why, the next thing you know the churches will be under fire for corruption or illegality, then what, the banks?
Asha Leu:
[‘Mavis:
That wasn’t me.’]
My apologies, Asha. It should’ve been addressed to Lars.
Mavis:
No worries
Lars Von Trier:
[‘Secondly defamation is something that happens to individuals – not corporate entities like a union.’]
Point one: corporations can sue and be sued.
Point two: unions are not incorporated. They’re registered pursuant to the Fair Work (Registered Organisations) Act (Cth) 2009.
Asha Leu,
Okay, okay, you’ve convinced me. I have reassessed and my new position on THAT post is that it’s simply ridiculous!
Gee, NSW Labor are fucked now! That is the best that hey have to offer… a charmless log with zero progressive credentials. The Tories will be laughing all the way until the next election.
Going by Crankmomma’s behaviour on here, it makes one wonder, just how many voters she alienated from Labor whilst out ‘campaigning.’
And all you can offer clem attlee is humourless abuse, no analysis of the offending post, and smug self-satisfaction. I imagine that, if you are in the Labor Party at all in Victoria, you are a member of the Setka Industrial Left, full of similarly like-minded belt and braces anachronisms as the man himself.
We in Victoria have a real Labor Party, unlike those Tory clones that you support.
The same ppl – C@tomma and Andrew Earlwood – were breathlessly telling us how well the NSW ALP was going to go in both March and May. Well how did that go fellas!!
And when I looked in curiosity today, someone is threatened with legal action (presumably C@tomma has authority to speak for Sussex st) b/c someone accused them of vote rigging or alike. This is the organisation where Keating was behind by 15 votes when they left Bankstown, but in front by 15 when they arrived at Sussex st. Absolutely hilarious!!
McKay wouldn’t even make parly sec in the Coalition govt. She has never had an original thought in her life. She was absolutely silent as shadow transport. And when she wanted to join the Libs she was rejected. Honestly, unless the ALP actually regenerates (and I’m looking at Nick Lalich, Greg Donnelley, Peter Primrose) they won’t be a show until 2031.
Nine/Fairfax headline:
“Donald Trump and Kim Jong-un to meet at DMZ
Trump said he’ll cross the border into North Korea, becoming the first sitting US president to enter the isolated country.
1 hour agoby Hyung-jin Kim”
Trump had better be careful if Kim invites him to play a game of golf. Those landmines in the DMZ are a unique course hazard.
The NSW Deputy Premier attacks the party of the Premier and she says (wtte) “nothing to see here”!
Nine/Fairfax headline: “‘Well that’s Barra’: Premier responds to Barilaro’s Coalition attack
1 hour agoby Tom Rabe”
Letter from Jodi to the faithful 🙂
I’m pretty sure that only a natural person can take legal action for defamation.
Happy to be corrected if wrong.
clem attlee @ #38 Sunday, June 30th, 2019 – 3:19 pm
Yeah, that Albo, what a Tory! 🙄
moderate,
Hilarious!
The Coalition have such class on their front bench. Matthias ‘Diminished Figure’ Cormann, Michaelia ‘Whiteboard’ Cash, Melissa ‘Invisible’ Price, Angus ‘$$’ Taylor, Sussan ‘Investments’ Ley, Barnaby ‘Drain the Rivers Dry’ Joyce. And I haven’t even gotten to the Parliamentary Secretaries or Assistant Ministers.
From Canberra Times (the bit that isn’t paywalled):
Like this?
Big difference old mate. We are in government.
moderate @ #48 Sunday, June 30th, 2019 – 4:53 pm
Nothing is forever. And with the list of Coalition ‘talent’ I put up, you won’t be.
It’s always annoying when the media use the passive voice:
“Labor accused of ‘verbal gymnastics’ while waiting for crossbenchers’ decision on tax cuts” article by Murphy.
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2019/jun/30/labor-accused-of-verbal-gymnastics
Why doesn’t the headline proclaim “Birmingham claims Labor…”?