In through the out door

Sarah Henderson returns to parliament via a Senate vacancy and a hotly contested preselection, as Coalition MPs blow bubbles on electoral “reform”.

Two brief news items to relate on Australian matters, as well as which we have the latest of Adrian Beaumont’s increasingly regular updates on the constitutional mess that is Brexit.

Sarah Henderson, who held the seat of Corangamite for the Liberals from 2013 until her defeat in May, will return to parliament today after winning preselection to fill Mitch Fifield’s Victorian Senate vacancy. This follows her 234-197 win in a party vote held on Saturday over Greg Mirabella, a Wangaratta farmer and the husband of former Indi MP Sophie Mirabella. After initial expectations that Henderson was all but assured of the spot, Mirabella’s campaign reportedly gathered steam in the lead-up to Saturday’s vote, resulting in a late flurry of public backing for Henderson from Scott Morrison, Josh Frydenberg, Jeff Kennett, Michael Kroger and Michael Sukkar.

Also, The Australian reports Queensland Liberal Senator James McGrath will push for the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters, of which he is the chair, to consider abolishing proportional representation in the Senate and replacing it with a system in which each state is broken down into six provinces, each returning a single member at each half-Senate election – very much like the systems that prevailed in the state upper houses of Victoria, Western Australia and South Australia in the bad old days before the advent of proportional representation.

Ostensibly motivated by a desire to better represent the regions, such a system would result in a Senate dominated as much as the House of Representatives by the major parties, at a time of ongoing erosion in public support for them. The Australian’s report further quotes Nationals Senator Perin Davey advocating the equally appalling idea of rural vote weighting for the House. The kindest thing that can be said about both proposals is that they are not going to happen, although the latter would at least give the High Court an opportunity to take a stand for democracy by striking it down.

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.

2,838 thoughts on “In through the out door”

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  1. Greensborough Growler @ #2746 Tuesday, September 17th, 2019 – 6:10 pm

    You make lots of demands, but can’t be fussed doing the hardwork to make it happen at a political level. It’s much easier for you and your fellow travellers to whinge and say “Labor should”.

    And you post lots of comments here, but are apparently unwilling to do anything that might impact you personally. However, don’t feel too bad – I find this to be quite a common attitude.

    As for “fellow travellers”, I am not aware that I have any on this site. Most people here barrack for one or the other of the 3 (or possibly 4) major parties. But in case you haven’t noticed, none of those parties are doing anything effective on the issues that actually … you know … matter 🙁

    This won’t stop me posting, though – or pointing out the illogic of various party platforms. So if that’s your ambition then you may as well accept defeat now, and save us all a great deal of aggravation.

  3. With the appointment of Kevin Andrews to the Family Court review I’m wondering if he might try and carry out his and Tony Abbott’s long held desire to make divorce harder to obtain through the courts.

  4. Player One @ #2331 Tuesday, September 17th, 2019 – 6:19 pm

    Greensborough Growler @ #2746 Tuesday, September 17th, 2019 – 6:10 pm

    You make lots of demands, but can’t be fussed doing the hardwork to make it happen at a political level. It’s much easier for you and your fellow travellers to whinge and say “Labor should”.

    And you post lots of comments here, but are apparently unwilling to do anything that might impact you personally. However, don’t feel too bad – I find this to be quite a common attitude.

    As for “fellow travellers”, I am not aware that I have any on this site. Most people here barrack for one or the other of the 3 (or possibly 4) major parties. But in case you haven’t noticed, none of those parties are doing anything effective on the issues that actually … you know … matter 🙁

    This won’t stop me posting, though – or pointing out the illogic of various party platforms. So if that’s your ambition then you may as well accept defeat now, and save us all a great deal of aggravation.

    You seem flustered that your bluff has been called.

  15. Jeez me hearties ❗

    Pell’s appealing.

    Lizzie’s been beaten.

    Those facing violence should stop that nasty conduct.

    I’m out of here even though apparently one can never leave. The compulsion is now mandatory.

    Goodnight all. 📺 💤

  16. The problem with Family Law is that there is not much Law practiced.

    Once the divorce is settled, the two primary issues are custody and access of the children and then the property settlement.

    These are emotionally charged issues. But, any reforms to the the system needs to focus on these.

    I genuinely hope the inquiry comes up with some ideas.

  19. GG

    I don’t know if SBS has stopped making new seasons of Family Law.

    Of course Hanson doesn’t like it. Asians and gays. 🙂

    Edit: I will show myself out.

  23. D & M:

    Hmm – I still think you would need many algorithms to do the job properly. But maybe these are better termed functions.

    Church-Turing thesis…

    Now I’ll wait for P1 to assert that I “really don’t get Computer Science”…

  24. ar

    The things that eat the moths will be the next to go.

    Yes, as the article says the Pygmy Possum is starving.

    Last year, scientists monitoring the mountain pygmy possum late in the breeding season in Victoria found that between 50% and 95% of the animals had lost their full litters of young. Analysis found the animals had starved to death without their main food source.

    “The migration of bogong moths has occurred for over 7,000 years and their arrival in the alpine zone is the second biggest arrival of nutrients in the area after the sun,” Marissa Parrott, a reproductive biologist at Zoos Victoria, said.

  25. One third of East Timorese were said to have died under brutal Indonesian occupation.

    The slow genocide in West Papua goes pretty well unremarked.

  26. Ante Meridian says:
    Tuesday, September 17, 2019 at 5:12 pm
    The Labor vote has been sliding gradually lower for four or five decades, and it’s now reaching crisis point. By my reckoning, there have been just two federal elections where the Labor vote was lower than it was in 2019. They were 1901 and 1903, before the duopoly asserted itself.

    It’s scary that so many Labor members won’t acknowledge this as a problem, or if they do that it’s a minor problem that’ll sort itself out if they can just communicate their message better. Or it’s all the Greens’ fault. And anybody with any advice can just flick off.

    Ante, far from failing to acknowledge it, I’ve gone to excessive lengths to publish this kind of info. The decline in the Labor plurality and its PV are pronounced and persistent. The results are that the interests of working people have been consistently over-ridden, the environment is being trashed, social justice is being dismantled….and so on. For mine, this arises because of dysfunction in reformist opinion…..but I won’t bore you any further….suffice to say it’s inconceivable that this situation could be reversed as long as the Lib-kin campaign against Labor continues uncontested and undiminished.

  27. E. G. Theodore @ #2773 Tuesday, September 17th, 2019 – 7:01 pm

    D & M:

    Hmm – I still think you would need many algorithms to do the job properly. But maybe these are better termed functions.

    Church-Turing thesis…

    Now I’ll wait for P1 to assert that I “really don’t get Computer Science”…

    If you think that is a relevant riposte, then clearly, no you don’t.

  29. @Rex:

    They have to chip away at ScoMo’s credibility bit by bit….

    …How, precisely. Any points they make get drowned out by the MSM’s adulation of all things right-wing. Labor doesn’t have the kind of money to buy the level of advertising you’re implying, and today’s typical “journalist” will drink a pint of rat poison rather than admit that Labor might have a point.

  30. yabba
    You seem to assume that robocop is designed to be reasonable/rational.
    I would have thought that it was designed to be the opposite.
    It’s function is to fuck over the Underclass in order to extort money from them.
    If they suffer in the process it is win win.

  34. I have been watching the UK Supreme Court hearing the case relating to Johnson’s prorogation of parliament. It is fascinating and the supreme command of clear language is something to behold.
    Very strong arguments are being made that Johnson erred.

  36. Heard today, in a Taree NSW service station…

    Customer who purchased only a single item, petrol, upon receiving a receipt over a foot long, to console operator:

    “Christ mate! You could wipe an elephant’s arse with that!”

  44. The spike in the petrol price will likely discourage even the Lib-Libs from fanning war in the Gulf. I hope the price does not go to the heights suggested. If it were sustained, the effect on household incomes would be sufficient to provoke even more pressure on demand and employment.

  45. I hope the price does not go to the heights suggested.

    We should all hope that it goes so high that we all finally stop using petrol for good.

  48. swamprat @ #2775 Tuesday, September 17th, 2019 – 7:11 pm

    One third of East Timorese were said to have died under brutal Indonesian occupation.

    The slow genocide in West Papua goes pretty well unremarked.

    Greens mention it and RIchard Di Natale I believe delivered a petition from West Papuan activists and supporters to parliament a week or so ago. Calling on the Australian government to support their campaign for decolonisation with the UN. He spoke at a rally for their campaign as well.

    Australian governments sat around like lame mute ducks for decades with East Timor, did something eventually, then apparently tried through subterfuge to gain more money and resources for some corporate mates.

    Where next and where else do some of our closest long-suffering neighbours go? Don’t seem to make it into the Scomo Pacific family fantasy. Where the other members of the Pacific forum also raised the West Papua issue. Everything there that Scomo really wanted on the agenda, climate change and West Papua.

    It’s not like the government really seems to give a shit about PNG much either, aside from making sure there’s some ongoing leverage against Chinese influence perhaps.

  49. ar…

    The global economy needs energy. Without it, incomes, employment, production would all be reduced to pre-industrial levels. Global GDP per capita would fall to $0.25-0.30 per day. There would be mass starvation and a collapse in the supply of food, water, electricity, transport, communications, public sanitation…and so on.

    The transition from the carbon economy has to be accomplished without trashing incomes, employment and production. There is only one way to do this that’s consistent with our current civilisation and that’s to build the renewable tech that can displace the carbon tech we’ve relied on.

    This is in fact very popular and can be done.

    When this occurs, the oil price will not be insanely high, it will be exceptionally low because it will no longer be in wide use.

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