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 comments on “In through the out door”

Comments Page 6 of 57
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  1. ‘An orderly phase out of fossil fuel mining, fossil fuel based electricity generation and consumption of fossil fuels consistent with the emissions reduction plan.’

    Step 1 was the Adani Convoy.

    All the other steps are a bit vague because the Greens only have 10% of the vote.

  3. Let’s take Di Natale’s word for it and assume that the Greens assume government 20 years after the 2016 election. Because it was after THAT election that he announced that the Greens would form government.

    Anyway, 2016+20 years = 2036 – just four years from 2040.

    That gives the Greens just four years to implement:

    ‘An orderly phase out of fossil fuel mining, fossil fuel based electricity generation and consumption of fossil fuels consistent with the emissions reduction plan.’

    It should be a hoot.

  4. Boerwar @ #251 Thursday, September 12th, 2019 – 4:18 pm

    ‘An orderly phase out of fossil fuel mining, fossil fuel based electricity generation and consumption of fossil fuels consistent with the emissions reduction plan.’

    Step 1 was the Adani Convoy.

    All the other steps are a bit vague because the Greens only have 10% of the vote.

    I thank you for exposing the mistruth that the Greens wanted to immediately shut down the coal industry.

  6. Boerwar @ #253 Thursday, September 12th, 2019 – 4:21 pm

    Let’s take Di Natale’s word for it and assume that the Greens assume government 20 years after the 2016 election. Because it was after THAT election that he announced that the Greens would form government.

    Anyway, 2016+20 years = 2036 – just four years from 2040.

    That gives the Greens just four years to implement:

    ‘An orderly phase out of fossil fuel mining, fossil fuel based electricity generation and consumption of fossil fuels consistent with the emissions reduction plan.’

    It should be a hoot.

    …and yet on current form the Greens will assume Govt before Labor does 😆

  7. Rex
    It is a bit sad the document doesn’t amount to a hill of beans.

    I notice the Greens desire to implement their policy of exporting coal mining jobs to the USA is front and center. Trump will be happy.

    Well trump would be happy if the Greens could deliver. The Liberals aren’t playing and Labor has made it clear they are focusing on the issue ( reducing demand), not exporting jobs. Has Trump paid the Greens off? Won’t be happy if all he gets is a glossy PDF.

  8. Liu reaches the ABC giddy heights of ‘besieged’ status.

    Besieged Liberal MP Gladys Liu did not disclose her membership of organisations linked to the Chinese Government’s foreign interference operations when she ran for preselection for the federal seat she now holds.

    ….

    She did not, however, declare her council membership of two chapters of an organisation called the China Overseas Exchange Association, which the ABC this week reported were part of the Chinese Government’s efforts to spread influence overseas.

    The ABC has previously reported that Ms Liu was an honorary chair of two other organisations linked to the Chinese Government’s United Front Work propaganda and foreign influence activities — the World Trade United Foundation and the United Chinese Commerce Association of Australia.

    In her application for endorsement, Ms Liu did not declare her membership of these two organisations either.

    https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-09-12/gladys-liu-did-not-disclose-membership-of-chinese-groups/11506428

  10. I am not sure how the Greens propose to deal with agricultural emissions.

    In particular, what do they propose for the sheep and cattle industry? After all, those pesky ruminants emit methane which is about 20 times worse than CO2.

    Close the sheep industry and the cattle industry down like closing down the ADF, the cotton industry, the uranium industry, the oil industry, the gas industry, and the coal industry?

    Trust us, we’re from the Greens Government?

    The real beauty of this policy is that not a single inner urban Greens voter will lose his/her job. Not one!

  12. Now don’t get me wrong.
    Labor is wrong and bad, or bad and wrong, depending on your righteous viewpoint.
    But closing down the sheep industry?
    When did the Greens actually acknowledge that one?
    Let’s face it.
    When a drought hammers the regions the drought eventually stops.
    When the Greens hammer the regions, the economic impact never stops.

  13. Here is anothery from the Greens’ armoury of policy purity:

    ‘Exclusion of new large-scale hydroelectric power stations and all electricity from burning native forests from the RET.’

    Uh huh.

  15. THAT is the point, as made by Rex Patrick, this isn’t about whether Gladys Liu is a fine, upstanding Chinese Australians but whether she has been an agent of influence for China in Australia.

  16. @boerwar

    I don’t know if she is going to be a goner, she would very well win a by-election she stands. Because the Liberals will I believe, will campaign that Liu is a victim of a racist attack by Labor.

  17. Goodness me, the Greens Plan to abolish green house emissions does not mention sheep or cattle.
    Now THAT is a whoopsie!
    Bad luck if you are a sheep farmer or a cattle farmer or you live in any of a thousand small Australian towns that rely in part or in full on sheep or cattle farming.
    Not to worry!
    A Convoy is coming your way soon.

  18. ‘Tristo says:
    Thursday, September 12, 2019 at 4:44 pm

    @boerwar

    I don’t know if she is going to be a goner, she would very well win a by-election she stands. Because the Liberals will campaign that Liu is a victim of a racist attack by Labor.’

    What I did not understand in the last election and I don’t understand now is the proportion of Australian Chinese voters (whatever that means) who are pro Commie regime as opposed to those who fear and loathe Xi with a passion.

    I simply don’t understand how that politics works here. I don’t even know whether I am making a false binary. For example, is it a matter of pro Chinese in general coming first and therefore a felt need to back in Liu.

    I don’t know.

  19. @Boerwar

    That is a good question about the support for Xi’s regime among Chinese Australians. However a Liberal campaign painting Labor as racist against Chinese people could decide a possible Chisholm by-election. Also Morrison is extremely good at making people believe in his version of the truth.

  20. If we are going to get rid of greenhouse gases from agriculture (currently about 16% of the total) we can hardly avoid doing something about the ruminants contribution to this 16%, which around two thirds.

    https://www.agric.wa.gov.au/climate-change/how-australia-accounts-agricultural-greenhouse-gas-emissions

    The production of ruminants is geographically concentrated so deleting ruminants from many local economies will smash them.

    I am sure that a Greens Ruminant Convoy (possibly renamed the Greens Bullshit Convoy) will fix this at the next election.

  21. Tristo
    That seems to be Morrison’s game plan. Whether it will work, I don’t know. I assume that Labor will run with their candidate who was Chinese?

  22. James O’Doherty @jmodoh
    ·
    3h
    Bob Katter, the elected member for Kennedy, has just told Chris Kenny that he likes going to Canberra because he pockets about $200 per day in travel allowance – but he doesn’t vote in the chamber because he doesn’t like “party games”

    Honest, or crazy??

  26. Boerwar
    says:
    Thursday, September 12, 2019 at 4:44 pm
    Goodness me, the Greens Plan to abolish green house emissions does not mention sheep or cattle.
    Now THAT is a whoopsie!
    Bad luck if you are a sheep farmer or a cattle farmer or you live in any of a thousand small Australian towns that rely in part or in full on sheep or cattle farming.
    Not to worry!
    A Convoy is coming your way soon.
    _____________________________
    clearly you haven’t read the Greens policy on veganism. We won’t need all those animals if we all took to ethical eating.

  27. Dandy M
    Yep.
    The real issue is that the Greens are not promising to ban coal, gas or oil mining and exports by 2040.
    But rest assured of three things:
    1. Labor is bad.
    2. It’s Labor’s fault.
    3. The Greens are good.
    If you can only get that into your head then all the Greens Party policies make perfect sense.

  28. https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2016/jul/09/how-a-chinese-language-social-media-campaign-hurt-labors-election-chances

    “If you ask how many Chinese people read mainstream news, the percentage is so, so low,” Gladys Liu says. “But the first thing they do in the morning is turn on the phone and go to WeChat straight away.”

    She says the campaign was run by volunteers like herself and centred on three issues: the Safe Schools controversy, same-sex marriage and economic management.

    The AEC seems to have been as useful as.

  29. Dandy Murray
    On a small matter of chronology.
    2036 is when Di Natale promised the Greens Party would be the government.
    2040 is when the Greens will deliver zero net emissions.

    Mysteriously, Callide B just squeaks in!

  30. 90% of the Queensland voters were onto the Greens in the last election.
    They knew that the Greens seriously want to trash the state’s economy in many different ways.

    Here’s the thing.
    We can’t all live in inner urban bliss.

    You might think there could be a bit of play, a bit of give and take, in Greens policies, but no.
    No uranium for existing nuclear power stations.
    No new hydro.
    No cows.
    No sheep.
    No cotton.
    No coal.
    No gas.
    No oil.
    No ADF.
    No, no, no, no, no!

  35. I suspect that one of the problems is that the Greens are urbs and simply don’t get the realities of how food gets into shops, where the water in their taps came from, how the power got into their plugs, and where their shit comes out of the sewers.

    D.I.S.C.O.N.N.E.C.T.E.D.

  36. ‘Dandy Murray says:
    Thursday, September 12, 2019 at 5:11 pm

    BW,

    NFC, at least not without a massive reforestation and soil regeneration commitment.’

    So, all the farmers on Newstart will be able to do something with their time. After all, the Devil makes work for idle hands.

  39. Can someone please point me in the direction of the details of the reported decision to grant Adani virtually unlimited access to aquifers adjacent to their tenement holdings?

    If there has been a failure to ensure that the water is to be used only within the granted mining tenement/s then there has been unforgivable dereliction of duty or downright corruption given the recent experience of the Murray/Darling where more money seems to be made from trading in water rights than in primary production. Jabba the Hut (who holds a fair bit of the adjoining tenements) is well versed in exploiting any drafting loopholes and, despite the fact that Adani is unlikely to proceed, these water rights may have huge monetary value. They certainly have the potential to do significant environmental damage.

  42. BW,

    Yeah, there’s a drone for that too. Oh here’s an idea! We could gamify the wombat “management” problem.

    You know it makes sense.

  43. Josh Taylor @joshgnosis
    ·
    18m
    Telling that the peak lobby group for drug testing companies popped up in parliament today for all those photo ops.

    They can smell the tenders.

    13m
    Also interesting that the ministers responsible actually met with them, and not y’know, the unemployed people the policy would actually affect

  45. Here we are.
    From the Greens’ Mouth:

    ‘Research, development and deployment of mechanisms to significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions from agriculture and encourage a move away from a reliance on carbon intensive food production.’

    BTW, the 16% of emissions that come from ag do NOT count the emissions arising from the manufacture, storage, distribution, delivery or deployment of stuff like fertilizers. Lot of embedded emissions in fertilizers, but, hey.

    I suppose they could put corks into the orifices of all our ruminants but that is really only a temporary fix, IMHO.

    There are around 100,000,000 domestic ruminants in Australia so that would require 200,000,000 corks to plug the methane. There’s a whole new rural industry right there.

  46. The posters stating Liu is gone seem to be the same ones who predicted labor would win the election.
    Move on folks, nothing to see here.

  48. Captain Monkeypirate @jonkudelka
    ·
    2m
    Politicians perfomatively drug testing themselves is the new CEO Sleepout. Virtue signalling on, dare I suggest, steroids.

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