Sins of commission

Kooyong and Chisholm legal challenge latest; by-election rumblings in Isaacs; Jim Molan strikes back; and the Victorian Liberals gearing up already for federal preselections.

Possible (or possibly not) federal by-election news:

• The Australian Electoral Commission has petitioned the Federal Court to reject challenges against the federal election results in Chisholm and Kooyong. The challenges relate to Chinese-language Liberal Party signage that appeared to mimic the AEC’s branding, and advised voters that giving a first preference to the Liberal candidates was “the correct voting method”. As reported by The Guardian, the AEC argues that “the petition fails to set out at all, let alone with sufficient particularity, any facts or matters on the basis of which it might be concluded that it was likely that on polling day, electors able to read Chinese characters, upon seeing and reading the corflute, cast their vote in a manner different from what they had previously intended”. This seems rather puzzling to my mind, unless it should be taken to mean that no individuals have been identified who are ready to confirm that they were indeed so deceived. Academic electoral law expert Graeme Orr argued on Twitter that the AEC had “no need to intervene on the substance of a case where partisan litigants are well represented”.

• Talk of a by-election elsewhere in Melbourne was stimulated by Monday’s column ($) from acerbic Financial Review columnist Joe Aston, which related “positively feverish speculation” that Labor’s Shadow Attorney-General, Mark Dreyfus, would shortly quit his Melbourne bayside seat of Isaacs with an eye to a position on Victoria’s Court of Appeal. Aston further reported that Dreyfus hoped to be succeeded by Fiona McLeod, the prominent barrister who gained a 6.1% swing as Labor’s candidate for Higgins in May. Dreyfus emphatically rejected such “ridiculous suggestions” in late August, saying he was “absolutely committed to serving out this term of parliament”, and again took to Twitter on Monday to say he would be “staying and fighting the next election”. Aston remains unconvinced, writing in Tuesday’s column ($) that the suggestions derived from “high-level discussions Dreyfus has held on Spring Street with everyone from Premier Daniel Andrews, former Attorney-General Martin Pakula, his successor Jill Hennessy and his caucus colleagues”, along with his “indiscreet utterances around the traps”.

Federal preselection news:

• Jim Molan has won the endorsement of both Scott Morrison and the conservative faction of the New South Wales Liberal Party to fill the Senate vacancy created by Arthur Sinodinos’s departure to become ambassador to the United States. However, the Sydney Morning Herald reports this is not dissuading rival nominee Richard Shields, former deputy state party director and Insurance Council of Australia manager, and the runner-up to Dave Sharma in last year’s keenly fought Wentworth preselection. Shields’ backers are said to include Helen Coonan, former Senator and Howard government minister, and Mark Neeham, a former state party director. Earlier reports suggested the moderate faction had been reconciled to Molan’s ascendancy by a pledge that he would only serve out the remainder of Sinodinos’s two-year term, and would not seek re-election in 2022.

• Rob Harris of The Age reports the Victorian Liberals are considering a plan to complete their preselections for the 2022 election much earlier than usual – and especially soon for Liberal-held seats. The idea in the latter case is for challengers to incumbents to declare their hands by January 15, with the matter to be wrapped up by late February or early March. This comes after the party’s administrative committee warded off threats to members ahead of the last election, most notably factional conservative Kevin Andrews in Menzies, by rubber-stamping the preselections of all incumbents, much to the displeasure of party members. Other preselections are to be held from April through to October. Also proposed is a toughening of candidate vetting procedures, after no fewer than seven candidates in Labor-held seats were disendorsed during the period of the campaign.

Self-promotion corner:

• I had a paywalled piece in Crikey yesterday which noted the stances adopted of late by James McGrath, ideological warror extraordinaire and scourge of the cockatoo, in his capacity as chair of the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters, which is presently conducting its broad-ranging inquiry into the May federal election. These include the end of proportional representation in the Senate, the notion that parliamentarians who quit their parties should be required to forfeit their seats, and — more plausibly — the need to curtail pre-poll voting.

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.

2,219 comments on “Sins of commission”

Comments Page 44 of 45
1 … 43 44 45

  3. Is there any bludger who is with me when I say we’d be better off as a nation of citizens charged with the custody of a whole frigging continent if we had about 10,000,000 less things walking around saying moo (and I’m talking about the four legged bovine, not feckless two legged LNP voters and such), removed all of Black Jack McEwans dams and weirs, dozed about half of the artificial river banks that date from the 1830s and allowing the MD Basin the long soak it’s been missing for two centuries, planted about 10 billion trees in the basin and simply focused on feeding our present population rather than gorging an emerging middle class overseas with wagyu quality beef stakes?

    Too radical?

    Not enough preoccupation with totem issues like Adani and glueing oneself to the road during peak hour commuter traffic?

    Too much of an existential threat to the pastoral interests of the big end of town and the never ending special pleading of the National Party and the pulling on the heartstrings of gullible city folk about how hard ‘life on the land’ is and how much us ‘city slickers’ owe these ingrate fuckers.

    I see ScoMo and Berry-Jerry-Can are ramming through two more surface dam projects in the headwaters of the MDB. This is a disaster and simply reinforces bad – as in terrible – land management practices on this continent.

    Meanwhile everybody on the so called progressive left is in blather over global CO2 emissions. We shouldn’t really worry, frankly. We have so fucked up this continent that CO2 emissions would not make much difference, other than to potentially deliver a slightly early mercy killing on us.

    Rant over. In better news in the last 24 hours I’ve observed a koala and Joey at the north Stradbroke Hotel, an eastern grey kangaroo and her Joey at the North gorge walk at Point Lookout and witnessed a pod of humpbacks fishing immediately off the headland as they meander down the coast. Then I saw a white bellied sea eagle soaring as I had a fantastic ice cream at the local Italian ice cream parlour. All of this is a useful distraction from the absolute shit show that is Australian politics these days. Tomorrow I do the Blue Lake walk.

    Andrew out.

  4. Emerging as the caped crusader, fighting for Truth, Justice and the American Way of Life is …. John Bolton, the warmonger. You could not make this shit up if you tried.

    WASHINGTON — The effort to pressure Ukraine for political help provoked a heated confrontation inside the White House last summer that so alarmed John R. Bolton, then the national security adviser, that he told an aide to alert White House lawyers, House investigators were told on Monday.

    Mr. Bolton got into a tense exchange on July 10 with Gordon D. Sondland, the Trump donor turned ambassador to the European Union, who was working with Rudolph W. Giuliani, the president’s personal lawyer, to press Ukraine to investigate Democrats, according to three people who heard the testimony.

    The aide, Fiona Hill, testified that Mr. Bolton told her to notify the chief lawyer for the National Security Council about a rogue effort by Mr. Sondland, Mr. Giuliani and Mick Mulvaney, the acting White House chief of staff, according to the people familiar with the testimony.

    “I am not part of whatever drug deal Sondland and Mulvaney are cooking up,” Mr. Bolton, a Yale-trained lawyer, told Ms. Hill to tell White House lawyers, according to two people at the deposition. (Another person in the room initially said Mr. Bolton referred to Mr. Giuliani and Mr. Mulvaney, but two others said he cited Mr. Sondland.)

    https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/14/us/politics/bolton-giuliani-fiona-hill-testimony.html?action=click&module=Top%20Stories&pgtype=Homepage

  6. Does the church really want to be turning members away?

    One of Australia’s most senior Anglicans has told those lobbying for the church to accept same-sex marriage to “please leave” rather than push for reform merely to “satisfy the lusts and pleasures of the world”.

    Sydney Archbishop Glenn Davies used his presidential address to the Sydney Anglican diocese synod to argue the church couldn’t bless same-sex marriage because it couldn’t bless sin.

    The church’s frequently affirmed belief that “marriage is between a man and a woman” was not popular in Australia or consistent with the legal definition of marriage since the Marriage Act was amended in late 2018, Dr Davies acknowledged on Monday.

    https://www.sbs.com.au/news/please-leave-sydney-s-archbishop-tells-same-sex-backers-to-leave-the-church?cid=news%3Asocialshare%3Afacebook&fbclid=IwAR3vJZB6VIR0e-lANX4LpVqbzHd-ixXIU90SqJGxvMw90H4HQXsRe3r_d9o

    Fr Rod Bower responds via Facebook:

    Anglican Parish of Gosford
    9 mins ·

    So deeply saddened to hear my Archbishop tell me that I am not welcome in the church. But so thankful that in the Diocese of Newcastle we seek to be a comprehensive community living with the tensions, challenges and growth opportunities of difference. Unity in diversity is in the DNA of historic Anglicanism, The Archbishop’s comments are a dramatic departure from the culture of Anglicanism and are most regrettable. In a society being torn apart by polarization, the ability to live together with difference is one of the great gifts the Anglican Church has to offer the world. This is the gift of hope as we float in what can sometimes feel like a sea of hopelessness. For us to cease to live the historic model of unity diversity would be a very great tragedy indeed.
    Fr Rod.

  7. “I know intuitively there’s more to Dutton than meets the eye?”

    Or maybe less. Just a nasty authoritarian bully who lacks the redeeming qualities of intelligence or basic competence.

  10. Andrew_Earlwood:

    Two things about “Black Jack”:

    1. He seemed to have done his best for his constituents; and

    2. He wouldn’t serve in a government led by McMahon.

  12. Speaking of cricket, with Pat Cummins and Josh Hazelwood rested, NSW still brushes up well..

    NSW Blues squad: Peter Nevill (C), David Warner, Steve Smith, Nathan Lyon, Mitchell Starc, Sean Abbott, Harry Conway, Trent Copeland, Moises Henriques, Daniel Hughes, Nick Larkin, Stephen O’Keefe, Kurtis Patterson

  14. sprocket_ says:
    Tuesday, October 15, 2019 at 8:57 pm
    So where would Dotard flee to? North Korea? Russia? Turkey?

    I reckon the Saudis have a nice condo ready for the exile.

    ______________________________

    They have form. That’s where Idi Amin went.

  15. The dioceses of Sydney is the most conservative Anglican church in the world, formerly led by Peter Jensen. But whereas the Catholic Church must abide by papal decree, aka as Bull, Anglicans are permitted to do their own thing, from dioceses to dioceses. Not that I have much knowledge in this area.

  16. https://www.pollbludger.net/2019/10/10/sins-of-commission/comment-page-43/#comment-3270312

    The Commonwealth can levy parking levies and land vacancy taxes but its taxation power is limited (51(ii) “taxation; but so as not to discriminate between States or parts of States;” https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Commonwealth_of_Australia_Constitution_Act) and so they would have to be uniform across the Australian states and that would mess with these taxes.

  18. Steve777:

    [‘Or maybe less. Just a nasty authoritarian bully who lacks the redeeming qualities of intelligence or basic competence.’]

    Please stop being so hard on this misunderstood young man. He has a heart, though it would take surgery to find it. I salute the next prime minister.

  19. “Pavement said 3,000 million megalitres was being used for flows.”

    That’s about 3 cubic kilometres of water. It would cover an area of 10,000 square km to a depth of about 30 cm, equivalent to the amount of annual rainfall on a large cattle station in the outback.

    Again, the questions. How much evaporates? Over what time period does this alleged environmental flow happen? What is it as a fraction of water directed to irrigation, especially on large cotton stations before it gets to any river? Etc etc…

    Presumably no one asked. .

  24. BW

    Say 40 metric tons to the truckload.

    The repeated passage of which might also seriously test many country roads.

    ––––––––––––––––––––

    Confessions @ #2149 Tuesday, October 15th, 2019 – 7:06 pm

    One ex Republican columnist has posited a deal brokered with Pence whereby Trump is given the option of resign or be convicted, Pence becomes President, but agrees not to run next year, paving the way for Romney or Kasich to wrest the party back from the crazies.

    Except they can’t offer Trump pardons for state crimes. My understanding is that those crimes alone are enough to put Trump in jail for what remains of his life and strip him of his wealth, with a similar fate quite possibly awaiting some of his adult children too.

    Can’t see Trump going for that at all. He cannot survive without the legal immunity of the presidency. He will flee the country rather than resign, or face senate conviction, and loss of those protections.

    Steve777 @ #2157 Tuesday, October 15th, 2019 – 7:23 pm

    “Trump’s only other option is to flee the country – which is the outcome I put my money on.”

    Trump wouldn’t be the first Head of State to take that option: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alberto_Fujimori

    Fujimori tried to resign by Fax. Trump would resign by Tweet once he was safely in his asylum country (appropriate designation).

    Or Trump may simply never formally resign, instead just declaring he was robbed by a deep state coup, and ordering his loyal cult herd back at home to rise up and sacrifice themselves for his glory.

    How that would pan out is anybody’s guess. Could be nasty, could be a humiliating fizzer.

    sprocket_ @ #2160 Tuesday, October 15th, 2019 – 7:27 pm

    So where would Dotard flee to? North Korea? Russia? Turkey?

    I reckon the Saudis have a nice condo ready for the exile.

    Confessions @ #2165 Tuesday, October 15th, 2019 – 7:34 pm

    Trump would flee to Israel, surely.

    Not if the Israelis wished to have good relations with the post-Trump USA.

    His options for safe haven are limited indeed. Very few countries could safely defy the USA on this.

  25. Is there any bludger who is with me when I say we’d be better off as a nation of citizens charged with the custody of a whole frigging continent if we had about 10,000,000 less things walking around saying moo (and I’m talking about the four legged bovine, not feckless two legged LNP voters and such), removed all of Black Jack McEwans dams and weirs, dozed about half of the artificial river banks that date from the 1830s and allowing the MD Basin the long soak it’s been missing for two centuries, planted about 10 billion trees in the basin and simply focused on feeding our present population rather than gorging an emerging middle class overseas with wagyu quality beef stakes?

    Too radical?

    No, it would be appropriate for Australia to organize its food production exclusively around the domestic market. The export industries are not ecologically sustainable.

  28. Except they can’t offer Trump pardons for state crimes.

    In the hypothetical, never-Trump Republican columnist’s scenario she envisaged getting Trump out of the presidency in order to save the party. I don’t think she cared what happened to him post president, even if that meant he was arrested and charged with the multitude of crimes he’s already allegedly amassed.

    She was thinking purely political from the standpoint of McConnell, who would rather gnaw off his own arm than lose his Senate majority. The options for him if the GOP Senate majority is genuinely threatened next year are to either convict Trump in the Senate if he’s impeached, or a deal brokered with Pence et al where Trump resigns and Pence assumes a caretaker Presidential role, standing aside for a Republican challenger in the elections next year.

  29. Dutton’s still as mad as hell by being usurped by Morrison. As a lad, his mother told him he’s special. He sees Morrison as a johnny-come-lately. That he got the math wrong is no deterrent. One hates to speculate over the leadership of the Tory Party, but maybe – just maybe – Labor should indulge in the game. I’m sure you’d agree, mundo, others.

  31. A_E,

    In sum, I’ve spent more than three years of my life on Straddie. Shut the hell up and tell no one else about it.

    Capisce?

  32. Mavis @ #2167 Tuesday, October 15th, 2019 – 6:09 pm

    The dioceses of Sydney is the most conservative Anglican church in the world, formerly led by Peter Jensen. But whereas the Catholic Church must abide by papal decree, aka as Bull, Anglicans are permitted to do their own thing, from dioceses to dioceses. Not that I have much knowledge in this area.

    I have no knowledge in the area either. But I still question whether churches would be happy to see members leave much less send them packing themselves because of some arcane and outdated doctrine.

  33. Cat
    I have so much enjoyed your erudite posts. It pisses me off to the nth degree your situation. I will be feeding it in to my family member who is in the senate if labor ever gets back in. If only we were like the Scandinavian countries and not such a red neck uncaring country.

  35. Glad you could work it out Steve777.
    I got the impression she was just tossing out a number that sounded ginormous to further enrage 7 viewers while the big boofy bloke with her choked back tears.
    Then those bloody Victorians and South Australians wanted their cut too. It was all unfair. The outragometer was off the charts.
    I’m guessing they filmed not on the Murray but an offshoot with stands of red gums. The water was high but I’m guessing if it wasn’t then the trees wouldn’t have gotten their flush.

  36. Andrew E
    It is not only you skeptical about the myth of the noble bush cow cockie. I know of one land use study that found the best use for the whole of Cape York was to buy back the cattle stations and turn the place into a big national park, with the Aboriginal communities paid to act as rangers. The agricultural uses did not even pay for the maintenance of the road. The grey nomads passing through were a bigger industry. I have personally been involved in several studies of remote rural areas that reached similar conclusions in almost every case. Nobody has the heart to tell people on marginal country that farming it is a fool’s errand. In my experience many of them could not cope psychologically with life in a city. They need the remoteness. So we subsidise them and give them water allocations that would be better off used elsewhere. It is madness, and some degree of madness is common in those who do it.

  37. “ And the things you see just walking down the beach during Island Vibe are spectacular. ”

    That’s next week and I’ll be gone from the island for a few months. Alas.

    I hear you Dandy, but how good is the ice cream? And the strong straddie women running it, and the organic vege store and cafe next to it!

  38. Speaking of self delusion, did anyone else see the reporting of the Telstra Chair’s comments on executive pay today?
    “ Speaking at the telco’s annual general meeting in Sydney on Tuesday, Mullen warned that talented executives might shy away from running Australia’s biggest companies because of criticism of pay….

    But he said that while talented business people once aspired to run big firms, they might now think twice.”

    The poor chap. Telstra profits have halved since 2015 and 2016 yet the CEO Penn’s pay has gone UP to $5 million. Ten times a High Court judge’s pay for making corporate earnings go backwards. I doubt that will deter applicants.

  39. A_E,

    I’m trying to work out how to use my university work at UQ to get me over there, often. And Heron Is too. The last big project got me four trips to Bruny.

    So far I’ve only lined up a trip to Warwick, via Gatton.

  40. Confessions:

    [‘I have no knowledge in the area either. But I still question whether churches would be happy to see members leave much less send them packing themselves because of some arcane and outdated doctrine.’]

    Both the Catholic and Anglican churches will remain resolute until the tithes peter out. Now, it’s all about funding the many who were sexually, physically, mentally abused.

  41. Dandy Murray:

    [‘I’m trying to work out how to use my university work at UQ to get me over there, often.’]

    I’m most happy with the knowledge that you’re a UQ graduate.

  42. “ It is not only you skeptical about the myth of the noble bush cow cockie. I know of one land use study that found the best use for the whole of Cape York was to buy back the cattle stations and turn the place into a big national park, with the Aboriginal communities paid to act as rangers. The agricultural uses did not even pay for the maintenance of the road. The grey nomads passing through were a bigger industry. I have personally been involved in several studies of remote rural areas that reached similar conclusions in almost every case. Nobody has the heart to tell people on marginal country that farming it is a fool’s errand. In my experience many of them could not cope psychologically with life in a city. They need the remoteness. So we subsidise them and give them water allocations that would be better off used elsewhere. It is madness, and some degree of madness is common in those who do it.”

    _________________________

    Socrates, but surely the Farmer’s son Alan Jones will tell it like it is?

    OK, maybe not. But amongst our journalistic lions at Fairfax, News and the ABC one hero will rise up for a spot of truth telling. Surely, one courageous soul exists in the MSM?

    …

    Shit, who am I kidding.

    How good is ScoMo is today’s watch word. That and ‘Labor. Boo’.

  44. Dandy Murray:

    [‘And now I work there too, which is what I meant. There was a good 15 year gap between the two as well.’]

    Good on you, cobber. I’ve got a nephew at UQ? No, I wouldn’t even consider it (?).

  46. Lars Von Trier says:
    Tuesday, October 15, 2019 at 8:30 pm
    https://www.sbs.com.au/news/survey-finds-labor-voters-back-welfare-drug-testing-despite-party-s-opposition

    It’s pretty clear Labor will end up supporting the testing. Read and ye shall understand!

    That survey bothers me.
    It was for the Daily Tele, not exactly a disinterested party.

    What was the wording of the question? Was there a preamble “explaining” context?

    It is a simple process to get the result you desire by setting up the questions within a biased context.

  49. GG and I have little in common save for his insistence of keeping it short, witty. I mean to say, at school, I had difficulty with writing a paragraph let alone a quasi thesis – no names…?

Comments Page 44 of 45
1 … 43 44 45

Leave a Reply

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