By-election watch:
• In her column in The Australian yesterday ($), Niki Savva wrote that unspecified Labor MPs were convinced Mike Kelly would “be gone by Christmas and that his resignation could be the trigger for others such as Mark Dreyfus and Brendan O’Connor”. This raises the prospect of by-elections for, respectively, the famously marginal south-eastern New South Wales seat of Eden-Monaro (Labor margin 0.8%), the Melbourne bayside seat of Isaacs (6.4%) and the western Melbourne Labor stronghold of Gorton (15.4%). Savva also canvasses the prospect, noted here last week, of Eden-Monaro being contested for the Nationals by state party leader John Barilaro, who holds the corresponding seat of Monaro and is said to hanker for the federal leadership.
• A move to federal politics, successful or otherwise, by John Barilaro would also require a state by-election in Monaro. Labor held the seat from 2003 to 2011, and Barilaro eked out only modest wins in 2011 and 2015, before a 9.1% swing blew the margin out to 11.6% in March. That could just be the beginning of things on New South Wales by-election front – as Andrew Clennell of The Australian ($) reported yesterday, John Sidoti’s difficulties at the Independent Commission Against Corruption are likely to result in a vacancy in the safe Liberal seat of Drummoyne (margin 15.0%), and there are suggestions Labor MP Nick Lalich “might want to retire early” from his safe seat of Cabramatta (margin 25.5% against Liberal, 12.9% against independent Dai Le). There were also said to be rumours an unspecified Liberal MP was “suffering an illness”.
Latest from the event-packed preliminaries to the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters’ inquiry into the federal election:
• A submission from the Australian Electoral Commission has raised the possibility that counting of pre-poll votes might begin before the 6pm close of polls on election day. This would address the growing issue of election night being a two-stage affair in which most of the election day booths are done counting by 9pm, while the larger pre-poll voting centres can be delayed by several hours beyond that.
• A submission from the Liberal Party has called for the number of pre-poll voting centres to be reduced ($), and the pre-polling period to be cut from three weeks to two. Labor’s submission has also noted a three-week period places “significant pressure on political parties’ ability to provide booth workers”.
• GetUp! remains in the sights of the Liberal Party, and indeed much of the conservative end of the news media, with the Liberals aggrieved that the organisation has escaped classification as an associated entity of the ALP, despite it targeting exclusively Coalition members.
• Labor is correspondingly unhappy with the Australian Electoral Commission’s determination that the Liberal election day advertising that has prompted the challenges to the Chisholm and Kooyong results is beyond the reach of the section of the Electoral Act dealing with “misleading or deceptive publications”.
• The Greens want political truth-in-advertising laws adjudicated by an independent body, campaign spending caps and fixed three-year terms.
• A submission from Facebook has sought to address Labor complaints that the service was used to disseminate misinformation about Labor’s plan for a “death tax” by saying “thousands of posts” making such claims were demoted to give them less prominence in their news feeds, thanks to the work of its “third-party fact checkers”. It also claims to have shut down two accounts for spreading fake news, without providing any further detail.
I’m celebrating the closure & that I never climbed Uluru.
A-E
Lar’s point never varies. Ever. It is to get Labor folk to defend Labor. Each and every time.
The way to deal with Lar’s point is quite simple: ignore Lars each and every time.
Instead, talk about Taylor or Morrison or McKenzie or Canavan or Joyce or Abbott or Wyatt or any of the other Lar’s mate scoundrels who are wrecking the joint.
‘lizzie says:
Saturday, October 26, 2019 at 6:35 pm
BK and Boerwar
There was some talk of extra firebombing aircraft needed, but the govt reluctant to spend the money.’
Did you mean water bombing? Fire bombing is what the RAF did over Germany in places like Hamburg.
In any case, expensive stuff. I don’t know about the trade offs involved.
mh
It is a long time ago now but my last three goes on the climb involved one dog retrieval, one corpse removal, and one successful rescue.
mikehilliard @ #451 Saturday, October 26th, 2019 – 4:19 pm
I’m proud I’ve never climbed.
I once attended a public lecture by a marine biologist. She had a powerpoint slide from the 70s of people at some festival event riding turtles in a race. Complete with the rope harness rigged up to the turtle and a person standing on it racing. For shits and giggles two turtles would be used, one per foot, and how amusement when one turtle went faster than the other. The point of this slide was to show how attitudes towards marine life change over time.
I reckon this is how climbing Uluru will come to be seen. We’ll look back on photos of people crawling all over the rock and cringe at how uneducated we all were ‘back then’. Just like the audience reaction to the turtle rides.
One problem with relying on volunteers is free riders.
These include:
1. People who just look after their own properties during a fire.
2. People who do not prepare their properties for fire.
3. People who do not insure or who underinsure.
4. People who build properties in extremely high-risk locations.
Confessions says:
I’m proud I’ve never climbed.
______________________
Mission accomplished then. If it didn’t make some white people feel good about themselves it probably would never have been closed.
Lol. The Central Coast has a new Labor Mayor. Guess where she grew up?
Mount Druitt. 🙂
nath
That is an interesting point.
At the end of the day the responsible legal entity for happens on national parks management by the Commonwealth Government is the Federal Government under the EPBC Act.
The Prime Minister has a question to answer.
I am sure that Morrison’s arrogant and totalitarian answer will be something like ‘That is on on-sandstone matter.’
Boerwar
Yes I meant water bombing aircraft. Tired brain after a long conversation with a relative.
Lizzie
I enjoyed the lapse.
There is a direct line to be drawn between Angus Taylor’s attempt to embarrass the Sydney lord mayor and Trumps attempt to shake down the Ukraine. Both involve right wing politicians caught out by their own right wing propaganda-fake news. Labor quite rightly want to find the source of the falsified document and prosecute because this is their only defense against fake news. Being divorced from reality has been a very powerful position for the right for a long time now, but will not end well.
taylormade @ #446 Saturday, October 26th, 2019 – 7:03 pm
They can.
The best thing to happen was the old CFA management losing their power. Incompetent power trippers.
What I find most amusing is that it was the Coalition that pushed for the metadata laws. Now I hope they end up hoist by their own petard. 🙂
Boerwar @ #452 Saturday, October 26th, 2019 – 7:28 pm
It’s just so deflating watching Labor fall in behind them time and time again instead of fighting the LibNat agenda.
C@tmomma @ #464 Saturday, October 26th, 2019 – 7:19 pm
Wait until they push for the GigaData laws. 😉
Right-wing politicians push lies and disinformation because they have no good story to tell and they have to hide their true agenda.
The evasive skills of these rugby union players is terrible. Messi could run around them dribbling a ball.
Late Riser @ #466 Saturday, October 26th, 2019 – 8:33 pm
I hope we get a giggle out of that! 😉
“A-E
Lar’s point never varies. Ever. It is to get Labor folk to defend Labor. Each and every time.
The way to deal with Lar’s point is quite simple: ignore Lars each and every time.
Instead, talk about Taylor or Morrison or McKenzie or Canavan or Joyce or Abbott or Wyatt or any of the other Lar’s mate scoundrels who are wrecking the joint.‘
———————
@Boer: I’m actually merely trying to decipher what point Lars is attempting to make.
He clearly doesn’t understand Sydney at all. It’s a stupid idea driving the family from the burbs to Manly on a weekend, regardless of cost (I assume that Lars is trying to make some cost of living point relating to motorway tolls, but who the fuck actually knows) or time because to do so would be inflict oneself and family to the aggravation of Sydney traffic, whilst simultaneously depriving your family of one of the greatest public transport journeys in the world: a train trip to town and a ferry ride to Manly.
If Lars knew anything about Sydney, the burbs and the beaches (the worlds best collection of city surf becahes) then there is no way in fuck you’d drive to Manly from Mount Druitt or any of the western suburbs. If you wanted to drive the family to the beach from mount druitt you’d drive up Ryde Rd-Mona Vale Rd and take your pick from any of the following: Dee Why, Long Reef, Collaroy, Narrabeen, Warriwood, Avalon etc etc. Oh, if you did undertake such a trip the only tolls you’d pay would be the ones levied by motorways approved by Liberals. In this case the M2 toll to Ryde Rd.
If you lived say at Bankstown and wanted to drive to the beach then you’d aim for either the deserted beaches in the National Park, or risk the white bread bogans at Cronulla-Wanda. There re no tollways on that journey. …
@Boer: I’m actually merely trying to decipher what point Lars is attempting to make.
He clearly doesn’t understand Sydney at all.
It’s hard to understand Sydney from a bunker in Russia. 🙂
Interesting to hear Mark Shields on PBS say that the Democrats are still casting around for a candidate that could win the 260 counties that Barack Obama won twice and Trump won once, and they keep coming back to Michelle Obama.
Who’s coaching these mugs – Angus Taylor?
“If you lived say at Bankstown and wanted to drive to the beach then you’d aim for either the deserted beaches in the National Park, or risk the white bread bogans at Cronulla-Wanda”
You get the train from Bankstown station, change at Sydenham for a train to Cronulla, walk a couple of hundred metres to the beach, like I did in the 60s. I subsequently found out that when I saw the movie “Puberty Blues” that the local bogans called us train blowins “dickheads”.
“ Who’s coaching these mugs – Angus Taylor?”
Taylor has evaded a few tackles but I can’t see him scoring a try. Can’t offload the ball well enough.
“You get the train from Bankstown station, change at Sydenham for a train to Cronulla, walk a couple of hundred metres to the beach, like I did in the 60s. I subsequently found out that when I saw the movie “Puberty Blues” that the local bogans called us train blowins “dickheads”.‘
Yep. That option too. Sydney is blest by the fact that the three most iconic surf beaches – Manly, Bondi and Cronulla are all pretty well served by public transport links with the rest of the city.
There are a lot of shit things about Sydney transport, including a bunch of mistakes that labor has made over the years, but Lars is barking up the wrong tree on the hypothetical family trip to the beach on a summer weekend.
Diog, if you are still here, our neighbour with the stubbed toe has come within a bee’s ball of losing her leg, and still might.
We visited her today.
She has an open wound in her groin that is used to enable some kind of suction tube (attached to an impressive and expensive looking machine at the foot of her bed) to clear the clots that are forming in a leg artery, apparently continuously. The open wound is stuffed full of sterile wadding in-between draining sessions.
She is in a room all by herself which is swabbed out with disinfectant twice daily. Everyone who goes in has to wear gloves and a mask, and must wash their arms with alcohol before entering. Even the chairs we sat on were disinfected before we could use them.
Apparently she has had some calf muscle removed, as it was far too blood starved to be retained. She still has her foot, four and a half toes and her leg. But no-one is giving any guarantees anymore.
She is cheerful, and (typically) feisty. She is getting royal treatment at last, but if anyone crosses her, especially if it involves what she regards as skimping on pain relief, they cop it. Ever more senior managers and medicos have been “dropping in” to see how she’s going. It’d be funny if it wasn’t so bloody tragic.
Steve777
Everyone not from the shire was a ‘Bankie’ – I remember being somewhat miffed being called a Bankie at Cronulla beach, as we were from Beverly Hills.
I suspect Lars has never been on public transport, being dropped off at his private schools by mum in a Porsche or Merc SUV – and having his own car given to him by daddy for his 18th birthday.
Don’t remember calling anyone a Bankie sprocket_. Just plain old Bankstowner. 🙂
Hope you didn’t wear a yellow t-shirt.
“She is cheerful, and (typically) feisty. “
That’s got to be a good sign.
Sat night question.
Westies to ever to become world surfing champion ? No googling.
“I suspect Lars has never been on public transport, being dropped off at his private schools by mum in a Porsche or Merc SUV – and having his own car given to him by daddy for his 18th birthday.”
True, but more telling is Edwina’s basic ignorance of Sydney generally. On par with my admitted ignorance of all things Melbourne. Well, I know the basics, but not it’s pulse.
“Westies to ever to become world surfing champion ?”
Barton Lynch and Mick Fanning.
The good thing about Melbourne is that being on a fairly flat featureless plain by a bay with no surf, everyone is pretty much in a similar position.
“I remember being somewhat miffed being called a Bankie at Cronulla beach, as we were from Beverly Hills.”
Shire people wouldn’t be able to tell, especially if you arrived by train. Get on at Beverly Hills station, change at Sydenham for Cronulla.
I spent December 2, 1972 on Cronulla. Had my last Uni exam the previous day, voted for the first time that morning (for the young local member Paul Keating), then got the train to Cronulla to meet up with friends. Good times.
“The good thing about Melbourne is that being on a fairly flat featureless plain by a bay with no surf, everyone is pretty much in a similar position.”
We have that too. Botany Bay and it’s surrounds.
But chin up. The Dandenong ranges, and the close proximity to the southern Alps, the Grampians, the Great Ocean road etc etc is terrific.
Andrew_Earlwood
Well done.
No yellow t-shirts, but the flannelette shirt was probably a giveaway – as was the black hair (non bleached). And we didn’t go to South Cronulla with the true dickheads, but to the much cooler Eloura.
No one went to Elouera.
Wanda was the go. North Cronulla at a pinch. I was a nipper there.
If you were a surfie then Green Hills or The Point.
Speaking of dickheads, Rudy Guliani is prone to ‘butt calls’ – here are some examples..
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/rudy-giuliani-butt-dials-nbc-reporter-heard-discussing-need-cash-n1071901
I did the Puberty Blues thing for a year or so at Elouera Beach. Got bored. Sitting on the beach all day playing your transistor radio until the batteries went flat and then going for a pash with your boyfriend in the sand dunes afterwards had its limits as far as entertainment went.
sprocket_
says:
Saturday, October 26, 2019 at 9:49 pm
No yellow t-shirts, but the flannelette shirt was probably a giveaway – as was the black hair (non bleached)
_________________________
I now have a good mental picture of sprocket. Black hair, flanny shirt. Beverley Hills……This guy is probably too good looking though:
As a teenager-twenty two in the sixties, we spent our summer times going from Wentworthville to the northern beaches – Avalon. Avoca, Whale Beach or to the south at the National Park beaches, sometimes stopping to have a swim in the weir, at the Woronora River near the highway. We did not go to Manly. Although I did skip work a couple of times, catching a train to Circular Quay and then the Manly Ferry to Manly. I remember once standing at the worksite of the Sydney Opera House when it was still only a hole in the ground. Ahhhh my most enjoyable teenage years.
Aqua, yes Wanda was a bit far to walk – and then there was the fabled Voodoo.
Were nippers regarded as Clubbies?
BB
That sounds extremely serious and extremely unlucky. At least it isn’t life threatening anymore but she’s got a long road ahead.
I go to an annual catch up with guys from school. Most are fine but even I get shocked by some of the racist crap that a couple carry on with.
We moved out back in the nineties. Couldn’t afford to buy.
Not only did we move out. We grew up.
C@t, we used to wag school sometimes and go to Eloura to try to chat up the girls also wagging there.
With not much success I might add (I did look a bit like Clampett the Younger 🙂
Perhaps I should start detailing the medical troubles of my neighbours. Seems to go down well.
Clubbies. Not sure about the term. Lifesaver? I liked the beach but wasn’t obsessed like the surfie. They’d go for a surf every morning before school. Usually arrived at school still dripping.