The heat is on

An issues poll finds concern about climate change up since the May federal election, and national security down.

One sort-of-poll, and three items of Liberal preselection news:

• The latest results of the JWS Research True Issues survey records growing concern about the environment and climate change, which is now rated among the top five most important issues by 38% of respondents, compared with 33% in June and 31% a year ago. There is diminishing concern about immigration and border security (26%, down from 30% in June and 34% last November and defence, security and terrorism (18%, down from 20% in June and 29% a year ago). A range of measures of general optimism and perceptions of government performance produced weaker results than the June survey, which appeared to record a post-election spike in positive sentiment.

• Jim Molan will shortly return to the Senate after winning a party vote last weekend to fill the New South Wales Senate vacancy caused by Arthur Sinodinos’s resignation. Molan scored 321 votes to 260 for former state party director Richard Shields, adding a second silver medal to his collection after being shaded by Dave Sharma in Wentworth last year. This was despite Molan’s attempt to retain his seat from number four on the ticket at the May election by beseeching supporters to vote for him below the line, to the displeasure of some in the party (and still more of the Nationals, who would have been the losers if Molan had succeeded). Molan was reportedly able to secure moderate faction support due to the apprehension that he will not seek another term beyond the next election.

• The Victorian Liberal Party is embroiled in a dispute over a plan for preselection proceedings for the next federal election to start as soon as January, which has been endorsed by the party’s administrative committee but is bitterly opposed by affected federal MPs. The committee is determined not to see a repeat of the previous term, when preselections were taken out of the hands of branch members to head off a number of challenges to sitting members. Those challenges might now come to fruition, most notably a threat to Howard government veteran Kevin Andrews, whose seat of Menzies is of interest to Keith Wolahan, a barrister and former army officer. Tim Wilson in Goldstein and Russell Broadbent in Monash (formerly McMillan) have also been mentioned as potential targets. According to Rob Harris of The Age, votes in Liberal-held seats could happen as soon as late February, with marginal seats to unfold from April to August and Labor-held seats to be taken care of in October.

• Matthew Denholm of The Australian ($) reports Eric Abetz and his conservative supporters believe they have seen off a threat to his position at the top of the Liberals’ Tasmanian Senate ticket, following elections for the state party’s preselection committee. Abetz’s opponents believed he should make way for rising star Jonathan Duniam to head the ticket, and for the secure second seat to go to Wendy Askew, one of the Tasmanian Liberals’ limited retinue of women MPs.

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.

2,475 comments on “The heat is on”

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  1. “The PM was wrong to put the exigency of a partisan urge to protect his MP ahead of the higher need to protect his country.”

    The public scrutiny of the purported affiliations of the new Liberal MP, Gladys Liu, who was elected at the May federal poll, also shows a new level of intensity. The media and the Labor opposition demanded to know about the various Chinese community associations listing her as a patron or member. She disavowed them, saying she wasn’t aware that they’d claimed her support. As uncomfortable as this was for Liu, it was an illustration of the heightened vigilance about potential covert foreign interference in Australian politics. Liu’s extraordinary success as a fundraiser – more than $1 million by her own account, before she’d even been elected to parliament – remains to be probed.

    Prime Minister Scott Morrison, in a desperate effort to protect his new MP, accused the opposition of racism. This is a favoured tactic of Beijing. Any scrutiny of Chinese activity is “racist”. Morrison should have resisted the urge to do Beijing’s work for it. Australia’s former race discrimination commissioner, Tim Soutphommasane, didn’t think it was racist to scrutinise Gladys Liu. “Questioning by Labor and the crossbench members of Parliament on this is legitimate and reasonable,” he said.

    At the same time, the NSW Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) inquired into NSW Labor MP Ernest Wong, discovering uncomfortable allegations that he broke the law to conceal illegal donations from Huang Xiangmo. Morrison did not accuse the ICAC of racism in pursuing a Labor MP. The PM was wrong to put the exigency of a partisan urge to protect his MP ahead of the higher need to protect his country.

    https://www.theage.com.au/national/peter-hartcher-on-china-s-infiltration-of-australia-20191118-p53bly.html?et_cid=29209116&et_rid=1925890629&Channel=Email&EmailTypeCode=&LinkName=Good+Weekend+Read+More&Email_name=Weekend+Insight+-+Melbourne+22.11.2019&Day_Sent=22112019

  5. The Greens precursors in the interwar years were the extreme left who wanted to disarm the democracies. The partly succeeded.

    But they had the good sense to go to ground when Hitler, Mussolini, Franco and Tojo went on the rampage.

    But they’re back. Same fools. Same justifications.

    Their false premise is that Australia will never ever again face a substantive security risk.

  6. White House backs full Senate trial if House impeaches Trump

    https://www.politico.com/news/2019/11/21/white-house-backs-full-senate-trial-if-house-impeaches-trump-072578

    I can see where this is going.

    Witnesses are called and cross-examined according to protocols and timelines adopted by the Senate just before the trial begins on a majority vote.

    http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2019/11/trumps-potential-senate-impeachment-trial-what-we-know.html

  8. On turgid books people had to study at school, of mice and men should be up there. I point blank refused to read it in year 8 English. The teacher who was a fantastic bloke said wtte of “fair enough, you choose a book and write an essay on that and it better be good.” Must of been a reasonable effort as I received a credit for the essay. I wasn’t the only one that jacked up about the book either, most of the class hated it.

  9. There were other Greens-like ‘contributions’ to informed security debates during the Interwar Years.

    One was based around the observation that since the statistics showed that pilots lasted between 30-80 hours in a real war, why build planes to last any longer?

    What a hoot?

    Of course when Australian pilots went up against the Japanese in Australia’s cheap second rate aircraft they died like flies – their fates sealed not by their courage or by their skill but by parsimony in the Interwar Years.

  12. The funeral giant InvoCare has been accused of charging fees for no service and gouging hundreds of dollars from bereaved Australian families.

    The listed company, which operates the high-profile brands White Lady Funerals and Simplicity Funerals, has been challenged over its practice of adding an “unnecessary” $352 late fee to all its bills.
    …
    Choice has lodged a complaint with the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission.

    InvoCare, which also operates a pet cremation business, posted a net profit of more than $40m for the half-year ended 30 June.

    https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2019/nov/22/white-lady-funerals-operator-invocare-accused-of-gouging-grieving-families?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Tweet

  13. On turgid books people had to study at school, of mice and men should be up there.

    Read it as an adult. Hated it.

    I wonder whether today’s kids actually read any books at all – print or ebook.

    They certainly do in primary school.

  14. I would have written a review of that famous story about the rich white girl that got caught up is a cross state prostitution ring and ended up the love slave of a clan of miners.

    There was a Movie about it.

    Snow White.

  16. Boerwar @ #1928 Friday, November 22nd, 2019 – 1:14 pm

    Z
    haha. Good one. I am related by marriage to a chap who did his PhD on ‘Ulysses’. At dinner one evening I made the mistake of asking him what all the fuss was about…

    All I can say is that you were damn lucky not to ask about ‘Finnegans Wake’.

    –––––––––––––––

    imacca @ #1931 Friday, November 22nd, 2019 – 1:20 pm

    “and it was a Liberal PM and Government that made the extremely high risk decision to carry out the operation.”

    After Howard putting it off long enough for many East Timorese to be killed and wounded. Full credit to the troops who went in. Less to the PM of the day who was and is a nasty little bastard deserving of very little in the way of respect.

    Howard and Downer were quite prepared to leave the East Timorese to a particularly gruesome fate, and had to be dragged kicking and screaming into action by the Australian public, and world pressure.

  17. In fact, there has never been such a wide variety of books written for children of various ages. Maybe due to Harry Potter?

  18. ‘JM says:
    Friday, November 22, 2019 at 3:40 pm

    Boerwar @ #1928 Friday, November 22nd, 2019 – 1:14 pm

    Z
    haha. Good one. I am related by marriage to a chap who did his PhD on ‘Ulysses’. At dinner one evening I made the mistake of asking him what all the fuss was about…

    All I can say is that you were damn lucky not to ask about ‘Finnegans Wake’.’

    I did like ‘Portrait of an Artist as a Young Man’ being a catholic school boy in an Irish culture boarding school, and all that. The rhythms come back more than half a century after the first read: ‘Canker is a disease of plants Cancer one of animals’.

    This came back to me when a rather rthymic biopsy result was delivered to me a couple of months ago:

    ‘Invasive shallow squamous cell carcinoma.’

  21. Boerwar says: Friday, November 22, 2019 at 3:23 pm

    Their false premise is that Australia will never ever again face a substantive security risk.

    ***********************************************************

    I think sometime – in the hopefully not near future – China will dominate/own the Pacific and all in it …

  24. I loved reading as a kid, still do. I think there must be a list of books for English teacher’s to choose from specifically to turn kids off reading and literature in general. At least it seemed like that when I was at school

  25. ‘phoenixRED says:
    Friday, November 22, 2019 at 3:49 pm

    Boerwar says: Friday, November 22, 2019 at 3:23 pm

    Their false premise is that Australia will never ever again face a substantive security risk.

    ***********************************************************

    I think sometime – in the hopefully not near future – China will dominate/own the Pacific and all in it …’

    Going back a couple of millenia, one way of thinking about Australia is that we lie between India and China and that hard and soft power between the two has waxed and waned over the centuries.

  26. ‘Simon Katich says:
    Friday, November 22, 2019 at 3:50 pm

    BW. gender correlation?’

    Bad population to sample: 7 boys v 2 girls but five of the 7 boys are right into it and two who are too young to read are avid listeners.

  27. Boerwar @ #1968 Friday, November 22nd, 2019 – 2:16 pm

    I did like ‘Portrait of an Artist as a Young Man’…

    Me too, and ‘Dubliners’ is a great collection of short stories. John Huston’s last film was of the last story, ‘The Dead’. Good film too.

    This came back to me when a rather rthymic biopsy result was delivered to me a couple of months ago:

    ‘Invasive shallow squamous cell carcinoma.’

    All the best with that.

  28. ‘Bert says:
    Friday, November 22, 2019 at 3:51 pm

    I loved reading as a kid, still do. I think there must be a list of books for English teacher’s to choose from specifically to turn kids off reading and literature in general. At least it seemed like that when I was at school’

    The basic ask is impossible. First: choose a random selection of the population with the stipulation that half of them must be girls, half boys and they must all have been born within a year of each other.

    Then choose a single book that all will want to read. Impossible. Yet class texts tend to be a must when the class size is 30-40.

  30. Rex,

    Re-check the parliamentary voting records and you’ll see the same same LibLab theme is fact.

    Why anyone would want to vote again for the major parties given the current state of our society and environment just amazes me.

    ALP with Greens help implemented the Carbon Tax and emissions were declining.
    LIB/LNP axed the Carbon Tax and made other policy change that led to increasing emissions.

    Sure…exactly the same.

  31. How about books you have read and re-read – and still can take another reading

    For me – The Caine Mutiny/The Winds Of War/War and Remembrance – anything by Herman Wouk
    Word Of Honor – and anything written by Nelson DeMille
    To Hell And Back – Audie Murphy
    The Dam Busters/Reach For The Sky/Great Escape – anything by Paul Brickhill

    I liked all of these as movies too 🙂

  32. Just heard that there is supply side issue with fresh milk in Supermarkets.

    Perhaps the 30,000 milkers that have been slaughtered as a result of MDB irrigation dairying being unable to compete with other commodities on water price might have downstream impacts of a different kind.

  35. Mavis

    Looks as if a rich wanker was the only possible friend for Andy. Lady on The Drum last night said she was in the military at the same time as he was and his reputation was just as described in the article.

  36. Boerwar says: Friday, November 22, 2019 at 4:02 pm

    phR
    Wouk is generally worth a reread. The others not so much. But, each to their own.

    *************************************************

    Boerwar – if you can suggest a better book to Nelson DeMille’s “Word Of Honor” please let me know 🙂

    Oh – I forgot “Once An Eagle” – Anton Myrer

    ( “Once an Eagle is simply the best work of fiction on leadership in print.” —General Martin E. Dempsey, 18th Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff )

  38. I’m now re-reading my seventh and eighth grade set texts in English:

    The Chrysalids by John Wyndham
    To Kill a Mockingbird by Nelle Harper Lee (and its spin-off, Go Set a Watchman)

    I don’t believe I was mature enough the appraise either of these texts when I was 13. A few people in my class were, but they were exceptions. I did, however, top my year in English in Year 12. Have any of you read either of them?

  39. I’m struggling to think of a MacBeth experience remotely pleasant. A banquet maybe, perhaps with a ghost, hopefully on the witches day off and Nigella Lawson standing in, and preferably without pyschoactive additives that make the trees move about.

  41. Bad population to sample: 7 boys v 2 girls but five of the 7 boys are right into it and two who are too young to read are avid listeners.

    There are some awesome Audio Books. Mine got right into the How to Train Your Dragon one with some actor with a thick accent that is barely intelligible.

    But I am sure listening to ‘old grumpy’ reading a story would be right up there.

    I enjoyed reading The Faraway Tree to my kids. Dahl was good too. Giving non-fiction a go with Bill Brysons A Short History of Nearly Everything.

    One night my 10yo started spouting A Midsummer Nights Dream. The teacher got some bonus points for that effort.

  43. Boerwar @ #1967 Friday, November 22nd, 2019 – 3:35 pm

    I wonder whether today’s kids actually read any books at all – print or ebook.

    I have one who constantly exhorts me to read more books. Recently he has finished reading all the Michel Houellebecq books, is about halfway through, ‘The Brothers Karamazov’, and a third of the way through, ‘Ulysses’ and ‘The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire’. Last year for Christmas I bought the 6 volumes of ‘A History of Australia’ by Manning Clark, of which he has only read one. He has also read a large number of ‘The Complete Poems’ by William Blake. He is a writer, so I guess it figures. 🙂

  44. SK
    One of the very best things about being a grandfather is reading to kids. They cuddle up. They are wrapt. And, as you pointed out, children’s literature these days is diverse and superb.
    And if you are reading a repeat book, don’t dare get a word out of place!

  45. Anyone else read, and love, the Colditz Story?

    Blow me down if we’re not driving out of Leipzig and there’s a sign to COLDITZ. Because it housed the elite allies POWs, it was spared bombing, so the village and the ‘castle’ are as they were. The castle is now part Art Space, and very much open to POW Tours – with a very funny guide like a German version of Dawn Franch (in every respect) who would say things like – now ze vill be going through ze yard und zer vill be no escaping, I vill be counting!! – as we roamed the barracks, the theatre, the tunnels, the walls, the exercise yards. Really fascinating.

  46. Joshie has been flayed on social media for his latest pronouncement, and it turns out that we all understand the facts better than he does. Backed up by a ‘real’ economist. Can we find a new and better Treasurer?

    Asking older Australians to work for longer won’t help the economy as there aren’t enough jobs to go around.

    That’s the call from leading economist Jim Stanford, who told The New Daily that Treasurer Josh Frydenberg’s push to get Australians working for longer betrayed a misunderstanding of the economic challenges facing the country.

    “The problem we have is a shortage of jobs, not a shortage of people to do the jobs,” Dr Stanford said.

    “Instead of telling older workers that they should stay in the labour market and work until they’re 70, we should be encouraging them to retire by giving them secure and decent pensions.

    “And when they do that, they’ll be helping to make room for young people, who have got skills and energy but can’t find work.”

    https://thenewdaily.com.au/money/work/2019/11/19/frydenberg-older-australians-jobs/

  48. To Kill a Mockingbird by Nelle Harper Lee (and its spin-off, Go Set a Watchman). I don’t believe I was mature enough the appraise either of these texts when I was 13. A few people in my class were, but they were exceptions.

    I was taught, all too late in life, that appraising texts is not all it is cracked up to be. I was a little stunned to be told by a writer that you are actually allowed to enjoy a book purely for its face value story and the quality of its writing. Whatever finer detail and meaning you get out of it is a bonus.

    I am looking forward to Go Set a Watchman.

  49. Boerwar says: Friday, November 22, 2019 at 4:23 pm

    phR
    I suggest ‘The Boer War’ by Thomas Pakenham.
    It is an excellent example of the narrative history form.

    **********************************************

    THANKS Boerwar – I will go through the obvious channels to find a copy – always happy to read a recommendation from someone like minded in military history 🙂

    **** Ordered $ 10 on eBay

  50. Cameron C. @ #1988 Friday, November 22nd, 2019 – 4:10 pm

    I’m now re-reading my seventh and eighth grade set texts in English:

    The Chrysalids by John Wyndham
    To Kill a Mockingbird by Nelle Harper Lee (and its spin-off, Go Set a Watchman)

    I don’t believe I was mature enough the appraise either of these texts when I was 13. A few people in my class were, but they were exceptions. I did, however, top my year in English in Year 12. Have any of you read either of them?

    Loved John Wyndham to whom I was introduced by a future bro-in-law. I too topped English in the Leaving, but it was a Christian Bros Catholic school, so a bit of a low bar.

    If were getting wanky about reading, I’ve just started to revisit Patrick White, and thoroughly recommend ‘A Fringe of Leaves’ – basically the Eliza Frazer story. I couldn’t put it down, compared to couldn’t pick it up of yore. My guide was Christos Tsiolkas who said you need to read every word, carefully, even to the extent of reading it aloud. I’ve just started his Damascus. His writing is abrasive, and aggressive, like Saul I guess.

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