In the wake of Craig Emerson and Jay Weatherill’s federal electoral post-mortem for Labor, two post-election reviews have emerged from the Liberal Party, with very different tales to tell – one from the May 2019 federal triumph, the other from the November 2018 Victorian state disaster.
The first of these was conducted by Arthur Sinodinos and Steven Joyce, the latter being a former cabinet minister and campaign director for the conservative National Party in New Zealand. It seems we only get to see the executive summary and recommendations, the general tenor of which is that, while all concerned are to be congratulated on a job well done, the party benefited from a “poor Labor Party campaign” and shouldn’t get too cocky. Points of interest:
• It would seem the notion of introducing optional preferential voting has caught the fancy of some in the party. The report recommends the party “undertake analytical work to determine the opportunities and risks” – presumably with respect to itself – “before making any decision to request such a change”.
• Perhaps relatedly, the report says the party should work closer with the Nationals to avoid three-cornered contests. These may have handicapped the party in Gilmore, the one seat it lost to Labor in New South Wales outside Victoria.
• The report comes out for voter identification at the polling booth, a dubious notion that nonetheless did no real harm when it briefly operated in Queensland in 2015, and electronic certified lists of voters, which make a lot more sense.
• It is further felt that the parliament might want to look at cutting the pre-poll voting period from three weeks to two, but should keep its hands off the parties’ practice of mailing out postal vote applications. Parliament should also do something about “boorish behaviour around polling booths”, like “limiting the presence of volunteers to those linked with a particular candidate”.
• Hints are offered that Liberals’ pollsters served up dud results from “inner city metropolitan seats”. This probably means Reid in Sydney and Chisholm in Melbourne, both of which went better than they expected, and perhaps reflects difficulties polling the Chinese community. It is further suggested that the party’s polling program should expand from 20 seats to 25.
• Ten to twelve months is about the right length of time out from the election to preselect marginal seat candidates, and safe Labor seats can wait until six months out. This is at odds with the Victorian party’s recent decision to get promptly down to business, even ahead of a looming redistribution, which has been a source of friction between the state and federal party.
• After six of the party’s candidates fell by the wayside during the campaign, largely on account of social media indiscretions (one of which may have cost the Liberals the Tasmanian seat of Lyons), it is suggested that more careful vetting processes might be in order.
The Victorian inquiry was conducted by former state and federal party director Tony Nutt, and is available in apparently unexpurgated form. Notably:
• The party’s tough-on-crime campaign theme, turbo-charged by media reportage of an African gangs crisis, failed to land. Too many saw it as “a political tactic rather than an authentic problem to be solved by initiatives that would help make their neighbourhoods safer”. As if to show that you can’t always believe Peter Dutton, post-election research found the issue influenced the vote of only 6% of respondents, “and then not necessarily to our advantage”.
• As it became evident during the campaign that they were in trouble, the party’s research found the main problem was “a complete lack of knowledge about Matthew Guy, his team and their plans for Victoria if elected”. To the extent that Guy was recognised at all, it was usually on account of “lobster with a mobster”.
• Guy’s poor name recognition made it all the worse that attention was focused on personalities in federal politics, two months after the demise of Malcolm Turnbull. Post-election research found “30% of voters in Victorian electorates that were lost to Labor on the 24th November stated that they could not vote for the Liberal Party because of the removal of Malcolm Turnbull”.
• Amid a flurry of jabs at the Andrews government, for indiscretions said to make the Liberal defeat all the more intolerable, it is occasionally acknowledged tacitly that the government had not made itself an easy target. Voters were said to have been less concerned about “the Red Shirts affair for instance” than “more relevant, personal and compelling factors like delivery of local infrastructure”.
• The report features an exhausting list of recommendations, updated from David Kemp’s similar report in 2015, the first of which is that the party needs to get to work early on a “proper market research-based core strategy”. This reflects the Emerson and Weatherill report, which identified the main problem with the Labor campaign as a “weak strategy”.
• A set of recommendations headed “booth management” complains electoral commissions don’t act when Labor and union campaigners bully their volunteers.
• Without naming names, the report weights in against factional operators and journalists who “see themselves more as players and influencers than as traditional reporters”.
• The report is cagey about i360, described in The Age as “a controversial American voter data machine the party used in recent state elections in Victoria and South Australia”. It was reported to have been abandoned in April “amid a botched rollout and fears sensitive voter information was at risk”, but the report says only that it is in suspension, and recommends a “thorough review”.
• Other recommendations are that the party should write more lists, hold more meetings and find better candidates, and that its shadow ministers should pull their fingers out.
What the all fuck, Jacquie Lambie!?!
The freaking Minister for Health isn’t in any way medically qualified!!!
What’s the deal? Really, really sick people are transported like convicts in shackles to hospital so they don’t threaten ‘national security’!?!
And the crew in charge have proven, time and time again over the last fortnight they don’t give a fig about misleading parliament.
Authoritarians Uber Alles in Australia right now.
“yup that’s my normal thinking also, but the senate setup now is as i explained and if you look at the greens as cross benches, there is a now a possibility of 12, Lambie would still be there as not up for election, ON also….. others might provide a full list, it will be interesting, there is no way i can see the Greens getting more than 9 in a DD? possible but not probable IMHO.”
***
Hanson is up for election next time. Roberts isn’t. Unfortunately, you’d have to say that she has a good chance of getting back in.
Bernardi is retiring. His spot will most likely revert to the Libs. May as well be a Lib vote now anyway so not much changes there.
The two Centre Alliance senators are up for election and will probably go. Good opportunity for the Greens and Labor to both benefit from that and gain one each in SA.
So the cross bench may very well be reduced to just 2 from One Nation, Lambie, and the Greens.
If we can retain our 3 (Di Natale, Whish-Wilson, Siewert), hopefully grab one back from CA/NXT that we used to have (we had 2 in SA from 2015-16 before the Turnbull DD), then manage to fight it out in NSW and QLD and win another 2 (difficult but certainly doable), we’d have 12. There’s even a remote chance at 13 if we could grab the second spot off the Libs in the ACT, but that’s a long shot. Not impossible though.
If the Greens had 12, Labor would only need 27 for a combined majority – a gain of just 1 from the 26 they have now. Grabbing one of those CA spots in SA would do the trick. You’d think there should be some kind of swing from the Libs to Labor next time too if they can get their act together, so they could grab a couple off them too.
FredNK
I truly hope they are not doing pure meth 🙂
AM
Do you know what % of ALP senators are up for re-election this time, and for that matter LIB/NAT?
ajm, I predict the medevac repeal will have precisely zero adverse political impact to the government. The public simply don’t give a crap about suffering refugees/asylum seekers any more.
Also, Pauline Hanson really is despicable.
Everyone knows voting down the Medivac bill has nothing to do with border protection. It’s all about the LNP getting even for loosing face in the HoR. Stuff the fact that innocent people will suffer or possibly die. Shameful day for Australia.
AM,
Sorry meant to also add – because i think they played the DD rules nicely to ensure there was a minimum of their own senators up for re-election last time around??? happy to be corrected as this is only from memory!!!
AJM @ 11:51. “Up till now traditional LNP voters who aren’t monsters may have been able to console themselves…”
You have far too much faith in LNP voters and Australians generally. It’s been abundantly clear for many years mist Australians regard sentencing would-be refugees to indefinite detention on remote islands without any kind of due process and pretty much incommunicado is OK. Most vote for what they have been persuaded is in their wallet’s interest. Some are racist. Some might have a twinge of concern but are persuaded that it is a necessary evil. Others couldn’t give a stuff.
Bizzaro world.
The Medivac legislation simply required the Minister for Home Affairs to stay in his lane:
He decides matters on National Security Grounds and treating qualified doctors decide matters on health grounds.
What the fuck does either of those lanes have to do the Health Minister, for as Jackie Lambie herself belled the cat, the Health Minister sets health policy (and not obviously treat patients).
Anyway another black day for the concept of ‘good government’.
Why bother learning maths…wow, that’s a slippery slope. Why bother learning History? Geography? Science? Art? Phys Ed? Languages? Where do you stop.
By not being exposed to the widest range of subjects you really limiting your future employment, range of interests, comprehension of the society and world you live in. You are entrenching poverty and disadvantage.
Education is not just to provide fodder for Coles shelf stackers. And even they need maths!
Here is a list of Senators, and when their terms expire. A Double Dissolution would possibly disadvantage the Conservative forces.
https://www.aph.gov.au/Senators_and_Members/Senators/Senators_by_service_expiry_date
Douglas and Milko
I like maths for my morning entertainment I am now watching this utube series; one lecture a day.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wUT1huREHJM
And yes it nice when you get to a formula in a book you can work out what it is saying, but not many read that sort of book.
I do wonder if realizing that the Fourier transform is a linear operation (I hope this lecture series gets there) is of much use beyond entertainment.
I see that Firefox still does not get it.
At all.
Government is formed in the House.
BOP in the Senate gets you bupkis.
torchbearer
I think you hit the nail on head; tertiary education widens peoples horizons. I don’ think it matters if it’s maths science or the humanities.
I think Lambie would struggle adding one and one.
There was very little logic in her speech. 🙁
Jacqui Lambie was praised here for opposing the “ensering integrity” legislation and now vilified for letting the Medivac legislation pass. In the latter she is one of 39 or so votes. The vilification should be spread around.
She is what she is. She is not a bad person – her heart is in the right place mostly. She says and does stuff I agree with, other stuff I don’t.
This time she was wrong. She was persuaded – some secret deal which should be revealed but won’t be. I hope that she brought a very long spoon along to negotiations. If I were her I wouldn’t trust the Government to honour any promise made, certainly not in spirit.
\guytaur says:
Wednesday, December 4, 2019 at 11:57 am
FredNK
I truly hope they are not doing pure meth
I gather I got an e (one less than a f) instead of an a
Hilarious way to learn about the British kings and queens –
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=40qOAcz5bUM
Steve777 says:
Wednesday, December 4, 2019 at 12:11 pm
…
, certainly not in spirit.
And certainly not in secret
FredNK,
I had seen this. Thanks for pointing out. I will have a read.
@jeff
Well enough Labor Senators are up for election in 2022, so that Labor can win between 26-31 seats, while the Coalition could win between 32-38 seats. Also, the Greens could have as many as 12 senators (if they can get the same percentage of the vote as in the May election) in 2022 possibly giving them the balance of power or a deadlocked senate.
@Steve777
Jackie Lambie said on Q&A that all Muslims who supported Sharia Law should be deported, in front of Muslim Sudanese Activist Yassmin Abdel-Magied. So I had no doubt she would vote for the Medvac repeal legislation eventually.
I for one wasn’t praising Lambie for voting down the anti union legislation. I reckon she will change her mind. Maybe even this week.
Jeff,
Labor currently has 26 senators, 11 of whom will not be up for election. But that’s complicated by the two gimmes from the NT and ACT. So they have 24 state-senators with 11 not up for re-election.
The coalition has 33 state-senators, 17 not up for re-election.
The coalition and Labor did a deal last DD so that the Liberals got a six year term and the expense of Hinch and Labor got one at the expense of the Greens. Without that deal, the coalition would be needing an extra vote to get things like the medevac repeal through (which they might have got from Hinch anyway, but we’ll never know).
I’ve had no faith in Lambie since (or before actually) she voted down the carbon pricing policy followed by her ridiculous little thumbs up antics for the press. A total idiot.
“BOP in the Senate gets you bupkis.”
lol
Obvious troll is obvious.
D & M,develops your brain in ways that encourage logical thinking. It gives you the power to understand basic facts, and draw logical conclusions – contributing to scientific and technological literacy. And, it gives you enormous power in your daily life and when making long-term investment, and even political decisions.
Got no problem with the virtues of being able to understand maths and its application. But most people get by without it. Why subject them to the process of learning it?
Thanks Sprocket that list is great!
So from what i see the key states would be QLD and SA!
Summary (senators up for re-election):
TAS, VIC and WA i cannot (at this stage) see changing from the status quo!
NSW could as it is 3-3 between Coalition and ALP, but if greens were to pick up a senator it could well be at the expense of an ALP senator? hopefully a lib 🙂
QLD is currently 4-2 in relation to hard right vs left, the greens did very well there last time around – i see this as a pick up for the left, Labor only has to defend 2 seats
SA what a mixture of full crazy! Bernadi gone and really i cant see the CA holding either seat so 3 up for grabs, who knows, but those lucky SA residents can expect a lot of pork barrel thrown at them in the coming years 🙂 $$$$$$$$
Either way here Bernadi is a Lib anyway, and the CA can be swayed so it can only be a net negative for them?
Will be a very interesting Senate result next time around. And yes the greens are getting closer in the ACT each time, but i can t see it for the next election.
A friend of mine asked about her Facebook timeline filling up with a new ‘scandal’ about Penny Wong being the biggest holder of water rights in Australia and not declaring it.
I said WTF? Don’t you mean Angus Taylor? No, Penny Wong.
A little bit of sleuthing showed that Penny Wong as Environment Minister in 2009/10 did buy a lot of water rights from large irrigators on behalf of the government. Not for herself.
So it just goes to show that even a skerrick of barely related facts can be twisted and weaponised as fake news to flood social media.
Lambie is a Lib. Always has been.
PeeBee @ #626 Wednesday, December 4th, 2019 – 12:23 pm
The answer is in your first paragraph. It appears that you may have a deficit in your logical thinking capacity. I suggest that you study some maths.
The next half-senate election in SA will elect 3 Liberal, 2 Labor, 1 Greens. Bet your house on it (unless Xenophon makes an unexpected comeback, which would complicate things).
Labor’s best chance of a gain, relative to last time, is Tasmania. There are precedents for that state electing 3 Labor, 2 Liberal, 1 Greens. It could conceivably happen next time.
Queensland will be difficult. Hanson will be running, and she’s likely to scoop up so many votes that Labor and Greens will be doing well to get three seats between them. But it’s possible, if the coalition vote falls far enough.
Caf, ‘Maths is a much wider field encompassing many other things that are important for everyone, like geometry (eg. the intuition that area scales as the square of length), logic (eg. knowing that if A implies B and B implies C, then A implies C), and linear algebra (eg. the car used 5% of its battery to go the last 20km, so it’ll use about another 20% to go the next 80km to the destination).’
I agree maths helps people in their everyday life, but they don’t have to personally do it themselves. That is what engineers, surveyors, financial advisors, and all sorts of professionals are for. Even supermarkets have made comparison pricing easier by telly you how much each product costs per 100mg.
As for your last example, most modern cars tell you how far you can go before running out of fuel. How easy is that.
I quiet enjoy doing a little maths (spreadsheets and calculators make it easier) and did a regression analysis for a relative the just other day. However, I would be extremely surprised if any bludger has done any meaningful maths in their adult life (unless of course they were a professional that needs it for their work).
Yabba, a bit cryptic, but the failure in logic may be because the first paragraph was not mine.
I do wonder if realizing that the Fourier transform is a linear operation (I hope this lecture series gets there) is of much use beyond entertainment.
Egads, yes! FFT is the basis of all manner of data processing and compression techniques, and linearity is one characteristic allows you to do it really, really fast.
Interesting to see some posters here turning on a dime over Lambie. Last week she was the best thing since sliced bread now the same posters are ripping into her. Whiff of hypocracy perhaps ?
Lambie will do what is best for Lambie. Such is politics. Last week she made the right decision. I acknowledged that at the time and still do. However, the anti union legislation is far from done and dusted and she and or Hanson could roll over very quickly.
That is the reality.
PeeBee,
So they don’t vote for the Coalition when it is directly against their own financial interests to do so.
AM
Would you expect a large jump in the Hanson vote to be at the expense of coalition in QLD?
“Lambie is a Lib. Always has been.”
If Lambie has “always” been a Lib, then what does that say about Labor during the Turnbull era (pictured)?
From NZ:
Jeff,
History shows that splinter parties maximise their vote when their leader is standing (think Xenephon, Harradine, even the Greens when Bob Brown was leader). So ON’s vote will probably rise next time.
It should mostly be at the coalition’s expense, judging by preference flows, but some will come from Labor. We can hope for a further fall in the coalition’s vote directly to Labor, on the basis that they peaked last time, but don’t bank on it.
re: firefox
Your excellent chart explains my earlier comments about SA being a net loss for the coalition regardless of the outcome (unless it is 5-1) in regards to Bernardi and CA
CA have always held Lib values or Lib lite you could call it 🙂
Sorry First Dog, but if I’m going to donate for friends and family for Christmas presents, it won’t be to a for-profit organisation such as the Guardian. As an actual subscriber, I’m more than a little bit disturbed by the constant begging, as if they were a charity. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/dec/04/oh-my-holly-filled-trousers-its-christmas-so-much-shopping-but-wait
“It should mostly be at the coalition’s expense”
And Palmer’s, unless he plans on spending another 50m or whatever it was.
caf @ #3691 Wednesday, December 4th, 2019 – 10:28 am
caf:
A large proportion of the DoD study were antibiotics (like ciprofloxacin left over from the biodefence scams of the noughties), and so “efficacy” is a dubious concept. The nerve counter agents (like atropine) are much more stable, and the esoteric vaccines (like vaccinia) much less stable. One size most definitely does not fit all.
Bottom line: expired agents might work, but can’t be trusted.
Firefox,
True. I’d forgotten about whatsisname. Clive.
sprocket,
I often wonder why Labor and its supporters never want to give Penny Wong full credit for her role in the Rudd Government? Her position was *Minister for Climate Change and Water*.
Boerwar says:
Wednesday, December 4, 2019 at 11:26 am
…”In the scheme of things the Medevac stuff is about nothing real.
It won’t impact the tens of thousands of illegal overstayers/fly in refugees applicants.
It won’t cause a nanosecond’s loss of sleep for a single Indonesian people smuggler.
At most it will delay the medical treatment for Australians on waiting lists”…
Did the legislation, as it stood, have a positive impact on the fundamental human rights of a significant cohort of the Australian government’s political prisoners?
Jackie Lambie is worse than a ‘secret Liberal’ (which I don’t believe she is), rather she is an Islamophobe and a racist (if one believes Islamophobia is a type of racism).
Mavis @ #3696 Wednesday, December 4th, 2019 – 10:33 am
Mavis.
Adrenalin rarely works for idiopathic angioedema in anybody, but we try it anyway if aireays are involved because nothing else works either. Antihistamines & corticosteroids (like prednisone) work quite slowly (minutes-hours), so, while they may terminate a continuing response, they are only really of use in blunting the diffuse capillary leak that underlies the angioedema. Immune responses are as complex and unpredictable as neural systems, so most rationales in immunology are little short of well-informed witchcraft.
@guytaur
The Coalition parties ever since John Howard was Prime Minister, have exploited racist and Islamophobic sentiment, along the fears of especially Muslims invading Australia, in order to push through authoritarian laws.
That is why I am totally opposed to all these authoritarian laws (as Greg Barns has outlined in his book The Rise of the Right), made in the name of ‘Border Protection’ and ‘National Security’. All these laws be scrapped, along with mandatory detention and ideally temporary visas for immigrants.
Also, this nation needs to face up to the reality that the ‘Commonwealth of Australia’ was founded as a White Ethnostate with the White Australia Policy as one of it’s founding documents. Plus an official apology needs to be given for all those affected by the White Australia Policy.
Indeed, the nostalgia for the days of the White Australia Policy by some voters, has been exploited by the Coalition parties as well, in order to push through authoritarian laws.