Bundambarama

A second by-election now looms in Queensland, in which One Nation may cause trouble in a traditionally Labor-voting working class seat. Elsewhere, Josh Frydenberg faces a contentious Section 44 challenge, and a Victorian Liberal aspirant regrets not paying his train fare.

At the top of the sidebar are links to guides I have up for three by-election campaigns currently in progress, including yesterday’s new addition:

• Queensland’s festival of democracy on March 28 looks set to receive a new attraction after Jo-Ann Miller’s announcement to parliament yesterday that she is resigning as member of the eastern Ipswich seat of Bundamba, effective immediately. After two decades as Labor member, Miller has grown increasingly estranged from her party over time, a particularly interesting manifestation of which was an appearance alongside Pauline Hanson on the campaign trail two days before the December 2017 state election. One Nation did not field a candidate against Miller in 2017, but has been quick to announce it has a candidate ready to go for the by-election, who will be announced on the weekend. Since Ipswich was the birthplace of the Hanson phenomenon, this could yet make the by-election more interesting than the 21.6% two-party margin suggests. Tony Moore of the Brisbane Times reports Steve Axe, Miller’s electorate officer, will contest the preselection, but Sarah Elks of The Australian reports the front runners are two candidates of the Left: Nick Thompson and Lance McCallum, who are respectively aligned with the Construction Forestry Mining and Energy Union and the Electrical Trades Union. I have a provisional by-election guide up and running which takes it for granted it will be held on March 28, though this is yet to be officially confirmed. Also on that day will be the Currumbin by-election and council elections, including for the big prizes of the Brisbane city council and lord mayoralty.

• Further on the by-election front, I had a paywalled piece in Crikey yesterday on the Greens preferences imbroglio in Johnston.

Legal matters:

• The Federal Court is hearing a Section 44 challenge against Josh Frydenberg relating to his Hungarian-born mother, which complainant Michael Staindl argues makes him a dual citizen. Frydenberg’s mother and her family fled the country in 1949 as its post-war communist regime tightened its grip on power, describing themselves as stateless on arrival in Australia. Staindl maintains that the whole family’s Hungarian citizenship rights were restored with the collapse of communism in 1949. Staindl is also pursuing defamation action against Scott Morrison over the latter’s claim that his action was motivated by anti-Semitism. The Australian ($) reports a decision is expected “within weeks”.

• In further legal obscurantism news, Emanuele Cicchiello has withdrawn from the race to fill Mary Wooldridge’s vacancy in the Victorian Legislative Council on the grounds that he once pleaded guilty to an offence carrying a prison term of more than five years – for improperly claiming a concessional train fare when he was 19. The Australian ($) reports that those remaining in the field are Asher Judah, former Property Council deputy director and Master Builders policy manager, and Matthew Bach, deputy director of Ivanhoe Girls Grammar.

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.

1,417 comments on “Bundambarama”

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  1. Tristo @ #1244 Sunday, February 23rd, 2020 – 1:45 pm

    @Rex Douglas

    If say our banks collapsed and Labor supported a bank bailout. Both One Nation and the Greens will oppose it and their support could skyrocket. Which worries me when it comes to One Nation.

    Interestingly, the only policy overlap between the Greens and One Nation is the call for a state owned bank, similar to what the Commonwealth Bank was. After the Royal Commission, this is actually a vote winner, unlike protecting coal mining jobs.

  2. Lying and cheating wouldn’t work nearly as well for Labor because they don’t have 70% of the media to actively campaign for them, to push their lies and bury what they want hidden.

  3. phoenixRED

    Donald Trump’s cruelty and vulgarity have done enormous damage — but let’s stop pretending he’s “un-American”

    Yes indeed, wee Trumpenstein is as American as apple pie. No wonder they are freaking our over there as with him they can not avoid looking in the mirror.

  4. billie @ #1246 Sunday, February 23rd, 2020 – 1:52 pm

    Jenauthor your posted reminded me that Micheal west wrote an article on the links between coal and the media

    1. Murdoch owns a coal mine
    2. Stokes owns channel 7 and the Caterpillar franchise in WA providing all that heavy equipment trucks, bulldozers
    3. Channel 9 & Fairfax chair is Peter Costello
    4. Channel 10 owned by CNN which also has coal mines
    5. The ABC board has been stacked with members who are board members of coal mines
    6. SBS board member also director coal mine

    https://www.michaelwest.com.au/compromised-genie-energy-and-the-murdoch-medias-climate-denial/

    I can’t find the more pertinent article

    Ch10 is owned by CBS. I can’t find any links to CBS also owning coal mines.

    CNN is a different kettle of fish entirely, and is owned by Turner Broadcasting Service, which is in turned owned by Warner Media.

  5. I wonder who these people are.

    simon holmes à court
    @simonahac
    ·
    1h
    i just became the second follower of
    @The_NewLiberals

    stumbled across their website: http://thenewliberals.net.au

    will definitely keep an eye on them, and where they’re up against an MP who votes against net-zero emissions, i’ll definitely consider donating in 2022.

  6. “which is not going to decrease the temperature of the earth by one iota”
    sadly true, but neglecting to point out it may stop the increase in temperature at some point in the future, and may avoid a point of inflection that will trip catastrophic feedback.

  7. poroti says: Sunday, February 23, 2020 at 5:03 pm

    phoenixRED

    Donald Trump’s cruelty and vulgarity have done enormous damage — but let’s stop pretending he’s “un-American”

    Yes indeed wee Trumpenstein is as American as apple pie. No wonder they are freaking our over there as with him they can not avoid looking in the mirror.

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

    The past deviations and dalliences in the modern world of FDR, Eisenhower, JFK, LBJ, Clinton etc etc …….. don’t have the same issues of the interspection of the Internet and the public glare of facebook, twitter etc etc …….. Trump just follows his past POTUS colleagues but his behaviours and morality are more open to public scrutiny ……

    HOWEVER :

  8. Without reading all,today’s posts, has failed Greens candidate Julian Burnside’s tweet got any comments?

    “Both major parties have the same attitude to climate change: they just want to be re-elected, and if that means destroying the future, they don’t care. After all, they’ll be long gone before disaster hits. They need to think about the future of our species #ClimateEmergency

  9. sprocket_ @ #1263 Sunday, February 23rd, 2020 – 2:16 pm

    Without reading all,today’s posts, has failed Greens candidate Julian Burnside’s tweet got any comments?

    “Both major parties have the same attitude to climate change: they just want to be re-elected, and if that means destroying the future, they don’t care. After all, they’ll be long gone before disaster hits. They need to think about the future of our species #ClimateEmergency

    I thought he was meant to be intelligent!

  10. The ‘both parties are the same’ line is intellectually lazy and suggests that Burnside hasn’t bothered to pay attention.

    He should stick to his brandy snifters and guffawing over tribal costumes at the Savage Club.

  11. Peter Hannam @p_hannam
    ·
    7h
    And in the currency of our times, how many of the 65,000 reef-related tourism jobs will remain when 2C warming means 99% of corals are gone? (We are at 1C+ already.) #auspol

  12. DP
    Where would a government owned bank find its staff from?

    It wouldn’t be long before people would complain about the same issues we see at the other banks.

  13. sprocket_ @ #1263 Sunday, February 23rd, 2020 – 5:16 pm

    Without reading all,today’s posts, has failed Greens candidate Julian Burnside’s tweet got any comments?

    “Both major parties have the same attitude to climate change: they just want to be re-elected, and if that means destroying the future, they don’t care. After all, they’ll be long gone before disaster hits. They need to think about the future of our species #ClimateEmergency

    Yes, there is some truth in that on both sides. More on the Liberal side, for sure – but some truth on the Labor side as well.

    Ironically, this means the Liberals are more likely to get elected.

  14. Rex Douglas

    So with Albanese announcing net zero/2050

    What’s not to love for all pollie leaders to make the pledge ? After all by 2050 politically and or otherwise they will be well and truly dead. No blowback at all for failure.

  15. Mexicanbeemer @ #1268 Sunday, February 23rd, 2020 – 5:31 pm

    DP
    Where would a government owned bank find its staff from?

    It wouldn’t be long before people would complain about the same issues we see at the other banks.

    But the problem with the banks is not really the staff (or not much) – it is the board, the directors, the CEOs and CFOs, and the unrelenting drive they face to increase shareholder value by any means.

    Get those right and you will have a good bank, even if most of the staff have to come from dodgy banks.

  16. Mexicanbeemer @ #1268 Sunday, February 23rd, 2020 – 4:31 pm

    DP
    Where would a government owned bank find its staff from?

    It wouldn’t be long before people would complain about the same issues we see at the other banks.

    ??? Employees’ attitudes and behaviour aren’t amenable to company policy and practice?! I’m sure the existing banks trained their employees to fuck over the customers rather than firing all the old staff and recruiting only new people who were highly motivated to fuck over customers.

  17. Public service, private contracts: how Serco was wired into our future

    What happens to accountability and trust when multinationals run public institutions?

    https://www.theguardian.com/business/2020/feb/23/public-service-private-contracts-how-serco-was-wired-into-our-future

    “Like most visits to “the future” of anything, a trip to Australia’s most advanced digital hospital is full of surprises. The Fiona Stanley hospital in Perth is the biggest public works project commissioned by the state of Western Australia since the goldfields water pipeline in 1898. It is also the site of the largest outsourced health contract in Australian history: a $4.3bn deal with the global giant Serco for non-clinical services over 20 years.
    :::
    ….What does it mean for public trust when a core public institution like a hospital is run by an entity that offers no tangible sign of its presence to the citizens that use it?
    :::
    They have been significant actors in the landscape of Australian governance since the 1990s, when agencies first started outsourcing services at scale. With live contracts that run into the 2040s, these firms are also now wired into our medium-term future. Serco holds contracts to operate contact centres in the National Disability Insurance Agency; 11 onshore immigration detention centres; the Christmas Island detention centre; Centrelink call centres; Australian defence force healthcare; rail and ferries; prisoner transport; and prisons in a number of states, including the construction and operation of what will be Australia’s largest prison at Grafton in NSW. In 2017–18, the Australian government spent between $90bn and $100bn purchasing goods and services from private and not-for-profit providers, which is about three times the amount spent on direct public service employment.
    :::
    But apart from their scandals, outsourcing firms also have a systemic impact on democratic governance, accountability and social trust. Outsourcing splits the workforce into “core” and “non-core” categories, creating social, legal and often financial distance between groups of workers. It disrupts lines of accountability that connect the institution to the public. The single chain of responsibility that would otherwise bind the most junior public servant to an elected minister is substituted with opaque systems of internal contract management on the government side and shareholder interests on the corporate side. It imports secrecy, introducing private actors to whom freedom of information laws do not apply to public contexts.
    :::
    Rather than mindlessly follow the groove cut by past generations, our challenge is to truly acknowledge the challenges of our time: the fact that we live in a dangerously unequal, environmentally collapsing world where the bonds of trust between citizens and institutions are being corroded by relentless surveillance for private interest. Digital technologies provide us with the means to grasp and co-ordinate resources to support human and ecological flourishing like never before. The demand for a better system doesn’t have to wait for the next outsourcing company scandal.”

    —————
    This is an edited extract from Griffith Review 67, Matters of Trust: https://www.griffithreview.com/editions/matters-of-trust/

  18. FireFox:

    E G Theodore:

    So my question becomes “what are the conditions under which a government should bring retrospective laws to be legislated”

    (Not that legislation is required, BTW)

    How we can Stop Adani

    [Bullet points on how to stop Adani]

    https://greens.org.au/qld/platform/plan-to-stop-adani

    So your answer to my question “what are the conditions under which a government should bring retrospective laws to be legislated” is “Adani”?

  19. If Bernie can go all the way with a Green New Deal policy then Labor are going to rue the day they let Bandt get under their guard.

  20. E. G. Theodore @ #1277 Sunday, February 23rd, 2020 – 5:53 pm

    FireFox:

    E G Theodore:

    So my question becomes “what are the conditions under which a government should bring retrospective laws to be legislated”

    (Not that legislation is required, BTW)

    How we can Stop Adani

    [Bullet points on how to stop Adani]

    https://greens.org.au/qld/platform/plan-to-stop-adani

    So your answer to my question “what are the conditions under which a government should bring retrospective laws to be legislated” is “Adani”?

    Adani can be stopped without any legislative changes. All it takes is the will to do it.

  21. Factional war escalates as senator accuses rival of ‘white-anting’ state government

    https://www.theage.com.au/politics/victoria/factional-war-escalates-as-senator-accuses-rival-of-white-anting-state-government-20200222-p543d1.html

    One of Premier Daniel Andrews’ cabinet ministers is “white-anting” the Labor leader’s authority, with the party in Victoria “overwhelmed by chaos and turmoil”, the ALP’s longest-serving senator has warned.

    Senator Kim Carr says Mr Andrews’ government risks being swamped by the escalating internal brawling and the “shenanigans” of factional warlords with the senator warning “disunity is death”.

    The ALP veteran left-winger’s explosive comments are aimed squarely at Local Government Minister and powerbroker Adem Somyurek, whose Right faction is warring with Senator Carr’s Socialist Left.

    The conflict is causing serious tension among members of the cabinet of Mr Andrews, himself a member of the Socialist Left but who has so far refused to get involved in the row.
    :::
    Mr Somyurek hit back, describing Senator Carr as a “dinosaur whose time has come and gone”.

    “He continues to linger around like a bad smell. He is an irritant to the federal opposition, the state government and a cancer on the Victorian branch of the ALP,” he said.

    The factions are embroiled in an ugly internal stoush that has already spilled over into violence as warlords recruit among Melbourne’s growing subcontinental migrant community, leading to splits along national, ethnic and religious fault lines.
    :::
    He accused Mr Somyurek’s group of a winner take-all approach to Labor’s internal affairs and of thrashing the “stability pact” that underpinned the election wins in 2014 and 2018.
    :::
    But Mr Somyurek insisted he was fighting to stamp out racism in his own party. “Whatever position I hold in the party or government I reserve the right to call out racism and Islamophobia wherever I see it. I ask Kim Carr to join me in calling out Jasvinder Sidhu publicly for his Islamophobic comments.”

  22. P1

    I see your refusal to ‘stand down’ is attracting the usual posse of suspects playing the person rather than the ball together with verballing and misrepresentation of your comments thrown in.

  23. Pegasus @ #1285 Sunday, February 23rd, 2020 – 6:10 pm

    I see your refusal to ‘stand down’ is attracting the usual posse of suspects playing the person rather than the ball together with verballing and misrepresentation of your comments thrown in.

    I’ve also noticed the intensity of the vitriol seems to vary inversely with how well Labor is doing 🙂

  24. sprocket_ says:
    Sunday, February 23, 2020 at 6:10 pm
    For what it’s worth, we should have a NewsPoll tonight.
    __________________________________
    You can pass the waiting time by looking at your teenage Tania Plibersek photo…..

  25. Craig Emerson@DrCraigEmerson
    ·
    37m
    Sadly @DaveSharma even moderate Liberals like you have an endless array of excuses not to act on climate change even when you acknowledge the imperative to do so. Your motto: Why put off until tomorrow what you can put off forever

  26. Please remember this. How good is distortion of democracy?

    @CatPurry9
    ·
    6m
    Before entering caretaker mode, before the election, the Morrison government also stacked agencies and boards with more than two dozen hand-chosen lackeys. #auspol #corruption

  27. THe megalomaniacal madman strikes again about his masters in Russia. Now he’s warning the intelligence community to leave it alone or else. He’s certifiable and the cretins in the Trump Party, I mean Republican, gave him and his weak grasp on reality free reign.

    “But President Trump has tacked on a new coda: “Do so at your peril.””

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/responding-to-news-of-russian-interference-trump-sends-chilling-message-to-us-intelligence/2020/02/22/1c63faec-5502-11ea-929a-64efa7482a77_story.html

  28. Hardaker, Crikey journo:

    #insiders was invented as a way to give Lib politicians an interview platform and bring News corp journos inside the abc tent, thereby appeasing two enemies. Audience was always the last priority. And remains so.

  29. https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2020/02/20/how-peer-pressure-can-help-save-planet/?arc404=true

    The problem with Professor Frank’s theory is an unspoken assumption that climate action is actually possible, that renewables are a viable replacement for fossil fuel, that there is enough lithium and wealth to build everyone a Prius.

    That social revolution Professor Frank talks about – climate activists won that a long time ago. With the exception of President Trump, pretty much every leading politician on Earth genuflects to climate activism. Billions of dollars, likely trillions, have been poured into renewables, carbon trading, every imaginable scheme to ween the world of fossil fuel.

    And there is nothing substantial to show for any of it. After all that effort, all that treasure, renewable energy is still a bit player. Where renewable adoption is high, all renewables have managed to deliver is electrical network instability.

  30. Mexicanbeemer @ #1268 Sunday, February 23rd, 2020 – 2:31 pm

    DP
    Where would a government owned bank find its staff from?

    700,000 unemployed people, a lot of whom could be trained. Plus perhaps a lot of dissatisfied other bank staff.

    It wouldn’t be long before people would complain about the same issues we see at the other banks.

    Make it a not for profit service focused on customers. No other divisions or departments, just pure retail banking. No need for these “other issues” to arise.

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