Preselection news x 2

Eden-Monaro Liberals get the preselection ballot they wanted, and the Victorian Greens confirm candidates to fill Richard Di Natale’s Senate vacancy.

There are two situations vacant currently in the federal parliament: member for Eden-Monaro, with Mike Kelly’s successor to be chosen at a by-election on a date to be determined, and Victorian Greens Senator, with Richard Di Natale’s vacancy to be filled by a party membership ballot following a timeline I’m not privy to. The latest developments on these fronts are as follows:

• With Andrew Constance now in the rear mirror, the Liberals are going through a preselection process that has brought them to the closure of nominations, with the candidates not yet formally announced. David Crowe of the Sydney Morning Herald reported three likely starters: the presumed front-runner, Fiona Kotvojs, who ran in 2019 and remains popular in local branches; Jerry Nockles, an international relations expert and former Navy seaman; and Pru Gordon, a manager at the National Farmers Federation. Canberra news magazine CityNews reported that names being tested in Liberal polling included Nichole Overall, a Queanbeyan freelance journalist. Please note that there’s a dedicated Eden-Monaro by-election thread below this one.

• The Victorian Greens have attracted nine nominees to fill Richard Di Natale’s Senate vacancy, and helpfully laid them out on their website. The highest profile is human rights lawyer Julian Burnside, who ran unsuccessfully for the party in the seat of Cooper at last year’s federal election. However, Noel Towell of The Age reported in March that Lidia Thorpe, who won Northcote in a by-election in November 2017 but failed to retain it at the general election a year later, is also rated highly. The report said the same of Huong Truong, who held an upper house seat in Western Metropolitan region in the nine months before the election, but she is not among the nominees.

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.

1,274 comments on “Preselection news x 2”

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  1. Blobbit

    The CCTV coverage already exists – thousands of cameras in Sydney and very often exactly where you need them, like trains. Make no mistake, if its needed, there will be a law or regulation that allows it to be used. Its all a matter of resources.

  2. Bucephalus:

    If you have the app and another person has the app and they are both running and the conditions for the apps capturing the required data are met then the probability is much higher than 5% – they are not independent events.

    In that scenario the probability the contact is detected is close to 100%, but the prior probability (of all the various conditions you mention being met) is much less than 100%

    You do highlight an interesting point – I think an individual (attempting to protect himself) should be assumed to be running the App (though the foreground requirement frustrates this). However, the thing about epidemics is that they infect populations not (just) individuals, and if it gets out of control even the most careful individuals will eventually be infected…

  4. EG

    I understand it would be less than 100% and I don’t know what the actual number is but it’s not the 5% claimed by others here.

  5. One promising sign..

    The NSW Health site now has this list of hotspots..

    Areas for increased testing and surveillance
    Canada Bay Local Government Area
    Canterbury Bankstown Local Government Area
    Cumberland Local Government Area

    No longer Blacktown, Penrith, Cumberland..

  6. “ Andrew – while some of us completely understand your excellent explanation most civilians really don’t so I tried to explain the reality in terms that most would understand somewhat.”

    Goodo. However, given that defence is a big ticket political item – both as policy as a budgetary spend – us civilians who are politically engaged enough to be in the thrall of a psephology/political commentary blog like bludger should care enough to properly inform themselves …

  7. EGT, you present a “worst case”. I present a “best case”.

    1 person with the app tests positive after 5 days of travelling with 100 others, maybe 140, including casual ring-ins doing their one trip per week.

    The longer the time Case #0 is transmitting, the more the chance of all other app installers registering.

    As soon as Case #0 feels crook, and gets tested positive, his co-travellers will also be notified and tested. And if they test positive, then THEIR close contacts will also be tested, but this time within a compressed timeline and by traditional tracing means. Lots of phone calls and follow ups.

    Beware of numbers. They can lie as well as tell the truth. Australia was on track for hundreds of thousands of infections 6 weeks ago. But that was based on no human interference.

    We isolated, we interfered, and the numbers nearly vanished. So much for the doomsayers.

    As the app has its first successes, I predict these will be spruiked, and more installations will come as a result. We’ll get our 10 million, easy.

    It’s the human factor.

  8. CC “Its all a matter of resources.”

    That’s what I said. I don’t think there’s enough resources to do it. Even if we every third person a contact tracer.

    And it still doesn’t seem to be those sort of contacts that matter anyway.

  9. Fascinating-looking docco now on ABC TV called “Asteroid Hunters” on now. Home grown, not an imported Yank or Euro effort.

  10. I’m a bit late to the point as usual, as a retired person I just don’t seem to have the time some of you manage to put into this site.
    Re the SAS. From the mid 70s through to the late 80s I worked in an organisation which employed several ex SAS personnel, and through them I met several others current and former. Without exception they were highly competent people, disciplined in their personal habits and diligent in their work unlike some other ex service personnel I worked with.
    I never contemplated the relative competence of our SAS with any other special forces groups until one night in about 2000I was in a restaurant in Europe that was very full. A middle aged couple came in and couldn’t find a table, so I offered them a seat each at mine as I was alone. Apparently they first thought I was English, and the man made a comment about some feat reported in thatdays news about the UK SAS. I commented briefly, concluding that I had little real knowledge of the UK SAS except for news reports but that there were a smattering of them in the Aus SAS and I was impressed with them.
    With that, the man lit up insmiles, told me that he had served two terms in Vietnam where “the only time I felt safe was for about 6 months when I had Aus SAS as protection.” He was also complimentary of the Aus servicemen in general, particularly in regards to Vietnam.
    Later, in what would turn out to be a long and slightly bibulous meal, I discovered he was a serving General in the US Army, apparently involved in”logistics”, and based in Germany.
    His final remarks to me wereto the effect that he thought the SAS were the best trained and selected special forces in the western allies, although they could do with better equipment.

  12. AE

    When I was around Plan Beersheba was called Army 21 which was rather presumptuous of the Armoured Corps. I’m glad to see that some of the Infantry mindset has been broken down if only slightly. They are much fonder of Armoured Protection nowadays than before 2001.

  13. “But AnactaciaP took the prize for talking to the Queenslander, boosting them up, singing the praises of the cane toads- she will romp in when the election rolls around later this year.”

    She’s not that popular in Queensland anymore. If the LNP switch leaders from Deb Frecklington to Dave Crisafulli, they would be at least 50:50 of winning. Otherwise the ALP would be favourite but could still easily lose given a swing of 2% or so, which is very possible.

    The problem for the LNP would be their vulnerability to a scare campaign given their proclivity for cutting and privatising. It may well be a 1993 Federal election scenario where votes don’t like the government or leader but don’t trust the LNP not to go beserk.

    I have followed a lot of Q elections and don’t feel confident about predicting this one. The Premier is by no means an electoral asset any more.

  15. On a corona note of another kind, apparently in WA the metro sewerage flow is being intensively tested for viral material. Interesting.

  18. I have serious doubts about the limits of detection of a specific virus in millions of litres of sewage that’s also going to contain many other viruses and lots of viral particles.

  21. So far, where ever lockdowns have been relaxed case numbers appear to have escalated almost immediately. Once case growth escalates above 1.0, inevitably, necessarily, the case curve begins to steepen upwards. While this shows lockdowns are effective at retarding transmission it also shows that temporary lockdowns alone don’t lead to the extinction of the virus. This really means the virus is here to stay – or is here at least until vaccines can be developed and applied across most of the human population.

    Maybe in some jurisdictions relaxation will not lead to case acceleration. Maybe. But even in these locations isolation/exclusion will become institutional. Entire territories, such as WA for example, may have to remain in indefinite self quarantine until the pandemic passes almost completely elsewhere.

    This will certainly impede the restoration of full economic and social mobilisation. I wonder how long the Lib-Nats will be able to sustain their counter-austerity posture…..how long till they revert to repression….?

  22. A post from a Doctor in the UK:

    “In the end, we are all that is going to stand between you / your loved ones and a truly horrible death. We are doing our best to hold the line. You have it in your power to help. STAY AT HOME. HOLD YOUR ELECTED OFFICIALS TO ACCOUNT.
    And, for the love of God, STOP WITH THE CONSPIRACY THEORIES. The present government is incompetent on its face. Major companies can’t even run a customer service phone line! Do you genuinely think any of these fools can tie their shoes, much less run a worldwide conspiracy?”

    https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1259511503511748609.html#

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