The week that was

Party turmoil in Victoria and Queensland, state and territory seat entitlements for the next federal parliament determined, and more polling on attitudes to demonstrations in the United States.

After a particularly eventful week, a whole bunch of electorally relevant news to report:

• The last official population updates have confirmed next month’s official determination of how many seats each state and territory will be entitled to in the next parliament will cause the abolition of seats in Western Australia and the Northern Territory, and the creation of a new one in Victoria for the second consecutive term. Antony Green offers detailed consideration of how the redistributions might look, suggesting Victoria’s will most likely result in the creation of another safe Labor seat in Melbourne’s outer north-west, while Western Australia’s could either mash together Hasluck and Burt in eastern Perth, or abolish the safe Liberal south-of-the-river seat of Tangney, with knock-on effects that would weaken Labor’s position in Fremantle and/or Burt.

• In the wake of the 60 Minutes/The Age expose on Adem Somyurek’s branch stacking activities on Sunday, Labor’s national executive has taken control of all the Victorian branch’s federal and state preselections for the next three years. Steve Bracks and Jenny Macklin have been brought in to serve as administrators until January, and an audit of the branch’s 16,000 members will be conducted to ensure that are genuine consenting members and paid their own fees.

• Ipsos has published polling on the recent demonstrations in the United States from fifteen countries, which found Australians to be supportive of what were specified as “peaceful protests in the US” and disapproving of Donald Trump’s handling of them, although perhaps in slightly lesser degree than other more liberal democracies. Two outliers were India and Russia, which produced some seemingly anomalous results: the former had a strangely high rating for Trump and the latter relatively low support for the protests, yet both were uniquely favourable towards the notion that “more violent protests are an appropriate response”.

• The Tasmanian government has announced the periodical Legislative Council elections for the seats of Huon and Rosevears will be held on August 1, having been delayed from their normally allotted time of the first Tuesday in May.

In Queensland, where the next election is a little over four months away:

• After floating the possibility of an election conducted entirely by post, the Queensland government announced this week that the October 31 state election will be conducted in a more-or-less normal fashion. However, pre-poll voting is being all but actively encouraged, to the extent that Attorney-General Yvette D’Ath says there will be an “election period” rather than an election day. This will mean “more pre-poll locations, longer pre-poll hours, and more pre-poll voting days in the two weeks prior to the election”.

• The Liberal National Party opposition was thrown into turmoil last week after the Courier-Mail ($) received internal polling showing Labor leading 51-49 in Redlands, 52-48 in Gaven, 55-45 in Mansfield and 58-42 in inner urban Mount Ommaney. The parties were tied in the Sunshine Coast hinterland seat of Glass House, while the LNP led by 52-48 in the Gold Coast seat of Currumbin, which it recently retained by a similar margin at a by-election. Frecklington’s supporters pointed the finger at the state branch president, Dave Hutchinson, who was reportedly told by Frecklington that his position was untenable after Clive Palmer hired him as a property consultant in January. The party room unanimously affirmed its support for Frecklington on Monday, as mooted rival David Crisafulli ruled out a challenge ahead of the election.

• The Queensland parliament this week passed an array of electoral law changes including campaign spending caps of $92,000 per candidate and limitations on signage at polling places. The changes have been criticised ($) by the Liberal National Party and Katter’s Australian Party, who complain that union advertising will now dominate at polling booths, and that the laws was pushed through with indecent haste on Tuesday and Wednesday.

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.

1,922 comments on “The week that was”

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  1. Re ScoMo and Sydney Boys High:

    There was a period when Sydney Boys was not selective, but simply a local high school for the catchment.

    I think this period lasted from around 1974 – to around 1989. I suspect this was when our ScoMo attended. He may not have been particularly “gifted”.

    That being said, from the point of view of educational research, while parents love selective schools, they have a deleterious effect on education for most students.

    My father worked at the selective Newcastle Boys High School for a while in the late 1960s. It is now Waratah Sports High School I believe. his comment was that no matter how gifted, if you take a bunch of boys and put them in a class called 3D, they would behave like other lads in classes called 3D in normal high schools, no matter what their IQ etc.

    In the defence of selective schools, my friend got remorseless bullied at her high school (and so did I in fact, in both the private and the state system), and she knew there was no way her parents would be prepared to send her to a private school. So, she identified a selective state school, and made sure she passed the exam to get in. Apparently the bullying stopped.

    I think this just says, like my favourite part of the world, the Rhineland in Germany, we need to design schools about the needs and wants of students.

  2. Guytaur
    Unfortunately workers will always have to fight for their basic rights. Unions good,bad or indifferent is all they have to rely on.Who else is going to represent them? After all they are the ones that fought and won the rights in the first place.

  6. SD

    Yes.

    Beemer

    There are no excuses for degrading workers rights just because you want to paint some people as lazy.

  9. Beemer

    Nothing compared to bosses.

    Lazy is the rights go to attack line. They bought William Golding fictional Lord of the Flies on human nature

  11. Beemer

    No your comments don’t cut the mustard. You are just doing smear as an excuse to attack workers rights.

    Basically workers don’t deserve rights because some union reps are “lazy”.

  12. I agree.

    SARP
    @Justin12393LEE

    Replying to
    @ProjectLincoln
    and
    @parscale
    My opinion..

    This week, for the very first time in his life, Donald Trump came to realize he is in very big trouble.

    He saw a half full arena, he has seen the Supreme Court rule against him. He saw failure after failure.

    He knows his Reality TV show: The President, is going to be cancelled at the end of the season.

  13. This will all be forgotton by companies. Now theres a new excuse for no pay rises and crying poor.

    From 2018

    A record 94 per cent of reporting companies produced a profit this year.

    Two-thirds of companies have raised dividends relative to a year ago
    94 per cent of companies listed on the ASX reported a profit in the February results season, the highest rate since the GFC
    Wage growth continues near historic lows of 2 per cent a year

    That is the highest number since the global financial crisis. But the rewards are not going to workers.

    Instead, company executives are pocketing higher bonuses, and investors are reaping fatter dividends and other financial rewards.

  14. Guytaur
    Your imagination is running wild.

    I didn’t say anything about workers rights and it is your attitude that allows the laziness to happen and the likes of Heydon to do their acts.

  16. I swear by “Meals on Wheels”. The foods’s really great. The interesting point is, however, that they surreptitiously assess you for senility.

  17. As far as Dyson Heydon goes, I was mortified to discover tonight that he was Howard’s replacement for long-time family friend Mary Gaudron.

    Mary Gaudron took both the law and social justice very seriously in her role on the Hight Court.

    In my opinion, Heydon regards the law as something to be pushed as far as it can be to serve his political purposes. His prejudicial Royal Commission into Trade Unions (concluding that they are “BAD” and “CORRUPT”), has set industrial relations back by decades in Australia.

    The legal eagles on PB may correct me, but I found Heydon’s Royal Commission slanted towards finding “unions are bad and corrupt”, rather than trying to understand what problems unions may have, and how to fix those problems without destroying the union movement.

  18. “Who else is going to represent them?”

    And like any organisation with hierarchical power structures, there are some unions that only care about some of the workers in their ambit.

  19. Beemer.

    No it’s your “no hiding behind laws To be lazy” attitude thats the problem for unions.

    A right wing attack line designed to smear. Most used in the lazy dole bludger trope.

    The assumption of the right is that William Golding’s fictional account was right and that people are inherently lazy.

  21. Guytaur
    You are being an apologist and like all apologist you are spinning hard against an alternative viewpoint.

  22. The company I worked for always cried poor every single year when it came to pay rises. Next thing they would bring their out company brochure saying how well they were doing. All the acquisitions they made,how great their profits were etc etc. If it wasnt for union representation we would have got fuck all but managed 4% a year minimum every year.

  23. Mexicanbeemer @ #1864 Monday, June 22nd, 2020 – 6:59 pm

    Guytaur
    Your imagination is running wild.

    I didn’t say anything about workers rights and it is your attitude that allows the laziness to happen and the likes of Heydon to do their acts.

    It would be hard to imagine someone more detached from the institutional structures and powers that protect scum than Guytaur (and i mean that entirely as a compliment Guytaur, I’m hoping you didn’t want to be the man’s slave).

  24. Mavis

    I swear by “Meals on Wheels”. The foods’s really great. The interesting point is, however, that they surreptitiously assess you for senility.

    You and my mum would get on well. I have recently got her in touch with some social services, under doctor’s advice. She sort of likes them, but is convinced they are part of a conspiracy to “forcibly take her off to the old folks home”.

    Actually, you, unlike my mother, have all you marbles. So keep getting the meals, but yeah, they will keep looking for signs of senility.

    I reckon my GP already has me under her eye.

  25. If a workplace has regular resignations and farewell drinks yet the union repo does not bother to show up to any of those after work drinks to engage with people then that is laziness because the law does not stop that rep from going to the pub.

  26. I asked a question years ago on here years ago still waiting for the answer.

    Who else is going to represent workers in a workplace except a Union?

  27. Another fact about Heydon:

    “RICHARD AEDY: When the full bench of the High Court threw out the government’s Malaysia solution, he was the lone dissenter… it was six to one… JUSTICE HEYDON: With all respect to my colleagues I think it was a field where the government had to be left to run its foreign policies as it saw fit and there was no legislative bar to the policy which Mr Bowen and the Government were adopting.”

  29. WeWantPaul
    I wouldn’t think so either but my comment was more about the dismissive tone towards an alternative.

  30. GG:

    A review of the TURC will see him being outed as a Liberal partisan making inappropriate judgements on his political opponents.

    Mr Howard said that the TURC was a bad idea and should not have been done.

    That is correct irrespective of who was the commissioner.

    It would be a mistake to blame the fundamental defects in the TURC (from its conception) on the Commissioner appointed – no Commissioner could have done it properly, because it was a fundamentally improper intrusion into the political sphere.

    Or – turning the argument around – if the the only thing wrong with the TURC was the person of the commissioner, then arguably it should be re-run with a replacement. Perhaps Mr Morrison might try that? The effect would be to double (or more) the damage done to the political system by the first TURC, and entrench the (American) idea that instruments of state can be co-opted for party political purposes.

  32. @dikkii

    Ah yes. Dyson Heydon. The royal commissioner who famously investigated himself for bias, and found himself in the clear.

  33. Guytaur
    Again you are imagining stuff because i didn’t say anything about workers rights or unions rights to exist but i am clearly commenting on how some union reps perform.

  34. Mexican:

    In the space of 30 mins or so guytaur has verballed you, misrepresented you, and is now trolling you.

    Repeat after me: There is no point engaging guytaur on anything. It is a complete waste of your time.

  35. C@t:

    I think it was Reed Galen or George Conway who said a few weeks ago that they hadn’t really gotten started yet.

  36. Beemer

    However I did mention workers rights and instead of acknowledging my point you continue with your attack on laziness being a reason to not have protections in place for communication between workers and reps.

  37. Douglas and Milko:

    Your dear mum should get with the groove. The meals are great. You get a soup, a main, a sweet, a juice – all for $70 a week. That’s really good value, and all you have to do is to put it in the microwave (save for the juice). I fear old BB & GG may be up for it soon.

  44. Confessions @ #1884 Monday, June 22nd, 2020 – 9:17 pm

    Mexican:

    In the space of 30 mins or so guytaur has verballed you, misrepresented you, and is now trolling you.

    Repeat after me: There is no point engaging guytaur on anything. It is a complete waste of your time.

    +1 million. He gets off on it, or is functionally predisposed towards seeking those sort of confrontations out whenever he turns up here.

  45. I see the Labor trolls are out in force tonight.

    Funny considering I am arguing for the right of union reps to communicate with workers.

  46. “ Another fact about Heydon:

    “RICHARD AEDY: When the full bench of the High Court threw out the government’s Malaysia solution, he was the lone dissenter… it was six to one… JUSTICE HEYDON: With all respect to my colleagues I think it was a field where the government had to be left to run its foreign policies as it saw fit and there was no legislative bar to the policy which Mr Bowen and the Government were adopting.”

    _____

    Eureka! lil’ Pony has her anti Labor angle!

    Blessed day.

  47. guytaur

    Funny considering I am arguing for the right of union reps to communicate with workers.

    _____________________________________

    You are only ever arguing for the right of Guytaur to always be right.

  48. AE

    My point is back then some nice things were probably uttered about Heydon by some Laborites in contrast wrt TURC.

  49. TPOF

    If Beemer had acknowledged my argument that the laziness or not of a union rep should have no bearing on the law regarding workers rights we could have moved on.

    I had already acknowledged Beemers point that laziness of some reps gets in the way of unions recruiting members

    Edit:

    Yet according to you that’s always being right.

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