What’s next

Not much to report, except that a star is born in Tasmania (maybe), and Northern Territory’s election is looming ever closer.

A new thread is wanted, but for all that’s happening in the world right now, there is not a lot of Australian electoral news for me to hang one on right now – there are no polls this week, and there is nothing to report on the preselection front. However:

• Following former newsreader Jo Palmer’s apparent success in gaining the Launceston region state upper house seat of Rosevears (corresponding with the western end of Bass) for the Liberals at Saturday’s elections, The Mercury reports “political watchers in Canberra are now tracking Ms Palmer’s campaign with interest, with some considering how they could lure their likely new star MP to Canberra”. Both of the elections on Saturday appear to have resulted in seats passing from independents to the major parties, with Palmer taking a vacant seat and Labor’s Bastian Seidel unseating Robert Armstrong in Huon at the southern edge of Hobart (part of the federal and state lower house division of Franklin). This would leave the chamber with five Labor members, three Liberals and seven independents – the first time in its history that the chamber has not had an independent majority.

• I have had too little to say about the Northern Territory election, which will be held in three Saturdays’ time. This will come to an end when I publish my comprehensive guide to the election, which I will hopefully do later today.

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.

2,664 comments on “What’s next”

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  2. Hello from Melbourne – interested in your thoughts on the Murdoch talking point that this second wave is due to Andrews’ handling of hotel security guards – what’s the consensus on state vs fed govt handling of all this?

  3. Yes, the initial fire was fireworks. You can see them going off in the initial smoke column. That fire caused the 2,750 tonnes of Ammonium Nitrate to ignite and explode.

    Are you serious? I don’t know whether you are or not.

    But if so… fireworks AND ammonium nitrate stored together, in the middle of a city?

    Unbelievable. There must be thousands dead.

  4. Anyway, I wish no further communication with BB. He is disliked by everyone except his Greensborough acolyte. He is a marginal figure here, a malcontent and a narcissist. Not beloved and revered as I am.

  5. Initial reports suggested that a fireworks warehouse was involved. The Lebanese security chief, Abbas Ibrahim, later blamed combustible chemicals stored in a warehouse. The interior minister, Mohammed Fahmi, said ammonium nitrate had been among the materials stored and called for an investigation into how it ignited.

    “Talk of fireworks is ridiculous,” said Ibrahim. “There are no fireworks but rather highly explosive material, and I can’t foretell the investigations … it seems the explosion happened in a warehouse of highly explosive material that was confiscated years ago.”

  6. I personally would like to know more about the NSW health situation and what went down. Especially how you can be undertaking home renovations when you are on sick leave?

    Some people might look dimly on that kind of behaviour.

    We need to see the report and independently assess it here on PB.

  8. Bucephalussays:
    Wednesday, August 5, 2020 at 11:11 am
    How good was the Victorian Health Minister in QT yesterday?
    ________________
    it was a poor showing. Although I’m not sure the failures of quarantine are hers. Although it would be nice to know who they belong to though.

  10. US officials say it is unclear where Trump is receiving information

    Two US officials, speaking to Reuters on the condition of anonymity, said it was unclear where Trump was receiving his information but that initial information did not appear to show that the explosion was an attack.

    The officials said the information so far tracked closer to what Lebanese officials had publicly given. They added that it was still early and could change as time went on.

    A reminder that Lebanon’s President Michel Aoun has said that the explosion was caused by 2,750 tonnes of ammonium nitrate stored for six years at the port without safety measures.

    Prime Minister Hassan Diab said in a televised address to the nation there would be accountability for the deadly blast at the “dangerous warehouse”.

  11. Bushfire Bill says:
    Wednesday, August 5, 2020 at 11:10 am

    “Are you serious? I don’t know whether you are or not.”

    I have no reason not to be serious.

    “But if so… fireworks AND ammonium nitrate stored together, in the middle of a city?”

    It’s at the port. The AN was off a ship that became stranded there a couple of years ago. Very poor Dangerous Goods management regime but in a place like Lebanon that’s hardly surprising.

  13. nath @ #158 Wednesday, August 5th, 2020 – 9:12 am

    Bucephalussays:
    Wednesday, August 5, 2020 at 11:11 am
    How good was the Victorian Health Minister in QT yesterday?
    ________________
    it was a poor showing. Although I’m not sure the failures of quarantine are hers. Although it would be nice to know who they belong to though.

    Why?

    How will that change the situation?

    Do you often try and solve a problem by attributing blame for it?

  14. how sad that long term residents of Beirut could tell it wasn’t an assassination bombing – because they have so much experience of them they can tell the type of explosion and that this was something different.

  16. Bonza, to tie 2 current events together:

    Daniel Andrews people made mistakes in letting off some fireworks by mistake.

    Scott Morrison people should have done something a long time ago about the 1,250 tonnes of ammonia nitrate they have been creating and storing.

  20. I wonder if the written answers from the Victorian Health Minister will simply be repeats of Hansard: “I will provide written answers.”

  21. lizzie @ #30 Wednesday, August 5th, 2020 – 8:37 am

    @IntelDoge
    ·
    34m
    Just to put into perspective how large the blast was in Beirut today, the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995 carried out by Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols was 2.5 tons of ammonium nitrate (and other chems) while the blast in Beirut was 2,750 tons.

    As a chemical engineer, who actually worked in a plant that manufactures ammonium nitrate (in Newcastle) I would comment that ammonium nitrate is not explosive on its own. In the form of prills (little balls about 2.5 mm diameter) it is freely stored and transported all over the country, and the world, every day, for use, straight out as a fertiliser, and, after being mixed with diesel oil, on site, as an explosive. The explosive mixture is mixed in concrete mixer type trucks, and loaded directly into blast holes in mines. It is set off with gelignite, which is detonated by ‘detonators’ (containing mercury fulminate), which are in turn, set off electrically.

    Something else exploded to set off the ammonium nitrate. Not even fire will set it off under any normal circumstances. It is also highly likely that much of the ammonium nitrate involved in this case did not explode, rather being dispersed over a wide area by an initial explosion.

  22. Buce

    Unlike the LNP Labor takes the accountability part of democracy seriously.

    Argue it should have been virtual. Instead the LNP again ignores the whole idea of democracy is accountability to the people. That means parliament sits.

    Even Tory Boris Johnson managed to do it.

  23. An interesting small and GOP sponsored (but well rated) congressional seat poll in Georgia (GA6). Won narrowly in the blue wave of 2018 by the Dems after the Repubs won it 62-38 in 2016 (with an intervening special election that was narrowly lost by Dem Ossoff who is now running for the senate).

    Touted as a potential Republican gain (which is why it is being polled), the poll shows Dem incumbent just ahead 48-46.

    Also, another OHIO-1 poll showing a close race. Won by the Repubs in 2016 60-40. I mentioned previously that if these OH-1 polls are not great indicators on who will win that seat but, as there has been few highly rated state wide polls of late, the size of the swing these congressional seat polls are showing from 2016 does confirm Ohio is there for Biden to take

  24. i wouldn’t be surprised if what happened in beirut wasn’t an accident. -a.v.

    Hariri death trial reopens old wounds in Lebanon
    August 4, 2020

    The international tribunal judging the assassination of the former Lebanese Prime Minister will announce its verdict next Friday

    https://atalayar.com/en/content/hariri-death-trial-reopens-old-wounds-lebanon
    ====================
    Verdict looms in killing of Lebanon ex-PM Hariri
    August 3, 2020

    Saad Hariri, who later went on to become prime minister like his father, said in a statement issued by his office last week that he had “never lost hope in international justice and the exposure of the truth”.

    “We in the Future Movement look to the seventh of August, to be a day of truth and justice for Lebanon,” he said.

    He called on supporters to demonstrate “patience” and avoid social media disputes about the verdict.

    Lebanese Prime Minister Hassan Diab meanwhile called on people to avoid “fishing in troubled waters” and said authorities “must be ready to deal with the fallout” of the judgment.

    https://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2020/08/03/verdict-looms-in-killing-of-lebanon-ex-pm-hariri.html

  25. What’s the consensus on state vs fed govt handling of all this?

    Mistakes all ’round.

    ● Financial desperation to get to work no matter what,
    ● A structural gig economy in key industries,
    ● No incentive to stay away,
    ● Complacency,
    ● Penny-pinching in support measures,
    ● Probably some corruption, or at least poor processes in play,
    ● Hubris and carelessness regarding health aspects of the virus, especially among the young,
    ● A virus that can spread more easily because, while ultimately serious, it’s not serious enough across a broad range of infectees to make immediate lockdown the only compelling option.

    No wonder these pandemics are rare, 100-year events. Everything has to be just right for the Perfect Storm.

    If it kills 90%, and quickly, you get an “ebola” type response. No excuses, no delays, no politics. Action.

    But make its spread subtle and insidious, while highly infectious, it symptoms only occasionally acute, lulling us into complacency, then mix it with toxic politics and exceptionalism and you have The Big One.

    Every country in the world has made mistakes in one or more of these areas: thought they were immune to the worst, a section of society both active and social, coupled with ease of transmission, but mild symptoms, spreads the virus. Economics trumps medical reality.

    In democratic countries with lousy leadership AND with strong-man authoritarianism (USA, Brazil) any epidemic automatically casts doubt on that leadership. So the virus is played down, denied by the same leadership that is enabling it. A supportive media exacerbates this.

    Throw in people who believe their politics, their God, a document, or their morality will immunize them, and there’s another path.

  27. BB

    And yet we have our wonderful Murdoch press from the very beginning working at undermining those governing Labor states.
    And they continue to do so.
    As so eloquently put…?

    Carl Sudholz Retweeted
    James Dunstan
    @snowycats
    ·
    2h
    Replying to
    @csudholz
    and
    @TrubbellAtMill
    In war time Herald Sun could be viewed as treason – its non stop attacks on Premier at a crucial time could cost lives with readers deciding to ignore restrictions.
    Carl Sudholz
    @csudholz
    ·
    3h
    In 2025, when the COVID19 depression has destroyed our way of life, we will be able to look back and understand that the reason Australia was never able to eradicate or control the virus was NewsCorp.

    The cancer of Australian society.
    #auspol

  28. So it appears the potential community transmission case in Adelaide yesterday is actually not a case at all. The original test was definitively ‘positive’ but was done by a private lab (for some reason this is significant). The sample has now been tested by SApathology and it is negative.

    Glad that is all cleared up.

  29. So Yabba, my understanding is that the AN supplies the oxygen for rapid combustion, but doesn’t explode by itself. Something normally benignly combustible (e.g. oil) has to be added to it, or seep into it to cause an explosion?

    I guess we’ll find out eventually.

  30. Simon Katich @ #178 Wednesday, August 5th, 2020 – 9:44 am

    So it appears the potential community transmission case in Adelaide yesterday is actually not a case at all. The original test was definitively ‘positive’ but was done by a private lab (for some reason this is significant). The sample has now been tested by SApathology and it is negative.

    Glad that is all cleared up.

    I’d be going for test number 3.

  31. I’d be going for test number 3.

    Would be good to have sample 2 rather than just retesting sample 1 and wiping their hands of it.

  33. There are ways to question a policy without being treasonous. Newscorp arent interested in that tho. They have an agenda. The war is cultural and it is win at all cost for them.

    The hypocrisy is that the ALP are not allowed to question Morrisons policies and it is OK for Federal Parliament and normal oversight to be ditched.

  34. Scott Morrison’s team has announced he will be talking to Ray Hadley at 11.30

    What is it with 2fuckingGB? A congaline of Coalition

  35. If private lab testing is not to be trusted in this case… why is it trusted in all the thousands of negative cases they come up with?
    Be interesting if this is asked in the presser

  38. Re. The Texas City 1947 explosion, from Wikipedia:

    The ammonium nitrate, needed either as fertilizer or an explosive, was manufactured in Nebraska and Iowa and shipped to Texas City by rail before being loaded on the Grandcamp.[4] It was manufactured in a patented process, mixed with clay, petrolatum, rosin and paraffin wax to avoid moisture caking. It was packaged in paper sacks, then transported and stored at higher temperatures that increased its chemical activity. Longshoremen reported the bags were warm to the touch before loading.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas_City_disaster

    So it is not unknown for AN to be mixed with combustible substances to ease handling? Wax will do. Amateur rocketeers use it mixed with nitrate.

  40. 725 in Vic today according to the ABC. Showing no sign of letting up is it.

    They need to crack down on the testing. Testing. That’s the problem.

  48. BUshfire Bill
    I agree with you re responsibility.
    I would add that the lack of national consensus on health is also part of the problem. There needs to be an Australia Wide standard for the use of PPE for example. Even now different hospitals are interpreting the advice differently and the advice is also different state to state. This is causing some angst in the hospital and healthcare settings. The use of private/public partnerships is in part to blame, the private run health care settings are using minimum standards to determine which PPE to use. Given the spread into health workers you would expect to err on the side of caution. This comment also applies to the Aged care industry, face shields have only recently been implemented, and only once an identified case is discovered.

    The other overall feeling I get is the government at a federal level is not being proactive about setting the parameters for us to live with the virus but is hoping, maybe praying that something will rescue us from the problem.
    While the states are doing the heavy lifting on the health crisis, the federal government should be planning strategies for moving forward. Ongoing Quarantine, new work safe regulations re infection control, training plans to increase the health workforce, sustainable housing for the long term unemployed. I don’t see or read anything about the future, just day to day management.

    This pandemic has shown how poorly prepared we are for any type of disruption. The private sector are good at managing many things but in a crisis they aren’t willing to spend any of their profit to maintain the services. They could be seen as good weather friends, our country needs to be built on a more stable structure than that.

  50. People don’t matter.
    Reputations don’t matter.
    Truth doesn’t matter.
    Honour and integrity don’t matter.

    Scoring political points is all that matters.

    The Morrison way.

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