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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  1. “Sorry for adding context to your selective comment.”

    ***

    There you go again. All you’re doing is adding prejudice and making something out of absolutely nothing. I wasn’t having a go at your beloved Labor party. Stop being so paranoid.

  2. C@t

    I really cant believe how deluded. It’s really bad. Every day the same outrage and delusions. That person needs serious mental help.

  3. Assantdj @ #245 Wednesday, August 5th, 2020 – 12:42 pm

    I overheard part of the P Karvelas show yesterday.
    The point that was being made had some merit. If a woman is working from home, with young children or even older children that have to be home schooled, how do you do your paid job. Anecdotely what is happening is that very little is accomplished during the day and then the work is attended late into the night. It is another part of the general consensus that this pandemic is affecting women more than men.

    Pat Karvelas should have former journalist and now Psychiatry Registrar, Dr Lisa Pryor, on her show to tell her how it’s done. Or maybe Gail Kelly, or Dr Fiona Wood, who has more than just a couple of children. How about Jacinda Ardern? She has a toddler AND she is running a country and dealing with the pandemic from a leadership position. Karvelas’ problems are small beer in comparison.

  4. GG

    Apparently Sam Newman has been tweeting some vile stuff too.

    I wont give him a minutes attention. But goodness we have some low lifes in this city.

  5. Assantdj says:
    Wednesday, August 5, 2020 at 12:42 pm
    “I overheard part of the P Karvelas show yesterday.
    The point that was being made had some merit. If a woman is working from home, with young children or even older children that have to be home schooled, how do you do your paid job. Anecdotely what is happening is that very little is accomplished during the day and then the work is attended late into the night. It is another part of the general consensus that this pandemic is affecting women more than men.”

    Given her domestic arrangements there aren’t any males that I’m aware of to lift their burden.

  7. C@t

    If that is the extent of PKarvelas issues, she should take some leave and allow someone else to do her job. Surely she is in a good financial position. ABC staff get paid very well.

  8. C@t

    Most definitely. I would describe a zealot with respect to refugees. Now the attention is on this hoax of a virus. Good grief.

  9. Yep. We were sent outside and told not to come inside until the street lights turned on.

    “But I’m bored”.

    “Good. It will encourage your creativity and innovation far more than school ever will”.

  12. lizzie @ #243 Wednesday, August 5th, 2020 – 12:42 pm

    OTOH I never sat them down in front of a TV and left them. I watched with them so that I could explain things and they went to bed before adult programs came on at night. What a disciplinarian I was. 😉

    As kids our standard argument was about being allowed to stay up and watch Homicide. Typically we would lose, but would beg to stay up just long enough for the opening scene, which was always (unsurprisingly) a homicide.
    So the argument usually ended with “Right, you can watch the murder, then you’re going straight to bed!”
    Textbook parenting.

  14. Ahhhhhh! it makes sense now… the time she allowed the BCA chap (or was is AIG) to assert elimination was impossible and complain about what suppression is doing to the economy without any return questioning on why elimination is impossible and what, exactly, is he suggesting is the alternative and how many innocent people it will kill and what overflowing ICUs will do to society and the economy.

    That doesnt make her much of a journo if she is letting her frustrations at homeschooling get in the way of fair a balanced questioning of a lobbyist.

    They did seem to get on rather well tho. Maybe she was just being polite.

  20. Maybe the financial disaster alleged to be affecting the Greek Masarati owning Aged Care mob has discombobulated her judgment.

  22. C@tmomma
    The comments on the show weren’t just from the host but also the panellists.
    I think everyone needs to acknowledge just how difficult some of these restrictions are for some people. Everyone’s circumstances are different and I can see a scenario where a single mum with pre school children could find this very difficult. If to add to that your employer is cracking the whip about work performance you could feel very threatened in terms of your ongoing financial viability.

    I personally don’t have a problem with people raising the issues as long as they aren’t pushing to be exempted. What it has made me consider is how woefull the financial support has been from the federal government. Just as it has only now been acknowledged that insecure workers should have been supported the government should have been quick with some assistance to the workers disaffected by Victorian government lockdown especially as they can no longer send their children to Childcare.

  23. Fulvio Sammut says: Wednesday, August 5, 2020 at 12:54 pm
    I’ve never seen or heard anyone snorting coke.

    The cans going up your nose hurt like hell if you sniff too hard.

  24. Bushfire Bill @ #178 Wednesday, August 5th, 2020 – 11:46 am

    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.

    The explosive reaction is between a long chain organic (carbon chain based) substance ( eg diesel oil, but could be hessian or paper bags, coal dust or lots of other things) and ammonium nitrate as an ‘oxidising agent’. It engages in a complex reaction where it (NH4NO3) reacting with (CnH2n+2) (the organic compound), produces nitrogen gas (N2), carbon dioxide (CO2), and water (all in gaseous form) + lots of heat, hence, a big bang. In order for the reaction to initiate, as I posted, it is normally a three stage process; a detonator (primary) sets off a secondary (gelignite or whatever) which sets off the ANFO (Ammonium Nitrate – Fuel Oil). In other words, you need a substantial explosion to set off the final explosive reaction, which, in order for it to happen, requires the participating compounds to be bashed, very forcibly, together.

    The mystery is how a stable compound, such as Ammonium Nitrate, can sometimes, apparently, explode on its own. This is not expected, even with the application of heat. Does it? Normal chemistry does not really explain this.

  25. Simon Katich says:
    Wednesday, August 5, 2020 at 1:00 pm

    “Can I borrow it?”

    Absolutely, and next is to offer to pack up all their belongings and take them off to the Op Shop as they are finished with them.

  26. Kronomex says:
    Wednesday, August 5, 2020 at 1:02 pm

    “The cans going up your nose hurt like hell if you sniff too hard.”

    It’s the bubbles up the nose that puts me off.

  29. Whenever one of my kids would say they were bored. I would respond that boring people get bored.

    Didnt take long for them to stop saying it.

    Lol!

  31. Re the Ellen Whinnett article on Jo Palmer at the head of this post, this is actually in the most part a syndicated News Corp article that ran last week and that has been revised and re-released following the results of the count thus far. The Jo for Canberra speculation (sorry, couldn’t help myself there) was in the original.

  34. Kevin Bonham says:
    Wednesday, August 5, 2020 at 1:08 pm

    “Jo for Canberra”

    I had a “Joh for Canberra” sticker on my car at Uni – purely to upset the ALP/Socialist Alliance plonkers. It worked.

  35. Absolutely, and next is to offer to pack up all their belongings and take them off to the Op Shop as they are finished with them.

    That gets a regular guernsey.

  36. Well that makes it okay then I guess.

    Richard Willingham
    @rwillingham
    ·
    5m
    Replying to
    @rwillingham
    A spokesperson for the Opposition said the comment was not appropriate and had been deleted.

  38. Firefox @ #252 Wednesday, August 5th, 2020 – 10:47 am

    “Sorry for adding context to your selective comment.”

    ***

    There you go again. All you’re doing is adding prejudice and making something out of absolutely nothing. I wasn’t having a go at your beloved Labor party. Stop being so paranoid.

    😆 😆

    Who’s projecting now?

    My comment was not motivated by any perceived political alliance, I have none beyond who I think is best able to form a progressive Government in Australia, but by comments like yours that demonstrate surprise and an expectation that the numbers should be falling by now.

  41. The mystery is how a stable compound, such as Ammonium Nitrate, can sometimes, apparently, explode on its own. This is not expected, even with the application of heat. Does it? Normal chemistry does not really explain this.

    The MSDS for AN lists “Risk of explosion if heated under confinement” (i.e. thermal decomposition into gases leading to overpressure of the container.) That could have provided the “thump” to detonate the rest. Alternatively, something else in the warehouse provided the trigger. Or:

    But ammonium nitrate has a potentially lethal downside: If it comes into contact with an open flame or other ignition source, it explodes violently. The explosive force occurs when solid ammonium nitrate decomposes very rapidly into two gases, nitrous oxide and water vapor.

    https://www.livescience.com/28841-fertilizer-explosions-ammonium-nitrate.html

  42. frednk @ #225 Wednesday, August 5th, 2020 – 12:26 pm

    This makes more sense:

    “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.”

    Mining and agriculture are the large users of ammonium nitrate. Why would you need 2000 tones of it?

    For agriculture and mining! Australia produces well over a million tonnes a year, at 2 plants. Shipments of thousands of tonnes take place all the time between Kwinana (Perth) and the WA iron ore mines, for instance. Also Newcastle to Gladstone.

  43. I used to let my kids watch South Park before shuffling them off to bed. They never wanted to watch anything after that because they thought they had been allowed to do something borderline naughty by their parents. Reverse Psychology. 🙂

  44. The child care sector was the first to have jobkeeper removed apparently as some type of “ test case”. Whatever the reason a completely stupid decision.

    The announcement today by Tehan does nothing to support the jobs of childcare workers and carers. No certainty, no ongoing security. For many jobseeker will be the only option.

    The reinstatement of jobkeeper would have been a simple, straight forward and positive step. However, Morrison is not one for admitting mistakes so a bandaid solution is what the sector gets.

  45. I may be wrong but it looked to me like a large apartment building was built close by the warehouse housing the Ammonium Nitrate, maybe to take advantage of the water views. Talk about unfettered free market capitalism blowing up in your face!

  46. I had a “Joh for Canberra” sticker on my car at Uni – purely to upset the ALP/Socialist Alliance plonkers. It worked.

    A long history of trolling I see.
    As much as I hated them too (OMG!), I feel saying and doing things just to annoy the political other is a slippery slope and explains much of what is wrong with our politics. It reinforces an ever widening divide between people with a lot more in common than difference.

  47. Also, let’s get something straight. No child in Victoria is being ‘home schooled.’ They are receiving remote and flexible learning. All the work and instructions are uploaded every day in every subject and they have regular Zoom sessions with teachers. Home schooling is something else entirely.

  48. Simon Katich @ #296 Wednesday, August 5th, 2020 – 1:19 pm

    I had a “Joh for Canberra” sticker on my car at Uni – purely to upset the ALP/Socialist Alliance plonkers. It worked.

    A long history of trolling I see.
    As much as I hated them too (OMG!), I feel saying and doing things just to annoy the political other is a slippery slope and explains much of what is wrong with our politics. It reinforces an ever widening divide between people with a lot more in common than difference.

    Absolutely. It’s the Tony Abbott model, and it has caused so much damage to the Australian polity.

    A prime example was his knighthood to Prince Phillip. Trolling of the highest order, but it was probably the beginning of the end for him.

  50. Bucephalus says: Wednesday, August 5, 2020 at 1:06 pm
    Hill Street Blues – possibles the best TV series ever.

    About the only shows I remember watching in 1981 was Doctor Who, Danger Mouse and The Hitchhikers Guide to Galaxy. I spent most of my time at the theatres and playing endless hours of pinball machines and reading, mostly SF and after perusing Musashi by Eiji Yoshikawa started on history books about Japan prior to the 20th Century.

    I did watch one episode of Pill Sleep Blahs and couldn’t watch anymore.

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