Preselections, defections and state elections

Jockeying begins in earnest for Liberal preselections in Warringah and for the Tasmanian Senate ticket, and a new milestone in the decomposition of Nick Xenophon’s party.

There probably won’t be any polls this week, with the fortnightly Essential Research and tri-weekly Newspoll having dropped last week. But there will of course be a Northern Territory election on Saturday, which is the subject of its own thread here.

Other news:

• Sue Bailey of the Launceston Examiner reports that Eric Abetz is expected to retain the top position on the Tasmanian Liberals’ Senate ticket at the next election, contrary to earlier reports that Jonathan Duniam was planning to topple him, after the two “kissed and made up”. However, the report further says that “another senior Liberal” is doing the numbers for the third candidate who will be seeking re-election, Wendy Askew, who filled the Senate vacancy created last year when her brother, David Bushby, took up a diplomatic post in the United States. Also: “It is believed Prime Minister Scott Morrison wants the pre-selection delayed until next year so as not to be a distraction during the COVID-19 pandemic.”

• Michael Koziol of the Age/Herald has a story on the willing Liberal preselection contest in Warringah, which Tony Abbott lost to independent Zali Steggall at last year’s election. Abbott loyalists are said to be advancing the claim of Sacha Grebe, a former Scott Morrison staffer and employee of lobbying firm DPG Advisory, whose principal is David Gazard, a Morrison ally and candidate for Eden-Monaro in 2010. Grebe backer and local party activist Walter Villatora is engaged in a seemingly forlorn bid to have the preselection held as soon as possible. Others said to be in the hunt are “state MP Natalie Ward, state executive member Alex Dore and Menzies Research Centre manager Tim James”.

• There has been a change in the party balance of the Senate with Rex Patrick’s resignation from the Centre Alliance to sit as an independent. The Advertiser ($) has also reported the party’s two remaining members, Stirling Griff in the Senate and Mayo MP Rebekha Sharkie, are the subject of approaches from Liberals to defect to the party, although the notion is meeting bitter resistance from conservatives.

• The results of Tasmania’s recent upper house elections have been finalised, and as expected have resulted in the election of Labor’s Bastian Seidel in the seat of Huon south of Hobart, and of Liberal candidate Jo Palmer in Rosevears. The former was achieved over independent incumbent Robert Armstrong by the comfortable margin of 7.3% at the final count (12,284 votes to 9,152), but the latter proved a close run thing, with Jo Palmer landing 260 votes clear of independent candidate Janie Finlay, 11,492 votes (50.6%) or 11,232 (49.4%).

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.

1,622 comments on “Preselections, defections and state elections”

Comments Page 28 of 33
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  1. caf:

    Tuesday, August 18, 2020 at 2:44 pm

    Mavis:

    That’s moot, Americans having a good deal of respect for former presidents, unlike us, with our ex-prime ministers being metaphorically dispatched to the knackery.

    [‘I don’t believe that is so – in a similar vein, it is de riguer for former PMs from the same party to be present at federal campaign launches.’]

    Yes, they do the rounds in election campaigns, but there’s little more passe than an ex-prime minister. Whereas former US presidents are generally well-regarded, their mistakes, to some extent at least, disregarded with the passage of time.

  3. Come on Rex. You know I can be as far left as Che. I am a huge fan of AOC and really like Sanders. But this is the Democrat convention. It is a big family. Clinton may be the dirty uncle to you; to the DNC he is not only a must have appearance at the party… but a head of the table one.

  4. Simon Katich @ #1353 Tuesday, August 18th, 2020 – 3:01 pm

    Come on Rex. You know I can be as far left as Che. I am a huge fan of AOC and really like Sanders. But this is the Democrat convention. It is a big family. Clinton may be the dirty uncle to you; to the DNC he is not only a must have appearance at the party… but a head of the table one.

    DNC self-indulgence.

  6. Does Morrison have a Minister for Disability?

    The Federal Government’s emergency response plan to COVID-19 made no mention of people living with a disability, a royal commission has heard.

    Key points:
    The inquiry heard there was still no COVID-19 plan for the disability sector in April
    The royal commission’s Chair acknowledged that “we have not all been affected equally”
    There has been a sharp increase in violence against women with a disability during the pandemic
    Senior Counsel Assisting Kate Eastman SC said people with a disability and their advocates “watched and waited” for the Government to come up with a plan.

    Ms Eastman said the COVID-19 plan released at the start of the pandemic addressed groups such as the aged care sector and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island people.

    But people living with disability were conspicuously absent.

    The Royal Commission into Disability heard that when there was still no plan by April, a group of some 70 disability organisations issued an open letter imploring the Government to address pandemic measures specifically for the disability sector.

    https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-08-18/disability-royal-commission-to-shed-light-coronavirus-pandemic/12568436

  8. Prof. Higgins @ #2140 Tuesday, August 18th, 2020 – 1:11 pm

    Michelle Obama’s Convention keynote speech has astonished me. Indubitably, this was one of the most powerful, riveting and effective keynotes since I first listened to the Democratic Party Convention in 1960.

    G’day Prof.
    Thanks for pointing me to Michelle Obama’s address. I absolutely agree.

  10. What was Clinton’s big crime, using a cigar in an unconventional manner and stating it wasn’t sex.

    Given he won his second term clearly most Americans agreed with him or thought he put the cigar to good use.

    Progressives not willing to embrace creative thinking; what a bunch of prudes.

  14. @hughriminton
    ·
    7m
    #BREAKING: NSW chief health officer says a Sydney security guard has caught #COVID-19 from the Circular Quay Marriott quarantine hotel. The guard has subsequently worked at Parramatta Court, Flemington market and Bankstown Central Shopping Centre.

    I thought that NSW quarantine was the model for us all. 🙁

  16. lizzie,

    News regarding a potential quarantine breach in NSW is not unexpected – we have seen multiple transmissions in health care to date. COVID-19 is impressive in its real-world ability to transmit despite precautionary PPE. The politics will be interesting however.

  17. Although I’d prefer not to contribute to the Murdoch coffers, CNN’s coverage of the DNC’s first day has been superb. Sometimes I flick over to Fox News just to check on how the over half’s going – it ain’t pretty, the beady-eyed Sean Hannity the most one-eyed followed closely by Tucker Carlson.

  21. lizzie @ #1364 Tuesday, August 18th, 2020 – 3:21 pm

    @hughriminton
    ·
    7m
    #BREAKING: NSW chief health officer says a Sydney security guard has caught #COVID-19 from the Circular Quay Marriott quarantine hotel. The guard has subsequently worked at Parramatta Court, Flemington market and Bankstown Central Shopping Centre.

    I thought that NSW quarantine was the model for us all. 🙁

    What? Dan’s been interstate?

  24. Simon Katich

    Gramisci ? Ho ho ho. Ghengis Khan perhaps .His presidency saw welfare, prison and finance ‘reforms’ would have put a smile on many an IPA peasant. Not to mention seeing in the union busting dream of Ronny and Bush the First aka NAFTA.

  25. Clinton has (i think) the biggest electoral victory of any Democrat President since LBJ.
    He also has the second biggest.
    Bill has a big one.

    Didn’t Monica testify that the opposite was the case

  26. Mavis

    I take it Sean and Tucker think the US is in danger of having extreme left-communist-socialist-stalinist policies inflicted upon the nation should those Democrats win .

  30. I’d hazard a guess and say that Clinton’s presence won’t actually make a bit of difference either way because most people who don’t have extremely online broken brains will see it for what it is: a former President appearing at his party’s convention.

    I’m disheartened to see Carter omitted from the list. I know he’s in his mid-90s now but I am hoping he’d make a brief pre-recorded message or something – especially as this might well be his last election.

  34. Keep it in the family.

    Tom McIlroy
    @TomMcIlroy
    ·
    7m
    Businessman Tony Shepherd – who led Tony Abbott’s national commission of audit – has been named as a director of Snowy Hydro Limited, Energy Minister Angus Taylor has announced

  35. Bill Clinton knows how to speak to old white men, especially those who have lost their blue collar jobs.

    If he makes any comment on size, it will about Dotard’s shortcoming.

  36. Gramisci ? Ho ho ho. Ghengis Khan perhaps .His presidency saw welfare, prison and finance ‘reforms’ would have put a smile on many an IPA peasant. Not to mention seeing in the union busting dream of Ronny and Bush the First aka NAFTA.

    Years ago I attended a lecture given by Robert Reich – Secretary of Labor under Clinton. He was very open about the hard decisions made in the administration and deciding what was and wasnt possible. He outlined the many entrenched power systems that were primed against them.

    They made the call that the cause of the left demanded they disprove the myth that only right governments were successful economic managers. The imperative was, as Clinton said in the debates, the economy. Like you, I disagree with much of what they did and wonder what legacy they left. They certainly could have done more to undermine those entrenched power systems that are so politically aligned with the right. I do concede that the question of Democratic economic competence improved under his tenure. I also concede that may be a hollow victory.

  37. I actually saw Bill Clinton speak at a trade show in Chicago, when he was President. Didn’t know it was scheduled, but thought something was up as a phalanx of guys with crew cuts, suits with bulges and earpieces started to move us aside as the official party sauntered through the event.

    Clinton was a master of public speaking. Used rehearsed storylines with emotion, lowering the voice to take the audience into his confidence, building the crescendo to the clear definitive statement of principle. He was talking about the Digital Divide in a hall of few thousand, but made it sound like he was talking directly to you.

    Obama is pretty good too.

  38. sprocket_
    I remember reading Mike Carltons assessment of Clinton after he had the chance to meet him. It was like a teenagers love letter.

  40. I believe Virginia Giuffre.

    A trove of documents released in recent days could shed light on Ghislaine Maxwell’s relationship with late financier and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

    The data include records of a 2011 meeting between accuser Virginia Giuffre (formerly Roberts) and her lawyers where she talked about the powerful people in Epstein’s orbit who she said either flew on his private Boeing 727 or stayed on his private island in the Caribbean.

    One of the names mentioned was that of former President Bill Clinton….

    https://www.news.com.au/entertainment/celebrity-life/bill-clinton-visited-jeffrey-epsteins-private-island-unsealed-court-documents-suggest/news-story/e814e3f74228a089377a0645ac043771

  44. I can think of a 2 minute speech from Jimmy Carter that would have a much more powerful impact than a speech from Clinton.

  46. “@hughriminton
    ·
    7m
    #BREAKING: NSW chief health officer says a Sydney security guard has caught #COVID-19 from the Circular Quay Marriott quarantine hotel. The guard has subsequently worked at Parramatta Court, Flemington market and Bankstown Central Shopping Centre. ”

    Dan Andrews has questions to answer! Don’t tell me he is responsible for quarantine failing in TWO states? I can just imagine how outraged the Murdoch press will be over this one.

  49. So GladysB is employing casual security guards at the Marriott in Circular Quay, who after getting infected there, go off to other gigs at a courthouse, shopping centre and Flemington Markets.

    How many more in this casualised dodgy business are being employed part time by Gladys?


  50. Fulvio Sammut says:
    Tuesday, August 18, 2020 at 4:48 pm

    Clinton flew in Epstein’s jet?

    Hang the bastard.

    You open a box of cigars, what you going to do?

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