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%).
She has been a naughty girl too:
A journalist who police say drove on the wrong side of the road while drunk has been given a good-behaviour bond and disqualified from driving.
Daily Telegraph political editor Samantha Louise Maiden, 43, appeared in Goulburn Local Court on two charges of not obeying the direction of police and driving with a mid-range prescribed content of alcohol, the Goulburn Post reports. She had previously entered guilty pleas to all charges.
weird, whats with the sam maiden hate?
See also the Barnaby bonking story, where for months you could have said ‘if he’d knocked up a staff member we’d have known during the election’, and we would have known, well and in fact some of us did know, but the media had decided not to print.
The Oz has published its Newspoll quarterly state breakdowns: 51-49 to Labor in NSW, 56-44 to Labor in Victoria, 59-41 to Coalition in Queensland, 54-46 to Coalition in WA, 50-50 in South Australia. That’s a fair bit better for Labor than the election result in NSW (51.8-48.2 to Coalition) and a little better in WA (55.6-44.4), but about the same everywhere else.
https://theaustraliannewscorpau.files.wordpress.com/2020/08/newspoll.pdf
Lars Von Triersays:
Tuesday, August 18, 2020 at 10:20 pm
weird, whats with the sam maiden hate?
_____________
I was about to say cue the DUI reference but…..
Federal Newspoll data from previously released polls done between 3 June to 8 August 2020, aggregated and broken down by State, Gender, Age, Education, Household Income, Language at Home, Religion.
Full tables here. Sample of 6,392.
https://theaustraliannewscorpau.files.wordpress.com/2020/08/newspoll.pdf
Article
https://www.theaustralian.com.au/nation/politics/newspoll-federal-labor-stuck-in-a-hole-in-mining-states/news-story/61913f930b91f09055bd364239bb8d2a
WeWantPaul
If the Ruby Princess was allowed to dock and passengers disembarked because of a connection to a politician or senior official then that should be known.
That is a more than a little better than at the last election by the coalition.
If you’ve got any genuine reason to think Alex Hawke’s brother-in-law was on the Ruby Princess, BB, let’s hear it. “Samantha Maiden said he wasn’t so it must be true” ain’t gonna cut it.
The passenger manifest of the cruise ship would show who was on board.
Now I know Qantas and other airlines had trouble getting the passengers names but if some govt members in laws were on board surely it would have come to light by now.
There are plenty of people who destest the coalition enough to dig into it…..(there’s a part of me that wishes it was true) but as far as I can see it’s nothing more than rumour mongering.
Mexicanbeemer @ #1556 Tuesday, August 18th, 2020 – 8:24 pm
Yes it clearly should, but then the Fed Govt should answer questions, should have given the passenger manifests to airlines, probably to the inquiry, it should have cooperated with the inquiry, it should have done all sorts of things, and we should have journalists consistently providing news in an impartial professional way, it just very very clear we do not have any of these things.
sonar @ #1559 Tuesday, August 18th, 2020 – 8:26 pm
There is a lot of people claiming it is true and / or very likely, just as we had with the Barnaby bonking scandal, just as we had with Hawaii.
We’ve got no way to be sure the media doesn’t know and isn’t covering it. And I appreciate there is a difference both the Govt and media rely on between ‘knowing’ and having a story that can get through the hoops at a proper media outlet. They argued this was the case with the Barnaby bonking story, ie it was an open secret but noone did the work to get it to a publishable story until the telly decided do it.
‘The enough labor people who’d want to get to the truth’ angle is interesting but those people didn’t manage to bring an open secret to light in an election campaign, so I’d not be putting a lot of weight on their power.
WeWantPaulsays:
We’ve got no way to be sure the media doesn’t know and isn’t covering it.
_________________
It would be one of the biggest stories in decades. Every journalist would give an arm to confirm it if true.
WeWantPaul @ #1557 Tuesday, August 18th, 2020 – 8:25 pm
My bad, I mistook jurisdictions. So ignore that completely.
I dislike the Government as much as anybody, but I can understand the Commonwealth’s decision not to cooperate arises simply from not wanting to expose Home Affairs and Border Force as a bunch of showboating hacks and not wanting to set a precedent of accountability to a State Government inquiry (this, of course, being the official reason).
It doesn’t have to be any deeper than that, no matter what certain people on Twitter think.
One adds that Border Force’s abject failure to enforce the government’s (serial) announcements on quarantine was a constant through those months and later and exposes an embarrassing lack of capability. The facts should be sufficiently embarrassing without the conspiracy.
nath @ #1562 Tuesday, August 18th, 2020 – 8:34 pm
Yeah sure. Like the Barnaby bonking story they killed, like Hawaii, like Watergate they have been ferocious.
Our media is excellent.
And Nick Ross, Michael West and Emma Alberici were generously rewarded for top shelf fearless journalism that actually held power to account.
No wait …
Simon @ #1564 Tuesday, August 18th, 2020 – 8:39 pm
I’d agree for a Govt that had a record of good faith and good governance, this one has a long and deep history of corruption that makes me wonder how anyone continues to assume largely good faith by their standards.
54-46 to the COALITION in West Aus???? I doubt that VERY much. Who did they survey, the local happy clapper church?
Wasn’t there a connection with Hillsong on that boat? Hence the possible link with Alec Hawke?
Likewise, “Sam Maiden said he wasn’t so it must be true” ain’t gonna cut it either.
William Bowe @ #1546 Tuesday, August 18th, 2020 – 8:14 pm
I recall her even having an article (maybe several) published on The Guardian Australia site as well.
WeWantPaulsays:
Yeah sure. Like the Barnaby bonking story they killed, like Hawaii, like Watergate they have been ferocious.
_____________________
Some might trade silence for access on smaller matters but this is a career making story.
Which is just one of the reasons I favour “there is no evidence to support the allegation so why are we even discussing this”.
Turns out it was only one article on the Guardian site: https://www.theguardian.com/profile/samantha-maiden
The article: https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2018/nov/06/how-the-catholic-schools-sector-outplayed-the-coalition
Samantha Maiden did what any journalist should do and asked Alex Hawke who denied the rumour was true.
Lizzie I’m pretty certain that the Hillsong story was de-bunked.
nath @ #1572 Tuesday, August 18th, 2020 – 8:47 pm
An $80 million payment to a company formed by a colleague when the valuation was $40 million, I like you idea of small matters. You’d be right at home in the Australian media pack,you might even excel. Always a risk you’d be too smart, or too ethical, but it seems a pretty small risk.
“Nah mate he only paid $40 million of taxpayers money above the odds, a total of $80 MM to an old rowing mate, running a company he helped form, we won’t even fit that on page 15.”
I know I think this Govt is corrupt but it is a lot worse than I think if this kind of payment is a small story.
Worth a read – Bernard Keane has written a neat summary of the situation in Australia as if reported by a foreign correspondent: https://edm.crikey.com.au/e/272522/0Crikey-Pardot-Access-Tokenurl/8fg4pk/674657370/UEJ5dU1IVWZVbWdidyt2NDV2RGQwUT09?h=2d_onZrQxFOBS0C_ojohKfKEhrm4RjLBWKjnV2ErBUE ($)
2018
Sky News host Samantha Maiden has been stood down pending an internal investigation.
The TV presenter and former News Corp political editor was told to take leave late last week and has not been on-air since. It is understood Sky is investigating multiple workplace complaints made against the veteran journalist.
Sounds like a nice lady.
Re the poll showing 54-46 in WA – assuming that the sample size is about 2000, that would be about 200 for WA. MOE ~ 7%. I wouldn’t pay much attention.
WB: “I’m off down the pub pretty shortly.”
Don’t fall for it! It’s a trap!!
William Bowe @ #1553 Tuesday, August 18th, 2020 – 10:22 pm
Holy shit that’s an awful number.
davidwh @ #1575 Tuesday, August 18th, 2020 – 8:51 pm
That may well be what happened, but can you like to where she sources her firm conclusion was based on Alex. And if it was, why would anyone believe Alex? Like if he is the source of the denial why would you stop there?
Well Australian media types definitely do and definitely would. But a journalist wouldn’t do it that way.
If she had a source, or two if that is what she’d need for a tweet, that had seen the manifest so she could categorically rule it out, well then wouldn’t she say.
Again I don’t want to appear to far down the path of the claim because I don’t know it is true and I don’t really care. It is clear from Probyn’s reporting that Border Force got it wrong killing something like 20 people. Australian people, which is odd they prefer torturing and killing genuine refugees.
But even with that alone that should be enough for Dutton and Morrison to resign. In an emergency that failed. This Alex clown is surely a liability, much better for the LNP to keep him about.
My point is we have a Govt that lies, a politicized public service that lies, a media that is dominated almost completely by a foreign national with a very explicit and clear propaganda vision, two of the best journalists the ABC have had in the last decade were pushed, rather than promoted or rewarded, for writing excellent and fearless articles trying to hold power to account, when that power was the LNP, they are all suddenly fearless when they are trying to hold the ALP to account. The asymmetry is so astounding even Nath could spot it, but he’d never admit to spotting.
Bottom line given all the forces working against us there is a risk that believing the Australia media and the LNP Govt rather than rando conspiracy theorists on twitter is going to steer you wrong at least as much as it steers you right.
a r @ #1581 Tuesday, August 18th, 2020 – 9:08 pm
It lends weight to my long espoused theory that in order for Labor to be even competitive there, they’re going to have to sacrifice votes elsewhere, to the point of negating the whole exercise.
Ruby Princess is far more likely to be a stuff up than a conspiracy to smuggle Alex Hawke’s relatives and/or Hillsingers into Australia.
Had there been undue influence to the benefit of Alex Hawke’s relatives and/or Hillsingers then it is far more likely to have involved their selective medical retrieval (e.g using the Navy) from what had become a plague ship and a danger to its occupants, rather than some sort of cunning plan to evacuate them under the cover of spreading people all over the country.
And – terminating the cruise and medical retrieval of those with respiratory symptoms before the plague ship made port would have been the right thing to do, and may well have saved lives. This would also have been the competent thing to do – which the actual handling clearly wasn’t.
I would say that if someone had made up a story about ABF claiming the Govt security forces had corruptly let family members of the ruling party to get off the vessel, they’d be charged with some security offence and be on trial for a crime that carries 20 years jail. But then I remembered the trial would probably be a secret trial, so who knows it might be happening now.
Because of all the people in the world whose word you shouldn’t take at face value, the word of Murdoch’s Political Editor is at the front of the queue.
Read The Australian, or the Daily Telegraph, the Courier Mail, or the Herald-sun, then watch Sky News and you might get an indictation of just how reliable anyone from News is in the “journalism” business William.
I mean, sheesh…
WeWantPaul @ #1582 Tuesday, August 18th, 2020 – 11:10 pm
Not wanting to defend Border Force, but what role do you think they had in “killing something like 20 people”?
Danama Papers @ #1580 Tuesday, August 18th, 2020 – 11:12 pm
They might as well do the opposite. Go hard on coal/climate, burn the Qld regional vote (what little of it they still get), and run up the score everywhere else.
I wonder how well disposed to the Federal Government the owners of the Ruby Princess would be?
Not enough to avoid the ship’s passenger manifest falling into some enthusiastic journalist’s hands?
54-46 to Coalition in WA
Coalition Party non existant in WA.
Also recent push back from Clive may helped.
Spray @ #1587 Tuesday, August 18th, 2020 – 9:17 pm
That is about the reported number of presumably know and traced deaths that flowed from the passengers of the Ruby Princess being let out into Australia to infect people. I’m guessing you are going to say those people could have been passengers who’d have died anyway, and I’d say well that is not how the article read, and you’d say well you don’t usually trust the media, and you’d win the debate, so who knows. If I trusted the media more I’d find a link for you, but it isn’t really worth it.
It seems a low number and I don’t know how good their tracing has been.
At the end of the day, a named journo putting their reputation on the line saying “I’ve looked into it, it’s false” might only be a small datapoint, but it surely far outweighs a bunch of RUMINT.
caf @ #1592 Tuesday, August 18th, 2020 – 9:28 pm
Except it didn’t with Hawaii.
WeWantPaul @ #1591 Tuesday, August 18th, 2020 – 11:24 pm
No, all of the deaths from the Ruby Princess were of passengers that contracted the virus on board. This is well established, though largely ignored in the hysterical reporting.
The effects of the disembarkation stuff-up (and it was a stuff-up) amounted to 62 infections, one of whom became seriously ill, but no fatalities.
Now, whether the ship should have been allowed to depart in the first place is another story. That’s what led to the tragedy, but there has been far less discussion about that.
Oh, you mean like Dennis Shanahan putting his name on the line about “secret Victorian government modelling”? Kieran Gilbert telling us the Victorian CHO had been sacked? Andrew Bolt on anything to do with indigenous Australians?
Jesus wept, the lunatics HAVE taken over the asylum if anyone defends anything a News Corp journo says based solely on their word.
What reputation to speak of did Shanahan or Bolt have? Bolt’s not even a journalist, he’s a demagogue.
Well. Shanners “owns” Newspoll for a start ….
I don’t recall any credible source saying anything along the lines of “I’ve investigated the claims and the PM certainly isn’t holidaying in Hawaii”, but I could certainly have missed that if they did – and they’d certainly look like a right goose now.
It didn’t take long for the truth to be confirmed in that matter either, did it?
Newscorp journos have no credibility, the complete shite they write and they never admit they were wrong on anything.
Bushfire Bill @ #1581 Tuesday, August 18th, 2020 – 9:15 pm
So no actual evidence to refute it!