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”

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  1. Spray:

    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.

    That is my understanding.

    So – the only way lives could have been saved would have been to get the people with symptoms off earlier, for example the Navy could have retrieved them at sea.

  2. You don’t get it Barney.

    I don’t believe the story about Alex Hawke’s parents, but the reason I don’t believe it has nothing to do with Samantha Maiden’s assurances.

  4. I think Bushpig actually misses Pegasus. Since she’s no longer around to be the target of its relentless attacks, it’ll lash out at any woman. Tonight its target is Sam Maiden. Who knows which member of the female persuasion will be the target of its attention tomorrow.

  6. I don’t trust any journalist who works for News Corp, and neither should you William.

    You speak of my criticising Sam Maiden as if she was the Virgin Mary. Get a grip.

  7. Danama Papers:

    Tonight its target is Sam Maiden

    BB’s attack on Pegasus was personal, offensive and sexist, and was roundly (and rightly) condemned as such at the time, including by his erstwhile “supporters”

    In contrast, in relation to Ms Maiden he has simply attacked her credibility, which is not the same thing at all

  8. Why don’t all of you with personal issues with other posters just shut the fuck up and realise that you can’t have personal issues with someone you’ve never met. It’s the internet.
    They are on a screen, the black fucking mirror. Grrrr.

  12. Re the Ruby Princess, I still question what really happened
    -why the refusal to release passenger info to airlines knowing they could be infected?
    -why did Morrison threaten a HC challenge to prevent ABF from appearing at the inquiry?
    -why was the Ruby Princess ordered out of our waters before the Bret Walker investigation could interview the captain and other top people?
    Have been following KK , Andrew Probyn and Tony Windsor on twitter and some responses to them included info that the Hawke in-law on board had posted on Facebook but this has since been removed.
    There is also this article:
    https://medium.com/@Elle_Black/hillsong-gets-away-scott-free-49dbf11112d0

  14. Australian Border Force was absolved of any part in the debacle through the NSW inquiry.

    ABF granted approval for people to leave the ship under customs and immigration law, but not health.

    An ABF officer misinterpreted negative flu tests for negative coronavirus tests, but that played no role in passengers leaving the ship.

    ABF commissioner Michael Outram admitted the officer wasn’t operating under law by being involved with health tests, but was trying to be helpful.</blockquote

    OK then.

  15. bill @ #1614 Wednesday, August 19th, 2020 – 2:07 am

    Australian Border Force was absolved of any part in the debacle through the NSW inquiry.

    ABF granted approval for people to leave the ship under customs and immigration law, but not health.

    An ABF officer misinterpreted negative flu tests for negative coronavirus tests, but that played no role in passengers leaving the ship.

    ABF commissioner Michael Outram admitted the officer wasn’t operating under law by being involved with health tests, but was trying to be helpful.

    OK then.

  17. Also this article which has some interesting sidelines –
    https://truecrimenewsweekly.com/plague-ship-covid-confidential-links-between-ruby-princess-past-liberal-party-corruption-emerge-as-cruise-liner-becomes-leading-cause-of-coronavirus-in-australia/
    It’s the independent journalists who broke the Barnaby Joyce story and with Ninefax now ‘LNP lite ‘ since Costello’s time at the helm, I read as widely as possible.
    There’s just too much secrecy by this PM et al and you have to wonder what they have to hide.

  18. Spray @ #1594 Tuesday, August 18th, 2020 – 9:30 pm

    WeWantPaul @ #1591 Tuesday, August 18th, 2020 – 11:24 pm

    Spray @ #1587 Tuesday, August 18th, 2020 – 9:17 pm

    WeWantPaul @ #1582 Tuesday, August 18th, 2020 – 11:10 pm

    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.

    Not wanting to defend Border Force, but what role do you think they had in “killing something like 20 people”?

    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.

    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.

    I’d need a link to a reliable source for that, and well we live in a society without them, so good luck with that.

  19. “Sounds like a nice lady.”

    ***

    “Late last year I was also diagnosed for the first time with anxiety and depression, which although I still believe never stopped me from breaking big political stories, has not been fun.

    “My psychologist has this crazy idea I’m a rather complex individual because of my dad’s suicide when I was three years old. She says I’m high functioning which is a polite way of saying I’m an annoying, relentless perfectionist. I am genuinely sorry if anyone has been bruised by this.”

    – Samantha Maiden

    https://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/tv-and-radio/samantha-maiden-announces-resignation-from-sky-news-20180628-p4zobn.html

  20. I don’ t like Mr Hawke any more than his previous mentor David Clarke but I would have expected proof is special favours were done for his parents on the Ruby princess. so i suspect this is untrue

  22. Mavis

    A bit disingenuous, mate, when declaring it was all about free expression.

    It was in that it was all the expressing for ‘free’ bit was the problem 😉

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