Preselections: Groom and WA Liberal Senate

Early manoeuvres for a Liberal vacancy in a looming federal by-election, and a preselection to fill Mathias Cormann’s Senate seat set for November 7.

With Newspoll and Essential Research both having said their piece this week, there is likely to be a fortnight gap between federal polls. Not counting state and territory election action, which you can be assured you will be hearing more about shortly, there are two important preselections on the boil on the conservative side of politics:

• A situation is vacant for the Liberals in the Toowoomba-based federal seat of Groom following last week’s resignation announcement from John McVeigh, the member since 2016. In a column for the Brisbane Times, former Newman government minister and current 4BC presenter Scott Emerson says the vacancy presents an opportunity to head off a stoush over the order of the next Senate ticket between James McGrath and Amanda Stoker. The winner of this fight will get top position while the loser must settle for third, second being reserved for the Nationals. Emerson reports that this amounts to a battle between moderates and the Christian Right, of which McGrath is apparently one of the former. The suggestion is that Groom might give McGrath an opening, but in this he could face opposition from locals who support the claim of Toowoomba councillor Rebecca Vonhoff. Suggestions the seat might be of interest to another Senator, Matt Canavan, are complicated by the fact that he is a National, the sensitivity of which was illustrated when the LNP organisation blocked an attempt by the seat’s previous member, Ian Macfarlane, to jump ship from Liberal to the Nationals in 2015.

Nathan Hondros of WAToday reports the Liberals will hold their preselection to fill Mathias Cormann’s Western Australian Senate vacancy on November 7, with the winner to take third position on the party’s ticket at the next election behind Michaelia Cash and Dean Smith. There would appear to be three nominees: Julian Ambrose, stepson of the late Perth construction billionaire Len Buckeridge; Sherry Sufi, an arch-conservative party activist; and Albert Jacob, former state Environment Minister and current mayor of Joondalup, who emerged as a “last-minute nomination”. Jacob held the coastal northern suburbs seat of Ocean Reef from 2008 to 2017, when he was defeated in the landslide the tipped the Barnett government from office. Cormann is reportedly lobbying for Ambrose, and his backers are pressuring Sufi to withdraw.

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.

2,450 comments on “Preselections: Groom and WA Liberal Senate”

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  1. I didnt know this…..

    Christopher Johnson
    @Dream_Brother_
    ·
    Sep 30
    FYI The Proud Boys exist in Melbourne. They attend the “March for the Babies” hosted by Bernie Finn each year.

    Why have #SpringSt journalists never asked Bernie Finn if he condemns the violence and racism of those thugs who walk alongside him?
    #auspol #TheProudBoys

  2. Just come home and am reading comments on Scotty at the Press Club.

    )
    @brockathome
    1h
    Just caught a few precious minutes of the PM’s Press Club speech: a shadowy thicket of dense blather in which the unwary traveller, wading hip-deep through fetid obfuscations, may be swallowed whole by a yawning generality.

    ***

    Christine Phillips @cscviews
    1h
    Did I actually hear our #Dimwitted PM say “you can’t make plastic with wind” … no you utter fool, you make it with ‘electricity’ which can be generated by wind and solar. As Ms Tingle said #WeAreGovernedByIdiots #auspol

    ***
    @deniseshrivell
    11m
    Scott Morrison speaks in front of a room full of Australia’s most senior & published journalists – & can still mislead in the full knowledge that there are no consequences. Extraordinary. It’s really not going to improve – why should it #npc #spinproof #auspol

    ***
    @BelindaJones68
    ·
    1h
    Morrison is talking a lot but he’s not saying much
    This speech would make a good episode of Utopia

    Not many specifics, just lots of airy-fairy “we’re gunna do this & we’re gunna to that” & PM regaling us with long-winded nostalgia about Australian manufacturing

    But this from Kenny sets a pretty low standard.

    PM @ScottMorrisonMP right to single out industry minister @karenandrewsmp. Avoids rancour and gets things done. And like him or not, hard to imagine any US national leader answering questions for so long and actually recalling the policy detail. @PressClubAust

  3. I am reluctant to pay much attention to those who previously fawned over and profited off Trump. I am certainly loathe to forgive and forget. But the more I see and read and hear from Scaramucci the more I believe he not only changed his mind about Trump but actually changed who he is. When this is all over, his story might make a compelling movie.

    Heel Face Turn, as they say in the classics (?)

  4. “ And the punters still keep believing this pile of shit.”

    All four factions of the LNP-MSM cartel encourage them to do so.

  5. poroti @ #2304 Thursday, October 1st, 2020 – 2:56 pm

    Working from home ‘hurting productivity’

    Oh noes. Oh wait,

    Office landlords step up push to get workers back at their desks,

    😆

    https://www.theaustralian.com.au/subscribe/news/1/?sourceCode=TAWEB_WRE170_a&dest=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theaustralian.com.au%2Fbusiness%2Fproperty%2Fworking-from-home-trend-hurting-productivity-investa-survey%2Fnews-story%2Fe5d4bf708188888c09253406e5cbd978&memtype=anonymous&mode=premium

    I work from home anyway, but our rough estimate of the loss in productivity since our Perth-based office shut down in February is……zero. If forced to make an estimate, I’d even say it’s probably increased. We have an office lease renewal coming up, and will definitely be moving to smaller premises. Forever.

    This is software development, and of course I know it works better for some industry than for others, but you’d still have to think that commercial property investors would be shitting themselves.

  6. My above post reminded me of one of the early features of the pandemic. I work for a large global Indian-owned company, and everyone was sent home way before any government directive was issued.

    Cruise ships were still setting off, PM’s were still going to the footy, infected skiers and Hollywood stars were entering our borders unchecked, but our company had already taken firm action. And I don’t believe they were alone in this.

    In my opinion this responsible behaviour by many corporations and individuals while the government dithered was one of the key reasons for Australia having a less dreadful outcome than might have otherwise been the case.

  7. But the more I see and read and hear from Scaramucci the more I believe he not only changed his mind about Trump but actually changed who he is.

    Scaramucci makes this claim in the video I linked.

  8. Yep

    See new Tweets
    Conversation
    Schloss Lulzville Schadenfreude
    @GeorgeBludger
    Hundreds of deaths in Victorian homes were “not the result of hotel quarantine – they’re the result of understaffing and a lack of qualified staff”

    Hmm, more and more evidence that doesn’t fit the Murdoch/Morrison narrative
    Carers at COVID-ravaged Epping Gardens claim they were pressured to delay testing
    Epping Gardens cut staff in lead-up to the coronavirus second wave, and is accused of telling staff to not only delay getting tested for the virus but to keep working while awaiting test results.
    theage.com.au
    3:13 PM · Oct 1, 2020·TweetDeck

  9. Spray,
    As someone who has, just now, indicated his business’ approach to COVID-19, plus the fact that they are an Indian-owned company, having stated how pro-active and effective was their response to the pandemic, can you venture an opinion as to why the Indian nation in general has made such a hash of its national response to COVID-19 considering the number of people it obviously contains, in decision-making positions, who knew what needed to be done to contain the virus?

    ps This is in no way a means to a slur of the Indian people.

  10. Smart companies are taking the opportunity to restructure their systems of work. I hope this will expose the dumber more traditional/conservative companies who have relied heavily on dubious methods of doing business to cover for poor/inefficient business management.

    I feel for the CBD cafes and other businesses. I have had close relationships with business owners that were in close proximity to the city buildings I have worked in, from Pitt Street to Grenfell Street and a couple in between. But this is also a great opportunity to revitalise the burbs and the regions. I would love to see some stats on changes to commercial realestate rental and value CBD v Suburban. It is also a great chance (along with online shopping) to change the way we travel around cities – from the number of cars we own and how they are powered.

  11. And this Age editorial will be read by how many US voters?

    Trump must put democracy above his own ambitions

    The Age’s View
    Editorial

  12. A couple of chaps that belonged to a variant of the Proud Boys once tried to ruffle my feathers in Toowoomba on a Sunday morning. They didnt like that I was drinking a latte, wearing a skivvy (it was cold – F off), and reading a broadsheet on a bench seat in a park.

    It took a bit of work but in the end the fact I wasnt drinking a latte but instead a triple shot, no milk, seemed to soothe their antagonism. And they realised I wasnt going to throw the first punch. And I remembered (somehow) drinking with them briefly late the night before.

  13. C@tmomma @ #2314 Thursday, October 1st, 2020 – 3:26 pm

    Spray,
    As someone who has, just now, indicated his business’ approach to COVID-19, plus the fact that they are an Indian-owned company, having stated how pro-active and effective was their response to the pandemic, can you venture an opinion as to why the Indian nation in general has made such a hash of its national response to COVID-19 considering the number of people it obviously contains, in decision-making positions, who knew what needed to be done to contain the virus?

    ps This is in no way a means to a slur of the Indian people.

    C@t, I don’t think the “Indian-ness” of the company was relevant here. Just an example of a large company acting as a good corporate citizen, and recognising that their future profitability was intrinsically linked to the continued health and well-being of their staff. The decision-makers involved would have been from India, America, Australia and elsewhere. Just confirming my strong belief that people are generally better than the governments that serve them!

    As far as the Indian pandemic experience is concerned, it was inevitable from the get-go wasn’t it? Without needing any great insight, my colleagues and I stated from the early days that eventually India would suffer more than just about anywhere else on the planet from this plague. The reasons are obvious, and very sad.

    But the horrible short answer to your question is that I work for rich Indians. It’s the poor Indians that are suffering, and there are plenty of them.

  14. Last Newspoll Dan 62% !
    Spot on Cat.
    I never seen an attack on any politician by msm like this Dan crap! They talk to a worker not named of course, they talk crap and it’s 100% True!!
    Those two women( monsters) are just rude and out of control, educated at Trump Uni!

  15. Speaking of India…………….

    Huge study in India offers some surprises to scientists

    An ambitious study of nearly 85,000 of those cases and nearly 600,000 of their contacts, published Wednesday (Thursday AEST) in the journal Science, offers important insights not just for India but for other low and middle-income countries.

    Among the surprises: the contact-tracing study found that children of all ages can become infected and spread it to others — offering compelling evidence on one of the most divisive questions about the virus………………………………Overall, the researchers found, just 5 per cent of people accounted for 80 per cent of the infections detected by contact tracing.
    https://www.watoday.com.au/world/asia/huge-study-in-india-offers-some-surprises-to-scientists-20201001-p5611h.html

  16. Victoria:

    Is covid more contagious here in Melbourne or something?

    Some smallish fraction of people (perhaps 10%) seem to be much more infectious if and when they are infected (aka “potential superspreaders”)

    If that rate (10%) is accurate, it would explain a lot of the data.

    As an example, run the numbers on “the three Amigos” (those blokes in Sydney who thought that a pandemic was good time to go on pub crawl) to see the probability that any of the three was a “potential superspreader” – it’s quite low. Likewise the situation described by Ms Berejiklian as a “miracle” would in fact be the expected outcome of that situation.

    Moreover, it might also be the case that “potential superspreaders” are also more likely to get infected than the average member of the population; in which case it would follow that the rate of “potential superspreaders” (including those as as yet uninfected) in the general population is less than 10%, and quite possibly much less. This also has implications and would tend to push adverse events further into the tail.

    Finally, actual superspreaders (and thus to an extent “potential superspreaders”) may be more likely than average to be asymptomatic (like Typhoid Mary), which implies that a policy of “wearing masks if symptomatic” is likely to be ineffective. and that the policy needs to be to wear masks if outside one’s home.

  17. Don’t know about anyone else but I’m worried I’m beginning to get used to living in this federal-Labor-free-zone world….must resist,….must fight….
    Feeling like Kevin McCarthy……

  18. The Morrison government push to gut the IR system in this country under the cover of covid continues.

    This all still has a long way to go. Howard was the victim of hubris with Workchoices. Will Morrison go the same way ?

    Workers across the board being screwed. NSW front line public sector workers granted a 0.3% pay rise today. MUA fighting for a 2.5% increase. Virgin pilots and cabin crew about to be screwed by the new owners. Bosses pushing for more casualization as government members rinse and repeat the ol’ “ any job is a good job “ no matter what. They will not be the last to cop this bullshit from employers who are being egged on by Morrison and co.

    It all comes down to the hip pocket in the end. Jobkeeper cut, jobseeker cut. Workers receiving nothing but crumbs from bloated employers who continue to receive huge bonuses.

    Long way to go but the journey is going to be interesting.

  19. Aged Care RC intermin report into government response to covid in the sector has been released today.

    Let us see who the;Morrison government intends to blame and if Morrison will accept any responsibility ( the last bit is just a stab at satire ).

  20. Zali Steggall MP
    @zalisteggall
    ·
    21m
    Govt is picking which electorates/regions get the $ we have all, as Australians, contributed & agreed to provide to communities in need after bushfires and Covid. Emergency funding must not be used for pork barrelling
    @M_McCormackMP
    #sportsrorts #auspol

    ***

    Helen Haines MP
    @helenhainesindi
    · 3h
    I’m asking @M_McCormackMP to explain to everyone in Indi why, after the drought we’ve faced, the bushfires we’ve endured, and the border shut down we have suffered, he has excluded us from a new $100m fund specifically for regions impacted by these crises.

  21. ”I’m asking @M_McCormackMP to explain to everyone in Indi why, after the drought we’ve faced, the bushfires we’ve endured, and the border shut down we have suffered, he has excluded us from a new $100m fund specifically for regions impacted by these crises.”

    Wrong spreadsheet cell.

  22. doyley
    Scrott sending out the inspiring…….

    10m ago 07:29

    The aged care minister, Richard Colbeck, will address the media at 4.45pm.

  23. lizzie

    Chuckle.

    Helen Haines announced, with great fanfare, that SHE had procured the funding for the regions – she had lobbied the relevant Ministers, made a speech in Parliament, etc etc.

    I checked the criteria for the grants and found that they did not apply to Indi, and pointed this out on her facebook page…

    So now she’s all astonished and perplexed….

  24. doyley

    I expect they will trot out the same bulldust they used a couple of weeks back. Once there was community transmission in Victoria (Dan’s fault) then it was inevitable outbreaks would occur in the homes. (See we are innocent)

  25. poroti,

    They can try all they like but I do not think it will wear well.

    Australians from all walks of life and all political leanings are affected by this with parents, grandparents, uncles and aunts, spouses etc etc in aged care facilities many of whom have been directly impacted and in many cases have lost their lives.

    Not accepting responsibility for any adverse findings would be a huge mistake by Morrison in the particular case.

    We shall see.


  26. Spray says:
    Thursday, October 1, 2020 at 3:10 pm
    ..
    This is software development, and of course I know it works better for some industry than for others, but you’d still have to think that commercial property investors would be shitting themselves.

    My son thinks that working from home 4 days a week and one day for team contact is worth a 20% reduction in his salary. He doesn’t have to pay for the transport and does waste two hours of his day.

    Add to this reduced infrastructure cost for the government. Reduce floor space for the company, what is there not to like?

    Zoom, team-builder or whatever works.

    We are about to see a big productivity improvement and commercial property is not part of it, bull shit is not going to stop it happening.

  27. Accepting and implementing are two different things

    Accepting is an annoucement only, plenty of RC’s have had their announcements accepted without them being implemented

  28. Trust in the UK Government among Scots has plummeted to a record low, a poll has found.

    The annual Scottish Household Survey – which interviews more than 10,000 adults – found that just 15% trusted Westminster to work in the best interests of the country (i.e. Scotland).

    It’s the lowest number since the survey was first carried out in 1999.

    But 61% of respondents said they trusted the Scottish Government to work in their interests.

    The survey, which was carried out before lockdown, shows people were nearly five times more likely to say the Scottish Government should have most influence over how the country is run than the UK Government.

    It also found that respondents were more likely to blame UK Government policies for Scotland’s weakening economy than decisions made at Holyrood.

    https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/politics/trust-uk-government-among-scots-22759834.amp?__twitter_impression=true

  29. Poroti:

    Sweden would have had an even larger death toll were it not for this advantage they had.

    [the suggested advantage is that Sweden has the highest percentage of single person households]

    I’m going to say something controversial, and I expect I might be accused of being “racist”!

    In the early months of the pandemic there were repeated statements that the Wuhan-lockdown policy whereby people were forcibly removed from their homes was crucial to contro, based presumably on the idea in-home transmission was critical to spread.

    It may well be that Sweden based its approach in part on this notion of in-home spread, and the the resilience they would have to it.

    However, in-home spread seems inconsistent with what is now known about spread (e.g. in that Science magazine article linked by Poroti), I suggest:
    – if the infected person is a “super spreader” (10% chance) then very likely the rest of the household is already infected and removing the infected person achieves nothing (except possibly making it worse by giving the superspreader further range into which to spread, namely at the hospital)
    – if the infected person is the opposite of a “super spreader” (80% chance) then very likely the rest of the will not be infected, so removing the infected person achieves nothing (but increases the load on the medical system)
    – only in the intermediate case (10% chance) is there any value in removing the infected person. However, there is no straightforward classification mechanism and hence no means to implement this policy in the 10% of cases in which it might help

    I think it is quite likely that, in contrast to being based in science, the information coming out of Wuhan about in-home spread was in fact a post hoc justification for the removals policy. And instead of being based on science, the removals policy was simply a means for the Chinese central government to reassert control over the city (and in particular to demonstrate that it had not lost control).

    It was quite widely believed that removals were effective and perhaps critical, with the corollary that movement restrictions were less effective than one would normally expect. This seems to have misinformed policy not only in Sweden, and for quite some time. I note that the approach in Israel (where the situation has degenerated very bady indeed) is now that people must remain within 100m of their homes.

  30. John Meyer
    @johnmyeye
    ·
    48m
    The presidential debate was the worst thing I’ve ever seen, and I’ve been in the greens. #auspol #qldpol

  31. Ibrahim

    “What is clear from the royal commission report is the federal government is clearly responsible for the aged care response, that is beyond doubt now,” he says.

    “They still don’t have a national plan. Recommendation four from the royal commission asks again for a national plan, this was not established until around the time of the royal commission hearings. I had called for these to be done in March.

    “The fact that the government has accepted all of these recommendations is good and constructive but does not absolve them of their responsibility previously.”

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