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. OC

    [If I was Justice Yip I wouldn’t be making plans on how to spend the money]

    Justice David Ipp formerly of the WA Supreme Court then the New South Wales Court of Appeal and then ICAC.

    Nathan Rees‘ towering achievement after years of having mild commissioners.

    As Mavis alluded to, all the ICAC representatives had their legal costs paid for by the state.

  2. Morrison must be feeling the need for a Hawaiian holiday right now:

    The aged care royal commission has called on the federal government to immediately fund additional staff in aged care facilities, while being highly critical of the government’s lack of an aged care plan. (SMH)

  3. citizen @ #2353 Thursday, October 1st, 2020 – 5:51 pm

    Morrison must be feeling the need for a Hawaiian holiday right now:

    The aged care royal commission has called on the federal government to immediately fund additional staff in aged care facilities, while being highly critical of the government’s lack of an aged care plan. (SMH)

    Don’t think Scrooter would give a toss. After everything else he’s got away with Aged care shenanigans is a walk in the park. He won’t even crack a sweat.
    No holiday required.

  4. Damn. I thought Richard Colbeck might have taken Ministerial Responsibility for the Morrison government’s Aged Care debacle and had tendered his resignation this afternoon.

  5. mundo
    It’s easy peasy, accept the findings,look sad then look determined and rattle off a stream of $ numbers that is to be spent. If we are super lucky some of the promised spending might not have been already announced months ago or be just reinstating what he had previously cut. Then feet up and relax.

  6. poroti @ #2358 Thursday, October 1st, 2020 – 6:14 pm

    mundo
    It’s easy peasy, accept the findings,look sad then look determined and rattle off a stream of $ numbers that is to be spent. If we are super lucky some of the promised spending might not have been already announced months ago or be just reinstating what he had previously cut. Then feet up and relax.

    Don’t tell me, Albo rocks the hamock and holds the fan?

  7. mundo

    When someone has made it clear to someone else that they don’t like being addressed in a certain way, it is polite to stop calling them by it.

    To continue to do so is harassment.

  8. Player One:

    Thursday, October 1, 2020 at 5:24 pm

    [‘WTF?’]

    Probably to counter Palmer’s influence. I’ve observed, you don’t deal realpolitik all that well.

  9. mundo @ #2363 Thursday, October 1st, 2020 – 6:54 pm

    C@tmomma @ #2357 Thursday, October 1st, 2020 – 6:13 pm

    Damn. I thought Richard Colbeck might have taken Ministerial Responsibility for the Morrison government’s Aged Care debacle and had tendered his resignation this afternoon.

    Naïveté thy name is C@tmoaner.

    zoomster I think mundo is simply showing his insecurity by behaving like this towards me. He knows his contribution to this blog is of an insignificant and irritant nature only, so he seeks to attack those whose contribution is exponentially more substantial by playing silly playground-level games with their names. He seeks to attract attention to himself by attacking those who he knows will be defended by others with integrity such as yourself. I think it’s probably a better strategy to do to him what he would hate the most. Be ignored.

    Like I do, until such time as good people like yourself bring his juvenile antics to my attention. 🙂

  10. More ways that the Trump campaign, in concert with foreign actors such as Iran and Russia, are using social media, and potentially ransomeware attacks, to disrupt the free and fair deliberations of the people, the casting and counting of their ballots:

    Mr. Trump’s unwillingness to say he would abide by the result, and his disinformation campaign about the integrity of the American electoral system, went beyond anything President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia could have imagined. All Mr. Putin has to do now is amplify the president’s message, which he has already begun to do.

    … But what worried American intelligence and homeland security officials, who have been assuring the public for months now that an accurate, secure vote could happen, was that Mr. Trump’s rant about a fraudulent vote may have been intended for more than just a domestic audience.

    They have been worried for some time that his warnings are a signal to outside powers — chiefly the Russians — for their disinformation campaigns, which have seized on his baseless theme that the mail-in ballots are ridden with fraud. But what concerns them the most is that over the next 34 days, the country may begin to see disruptive cyberoperations, especially ransomware, intended to create just enough chaos to prove the president’s point.

    https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/30/us/politics/trump-debate-election.html

    False stories about Joe Biden’s health continued to spread on social platforms the day after the first presidential debate, including misleading Facebook ads by the Trump campaign and a viral video on TikTok.

    A false story about Biden wearing an earpiece that emerged on Tuesday continued to get traction on Facebook after the debate. The Trump campaign ad, which encourages people to “Check Joe’s Ears,” and asked “Why won’t Sleepy Joe commit to an earpiece inspection,” was viewed between 200 to 250,000 times and marketed primarily to people over 55 in Texas and Florida. The implication of the ad, the content of which originated from a tweet by a New York Post reporter who cited a single anonymous source, is that Biden needed the assistance of an earpiece so someone could pass him information during the debates.

    And on the video platform TikTok, four grainy videos alleging that Biden was wearing a wire to “cheat” during the debate racked up more than half a million combined views on Wednesday, according to research by the left-leaning media watchdog group Media Matters. One of the videos shows a still of Biden with his hand inside his suit, while another overlays an arrow over Biden’s tie, but neither video shows any visual evidence of Biden wearing an electronic device of any kind.

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2020/09/30/biden-misinformation-earpiece-tiktok-facebook/

  11. Bushfire Bill @ #2370 Thursday, October 1st, 2020 – 7:12 pm

    Mundo: shut the fuck up, please.

    You’re just trolling.

    No BB.
    Mundo was merely commenting on C@tmoaner’s post. It seemed a tad naïve. Even though I knew she was being sarcastic.
    But Mundo has copped it in the past for being taken literally when he’s being sarcastic.And has taken it on the chinny chin chin chin.

    If everyone here is related to C@tmoaner just say so. At least I’ll know.
    Sheesh.

  12. Have just spent the hours between 3.30 and 6.30 arguing with an old friend who doesn’t believe Climate Change is real or, if real, is significant. He quotes Ian Plimer as his authority of first and last resort.

    I have known this man since kindergarten, when we were both 5 years old (actually, I was 4). He is as near as I have to a brother. My real brothers, all three of them, died either stillborn, or soon after birth: two before me, and one after.

    So, John is precious to me. I didn’t want to have a verbal punch-up with him after so many years.

    We finally reached a position of agreement, at least in principle, so that we weren’t arguing anymore, asking a question to which neither of us – as yet – has an answer: “Is our human civilization worth preserving?”

    More generally: “Is Earth’s ecosystem worth preserving as it is? And, if so, why is it so special that it is worth preserving?”

    Next question: “Say we solved the energy problem [via thermonuclear, ubiquitous solar, wind, hydro, whatever], such that energy was plentiful, yet not producing greenhouse gases. So what? Isn’t overpopulation the real problem? How long ’til something else comes along to wipe us out?”

    Have to say that, at the end of 3 hours, I was exhilarated. We found no solutions, but came to the right questions, in my view.

  13. Mavis @ #2366 Thursday, October 1st, 2020 – 7:04 pm

    Player One:

    Thursday, October 1, 2020 at 5:24 pm

    [‘WTF?’]

    Probably to counter Palmer’s influence. I’ve observed, you don’t deal realpolitik all that well.

    Realpolitik? Is that what you call it when you defraud and endanger the electorate you are supposed to represent? This is a subsidy. Just by another name.

  14. mundo @ #2374 Thursday, October 1st, 2020 – 7:29 pm

    C@tmomma @ #2372 Thursday, October 1st, 2020 – 7:18 pm

    mundo should just change his nom to ‘sick puppy’ and be done with it.

    Mundo doesn’t like being called ‘sick puppy’.
    Please stop harassing Mundo.

    ….and ‘toe fungus’ I don’t like that either.
    Just for the record, the comment I made to which Bushwhacker has taken exception was meant in good humor. A quality some here lack. But, was intended to highlight the repetitive nature of the comment. Vis a vis, Scrooter is a shit. We know.

    And Mundo has copped a lot of flak for being repetitive. Non?

  15. Mundo was merely commenting on C@tmoaner’s post. It seemed a tad naïve. Even though I knew she was being sarcastic.

    It was OBVIOUSLY, INCONTROVERTIBLY sarcastic. So your “logic” is faux.

    You’re trolling Mundo: hanging your hat on a very slender hook of total bullshit.

    It’s OK if you don’t think Labor is doing enough (if that is a genuinely held view). But don’t try to con us that yoy’re being anything other than nasty, childish and repetitious.

  16. Edit not working for me either. Anyway, that is video of all the times Donald Trump has Tweeted about Voter Fraud and Mail In Ballot irregularities. It’s a lot!

  17. This guy’s research skills are impeccable:

    Jommy Tee – electric HiLux owner
    @jommy_tee

    Hark back to 2007.

    PM John Howard released a $1.4B manufacturing package, details below.

    Fast forward to today Morrison announces a $1.4B manufacturing package.

    #whatgoesaround

    Has Scott Morrison ever had an original thought in his life!?!

  18. Bushfire Bill @ #2382 Thursday, October 1st, 2020 – 7:43 pm

    Mundo was merely commenting on C@tmoaner’s post. It seemed a tad naïve. Even though I knew she was being sarcastic.

    It was OBVIOUSLY, INCONTROVERTIBLY sarcastic. So your “logic” is faux.

    You’re trolling Mundo: hanging your hat on a very slender hook of total bullshit.

    It’s OK if you don’t think Labor is doing enough (if that is a genuinely held view). But don’t try to con us that yoy’re being anything other than nasty, childish and repetitious.

    ‘It’s OK if you don’t think Labor is doing enough’
    Great, thanks Bushman.
    You think I’m the only one here who thinks that?
    Mundo hopes Bushman thinks that too.
    Otherwise Mundo might have serious doubts about Bushman’s motives.
    Nudge, nudge.

  19. This makes me really sad:

    Peter Cronau
    @PeterCronau

    Years ago, in a Canberra far far away, a sneering adviser to a federal communications minister said to me, “We are going to take the ABC apart wire by wire, microphone by microphone.” And they are.
    #ABC #withMEAA

  20. I think it hardly matters what Labor is doing right now since by all accounts the voters aren’t paying a blind bit of attention until the 4 weeks preceeding an election.

  21. C@tmomma @ #2385 Thursday, October 1st, 2020 – 7:53 pm

    This guy’s research skills are impeccable:

    Jommy Tee – electric HiLux owner
    @jommy_tee

    Hark back to 2007.

    PM John Howard released a $1.4B manufacturing package, details below.

    Fast forward to today Morrison announces a $1.4B manufacturing package.

    #whatgoesaround

    ” rel=”nofollow ugc”>

    Has Scott Morrison ever had an original thought in his life!?!

    Err, No?
    Gee, I hope I got that right. 🙂

  22. Bushfire Bill @ #2382 Thursday, October 1st, 2020 – 7:43 pm

    Mundo was merely commenting on C@tmoaner’s post. It seemed a tad naïve. Even though I knew she was being sarcastic.

    It was OBVIOUSLY, INCONTROVERTIBLY sarcastic. So your “logic” is faux.

    You’re trolling Mundo: hanging your hat on a very slender hook of total bullshit.

    It’s OK if you don’t think Labor is doing enough (if that is a genuinely held view). But don’t try to con us that yoy’re being anything other than nasty, childish and repetitious.

    Mundo can’t jump puddles.

    https://twitter.com/i/status/1311325748439986182

  23. Julie Collins
    @JulieCollinsMP
    ·
    3h
    The Royal Commission’s special report on COVID-19 confirms the Morrison Government had no plan for COVID-19 in aged care.

    The result of the Morrison Government’s catastrophic failure is a national tragedy.

  24. If you think anything that happens in the political sphere today is going to affect anyone’s vote in 18 months time, I think you’re sadly mistaken.

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