Opposites detract

As Peter Malinauskas puts the loyal back in loyal opposition, two contenders emerge for the thankless task of leading the WA Liberals to the March state election.

I had a paywalled article in Crikey yesterday that riffed off South Australian Opposition Leader Peter Malinauskas’s pointedly supportive approach to the state’s brief COVID-19 lockdown, and the explicit distinction he drew between his own approach and that of Michael O’Brien in Victoria. It was noted that Malinauskas clearly believes the general tenor of polling coming out of Victoria, even if the likes of Peta Credlin do not. This also afforded me the opportunity to highlight a clip from September in which Credlin and two Sky-after-dark colleagues brought their formidable perspicacity to bear on the likely impact of Queensland’s hard border policies on the looming state election.

Speaking of the which, both Antony Green and Kevin Bonham offer extremely detailed post-match reports on the Queensland election, in which both try their hand at estimating the statewide two-party preferred: Antony Green coming in at 53.2% for Labor, and Kevin Bonham making it 53.1%. This represents either a 1.8% or 1.9% swing to Labor compared with the 2017 election result of 51.3%, which was barely different from the 2015 result of 51.1%. Annastacia Palaszczuk can now claim the vanishingly rare distinction of having increased her party’s seat share at three successive elections. For further insights into how this came about, JWS Research has published full results of its post-election poll.

Elsewhere, Western Australia’s Liberal Party will today choose a new leader after the resignation on Sunday of Liza Harvey, who came to the job last June but has been politically crippled by COVID-19 — a no-win situation for the Liberals in the best of circumstances, but one made quite a lot worse than it needed to be by a response that was more Michael O’Brien than Peter Malinauskas. The two contenders are Zak Kirkup, 33-year-old member for the all too marginal seat of Dawesville in southern Mandurah, and Bateman MP Dean Nalder, who unsuccessfully challenged Colin Barnett’s leadership six months before the Liberals’ landslide defeat in March 2017. The West Australian reports that Zirkup has it all but stitched up, since he has the support of Harvey as well as key numbers men Peter Collier and Nick Goiran.

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.

1,647 comments on “Opposites detract”

Comments Page 30 of 33
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  1. Firefox
    “If the system were made up of more good people, it would be a better system. For this to happen though, people need to stop voting for evil people and putting them into the system”

    Does your brow ever get tired, wearing that halo all the time?

  3. Torchbearer @ #1438 Friday, November 27th, 2020 – 2:07 pm

    People laugh off the wine story- this is ominous of bigger things to come. Wine is one of the few value added rural products we have to export. Whole regions rely on it.
    Morrison has let us be foolishly played by the US … and we will take the fall.

    Yeah, but the people effected are LNP voters.

    Now, that was a joke…. but….. when this first blew up it was over barley. And the SA Barley lobby group defended Morrison. Strongly. Suggested they would just go and find other markets. Now imagine how they would have behaved were it an ALP government.

    Morrison knows he doesnt have to try hard to make these peeps happy. He can always rely on them to fight the good fight against left of centre parties no matter how poorly he performs wrt global trade.

  5. From TV reports, it’s the top reds (Penfold etc) that are being targeted because they are preferred by Chinese drinkers. And it will be 212 % tariff.

  6. lizzie @ #1455 Friday, November 27th, 2020 – 2:55 pm

    From TV reports, it’s the top reds (Penfold etc) that are being targeted because they are preferred by Chinese drinkers. And it will be 212 % tariff.

    Years ago I was at Magill Estate for lunch. Went down to the cellar to soak up the atmosphere of being surrounded by very exe and old wines…. and it was packed with chinese. They started picking up the bottles for a closer look and I bolted up the stairs to tell the staff. I neednt have bothered – they were already bolting down the stairs having seen in on CCTV.

  7. Bill Birtles said that Chinese winemakers have been lobbying against Oz imports all the year. It seems that Scomo has opened the door for them.

  8. Interesting….every 7-11 I have seen from Guangzhou, to Urumqi to Kashgar is stocked with Yellowtail, Hardy’s stamp series and Jacobs creek.

  9. @THE_Russell
    ·
    1h
    Littleproud admits his “government” understands that it’s likely that China’s bans on Australian goods is directly linked to Morrison’s megaphone diplomacy which he directed at Premier Xi. He thinks the situation can be “fixed” by trade talks. China won’t take his calls.

  12. Morrison has fucked up every job hes ever had. China relations are just another. Maybe the Aussie punters will realise it one day.

  13. There is a 7/11 in Kashgar? YIKES!

    There was a faux macdonalds in Urumchi when I was there. I partook but only because days prior I had deposited the lining of my stomach somewhere in the Taklamakan desert.

  15. Firefox, a few questions:
    Are evil/good so easily measurable/observable?

    Is it safe to assume that people within a system have a gods-eye view of the system and can see and understand how it all works together to produce system-wide outcomes?

    Have you considered whether an individual’s flaws/limitations may prevent them from discovering and addressing those very flaws/limitations? Possibly even when they have outside “help”?

  16. Cud

    Hello foot? Meet bullet. I’m only one seat removed from having to vote for Joel. I’d go Green 1, Labor 2 and then conservatives and ratbags in that order. And I’d probably send a note to Joel’s office telling him that I’m doing that.

    It would only feel like I had shot myself in the foot if the result in the lower house was very close.

    A Labor government with a small but workable majority would be better off without Joel.

    Any Labor opposition would also be better of without Joel (as he is currently demonstrating).

    BTW, I did say probably and I am not sure I could break the habit of a lifetime and put the conservatives ahead of labor.

  18. There is everything, everywhere in China now….I was wandering around freezing in a Chinese Garden in the middle of nowhere a couple of years ago and I said to my partner “I would sell my soul for a lousy Starbucks coffee now”…..and we turned the corner and there it was!

    Turfan is great…but a magnum of local apple champagne I consumed there was not the greatest!

  19. Are evil and good so easily measurable/observable?

    And a follow-up question; are good and evil so devoid of nuance that a Hillary or a Biden and a Trump would be ranked the same?

  21. If I was Assange, I’d be really pissed off with Trump. After providing all that assistance back in 2016, I would be expecting a pardon, not a prosecution.

  22. Michelle Grattan
    @michellegrattan
    · 5h
    The hyperventilating over Cormann’s private jet is as predictable as it is short-sighted https://smh.com.au/world/europe/the-hyperventilating-over-cormann-s-private-jet-is-as-predictable-as-it-is-short-sighted-20201125-p56i0x.html

    ***

    Dennis Atkins
    @dwabriz
    This is nonsense on stilts … this is not a government position. This is not a public sector job. This is former politician, now a private citizen wanting a job which carries a 232,626 euro a year salary. The OECD is a think tank. It doesn’t make policy, it forms opinions.

  23. While people continue to allow themselves to be brainwashed and conned by people who are just using and abusing them to gain more power, the system will remain full of these evil people, thus remaining evil itself.

    Yes. That’s how I feel about the Greens and their benefactors, sponsors and political siblings, the LNP.

  24. The media really don’t get it because no one is saying Cormann shouldn’t be looking for work but it should be his expense not that of his former employer.

    Just how good is being Trump’s patsy!

  25. Now is the time to for ALBO so say.

    Why has the Prime minister imperriled a giant rural industry during a recession? And if he can throw in the phrase
    “This governments childish management of the Chinese relationship will only result in less money coming back in through the farm gate”

    But on the upside, wine will be cheaper. To bad I quit drinking this year.

  26. Firefox says:
    Friday, November 27, 2020 at 1:30 pm

    “Speaking…….As a Green, you’d certainly rather be us than them though. But you know what? While there aren’t as many of them, there is no doubt whatsoever that the people who voted Green in the US Election are better people than the millions who voted for either the war crim or the far-right nutter.

    …..Another example of the utter conceit of the sanctimonious, self-gratifying, unctuous and self-admiring snobs that comprise the Faux…

  27. Cud Chewer @ #2636 Friday, November 27th, 2020 – 2:32 pm

    Oh and the other thing I liked about that article..

    On a more personal-professional note, it became clear to me that while we were asked by the Department of Health and Human Services to model the chance of going back into lockdown by Christmas for various strategies, what they were really interested in was getting to zero.

    But they could not say that explicitly in a politically and scientifically difficult environment (e.g. federal advice that we have to live with the virus, other advice that elimination was not possible).

    In other words, these now fully vindicated experts aimed for elimination but couldn’t speak the word because of pressure from the feds and the people who provided advice at federal level. Some of these people were even going to the media in order to push their views. Like this..

    https://www.theage.com.au/national/eliminating-covid-is-a-false-hope-but-aggressive-suppression-is-working-20200715-p55c8e.html

    An astonishing piece of intellectual dishonesty, unbecoming of someone in his position. And I’m going to refer to this article again soon.

    CC.
    Blakely is an academic epidemiologist who works with populations, policy and public perceptions – not patients. He has the luxury of being wrong without consequence to anything but his reputation. Coatsworth, like Allen Cheng (but not Brett Sutton) is a clinician (an ID physician – like me) who has to deal with individual variation, unpredictable biological unknowns and consequential reality, but does so in the public gaze without the luxury of public confirmation bias. Neither are dishonest, but both are using a semantically pleomorphic term of art to describe non-congruent concepts from separate domains. Apples & Oranges. Please be careful with terms like dishonesty.

  28. Michelle Grattan’s shine as a journo disappeared some moons ago. She does one or two good pieces among a lot of ordinary stuff – kind of Superior Elder Stateswoman of Journalism bits – to coin a monicker……….Back in the day she took it upon herself to refer to FMJG as “Julia” when asking her a question which always had a superior tone to me. The fact that she sees nothing in Cormann’s use of public funds to find himself a private job, after a job, only serves to underscore her largely, irrelevant, pieces these days…….

  29. “but both are using a semantically pleomorphic term of art to describe non-congruent concepts from separate domains. Apples & Oranges. ”

    I think rhwombat is saying that they/we are divided by a common language :-P.

  31. Morrison and his muppet show ensemble of ministers make it near impossible for our trade negotiators to fix the China issue.

    Albanese seemingly can’t find a politically skilled way to express that and so says basically nothing.

  33. I never much liked Grattan, to me mostly dabbling in and pronouncing on the bleeding obvious. She never made me feel the wiser for all her marmsy overly circumspect writing.

  35. DisplayName @ #2690 Friday, November 27th, 2020 – 4:14 pm

    “but both are using a semantically pleomorphic term of art to describe non-congruent concepts from separate domains. Apples & Oranges. ”

    I think rhwombat is saying that they are divided by a common language :-P.

    Yep. However the term elimination has very specific and misunderstood connotations in germ theory – going back to Pasteur & Koch (&, more recently, Frank Fenner). Its recent appropriation and deliberate obfuscation by epidemiologists and other politicians has had significant life (and death) consequences which do not seem to be carefully considered.

  36. rhw

    When the time comes I’ll go into that article by Coatesworth with a fine tooth comb.

    Its not the work of a scholar or scientist. Its a polemic. That’s all I’m going to say for now.

  37. Rex Douglas

    I expect Penny Wong and Albo to be out big time with press conferences on this. I expect the same from whomever the Greens have too.

    Edit: Bob Carr and Kevin Rudd are also likely available to be interviewed

  41. Firefox says:
    Friday, November 27, 2020 at 1:30 pm

    “Speaking…….As a Green, you’d certainly rather be us than them though.

    Green-Supremacism @ PB….sadly, not a first.

  42. Perrottet and Guilty Dont Give A Shit Gladys trying to bypass the NSW upper house to block extra funding to /////drum roll //// the anti-corruption watch dog.

    It is the first time in more than 20 years the parliament has referred a law to the governor disregarding changes made by the upper house.

    Under an amendment to the bill introduced by the Greens in the Legislative Council on Tuesday, the Independent Commission Against Corruption would get an extra $7.3m in funding for 2020-21. All non-government parties supported the amendment.

    (guardian)


  43. rhwombat says:
    Friday, November 27, 2020 at 4:11 pm

    ….
    but both are using a semantically pleomorphic term of art to describe non-congruent concepts from separate domains. Apples & Oranges. Please be careful with terms like dishonesty.

    There seem to be a lot of noise coming from the group that were not actually at the coal face. In being so loud they made fools of themselves.

  44. If there’s a positive to this China trade breakdown, at least it is showing up empty suit Morrison for what he is – full of hot air.

    Our Ag sector must be soooo frustrated.

  46. DisplayNamesays:
    Friday, November 27, 2020 at 4:27 pm
    Grattan’s writing may be decent, or it may not be.

    Just saying.

    On the other hand…

  48. Rex Douglas @ #1494 Friday, November 27th, 2020 – 4:42 pm

    If there’s a positive to this China trade breakdown, at least it is showing up empty suit Morrison for what he is – full of hot air.

    Our Ag sector must be soooo frustrated.

    So Australian Politics has come down to the Empty Suit vs the Empty Chair?

    As Briefly is wont to say … we’re fucked! 🙁

  49. When I was last in Thailand, admittedly some years ago, there was a terrible Thai soapy in the afternoons that was perfect to watch whilst have a nap with the AC on. Really glitzy rich bitchy people all at each others throats. Anyhoo they were always guzzling Australian red wines which just looked really odd, but I guess it was prestigious. Maybe our wine makers can lobby a bit harder there if they don’t already.

  50. Firefix

    While there aren’t as many of them, there is no doubt whatsoever that the people who voted Green in the US Election are better people than the millions who voted for either the war crim or the far-right nutter. They made an informed decision to support decent people and decent policies, rather than obediently supporting evil as they were instructed to do. They should be proud of themselves for sticking to their values in the face of such hostility and pressure from the establishment.

    Given that the US Presidential election is first-past-the-post and that Hawkins had no chance of winning, voting for him was an act of pure idiocy.

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