Kelly’s zeroes

Mutterings about the security of Craig Kelly’s tenure, a federal LNP vacancy in regional Queensland, and some minor state poll findings from Western Australia.

News remains thin on the ground over the summer holiday period, although we may possibly hopefully see the polling cycle crank up again as of next week. Two pieces of federal preselection news to relate:

• A report in The Australian today raises further doubts about the security of Craig Kelly’s preselection in Hughes – not for the reasons you would hope, but because he has failed to raise any campaign funding for head office since July 2019, according to leaked party documents. He is not alone in this distinction, however, with Farrer MP Sussan Ley, Robertson MP Lucy Wicks and Lindsay MP Melissa McIntosh likewise having come up empty. Kelly was saved from preselection challenges by prime ministerial intervention before both the 2016 and 2019 elections, and a Liberal source cited in The Australian says “there’s no appetite in the party to save him a third time”.

• Ken O’Dowd, who has held the central Queensland seat of Flynn for the Nationals since 2010, announced on January 5 that he will retire at the next election. Queensland Country Life reports that Colin Boyce, who holds the partly corresponding seat of Callide in the state parliament, will contest the preselection. The report quotes Boyce complaining about the failure of David Crisafulli, who replaced Deb Frecklington as Liberal National Party leader after the October state election, to have promoted him to the front bench. It also suggests he may face competition in Flynn from Gladstone councillor Glenn Churchill, who was the party’s unsuccessful candidate for the seat in 2007 and challenged O’Dowd for preselection ahead of the 2019 election.

With the Western Australian election now two months away, two bits of data have emerged from a Painted Dog Research poll conducted for The West Australian in mid-December, which as always do not encompass voting intention:

• Three weeks after Zak Kirkup replaced Liza Harvey as Liberal leader in late November, the poll found him with a 19% approval and 14% disapproval rating. While this compares favourably with Harvey’s 10% and 37% from September, but is obviously remarkably mostly for the 67% uncommitted rating. The poll also found 36% saying Kirkup would be a better leader than Harvey and 11% saying otherwise, with 53% uncommitted.

• With Ben Wyatt to bow out at the election, the poll found 21% favouring Health Minister Roger Cook to succeed him as Treasurer, with Rita Saffioti on 9%, Bill Johnston on 8%, “someone else” on 13% and 49% uncommitted.

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.

1,340 comments on “Kelly’s zeroes”

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  1. I should add the caveat that I am not averse to the bread component as such. It is just a shame that it is being siphoned off to businesses to such a large extent.

  2. I don’t know, the authorities have been able to track the real paedophiles on the Dark Web pretty successfully. So I’m thinking Tracking via WhatsApp and Telegram shouldn’t be too hard.

    And, on the other hand, I can see that it’s going to be very time-consuming trying to reach as many people as possible via these encrypted apps.

  4. The NRA has filed for bankruptcy.

    Jan Wolfe@JanNWolfe·
    1h
    The NRA says it’ll restructure and continue as a Texas nonprofit. “To facilitate its strategic plan and restructuring, the NRA and one of its subsidiaries filed voluntary chapter 11 petitions in the United States Bankruptcy Court for the Northern District of Texas,” the NRA said.

  5. C@t:

    The biggest challenge these extremist groups have had is not having their leader be able to communicate with them. It seems taking Trump off Twitter has left them somewhat aimless and directionless according to reporting I’ve read.

  6. “Other world leaders felt no similar reticence.” Dennis Atkins. Jan162021.
    Morrison is not a world leader and Australia is a middle order economy.
    The LNP and Morrison self-image is similiar to ‘save America, MAGA, moronic types and enough voters in Australia get a warm and fuzzy feeling believing this bullshit.
    China is currently reminding Australia that Morrison and co. will be treated like dropkicks if they behave like dropkicks.
    Morrison and the LNP play to the racist bogans to get elected.
    Another wannabe world leader in a bigger economy than the Australian economy, is in flames both literally and figuratively, and enough brainwashed bogan voters in Australia are unable to synthesize the similarities.
    I’d welcome some polling to tell me I’m wrong.

  8. (CNN) One is dropping in on the White House phone operators, addressing troops at bases across the country, paying a visit to national guardsmen in place for the inauguration and speaking by phone with his successor.

    The other is holed up inside, silenced on social media, resisting entreaties to deliver a farewell address and refusing to speak to the man who beat him.

    The respective ways Vice President Mike Pence and his boss, President Donald Trump, are concluding their terms in the White House amount to a study in contrasts.

    One way is decidedly more presidential than the other.

    https://edition.cnn.com/2021/01/15/politics/mike-pence-donald-trump-presidency/index.html

  9. Good Morning

    One of the important things Labor and the Greens have been pushing is truth in political advertising laws. Succeeding at getting it passed in the ACT.

    With the Trump big lie we see the potential consequences of not adopting this policy nationwide. Craig Kelly could have been booted out by the LNP faster and for the right reasons if that policy had become law nationwide.

  10. Paul Barratt
    @phbarratt
    ·
    3m
    If the Prime Minister was prepared to look a senior public servant in the eye and say, “This is the outcome I want”, that senior public would come up with a range of options for producing the desired outcome.

    That’s the way it works.

    He hasn’t done it. Which indicates that Morrison doesn’t care about stranded Aussie residents. He’s letting the states take the blame.

  11. Quote: There’s actually one lady there who is saying that because the only state she could get a ticket to was SA and her father with Alzheimers is in another state with borders to it closed by SA, she couldn’t get home to see him anyway.

    Ok- calling BS on this. You can travel from SA to every other state…no state has borders closed to SA. This seems to be the level of reporting at the moment.

    Also on the tennis, spare me the ‘some people get special treatment’ rubbish. We live in a grossly unequal society, getting more so, and supported by voters. If people were really worried about special treatment we would get rid of family trusts, franking credits, negative gearing, top end tax cuts, fossil fuel subsidies etc etc…
    The tennis employs (if only for a weeks) literally thousands of people. The Aus Open is not a test case- this was done at the US Open last year, with the BJK Centre in NY the bubble for all US tournaments. Australia is following that test case.

  13. Goll @ #56 Saturday, January 16th, 2021 – 9:32 am

    China is currently reminding Australia that Morrison and co. will be treated like dropkicks if they behave like dropkicks.

    With the ongoing decline of the US, China is trying to teach Australia that we can no longer get away with behaving like selfish, entitled gits.

    Australia has not yet even understood that they are being taught a lesson, let alone what that lesson actually is.

  14. The Victorian government is preparing a February 15 “V-Day” launch for the most potent COVID vaccine, with its newly formed local public health units to play a critical role in delivering the life-saving jab.

    The DHHS plan is for phase one of the roll-out to deliver 15,000 doses a week of the Pfizer vaccine, with hospital staff and residents, people working in aged care facilities, quarantine and border workers among those first in line for inoculation.

    Phase two of the roll-out, slated to begin in mid-March, will administer the less effective but more readily available AstraZeneca to the broader population.

    Victoria’s provisional time frame and dose targets for the Pfizer vaccine, contained in an internal briefing to a major hospital group obtained by The Age and Sydney Morning Herald, is not confirmed by the Federal government, which is yet to set a start date for COVID vaccinations.

    https://www.theage.com.au/national/victoria-to-get-powerful-pfizer-vaccine-for-vulnerable-workers-in-weeks-20210115-p56uil.html

  16. Morning all. Thanks for the roundup BK. The news should be interesting from USA for a while, as the criminal investigations of the Capitol assault continue. And in six days State prosecutions of Trump, including NY tax charges, can commence.

    Boerwar
    “ What the Morrison Government SHOULD HAVE DONE in relation to robodebt.”
    https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-55674146

    You have to have a conscience in order to take responsibility for an error. Ergo Morrison will notn be resigning over robodebt or anything. He will be another Howard-style have-to-drag-him-from-power type PM.

  17. All of you saying China is teaching Australia a lesson did not see the 7:30 Report.

    The Quad is a US policy aim. Defending Taiwan is official ongoing policy. Pompeo put it back to annoy the F out of the Chinese territory by talking establishing formal official ties with Taiwan but it’s no real policy change.

    Edit: yes the US is weaker compared to before. Make no mistake it is still the strongest military force in the world even if you ignore the nuclear military option.

    The Chinese Nationalists will also get a lesson. The US is truly following what China does with Australia. China is seen to be attacking the international rules based order. That’s a lesson for China to learn.

  18. https://www.pollbludger.net/2021/01/16/kellys-zeroes/comment-page-1/#comment-3542677

    https://nos.nl/l/2364541

    The Rutte III right of centre led coalition/ cabinet conveniently steps down about a month before caretaker mode before the Mar 2021 national election, as in sorry but not … a long time since the accords!

    It sounds like the recent social services minister, an unChristian Dem is trying to find, if no hill, a tall tree to hide behind.

  19. The Spinning Spivs are in deep shit, when even the Parental Privileged McGuinness (v2.0 – but at least better than the Divine Miranda or the Markson-spawn) is allowed to do an exculpatory “they’re culpa” in Nein-Fairfaux.

  21. 31m
    A doctor and member of Morrison Govt, Katie Allen MP, just said on @abcnews she’s “used to people like Craig Kelly MP having a different opinion on health” and no problem with him sharing [dangerous] information.

    Is this woman really a doctor? I thought they vowed to do no harm. She obviously cares more about staying faithful to Scotty than to her electorate.

  22. Confessions @ #55 Saturday, January 16th, 2021 – 9:31 am

    C@t:

    The biggest challenge these extremist groups have had is not having their leader be able to communicate with them. It seems taking Trump off Twitter has left them somewhat aimless and directionless according to reporting I’ve read.

    It’s true that Donald Trump has a unique communication ability and the way he acts towards his cult followers is second only to some other German guy. 🙂

  23. lizzie @ #71 Saturday, January 16th, 2021 – 10:09 am

    31m
    A doctor and member of Morrison Govt, Katie Allen MP, just said on @abcnews she’s “used to people like Craig Kelly MP having a different opinion on health” and no problem with him sharing [dangerous] information.

    Is this woman really a doctor? I thought they vowed to do no harm. She obviously cares more about staying faithful to Scotty than to her electorate.

    She’s a Psychologist. A lot of them think they can just call themselves a doctor, simply because they work/have worked in the health space.

    Hmm, maybe I should do it too?

    Dr C@t. 😀

  24. Lizzie

    It’s worse. It’s been documented that the conspiracy theories around the pandemic have fuelled the extremist terrorism that sees the US Capital having more troops during the inauguration period than are in Afghanistan.

  26. Hearing some interesting things about Grand Chancellor Hotel in Brisbane.:
    1. No CCTV on the floor
    2. Balconies between adjacent rooms touching each other – this can be seen on photos of the hotel

  30. “The US is truly following what China does with Australia. China is seen to be attacking the international rules based order. That’s a lesson for China to learn.”
    Australia flatters itself. As if any other country in the world could care less about Australia. Self-interest will always dominate. The US and other countries are happy to fill the gap by increasing exports to China to make up for Australia’s suicide-diplomacy trade collapse.

  31. C@t

    Then the media should stop calling her a doctor who can make authoritative pronouncements on health matters.

    “The media should…” :sigh:

  32. Oakeshott Country

    In that case, I stand by my original comment. If she’s so skilled in research, she should be able to criticise Kelly effectively.

  36. Sohar

    You missed the point. The US sees the military threat of Chinese Nationalists using trade to bully its allies.

    They take their military alliances seriously. It’s a wholistic view not just a trade only position. Made worse by the incompetent handling by the Morrison government

    Edit: When two countries nationalists are battling through trade its lose lose and Australia is collateral damage

  37. Oakeshott Country @ #78 Saturday, January 16th, 2021 – 10:18 am

    Except Katie Allen is a paediatric gastroenterologist with very well established research credentials

    Well then, if that’s the case, she has been intimidated by Morrison’s PMO army to go against everything she has learned as a doctor in order to support Craig Kelly’s Disinformation Wars.

    Now I see I was thinking about Fiona Martin, but who is also a PhD as well as a Psychologist, so able to call herself ‘Dr’.

  39. C@tmomma @ #73 Saturday, January 16th, 2021 – 7:14 am

    lizzie @ #71 Saturday, January 16th, 2021 – 10:09 am

    31m
    A doctor and member of Morrison Govt, Katie Allen MP, just said on @abcnews she’s “used to people like Craig Kelly MP having a different opinion on health” and no problem with him sharing [dangerous] information.

    Is this woman really a doctor? I thought they vowed to do no harm. She obviously cares more about staying faithful to Scotty than to her electorate.

    She’s a Psychologist. A lot of them think they can just call themselves a doctor, simply because they work/have worked in the health space.

    Hmm, maybe I should do it too?

    Dr C@t. 😀

    Many years ago, (sigh, many, many, years ago), I did a stint of school work experience as a sort of orderly’s offsider at the local hospital. Bonus point – it was an elderly facility!

    That definitely qualifies me as Dr Dan. 😉

  40. Confessions @ #54 Saturday, January 16th, 2021 – 9:29 am

    The NRA has filed for bankruptcy.

    Jan Wolfe@JanNWolfe·
    1h
    The NRA says it’ll restructure and continue as a Texas nonprofit. “To facilitate its strategic plan and restructuring, the NRA and one of its subsidiaries filed voluntary chapter 11 petitions in the United States Bankruptcy Court for the Northern District of Texas,” the NRA said.

    A bit more on this –

    (Reuters) – The National Rifle Association on Friday filed for bankruptcy, a sudden development that could help the gun rights group escape a lawsuit by New York’s attorney general seeking its dissolution.

    The NRA filed for Chapter 11 protection in federal bankruptcy court in Dallas, and said it plans to reincorporate in Texas to escape “a corrupt political and regulatory environment” in New York, where it is now incorporated.

    “Texas values the contributions of the NRA, celebrates our law-abiding members, and joins us as a partner in upholding constitutional freedom,” Chief Executive Wayne LaPierre said in a letter to members. “We seek protection from New York officials who illegally abused and weaponized the powers they wield against the NRA and its members.”

    The NRA was sued in August by New York Attorney General Letitia James, who accused LaPierre and other senior leaders of self-dealing and mismanagement, and said the group’s activities violated state laws governing nonprofits.

    James said NRA officials diverted millions of dollars to fund luxury lifestyles, including vacations and private jets, and to buy the silence and loyalty of former employees, costing the group $64 million over three years.

    “The NRA’s claimed financial status has finally met its moral status: bankrupt,” James said in a statement on Friday. “We will not allow the NRA to use this or any other tactic to evade accountability and my office’s oversight.”

    https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-guns/national-rifle-association-files-for-bankruptcy-seeking-to-escape-new-york-lawsuit-idUSKBN29K2LV

  41. Jan Wolfe@JanNWolfe·
    1h
    The NRA says it’ll restructure and continue as a Texas nonprofit. “To facilitate its strategic plan and restructuring, the NRA and one of its subsidiaries filed voluntary chapter 11 petitions in the United States Bankruptcy Court for the Northern District of Texas,” the NRA said.
    ______
    Leaving Wayne LaPierre destitute, of course!

  43. Taking political activism one step too far?

    ‘The dating app Bumble has temporarily removed its political-identification filter to prevent “misuse.”
    The move came after women tweeted about using the filter to find conservatives who took part in the Capitol breach and passing on evidence to law enforcement.
    Users started to notice the political filter had been removed on Thursday, and people on Twitter criticised Bumble as appearing to protect the insurrectionists.
    Bumble added that it removed the accounts of people who had been “confirmed as participants in the attack of the US Capitol.”

    https://www.businessinsider.com.au/bumble-removes-political-filter-encouraged-find-capitol-rioters-evidence-2021-1?r=US&IR=T

  44. “The NRA’s claimed financial status has finally met its moral status: bankrupt,” James said in a statement on Friday.

    That reads like a parody, except it isn’t!

  46. Worth looking at Katie Allen’s wikipedia page – she has been in some ground breaking research including her PhD on, the medical students’ favourite, Wilson’s disease.
    This is a congenital condition where people retain Copper and have a Kaiser -Fleischer ring around their pupils; a greenish-brown band

  49. rhwombat

    With the Devine Miranda being a fairly frequent guest on Faux News in the US she would feel it beneath her station to hang out with Nein-Fairfaux.

  50. Oakeshott Country @ #96 Saturday, January 16th, 2021 – 10:35 am

    Worth looking at Katie Allen’s wikipedia page – she has been in some ground breaking research including her PhD on, the medical students’ favourite Wilson’s disease.
    This is a congenital condition where people retain Copper and have a Kaiser -Fleischer ring around their pupils; a greenish-brown band

    So why is she unable to stand up against Morrison’s mob of intimidatory thugs and for facts?

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