Still very quiet on the polling front, but speculation of a federal election later this year has given scribes plenty to work with over the quiet season:
• A report in the Age/Herald concludes the most likely months are October and November, with Liberal Party officials being told to have their act together at least by August. However, it is noted that “the pandemic could derail any possible plan for an early poll”.
• The above report also relates that the Queensland Liberal National Party’s Senate ticket is to be decided by May 1. This presents the Coalition with a difficulty, in that second position is reserved for the Nationals and duly assured for Matt Canavan, leaving Liberal up-and-comers James McGrath and Amanda Stoker in a high-stakes battle for first and third. The loser will at least be able to console themselves with the knowledge that the Coalition has won at least three Senate seats in Queensland at each of the seven elections since 2001.
• Also noted in the report is a fact that escaped my notice amid the excitement of events in the United States — namely, that the Western Australian Liberals finalised their Senate ticket in early November. This occurred at the same time that Ben Small, a logistics manager at Woodside Energy and owner of a bar and restaurant in Bunbury, was chosen to fill the vacancy created by Mathias Cormmann’s retirement. Small will take third position on the ticket behind Michaelia Cash and Dean Smith, both of whom have gone up a notch in Cormann’s absence. Smith had to overcome a bid by religious conservatives to dump him in favour of Albert Jacob, mayor of Joondalup and former state member for Ocean Reef. Peter Law of The West Australian reported the move was “perceived by some within the party as retribution for the eight-year Senator’s very public campaign for marriage equality in 2017”.
• There are a whole bunch of redistribution processes in train at the moment. At federal level, draft boundaries for Victoria and Western Australia are due to be published by the end of March, respectively to be finalised on July 26 and August 2. The redistributions will increase Victoria’s representation from 38 seats to 39, and reduce Western Australia’s from 16 to 15. A state redistribution process also began in Victoria last month, with draft boundaries due at the end of June and final boundaries to be published on October 14. In New South Wales, submissions are being weighed up to draft boundaries that were published in November, and while no date is set for their finalisation, it could roughly be guessed that it will happen in March or April.
One thing’s for sure, the infected guy sure got around. He went supermarket shopping 4 times in a week. Who does that apart from old people with nothing else to do?
Confessions
My grandkids are disappointed. They have been missing their friends. They had just returned from a trip to Bunnings and the supermarket when the news was announced. Their baby sister was born this week so they have been pretty housebound this week.
Q; Who does that apart from old people with nothing else to do?
Single young men who dont plan more than 1 meal in advance and keep no food in the fridge!
Confessions
Lots of people shop for what they need each day. This is encouraged by supermarkets as you spend more money overall.
Image did not work
D & M
No, I hadn’t seen that about the snake. Horrors!
Rowley had just had a bath so he was a bit fluffy from the hair dryer
Confessions @ #2801 Sunday, January 31st, 2021 – 1:09 pm
Nothing unusual in that.
I used to drop into the supermarket most days, just buying what I needed.
Assandtj:
A friend of mine was expecting to attend a funeral in the SW region this week, and while she may still be able to go, there will be other family members who will miss out because of the cap on numbers. I can understand they’d be disappointed.
But it’s only 5 days.
Worrying for Perth and WA more generally.
I don’t feel much sympathy for McGowan though (Schadenfreude, I know). He has been a bit holier than thou recently.
Reverse the gun emplacements at the SA/WA Border Village?
Torchbearer @ #2803 Sunday, January 31st, 2021 – 1:12 pm
True 😆
However in Covid times it is sensible to do larger shops and limit the amount of time you spend in enclosed public spaces.
lizzie @ #2811 Sunday, January 31st, 2021 – 1:20 pm
That’s a refreshing approach.
Barney
😆
lizzie says:
Sunday, January 31, 2021 at 4:20 pm
casey briggs
@CaseyBriggs
·
21m
McGowan is recommending other states close their borders to WA
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Watch Gladys Berejiklian play the political games ,as She did with QLD and Victoria
Australian federal politicians have to declare their assets.
In China, calling for politicians to declare their assets, gets you thrown into jail.
Barney
It would make much more sense and be easier to manage if the infected state was closed to all, which would allow the rest of the country to get on with it. The current border closures are.confusing and have the potential to allow spread as each state reacts and closes and opens up to different time tables. The problem of course is that the states would all have to agree and NSW isn’t good at working in a team.
Torchbearer @ #2763 Sunday, January 31st, 2021 – 4:12 pm
Yup. Buy a ready meal or a pizza on the way home from work. Pop it in the oven when you get home. Turn on the TV, get the food out of the oven and away you go. fed.
McGowan suspending the campaign for 5 days at least.
Means I’ll get a week off! 😆
Plenty of meaty bites from Hurun.
https://www.hurun.net/en-US/Info/Detail?num=E6VM7L8L4I15
Scott @ #2774 Sunday, January 31st, 2021 – 4:25 pm
Because WA state election.
Watch the Liberals in WA do similarly. And there’s no show without Punch, so Scotty from Marketing will have a whack at Australia’s most popular political leader.
The UK variant is viscious.
No sensible person could complain about McGowans strong and decisive action to crush it before it gets out.
5 days will go quickly – should be a breeze for the strong WA people.
Confessions @ #2778 Sunday, January 31st, 2021 – 4:28 pm
He should concentrate on the socials now to get his messages out.
So it’s the UK strain not the South African strain?
Just a few points: Arthur Calwell’s name is spelt as I have it here. Also, he was not ALP leader in 1954; Herbert (Bert) Evatt was, although you are correct that Labor won the majority of votes that year, but still lost to the Coalition.
Calwell also suffered this fate when he led Labor in the 1961 federal election, just missing out on the PMship by a few hundred votes in the marginal Queensland seat of Moreton.
You are correct. From what I understand it was the DLP preferncing the Liberals/Country parties that kept Labor out of power too in 1961.
Other points on elections where the party with the high two party preferred vote went to the losing party.
1969- Labor did awful in Victoria and admitted Victoria needed to be reformed if Labor was going to get into power. Labor were shocked by the improvement in the vote led by Gough Whitlam.
1990 – This vote was still very close. Labor largely stayed in because Queensland voters were still angry at the previous corrupt Bjelke-Petersen state government and the Labor Queensland federal vote was higher then the national Labor vote federally. Which is very rare for it to happen in the most conservative state in Australia.
1998- Labor’s improvement in their vote was largely in seats they already held and missed out on five seats in Queensland by less they 1.5%.
C@tmomma
The infected person worked on the floor with a person with the U.K. strain, the to people with the South African strain were on a seperate floor. I haven’t read anything to say his genome sequencing has been completed yet.
So, Western Australia was not testing its high risk quarantine workers daily?
And when are we going to learn that hotels generally have poor ventilation?
“TPOFsays:
Sunday, January 31, 2021 at 10:07 am
Incitatus:
Albo is going to buggerise around with the Ride Share and Meal Delivery industries- obviously thinks young people don’t vote Labor. It’s as if they said to themselves: “Well we pissed off lots of oldies last time going after their Dividend Income – how do we piss off the younguns to the same amount?”.
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Well, if he’s going to upset workers in these industries he is well on the way to losing the non-citizens’ (and especially, temporary residents’) votes.”
You don’t think the biggest clients of these services will be upset by increased prices and decreased supply?
Assandtdj
People with the variant strains should be sent somewhere that has complete isolation.
My Georgie:
Got it!
Woohoo !!
The end of an era!
Katharine Murphy
@murpharoo
·
4m
New: Folks telling me Kevin Andrews has lost his battle to secure Liberal preselection this afternoon, with challenger Keith Wolahan prevailing 181 votes to 111 #auspol
lizzie and Rowley
Douglas and Milko
Why is that dog sitting on top of the clothes line ❓
Bucephalus
Make the receipts show how the money is divided up between restaurant, driver and uber or menu log.
A lot of people don’t know that the provider is raking it in at the expense of all others.
Cud Chewer
Large hotels are the worst option for quarantine of something so virulent. Poor ventilation especially in corridors and lifts combined with ineffectual masks is a recipe for spread.
Politically Labor should be hounding the government over its cavalier approach to their responsibility for quarantine and the fact that 12 months in they still have not developed a bespoke solution such as Howard springs for all returnees.
Ah this so reminds me of my big puppies.. 🙂
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8wC3Y7MuRts
https://www.theage.com.au/national/kevin-andrews-toppled-in-preselection-battle-for-menzies-20210130-p56y2h.html
Why is that dog sitting on the clothesline?
My wife once rang the lifesaver tower at Lighthouse Beach to tell them there was a man on the roof of the tower doing exercises.
Parallex error is a terrible thing.
Is Keith Wolahan any better or worse?
Oakeshott Country @ #2723 Sunday, January 31st, 2021 – 3:17 pm
You really are scraping the bottom of a grubby barrel today. Peter Baldwin was bashed in 1980 and John Newman was murdered in 1994. And the relevance of those acts to the Labor Party of today is? Not to mention that Phuong Ngo ran as an Independent against Newman, so his connection to the Labor Party is tenuous at best. Though it’s enough for grubs like you.
However, let’s use that ‘logic’, such as it is, to say that we should never ever support the Coalition because Donald Mackay was murdered by the Calabrian mafia in Australia, who have more than strong ties to the Nationals, and he was going to run as a candidate for the Liberal Party.
How can you support that, Oakeshott Country!?!
CC: “Is Keith Wolahan any better or worse?”
Good question.
As far as I can glean from online sources, he’s a barrister: ex-military and relatively young. He had Frydenberg’s strong backing, which means that he must be a bit less conservative than KA.
About Wolahan
https://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/national/kevin-andrews-toppled-in-preselection-battle-for-menzies-20210130-p56y2h.html?ref=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_source=rss_feed
Kay Jay and OC,
I have this photo of Georgie as my Zoom and Teams avatar. I am always asked why is he roosting on top of the Hills Hoist.
He is actually in the bough of the tree – no mean feat as he climbed there himself.
He was staying with my son and his housemate, near Centennial Park. A lot of people would walk their dogs through the lane to the park.
Georgie would climb the tree and back at them. My son and his housemate would hear people laughing as they walked past, and went out to look. They snapped the lovely photo and sent it to me.
The joke eventually wore off, and they got sick of the barking, and so Georgie came home as soon as we got back from wherever we were.
Frydenberg was supporting Andrews.
meher baba says:
Sunday, January 31, 2021 at 5:05 pm
CC: “Is Keith Wolahan any better or worse?”
Good question.
As far as I can glean from online sources, he’s a barrister: ex-military and relatively young. He had Frydenberg’s strong backing, which means that he must be a bit less conservative than KA.
_________________________
what about Maria Vamvakinou? She going around again?
laughtong @ #2798 Sunday, January 31st, 2021 – 4:54 pm
The changing of the old guard:
And it’s the Moderate faction that are fighting back against Craig Kelly.
Surely Scomo will try and overrule Andrews defeat.
It is not as if you need to win preselection to get the gig.
Just ask Michael Towke.
Mexicanbeemer @ #2805 Sunday, January 31st, 2021 – 5:07 pm
But he was cunning enough to say he supported whoever won.
C@t you do realise one of the biggest critics of Donald MacKay / supporters of the Local Italian community was Al Grasbee?
Very glad to see the back of Kevin Andrews.
His solution to the high costs of divorce? – marriage counselling vouchers to support his business (and others like it to be fair).
There is definitely a place for marriage counselling, but as soon as you have an abusive partner in the picture, forcing the counselling does a lot of harm. The abusers (especially the emotional abuse types) are great at using the counselling to gain an advantage. And eventually if the woman (and it is usually a woman) does not back down and stay in the marriage, then violence often ensures.
This is how we end up with around 1 woman a week being killed by a partner in Australia.