First up, note the new post below on the Western Australian state election campaign. To the matter at hand: as talk proliferates of a federal election later this year, there has been a noticeable uptick on the volume of preselection news to report.
• A Liberal preselection for the eastern Melbourne seat of Menzies last weekend produced a boilover with the defeat of Kevin Andrews, who has held the seat since 1991. Andrews lost the local party ballot by a 181-111 margin to Keith Wolahan, a barrister and former army officer. Wolahan was reckoned to have enough support locally to have knocked over Andrews ahead of the 2019 election, but was thwarted when the state party organisation took charge of the entire federal election preselection process, much to the chagrin of the membership. Wolahan had support from factional moderates but took to Andrew Bolt’s program on Sky News to push back against the notion that he personally could be so described, and put it to Virginia Trioli of the ABC that he “never joined the Liberal Party to be called a moderate and very few people do in Victoria”.
• It appears increasingly likely that controversial Liberal MP Craig Kelly will be bumped aside for preselection in his Sydney seat of Hughes by Kent Johns, who had the numbers locally in both 2016 and 2019 but was saved on both occasions by prime ministerial intervention. The Australian reported on Friday that Nationals MPs, apparently including Queensland Senator Matt Canavan, wished to recruit Kelly to the party, apparently with a view to him seeking re-election in his entirely suburban electorate. However, a Nationals source was quoted saying this “wouldn’t happen while Michael McCormack is leader”.
• Nine News reports New South Wales Deputy Premier and state Nationals leader John Barilaro is considering a move to the Senate. The Coalition arrangement in New South Wales gives the Nationals second and third positions on the Senate ticket at alternating elections, with the next election being the party’s turn for the unloseable second spot. The party’s position is vacant because one of its two Senators elected at the 2016 double dissolution, Fiona Nash, lost her position amid the Section 44 fiasco in December 2017 and it was won on a countback by a Liberal, Jim Molan. Molan lost his seat after being reduced to fourth position at the 2019 election but returned to the Senate upon filling Arthur Sinodinos’s vacancy in November 2019. Since he is now 69, he is presumably set to retire. The Liberals’ first and third positions on the ticket will presumably remain with the incumbents, Marise Payne and Connie Fierravanti-Wells.
• With the retirement of Labor veteran Warren Snowdon, Sky News reports his regional Northern Territory electorate of Lingiari is set to be contested for Labor by the former Deputy Chief Minister, Marion Scrymgour.
• The Northern Territory News reports the Country Liberal Party’s Senator for the Northern Territory, Sam McMahon, may face preselection challenges from Damien Ryan, the mayor of Alice Springs, and Linda Fazldeen, a Darwin businesswoman. The report says the preselection is likely to be held in June or July.
John Pilger, Hero of the Left, Speaker of Truth to Power, on Twitter:
“Lucky Australia has no pandemic. This doesn’t deter the provincial tinpots who run the states. Media-addicted windbag Dan Andrews, whose govt in Victoria slashed public health, has locked down Melbourne yet again. Tennis players in the Aust Open are exempt as ‘essential workers’.”
“At least they are consistent in Victoria – no idea who is responsible.”
Funny.
But in Australia,
And say it with rhythm,
At least Morrison knows,
He doesn’t hold any hose.
🙂
My thoughts?
If MTG asked me nicely I wouldn’t say no.
Don’t worry about politics when it comes to that side of things.
Obviously from what we see there are a couple of lads in the USA who follow my thoughts.
Bucephalus @ #2951 Saturday, February 13th, 2021 – 8:03 pm
Your point?
GG: “Every now and again, PB turns in to misogynistic drivel.”
Not to mention amazingly snobbish towards the sorts of people that PB’s preferred political party – Labor – will need to win over if it ever hopes to be re-elected at the Federal level (or in NSW for that matter).
Interested in Stonehenge? This is worth a look..
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2021/feb/12/dramatic-discovery-links-stonehenge-to-its-original-site-in-wales?CMP=share_btn_tw
laughtong:
Saturday, February 13, 2021 at 7:49 pm
[‘Mavis I would agree. More’s daughter was well educated at a time few were.’]
Yes, there’s evidence that he encouraged his daughters – again to be assessed contextually:
https://www.jstor.org/stable/4048427?seq=1
Buce: “John Pilger, Hero of the Left, Speaker of Truth to Power, on Twitter”
I really didn’t think there was anything that would make me feel much enthusiasm for Andrews. But, if John Pilger doesn’t like him, then I’m starting to think he might ok.
GG
If you can’t interpret Pilger’s Tweet then I can’t help you. But your smarter than that and we all know it.
Going out to a proper Chinese New Year celebration tonight – can’t wait. Haven’t eaten all day and prepping liver with Berroca.
“ Apropos of the Richard III discussion earlier in this thread, those who are critical of More should perhaps view history contextually; that is to say, taking into account the social, religious, economic, political mores of the time. Bearing this in mind, More was somewhat ahead of his times.”
Tyndall was well burnt, apparently.
Historical context. Blah de blah. But the Catholic Church made him a saint in the 20th century. The patron saint of lawyers, apparently.
While I’d love to personally burn to death several of my enemies, I’d think it would somehow disqualify me from sainthood.
More is an interesting chap. Historically. Also like many historically interesting chaps a total c#*! regardless of what gloss you put on ‘context’. Especially for someone who professes to follow the example of Christ – who was singularly not a known stake burner: why he even extolled the virtues of a member of a hectic sect of the day in one of his most famous parables.
Fuck Saint Tomas Moore.
Been There: “If MTG asked me nicely I wouldn’t say no.”
I’ve been single from time to time, but never quite that single.
sprocket_ @ #2956 Saturday, February 13th, 2021 – 7:07 pm
Yes. Who knew that Stonehenge was a demountable until they got tired of the fuss after 400 years?
sprocket_
Will the Welsh be asking for the henge back from those English thieves ?
“ Not to mention amazingly snobbish towards the sorts of people that PB’s preferred political party – Labor – will need to win over if it ever hopes to be re-elected at the Federal level (or in NSW for that matter).”
Puffed up tradies from the shire, with their ABNs and Ford Rangers, with bottle blonde she dragons in tow, are not for turning. Not the democratic Labor needs or can expect to win over. Not in a month of Sunday’s. So I think we are safe in our prejudices against that sort of trash.
meher baba
I know I started it, but I think it’s best left at that.
Apologies all.
AE: “Puffed up tradies from the shire, with their ABNs and Ford Rangers, with bottle blonde she dragons in tow, are not for turning. Not the democratic Labor needs or can expect to win over. Not in a month of Sunday’s. So I think we are safe in our prejudices against that sort of trash.”
Yes, of course. Scum like that simply don’t understand their rightful place in the social order. What we desperately need in Parliament is more people who went straight from boarding school to uni college and then into party headquarters or a Minister’s office, before winning preselection to represent an electorate in which they have never previously set foot. People who know how to pronounce “stracciatella” and can appreciate the superior charms of an unwooded chardonnay.
It’s the Labor Party after all.
Andrew_Earlwood @ #2964 Saturday, February 13th, 2021 – 8:14 pm
Your mum’s on the phone.
Andrew-Earlwood:
[‘Fuck Saint Tomas Moore.’]
For a self-described first-class debater, one would at least expect you to spell More’s name correctly. I can only think you’re being a dickhead, looking for a confrontation, where, on the facts, there is none. You lose!
Bucephalus @ #2959 Saturday, February 13th, 2021 – 8:09 pm
Depends whether it is worth interpreting the facile opinions of Pilger.
Late Riser,
I would like to applaud that line! A standing ovation would be in order 🙂
Griff @ #2970 Saturday, February 13th, 2021 – 8:32 pm
https://twitter.com/i/status/1360428687154241541
Oh dear, I misspelt Saint Tomas fucking More’s name. Clearly I’ve lost the argument.
Oh and MB, get a grip.
meher baba @ #724 Saturday, February 13th, 2021 – 8:29 pm
Um, need I remind you that you are the one with kids that go to a Private School? Who may, considering their parents interest in politics, go into politics themselves one day. Via a college at Uni, of course. 🙂
I don’t know what “stracciatella“ is. Whatever it is, it looks Italian. While I could have a go at saying it out load I’d probably get the pronunciation wrong.
Andrew Earlwood – you probably also got his middle name wrong.
timbo @ #699 Saturday, February 13th, 2021 – 7:45 pm
You appear to have missed the sarcasm underlying ‘Lock him up’. 🙄
I’ve never heard of straciatella either until meher baba brought it up just then. So remind me, who are the elitists? 🙂
I had Spag Bol down the tavern last week. Does that count? 😀
You need to further qualify your order of Stracciatella to indicate whether you want soup or ice cream.
I know Mitt Romney likes chocolate milk:
So do I. Does that make me a Conservative now? 😀
c@tmomma: “Um, need I remind you that you are the one with kids that go to a Private School? Who may, considering their parents interest in politics, go into politics themselves one day. Via a college at Uni, of course.”
Only one of my kids has gone to a private school. It definitely wasn’t my idea. That child is indeed very keen on politics and very pro-Labor. I’m sorry to say that another one joined the Greens: but now appears to have regretted it.
I have taught my offspring never to look down on other people. I might be a bit more conservative than most of you PB types, but I cannot abide snobbery in any form.
And left-wing snobbery simply doesn’t make any sense to me. If you want to take up the cause of working people, then you should be prepared to mingle with them and learn about their ways. My greatest political hero, Bob Hawke, didn’t have a snobbish bone in his body: he was entirely comfortable in the presence of working people (particularly, of course, those of the feminine variety).
“ Andrew Earlwood – you probably also got his middle name wrong.”
Aye. A good chance.
Bucephalus says:
Saturday, February 13, 2021 at 8:03 pm
John Pilger, Hero of the Left, Speaker of Truth to Power, on Twitter:
“Lucky Australia has no pandemic. This doesn’t deter the provincial tinpots who run the states. Media-addicted windbag Dan Andrews, whose govt in Victoria slashed public health, has locked down Melbourne yet again. Tennis players in the Aust Open are exempt as ‘essential workers’.”
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________
John Pilger may have been a hero of the left once, but these days he’s more an angry old man who has failed to keep up with the changing times. Pilger was a hero of mine in my early journalism career, when he wrote about the poor social policies and outright repression of governments around the world, sparing neither the United States, apartheid South Africa, Soviet Russia or anyone else. He also expressed nuance, which was readily apparent in one story he wrote about a Palestinian visiting his old home in Israel, and how the Israeli occupant expressed genuine sympathy for him and regret that history had played out that way.
But these days, Pilger seems to spend his energies defending the Islamic regime in Iran and Vladimir Putin’s regime in Russia. Like many of the old left, Pilger seems to have degenerated into an apologist for any regime or movement which is anti-American or anti-Israel.
So Buce, I’m not all that surprised or impressed that this once-great journalist would waste his time doing down Dan Andrews.
Stracciatella is an Italian egg soup and also the name of a type of buffalo cheese (and, according to Wikipedia, also a variety of icecream, but one I have never personally encountered).
I believe that the “cc” is pronounced like the English”ch” (whereas, in Italian, “ch” is pronounced as a hard c: confusing, eh).
I can’t say that I’m overly fond either of the soup or the cheese.
Andrew_Earlwood:
Saturday, February 13, 2021 at 8:44 pm
Pal, it was you who made claim to have knowledge of More, a man who paid the ultimate price for his beliefs, a man of incredible character, set in a time when one didn’t question a king’s authority. Would you have the courage? Yet you disparage him for no better reason other than to make non-contextualised points.
Australia faces ‘constellation’ of diplomatic pressures over climate. With 2050 targets in place, 2030 targets have become the focus of global attention. Australia is way behind and that’s going to cost:
https://www.smh.com.au/environment/climate-change/australia-faces-constellation-of-diplomatic-pressures-over-climate-20210212-p57236.html
Quick question: had the Coaltion parties, then the Australian Government when the Coalition took office seven and a bit years ago, entered into a ‘constellation’ of secret deals with coal mining and other fossil fuel interests, in what way would things have been different from what we have actually observed since 2013?
Steve777:
Saturday, February 13, 2021 at 8:51 pm
[‘Andrew Earlwood – you probably also got his middle name wrong.’]
Please don’t confound his errors. Geeting a surname right is very basic. That’s the last brief he’s getting from me.
https://www.pollbludger.net/2021/02/07/battle-stations/comment-page-60/#comment-3556421
It is the state governments who are largely responsible for there being very little COVID-19 in Australia. The lockdown in Victoria is to keep it that way (I am a Victorian and I am at home).
Pilger is in the West* is always automatically wrong brigade. Using hypocrisy as an absolute veto of any criticism by any democracy. To be taken with a large grain of salt.
* West being the term used to disassociate the Soviet Union and Russian Federation from criticism of European/Euro-American Imperialism and focus it on democracies.
Sir Henry Parkes
Well said.
The Pilger of twenty years ago is not the Pilger of now.
If M0re, a learned theologian, could not comprehend the parable of the Good Samaritan, spending much of his time in office hunting down and ordering the killings of protestants, then his ‘incredible character’ is not worth a bucket of spent piss. The ‘contextualised’ hagiography of the Protestant burner has all the intellectual and ethical rigor that one would expect from the Paedophile Protection Society.
Lots of people are courageous. Lots of people die for their beliefs. Dr and Mrs Goebbels spring to mind. That doesn’t make them – or their beliefs – any good.
More was a prig and a hypocrite of highest order.
I’m still waiting for my first brief from you Mavis 😉
Oh, and you just misspelt getting as ‘geeting’ … just saying. Glass houses and what not.
C@t why don’t you brighten the mood and tell everyone the story of your meeting with Bob Hawke ?
Re Thomas More: I have never been able to work out whether I sympathise with him or not.
He was incredibly smug and convinced of his own moral worth. If he were alive today, people would undoubtedly describe him as a “FIGJAM”. And, on top of that, he was a lawyer.
But Henry VIII was a psychotic scumbag, so one can’t help feeling that any enemy of his must have had something going for them. And More was executed because he stood up for his beliefs and principles. So I reckon, on balance, there was something admirable about him in spite of his deep flaws.
We can’t expect the important people of history to be flawless. That’s why I’m strongly opposed to all that statue toppling by the woke cancel culture brigade. A statue of Gandhi was toppled the other day by people who felt disgusted by his practice of testing his celibacy by sleeping in the nude with his teenage grandnieces. A nauseatingly bizarre practice, to be sure. But Gandhi also did a lot of good in his lifetime.
And, weirdly, the far left people who want to cancel Gandhi have effectively allied themselves with Prime Minister Modi and his fellow zealots of the BJP, who also wish to cancel Gandhi because they don’t appreciate his messages of tolerance towards Muslims, untouchables, and other Indian minorities. Strange bedfellows indeed.
Andrew_Earlwood:
Saturday, February 13, 2021 at 9:19 pm
Doubling down I see. I’ve got nothing further to add other than to suggest that if that’s the best you’ve got, your debating opponents must’ve had field days.
John Pilger is a bit of a pain these days.
meher baba @8.59pm
” I cannot abide snobbery in any form.”
I assume you make this statement with sense of jocular lightheadedness.
It’s good fun.
“ We can’t expect the important people of history to be flawless.”
No we can’t, but More was an especially smug and hypocritical prig. It truly is sick making how the Paedophile Protection Society made him a Saint – in the 20th century of all time periods. Let alone the bloviating hagiography to him to this day (looking at you Mavis). More should actually be seen as a cautionary tale – don’t be a smug c#*!
Andrew_Earlwood @ #2990 Saturday, February 13th, 2021 – 9:19 pm
Not what the girls said in the midnight hours.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VdphvuyaV_I
Been There: “The Pilger of twenty years ago is not the Pilger of now.”
With respect, I beg to differ. Like Thomas More, I think Pilg has always had a strong flavour of the self-righteous FIGJAM about him.
One has heard a lot over the years about the concept of a “self-hating Jew.” Well Pilg is a “self-hating Aussie”: a bit of a relic of the cultural cringe era.
meher baba:
Saturday, February 13, 2021 at 9:25 pm
[‘Re Thomas More: I have never been able to work out whether I sympathise with him or not.’]
Well, one knows that dear due to your innate propensity to straddle.