Comings and goings

More internal party jockeying ahead of a federal election most expect to be held later this year.

Another week’s worth of federal preselection developments. For the latest on the Western Australian election campaign, see the post below.

Richard Ferguson of The Australian reports there is “speculation” Senator Kristina Keneally might move to the House of Representatives amid a preselection battle with Right faction colleague Deborah O’Neill, in which the winner will get the factionally reserved top position on the ticket while the loser will be relegated to highly loseable third place.

• Nick Champion, who has held the seat of Spence (formerly Wakefield) for Labor since 2007, will move to state politics in the safe seat of Taylor at the next election in March 2022. Champion is aligned with the socially conservative Shop Distributive Allied and Employees Association sub-faction of the Right, and is a member of the pro-coal mining Otis Group. No apparent word on who might be in line to replace him in Spence, which is now a safe seat.

The Brisbane Times reports the preselection of Graham Perrett, who has held the Brisbane seat of Moreton for Labor since 2007, faces a preselection challenge from state party secretary Julie-Ann Campbell, who among other things has affirmative action considerations in her favour.

• The South Australian Liberals have finalised their Senate ticket, with incumbents Simon Birmingham and Andrew McLachlan taking the top two positions and the third going to Kerrynne Liddle, a factional moderate of indigenous background who works as a staffer to Social Services Minister and SA Senator Anne Ruston. Tom Richardson of InDaily reports Liddle was chosen ahead of state party vice-president Rachel Swift by a margin of 130 to 78.

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.

1,276 comments on “Comings and goings”

Comments Page 3 of 26
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  1. Dr Sheep Person
    @noplaceforsheep
    ·
    2m
    Morrison advises us to get info on COVID from gov website.
    1.There’s no info at all on vaccination roll out
    2. There is a statement from Coatsworth saying the virus is definitely not airborne.
    So, not entirely trustworthy or comprehensive info here.

  2. Rex,
    Ask yourself this. If you were 20 today. With an average job of 60k. At what point in your life will you own a home.
    The regular people are hurting in this economy.

  3. C@t

    There is a Greek chorus here who think that regularly repeating the same phrase makes them worth reading. I wish they’d show a little more imagination.

  4. 2. There is a statement from Coatsworth saying the virus is definitely not airborne.
    So, not entirely trustworthy or comprehensive info here.

    Oh, so it wasn’t the nebuliser then 👿

  5. lizzie @ #103 Sunday, February 14th, 2021 – 12:13 pm

    C@t

    There is a Greek chorus here who think that regularly repeating the same phrase makes them worth reading. I wish they’d show a little more imagination.

    I wish they’d show a little more understanding of the electorate. As Labor are attempting to do. In case it wasn’t obvious to them. Which it appears, from their comments, it isn’t.

  6. Q: I feel most sorry for the children born into this society. They will grow up seeing a future decline in front of them. They will be reminded of a future they won’t be able to have.

    And their parents voted for it. They voted for personal greed- even when they and their children didn’t profit.
    We have a very robust democracy- 90 plus percent vote. And people have voted for coal. For negative gearing. For franking credits. For copper NBN. For reduced pay and conditions. We as a nation chose all these things.

    It is heartbreaking.

  7. A looming nightmare for Morrison and Hunt – Catholic and Anglican leaders telling people to avoid the AstraZenica vaccine due to the use of cells from aborted foetuses in the development process. Not only that, they are telling people the Noravax and Pfizer vaccines are more effective.

    On Friday a spokesman for Catholic Archbishop of Sydney Anthony Fisher said he was a strong advocate of vaccinations but “like any medicine they must be safe and ethically obtained”.

    “Fortunately, the Novavax and Pfizer vaccines will be made available in Australia, they seem if anything to have higher success rates, and they are morally uncompromised,” he said.

    “Anyone who is concerned about the ethics of the AstraZeneca vaccine should be confident in requesting an alternative, but also be confident that it is not unethical to use the AstraZeneca vaccine if there is no alternative reasonably available.”

    https://www.smh.com.au/national/churches-on-collision-course-with-the-government-over-astrazeneca-vaccine-20210212-p571ys.html

  8. lizzie @ #101 Sunday, February 14th, 2021 – 12:11 pm

    Dr Sheep Person
    @noplaceforsheep
    ·
    2m
    Morrison advises us to get info on COVID from gov website.
    1.There’s no info at all on vaccination roll out
    2. There is a statement from Coatsworth saying the virus is definitely not airborne.
    So, not entirely trustworthy or comprehensive info here.

    It’s just another case of Morrison batting away a question he doesn’t like with a fatuous answer.

    He doesn’t care what the truth of the matter in his answer is, just that, at that moment, he can bat away the question with a non-answer.

  9. citizen,
    If the Johnson and Johnson vaccine comes with a bottle of baby shampoo, Morrison is sunk! 😀

    But seriously, how many Aged Care Homes do the Catholics and Anglicans run? See the looming problem for Morrison there?

  10. citizen
    Have those god botherers been telling their flock to avoid these vaccines as well ?

    Cells derived from elective abortions have been used since the 1960s to manufacture vaccines, including current vaccines against rubella, chickenpox, hepatitis A, and shingles.

    At least five of the candidate COVID-19 vaccines use one of two human fetal cell lines: HEK-293, a kidney cell line widely used in research and industry that comes from a fetus aborted in about 1972; and PER.C6, a proprietary cell line owned by Janssen, a subsidiary of Johnson & J..

    https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/06/abortion-opponents-protest-covid-19-vaccines-use-fetal-cells

  11. citizen @ #108 Sunday, February 14th, 2021 – 9:18 am

    “Anyone who is concerned about the ethics of the AstraZeneca vaccine should be confident in requesting an alternative, but also be confident that it is not unethical to use the AstraZeneca vaccine if there is no alternative reasonably available.”

    😆 😆 😆 😆 😆

    So, it’s only unethical if there is no alternative.

  12. citizen: “A looming nightmare for Morrison and Hunt – Catholic and Anglican leaders telling people to avoid the AstraZenica vaccine due to the use of cells from aborted foetuses in the development process. Not only that, they are telling people the Noravax and Pfizer vaccines are more effective.”

    I don’t know about you, but I always look to church leaders for definitive advice about the relative effectiveness of different medical treatments.

  13. I think people are missing the point. It’s not what we may think about the announcement by the Catholic and Anglican archbishops, and how we may mock them for it, but it’s what their congregations do about it if told by them not to agree to have the vaccine, even if others may also be compromised. Plus the fact that they are the last word on what goes on in their Aged Care facilities.

    So easy to mock. Much harder to understand.

  14. ‘meher baba says:
    Sunday, February 14, 2021 at 12:27 pm

    citizen: “A looming nightmare for Morrison and Hunt – Catholic and Anglican leaders telling people to avoid the AstraZenica vaccine due to the use of cells from aborted foetuses in the development process. Not only that, they are telling people the Noravax and Pfizer vaccines are more effective.”

    I don’t know about you, but I always look to church leaders for definitive advice about the relative effectiveness of different medical treatments.’

    It may be a medical issue to you but to the leaders it is a matter of morality.

  15. lizzie @ #114 Sunday, February 14th, 2021 – 12:27 pm

    Eric Feigl-Ding
    @DrEricDing
    · Feb 12
    JUST ONE PERSON—UK Flag of United Kingdom scientists think one immunocompromised person who cleared virus slowly & only partially wiped out an infection, leaving behind genetically-hardier viruses that rebound & learn how to survive better. That’s likely how #B117 started. Thread … https://wired.co.uk/article/chronic-infection-uk-coronavirus-variant

    Of course! That makes eminent sense.

  16. C@tmomma @ #115 Sunday, February 14th, 2021 – 9:30 am

    I think people are missing the point. It’s not what we may think about the announcement by the Catholic and Anglican archbishops, and how we may mock them for it, but it’s what their congregations do about it if told by them not to agree to have the vaccine, even if others may also be compromised. Plus the fact that they are the last word on what goes on in their Aged Care facilities.

    So easy to mock. Much harder to understand.

    You seem sensitive to people pointing out logical flaws in an argument.

  17. Barney in Tanjung Bunga @ #118 Sunday, February 14th, 2021 – 12:34 pm

    C@tmomma @ #115 Sunday, February 14th, 2021 – 9:30 am

    I think people are missing the point. It’s not what we may think about the announcement by the Catholic and Anglican archbishops, and how we may mock them for it, but it’s what their congregations do about it if told by them not to agree to have the vaccine, even if others may also be compromised. Plus the fact that they are the last word on what goes on in their Aged Care facilities.

    So easy to mock. Much harder to understand.

    You seem sensitive to people pointing out logical flaws in an argument.

    No. Just frustrated that people resort to mockery too easily.

  18. ‘poroti says:
    Sunday, February 14, 2021 at 9:08 am

    Knock your self out boerwar.’

    Thank you. That is the first time I have seen a cartoon critical of Xi. It refers to his use of the military to crush democracy in Hong Kong and the terror this is inducing in the democratic Taiwanese.

    The second cartoon, is, I assume in the avuncular Mao mode of cartoons. Xi’s yer uncle. But that is a guess.

    I assume neither cartoon came from the Western MSM because the Western MSM self-censors on matters relating to Xi, the CCP and China.

    There have been dozens of cartoons on Covid as they relate to the UK, Australia and the US. But there has not been a single cartoon lately on Xi’s potentially lethal suppression of early Covid data, include keeping the WHO team away from 2019 blood tests. The latter is ostensibly for ‘legal reasons’. This is tendentious crap. Xi IS the law.

  19. Barney in Tanjung Bunga says:
    Sunday, February 14, 2021 at 12:23 pm
    citizen @ #108 Sunday, February 14th, 2021 – 9:18 am

    “Anyone who is concerned about the ethics of the AstraZeneca vaccine should be confident in requesting an alternative, but also be confident that it is not unethical to use the AstraZeneca vaccine if there is no alternative reasonably available.”…

    So, it’s only unethical if there is no alternative.

    Stand by for the growing list of people who will be granted an exemption from having to accept the AstraZeneca vaccine:

    – Religious objection

    – Living in a LNP held or marginal electorate

    – Having the ‘right’ connections.

    Meanwhile the rest of us receive the Fraudband vaccine equivalent.

  20. South @12.03pm
    “The ALP vote will decline on this news.”
    Oh for another basket of polling to indicate any movement, perhaps a trend.
    “will decline” doesn’t happen much, but is often in the news as having done so.
    The decision, to maintain “the get rich quick shonks” who’ve marked their cards and will squeeze hard, lie and cheat or,
    something “saner”, less dodgy, environmentally considerate, fiscally fairer, with a more agreeable after taste.
    Ah! Let me think?

  21. poroti @ #126 Sunday, February 14th, 2021 – 12:42 pm

    C@tmomma
    People have made their choice knowing the risks so they must also accept the consequences.

    It’s not so cut and dried, poroti. If there is a vaccine available that satisfies the religious tenets of the leaders of their religion then they should be able to choose it. They shouldn’t just be condemned to die from the virus because you don’t like religious people.

  22. Re Citizen @12:17.

    Fortunately these days most Catholics ignore their “leaders”.

    Anyway, that issue with AstraZenica was canvassed extensively last year and as I recall. The Catholic leadership decided that there was no problem, basically because the link to an abortion (in the 1970s as I recall) was very remote and there was no intention at the time to use it to develop vaccines in future (or some Jesuitical logic).

    Be that as it may, His Grace the Archbishop of Sydney, Anthony Fisher, can go and get stuffed.

  23. c@tmomma: “So easy to mock. Much harder to understand.”

    I agree: easy for me to mock. And completely impossible for me to understand.

    Mainstream churches have not infrequently supported wars in which millions have been killed, but they are happy to make a fuss about the use of some foetal material dating back to the 1970s in the development of a vaccine that could save millions of lives. The consequence of their fuss could be that herd immunity is not achieved in many nations, leading to untold numbers of preventable deaths.

    I’m personally more inclined towards spirituality (of Eastern varieties) than I suspect many PB posters might be. And that usually makes me more tolerant than most of other peoples’ religious beliefs. But this I simply do not get.

  24. “There is a statement from Coatsworth saying the virus is definitely not airborne.”

    That wouldn’t surprise me at all. But I’d like to know the link all the same.

  25. I’m quite happy for my very healthy family and I to wait at the end of the queue until everyone who is a higher priority and more concerned are all vaccinated. Should have plenty of data on them all by then.

    I have too many friends damaged by Mefloquine that they were assured was safe.

  26. “There are free tickets in the Darwin Award raffle for those refusing the vaccine so no problems.”

    The problem is rounding up all the vaccine refusers and sticking them somewhere that they can’t cause harm to the rest of us.

  27. Covid-19 pandemic: China ‘refused to give data’ to WHO team

    China refused to hand over key data to the World Health Organization (WHO) team investigating the origins of Covid-19, one of its members has said.

    Microbiologist Dominic Dwyer told Reuters, the Wall St Journal and the New York Times the team requested raw patient data from early cases, what he called “standard practice”,

    He said they only received a summary.

    China has not responded to the allegation but has previously insisted it was transparent with the WHO.

    The US has urged China to make available data from the earliest stages of the outbreak, saying it has “deep concerns” about the WHO report.

    What did the WHO team want to see?

    The investigators had asked for raw data on the 174 identified cases of Covid-19 from Wuhan in December 2019, Professor Dwyer told Reuters.

    Only half of the early cases had been exposed to the seafood market where the virus was initially detected.

    “That’s why we’ve persisted to ask for that,” Prof Dwyer said. “Why that doesn’t happen, I couldn’t comment. Whether it’s political or time or it’s difficult… But whether there are any other reasons why the data isn’t available, I don’t know. One would only speculate.”

    The US accused China of hiding the extent of the initial outbreak and criticised the terms of the visit, which restricted the freedom of the WHO team to travel and interview witnesses, including community members, on health grounds.

    The investigators told the New York Times that disagreements, including over access to patient records, were so tense that they sometimes erupted into shouting matches.

    Last month, an interim report from the WHO criticised China’s initial response, saying that “public health measures could have been applied more forcefully”.

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-china-56054468

  28. “If there is a vaccine available that satisfies the religious tenets of the leaders of their religion then they should be able to choose it”

    I have a religious tenet that says that I should be getting the best possible vaccine, not AZ.

  29. “If there is a vaccine available that satisfies the religious tenets of the leaders of their religion then they should be able to choose it”

    I have a religious tenet that says that I should be getting the best possible vaccine, not AZ.

  30. C@tmomma @ #120 Sunday, February 14th, 2021 – 9:38 am

    Barney in Tanjung Bunga @ #118 Sunday, February 14th, 2021 – 12:34 pm

    C@tmomma @ #115 Sunday, February 14th, 2021 – 9:30 am

    I think people are missing the point. It’s not what we may think about the announcement by the Catholic and Anglican archbishops, and how we may mock them for it, but it’s what their congregations do about it if told by them not to agree to have the vaccine, even if others may also be compromised. Plus the fact that they are the last word on what goes on in their Aged Care facilities.

    So easy to mock. Much harder to understand.

    You seem sensitive to people pointing out logical flaws in an argument.

    No. Just frustrated that people resort to mockery too easily.

    You must become incredibly frustrated with yourself.

    Ethics provide a framework to guide a persons behaviour.

    Religions especially use their ethical positions to argue against change.

    How can we even begin to take these arguments seriously if they so flippantly justify a position that directly contradicts their ethics?

  31. The Catholic/Anglican thingie about the use of certain medical products, is a focused, media beatup, from the remnant DLP/IPA/assorted all sorts, to maintain a shard of relevance in a “god forsaken” future.
    Good luck with that!

  32. meher baba @ #129 Sunday, February 14th, 2021 – 12:49 pm

    c@tmomma: “So easy to mock. Much harder to understand.”

    I agree: easy for me to mock. And completely impossible for me to understand.

    Mainstream churches have not infrequently supported wars in which millions have been killed, but they are happy to make a fuss about the use of some foetal material dating back to the 1970s in the development of a vaccine that could save millions of lives. The consequence of their fuss could be that herd immunity is not achieved in many nations, leading to untold numbers of preventable deaths.

    I’m personally more inclined towards spirituality (of Eastern varieties) than I suspect many PB posters might be. And that usually makes me more tolerant than most of other peoples’ religious beliefs. But this I simply do not get.

    Okay, let me put it another way. As you say, you tend to subscribe to Eastern religions as opposed to Western religions. As your nom has Indian connotations, does that mean you think cows are sacred and you refuse to eat beef as a result? Now, I can’t see the sense in that but I respect the right of people who subscribe to that religion to have the beliefs that they do. Whether I think it’s nuts or not. I try, therefore, not to mock them for it.

  33. Goll,

    What evidence do you have that the IPA has anything to do with the religious positions of the Anglican and Catholic Bishops on this vaccination issue?

    I know you don’t like the IPA but stop making up fairy stories.

  34. C@tmomma @ #127 Sunday, February 14th, 2021 – 11:44 am

    They shouldn’t just be condemned to die from the virus because you don’t like religious people they deliberately and irrationally chose not to protect themselves from it.

    Like…maybe?

    But at a minimum in a nation with socialized healthcare they shoud be condemned to bankroll their own treatment/emergency care via the private health system. No wasting of limited public resources to treat self-inflicted stupidity.

  35. [‘What are Labor’s factions and who’s who in the Left and Right?

    They’re derided as faceless men, they make and break Labor leaders and they determine the policy decisions the ALP takes.

    Amid recent chatter about Anthony Albanese’s leadership, there has been speculation about whether he still has the backing of a particular faction or state group.

    Factions play a crucial role in deciding the leader of the ALP (though the party membership now also gets a vote), in allocating frontbench portfolios, in choosing who gets to run for parliament, and in deciding the party’s policy positions. But if factional divisions run too deep and the party is divided, it’s that much harder for Labor to form government.

    So where did these factions come from? What do they do and why do they matter? And just how powerful are they?’]

    https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/what-are-labor-s-factions-and-who-s-who-in-the-left-and-right-20210210-p5718j.html

  36. Joe O’Brien
    @JoeABCNews
    ·
    14m
    A “highly unusual” false negative on a quarantine worker has complicated the effort to get on top of the virus in Victoria. Re-testing has shown the worker was actually a weak positive and went on to infect others.
    Media conf on @abcnews
    channel now.

  37. Barney in Tanjung Bunga @ #136 Sunday, February 14th, 2021 – 12:53 pm

    C@tmomma @ #120 Sunday, February 14th, 2021 – 9:38 am

    Barney in Tanjung Bunga @ #118 Sunday, February 14th, 2021 – 12:34 pm

    C@tmomma @ #115 Sunday, February 14th, 2021 – 9:30 am

    I think people are missing the point. It’s not what we may think about the announcement by the Catholic and Anglican archbishops, and how we may mock them for it, but it’s what their congregations do about it if told by them not to agree to have the vaccine, even if others may also be compromised. Plus the fact that they are the last word on what goes on in their Aged Care facilities.

    So easy to mock. Much harder to understand.

    You seem sensitive to people pointing out logical flaws in an argument.

    No. Just frustrated that people resort to mockery too easily.

    You must become incredibly frustrated with yourself.

    Ethics provide a framework to guide a persons behaviour.

    Religions especially use their ethical positions to argue against change.

    How can we even begin to take these arguments seriously if they so flippantly justify a position that directly contradicts their ethics?

    Got to have a personal jab at me, don’t you, BiTB?

    Nevertheless, I will attempt to reply to your arguments.

    Ethics provide a framework to guide a persons behaviour.

    And the ethics of the Catholic and Anglican’s religion is guiding their archbishop’s behaviour and their advice to their flocks.

    Religions especially use their ethical positions to argue against change.

    Not always. For example, the Pope’s directive that gay Catholics are welcome now in the Holy Roman Church. Or the Anglican change of heart that allows women to be ordained. Or the Uniting Church’s embrace of the LGBTQI community.

    How can we even begin to take these arguments seriously if they so flippantly justify a position that directly contradicts their ethics?

    Well you’re wrong about that, so that point is moot.

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