Easter eggs

Preselection jockeying for Andrew Laming’s seat of Bowman, a looming state by-election in NSW, and a post-mortem into yet another election defeat in the ACT.

The interruption of Easter means we’re not likely to see any opinion polls this week. A new post is wanted though, so I offer the following loose assemblage of news items. My own efforts have late have been consumed by my Tasmanian election guide, which is currently being buffed and polished ahead of publication later today.

• Lydia Lynch of the Brisbane Times reports the executive of Queensland’s Liberal National Party has voted to reopen preselection nominations for Andrew Laming’s seat of Bowman, by a bare margin of 11 to 10, but for which the position would be assured for businesswoman Fran Ward, the only candidate to nominate against Andrew Laming when he still intended to run. The Australian reports that “conservative forces” were keen that this should happen to open the way for Henry Pike, communications adviser for the Property Council and unsuccessful candidate for Redlands at the October state election. The Brisbane Times report says the preselection looms as a three-way contest between Ward, Pike and barrister Maggie Forrest. Senator Amanda Stoker has ruled herself out, despite expectations she could use the seat to resolve a difficulty where she and James McGrath are in competition for the safe first and loseable third positions on the LNP Senate ticket, the second position being reserved to the Nationals.

• A by-election will be held in the New South Wales state seat of Upper Hunter following the resignation of Nationals member Michael Johnsen after he was accused of raping a sex worker. I will have a dedicated post and election guide up for the by-election hopefully later in the week. For what it’s worth, Sportsbet has Shooters Fishers and Farmers as favourites to win the seat, paying $1.50 compared with $3.25 for the Nationals and $8 for Labor.

• The Canberra Times reports on the findings of an internal review into the ACT Liberals’ sixth successive election defeat in October, finding more effort should have been made to win over “soft Greens voters” who might be persuaded by a pitch targeting the Greens’ “anti-small business bent” and “soft law and order policies”. The review was conducted by Grahame Morris, lobbyist and one-time chief-of-staff to John Howard, Vicki Dunne, recently retired Liberal MP, and Daniel Clode, the party’s campaign manager in 2016.

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.

476 comments on “Easter eggs”

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  2. boerwar

    I repeat.

    If all CO2 emissions, including China’s 28%, were stopped today the Reef would survive.

    And so I repeat … what manufactured goods are you willing to do without?

  3. “ If all CO2 emissions, including China’s 28%, were stopped today the Reef would survive.”

    Risible nonsense.

    It would take decades, probably about 7 of them for the world’s oceans to dissipate the heat that has already been stored because of the industrial age’s CO2 emissions.

    Sorry to say, but the GBR is already FUBAR.

  4. Socrates

    Well I wish we’d gotten in the queue for Moderna, Pfizer etc but that’s past.
    What concerns me now is that our “adults in the room” do actually get into the queue.. and do everything to hasten our order of Novavax.

    What concerns me is the likes of Brendan and Greg playing politics and putting off getting us the best vaccine asap because they don’t want to admit the perception of error. It will catch up to them regardless.

  6. Cud Chewer @ #351 Monday, April 5th, 2021 – 8:11 pm

    C@t

    Recovered?

    Thank you Cud for you kind concern, it’s more than I can say for others who felt abuse was the way to go while I was ill. One needs to say no more than that about them.

    Well, I feel as if I am finally on the road to recovery tonight. I felt my appetite return and so I have just eaten 2 relatively dry wholemeal crumpets, one with Vegemite and the other with honey, and I am keeping my fingers crossed that it traverses my gastrointestinal tract safely and securely tonight. 🙂

  7. This blog needs a separate China thread. The daily loud, binary and unnuanced circular arguments are tedious.

  8. ‘Andrew_Earlwood says:
    Monday, April 5, 2021 at 9:29 pm

    “ If all CO2 emissions, including China’s 28%, were stopped today the Reef would survive.”

    Risible nonsense.

    It would take decades, probably about 7 of them for the world’s oceans to dissipate the heat that has already been stored because of the industrial age’s CO2 emissions.

    Sorry to say, but the GBR is already FUBAR.’

    Of course it would take ages to dissipate current stores of heat.
    But if the world’s CO2 emissions stopped today, the Reef would survive that dissipation.

  10. Which is all distracting a bit from the current Chinese invasion of the Philippines.
    Are we all AOK with that?
    Or are we back to doing the five decade long ‘hard diplomacy’ of pretending it is not happening?

  11. boerwarsays:
    Monday, April 5, 2021 at 9:36 pm

    Twin personalities are your own, and such need your own site, not your personal vendetta to a country.

    Trump fanboy.

  14. Zerlo you might be able to clarify the Philippines situation.

    Is the Philippines Government wrong to be concerned about Xi’s order to shoot combined with the arrival of several hundred Chinese vessels at islands claimed by the Philippines?

    Or is this an example of the Philippines Government falling prey to white racism?

  17. https://www.theaustralian.com.au/nation/politics/newspoll-coalition-in-election-peril-after-hit-in-resources-states/news-story/8054285c6d0043314463bb676d1d04aa

    Newspoll: Coalition in election peril after hit in resources states
    By Simon Benson Political Editor
    11 minutes ago April 5, 2021

    The Coalition has lost significant electoral ground across its traditionally strongest states of Western Australia and Queensland and is facing collapse in South Australia, amid a war of words with the premiers over the vaccine rollout and the aftermath of the sexual ­assault allegations that have rocked the federal government.

    While the Coalition has managed to improve slightly in Victoria and remain relatively stable in NSW, demographic and state-based analysis of Newspoll data, suggests the Coalition would need to restore support in the ­resource states to retain government.

    The analysis has also revealed that the Coalition has suffered a flight of male voters rather than ­female over the past three months despite the Liberal Party’s perceived failures in dealing with the mistreatment of women in politics.

    Averaged approval ratings for Scott Morrison since late last year show the Prime Minister remains at historical highs, almost double his rival Anthony Albanese, and is the preferred prime minister by a substantial margin across all mainland states.

    The quarterly analysis of four Newspolls conducted this year suggests there is likely a correlation of factors driving dissatisfaction with the federal government, a strengthening of the Labor brand outside NSW and Victoria and an almost universal fall in support for the two minor parties.

    Table image 1
    https://cdn.newsapi.com.au/image/v1/e466ede46fddf6ebeea11e91227c1cdd

    Table image 2
    https://cdn.newsapi.com.au/image/v1/703e7646384c52c8a37c6280195b9cd0

  18. boerwarsays:
    Monday, April 5, 2021 at 9:42 pm

    Ahh boewar, I don’t fall for your dodgy tricks, by using distractions. Typical Liberal type.

  19. boerwar @ #398 Monday, April 5th, 2021 – 7:24 pm

    You guys should study Lysenko.

    Your problem is that Dr Physics and Dr Chemistry don’t care about poverty, colonialism, safari suits or the current invasion of the Philippines by China. (The invasion that you can’t seem to admit is happening as we post.)

    I repeat.

    If all CO2 emissions, including China’s 28%, were stopped today the Reef would survive.

    Ahhhhhhh!!!!

    The magic switch.

    Like so many of your posts lately, this has no basis in reality.

  20. Zerlosays:
    Monday, April 5, 2021 at 9:47 pm

    I noticed you stayed silent on Myanmar coup, Russian election tampering, Ethiopia’s civil war, Syria conflict, or lets say Republican Party restricting voting measures at elections?

  21. Leroy
    Most informative data from the polls… Greens no religion ves religion
    3 to 1 !
    Does this make the Greens supporters exponentially the smartest group?
    Edit
    And staggering belief that the religious are for Scott… we are exactly the same as the ratbag Americans .. Scott is Trump lite

  22. boerwar

    Or is this an example of the Philippines Government falling prey to white racism?

    Just checking … is ‘white racism’ better or worse than other types of racism?

  23. My concern is that Chinese CO2 emissions are quite a bit greater than (the amount that corresponds to) 28% of the global total.

    There are other countries that I also hold this concern for.

  24. Most of the fake news spread by BBC is from Adrian Zenz, who was commissioned to do the reports in Xinging:

    Adrian Zenz
    @adrianzenz
    ·
    Jul 5, 2019
    The BBC commissioned my research. They asked the first time whether it could be done. I said “no”, too hard, too little evidence. They asked again. I said: “let me see what I can find”. Well, the resulting findings now total 17,000 words and 163 footnotes.

    Open Corruption and bribery.

  27. Can’t argue with that AR , if you have an existing loan.

    But I do worry about anyone who has overextended, and the systematic risk of property bubble. One of the suburbs I’ve been looking to buy in has had close to 30% growth in median sale price this financial YTD. It’s unbelievable, until you see one house sell for 720k in October, and an almost identical house two doors down the same street sell in the mid 900ks last week. It’s madness.

  28. Tell me about it. Just tried to buy a place a bit further North. Two years old, quality build but not top-end by any means. Would estimate the construction cost at $450-500k, tops, and the land was $135k when it sold. Owners wanted $750k for it and would barely budge off that number. Too much of a two-year windfall for my taste; someone else can pay that, but I’m not going to. And someone else already has.

    The time to move was about a year ago, it seems.

  29. The time to move was about a year ago, it seems.

    I don’t know how the Sunny Coast was, but around here, there was very little for sale at that time.

    Good luck!

  30. I see a lot of Labor partisans have tried sophistication to deny the “poors” voice.

    Apparently it has something to do with the Greens.

    It’s amusing as Newspoll shows voters have decided that if an election was called today the LNP would likely lose.

    So all the public twitter comments about raising the rate for the poor even the ones I consider too extreme to share as just slanging matches have not helped the LNP.

    Good news except of course those Newspoll results are exactly why an election won’t be called anytime soon.

  31. Also I do think the LNP has lost the media. I remember this journalist being referred to as Libtika.

    @latikambourke tweets

    So the Australian government knew that the demand for vaccines would be this tight but still waited until supplies had all but been taken up to secure contracts, putting Australia in its current dismal rollout position.

    (Source – Transcript federal health minister @GregHuntMP)

  32. @JadedTransWoman tweets

    Credit to Van Badham where it’s due. It’s an accomplishment to trend on a platform where you’ve blocked everyone.

  34. I always love when people on Twitter brag about someone blocking them. It almost always reveals that they are, in fact, sociopathic bullies who are bragging that someone had enough of their persistent harassment.

    So, if that’s the case, credit to her for staying on that shithole of a website, despite its antisocial culture. Although, if she left, it’d probably be fuel for more harassment as they celebrate “the witch is dead” (or something equally as disgusting) with a screenshot of “this account no longer exists” or other totally normal behaviour.

  35. Covid is still the biggest story in the world.
    India has just topped 100k infections in a single day for the first time and that graph when you type in “Covid India” into google is shooting straight up!
    https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-04-05/india-surpasses-record-100-000-daily-covid-cases-new-variant/100049824

    Is it just me or should Australia be able to leverage it’s position being “Covid Free” to a much better extent?
    From a humanitarian point of view, vaccines that are heading for Australia could do far more in locations that are being overrun.
    From a financial point of view, you want our vaccines, we can do a trade deal…

  36. RL

    The post was by a Trans woman. They know all about copping abuse on twitter.

    The description of twitter as a hellsite is very convenient to legacy power structure people be it politicians journalists or whoever.

    I admire people like Patricia Karvelas and Lisa Wilkinson and Kristina Kenneally to name a few who remain on the website and engage in rational debate.

    Most of the time it’s not a hell site for most people.
    The people with massive amounts of followers in that elite position of being an influencer tend to forget that fact.

    Those influencers have valid concerns but they are by definition not the average user.

  37. And yes, there are plenty of Labor partisans who can be just as horrendous on that website (in case I get a “boo hoo! Labor partisan doesn’t like criticism” straw man thrown at me.) Anyone who has any notable public following who’ve written anything critical of Labor, or suggesting Labor’s upcoming electoral fortunes look dim can attest to that.

  38. The poster’s trans identity is irrelevant. Just because you’ve been bullied or stigmatised, it doesn’t mean you aren’t capable of bullying others.

  39. @JonesHowdareyou tweets

    FTR, can we please just note that this tweet, which was reportedly featured on Sky News tonight as an example of the “CRUEL TOXIC FAR LEFT,” was posted on 28 March 2021 in response to an entirely different matter than that of Jim Molan’s cancer diagnosis announcement. Ta. #auspol

  41. I don’t care about Van Badham. I am not familiar enough with her work or her Twitter activity but I am familiar with people who wear being blocked as a badge of honour and try to act like the people they dislike don’t really have a place in their place of discourse. It’s bad enough when it happens here. It’s horrendous when it happens on Twitter. If you’re a regular on politics Twitter, you’ve never encountered it, you’re either very lucky, blind to it because it’s against people you don’t like or you’re participating in it.

  43. RL

    I did not bring abuse up. You did.
    Remember influencers can bully too.

    It’s why the term being ratioed has entered the twitter lexicon.

  46. Mind that rabbit hole, RL

    Yeah, it’s a bit late to be dealing with Guytaur’s weird rhetorical gymnastics. If I keep going, I will be refuting some strange non-sequitur before being called a bully who doesn’t like different opinions. I’ll end it here.

    You win Guytaur. What a spectacular own of that nasty woman.

  48. @jimsciutto tweets

    New: Head of Capitol security review calls for background checks for all Hill staff: “….THE ENTIRE CONGRESSIONAL STAFF. ALL OF THEM NEED TO GIVE BACKGROUND CHECKS,” @ltgrusselhonore told me this morning on @CNN

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