Stable but serious

Infra-factional argybargy at both ends of the Victorian ALP, plus a poll result for NSW’s Upper Hunter state by-election.

Detailed below are some recent electoral developments, the juiciest of which relate to factional power struggles within Victorian Labor, whose federal preselection process has been taken over by the party’s national executive in the wake of the Adem Somyurek branch-stacking affair. Note also the post below offering a half-time report on the Tasmanian state election campaign.

• Josh Bornstein, employment lawyer and partner at Maurice Blackburn, has pulled out of a challenge against Kim Carr for the safe position on Labor’s Victorian Senate ticket that is reserved to the Left. This followed a report in The Australian that trawled through a decade’s worth of his voluminous social media activity, turning up criticism of party and union figures including Chris Bowen and Penny Wong. The Age reports Left faction unions were divided between Carr and Bornstein, with one or more further challengers likely to emerge. One such is Ryan Batchelor, executive director of the McKell Institute and son of former state MP Peter Batchelor.

• The Age report also says that Sam Rae, a partner at PwC and former state party secretary, is “being encouraged” to run in the new seat of Hawke on Melbourne’s north-western fringe. An earlier report indicated that a stability pact being negotiated between the main factions would reserve the seat for the Right, potentially setting up a turf war between the Victorian Right forces associated with Richard Marles and Bill Shorten, who are emerging as the main rivals for influence within the faction.

• Andrew Laming’s bid to retain preselection in Bowman has predictably fallen foul of the Liberal National Party’s candidate suitability panel.

• I’ll have a dedicated post up shortly for the May 22 by-election in the New South Wales state seat of Upper Hunter, my guide for which can be found here. Results of a uComms poll for the Australia Institute are encouraging for the Nationals, who hold seat seat on a margin of 2.6%. When added together properly, the poll credits the Nationals with a primary vote of 38.5%, compared with 34.0% at the 2019 election; Labor with 23.8%, compared with 28.6%; One Nation, who did not contest in 2019, with 13.8%; the Greens with 10.1%, more than double their 4.8% vote share in 2019; and bookies favourite Shooters Fishers and Farmers with only 8.2%, compared with 22.0%. The poll was conducted on April 7 and 8 by automated phone polling and SMS from a sample of 686.

• A new site called OzPredict offers cleanly presented poll-based forecasting of the next federal election, with the promise of more features to follow.

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.

1,410 comments on “Stable but serious”

Comments Page 2 of 29
1 2 3 … 29

  1. Victoria

    Yes I understand the reasons. I am just recalling that during the coverage of the WA State election night, with the disaster being so obvious on the night, there was some attempt by the Liberal panel members to distance Morrison from the State result. But last night the Eagles crowd left no doubt what a clear majority thought of Morrison. He is not popular in the west right now.

  2. Here’s a nice piece on Bill Crews, Uniting Church Minister, Exodus Foundation. I’ve met him a few times. MOH and he have been friends since they met as teenagers at Sydney’s Wayside Chapel, and he’s been a board member of Exodus. Bill Crews married us, and only he could have got this reluctant spouse-to-be to the ‘altar’, which was a balcony over a stormy Sydney harbour. It’s hard to define what makes a holy man, but I think you know one when you meet one.

    I’m tempted to run this alongside the Pell’s prison diaries article (thanks BK, if you’re reading), which as glancing as it is, points to a educated and erudite man shackled by his ideology, as I read it.

    On his (Bill Crews) meeting the Dalai Lama:

    I was talking to him another time and I said, “Who are you?” He said, “I’m a simple monk.” I said, “Look, you’re more than that. You’re a leader. There are people who would die for you.” And he said, “I am the teaching.” I was looking in his eyes, and it was like looking right through his eyes to the Buddhist Dharma. But, at the same time, I was looking right through Jesus’s eyes to the Kingdom.

    So they might be separate religions – Buddhism and Christianity – but you see that they speak to each other? They should be speaking to each other. They do. The words of Jesus, Buddha and Muhammad went into this bottomless well called human existence, and then came out. People who go deeply into religion – their religion – come out with a huge respect for other religions. They all touch something universal.

    {Q: Scripture offers 10 Commandments. What are your personal commandments?} Be grateful, every day. Do your best. Also, say yes to everything. If my soul says “yes”, then I say “yes”. And keep moving towards the universe, whatever that is. Keep moving, because as you move towards the universe, it comes and meets you in strange, amazing ways.

    https://www.smh.com.au/national/reverend-bill-crews-be-grateful-every-day-do-your-best-say-yes-to-everything-20210304-p577uk.html

  6. ‘poroti says:
    Saturday, April 17, 2021 at 9:39 am

    boerwar at 8:45 am

    I see that Sheridan acknowledges that we lost in Afghanistan, calling it a ‘civilization failure’. I suspect that he calls it that without the slightest trace of irony.

    Back when Afghanistan kicked off . I was still buying the deadwood Australian. Sheridan was positively orgasmic over the awesomeness of Dubya and his crew there and later in Iraq. As it inevitably turned to shit he assumed all the positions in the karma sutra as he tried explaining why fuck up after fuck up were in fact 3D chess moves on their part.’

    ——————

    yep

  7. Speaking of egregious lies, Sussan Ley had her turn on Thursday, reportedly telling State environment ministers climate change was not in her portfolio.
    https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/apr/17/environment-minister-sussan-ley-says-climate-action-not-her-portfolio-in-stoush-with-states

    Really Minister? Under the HC ruling on Federal treaties, the Federal government has clear powers to regulate to enforce the Kyoto and Paris agreements. Under both the EPBC and NEPC Acts these powers sit squarely under the Environment Minister. In fact Ley has used them to approve coal mines. Former Liberal Environment Minister Robert Hill was the original Australian signatory to the Kyoto protocol. Ley’s statement was a brazen lie, and state ministers were not happy.

  8. Socrates @ #56 Saturday, April 17th, 2021 – 10:04 am

    Speaking of egregious lies, Sussan Ley had her turn on Thursday, reportedly telling State environment ministers climate change was not in her portfolio.
    https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/apr/17/environment-minister-sussan-ley-says-climate-action-not-her-portfolio-in-stoush-with-states

    Really Minister? Under the HC ruling on Federal treaties, the Federal government has clear powers to regulate to enforce the Kyoto and Paris agreements. Under both the EPBC and NEPC Acts these powers sit squarely under the Environment Minister. In fact Ley has used them to approve coal mines. Former Liberal Environment Minister Robert Hill was the original Australian signatory to the Kyoto protocol. Ley’s statement was a brazen lie, and state ministers were not happy.

    A deliberate tactic – Climate Change is now a ministerial orphan.

    As for the Federal goals for 2021, from that link:

    The Morrison government has nominated waste policy, climate adaptation and reform of national conservation laws as its environmental priorities for 2021

    None of those goals gives promise of anything meaningful, but seem more like euphemisms for look busy doing little, which isn’t escaping the notice of the rest of the world, a “shopping list of shameful inaction and spin”, Terri Butler.

    https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/feb/03/coalitions-three-critical-priorities-for-environment-scorned-as-shameful-inaction-and-spin

  9. Peacock was more inclined to form than substance, contrary to what some are saying. And he certainly wasn’t “great” but he was a decent man when compared with some of those who followed him as leader of the Tory Party – Howard, Abbott, Morrison. Peacock was unlucky to have faced Hawke as the contrast between the urbane Peacock and the somewhat rough-hewn Hawke was stark.

  10. From last night’s discussion on COVID, The Lancet, ratbag medicos, aerosols and racists I though this (from Griff) best summed things up:

    Our “social distancing” has worked. No doubt about that. Which says a lot of infections happen at short range. That doesn’t surprise me at all. Again, its dose.

    But what does piss me off is the attitude of certain parties who first of all vociferously denied that there were any provable instances of infections that could only be by aerosol and then later moved to the position of “well there are very few that can be absolutely proven, so therefore the majority of infections must be larger droplets”. Well that might be so.

    It might also be so that the majority of infections are in fact from the finer droplets/aerosols but the net result is indistinguishable. In other words, all infections could be from aerosols, yet it can still be a fact that the vast majority of infections are relatively short range. After all, dilution, dose.

    Reading between the lines this says that, even at the late(ish) stage of April 2021, we still don’t know how the majority of people are catching SARS-CoV-2 infections: whether via fomites, droplets, or aerosols (as well as a range of more obscure paths, such as fecal contamination).

    As Griff puts it, one thing is obvious: “Our ‘Social Distancing’ has worked.” Consequently I would have thought that nitpicking over which social distancing is morally permitted, which is questionable, and which version gets you straight to Heaven, ignores the likelihood that the coronavirus doesn’t have a social conscience, and doesn’t care that it doesn’t.

    Social Distancing works. Which part of it works the best is not known for sure.

    So, to me, OC’s ruling a line across the page and making bald statements like, “No one has been infected in a restaurant or walking down Dixon St.” is an astonishing thing for a supposed senior medico to utter.

    How could he possibly know that? Why would he say such an irresponsible thing? Was he advising his patients, family and friends at the time to ignore social distancing guidelines and regulations? What is the moral or medical problem with exercising an abundance (or even an over-abundance) of caution when there is still so much doubt about how we can get infected?

  16. Just read Hartcher’s article. He’s always trying to curry favour with Prime Ministers by giving them unsolicited advice. Then he gets shitty when they ignore him.

    It’s a regular cycle.

  17. @JulianAndrew63
    ·
    4m
    LNP Senator Susan McDonald on #ABC saying that Labor’s been politicising the roll-out and shouldn’t be “trying to sheet it home to one group or another…”

    Susan, one of the “groups” is in government, and are responsible for the roll-out. FFS these people are disingenuous idiots.

  19. The OzPredict website has an Independent (Kelly I assume) winning Hughes.

    Who runs this website? And where is its attached blog of pleasantries and suppository of much wisdom.

  20. Simon Katich @ #68 Saturday, April 17th, 2021 – 11:35 am

    The OzPredict website has an Independent (Kelly I assume) winning Hughes.

    Who runs this website? And where is its attached blog of pleasantries and suppository of much wisdom.

    So how do you think your local Independent, Rebekha Sharkie, is likely to go at the next federal election?

  21. Frednk @ #64 Saturday, April 17th, 2021 – 10:59 am

    For the US, the cost has been high: 2,216 dead and more than US$2000 billion spent.

    https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/apr/16/20-years-western-intervention-afghanistan-terror

    Australia 41 lives $US7 billion.
    UK 456 $US51 billion
    Canada 157 $US 18 billion

    A lot of lives and gold pissed down the drain.

    This isnt going to sound good. A lot of lives lost but…. not enough lives. The problem of modern wars waged by the west is that they can wage them with so few returning body bags. And, so little interest in the returning soldiers physically and mentally damaged by the experience and even less interest in the mess left behind. Yes, there has been coverage of the war crimes; IMHO, no where near enough. And not deep enough.

    And as for the money spent. Someone is making money on that. Some make political capital out of it.

    I wonder if all that means leaders who choose to undertake such wars are able and willing to do so with less rigorous considerations of the purpose and how to end them.

    I always thought that PBS’s NewsHour running a list of war dead (Honor Roll) at the end of each show played a part in the US steadily withdrawing from Iraq.

  22. Our longest war is not Afghanistan which comes third. First comes the War of Conquest. A gold star for the Bludger who identifies our second longest war.

  23. Simon
    And no one knows how many afghanistans got killed.
    The really sad thing is they are now softening us up for a war with China.
    It doesn’t matter how many Uighurs get locked up, it will be nothing compared to the missery war will bring.

  25. Sharkie is a shoo-in.

    I have seen the local blue-ribbon contenders and it explains Georgina Downer. You cant put lipstick and pink shoes on those chaps.

  26. boerwar says:
    Saturday, April 17, 2021 at 11:54 am

    Our longest war is not Afghanistan which comes third. First comes the War of Conquest.

    As there is no treaty is it over?

  27. Nobody is going to war for the Uighurs. The Uighurs have always known this and why the vast majority of them have always wanted to be a part of greater China. To be included. To learn Mandarin. To find jobs in the government and be part of their politics. And that is why the oppression is unnecessary and makes it so clearly a barbaric racially motivated genocide.

  29. U.S. COVID update:

    – New cases: 82,125 …………. – New deaths: 916

    – In hospital: 41,331 (+3)
    – In ICU: 9,795 (-42)

    579,942 total deaths now

    Population vaccinated:
    – At least 1 dose: 127.7M (+1.9M)
    – Fully vaccinated: 80.6M (+2.1M)

    India reports 233,757 new coronavirus cases, and a record 1,338 new deaths

    Brazil reports 85,774 new coronavirus cases and 3,305 new deaths

  30. The Treaty on the Final Settlement with Respect to Germany was not signed till 1990 so that the 2nd world war with Germany could be considered to have lasted 51 years.
    Australia did not declare war on Germany, but having not signed the Statute of Westminster was included in the British ultimatum. Was this still the case when the statute was eventually signed in 1942

  31. Rebekha Sharkie has worked tirelessly throughout her large electorate, and this is widely recognised by the voters. She should be returned OK. She certainly deserves to be.

  32. Is this all that drives Morrison? Doesn’t he care about anyone else?

    Politic@l Spinner.
    @LesStonehouse
    · 11m
    Hillsong has a big gathering on June 29. So I’m predicting Scott Morrison will try to get the Australian borders open before then..

  35. @jaquix173
    ·
    2h
    He’s an idiot. Epidemiologist McIntyre could barely hide her feelings at this nonsense. She said “You cant hold a virus at a certain number. 1000 in 1st week becomes 3000 next week, and 9000 the following week. Hospitals overwhelmed.”

  37. DisplayName @ #82 Saturday, April 17th, 2021 – 11:42 am

    lizzie
    The Coalition appears to be confusing self-promotion with public health messaging.

    Everything is viewed through the prism of self-promotion. Everything. Everyday. Our democracy is pretty much just a day in day out election campaign occasionally interrupted by an election.

  40. DisplayName
    Remember that Scotty said we should be prepared to receive 1000 cases per week?

    Edit
    [Morrison says that vaccinated people should be able travel overseas, but he also claims that if we open the borders we must be prepared for 1,000 new COVID-19 cases a week. ]

  41. People might wonder about why some states, like WA, have had strict Covid quarantine rules and made it clear they won’t hesitate to impose them again.

    Since the WA election the health focus has been on the state of our hospitals. Basically they are full, with sick people waiting in ambulances for a spare bed or treatment.

    McGowan and his health minister may have been praised for handling Covid but the longer term situation needs urgent attention.

    The last thing we would want is a sudden surge in Covid people needing hospital treatment.

    Of course if there was actually a proper program of getting the vaccine out into the community , we might be less worried.

  43. Simon Katich
    Unfortunately there are also a number of supporters of the Turkistan Islamic Party. How many I don’t know, they have certainly have been popping up among the head choppers in Syria and Iraq,their aims would be a ‘third rail issue’ for the comrades in Beijing.

  44. lizzie @ #84 Saturday, April 17th, 2021 – 12:14 pm

    @jaquix173
    ·
    2h
    He’s an idiot. Epidemiologist McIntyre could barely hide her feelings at this nonsense. She said “You cant hold a virus at a certain number. 1000 in 1st week becomes 3000 next week, and 9000 the following week. Hospitals overwhelmed.”

    It also sounded to me like Scott Morrison was setting the states up to fail again so he could have a stoush with them before the election.

  49. Good Afternoon

    Just popped in to say how happy I am that the “War on Terror” is over.

    20 years too late. It was always going to end in tears. The one good thing Obama did and Biden is doubling down on is the pivot to Asia. Thus the importance of the Iran deal. Talking and promoting peace gives moderates not extremists power.

    Thus less terrorism. 20 years of that would have seen the world in a better place. Still messy as F. There is no magic bullet here.

    Glad to say Labor and the Greens were on the right side of history here in opposing the war hawks. Just such a pity Labour under Blair backed Dubya and not France.

    As a result of this pivot tensions in the Middle East will start to ease. In years to come we will see the benefits. There are just limits on what we can do to improve the world. Overreach was always the problem with Afghanistan. Just as it was for Russia. Just as it was for the US in Vietnam. Ditto Iraq.

    Withdrawal in defeat did not look good for the US in Vietnam. It had to be done. Withdrawal in defeat has not been pretty in Iraq.
    It would have been much better to recognise the limits of power.

    This is of course all the more reason to listen to the doves not the hawks on these issues.

    This is where BW gets the Quad wrong. Biden is focused on restoring diplomacy to the US tools. Undoing the 20 years of war hawk supremacy in international foreign policy.

    Like Obama he may fail. However I think the obvious failures of the war hawks is going to see a return of the Carter era approach with lessons learnt. One of those lessons is learning not to be aggressive dicks on the world stage.

    Obama tried and failed with Libya and Biden at the heart of that has not missed the lessons. Of both domestic war hawks and declaring red lines and not backing them up.

    There is a balance to be found and Biden is looking it. I wish him every success in that. Biden’s own involvement in US foreign mistakes like the decision for the Iraq war makes him either more likely to have learnt or to be a war hawk. His actions so far look like he has learnt and is not going to be a war hawk.

    Edit: This is bad news for Australian war hawks.

  50. Kos Samaras
    @KosSamaras
    ·
    2m
    The cost of 50 million extra Pfizer shots. Around $1 billion.

    The cost of one day lockdown in our large cities. $1 billion.

    What cheapskates

Comments Page 2 of 29
1 2 3 … 29

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *