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”

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  1. (CNN) Walter “Fritz” Mondale, who served as vice president under then-President Jimmy Carter before waging his own unsuccessful White House bid in 1984, has died, according to family spokesperson Kathy Tunheim. He was 93.

    Mondale died at home in downtown Minneapolis, Tunheim said, surrounded by family.

    Born to a Methodist minister and music teacher in southern Minnesota in 1928, the former Democratic vice president was a steadfast supporter of social justice.

    By the time he graduated from the University of Minnesota Law School, he was deeply involved in the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party — Minnesota’s wing of the Democratic Party.

    https://edition.cnn.com/2021/04/19/politics/walter-mondale-dead/index.html

  2. Steve777
    Someone needs to show Morrison the electorate map because there are inner city Liberal seats but the reactionaries are convinced that those seats wont be lost or if they are then they can rely on the workers which is a politically dangerous strategy.

  3. Mavis

    Contrary to popular perception, the Italians weren’t cowardly but they were poorly led, supplied, in consequence of which, morale was at a very low ebb –

    You will be pleased to know you and Rommel are on the same page. I read his diaries and he described “the individual Italian soldier is as brave as any man,” .His lamentations were for when they were in large groups. Whenever he mentioned the Italian High Command and/or senior officers I got the feeling a lot of FMD!!s were left or edited out 🙂

  4. Steve777

    Yes the LNP approach to Neville Wran.
    Basket weavers of Balmain all over again.

    The problem for them is Labor is now directly campaigning on the job creation of transition to renewables. Morrison has to be real on working on emissions reductions or suffer trade barriers. This on a policy Biden and Xi are United on along with many others.

    The election is not tomorrow and those facts will be apparent by the time of that election. That’s ignoring the good management damage due to the pandemic and cultural war loss due to misogyny. Include the pandemic and you lose the economic manager strength as continued closure of the economy as the world rolls out the vaccine.

    It doesn’t matter that Fauci is right we don’t have the same urgency with vaccination here as we have low transmission. That credit is going to the states. It’s why I think the Liberals will win in Tasmania. Morrison loses as his vaccination rollout has crashed and burned politically because he narrated a fast efficient rollout over promising and under delivering.

    This while the Super Industry is out there advertising how much you are losing from superannuation during sporting fixtures. Biden is attempting to increase corporate tax rates and end tax havens. Unions are campaigning on industrial relations.

    There are good reasons for Labor to think this election is like 07 in the government falling over and Labor winning Bradbury style as long as it avoids the pitfalls of the falling skaters in front.

  5. What is happening?

    Frankly, I don’t get it.

    We are in the midst of the mother of all building booms.

    Our net population declined in 2020.

    Large numbers of first home buyers are moving out of rental and into owner occupier homes.

    I assume that there is increasing tension between the free money/housing market subsidies which benefit buyers on the one hand, and renters, whose incomes are stagnant, on the other. In other words, the capital valuation of housing has far outstripped its capacity to generate a reasonable income through rent.

    I assume that there is increased pressure as seachangers and treechangers build pressure on regional housing.

    I assume that there has been a surge to AirBnB type renting in the regions because it has some significant advantages over long term renting during periods of high demand.

    I assume that renters who have enjoyed the seaside would not be happy to go to where there is excess rental space – in the cities.

    I assume that in different state and territory rental markets land tax comes off the rental margin making it increasingly uneconomic to buy properties for rental income rather than for speculative reasons. In some jurisdictions, such as Canberra, the land tax is assessed differentially. If you rent out the property rather than living in it you pay much more land tax.

    I have been told that the regulatory changes favouring renters in Victoria is depressing supply as landlords would rather hold a place empty during a time of rapid capital increase rather than putting themselves at the mercy of renters. (It is quite easy for rental policies favouring renters to generate counter-intuitive outcomes that work against renters. Look at the worst slums in New York, for example.)

    https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-04-20/rental-crisis-homelessness-sunshine-coast-st-vincent-de-paul/100078358

  6. Mexican “Someone needs to show Morrison the electorate map because there are inner city Liberal seats but then he and the reactionaries are convinced that those seats wont be lost…”

    True enough – Malcolm Turnbull’s former seat of Wentworth is an example. It is one of the wealthiest seats in Australia. By and large socially liberal, the people who live there probably don’t like the culture war stuff, churchianity and social conservatism of the “Liberals”. On the other hand they want to increase their wealth, not pay tax and not have their industry regulated. They vote Liberal, some with a peg on on their nose.

  7. ‘poroti says:
    Tuesday, April 20, 2021 at 12:16 pm

    Mavis

    Contrary to popular perception, the Italians weren’t cowardly but they were poorly led, supplied, in consequence of which, morale was at a very low ebb –

    You will be pleased to know you and Rommel are on the same page. I read his diaries and he described “the individual Italian soldier is as brave as any man,” .His lamentations were for when they were in large groups. Whenever he mentioned the Italian High Command and/or senior officers I got the feeling a lot of FMD!!s were left or edited out ‘

    It varied, IMO.

    Uboat commanders had an extremely low opinion of Italian sub commanders. The situation also varied by equipment and supply, very probably. Italian soldiers sent to the Eastern Front were sometimes sent off in cardboard shoes. Finally, timing mattered. As the war wore on, your more intelligent soldiers and/or your left-leaning soldier would have been more or less totally unmotivated to die for an arsehole like Mussolini.

  8. Boerwar
    The changes only came in a few weeks ago so its far too early to make that assessment and many of the changes are cosmetic but some of the changes go too far but can be worked around. This is where the Victorian Liberals are a joke because a competent opposition would have used some of the more ridiculous changes to attack the government.

  9. @MrDenmore Tweets

    Quick. Call the Culture War Police. I just had morning coffee at an inner city espresso bar surrounded by big blokes in hard hats and hi-vis, sipping macchiatos and chatting about their new solar panels.
    _____________
    @MrKRudd tweets

    Morrison’s standing in the polls is slipping, and Lachlan Murdoch has noticed. Not to worry, seems like there’s a Murdoch campaign to boost their long-favoured son, Peter Dutton. Can I hear the sound of knives being sharpened? #MurdochRoyalCommission

  10. Morrison is doing the same sort of virtue signalling that the Inner Urbs Yappies do but from the other side of the Culture War Front.

    We all know that Morrison and the Yappies are utter hypocrites by nature: do as we say, not do as we do. Again and again.

    So Morrison is re-assuring his regional voters and his right wing MPs that going to 2050 is about the economy and good stuff for the regions but not to succumb to the yap yap yap of the Yappies.

    The Yappies reassure their inner urbs voters that they support x, y and z policy because they are good for the Inner Urbs and that they are not succumbing to the bark bark bark of the Coalies.

    And so it goes: long term national strategic policy development has been reduced to chorus of barking dogs going yap yap yap bark bark bark.

    As for what is coming for the rest of us: ‘Woke in Fright’ when we get to 1.5 degrees plus?

  11. ‘Mexicanbeemer says:
    Tuesday, April 20, 2021 at 12:28 pm

    Boerwar
    The changes only came in a few weeks ago so its far too early to make that assessment and many of the changes are cosmetic but some of the changes go too far but can be worked around. This is where the Victorian Liberals are a joke because a competent opposition would have used some of the more ridiculous changes to attack the government.’

    Thank you.

  12. Many Italian soldiers were conscripts who didn’t share Mussolini’s fantasy’s of glory and an Italian empire – particularly if it involved their own pointless deaths.

    Italian officers in the western desert went there with many luxuries – silk sheets, their own coffee percolator’s etc and own supply of food & comforts well beyond that of their troops. Nevertheless there are frequent examples of these same Officers being pretty brave as well.

    Italian sailors were also highly regarded for their attacks on Allied shipping using limpet mines, human torpedoes and the like, staging daring attacks from Spanish territory against RN shipping etc at Gibraltar.

  13. boerwar

    Finally, timing mattered. As the war wore on, your more intelligent soldiers and/or your left-leaning soldier would have been more or less totally unmotivated to die for an arsehole like Mussolini.

    Rommel recounted one tale of Italian soldiers with incredulity but I thought it a sensible move by the Italians. A large number had been captured near Tobruk (?) and were being escorted back to Allied lines by a few lightly armed Australians. Rommel sent a couple of armored vehicles to rescue them, the Australians way out gunned scarpered . He was flabbergasted that all the Italians then “ran the wrong way” to the Allies lines 😆

  14. doyley @ #1162 Tuesday, April 20th, 2021 – 11:10 am

    Newspoll has labor PV at approx 37%.

    Essential has labor PV at approx 37%.

    News 9 poll has labor PV at approx 33%.

    Take whichever one suits your individual political narrative.

    Thus it has always been so with PB as polls drop. In my humble opinion none of it really means jack shit at this point.

    This.

  15. Labor and the Coalition are being left in the dust as the Biden admin continues to implement Bernie Sanders’ climate policies. You know you’re really stuck in the past when America of all countries starts making you look bad.

  16. guytaur @ #1157 Tuesday, April 20th, 2021 – 10:17 am

    SK

    You forget. No Murdoch in the regions.

    Apart from being wrong you are also wrong.

    Of course Murdoch is still in the regions. And there is radio shockwankery in the regions that takes its cues from Murdoch. As does TV news.

    Furthermore, the ALP can not win the next election without holding its own the cities/burbs and/or turning a couple of Lib seats there. And Murdoch is certainly still a powerhouse in the media envirnment there.

    So no, the LNP and Murdoch have not lost the media narrative to the Guardian and a silo within the ABC. That doesnt mean they will win the election.

  17. Apologies if posted previously – Lambie blasts Morrison over Veterans RC.

    Lambie slams PM’s plan for veteran suicides royal commission

    Independent senator (and former soldier) Jacqui Lambie said she was concerned that the royal commission into veteran suicides was already being mishandled.

    What we don’t want to see and what we’re really disappointed with already this morning – we haven’t even got to the 24-hour mark of this being, of the prime minister coming out and saying he’s going to put this royal commission – he’s putting the minister of [veteran affairs] in charge of the consultation process with the service organisations that sit in-house with the department.

    I mean, this is absolutely nuts. This is departmental and the minister that’s going to be put under the microscope in a royal commission and he’s got him out there doing the consulting process on the draft terms of reference.

    So, once again, we’ve really got to ask whether the sincerity of the prime minister is coming for. We’ve got a massive trust deficit out there. Not even 24 hours in, and here it goes again.

    (Guardian updates at 08:41)

  18. Noone should care if the ALP “backs in coal past 2050”. It is mostly meaningless and there is probably still room for coal usage after 2050.

    What matters is what the ALP target is going to be and how serious their policies are to get there.

    Turnbull is right with one thing. We should be technology agnostic. Something this government has proved over and again it is incapable of doing with its hands tied behind their backs putting our money into their mates wallets and taking out what they need.

  19. Having Murdoch on your side is a double edged sword. It makes the LNP arrogant. The act like they live in the Land of Do What You Want and at the same time the Land of Do What you Please. And their benefactors raise their demands accordingly – ‘come on mate, you can get away with subsidising coal power stations, Murdoch has your back’. It is getting to the point where enough people will see through the window dressing and into the corrupt core of this government.

  20. Wtf!

    Amber Schultz
    @AmberMaySchultz
    ·
    1h
    The Milkshake video series
    – Cost $3.7 million to make
    – Took up over half the funding allocated to the Respect Matters campaign
    – Was approved by Dan Tehan and Alan Tudge who have voted for religious policies like the religious discrimination bill & against same-sex marriage

  21. SK

    You are wrong.

    We know Murdoch is losing regional influence. As I have previously stated this turns the election into K2 not Everest to climb.

    The essential point however is right wing media cannot deny the combination of Biden Xi and the EU including the crazy Brexiteers being for real action on climate emissions reductions.

    Reality is mugging the media and LNP on it’s climate denialism. That’s a major victory for both Labor and the Greens in the political narrative.

  22. We have reached the point where supporters of coal and supporters of tackling climate change are politically set so the next election wont be decided by them.

  23. Is there a contrast between the push for legalising cannabis and NZ moving to making smoking illegal?

    When people advocate for legalising pot, are they advocating a specific mechanism of use? Because smoking it is a killer, just like cigarettes. Not to mention the other detrimental effects regardless of how it is ingested.

  24. The Age/SMH poll numbers add up to 89%. If we distribute the other 11% in proportion (assumes that the votes or preferences of ‘other / don’t know’ split in the same proportion), you get Labor Primary =0.33 / 0.89 = 37%.

  25. guytaur says:
    Tuesday, April 20, 2021 at 1:01 pm

    “As I have previously stated this turns the election into K2 not Everest to climb.”

    K2 is harder to climb than Everest.

  26. Beemer

    I see you are throwing in the towel.
    Climate will be a negative for the LNP as it will be seen their denialism is costing jobs. The reality of trade barriers will be apparent.

    Especially in the Nationals voting heartlands.

  27. “As I have previously stated this turns the election into K2 not Everest to climb.”

    I know you are referring to the height of the mountains, but they say K2 is actually harder to climb. I’ll never forget the story of Dudley Wolfe who was left alone to die very high up on K2.

    No thanks! Stunning view though.

  28. Victoria @ #1209 Tuesday, April 20th, 2021 – 12:59 pm

    Wtf!

    Amber Schultz
    @AmberMaySchultz
    ·
    1h
    The Milkshake video series
    – Cost $3.7 million to make
    – Took up over half the funding allocated to the Respect Matters campaign
    – Was approved by Dan Tehan and Alan Tudge who have voted for religious policies like the religious discrimination bill & against same-sex marriage

    Here’s a really good analysis of the whole campaign:
    https://theconversation.com/not-only-are-some-of-the-governments-consent-videos-bizarre-and-confusing-many-reinforce-harmful-gender-stereotypes-159220

    Heteronormative to the max. Nothing about gender confusion. Nothing outside straighty 180 relationships! And then sending the totally wrong message about who’s the boss. Hint: it’s the guys.

  29. We know Murdoch is losing regional influence.

    That is not what you said. You said there was no Murdoch in the regions. Which is wrong. And your new goal post position is also debatable.

    I know you dont like being informed that you have said something that is wrong. There is a good way to avoid that happening.

  30. Simon Katich @ #1212 Tuesday, April 20th, 2021 – 1:05 pm

    Is there a contrast between the push for legalising cannabis and NZ moving to making smoking illegal?

    When people advocate for legalising pot, are they advocating a specific mechanism of use? Because smoking it is a killer, just like cigarettes. Not to mention the other detrimental effects regardless of how it is ingested.

    If it’s decriminalised there’s no need to consider getting the biggest bang for your buck via intake route any more. Caramels, Brownies, cupcakes, they all become legitimate methods of ingestion.

  31. Guytuar
    Its not about throwing the towel in.

    The climate change debate is now in its second decade so its safe to guess that people have formed a view on it.

    The next election will be fought on the economy and the women vote because the Liberals do not win elections without winning or breaking even among women.

    The Nationals face issues around water management but the climate change debate will only make a marginal different to the results in safer National Party seats.

  32. Simon Katich @ #1217 Tuesday, April 20th, 2021 – 1:09 pm

    We know Murdoch is losing regional influence.

    That is not what you said. You said there was no Murdoch in the regions. Which is wrong. And your new goal post position is also debatable.

    I know you dont like being informed that you have said something that is wrong. There is a good way to avoid that happening.

    Also guytaur has studiously avoided mentioning all the Foxtel connections. All. Over. Australia. I know for a fact that’s where my parents on the Mid North Coast of NSW (a Regional area last time I looked), get their hit of Murdoch from.

  33. Interesting to see this in a Herald Sun article.

    The slashed post-COVID JobSeeker rate has been slammed as “grossly inadequate”, and a cause of housing hardship for some of Victoria’s most vulnerable tenants.

    The assessment follows Council to Homeless Persons analysis that reveals there is no suburb in the state where a renter relying entirely on the JobSeeker payment wouldn’t be plunged into housing stress.

  34. “ Noone should care if the ALP “backs in coal past 2050”. It is mostly meaningless and there is probably still room for coal usage after 2050.

    What matters is what the ALP target is going to be and how serious their policies are to get there.”

    Talk of targets before a net zero 2050 aspiration is political poison.

    What is important is that Labor project a clear message that it isn’t going to monster any existing jobs in teh regions and outer burbs. No talk of jobs replacing coal jobs, only talk of new jobs. Miners and their families aren’t stupid. They are already talking and thinking about what comes after coal. They don’t need any woke inner urb bohobo to ram that down their necks.

    Coal is a totem issue. It’s the messaging that matters and the seats that matter – the outer urban rim and regional centre based seats – are full of folk that on the day to day are low information and low interest, but are particularly attuned at election times to any perceived threats to their existing livelihoods. Whether such folk work in a coal mine or not is irrelevant. They identify with their plight and fear a Labor-Greens axis of evil will do them all in the eye. Whenever an Adam Bandt or Bob Brown turns up or is heard on the bugle horn, that fear is reinforced.

    Most of the stuff that bludgers bloviate on this blog is toxic to the folk that determine the outcome of elections.

  35. Cat

    I did not say all influence was gone. I was challenging the whole silo Murdoch domination of the narrative claim.

    Saying Murdoch has lost regional control of the narrative is not to say he has lost all influence. He still has his city based papers.

    My basic point temains despite SK trying to reframe it.

  36. citizen @ #1213 Tuesday, April 20th, 2021 – 12:46 pm

    Apologies if posted previously – Lambie blasts Morrison over Veterans RC.

    Lambie slams PM’s plan for veteran suicides royal commission

    Independent senator (and former soldier) Jacqui Lambie said she was concerned that the royal commission into veteran suicides was already being mishandled.

    What we don’t want to see and what we’re really disappointed with already this morning – we haven’t even got to the 24-hour mark of this being, of the prime minister coming out and saying he’s going to put this royal commission – he’s putting the minister of [veteran affairs] in charge of the consultation process with the service organisations that sit in-house with the department.

    I mean, this is absolutely nuts. This is departmental and the minister that’s going to be put under the microscope in a royal commission and he’s got him out there doing the consulting process on the draft terms of reference.

    So, once again, we’ve really got to ask whether the sincerity of the prime minister is coming for. We’ve got a massive trust deficit out there. Not even 24 hours in, and here it goes again.

    (Guardian updates at 08:41)

    Lambie makes the obvious point.

    You just can’t trust the Libs with ANYTHING ..!

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