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. I thought it was the french soldiers who were supposed to be cowardly. Isnt there a joke about how their tanks had one forward and 6 reverse gears. And the forward gear was only in case they got attacked from the rear.

  3. Rex Douglas @ #1317 Tuesday, April 20th, 2021 – 3:01 pm

    Is anyone surprised Morrison’s milkshake ad was removed …?

    We all know by now you just CAN”T TRUST the Libs with ANYTHING ..!!

    Yet more evidence of Morrison’s WASTE and MISMANAGEMENT.

    Mr Albanese said earlier this afternoon in a withering attack on the Prime minister’s credibility.

  4. Derek Robinson
    @DerekRobinson2
    · 8h
    Got a surprise this morning when one of my elderly clients mentioned “Milkshake Morrison”. I don’t think I’ve ever known a PM with so many derogatory nick names, and they seem to accumulate on a daily basis.

  5. The Milkshake video reminds me of bad educational videos from my high school years (It probably didn’t help that the 80’s fashions aged really quickly in the 90’s). These were on things like anti-smoke, AIDS and other STDs, credit-card debit, bullying…. Oh they were bad.

  6. Next ALP fundraiser – have Tacos with Milkshakes on the menu!!!!
    Next Greens Fundraiser – Have Tacos with Soy Milkshakes on the menu!!!!

  7. Simon Katich @ #1351 Tuesday, April 20th, 2021 – 3:58 pm

    I thought it was the french soldiers who were supposed to be cowardly.

    They got treated like dirt in WW1 when the main, if only battle ‘doctrine’ was to run forward and get killed. It was called the doctrine of attack.

    Result – into the meat grinder when on the front line, treated like dirt when off the line – lead up to a number of French Army mutiny’s. Quite rightly so IMO.

    Verdun basically broke the French Army.

    After WW2 so many french claimed to have been part of the Resistance it just couldn’t be believed so that may be where the slur of cheese eating surrender monkeys came from.

    Run>Hide>Surrender>Collaborate ?

    Lots of French collaborating in the deportation of French Jews to the death camps as well. Far far more French Jews then German.

  9. Bernard Keane tweet:

    Over champagne with business luminaries at a five-star Sydney CBD hotel, Scott Morrison attacked people in “inner city wine bars” for wanting to address climate change

    lol

  12. ‘Simon Katich says:
    Tuesday, April 20, 2021 at 3:58 pm

    I thought it was the french soldiers who were supposed to be cowardly. Isnt there a joke about how their tanks had one forward and 6 reverse gears. And the forward gear was only in case they got attacked from the rear.’

    ‘Cheese eating surrender monkey’ was coined by the Neocons to diss french efforts to use reason to stave off the Iraq War with particular reference to the total absence of any real world evidence of weapons of mass destruction.

  14. I’m reading very variable reactions to the vaccination in different people, all the way from a sore arm to sweats, aches, nausea and headache.

    Is there any way of forecasting one’s likely reaction? Such as having an auto-immune disease? Or having no reaction at all to flu jabs? Or is it just a gamble?

    I’ve seen no comments on this anywhere.

  15. Bushfire Bill @ #1361 Tuesday, April 20th, 2021 – 4:25 pm

    There hasn’t been a wine bar anywhere in Sydney for 25 years.

    How embarrassing!

    The Stoned Crow @ Crows Nest is still going, also there was a Wine Bar on the old site of the Commonwealth Bank in North Sydney until all the Buildings up to the MLC Building were knocked down for a Station for the new Metro thingy.

    Imagine there would be others scattered about, but not my thing.

  16. boerwar

    ‘Cheese eating surrender monkey’ was coined by the Neocons to diss french efforts to use reason to stave off the Iraq War with particular reference to the total absence of any real world evidence of weapons of mass destruction.

    Nae lad. ‘Twas the Scots,well Willie from the Simpsons, who coined it. Not that he had good things to say about the English………………….or any other country 🙂

    “Bonjourrrrr, you cheese-eating surrender monkeys!”
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FUjGf2Grrus

  19. Guytaur
    Apart from Biden’s electric vehicle he isn’t doing anything special or newsworthy in an Australian context so the ALP would be better to follow its own policies than anything Biden does.

  20. ‘Cheese eating surrender monkey’ was coined by the Neocons to diss french efforts to use reason to stave off the Iraq War with particular reference to the total absence of any real world evidence of weapons of mass destruction.

    I think the term actually originated as a throwaway joke on The Simpsons.

    In the episode, there was a comment that, due to education budget cuts, some school staff had to take on second roles, one of which was the school’s groundskeeper, Willie, filling in as French teacher. This is followed by a cutaway to the classroom, showing Willie saying “Bonjourrrrr” (in his thick Scottish accent), followed by the line “Ya cheese-eating surrender monkeys!”

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FUjGf2Grrus

    But certainly it gained popularity among the neocons and supporters of the Iraq War back in the day.

  21. Interesting results from the latest Roy Morgan Research survey:

    A slim majority of 51% of Australians disapprove of Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s handling of COVID-19 and all related issues compared to 49% that approve according to a special Roy Morgan Snap SMS survey conducted on Friday April 9 – Saturday April 10, 2021. For the 49% of Australians who approve of the way Prime Minister Scott Morrison is handling COVID-19 and all related issues the main reason is that Australia is in a better position than just about anywhere else in the world and this is a marker of the PM’s good handling of COVID-19. They also valued the Prime Minister sticking to the medical advice, being quick to keep the public informed about what is going on in a tough situation (such as the EU withholding vaccines), dealing with changing circumstances and taking a considered and proportionate response to the threat. The 51% of Australians that disapprove of Morrison’s handling of COVID-19 and related issues have consistently brought up the ‘bungled’ vaccine rollout and also the perception Morrison is always ‘passing the blame’ to the states and others for anything that goes wrong and taking credit when it is the states that have done the greater part of the job dealing with COVID.

  23. A slim majority of 51% of Australians disapprove of Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s handling of COVID-19 and all related issues compared to 49% that approve according to a special Roy Morgan Snap SMS survey conducted on Friday April 9 – Saturday April 10, 2021.

    Big if true. COVID bubble pretty much has burst.

  27. The Stoned Crow @ Crows Nest is still going…

    Well, I said it was embarrassing, but mostly for me it seems, in saying there weren’t any.

    Unless… are they still called “Wine Bars”?

  28. Over champagne with business luminaries at a five-star Sydney CBD hotel, Scott Morrison attacked people in “inner city wine bars” for wanting to address climate change

    Aren’t wine bars more posh than hip? If you’re making fun of the drinking locations of the kind of people you’re trying to attack here, say they’re at boutique bars or craft breweries, that kind of thing.

  30. poroti and rational leftist
    I stand corrected. The Neocons used the term extensively but lacked the wit to come up with it themselves.

  34. Australians are trained to be impressed with the national sacrifice in WW1. Gold standard. World record. Amazing.

    France had more than three times as many WW1 KIA casualties as Australia did per head of population.

    More french troops died on Gallipoli than did Australian troops. (I bet you did not learn about that in ANY of the Australian official clap trap about Gallipoli).

    No one was viciously carrying on about ‘cheese eating surrender monkeys’ in those days.

  35. I believe Clover made it her mission to have a wine bar on every corner of the cbd.
    We seem to have quik-e-marts on every corner so mission not quite accomplished.

  37. That France refused to participate in George W Bush’s mad plan to install a pro Western Government in Iraq (and then by a domino effect throughout the Middle East) was not a surrender, does not mean that the French are monkeys, not as much as those countries who blindly followed.

  38. boerwar @ #1384 Tuesday, April 20th, 2021 – 4:24 pm

    Australians are trained to be impressed with the national sacrifice in WW1. Gold standard. World record. Amazing.

    France had more than three times as many WW1 KIA casualties as Australia did per head of population.

    More french troops died on Gallipoli than did Australian troops. (I bet you did not learn about that in ANY of the Australian official clap trap about Gallipoli).

    No one was viciously carrying on about ‘cheese eating surrender monkeys’ in those days.

    French french? Or foreign french?

  40. One more:
    Hyacinth Bucket 64 JenRed tweeted…

    SO …. ALL THAT FREE MILK WE GOT IN PRIMARY SCHOOL … in the 1960’s and 1970’s …

    that was actually Sex Education ?

    #Milkshake

  41. Prof Jenny Hocking
    @palaceletters
    ·
    1h
    Morrison’s latest epic fail cringeworthy ‘consent’ video already scrapped. Vic Labor govt has led the way on this for years. Consent education compulsory in primary & secondary govt schools. Vic successful program should be rolled out nationwide #auspol

    Barnaby ‘loyally’ said it was just a little mistake and they’re fixing it. But he admitted he didn’t understand the video. Unsurprising!

  42. The ad might have made sense if it was set in a wine bar with some bloke getting too close to a girl and ignoring her rejection.

  44. Channel 10 TV News.

    Queensland mother bound and set on fire.

    Horrendous.

    Not sure about the relevance of milkshakes and I still have not seen the ads. Sorry just shown as part of news. How puerile.

    Goodnight all. 📺💤

  47. Kyle Jacob “Bunny-Boy” de Boer ZebraRabbit face
    @Bababooie42

    Hey@ScottMorrisonMP
    , that #Milkshake fail cost 760 Cartier Watches.
    Who’s resigning, and when?

  49. Lizzie,
    HI and I had our AZ shots yesterday and were fine . Today, HI felt a bit odd playing golf and I’m a bit achy after playing badminton for the first time in 50 + years!! (I’d like to blame it for my slow reflexes around the court, while playing with others 20 years younger. )
    Will keep you posted if we have any other side effects.
    My daughter had the Pfizer and she had blinding headaches for an hour or so that day but otherwise fine.

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