Month of May miscellany

A number of Queensland preselections fall into place as both parties jack up preparations for a federal election that may be held as soon as October.

In addition to Saturday’s Upper Hunter by-election in New South Wales, the results and aftermath of which you can discuss here, I have the following electoral news to relate, much of it involving federal preselections in Queensland:

• James Massola of the Age/Herald reports that “Liberal MPs believe an early election is increasingly likely after Josh Frydenberg’s well-received third federal budget”, although “much will depend on Australia’s COVID-19 vaccination rollout”. An early election may still mean next year rather than this: according to an unnamed Liberal MP quoted in the report, “the thinking was it would be May 2022, now it’s February-March or maybe even October-November”.

• The Liberal National Party’s candidate for the Brisbane seat of Lilley is Ryan Shaw, an army veteran who served in East Timor and Afghanistan, and the unsuccessful LNP candidate for the corresponding seat of Nudgee at last year’s state election. The Prime Minister visited the seat with Shaw in two last week to promote the government’s HomeBuilder program. Phillip Coorey of the Financial Review reported the seat was one of two in Queensland that the LNP was “making a play for” – notwithstanding that “the Coalition is acutely aware that the huge swing towards it in Queensland at the last election could easily go the other way next time … without the red hot issue of the Adani coal mine, the Bob Brown convoy and an unpopular leader in Bill Shorten”.

• The second of the two Queensland seats the Coalition hopes to add to its pile is Blair, which Shayne Neumann has held for Labor since 2007. This is one of two seats which have been the subject of speculation surrounding former state Opposition Leader Deb Frecklington, whose state seat of Nanango largely corresponds with it. The other is the rather more attractive prospect of Flynn, which will be vacated with the retirement of LNP incumbent Ken O’Dowd. Michael McKenna of The Australian reports Frecklington has “denied she had considered running for Flynn, but has not responded to questions about a possible preselection bid in Blair”. Another nominee for the LNP’s Flynn preselection is Colin Boyce, who has held the state seat of Callide since 2017. Labor announced last week that its candidate for the seat would be Gladstone mayor Matt Burnett.

• In Capricornia, another theoretically winnable seat for Labor in regional Queensland that inflicted a blowout swing on the party in 2019, Labor has endorsed Russell Robertson, who works at the Goonyella coal mine.

• Labor in Tasmania will conduct a ballot of party members as part of its process to choose a successor to Rebecca White, who resigned as leader after last month’s election defeat. The contestants for the position are David O’Byrne, a figure of considerable influence in the Left faction, and Shane Broad, whose profile is rather a bit lower. The membership vote will constitute 50% of the total, with the other half consisting of a ballot of the party’s state conference. I believe this will be the third such party membership vote for a parliamentary leader in Australia, after the contest between Bill Shorten and Anthony Albanese after the 2013 federal election, and that between Jodi McKay and Chris Minns after the 2019 state election in New South Wales (readers may correct me in comments if I’ve missed something).

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.

1,206 comments on “Month of May miscellany”

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  2. Bushfire Bill posted

    Cancel Culture is its own worst enemy. The sooner it realises it’s on a hiding to nothing, the better. We should deal with facts, not mass hysteria.

    Agree with you a hundred percent there BB. It’s a pernicious, totally misguided form of political correctness that we could well do without.

  3. Jaeger @ #1042 Tuesday, May 25th, 2021 – 6:02 pm

    Though I could never decide if it was a Possum or an Antechinus.

    If in doubt, Brush Turkey.

    Do NOT speak to me about the bleeding Bush Turkeys! One of them (whom I have named ‘Old Yella’ because she is blind in one eye, which has gone yellow, from fighting over a male with the other, younger Bush Turkey in our backyard), had the audacity today to dig up my Mother-In-Laws Tongue because I didn’t bloody well feed her the scraps from making dinner for once in my life! 😡

    So I will have to go back to feeding her tomorrow or else she will dig everything else up! 😆

  4. poroti @ #1121 Tuesday, May 25th, 2021 – 7:29 pm

    Sounds like AZ then Pfizer could be the way to go
    .
    .
    Mix-and-Match COVID Vaccines Trigger Potent Immune Response
    Preliminary results from a trial of more than 600 people are the first to show the benefits of combining different vaccines

    Vaccinating people with both the Oxford–AstraZeneca and Pfizer–BioNTech COVID-19 vaccines produces a potent immune response against the virus SARS-CoV-2, researchers conducting a study in Spain have found.
    https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/mix-and-match-covid-vaccines-trigger-potent-immune-response/

    Some advantages to being older and eligible for the AZ. 🙂

  5. guytaur @ #1149 Tuesday, May 25th, 2021 – 9:11 pm

    @washingtonpost tweets
    Man charged with bringing molotov cocktails to Capitol on Jan. 6 has Texas militia ties, contacted Ted Cruz’s office, court papers allege

    Which is exactly why the Repugs don’t want the January 6 Commission. The level of co-ordination between many of their number in Congress and the organisers of the Insurrection would be exposed for the world to see.

  6. Cat

    Yes exactly. It’s also why the American right wing is running so hard on cancel culture. A great distraction about their attempt at canceling democracy

  7. ItzaDream at 7:53

    Rectal absorption is impressive for many small drug molecules, but I would hesitate to say it is satisfactory. There is significant inter- and intra-individual variation in absorption characteristics that can pose issues.

    That said, the lack of a first-pass effect is helpful, as is the option for use in those at either end of the life spectrum and those with an impaired swallow reflex. Obviously, it avoids issues for parenteral routes of administration and may be self-administered.

    But the major challenge is the cultural taboo in English speaking cultures. Interestingly, the French don’t have the same cultural taboos with the this route of administration, with a relatively larger market share of non-prescription medicines for rectal administration 🙂

    EDIT: I should be more specific to say that although first-pass absorption may be avoided, upper rectal absorption due to placement could result in transport to the portal vein thereby providing some exposure to the liver – a contributor to absorption variability.

  8. guytaur @ #1155 Tuesday, May 25th, 2021 – 9:30 pm

    Cat

    Yes exactly. It’s also why the American right wing is running so hard on cancel culture. A great distraction about their attempt at canceling democracy

    Honestly, guytaur, the Right in America are canceling so many people and things themselves, Liz Cheney and Major League Baseball, just for two examples, that they are being hoist on their own petard about ‘Cancel Culture’. They’re the ones doing the most cancelling.

  10. frednk says:
    Tuesday, May 25, 2021 at 8:36 pm

    Will the green senators see supporting the government as another chance to do labor over.
    https://www.theage.com.au/politics/federal/clean-energy-agency-shake-up-a-climate-policy-test-for-labor-20210525-p57uyj.html
    _________________
    no, they won’t. -a.v.

    The Greens said they would move to disallow the regulations, with the party’s leader, Adam Bandt, saying the changes could be a breach of the Arena Act, which made clear the agency’s function was to fund renewable technology.

    “CCS is a failed pipe dream,” Bandt said. “These regulations are a climate disgrace that will funnel public money to big coal and gas corporations, and we will move to disallow them when parliament resumes.”

    https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2021/may/18/angus-taylor-moves-to-allow-renewable-energy-agency-to-fund-carbon-capture-and-hydrogen

  11. Congratulations to Jodi McKay for surviving the Boofhead Onslaught, drummed up in the sweaty back rooms of Sussex St., fed to the Media maaaates (only too happy to oblige), regurgitated via the tabloids (and yes the “reputables”, just as nastily), amplified by banging its head against the inside walls of the barrel it has to be scraped out of, and finally served up as a fait accompli on tonight’s various news bulletins, only to fall as flat and stinky as last week’s pizza left too long in an old Fridgidare with a dud thermostat.

    In particular, can’t the ABC’s saintly Ashley Raper be satisfied with one LOTO scalp? Does she really need to join the stampeding herd in calling last drinks on another (especially the demonstrably moral Jodi McKay… just about the only state politician officially un-tainted by scandal)?

    Ashley, once a journo worthy of respect, is proof positive they all get swept up in the thrill of the kill eventually.

  12. BB

    Is your point that a woman who has been sexually assaulted should feel well satisfied when their assailant is dethroned?

  13. “… only to fall as flat and stinky as last week’s pizza left too long in an old Fridgidare with a dud thermostat.”

    So very flat and stinky…

  14. Griff @ #1152 Tuesday, May 25th, 2021 – 9:31 pm

    ItzaDream at 7:53

    Rectal absorption is impressive for many small drug molecules, but I would hesitate to say it is satisfactory. There is significant inter- and intra-individual variation in absorption characteristics that can pose issues.

    That said, the lack of a first-pass effect is helpful, as is the option for use in those at either end of the life spectrum and those with an impaired swallow reflex. Obviously, it avoids issues for parenteral routes of administration and may be self-administered.

    But the major challenge is the cultural taboo in English speaking cultures. Interestingly, the French don’t have the same cultural taboos with the this route of administration, with a relatively larger market share of non-prescription medicines for rectal administration 🙂

    Griff.
    PR admin was also useful for benzos in seizures when one couldn’t harpoon a vein. That got me out of a few tricky spots as a registrar in the wild west back in the day…there are few memories more scary than the blue, fitting 3 monther at midnight in the Mt Druitt ED. These days it’s all intraosseous (or intranasal) access. “T’yoong o today, they joost doon’t beleeve thou”

  16. Every EU nation should ban all direct flights into Belorussia and seize any of their aircraft currently on the ground until the journo is released.

  17. I must admit that Gladys Berejiklian made a wrong political move when she read the requiem to Jodi’s leadership by saying how sorry she felt for her (yeah right! you thought she was dead, buried and about to be cremated, didn’t you, Glad?). I think that was just the hand up Jodi needed to smote Jamie Clements and his political puppet, Chris Minns as they would have been tainted from Day 1 with Jodi’s political blood on their hands. Now Gladys has to live with the woman she has given her political blessing to, but not her last rights. 😀

  18. In the Falkland Islands campaign UK Medics administered intravenous fluids to patients in the field up the Kyber Pass because the Antarctic cold made it difficult to canulate a vein.

  22. BB

    Is your point that a woman who has been sexually assaulted should feel well satisfied when their assailant is dethroned?

    No Shellbell. Need I remind you it wasn’t Jodi McKay who put a boozy paw down Ashley’s skirt?

    Ashley had her day in the sun. Even though, in fact, if it had been down to her she let it be known the matter would have been dropped.

    But tonight on ABC TV she was enthusiastically peddling the same vapid, unimaginative horseshit that all the other hacks are pushing. Anyone can see a self-fulfilling prophecy in the making, egged-on by the mobsters in Labor Head Office and an all-too-willing media, Raper included, wanting to be makers and breakers of Labor leaders, but never Saint Gladys.

    I care far more about Jodi McKay – one of the last honest politicians left in the Bear Pit, and obviously one who has enough credibility to worry the Libs and their backers – than I ever will about Ashley Raper’s sexual misfortunes, as distressing as they may have been, albeit years before. It’s time to move on. The man who assaulted her has paid a heavy price. Ashley is obviously not permanently traumatised by the incident. Let us please move on. It appears Ashley has.

  24. Griff @ #1157 Tuesday, May 25th, 2021 – 9:31 pm

    ItzaDream at 7:53

    Rectal absorption is impressive for many small drug molecules, but I would hesitate to say it is satisfactory. There is significant inter- and intra-individual variation in absorption characteristics that can pose issues.

    That said, the lack of a first-pass effect is helpful, as is the option for use in those at either end of the life spectrum and those with an impaired swallow reflex. Obviously, it avoids issues for parenteral routes of administration and may be self-administered.

    But the major challenge is the cultural taboo in English speaking cultures. Interestingly, the French don’t have the same cultural taboos with the this route of administration, with a relatively larger market share of non-prescription medicines for rectal administration 🙂

    EDIT: I should be more specific to say that although first-pass absorption may be avoided, upper rectal absorption due to placement could result in transport to the portal vein thereby providing some exposure to the liver – a contributor to absorption variability.

    Thanks Griff for the feedback. I actually had a sentence about the French which I deleted thinking better of even bothering to go there, and as for the portal circulation, t’was never on for what was really an aside . My experience reflects my practice. As an example, for decades I did a big gynae list with one of Sydney’s very good ones, and two Panadol and an Indocid suppository at the end of D&Cs and Hysteroscopies would cover a lot of problems postop, and certainly reduce the need for a lot of stronger drugs in recovery, with their side effects, and delayed recovery. I wouldn’t hesitate for a second to say satisfactory, regardless of cultural issues, much more evident with males than females. What did change things in the OR in my practice anyway was the advent of intravenous Paracetamol, but prior to that, the rectum was very handy for fasting / nauseated patients. It’s also fast.

    My point wasn’t ever more than to make note of the rectum as an available route for drug administration, where, like all things, conditions apply.

  25. BB

    You don’t like Ashleigh Raper’s reporting and you think that should be connected to a sexual assault which she alleged.

  26. rhwombat @ #1164 Tuesday, May 25th, 2021 – 10:03 pm

    Griff @ #1152 Tuesday, May 25th, 2021 – 9:31 pm

    ItzaDream at 7:53

    Rectal absorption is impressive for many small drug molecules, but I would hesitate to say it is satisfactory. There is significant inter- and intra-individual variation in absorption characteristics that can pose issues.

    That said, the lack of a first-pass effect is helpful, as is the option for use in those at either end of the life spectrum and those with an impaired swallow reflex. Obviously, it avoids issues for parenteral routes of administration and may be self-administered.

    But the major challenge is the cultural taboo in English speaking cultures. Interestingly, the French don’t have the same cultural taboos with the this route of administration, with a relatively larger market share of non-prescription medicines for rectal administration 🙂

    Griff.
    PR admin was also useful for benzos in seizures when one couldn’t harpoon a vein. That got me out of a few tricky spots as a registrar in the wild west back in the day…there are few memories more scary than the blue, fitting 3 monther at midnight in the Mt Druitt ED. These days it’s all intraosseous (or intranasal) access. “T’yoong o today, they joost doon’t beleeve thou”

    Intraosseous! Speaking of the old wild days, I did a term in Tamworth as a senior resident, and every Friday night the bar maid from Somerton would come in fitting, and the only thing that would work was paraldehyde, which (as you know) has to be given with a glass syringe (melted plastic!). How can I be that old. Actually, on old, we were well trained in giving ether, and when the fabulous (sic) new St Vs Private opened, 1976, there was one theatre set up with special black something or other flooring for high conductivity, so that theatre could be used for ether, and the risk of sparking and booom, Hello Jesus, was much reduced. The hows and whys (and there were good reasons, then) for another time.

  27. Bucephalus @ #1168 Tuesday, May 25th, 2021 – 10:13 pm

    In the Falkland Islands campaign UK Medics administered intravenous fluids to patients in the field up the Kyber Pass because the Antarctic cold made it difficult to canulate a vein.

    There’s a lot of lessons to be learnt out on the field, bravery indeed. Ketamine initially came onto the scene as an intramuscular induction agent where IV access was difficult.

  28. Shellbell,

    I honestly don’t know what you’re talking about.

    Can you be a little less cross-examinatory?

    I don’t like Ashley Raper’s reporting because she is only reporting the self-fulfilling prophecy that she and her colleagues in the state Press Gallery, in concert with the tired old hacks of Sussex St, have decided to dream up in order to make room for a bloke as state LOTO.

    She’s part of the stampede, but she’s reporting on it as if she’s hovering above it all. Her story is basically that everyone’s talking about the story. When you are one of the crowd who decide what the story is, that’s not a hard thing to arrange.

    I would have loved for her to report the actual situation, which is that McKay’s biggest enemy has resigned in disgrace and that McKay is still leader, and stands a good chance of remaining so. At least she would have stood out from the rest of the cattle.

    As for Raper’s ultimate fate I care not one whit.

  30. For those following what’s happening with the pandemic.

    @TheIndPanel’s main report and background papers are now available to download directly from our website. The report is the product of 8 months of rigorous research and provides a package of recommendations aimed at ensuring this is the #LastPandemic

    https://theindependentpanel.org/

  31. In the Falkland Islands campaign UK Medics administered intravenous fluids to patients in the field up the Kyber Pass because the Antarctic cold made it difficult to canulate a vein.

    GPS made by Lucas Industries?

  33. A wholehearted yes for rectal benzos, but intranasal midazolam is a veritable miracle!

    But then the intranasal route shares (disturbing) similarity with respect to variation in absorption to the rectal route 🙂

    Itzadream, I shall defer to your use of the word, satisfactory. After all, perfect is the enemy of the good!

  35. poroti

    boerwar

    A bit hard to bitch about something when we are also doing it. Claims of “whataboutery’ is a cop out. Nothing stops “us’ taking firm action without all the think tankers and pollies talking up the liklihood, or even inevitability, of war with China and general rah rah rah.

    Coming a bit late to this conversation thread, but it sounds very much like 1930s politics.

    Particularly from my perspective as a scientist.

    In the 1930s, scientists were horrified at how the world retreated into nativism, leaving scientists, who are by definition internationalists*, subordinated to nationalist, nativist politics.

    I am horrified that now all my research collaborations with my very international Chinese colleagues need to be vetted by some Federal Government committee.

    I am old enough to have been affected by the Cold War, in my chosen professions of radio astronomy. There was a time when it was impossible to collaborate with Eastern Bloc scientists.

    Why are we going back there? I am now not able to collaborate with my Chinese colleagues, because apparently they are agents of the communist party or something. My colleagues may have spent most of their careers working in “Western” countries, but by accepting a well-deserved professorship in radio astronomy back in their home country, they are now “enemies of Western civillisation”.

    Who will this new Cold War serve?

    * Science really does not see race, social class or anything else. This is not to say that science as practiced in institutions does not suffer from all the usual social ills, such as misogyny and class prejudice – it does, and it is harder to succeed in science if you are female or working class. But not impossible.

  36. E. G. Theodore @ #1179 Tuesday, May 25th, 2021 – 10:45 pm

    Itza

    I’m Bringin Ether Back – https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4608178/

    Ha, I don’t think so, not for you good sir. I can’t say I’ve read every word in that article, but it is interesting, and it’s a very interesting drug.

    Long story short – it’s very volatile (as by definition are all volatile anaesthetic agents) and very inflammable and very explosive. Nurses with nylon stocking rubbing between their fulsome thighs might just be enough to spark it off. And, it’s extremely nauseating, for a very long time. But, and here’s the really good bit, if you don’t get blown up, it’s a very safe way to give an anaesthetic, with one critical feature – the patient has to be breathing spontaneously. Unlike most agents, which depress cardiac function along with respiration and just about everything else (depress the brain, depress what the brain does, which is run things), ether actually (via an adrenalin effect) keeps cardiac function kicking along quite well (one of the reasons it was used, but to be replaced with specific cardiac stimulants when they came online) but depresses respiration significantly. So, breathing spontaneously, getting deeper, heart still OK, deeper, now breathing less, now lightening up. viz, a neat negative feedback that keeps from overdosage. The only serious, catastrophic, outcome I’ve seen (was involved in the resuscitation) was a patient breathing ether who was given assisted ventilation, the safety net was broken, and serious cardiac depression occurred.

    We are lucky we are where we are.

  37. Even the tongue has been used as an injectable absorption organ. Common denominator in all this – vascularity: nasal mucosa (snort), rectum (ooohey pooey), stomach (acid bath), bone (juicey marrow), now tongue even. The risk of a needle in the tongue is the same as a needle into that other great vascular organ (we did penis last night, tonight rectum, tomorrow ..) is getting a haematoma. Not good for the airway that. Not in an emergency already, enough. Then there’s intraperitoneal. I’m over this. As surely as all are.

  39. Douglas and Milko,
    With all due respect you need to see that your Chinese colleagues are more likely than not suffering from the exact same scrutiny and vetting as you and your colleagues are. Both countries are using scientific endeavour and discoveries as a weapon. Alas, that’s the way it’s going to stay for a while to come yet. It’s also why a very unique arms race is about to begin, from the 2030s onwards as global population decline propels nations to engage in a bidding war for the best and brightest. They are realising that they cannot grow the innovators of the future, at least not a lot of them, and so they will look overseas for them and begin to offer them inducements to come and settle and work in their country.

    It is for all those reasons that this ‘New Cold War’ is only just beginning.

  46. Douglas and Milko
    Re “interrnationalisist”. Damn right there. Over the years I have been astonished to read in the histories of various scientists or tech. how scientists were cooperating or sharing despite those involved supposedly being ‘mortal enemies’.

  47. Jodi McKay is dead meat. With Chris Minns being so hated, surely that means Ryan Park gets it. He looks the part anyway with that square jaw.

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