There has been an outbreak of preselection challenges against federal Liberal incumbents in New South Wales, which would appear to be the fruit of new preselection rules that put more power in the hands of the party rank-and-file. However, the branch has not been so democratised as to deny the possibility of federal intervention, which Sarah Martin of The Guardian reports is likely to be invoked by the Prime Minister to protect the incumbents.
• Environment Minister Sussan Ley faces a challenge in her rural seat of Farrer from Christian Ellis, whose conservative credentials extend to an effort to expel Malcolm Turnbull from the Liberal Party after he published his autobiography last year. The Sydney Morning Herald reports that Ley has complained of “outsiders” descending upon her electorate with “city-based factional branch stacking” and “a toxic culture which isn’t about the policies or the candidate”.
• Further challenges are brewing against two leading factional powerbrokers: Alex Hawke of the centre right, from conservative-aligned army colonel Michael Abrahams; and Trent Zimmerman of the moderate faction, from both Hamish Stitt, a conservative barrister, and Jess Collins, a member of the centre right.
• In the marginal Sydney seat of Reid, moderate-aligned Fiona Martin faces a challenge from sports administrator Natalie Baini. Apparently at an earlier stage of gestation are potential challenges to Bennelong MP John Alexander from Gisele Kapterian, former chief-of-staff to Michaelia Cash; and Concetta Fierravanti-Wells, whose Senate seat is reportedly being eyed by conservative colleague Dallas McInerney, chief executive of Catholic Schools NSW.
• One challenge that will not proceed is the one said to have been of “most concern” to senior Liberals in a report by Sarah Martin of The Guardian. Melissa McIntosh, a member of the centre right faction who won the key seat of Lindsay from Labor in 2019, was said to have been under serious pressure from Mark Davies, Penrith councillor and husband of state Mulgoa MP Tanya Davies, having “lost control of her branches to the conservative faction”. However, Clare Armstrong of News.com.au reports the conservatives have “done a deal to drop the challenge”, the terms of which are unclear.
Preselections elsewhere:
• Tom Richardson of InDaily reports that candidates for Labor’s preselection in the Adelaide seat of Spence include Matt Burnell, an official with the Right-aligned Transport Workers Union, and Alice Dawkins, who works with “a consulting firm specialising in Asian strategic engagement” and is the daughter of Keating government Treasurer John Dawkins. The safe Labor seat in northern Adelaide will be vacated at the election by Nick Champion’s move to state politics.
• A Liberal preselection last weekend for the Adelaide seat of Boothby was won by Rachel Swift, moderate-aligned management consultant and medical researcher. Swift was chosen ahead of conservative rival Leah Blythe, who had the backing of outgoing member Nicolle Flint.
• The Tasmanian seat of Lyons will be contested for the Liberals by Susie Bower, Meander Valley councillor and chief executive of the Bell Bay Advanced Manufacturing Zone. Bower was a candidate for Lyons at the recent state election, but polled last out of the six Liberal candidates with 3.5% of the vote. Lyons could potentially have joined Bass and Braddon as a Liberal gain at the 2019 election if not for the mid-campaign disendorsement of the party’s candidate, Jessica Whelan.
Other news:
• Jodi McKay’s resignation as New South Wales Labor leader on Friday potentially sets up a second membership ballot for the party to go with the one that will choose Rebecca White’s successor in Tasmania. This depends on whether former leader Michael Daley puts his name forward in opposition to Chris Minns, who would appear to be the clear favourite. Today’s Sun-Herald reports that head office would prefer that Minns take the position unopposed so as to avoid “an expensive ballot of rank-and-file members, which would take weeks”. However, a tweet by Daley yesterday suggested he was not of a mind to oblige them.
• Labor MP Duncan Pegg announced his resignation from the Queensland parliament early this week after a terminal cancer diagnosis. This will lead at some point to a by-election for his southern Brisbane seat of Stretton, which Pegg retained by a margin of 14.8% at the state election last October. Such has been the electoral record of opposition parties recently that one might have thought the Liberal National Party would sit this one out, but they have in fact jumped into the fray with the endorsement of Jim Bellos, a police officer and former Queenslander of the Year. The Courier-Mail reports the front-runner for Labor preselection is James Martin, an electorate officer to Pegg.
• Occasional Poll Bludger contributor Adrian Beaumont has a piece in The Conversation on the apparent trend of non-university educated whites abandoning parties of the centre left in the United States, United Kingdom and Australia.
• Sarah Martin of The Guardian reports the Liberal party room was told this week that the election would be held next year.
passing the buck…. around
Cat
I am trying to avoid fighting with you.
You are the one trying to tell me what to do.
So please just leave me to use my judgement and stop trying to moderate me.
You are the one carrying this on now.
“a decision that could be seen as an attempt to dampen tensions between the national broadcaster and federal government.”
The ABC is (theoretically) an independent public broadcaster. “Dampening tensions” is just a euphemism for describing the way Morrison treats the ABC – as “State Media” regurgitating the edicts of a would be dictator.
Morrison PM is one Avalon away from getting a disappointment in the polling, with Dutton now controlling business in parliament, even a completely disengaged Australian electorate will finally get the whiff of imposter. It will all end very quickly.
Will the Dutton coup d’etat be kind to the shyster from the Shire?
A lifelong overpaid sinecure unlikely for the friendless leader minus the skills.
Steve Colbran
@NarblocBS
·
6m
For those moaning that Gold-Standard-Gladys did it better, nah, just look at the #COVID19 public exposure sites for Melbourne… they cover the whole city!!!! Not just a single (geographically) isolated locality as in Sydney!
#COVID19Vic #CovidVic
Did Kroger’s vicious personal attack on Ita pay off? Or what?
Which one of Scotts mates is a QAnon?.. ( all of them?)
ABC management has pulled an upcoming Four Corners episode about the relationship between Prime Minister Scott Morrison and a supporter of the QAnon conspiracy theory, a decision that could be seen as an attempt to dampen tensions between the national broadcaster and federal government.
The episode was expected to run this Monday following weeks of delays, but staff have since been informed it will not go to air following a decision by managing director David Anderson.
I think western countries are using blame game for political reasons which is why you haven’t seen much vaccination rates in countries like Australia
boerwar
Maybe ABC jurnos are pissed off enough for the story to leak.
Worth reposting at this hour..
Taken from the dead tree version of New Scientist
The critical issue is whether vaccination will confer herd immunity even when the Indian strain is introduced. Astra Zeneca in real world trials scores 60% effectiveness against the Indian strain. That is a cause for concern. Not blood clots.
The UK (which used a lot of AZ in its vaccination rollout) is now seeing a resurgence of cases, most of which are the Indian strain. Meanwhile Israel has herd immunity and it used Pfizer.
WHO is now a plaything of Xi and the CPC.
https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202106/1225236.shtml
This sounds like bullshit
“ For those moaning that Gold-Standard-Gladys did it better, nah, just look at the #COVID19 public exposure sites for Melbourne… they cover the whole city!!!! Not just a single (geographically) isolated locality as in Sydney!”
@Raf_Epstein tweets.
False positives are good news
Will also kick off new round of articles and columns and tweets questioning Vic public health team
Brighton Hotel case and Metricon homes case
Edit: I agree with Epstein’s analysis. However I think the health team did the best with the information they thought they had.
Yawn bw
I’m pretty sure WHO has more members than China.
https://amp.sbs.com.au/eds/news/article/coronavirus-was-circulating-in-italy-as-early-as-september-2019-new-study-shows/e4191c0e-6176-4586-920f-d013c0c7a86d
The World Health Organization has said COVID-19, the respiratory disease it causes, were unknown before the outbreak was first reported in Wuhan, in central China, in December.
Italy’s first COVID-19 patient was detected on 21 February in a little town near Milan, in the northern region of Lombardy.
Regarding Four Corners
The ABC should take the details from the story and feed them one at at time into a series of articles on its web site…
@AmyRemeikis tweets
The New Liberals have won their bid to keep their name, with the AEC rejecting the Liberal’s objection to the name. The Liberal Party can’t claim ownership over the word ‘liberal’.
But both sites are already Commonwealth land.
Ruling today on Ben Roberts-Smith application.. not looking good for that aspect of Ben’s case.
ORDER MADE BY:
ABRAHAM J
DATE OF ORDER:
1 JUNE 2021
THE COURT ORDERS THAT:
1. Person 35’s application to strike out the subpoena issued 1 April 2021 to Person 35 is dismissed.
2. Person 35’s claim for public interest immunity over the redacted document within the scope of that subpoena is not established.
3. Costs to be reserved.
https://www.smh.com.au/national/ben-roberts-smith-launches-proceedings-against-ex-wife-on-eve-of-trial-20210603-p57xsd.html
He appears to be a vengeful nasty paranoid piece of work.
I Sceptic says:
Thursday, June 3, 2021 at 6:14 pm
They’re out ta get me
They won’t catch me
I’m fucking innocent
They won’t break me
(Cue guns and roses)
ABC management has pulled an upcoming Four Corners episode about the relationship between Prime Minister Scott Morrison and a supporter of the QAnon conspiracy theory, a decision that could be seen as an attempt to dampen tensions between the national broadcaster and federal government.
The episode was expected to run this Monday following weeks of delays, but staff have since been informed it will not go to air following a decision by managing director David Anderson. The decision comes just days after Industry Minister Christian Porter decided to drop his defamation action against the ABC over its reporting of a historical rape allegation.
https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/abc-bosses-pull-four-corners-episode-linking-pm-to-qanon-figure-20210603-p57xuk.html
guytaur @ #2753 Thursday, June 3rd, 2021 – 6:05 pm
That’s red meat for all the stupids out there…
@ABCMediaComms tweets
The ABC has not “pulled” a story. Any suggestion to the contrary is misleading and mischievous. The decision to publish is only made once all editorial and legal requirements have been met and it is appropriate to do so.
Of course they would say that…
‘Sceptic says:
Thursday, June 3, 2021 at 6:14 pm
Ruling today on Ben Roberts-Smith application.. not looking good for that aspect of Ben’s case.
ORDER MADE BY:
ABRAHAM J
DATE OF ORDER:
1 JUNE 2021
THE COURT ORDERS THAT:
1. Person 35’s application to strike out the subpoena issued 1 April 2021 to Person 35 is dismissed.
2. Person 35’s claim for public interest immunity over the redacted document within the scope of that subpoena is not established.
3. Costs to be reserved.
https://www.smh.com.au/national/ben-roberts-smith-launches-proceedings-against-ex-wife-on-eve-of-trial-20210603-p57xsd.html
He appears to be a vengeful nasty paranoid piece of work.’
————————————————–
Behaviours around marriage breakdowns may not be fully indicative. She not only put him in the shit but many serving soldiers by releasing images of soldiers drinking out of, or in the vicinity of, an artificial limb taken from a Taliban killed by the ADF. The distant echo to Douglas Bader will not escape all on Bludger. This raise the question. Did the Germans drink out of Bader’s artificial leg?
US now has 37 infections per 100k people per week and falling.
UK now has 36 infections per 100k people per week and rising.
Cud
Was it editorial and legal requirements not management making the decision is the question.
Dutton does it again:
https://www.theaustralian.com.au/subscribe/news/1/?sourceCode=TAWEB_WRE170_a&dest=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theaustralian.com.au%2Fnation%2Fdefence%2Fpeter-dutton-rules-out-contracts-for-author-samantha-crompvoets%2Fnews-story%2F45df66c5542cc124c59e81dec8508437&memtype=anonymous&mode=premium&v21suffix=414-b
Scotty running dictatorship . First is to silence the media, next it will reduce its ability to attack liberal party.
Nazi Germany has arrived
Liberal female from NSW on the Drum made me furious with her parroting that Vic has failed in everything they have done and deserve no money etc etc.
We have Kroger slamming Ita and Tudge slamming ‘woke’ unis.
Join the fucking dots!
https://www.canberratimes.com.au/story/7281578/tudge-issues-threat-to-woke-universities/?cs=14329
guytaur @ #2773 Thursday, June 3rd, 2021 – 6:18 pm
translation: we’re editing out the juicy bits
Morrison: a day late and a dollar short.
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2021/jun/03/once-again-scott-morrison-appears-a-day-late-and-a-dollar-short
“The Liberal Party can’t claim ownership over the word ‘liberal’.”
They’re not liberal to start with 😛
China has now reached 700 million?!!!!!!
BEIJING, June 3 (Xinhua) — More than 700 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines had been administered across China as of Wednesday, the National Health Commission said Thursday.
http://www.xinhuanet.com/english/2021-06/03/c_139986957.htm
Be jealous people!
lizzie
“Liberal female from NSW on the Drum made me furious with her parroting that Vic has failed in everything they have done and deserve no money etc etc.”
It’s not about the government but the people of the state, surely?
boerwar
So it’s the wife’s fault then.
You imply the offence is to do with boys will be boys games with prosthetics, when it’s really about cutting the throats of 14 year old Afghan boys & throwing their bodies in the river.
Lizzie @ #2780 Thursday, June 3rd, 2021 – 6:29 pm
What is the point of NSW Libs and media being so ignorant of Professor Kelly’s high praise of Vic authorities actions during this breakout ?
Thanks for this, GG — I’m out of pocket from the affair, but I can’t honestly pretend that bankruptcy looms. Naturally though any help would be appreciated, from regulars or anyone else. I’ll be launching one of my semi-regular donation drives this evening to this end.
@AndrewPStreet tweets
Between Christian Porter, Ben Roberts-Smith and Israel Folau it really is a banner month for inadequate, ethically-challenged men to indulge in frivolous civil lawsuits in the desperate hope the public won’t correctly calculate their rancid quality as human beings.
The Kouk raises an interesting question…
Federal election thought:
The massive internal migration to the regional areas & out of the cities has the potential to change the voting dynamics at the next election.
Who has moved? To which electorates?
The 2019 boundaries/booths are likely changed a lot just from this change.
Zerlo at 6.33pm
I believe any information out of China less than what Promo says. At least Promo has not closed down all sources of contrary information (yet).
WB
A Lamington drive?
D N
She was just blaming the Labor gov for everything. “Why can’t they do things the way NSW does?” Won’t admit the feds could be at fault.
I suppose earlier today keen observers would have noticed the Promo “we are not afraid of Covid…” dictum was easier to say for one at the front of the queue with both Pfizer shots..
guytaur
missed Barilaro from the list?
DN
The nice part of the AEC decision is we might get to use liberal the same way Americans do.
It will start to clear up political debate. After all President Biden is a liberal President.
People who don’t read much behind the headlines may conclude:
1. Morrison is in some way entangled with the QAnon (read pro Trump) crowd, otherwise the ABC wouldn’t be planning the program.
2. Is Morrison trying to hide something?
Will Morrison say something or hope it all goes away? I doubt it will go away since the genie is out of the bottle and there will be any number of journos eager to suss out more. If Nine/Fairfax sense a bigger story, they will not want to let it go.
TPOF says:
Thursday, June 3, 2021 at 6:39 pm
Zerlo at 6.33pm
I disagree seeing how there is evidence of people lining up to get vaccinated in China.
Perhaps you should watch foreigners in China on YouTube about the situation there, on the ground.
The outworks ourworlddata will be updated soon, it’s already over 680 million
I don’t trust Scotty with a 20 foot poll.
‘Sceptic says:
Thursday, June 3, 2021 at 6:34 pm
boerwar
So it’s the wife’s fault then.
You imply the offence is to do with boys will be boys games with prosthetics, when it’s really about cutting the throats of 14 year old Afghan boys & throwing their bodies in the river.’
——————————————————
I wasn’t laying blame in any direction – merely pointing out that marriage failures can lead to bad behaviour all round.
The bad behaviour illegal pub is, IMO, symptomatic of a loss of morale, and a loss of command and control. The big message from that is that officers’ heads must roll.
Beyond that, a succession of governments, both Liberal and Labor, failed the troops dismally by failing to define a practicable war aim.
Beyond that, the Fourth Estate failed dismally in the Afghanistan War.
As for my attitude to Australian war crimes, I have been onto Australian war crimes on Bludger for far, far longer than your average Bludger.
Just as an example of the sorts of ratholes that exist, Australian war crimes legislation treats Australian-born Australians and foreign-born Australians differently. Guess why!
BTW, we need to be making arrangements to transfer into Australia all Afghanistanis who were associated with the ADF and/or the Emabssy, and who, with their families, will be executed by the Taliban. This badly needs not to be another fucking inhumane shame job by the Coalition.