By-elections of the XXXIV Olympiad

’Tis the night before a Queensland state by-election; we may not have seen the last of Nick Xenophon; Labor picks candidates for key Melbourne seats; plus further matters for those with a professional interest in our nation’s electoral affairs.

Election news:

• The Palaszczuk government faces what it may now think a fortuitously timed by-election tomorrow in the southern Brisbane seat of Stretton. The seat was vacated by the late Duncan Pegg, who retained it for Labor by a margin of 14.8% at the state election last October. The intimidating margin has not stopped Liberal National Party taking the field, together with the Greens, Animal Justice and the Informed Medical Options Party. My guide to the by-election can be found here; tune in tomorrow for live results, my page for which awaits the numbers here.

• Jack Morphet of the Sunday Mail reports Nick Xenophon is “seriously considering another tilt at federal politics”, ostensibly because the federal government has failed to protect the rights of Australian producers to market sheepskin boots as ugg boots, the name of which is trademarked by an American company.

• The Herald Sun reports Labor’s Victorian preselection process, which has been commandeered by the party’s national executive after a branch-stacking scandal, has confirmed candidates in four marginal Liberal seats. Gladys Liu will defend her negligible margin in Chisholm against Carina Garland, former assistant secretary at Victorian Trades Hall Council, who was chosen ahead of Monash mayor Rebecca Paterson. In Higgins, the once safe Liberal seat that is developing into a three-cornered contest between Liberal, Labor and the Greens, Katie Allen will face Michelle Ananda-Rajah, consultant physician in general medicine and infectious diseases at Alfred Health. In Casey, where the Liberals will defend a 4.6% margin in the absence of retiring incumbent Tony Smith, Labor has again chosen its candidate from 2019, engineer and small business owner Bill Brindle. In Deakin, which Michael Sukkar holds for the Liberals by 4.7%, the Labor candidate is Matthew Gregg, a teacher.

From the world of academia (Queensland chapter):

• In the Australian Journal of Politics and History, Paul Williams of Griffith University offers Queensland’s role in the 2019 Australian federal election: a case study of regional difference (paywalled, naturally). Williams argues the Coalition’s strong federal performance in Queensland can be understood in terms of its six diverse regions and five elements of its political culture. The former reflect the state’s decentralisation and reliance on primary industries, which show up demographically in low educational attainment, high religious observance and a paucity of migrants. The political culture elements are “a predilection for strong, masculine political leadership; a zealotry for state development; a disproportionate focus on regional and rural districts in budgetary allocations; a pragmatically flexible approach to policy-making” (the Humphrey Appleby-esque note struck by the latter would seem to be deliberate) and “a parochial chauvinism celebrating a Queensland difference, and drawing a moral superiority from it”.

• In the Australian Journal of Political Science, Graeme Orr of the University of Queensland and Tracey Arklay of Griffith University are rethinking voter identification: its rationale and impact. This includes an analysis of Queensland’s one-off experiment with a soft voter identification regime in 2015, which reaches the unsurprising conclusion that migrant and especially indigenous areas had the greatest number of voters needing to lodge provisional votes for want of acceptable identification on the day. For this reason, and despite the measure’s clearly modest impact on the voting returns, the paper concludes “there is no real case for voter ID in Australia”, which it deems “a solution in search of a problem”.

Psephological arcana:

• In keeping with its code of conduct obligations as a member of the recently launched Australian Polling Council, YouGov has published methodology statements for the last four Newspoll surveys. Among other things, these fully detail the questionnaires that were presented to the respondents.

• David Barry has developed a tool for exploring Senate preference flows at the 2019 election using the ballot paper data files, which is immensely nifty if you can work out how to use it.

• A Tasmanian Electoral Commission report into the recent state election, which unusually coupled a statewide lower house election with one of the state’s periodic upper house elections for two of the chamber’s 15 seats, finds over 6% of those who ought to have lodged an upper house vote did not do so because they attended a booth in the wrong part of the electorate, and a further 1% were not issued with a ballot due to staff error. It argues against the contention that this should invalidate the election, since the errors in the former case were committed by the voters rather than the commission, and the latter were too few in number to affect the results.

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.

1,674 comments on “By-elections of the XXXIV Olympiad”

Comments Page 29 of 34
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  1. Recon says:
    Saturday, July 24, 2021 at 4:30 pm
    Asha I posted 5 times on the issue. Perhaps a little excessive. But part of it was an exchange. I also note that you have posted 2 times on our posts.
    __________________________
    As Roy Orbison would say its lies , all lies

  3. Police have charged 57 people and issued 90 fines to anti-lockdown protesters who stormed Sydney’s CBD on Saturday.

    Police Minister David Elliott said a strike force of 22 detectives had been set up to track down more than 3500 “very selfish boofheads” who breached coronavirus restrictions by marching from Victoria Park to Town Hall.

  6. Does Gladys and Scomo realise that allowing this to go out of control is political death for them?

    Serious question.

  7. Hannah Ryan
    @HannahD15
    ·
    5m
    Police are appealing for anyone with footage of today’s protest to give it to CrimeStoppers to help them track down as many of the thousands of protesters as they can.

  9. lizzie says:
    Saturday, July 24, 2021 at 4:37 pm

    Hannah Ryan
    @HannahD15
    ·
    5m
    Police are appealing for anyone with footage of today’s protest to give it to CrimeStoppers to help them track down as many of the thousands of protesters as they can.
    __________
    Probably for contact tracing!

  10. >Does Gladys and Scomo realise that allowing this to go out of control is political death for them?

    >Serious question.

    I expect so, but their baseline incompetence leaves them with little they can do about it.

  11. “Police are appealing for anyone with footage of today’s protest to give it to CrimeStoppers”

    I don’t get this. Why aren’t there police armed with 4K video cameras tasked with doing nothing but recording every face?

  13. I am angry at the combination of politicians media and right wing agitators that are using a pandemic for political ends.

    For people in the centre of politics that want civil liberties and freedom reckless extremism is bloody dangerous.

  15. ‘Cud Chewer says:
    Saturday, July 24, 2021 at 4:38 pm

    “Police are appealing for anyone with footage of today’s protest to give it to CrimeStoppers”

    I don’t get this. Why aren’t there police armed with 4K video cameras tasked with doing nothing but recording every face?’
    ___________________________
    1. Getting the citizenry in on the act helps in and of itself.
    2. They probably have enough footage to get most of the perps.
    3. They may need some extra footage to get every last one of them.
    Which reminds me. Some of the dickheads were exposing their children to a higher risk of catching Covid. Should these peeps be referred to Child Safety Central?

  19. Asha Leu @ #1387 Saturday, July 24th, 2021 – 4:22 pm

    Recon:

    In a page where someone hoped that a person in Sydney should suffer from Long Covid, you find our jesting about Shortens’ ambitions the more offensive?

    While it’s certainly true that some people can be a bit too precious about their preferred political party, I think a simpler explanation for why people have chosen to single you two out over the whoever made the long-Covid remark is that you and Lara have posted something like 10 posts in the past fifteen minutes on your favourite federal MP, whereas many (myself included) probably totally missed the latter comment among the noise while scrolling through.

    Never fear, the PB Pearl Clutchers and Probity Police were onto it. It’s just the sort of thing they hoover up and stash away in their notebook to haul out, immediately if needed, or for forever and a day when they need it. Always devoid of context, used simply for sensorious purposes. Never mind the long litany of things they themselves have said about various people, both on the blog and off, over the years. They slough that off like a second skin. Because they WILL make dozens of posts within the hour to drown everything else out. Trolls have learned to tag team for greater effect. Sick minds think of sick things to do like that. 😐

  20. I wonder how many of the protesters travelled from locked down suburbs in the SW? There may be more penalties to come in the next few days.

  24. Confessions

    I’ve seen the desperation but what worries me is that they honestly think that they have nothing more that they can do? Really? Have they not read the Melbourne roadmaps from last year, the density limits for essential workplaces, the 5 km zones and so on?

    Where is Gladys today? One hopes she is on the phone to the modellers. What scares me is that the likes of Hazard probably aren’t listening to the modellers and the best evidence is Hazard carrying on like an emergency vaccination is going to make a lick of difference.. Not just desperation but outright incompetency/stupidity/living in bubble.

  25. Cud Chewer

    Well, they have proof that he was there! I wonder what his definition of NORMAL is.

    John Ruddick
    @JohnRuddick2
    · 1h
    I want to thank the NSW Police for being so friendly towards the Sydney Freedom March.

    Two told me that it was the most pleasant protect they have policed. They said most protests are full of angry weirdos … but this one was composed of happy normal citizens.

  28. My mother (88) has come home after a few days in hospital.

    They found an aneurysm in her neck, but due to her age there’s not much they can do about it except keep an eye on her blood pressure.

  32. Cud:

    It isn’t just Melbourne that has a roadmap, just about every other state and territory had a pandemic policy that prioritised public health over commercial interests and they are all in far better places than NSW.

    I’m not convinced Gladys gets it either. Or if she does she can’t do anything different because of the crazies in her cabinet and her partyroom. The way things are going she could get rolled as leader if she imposes more severe restrictions on Sydney.

  33. Depends how you define ‘normal’, I guess and John Ruddick has lost that ability as far as I can see.

    From memory also, isn’t John Ruddick an Ultra Conservative Liberal and friend of Tony Abbott? So I would imagine he’s coming at this Anti Lockdown protest from the Trumpy end of the pool, where Chris Kenny et al are, in order to force the abandonment of Public Health measures to try and protect people so as to allow the business community to get back to doing what it does best-ignore health and welfare for the cause of making money.

  34. “Police had significant prevention activity in the lead up to and duration of today’s which included visiting 90 persons of interest to urge them not to attend,” a police spokesperson said in a statement.

    Traders were upset that the protest affected their sales.

  35. Confessions then its time for Gladys to put her cabinet in a room and read them the riot act and explain to them clearly what it will do to their political fortunes when Delta kills thousands of people.

  37. zoomster

    I hope “keeping an eye” includes holding the BP very low. Watch out for severe headache. (Sorry if you already know this, but my middle child died of a brain aneurysm and I always felt guilty that I didn’t recognise any signs.)

  39. A final comment on the Alt-Right-Day marches in Sydney, Melbourne, and now I hear Brisbane as well (why there??).

    Lightning doesn’t strike three times by accident. Somebody organised these marches -their date, timing and routes – all to coincide. None are authorised AFAIK. Who is behind this?

    The marches are clearly dangerous to public health and illegal. The organisers should be identified and prosecuted as appropriate.

  40. lizziesays:
    Saturday, July 24, 2021 at 4:27 pm
    The very high number of tests in the Sydney region shows that people are taking the threat very seriously, in spite of the myth that they don’t care.

    There were 93,910 tests reported today and >80k the last several days, materially higher than beforehand.

    Some 46,979 people resident in Fairfield LGA work outside the LGA (as per 2016 census). No idea how many have stopped working outside now, but if say 50% are working, the requirement for a test every 3 days would add 15,700/2 = 7,850 daily tests on average.

  43. Two days ago Berejiklian was working on a ‘road map’. In retrospect this would probably not have been a road map for the 3,500 Sydney wankers.

    I assumed at the time that the road map would get NSW through Morrison’s Four Phase Plan to get us to the a target-deficient and ever-receding horizon.

    But the latest is that Berejiklian is working on a ‘blueprint’.

    That said, is there an explanation for why Berejiklian is doing Scarlet Pimpernel?

  47. ‘Laocoon says:
    Saturday, July 24, 2021 at 4:56 pm

    lizziesays:
    Saturday, July 24, 2021 at 4:27 pm
    The very high number of tests in the Sydney region shows that people are taking the threat very seriously, in spite of the myth that they don’t care.

    There were 93,910 tests reported today and >80k the last several days, materially higher than beforehand.

    Some 46,979 people resident in Fairfield LGA work outside the LGA (as per 2016 census). No idea how many have stopped working outside now, but if say 50% are working, the requirement for a test every 3 days would add 15,700 daily tests on average.’
    ________________________________
    Working out what the numbers really mean is like trying to wrangle snakes.

  49. Soc,
    I just pointed out that John Ruddick is an Ultra Conservative Ultra Business guy and friend of Tony Abbott. It seems these protests have coincided with columns in today’s Australian by Chris Kenny and Katrina Grace Kelly, or whatever name she is going by this year. Therefore, it is my theory that Murdoch and Abbott and whoever else is in cahoots with them are trying to bust the public consensus to put Public Health before Business concerns. They are using the frictionless absorption of facebook Covidiots to achieve their goal.

  50. zoomster:

    As someone who has an elderly relative in another state and thus unable to be visited, I empathise with your situation. Hope all goes well for your mum.

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