Family First the second

Fragmentation on the right continues apace, with even former Labor folk now joining in. Also: a new poll records a big thumbs-down for the weekend’s lockdown protests.

Miscellaneous developments of the week so far:

• Former South Australian state Labor MPs Tom Kenyon and Jack Snelling have quit their former party over “moves to restrict religious freedom” and announced their intention to reactivate the Family First party and field candidates at the state election next March. The original Family First was folded into Australian Conservatives when Cory Bernardi joined it in 2016 and wound up at his behest after its failure at the 2019 federal election. Kenyon and Snelling have long been associated with the Shop Distributive and Allied Employees Association sub-faction of the Right, which is in turn associated with Catholicism and social conservatism, and includes among its number the party’s state leader, Peter Malinauskas. Paul Starick of The Advertiser reports this has the approval of party co-founder Andrew Evans; presumably this explains it obtaining the old party’s database of 6000 supporters, as reported by David Penberthy of The Australian. Whereas the old party consistently directed preferences to the Liberals, Snelling has ruled out preference deals with either major party.

• In other party split news, Peta Credlin writes in The Australian that Ross Cameron, who held Parramatta for the Liberals from 1996 to 2004 but is these days noted as a staple of Sky News after dark, “could head the Liberal Democrats’ NSW Senate ticket”. Earlier reportage on the matter said only that Cameron was involved with the party’s strategy and candidate recruitment.

Tom Richardson of InDaily reports Matt Burnell, an official with the Right faction Transport Workers Union, has been confirmed as Labor’s candidate for its safe northern Adelaide seat of Spence, which will be vacated with Nick Champion’s move to state politics. Burnell reportedly scored 88 union delegate votes and 68 state conference delegate votes, each amounting to a third of the total, to just two and seven respectively for rival candidate Alice Dawkins, daughter of Keating government Treasurer John Dawkins. The rank-and-file membership ballot that made up the remaining third went 140-42 to Burnell.

Peter Law of The West Australian reports that first-term Liberal MP Vince Connelly, whose seat of Stirling is being abolished, “looks certain to contest Cowan, which is held by Labor’s Anne Aly”. By my reckoning, the seat has a post-redistribution margin of 1.5%, making it a seemingly unlikely prospect for the Liberals at a time when polls are pointing to a Labor swing in the state upwards of 10%.

Phillip Coorey of the Financial Review reports a poll conducted on Monday by Utting Research from 1600 respondents in New South Wales found only 7% supported Saturday’s lockdown protests, with fully 83% opposed. The poll also suggested Scott Morrison’s standing is continuing to tumble, with 37% satisfied and 57% dissatisfied (the state breakdown in last fortnight’s Resolve Strategic poll had it at 46% apiece). By contrast, Gladys Berejiklian maintained 56% approval and 33% disapproval, while the state’s chief health officer, Kerry Chant, recorded 70% approval.

• Emma Dawson, the executive director of the Per Capita think tank who appeared set to ran as Labor’s candidate against Adam Bandt in Melbourne, has announced her withdrawal. Dawson said this was for “personal and professional reasons”, although it followed shortly upon her criticism of Labor’s announcement that it would not rescind tax cuts for high income earners if elected.

• Craig Emerson on election timing in the Financial Review:

The December quarter national accounts are scheduled for release on March 2, 2022. Morrison might feel confident that the economy will bounce back in the December quarter from the September quarter’s negative result. But would it be wise to take a chance on a double-dip recession being announced during a federal election campaign? That would be a catastrophe for the Morrison government: marked down for its refusal to accept responsibility for quarantine, presiding over the slowest vaccine rollout in the Western world, and forfeiting any claim to be superior economic managers … But an April or May election would face the same risks, since the March quarter national accounts would not be released until after the election must be held … A late-February election might be the best bet, though the federal campaign would overlap with that of the South Australian state election scheduled for March 19.

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.

2,483 comments on “Family First the second”

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  1. ItzaDreamsays:
    Sunday, August 1, 2021 at 9:59 pm
    World Medical Association version of the Hippocratic Oath
    my colleagues will be my brothers.

    I will not permit considerations of religion, nationality, race, party politics or social standing to intervene between my duty and my patients;

    Couple of things Itza
    1. “my colleagues will be my brothers”
    How can female doctors be brothers? A lots of male doctors marry female doctors ( how can wife be a brother?)

    2. “I will not permit considerations of religion”
    Irrespective of other considerations, I know that the president of Indian Medical Association told a group of churchgoers (the video of meeting surfaced) that while giving treatment to patients of COVID he will try to convert them to Christianity by putting in the good word of Jesus.

  2. Barney in Tanjung Bunga @ #2450 Sunday, August 1st, 2021 – 10:28 pm

    She never expressed a view that people should not vaccinate, she did express a view that Australia should look at options that didn’t include AZ.

    She took a view that was “interesting” … to a scientist. It was not an appropriate position for a politician who makes decisions that affects people’s lives to take. Now that she is an aspiring politician, it is not surprising that she has changed her view. Thank goodness few people listened to her then. I am just not 100% certain we should be listening to her now.

  3. Seems to align with attitudinal polling in NSW

    PM faces hostility over state ‘bias’
    Focus groups raise questions about the Prime Minister’s popularity in Victoria.
    (Murdoch’s Oz)

  4. Player One @ #2270 Sunday, August 1st, 2021 – 8:34 pm

    Barney in Tanjung Bunga @ #2450 Sunday, August 1st, 2021 – 10:28 pm

    She never expressed a view that people should not vaccinate, she did express a view that Australia should look at options that didn’t include AZ.

    She took a view that was “interesting” … to a scientist. It was not an appropriate position for a politician who makes decisions that affects people’s lives to take. Now that she is an aspiring politician, it is not surprising that she has changed her view. Thank goodness few people listened to her then. I am just not 100% certain we should be listening to her now.

    1. She’s not a politician.

    2. She is talking about two unrelated situations.

    3. If you did in fact read the transcript, you have zero comprehension skills if you think it supports anything you have said.

  5. Barney in Tanjung Bunga @ #2455 Sunday, August 1st, 2021 – 10:38 pm

    1. She’s not a politician.

    She’s a preselected Labor candidate.

    2. She is talking about two unrelated situations.

    She wanted to delay the rollout of AZ on the basis of “failed efficacy” in a small study. Nick Coatsworth tried to correct her:

    All of the vaccines that Australia has a stake in have been shown to prevent severe disease. And as we’re looking around the world at the moment, getting more data from those 150 million people who have been vaccinated, we can see that these vaccines, including AstraZeneca, Pfizer, Moderna, Novavax, they’re all preventing severe disease.

    Her response? She laughed.

    3. If you did in fact read the transcript, you have zero comprehension skills if you think it supports anything you have said.

    I think that perhaps you need to reread it. If we had listened to her then and delayed the rollout of AstraZeneca, where do you think we would be now?

  6. Also in Murdoch’s Oz: “freedom” could result in tears – many tears.

    Lockdown state in ‘five-week race to freedom’
    NSW is on a trajectory to reach the key threshold of 70 per cent vaccination cover in as little as five weeks, federal health officials say.

  7. C@tmommasays:
    Sunday, August 1, 2021 at 9:45 pm
    Remember who it was who promoted our South Sudanese runners?
    This guy.
    ________________
    Right that’s it. No more whingeing from you about Morrison trying to use our Olympians for political gain.

  8. Player One @ #2274 Sunday, August 1st, 2021 – 8:45 pm

    Barney in Tanjung Bunga @ #2455 Sunday, August 1st, 2021 – 10:38 pm

    1. She’s not a politician.

    She’s a preselected Labor candidate.

    2. She is talking about two unrelated situations.

    She wanted to delay the rollout of AZ on the basis of “failed efficacy” in a small study. Nick Coatsworth tried to correct her:

    All of the vaccines that Australia has a stake in have been shown to prevent severe disease. And as we’re looking around the world at the moment, getting more data from those 150 million people who have been vaccinated, we can see that these vaccines, including AstraZeneca, Pfizer, Moderna, Novavax, they’re all preventing severe disease.

    Her response? She laughed.

    3. If you did in fact read the transcript, you have zero comprehension skills if you think it supports anything you have said.

    I think that perhaps you need to reread it. If we had listened to her then and delayed the rollout of AstraZeneca, where do you think we would be now?

    You are struggling, aren’t you?

    Not much different to now. We have discovered how the Government didn’t pursue other vaccines because it was so wedded to AZ. Other suppliers were keen to supply Australia, so a transition would have been possible.

    The show was on the 11th of February so the comment was made before any vaccination had started in Australia.

    I see you aren’t talking about the “backflip.”

  9. CC
    “ “80 percent of the whole population”.. Whole population, not eligible.”
    That’s not quite true as it assumes an even distribution of immunity. There could be enclaves with lower immunity all over the place where it surfaces.

  10. Dio

    Yes and this uneven distribution is going to become a political issue when its pointed out that opening up too soon will allow the virus to disproportionately harm vulnerable and less vaccinated communities (read: poor people).

  11. TaylorMade,
    I pointed out how Bill Shorten cared about our South Sudanese Aussie runners before it was fashionable. You tried to equate that to Scott Morrison and his entirely superficial and opportunistic behaviour when it comes to our successful Olympians.

    Sorry, that is a dead duck and it will not fly. Soz if that upset you. I know it must hurt you Liberals to realise that you didn’t get on board. Too busy trying to demonise them as ‘African Gangs’, weren’t you?

  12. Yep. Gladys B has no plans to get COVID cases down to 0. Going to get vaccination rates up instead and open up regardless.

    https://www.theaustralian.com.au/nation/coronavirus-nsw-in-fiveweek-race-to-freedom/news-story/817f7c016ae346a2826b11e93e8d1e90

    “Once you get to 50 per cent vaccination, 60 per cent, 70 per cent, that triggers more freedoms. We can turn this around in four weeks,” the NSW Premier said after the state reported a record 239 Covid-19 cases on Sunday.

    If she opens up at 50% vaccinated it will be a disaster. Gladys, meet Boris.

  13. The next week of cases will be pivotal. If things hold around the current muddle through level – that does not threaten to overwhelm the hospital system, then I expect we’ll be in a holding pattern of press conference platitudes.

    If cases push beyond the point that contact tracing and testing can make a difference then it’s into something we’ve not yet seen in Australia.

  14. CC
    I saw a heat map of % vaccinated in SA and it was basically proportionate to income with very big variations between rich and poor.

  15. Loris @11:26

    As I pointed out earlier, it will be far worse than in the UK.
    The UK is at 68% vaccinated (56% fully vaccinated)

    And that’s of the population as a whole, not the “eligible” that Scomo is touting.
    NSW is not going to even remotely close to this.

    I’m of the view that Gladys is in a way sincere about bring this down to zero but at the same time is delusional that the present restrictions will do that.

    I think its also possible that Gladys’s “plan B” is to just hang on and keep the lockdown going until Xmas. (And part of that plan is the ridiculous notion that she can keep the worst of the lockdown confined to all those poor suburbs that don’t really matter to her politically).

    I think also there are going to be some surprised, shocked and angry Sydneysiders in the next few weeks when they wake up and realise that the plan aint working. The police crackdown this weekend was probably a dress rehearsal.

  16. Work to Rule

    Its already into the zone where contact tracing is still having an impact but isn’t working well. We’re in the worst of all possible situations in terms of level of restrictions versus little to show for it.

    Judging by the number of unlinked cases and comparing this to past outbreaks where the same pattern occurred, its quite likely the breaking point comes at 300-400. Beyond that there are so many infections going on that contact tracing is inconsequential. In the past when this happened it was only the lockdowns/restrictions/isolation that brought numbers back down. The problem here is that this time its a far, far more infectious virus.

    I believe that Gladys wants this lockdown to work and for cases to come down. I also believe that she’s delusional about the strength of lockdown needed to do this. If she had any idea of what she was dealing with she’d have gone for even stronger restrictions, applied across the entirety of Sydney.

  17. Catmomma, listen to Taylormade. Next time you see a photo op of Morrison awkwardly grinning next to an Olympic athlete whose existence he learnt of that morning, remember that your favourite Chosen One does the same thing. (I despise the Liberal Party and disagree strongly with most things Taylormade posts, but he has a point here.)

    Why are people still talking about Shorten, anyway? He had his time and he’s gone. Let (generic no-name) lead the party, and see what can happen. McGowan, Palaszczuk and Andrews were unknown and irrelevant opposition leaders once, until they weren’t. If the long fallout of the 2007 election taught Labor anything, it should be this: the future PM doesn’t need to be everybody’s mate on breakfast TV.

    As for the “Littlefinger” epithet: it’s slightly less pathetic than the all-time low of “Wally Wallpaper” for Morrison, but it’s pretty close. Shorten. Morrison. Albanese. These people have names. (Hard to spell? Google it. I just did for Palaszczuk.)

  18. I didn’t notice this before..

    https://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-58045787

    YouTube has barred Sky News Australia from uploading new content for a week, saying it had breached rules on spreading Covid-19 misinformation.

    It issued a “strike” under its three-strike policy, the last of which means permanent removal.

    YouTube did not point to specific items but said it opposed material that “could cause real-world harm”.

    Not at all surprised.

  19. Malta is rather interesting. Being a relatively small place (500,000) and a fairly rapid rise of vaccination from mid April onwards, its a good real world experiment as to vaccination threshold effects.

    https://graphics.reuters.com/world-coronavirus-tracker-and-maps/countries-and-territories/malta/

    It showed the same rapid drop towards almost zero as Israel did. This happened between March 16 and May 14. On March 16 the country had had enough doses to give 2 doses to about 25% of the population. By May 14, that was up to around 35%.

    Then they had a quiet period of almost no infections until July 3rd. Then suddenly Delta kicked in and cases surged. By July 3rd, Malta had enough doses to give 2 doses to a bit over 60% of the population. Yet, Delta took off suddenly.

    Remember, this is population as a whole, not Scomo’s bogus “eligible” targets.

    And then something interesting happened…

    Cases peaked around July 18. And since then, cases have been falling quickly. And today Malta is 76% fully vaccinated and another 3 percent single vaccinated. (Total 79% – worlds highest)

    Signs that we have found a real world indicator of what rate of vaccination is sufficient to defeat Delta? well, maybe.

    In the UK it seems that the Delta wave is now coming off peak (still very high though). The UK has 56% fully vaccinated and a further 13% single vaccinated (total 69%).

    Time will tell what happens next.

    One thing is very clear though. Scomo’s 70% (eligible) or 56% actual isn’t going to tame Delta, no matter what extra measures are thrown at it. We need 70-80% of the entire population.

  20. Alternately, Gladys’s fuckup may lead to a Delta wave sweeping Sydney. All that extra natural immunity from hundreds of thousands of cases might change things.

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