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.
Sorry Loris, I see you said “That’s bad news for NSW as well all the other states.”
Yep I too have a suspicion that Gladys has given up on covid-zero. Now just trying to manage the outbreak so cases don’t explode. I’m looking forward to seeing how that goes.
Douglas and Milko @ #2247 Sunday, August 1st, 2021 – 5:06 pm
Well, I don’t recall Norman Swan calling the AZ vaccine a failure, or that it was an experiment. But maybe I missed those comments. Can you post a link?
Roy Orbison,
Nope, no funding from informal votes.
P1,
Here is one from about his appearance on Q&A:
https://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/health/health-problems/dr-norman-swan-says-vaccine-fears-amid-clotting-not-irrational-at-all/news-story/6f602a43dd29d1b11cf9721cb2ea1dfd
And one from the SMH:
https://www.smh.com.au/national/norman-swan-admits-i-probably-did-cause-some-vaccine-hesitancy-20210505-p57p82.html
But, he has behaved perfectly sensibly and changed his opinion as more facts come to light.
Douglas and Milko @ #2254 Sunday, August 1st, 2021 – 5:13 pm
Hmmm. I can’t see where he calls it a failure, or implies that it is experimental. In fact, unlike Dr Michelle Ananda-Rajah, he seems to be endorsing it in line with what was the current advice.
So he would get my vote. Which seat is he running in?
BK,
If it was darts at the local pub, Morrison would be banned as a danger to other patrons.
GG
Rowe is not letting up!
Player One @ #2236 Sunday, August 1st, 2021 – 4:54 pm
So let’s hope there’s a sensible independent candidate on the ticket then.
Douglas and Milko @ Sunday, August 1, 2021 at 3:12 pm
I enjoy your comments on the micro-cultures of Sydney . I grew up in the Inner West of Sydney as a latch key kid. I also had a train pass courtesy of living far enough away from school, so Sydney was a wonderland for me.
First, the natural setting of Sydney is unique. Sydney Harbour sits as an offset jewel in a diverse ring of natural beauty. Glorious sandy beaches to the East, cool blue mountains to the West and National Parks with both bush and water to the North and South. So many places to get lost while growing up.
Within such an environment, Sydney inhabitants echo the diversity in landscape, with culture and class both exiting and dividing. There were so many suburbs to visit, each with their own unique attractions. As for where I grew up, the Inner West was Sydney’s multicultural beating heart. We had such a range of people, each keeping something from where they came from, and adding it to the cornucopia, that is Sydney. The region was the gateway for so many families, with a slow, shifting, pulse of change, for each generation. The initial working class British/Irish made way for a Mediterranean diaspora in the 70’s and 80’s, with Hawke’s Tiananmen Square speech providing welcome to Asian newcomers from the 90’s onwards. But all things change. And now, perhaps, the Inner West is moving from its overseas migrant roots, with gentrification causing micro-migration of Sydney denizens from the North and the East.
If I were to pick where Sydney’s multicultural heart beats loudest today, one could look slightly further out. A line from Ashfield down to Bexley perhaps, expanding out to Parramatta, Fairfield and Liverpool. This is the region of new international migrants now. A true cultural kaleidoscope.
Hello bludgers, I was thinking about matters covid and NSW politics. Obviously it has become highly political now, with Labor criticising egregious failures that have led to a failed lockdown, and the LNP defending the indefensible.
I was thinking though that the news is about to get a lot worse for Gladys, and Morrison may cut her loose fairly soon. The longer lockdown goes on the worse the economic pressures to open up, especially with some sectors without work and income support.
But medically won’t it get worse too? IIRC last year there was a lag from covid positive tests to deaths of 2 to 4 weeks. There have been some deaths so far but not many. However looking back over the last month, infections have been going up, and there are now a lot of people in ICUs. Unless I have misunderstood a fair % of the ICU patients will die. And the number of people who have been in ICUs for a few weeks is now growing large. What happens when Gladys has to announce 5 or 6 deaths a day?
BB:
I think the last month or two may well prove fatal for Morrison. Not so much because of the stuffed rollout or the protected lockdowns, but because the image being reinforced in the public mind is one of a lazy, incompetent, possibly sociopathic spin-man, who disappears when the going gets tough only to pop up a week later to bluster and deflect and take credit for the good stuff.
This image began to form during his appalling response to the 2019-20 bushfires, until he was given a lifeline by the pandemic last year and everyone except us bitter partisans forgot about it (or at least just wrote it off as a one-time mistake he’s since learned from.) But his actions as of late have jogged peoples’ memory and, even worse for Scomo, they are noticing that it’s a recurring pattern of behaviour.
Sure, he could come back from this – leaders have bounced back from worse – but he’s fast running out of time before everyone just stops listening to him. By then, it won’t matter if most of the country is vaccinated by early next year, the public perception will be set. Every future mistake he makes will just be fuel for the fire while every future win is ignored, until he either gets rolled and leads the government to a thumping loss.
One bright spot for the Coalition, however, is that Morrison is becoming so intimately associated with all that’s gone wrong that his successor may well succeed in blaming it all on him (and other scapegoats like Hunt), like Turnbull did with Abbott and Hockey. With that in mind, I wish him all the best in seeing off any future leadership challenges.
D&M,
Thank you. I thought that was the case.
Rexxy,
Wishing and hoping and bitching is you’re only position.
You’re not someone to be taken seriously.
Asha,
I’m going to go out on a limb and suggest that you meant APPALLING response rather than appealing…
Roy:
Ha, yes!
Two weeks ago, we saw Morrison and Berejiklian skiting about setting up a vaccination hub in a disused Bunnings in Belmont, a southern suburb of Newcastle. Today, we see 40000 Pfizer jabs being diverted from that very hub to HSC students, along with unspecified others, in Sydney. All well and good, unless the outbreak extends from currently locked down Central Coast to Belmont itself. A distance of less than 20km. They are either hoping like buggery that this doesn’t happen or are willing to trade an unwinnable Labor seat for some HSC parent votes in selected Sydney areas. Given the mishandling by these two, anything is possible.
https://www.pollbludger.net/2021/07/29/family-first-the-second/comment-page-46/#comment-3668032
… yeah bring on cosmopolitan over multi-cultural, white or black ‘Stralya/ New Holland/ Terra Australis Incognita/ …?
Socrates @ #2262 Sunday, August 1st, 2021 – 5:39 pm
I’ve listened to Fordham and Hadley the last few weeks and the number of Libs backgrounding to them is frightening.
When Gladys shutdown construction Hadley went apoplectic and it didn’t take long for Gladys to start it up again.
I’ve no doubt that it won’t take much for a challenge from one of Hadleys backgrounders to oust Gladys.
239 cases, and there are still the Covid protest cases to come out yet.
It feels like this lockdown and this downward Covid spiral will be with Sydney forever. An insipid state govt without the balls to do what is needed to stop the spread, coupled with an utterly incompetent government.
Lockdown is going to last into Spring at this rate.
Griff,
Thank you so much for your beautiful description of Sydney. I love every bit of it.
Sadly, the tight Italian community around Leichhardt has dissipated, although Bar Italia is still pretty good.
But, as you say, the action has moved to other suburbs. Harris Park is brilliant for Indian, Eastwood and Strathfield are small bits of Korea (Korean collaborators reckon they have had some of the best Korean food ever in Strathfield) and Cabramatta is amazing for Vietnamese food and culture.
Also, a little-known area is Eastlakse / Mascot / Hillsdale and surrounds, in South Sydney. Fantastic for greek food and culture. The fruit and Vegetables shop at Southpoint has anything Greek you could ever want.
I’m getting used to the lockdown routine but a haircut wouldn’t go astray. How did those in Melbourne get around that? Personal note: Mrs O is not to be trusted with scissors…
Roy Orbison @ #2273 Sunday, August 1st, 2021 – 5:57 pm
Buy the clippers – no2 all over. Job done.
GG
Really weird that they want to keep a good scientist out of Federal parliament, by twisting her words and position. Norman Swan confessed to causing some AZ hesitancy, but that is OK, because he is not running for Labor.
And these are two people who are always carping on about Australia not doing enough about global warming.
Get more scientists into parliament, and you have a good first step towards a solution.
Roy Orbisonsays:
Sunday, August 1, 2021 at 5:57 pm
I’m getting used to the lockdown routine but a haircut wouldn’t go astray. How did those in Melbourne get around that? Personal note: Mrs O is not to be trusted with scissors…
I’m in Sydney but……..DIY…..Set of clippers….$30…..No.1 buzz cut. Haven’t been to a barber since covid began. Wife tells me the bits I miss….lol
@RD
Snap. !
Ch9 news leads with the Olympics coverage.
Lots of rusted on liberal party supporters are publicly calling for Dutton to do what he did to turnbull, force a liberal party leadership change
Douglas and Milko @ #2275 Sunday, August 1st, 2021 – 6:01 pm
I’d love to see more scientists in Parliament – just as long as they’re not party political partisan hacks.
Can you buy dog meat to eat in Sydney ?
Rex Douglas @ #2280 Sunday, August 1st, 2021 – 4:05 pm
So a scientist must share your world view otherwise they’re not really scientist.
D&M,
Have to disagree with you on Eastlakes, Hillsdale and Mascot. Eastlakes shopping centre is about the closest thing Sydney has to fourth world but at least it is being bulldozed and in a couple of years will be yet another soulless shopping centre. Mascot is basically a traffic sewer (Botany Road) with very little in the way of restaurants. One pub is undeveloped (despite being owned by the squillionaire whose name escapes me) while the other, the Newmarket which is really in Rosebery, is horribly overpriced. The less said about Hillsdale (Southpoint) the better. It is handy for parking compared with the nearby monolithic Eastgardens but the f&v quality is sketchy at best. Certainly no better than 3rd grade but edible nonetheless. The deli part is OK. As suburbs, both Hillsdale and Eastlakes are planning disasters, unless you like endless sixties three storey walk up flats. And both suburbs have very nasty, albeit small, gang issues. Ice is becoming a real problem in the entire area.
I was a little happy when Youtube banned Skynews but sky news being launched on tv in Australia.
So a private company is doing more to attack misinformation than Australian government.
Lars Von Trier
It is over for Morrison ?
VCT Et3e @ Sunday, August 1, 2021 at 5:52 pm
Willing to respond, but unfortunately I am not able to comprehend your question 🙁
Could you rephrase please?
Zerlo says:
Sunday, August 1, 2021 at 6:08 pm
I was a little happy when Youtube banned Skynews but sky news being launched on tv in Australia.
So a private company is doing more to attack misinformation than Australian government.
———
It show the current media regulator in Australia is corrupt
@sallymcmanus
·
8h
It seems Brad Hazzard doesn’t realise people in western Sydney are the essential workers who support the rest of Sydney (and the country) in jobs where they cannot work from home. It’s not compliance – ppl can’t stay at home otherwise east Sydney doesn’t get fed
Lars Von Trier @ Sunday, August 1, 2021 at 6:07 pm
I know of the dead cat strategy, but the dog meat strategy is a first for me.
Scott @ #2287 Sunday, August 1st, 2021 – 4:10 pm
No, the media regulator is reactionary.
It responds to complaints.
Thanks to my Morrison-esque hairline, I’ve been shaving it all off for close to a decade. Last time I went to a hairdressers, I was in my early twenties.
Asha at 5:40 pm
Your analysis is spot on. And a bigger problem for Mr Morrison, touched upon earlier by Bushfire Bill, is that not only is Covid now unambiguously bad for him, but until the current outbreak is burnt out one way or another, it’s hard to see how he can change the subject to anything else. Who remembers, or cares about, what was in the budget only three months ago?
In addition, he’s in the awkward position that his stock standard political tools are not only ceasing to work, but are also becoming counter-productive. Whenever he or his office tries his usual trick of bullying or pressuring someone, it’s increasingly reported as their being at it again, and having learnt nothing from the encounters with Ms Banks and Ms Higgins. And his visits to tradies’ workplaces, usually involving his donning hi-vis gear, are more likely to be reported as stunts.
I actually think that Mr Morrison last year had a once-in-a-career opportunity to raise his party’s standing tremendously. If he’d invited Mr Albanese to join the National Cabinet, if he’d acted in a truly bipartisan way in response to the Covid crisis, if he’d cracked down hard on sniping from the coalition peanut gallery (state and federal), if he’d been straightforward in his public communications (in the manner of the PM of Singapore, who has been brilliant at that), I think he’d have come to be seen as a true national leader, and would be unbeatable at the coming election. But such statesmanship was simply beyond him, and so events have instead revealed his awful shortcomings.
Censoring news media is very dangerous ground for any democratic government to tread on. Much as I detest Sky News, best we don’t go there.
My stones, if you take this vid as gospel, most leading men were camp, even old Randolph Scott. Next, they’ll be accusing George Reeves. I say leave them in peace, it was obviously a difficult stage they were going through – the casting couch not limited to the gentler sex:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oj3mILR4h2U
Asha:
I agree. Cynical as it sounds (and is, I guess), these sorts of crises are the political equivalent of winning the lottery for any half-competent leader… and even the incompetent ones can often bluff their way through it. It takes a special kind of inept to turn it into your downfall.
Asha says:
Sunday, August 1, 2021 at 6:18 pm
Censoring news media is very dangerous ground for any democratic government to tread on. Much as I detest Sky News, best we don’t go there.
——–
Allowing them to put people lives at danger ,
There is no such thing a democratic government in Australia , when the majority of the media who is foreign owned is a political propaganda arm of the libs/nats
Asha:
Sunday, August 1, 2021 at 6:13 pm
Please see a trichologist immediately. I mean, you could end up like Howard.
Repeat look how quickly Morrison apologise to the foreign owned newsltd , compared to for going on holidays in Hawaii during the bushfires and during the current quarantine and vaccine mess
Not the least of Morrison’s many problems is that he has got an out of control COVID outbreak in his home state where his universally acknowledged vaccine rollout failure has been a major factor. He also has his favourite premier seen as the other contributing factor with her lockdown hesitancy and this is underlined every time another state has an immediate lockdown that crushes the problem. So far, Victoria and SA have shown the way, along with the Northern Territory and we are about to see how Queensland goes. If short, sharp lockdowns are seen to be the way to go then Gladys and her endless current lockdown aren’t going to be doing Morrison any favours.
Finally, he has the problem of being seen as PM for NSW. That one is really starting to bite in the other states and territories.
Roy,
Very interesting. I do agree about the soulless architecture of Eastlakes – but I used to love the Deli there. Although it was some time ago.
Also, I have noticed that it is not the most salubrious area of Sydney. But with the distance from the CBD, that will not last long.