Josh Butler of the New Daily reports Barnaby Joyce has “dropped hints to an election being called in January, to be held in the first quarter of next year”, while Scott Morrison apparently told the Liberal party room the election would “come around sooner than we think”. However, it appears to have been made clear that this doesn’t mean the election will be this year, consistent with Joyce’s prognosis.
Here’s what we do know, specifically regarding the parties’ recent candidate preselection efforts:
• The West Australian reports Vince Connelly, the Liberal member for the soon-to-be-abolished northern Perth seat of Stirling, will challenge fellow incumbent Ian Goodenough in the neighbouring seat of Moore, rather than pursue Labor-held Cowan as previously indicated. Goodenough is noted for his successes in recruiting members of Pentecostal churches to local party branches and featured heavily in the machinations of the factional grouping known as “The Clan”, whose extensive WhatsApp discussions have now been published in full by The West Australian. The Sunday Times reported yesterday that Connelly’s move had angered unidentified “senior” Liberals, who must be privy to polling remarkably different from any available to the public, since they appear to believe he should be able to win Cowan from Labor.
• A Liberal National Party preselection held last weekend for Dawson, which will be vacated with the retirement of George Christensen, was won by Andrew Willcox, former tomato farmer and mayor of Whitsunday. Willcox won a local party ballot ahead of Chris Bonanno, a Mackay councillor and unsuccessful candidate for the state seat of Mackay last year, and Charles Pasquale, a Burdekin farmer. Meanwhile, the Courier-Mail reports Henry Pike has been endorsed by the LNP state executive to succeed Andrew Laming as candidate for Bowman, which would appear to put to rest suggestions he might be elbowed aside despite having won the local party ballot.
• Labor has finalised candidates in several of the theoretically winnable Queensland seats currently held by the Liberal National Party: Rebecca Fanning, a Queensland government health policy adviser, in Longman (margin 3.3%); Elida Faith, local president of the Queensland Council of Unions and unsuccessful candidate in 2019, in Leichhardt (4.2%); Madonna Jarrett, a director at Deloitte Australia, in Brisbane (4.9%); Mike Denton, Australian Workers Union delegate and Caltex Lytton oil refinery worker, in Petrie (8.4%); and Rowan Holzberger, electorate officer to Senator Murray Watt, in Forde (8.6%).
• Labor also has candidates in place for the two Liberal-held seats in Tasmania, both of which it held before 2019. Bass will again be contested by Ross Hart, who held it from 2016 to 2019 and has since been the principal of a Launceston law firm, while Braddon will be contested by Chris Lynch, Burnie councillor and project co-ordinator at the St Giles Society, a charity assisting the disabled.
• Tracey Roberts, who has spent 10 years as the mayor of Wanneroo, has been endorsed as Labor’s candidate in Christian Porter’s northern Perth seat of Pearce.
• Tom Richardson of InDaily reports Louise Miller-Frost, state chief executive of the St Vincent de Paul Society, is “set to receive cross-factional support” to become Labor’s candidate for the marginal Adelaide seat of Boothby, which will be vacated with the retirement of Liberal member Nicolle Flint.
Finally, as we head into what will likely be a quiet-to-silent week on the opinion poll front, a fair and balanced selection of privately conducted polling:
• Polling on the importance of climate change as an election issue and the future use of fossil fuels, conducted for the Australian Conservation Foundation by YouGov from a sample of 15,000, has been published in the form of interactive maps by the Age/Herald. These show results at electorate level, presumably from around 100 respondents each.
• The Centre for Independent Studies has published a survey it commissioned from YouGov concerning “attitudes to a post-Covid Australia”, conducted in early August from a sample of 1029. The libertarian think tank’s take on the results, which are in line with those of a similar exercise conducted by the same pollster for The Australian last week, is that “we are a nation of ‘Karens’ tut-tutting over people not following ‘the rules’”. While it took fine parsing of small sub-samples to get there, the report observes that Coalition voters were the most likely to support “government restrictions on civil liberties because of the pandemic” in New South Wales, whereas Labor voters were markedly more so in Victoria.
mundo @ #78 Wednesday, September 8th, 2021 – 6:46 am
You’re a Tasmanian, why don’t you ask her? 🙄
But, you know, it might have something to do with her being Australian of the Year until next January that could be stopping her.
This suggests that an election campaign during November would be problematic if states other than NSW have to wait until then to receive adequate vaccines.
”
sprocket_says:
Wednesday, September 8, 2021 at 7:45 am
For the geeks interested in vaccine passports, this is the international standard apparently Australia is integrating with..
https://www.icao.int/Meetings/TRIP-Symposium-2021/PublishingImages/Pages/Presentations/Health%20related%20VDS%20Specifications%20Health%20Certificates%20for%20International%20Travel.pdf
And the article which indicates separate regime(s) for onshore vaccine passports to the international ones..
https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/australia-issuing-vaccine-passports-within-weeks-to-prepare-for-flights-resuming-20210906-p58p58.html
”
I have some relatives who live in UK. They went to Malta last week with Vaccine passport. But they have to wait for rapid antigen test results at airport for 3 hours. So it took about 12 hours door to door from Malta to UK.
C@t
I’d rather see Grace Tame as a free spirit.
‘lizzie says:
Wednesday, September 8, 2021 at 8:28 am
Weak.
Michael Rowland
@mjrowland68
· 2h
The @FinancialReview reports Opposition Leader @AlboMP has defended PM @ScottMorrisonMP’s Father’s Day trip home to Sydney.
‘I’ve got a lot of criticisms of Scott Morrison, but wanting to see his family is not one of them’, he tells @PhillipCoorey.’
____________________________________
Albanese is astute. Of course there is nothing wrong with WANTING to see your family. Albanese comes across as reasonable while the various attacks dog have already ensured that the meme that Morrison being a tin-eared arsehole meme has had a good going over.
There is plenty to criticise Scotty about, without continually harking back to his dismissal in his Tourism job. Some people seem stuck on that.
lizzie @ #1264 Wednesday, September 8th, 2021 – 8:28 am
And Rowland interviewed McKenzie this morning who named Albo first amongst other Labororites as ‘politicising the issue’, without saying anything.
Also, she referred to him as ‘Albo’
A real slippery one is Rorting Bridget.
Yes indeed. When are the vic fiberals going to stand up for Victorians.
Playgrounds have been open since last week.
Seriously.
PRGuy
@PRGuy17
·
16m
PLAYGROUND POLITICS: Returned Vic Libs leader Matthew Guy is facing growing criticism after his “O’Brien” style had him complaining about playgrounds and blocking Aussies on twitter instead of using his new voice to help Victorians get their fair share of vaccines from the feds.
Chuckle. We need humour right now.
lizzie @ #1300 Wednesday, September 8th, 2021 – 9:02 am
I’d rather see her take Clarke (formerly Dennison) back for Labor.
From the UK:
Ven @ #114 Wednesday, September 8th, 2021 – 8:28 am
Or a part of the ‘old culture’ of the Victorian state Liberal’s machine. Guy has been there as an apparatchik for a long time, starting as a staffer.
lizzie @ #149 Wednesday, September 8th, 2021 – 9:02 am
I’m sure Grace Tame will make up her own mind.. 🙂
Have any journos dug into Matthew Guy’s past as a Liberal apparatchik yet and brought it to the attention of the great unwashed masses? They would have been doing it to a Labor leader.
Thanks, BK and AZ.
Waterford, linked in BK’s brekkie treats, is onto something. The Coalition’s habit of running in opposition to the state governments is probably going to go the reverse ferret in the next election. It certain explains the maniacal attacks on the Labor state premiers by Sky after Dark, right wing nutter jocks, Murdoch, Stokes, et al.
lizzie @ #1278 Wednesday, September 8th, 2021 – 8:34 am
Someone questioned yesterday why does Morrison and family live there and not the Lodge.
I’m thinking that there may not be a suitable church or school in Canberra to suit Morrison’s ideology.
Going back to the years we were in Canberra – lots of church schools but all traditional demoninations, unless Brindabella Christian School has the right ethos.
Any of the Canberrans like to comment as it is now 10 years since we left Canberra
Lawyers kick off case in wrong jurisdiction (Federal Court instead of Supreme Court). Action thrown out by which time too late to start in new jurisdiction.
Lawyers about to sue lawyers.
https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/sydney-seaplanes-wins-appeal-against-lawsuit-from-crash-victim-s-father-20210907-p58pkq.html
Cud Chewer @ #1220 Wednesday, September 8th, 2021 – 12:08 am
Sounds familiar. I think the thrust was that at infection rates high enough to ensure that everyone gets covid the impact would be bad enough to override the Coalition’s “freedom!” fetish and trigger fresh lockdowns and/or other restrictions? So everyone won’t actually get it, but we’ll have forever lockdowns.
Certainly possible. Though if we go the UK route and just say “fuck it, open!”, it looks like even with a much higher vaccination rate and heaps of natural immunity covid will spread quickly enough to infect everybody in about 5 years. They’re currently getting about a million cases a month (and climbing). The US is looking nearly as bad, proportionally (4 million cases/month for them, also climbing).
I’m not convinced that our current government isn’t afflicted by some sort of mass delusion that makes them look at the UK and see it as a template for success rather than the slow-motion trainwreck it is.
I don’t know about others but I find this style of ABC article extremely annoying to read. It involves a massive amount of scrolling with little pockets of text and large graphics.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-09-08/accidentally-joining-south-korean-cult/100298774
laughtong
That sounds possible.
Ditto.
Family of 24yo Canberra man on ventilator in ICU urges people to get vaccinated
https://www.canberratimes.com.au/story/7414426/early-days-for-24yo-on-ventilator-with-covid-19-family-says/?cs=17318
Shellbell was right all along. This proves it, doesn’t it? You just have to understand the nuances. Trained legal minds are very good at that, I understand. We mathematicians, modellers and operations research specialists should always defer to the trained legal mind. (s)
Boerwar
The Sky loons are so deranged that they have been trying to tell people in places like ‘life normal’ WA that their State government are doing it wrong. Trying to sell that message against a backdrop of the daily disaster reports from Gladystan , the place that is supposedly ‘doing it right’, could be a definition of deranged.
@AnnastaciaMP tweets
We’re joining forces with the Queensland tourism industry, calling on the Federal Government to urgently establish a targeted Jobkeeper-style program for struggling border businesses.
JobKeeper was cut in March and now the Delta strain is ripping through New South Wales – having a profound impact on our tourism businesses.
A similar scheme would help to keep hundreds of Gold Coast businesses afloat until it’s safe to reopen our borders.
”
lizziesays:
Wednesday, September 8, 2021 at 9:05 am
There is plenty to criticise Scotty about, without continually harking back to his dismissal in his Tourism job. Some people seem stuck on that.
”
It adds to the context to some people insistence that he was incompetent from the beginning. 🙂
Yabba @ #1322 Wednesday, September 8th, 2021 – 9:30 am
Legal nuances = $(s).
9 letters re Guy in The Age today. All strongly negative. The most benign complained that his deputy was not a woman.
Federally, 3 negative letters re Morrison’s performance at the National Summit, 3 negative letters re Jobkeeper rorts, 1 negative letter re vaccine distribution, and 1 negative letter on Morrison’s Father’s Day debacle.
And that’s it for party politics.
So, very pleasant well-balanced easy reading.
@beneltham tweets
Alan Tudge is right. We need our school students to be taught about the glorious victory for Allied forces at Gallipoli
Yabba
Yep. Has he come back this morning to remind us how wrong we all were.
“The young man has not been vaccinated, and does not have any underlying health conditions.”
And would have had no opportunity to get vaccinated.
I think they could find a school to suit their preferences. Canberra has quite a few pentecostal churches and the children of parents at these churches would know of suitable schools.
Brindabella Christian School would be one, although it has been in the news over dictatorial governance which has alienated many teachers and parents. Trinity Christian School is a large non-denominational school and if they wanted something smaller, there is Covenant College down our way. There are a couple of other schools that I don’t know much about.
I don’t think it’s a question of schools, rather a question of relocating the grandmothers who currently reside at Kirribilli.
Anyway, we all need to make sacrifices and the Morrison family should not be immune from this.
@mrbenjaminlaw tweets
Dead people hit with debt. Carer payments suddenly cut after disabled kids turn 16. Vulnerable pensioners chased while big-profit businesses hoard away Jobkeeper.
Centrelink’s hollowing-out and dysfunction is a national scandal. You’d hope it’s front and centre at the election.
@lukeghomes tweets
I’ve covered a lot of Centrelink debts in my time but this was one of the more baffling and enraging
theguardian.com/australia-news… #auspol
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2021/sep/08/daughters-anger-as-late-mother-hit-with-decade-old-1600-welfare-bill-but-jobkeeper-companies-keep-cash
This is damning.
MFW@MFWitches · 2m
There are 47 electorates in the AUS House of Reps based in NSW. Yet there are 104 seats NOT based in NSW. Can anyone in the LNP count? Because they don’t seem to get that even if they still win 10-20 seats outside NSW in 2022, they look like being fully, finally fucked?
Exactamundo
PRGuy
@PRGuy17
·
34m
WHAT EMERGENCY?: NSW declared a national emergency on July 23 after recording 141 new cases. From that point other states’ vaccines were redirected to Sydney. Victoria has recorded 4 days over 200 cases in its third wave, but where’s our fair share of vaccines? #auspol
@cmclymer tweets
Mexico’s Supreme Court just decriminalized abortion unanimously.
Mexico is about 82 percent Catholic.
There are going to be even more Texans (and others) going across the border into Mexico for legal, safe abortions.
BW
You are right, Albo is astute. First send out attack dogs KK, Shorten to blast insensitive Scott.
After it has gone though one news cycle, come in with ‘I think it’s understandable for Scott to spend time with his family’ – getting the story into another news cycle.
What is even more telling is that the Herald Sun is reporting the vaccine scandal.
NSW is about 35% and Vic 25% of aus population, and nsw is currently experiencing the most severe delta outbreak.
A marginal decision to weight vax distribution to what looks like just over 40% to nsw at present… its just completely outrageous!!!
guytaur says:
Wednesday, September 8, 2021 at 9:47 am
@cmclymer tweets
Mexico’s Supreme Court just decriminalized abortion unanimously.
Mexico is about 82 percent Catholic.
There are going to be even more Texans (and others) going across the border into Mexico for legal, safe abortions.
Catholicism is no longer much of an index for the prohibition of abortion.
Opposition to abortion is coming from Pentecostal reactionaries who have captured the Republican Party in the US and converted it into a dumb-fuck rightist/nativist/anti-democratic cult.
Abortion is used as a recruitment and motivation theme by, for and of the dumb-fucks. Considering they do not constitute anything like a majority in the US, they have been remarkably successful at imposing their religious prescriptions and their worldview on the rest of the population.
Apart from the fact that Victoria has been ahead of the pack on AZ.
The reason why GladysB is happy to get all the Pfizer is due to turnaround.
Pfizer first and second shot only requires three week turnaround.
Hence the vaccination targets will be reached quicker.
Not only has Gladys infected Victoria and ACT, who are stuck in continuous restrictions, she is aiming to get out of restrictions before everyone else.
What a just reward for stuffing it up so royally.
Grrrrrr
Expat follower
No amount of spin by you will alter the facts.
You need to try harder than that.
Expat Follower @ #1337 Wednesday, September 8th, 2021 – 9:53 am
Considering that you can’t really blunt a current and severe outbreak using vaccines anyways, it kind of is. 🙂
The whole “we’ll vaccinate our way out!” conceit has always been nonsense. Vaccines stop the next outbreak, not the one you’re having right now. ‘Twas ever thus. A pity so many have been hoodwinked by politicians who have simply painted themselves into a corner and run out of ideas.
N
Yes. Voter suppression. Pursued for decades by the GOP. Then enabled big time by Murdoch mainstreaming the Pentecostalism that used to reside only on christian channels.
Especially the prosperity form of it. It was always there but Murdoch returned it to respectability after it’s defeat in the 70’s as a culmination of the civil rights movement.
Edit: The truth is the United States is not as divided as it appears. If the US did not have voter suppression Liberal would remain in Liberal Democracy
It would be gracious of Gladys if she were to show some appreciation for the assistance and support NSW has received from the other States. Instead, she gloats and she boasts. The lesson is the Liberals are not to be trusted with anything important. They are free-loaders and they are incompetent.
Spinning is making an outrage out of something completely reasonable, namely allocating marginal resources to where the problem is greatest.
And what a shocking degree to justify this outrage. 35% popn vs 42% allocation this month. Oh my god…
Makes me remember the good ol days when we were similarly going beserk when Vic was exceeding NSW back in may/june…. right?
guytaur says:
Wednesday, September 8, 2021 at 10:03 am
N
Yes. Voter suppression. Pursued for decades by the GOP. Then enabled big time by Murdoch mainstreaming the Pentecostalism that used to reside only on christian channels.
While they are perhaps more vocal, more visible and more powerful than ever, participation in the Pentecostal congregations is declining in the US. Dumb-fuckery will only get you so far, even in that country, where the young are becoming less likely than their parents to succumb to madcap religion/mental illness.
@AdamBandt tweets
Dinosaurs for fossils: John Howard thinks we can keep selling & burning coal forever, which you can only want if you reject the science. If only this kind of climate denialism wasn’t still the Liberals (& Labor) policy.
We need to make coal history.
https://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/subscribe/news/1/?sourceCode=DTWEB_WRE170_a_TWT&dest=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.dailytelegraph.com.au%2Fnews%2Fnational%2Fjohn-howard-criticises-un-calls-for-australia-to-shut-down-coal-industry%2Fnews-story%2Feb1b0301b814c35f4293f3181c22bcda&memtype=anonymous&mode=premium&nk=7809539b28c017fcc91cadfafc071139-1631059949
Expat Follower
There’s a lot of difference between 35% & 42% when the popn is in millions.