Weekend developments

Joel Fitzgibbon calls it a day, and other federal preselection news.

The opinion poll schedule for the week is likely to consist of the fortnightly Essential Research, which is not due to include the monthly leadership numbers and should thus be of limited interest (unless it includes their occasional dump of fortnightly voting intention results), and presumably a Roy Morgan voting intention poll on Wednesday.

For the time being, there is the following:

• The Australian reports that Labor MP Joel Fitzgibbon will bow out at the election, creating a vacancy in his seat of Hunter, where his margin was slashed from 12.5% to 3.0% at last year’s election with One Nation polling 21.6%. There is no indication as to who might succeed him as Labor candidate, except that “NSW Right figures (are) concerned Hunter could be lost to the faction and go to someone from the left-aligned CFMEU or the Australian Manufacturing Workers Union”.

• There would seem to be no suggestion that the vacancy in Hunter might change the calculus behind Kristina Keneally’s controversial move to Fowler, which was criticised over the weekend by her federal Labor colleague Anne Aly, along with many others inside and outside the party. However, Michelle Grattan in The Conversation notes that the arrangement does not of itself deprive the local party membership of a preselection ballot, since a clause in the state party rules specific to Fowler enshrines the seat as the gift of the Right as a legacy of past branch-stacking controversies.

• The West Australian reports on two further preselection challenges to sitting Liberals in Western Australia, on top of that facing Ian Goodenough in Moore from Vince Connelly after the abolition of his seat of Stirling. In Swan, where Steve Irons would appear to have his work cut out for him in defending a 3.2% margin, the challenger is Kristy McSweeney, a Sky News commentator, former adviser to Tony Abbott and daughter of former state MP Robyn McSweeney. McSweeney earlier contested preselection for the once safe but now Labor-held seat of Bateman ahead of the state election in March. In the much safer seat of Durack, Melissa Price will be challenged by Busselton councillor Jo Barrett-Lennard. For what it’s worth, The Age columnist Jon Faine today tells us to “watch out to see if former attorney-general Christian Porter opts for a spot on the Federal Court on the cusp of the election, rather than face probable defeat in his outer-suburban Perth electorate” – namely Pearce, where redistribution has cut the margin from 7.5% to 5.2%.

• As those who followed the post below will be aware, Labor recorded a strong result in the Northern Territory’s Daly by-election, with their candidate Dheran Young leading the count over Kris Civitarese of the Country Liberal Party by 1905 (55.8%) to 1506 (44.2%) with only a handful of votes left outstanding. This amounts to a 7.0% swing compared with the election last August, at which the CLP won the seat by 1.2%. It is the first time a government party has ever won a seat from the opposition at a by-election in the territory, and first time anywhere in Australia since the Benalla by-election in Victoria in May 2000.

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.

1,298 comments on “Weekend developments”

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  5. Samantha Maiden
    @samanthamaiden
    ·
    7h
    Labor comes out swinging over secret trust paying Porter’s legal fees

    “If Mr Porter genuinely doesn’t know who his donors are, he shouldn’t accept their money. Did the money come from criminals? A foreign power? Apparently Mr Porter doesn’t care.”

    TOAST!

  7. Malcolm Turnbull
    @TurnbullMalcolm
    ·
    52m
    Replying to
    @fileckert

    @samanthamaiden
    and
    @latingle
    Nailed it. That’s the problem. It’s like saying “My legal fees were paid by a guy in a mask who dropped off a chaff bag full of cash.”

    BURNT TOAST!… Edit & The Libs know about bags of cash

  9. ALP support has dropped to 52.5% (down 2% points since late August) cf. L-NP on 47.5% (up 2% points) on a two-party preferred basis. This was the first increase in support for the L-NP since mid-June, before the current Sydney lockdown began according to the latest Roy Morgan Poll on Federal voting intention.

    The 2% points swing to the L-NP over the first two weeks of September is the largest this year and comes after PM Scott Morrison and other members of the Federal Government called on States to stick to the re-opening plan agreed in National Cabinet.

    If a Federal Election were held now the ALP would be elected with a similar margin to that won by Kevin Rudd at the 2007 Federal Election (ALP 52.7% cf. L-NP 47.3%).

    Interviewing for the latest Roy Morgan Poll was conducted over the weekends of September 4/5 & 11/12, 2021 with a nationally representative cross-section of 2,753 Australian electors using a combination of telephone and online interviews (multi-mode).

    Primary Voting Intention has the L-NP on 38.5% now ahead of the ALP on 35%

    Primary support for the L-NP was up 1% point to 39.5% in mid-September and is now ahead of the ALP on 35%, down 3.5% points. However, there was an increase in support for the Greens, up 1.5% points to 13%.

    Support for One Nation was unchanged at 3% while support for Independents/Others was up by 1% point to 10.5%.

    https://www.roymorgan.com/findings/8802-federal-voting-intention-september-2021-202109140632

  10. The airlines should be carrying only fully vaccinated people from some date onwards.
    However, “essential” stores like Woolworths will have to deal with the “vaccine hesitant”.. so providing rewards will be more relevant there.

    The vaccine hesitant can stay home away from supermarkets, or use CLICK & COLLECT only

  14. So Porter gets given $1 million and he doesn’t know where it came from?

    Our Labor branch is expected to keep records of EVERY donation. No lower limit.

    I asked what would happen if someone gave me $10 for the branch and I didn’t get their name.

    I was told I should donate it to charity.

  16. billie

    “The vaccine hesitant can stay home away from supermarkets, or use CLICK & COLLECT only”

    I gotta admit I sympathise with this but it probably won’t fly. For the hardcore antivaxxers you could try a rapid saliva test.

    Another idea. Hand out a green tag for those who have been vaxxed. Those without one can be socially distanced 🙂

  17. Shares in the highly-indebted Chinese property giant Evergrande have plunged after it outlined the extent of its financial problems.

    The firm said it is struggling to sell assets fast enough to service its massive $305bn (£220bn) of debts.

    A statement issued by the company also said that its cashflow was under “tremendous pressure”.
    The announcement came just hours after angry protesters besieged the company’s headquarters in Shenzhen on Monday.
    In the statement to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, Evergrande blamed “ongoing negative media reports” that “have dampened the confidence of potential property purchasers”.
    The world’s most indebted property developer also said it was working with financial advisers to explore solutions to its problems.

    Evergrande shares ended Tuesday’s trading in Hong Kong down by almost 12%. The firm’s shares have fallen by more than 80% in the last six months.

    On Monday, dozens of investors staged a protest at the firm’s headquarters, an unusual sight in China. They called on the company to pay back loans and financial products, and chanted: “Give us our money back.”

    They were met by scores of uniformed security guards, as well as a company representative who read out a proposal for repayments, according to news outlet Caixin.

    Also on Monday, Evergrande said speculation about its potential bankruptcy and restructuring was “totally untrue”.

    On September 15, 2008, Lehman Brothers collapsed dissolving $600B in US assets leading us to the worst market crash since the great depression. $600B in assets.
    Right now, Evergrande has $200B~ in assets, and $300B in unserviced debt. $500B total.
    So its entirely on the same level as the assets that Lehman Brothers had.
    But, Lehman Brothers was a US bank broadly diversified across many industries.
    Evergrande is not. Evergrande is in one industry and only one industry.
    And its debt is held by banks across China, the US, Canada, UK, Australia and others.
    This also comes at a time when markets have been on an artificial, inflation driven, quantitative easing fueled run up like no other.
    So when the hammer does drop, it will drop hard.

    It’s “almost unavoidable”, said Nomura International Hong Kong credit analyst Iris Chen. Her base case is a government-supervised deal that ensures Evergrande delivers homes and pays suppliers, where dollar debt investors would get 25 per cent of their money back. Luther Chai, a senior research analyst at CreditSights Singapore, also predicts Evergrande may default and enter restructuring. That risk is being priced in, with many of Evergrande’s dollar bonds trading near 30 US cents.

  18. Re Dave from Wagga (8.31 pm) and BW (8.37)

    There are two huge differences between Anastas Mikoyan and Gladys B. The former had clear foresight (in opposing Khrushchev’s crazy decision to place nuclear missiles in Cuba) and was very good in a crisis, so good that Khrushchev sent him to Havana in the weeks after the secret deal with Kennedy that resolved the crisis, to talk sense into Castro, even though Mikoyan’s wife was mortally ill. Khrushchev promised Mikoyan he would attend his wife’s funeral, then failed to show. So Gladys B has more in common with Khrushchev than with Mikoyan, whose son, Sergo (who went with his father to Havana but returned to Moscow for his mother’s funeral), wrote a large book on the implications of the Cuban missile crisis, which is available in translation (see https://www.sup.org/books/title/?id=17376 ). See also Serhii Plokhy, Nuclear Folly: A New History of the Cuban Missile Crisis ch 25 (‘Mission impossible’), by a Ukrainian historian at Harvard who wrote a very good account of the Chernobyl tragedy.

  21. Conservative Logic ?

    Sam Dastyari receives benefit of legal fees being paid by Chinese donor.. forced to resign.

    Christian Porter receives benefit of legal fees being paid by “unknown” donor…. nothing ( so far)

  22. Cud Chewer @ #1268 Tuesday, September 14th, 2021 – 10:05 pm

    the country?

    Yep. I just read a story yesterday about how China pulled it’s Belt and Road confidence trick on Madagascar and now the country is severely indebted to China and can’t feed its people during a drought, which would entail them buying food in from overseas.

    So, I jokingly said, China may have to sell Madagascar to bail out that failing property developer. 🙂

  37. These are amazing next steps by BMW:

    In the next decade many automakers will switch their entire lineups to fully electric vehicles, but what will happen after that? BMW is thinking further ahead to 2040 when it could introduce a fully recyclable electric car, which will be the ultimate sustainable vehicle. We still have a bit of time to get there, but the German automaker has unveiled its i Vision Circular concept, which is a recyclable electric vehicle for an urban environment, at the Munich Motor Show IAA Mobility 2021 in Munich, Germany. It’s BMW’s vision of what an EV made out of recyclable materials could look like in 2040.

    BMW’s goal was to create a vehicle that is not only 100% recyclable but also made from recycled materials. This includes the concept’s solid-state battery, which is made almost entirely from materials sourced from the recycling loop. Using recycled parts is not only good for the environment, but it also helps reduce production costs.

    “The BMW i Vision Circular illustrates our all-encompassing, meticulous way of thinking when it comes to sustainable mobility. It symbolises our ambition to be a pioneering force in the development of a circular economy,” said BMW CEO Oliver Zipse. “We lead the way for resource efficiency in production and we are seeking to extend this status to all stages of the vehicle life cycle.”

    https://www.treehugger.com/bmw-ivision-circular-concept-100-percent-recyclable-5200720

  38. https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/rudy-giulianis-9-11-anniversary-speech-was-every-bit-as-batshit-as-youd-expect-1224289/

    “I wanted to grab his stars and shove it down his throat and say, ‘It’s 400 miles from China, asshole!’ ” Giuliani, who has never served in the military, said. ” ‘China is going to be our enemy for the next 40 years! You have an airbase 400 miles from them and you’re giving it up? Idiot! What the hell is wrong with you? Who pays you? Christ! That is crazy.’ “

    I wonder how much C@tmomma hates China … Like Rudi ?

  40. a rsays:
    Tuesday, September 14, 2021 at 11:05 pm

    This tactic is similar to what Jordie’s were saying about the Strathfield liberal members.

  41. The recipients of taxation advantages, the beneficiaries of well performing superannuation funds, the receivers of baskets of cash to businesses, the winners of the very “liberal use” of trusts and the lottery winners that is house price rises, all have very good reason to maintain their support for the LNP Morrison government despite the blatantly overt and commonplace occurrences of corruption.
    The polling generally has been at the extremities of “as good as it gets” for Labor.
    The majority of voters have a “franking mindset” and will not be swayed by a “few hiccups” with the strategies to manage Covid.
    Morrison will use every financial advantage at his disposal from being the incumbent government to go to an election.
    Palmer will apply his millions.
    Journalists, as this week revealed are just highly paid hacks, self-centered and without scruples.
    The media oligarchy will maintain its allegiance to the LNP.
    The next election will be extremely difficult for Labor to win.
    There will be plenty of polling heartache before the “backdoor bogan” relinquishes his position.
    The receivers of LNP largesse remain confident.

  42. “Fundamentally, the protection against life-threatening plague is one of the original reasons government exists. We’ve had mandatory vaccines for schoolchildren in America since before the Emancipation Proclamation.”

  47. Key take aways from 2019:

    Labor ran a terrible campaign
    Labor made terrible policy decisions
    Bill was very unpopular
    Scotty and the Liberals faced zero scrutiny
    Everyone bought Scotty’s daggy dad persona
    Labor was treated as a government in waiting

    And the Libs still only won by a hair’s breadth.

    So Jesus Christ people, have a bit of optimism. Hope is not lost.

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