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.
My son and I are hanging out for the 4 Cheeses Pizza at Nonna’s in Darlinghurst. 🙂
Don’t quote me on the name but it had a real, live Nonna from Italy cooking the pizza!
Greensborough Growler @ #1198 Tuesday, September 14th, 2021 – 7:18 pm
Greg Rudd went over to the dark side against his brother and Labor years ago.
@Ketan_JO tweets
“Negotiations could have a major impact on fossil fuel production in western Europe’s largest oil and gas producer, with the Socialist Left opposing further exploration and the Greens, on course for seven MPs, demanding a halt to production by 2035”
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/sep/13/left-leaning-coalition-predicted-to-win-norwegian-parliamentary-vote
C@t
Yep, but Gladys is trapped between on the one hand a level of restrictions that will continue to cause unrest and piss off the “freedom lovers” and on the other hand horror stories of people being denied life saving care featuring on the news. There’s no happy middle ground for her – and thus Scomo.
Also, its quite possible that there will still be closed borders during the election. That’s not going to facilitate Scomo’s travel and if he bitches about the remaining covid free states, he’s only going to shoot himself in the foot.
Delicious..
With News Corp claiming to be moving to a pro-climate action position, I get the sense that it will align very conveniently with a similar move by the Coalition. It will be ScoMo calling for net zero and Murdoch echoing it.
C@t
Also (anecdotal) I have QLD friends telling me that no one there likes Scomo (or Gladys). Even what was a hard core Liberal (the organisational brains behind our HSR consortium) who has now gone Labor. When those suburban and outer suburban Brisbane seats swing they tend to go as a bunch. The mood in QLD is very positive for the one with the impossible surname.
In an at times emotional debate in Parliament today, Tim Nicholls, a Queensland Tory and former Treasurer, informed the Assembly that he had conducted a survey of his electorate (Clayfield) and of the 1500 who responded, 88% agreed with Labor’s Voluntary Assisted Dying Bill.
Whereas Opposition Leader, David Crisafulli, said his core beliefs were based on the right of an individual to make a decision in their own interests “free from the influence and obstruction of the state” and thus will vote against it despite there being ample provisions in the Bill to ensure it will be the will of person which predominates.
With no Legislative Council in Queensland, the passage of the Bill is all but guaranteed and will be welcomed by most Queenslanders. And it was pleasing that the debate
was without the usual party-poltical rancour.
Us too. We soldiered on watching it for 20 minutes or so, but just couldn’t stand it any longer. We gave up around the time Alan Jones berated her for being a few minutes late to the 2GB studio: wasting his time, FFS.
Or maybe it was when Abbott characterized her as as a precious princess for not appreciating being called “Bob Brown’s Bitch”, and the outright death threats..
That was enough for us. We got the message. Over and out.
hazza
What then of a 2030 target? That will test the reality of Limited News.
Cud,
The situation in Australia under Morrison and Glad Bags is very similar to what is happening in Britain, as you would no doubt know. I’m sure Sir Lynton is giving them lots of feedback about how it’s playing out for BoJo politically so that Morrison and Gladys can take their cues from there.
Cud,
They love Anna P. to bits, so I’ve heard. She’s like your favourite Aunty. 🙂
re KK’s move (by the way, how vile to be calling her KKK) – that’s politics baby. Sometimes candidates get parachuted in. That’s life. Clearly the ALP made the calculation that they could get away with it, and with it being finalised this far out from the election I have no doubt that they will.
It sounds disingenuous but too many progressives put values above all else and ignore political realities. Same goes for neg gearing and stage 3 tax cuts. I employ the usual refrain – that values are useless if you’re in opposition.
I’m consistently amazed at the number of Twitter users who seem to think Labor’s path to victory consists of being 100% true to Labor values and ignoring the political realities. They’ve been consistently proven wrong by polling in recent months and I hope they continue to be proven wrong right up until Antony Green calls the election for Labor with a sweeping majority!
As I have said MANY times (and been shouted down for it): “Beware the Climate Epiphany”.
I think the message has finally gotten through to ScoMo that the ONLY way Climate Change can taken seriously is if the Right takes it seriously (or pretends to) first.
I was waiting for Virgin to deliver on their “VA-X and WIN” thing.
It was far harder to claim that I expected – even as a Frequent Flyer.
All those sentiments you talk about in Queensland exist in WA too, only tenfold. It’s a shame there are only a handful of seats to be gained in the West – Queensland on the other hand…
Although I did read somewhere (on good authority) that Sky News is unlikely to adopt the same pro-climate position as the News rags.
Also, I think the Nats will ultimately get on board with whatever the Coalition comes up with.
Re H4257 ”With News Corp claiming to be moving to a pro-climate action position, I get the sense that it will align very conveniently with a similar move by the Coalition. It will be ScoMo calling for net zero and Murdoch echoing it.”
It won’t align “conveniently”, it will be a coordinated exercise to reset the approach to Global Heating on the political Right in Australia on an issue which is starting to alarm swinging voters.. The Coalition will embrace zero by 2050, throw in a few token gestures now which won’t harm fossil fuel profits while not planning to actually do anything effective in the foreseeable future. Then say i
they’ve got the issue covered and insist that the Opposition embrace it in whole without debate. Newscorp will be the main communication / propaganda vehicle.
We’ve seen this type of joint campaigning before, e.g the GST, the 2014 Budget.
The Coalition have been marketing themselves as taking global warming seriously for some time now.
Noticed any actual action? I haven’t.
I expect Newcorp have decided to get in on the act and sell the Coalition’s inaction as action prior to Glasgow.
Steve
Exactly right.
BB,
It’s all bullshit.
It seems to be more about positioning themselves to continue to support on going coal mining investment as the the Libs agree to “Carbon neutrality by 2050”.
It will all be whimsical and fairy floss.
What’s new, I guess, is that they’ve decided to launder/bootstrap the narrative and soften us up through Nine/Fairfax first.
Don’t you find it odd that Newscorp, a news organisation, hasn’t simply come out in favour of acting on Global Warming, but are leaking that they will do so through Nine/Fairfax?
I can understand the general “feeling” that Scotty can/will easily redeem himself and win the election, but I just don’t see where the numbers are going to come from for the Libs.
It seems imperative that there will at least be a small swing to the ALP in WA and Qld (especially Qld where they’re coming from such a low base). Newspoll currently has the swings at 8 and 6% respectively.
In Vic, Labor only needs a tiny swing for Chisholm to fall and a bigger swing would see Higgins go too. In NSW, which was supposed to be the state which would offset Liberal losses elsewhere, Gladys has been destroying the Liberal brand for months.
I guess my point is that for the Coalition to hold onto power, they need to avoid any substantive swing to Labor and that seems very unlikely. On the other hand, a swing towards the government seems nigh impossible right now.
Even if the Coalition avoids any swing in NSW and Vic, a swing in WA and Queensland alone could win the election for Labor.
Labor would also be taking confidence from the sheer consistency and strength of the polling. It’s been months and months now of good results. Perhaps there is a question mark over Albo, who a lot of voters don’t have an opinion on but will form one during the campaign. Another question is whether the Resolve polling is an outlier or the only one giving an accurate read.
I think Laura Tingle had my Porter post @ Sceptic says:
Tuesday, September 14, 2021 at 5:51 pm
Labor just a few gentle questions on Porter’s slush fund in the next week .. gentle as he’s toast anyway.
@MrDenmore tweets
In the Journalists-vs-Twitter Holy War, this is the most insightful comment I’ve seen to date. The media are slow to understand that the media IS the story. (Standard disclaimer: nothing justifies personal abuse)
@ak_pennington tweets
Many underestimate what Australians understand about living under highly centralised, corporate captured media market. It’s torn down their elected PMs. ABC is the buffer in this landscape. Imbued w all the anxiety, instability & democratic hopes of millions of people. #auspol
@TurnbullMalcolm tweets
Sorry to correct @latingle but I did not use a blind trust when I was an MP. My interests were all disclosed. Porter should disclose the people who paid his legal fees or give the money back.
Morgan poll: ALP 52.5 (-2), L-NP 47.5 (+2). Primary: L-NP 39.5 (+1), ALP 35 (-3.5), GRN 13 (+1.5), ONP 3 (-).
The sample size is 2,753. The margin of error is 1.9%. Last month was probably an outlier, maybe this month too. Both are consistent with 53-47 or 53.5-46.5. As an earlier poster said, it is quite likely statistical noise.
Just for our Conspiracists.
I’m waiting for Steely, Firefox, P1, Taylormade, Michael, Lars and the rest of the trolls to tell us of their outrage over this blatant rort of the political donation laws.
Please wake me when one of them surfaces.
Just as I was talking about consistent polling…
@Steve777
Some big state shifts with the Morgan on PV, WA is pretty notable from last time and a big change in NSW, lots of noise at the moment all round.
I definitely have concerns about the centrifugal bumblepuppy.
What is a bumblepuppy
Vaccine rollout
NSW
47.5% fully vaccinated; 79.5% first dose
State target: 70%
National
43.2% fully vaccinated; 68.5% first dose
National target: 70%
Of the estimated population aged 16 and over
While it’s too early to say that the C.19 infection rate in NSW has plateaued, the numbers are nevertheless reducing. And if they continue to do so, Berejyklian & Morrsion will claim with some justification they are right to start opening up when the vaccination rate reaches 70% and fully open when it reaches 80%.
Admittedly, though, there’s a torrent of water to pass under the bridge before they can claim mission accomplished and even then they’ll be a lot of residual political damage to brand Tory – at least Morrison’s brand. Berejyklian less so as she appears to be a protected species, the ICAC inquiry into Maguire gathering dust.
Lenore Taylor
@lenoretaylor
I have heard of blind trusts where an MP doesn’t know where their money is invested, I have never heard of one where MP doesn’t know where the money came from??.Christian Porter reveals part of legal fees paid by blind trust with funds from unknown source.
Porter.. given he is a lawyer & was AJ is a bit of a kluts on these matters..
Edit This situation is outright corruption ( if only moral) …. Barry went for a Grange.. then we have the Paddington Bear & Colour TVs
It’s what concerns me, hazza.
Looks like Turnbull has found an issue he can get his teeth into to attack the Coalition.
DN,
Huxley providing the appropriate code name for Scott Morrison methinks.
The article hits a lot of buttons, though.
Is Albo the centrifugal bumblepuppy?
Something to ponder, hazza.
C@t
A little difficult to compare Oz and UK, given their primitive voting system. Although we do have one thing in common..
hazza4257 @ #1232 Tuesday, September 14th, 2021 – 8:13 pm
Something not to be placed in a centrifuge.
Bushfire Bill @ #1229 Tuesday, September 14th, 2021 – 8:02 pm
You’re funny, BB. But not in a good way.
It’s great to see Wagga in the news for all the wrong reasons. Not.
Gladys won’t go as easily as Fatty O’Barrell and his bottle of Grange.
The Chairwoman of the Council of Ministers of New South Wales is no doubt steeped in the history of Soviet/Armenian politics (see Mikoyan, A; First Deputy Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the Soviet Union, 1955-1964).
There will be much political blood spilt on the fluffy carpet of William Street before Gladys bows out.
Bodies strewn across Woolloomooloo and vengeance sworn over generations.
It’ll be worth the wait.
(I hear Daryl is tending to his horses. The cheap Chinese furniture market has been shot to pieces by high import costs)
[‘Some postcodes’ daily coronavirus case figures have halved over the past fortnight, with neighbourhoods previously recording hundreds of cases a week appearing to turn their curves around as vaccination coverage exceeds 90 per cent in three Sydney councils.
Suburbs in the Cumberland and Fairfield local government areas are recording significantly fewer cases. A similar trend is being seen in Canterbury-Bankstown, although the south-west Sydney council area continues to be the source of about one in five cases across the state.
…
There were 1127 new local coronavirus cases reported in NSW on Tuesday, the lowest daily figure since September 1.
Of those, 231 were in Canterbury-Bankstown,132 were in Liverpool and 129 were in Blacktown local government areas.’]
https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/hotspot-suburbs-turn-cases-round-as-three-councils-hit-90-percent-vaccination-20210914-p58rju.html
The vaccination message is working, even if it’s based on the premise of no vac, no work or play – whatever it takes.
hazza @7:47
I concur with this. Labor did poorly in QLD last time. I don’t know if it will do much better this time, but it is very unlikely to get worse. Those suburban Brisbane seats tend to flip as a block. Also, Labor surely has a good chance of picking up seats in WA.
Plus you didn’t mention the redistributions.
My perspective is that the likes of Gladys/Scomo really don’t get maths and physics and covid is going to teach them. Think about it as having a knob to turn. The knob adjusts R (the reproductive rate) indirectly through the setting of restrictions.
The knob is very, very sensitive. Go slightly past R = 1.0 and within a month you have horror stories on the news. Go slightly under 1.0 and the “freedom lovers” will be kicking up a stink. There’s no “sunny uplands”. There’s no “freedom”. There’s no “back to normal”.
And the thing is, Gladys and Scomo have been utterly stupid in not communicating this fact to ordinary people. Most people still think the government has a magic wand and normality will be restored shortly. That we’ll have one last “peak” and then everything will be happy ever after.
What we will have (at best) come Feb/March next year is hundreds of cases per day, a strained though not overloaded hospital system and most importantly, tight restrictions. Far tighter than the shallow, selfish, entitled, aspirationals who voted Liberal will want.
Labor could make mileage out of this situation by offering things that the Liberals cannot match. Allowing people to get a self test from the chemist is one thing. Funding ventilation and filtration for shops and workplaces for another. And the list goes on.
And on top of this. The feeling that the NSW government is again rotten has sunk in. And the feeling that Scomo just isn’t up to the job has sunk in. Labor needs to play on this – attack Scomo directly. Sell him as a clown, a shonky salesman.
‘Dave from Wagga says:
Tuesday, September 14, 2021 at 8:31 pm
It’s great to see Wagga in the news for all the wrong reasons. Not.
Gladys won’t go as easily as Fatty O’Barrell and his bottle of Grange.
The Chairwoman of the Council of Ministers of New South Wales is no doubt steeped in the history of Soviet/Armenian politics (see Mikoyan, A; First Deputy Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the Soviet Union, 1955-1964).
There will be much political blood spilt on the fluffy carpet of William Street before Gladys bows out.
Bodies strewn across Woolloomooloo and vengeance sworn over generations.
It’ll be worth the wait.
(I hear Daryl is tending to his horses. The cheap Chinese furniture market has been shot to pieces by high import costs)’
_______________________
Cracker of a post, IMO.
a r
“Something not to be placed in a centrifuge.”
Unless you have two of them and in that case, they can balance each other out.
Cud
Slight alteration . Sell it as a car dealership in case of leadership change. Australia your standing in it vibes of dodgy brothers advertising
guytaur
Not Bastards Incorporated? 🙂