We begin with the unusually complicated state of affairs arising from Senate President Scott Ryan’s announcement yesterday that he will retire from politics before parliament resumes next month, having previously planned to do so when his term ends in the middle of next year. The Victorian Liberal Party now has the task of both filling his vacancy and determining its Senate ticket for the coming election, with the latter process having been up in the air due to the lockdown. Candidates for Ryan’s vacancy are reportedly likely to include Simon Frost, staffer to Josh Frydenberg and former state party director, and Greg Mirabella, Wangaratta farmer and husband of Sophie Mirabella.
The Coalition secured three long-term Senate positions at the 2016 double dissolution, which went to Mitch Fifield, Bridget McKenzie of the Nationals and Scott Ryan. Fifield quit politics after the 2019 election and his vacancy was filled by Sarah Henderson, lately defeated in her lower house seat of Corangamite. With the second position on the ticket reserved to the Nationals, and hence to McKenzie, Henderson urgently needs to win top spot on the ticket.
Rob Harris of The Age reports that she will probably need a rank-and-file ballot for this to happen, since she is unlikely to win a vote of the administrative committee if it exercises its power to take matters into its own hands. The same apparently applies to Frost in his bid to fill the Ryan vacancy, which would appear to suggest that the administrative committee would pick Mirabella both to fill the immediate vacancy and top the Senate ticket at the election. This would, however, be a hugely contentious move, given resentment over the rank and file being denied preselection ballots before the last election.
Further preselection news:
• Daniel Repacholi, a former coal miner who represented Australia in pistol shooting at the Olympics, was confirmed as Labor’s candidate to succeed Joel Fitzgibbon in Hunter by the party’s national executive yesterday. The Australian reports Repacholi “will run as a factionally unaligned candidate but he has the backing of elements of the Right, including Joel Fitzgibbon, and also the Left, including Mr Albanese and the CFMEU”. Preselection hopefuls thwarted by the move include Stephen Ryan, Newcastle barrister and former Cessnock councillor; Morgan Campbell, a former lawyer and local councillor; and Jo Smith, executive director of the Australian Guild of Screen Composers and unsuccessful candidate for Lake Macquarie at the 2019 state election. A late withdrawal was Cessnock nurse Emily Suvaal, whom The Guardian reports had support from Right-aligned unions. The Nationals candidate for the seat is James Thomson, 28-year-old community relations officer at Maitland Christian School; One Nation, who recorded 21.6% of the vote in 2019, have endorsed Singleton hotelier Dale McNamara, who ran for the party at the state by-election for Upper Hunter in May.
• As reported in The Australian, Gordon Reid, a local doctor of Aboriginal heritage, has been preselected unopposed to run as Labor’s candidate for Robertson, held for the Liberals by Lucy Wicks on a margin of 4.2%. The preselection for Reid, held by Fiona Martin on a margin of 3.2%, will be contested between Sally Sitou, a University of Sydney doctoral candidate and one-time ministerial staffer to Jason Clare, and Frank Alafaci, president of the Australian Business Summit Council. In Banks, held by David Coleman on a margin of 6.3%, will be contested between former diplomat Xian-Zhi Soon and Georges River councillor Warren Tegg.
• The West Australian reports Ian Goodenough, Liberal member for the Perth northern suburbs seat of Moore, has won a preselection ballot ahead of Vince Connelly, whose existing seat of Stirling is to be abolished in the redistribution, by a margin of 39 to 36. Goodenough is noted for his support network among local Pentecostal churches, and his association with a broader grouping within the state party known as “The Clan”. The report says Goodenough owed his win to support from Young Liberals and religious conservative powerbroker Nick Goiran. Further contested preselections for the Liberal-held seats of Swan and Durack will follow over the fortnight to come.
• The Greens have announced candidates in the two Melbourne seats they could potentially win from the Liberals: Piers Mitchem, an employment lawyer with corporate law firm Thomson Geer, will run against Josh Frydenberg in Kooyong, which Julian Burnside came within 5.7% of winning for the party in 2019 after outpolling Labor; while Sonya Semmens, owner-director of a fundraising consultancy, will run against Katie Allen in Higgins.
• Legal academic Kim Rubenstein has cleared the new-and-improved benchmark of 1500 members to register a party called Kim for Canberra in support of her run for an Australian Capital Territory Senate seat.
Other news:
• A uComms automated phone poll of 1057 voters in Canberra, commissioned by of The Australian Institute, records federal voting intention results for the Australian Capital Territory that are strikingly similar to those at the 2019 election. When the results to the forced-response follow-up for the initially undecided are included, the poll shows Labor on 41.1% (up 0.2% on the election), Liberal on 31.3% (down 0.8%) and the Greens on 16.9% (up 0.4%). One Nation, who did not field candidates in 2019 and probably won’t next time either, were on 3.9%. The poll also gauged Senate voting intention, which had Labor on 35.9% (down 3.4%), Liberal on 29.7% (down 2.6%) and the Greens on 21.1% (up 3.5%), with independents on 7.4%, One Nation on 4.0% and others on 1.7%. However, the disparity between the House and Senate results would be typical of an issue to common to Senate polling, which often inflates minor party support. In any case, both suggest the usual result, in which Labor wins the house seats and the two Senate seats divide between Labor and Liberal.
• Also from the Australia Institute, a tidy display of Essential Research COVID-19 polling data, including time series charts of the regular question on federal and state governments’ handling of the situation.
• Final results from the Daly by-election in the Northern Territory: 2022 votes to Labor candidate Dheran Young (56.1%), 1582 to Country Liberal Party candidate Kris Civitarese, for a swing to Labor of 7.3%.
• A federal election preview from Daniel Smith of CGM Communications draws on state-level poll trend calculations I provided, suggesting Labor stands to pick up 13 seats based on the current numbers.
lizzie @ #47 Saturday, September 25th, 2021 – 6:58 am
… and after Glasgow.
Dog’s Breakfast
Haha. I think it may have been described as such in times gone by.
Victoriasays: Saturday, September 25, 2021 at 8:50 am
PhoenixRed
We have been told for weeks to expect cases to rise into the 1000s.
Despite that. I still find it very jarring.
*******************************************
– and I guess this weeks protesters here in Victoria have not done much to help lower spread/contacts …..
Australians have to get used to the idea that more people will be dying and getting very sick from covid.
To expect it even if we attain high vaccination rates.
Cos the only way to avoid it would require 100 percent of the population being vaccinated.
That is not going to happen.
”
lizziesays:
Saturday, September 25, 2021 at 7:34 am
Prof Andrew Scott
@ascottnlights
10h
I’ll certainly always remember these words of John Elliott which summed up his values. From the front page of The Age, 10 March 1999. #auspol
”
A vile man and he perfectly described what LNP stood for under John Howard and too a extent now.
Now LNP doesn’t even stand for economy. The testimony to that they don’t care about economy anymore is that we now have largest debt and deficit ever in the history of this country.
He was the reason why I wanted Carlton FC to loose all the time.
PhoenixRed
The protests in late August would not have helped either.
It may be callous, but some people are destined to learn lessons the hard way.
Only need to look at the covidiots in the USA for examples.
Eventually covid will be an endemic disease.
Until then, we need to navigate our way through.
Sigh…..
Fitzgibbon’s pick for candidate didn’t bother to register for last two elections, obviously has no interest in politics and is the opposite of the despised “Labor hacks”. Must they go from one extreme to the other?
Victoria @ #54 Saturday, September 25th, 2021 – 7:07 am
Yes, but those who choose not to get vaccinated need to get used to the idea that they will be excluded from certain types of public activities and areas of employment.
Barney ITB
Yes. But you have seen the temper tantrum by the covidiots here in Melbourne.
They dont accept that premise.
Reality bit them this week and they cracked the sads.
What’s Dan doing wrong?
Things are getting seriously weird —
‘… as the patients begin to realize that ivermectin by itself is not effective, the groups have begun recommending a series of increasingly hazardous at-home treatments, such as gargling with iodine, and nebulizing and inhaling hydrogen peroxide, calling it part of a “protocol.”’
https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/vigilante-treatments-anti-vaccine-groups-push-people-leave-icus-rcna2233
Barney in Tanjung Bunga says:
Saturday, September 25, 2021 at 8:56 am
You can always go with C@ts call that he will appeal to the Hunter constituency’s, what that says about Hunter voters & principals I’m not sure
Even Annika Smethurst had to admit that Scotty doesn’t always tell the truth. 😆
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10015449/Prime-Minister-Scott-Morrisons-secret-plan-retire-hand-Treasurer-Josh-Frydenberg.html?
Buce
Nothing.
Morrison stuffed up the vaccine rollout.
It’s nearly summer and the population is nowhere near being vaccinated at a safe percentage.
And Morrison stuffed up quarantine.
Fancy NSW not being able to control the virus after a few pilots were being driven to their hotel.
It has resulted in this shit show in the two most populated states.
Its all on Morrison and co. Utter failures in every way. He couldn’t organise a piss up in a brewery. Hopeless.
Morrison should do us a favour and stay overseas.
He is as useless as tits on a bull.
Zoomster
As Vic CHO said, these people are living in a fantasy.
We’re not chopping down trees we weren’t going to chop down anyway.
Lets not forget the other lies Morrison has spewed.
Telling Australians we were at the front of the queue.
Yet he is still begging stealing and borrowing vaccines from anywhere he can get them.
VicGovDH
NOTE: Not all exposure sites are published online.
”
sprocket_says:
Saturday, September 25, 2021 at 8:39 am
What is it with the French?
Murdoch’s SmearStralian is trumpeting Morrison’s triumph in international diplomacy and canny tactics… for example, Pompous Paul Kelly leads with this
‘Morrison claims seat at top table of diplomacy
Australia is now at the centre of the West’s response to China’s challenge.’
”
It is not at the centre of West’s response as pompous pontificator claims but as part of Anglo sphere response.
The party of Elliott is the party of Bucephalus. It is the party of Lars and Nath. It is the party of Taylormade. It is the party of racists like Howard and Morrison excusing people like Elliott, who was the president of the party and not just some individual in the street, as being entitled to his opinion and his right to be a bigot as Brandis so eloquently put it. It’s certainly the party of Dutton who along with his rag-tag bunch of racist followers refused to acknowledge the apology. Because, as Elliott clearly said, forgotten races and brown people aren’t worth the effort. Getting all gooey now Elliott is dead doesn’t cut it. The LNP has had over twenty years to disassociate themselves from racists like Elliott and they chose not to. They never will.
Morrison’s roadmaps seem to be for trips around the block. Delaying tactics.
Morning all. I woke up a bit late for BK’s morning roundup. Nevertheless I thought this article below by Laura Tingle was excellent, especially her line on Australia breaking up with France by text “like a 14 year old”.
Tingle has a deeper point though. After two decades of flawed defense decisions by Australia, mostly following the USA, we are doing the same again, but with no process. No white paper, green paper, budget, program, senate committee hearings… just an announced deal.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-09-25/missing-details-on-australia-uk-us-submarine-deal/100490564
From a quick flick through the commentary and news this morning, it seems Morrison has played his usual game regarding AUKUS: lies, secrecy deceit, compartmentalization, playing one side off against each other, arrogance and betrayal.
It’s the timing that gives it away. There was no need for this agreement to be announced now. It was obviously rushed, as nobody – from the French, to the “senior ministers” (including Marise Payne) who were “rushed to Canberra” the night before the announcement, to our neighbourhood nations like Indonesia and Malaysia, to even the usual media toadies – was forewarned.
Forget about that “18 months in the making” horseshit. It doesn’t take 18 months to negotiate a deal to conduct negotiations about conducting further negotiations. This was “We’d rather deal with White Men, not Wogs, Frogs or Fuzzy Wuzzies.”
So why the rush?
In the immediate sense there is Morrison’s need to keep his options open for a November election, which must be announced in October, which in turn requires a buttering-up starting, at the latest, in the latter half of September. What better actual day to reveal the deal than a “Newspoll Wednesday” smack dab on September 15th?
Remember this was something started under Trump, and continued under Biden. So it must have been important to the bi-partisan Establishment in the US, not just to the GOP crazies.
But why do a deal with a known liar and betrayer like Morrison? Biden’s people in Canberra must have known what Morrison is like and reported as such back to the State Department. And WHY do a deal – actually a deal about a deal to do a deal – with a conservative government behind in the polls with only a few months to go before a election that it may well not win (given everything else it has fucked up)?
The answer is, I think, is that the Yanks wanted to make sure a future (perhaps *near* future) Labor government would play ball by presenting AUKUS to them as a fait accompli.
By all reports Morrison was “ambitious” for the deal with Macron, until he wasn’t. He’s invented a story about how he told Macron for months now that we were unhappy, mixed in with not speaking French, talking to Macron, then only trying to talk with him, finally having to settle for sending a text message (for God’s sake!), and a host of other bullshit excuses that have been denied, one by one, by Macron himself.
The result? The French – a permanent member of the Security Council and now the de facto leader of Europe – have broken off both negotiations and indefinitely severed diplomatic relations with Australia.
It is a momentous cluster fuck of the type that only the arrogantly duplicitous, disloyal, and secretive Morrison could conjure up.
As even his own side marvel at how big a treacherous liar their leader is, they must also be wondering just who’ll be next in their own ranks to feel the Morrison stiletto between the shoulder blades. You wouldn’t want to be Scott Morrison when they figure it out.
Good Morning
Roy Orbison.
That’s why I can never vote Liberal.
Lizzie
The DHHS have said that depending on the exposure site and the risk they assess. It doesnt always get listed.
In other words. Say for example they do a contact and trace for the period of exposure, and check in QR codes.
They may find it does not require a public health notification as an exposure site.
Test after edit.
”
lizziesays:
Saturday, September 25, 2021 at 8:58 am
@SusanSmithAus
·
33m
Morrison says “when it comes to climate”, he wants nations at Quad talks to “produce a roadmap over the next 12 months”
In other words, no commitment until after the next federal election
”
Hence, no commitment at all from LNP i.e. if they loose and ALP makes any commitments they can white ant those commitments by saying that they did not make any commitments in the first place and continue by saying that they don’t like those commitments because they will cost jobs. But if they win the election they can sit on any climate change action like they did for last 8 years.
What do you expect from a man who carries coal into parliament and a party whose members pass on that coal as some gold?
Morrison government ‘lies, secrecy deceit, compartmentalization, playing one side off against each other, arrogance and betrayal.’
This is the ONLY message Labor needs in the election campaign. Embroidered with plenty of examples.
Well thanks to the Gladys incursions and the idiots here, our planned trip to Tassie is cancelled.
I will rebook but well down the track.
It actually has turned out to be a good thing as the friends we would have been spending a lot of time with have a lot going on and the timing will be better later.
I must add that the Hun on the surface appears not too bad. It is when you start looking at the comments that you see the easily led idiots.
Panahi going on about the promised 4000 icu beds that have not been delivered – mostly because of staffing issues that are not easily resolved. Became the talking point du jour yesterday and if they open comments today will likely continue
C@t, if you make a mistake and realise it quick enough. Turn off C+, edit the post, save then turn C+ back on. According to my none to stringent test you have 10 minutes.
What’s happening in Victoria 847 cases seems they are as bad as they ever where despite the hype. Hard, fast, early, ring of steel yada yada yada, Dan the great bull shitter but for some the messiah.
Roy Orbison @ #NaN Saturday, September 25th, 2021 – 9:32 am
And I am proud of myself for being the first person here, upon news of John Elliott’s death, to say not one soft or squishy thing about him, at all!
Too many people here, and on the Left in public life, are afraid of their own shadow when it comes to calling out the Right for what they truly are these days and have been building up to for decades. The Left don’t do offence, we are better than that, and other pusillanimous excuses for not going for the jugular of the Right. The Right don’t behave like that against the Left.
And that’s why they win elections. They scare people into voting for them. By creating bogeymen of the Left. Well, it’s long past time for Labor to take the gloves off in an election campaign and leave no stone unturned under which the worst of the Right are hidden in election campaigns and not talked about. It’s time to leave blood on the floor. Because the Right and their thugs who are just warming up in Victoria for the coming election campaign, have only just begun roughing up the Left.
Steelydan @ #NaN Saturday, September 25th, 2021 – 9:49 am
They’re half of NSW’s numbers at their worst, dipstick.
Bert @ #NaN Saturday, September 25th, 2021 – 9:45 am
Thank you, Bert, you old sweetie. 🙂
Well said Roy. I thought you would be in a good mood after last night.
The key C+ setting is “Override HTML Comments”. Untick it, and reload the page to get the “normal” edit function. (Tick and reload to get back to the C+ view.)
”
Victoriasays:
Saturday, September 25, 2021 at 9:12 am
Eventually covid will be an endemic disease.
Until then, we need to navigate our way through.
Sigh…..
”
I saw on YouTube that the state of Alberta in Canada, which overwhelmingly voted for Cons (as they called in Canada), has currently highest number of hospitalization and ICU numbers ever due to COVID. The hospital system and ICUs in Alberta are under extreme pressure. They have to carefully select patients to be admitted in hospitals.
I can probably thank Elliott – via Rubbery Figures – for adding “Pig’s arse!” to my lexicon.
That’s about it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lyI5LfoBzj4
”
Scepticsays:
Saturday, September 25, 2021 at 9:20 am
Barney in Tanjung Bunga says:
Saturday, September 25, 2021 at 8:56 am
You can always go with C@ts call that he will appeal to the Hunter constituency’s, what that says about Hunter voters & principals I’m not sure
”
You are very diplomatic with your words of what c@tmomma posted.
“Well said Roy. I thought you would be in a good mood after last night.”
Correct. That said, Manly are a myth. They never got close to anyone above them on the table and are basically a one man team. As Melbourne and Souths showed, shut Turbo down and you shut Manly down. Souths also did it with their kicker playing on one leg. The tries Manly scored at the end were in garbage time, as they often are, because players don’t go through 26 brutal games to get injured in the last ten minutes of a game that has been long won only to miss out on a GF.
Melbourne, however, and Penrith to a lesser extent are far different animals. Everything will have to go right for Souths to win it.
Laughtong
Hopefully things will improve by end of year.
Ven
Precisely what we are attempting to avoid here.
Not something our partisan hacks really care about.
Victoria
I do dislike the way the media talks of “record numbers” as if they are somehow worthy of praise.
Steelydan is just a troll.
Roy Orbison,
Wayne Bennett figured out how to beat Penrith. If it’s them next week I’m sure the Bunnies can do it again. As far as Melbourne is concerned, it’s probably top of Bennett’s to do list to figure out how to beat Craig Bellamy and the Strom.
“And The Greens’ candidate in Kooyong is a corporate lawyer.”
***
You neglected to mention something else that is very relevant to current affairs about the Greens’ candidate in Kooyong…
Melbourne lawyer and activist Piers Mitchem has spent years researching global efforts to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons, and now he wants Josh Frydenberg’s job.
Days after the Morrison government unveiled plans for a new fleet of nuclear-powered submarines, the Greens will announce on Saturday that Mr Mitchem is its candidate for Kooyong – the seat in Melbourne’s affluent, leafy eastern suburbs held by the federal Treasurer.
https://www.theage.com.au/politics/victoria/greens-pick-anti-nuclear-candidate-to-take-on-frydenberg-20210917-p58snj.html
As Roy points out if anything things have got worse for the LNP since Elliot was Liberal party President
Now we have all that wedded to science denial and a takeover of many parts by American style prosperity evangelicals. It’s gone beyond small government ideology and ingrained ism’s. All that complaining about cancel culture.
A term I expect to return for the election campaign. The LNP is a kindred brother of the Republican Party and the Tories. Yes Beemer with strong signs of wanting to do an Orban.
Saw this on Twitter by someone who always seems to have the inside word of what is happening on the ground. Dont really know if this person just happens to be good at guessing stuff.
——
#auspol #springst Antivax leaders have been double vaxxed when confronted by Police they show their Medicare My Gov Cert of vax while wearing face masks claiming they are not part of the protest as they have been vaxed. someone higher is controlling them.
poroti says:
Saturday, September 25, 2021 at 8:54 am
This slipped below the radar but it is significant event. A meeting at this level wouldn’t be for a chat about the weather.
HELSINKI, Finland (AP)
The meeting in the Finnish capital, Helsinki, between Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Chief of the Russian General Staff Gen. Valery Gerasimov
………..Both sides agreed not to disclose details of the talks, as has been the practice in previous meetings and calls. Afterward, Milley said: “It was a productive meeting. When military leaders of great powers communicate, the world is a safer place.”
Yup.
Communication about strategic weapons deployment is essential. Deployments also rely on communication, and in our case on the communications facilities hosted at Pine Gap and NW Cape.
In hosting these facilities, Australia contributes to the maintenance of strategic restraint – to the lessening of great power friction – to the prevention if nuclear war.
That is, Australia exports the maintenance of peace. For this, no charge is made.