Save the date

Confusion surrounding the likely date of the New South Wales state by-elections, to add to that we already have about the federal election.

This coming Monday is the last date on which an election can be called for this year, specifically for the December 11 date spruiked recently by Anthony Albanese, which few if any still expect. The parlour game thus seems likely to move on now to the alternative scenarios of March and May. A complication in the former case is a South Australian state election set in the normal course of events for the third Saturday in March, i.e. March 19. If I understand the situation correctly, the South Australian government will have the discretion to delay the election by up to three weeks if a federal election is called before February 19 for a date in March.

Here’s what we do know:

• Max Maddison of The Australian reports grumbling within the New South Wales Liberal Party over its failure to have finalised candidates in the important seats of Dobell, Warringah and Gilmore. The report cites Liberal sources, no doubt with an interest in the matter, accusing Alex Hawke of using his clout on state executive to delay proceedings to the advantage of candidates of his centre right faction. “Other senior Liberal sources” contend the problem is “a lack of quality candidates and impending local government elections”. Prospective nominees for Dobell include former test cricketer Nathan Bracken, along with Michael Feneley, a cardiologist who has twice run unsuccessfully in Kingsford Smith, and Jemima Gleeson, owner of a chain of coffee shops.

• Further on Gilmore, the ever-readable Niki Savva reported in her Age/Herald column a fortnight ago that “speculation is rife” that Andrew Constance will not in fact proceed with his bid for preselection, just as he withdrew from contention Eden-Monaro ahead of last year’s by-election. If so, that would seemingly leave the path clear for Shoalhaven Heads lawyer Paul Ell, who is reckoned a formidable opponent to Constance in any case.

• Labor has not been breaking its back to get candidates in place in New South Wales either, with still no sign of progress in the crucial western Sydney fringe seat of Lindsay. However, candidates have recently been confirmed in two Liberal marginals: Zhi Soon, an education policy adviser and former diplomat, in Banks, and Sally Sitou, a University of Sydney doctoral candidate and one-time ministerial staffer, in Reid.

• In Victoria, Labor’s candidate in La Trobe will be Abhimanyu Kumar, owner of a local home building company.

• In an article by Jason Campbell of the Herald Sun, JWS Research says rising poll numbers for Clive Palmer’s United Australia Party are being driven by “skilled labourers and lower-end middle-management”, supplementing an existing support base that had largely been limited to people over 65. Maleness and low education remain common threads.

• An article on the voter identification laws by Graeme Orr of the University of Queensland in The Conversation makes a point I had not previously heard noted: that those who lodge a declaration vote in lieu of providing identification will have no way of knowing if their vote was ultimately admitted to the count. This stands in contrast to some American states, where those who cast the equivalent of postal or absent votes can track their progress online.

New South Wales by-election latest:

• It is now clear that the by-elections will not be held simultaneously with the December 4 local government elections as initially anticipated. The Guardian reports that the state’s electoral commissioner, John Schmidt, told a parliamentary committee hearing yesterday that “it wouldn’t be possible or sensible to try and aim earlier than the middle of February”, in part because the government’s “piecemeal funding” of his agency had left it with inadequate cybersecurity standards.

• Labor has announced it will field a candidate in Bega, making it the only one of the five looming by-elections in which the Coalition and Labor are both confirmed starters. James O’Doherty of the Daily Telegraph (who I hope got paid extra for pointing out that “Labor has chosen to contest the seat despite Leader Chris Minns last month criticising the looming by-election as expensive and unnecessary”) reports nominees for Liberal preselection will include Eurobodalla Shire mayor Liz Innes and, possibly, Bega Valley Shire councillor Mitchell Nadin.

• Anton Rose of Inner West Courier reports Liberal hopes in Jodi McKay’s seat of Strathfield are not high, particularly if Burwood mayor John Faker emerges as the Labor candidate, and that the party would “not be mounting a vigorous campaign”. One prospective Liberal nominee is said to be Natalie Baini, a sports administrator who was said earlier in the year to planning a preselection against Fiona Martin in the federal seat of Reid.

Poll news:

• A Redbridge Group poll conducted for Simon Holmes a Court’s Climate 200 non-profit group records Treasurer Josh Frydenberg’s primary vote as having slumped from 49.4% in his blue-ribbon Melbourne seat of Kooyong to 38%. With the Greens on 15%, well short of the heights achieved with Julian Burnside as candidate in 2019, such a result would put Frydenberg under pressure from Labor on 31%. Around half of the balance is attributed to the United Australia Party, which seems doubtful in an electorate such as Kooyong. The objective of the poll was to test the waters for a Zali Steggall-like independent challenge, and responses to some rather leading questions indicated that such a candidate would indeed be competitive or better. The survey was conducted from October 16 to 18 by automated phone polling from a sample of 1017.

• Liberal-aligned think tank the Blueprint Institute has results from a YouGov poll on attitudes towards carbon emissions policy, conducted in nine regional electorates from September 28 to October 12 with samples of around 415 each. In spite of everything, these show large majorities in favour of both halving emissions by 2030 and net zero by 2050 even in such electorates as Hunter and Capricornia. Even among coal workers (sub-sample size unclear), the results are 63% and 64% respectively.

• The Australia Institute has published its annual Climate of the Nation survey, based on a poll of 2626 respondents conducted by YouGov in August.

• It took me a while to update BludgerTrack with last week’s Resolve Strategic and Roy Morgan results, but now that it’s done, I can exclusively reveal that they made very little difference. Labor is currently credited with a two-party lead of 53.8-46.2.

Also:

• Antony Green has published his analysis of the finalised Victorian state redistribution.

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.

2,799 comments on “Save the date”

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  2. Not storing the Green wars… but

    Yes SHY has a sense of humour etc & does get trolled but the Greens need to wake up, they don’t have a monopoly on caring for the environment & they don’t have all the answers.. a little humility wouldn’t go amiss…

  3. Barney in Tanjung Bunga
    The comment was more about Ven’s mention of teachers but I damned well hope aged care workers do need some sort of training and skills. Given the great collection of medical problems the people they look after would have.

  4. Simon Katich says I notice that the decision for recommending Pfizer for under 12’s has been postponed until more data comes in from the US.

    The cynic in me says that the Australian government hasn’t placed an order for kids Pfizer so they can blame Labor

  9. Sceptic says:
    the Greens need to wake up, they don’t have a monopoly on caring for the environment
    _____________
    They kinda do. Labor is all over the place and has been historically. Consider that the last Federal Labor government opened up the Tarkine for mining companies. At least the Greens are consistent in their messaging and policies. With Labor, you never know what they are going to do on any given issue.

    https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/ore-values-over-core-values-as-labor-gives-tarkine-to-miners-20130219-2epdp.html

  11. ACTU says about half the wortk force is in casual work, I think they are using old figures and the post covid casualisation rate is much higher

    Casual employment exists for
    Teachers, Lecturer, tutors,
    medical staff in acute care as well as aged care
    computer programmers and technicians
    policy writers
    public servants answering enquiries

    We lose organisational knowledge, skills and excellent work

    The problem is widespread for example in Victoria in 2005 there were
    120,000 classroom teaching positions
    10% of classes conducted by CRTs daily
    35,000 casual relief teachers registered to teach able to attend VIT training day on a school day

  12. “Hey I have just had a long carefully comment on casual work swallowed”

    ***

    Press your back button, it may still be in the text box on the last page. If so then copy and paste it into a new post and try again. Keep in mind that PB filters out some comments if they contain certain words or strings, such as “lib+kin” (without the +) lol. Some links will also cause the filter to reject it, such as any link with the Facebook . com domain in it.

  13. Further anecdote on outsourcing

    NAB decided to outsource the technicians who built and maintained network connections between mainframe and the branches to Telstra.
    Network broke
    Telstra had redeployed the NAB trained technicians to other work, probably upgrading the ANZ network

  14. ”
    lizziesays:
    Wednesday, November 10, 2021 at 8:11 am
    This made me laugh.

    RonniSalt
    @RonniSalt
    ·
    8h
    Imagine Paul Keating having the all media follow him into a hairdressers to film his hair being cut.

    God, how I miss an intelligent Australia
    ”

    Seriously though lizzie
    “God, how I miss an intelligent Australia”. After numerous and huge cuts to Uni funding by LNP government and University education becoming expensive and the domain of people who can afford it, I atleast miss discerning Australia.
    Like mundo@8:01 am, I don’t do faith anymore when it comes to politics

  15. Have to say if i had any ambitions around renewables, it would be to rebuild the falling down shack i live in and include one of these.

    https://lavo.com.au/

    Someone mentioned “hydrogen sponges” upthread??

    I have laid my hands on one of these beauties. It’s about the width and depth but a bit shorter than a double-door fridge.

    40kWh is a bucketload of energy for a household overnight, or to top up an EV in the evening.

  17. U.S. COVID update: Daily cases rise for third day in a row

    – New cases: 81,636 …………………… – New deaths: 1,724

    – In hospital: 45,042 (+991)
    – In ICU: 11,630 (+125)

    778,193 total deaths now

  18. https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2021/nov/10/low-emissions-technology-to-receive-500m-boost-from-coalitions-new-1bn-fund

    “The fund will be administered by the Clean Energy Finance Corporation after the Coalition legislates new rules allowing it to invest in CCS, ”

    So this is a continuation of the policy that was disallowed in the Senate earlier in the year. Now it requires legislation to be put into action.

    Why would the senate pass legislation implementing a policy it expressly disallowed earlier in the year? It’s another marketing ploy, more smoke and mirrors.

  20. ‘Firefox says:
    Wednesday, November 10, 2021 at 10:33 am

    Australia’s de facto Foreign Minister on the job in Scotland…’
    ———————————————
    most amusing
    1. Australia is front row in those events. Usually in the vicinity of Argentina, Albania and Australia. The degree of global interest in the thoughts of SH-Y is demonstrated by the crowd behind hanging on to her every word.
    2. COP26 is a massive failure. Thank you, SH-Y. For nothing.

  22. Problems with precarious work for the worker are

    1. worker feels inadequate because they can’t get a permanent job when, in fact, the labour market is designed to eliminate permanent work
    2. no security of work ie when I taught in classrooms I would get a phone call at 7am so I always kept my work clothes and teaching materials in the car
    2a. if I planned an outing that would be the day I was offered work
    3. no holiday pay or sick pay, in industries without formal holiday periods like programming you can’t plan holidays
    4. can’t get a mortgage, a problem faced by underground coal miners as well
    5. professional development has to be undertaken at own expense, where as the permanent employee is paid to train and provided with software and hardware
    6. the tea room envy of permanent employees who think your 15% loading on entry level salary makes up for their loading for 10 years seniority
    7. stress of precarious work damages your health, leading to lower life expectancy
    8. stress of precarious work damages your relationships leading to lower fertility rates

  24. ”
    Boerwarsays:
    Wednesday, November 10, 2021 at 8:41 am
    Hewson was a big time loser. When push came to shove he couldn’t figure out the impact of the GST on a birthday cake. He also infamously opined that you could tell which houses were rented by the state of the lawns. This was not quite as explicit as Goward’s ravings abut the proles but the mindset overlap is clear.

    The party that most closely resembles the ramblings of Bolt is the UAP. This is no accident. The UAP is a fringe spoiler party. The Greens Party, same same.

    Taking the advice of Bolt, Bandt and Hewson is taking your lead from a trifecta
    ”

    I was not taking any advice from Bolt
    I just posted criticism of Bolt on Morrison. If people like Bolt are criticising Morrison, you can understand why Morrison went yesterday to safe Liberal seat.

  25. 40kWh is a bucketload of energy for a household overnight, or to top up an EV in the evening.

    Did you see my post re ToU night rates? If we had an EV and charged during the night (ToU – not controlled load) the difference between the offpeak import tariff and the FiT for our panels during the day would make a battery very uneconomical. Not to mention its environmental footprint.

    However, if everyone starts charging their EVs at night from the grid……

  26. My next tranche of personal choice is going to be to randomly do the opposite to every single road rule. No one is going to mandate my behaviour on the roads!

  28. The cynic in me says that the Australian government hasn’t placed an order for kids Pfizer so they can blame Labor

    No doubt they havent got the doses secured. I wonder if that is why 12-16yos got the full dose?

    But I doubt ATAGI would allow themselves to be politicised to that extent.

  29. ”
    Holdenhillbillysays:
    Wednesday, November 10, 2021 at 9:04 am
    Victoria 1,003 new cases and 14 deaths.
    NSW 216 new cases and 3 deaths.
    ”

    Like NSW settled around 200-300 case numbers per day, Unfortunately Victoria settled around 1000-1100 (triple to quadruple number of NSW) because they opened st higher number.
    Good luck Victoria especially with the summer sports that will come in a month or two.

  32. bakunin @ #2179 Wednesday, November 10th, 2021 – 11:24 am

    C@t,

    Aston Martin DB11 due for release in 2025 will be full electric.

    He’ll probably trade it in for one and is having a last hurrah in his as the Dealer Principal drives an SUV Tesla already. 🙂

    Barney in Tanjung Bunga @ #2187 Wednesday, November 10th, 2021 – 11:41 am

    Lurker @ #2399 Wednesday, November 10th, 2021 – 8:13 am

    Barney, adding a laughing emoji doesn’t make your comment funny. In fact, it’s a pretty strong indicator that it isn’t.

    Poor nath, feeling a little prickly this morning.

    His BFF, Smoko, has been laughed out of the building after his flop of an EV policy launch yesterday. 😀

  33. Poor ol’ Scomo, every stupid brain fart he comes up with is so full of holes it gets shot down in no time.
    I wonder what he’ll come up with next. Probably another one of his announcements that he has no intention of going ahead with unless there’s a big fat contract attached for one of his big end mates

  34. The Federal Chamber of Automotive Industries (representing vehicle manufacturers/importers) takes a big swipe at Morrison over what he didn’t announce in yesterday’s PR stunt.

    The FCAI has acknowledged the release of the Federal Government’s $250 million ‘Future Fuels and Vehicles Strategy’ which includes $178 million to support the development of electric vehicle and hydrogen infrastructure.

    FCAI Chief Executive Tony Weber said the Federal funding was a welcome step in encouraging the uptake of low-emission vehicles.

    “This move from the Federal Government will assist in providing the infrastructure Australia urgently needs to support more electric vehicles on our roads,” Mr Weber said.

    However, the FCAI believes the Federal Government has missed an opportunity to apply a vehicle emissions standard that will set a clear target for addressing the objective of emissions reduction in the Australian economy and provide real momentum to reduce vehicle CO2 emissions.

    “Governments should focus on setting targets, not trying to pick winners through specific technology,” Mr Weber said.

    “The availability of EVs in Australia is increasing as car manufacturers respond to growing demand, however the reality is that they still account for less than one percent of total vehicle sales year to date.”

    “This means that the Government’s target for EVs to be 30% of new vehicle sales by 2030 is extremely optimistic.”

    “We strongly urge the Government to adopt the FCAI’s existing voluntary emissions standard which sets a clear pathway towards lower CO2 emissions across the entire passenger and light commercial fleet through to 2030.“

    “Around the world, emissions targets are a clear sign of a governments intent to reduce emissions and sends a positive signal to automotive manufacturers to provide more electric powered vehicles to those markets. This is exactly what is needed in Australia.” Mr Weber said.

    https://www.fcai.com.au/news/index/view/news/740

  36. However, the FCAI believes the Federal Government has missed an opportunity to apply a vehicle emissions standard that will set a clear target for addressing the objective of emissions reduction in the Australian economy and provide real momentum to reduce vehicle CO2 emissions.

    But! But! Morrison and Taylor have decided that that is a de facto ‘Carbon Tax’ so they can wedge Labor with it! 😆

  37. Barney in Tanjung Bunga says:
    Wednesday, November 10, 2021 at 11:41 am
    Lurker @ #2399 Wednesday, November 10th, 2021 – 8:13 am

    Barney, adding a laughing emoji doesn’t make your comment funny. In fact, it’s a pretty strong indicator that it isn’t.
    Poor nath, feeling a little prick this morning.

    _____________________________________

    Barney

    I fixed it for you.

  38. Bulldust @ #2204 Wednesday, November 10th, 2021 – 12:04 pm

    Poor ol’ Scomo, every stupid brain fart he comes up with is so full of holes it gets shot down in no time.
    I wonder what he’ll come up with next. Probably another one of his announcements that he has no intention of going ahead with unless there’s a big fat contract attached for one of his big end mates

    Nah, he always does those on the down low. 😐

  39. Boerwar @ #2425 Wednesday, November 10th, 2021 – 11:22 am

    My next tranche of personal choice is going to be to randomly do the opposite to every single road rule. No one is going to mandate my behaviour on the roads!

    Every man and woman for themselves. That is the community spirit. That is how humans have become so successful. A battle – individual freedoms vs the good of the community.

    Ofcourse it is all just a joke. The far right know that a community divided, fighting each other for individual freedoms, is a community easily controlled. The libertarians and anarchists have always chosen to ignore the fact that if the people, united as a tribe or community or through the social contract with their representative government do not have and assert power then the greedy, mean b@stards will fill the vacuum. See how much freedom you have then. The freedom to experience a nasty, short and brutish life.

  40. Yep, SK, and you are spot on in your reasoning.

    “However, if everyone starts charging their EVs at night from the grid……”

    Yeah, that’s a big part of it.

    The policy development will be to first “commodify” energy supplied to customers according to need/value/reliability, as in:
    – Tier 1: Must run on demand;
    – Tier 2: must get at least x kWh every y hours, but controlled/allocated/coordinated by the local distribution service operator;
    – Tier 3: take it when available.
    or some variable on this.

    Then, given this option, you may choose a vehicle recharge schedule in a way that puts, e.g. 1kw into Tier 1 (and pay relatively big $ for it), 10kWh to Tier 2, and then and soak up as much as possible from Tier 3 (which should be close to free). And similarly for your pool pump and your phase-change-material-thermal-storage enabled HVAC.

    It’s all technically doable right now. Deployment of the systems for supporting it is going on right now (google gridqube of zepben). Network companies are working on standards to support it (e.g. AS47777, AS4755).

    There is a public education component to be completed too, and an acknowledgment that perhaps the network engineers aren’t the best to run that part.

  41. I reckon we need to stop mandating the use of proper residential wastewater treatment. Let people run their waste directly into the catchment.
    And that awful mandate on lead in petrol and CFCs in aerosols. Far better that people die of lead poisoning and cancers than force change.
    And….. what of mandating trespass? Why cant i walk across your land to get to where I am going? The detour interrupts my freedom to walk the most direct route.
    Time to rid ourselves of food standards. OHS regs. ALL planning laws. ALL EPA laws. Public decency laws. When walking around Kirribilli and I need to take a leak…. seems wrong to stop me performing a very natural process on someones gate.

  42. “However, the FCAI believes the Federal Government has missed an opportunity to apply a vehicle emissions standard that will set a clear target for addressing the objective of emissions reduction in the Australian economy and provide real momentum to reduce vehicle CO2 emissions.”

    Jeebus, they have been banging this drum for about 15 years. Just bloody well do it!

  43. ”
    Barney in Tanjung Bungasays:
    Wednesday, November 10, 2021 at 11:06 am
    Lucky SHY took her personal photographer, otherwise we might
    ”

    And FF2 made fun of Albanese photos on beach. Go figure.

  47. Simon Katich says:
    Wednesday, November 10, 2021 at 12:21 pm

    I reckon we need to stop mandating the use of proper residential wastewater treatment. Let people run their waste directly into the catchment.
    …’
    =========================
    People should have the choice of shitting on the footpaths. Fuck mandates!

  48. Simon Katich @ #2437 Wednesday, November 10th, 2021 – 11:09 am

    The libertarians and anarchists have always chosen to ignore the fact that if the people, united as a tribe or community or through the social contract with their representative government do not have and assert power then the greedy, mean b@stards will fill the vacuum.

    Hey! I acknowledge that. The liberties available to each individual natural person should be maximized* and protected. The latter part implies asserting some power over people who think “freedom” includes stuff that harms others. And corporates and other fictional “persons” can be regulated to within an inch of their fabricated lives.

    *In a reasonable way; as in you don’t build massive, shared, publicly-funded and maintenance-heavy infrastructure like a national road network and declare it a free-for-all playground, but you do allow anyone with the space, desire, and resources to build their own track and drive on it however they like.

  49. ”
    porotisays:
    Wednesday, November 10, 2021 at 11:09 am
    Ven

    The bastards should be asking “Why has the government FAILED to ensure we trained enough #insert profession#
    ”

    What do you expect when higher education funding is cut by LNP (Federal and State).

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