I’ve been a bit lax in keeping up on federal preselection developments of late, which have naturally been gathering pace as the big event gets closer. To keep things manageable, I will focus in this post on developments in New South Wales, which is where most of the action has been.
Things have been particularly lively in the Liberal camp, where Scott Morrison finds himself in the thick of factional warfare between his centre right faction and its principal numbers man, Mitchell MP Alex Hawke, and an alliance of the moderate and the hard right factions. As Mike Steketee at the Saturday Paper relates, the latter have accused the former of obstructing the process so as to avoid rank-and-file ballots that may not go their way, potentially endangering Hawke himself. Steketee reports expectations that the end game will be a deal that leaves all sitting members undisturbed, with ballots to proceed in a number of important seats where it may have been prudent to have had candidates in place quite a bit sooner.
• Jim O’Rourke of the Daily Telegraph reports the failure of Scott Morrison’s seemingly desperate attempt to recruit Gladys Berejiklian in Warringah leaves Jane Buncle, a “high-flying junior barrister who believes in climate change”, as the favourite to run against independent Zali Steggall. However, James Massola of the Sydney Morning Herald reported party polling tested the prospects of Berejiklian, Buncle, former Premier Mike Baird and management consultant Alex Dore (who according to the Telegraph is still considering running), and found only Berejiklian would win the seat.
• In a particularly helpful account of the broader state of play, Linda Silmalis of the Daily Telegraph reports three candidates have nominated in Parramatta, which the party is hopeful of knocking over with the retirement after 17 years of Labor member Julie Owens. These are Maria Kovacic, co-founder of Western Sydney Women; Felicity Findlay, acquisitions manager for property investment firm Merc Capital; and Charles Camenzuli, engineer and unsuccessful candidate for the seat in 2010 and 2019. Silmaris notes the party has extended nominations in the hope that a stronger candidate might come forward. Former Parramatta councillor Martin Zaiter is “being wooed”; efforts to interest Geoff Lee, who holds the state seat of Parramatta, have come to nothing.
• One of the preselection challenges Alex Hawke is keen to head off is that against Environment Minister Sussan Ley in Farrer, where she is threatened by Christian Ellis, a public relations specialist who has made a name locally campaigning for water rights. Linda Silmaris’s report says “Mr Ellis’s supporters believe their candidate has the numbers, triggering panic among those backing Ms Ley”.
• Hawkesbury councillor Sarah Richards has been preselected to run against Labor member Susan Templeman in Macquarie, where she fell short by 371 votes on her first attempt in 2019.
On the other side of the aisle:
• Sarah Martin of The Guardian offers a revealing account of the complex state of play in Labor’s preselection for Parramatta. Local branches are dominated by the soft left faction associated with Laurie Ferguson, which duly favours a rank-and-file ballot. However, the faction is split between supporters Julia Finn, member for the state seat of Granville, and Durga Owen, criminal lawyer and Western Sydney University lecturer, neither of whom are “seen as acceptable to the federal executive”. This would appear to include Anthony Albanese, who may be about to sanction a push for the executive to take matters into its own hands due to familiar concerns about branch stacking. Albanese’s own branch of the Left favours Abha Devasia, legal director of the Australian Manufacturing Workers Union. However, the Right seemingly wants in as well, demanding compensation for the selection of the unaligned Daniel Repacholi to replace Joel Fitzgibbon in Hunter.
• Also noted in Sarah Martin’s article is that a rank-and-file ballot to choose Sharon Bird’s successor in Cunningham is expected to be won by Alison Byrnes, a staffer to Bird and the wife of state MP Paul Scully.
• Labor’s candidate for Lindsay, which Melissa McIntosh won for the Liberals from Labor in 2019, will be Trevor Ross, a firefighter of 36 years.
1984 update:
‘Dying from Covid’ = ‘Living with Covid’.
Simon Katich at 11:07 am
It is indeed ‘fun’ getting in amongst a ‘thicket’ of the blighters. The deal on the farm was you could have a blackberry pie pretty much any time BUT you must supply enough blackberries.
zoomster
The gardener insisted on trying to eliminate all the blackberries on my block. OK, there were a lot of them and they were mixed with roses and other plants.
However, clearing them allowed the deer to access the dam and wombats to burrow into the dam wall and cause a leak (I wish I’d been alert to that danger) and removed thick cover where fairy-wrens used to nest.
progress…
The telecommunications regulator has issued its largest-ever fine to Telstra for failing to handle silent or unlisted number requests on close to 50,000 occasions.
The Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) on Thursday said that Telstra had been forced to pay $2.5 million in penalties for mishandling unlisted and silent number requests, resulting in the publication of tens of thousands of mobile phone numbers.
https://www.businessinsider.com.au/telstra-has-been-fined-2-5m-for-mishandling-customer-details
”
lizziesays:
Thursday, December 16, 2021 at 8:26 am
Victoria
No, Coatsworth has moved on to mocking the AMA, whose members are concerned about lack of support from the C’wealth.
AMA Media
@ama_media
“The Commonwealth has cut vaccination funding for GPs delivering boosters. This is making it very difficult for GPs to run clinics at the volume and scale required, including running extra vaccination clinics or extra sessions.
Right when boosters are being recommended, they cut the funding.
Everything
”
No wonder GP clinics have no vaccine stocks now. Patients are advised to contact after New Year.
lizzie
I planted a bunya pine about twenty five years ago. One of the unexpected benefits is that its prickly branches host at least thirty nests every year. I have fun counting!
re rorts/bribe scandal. How exactly do labor campaign on this while trying to win seats that are directly benefiting from these bribes? Vote labor – because we’ll, err, stop bribing you?
”
rhwombatsays:
Thursday, December 16, 2021 at 8:37 am
Nick Coatsworth always was a narcissist. He is now generally despised as a less that useful pawn for the Scum-suckers amongst the ID community.
”
What do you expect from a friend of member of electorate of Pearce.
zoomster
Prickles are GOOD. 😆
Boerwar
Don’t forget the marauding Wombats keeping visitors in check Apart from that you look as fully covered as you can be without going hermit. Given the ‘Canbra’ vax numbers at least your ‘Freedumber’ demographic must be a relatively tiny one.
Not new, but amusing.
‘zoomster says:
Thursday, December 16, 2021 at 11:29 am
lizzie
I planted a bunya pine about twenty five years ago. One of the unexpected benefits is that its prickly branches host at least thirty nests every year. I have fun counting!’
———————————
Z
What sort of birds nest a bunya pine?
‘lizzie says:
Thursday, December 16, 2021 at 11:26 am
zoomster
The gardener insisted on trying to eliminate all the blackberries on my block. OK, there were a lot of them and they were mixed with roses and other plants.
However, clearing them allowed the deer to access the dam and wombats to burrow into the dam wall and cause a leak (I wish I’d been alert to that danger) and removed thick cover where fairy-wrens used to nest.’
———————-
Blaming the wombat victims?
p
Wombats?
The Digamma Strain?
Sounds like a horror movie.
Her Indoors’ brother is an anti-vaxxer, Freedom lover and Alan Jones fanatic.
It got to the point a few years ago that when someone at our end of his daughter’s 21st birthday dinner table said something derogatory of Jones, HI’s brother stood up in the middle of dinner and regaled the “rebel end” with a diatribe about how Jones is a true Australian patriot, and that if we wanted to eat a dinner paid for by him, then we could all STFU about his hero. We sat there agog, knives and forks poised, mouthfuls of Thai food halfway to our mouths, as he went on for about 30 seconds, then abruptly sat down.
You should have heard a moth adjusting its G-string for the next ten seconds until some brave soul said, “Er… changing the subject…” and broke the ice.
The birthday girl came over and apologized to me afterwards. I pointed sideways. The bloke sitting next to me, the mother-in-law’s gentleman friend said, “It wasn’t him. It was me”. Seeing as this guy was a Companion of the Order of Australia (AC) and also had two awards for personal physical bravery (one pinned on him by his mate Prince Charles), and knew Jones professionally quite well (loathing him, but regarding him as a useful idiot), it’s lucky the brother didn’t start specifying who he thought had made the remark.
I have to say he had been looking at me throughout his lecture. I always cop the blame for any subversive talk at HI’s family gatherings.
Needless to say, nowadays I find an excuse not to attend (to everybody’s relief, I suspect).
”
Andrew_Earlwoodsays:
Thursday, December 16, 2021 at 8:38 am
If the federal election is a squeaker, then I’d expect the incumbent LNP government to be returned.
If Labor wins it will because the accumulated toxicity of the last 8.5 years of a rolling shitshow has caught up with Morrison. That and Albo being perceived as a safe pair of hands.
……….
………….
Morrison’s artful campaign ‘against the Labor government’ trick of 2019 doesn’t bit
”
I think Morrison campaigned in 2019 like he was the Opposition leader and Shorten as the PM. (Unfortunately Shorten behaved like that at least at the end of 2019 campaign trail. Remember he did not campaign on the last 2 days 2019 election). I am afraid he still campaigns now like that even after 8 1/2 years of LNP government. ALP has to watch out for that.
Boerwar at 11:41 am
Digamma looks a ‘horror’ too
.
The Digamma Function
https://mechanicalbase.com/digamma-function-in-matlab/
I put a few big clumps of Hakea sericea in for bird habitat. It’s nasty stuff, crown of thorns material.
https://www.anbg.gov.au/gnp/gnp3/hakea-sericea.html
A bit too rough actually. You can’t get near them.
P1
“Are you seriously suggesting that the Independents are more corrupt than either of the two major parties?”
I’m seriously suggesting that you’re a Lib through-and-through. Every shout-out of yours for the “Independents” comes with a snide attack on Labor (but never the other side of the aisle… odd that). You’re as transparent as good ol’ glass.
poroti, I come up in welts now. I am not very careful – I just barge through with my brush hook to either to create a path or to level it for spraying regrowth. What is a few scratches? I have decided the plants know how destructive I have been to the species so they have evolved poison on their thorns just for me.
Blackberry are, however, food and habitat for native fauna so the eradication is bit by bit and COuncil can go and get f’ed if they dont like it (instead of pestering me they should focus on their own blackberry infested land).
Part of the reason indies are calling out for an ICAC is that their electorates are missing out…and they promised them that they’d be pork barrelled.
A big part of the Voices pitch in Indi was that we’d be a marginal seat and thus have money thrown at us.
It hasn’t happened, so now they’re whinging.
Cummins out. Smith captain.
Seasonally adjusted employment increased by 366,000 people (2.9 per cent) in November 2021, according to figures released today by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS).
Bjorn Jarvis, head of labour statistics at the ABS, said: “The latest data shows the extent of recovery between early October and early November in jurisdictions coming out of Delta lockdowns. This included the period of relatively rapid recovery in the second half of October that we saw in payroll jobs data.
“The easing of restrictions in both New South Wales and Victoria had a large influence on the national figures, with employment in the two states increasing by 180,000 people and 141,000 people between October and November. Employment in those jurisdictions in November was only 52,000 people and 4,000 people below May, having fallen by 250,000 people and 145,000 people during the lockdowns.”
Employment, unemployment and participation
The large increase in employment saw the national participation rate increase by 1.4 percentage points to 66.1 per cent in November. This was 0.2 percentage points below the peak in May and 0.2 percentage points higher than the start of the pandemic.
Unemployment fell by 69,000 people, following an increase of 81,000 in October, as people returned to work. The unemployment rate fell by 0.6 percentage points to 4.6 per cent in November, reversing the similar sized increase in October.
https://www.abs.gov.au/media-centre/media-releases/employment-rebounds-366000-after-lockdowns-end
Which bloody restaurant did Cummins go to?
BlackBerry a problem ?
Can you borrow some goats?
https://vicblackberrytaskforce.com.au/goats-offer-an-effective-tool-in-weed-control/
Kakuru @ #168 Thursday, December 16th, 2021 – 11:52 am
I’m seriously suggesting you have ingested too many hallucinogens.
Nice job by Cricket Australia in keeping all the players isolated for Covid Safety before the test… genius.
With an entourage of NSW based sporting managers and media hitting town, I shudder to think how many infections are in Adelaide right now.
A Test in covid-free Perth is looking pretty sensible about now, before any WA bludgers point it out.
Some inflation of reality SfM style from the Commonwealth. They are reporting vaccine % for 16+
However looking at State Health sites for W.A. and Victoria etc they, like NZ, have been reporting their % as % of population over the age of 12 not 16.
I have heard goats can be discerning.
But blackberry flavoured goat sounds nice.
fwiw, chickens seem to be doing a good job on onion weed.
”
Vensays:
Thursday, December 16, 2021 at 10:42 am
I booked today for Pfizer at Macquarie Health public Centre at Glenquarie Shopping Centre, today at 11:30 am
”
I had my Pfizer booster at Macquarie Public Health Centre. Very few people going into to take any sort of vaccine. My first 2 doses were AZ.
What I find a little perturbing about the NSW growth in cases is that 95% of them are Delta, ie not omicron.
That figure is amazing, particularly if the apparently faster spreading omicron takes hold.
Hence the 25,000 cases per day Health Hazard mentioned yesterday I suppose.
Ven
you will be pleased to read…………..
.
Vaccinating people with both the Oxford–AstraZeneca and Pfizer–BioNTech COVID-19 vaccines produces a potent immune response against the virus SARS-CoV-2, researchers conducting a study in Spain have found.
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-01359-3#:~:text=Vaccinating%20people%20with%20both%20the,study%20in%20Spain%20have%20found.
”
maxsays:
Thursday, December 16, 2021 at 11:15 am
From the Guardian blog:
“Albanese:
I’ll say this to the prime minister – there might be a divide on this street depending upon what side you’re on over whether you have access to support from the Federal Government for discretionary grants. But I pay the same rate of tax on that side of the street as you do on this side of the street. And that’s why this is corrupt. That’s why this has to be called out. That’s why this has to be stopped.”
and
“This is a bankrupt government. It’s a government that has lost its moral compass … imagine how bad they would be if they got a fourth term … it is just extraordinary the action that has been taken. And every day, we get a reminder of why we need a national anti-corruption commission.”
———-
Good. Clear, straight talking. Almost something Mundo could have scribed for
”
Nah. mundo will be more happy if Also crosses the street and punches Morrison and splits out all sorts of expletives. 🙂
Thanks Poroti. I have 2 AZ and then a Pfizer booster.
OMICRON AND RISING COVID NUMBERS PUT LOCK DOWN AND LOCK OUTS BACK ON THE PAGE
Geoff Chambers of the Australian offered this opinion today
“Wobby State Premier’s will forever be known as the grinches who stole Christmas ifi they break their promises to reopen the country and reunite family and friends torn apart by the pandemic. After getting away with cancelling the festive season last year and successive school holidays, the time for excuses is over.
The blame game over vaccine supply is now redundant, with Australia boasting world leading vaccine rates. The States and Territories, particularly Queensland and Western Australia, have had long enough to get their health systems in order.”
Page 1, The Australian. 16/12/2022.
Note the inflammatory language in just two paragraphs. Wobbly, Grinches, stole xmas, getting away with cancelling, excuses, blame game.
And who does he target “in particular”, what do you know, Labor Premiers in QLD and WA
No mention of the Premiers of NSW, SA or Tasmania in entire opinion piece. Funny that.
Whoever does the responsible thing and re-introduces restrictions and, God forbid, re-introduce lockdowns and/or lockouts inside and between States and Territories will have Morrison, anti vaxxer morons like Chambers here and populist party leaders like Kelly and Hanson screaming blue murder and demanding State Premiers “get out of the way of our “Freedumb”.
Scomo won’t pay much attention to the death toll, he seems more interested in finding a way to blame Labor Premiers for the covid crisis debacle we face, and by proxy, the Federal Labor Party to win cheap votes at the election. What a scum bag !!
”
porotisays:
Thursday, December 16, 2021 at 12:33 pm
Ven
you will be pleased to read…………..
.
Vaccinating people with both the Oxford–AstraZeneca and Pfizer–BioNTech COVID-19 vaccines produces a potent immune response against the virus SARS-CoV-2, researchers conducting a study in Spain have found.
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-01359-3#:~:text=Vaccinating%20people%20with%20both%20the,study%20in%20Spain%20have%20found.
”
Thanks poroti. 🙂
Some bludgers from the clique are so blindly confident in their own opinion without any evidence or reference that I pretty much always believe there needs to be a fact check.
A quick search of recent stories suggests that the Independents in Indi have done much better than neighbouring Labor seats and were even targeted before the 2019 election with extra pork. A tactic the Nats have also employed against the Greens in NSW state politics, also unsuccessfully.
Govt grants
via
https://www.smh.com.au/interactive/2021/electorates-government-grants/
Indi $34.49 Millions
and immediately surrounding electorates
Eden Monaro (Lab) $15.7 M
Gippsland (Nat) $40.22 M
Casey (Lib) $27.86 M
Mc Ewen (Lab) $1.05 M
Nicholls (Nat) $55 M
Farrer (Nat) $42.36 M
Also via Michael West Media, Indi was seemingly targeted for special subterfuge and non-preferred grants leading up to the 2019 election
Regional Grants: a bumper crop of rorts
https://www.michaelwest.com.au/regional-grants-rorts-bbrf/
“Announceables” and underhand tactics
The process for announcing the BBRF grants in marginal seats followed the well-trodden path of other rorted grants programs – sideline the Labor and independent incumbent from any announcement and allow LNP candidates to bathe in the reflected glory of corrupted pork-barrelling.
This was nowhere more evident than in the seat of Indi. The independent member, Cathy McGowan, did not contest the 2019 election, so the government saw it as an opportunity to win back the seat.
The underhandedness started when Senator Bridget McKenzie, no stranger to administering rorted grants programs, bobbed up in the electorate in early March 2019 to announce a truckload of BBRF grants, flanked by the local National Party candidate, Mark Byatt, and local Liberal party candidate, Steve Martin.
A video of McKenzie’s press conference blatantly campaigning is still available online. It refers to the following grants, amongst others, to the Yackandandah Pistol Club, and the Alexandra Scouts. Both grants were part of the orange list.
So the Australian Cricket Captain in “lockdown” for 7 days, subject to a negative Test on Day 6 I would presume.
“Lockdown” continues, but on a close contact basis.
I trust Neser is another Ryan Harris!!
And, hot off the press.
Speaking to my GP last week, he said you are due for your booster on a date in late January.
Then the announcement of 5 months, not 6 by the Australian “government”.
So have just rung to confirm they will contact me, now in a couple of weeks time.
No, you have to make your appointment.
But we can book you in now.
For a date a week before the booster was due when 6 months.
“We have delays in attending the booster and bookings, so that is the first date we can offer”
I smell another “botched” – to quote Grattan Institute – roll out.
Delays in receiving the vaccine plus the numbers making bookings, so a problem which is not going to go away.
So who is doing the staring to stare down this virus so we can learn to live with it and grow the economy?
Noting the S&P 500 was up 1.63% last night, but the ASX 200 is down 0.57% and falling.
The DJIA Futures are flat.
10 Year Bond Yield is at 1.605%
The staring is really working, hey?
Keep staring, people!!!!!
On my way home from the Mid North Coast and I am on the train and so still on my phone. So I have installed the Kiwi browser and would like to know how to now install C+ ? Player One’s pissantry is driving me nuts! 😀
Player One @ #145 Thursday, December 16th, 2021 – 11:16 am
You liar. What is i, you numbnut? We remember your utter confusion, displayed to all. You alternate between resistance and a lack of capacity to understand complexity which allows us to induce the plain conclusion that you are an out of phase hopeless Henry, with very high reactance, and no direct understanding.
Is Shoalhaven a better location for pumped hydro than Snowy 2? Is your addled brain capable of recalling your pontificating from Pell like heights about that?
Morrison promised the federal or state Liberal party governments would not tell people what to do
What happens
South Australian liberal party government has forced the Australian test cricket captain into isolation and missed the 2nd test
O
Sorry about the double post. I figured out why it happens now though. 🙂
I may be wrong but I am getting the impression that the media are over Scott Morrison and they would just like him to go away.
Player One @ #145 Thursday, December 16th, 2021 – 11:16 am
You lie. What is i, you numbnut? We remember your utter confusion, displayed to all. You alternate between resistance and a lack of capacity to understand complexity which allows us to induce concurrently that you are an out-of-phase hopeless Henry, with very high reactance, and no direct understanding.
Is Shoalhaven a better location for pumped hydro than Snowy 2, or not? Is your selective brain capable of recalling your pontificating from Pell like heights about that?
Henry @ https://www.pollbludger.net/2021/12/16/preselection-latest-nsw-edition/comment-page-4/#comment-3775437 “What I find a little perturbing about the NSW growth in cases is that 95% of them are Delta, ie not omicron.”
Hunter New England Health says most of the Hunters recent 1000 or so cases are likely mostly omicron https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-12-15/newcastle-covid-19-cases-almost-double/100701768
PS over 100 cases in my home town of Maitland in just 48 hours. Booster not avaialble until mid January unfortunately
Terminator @ #194 Thursday, December 16th, 2021 – 12:27 pm
“Likely”. Which in other words mean they have NFI because they haven’t actually got the lab results yet.
Should just keep quiet until they have actual facts.
Quoll,
I don’t see how your post dsproves zoomster’s point.
You’re highlighting what the Coalition did when they thought they could get the seat back with McGowan not standing.
What were the funding levels for the years when she held the seat?
Are other people getting lots of “Secure Connection Failed” errors, or is it just me?