Situation normal

Accumulating bad news for the federal Coalition includes the results of two new seat polls and the state of the Liberal preselection process in New South Wales.

First up, two privately conducted uComms seat polls to relate courtesy of the Australia Institute (you may care to note here the disclosure statement at the bottom of my sidebar, which is particularly relevant to the seats in question), both providing bad news for the Liberals and good news for the independent rebellion they face:

• In North Sydney, the poll shows Liberal member Trent Zimmerman trailing independent Kylea Tink 59-41 and Labor 58-42, suggesting he would lose to whichever of the two finished ahead at the second last count. When results for the two primary vote questions are combined as appropriate, the second being a forced-response follow-up for the initially undecided, Zimmerman is on 35.5%, Labor candidate Catherine Renshaw is on 23.1%, Tink is on 21.3%, and the Greens are on 11.3%.

• In Wentworth, Liberal member Dave Sharma likewise trails independent Allegra Spender by 56-44 and a to-be-determined Labor candidate by 55-45. In this case the primary votes are 37.6% for Sharma, 28.5% for Spender, 19.2% for Labor and 8.0% for the Greens.

The two automated phone polls were conducted on January 24, with samples of 850 in North Sydney and 853 in Wentworth. More detail, including responses on various questions relating to the ABC, is available through the Australia Institute link above. I would add the caution that seat polls do not have a particularly stellar record, perhaps especially so for the kind of inner metropolitan seat under consideration here.

On top of that and everything else, there is all too much news to relate about the New South Wales Liberal Party’s extraordinarily fraught federal preselection process. Its state executive met on Friday to consider a factional peace deal that would have concluded long-delayed preselections for a number of important seats, the catch being that party membership ballots would be bypassed in a number of cases. However, signing off on this required the support of fully 24 out of the executive’s 27 members, and reports indicate it didn’t come close. This raises the spectre of intervention by the federal branch, which in turn would be assured of triggering legal action.

• The stickiest sticking point would seem to be the southern Sydney seat of Hughes, which the Liberals need to wrest back from Craig Kelly after his move to Clive Palmer’s United Australia Party. The factional deal would have handed the preselection to PwC Australia management consultant Alex Dore, much to the displeasure of local branch members given he lives in Manly, was earlier weighing up a run in Warringah, and hadn’t even bothered to nominate. Michael Koziol of the Sydney Morning Herald also reports that Scott Morrison is less than enthusiastic about Dore, as he favoured the claim of state Holsworthy MP Melanie Gibbons. This was vehemently opposed by Dominic Perrottet and others who did not care for the prospect of a by-election in marginal Holsworthy, since the state government is already in minority and fears losing the Bega by-election on February 12. However, Koziol’s report suggests the by-election might happen anyway should Gibbons register her displeasure by resigning from parliament. Anne Davies of The Guardian reported last week that some in the party were of the view that Alex Dore for Hughes was so clearly a deal-breaker that it was no more than a ploy to bring on a federal intervention.

• The deal would have spared Sussan Ley a challenge from Christian Ellis, a public relations specialist who has made a name locally campaigning for water rights, in her regional seat of Farrer. Liberal branches in the electorate have reportedly been targeted by a conservative recruitment drive, putting Ley in grave peril despite her status as the Morrison government’s Environment Minister.

• Another incumbent who would have been spared a challenge is Alex Hawke in Mitchell, which is telling since Hawke’s machinations as the leading powerbroker of the centre right faction, and thus a key element of Scott Morrison’s power base, have been widely blamed for the endlessly protracted preselection process. Hawke would reportedly struggle to hold off Michael Abrahams, an army colonel with strong backing among conservatives.

• Another factional powerbroker, moderate Trent Zimmerman, would be rubber-stamped in North Sydney, where he faces challenges from Hamish Stitt and Jessica Collins, respectively aligned with the hard right and the centre right. However, Anne Davies of The Guardian suggests their prospects in a membership ballot would be less strong than those of Ley’s and Hawke’s challengers.

• The deal would have installed the preferred candidate of Scott Morrison, Pentecostal preacher Jemima Gleason, on the Central Coast seat of Dobell, where the Liberals have been hopeful of reeling in Labor’s 1.5% margin. However, Anne Davies of The Guardian reports that Gleason has now withdrawn, and that “another potential candidate – a well-known cricketer – has also cooled on the idea”. Presumably this refers to Nathan Bracken, as per reports last year. This just leaves conservative-aligned Michael Feneley, a cardiologist at St Vincent’s Hospital who has twice run unsuccessfully in the Sydney seat of Kingsford Smith.

• Reports last week indicated the deal would also secure top position on the Coalition Senate ticket for Marise Payne, but it appears Friday’s state executive meeting decided otherwise, since Aaron Patrick of the Financial Review reported on Monday that a process had commenced that would have both winnable Senate positions determined by the usual process involving party branch delegates. Patrick reports the moderate-aligned Payne is “probably safe”, which is just as well given her status as Foreign Minister. With the second position reserved to the Nationals, that leaves number three as a battle between Connie Fierravanti-Wells and Jim Molan. Three incumbents are chasing two seats as a legacy of Nationals Senator Fiona Nash’s Section 44 disqualification in 2017, which left the Liberals with all three of the six-year terms the Coalition won at the 2016 double dissolution. Fierravanti-Wells was elevated from a three-year to a six-year term and Molan, who had initially been unsuccessful at the election, took over her three-year term. Molan was reduced to the unwinnable fourth position in 2019, but was back later in the year when he filled Arthur Sinodinos’s vacancy in a six-year term. Liberal sources cited by Anne Davies of The Guardian suggest Molan’s popularity with the party membership makes him the likely winner.

• Then there were the three seats that were uncontentiously to proceed to a party ballot under the factional deal. Even here there is bad news for the Liberals, with the announcement by moderate-aligned barrister Jane Buncle, the presumed front-runner to take on Zali Steggall in Warringah, that she was withdrawing her nomination. That just leaves conservative-aligned Lincoln Parker, who according to Jim O’Rourke of the Daily Telegraph has “worked in defence research and technology development” and at consulates in the United States. He has also contributed columns to the Epoch Times, the newspaper of China’s suppressed Falun Gong movement, the enthusiasm of which for Donald Trump extended to passing off his tales about voter fraud as fact. As James Campbell noted in the Daily Telegraph, the heat had gone out of the Warringah preselection contest due to a growing sense that victory was beyond the party’s grasp. The other two seats designated for party ballots under the deal are Bennelong and Labor-held Parramatta, on which I have nothing new to relate.

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.

2,308 comments on “Situation normal”

Comments Page 26 of 47
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  1. 9News Australia
    @9NewsAUS
    Defence Minister Peter Dutton has not ruled out sending in the ADF to help solve the nation’s aged care crisis. #9News

    “Alright men….fix bayonets!”

    ********

    My MIL is in a home at Mittagong, she’d love a nice military person to drop in for a chat so she could show him her grandson’s picture in his nice army uniform!

  2. People who are sending their children to Christians schools are not that religious or religious at all and I doubt that they attend church. They are sending their children because they believe they get a better education. Even the schools themselves, well at least the Catholic ones hardly have any Christian teachings. A substantial amount of the teachers are not even Catholic. I think their is only a small number of ultra conservative Christian schools that would ask LGBTQ+ students children not to attend.

  3. She’s shouting at police about how she’s a ‘death doula’

    She enables women to give birth to dead babies???

    What is a Doula? | Pregnancy to Parenting Australiahttps://www.pregnancyparenting.org.au › birth › what-…
    Doulas are knowledgeable and experienced in labour and birth and are able to offer tools and strategies for improving the woman’s comfort and managing pain …

  4. Ah the old HZ Premier panel van with “protect the children”painted on the side…Takes me back to my misspent youth.
    ‘Don’t laugh it maybe your daughter in here with me’ was the message then.

  5. zoomster

    Of course, to understand modern Australia one must understand the influence of divers religions and other cultural and political ideologies.

    But, is it historically accurate to say “Nearly all of these are just as relevant to understanding modern Australia as Christianity.”?

    Surely there would be degrees of “relevance” amongst all these religious ideologies to understand modern Australia.

    For example, without in any way denigrating Jainism, it would surely be accurate to say that Jainism’s relevance to an understanding of what has become “modern Australia” is possibly less than say Anglicanism or Irish Catholicism?

    In other words, i disagree with your false equivalence.

  6. The week before Fat Clive gets to adorn the Press Club, we have this other millionaire…

    JUST ANNOUNCED: @simonahac, from @Climate200 will Address the National Press Club on Wednesday, 16th February 2022, 12:30pm AEDT on “Independents and Climate – The Hope to End the Lost Decade”. Get your tickets now: npc.org.au/speaker/2022/9…

  7. “Ethos” FFS!

    Stoker said although the government wants to do do “the right thing by these kids” it also acknowledged “the fact that religious schools are the education choice for thousands of Australian families” and did not want to stop their ability to set their own ethos.

    So Stoker thinks it fine that religious bigots are free to ignore the norms of a civil society & practice discrimination as & when they see fit.. say a school that preaches anti semitism for instance…

    The Libs need to get off the barbed wire fence before they do serious self harm.

  10. Grime says:
    Friday, February 4, 2022 at 10:43 am
    Ah the old HZ Premier panel van with “protect the children”painted on the side…Takes me back to my misspent youth.
    ‘Don’t laugh it maybe your daughter in here with me’ was the message then.

    “If it’s rockin’ don’t bother knockin’” lol.

  12. C@tmomma @ #616 Friday, February 4th, 2022 – 10:40 am

    Gettysburg1863 @ #1245 Friday, February 4th, 2022 – 10:35 am

    C@tmomma943am
    Hey C@t, do you remember a previous PM telling us all when he was elected that ” the adults are back in charge”?
    Two PMs later and his successor is telling us that the Government ( the adults we elected in 2013) need to get out of our lives and let us “adults” get on with life.
    Classic, ain’t it?

    There is no pretzel they can’t twist themselves into. 😆

    Pretzel Logic

  13. Granny Anny says:
    Friday, February 4, 2022 at 10:53 am

    Steely, only a small number of religious schools discriminate, does that mean we should let them?
    _____________
    The problem is they will most likely be driven out by less direct means.

  14. A year ago this was ScoMo’s response to the Aged Care Royal Commission Report

    https://twitter.com/abc730/status/1366310538620248065?s=21

    A year later…

    Current situation in aged care:

    -30,000+ residents and staff currently infected
    -533+ resident deaths this year
    -Circa 50% of aged care homes have outbreaks
    -PM hasn’t implemented Royal Commission recs re: wage increase or staffing minimums, but announces a “taskforce” #auspol

  15. Mavis @ #1258 Friday, February 4th, 2022 – 10:50 am

    Johnson should resign and be replaced by that paragon of Tory virtues, Jacob Rees-Mogg:

    https://thenewdaily.com.au/news/world/uk-news/2022/02/04/boris-johnson-jimmy-savile/?breaking_live_scroll=1

    On second thought, it would be better for Labour if Johnson were to blunder on until the election in May ’24 though I can’t see this happening. Johnson will never recover from the Partygate scandal.

  16. The three segments about the Religious Discrimination Bill on RN Breakfast this morning.

    https://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/breakfast/christian-groups-angry-over-lgbti-students-pledge/13741020

    https://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/breakfast/amanda-stoker-religious-schools-lgbti-discrimination-beliefs/13741044

    https://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/breakfast/equality-australia-sex-discrimination-lgbti-religion/13741124

    The three segments taken together sum up the situation, perhaps best encapsulated in the two word title of this thread with the three words usually added to complete the phrase.

    Edit. Altered slightly to better convey intention of final sentence.

  17. Steelydansays:

    Friday, February 4, 2022 at 10:42 am

    People who are sending their children to Christians schools are not that religious or religious at all and I doubt that they attend church. They are sending their children because they believe they get a better education. Even the schools themselves, well at least the Catholic ones hardly have any Christian teachings. A substantial amount of the teachers are not even Catholic. I think their is only a small number of ultra conservative Christian schools that would ask LGBTQ+ students children not to attend.
    _____________________
    As the spouse of a Christian Primary School Principal, you’ve summed up her school well. She is of the faith of the school but there are only about 3 of her staff that are also that faith and attend the associated church. Smattering of other denominations and most are not formally aligned/religious. Parents/children about the same numbers. They have a very light touch ‘Christian Studies’ component. Definitely welcome with open arms any person. Obviously not as much of an issue for a Primary School as it is for Secondary but still sets the example from the Junior years. She tells me that their school system has a charter that expressly prohibits the discrimination of anyone along the lines that the Queensland school has dived stupidly head first into which I’m very pleased to know (I know she also wouldn’t want to be part of a system that spread such hatred).

  19. Steelydan says:
    Friday, February 4, 2022 at 10:42 am

    People who are sending their children to Christians schools are not that religious or religious at all and I doubt that they attend church. They are sending their children because they believe they get a better education. Even the schools themselves, well at least the Catholic ones hardly have any Christian teachings. A substantial amount of the teachers are not even Catholic. I think their is only a small number of ultra conservative Christian schools that would ask LGBTQ+ students children not to attend.

    The social estate has contracted-out a large share of the education system. This props up reactionary religious bureaucracies but does nothing whatsoever to improve educational results. In fact, because the corollary has been the steady de-funding of the State system, educational results are in general – considered across the whole student population – probably lower than they otherwise could be.

    Funding from the social estate is topped up by funding from private/household sources. That is, an additional layer of quasi taxation, fees-for-schooling, is skimmed from households that ‘elect’ to use private schooling for their children. This tends to defeat the broader social goals of taxation whilst also propping up swags of incompetent religiously-based schools at the expense of secular education.

    If we were serious about tax, education, the economy, personal fulfilment and social justice, we would abolish private schools.

  22. Rakali

    So to challenge my ‘false equivalence’ you use a religion I didn’t refer to?

    Look, you misunderstood my first post (which is why my second told you to lighten up). I understand you can’t admit that, but you don’t need to be a prat about it.

    Basically, you’ve agreed with everything I’ve been saying and have to twist yourself in knots rather than admit that.

  27. Project. Brainwash. Rinse and repeat.

    Donald Trump has tried to turn the tables by claiming that he was the victim of an attempted coup to remove him from office.

    The former president made the wild claim despite new details emerging of his own attempt to steal Joe Biden’s 2020 election win.

    Mr Trump’s aides drafted two versions of an executive order to seize voting machines intended for the Department of Defense and the Department of Homeland Security, sources told CNN.

    The orders were never carried out but show how determined the former reality TV star was to subvert democracy to cling on to power after his legal defeat to Mr Biden.

    Mr Trump told Rob Schmitt of right-wing news channel Newsmax that Democrats had tried to kill-off his presidency.

    https://www.msn.com/en-au/news/world/trump-tries-to-turn-tables-by-claiming-he-was-victim-of-attempted-coup-by-people-trying-to-get-him-out-of-office/ar-AATrGGP

  31. sprocket_at 11:04 am

    The Prime Minister of Australia is in a hair salon, washing a lady’s hair…

    Really ?? OMG, word goes round that SfM has a ‘women problem’ so he hopes to remedy that by going to a hair salon and washing some random women’s hair ? Was he inspired by an episode of some UK political satire ? Scotty sees himself as jesus washing a beggars feet ? 😆

  36. I think I can see where Stoker is heading. A “vote below the line” campaign to “protect religious freedom” might improve her chances of getting up from No.3 on the ticket.
    Profiles I have read of her say she is very ambitious and very calculated. Nothing she says or does is by chance.
    Even on national radio disagreeing with the Prime Minister on how legislation will be dealt with.

  37. BK

    76 deaths today from Covid, mostly in Aged Care.

    Morrison’s response? Wash a lady’s hair with the media in tow.

    I’m smelling a drive down Dunrossil Avenue to see the GG this Sunday. This is the only way he can circuit break this freak show prime ministership he is occupying..

  39. Jo Dyer – an independent voice for Boothby
    @instanterudite
    ·
    17h
    This, from
    @BernardKeane
    . Absolutely abhorrent. #auspol

    Mongrels.

  44. Here are the number of hospitalisations for Covid in NSW since the start of the year. The upper lines are the daily numbers hospitalised (blue) and a 3-day centred average (red). The lower line is the number in ICU on a scale ten times larger.

    Both are showing signs of a downturn, albeit a fairly slow one. We’ll know in a few days whether the downturn holds.

  45. I am going to post this again because when I put it up last night, almost everyone had gone to bed. The true nature of the bible needs, in my view, to be recognised.
    __________________
    The key thing to know about the bible is that nobody knows who wrote it. Any of it, at all. We know that the schizophrenic, psychotic ‘god’ character in it was invented by a tribe of nomadic sheep herders some time around 2,500 BC, and that they later settled and became grain farmers as well.

    The so-called gospels according to various names, in the book, have NO author’s names attached to the original documents, which are all in various Greek dialects; rather strangely, since all of the nominated (false) authors spoke Aramaic. The materials attributed to Paul are also not able to be verified as to authorship. There are at least two Pauls, and probably three, judging by the different dialects and vocabulary used in the so-called epistles. Their contents are directly self-contradictory in many passages.

    The bible is a grab bag of various documents dredged up from all over the place to come up with some sort of basis for the newly designated ‘official’ religion of the Roman empire, when Constantine proclaimed it in 323. Its designation as a ‘holy’ book, and reverence assigned to it are totally unjustified in the light of any objective analysis of its patently ridiculous, internally contradictory content, and totally unknown authorship and origin.

    Some guy, who has no verifiable historical presence at all, is stated to have walked on water. Whoever wrote/transcribed the so-called Luke version of that particular day’s events, as opposed to the ‘matthew’ version (which is close to identical, except for the embellishment), didn’t think that that bit was worth reporting. Probably because he/she judged that only a gullible fool would believe something inane like that. But billions say that they do, and ever since Theodesius I and Valentinian II ‘s joint decree on February 27, 380 CE, those who are able to think for themselves have been slaughtered in their hundreds of thousands for not accepting this ridiculous, baseless nonsense.
    __________________
    Re the schizophrenic, psychotic ‘god’ character. Never forget this unambiguous command, straight from the ‘word of god’:

    Deuteronomy 20:16-17
    English Standard Version

    “16 But in the cities of these peoples that the Lord your God is giving you for an inheritance, you shall save alive nothing that breathes, 17 but you shall devote them to complete destruction, the Hittites and the Amorites, the Canaanites and the Perizzites, the Hivites and the Jebusites, as the Lord your God has commanded.”

    The undiluted word of god! A real sweety, that one. I can see why it appeals to Scomo. But to rational, intelligent human beings, with free access to bountiful scientific and historical knowledge? I am staggered.

  48. “People who are sending their children to Christians schools are not that religious or religious at all and I doubt that they attend church. They are sending their children because they believe they get a better education. Even the schools themselves, well at least the Catholic ones hardly have any Christian teachings. A substantial amount of the teachers are not even Catholic. I think their is only a small number of ultra conservative Christian schools that would ask LGBTQ+ students children not to attend.”

    Excellent post containing the range of reasons no public funding at all should go into any private school, and accreditation standards should be applied, at the schools cost, vigorously.

    The idea that taxpayers are funding elite and potentially dangerously hateful schools while state schools are grossly underfunded is ridiculous.

    When the State Schools all have a couple of Olympic swimming pools, theatres with orchestra pits, and polo and fencing programs, then, yeah nah even then zero funding to elite and extremist private schools.

  50. The Queensland CHO just now

    Sadly we have 13 deaths to report today. One person in their 60s, three in that 70s, five in their 80s and four in their 90s. Two of these people were not vaccinated. Eight had received two doses of vaccine and only three had received a booster. Nine of these were aged care residents.

    No information yet on whether their hair was washed..

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