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.
I was able to buy RATs at my local chemist yesterday. There was a limit of 5, but there seemed to be no other constraints. I bought three at $15 each (no concession card). Hopefully it’ll soon be like hand sanitiser and masks at the start of the Pandemic, with supplies plentiful after an initial scarcity. Back then there was reasonable excuse for the scarcity. Now, it’s a case of better late than never.
Dr Lizzie Skinner
@drlizzieskinner
Finally someone:
@AlboMP
has the courage and ability to point out that THE REASON WE ARE SO FAR BEHIND WITH BOOSTERS IS BECAUSE WE WERE SO FAR BEHIND WITH THE VACCINE ROLLOUT.
It’s on the LNP and Morrison, Hunt and Colbeck.
They failed us.
sprocket_ @ #836 Friday, February 4th, 2022 – 7:49 am
Why is Palmer giving the speech and not the Party’s Parliamentary leader Kelly?
https://www.sbs.com.au/news/more-infectious-omicron-sub-variant-detected-in-57-countries-including-australia/5fc9023d-907a-4e7d-9805-466f39527cd7
A sub-variant of the highly contagious Omicron coronavirus strain, which some studies indicate could be even more infectious than the original version, has been detected in 57 countries, the World Health Organization says.
The fast-spreading and heavily mutated Omicron variant has rapidly become the dominant variant worldwide since it was first detected in southern Africa 10 weeks ago.
In its weekly epidemiological update, the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Tuesday that the variant, which accounts for over 93 percent of all coronavirus specimens collected in the past month, counts several sub-lineages: BA.1, BA.1.1, BA.2 and BA.3.
yabba
Brings to mind 2 things
1)“You can safely assume that you’ve created God in your own image when it turns out that God hates all the same people you do.”.
2) Homer Simpson. Jebusites, jebus !
Not random – she’s wearing the same “Coco’s” t-shirt as the other staff members.
lizzie @ #1288 Friday, February 4th, 2022 – 8:19 am
The laying hands was my first thought. 🙂
“Why is Palmer giving the speech and not the Party’s Parliamentary leader Kelly?”
Platforming selfserving right wing extremists like Palmer is inexcusable, but Murdoch.
Yabba at 11.24am
I did respond to your post.
I’m not keen to be a defender of religion – poor track record over the centuries.
I’m also not keen to be a defender of, what shall we call it, secularism?
What I’m getting at is neither Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin, Mao Zedong nor Pol Pot were religious and they were responsible for some of the most enormous crimes of the past century.
I think a key problem is what I’ll call ‘powerism.’
sprocket_ @ #1276 Friday, February 4th, 2022 – 8:12 am
She certainly doesn’t look very relaxed or comfortable with the experience.
I’m all for any religious nut-job school wanting to enforce all kinds of batshit crazy rules. Knock yourselves out.
But break any anti-discrimination law (state or commonwealth), and you get $0 taxpayer funding. Simple. No exception.
Granny Annysays:
Friday, February 4, 2022 at 10:53 am
Steely, only a small number of religious schools discriminate, does that mean we should let them?
Only a small number of people rob banks.
My point was that is that we are talking about a very small minority of schools and some of the comments on here are lumping all Christian schools together and that all these private Christian schools are just waiting for the power to stop LGBTQI students to attend. Just not true.
I don’t think anyone who is LGBTQI would want to go to an ultra religious conservative school.
“I did respond to your post.
I’m not keen to be a defender of religion – poor track record over the centuries.
I’m also not keen to be a defender of, what shall we call it, secularism?
What I’m getting at is neither Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin, Mao Zedong nor Pol Pot were religious and they were responsible for some of the most enormous crimes of the past century.
I think a key problem is what I’ll call ‘powerism.’”
I think I know what you mean, and some proponents of secularism look a lot like evangelists, 110% sure they are right and everyone else is a moron, intolerant tending towards just nasty repulsive, not pleasant to spend time with.*
*Over the years I’ve had some great interactions with the major doorknocking religions, but they should really train their missionaries a bit more before they knock on doors.
The comments are pretty much as one would expect.
https://mobile.twitter.com/elliott_fergus/status/1489395355519094789
Sharma hands out flowers to random women
https://www.pedestrian.tv/news/dave-sharma-roasted-iwd-flowers/
Morrison washes random women’s hair.
They really do not have any idea.
“But break any anti-discrimination law (state or commonwealth), and you get $0 taxpayer funding. Simple. No exception.”
***
Break any anti-discrimination laws and get taken to court, let alone getting taxpayer funds which they shouldn’t be getting in the first place.
If parents want to send their kids to a private school, that’s totally fine, but they can pay for it. All funding that currently goes to the private system should be redirected to public schools.
Q: I don’t think anyone who is LGBTQI would want to go to an ultra religious conservative school.
And how does a 5 year old or ten year LGBTQI get to choose their school? Or do they just suffer 5-10 years of lectures about the evils of being LGBTQI … and then seemlessly transfer to another school (with ther entire self esteem destroyed)?
“I don’t think anyone who is LGBTQI would want to go to an ultra religious conservative school.”
You are right, I wish I’d had this insight earlier, I guess I forgot that it is a well known scientific fact ultra religious parents never ever have LGBTQI children.
Idiot.
You are seriously understating the per centage of christians who still believe it is a sin.
You clearly have zero interaction with children growing up in communities of faith. FFS my LGBTQI daughter calls me ‘disturbingly straight’ and as a kid at one of these moderate Christian schools you are advocating for I was introduced to conversion therapy stuff just because I didn’t look blokey enough, and I assume they thought better safe than sorry.
C@tmomma @ #1182 Friday, February 4th, 2022 – 6:35 am
I suspect the only thing holding Scrotto back from bolting to the polls is that he has not secured his religious privilege bill yet.
lizzie @ #1193 Friday, February 4th, 2022 – 7:17 am
Dutton never met a problem that couldn’t be fixed by martial force.
Barney in Tanjung Bunga @ #1307 Friday, February 4th, 2022 – 10:05 am
Washing the leper’s feet?
I was educated at state schools and am an ordained minister of religion.
I can’t see the logic of state funding for private (religious or not) schools, except where such schools provide educational services the state system seems unable to. One example is Margaret Jurd College, in Newcastle…
https://mjc.nsw.edu.au/
I still wonder why a school like Margaret Jurd needs to exist. I’ve had enough contact with the school to know 1) they’re doing a good job with kids who have been frequently suspended/expelled from other schools; and 2) they don’t offer ‘religious’ subjects.
The whole school funding ‘system’ in this country is a mess. I suspect the undue support given to private schools is another form of vote-seeking middle class welfare, but I can’t prove it…
An interesting expression of the radicalness of the Gospel Jesus. I wonder what ScoMo thinks of this. 🙂
https://biblicalcriticism313732485.wordpress.com/2022/01/25/jesus-and-homosexuality-matthew-85-13/
“The centurion’s ‘servant’ is a slave, but he is not an ordinary slave (δοῦλος in Greeek). In Matthew’s Gospel he is described as a παῖς (‘a boy’). Now, Judaea is in the eastern or Hellenised — Greek speaking — part of the Roman Empire, and Jesus clearly understands the Greek language and would have been well aware of ‘pagan’ sexual practices. Jesus would have known perfectly well what a παῖς was — a male sex slave. ………… This slave is the young male servant who the centurion loves.”
It is my considered opinion that the Prime Minister was simply nit picking.
“Sorry, but I borrowed that one for twitter”
Not me. I stole it. And I’m not giving it back.
C@tmomma @ #1275 Friday, February 4th, 2022 – 11:11 am
Thank Christ he wasn’t at St Vinnies when I had my bypass. He’d have poked around in there as well.
Fulvio Sammut at 11.55am
Glorious
“The whole school funding ‘system’ in this country is a mess. I suspect the undue support given to private schools is another form of vote-seeking middle class welfare, but I can’t prove it…”
A little bit of us being caught in the bad decisions of history, a lot of LNP (Howard on) and buying votes middle-class welfare you suggest, and typical modern politics where the existing power structure in the elite and extremist private schools will have the power to stop good reform even if a Govt wanted to.
On facebook there is now a review on Cocos Hair Salon:
______________________________________
**Posters Name** doesn’t recommend Cocos Hair Salon.
Having that rat Morrison in your studio. Disgrace.
Inexperienced stylist
Steelydan @ #1312 Friday, February 4th, 2022 – 8:41 am
Most kids have no idea of their sexuality when they start school.
And do they really have a choice of school?
Most of the time it would be the parents making this decision.
C@tmomma:
Friday, February 4, 2022 at 10:55 am
Ha! The UK tabloids can be so cruel.
Apparently, Morrison is moving on to a Dental Surgery later today.
Point made about the hairdresser photo-op is: is this an election campaign? Is this taxpayer funded? Is this more important than the Aged Care crisis? Does this put him in touch with women?
Don’t be too harsh on Morrison sniffing women’s hair was a key part of Biden’s appeal.
I assume the latest Mark Humphries skit (Morrisons Performance Review) has already done the rounds…..
https://www.abc.net.au/7.30/mark-humphries-brings-you-a-sneak-peek-at-the/13740362?jwsource=cl
Among lesser primates it’s a form of bonding, I believe.
“Now what would you advise if you were on Smirko’s staff?
https://mobile.twitter.com/CaseyBriggs/status/1489388483001348097/photo/1”
Not putting “Wash that Man Right Outa my Hair” on the election launch playlist??
yabba @ 11:24 am
Yes, with the Edict of Thessalonica (issued by the joint emperors Theodosius I, Gratian, and Valentinian II), the Roman Empire took a nasty turn.
I agree with your distillation of Christianity. However, it is possible that the apostles did speak some Greek (as well as Aramaic, their first language). Greek was the lingua franca of the eastern half of the Roman Empire (which the Romans essentially inherited from the empire of Alexander the Great and his successors).
It’s so typical of Morrison to be more preoccupied with the religious discrimination bill than the appalling state of aged care, the lack of availability of RAT kits, the internecine warfare in the NSW Tory Party, and so on & so on.
https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/key-conservative-casts-doubt-on-pm-s-plan-to-protect-lgbtiq-students-20220204-p59trx.html
“So now he holds a hose….”
Such a tiny one though….more like what he is used to holding. 🙁
Is March 3rd a possible election or there abouts ?
[‘Son of former Whitlam government minister Lionel Murphy rejects approach to run in Parramatta for family reasons.’]
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2022/feb/04/prominent-sydney-barrister-knocks-back-run-for-key-federal-labor-seat
Barney:
How do you know this?
Most kids start school with a very solid understanding of what heterosexual relationships are, even if they don’t yet know about what goes on behind closed doors. Many of the boys will have “girlfriends” and the girls “boyfriends” already.
Most children are from families with hetero parents. Odds are their teachers are hetero/have partners of the opposite sex. Almost every relationship portrayed on TV, in movies, and in books is heterosexual. Kids are constantly exposed to this, from a young age.
The only reason LGBTIQ+ kids might not yet be aware of what they are is because they rarely see any representation of themselves in the media they are exposed to. Yes, this has improved in recent years, but it’s still very much baby steps.
I wasn’t fully conscious that I am gay until I was 19, yet I knew in kindergarten that I was different to all of the other boys in my class, even though I could not explain why.
Sometimes you ‘know’ without actually knowing.
Kids of pre-school age already know about what boys’ toys and girls’ toys are. They know that only girls wear pink, and boys don’t wear dresses.
I went through the secular school system – thank ‘god’ – but even so, back in the 80s/90s, I came out of that with a very limited understanding of homosexuality. The sex education I received at school back then was 100% about heterosexual relationships, and focussed on how to prevent getting pregnant. Gay relationships were only ever mentioned briefly in passing, in a mocking sense. Something to be laughed at/not taken seriously. Basically, gay people did not exist.
Yet I learnt what “homo” meant in the school playground when I was 8, and that it was a really bad thing. I learnt what a lesbian was soon afterwards, through the playground, and that too was something to be mocked.
And we wonder why LGBTIQ+ students have “no idea” about who they are.
Scotty is particularly good with the folly calls.
“I don’t think anyone who is LGBTQI would want to go to an ultra religious conservative school.”
You are a complete ignoramus.
[‘Defence Minister Peter Dutton has revealed the Morrison Government war-gamed deploying the army in the early stages of the pandemic to “turn people away from hospitals” in the event of a mass outbreak.
In a chilling revelation, Mr Dutton has detailed the terrifying options the national security committee of cabinet was forced to consider as it prepared for the nation’s health system to be overwhelmed.
Defending the Prime Minister’s record on pandemic management, Mr Dutton said the entire cabinet was forced to contemplate the unthinkable and Mr Morrison had shown leadership.’]
https://www.news.com.au/world/coronavirus/australia/defence-minister-wargamed-deploying-army-to-turn-people-away-from-hospitals/news-story/044d0a39efeca6fc61443a489db955e5
if anyone is interested, the united states/nato written response to russia’s december diplomatic initiative (two draft treaties) has been leaked to the spanish paper “el pais” and published at their site, link below (it downloads a pdf document).
https://elpais.com/infografias/2022/02/respuesta_otan/respuesta_otan_eeuu.pdf
I found that clip of Scummo washing a persons hair revolting.
His media advisers need to be sacked
NSW Premier Dominic Perrottet says a decline in hospitalisations and intensive care presentations should be “very reassuring” to NSW residents.
“In relation to hospitalisations across the state, they are down around 200 from last week,” he said.
The liar from shire cousin lies again.
“A breakdown between primary and secondary students will be available next week. Ms Mitchell said 617 staff across 438 government schools had also tested positive.”
Not enough people understand the effect that islamic culture had on mathematics. There’s no other word that could describe it except ‘profound’. The world ‘aglorithm’ is a westernized reinterpretation of al-Khwarizmi’s name.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muhammad_ibn_Musa_al-Khwarizmi
He invented algebra. We count the way we do because of the way he wrote that method down.
Mr. Newbie @ #1341 Friday, February 4th, 2022 – 9:26 am
Your post seems to reinforce what I said.
Lack experience and knowledge seems to suggest a lack of understanding.
It’s days like this when I really love politics.
Laugh a minute stuff takes over brought to us from within the bubble.
Reminds me of the definition of insanity.