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 37 of 47
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  2. Re Zerlo @9:07. …Not very good results because it’s the weekend and low testing numbers.

    These numbers reflect Friday. The test numbers have not yet been put up but if the number is around 40,000 it will be similar to the last few days.

    The downturn in the numbers of hospitalisations and ICU, more reliable than new case numbers, seems to be consolidating.


  4. Asha says:
    Saturday, February 5, 2022 at 9:23 am
    …..
    Then you have people like Yabba, who provide an important reminder that atheists and agnostics can also be total knobs.

    Yabba has come closer to the damage done by priest fiddling with little children than most of us. I would have though, to be sickened by it all would be a natural human response.

  6. The comedians at The West Australian have come up with a bizarre front page today, looking ahead 30 years and featuring an image of a digitally aged Mark McGowan declaring WA b0rders open.
    I like the idea he could still be premier in 30 years.
    And the papers will still only be $2.90.
    More worrying is what’s described as “the reality of global warming” with a forecast temperature of 48C.
    (It’s actually tipped to be 42 today.)
    It’s all a bit pathetic but perhaps a sign of the rubbish we will see in the federal election.
    After all the editor cut his teeth at Sydney’s Daily Telegraph, famed for its photoshop jobs on Rudd and others.

  7. Victoria has recorded the deaths of a further 41 COVID-19 patients.

    I think VicHealth should start publishing the numbers of people who have used a VAD End of Life request to ‘slip quietly into that good night’. I think it’s relevant here. Otherwise we can only make the assumption that Omicron is more deadly than Delta, if you end up in hospital with it, because we never saw these numbers during the Delta Wave.


  8. Firefox says:
    Saturday, February 5, 2022 at 9:33 am
    ..
    Hopefully Labor will reverse their decision to support yet another terrible Coalition policy…

    If Labor leave it up to the Liberal Moderates to fight this is will be an absolute disgrace.

  9. B.S. Fairman @ #1592 Saturday, February 5th, 2022 – 9:39 am

    https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-02-05/barnaby-joyce-offered-resignation-over-scott-morrison-liar-text/100807332

    Not sure how that would have worked anyway. He would still be leader of the National Party and therefore still leading a third of the troops but have Littleproud as deputy PM?

    And still be Infrastructure Minister, as Matthew Doran pointed out. So, totally awkward around the Cabinet table and a sure sign Joyce and Morrison were simply going through the political motions.

  10. Morning all. Thanks BK for the excellent wrapup of the morning news. A lot more journos are back at work now, and the improved content shows.

    “Ronald Mizen says that although the RBA laid out a scenario in which unemployment falls as low as 3 per cent, Australians face a full year of real wages going backwards with the latest forecasts showing inflation is set to outpace wage growth this year.”
    https://www.afr.com/policy/economy/later-economy-to-soar-past-pre-covid-forecasts-20220204-p59tsu

    This story is pretty significant if Scomo tries to spend his way back into office. Morrison is running out of time and political room to move.

  11. C@tmomma @ Saturday, February 5, 2022 at 9:40 am

    I do not follow your logic. Are you saying that we should alter how we count and that would make comparisons easier?

  12. Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce offered to resign from his leadership position following a texting scandal where he called Prime Minister Scott Morrison a “hypocrite and a liar”.

    Speaking to reporters on Saturday morning, he said Mr Morrison had declined his offer to resign, which Mr Joyce said was in itself “a statement of a person with great character”.

    https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/barnaby-joyce-offered-his-resignation-after-texts-calling-pm-a-hypocrite-and-a-liar-were-leaked-20220205-p59u14.html

  14. Firefoxsays:
    Saturday, February 5, 2022 at 9:33 am

    Hopefully Labor will reverse their decision to support yet another terrible Coalition policy…The Religious Discrimination Bill.

    –
    And give Scomo a wedge to drive between Labor and God botherer’s in Reid, Banks etc by claiming it is a choice between God and Labor again for religious zealots ? No thank you.

    Labor will deal with this crap AFTER it gets in Government (assuming it does).

  15. Snappy Tom says:
    Saturday, February 5, 2022 at 9:25 am

    Comparing dictators now are we?

    What about the 5 million plus dead from COVID19 dipshit?

    Not to mention the millions of people who are economic less off or in poverty.

    Church did nothing while it was reaping millions of dollars

    I see more homeless people on the streets of Sydney what did churches do for them? Nothing

    Instead they want to ban stuff

    Lowest of the low Snappytom

  16. Holdenhillbilly says:
    Saturday, February 5, 2022 at 9:50 am
    Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce offered to resign from his leadership position
    ————-

    I doubt that was true

    Joyce could have resigned straight away if he wanted to resign his leadership position , nothing Morrison could do to stop , the leader of the National Party from resigning

  17. Confessions says:
    Saturday, February 5, 2022 at 7:26 am
    Who knew that Perrottet’s political mentor is Paul Keating?

    Alter boy connection?

  20. Snappy Tom,

    I value your contribution on here. In case there is any doubt remaining, one needs to purchase shares in a salt mine to obtain the level of salt required to consume Zerlo’s comments.

    Actually, bludging requires an unhealthy level of salt in our diet all round 🙂

  21. Pontificating Paul Kelly gushes over Morrison’s handling of China.

    Just Paul doing Murdoch’s jilted lover bidding China revenge bit.. given the latest.. “ I’ve been hacked by China “ cry from News limited

  24. I was reading the news just in on the ABC website and this article struck me as having a lopsided framing for title and bold inflammatory headings throughout: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-02-05/mark-mcgowan-faces-tough-questions-on-day-wa-border-was-to-open/100805196

    I thought I would take a look at the past stories by the journalist aka commentator, Rhiannon Shine.

    https://www.abc.net.au/news/rhiannon-shine/6912362

    Talk about a pattern! All COVID and all negative. Certainly not the sentiment of the WA opinion polling or WA located bludgers. We cannot blame ABC being Sydney based as this is a WA local commentator? Or is Rhiannon Shane taking direction?

  26. “Labor will deal with this crap AFTER it gets in Government (assuming it does).”

    ***

    Ah, the Peter Garrett! Don’t worry about what Labor says or does before the election, we’ll just change it all once we get in.

    Nevermind the people who’ll be discriminated against in the meantime. Nevermind them wondering why Labor won’t stand up for them in the face of the Coalition’s bigotry. Nevermind the very real chance (unlikely as it seems right now) that Labor won’t get in and won’t be able to undo something that they should never have supported in the first place. The main priority is getting Labor elected, no matter the cost, no matter the collateral damage.

    Honestly guys, no matter what the issue is, telling voters that you’re just going along with the Coalition to get elected and then plan to reverse your decisions later on is just madness. It doesn’t help Labor’s chances one bit and only makes you seem dishonest and deceptive. Be honest, take a position, whatever that may be, and fight for it.

  29. Has anyone noted any charity during both the Global Financial Crises or the Pandemic from the Pope down to the big churches like Hillsong ?

    I have not.

    What I have noticed is that homeless people ask money from people travelling on public transport because they have to pay per night accommodation.

    Church and religion should NOT being so mighty.

  30. There is very little left to wonder about as to why most Australians refuse to become engaged in the political arena at any level.
    The washing of the hair being commonly described as “creepy”.
    An ICAC may not investigate random acts of washing strangers hair but it may constrain some of the more cavalier attitudes of parliamentary representation and certainly promote the need for some honesty and transparency.
    The media, now almost completely interwoven within the political circus should be howling for the removal of this PM and his bevy of not so loyal deputies.
    The polls just represent how little the voting public will allow the circus to enter their daily lives

  31. Greensborough Growler @ Saturday, February 5, 2022 at 10:17 am

    I think of Pollbludger as a curate’s egg requiring unhealthy application of salt. Although some prefer malt vinegar as their condiment of choice 😉

  37. Griff at 10:13 am
    Now there’s a ‘Their ABC’ employee. Ms Shine looks to be angling for a job with effing Murdoch. Hard sell though, pushing the barrow that Mark McGowan has got everything absolutely wrong handling covid. Gee, if only the McGowan had followed in Bin Chicken and Domicron’s footsteps and then we too could have enjoyed their ‘success’.

  39. BK says:
    Saturday, February 5, 2022 at 9:11 am
    A grovelling Barnaby Joyce is apologising about his comments about Morrison. This is painful to watch.

    Tomorrow should be fun .. as beetrooter sees his gig disappear over the election horizon… opposition backbench coming into view

  42. GG

    That DT article by Mrs Joyce was up on their website before hubby was outed by Massola.

    Or as that other Scott said, that is Sir Walter Scott

    “Oh what a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceive.”

    The Liar being called out by a loon of liars, who then lie about what happened when outed.

  43. Firefox says:
    Saturday, February 5, 2022 at 9:33 am

    Labor cannot and will not appear on the same page as the Greens. The Greens are a complete No-Go area for Labor. Considering the extent and the longevity of the Green campaign against Labor, this should come as no surprise to you.

    Acting alone, of course, the Greens can achieve nothing. They embody political futility.

  44. The thing I found most fascinating about the B Joyce grovelling mea culpa, was how he came out and performed as the sentient, ordinary human being we know is really there behind the hokey cornpone schtick.

  46. Bludging:

    Or, and here’s a crazy thought, we could forget about the Greens and just focus on the merits or lack thereof of the legislation in question.

    If we’re going to base all our policy decisions on doing what the Greens arn’t doing, we might as well just merge with the Liberals.

  47. C@t:

    I’ve often said Barnaby’s speak is just a front to appeal to those he supposedly appeals to.

    When he isn’t deliberately trying to emulate Bob Katter, or isn’t drunk off his ass, he talks like the elite educated toff he really is.

  48. Morning all. I just read Laura Tingle this morning.
    https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-02-05/defence-fix-covid-crisis-aged-care-disability-systemic-flaws/100805860

    She draws a question mark over the government’s reliance on and preference for using defence forces in non-combat roles. She points out why the ADF aren’t the solution to our current health problems (lack of trained medical staff and resources), wonders (with examples) why the our government are nonetheless so taken by the thought while at the same time trying to hide it, and hints at but doesn’t explore the danger of militarising community support services.

    My reaction to all this “soldiers will solve it” nonsense is that it appears that Morrison and a significant chunk of government instinctively think, “At least the military will do what they’re bloody told. I wish everyone were in the military. This would be so much easier…” But do we want to permanently brace community services with military obedience and ruthlessness?

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