The big news at the moment is of course yesterday’s New South Wales state by-elections, where you can continue to follow the count here. On the polling front, there may be a Resolve Strategic result this week and presumably a Roy Morgan – Newspoll isn’t due, unless The Australian has decided to quicken the schedule with an election in view. That leaves the following preselection news:
• Alison Byrnes, staffer to Sharon Bird, will succeed Bird as Labor’s member for the safe Illawarra seat of Cunningham after the withdrawal of Misha Zelinsky, Australian Workers Union assistant national secretary and former criminal defence lawyer. Rob Harris of the Age/Herald reports it had “become clear in recent days he would not have enough support among branch members”, his prospects having been harmed by the emergence of past online activities in which he made comments denigrating women.
• Some new Labor candidates for unlikely-but-not-impossible seats: Amanda Hunt, chief executive of Uniting WA, will run against Andrew Hastie in the Perth fringe seat of Canning; Naomi Oakley, former police officer and owner of a private security firm, will run in the eastern Melbourne seat of Menzies, where Keith Wolahan will succeed Kevin Andrews as Liberal candidate; and Sonja Baram, a family therapist, will run against James Stevens in the eastern Adelaide seat of Sturt.
• Recently announced independents of note: Kate Chaney, Anglicare WA director of innovation and strategy and member of a family of local Liberal Party and business notables, will run against Celia Hammond in the blue-ribbon Perth seat of Curtin; and Craig Garland, a local fishing identity who made a minor splash in the seat at the by-election in 2018, will again run in the north-western Tasmanian seat of Braddon.
• It was reported this week that ASIO had rumbled an effort by Chinese spies to financially support “sympathetic and vulnerable” candidates for Labor preselection in New South Wales. Anthony Galloway of the Age/Herald reports the agency is satisfied no candidates of concern were endorsed, but that it remains concerned about the ongoing activities of “a wealthy businessman with deep ties in both Australia and China, who was known to ASIO as ‘the puppeteer’”.
Of course the new Strathfield candidate’s name is Jason Yat-sen Li.. Wikipedia updated already for last night’s result..
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jason_Yat-Sen_Li
Greens don’t preference on How To Votes ostensibly because people smart enough to vote Green are smart enough to know how to vote.
The Greens organisers take great care to hide their personal preferences from their army of foot soldiers. EG in Melbourne Ports the Greens organisers had Liberal sympathies but harnessed an army of footsoldiers disgusted with Michael Danby & Kevin Rudd who would never vote Liberal
Greens preferences run 80% ALP
I read recently that in poll, Russians love the sabre rattling BUT hate the idea of war. It is not popular (for obvious reasons).
I travelled across Russia a few years ago, and the pain of the Afghnistan War was writ large across the cities. There were prominent war memorials to the lives lost everywhere and constant reference to the war in the media.
billie says:
Sunday, February 13, 2022 at 10:56 am
Greens don’t preference on How To Votes ostensibly because people smart enough to vote Green are smart enough to know how to vote.
The Greens organisers take great care to hide their personal preferences from their army of foot soldiers. EG in Melbourne Ports the Greens organisers had Liberal sympathies but harnessed an army of footsoldiers disgusted with Michael Danby & Kevin Rudd who would never vote Liberal
Greens preferences run 80% ALP
The target market for the Greens is primarily disaffected Labor-preferring voters. So the Greens feed disaffection with Labor. That is their number one act. They will try to find a Labor-critical line on any given issue. Issues are only of value to the Greens if they can be used as instruments with which Labor can be attacked.
Politics is simple of you’re Green.
“After the crowing of triumph this week by Adam Bandt and his acolytes, how did the Greens fare in NSW Super Saturday?”
***
Good lord you lot are funny sometimes. These NSW by-elections could not have had less to do with what happened in federal politics this week! Your desperation to re-write the narrative is extremely telling. The only time I’ve even mentioned these by-elections was when I commented on the use of “Palmer yellow” in Labor’s signage.
The Greens results are about what I would have expected, considering we didn’t invest resources into them. Unlike Labor and the Coalition, we do not have the benefit of seemingly endless funding from the fossil fuel industry and the rich elite, thus we need to choose where we direct our resources. We’re not going to throw resources at a couple of by-elections in conservative leaning seats on the eve of a Federal Election, especially not when a full NSW Election will also be held not too long after that. It would make no sense from our perspective for us to do that.
I understand that it has been quite some time since NSW Labor has had anything to celebrate though, so go ahead and enjoy your victories, small as they may be. They indicate that the population of NSW aren’t exactly that thrilled with Domicron and his government to say the least. If things continue as they are, there could finally be a window of opportunity for Labor in NSW after all these dark years of being haunted by the political ghosts of Eddie Obeid and co.
I’m not sure how the situation in Ukraine could be perceived as US aggression a la Gulf of Tonkin incident or WMDs in Iraq. It is obviously unclear what the Russians are actually going to do, and they might, indeed, just be playing silly buggers to cause chaos because they can and they may have no intention of invading anything. If so, fine, it’ll all die down soon enough and we can all go back to ignoring that part of the world.
The US military/political complex may be overhyping the threat. But there is absolutely no suggestion that the US is preparing to invade Russia. They are not even talking about putting troops in Ukraine. Unless you count overdone rhetoric, there is not even potential aggression from the West in this instance – speaking of Ukraine at the current time without dragging in historical wrongs or other whataboutery.
There are only 2 significant possibilities at the moment: Russia (as they say) is not planning any invasion, or they are lying and they are planning an invasion – if not the whole of Ukraine then of the Eastern sympathetic portion. If there is no invasion planned, great. If there is an invasion planned, what does this mean for Ukraine, other Eastern European countries, the EU, the US, the rest of the world., and what contingencies should be planned for etc.
Failing to plan and prepare because it “seems unlikely” is entirely irresponsible. Planning and preparation that ends up being unnecessary is a small price to pay in the risk analysis of potentially being caught completely unprepared.
There is no doubt the Teals are a threat to the Greens’ vote share in the historical leafy Lib seats.
This should not however deter the Greens from doing all they can to remove the Lib candidate – and that includes campaigning for the Lib to be placed last on the particular ballot. This is the ethical thing to do.
JenAuthorsays:
Sunday, February 13, 2022 at 10:16 am
I am not worried about Strathfield … I was a resident in the last state election but have since moved next door.
Thanks Jen. Great to get the local perspective and informed comments.
Further to the points that Boer and Briefly have made just above, re: Green tactics in Willoughby – it has to be kept in mind all all times that at least half of the Greens fairly rusted on 10% vote is attributable to a long con – the pretence that a Trotskyist front organisation has at its heart the same values of the Tree Tories / Teals. Real Tree Tories / Teals represent an existential threat to the Greens because without Teal voters the Greens become an unelectable rump: just like that.
The Greens are really vulnerable in the present climate. One hopes that the likes of the Uber Teal – Mike Cannon-Brooks – resources some ‘Sustainable Australia’ type Teal Senate tickets, each headed by an extremely high profile lead candidate and with Palmer levels of Media advertising: this coming federal election may be a once in a generation opportunity to drive a wooden stake through the heart of the Green vampires that have held back Australia for a decade.
“two bob each way”
The Greens motto!
Speaking of Trotskyist Green vampires: morning Firefire (best you keep the curtains closed lest you get yourself injured with the teal shade of sunlight hitting your vampire skin).
It’s actually the parliamentary fossil fuel cartel of L/NP and Labor members that has held back Australia.
They are the mp’s who are enabling the highest emitting countries with our fossil fuels and need to driven out of parliament.
Voters need to identify the fossil fuel puppets on their ballot papers and put the on the bottom.
I notice those who sit on the front bench of the federal lib/nats are not telling the full truth
Yes the back benchers on the Lib/nats can cross the floor, but what the front bencher in the Lib/nats are not telling if any lib/nats who has a role in a ministry/front bench position, if they cross the floor they would have to resign immediately from their position
I see the Victorian Labor right has taken up the task of tearing down Daniel Andrews, from the utterly pathetic Vic Libs who haven’t laid a glove on him.
The Libs and Labor right are united in their disdain of a socialist left Premier. A socialist Premier is anathema to them.
“ Voters need to …”
therein lies the fall in all of your reasoning on this issue Rexxy: your failure to understand, let alone empathise with (or in any way constructively engage) “voters” in the one third of all seats in Australia that simply do not agree with your POV, let alone your absolutism and stridency (and I’m not even talking about the rich bastard seats who simply only give a fuck about tax cuts and property prices). The greens simply put rocket fuel on the bonfire of the political polarisation which leads to the stalemate and gridlock we have witnessed for the last 12 years. Blaming the “cartel” is a weak and feeble minded excuse to grasp the basic politics of our democracy.
“ I see the Victorian Labor right has taken up the task of tearing down Daniel Andrews, from the utterly pathetic Vic Libs who haven’t laid a glove on him.
The Libs and Labor right are united in their disdain of a socialist left Premier. A socialist Premier is anathema to them.”
More proof that you simply fail to understand the basic political dynamics of the Government in your own state. Andrews’ power base has always been an alliance between elements of the left and the right. That alliance has shifted dramatically, but it still has both left faction and right faction elements. There is no monolithic “Labor Right” or “Labor Left” in Victoria. There hasn’t been for well over a decade.
You really are hopeless.
The other thing to consider with the Lib candidate in Strathfield: she was off-limits for any lib-whacking because of her personal circumstances. The only whacking done was against Perrottet (sp?) … while the Libs went to town on anti-Chinese sentiments.
Short hand to opv.. who ever leads in primary votes usually wins the seat. Look at the 4 by-elections in this light.At a macro level this I suspect will be the be the result as well in seat totals
Andrew I think you are spot on about Victoria. Look at the role of Mr Merlino
Considering how much in lockstep Firefox is with The Greens twitter messaging, I certainly hope that there is a secret plan at party headquarters to start working with the Teals (and Labor) to reduce the Coalition vote.
As previously stated, I am of the opinion that The Greens has sequestered the environmental vote in Australia. It would be ethically sound (if the environment is truly the concern), that they lower the drawbridge when there is the potential to broaden the environmental vote across the political spectrum.
Andrew_Earlwood @ #116 Sunday, February 13th, 2022 – 11:25 am
How naive do you think people are to think that there is no back room plotting to improve positions.
You’re rivalling SfM with your spin.
Like I said, AE, it has been a long time since you lot in NSW Labor have had anything to celebrate, so I understand and forgive your misplaced euphoria, but you might want to ease up on the red cordial just a tad and keep things in perspective.
There’s a saying in Rugby League that Grand Finals are not won in March. They’re not won during the pre-season trial matches in February either… They can certainly be lost then though. It’s not a bad way to get the year started for Labor but that’s about it.
Andrew_Earlwood @ #115 Sunday, February 13th, 2022 – 11:22 am
It all get’s back to the fossil fuel cartel in which you so clearly are a defender of. A weak and feeble position to take given Australian’s rapidly deteriorating reputation.
Mick Quinlivan @ #119 Sunday, February 13th, 2022 – 11:34 am
I’d caution you to take any advice from a NSW Labor right partisan re Victoria with a grain of salt.
This is leadership.
“Firefox says:
Sunday, February 13, 2022 at 11:02 am
“After the crowing of triumph this week by Adam Bandt and his acolytes, how did the Greens fare in NSW Super Saturday?”
***
Good lord you lot are funny sometimes. These NSW by-elections could not have had less to do with what happened in federal politics this week! ”
That’s what the Liberals were very fast to say after their substantial bashing in NSW. Are you a Liberal in disguise, Foxy, or are you just parroting them?
‘torchbearer says:
Sunday, February 13, 2022 at 10:57 am
I read recently that in poll, Russians love the sabre rattling BUT hate the idea of war. It is not popular (for obvious reasons).
…’
————————-
The thing about dictators like Putin, Xi, Hitler and Mussolini is that if they want to go to war they go to war.
The Greens’ defence policy premise – that Australia always gets to decide whether Australia goes to war is false.
‘Andrew_Earlwood says:
Sunday, February 13, 2022 at 11:05 am
Further to the points that Boer and Briefly have made just above, re: Green tactics in Willoughby – it has to be kept in mind all all times that at least half of the Greens fairly rusted on 10% vote is attributable to a long con – the pretence that a Trotskyist front organisation has at its heart the same values of the Tree Tories / Teals. Real Tree Tories / Teals represent an existential threat to the Greens because without Teal voters the Greens become an unelectable rump: just like that.
The Greens are really vulnerable in the present climate. One hopes that the likes of the Uber Teal – Mike Cannon-Brooks – resources some ‘Sustainable Australia’ type Teal Senate tickets, each headed by an extremely high profile lead candidate and with Palmer levels of Media advertising: this coming federal election may be a once in a generation opportunity to drive a wooden stake through the heart of the Green vampires that have held back Australia for a decade.’
———————————
Excellent post, IMO.
“Firefoxsays:
Sunday, February 13, 2022 at 11:40 am
Like I said, AE, it has been a long time since you lot in NSW Labor have had anything to celebrate”…
Assuming that you are a real Green (BIG assumption!), may I recall you that you guys haven’t had much to celebrate since you were created in 1992. You only have ever had two opportunities to be in government: in Tasmania and the ACT…. but only because you hang from the shirt of the ALP. What about the ALP without you? Simple, try to tell your voters to preference the Liberals/Nationals/LNP above the ALP as an official party policy…. Ha, ha, ha… Good luck!
If I have it right the Greens’ explanation for their doldrums vote is: ‘The voters are wRONg.’
Genius stuff.
Re B.S. Fairman @10:07.
The NSW byelections are somewhat different to the federal elections as the former was conducted under OPV. If full preference flows were in place, the results could have been even worse for the Liberals.
Labor needs to be aware of this when campaigning next year. People voting independent or minor party don’t want to vote for the Government candidate, even if they don’t want to vote Labor either. Labor should be campaigning for their preferences in addition to direct votes.
An exhausted vote is a wasted vote. Labor should urge Green and Teal independent voters in particular to mark their preferences and put their Labor candidate ahead of the Liberal or National candidate. These voters likely don’t want to accidentally help return the Government after all.
(As for One Nation, Palmer, Religious Right and conspiracy crackpots – just vote 1 for your candidate).
‘Firefox says:
Sunday, February 13, 2022 at 11:40 am
Like I said, AE, it has been a long time since you lot in NSW Labor have had anything to celebrate, so I understand and forgive your misplaced euphoria, but you might want to ease up on the red cordial just a tad and keep things in perspective.
There’s a saying in Rugby League that Grand Finals are not won in March. They’re not won during the pre-season trial matches in February either… They can certainly be lost then though. It’s not a bad way to get the year started for Labor but that’s about it.
————————————————-
The Greens were always going to run out of wedges sooner or later. The LGBTIQ+ wedge is about used up. The climate wedge is gone. The Indigenous wedge self-destructed as soon as the Greens started tampering with the Statement from the Heart.
Aston is a very different kind of conservative electorate than Kooyong and Goldstein so a teal probably wont get the same traction.
Mexicanbeemer @ #133 Sunday, February 13th, 2022 – 12:14 pm
Dreamers vs Actuals.
Probably linked before, but this article by Richard Dennis in the Age/SMH is a very eloquent and readable argument about how neo-liberal economics not only strangles the true “commonwealth” of the nation, but is also contributing to the current threats to our democracy.
https://www.theage.com.au/national/government-will-get-bigger-but-will-it-get-better-that-s-up-to-us-20220209-p59v2v.html
“While Australian public debate is full of the droning of non-economists about the “economic necessity” to tighten our belts and cut government spending if we are to prosper as a nation, when it comes to the size and shape of our public sector, the stakes are much higher than the wobbles of our economic indicators. Long before anyone had ever thought of — let alone measured — gross domestic product, the consumer price index or the unemployment rate, Australia established what would become one of the world’s oldest continuous democracies. But The incessant propaganda war against the efficiency and effectiveness of government services, combined with the obsession with shrinking the size and role of governments, is now helping to drive a loss of faith in democracy itself. After decades of vociferous attacks on the idea that government spending and regulation can improve people’s lives, is it any wonder that a growing number of people think democracy just doesn’t work?”
Aston could go Labor if voters are impressed with Dan Andrews management of pandemic, removing level crossings, starting north link to airport, opening new schools
Is there a teal in Aston,
Billie
Looking at the last state election the ALP won Bayswater by a small margin and wasn’t close in Rowville so its hard to see the ALP winning Aston unless its a massive landslide.
Apart from the statistics, there is a political problem for the Greens. The Indies are competing directly with the Greens. Why would the Greens want an Indy to get up? ??
You have a good point there “Robin”.
The Russians have got NATO to demonstrate the won’t come to the Ukrainians aid militarily. A mirror of a key demand, that they never be allowed to join.
The panicky response, what Russia’s propagandist described as peak hysteria today, undermines the position of the west, or NATO(or however you want to put it), and most importantly pulls at the threads sustaining the regime in Kyev, and the whole state.
They’re already winning, they have no need to actually invade, so it seems to me that the west attempts to goad them to actually do so
Firefox is right. The ALP’s euphoria is misplaced. The ALP should be celebrating irrelevance and ineffectiveness. That’s what the Greens have been doing for 30 odd years. And we all know the Greens are never wrong.
Q: The thing about dictators like Putin, Xi, Hitler and Mussolini is that if they want to go to war they go to war.
Indeed that is true, but he risks losing public support very quickly.
One thing that seems to have gone unnoticed is that Russia has now ‘occupied’ Belarus. The Belarus leader is on the record saying that he basically wants to re-unite with Russia. I suspect that is now effectively done.
Teals wouldn’t have a chance in Aston (not that they have any in Kooyong or Higgins anyway). Aston is the closest thing in Melbourne to a “Hills” Bible-Belt in Sydney that reliably votes for the Coalition. Lots of middle-income, medium-educated, suburban, conservative, aspirational families and not a lot of ethnic diversity. A good place to raise a family and instil family values in your children.
Dan Andrews pandemic management might have a bearing on federal seats in Victoria (especially Frydenberg’s -where I once lived- because of his and his colleagues strident commentary). But I can’t see many changing a federal vote because of unlamented level-crossings or any other clearly local issues
JenAuthor @ #116 Sunday, February 13th, 2022 – 11:29 am
Bridget Sakr was one of those ‘celebrity’ candidates that Scott Morrison and the Liberals love. Almost an ‘Anti politician’ whose qualification for the job was that they have been in the news and gained notoriety. And honestly, I found it a bit disturbing that she had a giant photo of her deceased daughter front and centre of her media appearance on the ABC last night after the count. Sure her daughter died in tragic circumstances, but does she have to be pushed into people’s faces at every opportunity by her aspiring mother? It’s not a sympathy vote, it’s a political vote. Though the Liberals seem to believe that nothing is off-limits when it comes to winning political contests. A bit like a cross between a Reality TV show and politics.
1934pc @ Sunday, February 13, 2022 at 12:30 pm
The Greens should preference the Teals if they want to advance the environmental agenda. Of course if they are “yet another political party” that have taken naive idealists along for a ride on the other hand…
Torchbearer @ Sunday, February 13, 2022 at 12:44 pm
What is Russian for Anschluss?
Griff @ #85 Sunday, February 13th, 2022 – 7:33 am
I would imagine OPV would disadvantage what ever side of the spectrum had more candidates.
The more divided the vote, the less likely it will accumulate under the most preferred candidate from that side.
Hasn’t Reid formerly Lowe always been a marginal?
Nostradamus @ #142 Sunday, February 13th, 2022 – 12:45 pm
If you’re a white bread kind of family living the fake dream of the perfect life, perfect wife, which, like its avatar, Alan Tudge, carefully disguises a type of Australian that is intolerant and grasping and disguises a seamy underbelly in a lot of cases. Thank goodness most of multicultural, tolerant Australia isn’t like that.