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’”.
Nostradamus @ Sunday, February 13, 2022 at 2:32 pm
Interesting to see you posting more frequently recently. And a greater variety in your post topics. I don’t suppose you even meet up with Nath? When you do, please say hi 😉
Kevin Bonham @ #179 Sunday, February 13th, 2022 – 1:56 pm
2019 was rock bottom for Labor, so a re-run of 2019 I hope is not on the cards. Hence, The Greens expectations are not soundly-based.
If the US stops insisting on freedom of navigation(including by Russians) in international waters (including the Mediterranean and straits like the Dardanelles) their whole foreign policy vis-a-vis China collapses. Russia has a port in the Mediterranean at Tartus. And the home base of the navy is indeed in the Black Sea. Blockading the Dardanelles is an act of war
Why has the west got such a hard-on for Putin? Why so gormlessly provide witless bogieman after bogieman, external threats to sustain his power. What is it with the strange sexualisation of his cult of personality, the Kremlin hardly needs propagandists when all the western mastheads do the job for him.
Why keep on expanding Europe’s dependency on Russian gas, 15 years after it was first used as a weapon, in Ukraine.
It’s as if western policy has been built around sustaining these conflicts between tyrants whose common feature is a love of fossil fuels, in order to keep the sharpest minds focussed on Putin and the like, rather than the far more important transition away from fossil fuels.
I kind of despair when I see stuff like this reduced to salacious psycho-babble – thinking here of a few of my friends who are suckers for that rather than anyone’s comment here
Nostradamus @ #198 Sunday, February 13th, 2022 – 2:32 pm
What an elitist, condescending bigot you are.
Expect there to be some fireworks tonight in the ACT when the police move the diehards out of EPIC.
C@tmomma says:
Sunday, February 13, 2022 at 2:40 pm
What an elitist, condescending bigot you are.
—
Everything in that post is fantasy. The giddy excitement – just laughable. He reminds me of a young pre-pubescent boy who discovers porn on the internet for the first time, and loses all self-control.
The ALP need a rebound of 2.7% in Queensland to have take the Greens senate seat away in Queensland. I suspect we will see that come for the LNP vote, if not a bit more meaning that the final two seats will be a battle between One Nation, the 3rd LNP and Greens. If I had to guess I would probably say the 3rd LNP missing out because the UAP vote and LDP vote will head to Hanson.
A similar thing happens in NSW if the LNP vote drops and as I said Tassie is hard to model as the Lambie voters have to go somewhere else this time.
Zed getting desperate, but Pocock having none of it.
Time to get the nutters out of parliament.
subgeometer,
4 years of Donald Trump and his global Authoritarian fixation can do that to the world. Not to mention the effect of the facilitation of the brainwashing of hearts and minds of citizens in democratic countries by malign forces that seek to draw them into support for the Fossil Fuel cabal, which naturally overlaps with those self-same Populist Demagogues and Authoritarians. They don’t want countries and their citizens to give up their reliance on fossil fuels and make the transition to a Renewables future and so they will use their control of the media narrative to make sure those democracies that still function relatively normally are swayed against it and towards electing their proxies in politics. As will the politicians in government who are already in power and intertwined with them.
”
Granny Annysays:
Sunday, February 13, 2022 at 9:54 am
With regard to the Eastern European military build up, the yanks have sent a couple of thousand troops to existing bases in Poland, (how many came home?) and the Brits have withdrawn the very few who were on a training mission in Ukraine. Hardly preparation for WW3.
”
According to WH sources, US intelligence services think Putin will go to war around 16/02/2022.
somethinglikethat @ #207 Sunday, February 13th, 2022 – 2:47 pm
I just found it really offensive to put down the people who live in inner city Melbourne, like they were some sort of disease.
Just want to give a shout-out to whoever this bloke is and say thanks – this is the kind of attitude towards the Greens that Laborites should have. Working together against the enemy in blue! If only more of you were a bit more like him. Good man.
I remember seeing a Green volunteer doing this for Labor at my local booth back in 2013. It was just Greens and Nats there that year, such an unusual sight not to have either of the majors in attendance.
Barnaby on the other hand? Nutcase! This is hardly an indication of some non-existent alliance, it’s just someone being a decent person and handing out a HTV for us when we obviously didn’t have the resources here.
Ven, if I was a gambler I would lay money on it not happening.
This is a win/win situation for the reactionaries. If the Russians invade, they were right, if they don’t, then they were stared down.
I think we should just get on with our lives and ignore the bullshit.
Realistically the Liberals are still one term away from government in Victoria. The Andrews government is approaching the stage of the political cycle where problems that were once small start to take on a bigger importance but because of its margin and Matthew Guy then the Andrews government should be around until 2026 or 2030.
Sorry to rain on your parade but if the Libs don’t make substantial inroads at the election later this year – which on present indications is very unlikely – they’ve got bugger all chance of winning in 2026.
If you want to live under a state Liberal government I suggest you move to NSW. Apart from Tasmania it will be the only one left in a year or so.
C@tmomma:
Sunday, February 13, 2022 at 2:31 pm
[‘Anyway, there will come a time when the pendulum will start swinging against the 69yo Putin because, as the Roman Empire showed us, you can keep acquiring more parts into your empire but it thus becomes increasingly difficult to maintain control over them and the dissident groups who chafe at the bit against your control and then organise against you with your empire eventually falling to the momentum going the other way.’]
One would like to think that it will though Putin will probably die at the helm of his superyacht, Russians seeming to prefer so-called strong leaders, and bearing in mind that the country has little or no history of democracy – princes, the czars, Stalin, et al, then signs of hope with Gorbachev & Yeltsin, only to take a step back with the autocratic Putin.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/07/03/whats-vladimir-putins-end-game-other-post-soviet-autocrats-give-few-clues/
” I wonder if this is Dutton’s offering – but for every Qld seat he can save, i suspect he costs another elsewhere.”
Peter Dutton appeal in Queensland is overrated. The view he is somewhat of a Kevin Rudd/Peter Beattie type appeal is way off. Actually that was the view of Labor strategists when he challenged Malcolm Turnbull at the time.
I’ve seen the suggestion he should be parachuted into state politics. The view he would cure the losing culture in the state LNP as leader is nonsense.
Nostradamus
Dismissing latte slippers is why they don’t vote for the Liberals.
“Firefox: If Labor and Greens both gain then yes it’s quite possible to see 2-2-1-1 or 3-2-1-0 (3 LNP 0 PHON) in Queensland.”
***
Cheers, KB. Yep noted re polling being dodgy.
It’s interesting that you reckon Newman is a better chance than Palmer. Would have thought all Clive’s $$$$$$$ would give him the edge but I guess Newman does have being a former premier in his favour, so he’s certainly not short on name recognition or exposure in QLD.
alfred venison says:
Sunday, February 13, 2022 at 2:34 pm
Thanks… I’m now lost in your avatar link
Cheers
Katharine Murphy@murpharooLook,
Dutton is a dickhead, but he’s our dickhead, a Liberal strategist told me over a wine in 2016. For some reason I can’t quite put my finger on, that memory surfaced this week. Here’s the column #auspol
Subgeometer
“If the US stops insisting on freedom of navigation(including by Russians) in international waters (including the Mediterranean and straits like the Dardanelles) their whole foreign policy vis-a-vis China collapses. Russia has a port in the Mediterranean at Tartus. And the home base of the navy is indeed in the Black Sea. Blockading the Dardanelles is an act of war”
__________________________________________
Who has proposed blockading the Dardanelles?
Bystander @ #217 Sunday, February 13th, 2022 – 3:01 pm
I just did some checking. The section of the rail loop including Doncaster – where this discussion started – SRL North will be complete by 2053. A long way into the future. Yes they are starting and other sections may be complete ahead of that date, but it is a very long term project.
See https://bigbuild.vic.gov.au/projects/suburban-rail-loop/srl-north
I just did some checking. The section of the rail loop including Doncaster – where this discussion started – SRL North will be complete by 2053. A long way into the future. Yes they are starting and other sections may be complete ahead of that date, but it is a very long term project.
See https://bigbuild.vic.gov.au/projects/suburban-rail-loop/srl-north
And the Break Fee, if that occurred, would put the one Dan Andrews had to pay, in the shade.
Not one current member will be in the parliament in 2053.
Wow, the last time I saw anyone use the word “pwn”, Howard was still PM!
TPOF
“Who has proposed blockading the Dardanelles?”
King Agamemnon. He really wants to beat Troy.
Re Cat at 1.39 pm and 2.31 pm and Putin’s ambition re Ukraine
The ‘back in the USSR’ line, i.e. recreating the old Soviet empire, is nonsense. See point 3 at:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/five-myths-about-vladimir-putin/2012/02/29/gIQAchg8mR_story.html
See an article by Paul Dibb in the US military-industrial complex’s Australian magazine (ASPI) at:
https://www.aspistrategist.org.au/why-putin-sees-the-us-nato-and-ukraine-as-a-threat/
Dibb repeats the line that US promises to Gorbachev about not expanding NATO east of Germany were not formalised, but he accepts that those old promises have influenced Putin’s strategic aim, which he presumes is not recreating the USSR (impossible) but stopping Ukrainian membership of NATO.
Dibb was Beazley’s main adviser in the mid-1980s. He does not see a feasible way that NATO can help avoid war, because he accepts Robert Gates’ assumption that Putin has defined geostrategic success as regime change in Kiev or Russian conquest of Ukraine (both of which are hardly credible options).
This is the most worrying point of the article: influential people in Washington still misunderstand Putin’s aims in an exaggerated way, and thus the scope for compromise and diplomacy is lessened.
An open letter by senior Russian intellectuals published on 4 February warned about the risk of war.
See: https://www.nybooks.com/daily/2022/02/04/an-open-letter-to-the-russian-leadership/
The only query one might have with that letter is the last phrase of this sentence: “Russia does not need a war with Ukraine and the West.” The query is not normative. Russia as a society certainly does not need war with Ukraine, especially with the current Omicron wave at record levels. The issue is whether Putin thinks any war with Ukraine necessarily involves a war with NATO.
The whole problem is that Putin might believe, a la Thatcher, that he can start a limited war with Ukraine that he can control for his political purposes, and which does not involve a war with NATO.
There are many historical examples of wars resulting from misperception, but in this case if Russia does invade Ukraine (in a limited way, not attempting conquest) it will occur because diplomacy has been devalued by misperception, and nothing NATO has done will deter Putin from a limited war.
Asha @ #227 Sunday, February 13th, 2022 – 3:33 pm
Do you think Little Johnny has discovered PB? 🙂
Dr Doolittle,
Thanks, I will read those links. However, where did the reporting of Putin’s goals, since he began his transition from the KGB to the Presidency of Russia, that he wanted to reconstitute the USSR?
Opinion | How to End the Ukraine Crisis in 4 Steps
Two former top policymakers — one Russian, one American (*) — have a plan they think could work.
We see four elements to a solution. First, restrictions on military operations along the NATO/Russia border. Second, a moratorium on NATO expansion eastward. Third, resolution of ongoing and frozen conflicts in the former Soviet space and the Balkans. And fourth, modernization of the 1975 Helsinki Accords, which created a pan-European forum and articulated agreed principles of interstate relations to undergird East-West detente.
https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2022/02/09/a-four-step-off-ramp-for-resolving-the-ukraine-crisis-00006769
(*) Alexander Dynkin is president of the Primakov National Research Institute of World Economy and International Affairs of the Russian Academy of Sciences and served as an assistant to former Russian Prime Minister Evgeny Primakov.
Thomas Graham, a distinguished fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, was the senior director for Russia on the National Security Council staff during the George W. Bush administration.
Kevin Bonham says:
Sunday, February 13, 2022 at 2:31 pm
If in 2022 votes are cast in the same way as in 2019, then the results will be the same. Makes sense. However, votes will not be cast the same way. Whatever happens, votes will shift.
If we end up with a change election, then Labor’s PV will increase. Labor will take votes from other players. And they will attract more prefs too wherever they are distributed.
The prospects for the Greens are that their PV will fall while Labor’s improves, and then Green part-quotas will be transferred to Labor. Labor Senators will gain at the expense of the Greens, for the most part, and the other reactionaries to a lesser extent.
This is on the cards. It is for precisely this reason that the Greens are fighting so hard – throwing as much mud at Labor as they can summon. They really do not want Labor’s vote to improve, even if this means the LNP are re-elected. Labor success and Green defeat are two sides of the one coin.
I am still intrigued that many people are sucked in by the bullshit factories. A few days ago, Steely claimed that we won the Chinese trade war, clearly not true. This article is one of many that explains that Chinese beef imports now come from the US instead of Australia. Who was it that egged on our Government and encouraged them to start an argument with the Chinese, not Uncle Sam surely.
https://www.reuters.com/world/china/china-gorges-american-grain-fed-beef-amid-shrinking-supplies-down-under-2021-10-01/
And now the bullshit factories are trying to get us all concerned about those wicked Russians threatening poor little Ukraine. The fact that the US wants the Europeans to buy their expensive gas instead of cheaper supplies from Russia has got nothing to do with it. I can’t help thinking that if Angela Merkal was still running the show in Germany she would have told the Yanks to get stuffed unless they could match the Russian price, and all this military posturing wouldn’t have happened.
I don’t care what anyone says about the Middle East wars either. There is no doubt in my mind that one of the motivations for war was their oil fields.
Be gullible, be afraid, vote conservative.
“If you want to live under a state Liberal government I suggest you move to NSW. Apart from Tasmania it will be the only one left in a year or so.”
***
On this topic, there has hardly been any mention of the imminent SA State Election, which is now little more than a month away. Anyone have any idea of how it might play out?
briefly. if you have your way creating bad blood between Greens and Labor there is every chance that neither surplus votes will “transfer”. With the current Senate voting system voters must choose to allocate preferences.
Unless this occurs LNP 0.6 quotas, ALP 0.45 quotas Greens 0.3 quotas (or vice versa for Greens and Labor) has every chance of LNP winning a last position. Is that what you want?
briefly doesn’t know what he wants. Never has.
Finally an article that puts to rest implications that the virus is clever…. it’s all bloody random & dangerous …
It could be less pathogenic but it could, just as easily, be more pathogenic,” he said.
This point was backed by virologist Prof Lawrence Young of Warwick University. “People seem to think there has been a linear evolution of the virus from Alpha to Beta to Delta to Omicron,” he told the Observer. “But that is simply not the case. The idea that virus variants will continue to get milder is wrong. A new one could turn out to be even more pathogenic than the Delta variant, for example.”
It could be less pathogenic but it could, just as easily, be more pathogenic,” he said.
This point was backed by virologist Prof Lawrence Young of Warwick University. “People seem to think there has been a linear evolution of the virus from Alpha to Beta to Delta to Omicron,” he told the Observer. “But that is simply not the case. The idea that virus variants will continue to get milder is wrong. A new one could turn out to be even more pathogenic than the Delta variant, for example.”
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/feb/12/scientists-plead-caution-covid-restrictions-lifted-england
laughtong @ #229 Sunday, February 13th, 2022 – 3:25 pm
I think rail projects like this stack up better than long distance HSR.
Mexicanbeemer @ #220 Sunday, February 13th, 2022 – 2:59 pm
The only way Labor doesn’t win at least the next two elections is because of internal treachery.
The Vic Libs have very radical, which doesn’t appeal to mainstream Victorians.
Spence says:
…
Unless this occurs LNP 0.6 quotas, ALP 0.45 quotas Greens 0.3 quotas (or vice versa for Greens and Labor) has every chance of LNP winning a last position. Is that what you want?
Success once again for the Liberal/Green alliance. They may lose a senator but the alliance is sound.
https://www.smh.com.au/politics/nsw/swings-and-roundabouts-deliver-for-labor-but-can-it-speak-to-greater-sydney-20220213-p59w0v.html
“Labor’s only path to victory in the next state election is straight through Sydney. To have a chance of government, it must win Penrith, Holsworthy, Riverstone, East Hills, Winston Hills (the new Seven Hills), Leppington and Heathcote.”
_______
OPV poses a formidable challenge to NSW Labor: it would need to finish within 2-3 points of the Libs on primaries in each of those seats to actually pick them up with the anemic flow of preferences that we have witnessed over the past decade. The typically third largest vote – for the Greens – has exhausted at a pretty high rate in recent times. Ditto the other minors. Of course, of the votes that don’t exhaust, Labor can probably expect to pick up at a rate of approximately 2 to 1.
If Labor won all 7 seats it would form minority government on the back of the support of the MPs for Sydney – Alex Greenwich and Lake Macquarie – Greg Piper (assuming the three Greens also back Labor or at least declare that they won’t back the Libs).
For Labor to secure majority Government it would still need another 3 seats above and beyond those sydney metro seats listed above. Somewhere in the regions. Maybe Ballina, maybe Lake Macquarie if Piper retires. But it all looks …a bit difficult.
Of course, if the NSW Coalition starts to engender Campbell Newman levels of hate and loathing, then folk may actually fill in their ballot papers to such an extent as to make their vote really count against the Government, alla Queensland in 2015.
Frednk any idea how glib and strange your response is. Do you understand the need for voters to allocate senate preferences.
https://www.pollbludger.net/2022/02/13/preselection-developments/comment-page-5/#comment-3819762
Victoria hasn`t elected a government of the same party as the Commonwealth Government since 1996 and the Coalition had only gained the Commonwealth 4 weeks before hand (Kennett had the dissolution of the Legislative Assembly, Prorogation of the Legislative Council and writs issued on the Tuesday following the Commonwealth election). Before that Victoria hadn`t elected a Government of the same party as the Commonwealth Government since 1988. So in the likely even the ALP win the 2022 Commonwealth election and then don`t loose the 2024-5 Commonwealth election, the Victorian ALP would be seeking a 4th term with a 4 and a bit year old ALP Commonwealth Government in power, which is a tall order.
‘Firefox says:
Sunday, February 13, 2022 at 2:57 pm
Just want to give a shout-out to whoever this bloke is and say thanks – this is the kind of attitude towards the Greens that Laborites should have. Working together against the enemy in blue! If only more of you were a bit more like him. Good man.
….’
———————————
This from a poster who has in the past week alone posted dozens of posts attacking Labor, most of which posts were based on a false premise.
Having a look at the breakdown of the 2019 results for those 7 electorates that Alex Smith nominates that labor must win … some of the margins for the Libs are truly massive. I don’t think that any more than 5 of them are realistic targets. Probably even with a really good state wide result Labor would probably only pick up 4. I think that with a massive swing Labor would have a better chance in a seat like Oakley – or even Five Dock or perhaps Kiama than say the new seat of Winston Hills or Riverstone.
However, if the swing is on, it seems equally hard for the LNP to retain majority government. And if Labor does sneak its head above 41 seats, I think it would prove next to impossible for the coalition to hold onto even minority government. I think that 42 seats is probably the tipping point for the question of which side could form minority government.
a.v.
from the link
In my view, interference is the cause of the problem. Interference is everywhere and performed by all major powers but nowhere more so than in the no-mans land where the superpowers meet. Russia sees Ukraine (and other areas) are naturally/historically/culturally their turf. Progressive (or modern) domestic powers in those countries want to rid themselves of Russian interference in order to maintain their power and see increasing ties to the West as a way to do that.
The 4 phase diplomatic solution sounds wonderful in words. But I dont know of a diplomatic solution that has ever practically solved the dilemma facing a sovereign state wedged between two superpowers. There is no way Russia will accept or practice zero interference in Ukraine. Putin and the Russia he represents would see this as another loss to the West – a steadily encroaching threat to themselves and they would claim to Russia itself. History would suggest that these countries survive by walking a fine line of high stakes diplomacy where they play both superpowers off against each other – but always with the fear of the next coup.
No, words wont prevail. Fiddling with conventions wont help.
Scrotty trotting out the wife to deny that he is a psycho suggests the focus groups and private polling say voters increasingly think he is.
Sprocket
“Expat’s analysis is sound, bar one obvious error in logic.
The Australian people, the Liberal Party, the MSM and even Rupert Murdoch are sick of Scott Morrison as PM. Sick of incompetence, sick of the lies, sick of the stunts, sick of the backgrounding and backstabbing of colleagues, sick of the photo ops.”
i think you are projecting yourself onto the australian people, Sprocket and calling it logic
If ScoMo is as detested as he is here then its more than all over. But whilst i can agree that people dont especially love the guy, he isnt so hated that they are just waiting to beat his head with a baseball bat and would vote in a drover’s dog. Especially if the alternative has no particular appeal of their own
Perspective is a heckuva thing. Ask anyone else in the world, and they will say Australia has done very well with covid overall. Mistakes made as everywhere else – but the test is how catastrophic and how clear the alternative path was at the time. These recent Dec decisions are far more damning as it was a totally needless reckless call to loosen not so restrictive measures as Omichron was known and the festive season was approaching.
The overall latent anger with ScoMo on covid going back beyond this is far less than those here would like or need to believe. As it turns out, that isnt the only basis on which he is being judged.
The more its a covid-management dominated election, the better off ScoMo will be… not to say he will win, but for the ALP to drive the stake home there are other boxes they need to effectively tick
‘subgeometer says:
Sunday, February 13, 2022 at 2:40 pm
If the US stops insisting on freedom of navigation(including by Russians) in international waters (including the Mediterranean and straits like the Dardanelles) their whole foreign policy vis-a-vis China collapses.
…’
——————————————-
1. WTF.
2. The Montreux Convention.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montreux_Convention_Regarding_the_Regime_of_the_Straits
3. The notion that ‘the whole’ US foreign policy with respect to China depends on the single issue of freedom of navigation is obviously absurd.
“This from a poster who has in the past week alone posted dozens of posts attacking Labor”
***
You’re damn right Labor has been criticised for teaming up with the Coalition to pass their unamended RD/hate bill through the House. They should be utterly ashamed of themselves. The left are certainly ashamed of them, that’s for sure.
The Greens implored Labor to side with us and vote down this bill of hate but they instead chose to join with the Coalition and pass it unamended through the House. As happens all too frequently these days, Labor decided to join with the enemy in blue rather than standing up to them.
Labor capitulated to conservatism.