The diversion of the South Australian election caused this site to take its eye off the ball during a highly eventful period for federal preselections, which it now endeavours to make good. We start in Victoria, where Labor’s process for the Senate is finally coming to a head. In common with the rest of Labor’s Victorian preselections, the matter has been in the hands of the party’s national executive, which asserted control in response to the branch-stacking scandal surrounding Victorian MLC Adem Somyurek. An already fraught situation was gravely complicated by the sudden death of Kimberley Kitching a fortnight ago, whose hold on the Right-mandated position at the top end of the ticket has since been a matter of fierce dispute.
• Kitching’s vacancy will be filled by Jana Stewart, a Muthi Muthi and Wamba Wamba woman and until recently the deputy secretary at the Victorian Department of Justice, who had previously been lined up to run in the safe seat of Pascoe Vale at the Victorian state election in November. Stewart will serve out the remaining months of Kitching’s term and take the one of the two seemingly unloseable positions on the Senate ticket, in an order to be determined. Tom Minear of the Herald Sun reported Stewart had backing from the Transport Workers Union and Shop Distributive and Allied Employees Association, the chief Right faction parties to a pact with the Socialist Left that has frozen out the Right forces associated with Bill Shorten. The Shorten forces reportedly favoured Natalie Hutchins, the state Corrections Minister and member for Sydenham. Minear further reported that Fiona McLeod, a barrister who performed creditably as the candidate for Higgins in 2019, was “another name in the mix”.
• Following Kim Carr’s retirement announcement on Sunday, the Left-mandated position at the top of the ticket will be filled by Linda White, retired former assistant national secretary of the Australian Services Union. Carr cited health concerns in bringing down the curtain on a Senate career going back to 1993, but it was widely expected he would lose preselection in any case, most likely to White. There were widespread earlier reports that the position was also being pursued by Ryan Batchelor, executive director of the McKell Institute, but both Stewart and White have in fact emerged unopposed.
• A contest has also been avoided in the south-eastern Melbourne seat of Holt, to be vacated with the retirement of Anthony Byrne, with Shop Distributive and Allied Employees Association organiser Cassandra Fernando emerging as the sole nominee. The seat will thus remain with the Right, despite what Tom Minear of the Herald Sun described as “a small push from the Left to claim the seat”. The faction’s favoured nominee appeared to be Jo Briskey, political co-ordinator of the United Workers Union.
In New South Wales, the Liberal Party’s long-delayed preselections for Warringah, Hughes, Parramatta and Eden-Monaro and Greenway are to be determined by a three-person committee consisting of Scott Morrison, Dominic Perrottet and state party president Christine McDiven, following an intervention by the party’s federal executive. Here too legal action is afoot, with earlier federal executive intervention being contested in the New South Wales Supreme Court by conservative activist Matt Camenzuli. The party’s conservative forces stand to benefit from party reforms to increase the power and the rank and file, which Scott Morrison and his centre-right factional ally Alex Hawke have been seeking to circumvent.
• The intervention entails the cancellation of a rank-and-file ballot to choose a candidate for Hughes, held by the once Liberal and now United Australia Party member Craig Kelly. Where previously it was thought an intervention would rubber-stamp the preselection of Alex Dore, a management consultant who lives in Manly, Murray Trembath of the St George & Sutherland Shire Leader reports there is “now speculation war widow Gwen Cherne, who was the inaugural Veteran Family Advocate Commissioner on the Repatriation Commission, is being considered”. The acknowledged front-runners for the now-cancelled rank-and-file ballot were state Holsworthy MP Melanie Gibbons and local lawyer Jenny Ware.
• Anne Davies of The Guardian reports that David Elliott, state Transport Minister and centre-right factional ally of Scott Morrison, is considering putting his name forward in Parramatta or Greenway. Elliott’s federal ambitions may be complicated by his recent efforts as minister, which placed him at the centre of a shutdown of Sydney’s public transport network last month.
• One rank-and-file ballot that was allowed to proceed was that to replace John Alexander in Bennelong, which was won by Simon Kennedy, a partner at consulting firm McKinsey. Anne Davies of The Guardian reports that Kennedy, a factional conservative, emerged an unexpected winner in a rank-and-file ballot over moderate-aligned Gisele Kapterian, former chief-of-staff to Michaelia Cash, by 148 votes to 95.
• A weekend meeting of the party’s state council determined that incumbents Marise Payne and Jim Molan will respectively fill the first and third positions on the Coalition Senate ticket, the second being mandated to the Nationals. This amounts to defeat for the third incumbent, Connie Fierravanti-Wells, who has compared her situation to that of Kimberley Kitching. Another unsuccessful nominee was Mary-Lou Jarvis, a lawyer and Woollahra councillor.
Elsewhere:
• Andrew Charlton, economist and former adviser to Kevin Rudd, is expected to be imposed by Labor’s national executive as its candidate for Parramatta, where the Liberals are hopeful of overhauling a 3.5% margin with the retirement of Julie Owens, the Labor member since 2004. Michael McGowan of The Guardian reports Labor “spent weeks shopping for a celebrity candidate in a bid to railroad a local rank-and-file ballot”, with targets including former state Granville MP David Borger and Sydney barrister Cameron Murphy. A rank-and-file ballot would likely have yielded Durga Owen, a former staffer to Owens, who seemingly was not favoured by Anthony Albanese. Other prospective candidates for a rank-and-file ballot were Alan Mascarenhas, a former Sydney Morning Herald journalist, and Abha Devasia, a Left-aligned lawyer. All three are of of Indian background, and thus representative of a demographic with a strong presence in the electorate. The move to install Charlton, who lives in Bellevue Hill in the eastern suburbs, has predictably “infuriated local branch members”, and drawn criticism from Owens.
• Nick Xenophon announced last week he will seek to return to his earlier vocation at the election as Senator for South Australia, a position he held from 2008 until his ill-fated bid to gatecrash the 2018 state election. He has since maintained a profile as a partner of law firm Xenophon Davis. Rex Patrick, who filled Xenophon’s Senate vacancy in 2017 and later abandoned his Centre Alliance party, appears to have recognised that Xenophon’s return has ended whatever chance he had of being re-elected to the Senate, and is reportedly contemplating a run for the lower house seat of Grey.
• Joe Spagnolo of the Sunday Times reports the Nationals will field candidates in lower house seats in Western Australia against the wishes of Mia Davies, the party’s state leader and, thanks to the extraordinary result of the March 2021 election, the state’s Opposition Leader (a nicety that eluded Scott Morrison during his trip to the state a fortnight ago). The party’s strongest seats in the state are Durack and O’Connor, respectively held for the Liberals by Melissa Price and Rick Wilson.
sprocket_ @ #1148 Wednesday, March 30th, 2022 – 12:55 pm
I’m sure Jen has been bullied too, or sumfink. 🙄
Senator Fierravanti-Wells has printed her speech as an article in Crikey. She must be concerned that no one reads Hansard.
https://www.crikey.com.au/2022/03/30/concetta-fierravanti-wells-morrison-speech/?utm_source=pushengage&utm_medium=push&utm_campaign=pn
[‘London: Just when we thought we’d seen the last of Prince Andrew, there he was, arm-in-arm with his frail 95-year-old mother, escorting her to her seat as the royals gathered to remember her husband – his dad.’]
But this was no run-of-the-mill family gathering. This was Westminster Abbey and broadcast live to a nation. Onlookers were surprised – and some were shocked.
Was this the Queen putting motherhood ahead of monarchy? A mother’s natural wish would be for comfort on a difficult day.
It is hard not to see this as anything but an endorsement for her son, her long-time favourite. It is little wonder others in the family are fuming.
Andrew’s starring role eclipsed anything else the royals may have hoped to communicate at the memorial – the Queen in public, surrounded by family, a grand old man given his rightful commemoration, a family united in grief. Hardly.’]
https://www.smh.com.au/world/europe/the-queen-s-favourite-son-is-back-by-her-side-but-the-firm-is-furious-20220330-p5a9a7.html
It looks as though “The Firm” is testing the waters. I’m sure none of the invited guests yelled out “paedo”. They might though if he’s seen at a less orchestrated public event. I guess it’s fair enough for Andrew to attend a service in memory of his old man, but to escort his mother to her seat is very bad form. It’s impliedly conveying the message that the Queen still thinks her son can do no wrong.
Frydenberg putting the audience to sleep.
Slow monotonous tone, cant say more then a few words without an excessive pause. Zero excitement or enthusiasm in his voice.
I saw an interview with him the other day, he is still practicing his fake ‘walk up’ interview, like he thinks someone might believe he is a ‘man of action’
Even so, it looks like all the effort cause him to pop a vein on the side of his head…
Granny Anny
It seems there’s a lot of skewering of Morrison going on today from far and wide and friend and foe alike. The optics for him aren’t great, for those who are watching/reading at least.
Yabba,
Price variations from outlet to outlet are not uncommon. It depends who is setting the price. This depends on whether it’s a Company outlet, a distributor outlet, a Commission Agent or a Franchise site.
Dealers might be expecting a delivery and want to fill their storage tanks at a low price before a price cycle finishes. Others may decide to run a shandy based on old stock and new stock. In Victoria sites are only allowed to move prices once per day. Some Dealers are chasing volume. Some are chasing margin.
Customers will notice that they filled up at less than $2 a litre compared to say @$2.20 last time. Regardless of what the boards say, price is really only important when you buy.
C@T
Goodo, will do.
And finally, for now at least, Crikey also points out some of the bullshit in the budget:
https://www.crikey.com.au/2022/03/29/federal-budget-inflation/?utm_source=pushengage&utm_medium=push&utm_campaign=pn
When petrol doesn’t drop down to $1.50-1.60 p/l quick smart, people are going to be even more ropeable.
Morrison pulls out of 7:30 tonight – will wait until Tuesday. Couldn’t imagine why…
Late Riser at 11.33am re televangelists and their $USD600m jets…
Yours ago I was having a bout of insomnia and watched tv in the wee small hours.
I had the misfortune to land on a ‘religious’ show featuring preacher Joyce Meyer. She addressed the topic of ‘prosperity theology’ in a particularly insidious way…
‘Of course, the devil doesn’t want you to be rich…’ was her starting point. She went on (WTTE) ‘if you can’t afford to travel, you can’t afford to go to mission fields and preach the word…’
Clearly, televangelists need private jets to go and preach anywhere.
Unchristian bullshit.
Of course, Joyce at no point cited any part of the Bible in support of her theme.
C@t
Alongside the trucks with perished tires etc there’s also a lot of dud munitions being fired off by Russia. A Guardian report a few days ago said some missiles had an over 50% failure rate
I wonder what the failure rate of all those Russian nukes in storage would be, and the ICBMs they are attached to for launch. Rubber seal rings all brittle? Expensive materials stolen and sold? Maintenance funds snaffled and deposited in a western bank? Obviously I hope we never find out, at least not the hard way.
Australian cricket: 216/1 (Healy 129, caught)
PRGuy @PRGuy17
BREAKING: Scott Morrison has pulled out of his scheduled #abc730 interview with Leigh Sales tonight, following Senator Concetta Fierravanti-Wells explosive statement in the senate, where she described her leader as a racist bully who is unfit to be Prime Minister. #auspol
No more LAMINGTON’s next financial year for low to medium income tax payers in offsets because… oh um wait .. oh yeah, the Covid crisis is over now {ha ha ha}.
I think Ukraine would love nothing better than that the Russians ‘dig in” (apart from leaving completely). Yes they will be harder to attack and kill than if they were ‘trundling about’, but conversely they will be much easier to find. Pick them off one at a time, taking the most vulnerable first. Also, they will be basically surrounded as the line wont have that much depth, or length. I think it would be a disaster for Russian forces. They could still pound the large cities…..but its hardly a siege when u dont have control of either the cities or the surrounding country…..killing fields await them unles they all retreat east and consolidate.
When I used to hang around the back offices of servos, pricing instructions used to come from Head Office via (then) faxes, with occasional off-the-record private phone calls. On the day, however, the local franchisee could adjust prices if the competition up the street decided to get cocky.
I would venture to suggest that the public has little idea of what the petrol excise value is. It’s not something governments prefer to advertise. It follows that “reducing it by 50%” is equally opaque to your average motorist. In short no-one really knows what it’s being either reduced to or from.
Now figure-in the usual factors that claim to operate to vary petrol prices: too much rain, too little rain, War, Peace, Inflation, anything to do with the Suez Canal, the price of ethanol, the price of transport, wage rises, rent increases, cost of fuel already in the underground tanks, a panic on Wall St, a bomb in Saudi Arabia, the election, that stuff they put in diesel, refinery shutdowns, strikes, famine, what the Shell across the street’s charging today, or just two flies crawling up a wall. Anything can be used to justify a price, and virtually no tribunal or Authority can force anyone to fix a price for petrol.
Put these two together and what’s to say that just as the old fuel is emptied from the underground resevoirs (plus a week or so’s extra if they can get away with it), something from the above list happens and sadly the servo owner can’t pass on the entire 22 cents (or whatever) of the excise cut. Seriously: who would know whether that’s true or not? Is it worth driving five kilometres to the next servo on the off chance that’s a bullshit story? To save 2.50? You were paying $2.20 last week, and now you’re paying $2.00. You’re ahead $10 a tank full. You should be paying $1.98. Meh… it’s only a few cents.
Whenever there is price variability coupled with poorly planned government meddling, there is confusion. And in confusion is profit.
I’m not sure GG’s ‘understanding’ of the petrol distribution industry is going to cut much ice with low interest low information voters in punter land. IF they were paying any attention at all, they would have expected 22 cents per litre reductions ‘from midnight’ last night, ‘as promised’.
When – if – such reductions ‘trickle down’ over the next week or so, will they notice? Or even be grateful? After all the price of petrol largely reflects the price of oil, which has itself been subject to some pretty volatile market fluctuations, and in recent times (correct me if I’m mistaken, as I haven’t been paying attention to the details over the past week, I confess) actual reductions.
So – even if petrol goes down to under $1.80 over the next fortnight, I reckon the government wil get zero credit and in fact the punters are still likely to blame Morrison for not delivering an instant reduction on budget night ‘as promised’.
Have I missed anything?
PRGuy
@PRGuy17
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25m
BREAKING: Scott Morrison has pulled out of his scheduled #abc730 interview with Leigh Sales tonight, following Senator Concetta Fierravanti-Wells explosive statement in the senate, where she described her leader as a racist bully who is unfit to be Prime Minister. #auspol
PRGuy
@PRGuy17
·
23m
Just last week Scott Morrison slammed Anthony Albanese for “hiding from” tough questions, despite Albanese making 10 media appearances on the matter. Now, the PM is actually in hiding to avoid tough questions.
Holdenhillbillysays:
Wednesday, March 30, 2022 at 1:11 pm
PRGuy @PRGuy17
BREAKING: Scott Morrison has pulled out of his scheduled #abc730 interview with Leigh Sales tonight, following Senator Concetta Fierravanti-Wells explosive statement in the senate, where she described her leader as a racist bully who is unfit to be Prime Minister. #auspol
–
Yeah,this from the man who accused ALBO of being MIA and a coward for not calling for an inquiry into the KK bullying allegations. Whose the weak coward now ?
Re petrol prices. I’ve used this site for the last few years to help me buy petrol. https://petrolspy.com.au
What’s also interesting is how regular the fluctuations seem to be. The simplest explanation is careful planning.
https://petrolspy.com.au/map/graph/melbourne
https://petrolspy.com.au/map/graph/brisbane
etc.
Why is Scott Morrison MIA? CFW didn’t even die of stress.
Seriously, this is a fucking terrible look for Morrison. Talk about Albo hiding under the doona!
Socrates: “And this third [Lismore] flood in a year …”
Ah, that’d be a one-in-a-hundred-days event.
AE,
Have you filled up today?
Price is only important at the time of purchase.
A PM dodging the 7:30 Report the night after an election budget is pretty telling. Put a fork in him. he’s cooked.
Around Sydney petrol prices have been quite variable, often by 20-30 cents when the cycle is turning. Yesterday it varied from just below $2.00 / ltr to around $2.20.
Everyone will be watching the Warnie farewell anyway.
Mavis
I daresay the Queen is not long for this world. She is attending a memorial for her departed life partner. She of course won’t care what the world thinks if her maligned son accompanies her to her seat.
What is the establishment going to do? Sack her?
The SA senator who replaced Nick Xenophon – and is now running against him to retain his seat – has launched an extraordinary attack on his former boss, using parliamentary privilege to slam the lawyer for representing Chinese tech giant Huawei and likening it to doing PR for German arms manufacturers under the Nazi regime.
https://indaily.com.au/news/2022/03/30/rex-savages-mr-x-over-china-links-as-senate-contest-escalates/
“ AE,
Have you filled up today?
Price is only important at the time of purchase.”
Hey, petrol Yoda, what’s your point?
My point is, the day after the budget promised an ‘immediate 50% cut to petrol prices’ (as if folk who watch MAFS understand the difference between the price of petrol and the excise levied on that petrol) the cost of petrol is still over $2.00 a litre; just like yesterday.
So yes, price is important at the time of purchase and on that basis folk will be even more angry with Morrison than they were yesterday, or whenever it was they last filled up their car.
The crew at 7:30 Report hear the news about brave Sir Robin
Half the SA electorate had made up their minds months ahead of their election and Morrison was the no 1 reason. State and Federal are much closer linked than at previous elections because of COVID, national cabinet and so on. Usually something is either a state or federal matter, but not at the moment.
Morrison doing the rounds just reminds ‘low-information voters’ that that p^%$k is still around. No-one is paying attention, except to mock him. He can procreate elsewhere. Even the rich are through with him. His own partyroom colleagues are going postal. Its over
BT at 12.54pm
Did climate change go into bat against the Russian invasion, err, special military operation?
Morrison has two very good reasons to pull out of a scheduled 730 interview tonight.
Jen and the girls need him to cook a curry for dinner. Also he needs to finish assembling that chook shed he started last year.
C@T
I’m halfway through the Fukuyama discussion, very interesting indeed. I remember making a comment weeks ago that Putin wouldn’t be holding 200k troops on a border in Winter as a mere exercise. I’m in fact a logistic by trade and my logic was that the cost in fuel and food alone was prohibitive. Following on this point, Fukuyama makes the point that Putin’s logistics has been severely limited costing him greatly. I think this is because Putin thought it would be easier and quicker and underestimated Ukraine. Accordingly, his logistics may well be insufficient as suggested by the 40km length of stopped vehicles.
Logistics is greatly underrated in warfare though always essential. Adding up what is needed beforehand is one thing, producing it, maintaining it, transporting it and manoeuvring it safely are a whole other thing. If Ukraine has been targeting these, and I’m sure they have been, it increases Putin’s difficulties exponentially. I think Putin overstretched badly and Ukraine is making him pay the price. Rommel famously made a similar mistake in North Africa in WWII.
Our Aussie women are losing wickets. 3/236. 9 overs left.
The budget sweeteners look like having a short shelf-life:
[‘Hip pocket pain: Interest rates tipped to rise rapidly
Australians can expect a rapid rise in interest rates with markets pricing in six rate hikes before the end of the year, according to economists.
The ANZ said last night’s federal Budget delivered more spending than anticipated with $40 billion of new spending over five years, but much of it in 2022-23.
“This adds to demand at a time when the economy is already strong,” the bank’s economics team said.
“When the Reserve Bank starts to hike, we expect it to move with some vigour and the cash rate to reach 2 per cent by the end of 2023.
The subsequent increase in mortgage repayments would come just as taxpayers get the benefit from the $450 tax offset announced in last night’s Budget.’]
https://inqld.com.au/business/2022/03/30/hip-pocket-pain-interest-rates-tipped-to-rise-rapidly/
The demise of Morrison, Putin and Trump at the same time would be one great trifecta.
LR. Looks like Starc loses the bet… Or was that just for test matches?
So many significant events are occurring simultaneously at the moment, I think Morrison may be struggling to control the narrative.
Selected extracts from Ven and Poroti’s new hero Scott Ritter
Feb 24th
‘Well, the silver lining in this very dark cloud is the fact that NATO and the US are being schooled on large-scale combined arms warfare. Hopefully some common sense will kick in, along with recognition that Russia is a heavy weight fighter, and NATO is at best a middleweight’
Feb 26th
‘Ukraine is getting schooled in the art of Urban warfare. Russia is advancing inside Kiev, a city of 3 million. It took the US a week to take Fallujah, a city of 200,000. We started with the city surrounded and our logistics in place. Russia had to fight through layered defenses’
March 6th (retweeting someone else)
‘This confirms the assertion that centralized command of #Ukrainian army, including supply and reinforcement, has largely collapsed. In the absence of central command &airforce, #Ukrainian forces act as pocket resistance, not an army’
March 12th
‘Russia has destroyed more than 1,200 Ukrainian tanks so far. In less than three weeks. And they’re losing?’
March 20th
‘An unpopular take: when the dust settles, Russia will be found to have conducted a military campaign where assiduous compliance with the law of war was the norm. Ukraine, on the other hand, will be the subject of numerous war crimes investigations’
Today, on the subject of International Law
‘Russia has set forth a cognizable claim under the doctrine of anticipatory collective self defense, devised originally by the U.S. and NATO, as it applies to Article 51 which is predicated on fact, not fiction’
The March 10th one is a doozy .. 1200 tanks 🙂
——————————————————————————-
Ritter is a registered sex offender, having been convicted of unlawful contact with a minor and five other charges in a 2011 trial
Scott Morrison, MIA. They search him here, they search him there, they search him everywhere.
I forgot another reason why Morrison cannot do a 730 interview tonight.
It would clash with his ukulele lesson.
Ray (UK)
You really gotta wonder why poroti and ven are Putin apologists.
Citizen
Lol!
“Surprise” appearance at the MCG, anyone?
Morrison pulls out of the 7:30 report?
Concetta Fierravanti-Wellsthatescalatedquickly
Shamelessly poached from a twitter post I was sent.
Lovely day… from the SMH…
Get a job, I suppose. Australia is crying out for baristas.
I guess Trump will be pleased that Putin considers him a partner. Lol!
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Julia Davis
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Meanwhile on Russian state TV:
Host Evgeny Popov says it’s time for the Russian people to call on Americans to change “the regime in the U.S.” before its term expires “and to again help our partner Trump to become President.”
Re Morrison pulling out of the Sales interview, presumably regarding Concetta Fierravanti-Wells, he is such a coward. Again showing that he takes no responsibility and runs at the sound of the first shot, totally unlike Zellensky, a real leader.
Pretty cruel that major concerts are being called off because of weather.
Lost chance to see Deborah Conway, Kasey Chambers and plenty of others in the Hunter Valley this weekend.