All too much preselection news

Both major parties scramble to get candidates in place just weeks before the federal election campaign gets under way.

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.

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.

2,399 comments on “All too much preselection news”

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  2. Russians claiming just now a massive cyber attack launched against them by the US.

    Most likely something nasty coming in the next 24 hours in US or Europe.

  4. nath

    I sometimes think the bigger issues are exacerbated by the grinding and annoying personal attributes (disdain, smugness, failure to accept responsibility) of a personality such as Morrison. At some undefined time during their cycle, people just imperceptibly decide they’ve had enough and each issue suddenly magnifies their dislike of the individual. I think Morrison has reached this point, everybody else realises it except for him.

  6. “@BW – there isn’t a ‘target’ audience for that comment, other than monsters. Home owners or not, most people are not going to ‘react’ to the comment with anything other than disgust – confusion.”

    Dead right. There is no basis apart from profound stupidity, that this could have been consciously targeting some group

    It wasn’t deliberate, he just botched the interview

    The commercial media are starting to pile on as they stench of death grows. It must be fucking hard when you are used to operating in a benign media environment to suddenly have to deal with aggressive interviews

    This is why I am far from convinced that he is dodging the 730 interview because he wasn’t to save up a soft ball with Leigh Sales on Tuesday.

  7. Morrison hasn’t been good in anyway, he should never have been elected and without the support of the mainstream media actually working with him and against labor he probably wouldn’t have been.

    The NBN was a failed LNP initiative it has fully come home to roost. Their position on climate change has also come home to roost even though neither they nor the gutless win at all costs I have no principals at all to offer the country opposition leader and the morons who advise him don’t realise it. AUKUS and the french submarine debacle looks stupid in a way we all (even those most devoted to pouring billions of taxpayer dollars into the arms of shareholders in american military equipment vendors to be destroy in wars started illegally in far off lands) get.

    While Turnbull was a bit of bandwagon riding one and done charlatan, who deliberately sabotaged the NBN in the greatest act of economic vandalism the country has ever seen (although the economic sabotage of our ruling class in climate change is already started to cost lives and dollars), still compared to Morrison the serially failed up conman who makes Trump look successful, intelligent and principled in comparison, he was a successful reliable trustworthy business partner.

    And everyone in the country knows it.

  8. Maybe 3 years is the shelf life of a PM in Australia now. Morrison is what at 3 yrs 10 months now.

    He’s the longest serving PM since Howard. Pretty extraordinary.

  10. Rossmcg

    “ Good of a bloke who has two rent free government houses to give advice to renters
    Is he like many mps with extensive property investments I wonder”

    Yep, so very very unselfaware. I’m on a role now thanks to poroti.

  11. Morrison has been a failure at every job hes ever done. Why would as PM it be any different? Thats exactly why the country is failing.

  12. The way things are going, Morrison needs to get to COB tomorrow and call the election quick smart… (even if that’s what I’m predicting he’ll do ;))

  13. I’m hearing that both Albo and Morrison are attending Warne’s funeral tonight.

    Morrison could have pre-recorded his interview with Sayles. Perhaps he had a few things on his plate today.

    Maybe the ABC could switch in Tingle to do the interview next Tuesday.

  17. “Keating did ‘go get a job’.”

    Yeah and he is very proud of it, and he actually created the economic conditions to create the jobs he referred to, and I the better quote was wtte when a union organiser asked him what he’d say to those who lost jobs was ‘how do you like your new better paying jobs’.

    On the other hand Morrison hasn’t done anything to improve the economy or to make the housing market more accessible.

  18. Morrison should stay the heck out of Victoria.

    ——

    A state with 6.7 million residents, receives nearly the same level of funding as one with 540k residents.

    You can fit Tassie’s population into Melbourne’s north. https://t.co/BWxBp2f4Vr

  19. I’m hearing that both Albo and Morrison are attending Warne’s funeral tonight.
    ______
    GG
    Morrison has known about the Warne thing for a week, and also the 7:30 appointment. He should be asked what has changed.

  21. Late Riser

    In Lebanon, among 26 nations, the only nationality both sides trusted to act as arbiters during ceasefire negotiations or body/prisoner handovers were Australians. This was a source of real pride among our small group. I highly doubt that trust in us exists today among many nationalities, even some of our allies sadly.

  23. WeWantPaul says:
    Wednesday, March 30, 2022 at 3:13 pm

    “Keating did ‘go get a job’.”

    Yeah and he is very proud of it, and he actually created the economic conditions to create the jobs he referred to, and I the better quote was wtte when a union organiser asked him what he’d say to those who lost jobs was ‘how do you like your new better paying jobs’.
    _____________
    I greatly admire PJK, probably not as much as he admires himself, but you can’t have everything.

    But it was a stupid thing to say with unemployment at 8% coming down from 10% two years earlier.

  24. Is this the tweet that is being referred to.

    —-

    Barnaby Joyce
    I have a near religious conviction that we have to make a strong nation even stronger, as quickly as possible.

    What we see, this is not a movie, not a bad dream. This is the reality now.

    This Budget is about saying where we make money we will make more, as much as we can. https://t.co/jkTrz60qKw

  25. “even if petrol goes down to under $1.80 over the next fortnight,”

    FYI AE,

    on the way to work today passed a servo that had $1.81. That’s in W.A. and over the last couple of weeks seems to be at the bottom of the “normal” fluctuation range. Most i have seen is $2.21 but i dont have to fill up very often. Have electric bike and and old Prius that still does better than 5l/100km. 🙂

    Honestly, unless the Govt gets a broad based, substantial and ongoing drop at the bowser VERY soon then this reduction in excise will go largely un-noticed by punters. I think if people do notice later on closer to the election then they are more likely to tie it into any improvements in overseas events that actually drop the oil price overall.

    Morrison in hiding? Actually canceling on 7:30 Report?? Hmmmmm…i wonder how Tingle will report that?? 🙂

  26. Lars Von Trier says:
    Wednesday, March 30, 2022 at 2:59 pm
    Russians claiming just now a massive cyber attack launched against them by the US.
    ————
    The Ukrainians are supposed to have pretty sophisticated cyber capabilities.

    Ukrainian hackers have reportedly hacked the personal details of Russian and Belarusian troops and they have been calling them to discourage participation in Putin’s war.

  29. Jackol re Ritter and past offences, one of the documented MO’s of Russia is “kompromat”. It is a legitimate avenue of inquiry for a mouthpiece at RT.

  30. @cronus 2:52pm:

    “ So true, he just totally rolled over onto his back for China on this issue, it’s a national disgrace that appears will only go noticed in hindsight sadly. Our greatest abrogation of national security ever.”

    Morrison has taken our relationship from the cordial and mutually beneficial to one where a belligerent and possibly hostile superpower is now camped at our front door. In the space of less than three years.

    Even with the escalation of tensions between China and Australia over teh course of the past three years, before last week, or main security concerns were (a) whether we could string together our existing capabilities to defend the Air-Sea Gap and undertake Sea Denial above the Indonesian Archipelago, and (c) whether we could acquire the right kit in sufficient time to maintain that capability into the 2030s, 2040s and beyond (and perhaps become able to undertake Sea/Area Denial into the greater Pacific and Indian Oceans to counter the explosion of SSN numbers of potential hostiles in our region in the longer term).

    NOW – today – all that has been pushed into the background. Honiara is less than 1,000 nautical miles of Townsville, with nothing but the Coral Sea and the GBR lagoon in between:

    – Within range of longe range cruise missiles that are nuclear weapons capable.

    – Placing the whole of Eastern Australia within range of Chinese intermediate nuclear ICBMs.

    – Putting China in a position to exercise A2/AD over Australia without having to deploy a single one of their SSNs in our direction. Or a carrier fleet. 1,000 nm! There soon to be surplus naval kit of 1990-2015 will be able to well and truly take care of Australia. Simply by having the Solomons as a FOB.

    What this actually means is that the Solomons – both the Nation Sate and the Chinese bases – are genuine First Strike targets. IF tensions between America and China deteriorate to the point that a Kinetic war is seemingly inevitable and imminent, then the Australian Government of the day will have this dreadful choice: ‘When do we strike first’? With a large Chinese military in the Solomons we will not have the luxury to sit back and watch the first moves in North Asia before we play our hand. We will have to blitz the Solomons with everything we have and then immediately invade the country. THEN and only then would we be in a position to undertake A2/AD operations and hope for the best.

    Can you see that the nuclear tripwires are now – for the first time in our history – right at our front door?

  32. “But it was a stupid thing to say with unemployment at 8% coming down from 10% two years earlier.”

    It wasn’t politically brilliant, but probably too smart by lot rather than stupid.

    But you are right landing in the laps of the completely uninformed, the best characterisation of the Australian electorate in general, the outcome is entirely the same.

  33. U.S. COVID update: BA.2 becomes dominant

    – New cases: 25,601 ………………………. – New deaths: 815

    – States reporting: 41/50

    – In hospital: 15,168 (-169)
    – In ICU: 2,515 (-48)

    1,005,056 total deaths now

  34. Far be it from me to disagree with the esteemed Rear-Admiral but I’m going to, the favourite game of the Pacific States up until recently is what price can I get from ROC/PRC for diplomatic recognition.

    In a few years there’ll be a renegotiation and an opportunity to up the price to the Solomon Islands. Its all very cold war reminiscent. Whose client state will we be for the next five years? Do I have any bids?

  35. A-E

    Sheridan also reckons that the China-Solomons Pact is a disaster.

    A legitimate question is whether the Greens Spokesperson for Disarmament has noticed that anything in the national security space has changed.

    He is still running around giving peace a chance.

  36. Pi – since he does gigs at RT I think most people’s initial assumption is that pretty much everything he says is certified Russian propaganda in this space. Again, if you’re going to bother to respond to his commentary at all – and there is probably good reason not to pay him any attention – attack his bogus arguments, not unrelated dirt.

  37. The question that a Labor guy asked Menzies at a rally – what will you do about ‘ousing?

    Ming replied: I will put a ‘h’ in front of it

  38. BK,

    The date has been known for awhile. But, not the time. People attending are being asked to be seated by 5:45pm.

    I think the CFW blow up and Zelensky zooming in to Parliament are new developments.

    But, it does look like the Warne Funeral will overwhelm the Government’s Budget sell.

    I suppose it comes down to priorities and time management.

  40. The domestic conservative forces have imperilled Australia.

    Hopefully Albo can sit down with the worlds leaders and repair our relationships.

  41. ltep says:
    Wednesday, March 30, 2022 at 1:58 pm
    “Do you have children/grandchildren? If so, are they concerned, and do you accept that their concern is genuine? Do they increase the level your personal interest, knowledge and concern about the topic?”

    The first question is none of your business.

    I just don’t accept an argument that one must have children to be able to understand the challenges of climate change. In the same way the Mr Morrison doesn’t need to have a wife/daughter to understand the significance of domestic violence etc.

    There’s many reasons why people may not have children, either by choice or otherwise. It doesn’t make their views on matters of public policy less informed, or less valid. There is also a gendered element of such phrases being thrown out – they would never be hurled at a man, only ever a woman.
    ____________________________________________________________
    Such a remark was once hurled at me, with WTTE that if I had children I would be as opposed to the softening of drug laws as he (the father in question) was. I was trying to point out that his children would likely be at less risk of harm from drugs, if such substances were decriminalised and their consumption undertaken with medical supervision, as is the case with supervised injecting rooms.
    Pointing out to someone that they’re not a parent is really a nasty, cheap shot at them. In my case, I just never met the right person in my younger years, when consideration of parenthood would have been more practical. You usually don’t miss what you never had, so I don’t have many regrets about that.
    But you don’t have to be a parent to care about children or about the future, nor does being one make you care. The same fellow who levelled that cheap shot at me wasn’t exactly father of the year when it come to relations with his son, who seemed to hate the very sight of him.
    On another occasion a woman with whom I was discussing problems relating to her young son, remarked that if I had children I would understand them better. I replied: “I was once a child myself.”

  42. yabba says:
    Wednesday, March 30, 2022 at 3:30 pm

    He said ‘an aitch’.
    _______________
    Of course he did. He was trying to prove his superiority over others.

  43. “The Monarchy should just go. ”

    We had a small chance but like most other things about Australia Howard deliberately messed it up for personal political gain.

  44. “ Far be it from me to disagree with the esteemed Rear-Admiral but I’m going to, the favourite game of the Pacific States up until recently is what price can I get from ROC/PRC for diplomatic recognition.

    In a few years there’ll be a renegotiation and an opportunity to up the price to the Solomon Islands. Its all very cold war reminiscent. Whose client state will we be for the next five years? Do I have any bids?”

    The problem with that POV L’arse is that you cant afford to be right with even a 99.9% certainty. The odds – however small – that you are wrong are still far too great to ignore the threat, because IF I’m right in my POV we are sitting on the cusp of sitting on a man made extinction level event in this region.

    Besides which, and responding directly to your game theory, I also suspect – strongly – that once the Solomons takes the coin from Beijing it may be too late to walk back.

  47. Andrew_Earlwood,
    They only have to hit the Solomon islands with a few long range bombs to know out comms, fuel, ports and airfields to make the patch of land effectively useless.

    Having conventional long range hypersonic weapons would be greatly useful for this purpose. Or we could just leave it to the Americans.

  48. I was unaware of Moss Cass’s death until yesterday. Apart was Keating he was probably the last surviving minister in the Whitlam government.

  50. Mavis says:
    Wednesday, March 30, 2022 at 3:37 pm
    I was unaware of Moss Cass’s death until yesterday. Apart was Keating he was probably the last surviving minister in the Whitlam government.
    _______-
    Aren’t you forgetting the copper from Ipswich?

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