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.
400,000 died from Covid under Trump without any vaccine. 600,000 after Trump and the vaccine.
Lars Von Trier:
Wednesday, March 30, 2022 at 3:38 pm
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?’]
I knew I’d miss someone. I read recently that Hayden’s not well, now 89.
Lars Von Trier says:
Wednesday, March 30, 2022 at 3:42 pm
400,000 died from Covid under Trump without any vaccine. 600,000 after Trump and the vaccine.
_______
The problem being most of the 600,000 wouldn’t take the vaccine.
I see Lars von Liar is still trying to peddle disingenuous absolute crap.
Rex Douglas @ #1345 Wednesday, March 30th, 2022 – 2:30 pm
It’s going to take more than that to undo a decade of official indifferent hubris. If Australia wants to repair its reputation in the world it will take years, a decade of Labor governments, and a reformed LNP. (I’m pessimistic for the former and I hold out even less hope for the latter.) The best we can hope for in the short term is to gain some space to allow us to repair relations. And that will take action, not words.
“ 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.”
______
It’s the ability to platform missiles there that is the issue. Those platforms can take any one of several different forms:
– Aircraft
– Land based (either silos or much better option on mobile trucks – as targeting from satellites and even the Global Hawk surveillance drones cannot keep up with their movement in between the time we launch our strike missiles and the point of impact)
– Surface ships (same targeting problems as per above, but spread across the breadth of the Coral Sea), and
– Submarines, same as above, but also undetectable whilst submerged and even when snorting nearly impossible to target from any distance over 50nm.
So, taking out airfields, comms and fuel dumps etc won’t by itself solve the problem of the Chinese ability to simply take us out: every single target capable of launching long range missiles would need to be eliminated first: that’s a First Strike mission. On a scale that we would need to up the anti on our present capability enormously. THEN to make sure that the ChiComms dont simply send more platforms and rebuild their infrastructure we would need to seize the islands ourselves.
There is no point thinking America will do all of this for us. In all likelihood they will have their hands well and truly tied up in the Northern pacific. Although I assume they’d deploy a carrier battle group to help us execute the second phase of what we would need to do otherwise largely off our own resources.
Edited to add: forget about a 2% GNP Defence spend. Don’t worry about getting nuclear subs on the never never. What I’ve just outlines would probably cost in excess of 4% of GNP … starting NOW and starting with a massive upscaling of our missile capability.
nath says:
Wednesday, March 30, 2022 at 3:44 pm
Lars Von Trier says:
Wednesday, March 30, 2022 at 3:42 pm
400,000 died from Covid under Trump without any vaccine. 600,000 after Trump and the vaccine.
_______
The problem being most of the 600,000 wouldn’t take the vaccine.
________
Sometimes there is a penalty for being stupid.
Morrison really has had a bad day.
WeWantPaul @ #1343 Wednesday, March 30th, 2022 – 3:33 pm
Because, who wants to sack grandma from her job?
Yes the clever Trumpites and Conservatives” insisted on not taking the Vaccine, which means many millions remain unvaccinated, on top of that their are no lock downs.
Such brilliance, they have really owned the Democrats by infecting themselves and killing themselves and others!!!
Pi @ #1358 Wednesday, March 30th, 2022 – 3:48 pm
Do you mean his statement that, if you are having trouble paying the rent you should just go and buy a house? Or some other omnishambles that has emanated from his lips?
First Strike attacks against the Solomon Islands! These submarines have caused this insanity.
Yes, it’s rather tawdry of Lars von Trump to use the death of 600000 Americans against the Sitting President of the USA.
C@t, it’s really hard to pick just one.
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2022/mar/30/liberal-mp-andrew-laming-will-refuse-to-repay-travel-expenses-after-audit-finds-8000-in-invalid-claims
“Ipea’s investigation found he had not arrived until 9.49pm on the last day of the conference. By Laming’s own evidence, the authority said, he was only at the event for “the final hour of the dinner that concluded the conference”.”
Ok, this will rescue the PM’s image as he deals with this rorting definitively and decisively. Hey, he doesn’t even have to await an independent investigation as one has already been done. 🙂
“C@t, it’s really hard to pick just one.”
Too much too fast. 🙁 Liberal tactic of rolling and continuous omni-shambles events to get people overloaded and disengaged is something we have been seeing for years.
Andrew_Earlwood
I do wish the popular media would show a map of our region, including China, just to show how close they will be to our doorstep in The Solomons. Whilst they’re at it, they can explain the strategic importance of the location to shipping and freedom of movement in our region and the potential impact on Australia in the future.
Lars Von Trier @ #1350 Wednesday, March 30th, 2022 – 3:38 pm
The drovers dog.
Not only does Albanese have to attend to ‘budget repair’, there’s also…
Foreign affairs repair
Aged Care repair
Indigenous relations repair
ADF repair
Quarantine repair
Taxation repair
Infrastructure repair
NBN repair
Besanko, J hands down his decision as to whether Person 66 will
be compelled to give particular evidence in the Roberts-Smith suit:
[‘A Federal Court judge has declined to order a former elite soldier to give evidence about whether war veteran Ben Roberts-Smith directed him to shoot an Afghan prisoner, after the man objected to answering questions because his testimony might incriminate him in an alleged murder.
Person 66, a former Special Air Service soldier whose identity cannot be revealed for national security reasons, started giving evidence on Monday in Mr Roberts-Smith’s defamation case but objected to answering a question about how many missions he went on in Afghanistan in 2012 when the decorated former soldier was his patrol commander.
Barrister Jack Tracey, acting for Person 66, told the court on Monday there were reasonable grounds for his client objecting to giving evidence because the testimony the witness was anticipated to give “would have the tendency to incriminate” him in the commission of an alleged offence. Asked about the nature of the offence, Mr Tracey said it “would be an offence of murder”.] – SMH.
“ 400,000 died from Covid under Trump without any vaccine. 600,000 after Trump and the vaccine.”
As to the former phase, everybody was a sitting duck to the virus. Ad to the second phase there seems to be a gross over representation of Trumpy ‘freedumbs’ lovers amongst the victims. As you well know L’arse, the Trumpy campaign against vaccines is largely to blame.
Can I just say that Sogovare has a hide saying that Australia has been rude to The Solomons for having a say about his dirty deal, probably done dirt cheap?
Can anyone explain to me as if I am 8 years old, how is this not the same as admitting to murder?
Mavis says:
Wednesday, March 30, 2022 at 3:55 pm
_________________________
Thats the ballgame isn’t it? BRS wins?
Late Riser @ #1373 Wednesday, March 30th, 2022 – 3:58 pm
Different case for another day. If he gets around to being charged for it and has to go before a judge about it, himself.
Pretty amazing comparison – if the US is generally 10 times bigger than Australia.
1mill deaths v 5000. We’ve done 20 times better than the US on covid.
“ First Strike attacks against the Solomon Islands! These submarines have caused this insanity.”
ChiComm bases in the Solomons makes Submarines not as relevant as otherwise. Still important, I guess, but when there is little between their new base and the barrier reef (and all the way they are capable of launching missile that would have the range to hit Australian targets) then pure ‘sea denial’ operations will not answer.
having short range and medium range missiles on our own submarines might assist with any first strike operations in the Solomon’s, but all of these matters are now at the periphery of core importance. Missiles missiles missiles. And then even more missiles are the key priorities.
Lars Von Trier @ #1353 Wednesday, March 30th, 2022 – 2:42 pm
That’s straight out of “how to lie with statistics”. Those numbers are correct, but “under Trump” and “after Trump” aren’t comparable ranges.
There were/are 10 months of covid deaths in the “under Trump” bucket (and notably, almost no wintertime at all). The “after Trump” bucket is 14.5 months and growing.
In other words, Trump managed to average 40,000 Americans dead/month to covid despite never having to face a winter and without having to deal with any of the more severe variants that later arose. And with the benefit of having the initial ramp being part of those 10 months.
After Trump the losses have averaged ~42,000/month. Slightly worse but it includes wintertime covid, all the variants, a heaping pile of Feb/March 2021 deaths that would be from infections that started in the “under Trump” time, and trying to clean up the spillover from Trump’s mismanagement of the whole thing and the right’s politicization of literally everything that could be done to help blunt covid’s spread. And a fully-ramped day zero.
The biggest failure was Trump joining (if not creating/leading) the “let covid rip” crowd back when covid was still ineffective enough at spreading in humans that a strong social response could stop it. Once he let that genie out of the bottle, better-adapted variants were inevitable and whomever inherited the “after Trump” bucket was never going to put it back in.
nath says:
Wednesday, March 30, 2022 at 2:29 pm
Morrison should have been in a good position this election. Australia has survived Covid well ahead of many nations both economically and in terms of public health.
——————————————————————-
Appreciate the new Nath.
However, like far too many people who have thrown away their masks, you don’t understand that it ain’t over.
“NSW :
The state has recorded 15 more COVID-19 deaths.
There are 1,301 cases in hospital, 46 of those in intensive care.
There were 25,235 new cases announced today.”
In the past month alone, there have been close to half a million new confirmed cases in New South Wales. Some public health success!.
Admiral Ackbar! We need more SEAD !
[‘Lismore flood height could reach 12 metres tonight: BOM
The Bureau of Meteorology’s latest flood update for the Wilsons River at Lismore predicts the water could reach 12 metres by late this evening.
For context, Lismore’s record flooding a month ago reached 14.4 metres – more than two metres above the previous record of 12.1 metres in 1974.
The town’s flood levee is about 10.6 metres, so a possible 12-metre flood tonight is a big deal.’] – SMH
Late Riser
I must admit to being intrigued as to Besanko’s impending decision. An unwillingness to testify isn’t an admission of guilt but it could look that way to many.
Lars thats because the Americams are 20 times more stupid than anyones elses stupid….even so, our level of stupidity and incompetence is nothing to be proud of
Federal Court Judges hey.
I’d be willing bet my house that a NSW SC Justice or DC Judge would have issued the certificate for immunity from prosecution (s.128 EA) and then compelled the witness to answer the questions. THAT’s actually what the EA provisions were designed for in the first place.
I hope the defendants immediately launch an interlocutory appeal against this decision.
https://www.smh.com.au/national/judge-will-not-compel-ex-sas-soldier-to-give-evidence-about-alleged-murder-20220330-p5a9dy.html
However important the aspect of whether person 66 killed a , surely the critical part of his evidence to this defo case is whether B R-S asked/requested/ordered person 66 to kill a PUC. I note this:
“ After the ruling, Mr Owens put two further questions to Person 66, namely whether he shot a “PUC”, meaning a person under the control of Australian soldiers, while “on a mission in October 2012 when you were a member of Mr Roberts-Smith’s patrol”, and whether Mr Roberts-Smith asked him during that mission to shoot a PUC.”
Scratching my head as how how B R-S’s actions would be captured by the immunity given to the witness. Surely, it is only any response by witness 66 to such a request that would be captured.
Seems odd. Very very odd.
Fair enough, I suppose. Then is Person 66’s evidence important enough that the current case should be put on hold until his matter is settled? Or perhaps the case is already decided? Interesting.
Lars Von Trier:
Wednesday, March 30, 2022 at 4:00 pm
Mavis says:
Wednesday, March 30, 2022 at 3:55 pm
_________________________
[‘Thats the ballgame isn’t it? BRS wins?’]
Not by a long way. Watch this space.
I think mixing in with Michael Sukkar might make the buy a house quote even better…
“Get a good job that pays good money” “and Go Buy a house”
nath @ #1060 Wednesday, March 30th, 2022 – 3:33 pm
He was simply indicating that he had not been taught by nuns.
When you find a strange bucket in your driveway…
yabba says:
Wednesday, March 30, 2022 at 4:14 pm
nath @ #1060 Wednesday, March 30th, 2022 – 3:33 pm
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.
He was simply indicating that he had not been taught by nuns.
__________
same thing to him.
From CFW
“In my public life I have met ruthless people. Morrison tops the list. Morrison is not fit to be Prime Minister.”
Now that’s one for the CV, top of the list of ruthless politicians. Top that!
Mavis says:
Wednesday, March 30, 2022 at 4:12 pm
Lars Von Trier:
Wednesday, March 30, 2022 at 4:00 pm
Mavis says:
Wednesday, March 30, 2022 at 3:55 pm
_________________________
[‘Thats the ballgame isn’t it? BRS wins?’]
Not by a long way. Watch this space.
__________________________
I’m guessing they haven’t wasted much time in settlement discussions? Seems like a fight to the (legal) death) no pun intended.
How do you weigh up a potential murder on the one hand versus a defamation defence on the other?
Albanese: “I know how to add up three plus four mate.”
https://twitter.com/i/status/1509034436045983749
Rex Douglas @ #1366 Wednesday, March 30th, 2022 – 3:55 pm
Human rights repair
Energy security repair
Natural disaster response repair
Wage growth repair
Social security repair
Social housing repair
Media diversity repair
Late Riser @ #1393 Wednesday, March 30th, 2022 – 3:22 pm
Prosecution for murder takes priority, and you allow whatever judge/jury is presiding over the defamation case to infer that the testimony would have been exactly as damaging as “I’ll incriminate myself if I answer that” suggests.
“Would you describe yourself as a pessimist WWP? You seem relentlessly negative on most things political?”
Nah I wouldn’t, but without getting into the micro focus, where clearly one can rejoice in how objectively and fantastically Labor is better than the LNP, and on the microlevel down amongst the weeds the friendlyjordies take on Labor is 100% accurate and defensible.
but you step back and pan out to the wider long shot and have a look at our democracy and society you might even think it is a good thing that climate change might not be a problem for our great great grandkids because it will kill our grandkids and great grandkids before they come along.
and also you don’t fix a problem by ignoring it and pretending all is great, if you truly love something you try and fix it up and make it as good as you can as soon as you can
Pi,
Albo doesn’t need bait to reel in Morrison these days.
The point of budget repair is to make sure Labor has neither the time nor the resources to repair anything else, it is a disenabling strategic move by the right which still seems effective, because Labor are still devoted followers of trickle down / flood up economics, where the trickle down part may not happen but the flood up is guaranteed.