I hesitate to read federal implications into yesterday’s Tasmanian Legislative Council elections, but it may at very least be a sign of the times that Labor and Liberal candidates couldn’t muster half of the vote between them in the by-election for Huon, which encompasses about a third of the federal seat of Franklin. For those of you who are interested (not many, it seems), I will continue to follow the count in the dedicated post in the days to come, in which either Labor or the independent will win the seat depending on how preferences flows. Two other seats, Elwick and McIntyre, were comfortably retained by their respective Labor and independent incumbents.
More directly of relevance:
• The Guardian reports a uComms poll for Climate 200 shows independent Sophie Scamps with a 60-40 lead over Liberal member Jason Falinksi in Mackellar. The primary votes are Falinski 32.0%, Scamps 31.2%, Labor 15.5% and Greens 8.6% with 7% undecided, and a respondent-allocated preference flow of 81-19 in favour of Scamps. The automated phone poll was conducted last week from a sample of 834.
• Countering much of the recent horse race narrative, The Australian reports strategists on both sides say support for the Coalition has fallen away in Queensland. While Brisbane is “the most vulnerable”, Leichhardt, Longman and perhaps also Flynn are “in play”. Ryan is “in danger” from the Greens, and while the same might also be held of Labor-held Griffith, “a Labor strategist said he believed Griffith would hold”. However, a Liberal National Party source’s claim that Labor “has been claiming for the last three elections that they were going to pick up another eight to ten seats and it doesn’t eventuate” is only slightly exaggerated.
• John Ferguson of The Australian adds to a recent chorus of reportage to the effect that Victoria’s lockdowns “will hit hard in pockets across Melbourne’s outer suburbs”, endangering Labor’s hold on McEwen and Corangamite. This time may well be different, but I can’t help noting that the news media doesn’t have a good record of reading Melbourne’s pulse in recent years. After similar suggestions of a threat to Labor in McEwen in 2016 due to a controversy over the Andrews government’s handling of the Country Fire Authority, the seat swung to Labor by 7.7%. Efforts by the Liberal Party and the Herald Sun to promote African gang crime as the defining issue of the 2018 state election fell on the deafest of ears, and after much talk that the “Skyrail” issue would weaken the Andrews goverment’s hold on the crucial sandbelt seats of Melbourne’s south-east, every single one of them recorded a double-digit swing to Labor.
• A report in today’s Age/Herald papers says Liberal MPs are being told not to encourage people to vote early, as they expect, or at least hope, for a late break in their favour. The report also says Labor now is “more hopeful” that Bennelong and Leichhardt are trending its way, but that both sides now expect Dunkley, Lilley, Hunter and Paterson to remain with Labor, and Hasluck, Flynn and Longman to remain with the Coalition.
My gal, quite an accomplished person, have joked about going into politics. The over-riding concern for anyone thinking about it is “do you have some skeleton, or skeletons, in your closet that, if it was revealed, would kill your political career stone dead. We both laugh. Career in politics not for us then!
“Not buying it I’m afraid, it just sounds desperate.”
Cronus, dirt files …… Their deployment in a campaign should be far enough before the day so that there is time for whatever “first impression” you want them to create or support gets spread around and becomes a talking point. But….close enough to the day that the “accused” doesn’t have time to clear their name and debunk the information.
Personally, i have always thought that the last couple of weeks of the campaign will see this “dirt files” thing happen from the Lib/Nats or Greens. Can’t see that the ALP has any reason do go the whole dirt files thing as they have the established (by the Lib/Nats) narrative that Scomo is a Lying Bully and Psychopath. Maybe they will give Connie some more airtime. 🙂
I should add that Latham did allow me to take a selfie with him.
I’ve got it here somewhere
Cue: Lars
From the Oz (if it can be believed)
“ ‘Teal’ independent Allegra Spender supports possible increase of GST as part of wider tax review; will ‘negotiate with either side if it comes to forming government’.”
Spender certainly not ruling out supporting anti-climate change Morrison and open to GST increase. All very Liberal. Not sure this will help her cause. Starting to question the point of her over Sharma, they sound the same, Liberal.
They must really not have very much to attack Albo with or they are the absolute world champions at the game of “chicken”. …I dont think they would let Albo be portrayed as pure as the driven snow and a really nice guy if they had evidence to the contrary. I think this may be Scomo revenge for all the shit flung (rightly) at him…..its him hitting back, not with the hope of winning the election but as revenge.
Its also like those archers manning the castle walls when a gazzilion orcs are at the gates and being told to “hold your fire”…..get fucked, I’m shooting one now, would be my thoughts
Frydenberg as Vic Lib leader ..??
No. ‘He’s not a Victorian, he’s just a Liberal’.
Suspicious of why Morrison is suddenly running hard on religious discrimination. He’s not somebody who would push a policy line if he didn’t think there was something in it for him politically.
I don’t think Frydo could easily slip into Vic politics, he would probably have better chances in NSW. But he seems destined for a high paying lobbying job out of public heckling range.
OC, My guess would be the attack, if there is in fact an attack, would be of a #metoo flavour assuming the Liberals have material of a #metoo flavour. I tried to look at Latham’s comments from 2019 to refresh my memory, is there a search function on twitter? But it would be the most likely thing to drop on a Wednesday/ Thursday of next week .
I get it that the ALP faithful think the attack lines on Frydenberg write themselves, but I reckon you’re underestimating how effective he might be when he’s not encumbered by the rabid federal nationals. A lot of people would see him as a Kean analogue. I won’t vote for him, but I expect a lot of people would. More than for Guy or whatshisname.
“I hate to say it but, I think for Australia, it was a good thing he stuffed up the last bit of the campaign. He would have been Labor’s Abbott”
Abbott won them what has become 3 terms in government and a clear shot at a 4th. I wish we had got that from Latham.
Frydenbergs mismanagement as Treasurer is unprecedented.
Worst Treasurer EVER.
Got his arse handed to him in the debate by Ryan.
He is HOPELESS.
Speaking of the Lindsay 2007 sting I actually know the small l liberal operative that was accused by within the far right of the party of being the one that tipped off a then unknown Luke Foley. The bloke denies it was him but became a scapegoat due to his very progressive outlook. He’s not a bad bloke except for the fact he has pretty much spent his whole working life with the NSW liberal head office.
Pretty spectacular how Foley was able to quickly muster a platoon of young Labor foot soldiers to make their way from the pub assembly point in the inner west and traverse into the foreign far western outer reaches of the city to pull off the political hitjob of the century.
Fun fact: if you head out to Penrith on any given polling day you can still make out Karen chijchoff all these years laster handing out Liberal how to vote cards. In dark sunglasses and a wide-brimmed hat of course to act as a Subtle disguise to avoid and dramas
LNT: “is there a search function on twitter?”
Latham since:2010-12-31 until:2012-12-31
https://mobile.twitter.com/search?q=Latham%20since%3A2010-12-31%20until%3A2012-12-31&src=typed_query
This monstrosity of an organisation the Fed Libs have become will be unelectable for the foreseeable future.
Any out-of-the-blue dirt on Albanese would have to come with a credible witness willing to front the media and make a compelling case that will grab news bulletins and headlines across the country. I don’t think anything less would do much.
Frydenberg would be a good idea for Vic liberal leader and federal drag might get them over the line if Labor win federally. I expect he’ll be re-elected in Kooyong though.
ltepsays:
Sunday, May 8, 2022 at 3:51 pm
Suspicious of why Morrison is suddenly running hard on religious discrimination. He’s not somebody who would push a policy line if he didn’t think there was something in it for him politically.
—
Usually Scomo throws this one in the air because he wants to maintain the support he got from religious zealots in seats that voted against gay marriage and wanted to punish progressives in 2019 electorates AFTER the act was passed under Turnbull. He wants those voters in Banks, Reid and some Labor seats in Western Sydney and Victoria to stick with Morrison despite cost of living issues, the impact of the floods and corona virus on their communities. I think he backed DEEVES for the same reason because of her homophobic rants.
He is trying to re-run the 2019 election but it won’t work because he failed to get the Religious Discrimination Bill he promised through and ALBO came out yesterday to avoid the wedgie by saying he will look at a Religious Discrimination Bill if he wins Government. Scomo is desperate for a wedgie.
If Frydenberg loses (still 50/50 IMO) he would walk into Tim Smith’s seat un-opposed.
True Arky
The fact Biff would and did (for a while) ‘stick it up em’ gave Laborites disheartened by 2001 and Bomber’s perceived lack of mongrel (and Crean’s very convincing doormat impersonation) a real boost.
In hindsight yes we clearly backed the wrong horse. But shit Abbott became PM. I’m sure most Libs thank that idiot for getting them into government a couple of terms early even if they did nothing with it and don’t want anyone reminding them that they supported him. It could (and should) have gone tits up like Latham, but didn’t. At least not until after he won.
Who knows, maybe unlike Abbott Latham could have grown into the role (no I don’t believe it either, but maybe…), but we don’t get to make decisions with 20 20 hindsight. Sometimes you just have to take a punt. It’s not likely that Labor spent a day longer in opposition from having Latham as leader than if they’d made another choice.
Yep, OC, .wore out the shoe leathe but pleased to do it for you. Reciprocated later, my hero
I agree it was better that Latham lost. He wld have been insufferable as PM. Now he is just gross
If he loses, Frydenberg is not going to all the effort of being parachuted into Victorian politics to take over as leader just to get destroyed by the Treasurer for NSW line and flogged by Andrews at the election. If he’s desperate to be PM a la Turnbull he’ll look for another opportunity to get back into Federal politics (either challenging in 2025 when he might hope the Teal issues have been resolved during Labor’s term, making the Liberals less unpalatable despite themselves, or by finding another seat). But far more likely he’ll just go and collect dosh in the private sector, the latest iteration of Peter Costello.
Pi @ #617 Sunday, May 8th, 2022 – 4:05 pm
So, the same people who just booted him out, would almost immediately vote him in again ..??
What are you smoking ???
Frydenberg will go down in history as Australias worst Treasurer who created a Trillion dollar national debt by giving away Billions of Borrowed dollars to profitable companies that didnt need the money and not having the courage to legislate to require the companies to repay the money.
Australians will be paying higher taxes for decades and facing cuts to Medicare ,etc, to pay off Frydenbergs Trillion dollar debt Plus Interest!
Do you guys think Falinski is toast? Or are UComms less credible as a polling agency?
Those attack lines will all be blamed on the ALP, just like they have on Biden. The murdoch gutter media have probably already written the headlines. Watch.
“ Andrew_Earlwood
So again I ask why the Coalition would wait so long for Albo to establish his bonafides and ongoing lead. Any reasonable tactician would’ve sought to undermine him quite sometime ago. It still doesn’t make sense I’m afraid. It would especially have been worthwhile before the first two debates. Not buying it I’m afraid, it just sounds desperate.”
1. The dirt is likely to be puerile sexual innuendo type shit, which when scrutinised closely won’t amount to much, but IF timed properly could have an immediate and negative impact: hence the ‘go late’ strategy.
2. Most folk vote on Election Day: that’s also where the most likely pool of undecided and fickle voters can be found.
3. ScoMo and the liberals HAVE been attacking Albo on leadership, economic management, being a closet commie and a weathervane since day one of the campaign. In fact they have tried and tried to land a glove on him on these issues for three years. So far they have failed: whereas I suspect that ‘the dirt’ is something else. Something that is possibly merely puerile, but still (the libs hope) with a devastating impact amongst undecided/fickle voters (especially women) if timed just right.
WHAT ‘sexual innuendo’ type dirt!?! Is that really a thing? Or just some creative imagining? Does anyone have any evidence of anything remotely resembling this!?!
It all started falling apart for Josh the day Jay Weatherill publicly beat him up and exposed him as an overrated hack.
What I find interesting… Morrison is still doing a base play less than a fortnight out.
This would be the time when you’d be pivoting toward the middle to win over the undecided suburbanites. I’m getting flashbacks to when about 10 days out, Theresa May started shifting right on immigration and terrorism, my first thought was “her internals must be bad”.
IF, and given the Chinese (shush) whispers floating around today, IF is appropriate, there is a dirt dump on Albo… a) it seems pretty stupid to dump it late, unless they’ve got little confidence it’d hold up to more than 2-3 days of scruitiny b) there’s not been hints in the questions from the pack to set him up to deny something, only to have it challenged. A negative dump, without context, is going to be of limited effect. While I can’t say I’d be surprised if they tried, given how objectively bad the Liberal campaign has been… I can’t say I’d be surprised if it backfired.
It might be worth watching the pressers this week to see if there are some out of left-field questions.
But I’m also at the point where being “worried” or “having a sinking feeling” is just utterly pointless. We know the Libs will go dark and dirty – BUT the fact they haven’t yet, suggests there are questions as to its effectiveness. Again, in hindsight, the 2019 campaign from the Libs was well executed – setting up Shorten as untrustworthy and shifty took months of careful work – so the public was ready to accept the full-frontal assault on him during the campaign. This has been my argument all along, if they’ve got something on Albo they think will actually hurt – you’d drop it after setting the public up to accept such an attack… but again, if I actually understood what the Liberal strategy was this time, I doubt I’d be a particularly well person.
Also, if I were Labor, I’d be going on the attack wrt the equally puerile ‘It’s not going to be easy under Albanese’ posters that have started going up.
All the Coalition have done is found a word that rhymes with Albanese and then scattered bulldust around it. Labor should say, show me your workings if you’re going to say that! Of course they can’t prove it, it’s just make believe. Well, they hope the low information voters believe it.
Latham had the ‘potential’ to be an amazing PM. The only guy that gave a shit about reform and policy in Labor Party since Keating. Amazing he was ever elected leader as party hated him from day dot and only stomached him due to his appeal to wider electorate beyond sub branches (people forget he had Howard on his toes pre-public breakdown). Agree with assessments of his character post ALP but definitely a guy of extremes, could have been great, or unfortunately could have ended up representing PHON … most politicians in the banal middle; no electoral appeal and no care for reform.
Oh, and it’s my fervent belief that any dirt about Albanese from back in the mists of time will probably have come to the Liberals from Mark Latham via Pauline Hanson.
I certainly wouldn’t be boasting about having taken a selfie with that Labor Rat.
“ WHAT ‘sexual innuendo’ type dirt!?! Is that really a thing? Or just some creative imagining? Does anyone have any evidence of anything remotely resembling this!?!”
Careful comrade. Careful.
I suspect that actual ‘evidence’ would seriously weaken the smudge, but if enough ‘credible’ innuendo is presented at exactly the ‘right’ time, the presstitutes will kick it along the road for long enough for the damage to be done. Alla the risible “‘Kimba’ waz bullied by the ‘mean girls’ whilst hopeless Albo and Marles stood by” line that Maiden and Ullmann etc ran on high rotation until the week after her funeral …
“ Oh, and it’s my fervent belief that any dirt about Albanese from back in the mists of time will probably have come to the Liberals from Mark Latham via Pauline Hanson.”
You would be wrong about that. Dead wrong.
Edited. Actually, I misread your post. You are nearly right. carry on.
Bloody hell, it’s like Don Quixote in here!
I seriously doubt there is ANY dirt AT ALL. I’d be amazed.
Pi @ #619 Sunday, May 8th, 2022 – 4:05 pm
Oh how the mighty will have fallen. 😀
@Jt1983:
“ … it seems pretty stupid to dump it late, unless they’ve got little confidence it’d hold up to more than 2-3 days of scruitiny”
Judging by past recent form, don’t you think that the presstitutes will effectively guarantee this will get an un-scrutinised run for the whole of the last week of the campaign? I mean they actually knew the ‘Kimba was bullied’ line was a lie, but they were front and centre in running it, day in day out, until after her funeral some actual facts could be introduced into the mix.
I can think of little Dan Andrews would enjoy more than facing off against Josh Frydenberg as Loto.
Go back and watch the video of Jay tearing him a new one, or his current challenger towelling him up at their debate. Trump would call him ‘low energy’ and for once not be lying. He has a nasty streak barely concealed, but he’s as inspiring as day old dishwasher.
Yeah plenty in the gallery love him because he’s been courting them since he arrived in Canberra. But they’re mostly idiots.
Andrews would take him to the cleaners. It would have to be a really big ‘time to vote this mob out’ sentiment for Josh to overcome his inherent inadequacy and then he’d be lucky to last half a term.
Also… let’s just be clear, we’ve got no knowledge as to whether any of THIS is even real, lol.
Even then, it’s hardly worth hyperventilating about – we’ve got no control and just have to deal with it when/if it comes.
Well I am pretty ordinary at political tactics but would be willing to bet any ‘dirt’ will be a compendium of Albanese saying dodgy hard left things + a bit of dirty deeds done dirt cheap about factional stuff.
“ Bloody hell, it’s like Don Quixote in here!
I seriously doubt there is ANY dirt AT ALL. I’d be amazed.”
It depends if you are talking about ‘true facts’, or not. Doesn’t it?
Boinzo @ #635 Sunday, May 8th, 2022 – 4:28 pm
That is my actual belief. Carmel and Anthony seemed like the most perfectly happily married couple. Until they weren’t. But there’s never even been the hint of impropriety about their marriage. But I honestly am only speculating.
@Freya Stark.
‘I reckon parachuting Tony Abbott into Lilley to replace Vivian Lobo would be a good move. With the promise of a ministry if he wins…’
________
Well, now that’s the first sensible idea I’ve read all day!
Well done, Freya Stark! About time there was some clear-headed thinking around here!
Andrew_Earlwood
You seem to know something we do not. Care to share? We won’t tell anyone.
@C@t – TBF, that’s all everyone is doing, followed by pre-panic. Particularly since there’s been no reference to actual dirt, just a combination of two separate statements today. I know I think the Lib campaign has been bad, but I’d be stunned if there wasn’t some attempt to bring Albo down to Morrison’s level – but again, high-risk strategy to do it late in the piece.
C@tmomma @ #637 Sunday, May 8th, 2022 – 4:30 pm
Well yeah. I have no idea. But I do know this feels a lot like creating a reality.
Isn’t this shit how conspiracies like QAnon start? A bunch people pretending they actually know what’s happening. It’s a big old LARP.
I am however going to add some food for thought.
Grace Tame, Brittany Higgans and Rachel Miller have all been rather quiet of recent.
Given they all know each other. And one was a senior media advisor. Does anyone else think dirt might arise at an opportune time?
Their silence seems hard to explain otherwise.
Pi @ #614 Sunday, May 8th, 2022 – 3:58 pm
I think it would take quite some time to sift through that lot to pull out the gems.
Boinzo,
Yeah, something to while away the time before Newspoll tonight, tbh. 😀