Federal election live: day three

Ongoing coverage of Labor’s search for a path to 76 seats, which it may or may not reach.

Click here for full federal election results updated live.

There were two developments in counting yesterday, one of which was that batches of postal votes were counted in every seat. Taken in aggregate they recorded a bigger swing to Labor than booth and pre-poll votes, consistent with the notion that the 70% increase in applications would make the postal voter population more representative and less conservative than in past years. However, this doesn’t mean Labor can expect a surge in its favour in late counting, since the swing is not so big as to completely eradicate postal voting’s conservative lean and they are in greater in overall number now.

The other development was that fresh two-candidate preferred counts were commenced in three interesting (Griffith, Ryan and Cowper) and seven uninteresting (Bradfield, Calare, Sydney, Hinkler, Maranoa, Melbourne and Grey) races. None of these counts is very far advanced, and for several it was just a case of throwing to new pairs of candidates during today’s counting of postal votes. However, we can presumably expect them to go back through the ordinary votes and publish fresh two-candidate preferred results in fairly short order.

There are another four seats where it is clear the wrong two candidates were picked for the candidate on the night, but in which new counts have not been commenced since it is not clear which candidate will drop out before the final count, of which I rate one to be very much in doubt (Brisbane) and three not so (Richmond, Macnamara and Wannon). We won’t know exactly what’s happened in these races until all the votes are in and the full distributions of preferences are conducted.

My system is definitively calling 72 seats for Labor, 47 for the Coalition, three for independents, two for the Greens and one for Bob Katter, but there are a number involving independents that it is being too slow to give away, which I should probably do something about. These include Mackellar, North Sydney, Wentworth, Goldstein and Kooyong, where the Liberals can hope for no more from postals than to reduce the teal independents’ winning margins, and Fowler, where Kristina Keneally seemingly can’t even hope for that much. Conversely, the presence of independents in the race is making the system too slow to call Bradfield, Nicholls and Wannon for the Coalition.

The only one of the six main teal independent targets I would still rate in doubt is Curtin, and even there Liberal member Celia Hammond will need to pull a rabbit out of the hat. Postals are favouring her, as they are with the Liberals in all such contests, but they are on track to bite only around 2000 out of Chaney’s existing 3350 vote margin. That would leave her needing some dynamic on absent and out-of-division pre-polls to favour her, the nature of which wouldn’t seem clear at this stage.

Then there’s Cowper, where my system is crediting Nationals incumbent Pat Conaghan with a slight advantage over independent Caz Heise. We’re in the very early stages of a two-candidate count between the two in which the only substantial result is the postals, on which preferences are flowing to Heise 67.3-32.7. Applying that split over the projected primary votes, which have Conaghan on 39.6% and Heise on 26.7%, Conaghan would hold on by a margin of 0.6%, which is closer than the 2.0% being produced by the crude estimate of preference slows in my system.

The system is also being slow to call Ryan for the Greens, but I expect that to resolve when the fresh two-candidate count there reaches a sufficient stage that I stop relying on my preference estimates, which cause me to impose a bigger margin of error. There has been some talk of the Greens making it as high as five, but this includes Macnamara which I now can’t see happening. Labor had a very strong result on the first batch of postals, which swung 9.0% in their favour on the primary vote, making it very unlikely they will drop out ahead of both the Greens and the Liberals, which is what it would take for them to lose. The remaining issue is whether Brisbane gets them to four, on which more below.

I don’t imagine my system is too far off calling Lingiari for Labor and Casey, Dickson and Bass for the Coalition, though I’d keep at least half an eye on the latter. Throwing those on the pile, we get Labor to 74, the Coalition to 54, independents to ten and the Greens to three, with Bob Katter still on one, Cowper to either stay Coalition or go independent, and a further eight outstanding from which Labor might get the two extra they need to make it to 76. As I see it, these are, in roughly descending order of likelihood:

Bennelong. Yesterday’s 5760 postals broke 3131-2629 to Liberal, but this marked a 12.2% swing to Labor compared with 2019 and suggested postals will not give Liberal candidate Simon Kennedy the lift he needs to close what remains a 1749 vote Labor lead. Whatever they Liberals gain on remaining postals seems likely to be approximately matched by advantages to Labor on other types of outstanding vote.

Lyons. Labor’s Brian Mitchell had a very encouraging first batch of postal votes here, breaking 2056-1833 his way. Mitchell leads by 0.6% on the raw count, but I’m projecting this to come out at just 0.1% based on an assumption that the outstanding postals will lean conservative, as they did last time. If further batches of postals put paid to that idea, he can start to breathe easier.

Brisbane. As I noted in yesterday’s post, what we need here not a two but a three-candidate preferred count to establish who will out first out of the Greens and Labor, as the seat will go to whichever survives at this point. While I am projecting the Greens to hold a slight lead on the primary vote, and they should get a fillip in the preference count when Animal Justice are distributed, the postals give Labor more than a shred of hope. Postals are always weak for the Greens, but the first batch has only recorded a 1.3% primary vote swing for them compared with 5.6% overall. If that’s maintained over the rest of the postals, it’s likely to be very close. So unless the AEC does something innovative here, this will have to wait until all the votes are in and the full distribution of preferences is completed.

Gilmore. A similar story to Bennelong insofar as a weaker than anticipated showing for the Liberals on the first batch of postals suggests the final result will come in roughly where it is at the moment. That means lineball in this case, with Liberal member Andrew Constance leading by 306 votes.

Deakin. Here on the other hand postals were favourable to the Liberals, swinging 3.7% to Labor compared with 5.0% overall. While my projection still has Labor 0.5% ahead, if the postal count so far continues over what should be at least 12,000 more yet to come, Michael Sukkar will retain the seat.

Menzies. The postals swung similarly to the overall result here, which is good news for the Liberals because the increased number of them means their natural lean to the Liberals should cause the gap to widen as more can come in, by a greater amount than Labor can hope to reel in on other types of vote.

Sturt. The swing on postals here was in line with the overall result, so I’m satisfied with my projection of a 0.5% Liberal lead, which happens to be very close to the raw count. However, there are enough votes still out there that it can’t be given away yet.

Moore. Labor recorded a below par swing on the first batch of postals, suggesting Liberal member Ian Goodenough’s 1138-vote lead is more likely to widen than shrink, and that Labor will have to make do with four gains in Western Australia rather than five.

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.

1,501 comments on “Federal election live: day three”

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  2. Stoking fear and hatred held the Coalition in power – finally Australia had enough — David Marr

    For the first time in a decade the logjam to change the country’s politics may be shifting

    https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2022/may/23/stoking-fear-and-hatred-held-the-coalition-in-power-finally-australia-had-enough

    Michael McCormack suggests Barnaby Joyce’s unpopularity in inner-city contributed to Coalition’s loss

    Former Nationals leader says he was ‘very popular’ in inner city and that mixed messages on net zero emissions ‘didn’t help’

    https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2022/may/23/michael-mccormack-suggests-barnaby-joyces-unpopularity-in-inner-city-contributed-to-coalitions-loss

    How Albanese’s practical pivot on climate paved the way for a Greens surge

    Analysis: As Labor focused on opportunities for working people in the transition to renewables, the Greens mounted a formidable on-the-ground campaign

    https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2022/may/23/how-albaneses-practical-pivot-on-climate-paved-the-way-for-a-greens-surge

  3. Bottom line, Libs treated Victorians like we are the enemy because we where the most left leaning state.

    Then WA became the most left leaning state, so the Libs treated all of them like they where the enemy.

    They still cant work out what they did wrong.

  4. On the Green surges, i dont think thats bad for Labor long term.

    If Labor makes good progress on its practical changes to transform, then enough Greens supporters will moderate and see that doing stuff is better than talking about it.

    And those on the right will recognize it has to be done, Bowen played a big role in this win.

  5. That’s great to see postal votes becoming more representative of the general voting community. I’m sure it’s a pandemic hangover that hopefully now people see how convenient it is, will stick for future elections.

  6. This is so true and it made me think of lizzie/Zoe and how I wish that she was still alive to see the change of government.

    It took a while to notice: how strange it was, suddenly, to be listening to a different type of language. On screen, Anthony Albanese was telling the country what he believed mattered, in words only a Labor leader was likely to choose. “No one left behind because we should always look after the disadvantaged and the vulnerable,” he said in his victory speech. Liberal language was gone: there was no dividing the country into lifters and leaners, into quiet Australians and those who won’t behave, into those who gave a go and those who apparently deserved whatever misfortune came their way.

    This is one of the signal events accompanying a change of government: the sudden shift in background hum that accompanies everything we say and do. On Saturday night, the nation felt different. Listening to Albanese required a retuning of the ear.

    Not all of this is about the words themselves. Language acquires force from how firmly it is connected to the world. When Albanese spoke of a government that “will respect every one of you every day”, his phrase gained power from the recent illustration of its opposite. The hateful way in which Scott Morrison attempted to transform some imagined fear of transgender people into a political weapon should remain a stain on his career, and become an enduring symbol of how nasty and devalued politics can become.

    Because there is no doubt that Morrison devalued our politics, not just through his willingness to divide. He did so by using words as though they had no meaning. He did so by using crisp and crafted images as though they could displace reality. There are many reasons Morrison fell, but the clearest explanation is that reality became so sharp and urgent it could not be denied. Pandemic, bushfires and sexual violence could not, finally, be pretended away. They had to be dealt with, and Morrison was not interested.

    https://www.smh.com.au/national/the-most-important-line-in-albanese-s-victory-speech-signalled-the-end-of-an-era-20220522-p5aned.html

    I remember thinking the same thing after the 2007 election. Suddenly, almost overnight, the divisive rhetoric of the Howard govt had gone, the government was recognising the stolen generations, climate change and host of other things that Howard et al had used to divide the country.

  7. Morning all. Six senior Liberal MPs now trail teal candidates by thousands of votes, with no sign of a change in trend after the first postal vote counting on Sunday. Yet so far only one (Tim Wilson) has concede defeat.

    As I have said before, there is a coward inside every bully. They like to dish it out, but they don’t like copping it in return.
    https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2022/may/22/liberal-mps-yet-to-concede-to-teal-independents-as-outcomes-hinge-on-postal-votes

  8. Confessions

    I agree – wasn’t it great to hear Albo speak as PM in hopeful, inclusive language yesterday. Ten years of petty, mean spirited divisiveness had vanished.

    I also share your hope that Labor in practice can do better than assumed in combating climate change. There is much low hanging fruit to pick that will not kill existing coal region jobs;
    – approve stalled RE projects that were proposed in regional areas like the NQld big battery
    – restore previous successful Labor schemes like the RET
    – expand the rollout of a smarter grid that facilitates RE projects in regions. This will also provide regional jobs in itself
    – move on vehicle emission standards, which will also have health and cost of living benefits. This will encourage manufacturers to release cheaper EVs here.
    – enforce unenforced emission rules on the big gas projects and make them pay the same royalties as coal and iron ore.

    In short, Labor can do the things needed to transition away from fossil fuels.

  9. Socrates:

    And what’s even better is that so much of it can be funded simply by abandoning the reckless irresponsible and wholly untransparent rorts the coalition presided over.

    Two birds, one stone: more efficient and effective use of taxpayer funds, used in the national interests, not the vested or self interests.

  11. Results of the Western Australia , South Australian , Federal Election , would wouldn’t like being in the Victorian lib/nat position .
    For a number of reasons

    The Victorian lib/nats wanted the Andrews Government- to follow NSW and federal lib/nats incompetence – Economy over health, let the virus spread , open the borders

    Peta Credlin claimed baseball bats were waiting for Albanese and Andrews – it turning out to be the opposite

  12. Malcolm appears to be enjoying watching the carnage and offering his thoughts on the matter.

    These are accomplished women, Malcolm Turnbull said, that “any political party would count as an enormous plus to have among their number. The idea of saying that they are just ‘groupies’ [John Howard’s label] – what a disrespectful thing to say”.

    Turnbull spoke to this masthead from New York, just an hour after Anthony Albanese’s victory speech. He says the scale of “this disaster for the Liberal Party” can’t be overstated.

    “These are the seats which had not only been ultra-safe but where the party raised most of its money, where it had the most members — literally the Liberal Party bedrock,” he says.

    “The message very clearly to the party now is, given these historically rolled-gold seats [have moved] to the crossbench, how does the Liberal Party ever get to form a majority in its own right? It may be that the only way they get to form a majority is by doing a deal with [what are effectively] small ‘L’ liberals on the crossbench … and a lot of people would say that’s a good thing. Because then the sort of people with the perspectives that moderates have, instead of sitting as political hostages in the Liberal party room, are on the crossbench and can actually dictate terms.”

    https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/the-end-of-certainty-for-the-liberals-20220522-p5anjs.html

  13. Socrates:
    “Six senior Liberal MPs now trail teal candidates by thousands of votes … Yet so far only one (Tim Wilson) has concede defeat.”

    The Sharma Chameleon has even deleted his Twitter account.

    Gutless wonders.

  14. Gee, only 158 primary votes separating GRN and ALP in Brisbane, didnt realise it was that close.

    Will be fascinating to see preference flows from 1300 AJ vs i dont know how many more conservative postals.

  17. Fess and Socrates

    I believe Albo will succeed because he is fundamentally decent. And that’s all we really seek in our leaders, that we can trust in their decency from which all else flows.

  19. Michael Kroger offers his own thoughts on the policy agenda the Liberals should embrace. Seriously, why are people still asking this guy for his opinion? He’s clearly out of step with contemporary society, and if this is the best they can do then they may as well give up and disband.

    Michael Kroger, former president of the Victorian Liberal Party and a leading force on its centre right, told the Herald and The Age: “The party needs its own visionary agenda. It cannot be a pale imitation of its opponents. Nor can it rely on dull themes like being better managers. Politics at a federal level is not about processing paper at a more competent rate than your opponents.”

    Asked for his idea of a visionary agenda, Kroger nominates “examining nuclear as an option, a three-year Australia -wide royal commission into deregulation, so that this issue can be taken seriously … and, the profound law-and-order issue of the unregulated social media swamp … which is damaging the mental health of young Australians. These are all quality of life issues many of which profoundly affect the working middle class”.

    https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/the-end-of-certainty-for-the-liberals-20220522-p5anjs.html

  20. Let’s get real – the new government faces immense challenges, with the RBA raising rates, inflation possibly peaking around 7%, and an uncertain housing market. Hope the new government is successful in boosting productivity and wages, because ultimately that’s how you have higher living standards.

    By the way, this morning NZ television is citing a local economist that Albanese as Australian PM will exacerbate brain drain to Australia. Not sure that’s good news to Ardern and NZ Labour…

  21. Scott

    Credlin reminds me of Wiley Coyote, holding a pistol but pointing it in the wrong direction. As you say, it all just blew up in her mean face and heart. She and her unhinged colleagues at Sky will just keep screaming into the vortex but of course, 99% of us will never hear them.

  22. fess

    Wow, what a vision. Imagine standing on a hillside with a voter and saying, “I offer you a world with nuclear power, deregulated business and a regulated social media.” and expecting them to gasp with awe at the new nirvana.

    (And immediately there’s an obvious contradiction…)

  23. The liberal party, as badly named as it is, has always been based on inequality.
    The liberal party arrived at the point where their leader Morrison bleated day after day the need for “a government for all” while legislating for something quite different.
    White Australia was founded on inequality.
    The liberal party has been the agent of inequality.
    The establishment of a FICAC is the first step in rectifying inequality.
    Nothing exemplifies inequality like the royal commission established to punish unions and specifically Shorten , only to result in the “finding” against the man appointed to oversee the commission.

  24. Fess

    The Libs, they’ll just never get it. They miss the point unerringly. Straight to oblivion they’ll go.

  26. Jude, that NZ brain drain to Aus has been happening since the borders reopened. We have seen several candidates come through, attracted by the better pay and conditions on offer here. They are nearly all better options than the remaining pool of unemployed. Most in mid to late twenties.

  27. Cronus @ #22 Monday, May 23rd, 2022 – 7:00 am

    Scott

    Credlin reminds me of Wiley Coyote, holding a pistol but pointing it in the wrong direction. As you say, it all just blew up in her mean face and heart. She and her unhinged colleagues at Sky will just keep screaming into the vortex but of course, 99% of us will never hear them.

    Someone tweeted the other day that SfM wasn’t the first PM to officially or unofficially take Credlin’s advice and lose.

  28. bug1 says:
    Monday, May 23, 2022 at 5:31 am
    Bottom line, Libs treated Victorians like we are the enemy because we where the most left leaning state.

    They still cant work out what they did wrong.
    —
    And the Victorian state Libs still don’t get it, and likely never will.

    Easy re-election for Dan come Nov.

  29. I was watching the news and saw four numbskulls three of them wearing cowboys hats. It was of course three Qld LNP country members and one prize boofhead from NSW. I’m from Brisbane and the criticism of Qld is sometimes confronting but looking at these drongoes it’s hard to argue with the facts. One thing I’m sure of, they are living in a yobbo version of Disneyland and are totally responsible for the LNPs big loss.


  30. somethinglikethat says:
    ..
    —
    And the Victorian state Libs still don’t get it, and likely never will.

    Easy re-election for Dan come Nov.

    Kroger, claimed moderate, going on about Nuclear, deregulation and regulation of social media says it all really. Nothing about infrastructure or restructuring the economy for the future etc.

  31. On tactics and messaging (ping mundo)..

    Erickson called upon two loyal advertising gurus, Darren Moss and Dee Madigan, for this election – Madigan’s Campaign Edge crafted the ruthless “That’s Not My Job” ad which played heavily on commercial TV and infuriated the Liberals by using Morrison’s quotes out of context.

    But Labor neglected much of the material gifted to them by Morrison’s own colleagues. It did not put Barnaby Joyce’s assessment of Morrison as “a hypocrite and a liar” on high rotation, nor Gladys Berejiklian’s reported description of him as “a horrible, horrible person”.

    Why? Campaign strategists tested those messages with voters and found they were compelling, but not as compelling as the more basic message: “Do you really want more Scott Morrison?” Hence the omnipresence of Morrison’s name and face in Labor’s campaign material.

    https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/i-m-not-losing-any-sleep-inside-labor-s-cautious-but-confident-campaign-20220522-p5angy.html

  32. A thought, what is the swing for both PV and 2PP for the ALP in seats where it’s strictly ALP vs LNP? So excluding the teal seats. I imagine ALP vote would have been impacted by the teal seats

  33. I commented on this at the time, but I wonder just how helpful having John Howard tooling around actually was. If as it seems, one of the dominant themes in the election was women’s equality, then having an old guy from yesteryear roaming around disparaging the Teals as groupies and talking up Scomo likely cemented voter assessment of the Morrison govt as out of touch and past its use-by date.

  34. Cronus:
    “Credlin reminds me of Wiley Coyote, holding a pistol but pointing it in the wrong direction.”

    Exquisitely captured in the subtitle of Niki Savva’s book, ‘How Tony Abbott and Peta Credlin Destroyed Their Own Government’.

  35. Prince planet says:
    Monday, May 23, 2022 at 7:15 am
    “I was watching the news and saw four numbskulls three of them wearing cowboys hats. It was of course three Qld LNP country members and one prize boofhead from NSW. I’m from Brisbane and the criticism of Qld is sometimes confronting but looking at these drongoes it’s hard to argue with the facts. One thing I’m sure of, they are living in a yobbo version of Disneyland and are totally responsible for the LNPs big loss.”

    I know how you feel, it’s tiring being portrayed as the dumb yokel cousins all the time but we can’t defend the indefensible. Until we rid ourselves of this barnyard culture up here we’re doomed to be the butt of jokes and to being a handbrake on the nation. We have huge potential but the roadblocks to this success must first be removed.

  36. It looks like the Liberals are going to be the party having to live with a number of MPs being in ultra marginal seat territory (<1%) this time.

  37. Wow, what a vision. Imagine standing on a hillside with a voter and saying, “I offer you a world with nuclear power, deregulated business and a regulated social media.” and expecting them to gasp with awe at the new nirvana.

    (And immediately there’s an obvious contradiction…)

    “One day, lad, all this will be yours…”
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9lCIh2aCH_o

  38. I just want to give a shout out also to Mr Bowe. His statistical analysis work for the Climate 200 group must have been spot on during the campaign and he has every right to be very proud of the work HE did for them.

  40. It’s a new dawn, bludgers! Good riddance to the worst government I’ve ever seen. How they diminished our nation.

    Very excited to know we’ll have an indigenous voice to parliament. Leaving everything else aside, this is major change coming.

    Looking forward to grown-up climate policies, and a Federal ICAC.

    And oh yeah, journos – thanks for nothing. What did you do to keep the most corrupt government we’ve ever seen accountable? Sweet FA. The people to the rescue.

  41. ‘fess,
    Not to mention the Old Rodent fulsomely supporting Katherine Deves and her bigotry. What an affront to decent people who support our LGBTQI+ community.

  42. Fess

    Re Howard, another example of the fact they just don’t get it for all the reasons you mentioned. We threw the guy out of his seat and the prime ministership all at once, why would we suddenly change our views on him? Given their history, I expect the Libs will drag Morrison out next election as though that too will change people’s minds on who to vote for.

  43. “There were two developments in counting yesterday, one of which was that batches of postal votes were counted in every seat. Taken in aggregate they recorded a bigger swing to Labor than booth and pre-poll votes, consistent with the notion that the 70% increase in applications would make the postal voter population more representative and less conservative than in past years. However, this doesn’t mean Labor can expect a surge in its favour in late counting, since the swing is not so big as to completely eradicate postal voting’s conservative lean and they are in greater in overall number now.”…

    We will see what’s going to happen with the effect of postal voting in close competitions between ALP and Coalition, but it looks like that postal voting may finally push the ALP Madonna Jarrett above the Greens into second place on primary votes here in my electorate of Brisbane, and if that happens she will be in second place behind the LNP Trevor Evans and win the seat of Brisbane with Greens’ preferences. The difference ALP/Greens has been shrinking, and as postal votes are now being counted it’s been reduced to just 159 votes advantage for the Greens’ Stephen Bates. Given that I voted postal, I would be especially delighted if Madonna wins the seat thanks to postal votes.
    🙂

  44. Sky TV is free to air in many regional areas. I wonder if this propaganda station full of extreme right wing dunderheads promoting the very worst of right wing ideology is having an effect on voting patterns.Most people treat it as a joke and I think watching nonsense like this would be depressing even if I was a right wing country Qld Bevan but Fox News in the USA proves how effective preaching hooey to the benighted blue collar brigade is at dividing the nation and delivering paydirt for the sophisticated rich. I wonder if it could be legislated back to pay tv.

  45. lefty_e,
    We’re going to have a fresh, young 30yo Indigenous Voice to parliament in the shape of the new Member for Robertson, a proud Wiradjuri Man, Dr Gordon Reid! 🙂

  46. Scott Morrison was not merely Australia’s worst prime minister, he’s the worst prime minister for his own party on either side of politics.

    No leader has presided over the gutting of his own party in the way Morrison has. Some have lost their own seats. Some have suffered landslide defeats. But none has ever neatly cut the heart out of their own party base and sacrificed it to their own egos, factional interests and ideological obsessions.

    The election result has destroyed the myth, endlessly peddled by the press gallery, that Morrison is some sort of political genius. It turns out he got lucky in 2019 against an opponent in Bill Shorten who served him up a bain-marie of possible scare campaigns. Faced with an opponent less inclined to spend an election campaign with a bright-red target on his back, Morrison struggled. Only his opponent’s stumbles kept him in the game.

    https://www.crikey.com.au/2022/05/22/scott-morrison-liar-lightweight-loser-one-final-victory/

  47. When COVID-19 hit, who was simultaneously the most likely to lose paid work and the most likely to take on more unpaid work? Women.

    Who was more likely to work in the low-paid sectors of whom Australia asked so much in the pandemic — aged care workers, cleaners, teachers? Women.

    Child care was the first sector pulled off JobKeeper. Who works in child care centres? Women. Who did the lion’s share of supervising children in lockdown, caring for elderly relatives, and coping with the explosion of anxiety and despair among adolescents? Metrics abound to confirm that it was women, again.

    But when Scott Morrison and Josh Frydenberg presented their first COVID Budget, where was it aimed? At construction and manufacturing, significantly; male dominated sectors that were less badly hit by COVID-19, but more generously helped.

    https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-05-23/election-2022-morrison-women-vote/101089978

    Two years ago I think it was Mega George who said (wtte) that the Covid relief package would be aimed at the caring professions and hospitality, only to appear somewhat gobsmacked when the package eventuated.

    And this is another point some of us made throughout the campaign. Morrison’s stunts and campaigning was hyper blokesville. Appearing with men, indulging in pursuits typically male dominated. Not much for women to identify with there.

    When Perrottet was elected leader of the NSW Libs he and his front bench did pretty much the same thing, only heightened it with an attempt to skull beers in every pub in Sydney. I pointed out at the time that it just made their bully boy culture more obvious, esp given that Perrottet doesn’t have many women in his cabinet, and that it appeared a slap to Berejiklian (‘now the little woman is out of the way’ etc), who despite what we think of her, is still regarded fondly by NSW voters.

    Someone must’ve said something to Dom because that behaviour stopped pretty quickly, and his press conferences started being filled with women. Clearly if anyone said anything to Morrison he just ignored them and kept on bulldozing his way through blokesville.

  48. I can’t help but tell you that the defeat of the Prime Minister Morrison suits me very well. Because the actions taken with regard to France that Morrison took were of a brutality, of a cynicism, and may I say a notorious incompetence. I hope we can renew a frank and constructive dialogue with Australia in the future.

    Jean-Yves Le Drian

    The delighted French foreign minister made his feelings plain about the Coalition’s loss at the weekend — there’s no doubt our French exit from the $90 billion submarine deal was catastrophic for our Franco-relations.

  49. Cronus:

    I hope SfM sits on the backbench whiteanting away at the new Liberal leadership. FWIW Barrie Cassidy thinks that’s what he’ll do, based on the history of ex-PMs who don’t immediately exit parliament.

  50. Exciting: the day Albo is officially sworn in as Australia’s 31st Prime Minister and 13th Labor Prime Minister. His interim 5 member ministry has connotations of the famous Whitlam- Barnard duumvirate of December 1972. Hopefully Albo’s government will be no less transformative of Australia than Whitlam’s, but much more long lived and considerably less bouncy.

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