Something I really should have noted in last week’s post is that the Australian Electoral Commission has now published two-candidate preferred preference flow data from the election, showing how minor party and independent preferences flowed between Labor and the Coalition. The table below shows how Labor’s share increased for the four biggest minor parties and independents collectively (and also its fraction decrease for “others”) from the last election to this and, in the final column, how much difference each made to Labor’s total share of two-party preferred, which was 52.13%.
Note that the third column compares how many preference Labor received with how many they would have if preference flows had been last time, which is not the same thing as how many preferences they received. Labor in fact got nearly 2% more two-party vote share in the form of Greens preferences at this election because the Greens primary vote was nearly 2% higher this time.
State and territory by-election:
• Six candidates for the August 20 by-election in the Northern Territory seat of Fannie Bay, in ballot paper order: Brent Potter, described in a report as a “government adviser, army veteran and father of four”, for Labor; independent George Mamouzellos; independent Raj Samson Rajwin, who was a Senate candidate for the United Australia Party; Jonathan Parry of the Greens; independent Leah Potter; and Ben Hosking, “small business owner and former police officer”, for the Country Liberals.
• Following the resignation of Labor member Jo Siejka, a by-election will be held for the Tasmanian Legislative Council seat of Pembroke on September 10. Siejka defeated a Liberal candidate by 8.65% to win the eastern Hobart seat at the periodic election in 2019. There will also be a recount of 2021 election ballots in Franklin to determine which of the three unelected Liberals will replace Jacquie Petrusma following her resignation announcement a fortnight ago. As Kevin Bonham explains, the order of probability runs Bec Enders, Dean Young and James Walker.
• Still no sign of a date for Western Australia’s North West Central by-election.
BKsays:
Sunday, August 7, 2022 at 9:09 am
Cronus
I have a horrible suspicion that we have seen organised competitive sport played on our oval for the last time – at least while I’m alive.
Sad.
—————————————
BK – The Seekers The Carnival is Over?
What about shaking the tin?
Plenty of rural clubs in Victoria do with results.
You could get Lance Franklin for goal kicking! He’s currently got itchy feet.
Rex Douglassays:
Sunday, August 7, 2022 at 9:26 am
Andrews keeping Somyurek in cabinet was a case of ‘keeping your enemies closer’ while preparing the sting that brought down the dodgy Somyurek and his allies.
_____________________
Returned his good friend to cabinet rather keeping his good friend in cabinet.
Are submarines a good option for the 2040s? I’m no expert but I would expect them to be strategic dinosaurs by then.
nath
It is more than a little weird (if not creepy) that you are aware of comments made 12 years ago when you (apparently) only came across this site a few years ago.
Have you scrolled back and read it all? Or just comments from particular posters?
I can’t even be bothered looking at what people wrote when I haven’t been logged in!
Been There @ #750 Sunday, August 7th, 2022 – 10:10 am
Who let that sealion in here?
Player One
Are you telling the full story?
Would you prefer that Morrison and the previous LNP government remain?
Are you misrepresenting the Albanese Labor governments intentions?
“Has Narrabri gas project been approved?
The controversial $3.6bn Narrabri gas project was approved by the NSW IPC in September last year and by the federal environment minister, Sussan Ley, in November.”
“north west shelf project
celebrating more than 35 years of domestic gas supply to W.A. and over 30 years of LNG exports to Japan”
“So gas is going to be part of their energy transition and meets both of those needs of being a secure source of energy, that is lower carbon than many alternatives.”
“24 May 2022 — The former Morrison government made gas exploration in the Beetaloo a central pillar of its so-called gas-led recovery from the pandemic, …”
Player One @ Sunday, August 7, 2022 at 10:29 am
Self-insight!
Dare we hope for personal growth for Player One? 🙂
zoomster says:
Sunday, August 7, 2022 at 10:26 am
nath
It is more than a little weird (if not creepy) that you are aware of comments made 12 years ago when you (apparently) only came across this site a few years ago.
Have you scrolled back and read it all? Or just comments from particular posters?
______
I was referring to arguments we had around 2019 and 2020 about the issue, not from earlier. But I would be interested in assisting with your autobiography which I have tentatively titled ‘Indi Anecdotes’. Let me know.
So in other words, no answer, just some smartarse remark.
Often happens when caught out misrepresenting facts.
nath
Indi wouldn’t feature much in my autobiography.
It’s relevant here because of the political rise of the Teals.
Sealions and Wascally Wabbits! 🙂
Andrew_Earlwood at 9.54am
Waleed Aly was born in Egypt I think, but he’s just a celebrity. He wouldn’t know how to read a foreign policy brief if it fell off the back of a truck into his lap.
Whom should you engage with if you want to bring sense into Australian policy debate about submarines? Certainly not run of the muck journos like Speers.
Arguably the key person behind the scenes is His Excellency the Governor of WA, Kim Beazley. According to his sister, Kim was into toy soldiers etc as a child. He has graduated to knowing a lot about Australian military dilemmas since he was Defence Minister in the mid 1980s. He was proud of the Collins class. He will be sought out for his sage advice by Stephen Smith.
So if you and Socrates want to have any real influence then put your submission together, as a joint effort, and send it to Kim. Unlike many pollies these days he has no attention span deficit, but he doesn’t like IR theory, i.e. any theories of international relations not clearly linked to explaining real policy dilemmas.
He may be good enough about Industrial Relations, no doubt supporting Kirby J’s dissent on the Howard era IR legislation. He once said the weakness of WA Labor was partly due to the relative lack of manufacturing in the state for many decades, so he will be very pleased that the WA Libs are tandemites in lower house, and that the upper house has been fully reformed.
By the way, what happened to Dan Andrews and upper house voting system reform, ending the improper group tickets?
But it was a reasonable ‘shifting of the goalposts’ to call me creepy and distract from your support for the Single Mother policies of Gillard and Howard. C+
nath
Yes, apologies for that, but you can see how it looked.
I really didn’t think I’d revisited the issue (in a defensive, rather explanatory) sense in recent years.
My bad.
zoomster says:
Sunday, August 7, 2022 at 10:47 am
nath
Yes, apologies for that, but you can see how it looked.
_________
thanks. No worries.
nath
Snark withdrawn!
Bellwether says:
Sunday, August 7, 2022 at 10:22 am
“Are submarines a good option for the 2040s? I’m no expert but I would expect them to be strategic dinosaurs by then.”
I think this is a question we’ll worth pursuing. Inasmuch as most vehicles (air, land and sea) can be designed for use without humans actually in or on the platform, I see real value in continuing to innovate undersea drones that will achieve the same as current submarines. I don’t really envisage impediments to this evolution as they could still be controlled by an individual behind a computer (with appropriate backup systems and processes).
While I’m sure this will occur and in the future nations will own fleets of undersea drones with powerful (even nuclear ) weapons platforms, I suspect that it’s a step too far at this stage and that countries like Australia will require conventional submarines until 2040-2050 until such platforms become foolproof. No reason why we couldn’t get in on the act with other nations in developing them though imho.
Lol Taylormade
The Dalai Lama has died, again.
With the sad news of Judith Durham’s death a song from her and The Seekers. Also one for Fergie fans…. the tractor not the bleedin’ royals 🙂 When was the last time a Fergie appeared in a pop music video ? LOL . So direct from Yaldara in S.A. and via 56 years
.
The Seekers – Turn, Turn, Turn
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VRg9NkIdjVs
I think I know why the downpipe to the storm water pipe outlet in the paddock was backed up.
It was three metres long! Kikuyu.
Again not a good strategic move from the Opposition to prepare the ground for opposing any reprioritisation of Defence projects as, ‘Cuts to Defence ‘ .
It’s a simplistic response from the Coalition and simply not engaging seriously and will be seen as such.
Cronus,
Manned submarines as Command and Control posts and underwater drones to get the job done.
C@tmomma says:
Sunday, August 7, 2022 at 11:27 am
Cronus,
“Manned submarines as Command and Control posts and underwater drones to get the job done.”
Agreed C@t and similar future designs for aircraft drones (Wingman etc), robot tanks (and reconnaissance vehicles) remotely manoeuvred and fired by operators many kilometres from the vehicles and of course even robot infantry. All of these have been developed to varying degrees or are under development. Not sure it’s all good but it’s probably necessary.
Cronus,
I have seen the Robot Infantry videos. Developments are proceeding apace. Yes, ‘scary’ is the word.
There’s also the Space race. Russia deciding to disengage from International Space Station co-operation with the US and others, plus China getting into the Space Race, are all not good signs for the future. I can only hope some sort of Space MAD is the result, which will keep itchy trigger fingers from making big mistakes.
zoomstersays:
Saturday, August 6, 2022 at 2:19 pm
Ven
My brother in law (Australian Defence Force) took part in the invasion of Grenada…he was stationed in the US at the time.
”
I am sorry zoomster that I got it wrong about Australian participation in American invasion of Grenada. My intention is not to demean the bravery of Australian soldiers during that invasion.
But my point was not even Britain, who has “special” relationship with USA, did not participate like Australia did, irrespective of whoever was in power in Australia.
——————————————————————————————————————–
And on that beautiful little island nation ,what a squalid, tawdry exercise of real-politik, it was.
The Reagan administration needed a distraction from the disastrous bombing of the U.S. Marine barracks in Lebanon in October 1983 that killed 241 Marines.
The C.I.A. wanted to prevent Grenada’s Marxist regime of Maurice Bishop going to the people and getting a democratic mandate. Bishop’s coup in 1979 had ousted the corrupt government of Eric Gairy. Bishop then launched progressive educational, medical and social reforms and was widely popular..
While Bishop was out of the country, the CIA pulled out their Chile/Allende playbook. There are suggestions that they orchestrated a split in the Bishop government which led to the assassination of Bishop and his partner Jacqueline Creft and a dozen of their associates.
The U.S. then claimed these events endangered American medical students at a medical school on the beach at Grand Anse. This former Holiday Inn served Americans who didn’t have the marks to get into medical schools in the U.S.
I was there a couple of weeks later. Some of the students told me that they had more to fear from the invading Americans than from the poorly armed Grenadian militia and a few Cuban security personnel at the new international airport project.
It was a case of the world’s most heavily-armed nation against one of the world’s least-armed. Apart from the civilian “collateral” fatalities, more U.S. lives were lost than the defenders There were 19 Americans killed and 116 wounded before the Americans secured the island and set about organizing elections to complete their desired regime change..
That end of the island, south of the capital St. Georges, was littered with the wreckage of U.S. helicopter gunships which crashed while strafing the valley behind beautiful Grand Anse beach and bombing a mental hospital killing 18 patients.
The Marines lost three helicopters, two Cobra gunships and a twin-engine CH46E Chinook chopper, to fire from the defenders. The Army lost one Blackhawk troop-helicopter and had five others damaged, four seriously.
I inspected a swimming pool where they fished out an unfortunate Grenadian militiaman who was killed but not before he shot down a Marine helicopter whose blades could be seen down the hill.
A few years earlier I came very close to buying a block of land on that hill, with views of the Atlantic Ocean on one side and the Caribbean on the other. It would have provided a grandstand seat for the invasion.
Canada, which had funded the airport project, wanted to evacuate its citizens. The Americans refused to allow the rescue aircraft to land. They also prevented news correspondents from reaching the island from nearby Barbados.
They then flew the head of the Organization of Eastern Caribbean States, Eugenia Charles, Prime Minister of nearby Dominica, to the White house. They sweet-talked her and she appeared on television with President Ronald Reagan authorizing the invasion of a fellow Commonwealth nation.
Journalist Bob Woodward reported that the U.S. paid millions of dollars to the Dominica government, some of which was regarded by the CIA as a “payoff” for Charles’s support of the invasion.
The United Nations General Assembly voted 108 to 9 for a resolution deploring the “armed intervention” in Grenada, calling it “a flagrant violation of international law.” It was an action that left the United States isolated from virtually all its close allies.
Bill Hayden persuaded a reluctant Bob Hawke that Australia should support the resolution condemning the United States action. Andrew Peacock then accused the Hawke government of being an untrustworthy ally of the United States.
The text was identical to one vetoed by the United States in the Security Council. That 11 to 1 vote called for the immediate withdrawal of the invading troops and “deeply deplored” the takeover.
In a review of the 2017 film, “The House on Coco Road”, Joshua Jelly-Schapiro in the New York Review of Books put it this way:
http://www.nybooks.com/daily/2017/07/26/a-new-view-of-grenadas-revolution/
“Reagan’s invasion, of course, had more to do with geopolitics than med students.
“Grenada had until that month been led by a charismatic and capable socialist, Maurice Bishop, whose admiration for Castro’s Cuba—and his acceptance of Cuba’s help to build a new airport for his island—bothered the US government.
“Reagan claimed that Bishop’s new airport—a project also backed by countries like Britain and Canada, and whose completion would enable jets carrying needed cargo and tourists to land there—was in fact meant to turn this tranquil island into “a Cuban-Soviet colony” and “a major military bastion to export terror and undermine democracy.”
“US soldiers had rehearsed the invasion for months on the US-Navy-held island of Vieques. Their actual landing there was quickly and roundly condemned at the UN as illegal, but Reagan was determined to maintain the Caribbean basin as an “American lake.”
“Sabotaging Grenada’s experiment at socialism, which had begun when Bishop’s party seized power in 1979, was an example he needed to make. “
These days, if you are lucky enough to get to this jewel of the eastern Caribbean and one of the most beautiful islands on the planet, you will land at Maurice Bishop International Airport.
Not being in the know myself, I’d be curious to hear from the defence wonks here on Poll Bludger the counter-arguments to the Coalition’s criticisms of Stephen Smith being appointed to the defence review.
As a bonus, what is the context of the “defence spending cuts” at the end of the previous Labor government? Was it just bad timing with some programs ending (and spending relative to GDP would have bumped back up the subsequent year had Labor stayed in power), or was reducing defence spending a deliberate policy (be it for budgetary reasons or reallocation of spending)?
Manned submarines and fighter aircraft are – over the next 30 to 60 years – more likely to be used as ‘quarterbacks’ than genuine command and control posts: they will retain their own legal suite of weapons, but will also fuse with other similar assets to multiply that capability. However their real force multiplier effect is their increased ability to team with dissimilar assets – like drones and other manned platforms (like the RAAF’s FA 18F/Gs).
Obviusly thwir is some overlap between the ‘quarterbacking’ and ‘command and control’ doctrines, but C and C is mainly going to situated in other platforms.
Shellbellsays:
Sunday, August 7, 2022 at 7:35 am
That’s just cruel and borders on trolling. 🙂
That’s just cruel and borders on trolling.
______________
Barney
After five years of weekly slaughter I am inured.
but he doesn’t like IR theory, i.e. any theories of international relations not clearly linked to explaining real policy dilemmas
————————————
Doesn’t all IR theory either attempt to do this or develop a greater background understanding to then leap off into explanation and decision.
Some are more successful than others. But it often depends on the situation. Rely on one theory alone and you may find it works here but not over there. And can make you quite predictable.
Informative.
https://youtu.be/tkDf8XXeV3k
Hi Mick. You can google your queries. But I’m summary: Whilst there was a $2billion cut to defence spending in the penultimate Labor budget, defence spending had by that stage increased year by year substantially for the previous decade – including the first five Labor budget’s that swan delivered. Moreover the cuts in the 2012/13 defence budget were restored (and then some) in the 2013/14 budget.
There are two things that are completely overlooked by the LNP and their media lackies when criticising the previous Labor government’s defence budgets.
Firstly the ‘percentage of GNP’ benchmark is misleading. Most of the so called ‘drop’ in defence spending was due to the fact that the economy grew faster than forecasts (whereas defence program spending is fixed according to orders made as per contracts).
Secondly, what is always overlooked is the quality of the defence spend. Much of the cuts where due to to delays in programs. For example the F35 program was due for a big spend in 2012, but this was delayed because the whole program had been rewritten in America. That had a flow on effect in the number of planes ordered (2 down from 4) and the allocation of resources for initial flight training, ground crew training and the acquiriyukns of parts etc.
Compare that with how Dutton operated. The cancellation of the Attack class submarine program saw several billion wash back into the defence budget. Rather than allow the treasurer to claim that as a budget save, Dutton and a Morrison brought forward a commitment to but more tanks. There was no real analysis as to whether that was rally a good idea, but the purpose was purely political: to say once again how much ‘better’ they were than Labor at spending tax payers money on defence. The truth is that the last 9 years has actually seen tens of billions wasted – just so the Liberals can make a stupid political point – without any additional capability to show for it.
Mick 11.53am
If you wanted and independent and radical review of Australian defence policy, you would not choose Stephen Smith, but if you want a professional review within an establishment frame, he’s well qualified, particularly given his access to a much more experienced Defence Minister.
Coalition criticism? Someone pointed to David Johnson, the ex-Lib WA senator, not being able to organise a canoe build. For the Libs a la Pyne, Defence strategy was just marginal seats.
The LNP have 58 seats and no sensible plan to recover those now Teal seats they have lost. Politically they are impotent and impure, in Gough’s terms.
C@T
It’s ironic isn’t it but MAD has been effective for a long time, again sad but necessary in the grand scheme of things.
[‘The long-awaited strip search class action was filed in the Common Law Division of the NSW Supreme Court on 21 July.
The proceedings will cover all music festival attendees, who’ve registered and been subjected to a suspect strip search at events held in this state since July 2016.
Going back a decade ago, festivalgoers in NSW did not have to factor in a potential strip search when going out. However, over the succeeding years, the NSW Police Force has dramatically escalated its use of this invasive practice on the street and at events.
“Specific complaints and anecdotal information” led the state police watchdog, the Law Enforcement Conduct Commission (LECC), to launch an investigation in October 2018 to ascertain whether local officers have been adhering to the laws and protocols governing the procedure.
This inquiry resulted in the 2020 LECC strip search report, which found that not only were police breaching protocols regularly, but the incidents described in its pages, which involve teenagers being instructed to strip off in front of armed officers, are likely having a traumatising effect.
Redfern Legal Centre has been one of the most vocal critics of the heightened use of strip searches by NSW police.
Indeed, it commissioned a 2019 UNSW report, which found that the strip search protocols within the legislation are so vague that officers are regularly applying them in a likely illegal manner.
Part 4 of the Law Enforcement (Powers and Responsibilities) Act 2002 (NSW) (the LEPRA) contains the laws governing the practice. And section 31 stipulates that outside of a station, strip searches must only be applied when “the seriousness and urgency of the circumstances” necessitate it.
Bowing to community pressure, NSW police released its Personal Search Manual in September 2019, which indicates that despite not appearing in the LEPRA, officers are being advised that they can order search subjects to lift testicles and breasts, part buttock cheeks and tell them to squat down.
Strip searching individuals, along with the ongoing trauma it results in, has long been likened to sexual assault. And this impact is coupled with no solid law enforcement outcome from applying these searches, as figures show they turn up no illegal items two-thirds of the time.
The proceedings will cover all music festival attendees, who’ve registered and been subjected to a suspect strip search at events held in this state since July 2016.’]
Part 4 of the Law Enforcement (Powers and Responsibilities) Act 2002 (NSW) (the LEPRA) contains the laws governing the practice. And section 31 stipulates that outside of a station, strip searches must only be applied when “the seriousness and urgency of the circumstances” necessitate it.
Bowing to community pressure, NSW police released its Personal Search Manual in September 2019, which indicates that despite not appearing in the LEPRA, officers are being advised that they can order search subjects to lift testicles and breasts, part buttock cheeks and tell them to squat down.
Strip searching individuals, along with the ongoing trauma it results in, has long been likened to sexual assault. And this impact is coupled with no solid law enforcement outcome from applying these searches, as figures show they turn up no illegal items two-thirds of the time.’]
https://www.sydneycriminallawyers.com.au/blog/police-powers-are-bleeding-out-redfern-legal-centres-sam-lee-on-the-strip-search-class-action/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=week-33
And it was the aspirant (Elliott) for Ayres’ position who said of these strip searches that “he would want officers to search his own children if they were at risk of doing something wrong”:
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2019/nov/06/nsw-police-minister-defends-strip-searching-of-children-saying-parents-would-be-happy
Elliott’s a loose cannon, who should be nowhere near the corridors of power. The effectiveness of policing relies heavily on public support and it would not be overstating the matter to posit that those who were forced to undergo such a humiliating procedure (and their families) would have scant respect for the New South Wales Police Force & its minister at the relevant time.
Local school volleyball update. Heathfield smashing Brighton.
”
beguiledagainsays:
Sunday, August 7, 2022 at 11:40 am
zoomstersays:
Saturday, August 6, 2022 at 2:19 pm
Ven
My brother in law (Australian Defence Force) took part in the invasion of Grenada…he was stationed in the US at the time.
”
I am sorry zoomster that I got it wrong about Australian participation in American invasion of Grenada. My intention is not to demean the bravery of Australian soldiers during that invasion.
But my point was not even Britain, who has “special” relationship with USA, did not participate like Australia did, irrespective of whoever was in power in Australia.
——————————————————————————————————————–
And on that beautiful little island nation ,what a squalid, tawdry exercise of real-politik, it was.
The Reagan administration needed a distraction from the disastrous bombing of the U.S. Marine barracks in Lebanon in October 1983 that killed 241 Marines.
The C.I.A. wanted to prevent Grenada’s Marxist regime of Maurice Bishop going to the people and getting a democratic mandate. Bishop’s coup in 1979 had ousted the corrupt government of Eric Gairy. Bishop then launched progressive educational, medical and social reforms and was widely popular..
While Bishop was out of the country, the CIA pulled out their Chile/Allende playbook. There are suggestions that they orchestrated a split in the Bishop government which led to the assassination of Bishop and his partner Jacqueline Creft and a dozen of their associates.
…………
…..
”
Thanks beguiled for the insight.
Maybe Reagan wanted to send a message to Maggie Thatcher that he can also fight wars on small defenceless countries like she did regarding Falklands war
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falklands_War
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_invasion_of_Grenada
I am not trying to endorse the above wiki posts. I posted them to show the timeline.
I read somewhere Thatcher called Reagan gutless (or something like that) for not supporting her during Falklands war.
There is a theory that MAD creates sovereign security that allows a state to be a responsible international actor rather than a hyper sensitive belligerent reactionary.
Which tells you to be very critical of all generalised or simplified theories.
#SundayOnPB
A slow silent splinter traverses,
the untroubled blue, which forgets its passage.
Imagined aims, quiet reflections, remain.
Dr Doolittle says:
Sunday, August 7, 2022 at 12:07 pm
Mick 11.53am
“If you wanted and independent and radical review of Australian defence policy, you would not choose Stephen Smith, but if you want a professional review within an establishment frame, he’s well qualified, particularly given his access to a much more experienced Defence Minister.”
Agreed in general, Smith is competent imo. The key relates to the strength of experienced advice he seeks and receives from the appropriate experts and bureaucrats.
beguiledagain says:
Sunday, August 7, 2022 at 11:40 am
And on that beautiful little island nation ,what a squalid, tawdry exercise of real-politik, it was.
_____
Yes. Interesting perspective. thanks.
Thank you beguiledagain.
Jan 6says:
Sunday, August 7, 2022 at 12:09 pm
WOW!!!
Does Brighton still have their volleyball program?
Yes Barney. Did you play?
Heathfield have been making a name for themselves over recent decades.
LR, you’re too good at this.
Finals are on now and apparently the roar can be heard blocks away. For year 7’s!
Barney, year8 Brighton boys giving Heathfield a run. Soccer style singing and chanting from Brighton deafening.
Those who know where the phrase “Lucky Country” comes from will have a good belly laugh at Hastie using it just after his “Lucky Government” got turfed …
🙂
Thanks all and particularly AE for the responses, you summarised it all much more succinctly than Google ever could.
It’s a shame that the Coalition talking points go so unchallenged by our mediocre and in some cases captured media.