Weekend miscellany: by-elections, Voice polling, Gerard Rennick’s preselection defeat (open thread)

Victoria’s Warrandyte by-election set for August 26; more evidence the Indigenous Voice has little chance of prevailing in Queensland; and controversial incumbent Gerard Rennick dumped from the LNP’s Senate ticket.

Less than a week to go until the Fadden by-election, though I’m afraid there’s no specific news of consequence to relate concerning it. Last week I suggested that Newspoll quarterly breakdowns and a Resolve Strategic poll might be imminent, which still holds a week later. We should also be seeing proposed new state electoral boundaries for Western Australia at some point over the coming fortnight. Other than that:

• Victoria’s long-awaited Warrandyte by-election has been set for August 26. Labor sources cited by Rachel Baxendale of The Australian say the party is “highly unlikely to run”, although The Age reports Labor MPs are “privately pressuring the party to contest”, backed by “a fair bit of pressure coming from the branches”.

• The Financial Review has published further results from this week’s Queensland state poll from Freshwater Strategy showing 50% opposition to the Indigenous Voice with only 36% in support and 14% undecided, breaking out to 58-42 with the latter excluded. The results in Brisbane were 40% supportive and 47% opposed, compared with 31% and 53% in the rest of the state.

• Right-wing Queensland Senator Gerard Rennick has been dumped from the Liberal National Party’s ticket for the next election after a vote at the party’s state conference, despite backing from Peter Dutton. His third position, which did not avail Amanda Stoker when she held it at last year’s election, will instead go to Stuart Fraser, who reportedly won the final round of the vote by 134 to 131. Fraser is the LNP’s treasurer and director of a private investment fund, also noted for his involvement with the Tattersalls Club and the Catholic Archdiocese of Brisbane. The Guardian reports Fraser survived the final exclusion by four votes ahead of Nelson Savanh of strategic communications firm Michelson Alexander, then narrowly prevailed as moderate support coalesced behind him. Another contestant for the position, Sophia Li, a former adviser to Shadow Defence Industry Minister Luke Howarth, takes the fourth position, while former state Hinchinbrook MP and Newman government minister Andrew Cripps is fifth.

• Paul Sakkal of the Sydney Morning Herald reports on the prospect of Matt Kean, senior minister in the recently ousted state government and noted factional moderate, running at the next federal election in Bradfield should Paul Fletcher choose to retire, or alternatively against teal independent Kylea Tink in North Sydney. Dominic Perrottet was said to be resisting overtures to run in North Sydney or challenge Alex Hawke for preselection in Mitchell, and was likely to quit politics. There was “no indication” Gladys Berejiklian or Mike Baird might run, despite reported urgings from senior Liberals. Berowra MP Julian Leeser might be challenged by conservatives displeased with his support for the Indigenous Voice, but was “likely to survive”. Such questions may be settled later rather than sooner after a vote for the party’s state presidency was won by former Mackellar MP Jason Falinski, who is reportedly dubious about Peter Dutton’s determination to have all candidates preselected by October.

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.

1,124 comments on “Weekend miscellany: by-elections, Voice polling, Gerard Rennick’s preselection defeat (open thread)”

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  1. ‘Fraser is the LNP’s treasurer and director of a private investment fund, also noted for his involvement with the Tattersalls Club and the Catholic Archdiocese of Brisbane.’

    He is the very model of a modern metro Liberal.

  2. ‘Queensland state poll from Freshwater Strategy … breaking out to 58-42 [against the Voice]’

    Heartbreaking.

  3. ‘Gerard Rennick has been dumped from the Liberal National Party’s ticket … despite backing from Peter Dutton’

    A faint hint that the LNP is turning away from Dutton?

    Or am I reading too much into that?

  4. I agree the decision to block the housing fund was sheer stupidity by the Greens.

    The government immediately declared the delay a “failure to pass” the Bill under s.57 of the Constitution, and therefore a potential trigger for a double dissolution election should the Senate again refuse to pass it in October.

    Greens’ leader Adam Bandt’s denial that delay constituted a “failure to pass”, a claim quickly disabused by the solicitor-general, suggested he was either unaware of the history or unprepared for the government’s escalation of this issue. Either way it was a moment of political hubris, not strength.

    That the Greens would delay the injection of much-needed housing stock during a housing crisis, of which supply is incontrovertibly the root cause, is staggering. It has dismayed social housing advocates and homelessness providers who have urged the Greens to recognise the dire need for new housing and pass the Bill.

    https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/senate-housing-stand-off-may-be-double-jeopardy-for-the-greens-20230707-p5dmg8.html

    And William and PB are quoted in this article.

  6. The situation for the Greens is more difficult to predict. The other side of the lower quota is that while it may be easier for Labor to pick up an extra Senate seat in some states, it may also be easier for minor parties to win some. Psephologist William Bowe, aka “The Pollbludger” said that while Labor could end up with five seats in NSW, Victoria and South Australia, Pauline Hanson’s One Nation could also pick up several seats at a double dissolution.

    Yes, one reason for caution on a DD election. Remember 2016?

  7. There was “no indication” Gladys Berejiklian or Mike Baird might run
    ————————————

    Gladys Berejiklian federal political career will never start,she was found to be corrupt

  8. From Victoria:

    According to Clark, there are about 110 My Place groups in Australia – though they are largely concentrated in Victoria.

    According to many of the groups, the planning concept of a 20-minute neighbourhood will in effect lead to “real time data / tracking” of residents in order to impose travel limits.

    “If you exceed any regulations set by government you will be DENIED ACCESS to everyday activities,” says one of the group’s pamphlets.

    Dr Josh Roose, an expert in extremism at Deakin university says this is likely due to the state’s long Covid-19 lockdowns, when many fringe groups capitalised on the anger and uncertainty simmering in the community to attract a new following.

    “It’s often white collar men and women in middle age being attracted to these movements,” he says.

    “Many of them are family members or relatives or even friends who have been drawn into this rabbit hole or echo chamber of conspiracy during the pandemic.

    https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2023/jul/08/the-new-frontline-for-conspiracy-theorists-how-victorian-councils-were-driven-online-to-avoid-chaos

    Sounds exactly like the Moms for Liberty mobilisation happening in America. This group too rose from the pandemic and is targetting local authorities, in their case the school boards.

    The activist group Moms for Liberty has become the new face of the culture wars around education. The group was founded in 2021, during the Covid pandemic, and rose to prominence through outspoken opposition to school mask mandates. The group has now spread across the United States, its membership fueled by the Republican-led moral panic over a “woke ideology” that is supposedly sweeping public schools and “indoctrinating” children. At present, the group counts 285 chapters in 45 states.

    As the group has grown, so too have its political ambitions. Moms for Liberty places particular emphasis on capturing local school boards in order to secure greater control over school policy. More broadly, the group endorses legislation that would limit the topics that can be discussed in the classroom (for instance, Florida’s so-called “Don’t Say Gay” legislation), and they promote policies that allow parents to target books for removal from school libraries and classrooms.

    https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/jul/06/moms-for-liberty-long-history-rightwing-activism

  10. Confessions: ‘Remember 2016?’

    Malcolm Turnbull certainly does.

    PM pulls double dissolution election. ‘Masterstroke!’, chorused the media.

    Albo would be wise to learn from that experience.

  11. Sophia Li, a former adviser to Shadow Defence Minister Luke Howarth

    Was Luke Howarth a former Defence Minister (I don’t think so)? Because he sure isn’t Shadow Defence Minister. That’s Andrew Hastie.

  12. Oliver Sutton @ #10 Sunday, July 9th, 2023 – 7:17 am

    Confessions: ‘Remember 2016?’

    Malcolm Turnbull certainly does.

    PM pulls double dissolution election. ‘Masterstroke!’, chorused the media.

    Albo would be wise to learn from that experience.

    I also remember how Kevin Rudd went out backwards when he DIDN’T call an election over the Climate Change legislation The Greens knocked back. Take your pick of narratives I guess. 😐

  13. So what are the Queenslanders on this board doing to get out the Yes vote?

    I know that I have a Yes poster in my window, I’m going door-knocking, I’m handing out Yes pamphlets on the day of the referendum and I’m counting the votes at my polling place on the night.

  14. Good morning Dawn Patrollers

    Peter Dutton may have a potential comedy career after trying to chide Bill Shorten and Anthony Albanese for seeking to make political gain from the Robodebt scandal, writes James Campbell.
    https://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/opinion/campbell-dutton-attack-on-shorten-comes-with-large-dose-of-irony/news-story/381f74d20b2f07a3289751e5998b6e63
    Anthony Galloway reports that Kathryn Campbell went on leave from her $900,000 a year job with the Defence Department last week – a day before the robo-debt royal commission made damning findings against her. There are now doubts within Defence over whether Campbell will return from leave after the royal commission made a range of scathing findings including that she repeatedly failed to act when the scheme’s flaws and illegality became apparent.
    https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/robo-debt-public-servant-on-leave-amid-doubts-over-whether-she-will-stay-in-900k-job-20230707-p5dmn4.html
    If ever there was an instance of such a hideous failing in government policy and its cowardly implementation by the public service, Australia’s cruel, inept and vicious Robodebt program would have to be one of them, writes Binoy Kampmark who lays out the Robodebt rogues gallery.
    https://theaimn.com/the-robodebt-rogues-gallery/
    Crossbench MPs have called on the senior public servant Kathryn Campbell to consider resigning after the robodebt royal commission, claiming it would be “an insult” to the victims if she retains her Aukus role, writes Daniel Hurst.
    https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2023/jul/09/kathryn-campbell-retaining-aukus-role-would-be-insult-to-robodebt-victims-crossbenchers-say
    Political philosopher Vafa Ghazavi says that we shouldn’t miss the deeper structural problems in the Australian welfare state that this royal commission has brought to light. More profoundly, though, we’ve been presented with a rare opportunity to disrupt punitive, stigmatising attitudes towards the poor.
    https://www.smh.com.au/national/robo-debt-redemption-here-s-how-to-put-wellness-back-in-welfare-20230706-p5dmc8.html
    After the shameful revelations from the royal commission, we have to change the way we talk about social security, urges Darren O’Donovan.
    https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/jul/09/lets-be-clear-robodebt-was-ended-by-welfare-recipients-with-their-suffering
    Looking at where the Voice referendum is going, Mark Kenny says that what never entered his mind in these first months was the weird Trumpian inversion in which the “no” side has frontally attacked Voice advocates as racists whose secret goal is the creation of “apartheid” in Australia. Kenny can see a Brexit-like wave threatening the Voice.
    https://www.canberratimes.com.au/story/8262664/a-brexit-like-wave-threatens-the-voice/?cs=14258
    Jenny Hocking writes that the Greens underestimated Albanese when they again voted with the Coalition and Pauline Hanson’s One Nation to defer debate on the government’s signature $10 billion Housing Australia Future Fund Bill and says a double dissolution election over housing, if it occurs, could spell trouble for the party.
    https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/senate-housing-stand-off-may-be-double-jeopardy-for-the-greens-20230707-p5dmg8.html
    Phil Coorey reports that Trade Minister Don Farrell interrupted an overseas holiday to fly to Brussels on Saturday night for talks to stitch up a free trade agreement with the European Union. Amid signs of a breakthrough in the stand-off over access to European markets for Australian agricultural products, Senator Farrell will hold what his office said were “crucial negotiations” with his EU counterparts tomorrow and Tuesday.
    https://www.afr.com/politics/federal/minister-flies-to-brussels-amid-signs-of-eu-trade-deal-breakthrough-20230708-p5dmre
    The Reserve Bank of Australia has repeatedly raised interest rates to counter inflation while ignoring massive profits from big business. And so, those who can least afford it keep getting hit, says Evan Jones.
    https://independentaustralia.net/politics/politics-display/rbas-heavy-duty-rate-rises-a-lethal-tactic-in-class-warfare,17689
    The Ashes has moved on from Lords, but the actions of both cricketing sides still hold gifts and lessons, writes Greg Barns. The response by English establishment to the dismissal by Australian wicket keeper Alex Carey in the second Ashes test is manna from heaven in bolstering the case for an Australian head of state, writes Greg Barns.
    https://michaelwest.com.au/bad-lords-behaviour-a-gift-to-the-republican-movement-a-troubling-test-of-fairness/
    “Cardinal George decided I was a potato. Yes, me and all the other talented committed women of the catholic church. My hope is that George Pell’s death spells the end of the misogyny, clericalism and conservatism within the Church and the fallen potatoes finally get a chance to lead a community with wisdom and kindness’, writes Barbara Kelly.
    https://johnmenadue.com/fallen-potatoes-the-failure-of-the-catholic-church/
    Australian women and newborns are being discharged from hospital in record time after childbirth, with almost half of mothers now sent home one day or less after having an uncomplicated vaginal birth. This compares with about one in four women a decade ago, according to new Australian Institute of Health and Welfare data that has sparked concerns mothers and babies are being sent home too soon as hospitals seek to free up beds.
    https://www.theage.com.au/healthcare/hello-baby-and-goodbye-new-mums-pushed-out-of-hospital-within-hours-of-giving-birth-20230707-p5dmi6.html
    Amber Schultz outlines the horrors of strata title living and managing.
    https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/frustrated-neighbours-debt-and-1m-budgets-high-stakes-for-volunteer-strata-committees-20230707-p5dmhx.html
    Staff at Randwick City Council are in revolt after they were ordered back to their workplace five days a week, as employers warn staff who stay away from the office are putting their jobs at risk as the economy worsens.
    https://www.smh.com.au/business/workplace/disrespectful-and-out-of-step-council-staff-revolt-over-end-of-flexible-working-20230706-p5dm8d.html
    The smell of defeat hovers over Tory MPs, and Rishi Sunak is unable to dispel the odour, writes Andrew Rawnsley.
    https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/jul/08/smell-of-defeat-hangs-over-tory-mps-rishi-sunak-unable-to-dispel-odour

    Cartoon Corner

    Peter Broelman

    Matt Davidson

    Matt Golding

    Mark David

    From the US



  15. There’s no way that Mike Baird will be considering federal politics. He’s just been named the new head of Cricket Australia.

  16. >I also remember how Kevin Rudd went out backwards when he DIDN’T call an election over the Climate Change legislation The Greens knocked back. Take your pick of narratives I guess.

    And led to a better lesislation when the Greens and Labor worked together in the next parliment.

  17. Kevin Rudd ‘went out backwards’ when he squibbed ‘the greatest moral challenge of our time’ by kicking action on climate change into the long grass.

  18. How’s this ‘narrative’, C@t?

    ‘Labor’s political position on climate change was allowed to drift through the first few months of 2010 while the new opposition leader, Abbott, worked tirelessly attacking Labor’s “great big tax on everything”. The drift ended when *a decision by the government’s leadership to put the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme “on ice”* was leaked to journalist Lenore Taylor. The community reacted strongly. *Labor lost the support of around 1 million voters in just a fortnight*. One voter told me in my electorate of Port Adelaide, “I was never really sold on the whole climate issue, but was willing to back you in anyway – but when you just suddenly dropped the thing because things got too hard, you lost me. I thought you were all piss-weak.”’

    https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2017/jul/05/how-australia-bungled-climate-policy-to-create-a-decade-of-disappointment

  19. Reverse ferret: a sudden reversal in an organisation’s editorial or political line on a certain issue. Generally, this will involve no acknowledgement of the previous position.

  20. Oliver Sutton @ #17 Sunday, July 9th, 2023 – 7:27 am

    Kevin Rudd ‘went out backwards’ when he squibbed ‘the greatest moral challenge of our time’ by kicking action on climate change into the long grass.

    Bullshit, and you know it. Trying to rewrite history to support your Greens Party, with carefully-selected Guardian articles (lol) just won’t cut it with me. The Greens were the cause of 10 years of wasted time to have action taken to address Climate Change. Penny Wong worked tirelessly to get agreement with the Coalition, led by Malcolm Turnbull, NOT Tony Abbott (which you have self-servingly and conveniently misappropriated into your rewritten history), which only faltered IN THE SENATE BECAUSE OF THE FECKLESS GREENS!

    That’s when THEY lost a lot of rational people to the Labor Party, let me tell you for a fact because I have spoken to them. And there their support wallows at 10-11% ever since. Something only Essential, who polls for, guess who, The Guardian, says any different.

  21. If you are looking for someone who won’t make a dent, will only be around a short time but will look and sound pleasant throughout, Mike Baird is the one.


  25. Catprog says:
    Sunday, July 9, 2023 at 7:26 am

    >I also remember how Kevin Rudd went out backwards when he DIDN’T call an election over the Climate Change legislation The Greens knocked back. Take your pick of narratives I guess.

    And led to a better lesislation when the Greens and Labor worked together in the next parliment.

    Only a Green voter would claim legislation that falls is better. It basically sums up the Green party, blocking action wanting unattainable goals.

  28. C@t

    That’s complete rubbish. After declaring it the greatest moral failure of our time, Kevin Rudd put up a dog of a policy that would have locked in failure for a generation, tried to negotiate with Turnbull, failed, and then took his bat and ball and went home instead of negotiating with the greens to get a better policy. To blame the greens instead of the coalition for Australia’s failure on climate change is absolutely ridiculous. The only time we have made any real reductions in our carbon emissions was under the climate policies that Gillard negotiated with the greens (which Abbott largely repealed)

    It was only thanks to the greens that the coalition safeguards mechanism that Labor put up was made even halfway useful as a policy.

    Now we have Labor gaslighting the country by trying to call the development of the nation’s largest single gas export processing facility at middle arm as a ‘sustainable development precinct’ (seriously), approving coal mines and massive areas for exploration when the science is clear that we can’t even develop our proven resources, much less go looking for more

    Is Labor better than the coalition on climate, obviously yes, but it’s not a binary choice and you really wouldn’t call ALP policy good

    (And don’t even start on the ridiculous green wall street policy that basically no-one thinks is a good idea, modelled by none other than PWC)

  29. That SMH piece from Jenny Hocking is as partisan to Labor as Benson is to the Libs lol.

    I suspect she is a fellow bludger too.

  30. I’ve always liked the ‘locked in failure’ line.

    I’ve asked multiple Greens posters over the years what that meant.

    Virtually none of them had no idea. It was just a slogan they’d learnt to repeat.*

    (You may be different, I’m just sayin’).

    *Decades ago, at a polling booth, the person handing out for the Greens said that he’d always been Labor until ‘they drifted to the Right’.

    I asked him for an example.

    He thought for a moment and then admitted he didn’t have one, it was just the vibe.

  31. On topic of cricket

    The icc members who appoint Chris Broad to be match referee should be sacked for incompetence in appointing Chris Broad who is the father of Stuart Broad being the match referee

    https://www.smh.com.au/sport/cricket/broad-s-father-takes-a-whack-at-warner-after-17th-dismissal-20230708-p5dmoy.html

    Warner (one) fell to Broad for the 17th time in his career, his second failure of this match. Broad’s father, Chris, a former England cricketer who is now a match referee, added to the spice by tweeting a picture of Warner’s head transposed onto Bart Simpson’s body, writing over and over on a blackboard: “Stuart Broad has got me out again.”
    Chris Broad has since deleted the tweet, and while the ICC declined to comment, sources close to the governing body indicated that he had been told it was unbecoming of his role as a neutral match official.

  32. >I’ve always liked the ‘locked in failure’ line.

    By providing compensation to the emitters if the targets change in the future

    >Only a Green voter would claim legislation that falls is better. It basically sums up the Green party, blocking action wanting unattainable goals.

    Only a Labor voter would claim legislation that did not pass was better.

  33. Zoom,

    The ALP has drifted right! Work for the dole – bipartisan policy. Attacking single mothers – thanks Gillard (since partially reversed, thankfully). Stage 3 – bipartisan. Welfare payments well below the poverty line – bipartisan. Aukus – bipartisan. Asylum seekers – slightly better now but island gulags are still bipartisan. Fossil fuel expansion – bipartisan. I could continue……

    In policy terms the ALP agrees with the coalition on a heck of a lot more than it does the greens, it’s just less corrupt than the coalition and tends not to punch down or dogwhistle with its rhetoric

  34. The Yes campaign can write off Qld, always was a lock for the No vote!
    I think the overall chances of the Yes vote winning are rather dim, even if they get decent majorities in urban Sydney and Melbourne, and once again, I see no obvious strategy from the Yes side other than appeals to emotion and tugging on the heart strings.
    The whole thing was sunk the minute Dutton announced his opposition, referenda in this country only succeed if there’s bipartisan agreement.

  35. PageBoi @ #28 Sunday, July 9th, 2023 – 8:11 am

    C@t

    That’s complete rubbish. After declaring it the greatest moral failure of our time, Kevin Rudd put up a dog of a policy that would have locked in failure for a generation, tried to negotiate with Turnbull, failed, and then took his bat and ball and went home instead of negotiating with the greens to get a better policy. To blame the greens instead of the coalition for Australia’s failure on climate change is absolutely ridiculous. The only time we have made any real reductions in our carbon emissions was under the climate policies that Gillard negotiated with the greens (which Abbott largely repealed)

    It was only thanks to the greens that the coalition safeguards mechanism that Labor put up was made even halfway useful as a policy.

    Now we have Labor gaslighting the country by trying to call the development of the nation’s largest single gas export processing facility at middle arm as a ‘sustainable development precinct’ (seriously), approving coal mines and massive areas for exploration when the science is clear that we can’t even develop our proven resources, much less go looking for more

    Is Labor better than the coalition on climate, obviously yes, but it’s not a binary choice and you really wouldn’t call ALP policy good

    (And don’t even start on the ridiculous green wall street policy that basically no-one thinks is a good idea, modelled by none other than PWC)

    +1

    Glad to see not everyone here falls for the Orwellian rewriting of history we see from the apparatchiks here.

  38. After declaring it the greatest moral failure of our time, Kevin Rudd put up a dog of a policy that would have locked in failure for a generation, tried to negotiate with Turnbull, failed, and then took his bat and ball and went home instead of negotiating with the greens to get a better policy.

    Absolute crap, PageBoi. Because you know who would have voted against a policy THEY didn’t help to negotiate and who had larger numbers than The Greens in the Senate? Even your one-eyed perspective can see that.

    But it would have been a start and something that could have been embedded and improved on over time.

    And you know what? The Greens are doing it again:

    They can’t say they weren’t warned. Shortly before coming to office Anthony Albanese said, “I’ve been underestimated my whole life”.

    It was a significant personal reflection during a hectic election campaign, one that spoke to Albanese’s resolve, his self-belief, and a subtle barb at the failure of others to recognise his political determination and tactical skills; most clearly on display during the fractious parliament of the Gillard years. Well, the Greens should have listened to that rare moment of reflection because they certainly underestimated Albanese when they again voted with the Coalition and Pauline Hanson’s One Nation to defer debate on the government’s signature $10 billion Housing Australia Future Fund Bill.

    To say the Greens’ decision has infuriated the government would be a massive understatement. The Housing Australia Future Fund would support the construction of 30,000 new social and affordable housing properties, with a minimum $500 million each year over the next five years, including 4,000 properties for women and children facing family and domestic violence and older women at risk of homelessness. The Greens’ high-risk decision to block the building of this much needed social and affordable housing, while insisting that the government facilitate state-based rent caps which the federal government does not have the power to do, has the government seething. Albanese described it as “incomprehensible”, “playing politics”, “absurd” and “untenable” and he’s clearly in for the fight over it.

    https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/senate-housing-stand-off-may-be-double-jeopardy-for-the-greens-20230707-p5dmg8.html

    I’ll take the perspective of a Professor Emiritus of Political Science over the game-playing Greens and a bunch of randoms on the internet who are attempting to rewrite history to favour them, any day.

  39. “Warner (one) fell to Broad for the 17th time in his career, his second failure of this match. Broad’s father, Chris, a former England cricketer who is now a match referee, added to the spice by tweeting a picture of Warner’s head transposed onto Bart Simpson’s body, writing over and over on a blackboard: “Stuart Broad has got me out again.”

    I am up in the air on this one until I hear from Candice Warner

  40. zoomster @ #36 Sunday, July 9th, 2023 – 8:38 am

    And how is that locked in?

    It would have been locked in if left to the two major parties who share their policies in this space, and differ primarily in their rhetoric. Advances in climate change policy in Australia have generally come from the cross bench.

  44. zoomstersays:

    *Decades ago, at a polling booth, the person handing out for the Greens said that he’d always been Labor until ‘they drifted to the Right’.

    I asked him for an example.

    He thought for a moment and then admitted he didn’t have one, it was just the vibe.
    _______________
    I guess the collapse in the Labor primary vote and the rise in the Greens is just cos of the vibe.

  45. Given ol’ Pa Broad’s a match referee, he should do the right thing by resigning. At best, accusations of apprehended bias could be levelled against him; at worst, actual bias.

  48. Mavis @ #46 Sunday, July 9th, 2023 – 9:12 am

    Given ol’ Pa Broad’s a match referee, he should do the right thing by resigning. At best, accusations of apprehended bias could be levelled against him; at worst, actual bias.

    Huh. I didn’t know Broad’s ol’ man was the ref. It goes a little towards the son’s on-field antics.

  49. Morning all. Thanks for the roundup BK. Lots of good pieces on the Robodebt RC, reaction, and Dutton’s implausible explanation of it.

    Some of the RW media perhaps did not do Dutton a favour in not reporting on the Robodebt RC until the report was tabled. It allowed Dutton to live in denial about the RC, and not have a credible position to present on it when asked.

    It will be interesting to see how Laura Tingle goes if she is on Insiders this morning. She wrote a good piece on Robodebt yesterday. One of her many good points was that actual welfare fraud in Australia is minuscule, considering the millions of individuals serviced by the system. There was never any rational reason to believe there were billions to be “saved”. It was a case of the Liberal Party believing their own populist rhetoric about being a “welfare cop”. There was no crime to police.
    https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-07-08/robodebt-royal-commission-political-populism-policy-culture/102575450

  50. Whilst I too would like to see more of Candice, Broad snr has to go. No place for a ump that does that.

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