Apart from a few Indigenous Voice snippets, which I’m holding back for a dedicated post, the only polling action this week has been the regular Roy Morgan result, which has Labor leading 54-46, unchanged on last week, from primary votes of Labor 32.5% (up half), Coalition 35% (up half) and Greens 14% (down one-and-a-half). On the preselection front, there is the following to relate:
• Victorian Greens Senator Janet Rice has announced she will retire from parliament in the first half of next year. James Massola of The Age reports her successor will be chosen by a vote of 2000 to 3000 party members in November. The front-runner is Steph Hodgins-May, who has run three times for the party in Macnamara (known as Melbourne Ports up to 2016) and came within an ace of winning the seat in 2022. Other potential nominees are Monash councillor Josh Fergeus, academic and unionist Apsara Sabaratnam and lawyer Sarah Jefford.
• With Warren Mundine’s withdrawal last week from the preselection race to fill Marise Payne’s New South Wales Liberal Senate vacancy, the position is now thought likely to go to Andrew Constance, former state government minister and unsuccessful candidate for Gilmore at last year’s federal election. However, the Sydney Morning Herald reports he may face competition from one of a number of factional conservatives: “Mina Zaki, an Afghanistan-born, anti-Taliban activist and cyber expert at consulting firm KPMG; barrister Ishita Sethi; lawyer Pallavi Sinha; Monica Tudehope, who has previously worked as Dominic Perrottet’s policy director; and former NSW Liberal MP Lou Amato”. Mundine has opted to remain in the business sector, but the Sydney Morning Herald further noted he had “caused angst” among hitherto supportive conservatives by defying the no campaign line on the desirability of a treaty or a changed date for Australia Day. The Sydney Morning Herald earlier reported the preselection was not likely to be determined until November.
• Josh Frydenberg announced last week he will not seek to win Kooyong back from teal independent Monique Ryan at the next election. Rachel Baxendale of The Australian says this has left Liberals questioning who might take over as leader if circumstances demand it after the next election, with Andrew Hastie “described by several as the party’s best hope, despite his relative inexperience”. Amelia Hamer, director of strategy at tech start-up Airwallex, has been mentioned as a likely contender for the Liberal preselection in Frydenberg’s absence, while a report in The Age put forward a number of familiar names as potential starters: “Lucas Moon, an anti-pokies campaigner at Hawthorn RSL, Melbourne councillor Roshena Campbell, former candidate Georgina Downer, Caroline Elliot, or past Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry chair Karyn Sobels”.
• Alexi Diemetriadi of The Australian reports Hunters Hill mayor Zac Miles has resigned from the Liberal state executive ahead of a run for Liberal preselection in Bennelong, and that Shoalhaven councillor and former deputy mayor Paul Ell is “understood” to be considering running in Gilmore, where he stood aside in favour of Andrew Constance before the last election.
• The Australian’s Feeding the Chooks round-up of Queensland politics relates that long-serving Labor members Graham Perrett and Shayne Neumann are under pressure to make way for female candidates in their seats of Moreton and Blair, with former state secretary Julie-Ann Campbell favoured by the Left in Moreton and state Ipswich MP Jennifer Howard “weighing up her options for a tilt at Blair”.
• Poll Bludger contributor Adrian Beaumont has a new post at The Conversation on developments in the campaign for the October 14 election in New Zealand.
I voted early today. Glad to get it done and skip the queues. A younger guy and his mum were in front of me and I was so pleased by his concise explanation to the mum who had no idea what the referendum was about. Maybe he can run the campaign next time
A lot of those billions were other peoples’ money. What’s Elon care? He’s got several hundred more, and the other
investorsco-purchasers don’t even have any recourse against him. They just write down the value of their stakes. Probably claim it as a business loss in their taxes.Could be he’s really trying to make Twitter profitable, and is just incompetent at it. Could be he wants it dead, and always has. Could be his penchant for shooting his mouth off (“funding secured”, “pedo guy”, etc.) finally got the better of him, and the Twitter execs/shareholders trapped him in a deal he never really wanted and made themselves rich at his expense. Good on them, for that one.
Could be there’s some plan from the far-right to make Twitter the new home of racists, sure. But I’m not believing that one unless several things happen. First the plan would need to be published more-or-less in full. Second it would have to predict things that Elon will do, that he hasn’t done yet. And third, Elon has to do those things. And they have to be better/less-obvious things than “Google/Apple will delist an app that’s now full of racism, violence, misinformation, and political propaganda”.
Otherwise just looks like retconning/conspiracy theories. Especially since Truth Social exists. The far-right didn’t need to take over Twitter in the first place.
Anyways, Threads. Right?
What annoys me about our judicial system is how the suppression of defendants’ identities is applied so selectively. All or none, I say. No more ‘one rule for the rich or well connected, another rule for the rest’. If the press are barred from revealing the identity of this ‘high profile man’, they should be barred from revealing any defendant’s identity until conviction. If that’s unacceptable, then it should be open slather from the moment any charge is brought against anyone.
Paul:
I agree.
Ashasays:
Tuesday, October 3, 2023 at 6:09 pm
I doubt its a deliberate attempt to mislead in the way those Chisholm posters obviously were – apart from the colour scheme they don’t look that similar – but, Jesus, it’s not a good look. The No campaign is going to milk this for all that its worth.
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I have absolutely no doubt it was a deliberate and calculated strategy by the proponents of the Yes campaign. Says a lot about the integrity of this mob. Puts them in the same class as the LNP.
How many people are going to make the decision to vote yes because they believe it to be the official position of the AEC? I believe this is a question I can answer with pinpoint accuracy.
hazza @ #1596 Tuesday, October 3rd, 2023 – 10:21 pm
Upnorth.
I think Asha was there for a while but not now. Safely back in Brissie.
Jacinta Price and Peter Dutton have found a new bone to pick at, even though the problems occurred under their watch in government):
https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/dutton-price-want-indigenous-spending-audited-20231003-p5e9fb.html
Dutton and Price just throwing chum into the water to churn people up before voting on the referendum.
Generalised assertions based around a global number like ‘$33.4 billion’ don’t take into account, as the article goes on to point out, things like Indigenous Australians accessing medical care through Medicare, which everyone has a right to and Indigenous Australians may proportionately need more of. And that’s a ‘waste’ of ‘taxpayers’ money’ because, Dutton and Price?
I also think it’s hugely insulting and demeaning to demand that Indigenous Australians account for every last cent of ‘taxpayers’ money’ that they spend when the government that Peter Dutton was a senior Minister in gave away BILLIONS OF UNACCOUNTED DOLLARS OF TAXPAYERS’ MONEY to corporations, businesses and the unaccountable Great Barrier Reef Foundation. Not to mention the administrators of the Cashless Welfare Card, Indue, who were White, former Nationals politicians! 😡
I never noticed the similar colouring of Yes/AEC until I saw the news report about it last night.
Talk about a storm in a teacup!
New thread.
Itza Dream @ 9.22am
Aldous Huxley had similar thoughts in his novel, ‘Brave New World’.
“Oh, Brave New World – with such people on it”.
70 years on and, alas, some sentiments remain.
Dear Reader,
Еlоn Мusk: Whеrе “Woke” АІ Goes to Dіе? ⧉ October 03
Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you know ChatGPT has taken the world by storm… putting АІ in the limelight.
ChatGPT is an AI program.
It can generate its own articles… its own answers… and its own ideas.
It can also create computer code, craft a website, design a marketing plan, or write a poem.
And it’s done amazing things like pass the U.S. Bar exam, U.S. medical licensing exams, and Wharton’s MBA exam.
But ChatGPT has a dirty little secret…
It’s gone “woke.”
That’s according to Еlоn Мusk.
Musk recently said, “The danger of training AI to be woke – in other words, lie – is deadly.”
A few years ago, Musk left OpenAI (the company behind ChatGPT) because he didn’t like the direction the other partners were taking the company.
For example, ChatGPT refuses to promote the use of fossil fuels.
And it makes offensive jokes about men but not women.
The app also praises President Joe Віdеn, but it won’t make positive remarks about former President Donald Тrumр.
That’s why Мusk is working on a new АІ project.
Teeka Tіwаri is the financial pioneer who believes Musk’s latest venture – xAI – will be a better version of ChatGPT.
Teeka’s research has taken him out to the world’s hottest desert…
To visit a relatively nondescript and unknown facility…
That is supplying technology for Musk’s latest AI venture.
Teeka believes this technology will trigger the biggest boom in history…
All the while giving you, the early investor, a chance to completely transform your financial future.
This investment could be bigger than Tesla…
And bigger than SpaceX.
In fact, Teeka believes this AI stock has MORE upside potential than Nvidia has today.
Watch Tееka’s shocking new video here.
Regards,
Signature
Chaka Ferguson
Editorial Director, Palm Bеасh Resеаrch Group
This popped into my email
The chip fab in Israel? That’s neither of those things.
Maybe another night sprocket, I’m tired and not inclined to indulge you atm.
Bludgers
Before my stroke, I spent decades working as an ESL teacher hearing first hand accounts of the tragic and traumatising accounts of refugee experiences.
I think I have lost perspective.
I apologises to anyone I have offended.
Free the Wombats!