Newspoll should be along from The Australian this evening if it follows its usual three-weekly pattern, and we’re also about due for a Freshwater Strategy poll overnight from the Financial Review. For the time being, there’s the following electorally relevant news from the past week:
• Former New South Wales Premier Dominic Perrottet announced his resignation from parliament on Friday to take up a position as US head of corporate and external relations for BHP. This will necessitate a by-election for his safe northern Sydney seat of Epping, presumably to be held concurrently with that for former Treasurer Matt Kean’s nearby seat of Hornsby.
• Nine Newspapers reports further numbers from last week’s Resolve Strategic poll showing 41% believe Fatima Payman should relinquish her seat to a new Labor Senator, compared with 29% who support her course of remaining as an independent. However, 54% believe Labor should allow caucus members more freedom to vote in parliament as they wish, with only 16% holding the contrary view.
• It has been widely reported that the government will introduce a package of electoral reform legislation next month, although Michelle Grattan of The Conversation reports it will not include the blockbuster proposal to increase the number of territory Senators, which has failed to find support, and is unlikely to be in place in time for the next election. What will be featured are truth-in-advertising laws on the South Australian model; a reduction of the threshold for public disclosure of donations from the current $16,900 to $1000, together with much stricter time frames for disclosure, reducing to daily at the business end of the campaign period; and a system of spending caps limiting the amount that can be spent on campaigning in any given electorate to $1 million. The latter is most obviously targeted at Clive Palmer, but teal independents have complained of their potential to hinder crowd-funded campaigns against major party incumbents, with Monique Ryan and Allegra Spender’s respective campaign spends in Kooyong and Wentworth at the 2022 election each having exceed $2 million.
Federal preselection news:
• Warren Entsch has confirmed he will not recontest the far north Queensland seat of Leichhardt, which he has held as a Liberal for all but one term since 1996. The Australian reports Labor’s candidate is Matt Smith, former professional basketballer turned Together Union organiser, who was preselected unopposed last week.
• Deloitte director Madonna Jarrett will again be Labor’s candidate for the seat of Brisbane, which Stephen Bates won for the Greens from the Liberal National Party in 2022.
• Jack Dietsch of The West Australian reports that Liberal preselection contests loom for the Labor-held Perth seats of Swan and Hasluck, both of which were won by Labor in 2022, with respective margins of 9.6% AND 10.7% under the proposed new boundaries. The candidates in Swan are Nick Marvin, former chief executive of the Perth Wildcats basketball and Western Force rugby league clubs; Matthew Evans, an army veteran who now works for Mineral Resources; and Mic Fels, a grains farmer. The candidates in Hasluck are Philip Couper, a contracts and procurement consultant and former adviser to state One Nation MLC Colin Ticknell; David Goode, a Gosnells councillor; and Ashutosh Kumar, a credit assessor at Westpac. Pearce, which was gained in 2022 and has a margin of 9.1% on the proposed new boundaries, and Cowan, which Anne Aly has held for Labor since 2016 with a new margin of 9.7%, have each attracted one candidate: respectively, Jan Norberger, who held the state seat of Joondalup from 2013 to 2017, and Felicia Adeniyi, manager at St Luke’s GP Medical.
• Jack Dietsch of The West Australian reports Labor has preselected the top three candidates for its Western Australian Senate ticket: Ellie Whiteaker, the party’s state secretary, who is aligned to the Left faction Australian Manufacturing Workers Union; Varun Ghosh, a Right-aligned former barrister who filled the vacancy created by Pat Dodson’s retirement in February; and Deep Singh, a staffer to Cowan MP Anne Aly aligned with the Left faction United Workers Union. The party’s two members elected in 2019 to terms that will expire in the middle of next year were the aforementioned Pat Dodson and Left-aligned Louise Pratt, who announced in February that she would not seek re-election.
BSA… are you implying the media likes the Greens?
Jesus christ how rusted on can you be?
Newspoll will be 53/47 to Labor.
No risk.
Dutton’s unelectable.
Off to bed.
Nothing to see here.
davidwh says:
Sunday, July 21, 2024 at 9:37 pm
It can’t because it isn’t.
Both the majors up – always happens when an international event takes precedence.
Can smell a new thread coming up
Thanks Lars & Leroy. I don’t have Oz paywall access.
Tomorrow’s hardcopy (and digital images of the hardcopy) of The Australian should have a chart of the mentioned more in depth than usual leader results, will be worth a look. The online article won’t get you as much.
Labor went upwards to 33% so how do they get less on other polls most of the time.
Newspoll has come to the rescue. I still think a spring wedding should be on the cards.
OK time for an early night. Just about status quo for Newspoll as well.
(Some of, I think) the full table can be seen here! https://archive.is/evsY8
Ok I was slightly off but not by that much.
Dutton cant win government on those Newspoll figures.
Badthinker @ 9.32
Thanks for the comment.
Sure, there are right wing populists.
The Australian people don’t always get it right. Sounds like a Howard nationalist line.
To imply the Australian people always get it right is to introduce exceptionalism into the discussion. There are plenty of examples of other countries getting it wrong come election time.
There is a hell of a lot of “dont have a clue”who is the best leader on both parties, but they are the most popular within their own parties compared with the others names in the lists.
BSA Bob says:
Sunday, July 21, 2024 at 9:47 pm
The voters are always right. You may not agree with them but they have voted and that’s their democratic decision.
Definitely a better result than I expected for Labor – though would be very surprised if the LNP and Labor combined got 71% of the primary vote at the next election at best they’ll match the 2022 election result.
Dr Bonham from an earlier thread today suggesting LNP needs 51.3% TPP to win government next time around.
The 51-49 for Labor not wonderful for Labor but still leaves the LNP a long way short.
The “who is the best leader” stuff hardly makes any difference at all at the end of the day. I think this too has been debunked by Bonham in the past.
As Nadia pointed out, and I tend to agree, the stuff happening re Trump in the US, may just perversely be something in Labor’s favour – in as much as anyone know/cares about US politics in mainstream Oz.
New thread.
So in summary minority govt is on the cards – its just how much of a minority govt that is in question. Basically about a 1.5% swing on Newspoll and worse under the other polls. Labor primary 33 going up 1 was a surprise in Newspoll.
Lordbain
I lost what I wrote so must be quick-
your usual try at misrepresenting others, nowhere did I say the media likes the Greens. I don’t think they do, but the Greens are a ways off as a practical threat & don’t merit the focus Labor gets. Meanwhile they come in handy for “pincer movements”.
Rugby union, not rugby league 🙂
While I’m here: thanks for the blog; I’ve read it for many years now.
Meanwhile, the latest Roy Morgan unemployment estimates for June show over one in six Australian workers are either unemployed or underemployed adding up to more than 2.7 million.
Aussies second class citizens thanks Albanese!