I’ve spent the last week or two scouring media that had gone unattended during the South Australian election, so I’ve got a huge amount of verbiage to unload over the coming week or so. This will include lengthy round-ups of news from New South Wales and (especially) Victoria as soon as I have poll results to attach them to, and dedicated posts on the Victorian state by-election for Nepean on May 2 (for which the ballot paper draw was conducted yesterday) and the Farrer federal by-election a week later.
For starters, here’s the federal electoral news that’s unrelated to Farrer:
• New Nationals leader Matt Canavan has been left
stranded in the uncomfortable second position on the Queensland Liberal National Party’s Senate ticket for the next election. State council declined to deviate from the established practice of allocating the top position to a Liberal, in this case James McGrath, who retained the position in the face of a challenge from former Petrie MP Luke Howarth. There remain suggestions that Canavan might end up running for the lower house seat of Capricornia, where Michelle Landry is expected to retire. Third on the ticket is Adam Stoker, solicitor and husband of former Senator and now state MP Amanda Stoker. Another nominee for the third position was Joanna Lindgren, who had a year-long stint in the Senate in 2015 and 2016. However, The Australian’s Feeding the Chooks column relates that the party’s applicant review committee rejected her due to “posts to her private Facebook page”, which had not been a problem for her last year when she ran for the lower house seat of Blair.
• Anthony Albanese told parliament last week that he was “satisfied with the current number of seats in the House of Representatives”, after reports in February that Special Minister of State Don Farrell was holding talks with other parties about an expansion. Nine Newspapers reports Albanese “left the door open to making changes after the election, and also did not rule out adding Senators in the NT and ACT”.
• The distraction of the South Australian election meant that I didn’t pay it enough attention at the time, but the DemosAU MRP poll from a month or so offered some highly detailed breakdowns from its bumper sample of 8484, together with its headline seat projection of Labor 83, One Nation 52, Coalition nine, Greens one and others five. This includes a finding that around 55% of Coalition voters from 2025 who are over 35, live in rural and regional areas and didn’t finish high school now support One Nation, as do an even half in outer metropolitan areas. The equivalent figures for Labor are a bit under half that. Modelled party vote estimates find the Liberals gaining seats from Labor and teals in Sydney and (especially) Melbourne, while losing nearly everything they currently hold to One Nation, who get ten seats from Labor besides.
• Fox & Hedgehog has published a review of its performance at the South Australian state election, which modestly assesses that its performance did not quite match YouGov’s while equalling DemosAU’s and outpointing Newspoll’s, though all four in fact did more than adequately. Contrary to conventional understandings of social desirability bias in polling, seemingly too many respondents are reported having voted for One Nation in 2025. This is matched by under-reporting of past vote for other right-wing minor parties, suggesting that many had in fact voted for Trumpet of Patriots or the like.
• Clive Palmer, who finally appeared to give up after last year’s election, said last month he would contest the Gold Coast seat of Fadden at the next election as part of what will resume being called the United Australia Party.
• James Massola of the Sydney Morning Herald related last month that former Liberal MP and state party president Jason Falinski, who lost his Sydney seat of Mackellar to teal independent Sophie Scamps in 2022 and did not recontest in 2025, was “widely expected” to contest the seat at the next election.
• Former Liberal MP Keith Wolahan, whose seat of Menzies was swamped in the unexpectedly forceful metropolitan wave in 2025, offers an impeccably data-driven analysis of the party’s electoral woes.
• Political science academic Murray Goot argues against the notion, often claimed by its champions, that compulsory voting is a moderating influence on Australian politics.
• I presented the case against first-past-the-post during an appearance on Perth radio station 6PR on Tuesday.
Finally, in non-federal news, a third by-election is on the horizon following the death on Thursday of Jimmy Sullivan, leaving vacant the inner northern Brisbane seat of Stafford. Sullivan won the seat for Labor in 2020 and 2024, retaining a 5.3% margin on the latter occasion in the face of a 6.6% swing to the LNP. He was suspended from the Labor caucus shortly after the election and expelled in May 2025 amid a reported domestic violence incident, for which no charges were laid.
Mavis, in the counting house doling out the Wright family’s shekels.
https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/cowardly-and-racist-paul-keating-assails-angus-taylor-s-migration-policy-20260416-p5zohc.html
Keating knows a lightweight when he sees one.
Carlton supporters very quiet?
Minns likely didn’t care what the lawyers said. The people of NSW wanted the protests shut down temporarily in the wake of the massacre committed by Islamic terrorists, and it was.
Whatever hollow ‘victory’ the professional protestor class got this week is nothing in comparison to the victory that Minns had with the electorate stopping their rent-a-protests.
Has there ever been a better first 100 games?
Paul Keating often says what needs to be said, as he did this afternoon.
Malcolm Mackerras predicts a One Nation win in Farrer.
Link: https://switzer.com.au/farrer-by-election-one-nation-to-win/ink:
I’m in agreement with his analysis. I think the O.N. candidate will jag that seat.
Paul Keating is dead, politically. We don’t need more commentary from that doddering daiquiri dingbat who dared to touch the Queen.
Ghost Of Whitlam says:
Thursday, April 16, 2026 at 10:17 pm
Minns likely didn’t care what the lawyers said. The people of NSW wanted the protests shut down temporarily in the wake of the massacre committed by Islamic terrorists, and it was.
Whatever hollow ‘victory’ the professional protestor class got this week is nothing in comparison to the victory that Minns had with the electorate stopping their rent-a-protests.
_________
Yep. This isn’t about right and wrong. This is brutal politics. Howardesque even.
Timmy says:
Thursday, April 16, 2026 at 10:26 pm
Paul Keating is dead, politically. We don’t need more commentary from that doddering daiquiri dingbat who dared to touch the Queen.
___________
Illogical. If he has no traction, then why are you talking about him?
Peg: “Keep the laughs coming.”
The only ‘laugh’ type facial expression that would ever appear on your face, would be a sneer.
Fulvio Sammut:
Thursday, April 16, 2026 at 10:13 pm
Yes, and it’s going to take her a long time to count them. I wouldn’t care to be on the WA Court of Appeal or the High Court if it reaches there, as the judgment is 1655 pages of complex argument. It would be worse than reading Proust’s tome “In Search of Lost Time”.
Mavis at 10.05 pm
Yes, but it’s possible that Minns received credible, sceptical advice that he disregarded.
Did you notice there is a collection of a range of Michael Kirby’s speeches published?
https://federationpress.com.au/product/law-justice-and-other-challenges/
Intro by editor plus Kirby’s additional personal last chapter are available at:
https://federationpress.com.au/product/law-justice-and-other-challenges/
Launch speeches by Gageler and Kirby at:
https://federationpress.com.au/product/law-justice-and-other-challenges/
“I’ve been to the Cooper Creek and the dig tree a couple of times now. I’m a little baffled about their demise. And from memory they encountered locals. Were they not curious about how they survived?”
They would would have been fine if Burke wasn’t an idiot.
He was being kept alive by an indigenous tribe but he got into a fight with them and shot at them, causing them to flee. He then shot at a second group in order to steal their fish. Then burned down all his belongings trying to cook the stolen fish.
The two of them died after that incident, while the only survivor found another indigenous group and he spent a month living with them before his rescue.
You guys have good memories, I have been racking my brain to remember what primary school history was all about but Captn Cook, wars that donkey called samson and the Queen come to mind. We did have something for Victoria’s 150th birthday and also when the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting was in Melbourne in 1982 -I remember that as we had to write about PMs and other leaders and Fraser lost to Hawke the next year.
Re Nadia @10:26. The link doesn’t work (404 error – page not found)
“Paul Keating often says what needs to be said, as he did this afternoon.”
Indeed. In 2023 and onwards..
“Paul Keating has labelled the $368bn Aukus nuclear submarine plan as the “worst deal in all history” and “the worst international decision” by a Labor government since Billy Hughes tried to introduce conscription.
The former Labor prime minister launched an extraordinary broadside against the Albanese government at the National Press Club on Wednesday, blasting the “incompetence” of Labor backing the decision to sign up to Aukus while in opposition and when it had “no mandate” to do so.”
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2023/mar/15/paul-keating-labels-aukus-submarine-pact-worst-deal-in-all-history-in-attack-on-albanese-government
nadia at 10.26 pm
Link gone off air. Did Mackerras mention the ballot order or the absence of Labor?
The obvious factor is Lib preferences. If they are directed to the Hanson cult then they have a chance, but it would be interesting to see how many Lib voters ignore that advice.
Milthorpe will clearly benefit from the absence of Labor and the resignation of Ley, the latter in the sense that she is better known locally than the Lib candidate is.
The supposed seat poll, with Milthorpe just above 20%, is unreliable, as they often are.
A month ago B.S. Fairman put his money on Milthorpe to win. Unlikely to be wrong.
https://switzer.com.au/farrer-by-election-one-nation-to-win/
Try this Steve777.
Dr.D – I gather you know Mr Mackerras, or are familiar with him.
Could you provide your own opinion re: Farrer pls.
Mr Mackerras sites regional S.A. seats, as the basis for One Nation picking up Farrer.
Your thoughts, when you’ve had time to read the Mackerras article.
That link oughta look like this:
https://switzer.com.au/farrer-by-election-one-nation-to-win/
From it:
With a dozen candidates? Yeah, good luck with that one. It was 9.9% last time with less ballot clutter.
Leaving the distant past for recent events, four months ago, we can recall that the Federal Opposition and their media allies went completely feral in the wake of the Bondi attack, seeing an opportunity to break their downward spiral in the polls. And yes, it was as tawdry as that.
Chris Minns decided to appease them, or maybe he believed in the need for tough new legislation. Weren’t the vast tomes of security legislation passed since 9/11 enough?
Meanwhile, Albo just tried to get on with the job, eventually caving on the matter of a Royal Commission.
All the MSM want at the moment is for Albo and Bowen to fail on keeping Australia from running out of fuel, so their man Angus can maybe increase his pathetic position in the polls. It borders on being traitors wanting their country to completely go down the toilet and make people suffer. The same bastards that used to support Trump, who started this shit in the first place, all the way wanting his re election in 2024. They make me sick.
Oh no! 😮
Dr Doolittle:
Thursday, April 16, 2026 at 10:30 pm
That’s a possibility, but why seek advice, presumably from the highly experienced Michael Sexton, the NSW Solicitor-General, only to disregard it? A first-year law student could’ve seen how flawed the instant legislation was. I’d suggest that it was primarily designed to placate the Jewish community, and if it failed, Minns could say, “Well, I tried my best. It was those insensitive judges of appeal wot dun it”.
Thanks for the links. I’ve had a rough day and will look at them tomorrow.
Ven, Thursday, April 16, 2026 at 8:14 pm:
Ven, you were right. That was brilliant. I hope Trump’s power rests on a pack of cards that will collapse this November as emphatically as Orban’s did last Sunday. And I have an even deeper hope that one day Putin’s will too – before too many more Ukrainians are killed by him.
Dr Fumbles McStupidsays:
Thursday, April 16, 2026 at 10:31 pm
We did have something for Victoria’s 150th birthday.
_______________________
1984/85.
That was massive in Portland. Victoria’s first permanent settlement. We all had to dress up in our heritage costumes. I had a good one that my mum made.
Charles and Diana came for a visit. Was at the barricades as they did their meet and greet.
The famous footage of Princess Diana giggling at Prince Charles wearing his lopsided hard hat whilst touring the new Alcoa smelter that went around the world.
I have no idea of the political scene when this was aired in 1991, mainly since I was 3 at the time, but I’m doing my best to catch up when I can.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lCuLfitaP1M
More to that Mackerras article:
Of the four seats in SA that ended up with a Lib/ON 2cp, two were narrow ON wins where they stated well in front but damn near got chased down on preferences. The other two (Flinders and Chaffey) were pretty solid Lib retains. If that’s the top two, ON would need close to 40% before you start calling them the favourite.
It could also be Ind (Milthorpe) vs ON, and y’know what? There’s two of them from SA as well – Stuart and Mt Gambier. The independents won both of those pretty easily.
So, yeah. There’s plenty of reasons why One Nation might win Farrer, but comparing it to the SA election doesn’t really work.
First political memory for me was the 1983 Bob Hawke campaign against that crybaby Malcolm Fraser. Specifically, that Richard Carleton interview.
You’d never catch Hawkie crying, nosiree.
I liked history.
Grade 5 and 6 was the explorers. Captain Cook, Vasco Da Gama, Christopher Columbus.
Then did it from Year 9 to Year 12 as options.
Year 9 was First Nations. Aboriginals back then.
Year 10 was India, then China and the opium wars.
Year 11 and 12 was WW1, the Great Depression and WW2.
I remember that 1984 campaign too, but more for this:
https://youtu.be/it9u8OeCXyY?si=i1A-Sa-JIFyGG9SO
No tears after that!
Thanks GOW. Some of that sounds familiar. I probably learned it over 50 years ago and no doubt told it by someone on the trip. It obviously didn’t sink in. Cheers
That Mackerras is still alive, let alone prognosticating, is amazing.
A quick google shows he is 87 – I remember him on the ABC panel for the 1969 federal election- he had a pair of binoculars to look at the boards in the central tally room in the auditorium of Woden Valley High. He was a notoriously bad analyst then and I can’t imagine he has improved in the last 57 years.
Arky says:
Thursday, April 16, 2026 at 8:57 pm
Is this where I point out I vocally never liked the Minns anti protest laws? I got the point made by Nadia and others that Sydney people were sick of the constant protest disruption and what Minns did would be popular (and it probably ends up being the court, not Minns that wears anger for blocking them now), and that even the laws being temporarily in place was a circuit breaker, I just didn’t and don’t like the precedent of government restricting protest that isn’t on genuine safety grounds to prevent crowd crushes etc. Even in the case of protests I think the advisors would be wiser not to run. So I’m happy for this result.
=========================
I’m not.
Mr Minns brought in the legislation in late December, to try and calm things down a bit.
I believe his legislation worked over Jan/Feb/Mar. Clearly there are “agitators” who want to do what they want, when & where and think it is OK to close major thoroughfares or whatever because “their” issue is so much more important than what “the rest of us” think.
I think the Judge went on a frolic or whatever the legal term is.
Parliament should make the laws and it is up to Judges to uphold those laws, and not wander off into the pasture of “make believe”.
The Judge in NSW has basically told hysterics to “keep doing what you were doing during 2025”.
ie: keep doing hate
President Zelenskyy is right to call out a ‘normalisation’ of Russia and Putin which is becoming far too prevalent around the world:
https://youtu.be/-9pQsPhjDUc
https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2026/apr/16/europe-russia-zelenskyy-ukraine-nato-rutte-merz-magyar-latest-updates?filterKeyEvents=false&page=with%3Ablock-69e0918b8f08259d939627d8#block-69e0918b8f08259d939627d8
Scenes from the 1966 Central Tally Room in this clip at 1:32
The technology has changed some what in the last 60 years but the actual method of voting, earlier in the clip, is virtually unchanged.
https://youtu.be/OqIMzc2e4RA?si=RLdFlANFXRoa8GaK
nadia at 10.40 pm
I know of Mr M. Mackerras, not directly. He became famous for the electoral pendulum.
His academic achievements pale in comparison with his twin brother Colin, not only a Ph.D but a distinguished Professor of Chinese politics and society. If only the Australian media took more notice of what Colin has had to say about China over the years.
Their oldest brother, Charles, was a musicologist and a conductor of the Sydney S.O.
The article is typical M. Mackerras. Never short of an opinion but rather short of facts. Much of the article concerns his pet electoral subjects, with little discussion of Farrer.
He does not mention that Milthorpe won the primary vote in all Albury booths in 2025, except the large pre-poll, where she was still a very clear second.
Bird of paradox has pointed out that Mackerras’ prediction for the informal vote is wishful thinking, given the long field.
All that one can say is that Mackerras has identified four of the two possible winners.
The Libs have all but conceded defeat, at least privately, I’m sure. The Nats haven’t been in that paddock for 25 years. Their internal disorder will harm them. Canavan is a blow-hard lacking coherence, like a teenage Jeff Thomson without pace or accuracy.
The only evidence Mackerras mentions is the SA results in rural seats, apparently like Farrer. Extrapolating in that manner is simplistic.
If you add up the Hanson cult and the 3 RW minors (except the Shooters) in 2025 that is 13%, with the Shooters on 3.5%. Milthorpe got 20% and Labor 15%.
The u-Comms seat poll was in early March and includes Labor, so it is rather dubious:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2026_Farrer_by-election
That poll doesn’t include the Shooters, who might not be far behind the Nats.
Even on that poll Milthorpe is about 5% behind the Hanson cult with 9% misleadingly given to Labor, so assuming the vast majority of Labor voters vote Milthorpe she would be ahead on primaries. So only with Lib preferences can the Hanson cult win.
The Shooters have the same candidate as in 2025, now on the bottom of the ballot. In 2025 nearly 56% of his voters chose Milthorpe instead of Ley. It’s unclear why Milthorpe would get less than that percentage vs the Hanson cult. For 2025 see:
https://results.aec.gov.au/31496/Website/HouseDivisionPage-31496-118.htm
Now look at the biggest booths, the pre-polls. In Griffith Milthorpe was almost 10% above the Hanson cult, with almost 18% for Labor.
In the Albury pre-poll the Hanson cult was under 4% and Milthorpe almost 32%, with 13% for Labor. See:
https://results.aec.gov.au/31496/Website/HousePollingPlaceFirstPrefs-31496-34273.htm
If you believe that Milthorpe will lose to the Hanson cult your evidence is just the vibe.
“I did but see her passing by. And yet I love her till I die.”
As quoted by Sir Robert Menzies!
And fondly remembered by our “Timmy”
@nadia
Based on what legal argument, exactly?
It’s in fact a unanimous decision of three judges of the NSW Court of Appeal, not a single judge.
I haven’t yet seen the judgment published. The reporting is that it’s on the implied freedom of political communication under the Constitution, which is a fairly long established thing. I don’t think it’s generally seen as all that surprising that the Minns laws are held to be unconstitutional as they are a blunt instrument that does restrict political communication to an unnecessarily broad extent.
It’s disappointing to see someone otherwise knowledgeable about the Australian system buy into the “the decision doesn’t suit me therefore the judge must be an ass” type of punditry.
The point of the Constitution is that there are limits on the legislature’s power, and one of the points of the judiciary is to enforce those limits when government overstep.
nadia at 11.29 pm
It’s best not to comment on reasons for judgement in a particular case without some awareness of the nature of the judges and the issues at stake.
In this case there were three judges, including the Chief Justice, not one. A summary:
https://www.caselaw.nsw.gov.au/decision/19d9354aeb610427262d9102
With respect, your claim that ‘Parliament should make the laws and it is up to Judges to uphold those laws, and not wander off into the pasture of “make believe”’ is based on a common fallacy.
The fallacy has a name, called parliamentary sovereignty. Many years ago I and a senior colleague had to repeatedly remind one of my research students that presumed notion is foreign to countries like Australia where there is a written Constitution that requires careful interpretation. Parliament is not supreme, in the manner of V. Putin. It also has to abide by the law, in particular the Constitution. The NSW Parliament did not, as the case summary above makes clear.
It’s not a surprising result, except for the ignorance of Mr Minns, as Mavis pointed out.
The key issue is the implied right of freedom of communication, one of the basic rights in the Constitution. The absence of a Bill of Rights makes it very important.
For background, see a speech that Justice Virginia Bell gave in 2017 introducing a special issue of the UNSW Law Journal (relevant passage is at p 12):
https://www.hcourt.gov.au/sites/default/files/assets/publications/speeches/former-justices/bellj/bellj29May2017.pdf.pdf
For a video of her speech see: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AjJEU4IooUE
I doubt the Shooters will get far. They had a brief moment in the sun in 2019 when they won three state seats in NSW, but those MPs all quit the party (sounds like another party I could mention) and left them in their dust in 2023. They’re just another minor right-wing party, with not much to differentiate them from One Nation.
Seems a bit counter-intuitive to declare something a “basic right in the Constitution” when Judges have to torture the Constitution before they can declare it has been “implied”.
Instead of it being actually in the text. Which could have been easily done when it was made, or later by a Constitutional amendment via referendum.
Yeah, because referendums have such a notably high success rate. And the writers of the constitution could easily have foreseen Australia 130 years in the future and written it to suit. Easily done!
They didn’t need to “foresee” anything. The US had made their Constitution with dozens of clauses/sections, then remembered to add another 10 articles as the bill of rights, and then added another 5 and had another that became one later, before Australia started making ours.
Bad decision. Protesters will become even more empowered; they won’t even have to pretend to pray to avoid being arrested. More fear of Islam, more votes for one nation. What about “it’s the vibe “? Probably not enough common sense for that to be used; we should probably not put it in the Constitution. It means using some common sense and avoiding decisions that are detrimental to the country.
Airbus Albo has diverted to Geelong this morning.
Vic or Australia or both getting fuel rationing ?
Strange to visit otherwise.
Budget cycle upon us labor govs high debt and ugly decisions.
Young Angus made a pivot this week the same week two polls Morgan etc showed one nation smashing libs vote.
@Ghost
“Seems a bit counter-intuitive to declare something a “basic right in the Constitution” when Judges have to torture the Constitution before they can declare it has been “implied”.”
This is literally how law works as the drafters of the Constitution like Edmund Barton were well aware. Go tell Barton that when he made decisions about implications from the Constitution he helped write, he was torturing it.
The implied freedom of political communication is maybe a little stretchier than some and I wouldn’t ever personally refer to it as a “basic” right, but it is has been settled law for 40 years or so.
I don’t know where to start with this comment. Do you think the US doesn’t have huge amounts of constitutional interpretation done by judges? They have way more than us, precisely because their constitution tries to cover more things and so it puts masses of legal areas under the sway of the US Supreme Court’s interpretations of the constitution. The US experience in recent decades is why I am firmly against a constitutional bill of rights in Australia. The drafters of our constitution were informed by their views of the US constitutional experience and others.
@Steelydan
Constitutional decisions are not made on vibes and you should be careful what you wish for. Down the path of judges just making decisions based on what suits their personal/political views of what’s good for the country lies madness.
New thread.
Asha
Is he sharing the bunker with Timmy’s fuel hoard?