Unconnected electoral developments of the last fortnight or so:
• Paul Starick of The Advertiser reports the top end of Labor’s South Australian Senate ticket has been confirmed, with Penny Wong and Don Farrell unopposed for first and second position respectively. Starick notes that Farrell will be 80 by the end of a prospective six-year term beginning from mid-2028.
• Sarah Elks of The Australian reports a challenge to Liberal MP Angie Bell’s preselection in the Gold Coast seat of Moncrieff has fallen through, prospective nominee Trent Belling telling the Liberal National Party’s federal division council he had “taken the advice of many” in deciding to withdraw. Belling is a disability housing developer and the party’s metropolitan vice-president.
• DemosAU this week published a Tasmanian state poll showing that recorded little change on its last result in June/July, with the Liberals steady on 28%, Labor up one to 22%, One Nation steady on 21% and the Greens up one to 15%. Jeremy Rockliff was rated positively by 35% (steady), neutrally by 30% (up three) and negatively by 35% (down three), while Labor’s Josh Willie was respectively at 21% (down two), 50% (up two) and 29% (steady). Rockliff led over Willie on preferred premier was 42-34, compared with 41-32 last time. The poll was conducted September 1 to 20 from a sample of 1097.
• The Northern Territory’s Mulka by-election of September 12, arising from the retirement of independent member Yingiya Mark Guyula, ended with Labor’s Yiwarr McGrath polling 1960 votes to independent Andrew Blamey’s 574. This is Labor’s second by-election gain from the cross-bench since the August 2024 election, which reduced Labor to four seats, the first being when the Darwin seat of Nightcliff was won from the Greens in March. The governing Country Liberal Party continues to hold 17 seats, with Labor on six and two independents.
Corleone
She’s called Parnell for a reason – more Parliamentary Party than Sinn Féin
Looks like the next significant election is the Quebec Provincial election in Canada on 5 October (6 October Australian time)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2026_Quebec_general_election#Opinion_polls
Polling is a little bit concerning there, obviously a majority government is out of the question, but the late lift in the ratbag-right PCQ vote could be an issue.
Still though, it does look like the main possibilities going forward would be a PQ-Liberal or PQ-CAQ coalition. Or even a possible PQ-Liberal-CAQ “Grand Coalition”, but that could have the consequences of making PCQ the official opposition.
Can anyone with more knowledge on the matter than I do make a comment?
Asha
Not so sure the “quality” of ON candidates will matter that much. ON voters will likely not care and any attempt by the majors to unmask the really dodgy types will be dismissed as fake news.
In a perverse kind of way I might welcome a bunch of rookie MPs as ministers in some sort of coalition with the remnants of the Libs and Nats. Question time with Malcolm Roberts as minister for health would be a hoot.
Hopefully they would implode fairly quickly. As history suggests is likely.
nath says:
Sunday, September 27, 2026 at 5:16 pm
You are sewage farm scum.
FUBARsays:
Sunday, September 27, 2026 at 5:37 pm
nath says:
Sunday, September 27, 2026 at 5:16 pm
You are sewage farm scum.
_____________
Don’t tell me you weren’t wanking up a storm.
Or are we really a monk?
UK: Several men have been arrested and properties have been evacuated around Whelford, after a major incident was declared near a US airbase in the UK.
The arrested men were taken into custody on suspicion of offences under the Explosives Act over the incident near RAF Fairford in Gloucestershire, police said.
The army’s specialist explosive ordnance disposal team are at the scene in Whelford examining a number of vehicles.
Residents are being evacuated to a nearby leisure centre, Gloucestershire Police said.
Newyboy
Congratulations for Knights victory over Panthers.
I am happy for you.
My son is a fan of Knights fan since he was 5 year’s old. So, I always have soft spot for Knights
Go Knights!
FUBAR
I have my differences with nath and I don’t like him
Sometimes he behaves like an idiot.
But he is not sewage farm scum, I repeat, not a sewage farm scum
Oh Oh!
My son and granddaughter have bought tickets to the grand final. They are Panthers tragics.
Have they wasted their money?
I think Nath has watched to much porn
If you think ALP is responsible for ON rise, then nothing is more far from truth.
It is a pleasure to see the impacts of excessive consumption of porn whilst undet 18 play out live in front of our eyes, even if it does draw out a snigger every now and then.
Well done Labor on getting in front of a difficult social issue in the age of the internet.
I’m pretty sure Nath’s formative years predate the existence of easily accessed internet porn.
Well done Knights, from wooden spoon to grand final in 12 months is an amazing turnaround
And to it with 12 for the second half, wow
It’ll be a big ask against the Roosters but they’re on a roll
Any polls tonight?
“Looks like the next significant election is the Quebec Provincial election in Canada on 5 October (6 October Australian time)”
There is also the Alberta independence referendum on the 19th (20th), on the other side of the country along with a bunch of far-right cooker referendum questions trying to fight non-existent voter fraud & stop migrants getting health care. Although Keating might like Question 7 that would abolish their senate, which functions like the UK House of Lords.
I assume OC is across the Orangemen parade redux after around 30 years.
Ven
Kos Samaras would say both major parties are responsible for the rise of ON, Labor loss the Howard battlers to the Liberals and they and culturally working class Labor voters that didn’t go to Howard now lean to ON.
Jason Koutsoukis – Inside Albanese’s factional dominance: ‘They’ve all been executed, except one’
https://www.thesaturdaypaper.com.au/news/politics/2026/09/26/inside-albaneses-factional-dominance-theyve-all-been-executed-except-one
“Doug Cameron, a former national secretary of the Australian Manufacturing Workers’ Union, who served as a New South Wales Labor senator from 2008 to 2019 and has worked alongside Albanese as a member of his hard left sub-faction, is scathing of what he sees as Albanese’s shift to the right since winning the 2022 election.
“I can see the Left having the numerical numbers but not implementing Left policy vision or ideas,” Cameron tells The Saturday Paper this week.
“I said 12 months ago the Left have been defanged, and I’ve now come to the conclusion that I wasn’t strong enough, because the Left have not only been defanged but lobotomised. They’re not making any difference to the lives of grassroots Labor supporters, they’re not making a huge difference to the travails of ordinary Australians, and they need to deal with that because, if they don’t, there’ll be a lot of Labor members who are in parliament now who won’t be there after the next election.”
Cameron points to falling poll numbers and other signs that traditional Labor voters are drifting away, disappointed that the Albanese government hasn’t delivered what they expected. He struggles to explain why Albanese has abandoned so many of the progressive policy positions he has championed since the early 1980s.
“I am absolutely bewildered by this and I don’t have an answer,” says Cameron. “I did not expect Albo to veer to the right as he has. It’s a shock and an absolute bewilderment for many people who have supported Albo, as I have, over the years.”
:::
With this collapse in the faction system and homogenisation of once-strident ideological differences, Cameron sees the future for the party as more neoliberalism and more ceding of Australian sovereignty to the United States.
:::
Cameron dismisses incremental policymaking of the sort that has characterised Albanese’s first four years in office as an excuse to do as little as possible. The same goes for the argument that Labor can govern only by holding together a coalition of working-class and middle-class voters wary of radical change.”
First part of Cameron’s criticism is right but to win Australian elections does require winning the working class and middle class. Daniel Andrews was able to govern from the left and win both groups.
BW
Indeed, why they have allowed it is beyond me but currently there is a standoff between 35 Orangemen against 1,000 Republicans who have blocked Gavaghy Rd. In days gone by we could expect days of rioting and some deaths. Hopefully the Orangemen will decide that discretion is the better part of valour.
Update: The PSNI has told the Orangemen that they will not use force to clear the road. In the old days the RUC would have brought out the armoured cars and rubber bullets and got their B Specials to lead the rioting. SF first minister, Michelle O’Neill is on the road and Unionists are calling for her dismissal for ignoring a legal order.
In other news Newy wins a tainted preliminary final and will be beaten by 30 next week
Congratulations to those who follow Newcastle – OC, Newy & no doubt others. It was certainly a tight, exciting match, with the last try one for the ages. Moving to another code, the Wallabies play the Springboks tonight, starting at 7.45 pm on Ch. 9.
Mavis
HOW DARE YOU
Despite spending my first 17 years in that shithole, I spent my most productive decades living in Penrith.
Douglas and Milko
They will be right.
The Panthers are the NSW State Cup winners. They play the Dolphins (Redcliff), the Qld State Cup winners, in the Grand Final.
They should be called Royalists instead of Loyalists. They aren’t “loyal” to Ireland, instead the servants of a foreign monarch. They hate Ireland so badly that they were willing to enter a civil war and commit indiscriminate murder against locals, but refuse to go back to England the subject of their affection. Very odd people.
Ghost Of Whitlamsays:
Sunday, September 27, 2026 at 7:21 pm
They should be called Royalists instead of Loyalists. They aren’t “loyal” to Ireland, instead the servants of a foreign monarch
___________________
Aren’t they descendants of Scots and English immigrants and remain ‘loyal’ to the throne?
The Age 27/09
Parliament’s expenses watchdog found Senator Tammy Tyrrell’s senior adviser had inappropriately charged the taxpayer almost $12,000 in hire car fees just days before Prime Minister Anthony Albanese allowed her to retain him as an employee.
Veteran political staffer Cameron Amos, who previously worked for the Labor Party, is yet to repay the bill he racked up while working for then-crossbench Senator Tyrrell and Senator Jacqui Lambie.
_______________________
We need to start charging this prick interest.
Those who dont learn from history are doomed to repeat it. 😉
naths at 7:25 pm
Yep and shed loads of the Ulster Scots later went off to settle Murica where they became ya classic ‘Hillbillies’.
“Aren’t they descendants of Scots and English immigrants and remain ‘loyal’ to the throne?”
I know why that’s what they call themselves, it’s just stupid. The scot imports aren’t loyal to the place they live in, or the place they came from! They’re both loyal to a foreign power in London.
Ghost Of Whitlam at 7:42 pm
Because it was Catlicks vs Proddies and that was what counted.
Americans, including themselves, often refer to them as “Scots Irish”.
Ghost Of Whitlamsays:
Sunday, September 27, 2026 at 7:42 pm
“Aren’t they descendants of Scots and English immigrants and remain ‘loyal’ to the throne?”
I know why that’s what they call themselves, it’s just stupid. The scot imports aren’t loyal to the place they live in, or the place they came from! They’re both loyal to a foreign power in London.
________________
Who are you to tell them what identity they should have?
The current 338 Canada Quebec Election seat prediction has (64 seats required for a majority):
PQ: 63
Liberal: 35
Conservative: 14
QS: 9
CAQ: 6
https://338canada.com/quebec/#projection3
Obviously small changes in the vote could lead to large changes in seat totals but it looks like between them PQ and Liberals will very likely hold a majority of seats and can probably work constructively issue-by-issue despite their fundamental differences on Quebec sovereignty given they are both fairly centrist parties.
Re Asha @5:06 PM
Bob Katter will turn 83 in May 2028. Would he run again?
@mj at 7:59pm
Cheers for that info on Quebec.
While there is many a legitimate criticism to be made of Albanese and his government, I’m not sure I would consider it to be any more right-wing than Hawke, Keating, Gillard, or Rudd’s were. In fact, one could make the argument that there have been some genuine shifts to the left in many areas of economic, social, and environmental policy since the RGR years.
Steve:
Someone has to fight the good fight against the crocodiles.
Asha
Wouldn’t call the Albanese government left leaning on social policy apart from the treatment of single mothers.
Re Quebec:
https://thedeepdive.ca/quebec-referendum-trump-2029-pq/
That might make a Parti-Quebecois Liberal Coalition more likely?
Halloween is approaching, my workplace is going all in on the celebrations and I am here for it.
It’s always been weird to me that Australians will get so uptight about how much American culture influences their own, when it comes to something like, celebrating a fun holiday like Halloween.
But have no issue over how much American culture influences their own, when it comes to something like, the rise of Trump worshipping alt-right political demagogues like Palmer and Hanson.
It’s like we’re happy to be influenced by all of the shitty parts of US culture and none of the fun or wholesome stuff.
Both Thankgiving and Halloween are great concepts that I’d be more than happy for us to embrace. Doen’t seem like it’ll happen in my life-time though.
I was just looking up the linguistic profile of people who vote for the Quebec Liberal party and unsurprisingly it has 55% support among non-francophones although it has the support of a not insignificant 21% among federalist francophones. Interestingly 15% of Anglophones vote for Quebec nationalist/separatist parties.
https://documents.leger360.com/hubfs/%C3%89tudes%20M%C3%A9diatiques/%C3%89tudes%20M%C3%A9diatiques%20-%202026/8.%20%C3%89tudes%20m%C3%A9diatiques%20Ao%C3%BBt%202026/Report%20Leger%20x%20National%20Post%20x%20The%20Gazette%20-%20Allophones%20and%20Anglophones%20Quebec%20Election%20Poll.pdf?utm_source=chatgpt.com
Quite an interesting walk through Tehran at night, recorded recently.
I was quite surprised that the old tropes about women being forced to wear hijabs seem either not to apply, or be enforced right now.
The scene is bright, colorful, bountiful. It is just a videographer walking the streets without editorialising and without much editing.
This is what Trump has promised to “annihilate” if he wakes up one morning in a bad mood.
The channel has several other “Real Iran” items, made in similar peripatetic style.
https://youtu.be/RIQXOIqlJo0?si=0PIVdxYSV0YLsI25
Where’s your policy ideas Doug?
If you’re going to slate Albo, where’s the alternative policy? Remember, it needs to satisfy more than half the electorate to win the next election, and as part of tha, it can’t spook the markets or cause the reserve bank to blame “government spending” on interest rate rise hikes while appeasing a generous amount of both the far-right Hanson lovers and the far-left Greens slaggers, as well as being attractive to the 50% of the country who are polling to pick Labor or the LNP.
Doug was in Parliament for 12 years (after politicking his way into the job of sitting Labor senator George Campbell), where were his big ideas back then? They could have helped Labor avoid getting annihilated because of Julia Gillard or got Shorten into the job of PM instead of losing an unlosable election because of the Adani convoy and the Franking credits that let Tim Wilson create a death tax scare campaign that dominated the campaign despite almost no-one knowing what the fuck a franking credit was.
@Asha at 8:06pm
Yeah, I feel in agreement with that. Albo seems to be doing the best with what he can from the shit sandwich that he got from ScoMo, while Richard “The Undertaker” Marles is soaking up the blame for what the Labor Right usually gets up to without too much of the stink passing up to the rest of the Cabinet.
I don’t like that Marles is doing, essentially taking up the role of Graham Richardson during the Hawke-Keating years while also being the deputy PM and then being the right-wing headkicker, at least what he’s doing can be attributed to himself personally rather than the whole of the party and can possibly be kept separate.
Hoping that Labor sees the light in their SA Senate preselections in that maybe it’d be best if Don Farrell just takes the option to retire and not bring in yet another uncomfortable diversion. If not, well, that’s all on them.
Halloween’s really only been a thing here since the turn of the century. I recall retailers did make an earlier unsuccessful push to promote it in the early 1990s.
When the Boomers were kids, we only knew about Halloween from American TV, along with Thanksgiving , July 4th, proms, homecoming, etc
LOTY
Some left wing agenda items being delivered by Labor:
systemic actions to decarbonize the economy (not necessarily left wing except that the right has adopted a totally obstructive approach to same.
NDIS
closing the gender pay gap
equal pay for equal work
2000 indigenous rangers looking after tens of millions of hectares of Indigenous Protected Areas
aged care reform to support the aged betterer
appointing women to senior positions
biggest housing investment in federal government history
huge improvements in paid parental leave
huge increases in childcare support
support for working from home flexibility
massive investments in mass transit
compulsory super
half the party room women
bulk billing
hundreds of free clinics, including specialist clinics for endometriosis
dirt cheap medicines
national strategy against domestic violence, plus huge funding for its implementation
free schooling to the end of secondary, equalization of payments to public and private school, cut in HECs debts
support for rising real wages, particularly the basic wage and particularly for workers in feminized industries.
support for unions
Organisers asked speakers to submit old photos
https://www.cpac.network/cpac-2026-speakers
God saved newcastle
Lettuce Liz going to give a lecture on how to ruin the economy in a week?