It’s not exactly news that the Tasmanian election will be held on March 20 – Premier David Bartlett has been making this clear for a year – but nonetheless, it has become an official fact this morning following Bartlett’s visit to the Governor. The most recent EMRS poll suggests his government is in serious trouble, with the most likely result being that the Greens will hold the balance of power. I will hopefully have a guide to the five five-member electorates up over the next week or so; Antony Green offers an overview of the Bass electorate, with the other four presumably to follow.
Category: Tasmanian Politics
Morgan phone poll: 54.5-45.5
Roy Morgan has published results from a small-sample phone poll showing Labor’s two-party lead at 54.5-45.5, compared with 53-47 at the previous such poll early last month. Morgan’s phone polls consistently give Labor lower ratings than its headline face-to-face polls. The poll was conducted on the back of a survey of 659 respondents to ascertain views on climate change, which found support for the government’s carbon emissions trading scheme down four points to 46 per cent and opposition up five points to 36 per cent.
To demonstrate that those who believe nothing happens over the silly season aren’t looking hard enough:
• The federal government’s much ballyhooed plan to reform regulation of political funding appears to have ended with a whimper. Whereas former Special Minister of State John Faulkner said last year the reforms would “definitely be in place before the next election”, his successor Joe Ludwig is refusing to make any commitments regarding the timing or content of any legislation. It was reported in October that the government and the opposition were close to agreeing on a package including limits on campaign spending and donations, increases in public funding to parties to cover the loss, and restriction of political advertising by third parties including unions and lobby groups. As part of the deal, the Coalition would drop its opposition to slashing the threshold for public disclosure of donations, which it voted down in the Senate last year with the support of Steve Fielding, and Labor would include union affiliation fees in a ban on donations from corporations, third parties and associated entities. The latter measure crucially met opposition from union leaders concerned it would reduce their influence. Furthermore, a leaked memo from Labor MP Michael Danby argued a move from private to public funding would be a bonanza for the Greens which they could use to target Labor-held inner-city seats. The scheme’s opponents have a handy weapon in the grave political difficulty involved in increasing public funding to political parties, which Danby argues would need to increase by a factor of 10 to keep them operating at their current level. In response to the obvious objection that the proposed package included spending caps, Danby argues that such mechanisms are untested and possibly unconstitutional.
• Meanwhile, Brian Robins of the Sydney Morning Herald reports NSW Electoral Commissioner Colin Barry has told a parliamentary committee that state legislation to introduce public funding was “close to unworkable”, making it very unlikely the measure will be introduced before the next election.
• Loretta Johnston of the Launceston Examiner reports that a decision by the Right faction not to challenge the Left over the succession to Duncan Kerr in the federal seat of Denison indicates a deal has been struck which will leave Bass clear for confirmed starter Geoff Lyons, a staffer to Right faction Senator Helen Polley and former manager at Launceston General Hospital. However, it’s also noted that the Prime Minister has been “tipped to take particular interest in the seat”, and will be able to direct the national executive to take action if a candidate he prefers comes forward. The report names state Bass candidate Michelle Cripps as a potential alternative if she does not win a seat in the state election. However, Danielle Blewett of The Examiner surprisingly offers that the Prime Minister has “made it clear he wanted a man to run for Bass after the recent distress experienced by incumbent Bass MHR Jodie Campbell”, according to “Labor sources”.
• Robert Taylor of The West Australian reports the Western Australian ALP is struggling to find a federal candidate for Cowan to replace Wanneroo mayor Jon Kelly, who stood aside a month ago because he was too closely linked to Brian Burke, as almost everybody in local politics suffers the same problem. Two names mentioned as possibilities are Karen Brown, former West Australian deputy editor, current chief-of-staff to Opposition Leader Eric Ripper and unsuccessful candidate for Mount Lawley at the 2008 state election, and Sam Roe, an “ALP staffer”.
• Contrary to earlier reports that they were pushed as much as jumped, Paul Toohey of The Daily Telegraph reports Fowler MP Julia Irwin and Throsby MP Jennie George were offered extra terms due to the Prime Minister’s determination to avoid factional conflicts over who would succeed them.
• The Camden Haven Courier reports there are three candidates for Nationals preselection in Lyne, which was won at a 2008 by-election by independent Rob Oakeshott after Mark Vaile’s retirement: Port Macquarie medical specialist David Gillespie, Taree legal practitioner Quentin Schneider and Port Macquarie electrical contractor Jamie Harrison.
• Antony Green lays out possible federal election dates, noting when double dissolution and half-Senate elections are due as well as the complicating factors of school holidays, long weekends and sporting events.
• The Australian Electoral Commission has published the final report for the Queensland federal redistribution, complete with individual maps for the redrawn seats.
• The Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters is conducting an inquiry in the New South Wales automatic enrolment scheme, legislation for which was enacted last month. The closing date for submissions is next Friday; the committee is schedule to report on February 25.
• Business SA has published a wish list of state constitutional and electoral reform. This includes two features the government hoped to put to an all-or-nothing referendum in conjunction with the next election: cutting upper house members’ terms from eight years to four, and introducing a double dissolution mechanism. Also recommended are the introduction of compulsory enrolment, which I actually thought had been done a couple of months ago; optional preferential voting (which has always seemed to me a no-brainer – but then has so has its logical corollary, optional voting); abolition of ticket votes in the upper house with a requirement that voters number only as many candidates as there are vacancies (which raises problems if that number is 22, as it would be if you abandoned eight-year terms); abolition of South Australia’s unusual mechanism to “save” informal lower house votes by deeming partially completed ballots to have followed the relevant party’s registered how-to-vote card (which would be logical, perhaps even necessary, if optional preferential voting was introduced); a strengthened “truth in advertising” clause (a cure worse than the disease, as Democratic Audit has noted – the government got it right when it made misleading advertising grounds for declaring a result void if it may have affected the result); and by-elections when sitting members resign from their party (not entirely sure what I think about this). Among the recommended reforms for parliament is appointing outsiders as Speaker and President.
• Hobart’s Taste food festival turned ugly just before new year, following what Matthew Denholm of The Australian calls a “heated arm-waving confrontation” between Elise Archer and Sue Hickey, respectively current and former state Liberal candidates for Denison. Two witnesses pointed the finger of blame firmly at Archer: festival director and unsuccessful Liberal preselection aspirant Marti Zucco, who subsequently quit the Liberal Party over parliamentary leader Will Hodgman’s failure to act against Archer, and Hobart deputy mayor and Greens candidate Helen Burnet. The latter was allegedly told by Archer’s husband, former state party president Dale Archer, to “f*** off” when she intervened on Hickey’s behalf. Hodgman ordered Archer to apologise to Hickey, which she did by email. At issue was whether there were too many lawyers in parliament: Hickey had argued there was, and Archer – a lawyer and, like Zucco, a Hobart alderman – expressed a strong view to the contrary. Matthew Denholm further notes that Archer is associated with the Right, whereas Hickey is a moderate. Various reports in the aftermath of the incident have focused on a rift in the party between moderates and the Right, with the latter evidently having gained ascendancy. Hickey had withdrawn as a candidate a fortnight previously as she did not wish for her business to forego government contracts, as required of parliamentarians by an onerous provision in the state constitution. She was replaced on the Liberal ticket by Richard Lowrie, a manager with Hobart catamaran manufacturers Incat.
• Further upsetting the previously smooth-travelling Tasmanian Liberal applecart is news that Franklin candidate Jillian Law – described by Sue Neales of The Mercury as “delightful Huon Valley Liberal candidate and grandmother” – received an email purportedly from a party insider which said Right powerbroker Senator Eric Abetz was “very, very angry” with her, and would “be doing what he can to see you are not elected”. The email also informed Law she was “offside” with Will Hodgman, the party’s sole member for Franklin, as she had been “running about the Huon Valley telling everyone he is second to you” in terms of local support.
• Peter van Onselen of The Australian reviews the 2010 electoral landscape.
Morgan: 56.5-43.5
Morgan seems to be back to reporting weekly face-to-face polling, at least for the time being: the latest survey of 1014 respondents has Labor down 1.5 per cent to 45 per cent and the Coalition down 2 per cent to 36.5 per cent, changing the two-party vote from 56-44 to 56.5-43.5. The Greens are up a point to 9 per cent, Family First two to 3 per cent.
Elsewhere:
• Previously believed bound for marginal Macarthur, Labor MP Chris Hayes has now been offered safe Fowler to compensate for Reid MP Laurie Ferguson’s accommodation in his existing seat of Werriwa. This is despite the fact that Ferguson wanted Fowler while Hayes preferred to remain in Werriwa, which was impossible because Fowler’s Right-controlled branches did not want Ferguson on their turf. The arrangement is a win for Julia Gillard and the “soft Left” over Anthony Albanese and the “hard Left”, which wanted Werriwa to go to Damien Ogden of the Liquor Hospitality and Miscellaneous Union. However, the drama may not be over yet: also out in the cold is Ed Husic of the Communications Electrial and Plumbing Union, whom the Right still wishes to accommodate. Phillip Coorey of the Sydney Morning Herald reports talk he might replace Roger Price in Chifley. Macarthur presumably available again to its candidate from 2007, Nick Bleasdale.
• Jennie George has announced she will retire at the next election, opening up a preselection contest in her seat of Throsby. A factional deal in place since 1997 has given Throsby to the hard Left and Fowler to the Right; Alex Arnold of the Illawarra Mercury reports the Left has everything in place to deliver the seat to Stephen Jones of the Community and Public Sector Union. The Mercury’s Brett Cox reports “no love lost between factions over the issue, with the Left accusing the Right of a behind the scenes campaign to oust Ms George and discredit Mr Jones’ links to the region”. Local Australian Workers Union branch secretary Andy Gillespie has labelled the Right dissidents “hypocrites”, as they had acquiesced in the imposition Lylea McMahon in the state seat of Shellharbour.
• The Liberal preselection for Bennelong looms as a contest between former tennis star John Alexander and Mark Chan, a 25-year-old manager for GE Capital whose Chinese background is being sold as an asset in the seat. Imre Salusinszky of The Australian reports the party has brought the preselection process forward so it can capitalise on Alexander’s exposure over summer as a tennis commentator. This would seem to suggest he is considered the front-runner.
• Saffron Howden of the Northern Star reports Pottsville pharmacist Tania Murdock is the “likely Nationals candidate” for Richmond. Tweed councillor Joan van Lieshout is considered a likely Liberal candidate.
• After a state and federal political career stretching back to 1965, Tasmanian Liberal MP Michael Hodgman has announced he will not contest the March state election due to ill health. Despite being 71 and suffering emphysema, Hodgman had remained on the six-person Liberal line-up for Denison when it was finalised last month. The party will now have to find a replacement candidate, and enter the election without a sitting member in the division. Among those who missed out at preselection was Hobart alderman and regular independent candidate Marti Zucco.
Morgan: 56-44
At last, a second poll to back the notion that Labor has taken a hit in recent weeks. The latest Roy Morgan face-to-face survey has Labor’s lead at 56-44: healthy enough in absolute terms, but down from 61-39 last week and 60.5-39.5 at the previous regular fortnightly survey. Labor is down 4.5 per cent on the primary vote while the Coalition is up 3.5 per cent (CORRECTION: up 6 per cent) to 38.5 per cent. The Greens are down 1.5 per cent to 8 per cent; not sure where the remainder went. The normal Morgan poll release is not available yet, but it can be assumed that this is based on last weekend’s polling of a sample of about 1000. The numbers can be seen on Morgan’s Poll Trends page. Thanks to sharp-eyed/well-informed readers for pointing this out.
UPDATE: Morgan’s poll release informs us that this is one of those occasions where Morgan also unloads a mid-week poll conducted on the back of an unrelated survey. This one has Labor’s lead at just 52-48 – but the sample is only 573. The sample size of the face-to-face poll turns out to have been 874.
UPDATE 2: Jamie Walker and Lenore Taylor of The Weekend Australian inform us of a Newspoll survey of 1847 voters conducted this week across six Queensland marginal seats: “the Brisbane-based Liberal seats of Bowman and Dickson, Labor-held Longman to the north of the capital, Flynn and Dawson in central Queensland, also with the ALP, and the Liberal electorate of Herbert, centred on Townsville”. What we really need here is a table, but between them the reports inform us that:
• Support for Labor “has lifted 2.9 per cent since Mr Rudd was elected two years ago, against 6.2 per cent Australia-wide”.
• Two-party support for Labor in Dawson in Flynn has increased almost 3 per cent since the election, despite hostility in those electorates towards emissions trading.
• Satisfaction with Kevin Rudd’s performance as Prime Minister ranged between 46 per cent in Flynn and 61 per cent in Herbert, and averaged 54 per cent.
• “Mr Turnbull’s best results were in Bowman, in Brisbane’s east, and Herbert, where he scored 38 per cent approval; his worst was 27 per cent in Longman, lost to Labor at the last election by former Howard government minister Mal Brough. Satisfaction with the Opposition Leader averaged out at 34 per cent.”
• Preferred prime minister reflected the national situation, with Rudd leading 63-22.
• Overall, “only 26 per cent of voters across the electorates like what (Rudd) is doing with Telstra, only 27 per cent think he is doing a good job with asylum-seekers and 56 per cent think he’s being too soft on them”; however, “sixty-one per cent of voters in the six electorates thought Labor was doing a good job in handling interest rates”.
Other news:
• The Mercury reports former state Labor MP Kathryn Hay has pulled out of her comeback bid in Bass citing health problems. However, her media statement has made a point of telling us she “did not rule out” standing for Labor again, prompting suggestions she might yet seek to replace Jodie Campbell in the federal seat. Alison Andrews of the Launceston Examiner says Hay’s exit “provides the opportunity for newly elected Launceston City Council alderman Rob Soward to rethink trying for state politics”, after he failed to win one of the six positions in the recent preselection vote. For what it’s worth, a commenter on the Mercury article said he had it “on very good authority that Lisa Singh is also looking to jump the sinking Bartlett ship with an eye on Duncan Kerr’s Federal Denison seat”.
• Peter van Onselen in The Australian reports that Labor’s preselection politburo wishes to install social worker Louise Durack as its candidate against Liberal front-bencher Michael Keenan in the Perth seat of Stirling, which has a notional margin of 1.3 per cent after minor redistribution adjustments. Durack failed to carry the highly marginal new seat of Ocean Reef at the September 2008 state election. Another aspirant, Balcatta Senior High School chairwoman Janet Pettigrew, is reportedly being pressured to withdraw.
• James Massola of the Canberra Times reports the ACT Greens are likely to preselect Sue Ellerman for Canberra and Indra Esguerra for Fraser on Monday, but the more interesting question of their Senate candidate will not be resolved for a few more weeks.
• George Megalogenis of The Australian observes that “safe Liberal electorates have borne the brunt of the Rudd government’s clampdown on family payments”. All of the 15 electorates identified as most heavily affected are Liberal seats, including Wentworth, Curtin, North Sydney and Warringah.
• Andrew Crook of Crikey reports the Prime Minister is weighing up whether to stick with Belinda Neal in Robertson or “install a political cleanskin untainted by the saga surrounding the notorious events at Iguana Joe’s”. The opinion of local branch members is unlikely to have much to do with it.
EMRS: 44-33 to Liberal in Tasmania
The latest EMRS survey of Tasmanian state voting intention finds the tide continuing to go out on David Bartlett’s Labor government: after distribution of the undecided, it has the Liberals up three points to 44 per cent on the previous survey in August, and Labor down two to 33 per cent. The Greens are steady on 21 per cent. Liberal leader Will Hodgman has widened the lead as preferred premier he first achieved over Bartlett at the previous poll, which is up from 37-30 to a commanding 40-28. Greens leader Nick McKim is up four points to 19 per cent.
Based on the electorate breakdowns (notwithstanding that these are extremely small samples), the poll points to a result of 2-2-1 in every electorate except Braddon, which would go 3-2 in favour of Liberal, for a total result of Liberal 11, Labor 10 and Greens four.
Morgan: 60.5-39.5
The latest fortnightly Roy Morgan face-to-face survey finds Labor maintaining the remarkable upward trend it has recorded across recent polling: its primary vote is up 2.5 per cent to 52 per cent, the Coalition’s is up 0.5 per cent to 34.5 per cent, while the Greens, Family First and independent/others are all down. On two-party preferred, Labor’s lead has edged up from 60-40 to 60.5-39.5. The pattern is further demonstrated by the latest Reuters Poll Trend aggregate, which finds Labor’s two-party lead has crept steadily upwards since June, and has now increased to 59.0-41.0 from 58.0-42.0 a month ago. George Megalogenis of The Australian offers an exquisitely simple hypothesis: “the women swing first, then the men”. This was apparently the pattern when the current governments in New South Wales, Victoria and South Australia were elected (I suggest One Nation complicated the picture in Queensland and Western Australia), and it gives every appearance of playing out at present federally. However, there is the curious exception of men under 35, many of whom seem to have abandoned Labor since the onset of the financial crisis.
Other news:
• Phillip Coorey of the Sydney Morning Herald reports Julia Gillard is “working behind the scenes” to save the career of Laurie Ferguson, a fellow member of the “soft Left” faction who backed the Rudd/Gillard coup against Kim Beazley in December 2006. Ferguson has been left high-and-dry by the effective abolition of his western Sydney seat of Reid, the redrawn seat of that name being the effective successor to its abolished neighbour Lowe. However, Ferguson’s efforts to find a new home are being resisted by the “hard Left” faction of Anthony Albanese. Coorey reports Ferguson believes he has the numbers to win a local preselection vote in Fowler, to be vacated with the retirement of Julia Irwin, but it seems at least as likely that this and other contentious seats will be filled by the decree of Kevin Rudd and the panel of factional leaders which was empowered to make final determinations through a recent change to the party constitution. VexNews intimates that if denied, Ferguson might look at “obtaining support for a potentially expensive and spectacular legal challenge”.
• Paul Sheehan of the Sydney Morning Herald had an interesting piece last week on the Liberal preselection for Cook ahead of the last federal election, which saw the dumping of the initially victorious Michael Towke and his eventual substitution with Scott Morrison. Towke’s Right faction lost the PR battle at the time (as my own electorate profile attests), but as Sheehan tells it, talk that Towke had fudged his CV had little or no foundation in fact. Rather, he was a victim of “a view among some senior Liberals” – evidently including John Howard – that “a Lebanese Australian could not win Cook in a tight election”. It will be recalled that the expanse of southern Sydney covered by the electorate includes Cronulla. Sheehan also relates that the Daily Telegraph’s reporting of Towke’s preselection led to a defamation action which was settled out-of-court with a payment of $50,000.
• Peter Caton of the Tweed Daily News reports the Nationals are struggling to find candidates to run against Labor incumbents Justine Elliot, in the one-time party stronghold of Richmond, and Janelle Saffin, in its marginal neighbour Page. The only known candidate for the latter is Kevin Hogan, who according to The Northern Star “runs his own finance business from his Clunes cattle farm”.
• Pat Farmer, the Liberal member for Macarthur, has as expected been soundly defeated for preselection by Russell Matheson, a police sergeant and former mayor of Campbelltown. The margin was 22 votes to nine.
• Rick Wallace of The Australian reports the Victorian ALP will follow the footsteps of the NSW Nationals by choosing a state election candidate through a US-style primary. Whereas the Nationals are still to decide which seat in which to conduct their experiment, Labor has earmarked the Liberal-held marginal of Kilsyth. The decision stems from a cross-factional committee report which also recommends reinvigorating the party organisation by slashing membership fees.
• VexNews reports that Louise Staley, who has previously sought federal preselection for Wannon and Menzies, is now hoping for a state berth in the country seat of Ripon, which Labor’s Joe Helper holds on a margin of 4.4 per cent. Staley is a former state party vice-president and Institute of Public Affairs agriculture policy expert. Also said to have nominated are “John van Beveren, a local winery owner and education professor and Vic Dunn, the local inspector at Maryborough”.
• The Australian Review of Public Affairs has published my review article on Australia: The State of Democracy, written by Marian Sawer, Norman Abjorensen and Phil Larkin through the auspices of the Democratic Audit of Australia and published by The Federation Press.
Plenty happening in Tasmania:
• Labor’s troubled first-term member for Bass, Jodie Campbell, has confirmed she will not contest the next election. Geoff Lyons, a staffer to Senator Helen Polley, has been mentioned as a possible successor, which would see the seat’s factional alignment transfer from Left to Right. The Liberals have preselected Steve Titmus, a former television news reader and PR consultant for Gunns Ltd. The winner will be the seat’s sixth member in less than two decades. UPDATE: The Launceston Examiner reports that the new candidate is likely to be determined by prime ministerial fiat “after the dust settles”, and that there is a second potential candidate in Winnaleah District High School principal Brian Wightman, who is currently pencilled in as one of six candidates for the Bass state election ticket.
• Terry Martin, independent member for the northern Hobart upper house division of Elwick, faces criminal charges which regardless of their merits are politically lethal by nature. Martin was elected as a Labor member in 2004, but was expelled by the party in March 2007 after crossing the floor to vote against the government’s fast-tracking of the proposed Tamar Valley pulp mill. He is due to face re-election at the next round of periodical elections in May; a by-election need not be held if the seat is vacated after January 1.
• Sue Neales of The Mercury reports the Liberals have finalised their state election ticket for Denison, adding “renewable energy lawyer Matthew Groom, businesswoman and former Miss Tasmania Sue Hickey, and high-profile school parents advocate and Glenorchy councillor Jenny Branch” to the already announced Michael Hodgman (the sole incumbent), Elise Archer and Matt Stevenson.
• Tasmanian government legislation for fixed terms has been referred to a committee, scuppering any chance of it being passed in the week remaining before a recess that will last until the election. Premier David Bartlett nonetheless swears that the election will be held on March 20, again locking the psephological community into the headache of simultaneous elections in South Australia and Tasmania.
Elsewhere on the site, note that it’s all happening on the Willagee by-election thread, while things are ticking over more slowly yet still surely on the Bradfield and Higgins threads. Observe also the New South Wales Newspoll post immediately below.
Newspoll: 59-41
The third Newspoll in consecutive weeks is another disaster for the Coalition, showing Labor’s lead widening still further despite the government’s recent discomfort over boat arrivals. Labor is now ahead 59-41 on two-party preferred, compared with 58-42 at both last week’s unusual poll and last fortnight’s usual one. Kevin Rudd’s preferred prime minister rating is down two points to 65 per cent while Malcolm Turnbull’s is up one to 19 per cent. UPDATE: Graphic here: interestingly, 4 per cent has marched from satisfied with Kevin Rudd to dissatisfied, but Malcolm Turnbull’s disapproval rating is up six points as well. Labor leads 48 per cent to 34 per cent on the primary vote.
Elsewhere:
• Labor’s lead is steady at 58-42 according to the latest weekly Essential Research survey, which seems to be more closely resembling Newspoll than it used to. There are also various questions on the parties’ approaches to the global financial crisis and the rise in interest rates.
• Sue Neales of The Mercury reports Matthew Groom, son of former Premier Ray Groom, has nominated for Liberal preselection in the state lower house division of Denison. Neales suggests the “corporate lawyer with Tasmanian state-owned wind power company Roaring 40s” is likely to win a spot on the ticket when the party finalises preselection on Monday, which it earlier deferred because party leaders were “concerned by a lack of high-profile talent” (UPDATE: Kevin Bonham clarifies the situation in comments: Elise Archer, Michael Hodgman and Matt Stevenson were preselected in March, and the remainder of the ticket is to be finalised on Monday). Others reportedly seeking preselection are veteran incumbent Michael Hodgman, who is 70 years old and battling ill health which recently forced him to relinquish the Shadow Attorney-General position; Jenny Branch, a Glenorchy alderman who polled strongly as an independent against Treasurer Michael Aird in his upper house seat of Derwent in April; and Elise Archer, a Hobart alderman. Another Hobart alderman, regular independent candidate Marti Zucco, has been mentioned as a starter, but appears to face powerful opposition in the Liberal organisation. The result in Denison at the 2006 election was Labor three, Liberal one and Greens one; Peter Tucker at Tasmanian Politics rates the Liberals a solid chance of taking a second seat, possibly at the expense of accident-prone Labor incumbent Graeme Sturges.
• The Queensland Greens have preselected their unsuccessful Senate candidate from 2007, Larissa Waters, to head their ticket at the next election. Waters prevailed in a three-way contest over Jenny Stirling and Libby Connors, party activists and frequent candidates respectively based in Townsville and Toowoomba.
• Republished courtesy of Peter Brent at Mumble, Malcolm Mackerras in the Canberra Times lambasts Peter Dutton and his supporters over his reluctance to stand and fight in Dickson, and confidently predicts he will now not only contest the seat but win it.
Essential Research: 59-41
The latest Essential Research survey has Labor’s two-party lead at 59-41, up from 58-42 last week. Also featured are approval ratings for the Prime Minister and Opposition Leader (both up solidly from six weeks ago), respondents’ self-perceptions of their employment and salary outlooks, Kim Beazley’s appointment as ambassador to the United States (54 per cent approve, 18 per cent disapprove) and Brendan Nelson’s appointment as ambassador to the European Union, Belgium and Luxembourg (49 per cent approve, 22 per cent disapprove).
Also:
• Newspoll has published its quarterly geographic and demographic analysis breakdown of federal polling results. Possum notes it shows up an intriguing divergence between city and country, which he says “could well be explained by the Coalition line on the ETS”. I might suggest that the largely forgotten Gippsland by-election of last June offered a premonition of this.
• About 200 local Liberal National Party members will vote for a candidate to succeed the outgoing Margaret May in the Gold Coast seat of McPherson on Saturday. Noses have been put out of the joint by the fact that the position was advertised on Thursday, one day before the closure of nominations, which has been universally interpreted as an attempt to assist Peter Dutton in his bid to move to the seat from notionally Labor Dickson. Glenn Milne in The Australian reports that May urged Dutton to nominate for the seat, somewhat deflating the notion that federal divisional council chair Karen Andrews might benefit from being her reported ally. Another of Dutton’s three preselection rivals is Minna Knight, a former staffer to Joe Hockey and Julie Bishop. Milne says Knight has the backing of state Currumbin MP Jann Stuckey, whose husband Richard Stuckey withdrew from the race last week. Rounding out the field is Wayne Black, of whom nothing seems to be known. Despite earlier reports, twice-unsuccessful state Burleigh candidate Michael Hart has not nominated. Tanya Westthorp of the Gold Coast Bulletin reports local members are “threatening to revolt” if the state executive overturns the result of their ballot, as seems likely if Dutton doesn’t win. Andrew Fraser of The Australian notes the local party’s history of rebuffing imported candidates with reference to the 1998 preselection, when former Brisbane lord mayor Sallyanne Atkinson finished sixth in a field of 23.
• The ABC reports that Queensland’s conservatives will soon reach a decision as to whether their federal election candidates will stand as Liberals and Nationals, Liberal Nationals, or the “LNP”.
• AAP reports speculation that Jodie Campbell, federal Labor member for the ultra-marginal Tasmanian seat of Bass, might not contest the next election. Campbell has been in the news recently after her partner was charged with assaulting her, and two of her staff members abruptly and mysteriously resigned. The AAP report notes she “has been moved from her much-televised seat in parliament behind the prime minister”. Geoff Lyons, electorate officer to Senator Helen Polley and an unsuccessful state candidate from 2002, is mentioned as a possible replacement.
• Michelle Grattan reports in The Age that former tennis star John Alexander, who made the final six in Saturday’s Bradfield preselection, is “volunteering” to take on Maxine McKew in Bennelong. Others who have been mentioned in the past are Melanie Howard and former state MPs Kerry Chikarovski and Andrew Tink, all of whom have been ruled out, and former rugby union international Brett Papworth.
• Phillip Coorey of the Sydney Morning Herald reports Pfizer executive David Miles will challenge Bill Heffernan for the second position on the New South Wales Liberal Senate ticket. Incumbent Connie Fierravanti-Wells is expected to hold the top position. The third will depend on whether the state Liberal and Nationals can smooth over tensions and reach their usual joint ticket arrangement, in which Nationals Senator Fiona Nash would take the third position.
• Phillip Coorey also reports it is “rumoured” that Noel McCoy has nominated for preselection against Philip Ruddock in Berowra, despite announcing in late July that he would not do so.
• Sue Neales of The Mercury reports Tony Mulder, police commander and Clarence council alderman, has emerged a surprise winner for Liberal preselection in the state division of Franklin. The Liberals are considered all but certain to increase their representation in the five-seat division from one seat to two at the election next March, with incumbent and party leader Will Hodgman assured of re-election. The party hierarchy is apparently keen that the second seat be won by Jacquie Petrusma, who was Family First’s Senate candidate in 2004 and 2007 and came close to winning a seat on the former occasion at the expense of Christine Milne of the Greens. Also on the ticket are Clarence City Council building inspector David Compton and Huon Valley small business owner Jillian Law. Vanessa Goodwin was earlier considered to be in the box seat, but she has since found a place in the upper house after winning the Pembroke by-election on August 1.
• In a short but eventful article, Imre Salusinszky of The Australian reports that Mark Sheridan, neurosurgeon and director of surgical services at Liverpool Hospital, has nominated for Liberal preselection in the outer-southwest Sydney state seat of Menai, held by Labor’s Alison Megarrity on a margin of 2.6 per cent. It is also “understood” that National Rugby League chief operating officer Graham Annesley has again nominated for Miranda in southern Sydney, where he fell 0.8 per cent short of defeating Barry Collier in 2007; that Hawkesbury mayor Bart Bassett has again nominated for the north-west Sydney seat of Londonderry, where Labor’s Allan Shearan defeated him by 6.9 per cent in 2007; and Randwick mayor Bruce Notley-Smith has nominated for the inner eastern Sydney seat of Coogee, held for Labor by Paul Pearce on a margin of 7.3 per cent.
• Ben Raue at The Tally Room is constructing what promises to be a superbly comprehensive guide to the federal election post by post.
• Keep following the action at my regularly updated posts on the Bradfield federal by-election and Willagee state by-election in Western Australia.