Morgan: 57.5-42.5

The latest Morgan face-to-face survey (the accompanying spiel says telephone, but I believe this is a mistake) was conducted over the previous two weekends, and it shows no change worth mentioning on two-party preferred, with Labor’s lead down from 58-42 to 57.5-42.5. Both major parties have gained on the primary vote, Labor up 1.5 per cent to 48 per cent and the Coalition up 2.5 per cent to 37.5 per cent. These gains are at the expense of the Greens, down from 11.5 per cent to 8 per cent. Other news:

• The numbers in Western Australia’s finely balanced Legislative Assembly have changed for the second time in as many months following North West MP Vince Catania’s shock defection from Labor to the Nationals. Labor now has 26 seats out of 59 after the double blow of the Catania defection and the Fremantle by-election, while the Nationals are up from four to five – the same as they had in the last parliament, before one-vote one-value was introduced (at which time they had one member in the upper house, compared with their current five). The Liberals remain on 24, with the Greens on one and three independents. The influence of the latter has accordingly diminished, as the governing parties are now only one short of a majority in their own right. Catania’s defection has inevitably been interpreted as a blow for Labor leader Eric Ripper and another triumph for all-conquering Nationals leader Brendon Grylls. Against the latter interpretation must be weighed the fact that the Nationals have chosen to associate themselves with a man responsible for one of the most grotesque acts of disloyalty in Australia’s recent political history.

• The big loser from the proposed Queensland federal electoral boundaries published yesterday is up-and-coming Liberal MP Peter Dutton, whose electorate of Dickson is set to exchange urban hinterland areas for a Labor-voting chunk of suburbia around Kallangur. Antony Green, who writes at length on the curse of Dickson, calculates that Dutton’s existing margin of 0.1 per cent has turned into a notional Labor margin of 1.3 per cent. Peter Lindsay’s Townsville-based seat of Herbert has also crossed the divide, from 0.2 per cent Liberal to 0.4 per cent Labor. The Courier-Mail reports that one early hopeful for the new Gold Coast hinterland seat slated to be called Wright (although AAP reports the name might suffer the same fate as it did the last time it was suggested) is Logan councillor Hajnal Ban, who attracted a fair bit of attention as the Nationals candidate for Forde in 2007 and now hopes to get the nod from the Liberal National Party. Ban was more recently in the news when it emerged she had undergone an alarming sounding surgical procedure to increase the length of her legs.

• Former Peter Costello staffer Kelly O’Dwyer now looks all but certain to replace her old boss as Liberal candidate for Higgins after the withdrawal of her main rival, Tim Wilson. Rick Wallace of The Australian reports that Wilson “is believed to have pulled out to maintain his focus on advocacy in free trade and climate change through the IPA”. Nominations close next week.

Phillip Coorey of the Sydney Morning Herald reports Philip Ruddock is “almost certain to be challenged for preselection for his safe seat of Berowra”. His likely challenger is former Young Liberals president Noel McCoy, with the local numbers believed to be evenly poised. Another source quoted by Coorey says McCoy might challenge Bill Heffernan’s Senate position if unsuccessful in Berowra. The Herald’s Mark Davis reports Heffernan’s position is in jeopardy in any case as he has earned the displeasure of the leadership of the “religious right”.

• Phillip Coorey further provides a list of possible candidates to replace Brendan Nelson in Bradfield in addition to the oft-mentioned Arthur Sinodinos and Tom Switzer: Julian Leeser, Paul Fletcher and David Coleman.

• The West Australian reports that Tangney MP Dennis Jensen’s pleas to today’s Liberal Party state council meeting for his preselection defeat by Glenn Piggott to be overturned “will fall on deaf ears”, and that he is likely to run as an independent. UPDATE: The West Australian reports that the state council has in fact decided to hear submissions from each of the three candidates (which interestingly keeps Libby Lyons in the loop) over the coming weeks before reaching a final decision.

Michael Owen of The Australian reports that Mia Handshin, Labor’s narrowly unsuccessful candidate for the Adelaide seat of Sturt at the 2007 federal election, is a shoo-in to contest the seat again if she wishes to do so, having locked in the support of Senator and Right faction powerbroker Don Farrell. Handshin says she is “still very carefully considering”. The front-runner for Labor preselection in Boothby is Annabel Digance, a former nurse and member of the SA Water Board.

• Labor’s member for Ivanhoe in Victoria, Craig Langdon, has been defeated for preselection by Anthony Carbines, Banyule councillor, chief-of-staff to Education Minister Bronwyn Pike and step-son of upper house MP Elaine Carbines. Langdon apparently finished one vote behind his Labor Unity colleague after the votes of the party’s Public Office Selection Committee were added to those from local branches, the latter of which I’m told favoured Langdon 71 votes to 46.

• Following the blunt dismissal of a rape charge against him in Melbourne Magistrates Court, it remains unclear if Victorian Labor MP Theo Theophanous will seek to retain preselection for his upper house region of Northern Metropolitan. Not surprisingly, The Age reports that “senior party figures – including supporters of Mr Theophanous – hope he decides to quit politics and give Mr Brumby ‘clear air’ in the lead-up to next year’s election”. Nonetheless, Theophanous has re-nominated for his position. Rick Wallace of The Australian reports that the fight to replace Theophanous is between “forces aligned with federal Communications Minister Stephen Conroy, who want Treasury official Vasko Nastevski, and those aligned with federal parliamentary secretary Bill Shorten, who want plumbers’ union official Nathan Murphy”.

• Wallace further reports that John Brumby is moving to protect Eastern Metropolitan MLC Shaun Leane from Electrical Trades Union assistant secretary Howard Worthing. Worthing’s challenge is said to be supported by ETU secretary Dean Mighell, who was expelled from the ALP after emerging as a political liability in the lead-up to the 2007 federal election, along with a “small pocket of the Right”.

• Imre Salusinszky of The Australian reports that federal Liberal Hume MP Alby Schultz has “lost the battle to convince his party to field a candidate in the southeast NSW state seat of Monaro”. This follows an agreement to avoid three-cornered contests which the Liberals’ state executive signed off on last Friday, which also gives the Nationals free rein in the independent-held seats of Tamworth and Dubbo and Labor-held Bathurst. For their part, the Liberals will contest Water Minister Phil Costa’s marginal outer Sydney seat of Wollondilly and get the ninth position on the upper house ticket, which looks highly winnable on current form. The decision by the party’s state council to refer the matter to the executive was behind Schultz’s party-room altercation with Aston MP Chris Pearce.

UPDATE: CityBlue in comments notes that Jane Garrett has won the Labor preselection in Brunswick, as expected, and that Christine Campbell fended off a challenge from Joe Italiano in Pascoe Vale.

Essential Research: 56-44

The latest weekly Essential Research survey has Labor’s two-party lead down from 57-43 to 56-44. Also featured are questions on carbon emission targets (evenly divided between 80 per cent by 2050 and 60 per cent), the state of the economy in face of the global slowdown (worst believed to be over), whether Australian companies “should accept the laws and justice systems of those countries even if they are very different from our own” (yes), the government’s handling of the Stern Hu issue (somewhat favourable), whether the Prime Minister’s experience with China will help govenrment in dealing with the issue (no), and the ban on climbing Uluru (opposed). Elsewhere:

• Put a mark around Friday in your diaries as the day the Australian Electoral Commission is due to publish proposed boundaries for the federal redistribution in Queensland, which is gaining a thirtieth seat.

• Dennis Jensen, the Liberal member for Tangney, has been defeated in the local preselection vote by Glenn Piggott, from a field that also included Alcoa government relations manager Libby Lyons. The West Australian reports that Piggott won on the first round with the support of 20 branch delegates against 10 for Jensen and eight for “spoiler candidate” Libby Lyons (who unlike Piggott lives not locally but in the western suburbs, having earlier tried her hand at the state preselection for Nedlands). There is still the possibility that the result will be overturned by the party’s State Council on Saturday, as it was before the 2007 election when Jensen was initially defeated by Matt Brown. However, The West Australian report baldly states that Jensen “appears certain to lose his seat”. The only facts that gan be gleaned about Piggott from this remove is that he is a 52-year-old finance manager with Toyota.

• Another weekend preselection challenge proved to be a non-event when AMWU official and Geelong councillor Andy Richards withdrew from his tilt against Maria Vamvakinou in the safe Labor Melbourne seat of Calwell. Richards has attracted his fair share of critics: AMWU colleague Ian Jones launched a colourful spray quoted at length in The Australian, describing him as “dead wood” and “unsuitable for public office”, while federal MP Darren Cheeseman (whose electorate of Corangamite partly coincides with his council turf) made no effort to spare Richards’ feelings in a letter to Calwell preselectors. Beyond that, one can surmise that Richards’ withdrawal was influenced by peace deals between rival sub-factions of the Right, one of which was threatening to back Richards in defiance of a “stability pact” protecting the candidates of Left powerbroker Senator Kim Carr, among them Vamvakinou. Andrew Landeryou at vexNews reported last week that two state preselection challenges had been shelved under similar circumstances: Darebin councillor Tim Laurence dropped his bid to topple incumbent Steve Herbert in Eltham, and Fiona Richardson was spared a seemingly derisory challenge in Northcote from Kathleen Matthews-Ward, a Moreland councillor reportedly associated with the Right faction Shop Distributive and Allied Employees Association.

Andrew Landeryou also reports that the state Liberal member for Sandringham, Murray Thompson, faces a preselection challenge from Margaret Fitzherbert. They are respectively said to be associated with the Peter Costello and Ted Baillieu factions.

• The Maribyrnong Leader reports youth worker Les Twentyman, who contested last year’s contentious Kororoit by-election, denies reports he will run against Labor member Marsha Thomson in Footscray, but says he will “look at” the possibility of running in an unspecified electorate if his health improves (he is “still recovering from surgery complications which threatened his life”).

• In case you missed it, George Megalogenis of The Australian provided the authoritative word last week on what an increased Labor majority at the next election might look like. Money quote:

Of the top 50 seats for tradesmen, 23 are marginal: 14 Liberal and nine Labor. A number of blue-collar Liberal seats proved hard to shift at the 2007 election, including Bowman and Herbert in Queensland, McEwen and La Trobe in Victoria and Macarthur and Paterson in NSW. All but Paterson had been solid Labor seats in the 1980s, swung to the Coalition in the 1990s because of the fallout from the last recession, and remained rusted on to the Howard government throughout the nation’s longest boom.

• I’ve added a thorough update to my ongoing post on Tasmania’s Pembroke upper house by-election.

• Another entry to the to-do list: a South Australian government proposal to reform the upper house through an end to staggered eight-year terms and a populist cut in numbers to below the point of effectiveness. This could be put to the voters at a referendum coinciding with the state election next March. However, legislation initiating the referendum will first have to pass the upper house itself.

Reuters Poll Trend: 55.8-44.2

The latest Reuters Poll Trend weighted average of Newspoll, Morgan and ACNielsen results has federal Labor with a two-party lead of 55.8-44.2, presumably being weighed down a little by recent results from before the weekend.

UPDATE: Roy Morgan has joined in on the action with a small sample (546) phone poll including questions on leadership approval, which Morgan doesn’t normally do. It finds Malcolm Turnbull’s approval rating down to 25 per cent from 43 per cent in May, with his disapproval up a breathtaking 33.5 per cent to 62.5 per cent. Kevin Rudd’s approval rating on 63 per cent, up from 57.5 per cent in May, with his disapproval rating down from 33.5 per cent to 29 per cent. Labor holds leads of 56-44 on two-party preferred and 46 per cent to 39 per cent on the primary vote, which is actually quite mild by Morgan standards. Newspoll has also published its quarterly geographic and demographic breakdowns of recent polling by state, age, sex, and capitals/non-capitals.

Apart from that:

• Robert Taylor of The West Australian reports that Labor preselections for some highly winnable Liberal-held seats in Perth appear to be ”stitched up”. In the only two seats in the country which the Coalition gained from Labor in 2007, Cowan and Swan, those respectively named are Wanneroo mayor Jon Kelly and Slater & Gordon lawyer Tim Hammond. Kelly is interesting, as he ran as an independent against state Labor MP Margaret Quirk in Girrawheen at the 2005 election after a split in the Right faction. In Stirling, where decorated Iraq war veteran Peter Tinley failed to unseat current Shadow Workplace Relations Minister Michael Keenan in 2007, the nod is apparently set to be given to Karen Brown, former deputy editor of The West Australian and current chief-of-staff to Eric Ripper. Brown famously failed to win the new notionally Labor seat of Mount Lawley at the state election last September after suffering an 8 per cent swing, which many blamed on Alan Carpenter’s insistence that local member Bob Kucera make way for Brown. Peter Tinley is said to be holding out for a safe seat or a Senate position, and the unlikelihood of either suggests he will not be a starter at the next election. In Hasluck, which Sharryn Jackson recovered for Labor in 2007 after a term in the wilderness, Liberals are said by Taylor to be “working behind the scenes” to secure the endorsement of Mike Dean, who last week stepped down from his high-profile position as president of the Police Union.

• The ABC reports that Kathryn Hay will seek Labor preselection for Bass at next year’s state election. Hay is a former Miss Tasmania who became Tasmania’s first Aboriginal MP when elected at the age of 27 in 2002. After surprising everybody by dropping out at the 2006 election, Hay ran as an independent against Ivan Dean in the upper house seat of Windermere in May, and did very well to finish within 5 per cent of victory on the final count. With incumbent Jim Cox retiring, Michelle O’Byrne a sure bet for re-election, and Labor looking certain to win a second seat but very unlikely to pick up a third, the battle for the second seat is looking like a tussle between Hay, Beaconsfield mine disaster survivor Brant Webb, CFMEU forests division secretary Scott McLean (who famously came out in support of John Howard at the 2004 federal election) and Winnaleah school principal Brian Wightman, with only the latter looking an obvious also-ran.

Rick Wallace of The Australian reports that George Seitz, western Melbourne Labor Right potentate and state Keilor MP, proposes to publish a “warts and all” account of his career in politics. Seitz is being forced out after nearly three decades in parliament due to a Victorian Ombudsman’s report which probed into the involvement of various state MPs in goings-on at Brimbank City Council. The aforementioned Wallace article is worth reading for a broader overview of the episode’s far-reaching impact on the Victorian ALP.

Andrew Landeryou at VexNews reports that the closure of nominations has brought no challenges to sitting federal Liberal MPs in Victoria – including Kevin Andrews in Menzies, who was believed to be under threat from former Peter Reith staffer Ian Hanke.

Nick in comments informs us that according to a Channel Nine news report, Labor polling has it trailing the Coalition 57-43 on NSW state voting intention.

Newspoll: 56-44 to Labor in Victoria

The latest bi-monthly Victorian Newspoll shows the state Labor government losing some of the support it attracted in the wake of the February bushfires, while still retaining a commanding lead. The two-party figure May-June is 56-44, down from an unsustainable 60-40 in January-February (evidently there was no poll in the interim). John Brumby’s approval rating is down four points to 48 per cent while his disapproval is up six to 37 per cent, but Ted Baillieu is also down four to 33 per cent and up three to 42 per cent. Brumby retains a lead over Baillieu of 54 per cent to 21 per cent as preferred premier.

Newspoll 56-44; ACNielsen 58-42; Galaxy 56-44

An unprecedented triple whammy of opinion polls is disastrous enough for the Coalition to lend force to Dennis Shanahan‘s assertion that “Malcolm Turnbull’s political career has been smashed in just one week”. In turn:

• Arriving a day earlier than usual, Newspoll shows that the Coalition recovery detected a fortnight ago has come to a sudden end, with Labor’s lead back out from 53-47 to 56-44. The parties have also exchanged three points on the primary vote, Labor up to 44 per cent and the Coalition down to 37 per cent. However, the real shock is that Turnbull’s personal ratings have suffered what Shanahan calls “the single biggest fall in the survey’s 25-year history”: his approval rating has plunged from 44 per cent to 25 per cent, while his disapproval is up from 37 per cent to 58 per cent. Fifty-two per cent do not believe that John Grant received preferential treatment from the Prime Minister against only 24 per cent who do. Kevin Rudd’s lead as preferred prime minister is up from 57-25 to 65-18.

ACNielsen, which is hopefully back to monthly polling as we enter the second half of the term, has Labor’s two-party lead up from 53-47 to 58-42. Labor’s primary vote is up two points to 46 per cent while the Coalition’s is down six to 37 per cent. Fifty-three per cent say the OzCar affair has left them with a less favourable impression of Malcolm Turnbull, whose approval is down 11 points to 32 per cent with his disapproval has shot up 13 points to 60 per cent. Turnbull comes third as preferred Liberal leader with 18 per cent, behind Peter Costello on 37 per cent and Joe Hockey on 21 per cent. Rudd’s lead as preferred prime minister is up from 64-28 to 66-25, and his approval rating is up three points to 67 per cent.

Galaxy has Labor’s primary vote up a point to 44 per cent and the Coalition’s down two to 30 per cent. Sixty-one per cent believe Kevin Rudd has been open and honest about the OzCar affair, while 51 per cent “believed Mr Turnbull had been dishonest or somewhat deceitful”.

Once again, Victoria dominates the latest round of electoral news:

• The Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters has tabled two major reports which I haven’t got round to sinking my teeth into: the regular conduct of the federal election report, and that into the Commwealth Electoral (Above-the-Line Voting) Amendment Bill 2008.

Rick Wallace of The Australian reports that complicated quarreling in the Victorian ALP has thrown up “rogue challengers” against at least ten state MPs. Keilor MP George Seitz, who faces enforced retirement in the wake of the Victorian Ombudsman’s report into Brimbank City Council, is said to be largely reponsible: Andrew Landeryou at VexNews identifies his state nominees as Tomislav Tomic (against Bundoora MP Colin Brooks), Seeralan Arumugam Gunaratnam (Carrum MP Jenny Lindell), Raymond Congreve (Lara MP John Eren), Rosa Mitrevski (Mill Park MP Lily D’Ambrosio), Philip Cassar (Mordialloc MP Janice Munt), Teodoro Tuason (Narre Warren North MP Luke Donnellan), Teresa Kiselis and Mate Barun (both taking on Northcote MP Fiona Richardson), Josefina Agustin (Prahran MP Tony Lupton), and Blagoja Bozinovski (Thomastown MP Peter Batchelor). For good measure, Seitz candidate Manfred Kriechbaum is taking on federal MP Maria Vamvakinou in Calwell. Other challengers are explained by Wallace in terms the “stability pact” forged between the Left and the Right forces associated with Bill Shorten and Steven Conroy, and counter-moves by rival Right unions seeking to forge ties with some of the more militant unions of the Left. This presumably accounts for Australian Manufacturing Workers Union candidate Andrew Richards joining the aforementioned Kriechbaum in a three-horse race against Vamvakinou in Calwell, Lisa Zanatta of the Construction Mining Forestry and Energy Union challenging Lynne Kosky in Altona, and Kathleen Matthews-Ward of the Shop Distributive and Allied Employees Association joining the Seitz challengers to Fiona Richardson in Northcote. The option of referring preselections to the party’s national executive remains available to John Brumby, who must be sorely tempted.

• Other challenges appear more obscure. A third Labor Unity candidate, Rick Garotti, is listed as a nominee against incumbent Craig Langdon in Ivanoe, in addition to the previously discussed Anthony Carbines. In Preston, Labor Unity MP Robin Scott is being challenged by Moreland councillor Anthony Helou (once of the Socialist Left, but more recently of Labor Unity) and Tamer Kairouz, said by Landeryou to be backed by upper house MP Nazih Elasmar, a principal of a Right sub-faction also linked with Theo Theophanous (not sure if any relation to Kororoit MP Marlene Kairouz). Two Socialist Left members are under challenge from factional colleagues, which Andrew Landeryou suggests can be put down to dealings between the Construction Forestry Mining and Energy Union and unions on the Right: Yuroke MP Liz Beattie faces a challenge from Colleen Gibbs, an official with the Australian Manufacturing Workers Union, while Darebin councillor Timothy Laurence has nominated against Steve Herbert in Eltham. Andrew Lappos, who in the past has been associated with the Left, is listed as a challenger to the Right’s Telmo Languiller in Derrimut, but it was reported last week that Languiller’s preselection had been secured by the national executive.

• The preselection contest for Brunswick has taken on new significance with the news that Phil Cleary will contest the seat as an independent. Cleary defeated the Labor candidate in the federal seat of Wills in the 1992 by-election that followed Bob Hawke’s retirement and was narrowly re-elected in 1993, before losing to Labor’s Kelvin Thomson in 1996. He has more recently worked for the Electrical Trades Union, which under the leadership of Dean Mighell has disaffiliated with the ALP and given support to the Greens. Three candidates are listed for Labor preselection, each a colleague of outgoing member Carlo Carli in the Socialist Left: Jane Garrett, Slater and Gordon lawyer and former adviser to Steve Bracks; Enver Erdogan, 23-year-old Moreland councillor and staffer to House of Represenatatives Speaker Harry Jenkins, said to be aligned with the Kim Carr sub-faction; and Alice Pryor, also a Moreland councillor, aligned with the rival Left sub-faction associated with federal Bruce MP Alan Griffin. Former party state secretary Eric Locke has proved a non-starter; Andrew Landeryou reports he has withdrawn in favour of Garrett, who would appear to be the front-runner. According to David Rood of The Age, Garrett also has the backing of John Brumby.

• Andrew Landeryou further reports that National Union of Workers state secretary Antony Thow has been “elected unopposed” for the third position on Labor’s Victorian Senate ticket. If that means what it appears to, it’s a significant story the mainstream media appears to have ignored, as Labor would seem very likely on current form to repeat its 2007 election feat of winning a third seat.

• The Moonee Valley Community News reports it is “not expected” that Victorian Planning Minister Justin Madden will be opposed in the Labor preselection for Essendon, to which the party has assigned him so sitting member South Eastern Metropolitan MLC Bob Smith can be given a safer seat in Western Metropolitan. Mark Kennedy, a former mayor of Moonee Valley, was earlier reported to have ambitions to replace the retiring Judy Maddigan.

• Federal Liberal MP Chris Pearce has announced he will not seek re-election in his Melbourne seat of Aston. Pearce gave his party a morale-boosting by-election win in the seat in July 2001, limiting the Labor swing to 3.7 per cent – which has since stood as exhibit A in the case that the Howard government’s re-election the following November could not entirely be put down to the subsequent Tampa episode and September 11. He was closely associated throughout his time in politics with Peter Costello, and the fact and timing of his departure have inevitably been linked to Costello’s shock announcement early last week. No discussion yet that I’m aware of as to who might replace him. Dennis Shanahan of The Australian reports that “another swathe of resignations” from federal Liberals is expected when New South Wales and Queensland redistributions are finalised early next year, although no names are named.

• The ABC reports that three Western Australian state Labor MPs, headed by the factionally unaligned Alannah MacTiernan, have moved at state conference for preselection reforms allowing “compulsory secret ballots for preselections, with delegates completing their own papers”.

Morgan: 57-43

The latest Roy Morgan face-to-face poll has Labor’s two-party lead at 57-43, down from 58-42 a fortnight ago. On the primary vote, Labor is down 0.5 per cent to 48.5 per cent, the Coalition is up 2 per cent to 38 per cent and the Greens are down 1 per cent to 7 per cent.

In other news, it’s all happening in Victoria:

• Peter Costello’s surprise announcement that he will not contest the next election has raised the flag on another epic Victorian Liberal preselection stoush in his Melbourne seat of Higgins, which housed successive Liberal prime ministers in Harold Holt and John Gorton. Furthermore, Costello has raised the possibility of an early departure and a by-election, “if it’s in the party’s interest”. Immediately prior to Costello’s announcement, Institute of Public Affairs executive director John Roskam signalled his intention to run if Costello stood aside, after earlier testing the waters in Kooyong (see below). However, Peter van Onselen in The Australian reports that Costello has resolved to oppose Roskam due to equivocal comments he made to David Penberthy of The Punch about Costello’s future value in politics. Van Onselen further reports widespread displeasure at this and other remarks seen to be in breach of Liberal rules that preselection aspirations are not to be discussed with the media. Costello reportedly wishes for the seat to go to a former staffer, Kelly O’Dwyer. It had earlier been reported that O’Dwyer might depose incumbent Ted Baillieu loyalist Andrew McIntosh in the state seat of Kew. The other big name in the Higgins mix is Mal Brough, who has moved to Melbourne and is said to be hopeful of a return to politics that doesn’t involve further dirtying his hands in the morass of the Queensland Liberal National Party. However, Phillip Coorey of the Sydney Morning Herald reports party sources say he has “no chance”. Also mentioned are former state party director Julian Sheezel, who was said to be backed by Costello but opposed by Michael Kroger when talk of Costello’s departure was in the air after the election, Jason Aldworth, a former banking colleague of Michael Kroger and more recently a consultant for Crosby Textor; and, intriguingly, Tom Elliott, hedge fund manager and son of John, who memorably sought to depose Roger Shipton as member for this very seat in pursuit of his prime ministerial ambitions.

• Merchant banker Josh Frydenberg has won the hotly contested preselection to succeed Petro Georgiou as the Liberal candidate for Kooyong. Andrew Landeryou at VexNews reports that Frydenberg won the second round ballot over industrial relations lawyer John Pesutto by 283 votes to 239 after all other contenders were excluded in the first round. The result is a defeat for Ted Baillieu, whose power base had pursued various stratagems designed to thwart Frydenberg, the preferred candidate of the rival Kroger faction.

• The ALP national executive’s role in Victorian state preselections has been further expanded following John Brumby’s decision to refer to the body all state upper house preselections for next year’s election. Labor insiders quoted by David Rood of The Age relate that the decision will “all but end” the career of Theo Theophanous, who faces a vigorously contested rape charge and was recently among those named adversely in the state Ombudsman’s report into Brimbank City Council. This week the national executive acted as expected in relation to a number of lower house preselections referred to it in the wake of the latter imbroglio, selecting former Trades Hall Council deputy secretary (and wife of New South Wales Senator Steve Hutchins) Natalie Sykes-Hutchins to replace George Seitz in Keilor and confirming incumbents Telmo Languiller, Rob Hulls, Marsha Thomson and Marlene Kairouz in Derrimut, Niddrie, Footscray and Kororoit. It has also been confirmed that Victorian Planning Minister Justin Madden will seek to move to the lower house by nominating for preselection in Essendon, to be vacated by the retiring Judy Maddigan. In his absence, the national executive has chosen incumbents Martin Pakula, Khalil Eideh and Bob Smith to head the ticket in Western Metropolitan (Smith currently represents South-Eastern Metropolitan).

• Helen Shardey, Victorian Shadow Health Minister and member for Caulfield, has indicated she will stand down at the next election. It had been reported she faced a preselection challenge from David Southwick, previously unsuccessful in the federal seat of Melbourne Ports in 2004 and for the state upper house Southern Metropolitan in 2006.

Andrew Landeryou at VexNews reports that former Liberal MP Phil Barresi, whom he describes as a “factionally unenthusiastic Krogerite”, has been given the green light to attempt to recover the seat of Deakin which he held from 1996 until his defeat in 2007. Barresi reportedly won on the first round over eccentric perennial Ken Aldred, who was dumped in favour of Barresi in 1996 after peddling weird conspiracy theories, and one Deanna Ryall. Perhaps Barresi is encouraged by the precedent of 1984, when the Liberals unexpectedly recovered the seat (with some help from a redistribution) after losing it when the Hawke government was elected in 1983.

Elsewhere:

Glenn Milne in The Australian reports on the Labor succession in the federal seat of Macquarie, which will be vacated at the next election by Bob Debus. As Milne tells it, Debus or his supporters put it about that his recent decision to withdraw from the ministry and bow out at the next election, which helped the Prime Minister no end as he sought to construct a new cabinet in the wake of Joel Fitzgibbon’s resignation, was conditional upon Debus being given the right to anoint his own successor. This was hotly disputed by Right powerbrokers who are bitterly opposed to Debus’s objective of freezing out industrial barrister Adam Searle, a Left faction colleague but personal rival.

• Two new goodies from Antony Green. An extensive paper for the New South Wales Parliamentary Library provides all manner of detail on the state’s Legislative Council election in 2007, while an accompanying blog post scrutinises the performance of the optional preferential above-the-line voting system introduced after the 1999 election produced a tablecloth-sized ballot paper and elected candidates from groupings that would be flattered by the “micro-party” designation. He further discusses the potential for such a system to resolve the issues which saw Steve Fielding elected to the Senate in 2004. For the more casual election enthusiast, a new 2010federal election calculator allows you set the two-party result to taste to find out the seat outcome in the event of a uniform swing. It turns out a 50-50 result would give the Coalition exactly half the seats and presumably allow it to govern with support of the three independents. Labor loses its majority at 50.8 per cent.

• Queensland independent MP Peter Wellington has introduced a private member’s bill providing for fixed three-year terms, with an escape clause if a new government cannot be formed in the wake of no-confidence motion and a provision allowing for a five-week postponement if there is a clash with a federal election or a “widespread natural disaster”. The major parties both support fixed four-year terms, which unlike Wellington’s proposal would require a referendum. Negotiations for such a referendum broke down last year when then Opposition Leader Lawrence Springborg insisted on further unrelated reforms, but his successor John-Paul Langbroek has foreshadowed a more “flexible” approach in future discussions with the government.

Christian Kerr of The Australian evaluates the Australian political blogosphere.

UPDATE: Thanks to Rebecca in comments for bringing my attention to the fact that Allison Ritchie, Labor member for the Tasmanian Legislative Council district of Pembroke, yesterday announced she would quit parliament after enduring a storm of controversy over her appointment of family members on her staff. This will presumably result in a by-election shortly in Pembroke, where Ritchie defeated an independent incumbent in 2001 and won re-election in 2007. The Electoral Act allows the government enormous latitude on the timing of such a by-election, so I’ll hold off on giving it its own post until its intentions become clearer. Ritchie claims to have been the victim of a plot from within her own party, which presumably explains why she has decided to go now rather than wait for the more convenient juncture of early next year, when a by-election could be held with the state election in March or the annual periodical upper house elections in May.

Morgan: 57.5-42.5

The Poll Bludger is still in Summer Edition mode, so pardon me for being less than timely with the news that Roy Morgan attached a question on voting intention to its recent 715-sample phone survey on consumer confidence, which had Labor leading 57.5-42.5. Something like normal service will resume as of tomorrow night’s Newspoll. Other news:

Phillip Coorey of the Sydney Morning Herald reports that “branches in the Sutherland Shire seat of Cook are being furiously stacked in what moderates say is an attempt to ward off a potential challenge by the far right to the sitting Liberal member, Scott Morrison”. However, Right sources deny any such plan and instead argue the stacking is being conducted in pursuit of the moderates’ own designs against Morrison. Central to the ongoing dispute is Michael Towke, whose preselection win upon the retirement of Bruce Baird at the 2007 election was overturned by the party’s state executive following reports of branch-stacking activities and extravagant claims made in his CV. The seat instead went to the well-connected but factionally unaligned Morrison, who went on to suffer humiliation at the hands of the local Right-controlled branches which refused his membership application a few months after he entered parliament. Talk of ongoing Right designs on the seat received further impetus when Towke secured the position of Cook electoral council secretary. Coorey reports there are rumours afoot that the Right will seek to have state upper house MP Marie Ficarra depose Morrison, making her own position available to Towke – although this was “laughed off” by a “senior Right source”.

Phillip Coorey of the Sydney Morning Herald reports the Labor national executive has given Kevin Rudd and the five-member national executive committee (Anthony Albanese, Mark Arbib, Mark Butler, Bill Shorten and Bill Ludwig) extensive powers over federal preselections. State branches will not be able to start preselection processes without the permission of the committee, which will further have the power to replace sitting members – significantly including Belinda Neal, the troubled member for Robertson.

Andrew Landeryou at VexNews reports that Victorian Liberal leader Ted Baillieu, director Tony Nutt and president David Kemp have moved without reference to the party’s administration committee to truncate the preselection process for next year’s state election from eight weeks to four. Baillieu opponents say this is a move to shore up the position of his backers Andrew McIntosh (Kew), Helen Shardey (Caulfield) and Kim Wells (Scoresby). Landeryou also relates rumours about the possible departure of Liberal deputy leader Louise Asher, the member for Brighton.

• Liberal Party members in the Victorian federal seat of Corangamite, which the party lost in 2007, will today vote for a candidate at the next election. The front-runners are said to be Sarah Henderson, former 7:30 Report host and daughter of the late former Geelong state MP Ann Henderson, and Rod Nockles, internet security expert and former Howard government adviser. Others who have been mentioned at various stages include Victorian Farmers Federation president Simon Ramsay, more recently mentioned in relation to Wannon; former Kennett government minister Ian Smith; Graham Harris, head of the Corangamite electorate council; Simon Price, unsuccessful Colac Otway Shire Council candidate and former electorate officer to Stewart McArthur; and Michael King, owner of Kings Australia funeral services. (UPDATE: Sarah Henderson wins. See Andrew Landeryou and his comments thread for much confusion over who backed whom.)

• There was renewed talk this week that Victorian Planning Minister Justin Madden could be moving to the lower house. It was initially suggested he would take the seat of Keilor, expected to be forcibly vacated by controversial Right faction numbers man George Seitz. However, Madden has ruled this out, saying it would not be a good look for him to take the seat given the role of his staffer Hakki Suleyman in the Brimbank City Council controversies which are set to initiate Seitz’s departure. Madden said he did not want, but would not rule out, taking the retiring Judy Maddigan’s seat of Essendon. Prior to the 2006 election, it was planned that Madden would be accommodated in Bundoora due to the reduction in the size of the Legislative Council, but a rearrangement following Mary Delahunty’s departure from Northcote saw him stay put.

• The New South Wales Nationals’ annual state conference has resolved to proceed with an exciting plan in which a candidate in a yet-to-be-determined state electorate will be chosen by an American-style open primary, in which all voters in the electorate will be able to participate.

Essential Research: 56-44

Labor’s two-party lead from Essential Research is up slightly following last week’s dive, from 55-45 to 56-44. Also featured are questions on the financial state of the companies respondents work for, future spending plans, confidence in the economy, “concern over job situation”, government regulation of the financial sector and whether an election will be justified if the “opposition refuses to pass” emissions tradding scheme legislation. Interestingly, the response to the latter question is 33 per cent yes and 37 per cent no, compared with 41 per cent and 29 per cent in April.

• The talk of the town this week is Section 44 (iii) of the Constitution, which provides that any person who is an undischarged bankrupt or insolvent shall be incapable of being chosen or of sitting as a Senator or a member of the House of Representatives. Such designation could shortly apply to Bob Brown, who has been advised by Forestry Tasmania he faces bankruptcy proceedings if he does not come good on an order to pay $239,368 costs stemming from a failed bid to stop logging in Tasmania’s Wielangta forests. With offers of support flooding in from sources including Dick Smith, one suspects he’ll keep the wolf from the door. Ken Jeffreys of Forestry Tasmania describes Brown’s appeal as a “public holiday, slow-news-day media stunt”, while Bronwyn Bishop queries the Greens’ determination that the matter is Brown’s problem rather than theirs.

Andrew Landeryou at VexNews reports that Craig Langdon, the state Labor member for Ivanhoe, faces a preselection challenge from by Labor Unity colleague Anthony Carbines, Banyule councillor, chief-of-staff to Education Minister Bronwyn Pike and son of upper house MP Elaine Carbines. A text message from Langdon to local party members accuses Carbines of disregarding his offer to vacate the seat for him at the election after next. Landeryou blames the episoode on moves the prohibit political staffers from serving as councillors in the wake of the Ombudsman’s report into Brimbank Council, foreseeing further such action from “a tribe of angry, politically very well connected and shafted staffer-councillors who have been told to choose between their day jobs and their passion of politics and community service”.

• The ABC reports Scott Bacon, 32-year-old son of the late former Premier Jim Bacon, is seeking preselection in Denison for next year’s state election. Bacon is an economist and adviser to Energy and Resources Minister David Llewellyn.

• Poll Bludger regular Oz has started a blog devoted to New South Wales state politics, which is the kind of thing we should have more of. Do visit.