Last night’s Labor preselection for Bob Carr’s seat of Maroubra produced a surprise result, with Randwick councillor Michael Daley defeating Penny Wright 140 votes to 110. It is not clear if Wright’s 110 votes include her affirmative action weighting – if not, the margin would have been a narrow 140 to 132. Most reports suggested that the main threat to Wright was another Randwick councillor, Chris Bastic, with whom he had a deal to exchange preferences. Yesterday’s Sydney Morning Herald has much, much more.
Our friends across the Tasman
Only three more shopping weeks to go until the September 17 New Zealand election, the fourth to be held under the country’s clunky Mixed-Member Proportional system. Voters get to choose both a favoured party and a representative for their local constituency, of which there are 69 including the seven Maori electorates. To these are added 51 list MPs (sometimes a couple more if the dice land a particular way, on which more later), apportioned to give each party eligible for representation a total number of seats proportional to its share of the party vote. To be eligible, a party must win either 5 per cent of the party vote or at least one constituency seat. The system puts majority government effectively out of reach for both the Labour and National parties, such that the real game is the mix of minor parties in the middle and the capacity of the major parties to engage them in stable coalition government.
Helen Clark’s Labour Government came to power at the 1999 election in coalition with the Alliance grouping of left-wing parties led by former Labour member Jim Anderton, which had until recently included the Green Party. The Labour-Alliance Government relied on the support of the Greens until the election held on 27 July 2002, which was called a few months ahead of schedule partly because of another split in the Alliance. This election gave the National Party its worst ever result, and their slack was largely taken up by minor parties. Labour was up only 2.6 per cent, but it emerged spoilt for choice for coalition partners and was able to form a new majority without the support of the Greens. The new coalition retained Jim Anderton, by now leader of the marginal Progressive Coalition (since renamed the Progressive Party), and the larger United Future New Zealand, which merged secularised Christian party Future New Zealand with the United Party of Peter Dunne, a former Labour minister who declined to accompany the party on its post-Rogernomics shift to the left.
The above chart shows the projected seat outcomes from Fairfax New Zealand’s Poll Tracker, which aggregates polling from various agencies and makes assumptions about constituency seats being won by the United Future, Progressive and Maori parties. It demonstrates the substantial revival the National Party has enjoyed under the leadership of Don Brash, and the return to earth confronted by minor parties who profited from its slump in 2002. Support for Labour is more than holding its own, but the National Party revival combined with the relative strength of their erstwhile coalition partners, Winston Peters’ New Zealand First, means the Government has a serious fight on its hands.
Much could depend on the vagaries of the MMP system, which makes life exciting for minor parties whose support hovers around the 5 per cent threshold. A large weight of recent polling suggests the Green Party has fallen to about this level since its peak of 7.0 per cent at the 2002 election, hence the sudden disappearance of the Greens at the August 17 poll in the above chart. Should the party keep its head above 5 per cent it will win six or maybe seven list seats, probably making it impossible for the National Party to stitch together a majority. If not, it will lose every one of the nine seats it currently holds – unless it wins a constituency seat, which nobody expects. Party “co-leader” Jeanette Fitzsimons managed to win the seat of Coromandel at the 1999 election, with 39.2 per cent to the National incumbent’s 38.5 per cent, but she fell well short in 2002, finishing third behind the Nationals and Labour.
Jim Anderton’s Progressive Party has nowhere near 5 per cent support, but its 1.7 per cent in 2002 was good for an extra list member after Anderton retained his seat of Wigram. This he managed despite a slump in his vote from 49.4 per cent to 36.0 per cent, while Labour was up from 17.4 per cent to 25.6 per cent. If that’s the start of a trend, he might be in trouble. Anderton is 67 and unwisely forthcoming in telling reporters opposition isn’t good enough for him, but the New Zealand Herald reports that he is expected to hold. No such threat faces New Zealand First, with Winston Peters seemingly invincible in his electorate of Tauranga and the party tracking well over 5 per cent besides. Peter Dunne of United Future is similarly strong in his seat of Ohariu-Belmont, although his party’s poll ratings have plunged. The libertarian ACT party has fallen on even harder times, its support base presumably having been won back by the National Party. It holds nine list seats and looks certain to lose them all.
The newest entrant is the Maori Party, founded last year by former Labour member Tariana Turia when she quit the party over a land and seabed title dispute. For reasons the Poll Bludger doesn’t quite understand, Turia felt obliged to quit her Maori electorate seat and win it back at a by-election sat out by both major parties. All polls have the party at well below 5 per cent nationally, but polling shows it on course to win as many as five of the seven Maori electorates, mostly at the expense of Labour. This means the party could win a greater share of seats than their proportion of the party vote would normally warrant (known in the trade as an “overhang”), in which case the distribution of list seats would produce a parliament with more than 120 seats and a target of 62 rather than 61 seats to form a majority. The website of the pro-MMP Electoral Reform Coalition informs us that the nationwide party list system makes such an outcome “virtually impossible” – which would no doubt be true, if not for the Maori electorates.
Despite the National Party’s resurgence, Labour’s steady improvement in the polls throughout the campaign suggests they should be able to stitch together a coalition of some description. If Labour does well enough in its own right, it could end up covering for the seemingly inevitable losses of its own coalition partners. Otherwise it will have to rely on the Greens, a prospect that would trouble party hardheads. The wild card is the prospect of a Greens wipeout – Jeanette Fitzsimons tells the New Zealand Herald she doesn’t think this a risk, and she’s probably right. If she isn’t, the prospect emerges of the Nationals cobbling together an agreement with New Zealand First and perhaps United Future. Recent experience in South Australia suggests it does not pay to take minor players’ sympathies for granted, and it’s not impossible that New Zealand First could end up in the Labour camp – it was no foregone conclusion that they would support the National Party after emerging with the balance of power in 1996. But given the Nationals’ recent ideological assertiveness, it’s hard to see the Green, Progressive or Maori parties going the other way.
Entertain the whole family with this MMP quiz – I got 80 per cent. Better yet, the New Zealand Electoral Commission website thoughtfully provides an MMP seat allocation calculator, which is the kind of thing its Australian counterparts leave to us psephological weblogs.
The by-election gazette #5
In New South Wales, the Iemma Government has used the opportunity of Labor’s defeats in Queensland to talk up the swings they will suffer at the triple-M by-elections, now set for September 17 (the same day as the New Zealand election). State secretary Mark Arbib added substance to the argument by telling the Sydney Morning Herald that "the last election was a high water mark in seats like Macquarie Fields and Maroubra" – although there was in fact a slight swing away from Labor in Macquarie Fields. A Liberal source quoted in the article may have hit the mark when he or she said Labor wanted to "sucker-punch us into running in all three". Cutting across all such speculation is Morris Iemma’s surprisingly positive Newspoll debut this week. The poll was full of surprises, most of them pleasant for Labor – their vote was up 37 per cent to 39 per cent on primary and 49 per cent to 50 per cent on two-party preferred, and Morris Iemma’s approval rating of 43 per cent was higher than anything recorded by Bob Carr in recent memory.
Maroubra (Labor 23.5%): The exciting tussle for Labor preselection comes to a climax tomorrow, an event with far higher stakes than the Liberal-free rubber-stamp by-election. Labor has been engulfed in disputes over the eligibility of preselectors, with Bob Carr himself being disqualified due to his branch meeting attendance record. Most of the fuss relates to the eligibility of the party’s Maroubra South branch, said to favour candidate Penny Wright. Wright is associated with the NSW party’s Catholic tendency, whose chief powerbroker Johnno Johnson (a former MLC) wields great influence in the Maroubra branches. Outsider candidate Anthony Andrews has questioned the validity of no fewer than 150 out of 267 preselectors, while Wright has disputed eight. Few reckon Andrews a serious chance, but if upheld his challenges would aid fellow Randwick councillors Chris Bastic, who has been widely rated a favourite, and Michael Daley, who hasn’t been. Lest it be concluded that he is acting as their stalking horse, Menios Constantinou of the Southern Courier reports that Andrews has also challenged members of Bastic’s and Daley’s families. Labor’s credentials committee has been grinding through the challenges since Tuesday; this morning’s Daily Telegraph reports that just five of nearly 170 complaints processed have been upheld, suggesting the Maroubra South branch has emerged unscathed and that Wright has the whip hand.
Marrickville (Labor 10.7% vs Greens): The Liberals are getting a surprisingly hard time in the media over their failure to field candidates in Marrickville and Maroubra, with the Daily Telegraph going in particularly hard against John Brogden. Today the paper took his statement that Liberal supporters should "vote against the Labor party" to indicate support for the Greens (whose "less known" policies include "decriminalising drugs and legalising marriages for same-sex couples") and "other fringe parties".
Macquarie Fields (Labor 22.5%): Last Monday Crikey reported that the Liberals would nominate one of the "whistleblower nurses" who troubled Craig Knowles during the Camden and Campbelltown hospital controversies. So it has proved with yesterday’s unveiling of candidate Nola Fraser. The Daily Telegraph reports that Fraser joined the party "earlier this week".
Questions and answers
Hurry everybody, download this before they realise what they’ve done. It’s a 21 page report from ACNielsen that features raw figures from their last two New Zealand polls, covering seven questions (voting intention and preferred prime minister, plus five election issues) broken down by gender, age, “region” (north, central and south), “area type” (metro, provincial, rural town) and “main cities” (Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch). There are also “weighted base” and “unweighted base” figures that are just slightly beyond the Poll Bludger’s expertise, but no doubt greatly illuminating to those of you with a proper understanding of statistics. Given these outfits’ normal standards of operational secrecy, this is breathtakingly generous stuff. As for the election itself, it will be held on September 17 and I might have something to say about it at some point if time permits.
Queensland by-elections live
In conclusion then, the Poll Bludger’s reputation as a person who gets things right sometimes has taken a hit with what would appear to be dual victories for the Liberals in today’s Queensland by-elections. My defence is that the margin in each case looks to be below 2 per cent, which I have always used as my rough margin for permissible error. Normally I like to avoid making partisan judgements, but I must confess to being pleased with the result. Firstly, Peter Beattie needed another two backbenchers like he needed a hole in his head; secondly, I consider a Liberal ascendancy in Queensland conservative politics to be an essential precondition to a return to normal two-party system, difficult though it may be to imagine how this might come about. With two more seats in parliament they can now bring seven seats to bear against the Nationals’ 15 and will have more clout in the crucial negotiations over which party contests which seat at the next state election.
Tonight’s results in summary, bearing in mind that postals, pre-polls and absentees remain to be counted:
| . | Chatsworth | Redcliffe | ||||||
| . | 2005 | 2004 | Swing | 2005 | 2004 | Swing | ||
| LABOR 2PP | 48.2 | 61.4 | -13.2 | 48.9 | 57.1 | -8.2 | ||
| LIBERAL 2PP | 51.8 | 38.6 | 13.2 | 51.1 | 42.9 | 8.2 | ||
| Labor | 43.0 | 56.3 | -13.3 | 39.6 | 50.1 | -10.5 | ||
| Liberal | 47.5 | 35.0 | 12.5 | 40.9 | 35.6 | 5.3 | ||
| Greens | 7.5 | 8.7 | -1.2 | 6.7 | – | 6.7 | ||
| One Nation | 2.0 | – | 2.0 | 3.4 | – | 3.4 | ||
| Rob McJannett | – | – | – | 3.9 | 14.3 | -10.4 | ||
| Others | – | – | – | 5.5 | – | 5.5 | ||
8.16pm. With preferences in from the last booth, it’s a 1.1 per cent ball game in Redcliffe.
8.11pm. Results from Clontarf have eased the Liberal lead in Redcliffe to 1.5 per cent. The Redcliffe booth should clip it further, though probably not enough.
8.09pm. My first look at the ECQ’s notional prerefence distribution has a 1.7 per cent lead to the Liberals in Redcliffe, although this is without results from the Clontarf and Redcliffe booths where the primary vote figures lean slightly towards Labor. Figures from all booths are shown in Chatsworth where Caltabiano has an almost identical lead of 1.8 per cent.
7.55pm. The final booths for Chatsworth may well have delivered Labor a knockout blow. Belmont, easily the biggest booth in the electorate with 5,600 voters, has delivered the Liberals a huge 19.5 per cent swing; Carina Heights, with 2413 voters, has swung 14.1 per cent; Tingalpa South, with 2629 voters, has swung 9.5 per cent. With all booths in, the Liberal primary vote is up 12.2 per cent and Labor is down 13.1 per cent. The margin going in was 11.4 per cent, so Labor will have to do extremely well on pre-polls and postals and preferences from the Greens (who have eased from 8.6 per cent to 7.5 per cent) to stay in contention.
7.47pm. The last booth for Redcliffe, Clontarf (1787 votes), shows a swing of 7.5 per cent on my reckoning – that’s based on half the minor party/independent vote exhausting and the rest splitting evenly as preferences. This has barely impacted on the total scores noted below. Time will tell how accurate that is – it will need to be biased in the Liberals’ favour if Labor are in the hunt here.
7.44pm. Stepping back and looking at aggregate figures, I gather I might be writing Labor off too soon in Redcliffe. With one booth still to come they trail 39.5 per cent to 41.0 per cent, with a substantial 19.6 per cent vote for minor parties.
7.36pm. Some overdue good news for Labor in Redcliffe. Woody Point, with 1341 voters, only swings 4.0 per cent. Probably too late though.
7.34pm. Another nail in the Redcliffe coffin: the Redcliffe booth, with 2642 voters, swings 10.1 per cent.
7.33pm. If Labor still had hope in Redcliffe, the large Scarborough booth has probably ended it – 2390 votes and a swing of 10.0 per cent.
7.29pm. Carina Central in Chatsworth, with 887 voters, swings to the Liberals 11.5 per cent.
7.25pm. Results from Redcliffe continue to be show swings of between 7 and 10 per cent, enough for a narrow Liberal victory. Just in: Clontarf Beach (1882 voters, 8.8 per cent); Humpybong (2248 voters, 7.0 per cent); Kippa-Ring (1957 voters, 9.4 per cent).
7.21pm. Continuing mixed news for Caltabiano. The biggest Chatsworth booth so far, Gumdale (3016 votes), gives him a handsome 14.0 per cent swing. But Tingala, with 1721 votes, is a big disappointment – 4.5 per cent.
7.19pm. The Bayside booth in Chatsworth, good for 1447 votes, shows a below par 7.2 per cent swing to Caltabiano.
7.14pm. The biggest booth yet in Redcliffe, Woody Point South, shows a swing of 8.7 per cent – at the lower end of the current range but still on the Liberal side of the seat’s 7.1 per cent margin.
7.12pm. The drought breaks in Redcliffe with four medium sized booths. Swings range from 8.3 per cent to 11.2 per cent, suggesting the Liberals should get over the line.
7.05pm. Another good booth for Caltabiano, although a smaller one this time: Whites Hill with 609 votes has recorded a 15.7 per cent swing.
7.01pm. Much better news for Michael Caltabiano from Carina, the biggest booth yet with 2260 votes. By my reckoning he’s got a 13.4 per cent swing. My ignorance of local geography could be a factor here – it could be that Carina is in Chandler ward and the other two are not. On these indications it looks like it’s going to be close. Only one tiny booth in so far in Redcliffe.
6.57pm. The Camp Hill booth in Chatsworth, with 1079 votes, also shows a slightly disappointing swing to the Liberals – 8.9 per cent. These results will probably lean slightly in Labor’s favour because they are based on the 2004 preference distribution when there was a Greens candidate but not one for One Nation, who are polling at about 2 per cent.
6.43pm. The first substantial booth is in from Chatsworth, with 1199 voters. By my somewhat clumsy reckoning, the swing against Labor is only 6.3 per cent.
Numbers crunched
Ignore me. Former Labor Senator John Black’s number crunching in yesterday’s (print only) Courier Mail is far beyond my powers of sophistication, being based on modelling from marketing company Australian Development Strategies. Apologies to Black for the following acts of larceny, and also for the removal of his Monty Python references. Let’s start with his view of the big picture:
We start in 1998, when the good old boys from One Nation came along. Peter Beattie lucked out, and won office with just 39 per cent, losing about 4 per cent of his unskilled blue-collar vote to One Nation. That election saw One Nation poll 22.7 per cent and split the conservative base as it stole rusted-on National Party farmers (about 11 per cent) and Liberal Party small business types (about 7 per cent). De facto first-past-the-post voting created carnage in Opposition ranks.
In 2001, the One Nation vote collapsed, with the combined One Nation/City Country Alliance vote falling by 11.6 per cent, while Labor’s vote rose by about 10 per cent, and the Liberals also fell again – by about 2 per cent. Most observers reasonably concluded that Labor picked up some Liberal voters and the vast majority of disaffected One Nation voters. However, the ADS demographic profiling, which compared Labor’s 2004 state and federal votes, shows Labor’s inflated state majority in 2001 and 2004 coming from former Liberal voters, not One Nation. These Liberals – in outer urban marginals – flooded across to state Labor in 2001 and stayed in 2004, with One Nation voters taking their place in the Liberal pile.The profiling also shows that Queensland One Nation voters taken from state Labor in 1998 – older, poorer, unskilled, blue-collar workers – have returned to federal Labor candidates in Queensland, but not to state Labor, preferring the state Liberals. Presumably state Labor’s market research confirms this analysis, which explains the recent parliamentary stunts from Beattie about the Howard Government’s new industrial relations
changes.ADS research shows the new Smart State Labor voters are indeed smarter, which contains a large element of risk for Beattie. When compared with Queensland’s federal Labor voters, they are more likely to be female, younger, better educated, well paid, white-collar workers, typically para-professionals, personal assistants and receptionists. If and when these Liberals decide the state Liberals are worth voting for, as they did with Campbell Newman at the Brisbane mayoral ballot, the electoral tide will leave Team Beattie well and truly stranded.
The only part of this that sounded jarring to these ears was the notion that an identifiable demographic group moved from Labor to One Nation to Liberal at the four state elections between 1995 and 2004, given that the Liberals went from 14 seats to five in that time. But the primary vote figures do show that the Liberal vote was not spectacularly lower in 2004 (18.5 per cent) than 1995 (22.7 per cent), and that the real disaster over that time has been the Nationals’ progress from 26.2 per cent to 17.0 per cent. Closer examination reveals Labor’s safest seats, home to the blue-collar One Nation demographic referred to by Black, were not caught up in the tidal shift towards Labor from 1995 to 2004.
The following scatter plot shows the change in Labor’s vote between 1995 and 2004 in seats contested by the Liberals in 2004, with the Y axis marking Labor’s primary vote from 1995. Seats where independents accounted for more than 10 per cent in either election are excluded, and no allowance is made for redistributions. The Pearson correlation is -0.43, which I understand to be pretty significant as these things go.
No similar pattern can be discerned if we view seats contested by the Nationals, until we introduce a bit of colour coding to mark the region of each electorate. If you draw a nice fine line between 5.7 and 6.1 on the X axis, you get a zone of Labor underachievement to the left which includes all 10 rural and remote electorates and only six from elsewhere. The 11 city, town and coastal seats to the right stand as testimony to the decline of the Nationals’ saleability in urban Queensland, and all should be left to the Liberals in future. Note that the urban outlier that swung away from Labor, the seat of Logan, is the safest Labor seat in the sample, which may be regarded as consistent with the trend identified in the first chart.
Having drawn the big picture, John Black moves on to the business at hand:
Which leads us to the real state Labor votes in Chatsworth and Redcliffe. One of the benefits of demographic profiling in the Smart State is that researchers can benchmark the party votes in each state seat, thereby measuring each candidate’s personal vote … In Chatsworth, the personal vote for former treasurer Terry Mackenroth was a respectable 5.7 per cent, while the personal vote for Ray Hollis in Redcliffe was 3.9 per cent. This means that the Chatsworth primary starting vote for Labor’s Chris Forrester, will be about 50.6 per cent, which will have to be adjusted up for a likely decline in the Green vote, but down for a new One Nation candidate. Preferences will take this starting ALP preferred vote up to about 55 per cent, so that, if Caltabiano is able to transfer his notional 6 per cent plus personal council vote in corresponding booths in Chatsworth over to his new seat, he should need an additional party-based swing of about 2 per cent to win easily. If he can’t get this party swing on election night, obviously the voters will have concluded that despite the Team Beattie track record on hospitals, roads and schools, the state Liberal Party, with Caltabiano as president, is even more lamentable.
In Redcliffe, Labor’s Lillian van Litsenburg should start with a primary vote well below 50 per cent, with an additional four candidates in the field, leaving her with a notional preferred vote starting point, of about 53 per cent. The additional minor party candidates, varying rates of vote exhaustion and a poor by-election turnout of Government voters, mean that van Litsenburg would lose to Liberal Terry Rogers, on these factors alone. This could make for a long count and not necessarily mean Redcliffe is a good pointer to the future of Team Beattie’s large majority, as the seat is also "old Labor" and politically stable. Chatsworth, on the other hand, is chock-a-block with the sort of Liberal yuppies who have been voting for Liberals John Howard and Campbell Newman – but against the Queensland state Liberals – in that ring of state seats outside Brisbane, but within the great
southeast.If the Labor primary vote in Chatsworth (after you have taken off Mackenroth’s 5.7 per cent) stays above 42 per cent tomorrow night, then Team Beattie will probably be back in George Street in 2007, whatever the spin from a Liberal machine that has elevated self-harm to an art form … However, if feedback from Chatsworth ALP doorknockers and Newspoll is any guide, Sideshow Pete is in big trouble, as voters in the Smart State seem smart enough to realise the truth isn’t all it seems in Sideshow Alley.
The Poll Bludger cannot fault Black’s analysis except to point out that he provided similar commentary before the federal election and did not do particularly well, tipping only the narrowest of Coalition majorities. I too underestimated the outcome, and my defence could be used by Black as well – we got the relativities right, but underestimated an underlying across-the-board shift to the Coalition (I like to think that the Latham-Howard election eve handshake accounted for a proportion of this). This time around, with no confusion between national and local factors, Black’s number crunching carries more weight. He has succeeded in further weakening the Poll Bludger’s confidence in his prediction of Labor victories, but nevertheless they still stand.
Late news: The Courier Mail reports Labor sources expect to lose Chatsworth but are "hopeful of holding Redcliffe in a tight contest".
The by-election gazette #4
Queensland Labor’s deadline for state election preselection nominations closed this week, requiring MPs to lay their cards on the table with respect to their plans for next term. The harvest of retirees (Nita Cunningham in Bundaberg, Terry Sullivan in Stafford, Jim Fouras in Ashgrove and Lesley Clark in Barron River) would not normally have been regarded as remarkable, but in the environment of dual by-election campaigns there were numerous reports referring to an "exodus" of Labor MPs. However, the perception could become reality if we are to believe reports from Christian Kerr in Crikey, who tells us two prospective retirees do not propose to wait until the election.
The party would presumably go to some length to prevent such an outcome, given that the conventional wisdom now holds that Labor will go down in both this weekend’s Queensland by-elections. This is largely on account of quarterly opinion poll results thoughtfully brought forward a month ahead of schedule by Newspoll, which show Labor slumping to 40 per cent (down 7 per cent from both the last poll and the February 2004 election) and the conservative parties on 42 per cent combined. Reports in today’s Courier Mail variously say that "Labor polling shows the party is unlikely to hold Redcliffe and Chatsworth", and that "conservative forces grow more confident of victory".
Also in Crikey, Charles Richardson reports that the Poll Bludger has not "yet" made a prediction on the outcome. Thus pressured, I am compelled to take a punt on a contest I would have preferred to have sat out. Deep breath: Labor to hold narrowly in both.
The by-election gazette #3
With campaigning for the two Queensland by-elections entering the final week, it’s high time they were promoted up the By-Election Gazette’s batting order.
Redcliffe (Queensland, Labor 7.1%): The Courier Mail reported on Saturday that both major parties believe Labor has the edge in Redcliffe but is "struggling" in Chatsworth, in contrast to impressions at the start of the campaign. The paper’s Malcolm Cole reported that "scandals surrounding the Government – particularly the (Ray) Hollis issue and the hospitals crisis – do not seem to have bitten" in Redcliffe, and that if Labor faces danger it is due to the "head office decision to shoehorn (Lillian) Van Litsenberg into the party’s candidacy". Liberal sources are quoted saying a Labor win would have been certain had the nomination gone to Redcliffe councillor Peter Houston, who had to be talked out of running as an independent after failing to win preselection.
Chatsworth (Queensland, Labor 11.4%): The aforementioned major party polling mentioned in Saturday’s Courier Mail had Labor "struggling to retain" Chatsworth, but today the paper quoted a Labor source saying they "might have clawed back some ground". Labor’s strategy in both seats is to encourage a protest vote against Federal Government workplace relations reforms, and there are "indications" that this is "starting to bite".
Still no word on the date for the "triple M" by-elections in New South Wales, which are now likely to be held in October rather than September.
Maroubra (NSW, Labor 23.5%): Local paper Southern Courier (follow the link and try to make your way to page four of the current issue) profiles four front-runners for the Labor nomination and tells us the Greens candidate is Anne Gardiner, a former nurse at Prince Henry Hospital. Over the page we get all the dirt on the Labor preselection stoush, including candidate Penny Wright’s eye-catching assessment that the affirmative action loading might do her more harm than good. Hats off to all concerned at the Courier.
Marrickville (NSW, Labor 10.7% vs Greens): The Sydney Morning Herald confirms that Marrickville deputy mayor Sam Byrne will be the Greens candidate. His council colleagues Colin Hesse and Saeed Khan had earlier been mentioned as contenders.
Macquarie Fields (NSW, Labor 22.5%): The Macarthur Chronicle tells us that Campbelltown councillor Aaron Rule has declined to run, leaving the field clear for council colleague Steven Chaytor. Chaytor was senior adviser to Gough Whitlam from 1999 to 2005 (perhaps the pasta sauce ads were his idea) and was reportedly Mark Latham’s preferred candidate for the Werriwa by-election. Before the preselection vote, the Sydney Morning Herald spoke of a dirty tricks campaign in which Chaytor supporters suggested rival Brenton Banfield was an unsuitable candidate due to his legal work for a client on child pornography charges, making him susceptible to Liberal smears. Mike Steketee of The Australian reported that the suggestion was enough to prompt state party secretary Mark Arbib to pull the plug on Banfield, and all concerned were persuaded to step aside for little-known compromise candidate Chris Hayes. In other news, Christian Kerr offers this in today’s Crikey email:
The Libs might be leaving Labor and the Greens to fight it out in Marrickville, but stand by for a surprise candidate in Macquarie Fields. Liberal leader John Brogden is wooing the whistle blower nurses from the Camden/Campbelltown hospital scandals. One may well be succumbing to his charms. If he woos her, it will be a huge coup.
The nurses in question were Nola Fraser, Sheree Martin and Giselle Simmons, who complained that the seat’s outgoing member Craig Knowles – then the Health Minister – threatened and intimidated them after they raised concerns about unnecessary deaths at the hospital. An inquiry by the Independent Commission Against Corruption cleared Knowles of corrupt conduct in relation to the incident.