It looked for a while as if Roy Morgan had returned to its weekly polling schedule, but that may have just been a short-term response to the stimulus package kerfuffle. In any event, there was no poll today. That being so, this week’s news nuggets will have to survive on their own:
• Alicia Bowie of the Campbelltown Macarthur Advertiser reports on Labor aspirants for Macarthur, whose Liberal member Pat Farmer has long since stopped behaving like a man who cares if he gets re-elected. The narrowly unsuccessful candidate from 2007, local carpenter Nick Bleasdale, is again in the running, but faces competition from Camden councillor Greg Warren. However, “the ALP will wait until the new boundaries are decided late this year before selecting its candidates for local electorates”.
• Col Allison of the Hills News reports that David Elliott, former Australian Hotels Association deputy chief executive and staffer to John Howard – or as Allison would have it, “the ambitious Liberal Party stalwart lusting for a parliamentary career”, – has denied he will stand for preselection in Brendan Nelson’s seat of Bradfield. However, “insiders say he will try to win preselection for a State Liberal seat in the North-West at the May 2011 elections, upsetting the ambitions of other card-carrying right-wing conservatives, or even a sitting MP”. The seats mentioned are Riverstone, which is reasonably safe for Labor, and “even Baulkham Hills, in the unlikely event Wayne Merton, decides to step down”. Allison reports that Elliott “has the support of MLC David Clarke, controversial leader of the so-called Christian Right of the party and a back-room wheeler-dealer”, which is odd because he was put forward as the moderate candidate against Clarke protege Alex Hawke in Mitchell before the 2007 federal election.
• Peter Tucker at Tasmanian Politics reports that Michael Ferguson, defeated in Bass at the 2007 federal election, will run for the state seat at the March 2010 election.
• Matthew Franklin of The Australian reports that “Kevin Rudd has renewed his backing for four-year, fixed parliamentary terms but refused to criticise Queensland Premier Anna Bligh’s decision to call a state election six months before it was due”.
• Alex Mitchell in Crikey tells us we should “forget the nonsense written in The Australian about an early election being impossible”, because “the advance of Costello has spooked Labor which is now quietly preparing for an early election later this year”. We’ll see.
• There is a Queensland state election campaign in progress.
Nice bit of prophesy by one commrnter in that piece by JA.
Janet Albrechtsen Blog | September 20, 2008 (5 Months and counting)
[Janet,
What ARE you going to do when Turnbull fails to make ground on Rudd? How are you going to spin that then?
Surely, you can’t really believe what you write. ]
I too think the Shanahan piece was OK (in fact one of his best for a while).
The small point I would make though is that I don’t think it had much to do with the stability of Turnbull’s position, which I think it is more to do with those undermining him stepping back when they saw how out of control it can get.
Personally i dont see the big deal with them just getting smaller payouts
Sol at the most should have got 5m not 20m that’s 15m you could save…
I would tax any payout (golden handshake) over 5m at an extremely high rate… 😉
Grog so who would get Defence?
Shorten??
[It was better than Weds but still not very good. He should have buried them with the bogus payslip but he still looked hesitant and defensive. Snowdon was much better.]
Does he ever get fired up?
Was he ill Glen?
BTW I think those who thought Turnbull would make a difference extended far beyond JA.
Commenter: What ARE you going to do when Turnbull fails to make ground on Rudd? How are you going to spin that then?
The Ho: I’m going to start writing the same tosh about Costello, of course.
He was in hosital in Poland after the NATO-plus meeting.
William
I’m amazed that WA Labor lost every category to the Libs except Environment. It’s no wonder they lost. It does bode very well for Bligh that Labor beat the Libs in everything except Health. It’s hard to see her losing.
Health really is poison for State Labor Governments. How Beatty ever got re-elected after Patel and the waiting-lists disgrace is beyond me. I’m not surprised they keep asking the Feds to take it over. I’m betting big that the Ruddster doesn’t fall for that one, even if it was his election promise that the “buck stops with me”.
Thanks for that Vera – the Chris Henning piece was pretty funny.
Oh well, Stephen Conroy doesn’t have to suffer a 12 year old showing reporters how easy it is to bypass his shiny new system while adults complain they can’t get access to useful sights. It would have been fun to watch.
http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/02/26/1344207
[Grog so who would get Defence?]
Well there is a bit of a line up for it. Combet would be the front runner at the moment (assuming he leap frogs Snowden).
If Shorten does well with the bushfire parl sec position, he’ll have to be given a Ministry in the run up the the election. I’d say he’ll get a bit of media time doing his new job, and I would say Rudd will look to put his best media performers in good spot for the last 10-12 months before the election.
Igather Shorten was a bit on the outer last year due to his marriage, but I doubt that will be much of a handicap now. It ain’t 1959.
[He was in hosital in Poland after the NATO-plus meeting.]
On Wednesday he did look like he was suffering from a taking bit of “flu medication”
The Poles use vodka to treat most ailments, physical and spiritual. Maybe they had him on a vodka drip.
This is a bit surreal. An unnamed Labor source tells Shanahan that there’s a plot afoot to remove Fitzgibbon as he’s apparently sympathetic to Gillard and the “hard left” and replace him with someone from the right-faction. Two days later, Fitzgibbon’s politically dead according to most and those being touted as his replacements are solid right faction MP’s.
I’m yet to be convinced of Shorten’s reputed talent. He’s good – far from convinced that he’s PM material.
Grog
The Bushfires are basically being run by the Defence Forces now, to the chagrin of a few civilians. I’ve been involved in a few disasters and, as someone with a not terribly sympathetic view of the Defence Forces, each time the civilians stuff it up and Defence is bloody good at running big operations in a hurry. Shorten will have plenty to do with Defence in his new Parl Sec job and it will be great experience if he’s looking at Defence Minister.
[That’s a bad thing? It’s a good album.]
You got that right!
#65
Having the bar set so high (“Future PM material”) sure wouldn’t help.
[Shorten will have plenty to do with Defence in his new Parl Sec job and it will be great experience if he’s looking at Defence Minister.]
I think he’s aiming higher than that 😉
As a high flyer, he’d want to avoid Defence like the plague. Fraser would be about the only PM who ever came through that protfolio? (and he was Minister for the Army wass’t it?)
(64) I thought it was Milne who ran the story.
Yes well then Grog he’d have to take out Swan or Tanner or Smith…all but Swan looks safe long term IMHO but nobody will dump Swan when he has faithfully repeated the lines Treasury has drummed into him…
Smith has his role safe, most PM’s come from Treasury/Finance or Foreign Affairs….Shorten will have to take a senior ministry if Defence is offered…
Combet is probably wanting IR IMHO…
[Maybe they had him on a vodka drip.]
A junior doctor in SA got struck off for doing that to a patient in hospital. He mixed it in with the IV fluids.
There was another one who rang up to say he wasn’t coming to work because it was raining too hard. That was bad enough but he actually lived in the hospital building in the nurses wing. He also had a habit of sitting down on the floor during ward rounds which didn’t endear him to his superiors.
[I’m yet to be convinced of Shorten’s reputed talent. He’s good – far from convinced that he’s PM material.]
Agree
[Having the bar set so high (”Future PM material”) sure wouldn’t help.]
There are plenty of people who are claiming just that. I’m not one of them.
He was Army Minister under Holt and Defence Minister under Gorton.
Never been that impressed by Shorten on the TV myself. Maybe he just looks exciting for a TU bureaucrat.
I can never forgive Fraser for stabbing Gorton in the back in the House of Reps!
[I can never forgive Fraser for stabbing Gorton]
Geez Glen, you are definately not a “wate runder the bridge” guy! 😆
[ I thought it was Milne who ran the story.]
Yeah he did – last Sunday. Though his angle that Rudd was putting up the defences against Gillard is a bit rish methinks. Seriously who would be thinking of challenging Rudd at this point? 2013 maybe.
[Never been that impressed by Shorten on the TV myself. Maybe he just looks exciting for a TU bureaucrat.]
Not even when he was representing his members in Beaconsfield?
[Though his angle that Rudd was putting up the defences against Gillard is a bit rish methinks. Seriously who would be thinking of challenging Rudd at this point? 2013 maybe.]
Gillard isn’t stupid enough to challenge a guy who has a preferred PM rating 44% above the opposition leader.
Is there any fatuous pompous cliche that Mike Cowars is too ashamed to use?
[Never been that impressed by Shorten on the TV myself. Maybe he just looks exciting for a TU bureaucrat.]
My sister once saw him speak on behalf of workers whose company had just gone broke. She was there represneting the creditors (I think), and by the end of his speech she wanted to give the workers the money she had in her own purse.
I think he’ll have to fight Burke for the top job (in 10 years time).
10 MORE!
I thought that this piece by Alan Wood would be interesting reading.
[Senate must save us from bungled ETS ]
[CAN the Senate save Kevin Rudd and Penny Wong from their global warming folly? It can, and it might, if it rejects the Government’s attempts to prematurely lock Australia into a flawed carbon trading scheme.]
I went through the article looking for the measured, thoughtful analysis of the “flaws” that Wood had identified. Got right to the end and realised that Wood had just rehashed a dose of Liberal spin and any semblance of genuine criticism was very shallow indeed.
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,25111815-7583,00.html
Wood probably should have had a quick look at a piece by some of his mates at News Ltd before he wrote it.
[A report in 2007 by the conservative Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change predicted a rise of between 2C and 6.4C this century.
Climate experts told New Scientist they were optimistic that humans would survive but would have to adapt.
Vast numbers would have to migrate away from the equator and towards the poles.
National borders would have to be knocked down and humans would become mostly vegetarian with most animals being eaten to extinction.]
“Humans are in a pretty difficult position and I don’t think they are clever enough to handle what’s ahead. I think they’ll survive as a species all right, but the cull during this century is going to be huge,” NASA scientist James Lovelock said.
“The number remaining at the end of the century will probably be a billion or less.”]
http://www.news.com.au/story/0,27574,25114359-5009760,00.html
Don’t forget Chipperfield! 99 not out on debut
[Got right to the end and realised that Wood had just rehashed a dose of Liberal spin and any semblance of genuine criticism was very shallow indeed.]
That’s like all his articles. At least he’s consistent.
Come on Northy
What’s happened to Paul Kelly? Haven’t seen him write anything for ages.
#88
Isn’t he on sabbatical in America or something?
[Isn’t he on sabbatical in America or something?]
Yeah, probably guesting at some think tank.
We’ll be off to Gallipoli soon. I’d almost prefer Kerry O’Keeffe’s fart jokes.
[Gillard isn’t stupid enough to challenge a guy who has a preferred PM rating 44% above the opposition leader.]
I have to say I don’t think she will ever be PM. By the time Rudd goes I think she considered part of the old brigade.
The only way she’ll get the top job is a PJK attack in 6-7 years time.
Let’s say the ALP wins next year and loses in 2013. Would the ALP go with her or one of the younger ones? I know we’re off in fantasy land here though…
[Haven’t seen him write anything for ages]
No doubt writing the third book in his trilogy:
The Hawke Acendency”
“The End of Certainty”
“The Wasted Decade”
[I have to say I don’t think she will ever be PM. By the time Rudd goes I think she considered part of the old brigade.]
I agree. That is why I think in 2014 Australia’s P.M. will be Bill Shorten. It would have to be someone in the late 30s or early 40s now. Labor aren’t going to idiotically stick with the same person for 5 elections in a row.
I thought he was getting ready for the fire Aid concert 😛
Tony Burke is one of Labor’s best parliamentary performers he shredded Turnbull in QT….
The only way Gillard becomes PM is if Rudd goes under a bus and even then some other person in the right will try to stop her…she should be content with the roles she currently has because i doubt the right will give her Treasury no matter how well she’d go maybe she may get Finanace if Tanner loses to the Greens in 2010 but i cant see her being PM anyway let alone staying PM after an election…
[“The Wasted Decade”]
You forgot the subtitle – The Wasted Decade: Ten Years of Wankery.
[Tony Burke is one of Labor’s best parliamentary performers he shredded Turnbull in QT….]
Yeah, you’ve got to worry when an opposition leader bases their climate change policy on nonsensical extrapolation.
He made Turnbull look foolish when he brought out Turnbulls plans for planting trees in the wheatbelt in WA and taking away primary producing farmland in QLD and NSW to plant trees lol!
Im a rusted on Lib but even i was laughing with Tony Burke lol
[Labor aren’t going to idiotically stick with the same person for 5 elections in a row.]
Rudd is already 51. I very much doubt he will want still to be in politics when he’s 60. He might well walk after two terms and a bit, say in 2015. Gillard will then be 54, Shorten will be 48.