Welcome to the latest instalment of Call of the Board, which probes into every seat result from the May federal election region by region. Earlier instalments covered Sydney, here and here; regional New South Wales; Melbourne; regional Victoria and south-east Queensland. Today we look at the electorates of Queensland outside of Brisbane, the Gold Coast and the Sunshine Coast.
The posts dealing with the big cities have featured colour-coded seat maps and the results of a model estimating how the results would have looked if determined by demographic factors alone. Unfortunately, colour-coding doesn’t get you very far when zooming out to vast and unevenly populated regional terrain, and the model hasn’t proved to be much use in producing plausible results for regional seats, in which elusive factors of local political culture appear to loom large. However, I can at least offer for purposes of comparison Labor two-party estimates derived from the Senate results, potentially offering a pointer to how much candidate factors affected the lower house results.
Seat by seat alphabetically:
Capricornia (LNP 12.4%; 11.7% swing to LNP): Labor held this Rockhampton region seat for all but one term from 1977 to 2013, but history may record that it has now reached a tipping point akin to those that have excluded the party from former regional strongholds including Kennedy (Labor-held for all but two terms from federation to 1966, but only once thereafter), Grey in South Australia (Labor-held for all but one term from 1943 to 1993, but never again since) and Kalgoorlie in Western Australia (Labor-held for all but three terms from 1922 until Graeme Campbell quit the party in 1995, and now divided between the safely conservative seats of O’Connor and Durack). The 11.7% swing to Michelle Landry, who has held the seat since 2013, was the biggest in the country, shading the 11.2% swing to the beloved George Christensen in Dawson. Landry’s primary vote was actually little changed, reflecting the entry of One Nation, who accounted for most of Labor’s 14.3% collapse. The rest came from a halving of the Katter’s Australian Party vote from 7.1% to 3.7% and the absence of Family First.
Dawson (LNP 14.6%; 11.2% swing to LNP): Dawson behaved almost identically in swing terms to its southern neighbour, Capricornia, as voters showed themselves to be a great deal more concerned about Adani and its symbolism than George Christensen’s enthusiasm for life in the Philippines. As in Capricornia, the LNP primary vote was little changed from 2016, but the arrival of One Nation soaked up 13.1% which neatly matched Labor’s 12.5% decline. Katter’s Australian Party held up better here than in Capricornia, their 6.3% being only slightly down on 2016.
Flynn (LNP 8.7%; 7.6% swing to LNP): Labor narrowly won this Gladstone-based seat on its creation at their 2007 high-water mark and sliced the margin back to 1.0% in 2016, but hopes of going one better this time fell foul of the party’s region-wide disaster. The swing in this case was fairly typical of those suffered by Labor outside the immediate range of proposed Adani mine, though in this case One Nation were not a new feature, their 19.6% being slightly higher than their 2016 result. The seat was a bit unusual in that Labor’s score on the two-party Senate estimate was 2.8% stronger than their House result.
Groom (LNP 20.5%; 5.2% swing to LNP): The 5.2% swing to John McVeigh was a bit below the regional Queensland par, despite him being a sophomore of sorts – although he may have arrived in 2016 with a ready-made personal vote due to his background as a state member. Nonetheless, it was sufficient to catapult the seat from fifteenth to second on the national ranking of seats by Coalition-versus-Labor margin, reflecting the narrowing of margins in many blue-ribbon city seats. The 2016 result was remarkable in that Family First polled 10.0% in the absence of right-wing minor party competition – this time the newly arrived One Nation polled 13.1% in their absence. The LNP primary vote was little changed and Labor was down 3.5%, the rest of the swing bespeaking a more right-wing minor party preference pool.
Herbert (LNP GAIN 8.4%; 8.4% swing to LNP): Labor’s most marginal seat pre-election, following Labor member Cathy O’Toole’s 37 vote win in 2016, the Townsville seat of Herbert was one of five seats across the country and two in Queensland that were gained by the Coalition (balanced to an extent by Labor’s gains in Gilmore and, with help from redistribution, Corangamite and Dunkley). While the swing was lower than in the Adani epicentre electorates of Dawson and Capricornia immediately to the south, it was sufficient to produce the most decisive result the seat has seen since 1954. O’Toole’s primary vote was down 5.0% to 25.5%, while LNP victor Phillip Thompson added 1.6% to the party’s 2016 result to score 37.1%. High-profile Palmer candidate Greg Dowling did relatively well in polling 5.7%, and One Nation were down from 13.5% to 11.1%.
Hinkler (LNP 14.5%; 6.1% swing to LNP): Keith Pitt, who has held this Bundaberg-based seat since 2013, picked up a swing well in line with the regional Queensland norm. He was up 2.2% on the primary vote, while Labor was down 3.8%; One Nation fell from 19.2% to 14.8%, mostly due to an expansion in the field from seven candidates to ten, including three independents, none of whom did particularly well individually.
Kennedy (KAP 13.3% versus LNP; 2.3% swing to KAP): Bob Katter had a near death experience at the 2013 election, at which time he was presumably tarred with the minority government brush despite being the only cross-bencher who backed the Coalition after the inconclusive 2010 result. However, he’s roared back to dominance since, picking up successive two-party swings of 8.9% and 2.3%, and primary vote swings of 10.5% and 2.6%. On the latter count at least, he’s been assisted by the fact that One Nation have declined to challenge him. In Coalition-versus-Labor terms, the seat participated in the regional Queensland trend in swinging 7.8% against Labor.
Leichhardt (LNP 4.2%; 0.2% swing to LNP): The negligible swing in favour of LNP veteran Warren Entsch was an exception to the regional Queensland rule, and was generally attributed to the centrality of tourism to the economy of Cairns, giving the region a very different outlook on issues like Adani. The result was generally status quo in all respects, but the seat had the distinction of being one of only three in the state where the Labor primary vote very slightly increased, along with Ryan and Fairfax. With Entsch’s primary vote down slightly, the two-party swing, such as it was, came down to an improved flow of preferences.
Maranoa (LNP 22.5% versus One Nation; 6.6% swing to LNP): For the second election in a row, Maranoa emerged with the distinction of being the only seat in the country where One Nation made the final preference count. One Nation and Labor were down on the primary vote by 3.2% and 2.7% respectively; at the last preference exclusion, One Nation led Labor 21.3% to 19.0%, compared with 23.6% to 22.9% in 2016. The other story here was the strong sophomore showing for David Littleproud, who was up 6.8% on the primary vote and by similar amounts on two-party preferred against both One Nation and Labor. The 25.4% margin versus Labor is now by some distance the biggest in the country, compared with the electorate’s ninth ranking on this score in 2016. Equally impressive for Littleproud is the distinction between his 25.4% margin and the 20.4% recorded by the two-party Senate measure.
Wide Bay (LNP 13.1%; 5.0% swing to LNP): Llew O’Brien may also have enjoyed a sophomore effect after succeeding Warren Truss in 2016, as his primary vote was up 3.2% while One Nation fell from 15.6% to 10.8%. However, the Labor primary vote held up unusually well, and the two-party swing was at the lower end of the regional Queensland scale.
Wright (LNP 14.6%; 5.0% swing to LNP): So far as the major parties were concerned, the result here was typical of regional Queensland, with LNP member Scott Buchholz up 3.1% on the primary vote and Labor down 4.0%. Independent Innes Larkin, who appears to have made his name locally campaigning against coal seam gas, scored a respectable 5.3%, which presumably helps explains the drop in the One Nation vote from 21.8% to 14.0%.
With the entrenchment of the Right in rural and regional Queensland, perhaps Labor should start thinking about reviving the Brisbane Line for the next Federal election. Resources will be scarce and probably better spent elsewhere. The same could apply for electoral promises, although talk on this topic is usually cheap.
Thanks William. Very interesting as usual.
Labor needs to play the policy long game in these seats.
Forget trying to appeal to climate denying rednecks. They’re a lost cause.
Trump’s White House will likely pull out all the stops to keep John Bolton away from Democrats: report
Recent reports suggest that former National Security Adviser John Bolton may be called to give evidence in the impeachment inquiry against President Donald Trump.
According to The New York Times, officials expect that the Trump administration will do everything they can to block Bolton from testifying.
But there is good reason to suppose Bolton, who had a tumultuous tenure as National Security Adviser and left amid foreign policy disagreements, could damage Trump. He was allegedly privy to at least some of the machinations of Rudy Giuliani to strong-arm Ukraine into investigating former Vice President Joe Biden, and was highly critical of this idea, blasting Giuliani as a “hand grenade” and comparing him to a drug dealer.
https://www.rawstory.com/2019/10/trumps-white-house-will-likely-pull-out-all-the-stops-to-keep-john-bolton-away-from-democrats-report/
State Department official will testify Pompeo threw Ukraine ambassador under the bus so Trump could fire her: report
On Saturday, the Wall Street Journal reported that Philip Reeker, the assistant Secretary of State in the Bureau of Europe and Eurasian Affairs, will testify to impeachment investigators that Secretary of State Mike Pompeo blocked a show of support for Ukrainian ambassador Marie Yovanovitch, making it easier for President Donald Trump to fire her — further implicating him in the possible quid pro quo scheme against Ukraine.
https://www.rawstory.com/2019/10/state-department-official-will-testify-pompeo-threw-ukraine-ambassador-under-the-bus-so-trump-could-fire-her-report/
Conservative Commentator to Republicans: Get Off The Trump Train Because It’s About To Derail
During a discussion on MSNBC, Sykes said the GOP’s impeachment defense strategy – attack the process, not the substance – is doomed to fail as the inquiry quickly escalates with public hearings.
“Republicans in the Senate have to realize that things are going to get a lot worse,” he said. “At some point, they’re going to have to confront the substance and the substance of this is a president who has abused his power and sold out the country.”
https://www.politicususa.com/2019/10/26/conservative-commentator-republicans-get-off-trump-train-about-to-derail.html
Rick Wilson Bites Barr
Is William Barr the Head of DOJ or QAnon?
John Durham’s investigation of the Russia probe as a criminal matter is further proof that the Justice Department is a tool for Trump now
I warned you William Barr was the most dangerous man in America.
I warned you he would burn Washington to the ground.
I warned you Barr would shatter the Justice Department into a million fragments.
I warned you Barr would run roughshod over the law, mangle the Constitution, shred the separation of powers, and turn the federal government into a weapon to destroy anyone Donald Trump designates as an enemy. From the moment he manipulated and distorted the findings of the Mueller Report to protect Trump, it was clear that Barr is a living, breathing abuse of power.
There was only one 2016 conspiracy, and that was the one Russia waged to elect Trump.
That it’s all fake doesn’t matter. Clicks and tweets are all that counts in the president’s domain. That’s why Barr’s political commissars at the DOJ will feed the breathless coverage of Durham. That’s why the descriptions of the “conspiracy” will grow more fevered and more exaggerated, and why Fox will fill the airwaves with ever-more operatic claims of a plot against Trump.
But they’re hunting for nothing.
MORE : https://gen.medium.com/is-william-barr-the-head-of-doj-or-qanon-58d68fc3a31
Beautiful one day, poor fellow my country the next, a weird mob the next, sunday too far away, tear along the dotted line perhaps!
It’s the sun I tell ya.
The Dawn Patrol will be late today. I have just had a long sleep – nothing to to with working all day at the oval fixing a leaking water supply one metre under ground and spreading two trailer loads of loam over wheel ruts of course!
Sunday is the day of rest, BK. You have earnt it. 🙂
Oh, how the mighty have fallen. Mike Pompeo was first in his class at the West Point Military Academy, whose motto is:
Duty • Honour • Country
phoenixRED,
Is yesterday’s Daily Beast subscriber column by Rick Wilson generally available yet?
Pointed sarcasm by Jericho.
https://www.theguardian.com/business/grogonomics/2019/oct/27/coalitions-rewriting-of-economic-history-is-a-masterclass-in-obfuscation
C@tmomma says: Sunday, October 27, 2019 at 7:23 am
phoenixRED,
Is yesterday’s Daily Beast subscriber column by Rick Wilson generally available yet?
****************************************************
Hi C@tmomma – just checked – its still locked 🙁
Thanks, pR. 🙂
C@tmomma says: Sunday, October 27, 2019 at 7:22 am
Oh, how the mighty have fallen. Mike Pompeo was first in his class at the West Point Military Academy, whose motto is:
Duty • Honour • Country
****************************************************
Interesting you posted this C@t – as fellow West Pointer and salon regular Lucian Truscott just wrote a great article about Bill Taylor and West Point
Who is Bill Taylor? I’ve known the guy who rocked Capitol Hill this week for 50 years
My West Point classmate is a Vietnam veteran and an experienced diplomat. Most of all, he’s an honest man
I would have loved to have been a fly on the wall this week when he testified in the so-called SCIF on Capitol Hill. An NBC report described the scene this way: “The room went silent during Taylor’s 45-minute opening statement, which he delivered in a steady yet confident tone, stopping just a few times to take a sip of water, according to a source in the room. ‘You could hear a pin drop,’ one source said.” I’ll bet you could.
Another report said that Republicans were close-mouthed as they exited the room after Taylor’s testimony. I’ll bet they were.
It took Trump two days to attack Taylor, and then all he could manage was calling him “Never Trumper Diplomat Bill Taylor (who I don’t know).” Wow. I bet that shook him up.
The question on everyone’s lips all week has been, what makes a guy like Bill Taylor do the right thing? The answer I’ve got for you is this: That’s who he is. He’s one of the most careful, conservative guys I’ve ever known, in the best and most real sense of the word “conservative.” He took the West Point motto, “Duty, Honor, Country” seriously. He took the West Point honor code seriously. He took his oath to uphold and defend the Constitution of the United States seriously. I’ve known him since we were in high school, and he’s never wavered in all these years.
MUCH MORE :
https://www.salon.com/2019/10/26/who-is-bill-taylor-ive-known-the-guy-who-rocked-capitol-hill-this-week-for-50-years/
phoenixRED,
I bet William Taylor has some choice words, behind closed doors where the public can’t hear them, about Mike Pompeo.
He’s still regularly on Sky, though.
https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/scott-morrison-banned-liberal-mp-craig-kelly-from-the-abc-s-q-and-a-program-20191025-p534ey.html
David Burbach @dburbach
Pentagon sources pretty openly admitting they exploited Trump’s obsession with “the oil” to get him to agree to leave forces in Syria, which the military wants to do for other reasons #civmil
“This is like feeding a baby its medicine in yogurt or applesauce,” said the official, one of several who spoke on the condition of anonymity about internal U.S. deliberations.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/us-defense-secretary-mark-esper-says-us-will-leave-forces-in-syria-to-defend-oil-fields-from-islamic-state/2019/10/25/fd131f1a-f723-11e9-829d-87b12c2f85dd_story.html
So, this is why Craig Kelly mysteriously disappeared from QandA:
https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/scott-morrison-banned-liberal-mp-craig-kelly-from-the-abc-s-q-and-a-program-20191025-p534ey.html
No wonder Trump likes Morrison, he’s our very own Authoritarian strongman leader.
Snap! lizzie!
C@t
It was good to read that some Libs are “privately concerned”. Perhaps they could do something practical about it.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/oct/26/gm-golden-rice-delay-cost-millions-of-lives-child-blindness
Good morning Dawn Patrollers. Apologies for its lateness.
Greg Jericho calls out the Coalition’s rewriting of economic history as being a masterclass in obfuscation.
https://www.theguardian.com/business/grogonomics/2019/oct/27/coalitions-rewriting-of-economic-history-is-a-masterclass-in-obfuscation
Michael Koziol reveals that Morrison banned Craig Kelly from appearing on Q and A last month in an attempt to moderate public perceptions of the government on climate change.
https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/scott-morrison-banned-liberal-mp-craig-kelly-from-the-abc-s-q-and-a-program-20191025-p534ey.html
Peter FitzGerald tells us how Jacinda Ardern upset the thin-skinned Parrot several years ago.
https://www.smh.com.au/politics/nsw/jones-in-a-snit-because-ardern-called-him-a-git-20191025-p534al.html
Paul Keating has weighed in on the economic debate, telling the Morrison government to drop its promise of a surplus and stimulate growth as monetary policy has “run its race”.
https://www.canberratimes.com.au/story/6459088/govt-can-offer-stimulus-keep-surplus-alp/?cs=14231
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2019/oct/26/paul-keating-says-coalition-must-abandon-surplus-as-rate-policy-has-run-its-race
Eryk Bagshaw pulls apart the figures released by Home Affairs on citizenship application and their processing.
https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/one-in-three-chinese-immigrants-fail-to-acquire-australian-citizenship-amid-unwarranted-delays-20191016-p5314l.html
Jobseekers in Sydney’s western and south-western suburbs are at risk of being left behind by the rest of the city in the battle to nail down a job explains Shane Wright.
https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/the-west-and-the-rest-jobless-rate-plunges-in-inner-sydney-but-rises-in-the-outer-suburbs-20191026-p534fx.html
More on this subject as Wright says that unemployment in some of the nation’s economically weakest areas will have to halve to get even close to levels the Reserve Bank believes are necessary to deliver decent wage rises to working Australians.
https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/tall-order-jobless-rates-will-have-to-plummet-for-workers-to-win-pay-rises-20191026-p534fz.html
Staff have been hospitalised and seriously injured in more than 900 violent incidents in the health service that treats some of Victoria’s most complex prisoners – from schoolgirl killer Sean Price to Bourke Street murderer James Gargasoulas. Who would want these jobs?
https://www.theage.com.au/politics/victoria/number-of-violent-attacks-rises-each-year-at-melbourne-s-mental-health-hospital-20191026-p534hm.html
While the LNP comes up with another scheme to assist drought-affected areas, the fight for press freedom shows signs of hypocrisy, writes John Wren in his weekly political roundup.
https://independentaustralia.net/politics/politics-display/wrens-week-drought-proofing-and-your-right-to-know,13247
Simon Castle calls BS on the government’s exhortations for people to “shop around” for better deals on electricity, gas, superannuation, insurance, telecommunications, banking and other things.
https://www.smh.com.au/business/consumer-affairs/shop-around-ain-t-nobody-got-time-for-that-20191024-p533yn.html
Meanwhile about 2000 more skilled foreign workers will be pushed to live and work in regional Australia each year under changes to the Morrison government’s annual migration intake.
https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/government-to-boost-number-of-skilled-foreign-workers-.in-regions-20191025-p534df.html
Caitlin Fitzsimons writes that in a draft report to be released on Tuesday the Productivity Commission will reveal that one million Australians are suffering some form of mental ill health without receiving treatment or support services, with younger people at the greatest risk.
https://www.smh.com.au/business/the-economy/one-million-people-with-mental-illness-don-t-receive-care-productivity-commission-20191012-p53010.html
The Morrison government has granted a three-year $20m contract to maintain the Christmas Island detention centre, which currently houses just four people, to a company that mines phosphate in the remote Australian territory. And for the cost/benefit analysis . . . ?
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2019/oct/27/20m-contract-granted-to-maintain-detention-centre-with-four-people-in-it
Labor has rejected Angus Taylor’s proffered explanation of how his office obtained a document with wildly inaccurate figures about Clover Moore’s travel expenses, saying that it vindicates their decision to refer the matter to police.
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2019/oct/26/labor-says-angus-taylors-explanation-of-false-figures-shows-they-were-right-to-notify-police
Embattled Energy Minister Angus Taylor today fought back against claims his office falsified a Sydney City Council document to score political points against Mayor Clover Moore, then tried to cover it up writes Dave Donovan.
https://independentaustralia.net/life/life-display/angus-taylor-denies-forging-document-and-calls-clover-moore-a-dirty-rotten-liar,13246
October in Canberra heralds the annual reporting season for government departments and agencies. Angus Taylor’s brainchild, the Infrastructure and Project Financing Agency (IPFA), has sallied forth with its latest 2018/19 Annual Report. Jommy Tee reports on the agency for who knows what.
https://www.michaelwest.com.au/paydaze-at-ipfa-the-agency-for-who-knows-what-leads-the-way-on-disclosure-not/
Carolyn Cummins tells us about the significant changes occurring in the retail landscape. It’s not a pretty picture.
https://www.smh.com.au/business/companies/millennials-and-baby-boomers-put-retailers-in-a-pincer-grip-20191024-p533x8.html
The Australian Government needs to figure out its priorities in deciding on a firm plan to deal with counter-terrorism, writes Dr Allan Orr.
https://independentaustralia.net/politics/politics-display/why-our-syria-policy-is-strategically-unsound,13249
Jacqui Maley springs to the defence of Meghan Markle.
https://www.smh.com.au/world/europe/when-we-tell-meghan-markle-to-suck-it-up-what-does-that-say-about-us-20191025-p534a1.html
The Guardian opens up on the Jobactive program run under the auspices of Centrelink.
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2019/oct/24/jobactive-workers-speak-out-how-the-hell-did-i-end-up-doing-this-to-these-people
Katie Burgess reports that the Governor-General’s office blew its staffing budget by nearly $900,000 due to a huge uptick in the number of Australia Day award nominations.
https://www.canberratimes.com.au/story/6450550/award-boom-blows-governor-generals-staff-budget/?cs=14225
Twice as many people now think it would have been better never to have held a referendum on Brexit than believe it was a good idea, according to the latest Opinium poll for the Observer.
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/oct/26/opinium-poll-observer-uk-voters-regret-brexit-referendum-conservative-lead-over-labour
Jonathan Freedland wonders why the UK Labour Party is still sticking with Corbyn.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/oct/25/labour-jeremy-corbyn-party-leader-brexit-boris-johnson
This story has a horrible feel about it.
https://www.smh.com.au/national/victoria/police-complaints-in-spotlight-after-man-s-neck-breaks-during-arrest-20191025-p5348h.html
Cartoon Corner
A magnificent demolition of Morrison by Mark David.
From Matt Golding.
Zanetti and Uluru. (Remember the trouble Mark Knight got into over his racial depiction of Serena Williams?)
From the US.
https://www.smh.com.au/politics/nsw/jones-in-a-snit-because-ardern-called-him-a-git-20191025-p534al.html
I expect that BK may reference this (Peter Fizsimon’s column) in his Dawn Patrol.
P.S. As for calling Mr. Jones a *git
*git
/ɡɪt/
noun
informal•British
noun: git; plural noun: gits
an unpleasant or contemptible person.
“that mean old git”
BK’s post is up while I am still faffing about.
More coffee required and thanks BK. ☕☕
Morning all. Yet more evidence that Trump and Guiliani’s efforts to get cash and dirt on the Bidens has extended to many US ally nations. Another crime?
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/rudy-giuliani-butt-dials-nbc-reporter-heard-discussing-need-cash-n1071901
Also evidence of Guiliani’s carelessness.
“Labor needs to play the policy long game in these seats.
Forget trying to appeal to climate denying rednecks. They’re a lost cause.”
I’m guessing in advance that you won’t bother with a credible answer to this question Rex, but I’ll ask it anyways:
If labor does as you prescribe Rex, where is the pathway back for the progressive side of politics to get to 77 seats and form government?
While Maranoa and Wild Bay may well be a lost cause, if Labor can’t pick up at least half a dozen seats like Herbert, Capricornia, Flynn, Longman, Petrie, Forde etc etc then it is doomed to always fall short of government.
You might as well say Labor should give up on government and simply establish itself as a vanity project. Which as we all suspect is what you really want: a hard arsed fascist permanent government to do for you what you are embarrassed to admit you want, but a Quixotic permanent failure to rally behind to publicly look good and virtuous about.
Labor and either be left wing or centrist but either way it must find a way to make common cause with both types of voters. While Labor seems to have presently lost the knack of doing that, your remedy would doom it from ever achieving such a common cause. No thanks.
Special prize for the first correct guess as to the content of Zanetti’s brain.
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2019/oct/24/jobactive-workers-speak-out-how-the-hell-did-i-end-up-doing-this-to-these-people
BK thanks.
On the question of economic policy, as well as regional vs urban there is a growing divide between inner and outer urban seat. We are creating jobs in outer urban areas, but most of the high paid jobs are in CBDs. This is a world wide trend. There would be social equity gains, and political capital, to be mad from better (faster and more frequent) public transport links from outer suburbs to CBDs. Toll roads that are still slow and require $20 a day in tolls to get anywhere only help Transurban shareholders.
https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/the-west-and-the-rest-jobless-rate-plunges-in-inner-sydney-but-rises-in-the-outer-suburbs-20191026-p534fx.html
This really makes me angry at the waste of money, when the govt pats itself on the back for its tight-fisted treatment of all the programs that actually help people. I can’t believe they can be so cruel.
Andrew_Earlwood
says:
While Maranoa and Wild Bay may well be a lost cause, if Labor can’t pick up at least half a dozen seats like Herbert, Capricornia, Flynn, Longman, Petrie, Forde etc etc then it is doomed to always fall short of government.
____________________________________
Good luck with that. The alternative is to just expect QLD and WA to pretty much deliver what they have been and pursue a ‘southern strategy’. Focus on S.A, NSW and Tas. Labor is already at peak support in VIC, ACT and NT.
Mr Earlwood poses the question – “… where is the pathway back for the progressive side of politics to get to 77 seats and form government?”
The answer is very simple, an orderly dissolution of the Labor Party and genuine democratic reform of our voting processes and systems.
Even with the QLD swings the ALP might have been able to scrape into Government if the NSW ALP wasn’t the shit show it is and has been for decades. If not a dissolution how about an intervention? I’m sure the VIC ALP would be amenable to sending a cadre of operatives up there to take over for a while and get things at least ‘non-criminal’.
Apparently the Governments Empathy Advisor recommended Craig Kelly not go on Q&A.
Nath.
I reckon Labor would be stretched to win another 5 seats in nsw when there is one of those rare Labor landslides: Banks (which has rapidly gentrified), Reid, Robertson, Lindsay and Page. In more normal times Labor could hope to pick up Reid and Robertson only, but it will also struggle to hold onto seats like Eden Monaro, McArthur, Gilmore, Hunter and Macquarie if Labor does what Rex suggests and give up on certain voter demographics as Rex suggests, which are similar types of voters to the ones it lost in Lindsay and would need to bring across in page (as well as the basket weavers up there). So in NSW a “southern strategy” entails a defensive campaign of appealing to bogans just as much as a Queensland or WA campaign does.
South Australia might deliver boothby, and the north coast of Tasmania is pretty fickle, so labor should expect those seats to naturally fluctuate.
In reality I can could about 6 seats labor may – perhaps, but perhaps not – be more competitive in if it is more aggressively pro environment and overtly anti coal: including Boothby, Chisholm, Reid and perhaps Brisbane. That would be offset by increased vulnerability in the labor seats I’ve listed above, leaving Labor stuck in the low 60s on the seat count.
Abandoning whole states and regions is a particularly daft political strategy. Reframing the debate onto issues which it is possible to make common cause is the obvious position to take. Easier said than done: but that is the task.
lizzie @ #28 Sunday, October 27th, 2019 – 8:33 am
You can’t!?!
*sarcasmemoji*
One final comment that is a bit long in the tooth now, but perhaps highlights the vacuity of modern sound bite media coverage. I have been reading over the past few weeks Lucie Morris-Marr’s terrific book Fallen, on the George Pell trials. It is a genuine good read in is own right as a true-life court room drama book. But also, when she goes through the details, it utterly demolishes the complaints of Andrew Bolt and other RWNJs as though Pell suffered some miscarriage of justice. He didn’t.
Every “doubt” or “error” raised by Bolt in columns is proven false in the book. Some issues (e.g. access to the sacristy and the immovability of the robes) the trial and jury spent days studying. The Judge’s summing up was forensic. For me, one of the most compelling pieces of evidence against Pell, which Bolt ignores, was Pell’s reaction in the first police interview in Rome, before the police even detailed the allegations to him. He knew what he was reacting to.
All this just goes to show how easy it is to raise doubt about a complex matter. When you go through the detail there is no doubt, but that takes weeks not minutes. The Gish gallop does not only apply to climate change. Have a good day all.
Well my advice wasn’t predicated on following Rex’s prescription. I’m not talking about what I would support but just in purely party political terms. You might think that any NSW gains will be small but that is predicated on the current image of the NSW ALP. If that division wasn’t so shonky then perhaps the ceiling would be much higher. A state with a metropolitan region as big as Sydney should be returning more progressive members than it does.
“Even with the QLD swings the ALP might have been able to scrape into Government if the NSW ALP wasn’t the shit show it is and has been for decades. If not a dissolution how about an intervention. I’m sure the VIC ALP would be amenable to sending a cadre of operatives up there to take over for a while and get things at least ‘non-criminal’.”
This is bullshit. The woes of state labor had nothing to do with the federal result. A Victorian fantasy mate. If anything, shorten’s Victorian attitudes of economic redistrubiism is what killed labor: he (and Victorian labor) we’re out of touch with the middle class that determines elections, as Keating said.
On the other hand Labor went into the election with more seats in NSW than the LNP, and that situation remains the same.
For all your heroic posturing Labor in Victoria only picked up seats because of favourable redistribution’s. In fact it failed to pick up another two Victorian seats even though the redistribution gave them a rails run.
Try again.
Lars Von Trier says:
Sunday, October 27, 2019 at 8:44 am
..
The answer is very simple, an orderly dissolution of the Labor Party and genuine democratic reform of our voting processes and systems.
Shakes head and walks away. Where do people are too stupid to argue with come from?
Green voter, or a Liberal that wants to raid the treasury with no opposition?
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/white-house/i-feel-bad-that-i-left-john-kelly-warned-trump-he-would-be-impeached
Andrew_Earlwood
says:
If anything, shorten’s Victorian attitudes of economic redistrubiism is what killed labor: he (and Victorian labor) we’re out of touch with the middle class that determines elections, as Keating said.
______________________
That’s hilarious considering all those ideas sprung from the mind of Chris Bowen.
White House cybersecurity chief quits, says leadership is inviting an attack
White House computer security Chief Dimitrios Vistakis gave the White House one helluva resignation notice earlier this week when he quit over practices he dubbed “absurd” including the systemic purging of cybersecurity staff.
They say that history repeats itself. Unfortunately given all of the changes I’ve seen in the past three months, I foresee the White House is posturing itself to be electronically compromised once again.
https://thenextweb.com/politics/2019/10/25/white-house-cybersecurity-chief-quits-says-leadership-is-inviting-an-attack/?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=White%2BHouse%2Bcybersecurity%2Bchief%2Bquits%252C%2Bsays%2Bleadership%2Bis%2Binviting%2Ban%2Battack
Jesus.
Andrew_Earlwood says:
Sunday, October 27, 2019 at 9:01 am
..
This is bullshit. The woes of state labor had nothing to do with the federal result. A Victorian centrist fantasy mate. Labor went into the election with more seats in NSW than the LNP, and that situation remains the same. For all your heroic posturing Labor in Victoria only picked up seats because of favourable redistribution’s. In fact it failed to pick up another two Victorian seats even though the redistribution gave them a rails run.
..
Federal parliament
Victoria Labor 21 Liberal 15
NSW labor 24 Liberal 22
QLD Labor 6 Liberal 23
And you belly arching because Victoria couldn’t make the Labor number a little higher.
NSW made it across the line but only just.
“That’s hilarious considering all those ideas sprung from the mind of Chris Bowen.”
I wonder about that, given that:
1. Chris got shorten would walk back his pledge to reverse the small-medium sized corporate tax cuts that had already taken place;
2. Is the closest to PJK of anyone in caucus. It beggars belief that Bowen wasn’t advocating using the money from the franking dividend reform to bring forward stage 2 tax cuts as some grand bargain, as PJK said immediately after the election – and which the new team of Albanese and Chalmers (who worked very closely with Bowen over the past 3 years) advocated for.
But who know, maybe Bowen did suck deep on the Victorian Kool aid.
nath @ #34 Sunday, October 27th, 2019 – 8:52 am
😆 …as long as those operatives offer no advice on gambling regulation and oversight.
Back to the issue at heart, Labor would be wise to offer a manifesto that includes incentives and subsidies to low emission businesses to enable growth while removing assistance to polluting businesses.
This however would require an overhaul of their traditional political donor framework and I’m not sure sections of the current political donor list will give up their power in a hurry.
frednk
says:
And you belly arching because Victoria couldn’t make the Labor number a little higher.
NSW make it across the line but only just.
_________________________
which is frankly appalling for a state with a metro region of nearly 5 million people.