Hello Newman

An eventful weekend bequeaths Queensland a by-election result and an unexpected new Senate election candidate.

I had a piece yesterday on Campbell Newman’s break with the Liberal National Party and plans to run for the Senate in Crikey, which I believe has its paywall down for a limited time only. The upshot is that Newman’s anti-lockdown message may struggle to gain traction in a state that hasn’t had many of them; that he is unlikely to benefit the conservative cause even if he wins; and that his presence on the ballot paper could even contribute to a seat currently held by the Liberal National Party (specifically Amanda Stoker) or Pauline Hanson instead going to Labor or the Greens.

The article includes a reference to a poll conducted by Ipsos in June from a sample of 500 Queensland respondents for conservative podcast host Damian Coory, who published approval ratings for state political figures among its small sample of 173 LNP voters. Newman was credited with an approval rating of nearly 60%, substantially higher than any of his four successors as party leader, which may have encouraged him in his present course. Newman has also maintained high name recognition, with only around 20% of respondents uncommitted, compared with around 40% for Lawrence Springborg and Deb Frecklington and 60% for David Crisafulli, who replaced Frecklington after the election defeat in October.

Rightly or wrongly, some media accounts have tied Newman’s abandonment of the LNP to a crisis in the party that was laid bare by Saturday’s Stretton by-election, which delivered it an unimpressive swing of 1.6%. My live results display for the by-election continues to be updated here, if on a somewhat irregular basis. The Electoral Commission of Queensland helpfully publishes preference flows by candidate, which may be of some interest: these show that preferences of the Informed Medical Options Party broke 60-40 to the LNP, while the Greens went 82-18 to Labor and Animal Justice went 56-44.

Elsewhere, Antony Green offers his estimated new margins for the finalised federal redistribution of Victoria.

Author: William Bowe

William Bowe is a Perth-based election analyst and occasional teacher of political science. His blog, The Poll Bludger, has existed in one form or another since 2004, and is one of the most heavily trafficked websites on Australian politics.

1,319 comments on “Hello Newman”

Comments Page 2 of 27
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  1. lizzie @ #NaN Tuesday, July 27th, 2021 – 8:38 am

    I’m hearing this morning that businesses which want to claim Covid payments have to do it through Centrelink, which is causing them delays and problems, having to register, whereas they previously received it through the Tax Office.

    I’m not sure I have that quite right, but it’s not working as simply and swiftly as the government pretends.

    That is correct. I just was on the Services Australia/Centrelink website and there was a prominent pop up message to apply for ‘Disaster Payments’ there.


  2. Peter Hartcher writes that America’s recent military history points to strategic shortcomings. He points out that the US has not won a major war since World War II.
    https://www.smh.com.au/world/north-america/america-s-recent-military-history-points-to-strategic-shortcomings-20210726-p58d1y.html

    Peter Hartcher is only discussing American military strategic shortcomings. But all their wars except 1990 Iraq war were based on false premise to put it mildly, which resulted in immense suffering to local population.

  3. UK Cartoons:

    Martin Rowson on Boris Johnson’s summer assault

    Brian Adcock: Gold medal haul for player

    Patrick Blower on #pingdemic #BorisJohnson #Isolation #Covid_19

    Brighty on #BorisJohnson #RichiSunak #SajidJavid #Covid_19

    Christian Adams on #Covid19UK #OlympicGames #InfectionRates

    Seamus Jennings on #SajidJavid #COVID19 and #NHS pay as the angry reaction to the doctors & nurses meagre pay award continues…

  4. Griff

    Yes of course its a numbers game, but my point is the SA and NSW approaches are different. The more thorough SA approach is significant when the numbers are small and containable. NSW is not the “gold standard”. They do not contact the secondary contacts actively as SA does. The NSW numbers (of primary contacts) are now probably too large for any state to pursue a thorough secondary contact strategy. That leaves a fuller lockdown as the only other option.

  5. poroti @ #NaN Tuesday, July 27th, 2021 – 8:57 am

    Socrates

    The NSW system expects those people to identify themselves and act accordingly after every primary contact is identified.

    So a ‘Galdys please’ then . Well that has a snowball’s chance in hell of working.

    People will not tell Contact Tracers where they have been going to do work for cash-in-hand.

    Like I said yesterday, I’m already starting to see Tradies sneak around at 6.30am in the morning on their way to go do some work somewhere. My best guess is they are doing work inside where they can’t be seen, rather than outside, where they can.

    This is all stuff that will perpetuate the lockdown and Gladys saying, ‘Please Please Please’ will have zero to no effect on them. The Neoliberal chickens are coming hiome to roost. They have encouraged the money and greed uber alles mindset, and this is how it ends up.

  6. Cat

    Agreed. Without income support expecting low income casual workers to stay in lockdown is unjust. We need them to stay home, but can’t expect them to starve in the process. Lockdown without Jobkeeper is plainly unjust.

    I should add that a friend here in Adelaide is currently in isolation as a secondary contact. He explained the process by which SA Health contacted him. The communication was direct, rapid and clear. He also gets notified when he is in the all clear period and can leave isolation.

    Liz, BK

    Yes that pharma article on the vaccine supply is interesting. The details of many dates are probably worth comparing to Greg Hunt’s public statements. I suspect a few lies will emerge.

  7. All in quarantine.

    VicGovDH @VicGovDH

    Reported yesterday: 10 new local cases and no new cases acquired overseas.
    – 15,677 vaccine doses were administered
    – 24,340 test results were received
    More later: https://t.co/lIUrl1hf3W#COVID19Vic #COVID19VicData [1/2] pic.twitter.com/fBytxd8pL1

  8. boerwar @ #NaN Tuesday, July 27th, 2021 – 8:18 am

    The depth of the MSM analyses, the Liberals gotchas, and the Greens gotchas demonstrated yesterday why Labor has no option other than to go for small target.

    ANY policy statement is: too little, too much, too big, too small, too early, too late, not enough, too much, different, the same, too expensive, too cheap, copied, a back flip… just tick the relevant boxes.

    There is very little appetite for rational public policy debate.

    Very much so. Because politics has become Balkanised.

  9. Ven @ #NaN Tuesday, July 27th, 2021 – 9:10 am


    The Age’s editorial says that the lockdown protests were wrong-headed in the extreme.
    https://www.theage.com.au/national/lockdown-protests-were-wrongheaded-in-the-extreme-20210725-p58cq7.html

    Not just wrongheaded, the protests were selfish, stupid, dumb, illegal, superspreaders, unscientific, driven by Murdoch hacks, violent and will have exactly the opposite affect to what it was intended.
    I ask other posters to add what I missed.

    All I can add is that for people why cry, ‘Freedom!’ I don’t think it should be the case that their ‘Freedom’ extends to the ‘Freedom’ to pass on the virus to others who don’t support their idea of ‘Freedom’.

  10. Labor could get a lot of support if they advocated a Royal Commission into this and other things:

    Yes that pharma article on the vaccine supply is interesting. The details of many dates are probably worth comparing to Greg Hunt’s public statements. I suspect a few lies will emerge.

  11. With Victoria set to re-open tomorrow and no end in sight for NSW, I reckon the press conferences shall be interesting today.
    Lessons have been learned here in Victoria, however the attitude towards any crisis has not changed. The health and safety of the Victorian public has been the Andrews governments primary focus all along.

    For NSW, the key here will be to play the long game – Short Term Gratification does not get rewarded by this virus…

  12. I think it was at the weekend that Gladys resorted to “hoping and praying”. Is that a sign of panic, or her normal method of dealing with a crisis?

  13. P1…Labor (again) tried the conventional, and some would say, honourable way of going to an election by putting up some policies for consideration by the electorate.
    The LNP, bereft of any policies, decided attack and fear of change might work….and it did……
    Last night, the first words out of some Liberal pollie was……’You can’t trust Labor….They will bring out new taxes’ ……….
    This way to fight elections has been in the DNA of conservative politics at least since the time of Menzies. It appeals to about 4/10 of the electorate but such is the harvest of seats the Nationals bring to the Coalition from about 4% of the those voting, that some 13 seats are in the bag for the LNP – regardless……..

  14. Just had my first shot of Pfizer.
    Now doing the 15 minute wait before I can leave.

    I hardly felt the jab

    Hopefully side effects are minimal


  15. Anthony Galloway tells us that former special forces soldier Ben Roberts-Smith displayed a contentious Crusader’s cross on his uniform while on duty in Afghanistan, with the symbol later digitally removed by the Department of Defence in a widely distributed photo of the decorated war veteran.
    https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/wrong-morally-official-photo-of-ben-roberts-smith-was-altered-to-hide-crusader-s-cross-20210726-p58cvu.html

    So it was a Crusade then albeit a modern one!

  16. A returned traveller who tested positive for COVID-19 after completing hotel quarantine may have been infectious on the Gold Coast for up to 12 days, reports Tracey Ferrier from AAP.

    Chief health officer Jeannette Young is scrambling to work out where the man picked up the virus as the list of exposure sites linked to him grows.

    She says he either got it during a recent trip to China, in hotel quarantine in Brisbane, or after he was released on July 12 and went home to the Gold Coast.

    The man, who was fully vaccinated, returned three negative tests while in hotel quarantine. However, he fell ill on July 15, three days after his homecoming.

    AAP understands he did not seek a coronavirus test despite having symptoms.

    It wasn’t until he went to a GP eight days later, for an unrelated issue, that he got tested at the doctor’s insistence.

    Initial test results obtained on Saturday were inconclusive but a second test on Sunday was positive, forcing the man into hospital.

    It’s possible he could have spent a total of 12 days moving around the Gold Coast while infectious, including taking a child to and from daycare, eating out, and going shopping.

    His family members were tested on Sunday but those results are yet to come back.

    Young is hopeful the risk is low but she has also noted the man’s second test showed a higher viral load than the first, suggesting he could be at the start of his illness.

    There’s so many unknowns here, so we’re taking a very cautious approach … and asking that people who’ve been to any of those sites contact us.

    She says anyone who has been on the Gold Coast or in Brisbane since July 13 should regularly check the growing list of exposure sites.

    So far those sites include the Goodstart Early Learning centre at Parkwood, various dining venues, the Pacific Fair Shopping Centre and the Kmart store at Westfield Helensvale.

  17. Ven

    a lockdown for only a some targeted LSAs instead of whole of Greater Sydney, which by accident are Labor held seats and where ethnic minorities live in large numbers.

    Which ‘proves’ that NSW Gov is driven by politics and not by health advice, no matter what Gladys says.

  18. Are the LNP so hard up for talent that the Borg has to be brought back from wherever it was he went?

    Ha, pretty much, yeah!

    I believe Springborg’s currently the mayor of a local council somewhere in southern regional QLD.

  19. Vensays:
    Tuesday, July 27, 2021 at 9:21 am

    Anthony Galloway tells us that former special forces soldier Ben Roberts-Smith displayed a contentious Crusader’s cross on his uniform while on duty in Afghanistan, with the symbol later digitally removed by the Department of Defence in a widely distributed photo of the decorated war veteran.
    https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/wrong-morally-official-photo-of-ben-roberts-smith-was-altered-to-hide-crusader-s-cross-20210726-p58cvu.html

    So it was a Crusade then albeit a modern one!
    _____________________
    How on earth did his superior commanders allow him to wear it? Provocative, counter productive to what they claimed they were doing and stupid.

  20. Jaeger @ #58 Tuesday, July 27th, 2021 – 9:09 am

    All in quarantine.

    VicGovDH @VicGovDH

    Reported yesterday: 10 new local cases and no new cases acquired overseas.
    – 15,677 vaccine doses were administered
    – 24,340 test results were received
    More later: https://t.co/lIUrl1hf3W#COVID19Vic #COVID19VicData [1/2] pic.twitter.com/fBytxd8pL1

    Seems Sutton and Weimar have again got the better of this latest Delta incursion. Great job everyone especially those infected who’ve stayed at home.

    We just need Morrison to get these bloody purpose-built quarantine centres finished. GET IT DONE FFS !!

  21. @Victoria

    Yes, I was surprised how painless it was. I’ve had other injections hurt much worse. No side effects here either, besides a bit of a bruise at the jab site for a day or so.


  22. porotisays:
    Tuesday, July 27, 2021 at 8:01 am
    Socrates at 7:40 am
    I’m pretty sure NSW did have the double ring. NSW may have had to abandon it due to being overwhelmed by the numbers involved in the current out break.
    Perhaps Gladys should have read this article in Nature last xmas ?

    Why many countries failed at COVID contact-tracing — but some got it right
    Rich nations have struggled with one of the most basic and important methods for controlling infectious diseases.

    …………………………..In England, tracers fail to get in touch with one in eight people who test positive for COVID-19; 18% of those who are reached provide no details for close contacts. In some regions of the United States, more than half of people who test positive provide no details of contacts when asked. These statistics come not from the first wave of COVID-19, but from November, long after initial lockdowns gave countries time to develop better contact-tracing systems.

    https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-03518-4

    poroti
    You hit the ‘contract tracing’ nail on its head. It is successful only when the numbers are small, people are contacted early, people are truthful and remember about details.
    Once the numbers exceed some number (I don’t know what it is) it is useless.
    Only thing that works for a Pandemic is Social distancing and lockdown.

  23. “Ven

    a lockdown for only a some targeted LSAs instead of whole of Greater Sydney, which by accident are Labor held seats and where ethnic minorities live in large numbers.

    Which ‘proves’ that NSW Gov is driven by politics and not by health advice, no matter what Gladys says.”

    Sure. Exactly like the NSW government locked down the ALP seats in the Northern Beaches, where Mike Carlton and Kristine Keneally live at Christmas, without locking down the Liberal party seat in which the Berala cluster took hold.


  24. lizziesays:
    Tuesday, July 27, 2021 at 8:11 am
    Stephen Koukoulas
    @TheKouk
    ·
    15m
    Staggering that David Crowe & Fran Kelly are suggesting Labor has a problem of ‘where the money will come from’ to fund its promises.
    They fail to note that the Coalition, which promised budget surpluses, has delivered 8 deficits & has 40 more years of deficits ahead

    Don’t they understand that in a post-Covid world debt and deficit are meaningless and Labor like LNP can fulfill their promise with debts and deficits.

  25. Labor simply has to push the line that the decisions made yesterday will given workers and business “ certainty” in these uncertain times.

    Australians will still be able to invest in housing under a labor government. Australians will still receive promised tax cuts under labor.

    Let the rabble on the left and right rant and rave.

  26. Victoria @ #NaN Tuesday, July 27th, 2021 – 9:20 am

    Just had my first shot of Pfizer.
    Now doing the 15 minute wait before I can leave.

    I hardly felt the jab

    Hopefully side effects are minimal

    Yay, Vic! 🙂

    My son had his 1st Pfizer last Thursday and he said the worst side effect was feeling like he had been punched in the arm. Hope that’s all you get too! Or not even that!

  27. Scott Morrison PM of Australia (parody)
    @ScottyFromMktg
    Just put on some jeans I haven’t worn in a while and found 280,000 Pfizer vaccines in the pocket

    & is this a change of heart?…
    Patricia Karvelas
    @PatsKarvelas
    If Victoria is able to lift #lockdown tomorrow it will be the clearest evidence that waiting too long – as NSW did – is the recipe for long heartbreaking closure. I have lived through 3 lockdowns this year alone but I still prefer that not ideal option to a neverending shutdown

  28. politics
    @pollwatcher9
    ·
    27m
    @DanielAndrewsMP
    won the next election today.
    @GladysB
    lost the next election today #covid19vic #covid19nsw
    Quote Tweet
    Dr. Daniel S. Garcia
    @DrDanGarcia
    · 21m
    Today, Victoria will emerge from its short and sharp #Lockdown and return to #COVIDzero thanks to @VictorianCHO and @DanielAndrewsMP.

    Their decision to act to avoid the #COVID19nsw national disaster managed by @GladysB and @NSWHealth is a credit to lessons learnt in 2020 #auspol

  29. Cat

    “All I can add is that for people why cry, ‘Freedom!’ I don’t think it should be the case that their ‘Freedom’ extends to the ‘Freedom’ to pass on the virus to others who don’t support their idea of ‘Freedom’.”

    Exactly. In ethics it is a basic principle that you cannot call something a universal human right unless it can be given to everyone without restricting other’s rights. Otherwise, by definition, it is not universal.

    We curtail many freedoms where they risk harm to other innocent persons. E.g. drink driving.

    Good job Victoria on the covid testing results. I will look forward to the screams from RWNJs on radio tomorrow when Adelaide and Melbourne have come out of lockdown and NSW soldiers on with a second rate lockdown and sorry, a bronze medal in contact tracing, not gold.

    Best wishes to Sydney bludgers stuck in lockdown. My criticisms are aimed at your government, not the people.

    Have a good day all.

  30. We can see this public relations train coming, but will people have the sense to avoid it? The change in his clothes and grooming is very obvious, even in the pale blues and grays he wears.

    PRIME MINISTER Scott Morrison’s public appearances have been few over the last weeks, so you may not have noticed the subtle transformation in his appearance as he moves, almost imperceptibly, along a personal continuum that begins with daggy dad and ends in manicured politician.

    It’s considered crass to comment on physical appearance, however, when that appearance indicates an image change timed to an election, it behoves us to take note. Morrison is of late cultivating a more sophisticated look, in pursuit, one might speculate, of the gravitas associated with a reassuringly authoritative, well-groomed and worldly leader rather than the tradie mateship schtick that has got him this far, but is likely coming to the end of its shelf life.

    Lipstick on a pig, you might argue, and you’d be right. However, it would be reckless to underestimate the influence a lipsticked pig can have over people who aren’t especially interested in politics and tend to take things at face value.

    https://independentaustralia.net/politics/politics-display/scott-morrisons-image-aims-to-please,15337


  31. Greensborough Growlersays:
    Tuesday, July 27, 2021 at 9:14 am
    Australia moves to 37th out of 38 on the OECD’s ladder of population vaccinations.

    Yay!

    Yeah! 🙂

  32. The reason they say America hasn’t won a war since 1945 is because either:

    ● their enemies have often been unconventional (guerilla wars, tribesmen, religious nutters) and just never gave up;

    ● the Americans have, in the main, not been ready to wipe out or lay waste to their enemies, then stamp on their throats for at least the first decade as they basically did to the Axis powers.

    Having said that, I’d still unfashionably consider Vietnam as a “won” war, in that it achieved one of its major objectives: it stopped Communism dead in its tracks in Greater SE Asia.

    Whatever may be the state of Communist play in Vietnam today, it hasn’t spread to neighbouring nations, as it was intended to, and it’s not too nasty either, having a decidedly commercial bent. Cambodia did look decidedly wobbly for a while, of course, but it was actually the Vietnamese military that sorted it out in significant measure.

    Then there is the Big One: the Cold War. America did win that hands down, by attrition, while holding the Soviets to a draw militarily. The USSR was effectively under siege by the West (led by the USA) and in the end capitulated. It ran out of steam.

    To just make a blanket statement that America “hasn’t won any wars since WW2”, sounds superficially convincing, but in my opinion is open to so much nuance as to be essentially inaccurate.

  33. ‘Socrates says:
    Tuesday, July 27, 2021 at 8:27 am

    Thanks BK. On this one about US foreign policy:
    “ Peter Hartcher writes that America’s recent military history points to strategic shortcomings. He points out that the US has not won a major war since World War II.”
    https://www.smh.com.au/world/north-america/america-s-recent-military-history-points-to-strategic-shortcomings-20210726-p58d1y.html

    If US strategic decision making hasn’t been very smart for 30 years (post cold war) then it also doesn’t say much for the countries that blindly follow their foreign policy lead in that period i.e. Australia.

    Keating said we need to clean out the defense/intelligence bureaucracy as a bunch of “nutters”. Andrew Wilkie has also made well informed criticisms. I hope the next Labor PM takes on this task. These people are also a long way to the right, as the BRS saga shows.’
    _______________________________________
    Good post, IMO but with the original article lacking nuance. Some points:
    1. The US has been excellent at winning at least some small wars. It stopped the Bosnian Conflict stone dead by dropping Serbian bridges, for example. It backed Oz in the Timor L’este operation. It has cleaned out various petty dictators in Latin America.
    2. The US has, in fact, won major war after major war. But it has lost the peaces. The strategic challenge/failure has been managing the transition from kinetic war to culture war.
    3. There is little or no stomach for prolonged wars in the US civilian population. This has, IMO, reached new strengths following the past 20 years.
    4. The war on terrorism, arguably, has been not been 100% successful but has probably been better than a stalemate. Domestic islamist terrorist incidents in the West have fallen sharply. Inter alia, this war has involved destroying ISIS and a large and successful program of killing terrorist leaders by way of missile attacks.

  34. Further to my last post.

    With a probable negative September quarter of growth and the possibility ( albeit small ) of a negative December quarter labor would be very very “ courageous” to prosecute the case for repealing legislated tax cuts for a significant number of Australians.

    Yes I do acknowledge the cuts do not commence until 2024 but can you imagine the MSM and coalition attack given the election will be held early next year ?

    Why die in a ditch fighting for a policy that would have “ limited” chance of passing the senate anyway ?

  35. Doyley,

    There’s only one issue atm and that is Covid.

    Labor Federally have pushed the Libs on vaccination procurement and roll out. They’ve also won the battle that Quarantine is a Federal responsibility and they need to spend money on building dedicated facilities.

    The Government’s porous borders with regard to returnees filtering back and wandering around in the community is an issue that will get bigger.

    Of course this morning where the Vics have beaten an outbreak of Covid in the State through a hard and strong lockdown shows the success of that strategy compared to the “Please, Please me” approach of NSW.

    Other social and economic issues are around. However, Labor have rightly calculated that haggling over these issues publicly does them no favours and are not to the forefront of public thinking at this time.

    The responsibility of the Federal Labor Party is to win the next Election. That can be achieved by being focussed and demonstrating it’s safe to switch to Albo and Labor in those marginal seats. Latest polling seems to point to this as being the right strategy.

  36. Queensland chief health officer Jeannette Young:

    I got the whole genome sequence result for that man who travelled from China and was in hotel quarantine and he has exactly the same sequence.

    It’s identical… with a traveller who returned from South Africa via Doha.

    There are now seven people in that cluster. We had that person come back as part of a family group and they went into one hotel and then we had others in another group who went into a different hotel and they’ve all become positive subsequently and have the same genome sequence.

    They were all on the same flight from Doha to Brisbane that arrived on 8 July. Now we’ve seen this gentleman, who was on the same floor n fact in the room opposite to one of those others, has contracted the infection from that person.

    So he left quarantine on 12 July and then he developed symptoms on 15 July so that’s why we’ve contact traced back two days to the 13th of July and you’ll have seen all of those venues on our website.

  37. The latest to join the conga line of Murdoch hacks demanding “let’er rip”:

    Zero Covid’ experts put grandkids at risk
    A warmer planet won’t be the only burden we’re leaving for the next generation.

    ADAM CREIGHTON

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