Save the date

Confusion surrounding the likely date of the New South Wales state by-elections, to add to that we already have about the federal election.

This coming Monday is the last date on which an election can be called for this year, specifically for the December 11 date spruiked recently by Anthony Albanese, which few if any still expect. The parlour game thus seems likely to move on now to the alternative scenarios of March and May. A complication in the former case is a South Australian state election set in the normal course of events for the third Saturday in March, i.e. March 19. If I understand the situation correctly, the South Australian government will have the discretion to delay the election by up to three weeks if a federal election is called before February 19 for a date in March.

Here’s what we do know:

• Max Maddison of The Australian reports grumbling within the New South Wales Liberal Party over its failure to have finalised candidates in the important seats of Dobell, Warringah and Gilmore. The report cites Liberal sources, no doubt with an interest in the matter, accusing Alex Hawke of using his clout on state executive to delay proceedings to the advantage of candidates of his centre right faction. “Other senior Liberal sources” contend the problem is “a lack of quality candidates and impending local government elections”. Prospective nominees for Dobell include former test cricketer Nathan Bracken, along with Michael Feneley, a cardiologist who has twice run unsuccessfully in Kingsford Smith, and Jemima Gleeson, owner of a chain of coffee shops.

• Further on Gilmore, the ever-readable Niki Savva reported in her Age/Herald column a fortnight ago that “speculation is rife” that Andrew Constance will not in fact proceed with his bid for preselection, just as he withdrew from contention Eden-Monaro ahead of last year’s by-election. If so, that would seemingly leave the path clear for Shoalhaven Heads lawyer Paul Ell, who is reckoned a formidable opponent to Constance in any case.

• Labor has not been breaking its back to get candidates in place in New South Wales either, with still no sign of progress in the crucial western Sydney fringe seat of Lindsay. However, candidates have recently been confirmed in two Liberal marginals: Zhi Soon, an education policy adviser and former diplomat, in Banks, and Sally Sitou, a University of Sydney doctoral candidate and one-time ministerial staffer, in Reid.

• In Victoria, Labor’s candidate in La Trobe will be Abhimanyu Kumar, owner of a local home building company.

• In an article by Jason Campbell of the Herald Sun, JWS Research says rising poll numbers for Clive Palmer’s United Australia Party are being driven by “skilled labourers and lower-end middle-management”, supplementing an existing support base that had largely been limited to people over 65. Maleness and low education remain common threads.

• An article on the voter identification laws by Graeme Orr of the University of Queensland in The Conversation makes a point I had not previously heard noted: that those who lodge a declaration vote in lieu of providing identification will have no way of knowing if their vote was ultimately admitted to the count. This stands in contrast to some American states, where those who cast the equivalent of postal or absent votes can track their progress online.

New South Wales by-election latest:

• It is now clear that the by-elections will not be held simultaneously with the December 4 local government elections as initially anticipated. The Guardian reports that the state’s electoral commissioner, John Schmidt, told a parliamentary committee hearing yesterday that “it wouldn’t be possible or sensible to try and aim earlier than the middle of February”, in part because the government’s “piecemeal funding” of his agency had left it with inadequate cybersecurity standards.

• Labor has announced it will field a candidate in Bega, making it the only one of the five looming by-elections in which the Coalition and Labor are both confirmed starters. James O’Doherty of the Daily Telegraph (who I hope got paid extra for pointing out that “Labor has chosen to contest the seat despite Leader Chris Minns last month criticising the looming by-election as expensive and unnecessary”) reports nominees for Liberal preselection will include Eurobodalla Shire mayor Liz Innes and, possibly, Bega Valley Shire councillor Mitchell Nadin.

• Anton Rose of Inner West Courier reports Liberal hopes in Jodi McKay’s seat of Strathfield are not high, particularly if Burwood mayor John Faker emerges as the Labor candidate, and that the party would “not be mounting a vigorous campaign”. One prospective Liberal nominee is said to be Natalie Baini, a sports administrator who was said earlier in the year to planning a preselection against Fiona Martin in the federal seat of Reid.

Poll news:

• A Redbridge Group poll conducted for Simon Holmes a Court’s Climate 200 non-profit group records Treasurer Josh Frydenberg’s primary vote as having slumped from 49.4% in his blue-ribbon Melbourne seat of Kooyong to 38%. With the Greens on 15%, well short of the heights achieved with Julian Burnside as candidate in 2019, such a result would put Frydenberg under pressure from Labor on 31%. Around half of the balance is attributed to the United Australia Party, which seems doubtful in an electorate such as Kooyong. The objective of the poll was to test the waters for a Zali Steggall-like independent challenge, and responses to some rather leading questions indicated that such a candidate would indeed be competitive or better. The survey was conducted from October 16 to 18 by automated phone polling from a sample of 1017.

• Liberal-aligned think tank the Blueprint Institute has results from a YouGov poll on attitudes towards carbon emissions policy, conducted in nine regional electorates from September 28 to October 12 with samples of around 415 each. In spite of everything, these show large majorities in favour of both halving emissions by 2030 and net zero by 2050 even in such electorates as Hunter and Capricornia. Even among coal workers (sub-sample size unclear), the results are 63% and 64% respectively.

• The Australia Institute has published its annual Climate of the Nation survey, based on a poll of 2626 respondents conducted by YouGov in August.

• It took me a while to update BludgerTrack with last week’s Resolve Strategic and Roy Morgan results, but now that it’s done, I can exclusively reveal that they made very little difference. Labor is currently credited with a two-party lead of 53.8-46.2.

Also:

• Antony Green has published his analysis of the finalised Victorian state redistribution.

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.

2,799 comments on “Save the date”

Comments Page 9 of 56
1 … 8 9 10 … 56

  1. You call those odds? Predict is selling $1 contracts for 8c on Scott Morrison being the next Asia Pac Leader to loose office.

  3. Jaeger

    I’m one of the few people who actually have programmed a PDP-11 series computer with the front panel switches 🙂

  5. I see Channel 7 are reporting that Barilaro got $100,000 in damages from FriendlyJordies. Wonder where they got that from?

    This from Shanks lawyers…

  6. C@t

    If Labor had been in power at the time, there’s a very good chance it would have given the go ahead for the George Street light rail. If so, TfNSW would have taken the lead and much the same mistakes would have occurred on Labor’s watch.

    Of course, the media would have treated it as the end of the world.

    I’ll not risk Sydney until I have my booster. For a start, it involves several hours of public transport each way and I’m not at all happy with the way air is recirculated on PT vehicles. Something we could have fixed a while ago. Besides, I may want to get frisky with a Sydneysider and that’s off the menu currently.

    Getting on to 5 months since my 2nd AZ jab. Did you see the article that poroti found showing actual data from British Health?

    If you were a close contact of someone who was covid positive and was also fully vaccinated with Pfizer, your odds of also contracting covid were 65% lower than if that someone was non vaccinated. But if that someone had been fully vaccinated with AZ, your odds are only 36% lower. That’s very indicative of the fact that AZ was always a weaker vaccine.

  10. Poor Cameron @ #396 Friday, November 5th, 2021 – 8:04 pm

    Labor $1.80
    Coalition $1.95

    That’s about right where I feel it is TBH. Previously, it was neck-and-neck with the Coalition being the slight favourites (which was similar to how I felt at the time) but I do feel Labor does slightly have the advantage right now but not enough to say with any real degree of confidence.

    Otherwise, the usual cautious disclaimers about betting odds apply. Although those numbers should be interesting reading for a certain Coalition supporter who was gloating about the Coalition being slight favourites on Sportsbet just a few nights ago.

  11. Cud,
    I can’t have my booster until March 1. But I’m travelling to my parent’s place out of Taree, just before Xmas with my son, and I think that, with appropriate precautions, we should be fine. Honestly, if I catch COVID-19 at that time, before I get my booster, then I must have done something so bad that bad karma has rained down upon me. 🙂

  13. Bushfire Bill says:
    Friday, November 5, 2021 at 8:56 pm
    Who took this photograph? It is SENSATIONAL.

    ____________________________
    How come yabba missed out on being in the photo?

  19. Watching Ted Lasso on Apple TV right now.

    It’s the last program we would ever normally watch, but we’ve watched everything else available. So, it was “Any port in a storm…”

    It is absolutely brilliant. Funniest thing I’ve seen in years, but “intelligent funny” rather than “slapstick funny”. Perfect combo of American and Pommy humour.

    Do not miss it.

  20. Cat, Cud

    I saw your earlier comments on Sydney SE LRT and George Street which I agree with. I thought George Street was a great idea, implemented terribly by ham-fisted management and rushed planning. The rushed planning was directly due to Gladys as transport minister. This blew out the cost by 50% to 100%. Other costing shenanigans included the LRT project paying for a 420 space multi-story car park at Randwick Racecourse (nice outcome for them!). And people wonder why it went over budget…

    NSW Roads also deserve heavy criticism for not giving the new trams absolute priority over cross traffic at intersections. That is a critical feature of both Canberra and Gold Coast LRTs operations management, which work well.

    I can’t comment on the Besancon CAF vehicles, though I note they are very small, operating on a system with many tight corners in a medieval road plan. The ones I saw in Nantes were first class.

    But it seems very odd to me that the Sydney SW LRT vehicles have cracking in every single vehicle. Did they all magically fail at once? Or did they do no preventative maintenance/inspections? Normally on fatigue failures you might get a few units cracking after time, but 12 out of 12 suggests a total failure to maintain and monitor condition, or a problem with the track. Hence my suspicion of a lack of rail engineering skills on SW LRT.

  21. Only Guy Fawkes day I celebrated was on a houseboat my youngest sister was living on in Richmond UK 25 years ago.

    Her then boyfriend bought a lot of very dangerous and probably illegal fireworks with warnings of keeping 15 metres clear which was hard to do on a 10 metre boat.

  23. Bushfire Bill says:
    Friday, November 5, 2021 at 9:39 pm

    Watching Ted Lasso on Apple TV right now.
    _________
    I’m watching the new Tom Hanks movie on Apple TV right now. Just stopping for a joint break. Excellent stuff.

  24. On a trip to Spain five or so years ago I was stunned to see family groups on a Mediterranean beach late at night celebrating their little town’s saint’s day with a bag of fireworks.
    They were banned in WA back in the 1960s!
    Mind you, back in those days boys like me liked “penny bombs”. A “four penny bomb” was the ultimate and probably the type of thing that caused the injuries that saw fireworks banned. I recall a large bunger let off in a bottle and blinding a child being the last straw.
    The Spanish seemed to like colourful sparks rather than explosions.

  25. Bushfire Bill
    Watching Ted Lasso right at the moment, having a lurk on on Pollbludger in between episodes.

    Decided to have a look at last night to see what all the fuss was about.

    Absolutely agree with you. Great show!

  27. Seeing someone post about the Greens “leading the way” is utterluy hilarious.

    The Greens currently control only the Yarra Council, where their biggest achievements are blocking a social housing development and defending one of their own Councillors after she assaulted a Trans woman.

    But still, the Greens campaign against Labor women and people of colour in a fever dream of having the “balance of power.”

    And what is that? In their delusional imaginings it means the Greens can force Labor to do their bidding.

    But in reality the Greens, even with a Federal parliament balance of power, cannot vote against Labor. Because doing so means voting with the Liberals. Amd voting with the Liberals is disastrous to the Green brand.

    And there is absolutely nothing the Greens care about more than theit brand.

  28. Remember falling off a resting wall while on holiday in Empire Bay and chasing a parachute from a firework.

    Must have been last year of legal fireworks in NSW – 1981

  29. Oh and also, when a Green tells you they’re going to build eleventy billion public homes, do please ask them where they’re planning to build them.

    And how many will be in Newtown, Brunswick, West End or Byron Shire.

  30. 3zsays:
    Friday, November 5, 2021 at 10:02 pm
    Seeing someone post about the Greens “leading the way” is utterluy hilarious.

    The Greens currently control only the Yarra Council, where their biggest achievements are blocking a social housing development and defending one of their own Councillors after she assaulted a Trans woman.

    But still, the Greens campaign against Labor women and people of colour in a fever dream of having the “balance of power.”

    “And what is that? In their delusional imaginings it means the Greens can force Labor to do their bidding.

    But in reality the Greens, even with a Federal parliament balance of power, cannot vote against Labor. Because doing so means voting with the Liberals. Amd voting with the Liberals is disastrous to the Green brand.

    And there is absolutely nothing the Greens care about more than theit brand”

    Well summated.

    A vacuum fueled by narcissism and naivety

  31. Another SA sports legend dead

    Russell Ebert

    Played for the mortal enemy – but one of the finest

    A lazy 4 Magarey Medals, no less

    I recall, returning from Canberra and living in a good paddock, I was convinced into making a return to the game of the flanneled fools and the midday sun

    So off down King William Street to do some buying of the necessary

    To Ebert and Weston (everyone in sport in Adelaide had their name on a sports store in those days, Ebert and Weston succeeding Motley and Ebert. And Paul did eventually play for the good team) to be told by Russell that I was fat!!!

    I threatened to go to Rowe and Jarman, downstairs in Grenfell Street (where Barry “Nugget” Rees was already a legend and Wayne Slattery worked) but it was too far away – and Russell was correct

    So I got fit again!!!

    Pounding around the Torrens from the Uni gym to the Old Cannon at the top of Port Road every morning (an exercise regime which continues nearly 50 years on!)

    Another top bloke gone too soon

    I heard after leaving Adelaide that the business had not served Russ well, which was unfortunate

    Forcing him to a career in radio

    The Riverland in SA – and Loxton in particular – produced many a champion sportsperson

    Russ’s brother was pretty handy – as have been a number of the Ebert family since

    Another sad day

  32. Jaegersays:
    Friday, November 5, 2021 at 8:16 pm
    That’s such an in joke

    Yes the DEC PDP-11 running RSTS was the beach head that introduced mini computers into the mainframe market dominated by IBM.

    They were fun times.


  35. Cud Chewer says:
    Friday, November 5, 2021 at 8:42 pm

    Jaeger

    I’m one of the few people who actually have programmed a PDP-11 series computer with the front panel switches

    I assume it was only the boot program to read the tape? In my case a PDP 11-35.

  37. 3z @ #427 Friday, November 5th, 2021 – 10:02 pm

    Seeing someone post about the Greens “leading the way” is utterluy hilarious.

    The Greens currently control only the Yarra Council, where their biggest achievements are blocking a social housing development and defending one of their own Councillors after she assaulted a Trans woman.

    But still, the Greens campaign against Labor women and people of colour in a fever dream of having the “balance of power.”

    And what is that? In their delusional imaginings it means the Greens can force Labor to do their bidding.

    But in reality the Greens, even with a Federal parliament balance of power, cannot vote against Labor. Because doing so means voting with the Liberals. And voting with the Liberals is disastrous to the Green brand.

    And there is absolutely nothing the Greens care about more than their brand.

    +1 million

    And what a mealy-mouthed brand it is.

  38. Being the scientist, even from a young age, I once held a bunger in my hand to see what it felt like when it exploded.

    Painful. 😆

  40. And NAB have increased their Fixed Rates on offer – and reduced their variable rate

    Treasury is an art form in itself, pricing the book which is their function

    Over the week until today, the 10 Year Bond Yield is off by some 25 basis points

    Noting the RBA outlook on inflation (and wages)

    Wages need to grow by more than the inflation trend figure

  42. I was just watching a scene from Good Morning Vietnam with Robin Williams at the mic. He was rambling on in his usual madcap way and I swear I heard him say the name Barnaby Joyce among a batch of names he was reading out. I replayed it several time to make sure I wasn’t hearing things.

    That bastard pokes his nose in everywhere.

  43. I’m one of the few people who actually have programmed a PDP-11 series computer with the front panel switches

    You had switches? Looxury. 😉

  46. How can the results of the next election even be close?
    It should be a forgone conclusion that the Coalition will be out in a landslide.
    They have sent this country bankrupt before you take anything else into consideration.

    When Labor racked up a relativley small debt afetr the GFC all you heard on TV/Radio/internet was how are we ever going to pay this debt back blah blah blah…
    But if the LNP racks up debt 10 times that amount all you hear is a pin drop from the media

  48. Scott Manley is good value. Amy Shira Teitel’s “The Vintage Space” is great too:
    https://www.youtube.com/vintagespace/videos

    Apollo 11’s Source Code Has Tons of Easter Eggs, Including an Ignition File Titled ‘Burn Baby Burn’
    https://abcnews.go.com/Technology/apollo-11s-source-code-tons-easter-eggs-including/story?id=40515222

    “Printer on fire” is another fun one in Linux:
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lp0_on_fire

    I can recommend the TV series “Halt and Catch Fire”:
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halt_and_Catch_Fire_(TV_series)

  50. Jaeger

    I’ll share a couple of in jokes from my undergrad days..

    Long long ago, back when “640k of RAM is all anyone ever needs”, MSDOS used to have a table of error messages in its own chunk of reserved memory (Abort, Retry, Fail, Ignore: Does even Bill Gates know the answer?). There were some really obscure errors that in later versions still existed but were never referenced. So we (the 4th year Engineering class) sat down one day to come up with our own. These errors generally involved all kinds of interesting though improbable events, and of course earthquake, tsunami and so on.

    But the winner was…

    Error: User Exploded

    And going back to that PDP computer (I think it was an 11/50 at the time). Which was the pride of the Engineering Department and actually got used to solve Engineering problems. Someone decided to run a war gaming simulation on it. Up to 50 countries, resources, production, weapons. You know, a precursor to WarCraft. This of course led to strategies based on math and at one point there were 50-dimension matrixes being solved by the PDP (which bogged it down for days). Of course, linear algebra has some special case solutions and so eventually someone came up with the phrase:

    Nuke everything, it simplifies the equations.. 🙂

    I still say that under my breath, sometimes…

Comments Page 9 of 56
1 … 8 9 10 … 56

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *