Thursday miscellany: Greens and Liberal Senate vacancies, etc. (open thread)

Victorian Greens Senator Janet Rice to call it a day, Warren Mundine withdraws from contention to replace Marise Payne, and Josh Frydenberg confirms he will sit out the next election.

Apart from a few Indigenous Voice snippets, which I’m holding back for a dedicated post, the only polling action this week has been the regular Roy Morgan result, which has Labor leading 54-46, unchanged on last week, from primary votes of Labor 32.5% (up half), Coalition 35% (up half) and Greens 14% (down one-and-a-half). On the preselection front, there is the following to relate:

• Victorian Greens Senator Janet Rice has announced she will retire from parliament in the first half of next year. James Massola of The Age reports her successor will be chosen by a vote of 2000 to 3000 party members in November. The front-runner is Steph Hodgins-May, who has run three times for the party in Macnamara (known as Melbourne Ports up to 2016) and came within an ace of winning the seat in 2022. Other potential nominees are Monash councillor Josh Fergeus, academic and unionist Apsara Sabaratnam and lawyer Sarah Jefford.

• With Warren Mundine’s withdrawal last week from the preselection race to fill Marise Payne’s New South Wales Liberal Senate vacancy, the position is now thought likely to go to Andrew Constance, former state government minister and unsuccessful candidate for Gilmore at last year’s federal election. However, the Sydney Morning Herald reports he may face competition from one of a number of factional conservatives: “Mina Zaki, an Afghanistan-born, anti-Taliban activist and cyber expert at consulting firm KPMG; barrister Ishita Sethi; lawyer Pallavi Sinha; Monica Tudehope, who has previously worked as Dominic Perrottet’s policy director; and former NSW Liberal MP Lou Amato”. Mundine has opted to remain in the business sector, but the Sydney Morning Herald further noted he had “caused angst” among hitherto supportive conservatives by defying the no campaign line on the desirability of a treaty or a changed date for Australia Day. The Sydney Morning Herald earlier reported the preselection was not likely to be determined until November.

• Josh Frydenberg announced last week he will not seek to win Kooyong back from teal independent Monique Ryan at the next election. Rachel Baxendale of The Australian says this has left Liberals questioning who might take over as leader if circumstances demand it after the next election, with Andrew Hastie “described by several as the party’s best hope, despite his relative inexperience”. Amelia Hamer, director of strategy at tech start-up Airwallex, has been mentioned as a likely contender for the Liberal preselection in Frydenberg’s absence, while a report in The Age put forward a number of familiar names as potential starters: “Lucas Moon, an anti-pokies campaigner at Hawthorn RSL, Melbourne councillor Roshena Campbell, former candidate Georgina Downer, Caroline Elliot, or past Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry chair Karyn Sobels”.

• Alexi Diemetriadi of The Australian reports Hunters Hill mayor Zac Miles has resigned from the Liberal state executive ahead of a run for Liberal preselection in Bennelong, and that Shoalhaven councillor and former deputy mayor Paul Ell is “understood” to be considering running in Gilmore, where he stood aside in favour of Andrew Constance before the last election.

• The Australian’s Feeding the Chooks round-up of Queensland politics relates that long-serving Labor members Graham Perrett and Shayne Neumann are under pressure to make way for female candidates in their seats of Moreton and Blair, with former state secretary Julie-Ann Campbell favoured by the Left in Moreton and state Ipswich MP Jennifer Howard “weighing up her options for a tilt at Blair”.

• Poll Bludger contributor Adrian Beaumont has a new post at The Conversation on developments in the campaign for the October 14 election in New Zealand.

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.

1,617 comments on “Thursday miscellany: Greens and Liberal Senate vacancies, etc. (open thread)”

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  1. I mean my post was making fun of the popular assertion among the online far left that only the USSR was really opposed to the Nazis. But sure, Stalin was willing to throw his troops into the meat grinder, threatening execution against anyone who retreated to protect Russia from German invaders and therefore ran up a bigger body count, so I’ve sure been shown.

    Just don’t mention Molotov–Ribbentrop, please!

  2. Asha

    You are right about Gaetz.

    Yet it is not only the GOP. What does it say about the state of society in the States that are electing these creeps?

    It isn’t only Gaetz. There are a half dozen as bad. In Australia people like that might sneak in on a Senate spot with PHON, or in a marginal without enough scrutiny, then get turfed next time. Yet in USA they win individual seats on first votes and stay in.

  3. Who Won The Second Republican Debate?

    It was hard to crown a winner after Wednesday night’s chaotic Republican primary debate, as the candidates seemed more interested in talking over each other than answering the questions they’d been asked. So maybe it’s not surprising that the debate didn’t seem to change many voters’ minds.

    That’s according to a brand-new 538/Washington Post/Ipsos poll, conducted using Ipsos’s KnowledgePanel in the hours immediately following Wednesday’s debate. We asked likely Republican primary voters who watched the debate to grade each candidate’s performance. And to see if those performances actually changed anyone’s views, we asked likely Republican primary voters (including both debate watchers and non-watchers) their opinions of the candidates both before and after the debate. Here are the results:

    https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/republican-debate-september-poll/

  4. Shogun as usual is being a complete moron. I’m obviously (to anyone with a brain) not saying it’s bad that the US defeated Nazi Germany.

    What I’m saying is that the contemporary US Republican Party is more dangerous than the German Nazi Party.

    Because the Republican Party is dedicated to accelerating global heating and rendering the entire planet completely uninhabitable. The Nazis were intent on global domination and genocide of certain peoples. But they at least did not have this objective of destroying the whole planet for everybody, forever.

    The Republican Party is the most dangerous organisation that has ever existed in human history.

  5. ‘Watermelon says:
    Saturday, September 30, 2023 at 5:33 pm

    Shogun as usual is being a complete moron. I’m obviously (to anyone with a brain) not saying it’s bad that the US defeated Nazi Germany.

    What I’m saying is that the contemporary US Republican Party is more dangerous than the German Nazi Party.

    Because the Republican Party is dedicated to accelerating global heating and rendering the entire planet completely uninhabitable. The Nazis were intent on global domination and genocide of certain peoples. But they at least did not have this objective of destroying the whole planet for everybody, forever.

    The Republican Party is the most dangerous organisation that has ever existed in human history.’
    ———————————-
    The CPC is, of course, much worse and much more dangerous. Not that Tankie Watermelon would want to go there.

  7. From that 538 poll:

    I realise his competition is, erm, pretty lacking and that this is ultimately still a contest for second place, but I’m surprised DeSantis’ debate performances are so highly regarded. He comes across as such a meek little weenie to me, the total opposite of the unabashed right-wing strongman that he has branded himself as. I mean, sure, he’s saying all the things the base want to hear, but he just seems so… lame.

    I guess I should be glad that I’m apparently totally incapable of putting myself inside the held of the average GOP voter.

  8. Come on, people, surely we can all agree that the US Republican Party and the Chinese Communist Party are both awful, awful organisations with no regard for democracy, human rights, or the people that they purport to represent.

  9. Socrates @ #502 Saturday, September 30th, 2023 – 5:31 pm

    Asha

    You are right about Gaetz.

    Yet it is not only the GOP. What does it say about the state of society in the States that are electing these creeps?

    It isn’t only Gaetz. There are a half dozen as bad. In Australia people like that might sneak in on a Senate spot with PHON, or in a marginal without enough scrutiny, then get turfed next time. Yet in USA they win individual seats on first votes and stay in.

    Viva Compulsory, Optional Preferential Voting!

  11. It’s not totally the Republican Party it’s the Republican Party hijacked by extreme right wing Catholics such as Leonard Leo and the Federalist Society turning their attention to the state supreme courts. 

    Too depressing to listen to….

    https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/on-the-media/id73330715?i=1000629649534

    https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/otm/episodes/on-the-media-we-dont-talk-about-leonard-episode-1

    https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/aug/24/leonard-leo-investigation-washington-dc

    Leonard Leo, Opus Dei and the Radical Catholic Takeover of the Supreme Court

    https://churchandstate.org.uk/2022/05/leonard-leo-opus-dei-and-the-radical-catholic-takeover-of-the-supreme-court/

  13. Sceptic,
    The only saving grace as far as the Supreme Court is concerned, is that they have been ruling against Trump when one of his cases gets that far, and ruling against states that are trying to subvert free and fair elections. Not that they don’t have gerrymandered districts already, but some states have tried to take it to ridiculous extremes, been challenged by the Democrats in State and Federal Supreme Courts and lost their cases. To the extent that, Special Masters have been appointed by the courts to redraw districts, taking it out of the hands of biased state legislatures.

  17. Socrates/ C@t:

    Any time I observe a US election, especially presidential elections, I am so goddamn thankful for the AEC.

    And, yes, compulsory voting and preferential voting really do make such a difference in ensuring the results more closely reflect the will of the people. Ironically, both were originally introduced by conservative governments in the hopes that it would advantage them electorally (and preferential voting, at least, absolutely did for quite some time), but, hey, a good idea is a good idea!

  20. I keep hearing on American podcasts these days wistful references to the Australian electoral system.

    I would expect more blue states to adopt ranked-choice voting (what the US calls preferential voting) in coming decades, though I can’t imagine it happening in red or even purple states for a long, long time… unless the anti-Trumpers finally get off their butts and establish a new right-wing party to compete with the GOP, at which point every conservative in the country will probably suddenly become a convert to the merits of ranked-choice voting.

    Compulsory voting, on the other hand, is likely a bridge too far for even the more liberal areas in the US.

  21. Yes, say what you will about other electoral systems, it baffles me that anyone would not want to have a completely independent electoral commission. It’s like having a sports match where one side gets to appoint all the umpires and referees.

  22. If Trump were to win the Presidency again I think the Australian Govt would have to cut ties with the US. It would be untenable to continue the relationship.

  23. The CPC is, of course, much worse and much more dangerous. Not that Tankie Watermelon would want to go there.

    Unlike the US Republican Party, the CPC does not deny the existence of anthropogenic climate change, and is not committed to the absolute maximum acceleration of global heating and the demolition of any international agreement to contain it.

    It’s actually an absurd comparison. The Republican Party is a death cult literally dedicated to human extinction. The CPC is not. Nor were the Nazis. There is no historical parallel for the modern Republican Party. They are the worst menace that the human race has ever faced.

  24. In more optimistic news for the US, in recent years the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact has been getting tantalising close to the 270 electoral votes it needs to come into effect:

    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Popular_Vote_Interstate_Compact

    Of course, whether or not it would survive a supreme court challenge in such a circumstance is a whole other matter. But in another term or two, the electoral college could (effectively) become a thing of the past.

  25. Rex Douglas:

    Completely cutting ties strikes me as a bit extreme, but in such a scenario I would say that we’d need to seriously rethink how our alliance with the US works going forward, especially if – as is likely under Trump and the modern Republican party in general – the country continues democratically backsliding.

  26. Asha @ #520 Saturday, September 30th, 2023 – 6:16 pm

    I keep hearing on American podcasts these days wistful references to the Australian electoral system.

    I would expect more blue states to adopt ranked-choice voting (what the US calls preferential voting) in coming decades, though I can’t imagine it happening in red or even purple states for a long, long time… unless the anti-Trumpers finally get off their butts and establish a new right-wing party to compete with the GOP, at which point every conservative in the country will probably suddenly become a convert to the merits of ranked-choice voting.

    Compulsory voting, on the other hand, is likely a bridge too far for even the more liberal areas in the US.

    Compulsory Voting, on a Public Holiday, or a weekend day, is even being talked about! Mainly by political scientists and Democrats.

    Also, Sarah Palin has launched a challenge to the Ranked Choice election that saw her lose to Democrat, Mary Peltola. So it might be interesting to watch that one work its way through the judicial system.

  28. C@t:

    Yeah, moving election day away from an ordinary weekday would make a huge difference as far as voter participation goes.

    So much of the US system is so ridiculously archaic it blows my mind: the standard election date of the first Tuesday of November was established in the mid-19th century because that made sense for a country with an economy based heavily around agriculture in the age of horses and carts, and it’s just never been changed!

  29. Planting a few trees on your patch of land then voting for a party that backs fossil fuel multinationals in destroying the planet makes absolutely no sense.

    Just stop voting for fossil fuel corrupted political parties.

  31. We should, as some contend, be thankful for compulsory and preferential voting & independent electoral commissions. But over & above that is the imperative of an independent judiciary. In the US, many judges, right up to the Supreme Court, are referred to as, for instance, an Obama or Trump nomination – the inference is quite clear. But the same can’t be said here, nor in other common law countries, even though Barwick, who served as the Attorney (’58 to ’64) in the Menzies’ government, overstepped the mark by providing Kerr with an advisory opinion in ’75, contrary to convention.

  33. ‘Asha says:
    Saturday, September 30, 2023 at 5:48 pm

    Come on, people, surely we can all agree that the US Republican Party and the Chinese Communist Party are both awful, awful organisations with no regard for democracy, human rights, or the people that they purport to represent.’
    ———————————-
    What is it with people from the western democracies?
    Don’t they get just how draconian the CPC is?
    Get back to me when the GOP has abolished voting for any position anywhere in the US, when it routinely murders thousands of its political enemies, when it completely controls social media, completely controls the MSM, completely bans freedom of speech, completely controls the judiciary, completely controls freedom of assembly and runs massive concentration camps for its political enemies. Oh, and when the GOP approves two new coal fired power stations a week. Oh, and will only let new coal mines operate if they produce a minimum of 900,000 tons of coal a year.

  35. ‘Rex Douglas says:
    Saturday, September 30, 2023 at 6:58 pm

    Planting a few trees on your patch of land then voting for a party that backs fossil fuel multinationals in destroying the planet makes absolutely no sense.

    Just stop voting for fossil fuel corrupted political parties.’
    ————————
    Integrity doing a bit of gaslighting. What a surprise.

  36. ‘Watermelon says:
    Saturday, September 30, 2023 at 6:21 pm

    The CPC is, of course, much worse and much more dangerous. Not that Tankie Watermelon would want to go there.

    Unlike the US Republican Party, the CPC does not deny the existence of anthropogenic climate change, and is not committed to the absolute maximum acceleration of global heating and the demolition of any international agreement to contain it.
    ….’
    ———————-
    Tankie twaddle. The CPC is currently approving two new coal fired power plants a WEEK. It burns half of the world’s coal. That proportion is increasing. It routinely promises to walk out of international climate agreements if it is not allowed to do exactly what it wants when it comes to increasing its CO2 emissions.

  37. Get back to me when the GOP has abolished voting for any position anywhere in the US, when it routinely murders thousands of its political enemies, when it completely controls social media, completely controls the MSM, completely bans freedom of speech, completely controls the judiciary, completely controls freedom of assembly and runs massive concentration camps for its political enemies.

    Oh, I’m sure there’s many in the present-day GOP who have gigantic erections just thinking about those possibilities.

    No, you’re right, they don’t have the ability to do any of those things. But goddamn if they arn’t trying to hardest to drag the US closer to being such a place. This is the party that looks almost certain to renominate as their presidential candidate a guy who attempted a literal coup and just the other day expressed his desire to have a guy who said mean words about him murdered. At least 50-60% of the Republican party wants to see that man become president again.

    Thankfully, the democratic systems that the US has in place have prevented these crackpots from going full-fascist… so far. One wonders, however, just how long such systems would survive another term of President Donald Trump, or of fellow travellers like DeSantis or Ramaswamy… especially with how obviously compromised the Supreme Court is right now.

  39. Watermelon
    The Republican Party is a death cult literally dedicated to human extinction. The CPC is not. Nor were the Nazis. There is no historical parallel for the modern Republican Party. They are the worst menace that the human race has ever faced.

    Yes in their defence, the Nazis were not dedicated to the extinction of the entire human race. Just certain portions of it. So as long as you do not belong to one of those portions, the Nazis were not really that bad. I mean, not Republican Party bad. They are the worst.

  41. Watermelon
    The Republican Party is the most dangerous organisation that has ever existed in human history

    If I was a member of the Mongol Empire under Genghis Khan (and just to be clear, I am not and never have been a member), I might take offense at that.

  42. Rex Douglassays:
    Saturday, September 30, 2023 at 6:09 pm
    A lovely moment for father and son to enjoy the premiership cup moment.
    _____________________
    What the hell was Beau McCreery doing refusing to shake hands when he was presented with his medal.
    That little Auskick kid will remember that for the rest of his life.

  43. If trump ‘wins’ in 2024 US ‘democracy’ is cactus.

    The crazy Amis are threatening to ‘re-elect’ a person hell bent on destroying their ‘democracy’ for personal financial reasons. That is just stupid.

    Thank Dog for compulsory voting, preferential voting and the AEC.

    If Trump wins that could well be the last election the Americans have for quite some time. Talk about Dumfuckistan.

  46. Jack Ginnivan (D+): A quiet day for the Collingwood livewire with no impact and no goals. Didn’t justify the decision to replace Pat Lipinski in the starting 22.
    _____________________
    His mind was probably on the races at Randwick today.
    Wouldn’t be surprised if they put him up for trade.

  47. Yes in their defence, the Nazis were not dedicated to the extinction of the entire human race. Just certain portions of it. So as long as you do not belong to one of those portions, the Nazis were not really that bad. I mean, not Republican Party bad. They are the worst.

    Exactly, you utter dolt. The Nazis wanted to kill some groups of humans. But the Republicans want to destroy all life on Earth. That’s why they’re worse.

  48. Why vote on Tuesday and why November?

    ”A November election was convenient because the harvest would have been completed but the most severe winter weather, impeding transportation, would not yet have arrived, while the new election results also would roughly conform to a new year. Tuesday was chosen as Election Day so that voters could attend church on Sunday, travel to the polling location (usually in the county seat) on Monday, and vote before Wednesday, which was usually when farmers would sell their produce at the market”

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Election_Day_(United_States)

    On on election night Americans can party like it’s 1845…

  49. Watermelon, I’m not convinced mere repetition of the same somewhat dubious point is winning you many converts to the ‘GOP is worse than the Nazis’ barrow you’ve been pushing with such zeal today.

  50. Does the US Republican Party pose a greater danger to the human species than did the Nazi Party?
    An interesting question. It’s true the GOP is all for burning fossil fuels until they all run out, which spells the deaths of many millions of human beings. But I don’t think the Republican Party is actually committed to the deaths of millions; it’s just they are so absorbed in the short-term self-interest of their fossil fuel backers, and so caught up in the irrational culture wars that have dominated America for so long, they either don’t see the results of such energy policies, or maybe just don’t care, if that’s the price for what they misguidedly see as American prosperity.
    The Nazis, on the other hand, carried out premeditated killings of millions of people based on nothing but their membership of certain minorities, such as Jews, Gypsies and gays. I don’t think the US Republicans, for all their abominations, are actually committed to deliberately killing millions of people.
    Perspective please.

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