The site has been grappling with a few technical issues over the past day or so, which are hopefully now resolved. Perhaps this was the reason yesterday’s post following the count for the New South Wales state by-election for Northern Tablelands, which as expected was a lay-down misere for the Nationals, attracted a grand total of zero comments. Or perhaps not. Looking ahead, I believe we have a quiet week coming up on the polling front, unless The Australian treats us to quarterly Newspoll aggregates with state and demographic breakdowns, which are about due. Other than that, there is likely to be only the weekly Roy Morgan until the three-weekly YouGov poll, which past form suggests should be with us on Friday.
Much of this week’s preselection news relates directly or indirectly to the federal redistributions, which I discussed with Ben Raue of The Tally Room in a podcast you can access at the bottom of this post:
• The West Australian reports former state Nationals leader Mia Davies has confirmed approaches from “senior Nationals in the eastern states” to run in the proposed new seat of Bullwinkel, which partly corresponds with the state seat of Central Wheatbelt that she he has held since 2013. The idea has been talked up by party leader David Littleproud, and not ruled out by Davies. Davies led the Nationals from the defeat of the Barnett government in March 2017 and held the title of Opposition Leader after the party emerged from the 2021 election landslide with more seats than the Liberals, before stepping aside in January 2023 and announcing she would not contest the next election. She became a figure of controversy within the party when she called for Barnaby Joyce to resign in 2018 over sexual harassment allegations.
• Paul Sakkal of the Sydney Morning Herald reports “teal sources not permitted to speak on the record” say Nicolette Boele, who was gearing up for a second run as an independent in Bradfield, remains keen despite expectations Kylea Tink will seek to move there with the mooted abolition of her seat of North Sydney. Boele came within 4.2% of unseating Liberal member Paul Fletcher in 2022. Reports last week suggested former state Treasurer Matt Kean, who announced his impending departure from state parliament on Tuesday, might challenge Fletcher for Liberal preselection, but Sakkal reports party sources saying he will only seek the seat if Fletcher retires. Alexandra Smith of the Sydney Morning Herald reports any path to preselection for Kean in Bradfield would be complicated by the fact that the redistribution leaves his “Liberal branch enemies” within the redrawn seat.
• Aaron Patrick of the Financial Review reports Hunters Hill mayor Zac Miles has been lobbying for the NSW Liberal Party to reopen the preselection process for Bennelong, after the proposed new boundaries made it more favourable to the party by adding territory from abolished North Sydney. Such a move would come at the expense of Scott Yung, a tutoring business owner who came with 1.8% of deposing Chris Minns from his seat of Kogarah at the state election in 2019, who was preselected unopposed last October. A source is also quoted saying Gisele Kapterian, who had been preselected for North Sydney, also canvassed for support for Bennelong, but has decided not to proceed.
• Annika Smethurst of The Age reports on resistance in local Labor branches to a Socialist Left faction fait accompli that appears set to deliver preselection for the outer northern Melbourne seat of Calwell, which will be vacated with the retirement of Maria Vamvakinou, to Basem Abdo, a communications specialist born in Kuwait of Palestinian parents. Sensitivities are heightened by the fact that members only had preselection rights restored to them a year ago after a three-year takeover of the state branch by the national executive following branck-stacking scandals, with some reportedly threatening to back a “Dai Le-style campaign”.
• Blake Antrobus of news.com.au reports Queensland Liberal Senator Gerard Rennick has failed in his court bid against his preselection defeat last year, the court having ruled that the Liberal National Party was within its rights to set a 60-day time frame for lodging an appeal which Rennick failed to meet.
William Bowe says:
Monday, June 24, 2024 at 8:29 pm
Though having said that, the conviction of some here that it’s somehow surprising that News Corp papers wouldn’t hush up a story about an Opposition Leader’s son being photographed with suspicious white powder is no better.
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Murdoch tabloid media publish salacious stuff. They wouldn’t pass up this opportunity.
Lordbain says:
Monday, June 24, 2024 at 8:27 pm
Griff, I just find it telling that it defined extreme left based on a social policy that fits within the acceptable realm of debate, as opposed to… actual outside the box/extremist views.
I mean I miss the days when people actually earned the title by being communists or eco anarchists… not arguing about using market or capitalist market driven solutions in modern neoliberal/centrist democracies.
Hell, when people complain the greens are too extremists… they still support the modern capitalist system.
Honestly, posers the lot of them
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Fair comment. The extremes can be very extreme indeed 🙂
Badthinker says:
Monday, June 24, 2024 at 8:31 pm
William Bowe at 8:24 pm
the most astoundingly stupid opinions ever expressed on this forum
That’s a Mt Everest scale bar, William.
Can we agree that without Murdoch assistance in suppressing news, many Labor Governments wouldn’t have got out of the starting blocks.
You recall Hawkie’s Mrs Gandhi joke?
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Well credit where credit is due, you earned it.
Is that why Dan Andrews and family always got such a free ride with the Herald Sun
Rewi says: at 6:20 pm
Andrews got a free ride until he didn’t. The present post turtle will get a Murdoch free ride until 6 months out from the next election, same as is happening now in Qld.
This is the “pearler” from Bob, which I think badthinker is referring to, as well as some other pearls from Gough.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-10-19/cassidy-politicians-and-fruit-cakes/4321228
Badthinker, although copping a smack tonight, has a good knowledge of our constitution and the electoral act. I gather he is a lawyer or teacher or similar. Gosh, the 1980’s – got to love that decade surely. Couldn’t get away with some of those comments today.
Griff@6.22
Thanks for your reasoned input. I think the idea of vapes being sold by pharmacists, without needing a prescription, is a good outcome.
Douglas and Milko says:
Monday, June 24, 2024 at 8:34 pm
BK says: at 5:38 pm
In laypersons terms:
when you burn energy you create weightless CO2.
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Boerwar
Next thing Dutton and Ted the Dill will be promoting the phlogiston theory!
When I was teaching second year thermodynamics, which I really loved doing, I was told that I must teach classical thermodynamics. And I do understand how cool those laws and equations of classical thermodynamics are.
But, to pretend that 20th century particle / quantum physics did not happen? and to leave the students puzzling over entropy?
I remember grumbling to colleagues and suggesting if I needed to teach the classics before we touched on modern theories, that I should start with phlogiston theory!’
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Phlogiston cures Covid.
There is a curious turn of a large wheel wheel – drugstores used to sell legally all sorts of self-medications. Then most of the got banned because they were too much fun and too destructive.
It is easy to tell the real difference between drugstores Mk I and drugstores Mk II. The latter sell jellybeans.
OC, yep. What a chance for a rational debate , as if.
I get really annoyed with all MSM stories like this. Murdoch does not even name the person, at least in the click bait headline, but refers to them as “the son of” a well known person. This has happened many times where the MSM happens to discover that a possible or alleged lawbreaker is in some way related to a more well known person. It is sleazy journalism at its worst.
It’s already been said, but Chris Bowen blew the set apart with his performance on 7.30.
He played his hand superbly, quite on top of the interview, reciting & quoting to his heart’s content while still finding time to get in some cutting insults.
Douglas and Milko says:
Monday, June 24, 2024 at 8:45 pm
Griff@6.22
The evidence is dealing with addiction and harm-minimisation takes time and a therapeutic relationship.
Thanks for your reasoned input. I think the idea of vapes being sold by pharmacists, without needing a prescription, is a good outcome.
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There is a fair bit of evidence around the world. The UK has pursued the harm minimisation/regulation model from the get go same with NZ. We adopted a personal use/mixed model with no official position as there was no consensus. It all came undone with the mass import of disposable garbage.
I want to see the crackdown on illegal tobacco/cigarettes as there is more and more of it and it is getting even cheaper.
Hold on, are you telling me that Bob Hawke occasionally put his foot in his mouth and made unwise public statements? My mind is blown!
Thanks nadia88, that’s the one.
As Mick Young noted, Hawkie had told that story before.
According to the account I read not long after he died, he told it again, complete with mock Indian accent, at an Australia/India Business Council Dinner weeks before the 1983 Election, to stunned silence.
If the Murdoch Press had printed that story, Hawkie would’ve had a far different future.
The picture of Dutton and family is also on the West’s web site at the moment. Comment along the lines of that the picture of the bag with white stuff in it – whatever it was – taken down.
Not sure what any of this means other than when politicians elect to have nice family pictures to bolster their election chances (one would argue fair enough on one hand but others see it as just a cynical use of said family to look the goods) then I guess they have to cop the down side when some of the family appear to run into hard times.
Papers have never gone broke dealing with salacious stuff and the general public are, after all, the consumers of the material papers chose to publish.
Like Cat I got robopolled about an hour ago. (I am in Sturt, SA). Curiously we got mail outs in our home today from both Labor and Liberal. The Greens have also already announced their Federal candidate for Sturt, which is unusual this far out.
In the poll I got asked about attitude to nuclear power (support/don’t support), immigration (less/same), voting intention, and party voted for last election. Dutton probably shouldn’t bank on my vote.
No worries badthinker,
I’ve just read that article from Barrie Cassidy a second time. It’s hilarious, would’ve loved to be in that room in July 1981. The wit especially Gough and Bowen. Sounds like a great era – the whole of the 1980’s that is, before PC began to encroach. Oh well, different era I suppose.
Here’s the link again if anyone wants to have a nostalgia read and a bit of a laugh.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-10-19/cassidy-politicians-and-fruit-cakes/4321228
Badthinker:
This being the same Bob Hawke who – in the years immediately prior to becoming PM – ended up in the papers for drunkenly calling his predecessor a “lying c*nt with a limited future” and was the subject of an authorised biography that covered his alcoholism and womanising in some detail?
It also may shock you to learn that things that happened over forty years ago aren’t especially relevant when discussing how a news media company chooses to conduct itself today. Yep, Labor pollies did probably benefit from favourable Murdoch coverage on occasion. Decades ago. Things have changed since then.
At the risk of stating the obvious, this definitely didn’t happen.
Alright I had to search for Dutton Son White power in google….
“Peter Dutton’s 18-year-old son Tom has been pictured holding a bag containing ‘white powder’.
The image of Tom, which shows the wide-eyed teenager holding up the bag for the camera, was shared on Snapchat by a friend alongside the caption: ‘Birthday day treat. Hello how u goin.’
The photo was taken on a balcony in Surfers Paradise and was swiftly removed, but not before it was screenshotted by a recipient.
Daily Mail Australia doesn’t suggest the white substance is drugs.”
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13562317/Peter-Duttons-son-Tom-pictured-holding-bag-containing-white-powder.html
There you go beat up over nothing was probably the icing sugar for the cake… but this was odd further down..
“He told the ABC last year about how being a police officer before entering politics had influenced his parenting style, admitting that he was stricter than most.
‘Even in the way that you bring up your children… You know, not letting them out of your sight because you’ve seen some horrific cases where kids have been abducted or assaulted,’ he told Annabel Crabb during an interview at his home.
He added that he would not let his children use public toilets when they were out. ”
The man is just obsessed….
If the current standards applied in the 70’s and 80’s I would have been in a lot of strife particularly at work. It was a different time and we have evolved and matured.
Nadia, circa 72 to 86, mixed in those circles. Seriously off the scale with the personalities. Good times!
Just on Hawkies Mrs Gandhi ‘joke’, it does send up the lengths leaders and their advisers will go to to hang on to power.
davidwh says:
Monday, June 24, 2024 at 9:14 pm
If the current standards applied in the 70’s and 80’s I would have been in a lot of strife particularly at work. It was a different time and we have evolved and matured.
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Funny you should say that, I watched old episodes of Cracker after Robbie Coltrane pass on from about 1990 and was surprised how cringeworthy it was from the level of casual racism/homophobia and sexism almost uncomfortable to watch -and this was proper drama not comedy.
If Murdoch wanted to cut loose from Dutton, it would do so by attacking his stupid or non-existent policies. There’s ample fodder there.
His son is still just a kid really. The Australian public all get to scrape through naïve youth problems. It’s no Hunter Biden moment.
David, and me! Practicing Catholic and loving Dave Allen. Who hasn’t been at the wrong end of the wrath of a Nun? Hello Sister Mary Therese , of the misdirected Sisters of Mercy?Ouch!!!
Luigi it’s a non event political wise.
These childish memes really have to stop 😐
The SMH take on why Hawke’s faux pas was ignored by the press but things had changed 20 odd years later
https://www.smh.com.au/national/such-lack-of-discipline-takes-the-cake-20050903-gdlzw5.html
Outside left yes we laughed and had digs at others and ourselves. Mostly there was no malice meant or taken. But it was a different time with different acceptable behaviour.
Rossmcg at 8.13pm, no I doubt that as a cop Dutton would let a kid with dope go free, but I don’t think many other cops would either. Cops apply the law, it’s up to the courts and other support services to decide how and to what degree that should apply.
I was thinking more of the young person. He and his family will be under considerable stress if this is unusual behaviour for him. He doesn’t need a media pile on that wouldn’t happen to anyone else.
Socrates @ #1029 Monday, June 24th, 2024 – 9:25 pm
I think they’re seeing their future in government evaporate before their 3 eyes. 😀
I would put money that if we did a study on the correlation of being, say, a white heterosexual male in this forum, and “taking it for a laugh” during the good old days….well, I imagine those not in this fun little demographic probably had a different experience
Good call re vapes.
Local kids ten years old on them.
Local tobacconist making a fortune @ $ 45 a pop.
All juicy kiddie flavours.
Not saying the kids are buying, but the olders are and on selling.
How the police let such a blatant act go on for so long is unacceptable.
I tested it, just walked in and asked for a blueberry vape.
No probs, handed straight over.
Won’t even get into the fifteen dollars packs of Marlboro ciggies.
All on the main drag and it’s everywhere in Australia!
All state police have refused to have anything to do with policing it, as in they don’t give a fuck!
Yes times do change. I wonder how Pauline Pantsdown would be received these days, and her song ‘back door man’?
Modern day pearl clutchers would probably think the act a terrible attack on females.
BSA Bob @ #1013 Monday, June 24th, 2024 – 8:54 pm
Chris is a details man. He has them at his fingertips. His mum told me a story once about the time after Labor lost the 2013 election. Chris was so at a loss, after having been a Minister, that, when he went home he couldn’t stand sitting around, so he reorganised all his clothes, putting them into colour co-ordinated order, patterns and plains separated. Then he wrote a book. 🙂
Me? I’d go on a well-earned holiday. 🙂
This NFSA film may evoke memories for those who recall Sydney in the mid-60s when the tallest building was the AMP at the Quay and the Opera House was far from finished.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lgikbTY9NTA
Davidwh “Luigi it’s a non event political wise.”
Let me ask you this question. If it was Albo’s son, would Sky News ignore it?
Did I ever tell the story about the time two gun toting greasy looking bad teeth grinning customs dudes pulled a plastic bag of white powder out of my backpack at Tashkent airport security. Drugs! They said.
Icing sugar left over from local delicacies! I stammered and no matter how true this was, I am sure I looked as terrified as I felt. I don’t really know what the inside of a Tashkent jail looks like, but I imagined a lifetime of one anyway. Mrs Katich just went white and started looking for an English speaking messiah.
The gun carrying dudes laughed a sinister laugh. Then slapped us on the backs and motioned us through to the gates. Goodbye! Thank you for visiting Uzbekistan. They said.
Mavis
Kids going to school on public transport- what sort of sick society was it?
Not the best example Lynchpin given the unfortunate Qantas Chairman’s Lounge issue.
So, just on Tom Dutton and the media….. Murdoch is running the story, complete with Pete’s request for privacy.
The Age is not, yet.
By comparison, nobody outed the red-faced retail politician from NZ who impregnated his press adviser for months, and everyone knew who high profile Toowoomba man was, but he was never named. (Yes QLD law didn’t allow it, but when did that ever stop anybody)? Years ago the Herald-Sun outed named and accused the society murderer (Matthew Wales-King) on page 1 on day 2 of the investigation. We only heard of Pell’s trial on his conviction. The daily Hun published a completely blacked out front page in protest. The story was all over the media in the US.
Someone should do a doctorate on which stories get a run in Australia in which media outlets.
I’m not suggesting a conspiracy. I just find it fascinating. We have some kind of secret media Brigginshaw test in this country.
Lynchpin probably not but that situation would also be a non event politically.
Lordbain no doubt which is why we have matured in what is acceptable today v 30/40/50 years ago.
I still remember how the media went to town on Albanese’s son simply working for Woolworths and getting a pass to the QANTAS Lounge. What a beat up!
Freshwater poll in AFR says 37% in favour of nuclear and 32% against – reported in an Aaron Patrick article published at 511pm.
Dr Fumbles Mcstupidsays:
Monday, June 24, 2024 at 9:10 pm
He added that he would not let his children use public toilets when they were out. ”
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Nothing wrong with that.
Some guy kept trying to touch my leg from underneath the next cubicle once. Will always remember it. Gateway Plaza Warrnambool. Was only about 12.
@MABWM at 9:58pm
My guess is because they think that red-faced adulterer is worth more clicks for them simply because it’s just so much more entertaining having him be in a position of power. I mean they caught him dead-to-rights, flat out drunk on his back on the footpath, yet he’s still in parliament and close to regaining leadership of the National Party if Littleproud fails to impress.
Meanwhile all Dutton is is a boring beige balloon with glasses that pales in comparison to Mr. Pardonme Joyce, the Chattanooga Choo-Choo.
The shambles snowballs as the details emerge;
The nuclear lobby in Australia has conceded one aspect of the nuclear power plan that the federal Coalition does not like talking about – that the rooftop solar embraced by households and businesses will have to make way for the Opposition’s planned reactors.
https://reneweconomy.com.au/nuclear-lobby-concedes-rooftop-solar-will-have-to-make-way-for-reactors/
SMH headline …
Former Liberal minister’s new climate role heightens federal energy clash
Does this mean they are having a meltdown ?