The federal redistributions for Victoria and Western Australia have been finalised, with only minor changes made to the proposals published in May. Higgins duly remains abolished, with adjustments made to the boundaries between Ballarat and Bendigo, Bendigo and Nicholls, Chisholm and Hotham, Corangamite and Wannon, and McEwen and Scullin. My estimates of the new margins suggest this increases the Labor margin from 3.5% to 3.7% in McEwen as compared with the original proposal, reduces it from 12.0% to 11.3% in Bendigo, and is barely measurable anywhere else.
In Western Australia, Fremantle and Tangney swap territory and Canning gets to keep the Shire of Waroona. The closest any of this comes to being of electoral interest is that Labor’s margin in Tangney is down from 2.9% on the proposed boundaries to 2.6%. The finalisation of the New South Wales boundaries can presumably be expected very shortly.
Preselection news:
• Bill Shorten announced yesterday he will bow out of politics at the next election, creating a vacancy in his safe Labor western Melbourne seat of Maribyrnong. Shorten will take up a position as vice-chancellor of the University of Canberra in February, which will presumably be close enough to the election that no by-election will be held. John Ferguson of The Australian reports the ascendant Left is hopeful of gaining the seat, with one potential contender being Jo Briskey, national political co-ordinator of the United Workers Union and unsuccessful candidate for the Brisbane seat of Bonner in 2019. Potential candidates from within Shorten’s own Right faction Australian Workers Union orbit include state minister Natalie Hutchins and former AWU official and political staffer Shannon Threlfall-Clarke.
• Labor’s candidate for the new seat of Bullwinkel on Perth’s eastern fringe will be Trish Cook, deputy president of the Shire of Mundaring. Cook was chosen ahead of widely touted front-runner Kyle McGinn, a member for the state upper house region of Mining and Pastoral who failed to secure a winnable position on the ticket for the March state election. Hamish Hastie of WAtoday reports the preselection was determined by the party’s national executive, at which “some in the party were surprised” since it would normally be left to the state party administration.
• Jeremy Neal, a paramedic and former Cairns councillor, won a Liberal National Party preselection vote last weekend to succeed retiring veteran Warren Entsch in the far north Queensland seat of Leichhardt. The Australian’s Feeding the Chooks column reported rival contenders included “local aviation identity” Alana McKenna, who had the backing of Entsch.
• Mal Hingston, a defence contractor with “a long history of work in the manufacturing, mining, oil and gas industries”, has won Liberal preselection for the north-western Tasmanian seat of Braddon, which will be vacated at the election with the retirement of Gavin Pearce. Earlier reports indicated there were five candidates, including Belle Binder, founder of a farm labour scheme, and Vonette Mead, Latrobe deputy mayor.
• Alex White of the Herald Sun reports Fiona Patten, who enjoyed a high profile as member of the state upper house with the Sex Party and Reason Australia from 2016 to 2022, has been announced as the lead Victorian Senate candidate of Legalise Cannabis party.
C@T, I wasnt mocking you about your ill informed comment on social media… I was also mocking your comment about the Greens supposable working to install Dutton and overthrow Labor 🙂
And what, you expect to make a comment and have everyone simply line up behind you regardless of how inaccurate it is? My god, you truly are the very model of the modern Labor party 🙂
Bird of paradox @ #1042 Sunday, September 8th, 2024 – 10:13 pm
How small is SA’s sample in that poll? Usually when it’s a national breakdown, SA should be taken with a grain of salt because it is a smaller sample and therefore prone to larger error. That said, if I had to guess, I’d say it’s probably right that Labor are well in front on 2PP on account of the pissweak opposition and general OK direction the state is going, ramping and health issues aside.
Wat Tyler @ #1045 Sunday, September 8th, 2024 – 10:48 pm
I think the essential problem is that electorates, in the Trump and Populist Demagogue era, have been conditioned to appreciate showmanship over substance. If we must refer to historical precedent, we are reverting to being spectators in the Colosseum, or, to use a modern parallel, spectators at the UFC. I think that’s the bigger issue that we need to consider. Why don’t people appreciate a government that just goes about its business? Hmm, maybe they never have. I don’t know.
Greens and the Muslim party/ies might do deals like Nightcliff .A Aboriginal independent helped the greens over the line.
Keep an eye on Payman as the preference whisperer her chief of staff me thinks is cooking something up he says he does not think a race based party will fly so maybe a loose affiliation like teals in the senate via a Payman party.Druery knows how to work numbers he’s a gun.
Paymans hubby ex alp staffer may want to get involved as a candidate?
Good breakdown Bird of the “Wolf & Smith” report; thanks for delving into it.
With Vic, the Feds are up first, then state labor. I think trouble is brewing in Victoria for the ALP, heading towards the lines of the 1990 Fed Election in Victoria.
To answer your question though, I would’ve thought the VicLibs were the worst outfit in Australia, but perhaps not.
People arnt happy with the status quo.
Government that attempts to maintain the status with very minor adjustments isn’t popular.
A mystery for the ages that one…
C@t I hope you take your combative qualities into the Council if you are elected. I’m sure it will be entertaining for all concerned!
Labor trying to run anti-union scare campaigns about militant unions is just plain wacky. It’s yet another one of these attempts at 4D chess that just make federal Labor look unserious.
Um, no, it’s the government dealing with a union who has come to believe the law doesn’t apply to them and their mates and they don’t have to be there for their members, only themselves. Or only those members who agree to turn a blind eye to their lawlessness.
Poll Bludger, the “pop-up” computerized comment game, the latest craze(or is it?)
Hours of endless banter, test your score, new polling obstacles appearing weekly, new characters, (some reworked), featuring the periodic guest appearances, and a gold coin donation if you please.
Test your score!
In good economic times, when most people are satisfied with their lot in life, that is often enough.
These are not such times.
dave @ #1054 Sunday, September 8th, 2024 – 11:02 pm
No, it’s not going to happen because I’m #3 on the ticket, and, haven’t you heard, Labor are on the nose! 😉
From that Redbridge poll, there was one thing that jumped out at me:
Financial stress (Labor / coalition / Greens / other / Labor 2pp)
A great deal of stress 30 31 19 20 54.0
Some stress 34 36 13 17 52.0
Not much stress 32 45 8 15 45.0
No stress at all 35 49 6 10 45.0
Increase the level of financial stress, and you can draw a straight line through the Green and others vote (increasing) and the Liberal vote (decreasing); there’s less of a trend for Labor’s primary vote, but it is negative.
“A great deal of stress” (which would probably include me): ALP 30, Lib 31, Green 19, others 20. That’s the best result for the Greens apart from age <34, non-homeowner and non-religious (apart from being a few years too old for the bracket, that's me too).
So, Labor are supposed to be party of the poor and downtrodden, yeah? Only 54% of those people are picking Labor over the coalition, and of that 54%, almost half are sending their primary vote elsewhere.
There’s a certain type of centrist voter that seems to want a government that just competently maintains the status quo in the style of a steady-as-she-goes CEO of a business, but aside from a brief moment at the start of the 00s where the likes of Steve Bracks had some success, there’s just no record of it leading to electoral success.
Voters of most political persuasions want people who are at least prepared to have a crack at meeting some of the challenges they face to such an extent that someone who wasn’t following the day-to-day announceables out of Canberra might ever notice something happened. Match a leader running on being “a government that just goes about its business” against opposition not currently in the process of self-immolating, and they’ll lose just about every time.
Bird of paradox: Dead on. One of the great traps conservatives have set for the left globally in the 21st century is vacating the territory of socially liberal well-to-do suburban voters to the centre-left (thus encouraging centre-left parties to economically drift right to appeal to those voters, seeing it as a road to a new dominance) and then with the traditional appeal to poorer voters weakened as a result, gunning for the votes of poorer voters with well-tuned culture war messages and blasting the centre-left as elites.
Pied piper: Druery is a one-trick pony, exploiting systems where parties direct preferences. He’s been floating around as an “adviser” to various fringe parties for decades and hasn’t done any of them a damn bit of good in the least, unless there was a party-directed preference deal to stich up.
Labor trying to run anti-union scare campaigns about militant unions is just plain wacky. It’s yet another one of these attempts at 4D chess that just make federal Labor look unserious.
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Spot on. Everyone knew about the CFMEU and bikies. Dutton used to mention it in Parliament nearly a decade ago.
It’s the same with Somyurek. Everyone was aware of his branch stacking empire.
In both cases, it’s only when the media uncover material that cannot be ignored does influential people within the Party suddenly emerge with manufactured shock and outrage.
No one buys it. It’s just sad.
Lordbain says:
Sunday, September 8, 2024 at 10:47 pm
Dont worry nadia, here in the territory the Greens and Labor are still rather friendly, why its simply a game of trying to politely but firmly outflank on the left policy wise here.
On that topic, if I dont get an ACT poll soon I will storm Parliament and demand Federal intervention…
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They certainly weren’t friendly in the recent NT election, nor are they on this site.
It’s been visceral here on PB between the Greens and Labor posters.
Sometimes I’m too scared to log on.
Back onto the A.C.T., yes we should get a territory wide poll on them soon given the election is imminent. I might have to join you for a “sit in” somewhere if we don’t get a poll.
Just a quick question, given you are ACT based. Do you think it’s time for the territory to ditch “hare clark” and break the territory up into 25 individual seats. I think the population size of the ACT would justify it. You will top the 500k mark soon. I think it’s time. I can’t stand “Hare Clark” voting. It’s a nightmare watching “scare clark” elections. Your thoughts?
Friendly reminder that Albo knew about the cfmeu issues at least 18 months before the news articles came out.
One must assume he reported it right? Right?
Nadia, our population size certainly means a few things should be discussed (the Senate for starters since we will never not be a territory even though we are projected to rival tas in the coming decades), but the HC system will likely be difficult to replace because people are generally happy with the status quo here. I suspect once we reach the big 500k there will be chats just because 500k is a nice round number, and people like that sort of thing.
Wat:
856 in SA. Scroll down to about page 30 here:
https://www.wolfandsmith.com/_files/ugd/78f0d6_6e205f4bb5fe401b8fee9f87b24dcd40.pdf
For Lordbain, the green provocateur from Canberra’s north, the noise from the north, may I suggest that the reason the Greens have had success in the ACT, working with the Barr Labor government, is because just that, they work with, and each and every day earn the respect due.
Therefore to engage the “dear dell” of poll Bludger is flawed somewhat.
Goll, I suspect they work together is because they are both rather progressive.
If you need an example of that, look at ACT Labor on Palestine and Israel.
Oh, and act Labor isn’t constantly blaming their own failing on the greens…
The A.C.T. is now less than 100k in population behind Tasmania. Most likely the A.C.T. will overtake Tassie, population wise, in the early 2030’s.
I’m sure the voting structure, for the Territories, can be changed by Federal Parliament at any time.
@lordbain, everyone has known about Setka’s issues forever. Everybody. That the CFMEU thought this man was leadership material is as puzzling as the repugs voting for Drumpf. What the actual F is going on in the world?
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The federal ALP’s issues are purely about the economy. More precisely, people’s impressions of the economy. If it’s 50/50 they retain government. A could have interest rate cuts and they will be back in town.
goll: Negotiation is a two-way street. ACT Labor has had to deal with the Greens for a couple of decades, and has decided to be grown-ups and meet the Greens part-way, and they’ve successfully managed to negotiate all manner of things as a result. It often leads to the best outcomes, although once in a while (as with the mass selloffs of public housing estates a decade and a bit ago) it leads to the Greens being complicit in fuckery.
You can’t do that with the kind of “do exactly what I say or I’ll publicly blast you and falsely claim you want to block the entire bill” brinkmanship Albo (and at a state level, Tasmanian Labor) has always loved trying to do to crossbenchers of all persuasions. Good-faith crossbench negotiations are anathema to that breed of Labor partisan. The federal Greens have wound up fighting fire with fire, and the ultimate outcomes are worse for it.
As for the ACT: single-member electorates in small bodies are a bad idea. At best, it leads to a situation like the NT where you can get elected with piddly amounts of votes. At worst, you’ve got a situation like where we’ve got in Vic in the council elections, with some of the strongest and most popular candidates running in the same single-member wards and the majority of wards being a lay down misere.
New thread.
Rebecca
[The federal Greens have wound up fighting fire with fire, and the ultimate outcomes are worse for it.]
So why, as both the Greens and Labor, outside of the ACT are not gaining any extra ordinary support for the shenanigans?
It does however, keep a Dutton/Joyce LNP in the game.
Keeping the LNP from government advances the prospects of progressive policy legislation.
Lordbain
[If you need an example of that, look at ACT Labor on Palestine and Israel.]
Did you really mean to say that?
[Oh, and act Labor isn’t constantly blaming their own failing on the greens…]
Or that ?
Don’t shoot the messenger. I just reported what that 6000+ seat breakdown poll found. I’m sure William will make sense or nonsense of the veracity of the methodology and sample sizes etc in due course. Cheers.
Blaming their own problems on the Greens or the L/NP is a Labor speciality.