While both major party’s want a Seat in western Sydney removed, this will lead to the Seats to the West and South West being pulled towards Sydney,

Similar to what happened in Melbourne in its last redistribution, the Inner city seats like Melbourne Ports, Higgins and Kooyong didn’t change, while seats like Issacs and Holt cahnged quite alot

http://www.aec.gov.au/_content/why/redistributions/2005/nsw/index.htm

It is obvious now that Kim will be around until the next election. This is for two key reasons. Firstly, his budget-reply speech, whilst lacking substance, was considered enough to keep the backbenches clambouring for a new leader at bay. By the time they consider re-mobilising, the election will be less then 12 months away. No where near enough time for a new leader to make a real mark, especially then the cost of it is yet another drop in public confidence. So any potential challenge would be dropped in the interests of the party

The second reason is obvious: Mark Latham. The name strikes enough fear in the Labor Party to prevent even considering switching Beazley for a new, untried leader.

No, the ALP is stuck in a rut. Cant live with Beazley, can’t live without him. Either way he wouldn’t go quietly if the vote was enforced upon him. So it is in their best interests to keep him.

What will be interesting is who the Labor party chooses for their leader after the next election (making the assumption they lose of course.) Gillard has said repeatedly she won’t challenge until after the election. This is code for ‘I want to be leader when Kim gets his arse handed to him in 16 months time’
Rudd is an option. Maybe even Swan. Shorten, asssuming he holds his seat, is a very vague option (although one suspects by then that the media will have forgotten about him)

Interesting times. And then there is the Howard/Costello issue that simply won’t go away, as per stated in this blog.

Either way, a generation shift is nearing. One must wonder if the republican movement will begin to gain momentum soon? With Howard surely leaving in the next few years, and the Queen slowly leaving the royal arena to enjoy a life of luxury… one can only suspect that round two of the debate is just around the corner. And this time, as long as the correct lessons are learnt, the Rebublicans are nearly certain not to lose…

I’ve just been polled by AC Nielsen, presumably for next Tuesday’s Fairfax papers. In addition to the obvious party/approval/preferred PM questions, a question was asked about preferred Labor leader out of Beazley/Rudd/Gillard, then the question was asked again but this time with Shorten/Beazley/Rudd/Gillard. No questions about anything to do with potential Liberal leadership succession.

I don’t see that moving Mitchell into Parramatta is obviously better than moving Bennelong into it. There’s arguments both ways without a clear cut “right” answer in my opinion.

The proposed boundaries will be interesting here, but it seems the Liberals have decided in their suggestions to remove the chance of a gain (Parramatta) to help maintain Howard’s margin.

Howard would also probably do well if he campaigned in the East of Parramatta, especially because of the more established nature of many residents – but weighed against a decent public housing population too.

The results in both Bennelong and Parramatta are however probably lower than they normally would be at this point in the cycle because of some special factors within the 2004 campaign, including a concerted effort to unseat the Prime Minister from all sorts of individuals and groups.

So either way, if either of these seats, or indeed any other in southwest or western sydney, were abolished, Bennelong would be pulled deeper into Labor territory. With only a 4% margin, Bennelong could well be winnable for Labor.

So Howard would clearly not want a by-election in the seat, even on the old boundaries. And if he hangs around, he would need to move to another seat, which would be quite undignified for the second-longest serving Prime Minister in Australian history, I’m sure.

If he was to do so, you only need to look at the Liberal MPs sitting in the north of Sydney (very broadly defined, which is pretty much the entire Sydney Liberal contingent outside the fringe of western and southern sydney, and Wentworth), nearly all of them are ministers or senior figures. To the east of Bennelong is Joe Hockey, to the north is Ruddock, to the northeast is Nelson, to the far east is Abbott, and to the far northeast is Bronwyn Bishop. The only choices would be to knock off Louise Markus in Greenway, which would be strange considering her recent arrival to federal politics, or Alan Cadman in Mitchell, which would make sense, but would still cause plenty of headaches.

While I don’t think Howard would make a decision as significant as to running for another term on the basis of making life hard for other Liberal MPs, it’s interesting to consider.