Seems Morgan are having one of their occasional weeks off. Plenty of federal preselection action to report, as the parties prepare contingencies for a potential early election:
• The Australian’s Michael Owen reports South Australian Labor is finalising its federal preselections, which “senior factional figures” link to a potential early election. Mia Handshin is keen to run again, either in a second tilt at Sturt or where Nicole Cornes failed in Boothby. Cornes herself has found an interesting new line of work as an industrial officer for the Shop Distributive and Allied Employees Association, but is “unlikely to win preselection”. A “senior ALP figure” nonetheless claims she is a genuine future prospect. Owen also reckons Labor Senator Dana Wortley faces electoral oblivion through “moves to relegate her to an unwinnable third spot”, although it was from that unwinnable position that she actually won her seat in 2004.
• Institute of Public Affairs director John Roskam has withdrawn from the contest to succeed Petrio Georgiou as Liberal candidate for Kooyong. He has thrown his support behind industrial relations lawyer John Pesutto, who looms as a threat to merchant banker Josh Frydenberg’s long-held designs on the seat. Rick Wallace of The Australian reports Pesutto also has the support of Ted Baillieu, who angered the Frydenberg camp by attending a function they “claim was to support Mr Pesutto”. Wallace also notes the June preselection will be “one of the first carried out under the Liberal Party’s new constitution, which empowers all eligible members within a seat to vote instead of only specially chosen delegates”. Andrew Landeryou at VexNews is told that “many of them … will be swinging votes with a history of supporting Baillieu/Petro or at least having a significant amount of affection for them or an in-built objection to the recruiting enthusiasms of Joshua”.
• Another interesting preselection for the Victorian Liberals looms in the eastern suburbs seat of Deakin, where two former members are hoping to make a comeback. One is Phil Barresi, who lost the seat to Labor’s Mike Symon in 2007. The other is Ken Aldred, whose eccentric reign extended from 1990 until his preselection defeat by Barresi in 1996. Aldred won a preselection ballot in Holt ahead of the 2007 election, but it was overturned by wiser heads in the party. Rounding out the field of known contenders is Deanna Ryall, a “local businesswoman”. Labor holds the seat with a margin of 1.4 per cent.
• New Queensland Opposition Leader John-Paul Langbroek foreshadows a more “flexible” approach than his predecessor in negotiating fixed four-year terms, improving the prospects for a referendum on the matter during the current term. Langbroek says it is not a priority, but Anna Bligh has apparently put the matter “on the agenda”. A referendum in 1991 for unfixed four-year terms was defeated with a 51.2 per cent no vote.
• Antony Green on the slow death of the election night tally room:
The next South Australian election will be the first conducted without a tallyroom. Both Victoria and NSW have also decided not to hold tallyroms at state elections due in November 2010 and March 2011. These state decisions may yet play a part in deciding whether free to air broadcasters attend the next Federal tallyroom. There were serious noise problems in the tallyroom in 2007, Sky News already bases its coverage from studio, and hosting from a studio would save the ABC and other free-to-air broadcasters considerable amounts of money and allow greater use of studio technology.
• I am maintaining elsewhere progressively updated posts on two looming electoral events: the May 16 Fremantle by-election and May 2 Tasmanian upper house elections.
759 Comments
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Oh dear, the Swannie is crumbling
Finns
the sleeping dragon sharpens it’s claws
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2009-04/25/content_11252438.htm
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2009-04/25/content_11255500.htm
ANC does not achieve a 2/3 majority in South African election:
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5g4HLQJqDUFPnhfvH__ffQYq2m9lQD97PETIG2
I think this is good. I think their country will be better off when they have two racially integrated major parties.
ShowsOn the opposition to the ANC needs to be united.
The DA and COPE should merge into a single opposition party for the next election if they have got any brains whatsoever!
What the opposition needs above all else is a black leader.
Obamas popularity must really gall all those at Fox and in particular Hannity. Has anyone been watching his anti-Obama crusades lately. Some of his comments and that of his guests in his Tea Parties must be running close to insurrection. Whatever happened to loyalty to the President? Obviously disloyalty to the POTUS only applies if criticism is made about a Republican incumbent.
Ben Raue at the The Tally Room reckons a 2/3 majority is symbolic anyway.
“The Mbeki administration held a larger two-thirds majority since the 2004 election, without any dramatic changes to the constitution. When you consider the ongoing divisions within the ANC, you would have to say that Zuma won’t have sufficient control over the National Assembly to be able to dictate constitutional change, even if he wanted to.”
The ANC still won a very comprehensive victory, amidst complete party turmoil. You can’t really say that there’s any significant shift.
Zuma expected to take a much harder line against Mugabe:
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,25381524-2703,00.html
The ANC will go on polling more than 60% of the vote, no matter how corrupt or incompetent they are, until there is a credible black opposition leader.
If Zuma is serious about getting rid of Mugabe I will forgive him his various other sins. All he has to do is turn off the power.
So the Democratic Alliance should try to either merge or form a coalition with COPE, the ANC breakaway faction that won nearly 7.5% of the vote in their first election.
They could offer the current COPE leader the opposition leadership position as ‘payment’ (so long as the current D.A. leader can have by the deputy opposition leadership). That would give them about 25% of the seats, which would be a solid place to start for the next presidential election. It would also raise the profile of the COPE leader so that they are a credible Presidential candidate next election.
The problem with that is that COPE left the ANC because they were supporters of Mbeki, which doesn’t say much for their judgement. Maybe there is a potential leader among them, but I don’t know who it is. They only polled 7%, a lot less than initially expected.
The trouble is COPE didnt put a big name in for President that cost them IMHO.
Mbeki also hasnt come out and supported COPE either Adam.
The best thing to hope for is for COPE and the DA to merge into a new political party with Mosiuoa Lekota as its head.
If you say so, Glen. I hope your judgement about South African politics is better than your judgement about Australian politics.
Richmond and Freo both won today, so if we lose tomorrow, we will be bottom.
Hmmm well we have some good ins but Green is a bad loss for us and up to 6 weeks too
.
Still the boys did well last week so id say we’re in with a 50/50 chance tomorrow after all it is at the G and the Skipper is back in the side also good news that Russell Robertson is an emergency.
I do not really follow South African politcs at all. But the thing about COPE is that as Mbeki supporters they could be seen just as much if not more of incumbents as Zuma. So Maybe in time as that memory fades COPE may do better. Any thoughts?
I was told when I moved to Canberra last year that “winter arrives on ANZAC Day.” And so it has proved to be.
*gone*
Zille has already said that her party will be looking to form a coalition. That’s most likely going to be COPE.
A wonderful bit of creative invective from PJ O’Rourke in The Canberra Times:
‘When charming leftists stick their nose into things they don’t understand they become ratchet-jawed purveyors of monkey-doodle and baked wind. They are piddlers upon merit, beggars at the door of accomplishment, thieves of livelihood, envy coddling tax lice applauding themselves for giving away other people’s money. They are the lap dogs of the poly sci-class, returning to the vomit of collectivism. They are pig herders tending that sow-who-eats-her-young, the welfare state. They are muck-dwelling bottom-feeders growing fat on the worries and disappointments of the electorate. They are the ditch carp of democracy.’
http://www.canberratimes.com.au/news/opinion/editorial/general/the-ditch-carp-of-democracy/1492879.aspx
If your argument lacks substance, use insults.
The Flemish are the aforementioned 60% Dutch. According to the CIA handbook, the other 40% are French and the German speakers are only a tiny minority.
As I said earlier, torturing didn’t provide the US with any useful information. All it did was tell us what kind of people were running America.
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/227/story/66895.html
Weird stories in todays paper.
!st headline
Which would worry most pensioners but it is really an increase.
http://www.smh.com.au/national/pension-cut-for-tough-budget-20090425-aiq9.html
and
http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/libs-await-rise-of-a-new-caesar-20090425-aio9.html?page=-1
Yes, everywhere I go people are debating this.
And on the possible demise of the tallyroom, would hate to see it happen. Be like a footy match without the crowd. If the commentators find it a problem they should wear headphones.
The size and passion of the crowd at the last tally room show that it should be kept.
I think the poor violets are scared that,shock horror, some of the riff-raff may get close to their exalted persons and spoil their overwise immaculate visage.
I think getting rid of the TR would be akin to abolishing trial by jury
Well no surprises in Iceland.
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/europe/2009/04/200942522631653849.html
But what’s with this weird headline from News Ltd?
http://www.news.com.au/story/0,27574,25388163-23109,00.html
Oz 224, you beat me to it! What a laugh! News Ltd always ever hopeful of another Conservative victory.
In ‘Adelaide Now’ as well ofcourse.http://www.news.com.au/adelaidenow/story/0,22606,25388163-5005962,00.html
The Age has got the headline correct at least.
Iceland’s left wins resounding election victory
http://news.theage.com.au/breaking-news-world/icelands-left-wins-resounding-election-victory-20090426-aj4s.html
Glen will be pleased to hear that the Liberals lost all their seats in Iceland.
http://psephos.adam-carr.net/countries/i/iceland/
What is happening in Fiji is truly tragic with Military imposing its dictatorship rule in every aspects.
ABC1 Asian Pacific Focus reported this morning a truly bizarre story. It’s concerning the 2IC to Bainimarama, a pro-Christian crusade police commissioner Esala Teleni. He is using the Church to fight crime and he ordered everyone, Christians, Hindus, Islam, Buddhish, etc, to attend his sermons or more accurately rants.
What is even more bizarre is that:
So a church infighting is tangled up in crime and political out fighting.
Full story is here. A very good read. Oh Yes, on Sunday, God made him do it.
http://globalvoicesonline.org/2009/02/20/fiji-bloggers-react-to-police-commissionerss-crusade/
Gotta love Albo having a dig at Turnbull
http://www.smh.com.au/national/states-signed-up-to-biggest-federal-road-and-rail-investment-20090426-aj2n.html
I tried to get a screenshot of that Australian headline, since presumably they’ll get around to fixing it at some point, but it came out with the formatting all over the place. Still, I guess enough of us have seen it now that they won’t try to deny its existence…
Except that this is The Australia. They’ll deny the existence of anything they don’t like.
Andrew Robb on Insiders this morning was moaning about Labor’s $200 billion debt that our grand children will be condemned to paying back. This line of “reckless spending” comes from the Party that “Treasury reported that from the 2004-05 budget to the 2007 election, the China boom and a robust economy had added $334 billion in windfall gains to the budget surplus.
Of this, the Howard government spent, or gave away in tax cuts, $314 billion, or 94 per cent. Again, for perspective, this is the size of the entire annual economic output of South Africa or Denmark.”
http://www.smh.com.au/national/fiscal-feud-20090424-ai6z.html?page=-1
Labor is taking corrective action in combating the GFC. No wonder it is ahead in the polls even in the area of economic management. The Howard Years were the Wasted Years. Apart from the Alice Springs to Darwin railway line, what major infrastructure project was undertaken?
These clowns are not & cannot be a credible Opposition. The next Liberal Prime Minister isn’t even sitting in Parliament yet.
The problem for Robb is that no-one pends the time listening to him.
Robb always has that disheveled look of someone who has just spent the night on a park bench.
Bolt confirmed his lack of economic credentials by letting slip that his wife pays his credit card bill. Clearly, he’s in charge of all the important issues in his household like immigration policy and the Iraq war while the missus does the unimportant things like washing, ironing and balancing the family budget.
Even the Alice to Darwin line was mostly paid for by the private sector. The NT and SA Govts put in just as much money as Howard anyway.
http://www.infrastructure.gov.au/transport/programs/rail/alice.aspx
The new Citizen’s Movement did very well in Iceland.
Amigos, it’s time we lay low for awhile.
http://www.reuters.com/article/latestCrisis/idUSN25480301
News Ltd’s parallel universe, where conservatives win even when they lose, saved for posterity
http://psephos.adam-carr.net/iceland.JPG
Does anyone know where you can find more details about the projects announced in the $26 billion infrastructure plan?
That’s ok Adam id have voted for the Independence Party anyway
Adam, that is GOLD! Amazing the hacks here didnt do the same for Howard. We lost but we’ll win next time- LOVE IT. Should be turnbull’s slogan…
Glen still supports the party that took one of the wealthiest countries in the world and reduced it to bankruptcy.
http://www.businessweek.com/the_thread/economicsunbound/archives/2008/10/iceland_goes_ba.html
Still better than voting for Socialists or Extreme Left wingers
My second favourite team is playing Melbourne. Who is it by the way and don’t say the winners, although likely.
Just like Obama and Rudd, the Icelandic left now has to clean up the mess left behind by the deregulationist neo-liberal ideologues of the previous government. This seems to be becoming a pattern.
Some more anti – Rudd BS from the DT.
“Handwriting shows the writing’s on the wall for Rudd”
http://www.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/story/0,22049,25386459-5005941,00.html
That’s a bit rich considering Hawke/Keating. They deregulated more than Howard ever did.
And go the Icelandic Greens forming a coalition government! *sticks middle finger up at GG*
Icelandic left got a total of 52.7% of the vote… now why does that number sound familiar?
2007 ALP 2PP vote haha
Also their vote in 1972.
In between the base partisan nature of this article, Milne manages to highlight the hilarious state the Federal Opposition are in.
They oppose the stimulus package, but only is their leader trumpeting the benefits it brings, many Liberal MP’s are writing to Albanese and asking him to spend some of the money in their electorate!
http://www.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/story/0,22049,25385299-5001030,00.html
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