No Morgan poll this week. Here’s some of the other mail:
• The Launceston Examiner reports that Brigadier Andrew Nikolic, veteran of numerous overseas postings and until recently the Australian Defence Force’s director-general of public affairs, has “confirmed that he is interested” in Liberal preselection for the federal seat of Bass. Also said to have his eye on the preselection is Senator Guy Barnett, who will otherwise have to settle for the slighly less appealing prospect of number three on the Liberal ticket.
• Michelle Grattan reports on a “glowing reference” for Kooyong preselection aspirant Josh Frydenberg from John Howard. Another of Frydenberg’s backers is Andrew Peacock. His principal rival, industrial relations lawyer John Pesutto, is supported by Institute of Public Affairs executive director John Roskam, who was himself sniffing the breeze before deciding not to proceed. Former Liberal president and Fraser government minister Tony Staley has given his seal of approval to Peter Jonson, a 62-year-old former Reserve Bank official known to the web at large as Henry Thornton.
• The Townsville Bulletin reports there are rumours that prodigious McDonald’s franchiser George Colbran again hopes to run for Labor in Herbert, where he narrowly failed to unseat Peter Lindsay in 2007. Colbran reportedly says he “won’t commit either way”.
• David Rood of The Age reports that John Brumby has “cleared the way” for Keilor MP George Seitz to be dumped at the next election, amid the fallout from the Ombudsman’s recent report into Brimbank City Council. The party’s administrative committee will decide this evening whether to take preselections for western suburbs seats out of the hands of local branches, in which Seitz and others remain powerful. Also affected will be Kororoit MP Marlene Kairouz, whose preselection ahead of last year’s by-election formed the backdrop of much of the shenanigans investigated by the Ombudsman, and Derrimut MP Telmo Languiller. Labor sources quoted in the article wonder why both Languiller and Western Metropolitan MLC Theo Theophanous aren’t equally being targeted along with Seitz, so it evidently should not be taken for granted that either Languiller or Kairouz are endangered.
• Taking his cue from Manmohan Singh’s assumption of the Indian prime ministership from the upper house, Malcolm Mackerras argues for an end to the convention that Australia’s party leaders must sit in the lower house, which he relates to the anachronistic presumption that it is the more democratic chamber.
• Final score from the Fremantle by-election: Carles 10,664, Tagliaferri 9,100. Margin: 3.96 per cent. I expected Labor would rein it in a little on late counting, but no.
• With the whiff of a dying government in the air, talk of electoral reform is very much in vogue in London this season, just as was when the scandal-ridden Major government was breathing its last. Conservative leader David Cameron opposes proportional representation but promises to “look seriously” at fixed terms. Health Secretary Alan Johnson – “still the favourite to lead Labour if Gordon Brown is removed from the top job“ – has suggested the government at last look seriously at the “Alternative Vote Plus” model which has been floating around since the 1998 report of the Jenkins commission, which was set up when Tony Blair came to power. It proposes a slightly watered down version of German/NZ style MMP, combining constituency members with party list members to produce a proportional result. Unlike Germany and NZ however, there would be a cap on the number of party list members which might make results less than fully proportional. The “Alternative Vote” part of the title refers to Australian-style preferential voting for the constituency seats, which the Jenkins commission appeared to be taken with as it had just helped defeat Pauline Hanson. From the Jenkins commission report, a “note of reservation by Lord Alexander”:
My colleagues also think that AV will contribute to a less confrontational style of politics because candidates will be inhibited from attacking rivals too strongly as they wish to gain their second votes. I do not see it as particularly desirable that candidates from different parties, who are different precisely because they do not agree on all issues, should be pulling their punches in order to seek approval from voters who support other parties. In any event, from my observation of Australia, which is the only single large country to use AV, their politicians tend to be, if anything, more blunt and outspoken than our own.
1,122 Comments
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Yup
And Bill is giving free Sax as an enticement
I think Obama would be happy as long as it isn’t theatre tickets in DC
Love the comedy people, this is great
Hilary likes to make sure every omen is right.
I mean she even has offered him a open top car ride thru the city, if the theatre dont work out
I am waiting for Labor’s counter ad to the Liberal one on the deficit.
You would be having this arguement as well if there waqs no coalition between Liberals and Nationals.
Turnbull wants ETS vote in January:
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,25564312-601,00.html
Why couldn’t it be in December? The Copenhagen summit will be over by December 18. Why wait until January?
This is just further evidence that Turnbull has absolutely no idea what his position is.
Do we have any Nats hack here at PB?
Gus, is there a typo here?
Only if you have writer’s block
http://www.news.com.au/adelaidenow/story/0,22606,25566460-5006301,00.html
Thankyou for infection the media John Winston Howard.
Well done News Ltd retards.
Oh and don’t you love the Hypocrisy by the Greens about pre-selecting High Profile Candidates, when in 1994 thney pre-selected Andrew Wilkie for Bennalong, especially in light of his recoent announcemtn of standing as an independent in Tasmania with policies which are somewhat opposite to those espoused by the Greens ?
They are too sheepish
Or bullish if they are from a cattle farm
Gotta give you something to smile about Glen, considering since 2007 it’s just bad news after bad news for your mob!
John Howard’s lack of telecommunication investment has its advantages
Yet the Morally Pure claim we now have Workchoices lite
But guess who helped pass the legislation ? If you thought it was morally wrong, then why didn’t you block it ? Or was it a case of doing that being your Meg Lees moment ?
Frank, Bob
Glen’s referring to the Turnbull ad
Parts of the new laws are very similar to the previous. Are you denying this?
Too busy milking the cows to kill some time on PB me thinks but if you’re up in QLD you are a Nat as well as a Lib LOL!
Nah they’re too busy attending this
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SOCKlmN2Ugo
As they were under the Hawke Govt IR Legislation, and we didn’t hear the ACTU complain then.
ACTU rails against Work Choices ‘lite’
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,24387925-5013404,00.html
Damn that bong-smoking, basket-weaving hippie Greenie ACTU hey Frank!
Bob you’re a far more patient man than I to argue with Frank when he’s in one of his “morally superior” moods.
Fraser wasn’t exactly a hard-right thatcherist. Howard was, and went way too far.
Oh, I don’t do it for Frank. I do it for the readers who don’t post, to make sure they aren’t left with his crap and potentially leave them at risk of believing it.
Oh please, dont give encouragement to the Libs.
They could split into two as well: “The New Liberals” with good assets …….. (fill-in the blanks) and the “Old Liberals” with the bad assets like Turnbull, Hockey, Mesma etc.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/8075818.stm
Glen
the simple fact is that the Libs have become so irrelevant, we can’t be bothered talking about them.
Re preselections: I’ve outlined the process before. As a general rule, local selection works so well things rarely go any further. However, there are cases where the locals select someone who is (for some reason) totally inappropriate.
Remember, people who are members of political parties, such as myself, are by definition aberrant. Less than 1% of the population belongs to a political party, so those that do tend to be very passionate about what they do and that can blind them to larger realities. It’s quite easy to get carried away by a candidate who appeals totally to the local Labor bods but who is unelectable to a wider audience.
The Nats had an experience like this in Tim Fischer’s old seat. They held a local plebescite, with the candidates going on a sort of travelling road show and then being voted on by the local membership. (It was lauded by the media at the time as a very powerful process, grassroots democracy in action etc).
Because the average Nat member in the electorate is a farmer in his sixties, the candidate who got up was a farmer in his sixties – and he was soundly thrashed by the middle aged woman the Libs ran against him.
So there are occasions when ‘higher powers’ – who have the expertise in politics, and sometimes have seen the various candidates in action in wider political fora – look at the field of prospective candidates and either veto the winner of the local vote or go for somebody else altogether.
I would not take an article from the OO as fgospel on this.
It is called COMPRIMISE.
Something that the Morally Pure find alien.
It’s callled getting behind your leader – and you are aware that not doing so results in disunity which doesn’t win you Government.
Add this to the long line of reasons I can’t stand the Labor Party these days.
Bob Brown’s been a great leader for the Greens, and he’s an enormously popular figure. I wish he’d stop building up expectations the party can’t possibly hope to meet about federal lower house seats, but that’s a small thing by comparison.
http://www.sep.org.au/articles07/ir-131107.html
Yes, it’s a socialist equality piece, but rather than just slam the source, how about reading it and actually stating which bits are untrue socialist equality dribble. I think it’s a rather good piece.
Again criticising the source I see. The point remains the same. The unions including the ACTU criticise Rudd’s WorkChoices Lite for the reasons stated.
But go ahead, ignore the facts, criticise the source, it’s what you’re best at.
And you’ve contradicted yourself within one paragraph.
Frank what are you on? There is no contradiction. Saying it is so doesn’t make it so.
So you would prefer Gillard go the other way and have the Libss mount an even bigger anti unions campaign and upon retaining Govenment ensure that Howard’s original legislation be introduced.
It’s called being concilatory to ALL parties and not playing favourites.
Try it sometime.
Rebecca is being a hypocrite in that paragraph.
First she says being behind a leader is why she hates the Labor Party, but in the next Breath she is behind Bob Brown as leader.
She didn’t say this, but i’m going to let Rebecca answer this rather than fight her battles.
Oh yes she did.
If that’s not a ringing endorsement of a leader, then I don’t know WHAT is.
Let them mount a bigger anti-unions campaign. The public don’t listen.
Howard did many controversial things in his 11 years and he won 4 elections. Would the member for conviction please stand up?
With a Green balance of power. LOL. I can’t wait to see how rusted Laborite attitudes toward the Greens change when the Libs regain power and have to side with Labor or the Greens to get legislation through.
I can see why Glen is having fun.
The Greens are going to have some trouble when Brown goes unless Milne can make herself presentable to the general public. The hard-on Greens will love her of course because she is smart, uncompromising and to the point, but she like Turnbull is pretty hard to listen to for the rest of us. She seems to always have an accusing mode of talking that is fairly grating.
I wonder how many actually support the Greens because of Brown? And for that matter I wonder how many supported the Liberals because of Howard and now that he has gone….
Agreed.
Oh and this is what Greg Comet, who is now a Government Member says of “Workchoices Lite”, and remember he was the former boss of the ACTU.
http://www.theage.com.au/news/opinion/a-fairer-deal-for-nations-workers/2008/11/25/1227491545311.html?page=fullpage#contentSwap1
Uhhhhhhhhh. He is a member of the LABOR PARTY. In Labor, you cannot talk against the policies of your party, ESPECIALLY when you’re a minister. If you vote against a party’s policy, you get BOOTED from the party.
Democracy in action. Wheeeeeeee.
Exactly – Bob Brown IS The Greens and the party is baving like a one trick pony.
It’s fun debating with people like Frank, the points are so easy to debate and dismiss. With someone like GP, it’s actually a challenge because they know what they’re talking about.
So why is it that the state Greens in Newspoll are all in double digit polling?
It’s called singing from the same song sheet and prevents you from becoming an unorganised Rabble – and remember a lot of private businesses have a similar policy on speaking aghainst company policy as well.
And it’s just as fun exposing what a hypocrite you are about being an “ALP Supporter”
And if you don’t like it, join the Greens
Greens Newspoll primary:
NSW – 13%
Vic – 15%
QLD – none since election on 8.4% with no upper house, but polled 7.4% prior to.
SA – 10%
WA – 13%
Tas – 17%
And Tas aside, the vote continues to climb after each election. Hardly the sign of a party going nowhere, or a party dependent on its federal leader.
Now comes the part where rusted Laborites glaze over those double digit polling figures that continue to climb, and continue to attack.
Because all their advertising has a picture of Bob Brown – even Adele was pictured with him.
Need a reminder ?
http://blogs.crikey.com.au/pollbludger/files/2009/04/frem09greensherald0105a.jpg
Oh, I forgot federal – 9%. Just furthers the argument that the party does not centre around Bob Brown
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