Other news:

• Phillip Coorey of the Sydney Morning Herald reports Julia Gillard is “working behind the scenes” to save the career of Laurie Ferguson, a fellow member of the “soft Left” faction who backed the Rudd/Gillard coup against Kim Beazley in December 2006. Ferguson has been left high-and-dry by the effective abolition of his western Sydney seat of Reid, the redrawn seat of that name being the effective successor to its abolished neighbour Lowe. However, Ferguson’s efforts to find a new home are being resisted by the “hard Left” faction of Anthony Albanese. Coorey reports Ferguson believes he has the numbers to win a local preselection vote in Fowler, to be vacated with the retirement of Julia Irwin, but it seems at least as likely that this and other contentious seats will be filled by the decree of Kevin Rudd and the panel of factional leaders which was empowered to make final determinations through a recent change to the party constitution. VexNews intimates that if denied, Ferguson might look at “obtaining support for a potentially expensive and spectacular legal challenge”.

• Paul Sheehan of the Sydney Morning Herald had an interesting piece last week on the Liberal preselection for Cook ahead of the last federal election, which saw the dumping of the initially victorious Michael Towke and his eventual substitution with Scott Morrison. Towke’s Right faction lost the PR battle at the time (as my own electorate profile attests), but as Sheehan tells it, talk that Towke had fudged his CV had little or no foundation in fact. Rather, he was a victim of “a view among some senior Liberals” – evidently including John Howard – that “a Lebanese Australian could not win Cook in a tight election”. It will be recalled that the expanse of southern Sydney covered by the electorate includes Cronulla. Sheehan also relates that the Daily Telegraph’s reporting of Towke’s preselection led to a defamation action which was settled out-of-court with a payment of $50,000.

• Peter Caton of the Tweed Daily News reports the Nationals are struggling to find candidates to run against Labor incumbents Justine Elliot, in the one-time party stronghold of Richmond, and Janelle Saffin, in its marginal neighbour Page. The only known candidate for the latter is Kevin Hogan, who according to The Northern Star “runs his own finance business from his Clunes cattle farm”.

• Pat Farmer, the Liberal member for Macarthur, has as expected been soundly defeated for preselection by Russell Matheson, a police sergeant and former mayor of Campbelltown. The margin was 22 votes to nine.

• Rick Wallace of The Australian reports the Victorian ALP will follow the footsteps of the NSW Nationals by choosing a state election candidate through a US-style primary. Whereas the Nationals are still to decide which seat in which to conduct their experiment, Labor has earmarked the Liberal-held marginal of Kilsyth. The decision stems from a cross-factional committee report which also recommends reinvigorating the party organisation by slashing membership fees.

• VexNews reports that Louise Staley, who has previously sought federal preselection for Wannon and Menzies, is now hoping for a state berth in the country seat of Ripon, which Labor’s Joe Helper holds on a margin of 4.4 per cent. Staley is a former state party vice-president and Institute of Public Affairs agriculture policy expert. Also said to have nominated are “John van Beveren, a local winery owner and education professor and Vic Dunn, the local inspector at Maryborough”.

• The Australian Review of Public Affairs has published my review article on Australia: The State of Democracy, written by Marian Sawer, Norman Abjorensen and Phil Larkin through the auspices of the Democratic Audit of Australia and published by The Federation Press.

Plenty happening in Tasmania:

• Labor’s troubled first-term member for Bass, Jodie Campbell, has confirmed she will not contest the next election. Geoff Lyons, a staffer to Senator Helen Polley, has been mentioned as a possible successor, which would see the seat’s factional alignment transfer from Left to Right. The Liberals have preselected Steve Titmus, a former television news reader and PR consultant for Gunns Ltd. The winner will be the seat’s sixth member in less than two decades. UPDATE: The Launceston Examiner reports that the new candidate is likely to be determined by prime ministerial fiat “after the dust settles”, and that there is a second potential candidate in Winnaleah District High School principal Brian Wightman, who is currently pencilled in as one of six candidates for the Bass state election ticket.

• Terry Martin, independent member for the northern Hobart upper house division of Elwick, faces criminal charges which regardless of their merits are politically lethal by nature. Martin was elected as a Labor member in 2004, but was expelled by the party in March 2007 after crossing the floor to vote against the government’s fast-tracking of the proposed Tamar Valley pulp mill. He is due to face re-election at the next round of periodical elections in May; a by-election need not be held if the seat is vacated after January 1.

• Sue Neales of The Mercury reports the Liberals have finalised their state election ticket for Denison, adding “renewable energy lawyer Matthew Groom, businesswoman and former Miss Tasmania Sue Hickey, and high-profile school parents advocate and Glenorchy councillor Jenny Branch” to the already announced Michael Hodgman (the sole incumbent), Elise Archer and Matt Stevenson.

• Tasmanian government legislation for fixed terms has been referred to a committee, scuppering any chance of it being passed in the week remaining before a recess that will last until the election. Premier David Bartlett nonetheless swears that the election will be held on March 20, again locking the psephological community into the headache of simultaneous elections in South Australia and Tasmania.

Elsewhere on the site, note that it’s all happening on the Willagee by-election thread, while things are ticking over more slowly yet still surely on the Bradfield and Higgins threads. Observe also the New South Wales Newspoll post immediately below.

• The commissioners have responded to widespread criticism of the original proposal to put the electorate name of Reid out of commission, the general feeling being that Australia’s fourth prime minister deserved better. It has been decided that instead of changing the name of its eastern neighbour Lowe to McMahon (which under the redistribution takes in 32 per cent of the voters from abolished Reid), it will instead change to Reid and the new name of McMahon will be given to Prospect, located further to the west.

• To maintain continuity with local government boundaries, the frequently redrawn Calare will recover the western shires of Parkes and Forbes it was to lose to Parkes, and lose the areas of Wellington Shire Council (including Mumbi and Neurea) and Mid-Western Regional Council (Mudgee and Gulgong) it was to gain from it. This is great news for Calare’s National Party member John Cobb, whose margin is now cut from 12.1 per cent to 3.5 per cent rather than the originally proposed 1.2 per cent.

• The vast interior electorate of Farrer, which was originally to remain unchanged, will now absorb a part of the Shire of Central Darling including Wilcannia from Parkes, with no impact on its margin. Parkes in turn will gain the balance of the Shire of Parkes around Lake Cargelligo from its southern neighbour Riverina.

• A transfer of 1100 voters in the north-eastern part of the Shire of Tenterfield from New England to Page has been reversed. This has been counter-balanced by the transfer of the Shire of Lachlan from New England to its western neigbour Parkes. The collective changes to Parkes cut the Nationals margin from 13.8 per cent to 13.6 per cent.

• A transfer from Hume to Throsby south of Sydney has been slightly clipped so the town of Bundanoon remains in Hume. Hume also has its gain from Macarthur further to the north expanded to bring the boundary into alignment with the Nepean River and Sickles Creek, adding Theresa Park, Orangeville and Brownlow Hill in Sydney’s outskirts. None of the margins are affected.

• A transfer around Duckenfield on the west-east boundary between Newcastle and Paterson has been reversed, returning that area to Newcastle, which has further gained the adjacent area of Millers Forest.

• There have been minor adjustments to boundaries betweeen Cunningham and Macarthur, which have been tidied with elimination of a salient that formerly extended into Macarthur at Darkes Forest; Grayndler and what will now be called Reid, the latter of which gains a few blocks of territory to keep Croydon within one electorate; Bennelong and Berowra, where a proposed transfer of 1900 voters in Beecroft from the former to the latter has been reversed; and to the new boundary between Blaxland and Parramatta (in territory previously covered by Reid), adding three blocks of territory to the former at Granville.

• Other adjustments are more incidental still: a transfer of the unpopulated Spring Hill industrial area north of Port Kembla from Throsby to Cunningham has been reversed; Hughes’s boundary with Cook and Cunningham has been altered to follow the Illawarra Railway rather than nearby roads; and the boundary between Mitchell and Parramatta will now follow North Rocks Road rather than nearby Darling Mills Creek.

Other news:

• According to the ABC, the decision to maintain the name Reid increases the likelihood that its nominal member, Laurie Ferguson, will seek to continue his political career through a preselection challenge against John Murphy, the member for what is currently called Lowe. Ferguson is demanding that the matter be determined by a local ballot rather than the state or national executive processes which tend to prevail in contentious circumstances.

• Thwarted in McPherson, Liberal MP Peter Dutton now confirms he will attempt to retain Dickson, which he earlier swore he wouldn’t do.

• Imre Salusinszky of The Australian reports “sources across all factions” agree that Macarthur MP Pat Farmer is certain to lose Liberal preselection at next Thursday’s ballot to former Campbelltown mayor Russell Matheson. It is further said by Salusinszky’s sources that Farmer, who dumped a bucket on his own constituents on election night and has since moved far away from them to the expensive north shore suburb of Mosman, is only running to be eligible for parliamentary superannuation granted to those who serve three terms followed by “involuntary departure”. Soraiya Gharahkhani of the Camden Advertiser reports Labor’s preselection for the seat looms as a four-way contest between Nick Bleasdale (local carpenter and narrowly unsuccessful candidate from 2007), Greg Warren (the deputy mayor of Camden), Michael Freelander (a Campbelltown pediatrician) and Paul Nunnari (a wheelchair athlete). Ben Raue at The Tally Room offers an informed overview of the local political situation. The redistribution has turned the seat from 0.7 per cent Liberal to 0.1 per cent Labor.

• The Courier Mail says the Liberal preselection for new Gold Coast hinterland seat of Wright will be “a five-way affair” involving Cameron Thompson, who lost Blair to Labor’s Shayne Neumann in 2007; Hajnal Ban, Logan City councillor and Nationals candidate for Forde in 2007; and Bob La Castra, Gold Coast councillor and former presenter of the 1980s children’s television show Wombat.

• Andrew Clennell of the Sydney Morning Herald reports the New South Wales Liberal Party is “talking about recruiting everyone from the former ABC broadcaster Sally Loane to the former right-hand man to John Howard, Arthur Sinodinos”. Loane’s services are reportedly sought in Coogee, while Sinodinos might replace the outgoing Peter Debnam in Vaucluse. Conservative Sydney Morning Herald columnist Miranda Devine is apparently not interested.

• Former NRL player Hazem El Masri has also reportedly been approached by the Liberal Party to stand in the ultra-safe Labor seat of Lakemba. However, Andrew Clennell in the Herald relates that “Liberal sources said yesterday they believed Mr El Masri would not agree to stand for Parliament”. Labor is also said to have its sights on El Masri, with earlier conjecture he might succeed Tony Stewart in Bankstown.

• The Progress Leader reports Graham Watt, the owner of a local carpet cleaning business, has been preselected as the Liberal candidate for Jeff Kennett’s old seat of Burwood, currently held by Labor’s Bob Stensholt on a margin of 3.7 per cent. Watt reportedly received 70 votes against 45 for former Hawthorn AFL player Steve Lawrence (who was given a reference by Kennett) and five for David Solly, IT manager and one-time Nationals member.

• Geoff Chambers of The Gold Coast Bulletin reports “senior party figures” have told Julie Bishop to withdraw her apparent endorsement for Minna Knight in tomorrow’s Liberal National Party preselection for McPherson, where Peter Dutton faces the prospect of an embarrassing failure in his bid to seek refuge from endangered Dickson. Bishop has told the paper her reference for Knight was “not intended to be used as preselection material”, but she has nonetheless “stopped short of endorsing Mr Dutton”. The report says Knight and rival candidate Karen Andrews have between them “locked in crucial votes from the Currumbin and Burleigh branches”. In a bid to smooth the path for Dutton, Knight has reportedly been offered a free run in the new neighbouring seat of Wright, while Andrews has been promised a Senate seat.

• Matthew Denholm of The Australian reports last month’s assault charge against the partner of Bass MP Jodie Campbell halted a “gathering momentum” that would have cost her preselection. Campbell reportedly remains “under pressure to lift her performance”. Perhaps more importantly, Denholm reports that “while Ms Campbell is from Labor’s Left faction, many in the Right see Bass as their seat”. The preselection ahead of the last election was initially won by the Right-backed Steve Reissig, although this was achieved because state executive backing for Reissig outweighed support for Campbell in the branches. Reissig later withdrew amid rumours of a smear campaign, and a complicated factional deal helped Campbell win the re-match. Geoff Lyons, a staffer to Right faction Senator Helen Polley, has been mentioned as a possible successor.

• Crikey’s Tips and Rumours section suggests Kerry Bartlett, who lost Macquarie to Bob Debus at the federal election, has determined to contest preselection for Debus’s old state seat of Blue Mountains, after failing to re-nominate for Macquarie. Both Debus and his successor in Blue Mountains, Phil Koperberg, are set to retire, with some talk that Koperberg might do so before the election. Labor is said to have two possible candidates in mind for Macquarie: former netballer Liz Ellis and St Vincent DePaul Society chief executive John Falzon, who apparently shares Debus’s and Koperberg’s links with the Socialist Left faction (of which he “used to be” a member). Also said to be interested is Blue Mountains mayor Adam Searle, who was part of the jockeying to succeed Debus ahead of the 2007 election, but is said to lack factional support.

• Further from the above, it is suggested that David Bradbury, who won Lindsay on the third attempt in 2007, is “seeking the numbers to make a move to neighbouring Chifley if government Whip Roger Price decides to retire”. Bradbury is reportedly concerned hostility towards the state government might cost him his seat. He has “even canvassed the idea of a move to Greenway considering it is now a very safe prospect post-redistribution”. Liberal MP Louise Markus is apparently looking good in her bid to move to Macquaire from Greenway, which has a notional Labor margin of 5.6 per cent on the draft redistribution boundaries.

• Late news: Kathleen Maltzahn, whose human rights activism included authorship of a book on the trafficking of women for prostitution in Australia, was announced as Greens candidate for the winnable Victorian state seat of Richmond a month ago. It was also confirmed Adam Bandt, who in 2007 became the party’s first candidate to make the final count at a general federal election, will again run in the federal seat of Melbourne.

• Malcolm Mackerras in Crikey predicts a double dissolution election will be held on August 21, 2010, that presumably being the latest date allowable under the provision which states double dissolutions cannot be held later than six months before the expiry of the House of Representatives (UPDATE: Turns out it’s not the last date – not sure why Mackerras picked this one exactly). He also discusses the method that will be used to decide which of the elected Senators will be “long term”, and which will be chosen to face the people at the next half-Senate election. The Constitution leaves this to the Senate to decide, and it was traditionally done on the basis of the order of election. However, a peculiar result in Tasmania in 1951 meant four out of five Liberal Senators came to be deemed “long term”, which eventually prompted the Hawke government to require that the Electoral Commission calculate a hypothetical half-Senate election result for purposes of directing a “fair” outcome. This however remained non-binding, and at the first and so far only opportunity since (the 1987 double dissolution) the Senate chose not to be bound, instead conducting the division in a manner advantageous to the Australian Democrats. Mackerras notes Labor felt “guilty” about its failure to observe its own reform and promised that in future it would support a Senate resolution to give effect to the half-Senate count before the election took place, which Mackerras expects to be put and carried before his August election.

• Also in Crikey, Andrew Crook offers an overview of the two parties’ preselection processes, dealing in turn with Labor and Liberal (minor parties to follow).

• The latest Reuters Poll Trend aggregate of Newspoll, Morgan and Nielsen has Labor’s lead at 58.0-42.0.

• Today’s the big day for the Liberal Party’s preselection in Bradfield. Read and comment all about it at the dedicated post, where you will find a complete and updated form guide to all 17 candidates.

• More by-election action thanks to former WA Premier Alan Carpenter’s retirement announcement, which will shortly produce a vacancy in his safe Labor seat of Willagee. Dedicated post immediately below.

• Imre Salusinszky of The Australian reports that Liberal MP Louise Markus, whose seat of Greenway has been made all but unwinnable by the redistribution, has nominated for preselection in the neighbouring seat of Macquarie, where Labor’s margin has been cut from 7.0 per cent to 0.1 per cent and sitting member Bob Debus is planning to retire. Kerry Bartlett, whom Debus defeated at the 2007 election, has not nominated.

• Imre Salusinszky also reports that an obstacle to Dickson MP Peter Dutton’s transfer to the safe Liberal Gold Coast seat of McPherson has been removed with the announcement by Richard Stuckey, local doctor and husband of state Currumbin MP Jann Stuckey, that he has withdrawn from the preselection race. Presumably still in the field are Karen Andrews, chair of the party’s federal divisional council and an ally of outgoing member Margaret May, and Michael Hart, who unsuccessfully contested the state seat of Burleigh at the last two state elections.

• Jeff Whalley of The Geelong Advertiser reports that the Liberal preselection for the state seat of South Barwon will be a contest between Andrew Katos, who represents Deakin ward on Greater Geelong City Council, and Tony Le Deux, who “has his own catering firm and in the past managed the legendary Melbourne food shop The Essential Ingredient”. Despite earlier reports, former Surf Coast Shire Council councillor Ron Humphrey has emerged as a non-starter. Whalley reports the candidates are respectively backed by factions associated with Stewart McArthur, former federal member for Corangamite, and the seat’s preselected candidate for the next election, Sarah Henderson. The seat is held for Labor by former Geelong mayor Michael Crutchfield on a margin of 2.3 per cent.

• Andrew Landeryou of VexNews reports Jeff Kennett has provided former Hawthorn AFL player Stephen Lawrence with a reference in support of his apparent bid for Kennett’s old seat of Burwood, currently held by Labor’s Bob Stensholt on a margin of 3.7 per cent. Also identified as candidates are David Solly, IT manager and one-time Nationals member, and Graham Watt, “owner of a thriving carpet cleaning business”. Landeryou notes that demographics and a large Chinese community are producing a long-term shift to Labor in the seat.

• The Camden Advertiser reports Camden mayor Chris Patterson rejects rumours he will run against federal MP Pat Farmer for Liberal preselection in Macarthur. It is expected that Patterson will run for the state seat of Camden, held by Labor’s Geoff Corrigan on a margin of 3.9 per cent.

• The Australian Women’s Weekly’s Belinda Neal glamour photo shoot hits the news stands Monday.

Elsewhere:

• The Liberal preselection vote in Peter Costello’s seat of Higgins went according to script, with his former staffer Kelly O’Dwyer defeating Andrew Abercrombie at the final vote by 222 votes to 112. Reports over the past few days suggest O’Dwyer might be off to Canberra sooner than expected. The Prime Minister appears to be wooing Peter Costello with job offers (executive director of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development in London being the main tip, according to Phillip Coorey in the Sydney Morning Herald) so as to afflict the Liberals with another troublesome by-election. Costello did not rule out going out early when he made his surprise retirement announcement in June. Glenn Milne reports such a departure might come soon enough for a by-election to be held on the same day as that for Bradfield.

• Alan Tudge, a former staffer to Brendan Nelson and Alexander Downer, has won the Liberal preselection to succeed Chris Pearce in the eastern Melbourne seat of Aston. Andrew Landeryou of VexNews reports Tudge won the final ballot from Neil Angus, having seen off Nick McGowan, Terry Barnes, Deanne Ryall, James Matheson, Sue McMillan, Mike Kapos, Darren Pearce, Ken Aldred and Michael Flynn at earlier counts.

• Julia Irwin has announced she will retire from her safe Labor western Sydney seat of Fowler at the next election, taking the opportunity to launch a spray about the failings of her party’s power structures (her own success in cornering a safe seat for 11 unproductive years being an evident case in point). Irwin believes the Labor margin in the seat has been “built up” by her own personal qualities and hard work, owing little or nothing to its classic low-income, high-immigration Labor profile. Appropriately enough, Phillip Coorey of the Sydney Morning Herald reports her departure “threatens to create a factional fight” between the Left, which backs Liverpool mayor Wendy Waller, and the Right, which is pushing the unsuccessful 2004 candidate for Greenway, Ed Husic. Laurie Ferguson, left homeless by the redistribution’s abolition of his inner west electorate of Reid, is said to have “little support” from his own Left faction, and “his career is most likely over”.

• Phillip Coorey further reports that factional disputes in Fowler over control of local branches are echoed in the south coast seat of Throsby, whose disappointing member Jennie George is “contemplating whether to run again”.

• Will David Hawker’s departure from Wannon open an entry for the Nationals? The electorate’s history suggests otherwise, but Alex Sinnott of the Warrnambool Standard reports the party is considering running a candidate for the first time since 1984.

• Phillip Coorey of the Sydney Morning Herald reports a decision by the New South Wales Liberal Party to bring forward federal preselections (so they are conducted on recently published draft redistribution boundaries) is likely to secure the positions of Bronwyn Bishop in Mackellar and Philip Ruddock in Berowra. In further exciting news on the Liberal renewal front, Imre Salusinszky of The Australian reports Alby Schultz and Pat Farmer will again seek preselection in their respective seats of Hume and Macarthur. Farmer launched a spray at his constituents on the night of the 2007 federal election for failing to give him the margin he felt he deserved, and has since moved to the expensive north shore suburb of Mosman. Macarthur has been made a notionally marginal Labor seat under the draft redistribution.

• Imre Salusinszky also reports that police sergeant Darren Jameson is favoured to win Liberal preselection in Belinda Neal’s seat of Robertson, notwithstanding that former Liberal member Jim Lloyd is considering a comeback.

• The Liberal National Party’s feeble legal challenge to Queensland Labor’s win in Chatsworth at the March state election died its inevitable death when the Queensland Supreme Court brought down its ruling on Thursday. A smaller than average 14 errors were identified into the count, the effect of which when rectified was to increase Labor’s margin from 74 votes to 85. There were a grand total of two cases of double voting, both involving confused elderly citizens. Antony Green offers some commentary on the judgement, which stands as a heartening confirmation of the integrity of Australia’s electoral processes.

• With New South Wales state Labor member Phil Koperberg indicating he is bitterly disappointed with politics and might not go the distance, Antony Green weighs in with an overview of his electorate of Blue Mountains. It notes that Kerry Bartlett, who lost the corresponding federal seat of Macquarie to Koperberg’s predecessor Bob Debus in 2007, has been mentioned as a potential Liberal candidate.

• Alex Sinnott of the Warrnambool Standard reports that Liberal preselection candidates for the Victorian state upper house region of Western Victoria include incumbent David Koch, former police sergeant, anti-corruption campaigner and Wannon aspirant Simon Illingworth, former Victorian Farmers Federation president Simon Ramsay, Colac businessman Richard Riordan and Daylesford real estate agent Paul Johnson. Another incumbent, John Vogels, is retiring. The coalition agreement gives the Liberals the top two positions on a joint ticket, with the Nationals taking the third.

• Anna Caldwell of the Courier-Mail reports a private members’ bill sponsored by independent Nicklin MP Peter Wellington to introduce fixed three-year terms has been voted down by both government and opposition. The former wants the matter determined by referendum – Deputy Premier Paul Lucas further says a four-year term would be “more appropriate” as it would “enable necessary planning and implementation time for governments”, which (given the state of play south of the border) makes one doubt the government’s seriousness about seeing reform.

• The New South Wales ALP has taken a possibly unprecedented move in banning state MPs from seeking federal preselection. Nathan Rees claims this is to prevent unnecessary by-elections – a believable motive for the state government – but is also being interpreted as a move to “stop state MP’s tarnishing the Rudd government”. Phillip Coorey of the Sydney Morning Herald reports “rumours that the state ministers Joe Tripodi and Paul Lynch have been eyeing off the western suburbs seat of Fowler, while the former police minister Matt Brown has been linked with Gilmore”.

• Phillip Coorey of the Sydney Morning Herald reports a “growing sentiment” in the New South Wales Labor Party that Belinda Neal should retain preselection for Robertson, due to sympathy over her husband’s misbehaviour together with the fact that she has “worked hard” and “kept her head down” since the Iguana’s incident.

• Andrew Landeryou of VexNews reports Victorian Liberal chatter that “controversial Baillieu faction honcho” Bruce Atkinson faces a preselection threat in his Eastern Metropolitan upper house region. This threatens to boil over into an “open slather” that could equally threaten Atkinson’s first-term Eastern Metropolitan colleague Jan Kronberg.

Couple of other things:

• Sandringham MP Murray Thompson has easily seen off the only preselection challenge against a Victorian state Liberal MP. According to Andrew Landeryou at VexNews, Thompson defeated “Baillieu faction hopeful” Margaret Fitzherbert by forty-five votes to seven.

• The Camden Advertiser reports that the seat-warming federal Liberal member for Macarthur, Pat Farmer, has his eyes on Labor-held state seats of Camden (held by Geoff Corrigan on a margin of 4.0 per cent) and Wollondilly (Phil Costa, 3.1 per cent). Locally powerful state Liberal MLC Charlie Lynn seems amused by this, suggesting Camden mayor Chris Patterson and Campbelltown councillor Jai Rowell have the respected nominations all but wrapped up, although the former says he is not sure he will run.

• The Age reports that John Brumby says US-style primaries would “enliven the democratic process”, and are ”something the party should look at”.

• The latest Reuters Poll Trend aggregate has Labor’s lead at 57.2-42.8.

• Follow the Bradfield by-election action and contribute your thoughts at the progressively updated dedicated post.

The weekly Essential Research survey has Labor’s lead steady at 58-42. Also featured: support for an ETS-driven early election continues to fall; confidence in the economy continues to rise; there is no one widely held view on who should be our next US Ambassador; and two-thirds agree that “the Liberals are just not prepared at the moment to take on the difficult task of governing Australia”.

Also:

• The Gold Coast News reports that Peter Dutton faces “an ugly pre-election battle” if he wishes to move from notionally Labor Dickson to the safe Liberal Gold Coast seat of McPherson, to be vacated by the retirement of Margaret May. Rival candidates include federal divisional council chair Karen Andrews, a “close ally” of May; Dr Richard Stuckey, husband of Jann Stuckey, state front-bencher and member for the local seat of Currumbin; and Michael Hart, who unsuccessfully contested the state seat of Burleigh at the last two state elections.

• For the second election in a row, Dennis Jensen will represent the Liberals in their safe Perth seat of Tangney despite having lost the initial preselection vote. The West Australian reports that Jensen won a State Council vote over the initially successful candidate, Glenn Piggott, by no less a margin than 76 votes to five. This result was foreshadowed a month ago by a commenter on this site travelling under the name of Matt Brown’s Imaginary Friend (Matt Brown being the initial victor of the 2007 preselection), who wrote: “Council knows that if Jensen (is) dumped, the Libs’ chances of holding the marginals will dive because campaign funds will be so stretched, adverse publicity will have (a) ripple effect, and Tangney itself could be lost to Jensen if (he) stood as an independent, whether to him or even to the ALP if he did the obvious and swapped preferences with them”.

• Saturday’s Weekend Australian featured a post-redistribution proposal Mackerras pendulum, which you can see at Mumble. The accompanying article takes aim at the assertion of Peter van Onselen and others that the redistributions of New South Wales, Queensland and Western Australia collectively constitute a “Ruddymander”.

• Simon Benson of The Daily Telegraph reports that the tensions over the New South Wales Labor leadership could be coming to the boil:

With the various warring factions in the Labor party room unable to decide on who would be a replacement, Mr Rees was said to be considering acting before he gets chopped. Sources confirmed he was using threats of a reshuffle to axe “trouble-making” ministers, a veiled reference to Health Minister John Della Bosca, if sniping about his leadership continued. The internal malaise in the Government has become so bad that very few MPs believe the current situation can continue. Mr Rees is also reported to have told those closest to him that his position was untenable if the plotting against him could not be arrested. Another Labor source said Labor powerbrokers including national secretary Karl Bitar were considering tapping Mr Rees on the shoulder next week if they could convince Deputy Premier Carmel Tebbutt to take over. It is understood Prime Minister Kevin Rudd is also being drafted into the soap opera with sources claiming his Infrastructure Minister Anthony Albanese has directly lobbied Mr Rudd to support a move to install Ms Tebbutt, who is Mr Albanese’s wife.

John Della Bosca today added fuel to the fire by declaring it was “no state secret” that it was constitutionally possible for an upper house MP such as himself to be Premier. However, Andrew Clennell of the Sydney Morning Herald reports focus group research shows “many people still think (Rees) should be given time to make a go of the job”, and gives an insight into the public view of Della Bosca, Tebbutt and other sometimes-mentioned leadership prospects, Kristina Keneally, John Robertson and Frank Sartor.

• The ABC reports that the member for the Nationals member for the Victorian state seat of Murray Valley, Ken Jasper, will retire at the next election. Jasper is 71 years old and has held the seat since 1976. I must confess the seat does not loom large in my consciousness, but my election guide entry tells me the Nationals are “concerned at their ability to hold the seat without him”. Jasper nonetheless held the seat in 2006 with 50.9 per cent of the vote against the Liberal candidate’s 21.9 per cent.

• The Victorian Greens have preselected for the highly winnable state seat of Melbourne a barrister and former president of Liberty Victoria, Brian Walters, ahead of Moonee Valley councillor Rose Iser.

Lots more information on various Greens preselections from Ben Raue of The Tally Room:

• Raue appears to have the inside dope on the state upper house preselection in South Australia, declaring former Democrat and current state party convenor Tammy Jennings the “clear frontrunner” for the lucrative top spot (he earlier named SA Farmers Federation chief executive Carol Vincent, former convenor and unsuccessful 1997 lead candidate Paul Petit and unheralded Mark Andrew as the other candidates).

• Raue also names preselection candidates for the Queensland Senate: Larissa Waters (the 2007 candidate, who also ran for Mount Coot-tha at the March state election), “perennial candidates” Libby Connors and Jenny Stirling, and 2009 Sunnybank candidate Matthew Ryan-Sykes.

• Raue names Emma Henley and Peter Campbell as candidates for the Victorian upper house region of Eastern Metropolitan.

• In the Tasmanian state seat of Braddon, Paul O’Halloran has apparently been chosen to “lead the ticket”, to the extent that that means anything under Robson rotation. Braddon is the only one of the five divisions currently without a Greens member.

Antony Green corner:

• In comments on this site, Antony discusses the prospects of a Victorian redistribution before the next federal election:

A Victorian redistribution is due because the boundaries from the last redistribution were gazetted on 29 January 2003. A re-draw starts seven years later, the end of January 2010. A redistribution is not required in the last 12 months before the House expires. The current House first sat on 12 February 2008 so it expires 11 February 2011. This means there is an unfortunate two week gap that will force a redistribution. If the Victorian boundaries had been gazetted two weeks later in 2003, or if the Rudd government had re-called parliament in December 2007, the redistribution would be deferred. Unfortunately, the Electoral Act is very prescriptive on dates so it appears the redistribution will have to take place, unless the act is changed.

• Two posts on his blog relate to the slow decline of the Nationals, one directly, the other with reference to the relative decline of rural population.

• Also featured is a post comparing the current position of the state Labor government in New South Wales with that of the Unsworth government as it drifted to the abyss in 1988.