UPDATE: Roy Morgan has joined in on the action with a small sample (546) phone poll including questions on leadership approval, which Morgan doesn’t normally do. It finds Malcolm Turnbull’s approval rating down to 25 per cent from 43 per cent in May, with his disapproval up a breathtaking 33.5 per cent to 62.5 per cent. Kevin Rudd’s approval rating on 63 per cent, up from 57.5 per cent in May, with his disapproval rating down from 33.5 per cent to 29 per cent. Labor holds leads of 56-44 on two-party preferred and 46 per cent to 39 per cent on the primary vote, which is actually quite mild by Morgan standards. Newspoll has also published its quarterly geographic and demographic breakdowns of recent polling by state, age, sex, and capitals/non-capitals.

Apart from that:

• Robert Taylor of The West Australian reports that Labor preselections for some highly winnable Liberal-held seats in Perth appear to be ”stitched up”. In the only two seats in the country which the Coalition gained from Labor in 2007, Cowan and Swan, those respectively named are Wanneroo mayor Jon Kelly and Slater & Gordon lawyer Tim Hammond. Kelly is interesting, as he ran as an independent against state Labor MP Margaret Quirk in Girrawheen at the 2005 election after a split in the Right faction. In Stirling, where decorated Iraq war veteran Peter Tinley failed to unseat current Shadow Workplace Relations Minister Michael Keenan in 2007, the nod is apparently set to be given to Karen Brown, former deputy editor of The West Australian and current chief-of-staff to Eric Ripper. Brown famously failed to win the new notionally Labor seat of Mount Lawley at the state election last September after suffering an 8 per cent swing, which many blamed on Alan Carpenter’s insistence that local member Bob Kucera make way for Brown. Peter Tinley is said to be holding out for a safe seat or a Senate position, and the unlikelihood of either suggests he will not be a starter at the next election. In Hasluck, which Sharryn Jackson recovered for Labor in 2007 after a term in the wilderness, Liberals are said by Taylor to be “working behind the scenes” to secure the endorsement of Mike Dean, who last week stepped down from his high-profile position as president of the Police Union.

• The ABC reports that Kathryn Hay will seek Labor preselection for Bass at next year’s state election. Hay is a former Miss Tasmania who became Tasmania’s first Aboriginal MP when elected at the age of 27 in 2002. After surprising everybody by dropping out at the 2006 election, Hay ran as an independent against Ivan Dean in the upper house seat of Windermere in May, and did very well to finish within 5 per cent of victory on the final count. With incumbent Jim Cox retiring, Michelle O’Byrne a sure bet for re-election, and Labor looking certain to win a second seat but very unlikely to pick up a third, the battle for the second seat is looking like a tussle between Hay, Beaconsfield mine disaster survivor Brant Webb, CFMEU forests division secretary Scott McLean (who famously came out in support of John Howard at the 2004 federal election) and Winnaleah school principal Brian Wightman, with only the latter looking an obvious also-ran.

• Rick Wallace of The Australian reports that George Seitz, western Melbourne Labor Right potentate and state Keilor MP, proposes to publish a “warts and all” account of his career in politics. Seitz is being forced out after nearly three decades in parliament due to a Victorian Ombudsman’s report which probed into the involvement of various state MPs in goings-on at Brimbank City Council. The aforementioned Wallace article is worth reading for a broader overview of the episode’s far-reaching impact on the Victorian ALP.

• Andrew Landeryou at VexNews reports that the closure of nominations has brought no challenges to sitting federal Liberal MPs in Victoria – including Kevin Andrews in Menzies, who was believed to be under threat from former Peter Reith staffer Ian Hanke.

• Nick in comments informs us that according to a Channel Nine news report, Labor polling has it trailing the Coalition 57-43 on NSW state voting intention.

In other news, it’s all happening in Victoria:

• Peter Costello’s surprise announcement that he will not contest the next election has raised the flag on another epic Victorian Liberal preselection stoush in his Melbourne seat of Higgins, which housed successive Liberal prime ministers in Harold Holt and John Gorton. Furthermore, Costello has raised the possibility of an early departure and a by-election, “if it’s in the party’s interest”. Immediately prior to Costello’s announcement, Institute of Public Affairs executive director John Roskam signalled his intention to run if Costello stood aside, after earlier testing the waters in Kooyong (see below). However, Peter van Onselen in The Australian reports that Costello has resolved to oppose Roskam due to equivocal comments he made to David Penberthy of The Punch about Costello’s future value in politics. Van Onselen further reports widespread displeasure at this and other remarks seen to be in breach of Liberal rules that preselection aspirations are not to be discussed with the media. Costello reportedly wishes for the seat to go to a former staffer, Kelly O’Dwyer. It had earlier been reported that O’Dwyer might depose incumbent Ted Baillieu loyalist Andrew McIntosh in the state seat of Kew. The other big name in the Higgins mix is Mal Brough, who has moved to Melbourne and is said to be hopeful of a return to politics that doesn’t involve further dirtying his hands in the morass of the Queensland Liberal National Party. However, Phillip Coorey of the Sydney Morning Herald reports party sources say he has “no chance”. Also mentioned are former state party director Julian Sheezel, who was said to be backed by Costello but opposed by Michael Kroger when talk of Costello’s departure was in the air after the election, Jason Aldworth, a former banking colleague of Michael Kroger and more recently a consultant for Crosby Textor; and, intriguingly, Tom Elliott, hedge fund manager and son of John, who memorably sought to depose Roger Shipton as member for this very seat in pursuit of his prime ministerial ambitions.

• Merchant banker Josh Frydenberg has won the hotly contested preselection to succeed Petro Georgiou as the Liberal candidate for Kooyong. Andrew Landeryou at VexNews reports that Frydenberg won the second round ballot over industrial relations lawyer John Pesutto by 283 votes to 239 after all other contenders were excluded in the first round. The result is a defeat for Ted Baillieu, whose power base had pursued various stratagems designed to thwart Frydenberg, the preferred candidate of the rival Kroger faction.

• The ALP national executive’s role in Victorian state preselections has been further expanded following John Brumby’s decision to refer to the body all state upper house preselections for next year’s election. Labor insiders quoted by David Rood of The Age relate that the decision will “all but end” the career of Theo Theophanous, who faces a vigorously contested rape charge and was recently among those named adversely in the state Ombudsman’s report into Brimbank City Council. This week the national executive acted as expected in relation to a number of lower house preselections referred to it in the wake of the latter imbroglio, selecting former Trades Hall Council deputy secretary (and wife of New South Wales Senator Steve Hutchins) Natalie Sykes-Hutchins to replace George Seitz in Keilor and confirming incumbents Telmo Languiller, Rob Hulls, Marsha Thomson and Marlene Kairouz in Derrimut, Niddrie, Footscray and Kororoit. It has also been confirmed that Victorian Planning Minister Justin Madden will seek to move to the lower house by nominating for preselection in Essendon, to be vacated by the retiring Judy Maddigan. In his absence, the national executive has chosen incumbents Martin Pakula, Khalil Eideh and Bob Smith to head the ticket in Western Metropolitan (Smith currently represents South-Eastern Metropolitan).

• Helen Shardey, Victorian Shadow Health Minister and member for Caulfield, has indicated she will stand down at the next election. It had been reported she faced a preselection challenge from David Southwick, previously unsuccessful in the federal seat of Melbourne Ports in 2004 and for the state upper house Southern Metropolitan in 2006.

• Andrew Landeryou at VexNews reports that former Liberal MP Phil Barresi, whom he describes as a “factionally unenthusiastic Krogerite”, has been given the green light to attempt to recover the seat of Deakin which he held from 1996 until his defeat in 2007. Barresi reportedly won on the first round over eccentric perennial Ken Aldred, who was dumped in favour of Barresi in 1996 after peddling weird conspiracy theories, and one Deanne Rhyll. Perhaps Barresi is encouraged by the precedent of 1984, when the Liberals unexpectedly recovered the seat (with some help from a redistribution) after losing it when the Hawke government was elected in 1983.

Elsewhere:

• Glenn Milne in The Australian reports on the Labor succession in the federal seat of Macquarie, which will be vacated at the next election by Bob Debus. As Milne tells it, Debus or his supporters put it about that his recent decision to withdraw from the ministry and bow out at the next election, which helped the Prime Minister no end as he sought to construct a new cabinet in the wake of Joel Fitzgibbon’s resignation, was conditional upon Debus being given the right to anoint his own successor. This was hotly disputed by Right powerbrokers who are bitterly opposed to Debus’s objective of freezing out industrial barrister Adam Searle, a Left faction colleague but personal rival.

• Two new goodies from Antony Green. An extensive paper for the New South Wales Parliamentary Library provides all manner of detail on the state’s Legislative Council election in 2007, while an accompanying blog post scrutinises the performance of the optional preferential above-the-line voting system introduced after the 1999 election produced a tablecloth-sized ballot paper and elected candidates from groupings that would be flattered by the “micro-party” designation. He further discusses the potential for such a system to resolve the issues which saw Steve Fielding elected to the Senate in 2004. For the more casual election enthusiast, a new 2010federal election calculator allows you set the two-party result to taste to find out the seat outcome in the event of a uniform swing. It turns out a 50-50 result would give the Coalition exactly half the seats and presumably allow it to govern with support of the three independents. Labor loses its majority at 50.8 per cent.

• Queensland independent MP Peter Wellington has introduced a private member’s bill providing for fixed three-year terms, with an escape clause if a new government cannot be formed in the wake of no-confidence motion and a provision allowing for a five-week postponement if there is a clash with a federal election or a “widespread natural disaster”. The major parties both support fixed four-year terms, which unlike Wellington’s proposal would require a referendum. Negotiations for such a referendum broke down last year when then Opposition Leader Lawrence Springborg insisted on further unrelated reforms, but his successor John-Paul Langbroek has foreshadowed a more “flexible” approach in future discussions with the government.

• Christian Kerr of The Australian evaluates the Australian political blogosphere.

UPDATE: Thanks to Rebecca in comments for bringing my attention to the fact that Allison Ritchie, Labor member for the Tasmanian Legislative Council district of Pembroke, yesterday announced she would quit parliament after enduring a storm of controversy over her appointment of family members on her staff. This will presumably result in a by-election shortly in Pembroke, where Ritchie defeated an independent incumbent in 2001 and won re-election in 2007. The Electoral Act allows the government enormous latitude on the timing of such a by-election, so I’ll hold off on giving it its own post until its intentions become clearer. Ritchie claims to have been the victim of a plot from within her own party, which presumably explains why she has decided to go now rather than wait for the more convenient juncture of early next year, when a by-election could be held with the state election in March or the annual periodical upper house elections in May.

• Phillip Coorey of the Sydney Morning Herald reports that “branches in the Sutherland Shire seat of Cook are being furiously stacked in what moderates say is an attempt to ward off a potential challenge by the far right to the sitting Liberal member, Scott Morrison”. However, Right sources deny any such plan and instead argue the stacking is being conducted in pursuit of the moderates’ own designs against Morrison. Central to the ongoing dispute is Michael Towke, whose preselection win upon the retirement of Bruce Baird at the 2007 election was overturned by the party’s state executive following reports of branch-stacking activities and extravagant claims made in his CV. The seat instead went to the well-connected but factionally unaligned Morrison, who went on to suffer humiliation at the hands of the local Right-controlled branches which refused his membership application a few months after he entered parliament. Talk of ongoing Right designs on the seat received further impetus when Towke secured the position of Cook electoral council secretary. Coorey reports there are rumours afoot that the Right will seek to have state upper house MP Marie Ficarra depose Morrison, making her own position available to Towke – although this was “laughed off” by a “senior Right source”.

• Phillip Coorey of the Sydney Morning Herald reports the Labor national executive has given Kevin Rudd and the five-member national executive committee (Anthony Albanese, Mark Arbib, Mark Butler, Bill Shorten and Bill Ludwig) extensive powers over federal preselections. State branches will not be able to start preselection processes without the permission of the committee, which will further have the power to replace sitting members – significantly including Belinda Neal, the troubled member for Robertson.

• Andrew Landeryou at VexNews reports that Victorian Liberal leader Ted Baillieu, director Tony Nutt and president David Kemp have moved without reference to the party’s administration committee to truncate the preselection process for next year’s state election from eight weeks to four. Baillieu opponents say this is a move to shore up the position of his backers Andrew McIntosh (Kew), Helen Shardey (Caulfield) and Kim Wells (Scoresby). Landeryou also relates rumours about the possible departure of Liberal deputy leader Louise Asher, the member for Brighton.

• Liberal Party members in the Victorian federal seat of Corangamite, which the party lost in 2007, will today vote for a candidate at the next election. The front-runners are said to be Sarah Henderson, former 7:30 Report host and daughter of the late former Geelong state MP Ann Henderson, and Rod Nockles, internet security expert and former Howard government adviser. Others who have been mentioned at various stages include Victorian Farmers Federation president Simon Ramsay, more recently mentioned in relation to Wannon; former Kennett government minister Ian Smith; Graham Harris, head of the Corangamite electorate council; Simon Price, unsuccessful Colac Otway Shire Council candidate and former electorate officer to Stewart McArthur; and Michael King, owner of Kings Australia funeral services. (UPDATE: Sarah Henderson wins. See Andrew Landeryou and his comments thread for much confusion over who backed whom.)

• There was renewed talk this week that Victorian Planning Minister Justin Madden could be moving to the lower house. It was initially suggested he would take the seat of Keilor, expected to be forcibly vacated by controversial Right faction numbers man George Seitz. However, Madden has ruled this out, saying it would not be a good look for him to take the seat given the role of his staffer Hakki Suleyman in the Brimbank City Council controversies which are set to initiate Seitz’s departure. Madden said he did not want, but would not rule out, taking the retiring Judy Maddigan’s seat of Essendon. Prior to the 2006 election, it was planned that Madden would be accommodated in Bundoora due to the reduction in the size of the Legislative Council, but a rearrangement following Mary Delahunty’s departure from Northcote saw him stay put.

• The New South Wales Nationals’ annual state conference has resolved to proceed with an exciting plan in which a candidate in a yet-to-be-determined state electorate will be chosen by an American-style open primary, in which all voters in the electorate will be able to participate.

Other news:

• Two challengers have emerged against incumbent Dennis Jensen in the Liberal preselection for Tangney – neither of whom is Matt Brown, who defeated Jensen in the local vote ahead of the 2007 election only to have the result overturned on the intervention of John Howard. Andrew Probyn of The West Australian reports the conteders are Alcoa government relations and public policy manager Libby Lyons, last seen angling for the state seat of Nedlands (and apparently the granddaughter of Joseph Lyons), and Toyota Finance executive Glenn Piggott.

• The ABC reports that Tasmanian David Bartlett has “reconsidered” his original proposal for fixed elections on March 20 after “consultation with key stakeholders”, which hopefully includes Antony Green (the move would have set up a permanent clash with elections in South Australia). He instead proposes to allow a future Premier “flexibility” within a three-month period, similar to what Colin Barnett is advocating in Western Australia. An draft that was being circulated for consultation early in the year allowed for early Legislative Assembly elections if the Legislative Council so much as blocked a bill the Assembly deemed to be “significant”, and provided for an Assembly election in the event of a no-confidence motion or if the Council blocked supply.

• Staying in Tasmania, David Bartlett helpfully puts out a press release each time a Labor candidate is nominated for next year’s state election – the latest being Franklin candidate Kate Churchill, whose role as operations manager of Colony 47 would appear to make her a community organiser in the Barack Obama mould.

• Andrew Landeryou at Vex News runs a scan of an Australian Financial Review report that the Labor national executive “may be asked to run preselections for state seats in the western suburbs of Melbourne to try to defuse factional tensions before the election next year”. As Landeryou puts it, “Some say this is code for a cross-factional and multi-sub-factional agreement that the member for Keilor George Seitz be encouraged to retire”, following the state Ombudsman’s recent probings into Brimbank City Council and their bearing on the state preselection for the 2008 Kororoit by-election. Landeryou raises his eyebrows at the assertion that the arrangement’s backers, said to include Kim Carr of the Left and Bill Shorten of the Right, want preselection for Brendan O’Connor’s federal seat of Gorton taken out of local hands, as there as been no suggestion he might be troubled.

• Writing in The Australian’s weekly State of the Nation wrap-up of state politics, Imre Salusinszky returns to a favourite theme: the unlikelihood of an early federal election given the need for “mini-redistributions” if the redistributions for New South Wales and Queensland are yet to be finalised. In particular, he notes that a mini-redistribution would have to create three Coalition seats from two (Fadden and Moncrieff) in Queensland, while merging two Labor seats (Sydney and Lowe) in New South Wales – as well as giving the Coalition a stick with which to beat Labor for calling an election under such inopportune circumstances.