• Put a mark around Friday in your diaries as the day the Australian Electoral Commission is due to publish proposed boundaries for the federal redistribution in Queensland, which is gaining a thirtieth seat.

• Dennis Jensen, the Liberal member for Tangney, has been defeated in the local preselection vote by Glenn Piggott, from a field that also included Alcoa government relations manager Libby Lyons. The West Australian reports that Piggott won on the first round with the support of 20 branch delegates against 10 for Jensen and eight for “spoiler candidate” Libby Lyons (who unlike Piggott lives not locally but in the western suburbs, having earlier tried her hand at the state preselection for Nedlands). There is still the possibility that the result will be overturned by the party’s State Council on Saturday, as it was before the 2007 election when Jensen was initially defeated by Matt Brown. However, The West Australian report baldly states that Jensen “appears certain to lose his seat”. The only facts that gan be gleaned about Piggott from this remove is that he is a 52-year-old finance manager with Toyota.

• Another weekend preselection challenge proved to be a non-event when AMWU official and Geelong councillor Andy Richards withdrew from his tilt against Maria Vamvakinou in the safe Labor Melbourne seat of Calwell. Richards has attracted his fair share of critics: AMWU colleague Ian Jones launched a colourful spray quoted at length in The Australian, describing him as “dead wood” and “unsuitable for public office”, while federal MP Darren Cheeseman (whose electorate of Corangamite partly coincides with his council turf) made no effort to spare Richards’ feelings in a letter to Calwell preselectors. Beyond that, one can surmise that Richards’ withdrawal was influenced by peace deals between rival sub-factions of the Right, one of which was threatening to back Richards in defiance of a “stability pact” protecting the candidates of Left powerbroker Senator Kim Carr, among them Vamvakinou. Andrew Landeryou at vexNews reported last week that two state preselection challenges had been shelved under similar circumstances: Darebin councillor Tim Laurence dropped his bid to topple incumbent Steve Herbert in Eltham, and Fiona Richardson was spared a seemingly derisory challenge in Northcote from Kathleen Matthews-Ward, a Moreland councillor reportedly associated with the Right faction Shop Distributive and Allied Employees Association.

• Andrew Landeryou also reports that the state Liberal member for Sandringham, Murray Thompson, faces a preselection challenge from Margaret Fitzherbert. They are respectively said to be associated with the Peter Costello and Ted Baillieu factions.

• The Maribyrnong Leader reports youth worker Les Twentyman, who contested last year’s contentious Kororoit by-election, denies reports he will run against Labor member Marsha Thomson in Footscray, but says he will “look at” the possibility of running in an unspecified electorate if his health improves (he is “still recovering from surgery complications which threatened his life”).

• In case you missed it, George Megalogenis of The Australian provided the authoritative word last week on what an increased Labor majority at the next election might look like. Money quote:

Of the top 50 seats for tradesmen, 23 are marginal: 14 Liberal and nine Labor. A number of blue-collar Liberal seats proved hard to shift at the 2007 election, including Bowman and Herbert in Queensland, McEwen and La Trobe in Victoria and Macarthur and Paterson in NSW. All but Paterson had been solid Labor seats in the 1980s, swung to the Coalition in the 1990s because of the fallout from the last recession, and remained rusted on to the Howard government throughout the nation’s longest boom.

• I’ve added a thorough update to my ongoing post on Tasmania’s Pembroke upper house by-election.

• Another entry to the to-do list: a South Australian government proposal to reform the upper house through an end to staggered eight-year terms and a populist cut in numbers to below the point of effectiveness. This could be put to the voters at a referendum coinciding with the state election next March. However, legislation initiating the referendum will first have to pass the upper house itself.

• The Age reports Victorian Liberal deputy director Daniel Tehan has resigned his position to contest preselection for Wannon, to be vacated at the next election by David Hawker. Tehan is the son of the late Marie Tehan, who was among other things Health Minister in the Kennett government. His confirmed opponents will include Louise Staley, former state party vice-president and Institute of Public Affairs agriculture policy expert; Rod Nockles, Howard government adviser and runner-up in the recent preselection for the less desirable prospect of Corangamite; Elizabeth Matuschka, a University of Ballarat administrator who ran unsuccessfully in Ballarat at the 2004 federal election and for Ballarat City Council last November; Matt Makin, a Corangamite councillor; Katrina Rainsford, a Southern Grampians councillor; and Hugh Koch, whom the Warrnambool Standard tells us is a Southern Grampians tourism manager. David McKenzie of the Weekly Times reports that former Victorian Farmers Federation president Simon Ramsay, recently unsuccessful in bids for Corangamite and a position on the board of the National Farmers Federation, has decided against nominating and will instead seek a state upper house berth in Western Victoria. Andrew Landeryou at VexNews has also named as possibilities “complicated Costello loyalist” Georgie Crozier and former police sergeant and anti-corruption crusader Simon Illingworth. UPDATE: The Age says the closure of nominations has produced 10 candidates, which includes “company director Stephen Mitchell”.

• Nicholas McGowan, former adviser to state Opposition Leader Ted Baillieu, has put his hand up to succeed the outgoing Chris Pearce as the Liberal candidate for Aston. Also in the field are two Knox City councillors, Sue McMillan and Darren Pearce (respectively representing Dobson and Taylor wards). McMillan earlier stood for preselection in both Ferntree Gully and Monbulk ahead of the 2006 state election. The Knox Leader reports that former mayor Emanuele Cicciello “has been tipped to run but is remaining tight-lipped”. On July 1, the Herald Sun reported that names “yet to be confirmed” included “former Howard government adviser Alan Tudge and lawyer John Pesutto, who performed well in the recent Kooyong preselection battle”, but VexNews reports the latter assertion is “not correct”.

• Rick Wallace of The Australian reports that the preselection contest for Higgins is “being fought out between Kelly O’Dwyer, a former senior adviser to Mr Costello, and Institute of Public Affairs director Tim Wilson”, who respectively have the backing of the Kroger and Baillieu factions. Definitely out of the running are Institute of Public Affairs executive director John Roskam, Crosby Textor consultant Jason Aldworth and former state party director Julian Sheezel, which Andrew Landeryou at VexNews credits to gentle persuasion from Michael Kroger in support of O’Dwyer. No word lately on Tom Elliott, hedge fund manager and son of John.

• With Mal Brough frozen out of the running in Higgins and Aston, Andrew Landeryou at VexNews relates he is “apparently looking or waiting to be drafted”, which might yet occur when Fran Bailey vacates McEwen at the election after next (assuming she can hang on to her 27-vote margin).

• This weekend sees the local ALP preselection ballot take place for the safe Labor Melbourne seat of Calwell. Incumbent Maria Vamvakinou, a stalwart of Kim Carr’s sub-faction of the Left, faces a challenge from Andy Richards, Geelong councillor and official with the Left faction Australian Manufacturing Workers Union (metalworkers’ division). The ballot accounts for half the overall vote, the other half being determined by the party’s Public Office Selection Committee. According to Rick Wallace of The Australian, Richards could secure support from the Right faction National Union of Workers and Health Services Union – collectively known as the “Ambition Faction” – which forged alliances with the AMWU after being excluded from a “stability pact” between the Kim Carr Left and Bill Shorten and Stephen Conroy of the Right. Should this transpire, moves to heal the rift between the rival Right groupings could miscarry. Wallace reports that Richards also has support from “local Turks aligned with ALP identity and local councillor Burhan Yigit”. If support for Richards holds firm, Wallace says the decisive factors will be “local Kurds and a local Lebanese numbers man, Mohamad Abbouche”. As Andrew Landeryou of VexNews tells it, the former might be inclined to back Richards because they are angry that Kim Carr has failed to support Moreland councillor Enver Erdogan in the state preselection for Brunswick. Landeryou says the Ambition Faction is hopeful of securing as much as 60 per cent of the vote for Richards, but the Carr camp is “confident they’ll be able to snaffle at least 20 per cent of the vote back from pesky ethnic warlords who are pledged to support Richards”. UPDATE: See below.

• Nick Butterly of The West Australian says that while Dennis Jensen’s chances of surviving Saturday’s Liberal preselection ballot in Tangney have been boosted by the support of Malcolm Turnbull and “Perth business heavyweights”, Liberal insiders say he “still faces defeat in this Saturday’s ballot because of local concerns about his fundraising efforts and performance in Federal Parliament”. It is not stated which of his two opponents is considered the more formidable: Alcoa government relations manager Libby Lyons, or Toyota Finance executive Glenn Piggott. UPDATE: See below.

• The Launceston Examiner reports that the frontrunner for Liberal preselection in Bass, Brigadier Andrew Nikolic, has withdrawn citing family and work issues. The nomination is now likely to go to Steve Titmus, a former television newsreader.

• The Australian’s Strewth column is advised by a Liberal source that there is “absolutely no truth” to rumours Melanie Howard might contest preselection for Bennelong. Earlier reports suggested approaches to former state MPs Kerry Chikarovski and Andrew Tink had been rebuffed. Also mentioned a while back was former rugby union international Brett Papworth.

UPDATE (18/7/09): Via Frank Calabrese, we learn that ABC TV news in Perth reports that Glenn Piggott has defeated Dennis Jensen in the Tangney preselection vote. Remembering of course that Jensen also lost before the last election, only to have the result overturned on the intervention of John Howard. Meanwhile, Andrew Landeryou reports that Andy Richards has pulled out of the Calwell preselection, so there should be no problems now for Maria Vamvakinou – notwithstanding earlier reports that one Manfried Kriechbaum had also nominated as part of a campaign of mischief-making by state Keilor MP George Seitz.

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.