The denizens of Wentworth gather tomorrow at polling booths to determine the fate of Israel, the Iran Nuclear Agreement, the future of Judeo-Christian civilisation and the proposed skate park at Rushcutters Bay.
Fortunately, most Australians will not be obliged to ponder such weighty matters (I’m on the fence with the skate park). One thing we can be certain of is a seat the Liberals retained in 2016 with the sitting member receiving 62 per cent of the primary vote, will go to preferences for the first time since 2004.
In speaking to a number of Wentworthians this morning, the prevailing view was one of utter exhaustion and occasional wild-eyed fury at a process that had stuffed their letter boxes with political bumpf and dragged them away from the dinner table with robocalls from the nation’s politically outspoken. The only notable absentee on the hustings was Bill Shorten who remains despised.
Fearing a heavy loss in the by-election, the Prime Minister weighed in with a thought bubble about getting the removalists in to lumber the desks and chairs on to a truck in Tel Aviv and have the phones diverted to Jerusalem.
Perhaps this should come as no surprise coming from a man who has supported five different AFL teams by my count and has the scarves, jumpers and baseball caps in his walk-in wardrobe to prove it.
This loose affinity to matters of great tribal significance will not play well in Melbourne where one’s football team is decided virtually at birth and changing allegiances is not permitted. Ever.
But in Wentworth, I suppose, it is no great sin. After all, the former member for Wentworth, now of no fixed address, had difficulty remembering the name of the AFL team that kick a footy around in his electorate, nor the NRL mob that do the same, despite the fact Rooster headquarters were less than a scrambled field goal snap away from his electoral office.
I always imagined the former PM wandering into the SCG and proclaiming, “I sure like footy but where are all the ponies?”
Missing you already, Malcolm.
The 16-candidate ballot for Wentworth contains more than your fair share of nut jobs, weirdos and narcissists. All socio-political bases appear to be covered. Earth, wind, fire, death, taxes, vegetable rights and casual sex for money. All the colours of the ‘bow.
Obviously, in Wentworth, the arts are represented, too, predictably by the Arts Party. It’s just as well. In Wentworth over the last six weeks, too much burnt umber has been barely enough.
There’s even a Katter Australia Party candidate, Robert Callanan, who would have rolled his sleeves up and regaled Wentworthians with horrific tales of Filipino banana imports but was pulled up after it was revealed he had until recently been a director of a company that shared an ABN with a swanky Sydney brothel.
Apparently, Bob the Hat’s mob don’t go for those sorts of big city shenanigans and told Callanan to tell his story walking. Alas, his disendorsement came too late for the printing of the ballot and Callanan and the KAP remain entwined on the ballot and appear right up there on top to suck up the donkey vote.
I have to say I’m a little envious of all the attention Wentworthians have received. The most excitement we ever had around my electoral neck of the woods occurred when Angry Anderson was preselected as the National Party candidate. How I had longed for the short, bald tattooed one to turn up at my local polling booth in a styrofoam Batmobile. Alas, I would be disappointed, and Anderson was never seen or heard of again.
All nuttiness aside, it will come down to three in Wentworth. It’s fair to say the Liberal candidate, Dave Sharma received the ultimate hospital handpass when he was preselected. It is also fair to say he fumbled it and has failed to get a kick since.
The big-ticket independent candidate, Kerryn Phelps, doesn’t seem to stand for much at all but has pledged, if elected, to go to Canberra and fight like hell for erm, not much at all.
The Labor candidate, Tim Murray, remains cheerfully optimistic, but this may only be due to the fact he hasn’t had to share a minibus with Bill Shorten for the last month.
The prevailing view of the Twitter idiocracy is Labor should be running dead in Wentworth, or more precisely, running deliberately third and thus gifting the seat to Phelps on preferences.
Honestly, if it was a horse race the stewards would have the swabbed the lot of them to within an inch of their lives.
Individual seat polling is unreliable but from what I’ve seen, I’d say Murray is in with an outside chance to take the seat and to his credit, he has stuck to the task. Politics can be an ugly business but it’s never uglier than when results are contrived through complex preference arrangements with candidates quietly taking a dive.
Win, lose or draw tomorrow, parliamentary members of the Liberal Party will rise on Sunday morning to feel a pervasive sense of despair at a visceral, almost cellular level. There will be an almighty swing against them. Heads will drop. Dark mutterings will be replaced by angry recriminations.
The long trudge to a general election has just got a whole lot tougher.
This article was published in The Australian 19 October, 2018.
Politics is a dirty business, Mr Insider, as we all know and as the Mid Terms approach in the USA so too is the 7000 plus Migrant Caravan approaching the US Border via Mexico from Honduras.
POTUS Trump is playing this like a violin at his Bi-Weekly Rallies and putting the Democrats right in his sights.
The US Democrats are so hopelessly organised win lose or draw in the Mid Terms Trump will paint them as “Devil Incarnates” and its begun already my friends in the US tell me.
I am reminded of our own ex-PM Howard who ramped up a frenzy of fear with Tampa and went on to easily win the Election.
Cruel, unkind, yes but Politics is just that imho.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L9cPxu-x4qs
The way Niki Savva writes it the Turnbull years were all smoothness and light and he was on his way to victory. She overlooks Abbott’s landslide win and Turnbull’s losses that delivered a one seat majority, now gone.
And it looks like Morrison is doing his utmost to keep Malcolm happy, for obvious reasons.
Milton, it’s a bit meaningless to compare Tony Abbott’s standing with the electorate in 2016 – after the broken promises, silly gaffes and admission of “good government starts today” – with his standing at the 2013 election. The result of which was almost entirely driven by the electorate having enough of Labor at that time.
I suspect that the consistently bad polls before the 2016 spill were a much better gauge of the Coalition’s chances under Abbott than the 2013 election result, and that installing Malcolm Turnbull headed off an election loss.
What are the “obvious reasons” for keeping Turnbull happy? It seems that Sco Mo is a regular Thomas More these days, what with handing out tidbits to Barnaby, Abbott and Turnbull.
Ah well Milt, look at it this way. If Turnbull hadn’t stepped in when he did we would have had a Shorten govt a lot sooner. (At the next election at the time).
Whether that would have been a better situation than what we have now is anyone’s guess. They’re both bloody hopeless! However I do think it’s a pity Morrisson does not have enough time. He seems quite capable of listening.
So says the left’s propaganda Boa
and so says the bleeding obvious.
Meanwhile, what happens in US politics, do we get a last minute leak or announcement from the Mueller camp?
A Dem house win should be a near certainty, but the Dems seem hell bent on making sure that doesn’t happen, do they need some help?
They should win the house, the Senate no. If I understand Mueller and I read an awful lot about him, I doubt much will happen before the mid terms in order to avoid any accusation of electoral interference I don’t recall his office ever leaking by the way. Announcements yes, indictments yes but Mueller does not leak.
Ripping interview with Shane Warne, Sales is a great interviewer and what a subject.
I have watched him over many years but never heard anyone delve as well into the head games he played on the field, and yet that was what took him from an outrageously gifted young player to the champion he was.
As age and injury lessened the rip and tear and robbed him of a few variations, as it always does, he got better instead of fading away.
Even better on his off-field shenanigans, top piece of TV, congrats all around.
I must have watched a different interview. The one I saw on ABC 730 (Wed 24) was one of the most scripted sycophantic interviews ever; more suited to a commercial TV station pushing a paid product. Sales did not question one answer given, particularly the controversial ones. Anyone with any memory whatsoever knows how misleading Warne’s statement was about the Shane Warne Foundation – there is a big difference between money raised for charity as opposed to distributed to charities.
Ever suffered a dislocated shoulder? Reckon you could fully recover in 5 weeks? In the interview Warne said that, for vanity reasons, he’d taken a diuretic (Moduretic) once and did not know it contained a banned substance. Sales did not mention he’d actually admitted taking it more than once in evidence. Nor did she remind us that it can act as a masking agent for steroids – used for accelerating injury recovery time for a dislocated shoulder perhaps. Nor did she inform us that the unfortunately named Dick Pound (head of the World Anti-Doping Agency) at the time said about Warne’s claim of ignorance, “You cannot have an IQ over room temperature and be unaware of this as an international athlete.”.
I really don’t get why Sales did the interview. What’s wrong with Jim Maxwell? He’s a great interviewer and actually knows a thing or two about cricket. And if you want to push the boundaries, how about Cate McGregor? She ticks all the ABC’s boxes and has recently proven herself to be a worthy commentator on both things political and cricket.
Perhaps the interview would have lacked a certain flirtatious aspect if Jim Maxwell or Cate McGregor had done it, which would have been a shame really.
He’s had a long and distinguished career and is still an important figure in Australian life, she covered enough for 22 minutes of evening tele.
And Warne an International Athlete, I’m still laughing at that an hour later, he was a cricketer.
Good point. And a fat bastard cricketer to boot.
Now now JB. Not everyone can be the svelte, wiry bush type like moi & vous!
So?
That man should resist his obvious use of chemical fillers. Makes him look like a turkey is what it does.🦃
I found it boring and un-enlightening. I did read his biography though so it was all old news.
Negative gearing is a negative, just ask Joel. Better still, ask Hewson. But one thing that should be gotten rid of is compulsory superannuation. Even its own architect says that at best it is good to up to 82/85 yrs old (without saying the income level of those contributors). It has been a dud from first to last, and of late the coin collected is given the evil eye, and the govt’s du jour consider it a plaything and toy with the rules. I say scrap the super dud and put 2.5% of all tax towards a pension plan for all. The nearly dead is our future, let’s dig deep.
Who’s John Hewson and what has he done for this country? I thought it was just ex-PM’s week (we need a bigger dais, Dougal!).
Only too happy to help you dear Milton and here is a short clip of the chap Hewson of who you inquire. Cheers
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a11EGkZFcXk
Obviously a have your cake and eat it type of guy. I lost oxygen watching that, thank-you Henry.
Many would say that Germany is a lot more progressive and Green than us in Oz yet they are building new coal power plants. We are deluding ourselves, exaggerating our relevance and in the process jeopardising the wealth that is needed to maintain our relatively high standard of living. Our coal and gas put us in a position that would be the envy of many. Kill off coal and you can guarantee a decline in our standard of living, starting with the poorest, then you can kill off the NDIS, the PBS, old aged pensions etc etc. On top of that it will widen the difference between the have’s and the have not’s at a rate not seen before in this country (since Keating became treasurer).
The US under POTUS Trump too Milton utilising Coal-Fired Power Stations as we here in QLD do as well, and we have a Labor State Government.
God help us and save us from the Greens and other Left Wing Nutter Groups that would seek to send us back to the Caveman Era. Cheers
Hear hear Milton! Hear hear.
That’s the thing, you lot are just downright specious, make that dishonest. Germany is building new stations for geographic reasons but concurrently shutting down many more dirtier power stations. Germany is lowering it’s emissions and has very admirable ambitions.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-germany-coal-regulator/germany-could-shut-down-half-of-its-coal-c
https://foreignpolicy.com/2017/11/13/germany-is-a-coal-burning-gas-guzzling-climate-change-hypocrite/
You have to be up there as one of the dumbest things to walk this earth. You should refund the planet for all the oxygen you have wasted. you are a special breed of arsehole, you are not even useful. razor seems to be the bit that sticks to the edges on occasion. Now that humor. you are so wrong it is not even funny.
That’s because you had a sense of humour bypass or maybe ectomy. That vitriol has you on thin ice fella, pots arses are the same colour as kettles you know. Hummmh?
Yet another delightful contribution from the Angry Inch.
Dismayed are you drinking again? You know your psychiatrist said you aren’t to do that with the medication you’re on.
Lives on vitriol, mate
You take first place. What a miserable vitriolic comment .
It is with genuine sadness that my wife and I have realised that there is now an unbridgeable generation gap between us and our son and his friends in their early 20s. My wife and I are convinced that we are being governed by knaves, because they can’t really believe half the stuff they say. And they can’t believe that we believe it either. But my son and his friends won’t have it that they are knaves. No, they are convinced that we are governed by fools who actually do think we believe it. I just hope my wife and I are right, because an Australia governed by fools is at even greater risk than an Australia governed by knaves.
So um, how is it that knaves and fools are mutually exclusive? You’re both half right.
Crooks
https://www.michaelwest.com.au/defence-spending-keeps-spiralling-as-embarrassed-government-blocks-data/
Wentworth, I stepped in it Jack a big doggy do in Double Bay was disgusting.