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.
Wish I’d kept, or could find, my copy of Good as Gold. Where it is? I don’t know.
Want someone to spoon feed you too? Book Depository or Amazon, you should get a well thumbed copy for about a buck. Shame you didn’t know about reading when you knew where it was. Sod’s Law, you’ll get your new copy and the old one will turn up in a couple of days. Always happens.
Jean Baptiste – cheers for the clip, nudge nudge, know what I mean, and am hoping for the socks but I’d be surprised if I got the scotch. There will be plenty of time left in the day for me to celebrate, nudge nudge, wink wink. And that business commences tomorrow. Money is always welcome, thanks Jean.
Happy birthday Willie Wagtail.
HA! Not here it won’t
https://thenewdaily.com.au/life/tech/2018/10/25/faster-internet-technology/
11 sick children were medevacked from Nauru to Oz in secrecy last week
BUT…not before Pastor Morrison who is on his knees every week at church and
spends tears crying in parliament about violated kids, spends $350,000
in the federal court trying to STOP the medical intervention of those poor kids.
What a low act!
https://twitter.com/ScottMorrisonMP
Morrison is very genuine in his prayers BASSMAN. He is fervently praying there is no such place as hell in the hereafter. Well, he should be.
Going to church won’t ever make you into a decent person and Morrison proves that but it would surprise even me if he actually believed his spirit in the sky condoned his nasty inhumanity.
Rather liked Julia’s portrait and Kudelka’s take on it.
Footy tips Jack
Done.
Kudelka’s Banksy cartoon today’s a real hoot
Milton – RUOK?
The worry is, he thinks he is OK.
Milton says:
OCTOBER 24, 2018 AT 6:34 PM
YOU SAY… “It is a niche issue for Australia, Bella considering our % of contributions”./……MILT OLD MATE…we are the biggest exporter of coal (pollution) in the world. When this is taken into consideration, in terms of emissions, we rate 6th in the world. We are exporting our emissions son.
Denis Ryan should be nominated for Australian of the Year…lesser people have scored.
Bassy, if the Climate Change mob changed two rules one might see some action.
1, The carbon content of exported goods is registered in the country of usage – so coal and manufactured goods rate in the country of usage equally. This would stop overnight he export of polluting industries to third wold countries which are not required to do much about emissions
2. Carbon em missions are limited to a country’s carbon sinks – this would stop overnight the real cause of Climate Change, the destruction of biodiversity and the rape of the planet’s resources – too many people.
Your take on the export of coal is, well to put it kindly, a pile of the proverbial
I am pretty sure Australia is carbon negative given the amount of sinks that we have.
Exporting emissions??, what nonsense! You’re hyperventilating again BASSY. You may not be aware that your apparent over-excitement when commenting on such issues causes an abnormal rapid breathing rate resulting in an increase in the rate of loss of carbon dioxide. That aside, our coal is the cleanest in the world (ie. its a low C02 emitter compared to product available elsewhere) and it is greatly assisting to raise the living standards of less fortunate folk than ourselves.
Your advocating that we should cease exporting our clean coal and allow others to fill the gap with inferior product and thus increase the pollution that you are so concerned about is simply breathtakingly bewildering mate.
Carl, I suspect that you’re conflating a couple of issues – climate change and air quality.
Our coal is “cleaner” because it contains less sulphur than most other coals, thus resulting in less emissions of sulhur dioxide when burnt. Sulphur dioxide is a key air pollutant that can cause regional air quality problems, e.g., in Mount Isa. On climate change, my guess that the emissions intensity of Australian coal i.e. the level of carbon dioxide emissions per unit of energy produced would be on a par with other coals,
In terms of improving living standards, lower carbon dioxide emissions will do nothing about that in the short term.
Here’s food for thought Carl
http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=12327
Not serious thought, Mack.
You might want to use source that’s more credible than the Australian Environment Foundation next time.
I’d heard this theory before but couldn’t find a better link. Doesn’t mean I subscribe to it, but as people on both sides of the fence like to manipulate statistics, I call it food for thought. I ain’t no scientist but I’m open to information form all areas.
Thanks Mack, very encouraging. Seems the IPCC get it right occasionally, viz: ” the IPCC’s own numbers suggest that Australia’s annual net absorption of CO2 over its land and territorial oceans by natural processes exceeds its annual manmade emissions by a factor of 2 – a better performance than any other nation or region.”
There is no such thing as clean coal. You are smoking again Toaster.
If I decide to get a portrait then I’d choose Gillard’s artist to do it.
Nice one by Kudelka.
A Winner in the huge US Lottery, Mr. Insider as we are told a Ticket sold for US$1.5 BILLION Mega Millions jackpot in South Carolina has won! I have already spoken to my friend Cathy in Greenville, South Carolina and its not her she says.
South Carolina is one of a small handful of US States where the Winners Name and Address does not have to be published.
https://tinyurl.com/y8h6ndss