Liberal leadership declared vacant.

[Culprit]

Today's Age has Kelly OmyDwyer attacking Sally McManus. When in trouble it's the boats or the unions. Sally clearly has the LNP worried.

https://www.theage.com.au/national/actu ... 50b4e.html

[npalm]

^^ And there is not a single word in O'Dwyer's article that even mentions the ACTUs concerns let alone any attempt to address those concerns.

[Pies4shaw]

First Dog on the Moon captures the Wentworth byelection quite nicely. In the words of Snitty the Psephological Cassowary, "it's all over now! Scott and his murderous crew of tumescent death elves are riding the overcrowded democracy bus to Hung Parliament City."

A memorable phrase or two, there.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfr ... and-dreams

[stui magpie]

Interesting fact I read somewhere about the swing against Liberal in Wentworth.

When Keating rolled Hawke for the prime ministership, there was a swing of mid 20% against Labor in protest at the action in the resulting by election. Phil Cleary won the seat as an independant

I don't think Scho Mo is another Keating, so Keating winning the next election in his own right is likely meaningless as a comparison, but the point is I wouldn't expect the swing in Wentworth to be replicated around the country.

[Tannin]

^ Nobody does. Nobody ever has. Around one-third of that swing is a reasonable estimate. One-tenth of that swing would see a solid Labor victory with seats to spare. Because of redistributions since the last election, which this time around have notionally gifted Labour two or three seats, Scummo can't afford any swing at all.

[stui magpie]

"nobody" is a bit strong, I've read speculation about if the swing was replicated, but I don't think anyone seriously believes it would be.

It will be interesting to see if there is any consistent swing across the board.

On one hand there will be people pissed off at Turnbull being sacked and with the Libs in general.

On the other hand, as Jeza has implied, there will be people who had left the Libs who may return now turnbull has gone.

Will those two groups cancel each other out?
Will Little Bill overcome being generally as popular with voters as a pig on the spit at a Bar mitsvah?
Will the unions being up and about count for Labor or against them? (I heard someone say today, in response to the union rallies, that the Fwits were trying to get Andrew Guy as next premier)

All will be revealed in the fullness of time. I may just draw a big dick and balls on my ballot papers.

[Tannin]

That would be me, Stu, in this very thread:

To get a sense of the sheer scale of the disaster, imagine that the same swing was replicated across the nation. How many seats do you recon the government would retain? Zero.Not one seat. OK, OK, it won't be repeated. This was a special case. The national swing will be about a quarter of the Wentworth swing, you would reckon, which would still be a landslide.

Anybody seriously expecting a swing even half that size is out there with the fairies. I find it hard to imagine that anyone is quite so daft.

On the other hand, read my sig. Not the one I use here, the one I use at another place, which quotes (allegedly) Einstein: Two things are infinite. The universe, and human stupidity - and I'm not sure about the universe. Lot of truth to that.

[Tannin]

On one hand there will be people pissed off at Turnbull being sacked and with the Libs in general.

On the other hand, as Jeza has implied, there will be people who had left the Libs who may return now turnbull has gone.

Will those two groups cancel each other out?

In one word, no.

The hard right nutcases who left the Liberals in order to vote for Bestiality's mob or Pauline's fruitcakes might come back, might not. Makes no difference either way as their preferences come back to the Liberals either way. (Barring some tiny percentage we can ignore.)

The likes of Dutton and Christensen are scared that One Nation might take their seats, which is fair enough (it's not impossible after all). However, moving even further right to head off PHON is no solution. All that they achieve by dong that is comprehensive alienation of their moderate supporters, and a guaranteed election loss. Despite the much-discussed rise of fringe far-right groups, there are far more moderate, middle-of-the-road voters than there are hard right ones.

Moving even further right is a particularly stupid form of political suicide, at least so far as government is concerned. If Dutton & co want to do that, then I am entirely in favour. I am perfectly happy to see quasi-Fascist kooks in parliament - indeed, in a proper representative democracy they are entitled to be there - so long as they no longer control the government as they do now.

It's too late now, but what the Liberals needed to do was return to their traditional values of moderation and balance and a fair go for all, the values of great Liberal leaders like Menzies and Fraser and Holt and Hamer.

They will have to do that anyway, but now they are going to be doing it from opposition. I don't know if the party is even capable of reforming itself anymore, but just suppose it does, it is going to take a very long time before the public of Australia trusts it not to revert to type the moment it gets its hands on power again.

Abbott-Hockey policy was madness, and the only reason they got away with it for a second term was Turnbull's ability to pretend to be someone better than that (allied with the media's comprehensive failure to question him on it).

(Oh, and the huge benefit of not having a Senate majority. Thanks to the Senate, many of their most spectacularly unpopular policies never made it into legislation. If, for example, the first Hockey budget had gone through unmodified, they'd be still crawling around in the unemployment gutter looking for their teeth.)

[Tannin]

Somewhat contrary to all that above, a lurch even further right offers them (the likes of Abbott and Kelly and Abetz) a fair chance of replacing Bernardis and PHONs with Liberal Party Senators essentially indistinguishable in all respects, other than party affiliation. Presumably, they would prefer that.

It also, of course, guarantees that the total number of (a) hard right Senators (Bernardis, PHONs, Dutton-clan Liberals) and (b) more moderate Senators who nevertheless vote with the hard right (moderate Liberals, if any actually remain) will make up a minority.

Naturally, I am all in favour of that.

[stui magpie]

Interesting call on Fraser. I was a kid when he was PM and I never heard a nice thing said about him. Granted, my family was bush working class.

In hindsight, I thought Howard was a far better PM than Fraser up until his last term when he went power drunk with control of the senate.

We had some decent PM's through the 70's, 80's and 90's but nothing since. Every PM since Howard has been a massive fail and there's no signs of that changing any time soon.

[David]

[Tannin]

Fraser started out in a terrible way but improved a great deal. He improved even more after he retired, becoming an outstanding Australian statesman who achieved a tremendous amount. While in office, Fraser was responsible for some very far-sighted policies which still benefit us today.

Howard was a dreadful man. he reason the Liberal Party is so screwed today is Howard's relentless campaign of purging good, decent liberals from the party and replacing them with hard-line hard-right types. The reason the party is full of toxic characters like Dutton and Abetz and Abbott is simple: Howard's legacy. Howard makes the Top 5 Worst Australian Prime Ministers list in a canter.

Of good PMs in living memory, you have neglected to mention the extraordinary Gillard, who achieved far more practical good work than Rudd, Abbott, Turnbull, and Scummo all put together, despite having a horrendously difficult road to tread.

Best 5 in living memory:

1: Curtain
2: Chifley
3: Whitlam
4: Gillard
5: Fraser


Worst 5 in living memory:

1: Abbott
2: Rudd
3: Howard
4: Whitlam
5: Turnbull

Gough achieves the extraordinary distinction of appearing on both lists. Such was the nature of the man.

[Tannin]

I seem to have left Hawke out. Let's try again, this time combining duumvirates as appropriate

Best 5 in living memory:

1: Curtain & Chifley
2: Whitlam
3: Hawke & Keating
4: Gillard
5: Fraser


Worst 5 in living memory:

1: Abbott & Turnbull
2: Rudd
3: Howard
4: Whitlam
5: McMahon

[Culprit]

For those who believe J Bishop is the answer, this is just a tip of the iceberg to why she will never be put in the main job.
https://www.theage.com.au/politics/fede ... 50a25.html