If the South Australian election proved anything, it proved that to win in a tight race, you need hard working and appealing candidates in the marginals. For all the headline talk (now somewhat diminished) about Tony Abbott’s alleged momentum, what happens on the ground in the key electorates is just as important in determining the outcome of the federal election.
Yet the Coalition has made a mess of its preselections in Queensland. Much attention has been given to the selection of Wyatt Roy, all of 19, in the very marginal seat of Longman (formerly Mal Brough’s turf). But the story doesn’t end there; the 20 year old son of mining magnate Clive Palmer is set to run for Moreton. And then there’s Ryan MP, Michael Johnson and his (ahem) colourful antics. Despite the ‘grandfathering’ provisions in the LNP constitution, he may well be ousted, and that may well help Labor to win a traditional Tory seat it almost captured last time.
Writing in The Australian today, academic Scott Prasser argues that:
The non-Labor parties are facing a crisis of talent, of attracting, keeping and training it both to fight Labor more effectively and to show the electorate they have the capacity to lead the very governments they covet.
At present, they are not in the game.
He also targets the protection of sitting members inherent in the LNP deal. But the selection of candidates who are the sorts of people you’d normally find lining up in safe Labor seats (where it’s not uncommon for uni students to fly the party’s flag) suggests that there’s not a huge base of talent queuing up for LNP endorsement. As would the preselection of several defeated or retired MPs for marginal Labor electorates. And, while Barnaby Joyce’s embrace inside the fold may have partly been motivated by a desire to square the circle of having people like him and George Brandis sing from the same hymn book on the same ticket, we haven’t even begun to explore how the various labels of Liberal, National and LNP will add to the confusion in Queensland electorates federally this year.
What’s happening on the key ground of the marginals doesn’t make it appear that the Coalition is set for a short term return to government, to put it mildly.
Same old problem for the Tories. They’ve probably got as much raw talent in the pool as the other side of politics – but their values set means the ‘A team’ tends to go into business to earn squillions. Occasioanlly they come back after (eg talcum), but most dont.
So they’re left with the B-teamers for political office – the bets of those all go federal, but lose interst quickly when the Libs get tipped out of office.
This incidentaly is why Liberal State oppositions are so universally woeful. It really is bottom of tbe talent barrell by this point.
I’d be inclined to hurry slowly when commenting on the tender years of Wyatt Roy and the younger Mr. Palmer, especially considering that most progressives would regard the election of 21 year old Kelly Vincent to the SA Legislative Council on the Dignity for Disability ticket as a welcome and well-overdue democratic advance.
In respect to Ryan, I think it partially depends on what candidate the LNP choose to replace Johnson if they indeed overthrow him, as well as which ALP candidate is preselected on the 17th.
I’ve heard that the LNP are thinking about either failed Senate candidates with no experience of lower house campaigns or a frmr minister who lost his seat in 2007. Neither are locals.
Ryan has a whole bunch of ‘local issues’ issues which the candidate will need to be on top of. Both of the serious ALP candidates (i.e. the combined right and the left candidate) live in the area, at least one in the heart of the electorate itself up in the Gap. Although I know who I’m voting for in the preselection I’m sure the other candidate will do just as nicely.
Johnson running as an independent if he gets dumped might be the fly in the ointment. I did get the most lavish full-colour push-poll ‘survey’ questionnaire in the letterbox from him yesterday. His remaining parliamentary printing allowance being put to good use I see.
Paul, I think the differences between Ms Vincent and Mr Palmer are that women tend to behave like adults younger than men, and young conservative men don’t actually hit adulthood until their late thirties.
Well said Paul.
I know many people who really did care more and inform themselves better about politics – from local to global – when they were 20-odd than they do now as thirtysomethings.
#2, I disagree as there’s no comparison, and #4: I don’t buy it.
The problem with having 19- and 20-year old major party candidates is that the pool of eligible Party members vying for preselection should be very much larger for the L/NP than for a new, unrepresented single-issue Party, and they should be at a natural disadvantage for preselection to older, more experienced competitors. What happened?
David Irving (no relation) @ 4 -
Let me just wast my breath, because I just enjoy wasting my breath. Political affiliation and mental maturity are not related, there are just as many man-children on the Labor side of the card as the LNP side under the age of 30, pointed out squarely by the various antics of both Young Labor and Young Liberals.
That said, exactly what motivation would anyone have for joining the Libs? No policies, thoughtless leadership, top-heavy structure, little chance of advancement, serial dislike of younger voters. Labor is little better but at least they are in power and are likely to stay for a while.
Honestly we may just be waiting for the day that these guys finally leave the stage, and a lack of opposition is not good for anyone.
PinkyOz
I’m suitably chastened, PinkyOz – it was mostly gratuitous unpleasantness at the expense of the LNP (although I suspect what passes for a conservative these days is not particularly adult, for reasons this margin has insufficient space to explain).
I stand by my claim that women tend to grow up more quickly than men, though, Liam – but I agree with your point about the talent pool.
Hard-working, interstate campaign workers handing out dishonest how-to-vote cards helps too. In that respect Labour is certainly miles ahead.
Craig Mc have you seen these “dishonest how-to-vote cards”. I live in SA and I can’t recall seeing them on TV or in any newspaper despite the uproar. I might have missed them somewhere but I would appreciate it if someone could post a copy. Cheers.
PinkyOZ said:
I’ve heard this claim uttered more than once but it holds no water. Rubbish opposition or opposition that is simply venal is no better than no opposition, and perhaps worse.
If the LNP were to fall into desuetude, something else more viable would fill the vacuum left, or the ALP would split along a new fault line. Almost inevitably, it would be better than what fell over.
No Craig Mc. The Libs have a clear edge in expertise on that front.
That they are, perhaps, a “Labor party”?
Or an implicit admission that the Greens are NOT “facing a crisis of talent, of attracting, keeping and training it both to fight Labor more effectively and to show the electorate they have the capacity to lead the very governments they covet.”
So they can be excluded from this particular discussion?
Or perhaps the writer is not aware of the existence of the Greens?
Even tho they just increased their voter support at both recent state elections and in recent polls to be clearly the 3rd most popular party in Oz?
Or something else??
David Irving (no relation) @ 8 -
Don’t worry about it, we all make little errors in judgement.
Although I do agree with the men mature slower then women thing in general there are always those more mature then others in their age bracket and that may go beyond gender.
And if today’s crop of National/Liberal pollies represent the most mature, then you do have to wonder, even taking into account a little lost sanity from being in opposition.
Fran Barlow @ 11 -
I agree in principal, bad opposition can be as bad as no opposition. But what you’re talking about may take years, even decades to happen and be effective. In the mean time, a completely unaccountable government will get away with things it just shouldn’t, with no real chance of being thrown out. If there is at least AN opposition, there is a chance to change (Even if it’s a Barry O’Farrell style small-target, nothin’ doing opposition), and hopefully a few of those splinter effects will occur as part of a renewal.
PinkyOz
Oops, gremlins at work.
The preceding offering of mine should read like this.
“Writing in The Australian today, academic Scott Prasser argues that:
The non-Labor parties are facing a crisis ….”
Is that a reflection of a mind set?
That the Greens are NOT a “non-Labor” party and so can be excluded from the discussion?
Or that they are, perhaps, a “Labor party”?
Or an implicit admission that the Greens are NOT “facing a crisis of talent, of attracting, keeping and training it both to fight Labor more effectively and to show the electorate they have the capacity to lead the very governments they covet.” so they can be excluded from this particular discussion?
Or perhaps the writer is not aware of the existence of the Greens?
Or something else??
Craig Mc, @9 while I agree those how to vote cards were on the nose and I’m pleased Rann has moved to outlaw that sort of stuff for future elections, they really didn’t have any bearing on the final outcome, because the winning margins far outstripped the FF primary and preference votes in the seats where the cards were handed out.
Chloe Fox, for example won by 167 votes, but vetoed the use of the dodgy how to vote cards, so she gained no traction from them.
On the other issue of bleating about the primary vote %, that’s happened before and it’ll happen again. The Libtards increased their majority in seats they already held, but not enough in the seats they needed to win. For example, in McKillop that drongo Mitch Williams got 60% of the primary vote, but so what? It’s a red hot Libtard seat by a very good margin anyway, so increasing the primary vote is neither use nor ornament in the hunt for government.
Of course the other issue is that they obviously didn’t put their best effort into seats where the sitting ALP member had a very slim majority.
So PinkyOZ
Exactly what contribution is, for example the TeaParty-Republican movement to better public policy in the US?
“And, while Barnaby Joyce’s embrace inside the fold may have partly been motivated by a desire to square the circle of having people like him and George Brandis sing from the same hymn book on the same ticket.”
Mixed metaphors hurt my brain.
Fran at 17: better education policy, for example.
Just so Down & Out …
Cautionary tale …
Fran, if you’re a teacher, how is it that you can write comments through day when you should be in a class room?
You really are George Clooney, aren’t you?
These days, Sam, we have laptops with wireless. A lot of the work is project-based and I tend to deliver content in electronic format. Years of practice, clear structures and effective clasroom management and IT on tap allow me to put the kids substantially in charge of their learning and to focus on those who need individual attention getting there.
And as HT I do get some added flexibility in managing my time.
FFreddy @ 10, they were in evidence in a number of marginal seats. I was handing out Greens HTV in Morialta, and was quite envious of Family Fist’s level of support (until I realised half of it was actually the ALP in drag).
Fran/George
Delivery on electronic format … sounds like a private school. How does it rate on MySchool?
I trust you are teaching them about Rosa Luxemburg.
@2 – Paul, I’d suggest there’s a bit of a difference between being a passionate issues based activist like Kelly Vincent seeking an upper house seat in a state legislature and your run of the mill Young LNP type seeking to represent a marginal lower house federal seat.
I also don’t want to sound ageist, but I think the comments a lot of people have made about Ben Naparstek and The Monthly are to the point. When you’re in your teens or early twenties, you are much more susceptible to being pushed around by older people in power, and less confident of your own ground. I’m saying that with the best will in the world I can muster towards these candidates, but to be honest, speaking as someone in their early 40s, I really do think it’s not discriminatory to say that another decade or two of life experience does or at least should make a difference. Sure there are tons of adolescent males and superannuated student pollies in 30 or 40 or 52 something bodies (with speedos) in politics, but I’m not at all sure that invalidates the force of my claim.
Fran Barlow @ 17 -
It’s an interesting example, but as it would happen I read something about the tea-partiers that suggests that it is part of broader change in the Republican party (Sorry, it was a while back now, the link is lost to time). A sort of changing of the guard from traditional vested interests to supported but marginalised vested interests, certainly not change that you would hope for, but change none the less. It will mean different people will run the republicans, and they will apply different strategies, ideologies and policy priorities. They still may well be wrong (I dare say they are) but it’s part of the renewal.
How does it benifit public policy? Well, what exactly do you want me to say? It’s impossible to make that call. If the Health policy succeeds, along with some good politics, the Tea-partiers could find themselves on the wrong side of the wedge. On the other hand they could sweep the polls in november and make it impossible for the Democrats to push changes, and then again the tea-partiers may try to pass bills that might help in other areas (Unlikely, but possible) which would be good for public policy.
All we can really say is that there are options on the table (good/bad aside) and that it’s up to the US voters to make the call. If there was only one option, then it just woudn’t matter what the voters thought, the government would push through whatever it liked, without scrutiny, which is rarely a good thing.
PinkyOz
Sam said:
Very well, as it goes, and it is a state high school. All but one of our blocks is covered by WAPs and we have five computer labs and a dozen electronic whitebaords hooked up to the network. We also have the facility to use an app called clickview to deliver AV from a library across the network. Any AV content I have can be rendered in the format and be indexed and delivered on demand.
That came in useful this morning as one of the DVD someone in LOTE had wanted to run didn’t play in the PC — I presume the relevant DivX codec was absent and so I called up the clickview server and within 30 seconds found something similar and germane and was able to deliver that, for the casual teacher involved instead.
For the record, I teach IT, so Rosa Luxemburg doesn’t get much of a guernsey. I am careful to observe the proprieties of the trade and avoid straying from my KLA, its relevant syllabus documents and standards packages, my teaching program and mapped units of work.
Fran
I’m not surprised you keep close to the KLA. According to an article published in Proletarian Revolution No. 59 (Summer 1999),
“we can, at appropriate times, give military support to the KLA or to Milosevic’s regime against the momentarily dominant oppressor.”
Once a Spart, always a Spart.
Mark #25, I don’t disagree with any of the points you make, except for one minor quibble which doesn’t impinge too heavily on the point I want to make in my next par.
I think that one conclusion which could be drawn from your comment is that assemblies comprising multi-member constituencies elected by PR are much less problematic in terms of reconciling different criteria of “representativeness” than assemblies based on single-member constituencies. Every member of the latter kind of assembly must be a local member with all that that implies, and has to include in their make-up certain skills and attributes which are necessary for such a role, and which can only be learned and/or acquired with experience and maturity. This, however, then has consequences for how representative such assemblies can be in terms of resembling the demographic mix of the voting public as a whole and ensuring that there are elected members who can understand the standpoint of e.g. young people, very senior people, people from seriously disadvantaged backgrounds, people with limited formal education, etc. It seems to me that at least some of the responses to the pre-selections of the young LNP candidates go no further than saying that people so young simply shouldn’t be in elected assemblies in any capacity, and don’t conjure with the more nuanced points made by yourself and others.
The minor quibble I have concerns the statement that:
This is often the case, but is certainly not always the case, and in the case of a certain kind of student or youth political activist the problem is the opposite – the “too young to know, too old to listen” syndrome.
Well spotted …
I’m glad being an ex-Spartacist and a teacher isn’t in contradiction, though that Kosovo Liberation Army and Key Learning Area yield the same initialism is a happy coincidence.
The problem PinkyOZ is that the kind of “scrutiny” that the TeaParty brings to the floor is a wall of visceral and misanthropic noise. Their aim is to shut down discussions of substance by burying them in hysterical ranting about “socialism” pointing the finger at traitors and subversives and to stir up people to throw bricks through peoples windows, racebait politicans, to stir them pace Julius Caesar “to mutiny and rage” and perhaps worse. Had they achieved their aim, 32 million uninsured Americans still would have no prospects of coverage, the powerr of the reactionaries would grow and America would take a step backwards towards the insanity of the Bush years.
There’s simply no upside to that — unless one counts the fact that some of these morons would be worse off too.
No Pinky, arrogant, corrupt and incompetent governance, if it arises cannot be improved by such nonsnese, and indeed, is likely to co-opt it as it’s a good fit. After all, it was large sections of the Health Insurance industry along with Big Pharma that did the heavy lifting here.
@29 – Paul, I don’t think we’re too far apart on all this.
Fran Barlow @ 31 -
I dare say that we have similiar views on the Tea Patry in general, It’s not a force for good, and the sooner it leaves the better. but you asked me what (if any) benifit could be gained in good policy making from such a splinter occuring. If the healthcare reforms are good (which it looks like they are) and Obama plays the politics right (a less assured position), then the tea party may well see the rough end of opinion polls yet, leaving more reasoned members of the Republicans to step up. It’s an outcome as easily reached as your suggested bad outcome.
It happens, bad splinters can be left to rot out. For example the split of the right faction of the ALP to form the DLP. The DLP eventually died off leaving the ALP with less reactionary right members, a good thing for the party overall, and should lead to an less acrimonious policy development process.
Your right about governments that co-opt such forces, not a good outcome, and really it is up to the party to show a little bit of backbone and not cave in to this sort of rubbish. The Democrats on this issue did stand up, now they need to hold that line and really sell it to the people.
As for here, well we will see, but I stand by my commentry. We are not well served by letting one party rule with inpunity, That said an effective opposition must be there to keep that balance and so far the LNP has shown little sign of that.
PinkyOz
At the age of 19 one should be an idealistic progressive trying to make the world a better place. When we see these developments, it’s so obvious it’s needed.
FFreddy: “Craig Mc have you seen these “dishonest how-to-vote cards”. I live in SA and I can’t recall seeing them on TV or in any newspaper despite the uproar. I might have missed them somewhere but I would appreciate it if someone could post a copy. Cheers.”
A copy of the Mawson one was printed in the Southern Times Messenger. I don’t have one here because I refuse Rupert, even when the paper is free.
My Mum showed me the article, I’ll check back and get a direct quote if she still has the paper…but it’s pretty bad…something about giving your pereferences to a party that has the same values as Family First…wtf?
Well, St Furious, the ALP in SA probably does have similar values to Family Fist – even though Atkinson is gone from the front bench.
Well yeah, but the two candidates in the marginals that used that tactic were factionally aligned to the left, as far as I know. That’s why I was so vocal in the Tanner thread, because I’m amazed at just how low they stooped with that strategy….and then to read here that it was “hard working, appealing candidates”. Ridiculous.
@37 – I absolutely don’t condone the fake FF how to votes (and I made the point when it was first discussed that I had refused to hand out fake Green how to votes for federal Labor in 93 out of principle when on a booth), but I think it is nevertheless the case that the sitting members in question did very well in countering the large state wide swing, and I frankly doubt that tactic, deplorable as I agree it is, had all that much influence on the results in those seats.
Maybe you’re right, Mark. It would be interesting to see how FF preferences flowed in those electorates to see how it varied from electorates without the fake cards being distributed. I haven’t heard anything about that, and don’t know if that sort of information is available anywhere.
Regardless, I kinda hope it has an [unintended] influence at the next election.
It might perhaps be discernible from the SA Electoral Commission website, Saint Furious, depending on how much detail they go into. I haven’t looked. FWIW, my recollection of the last two Queensland elections is that the FF vote tended to be stronger in safe Labor seats than marginals, and to have a reasonable degree of flow to Labor as preferences, more than people might expect. And there weren’t any how to vote shenanigans in those campaigns. But I’d also be very wary of extrapolating to SA, which I am certain has a very different political and social culture, my understanding of which as a Queenslander (albeit one who was born in Adelaide!) is pretty scant.
I would add though, that such a comparison, logically, might not tell us much, because it’s very difficult to get anything like a “control” in electorate by electorate results because each, even if demographically comparable, has particular and unique characteristics. Not to mention the different candidates, and perhaps local issues and campaign emphases, etc, etc.
DI(nr) the ALP in SA certainly seems to have religious style demarcations. I imagine a survey may reveal the right close to the RC’s, some Anglicans and Orthodox, and even some of the evangelicals – the SDA and the Don Farrellites would figure heavily – cant say about AWU but wouldnt be suprised, ditto some emergency services areas. The left more United Church, more Anglicans and Orthodx and a good dollop of some very p*ssed off RCs. The left including the Greens, would also have a dominant group of atheists, skeptics etc. The legal profession split at best 50/50. That all being said, Adelaide these days is a remarkably tolerant sort of a place religion wise compared say to the Low Church, High Church schisms in Sydney (Catholic and Anglican). eg the Adelaide Divinity School Campus is shared by several groups.
I just want to comment about the HTV issue. I’ve seen – handed out – ALP HTVs that are green in colour and have an environmental message printed on it. With a ’1′ for the ALP. The Greens at the booth tittered a bit about it when they saw it but it clearly had the ‘written & authorized’ message that ID’d it legally. Also I’ve given out HTVs that have said ‘Voting Green?’ and shown how to put the ALP as the second preference (in an optional-preferential election where the Greens were not directing preferences), again all correctly identified legally. I’ve also seen *Greens* handing out material that is clearly aimed at ‘middle of the road’ voters directing the vote to the Green candidate with the party affiliation clearly indicated – but again, legal and all above board with a proper ‘written & authorized’ statement.
So yeah, everyone has a bit of tailoring of their message to the audience. The ALP tries to entice the environmental vote – and the conservative christian vote in electorates where that’s a demographic. And the Greens try to entice the ‘doctors wives’ vote by deemphasizing the environmentalist activist aspect of the message.
On the other hand I’ve seen at every election I’ve done in QLD – which is all of them since I moved here – a bunch of the local young Libs/Nats handing out various scandalous libel at the booths, all completely and illegally non-identified as to who wrote and authorised the message. Not too mention the relentless and illegal stealing and interfering with korflutes and other electioneering foul play that goes on from the conservative side. Yeah and the absolutely illegal and racist disgrace from the husband of the former member for Lindsay in Sydney.
So maybe some people ought to get some perspective.
Also at the last Federal election the Family First guy at the split Ryan/Brisbane booth I was working on was being *paid* (I think a pittance and through his local church group)to hand out the FF Senate HTVs. He personally wanted to vote ALP so we gave him our HTV when he asked about it (which is how we found out he was being paid).
I would say up until 20 years ago – using an *extremely* broad brush here – it was fairly clear the ALP right-wing came from a broadly Catholic background and the left were mostly Protestants (as the right wing Prottos mostly ended up in the Liberal Party).
I’ve done this too, in Western Sydney, in seats where Labor can use Greens preferences but where the Greens can’t (or won’t) provide volunteers.
I’d be wary of criticizing a party for running a 19 year old per se. I take the points made above, but I think that some people are exceptionally mature at that age. If a party happens to have one of them the energy and diversity they bring more than makes up for the lack of life experience to my mind.
On the other hand, such people are rare, and even rarer amongst the ranks of young conservatives in my observation. An immature, arrogant 19 year old is going to be much worse than an immature, arrogant 40 year old because as soon as he slips up everyone will say “what were they thinking”. The LNP has better hope like hell they’ve got someone remarkable in Roy (as for Palmer, we already know he was born on third base and thinks he hit a triple).
PinkOz Says: It happens, bad splinters can be left to rot out. For example the split of the right faction of the ALP to form the DLP
With the rate of their growth these days, dont be surprised if the DLP actually go double figures in Longman and other seats they’ll surely be contesting.
Certainly they’re a real chance in the Senate