Tag Archive for 'Brendon Grylls'

WA counting and machinations update

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Kim
1 year, 6 months ago
in State/Territory Elections
. 6 Comments

A week after Western Australians went to the vote, and the counting and manoeuvring continues. The Poll Bludger has all the details on the latest results and a poll on which way the Nationals should jump.

I’ve got a feeling the Nationals might go with Labor. It’s hard to explain why Brendon Grylls should give Alan Carpenter a big assist to stay in the leadership otherwise. But the contrary hypothesis would be it’s part of a game plan to keep us all guessing.

Greens back in the spotlight after the WA election?

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by
Mark
1 year, 6 months ago
in Activism, Federal Elections and State/Territory Elections
. 42 Comments

With all the attention on the role of Brendon Grylls and the Nationals as the kingmakers in the WA election result, the improvement in the Greens’ vote has slipped under the radar somewhat. Counting subsequent to election night has seen their vote climb to almost 12% of the Legislative Assembly total according to the WAEC (which is interestingly slightly higher than the Greens’ vote in the Legislative Council).

But, if the Fin Review is to be believed, the significance of a 4% plus swing to the Greens hasn’t escaped the attention of ALP wonks. “Labor hardheads” are quoted by the paper as concerned by the vote in Fremantle, and the implications for the seats of Federal Ministers such as Lindsay Tanner, Anthony Albanese and Tanya Plibersek. “Labor strategists” are cited as concerned about a drift away among “left-leaning voters”.

This is hardly rocket science. Any modern managerialist ALP government is bound to disappoint at least some left voters after the initial euphoria of a Tory defeat has worn off. And the Greens nationally are going to have a much bigger profile with a balance of power role in the Senate and new Senators who may develop a high profile. The article, however, leaves us none the wiser as to how “Labor strategists” think their party should respond.

Continue reading ‘Greens back in the spotlight after the WA election?’

Legislative challenge

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Anna Winter
1 year, 6 months ago
in Government, Levity, Politics and State/Territory Elections
. 11 Comments

Accy raises an interesting concept.

Whichever party the Nats decide to deal with, they likely won’t enter into coalition. They’d guarantee supply, but otherwise keep their options open. And given the Nats’ likely control of both houses, it would possible for one of those options to be to get legislation passed without the help of the government. Meaning ministers forced to implement legislation they voted against.

Unlikely, sure. But wouldn’t it be fun while it lasted? And what other wacky scenarios can people think up before boring reality kicks in again?

No, thanks

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Anna Winter
1 year, 6 months ago
in State/Territory Elections
. 16 Comments

Saturday’s election result in WA means the possibility of the political commentator’s dream: the hung parliament. Labor has suffered a massive swing, and now it’s probably going to come down to who can convince the Nationals to make a deal. Whose trainwreck? We’ll see…

The Nationals in WA are more agrarian socialist than they are in the rest of the country, and there are some who say that Brendan Grylls personally leans more towards the Labor Party. Common ‘wisdom’ and Liberal MPs suggest that the Libs and Nats will come to an arrangement, but Gryll’s personal politics, and a desire (and need) to appear genuinely independent and influential mean that there’s a good chance he may prefer to make a deal with Carpenter.

Whether Carps will want to, when it will mean having to fork out a huge amount of money to rural seats, in addition to meeting all his election promises, and dealing with the instability of an angry party and CCC reports, is another question. Whether he’s capable of working with another party when he’s so terrible at working with his own is a third. To be successful would require an ability to reach a consensus, at least with the most important bills; that just isn’t his style.

Continue reading ‘No, thanks’

Not over yet?

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Mark
1 year, 6 months ago
in State/Territory Elections
. 25 Comments

I was very interested to watch interviews with both Alan Carpenter and Brendon Grylls on the 7 30 Report tonight. The punditariat – and Kerry O’Brien – seem to have no awareness of the specific history of the WA Nationals (whose former leader Hendy Cowan was much less socially conservative than his federal counterparts, and whose conference this year supported same sex civil unions) or indeed what occurred during the campaign. The lazy assumption that the Nats will jump to install Colin Barnett ignores, for instance, the bad blood that was signalled by Barnett refusing to meet Grylls during the lead up to the election, not to mention Grylls’ explicit statements about negotiating with both major parties. This is just speculation, but my feeling was that Grylls has an incentive to go with Labor to demonstrate that the Nats’ independence is genuine. This may well be very interesting.

Nationals resurgent or dead?

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Mark
1 year, 6 months ago
in State/Territory Elections
. 7 Comments

Some very mixed signals were sent over the weekend about the future of the Nationals. Their huge defeat in Lyne will have been disheartening, not so much because it happened, but because Rob Oakeshott won so overwhelmingly with a primary of 64%. The result will encourage Indepedents to try to cherry pick their remaining nine seats. Outside Queensland, where the LNP deal will protect sitting members from Liberal competition and where their three seats are reasonably safe against Labor, the Nats also face potential threats from the Liberal Party when seats fall vacant, and there are some seats which are also potentially vulnerable to Labor. But in the meantime, Labor’s majority in the Reps over the Coalition has increased, and Brendan Nelson can’t take much comfort from a poor campaign in Mayo where the Liberal Party only just held off a challenge from The Greens in a blue-ribbon seat.

But over in the West, Brendon Grylls’ strategy has worked a treat, with the Nats improving their vote and holding the balance of power in both houses. At state level, agrarian socialism and the politics of pork barrelling and extortionate negotiation seems to be a viable strategy for the party. So both Warren Truss and Barnaby Joyce have been contemplating an exit from the federal Coalition. As Andrew Bartlett points out, this is pretty weird for two Queenslanders who are supporting a merged entity at state level. The Nats, of course, don’t see the dissonance, because they’ve effectively swallowed up the Queensland Libs, and are happily preselecting their own members as LNP candidates in state seats which the Liberals had a better chance of winning in, and claiming that the “new face of Queensland” comprises a frontbench where the Borg has only one Brisbane member. Meanwhile, some former Liberals sit on the sidelines, hoping to resurrect their party if the LNP bombs at its first electoral outing when Anna Bligh goes to the polls.

Continue reading ‘Nationals resurgent or dead?’