Does anyone remember that fateful declaration by Joe Hockey that the “grown-ups are back in charge”?
Grown-ups:
Deputy Prime Minister Michael McCormack has sounded a warning to potential rivals after Barnaby Joyce signalled he was open to being drafted back to the Nationals leadership before the next election.
Renewed focus on a comeback by Mr Joyce comes as the Nationals face internal turmoil, disagreement over key policy issues — including a new agricultural visa — and growing concern that the party must compete more strongly with the Liberals to uphold its key interests in the regions.
Mr McCormack warned against leadership instability, saying rural communities wanted “secure and stable” government that listened to their needs. “That’s what my leadership is providing,” he told The Australian.
Grown-ups:
One of the great perks of running in an election for the government side is actually being able to make things happen and splash a little cash around.
In the lead-up to polling day on Saturday, the Liberals have been doing just that, assisting their newly minted Wentworth candidate, Dave Sharma, to win favour with key communities in an electorate that he is still getting to know, having been preselected just six weeks ago from outside the area.
Surf clubs are big winners – or, rather, some of them.
Bronte Surf Life Saving Club, in the suburb where the prime minister, Scott Morrison, grew up, has been given a whopping $2m from the federal government to replace their clubhouse. Built in the 1960s, right on the beach, it now showing the ravages of six decades of storms.
Grown-ups:
It has not received a lot of attention in Australia but Scott Morrison has been on a China charm offensive over the past fortnight.
On October 4, the Prime Minister accompanied Immigration Minister David Coleman on a visit to the south Sydney suburb of Hurstville, which has one of the largest Chinese communities anywhere in the country…Morrison opened a speech over lunch with “Ni hao”, the Mandarin greeting for “hello”.
…Around the same time Morrison toured Hurstville, US Vice-President Mike Pence delivered an inflammatory speech which is now seen as a tipping point in hostilities between the two superpowers.
Grown-ups:
The Liberal party is in serious danger of losing the seat of Wentworth this weekend according to a new ReachTel poll that shows Liberal candidate Dave Sharma’s primary vote has slumped to 32.7%. The vote of high profile independent and local GP Kerryn Phelps has surged to 25.8%.
Labor’s Tim Murray has also increased his share of the primary vote to 21.6%, compared with 19.5% in a ReachTel poll two weeks ago. The Greens’ Dominic Wy Kanak has 9.1% while independent Licia Heath has 5.6%.
The poll commissioned by Greenpeace did not attempt to calculate the two-party preferred result but did ask about preferences. Ominously for the Liberals, the result is in line with their own internal polling reported in the Australian this morning.
Grown-ups:
John Howard will intervene in the Wentworth by-election campaign today in a last-ditch attempt to win over “grumpy Liberal voters”, warning that a significant protest vote could inflict “enormous damage” on the Morrison government.
The former prime minister said he was “genuinely concerned” the blue-ribbon federation seat could be lost at Saturday’s crucial by-election in Sydney’s eastern suburbs.
Grown-ups:
THE Liberals are so panicked about losing Malcolm Turnbull’s former seat on Saturday that they’ve made their weakness embarrassingly clear. The party no longer knows what it stands for and faces utter destruction.
This week alone we’ve had gay folk persecuted and saved. We’ve had the most radical shift in Australian foreign policy in decades, or not. We’ve had climate change, or not. We’ve had the White Australia Policy, or not. We’ve had Barnaby, or not. We’ve had China forever, or not.
Grown-ups.
