This week began with the Greens winning the Victorian State seat of Northcote in a by-election. The has lead the party to reveal its (potentially unachievable) goal of forming a federal government with the help of another party in a few elections time. They have their eyes on left-leaning capital city seats as well as some equally left-ish regional city seats like Newcastle. Labor is a little annoyed that the Greens are focused on fighting against other left-wing groups, rather than the conservatives, but the left is where the Greens need to fight for votes, so I don’t think Labor is going to get what they want.
The Greens also ended the week by choosing Mehreen Faruqi over Lee Rhiannon for the #1 spot on the Greens’ NSW Senate ticket. This essentially ends Rhiannon’s political career in federal politics, but she denies some of her beahviour this year is the result of her downfall.
The Bennelong by-election campaign continues with Kristina Keneally’s launch, and ancient footage of John Alexander making a joke in poor taste. They also had the draw for their ballot this week, putting John Alexander fourth on the ballot, and Keneally fifth. With 12 candidates vying for the seat, it’s going to be an interesting race, and Keneally being in that race makes it tougher for the Liberals to retain even with a 10% margin.
New England’s by-election campaign is nearing its end, with Barnaby Joyce having a cracker of a week, winning a $40,000 prize bank rolled by mining magnate Gina Rinehart. Originally, Joyce said he’s put the prize money towards his farm, before realising he should maybe donate to charity, before handing the prize back. He also missed several campaign events in New England to attend the event.
The Queensland Election campaign (yes, more elections) was in its final week this week, with Labor hoping to retain government in their own right, especially after promising they wouldn’t make any deals. At the time of writing this, Labor is ahead, but there are several seats that were too close to call last night. There are concerns that One Nation could have the balance of power, especially given the major changes to the the electoral system in Queensland this year. Full preferential voting is compulsory for the first time and there are 4 new electorates (making the magic number 47). There are also numerous boundary and name changes to electorates this year, and it turns out about a third of Queenslanders pre polled.
Malcolm Turnbull has irritated the opposition and some minor parties by cancelling sittings of the House of Representatives for the week of the 27th of November. Turnbull claims to be allowing the Senate to debate the same-sex marriage bill, but Labor believes that it has to do with the Liberals not wanting backbenchers to side with Labor on a Banking Royal Commission. It appears that the government is trying to keep their backbenchers chill by talking about having a compensation fund for people affected by financial scandals who can’t get their money back – however, there’s no real information on how that could work. The Prime Minister is also being asked about a dinner he had with a Chinese donor to the Queensland LNP, as the donor gave the party $40,000.
The Governor of the Reserve Bank has told off companies for approaching profits from a cost-cutting perspective, essentially keeping wages low. Meanwhile, the education union has called for higher ATAR limits and Masters degrees for prospective teachers. Younger techers are against the Masters degree requirement, saying it’ll leave teachers with larger HECS debt, and the Australian Catholic University is against increasing the ATAR limit, saying that prospective teachers with lower ATARs have value as they have other talents.
Finally this week, NXT Senator Skye Kakoshke-Moore has resigned by way of being a dual citizen; the government released their foreign policy White Paper; the Manus detention centre has been vacated by refugees, who have been moved to the new accomodation at Loringau; and South Australian and West Australian shipbuilders will be building the new German designed ships to replace the Armidale class Navy ships.
Tweets of the Week
As a student who has recently studied audio production, this brings me amusement.
And here, bear in mind it is Sally Sara and her producer who are doing all the filming for her coverage of Zimbabwe’s crazy few weeks.
https://twitter.com/sallyjsara/status/933192626106376192
Things I’ve Been Looking at Online
Greg Jennett on the shipbuilding deal – ABC Online
Kara L 