Oz Politics Blog

Fresh from the ALP …

Beazley, Kim - Member for Brand
Leader of the Opposition

Macklin, Jenny - Member for Jagajaga
Deputy Federal Labor Leader , Shadow Minister for Education, Training, Science & Research

Albanese, Anthony - Member for Grayndler
Shadow Minister for Environment & Heritage, Shadow Minister for Water , Deputy Manager of Opposition
Business in the House

Bevis, Arch - Member for Brisbane
Shadow Minister for Homeland Security; Aviation and Transport Security

Bishop, Mark - Senator for Western Australia
Shadow Minister for Defence Industry, Procurement and Personnel

Burke, Tony - Member for Watson
Shadow Minister for Immigration

Carr, Kim - Senator for Victoria
Shadow Minister for Housing; Urban Development; Local Government and Territories

Conroy, Stephen - Senator for Victoria
Deputy Leader of the Federal Labor Leader in the Senate , Shadow Minister for Communications & Information Technology

Crean, Simon - Member for Hotham
Shadow Minister for Regional Development

Evans, Chris - Senator for Western Australia
Federal Labor Leader in the Senate , Shadow Minister for Indigenous Affairs; Shadow Minister for Family and Community Services

Ferguson, Laurie - Member for Reid
Shadow Minister for Consumer Affairs; Population Health and Health Regulation

Ferguson, Martin - Member for Batman
Shadow Minister for Primary Industries, Foresty, Resources & Tourism

Fitzgibbon, Joel - Member for Hunter
Shadow Assistant Treasurer and Shadow Minister for Revenue; Small Business and Competition

Gillard, Julia - Member for Lalor
Shadow Minister for Health , Manager of Opposition Business in the House of Representatives

Griffin, Alan - Member for Bruce
Shadow Minister for Veterans’ Affairs; Shadow Special Minister of State

Ludwig, Joe - Senator for Queensland
Shadow Minister for Justice & Customs , Manager of Opposition Business in the Senate

Lundy, Kate - Senator for Australian Capital Territory
Shadow Minister for Sport and Recreation

McClelland, Robert - Member for Barton
Shadow Minister for Defence

McLucas, Jan - Senator for Queensland
Shadow Minister for Aged Care, Disabilities and Carers

O’Brien, Kerry - Senator for Tasmania
Shadow Minister for Transport

O’Connor, Gavan - Member for Corio
Shadow Minister for Agriculture and Fisheries

Plibersek, Tanya - Member for Sydney
Shadow Minister for Child Care; Youth; Women

Roxon, Nicola - Member for Gellibrand
Shadow Attorney-General

Rudd, Kevin - Member for Griffith
Shadow Minister for Foreign Affairs and International Security, Shadow Minister for Trade

Sercombe, Bob - Member for Maribyrnong
Shadow Minister for Overseas Aid and Pacific Island Affairs

Sherry, Nick - Senator for Tasmania
Shadow Minister for Superannuation and Intergenerational Finance; Banking and Financial Services

Smith, Stephen - Member for Perth
Shadow Minister for Industry, Infrastructure & Industrial Relations

Swan, Wayne - Member for Lilley
Shadow Treasurer

Tanner, Lindsay - Member for Melbourne
Shadow Minister for Finance

Thomson, Kelvin - Member for Wills
Shadow Minister for Public Accountability, Shadow Minister for Human Services

Wong, Penny - Senator for South Australia
Shadow Minister for Employment and Workforce Participation , Shadow Minister for Corporate Governance and Responsibility

Fresh from the AEC …

Details of the proposed new boundaries for federal electoral divisions in the ACT have today been published by the Redistribution Committee for the ACT.

The ACT remains entitled to two seats in the House of Representatives and the Redistribution Committee proposes that the Electoral Divisions retain the names Canberra and Fraser.

High population growth in the northern part of the ACT has resulted in the suburbs of Barton, Fyshwick, Griffith, Kingston and Narrabundah being moved into the Division of Canberra .

The proposed redistribution will result in 9,176 electors (approximately 4%) moving divisions.

Individuals or organisations have the opportunity to lodge objections to the proposed redistribution. Written objections must be lodged with the Australian Electoral Commission by 6.00 pm on Friday 22 July 2005, at 1st Floor 8-10 Hobart Place Canberra City 2601 or GPO Box 1807 Canberra ACT 2600.

As counting continues in the Northern Territory, it looks like Labor will win 19 seats, the Country Liberal Party (CLP) will win four, and the independents will win two.

From where I sit, the current state of the count is as follows:

Note: (+) The count for all seats except Millner is a provisional two-party preferred (TPP) count. The count for Millner is based on the primary vote alone.

The latest Newspoll, of 1156 voters from the weekend of 17-19 June 2005, found the Coalition ahead of Labor in two-party preferred terms on 51 to 49 per cent. This was a two point decline for the Coalition from the previous Newspoll in late May.

The Coalition’s primary vote fell from 47 to 44 per cent. Labor’s primary vote was steady on 37 per cent. The Green’s primary vote share rose from 5 to 7 per cent. The vote share for the other minor parties rose from 11 to 12 per cent.

Satisfaction with the Prime Minister was up one point to 54 per cent. Dissatisfaction was steady on 36 per cent.

The most striking changes occurred in the Opposition Leader’s perception polling. Satisfaction with the Opposition leader fell six points from 47 to 41 per cent. Dissatisfaction rose by six points from 36 to 42 per cent. More people were dissatisfied rather than satisfied with the Opposition Leader. And more people were dissatisfied with the Opposition Leader than were dissatisfied with the Prime Minister.

The usual graphs are here. When you get there you may need to hit the refresh/reload button on your browser to see the latest graphs.

Seeing John Quiggan’s achievement, I thought I would reflect on my own progress.

My first serious blog post is here. It was posted one year ago today as a plain HTML page.

Within a month, I had moved the blog from vanilla HTML to a page server model. For some four or five months the blog was served fresh to my customers by a Perl program I had cobbled together to interface with an SQL database. It was kludgy, limited in features, but it generally worked reliably. Best of all, it was Spam free.

I have since upgraded to the Wordpress platform. It is very reliable, and I spend very little time working on the software side of the blog (though I have written a couple of PHP plugins). My only regret is that Wordpress can be a Spam magnet.

I have been meaning to retro-upload the old blog, but I have not got around to it. It will happen sometime. But don’t hold your breath waiting.

Just for the record, the mothership is 9 years old this month. The mothership had it origins as a displacement activity from my then honours thesis.