Bankstown – NSW 2023

With the bullying allegations against Mihailuk, I think Labor has solved it’s musical chairs scenario. That being said, it’s highly probable it was leaked out by other preselection rivals like Jihad Dib or Guy Zengari to remove her as a threat especially given the preselection is happening right at this moment.

Dan, are those allegations similar to those claimed by former Senator Kimberley Kitching (who was also from the Labor right faction)? If so it could be just speculation or exaggeration to make it seem more severe than what actually happened.

The nsw alp has set up a fair process using the services of Susan Halliday a former sex discrimination commissioner to examine all allegations of Bullying. Let this complete the process

I believe it’s highly probable that Mihailuk’s preselection rivals leaked these bullying allegations. Personally, I believe that they should have let Jihad Dib contest Bankstown & move Mihailuk to East Hills but that’s a rabbit hole we don’t need to go down.

I predict there’ll be a bitter battle between Tania Mihailuk and Jihad Dib for Bankstown, and the loser will have a choice of contending for East Hills (if they choose to stay on). East Hills can be winnable for Labor if they field the right candidate under the right circumstances.

Jihad Dib would be a better fit in the new Bankstown electorate. Most of his old electorate is here. He has established connections here and has a broader appeal to both the Arabic-speaking and Muslim communities here.

As I pointed out in the East Hills thread, Mihailuk lives in Padstow Heights – a core part of East Hill district. Dib has very strong connections to the new Bankstown district, having served as principal of Punchbowl Boys High School. It makes absolute sense that Dib would contest Bankstown and Mihailuk would contest East Hills.

Sounds like something is brewing:

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2022/sep/21/nsw-labor-mp-tania-mihailuk-launches-extraordinary-attack-on-her-own-party-in-parliament

Corruption must be avoided at all cost so if those allegations are true against the guy nominating then it should be taken seriously unless Labor want to stay out of power in NSW for another generation. Remember this, allot of the unpopularity state Labor got in 2011 in NSW was corruption whereas here in QLD a year later it was unpopularity of the state Labor government and a ”hero effect” in Campbell Newman.

If the allegations are false then Mihailuk should apologize and not recontest because allegations like this are serious. What does Chris Minns have to say about all this?

With Mihailuk now being sacked from the shadow cabinet, she’s basically got zero chance of being preselected here and is likely not going to contest the next election, solving the NSW Labor musical chairs but providing a lifeline to the Libs.

Daniel, I heard Chris Minns gave a press conference where he criticised Tanya for airing the concerns in a late night parliament address. However, I also think Premier Dom Perrottet may have offered some support for Tanya as he believes that the allegations are true, similar to earlier scandals pre 2011.

Not sure if CantWard, a former poster who criticised mayor Asfour in commentary about Bankstown’s council election would be able to offer more insight about this issue, since he/she lives in adjacent Canterbury area.

I think it’s safe to assume Mihailuk had already given up on any prospect of running in the next election when she gave that speech and she wouldn’t have given it if she had a chance to Bankstown or Fairfield.

I personally don’t understand NSW Labor as they seem to constantly shoot themselves in the foot. The LNP may well hold for another term which would be extraordinary for them to do so.

At this rate, I can see the Libs holding on in the next election. With Morrison gone, they don’t have the baggage of being associated with him and NSW Labor seems to be shooting themselves in the foot and going downhill since the by-elections in Feb.

Not a good look for Labor. This could ruin their chances in East Hills, just next door to Bankstown, and possibly even a shot at minority government at least. Chris Minns should clear this up as soon as possible.

@Ben, Tania Mihailuk is supposed to stay in the lower house albeit contest in Fairfield.
https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/labor-preselection-turf-war-hands-perrottet-a-political-gift-20220921-p5bjrg.html

According to the SMH:
– Jihad Dib will contest in Bankstown.
– Tania Mihailuk will move to Fairfield.
– Guy Zangari will move to Cabramatta.

Hmm I had seen that plan but I’m skeptical that plan will really hold after Tuesday night.

I certainly think a minority Labor government is still possible but not a majority anymore unless something dramatic changes in terms of Labor direction or the coalition do something extraordinary controversial or unpopular.

Labor is safe in this seat regardless of who contests it however the threat wouldn’t be the Liberals, a Dai Le independent could brew trouble for Labor here and I wouldn’t completely rule it out either, imagine a scenario where the coalition win a minority government with the backing of independents representing traditional Labor seats, a nightmare scenario for the left.

In Bankstown jihad Dib will be the Labor candidate. Re the musical chairs plan post Fowler this becomes a potential problem. Labor must pick good candidates in both Cabramatta and Fairfield to do otherwise is nuts. The Fairfied Cabramatta plan assumes Frank Carbone won’t run and there will not be Rank and file preselections.assurane has been given by alp Head office that rank and file ballots will be held. The aftermath of the Tripodi machine has created a mess for us here.

In the greater picture events have not helped Labor but they can still win in majority. The Barilaro inquiry brings up more and more and is still ongoing. To try and blame all on Amy Brown does not wash sure she has been involved in rorting a selection but she did it all hand in glove with Ayres.. the content of the Head report plus the upper house hearing evidence so far make it Impossible for Ayres to be exonerated or stand for Penrith.. I would suggest also given the tight margin in Penrith the chances of a liberal win in Penrith are remote.. Remember there are still icac hearings to come Will involve Amy Brown Barilaro Ayres at least and separately Mr Barilaro and Eleni Petinos re the building commissioner also involves Coronation property. Separately the situations in Which the sitting mps for Kiama and Drummoyne make it almost impossible for those mps to recontest and similar to Penrith make it very difficult for new liberal candidates to win. With retirements Ryde and Parramatta become quite difficult again. There is just the atmosphere swirling around the liberals which suggests as long as Labor is credible they cannot win

Recent news poll in Australian suggests a 6 % swing from liberal to Labor on primary votes 54/46 alp 2pp and that Labor outpolls the libs 40 to 35 on primary votes… this last figure if it holds means opv goes from benefiting the coalition to benefiting Labor…I did not expect this

I find 54/46 (ALP/LNP) hard to believe. This means Labor’s 2PP and PV would be higher than at their last victory back in 2007.

Tania Mihailuk has now quit the Labor party.
https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/not-ready-to-govern-labor-mp-tania-mihailuk-quits-party-20221020-p5brku.html

And hasn’t she gone nuclear on NSW Labor!

Will she recontest the election as an independent?

When you join a political party your default position is one of critical support. Parliamentary privilege the right to basically say what you think free of defamation laws is to be used sparingly and only when 100% sure. She was sacked from the shadow cabinet as she was considered to not have abided by this principle. As a party member of close to 46 years I consider Labor has cleaned up its act a lot and is fit to govern. One must consider what the purpose of this resignation and statement was. I consider it Was an act of sour grapes as she no longer had alp preselection for the next parliament

Makes me wonder what might have happened in an alternate reality where the NSWEC redistribution panel retained both Bankstown and Lakemba districts.

Votante, actually the poll is right. I find it funny when it’s the LNP with a lead like that, people believe it yet when its Labor people don’t. This government is long overdue to lose office and the events here will make 0 impact on Chris Minns fortunes to win the state election. He will be the next premier of NSW either in a minority government or a tiny majority.

It will tighten so it won’t be 54-46 in March.

Nicholas, I wonder if Tania airing these allegations publicly is in retaliation for being denied preselction to her safe seat.

Not that she has any reason for complaining because she lived outside the district even before contesting in 2011.

The damage to the liberals and nats is not finished yet.. the Barilaro upper house inquiry is not finished yet and it still have to announce its findings. Icac must look at this level of seemingly corruption . With the same caste of participants.

Daniel T and Votante, I saw that pole and it was a poor poll.There is a pretty ridiculous assumption built into distribution preferences within that poll, that ended up with a pretty low exhaustion rate (relatively to other elections), that results in LAB 47% LIB-NAT 40%, from a Primary Vote Position of LIB-NAT 37% and LAB 36%.

At this current point, my guess is that we will end up with a Hung Parliament. But there is a long way to go.

There will also be a icac inquiry into Eleni Barilaro coronation property and the building commissioner. The raising of Warragamba dam wall with no money allocates in the state budget. Is a stunt harms their chances in Penrith and Hawkesbury and is aimed at extending the developments on the flood plain

Mick – I’m afraid your 46 years of ALP membership comes across in every post.
I reckon the coalition are cutting and splicing Tania’s Wednesday night missive for the first ad.
Until a month ago she was a member of Minns’s inner sanctum and front bench. Makes her assessment even more damning!!

She supported Minns so he supported her..I suspect for too long. The allegations are over 10 years old and I understand at that time icac had looked at them and refused to investigate. The matter will again go to icac. Mr Asfour has asked them to investigate. And Banstown council is also doing its own investigation . Tania faced further trouble from the investigations of allegations of Bullying. The wash up was she had no seat in either house of parliament. It is common knowledge that she intensely dislikes Khal Asfour . it appears to me that her assessment of the alp’s suitability for being able to govern honestly is very much coloured by the situation she finds herself. I stress allegations are just that and unproven till reasonable evidence exists. Or course her actions are not helpful to Labor. I dare the liberals to run their adds. Re this matter .. but why worry about 10 year old allegations when you can see current allegations in plain sight.
.

Mick – and what does that say about Minns’s judgment?

Moderate, you could say the same for Gladys and also Barry O Farrell to a certain degree. For Gladys, she had a relationship with disgraced Wagga Wagga MP Daryl Maguire and I believe she was not forthcoming during the ICAC enquiry and tried to down play her connections when interrogated.

Overall I think the Coalition will struggle to retain their majority and the best they can hope for is a minority government.

Even though they can point to a few successes (infrastructure projects like Sydney Metro and several road upgrade projects), they also have accumulated a fair amount of baggage by being in office 10+ years namely various scandals which are under ICAC investigation and also disputes with public sector unions (mostly transport sector but also in healthcare and education space).

I believe it was conflicts with unions that was a key factor in the downfall of Campbell Newman in 2015 despite his LNP government having a huge supermajority in the Queensland parliament.

I wonder if Tania Mihailuk will contest Bankstown next year, she might as well move to Fairfield since the Incumbent MP Guy Zangari is not re-contesting.

Tania was slated to contest in Fairfield and Guy Zangari was slated to run in Cabramatta, as per an old SMH article I referred to above. If Nick Lalich does retire from Cabramatta, then both Cabramatta and Fairfield will be vacant. Jihad Dib will easily hold Bankstown.

@Daniel T, I saw another poll in the AFR this week also with 2PP 54:46 Labor’s way (excluding undecideds). I doubt this’ll be replicated on election day. Like you, I also believe that the 2PP margin will narrow and Labor will win minority government or with a slim majority.

I have no clue about her plans. Tania won Bankstown as the Labor candidate to win a safe alp seat aa an independent is difficult and expensive. And rarely happens in urban seats. I would reckon that Minns ‘ judgement was faulty re her but he has changed his position.. A perfect example of faulty judgement was the nsw cabinet supporting Barilaro ‘s appointment

@Votante…. there was a rumoured plan as you suggest but that relied on there being no rank and file preselection and labor holding both seats. Kkk
losing put a stop to such a plan

A trend I noticed is that the Bankstown area and the surroundings that the large Lebanese community are multigenerational and retain their language and culture. While many will say this is due to strict adherence to Islam, this ignores the fact many Lebanese in Australia are also Catholic, they too are not well assimilated. While religion and culture may play a factor, it might also be due to discrimination from the broader community due to the formerly bad reputation.
Another question would be how the East and South East Australian assimilation will play out as there will be more 1.75+ generations growing up?

Here are the three scenarios
– Full Assimilation with a loss of language and culture (e.g. Italians)
– Assimilate but retain language and culture in their family circles (e.g. Greeks)
– Low Assimilation with language and culture retained heavily even by generation (e.g. Lebanese and Arabs)

Marh,
Where specifically did you notice the large Lebanese community?

The reason why Asian Australia are preselected is that they are not particularly religious and retaining language from a second generation are looked down upon due to more westernized attitudes to rebel against their Confucian Upbringing from their parents and the difficulty to learn an Asian languages

Watson Watch, Well just go Bankstown area and the Census

The Melbourne Equivalent of Bankstown would probably be a mix of Broadmeadows (A Large Middle Eastern Population) and Sunshine (a large centre with a large Vietnamese population)

I’ve known many Lebanese people (both of Christian and Muslim heritage) in North West Sydney, and they are very well assimilated – so much so that the notion of a Lebanese community that isn’t well assimilated almost seems bizarre to me. I take it it’s very different in South West Sydney.

Marh,
Thanks for responding to my question.

Do you live in the Bankstown area?

Well, I used to live there for a month.
Yeah, thanks for the clarification Nicholas, South West Sydney may be due to income and education levels possibly making it harder to climb up the ladder.

Yes, there’s something there. Lebanese population is much smaller in the northwest, but much better assimilated, perhaps connected to socioeconomics. I wouldn’t know the direction of causality.

My Wife is of Arabic-Catholic heritage and grew up in Padstow (next seat along from Bankstown) but their church was in Greenacre. I think the idea that there isn’t any assimilation from the Arabic Community in the area is a bit of a over-simplification, as is a couple of the other points made with regards to assimilation/integration.

Bankstown, like Lakemba, is very much Labor-Right thinking, especially given the social conservatism in the area. Remember this had some of the strongest ‘No’ Vote within the SSM Poll.

The other thing to consider is that this is an area that will see a rise in Living Standards within the next 10-20 years, as the gentrification creep along the Georges River squeezes north from Padstow/Revesby. It is a similar thing that is happening up in the North West, as Seven Hills/Kellyville Ridge/Kings Park is going through its gentrification and will eventually squeeze into Toongabbie and Lalor Park.