ALP 1.2%
Incumbent MP
Michael Danby, member for Melbourne Ports since 1998.
Geography
Inner south of Melbourne. Macnamara covers the port of Melbourne, St Kilda and Caulfield. Other suburbs include Elwood, Balaclava, Elsternwick, Ripponlea, Middle Park, Albert Park and South Melbourne.
Redistribution
Macnamara is a new name for Melbourne Ports. The seat gained Windsor from Higgins, which reduced the Labor margin from 1.4% to 1.2%. The gap between Labor and the Greens at the key exclusion point was also reduced from 1.1% to 0.3%.
History
Melbourne Ports was an original Federation electorate. After originally being won by the Protectionist party, it has been held by the ALP consistently since 1906, although it has rarely been held by large margins.
Melbourne Ports was first won in 1901 by Protectionist candidate Samuel Mauger, who had been a state MP for one year before moving into federal politics. Mauger was re-elected in 1903 but in 1906 moved to the new seat of Maribyrnong, which he held until his defeat in 1910.
Melbourne Ports was won in 1906 by Labor candidates James Mathews. Mathews held Melbourne Ports for a quarter of a century, retiring in 1931.
Mathews was succeeded in 1931 by Jack Holloway. Holloway had won a shock victory over Prime Minister Stanley Bruce in the seat of Flinders in 1929, before moving to the much-safer Melbourne Ports in 1931. Holloway had served as a junior minister in the Scullin government, and served in the Cabinet of John Curtin and Ben Chifley throughout the 1940s. He retired at the 1951 election and was succeeded by state MP Frank Crean.
Crean quickly rose through the Labor ranks and was effectively the Shadow Treasurer from the mid-1950s until the election of the Whitlam government in 1972. Crean served as Treasurer for the first two years of the Whitlam government, but was pushed aside in late 1974 in the midst of difficult economic times, and moved to the Trade portfolio. He served as Deputy Prime Minister for the last four months of the Whitlam government, and retired in 1977.
Crean was replaced by Clyde Holding, who had served as Leader of the Victorian Labor Party from 1967 until 1976. He won preselection against Simon Crean, son of Frank. Holding served in the Hawke ministry from 1983 until the 1990 election, and served as a backbencher until his retirement in 1998.
Holding was replaced by Michael Danby in 1998, and Danby has won re-election at every subsequent election, although never with huge margins, and a margin as small as 3% in 2004 and 1.4% in 2016.
Candidates
Sitting Labor MP Michael Danby is not running for re-election.
- Ruby O’Rourke (Independent)
- Steph Hodgins-May (Greens)
- Steven Armstrong (Sustainable Australia)
- Kate Ashmor (Liberal)
- Chris Wallis (Independent)
- Craig McPherson (Animal Justice)
- Christine Kay (Rise Up Australia)
- Helen Lucy Paton (United Australia)
- Josh Burns (Labor)
Assessment
Macnamara is a very complex seat with great variations in the vote across different booths. The Liberal Party has a significant lead on the primary vote, but Greens preferences were enough to push Labor ahead in 2016. The Greens are close to overtaking Labor, at which point Labor preferences would decide the result. Any of the three parties could conceivably win. It’s not clear what impact Michael Danby’s retirement will have on the seat – there’s evidence that his presence as an incumbent helped Labor in some parts of the seat and hurt them in others.
2016 result
| Candidate | Party | Votes | % | Swing | Redist |
| Owen Guest | Liberal | 35,533 | 41.9 | +0.9 | 41.9 |
| Michael Danby | Labor | 22,897 | 27.0 | -4.7 | 26.6 |
| Steph Hodgins-May | Greens | 20,179 | 23.8 | +3.6 | 24.2 |
| Robert Millen Smyth | Animal Justice | 1,685 | 2.0 | +2.0 | 2.0 |
| Henry Von Doussa | Marriage Equality | 1,349 | 1.6 | +1.6 | 1.6 |
| Levi Mckenzie-Kirkbright | Drug Law Reform | 1,348 | 1.6 | +1.6 | 1.5 |
| Peter Holland | Independent | 1,393 | 1.6 | +1.6 | 1.6 |
| John B Myers | Independent | 425 | 0.5 | +0.5 | 0.5 |
| Others | 0.2 | ||||
| Informal | 3,756 | 4.2 |
2016 two-party-preferred result
| Candidate | Party | Votes | % | Swing | Redist |
| Michael Danby | Labor | 43,573 | 51.4 | -2.2 | 51.2 |
| Owen Guest | Liberal | 41,236 | 48.6 | +2.2 | 48.8 |
Booth breakdown
Booths have been divided into three areas: Port Melbourne, St Kilda and Caulfield.
Labor won a large 61.7% majority of the two-party-preferred vote in St Kilda, and half of the vote in Caulfield. The Liberal Party polled 51.2% in Port Melbourne.
On a primary vote basis, the three areas look very different. The Greens topped the primary vote in St Kilda, with Labor a distant third. In Port Melbourne and Caulfield, the Liberal Party topped the primary vote, with Labor second and the Greens in third place.
| Voter group | GRN prim % | ALP prim % | LIB prim % | ALP 2PP % | Total votes | % of votes |
| St Kilda | 35.3 | 25.9 | 31.1 | 61.7 | 17,712 | 20.0 |
| Port Melbourne | 21.6 | 27.7 | 44.7 | 48.8 | 16,764 | 18.9 |
| Caulfield | 20.1 | 29.4 | 44.7 | 50.0 | 8,550 | 9.6 |
| Other votes | 19.3 | 26.5 | 45.8 | 47.0 | 22,890 | 25.8 |
| Pre-poll | 23.8 | 25.3 | 43.5 | 49.6 | 22,806 | 25.7 |
Election results in Macnamara at the 2016 federal election
Toggle between two-party-preferred votes, Labor primary votes, Liberal primary votes and Greens primary votes, as well as a map showing which party topped the primary vote in each booth.
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Loss of Michael Danby did indeed seem to help Labor a lot here. There were some huge swings to Labor around St Kilda, Elwood, Prahran and some of the other “Green” parts of the seat.
His loss did seem to subdue the swing around Caulfield, though…
This seat went exactly as I expected, gutting of the Liberal PV down to the mid-30s and a Labor 2CP in the 58-60% range.
Just did a quick analysis of all the polling places here too. Lots of swings across the entire electorate, Labor won the 2CP in every single booth except for 3 (Caulfield, Caulfield North and Port Melbourne Beach).
If you combine all the booths in suburbs with “Caulfield” in the name, 2016 was 52-48 to the Liberals and this year was 51-49 to Labor so roughly a 3% swing there.
St Kilda swung about as hard as it could given the low starting point the Liberals already had, from about 65-35 at the last election to 74-26 this time; St Kilda East (with a much bigger Jewish population) not far behind on 71-29, so it remains by far the most solidly left-wing pocket of the seat.
Windsor (including the Macnamara results in the 2 Prahran booths) was stable and didn’t swing at all, 68-32 with a Greens PV over 40% in both 2016 & 2019 but there was some movement from the Greens to Labor.
More than anywhere, this seat repeated the state election results with the biggest swings happening in the bayside suburbs within the Albert Park electorate (which swung about 10% in November) and Elwood:
– South Melbourne booths went from 52-48 ALP in 2016 to 61-39 ALP this time
– Port Melbourne booths went from 52-48 Liberal in 2016 to 58-42 ALP this time
– Albert Park booths went from 54-46 Liberal in 2016 to 57-43 ALP this time
– Southbank went from 52-48 ALP in 2016 to 61-39 ALP this time
– Middle Park’s swing was a bit more subdued, from 53-47 Liberal to 52-48 ALP
– Elwood booths went from 58-42 ALP in 2016 to 68-32 ALP this time
Elwood also the biggest swing to the Greens, particularly in the Elwood North polling place where they got over 40% of the primary vote.
Having lived in this seat for most of my adult life (apart from being in Higgins this time), I think these results – despite being a moment in time in regards to anti Liberal backlash – do support my belief that I don’t really think it should be lumped with Higgins, Goldstein & Kooyong demographically. It doesn’t have “old money” and a Liberal tradition like those seats; it’s a different kind of affluence and will likely remain in ALP or possibly Greens hands in the future unless an election is a total Liberal landslide.
With the Coalition still in government for another 3 years, I’d expect a similar result here in 2022 as well. I can’t see the Liberals making too much of a dent in this new margin while they are still governing.
Mark Mulcair – Yes with Danby gone this may have changed the ALP vote a bit and Burns has a Scottish surname despite being a Hebrew. I have not checked the AEC today but the Greens vote stayed much the same and the Liberal, also a Hebrew from Caulfield like Burns, went backwards. Anyhow plenty of early and postal votes to count as well as votes cast outside the electorate and interstate.
Trent – but over all national the ALP went backwards and lost the election and Shorten is gone as leader as well as Abbott. But will Shorten do an Abbott sniping away on the backbench? Probably not.
I wasn’t talking about nationally, and that’s even more reason my point is valid. If they went backwards nationally and had a near 10% swing in Macnamara, I can’t see them losing it any time soon.
A few weeks ago around ANZAC Day retiring MHR Michael Danby was in France visiting a WW1 battlefield (See J-Wire website). Assuming it was not a private visit he paid for, why should taxpayers fund a trip so close to his retirement? Th parliament and taxpayer get nothing out of it. Also as Danby’s relatives were from Imperial Germany I assume his grandfather, great uncles etc served in the Kaiser army during WW1 killing allied soldiers. What a disgrace. Danby was a 5th columnist supporting Israel in Parliament and now crying crocodile tears for AIF soldiers his ancestor relatives may have killed.
So, Adrian, what do you think about Michael Danby?
I’m not sure I quite caught it the first 10,000 times you told us.
Adrian Jackson Burns and Ashmor and Danby are Jews not Hebrews. Hebrew is a language. While I have no regard for Danby at all for comments verge on being anti semitic.
He is now gone and soon forgotten as the political non entity he was.
In politics is important to repeat you view over and over again to reinforce it with the masses.
Yes I agree David.
Adrian, please watch your language.
David Zyngier – If one criticise people like Danby the reaction of people like you is to rave on about anti Semitism. Get a life. I know the background of all the Macnamara candidate is I have lived there since 1980.
I oppose everything the Israel lobby whinges about. Funny Mr Pratt was at Shortens “victory” party in Melbourne election night but it was not. Then next day he was praising Morrison according the newspapers pictures and all.
While she cant sing much now Madonna supported the Palestinians at Eurovision last Sunday In Tel Aviv too an did the act from Iceland and others. Israel is the political cancer in the Middle East.
Ashmor did much better than Burns in postal votes, nearly 3:1, according to the AEC last night but the Liberals generally appear to have gone backwards this election in Macnamara now that Danby is gone. The Liberal in Melbourne Ports were mostly lazy campaigners including the period 1994-2003 when I was a member and branch president.
In the lead up to an election despite having about 500 members the Melbourne Ports Federal Electorate Council could only muster about 30 members to leaflet drop including me. On election day however they came out of the woodwork to man/woman polling stations but it was to late.
The Weekend Australian today (25 May 19) in the back page (38) of Inquirer has a list of how the ALP went in the swings. Macnamara topped the list with the best swing to Labor and many other electorates in Victoria were closely behind this electorate. The contrast with the many swings against Labor in other states was striking.
Adrian Jackson was expelled from the Liberal Party for anti-Semitism, so his pejorative language about Israel and Jews is to be expected. Why Ben Raue allows him to spew his bile here is a puzzle. And yes, I am an ALP member and worked on Josh Burns’s campaign. He was an excellent candidate and won back all the vote lost in recent years through Danby’s laziness, and more. This was Labor’s best result here since 1987 (before Caulfield was added to the seat).
Ben
Adrian seems profoundly ignorant about ISRAEL. iF you would like, i’ll get the gloves off & provide the necessary enlightenment !!.
Adrian
I don’t dislike you, & i’m not offended , however you are profoundly mistaken.
Adam Carr – I Understand you were close to Michael Danby and I worked for him in the early days. There were some dreadful media stunts in that time too like an ad in MCV (Gay magazine) with Danby standing next to a St Kilda Transsexual cabaret performer. However the same ad was repeated and the next election but the trannie had died a year earlier, oops, as Danbys staff (was that you Mr Carr) forgot to ask her permission again to publish if there ever did the first time.
Then there was the fridge magnet calendar with some holidays days missing, like Easter Sunday, but many Jewish holiday added (I think I still have the fridge magnet too). I am sure the 90% of voters who were not Jewish were pleased to get that information. The ANZAC Day date was a concern on one calendar too.
I opposed the Iraq War within the Liberal Party in 2002 and after the invasion publicly in the media (Ch 1O, ABC drive program (at their request too) in 2003 and I was suspended for 12 months from the Liberal Party but never rejoined. The Iraq war was a disaster and unnecessary for Australian involvement. As a former Army officer of 23 years I could see the writing on the wall about the deranged conduct of Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Blair and even Howard. In 2019 Bolton is sabre rattling again with Iran but I don’t think Trump will got war despite his tough talk.
I don’t support the oppression of the Palestinians too as does Madonna and others at Eurovision and despite her converting to Judaism a few years ago.
I was surprised that the Coalition won nationally thanks partly to dodgy opinion polls but Shorten was pretty ordinally and boring too. I think Mr Carr is very disappointed with the ALP defeat and ALP right faction member Bill Shorten is history most likely. Also read my earlier post in 25 May 19 before yours were I talk bout the ALP result in Macnamara before shooting your mouth off. I went to three candidate forums in Macnamara but saw very little in the way of ALP leaflet in my letterbox. Same with the other candidates too.
Mr Carr – as for comrade Josh Burns we will see what type of MHR he will be as he has 3 years in opposition to take up the views of Macnamara constituents, all of them, not just a minority as was the case with Danby.
[deleted – personal attack on other commenter].
Right that’s enough. I’m deleting the personal attacks in Adrian’s last comment. This is meant to be a post about the seat of Macnamara.
Adam, there’s a lot of comments on this site and while I try to read as many of them as I can I don’t always read them closely. If you have an objection to a particular comment please email me and I will consider removing it. But criticising Israel is not necessarily going to get someone banned.
[deleted]
Adam,
A look through Adrian’s submissions to the 2010 redistribution is also pretty eye-opening. Virtually none of his output had anything to do with boundaries, it was just pages and pages of personal abuse towards Danby and not-so-subtle mutterings about the “Jewish Lobby”.
At the oral hearings, the Commissioners basically booted him off the stand because he was ranting on about this stuff.
On the topic of the seat, Labor’s margin has been pared back by nearly 2.5% now on postals, with plenty of them still left.
It would be interesting to know what the biggest change in margin has been, before and after declaration votes. This must be getting up there.
winediamond – I don’t care what you think. I have been to the Middle East, including a drive around Sinai with a fellow Australia Army friend in 1985, after crossing the Suez Canal from Egypt and drove as far El Arish. It was a UN patrol that I tagged along with as a tourist. We met a young pale skinned English women, wearing a board brimmed sun hat, cycling (pedal bike) across the Sinai desert on the sealed road, a courageous but bazar sight. She could not do that now. We checked out the failed Bar Lev line fortifications and viewed the wrecked armoured vehicles left behind after the last major Arab/Israel war.
Mark Mulcair – Israel Lobby actually and what is wrong with talking about that? I just wanted to see Caulfield out of Melbourne Port and into Higgin and the western part of Higgin going to Melbourne Ports. This would balance the shape of the electorate like most other electorates in Melbourne. The current elongated electorate is an odd looking jerrymander type electorate and still is. The old Head Commissioner appealed to be under the spell of the small but vocal Israel Lobby.
Danby supported the status quo for the boundary in 2010 even after recognising that the option I supported (one option put forward by the AEC) may increase the ALP vote if this was adopted. This proves he was more interested in the votes from his Caulfield support base rather than a sensible boundary.
You see an increase in the ALP vote may not necessarily be support for Danby as other ALP member on the coastal Port Phillip (Elwood, St Kilda , Middle Park Albert Park South Melbourne and Port Melbourne) part of the electorate were traditional ALP members.
Remember when Port Phillip Cr Julian Hill (now an MHR) tried to start a young labor branch in Port Melbourne over a decade or so ago Danby and his union henchmen turned you in numbers to close the meeting as it started so the young labour branch could no be formed. Hill was not part of Danby’s right wing clique nor in the Israel lobby either. Cr Hill was/is a gay progressive socialist.
No provisional votes counted yet but in all the other voting categories, as detailed on the AEC website, Ashmor got more primary votes that Labor but Greens preferences once again got the ALP candidate over the line convincingly on 2PP. This is despite the Labor party hating the Green, except for their preference flow.
Adrian, you do realise that your submissions are on the public record?
Anyone can look at the copies of your written submissions or your oral testimony from 2010, and see that your boundary argument had zero to do with the shape of the electorate or community of interest. It was 100% a personal attack on Danby, with lots of dark sinister mutterings about him being Jewish.
In view of Adam’s comment, it’s pretty revealing.
Sounds like both ALP and Liberal Party meetings in Macnamara would be good old style slanging matches.
In all of these posts not very much fact and a lot of opinions that facts can not influence.
Did anyone see Danby’s Sensible analysis of ALP’s position after election outcome in Oz this week?
If the blokey Liberal organisation in Victoria don’t want to see a women elected to parliament then pre-select one in Macnamara. Women often get the unwinnable seat in other electorates too.
I worked for Michael Danby on and off from 2003 to 2013, with several long breaks. He was indeed an eccentric and capricious member, and grew increasingly conceited and lazy over his last decade. I left his employ in 2013 on bad terms (as do most of his staff), and haven’t spoken to him since. He should have retired in 2013 at the latest, and his laziness allowed the Labor vote to erode to the point where he was nearly defeated in 2016. So I am not here to defend Danby’s record. But that doesn’t mean I will condone Adrian Jackson’s anti-Semitic attacks or his historical revisionism.
The decision by the AEC to put Caulfield into Melbourne Ports at the 1990 redistribution had nothing to do with the Jewish community or with Danby, although he was the beneficiary of it. I agree that it’s an oddly designed seat, but in fact demographic changes are making it more coherent, as the western part of the seat becomes more affluent and Caulfield becomes more multicultural. That was why Danby’s appeal against the initial AEC proposal in 2010 to move Caulfield out of the seat was successful: he was able to argue on community of interest grounds that the existing boundaries were a better fit than the new ones. “Community of interest” is a legitimate ground for disputing an AEC decision under the Act. Far from being a gerrymander to benefit Danby, the re-inclusion of Caulfield left him worse off, since Caulfield still largely votes Liberal.
Dr Carr, I agree with some of your points and I thought that Danby was lazy and there was friction with staff. [deleted]
Semites are a racial group not a religion. Yasser Arafat was most likely a Semite. Semite can be Muslims or Christians too. I am not anti Semitic just anti Zionist which has developed into a form apartheid fascism. But I have said all this before.
Check out the news today and the current PM of Israel is trying to legislate that he cant be brought before the court. More paranoia combined with a fear of corruption most likely.
I’ve just deleted some references to Michael Danby which feel a bit more personal than I think is ideal, particularly for someone out of politics now.
I won’t lock this comments thread for now but please let’s tone it down a bit.
Adrian, I don’t think criticising Israel in itself is anti-semitic but “Yasser Arafat was most likely a Semite” is not a defence against anti-semitism.
On the boundaries, while I agree that from a communities of interest perspective it may be starting to become more coherent than in 1990, the Caulfield area still makes far less sense alongside suburbs like St Kilda, South Melbourne & Albert Park than South Yarra & Prahran would, in every way.
Caulfield is so much more connected to Malvern, Carnegie & Murrumbeena when it comes to transport, lifestyle, demographics and its affluent suburban character than it is to the inner-city suburbs by the bay.
Likewise, inner city Prahran & South Yarra are so much more connected to high density inner-south suburbs like St Kilda, Albert Park & South Melbourne than they are to suburbs like Glen Iris, Malvern, Murrumbeena and Ashburton, especially now that Windsor is in Macnamara.
Higgins & Macnamara are both oddly shaped electorates that take in suburbs quite a large distance from each other which aren’t particularly well connected by public transport, with very little in common between the suburbs on each end of them (eg. Prahran & Hughesdale; Caulfield & Port Melbourne) and from a communities of interest perspective would both benefit a lot from being more compact.
Ben
Congratulations . This string has lowered the overall reputation of. Tally Room.com.
Regarding the gerrymandering claim, I think both Adrian & Adam are right in different ways.
The current boundaries certainly didn’t help Labor/Danby from an election winning perspective, because Caulfield is the most Liberal voting part of the seat whereas Prahran is very safely left-leaning with South Yarra roughly 50/50. Swapping them would just about put Macnamara out of realistic reach for the Liberals for the foreseeable future. I don’t think we’d be seeing such an extreme split of postals breaking to the Liberals 60/40 on those boundaries either.
However, I think Danby’s support of the current boundaries was more about fending off a challenge for pre-selection from within his own party.
On a semi-related note, I’ve mentioned this a few times but I’m still really confused about how adding Windsor could possibly have reduced Labor’s 2PP margin. I’m not sure what method is used, and its used by very reputable psephologists, but it tells me whatever method is being used has to be really way off the mark.
Adding a suburb with a polling place 2PP of roughly 68/32 favouring Labor (or the Greens) to a seat held by Labor on a 1.4% margin shouldn’t reduce the margin, it should increase it.
I can’t see any possible scenario in which reducing it could be possible even when postals & prepolls are taken into account, because postals and prepolls in Higgins were only around 6-7% better for the Liberals than ordinary votes, so applying that to Windsor should still make those votes favourable to Labor too (just by less than the ordinary votes, but still more than Macnamara’s margin).
As Adrian Jackson well knows, the word anti-Semite has a specific and well-defined meaning. It means “a person who has a hostile, prejudiced attitude toward Jews” (Merriam-Webster). It does not mean a person who hates all Semites. If he would prefer, I will call him a Jew-hater.
Trent,
wrt the margin, the only possible thing I can think of is that Higgins’ Lib v Green 2CP somehow got screwed up in translation to a Lib v Lab 2PP. I can’t think how, but that’s the only scenario I can think of.
wrt the boundaries, I agree Caulfield would fit better demographically with Higgins, and SY/Prahran in Macnamara. I proposed that last time, but they chose to go a different way. I’d think the Greens and Liberals would probably support this arrangement, but Labor would be opposed. We’ll see.
I think my methodology can be a little bit weak when it comes to distributing non-ordinary votes. Basically I translate booth votes to each SA1 based on how many people from each booth vote at each SA1. This works well for booths and works reasonably well for ordinary pre-poll votes but for absent/postal/dec pre-poll votes it means that they are assumed to vote the same in every SA1 in the electorate. It mostly comes out in the wash but in cases like this where one small change is made and both seats involved in the change are very diverse in their voting patterns it has produced a weird result. To deal with this I would need to distribute the special votes in a way which accounts for how those areas voted in the ordinary votes, which would be much more complex.
Thanks Mark, that’s a good point and I agree the differing 2CP parties could be the cause of the error. It’s the only scenario I can really think of too. I’m not sure how either, maybe in the absence of a like-for-like 2CP the calculation only worked off Labor’s primary vote (very low in Windsor) without taking into account the massive Greens vote? Who knows, but I’d love to hear an insight from somebody like Kevin Bonham about what method was used.
I proposed the same Mark, but I didn’t get in early enough and was only able to do it as an objection in the final stage, at which point I think it was probably too late.
I also imagine Labor would opposite it because even though it would help their 2CP against the Liberals, ultimately the Greens are their biggest long term threat in Macnamara.
Thanks Ben! I wrote my last response before seeing your post. I understand now, and it makes sense that in most seats that would probably work out alright but that this one happens to be an exception with Windsor essentially being a 68% Greens 2CP suburb within a 58% Liberal 2CP seat.
The initial calculation I did at the time just applied the difference between ordinary & non-ordinary votes to Windsor’s polling booth result for the other electors.
Eg. Using round numbers and guesses because I can’t remember the figures:
4000 electors from Windsor but only around 1000 polling place votes.
68-32 2CP against the Liberals for the 1000 polling place votes.
Higgins’ non-ordinary results were about +7% for the Liberals compared to ordinary.
So I applied roughly a 61-39 2CP against the Liberals to the other 3000 votes.
From memory I think it increased the margin from 1.4% to roughly 1.8%.
Also the AEC, Antony Green and Kevin Bonham all came up with a 1.2% redistributed margin as well, so your method Ben was obviously consistent with others.
It could definitely be a case study though in how the standard methodology for calculating post-redistribution margins probably needs tweaking across the board though.
In this case, the new margin was quoted quite a bit in media reports of Macnamara being a target for the Liberals, which often specifically referred to how the addition of Windsor has helped them. Strange that Melbourne-based media outlets wouldn’t question how adding probably the second least Liberal voting suburb in the entire inner south/east region (after St Kilda) could be have helped them. Also with the swings being calculated from it, it’s very possible that Macnamara’s swing was actually around 0.6% less than advertised.
Dr Carr – you are starting to sound like a broken record repeating the same tripe about Jews. Its just Danby I cant stand and you confirmed some of my views declaring him lazy etc after working for him on and off for 10 years.
I hate Israeli Zionist though and support the Palestinians. Yasser Arafat was the Nelson Mandela of West Asia.
However I think Josh Frydenberg and other Jews in the Australian Parliament (Liberal and Labor) are doing a good job for their respective parties, and sometimes the country, just like most other MP’s.
Anyhow it time to switch off Tally Room for now until the next election as I usually do at about this time post election.
A few final thought before I go. Israeli criticism of that great organisation the United Nations is pathetic while Danby’s carping about our ABC and some of its excellent reported in West Asia shows he had nothing to offer Australian society in the last 20 years. Danby ever wasted his taxpayer provided electoral allowance attacking reporter Sophie MacNeill. Well Macneill is still working but Danby is not as far as I know.
What does a fellow who has never has a real job do after 20 years in parliament?
On 30 Oct 18 the deputy leader of the ALP in parliament Tanya Plibersek plus another MP Louise Pratt and then candidate John Burns said in a media release (its on line) Labor has invested $10.6 million in the Gay Pride Centre proposed in St Kilda. I understand this money has not arrived. As the ALP was not elected to government will the ALP donate this money from their party funds? It cant come from a Labor government grant as they are not in government after the election.
Port Phillip Council raided their (our rates) cash reserves and provided about $16 million and double that is promised by the Victoria government. Jodh Burns MHR is there a funding short fall now? I don’t oppose the Gay Pride Centre but oppose ratepayers funds going to this private facility for use by Greater Melbourne Gays and beyond as it will be the only such facility on Australia.
Dr Adam Carr
I have not been a supporter of Adrian on these pages but your comment at
11.58 contains not a single fact opinion or discussion other than abuse.
Adrian’s comment about being a Parliamentarian not having a real job. In 50 years of involvement with politicians I can think of only 1 who was not hard working and the majority even those that I thought were immoral/ evil were hard working.
Federal politicians are away from home for most of year. They spend their life living out of suitcases with little opportunity for a normal life. Their hours are totally disruptive to regular sleep .
I think politicians need life experience so they can relate to the Common Man. I thought Senator John Madigan’s programme of job experience got politicians was a good idea but parted with his staff when I pointed out that John also needed work experience outside of his own trade Background. Thinking of National party farmers and other small business owners they need experience in large organisations where power and decision making is spread out through the organisation not centralised with a single individual. Uni types need the opposite experience in a non collegial environment. Soldiers need experience where decision of management is always questioned.
In effect we need to respect the experience of a wide range of employment backgrounds. The skills that any long term MP takes to a non Parliamentary career are
Broad and I suspect that Michael Danby will find a career outside of Parliament that is less demanding than Parliamentary life. I also do not like kicking a bloke when he is down in his luck.
Thankyou Michael Danby for your service and I am sure 99% of Tally Room readers wish you good luck in the future.
I do see some merit in limiting Parliamentary terms to 2 or 3 terms but the consequence would be a decline in quality candidates and an increase in mediocre politicians. You can not have your cake and eat it as well.
Andrew Jackson
apjackson2@bigpond.com
.
Okay that’s it, this page is now locked. See you in 2022.