AUSSIEPOLITICS
Would you like to react to this message? Create an account in a few clicks or log in to continue.

AUSSIEPOLITICS

Discuss Australian politics and other general stuff
 
HomeHome  Latest imagesLatest images  RegisterRegister  Log inLog in  

 

 Wagga Wagga

Go down 
2 posters
AuthorMessage
Veritas

Veritas


Posts : 572
Join date : 2018-07-17

Wagga Wagga Empty
PostSubject: Re: Wagga Wagga   Wagga Wagga EmptyMon 10 Sep 2018, 10:04 pm

Veritas wrote:
Quote :
Independent Joe McGirr has emerged as the favourite to wrestle the seat from the Liberals for the first time in more than 60 years.

Yes it was a STATE by-election...  not federal and the Libs have held it for 60 years.
DR Joe has never been an MP.
Back to top Go down
Neferti
Admin
Neferti


Posts : 2534
Join date : 2018-07-15

Wagga Wagga Empty
PostSubject: Re: Wagga Wagga   Wagga Wagga EmptyMon 10 Sep 2018, 5:04 pm

Apparently, the Liberal Candidate (Julia Ham) has only been in the Liberal Party for a very short time and lives out of Wagga (farmer?).

Dr Joe McGirr is a Medical Doctor and is/was an Associate Professor at the local University. Lives in Wagga and is probably fairly well known by the locals.

I've no idea who the ALP candidate was but Labor wouldn't go down very well in Wagga Wagga. grin
Back to top Go down
Neferti
Admin
Neferti


Posts : 2534
Join date : 2018-07-15

Wagga Wagga Empty
PostSubject: Re: Wagga Wagga   Wagga Wagga EmptyMon 10 Sep 2018, 2:00 pm

Veritas wrote:
Quote :
Independent Joe McGirr has emerged as the favourite to wrestle the seat from the Liberals for the first time in more than 60 years.

Yes, McGirr is STATE Government.

Michael McCormack, National Party (Deputy Prime Minister) has been the MP for the Division of Riverina since 2010.

Wagga Wagga 330px-Michael_McCormack_2018-02_%28cropped%29

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Division_of_Riverina
Back to top Go down
Veritas

Veritas


Posts : 572
Join date : 2018-07-17

Wagga Wagga Empty
PostSubject: Re: Wagga Wagga   Wagga Wagga EmptyMon 10 Sep 2018, 1:22 pm

Quote :
Independent Joe McGirr has emerged as the favourite to wrestle the seat from the Liberals for the first time in more than 60 years.


Last edited by Veritas on Mon 10 Sep 2018, 10:04 pm; edited 3 times in total
Back to top Go down
Neferti
Admin
Neferti


Posts : 2534
Join date : 2018-07-15

Wagga Wagga Empty
PostSubject: Re: Wagga Wagga   Wagga Wagga EmptyMon 10 Sep 2018, 11:36 am

Nothing to do with what happened "in Canberra". All to do with the NSW Government and that Liberal Minister Daryl Maguire.

Wagga Wagga is a country town and Federally is a safe National Party seat and always has been as far as I am aware.

Note that they didn't vote Labor (and never would) but voted an Independent because there wasn't a National Party candidate for the NSW Government, they did so to send a message to "Gladys" I guess.


Last edited by Neferti on Mon 10 Sep 2018, 3:17 pm; edited 1 time in total
Back to top Go down
Veritas

Veritas


Posts : 572
Join date : 2018-07-17

Wagga Wagga Empty
PostSubject: Wagga Wagga   Wagga Wagga EmptyMon 10 Sep 2018, 10:22 am

Wagga Wagga loss lies squarely at Premier's feet

By Alexandra Smith
9 September 2018 — 12:51pm


Gladys Berejiklian owns the Liberals’ spectacular loss in Wagga Wagga to independent Joe McGirr. While there is no doubt that the bloody war that erupted mid-campaign between Berejiklian's federal Liberal colleagues was very damaging, it was not the major factor.

The byelection in the safe Liberal seat only came about because its long-term MP, Daryl Maguire, was caught on a phone-tap trying to broker a deal with Chinese developers.


New South Wales Premier Gladys Berejiklian has saids she accepts the "strong message" sent in the Wagga Wagga by-election loss.
After Maguire resigned, Berejiklian handpicked the Liberal candidate who tried to replace him. The Premier was the face of the re-election bid. And she allowed her office, not party headquarters, to run the campaign.

Electorates punish parties for byelections. The average swing against the government of the day in NSW byelections over the past decade has been 16.1 per cent.

Wagga Wagga was not going to be any different. In fact, a bitter internal stoush between the state Liberals and the Nationals ensured the campaign was troubled from day one.

The Nationals believe they have a claim over Wagga Wagga. They hold the overlapping federal seat of Riverina and when the state seat became available, they wanted it.

The Deputy Premier and Nationals leader, John Barilaro, was agitating for his party to contest it but eventually, and reluctantly, gave in to his Liberal colleagues.


When the Premier fronted the media on Sunday, she said the "government took full responsibility for the loss". People are disillusioned with politicians and them only "being in it for themselves". That was clearly a snipe at her federal colleagues.
But the Coalition battle over who would contest the seat, with the Nationals hoping the Liberals would lose to enable them to run in March, shows navel gazing is not confined to Canberra. Both parties seemed happier for the seat to be lost to an independent or Labor than each other.



It is impossible to know whether the NSW Nationals could have won Wagga Wagga had they been allowed to run. But they could have distanced themselves from Maguire.

And while the federal Liberal implosion could not have been predicted, again the Nationals could have presented themselves as a conservative alternative.

But Berejiklian stood her ground and insisted the Liberals contest the seat. Instead, it has landed in the hands of an independent. Country independents are hard to dislodge.



Berejiklian surrendered a safe seat and is unlikely to ever get it back for the Liberals. The deal was that if the Liberals lost, the Nationals could run in the March general election.

The Premier commands wide respect within her party. She is known to be hard-working, principled and decent. But she will face intense criticism from her MPs.

Only seven seats stand between majority and minority government. The Liberals have just lost one of those.

With at least three Liberal seats at risk - East Hills, Coogee and Penrith - and Tweed and Lismore a major concern for the Nationals, March will be a serious contest.

The Premier’s office was clearly panicking late in the week when strategists decided to leak internal party polling to News Corp in a bid to lay the groundwork for a loss.

While some Liberal MPs questioned the veracity of the polling, given the primary vote for the Liberals was an astonishing 24 per cent, it seems the office knew what was coming. They were facing a wipeout.



Despite the weekly visits from the Premier, and a parade of ministers passing through Wagga Wagga, the government’s $100 million-plus spending campaign failed.



The blatant pork barrelling in an already cynical seat was a strategic disaster. Powerbroker and the Premier’s long-time confidant, Arts Minister Don Harwin, also made a very telling comment to the party faithful at the post-election wake.



“This is a community that has missed out for too long,” Harwin said of the seat that his party had held with a safe margin for six decades.

This contest was never about Liberals versus Labor. Although Labor had a very strong candidate, the biggest threat was always going to come from independent Joe McGirr.

Berejiklian’s Canberra colleagues certainly did her no favours by executing a prime minister mid-campaign.

But to claim they alone cost her government a critical seat just months out from a general election would be seen as arrogant and lacking in self-awareness.
Back to top Go down
Sponsored content





Wagga Wagga Empty
PostSubject: Re: Wagga Wagga   Wagga Wagga Empty

Back to top Go down
 
Wagga Wagga
Back to top 
Page 1 of 1

Permissions in this forum:You cannot reply to topics in this forum
AUSSIEPOLITICS :: Australian Politics-
Jump to: