'Words, Morals, and Promises'
It’s a seasonal blight, these thickets of signs defacing lawns before Election Day. More toxic and less attractive than mushrooms after a spring rain, do they sway anyone’s vote? And why a dozen identical signs on a single lawn, all touting the same candidate? Are they analogous to Christmas lights or something more sinister? Politics for many has usurped the role once played by religion. Are the signs declarations of faith? Curses? Threats? James Matthew Wilson writes in“Autumn Road” (The Hanging God, Angelico Press, 2018):
“A few doors farther on, the lawn is spiked
With signs for candidates I’ve long disliked.
Just seeing their names induces in me fear
Less supernatural but much more near
At hand than those that haunt the children’s dreams.”
Hung
parliament: how would it affect the passage of legislation?
ANNE TWOMEY: A minority government would not mean the Morrison government
would fall - but it would make governing more difficult.
Phelps attracts huge preference flows from other candidates
Independent Kerryn Phelps has not only stripped the Liberals of more than 20 per cent of their vote but, importantly, she has attracted a preference flow of 80 per cent from the 14 excluded candidates (the contenders who came in behind Phelps and Dave Sharma).
That is a massive show of strength that sets her up very well for a potentially long future as the MP for Wentworth.
'I won't let you down', says triumphant Kerryn Phelps
It was an historic victory which took even the victors by surprise.
Wentworth email is homophobic: Phelps
Independent
Wentworth candidate Kerryn Phelps says an email suggesting she'd been
diagnosed with HIV and was pulling out of the by-election race was a
homophobic attack designed to hurt her campaign.
Paul Bongiorno Judgement day cometh in Wentworth
Paul Bongiorno Judgement day cometh in Wentworth
The Saturday Paper
Wentworth byelection: BBQs, protests and cardboard cutouts - the gloves were off
Barbecues were flaming and the snags sizzling outside schools, community halls and churches across Wentworth, as voters streamed into polling booths to decide whether the Morrison government would survive on its own terms beyond the weekend.
In play, of course, is the government’s 76th seat, which until two months ago was on a seemingly unassailable margin and among the safest Liberal seats in the country.
Wentworth byelection: Jewish voters split over embassy switch to ...
Wentworth byelection: Liberals in danger as vote slumps to 32.7% – poll
“Being the leader of the Liberal Party and being sane is like being Bruce Willis in a Die Hard movie. It’s always crazy and bad but hopefully you come out and get some stuff done.
Google on Went Worth
Photos of 'unparliamentary behaviour' banned under new 'heavy-handed' media rules
Media wishing to speak to politicians inside Tasmania's Parliament "should make an appointment by telephone" and must not "linger" in corridors, under new rules described as "an attempt to stymie democracy
