On a hiding to nothing, it would therefore be no surprise if Labor chose to opt out of contesting Mayo. It was the usual approach taken by the Liberal Party during the 11 years of the Howard government. Of the nine by-elections between 1996 and 2007, the Liberal Party only contested the three seats it held, Lindsay (1996), Ryan (2001) and Aston (2001). The Liberal Party did not nominate candidates for Blaxland (1996), Fraser (1997), Holt (1999), Isaacs (200), Cunningham (2002) or Werriwa (2005). The Liberal Party also opted out of the Newcastle supplementary election 1998.

“Held by Alexander Downer since its creation in 1984, he came under serious challenge in 1998, as the Democrat’s John Schumann came close to winning on Labor and One Nation preferences. The seat covers a part of South Australia where the Australian Democrats used to poll strongly.”

I don’t think there is any chance of Labor winning, but a wily Independent might be able to do it, and would probably cost the leadership or seriously undermine Nelson.

But what mitigates against this is, if there is a swing to the Libs it could give more oxygen to the tales of ute-men and how the working-class people are opposed to the ETS. I think framing a carbon emissions trading system focusing on the long-term environmental outcomes rather than allowing the self-perpetualising of the opposition’s scare-mongering means that it is more important for complexity to win through at the expense of Labor trying to win a seat it has Buckley’s chance of picking up.

Hey wasn’t Peter Hatcher’s article on Downer spot-on. And I lost even more respect for Downer when his daughter was awarded an international post-graduate scholarship for a third-class honours, while in my department the scholarship cut-off is a high first-class honours (high high-distinction GPA), it was the worst kind of nepotism.

“extend the tenure of the fumbling former education minister”