Preferences show the quality of the politiciian

Kevin Hogan rising from his seat among Coalition MPs to greet his prime minister

Nationals MP for Page Kevin Hogan has never voted against Coalition policy positions or the Abbott-Turnbull Morrison Government's proposed motions and bills being considered by the House of Representatives.

When the media coverage were going badly against the newly installed Morrison Coalition Government he took fright and declared he was that grotesque chimera - an "Independent  National".

As a so-called "Independent National" Hogan is still a member of the National Party of Australia, still attends Nationals partyroom meeting, remains the Nationals Whip in the House of Representatives and also remains the Morrison Government's Deputy Speaker and never - I repeat never - votes against Coalition policy positions or the Morrison Government's proposed motions and bills.

Holding this unofficial title of convenience also means that Hogan rarely if ever sits on the cross benches with the genuine Independents.

Hogan's how-to-vote cards mailled out during this federal election campaign also reflect the fact that he remains a National Party member of parliament with allegiance to Prime Minister Morrison and Deputy Prime Minister McCormack.

His voting preferences for the House of Representatives ballot are:

1. Kevin Hogan - National Party of Australia
2. John Damien Mudge - United Australia Party (UAP) - party leader Clive Palmer
3. Peter Walker - Christian Democratic Party (Fred Nile Group)
4. Fiona Leviny - former Nationals member and current Independent
5. Alison Waters - Animal Justice Party
6. Dan Reid - The Australian Greens
7. Patrick Deegan - Australian Labor Party (ALP)

Hogan's voting preferences for the Senate ballot are:

1. Liberal & Nationals, party leaders Scott Morrison & Michael McCormack
2. Christian Democratic Party (Fred Nile Group)
3. United Australia Party (UAP), party leader Clive Palmer
4. Liberal Democratic Party, acting federal party leader Andrew Cooper replacing David Leyonhjelm
5. Australian Conservatives, party leader Corey Bernardi
6. The Small Business Party, party leader Angela Vithoulkas

So there you have it. Kevin Hogan favours hard right candidates similar to himself, is willing to continue supporting climate change denialists, as well as politicians and wannabee politicians who wish to foist their personal religious beliefs on the Australian population and/or wish to suppress ordinary workers wages, and is publicly throwing his support behind one particular party leader who became infamous by stealing wages owed to his employees after sacking them, then leaving taxpayers footing the bill for the economic destruction he caused.

The only reason Hogan is not preferencing racist candidates representing Pauline Hanson's One Nation and Fraser Anning's Conservative Nationals Party (as his prime minister is doing) is that these parties are not fielding candidates in the Page electorate.

Thirteen days out from the 2019 Australian federal election and the polls look like this

Newspoll, published 5 May 2019

Primary Vote – Coalition 38 (unchanged) Labor 36 (down 1 point)

Voter Net Satisfaction with Leaders – Morrison -1 (unchanged) Shorten -18 (down 6 points)

This is the 54th consecutive Newspoll in which Labor leads on a Two Party Preferred (TPP) basis.

The last time the Coaltion scored a higher TPP than Labor was on election day in 2016.

Between the 19 June 2017 and the 5 May 2019 Newspoll the Coalition only bested Labor on a Primary Vote basis 11 times out of a total of 42 polls. Only 3 of those higher primary vote scores occurred after Scott Morrison ousted Malcolm Turnbull as prime minister.

Past Newspoll results.

IPSOS poll, published 5 May 2019

These days it is hard to tell the Liberal Party and One Nation apart

In its frantic pursuit of every right wing vote it can muster, the Liberal Party of Australia has chosen candidates from among the type of anti-science, chauvinistic, racist, homophobic bigots usually found swimming in One Nation's pool.....

@vanbadham

In addition to the aforementioned Liberal candidates for Issacs, Wills and Paterson.....

Anti-feminist former law professor and current Liberal candidate in the Curtain electorate Celia Hammond believes anthropomorphic global warming is minimal at best.

Liberal candidate in Chisholm electorate Lucy Liu stated Chinese people come to Australia because they want ... good things for their next generation, not to be destroyed – they used the word destroyed – by these sort of concepts, of same-sex, transgender and inter-gender, cross gender, and all of this rubbish as well as conducting a WeChat campaign against Victoria’s Safe Schools policy ahead of the 2016 election, when she was the head of the Liberal Party’s Victorian community engagement committee.

Then there is the Liberal candidate for the Lyons electorate Jessica Whelan came out of the gates fighting and who apparently intended to refer the anti-Muslim tweet she allegedly posted on her own account to the Australian Federal Police in the hope of neutralising any further questions from the media - claiming her account was 'hacked'. However, further tweets emerged and the Liberal Party is no longer fielding her as their candidate.

So the count is now four Liberal Party candidates disendorsed just thirteen days out from the federal election.

NOTE: In April 2019 the Liberal Party also had to acknowledge three of their preselected candidates in Victoria pulled out of the election because of section 44, the constitutional career killer the Australian Electoral Commission has specifically warned candidates about this year.

UPDATE

By 9 May 2019 the Liberal candidate in Scullin electorate Gurpal Singh was asked to resign by party due to homophobic and sexist social media comments.

Are ineligible candidates standing at the 18 May 2019 federal election?

Australian Electoral Commission (AEC) Disclaimer: The AEC has no power under the Electoral Act to make any determination in relation to the qualification checklist in a person’s nomination, except as to whether the person has answered every mandatory question, and provided additional documentation where required. The candidate must be satisfied that the additional documents support their contentions in the Qualification Checklist and that they are qualified under the Constitution and the laws of the Commonwealth to be elected as a Senator or a member of the House of Representatives.

The Guardian, 26 April 2019:

At least 19 United Australia party candidates have submitted incomplete or inconsistent information to the Australian Electoral Commission, failing to provide evidence they are eligible to run for parliament.

The candidates for Clive Palmer’s party have asserted they are not dual citizens disqualified by section 44 of the constitution, but have mostly failed to provide birth details of their parents or grandparents, even in cases where candidates admit parents or grandparents were born overseas.

In one case the UAP candidate for Blaxland, Nadeem Ashraf, claimed in a statutory declaration that he lost dual Pakistani citizenship automatically when he became Australian in 1986. Even when taking up another citizenship Pakistani law requires a declaration of renunciation, which Ashraf failed to provide.

A spokesman for the United Australia party told Guardian Australia “all [candidates] are eligible and compliant under s44”, but failed to explain why they had not completed the checklist.

A spokesman for the AEC said it had no “power to reject a fully completed candidate nomination for the Senate or the House of Representatives, regardless of whether any answer to a question of the qualification checklist is incorrect, false or inadequate”.

At least 16 UAP candidates stated that they were born in Australia, declared they had parents or grandparents born in another country but then failed to provide details.

These include Matthew Sirianni-Duffy in Aston, Wayne Connolly in Goldstein, Lisa Bentley in Gellibrand, Ron Jean in Dunkley, George Zoraya in Chisholm, Adam Veitch in Bendigo, Neil Harvey in Corangamite, Lynda Abdo in Hume, Colin Thompson in Dawson, Christian Julius in Griffith, Kenneth Law in Groom, Jatinder Singh in Holt, Shane Wheatland in Indi, Tony Seals in Isaacs, Md Sarwar Hasan in Maribyrnong, Tony Pecora in Melbourne, Adam Holt in Sydney and Yohan Batzke, a Queensland Senate candidate.

The 45th parliament was rocked by 14 MPs or senators resigning or being ruled ineligible due to dual citizenship, many of them triggered by citizenship by descent from parents or grandparents born in the United Kingdom or New Zealand…..

The joint standing committee on electoral matters has warned that the presence of ineligible candidates on the ballot creates potential that “a successful candidate could have their election challenged on the basis of preference flows from an ineligible candidate”.

UAP is not alone in having candidates who did not fully compete their nomination forms. It would appear that a number of candidates from more than one political party have also submitted forms unaccompanied by required documentation.

Voters can check the nomination forms of candidates standing in their electorate at
https://www.aec.gov.au/election/candidates.htm.

Best Political Meme of the Week

Twitter, April 2019

Best billboard of the 2019 federal election campaign

Victorian Trades Hall
Via @FelicityLS

Can One Nation candidates get any sleazier than this?

One Nation Queensland Leader and former LNP state minister Steve Dickson who is a 2019 federal election candidate has been forced to resign because of this video.

The married One Nation Senate candidate has been filmed groping an exotic dancer in a strip club and asking her to come home with him and saying the dancer "wants to suck my c**k".

Dickson may have resigned from all position he held in the One Nation party, however his name remains on the Senate ballot paper.

Nationals' Barnaby Joyce in deeper water

.@hamishnews uncovers some fresh insights into the water buy back scandal #TheProjectTV pic.twitter.com/jEFeyA6SpO

— The Project (@theprojecttv) April 29, 2019