Preselection news:

• Damien Madigan of the Blue Mountains Gazette reports Blue Mountains mayor Adam Searle has suffered a further blow in his bid to succeed Bob Debus as Labor candidate for Macquarie after the party’s credentialing committee voted down a bid to have 30 out of the 143 preselectors ruled invalid on grounds of branch stacking. Searle had been thought unlikely to get the nod in any case after the national executive allowed the matter to be determined by rank-and-file preselection, as the local numbers are believed to favour Susan Templeman – partly due to the 20 per cent loading in favour of female candidates. The report further relates that “sources close to the Searle camp say it is very difficult for him to win”; he is “seriously considering his position”; and there is “no truth to media reports last week suggesting Clr Searle was willing to accept the Labor Party’s candidacy for the State seat of Blue Mountains in exchange for losing out in Macquarie”. Madigan also reports of an unsuccessful a challenge to Searle’s presidency of the Mid-Mountains branch by a staffer of Blue Mountains state MP Phil Koperberg.

• The Sydney Morning Herald reports sitting member Craig Thomson won Labor’s preselection vote in Dobell with 66 votes against 21 for challenger David Mehan, the candidate from 2004. Soraiya Gharahkhani of the Camden Advertiser reports Nick Bleasdale’s winning margin over wheelchair athlete Paul Nunnari in Macarthur was 40 votes to three.

• Louise Hall of the Sydney Morning Herald reports last weekend’s New South Wales Liberal state upper house preselection, which doled out winnable positions to Catherine Cusack of the Left and Natasha Maclaren-Jones and Peter Phelps of the Right, was the result of a “wide-ranging factional deal designed to keep the peace within the Liberal Party” – presumably the same one that locked in moderate support behind David Clarke.

• The Menios Constantinou of the Wentworth Courier reports five candidates will contest Liberal preselection for the state seat of Coogee: “clear favourite” Bruce Notley-Smith, a Randwick councillor and Malcolm Turnbull staffer; Edward Mandla, who ran in Sydney in 2007; and David Shaloub, Bruce Morrow and Justin Owen, of whom no information is provided.

• The Northern Territory News reports mango farmer Gary Higgins has been preselected as Country Liberal Party candidate for the Darwin outskirts seat of Daly, which Rob Knight holds for Labor on a margin of 7.8 per cent.

In other news, the upper house preference tickets have been published, and can most easily be viewed at ABC Elections. I hope to get an upper house election guide happening at some point next week.

• Antony Green summarises the preference tickets which have been lodged for purposes of South Australia’s unique provision to save incomplete ballots, which in other jurisdictions would be ruled informal (it does not necessarily follow, but can reasonably be inferred, that this will reflect the how-to-vote cards handed out on election day). Labor has done very well out of the Greens, who are not only directing preferences straight to Labor ahead of the Liberals across the board, but are also favouring them over independent and one-time Greens member Kris Hanna in Mitchell, as they did in 2006. Hanna’s own preferences will be split between Labor and Liberal, but the Liberals are unlikely to be competitive in the seat. The Greens are also favouring competitive independents and Nationals candidates over Liberal in Mount Gambier, Frome, Chaffey and Flinders. Whereas Family First cut a deal with Labor in 2006 which resulted in split tickets in the key seats of Mawson, Light, Morialta, Newland and Mitchell, this time they favour the Liberals across the board – not only in Labor-versus-Liberal contests, but also where independents (Mitchell, Frome and Mount Gambier) and Nationals (Chaffey and Flinders) are in play. Karlene Maywald is directing preferences to the Liberals in Chaffey, which will not be electorally significant but might be seen as a useful pointer to her attitude. Save RAH, Dignity for Disability, Gamers 4 Croydon and the DLP also seem to be directing all preferences to the Liberals ahead of Labor. The Free Land Tax Party has not lodged tickets. Mount Gambier independent candidate Nick Fletcher favours the Liberals over independent Don Pegler; Chaffey independent David Peake favours the Liberals over Karlene Maywald; Stuart independent Rob Williams in Stuart favours Liberal over Labor; Newland independent Ryan Haby favours Labor over Liberal.

• David Bevan and Matthew Abraham’s Mornings program on ABC Radio yesterday featured an interview with the three re-contesting independents about their likely attitude in the event of a minority government. Mitchell MP Kris Hanna said he would present the parties with “detailed policy imperatives” concerning water, democracy and pokies, and “projects for his community” including Glenthorne Farm and the Oaklands railway crossing. Frome MP Geoff Brock said he would be seeking upgrades of natural gas pipelines into cities in the upper Spencer Gulf, and commitments on water security. Fisher MP Bob Such said he would not be asking for specific commitments in his electorate, but would instead do as he did in 2002 and write to constitutents to gauge their views. However, he said he was not expecting the matter to emerge as he believed Labor would win. All were pressed by the presenters on their attitude to an Independent Commission Against Corruption; none said it would be a “deal-breaker”.

• Graham Young of Online Opinion wrote in The Weekend Australian of qualitative polling he has conducted in South Australia, which found only 36 per cent of a sample of 252 (which he freely admits was likely to have had a Labor bias) believed the state to be ahead in the right direction, against 44 per cent who felt otherwise. The sample was particularly concerned about water, followed by health – which loomed as a negative for Labor as the Royal Adelaide Hospital relocation was “wildly unpopular”. Underlying both concerns was a perception the government was concerned with “spin over substance”. However, the Liberal Party continues to be viewed as “extreme” despite positive perceptions of Isobel Redmond, who voters feel they do not know well enough.

• At the Liberal campaign launch on Sunday, Isobel Redmond promised $47 million out of a claimed $1 billion in savings from rebuilding the Royal Adelaide Hospital on site would be used to return obstetrics services to Modbury Hospital, located in the electorate of Florey and of significance to its marginal neighbour Newland. Redmond also promised upgrades to the hospital’s paediatrics, intensive care and emergency departments. Labor responded by promising a $44 million upgrade including a new emergency department at the hospital. In 2007 the government removed obstetric and pediatric services and had pathology and radiology services at the hospital downgraded, while adding more elective surgery and palliative care. Redmond also promised to spend $75 million on country health services.

• Paul Collier, the lead upper house candidate for Dignity for Disability, died yesterday after suffering a brain haemorrhage. Since nominations have closed his name will remain on the ballot paper, but votes for him will be passed along to the voter’s next preference. In most cases this will mean the second candidate on the party’s ticket, Kelly Vincent. If any of the 73 remaining candidates dies between now and polling day, the entire upper house election will be deemed to have failed, and a separate election will have to be held at a later time.

• Brad Crouch of the Sunday Mail reported Liberal internal polling of 14 marginal seats conducted at the start of the campaign showed 49 per cent found Isobel Redmond the more trustworthy of the two leaders, compared with 25 per cent for Mike Rann. A repeat of the exercise after the debate found Redmond’s rating had risen to 54 per cent while Rann’s remained steady. A question on whether respondents were confident in the government elicited a 57 per cent negative response in the first survey, rising to 66 per cent in the second.

• Mike Rann has called for the second debate which both he and Isobel Redmond have agreed to in principle to be held on pay TV. Redmond wants it held in Port Augusta or Renmark, in an environment where audience members can ask questions, but Greg Kelton of The Advertiser writes that Labor “will not have a bar of that”. Sky News says it is engaged in discussions and hopes to screen the debate.

• Also in the aforementioned Greg Kelton article, Labor strategists are reported saying momentum to the Liberals had stalled, such that they believed Labor might only lose Morialta.

UPDATE: You can read my mid-campaign match report in Crikey.

A fair bit of legislative action to report:

• Federal parliament is currently considering a piece of legislation called the Electoral and Referendum Amendment (Close of Rolls and Other Measures) Bill, which looks likely to give effect to a number of changes in time for the federal election. Three measures in particular have the support of the Coalition: treating pre-poll votes cast within the electorate as normal rather than declaration votes, so they can be counted on election nights; allowing enrolment to be updated online; and preventing parties’ registered officers from nominating multiple candidates in a single electoral division. The latter measure will prevent a repeat of the Bradfield by-election, at which the Christian Democratic Party was effortlessly able to complicate the process by indulgently nominating nine candidates. The party would now be required to find 50 nominators for each candidate after the first, as is required of independents. Two further measures are opposed by the Coalition, both of which seek to reverse unconscionable amendments made by the Howard government in 2005. One is a return to the seven-day period after the issue of writs allowing new voters to enrol or existing voters to amend their enrolment, against which no reasonable argument can be raised. The other seeks to repeal the requirement that those casting provisional voters provide identification to the AEC after polling day, which many neglected to do after the 2007 election. Antony Green reviews the closure of rules issue specifically here, and the legislation in general here.

• The Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters has completed its inquiry into the New South Wales parliament’s automatic enrolment legislation. The government shares the bipartisan enthusiasm for the concept in New South Wales, but a dissenting report has signalled that any similar move at federal level will be opposed by the Coalition in the Senate. This has not impressed University of Queensland electoral law boffin Graeme Orr, who runs through his concerns with the Coalition’s position in Crikey.

• Legislation abolishing tax deductibility of donations to parties, members and candidates, and limiting deductions for gifts and contributions by businesses, completed its passage through parliament on February 25.

And as always, a whole lot happening on the preselection front:

• Saturday’s much-publicised Labor preselection ballot for Robertson saw the defeat of incumbent Belinda Neal at the hands of university lecturer Deborah O’Neill, by a margin of 98 to 67. A prescient article on Thursday by Andrew Crook of Crikey indicated Neal could rely on only 66 votes from the three branches she controlled – Woy Woy, Kariong and Mangrove Mountain – whereas Deborah O’Neill had the support of “at least 100” preselectors UPDATE: This is disputed by a commenter who says the Kariong branch voted unanimously for O’Neill.

• New South Wales Labor Senator Michael Forshaw has made life easier for his party by announcing he will not contest the next election. This leaves a vacancy for outgoing state party secretary Matt Thistlethwaite, who needed to be accommodated after he agreed to go quietly from his current position on the condition a Senate seat would be available to him. Both Thistlethwaite and Forshaw are members of the Right. A report by Imre Salusinszky of The Australian suggests he was pushed as much as jumped, saying the result was determined by “a meeting of right-wing unions and party officials”. The sequence of candidates will be John Faulkner, Matt Thistlethwaite and Steve Hutchins, the latter managing to cling on to a winnable-yet-loseable position because of “strong support from the powerful Shop Distributive and Allied Employees Association”.

• South Australian Liberal Senator Alan Ferguson has announced he will not contest the next election, and will retire when his term expires in the middle of next year. This was foreshadowed in reports last year which suggested the vacancy was likely to be contested between former Wakefield MP David Fawcett, who like Ferguson is associated with the Right, and state party president Sean Edwards, a moderate.

• I learned from Joe Hockey on Insiders yesterday morning that Office of Aboriginal Health director Ken Wyatt has won Liberal preselection for the marginal Labor seat of Hasluck in eastern Perth. Hockey pointed out that if elected, Wyatt will become “the first Indigenous Australian to sit in the House of Representatives”. I’m wondering if he might be any relation to state Labor rising star Ben Wyatt (Shadow Treasurer and member for Victoria Park), who is part Aboriginal and the son of the Liberal candidate for Kalgoorlie at the 1996 federal election.

• The New South Wales Liberals have finalised preselections for those state upper house candidates who are chosen centrally rather than regionally (David Clarke being an example of the latter). The three winnable positions have gone to incumbent Catherine Cusack; Natasha Maclaren-Jones, state party vice-president and adviser to Senator Helen Coonan; and Peter Phelps, an adviser to Senator Michael Ronaldson and formerly to defeated Eden-Monaro MP Gary Nairn. Out in the cold was Dai Le, an ABC documentary producer who will have to content herself with a second tilt at unwinnable Cabramatta. Phelps has his admirers (“a very smart chap”, reckons politically moderate former party identity Irfan Yusuf), but they don’t include many who place a premium on standards of decency in public life. Highlights of a dangerous life include an appearance at a public forum at which he heckled Mike Kelly, soon-to-be Labor member for Eden-Monaro, comparing him to a Nazi concentration camp guard on the basis of his distinguished service in Iraq. In October, an email he wrote on media strategy with the candid subject heading “digging dirt” was released to the media: it recommended MPs pursue stories about “fat cat public servants not caring about taxpayers, pollies with snouts in the trough, special interest groups getting undeserved handouts from tax taken from hard-working Aussies, a favoured pro-Labor contractor who seems to be getting all the work for a particular job etc”.

• Margot Saville of Crikey writes that Leichhardt mayor Jamie Parker is expected to win Greens endorsement in the state seat of Balmain, where the party appears a better-than-even chance of toppling Labor incumbent Verity Firth.

Plus some other stuff:

• The process for a redistribution of Victorian federal electorates has begun, but with an expected date of completion of December 17, it is very unlikely to take effect before this year’s election.

• Simon Benson of The Daily Telegraph reported on Wednesday that “the chance of Australia going to an early election has lessened with internal Labor research exposing a negative shift in mood towards Prime Minister Kevin Rudd in key marginal seats in Sydney’s west” – namely Lindsay, Macquarie, Greenway and Macarthur. In particular, we were told that “women had begun to sour on Mr Rudd and that mixed messages were now starting to show up on the Government’s climate change policy”. Labor national secretary Karl Bitar wrote on Twitter shortly afterward that the story was “not true”.

• Peter Brent at Mumble urges the government to caution over the question of holding a referendum concurrent with the next election: firstly because history suggests referendum results bear little relationship to the question being posed, and secondly because there is reason to believe referendums on election day drag down support for the government.

• Gareth Griffith of the New South Wales Parliamentary Library has published two very interesting papers on the the record of minority government in Australia and the prospect of recall elections in New South Wales (the latter with Lenny Roth). The former covers similar territory to a paper I presented on minority government and the Greens at the Australian Study of Parliament Group conference in September, which will be published in the next edition of the Australasian Parliamentary Review.

• Owing to a public holiday in Victoria, Essential Research will publish its weekly survey on Tuesday, and not today as it normally does.

Highlights of the past fortnight on the Tasmanian campaign trail:

• Sue Neales of The Mercury reports Greens leader Nick McKim saying any negotiated agreement for Labor or Liberal to govern in minority “would not involve ultimatums, threats or even demands for ministries”. Specifically, McKim told Matthew Denholm of The Australian last week that he did not rule out backing a party that would continue to back old-growth logging, fuelling complaints from environmental groups that the Greens were giving conservation issues short shrift. McKim said the Greens would be ready to favour whichever party negotiated “honestly and in good faith”, and did not accept David Bartlett’s notion that whichever party won the most seats (or failing that, votes) should be allowed to govern. McKim also rejects the stated desire of both Labor and Liberal to govern in minority without a specific deal or agreement as “inherently unstable”. Peter Tucker at Tasmanian Politics weighs in on the possibility of a Green being given the Speaker’s job, as has happened in the Australian Capital Territory.

• The Greens’ decision might be made easier by David Bartlett’s apparent declaration he would not seek to stay in government if Labor won fewer seats than the Liberals. His particular formulation was that “the party that won the most seats or the most votes (would) be able to form a government first on the floor of the House of Assembly”, and that being so, he would “not be moving no-confidence motions and those things that have the potential to send the electorate back for another election”. However, there seems to be a few holes in this: the capacity of either Labor or Liberal to form a government in minority on the floor of the House would be entirely down to the actions of the other parties, and a no-confidence motion need not cause a new election if an alternative government could be formed. For his part, Will Hodgman claims he was misquoted when reported in The Australian as saying he would consider all options, insisting there would be no coalition with the Greens.

• The not-quite-dead canal estate development at Ralphs Bay was back in the news last week when the Tasmanian Planning Commission granted developers Walker Corporation a second extention on its response to the October draft report which declared the project “inherently unsustainable”. Both David Bartlett and the Greens have complained that a final decision before the election would have been preferable.

• The issue of water toxins in the east coast town of St Helens has continued to develop a life of its own since being the subject of an episode of the ABC’s Australian Story a fortnight ago. Local doctor Alison Bleaney claims, with support from independently conducted tests, that the George River is contaminated by toxins from upstream plantations, which Bleaney believes may be responsible for health problems in the town. Last week, Sue Neales of The Mercury wrote that the government believed the issue to be a “bomb deliberately timed to go off during the election campaign, lobbed with the full knowledge and agreement of the Tasmanian Greens”. Today, The Australian reports David Bartlett complaining Bleaney had also emerged in the lead-up to the 2006 election with “a whole range of concerns proven to be completely false”, describing her return as a “a happy coincidence for the Greens”.

• Labor, Liberal and the Greens will all hold their campaign launches next week: Labor at the Baha’i temple in inner Hobart on Monday, the Greens at the Mercure Hotel on Wednesday and the Liberals at Launceston’s Boathouse function centre next Sunday.

• A nifty new website called iElect seeks to pool collective wisdom by inviting participants to pick who they expect to win in each division, as well as offering useful details on the candidates.

Finally, there have been a number of incidents in which Labor candidates have attracted the wrong kind of headlines, two of which illustrate the friction that can develop in a party when declining electoral fortunes leave fewer pieces of pie to go round.

• Two Labor candidates for Denison, incumbent Graeme Sturges and newcomer Madeleine Ogilvie, were at each other’s throats last week with the latter accusing the former of telling voters she was “not really Labor”, reportedly promting a sharp telephone call from Ogilvie to Sturges. Sturges did not help matters when he explained he had “just been telling them to vote for a Labor bloke”. According to Sue Neales of The Mercury, “much more likely to be the intended target of his lovely message to voters that only the ‘blokes’ count is Sturgo’s fellow Labor minister in Denison, Lisa Singh”.

• Michael Stedman of the Sunday Tasmanian reports an ad by Labor Lyons candidate Rebecca White, “poking fun at the elder statesmen of her own party”, went “viral” on YouTube. The ad prompted two long-serving Labor incumbents in Lyons, David Llewellyn and Michael Polley, to complain to David Bartlett – and it now appears to have been discreetly dropped from White’s You Tube page.

• The Mercury this week carried reports of unpleasant behaviour by Labor Braddon MP Brenton Best after his daughter was dropped from an amateur theatre production for failing to attend dress rehearsals due to illness. Best reportedly threatened to sue the Hobart Music Theatre Summer School, and told the director of the program he would “sort him out”. David Bartlett said after discussion with Best he was satisfied he had not acted inappropriately, but The Mercury later reported the director’s account had been confirmed by a teacher who was present.

• Labor Denison MP was red-faced last week after reporters overheard her complaining of media reaction to the party’s asbestos policy announcement: “This is a f**king good policy, why do they always have to f**king pick negatives”. While this has prompted much tut-tutting, and was followed by an apology from Singh, I would expect voters to be more struck a politician being so so passionately convinced of the merits of their policy than by the fact that they chose to swear in private.

As before, this thread can be used for general discussion of the Tasmanian election campaign.

Highlights, such as they are, of week two:

• Mike Rann has said he is prepared to have another debate with Isobel Redmond following Wednesday’s encounter, dispensing with the campaign strategy rule which says incumbents should agree to one debate early in the campaign only to prove they’re not spooked by their opponent. Redmond has responded by calling for an “old-style town hall public meeting” in a regional area. Wednesday’s debate was screened on Channel Ten at the difficult time of 5.30pm, and seems to have been highlighted by an apology from Mike Rann to Michelle Chantelois and her family for any distress their friendship may have caused. Like most debates it was universally perceieved as a nil-all draw, although Michael Owen of The Australian reckoned a sharp-dressed Redmond scored a style win over Rann, who was “a victim of the Ten Network make-up artist and looked drawn and washed-out”. Chat on ABC Mornings with Matthew Abraham and David Bevan suggests he may have been suffering a cold.

• Pia Akerman of The Australian reports Isobel Redmond has “revived Liberal plans for a new hospital in the Barossa Valley, bolstering her bid for key marginal seats in the region”. Redmond announced $35 million would be spent on a new 55-bed hospital at Tanunda, on which they promised to spend $12 million in their unsuccessful bid for re-election in 2002. This would replace existing hospitals at Angaston and Tanunda (47 beds between them), which would respectively be demolished and converted into an aged care facility. While located in safe Liberal Schubert, the 30 kilometre radius it would serve covers parts of Light (Labor 2.4 per cent) and Stuart (Liberal 0.4 per cent). Health Minister John Hill complains the funding comes from the $1 billion the Liberals say they will save by rebuilding Royal Adelaide Hospital, a figure the government hotly disputes. The government is “yet to release departmental findings on the business case for a new hospital in the Barossa”.

• ABC Mornings presenters Matthew Abraham and David Bevan complain that after successfully staging candidates debates for Hartley and Mawson in week one, this week they have been rebuffed or had no response from Labor’s Morialta MP Lindsay Simmons, Norwood MP Vini Ciccarello, Mitchell candidate Alan Sibbons and Unley candidate Vanessa Vartto.

• The Labor launch on Sunday was light on for showpiece election commitments, being highlighted by a vague promise that 100,000 extra jobs would be created over six years. This would be achieved with help from $194 million on 62,600 extra training places and apprenticeships. Michael Owen of The Australian noted this “mirrored a re-election promise by Anna Bligh a year ago”, although the time-frame then was three years. The Liberal launch will be held on Sunday.

• Mike Rann has given the federal government’s health plans the most enthusiastic response out of the state premiers, saying he was “prepared to strongly support the direction of these reforms”. Isobel Redmond said she “would not be interested in handing over our health system to a federal Labor Government that has so badly mismanaged the home insulation scheme”.

• The odds on a Liberal win have narrowed, albeit from a high base: Centrebet is now offering $3.60 compared with a starting price of $4.50.

UPDATE (6/3/2010): Nominations having closed yesterday, the election guide has now been updated with full candidate lists in ballot paper orders, photos for all major candidate and campaign updates. Antony Green offers a systematic overview of nominations by party (South Australia’s fairly liberal party registration laws being what they are, there are a couple of little-heralded minor parties in the mix). Labor has got the better of the ballot paper draw in Bright, Hartley, Light, Newland and Stuart, while the Liberals have been favoured in Mawson, Morialta and Norwood. The Liberals have the top position in Mitchell, which is bad news for independent member Kris Hanna; Chaffey favours Karlene Maywald over Liberal candidate Tim Whetstone; and Frome favours Liberal candidate Terry Boylan over independent member Geoff Brock.

UPDATE: Full results here, including nifty Flash display of results. Greens down three to 9 per cent. Tony Abbott is up three points on preferred prime minister to 30 per cent – the first time in the Rudd era it’s had a three in front of it, as noted in comments – while Rudd is steady on 55 per cent. Abbott’s also up four points on approval to 48 per cent, though disapproval is also up one to 38 per cent. Rudd has recovered a point from last fortnight’s approval low of 50 per cent, with disapproval steady on 40 per cent.

Today’s Essential Research has Labor’s lead at a new low of 53-47, down from 54-46 last week and 55-45 a week before. A question gauging Kevin Rudd and Tony Abbott’s attributes records little change since December, while other questions find hostility towards population growth and support for means testing the private health insurance rebate.

Have I got news for you. From New South Wales:

• Simon Benson of the Daily Telegraph reports Labor’s national executive is expected to abandon plans to impose its preferred candidate to succeed Bob Debus in Macquarie, instead allowing the matter to be decided by a rank-and-file ballot. This is a win for the Anthony Albanese Left over the Mark Arbib Right, as it is believed the former’s preferred candidate, Susan Templeman, has the numbers in the local branches. A national executive imposition would have installed Blue Mountains mayor Adam Searle, who in the past has been identified with the “soft Left” but is evidently backed in the current instance by the Right. Searle was previously thwarted in his bid to succeed Debus as state member for Blue Mountains when Debus drafted Phil Koperberg. Benson paints Templeman and Robertson nominee Deb O’Neill as part of a move to follow the Howard-era Liberal strategy of having marginal seats contested by “soccer mums” rather than professional politicians.

• Labor Right faction convenor Matt Thistlethwaite will quit his position as New South Wales party secretary after the federal election and seek preselection for the Senate. Imre Salusinszky of The Australian reports Thistlethwaite’s current position has become untenable after he lost the confidence of Luke Foley, deputy secretary and member of the Left, plus many on the Right when he “moved against Mr Rees last December but then backed NSW Environment Minister Frank Sartor for the premiership rather than the eventual winner, Kristina Keneally”. He will be succeeded in his current position by 27-year-old Sam Dastyari, a protéegé of Employment Participation Minister and Right faction heavyweight Mark Arbib. The evident certainty that Thistlethwaite will secure second postion on the Senate ticket behind John Faulkner means Graeme Wedderburn will not get the Senate seat he was promised when lured from the private sector to serve as chief-of-staff to Nathan Rees. In either event, the seat was to come at the expense of one of two incumbents: Steve Hutchins or Michael Forshaw.

• Labor sources tell Imre Salusinszky of The Australian that Robertson MP Belinda Neal has suffered a blow in her bid to survive Saturday’s preselection challenge from academic Deborah O’Neill, as 2005 attendance and membership records from the Woy Woy branch cannot be located. The branch is considered loyal to Neal, and the records are necessary to establish that members have attended meetings for at least four years, as required of preselectors by party rules. The sources say this could cost her up to 40 votes in a ballot of about 150 preselectors.

• Belinda Scott of the Central Coast Advocate reports Labor’s unsuccessful candidate for Cowper in 1998 and 2007, training consultant Paul Sefky, has expressed interest in running again. Sefky appears to harbour a grudge against the paper for its reporting of the manner in which he replaced local area health service worker John Fitzroy as candidate two months out from the 2007 election.

• Ben Smee of the Newcastle Herald reports Health Services Union organiser and former ambulance officer Jim Arneman has won Labor preselection for Paterson unopposed. Arneman was also the candidate in 2007, when he fell 1.5 per cent short of toppling Liberal incumbent Bob Baldwin. The redistribution cut the margin to 0.4 per cent.

• State upper house member Robyn Parker has been confirmed as Liberal candidate for the lower house seat of Maitland. Michelle Harris of the Newcastle Herald reports rival candidates Bob Geoghegan and Stephen Mudd, of Maitland City Council, and Brad Luke, of Newcastle City Council, withdrew ahead of the preselection meeting last Saturday. Maitland mayor Peter Blackmore says he will decide soon whether to run again as an independent, after falling 2.0 per cent short of toppling the now retiring Labor member Frank Terenzini.

• Reporting in the aftermath of last week’s preselection win by upper house member David Clarke against challenger David Elliott, Andrew Clennell of the Sydney Morning Herald said Elliott’s supporters were aggrieved at moderate elements, in particular Fahey government minister Michael Photios, for encouraging him to stay in the race so as to give the faction leverage in other preselection battles. Such leverage was used to secure preselection for Greg Pearce in the upper house and Robyn Parker in Maitland, in exchange for moderate support for Clarke at the expense of Elliott.

From Queensland:

• Nathan Paull of the Townsville Bulletin reports the Labor preselection for Herbert will be determined in the normal fashion, by a ballot divided between rank-and-file members and a central electoral committee, apparently following the intervention of Right faction powerbroker Bill Ludwig. This comes as a blow to former mayor Tony Mooney, who has the backing of the Prime Minister and was looking set to take the position on the intervention of the national executive. Emma Chalmers of the Courier-Mail reports Townsville councillor Jenny Hill is “believed to have more backers” in the local party than Mooney. John Anderson of the Townsville Bulletin reports that the Left has been directed (by whom he does not say) to fall in behind Mooney, despite the faction’s long-standing antagonism towards him. The candidate from 2007, local McDonald’s franchisor George Colbran, is yet to decide whether to nominate.

• The Whitsunday Times reports former Whitsunday Shire councillor Louise Mahony has expressed an interest in Labor preselection for Dawson, which James Bidgood is vacating after one term as member for health reasons. Whitsunday Regional Mayor Mike Brunker has ruled himself out. The Liberal National Party endorsed Mackay regional councillor George Christensen in November.

• An “LNP insider” tells Russel Guse of the Central Telegraph that Ken O’Dowd, owner of Busteed Building Supplies in Gladstone, is expected to be a candidate for preselection in Flynn, following the withdrawal last month of Colin Bourke for “personal reasons”.

• Emma Chalmers of the Courier-Mail reports Labor preselection in Ryan loom as a contest between Steven Miles and Martin Hanson of the Right, the latter being favoured by Rudd but the former apparently having the edge in the branches.

From the Australian Capital Territory:

• James Massola of the Canberra Times rpeorts Jenny Hargreaves, a public servant with the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare and wife of former ACT minister John Hargreaves, is considered likely to win the Centre Coalition faction’s endorsement for Labor preselection in Canberra. His rivals are Michael Cooney, chief-of-staff to ACT Education Minister Andrew Barr, and Gai Brodtmann, who runs communications firm Brodtmann & Uhlmann Communications and is married to ABC reporter Chris Uhlmann. Massola says Hargreaves is a friend of the present incumbent, Annette Ellis, and is believed to be close to securing her endorsement. CFMEU industrial officer Louise Crossman has won the endorsement from the Left, and David Garner and Brendan Long are the main competitors for the endorsement of the Right, but it is the Centre Coalition which is believed likely to be decisive. Massola reports Hargreaves’ nomination points to a breakdown in relations between John Hargreaves and Andrew Barr, who are both figures in the Centre Coalition.

• In the ACT’s other seat of Fraser, to be vacated by Bob McMullan, Nick Martin is said to be the favourite after winning endorsement from the Left; George Williams has the backing of Labor Unity (not to mention Malcolm Fraser); and David Peebles and Chris Sant are the front-runners for the Centre Coalition. The preselection for both seats is likely to be determined in late April.

From Victoria:

• After a traumatic final term in parliament, ALP Victorian upper house member for Northern Metropolitan Theo Theophanous has made a surprise decision to quit parliament nine months before the election. His vacancy will be filled by Nathan Murphy, plumbers’ union official and ally of Bill Shorten, who had already been preselected for the election.

UPDATE (1/3/10): Here’s a turn-up: a Morgan phone poll on Victorian state voting intention. Unfortunately, it has a sample of only 407 and a margin-of-error of nearly 5 per cent. That’s as well for Labor, as it has the Coalition with a 50.5-49.5 lead on two-party preferred, from primary votes of 37.5 per cent for Labor, 44.5 per cent for the Coalition and 11.5 per cent for the Greens. Curiously, the poll was conducted over a 12-day period from February 17-28.

Highlights of week one:

• Mike Smithson writes in today’s Sunday Mail that Liberal tracking polling of six marginal seats had them 48-52 behind in October, 51-49 ahead a month ago and 53-47 ahead 11 days ago. Leaving aside the trend, the meaning of these figures depends entirely on what the six seats are, which we are not told. If it’s the six most marginal Labor seats, it points to a swing of about 7.5 per cent on the latest figure: enough to cost Labor seven seats, which would reduce them to 21 seats out of 48. “The rumour on the street”, says Smithson, is that Labor polling tells a similar story. Curiously, Smithson’s line in last week’s column was that Mawson, Hartley and Newland would be “retained by Labor and that’s that”. Norwood, Light and Chaffey were rated “strong possibilities” for the Liberals, along with independent-held Frome and Mount Gambier, but Morialta was “still a better than an even chance” for Labor. Smithson also believed Labor were an outside chance in Liberal-held Stuart and Unley and independent-held Mitchell.

• Greg Kelton of The Advertiser wrote a week ago that Liberal polling gave them “a very strong chance of winning Newland, Mawson, Light and Morialta”. Labor is reportedly “banking” on picking up Mitchell from independent Kris Hanna, which could be a perverse consequence of a Liberal resurgence relegating Hanna to third place and denying him a win on Liberal preferences. UPDATE (1/3): Today Kelton reports Labor is pessimistic about Morialta, Newland and Light, but more bullish about Hartley and Bright.

• The formal announcement of the campaign came days after Mike Rann announced a plan to resolve Adelaide’s signature infrastructure headache by duplicating the Southern Expressway. This presently runs one way towards the city in the morning before changing direction for the afternoon. Rann trumped the opposition in making the surprise announcement last Wednesday, which had planned to make a similar promise later in the day. Greg Kelton of The Advertiser reports Isobel Redmond had somehow “fluffed an opportunity to get in first” during a radio interview in the morning, “despite prompting from her staff”. Labor’s $445 million costing for the project ($370 million for the duplication, with the remainder to be spent on the Darlington interchange) compelled the Liberals to recalculate their own sums, which reportedly had it at $270 million. Shadow Finance Minister Rob Lucas was sent out to “take one for the party” (in the words of a Liberal source quoted by Greg Kelton) by announcing that while Labor’s Labor’s promise would be matched, further details would not be forthcoming until later in the campaign. Isobel Redmond was apparently unable to do so because of “other engagements”, while Shadow Treasurer Steven Griffiths was “believed to be in Maitland”. The confusion in the Liberal camp let Labor off the hook over a statement made by Transport Minister Patrick Conlon seven months ago that the cost of the project – then put at $280 million – was more than the government could afford. The most sensitive marginal seats serviced by the expressway are Mawson and Bright, along with Mitchell which Labor hopes to recover from independent Kris Hanna. Transport Minister Pat Conlon has further sought to concentrate the electorate advantage by promising quotas on the employment of workers on the project, which will require that 750 out of 1500 come from the southern suburbs, and another 200 be workers who are young or from “other disadvantaged groups”. However, he concedes this unwieldy sounding policy does not come with an “iron-clad guarantee”.

• Staying in the general area, the Prime Minister joined Mike Rann yesterday in promising an $18 million overpass to improve safety at the intersection of Victor Harbor Road and Main Road in McLaren Vale, located in the marginal seat of Mawson.

• Renato Castello of the Sunday Mail reports the government hurried through a rezoning at Gawler Racecourse shortly before it went into caretaker mode, allowing for development of a 4.3 hectare shopping centre and office development. It is unclear how clever an idea this is vis-a-vis the knife-edge marginal of Light, as the development is opposed by a local council that believes it will divert trade from downtown Gawler.

• Mike Rann went to Port Augusta on Thursday to promote $18.2 million of local spending on the mining industry and a promised $5 million sporting complex, presumably in a bid to keep the heat on the Liberals in Stuart.

• During an ABC Radio debate with Hartley Labor MP Grace Portolesi, Liberal candidate Joe Scalzi gamely voiced support for anti-abortion corflutes which have appeared around Adelaide courtesy of independent upper house candidate Trevor Grace. The posters, which feature a premature baby’s disfigured head, are the subject of an investigation by the Advertising Standards Bureau.

• Vickie Chapman has complained to the Electoral Commission about a newsletter in which Labor MP Vini Ciccarello claims credit for two projects in Kensington. The projects are actually located in Chapman’s seat of Bragg, but are to be transferred to Ciccarello’s seat of Norwood as a result of the redistribution.

• Port Adelaide mayor and Liberal Party member Gary Johanson says he is considering running as an independent against Deputy Premier and Treasurer Kevin Foley in Port Adelaide. Coalition for the Protection of Racehorses SA campaign co-ordinator Colin Thomas, who polled 8.8 per cent as Greens candidate in federal Port Adelaide in 2007, will run as an independent against Racing Minister Michael Wright in Lee.

• Former Democrats MLC Sandra Kanck has re-emerged as an election candidate, albeit in the radically unwinnable third position on the party’s upper house ticket. The lead candidate is Jeanie Walker, followed by Tom Salerno.

• After long-running and uninteresting stand-off between the two parties, which at one point had broadcaster Channel Ten threatening to withdraw, the leaders debate has been set for Wednesday.