(Image: Private Media)

Marshalling the troops The fairly solid kicking received by the one-term Liberal government of Steven Marshall has led to a great deal of soul searching in certain sections of Australian conservative politics. Gray Connolly, the Institute of Public Affairs’ Gideon Rozner, and the commentary pages of The Australian all offered their diagnosis of what it means, while federal Libs like Scott Morrison and Simon Birmingham are — unsurprisingly — pretty confident in concluding it doesn’t mean anything much at all.

But here’s one detail we’d suggest should be fairly high up on the list of what not to do next time: don’t gerrymander your own senior MPs out of their seats.

While deposed premier Marshall has stood down from his role with his seat still in jeopardy, his former deputy Dan van Holst Pellekaan has already lost his previously very safe regional seat of Stuart. A redistribution in 2020 moved former popular independent Geoff Brock’s hometown of Port Pirie from his electorate of Frome into Stuart — Brock followed it, and a massive swing his way ousted van Holst Pellekaan. In the aftermath, it was picked up by InDaily‘s Tom Richardson that this change was suggested to 2020 Boundaries Commission by … none other than the South Australian Liberal Party:

We’re not suggesting for a second the redistribution wasn’t the right thing to do, but surely you could have no greater indication of just how disastrous the election has been for the Libs that they may well see their leadership severed, and this may at least partly be self-imposed.

It’s a coal world Prime Minister Scott Morrison yesterday announced a suite of new aid to Ukraine, as well as sanctions on Russia — we’re pleased to see our recommendation that Australia cease exporting Russia alumina has been taken up. However, and we don’t doubt for a second that it was sincerely requested by the Ukrainian government, one detail did stand out: could there conceivably be a more Scott Morrison move than sending 70,000 tonnes of coal in aid? “It’s our coal. We dug it up … we put it on the ship and we’re sending it there to Ukraine to help power up their resistance.”

Putin down the fork Russian President Vladimir Putin is apparently afraid of meeting the same fate as, say, Alexander Litvinenko, a former FSB agent turned prominent Putin critic, or former Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter. He is, according to various sources, terrified of being poisoned. He’s apparently hired a food tester and, if that wasn’t enough of a “paranoid megalomaniac” move, in February allegedly fired and replaced his entire 1000-person staff of cooks, launderers, secretaries and bodyguards.

As it happens, we were wondering what that gargantuan 40-foot table was about…