It is no exaggeration to say the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) represents a new era for modern astronomy.

Launched on December 25 last year and fully operational since July, the telescope offers glimpses of the universe that were inaccessible to us before. Like the Hubble Space Telescope, the JWST is in space, so it can take pictures with stunning detail free from the distortions of Earth’s atmosphere.

However, while Hubble is in orbit around Earth at an altitude of 540km, the JWST is 1.5 million kilometres distant, far beyond the Moon. From this position, away from the interference of our planet’s reflected heat, it can collect light from across the universe far into the infrared portion of the electromagnetic spectrum.

Read more on The Conversation.

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The October 7 attacks and subsequent war in Gaza have stirred deep feelings all over the world and Australia is no exception, with few aspects of Australian public life completely unscathed by the conflict. To say that opinions on the topic are deeply felt and sharply divided is quite an understatement. Many organisations, for good reasons or bad, have tried to walk a middle ground, but have found that their constituencies unsatisfied or downright furious with any equivocation.

Politics, of course, is where this is most keenly relevant. The Labor government have tried to toe the line of supporting Israel without quite giving them complete carte blanche to flatten Gaza, but their failure to wholeheartedly condemn Israel’s bombing campaign (let alone acts such as abstaining from UN votes calling for truce) has been seen by many, especially in the Muslim community, as giving tacit approval to genocide.

Many MPs will be wrestling with both their consciences and party rooms as this bloody war continues. All politics is, of course local, and for those that have a significant Jewish or Muslim constituency getting the balance right will feel more politically existential. The anger towards Labor in the Muslim community in particular is boiling over, with Victorian and NSW Muslim organisations taking the extraordinary step of boycotting government Iftar dinners, urging their members to stay away. This rift is heart-felt and sincere and will take a long time to heal. But will there be electoral consequences?

Labor’s vote is strong in the Muslim community. Of the 15 federal seats with greater than an 8% Muslim population, Labor holds all of them (and the next one is held by Dai Le, an independent). There is significant correlation between the number of households identifying as Muslim and the Labor primary vote:

However, it's in the more marginal seats where the incumbents might be a little concerned. There are 14 seats where the number of Muslims exceeds Labor's margin. Of course, it would be silly to suggest that the entire Muslim population of a seat would en masse and to a person shift away from Labor; for a start, they would to find a better option somewhere else. But in a seat like Bennelong, held with less than a 1% margin, even a 3% Muslim population disaffected with Labour could make the job of retaining the seat harder if there is a swing against the Government.

The seats where the percentage of Muslim households exceeds Labor's margin. Click for the numbers.

With Peter Dutton at the Coalition helm, Labor may well take solace in the fact that the opposition are likely to be seen as less appealing to most Muslim voters, regardless of what Labor says or does on Palestine. However, among the above-mentioned 14 seats, one may be different, as there the ALP are competing with the Greens instead of the Coalition. Could this one issue prove decisive in this seat?

Wills

On paper Wills is not very marginal, with the Greens needing an 8% swing to take Bob Hawke's old stronghold from Labor's Peter Khalil. However, it would be a brave Labor who took Wills for granted. In the past, they could count on a primary vote well over 50% and a two-party preferred (2PP) result in the 70% range. Labor's hold on the seat has been steadily weakening, with the primary now in the 30s and relying on Liberal preferences to get the over the line at the last hurdle.

if the Greens mount a serious campaign, supported by the tailwind of demographic change, it's not hard to imagine them getting back to the high water mark of (now Greens' state leader) Samantha Ratnam's 2016 result, when a 11% swing brought the margin to under 5%.

With Brunswick now Greens heartland territory, the ALP relies on the "hipster-proof fence" - the different demographics of the seat's north - to hold the line. As the map below shows, the seat's Muslim population are concentrated in this region, which represents untapped territory for Greens' gains. The Greens primary vote at Brunswick East Primary school in 2022 was 47%; at Fawkner Primary School it was 14%, with the ALP on 44%. There's a lot of room for growth there.

So, should Labor indeed fear that this issue is a vote-changer -- and the iftar affair suggests it might be -- they will be leery of Greens campaigners shaking hands and knocking doors north of Bell Street. If the Greens put up a strong candidate and campaign intelligently in the North, we can expect to see a Labor-aligned independent (or two) running to bring back some of the lost first preferences back to Labor.

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There is a sentiment I think is widely felt among progressive Australians: why can’t Labor and the Greens work together instead of this constant bloody squabbling? Conflict is dispiriting, but it’s inspiring to imagine the two parties somehow joining forces. A new and vigorous political movement that could smash the disunited and increasingly aimless conservatives.

Of course, there are a few problems with this scenario.

Read more in The Guardian.

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As the 12 new senators who took their seats last week are finding out, being a member of Parliament brings with it both perks and liabilities. Along with the comcar, a plush seat inside the chamber and the discreet lapel pin (red for senators, green for reps) that all 226 MPs receive comes another certainty: a steady stream of lobbyists through the door. I witnessed this during three years as a political staffer dealing with lobbyists of all stripes.

The return on your lobbying dollar starts with getting in the MP’s door. The most reliable way to get a meeting is to know somebody within the MPs or minister’s office and call in a personal favour. This is a key reason why former staffers make such attractive recruits to government relations agencies, especially those with contacts inside the current government. (The door swings both ways, by the way — lobbyists also show up on ministerial staffs.) Other tactics employed by the pros include holding morning teas, meals or cocktail events in Parliament House.

Read more in Crikey.

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Your alarm goes off at 5am. As you slowly come to groggy consciousness, you feel the sense of subdued panic that greets you every morning. You regret staying up until midnight waiting for the online papers to change over, but after watching Lateline you were too wired to sleep anyway. Before you even open your eyes, you try to make sense of what the radio announcer is saying as you reach for your phone to scan the headlines. The professional in you hopes there is a big story and you can start the ring around of breakfast and talkback radio. Another part of you longs for a quiet day and a tap of the snooze button.

Welcome to the life of a parliamentary media adviser. The people who live this lifestyle — if you could call it that — are among the most numerous and influential in the corridors of power. Their purpose is to shape the information you consume and to slant your thinking towards their tribe. It is a constantly changing, moment-to-moment existence, and everything that happens in Parliament House revolves around them one way or another.

Read more in Crikey.

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There’s a reason prime ministers avoid calling elections too close to grand final weekend. For all the attention on federal politics right now, Australians take their sport much more seriously. Collingwood Football club alone has more members than any political party, nationwide. Although millions of us will vote for the parties on election day, when it comes to signing on the dotted line and stumping up the cash, it’s the Blues versus Collingwood, rather than Labor versus Liberal, that motivates us to become joiners.

It wasn’t always this way. Politics used to be truly a mass movement. There was a time when every thinking adult must have considered picking a team. Nowadays, those of us carrying a membership card are few and far between and getting rarer every year. Membership in both the ALP and Liberal parties peaked mid-last century at about 350,000 members. At today’s population, that would be something like a million members each. In reality, both the major parties have memberships estimated at about 50,000. (The parties no longer publish membership numbers, presumably out of embarrassment.)

Read more in The Age.

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