Comments on: Gaven by-election preview

By: sarah

sarah — Sat, 29 Apr 2006 00:52:00 +0000

We have a friend who was Joh’s prisoner. He was corrupt and proven. He has no right nor does his family, to have access to State funds, he was just an old German. Imagine that: A GERMAN AND A KIWI- You couldn’t get more evil than that..
He was an evil man. Corrupt (and its a FACT) and people had no real understanding of his nature. BAD BLOOD.

By: William Bowe

William Bowe — Sun, 23 Apr 2006 04:11:11 +0000

Spam hits comments threads as well as email, and I’ve been a bit lazy weeding it out lately. Bryan Palmer gets so much that he moderates all comments before letting them through, and I fear it may end up that way here one day.

By: Politics_Obsessed

Politics_Obsessed — Sun, 23 Apr 2006 00:55:20 +0000

What’s with the random people advertising blogs?

By: Moose

Moose — Tue, 04 Apr 2006 03:03:12 +0000

I know several people who vote Liberal Federally and Labor in Qld but since the Dr Death they are all adamant that they will not vote for Beattie again, they are generally angry at him as they are usually Liberal voters but have given him a chance, two of these people commented that Beattie’s comments after his weekend defeat in Gaven angered them even more, saying that the people have no faith in Nationals when they won the seat and they Labor did not do that bad and then gave his trademark Grin!. I don’t Springborg would be a better Premier than Beattie but by God I will be offering my services to any Conservative Party at next years election. I want to see Beattie and his incompentant Labor fails be given a Bloody nose, I am not sure that Beattie could lose Government in 2007 but I predict a Blood Bath and then the Nats & Libs will have quality MP’s (Doctors, Lawyers etc) not like Labor (Unions Officals & Party Hacks) then the Tory’s will win in 2010.

By: Glen Ryman

Glen Ryman — Mon, 03 Apr 2006 22:48:37 +0000

There is a pretty clear distinction between booths north of Nerang Forest (Pac Pines, Oxenford, Gaven) and those south (the Nerang booths).

Bicentennial Hall is a little different in that it is convenient to for people to drive south from Gaven (the suburb) as well as from parts of Nerang. It is also on the Nerang-Southport Road near the M1 motorway, which means that it is also a traveller’s booth. I suspect many of the “tree-changers” driving to the coast from the hinterland behind Nerang forest would use this booth.

Also, this was the venue for two “Meet the Candidate” nights and voters who saw the candidates speak may come back to vote. This would explain the higher votes for the non-majors.

So it is hard to make clear demographic assumptions about this one.

By: William Bowe

William Bowe — Mon, 03 Apr 2006 12:08:27 +0000

Any thoughts on Bicentennial Hall, Glen? It was the first proper booth that came in and based on preferences from 2004, the swing was less than 4 per cent. I called it as “a very encouraging result for Labor” at the time, but it was their last bit of good news all evening. It was your best booth as well, both in terms of the swing and the total vote (unless you count the Brisbane booth with its 29 votes).

By: Glen Ryman

Glen Ryman — Mon, 03 Apr 2006 11:53:43 +0000

I should add, with the exception of the Bicentennial Hall booth. This one is a special case.

By: Glen Ryman

Glen Ryman — Mon, 03 Apr 2006 11:50:26 +0000

I think that the “Just Vote 1″ campaign this time was a poor strategy. Daren’s best booth’s were also the ALP’s best booths on a two party preferred basis. I think if they had layed off on that message, they might have picked up a few more prefs from him. It is also possible that the “Vote 1″ message resonated with a few of our voters. More likely, our voters looked at the cruise ship development issue and other stalled Green initatives within the electorate and made their own minds up about preferences.

By: William Bowe

William Bowe — Mon, 03 Apr 2006 11:16:40 +0000

Not entirely, Steve. I could speculate that they thought the message would only be heeded to those it was directed at, i.e. Labor's own voters. It is true that previous elections suggest that a "just vote one" message has a broad educative effect for voters who otherwise might not have realised they had the option, but I would suggest that the voters most likely to take this on board are the alienated voters who support independents or One Nation types (who would probably be more likely to preference the Coalition if forced to) rather than the Greens. Greens voters are more politically engaged and inclined to maximise their vote by directing a preference, which the party goes to great lengths to encourage them to do. Also, it should be noted that all the non-Greens minor candidates were conservative, and the total preferences split about evenly. Finally, Labor probably figures that the strategy has always served them well in the past, so why should they stop now.

By: Steve

Steve — Sun, 02 Apr 2006 09:24:51 +0000

Hi PB,
Can you offer any explanation for the ALP’s large (and I suspect expensive) Just Vote 1 hand out and strategy in Gaven. Considering they had Green preferences why would have wanted a large proportion of the non-major parties vote to extinguish and play into the conservatives hands?
Regards