Further to O’Connor and Wilson Tuckey’s fate – ALL the parties are giving the Nats first preference ahead of the libs and labour, including the CDP.

Tuckey called this a ‘conspiracy’ in the Albany Advertiser on the Thursday before the elections. However, it may have something to do with his personality. He’s declared that he reckons there will be plenty of leakage from the Greens giving their 2nd preference to Labour instead of following the How to Vote card. But ask yourself this – what Green vote is going to resist the temptation to oust Tuckey against the long shot of a 21 year old ALP neophyte?

There will be some leakage from the Green HTV card but all the other minor candidates are preferencing the Nats ahead of the libs and nearly all these candidates represent various right wing causes. So there’s no reason why their voters won’t follow the card. As someone pointed out the CDP votes alone are enough to put the Nats ahead of Labour (and hence the Labour prefs go to the Nats) – if we assume the CDP prefs go 100% to the Nats that leaves the Nat candidate 2139 votes behind Tuckey. The Greens have 4200 votes to be distributed and there’s 3900 odd minor party/ind. preferences all of which have how to vote cards going to the Nats. Only 75-80% of these votes need to go to the Nats to beat Tuckey by my reckoning!

Mind you there are still 7 booths to be counted including postals and absentees etc. But anybody who thinks this show is over – is kidding themselves IMHO.

Im not sure there are any sites left up about him anymore but the wheels of justice turn very slowly and I guess thats what motivates people. I keep hearing that the Police are going to be turning up on his door step any day but alas nothing happens.

CHEESEMAN, Darren; ALP; 40,305 votes; 50.48%
McARTHUR, Stewart; Liberal; 39,538 votes; 49.52%

anyone willing to comment on the likelihood of Macarthur making a late comeback?

LCP gains 54.09% of 2PP counted votes since Sat midnight till Today 5.30PM
(of the 2PP 440,313 2PP counted votes)

William , is there any reason for this trend ?

The public-service axeing announcement lost some votes, among younger age-groups unfortunately.

These younger people, and lower-level public servants are/were terrified and have been for months. They are also more likely to have been cushioned or protected from the real politicisation by their mid-level managers, and also more likely to be in that nervous mortgage-belter demographic.

Also, as in any heirarchical organisation, there are more people at the bottom of the organisation, than at the top.

Labor did make a mistake in that announcement, mostly because it alienated the younger age-group vote and mortgage-belt demographic. It was these young voters, and ANU student voters, (many of which would be looking for careers post-graduation in the PS) who were supposed to help elect Kerrie Tucker by turning to the Greens, and also running on the back of Rudd’s popularity with the “youth vote” nationally. Labor?? Don’t scare the children! LOL

Middle-level older ones (and some SES) who went through the before and after the tsunami of 96, and especially those who remember working under previous Labor too, have been praying for a Labor victory for 4 freaking looooong elections, in order to get on with the job of developing sensible national policies, programs and service-planning, and know that its the old-guard SES that gets most culled.

Some of the small and medium business sector alienated as well, because they are dependent on local clients. If you sack too many public servants, as Howard did in 96, it causes a “ripple effect” onto the local city micro-economy.

Restaurants, entertainment, shopping centres, clothing stores, garden supplies – you-name-it etc… everybody sees a downturn in business, as they sure did in 96, and it *hurt*. Many businesses went to the wall and fell like dominoes within weeks. Took several years for the city’s business community to recover, and Rudd’s announcement might have sent a shock-wave through some of these sectors.

I certainly remember how the real-estate market plummeted so suddenly and my house was suddenly worth 20% less than the insured replacement value!

Labor also did not campaign much in the ACT at all, being ’safe’ it was left alone as it usually is, but Liberals did more than they usually do, and they targeted both the “grey vote”, as well as the younger nervous mortgage-belters on housing affordability, in our own outer suburban housing developments. (Yes, Canberra does have them too!)

True but either way we should be open to idea of a woman as PM, but Gillard i don’t think would wash well with the electorate and who knows about Julie Bishop.

Glen, during the campaign she washed pretty well with the voters. That is why the ALP used her so much. Get used to it. She’s not a liability. Nor is Swan for that matter.

...I’m not at all surprised that Maggie Beer is on the side of the angels.

If memory serves me correct, Robert, Maggie was actually one of many that was inspired by Don Dunstan.

What a dill that Foley was/is. If he wanted a celeb candidate and she was willing to run, she’d ave won it in a canter.

Yeah, there’s a pong about postals.

I think its about time the lack of anonymity was looked at. The RAA (SA auto club) provides two envelopes with its postal ballots. You place the ballot paper in the unmarkd one which then goes into the outer addressed one which has your name, membership number etc. Once these are checked the inner envelope is removed and tossed into a pile with the others before being opened so maintaining anonymity. OTOH, the AEC person opening postal ballots knows who you are and can check who you voted for. Not good enough, IMHO.

Given Margaret Fulton’s recent revelation that she used to be in the Communist Party

OMG! Better get mum to shred her stack of old Women’s Weeklys and MF cookbooks before ASIO start taking an interest!

marky marky Says:
November 27th, 2007 at 11:39 pm

Where are these Libs meeting in a telephone booth?

This is actually a silly comment. The Liberal party actually came out of it quite well, I truly thought it was the end of the party and quite angry about the damage done by the right wing nutters and liberals like me who didn’t get involved in politics and face them. The position is a little worse than the low point of the labor party but not much. You may have noticed the labor party came back with centralist policies and took government in every state and federally. If Turnbell gets the leadership, moderate liberals rejoin the party and good candidate material comes forward there is some hope of the liberals once again taking control of the party and government.

At the moment the Federal Labor party has one big strength and weakness, Rudd. If anything happens to Rudd politically then I think Labor will be in trouble. As a deputy Gillard is to be admired (very capable and astute women), but I doubt she could run the show ( but I wouldn’t put money on it).

On the other hand, if Rudd survives ( as I believe he will) he will probable be crowned the best liberal prime minister Australia has had ( I believe the crown is currently held by Keating, I know some would argue Hawk). Howard was a right wing reactionary prime minister who had very little respect for our institutions, if your into that sort of thing I am sure he is the best of the set, but as I know very little of Australian politics pre war I am not in a position to judge.

The problem for the Liberal party is Rudd may end up being the longest serving prime minster. However I can’t see labor surviving in all states if the Liberal party put up viable alternatives. The NSW labor government is a mess ( unfortunately the Liberal party is a bigger mess) and the Victorian Labor government carries a lot of baggage ( Brumby however may hold it together), the Liberal party in Victoria is in a OK state.

Nothing is certain in politics.

I hope Rudd gives them the reception they deserve (wishful thinking I know).