The standout finding of a very interesting post-election Newspoll survey of 1125 voters is a question on preferred Liberal leader: 34 per cent responded for Turnbull, just 18 per cent for Nelson and 14 per cent for Julie Bishop, with the optimistic Tony Abbott on 9 per cent. Rudd predictably is streets ahead of Brendan Nelson as preferred prime minister, leading 61 per cent to 14 per cent (91 per cent to 1 per cent among Labor voters).
Reflections on the Miracle of Democracy at Work in the Greatest Nation on Earth
1,259 Comments
would have been interesting to see whether nelson had an immediate impact on the TPP
The other result that jumps out at me is the 53% of people who state they’d chosen who they would vote for more than six months before the election. This was a 14% increase on 2004 (effectively matched by a 15% drop in people who nominated any date up to one month before the election). That pretty much sums up the result: people decided early that they were over Howard and the Coalition, and anything that happened in the campaign was just background noise.
Probably a drop, given his PPM rating! Anecdotally, I know more than one person who voted Liberal who’ve said they’d prefer Rudd to Nelson (largely because of the “intelligent design” fiasco).
I bet the line of Nelson being a “political hermaphrodite” that a read in one of the weekend papers has the potential to be damaging. It has the potential to be what “flip-flop” was to Beazley.
From UK Independent -US Republican plot to rig election 2008 -
http://www.truthout.org:80/docs_2006/120307K.shtml
Turnbull is not a great vote puller either but if you look at his polling last-week he did manage to avoid a devastating swing against him. Unlike Johnny.
Did we ever find out where those unaccounted for additional postal votes in Bennelong and Swan came from…
The most annoying thing about the newspoll is the 10% who made up their mind who they were going to vote for on the last day and the 20% who made up their mind in the last week.
This means that next election, once again, we will have to listen to politicians, commentators and Sol spruik on about how the Polls could still change because 1 in 5 make up their mind in the last week.
William, normally I find you to be just about the most astute commentator out there, but on this occasion, I respectfully submit that you and your early commenters are smoking crack.
The “standout finding” from this Newspoll is nothing to do with Turnbull or Nelson. It’s the remarkable table about ‘issues’, which pegged Health, education and water as the three most important issues for voters in this election, followed closely by the economy and the environment. Whereas interest rates and national security were stone cold motherless last, by a margin of some 25 points. Nothing else explains more clearly why Labor won. They owned the ideas in this election like none in more than 20 years.
The other interesting finding is the drop in percentage of voters who made up their mind in the final week of the campaign. This year it was an (albeit embarrassingly high) 20 percent. But in previous elections it’s been closer to 30 percent. And 53 of voters made up their mind more than 6 *months* prior to the campaign, compared to an historical average around 40. So there *were* plenty of voters waiting for Howard with Nerf bats after all.
This Newspoll is the first bit of quantitative data we’ve had to explain the election result, and the “standout finding” is that Labor *won* the election from opposition, not that the Coalition *lost* the election. It’s standard political wisdom ‘turn’d upside downe’.
Meanwhile, on the Turnbull/Nelson thing, the result is not surprising, nor is it especially informative.
Most of the “support” for Turnbull comes from the ‘oh yaah, I dun heard of ‘im’ factor. Turnbull is the only recognisable Liberal in punter land.
Turnbull also has the annoying habit of losing more ballots (Republic, party room) than he wins. He got pre-selected through the mother of all branch-stacks. And even though he ran a good campaign in Wentworth, his opponent was a turkey, and let’s face it, to be the winning Liberal in Wentworth is like winning a poll on whether mice will vote for cheese. (To be fair, Nelson’s ultra-safe seat of Bradfield is in the same category).
In any case, at 34 support, even the most optimistic assessment of such support is that it’s only the rusted-ons who are interested right now. They are probably the direct descendents of that deranged individual who kept yammering ‘I love you John!’ during Howard’s concession speech at the Wentworth. (Was it Piers?)
Don’t get me wrong, I’d prefer to see Turnbull leading the Liberals than Nelson, but in my experience, lending my support to any one party or individual has usually been the kiss of death for their political aspirations
Finally, how good is this for a scare campaign: 50% of Liberal leaders are former union-esque yelly people with megaphones, and the other 50% are lawyers. Are these the people you want running the country?
Sorry, one last thing then I’ll shut up, promise:
Nelson on 18 percent!
All together now: “Why on earth does this man even bother?”
Keep on counting!
LOL
Mercurius,
Although the issues finding is interesting, and I totally agree that Labor owned the ideas in the campaign, I suspect a lot of people say what they think they ought to say on that sort of stuff.
My suspicion is that the election was, to a significant extent, a referendum on Howard. And Howard lost convincingly.
I don’t care how many poll respondents feel they have to claim they made up their minds during the campaign because the campaign polls bounced all over the place, yet again, to sell newspapers and collect more television advertising bucks. Hugh MacKay has debunked the late decider myth numerous times and has nailed the winner (and why) at the start of the last two campaigns.
The most silly aspect this time around was that the worse a party performed during the week, the better the next poll would usually be. It was chalked down to “counter-intuitive” by the media making all these mega bucks from this bogus volatility.
William, Possums and others provided us with the fundamental election result narrative with their computations long before the final week of the campaign.
Am I the only one wondering what possible rationale 1% of Labor voters’ have for preferring the Admiral?
No Robert, Not at all.
I posit keystroke error (on behalf of the data compiler) as the explanation.
#14 Cos he’s a union boss.
How about ALP supporters who still have quite “internally processed” the victory – and so when asked, who’s your preffered leader, reflexively scream “Anyone but but the PM, anyone but the PM!!!!”
I still think of Howard when the news suggests that “The PM has done X” – then I think ‘hmm, that doesn’t sound like something Howard would do’ followed by ‘Of Course!!! The PM is KEVIN RUDD!’
Then I smile.
I don’t think that anyone is too surprised with these poll results. What I will be interested to see is where Rudd’s numbers go from here. Once he starts actually achieving some of the goals he has enunciated I would imagine that his PPM figures could go higher still. Is there any precedent for this or is this 61 as good as it gets?
Petrie – even if only 2% made up their mind late, we’d have the same amount of campaigning I’m afraid.
The 20% in the final week is dodgy – if the question were ‘when did you decide between Lib and ALP’ it would provide a possibly more useful stat.
Newspoll/The Oz are up to their old tricks: we now have the single issue of IR split into two issues ‘WorkChoices’ and ‘IR’. Nothing in the past few years suggest they are separate. The only reason for splitting this question would be to undervalue the electoral impact of the issue.
obviously newspoll underestimated the national party vote again, right Glen ?
hehehe..just kidding
anyway
yay a poll!
Gee, they were quick with this latest poll. Nelson hasn’t even named his front bench yet! Nelson’s real test will be when Parliament resumes to see if his team can score points against the government, then I will probably start to take more notice of the polls.
On another topic, also from The Australian:
Apology to George Newhouse
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,22865525-5013948,00.html
Is COverington trying to inoculate against legal action?
A few things about this poll:
Re issues question: The wording is “Would you say each of the following issues was very important, fairly important or not important…”
Somehow, this three-pronged question is then turned into a percentage figure for each issue… I guess that “percentage support” is equated to people who say either very important or fairly important. Seems a bit flaky to me.
Also, I like to see that the second most preferred Leader of the Liberal Party is “Uncommitted” with 25% support…
I’d love to ask any of the 1% of Labour voters who (claim they) prefer Nelson: why?
Of course, I’d also love to ask the question of ‘Labor’ voters …
The last in “The Poll That Counts” video series is online: Bill Heffernan’s Payback. He spars with The Chaser and watches Howard’s concession speech in some discomfort. I have dedicated it to Justice Michael Kirby and Julia Gillard. See the collection on ‘Labor View from Broome’ by clicking my name above. This is reality video, taken on the floor of the National Tallyroom on Saturday night. Enjoy!
What an interesting time for the Libs.
A leader the public don’t care about and is languishing in polls for his own job.
A deputy who’s WA colleagues swung the votes necessary for his (and her) election (and who will be having more than a deputy’s share of the decisions because of this). Nelson is nothing if not beholden WA MPs. No Sorry and Workchoices is good for us all.
A shadow treasurer who holds diametrically opposing policies on these key issues and clearly, while being very polite, just waiting for the chance to swoop.
Another (probable) frontbencher who will stay loyal until he’s not!
Two or three former stars who will mentor! Just tipped out of govt and they need mentoring in opposition! Gives a whole new meaning to the word.
But don’t give up Brendan, you’ve snared 1% of Labor’s PPM already!
27 Throw in the State Liberals as well and the story becomes a Greek tragedy.
28 Ed: I think that this whole election saga has been a classic tragedy; a true tale of the downfall of the “great” through short-sighted pride and hubris, complete with an alternating Chorus of the mainstream media juxtaposed with the blogging community…
The Gods hate hubris.
So when is the old man gonna concede? Isn’t it conventional courtesy to do so when it is obvious that you have lost?
Peter Martin is starting to log the lies.
Lie 1: Kyoto targets.
http://petermartin.blogspot.com/
Am interested what people think of Malcolm Turnbull.
It seems to me that he has truckloads of energy, drive, ambition and public profile. But I’m not sure that he is a very skillful politician. I don’t think that he really gets the amount of compromise that is involved in the political process, and I think that his dictatorial tendency is recognised and disliked by the public. He reminds me of Jeff Kennett without the sense of humour (which was the bit that people liked).
I suspect that Malcolm’s time in charge of the Liberals (and it will surely come) will end badly. The party room’s supposed unhappiness with Malcolm saying what policy positions would be held in his radio interview is in a small scale how I suspect the electorate will also respond to his leadership – no flexibility and therefore dwindling support as time goes by.
32 John, I think Malcolm embodies what the Liberals have to be to be relevant as a political force and to be able to devise an agenda suitable for the times.
His anti-political personna is seen as a minus in the political club but surely the times suit his way of doing things rather then the traditional party way.
I’m sure he can bide his time and gain considerable kudos as shadow treasurer.
29 Andos “The Gods hate Hubris”.
Is that the title of your upcoming political play/novel/Sci Fi novel…?
Nelson is a very big mistake – I was pissed as all hell when the Libs chose him.
Barring freak events, Nelsons popularity will shift very little in the coming months – he is simply not the engaging type. Reminds me of Simon Crean – a competent leader, but doesn’t have the charisma of one.
I give it 12-18 months before a challenge, which Turnball will in all likelihood win. That gives him a year to get himself sorted, before 2010. The thing that really irks me about this though is that Rudd can now call a DD early 2009, and the Libs are either stuck with Nelson or Turnball, whom has only been leader for about a month or two.
This poll doesn’t surprise me in the slightest – except for the fact Abbott is at 9%.
Having said that, it could be a blessing in disguise – Nelson deals with the post-election fallout, and the baggage that comes with it, before Turnball takes it with a clean slate. Seems unlikely though. It is such a shame, because the government is already bloody cocky and arrogant, a competent opposition could make the 2010 election one to remember. Gah,
35 Max: In what way have you seen the gov’t as cocky and arrogant?
Don’t know about bloody cocky and arrogant, Max. What’s the guy got to do to please you (joke).
35: Yairs mate, Rudd’s acting like he’s won the election already …
They’re cocky and arrogant after 18 hours? It’s going to be a long three years for you, Max. Or will your Arrogance Tolerance levels return to their normal levels of the last decade?
Re this making up the mind in the last week bizzo, I’d like Newspoll to ask that lot if they’ve ever in their life voted for the party other than the one they finally opt for.
I reckon it’s a lot like any cricketer’s take on winning the toss in a one day match. They say ‘90% of the time you bat first, the other 10% of the time you think about it for a bit, and then you bat first.”
‘Prime Minister Kevin Rudd’
Still looks like a typo, doesn’t it? Not for long.
‘Cocky and arrogant’???
Max, just what is it that you’re smokin’ boy, and can I have some.
Oh I see, they were sworn in yesterday, and accepted the people’s verdict. Bloody arrogant if you ask me. And Swan appeared on The 7.30 Report as the Treasurer of Australia. What a hide the man has.
Next the full of herself Penny Wong and that show pony Peter Garrett will be representing Australia at Bali. I mean, how dare they. Such arrogance will surely lead to hubris and certain defeat at the next election.
1. Ratifying Kyoto within, what, 30 minutes of becoming PM? Without a cabinet meeting? Mandate is one thing, but getting Cabinet to approve would have been slightly more responsible.
2. Super-portfolio Ms Gillard. How much power does she need? I agree that merging positions can be effective, also agree that education is related to work, but she has undertaken two of the heaviest jobs for herself. Surely it would be better to give one to somebody you work well with? One portfolio means you can direct ALL your energies into it, we are poorer for the combined position.
3. Labor prattling along telling the Coalition it has to approve its IR legislation. Bullshit. It got its house of review back, now it wants to make it redundant?
4. Perhaps not a sign of arrogance, but the fact Combet and Mckew got secretary positions is a joke. Sure there’s talent there, but what happened to his ‘I think everybody should get parliamentary experience before getting a more senior position’ stance? How effective can they be as secretaries without knowing how it works?
This is in week one. Already I’m annoyed. Could make for a fun few years !
The arrogance of Rudd, being sworn in and all that.
What presumption, what vanity.
And Howard still not wanting to let go. Maybe it’s all a dream.
Anyway is Howard still alive?
Ahem, Bali has already started
Sounds sweet Crispy.
My 91 yr old father told me on the weekend that he has never trusted Howard since the shafting days of the Peacock/Howard tussle, and he is a rusted on Liberal voter. As a veteran the Iraq debacle just cemented his view.
Max at 41
If that is all you are annoyed at, then I suggest you have far lower standards for the Liberals then you have for the ALP.
Max, I can see some arrogance staring me in the face. But anyway, I guess its good to see Liberals getting back on that horse. It must have been a hard fall.
I’m sure that others will know more details – but since Kyoto was official policy I assume that means it has been passed by ALP NATIONAL CONFERNCE.
Hence, as soon as any member of the ALP had the chance to do it, they should. As Mr Rudd did.
THere’s no need for Cabinet to discuss it – what new information is there? All the facts have been known for a long (almost criminally long, given the cricumstances) time.
Oh – and I am aware that Rudd has recently stated that Austrlia is unlikely, on curretn projections, to meet the targets. That only reinforces the fact that Howard and Costello were lying.
Max, on the brilliant Ms Gillard – “we are poorer for the combined position” – We being??? The LNP?
Meanwhile the Qld Libs meet this morning to sort out their little problem.
Only thing certain is Bruce Flegg will not be the winner. Whether anyone else can win is another matter. Could be a long meeting.
Pancho,
Yep, it was a hard fall. Was it deserved? Yes. The party didn’t adapt, didn’t renew, and it paid the price. Shall we now sit in a corner for three years crying about it, or move on in the best interests of everybody?
How long would everybody like us to give Mr Rudd to settle into his new position? If the Libs do their job, then proper scrutiny will begin day one of the next Parliament, if not before. Of course, this is assuming they do their job…
If you would like arrogance, refer yourself to supporters who claim they now have two terms of government to enjoy, if not a decade.
Max: Labor previously had a Dept of Education, Employment and Training under one minister. Once IR is put to bed then the synergies will be obvious. In the meantime there are some effective Public servants out there just waiting to give her a hand to implement the policies.
Oh, for the record, I am not a member of any political party and never have been. I have said this before, but feel re-iteration might be necessary here.
Max: If you were truly impartial, here is a short list of issues I consider worthy of annoyance:
1. Regional Road Rorts Scheme
2. AWB scandal
3. illegal Iraq war
4. Failure to uphold human rights
5. Failure to ratify Kyoto
Come back when you have something of equivalence.
re 51
I agree – assuming the workchoices repeal is passed as soon as the new Senators arrive (if not before) then IR will be almost a dead issue.
If they do the new policy right there will be no need to do anything much from July 2 2008 until the next election.
Petrie-person, the poll DID narrow in the last days as the floaters made up their minds. That’s why Labor’s seat-tally will be 84 or so and not the 90-plus people here were confidently predicting. Please remember this in 2010 – there is always a narrowing at the very end.
The alleged 1% of self-described Labor voters who prefer Nelson to Rudd can only be our very own LTEP. Well done on getting polled.
For the record I don’t particularly like Rudd either, but I’m willing to give him a chance.
The issues you raise are of very little consequence.
Surely you can come up with more valid grounds of criticism.
Max@50, all fair arguments. However Liberals now wishing to apply ‘proper scrutiny’ will be seen dubiously given their lack of courage in confronting some of Howard’s more outrageous behaviour while in government, particularly without the check of a Senate.
And history rather than hubris would suggest that it will be very difficult for the Liberals to win in 2010.
Max: not being a member of a political party while spending so much of your time complaining about politics just makes you lazy. If there are so many problems with the new Government already, why don’t you join an opposition party and work hard to depose them instead of just whining about it?
Or even better, why not join the ALP and contribute on reforming it from the inside so that we can have the most competent Government possible. Do you just want to criticise, or do you want to do something about it?
To be fair Asanque, I’d say that the superministry scandal is at least equivalent to AWB.
And ratifying Kyoto within 30 minutes of becoming PM will be seen by future historians (such as Gerard Henderson) as at least on a par with the illegal invasion of a soveriegn country.
And no I don’t feel that it’s arrogant of the opposition to deny that Labour have a mandate re workchoices. For heaven’s sake it was barely mentioned during the election campaign.
Asanque, as I have stated before I have a lot of respect for you as you are one of the few who look at issues from both sides of view. So let me address your points
My argument here though is that Rudd should not ‘be given a chance’ perse. Yes he should be given the opportunity to implement his mandate – but not simply as he sees fit. Doesn’t the adage got that a government is only as good as it’s opposition?
The points you raised in 53 we disagree on in some respect, which is go. But much of it is of Howards doing. For good or bad – and I understand 95% of people here thing good – he is gone now, and the Liberal Party is marking out it’s new ground. Saying that ‘Rudd is doing ok because hey, he didn’t go to Iraq’ is not good enough for me. Or most people for that matter. And I understand that’s not what you are saying, but you get my point?
Powerful criticism obviously can’t come about until Rudd has had time to do what he wants, and show us how he wants to do it. That shouldn’t mean he gets a free ride until then.
Btw, I don’t claim to be impartial. Believe it or not, I am not a right wing fascist either, I apparently ’socially left.’ Go figure…
The points you raised in 53 we disagree on in some respect, which is going to happen, as we sit on different sides of the fence on many issues.
***
Sorry, forgot to finish that sentence. Multitasking isn’t my thing.
Rates Analyst @ 47, Regarding Kyoto
Yes, Rudd did just mention that we are likely to overshoot our target by 1%. However, frankly, if it was Wayne Swan doing the maths, I’m not sure I’d be trusting his calculations.
This was in the Australian :
One question, why the hell would you legally bind Australia to a commitment he says we cant keep, and will be heavily sanctioned and penalised for the breach…. How is that in the “best interests of the country”
On top of that, Wayne Swan has already flagged over $10 Billion dollars in CUTS to currently implemented government programs, and specifically said when asked if there will be more that he
(7:30 Report)
If ratifying Kyoto at great penalty to Australia, and cutting more than $10 billion dollars in current government programs and funding as you said “18 hours after being sworn in” isn’t arrogant (and indeed reckless) I dont know what is.
Max, its been widely commented on that Gillards workload is not overly burdensome. IR once its ‘fixed’ is normally a lower profile ministry. It was only workchoices that made it the problem child it is. Commentators more experienced than me expect that once IR is bedded down she’ll have plenty of time to devote to education.
60 Max From my reading of the winds it seems that the most vehement crictisms of Rudd will come from the so called “left”.
He seems too cautious and bureaucratic in his manageralism approach. The nation also needs a leader who can instill some excitement into the polticial process. A Keating with the common touch maybe…
Matthew Flinders. How is running away from an obvious problem in the “best interest of the country”? If the last government hadn’t stuck its hea din the sand we wouldn’t be in this predicament. We need to take our medicine, and get on with the job. More ostrich behaviour just isn’t good enough.
Andos, I thank you for that label.
‘not being a member of a political party while spending so much of your time complaining about politics just makes you lazy’
I have barely discussed politics on this site for the past two months. Why? Because people were rarely discussing issues, and much of it was taken up by gloating over the various polls (three per week) which was oh so boring.
However, during the last week of the campaign, a few hundred people would have stopped by to comment on PB. Maybe more. So many of the newcomers dropped in one liners equivalent ‘Howard is evil/arrogant/full of shit etc etc. I wonder if they all joined political parties? At least I am trying to address various things, rather then ‘Rudd is shit because he likes unions.’
My post has been taken entirely out of context. My FIRST POST, at 35, was 80% about the Liberal leadership. Everything else stemmed in from a line at the end, and since then I’ve tried to back it up – one of those losing battle things.
I have not joined the Liberal Party because in recent times I have not been impressed with them. Government should be about planning for the future, investing in it, something which I think they failed to do in recent years. I won’t join a Party whom I don’t believe in. We are all different. Now if this makes me lazy, then hey, guilty as charged – along with the majority of people about the place.
Cheers
62 Matthew see the Peter Martin link earlier whereby the Kyoto lies are exposed. In other words Labor was going to ratifying Kyoto on the basis of previous Gov’t advice that we would meet the targets.
MF. So cutting fat from inefficienct government programs is now reckless? Oh boy, you guys are really taking this defeat hard aren’t you. Are the sedatives playing havoc still?
ed@bennelong. Tell me how is it that Bennelong
http://vtr.aec.gov.au/HouseDivisionDecScrutinyProgress-13745-105.htm
is reported as having issued 5,159 postal votes yet the AEC has recorded receiving back 5,979 postal votes.
The same situation in Swan
http://vtr.aec.gov.au/HouseDivisionDecScrutinyProgress-13745-247.htm
where the AEC has recorded issuing 2,489 postal votes and received back 3,744.. as of 11:00AM today…
has John been printing his own ballot papers??? or was it Max…
middle man,
That drives me nuts. IR needs to be ‘fixed’ then never touched upon again? Nothing should ever be left alone, things need to be looked upon, examined, improved. She is the “Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations” – surely that’s something which shouldn’t just be a six month job.
Further, I would suggest that the new Minster for Education, who is implementing a core element of the Labor mandate, have the first, crucial six months of the term free to work out all the details of the plan, without having to worry about preparing legislation which needs to be approved by three other parties (if not the Libs) come July in order to become law. But that’s me, and my opinion differs to many others.
MelbCity. Beyond my ken I’m sorry. I’e followed the discussions on Possum’s site and here and it doesn’t make sense to me.
Max. I respect that. I guess the proof will be in the eating as they say. It will be something for us all to watch for. It certainly appears to be alot, but whether it proves to be too much will be shown in time.
I trust Swan’s calculations more than the Australian’s reporting.
Maybe becuase the best interests of the country involve not being an international pariah. Maybe becuase the best interests of the country include a functioning world response to climate change.
Did you hear the applause – yes applause – for Austrlia’s actions at the Bali conference? When was the last time Austrlia was applauded like that for doing the right thing? Maybe doing the right thing will cost us. Maybe it’s still the right thing though.
Also – having read the full interview here it seems clear that hte only penalty for releasing too much in this period is to have to “pay it back” in the next period by releasing the equivlaent amount, plus a 30% penalty less in the next period.
So the “harsh penalties” seem pretty fiar to me.
There might be a philosophical distinction here. I believe that we do NOT have the right to pollute at will, just becuase we can.
And Max i’m not suggesting its just a fix and dont touch again scenario. Just mentioning that more experienced people than me (which isn’t hard to be) have suggested it can be managed.
If the government is only as good as its opposition, then heaven help us. I’d hope it could be better, which is why I can’t see Nelson and Bishop lasting long without control of the purse-strings to support their arrogant and incompetent policies. In education, for example, Nelson connived at the flagpole and intelligent design things, as well as letting that Renaissance man Paddy McGuinness review all the ARC grants. For her part, Bishop cooked up the ultimate divide and rule strategy, forcing the universities to pour millions and millions of dollars into an ill-designed ‘Research Quality Framework’ process whose entire purpose was to pit the universities against one another and force them to play dancing bears at the minister’s behest. Labor has already called a halt to that.
Re Newspoll, notice that hating the other side was a much stronger motivation for Coalition voters than ALP supporters (40 vs 32 per cent)? I reckon that’s the 40 per cent of Liberal/National voters the ALP could win over if they do a competent job. Howard was fighting the last Labor government, not this one.
I think we can agree on that middle man, which makes the next six months very interesting. I for one am looking forward to it, even if I don’t agree with some of the policy changes. Will be good to watch.
Max: that was entirely the point that I was making.
You say: “I have not joined the Liberal Party because in recent times I have not been impressed with them.”
It seems that you are happier standing on the sidelines hurling criticism than getting your hands dirty working to reform the party according to what you believe is in our best interests.
This also goes to your original post at 35. You can wish for a competent opposition all that you want, or you can take part in the process and work to strengthen the party, strengthen the opposition which will in turn (hopefully) strengthen the Government for the betterment of us all.
So yes, that does make you lazy, although I would agree with you that the majority of people are lazy. Witness the 20% who “made up their mind” in the last week of the campaign.
Andos @ 77 but we know people don’t answer that question honestly. I liked Crisy @ 39’s take on that.
The shambolic old scruff Bob Ellis has done a nice piece on Turnbull. It’s a reflection on some of their shared history and is laced with sharp barbs for the mortally wounded Liberal Party:
http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/stories/s2107621.htm
…worth a read if you like that sort of thing.
Funny how non-Labor supporters are complaining about Rudd getting on with the job.
There has been such busy inactivity on so many fronts in the govt over the past three years (remember it was only around Feb/March that ministers were putting the denial boot into Al Gore) it’s no wonder they are surprised at a govt actually doing something.
But I guess if Rudd didn’t act he’d be accused of not being serious about his policies – and because he does act, he gets a spray here.
Bit pathetic really.
Don’t know if senility is catching up with me but this morning when I saw the name John Howard in a newspaper article I had to stop and think WHO HE WAS!!!
Did you see the footage of Australia’s delegation being cheered at the Bali Conference?? Did it make you feel a surge of pride?? Haven’t felt that way for many years. It almost brought a tear to my eye. Hey World – Australia’s back!
well said Bryce.
Max. You are spot on that Rudd and his ministers are cocky, arrogant, and over-confident. Precisely like I’ve personally witnessed the following in their first weeks after taking over the power: Whitlam, Fraser, Hawke, and Howard. Then there’s the champ of arrogance, Keating and his “true believers” speech after beating unbeatable Dr. Hewson.
If Team Rudd didn’t have fire in their bellies to change the country for whatever course they believe is better than Howard’s, then they would be just wallowing in humility and complacency. Whether they have the talent and savvy to accomplish better things for the country is a completely different matter, but so far their cocky and arrogant first fortnight is most welcome.
vera@81 – he’s an actor. Came to prominence in ‘Young Einstein’ from memory.
82
Ferny Grover
And how! I’m expecting to enjoy quite a lot of these ‘new paradigm’ moments, but for now, they really are something to savour with a bit of that sweet victory of Nov 24th for extra relish.
Sorry. How could I forget ‘The Club’?
KR I loved the smile that slowly came across the guy announcing the ratification as he realised the import of it. Said mountains.
So Dr Horatio Hankeyblower decides the Party needs a revamp. Who is there with such incisive vision and drive, such a connection to the world and the future, such a commitment to nation building and the values of compassion and justice that the Liberals once championed??? “Of course!” he exclaims – “Ruddock and Robb!!” Horatio was last seen driving his DeLorian back to the future.
Say, Ferny Grover (82), is that footage available on the Web anywhere? I haven’t seen it, but just hearing about that this morning made me very proud.
Andos,
I initially started off this post with a defence – ie look at the other people and what they are saying – but then realised that’s precisely the problem with this country. People look to what others aren’t doing and justify it as a defence. It isn’t on.
Your post was well argued and in truth stopped me in my tracks. I suppose my next line, by default, is ‘what different can one person make?’ Which is true in some respect, but then comes the counter: what if everybody thought like that? Then nothing would change.
Anyway, I don’t have that much else to say, but you’ve given me something to consider.
Thanks to those who I conversed with this morning, has been an interesting chat. Believe it or not, I am not a troll, and didn’t actually come here with the intention of having a crack at Labor, I started off rambling about the Libs. The irony doesn’t escape. Cheers.
Good morning KR (it’s still morning in the Sunshine State). Truth is – it actually DID bring a tear of pride to my eye. I got a little choked up for a moment there. And yes – here’s to a lot more of those moments as Australia strides into the daylight that’s been kept from it for so long. It’s good to be back and to be able to look the world in the eye again.
On the narrowing… I have spoken to people on both sides and the internal polling confirmed this… there was a genuine narrowing…. it was 54.5-ish a week out…. and looked like 52.5 mid week…. but that was as close as it got.
When Galaxy came out with 52-48, Lib insiders confirmed they had a similar number, for example.
I agree that many of those who ‘make up their mind’ late don’t actually change their view from what it was before….. but some are genuinely undecided previously, and so in that sense do ‘make up their mind’ at the end
Back in 1972 a wonderful American cartoonist named Ron Cobb was working in Australia. Here’s a link to 3 of his cartoons from that year. The third one could have been drawn yesterday following the Bali ovation.
http://www.roncobbdesigns.com/The_Digger_Melbourne_Australia.211.0.html
FG says
“Did you see the footage of Australia’s delegation being cheered at the Bali Conference?? Did it make you feel a surge of pride??”
Indeed, I also felt humbled that our nation’s decent into darkness has been so quickly forgiven.
92
Ferny Grover
Isn’t it great! We can actually be proud of our own county again.
But oh no, those ’symbolic’ things don’t matter, oh no, not one bit. Sheesh, how did Howard ever get away with it for so long?
The future: Bring it on!
Andos, I haven’t seen the footage online. It was on last night’s news. Perhaps it is on the ABC or Sky webpages?
Respect, Max.
I’m glad that we could have a useful/productive argument/conversation, instead of disgorging a flood of bile as so often happens on a lot of blogs.
Yep, Im proud to be Australian for the first time in years.
Thanks Kruddster!
Adrian #59,
WTF are you on?
You need to get within shouting-distance of reality, or else it will bite you on the backside someday.
Unforunately, Matthew, this blog doesn’t have a ’sarcasm’ tag…
As I’ve said before KR, Kevin may not be the most inspiring speaker, but I’ve a feeling the actions of his government will be enough inspiration for us all.
Albert and Lefty. It’s good to enjoy the sunshine again – and yes, it was humbling to be so warmly received by the world after standing apart for so long.
Mathew Cole. I think he was being sarcastic. well i hope he was.
Yes the sunshine feels good. Thankfully the rest of the world are a patient and forgiving bunch.
Did everyone see the deluge of rain that fell on Melbourne yesterday. I was right in saying that it always rains more under Labor. There have been 16 wet years since 1972 and 13 of those have been under a labor government.
The Gods have forgiven us for our 11 years of sin, cuddeling up to the devil with his promise of money and consumerism at the expense of our souls.
Here’s what I like about Ruddster: He’s sober, a bit of a dull technocrat, but has set the Howard legacy eradication rotor to filt tilt. 0 to 100 in 10 seconds.
I dare say he’s surprised a few cynical timeworn lefties on homelessness too.
Centaur – you’re right. It’s one of those quirky accidents of history that Australia has received more rainfall under federal Labor administrations. It’s a wonder they didn’t use it in their election advertising! I guess they can save it for when Turnbull is opposition leader: “You may think he’s a wet – but under Labor you will always be wetter!”
Forget Howard’s “interest rates will always be lower” lies. Using the same logic the ALP can honestly claim – “Under Labor, rainfall will always be higher!”
Lefty E #106,
And all without breaking his election promises too!
It’s all in the way he does it. Rudd goes about things in such a fashion as to make us proud to go along with it.
Put short – Howard believed (and made us believe) that he could do anything.
Rudd made us want to help him achieve anything, including the Brucifixion of John Howard.
I detested JWH, but that salt in the wound was too much.
Also, with the giant gone, the dwarves are squabbling about the remains of the giant’s belonings. It really is quite sad……:-)
On the narrowing – it was much maligned during the course of the campaign. However, it did seem to occur in the last week – very much against the run of play as well.
With hindsight and a bit of creativity I think it was possible that Howard could have won the election. If the following had happened I think the election would have been very close.
1) The election should have been called to avoid the 7th Nov rate rise.
2) Tony Abbott should have been sent on vacation
3) The pamphlet scam avoided
4) Avoided the post APEC leadership speculation
5) Abandoned most of the wedges. They failed to secure their target seats and weakened the overall coalition vote. They would have been better of without the Haneef and Mersey wedges and the NT intervention should have been on a softer consultative basis.
Had they put all this together, I think it would have been a very close election. Its pure speculation of course – but I’m very happy they botched it.
I think the problem Rudd will have is not public support but Labor support. Rudd claims to be an economic conservative and he all but proved it while working for Goss. The question is will Labor continue to support him if he remains a conservative.
Stephen, I (and I’m sure many of us on the Left) don’t like the term ‘economic conservative’. I’d prefer ‘economically responsible’ but understand that the term conservative was used for politico/marketing purposes. It was all part of the plan to remove all distractions and focus attention squarely on the issues Labor wanted to fight the election – mostly Workchoices and climate change. Rudd’s broader policy agenda is, at this stage, far from ‘conservative’ as his signing of Kyoto, saying sorry to Indigenous Australians and comments on homelessness all testify. He is behaving like a social democrat and is very much in the Labor tradition.
Isn’t amazing not only how quickly Howard and his cronies have become irrelevant, but how comprehensively his legacy is being seen for the worthless charade it always was.
Makes you proud to be Australian at last!
FG. spot on. Labor needs to prove its credentials there so they are free to implement a “non-conservative” (its a horrible way to reference logical policies, but so be it) agenda in areas such as health, climate, indigenous affairs etc.
The most interesting test for what Rudd really believes in…. whether he is a social democrat, or a fiscal conservative or whatever… will be what he does in the face of the inflation pressures….
1) will he deliver Costello’s and in turn his promised tax cuts? Swan has said they will… and is arguing they aren’t inflationary
2) will he deliver deep spending cuts? They say they will – but where will they come from, and how will this sit with the social democrat agenda?
3) if they deliver the tax cuts, how will they ramp up education spending. it was noted by several observers during the campaign that the ‘education revolution’ as currently outlined is a drop in the ocean… even if you agree with the proposals so far outlined they increase total education investment by only a tiny fraction. One can only assume the real agenda was to increase education spending dramatically once in government – for instance Labor has criticised Howard govt under investment in tertiary education for some time now, but promised nothing in campaign in this regard….
the difficulty now is will Rudd deliver on this spending? and can he deliver on this spending while delivering the tax cuts?
interesting test for Rudd.
another point that many have overlooked is that the Coalition’s decision to put the big long term tax plan on the agenda during the campaign forced Rudd’s hand in a way that allows the Coalition to govern from Opposition. Rudd had to copy the policy or leave himself open… now in govt he either has to walk away from it (which will hurt him politically) or deliver it, in which case the Coalition has is in this key area still governing…. their policy will be implemented for several years to come.
Andos – the footage of the applause in Bali is here: http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,22865700-601,00.html
Ferny Grover @ 112
No I think the term economic conservative is the correct one, not that this may not also be responsible. Don’t expect any handouts while Rudd is around.
whats the thinking on final TPP? down to 52.87 now…. my thought a few days ago was 52.8? may go lower
Well put 10pse. The election strategy of focussing attention on the things mentioned above foced Labor to virtually adopt the Coalition’s economic policy – as Labor didn’t want to fight the election on this issue. Now in government this presents some real headaches. I have no doubt that Labor is intent on delivering the tax cuts. I’m also sure they are keen to deliver on broader social goals while also putting ‘downward pressure’ on inflation and interest rates. The latter requires a long term strategy. The challenge is in the short to medium terms. How will Labor deliver its promises and avoid putting rocket fuel on interest rates? It will make for interesting times.
Nelson has been leader for what less than a week and yet Newspoll come out with a leadership poll give me a break! Also why in the heck didn’t they make it a choice between Nelson and Turnbull, Nelson would have picked up Abbotts supporters and more than half of Bishops supporters which would of put him well into the 30s.
I blame the media for this they all talked up Turnbull and didnt say a word about Nelson. I bet Paul Kelly is happy the Australian is paying the Liberals back for choosing Nelson instead of his preferred candidate Turnbull.
I wouldn’t take any interest of political polls until after the first sitting of Parliament.
Kyoto is a waste of time we ought to spend more time on the next agreement rather than this symbolic PR stunt of Rudd in ratifying a dead agreement.
FG. I think this is why Swan is so kken to get the ‘best minds’ from Treasury involved in a broad range of policy development. Its a juggling act that is going to need a coordinated approach rather than ministries acting as sole agents. (Yay i avoided using the term ’silo’s’!!!! woohoo!!)
Stephen, the problem is that the term ‘conservative’ has political/philosophical connotations that are distasteful to many on the left. As for handouts, I think modern social democrats have moved beyond Keynesian thinking on that front, while still being committed to a safety net for those that require it.
10pse – I think I’m more optimistic than you on the prospect of finding savings in government expenditure. The old mob had basically lost financial discipline since 2004, and had been chucking money around as a means of shoring up their electoral support. Just canning the Access Card alone gives you savings of $1bn; if (as seems inevitable) the contractors fail to fulfil their terms on the unwanted jets for the RAAF, there’s another $6bn; the rorts from the regional partnerships were blowing $500 million; the Business Council of Australia (hardly a Labor ally) estimates that there are $6bn to be saved by rationalising state/Federal programs. And all that’s before you start putting the ruler over things like government advertising, patronage-based appointments of useless Young Liberals, and wasteful policies designed primarily as window-dressing. Not to mention chucking money at ‘clean’ coal instead of encouraging renewables. And the massive expenditure on defence equipment, a lot of which seems to have been wasted. There was a comment in the Fin Review a while back about defence suggesting that their main problem was that they had so much money from the Feds that they literally didn’t know how to spend it.
115/119 In a somewhat broader context, Labor needs to address the inequalities that stemmed from the brutal implementation of ‘globalisation’ and competition policy.
If this next cycle of inflation can be addressed quickly then the resources boom will continue to help the redirection of money to the social democratic agenda.
There is plenty of money eg future fund is a farce. But some of the biggest problems are middle class welfare allowing for ideological rundowns in public schooling and hospitals and investment policy being out of whack eg negative gearing on housing.
http://www.smh.com.au/cartoons/index.html
Dr Horatio Hornet gloved up for a reading of the entrails. But whose?
Glen @ 120 – the trouble is that we weren’t going to be able to participate in the negotiations on the next treaty unless we ratified the existing one, so the argument agin ratification wd have left us out in the cold. Also, Howard’s manoeuvring for special treatment during the negotiations over the old treaty did a lot to cause trouble even before he added insult to injury and refused to sign it.
Glen. Showing good faith to your future negotiating partners is hardly symbolic. Its imperative when trying to achieve good negotiated outcomes. Its a skill singularly lost on the Liberal party. ie NT Intervention, Kyoto, Iraq, Workchoices. Oh and the one time they tried it…. the free trade agreement, they showed blind faith. And what have we gained from it? Access to the US market for our beef and lamb industries, and wheat growers? I think not.
Glen, do you honestly believe that Turnbull is not the medium to long term Liberal leader? If so I think you’re on your own pretty much Australia-wide.
Jenny that’s bull butter and you know it, the USA isnt part of Kyoto and yet they’ll be centre stage in reaching the post-Kyoto agreement.
Jenny we signed it but we didn’t ratify it, we didn’t want to be bound by a Treaty that would force us to do certain things whereas we have met our obligations many countries like Canada who ratified are way behind their targets.
bull butter – the most hilarious turn of phrase since ‘hubris’ and only getting better. And Australia doesn’t quite have the clout of the US yet.
Jenny:
Having previously worked as a management consultant I have little doubt the federal budget could be reduced by 5-10%…$18B – $35B without cutting programs… purely through doing things smarter….
however, i have almost zero confidence that this will happen…. it is more difficult than the easier option of cutting programs… so pollies tend to go for this….
And the types of cuts you suggested all have their difficulties. for example:
Cutting defence spending? that wont be popular with the electorate – so wont happen… too easy to be painted as weak on national security
Federal/state rationalisation – i have no doubt the $6B is there… but getting it is another thing entirely… long, slow, drawn out process…. likely to have major opposition from the states… chances of achieving this are very small.
My guess, Labor wont have the stomach to make deep cuts, so it wont… it will make some easier ‘low hanging fruit’ type cuts up front to create the right impression then pull up stumps
Glen. I’m sorry but the “i’m not doing unless they do it too” argument sounds like my nephews bickering about household chores. It’s time to be a bit bigger than that.
Glen, you’re still fighting yesterday’s battles – an affliction that characterised the Coalition campaign and helped secure their defeat. As a signal to the world that Australia is under new management and is now on board in terms of climate change, the signing of Kyoto was very loud and very clear. It also made me proud – which is a jolly good reason for a policy position.
Glen: The Kyoto Protocol is in no way a “dead agreement”, as you put it. A huge part of it is encouraging the investment in technologies to reduce the greenhouse gas output of our economies, including carbon trading schemes, and it is still in force for another 4, long years.
Without this increased investment, a ’solid base’ if you will, there would be no way that a future agreement, to take effect in 2012, would be able to produce the drastic cuts in greenhouse gas emissions that are required to avoid the worst outcomes of human induced global warming.
It seems that your objection to this so-called “waste of time” is simply a dogmatic belief reinforced by the culture of global warming denial in conservative/right-wing institutions (like the Liberal Party). Maybe you should ask the delegates at the UN Climate Change Conference in Bali whom spontaneously applauded when it was announced that we would be immediately ratifying the Kyoto protocol if they thought it was all a wast of time?
I’m sure that the ALP just paid them all to do that so that the “PR stunt” would be that much more effective.
Get some perspective.
Turnbull hasn’t the experience Pancho IMHO atm, he’s been in Parliament for what 3+ years and been a Minister for a few years, that’s not enough in my books.
Give him another 3-5 years and we’ll see, but if he continues to want to ’say sorry’, bring on a republic, dump all of workchoices including unfair dismissals then i will find it hard to support him with any vigor. He’s too left wing for my liking. He needs to ‘dry out’ a bit more for me. The trouble is Malcolm is Malcolm and like the media he wont let Nelson have a fair go at the leadership.
Also Turnbull is the last thing we need now he’s too divisive, we need harmony not more factionalism and destabalisation in the Party. Turnbull would through out the Howard era including the kitchen sink and he’d be perfectly happy to lump a lot of crap on the Howard era to benefit him personally.
Also Turnbull isnt a team player whereas Nelson is, we can’t afford a one man band atm IMHO.
Can anyone name a senior labor state politician in the last 10-12 years who was not fiscally conservative?
If you’re looking for the catchword for Rudd’s approach to election promises and economic management, here it is… pragmatism. The new Federal Government has a cast-iron template for successful government hammered out over a decade by Bob Carr in NSW, Peter Beattie in Qld and Steve Bracks in Voctoria.
Spending will be screwed down across social and defence programs aside from those issues specifically promised. The dreaded efficiency dividend will bite and bite some more and dividends will be squeezed out of public trading entities, if there’s any left. The tax cuts will be delivered but their impact will be dwarfed compared to the growing cash tax receipts in a higher inflation environment. I won’t be waiting for any mad rush to social justice, maybe a gentle turning of the tide.
Meet the new boss… same as the old boss!
Re my 133 post, I meant ratifying rather than signing – both of which are now done
126/129
Australia was never going to be left out of the next negotiations whether we ratified Kyoto or not. Australia is the link between the developed and developing world. We have the economy of a developed country and the industry of a developing one. The world looks to us as the broker between the two and on an issue like this they need us.
10pse – I agree that superficial cuts are more saleable than more thoroughgoing attempts to do things smarter, but the way I read it, Labor has no real option but to go beyond the low-hanging fruit. That was the import of Costello’s blasted tax cuts, and the main casualty looks as if it was Labor’s agenda for the universities. I’m sure they had to shelve their plans for proper reform there because the tax cuts left them no room to move.
It’s interesting that Combet has been given the job of defence support, and I suspect he will find a way of selling rationalisation in that area to the electorate. A few well-placed media releases about the scandals surrounding defence spending, perhaps?
135 You prescription of what Tunrbull would do sounds to me exaclty what is needed. Is the Liberal party now a nanny state. Here’s my hanky for harmony day.
Damien J @ 136
Goss with Rudd as his chief of staff (maybe more than 12 years ago)
Beattie with Mackenroth as treasurer
I agree Jenny. I think Labor will go well beyond the easy cuts. Rudd’s personality lends itself to this as well. He will want efficiency with a capital E and I dare say he will get it. I also haven’t given up entirely on universities. Labor has a long standing tradition of supporting tertiary education and I’m hopeful of some positive steps in this direction under Rudd, albeit more muted due to the tax cut monster Labor has adopted.
Damien J,
agree with you on the pragmatism… but dont kid yourself state labor has been economically conservative…. they are all in deep debt…as we were told repeatedly $80B in total amongst them over forward estimates.
and btw, this works at state level because state opposition is even harder than federal opposition, so you get away with murder, but more importantly, it works because when you f**k everything up, people dont blame you they blame federal government (eg. hospitals, schools – both of which are state responsibilities).
the same formula does not work federally.
also, rudd’s ‘buck stops with me’ comment…. will come back to haunt him… 3 years from now when the health system is no better, and in all likelihood worse….
so i think rudd has one thing going for him and one thing alone, all australian governments, even when they balls it up, tend to get two cracks….
Glen, stop saying IMHO.
Glen, you are probably right that some of Horatio’s support would be split with Bishop and Abbott. But a better opposition leader rating “well into the 30’s” is hardly encouraging.
I expect its best for the Liberals not to look at any polls for the next few months.
I fear you are correct Albert.
Is that Victorian senate seat still up for grabs?
Are the democrats going to merge with the Greens?
Stephen, Remember, Rudd was there 16 years ago. Not in the same period. Despite Beattie and Macenroth, the pattern was really established by Carr and Egan in NSW. Budget surpluses in 10 out of 11 years, achieved by hook or by crook. Simply throw as many loss making initiatives off-budget as you can and accrue any income to the current year where possible. Long term results can be addressed later and there are splendid short term political results. The pattern has been adopted across most states now. I think we’ll find a reallocation of resources across portfolios. There’s plenty to play with in areas that are not the incoming government’s priorities. Spending can therefore be seen to be substantial but with less of a net impact in terms of budget outcomes and inflation.
I note that 27% of coalition voters prefer Rudd as PM and 38% are undecided.
Is this the emergence of a “soft” coalition vote
The Democrats have no intention of merging with the Greens. Many of their membership see large areas of policy conflict with the Greens and have no desire to join, or see Democrat assets go to support, the Greens
I hope George sues her and them for every ill-gotten dime they’ve got. I also hope (and in fact expect) Chris Mitchell will be sacked over Christmas while no-one’s watching. He has absolutely ruined a once tolerably good newspaper.
Why would the Greens want to merge with a corpse?
146,Hope you recover soon,I would suspect she is stalking you.
10pse @ 143 The debt of state labor governments is a product of pragmatic fiscally conservatism, not evidence of the contrary. There is no substance to the belief that fiscal conservatives do not finance government activities against future years. In fact, the Howard Government, despite its rhetoric about paying back debt maintained debt of about $60 billion across the life of the Government. That’s in adition to the unfunded public sector superannuation.
Adam, there would be some advantage for the Greens in an expanded membership and asset base – but it’s not going to happen. The Democrats are talking up a revival in 2010 – but it’s not going to happen either.
Ferny Grover – do the Dems still have any assets?
They have Sandra Krank – not much of an asset.
FG how many members do the Democrats have?
I’d also suggest their asset base is going to be depleted from now on in.
IMHO, Nelson will probably wait till Thursday just to be sure Dutman has got over the line in Dickson.
Jenny – 3 members, a dog (the mascot and chief comforter) a photocopier and a mobile phone that noone calls. They would have accumulated more but they couldn’t afford the GST.
Glen, now you’re just looking for excuses to use ‘the Dutman’.
Well he is assured a portfolio if he wins his seat and he’s the only reason Lord Nelson will wait till thursday to release his shadow ministry.
I was once in the Dutman’s electorate but as soon as he moved in the AEC moved my house into Arch Bevis’ Brisbane electorate to shore up the numbers and keep me happy. So now I can boo Dutton from afar.
Glen, I suspect Lord Horatio Hankeyblower is having to do lots of consultation to try and keep everyone smiling before he can release his front bench. Dutton is the least of his worries.
FG he’ll only have about 53 members to choose from with about 10 of the old guard not wanting a job on the front bench, it shouldn’t be too hard.
The Qld Libs seem to be taking a long time to sort out the leadership.
Adam @155,
So they can raise a zombie army of course, and take over Australia. The coalition has been succesful at this for years..Andrew Robb, Philip Ruddock etc. If they’re not zombies I’ll eat my hat.
Glen, many of the old guard will still want a very loud say in the makeup of the front bench. Many phonecalls to Downer, Costello and Abbott will be necessary to gain the necessary approvals.
Comments from “Caroline Wilson” and “George Newhouse” (why Caroline Wilson?) have been deleted. We don’t do funny here.
Centaur I think Philip Ruddock looks like a vampire but that’s just me.
Well FG Nelson should tell em to f off like Kevin Reynolds.
But the trouble is Nelson owes Abbott and Bishop so there supporters could get places at the table, like Heff and Michael Keenan.
Off topic, I was just looking at the Leichhardt result and noticed that one of the independents got just 127 votes.
Does anyone know which lower house candidate received the lowest number of first preference votes?
Peter Lindsay looks safe in Herbert with 50.17% of the vote with 92% counted.
Glen, I suspect Nelson owes lots of people – hence the delay in announcing his front bench
It’s a bad sign for Horatio that he has to wait for the election results; shadow ministers in marginals will need to watch their backs. If you look at the pendulum, the coalition has been left with a lot of seats that take a lot of defending.
Has anyone found a properly updated pendulum anywhere? Both Adam’s site and Antony’s are still showing the old ones.
Swan is down to 34 votes difference. How many more votes are there to count. Is a recount likely?
Leader of the Opposition and Shadow Minister for Posturing: Dr Brendan Nelson
Deputy Leader of the Opposition and Shadow Minister for Discipline: Julie Bishop
Leader of the Nationals and Shadow Minister for Ports and Rorts: Warren Truss
Deputy Leader of the Nationals and Shadow Minister for Pissups: Nigel Scull-it-down
Shadow Treasurer, Shadow Minister for Rich People, and Next Leader: Malcolm Turnbull
Shadow Minister for Branch-stacking and Leader-after-that: Alex Hawke
Shadow Minister for Foreign Affairs: Ross Lightfoot
Shadow Minister for Defence and Batty Old Ladies: Bronwyn Bishop
Shadow Minister for Private School Funding: Sophie Mirabopoulos
Shadow Minister for Personal Hygiene and Proper Dress: Christopher Maurice Pyne
Shadow Minister for Indigenous Affairs and Insulting People: Bill Heffernan
Shadow Minister for Sheep, Peasant Affairs and Stupidity: Peter McGauran
Shadow Minister for Dirt and Vilification: Tony Abbott
Shadow Minister for Appearing Progressive when Necessary: Marise Payne
Shadow Minister for Things We Don’t Care About: Judi Moylan
Shadow Minister for Everything Else: Danna Vale
According to Steve Irons the Liberal candidate he said that the misplacement of bundles of votes happened in 2004 too, what happened was around 96 votes were in the wrong pile and they mostly were for Wilkie but postals and pre-polled votes still favour Irons. It’s gonna be tough for either candidate to win, most likely this will be the most marginal seat in Australia. Still with 89% counted its anybody’s guess as to who can win it from here.
Id say if its below 100 they’ll have a recount.
Albert, yes there will be a mandatory recount
Ahem
http://psephos.adam-carr.net/countries/a/australia/2007/pendulum2007.txt
172 – A CEC candidate in Gilmore only got 48 votes.
http://vtr.aec.gov.au/HouseDivisionFirstPrefs-13745-120.htm
He obviously ran a strong postal vote and pre poll campaign as he picked up 11 of his votes there.
Hi, Adam – sorry about that; I followed the link from the top of your page. Hmm. Maybe my cache was getting in the way. Thanks very much for providing the updated one.
OK, so that leaves the coalition with upwards of 20 seats on margins of less than 4%, which are going to be interesting to defend without the spoils of office.
Jenny but if just a third of those who voted for Rudd voted Liberal in 2010 those margins would blow out to a fairly safe level. Labor are starting at a very high base of vote in all of those seats, i would be very surprise if we didn’t win back at least half of those who voted against us in 2007.
Glen @ 183, your argument presupposes a ‘natural constituency’ that will ‘naturally’ return to the Coalition. There is no such thing. The Coalition will need to gain the confidence of the electorate for there to be a swing back to them. In other words a swing to the Opposition will have to be earned. It is equally, or more, likely that the swing will be to the Government – provided it proves to be competent. Incumbency is a powerful thing.
177
Adam
You’ve only mentioned the shadow (of their former selves) ministers, but what about the “Mentors”, like the fop of the crop, the wonderous Malvolio of Mayo? And the inimitable smirk, Bracket Creep, surely they should be acknowledged with some new roles too?
On what do you base that view, Glen?
Glen – There’s usually a swing to the incumbents at the end of the first term unless they royally stuff up. I agree that some of the seats that went Labor for the first time look highly unusual, but in many cases they’ve changed complexion in the interim.
Simon Jackman has some interesting maps on his blog showing the geographical distribution of support for the parties (they took a long time to download, though – not for the faint-hearted!)
Here’s the link: http://jackman.stanford.edu/blog/?cat=8
Irons ahead by 222 in Swan
Once we set up a Royal Commission into the AWB affair, Lord Downer will be very busy keeping himself out of Spandau.
So long as Dolly keeps himself out of spandex!
So long Wilkie LOL!
Caroline O apologises to George Newhouse, presumably in exchange for him not pursuing assualt changes.
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,22865525-5013948,00.html
Ferny Grover @ 184. Your argument is unpersuasive. There are no ‘natural constituencies’ for either side of politics. Glen is right to point out that at the next election, the Australian Labor Party will be coming off a high base 2PP vote. I agree that Mr. Rudd looks promising at the moment but no one really knows how competent his government will be. The key battlegounds at the next election will be NSW and Queensland where there are long serving and (in the case of NSW) incompetent state ALP governments. This is unlikely to assist Mr. Rudd as he seeks a second term. Labor barrackers cannot expect that the Liberal Party in each of those states will be perpetually hapless, helpless and hopeless. In your (understandable) pleasure at the election outcome, a little less of your ‘rose coloured’ assessments of the Australian Labor Party’s electoral prospects would be welcome.
#193 No natural constituencies? What are you talking about?
Life after Politics? What possible career choices would be open to ex Govt Ministers?
Abbott – Specialist Cardinal Overcoat Salesman
Downer – Governor General of the Galapagos Islands
Howard – Aboriginal Cultural Advisor to the Tobacco Industry
Costello – Wedding Consultant specialising in Bridesmaids and Spinsters
Andrews – Supplier of damaged replicas of the Titanic and the Hindenburg
Brough – Shampoo Salesman
Bishop – Hyptnotist
Ruddock – Undertaker
Hockey – Specialist Echoist Ventriloquist
Turnbull – Hot Air Packaging Consultant
David Charles @ 301 – if you have a look at Simon Jackman’s maps, they suggest that there certainly is a natural constituency in the cities at least, and it’s largely based on class. As Jackman puts it:
“The maps centered on larger urban areas are fascinating (well, to me at least), highlighting the way that income and wealth remain the bedrock of the Australian party system.”
Now now Charles, there is nothing rose coloured about my views. To be fair I did not say that my views on ‘natural constituencies’ only applied to the Coalition. I believe that election wins have to be earned these days and that a reliance by either side on a ‘natural’ swing back to themselves without having earned it is indeed rose coloured thinking. A competent Rudd government will sway many votes in Labor’s favour whereas a stumbling or dishonest government effort if pitted against a sound Opposition will sway votes away from Labor. Let’s be clear – if Rudd performs well he will keep the seats won in Qld and may even add to them. If the Coalition wants to believe it needs to do nothing except wish for a ‘natural’ swing back to them in 2010, then I’m sure Labor will be happy with that strategy.
oops – meant 193
Disappointing to see Turnbull lose to Nelson, but after some more thought, it makes sense to let Turnbull gain some more parliamentary experience before unleashing him as leader.
Nelson’s media performances have been average at best, so he’s got a lot of work to do.
Oh for heaven’s sake! The elections was a week ago! And we are back on the polls? Give it a break will ya?
Boll (194) I use ‘constituency’ in the sense of a bloc of votes sufficient for one or other side of politics to win a majority of seats in the House of Representatives. FG (197) I note the clarification and thank you for your response.
One more thing David Charles, I really don’t put much credence in the view that incompetent state administrations make an impact at the federal level. If incompotent parties brought down their federal counterparts noone would have voted for the Howard Coalition. I know that Wayne Goss blamed the poor standing of the Keating Government for his own government’s demise, but this was just blame shifting. Never before has a government pissed the good will of the electorate up against the wall with such merry abandon as did Mr Goss. If blaming Keating helps him sleep at night, more power to him. Voters have historically made the distinction between state and federal politics and voted accordingly. The NSW government may be badly managed (the same could be said for Qld) but they keep getting returned comfortably because the opposition is unconvincing. The age of mass media has seen the demise of natural constituencies and, as I say, election victories now need to be earned.
Expert comment on the Qld Libs currently working on their little problem:
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2007/12/04/2109154.htm?section=justin
Still no word on the Qld Lib leadership. What are they up to? Arm wrestling? Pistols at 40 paces? Trial by ordeal?
The QLD Liberals are not being helpful at this point in time. I wonder whether they want to ever be in government with such obnoxious behaviour.
FG (202) says: “Never before has a government pissed the good will of the electorate up against the wall with such merry abandon as did Mr. Goss”.
Please elucidate. Your response could be significant given who was chief of staff for Mr. Goss.
Maybe each state should organise a movement of independents to offer the people an option to the state Labor governments?
Or maybe we should get rid of state governments altogether in favour of regional councils?
Oh well, disfranchised again at the next state election and so much for democracy….
GP, I suspect the Qld Libs will only recover if they can persuade Santo to leave the country.
Goss lost the 1995 election because the Greens preferenced the Nats and Libs.
LOL!
Scaper – there is a loose coalition of independents; Tony Windsor from New England and the late lamented Peter Andren set it up some time ago. It’s rural, though, so probably wouldn’t answer your purposes, though it’s certainly given the Nats a bit of a hurry-up.
Laming just 130 behind and closing in Bowman with 91% counted.
I wondered if you’d pick up on that DC. I’m not sure my response would be significant and it is not clear to what degree Chiefs of Staff contribute to a government’s rise and fall. Goss came to power after 32 years of uninterrupted National Party rule. Corruption was endemic in government and in the police. Goss won in a landslide amidst enormous public support and goodwill. Yet he lasted 5 years and was thrown out (albeit on the casting vote of the independent member for Gladstone who confided that she cast her vote to bring down the Goss government in the confidence motion because “Goss is anti-God”.) All it took was 5 years. Why? The reasons are many. Goss lost the support of the public service (Mr Rudd’s managerial approach may have contributed to that) but more broadly his aloof style lost the support of the general public. His treatment of his own Speaker was indicative of the reasons he was shown the door….but that’s another story.
horatio is channelling the rodent. it’s creepy.
The Liberal lead in Swan is back out to 230, so I think Kim Wilkie is gone, sadly. Flynn is secure for Labor and Robertson almost certainly so. The Libs will probably win Herbert and Dickson. That only leaves Bowman and McEwen is genuinely too close to call.
DC – my response to your previous post is in moderation for some reason. You’ll have to wait to see if you can read it.
All you gambling types could have gotten pretty good odds on Labor winning Dawson but not Herbert. Did anyone do so?
Wilkie ohhh he’s gawwwwwn clean blowed him by Irons.
Laming is looking unlikely but a chance only behind by 130 McEwen looks safer 50.08% ahead with 88% counted but still a few votes left to count anything could happen there.
Adam
I think Labor may just squeak home in Solomon as well.
Still a ways yet to count ruawake in Solomon.
There you go DC – my response has passed moderation – at 213
Mr Jackman’s observation that the last election reverted to a division along income and wealth lines seems well supported.
One thing that confuses me is the conventional wisdom that:
all other things being equal – people with more education tend to vote ALP
all other things being equal – people with more education earn more
all other things being equal – people who earn more tend to vote Liberal
How does that work?
Jenny,
Up here in QLD I believe there is room for another option.
From what I know Bligh is a big improvement on Beattie, but the people deserve a viable alternative or democracy is not served.
I was looking at this idea last year, but have decided that another project is more important.
Maybe I will revisit if that does not get off the ground but honestly, what’s the F****ing use as our grandchildren will be eating rats and cockroaches because of the lack of long term vision on the behalf of ALL the politicians who can only see as far as the next election!!!
Oh well, at least I can hold my head up and at least tried to make a difference to the nation that I love.
scaper…
Ferny – from personal experience posts which include possibly provocative words go into moderation, even from frequent contributors.
I had a post which included the word “J.e.w” put into moderation.
I suspect your (completely legitimate) use of the word “G.o.d” meant your post was moderated.
Any clues as to the list of words William?
Ross Vasta must know something that we don’t.
A look at the booth results in Bonner in all Wynnum booths show his vote as follows:
Wynnum – 41.38%
Wynnum Central – 34.79%
Wynnum North – 37.12%
Wynnum North High – 32.81%
Wynnum West – 35.06%
Albert F,
I won’t go into the statistical details but that is not actually a contradiction.
Correlation is weird like that.
Thanks Analyst – I was feeling a bit self conscious there
There are two types of wealthy people. Wealthy business people still vote very solidly Liberal, particularly if they are “new money” rather than “old money.” Wealthy professional people increasingly vote Labor.
Apparently the Qld Libs have elected Eric Idle as leader. At least the laughs will now be intentional.
The point is that education only provides a proportion of the explanation of why people earn more.
If there is another category of people who earn lots, but have low education AND tend to vote Liberal more often than the average, then you can get that scenario.
Say (for example) that sports stars tend to be uneducated, well-paid and Liberal.
They simultaneous create the relationship that education relates to Labor and income relates to Liberal.
The point is to remember that correlation shows a relationship – not the full explanation.
FG
Sorry you are re writing history. Goss lost the Koala Seats in Brisbane due to the Greens preferencing the Nats/Libs. over land clearing for roads.
Borbidge lasted two years and was dogged by corruption yet again.
Across the nation, thousands of Australians are turning to the AEC’s website, vtr.aec.gov.au to check the counting progress of the recent election.
But, what confidence can we have in the figures?
Take the micro Socialist Equality Party (SEP) which allegedly, polled 1730 of their state’s tally of 3337 votes at the otherwise uninteresting Cairnlea booth at Deer Park Primary School in the seat of Gorton. A simple check reveals that this polling booth, which recorded a total of 2631 House of Reps votes also recorded a whopping 4393 Senate votes. Obviously, these numbers should be same. The difference is almost totally explained by the extra SEP votes. It looks as if this is a keying error by an AEC official, as the ALP vote was 1728 in the Senate and 1733 in the Reps.
Now look at the vote for the micro Senator On-Line (SOL) party which allegedly clocked up a third of its total Victorian vote in the sleepy Frankston High School booth in Dunkley. Did the SOL party really get 1155, or 27.3% of the Frankston HS vote and poll almost the same as Labor and the Liberals? Again, there were 4313 Senate votes and 3154 House votes, the difference being almost totally explained by the extra SOL party votes.
There are potentially errors across the board. Tony Klein’s Group V Independents vote appears confused with the Greens in Thomastown Meadows in Scullin and he SOL vote at the Eildon booth in McEwen looks inflated by about 250 votes too. Note that all of these errors have been made confusing one party with a larger party that is positioned near it on the tablecloth ballot paper.
So, if I can, in an hour, find four genuine and easily observable errors in the AEC’s numbers with a combined discrepancy of over 3000 votes, why could the AEC not pick up these glaring errors before publishing on their website? When Antony Green’s fantastic senate calculator draws numbers from the raw AEC feeds, it makes an assumption that the AEC numbers are correct.
My question for the AEC is simple. When will these errors be resolved? Australian democracy depends on us punters having faith in an independent and accurate election body like the AEC.
Relevant links are:
Cairnlea Reps: http://vtr.aec.gov.au/HousePollingPlaceFirstPrefs-13745-46536.htm
Cairnlea Senate: http://vtr.aec.gov.au/SenatePollingPlaceFirstPrefs-13745-46536.htm
Frankston South Reps: http://vtr.aec.gov.au/HousePollingPlaceFirstPrefs-13745-3600.htm
Frankston South Senate: http://vtr.aec.gov.au/SenatePollingPlaceFirstPrefs-13745-3600.htm
Thomastown Meadows Senate: http://vtr.aec.gov.au/SenatePollingPlaceFirstPrefs-13745-4864.htm
Eildon Senate: http://vtr.aec.gov.au/SenatePollingPlaceFirstPrefs-13745-4320.htm
As the AEC becomes aware of these figures (hopefully) they will change. So have a look at these links quickly to observe their manifest errors.
(apologies for the cross-post to the Vic Senate comments page)
Qld Libs have still not sorted out the leadership after over 5 hours of talks.
It is expected they will continue tomorrow.
I’m glad there’s someone who wastes even more of their time on election statistics than I do.
#203 Bruce Flegg: “It’s only a flesh wound….”
Albert F – re income and education: they don’t always correlate. For example, last time I looked, the lifetime earnings of someone with a PhD were less than those of someone without. (Mainly lost income in early adulthood, but the degree itself isn’t a licence to print money.)
There’s also a big divide within some professions between those with family money, who can buy partnerships, and those without, who can’t and have to spend their lives as employees. In some professions the pay isn’t fabulous, even for highly qualified workers. Employed vets, for example, are lucky to get above $60K, and being employed as a solicitor is hell on wheels. Professional salaries in Australia are a fair way below those elsewhere, which is one reason so many people go overseas.
I know you have all been impatient for prefecture-level figures for the legislative elections in Togo. I have them up now.
http://psephos.adam-carr.net/countries/t/togo/
Maybe the Flegg-ites will join the National Party and Santo’s mob will become a party of four.
Adam are the Rally for the Togolese People conservative?
No 208
Sadly, I agree. Santo Santoro has been a menace to the party in QLD.
ruawake – If Nelson can’t get Santoro out of the party, he doesn’t deserve to stay as federal leader.
Speaking of unpleasant people, Michael Kroger seems to be everywhere in the media at the moment. I wonder if he’s considering making a comeback?
In Togo: “Union des Forces du Changement (Union of Forces for Change)” is doing quite well. Are they union bosses? Fanatics? Will they change everything once they’re elected?
Sacre bleu!
Ruawake – I fail to see how I’m rewriting history. It was Goss himself who said he blames Keating at least in part for his loss – and if he only lost the Koala electorates he wouldn’t have lost government. The disallusionment was very widespread.
No 241
Kroger is the only one talking some sense about the need for internal reform in the Liberal Party.
Who here likes Nelson’s laugh?
FG
It was a hung parliament – if the Greens had not got Koalaitis Goss would have won govt. He only needed one more seat.
No 245
I preferred John’s actually.
RA, Adam,
Thanks for the quick isolation of the missing variable.
This suggest (well to me at least) that the long term demographic trend of increased education flows in the ALP’s favour whereas increased wealth could go either way – depending on what its driven by.
Its no wonder the Lib weren’t that keen on public education.
Where’s the ABC Election site gone?!
Jenny – clearly you are underpaid
Found it again. (Please ignore me)
glen @ 245 – speaking of dr brendan, i saw an old photo of him the other day and thought i was looking at ivan milat. he should never, ever again sport a moustache.
But passthepopcorn if he did the bush vote would surely come back, i think the Mo is probably more suited to the 70s and 80s though.
Passthepopcorn, how about that photo of Brendan and him laughing the way he does lol!
I think you will find that almost all of the electorate with high median income in each state voted the Liberals, and a lot of the rural farming seats vote the National/Liberal. I think the conclusion is that most successful business people, whether they are in small business or big company votes Liberal
And prior to this election, the aspiring business people, small business starter, who have large mortgage or borrowing voted Liberal as well, but these mortgage belt seats swung heavily to labor
The Labor seats are generally the blue collar voters areas, ie south west Sydney, they generally do not have as high level of education. The other Labor voters are the late sipping Lefty, ie the well educated, who often have rich parent, or are going to university, who have the means and time to follow their causes. These people are the vocal part of the Labor party, they are the ones who attends all the protest etc.
glen, not sure which pic you’re referring to but must say, i find him a most unattractive man on all levels. i’d hate his laugh.
No 255
Well, if the comparison is with Rudd, I think it’s a lose-lose situation.
Then again, my mother said people voted for Hawke because he was sexy. Bloody hell, some people are blind.
Adam it depends on how many voets are out there. The AEC appears to not know if it has issued x or x + y votes… it is anyone’s guess as their ability to account for all votes issued in very much under a cloud of suspicion.
In Swan they have counted more postals votes then they have recorded being issued. The AEC site reports they have issued 2,489 yet they have recived 3,796 and counted 3,526. If the AEC did not issue the votes then who did? Do they know how many votes were issued? If so then why are they reporting incorrect information?
http://vtr.aec.gov.au/HouseDivisionDecScrutinyProgress-13745-247.htm
The same goes for Bennelong and a number fo other electorates.
hawkey’s brain is as big as a planet. that’s sexy.
Two Candidate Preferred Result by Vote Type Candidate Party Ordinary Absent Provisional Pre-Poll Postal Total
Votes % Votes % Votes % Votes % Votes % Votes %
IRONS, Steve Liberal 29,208 49.71 2,913 52.61 52 42.98 1,704 53.40 1,761 51.04 35,638 50.15
WILKIE, Kim Australian Labor Party 29,550 50.29 2,624 47.39 69 57.02 1,487 46.60 1,689 48.96 35,419 49.85
SCRUTINY DATA
http://vtr.aec.gov.au/HouseDivisionDecScrutinyProgress-13745-247.htm
WA DIVISION – SWAN
Declaration Vote Scrutiny Progress Absent Provisional Pre-Poll Postal Total
Envelopes Issued 7,241 1,469 4,824 2,489 16,023
Envelopes Received 7,238 1,469 4,648 3,796 17,151
Rejected at Preliminary Scrutiny 23 1 1 8 0
Ballot Papers Counted 5,850 134 3,256 3,526
Been thinking about Nelson (yes I know – probably not a good idea). It is a shame he was elected leader.
He would have been the perfect deputy to someone else. To use a Rugby League analogy he is a back rower.
He will do lots of tackling – do a few hit ups – occasionally win man of the match for his work. But he lacks the flair to be captain of the team.
He will end up being shafted because he is a team player – not a leader.
Did someone actually say that Kroger is talking sense? In what sense would that be? The guy is an automated factional bot, is programmed to go into loop mode (what else?) and repeat whatever the script du jour happens to be.
Ya’d get more sense out of a guppy.
The Greens & Democrats will not merge. But many ex-Democrat members will join the Greens as this has already happened. Not sure if many Greens have left to join the Democrats.
After 6 hours of discussions the Qld Libs have decided to spill all leadership positions.
Meanwhile in Calare the AEC has finally updated the figures for the first time since 29/11.
NPA = 35,789
CLP = 18,521
Ind + GRN = 19672
INd + GRN + CLP = 38193
NPA handily won the postals but their Pre-poll vote was poorer than their Ord vote 47%
Ind did better in both Postals and Pre-poll than the CLP
There are over 5000 absent votes to be counted plus about 800 postals.
The above information is (According to the AEC site)….
shows the progress of Declaration vote scrutiny for a particular division. On this screen you will find…
The number declaration vote envelopes issued for the division.
The number of declaration vote envelopes received by the division.
The number of envelopes rejected at preliminary scrutiny.
The number of declaration vote ballot papers counted.
Ruawake @ 246. That is correct but my earlier point was that Goss had lost so much support in such a short time that he was placed in that difficult electoral position.
MelbCity the AEC gave a perfectly simple explanation for these apparent anomalies about three pages ago. Spare us more conspiracy theories. You’ve been living in KGB-land too long.
“I am Lib’s Messiah”
http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/news/queensland/im-libs-messiah-says-python-star/2007/12/04/1196530644941.html
lol
Adam
Have you got the ref for that info. I raised the question of the apparent anomaly in the figures in Calare (for which I apologise) but missed the response.
262: looks like the Greens are buddying up to the Shooters, not the Demos
Greens, Shooters unite over chooks
Dovif….what’s wrong with latte sipping lefties?? Although personally I prefer an old fashioned flat white. While my parents were definitely working class, my own political leanings are governed more by social democrat values than social status. And I’m a flat white sipping lawyer!
wysiwyg “Greens, Shooters unite over chooks”
Typical of the Shooters to poach GRN ideas. Let’s hope they don’t don’t over egg the situation.
yeap flat white sipping lawyer, no problems with that, just like there is no problems with the far right red neck idiots
Dovif, you have no problems with far right redneck idiots (we call them Seeneys in Qld)??
dovif #254 “late sipping lefties”.
What does that make me? My motto’s always been “sip early sip often”.
What a joke, Garrett wont answer any Climate Change questions in the House of Reps instead Rooster Swan will take all of them.
The ALP really are a disgrace.
Your guys will have to ask questions in the Senate Glen.
Penelope Ying Yang Wong is the Minister for Climate Change – get used to it.
Actually no, ruawake, Senators have to answer questions on behalf of ministers in the lower house and lower house ministers have to answer questions on behalf of senate ministers.
Glen, what are you referring to? Is Swan to answer questions on behalf of Senator Wong?
Glen
Who in the L/NP crew will bother to ask any questions on Global Warming? Half of
‘em thinks that it’s not happening and most of the other half think that it is all part of god’s intelligent design.
You guys went 11 years without answering any questions at all, certainly none truthfully, so spare us this garbage. A little humility from the recently defeated mightn’t go astray, Glen.
Glen
Thats the way it has always worked, if your guys want to ask a question of the relevant minister then do it in the appropriate chamber.
What has Environment, Heritage and the Arts got to do with the economic portfolio of Climate Change?
http://img525.imageshack.us/img525/3300/costellouv9.jpg
Anybody have the full size image?
189
At least we can rest assured that if such an unnecessary, uncalled-for, utterly baseless, indeed Stalinist witch-hunt, of Star Chamber redolence, should occur, he will have the good manners not to ask a Socialist Government to pay the legal bills.
A better option of course is for Kev simply to thank him for his long service to the public, and give him a big gong.
Di are you related to Charlie ?
There’s nothing “Stalinist” about getting to the bottom of a criminal conspiracy to defraud the Australian taxpayer by paying bribes to foreign dictators, and to expose the culpable negligence by ministers of the Crown who had legal responsibility for these matters.
Well, Andrew Landeryou seems to think that Turnbull is contemplating challenging for the opposition leadership again soon:
“Supporters of Malcolm Turnbull say that as many as four votes in the federal party room leadership contest were not eligible to vote and that the defeated candidate is contemplating formally challenging the result on the basis that it is illegitimate.”
http://andrewlanderyou.blogspot.com/2007/11/party-room-carnage-turnbull.html
To me, a new challenge so soon seems very unlikely. But none of us would be surprised to hear of further reports of deep bitterness amongst Turnbull supporters.
Meanwhile, Bob Ellis goes a step further (as he usually does) and predicts that the Liberal Party will split in the not too distant future:
“But it’s all done now and their version of the Florida Recount (two late-arriving Malcolmites were forbidden to vote and one eager Brendanite may lose his seat and so show Malcolm really, historically won) will work away like a munching tapeworm in the party’s guts till Brendan in August calls on a spill and Malcolm is acclaimed and a Double Dissolution sinks him too, and a once-great party breaks up into warring shambles and like the Democrats, the DLP and the UAP disappears from history. It may not happen that fast of course, but it’s coming. ”
http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/stories/s2107621.htm
Well Glen the Libs did get good value out of Garrett during the campaign.
There is an old cricket adage. If you find a bowler you like – don’t take too many runs off them or the captain will take them off.
That’s why you know have Swan ‘n Wong to ask about climate change.
Bob Ellis’s track record as a prophet is not great. I think the Liberals will survive this defeat, although they may be a long time in opposition. But who can tell what will happen tomorrow, let alone in three years?
Robb and Ruddock to hold a post mortem into the election defeat for the Libs.
How appropriate.
Perhaps Eric Idle could offer a solution to the Qld Liberals problems. If Flegg and Santoro can’t agree, why not split? Then Flegg could lead the People’s Liberal Party and Santoro could lead the Popular Liberal Front. (obviously Flegg could not lead a popular front).
I was going to say they now just need a Crack Suicide Squad, but why not just send Tony Abbott north and then they’re completely set!
Alternatively, Flegg could lead the Silly Party and Santoro could lead the Extremely Silly Party.
288 Albert F – yes, “the Libs did get good value out of Garrett during the campaign”. I wonder how many seats it saved for them. It didn’t save them from losing government.
Adam
I think those are the parties where those who see themselves as “born to rule” trully belong.
Jho could make a return……………….
Albert F @ 250 – not underpaid, but on leave. (Whew.)
The thing about professional wages is a bit scary, though, esp if you think about it in terms of the election campaign discussion of wages breakouts. To match overseas wages for some professionals, you’d be looking at a really hefty increase. A UK teacher fresh out gets a bit more in pounds than a NSW teacher does in dollars, and considerably more again if they live in or near London. It’s a similar story with a lot of other professions.
282
ruawake – I agree but tell that to Prime Minister Rudd! According to Melbourne’s 10 News, Garrett will not answer any questions on Climate Change, Penny Wong said Swan will answer them.
BTW Wilkie will need to find himself another job, he’s now 356 votes behind
HAHAHA the only sitting ALP MP to lose his seat in 2007 what a noob.
Now WA is a Tory bastion, 11 out of 15 seats
so here is a random question: if you were writing a book about this election…. what would you make the title? serious answers only please
Then I take it Howard, Nairn, Lloyd, De-Anne Kelly, Baressi etc etc are also noobs, Glen? And what is Jackie Kelly? Supernoob?
Well actually no, because they were fighting against the swing. Wilkie was on the back of a 6% national swing and he still lost his seat, that is what makes him a noob.
Well it goes without saying Jackie Kelly is an Ubernoob.
Sorry, The Election is Tomorrow: A Thousand and One Ways to Tell Stupid People That It’s Too Late to Lodge a Postal Vote Application
It took a 0.8% Swing to unseat Wilkie, Glen. I wouldn’t have called him a ‘noob’.
I know that your loss is depressing, but please have some decency. And, you know, easy on the leet speak.
“Dr. Death or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Unions”
Now you just sound like the defeated greats of the Liberal party in their final days. Just lying through your teeth, really Glen.
The Climate Changes…for Good
Oh lighten up Andos that title was for a laugh!
But Wilkie did have incumbency and had those mail outs for postals but that didn’t help him either.
Old Hands, New Faces
It is a bit of a puzzle why Swan was the only seat in the country with a sitting Labor member to produce a swing to the Libs.
“Heaven on Earth: the Rise of Economically Conservative ‘Socialism’”
I was talking about your assertion that Steve Irons was fighting against a 6% swing in unseating Wilkie.
It’s completely inappropriate to compare a nationwide swing with that in a single seat.
A Rudd Awakening
10pse
“Oh dear what happened – we thought you were joking”.
Its a marginal swing to the libs.. Chances are the AEC has got its count data wrong. Does not look like they know how many votes they have issued. I am sure Swan will be recounted. The division of Sydney did not do too well for Labor either.
10pse re book titles – I’d like to call it Howard’s End, but that one is taken. Ditto The Party’s Over, unfortunately.
It wd also depend whether you wanted to focus on the victor or the vanquished.
Marathon Man: the rise and rise of Kevin Rudd
Annihilation: John Howard and the destruction of the Liberal Party
Gary B,
Maybe Garrett should gone the green senetor route. If you only aiming for 5% to 10% of the vote you have a lot more freedom
I think he made the trade to be constrained within a major party but able to acheive more. It does seem like he has yet to fully come to terms with this deal.
If Irons holds it by more than 300 votes i doubt a recount will be needed.
The Man Who Stayed Too Long: How John Howard Succumbed to Hubris and Wrecked His Own Party
‘An Election Too Far’
Adam, interesting title…. locks you into a fairly prescriptive narrative i would ave thought
“They shoot bastard PMs don’t they”
i had thought maybe ruddslide… but the victory is not big enough
Lindsay looks home in Herbert…>280 ahead
Actually there’s no doubt what the book title will be:
Kevin07: the Inside Story of the Most Successful Marketing Campaign in Australian Political History
‘Kevin Rudd: How Slogans Won Me the 2007 Election’
or conversely
“Union Bosses”: How the Liberals Completely Misread the Public Mood and Threw Away an Election What a Bunch of Noobs by Glen “Secret Labor supporter all along” Milne.
ADAM @ 267..
Where is the AEC explanation as to why they are recording more votes received then issued? I have written to te AEC and they have not yet replied. Clearly there is something wrong with the data and I am more then keen to know where.. I think they should be providing a full detailed disclosure of where the votes came from. They have made the mistake and they now have an obligation to detail exactly what went on.
I looked for the explanation you referred to and could not find it. Please provide a link our outline of the excuses made.
Adam got a t shirt you would love. Its red with the Green logo and the words ‘not just green’
Chris Curtis@310 – brilliant.
How about different ones from different people?
Costello, “You Can’t Take it Back You Know?”
Abbott, “So This is What People Skills Get You?”
Howard, “If Only They’d Listened to me in 1988, I’d Have Won Bennelong”
Nelson, “Let’s Get This Party Started”
“The Queensland Liberal Party’s leadership deadlock is still not resolved.
A party spokesman has just emerged to issue a statement saying the eight MPs have unanimously decided to declare all positions vacant for the Liberal team.
That one decision took them six hours to reach.
The statement says the discussions have been frank and open.”
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2007/12/04/2109628.htm
327
Melbcity – It’s a CEC cover up!’
Adam or
“Dr. Death or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Unions” (my pick)
“The Third Man: How Peter Garrett almost lost Rudd the 2007 Election”
“Red Storm Rising: How a socialist became Deputy Prime Minister”
Labor TPP is down to 52.85%… maybe my prediction couple days ago of 52.8% was too generous… maybe 52.7%
“How To Run An economy And Lose A Country.”
“If you want to win the game – change the rules”
- Australia’s 21st century election campaign
“The Backroom Story: Coralling a Couple of Percent From Old Folks Homes Via Postals”
Noob of the year award goes to the Federal Liberal and Notional parties. After umpteen years of growth, record employment and unprecedented prosperity they managed not only to lose the election, but to have one of the largest swings in living memory against them.
Further absentee counting in McEwen today has put Bailey 215 in front.
‘Jackie Kelly: Ratf!!!king for Dummies’
MelbCity, I can’t find it either, but I know I’ve seen it. Maybe it was at another blog.
“Bruced!” by John Winston Howard
What’s all the fuss about? Many of us thought it would be difficult to pick up a net 16 and Kev himself said it would be like climbing Everest and he doesn’t tell lies, even though the rest of us might. And whatever way you look at it, reaching the summit is a whole lot better than finishing up on the ledge just below, even if you’ve got to get back down in one piece.
I think only Bowman and Solomon are genuinely in doubt now, and Labor is maintaining its narrow leads in both.
Swan is weird. If the reported AEC figures are correct it will end up in the court of disputed returns.
1,099 of 1,469 provisionals rejected? Seems very odd to me.
Grey Says:
December 4th, 2007 at 7:18 pm
‘Jackie Kelly: Ratf!!!king for Dummies’
Grey, you got my vote with that one, another great title in the ‘for Dummies’ series, can’t wait to read it
342 Adam, have a look at the Solomon section on PB for latest scrutineer details on the count. Hale looks like holding on to his lead and maybe even better it tomorrow.
“People skills for Dummies” by Tony Abbott
“How to Win Friends and Influence People II: the Coercive Approach” by Tony Abbott
No Socrates here is the real title…
‘Reasonable People Skills for Dummies’ by T. Abbott
“Mr Speaker, Mr Speaker”
“Who didn’t tell me, What they didn’t tell me, When they didn’t tell me”
- John Winsome Howard
‘Kevin Rudd: The naughty boy who stole the 2007 Election’ – by Julie Bishop.
Brendan Nelson: “My rise and rise to become Mr 14%”
Tony Abbott: “Wishing I could rise as high as Brendan Nelson”
Malcolm Turnbull: “F*&% the lot of you”
Okay. I have. So far.
Undisputed Return.
Thanks for the mind clue, ruawake.
When will we see six PMs in the PB ‘masthead’?
I Have Reasonable People Skills…Except with Darkhearts Like Bernie Bantan
by Tony Abbott
Why dont we get rid of Whitlam and start from Hawke that way Rudd can fit in!
Forget about blubber boy no pants, Fraser was a dead loss IMHO.
Start from Hawke and go to Rudd.
Pancho (329),
Thnak you. I don’t often get a ‘brilliant’. Of course, history is written by the victors – and then rewritten when a new set of victors happens along.
What about “Wackothediddilio – the new Skipper Feeling Chipper”?
What about
‘When it comes to Victory’ by Kevin Rudd
John Winston Howard: “Sorry I lost the election (but that’s not an apology)”
‘I’m sorry i lost the election, but it wasn’t my fault’ – JWH
“Workchoices Made our Choice EASY!!!”
Or “The Re-alignment of Howard’s Battlers: a postmodern discourse on alternate dominant and recessive paradigms”
“where did my mind go?’ by Jho
‘Rooster Little: How i put upward pressure on Kevin Rudd’ – Wayne Swan
“The year Hyacinth went missing”
Nelson is a goose.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2007/12/04/2109576.htm?section=justin
“Power without Glory” by Mark Vaille
“Power without Glory or Power” by Bruce Flegg
“Expirationalincentivisnationalism”
“Drop the dead donkey vote”
Frank it’s a valid point, is John going to resign his Presidency??
“My mate Ironsy went to Canberra and all I got was this lousy t-shirt”
Nice, though I thought it was
“Aspirational Expirationalincentivisnationalism”
“Lib Misérables”
John Hunt for the Red: November
“How the Disgraceful Jackie Kelly bookended Howardism”
by Laurie Oakes
Has Andrew Robb been googling again?
The Borrowers’ Revenge
In which a horde of tiny, but heavily indebted people living in the wainscotting of Kirribilli House rise up one night and evict its incumbent and his trophy wife.
See, told ya Symbolism wouldn’t work
JWH, why I leopard can’t change his spots
Next. Lighter.
Australia Labours. Australia Delivers.
Laming behind by just 90 votes, he’s storming home yeeeha!
Bowman might just hang on as a Tory seat!
“Swings and Ruddabouts: Election 07 and Kevin Rudd’s hold on the public consciousness”
Or, in an appropriate homage to all those dreadful German POW films:
“For you, Johnny, ze Culture War is Over”.
“Working Ingrates in Australia Have Never Been Better Off”
“Honey, I Shrunk the Vote”
The Howards – Not A Working Family
“Who the f#@k meesed with my mind?”
messed
346 – “Dummies for ‘People Skills’: A Good Way To Keep Me From Speaking”
And some new kids books:
Where the Tame Liberals Are
Possrudd Magic
Snugglemal and Cuddlebren
The New Tale of Peter Rabbit (the one where he runs away from Farmer Rudd)
Maxine and the Bad Hat: A story of Bennelong
Howie’s Castle
‘The Great Manchurian Candidate Swindle: How Australia got sold a Pig in a Poke’
The Nation That Broke A Prime Minister’s Heart
[Now we are] Relaxed and Comfortable
To return to boring issues like the election count …
O’connor is interesting not least because of the the ballot order …
Conservative candidates with over 4% of the vote are sitting right above the National party candidate – including an independent with a likely significant donkey vote
I think it is interesting – love to know what Tuckey’s scrutineers are saying – he has been very quiet …
Unelected Dictator – The Janette Howard Years
Forthcoming auto biography’s –
How to hate unions & lose elections – by John Winston Howard
‘To the victor the spoils’ – By Peter Costello
Politics for dummies – Tony Abbot
Russian roulette – Australian Democrats
LMFAO!
Jackie Kelly’s Christmas Book of Religous Pranks
On the 2nd last day of the Campaign, Kellys husband gave to me
2007 Christmas Carols
TV saved my life – Joe Hockey
Power & the paste – Robb Andrews
Tea party at Tiffanys – Alexander Downer
ME, ME, ME – Malcolm Turnbull
“Floats Like a Butterfly and Stings Like a Bee[atch]: Overington & Newhouse’s Wentworth Frolic”
“I’m not Coping…Please Let it End”
by Dennis Shanahan
“Flegg Begs the Liberal Dreggs: Life and Laughs in the Qld Coalition”
It appears that atrophy has beset this blog
…and Possum is deserted too!! We need an election!!
Nice Phillip Adams piece today…
http://blogs.theaustralian.news.com.au/phillipadams/index.php/theaustralian/comments/no_pride_in_feeling_no_shame
Hey Voter Boy:
Have you spoken to your contact since the poll, or has his phone been ringing out?
Sorry if you’ve posted earlier on this, but after getting back from my little post-election holiday I couldn’t be bothered wading through 3000+ re-iterations of “Woo-Hoo!”
Yes Chino – Phillip has had a burst of insiration lately. He’s been writing almost every day. Rudd must be his muse.
OH: I havent heard about VBs inside contact since the election.
And one more book title…”Election Erection: Australia Falls In Love With the Ruddster!”
Just an observation but a quick scan of the 2PP results in the mining towns in Kalgoorlie would seem to indicate that AWA’s might not be as popular in that part of the world as we have been led to believe. The residents of these towns seem to favour the ALP (generally speaking). However since a proportion of workers in these areas probably work on a two week on and two week off basis or similar arrangement their electoral address is probably outside of the Kalgoorlie electorate these may be the workers who it is alleged are in favour of AWA’s.
Enjay: Wouldn’t that mean the ALP should win Kalgoorlie?
407/408
I did speak to him a few days after and posted something. He was in shock, even though he knew it was coming. I think that was when he told me that there were 500 staffers out looking for jobs, but that they were all effectively unemployable. He was scathing about Costello.
One thing I will say, however, which I didn’t say at the time: I asked him who was likely to become the leader, and he said Turnbull. ‘What about Nelson,’ I asked. (Not that I had any insider knowledge – I was just running through the names..) ‘No chance,’ he said. ‘Two parties, three wives.’
@356 Glen says:
Why dont we get rid of Whitlam and start from Hawke that way Rudd can fit in!
No, no, please! That pic of Whitlam looking a goose in his ‘It’s time’ T-shirt is far too good to lose!
Thanks VB: I suspect your friend’s gut feeling re Nelson is a fair reflection of the way he is considered in the party – in spite of his elevation to the leadership (to use a Keating distinction)- or at least the headship – of his party.
E. G. Whitlam a goose??? That’s heresy in these parts! Besides, wish I had an It’s Time shirt now – would be worth a fortune on ebay. Must ask Gough if he still has his.
Apologies – he didn’t say Turnbull (my false recollection, alas – but I do remember him saying something about Malcolm being very capable but having too high an opinion of his own capacity, which cause him problems in the party room). I posted on The Day After The Day After… (I’m unsuccessfully trying to cut and paste it – it’s post 868 on November 26 – not far to look, still on William’s front page)
So 500 Coalition staffers are now unemployable?? They will find Centrelink a wonderfully accommodating place. Perhaps they could go to one of Ms Rein’s employment agencies? otherwise they’ll just clog up the unemployment figures and make the Rudd government look bad.
417
Ferny Grover Says:
December 4th, 2007 at 9:52 pm
So 500 Coalition staffers are now unemployable??
They ARE employable
….helping write Howard’s memoirs: ” ‘please explain’….what truth is means “
ruawake (343) It is not uncommon for a high proportion of Provisional votes to be rejected.
Ferny G – not that Gough’s a goose, but he just doesn’t look the T-shirt type.
Anyone for the job of teaching displaced young Libs life skills? I’m sure people will be falling over each other in the rush to take them on …
So….job options for unemployed former coalition staffers? Hmmm….crash test dummies???
Jenny – must admit I never did see Gough as a donner of T-shirts. Glad you avoided the heresy too!
Newspoll says the 3 most important issues to voters in the Election were
health , education and water
Does any blogger believe this nonsense ??????
Does the ‘oz’ want us to forget that the MOST important issue WAS work choices
followed by climate change , then Howard lost touch/anyway retiring then Costello
Rudd said “the words ‘work choices’ were the words the Liberals dare not speak”
Guess the ‘oz’ wishs to follow suit in helping the liberals by dare not speak the word
Gough may have looked a “goose” in his t-shirt but at least he wasn’t so self-absorbed as to put his own name on it.
fg @ 411. Not when you look at what else is in Kalgoorlie. It covers a vast area of WA. Agricultural areas in the south and east are very one-sided coalition areas.
Adam OK but what was there excuse. I still have not had a reply to my email on this issue. You sure you not para phrasing someone elses assumptions?
I am amazed but not surprised that the Electoral Authority does not maintain accurate records on the number of ballot papers they issued. They use to but they have been getting slack of late. We should know exactly how many ballot papers were issued and by whom on election night. Too many times we see that mysterious bundle of 50 votes appear from no where on in the case of Western Metro Victoria votes went missing in the second count and Tilly never provided the answers or data to back up what went wrong. I want an answer not an excuse. Aga9in I wish to point out that io think it is great the AEC has published this data. It just needs contain more details and accurate information. If we had one electopral authority then maybe the costs associated with maintaining a professional work force can be justified. Another reason to adopt fixed four year terms we would save millions of dollars…
What are the union movement going to do for the people who work casually, they consist of 30 per cent of working population in this country, workchoices did not impact upon them.
Ron, I think we’ve all learned to take Sol’s interpretations of things with a lot of salt. I’d have to look at Newspoll’s methodology to make informed comment but I was surprised that WC wasn’t in the top 3.
Ron – the way Newspoll tried to mask the strength of anti-WorkChoices sentiment was to split it into two questions, with ‘industrial relations’ as a separate issue. Both scored strongly, but if they’d been asked as a single question, the result would have been stronger.
Correct Jenny – how on earth did Newspoll decide that Workchoices and industrial relations were two different issues?
Why should Faulkner have to resign as ALP President? He would still be a Labor politician! What would be the difference?
Because Tom he is special minister of state, Gary Nairn was not the Liberal Party President, but it goes into the sensitivity of the ministerial commitments and the role Faulkner would play as ALP President.
Marky – Who says casuals haven’t been affected by WorkChoices? Many have been put on AWAs, and they’re doing incredibly badly out of it: http://www.econ.usyd.edu.au/download.php?id=4301
At the most basic level, quite a few employers have insisted that they won’t start paying people until they’re actually at their desks or using their equipment, so employees have to do any setting-up or closing-down procedures in their own time. This is an invitation to industrial accidents.
No Glen but that did not stop the Rodent from fiddling with the Electoral Act, which I must say I thought despiccable and anti-democratic.
Glen
I have always wanted to ask a really Conservative person (though I don’t know any) why do Conservatives see global change as an ideological/religious issue rather than a scientific issue? Isn’t it like a factual issue rather than ideological?
marky marky Says at 427.
‘What are the union movement going to do for the people who work casually, they consist of 30 per cent of working population in this country, workchoices did not impact upon them’.
Did too, marky.
It is possible to assume that the ‘thugs’ will exercise some muscle on their behalf, unlike the thugs of days of gone by, in Government, who didn’t give a rats, except for the highly taxpayer funded, consultants et al, who fed on and were fed by our taxpayer dollars.
The Govt of the olden days did not care in the least for the small contractor.
Definitely, they have no Union, nor had a body to defend their interests.
We will see.
“The central conservative truth is that it is culture, not politics, that determines the success of a society. The central liberal [progressive] truth is that politics can change a culture and save it from itself.” – Daniel Patrick Moynihan
405 Ferny Grover
‘…and Possum is deserted too’!!
Not at all, FG.
Still clambering to aspire to sit at his glorious perch.
I take it the Electoral Act will NOW be changed to re-enfranchise those who were denied the right to vote by the Liberal Party?
Will the new act be called the Howard Electoral Rort Amendment Act?
A small point that needs clarification. Was Costello going to mute or neuter Rudd ?
http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,22849711-5012863,00.html
“We could have neutered that appeal of Labor if we had a fresher face, but we didn’t,”
However, the Lateline transcript says:
http://www.abc.net.au/lateline/content/2007/s2106788.htm
“we could have muted that appeal of Labor if we’d had a fresher face, but we didn’t.”
As Costello has neutered himself its a moot (or mute) point
435
DroversDog -
I am a Tory and i think it is a scientific issue and an economic issue. Personally i dispute the claim that climate change is all man made that is my opinion.
I don’t dispute that climate change is happening, but i don’t think its purely caused by man. I think practical steps are needed to reduce the impacts of climate change, i support nuclear power as one option but i will not support any moves that will be economically catastrophic to Australia. I think it is a disgrace Rudd has signed us up to targets without knowing their economic impact on Australia.
The economic impact on Australia of meeting our Kyoto targets would have been a lot less if we hadn’t had a climate-denialist Prime Minister for the past 11 years. The cost now will be much higher than it would have been if we had acted years ago. This extra cost should and will be laid politically at the door of the Liberal Party come the next election.
I’m now not at all confident Labor will win Bowman and Solomon: the trend in late counting seems to be headed the conservatives way!
And it’s a damn shame Peter Lindsay will win Herbert again: the Labor Government could have done with George Colbran’s small business expertise.
However, I did find out that the new ALP member for Dawson is a financial director of a chain of medical centres in Nth QLD, so James Bidgood could be a useful addition to caucus.
What Tory blogers are REALLY saying is they still do not believe in climate change
but lack the courage to say so (its called “Howard speak”)
Actually Adam it is Labor’s climate change policies that could well cost thousands of jobs and they’ll be laid at the door of the Lodge for Rudd to explain for in 2010.
Ron Brown, i said i believe in Climate Change so do most if not all Tories but some differ on the extent to which it can be attributed to human activity.
Glen thanks for answer …..
I am a Tory and i think it is a scientific issue and an economic issue. Personally i dispute the claim that climate change is all man made that is my opinion.
I don’t dispute that climate change is happening, but i don’t think its purely caused by man. I think practical steps are needed to reduce the impacts of climate change, i support nuclear power as one option but i will not support any moves that will be economically catastrophic to Australia. I think it is a disgrace Rudd has signed us up to targets without knowing their economic impact on Australia.
if it is a scientific issue why do ALL Conservatives “dispute the claim that climate change is all man made”? It seems to me that it is an ideological issue for them (FOR you).
If you think it is caused by natural forces (not man made.. though that is an unscientific position) why does that mean you should not take it seriously? I assume that You believe it is better to do noting that to change existing economy? Give the urgency, nuclear power is likely to be too late to have any effects. I have never understood why Conservatives are dead set against environmental protection.
Glen says
I think it is a disgrace Rudd has signed us up to targets without knowing their economic impact on Australia.
Ron says
Well 192 out of the 194 countries in the World signed up
so guess you support the other 2 counties
Clearly you do not know what the Protocols say
I mentioned I was going to another party, Sunday night.
Making an ill judged assumption, at said party, I raised a glass.
Only to find a Liberal leaner, unexpected, in the mist.
Discussion ensued. Amicably, as I could well afford, on my part.
One striking, to me, comment.
The topic of Ruddock’s back benching arose. Others, not me.
The Lib voter said she admired him. He had a hard job to do.
I did not take the trouble to address this.
As someone said, as I think, why bother. The questions are obvious.
What was the ‘hard job’? Who and what made it so? Why did it have to be?
The ‘hard job to do’ told me all. Person doesn’t get it. Couldn’t, I assume, separate Ruddock’s self imposed or accepted ‘hard job’ as less than necessary.
As it was.
Person seemed quite rational, otherwise. Can’t get broadband. Fine for same at work, nearby. Knows someone who knew someone, who got a port at the exchange, denied to others. Annoyed, about lack of infrastructure
Displeased by her husband’s treatment at his place of work. Employee of Australia Post. Gets up at 4.30 am, for work. Not rewarded for services rendered.
Husband laughed a lot at the few comments I made, on that topic.
Australia Post may no longer have whistles, but they continue to recognise one when they hear one.
There is scientific evidence that disputes the claim that climate change is entirely man made Drovers Dog.
I believe it is more ideological for the left and the ALP, they believe in man made climate change like fanatics, religious fanatics IMHO.
If we were smart and went nuclear in the early 1970s under Gorton, we’d have a substantial nuclear energy industry by now but alas we don’t.
I never said i was against environmental protection, but we cannot and should not risk our economy to targets when the economic costs are unknown at least if we do something it must be thoroughly costed to ensure a minimal impact on the Australian economy.
449
Ron Brown – i never mentioned Kyoto Ron, i mentioned Rudd signing us up to targets 60% by 2050 without assessing the economic impact that is careless in my book.
The public accepts that radical changes are needed to meet the challenge of climate change. These changes will of course come at a cost. That cost will be higher than it would have been if the Howard government had not been mired in denialism for the past decade. The public will understand where the blame lies.
Bidgood is an interesting character. He came to Australia as a backbacker from the UK in 1991, and liked Queensland so much he never went home again. Thursday’s Caucus meeting was the first time he had ever set foot in Canberra. He got the biggest cheer of all at the meeting, even bigger than Maxine’s cheer, for bringing down the Queen of Rorts De-Anne Kelly with a huge swing.
Glen says not sure its all caused by human activity
…”Howard speak” for denying cause of climate change
Ron says
There are 400 billion tons of CO2 in the atmosphere
What non human activity put the CO2 there ?
Glan says
“if we’d had nuclear power since the seventies, we’d have a substantial nuclear energy industry by now but alas we don’t.”
If we’d invested seriously in solar power since the seventies, we’d have a substantial solar energy industry but we don’t.
Glen you are as bad as that ignorant fossil Howard who still thinks climate change is part of the culture wars.
Glen, thanks again for Your answer….
I disagree, from an economic point of view I think Austraiia should try to profit from a low carbon economy. I assume you mean by “we cannot and should not risk our economy to targets when the economic costs are unknown” that the Govenment should maintain at all costs the 19th / 20th century economies of oil/coal and not embrace a new/risky sustainable economy, despite what you see as the risks?
I thought capitalism was all about risks???
I am still confused why Conservatives have equated environmental protection with socialism??? and thus removed themselves from the debate
Because they are idiots?
Glen says
i mentioned Rudd signing us up to targets 60% by 2050 without assessing the economic impact that is careless in my book.
EVERY European Country has also signed up to the same 60% target
Why ???
because otherwise the World’s temperature increase will be OTHERWISE irreversible
….great grand kids simply will not have an inhabitual earth
The science is no longer in dispute
Adam.. i agree they seem to be idiots but I still do not know why they have confused envionmental rationalism with soicalism??
Drovers Dog, when you have left wingers and you have climate change and you give them the leavers they aren’t going to go for a balanced approach instead they will be willing to sacrifice the economy so as to protect the environment. What we need is balance, it should not be removed from the debate but we need some rational balance views on tackling climate change that aren’t going to risk our economy.
Dont’cha watch Lateline, anymore.
It is instructive.
Climate change, Climate change, Climate change.
The MAIN problem the Liberals have with Climate Change is the subject originated
from ‘the left’ and was dismissed as “looney”
The Liberals WRONGLY assumed it lacked scientific support… it does
459
Ron Brown – i hate to sound morose but we will have to leave planet earth at some point well well well into the future anyway, that’s not to say we shouldn’t tackle climate change just that we need to look to the bigger picture IMHO.
451
Glen why don’t you be specific in the claim scientific evidence disputes the claim Global Warming is a result of human activity?
Probably because every scientist who denies the evidence does so for personal gain.
You of course are better informed than thousands of scientists who disagree with you.
As for the nuclear industry; come back when cold fusion is a fact!
Liberals will not simply acknowledge without qualification that serious climate change is here now and it is caused by human activity
Note that Liberals talk about the subject but always with qualifications
and Glen’s #464 proves it
Glen, I agree these serious issues are beyond 19 th century Capitalist v Socialist debates which are about economic power. The Capitalists have won that debate. Why don’t you celebrate that?
I agree that there is debate because the science is so complex but pretty conclusive.. I still do not undertsand why ALL conservatives always raise the sceptacism about climate change? If it was a scientific issue you would expect that some would differ? That is why I assume it is a religious belief for conervatives.
Fine. Carry on. With Glen.
Time wasting.
Off to consider Possum’s.
Are the Liberals FROZEN on the date of the 23rd November 2007 when their then PM Howard was still really denying climate change ???
Oh !!! I forgot …on the 24th November PM Howard lost his seat
I consider the left who uses climate change as if it is their religion by taking measures that could have extreme consequences for our economic prosperity as dangerous.
It cannot be a religious belief to doubt some evidence, there is no definitive proof either way even those who believe it is all to do with mankind cannot be for sure that this is the case.
Just because the Right has religious people in it (not me as i am agnostic) doesnt mean we take issues like Climate Change religiously.
The worst Foreign Minister in Australia’s history (Dolly Downer) shamed Australia by not ratifying Kyoto despite the scientific evidence
Ah Glen nicknamed Thomas the twin
I’ve just enjoyed the last 20 minutes trawling through the last few pages of this blog, and I’ve gotta say it, you lot are a bloody national treasure.
Laugh? I nearly shat! (To quote the immortal Derrick and Clive! The rest goes something like: I haven’t laughed so much since grandma caught her left tit in a mangle….)
When I first suggested, a day or so back, that we get a working title for the Rodent’s memoirs, little did I suspect that you lot would do the heavy lifting and let rip with your fabulous wit and acid tongues.
What a ripper it’s been, thanks everyone.
Glen thanks for your response…..
You still write as if it was 50:50 unclear .. about the anthropological cause of climate change and that it is therefore an ideological position i.e. leftist (whatever that means) position to support environmental action.. Damn, I am glad your views did not get elected…
473
Kirribilli Removals Says:
Ron says what’s your suggested title for howard’s memoirs ?
“How to remain PM for 11 years and never tell the truth”
The Costello without the smirk:
http://www.smh.com.au/news/opinion/now-its-time-to-look-beyond-kyoto/2007/12/03/1196530572876.html
… and the one I’d vote for.
Ironic isn’t it? One brother is a puffed up wanna be leader, and the other is a real fair dinkum bloke.
Genetic variation has a lot to answer for, doesn’t it?
but is Captain smirk real (or a genetic implant ?)
Glen says “at least if we do something it must be thoroughly costed to ensure a minimal impact on the Australian economy.”
I agree Glen.
If we decide to pump tonnes of CO2 into the atmosphere each of the next few
years then, before doing so, we must cost its impact on our economy: on the loss of agricultural land, on the loss of fisheries (especially shellfish), on the expense of finding new sources of water supply, on the cost of fighting the spread of tropical diseases into more populated areas, on the cost of accommodating increasing numbers of refugees from pacific countries, on the cost of protecting coastal areas from increased erosion and storm damage, on the cost of increased heat related deaths, on the loss of species with so far unexplored benefits to science and medicine, on the increased costs of fighting bush fires, etc etc
Do you honestly claim Glen that you have costed these carefully before you suggest that we release another year’s worth of greenhouse gases?
78
Dr Good Says:
December 5th, 2007 at 12:07 am
Glen says “at least if we do something it must be thoroughly costed to ensure a minimal impact on the Australian economy.”
Ron says: Glen is a lost cause. He (like Howard) REALLY does not believe in it
but uses ‘Howard speak’ to avoid being frank
Riveting as the debate about climate change has been, can we please nudge the discussion back in the direction of electoral matters?
Wink, Wink, say no more.
The election is over. William, it’s probably time to shut up shop here and go to the beach. This blog is becoming like a party when the guests won’t leave at 3am.
Tomorrow they’ll be counting the remainder of the votes in those close seats, check in here at 4:30pm tomorrow and we’ll know how the cookie crumbled.
Night ya’ll!
For those on this blog inhabiting the real world (rather than the pro-nuclear-because-there-is-such-a-crisis-that- we-have-to-act-in-an-authoritarian-and-economically-irrational-way-towards-picking-winners-among-technologies-and-at-the-same-time-it’s still-ok-to spout-the-sceptic-climate change-denying line, as peddled by the program known as “Glen”) can I recommend a serious look at the share prices and offerings of geothermal companies – the markets in my view have still not caught up on this any more than they did on, oh, say, bets on Maxine in Bennelong on 23 November… I intend to do something useful this week along these lines with a little money made on Bennelong and rather larger amounts made on Dawson.
BTW, Recent posts from the “Glen” entity have revealed as far as I am concerned that the apparent air, pre-election, of occasional dignity in a losing cause are best explained as just being artefacts of programming set up to deny any inconvenient truths as they come along. The alternative that it is an actual person spouting this nonsense is just too weird to contemplate.
Any feedback ?
I’ve tried to calculate the UNCOUNTED votes per seat by voter type and the 2PP vote each voter type gets (eg. postal) & applied that variable % to each of the uncounted voter types less informals
Labor
% vote margin
FLYNN 91.88 406
SOLOMON 89.38 -120
ROBERTSON 94.5 215
SWAN 91.02 -490
BOWMAN 91.59 -61
HERBERT 92.01 -429
DICKSON 95.44 -209
McEWAN 93.18 -161
LA TROBE 88.62 -452
Labor wins 2 of 8 for sure 7 a 405 chance in another 3
any thoughts ??
Well, if Climate change is the discussion of the the day
This is worth watching for rational (looking at you here Glen) argument
I saw it on Crikey awhile ago
I think its worth watching (Glen, no doubt you’ve seen it)
http://www.youtube.com/user/johnq5
RB,
I’d have thought Labor gets Flynn and Robertson (I guess these are your two certs) and I would have thought Bowman is pretty likely for Labor.
Solomon seems to me a total unknown – such a diverse seat with votes coming in from overseas serving officers, people in the outback, etc. Unless you know where the uncounted votes are from, I’d have thought it impossible to pick.
The rest seem to me to be going to the Coalition. They’ve kept their noses in front for a few days now.
So Labor gets 3, maybe 4 at the most.
And Calare still seems to me to be an unknown (Ind v Nats) – wish the AEC would put up some real info on it.
Ditto O’Connor (Lib v Nats), though Tuckey will probably win.
ABC appears to have given Flynn to Labor.
Yeah, William. With Adam.
There is summation, after polls, to be done. But, I’m sure that can be managed, without our input or maybe confined to, on a something like 9 to 5 basis or thereabouts.
But not all night! You have other work to do, as we know.
And beautiful beaches and places to be, in your part of the world.
And Christmas is coming.
Relax, and let the free range Lib turkeys do what they must. Roast.
Big year ahead!
487
Dyno Says:
December 5th, 2007 at 12:28 am
RB,
I’d have thought Labor gets Flynn and Robertson (I guess these are your two certs) and I would have thought Bowman is pretty likely for Labor.
Ron says; yes Flynn and Robertson seem certs
What I did is if a particular seat’s COUNTED VOTES WAS for example:
for “Absentee votes; informal 3.6% & balance spread ALP 51.43 % & LCP 48.57%
for ‘pre poll’ votes informal 2.1% & balance spread ALP 47.92 % & LCP 52.08%
for ‘postal’ votes’ informal 1.9% & balance spread ALP 46.56 % & LCP 53.44%
for ‘ordinary’ votes informal 2.3.% & balance spread ALP 50.64 % & LCP 49.36%
then I applied the above % for the UNCOUNTED votes in each voter type
ie. if the same % applies per voter type in uncounted votes as has already applied for counted votes in that seat ..then the above total result will occur
any thoughts ?
This election we seem to be getting, for the first time, indications of how many “Provisional” votes are claimed and then rejected.
It is interesting to see that it seems that a large majority of such votes are actually rejected. Eg have a look at the figures for Fremantle
http://vtr.aec.gov.au/HouseDivisionDecScrutinyProgress-13745-240.htm
where it’s 80% rejected and not counted (out of 1200 so far)
or Tangney
http://vtr.aec.gov.au/HouseDivisionDecScrutinyProgress-13745-248.htm
where it is roughly the same proportion (out of 600).
For the last election in 2004 we only have the total number of Provisional votes accepted (and we do not know how many were rejected).
From figures for Fremantle in 2004
http://results.aec.gov.au/12246/results/HouseDivisionFirstPrefsByVoteType-12246-240.htm
it seems that about 800 Provisional votes were accepted.
This election it might only be 400.
Why?
Have the changes to enrolment rules caught up with a reasonable number of people (maybe 60,000 across Australia) at this late stage?
RB @ 490,
So you’re saying Bowman’s still quite doubtful – could be.
Like your method, in general (and it’s a lot more scientific than what I’ve done).
Probably don’t think any method can totally predict the likes of Solomon, unless you understand where the uncounted votes are coming from – this is not info that is on the AEC site, but Party insiders might know.
“500 Lib staffers unemployable”
Will wedge for food.
I am sure this has come up before but I feel compelled to make comment on Julie Bishop winning the Deputy spot with the libs. There has been a lot of comment over a number of the threads particularly before the vote (I know I’m just catching up) about her favoritism for the position.
My considered view is that she could only have won the Deputy role because there were no truly talented members of the party willing to stand.
Consider her performance as Minister, poor to very poor. She really had no idea about education and whilst not wanting to offend the lawyers on the blog she epitomised the lawyer mentality; no clue about the real world.
The idea she should think she will be able to realistically challenge Gillard (I know another one) in Parliament is just a joke.
I dont believe the libs are suddenly bereft of people capable of doing a much better job the Julie, so why have they gone this way?
Her appointment is good for the ALP.
Then again I can look at my newly departed local member and wonder why he was preselected in the first place. Then I ponder why he won a term against a high quality sitting member.
Mine is obviously not to wonder why mine is to appreciate the mood change I have noticed in the last week.
colin @ 494,
I’m not pre-judging Gillard v Bishop – neither has ever particularly impressed me, but it will be interesting to see what Gillard does on the bigger stage of Government.
The reason Bishop got the nod is that 90% of the WA Liberal Party’s money comes from her electorate, and WA needed to be placated. She is very well connected in Perth, I understand.
The only plus I can see for the Libs is that, unless she is really terrible, at least Deputy is one position that probably won’t change during the next three years. Leader, now that’s another matter entirely …
That’s a classy joke you’re wielding there Lefty E
I wish SportingBet would hurry up and give Flynn to Labor too!
I make Chris Trevor’s lead 584. In the declaration votes he is currently getting:
50.67% of absent, 1008 remain to count
none counted provisional, 1181 remain to count
55.36% of pre-poll, 440 remain to count
29.23% of postal, 1060 remain to count
So assuming a 50/50 split of whatever few provisionals are accepted, if those trends continues his lead will drop to about 200. (I ignored informals which are very few, and just took the 2PP splits – probably not very scientific.)
However out of the postals issued, 1621 have not arrived, and still have 3 days in which to do so. If 500 of them turn up by Friday, with a valid postmark up to 24 Nov, and broke the same way, then Glenn Churchill could win it for the Nats!
I wonder how many isolated properties out west rely on a once-a-week mail plane? I’ve lived in such places… Not that I think it will happen; but next election if I’m watching a division that stretches way out west, it may be worth clocking the rate at which postals are arriving.
I can’t believe the AEC is taking so long with these counts…
Seems ridiculous how long it takes. Must increase the possibility of fraud – imagine if the decided seat count was 70-70-2 with 8 in doubt – how stupid, and fraught with danger, would this process seem?
wysiwyg Says:
December 5th, 2007 at 1:22 am
My analysis assumed all enrolled would vote & all postals would come in
- in many Labor marginals one has to hope he postals do not arrive !
But on my stats per uncounted voter types , EVEN if all postals arrive …
Flynn is a Labor win !!!
start counting your winnings !!
I’ve already counted the winnings, Ron – will buy a few Xmas presents
Agree with Dyno about the reasons for choosing Bishop, but you can add the fact that she’s a woman, and the Libs have belatedly realised they’ve been deficient on that front. But Gillard will have her for breakfast. She’s thick as a plank, and her only talent is for flirting with the camera – something that Gillard rarely does.
re the latest Newspoll conclusions:
1/ Nelson at only 18%
COMMENT:
will not be opposition leader in 2010
2/ quantitative Newspoll on reasons Labor won
‘3 biggest issues for Labor were hospitals , education & water
that therefore Labor won the election rather than the Liberals losing the Election
COMMENT:
a/ the idea these were the 3 biggest issues is nonsense
work choices was the biggest issue
followed by climate change
then Howard out of touch /retiring plus Costello
does the ‘oz’ dare not speak the word ‘workchoices’ either like the Liberals ?
b/ even Possum was persuaded that labor won rather than the Liberals losing
I suggest Labor did not win but it was the liberals who lost
due to THEIR decisions on work choices & Kyoto/climate change
plus the ‘queenslander’ factor of Rudd plus Rudd’s clever political leadership
484 Marrickville Mauler if you’re still around – absolutely agree. The Australian share market has yet to catch up with the implications of climate change and the need to minimise emissions. I sold my shares in Orica when I discovered that the company was single-handedly responsible for 1% of Australia’s CO2 emissions; lost heavily on the deal, though, because the market has been ignoring the problem ever since. My feeling is that the jocks who dominate the market regard (for example) recycling metals as cheating: ‘Why don’t you dig them out of the ground like a REAL man?’
Labor wrested it from the incumbents.
Won it. On merit. No question.
Citing my own opinion on the matter. Days ago, at Possum’s.
‘And it is an historic victory, in the terms of Oppositions don’t win it, Government’s lose it.
The result is the converse of that theory, as I see it.
Given the theory, it is understandable that the margin was narrower. Er, than long term polling indicated’.
From what source/s derives the truism that Government’s lose?
That Opposition’s do not win it?
A review of commentary, any wins, from any Opposition, is well in order.
MSM?
Sorry to be off topic, But William (Mr Poll Bludger) you now have to update your “The Poll Bludger” background to now include the Rudd Victory, as it now only has the “Whitlam, Fraser, Hawke, Keating, Howard” Victories in the background, so you website is looking very dated indeed, in fact very November ‘07 sweety….
Suggestion for background: Remove Howard from the photos, I would rather forget that we ever had the misfortune to suffer his reign.
William,
I still love your background, but just squeezing Rudd in on the right of Howard (ironic?) so that it starts and finishes with Labor PMs, would be nice. Perhaps fading Howard’s picutre slightly too
Tony Abbott, the gift that keeps on giving, in today’s SMH:
http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2007/12/04/1196530675473.html
At first I thought he had taken his pills and that this was a considered, reasonable essay. Then I got to the end and realised he was setting it up to urge the Liberals not to repudiate anything of the Howard years. Gold! That will enable Nelson to reposition the Liberals nicely on a “steady as she sinks” course.
Thanks again, Tony.
Tony’s Liberal re-election strategy:
1. Do nothing.
2. Lie low like a snake in the long grass.
3. Pounce when the opportunity presents.
That’s it!
Nelson has apparently delayed naming his Shadow Ministry until he gets final results from doubtful seats, especially Dickson and Robertson. I’d assume Peter Dutton will be reelected, but Jim Lloyd is probably going to lose to Belinda Neale, although narrowly.
Bowman and Solomon: too close to call, no idea what votes are yet to counted.
Liberals would seem to have Herbert, Dickson and McEwen.
And, unless there is a huge swag of National Party friendly postals yet to count, I’d give Flynn to Labor.
One of the eight Qld Lib members has phoned in with a wife suffering an illness so no decision on leadership today.
http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/news/queensland/sickie-halts-lib-leadership-meeting/2007/12/05/1196530721183.html
Federal count update.
http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/news/queensland/dutton-survives–just–as-eight-seats-hang-in-balance/2007/12/05/1196530721247.html
Keep on counting!
LOLOL
Abbott’s obsession with “winning the next election” is a leftover from the last year’s permanent campaign mode.
The Libs at the moment are like Wiley Coyote chasing the Road Runner. The coyote goes over the edge of the Grand Canyon but has so much nervous energy and momentum that he keeps on going for a while, not realising that he’s in for the long drop. Eventually he does get it. You see his ears drop, that look of despair in his face and then down he goes to a muted “Pfffffffft…” when he hits bottom.
The Libs will run out of steam in their quest for a permanent election campaign, and pretty soon, I’d warrant. The business of government will begin and then they’ll come to the realisation that they’re going to be irrelevant for quite some time to come.
The people are sick of electioneering. They want action. Today’s education figures are a damning indictment of the Howard government’s neglect of that vital sector. They were more worried about getting rid of student unions and turning Gallipoli into a maudlin national day of saccharine glory than actually educating anyone. Read: “culture wars”. They don’t get it.
Costello may have been smug that no gaping holes were found in the Budget by the incoming Rudd government, but that’s only because the real holes are elsewhere: education, climate, productivity, fairness in the workplace, treatment of immigrants, the official national obsession with digging holes in the ground and flogging off the dirt to whoever wants to buy it as an excuse for an “economy”. The Libs spent 11 and a half years robbing Peter to pay Paul and the public is sick of it, and will get sicker as they realise the national catastrophe that beckons if we don’t get cracking and fix things.
Elections? They’re so 2007. What we need is hard work from our government, with a minimum of spin.
Nice one Bill. How’s the no-faggin’ thing going?
In Calare Cobb (Nat) has picked up a tad over 50% of the 2600 absent votes counted so far. Plus he picks up the CEC donkey vote but not until they go to C/ALP first:
Nat = 37,438
C/ALP = 19,282
Ind + GRN = 20,349
Ind + GRN + C/ALP = 39.631
Nat + CEC = 38,168
C/ALP + CEC = 20012
So if GRN votes stick to their HTV there still is a possibility that GRN votes being the second ones distributed will push IND ahead of ALP. Then it could get interesting.
However if NAT keeps getting a high absent vote and maintains 61% of the postals he can win on first prefs alone.
Given the discussion on the banner image, William, the choice of “…miracle of democracy..” is something to ponder.
In each successive year, Howard’s Australia was looking more and more like Singapore in it’s political ruling class inertia (by design).
Although Howard’s stacking of the PS, ABC, SBS and other boards was expected, it was the moving beyond this to unprecedented use of, for example, the AFP, the ADF and the Federal DPP for political purposes and even recently in having PS employees appearing in clearly party political ads. The huge increase in allowances for sitting members fits this overall pattern of making a change of government less and less likely.
(All this was reminiscent, in part, of Bjelke-Petersen’s stacking of the Qld Electoral Commission to gerrymander in his favour – which they did extremely well)
It was becoming obvious that the MSM was derelict in not pursuing Howard when he was moving insidiously to entrench, using public institutions (and other unscrupulous means), the LNP’s position.
I wonder what another term or two for Howard would have brought to our Democracy?
I shudder.
Just lucky he didn’t get a crack at the upcoming two High Court appointments.
Good morning Bloggers.
Tony Abbott’s SMH article today is interesting.
http://www.smh.com.au/news/opinion/promises-to-keep-in-opposition/2007/12/04/1196530675473.html
First he concedes that the Coalition made serious mistakes in its last term. The he spends the rest of the article in a prolonged rant about how they made no mistakes at all. Denial is a sad thing.
And speaking of rants, check out Dr Albrechston’s foam-at-the-mouth shriek at the concept of Australia having a charter of human rights.
http://blogs.theaustralian.news.com.au/janetalbrechtsen/index.php/theaustralian/comments/conservatives_must_join_rights_talks
Apparently judicial activists are poised to take over Australia and put the parliament out of business. Geez! No wonder the election felt like being released from prison.
518
bryce
Good post Byrce, and you’re right, the MSM were either sh!t scared to rattle the bars or cogniscent and complacent enough to ignore it. Either way, Howard was throttling the very essence of our system, ie freedom to know and criticise.
As for loading the PS with lackeys, one of the worst was Health, a prize given to Ms Truth Overboard, and one of his biggest toadies. Some gross partisan judgements and policy directions were executed in total disregard of the nation’s benefit, and it bordered on criminal neglect.
I expect we will see these flagrant abuses gradually surface into the light of public scrutiny, and as you say, not before time!
Bryce (518) The ‘miracle of democracy’ is worth celebrating. The recent election demonstrates that we can change our government without violence. This is not something to be taken for granted. We are free to criticise the previous regime (as reflected in your post) just as we will be free to criticise the incoming regime led by Mr. Rudd. Vivat rex.
All I want to know is when the hell is Centrebet going to payout on my Bennelong bet!?
When will this seat be officially declared?
Three things I look forward to:
1. The retention of Medibank Private in public hands.
2. The appoinment next year of a couple of progressive High Court judges (perhaps including the first one ever from South Australia).
3. Reform of the Electoral Act to extend the period of grace for new and changed enrolments. There’s no reason why people should not be able to enrol up to and on election day, as happens in the US, Canada and even Nigeria.
522
The Duke
Sportingbet has paid me on Bennelong and Page.
I notice the Rudd Ministry has abolished the ‘Special Minister of State’. Tanner, as ‘Finance and Deregulation Minister’ gets responsibility for the electoral matters and parliamentary entitlements.
Any insight into this change? I suspect few will mourn the passing of Dr P Phelps, or for that matter head-kickers like Sen Abetz. (Nairn was fairly straight but a bit weak). I’m assuming Tanner will remain principled, but who knows, power corrodes.
Great post bryce. It was a watershed election. Had Howard won he would continued bend all public institutions to support the Liberal party. He would have slowly strangled the ALP’s power base via workchoices.
Three years foward, Australia would have been well down the track to a Singapore style system.
It’s such a relief the Liberals were stopped. As an added bonus, it does appear that the incoming goverment is going to quite competent
Work to rule (nee Albert F – I got bored with the Moniker)
Is Janet Albrechston for real? Is it possible to be a troll on one’s own blog?
Can anyone enlighten me as to the hiring process for ministerial staff in the new government? Presumably a corresponding number of new staff will be required to replace the hundreds of lib advisers and so on who became unemployed when the election result became known.
Crikey suggested that jobs would be advertised publicly, but I’ve been unable to find out much more about this.
Presumably 95% of jobs will be filled by insiders anyway, correct?
Turnbull will be Liberal leader within the year. Nelson will cop a hammering in parliament over his dumb idea to spend (waste) $10 billion on the F-18 aircraft which is not wanted by the Defence force. It will be interesting to see if Labor try to buy their way out of the F-18 contract.
Outsider, the Prime Minister has made it known that the number of ministerial staffers will be far less under Labor than under the former government. These positions are usually advertised in the Australian and on Seek.com.
Kirribilli 520 – I suspect that one the settling in period is over, some Dept heads such as Ms Overboard (aka Jane Halton, Sec of Health) will be quietly moved out.
Duke @ 522
IASbet paid off for Bennelong on Monday, and I don’t think they can take it back if Howard came back somehow.
Just checked my Sportingbet account and it’s now $165 in the black after betting on Maxine at $2.65.
Mark #516: re. smoking… there have been a couple of retrograde steps (fell off the wagon) but I’m still keeping them down to one tenth of what I was smoking before (now on one packet of 20 a week). I’m going to have another go when some stress-inducing issues in my life at present are resolved.
I shouldn’t have picked election time to go cold turkey. I forgot all the advice in the book I read about regarding myself as a non-smoker, faling into the trap of “ex-smoker” (i.e. someone who suffers from a sense of deprivation of nicotine, as opposed to someone – the “non-smoker” – who can regard themselves – by trickery if necessary) as never having smoked).
All the shame and anger of resuming (albeit on a much, much smaller scale) are coming to haunt me. I’m hoping that it’ll be easier next time as I’m starting off from a much lower base. I still haven’t told my wife, who thinks I’m doing well. This particularly breaks my heart. I’m determined to go off the fags again before she catches me.
Isn’t that just pathetic?
I don’t know whether anyone else has had this feeling, but for my peace of mind there’s been almost too much change since the election. Matt Price and Bernie Banton dying, the mother of a good friend of mine also passing away unexpectedly a week later (she’d been told she’d beaten the cancer), the surreal political argey-bargey that’s been going on almost as if there’s an election again tomorrow, some health issues of my own, and all this bloody rain in Sydney (50mm in the past 40 minutes where we live) leading to – as if I didn’t need any more stress – our roof springing about twenty leaks! Throw in our mortgage with Adelaide Bank going up (yes, ours was one of the chosen few mortgages to get a guernsey), one of my dogs nearly breaking his neck and confined to home, stir-crazy, without walkies, and it’s just too much for me at the moment.
Sorry for the whinge, Bludgers. I know I should toughen up, but it feels as if the weight of the world is on my personal shoulders right now.
Leos don’t like changes in their comfort zone, I’m told.
What a load of rubbish. As someone who at this election has for the first time in my life voted Labor, I’ve got to say I’m amazed at some of the Labor supporters on this site. You mostly seemed quite reasonable before the election but now that Labor has won we have people wanting to rewrite history and even suggest that all traces from Howard be wiped away.
It seems the only thing some of you have learned from the Libs is a ‘born to rule’ attitude to politics. It seems no matter which party is in power they allow hubris to take over. I’m sick of this right versus left crap. Time I found an alternative to the major parties. They’re as bad as each other.
The problem is that if you have a charter of human rights it becomes very difficult for hard right-wing governments like Howard’s and the neo-con supporters to start eroding them again and trying to neuter democracy again.
Neo-cons hate people having personal rights, they want all rights to exist in the government’s say, particularly if it is a neo-con type government. And as we know there are many Howard sycophant neo-con type MSM journalists out their who explode at the idea of even free speech. These people believe in totalitarian governments if they are liberal governments. Don’t imagine that these MSM journalists believe in democracy the way you see it.
Just imagine how much worse the USA would have gotten without the right to free speech in their constitution – something the Howard government wa in the process of eroding.
526
Work to rule Says:
December 5th, 2007 at 11:14 am
Ron says
I totally agree.
The reversal of the politicising & consequential adverse culture of the public service & institutions will take at least to terms to remedy.
The disgraceful use by the Liberals of the work choices public servant in clearly political ads was proof of how infected the problem is
One can not have a long term competent Government without a non political public service & accompanying institutions
Nelson will go down as one of the greatest idiots in Australian political history for taking the ledership on and it couldnt happen to a nicer guy. He is the perfect grinning jackass tool to front the Tories whilst they lick their wounds in opposition and let some time go by. As leader he will be a lighning rod for all thats wrong with the Tories and all the while Turnbull will build and consolidate a power base.
Turnbull should be praying that Nelson fights the next election as Leader because after that Turnbull will by comparison look like a gift from God. Turnbulls problems are the ultra-conservatives like Minchin who are on the extreme right of the Tories however two terms of Opposition should be enough to sort them out.
Update: Liberals now 50 votes ahead in Bowman.
God I hate postal votes!
It seems now like 83 seats at best for Labor, but you wouldn’t bet your house on Solomon staying in the Labor column. So, more likely 82.
Ha!
The Bureau of Meteorology says, for Sydney:
“A Few showers, heavy at times… rainfall 1.8mm”
They want to come out to Beecroft and deploy their measuring glass.
Paul K at 534
Here we go with the “voted for Labor for the first time in my life”, but never again due to the terrible things being said about Mr. Howard by posts in here.
Obviously, unlike most voters, you don’t base your choice on who you think has the better policies and leadership. As far as I can tell, the incoming government has not attacked Mr. Howard as they did for the past year.
Also, as far as I’ve seen, everything that Rudd has done or said since Election Day is consistent with his campaign promises and demeanor. In fact, the “union bosses and thugs” who fought against WorkChoices in their “Rights at Work Campaign” were cranky at being virtually ignored in Rudd’s victory speech.
Blaming the Rudd Government for the remarks of a few, certainly not the majority, of comments on this blog, is totally nonsensical, and it appears that you are looking for any excuse possible to say the major parties are “as bad as each” other.
P.S. I voted Liberal first time in my life in the NSW election this year.
Hang in there Bushfire Bill. I`m currently on Day 11 at the moment. That`s right – not a single puff in the reign of the Ruddster. I went back to a pack a week for a month or two, which made it a lot easier to go cold turkey, (combined with the sheer bloody relief in seeing that pack of mongrels given the boot.) All the best mate.
Apologies from the quitsmoking support group.
How about a thread on the issue of the counter mandate that Abbott claims in today’s SMH opinion piece, William? To kick it off: http://www.aph.gov.au/Senate/pubs/pops/pop34/c06.htm
Bushfire Bill 533
Sorry, bit wordy:
Sounds to me as if you’re going very well with the challenge of not smoking. As you say, you’ve had personal issues, which would make it difficult enough anyway. And you’re not alone in feeling the effects of the last few weeks in public life, I have certainly felt the loss of Matt Price, and Bernie Banton and others too. All that and a change of government was almost too much for me, and apparently for the universe as well!
Virgos aren’t fussed about change either.
I really believe that you can be proud of yourself for coming through all of that, I don’t believe a temporary small concession is a step backwards. It’s a very sensible means of making sure you can hang in there and regroup when you find that you’re ready to. It would have been easier in the short term for you to retreat to your ‘comfort zone’. But you haven’t. You’ve made a wise assessment of the situation, and made a suitable short-term compromise.
I imagine your wife will be proud of you too.
The election was a bit draining too, and the mostly calm, reassuring attitudes on PollBludger (including your own) were certainly a big help to me. There was always that underlying fear, though, that the now ex-Government would again be successful with dirty tricks/spin/manipulations.
You’re obviously very determined, as you’ve read, planned for it etc. You are succeeding. Be encouraged. Be proud.
Bryce 518
I agree and could add other examples – the stacking of research, health/medical and ethics panels by people pushing partisan agendas was also a problem. I have suggestions that would allow the removal of many of the worst of these people without appearing vindictive.
First, hold all of them to the same beahvioural standards as laid out in PS code of conduct. That would remove several of the politically active ones immediately.
Second, require that they have relevant qualifications or experience. Some of the most vocal and politically active in areas like ethics and medical research don’t even have any formal qualifications in health or ethics.
To be cyncial, there is another reason not to dismiss these people prematurely, unless there is evidence of wrong doing. It often just gives them a financial free kick via payout clauses. Better to simply not renew contracts, unless they are very long. Mind, if the previous government went around signing long term (say five year) contracts for politically aligned appointees shortly before an election, that would in itself be highly questionable in my view.
Why don’t they just disband?
Paul K 534
I hope I haven’t contributed to your feeling that way. For the record though, while I didn’t pretend to be anti-Howard before the election, I wasn’t and still am not a member of any party. I support Rudd but oppose Iemma for example.
Nevertheless, I’m not sure what you are really complaining about. The whole point of democracy is, and what I like about this site, is that I can express my opinion, provided I don’t do so in an offesnive manner. Glen and ESJ might express the opposite view, but if they follow the same rules I respect that too. I think the site has become more one sided since the election, but that is clearly because a number of former pro-coalition posters have stopped. Ask them why…
Finally, as for your comment on voting, I’m not sure who exactly it is aimed at, but I don’t really follow your logic. Rudd has been in power less than a week, and has so far done exactly as promised. Is that wrong?
Paul K, said
“What a load of rubbish”
Don’t want to nit-pick here – but technially that’s is not an argument.
The evidence of Howard’s misuse of the army, the AFP, the public service, govt advertising, the federal DPP etc etc to entrench himself and his party is overhelming.
He’s not the first Australian politician to do so and sadly won’t be the last. On a smaller scale many of the state ALP govts are guilty of the same abuse of power.
Howard was taking Australia down the hegemony route and I am very happy he’s gone before the independance of many of our public institutions was further eroded.
534 Paul K – A bad day Paul? Just a tad over the top don’t you think? At least see what the government are saying and doing rather than some crazy supporters. Each side has its wackos.
Outsider @528 – the ad was in the Australian yesterday on page 5 – all positions open, from SES level COS through to admin roles. Send your cv in to govrecruitment@pm.gov.au by next Wednesday, identifying what level you are applying for (and the portfolios where you’d like to go). Good luck!
bushfire bill @ 533 – i feel for you. in the last little stretch, my mother has died, my dog has died, and my long-term partner left me, on an anniversary, for a morbidly obese person half my age. i also gave up smoking. it was absolutely the best time to do it. i couldn’t feel any worse, i figured, and it worked. i was so excited on election night that i nearly had a fag, but then i remembered that i like my lungs very much.
you’ll do it! good on you.
#
538
Progressive Says:
December 5th, 2007 at 11:38 am
Update: Liberals now 50 votes ahead in Bowman.
So, more likely 82.
yep , I first bloged my stats a few days ago on the then 9 doubtful seats and said Labor were only guaranteed 2 (Flynn & Robertson) out of the 9 seats
Sadly the other 7 (now 6) doubtful seats
ALL had a high proportion of UNCOUNTED pre poll and postal votes (where the LCP were easily winning on 2PP votes)
vs
UNCOUNTED ‘ordinary’/absentee votes (where the ALP were just closely winning the 2PP vote
QLD Liberal leadership to be decided by ‘lucky dip’ if they haven’t agreed by midday tomorrow:
http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,22873869-29277,00.html
I hope that Flegg wins it again by lucky dip, that would be a perfect outcome.
Article in the SMH about Rudd’s climate change goals: Link
The interesting part about this article is who wrote it: Cynthia Banham.
With all the (justified) fuss about Matt Price, poor Cynthia and the horrible injuries she sustained in the Yogyakarta plane crash had slid off the radar. I remember seeing her in my local supermarket in Perth with her partner early this year, clad in a pressure suit and tooling around in a wheelchair. For her to make it all the way back to the foreign correspondent’s job is a tribute to her courage and determination – and also the amazing work that Fiona Wood and her burns unit is capable of doing.
Lucky Dip, eh.
And every child player wins a prize?
has anyone notice Laming has moved ahead in Bowman….. 50 odd votes clear.
and tollner has pulled within 90
If Labor keeps losing ground at the current rate, my pre-election tip of two seats either way won’t be so far off the mark!
#
555
10pse Says:
December 5th, 2007 at 12:53 pm
has anyone notice Laming has moved ahead in Bowman….. 50 odd votes clear.
and tollner has pulled within 90
yep , LCP will may win both…but any LCP wins are not a great prize
Looks like the AEC has pushed the button on the main flow of postals, provisionals, pre-polls etc. for the Senate.
No surprises from July 1 we’ll have – LNP: 37, ALP: 32, GRN: 5, FF: 1, MR X: 1
Oh well, it would have been nice for an extra Green, but that was always the outsidest of chances. Now we’re going to have to listen to Steve Fielding pontificating on his impact for the next three years. The worst of it is he WILL have an impact.
That was a bummer of a preference deal in 2004.
Graeme @ 525 re Special Minister of State – Rudd hasn’t abolished the position – quite the reverse. He’s given it to John Faulkner, who was also made Cabinet Secretary. This probably presages some interesting changes in the operation of the parliament and the cabinet.
Has Howard been arrested yet?
Who will arrest him first?
The war crimes tribunal in the Haige.
The Congressional enquirey in the USA?
The UN for AWB?
The Tax Dept.?
AFP?
Lets get the creep Howard and his henchmen in jail where they belong.
The only way to deter the next dictator is to prosecute the last one.
Of the eight seats which the AEC lists as ‘close’, the donkey vote favours Labor in Flynn and Solomon but benefits the Libs in Bowman, Dickson, Herbert, McEwen, Robertson and Swan. This could be decisive in two or three cases.
Have they now included all the below the line votes, which I believe need to be manually entered into a computer?
Hey, at least the ALP is hoisted on its own stoopid petard with Fielding.
Its entirely their fault Mr 1.7% is there, and no one else’s.
And yes, its looking like 83-65-2.
560
Totally agree…this person needs to be made an example of to ensure this behaviour is never repeated AGAIN!!!
Hurray for Lamington and Mr. T the Tories could hold Solomon and Bowman after all.
Sweet!
I love Postals!
http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,22873869-29277,00.html
Queensland Liberal Party may elect leader via ‘Lucky Dip’
I mean come on, I know you guys are desperate, but seriously WTF?
Even I wish that the Libs would get their act together in opposition, this is beyond a joke.
I think a solution is Flegg vs Nicholls in a steel cage match.
Solomon is interesting . . . While postals and pre-polls are very heavily favouring the CLP there may very well not be enough votes left to count.
Solomon had one of the very lowest turnouts in 2004 – 91.38% (about 5th lowest)
As of now the progressive turnout is 90.95%. There just aren’t many more votes left if the turnout remains similar.
The Divisional Scrutiny table shows no more than around 1000 votes left in postals, etc. (Mind you there’s still the issue of the 1144 provisionals rejected and the excess postal ballots issued vs received). But provisionals generally favour the ALP, and I don’t reckon there’s any probs with the postals that can’t be easily explained.
So even if there were another 2500 votes to come in (that’s an additional 4.4% turnout – 95.35% overall, a HUGE increase), and they broke 60% in the CLP’s favour on TPP (i.e. 1500 CLP: 1000 ALP) the final numbers would be
ALP: 21957
CLP: 21597
I’m happy to call Solomon an ALP win
Oh Bugger!!!
What a goose – I don’t know what I was looking at when I posted 567 but it wasn’t anything sane – I must have had a couplke of windows open and checked off the current TPP on the wrong one
Please disregard 567 – it’s analysis on acid
Mind you there still aren’t many votes left to count . . . so I’m happy to call my fingers crossed for an ALP win in Solomon
I think we’ll know a better picture by 6:30 tonight when the rest of the figures come in.
Till then ya’ll!
Labor candidates concede defeat in Dickson and Herbert.
Has John phoned Saint Max yet?
Glen@565
You better be careful licking the backs of those envelopes!
ruawake – It was obvious that he had lost it ages ago, and being into ceremonial formalities like he is, I can only assume that he is waiting for final results all around before giving a final wrap speech, conceding and disappearing.
#
569
dyspnoeia Says:
December 5th, 2007 at 2:02 pm
Mind you there still aren’t many votes left to count . . . so I’m happy to call my fingers crossed for an ALP win in Solomon
Solomon: Liberals have an 18% 2PP lead in the postals …we may be short by 120
Bowman: Liberals have an 6 % 2PP lead in the prepolls…we may be short by 60
Sadly 200 votes probably will cost 2 labor gains
Helen2, that was very sweet of you. Thanks.
The rain’s moving north (bugger the weather bureau, I checked the radar at the BOM site). The white cockatoo that’s been sitting on our deck balcony, getting drenched for an hour while staring longingly at the parrot food submerged on a plate underneath 5mm of water, has finally figured out that wet wild bird seed tastes almost as good as dry wild bird seed. Plus he gets a drink of rainwater, which is what I’m going to do with the nearly full tumbler of the wretched stuff I’ve collected since 10:30.
I think the dog’s getting better, but the vet asks me whether I want to risk spinal surgery. This dampens all enthusiasm I have of feeling sorry for him and prematurely taking him on a walk… where he would sure as hell see The Fluffy Ginger Cat sleeping under a rose bush or The Toy Foxy In Ruth Cracknell’s ex-House poking his little black nose under the gate – or, shudder, both – and go beserk.
I think I – and perhaps many of us – need to get used to the changes that have happened in the past couple of weeks. The election’s over, the dead are dead, the wounded are healing and the terminally ignorant run the Liberal Party.
Watching Grumpy Old Men last night on ABC I was pleased to see that the Grumpies shared many of what I imagined to be my own personal afflictions: too many pills in the bathroom cabinet, thinking every illness will be our last, sick and tired of going out and just meeting more dickheads we can’t stand. Thankfully I haven’t gotten to the stage where all I can imbibe in a pub is mineral water (sans the crisps or the peanuts). The dickheads in the bar are enough to keep me at bay, taa muchly.
G.O.M. made me think that if those blokes can be cheerful about their fifties, then I can at least give it a try myself. It’s just that I never got sick before, I could always recover from any misfortune. When things changed I went with the flow. At 54, it’s all getting a little more difficult. In a grudging way I admire the sexagenarian Howard not so much for clinging on for so long, but for wanting to.
Rudd, at 50, still has a long way to go in those stakes. He’s going to need all the strength he can muster to knock over the wall of vested interests that Howard erected to protect himself.
It’s going to be a hard road for a young man, much less one on the wrong side of 50.
But my, hasn’t he started well?
Howard climbs up in Bennelong to 46.79% with 2065 votes different, 93.14% votes counted
oh God, he’s coming back, he’s coming back
I hate postal votes
I wouldn’t be holding my breath for a Howard concession in Benelong. If he was going to then he would have done so by now. So despite his avowed devotion to Westminster conventions, he has decided instead to give the finger to convention and to the voters of his former seat.
I think the voters of his electorate have given him the finger FG.
He’ll wait till there are only a few hundred left to count.
They’re a (belatedly) discerning lot those voters of Bennelong.
Laming ahead by 125 votes in Bowman with almost 94% counted this is looking for for Lamington
The AEC has gone to sleep and there still remains a number of inconsistencies in the data they are reporting (Do they know how many votes were issued and how many are outstanding?)
According to the AEC data there still is some where between 14,000 and
20,000 votes outstanding in Melbourne Ports and electprate Adam will be familar with.
900 Absentee votes are unaccounted for.
Absentee votes are lodged in the AEC offices in which they are applied for on the day. Therefore the AEC should have all those votes in the system account for.
The number of Provisional votes looks OK in that they appear to be accounetd for but never the less high in number indicating sometyhing was mwronmg withj the management of the roll so teh enrollment number and as such teh percentage retuirned is wrong)
Three-Thousand pre-poll votes are missing. and who knows if the postal vote figure is correct. As I understand you can not lodge a pro-poll outside your divisional district. (It would be an absentee or postal vote if it was)…
Postal votes can and do go missing. ( a problem with the postal voptes system and a reson why postyal vpoets are under challeneg in local governemnt elections). There is a cut off for the date in which they have to be returned but they need to be postmarked prior to the election (November 24)
One would have thought that the pre-poll votes were issued and lodged at the AEC divisional offices and therefore should be well and truly known and accounted for.
http://vtr.aec.gov.au/HouseDivisionDecScrutinyProgress-13745-230.htm
Declaration Vote, Scrutiny Progress, Absent Provisional, Pre-Poll Postal, Total
Envelopes Issued 8,808 1,605 11,200 10,349 31,962
Envelopes Received 7,306 1,605 8,257 8,020 25,188
Rejected at Preliminary Scrutiny 4 0 64 11 0
Ballot Papers Counted 601 0 6,608 4,497
I know Adam in an apologist style say’s there is some excuse (I am sorry I still have not read it and until I do and until the AEC is in a position to inform scrutineers and the public HOW MANY VOTES HAVE BEEN ISSUED doubt will exist and qyuestioons will be asked)… the count is a bit of a hit and miss affair.
One week on and votes that could be counted are not. 11,200 pre polls in Melbourne Ports issued 8,257 noted as being received back (some 2,943 missing/not accounted for) and 10 days after the election they have counted only 6,608 of them. Of the extraordinary high 1,605 provisional votes 0 have been processed.
And this is just one electorate…
Now I do not think Melbourne Ports is in doubt. Statistically a 7% margin is hard to peg back …. BUT… I do expect the count to progress somewhat quicker then this.
I’d expect howard will concede at some point. He has been in politics long enough to know the importance of such final gestures. He concession speech on election night was graceful enough.
Maybe he’s already moved on and is now happy to be out of politics.
is it just me… i figure he did concede on election night…. cant imagine he would bother doing another one
But Work, if that is the case then he should take himself out of politics by conceding and giving the nod to both his electorate and Maxine.
Now that Maxine has ignored convention and formally claimed the seat without waiting for Howard’s concession, the former PM may not feel the need to concede.
10pse he said it looked like he would lose his seat on election night. Never formally conceded.
Damn, but I was never that confident about Labor winning Bowman.
Will the good citizens of Herbert get their car race? I don’t imagine Rudd will be too disposed to spend much money in Townsville.
A shame George Colbran won’t be in parliament, but he’s got his McDonalds restaurants to keep him wealthy for another 3 years. What on earth can Peter Lindsay do for his constituents in a marginal opposition electorate? Not bloody much!
Consolation: Belinda Neal will probably win Robertson LOL
“Now that Maxine has ignored convention and formally claimed the seat without waiting for Howard’s concession, the former PM may not feel the need to concede.”
Is there actually a convention at seat level as opposed to government level?
Anyway, as others have pointed out Howard effectively conceded on election night.
Well he may formally concede, he may not. I don’t really mind either way. I was keen to see the end of Howardism in Australia – the steady erosion of the public instituions and ideals.
Howard the man – not really fussed. He can go make a mint as a public speaker or spend the day locked in an airless room trolling blogs – makes no difference.
“It is very likely the case that I will no longer be the member for Bennelong,”
But he did also say:
“”I do want to thank the (people of) Bennelong for letting me represent them in the national parliament for 33 years”
So I guess a sorta but not definitive concession.
Howard would make a mint as a public speaker????? What a horrible thought. He always looks like he’s in pain when he speaks. I suspect he’ll retire, perhaps sit on a couple of low demand corporate boards and enjoy watching Mr Rudd run the country brilliantly.
yes – a mint. Often the give speakers a bowl of them to munch on while they are waiting to start.
Ron
Although Solomon is reporting three hundred more Postal votes received bacjk then issued it would appear that Solomon has very few votes remaining to count. (90.95% of the enrolment counted with a reported with an estimated 2,311 vpets to remaining to be counted and a margin of aroudn 91 votes with the ALP candidate in the lead ). Certainly not enough to change the expected result in the first count. A recount might show up a change of 150 miss-placed votes I would not hold my breath but it has been known to happen)
Depending on where the remaining 2,311 votes fall I would expect a reount in Solomon.
I think Howard will concede just prior to the official announcement. Why make it head line news – Australia knows he has lost and when the announcement comes it will be a much less significant statement then if it was attached to his party’s defeat. Mind you the AEC is reporting an more votes received back then issued So maybe John is hoping a few more thousand will turn up.
http://vtr.aec.gov.au/HouseDivisionDecScrutinyProgress-13745-105.htm
Emily @ 549 – Is there a link to the ad anywhere? Didn’t get the GG but would like to have a gander at it.
Melbcity – flick your findings to the press. It might grab their interest.
I can’t help feeling this latest attempt to quell leadership speculation in the WA libs could backfire badly.
Email urges Buswell to end leadership speculation
“In the message, Mr Sullivan calls on Mr Buswell to restore stability to the party by publicly stating that he will not accept nomination for the leadership under any circumstance except the leader’s death.”
599
Wow . . . they play it REALLY rough in WA!!!!
Howard is now irrelevant, I don’t care whether he concedes or not, although he should. After all – he’s always banged on over procedure. And is he still ensconced in Kirribilli House? What’s wrong with his own house – no harbour views? He could go live with the kids.
As for his potential on the speakers circuit. Who would listen? Maybe the H.R. Nicolls Society? He is not an ‘ideas’ person, unless the idea was extorting or exploiting people. There was never any forward vision. And he has no particular interest in anything – for what did he show a passion? Which issue did he champion?
Maybe Iraq? Maybe he can join up with one of the out-sourcing companies in Iraq. Maybe he could deliver kitchen equipment in Afghanistan. Maybe he could back to haning out with Peter Reith.
Write his memoirs? I doubt it – he was never anyplace where anything happened, didn’t ever speak with anyone who did anything, and knew nothing about everything else.
Though before people get obsessed about more postal votes coming back than were issued, such an error is produced by the AEC mis-counting how many postal vote packagaes were issued. The postal votes can’t be counted unless each corresponds to an application received. So if more postal votes arrive back than were issued, then there would be a whole bunch of ballot paper envelopes from people to whom postal votes were not issued. If that has happened, full on scandal, but if the tally of postal votes issued is out of sync with the register of postal votes issued, it’s just a tallying error by sombody.
I assure you Grover the Press are aware of the issues. They all monitor this blog. It is one of the best election blogs around.
My interest is in the quality of scrutiny of electronic counts. I expect the AEC and the dodgy VEC will push to bring ion e-voting within the next election. (I would certainly bring it in for absentee and pre-polling). With e-voting comes a different degree and methodology of scrutinising the election results. Questions have already been asked about the conduct of the Victorian electronic count with reports that the VEC accessed the electronic voting system results prior to the close of the ballot without proper scrutiny process in place. In Victoria’s case Tully embarked on a cover up and abuse and refused to make public relevant data that exposed the flaws in his count.
The AEC runs a more professional show. I have always found them to be a little more upfront then the VEC. There are some issues and these were expected. Hopefully the AEC will pay more attention on reporting the results of the election then meeting the limited requests of the media… who more often then not get it wrong. (The AEC has published polling place results for the Senate but did not include this detail in the media feed. A comparison between polling place Senate and Division results is a very good indicator as to any potential errors in the count. Something Tully tried to avoid in his coverup.
Contrary to varuious evidence given in the parliamentary review publication of upper house polling place statistics does not involve intensive computer resources. The AEC was producing volumes of updates of the count every 5 mins… I am sure five minutes an hour of upper-house results was and is possible without consuming “varst computer resources”./ All this information is collated it is just not reported properly. Partly thanks to the media and the ABC.
So, in Bennelong, they’ll have to find another 924 applications for postal votes; as it stands at the moment.
It all seems a little out of control.
Earlier in this thread there is another poster under the name Tom.
This has happened to my post name once before.
Please, if possible, link the names to the email adresses so that once an name has an email adress no other email adress can post under that name.
2010 should be interesting with both the Feds and Victoria going to the polls around the same time. Will Governments seek to save millions of public dollars and hold the elections simultaneously or will they ignore the expenditure and opt for separate ballots. We really do need fixed terms for the Federal parliament and one option is joint ballots. Elections are very very expensive and there is a lot we can do to limit the costs and duplicity involved having one professional electoral authority is one option worthy of consideration. Hundreds of millions of dollars of public expenditure saved. Money that could be better spent else where in my view.
Rudd will probably hold it earlier perhaps in March maybe??
If 924 applications exist but the applications haven’t been tallied correctly on the AEC website, not an issue. If 924 postal votes arrived and there is no record of the postal vote having been issued, the votes won’t count and you get a full on enquiry about either how these people got the ballot papers, or why the record of their issue wasn’t in existence. That’s what scruitneers are there to do, ensure the integrity of the count. And they’ll be operating off the correct details supplied directly to them by the AEC, not relying on the AEC’s website like us.
Adam you still have not put the results of this year`s Bremen state election on Psephos. Is this because of the 16.4% Green vote?
http://psephos.adam-carr.net/countries/g/germany/states/breindex.shtml
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bremen_state_election%2C_2007
2010 election timing is a problem. VIC fixed term last weekend in November 2010, NSW last Saturday in March 2011. Victoira has a mechanism to move the state election date, NSW doesn’t have a workable method of changing date. I think the popularity of the NSW Labor government may have a very big bearing on the timing of the next Federal election.
Tom the socialists Die Linkspartei won 7 seats as well off the SPD.
Still while the CDU lost 6 seats the FDP won 5 seats, that’s not too bad.
Tom what do you think about the Deutsche Volksunion (DVU) winning a seat in Bremen???
Thanks, Antony. The Australian system is complicated enough; just imagine having to analyse the system of that greatest of democracies, the United States (hanging chads, etc).
Not too good, but its only one seat and they don`t have the balance of power.
Solomon has improved to a possible win due to ALP improvement in 2PP postals
Bowman unfortunately is a small loss due to Libs 6%+ lead 2PP in pre polls holding
Antony, do postals historically favour the conservatives as they have this time? What’s the reason for this?
For what its worth , below is my computorised final vote by seat results
(based on uncounted voter types varying informals , absentee etc 2PP % per type
% ALP
count lead
FLYNN 91.88 406
SOLOMON 90.95 84
ROBERTSON 94.50 215
SWAN 91.02 -490
BOWMAN 93.94 -132
HERBERT 92.01 -429
DICKSON 95.44 -209
McEWAN 93.18 -161
LA TROBE 88.62 -452
Antony Green @ 600
Yes I agree BUT the AEC should know how many postal votes they have issued/ And whilst there may be less returned then is there should NEVER be more… Agree…
And then there is the question of absentee, provisional and pre poll votes. 100% of absentee, provisional and pre-poll votes issued should be recorded as being received back. These votes are issued, filled in and handed back on site, Voters are not supposed to remove the ballots from the polling place/AEC office?
A polling place presiding officer is issued x number of ballot papers they must account for all ballot papers issued and cross tally with the number marked off the roll, issued as being spoilt and the number of declaration votes (Those in envelopes) received back what is not accounted for should be equal to the number of unused ballot papers. All this data forms part of the polling place election day return. Postal ballots are issued by the Electoral Authority, again records are supposed to be kept and EVERY ballot paper accounted for. There should NEVER be more ballot papers issued then received back. NEVER…
A cross check between the lower-house and the upper-house is another means of validating the number of ballot papers in the system. If there is a mismatch you look into why? This was the basis of my criticism of ten Victorian Electoral Commission how failed to provide information necessary to validate the results of the election. The fact that the VEC refused to provide copies of the data files, the fact that they had reportedly accessed the results of the electronic voting systems prior to the close of the polls and the fact that they did not provide upper-house polling places statistics ALL contributed to the lack of integrity on the election process/ Like it or not the ABC played a part in that mistake/error. And this was not an oversight… It was well and truly anticipated. requests for relevant information was ignored by the VEC and as a result of the VEC cutting corners and refusing to provide necessary data the inevitable happened.. and the VEC/Tully still has not made public the details of the primary count. The result changed and there is/was no proper scrutiny or independent analysis as to where the error occurred.
I guess we will have to wait and see what finding the Parliamentary inquiry comes up with. Will they seek to sweep it under the carpet and hope that the problems will be resolved in house behind closed doors or will they hold the one person who is responsible accountable.
I certainly intend to provide a supplementary submission based on last months Federal Election questioning some of the statements given in evidence.
Did I read somewhere that Rudd has a higher approval / PPM rating then Nelson *even among Liberal voters*?
If so….. allow me to paraphrase Ave it 07 (ahem)
Liberal = LOL!
I’m all for a fixed-term Federal Parliament, preferrably four years. I was disgusted at the enormous waste of resources during the faux campaign, as state and local governments, businesses and house-holders held off on spending while the Federal future of the country was practically in limbo. I can’t really see any reason for retaining the PM’s prerogative on election timing -it’s all about expediency, and maximising the power of the incumbents. Three years just aint long enough between elections, as most governments spend at least the last 12 months of their terms thinking about nothing much other than getting re-elected, and the machinery of governance grinds on at a subsistence level.
Tom, may I suggest you pick a more creative name so that these problems don’t arise?
JWH said in his concession speech “I accept full responsibility for the Coalition’s defeat in this campaign…”
What are the implications of such a statement. Does it mean that he is going to do penance? Will he be keel-hauled?
I’ve heard such statements many times but I can’t remember it ever having negative consequences.
For what its worth , below is my computorised final vote by seat results
(based on uncounted voter types varying informals , absentee etc 2PP % per type
count ALP
91.88 FLYNN 406
90.95 SOLOMON 84
94.5 ROBERTSON 215
91.02 SWAN -490
93.94 BOWMAN -132
92.01 HERBERT -429
95.44 DICKSON -209
93.18 McEWAN -161
88.62 LA TROBE -452
On fixed term elections, we now have the perfect opportunity to introduce coordinated 4 year fixed terms at state and federal levels. It’s probably too much to have elections for all 3 levels of government on the one day. I’d suggest federal elections stand alone and mid-term state and local elections two years later. So we would go to the polls every two years to elect governments for fixed 4 year terms.
There a more creative name.
I still think that Names and email adresses should be linked.
623
Tom the first and best Says:
December 5th, 2007 at 5:02 pm
There a more creative name.
William IS ‘the best’ …….so you will need to drop the ‘best’ ???
I think Tom is just asserting he is the first and best Tom (on this blog), not the first and best of all things, which would obviously be a tad grandiose…
Newspoll
Rudd predictably is streets ahead of Brendan Nelson as preferred prime minister, leading 61 per cent to 14 per cent (91 per cent to 1 per cent among Labor voters).
Nelson is on his way to the Lodge …ALREADY he has won over 1% of ALP voters
Can we believe a legitimate Labor voter at THIS time prefers Nelson over Rudd ?
As that other ‘Tom’ (and I think I was the original) I have changed my handle. OK?
Correction
There should never be more ballot papers received back then issued.
Having elections for different levels at the same discourages differentiation by voters between those juristictions.
It might be a good idea to have upper house and lower house elections on different days for differentiation.
What is thought of upper houses being chosen by Sortition? (like juries)
I was the First Tom here. Just look through the Victorian election threads and you will see several comments from me.
Ron Brown Click here for the latest votes summary/count for each of the close seats. Bare in mind the quaility of the data on the votes isued is questionable… it is all guess work expect around 89-92% particpation rate (Votes counted to enrolled)
You should be able to cut and paste it into a spreedsheet. If you want all seats .. click here
TTFAB
Can you brew beer like Jovial?
#
628
Melbcity Says:
December 5th, 2007 at 5:10 pm
Correction
There should never be more ballot papers received back then issued.
Ron says
Absolutely agree.
Normal admin. management would guarantee the number originally issued WERE
the number on the postal register 9no. of applications).
THEN the number returned could not be higher than the number issued
This is a fixable aec admin problem that should not have occurred
I know Jovial quite well, our brewing is really very similar!
And how did you work that out?
ahahaha you had the wrong Tom!
OIC, D’uh!
631
Melbcity Says:
December 5th, 2007 at 5:16 pm
Ron Brown Click here for the latest votes summary/count for each of the close seats
Thanks Melbcity…this is the site I get the base info on 2PP % per party per voter type for all categories informal, ordinary ,absentee , pre poll & postal for all uncounted votes for each category to forcast the final vote count
(assuming all vote …but they don’t)
Have a look at Bennelong
http://vtr.aec.gov.au/HouseDivisionDecScrutinyProgress-13745-105.htm
Postals issued / received / counted: 5164 / 6088 / 5659.
They have counted more than they have issued. Don’t they match the counted envelopes against the issued on a one-to-one basis?
NL channeling JM
Doesnt the constitution bar a federal and state election being held on the same day?
Tom @ 629. As a Qlder I see no need for state upper houses at all! As for the differentiation issue – that’s why I suggest federal polls being stand alone with state and local polls being held nationally 2 years later. All for fixed 4 year terms.
The postal votes issued has changed during the count. I think Bennelong was reporting 64 postals issued on the 26th Nov.
So Flynn looks good for Labor?
Got a $20 bet on that
I am not sure where teh AEC gets its stats on teh number of ballot papers issued. The reportyed information most ceratyinly does not match the pubihsed summary data on the number of pastal vote issued and reported dail;y in te leadup to the election. Accoding to that data teh AEC had issued 6362 ballot papers in Bennelong prior to November 17. Looks like no further postal vote applications were issued beyond that date.
Nor does that information match data published here http://vtr.aec.gov.au/Downloads/GeneralDecVotesIssuedByDivisionDownload-13745.csv
So I guess the AEC and the media have no clue how many votes are out there… Nothing Tally’s (Was Steve Tully organsiing this cunmt?)(
Anna Bligh made a good point on upper houses today.
All they do is slow govt. legislation, but if Govts make bad decisions in haste they get kicked out (like John Howard) so upper houses are a waste of money.
(and yes she is a direct decendant of Gov. Bligh, his daughter married a second cousin also called Bligh, so the name continued, Anna has traced her ancestry back to her).
The Qld Liberals…..BAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!
The Federal Liberals…BAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!
Oh geez that lot give me more laughs than Python. I’m cryin here!
So she’s related to Turnbull? – that could make an interesting Trivia question at some point in the future…
On the QLD liberals I’m reminded of a quote from Rats in the Ranks.
“The less important the position the more bitter the infighting to get it.”
ruawake @ 644. I’m happy with a federal upper house but not at state level. At federal level it was created firstly as a state’s house to guard the interests of the former colonies, but it has long since dropped that role. It is still, however, a house of review and that can only value-add to the legislation produced by the government. To maintain this role, however, it is essential that no party has absolute Senate majority.
MelbCity, agree on the Absents and PrePolls, except again that the record keeping reported on the web may not be 100% correct. e.g. Pre-polls for Bennelong issued in the Perth pre-poll voting centre may not have entered into the system. Many pre-polls come back to the home division with the absents. Again, those scrutineering get to see all the physical documentation and screen jockeys at home don’t. The AEC tell me that their paper work has to account for all those pre-polls and absents issued outside of the division, and those reconciliations come back to the home division with the ballot papers and are checked as part of scrutineering. But the home divisions rarely update all their issued prepoll totals on the web with these returned reconciliations, because they’ve usually already been counted. Again, it’s the written documentation with the ballot papers that is more important than the totals published for information purposes on the web.
638
Bigmop The AEC are also reporting in Bennelong that they have issued,….
DivisionID Division Nm State Provisional Absent PrePoll PrePollOwnDivision Postal PostalOwnDivision
105 Bennelong NSW 780 5691 3066 2336 0 0
So I guess they have no idea… as they are reporting 0…. That leaves a wide open possibility for John to find a few missing votes…
seriously I am pleased the AEC is reporting this crucial information which is missing in the media feed BUT they really have not spent any time checking or verifying this information. God help us if and when we move to an e-voting system. Hopefully the AEC will not adopt the Tully “Don’t publish” cover-up and abuse approach to election management. If someone complains subject them to a harassment by making a false ill-conceived public prosecution… And I thought this was the approach of a totalitarian state not a “open- transparent” democracy as I think Australia is…
The AEC should just spend more time on the data quaility and scrutiny of the vote and less focus on meeting the limited requests of the media’s perceived interests. The media should be interested in accurate data (I would have thought)
# 600 – Observer, good call.
I heard a great story a few weeks ago about a lobbyist who was desperate to get in to see Howard in order to push along a business reform agenda. But before doing so, she was keen to speak to someone about how to “hook” Howard…that is, a starter subject that might get him to engage in the first instance. To just listen.
So, she approached one of Howard’s ex-staff members (a speech writer) and asked for a subject Howard was interested in that might get his attention. The speech writer’s response was: nothing. But, said the lobbyist, surely he must be interested in something? Nope, said the speech writer. Nothing. What about cricket?, she implored. He loves cricket! Nope, said the speech writer. He couldn’t give a toss about cricket. He just has a very good memory so he can sound like he does. Exasperated, the lobbyist asked for just one small crumb of an idea. Anything! The speech writer thought for a moment and answered, “John Howard is interested in John Howard. Nothing else.”
The total postal votes reported on the web were those processed by the central processing centres that dealt with applications received from the parties and from permenant postal voters. Some people send postal vote applications directly to the local AEC office and these get dealt with locally which accounts for part of the discrepancy. Then there are postal votes issued in overseas postings which don’t get tallied into the central count. There is documentation that backs all the postal votes issued, but as there are different methods of issuing postal votes, there are reasons why there are discrepancies in the published tallies. But again, the scrutineers get to see the real documents, so they will be better informed than any of us relying on the web.
So, Antony, is it the case that Absent, Provisional, Pre-Poll and Postal can be issued for, say, Bennelong, in Perth?
Some good news for Glen, but not for the rest of us.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2007/12/05/2110629.htm
Sortition would keep upper houses independent of the Government.
But Tom, sortition does not guarantee competency. How would members be selected – by random selection?
I wont brag that i told you so, but i did say we’d probably lose Hasluck and probably get both Swan and Cowan. Thank god for WA 11 out of 15 seats, without that we would be just a rump in Parliament.
Absents can be issued in any non-home district booth within the same state on polling day, or in certain polling places interstate. Pre-polls can be issued at any pre-poll voting centre, including a limited number interstate. The pre-poll voting centre where I voted in Sydney city may update its computer system each day with how many pre-polls it has issued in the four inner-city districts for which it is the returning office, but not necessarily for the other 45 districts in NSW. So the returning officer in Hume may not be aware of Hume pre-poll votes issued in Sydney until the reconciliation forms arrive with the pre-polls after polling day. Some of the discrepancies on the web may just be caused by not including all of the manual paperwork involved in processing pre-polls and absents after polling day.
#656, yep, credit where it’s due Glen. (happens bloody rarely enough)
I think I may have told you that the 3 most likely scenarios in WA were (in descending order)
Labor by 1,2,3.
I was wrong.
Boll
#656 I won’t brag that I told you so, ( right up there with your ridiculous IMHO, Glen) but I did say about 6 months ago that Labor were going to win 81 seats, and that John Howard was a lying dog and would be kicked out of office and his own seat. YEAHHHHHHHHHHHH
#659 actually just checked the seat selection and I backed him in, in Bennelong. Must have been an unflushable turd morning.
#620 – [JWH said in his concession speech “I accept full responsibility for the Coalition’s defeat in this campaign…”] -
I believe an old fashion public hanging is being organised by the Uglies of the NSW Branch, and a co-production with the Chaser Boys from Lindsay
Why should Kevin Rudd uphold his promises for the people of Swan who didn’t vote for him?
Kim Wilkie, you have my sympathies!
And Glen, you should be very thankful for postal votes, otherwise your lot would have lost at least 6 or 7 more seats.
This story was found at:
http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2007/11/28/1196036982629.html
Bill, please just leave the link and do not republish entire stories – PB
sorry about the length but i believe its good reading
Anthony I understand that. I have been counting votes for over 30 years and this is the first federal election where I have not directly scrutinised a booth. Each polling place is required to submit a return which outlines what vcapets and w=for what divisions they have issued ballot papers for. This information I would have assumed is recorded in the AEC database.
The AEC should be making available the breakdown of this data. (Along with upper-house polling place results. There is no reason why this data can not and should not be available and reasonably accurate. Pre-poll stop one day before the election. There should be a daily tally published (In fact this is exactly;y what we had requested) The AEC responded and published a statistical breakdown of the postal votes issued. It did not provide any stats on pre-polls. There is no breakdown on Absentees votes (IE where were they lodged). Provisional votes are only available within the division. Postal votes are issued by the division itself and reported back to the central office..
All this should have been tallied at the latest on the Monday following the election (Pre poll and postal prior to the election. We are talking about 150 divisions each with their own office and resources and access to the central database.
This is not rocket science and contrary to misleading statements does not entail vast computer resources.
More time on accurate accounting and less time on limited media output… then hopefully the media will report accurate results also.
When and if we move into a e-voting system I most certainly want to see more information not less. As the system is widely open to abuse. And I most certainly df not want to see the Chief Electoral Commissioner misuse and abuse his position of authority by accessing confidential re4cords and making false harassing vexatious complaints against those that have good cause to complain about his management. This is an abuse of process and abuse of responsibility to provide an open and transparent electoral system. It is not about cevr-up and denials.
Take another look at the Western metropolitan results in Victoria. Analyse the recorded preferne3ce data from the first account to that of the second count and look again at the recorded total number of votes. Any election that produces an overall change in the result between count A and Count B where the result is within 150 votes automatically be subjected to a a third recount to confirm that mistakes where not made in second count.
Yes scrutineers were present BUT they were also denied access to relevant data. Tully still has not produced the data files for the first count so it is impossible to undertake independent analysis and review..
According to Tully and the VEC there is no legislative requirement. Well under the legislation all he has to do is announce who is the winner.. Legislation is supposed to be the minimum not the maximum.. What happened to self regulation b it is now a case of avoidance and coverup.
Thankfully the AEC has not adopted the Victorian Tully approach…
PS SNIP: MelbCity, not being aware of the details of your dispute with the VEC, I don’t think it prudent to publish statements regarding particular individuals – PB
The Libs have always had a majority of postal votes – don’t get hung up on it. These people would have voted Liberal anyway.
At least we have a paper trail to keep the process above board.
Bill W. – the link to that was posted here last week. You should respect the SMH’s copyright and no repost huge slabs.
Back on topic….
I agree that we must never under estimate Malcolm T’s ego. Like John H*ward before him, the Liberal Party is just a mere vehicle for him to become Prime Minister. He needed a new vehicle after he crashed the Republican car. The ARM was simply a vehicle for him to become President in an eventual Australian republic.
Thanks to his efforts, the republic is now about as popular as stepping in dog sh-t. This leaves the Prime Ministership as the next best job to satisfy his unshakeable urge for power.
I’m no republican, so I thank him for his ARM efforts. And I will thank him even more when he crashes the Liberal Party car at an upcoming election!
Albert Ross I will try to refrain from posting big slabs again. Would you be able to email me on the cost etc of your site. I am trying to find a way of the Kingston Greens to have a site on the web. ( mikabill@aapt.net.au)
Bill, a big fantasy of mine is that the Greens will become the second major party as the Liberals become a minor one. I posted something along these lines just after the election. And to be honest, I don’t think it is completely out of the question, just as Biddulph (and others) have suggested.
It is either this scenario, or the Liberal Party undergoes a massive transformation in its central policy platform. It would basically have to shift to the Left of Labor, which is unlikely.
I think that the Left-Right political spectrum will become increasingly irrelevant in the not too distant future and that sustainable living and quality of life (which goes beyond simple economics and money) will become paramount concerns in many countries, including Australia. These are issues that the Liberal Party has never been able to address. They will become irrelevant unless they turn their ship around.
Calare latest
Nat = 38,449 (prev 37,438)
C/ALP = 19,690 (prev 19,282)
Ind + GRN = 20/739 (prev 20,349)
Ind+GRN+C/ALP = 40.429 (prev 39.631)
Nat + CEC = 38,926 (prev 38,168)
C/ALP + CEC = 20.448 (prev 20,012)
There are only a few hundred absent votes to be counted.
Noocat – and I know just the man to ensure Liberals become irrelevant: Malcolm T!
#667
John, the biggest problem for Turnbull is that he is in the WRONG party. He never belonged in the Liberal Party and never will.
This is why he initially sought pre-selection for Labor. Only after he found the pre-selection process too difficult to navigate, he turned to the Liberal Party.
And the Liberal Party know this, which is why they stopped him from becoming leader. Only last week, when he was vying for opposition leader, he announced new policy directions that basically mapped onto Labor’s agenda. Allowing gay marriage, signing Kyoto, saying sorry to the indigenous, are things that he actually believes in, but the Liberal Party won’t allow it. I doubt that Turnbull even thinks very highly of WorkChoices.
And this will be his ongoing problem. He will always want to turn the Liberal Party into something resembling the Labor Party because that is his natural policy inclination. While this is actually a good thing for the Liberal Party, because I believe that on their current track they are headed for irrelevancy, unfortunately the powerbrokers don’t know what’s good for them and want to keep the ship sailing to the hard right.
Turnbull is basically displaced. He is in a party that doesn’t really represent him. It means that if he ever gains the leadership and is forced to stay the current course (i.e., not shift Left), he will be living a lie. He will have completely sold out. And will be a recipe for some major cognitive dissonance.
Turnbull should never have joined the Libs.
#604 C’est la vie, Tom. I had to change my blog name to my Latin equivalent, because another “Tony” appeared. And strangely enough, once I changed it, he never re-appeared.
#671: “Noocat – and I know just the man to ensure Liberals become irrelevant: Malcolm T!”
Well, exactly. See my post above. Turnbull is displaced. And if he does get the leadership, he will battle the party on many fronts, which will probably create many fractures, as well as causing himself a lot of frustration and bitterness.
Noocat what Turnbull shows is how far to the right the Labor Party has gone.
Oh dear we have Green fantasies happening again.
Labor will get 35%+ of the vote and Libs will get 35%+ of the vote no matter what idiot leads either party.
The Democrats had a dream to win a lower house seat – the Greens will have the same dream – with the same result.
662 – I like your logic.
I live in the state seat of Clayfield and in the 2004 election, Labor promised that the Doomben racetrack would never be sold. Labor subsequently lost the seat in 2006 and then earlier this year the issue of the sale of Doomben came up again.
At public meetings, outraged locals were handing out copies of Labor’s election material from 2004. I thought myself, you can hardly enforce a promise if you didn’t vote for it.
I also note that the Libs are now saying that kevin Rudd promised to lower petrol and grocery prices. I heard Peter Dutton on 4BC today saying that he was now going to make sure that kevin Rudd kept his promise to do that.
Noocat @ 669
December 5th, 2007 at 7:04 pm
I agree. This might sound strange coming from a lefty but this election has changed my whole outlook on the left right debacle. I can see now that being either is not going to change Global warming poverty etc and i believe it is actually one of the problems. The left is a dying wing as i believe the right is now going down that same path. What i see coming is the 3 parties move to the center and the end of FF. There will always be the FF, one nation, Socialists etc but they will be so minute that they will not put a blip in any vote count.
Before we get too carried away predicting the death of the Liberal Party and the rise of the Greens as a major party let’s take a cold shower in the current data:
Green HoR seats = zero
Liberal HoR seats = 51 and counting
Green Senate seats = 5
Liberal Senate seats = 32 ish
While the Libs are pretty sick at the moment, reports of their imminent death are greatly exaggerated
ruawake all you do is green bash. Its rather sad
679
Ferny Grover Says: While the Libs are pretty sick at the moment, reports of their imminent death are greatly exaggerated
I think that its the political climate that has changed and this will put pressure on the Libs to do something or dwindle. In SA there is more respect for Mark Parnell than the State Lib opp leader.
The other thing to bear in mind is that the Coalition primary vote is almost identical to the Labor primary vote. Labor relies on a lot of preferences from a lot of people. So, as I say, the Libs are down but they’re a long way from out.
Bill
I state reality – if you want to live in another reality fair enough. But the Greens are the big losers from this election – not the Libs.
Irrelevance is the word you will be looking at come the next election.
Bill
I’ll do that.
But by putting that email out…
You better get a spam filter son
You better get yerself a good one
If people actually read the policies the greens have they will understand that their policies will bring significant benefit to the less fortunate.
The Greens are the only party seriously concerned about Climate Change, the other parties are waiting for international agreements and will fiddle at the edges.
But you still get those people who think they are full of irrational dills, many of these people have been brainwashed by economic rationalism and capitalism.
Take my vote for example on the new climate. I lost a heap of votes back to the ALP but gained slightly more from first time voters and the elderly hence i had a slight increase. The next election we will not have another Ruddslide or a Libslide and people will look to the Greens as the opposition to both parties.
Ferny Grover, of course, the Libs currently have a solid vote. And, yes, for now, there are plenty of rusted-ons. BUT, it would be foolish to think that past patterns will continue forever into the future.
The political landscape can change. And some are beginning to sense this now. How long that process actually takes, who really knows. But if current speculation is correct, then it is the Liberal Party that has the most to fear.
686 – How are the Greens “the big losers” when they actually increased their vote and Senate representation when the Liberals went backwards on both counts?
In any case, I think the biggest losers are the Democrats.
Bill i hope you are right but i doubt it. The Greens have to overcome our conservative media which controls this country.
Bill W,
Steve Biddulph writes well – but I think his track record as predictor of major politcal shifts is still to be proven. I think the Liberal brand name will remain for a long time – what the brand stands for is up in the air right now.
His book on raising boys was on the money though.
“But you still get those people who think they are full of irrational dills, many of these people have been brainwashed by economic rationalism and capitalism.”
marky marky, this is the biggest obstacle facing the Greens. These stereotypes need combatting. Only then will people take notice of the common sense behind many of policies of the Greens.
Noocat, I’m not talking about forever. My note of caution is to those who are excited by prophecies of the Libs imminent death. Some arer predicting their annihilation within 2 elections and I think this is fanciful. Some of us can remember that similar predictions were made in the 80’s when Labor captured the centre of Oz politics. Those predictions were also shown to be premature.
Steve Biddulph is really just engaging in some wishful thinking. To think that the Greens vote will suddenly almost triple (when it increased only .5% at a time when climate change was near the top of the agenda) to 20% come the next election is outrageous!
Ferny Grover, I don’t think that the Greens would become a major party within only two elections either. But we might start seeing some solid signs of a change in the political landscape over the next couple of elections.
As for the Libs, well that is another story. Their fate is in their hands. But I do believe that if they stay on their current course, they will tear themselves apart.
Yeah the whole “Greens are the big losers” line is total bull sh-t.
On latest counting in the House they’re up to 7.7% up 0.5 from 2004. And that was in the face of a Liberal/EB dirty tricks campaign. The Humphries pamphlet in the ACT was particularly outrageous and probably illegal.
While I don’t think anyone can agree with 100% of any party’s platform, they’ve been the only party (with the exception perhaps of the now deceased Dems) to have been steadfast on a number of issues: like the war in Iraq, equal and civil rights, and a lot of social justice issues.
Remember Labor won on the back of Greens’ preferences. Labor (and particularly Dr Carr) should think twice about smearing and patronising the Greens and their supporters, and not join the ranks of EB and the Libs.
Noocat, it would be fun to watch…and indeed they are fun to watch – be it federally or here in Qld where they have planned a lucky dip for the leadership. In the midst of our laughter we on the left must keep in mind that they are only 9 or 10 seats away from being back in power federally. In other words, they’re still in a stronger position that the ALP was before 24 November. They’re far from dead.
“Yeah the whole “Greens are the big losers” line is total bull sh-t. On latest counting in the House they’re up to 7.7% up 0.5 from 2004.”
I also suspect many would-be Greens voters actually voted Labor, at least in the HOR, because they were desperate to get rid of Howard and Labor had the best chance ever of actually finishing him off.
This could change next time.
“News Ltd today reports that:
‘Gold Coast MP Ray Stevens said today MPs last night agreed to elect a new leader by “lucky dip” if there was no decision by noon (AEST) tomorrow.’”*
Well, there’s evidence to suggest the demise of the Liberals, in Queensland at least.
* = published by Possum
# 700 – Yes, I think the Greens vote will increase at the election (certainly not to 20% as Mr Biddulph would suggest) when the focus is less on getting rid off Howard in the eyes on Labor voters.
Noocat 700, I agree.
Especially, if Labor does H*wardians things (eg. overturning territory laws, private school give aways, not fully withdrawing combat troops from Iraq etc). They will loose a lot of their primary to the Greens next time.
The next election is the ACT election. How do you all think the different parties will fare there?
John Ryan
Look at Bill’s seat of Kingston his vote was irrelevant – Amanda wins with or without his preferences. In fact Family First did better.
Nothing personal Bill but you have candidateitis.
The next election is the one you need to think about – will climate change be an issue? Probably not.
11 years of Howard created the Greens, now he is gone – so are the Greens.
“Noocat, it would be fun to watch…and indeed they are fun to watch – be it federally or here in Qld where they have planned a lucky dip for the leadership.”
Oh, Ferny, gotta agree with that – it is a LOT of fun to watch. That lucky dip is a complete joke – there are only 8 MPs for goodness sake, and yet they still can’t sort out their differences?!
I think the Greens would have been hoping for a lot more this time. All the planets had alligned for them (environmentally speaking) and they would have expected a major lift in their vote. As it was, any lift was marginal. I suspect they were disappointed in the result – not as disappointed as the Democrats however.
705 –
Firstly, there are many other seats where the ALP won on Greens preferences.
Secondly, the Greens were formed and gained parliamentary representation prior to Howard, so he hardly “created the Greens” or gave people reason to vote for them.
Next election, Family First will lose its seat and become irrelevant and the Greens will retain their seats and maybe (no, I think definitely) pick up more.
707 -
I think so, too. But they got an extra seat, so I’m sure will be happy with that.
ruawake I am in a very redneck area. to get the vote i did with the Ruddslide and a star FF candidate who failed to increase their vote its very good. We will get double figures in the next election and watch the geen vote in the 3 state seats in 2010
At the next Federal election, Labor will win crushingly provided the economy continues to go well. For evidence, look at Qld, NSW, Vic, SA, Tas and NT. Once Labor had seized power in those states, and was able to prove it could manage the economy well, it won 2nd terms in landslides that haven’t been seen much of before. The problem for the Libs now is that if Labor is seen as capable of managing the economy, the Libs don’t have anything they stand for. If Labor does indeed win the next election in a crushing landslide, expect another huge swing in Rudd’s home state of Qld, and also a huge swing in WA.
710 -
Do you think the Green vote can increase to above 10%?
As to the Greens performance at the next election, probably about the same as at this one, with Labor gaining primary support at the expense of the Coalition.
“11 years of Howard created the Greens, now he is gone – so are the Greens”
I think that’s more plausible than the greens pushing up to 20% at the next election.
It seems the ALP is as far to the right as at any point in its history. In part this is due to Kevin’s “no wedge” approach and partly because the “right” has won a large part of the economic debate in the last generation.
I expect the ALP will drift back “left” on social and enviroment issues but keep the Libs covered with pretty dry market driven economic policy.
This, I think, reduces the playing field for the greens.
Just speculation really – but my my how politics has changed in the last two weeks.
There’s been some interesting stuff here about the future of the Greens, and whether, one day, it will vie with Labor for government, or wither on the vine.
I think neither is the case, and here’s why:
The preferential voting system (which BTW I think is one of the world’s best) ensures that the best large party gets elected. If the Green vote keeps increasing, all it will do is help Labor keep getting elected through Green preferences. Similarly, the DLP kept the Liberals in power for many years, without ever threatening to take power itself. If voters have no experience of anything except Labor and Liberal Governments (kept in power by the preferential system), the majority will keep voting Labor or Liberal. The very voting system itself helps entrench a two-party system.
The first-past-the-post system, in Britain, has allowed a third party to win some seats, though it still hasn’t challenged Labor and the Conservatives for Government. I doubt that the Liberal Democrats would have more than a seator two, even now, if there’s been a preferential system in Britain. And the FPTP system theoretically, at least, allows a party to get elected to government with quite a small vote, even if all the other voters hate it.
The Greens, like the DLP did, will continue to have success in the Senate, and by influencing the policies of the major parties in the House of Reps. The Greens should not be too upset that Labor stole some of their policies – they should congratulate themselves on their influence.
While the Greens have policies on all issues, they have only developed credibility on some of them, like the environment, refugees and the war in Iraq. It is very difficult for them to develop credibility of topics like the economy, because they haven’t had a chance to run one, and probably won’t ever get it. The Greens will continue to poll strongly in certain areas (inner cities, sea change areas), but they are still making little impact in most mortgage belt seats, and old working class Labor seats. They also need to improve the vote with people of non-English-speaking background, some of whom, in my experience, couldn’t give a stuff about the environment, and (wrongly) think the Greens are Reds.
For those writing off the Liberal Party – don’t. For those writing off Brendan Nelson – don’t. Like John Howard (and unlike Peter Costello) he has grabbed the chance to lead. You have to be in the right place at the right time, but you never know when the right time will come. He can win the next Federal election with a small swing. Personally, I think it’s highly likely the next election will see a further swing to Labor, but you never know what the future holds, economically or otherwise.
The Liberals will come back, albeit gradually, in the states and territories. It’s the way of Australian politics.
Multiple points as I just reviewed about 250 posts.
Bushfire Bill, you are a legend; your posts during the campaign were a sustaining influence whenever nervous nellieism threatened. Your courageous battle with the dreaded weed is admirable. All I can say in the face of your recent trials (death, dog, distress) is nil illegitimi carborundum. No one was the blame, blame instead the human condition.
I hope that you derive inspiration, as I do, from that lovely line of Dante that Graeme Freudenberg used in a speech for Gough and later re-used for others: “thence we emerged and saw stars again”. Alas, its frequent use in the last couple of weeks is threatening it with cliche status.
I would be amazed if John Howard doesn’t turn up to the declaration of the poll which is the official time for a concession speech. Normally, however, the outgoing Member contacts his/her conquerer informally to congratulate them, which is the event that is usually described as conceding the loss of the seat. The ex-PM evidently hasn’t done that. I guess he’s entitled to be disappointed, but I always admire both generous losers and gracious winners. Was it VincewLombardi who said “win without crowing, lose without crying” – easier to say, than to live? An outgoing female Minister in the Kennett Government left a bouquet of flowers and a bottle of champagne on the desk for her female successor. Given that the Liberals were justifiably in shock over that loss, that struck me as a distinctly classy act.
Also, in fairness to Howard, his concession on election night in his role as leader of the Government (over-)fulfilled those obligations of good grace.
Re the Greens future: Their best opportunity for a significant break-through is after a term or two of Labor in Government, when there is a critical mass of the aggrieved. While I think there is some prospect of a significant re-casting of the Australian political structure as the non-Labor parties deal with the fall-out of 24 November, I personally don’t expect the Greens to become more than a significant minority about the size of the Democrats at their peak. However, they have good prospects of sustaining that level of support, IMHO.
The Rudd Government will disappoint, even if it is the best in living memory, because every action or decision involves some losers. In the run-up to an election like the one we’ve just had, many people invest their hopes in the incoming Government. Those hopes may be dashed even by the priority order of the Government, which means that some-one’s crucial issue is further down the pecking order than the hoper expected. Since the Government won’t be perfect, there will be even more of their current supporters who will be disillusioned at some time in the future.
Lord D Says:
“At the next Federal election, Labor will win crushingly”
Maybe – I think the ALP’s second election Landslides in the states has a bit to do with the Liberals not placing a high value on state govt. Certainly there were a few things going for the Libs in this election that they won’t have at the next one. These include:
– $400mil of tax payer funded ads in the election year
– Ability to rain pork on marginals
– The fund raising opportunities afforded by Government
– Control of the news cycle
– 500 odd staffers to help out
– Ability to put up wedge legislation
– A scare campaign
Guess we’ll see what sort of fight the Libs can put up without these advantages.
Can’t do Campbell can do better according to the Queensland Government. Gridlock Campbell with 100 days to go until his biggest electoral test has decided that Brisbane people are quite prepared to accept his extended gridlock proposals. Oh, what fun it must be to be a Queensland Liberal at the moment. Not much that any of them do is making a lot of sense.
http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/news/queensland/tensions-rise-over-hale-st-bridge/2007/12/05/1196530726832.html
Peter @ 716: Eloquence with latin and Dante. How could we not be impressed! Yes the Rudd government will disappoint. All governments do. The issue is whether (or when) it will disappoint sufficient numbers to be shown the door. In my view, those of us on the left tend to be more vocal in criticising our party when it strays from the path. Conservative supporters tended to support whatever action the Howard government foisted upon us, no matter how lacking in ethics or justice (or sense!). Labor will not be given this latitude by its own.
As for the Greens, I agree that the best they can achieve would be to gain a similar position as the Democrats achieved at their best. I wonder if they will ever be seen as more than a monopolicy party while they continue with their current name. I don’t think this perception is a fair one, but it is a perception nonetheless.
Peter Fuller, once again I have to say thanks to a stranger for the vote of confidence.
I’m gobsmacked that anyone reads my self-indulgent and rambling posts.
I’m even more amazed that anyone cares about the nicotine and other mental struggles of a man who’s taken far too much for granted – for far too long – about his health and his very existence, and is now starting to pay the Piper.
The single best thing that John Faulkner could do to ensure a labor victory for generations is to reduce the informal vote. He must get that informal vote down for the sake of democracy, so that peoples voices are heard . Have a look on the % informals on the aec site , it is an outrage. He must instruct the A.E.C.to educate by whatever means the electorate and spend however much is needed to allow people to excercise their vote.
I think from an alalysis of the type of seats where the informal is highest ( labor seats) that it is possible to infer that it a majority labor vote that is squandered by informals
steve @ 718
People of Brisbane have a choice either accept gridlock now for a short period of time or accept gridlock in the future for a very very long period of time. The council and the QLD Labor party knows this and both accepted the changes in the past but now the council election is coming up they have changed their minds. Bring back Beattie he was willing to put politics to one side and get things done. Blight is a joke and will bring a joke of a Coalition back in QLD so fast it will make your hair stand on end.
Stephen….Have a good look at Seeney…..then have a good look at Flegg, Nichols et al. Now, do you really think Qld will vote for this lot “so fast our hair will stand on end”?
722 Stephen, on a related topic, remember this one?
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1687363,00.html
Ferney Grover @ 723
I agree they are a joke. People will not be voting for them but against Bligh and due to Labor’s large number of seats they will see it as a safe protest vote. The problem is the margin as a % is not all that big.
steve @ 724
Sorry I do not see the relation. People voted for the Coalition at a federal level and voted Labor at a state level. Are you suggesting this can’t go the other way?
Stephen, I don’t think Qld is being well governed as it takes a disciplined opposition to create a disciplined government. If there was going to be a protest vote it would have occurred at the last election – or the one before that – due to the ineptitude of many government ministers. Unless the Conservatives get their act together, Anna Bligh has nothing to worry about. There is the additional problem (and I’ve mentioned this in other posts) that the changing demographics will make it nearly impossible for a National Party-led coalition to win government. So….until the Libs get their act together, Labor are here to stay.
Lord D their is every possibility the economy will collapse. The economy is already showing signs of overheating and next year interest rates will likely increase. If the economy collapses labor will be left for a generation with the blame.
The only grouping of people with less talent than the Parliamentary Queensland Liberal Party are the rump of Liberals in Brisbane city Council. I don’t think the voters will be persuaded that the ‘lucky dip party’ is necessarily a better form of government than voting a united alternative.
Antony what you say about absentee and pre-poll is correct BUT they stopped issuing Pre poll votes on the Friday before the election. postals were stopped being issued before then. Absentees votes should have been tallied on the night. we are now 10 days done the track and all the data published by the AEC gives a different number. Of greater concern is that the number of votes being reported as being rfe4coived is greater then the number reported as being issued. Absentee votes May take a while to get back to base (They are votes that are handed in at a polling station. They are not in the mail) but 10 days into the count I would have thought they would all be back to their respective electorates by now.
As to the postals they should have known exactly how many were issued prior to election day.. In fact we had requested that the AEC provide a running daily tally of what was issued and what was received. the AEC rightly provided that information (In part – missing was information on pre-polls and the number of postals received back)
10 days ;later we still are not in a position of knowing exactly how many votes are iut theorem, how many can be expected to be returned and as stated the number that is reported as being returned is greater then the number reported as being issued. This coupled with the fact that in some elctorates the count is progressing at a very slow rate.. Look at Melbourne Ports for example.
With the Internet and the vast computer resources of the Australian Electoral;l Commission which has spent Millions of dollars in development and lovin that each polling place/division office is required to submit an initial return on election day we should not be in the position where we are today arguing and debating what is out there…
Interesting enough Russia had its election last weekend and they have already been able to announce its results with all polling places accounted for.
I agree in part with another poster that our preferential ballot system has a lot to desire. (Even though there are aspects that need further review 0- such as the way in which we calculate the surplus transfer value, segmentation in the distribution of the vote, the desirability to retain any remainders in the count etc…) There is no doubt that many countries (The USA, Britain and Canada in particular) should adopt a preferential ballot system. If France had adopted preferential ballot it would have saved the French 100’s of millions of Euros by avoiding the costs of a two round system (That’s a hospital or a few schools paid for just by adopting one simple electoral reform policy).
Yes democratic representation is valuable but at what cost is deemed acceptable. Should we be spending millions of dollars on a by-election when there are alternatives such as a count back system which are more then acceptable?
Fixed terms is another thing. If the various constitutions prevent rationalisation of our system of democracy then should we not be seeking to change it as opposed to being locked into the concept that the constitution is set in stone. I am not sure if you can really call Australia’s constitution a constitution anyway, if I recall it is more of a piece of legislation adopted by the British around the turn of last century.
To put the vat among the pigeons. I recall questioning, who is now a very senior member of the State parliament about the need to reform the Victorian Upper–house. The person who shall remain nameless responded that if it was up to them they would opt for abolition. I argued that abolition was not the way forward and argued reform BUT I was cut short, in surprise when it became clear that they were advocating at the time abolition of the State Government not the upper-house. Something I could not disagree with.
I am not sure if the person I am referring to holds the same point of view. I doubt it somehow.. They most certainly have not acted on that suggestion but they did pursue the upper-house reform agenda. Its not exactly what I wanted (I would have preferred a 5 province x nine or seven members)..
We have a unique opportunity presented here. With Labor in power in all states and Federally to pursue meaningful reform.
Sadly whilst we are still debating the rights and wrongs of Johns failed dynasty we have not yet started to embrace the issues that we should be taking forward… Issues of states versus federal responsibility.. Transfer of powers health to the Feds and and education to the states… a new republic without a directly elected head of state, a new flag… industrial relations and national environment laws, motor registration, state taxes etc… Sadly most of what needs to be changed will not get changed… all for the wrong reasons…
Wouldn’t it be nice if Turnbull stood up and stated what all politians know would be best for Australia and agree to adopt the lets fix what we know is broken and then argue our our differences… Our Federal system is most certainly broke and is long overdue for review and reform.
Ferney Grover @ 727
I would not underestimate the personal following Beattie had. If this is removed it could be close. The question will be whether Bligh gets her act together in time and whether the Coalition can remove themselves from the equation and allow a protest vote.
Steve, I’ve a feeling it will be a decidedly UNlucky dip for the winner.
steve @ 729
I think people are smart enough to seperate the state Liberals for those running for council.
Stephen, Good Grief! The Qld coalition is unelectable. I see no evidence of a protest vote in the making or any anti-Bligh movement. I see a lot of despair that Qld is now effectively a one party state, but no serious indications that Qld electors want to put Seeney et al in George St.
Lord D (711) I don’t know about a huge swing in 2010, but I do agree all the signs are there that Labor will snare quite a few more seats and complete the landslide begun in 2007 (with the proviso, as you have noted, that the economy remains healthy).
Does anyone have knowledge of the extent of delegated or regulatory powers which have been built up by the Howard administration for future use?
I expect that the accumulation of such powers, which allow the Government to legislate without recourse to Parliament, would have been exactly within the Howardian modus operandi, although I have no actual knowledge of whether this has been so.
If it exists, it would be ironic, and humorous, to have the Labor Government use it to circumvent an obstructionist Senate.
733 Stephen, I agree the eight seats won in State parliament will make the state Libs look like genius quality compared with the paring of the current nine Liberal members that the voters are chomping at the bit to cut a swath through in 100 days time in the Brisbane City Council elections.
Ferney Grover @ 734
I agree that the chances of the Coalition getting in at the next election are close to imposible. If Rudd’s victory was like climbing Everest then a Coalition victory is like a mission to Mars. I do suggest however that if Bligh keeps going the way she is then that mission to Mars may be reduced to climbing Everest. People do not want a dictator they want a leader and so far Bligh has appeared as nothing but a dictator.
steve @ 737
I live on the GC not Brisbane so I do not follow the Councils all that much. Can you tell me why Brisbane people feel so strongly against the Liberls when they do not have the numbers in the Council.
Sean Says:
December 5th, 2007 at 8:21 pm
710 -
Do you think the Green vote can increase to above 10%?
It will
Hey, Bushfire Bill! Jumped back in, to see yours and other posts.
We do care, and even if do not comment, please know that we are looking at every step you make.
And love your writing!
Take heart, this is no time to lose it.
739 Stephen,hope Gridlock Campbell and his Libs enjoy their last 100 days in office.Too many broken promises on rates rises, environmental vandalism especially with the draining of the ponds at Minnippi Parklands, gridlock worsening from their lack of responsibility as shown by their Hale Street bridge lack of traffic planning, allowing the council building to subside into a busway tunnel and general incompetence and arrogance.
Basically they have not been as good a council as we had prior to the Libs gaining the Lord Mayoralty.
Stephen, the term ‘dictator’ is thrown around far too easily. I was never a fan of Anna as a minister and thought she was overrated but how has Bligh been a dictator???
steve @ 742
I don’t know the mood but people may take it out on Cambell as well as the Labor councilors since they have the numbers and therefore the power.
Was interested in earlier comments about the Liberal Party dying. I actually think such a death is quite unlikely, but just think of the consequences if the Libs were to “die” (say go below 20% support). The Labor Party would, within quite a short time, be flooded with probably 5 times the amount of money and support from business than it currently gets. Which would mean Labor would change beyond recognition, in quite a short period – ie business would try to “own” the Labor Party the way they currently “own” the Liberals, and would probably be successful in some places.
Traditional Labor supporters wishing for the death of the Libs should therefore perhaps be careful what they wish for.
Overall, though, I suspect the death of the Liberal Party is probably not going to happen in the foreseeable future.
Belinda Neal has claimed victory for Labor in Robertson.
So that makes it 81 seats, add Flynn to the total(Labor seems to be far enough ahead now) and it’s up to 82. Solomon is still in the balance – Damien Hale leads by 90 votes.
For the cricket tragics (JWH, are you out there?), Sri Lanka just beat the Poms in the first test.
On the Green vote – the interesting thing is that in an election such as we have just had where there has been a substantial swing to the ALP it might have been expected that the Green vote would decline.
it didn’t – there was a slight increase in the lower house and a slightly larger increase in the Senate.
In the ACT there was a lot of tactical voting – the Greens recorded there best ever vote in the House of Reps around 13% and nearly 22% in the Senate.
That would seem to suggest the possibility of a further increase in 2010 where if people are unhappy because the ALP is not delivering on a range of issues they are more likely to vote for the Greens than return to the Liberals.
What are your thoughts on Peter Garret being ‘gagged’ in parliament on climate change issues? Is it a media beat-up? Is Rudd just protecting PG so his confidence isn’t wrecked early in his career? Does Rudd lack confidence in him (and if so why include him in cabinet in the first place?)
Bushfire Bill, if you find yourself weakening on the smoking front, get Malcolm Turnbull to come and give you a good talking to. That will stiffen you up (although I must admit it doesn’t seem to have worked on Nelson yet, but it is early days).
Maybe you should let your wife know, she might actually help.
Good luck anyway!
Ferney Grover @ 743
1. The council amagamations (I know this was Beattie but Bligh will take the wrap)
2. The forced takeover of water infrastructure
3. The reduction of pub/clubs trading hours (Party Pooper Bligh)
4. Floride in water (good policy but little consultation)
5. Brisbane transport infrustructure ie Hale St bridge (Backflip against an opposition mayor)
It is not so much what Bligh has done but the way she does it or appears to do it. She appears to ignore everybody around her and force through what she thinks is best with little though for anybody else. This may not be true in reality but it is the way she appears and what people will see before they vote.
Doug,
Agree, the Greens could do really well in 2010, especially if Rudd is as conservative as he appears. Seems to me that leftish voters had a myriad of issues on which they might have wanted Howard gone – people whose particular issue hasn’t been addressed by a Rudd Government might be very frustrated in three years’ time.
The Greens will probably need to do something about Bob, though. He looks past his best.
I wonder how Lindsay Tanner will go in the seat of Melbourne after three years in charge of the razor gang?
Stephen, have you picked a name out of the hat yet to determine who will lead the Liberal charge against this dastardly dictator?
FG @ 749,
Peter G isn’t a “real” politician.
Whilst that is refreshing in many ways, it makes him a risk in Parliament.
Rudd is having a bit of an each-way bet keeping him in Cabinet, however the Libs will make it an issue by asking lots of questions of Swan in his capacity as the Reps version of Senator Wong.
I think Rudd might be being too clever with this solution.
steve @ 753
No, every time I go to pick one out I keep getting two. I would just vote but neither hand will agree. You would think with only 8 people it would be easy.
Stephen Dudroy on lateline suggesting another free to air network, yep full of commericials, american shows and silly current affair shows. If anything we need a better and commerical network with better shows and more Australian content. Conroy is a clown and a joke.
Marky Marky @ 756
Do you mean like Australian Big Brother, Australian Idol and Australian Biggest Loser. LOL
Stephen, Qld has a long history of voting for decisive leaders. Bligh is no more ‘dictatorial’ than Ryan, Theodore, Forgan-Smith, Gair, Nicklin, Bjelke-Petersen or Beattie. On amalgamations – it had to happen. Most in the South-east support it because they’re aware of the amount of their money that is being used to prop up little feifdoms in the bush. The reality is that, despite Ansett and others whinging in Noosa, most of those in affected councils dont care how services are delivered so long as its done. On water – again most Qlders just want to be able to have a bath and a drink. They couldn’t care how it’s delivered and frankly it’s such a serious issue that hard decisions had to be made now – which Anna has done. I won’t comment on the rest except to say they’re not vote losers for Bligh. I doubt her administration will suffer any serious swing considering what she’s up against.
marky marky there is nothing more enjoyable than reading the rantings of a bitter and twisted Tory sore loser. You conservatives are VERY bad losers….
Bushfire Bill (720) or Aussie Bob?, it’s because you speak so eloquently for so many of us. And you can beat the bloody nicotine addiction, after all, I did.
No. The current reality muck is not worth watching. How about some educational shows or in depth researched current affair shows. But conroys’ mission another commericial channel, this guy has no idea and is an idoit.
Dudroy.
Ferny Grover and Dyno re Garrett – I reckon it’s important to separate the issues here. Environment in its old form was an impossible portfolio, because no-one could get on top of it (partly because the state-level departments are so dysfunctional and often include the old Forestry departments, which are more interested in chopping things down than in saving anything).
There’s plenty left for Garrett without the water and climate change parts of the portfolio, both of which are going to involve protracted negotiations with state govts in the first case and other national governments in the second.
Anyone else remember the bad old days under Malcolm Fraser, when the Department of Environment, Housing and Community Development was the lowest-ranked outer ministry? Times have changed.
Jenny, thanks. So you’re saying PG isn’t being gagged at all.
Sorry but i am a Labor Voter and have always voted Labor, in 10 Federal election campaigns. Hate conservatives.
I want better television network and a better educated and informed populace.
Andrew, i come onto these sites because i have some opinions and never actually agree totally with labor policy, if your aim is to always agree with the party than life must be so boring.
I noted in the figures in todays Newspoll that a slightly greater percent of ALP voters decided their vote in the last 6 months before the election than did LNP voters. Which would indicate a slight swing to the ALP in the last 6 months.
But 6 months out the polls were showing mid to high 50’s for ALP and they will end up with about 52.5. Which would mean a significantly larger proportion of LNP than ALP voters deciding their vote in the last 6 months.
It doesn’t add up unless there was a huge shift in preferences to the LNP in that period. So I think it just doesn’t add up and this poll is wrong or all the 55 plus polls were wrong.
I wonder if the Rudd lovers will thank him for costing tax payers $150 million or as much as 2.5b dollars thanks to ratifying Kyoto.
I wonder how many hospitals or computers we could have funded with that money, but if we go 1% over the targets set by the agreement we get fined, thanks alot Kevin!
Ferney Grover @ 758
Do you remember Ryan, Theodore, Forgan-Smith, Gair and Nicklin. This list goes a long way back, Ryan was 1915-1919. Putting that to one side, none of these issues are major vote loses by themselves but put together they could serious.
Back to the topic of this blog…..I’m trying to think of another Opposition leader who began his term of office with an approval rating of 18% or less. Any thoughts?? Of course the 18% Newspoll pitted him against Turnbull and others and not against Rudd, so the figure is questionable. THe fact that more conservative voters preferred Rudd to Dr Horatio Hankeyblower is probably telling however.
So what is your solution fossil fuels Glen?
Ferny G – I’m pretty sure that he’s being kept out of the negotiating side of things. (I know him from university days, and I’m pretty sure that it isn’t his strength.) On the other hand, there are a lot of problems to be sorted out at the less spectacular level, all of which are contributing to our failure to meet even the toned-down Kyoto targets, and I’ve got a feeling that sorting them out will be his brief. There are all those RFAs for a start, several of which are really, really problematic.
Ferney Grover @ 768
It was 14% against Rudd
No marky, nuclear IMHO.
My solution is not ratify but decrease emissions, that way we don’t incur financial penalties!
FG you try fronting up as leader after a popular PM has been in power for 11.5 years with approval ratings in the high 40s low 50s, it aint easy to front up to that. Mind you how high would Costello’s ratings be after Howard’s loss???
Also not many people know Nelson and they will soon, don’t take any notice to these bull butter polls, i mean Abbott and Bishop shouldn’t have been options for people it should of been between Turnbull and Nelson IMHO.
Stephen, I’m not THAT old – just an avid devotee of political history. And history tells me that Bligh will win the next election handsomely.
Dyno says
“however the Libs will make it an issue by asking lots of questions of Swan in his capacity as the Reps version of Senator Wong”
Not sure if they will. Any climate change question is an open invitation to get beaten up…
“Mr Speaker, Mr Speaker, for 11 years, Mr Speaker, 11 years they did nothing….”
… and so on. We’ll see I guess.
Ferny Grover
Good talking to you and everybody else. Good night.
774
Work to rule – but what did Labor do for 11.5 years????
Dyno @ 774 – I can just imagine it, unfortunately, though it sounds more like Keating than Swan.
Decrease emissions hey Glen, how?
And if you agree with nuclear than what do you with the waste, will you have a reactor in your backyard? And finally do you want to pay the high costs of nuclear?
Yep reduce emissions but what policies Glenny?
Isn’t it fortunate that Arthur Calwell is no longer in parliament, when it comes to Penny Wong.
We have an awful lot of unused desert out there marky, dig a whopping big hole and bury it…
We’d have a carbon trading scheme thus nuclear would be more competitive.
Whoops – shd have addressed the last post to Work to Rule.
But Glen, the question at 776 is just plain silly – they COULDN’T do anything because they didn’t have executive government at the national level.
Glen says
“Also not many people know Nelson and they will soon, don’t take any notice to these bull butter polls”
I’d agree with that. Last week most punters would not know who Nelson was. Many might think Abbott is a stand-up act and Bishop is a side show hipnotist. Turnball was the only one in the pack that had a reasonable profile.
The polls are unlikely to say anthing kind to the Liberals in the near future – but also they carry no weight in the long term either. The ALP were not happy campers for a quite a while after the 2004.
778 will you have a reactor in your backyard?
No, Glen won’t be having a nuclear reactor in his backyard because his side of politics hasn’t got the electoral appeal to get into power.
Jenny @ 781
Yup, I think Swan should get some private tutoring from Keating.
781
Jenny – they didn’t advocate any alternative, any ideas to tackle climate change than ratifying Kyoto and yet they think we did nothing HA!
WTR – Turnbull has always had a high profile thanks to the media, something Nelson only ever got if he made a mistake.
Yes Steve i would because they are safe…we aren’t living in Soviet Russia you know?
So you happy looking out the window and seeing a reactor belching muck into the air Glen?
And paying the increased costs?
And on the waste, that is so safe, just bury it in the middle of no where, malarlinga all over again.
Glen how about renewable power and solar panels in the desert and wind farms? No can’t do that Liberal policy says otherwise.
MC
Perhaps William could set up a thread and let us have this discussion over a period and then we all might be able to meet in Cowra or Tenterfield and publish the Pollbludger declaration.
I mean this seriously. For mine the constitution should be styled “An Act to Regulate Trade between the several Australian Colonies” because that is what in all truth it is. The Howards, Fischers, Flints for the past decade tried to invest it with some sort of mystical meaning as if it had been brought down to us on tablets by the “founding fathers” from a mountain top instead of being cobbled together by a bunch of mean spirited provincial solicitors on board an uncomfortable steam yacht anxious to promote the interests of their equally provincial and mean spirited bourgeois supporters at the expense of the proletariat.
Jenny, it begs the question of why they kept Peter in cabinet if they have to carve up the portfolio to cover for his weaknesses.
Glen, my question was comparative – how many opposition leaders have begun with an aproval rating of 14%. I believe Beazley began in the 40’s when he took over the defeated ALP in 96.
Safe until a terrorist comes along.
Glen Says:
December 5th, 2007 at 11:06 pm
774
Work to rule – but what did Labor do for 11.5 years????
They listened to Costello saying
“Mr Speaker, Mr Speaker, for 13 years, Mr Speaker, 13 Years….”
No wonder Tip is relaxing on the back bench – he knows what’s coming.
786 Dream on Glen, by the time you lot are back in power renewables which are safe will be that firmly entrenched that nuclear will just look like an expensive joke.
You will have to come up with saner, less expensive policy than nuclear if you ever want to gain the treasury benches again.
Oh good grief Glen, we had to put up with your climate change rantings last night. Do we have to rehash this argument again??
@ 779 marky marky Says:
Maaaaate the spirit is still with us. Come out to places like Doonside and listen to the old ALP HTVers whinging and moaning about the “Nig N*gs” and ch*nkies and M*ssies who apparently are the bane of our society. I was there brother and in the interests of peace on polling I said nothing but I now feel ashamed of that.
Why nuclear is not an option
http://www.davidsuzuki.org/Climate_Change/Energy/Nuclear.asp
Ah Calwell….he’d have wanted two Penny Wongs wouldnt he?
Glen i think it is time you saw a shrink about the election loss, he may be able to help with the problems you currently having.
mmmmmmmmm….two Penny Wongs
I must admit I’m enjoying Peny Wong’s rise and rise. She’s whip smart and bursting with energy – but there is the sure knowledge that many of her opponents are silently boiling in their own prejudices.
Glen @ 785 – a lot of that was a matter of being snookered by Howard and his allies in coal and nuclear (sorry – in Bush-speak, that shd be nucular), supported by the MSM.
After the Tas forests fiasco in 2004, when Latham blinked first, it was impossible for Labor to take any kind of stand on specifics. Kyoto was code for ‘We want to become part of the world again’, and it seems to be working. It’s not perfect, but at least it’s a start.
If you watch the share market at all, companies with low-emission technologies have been doing relatively well this week. Last time around, the government was throwing money at ‘clean coal’.
The problem with the forest debate is simple Jenny- CFMEU a powerful union which loves subsidies for jobs, they cost Labor significant votes and poss the Senate, part of the union should be de registered. Forestry arm that is.
789 Ferny Grover – My reading of it is that he’s in Cabinet because the remaining problems are so serious that he’s going to need Cabinet on side to sort them out. Stand by for a serious move on the Federal/State front.
Crikey,
Ta for that. Wow, it’s amazing how a few words on a PC screen can bind so many.
What a community!
economic benefits in climate industries to australia are demonstrated by Swan handling climate change in house of Reps.
Clearly the Rudd Government correctly believes there are new beneficial green industries emerging from Kyoto (as well as CO2 emissions reductions)
..Rudd is very clever
Marky – Deregistering the forestry arm of the union sounds like a good idea to me, but it just might make them more feral. Ever tried to drive on a forestry road in Tasmania? Those guys are crazy!
New tack.
Not Rapt, Rann.
Just down the road from me, a proposed desalination plant. Port Stanvac.
Heard local mayor describing the recovery of the sea critters, since Mobil demobbed.
Definitely know that the Chinese students, supposedly studying, fish at Brighton Jetty, getting great catches. Not so long ago, the jetty fishers were empty netted.
Not thrilled about potential salt desecration of the local waters.
Heard a Green talking, again, as they have, about other means, ways, cheaper, more productive, less insulting to the environment.
Rudd and Swan should be making it very clear over and over to the public that our prosperity comes from a Keating-Asia economy and that Howard/Costello have entirely wasted a decade of prosperity, left us with inflation pressures and to do some fast catch up. Otherwise they will get blamed for Howard/Costello’s laziness and waste.
“Govt could have ‘better spent’ resources revenue
Posted Wed Sep 26, 2007 5:09pm AEST
ANZ Bank chief economist Saul Eslake says the Federal Government should have made better use of the revenue it has made from Australia’s resources boom.
Mr Eslake has addressed the Australian British Chamber of Commerce and told the gathering the Government has spent or given away almost every single dollar associated with the windfall gains.
He says it has put upward pressure on interest rates and the money should have been used to address some of the national issues.
“It should, for example, have been putting money away to pay for some of the costs associated with the ageing of the population, which they’ve spent the last six years telling us is the biggest fiscal challenge we face as a nation,” he said.
Mr Eslake says China’s influence has also significantly boosted the Federal Government’s tax revenue, although he says there has also been a downside to the so-called China effect.”
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2007/09/26/2044302.htm?section=australia
The Tassie pulp mill is another shameful Howard legacy
The truth is Howard shamelessly set the Pulp Mill reference terms which omitted CO2 levels which guaranteed the Pulp mill’s approval
Howard hoped to wedge Rudd (like he did to Latham) so he could retain the 2 Tassie seats
Rudd chose to win government rather than lose the 2 Tassie seats
Anytime you go to the Tamar Valley & see the CO2 emissions ,
it forever will have Howard’s name on it
Ron,
Its drawing a long bow to ‘blame’ Howard for the Tassie mill given the stick the state labor government has taken in pushing it through and federal labor support for that decision.
Crikey @ 806 – In Melbourne, this evening’s public transport giveaway headlined the fact that the Toorak set are installing personalised desalination plants because the bores they have sunk to water their gardens have turned out to be salty.
Blind Freddy cd have told them that they’d get salt if they put bores down there – it’s an old seabed and barely above sea level anyway. Now they’re gonna add to our greenhouse emissions by using coal-fired electricity to desalinate the crap coming up from below?
I think this is what is called a feedback effect: the world gets warmer, so we all install air-conditioners so that we personally feel cooler, but we use coal to fire our air conditioners, so the world gets warmer …
This poll has splits regarding the ALP and LIB vote, so it is obvious that they asked the obvious question. I can’t think why they failed to report it?
It would not be surprising to me that only 53% voted against Howard, and a week later more like 65% would do the same in a Newspoll.
It is the “permission” effect.
Tobe – pardon my ignorance, but what’s the permission effect?
Peter K , Howard under Federal ENVIRONMENTAL LAWS had to approve or not approve the pulp mill
Therefore howard is totally responsible for the pulp mill because his government set up terms of reference which excluded CO2 emissions that guaranteed approval under Federal legislation
had the Federal government not approved the pulp mill, it could not be built
It is the SAME laws that applied to the Franklin Dam blocking
Jenny at 810
Bores are salty, in any event.
It really pisses me that my old neighbour, who has bore water, flagrantly misuses it to pointlessly water his lawn, his footpath lawn and the road, to boot.
Boldly displaying his sign, Bore Water used Here.
And then mows, mows, the grass pointless.
While McLaren Vale producers are forced to justify their use. Thanks, Carlene Maywald, for allowing such waste to continue.
I went out one night, at 7.00 pm, returned at 3.00 am, and the damn road was awash. Due to arrangements, I have a key. So went in and turned the waste off.
It never ends.
Hi Jenny,
I can’t take credit for the “permission” effect, it was defined by a blogger on OZ politics earlier in the year and made a lot of sense to me.
You also see it in state elections. The concept is that once an incumbent is removed… and it might be quite close… and the the sky doesn’t fall in… a lot of other voters follow.
The idea is that there is a large block of voters who simply shift to the current incumbent. Once the incumbent is disposed of they have “permission” to shift to the new incumbent.
Choked with anger, I did not say, that the watering was on as I left, at 7.00 pm, and before.
Good people,
No-one was expecting the Green vote to rise much in the Lower House, this election was all about getting rid of Howard and Workchoices (Serfchoices, you guys are killing me
I expected a bigger swing in the Senate, considering there was going to be a reaction against Howard dominating both Houses, and the increased relavence of Climate Change to the Australian public. But not many people expected the Greens would get more than five Senators; seven was always a bridge too far. Due to the Greens’ best preference deal to date, they got the same outcome as I would have expected from a larger primary vote. There still is hope for that six Senator, locking out Fielding from the Balance of Power. We saw some late swings this way in the Victorian State election, we’ll see.
Having said this, the Green vote did increase in just about every Lower House seat, when just about every party bar Labor suffered a setback. The Greens are going to be cashed up due to the increased public funding that comes from getting over 4% of the vote; $2.10 per vote this time around. And in 2010, with wall-to-wall Labor, people will be looking for options. Labor’s shift to the Centre-Right will drop off many lefties into the Greens camp, and some wet Liberals who cannot force themselves to vote for the Old Enemy. With the Liberal party is such disarray, many people, including the SMH, are predicting the Greens could become the opposition in times to come. And to those who think Labor and Liberals are locked into place, look around, it is the 21st century. In Scotland and Ireland, the old Conservative/Labour parties are out of office, with National/Greens coalitions in place.
Welcome to the future
Crikey – Was in Adelaide a little while back, and there was massive grizzling that they cdn’t water their lawns any more. Was in Brisbane last summer, and the place where I was staying was still madly watering lawns although the storages had got down to 27%.
But our local council in Melb has just set out guidelines for nature strips that basically bar anything BUT lawns. There’s a $250 penalty for planting a non-lawn-like ’shrub’ on your nature strip. On that basis, I’m probably up for about 30 x 250 = $7500 in fines. Maybe they’ll charge me for all the water I haven’t been using as well?
817
Earthrise Says:
December 6th, 2007 at 12:30 am
The Greens will NEVER displace either major partys in Australia..that is fanciful
However their influence on the political policys will increase which is a good thing
The Greens biggest political danger is Family First’s rise….whose attractive Party ‘name’ and slick advertising hides the reality its a right wing party
who preferenced EVERY Coalition candidate in every one of the 150 seats & Senate
Also Jenny,
I would argue that Howard, more than most, played on the electorate’s fears, and stood to lose more than most on the “permission” effect.
Tobe – I agree entirely. When the world fails to fall in, his credibility is cactus. Let’s just hope the world doesn’t fall in. The current account deficit is a real worry.
Permission effect.
It describes the way in which Howard kept his following.
But times change.
Add in the bandwagon.
And those who failed to get on board, at first, follow.
Regretting their choice.
See next Federal Election.
Earthrise.
I am a Labor voter.
Yet I handed out for the Greens on Saturday 24/11 AM.
I changed my shirt, to Kev 07, and handed out for ALP. PM.
I have no problem.
Ron – Family First is a furphy, much like One Nation.
The only reason that they’ve got even a single senator is that Labor did a dirty deal with them in 2004 to keep the Greens out. They’ll never do it again. This time around, FF were in their proper place on the ALP ticket, which was a long way behind the Greens. It was a relief, because for once I could safely vote above the line. Last time, I had to number every square.
The Greens will never win lower house seats because they are a single issue party, the environment that’s it! How often do you hear them talk about interest rates, taxes, education, health, unemployment, housing, the economy????
They are extremists just as much if not more than FF, and just as i don’t think FF will win a Lower House seat the Greens will never win one again! Also they only won in Cunningham because the Liberals weren’t running in the seat and everybody preferenced the Greens!
You tree huggers who are living in la la land thinking the Greens will be the official opposition are seriously in need of some psychiatric help!
The only reason I can imagine that Newspoll failed to provide the party breakdowns is because they are embarrassed by how their poll would compare to the actual vote so soon out from the poll.
I think their poll would be perfectly accurate, the LIB’s are in the wilderness, thanks mainly to one John Winston Howard.
Hi Ron,
I never said the Greens will become a Major party, that future is too far away to make any predictions about. My reference to Ireland and Scotland (and Czech, Germany recently, and in growing numbers around the world) is about being in a ruling coalition. My point was with a greater amount of choice, the two-party system can fracture (yes, even in an Anglo country), and smaller parties can be in government as part of a coalition. Look at the teetering Nationals, they got 5.6% versus the Greens 7.7% first preferences in the Lower House, and they were in government for eleven years. Similar story in the Senate. People seem to think that Liberal and Labor will rule forever, obviously not students of history. The world is changing, old certainties are liquefying, who knows where we will be in 2010, let alone in a decade.
I’m not ready to write off Family First yet, but I never saw them as a threat to the Greens, and even less so after this election. This election has been a disaster for them, and the next one when they lose Fielding could be a Democrat moment for the Party. The loss of public funding is really going to hurt them after this defeat; their campaign was noticeably down already on funds from their explosion on the Federal scene in 2004. They seem to have lacked leadership this time, they were nowhere near as forceful and confident, nor did they have the volunteers on poling day they did last time. With Labor dominating the middle ground now and doing a better job on the education/family front, I see them wasting away. The Australian people are just not reactionary when it comes to Christian issues, which is their fallback.
I won’t mourn their passing (Democrats, R.I.P)
Earthrise,
I share your views about FF’s not having much of a future, but they won’t lose anything in public funding in 2007 cfd. 2004. Their (Australia-wide) vote was down by 0.03%.,and given the increase in population and enrolment and the more generous (?) per vote payment, they’ll actually make more money.
The other point about FF that I haven’t seen made, is that their htv recommendation was deceptively similar (colour and layout) to the ALP’s.
Glen, you are a riot,
It will happen in the States first, Melbourne, Sydney and a number of others. From this base, all they have to do is get more than the Libs in these Federal seats and snare second spot. If the Libs continue to be on the nose for a couple of terms, this could quite easily happen. If the international economic situation deteriorates, Afghanistan worsens and climate change accelerates, with wall-to-wall Labor, they will get the blame (wrongly). Preferences could then do the trick.
You can keep telling yourself the Greens are a single issue party, and never look on their website at the rest of their policies. I guess you didn’t notice Bob and Kerry standing up to Emperor Bush when he came to address his subjects a few years ago? And speaking out about David Hick’s illegal detention? Or a myriad of other social justice and democracy issues, including our dangerous anti-terror laws? Keep that head in the sand mate, looks better from there.
I am going to make the call. I am thirty-six, I will see a Labor-Greens government in my lifetime.
Hi Peter,
I have gone through the figures in SA very closely, not so much interstate. FF’s national average has stayed the same, but here in SA they have slipped below 4% in many of the seats where they achieved 4% in 2004. I assume (bad habit) that while their vote may have increased slightly in some new areas, it has slipped in others giving them a net gain/loss of zero. If they have slipped below 4% in some seats and rose to 2% in others, they are going to be hurting financially.
I campaign in Makin, which is right next door to the Paradise Church (Adelaide’s Hillsong), and the birthplace of FF. In this seat in 2007, the Greens outpolled Family First and achieved 4%, while FF slipped below 4%. I take this as a bad sign for FF, as they started here in SA, plateaued in the 2006 State election and are now on the way down. While they might be carving some new ground in other States, the trend here in SA is a bad sign for the Party. And their campaign here was a shadow of their impressive effort in 2004. I just think people have caught on to the religious fundamentalist back end to their slick secular frontage.
I’ve been in politics long enough not to write them off, but this election was quite a setback.
Anybody know what Mike Bailey is doing now?
I assume the ABC won’t take him back
Bushfire Bill – hang in there. Try not to be around smokers and make it as hard as you can for yourself to smoke – never inside. Good luck mate.
North Sydney should see some early morning showers, clearing to a fine day with a maximum of 23 degrees.
Thanks for asking.
Earthrise
The is a huge error in your calculations – “all they have to do is get more than the Libs in these Federal seats and snare second spot”.
Even if this unlikely scenario occurs where do the preferences come from to allow the Green candidate to win? Thin Air?
The Greens winning seats on Liberal preferences is pure fantasy.
Crikey Whitey @ #806
The terrible mismanagement of the SA water issue annoys me too.
Just before the desal plant proposal was announced the irrigators were given more water that could be saved for urban use AND to preserve the river itself AND some be set aside for future shortages.
It irks me that the urban users will have to pay just to build the proposed desal plant and yet the irrigators get the same, or greater, amount of water that the desal plant will produce, at no cost.
Thats a direct subsidy of tens [hundreds?] of millions of dollars a year.
Instead of spending billions on a dodgy desal plant why not spend that money on buying back water from some of the irrigators and funding their alternate employment?
And save greenhose emissions from less electricity as a bonus.
Early morning showers!
Maaaaatee!! It’s bucketing down with some awesome lightning.
Anyone see Ally Moore interview Stephen Conroy on LL Business? There were a few questions regarding the abc board. Although he couldn’t promise a spill of the current board it sounded promising the likes of janet A are gonna sidelined pretty quick and generally sounded like he had a lot more respect for the abc than Helen Coonan, speaking of which anyone know if shes slashed her wrists and jumped in the bath yet?
back to Ally Moore seen her interview people on about 3 times IMO shes far better than Tony Jones they should swap shows i reckon.
quiet in hear today? anyway great to see people are getting back to the real world after the election.
just listening to malcolm farr on 702
what an A grade w*nker this Know- nothing is.
Unfortunately the MSM is still in denial and tossers like this just give it away too easily
eg: Mr Rudd and John Howard
whenever he mentions Rudd the disdain in his voice is palplable and he only uses the term “Mr Rudd”
whenever he mentions Howard the orgamisc delight shines thru and he salivates as he says “John Howard”
Methinks the MSM need a good colonic irrigation
Glen Says at 766:
Happy to pay that much to save the environment.
Not happy to pay TWICE as much to fund pointless government advertising and jetsetting Howard to Kirribilli.
Bushfire Bill-good to see you back. Enjoy the way you string words/thoughts together and are one of the highlights when scrolling through SO many posts. And,really, there is life after 54.
Earthwise
Comparing the Greens to the National is funny, National have candidate in about 30 seats and get 5.6% of the total vote, while greens is in 150 seats and get 7% of the vote.
The National are more likely to have more members of parliaments than Green will ever have
ruawake @ 7.23,
The idea of the Greens winning seats on Liberal preferences is not a fantasy, but I agree that Greens supporters (of which I am one) do put a little to much faith in the long-term nature of this prospect.
In the 2006 Victorian State election, the Greens candidate for Melbourne (Richard di Natale) got ahead of the Liberal candidate by getting 27% of the primary compared to 22% for the Libs. He went down 52-48 on 2pp.
I have been scrutineering for the Greens in the Federal seat of Melbourne and I can tell you that if Adam Bandt gets above Andrea del Ciotto (which he looks very likely to do) he will get preferences from the Libs on about a 70/30 ratio.
My problem with this as a long term aim for winning federal seats is that I think once it happens a couple of times then Liberal voters will realise they’re electing Greens members through their preferences, and will think a bit harder than they currently do about where they direct them. As it stands the ‘put Labor low’ instinct is all that guides their preferencing.
The Greens, and other minor parties have the same problem.
As soon as they lift their appeal to the voters above a certain percentage of the population, their policies are appropriated to a greater or lesser degree by the major parties, who thereby syphon that vote back to themselves.
Only in the face of incredible intransigence and stubbornness by one or both of the major’s can they rise above their ‘natural’ level, and then only for a short time, until the recalcitrant major sees sense.
A large part of the Green agenda from yesteryear is now an entrenched part of the major’s platforms.
asanque
if perhaps it was a labor PM still in kirribilli,refusing to concede like some vulture holding on to its last piece of carrion.(i think Bruce was as stuck up and refused to believe the peasants had booted him out)
The MSM would have crucified them by now
with daily stories of lurid going ons
with heartwrenching pictures of homeless people contrasted with partying at kirribilli
with examples of outrageous spending(remember Howards wine bill-what an alco)
yet howard is left to play lord muck for a while longer
and yet what analysis do we get
SFA
I’d say that while the Green vote has come mainly from ‘natural Labor supporters’, it couldn’t be said that the DLP vote came mainly from ‘natural Coalition supporters’ during all those years, and particularly the earlier ones, when DLP preferences got the Coalition home. Therefore, IMO, Labor winning government on Green preferences has more ‘legitimacy’ than the Coalition winning with the help of the DLP. But does it really matter in the end anyway?
“Of greater concern is that the number of votes being reported as being received is greater then the number reported as being issued.”
Clearly there is a problem with the way the issue of postal votes is being entered into the online system.
If the AEC cannot account for these votes at all, then it is a major problem that needs urgent attention.
If, as Antony suggests, the AEC can account for these votes on paper, but the online system does not reflect the paper record, then it is a minor inconvenience that should be reviewed in due course.
Hinkler done and dusted.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2007/12/06/2111049.htm
As Mumble points out, incumbency is terribly important these days. Labor should have won in a landslide on the numbers, but in the end it was a comparatively modest victory.
It’s as well that Labor didn’t need the last nine or ten seats decided as it has won only two or three of them. As well as having incumbency, the Coalition benefited from the donkey vote in most of these seats and also has been well served by recent redistributions. It may well have hung on to office if John Howard’s legendary luck had not deserted him. Lucky breaks for Labor included:
1. The Chaser’s deflating of Apec.
2. Tony Abbott’s gaffes.
3. The interest rate rise.
4. The dirty tricks incident in Lindsay.
Next time, other factors being equal, Labor should benefit from incumbency.
Quoting from the Courier Mail today:
“Breaking his silence on the Liberals farce, Coalition leader Jeff Seeney yesterday insisted the Nationals would not be in partnership with a political party that decided its leadership by a game of chance.
“They need to abandon this stupidity of a lucky dip, come to their senses and walk out of there with a leader with some credibility,” he told The Courier-Mail.
“It would be impossible for me to continue in Coalition with a Liberal leader that has been elected by lucky dip.” ”
Personally, the Nationals would do no worse if they held their own lucky dip. If they’re really lucky they may even end up with a ‘leader with some credibility’.
Has Howard removed his bags and baggage from K. House yet?
Last attempt to avoid the lucky Dip. Meeting is on now.
http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/news/queensland/libs-last-ditch-attempt-to-avoid-lucky-dip-leader/2007/12/06/1196812875587.html
Phil @ 848
It is interesting just how much things closed up from the high 50’s 2pp the ALP enjoyed during the year. I’m also of the view that Howard could have won (albeit narrowly) if a things had gone his way. The Jackie Kelly’s efforts alone might have cost 3 or 4 seats (including Bennelong). Take out Abbott and the rate rise and we might have ended up with a minority ALP govt.
If all you were told about the election was the ALP’s consistant lead in the polls and the Libs hapless campaign you would have expected the ALP would have got close to 100 seats. Instead they will end up with about 82 or 83 – thats the power of incumbancy in modern politics (particualarly as shaped by Howard).
Albert
kirribilli removals has not reported any movement at station
ps what are the “bags and baggage”
certainly not Hyacinth ,it would be luggage and portmaneaus
Tony Abbott has got the Shadow Indigenous Affairs portfolio
Horatio Hornet has announced the opposition frontbench.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2007/12/06/2111323.htm?section=justin
The complete list:
Minister for Workplace Relations – Julie Bishop.
Minister for Education and Apprenticeship Training – Tony Smith.
Minister for Health and Ageing and Business Opposition – Joe Hockey.
Minister for the Environment, Climate Change and Water – Greg Hunt.
Minister for Families and Community Services and Indigenous Affairs – Tony Abbott.
Minister for Communications, Broadband and the Digital Economy – Bruce Bilson.
Minister for Tourism – Steve Ciobo.
Minister for the Treasury – Michael Keenan
Minister for Foreign Affairs – Andrew Robb
Minister for Justice and Border Protection – Christopher Pyne.
Minister for Trade – Ian MacFarlane.
Minister for Human Services – Nigel Scullion.
Oops – missed two:
Minister for Immigration and Citizenship, Manager for Opposition Business in the Senate – Chris Ellison.
Attorney-General – George Brandis.
That’s wierd – Dutton missed out?
Shadow Ministers
Kevin is off and running on the international stage.
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,22878116-601,00.html
It will be interesting to see how other asian leaders respond to Mr Rudd. The years of Howard’s dog whistling to red necks has been heard as fog horns across Asia.
Of course this continued rise of Rudd is merely a hang over from the honeymoon period when he took over the ALP last december
Tom, I cut and pasted the list from the Sky site – they still aren’t used to their party being in Opposition obviously.
Was anyone else distracted by Nelson grinning like a maniac over the shoulders Bishop and Truss while they were speaking? I think he’s taken Turnbull’s ‘funereal’ comments too much to heart.
Some updates on counting in undecided seats!
Flynn: ALP 439 votes ahead. Surely it’s time for the Nationals to concede that one?
Solomon: ALP 113 votes ahead
McEwen: Fran Bailey’s lead has again shrunk to 89 votes. There might be more to count there too.
No counting in Bowman today, it seems
FG – it’s a compliment to Julia that Nelson has to put two taggers on her.
WTR: I’d back Julia against any number they pitch against her.
Nothing for Sophie Mirabella. Good
“… and STAY down!”
Who is Shadow Minister for Transport?
SOLOMON IS OVER. HALE by 186 . ALP now hold both HoR seats.
On the PB Solomon post site are the final details of the count.
BOOSHKA, Tough contest went to a really good bloke.
Oh Dear, look at the work Andrews has been given!
http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/news/national/unknown-to-take-on-gillard/2007/12/06/1196812881087.html
Tom – it’s not mentioned on Sky’s list
The Greens very nearly won melbourne in this election. A few less Labor votes, a few more Greens votes, and they would have won the seat on Liberal preferences.
Nice to see Helen Coonan out in the cold as well.
Nelson on appointing Abbott the Families and Community Services and Indigenous Affairs shadow, said:
“It will be the making of him.”
Feeling a little patronised there Tony??
The farcical ‘Lucky Dip’ is off the agenda of the Queensland Libs and we are back to the four all split with neverending meetings apparently.
http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/news/queensland/libs-woes-wont-split-coalition-seeney/2007/12/06/1196812875587.html
Did anyone notice that Nelson is still going at the unions thing? Is this an attempt to create a narrative should the economy go pear-shaped?
Fine idea if it does, but if doesn’t do so, by next election, we could have a good old-fashioned farce….
Thank goodness Labor finally wins a close seat on postals!
Good on ya Damien Hale, seems like a great bloke!
As for Nelson’s front bench: who cares? Not me LOL
Yes the lucky dip has been dumped. They’ve decided to play ‘pin the tail on the donkey’ to decide the leader instead.
Helen Coonan is still on the front bench… she voluntarily gave up the Deputy Leadership in the Senate.
Nice to see this ‘fresh team’ includes Bronwyn Bishop as a Shadow Minister. It’s a very bizarre list to be honest… and one that’s not going to do them any favours. It doesn’t make you fresh by just shuffling around the same unpopular Ministers into bizarre porfolios. Tony Abbot Minister for Families? No thanks.
Spiros
Rubbish Labor won on primaries. The few votes you mention are actually about 3,000.
Not close at all.
Pretty obvious that with this gathering of the Locum’s gaggle the LNP are going to be a policy free zone. Down to a few gasping, dying, wheezes about Union influence, some motherhood statements about the three tiers of government.
Joe and Nicola could provide some interest in Health.
Already Rudd has neutered Turnbull’s efforts this morning to paint him as a soft touch at Bali.
No shadow front bench position for Alex Hawke? Obviously being David Clarke’s henchman doesn’t count with Dr Nelson LOL
Link to the complete list of shadow ministers and parl secs is here:
http://www.liberal.org.au/documents/mediareleases/ShadowMinistry.pdf
“Bronwyn Bishop: veterans affairs” What was he thinking lol
Liberals…..it’s hard not to say that word without laughing
Yep, nothing says generational change more than Bronwyn Bishop LOL LOL LOL
But LETP, Nelson says that Abbott’s job “will be the making of him” dontcha know!
Bronwyn is the face of the future….. permanent opposition
Trouble ahead for the Queensland Libs. They have made Mark McArdle the member for Caloundra leader. Now all he has to do is explain just what happened to the senior citizens who were ripped off in a mortgage rort by his former law firn Garrick Boyce.
http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/news/queensland/mcardle-to-lead-liberals/2007/12/06/1196812884894.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_McArdle
All Nelson can do is put up a few tired old relics to take on the Government: hilarious!
Note: Peter Costello, Alexander Downer, Philip Ruddock, Mark Vaile and Peter McGauran have moved to the back bench.
G’day Bludgers,
Can’t people imagine the ground shifting here significantly? Generational change is overdue in our body politic, and no offence to my Grandparent’s generation, Howard was your last hurrah. Generation Y seems to be the end product of the Howard years, stereotypically self-centred and materialistic. But my children’s generation (as yet unnamed) is going to be brought up in a world dominated by climate change, the end of growth and resource wars, not the Decade of Decadence (aka Bond/Skase/Rivkin). They’ll be voting in a decade (my oldest will anyway), I don’t see them being too interested in 19th century ideological battles.
We are already seeing the first phase of the re-alignment. Labor moving right, wet Liberals joining them. The next move should be the Labor hard Left and some Unions joining the Greens. In an election or two we should have a conservative/Labor/Greens configuration, at least among the political class. Only a matter of time before the voters join them, especially the young.
Unlike it seems many of you, and am not so certain about the future of the two party system in our country. In every mature democracy (bar ours and the US), there are multi-party systems. Even Britain has three. And as I said in an earlier post, the old right/left, conservative/labour domination has been broken in more and more European countries. The old business/union battle was becoming irrelevant to most people here too, Howard actually gave the Unions a massive boost with his Workchoices attack. A couple of terms of Labor will see the Unions slip back again into the background, at which time the hardcore should join the Greens.
You guys should know better than to say never
This was in the Sunshine Coast Daily in August 2006.
http://www.thedaily.com.au/news/2006/aug/09/scd-former-firms-failed-schemes-haunt-mcardle/
Earthrise… what exactly do the Greens have to offer? For all the idealist talk of the Greens, the Greens too, have attempted to move more to the centre (for instance dumping their drugs policy… some of which, to me, has merit).
To win more support the Greens would need to find a way to sell their message without appearing preachy and would not to do so in a way that had credibility. I don’t see it happening.
I don’t see there being a huge surge in the Green vote yet. It’s true Australia needs a third force to come forward… but it’s not the Greens as far as I’m concerned.
“NOT SO MAD MAX Says:
December 6th, 2007 at 1:02 pm
SOLOMON IS OVER. HALE by 186 . ”
So lets look at the Wedge scoreboard.
NT wedge generally aimed at red-necks but specifically aimed at keeping Longman and Solomon – failed
The Mersey and Pulp mill wedge aimed at Bass and Braddon – failed
Haneef wedge – failed
You do have to wonder if Libs had just spent 2007 acting like a sane govt how much closer things would have been.
890 From Gillard and Rudd’s comments about the left/right paradigm not effectively existing (Insiders/7.30 Rpt) it seems that they will be using Education/IR to drive the final nails in the Union coffin.
But to achieve your future will take a seismic shift in party structures.
Business will gradually be wooed to the Labor Centre/Right as Liberals don’t have an agenda and they really don’t worry about Unions. Liberals will gradually run down to <30% primary.
Greens will have to think nationally in their structures to get beyond where they are now. They also need a generational change in leadership to have an effective voice in the new climate change economy.
I think the third force is yet to be created.
Earthrise, I’d never say never….just unlikely. Labor’s left are unlikely to join the Greens – at least until the Green’s mature and diversify their policy positions. Labor left are idealistic pragmatists who rather like being in a party that has a chance at being the Government – the Greens can’t offer them that. It was Whitlam who cuttingly said in reference to the old idealogues in Labor, “Certainly, the impotent are pure.” Modern Labor Lefties have no desire to be impotent purists like the Greens.
As for the demise of the two party system, one of the things that distinguishes Australia from the countries you mention is our compulsory voting system which tends to entrench the major parties and ensure the minor parties stay minor.
A (non-practising) doctor, with a truss and a bishop – I’ll keep my distance.
859
Work to rule
I remember posting a comment to this effect on one of the Gnomebrechtsen’s blogs. Rudd’s an easy pick for a diplomatic world stage kinda guy, and ain’t it a breath of fresh air after that little Howard runt, plugged into George’s rear end?
It fair makes ya wanna whoop and holler with joy!
We have our country back!
Nelson on the Mad Monk
“Tony is many things but he is a man of conviction,” Dr Nelson said.
“His lifelong convictions … (are) very much with those people in society who find life very difficult.”
Nelson wasn’t at that meeting where the Mad Monk spilled the beans on SerfChoices, The Mad Monk also said that ‘poverty is by choice’, this hardly gels with the second line. Is this a bit of ‘me-tooism’ from the Monk.
897 KR
Rudd’s phone call with China (linked earlier) speaks volumes about the new world order and the way he will fit in and do us proud. Europe, China, Australia look like winners.
KR…as always, succinct, witty and filled with pathos. It’s good to feel proud again.
Hi LTEP,
I am not wedded to the Greens, just the centre-left ideology. Labor are not going to move fast enough on climate change, due to their Union links (remember those Forestry workers cheering for Howard in 2004?), the Coal lobby and their many other deals with the Devil to stay in power. They will continue to represent centralised State power, in an increasingly local/globalised world. Don’t get me wrong, I get down on my knees every night during the news and thanks the stars for the Rudd government, but this will pass.
I am not an environmentalist, so that is not why I vote Green. I do because I believe in devolving power to the lowest levels in society, to Local Council, local boards and community groups. Power has and will continue to corrupt the Labor party, as any of the True Believers here would say. Power is the problem, we need to break it down into 21 million parts so each of us can safely use our share. The Greens are the only viable force campaigning to shift power away from the State and back to the People.
The Nation State is finished; think globally, act locally
898 ed@bennelong
“Europe, China, Australia look like winners.”
Which does make me wonder how much different the world would be now if Gore had not been beaten by a few hundred votes in florida way back in 2000.
900 Spot on. Thought that many times.
Nelson couldn’t find room for Petro Georgiou in his team of 45 shadows (including Parlt. secs). Says it all about the modern Liberal Party. Not only is Georgiou the leading progressive in his Party, he is a tough political operator. The Government must be chortling, quietly. Nelson won’t make it thru to the next election.
Alpal. I don’t think the government is chortling quietly at all. I can hear them laughing from here! But then they are in Brisbane today.
Still no explainatiuon form teh AEC as to why the numebr of ballots received back are greater then the number recorded as being issued. The AEC various publications on the number of outstanding votes gives a different account each time. Without knowsing how many voets are waiting the count it is impossiblke for any scrutineer or proper analysis to be undertaken expect to say that the oevrall oparticpation rate is expected to be somehere between 89 to 92%. A bit like saying the exchange rate ios somewhere between 90 to 90 cents in the dollar. Surely the AEC has records of what was issued. They should have ceased issuing postal and prepoll ballot papers prior to election day more then 11 days ago and still today the AEC and the public have no idea what is out-there.
Nelson’s nick-name = The Locum. Brilliant. Who thought that one up?
The Locum (Nelson) and Professor Farnsworth (Truss) – what a crazy pair!
Interesting FACT:
Simon Crean scored a higher Preferred PM then Brendan Nelson
LaborVoter: I think Jack the Ripper and Adolph Hitler scored higher Preferred PM than Horatio!
Progressive probkem is no one not even the AEC knows how many votes they have issued. thank god they are not in charge of calculating the Exchange rate.
Yes if teh circumstances are roight and all minotr parties preferenced the Greens the greens could win a sso called safe seat such as Melbourne. probelm is not every minort party wil prefernece the Greens. This is what is holding the Greens back in the Victorian Senate count. The democrates will not be around next time to deliver the greens a few extra percentage points. the more people take a look at te reens and ethir ineternal preselection process the more minor parties will shy away from offering them support.
The Greens biggest mistake in Victoria was dumping Risstrom in favour of supporting the brother inlaw. The Greens cossyness with the Liebral party in Victoria has caste serious doubt over the Greens integrity. Remember the Nuclear Disarmanent party… it was a shame also same people involed in the Greens. Do not be fooled. Risstrom was somone weith inetgerrity can not say the same for the others. Hell I recall the Green melbourne Coucnilor supporting desisons and documentatiosn being withheld from teh ublic view and decided on by illegal behind closwed door meetings. Something that Risstrom would never had supported. Then their is the city coucnil funding the executiove costs of a third party envionrment organsistaion. the only reason why teh greens were appointed to the executive of this organsistaion is that they could secure Coucnil finances to subsidise the salary of one ex City Councillor. Diodgy and corrupt in my book. Whats next the City council funds the costs of teh Greens executive…. Excutive costs of a third party organsiation should be aid for and met by ten organsistion itself and not left to some shonky behind closed door deals. The extent of Co2 emmissions generated by the green network flying aroudn the world is considerable… Why could they not hold there executiove meetings at a fraction of the costs via the net. You see they are not so green after all.. Not when they can con the city Council /ratepayers into footing the bill.
Rob Mitchell is only 82 votes behind in McEwen. Is there still a chance to snatch the seat?
Qld libs walk from first press conference.
http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/news/queensland/mcardle-to-lead-state-liberals/2007/12/06/1196812884894.html
721 Hugh Briss “Have a look on the % informals on the aec site , it is an outrage. He must instruct the A.E.C.to educate by whatever means the electorate and spend however much is needed to allow people to excercise their vote.”
Chris B says. I did pre polling. From what I noticed some of the people were very old and confused as to what they were doing there. Then you ad in a number of people effected by drugs/alcohol, others with a low IQ. I have just touched on this issue. What I am saying is it is impossible for the AEC to educate them. Then there is the people that just don’t care.
915 Let’s hope the Education Revolution includes Voting 101.
EMBRUCED!!
(… one more the ol’ gipper)
Bowman down to 68 votes as well.
Not too many votes left, id say.
Hurray for Michael Keenan as shadow assistant treasurer!
Bowman now down to 55.
For what it’s worth, the question Newspoll actually asked was: “Who do you think would make the better PM?”, not “who is your preferred PM?” This was a better PM question, not the usual preferred PM question that is asked in Newspoll’s normal tables. Expect more Libs to prefer Nelson as PM, even if they know that Rudd’s the better man.
So Lord D he might make 15-16% next time?
Bowman down to 41!
Bowman now down to 41! No provisionals counted yet. They should favour Young.
Bull butter, Laming will hold on i mean they’ve counted almost 95%, its just about over for Young though there’ll be a recount.
BNews – “Melbourne’s highest-circulation gay and lesbian entertainment and lifestyle publication, which boasts a loyal and affluent readership of 100,000″ – also has a poll on who should lead the Liberal party.
The results:
Malcolm Turnbull – 24%
Tony Abbott – 20.5%
Bronwyn Bishop – 13%
Brendan Nelson – 5.5%
Interesting, no?
Oh, and check out their front cover!
http://www.bnews.net.au/bnews_issues/b179/01.pdf
Those on work internet may not wish to open Sean’s link….
912 – “The Greens cossyness with the Liebral party in Victoria has caste serious doubt over the Greens integrity.”
What such ‘cossyness’, MelbCity?
RA
I wish someone had said before i clicked….
Howard slips in Bennelong: 2306 votes difference; 94.43% votes counted
928 -
Sorry, I didn’t think of that. But it should hardly matter, for it is a publication just like any other magazine.
Hahahahaha……….Jho aint leaving and needs saff.
Head Cellar Man
*
Sydney – North | Kirribilli Club
05 Dec 07
After being closed for several years, the Kirribilli Club has been transformed in to a market leading, multi-level venue with sweeping harbour views
#
913
Charlie Says:
December 6th, 2007 at 3:01 pm
Rob Mitchell is only 82 votes behind in McEwen. Is there still a chance to snatch the seat?
Ron says
Assuming every voter votes (will not happen)
Assuming no more provisionals
…ALP will be short by 25 votes
All remaining provisionals if valid makes the count pretty even !
Jho got the trackie now the “man” just needs some “bling”
Sean @ 926: I think some of respondents may have been taking the poll in a not so serious way.
Phew, things are getting real close in Bowman folks. Its gonna be a photo finish.
926 -
You reckon? lol
Jason is only 41 behind in Bowman with around 1000 to count, plus whatever provisional votes go in. Impossible to be confident about the result.
frank frederic Says:
“Howard slips in Bennelong: 2306 votes difference”
I think I’ve seen too many Halloween films but I was pleased to see that.
#
939
collingwoodlegend Says:
December 6th, 2007 at 4:42 pm
Jason is only 41 behind in Bowman with around 1000 to count, plus whatever provisional votes go in. Impossible to be confident about the result.
Ron says
where did you get the 1000 from collingwoodlegend ??
on aec site 94.70% counted leaving 4719 votes left ??
(on my calculations of all UNCOUNTED McEwan & Bowman ,
ALP will end up behind respectively 25 & 32
caused by uncounted pre polls in each…can we get rid of the pre polls
I’m sure Kevin Andrews will be much happier sitting on the back bench reading Nexus magazines.
What a backbench – Costello, Downer, Ruddock & Andrews.
I can’t wait for the first question time.
926
Never picked Abbott as a gay icon – is it the ears?
Yes, interesting that Andrews didn’t get a position. Horatio may be smarter than he looks.
Ron
The postals may vary, the cut off is tomorrow. Pre Polls and absents are definate votes – postals may not be cast or not sent in time.
Whoever wins bowman will do it by a handful of votes. Remember the AEC are only counting first preferences at this time, a full preference count may make enough difference to decide the winner either way.
943 it can mean 2 things spills or by elections. or both . tho i can’t see Andrews doing much more than picking his nose.
actually i hope he (KA) gets hauled over the coals for the haneef stuff.
I believe that legally there is no cut-off time for postals, though practically they will end tomorrow.