Morgan, which ended its recent poor run at the federal level with a 53.5-46.5 result on the eve of the election, has produced the first post-election poll on voting intention. It shows Labor enjoying a honeymoon boost to 58.5-41.5, with a primary vote lead of 49 per cent to 36.5 per cent. Newspoll will presumably return to the fold in the new year.
Reflections on the Miracle of Democracy at Work in the Greatest Nation on Earth
1,031 Comments
whats the point… atleast the newspoll had some amusing other questions
I hope they ditched their silly F2F poll
THE REVERSE NARROWING!
Looks like a bad time for the Libs to call for a new election in McEwen. It’d be Lindsay ‘96 all over again, I reckon. The ALP could run the argument that the Libs are sore losers (and they’d be right).
There’s sure to be some by-elections coming up – Higgins, Mayo, maybe Lyne and Berowra. The ALP doesn’t really have prayer in any of them (even with the pared-down margin in Mayo + the ‘honeymoon’ factor), but Lyne could be interesting… it may switch from safe Nat to safe Lib. Any thoughts?
Alp should run handshin in mayo help chew off a bit more of that margin, then it’ll be ripe for the picking 2010/11.
When Jeff Kennett resigned his very safe seat of Burwood after being beaten, the ALP won. In fact they won all the bi elections that came along after Kennett was beaten.
A prominent independent would have the best hope in Mayo, with the ALP taking a holiday or running dead.
McEwen situation:
Bailey should just swallow her pride. On the bright side, in 2010, the new Liberal candidate won’t have much ground to make up.
In a by-election in the early months of a new government there is almost no such thing as an unwinnable seat. After Labor took office in Victoria in 1999, not only did they win Burwood (6.8%), a seat which they still hold, but they also won Benalla (on 7.4%, which was thought at the time to be an aberration – a bit like Groom or Barker this time). They lost Benalla later – narrowly in 2002, easily in 2006 (where the possibly soon-to-be member for McEwen, Rob Mitchell, was on the wrong end of a 15.5% swing largely attributable to local water issues).
Whilst talking of Morgan, I happened to be reading ‘The Great Labor Schism’ (a collection of papers on the 1955 split and its consequences) over the weekend, which included a chapter on the Morgan poll – the only show in town in those days – during and after the split, and how it handled the rise of what became the DLP. This showed that there is nothing new in fanciful interpretations by Morgan of small statistically-insignificant fluctuations in their polls – they’ve been doing it for at least 50 years.
Morgan is always biased by 14% to the ALP so when we factor that in the Coalition is headed for 120 seats in 2011
Great result for Horatio Hornet – I wonder how long his honeymoon will last?
(Of course Morgan get the Nats vote wrong again
)
8 – All the Liberal campaign has to do is find 4 people who voted Labor and convince them to change. The easiest campaign in history
In regard to MeEwan, can someone tell me if it is now by-election or nothing ?. Or can the Libs still be declared the winner ?
10 Nastro-doom-us “Morgan is always biased”
Chris B says is the most accurate.
MeEwan? Is that McEwen?
With regard to that “Victorian Seat” I think it is either a Labor win or a by election. The AEC seem confident the count will not change. (Be it 7,5 or now 6).
Repeating from the Bee’s Donger:
Notes on the closest election for a H of R seat – Ballaarat in 1919. Edwin Kerby (Nationalist) defeated Charles McGrath (ALP) by one vote. Both were WWI veterans, RSL activists and prominent local sportsmen. The election was declared void in 1920 and McGrath won the special election that year with a primary vote of 51.75% to Kerby’s 39.32 (there were a couple of independents). Maybe Fran Bailey should heed that.
Apart from that hiccup, McGrath was MHR for Ballaarat (in more recent times spelled Ballarat) from 1913-34. He represented the ALP until 1931, when he switched to the United Australia Party. He died in office, aged 60.
What about Rob Oakeshott making a move into federal politics? He’d thrash whoever the Coalition put up in Lyne.
Agree with Handshin in Mayo.
I thought Oakeshott was regarded as a de-facto Liberal by many in the NSW Nats (?)
If the Liberals are smart they’ll try to grab him as their candidate for Lyne (by-election or 2010- surely Vaile won’t hang around). Nats are dying a not-so-slow death on the coast…
I think he likes his independence too much these days Marcus.
Yes, the seachangers are really sticking it to the Nats. On election night Antony Green noted how far the Nat vote had fallen even in central Qld. Sooner or later the Nats will be confined to the inland seats.
Chris B is wrong as Morgan gets it’s call registry from the ABC membership files and regularly scours Newtown, Brunswick and New Farm and the like for Unionists and Trotskyites to ask questions.
Data on morgan poll respondents suggests that 80% have dreadlocks.
Hi everyone,
I’ve open-sourced my senate calculator, Cassandra. It’s in python and if you’re a software-programming-type person you might find it of use. Obviously it was written for the Australian senate but it can be used for many proportional representation, preferential voting scenarios.
It’s here
From the Age, appropriately in the Entertainment section. Ovaries tipped officially to become a colour writer.
“Changing seats
NO, NO, no. The Oz’s friendly reporter Caroline Overington did nothing wrong in flirting with the candidate for Wentworth, George Newhouse. She did nothing wrong in giving him a “closed whack” to the head (his version) or an “open-handed push” (her version) on poll day. The Walkley Award-winning journo is such a shining light in Rupert’s empire that the paper later apologised to George. Now word from insiders at The Oz is that Overington will no longer be writing cracking news stories for the paper but moved to a role on the weekend magazine. They say it’s the cushiest form of purgatory around.”
Bull Butter!
Insanity now Glen the time for serenity has passed you by.
Sure CO displayed some very poor judgement around some issues in the recent election, but to my mind she has a significant credit balance built up through her work exposing the AWB farce and the role Downer, Vaile and Howard played in it. Give the kid a break, just as we wish that the other side would give Cornesey a break.
Insanity was election night jasmine.
Looks like Bali is going to be a flop HURRAY!
So Jasmine how was the ‘victory party’ in Stirling LOL?
It seems that Morgan have come up with a new way to make whatever findings they wish:
“The Roy Morgan Government Confidence Rating (GCR) is 144.5. The GCR is 100 plus the difference between the percentage of Australians who say the country is “going in the right direction” and the percentage who say the country is “going in seriously the wrong direction”.”
Doesn’t sound like a particularly quantitative measure of anything at all, to me.
Nelson is clearly more popular than Howard was
today Morgan Labor 58.5 -41.5
apec conference Morgan Labor 58 – 41
Nelson is coming
Is it too early to call the 2010 election?
No ’soft’ support now? So we can conclude that was just an exercise in pre-emptive arse covering?
Long range future prediction for the labor party – P.M. Rudd to win three elections (with a substantially increased majority in his second) before handing over to Australia’s first ever female P.M. Julia Gillard after serving longer than Hawke.
Long range future prediction for the liberal party and their supporters – PAIN and more PAIN! lol
Centre Gillard will never become PM, because she is unelectable just as much if not more than Tony Abbott. The ALP aren’t that stupid they wouldn’t implode in such a manner as to put Ms Gillard in as leader.
We note that even William can not comment on Morgans’ “GCR” rating measurement
What Morgan is saying is he asked voters if we were going in the right direction
72.25% said YES…27.75% including glen said NO
(72.25%-27.75% = a difference of 44.50% + 100% = Morgan’s GCR of 144.50%
Morgan’s new Polling concept should leave all speechless in our admiration
Glen, your side of politics persisted in its belief that Gillard was an electoral negative for Labor all year. They were persistently wrong.
Glen, Julia is so popular!
What about on election night, when Kerry asked her a question the crowd wouldn’t let her speak. Julia Julia Julia Julia Julia. Great stuff!
I wouldn’t be so quick with such a call, Glen. I remember much talk of the ALP being unelectable with Jules as deputy. She is the woman who had driven their agenda for the last 18 months, and holds two of the most influential portfolios in the new government. Also (on a technicality) she’ll be your PM next week.
Glen, I can only think of one politician who may be less electable than Tony Abbot and that is Kevin Andrews. Honestly, the guy is electoral poison.
I think Gillard is a polarising figure, which isn’t a safe bet as leader, but sometimes you need to be a bit risky. That time is not now, nor is it likely to be any time soon.
Pancho We also should not forget our SAINT MAXINE !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
“Bi” election? An election for those who like to vote both ways??
I know Glen doesn’t like to consider evidence, but Gillard’s public approval rating has always been quite high. It will be internal ALP factors that stop her succeeding Kev.
Back again folks, after a spell in Hospital, including Nov 24. A disappointing result in Gippsland, but the possibility is that Mcgauran could be one of the early departures. Local Nats are sh*t scared a Lib would stand, and split the conservative vote. Ah well, I always was a dreamer.
36
Centre – they were rent-a-crowd Labor left members i doubt if you took Julia onto the Streets of Melbourne people would just start shouting JULIA JULIA JULIA, its bull butter and you know it. Her unpopularity was masked by Rudd’s popularity.
Charlie, if Gillard was the ALP leader for the 2007 election, ‘Unca Howie’ would still be PM and you know it.
Ron, IMHO Maxine is more electable than Julia.
Gillard is a left wing socialist who could never get her grubby hands on Treasury as she doesnt have the numbers for a fight with the ALP Right.
Of course Andrews is poison LTEP, i sincerely hope he resigns at some stage so we can get some new talent into the ranks.
I think it will be interesting to see if and how Watkins takes over in NSW. The only thing stopping him from taking over appears to be the knuckleheads of the NSW machine. If he is given an out from the left and the top job, then Julia will have a precedent, and there will be no reason why she couldn’t be PM one day.
On Julia becoming PM. Why is it that Australia, US and UK have never had a female PM or deputy (until Julia, I’m not counting Thatcher!) when we are meant to be progressive and non-sexist, while Pakistan and India have both had female PM’s and are “paternalistic and chauvinistic”? We are clearly not a meritocracy. Just look at all the white, Christian males in power. Julia might struggle despite being the best person.
34
Ron Says:
December 10th, 2007 at 4:43 pm
“”e note that even William can not comment on Morgans’ “GCR” rating measurement
What Morgan is saying is he asked voters if we were going in the right direction
72.25% said YES…27.75% including glen said NO
(72.25%-27.75% = a difference of 44.50% + 100% = Morgan’s GCR of 144.50%
Morgan’s new Polling concept should leave all speechless in our admiration”
I, for one, am at a loss for words
“What about on election night, when Kerry asked her a question the crowd wouldn’t let her speak. Julia Julia Julia Julia Julia. Great stuff!”
It was a terrific night for girl power Centre. Took my daughters along, as well as going mad over Julia crowd also went wild when Maxine appeared on the monitor.
Tanya was also great to see on the night, big contract to Joe who was in tears when the cameras were not on him.
Don’t see why Aust can’t have a female PM, NZ does.
Adam should pass by soon to tut disapprovingly at wild speculation about events far in the future, but I suspect that unless KEv falls under a bus soon, it will be a person who entered parliament at this election that succeeds him as ALP leader.
Gillard a socialist? Glen, you don’t seem old enough to still be fighting the Cold War.
Glen
Get used to it we now have a socialist Govt.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialist_international#Full_member_parties
Glen if Gillard did a Nelson (LOL) and joined the liberal party tomorrow, she would be leader in an instant.
Ah wikipedia, you fountain of nuance!
Julia PM. Maxine deputy PM?
That would be a sight to see.
Possum has some interesting stats at his new thread.
Not Billy. The bloke’s name Bill who lead the party weren’t the best.
It’s incredible that in the face of a massive repudiation at the last election, some characters still persist in the ‘Reds under the bed’ rhetoric witht he ALP generally, and Gillard and particular.
The current government is about as ’socialist’ as the current opposition is ‘liberal’.
When was the last time an incumbent party polled 58.5 or higher?
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2007/12/10/2114729.htm?section=justin
“Gillard to be first female acting PM”
Noooo not Gillard!
Serenity Now!
Recount for McEwen…
I reckon the Libs would love to have Julia as their Leader instead of Nelson/Turnbull
What are you smoking Ron???
Why have Gillard when we can have Julie Bishop if we wanted a woman as our leader!
Glen,
Julia is magic.
Julie is tragic.
I think someone else asked this question before.
If there is a by election in a certain “Victorian Seat”
Can the Libs-Nats preselect a different candidate? I mean dear Fran is 61. Surely not generational change.
“Why have Gillard when we can have Julie Bishop if we wanted a woman as our leader!”
Admittedly, Bishop does a great Marty Feldman impersonation, but Gillard offers more substance.
What no commentary on soft-Labor voters and the key to the next election?
Morgan has reinvented itself to suit itself once again.
Interesting that Kevin Rudd was Wayne Goss’ Chief of Staff and Juila Gillard was John Brumby’s Chief of Staff.
Maybe we should look to see who is CoS for whoever claims to lead the Qld Libs and the Vic real estate guy for future Liberal leaders.
However, Gillard was Brumby’s chief of staff during his period as Opposition Leader, not in government.
Glen says:
“Why have Gillard when we can have Julie Bishop”
Julia is better value. Ms Bishop is very good at delivering prepared lines but generally poor at thinking on her feet. Her debating tends to be very wooden (and a little spooky).
With Rudd only 50, I can;t see anyone in the ALP taking over from him who is older. So that would rule out (from the Cabinet):
Swan (53)
Smith (51)
Tanner (51)
Macklin (52)
Carr (52)
Ferguson (53)
Of the these only Smith I think is any real chance (Tanner will join the list of wannabe Treasurer with Julia)
Of the under 50s we have:
Julia (46)
Burke (38)
Fitzgibbon (49)
Roxon (40)
Albanese (44)
McLelland (49)
Albanese, McL and Fitz are no chance. Burke I think is the smokey.
The outer Ministry has a heap of under 50s (and given Kate Ellis broke PJKs record for youngest Minister….)
And of course the parl secs…
Combet (49)
Shorten (40)
Wooden like Gillard’s tone of voice?
I hardly think Julie’s debating skills are questionable considering she is a lawyer.
When’s the last time Julia has had to think on her feet?
Also when is the ALP Junket going to Bali? Are they there yet? Is Greg Hunt going too?
“However, Gillard was Brumby’s chief of staff during his period as Opposition Leader, not in government.”
So wot.
If Kevin Rudd was run over by a bus, who would take over as PM?
Julia Gillard from the Left?
Wayne Swan from the Right?
Lindsay Tanner from the Left?
Someone else?
Juila Gillard is at best 50-50 to become prime minister after Rudd. I dont think the Labor right would be pleased and the socialist left is not guaranted to support her either. In my opinion Swan, Smith and Roxxon are just as likley to suceed him as julia.
Glen you forget Gillard is also a lawyer.
“In 1986, she graduated from the University of Melbourne with arts and law degrees and, the following year, joined the law firm Slater & Gordon at Werribee, working in the area of industrial law. In 1990, she was admitted as one of their first women partners.”
If Kevin was hit by a bus – Gillard would be elected PM un-opposed.
Gillard is clearly the heir apparent at present. Whether she can maintain that position for the nine years or so that Rudd will stay in the job if he keeps getting re-elected remains to be seen.
“Is Greg Hunt going too?”
Yes, he is.
Even though he has no actual work to do there.
Rudd’s succession is completely open. If he is there for 2+ terms, Bill Shorten could succeed him.
Glen @ 27:
Looks like Bali is going to be a flop HURRAY!
Glen, I don’t know what you’re cheering about, nor do I know where you’re getting your information from. All that’s happened, as far as I can see, is that the parties are moving into what will become their negotiating positions, with Rudd refusing to make firm commitments off the top of his head. Would you be happier if he had?
Also, given that Bush has so little effective time to go as leader in the US, the next round of negotiations will be different. The Japanese leadership is looking dodgy as well, so I wouldn’t be celebrating too loudly just yet.
Besides, I find it disturbing to think that you’d see the entire exercise in partisan political terms, esp given that a significant element of the Libs wd have been there if the WA MPs (such paragons of enlightenment as they are!) hadn’t jacked up and elected Horatio.
Spiros,
Looks like speedos and drinks with umbrellas for Hunt. Who won the election anyway!
Greg Hunt will waffle about tree clearing – Visit some Kuta shops, get lots of T-shirts and DVDs.
Get his hair braided and fingernails painted. He may even get a taste for Bintang.
I’ve never been a fan of Greg Hunt. His brother is much better value.
Spiros
Is his brother Mike?
Got it in one!
I thought it was Rex, oh well, back to nursing my hangover.
Their little brother is called Stunnink.
Is anyone else still finding it hard to realise that when you see a headline such as “PM disguted by..” or “PM refuses to be drawn…” that it is not about Howard?
I still find my first reaction when I see a headline with “PM…” is to wonder what issue is Howard trying to wedge the ALP on now.
You’re not the only one, Grog. Not that I mind. Each time I realise that the Prime Minister is Rudd, not Howard, it brings another smile to my face.
Reminds me of the anecdote of when Bracks was first elected in 1999. The radio reported that their was a leadership crisis and the Victorian Opposition was in disarray. Brumby rushed into Bracks office with the opening line of “What’s going on, Steve?”, and then stopped in his tracks and started laughing as he realised that the reports were talking about the Liberals.
You’ll get used to it!..
Grog
Yep, I have the same reaction when I listen to the news and they say the Prime Minister, tense up, then they say Kevin Rudd, breathe out relax, give a little smile.
Still taking a while to sink in.
GG
I think Glen is suffering from “What’s going on Steve” when he hears reports about the opposition in disunity he then follows up a post on how it is falling apart for Rudd!
William nuke 87.
I am still getting used to PM Rudd, if it takes a while for it to sink into my rusted on Labor mind – imagine the pain for the opposition?
Absolutely guys. I am always going to refer to Rudd as the P.M. or PM Rudd from now on.
What about when Australia win in sport. It’s going to make us more proud now, especially given that their wont be a dessicated coconut around where he is not wanted.
Yes, Centre, I absolutely loathed having Howard on stage at the NRL Grand Final; it took a bit of the shine out of Melbourne Storm winning the 2007 NRL Premiership.
By the way, the right direction was 60%, wrong direction 15.5%, with the rest uncommitted in that Morgan poll.
Rudd being PM still hasn’t sunk in with me yet. I’ve got the same feeling as when I had to study for ages to pass an exam. Even after passing, I kept waking up worrying about what I was going study that day. It’s like having Damocles’ sword taken away from hovering over your head. The Rodent really has scarred me.
the removal vans at kirribilli today will make it that little bit easier for the truth to sink in
Grog & Charlie, It’s a common reaction around here as well. Initial arc up, then grin like crazy. I’ve taken to saying to all similarly afflicted, “Who’s the PM?” every so often just for the entertainment value!
What the hell’s the story with Morgan? They’re just making it up! Do they enjoy being a laughing stock?
Clearly people are parking their votes. Come the election they’ll think about it a little more (lest they be sleepwalking, of course).
I meant with the “Roy Morgan Government Confidence Rating”. WTF
Higher electricity prices? That[’ll sure please the working families.
Who’s the PM, Diogenes?
If there is a by-election, nominations will be opened in the usual way. So if the Libs wanted to ditch Bailey and run someone else, they could. I very much doubt there will be a by-election. If the recount confirms Labor’s win, the Libs will probably decide to take their lumps. Despite the mixed precedents, I think they know they’d get creamed.
If Labor does finish up winning the seat by 6 votes, that will be closest House of Reps result ever allowed to stand, beating 7 votes at Werriwa in 1914. (The two closer results, 5 votes in Riverina in 1903 and 1 vote in Ballaarat in 1919, were voided in court). In percentage terms Mitchell’s margin would be 50.00309, also the closest ever, beating 50.007 at the Griffith by-election of 1939.
For those interested Landeryou has more goss about McEwen.
http://andrewlanderyou.blogspot.com/2007/12/so-close-then-there-were-five.html
James J, It’ll depend an awful lot on the policy settings on a range of things as to whether higher prices for energy eventuates and the impact of price shifts on voting behaviour. I think that most of what I’ve read indicates the most people now “buy” climate change and that it is being adversely affected by human activity. If the Federal, and for that matter, the synergy now available between Federal and State/Territory level works reasonably well, there are solutions available that could actually bring energy prices down. And wouldn’t working families just love that?
If the world is serious enough and does cure the planet from global warming, the only thing that I will regret is that sea levels will not rise sufficiently enough to put all those liberal voting coastline wentworth residents under water.
With Australia being involved in talks with other nations on climate change, it makes Coconut seem even more out of touch now, if that was possible.
87 GG – great story.
Obviously this Morgan poll is an outlier. 41.5% for the Libs is much too high.
Centre
When we take our place at the table, we can and will become the world leaders on the issue and we will indeed lead by example.
Kirribilli Removals took his/her own sweet time to turn up, but very satisfying that Hyacinth and the Prime Monster, who’s legacy shall be mud in the mouth of his folllowers, are now re-located out of the $17 billion waste of their occupancy.
107 Are you sure? Last I heard they were still in situ
Although “in situ” may not quite be right given it refers to the original position… (though I like this definition: “Referring to a rock, fossil, or other object found in the exact location or natural position in which it was formed or deposited.”)
108. Harry’s right, tonight on the ABC news there was a nice shot of Kirribilli Removals at the wheel of his very fine van as his henchpersons loaded up. I think I saw someone tottering out of the stately mansion holding a white flag.
Adam, It would seem that reality is still sinking in for the LNP, as for some of us. I thought that Fran Bailey was about to burst into tears this afternoon when I heard her interviewed. Then, there was that classic Lib. position of blaming someone/something/anything. Oh yes, it must be the AEC. Couldn’t be that I lost. I’m going to take much pleasure in identifying adjustment disorders with any number of complications over the next wee while among the hapless NLP. Normally, I’m a ‘noice’ person, brought up to abide by the old dictum of “win without bombast, and lose without rancour”. On this occasion, nah!
‘PM disgusted by …’ in today’s headlines was pure Howard. I despair that we’ll ever get back to politicians confining themselves to policy in their own domain, or at least things they know about, instead of moralising on every social issue a dull journalist throws their way.
As odd as it is to see Rudd and Gillard at the helm, I don’t expect most people will notice the difference for some time.
Paradoxically however, Howard was so impotent for the last a year or more, that it is also not easy to think of him as PM either.
110
First the wine, then the silverware and now the linen?
But he hasn’t conceded yet!
I’d like to see him taken out in a Chesterfield Chair.
Yep, off to the old shack they have been transported, minus, of course, Hyacinth’s fingernails, which will be forever, embedded in the floorboards leading OUT.
Graeme, who’s the PM? (See earlier for this remedial intervention).
112 Graeme the difference is Howard would have suggested the Federal Govt taking over responsibility for sentencing, or deciding to make Cape Yorke part of Nairu.
The good thing is the ALP wedges will be on lefty stuff like Climate Change. Howard’s wedges were invaribly challenges to the ALP to be uncaring or downright mean. Rudd will wedge the Libs into being nice
Good to see news ltd is holding firm:
ABC: http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2007/12/10/2114879.htm
Garrett, Kerry discuss US stance on climate change
news.com: http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,22900223-23109,00.html
Garrett dodges climate change questions
112 graeme. I have the same trouble with Bob Hawke. Was he really PM? Keating, I can remember with clarity and fondness, but Bob? Nah. Didn’t happen.
scaper 106
we will be a world leader??? we have signed up for kyoto for 5 minutes, are among the world’s worst polluters and no set targets for 2020. we have a long long eway before we are involved, let alone being a leader. European countries and New Zealand are lading the charge. We are more like a rookie yet to play a game.
Deano
We might be the rookies….but please give it some time.
You might be impressed.
Interesting to see Rudd “disgusted” by a lenient sentence in a rape case involving an aboriginal community in far north Qld. Expect to see much more of this positioning. Despite the many achievements of the Hawke/Keating era, and despite coming out the other side of a recession still in power, Keating was thrashed by Howard. Why? One reason was that he was a foul-mouthed arrogant pr@ck. The other was that he was seen by socially conservative working-class voters in the outer suburbs and regional cities as a guy that had an elitist agenda (aboriginal reconciliation, the republic) which either was irrelevant to their lives or which they were actively hostile to. Rudd will not fall into this trap. I certainly expect and hope we will indeed see progress on both aboriginal reconciliation and the republic in time, but Rudd will keep making statements like this to avoid the wedges on these kinds of issues I’m sure the Libs will still try running. It may be unpalatable to leftists on this site to see this stuff coming from Rudd, but it’s necessary.
Par Mod,
as a confirmed leftist let me say that so far
I am impressed.
Rudd has ratified Kyoto,(targets are another thing, but it’s a start), committed to a formal apology to Indigeneous Australians, promised to close down Nauru Torture Centre for Refugees, allowing tose that are already processed the decency of coming ashore and promising to speed up the process for those waiting.
If he cans the pulp mill in Tassie and has a rethink on uranium mining, I’m going to nominate him as the next leader of the Greens.
Dear Kevin,
Love you to bits. I’m so delighted you’re the PM. I even appreciate your fondness for Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Just one thing….when a reporter throws a question at you about a crime you know nothing about…Shut Up! You’re the Prime Minister! You’re also an intelligent man. You don’t have to switch into red neck mode and rant about ‘zero tolerance’. It doesn’t matter how heinous the crime appears to be. Take your time; get the facts, and at least have the sense to read the case and the judge’s remarks before passing your own judgment….or you just look like a goose (actually Kevin, I’ve noticed your neck disappears entirely into your collar when you pontificate on matters you’re unfamilar with. It’s not a good look – so stop it! Anyway, enjoy Bali. You’ve made us all proud. Love & kisses…FG
BTW-
shouldn’t Rudd be disgusted by an Australian judge finding that a 10 year old could consent to sex with 9 men?
I think most of us are – forget wedge politics.
What Rudd said about that case was just common sense, I would have thought.
Also, as PM, Rudd has to comment on stuff all the time. Whether he’s involved or not.
What if he’d said nothing about the case – it becomes “PM silent on rape of ten year old girl”, or whatever. His instincts in this matter, as so often, were spot on.
FG,
I think Rudd should comment on this case without knowing All The Facts as such. The outstanding fact is that 9 men raped a ten year old. What the f(k else is there to know?
I am proud (remember that feeling?) that an Australian leader would condemn, without any legalistic BS, something so heinous.
If only such respect for human rights had guided the government of the last 11 years.
On the theme of Prime Ministerial comments more generally, one of the reasons it’s such a hard job is that PMs do get put on the spot all the time – Rudd’s minders would hardly have prepared him for that question, would they?
jen,
I doubt if Howard would have said anything different to Rudd about that particular case.
The problem Jen is that legal cases are extremely complex things, and judges, by and large are not idiots. To pass comment based solely on what is reported in the press (which is often misleading or just plain wrong) is not wise. All I’m saying is get the facts – then pass comment. What I read in today’s press made me angry, but as a lawyer I’ve learned not to trust the spin from the press. It’s an odd judgment based on what the press has told us. I’m also curious as to why the Crown recommended the action taken by her honour. The Qld AG has sought a report from the DPP and, based on that, he will determine whether to appeal. I’ll be interested to read the judgment.
Hello Jen. Great to hear that Rudd is keeping both his left-leaning and social conservatve followings happy! In the end, it’s the actions that matter, not the spin and images. And Howard’s trawling for votes by stirring hostility to various minorities was the most contemptible thing about him, thank God that’s gone. But I’m not sure which direction a re-think on uranium mining should take us. Global warming is probably the greatest problem our species (and all the others!) faces, and nuclear energy could be part of the solution. There are massive challenges with waste, cost, decommissioning old plants, potential use in weapons-but is it not true that it is an energy source which will emit very little carbon? Stuff like burying CO2 from coal underground is a fantasy, and from what I’ve read wind and solar can’t generate enough power to allow coal-fired stations to be closed. So where will the electricity come from?
I’ve made a small number of posts here in the last 6 weeks but have generally been silently and compulsively lurking here and at Possum’s site. I’ve also sent William and Possum a few offline emails to which I’ve had the nicest responses.
We made our first ever small corporate donations to Maxine, Mike Bailey in North Sydney, to Andrew Campbell in Menzies (who was a looooong shot to rid Australia of the pustulous boil Kevin Andrews) and to the ACT Greens Senate campaign. (We only won 1 in 4, but you need to take a stand.) We had a fabulous hand-written personalised response from Maxine (I bet some of you are jealous!) and two great conversations with Mike Bailey and Andrew Campbell.
These are people I’d be privileged and happy to be in a room with.
I wouldn’t want to be in the same room with misfits like Abbott, Abetz (Abbott doubled), Ruddock, Kevin Andrews, Bronwyn Bishop and similar and I sincerely hope they soon vanish up or down a plughole into the past.
I’d like to thank and congratulate William and Possum for their extraordinary efforts. I love the way both these blokes think and write.
I particularly commend both of them for their gut-driven stances against racist drivel.
I’d also like to thank Adam and Antony Green for blogging as much as they did.
My vote for best citizen blogger goes to “Kirribilli Removals” but there are a number of other contenders that saw the election from all sorts of perspectives including Basil Fawlty, Grace Pettigrew, Ruawake, Julie and many many others.
I hope we don’t descend into wallowing about whether Possum got it wrong: Possum was the bloke who kept something like 60% of pollbludgers sane in the last few days of the campaign. Not only should he get a Nobel Prize via Adam (sorry, too lazy to link) but he should be given an award by the Australian Health Department!
Thanks to all of you bludgers and particular thanks to William and Possum. I hope everyone in this particular part of the blogosphere doesn’t exhaust themselves in recriminations and claims to psephological superiority. We won, damn it, and none of us are actually very much the wiser why we did.
Finally, a comment on the trolls: there was one manifestation/shift of Glen who was interesting and brave though he/she occasionally succumbed to racism. Most of the others I have the sort of contempt for that I have for Kevin Andrews. These include ESJ, “Generic Person” – whatever that idiot moniker means – and Stephen Kaye.
Happy Christmas everyone! We’re rid of the rodent! Rejoice! These sorts of shifts will only happen a few times in your lifetime, so enjoy it.
I don’t like that margin in McEwen. After the margin in Bass was 0.04% after the 1993 election, the AEC decided in future to publish all margins to two decimal places. (Just publishing the close ones to two didn’t seem to be to their liking) I hope that McEwen doesn’t encourage them to publish all margins to three decimal places.
But Antony, you’re the most numerate soul in the country. If you can’t handle 3 decimal places what hope have the rest of us got? Are you still tipping that the Libs will want to avoid a by-election in McEwen.
Surely they’ll avoid a by-election!
But the re-count’s not over yet – how long will that take?
In the case of McEwen, .001 corresponds to a single vote. It’s a silly level of accuracy, as is 2dp which would be only 10 votes. As to tipping whether there will be a by-election, I’m just saying you shouldn’t assume there will be one. My political advice would be to let the result stand as my gut feeling is the government will have quite a honeymoon period. The Coalition will be having a few months of introspection, never a good time to engage in a by-election.
133/PH…well said, its good night from me and good night from…
133 PH,
Hear, Hear!
Antony,
Can you clarify whether, as most seem to assume, that the Libs have the option not to run Fran Bailey for their candidate in the event of a by-election?
Agree with FG at 124. The PM should not join this hue and cry (Bolt’s blog has already gone predictably ballistic and its a very unpleasant read). Of course we are all horrified by child rape. We do not need the PM to tell us what we already know. He should rise above the emotional turmoil and counsel calm analysis and encourage legal resolution.
Problem coming over the horizon if this “national outcry” is allowed to run wild is the character assassination and career destruction of the judge involved (see Bolt), not to mention the impossibility of a lasting resolution for the child and her community.
The culture warriors at the Oz are right now hammering out their rage at our pomo relativist leftie judicial elite, providing acres of gruesome and prurient detail about child rape in aboriginal communities, and ensuring once again that real change is postponed while we deal with this present emergency. And it should shift quite a few newspapers for the next few days.
Dyno at 127: “His instincts in this matter, as so often, were spot on.”
I don’t agree, Dyno. It reminded me of Howard’s instincts.
Plus the funds are a little low in the Liberal camp according to the word on the street. Might be better to keep them for future battles that are on the horizon which they can win (like Higgins). They don’t want to fight more by-elections then they have to at the moment.
Jen
Rudd is also holding COAG on 20th, 5 days before Xmas, first such meeting since Howard days to be held outside Canberra.
All state, territory and federal leaders plus treasurers, main agenda to tackle health, education and housing.
The bloke does not muck about and Australia is quite lucky in that most of the leaders and treasurers are reasonably competant as Rudd said the blame game stops and working to find solutions and fixes starts.
Pip at 140: without wishing to gazump Antony’s response, it might be worth observing that the Court of Disputed Returns orders a “fresh” election, not a “by-election”. Its an interesting use of terminologys, suggesting that the whole pack of cards is thrown up into the air, and anyone can nominate.
Grace,
Many thanks. As always, you are a fountain of information.
A new writ will be issued for a by-election and anyone who wants to run can nominate. And no one who previously nominated has to run. In other words, Fran Bailey doesn’t have to be the Liberal candidate.
I already told you that. *Sulks*
‘Onya, Antony!
Some people might be interested in a new development: a Green Liberal Party
http://www.grunliberale.ch/index.htm
They won three seats in the recent Swiss elections. They reject the leftism of the official Greens on non-environmental issues.
Listening to Radio National today, Samantha Maiden (I think) nominated Michael Ronaldson to “be the next John Faulkner” – i.e. during Senate estimates. Given I have only seen him play the role of Fierrevanti-Well’s wingman in her attack on the ABC and SBS, I shudder at the thought.
grace pettigrow,
the problem appears to be that the “legal resolution” is clearly not working. I am not advocating for any action to be taken outside the legal process, but when it fails ( as it does on occasions) then we all have a right to speak out. Including, and especially, our leaders.
Perhaps one of the most disturbing legacies of Howard and Co. is that it is hard to have any faith in the legal processes of this country,as we watched helplessly as one human rights abuse after another, one cover-up after another, one deception and spin after another allowed terrible acts to take place in our country.
These range from the despicable teatment of refugees, involvement in a questionable war with the loss of life of perhaps hundreds of thousands, the deportation of citizens and innocent migrants, the blatant land-grab of indigeneous people and the wedging of racism for political gain.
That is why i am relieved to hear a clear unequivicle statement from Rudd about this case.
These men pleaded guilty to the gang rape of a ten year old. The judge says she may have consented. What’s to discuss???
Sometimes i despair at lawyers.
Adam, ich can nicht diesen website verstanden!
Parra Mod
The argument with renewables is generally that it can’t produce baseload power, which is to say that it can’t produce a constant, reliable stream of power due to fluctuations of the elements.
While it is true that an individual solar panel or wind turbine will not necessarily be producing power at a given time, spread across a network, the level of output is surprisingly reliable. Renewables like geothermal, biomass and wave are entirely reliable.
It should also be factored in that coal is actually far too constant in its output. By necessity, a coal plant produces the same output day or night. Renewables fit much better to the curve of power use. There is no reason that renewables cannot be the sole source for new capacity, including replacement for non-renewable plants at the end of their life, for the next few decades. Beyond that time, the ‘baseload’ options will be mature and who knows what else will be coming up.
Alas, Adam, it pains me to say that your post @ 101 did not quite pass my “emphatic” test on that point about the party nominations.
You see, “emphatic” is now my #1 top adjective since the MSM settled on it to describe Team Rudd’s margin of victory. :>)
Are you proposing that we lynch the judge, jen? OK, you say you are not proposing any action outside the legal process. But who says its not working? Have you lost faith in the law after only a decade of Howardism?
I am not objecting to any reporting of the facts, and I am not suggesting that people should not be outraged, but I am advocating that PM Rudd do more than just express his. He has a country to lead.
Don’t despair Jen. I’m sure we share your anger and disgust at what appears to have happened. But allow us a lawyer’s caution at wanting to check the facts (rather than relying solely on the press) before reaching a conclusion regarding this case.
grace p
as I previously stated I do not advocate any action outside the judicial process. This includes the lynching of judges. ‘
what I am trying to say is that yes, after a decade of Howard who stacked benches, and passed legislation that would do the KGB proud I have less faith in the judicial process in this country than I feel comfortable about.
What gives me great hope however, is that i know that many lawyers are themselves uncomfortable with the direction we have been heading in and I expect that much will change in the future.
in the meantime I take comfort from the fact that our new PM (whom I don’t particularly like by the way), is honest enough to say what he really thinks.
Cheers.
Fair enough jen
Grace, I do like the way you write….and I’m just making a list of the judges I wouldn’t mind lynching
FG, lol, and it looks like one sydney judge known for speeding away from restaurants is in the process of getting lynched…
Graeme at 112
‘PM disgusted by …’
Shuddered. Howard reaction immediate. Just looked at the reference, equally annoyed to realise it was Kevin. Totally agree, just stay out of the minutae, not that my term intends to diminish the gravity, but leave it, Kevin.
If it is up to anyone at all to pass comment, it should be confined.
Not to a Minister, even. And it is a State matter. I detest the way in which Mike Rann bandwagons on to any judicial/parole decision in my State, highly dubious behaviour, which should be left to the DPP or appropriate authority.
Passing comment on matter which may yet be appealed, to say the least, is absolutely inappropriate.
And Kevin must be careful not to earn the show pony exhaustion we experienced under Howard. We are still very sensitive to such constant intrusion.
So Kev should be very careful and keep his mouth shut! On matters not his.
Yes it’s all a bit disheartening when our judicial betters let the side down. He has clearly missed out on my professional ethics classes….being in NSW and all.
grace and FG,
I’m afraid I struggle to share your faith in the legal system! I don’t think our adversarial system really advances the cause of justice all that effectively.
I accept that we don’t know all the facts in this case. But I think there are plenty of cases that are decided more on who had the best lawyer, rather than who had the best case. I think that, on the whole, the general public’s scepticism about the system is well-founded.
Crikey Whitey, considering the issues swirling around the NT intervention, it is clearly a national issue when a judge makes such an appalling decision… especially in an indigenous community.
CW @ 161,
PMs don’t have much choice but to comment on matters such as this. It’s one of the demands of the job.
21 Nastro-doom-us Isn’t the future looking great! No more Ratus. Yeah!
Dyno at 163, yep, some of what you say is probably true. The law is a human creation, with human faults. Its a work in progress. But its all we have to keep the dogs of barbarism at bay.
Well, actually, having delivered that bit of rage, I listened to Christian Kerr on Philip, nothing to do with this matter, but it did occur to me that it was to do with linking the indigeneous outrageous matters, and it did concern Queensland.
A few outrageous matters have occurred in other States, on which comment has not been passed.
Dyno, I understand the public perceptions. As one who works within the legal system you’ll understand if my view is a little different. There are undoubtedly some cases where the better lawyer won. In the vast majority of cases, however, the best interpretation of the available facts is what decides who wins. As I said earlier, judges are not idiots and it takes more than a clever lawyer to get the better of most of those on the bench. I am not blind to the weaknesses of our legal system (and spend a great deal of my time in trying to improve it), but by and large it’s the best legal system on earth and I am privileged to work with many lawyers who share a passion for justice and are determined to work towards achieving it in the system we have.
Yes a judge may have made an impalling decision but do we know all the facts- the whole story or is it a case of the media going berserk as usual and a prime minster doing the same.
There’s always the benchmark John Laws conviction when the judge decided he was too rich to fine and too famous to give a custodial sentence.
Crikey Whitey you are spot on, to me Rudd should have shut his mouth. Early days but Rudd to me will be a nothing Prime Minister.
gp @ 167,
Not against those ideas at all. Our system of law is fantastic, compared to most systems that have ever existed in human history.
But (as I hope you’d agree) we shouldn’t stop pushing our judges and lawyers to do better.
I was interested in the comment earlier (by you or FG) that the prosecution recommended the course of action the judge took. If that’s right, it would definitely be worth hearing more about why.
165. I agree with Grace and FG, he should avoid making judgments until he’s properly briefed. PMs surely have a choice of sounding off or counselling patience. And I know the latter plays into tabloid hands, but Bolt et al rely on short-term shock which often dissipates as events play out.
Dyno at 165.
I must disagree. By and large. In my view it is not the job of any PM to discourse on every matter in the public domain.
They have a larger job.
Notwithstanding what I said about the particularity, in this case.
Ta, Marky Marky.
Always appreciated.
Yes, a toxic amalgam there is to be addressed by the new government. From Telstra/ Sol and the 3 amigos telling the new government to stick it in relation to the broadband roll out, to the very nasty and difficult problems posed by climate change. Nevertheless, the Ruddster has taken off at a cracking pace, and geez, some of the women are frankly phenomenal.
33 Glen A pole before the election said, number one politician everyone wanted to baby sit their children: Julia Gillard. The politician everyone wanted to invite to tea as a guest: Peter Garret. That’s why the Liberals lost because they were out of touch with the community. And they still don’t know.
42 Gippslander Bairnsdale Hospital or Gippsland Base at Sale?
PS Drove past a Dyers truck today.
I guess my point really is that the PM is asked for a comment on absolutely everything. He (or she) needs to balance conflicting imperatives: (1) don’t shoot from the hip vs (2) speak for the nation.
I think that in this respect (as in so many others) it’s never an easy job, and I suspect KR will have a few missteps as he gets used to 100% of the spotlight.
But I actually didn’t have a huge problem with what he said today – I think he actually said he was disgusted and appalled by the reports of what had happened, and that he understood the case was being reviewed. Frankly, he spoke for me in saying this.
Broadband and telecommunications now who was idoit who introduced competition in this area, and what does it provide?
And who were the idoits who privatised it?
And who were the idoits who told us that a national broadband network would be easy?
A Kym dud Beazley
B John Howard and his pathetic government
C Rudd and Dudroy and the Labor Party
#170. Is an impalling decision one which appals, or one which deserves impalement?
If Rudd had some courage to his convictions he would have said no comment i will leave that to the Judge and Queensland Government but instead to look like some band wagon jumper or shock jock hero he has to say something, the medias darling boy already or should i say the medias’ love child.
mm @ 183, why do you assume his comments were insincere? What objective evidence is there to support this assumption?
And if his comments were, in fact, sincere, then how do they make him a “band wagon jumper” or lacking “courage to his convictions”?
Just because you don’t agree with his comments, it doesn’t follow that he didn’t mean them.
Rudd would be hailed in voterland as the new Man of Steel if he went to war against the Three Amigos, and Howard’s legacy of botched privatisation, by legislating to nationalise Telstra’s infrastructure, leaving the americans to run the retail business. What fun that would be.
Loved this bit from the Morgan:
Electors were asked: “If a Federal election for the House of Representatives were being held today — which party would receive your first preference?”
Of all electors surveyed, 6.5% did not name a party.
Do they ever decide?
gp @ 185,
It couldn’t happen to a nicer man than Sol if Rudd did that.
172 marky marky Even that is one thousand percent better than the one we had.
Dyno @ 173, yes the prosecution did not ask for a custodial sentence in the case, which is odd. While a judge is not compelled to take the sentencing advice offered by counsel, they do tend to do so. One other thing that interests me is that the judgment was handed down in October and the normal 28 day appeal period is passed. Why did the Qld Attorney-General not seek to appeal the case within the appeal period? As I say, we need to get the facts.
It is not his place to comment on this issue, what he is going to do next comment on issues like what happens on Big Brother or Australian Idol like what Howard use to do. Leave the comments to court system.
But Rudd trying to jump on the populist train has to say something. Did Rudd read the facts of the case or was he present in court, No.
He may well be sincere and have some empathy in regards to it but he should have shut his mouth, simple.
Crikey
That % is not so differnt to teh don’t vote/informal number I suspect, so maybe its fair enough that they not be allocated.
Sums it Ferny Glover, jumping on the media gravy train. Rudd will be governed by pollsters and the media.
190 marky marky Hello, where have you been the last 11.5 years?
According to the ABC:
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2007/12/10/2114704.htm
‘Prime Minister Kevin Rudd says he is disgusted by the rape of the 10-year-old girl.
He says he is waiting carefully for Mr Shine’s review of the case.
“My attitude to violence towards women and children, including sexual violence towards women and children, is one of zero tolerance,” he said.
“It always has been, it always will be and I await the further deliberations of the Queensland Attorney-General.”‘
I see absolutely nothing reprehensible in such a reaction. And it doesn’t try to influence the review. So, what’s the problem?
As far as our system of justice is concerned, it is recognised that judges and juries make mistakes; that’s what our appeals system is for. And if a guilty person should go free, I’m with Benjamin Franklin: “Better that 10 guilty men go free than one innocent man hang.”
The PM will be commenting on lots of things – he can’t simply not have opinions and really, this is one way he can define who he is on a more personal level. To not have something to say would be silly – what is important is not to say too much or take it down to too much detail.
He still needs to build a personal relationship with the public and letting them know his take on various things is the way the public will feel they know him and relate to him. This is the loyalty factor – people want to stick to the person they know they know.
Agree Chris B. Lets wait and see, but he’s no Whitlam or Keating.
Right on, Harry ‘Snapper’ Organs 177.
‘Yes, a toxic amalgam there is to be addressed by the new government’.
Grace Pettigrew. Do you read Possums Pollytics? I am pretty sure you do. Instructive. No marky marky types.
A lot goes on there, as Snapper (pardon the familiar, Harry) refers to.
narky marky, give it a rest. You’ve stated your views on Rudd more than once. You may be right, you may be wrong. Give Rudd a decent window of time to provide proof either way.
To labour a point unduly is a turn off and provokes a hostile reaction.
Ask Melb.City.
196 marky marky But you haven’t been waiting.
Kirribilli Removals
Well done!! I just saw your truck at work removing the squatter from Commonwealth property on Sydney’s north shore. Great work! That must have been a very satisfying day at the office. You made us all happy for a day
Normally I’d say all removalists shoudl take care with their clients property but, in this case, I’d say treat your client’s property the way your client treated our democracy
Kina are you for real.
I don’t know where mm has been for the last 11.5 years but I do know that each of the next 10 or so years will be the longest and hardest to bear years in his lifetime.
This Rape case is one of the most sickening decisions in Australian history
but Marky wants to play politics with it.
Fortunately as PM he sent a message to Judges generally on behalf of Aussies
(except the ‘Marky’ liberals) that the decision is unacceptable to the people
198 Fulvio Sammut Good nick name.
Ferny at 131, I’m a bit non-plussed as to why you would take this line. I don’t wish to derail this thread, and more particularly, p*ss William off to the point he bans me, but, for goodness sake, and surely this has something to do with firstly, how a political leader relates to major socio-political-economic events which effect the polity, and secondly, no, bugger it. I’ve got to go back to work tomorrow, despite the allure of poll bludger. William, I love you, and wish you’d just give us a prod when you wanted another fund injection, so I didn’t have to guess. I’m just addicted.
marky marky at 196, peace brother.
ViggoP at 194.
Thanks for that. Did not read article in full before I steamed ahead.
Quite a difference from the unqualified meat and wedge we were accustomed to.
Me playing politics, all you Labor ( inc me) who can’t criticise the party and who take the party line on everything. Didn’t Howard use to comment on things he should not have and now Rudd does it but that’s okay. Hypocrites or what.
Mind you, this has been a little quite in here lately. So maybe a little stirring won’t go a stray.
Viggo – ‘Reprehensible’ is a very strong word. The concern is simply that it is dangerous to pass comment based solely on media reports. The PM really should have delayed comment until he was briefed on the matter. This case has many oddities that I’ve mentioned above and uninformed comment is not helpful to anyone. Nuff said.
See ya tomorrow sometime.
mm you are as much a labor man as the Mad Monk. I just don’t believe you.
3205 bugger, prod, love and injection – all in the one post Harry? I`d be very surprised if William doesn`t ban you outright. Give you a right Cerdicking he should.
Marky has decided already what kind of PM Rudd will make, after just a week. Don’t worry about Kina Marky, are you for real?
Socrates at 200, that’s all very well, but it’s probably our furniture he’s shipping!
I expect the PM and EVERYONE in any Public or business position to speak their
disgust at this decision
The reason Judges have got away with such disgusting decisions in the past
is due to the disgraceful ‘Marky’ attitude….do not criticise Judges
!0 guys admit to raping a 10 year old but the Judicial system will handle it you say
Ferny Glover lets clarify to all those short sighted bloggers, the case was in OCTOBER nearly two months ago and the media shockies get on it now and so does Rudd, right. Put simply why not then and if Rudd was sincere about it why not then to, or is he playing politics and being a populist.
Get it folks OCTOBER and not last week, no doubt Rudd read about it and heard about it in the Media.
Socrates 200
‘Kirribilli Removals Just saw your truck’
Onya, KR. And so late into the work day.
Dedication. Or AWA?
Jen,
The legal solution in every case is for the DPP to lodge an appeal if he or she believes the sentence is unjust.
The solution is not for the red-neck media to pass their own judgment. They can achieve no judicial solution. Either you abide by the legal process available or the law is stomped on by people jumping in with ill-measured responses to a problem they know little about.
All you know is that a 10 year old girl was raped. This does not automatically mean that the accused must suffer any mandatory minimum penalty. The sentencing act requires the court to take into account factors such as general deterrence (deterring others), specific deterrence (deterring these particualr offenders), the potential for rehabilititation, the gravity of the offence and the affect the crime has had on the offender, denunciation of the offence, protection of the community and the offender’s anticedents.
The press fails to report these factors so how can anyone relying solely on the press reports have any hope of knowing what the court took into account in arriving at its sentence. If all you know is that a 10 year old girl is raped, then of course you expect a custodial sentence, because that is a typical outcome in a rape case.
The judge said that it is likely that the girl consented to the conduct. It is trite to say that a 10 year old can not give legal consent. That is not the point. The issue is whether the girl gave consent to the assault in fact, not in law. If the act was done against her will, it would be an aggravating feature of the crime. If it was done with her willing participation, that would be a mitigating factor that the court is entitled to take into account. I do not see the problem with that. Same thing happens in euthanasia cases. If I kill a terminally ill relative with his consent I would be treated quite different to if I had killed someone in a bank robbery. People have long insisted that judges need to take into account the victims of crime, and here we see the judge has taken into account the actions of the victim in arriving at what the judge sees is an appropriate sentence.
If the sentence is outrageous the DPP should appeal. Rudd should tell the press that the matter is in the hands of the DPP and it would be inappropriate for him to interfere in that process.
Hang on, isn’t everything at K House paid for by us? Those two should have been given the Archangel Gabriel treatment.
It doesn’t matter when Rudd heard about it. I heard about it for the first time in the last 48 hours and I am disgusted with the decision. I am pleased that the PM has voiced his disgust at the decision as well. Spin it any way you like mm but Rudd is correct in his comments and he will be supported by the vast majority of ordinary Australians.
Steve and Ron i for one am disgusted by Rape and Voilence, and do not agree with it and if the facts in this case are their then this outrages me, but do we know the facts.
My argument is not about the case it is about a Prime Minister who has jump on the media circus wheel and be a nothing, something which many of you do not get, or wish to think about.
Gary- you must work for the Labor Party because you never say anything against it. Obviously another stick in the mud.
mm says the case was in October so why is Rudd commenting now
Howard was PM in October and if he’d known about it he would have CORRECTLY said he Howard was appalled. So Markey Howard & Rudd did not know then.
you have an indefensible argument
CW at 197: Nope, just stretching my legs here for a while, but thanks for the tip, will have a look.
Calm down people about Rudd’s response. It’s pretty straightforward. You cannot agree if you are ten years old. End of story. Any of the lawyers posting here about the need for caution about the judge’s conclusions, and so forth, just bear in mind you cannot consent when you are ten. Sorry, William fo being off topic, but this is just stupid.
Now i get it Steve the media is the place that provides you all your knowledge and facts and helps bring together all your thoughts into one. A media as shown on media watch which rarely researchs information and rarely tells you all the facts.
Grievance Report.
My neighbour has had his bore water running on his greenest of lawns for two and a half hours.
The footpath is soaked, the road is soaked, the gutter is running.
Kelly, according to the news, the Qld Attorney-General has stated he will appeal the decision. I’m left wondering why it took the media’s belated outcry to prompt this course of action outside the normal appeal period.
The moral crusaders are out tonight.
Comment by serial idiot Dario deleted.
mm says he’s Labor
Rudd would not want his vote for politicising such a tragic case
As for ‘Kelly’ trying to spin some justification for the Judges decision & I quote:
“The issue is whether the girl gave consent to the assault in fact, not in law”
Hello, a 10 year old does not give consent either in fact or in Law
and I reckon 99% of Aussies agree with me
226
marky marky
No you are wrong, you don’t get it at all. I don’t expect you would get it even if you were to try really hard. I still don’t believe you. You’ve never voted Labor in your life.
A ten year old can consent to anything at all. The law says that a 10 year old can not give legal consent anything almost anything at all. But in fact a ten year old can consent to letting her brother ride her bike. Not hard to imagine. Consent is a basic concept. Legal consent is a creation of the law. Lawyers don’t have any problem with the concept. Others seem to. That is why you should not have people who are not judges passing judgment in these sorts of cases. They have no idea what they are talking about.
Crikey 228
Are you in Adelaide like moi? If so, stay angry at bore-water users. It is not even close to sustainable. I saw one hydraulic assessment at a recent conference (engineering sustainability) I attended that estimated that bore water extractions in Adelaide exceeded inflows by a factor of three. It is liquid mining, and liek too much of South australia’s finances, borrowing from the future to pay off a bankrupt past.
agree with you Steve K
lets just forget him …there is a child who deserves better than what some blogers serve up
I don’t think this argument about who does or doesn’t “get it” is going to lead us very far.
Kelly says
That is why you should not have people who are not judges passing judgment in these sorts of cases. They have no idea what they are talking about.
WE THE PEOPLE DO KNOW WHAT WE ARE TALKING ABOUT SOLICITOR/JUDGE
YOU DO NOT
179
Chris B Says:
December 10th, 2007 at 11:02 pm
42 Gippslander Bairnsdale Hospital or Gippsland Base at Sale?
PS Drove past a Dyers truck today.
Bairnsdale hospital. I was wearing a Kevin07 T-shirt when admitted, and was surprised by the generally positive reponse, particularly among the medical staff.
On the Queensland rape case, my first reaction is that anything journalists write sounds very authoritative, unless you happen to know something of the facts. The treatment of the “children overboard” affair is a case in point.
that stated, if the judge did actually say that a ten year old girl can give consent, then I join with Rudd’s disgust. He had to make a comment, and if it turns out that the judge has been misrepresented, I expect he will apologise. For ,folks, I think we at last have a decent man as our PM! (perhaps not quite as saintly as President Bartlett, but quite good enough for us)
Yes, Socrates, I am in Adelaide. Suburban Brighton.
I have referred to this shameful waste, in earlier threads.
And the failure of the Government to do anything about it, apart from forcing producers in the Vale to justify their use.
Apparently, this bore water matter has been a long time subject of ‘consideration.’
Steve K, if i have never voted Labor why do i usually criticise right wingers and their actions. I comment on things which amount to political process and what occurs unlike many on this blog who are straight down the line politically. I am have been to Labor conferences previously and attended Labor meetings at the old Labor headquarters at the back of Trades Hall in Melbourne. Steve continue on with the line though it is a good one. But if you wish to think otherwise fine, but put simply many bloggers see thinks black everytime regarding labor politics and can never have some independant radical streak and that unfortunately to you labor bloggers who absolutely detest me spruiking quacky angst against the party this is what i have.
On “a current Affair” the just retired Vic Supreme Court Judge was asked
why a 24 year old got 2 years for raping an 89 year old woman
HIS ANSWER to the Reporter: you do not understand. The facts vary in each case
This case is a repeat with the appologists for the Legal fraternity defending the
Judge
The big issues and all the facts behind them Ron are always on A Current Affair.
Crikey
If you want to run a story on it, check the proceedings of the SSEE07 engineerign sustainability conference in Perth in October 30 – November 2. One speaker (can’t remember name) gave a paper on hydraulic planning in Salisbury Council. To be fair Salisbury is not at fault; they were at least looking at the issue. Bus IMO SA govts (both sides) have a lot to answer for on past planning failures.
Not to mention acountability. The attitude that we don’t need a corruption commissioner runs deep and poisons public administration. Consider the collapse of the State bank. Three states sent major financial insititutions bankrup then (SA, VIC, WA) but only one sent nobody to jail after frauds costing millions. Us.
I agree Grace. These are immensely fraught situations, and immensely difficult to untangle. They are also very difficult to comment on without raising a whole heap of hackles, and I admire your courage in responding as you have. I also don’t envy the Judge concerned. Given the inspiration you provide I’ll stick my own head up for other people’s target practice, too!
Rudd, I suspect, knows next to nothing about the complexities of such things. He is making judgements based on his own cultural position and on the political impact of the event.
I know nothing whatsoever about the details of this particular case beyond the coverage provided by today’s news bulletins. I do, however, think that certain things need to be acknowledged, whether we like them or not. (I should preface the following by saying that I am, by profession, an anthropologist who has worked in Aboriginal communities for much of the last 30 years)
Firstly, the “age of consent” is not, ethically or legally , some sort of immutable thing that has some sort of “universal” or “natural law” recognition. There are substantial variations “in law” in different states of Australia. In Victoria , for example, apparently “it is a defence if the younger party was aged 10 years or older and the defendant was not more than 2 years older than the younger party”. Similar provisions apply in the ACT. (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ages_of_consent_in_Australia_and_Oceania).
“16″ is a very common age for permissible sexual intercourse in western anglo-saxon communities these days (and there are no doubt some good intellectual arguments behind this) , but it was not always so, even in Anglo-Australia (where the marriage age was 12 until the late 1800’s) , and it is a significantly older age than one finds in most “traditional” societies in this region (or than in the Anglo-European world in the 1800’s and earlier).
In traditional Aboriginal communities first intercourse for girls generally occurred (and still occurs) at or close to puberty, rather than at any predetermined age. Whether this is “right” or “wrong” goes beyond the questions I am trying to address here, but it is certainly a pertinent fact in the situation.
The current situation is being portrayed by some sections of the media (and given sustenance by Rudd) as ‘violent rape” and yet the same media is suggesting that no actual violence was involved.
It is also being called “gang rape”. There is, in fact, substantial literature dealing with communal sexual intercourse in Aboriginal communities at the time of first intercourse for women in many areas, including north Queensland. I’d suggest that anyone who doubts this has a look at Catherine and Ron Berndt’s ‘Three Faces of Love” (Nelson, West Melbourne, 1976) , or, for the Queensland situation, the work of W.E. Roth in the late 1890’s, or just about any standard Australian anthropological text which mentions Indigenous sexual life. This was not seen by these communities as aberrant behaviour , but simply as the right way for such things to occur.
I stress, I am not raising this to say such things are “right” or “wrong” from my own perspective. I am simply saying that such situations are far more complex than either the media portrayal, or Rudd’s reaction, allow for, and to condemn the judge concerned, or even those involved, “on first principles” is, I think, very short sighted.
Nor am I suggesting that whatever happened in the Aurukun situation was necessarily “traditional”. It seems that some of the men involved were themselves minors, and it is unlikely that this would have been the case in days gone by. Paradoxically, perhaps, age parity (seen as a defence in the laws of some Australian states in such circumstances as mentioned above) would probably have been seen as quite wrong in a traditional context, where a young man’s early sexual partners would often have been substantially older than they were themselves, and where boys in their mid teens would generally not have had any legitimate “rights” of this kind. Equally, it is very unlikely that the community would traditionally have sanctioned sexual activity in a situation where a girl had not yet reached puberty. Whether this was the case in the present situation is not apparent, but she was clearly younger than one would generally have expected in days gone by.
In short, based on the information made available through the media, it is simply not possible to genuinely work out the “rights and wrongs”
Ultimately, though, it seems to me that there has been a very rapid “rush to judgement”, both by the media and by Rudd, in this case. Difficult, complex, situations like this one need to be thought about cooly. Presumably the judge had an opportunity to do just this. We’ve seen politicians jumping in far too vigorously attacking the courts in Australia in recent years. I’d feel much happier if they had a look at the particular Judge’s reasons and the underlying circumstances of the case before they did so!
Thank you, Crikey, for noticing what i think is going to be the most amazing set of policy challenges the world has ever seen. Could be a bummer, could be an upper, but is usually a mix of good, bad and indifferent. So it goes.
“Bailey found two more votes”
This intriguing story in the Age
http://www.theage.com.au/news/national/bailey-finds-crucial-votes/2007/12/10/1197135341065.html
So a candidate keeps “finding” votes and she is the one complaining? Can someone please explain what tehtime limits are to me, and how it can come to be that the candidates are the ones who find the votes? Is this odd? Is there any pattern on the proportion of late postal votes and the seats where the Libs have caught up? This seems fishy to me, or am I just ignnorant of the process?
Rod thankyou for summing up something so elegantly and beautifully, i could not have done so well. You have described the complexies of this case and stated the problems of it, thankyou.
I think “found” is the past participle, not the active past tense.
Ron, it’s not a matter of ‘defending the judge’. We’re all appalled by attacks on children. But there is some reason why the DPP did not recommend that the judge impose a custodial sentence. We can’t know this reason unless we check the facts. I’ll need to read the judgment rather than relying on press reports.
Rod, I greatly appreciated the anthropological overview.
Kelly at 219, I cannot fault your logic or your application of proper sentencing principles.
But the issue here is not logic or legal principles.
The portrayal, as promulgated in the media, and to this distilled extent a factual portrayal, is that a child of 10 years was raped by a number of males in an aboriginal environment.
This at a time when sexual abuse, alcohol dependency and aboriginality have been interwoven into a toxic, malignant bundle for political purposes by our unlamented former administration, without regard for the welfare or amelioration of anyone’s plight, least of all 10 year old girls, alcoholics or the aboriginal communities.
The story is therefore topical, salacious (to those sick enough to consider it so), appealing to RedNecks, comforting to rascists, deprecating of lawyers and the legal system, and supportive of the stereotypical image of non-WASPs so ingrained in many Australians.
In short, it has all the ingredients of a newspaper selling yarn.
So why are you surprised Kelly? You obviously don’t live in Western Australia where the daily newspaper serve up an endless flow of such bilgewater as it’s version of unquestioned reality.
Rod says
I’d feel much happier if they had a look at the particular Judge’s reasons and the underlying circumstances of the case before they did so!
Ron says:
I am not interested in the Judges decision Rod
The 9 ADMITTED raping a 10 year old
The Judge says the 10 year old probably gave consent
The decision IS appalling
Obviously Rod , Kelly and Marky have open minds on the subject
Fortunately I reckon 99% Aussies will agree with the PM
Gippslander @ 238 – Glad you’re back on deck, and hope something good happens when McGauran goes.
On the subject of media accuracy, I remember working on the memoirs of a prominent Australian who recorded that he had only once in his life NOT been misquoted in the press. The occasion in question was his return to Australia from England, and he was met by a hastily recruited sports reporter from the Sydney Daily Mirror. He speculated that to be a sports reporter, you had to mind your p’s and q’s.
Makes the Libs’ dirt campaign against Rodney Cocks in La Trobe look pretty grubby – personally, I’d never assume that a journalist was more accurate than a participant!
Jenny , I did not read of the Latrobe ‘dirty tricks’
What were they ?…as bad as Lindsay ?
Harry Snapper
Just vaguely caught the tail end of something on what the Papers Say.
About some kind of fair deal for Centrelink victims.
Yes, i agree most will because most Australians cannot think or do not wish to.
The Libs in La Trobe were spreading a rumour that Cocks had embellished his account of his role after the Bali bombings because what he said in his book differed from what a journalist had written at the time. This was after he’d been given a bravery award for his actions. What the Rodent’s team give with one hand …
William, I admire your patience in all of this. Frankly, there are a number of peple, including me, who probably need a saucepan lid applied quite vigorously to they’re noggins, when discussing either polling or politics. Nevertheless, I love comig to visit.
So jenny the Libs tried to ‘dirty’ an Aussie Bali hero
something the ‘oz’ would specialise in
What is the message that the court has sent to young men and women living in aboriginal communities? One of the perpetrators is 26 years of age and the victim just 10 years of age. This is modern Australia?
Jenny you’ve mentioned the Bali dirty tick against Rodney Cocks and we know about the ‘Lindsay’ fiasco
What we do NOT know is whether the Libs cleverly did a dirty trick with postal votes
because the postals increased 50% in 2001 election and the Libs suffered a significantly lower swing against them in marginal seats as against the ordinary vote type swing
Crikey White @ 253 The SMH today ran a big story about how the Department of Workplace etc Relations had been suing the pants off people for minuscule amounts, even when the cases arose from Centrelink errors. Here’s the link” http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/millions-lost-in-fierce-legal-war-on-the-poor/2007/12/09/1197135289361.html
Ron – I agree about the postal votes. They simply have to have better supervision. I can’t see why the AEC shouldn’t just do it all. The current system is simply too open to abuse, but of course none of that was addressed by the lovely Eric Abetz in his crusade to ensure the ‘integrity’ of the electoral roll. Frankly, I don’t think he’d know what integrity was if it bit him on the nose.
William said at the start of this thread that Morgan, which ended its recent poor run at the federal level with a 53.5-46.5 result on the eve of the election.
But a week out from the Election Morgan had it at 54-46
I wonder if they covered their back when Galaxy & Newspoll showed 52-48
because as I’ve bloged earlier there is no reason for the ‘narrowing’
since the last week was a disaster for Howard
Thanks for that link, Jenny.
Had heard something of that story, but somehow tucked behind the ear. The absolute disgrace of the politicisation of Centre Link, and all Government Department’s, is certainly in need of immediate remedy.
Did you catch All in the Mind, on such matters, over the last couple of weeks?
This is a little of which I posted at Possum’s.
‘I would say that analysis of single mothers needs to encompass any number of correlations/variables.
Such as age of youngest dependent as that equals change to Social Security Benefits, leading to stats as regards work participation, use of child care, be it a Centre, home based care, or relatives. Own home, renters private or public.
Not least the strange business of Family Tax Benefits self estimated,
Maintenance payments and the weird attitude of the Department to enforce in favour of the recipient.
I have a good example of the Department’s failure to enforce fair and proper payment. The offender is my brother. Aided and abetted, in my opinion, by the Department, who seem to hold a distinct bias against the (working) sister in law/single now mother. Actually accusing her of being indulgent for having private health cover, whilst seeking her maintenance. And more.
These people have a lot to be angsty about. And for sure, Kevin must come good’.
If that bit I heard on What the Papers Say is any guide, sounds like it’s happening.
Jenny agree with you.Political party’s should NOT send out Postal Applications
and nor with HTV’s
it allows Retirement Villages etc to complete them and subsequently “assist’
the retirees in filling out the actual postal ballot “CORRECTLY” per the Libs HTV
Ron @ 250 says:
I am not interested in the Judges decision Rod
The 9 ADMITTED raping a 10 year old
The Judge says the 10 year old probably gave consent
The decision IS appalling
Obviously Rod , Kelly and Marky have open minds on the subject
Fortunately I reckon 99% Aussies will agree with the PM
I agree with you Ron and the PM
I bet these “open minds” or “condesending, know it all know nothing full of their own importance wankers” as I like to think of them would be singing a different tune if the 10yr old girl was related to them. I bet they wouldn’t be defending the judge saying the kid consented then.
I don’t mind if i get banned by the way, the drivel from marky mark sore lib loser that he is is becoming tedious.
Thank you,Ron. That has been a real beef of mine for years!
Absolutely Vera
One of the rapist of the 10 year old was 26 years
It puts into perspective the blogers here who wish to defend the Judge
ie. the 10 year old gave consent but the 26 year old can not be held responsible
None of these blogers would dare repeat their views to any of their friends
And I really think the whole HTV needs to be revisited. Some independent area where all forms can be quietly collected rather than being swooped on by hordes.
yes Ron and imagine the outrage if she was white!
Glen at 27 you were right … no victory party in Stirling, the Hasluck one was ok but. Although the one I suggested you were most wrong about was Cowan, and you were right there, and Swan, so you found a touch of joy.
So credit where credit is due, I don’t completely understand it but the final numbers had you correct.
Worse than Latham. Interesting but it seems everyone is too lazy to rewrite the Latham history, but Latham did better in WA than Rudd. Let me repeat that, Latham did better in WA than Rudd. So that leaves much, if not all of the Latham was a fruitcake (which almost no-one knew until later) theory looking pretty weak to me. I’m going to say the last election was ALL about interest rates and not about Latham at all.
I’m also going to say, I’m not sure what this election was about.
I dont think people should be attacking Marky Marky with the unsustained abuse that he is a Lib. There is absolutley no evidence to suggest that he is. Just because the guy doesnt cheer on every act of the new government does not make him a Tory voter. I dont agree with the judge’s decision either, but something in me is repelled by politicians, any politicians, yes even Rudd commenting on these things because they feel as if they have to (for political reasons.) They always seem to use the same form of words and it smacks of insincerity even they are indeed sincere. I wish they would just leave it the judicial process.
yes agree Megan. With postals now at 6.50% of the TOTAL vote
Jenny is right , the AEC should be the ONLY ones sending out the Applications
What concerns me is that William did a thread showing Aussie wide the postal swing was significantly lower than the ‘ordinary vote type ‘ swing
BUT the lower swing to the Libs may be even greater in Metropolitan seats
but the size of the lower swing may be flattened by the normal remote postal Lib bias
in which case the Libs did something ‘clever’ with postals
There was a 2.1 per cent swing to Labor in Western Australia at this election. The fact that they won more seats in 2004 can be entirely put down to Graham Edwards.
#
269
vera Says:
December 11th, 2007 at 12:48 am
yes Ron and imagine the outrage if she was white!
Ron says: yep , none of these blogers would dare defend the judge then
hey gary
Glen has been more positive about Rudd than marky mark and at least Glen, bless him, admits to loving his Uncie howie!
#
273
William Bowe Says:
December 11th, 2007 at 12:55 am
There was a 2.1 per cent swing to Labor in Western Australia at this election. The fact that they won more seats in 2004 can be entirely put down to Graham Edwards.
As usual William found the answer
I suspect that WA parochialism re the alleged effect work choices abolition would have on THEIR mining boom reduced Labor’s swing in Perth seats
Interestingly , Labor polled well in WA mining towns where workers WERE on AWA’s
William , is my possible theory in #272 got any semblance of validity ?
Crikey Whitey @ 263 Looks as if the secretary of that department has already been ‘offered’ a sideways move, so there might be a change in the culture coming up.
They’ve always been pretty awful. I once watched a lawyer acting for the old Social Security dept arguing for a custodial sentence against a woman who had inadvertently understated her income and been unable to pay they money back because she was supporting two teenage daughters. Came to the conclusion that you’d have to be lower than a snake’s belly to work as a Social Security prosecutor. And that was under Keating. It seems to have got much, much worse in recent times, though.
yes jenny , Howard created an unhealthy culture in the Federal Public Service
indirectly via policy and directly via political appointments
eg. the lady ‘workchoices Manager’ who fronted the work choices ads
It will take a long time via retirements/ transfers etc. to restore integrity
Hey, Nigel Scullion makes Rudd look like a piker – he wound up in a Russian strip club, undressed down to his jockeys and handcuffed to a pole … Great start for his deputy leadership of the Nats. Perhaps this was what Vaile meant by generational change …
http://news.theage.com.au/coalition-mp-visited-russian-strip-club/20071211-1g8w.html
could have been worse !
fancy a photo of the 70 year old Nats leader Truss down to his jockeys and handcuffed to a pole
socrates 234 and crikey 228.
I’m in Adelaide too. I rent a place with lawns front & back. As much as I drop subtle hints about the drought and having the most boring front yard in street, the landlord loves his lawn- he loves mowing it, whipper snippering it chucking crap on it etc etc. think he hangs out at bunnings a lot. last I heard he’s bringin round a few more rolls of turf “to fill in the dead bits” ah christ??
Theres a bore with a pump and sprinklers built in, i rarely use it. 10 years people will be wanting to know what happened to that groundwater. Anyway in my box of car spares i found a flanged hose perfect size to hook up the garden hose to the washing machine so the lawn has this sorta splotched affect now.
Oh FFS! I’m really tired of polls now. Can’t we all just give it a rest for the next two years?
This will be it. What the Papers Say. Phoned the ABC, who said SMH.
All guns firing, Michael Raper leading the charge. Also spoke on All in the Mind, as elsewhere.
Pursuit of poor under review
Debra Jopson and Adele Horin December 11, 2007
* Pension refused after years of pain
* Tenant takes on giant and wins
THE Rudd Government has announced a review of the way the workplace relations department handles litigation against welfare recipients following the Herald’s revelations of an aggressive legal campaign against the nation’s poorest people.
http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/pursuit-of-poor-under-review/2007/12/10/1197135376014.html?page=fullpage#contentSwap1
Topic I refer to is now being discussed, Tony Delroy, 891.
cobber at 282
Exactly what the neighbour does. Waters, fertilises, grows, mows.
Unceasingly. Sometimes he mows my and others decrepit patches of weeds, on the footpath.
But when it suits. Not that I ask, but I once called him the Mayor, of the suburb. All agreed, merely resigned to the obvious. He did, in fact, as a youngster, live with his parents in my very own house.
He planted all the lawns in the street. Well fine, and that was then.
Anyway, I am not targetting him, apart from the waste. He is elderly, it is his thing.
If the Government put some rules in place, he would comply.
No question. He does what he does, because it is permitted.
I heard Comrade Jenny Macklin has announced yet another Rudd authorised talk fest to discuss how to water down Mal Brough’s NT intervention. This is just more PC rubbish from Labor, they don’t understand that being soft on abuses in aboriginal communities is just what brought us to this point in the first place. Unsurprisingly i expected as much from Rudd and co and he enjoys his Junket in Bali.
As far as im concerned if Rudd can’t maintain the prosperity of Australia gifted to him by Unca Howie and Deputy Dawg then he wont deserve a second term, not that he wont win but that he wont deserve it.
As time goes by I’m growing to like Nelson more and more Turnbull is power hungry and supposedly aloof but as much as you think he’s a tougher politician for Rudd to face he hasn’t performed really well in QT and would bring the ALP and the Tories so close together that what would be the point?
Jasmine, Cowan and Swan and Stirling as Tory hold/gains and Hasluck loss were the only predictions i got right. What is disturbing is that should the Libs either lose McEwen in a recount or by-election as is more likely than a Tory win, Western Australia will have 11 Liberal MHRs the same number of Victorian Liberal MHRs.
I dont think the Tories can do much worse in Victoria except say losing LaTrobe what a shambles we are in Victoria, well at least for 2010 we are coming off a low base
Nite all
Glen 288
Jenny Macklin talk fest to discuss how to water down Mal Brough’s NT intervention
Excellent! Any link?
Rudd.. then he wont deserve a second term, not that he wont win.
Excellent. Prescient!
I’m growing to like Nelson more and more Turnbull is power hungry..
Excellent! Make sure you keep Turnbull on the outer.
Cowan and Swan and Stirling as Tory hold/gains and Hasluck loss were the only predictions i got right.
Excellent. Better luck with Nelson.
What a shambles we are in Victoria.
Excellent.
Achievement Score, Glen. Most Improved.
Nite all.
crikey the scarey thing is my landlords not elderly he’s young and hes a cop!!
gotta sleep now, nite.
sorry to disappoint some
but MM was known as Fonz on ozpolitics -please ignore this ”concern” troll
Ron at 275: “…and imagine the outrage if she was white…none of these blogers would dare defend the judge then”
Sorry Ron, but you have missed the point in your haste to impute racist motives to those of us who have criticised PM Rudd’s declaration of personal outrage.
We have been defending the Rule of Law, and by extension, the right of the judge not to be publicly lynched by a pack of baying media hounds.
Let’s have the all the facts about the prosecution of this case and then let the law take its course in correcting what might, or might not, be a miscarriage of justice.
And perhaps PM Rudd should make no further comments on this case, just as he remained silent while lawyers did their best to secure a just outcome for Dr Haneef, in the teeth of government manipulation and interference.
FWIW, Glen, “Unca Howie” is a terrible name. Who has ever referred to anyone as “Unca”?
Why was this Tory Politician dressed like Malcolm Fraser and handcuffed to a tree?
http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/news/national/coalition-mp-stripped-and-handcuffed-to-pole/2007/12/11/1197135406309.html
William… do you think Labor would’ve won Cowan at this election had Graham stayed? I’m not so sure. I think it would’ve been a lot tighter… but may still have gone Liberal. If Labor can work hard on WA for the next federal election hopefully they can win a few more seats. Canning should be a lot tigher than it is. Let’s hope Don Randall retires at the next election, although why anyone would want to vote for him is beyond me.
William I take your point. But how does Graham explain anything, indeed how do you differentiate between Cowan and Swan?
Or indeed how Keenan could possibly have survived in Stirling if personal factors are considered the key issues.
Pacific Solution abolished. Another Rodent turd flushed in minutes.
Its important to celebrate these milestones in the systemtatic and speedy erasure of Howard’s political legacy.
Oh yes, and of course, reinstatement of permits on Aboriginal land, and CDEP reestablished.
I’ll wahger the five year Comonwelth leases dont go the distance either.
And I agree – electoral reform should proceed quickly to ban political parties touting for postal votes.
As noted, the Libs were definitely using the system to coordinate sending propoganda the same day as the vote arrived. Barely legal – but clearly undesireable.
AEC only. Nice and above board.
Julia Gillard or Warren (Buffoon) Truss as Acting PM? Just imagine!
Well Jasmine, don’t forget that there will be a redistribution in WA before the next federal election – although the 15 seats will remain, it’ll be interesting to see how the AEC accommodate the rapidly growing areas of metropolitan Perth.
I always suspected that without Graham Edwards, Cowan would turn blue so the result there didn’t surprise me at all. Many parts of the seat (especially the northern areas) are becoming McMansion territory as the previous Labor-leaning market gardeners etc. move away. A good Labor candidate could get it back, but I think Simpkins will hold it for a while.
I still can’t quite work out what happened in Swan. The Labor areas swung slightly to Wilkie, the Liberal areas swung a little more sharply to the Liberals (?) and the Libs got enough of a swing on the absentees to claim the seat. I am biased, but Labor should never have lost this seat and I’ll certainly be dedicating myself to getting it back.
I think Labor could win a byelection in Higgins. Although the new government hasn’t had time to do much, I don’t think it could have got off to a better start in how it’s presenting itself, e.g., getting right down to work, wanting to keep its promises (yes, Garrett _was_ joking, in case anyone really thought he wasn’t) , and generally getting things moving as fast as it can. Right now Labor looks about a thousand times more ready to govern than the Nelson-led Coalition. There also must be a strong personal following for Costello in Higgins. I think the seat is vulnerable.
222 marky marky – wrong again Marky. I have never been a member of any political party and have in fact voted Liberal before. I just don’t agree with your criticism of Rudd. It’s based on pure bias and bile. Rudd has every right to take a public stand on this case. Like most people I only heard about it in the last 48 hours. When did you hear about it Marky? Now tell us what you like about Rudd.
302
I haven’t lived in Higgins for a while but did live there for 20+ years. Costello had a reasonably low profile as a local member.
He would, naturally, have a much higher recocognition factor than any of his likely successors, but not all recognition is positive. In terms of the support for him based off local performance, I’d suggest it would be verging on nil.
He’s not really an “open the local shool’s new gynm” kinda guy.
Don’t know about that aspidistra, it would have to be a high profile candidate, say a conservative someone that comes to bat for labor. i would run a dummy or 2 independent, say a gay activist.
Yes, the candidate would be important. The Libs might also need a high-profile candidate to save it, though.
Costello might not be high-profile locally, but he was the country’s Treasurer for 11.5 years. There was a relatively small swing against the Liberals in Higgins compared with most other suburban Melbourne electorates, which I would have thought was largely due to a personal following.
Higgins isn’t really “suburban” not in a mortgage belt kinda way, at least. It’s the “right side of Warrigal Road”, for instance. Trust me, that’s very important to the mindset of the people there….
Compare Costello’s performance to Petro Georgio in Kooyong – the seat right next door and one with very similar demographics.
I think there may also have been a “we get to have the PM as local member” assisting Costello this election.
As one of the few decent Liberals to stand against some of Howard’s appalling policies in the House, Petro Georgiou would have one of the strongest personal followings in the country. He suffered only a minuscule swing against him, mostly for that reason I would think.
Federal Liberal Party President to step down.
The federal president of the Liberal Party, Chris McDiven, is likely to step down from her position tomorrow, Liberal Senator Nick Minchin says.
Ms McDiven is expected to announce her intention when the Liberal Party’s federal executive meet in Canberra tomorrow.
“I understand Chris McDiven will indicate her intentions at that meeting and as I understand it she will not be seeking another term as federal president,” Senator Minchin told ABC Radio.
“Therefore at the next meeting of the party’s superior governing body … the federal council will need to elect a new federal president.”
Senator Minchin dismissed suggestions Ms McDiven should have urged former prime minister John Howard to stand down before the election.
http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/news/national/liberal-party-president-to-step-down/2007/12/11/1197135407711.html
I really thought Rudd should have tried to nab Petro and offer him a multicultural affairs portfolio. Would have made for good policy and mischeivously good politics. He’s as well credentialled as anyone, liked by Labor folks, and would have brought Liberal factionalism to the fore.
And yet aspidistra of comment 308, Nelson chose to leave such an experienced parliamentarian as Petro from his front bench. Nelson is obviously yet to work out that a ‘generational change’ means a lot more than how old the person is.
Good morning all.
Pancho, I don’t recall a government ever giving a ministry to an opposition member. I know Churchill did it in wartime Britain, and I know it happened in the last episode of West Wing – but here in Australia, I don’t recall it happening. Ministries are one of the spoils of victory. As much as I like Petro, I think Rudd would be lynched by his own if he gave a ministry to the Opposition.
I do recall the hung Qld parliament a decade ago in which the Labor Speaker, Jim Fouras, was offered the job by the Coalition when Labor lost the confidence motion and power shifted to a minority Coalition government. Obviously had he accepted it would have cost Labor a vote on the floor (other than his casting vote). Fouras resigned.
Ferny Grover, I think the only example in Australian federal politics is H.B. Higgins serving as Attorney-General in the Watson Government. That was only because the Labor caucus didn’t contain a qualified lawyer.
I agree it would have been difficult, particularly with the amount of contenders and talent on the Labor benches. But it just seemed to be in vogue with Brown in Britain talking to both Conservatives and Lib Dems about defecting in the past year. Tory MP Quentin Davies did in June (from memory) and there have been others. Temple Morris, another Tory, did in 1998. These seemed big coups, and were rattling to the Tories.
With all the talk of ‘governing for all Australians’ I thought there might be an outside chance of an approach, which I would have loved to see. I agree it would have been a long shot. Kernot is the closest analogy in my time in Australia. I’m sure Adam or someone else can give us more historical controversies.
FG @ 312
Karlene Maywald was sworn in as a State Government Minister on 23rd July 2004, as Minister for the River Murray, Regional Development, Small Business and Consumer Affairs, Science and Information Economy.
Karlene is the South Australian Member for the seat of Chaffey, which encompasses the Riverland & Northern Mallee regions, of South Australia. Since becoming a Member of Parliament, Karlene has held the position of South Australian Leader of The Nationals.
See:
http://www.premier.sa.gov.au/ministers.php?id=13
312
Hey there Ferny G
What about Karlene Maywald in SA – She’s a well-respected Nat who is:
Minister Assisting the Minister for Industry and Trade
Minister for Regional Development
Minister for Small Business
Minister for the River Murray
Minister for Water Security
It was a great move on Rann’s part – he has a good and very well connected minister inb rural/regional areas and he right royally brownes the Nats off as well
Charlie, that’s interesting. I don’t recall the Higgins incident. Was he in a party or an independent?
Pancho, the idea appeals to the idealist in me, but govering for all Australians is not the same as government by all Australians (and especially not by that lot across the chamber!)
I can’t say I’m up to date with state legislatures, but I do seem to recall reading of Ms Mayward in SA. How rare is that! Is she still a ‘well respected Nat’ – by the Nats that is?
True Ferny, but Petro is one of the founders of the Australian multicultural project. Was one of Fraser’s staff members who shaped his views, and the main inspirer of the Galbally Report into immigrant services in 1978. He was also the first director of the Australian Institute of Multicultural Affairs in 1979. He has both form and ideals.
Does Ms Maywald maintain government solidarity by voting with the government even if the Nats are voting in opposition to a matter? What a difficult position for her to be in.
Isn’t she the only Nationals member of the SA Parliament?
Ah LETP, that would make it easier.
Yep Pancho, Petro is to be greatly admired – albeit from a distance.
grace pettigrew Says:
December 11th, 2007 at 8:07 am
Very well put.
anyone in adelaide had problems getting ABC tv? dissappeared off the uhf…
Regarding the rape case and the judge’s comment as reported that: “probably agreed to have sex with all of you”. An earlier comment suggested that a 10 year old could consent, providing the analogy of giving their bicycle to their brother.
Another argument was that this is a different culture, that child sex viz once a child reaches (or appears to have reached) puberty is acceptable.
And such are the arguments of all paedophiles; that the child ‘enjoyed’ the experience, that they were consenting, that it is part of their culture.
And what is a “just outcome” for the ten year old girl?
Child rapists walking free?
You don’t need a Law Degree and an exaggerated view of human rights to know that the judges sentence was wrong. Just a dose of common sense.
Rudd is right to be outraged!
for anyone interested. The Sea shepherd off to ram whaling ships in the southern ocean again and they renamed their ship the “RV Steve Irwin”!!!
Question is what how will Garrett, Rudd & co respond to the Japanese killing humpbacks in australian waters?
oop forgot the link for above 329 http://www.seashepherd.org/news/media_071205_1.html
Garrett suggested that the Navy be deployed to protect our whales in the southern oceans much the same as they protect our fishing grounds up the top end. Garrett was shot down in flames by the media…huh, we’re goin’ to war against the Japanese, huh. I should mention that I’m a Military Mum with a son in the RAN.
What is the thinking in the Navy Min?
I somehow don’t think the Navy’s gonna open fire on Whaling Ships thats a bit far fetched to assert that. MSM is a farce they’ll probably be ready to cruficy garrett as soon he breathes.
While I respect and appreciate the views of grace p and Rod on the legal and anthropological aspects of what is admittedly a scant understanding of this rape case, surely it is also important to quesion the veracity of legal process as it is so often used in a way that may be legally correct but nevertheless immoral (Hicks for example).
Is it not public opinion that creates the impetus for change when the law is simply wrong?
Hello Pancho. I cannot proport to know what the Navy is thinking. After all they’re just blokes and lasses doing their job. However, as sailors and all good matelots love the sea and it’s denizins then protecting our whales is not a job that they would be adverse to.
Min as much as i deplore whaling, if Garrett and Fitzgibbon sent Australian warships into International Waters and threatened to sink Japanese naval vessels we’d be up for piracy in the International Courts you just cant do this.
Sure we defend our own fisheries and oceans under our control but we can’t go out into International Waters where the Japanese do their whaling and ramp or threaten to sink their ships.
329
cobber – they don’t kill whales in Australian waters.
328
Greensborough Growler – it’s a shame we dont have the death penalty for rapists oh well.
Ferny Grover, Higgins was a Protectionist/Deakinite Liberal. He was however very popular amongst the labour movement, and they actually endorsed him at the 1901 election.
In Canada the Tory Harper Government offered two ministerial positions to Liberal Party MPs, they both accepted but will probably lose their seats at the next election, their constituents are pissed off as you can imagine.
With your indulgence William, a few more slivers of information have surfaced this morning in The Australian about the reported pack-rape of a 10 year old girl by 9 males, which probably should be allowed to enter the debate here, given that it appears to be continuing.
Firstly, the abuse occurred in 2005 when 6 of the 9 males were teenagers under the age of 16, some of them not much more than children themselves, and perhaps not capable of understanding the wrong they were committing.
Secondly, the young girl, who was apparently 10 at the time of the abuse, was mildly intellectually impaired, had already been sexually abused and contracted syphilis before this case, was known by her foster parents to be offering sex in return for alcohol and cigarettes, had requested condoms from medical staff, and had previously threatened suicide.
Thirdly, the young girl was returned to her aboriginal community by social workers after a period in foster care, against the wishes of her own parents and her foster parents, but apparently in order to avoid any suggestion by indigenous leaders that the department might be “stealing” children.
Fourthly, the judge involved was previously lauded by the indigenous leaders for her commitment to avoiding custodial sentences where other avenues of punishment and rehabilitation might be available.
And finally, the prosecution did not seek custodial sentences for the 9 males and the judge agreed, for reasons that are not yet completely apparent, are probably complex and confronting, and in the case of some of the younger male teenagers, possibly defensible. That is for the appeal process to determine.
This case is currently being prosecuted aggressively through the front pages of The Australian newspaper. Other major newspapers have noted the case in back pages as an disturbing and ongoing matter to be resolved through the proper workings of the appeal process within the Queensland judicial system, at the instigation of the Queensland Premier.
PM Rudd has made no further comment.
And just in case it needs to be said again, child rape is horrific and is not condoned by anyone here.
GG, noone on here to my knowledge has even mentioned human rights in relation to the Aurukun decision. Nor has anyone expressed anything but horror that a child could be abused in this way. The main issue is that reaching conclusions based purely on news reports is unhelpful, be you the PM or anyone else. The facts are needed to discover:
1. What the judge actually said;
2. What were the reasons for the decision;
3. Why the DPP did not argue for a custodial sentence (the judge apparently accepted the DPPs advice on this);
4. Why the Qld Attorney-General did not launch an appeal within the 28 day appeal period as would normally be the case in situations where an obvious case of inadequate sentencing has occurred.
To form a view without these facts is to jump to an uninformed opinion – which, of course, is so easy for us to do when child abuse is involved. So the argument is simply a call to exercise caution. The appeal to the Supreme Court will be interesting to watch.
Glen: we’re talking about poaching our whales in Australian waters. The Japanese government does not recognise our sanctuaries, and it is about time that they did. For too long we’ve turned a blind eye to this. Oh yes the Japanese do kill whales in our waters because of the above reason, they do not recognise our claim. Oh dear, it’s getting too close to the Xmas thingy..I am happy to stand corrected if I’m wrong.
Jen what possible change could arise from the media’s moral indignation in this case? Very little, unless you’re looking at taking the action to enforce mandatory sentencing which has positives and negatives involved. Other than that, all that can be done is for action to be taken within the system. If the sentences were unusual and wrong then there will be grounds for appeal and that will be taken.
I don’t puport to know anything much about the case so won’t comment on the specifics, for instance what the appropriate sentence would be. We have a system currently that allows judges, magistrates etc. to set sentences for convicted criminals. The system sometimes produces sentences that are too harsh, sometimes sentences that are too lenient. In each circumstance there are avenues to appeal the sentencing decision. As far as I’m concerned public opinion should never enter into sentencing decisions.
I’m looking for a MSM publication that reports, opines, does not confuse the two and does not indulge in crusades or vendettas.
If you know of one, please let me know.
Charlie @293 asks “Who has ever referred to anyone as ‘ unka’. “.
Answer: Donald Duck frequently referred to Scrooge McDuck as “unca Scrooge”.
The use of the term is telling of both the user and the object.
“In 1994, Australia attempted to stop some of the Japanese whaling program by enforcing a 200 nautical mile exclusive economic zone (EEZ) around the Australian Antarctic Territory. However, Antarctic territories are not generally recognized internationally. In particular, the Antarctic Treaty, to which Australia is a signatory, specifically states that all claims to Antarctic territories remain unresolved while the treaty is in force (the treaty was originally devised to prevent conflict between the USSR and USA during the Cold War). Legal advice obtained by the Australian government indicated that attempts to stop Japanese whaling in the Australian Antarctic Territory by resorting to international courts may, in fact, have led to Australia losing its claim to that territory.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whaling#Japan
Technically those Waters not being recognised as our Waters are then deemed IW by most nations as International Waters and any attempts to fight this in the International Courts if lost could allow Japan a blanket ability to hunt in and around Antarctica and not only that potentially lose our claim to part of Antarctica.
In actual fact it is the IWC who are to blame Min IMHO.
The scientific research exception
Pursuant to Article VIII, paragraph 1 of the Convention, any country that wishes to conduct scientific research on whales may invoke the scientific research provision as an exception to an IWC regulation.
“ Notwithstanding anything contained in this Convention, any Contracting Government may grant to any of its nationals a special permit authorizing that nation to kill, take, and treat whales for purposes of scientific research subject to such restrictions as to number and subject to such other conditions as the Contracting Government thinks fit and the kill, taking, and treating of whales in accordance with the provisions of this Article shall be exempt from the operation of the Convention.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Whaling_Commission#The_scientific_research_exception
yes Greensborough Growler you are right re the case
A dose of reality here.
The NT aboriginal child sexual abuse issue was repeated brought up in the campaign re if Rudd would change it. (as late as the Press Club on 22nd Nov)
It IS a Federal government responsibility under the constitution
A shocking case of Aboriginal sex abuse occurs & Rudd is asked to comment on a subject that has been part of the campaign & for which there IS a Federal Minister
For blogers to suggest Rudd should not have commented is absurd & illogical.
Conversely Rudd would not comment on a pack rape of a black kid in Sydney.
Given one of the rapists was 26 and the victim only 10 , for any bloger to defend
the Judges decision is appalling.
It is inconceivable that any Judge would have made a similar decision if the
10 year old was white
Furthermore would the Judge defending blogers still defend the Judge.I think not.
Min and GG.
The more information that emerges about this case the more tragic and the more complex it becomes. One can see crimes and tragedy and failure all the way along, from the birth of a child with fetal alcohol syndrome, through an earlier rape, through , apparently, the child actively offering herself for tobacco and alcohol both while living with foster parents and back in the community, and so on.
Even with the background that has become publicly available it is clear that this was not a simple case. No doubt the judge concerned had far greater information than we have access to through the newspapers. It is noteworthy , too that not even the prosecution sought custodial sentences.
Simply making “off the cuff” judgements based on media reports about court decisions, as Rudd did , is a dangerous course to take in such situations. Neither we, nor he, know the details. Both the prosecution and the judge clearly were in a far better position to assess the situation than we are.
Now neither prosecutors nor judges always get it right, and there are formal processes of review which are being implemented in this situation, but no matter how hard it might be to suppress ones emotions in such circumstances, politicians , and , I think, all of us, would be well advised to avoid making premature judgements on the basis of what the media say in such circumstances.
Thanks Grace -
I appreciate your efforts to deal rationally and factually with what is of course an emotive issue.
LETP-i don’t support trial by media or think that public opinion should influence sentencing. I do, however, think that public opinion is what may well lead to a review and change of laws that fail us.
Labor are no chance to win a bye election in Higgins. It’s just fantasy stuff. There is no comparason with Kennett in Burwood because the demographics are not the same and the circumstance of any departure by Tip are not the same as that of Jeff. The punters were really peeved with Jeffery and I’m not sure this is the case with Costello.
Grace @ 339.
1. Bulldust
2. So what?
3. Abrogation of responsibility?
4. So What?
5. Yada Yada
Terrible crime, terrible process, terrible outcome.
Glen, I don’t support capital punishment. If State sanctioned killing is the answer, then it is a pretty stupid question.
NOW The Q’ld Premier Anna Bligh has stated publicly the decision is appalling
Unlike the Judge defenders on this blog , she has ordered a review of ALL cases
in the Cape York region over the last 2 years.
Clearly the Q’ld Government are not happy with past judges decisions and are not prepared to allow the Judicial system to handle the matter themselves
So, GG at 351, I gather if your 12 year old son was found in the garden shed with the 10 year old girl from next door, engaged in sexual congress, you would be the first to yell for 20 to life for your son the rapist?
grace -
if he was 26, for sure.
grace, straw man arguments are nonsense.
Grace what about the death penalty?
Rape is just a cm below murder in my book, these scumbags deserve the worst form of punishment we can give. But we are a soft nation when it comes to punishment.
Grace and Ron have it nailed.
We have had too many trials by media in the past (eg Lindy Chamberlain for one) and nowadays we also have hysterical bloggers seeking to second guess prosecutors, juries and judges.
Plus there seems to be a commonly held view that the law should be used to exact revenge on behalf the victim. That’s the Islamic way of law and something we in the secular west have moved on from.
Ron at 352, Anna Bligh has made a smart move as Premier, reach for a review. That should take some political heat out of the situation for a while, although aboriginal leaders are saying that it will only open up old wounds and will not help the little girl in the long run. And you misunderstand the legal implications. Bligh’s review will have no impact on, and will not interfere with, the progress of judicial review through the appeals court.
Pancho et al. I suggested Rudd make Turnbull the environment Minister before Cossie turned down the Lib leadership. It didn’t go down very well with other bloggers though. I think my sanity was questioned.
On the judge decision, on the face of it, there are serious questions to be asked and answered but these judges are NOT MORONS and don’t make decisions lightly and were privy to al the facts which is not the case with us. I understand that even the prosecutor didn’t ask for a custodial sentence. There must have been a reason for that. Our opinions are only as good as our information.
Grace says
So, GG at 351, I gather if your 12 year old son was found in the garden shed with the 10 year old girl from next door, engaged in sexual congress,
ARE SCARED TO DEAL WITH FACTS
One of the Rapists was 26 not 12
The victim was 10
The rapist received no custodial sentence
Defend that
“the young girl, who was apparently 10 at the time of the abuse, was mildly intellectually impaired, had already been sexually abused and contracted syphilis before this case”
Apart from the particulars of this case, how horrific are these facts? A ten year old intellectually impaired girl with syphylis …
Back to the case, the judge appears to lack judgement, which is quite a serious failing in a judge. The factors listed by Grace Pettigrew at 339 don’t look very mitigating. The judge was lauded for her commitment to non custodial sentences, so? Sometimes, just sometimes, a custodial sentence is required.
Ok….so let’s just do away with the legal system. If the Courier Mail forms a view that should be good enough for us all. Lock em up, hang em high, sack all judges and do what Shakespeare said and kill all the lawyers.
FG how can you defend suspended sentences for gang rapists???
Executing them would be too good for them. They should have life sentences and no parole at least for the bloody 26 year old!
Whilst ALP voters tend to admire Petro Georgiou, commenters on this site in the past have repeatedly said that he’s not necessarily liked maong Lib voters, and is regarded as a pretty useless member locally.
Costello might have attracted some votes by being a potential PM, but I suspect the strong turn-out for the Libs in both Kooyong and Higgins has little to do with personal factors, and everything to do with the fact that these neighbourhoods are filled with rusted-on blue-rinsers and wealthy business-types who are the Libs’ core constituent.
I can’t see the ALP winning these sorts of seats in byelections. However, there may be a gradual swing to the ALP in these areas if the world (particularly in economic terms) doesn’t end under Rudd, and these voters feel more comfortable with the ALP’s economic management. Since the economic interests of a Toorak voter are not by any means the same as those of an outer-suburbanite, I’m not sure it’s necessary or desirable for Rudd to be chasing these votes in any case.
Ron, who are these so-called ‘judge defenders’? You don’t think it’s possible that what we’re seeing is people defending the judicial system and questioning why people are making rash judgments without knowing the facts of the case?
Also, you don’t think that that move by Ms Bligh was just trying to politically handle the system? In any case, what will a ‘review’ do? Nothing… now what sort of meaningful reforms to the judicial process are you proposing?
Why do we have a judiciary do you know? Why not just let the parliament decide every matter of law? It’s all really very silly stuff… politicians should leave
Before you get too hysterical, GG and Ron, the point I was trying to make is that six of the nine “gang-rapists” were children at the time of the offence. So I ask you again, would you condemn your 12 year old child to 20 years to life for rape?
Glen, if you read my posts on this subject you will see that I have NOT defended anyone, be it the rapists or the judge. I have simply said that all we have is news reports which give us a scant understanding of the facts or the law as it was applied. My note of caution was simply that we need to get the facts before rushing to judgment.
grace… there’s no point arguing. These people have made up their minds and will refuse to budge on it.
I’d suggest it may benefit this blog to move on from this discussion.
Grace your argument is a bennite solution, lets just not punish people for their crimes because ohhh they were too young to know better that’s bull butter. Jail time and a tough penalty is exactly what these scumbags need.
Ferny Grover
that is a complete distortion of what people are saying here. No one (except Glen and he doesn’t count) is suggesting hanging them or sacking judges, although I do have some sympathy wih Shakespeares position.
What some of are saying is that the law in this case has either not been adequately applied (at least one of the men was 26 remember???), and /or the law itself is inadequate to deal with the crime.
Grace you are too scared to mention one of the rapists is 26
I am waiting for your reasons why the 26 year old got NO custodial sentence
( this fact alone makes the judges decision appalling)
Jen, are you suggesting mandatory sentencing?
369
Jen – i never said we should sack the judge at all. But i do think people who are 26 years old and participate/lead a gang rape of a 10 year old should be executed or t least put in jail for the rest of their natural life.
Getting back to elections, The AEC have agreed to a recount in McEwen. Starts tomorrow.
Cheers
Rod
Jenny Macklin wasn’t very impressive as deputy opposition leader; let’s hope she does better in Indigenous Affairs. Good luck.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2007/12/11/2115439.htm
Most juvenile sex offenders are given non-custodial sentences. They are usually placed on an order that allows for monitoring by youth justice officials, and that compels the offender to seek treatment.
In many cases (in Vic, at least), police and prosecutors investigate these matters and decide not to pursue criminal charges, as a result of the offender’s age and state of mind. With any offender aged between 10-14, the prosecution has an additional burden of proof, in that they must demonstrate that the alleged perp had the wherewithal to know of their own wrongdoing (called means rea, to give it its Latin legal term).
The sentence imposed on the juveniles in this case is therefore largely consistent with sentencing around the country. The big difference is that these offenders are Aboriginal, and the sensationalist media are pushing the line that they received special treatment. They haven’t.
yes agree Glen …life term
Ron at 371, I mentioned early on that 6 of the 9 males were under the age of 16. I was making the point that some of the offenders were children, which seems to have escaped the notice of most of those here whose “common sense” tells them that all nine “gang-rapists” should be hung, drawn and quartered. If you wish to focus only on the sentencing of the 26 year old, fine, go ahead, but don’t misrepresent my argument please.
Jen, it was Glen that I was flippantly responding to. But my point remains that all we currently have is what the media have told us. The case is complex. I want to know (as I said earlier).
1. What the judge actually said
2. What were the reasons for her decision
3. Why the DPP did not request a custodial sentence
4 Why the A-G didn’t appeal the decision within the 28 day appeal period as he would normally do when a decision is clearly inadequate.
I’m not sure why a plea to obtain the facts would cause such an emotional reaction.
THR , what is the appropriate sentence if any for the 26 year old ??
I just can’t believe that our legal system allows for any 26 year old to get away with raping someone and only get a suspended sentence i mean what country are we living in. What kind of justice is that Grace? There should be mandatory life sentences for these types of crimes but we are too soft.
Grace,
I would prefer to see an appropriate punishment. A walk on the gang rape of a ten year old is not appropriate to me.
What they should get is somewhere between what they got and Glen’s execution solution.
You seem so enmeshed in your judicial process solution that you don’t see, that in this case, it is wrong.
That is my opinion and I think I’m right!
I don’t know what the appropriate sentence is for the 26-year old. Yes, I agree that on the face of it, a 26-year old with prior convictions should be given a custodial sentence for re-offending. However, I can think of a number of Vic cases where an adult has offended and not been given a custodial sentence, for a number of reasons, and the offenders in these cases were not Aboriginal.
378 Ferny- I completely agree with your statements. I’m afraid the hysteria of moral outrage will drown out your arguments though. And the judges do get it right most of the time. Just look at Conrad Black with six years in the Big House.
Jenny at 262: “I agree about the postal votes. They simply have to have better supervision. I can’t see why the AEC shouldn’t just do it all. The current system is simply too open to abuse, but of course none of that was addressed by the lovely Eric Abetz in his crusade to ensure the ‘integrity’ of the electoral roll. Frankly, I don’t think he’d know what integrity was if it bit him on the nose.”
Jenny, Eric Abetz initiated the Liberal Party crusade on the “integrity” of the electoral roll, but it was taken to its grubby completion by Christopher Pyne, as Chairman of the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters in 2001.
Over the past decade, the two major political parties have radically intervened in the independent administration of the electoral system by the AEC, without most australians knowing what is going on. By sending official AEC postal vote applications, attached to party political propaganda, right into your home, the parties have given themselves permission to corrupt an important aspect of the voting system.
Many voters innocently assume that the material has been sent to them by the AEC and trustingly post their applications back to the political party HQs in each division, using the printed envelope conveniently provided, assuming this is the way it should be done.
In the party offices the private information provided by the voter on the application is recorded and matched against computerised databases, where the name of every voter in that division is listed, plus any other personal information that the party might have added over time to describe the voters preferences.
The Privacy Act exempts these political party databases (Electrac and Feedback) from public scrutiny so you have no idea what information is held on you by the political parties (a good reason incidentally for using pseudonyms on blogs like these, that are regularly trawled by party workers for voter information to add to their databases).
The AEC regularly reports after elections, that a significant number of postal vote applicants have written in to complain that they never received their postal ballot papers after sending through their applications. Is it not a reasonable supposition that their applications were deliberately not passed on by political party workers, after they consulted their databases for those who might not vote their way? There is no outside supervision over any actions taken in party offices when they are handling your postal vote application.
Should we not be concerned that our voting system is gradually being skewed by the ever increasing number of postal votes (recorded well before polling day) at each succeeding federal election? Voters are increasingly bypassing the AEC and using this political party system to apply for postal votes because of its undoubted convenience, apparently oblivious to the fact that the privacy of their voting information is being compromised by partisan players who have no business intervening in the administration of the electoral system.
Anyone who objects to this creeping corruption might consider sending a submission to the parliamentary Joint Standing Commission on Electoral Matters, which will convene early next year to review the 2007 federal election.
End of rave (for the moment).
365
grace pettigrew Says:
December 11th, 2007 at 12:57 pm
Before you get too hysterical, GG and Ron, the point I was trying to make is that six of the nine “gang-rapists” were children at the time of the offence. So I ask you again, would you condemn your 12 year old child to 20 years to life for rape?
And Grace, what if your son invited 8 of his mates to join in on the ‘fun’.
And now we are lead to believe (if the reports are correct) that this child is mildly intellectually disabled. So what of the judge’s consideration that this child most likely ‘consented’ to having sex with adults.
Grace: if you don’t have children of your own, go to your local primary school and go into the Year 4 class. These are 10 year old children, they’re just little kids.
Ron (and others) ask what is the appropriate sentence if any for the 26 year old
There is no possible answer to this given the amount of information which is publicly available, Ron.
Was the 26 year old a predatory knowing adult taking callous advantage of a situation which presented itself to him, or was he, too, a victim of fetal alcohol syndrome with a mental age of 8 and a history of being abused himself, just as she was? What was his actual role in the situation? and so on and so on. We simply don’t know. The judge and the prosecutor presumably did, but we don’t.
Piers has found a way to expand this discussion by tying it to the Heiner affair and of course making it Rudd’s problem.
http://blogs.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/piersakerman/index.php/dailytelegraph/comments/lets_clear_up_the_heiner_affair/
This conversation started because some blogers objected to Rudd’s comment the decision was appalling
Rudd in fact correctly commented on aboriginal child sex abuse as it is a Federal constitutional responsibility
As such , the 3 adults at least should have received custodial sentences and the fact they did not meant the PM is right…the decision is appalling
Is anyone suggesting a 26 year old would NEVER get a jail sentence for raping a 10 year old white child ? or is the question too hard to answer
308 Aspidistra- Petro Georgiou in my view is a statesman, and that rare breed who will speak out on principle.Until the Libs start elevating those of his calibre they won’t get my vote again. The late Peter Andren,Independent for Calare, was another wonderful example.
Despite agreeing with most of Keating’s policies, the reason I voted against him was because I was embarrassed by his contemptuous manner and ’sledging’- while humorous at times,also cruel . (I was always of the belief that a PM has to represent the best and govern for us all , despite idiocy,etc. )
And then we elected JWH .
What is the saying? ..’beware of nurse for fear of something worse’ ?
Megan
Hilaire Belloc. Recommended reading.
Ron, the case was prosecuted under the Qld Criminal Code. The Commonwealth Constitution has nothing to do with this matter. As for The Prime Minister stating his view, the concern was simply that he did so based solely on very inadequate news reports and this was a concern to many on here.
Glen at 381, you and others seem to be under a misapprehension here. I am not “defending” the sentence given to the 26 year old. I am saying, repeatedly, along with Ferny G, THR and others, that we don’t know all the facts in this case, and that is complicated by the aboriginality and youth of most of the offenders, and the sad history of the young victim.
The judicial system is there to deal with any miscarriage of justice, and should be allowed to do its job.
Unfortunately the media, and specifically The Australian newspaper, is currently playing a spoiling role with the selective and possibly biased presentation of information, in manipulating public opinion in a particular direction. They would be very pleased with your gut reactions, it sells more papers.
Peace friends -
we are all obviously appalled at the crime.
the discussion started with Rudd making comment, and whether or not he should have- personally I think that what he said was measured and appropriate . Somehow we have ended up with capital punishment and trial by lynch mob.
So, to not further inflame this discussion may i say that I actaully agree that all the facts need to be known and due legal process must occur.
Also though, that it is important that public discussion take place about our society’s management and response to the issue of child sexual abuse. Including that of the legal system.
Kevin Rudd’s Social Gospel
In a speech given to New College at the University of New South Wales in 2005, Kevin Rudd outlined his vision of the appropriate relationship between Church and State in Australia.
This from Radio National’s The Spirit of Things. For those interested, there is a transcript at
http://www.abc.net.au/rn/spiritofthings/stories/2007/2109351.htm#transcript
or you can do a download.
Min at 385: “Grace: if you don’t have children of your own, go to your local primary school and go into the Year 4 class. These are 10 year old children, they’re just little kids.”
Oh puleese Min.
gary (349), I’m not saying Labor would be favourite to win Higgins, but if the Liberals continue to look as hopeless as they do at present (which is likely; the resumption of parliament is really their only opportunity to change that), and the Labor honeymoon continues, the gulf between the two sides of politics will look large, so a big swing to the ALP wouldn’t be a surprise. They could get close, and I wouldn’t rule out that they could nab the seat.
My final point on this topic is that, rightly or wrongly, the law distinguishes between ‘degrees’ of sexual assault, and assigns different sentences to each.
For instance, a crime prosecuted as ‘indecent assault’ could be expected to attract a lesser sentence than one designated ‘aggravated rape’.
It’s a shame that this emphasis on sentencing misses the larger point on how extraordinarily difficult it is to pursue sexual offenders through the criminal areana, how unsatisfactory this process is for victims. Statistics consistently demonstrate that a shocking number of people are the victims of childhood sexual abuse (anywhere between 10-25%) yet virtually all the literature is in agreement that these offences are grossly under-reported.
Selective moral outrage does nothing to change any of this.
After such a long time of hearing Howard narrative twisting current events for political benefit, it’s hard it is not to view events through Howard’s wedge prisim.
So far it seems Rudd was asked his opinion of the judgement and he gave it. Rudd is very smart cookie and would have been mindful of the policital risks of an equivocal answers and so was crisp and to point. But, I think his answer was also genuine.
If he takes up the issue and tries to use it as a point of political differentiation -that is the point of taking it too far.
Grace Pettigrew
Who do you think you are “oh pleese min” you can’t win the argument as it’s unwinnable to defend rapists of children no mater what the situation was. so you use you high and mighty condesending tone towards Min. what a coward you are!
As for your statement
“I am not “defending” the sentence given to the 26 year old. ”
WHAT SENTENCE??? HE”S WALKING FREE! NEVER WAS SENTENCED!!!
WTR, I never doubted that the PM was genuine; I doubted his wisdom. But I’m a lawyer with an in-built caution when it comes to commenting on cases I know little or nothing about. If a decision looks inadequate to me I don’t jump to the conclusion that the judge got it wrong – I want to see the reasons for the decision. This discussion has also added to my concerns at how easy it is for the media to stir up hysteria, particularly where child abuse is concerned. All of us here I’m sure would be committed to the Rule of Law, yet several folk on here were virtually branded as supporters of child rapists merely for expressing caution at blindly accepting media reports and appealing to the facts. That is a concern and should give us all pause.
Oh puleese Min.
grace pettigrew Says:
December 11th, 2007 at 1:31 pm
Grace, you are the one who used the analogy of YOUR 12 year old son and a 10 year old playmate, I simply extended the argument by suggesting what if your son brought 8 of his mates along to join in the ‘fun’.
Oh pulssese…as in 10 year old children in your opinion aren’t just little kids?
Having said that, I am not commenting on the penalty given by the judge. As has already been stated by several well thought out commentaries here, this is a matter for the court which must take in all sorts of mitigating circumstances. My concern is that the ‘pedophile’s defence’ has been utilized by the judge, that a 10 year old can ‘consent’ to having sex. And Grace, we’re not talking about ‘playing doctor’ here.
Vera at 399, apologies for my slip re “sentence”.
Otherwise, I am afraid you have not understood I word I have said.
And as to Min, she is big and tough enough to defend herself my dear.
As she has just done, our posts crossed.
Min, my original comment was in reaction to your assumption about my possible barreness. I can assure you my fruit bowl is quite full.
Grace pettigrew
I’m not your “dear” and if I want to agree with and defend Min I will.
Ferny Grover,
I agree that you and Grace calling for caution does not and should not be interpreted as support for child rapists. But equally having a strong concern in regard to child sex offenders walking scott free does not equate to complete disregard for the rule of law`either.
Actually Grace, I don’t think you made a slip re “sentence”. As far as I can tell from the media they were given non custodial sentences – though I need to confirm this when the judgment is available.
Thanks FG, I did pause over that apology, but thought vera needed it.
No, I think they’d have lost last time if he’d gone earlier. And the Liberals would have won Swan in 2004 if they’d run a less disastrous candidate.
I’ve enjoyed reading Glen’s comments where he slams the ALP frontbench in general (and Julia Gillard in particular). Glen – have you taken a good look at the Coalition frontbench under Half Nelson. So shallow is the pool of talent that even Bronwyn Bishop got a guernsey. Bronwyn Bishop!!! Dude, come ON!
378 Ferny – I agree whole heartedly with your rational arguments but somehow such arguments never stop the lynch mobs.
No Jen, it doesn’t – and with respect, that is not what I said. My comments affirmed that all of us here are committed to the Rule of Law.
FG
Apologies.
You can tell I’m not a lawyer!
So now we are grasping at straws are we? Legal talk to (Custodial or non custodial) to defend your views that child rapists freely walking the streets is OK.
No wonder their are so many unkind jokes about lawers
FG,
Yep, I can see your point. But Rudd is a politician and a pretty savvy one. He was put on the spot to state his view and he gave a crisp sound bite. Had he wrung his hand and talked about needing to look at the details of the case he would have been carved up on talk back.
In cricket terms – Rudds response was a text-book foward defensive move by a politician and to be expected when bowled such a question. If he actually tries to score some runs – thats taking it too far.
Jen, no problem. We have more than enough lawyers.
Grace at 384 – ‘The AEC regularly reports after elections, that a significant number of postal vote applicants have written in to complain that they never received their postal ballot papers after sending through their applications’.
Has anything ever been done about these complaints, I mean has there ever been an inquiry?
Vera, I don’t recall anyone saying that it’s ok for child rapists to walk free.
Cheers FG,
although there are quite a few out of work with Howard’s End.
And as to Min, she is big and tough enough to defend herself my dear. Not so Grace, I am small and meek and so very much appreciate Vera’s support. Don’t we all need the Vera’s of this world.
I’m not certain about what you mean about the empty fruitbowl thing. You stated that you have a 12 year old son. Mine are a little older – daughter 30, unmarried (sadly..I am the mother from the bollywood movie Bride and Prejudice), son in the Navy, youngest doing her PhD at UQ.
Apologies, I thought from your blog that you had children but maybe from your fruitbowl comment that I was wrong in this assumption. No one’s fruitbowl is ever empty is it. Hugs, Min.
Jen,
Don’t worry about it. On the web nobody can tell if you’re a …
Jen, so I believe, but it was a sacrifice we were all happy to make.
Time spent in Children’s Courts has been an eye-opener as is spending time with indigenous communities. Thanks Ron, for giving us your valuable anthropological perspective .
There is so much more to get heated over than just the sexual – other cruelty can be so much worse but doesn’t hit the headlines.
Seems to me it took half a dozen posts from Ron before Grace would even admit that all the rapists weren’t kids themselves and that one was 26.
So the argument she was making that they being kids (I think she even suggested an excuse for them that they may have been drinking) was blown out of the water.
Hi Min
Hugs to you too
Has anyone else read the sickening Federal Report on aboriginal child abuse.
Howard made aboriginal child sex abuse a National responsibility based on that Report via the NT intervention.
So Rudd had every right to comment on the issue BECAUSE the Judges decision specifically regarding non jailing the ADULT rapists IS SUPPORTED BY MANY ABORIGINAL MEN (who perpetrate this sexual abuse)
What Howard and Rudd are both saying is Judges decisions are supporting the status quo and Rudd is saying NO , its appalling.
The issue of the Juveniles IS a separate debate.
The issue of the ‘oz’ sensationalism is disgusting to me as well
The Judges in the Cape York area are part of the problem which is WHY Anna Bligh is investigating all cases back 2 years
And with indulgence from William. How funny. I’ve been reading your (insert adjective mostly relating to the word insightful) thingys for ages but have only just gained enough confidence to post something. I’m just an at home mum, but am enjoying the experience. So many intelligent, literary, mathematical people here. Astounding!
And double hugs back to you Vera.
So noble of you FG.
Must be a professional embarrassment when you have someone like Phillip Ruddock as the most senior eagle in the land, not to mention the long list of others, including my personal favourite sophie Mirrabella.
I’m thinking of starting a Be Kind to Lawyers Week, just to show support to those among you who have to carry the shame.
Min, you said at 365: “Grace: if you don’t have children of your own, go to your local primary school and go into the Year 4 class. These are 10 year old children, they’re just little kids.”
My response of “min puleeze”, was a reaction to your suggestion that I might be childless, and perhaps therefore ill-equipped to have an opinion on a case involving child rape.
Hence my further response to you about my very full fruit bowl, which I am sure you remember is a reference to Julia Gillard, when she was castigated by the press for having a clean kitchen and an empty fruit bowl, in the context of Heffernan’s “barren” sledge.
And no, I do not have a 12 year old son. I was trying to suggest to one of the other commentators who wants to lynch children for rape, how he might feel if his own 12 year old son (hypothetically) was caught in the wood shed with a 10 year old girl from next door. And we do know this happens, even in the nicest families, don’t we?
Anyway, no hard feelings Min, I know you well from other blogs and your heart is in the right place. This conversation has been raging since last night, and perhaps you might read back over the previous page to see where it all started.
And vera my dear, you have completely lost the plot.
As a practising lawyer (yes, I’ll get it right one day), I find this decision difficult to comprehend, BUT I think that its necessary for us to resist the rush to judgement based on reports in the gutter press and other low forms of life known as the media.
It could well be that this is an appalling error on the part of the judge, but conversely they may be facts of which we are unaware and which make the decision at least understandable. Becoming part of an hysterical reaction based on hysterical media reports does nobody any good, and just encourages the media jackals even further.
Neophyte at 417: my post on this was held in moderation since this morning by William, and released at an odd moment when the other debate was heating up, so thanks for noticing!
I posted a link to the relelvant AEC submission to the JSCEM back in 1999, on the previous thread, and will have to go back and find it.
Later, have to go now.
Yes Jen, there are a few lawyers that embarrass and depress me. Kevin Andrews and his appalling abuse of process in the Haneef case is another. Fortunately I also know many other lawyers who are committed to justice, have high ethical standards, serve their clients well and who do a great deal of pro bono work for community organisations and legal centres. There is a great deal to be proud of in this profession but much of it is not seen by the general public. Let me encourage you with the Be Kind to Lawyers Week. We often feel set upon
neophyte (417), maybe the complaint letters are just preparation for their defence when the AEC issues them fines.
Grace @ 429,
“And no, I do not have a 12 year old son. I was trying to suggest to one of the other commentators who wants to lynch children for rape, how he might feel if his own 12 year old son (hypothetically) was caught in the wood shed with a 10 year old girl from next door. And we do know this happens, even in the nicest families, don’t we? ”
Your initial comment @ 352 was in response to mine @ 328.
If you bother checking what I have contributed on this matter, you will see that what you have written is a lie.
Would appreciate a withdrawal.
Min
Both my husband and i were also in the Navy.
Hubby is almost 50yrs old, he did 21 yrs and still does Reserve time every year.
We wouldn’t object if the NAVY used their ships to try keeping the Japanese ships away from whales in our waters.
But as hubbie says the trouble is that we don’t have any spare ships. They are also finding it hard to find sailors to fill postings. Hubbie has plenty of work to choose from and would be taken back into full time service on a 1 yr contract any time he wanted.
Grace obviously you can’t execute minors my comments were pointed to the 26 year old adult and that he should if guilty as the court found be sentenced either to death or life imprisonment for his crimes. As if anybody who supports capital punishment want to execute children Grace, i hope you would withdraw that slanderous remark.
FG,
I also know lots of Good Egg lawyers.
Just out of interest, was there anyone in the Howard Regime that wasn’t a lawyer??
I think the list includes Howard, Abbott, Downer, Costello, Vanstone, B Bishop, Reith, Ruddock…
no wonder you feel set upon.
Hey grace by the tone of a lot of posts directed at you seems like i ain’t the only one who’s “lost the plot”
he-he
Jen, there’s quite a few lawyers on Labor’s side too. As for the coalition, of course Dr Horatio is not a lawyer, neither is Bronwyn Bishop to my knowledge. I really don’t know enough of the pre political background of the others.
Vera, this is Kaos….we don’t “he he” here.
In her younger days, Bronwyn Bishop was an actress on the TV series “Divorce Court.” Does that count?
Ferny
we do at CONTROL
ask Maxwell Smart
he-he
Geez Glen, you’ll be calling for pistols at dawn next.
Crumbs GG – imagine watching Bronwyn for entertainment! Not much has changed really.
Hi Min
Glad to see you here blogocrat.
My take on this case is that there might be mitigating circumstances and not all the facts have been revealed.
However, due to the morals and ethics that I consider to be in our limited culture, my concerns only rest with the well being of the person that was violated.
I entrust the rule of law to look after the other issue, and my understanding is that there will be an appeal and also a review of all judgements of the last two years.
When this has been completed, then, only then, it would be appropriate to to express an opinion of the deficiency’s of the system.
If this comes to pass, then I will protest to the relevant departments.
Let this run it’s course.
Reading Rudd’s response it seems measured and not a rush to judgement. In the little I’ve read about this it seems a complete horrific disaster and I find it hard to judge what I think should happen.
But I don’t like a 26 year getting a non-custodial sentence, regardless of his personal circumstances. But I admit, that’s merely personal and we could all do with knowing the full facts of the case.
107
Harry ‘Snapper’ Organs Says:
December 10th, 2007 at 8:09 pm
Kirribilli Removals took his/her own sweet time to turn up, but very satisfying that Hyacinth and the Prime Monster, who’s legacy shall be mud in the mouth of his folllowers, are now re-located out of the $17 billion waste of their occupancy.
Mate, I mean, maaaate! Fair crack of the whip, have you any idea how hard it was to extract that little rodent? Poor old thing’s in a serious way with the old-timers disease, and was addressing everyone as someone else! He kept calling me “George” and getting down on all fours and following me around. You just try lugging the chaise longue out the hallway with that hanging onto your ankles!
As for Mrs Rodent, the horse tranquilisers were wearing off a bit and every now and then she’d start kicking and screaming and wouldn’t let us lift the rugs. She’d throw herself in the way and howl something unrepeatable about those “kruddy socialists” taking over “her” country. Mate, she went right off!
But despite all the problems, the job’s done now, and the Rodents are now removed, and just in time too, because the fumigation guy turned up just as we pulled out with the last load. He reckoned it was pretty bad, 11 years of rodent excretia everywhere, all through the place, and it had even spread pretty badly in the MSM too. Poor bloke reckoned it was going to take him months and months, but eventually we’d all get to smell the roses again.
Ah, it felt like fresh air, as we drove away.
KR
The show ended after the introduction of no fault divorce.
Score one for Gough!
429
grace pettigrew Says:
December 11th, 2007 at 2:40 pm
Grace: I’ve never been on another blog except for Tim Dunlop’s. A couple of entries published by dear Matt Price a few months ago. Yes I’ve read all the entries.
Refer to my previous statement: As has already been stated by several well thought out commentaries here, this is a matter for the court which must take in all sorts of mitigating circumstances.
Mens rea has been mentioned, and this one is obviously open to dispute re indigenous communities.
No point in trying to have a go at Vera, matelots never lose the plot.
My final word on the issue: The media exists to create controversy (that’s what makes them money), not to provide facts. Facts are incidental. That’s why whatever it says must be treated with caution until the facts are determined. ‘Nuff said.
This honeymoon poll of 59/41 may well be the high water mark what with this sort of behaviour from the new government reported today. Are they so scared of the perception of difference that they will sacrifice one of the most potent symbols of the howard lies to expedience? Oh dear, oh dear. If this proves correct, then shame, Rudd, shame!
Soon we’ll be relying on Bob Brown again like when Kim was leader for expressions of decent values and truth about the terrorist bull#hit.
“Hicks lawyer hits out at ‘draconian’ control order”
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2007/12/11/2115519.htm
GG: Ah Gough….makes me want to stand and bow just thinking of him.
“Acting Prime Minister Julia Gillard”….almost causes the same reaction as Gough…[bows again - just not quite so low]
435
vera Says:
December 11th, 2007 at 2:53 pm
Min
Both my husband and i were also in the Navy.
And Aye to all good matelots.
Most definitely about no spare ships. Son J was on HMAS Tobruk or as it was known in the ’80’s the too-broke (still is!), 2 tours to the Gulf and 2 tours to East Timor including onshore with the Feds. Now on the Armidales. He’s a 6 year man and signing up for more.
Well yes, who would want to join the ADF when they can earn double the amount working on mine-sites. Son is currently owed over 80 days leave which he can’t take as there is no one to take his place.
GG at 434: “If you bother checking what I have contributed on this matter, you will see that what you have written is a lie. Would appreciate a withdrawal.”
Not sure what you are talking about GG. You wrote this at 381: “What they should get is somewhere between what they got and Glen’s execution solution.”
Well our PM did know the following facts which ARE INDISPUTABLE
1/ the defendants did plead GUILTY to rape
2/ 3 defendants were adults , one being 26
3/ the victim was 10
4/ the Judge said ‘ the 10 year old probably consented to sex
5/ NONE of the adult defendants got a custodial sentence
What other “facts” do you need to put the adults in jail ???
Clearly our PM did not need any further facts nor would 99% of the public
PS
Lawyers FG & Adrian would defend Judges mythical wisdom even if a Judge
ruled that John Howard had never lied
KR,
Are you sure they’re gone, all of them?
Kirribilli Club: A young and buzzy bunch are drawn to this old-new club with harbour views and chic surrounds.
scaper… Says:
December 11th, 2007 at 3:08 pm
Hi Min
Glad to see you here blogocrat.
Hello scaps. Well, it’s you who are to blame having suggested that I should choof over and have a look at William’s site.
My concern is a judicial ruling which suggests that a child could have been a consenting party. As previously stated, this is the paedophile’s defence – the child consented/the child had previous sexual experience/sexual encounters are part of the child’s culture.
451
This is not good at all.
If the person is rehabilitated, then by all means let him get on with his life.
But then again, there might be more than meets the eye at this point, so let it play out and if the government is remiss….well there is ways to make a protest.
I think that’s a jaundiced view, jaundiced view. The A-G is the top legal officer in the land and must act with the law in mind and on the advice of the federal police. Hicks pleaded guilty to a terrorism charge. Yes, everyone knows it was all overblown and political, but you can’t expect the A-G to pretend that Hicks is completely innocent when legally he isn’t.
439
Ferny Grover,
Bronnie Bishop was a Barrister prior to entering the Senate.
Vera at 424: “Seems to me it took half a dozen posts from Ron before Grace would even admit that all the rapists weren’t kids themselves and that one was 26. So the argument she was making that they being kids (I think she even suggested an excuse for them that they may have been drinking) was blown out of the water.”
This is a complete fabrication vera dear, and the inane giggle at 438 shows you are really not paying attention, or came to this conversation far too late.
re -BB was Barrister
Knew it!!! Sophie has been made in the same mould.
Min
I don’t agree at all with a child being developed enough in body or mind, but at this point the onus is on the system to rectify this injustice….and if this does not ensue…do you think that I won’t be screaming here or anywhere else???
Bligh will get it sorted I reckon.
What some are saying is if 3 adult white guys rapes a white 10 year old girl ,
and the Judge says the 10 year old probably consented to sex ,
and the Judge lets the 3 white adults go free …
Then the PM should not comment , Anna Bligh should not comment ,
We the public should not denounce the Judge
NO !…. we sit quietly and let the Judicial system hopefully sort it out
waiting for feedback
Now Ron, you’ve gone and made me breach my own ‘Nuff said order.
You’re being mischievious and misrepresenting what has been said. If you read my comments throughout this discussion you would know that I, and others, have specifically not defended anything but have simply appealed for the facts to be determined. As to what those facts are, read my earlier posts. What you are relying on is media reports. These are not facts. But now I’m repeating myself.
aspidistra -
isn’t the point that even when someone is guilty that once they have served their sentence that their punishment should be over.
Thanks Scorpio, I didn’t know that. As I said, my knowledge of the Libs pre political life is scant.
Ron,
You’re wanted over at Bolter’s site, urgently.
FG get your facts straight
It was the PM Kevin Rudd who said the decision was appalling.
(I happen to agree with him)
The adults pleaded GUILTY to raping a 10 year old and walked free…
They are the indisputable facts which is why the PM correctly said its appalling
Like all lawyers when logic deserts you , you look for red herrings
Ferny Grover,
i think most of them came into politics as soon as they had finished incubating.
Ron, my facts are straight and there are no red herrings. In fact, I’m trying to avoid them. As for your ‘indisputable facts’ – where did you get them from? How do you know they are ‘the’ facts? How do you know they are reliable? How do you know you have all the information available?
Has anyone seen this.
{SYDNEY – A senior coalition politician has been outed visiting a Russian strip club, where he wound up stripped to his underpants and handcuffed to a pole.
New Nationals’ deputy leader Nigel Scullion was attending an international fisheries conference in 1998 when he made the off-the-agenda visit.
“The partly clothed senator fled the St Petersberg joint after a fight broke out between Russian sailors and other patrons,” The Daily Telegraph reports today.}
http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/articles/2007/12/11/1197135406309.html
I think this is the same idiot that was involved in an alcohol incident in a prohibited area recently. The hypocrisy astounds.
Scorpio – he’s just a Fraser wannabe
I am supporting a PM who HAS GOT ACCESS TO THE FACTS
the adults did plead guilty in Court !!!
What part of ‘guilty’ do you not understand
This new Coalition front bench sure is a class act.
Ron, the point was that the PM did NOT have access to the facts when he made his comments. He relied solely on the media reports – and THAT is the issue that caused angst among some of us.
FG , wrong again
Anna Bligh has said she briefed him before his comments
Now do you want to say Anna Bligh has not got the facts either ?
11 December 2007
The Australian Electoral Commission (AEC) announced today that the Divisional Returning Officer for the electoral division of McEwen will conduct a recount of all the votes counted for the Division at the recent federal election.
http://www.aec.gov.au/About_AEC/Media_releases/12_11.htm
Ron,
Bolter and Piers are hot on the trail of this case.
I’m sure they would welcome your esteemed, intellectual contribution more than we do here.
Here’s another site where you can combine this with David Hicks.
{The judicial system seems inconsistant when it comes to some judgements, how ever you surely cannot compare a case as complex as David Hick’s with the 9 men let go from the accusation of rape.
We aren’t always given the facts from the media. Certainly some sources are more comrehensive and reliant than others but who are we to say what should and shouldn’t happen to David Hicks?}
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2007/12/11/2115519.htm
Ron asks Has anyone else read the sickening Federal Report on aboriginal child abuse.
Yes, Ron, and if you have read it too you will know that “The Intervention” ignores it almost completely, implementing none of its recommendations and actually operating directly contrary to many of them. Both of its authors have condemned the Howard government’s response to it in no uncertain terms.
The “Little Children are Sacred” Report was actually commissioned by the NT Government, by the way, rather than the Feds.
If you read it again I think you will see very clearly why simple “knee jerk” responses based on tougher sentencing and the like are not the answer to these problems. Pages 116 to 134 are the ones most relevant to the “prosecution” and “punishment” issues, but , of course, you really need to read the lot to see the context.
(For those who have only seen the dubious political or media comment on the report , I’d suggest you have a look at the original document – available for download from http://www.nt.gov.au/dcm/inquirysaac/pdf/bipacsa_final_report.pdf )
Cheers
Rod
aspi @460 [The A-G is the top legal officer in the land and must act with the law in mind and on the advice of the federal police. Hicks pleaded guilty to a terrorism charge. Yes, everyone knows it was all overblown and political, but you can’t expect the A-G to pretend that Hicks is completely innocent when legally he isn’t.]
A little disingenuous this attitude isn’t it when you consider what ‘overblown and political’ meant for Hicks himself over many years, especially when compared with British subjects. Are you happy for him continue to be oppressed after what has been done to him for the political benefit of JWH? This man committed no crime, and does not threaten to commit one now. You also appear happy with the control order laws. They are purely political – a politician makes them, after advice from another agency with a cpmmon vested interest, the police. The courts are sidelined. Isn’t this one of the reasons thinking Austrralians voted JWH out? And Russ now wants to continue it. Why? because he is catering to ignorance and prejudice, just like JWH did at every turn. The former govt lowered the bar and the new govt does not appear inclined to raise it. This could hurt Rudd deeply if he keeps on with it.
Grace your refusal to acknowledge your lie does you no credit.
1. Grace Me at 350,
“Glen, I don’t support capital punishment. If State sanctioned killing is the answer, then it is a pretty stupid question”.
2. Me @ 381 “between”
means up to but not including when I went to school. Unless you want to spin that lynching is something less than capital punshment.
3. Regardless, 381 was made after 350. How does your comment: “I was trying to suggest to one of the other commentators who wants to lynch children for rape, how he might feel if his own 12 year old son (hypothetically) was caught in the wood shed with a 10 year old girl from next door” when your initial comment is at 352.
You’ve been caught out. Simply apologise and we can all move on.
482 Rudd, not Russ. must have been thinking of Russell Crowe
FG (452 & 453) We can do without the hagiography. Neither of them were/are that good.
(482) No, I’m not happy about it at all. I’m just saying that as a legal officer the A-G can’t, or shouldn’t, just act in a purely political way himself. He has to consider it from a legal point of view first.
Ron, in the PMs press conference yesterday he referred only to what he had seen in press reports. There was no mention of a briefing from Anna. At that time (yesterday morning) the Premier and A-G were still seeking a briefing from the Director of DPP on the issue. So, at that time the PM was solely reliant on media reports. Many of us held the view that to make comment on court cases based on what is in the press is unwise for the PM. We simply suggested that the facts need to be determined first. That’s where this discussion all began. Noone has defended the judge or the justice sytem; noone has come out in support of child rapists. Everyone is appalled at what has happened to the child. We have simply said that it is not wise to comment on legal matters based on media reports. That’s it. Now….’nuff said.
Rod , yes I’ve read it
1/ I was careful to say that Howard via the Report made aboriginal child sex abuse
a National political responsibility which Rudd also accepted
2/ Therefore I said Rudd had every right to comment on the issue and that
this latest decision REWARDS the perpetrators by setting them free
Worse still the perpetrators still live them…the victim had to move town
3/ You are right…Howard cynically ignored most of the recommendations
4/ Whilst the section on questioning ‘tougher sentencing’ you correctly note ,
the fact is in THIS CASE there was no sentence for the adult
….what message does that send to other Aboriginal child sex abusers
Hicks entered a plea bargin.
Ron I ask you this is there a crime of ‘rape’ in Queensland? I think criminal justice, no wait I know criminal justice is a bit more complex than shock jocks like to pretend.
I too agree with the PM, as representing a central Australian view.
I would be absolutely stunned if the PM read through the whole of the sentencing remarks, hopefully one of his new trimmer staff members did. But assuming someone actually read the judges sentencing remarks who has read the transcript of the trial, and the sentencing submissions. Even then the PM, much as I love him, didn’t watch the witnesses and probably didn’t have access to the victim impact statements.
You are trying to pretend something very very complex and difficult is quite simple. That is very very very dangerous. And I say this from your side.
Ron, don’t you mean “what message does this send to other child sex offenders”?
Can’t see the relevance of race in this. White men rape children too.
but aspid @ 486- he isn’t compelled to make the control order – he of course has discretion. The JWH mob revelled in giving themselves powers with ministerial discretion. What I’m saying is the new A-G should exercise that discretion in favour of Hicks and not make the order, because of all the points made above. This would be a lawful decision. Don’t you agree?
489 observ – [Hicks entered a plea bargin]
wouldn’t you enter a ‘plea bargain’ to get out of a hell-hole? Of course, we now know the arrangement was about a ‘justice’ process that is a nullity in US law, but, who cares if it gets you out when you have committed no crime? By the way, why is it necessary to defend David Hicks on this site all of a sudden?
Fg
Anna Bligh consulted the DPP re a LEGAL appeal
She already had the facts and had already publicly said the decision was appalling
and had already spoken to Kevin Rudd
You seem to be stuck still in the “Howard era” of a PM who speaks about every subject to politicise it without facts and often based on the ‘oz’
Rudd is PM and his comments WERE based on briefings
Howard ‘has left the building’
Don’t worry Ron I checked out the Criminal code Qld does have a crime labelled with the common name.
#
491
Jen Says:
December 11th, 2007 at 4:18 pm
Ron, don’t you mean “what message does this send to other child sex offenders”?
Can’t see the relevance of race in this. White men rape children too.
yes Jen….you are right
and if 3 white adults raped a white 10 year old and the Judge let them free
I would be equally outraged
“and if 3 white adults raped a white 10 year old and the Judge let them free
I would be equally outraged”
Leave race out of it then. The dog-whistling of the past decade is still ringing in my ears.
scaper… Says:
December 11th, 2007 at 3:40 pm
Min
I don’t agree at all with a child being developed enough in body or mind, but at this point the onus is on the system to rectify this injustice….
That’s is what I said Scaps..that the judgement that the child may have ‘consented’ goes against what is considered reasonable.
I believe that it is unreasonable to consider that a 10 year old child could have ‘consented’ to sex with 9 males up to the age of 26 years. Irrespective of the child’s previous sexual history.
To me there is no child age 10 developed enough in body or mind who is capable of giving ‘consent’ to sex with 9 males.
A sad story, one of very many.
Anyway friends..time to get down off the soapbox and am choofing off to make hubby’s corned beef and mash dinner.
#
497
jasmine Says:
December 11th, 2007 at 4:29 pm
Don’t worry Ron I checked out the Criminal code Qld does have a crime labelled with the common name.
not another lawyer
trivial comment ….there is a 10 year old victim involved
415 – Work to rule
Well said. There’s more sense in your comment that most of the other comments (including my own) put together.
No doubt Ron,
it’s just that you probably wouldn’t specify them as white, as opposed to aboriginal.
What’s colour of skin got to do with anything???
This is the post Howard Australia and his culture of division should be irrelevant.
Is this pollbludger of Bolts blog.
“Mr Rudd said he was horrified at the case, but would wait until Mr Shine came to a decision before commenting further.”
I suggest we ALL do the same thing.
Does anyone know what is happening in Bowman? Both candidates votes are reducing and Laming is now only 72 votes ahead. Odd.
scaper-
that is the point I was`trying to make.
I believe there are 4 threads opposing Rudd
1/ Rudd made an uninformed comment without briefing
I think FG that is your view
2/ Others have said irrespective of whether Rudd was briefed , its a political stunt
3/ Others have said irrespective of whether Rudd was briefed , the PM should not
comment on this subject as its not a Federal issue
4/ Rudd would know all the legal aspects of the case the Judge considered
I understand point 1/ but not the others
My head is beginning to hurt: must be the afternoon thingy …
Ron
You missed point 5
Tragic events happen everyday – most do not make the newspapers.
Here’s another sad story…with a happy-ish ending…
More at http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/programmes/assignment.shtml
Lets see, prosecuted for a crime that didn’t exist when he supposedly committed it, using ‘evidence’ obtained under torture – and all of what little evidence there was apparently came from Hicks, and a guilty plea extracted under the duress of being held in isolation for years, possibly life, if he didn’t.
I believe that if Hicks appealed his conviction in our court system he’d walk free within an hour and the judge/s would be having some very harsh things to say about all those involved.
However, under the terrorist laws it appears that you don’t have to have been convicted of anything. The Feds only have to convince a judge that you present a danger and you’re for the high jump.
Still the A-G’s decision will no doubt go down a treat with the lynch-mob crowd.
BTW-while I’m on the subject, do the super hi-tech anti terrorist fridge magnets still work, or did they loose their powers as KR was sworn in?
Doesnt a new leader of a party always get a so called “Hoineymoon” period?
well this obviously doesnt seem to be the case for Brendan Neilson,
Any thoughts?
Steveo
41.5% IS Nelson’s honeymoon period.
Sorry there’s a better lead in for the Iranian story:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/specials/1516_assignment/page21.shtml
I feel better now.
Gee I can’t wait until Question time starts next year
But I think seeing the Coalition are no longer in government,
the ABC should rename the program to
ANSWER TIME
It will be fun seeing all the Libs in opposition asking their questions in their
“LAR DI DAR Brittish accents”
hahaha
I can hardly wait!!!!
Anyone agree???
And so says Steveo
Steveo
Who do you reckon would be the speaker….Bob Katter and his trusty bullwhip.
I’d pay to see that…lol.
Apparently, Mulcahy was expelled for “bringing the Party into disrepute.” lol
Re Hicks
i dont care who is in power the detention or any other draconian,neo-con fantasywank is UNAUSTRALIAN
Jho has gone -so should these Right wing Control orders
scaper, nar he is an ex national and now an indp so i dont think he is the right man for the job
If you want my personal opinion of who the job will go to I think it will be
I recon the big fella from Tasmania Dick Adams is the man for the highchair
I also think my own local mp Daryl Melham of Banks NSW stands a chance too, but he is too nice for the job I think
Answer time – that’s pretty funny Steveo.
But I doubt it in any case with such a clever bunch at the helm. Their powers of obfuscation will be far greater than the likes of Downer and Abbott.
“bringing the Party into disrepute.”
This Mulcahy must be a pretty disreputable character to do that.
The bar has been set pretty high by people such as Reith, Andrews, Ruddock, Howard etc who seemed to get away with almost any form of poor conduct in recent years.
And it came to pass that Kevin 07 reversed the trend of the previous banished ruler and then presided over a series of interest rate cuts that pleased the people and ensured his reign extended onward and upward…
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2007/12/11/2115943.htm?section=justin
A quote from the NAB:
“So what we are also expecting some time – depending on how the data reads – either late in 2008 or early in 2009, I think the Reserve Bank will have to start cutting rates.”
Kevin 07 (2010 election campaign launch)
“Interest rates will always be lower under a Labor government.”
Particularly if the US starts slowing and cuts its rates to around 3% as has been mooted. Liberals, you’ll need to get Turnbull on board and try to outflank on the left if this trick pony leaves your stable.
What an utter waste of keystrokes most of today’s posts have been. Has this become a general have-a-bitch-about-anything blog?
While I wait for my appointment to the Paris Embassy to be approved, I am catching up on the backlog of elections I missed while our election was on. I have now uploaded detailed stats for Ecuador, Togo, Slovenia, Switzerland and Argentina, and summaries for Poland and Ukraine. Enjoy.
{I think the Reserve Bank will have to start cutting rates.”}
The Libs won’t like that. They are going to get the blame for any rate rises early in the new year and will, if rates start falling later in the year, lose their mantle of being the only party to best oversee interest rate reductions.
Who do you trust to keep interest rates low? Labor of course.
Who do you trust to keep interest rates lower than the Opposition ? Labor of course. LOL
{What an utter waste of keystrokes most of today’s posts have been.}
Adam, I couldn’t agree with you more.
There are some people in the world who can’t take the hint that their repeated posts on the same subject line over three hours or so, can get very monotonous and discourage people who like to follow considered, reasoned arguments and points of view to remain on the site.
By the way Adam, I saw this form of spelling on a GG Editorial and was wondering if it is correct.
{govern-ment} {argu-ments}
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,22902414-25209,00.html
William
Can the debate about the Queensland rape case be moved to a new thread please!!!!
Lets leave this thread to politics.
God no! Please William – we’ve surely said all we need to say on the Qld rape case.
Does anyone know if the Howards have left Kirribilli House yet?
‘Nuff said!
Albert @ 532,
Ref my 457
Scorpio,
Their optional hyphens are out of control.
You want to change the subject…well what do you guys think will come out of the COAG summit.
Will all the governments come to consensus or do you expect that some Premiers will be negative, trying to put their state in a higher position at the bargaining table.
And if this eventuates, do you believe it would be wise considering this period in history???
scaper
I think COAG will be a festival of love, this time, everyone will be making pseudo orgasmic noises about how wonderful the experience was.
It will take a few months before who gets the biggest piece of the pie becomes the real issue.
But its got to be a better outcome than before.
#536
“We will just change everything………GST 20 %”…….
The Premiers will be happy for now to bask in Rudd’s reflected glory. This will be the first all-Labor COAG and no-one will want to spoil the occasion. Coast to coast! Yay!
The difficult stuff will come later. There will hard bargaining over education funding and hospitals, but ultimately the feds will call the tune as they always do, because they pay the bills.
Wilkie has made a minor comeback in Swan, now 142 behind – are there any votes left to count?
http://vtr.aec.gov.au/HouseDivisionFirstPrefs-13745-247.htm
Future COAG’s will become a problem when the States are faced with Hospital performance targets which will make them accountable
I can’t imagine where they’d still be finding votes now. The cutoff for postals was on Friday.
Only a handful of votes between myself and Brokenshire
overseas defence force get time dispensation
Young was over 41,000 votes in Bowman this morning – He is now 40,981 I suppose votes are being knocked out or the AEC are triple checking and made an error.
Still very odd.
What are the chances of Labour putting forward the idea of an independent speaker of the house? The lower house would be a far better place for it.
yes , a Labor MP
an independent independent …no , why would he
As i wait for Adam to comment………
bill
Looks like you are 35 behind your arch rival – with no votes to count.
Rossco at 527 – you left out minis-ter
11 December 2007
The Australian Electoral Commission (AEC) announced today that the Divisional Returning Officer for the electoral division of McEwen will conduct a recount of all the votes counted for the Division at the recent federal election.
http://www.aec.gov.au/About_AEC/Media_releases/12_11.htm
ruawake writes: Young was over 41,000 votes in Bowman this morning – He is now 40,981 I suppose votes are being knocked out or the AEC are triple checking and made an error.
Not all that uncommon from what I’ve seen in this election, ruawake. Much the same has also happened in McEwen, with both relevant candidates losing votes as the AEC do their ‘housekeeping’.
I guess these are situations where votes have been provisionally accepted subject to approval by a higher official, but then rejected for one reason or another.
Cheers
Rod
#
547
ruawake Says:
December 11th, 2007 at 6:51 pm
bill
Looks like you are 35 behind your arch rival – with no votes to count.
Yeh not bad considering i was hundreds behind last week. Brokie must be devastated
I believe Rudd will come out blazing and some will see his energy in a negative light.
At best, they will see their inadequacies and rise and some will come away a little bit bitter but they all will show a united face to us, anyway.
I’m looking forward to a united Commonwealth, as we might just commence to advance before times leaves us in it’s wake.
We will see…
For all those who voted for labour due to it’s enviro credentials, the ruse is up. In Bali they are firmly placed with the conservatives. Granted they are no longer in US camp, that is now a room for one.
The appearance of looking like you care about climate change during a campaign is far more important than actually caring about climate change.
It reminds me of a night I had at Festival Hall Melbourne in 1987. With great anticipation I went to see Midnight Oil in concert, but they had sold out.
chance of non-party Speaker: zero
chance of Bill winning Kingston: zero
This is how they are fighting election corruption in Thailand:
http://rspas.anu.edu.au/rmap/newmandala/2007/11/27/taking-an-oath-for-a-clean-and-fair-election/#more-1708
Bill, would you agree to sprinkled with holy water for a clean election?
People voted for Rudd so we will have to wear it Deano. We will do what we can but unless the ALP takes it seriously ( extreme???) then we will all suffer in the future. I do hope Rudd does the right thing because the climate change window of opportunity is closing fast
Deano
What has Rudd changed from what he said during the election?
Adam cmon you must have a smile on your face that i took it up to Brokie
No Deanno , Greenpeace are setting the 25-40% Bali agenda
of course Rudd will not sign up to that
bill
You deserve kudos for getting so close to fundies first in happy clapper central.
Chill out Deano – did anyone seriously expect them to sign up to 2020 cuts before modelling them, about five minutes after they took power?
They’ve ratified, and they will sign up to interim reduction targets for 2020. But not in Bali this week.
Having said that, I DO hope they arent playing footsies with the spoilers US, Japan, Canada, China)
Meanwhile, a great moment: Acting PM Julia Gillard was just on the news, and I was able to explain to my 3yo daughter than she is the most important person in the country today.
Bill, I have a smile on my face that Amanda Rishworth regained the seat, with due acknowledgement for your preferences.
You are a hard mad Adam but if there is a positive for me in what you said ill take it
I heard what he inferred, suggested might happen, a possibilility of occuring, a result of a review but i didn’t really hear what he said. Not on the Insiders anyway (Sorry i missed Rove). The window of opportunity is closing and we are only making things worse. I wish Greenpeace was setting the agenda in Bali but with nations such as Canada, Japan, the US and Australia a solution is unlikely to come from this forum.
I think Rudd’s stance is he is waiting on a review (the Garnaut report?). Who would have guessed that one!
Bill’s vote is up by 0.4%. I’m not sure what size congratulation that merits. At that rate he will win Kingston in about 2307.
bill weller @551
I noticed a couple of minor brownouts earlier this afternoon. Maybe it was massive drains on the grid as the Glenside shrinks zapped his utter despair away!
Just had to go back to look at the count in Bennelong, in case I really had dreamt it all, oh what beautiful figures, oh how I love Maxine!
Deano
“I think Rudd’s stance is he is waiting on a review (the Garnaut report?). Who would have guessed that one!”
Anyone who actually took the time to listen to Labor Party policy.
Its only 6 months. Kyoto round ends in 2012. Whats the rush? At least we have a Govt looking at short term targets.
Somehow I don’t think these three will make it onto the Government’s lobbyist register.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2007/12/11/2116044.htm?section=justin
For anyone interested, the average swing in the safe Coalition seats was about 6.1%, the average swing in the marginals was about 5.1% and the average swing in the safe ALP seats was about 4.8%.
The Coalition had 64 safe seats, now reduced down to 34
The ALP had 38 safe seats, now increased to 60
The number of marginal seats has increased from 46 to 54, of which the Coalition held marginals are up 6 to 29, and the ALP marginals are up 2 to 25. That assumes the ALP wins McEwen – and depending on the final, offical AEC numbers, there might be two Coalition seats (Gippsland and Menzies) that move from safe to marginal status. Marginal seats are seats on 6% or less.
So what do the vote couting experts think the recount in McEwen will produce?
There seemed to be a few comments along the lines of its unlikely to change the result. Personally I thin (on the basis on zero actually knowledge) it unlikely to come up with the same result.
Do the scrutineers get any chance to challenge ballot papers in a recount?
I can’t believe what I’ve been reading about the event in Queensland
It seems that every appalling fact in these reports touches on a long term issue. So many threads of the debate about indigenous affairs is rolled into one
As if the rape of a child was not enough..Is it true the children involved had Sexually transmitted disease?
The health status of the indigenous australians is appalling.
Is it true the child was put back into the community to avoid a repeat of the “a stolen generation”?
etc
thin = think
all other typos are art
Adam so much for us being allies
To Deano. The previous occupants of our Government benches had many, many years of opportunity to address the issues you raise and didn’t.
I find your entries churlish and unreasonable because, I like you, have my wishes and dreams for our country’s future but I am prepared to allow some water to pass under the bridge before passing judgement.
Your negative contribution can therefore only be regarded—–as one our esteemed contributors would say—- Bull butter.
Young down to 40,980 ????
Of course we are allies Bill. You gave us your preferences, and in return you get no nuclear power plant at Port Stanvac. A fair exchange I would have thought.
Work to rule, #571: Yes they do. There wouldn’t be much point in the recount otherwise. Every vote will be scrutinised.
Possums
says the Labor swing was lower in marginal seats than safe seats
But the postal votes in those marginal seats were a SIGNIFICANTLY lower swing to Labor in marginal seats compared to the other voter types swing to Labor in those marginals
Assume the postal voters in marginals may be a higher liberal base than other voter types in those marginals causing a lower swing
jauniced view (492), yes, the A-G does have discretion, but if he’s an A-G worth he’s salt he has to consider the guilty verdict and the best legal advice available to him, and also whatever agreements were in place from the previous government (if any). It is precisely the views you express in 493, which I agree with, that an A-G can’t consider. He’s a legal officer, so he’s more constrained than you and I to view the situation in the U.S. and reach similar conclusions and act accordingly. Privately, he probably does agree that the process in the U.S. was a gross miscarriage of justice, but it’s not so easy to establish that in any legal way. Legally, Hicks is a terrorism convict, and that’s how the Attorney-General must treat him.
Ally Moore (sigh) was talking to Anna Bligh on the 7.30 report tonight. Has anyone noticed how like Anna is to Carmen Lawrence, a little in looks, but more in their slightly clipped speech and their directness in answering questions, the ones that are asked, not the ones they want to answer? And both bright girls, of course.
Lefty E says: Meanwhile, a great moment: Acting PM Julia Gillard was just on the news, and I was able to explain to my 3yo daughter than she is the most important person in the country today.
I’m sure there are more than a few of us who wished she had the same status next week, next month and next year, LE.
If Gillard was the leader of the Labor Party I would have voted Labor instead of Green this election.
Cheers
Rod
Rod: If Gillard was the leader of the Labor Party I would become a member of the Labor party instead of the Greens…
Viggo wrote: Ally Moore (sigh) was talking to Anna Bligh on the 7.30 report tonight. Has anyone noticed how like Anna is to Carmen Lawrence, a little in looks, but more in their slightly clipped speech and their directness in answering questions, the ones that are asked, not the ones they want to answer?
I’d personally hope that Carmen would have taken a more honest and intelligent stance on this stuff than Bligh managed, Viggo. She seemed to me like someone who was playing the “politically correct” line, rather than the one that might do anything of real value in the communities concerned.
The essence of Bligh’s message was that the judge (who strikes me as an eminently sensible person in an extremely difficult legal situation) will pay for creating a difficult political situation, rather than that she gives a stuff about any attempt to deal with the real issues here.
570 Possum
Lovely work. Just shows that the whole pre 24 Nov blather about the swing being all in the safe seats was somewhat overstated.
LCP had a 9% lead over Labor on postal vote primarys
But in some marginals LCP 2PP lead was larger
Latrobe 18%
Dickson 13%
McEwen 12%
Herbert 10%
Robertson 15%
Solomon 18%
Flynn 41%
Did the LCP work harder or were they clever
Watching the Twenty20, and the margin of error in Adam Gilchrist’s swing just then was pretty large…
LCP ???
Squiggle writes: “Is it true the child was put back into the community to avoid a repeat of the “a stolen generation”?”
As I read it, Squiggle, she was put back into the community in a large measure because she was already offering herself for sex for booze and tobacco in the white foster community to which she had previously been moved.
There was never going be anything like a “win” for the poor kid in this situation, no matter how it was played.
Grog – the ratios between the national swing and those 3 seat categories were actually consistent all year.Even though the headline polling numbers changed around a fair bit, the ratios stayed pretty much the same right through into the election result itself.
Was Leichardt the seat with the biggest swing? Any idea which seat had the biggest swing that did not end up changing hands?
Pedro
If Julia became the leader in the future….I might just tinker with the thought of actually alligning myself with a party too.
It’s looking good, eh?
Can anyone tell me how the AEC can consistently report on counting more votes than Envelopes Received less Rejected, as in Bowman Postal, ER = 4869, R at PS = 15, Ballot Papers Counted = 4895. Can’t they count, or do the rules of basic arithmetic not apply??
cheers,
Alan H
590
fuhvov Says:
December 11th, 2007 at 8:20 pm
Howards climate change policy fuhvov?
Anyone who did not see Anna Bligh on the 7.30 report , she was terrific
Anna made it very clear the judge does NOT represent either the Governments position or the public’s
thankfully it seems Anna will move this Judge to where she will be no longer able to damage the future of curbing aboriginal child sex abuse
Possum’s #570 doesn’t unpack the variations in swing in the Coalition’s safe seats. In 18 rural and regional Coalition seats with margins of more than 10%, the average swing was 7.0% (boosted by large swings in Dawson, Leichhardt, Groom, Grey and Barker). In 21 urban Coalition seats with margins of more than 10%, the swing was only 5.0%. In five Coalition seats with margins of more than 10% that can’t really be classified as either urban or regional (Forde, Moncrieff, Fisher, Fairfax and McPherson), the average swing was 8.6%. In other words, the fact that the average swing in “safe” Coalition seats was higher than the national average is only because of high swings in some regional and fringe-urban seats. Predictions that there would be high swings in “safe” Liberal urban seats are thus shown to have been incorrect. In these seats the average swing was BELOW the national average.
Good evening all. So what’s the topic?
Oh crap…the Aurukun thing is back. Though I have to say I agree completely with Rod @583, but my concerns re the politicisation of these complex issues have been well canvassed earlier.
As for Kevin not rushing to make targets in Kyoto – geez you lot – give him a few days in the job. He consistently said throughout the campaign that Labor would sign Kyoto and would await the report before committing to any targets. It’s due mid 08 and then he will make the call based on the evidence. Sensible move.
Alan H – are you Melb City in disguise???
And the “urban” swing would be lower still if I excluded Macarthur, which only just cracks it as an “urban” seat.
Great work as well Adam.
So you favour political interfence with the independence of the Courts Ron?
Adam has listed 64 former Coalition ’safe’ seats
adam addressed 44 of them
Do the other 20 conflict with the 44
CORRECTION
599
Ron Says:
December 11th, 2007 at 8:38 pm
POSSUM has listed 64 former Coalition ’safe’ seats
adam addressed 44 of them
Do the other 20 conflict with the 44
I took 10% as a cutoff for “safe”. I don’t know what cutoff Possum used.
Ron says : Anyone who did not see Anna Bligh on the 7.30 report , she was terrific
Sorry Ron, but I thought she was absolutely appalling. Playing the new PC spin doctor, playing up to the News limited media spin on the situation, and generally convincing me that she will probably be very good at winning votes in Queensland, but fail dismally in resolving the problems that underlie the Aurukun situation.
I’ve always liked Bligh, but tonight she was terrible.
Rod
Hi Ferny Grover
You have got me there.
Where the line between the legal system being over-ruled by the government, and the legal system over-ruling the government?
Has the constitution displayed this?
Has a precedent been set?
Anyone?
Bill you are correct, why does Labor have to wait for its economic review on climate change before taking action?
What comes first economics or the environment? have to wait and see but it seems their have been only a few changes on climate change policy.
Australia must agree to deep cuts and get on board.
The climate we are experiencing is changing rain comes in buckets and lasts an hour, more storms and large hailstorms will only get worse, people notice the increase of such events in Sydney and Brisbane and other places, these events will worsen.
This year the united nations said that this year had been the worse on record regarding natural disasters and that was only up to October regarding records.
Anna Bligh calls it straight
Furthermore clearly no one can say she does not have ALL the facts now !
yet Anna’s stated disgust at the decision has not altered
As Peter Beattie said , she is a politician of integrity
Scaper,
the doctrine of the seperation of powers is foundational to our system of democracy. The Courts are independent of the executive, though judges are appointed by the executive. It means that judges are free to exercise their duties without fear of political interference.
In terms of the broader issue of whether the legislature overrules the judiciary – the parliament is the supreme law making body and the courts interpret the law. At times the courts render a law void if the parliament, for example, enacts a law that conflicts with a commonwealth law or with the constitution. The point being that even governments are subject to the rule of law.
Ron she is politician who panders to the media, like all politicians do these days and if they don’t the media villifies them and ensures their days are numbered.
#
589
Possum Comitatus Says:
December 11th, 2007 at 8:19 pm
Grog – the ratios between the national swing and those 3 seat categories were actually consistent all year.Even though the headline polling numbers changed around a fair bit, the ratios stayed pretty much the same right through into the election result itself.
So Adam, when are you going to post your “told ya possum was full of shit” thingy… We all know your dying to do it and I for one am looking forward to it. (nothing agaisnt the poss, i think he will counter well )
I just want it to start)
It will provide a much more entertaining blogtime then the crap thats been running here lately.
is it possible to chart 2004 re if the ratios also follow
or is the 25% postal votes increase + pre polls increase alter the ratios
so many typos
jesus
http://psephos.adam-carr.net/countries/a/australia/commentary6.shtml
Anna Bligh called it according to the focus groups, Ron.
Her response had absolutely nothing to do with dealing with the problems at Aurukun and everything to do with taking the heat off her government over the matter.
Ron, Anna is a person of integrity. Nothing in her comments tonight, however, convince me that she has a good grasp of the facts. She is not a lawyer and I don’t expect her to have a legal understanding of the issues. I would prefer her not to feed the emotive frenzy and that she let the appeal process run its course. But she is a politician and she is playing the political game. The trouble with that is that we once again have the politicisation of some deep seated and complex social problems.
I don’t of course think Possum is or was “full of crap.” I do think he placed too much weight on polling data and not enough on other ways of looking at the likely behaviour of voters.
Adam what is the non academic value your stats.
Forcasting future polling would not apply
Adam at #55
‘ In 18 rural and regional Coalition seats with margins of more than 10%, the average swing was 7.0% (boosted by large swings in Dawson, Leichhardt, Groom, Grey and Barker). ”
Care to speculate why? With reference to the last 5 in particular [all well above the average swing for their states]?
Just curious.
Seems the number ‘nine’ on my keyboard is not working, so the above should be referring to post # 5ninety5.
Anna just a politician and
another says Anna is only listening to focus groups
Well I’m a 100% Anna supporter who is representing community standards
If there was a Q’d vote NOW:
Anna would get 99% of vote including ALL female aboriginal votes at Aurukun
the Judge would get many of the male aboriginal vote at Aurukun
Perhaps there should be mandatory sentencing
“Adam what is the non academic value your stats.
Forcasting future polling would not apply”
No idea what that means.
I thought so
Ferny Grover
Thanks for the confirmation.
I’m sure common sense will be prevail…political interference has it’s boundaries.
In Dawson, Groom, Leichhardt and Grey tghere are large regional centres (Mackay, Toowoomba, Cairns, Whyalla-Port Augusta) which all seem to have joined the anti-WorkChoices swing of the low-income urban seats. Barker I have no idea except that the sitting member is very low-profile.
My last post on this subject I swear.
GG at 483: Apologise? You have got to be joking.
In your outrage at “child rapists walking free!” you said that you don’t need a law degree to know that the judge’s sentence was wrong. You applied your “common sense” to the sentencing issue, brushing aside my observation that 6 of the 9 offenders were children as “bulldust”, and declared that “what they should get is somewhere between what they got and Glen’s execution solution”. Then I inadvertently attributed Glen’s preference for the lynching of young child rapists, to you, when your preference is apparently for something less than execution but more than “what they got”. So, in relation to the punishment of young teenage boys, I will assume you would go along with 20 years to life. You never really answered my question at 365.
And the rest, as you would say, is bulldust.
Is the Rodent still PM? The AFP gets its control order on Hicks to monitor him, Australia refuses to commit to targets and a judge is vilified for being “soft on crime”. When is the new government taking office?
Hello Grace. I’m up to my 4th ‘Nuff said’ on the issue, but the little buggers keep dragging me back in.
Adam, sorry I didn’t realise you had already posted it…
note to self [clear cache]
“reading” back later
Diogenes no the new government has taken office, just that little has changed in policy.
Ron writes: Anna would get 99% of vote including ALL female aboriginal votes at Aurukun
Well, Ron, I would suggest that you head up to Aurukun and ask the people themselves what they think. While the media have spent a fair amount of time speaking to people from other places, they seem to have shown singularly little interest in the views of people in the local community.
Nothing surprising about this.
We saw exactly the same thing when Noel Pearson , a young, clever, east coast Queensland mission person who spent much of his youth in boarding school, was being seen by the OZ, John Howard and Mal Brough as the ultimate authority on the very different NT situation. There are very good reasons why the vast majority of NT Aboriginal people in the NT rejected his opinions, and why the Aboriginal vote in the NT was massively opposed to the Howard implementation of the intervention.
So here is a challenge. Go there and find out for yourself. I think you will find that things are far, far more complex than you imagine.
Jesus, not this crap AGAIN!.
enough now…
CRIKEY WHITEY @ 161.
i we all have our ideas on what we want from government, I will be forever grateful to Rann for keeping his promise to bring in legislation and making sure Von Einam will never be released from gaol, after 11 years in and out of court to me it was a long awaited gift, it’s not about revenge mate– in fact I am fiercely anti the death penalty, it’s about making it as safe as possible for our young ‘uns to walk the streets, some people by their very own actions resign from the human race– he’s one of them, Rann and Atkinson promised and they delivered, dont ever believe V.E. is being demonised– he’s not, the full facts of what he and his offsiders did to those boys has never been published, a lot of what was attested to in the courts was suppressed– but we were told,.
if it takes Rann to speak out about the courts and judgments to bring a modicum of justice and keep offenders who cant be rehabilitated off the streets then so be it, I believe in the power of the law and though our legal system isnt perfect it’s all we have, unfortunately it far too often teeters on a knife edge and can go either way, we have to live with and accept that but it’s not easy.
think of your worse nightmares, thats some peoples reality, you couldnt even begin to imagine their nightmares.
FG The trouble with that is that we once again have the politicisation of some deep seated and complex social problems.
Everyone ‘down south’ knows part of the problem.
Read the Federal child abuse Report & you’ll be astonished how widespread it is.
Howard read it , but ignored almost all of its recommendations
It listed varied short & long term solutions which involved both punishing and changing adult male aboriginal sex behaviour to their kids and adult female aboriginal non acceptance of same
Why Ana Bligh is dissatisfied is because the current case is merely an EXAMPLE of what is occurring regularly and the ‘decision’ is the absolute reverse to the desired policy of punishing adult offenders as a deterrent
Grace Pettigrew
I don’t know if you have noticed me at the OZ in the past, but respectfully, you would be at home at Tim Dunlop’s site.
It’s just what I believe you are looking for to vent your concerns.
scaper…
Anyone who thought that a Labor government would declare Hicks a hero and martyr and give him a medal hasn’t been paying attention. I TOLD you all that Labor would be every bit as zealous as the Coalition in enforcing the anti-terrorism laws, now didn’t I? Hicks is a trained terrorist and so far as anyone knows an unrepentant Islamo-fascist anti-Western anti-Semite jihadist. Until he shows by word and deed that he has ceased to be one, he will treated accordingly, which means a strict control order.
Climate change- labor waiting for an economic review, what next. Before government we can’t wait now we must for the economic review. Pathetic. No we must wait until our group of politicians have our superannuations.
Adam,
Hicks has not been proven in a court; and I use “proven” in the Scottish way.
244-Rod…it was you I intended to thank for your informative post.
447 -Kirribilli Removals…..hope you are recovering after all that trauma. We know how the rattus horribilli species are particularly vicious when cornered,especially the female of the species. Hope your tetanus shots were up-to-date.
The law doesn’t require that he be proven. It requires that the AG have reasonable grounds to suspect, which clearly he does, given Hicks’s record. This is a preventive measure, not a punitive one, although its effect is of course punitive. Hicks brought that on himself.
631 Judy- I agree with your comments about von Einem. Rann also did the right thing when he made the DPP appeal the Nemer decision (Nemer got suspended sentence for attempted murder for non-croweaters). And he was right in the McGee case (hit-run manslaughter by a drunk lawyer who got off). The problem is that he got so many votes for the “tough on crime” stance that he is now using the judiciary as a punching bag for populist appeal. It appears Blight is going down the same path. Her Government sent the kid back to the community where the rape occurred and they didn’t even report it.
Exactly where is the evidence.
636
ViggoP
I agree.
ANOTHER legal mess.
An Australian is held without even a charge for 5 years with suggestions from his US army Colonel of probable torture.
The only way out is to plea bargain and ‘agree’ to scaled down charges of ’supporting a terrorist group’
Was he guilty. I do not know because he did not get a trial under our system of justice
Rod @ 629
“There are very good reasons why the vast majority of NT Aboriginal people in the NT rejected his opinions, and why the Aboriginal vote in the NT was massively opposed to the Howard implementation of the intervention.”
The swing in Lingiari was 3.5, Solomon 3 and the national average 5.6. Do you have other figures to suggest the Aboriginal swing was higher? If not I don’t get your logic.
635 marky – still happy and postive I see Marky.
I’m not astonished Ron. I’ve been there and worked with remote indigenous communities. I know the issues and I know the answers aren’t easy. If I felt deterrence would work, I’d support you but there is no evidence that it does (yes I’ve done some serious published research into this as well – I’m not just a lawyer). What frustrates me is glib off-the-cuff comments by politicians that show no understanding of the issues and are simply playing to the crowd. The PM and our Premier have both fallen into that trap in the last 24 hours. The situatuion desperately needs leadership but our leaders are too busy looking for a soundbyte that will please the uninformed…..and tomorrow the press will move on and the politicians will follow them….and up in Aurukun, nothing changes.
As far as climate change is concerned, the US Presidential Election will be of major significance. So how are the two parties shaping up?
Democrat 1.45 / Republican 2.65
Democrat Candidate
Clinton 1.45 / Obama 3.25 / Edwards 15.00
Republican Candidate
Giuliani 2.10 / Romney 3.25 / McCain 13.00 / Condi Rice 31.00
Do you think the Americans are capable of getting it right? I doubt it.
Hilary Clinton favoured to be the next president of the US. She did not lift a finger to help Kerry at the last election, in fact she basically supported that idiot Dubya, obviously with her own political ambitions in mind!
Seeing as this debate is ongoing I’ll give it my 20cents.
I would be most incredibly surprised if Anna Bligh or Kevin Rudd had a copy of the transcript, and even if they did, they would need legal advice to understand it. I didn’t see Bligh’s comments tonight, but it would seem we have again a polly who doesn’t like to be wedged by the media. Laura Norder reigns when the media engage in moral panics: sensationalism over accuracy is profitable.
But to enlighten, the Qld Penalties and Sentences Act 1992 section 9 may be of assistance:
http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/legis/qld/consol_act/pasa1992224/s9.html
{(2) In sentencing an offender, a court must have regard to–
(a) principles that– (i) a sentence of imprisonment should only be imposed as a last resort; and
(ii) a sentence that allows the offender to stay in the community is preferable;}
Now, without the whole transcript, without a transcript of the individual pre-sentence reports, without the separate submissions of their defence lawyers, we have no idea of the full circumstances of each guilty plea, no idea of all the submissions and the weighing up process that resulted in the individual judgements.
A guilty plea does not mean automatic (choose) [custodial sentence/rip their testicles off/execution] judgement just in case some were wondering. The law gives judges discretion, if that discretion is wrong there are appeals for severity or over-leniency from the defence/prosecution respectively. Clearly the prosecution in this case did not want custodial sentences–we need to know more than the transcript shows at the Oz.
This is not to say the decision was necessarily correct, but can we not wait for the judicial process to work before some here cast it into eternal damnation and we resurrect some apparent desire for middle ages Star Chambers?
(Perhaps even a Collosseum where all the people can do “justice” by pointing their thumbs down? Is that what people want?)
(BTW Ferny Grover, I’ve agreed with every post you’ve made on this topic.)
Maybe you could give me some of your happy pills Gary.
Noone (or at least few people) expects Hicks to be treated as a hero. They expect basic principles of justice to be applied to him.
It is easy to defend principles of justice and due process when they are applied to lovely old ladies who never swear and only drive to go to church on Sundays. The test comes when you defend justice for unpleasant people who do unpleasant – but not proven criminal things. If justice cannot be maintained for these people then it is fundamentally arbitrary for all.
Yes Hicks treatment is according to law. But is it good law? The provisions are so wide that they could apply to almost anyone but of course their application is restricted to a tiny few whom the executive consider dangerous.
Although this is according to the law it is fundamentally antithetical to the rule of law because it depends more on executive discretion than on equal treatment.
Just my 2 cents, I thought Anna Bligh did well in attempting to de-politicise the whole mess, and try to focus on the due legal process, reviewing other similar cases back 2 years, and not increase or exploit the “moral panic” the previous govt was so fond of stirring up.
I am also suspicious that the case was “leaked” to the national media (and Murdoch press at that) more than 2 mths after the case was originally heard, long after the Appeals process was closed, and only a week after the latest riots in Aurukun, and post-election. *Somebody* wanted to politicise this, and a hue & cry for someone to *do something* etc, and I hope both levels of govt refuse to take the bait.
As for Hicks… *sigh* – I was a bit surprised by the control orders,
Ok – he’s *guilty* of some unexplained, unknown, undefined, “crime” – not even under Oz laws, but that doesn’t matter, he’s guilty of *something* OK – got it)
but he’s done his time, he’s served his sentence (for whatever it was), so why can’t he just be given standard parole conditions on release?
And lastly – can someone who knows advise me when we might finally get an official outcome on McEwan? Its my last pending bet from election night, and driving me nuts not knowing if I won anything or not…
Adam,
The law requires that he be “tested”.
I don’t know what presumptions “The Law” makes but DH deserves, as anyone else, the golden thread of (British) justice.
Ron, you and others need to get your heads around the idea of PREVENTION. Hicks has not been convicted by an Australian court because nothing he did was illegal under Australian law at the time, although it should have been and it would be now. Nevertheless he is clearly a menace to public safety – a trained terrorist and self-proclaimed follower of a murderous ideology (jihadist Islamism) that requires him to commit acts of terrorism. Until he shows that he has renounced that ideology, the government has a duty to take PREVENTIVE measures to protect the public. That’s what a prevention order is. Hicks will be able to lead a fairly normal life but he will be under surveillance and he will not be allowed to do a range of things that might facilitate his re-involvement in terrorism. He should count himself lucky. I’d have handed him over to the Afghan government.
Yep Centre lets wait until America commits.
Barker was the same as Grey. The industrial towns in the Riverland and the South East swung heavily to da ALP, presumably on Workchoices. Same in the workers suburbs in Makin and Wakefield. 10-15% swings in many booths.
Rain
Less than perfect spellings of “McEwen” require that you contribute to the Fund.
Go!
So Adam
major michael mori had no idea?
The rule of law means the rule of the law as made by Parliament. Parliament passed the law creating control orders to deal with people like Hicks and that is the law that is being applied. Hicks’s lawyers can of course contest the control order in court.
Peter Kemp….I have my trusty copy of the P&S Act sitting here next along with Carters Crim Code. The ‘moral panic’ phenomena is a fascinating one in the criminology literature, and one that makes me uneasy about blindly following the media. Anyway, you’ve obviously read my posts on this so I won’t repeat them as they add up to much more than 2cents worth – and indeed much more than the poor bloggers here should have to endure. Nonetheless, I appreciate your comments.
Major Mori was doing what all lawyers do – defending his client. And he did it very well. That doesn’t alter anything as far as Australia is concerned. It is not disputed that Hicks went to Afghanistan to train with a-Qaida. He said so himself. And he had not so far as I know renounced that ideology.
OK, OK, OK ViggoP ,… point taken *mumble*..*mutter* *whinge* *whine*
I’ll contribute half my “winnings” that I thought I had – OK?
Adam, finished reading
Excellent
Ferny Grover and Peter Kemp- Thank you for providing rational thought in the midst of this hysteria. I have also worked with many indigenous people as a burns surgeon and the statistics are terrible. Indigenous people are SIXTEEN times more likely to die of a burn than non-indigenous people. And I totally agree that playing politics for media coverage is all our politicians, State and Federal seem interested in.
Grace you flounder around unconvincingly and now belatedly acknowledge your allegedly “inadvertent” mistake, yet you cannot apologise for smearing me about something that I did not say.
Robust debate is one thing and I will happily be accountable for what I do write. Just don’t continue to attribute comments to me that, as I have clearly shown, are untrue.
I do not feel any need to respond to your straw man arguments because you some how assume you have the moral highground.
I think it is you who has been hysterical. You seem to have lost the plot because others have the temerity to have an opinion that is different to yours.
Terrorists should rot in jail as far as I’m concerned. But I would like to hear his (Hicks) side of the story. When can he speak?
Diogenes 661 says …. ‘And I totally agree that playing politics for media coverage is all our politicians, State and Federal seem interested in’
Neophyte says: Maybe, maybe not, but there reaction suggest that it may be precisely because so many people bay for blood, some PB folks included.
Actually Adam – if you’ll pardon my less than positivist jurisprudence – the rule of law transcends even parliament which is itself subject to it.
Adam- The price of liberty is eternal vigilance. But what is the price of eternal vigilance? Some say indifference.
Oops; ‘there’ should be ‘their’; shame on me.
Ferny Grover, you may recall Miranda Devine a few years ago. Same moral panic. Poor dear couldn’t work out why a 3 judge CCA had the right to overturn a jury decision. “They couldn’t trust the jury” spewed Miranda. Despite my emails, she still didn’t get it that appeals were on questions of law, negating decisions of fact erroneously decided because of errors of law. (can’t remember if it was a wrong trial judge direction)
It’s an uphill battle one the moral panic merchants get working on Joe Sixpack.
William , your blog abounds with Lawyers
(Adrian , FG , Peter Kemp & maybe Grace & Jasmine)
You can now be legally called an “esteemed Pundit”
re very long ‘legal opinion’ (by Peter Kemp.)
Read your long legal words to the 10 year old girl
but your words will mean nothing to her
because she knows she was raped by a 26 year old who pleaded guilty
As for FG ,
Ferney , there is much in your last blog I agree with & hopefully the Report’s Recommendations (which Howard ignored) get carried out
So Adam your suggesting that because of after five years of detention and no trail and that he pleads guilty, that he is guilty, what evidence do you have that he is.
Remembering that in the first place he was held for such a lengthy time was without charge.
Maybe you should read the Law Council of Australia’s take on this whole unlawful process , http://www.lawcouncil.asn.au/read/2004/2403092446.html
nonetheless because the media and much of the public don’t like him we must go along with your populist muck.
Ferny, there are two kinds of law – common law and statute law. Statute law overrides common law. In this case the Parliament has spoken. Parliament is of course subject to the law in the sense that it can only legislate within the powers given to it by the Constitution, and that is policed by the High Court. If Parliament exceeds its powers, the High Court can overrule it. Unless and until the High Court finds the anti-terrorism laws to be unconstitutional, they are valid law and the government has both the right and the duty to apply them. In this case, the AG is required by law to form a view as to whether Hicks, in view of his past statements and actions, constitutes a sufficient threat to public safety that a control order be applied.
Marky, I’ve alraedy dealt with that point.
Peter K, all we can do is try to inform as best we can – and be prepared to cop a bucketing.
I am not lawyer Ron and i for one can see that the whole process stinks and that the new Australian government is busily picking on minorities and gutless when it comes to decision making.
judy at 631
I stand by my comment.
With you on so much, but my view is that appropriate, emphasis, appropriate legislation is the way forward, assuming our system of checks and balances is in place.
The Government has every power to amend legislation.
And an empowered DPP to make decisions. As to when to put a case. When to appeal against a too lenient sentence. One assumes, when Rann is actually talking to the current DPP, that certain discussions take place.
In the time of Paul Rofe, as DPP, there were few kerfuffles over such matters. Until the latter years, may I suggest.
I am unable to comment on matters concerning parole, being unfamiliar. One has to assume that the Parliament has a role to play, if the system is seen to be inadequate.
It is the perceived public interference coupled with the huff and puff for political gain to which I object.
If it is of any assistance, my working life has been in the main, in the Public Service sector, Welfare.
Where I watched, in years of dismay, the lip service paid by the Department to the circumstances of the children in their care, not necessarily State Wards, yet nominally for which it had responsibility.
The same children, emerging into violent adulthood, to perform the ultimate bestiality, becoming the perpetrators and victims of what we know to be the Snowtown Murders.
Now, I really do not want to discuss this, or Von Einem, and for you and anyone personally affected, may I offer my greatest sympathy. I will not respond other than this offering.
Reams are written elsewhere on all the matters I refer to. There are more suitable forums.
With respect and care.
CW
“The rule of law means the rule of the law as made by Parliament.”
No Adam, it doesn’t.
People of Adams view conveniently forget that this Australian citizen David hicks was held in GB , not on US soil
Why , because he could not have been held without charge for 5 years under
USA law.
Adam claims he’s guilty but conveniently forgets THE US military refused to trial David Hicks in a US court on US soil
Ferny, you have to remember that 80 % of this population can’t think or are bothered to think and are extremely prejudical in their opinions, and readily get their opinions from the right wing times or the American press agents.
What else does it mean, Martin?
Ron, I’m not interested in US law. Hicks is an Australian and is now in Australia, and the Australian government has to decide what to do about him. The law gives the AG both the right and the duty to make that decision and to take appropriate action.
This is what I heard! (I do not know if it is true or not).
Growing up Hicks was obsessed and fascinated with guns and war games. Many guys are, cars & females for example. Me the latter.
So basically Hicks chose to live out his fascination and got involved training with terrorists in Afghanistan?????
Ron re: {very long ‘legal opinion’ (by Peter Kemp.)}
A description of the system which every lawyer, attorney general and judge would agree with.
{Read your long legal words to the 10 year old girl}
The principle of doli incapax seems to be applicable outside its normal realm.
Hicks’s psychological history isn’t the point. The point is that he did what he did and said what he said, and now he has to accept the consequences.
Adam when Hicks went to Afghanistan as far as i remember the a Qaida was the legitimate government at the time, originally set up by the U.S., i could be wrong but that is the impression i had, the Hicks family lives about 2-3 streets from me and I must admit i would have no qualms about David living near me and my family {who mostly live in this small area} while this might contradict my earlier post about my fears of Von Einam roaming the streets its honestly how i feel, i have looked into the eyes of pure evil and somehow Hicks doesnt make the grade.
thankyou Diogenes for understanding what i was trying to put across, i read every blog here but rarely post one myself— the original lurker/peeping tom lol.
Stephen @ 645 said
“The swing in Lingiari was 3.5, Solomon 3 and the national average 5.6. Do you have other figures to suggest the Aboriginal swing was higher? If not I don’t get your logic.”
In the remote mobile team booths, which I would assume would be mainly aboriginal in Lingiari, the votes were labor 11,293 CLP 1,595 the swing in those booths was 9.67%.
I’m sure Snowdon was devastated in achieving a swing of only 3.5% across the electorate, he only just scraped in with 61.17% 2PP.
Adam, I’m not sure why you felt I needed a quote from a High School legal studies text. I was just responding to your statement that “The rule of law means the rule of the law as made by Parliament.” It means so much more than that. I could add that there are, in fact, a few more sources of law than the two you mention but that’s a legal theory debate for another place.
As for Hicks, we can never really know what the guy is guilty of, or whether he is guilty of anything. If he had been given a trial according to the standards that apply in this country we would have found out. Instead we have a ‘conviction’ that would have been thrown out by every court in this land – because what has happened to Hicks is a complete affront to the Rule of Law and offensive to those of us who spend our lives upholding it. The AG should use his discretion to review the case and, based on those findings, decide how best to deal with Mr Hicks.
“What else does it mean, Martin?”
It means equal treatment for all citizens before the law.
The legal concept of the rule of law was discussed many centuries before parliamentary democracy existed. I’m sure you are aware of this. Hence it is a nonsense to say that it rule of law is dependent on the process of parliamentary democracy.
Monarchs may make laws that are unequally applied; theocracies may make laws that are unequally applied; parliaments may make laws that are unequally applied; . The concept applies independently of how the laws are made.
Laws that are wide in scope but narrow in application – and dependent on executive discretion – are contrary to the principle of rule of law, regardless of the system by which they are made.
Several electorates have been declared now. However, we can not see any figures on distribution of preferences yet.
But, I have looked at the results in several electorates and it is starting to seem to me that the ALP has been getting less of the preferences from the minor parties than they have in the past.
As an example look at Swan.
Clearly the ALP would have won if the Democrats had still been around.
But even without the Democrats, if the minor party voters had sent their preferences to the ALP in the same proportions as in 2004 then the ALP would have won.
Either the FF and CDP voters have been avoiding the ALP completely or the Green voters have been preferencing the Libs at an unusually high rate or both.
Anyone else noticing such things?
Gee Adam,
Just don’t be disappointed when St. Peter says the same things about you when you arrive at the Pearly Gates.
“as i remember the a Qaida was the legitimate government at the time, originally set up by the U.S., i could be wrong but that is the impression i had,”
Yes you are wrong on all counts.
Hicks would have killed a lot more people than von Einem if he had got the chance. Von Einem is sexual psychpath, Hicks is an Islamo-fascist. Von Einem did kill people, so he is in prison. Hicks didn’t get the chance to kill anyone, so all he gets is a control order. It’s very simple really.
Have you guys ever considered a review of our Constitution?
No, I’m not referring to the Republic issue on this, although it ain’t a bad idea…gee, think about what might, could, would have ensued if Howard retained government?
Hey, surely the Constitution is the basis of our national evolution, but does that not have to evolve???
scaper…
Judy
Legitimate government was the Taliban, who offered shelter to al Qaida, a terrorist organisation.
Hicks voluntarily went there to fight for both.
Australia could not offer Hicks any recourse during his trial by the USA, to do so would be seen as presenting Australia as a refuge for those who actively supported terrorists who attacked the USA.
#
682
Adam Says:
December 11th, 2007 at 10:21 pm
Hicks’s psychological history isn’t the point. The point is that he did what he did and said what he said, and now he has to accept the consequences.
Ron says:
You avoided my argument that Hicks was held at GB rather than US soil
Why , because under US law Hicks could not have been held 5 year without charge
You further avoided my argument that Hicks requested but the US Army refused to trial Hicks in a US Court on US soil
The fact is the case is a travesty of OUR legal way of life & we’ll never know
Ron @ 669, cool observation re the lawyers, think up some cute lawyer jokes if it makes you feel better
I personally find it interesting, because I know very little about law, and enjoy learning from the more erudite in such matters – but I am a scientist and was educated to think in terms of theory, hypothesis, solid facts, supporting evidence, debating arguments for/against in drawing conclusions etc.
But it is nice to see that even lawyers have belief systems and can colour their judgements and opinions with their own personal morality on what should happen to people like Hicks, just like anybody else can.
Should be handed back to Afghanistan, or rotting in prison for life etc
I don’t know enough about his case to judge one way or tother, so little information was released to us plebs — but if his story is anything like what the Bristol 3 went through, as depicted in the ‘Road to Guantanamo’, then I feel that nothing has been proved “beyond reasonable doubt” in his case either.
But they want to keep it all secret-squirrel, and the AG can make his determination as he sees fit, he doesnt have to answer to the rest of us.
And terrorist can describe almost any military operation and its combatants or tools, ordered or managed by any regime, I dont see the USA’s regime as being any less terrorist, than any other on that score and often ignores international law and civilised behaviour in its international dealings – because it *can*.
What it did in WW2 against Japan with the fire-bombing deliberately designed to cause maximum pain, suffering and terror for the maximum number of large civilian populations – that sort of wanton and unjustified cruelty to me is terrorism.
During Vietnam, they deliberately trained soldiers to be assassins and terrorists, taking two years of secret “training” through physical and mental torture and brutalisation by Asian-Americans to condition their responses like Pavlov’s Dogs, to commit acts of terrorism on Vietnamese civilians.
Whats in a name? Terrorist, soldier, mercenary etc — all just killing machines to me, whether they do it for a ‘legimitate’ govt symbolic rhetoric, or from some belief in some godlet.
“Hicks would have killed a lot more people than von Einem if he had got the chance. ”
And you can prove this of course? No, I suppose you don’t need evidence.
“you and others need to get your heads around the idea of PREVENTION.”
You, and others need to understand that for many people, for a long time, preventive detention has been considered arbitrary and undemocratic. (Yes, regardless of how the laws are made.)
Crikey Whitey-thanks. So cogently put.
Seldom have I seen such wilful denial from intelligent people as I regularly see on this subject. I know you all hate Bush and Howard, and so do I, but you really do need to grasp the fact that Islamist terrorism is a reality, not a figment of the Murdoch press. 9/11, Bali, Madrid, London all actually happened, OK? They were not episodes of “24″, they were real. Governments have a duty to try to stop such things happening again. Hicks, of his own free will, went to Afghanistan to train to do those things. This is not in dispute, he has said so himself. He did so because he was converted to the jihadist ideology of political Islamism. So far as anyone knows, he still holds those views. Unless and until he renounces those views, he must be presumed to be both willing and able to do such things if he gets the chance. Let’s at least credit him with the courage of his convictions, shall we? The Australian government has both the right and the duty, under the law, to prevent him doing so. Whether he has been convicted of anything, whether the US was right or wrong to send him to Guantanamo, whether George Bush is an idiot, the history of Afghanistan, are all irrelevant to this central point. I really don’t see why this is so hard to grasp.
Arbie Jay re: {presenting Australia as a refuge for those who actively supported terrorists who attacked the USA.}
“I once knew a man who met with a girl who danced with the Prince of Wales.”
(as the song went)
In more recent times, we all know of a man who had a cousin, who owned a Sim card…but you know the rest of it.
Hicks was
“travelling back from the frontline line ,when two bounty hunters grabbed him and sold him to the N.A.”
“Hicks had served with the KLA”
“CIA funded KLA activities all thru Balkans mini war”
tis a tangled web we weave……
HEAR HEAR
Martin, how can a law passed by a democratically elected Parliament (and by large majorities in both Houses), be undemocratic? What you really mean is “I don’t like it.” Fine, that’s your right. But don’t try to dress up your personal views in high-flown language.
Where is Howard living these days?
Just because someone has a particular view doesn’t make them a criminal Adam.
Howard has moved next to Rudd.
On comment 687, I think the Green vote is flowing very strongly to Labor – have a look at Robertson in NSW for example and Wentworth (even though Labor did not win in Wentworth, they were way behind the Libs on primaries but ended with a reasonably close two party preferred result).
I suspect that CDP and Family First vote is flowing strongly to the Coalition.
in jest I hate marky karky and intend to kill him
pretty sure thats a crime
Adam, if I could be so bold as to offer a hint, you seem like a much more clever bloke when you stay away from Hicks and ‘Islamo-fascism’, a rediculous concept of the neo-cons, coined by the likes of Hitchen, Fukuyama and others associated with the Project for the New American Century. Fukuyama for one seems embarrassed by it now, and it is shallow and historically offensive for many reasons.
Adam,
Where’s the psephology gone?
Adam
the AWB villians and their deals with saddam’s regime
should we put control orders on them ?
The single point Howard , Bush and Adam avoid is simply to charge him and put
up for trial
The USA (with Howard’s support) denied David Hicks the most basic right
of a democracy. A charge and a trial
The treatment of hicks you support can be found in ALL undemocratic countries
which is why the ALP objected to Hick’s treatment
Terrorism did not start with 9/11 Adam. We have had laws to deal with it for a long time. As for what Mr Hicks may or may not have done – it is all speculation. Last time I checked we did not not lock someone up in this country for what they might have done. Yet you seem blithely happy to accept this is an expression of the Rule of Law. It isn’t; it is an abrogation of it, as is much of the anti-terror legislation we are now encumbered with. The case of Dr Haneef should give us all pause as we realise how these laws can be abused by the government to ensnare any of us.
Marky, you’re obviously a complete fool, so you’ll forgive me if I don’t respond to you further.
Pancho, so who, in your opinion, committed 9/11, Bali I and II, Madrid and London. The Salvation Army? Buddhist nuns? You can quibble with “Islamo-fascism” as a label if you like. “Jihadist” is the term they use themselves. What’s important is the reality of their actions, and the duty that imposes on governments to protect their citizens.
Ron writes: Read the Federal child abuse Report & you’ll be astonished
Ron,
I have been working with Aboriginal people in the NT, SA, Victoria, NSW and Queensland, since 1975. When I first arrived in Alice Springs in that year there were 1300 people living in the towns fringe camps with no housing, no toilets, and one water tap between them (people simply took sewerage polluted water from the Todd River or risked arrest by pinching it from over some whitefella’s fence). The per capita income in the fringe camps then was around $5 per week. There were always families crawling over the local rubbish dump for a half eaten can of baked beans or the like.
Young men I’ve known personally have had wire tired around their wrists, been dragged around the floor , burnt with cigarette butts, had pieces bitten out of their ears and then been arrested for being “illegally on premises” when they were physically unable to leave when requested.
Teenage boys that I’ve known, at Ti Tree in the NT , offering no real threat, have been shot dead in cold blood by police. Others, when I had just moved to Alice in the 1970’s, have been tarred and feathered and tied to the Alice Springs railway line. Old men have showed me the scars on their backs from the whippings they received, while tied to trees, for “giving lip” on pastoral stations in the 1920’s and 30’s. Another old guy I knew, the well known artist Uta Uta Jungala, had his legs broken when he wandered into the Alice Springs police barracks and didn’t have enough English to explain why he was there, in the early 1980’s.
In the 70’s men and women in their mid 50’s (the age I am now) cried and cried while telling me about being hidden under bushes as children by their parents while the policeman Murray and the white vigilantes were shooting their relations during the Coniston massacre in 1928. Some never saw their parents again.
Countless Aboriginal men and women have told me about the physical and sexual abuse they suffered from white staff as adolescents in institutions and foster homes in south eastern Australia, many of the women (though they teenagers at the time) bearing children as teenagers as a result.
I’ve had shotguns pointed at my gut in remote roadhouses and given “30 seconds to leave or I’ll cut you in half” when trying to buy petrol simply because I worked for an Aboriginal organisation. I’ve pulled up at petrol stations on the Stuart Highway in vehicles with Aboriginal passengers and had white men running at me waving tyre leavers yelling “get those f@#&ing Rock Apes out of here”. The same loathsome guy, of course, was known for his love of “black velvet”.
I spent several weeks in Alice Springs Hospital in 1980 after suffering some burns. The guy in the bed in the next room was a young initiated Pitjantjatjara man who had been in a road accident after sniffing petrol. He’d call out “Kumpu, Kumpu”. I’d tell the nurse that this meant he needed a piss. She’d say, “well why doesn’t he say so then. He can understand English”. He’d wet the bed. She’d say “dirty mongrel, why didn’t he tell us, the dirty little boy” (he was about 20), and the process would repeat itself time after time, day after day, with his humiliation growing every time until I complained to the management. Even then, to get them to take any action I had to get the Aboriginal medical service doctors at Congress in Alice involved.
I’ve known Aboriginal men lovingly doing their very best, despite extreme poverty, for children produced by the unprosecuted rape of their wives by white men. I’ve known Aboriginal women explaining terrible actions by their husbands and children on the basis of even more terrible things that had been done to them.
Yet now the entire continent is outraged by a case of statutory rape. Well, I’m glad that people can see the tragedy for the poor girl, but pardon me if I puke about the hypocrisy of a nation that has allowed similar events ,and worse, to to be perpetrated by whites day after day, year after year, decade after decade, and then dismissed such things as the “black armband” view of history.
I’m sorry, but by the time you truly try to get to the bottom of this stuff you will find that there is very little that astonishes you.
Rod
Pollitt, Katha. ‘Wrong War, Wrong Word’
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20060911/pollitt
Jeez, why are you all so quick to defend Hicks. the guys an asshole…
Hicks thinks, says and takes steps to act on this… (I wanna kill non-muslims, Oz citizens included)…
Gets caught, then fu(ked over by our “GOV’ sure… but he still says (since he has not renounced) the above statements
But hey, lets all go save this di(k!
#
701
Dogs Says:
December 11th, 2007 at 10:43 pm
Where is Howard living these days?
‘Kirribilli Removals’ says an imposter of Johnnie left the Lodge
which means Howard ‘has not left the building’ yet
#684 – also interesting that there were swings to the CLP in the towns in Lingiari (especially Alice Springs and Katherine). There were enormous swings (even by Leichhardt standards) in a lot of the Aboriginal booths on Cape York too, although I suspect the loss of Warren Entsch’s personal vote had something to do with that.
As far as the 7% average swing in the safe regional seats is concerned, I imagine this is dragged down a bit by the NSW seats (Parkes and Calare) where independents were a significant factor (and where some of the vote that might have gone to Labor in a two-horse race was recycled to the Nationals via independent preferences). I thought it was also interesting that in Mildura, where water is the overwhelmingly dominant issue, the swings were in the 8-10% range. The Victorian rural media would have us believe that it’s the state government that is on the nose over water in those parts, but the hard numbers suggest that the voters see it differently.
#704 – in the booth I worked (in Victoria), the flow of Green preferences to the ALP was the strongest I’ve ever seen (94% – it’s usually in the 70s), and even Family First split fairly evenly. WA may have been different – it will be interesting to see the full preference distributions when they come through.
Pete
Hicks did more than dance, it is a difficult issue but what was the alternative.
Bring him back to Australia because there was no law in existance that he had broken and let him walk around as if nothing had happened.
For the US it would have given heart to those who plotted acts against them as it meant they would be sent home if caught.
For Australia it would have presented us a being a safe haven for them, that we would disregard their acts against the USA because we had no law to act against them.
Oh boy!
When the counting is done, what the hell are you going to concentrate your obvious intellect on?
Oh well.
Adam you have been given plenty of opportunities to acknowledge that Hicks
like any aussie was entitled under our system of justice
a/ to be charged (and not after 5 years detention)
b/ to be submitted to a trial either on US soil under US Law or in Australia
– he was denied either
Whether anyone thinks he was guilty or innocent or naive or we do not know
is beside the point. A charge and a trial is our democratic system
Which you , Bush and Howard are happy to throw away
Grog @ #590 says
The largest swing was Forde 14.43%
The largest swing without changing hands was Calwell 11.14%
The largest swing in a Coalition seat without changing hands was Groom 10.58%
Largest swing against ALP was Franklin 3.11%
Figures are available in Downloads section of AEC website
http://vtr.aec.gov.au/HouseDownloadsMenu-13745-csv.htm
OK let’s deal with the case of Hicks
http://www.australiansall.com.au/david-hicks/
January 2007 from Julian Burnside:
{The facts alleged against Hicks were set out in the indictment which was to bring him before a military commission. The US Supreme Court found the Military Commission to be unconstitutional. [Hamdan v Rumsfeld BTW] None of the things alleged against Hicks involve actually harming any person or property. None of the things he is alleged to have done involved a breach of Australian, US or Afghan law at the time. That is why Australia does not want him back: he cannot be charged with an offence.
When Hicks is charged he will face a “trial” by military commission. The “trial” will have at least three distinctive features:
1.it will be dealing with offences which did not exist at the time of the acts in question;
2.it will receive hearsay evidence;
3.it will receive evidence obtained by coercion.}
Anyone want to refute any of that as of beginning 2007? Importantly, that Hicks was to be tried under laws not in existence at the time he was in Afghanistan?
Anyone for a primer on the rules on hearsay, on coercion to plead guilty by being locked up for 5 years without being charged?
Hobosexual Misanthrope re
{Jeez, why are you all so quick to defend Hicks. the guys an asshole…}
Defending the rule of law. Every person, even an “asshole” has rights. Gitmo was and still is a legal black hole as people have said across the globe, including some UK law lords as I recall.
More utterly moronic and irrelevant comments, but tempting as it is to go on, I have said all I’m going to say on this for tonight. The Parliament has legislated, the law is being enforced, you are being protected from being blown up as you sit in a restaurant, whether you like it or not. Luckily for you all, there are people in Australia who understand the realities of this business, and Kevin Rudd is one of them. If you’d rather the law not be enforced and you not be protected, next time vote for someone else and take the consequences. Good night.
Rod 712
Well and sadly written.
More of ‘on the ground’ reportage may yet move those who fail to have any comprehension of that world.
Pete
Agree he could not be tried or charged because there was no breach of a law in effect.
But let him go free because of this.
I think in Qld and SA the governments have passed laws to keep dangerous inmates inside thogh legally before the law was passed they were entitled to be released on parole.
It is difficult and dangerous but I think the alternatives were worse.
On the other hand we are lucky to have those who argue against what happened to Hicks and co as a way of ensuring that these powers and laws are not widely abused.
FACT: Hicks did not injure anyone
ALL of the most sickening crimes in Aussie history have still required these maniacs to be charged and then subjected to a Trial
What Howard did (which some blogers support) is to deny Hicks the same rights guaranteed by both our Constitution and the US Constitution
All those terrible muslims blowing people up are terrible but what America dropping bombs in Cambodia and Laos and agent orange and Israel bombing a un checkpoint in Lebanon last year and killing un peacekeepers is this not terrorism as well?
From The Simpsons, ‘Much Apu About Nothing’. An episode about a bear attack and foreigners. Synopsis stolen from wiki:
‘Homer rants about these “constant bear attacks”, even though this is the very first bear Ned has seen in his thirty odd years of living on that street. Homer then leads an angry mob and demands that Mayor Quimby do something about this. The mob make their way to the city hall chanting, “WE’RE HERE, WE’RE QUEER! WE DON’T WANT ANY MORE BEARS”! Soon, the Bear Patrol is created, a useless organization which makes use of helicopters, police cars, even a B-2 Spirit. Homer feels happy to know that the Bear Patrol is doing their job, as there are no bears around. Lisa calls it “specious reasoning” and tries to explain, with the help of a rock “that keeps tigers away”, that since there are no tigers around, the rock must be working. Homer contemplates this and offers to buy Lisa’s tiger-repellant rock, to which Lisa agrees knowing better than to try and explain further.’
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Much_Apu_About_Nothing
Adam @ 696 Said:
“9/11, Bali, Madrid, London all actually happened, OK? They were not episodes of “24?, they were real. Governments have a duty to try to stop such things happening again. Hicks, of his own free will, went to Afghanistan to train to do those things. This is not in dispute, he has said so himself.”
Do you have a reference on this?
Also,
I have been away from The Bludger for a while but I guess everyone has already had a good old chuckle at Overington’s blog disappearing from The Oz?
Whatever rubbish they write to try and dent the credibility of the blogosphere, just say to yourself, how many bloggers assaulted a candidate in the federal election?
LOLOL
Happy annual gift man festivities everyone.
Adam @ 696 Said:
9/11, Bali, Madrid, London all actually happened, OK? They were not episodes of “24?, they were real. Governments have a duty to try to stop such things happening again. Hicks, of his own free will, went to Afghanistan to train to do those things. This is not in dispute, he has said so himself.
Do you have a reference on this?
Also,
I have been away from The Bludger for a while but I guess everyone has already had a good old chuckle at Overington’s blog disappearing from The Oz?
Whatever rubbish they write to try and dent the credibility of the blogosphere, just say to yourself, how many bloggers assaulted a candidate in the federal election?
LOLOL
Happy annual gift man festivities everyone.
Ron spot on- he did nothing but gets found guilty of crimes at Bali, London and in New York. Short sighted dills.
Adam @ 696 Said:
9/11, Bali, Madrid, London all actually happened, OK? They were not episodes of 24, they were real. Governments have a duty to try to stop such things happening again. Hicks, of his own free will, went to Afghanistan to train to do those things. This is not in dispute, he has said so himself.
Do you have a reference on this?
Also,
I have been away from The Bludger for a while but I guess everyone has already had a good old chuckle at Overington’s blog disappearing from The Oz?
Whatever rubbish they write to try and dent the credibility of the blogosphere, just say to yourself, how many bloggers assaulted a candidate in the federal election?
LOLOL
Happy annual gift man festivities everyone.
“Martin, how can a law passed by a democratically elected Parliament (and by large majorities in both Houses), be undemocratic? What you really mean is “I don’t like it.” Fine, that’s your right. But don’t try to dress up your personal views in high-flown language.”
Adam, I have explained exactly, and clearly what I mean. For good measure I have acknowledged that “I don’t like it”.
I have also pointed out that this dicussion starts millenia before I was born. Do you dispute that?
If an argument has been held by amny people for many centuries before my existence, it is obviously not just my personal view, any more than your argument is just your personal view.
If I may lapse into ‘argument by adjuducation’, the comment about “high flown” language particularly demeans your position. Either my argument stands or it doesn’t. Since nothing you wrote above actually contests the substance of what I said and you choose to run a diversionary argument, I will presume until further notice that you have no substantive argument.
712- Rod, you write so movingly,and I hope you will publish your accounts.
Rod
I worked a while in the north of WA and saw similar, not as bad as what you described, just segregation and underlying racism.
I well remember over 30 years ago being taught at school that the aboriginals would eventually die out and it was for the best.
If all you have left are insults Adam, then you certainly have nothing left to say. As for the anti-terror laws, our ‘protection’ did not commence with their introduction. We had many laws before the enactment of this suite of assaults on liberty that protected us from being ‘blown up in a restaurant’ while also respecting the – much mentioned – rule of law.
Peter kemp
julian b, i think does not support “being blown up as you sit in a restaurant” or any such twaddle
as a matter of fact its was his clinical dissection of the flaws in the case that swung my opinion- but what would a guy like julian burnside know as opposed to the chicken littles who want us to believe there are reds(islamists) under the bed(restaurant etc)
I actually stopped believing in fairy stories a long time ago
Rod 712
Dick Kimber is a South Oz, suburban and school family known to me. Activist, indigenous sensibility, terrific!
Dick shows up on ABC Hindsight type programs, I understand he lives in Alice, these days.
Worth considering, as Megan suggests, and thanks Megan, getting in touch with him.
The more recorded history the better.
“Bali, Madrid, London all actually happened, OK? They were not episodes of “24?, they were real. Governments have a duty to try to stop such things happening again.”
Is that a straw argument I see? Does anyone dispute that?
People who do such things should be prosecuted as should people who plan such things.
But we do not expect our governments to act arbitrarily or to torture suspects in that aim.
Is that so hard to understand?
“Unless and until he renounces those views, he must be presumed to be both willing and able to do such things if he gets the chance.”
You have evidence for that? Perhaps you should have passed it on to the US prosecutors, or to the Australian authorities, for neither of them have been able to present such to a court of law.
On the other hand if you really think that your unsupported suppositions should be enough to deprive someone of their liberty, then I am – for the first time – glad that you are not in a position of more influence.
“What’s important is the reality of their actions, and the duty that imposes on governments to protect their citizens.”
Again, I’m not sure what the argument is. Who disputes that?
The question is who is “they”?
The perpetrators?
Their families?
Everyone they have ever met?
People of the same religion?
People who have expressed opinions sympathetic to their views?
CRIKEY whitey, you have to remember theres two sides to every coin and any law can be read in multiple ways by different judges, this i learned well in my years of practically living in courtrooms, we have a legal system rather than a justice system and thats the way it has to be, as a foundation member of Victims Of Crime along with Annemarie Mykyta, Bob Whitington and Ray Whitrod {ex commissioner of New Guinea, commonwealth and Queensland police} and at the time the first contact for victims i dont think theres very much i havnt seen or heard, V.O.C.S is now government run rather than volunteer which is the natural progression but i cant help but think it’s also lost a lot by becoming de facto another government dep. saying that i also opened my home to foster kids who’d had a hell of a run in life so ive seen both sides.
Adam, there’s one hell of a difference between Von Einam and Hicks, yet V.E. believe it or not isnt the kingpin of the “Family, he’s just a half, the other person {who isnt in gaol} is even worse than him, you cant hang Hicks for something he might have been capable of doing in the past, that way you’ll condemm everyone who threatened something and never carried it out– including me, one of my sons carried a cut down rifle for a long time wanting revenge– it’s ok the police know about it now and have had possession of it for years, he carried that gun and trained himself to use it– but never did, nor would he now he’s matured past that stage of his life, perhaps you could give Hicks who has paid dearly for his actions a little leeway that perhaps he may have had to grow up quickly past those immature younger days with the harsh lessons he’s had to endure.
‘The Parliament has legislated, the law is being enforced’.
Too right it is. But as a pause, from George Williams, http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20867,20979036-7583,00.html
“Since 9/11, the commonwealth has enacted 41 new pieces of legislation on terrorism, or about one new law every seven weeks. This continued right through 2006.
Even though such laws were needed, they have often been enacted with undue haste. This has left too few opportunities for debate and refinement, and as a result the statute book is rife with problems.”
You idiots,
The rodent won: you’re all jumping at your own shadows: THERE IS NO ONE WAITING AROUND THE CORNER TO KILL US. sorry to shout but …
Adam
I’m glad you’ve said all you will on this subject for tonight. My blood grows increasingly chilled when I see otherwise rational, democratic people so easily (and vehemently) toss aside the fundamental principles of our society.
You refer to comments like those of Peter Kemp @ 722 as moronic and irrelevant. It’s all too easy to heap contempt on ineluctable argument. But Kemp et al are defending the principles which underpin our whole legal system.
Why didn’t we just torture Hicks before executing him? That way he might have dobbed in some other (maybe even guilty) people while being removed from your outraged sensibility . . . Or it might have been easier for everone if he’d just disappeared . . . there’s plenty of great precedent, after all – worked a treat in Chile and Argentina. And we could have done the same for that obvious terrorist Haneef at the same time. It’s a shame the bleeding heart (obviously communist) mainstream media beat up the issue and blackened the good name of our lilywhite security services at the same time. The government should do something about that.
executive . . . legislature . . . judiciary – that’s what the rule of law is, a balance.
I know he is not here to defend himself, but the rule of Law according to Adam must work according to our levels of ideological perspectives that being convict and jail people who committ crimes against capitalism but crimes against socialism and other ideologies those people can gain impunity. His argument is bizarre, David Hicks convicted before a military tribunal made up mostly of people without legal backgrounds and a tribunal judge who provides a conviction without reviewing the evidence.
If this is how the law works than really he may have little concept of the legal process and justice at all.
Doesn’t it bother any of you that David Hicks is a traitor to Australia??
It wasn’t so long ago that we’d have hung people for that. It’s a pity he wasn’t left to Rot in Gitmo, actually its the Yanks fault for providing massive bounties for live foreign fighters, funny how just one bullet in Afghanistan by the Northern Alliance would have saved all of this mess for us to have to deal with.
732
TurningWorm – you dont find it incriminating that Hicks who fought in Bosnia and then went to Afghanistan on his on free will to be trained by al-Qaeda??? Hicks is a traitor and i blame the Northern Alliance for all of this mess IMHO.
Looks like Downer could be the Liberal Party President after Kennett ruled himself out.
FG, gusface et al,
It was the terrorists who changed the rules, not us.
Islamic terrorists say – very openly – that their goal is to forcibly convert the West to their brand of Islam. By which they mean (amongst other things) killing innocent people in order to scare the populace. (This is not a “fairy story”, it’s clearly on the public record). Why won’t you take their word for it, that this is their intention? Why would they be lying about it? And don’t you think we (or specifically, our Government) should try to stop this from happening?
You don’t have to approve of what Bush et al have done, to think we ought to do something.
Putting Hicks on a control order is, frankly, a no-brainer as far as I’m concerned.
Glen,
You are now officially a fifth column.
How was he a traitor to Australia? He wasn’t in combat against Australian troops. Get your facts straight.
Glen, wake up. The issue was about the rule of law not Hicks per se. Even ‘traitors’ have legal rights. Or do you believe we should just hang em high and ask questions later?
judy 742
As I said, I won’t engage.
I am well aware of your background.
And your efforts. And those of the others you mention.
For which admiration is too small a term.
Same regards.
But that’s it.
Rod
Many of us are also aware of the aborigines’ woeful child sex abuse etc
Clearly the case & its decision meant different things to many blogers
I THINK this is a fair summary of different views:
Was Rudd uninformed ,
Was Rudd politicising the issue ,
Is Anna Bligh’s decision via DPP to appeal correct ,
Are we blogers entitled to an opinion on the Judges decision on reported facts ,
Are we entitled to rely on Rudd & Bligh’s judgement based on their
departmental officers briefs that ‘ its an appalling decision’
Should blogers read the whole case before forming an opinion
Does the ‘decision’ encourage the perpetrators
I took the PM Kevin Rudd at his word that this type of decision like many before it are NOT JUST appalling in themselves but that the the issue itself is appalling
(and by implication he felt should be addressed). Perhaps I’m being generous
Unfortunately there is no easy fix but the frustration is that we may not even be at the beginning in any area of the aboriginal improvement process
My headache is returning: get off it!!
On the one hand you have Glen a conservative voter villifying Hicks and the other Adam a Labor voter doing the same, sums up politics in this country really.
I doubt that the local spooks regard Hicks as much of a threat. He looks to me like a naive unlucky fellow-traveller. Of couse he will be watched to see if any contacts are made (and to fulfil the terms of the deal with the US), but he would be regarded with deep suspicion by “real jihadists” .
I predict Andrew Denton will interview him before Christmas 2008!
ViggoP and Gary that’s your position but Hicks willingly fought against the combined Coalition forces and thus is a traitor as our forces fought along side other troops in the Afghanistan campaign, it is you that needs to get your facts straight gary.
That is what makes him a traitor, not only that but to train with al-Qaeda or any terrorist organisation is treasonous IMHO.
If i had it my way id tear up his passport and tell him to get out and stay out, this should apply to any person who volunteers for terrorist training.
No ViggoP people like Hicks who have trained with terrorist organisations are the real fifth column.
glen-
The KLA (kosovo liberation army-predominantly muslim) was funded by the CIA
Hicks was leaving the frontline (and possibly the country) when he was bushwhacked.
How is hicks a traitor to australia
This is not a conversation, it’s a competition of egos. See you all tomorrow: I’ll be sober and sane then, and you?
Geez Ron – we were actually fighting on the same side about Hicks. Did you have to go and bring up Aurukun again?!
751
Ferny Grover – yes FG they have the right to be hung IMHO. What questions need to be asked, he was in Afghanistan captured by the NA fighting with the Taliban after being sent their by al-Qaeda with whom he trained with extensively???
Marta Harri got shot for less than that…
Ferney I will retract that last blog
NOW we are still on the same side Ferney
Viggo must admit that is how you feel sometimes.
Oops, seems your site had some difficulties with my post William, I got a database error a couple of times when I hit submit so edited out the ” characters but it added my posts anyway. Hence the triple posting.
This is unbelievable
Adam had a “reserve” army of supporters in Glen & Dyno
So when Adam goes to bed , the ‘reserves’ come to the front line
Glen, he was actually caught at a cab rank, standing by a tank. But anyway, you are running a silly argument which might hold water somewhere like Egypt or maybe Saudi Arabia. Is the irony getting to you?
Glen, firstly there is nothing ‘H’ about your ‘O’. More importantly, you have completely abandoned the concept of the rule of law and the principles of innocent till proven guilty, and are a prime example of why we must never again allow the conservatives to hold power in this country.
Agree entirely, ViggoP 759.
Any chance of getting on to some kind of reasoned topic?
This is the sort of blogrubbage I assume one would encounter on a site such as well, just guessing, Jones, Bolt, Laws et al.
Amusing myself, counting stuff.
Report later.
Dr Haneef , Habib and Hicks
John Howard abandoned our system where you get charged and get a trial
Fortunately the voters abandoned Howard
Good evening all. I have kept low dealing with the “Real World” since the election but I do take a peek on PB once in a while to see how us “PBites” are doing.
It’s been an interesting read.
Adam. You had mention a little while back that you have booked your holiday. No doubt your getting your fill on line before you go. May I say that your contribution here has been “priceless” amongst others who have contributed as well. Have a good break & recharge.
I’ll get in early here & wish all PBites a merry Xmas & a safe holiday season. Again to William B I have made mention how grateful I am that you operate/guardian/gatekeeper this site so we can “exchange” our ideas as we smoke up our keyboards as we spew out our sentiments for all to think & digest & regurgitate as needed. It is a forum democratic cyberdom this that is a trailblaser & it is healthy medium for our democracy.
Again another one bites the dust … that ‘07 & the Howard era. What a great year.
I was thinking the same thing Ron, is Glen a person in disguise who makes out he is conservative but really he is a front provided by Adam to show us just how loony the conservatives are so that we all must vote Labor.
Ferney
“why we must never again allow the conservatives to hold power in this country”
except for the earth wire of HV3P cables
The Liberals WORST NIGHTMARE has come true
Julia has entered the building and IS in charge
I never said he shouldnt be tried, but he is obviously guilty you dont have the gumption to say he is an innocent man FG.
Oh and FG don’t worry because “we’re coming back” and when we do we’ll have to fix the economy after Rudd has blown all our savings and prosperity and once we do that the progressives of the country had better be on their best behaviours.
I don’t think any average Australian believes Hicks is innocent of all his offenses he committed whilst an al-qaeda/taliban fighter in Afghanistan.
Interesting to here the new gos on Habib no wonder that traitor didn’t answer any questions as to what he was doing in Afghanistan hah!
Glen there was a vote and we (Labor) have won the Hicks argument
Please respond to my blog re Julia right now is in charge of Australia – like it ?
Why does the media have to carry on about it, what a women can’t do the job. What next. And why did Gillard fawn or crawl to them, i would have told them to go away and look for some real stories, ah just realised half the media twits have no idea how to research stories.
Crikey Whitey @ 768,
Probably not.
Today has been a conversation of the deaf. Everyone seems to think their view is more superior than anyone elses. Clearly the topics have been more controversial and people have very polarised views.
No one seems to be able to agree on basic facts so the chances of any consensus is almost impossible.
Just a preview of Christmas Dinner with the rellies.
Greensborough the last line is beautiful, love it.
Well GG the GOOD NEWS is we can have these disagreements knowing the Rodent has gone
Also me 7 Ferney have now made up
Ron, ill say what i say whenever i am disgruntled about Australian politics.
‘Serenity Now, Insanity Later’
Thankfully we only have comrade julia as Acting prime minister till thursday.
Yeah Ron’s me mate
Yeah, Greeensborough.
Would be a fascinating poll, this site alone.
Right, wrong, direction.
At least we are free to argue again, I guess.
does anyone have a list of ‘metropolitan’ electorates
(I am not familiar enough with most Capital cities to know which are ‘ metropolitan’
I would like to do an analysis of the postal votes specifically in those seats
Me thinks there is a HUGE increase in the libs postal votes there which is possibly hidden in the total postal vote by the normative postal vote recorded in ‘Country’
type electorates
I would need to extract the info seat by seat (when I know which are metropolitan
any help please
CW writes: Dick Kimber is a South Oz, suburban and school family known to me.
I’ve known Dick for more than 30 years, CW. Last time I saw him was at the funeral of a very good mutual friend, the Central Australian Arrernte statesman and artist, Wenten Rubuntja whom I had the sad honor to co-author an obituary in The Age for (I’m afraid it is a “fee for access” item there now). Dick gave an excellent interview on ABC Radio in the NT about Wenten’s life at the same time.
Dick wrote in the past about some parts of eastern SA and western Victoria that I’m doing some work on myself at present.
Small world, eh!
Cheers
Rod
Ron and Ferny,
Can you guys get a room please!
Part two of Rudd Chinese propaganda video, if you missed it http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g17fxE36QGU&NR=1
Thanks Lefty E
Glen, you sound very young so I’ll go easy on you. The issue of my ‘gumption’ has nothing to do with Hicks’ innocence or otherwise. The problem is that we have not had a legally constituted court to decide that question.
As for the economy – only the most myopic old Tories grimly hang on to their own mythology about their economic superiority. History tells a different story. In fact, it is the ALP who have been the economic fixers and the Tories the economic beneficiaries.
What the Papers Say
The Australian.
Qld Crown Prosecutor stood down. For his remarks as to ‘naughtiness’ child in case.
The Age.
Prof. Bruce Chapman suggests that overseas Australians working overseas beyond 6 months should be repaying HECS debt.
SMH
Transport tunnels.
Private Health fund care rises.
Fin.
Julia turns up pressure on Coalition, Work Places reform.
Nelson needs to look at the detail, Barnaby in favour.
86
Lefty E Says: u tube
very funny Lefty
I will take your insult about sounding young on the chin but i assure you i am not some scruffy 18 year old young Liberal.
FG what are you smoking? How good a financial position did Mr Whitlam leave us in 1975? How well was the economy doing in 1949 when Menzies came to the rescue, or 1932 when Joe Lyons had to take over from an ALP unqualified and incapable of helping us through the depression or how well did Keating do when he gave us a recession, 1 million unemployed and 17% interest rates at their peak?
That is why the Tories are and forever shall be the better economic managers in Australian politics.
Crikey , i think Nelson needs to look at his back wherever Turnbull is
Nelson is like a guy on death row….
knowing the end is near (and wondering whether its worthwhile delaying it)
Rod 784
Good stuff, Rod.
Thought Dick would be known to you. Good that you are together on this stuff.
If I can help with say, editing, collating, whatever, would be happy to do so.
Same prefix, lower case at bigpond-com
Rod
There is an article in Wikipedia on Wenten Rubuntja – you might want to tidy it up.
Lefty E i hope he keeps making them throughout Rudd’s Prime Ministership i like how they are balanced.
Crikey obviously from your comments to Rod you are involved with aborigine stuff
Completely ignore the current case. What would you like Rudd to commence implementing in aboriginal affairs
Ron at 796 I have previously posted on such matters. That is:
SUBMISSION TO MR KEVIN RUDD, PRIME MINISTER ELECT.
‘HOW TO GET TO SORRY’. Suggested Action Plan, Time Line.
BACKGROUND:
Convention is that the Governor General has an expected tenure of 5 years.
Major-General Michael Jeffery (remember him?) was commissioned Governor General on 11 August 2003.
To serve the remainder of the former GG’s term, that is, three years.
As of 30 /11/07, 4 years, 110 days served ( no comment.) 5 years due to expire in mid 2008.
As of December 2007, GG permitted to resume his duties in the position. Courtesy PM of Australia.
PROPOSED STRATEGY:
Momentum political and active, occurs in addressing indigenous issues. NT intervention reviewed and reshaped.
In consultation with stakeholders.
Sorry Legislation flagged. Consultation occurs. Noel Pearson mollified.
Opinion sought in private over logical person for next GG.
Sorry Legislation, of whatever type, is framed.
Date nominated as to its being put before the House.
Current GG announces intended retirement date.
Next GG decision announced.
Professor Lowitja O’Donohue OA. First woman. First aboriginal. National Living Treasure.
Last Australian Governor General. Full circle.
Sorry Legislation passes through HOR, despite Brendan Nelson, Leader of the Opposition.
July 2008. Assented to in the newly constituted Senate.
New Governor General Lowitja O’Donohue signs Legislation. Great fanfare.
Tempus Fugit. Republic put forward as issue for next election. Referendum. New round of suggestions for the Flag.
Rudd Government re elected to second term. Terms of Referendum framed and announced.
President to be elected by the people. Candidates put forward.
Include: Julian Burnside QC. Tim Costello. Malcolm Fraser. Ian Chappell. Fiona Stanley. William Deane. William Bowe. Possum.
Decision made, by the people.
CONCLUSION:
Republic comes into being. More great fanfare.
Former Monarch of Australia attends to anoint decision of the Australian people ( Look, don’t touch, Kevin.)
In attendance, Malcolm Turnbull, Leader of the Opposition. Republican.
Sydney Harbour Bridge closed for Reconciliation walk.
Useful comment still welcome, thanks Ron.
Ron @ #783
RE: Metropolitan electorates
I can’t find a list as such, but the classifications are on the AEC website.
http://www.aec.gov.au/Electorates/Electoral_DPM/Electorates_by_State.htm
Click on each electorate, and look for Demographic Rating:.
The ratings are: Inner Metropolitan, Outer Metropolitan, Provincial and Rural.
The rating seems to be arbitrary where an electorate covers both rural and metropolitan area. For example, Forde, Blair and Dickson all include outer suburbs of Brisbane and rural areas. Forde and Blair are classified as rural but Dickson is classified as outer metropolitan.
756
Chatswood Statsman
I’m pretty much with you on the Hicks affair.
There’s some irony in the fact that guys with buzz cuts and dark glasses get to fly into Iraq with Blackwater, shoot up some civilians after a few drinks, and then get to go home with no questions asked, but that poor fool Hicks gets nabbed before he even gets to join the local civil war. OK, one lot of mercenaries do it for dosh, while the other one really believes the Taliban are the way the truth and the light. Still, it’s hard to envisage Hicks getting p!ssed and killing innocents for kicks, in fact he doesn’t appear to have killed anyone. The way I understand it is that he joined up with the Taliban to fight the Northern Alliance in what was essentially a civil conflict, and the al Qaeda stuff was peripheral. Five years of solitary and stern treatment from guys with buzz cuts seems a little bit out of proportion to the non-existent crime. Even the Taliban didn’t seem to think much of his usefulness as I recall, because they had him guarding a tank! Hmm, dangerous guy!
But as Adam has taken some pains to show us, Hicks is now, like the poor sod in Alice’s Restuarant, a felon, a certified “tear ar wrist”, and needs to be treated as the walking equivalent of e-v-i-l, and if he reports to police a few times a week, doesn’t stay out late at nights, and certianly doesn’t ring up Osama bin Laden on his mobile, then we can all sleep soundly.
Phew, praise the law!
Barry thanks very much for the info – appreciated Ron
Adam,
On that bee you have in your bonnet over the September Newspoll breakdown that I did which seemed to drive a rather large chunk of your last commentary, well you’ll be pleased to know that I’ve repeated that “over analysis” using both the state swings from the election result, and the safe Coalition seat/safe ALP seat/marginal seat swings – the equivalent information that the quarterly Newspoll gives us.
The result is exactly 84 seats projected to fall – which is spot on the money.
It served its purpose – the national pendulum predicts 81 seats off the current ALP TPP vote.
I’ll throw it all up on the site tomorrow – the only difficultly I’m having is just how much to poke you with a stick in the process
Possum , you should show charity to Adam
and not threaten him with your “Howard baseball bat”
Say, William.
How is that we were up to post no. nearing 1000, and I was keeping count, for whatever my reasons, and now it is back to 810, as I post?
I have deleted a bunch of recent comments that were leading the discussion down a very unpsephological path. I ask those involved not to resume the discussion that has disappeared. Obviously I should have done the same with the Aurukun discussion, but I was in a more tolerant mood earlier today.
CW, my comment deletions came after you left your comment and do not explain what you describe, for which I can offer no explanation.
#
647
Peter Kemp Says:
December 11th, 2007 at 9:46 pm
Absolutely agree.
At the Declaration of the Solomon seat today, the outgoing member, David Tollner (CLP) denounced the Coalition election campaign for his loss. He stated that he tried to keep his communications with the local electorate to local issues because “the Coalition approach was at sixes and sevens”. He went on to say that he tried to distance himself whenever possible.
He also said he was not interested in NT Politics. Finally, Dave was being frank.
Somebody must have slipped him some truth serum before the Declaration was held.
I reckon he’ll run again next campaign.
God , is that the time, I mean yesterday (Tuesday).
Glen says:
“Oh and FG don’t worry because “we’re coming back” and when we do we’ll have to fix the economy after Rudd has blown all our savings and prosperity and once we do that the progressives of the country had better be on their best behaviours.”
You’re coming back? Oh really? My advice is not to eat the mushrooms Glen, they contain a particularly potent form of psychogenic. Able Seaman Nelson ate them once but he thinks he got away with it.
Ferny Grover at 627: Admire your perseverence in struggling on. I was unable to stand alongside you last night as the real world got complicated. Morning has broken.
Scaper at 634: Yes, I have come across you on Tim Dunlop’s site, scaper, and have made a few contributions myself. William runs a great site here too, but I must admit its a bit wilder at times! The shouting did surprise me.
GG at 663: This is what I said at 365: “Before you get too hysterical, GG and Ron, the point I was trying to make is that six of the nine “gang-rapists” were children at the time of the offence. So I ask you again, would you condemn your 12 year old child to 20 years to life for rape?”
You seem to be unable to address the question (which is not a strawman question, its an hypothetical), but I understand why. Its hard to look calmly at the possible consequences of your moral outrage. As to your pique at being put on the spot, well tough. My only mistake was not including Glen the executioner in that roundup of the hysterically outraged. And taking the “high moral ground”? Moi? LOL. I thought that was what you were doing GG.
Anyway I have said all I want to say on this subject, and William, thanks for being such a tolerant host.
I’m not sure whether this has been addressed yet… but has anyone noticed some seats on the AEC site have been ‘Declared’ and then have had the ‘Declared’ status removed?
I thought a seat was only declared once all the votes were counted? If that’s the case… why have so many seats changed status?
Some of the seats I’ve noticed change have been Perth, Cowan, Stirling, Leichardt, Fremantle, Isaacs, Dickson and Dennison although there were probably at least another 2.
Is it just a problem with the AEC website or is it demonstrating some flaw in their counting?
All war is terrorism. It’s just that the winner gets to define the history. Possibly (in modern history) with the exception of WWII, one side gives up when it reaches a level of terror it can no longer tolerate.
#805 – William, it’s getting like a Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. Maybe it’s time to do a Groucho Marx.
Do I gather from his post #802 that Possum is claiming credit for correctly predicting the election result two weeks after it has happened? That is an achievement indeed. Us old-fashioned psephologists were trying to predict the result before the election. Silly old us – we should have waited, then we could have got it exactly right as Possum has done. I take it the 30 September table showing Labor winning 112 seats was just a dry run?
LETP #811 The declaration of the poll is entirely at the discretion of the DRO. They don’t have to wait for all the votes to be counted. The Batman DRO could have declared Batman on the Monday morning after the election, but they usually wait a week or so. I’m not sure why a seat would be “undeclared.” Maybe the DRO was over-ruled by the state director, or maybe the AEC website was wrong – it has happened before.
Neophyte at 417: I said at 431 that I would get back to you with a link to the AEC submission to the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters on postal vote applications that are processed through political party offices.
Here is the link: http://www.aec.gov.au/Elections/australian_electoral_system/JSCon_EM.htm
Scroll down to “Inquiry into the Conduct of the 1998 Federal Election” and go to the first submission No 88 of 12.03.99. Its a pdf file so you have to find part 8.6 for the material on PVAs. The last paragraph 8.6.31 summarises as follows:
“…the AEC recognises that it is unlikely that the major political parties would agree to a reversion to the pre-1993 situation where postal voting was entirely managed by the AEC. However, the JSCEM is asked to recognise the fundamental changes to voter behaviour that may be occurring in response to the mass distribution of unsolicited postal vote applications; the significant risks of disenfranchisement that are developing; and the detrimental impacts on the efficiency of AEC operations, and to consider whether this is the direction in which the federal electoral system
should be evolving.”
Graceless Grace,
I said it was a terrible crime, a terrible process and a terrible outcome.
I said the punishment should be appropriate.
I said I am more concerned with the victim than the perpetrators.
Summarising, generally, I said your arguments defending the system that produced this result are “tosh”.
I did not say lynch them and I have not said they should be locked up for twenty years. They are your words so you own them. Disagree with me as much as you like and as loud as you like, but don’t fit me up with your lies and prejudices.
I am not interested in your strawman arguments or your hypotheticals. I simply want to see this matter dealt with properly and justice for the little girl.
My dose of common sense seems to be catchy as Anna Bligh, Jenny Macklin and other noteworthies buy in to this matter. Just because a matter is treated sensationally by the tabloids does not negate its importance or lessen the sense of outrage that is being shouted all over the country.
Adam , I have asked Possum some questions re what I feel are flaws in 3 of the 4 Pollsters polls vs the weekend prior to the Election & have yet to get a reply.
I have put it down to either he is busy or my queries themselves may be flawed but I’ll persist
BUT your #913 comment misunderstood what Possum said at #802.
He is saying he has found new stat ratios that applied when to the Sept News poll and show consistency between them and the same ratios when applied to earlier Newspoll polls despite the headline poll varying……..
and if then applied on those Sept newspoll as a seat predictor would produce a predicted election result of 84 seats…ie a 100% accurate seat forcast
William you should host a live ’show-down’ between the world famous Possum and Adam, perhaps sell tickets (my cut will be very small).
We have to do something until the next election starts in between 8 months and 24 months. That could be a lot of waiting.
jasmine, that might be funny, but your buildup reminds me a little of the selling point of the NZ drink L&P: “World famous in New Zealand”. Not that I’m casting dispersions on the talents of either esteemed gent
Greeensborough Growler justice is a concept that is much larger than one case and involves the accused as well as the alleged victims.
Any sense of justice must be weighed up for both parties in a single case dependent on the outcomes that are to be achieved. As I’ve said once before, I know next to nothing about the facts of the specific case and choose not to comment on it… but surely you understand that a justice system is more involved than dealing out punishments.
Overall, it seems you have a very simplistic view of the justice system. Your opinion on the individual case may be valid, but some of the statements you make don’t work in a general sense.
From the chilly winds of Kamchatcka (and as an objective observer on this point) may I say:
Adam was right
Possum was wrong.
Statistical determinism is no means to determine an election outcome and ignores historical precedent and form hence the wildly inaccurate claims of the possum.
Got to go now – not much power left in the wind up generator.
In what sense are you using ‘wind up’ ESJ?
GG #825
agree.
The flood of our opponents yesterday to the contention that the Judge got it grossly wrong has now become a little trickle because the facts we presented are
now universally accepted.
Rudd despite appealing to the electorate as a fiscal conservative had still in voters
minds not deserted the core ALP values of equity and compassion.
Rudd demonstrated this to voters by saying without qualification that
‘the decision was appalling”.
The conservative Howard would not have done so because MOST of the judiciary is one of the pillars of conservatism and there lies the
ideology difference
Nice to see Edward is doing well at the Political Re-Education Centre. I trust his studies in Chairman Rudd Thought are coming along despite the frostbite. If he applies himself he might be out by 2010.
Joe’s still coming back: http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2007/12/12/2116601.htm?section=justin
My reading of Possum’s analysis was that it was NOT a prediction of the election outcome but a snapshot of voting intentions AT THAT TIME, that is September. Adam and others created a strawman by suggesting that Possum was predicting the election result and then proceeded to attack the strawman, and still seem to be doing it.
Even now, Possum is not making some kind of weird retrospective prediction of the election result, as Adam is suggesting. He was trying to demonstrate that his METHOD of analysis is sound, that is, it works better than the pendulum when it comes to translating polling results into actual seat losses and gains.
Ron and Greensborough Growler
A big thumbs up to both of you, thanks for being a breath of fresh air and as Min would say “Big Hugs”
Seems to me that the lawyer and lawyer loving types here just hate it if any of us “great unwashed” average Joes dare to make an unfavourable comment about the justice system.
We end up with condesending little inane remarks aimed at us,
eg: ignorant, hysterical, losing the plot or in GG’s case have blatent lies told of what he actually says.
Howard and Downer would be proud of these folk, same attitude, they are always right (in their own minds anway)
Main difference between Adam and Possum is the same as that between a clerk and an accountant.
No arguments that Adams site is terrific for research into past elections and contains a wealth of data.
However Possum is more directed at interpreting the polls and other data in trying to predict and determine elections and trends, in doing this of course there will be times when the forecasts don’t match the results.
Want to know the price of a tin of tuna, ask the clerk, want to know how many tins you will sell or may sell in the next 12 months aks the accountant.
I did not create a straw man in relation Possum’s 30 September predictions. When I questioned him as to whether he himself actually believed that there would be swings in the order of those shown by his table, he replied:
“For any given safe government seat, an argument can be made as to why it wont fall. We don’t know exactly which of the safe government seats are guaranteed to topple, what we do know is that there is an average 11.6% swing against the government in its safe seats. For that to be wrong, thousands of people would have had to be telling lies to Newspoll over a 9 month period, which I simply do not believe. So for every safe government seat that swings less than the average amount, others in the same category will swing more, even though an argument can be made for nearly every single one of them as to why they shouldn’t fall.”
So, he did predict a swing of that scale in safe Coalition seats. I said that no such swing would occur. He was wrong and I was right. These are simply facts. I’m not trying to be nasty about it, I have a lot of respect for Possum’s work, as I have said many times. But in this case he erred by placing too much faith in statistics and not enough in other forms of understanding electoral behaviour, and this led him into error.
Not really vera. Some people just have differing perspectives on the issue and think the view offered by Ron and GG is very shallow. In some ways they use very Howard-like arguments, which seek to inject emotion into an issue in an attempt to negate differently considered responses as elitist. You do it yourself by deriding people who think otherwise as lawyers or lawyer-loving types (as if this is meant to be something to be ashamed of). In a very Howard way they assert that you have to condemn the actions of the judge otherwise you are supporting rapists.
What’s going on … ALP only behind now by 60 votes in Bowman.
… We’re coming back!
Adam has produced an interesting, readable, slightly polemic post-mortem of the election.
Worth a read, but I did feel the need to come to the defense of the PollBludger forecasts which are somewhat maligned in his article.
Adam says:
“Thus of 148 Pollbludgers making a prediction, only 23% underestimated the scale of Labor’s victory, while another 27% got it approximately right. Fully half the Pollbludgers overestimated Labor’s victory, some wildly so – 17 predicting that Labor would win 100 seats or more.”
I think Adam was a little harsh on the Pollbludger’s forecasts. By my calculations the forecasts can be summarized as (rounded to the nearest seat):
Mean forecast:87 seats (arithmetic average)
Medium:86 seats (1/2 above, 1/2 below)
Mode: 80 seats (most common forecast)
Standard Deviation (11 seats)
The median forecast is probably the best aggregate measure as it is less affected than the mean can be effect by extravagant forecasts.
So, from a distance of a month from the election the median forecast was within 2 seats of the actually outcome. The median estimate was significantly lower than the number of seat implied by the polls at the time. In other words most bloggers were forecasting a narrowing and overall nailed it to within 2 seats – which, by any reasonable analysis, is very accurate.
The other key statistic is the standard deviation of 11 seats. Without getting too technical, this means the forecasts were all over the shop. In many cases forecasts were a form of wishful thinking (Ashley 146), an act of bravado (Tabitha 0) or an emotional hedge (LETP 68). The accuracy of the “consensus” forecast is even more remarkable given this level of noise.
The analysis confuses the high level of variability (which is true) with a high level of bias (which is false).
Looking at the updates on the AEC site. Robertson and Dickson have both been removed from the close seat category and declared. Congratulations to the very deserving Belinda Neal!
The remaining seats in the close category are Swan, Flynn, McEwen, Bowman and Herbert.
For what it is worth the AEC site analysis of declaration votes in all but one of these seats suggests that the number of votes to be counted (I presume these are votes over which there is some debate and will require the ROs’ decision) is only a handful.
The exception is Bowman where Lamming’s lead is now 60 but where the uncounted votes number 1412 (449 Absent, 834 Provisional, 170 prepoll and -41 postal). Does anyone know how accurate this is – I presume it is fairly accurate as the analysis of declaration votes in the seats that have been declared shows no discrepencies in the count, while those that are not declared continue to show missing votes.
820 ESJ- I was disappointed to see you use the term statistical determinism in the context you did. The more correct term is statistico-determinism as it refers to the INABILITY of any system to correctly predict any future outcome due to a combination of chaos theory (where sensitive dependence on initial conditions takes place) and quantum theory in which all events are only probabilities until they are measured. A statistico-determinist knows that the future can only be predicted with a limited degree of success.
LTEP
After reading your negative posts all the way through the election, pretending to support Labor when all the time your aim was to throw a bucket of cold water over the hopes of Labor supporters, nothing you say IMO has any merit to it.
How hypercritical are you by the way,
“Some people just have differing perspectives on the issue and think the view offered by Ron and GG is very shallow.”
then you have a rant at me for
“deriding people who think otherwise”
so it’s OK for you to deride us(oh master let me tug my forelock”) but how dare we have a different opinion to you!
Adam, I can’t speak for Possum. I can only give my understanding of his analysis of the polls back in September. And at no point did I come away with the idea that Possum was making a rock-solid prediction of the election outcome, and that includes the quote you have just posted.
As it is always the case with polls, it is only ever a snapshot of what is happening in the electorate at that time. We ALL know that future events and issues can turn up that might change the final outcome, and Possum understands this.
Your point about the need to take into account factors other than polls when predicting the election result is obvious, but valuable. I agree, completely. BUT there is a difference between extrapolating polling data to predict the result versus bringing together lots of possible factors, such as local knowledge of seats and individual candidates. The former is always prefaced with the disclaimer that IF an election were held TODAY, then X might be the result. And IF nothing much changes between now and the election, then these poll results might hold up to election day. There are always conditions. But the latter approach tries to take into account all these conditions, or rather, all the possible IFs and THENs in order to formulate a prediction.
Both approaches are fine and valuable. But I think that you have fallen into the trap of overlaying your approach onto Possum’s, and therefore misreading the aims and value of his analysis. You both seem to talk at cross-purposes for much of the time.
Dammit!, lets have this out either at Possums or Adams, its too confusing trying to follow the argument in three differant places.
Vera ,
LEP says he view offered by Ron and GG is very shallow
It was the view of our PM Rudd % our Anna Bligh ! We simply defended them.
Vera, we won the debate because no one now disputes the facts we presented
to prove the decision was appalling (nor indeed did LEP even try to !)
LEP merely used “Howard speak” ie. talk ..& never acknowledge you’re wrong
My blog was intended to take the discussion to the core ideology difference between the Partys which Rudd’s unqualified ‘appalling’ statement highlighted.
Howard & Costello & Nelson would not have done so. Hawke & Keating would
I’m with Adam. Track back through elections, and 2007 has produced a very normal looking result. As often occurs, one state stuck out against a trend, in this case WA. The swings were all pretty evenly distributed, with obvious stand outs like Dawson, Leichhardt and Wentworth. Most of the outliers fall under the category ‘circumstances’ to my eye. Bennelong was very close to the national swing. The election was decided in the marginal seats, and in particular, it was seats on the edges of the major cities with a higher than average proportion of home buying young families. That’s an area that has been for most changes of government since 1945. There is evidence of good sitting MPs being able to depress the swing in their seat, but this wasn’t in the most marginal seats.
What isn’t there is any evidence of marketing nonsense like “Doctor’s wives”. I hope it is the last time we hear of that term. Nothing odd happened in North Sydney, Higgins, Goldstein or McPherson.
I’m with Adam about some of Possum’s statistical analysis. On one or two occassions I said he was doing things to the Newspoll data that should only be done by consenting adults in private, though it was dodgy reading rather than anything Freudian that caused me to refer to him as Possum Coitus on that occassion.
I also think a few people over-cooked census data and fell into ecological fallacy, assigning attributes to individual voters from aggregate attributes of electorates. One in particular comes to mind, suggesting a big swing in Bennelong and Wentworth based on the above average proportion of young voters.
vera, there’s a difference between saying someone’s argument is shallow and deriding them by suggesting they support rapists. One attacks an argument, the other a person… a very simple distinction.
On your first point I won’t bother responding to that attempt to throw in something else to derail a completely unrelated line of argument. I’d say something of your posts through the election if I remembered them. Unfortunately…
Ron, I’ve stated a few times that I have no knowledge of the decision beyond media reports so I will not comment. My posts were merely in defence of Grace, who I think has been unfairly attacked.
However, I do believe Howard would’ve said the decision was appalling. I don’t think there’s a clearly distinguishable difference between the parties on the issue. One thing I did like though, was Ms Bligh’s comments on the 7.30 Report last night on the need to respect the separation of powers… something you seem to have rejected on at least one occasion.
Am I right in assuming Rudd made his comments in response to questioning? Howard would’ve made it unsolicited, therefore seeking to gain political capital from it.
Since it’s turned into a cat/dog-fight here, see yas later. I preferred the election stuff.
Ron at 822 said:
“The flood of our opponents yesterday to the contention that the Judge got it grossly wrong has now become a little trickle because the facts we presented are
now universally accepted.”
What self delusional rubbish. You have not presented ‘facts’; you have merely passed on what you picked up in the media and added your own hysterical intepretation to it. Nor has your interpretation of these matters been “universally accepted” – unless you inhabit a different universe. The original contention that the PM passed comment on the case in reliance only on what he heard in the media still stands (yes Ron, I know you argue that he was fully briefed prior to his comments but he wasn’t. I checked. Read the transcript.
There are other reasons why the likes of me have not commented further that have nothing to do with ‘acceptance’ of your position. Here’s 3:
1. Sleep makes it hard to correspond legibly
2. Work is an annoying but necessary distraction from this site
3. William has asked us to drop this topic.
So I will.
Robertson disappears from Close Seat radar screen, declared to be a Labor seat (50.11%).
Congratulations to Belinda Neal.
Grace at 814 – thanks for the link; I will get myself there as soon as some work commitment (too bad about the real world) are out of the way. Thanks again.
I am puzzled – why aren’t we discussing here ‘the significant risks of disenfranchisement’ through postal votes that Grace at 814 and earlier has highlighted?
Well I’m not sure which risks she’s talking about.
Seldom has any candidate had to put up with the relentless denigration and rubbishing that Belinda Neal has been subjected to. I still can’t find out exactly what is supposed to be so terrible about her except that she belongs to the NSW ALP Right and is married to John Della Bosca – such terrible crimes. Well, she has knocked off a Howard government minister in a difficult seat which is demographically trending away from Labor, so she has the last laugh. Stick it to ‘em Belinda.
Neophyte, I’m not sure why the AEC is concerned that the political parties would not be in favour of a return to the system where the AEC handled all postal votes. Frankly, I’m not in favour of the fox guarding the chickens and I don’t much care if this view upsets the fox. The current system is wide open for interference and must be stopped. The AEC is the only body to handle the voting process. Allowing the parties to do so is indefensible.
Agree FG -and I’d even go so far as bringing the whole HTV election procedures under AEC control so that we don’t get hoodwinked and harrassed on polling day. Other countries do it without the mayhem.
Isn’t it worth Labor asking for a recount in Bowman? If Fran Bailey can get it, why not Jason Young?
BTW: won’t information on the McEwen recount start trickling out, despite the AEC’s edict that no results will be posted until the process is finished?
I have reservations about Belinda Neale, but it’s a mighty fine achievement winning Robertson and knocking off Jim Lloyd, so congratulations to her!
Overall: the surprise results for me were Labor picking up Forde, Dawson, Leichcardt AND Bennelong(I honestly didn’t think Maxine would get there).
My seat of Berowra: a 5% swing against Ruddock, and his 2PP vote down to 58/9%. And, the Labor party almost won the Pennant Hills booth near where I live – unbelievable!
Quite honestly I’ve never felt harassed or hoodwinked on election day by HTV people from the parties, I just walk right past them. I still don’t really see the need for party how-to-vote cards though. Surely it’s not hard to understand you put a 1 for who you want to be elected and then number all the rest for who you’d prefer your vote to go to should that person not receive enough votes.
Megan but other countries don’t have preferential voting, we do. Now if we had first past the post voting then nobody who have to be harassed by HTV people and it would be simple to count ballots with less chance of them being invalid for some reason or another.
If it’s good enough for Canada and the UK i dont see why it couldnt be good here. And before you say oooh what about the minor parties missing out, well look at the LDP in the UK who holds several seats in the House of Commons and the NDP in Canada who holds about 30 seats in their House of Commons.
I’m growing more in favour of first past the post.
Glen it’s got nothing to do with the minor parties missing out. It’s the fact that the most preferred candidate would not be elected. That is, the candidate should be preferred by over 50% of the electorate. If the Libs got 40% in one seat, ALP 39% and Greens 21%, quite obviously the people wouldn’t prefer the Lib candidate although they’d be elected.
But LTEP they are still the most preferred candidate, and what is democratic about having minor parties deciding which major party wins seats???
LTEP, you must be a local , used to running the gauntlet. I came here 20+ years ago and even though I have since been booth captain,etc., I still get the collywobbles. I have noticed that it is people from o/s and whose English is poor who can be hesitant and confused, and there is no non-aligned help available.
The AEC must be reading the blog! The analysis of declaration votes in Bowman has now been upgraded so that there are no outstanding votes. Lemming wins by 60?
Glen, you’re seriously suggesting the 19% of Greens voters in that hypothetical seat would prefer the Liberal candidate?
The minor parties don’t decide who wins the seat. The voters decide who wins the seat, which is exactly what the system should be. A first past the post system makes it much more likely for the country to have a government which more than 50% of the population would prefer not to have.
I think Grace expressed it fairly way back at 384 and the AEC submission at 814 gives it even more substance. Quoting Grace (384) – “I agree about the postal votes. They simply have to have better supervision. I can’t see why the AEC shouldn’t just do it all. The current system is simply too open to abuse, but of course none of that was addressed by the lovely Eric Abetz in his crusade to ensure the ‘integrity’ of the electoral roll. Frankly, I don’t think he’d know what integrity was if it bit him on the nose.”
Jenny, Eric Abetz initiated the Liberal Party crusade on the “integrity” of the electoral roll, but it was taken to its grubby completion by Christopher Pyne, as Chairman of the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters in 2001.
Over the past decade, the two major political parties have radically intervened in the independent administration of the electoral system by the AEC, without most australians knowing what is going on. By sending official AEC postal vote applications, attached to party political propaganda, right into your home, the parties have given themselves permission to corrupt an important aspect of the voting system.
Many voters innocently assume that the material has been sent to them by the AEC and trustingly post their applications back to the political party HQs in each division, using the printed envelope conveniently provided, assuming this is the way it should be done.
In the party offices the private information provided by the voter on the application is recorded and matched against computerised databases, where the name of every voter in that division is listed, plus any other personal information that the party might have added over time to describe the voters preferences.
The Privacy Act exempts these political party databases (Electrac and Feedback) from public scrutiny so you have no idea what information is held on you by the political parties (a good reason incidentally for using pseudonyms on blogs like these, that are regularly trawled by party workers for voter information to add to their databases).
The AEC regularly reports after elections, that a significant number of postal vote applicants have written in to complain that they never received their postal ballot papers after sending through their applications. Is it not a reasonable supposition that their applications were deliberately not passed on by political party workers, after they consulted their databases for those who might not vote their way? There is no outside supervision over any actions taken in party offices when they are handling your postal vote application.
Should we not be concerned that our voting system is gradually being skewed by the ever increasing number of postal votes (recorded well before polling day) at each succeeding federal election? Voters are increasingly bypassing the AEC and using this political party system to apply for postal votes because of its undoubted convenience, apparently oblivious to the fact that the privacy of their voting information is being compromised by partisan players who have no business intervening in the administration of the electoral system.
Anyone who objects to this creeping corruption might consider sending a submission to the parliamentary Joint Standing Commission on Electoral Matters, which will convene early next year to review the 2007 federal election.
End of rave (for the moment).
Neophyte says: Whatever the vested interests in keeping the status quo, it makes me pretty uneasy. But then I am only a neophyte.
Lose the election at 811: There has been some concern expressed about the changing tallies and other data on the AEC website over the past few days, which must be very annoying for the dedicated psephologists here (and MelbCity).
But its worth noting that the formal Declaration of the Poll at the office of the Divisional Returning Officer is the only legally sound basis on which to assume the counting in that division is really finished.
The formal declarations for all divisions are then centralised and collated, the list of winning candidates is signed off by the Electoral Commissioner, and the Writ for the Election is then forwarded to the Governor-General (and at this point the starter’s gun goes off for the 40 day period in which petitions can be made to the Court of Disputed Returns).
See section 284 of the Electoral Act here: http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/legis/cth/consol_act/cea1918233/s284.html
What is on the AEC website may be subject to errors and omissions as electoral officials try to get on with the real job of counting ballot papers in the 150 divisional offices across the country, and keep up a running data record on the website for those who are interested. I think Antony Green has made this point previously.
At present preferential voting works in Labor’s favour, so we should retain it. The only situation where it doesnt would be those three cornered ones where Labor manages to finish just ahead of the Libs and Nats. Not that there are many of those, maybe a handful
PM Kevin Rudd, wow still not used to it, is adderssing the Bali Conf live!
on skynews
No im saying that out of the 3 parties you made reference to the Liberals out of the 3 were the most preferred candidate with 40% thus they win by FPP system.
LTEP, check how many seats Labor won with Greens preferences over the past decade and they add up.
Some countries dont have a choice with that LTEP like Canada who has a minority conservative government in power with 125 seats out of 300 odd but they’re still a strong country.
Thanks,LTEP. Am intrigued by all the complexities in what seemed a fairly straight -forward process.
This preferential system must be to politics what Cricket is to Sport.
The crowning glory, Megan?
Glen, Labor won those seats because they had the more preferred candidate in those seats. That means, if the Greens voters couldn’t get their most preferred candidate then they wanted a Labor member over a Liberal member.
Whether it’s Labor or Liberal that win the seat is of no interest to me. What matters is that the person elected gets the majority support in a seat.
Countries with first past the post systems have it because they won’t change. We’ve already made that change and it’d be ridiculous to deform back to an older and less democratic system. Canada almost always has a minority government due mostly to Montreal (I think). This brings about unstable governments. I think the average term of government is less than 2 years. Whether or not they’re strong has nothing to do with whether their government is conservative or not and in fact, in Canada a progressive party is usually in Government.
Is Bennelong declared yet or what? Centrebet still hasn’t paid out!
Glen, here’s an example:
31% The Extreme Right Party
29% The Very Right Party
40% The Loony Left Party
With first-past-the-post the LLP candidate would be elected, even though only 40% of the electorate is lefty. With preferential voting, the ERP and VRP would exchange preferences and the ERP candidate would be elected, and 60% of the electorate would be happy with that. The preferential system works well, but preferences should be optional (as should voting at all).
No LTEP in many seats Labor finishes blow the Tory candidate and wins because of the minor parties. The Tory candidate was the most preferred out of each individual candidate but because of preferences they lose.
Canada has only had minority governments in the last two elections and very rarely in their long history have they had minority governments even with first past the post voting LTEP.
The Duke… not yet. You can see if a division has been declared yet on this page:
http://vtr.aec.gov.au/HouseDivisionMenu-13745-NAT.htm
aspidistra, if preferences were optional if noone decided to direct preferences the loony left party candidate would still be elected, even though they would not be the most preferred candidate. Optional preferential has the exact flaws that FPP has.
I also believe voting should be compulsory, but that’s a much longer argument I believe we’ve all had on a few occasions.
869
aspidistra S – but they were the most preferred candidate out of the three therefore they are elected. Agree with you on your last two points though.
Glen, you don’t seem to be following the argument on most preferred candidate.
Arguments for preferential voting:
CHUAVE OPEN
===================================================================
Candidate Party Votes %
——————————————————————-
David ANGGO NTP 4,495 09.0
Temai Timothy Komane 2,853 05.7
Mann Kurupo Michael PLP 2,494 05.0
George Goi Mume 2,720 05.4
Jim Nomane PMCP 4,033 08.1
Felix Nime Tapie PAP 3,190 06.4
31 others 30,124 60.3
——————————————————————-
Total 49,909
Informal 62
Total 49,971
——————————————————————-
Anggo wins with 9% of the vote. 91% voted against him. There were 37 candidates, not a high number for a PNG seat. Some have over 50.
The ALP lost many seats in the 60’s due to DLP preferances so its petty to whinge about the preferance flow these days
LTEP (871), it’s up to the ERP and VRP voters to realize the importance of directing preferences in this case. It’s their choice if they want a right-wing representative.
Compulsory voting completely contradicts the principle of democracy. You must express your freedom to choose on threat of a fine. That is ridiculous. In a real democracy you should be able to express anything, including nothing at all if that’s how you feel. Also, every vote would really count. I have no doubt that some seats have been decided by the donkey vote before. These are votes by people who just don’t care. Why does any candidate deserve those votes?
Adam predicted 8-0 seats based on “gut instincts” which must have been influenced in part by polling. Possum predicted 89 seats based on regression modelling (using historical poll data.) One was 4 seats out, the other 5. Isn’t this just splitting hairs?
Would we be having this debate re voting methods Glen if the Libs had just scraped back in with some of their seats being decided on preferences? I think not.
aspidistra we’ll agree to disagree on both points.
875
Historic Election – i bet you would of been unhappy about that in the 1950s and 1960s. Plus it was your fault the split happened you have only yourselves to blame, the Greens sprung up from nowhere.
The problem is having to vote for parties you dont want and having minority groups decide election results that’s what i dislike.
Glen
Haha, wasnt alive in the 50’s and 60’s, just interested in what happened but yer the split was Evatt’s fault at the time. “Hope i dont spur emotions”. Its just that preferances have historically favoured both sides in different times
HE just as if the Liberals split into conservatives and small l liberals we’d be to blame for vote splitting, but we now have a system where radicals like the Greens can help decide election results.
The only thing that made me unhappy Glen about the 50’s and 60’s was having a so called Democratic LABOR Party preferencing the Libs, not the process.
But didnt the DLP help the Tories win seats when the ALP may have won on primaries???
At least with the Greens you expect them to favour Labor. You don’t have a Liberal off shoot purposely keeping the Libs out of office out of spite.
Glen
You may need to be a bit concerned about party stability during this time with ppl like Alex Hawke in the party
880
Glen, if I can’t have a Green for my MP then I’m happy – for the moment – to settle for the ALP. The point has already been made that it’s voters note parties who express preferences. And I seem to recall some commentary by you on how ornery Greens voters are when it comes to following a HTV. Kinda says it all really.
I absolutely do not want to be in a situation where I – along with maybe 65% of my fellow electors are represented by a politician whose platform we disagree with. That is plain anti-democratic.
Glen – preferential voting was introduced so the various conservative parties didn’t cannibalise each other’s primary votes. Don’t go crying to mummy because now the system benefits ALP more than the Coalition.
882
So you are saying that ‘radicals’ like the Greens shouldn’t have their vote mean anything? We’re talking about voters whose vote counts just the same as anyone else’s. Why not just disenfranchise them, then? If they are too stupid to choose a major party, then they are obviously too stupid to vote. I find your elitism breathtaking.
#881 just looking back over the past 24 hours or so. Since when have “hugs” or (retch) “big hugs” been allowed on this blog. Reminds me of a Christian fellowship camp I somehow ended up at as an 11 year-old.
Thanks William for getting rid of the hundreds of tedious posts relating to a certain rape case.
Ahhh
Yes Glen, but that doesn’t mean the process is bad. I can’t see how winning a seat by receiving 40% of the vote, while 60% don’t want you, is democratic. Explain to me how it is.
Possu,s 30 September article predicted 112 seats.
892
No it didn’t
Sorry Historic Election, wasn’t referring to you, or anyone in particular, with that last post.
Well if you count all the primary votes of the parties other than the ALP and you’ll find an interesting statistic dyspnoeia??
While 5,386,433 voted for the ALP…
7,539,373 did not vote for the ALP…
Hence more people didnt want Rudd than wanted Rudd if we are going by primary votes here.
No system is perfect and that includes ours IMHO.
Ah, but Glen because of our preferential system we know more people preferred Rudd than Howard. That is the strength of the preferential system right there in your figures and the weakness of the first past the post system.
Re: Adam,
Would someone be kind enough to tell me the name or link for Adam’s website. Both he and Possum Com are egregiously entertaining and incredibly cogent.
Duke,
IASbet and others paid off on Bennelong ages ago. I made a motza on Maxine. Lol
By the way Glen, how many voted for the conservatives and how many didn’t want them?
Actually no because Rudd was not the first choice of the majority of people Gary.
I am pointing out Gary that this system is flawed like all others.
Glen, come on . . .
You are fatuously ignoring the fact that 5.4M chose the ALP and 5.2M chose the coalition and 3M chose someone else. A healthy majority of that 3M preferred to take the ALP as second best.
Hence the TPP:
Liberal/National Coalition 5,770,710
Australian Labor Party 6,477,086
Australia is represented by the party most favoured by 53% of its population
oops 2.5M chose someone else – forgot the informal 0.5M who got to choose no-one at all
Well Glen the moment you come up with a system that is flawless let us know. You can only choose the best of a bad bunch. IMHO this system is superior to the first past the post system and that is what we have been discussing.
By dyspnoeia neither the Tories nor Labor had the majority of first preferences of voters.
But the ALP was not most favoured by a majority of electors hence the 2.1M gap between those who voted for the ALP and those who did not with their first preferences. Hence there are inherent flaws in all systems even our one.
Maybe you should just commit suicide then, Glen.
So what do you think about run-off elections then Glen?
892 & 893
I think what the September 30 analysis by Possum shows is that, if the Newspoll was right and swings within categories (safe and marginal) were evenly applied then Labor would have won 112 seats.
That is an analysis of the Newspoll data; not I think, a prediction.
Glen: I bet you wouldn’t be criticising the electoral system if the Howard Government had been reelected! You’re so transparent!
906
Andos the Great – i would ask you to apologise for that remark you’re nothing but a bully!
I hope William deletes your vicious personal abuse!
Dunno dyspnoeia though in countries where that happens it is not compulsory voting so we enter another conundrum all interesting debates we can have here but im off.
Re:First Past the Post
Let us ponder one of the worst consequences of FPTP in our time:
The third Party Candidate in the US Presidential election of 2000, Ralph Nader, takes enough votes away from Al Gore in marginal states (most infamously Florida) to allow the Republican-appointee majority judges in the US Supreme Court to hand the Presidency to the Republican candidate (all Democratic Party appointed Court judges disagreed with the majority opinion).
With pref system, the future Nobel Prize Guy wins. By the way, tremendously pleased to see that Al Gore gave specific praise to our new Australian government in his prize day speech.
click on their names or
Adam = http://psephoblog.wordpress.com/
Possum = http://possumcomitatus.wordpress.com/
Hobosexual @ 912
Most thoughtful of you, mate. I’ve not seen Adam’s site before, but frequently visit Poss. Com.’s excellent site.
Some belated commentary on today’s comments action. Greensborough Growler: can you tone it down a bit please. Andos the Great: I realise your comment was not intended to be as offensive to Glen as it was, but you should perhaps have realised how it might have been construed.
Prof Higgins,
Did you really mean “egregiously” as in “extraordinary in some bad way; glaring; flagrant: an egregious mistake; an egregious liar.” [Dictionary.com Unabridged]?
Sorry, I come from pedantic stock.
Mmm, Glen is good at selective construing.
A Kevin story: Apparently when applying for the job as Wayne Goss’ chief of staff, our peripatetic PM asked if it would be alright if….maybe….if it wasn’t too much trouble…he could perhaps have every 4th Sunday off. Yes that’s right folks, Kevin only wanted one day a month off. Makes you feel like a total lagard doesn’t it. Our beloved newly minted and sparkly PM is, and has always been, a workaholic. Have some compassion for his team.
lol, you are the most ridiculous person Glen, even when your trying to make a show of being offended. Next time just call him an ass and move on
Mr speaker Mr speaker!
lol, totally…
Glen @ 758 wrote:
I’ve written before that I was mostly a Liberal voter until the former government resorted to naked racism/bigotry for electoral advantage with Tampa, kiddies overboard lies, Pacific Solution etc, and that the defining moment for me came after the Cronulla riots when there were calls for those not born here to be stripped of their citizenship and deported if they broke the country’s laws, effectively creating two classes of citizens, a privileged first class favoured by accidents of birth, and a second class of those who because they arrived a little later in life would never really be true Aussies no matter how long they lived here, or what they did. An, IMO, abhorrent concept fueled by events such as Tampa and which, if the government didn’t actively encourage it, they also did little to dispel.
Now it appears that the Howardista fellow travelers – “good Australians” like yourself Glen – want to strip even the locally born of their rights. Moreover, they don’t actually need to do anything illegal, for, as the former government often stated, Hicks broke no Australian law (or Afghani and American ones either). Heck, they don’t actually have to harm any person, or damage any property. They merely have to undergo some military type training in a (former CIA) terrorist training camp and sprout some poorly understood, deluded ideology.
If that is your argument, Glen, then what would you suggest as a fitting punishment for those Australians who co-ordered the illegal invasion of a sovereign country that presented no threat to any of the invaders, caused the deaths of perhaps a million people and the displacement of another 4 million, and created the world’s largest terrorist training camp?
Or what about those Australians who chearfully gave a declared enemy of this country $300 million, or those who apparently looked the other way when it was happening while simultaneously conspiring to go to war against the recipient, Glen? How many American or British lives do you think were taken by munitions purchased with the AWB bribes, Glen?
If you want to punish traitors, Glen, I suggest you first take a long, hard look at some of your avowed heroes!
I think we all need a laugh.
Check out Nigel Scullion’s exploits….and I suggest you also read the comment (in the section below the article) from “Mick”.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2007/12/12/2116671.htm
I, for one, am pleased that Nigel Scullion is Shadow Minister for Fisheries.
Beautifully said, MayoFeral.
The core of the ALP is equity & fairness which this ALP PM has upheld
despite the legal fraternity’s precious sensitivities
The basis of the PM’s assertion has not been challenged by anyone since
The correctness of the facts the PM relied on hasn’t been challenged by anyone
GG , Vera , me & others correctly defended the PM’s right to make the statement on a quite clear National issue and defended the correctness of the statement.
I have no doubt the 99% of Labor (as well as Liberal) supporters also agree
‘Pin pricking’ claims somehow the PM was at the time allegedly uninformed when the issue was SO GRAVE is the reason why the public rate Lawyers so poorly
There was another category of opponents however in deference to the blog I will not comment
Ferny Grover
He’s a live wire isn’t he and the cabinet will try to keep up…but I am impressed by his calculated demeanor on important issues.
He certainly deserves the respect and I look forward to meeting him.
Crumbs Mayoferal – you’re sexy when you’re morally aggrieved