With electorate results progressively being declared, I will start appending my election guide entries with overviews of results for each seat. All five seats in Tasmania have been declared, so that seems a good place to start.
Bass provided Labor supporters with cause for nagging doubt during the early part of the count, with the smaller booths outside Launceston delivering a seemingly insufficient swing. In Scottsdale the swing to Labor was below the required 2.6 per cent, and Liberal member Michael Ferguson in fact picked up a small swing in Bridport. The turning point came when the big Launceston booths began to report, with Labor swings as high as 7.6 per cent at Summerhill and 8.1 per cent in Newnham. The other notable feature of the result was a big surge to the Greens who were able to monopolise the anti-pulp mill vote, pushing their support up from 8.1 per cent to 15.3 per cent at the expense of both major parties. This was reasonably consistent throughout the electorate with the interesting exception of Scottsdale, where the increase was only 0.8 per cent. Nothing particularly remarkable happened in George Town, the centre closest to the actual site of the mill.
The pattern of voting across Braddon was remarkably similar to the 2001 election, with voters reverting to type after the convulsion of Labor’s forestry policy in 2004. A large number of booths have produced double-digit swings first one way and then the other, including Acton in Burnie and East Devonport, along with the smaller town booths of Montague, Latrobe, Smithton. Coastal centres outside of the big towns, such as Wynyard, Somerset, Penguin and Ulverstone, followed relatively small swings to Liberal in 2004 with relatively small swings to Labor this time. However, Sid Sidebottom’s overall margin of 1.4 per cent (from a two-party swing of 2.6 per cent) is substantially lower than his 6.0 per cent from 2001. Predictions that the Mersey Hospital would boost the Liberals in Davenport at the expense of a backlash in Burnie received fairly modest support, Burnie collectively swinging 4.4 per cent compared with 1.2 per cent in Davenport. Despite a quite healthy lift on the Greens’ primary vote from 5.6 per cent to 8.1 per cent, Braddon remains their weakest Tasmanian seat.
Lyons produced a superficially status quo result, except that Liberal renegade Ben Quin gouged 9.6 per cent of the primary vote directly at the Liberals’ expense. However, this obscures big swings to Labor concentrated in the southern part of the electorate, particularly just outside Hobart at Brighton and New Norfolk. The 1.3 per cent lift in the Greens’ vote was the smallest in the state, presumably because much of the pulp mill protest vote was absorbed by Quin. Both major parties were slightly down slightly on the primary vote in Denison, the slack being taken up by a 4.0 per cent lift for the Greens. This converted into a 2.3 per cent two-party swing to Labor. Franklin was one of only four seats in the country to swing to the Coalition, due to the loss of retiring Harry Quick’s personal vote and perhaps also lingering static surrounding Kevin Harkins’ disendorsement. The Labor primary vote was down from 46.4 per cent to 41.4 per cent while the Liberals were up from 37.7 per cent to 41.0 per cent, with the Greens up from 11.1 per cent to 14.4 per cent. The Liberal two-party swing was 3.1 per cent.
A couple of other updates are in order:
• As most of you are aware, a recount began today in McEwen following Labor candidate Rob Mitchell’s six vote win over Liberal member Fran Bailey. Progressive results will not be posted, so I guess we all just have to wait a week until the AEC tells us what has happened.
• In other close result news, rechecking has reduced Liberal member Andrew Laming’s lead in Bowman to just 64 votes, although there does not seem to be any dispute that he has won the seat.
• A definitive result in O’Connor will have to await a full distribution of preferences, which to my limited knowledge is yet to be published in any electorate. There still remains a mathematical possibility that Nationals candidate Philip Gardiner can overhaul Labor’s Dominic Rose with Greens and other preferences and then defeat Liberal member Wilson Tuckey on Labor preferences. However, the possibility has been diminished by a weak Nationals performance on declaration votes, which has reduced their election night total of 18.4 per cent to 17.7 per cent, leaving a 2.7 per cent deficit against Labor that will need to be closed through Greens and other minor party preferences.
• Two other strong performances by independents should be noted. In Calare, Gavin Priestley might overtake Labor on preferences and leave John Cobb of the Nationals with a fairly narrow win on two-candidate preferred. However, Cobb’s 48.5 per cent primary vote is high enough that he does not face a serious prospect of defeat. In neighbouring Parkes, independent Tim Horan has polled 20.7 per cent. This is unlikely to be enough for him to overhaul Labor’s 25.4 per cent on preferences, which is just as well for Nationals candidate Mark Coulton who has pulled up short of a primary vote majority on 46.8 per cent.
379 Comments
Any idea what the flow of Greens’ preferences in Bass and Braddon was?
Maxine has officially won Bennelong!!! GREAT!!!
In my opinion, the declaration ends the Vampire Lord’s reign finally. From the time Rudd became Labor leader, the stake was slowly being worked into the Vampire Lord’s heart; and was driven through the heart shortly before the election. On election night, the Vampire Lord’s head was cut off, as he was forced to concede defeat. On Dec 3, Rudd was officially sworn in as PM, and the Vampire Lord’s body was burnt. Today, the ashes have been scattered.
Grog, the AEC will eventually give minor party pref flows for all seats and nationally, but it’s not a high priority at the moment.
The Scottsdale booth is interesting, in a bizarre family sort of way. A lot of him indoors rellies live there, and could be described as strange, to say the least. Him indoors father escaped by running away to sea. This did not occur to the rest of them.
Thanks Lord D - wasn’t sure when/if it was done.
Strange in the sense that all Vandemonians are strange, or conspicuously strange even by their high standards?
Anthony Green’s numbers are showing the ALP primary fell 1.8% in Tasmania, the only state to experience a fall in primaries.
is this all due to the Franklin result or was it wider……
Haven’t seen a state based 2PP for the ALP yet, it must have gone up on the back of the green vote, anyone have any idea how much?
Due to the growing positive popularity of the Greens I would have thought, Squiggle.
Another interesting question is why so many absentee votes were rejected in Swan. Seems to be a substantially higher proportion than in the other “close seats”.
I wonder if there was perhaps a stuff up at a major booth in a nearby electorate, or a tougher approach by the local AEC officials than in other places?
Tas 2PP swing was 2%, less than in WA. Still Labor has won Tasmania at every eelction since 1993.
Good to see H*ward finally conceding.
I’d almost given up the other day, reducing me to an unbecoming rant for which I was chastised (somewhat deservedly so).
I have to say full credit to him - in the end, he was gracious in defeat.
Finally we can close this awful chapter of Australian political history and consign it to the trash heap.
Tasmania is the most working-class state. Labor will always win if an election is fought on a class-based issue, as this one was. So long as Labor does not pander to the Greens too much they will go on winning. (Tasmania has the highest Green vote but the other 80% hate them.)
Who’d have thought Franklin would be the seat to swing the most to the Coalition?
I have been amazed over many months at the venom directed at John Howard. In particular the very ungracious way his defeat (and supposed refusal to concede) in Bennelong has been commented on.
John Howard has shown that whatever you may say about his politics, he is a gracious and generous opponent. I cannot imagine any other former Prime Minister attending the declaration of the vote after such a defeat.
It is certainly different to Paul Keating’s leaving of the stage. Apparently he didn’t get out of bed for 6 months after 1996.
Some posters on this blog should take a long cold shower and remember that after all it is just politics.
Stuart, I’m sorry, but it’s “just politics” until Mr H*ward personally decides whether or not *your* relationship should have legal standing. It’s “just politics” until he sends *your* son to war for political and not national defence reasons.
Just because his venomous policies didn’t affect you personally, it doesn’t mean it didn’t affect others who reacted in kind.
William is dead right in pointing out the flip-flopping in Braddon where the reversion to Labor of those timber voters who went Liberal in 2004 has restored the seat to Labor.
Concerning Lyons there is a similar pattern and the swing back to Adams cannot be put down solely to Liberal disunity. Considering the list of booths with >9% 2PP swings to Labor, we have Brighton, Buckland, Campania, Forcett, Glenora, Bothwell, Magra, Maydena, Mole Creek, New Norfolk and NN North, Port Arthur, Pyengana, Queenstown, Taranna, Triabunna, Tunbridge and Tunnack. About two thirds of these are timber areas.
There is something screwy going on with Ben Quin not surprisingly winning Sidmouth and Gravelly Beach on primaries (which are both in the impact zone of the pulp mill) but the two other booths he won on primaries are Chudleigh in the Meander Valley and the western mining town of Rosebery. Queenstown and Rosebery are more or less adjacent and I can only guess that one of the major employers in Rosebery liked Mr Quin for some reason, or that he has strong connections there.
But the most interesting analysis I am working on re Tasmania concerns Bass and the impact of the pulp mill on the major party contest. Defining the “anti-mill vote” as the vote for the anti-mill independent plus the booth swing to the Greens, there were two major centres of anti-pulp-mill voting in Bass, these being the East Tamar and urban Launceston, but looking at the 2PP swings in the booths in these areas the pattern is inconsistent even in the booths with high anti-mill votes. Of the 18 booths with an “anti-mill vote” (as defined above) >10%, ten of them exceeded the average 2PP swing to Labor while eight were below it. It is very very difficult in the Bass stats to find any actual evidence that the pulp mill affected the 2PP result at all. Not saying it’s not there, but if it is it’s well and truly buried.
By the way the most likely reason not much happened in George Town is that that community is split between those opposing the mill for lifestyle reasons and those supporting it for employment.
Concerning Green preferences in Bass we know that Campbell thumped Ferguson 8789:3513 on preferences (ouch!) and that 9745 of the preferences were Green. We’ll have to wait for the final distribution but obviously Campbell was very very heavily favoured on Green preferences, as the ALP always will be in Tasmania however much forest-protest types might wish their noises about ALP policies on logging actually affected more than a few percent of Green voters’ preference directions.
I will have a big election wrap thingy on tasmaniantimes when all seats are done and dusted and preference distributions are available.
When are bludger’s predictions about the two US Presidential candidates going to be made? And what will the equivalent to seat number be? Maybe naming the primary where the candidate has wrapped up the nomination.
It’s a pity we didn’t have a competition on which seats would swing the most in either direction. My guess for biggest swing to the Coalition would have been Cowan, and for biggest swing to Labor probably Adelaide. I don’t think anyone foresaw the really big swings in regional Qld. The five biggest swings to Labor were Forde (15.1), Leichhardt (14.3), Dawson (13.2), Calwell (11.1) and Groom (10.8).
Strange, even by their own high standards, Adam.
#14 Oh well Stuart, amazement beats Glen`s self-righteous indignation at anyone who dares to call the prick a , sorry a spade a spade.
There was actually 4 people that picked Forde as the biggest swinging seat on my election tipping comp, and a large 15 picked Leichhardt with 1 for Dawson and none for Calwell and Groom.
I had Leichhardt on my list of seats where I considered Labor favourite but I still didn’t expect the swing to be quite that big.
Possum,
Which seat (on your site) was predicted as the seat with the biggest swing to the Liberals? Was it Cowan (or another WA seat)?
Kevin Bonham, and others interested in this topic of how voting may shift according to how the new government may shift in relation to climate change, is there any possibility, William, that you could set up some ongoing thread? Would certainly be prepared to provide some ongoing $ if there was sufficient interest.
Swing - I thought Brand, 2 people picked Cowan, Wentworth was the most popular choice and there were a few votes for Kooyong.
I’m intrigued by the flip-flops in Tassie. My Taswegian colleagues tell me it’s partly the relatively lumpen nature of Tassie folk (as Adam comments) and partly an abiding distrust of all things mainland, Plus a bit of weirdness, as you would expect given the isolation, small population and middle earth landscape. I note that none of the people I know who come from Tassie actually live there. On the other hand, it is a remarkably beautiful place … for the time being, anyway.
No one picked Franklin, no one even mentioned Franklin which was interesting.
O.K. Poss, we missed Franklin. Some of us were obviously just nuts in terms of predictions. How are the petunias?
CL de Footscray, I’m currently living in West Footscray. Himself indoors has rellies who hove from the back blocks of Tas, namely the Scottsdale booth (believe me, the dysfunctional Koori communities, much reported in the MSM, are pretty much the same, whether white or black or brindal)
my , and others, predictions of a 100 seat Labor win were dashed in the last week.
we had too much faith in “wet”, “leafy” Libs seeing the light. These Libs that had been saying for months, and even years, that they were rejecting Howardism, simply couldn’t hack the thought of voting Labor or Green.
“The Narrowing” in the last week, from 54.5-45.5 to 52.7-47.3 was the quivering, anti-Howardism Libs.
These “wet”, “leafy” Libs now forever proudly wear the moniker of “rusted-ons”.
Poss, glad the petyoonies survived. Bloody fine things,the Q’ld storms. Bit like the storm in the Q’l'd result really. Anyone going to have a look at why Q’l'd , in particular,did such a comprehensive number on the Coalition?
What’s really curious about the wet Liberals is why they let their natural refuge and easy cop-out protest vote recepticle, the Democrats, die. Now they have nowhere to go.
They voted Rudd for Rain, of course. Works every time.
HSO,
I reckon Qld did a number on the Coalition because:
- they had the furthest to fall there - vote was previously very high
- WorkChoices perhaps hurt more in regional centres than anywhere else, and Qld has the highest proportion of its population in regional centres (look at where the truly gigantic swings were)
- the State Coalition parties are perhaps more of a joke in Qld than elsewhere (admittedly with stiff competition from NSW, Vic, WA, etc)
- the Nambour High connection played very well, especially when compared to the Cockroach* Latham
*Technical term for New South Welshman, used at State of Origin time
31 HH….read class,Harry.
Noses twitch at the word ‘Labor’ and ‘unions’. Will be interesting to see how the wets vote next time…I suspect if the proactive social progress keeps up, many will be impressed and may change their vote. But the word ‘Labor’ may be one bridge too far, too discordant for these ‘refained’ souls.
What will be funny is if, come the next election, the usual suspects in North Sydney et al continue to tell any pollster that asks, that they’ll be voting ALP.
No one will believe them - the little wet Libs that cried wolf.
The funny part would be if they ever got serious and actually did what they’ve threatened to do for the last 3 elections.
31 HarryH and 36 Megan,
Even though we all frequently deride them, the MSM (or much of it) did keep pointing out that there could be a narrowing because economic times have been very good, and some people just wouldn’t want to risk a change.
I think you’d have to say there was probably something in that analysis. I don’t think it’s a “class” thing per se, more just that people in the “doctors’ wives” seats had, on average, done very well financially during the Howard years, which made them less likely to change than those in other areas where people had done less well.
Of course, the memory of the “recession we had to have”, although of diminishing importance, still wouldn’t have helped Labor’s cause either.
So next time you won’t believe them, eh Possum? I did warn you not to believe them this time, didn’t I?
Possum,
North Sydney is, as we all know, ripe for the taking by an Independent.
I wonder if Mike B had his time again whether he would have taken that route?
Climate change the scary truth http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7135836.stm
Adam, with North Sydney I didnt believe them until a p*ssed off Lib leaked the result of their own polling there. The public polls have been a bit erratic in the inner city seats for the last few elections (although this time nailed Bennelong) - and the ALP always plays mischief with selective leaks. When the Libs leaked and that wasnt part of the party strategy, and when Shrek started living more in his electorate than out of it - that’s when I thought something was up.
I think the Libs did too, hence that silly reconciliation business and constitutional preamble that Howard was going on about before the campaign.
I never believed Wentworth for instance, thought Bennelong was a bob each way, but definitely thought something was up in the Naw Shaw.. Dahrling
Dyno - I wonder if Warringah is to?
“Dahrling”? That’s much more Wentworth than North Sydney!
Have to get the dialect right …
Dyno - you’re scaring me.
Yeah PC,
I’ve wondered the same about Warringah. You’d think the MM would be on the nose with some of the constituents there.
It would probably need to be a rich independent to get Warringah, though. Not thinking specifically about campaign costs, more about relating to the voters.
I think we were all conned by North Sydney. I did gag when it came to Wannon though…
I’m wondering when the first movie or television celebrity with deep pockets stands as an independent for Federal parliament? … and wins.
I reckon Russel Crow could do it in Cowper if he ever retired.
That sort of thing is bound to happen one day.
Poss
North Sydney was a disappointment, especially with all the work Bailey put in and the reaction he was getting from people on the street.
I got caught up in the strong polls like a few others and thought labor might win more.
One worry was people backing away from the predicted landslide and either moving back to the libs or voting for a pseudo lib party like Family First or CEC who fed their votes directly back to the libs. How many actually realised where their vote was going when they went for the supposed “independent” minor party.
nobody voted for CEC, and I doubt they preferenced the Libs. They have more in common with the Trots than anyone else. Trots + anti-Semitism = CEC.
PC @ 48,
Agree. And of course Turnbull’s money helped him in Wentworth.
I was surprised that the rich Lib in SA (was it Bob Day in Makin?) didn’t do better. Or did he just not bother spending much, because it was a lost cause?
As Antony Green has said on numerous occasions that 2004 was an aberation and the real margins for seats was much lower than on paper, i wonder whether people think this will reverse itself in 2010 back to a mid point and if this is the case how Labor will try and hold the seats they won but now hold by less than 2% which i assume is a few.
I acknowledge we hold several seats below 1% but i am more confident about holding these as the protest vote (Howie, WC) seems to been the thing driving these massive swings and a swing while small back to the Tories in 2010 will bring most of these seats back to a reasonably comfortable margin.
50
Adam - in out booth in Chisholm, the 2 CEC votes preferenced Labor lol!
Bob Day spent an absolute fortune in Makin, and it did him no good whatever, which is very healthy. He must have come close to breaching the Electoral Act with all his giveaways, too. The Libs seem to think working-class voters are children who can be bribed with toys and balloons.
I prefer to think we bribed them with jobs and a strong economy Adam but i guess that wasn’t enough. Still i liked our education policy that seemed like a bit of vision from the Tories i was surprised Rudd didn’t me too that but i guess he doesn’t like the idea of helping parents who send their kids to catholic and independent schools.
I though you lived in Melb Ports, Glen
Glen @ 52,
Seems to me there are two contradictory precedents here:
1. Every new Federal Government from Whitlam on has gone backwards at its first attempt at re-election.
2. Pretty much all the recent State Labor Govts have gone forwards at their first attempt at re-election, usually significantly.
I wouldn’t have the faintest idea which category Rudd will be in, although he’s certainly smart, and very unlikely to do too much of a “left wing” bent (unless you count climate change initiatives). However, to paraphrase McMillan, “events” might make his life hard - who knows?
I would be willing to bet, however, that if the Labor TPP vote stays the same at the next election, their seat count will increase. Just looking at the new pendulum, and allowing for the benefits of incumbency, tells you that.
I do not believe there was narrowing in the last week at all despite Labor leaks
The wet liberals argument applies only to north Sydney
Australia - wide its a cop out for the overall polling being wrong
I believe 2% of the voters knew a change should be made for a variety of reasons
and reflected that “sentiment” in polling
The problem is the Pollsters questions did not factor in this sentiment and were flawed by asking the same old questions
The effects of any redistribution will be interesting too
PC,
Are we due a re-dist?
Will Qld get another seat next time, or WA?
If the population growth happening in Qld keeps up, at the very least some boundaries are going to have to be shifted up here. WA is growing too so it’s another issue as the population power shifts outwards from the South East of the nation.
Re: 51 Dyno
My understanding is that Bob Day spent a lot in Makin much to the amusement of the electorate. Lots of things with his name: kids parading in T shirts, free pens, rulers, full page ads in the community newspaper on a regular basis etc. Even had his own campaign posters which featured other people and the slogan, I’ll be voting for Bob Day. It might have been a case of trying to hard.
Not sure how much money Malcolm put into Wentworth, but when I heard the day before the election there was a full page ad claiming that there would be a by-election if Newhouse was elected this struck me as an incredible dirty trick to pull late in the game.
As Patrick Cook said, he won by threatening the whole electorate with legal action if they didn’t vote for him, and it seemed to work.
CEC prefernces went to Boswell in Qld, who is not a libs, but is also not a Trotskyite.
Point I was making is that I don’t think some actually realise where their vote ends up.
Labors primary was up 5.74%, Greens up 0.6%, yet 2PP to labor was up less than primary at 5.62%.
One Nation and the Dems were big losers, both may have gone to the libs or in ne Nations case to LDP.
But as others have pointed out especially when you look at individual seats labor relied heavily almost exclusivley on the greens for preferences with the minor parties like FF and CDP making a diference for the libs holding a seat.
Seems a weeek out from the election 3 polls showed a landslide
and Galaxy was lonely
no one since seems to have given them any credit
Surely the ACT would be due to get its third seat back, 2 electorates of around 120,000 when others have around 80,000.
That’s not the point RBJ, they have to get to 2.5 quotas, and i doubt they are growing as fast as Qld or WA
ntony has gone to sleep
Adam , he supported you. Can you explain the following ?
Ron Says:
December 12th, 2007 at 11:38 pm
Antony Green #839 says
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.
Ron says; the Labor wins with big swings were
Longman 10.3%
Dawson 13.2%
Forde 14.4%
Petrie 9.5%
Blair 10.2%
Leichardt 14.3%
Antony what are the ‘circumstances’ you refer to ??
I do not regard these huge swings as normal unless one invokes the ‘parochial Q’ld factor from a low Q’ld 2004 base *(which was A contributor)
Ron, all those seats (or the areas that make up those seats) have been held by Labor in the past. None of them were surprises in the sense that Labor winning North Sydney or Kooyong would have been a surprise. That’s what he meant.
and the huge size of the swings Adam comparative to elsewhere caused by ?
WorkChoices + Rudd was a Qlder + reaction against Latham last time. Plus Qld is traditionally the most volatile state.
I think Bob Day’s campaigning style may have actually muddied the waters rather than consolidating support for him in Makin. His election material was totally different to any other liberal candidate in Adelaide (ie he used his own posters etc instead of the standardised sun bleached yellow & baby blue posters all the other liberal candidates had put up around Adelaide (who chose those colours anyway???)).
For sure he stood out, but I know a couple of work colleagues who live in Makin who were convinced he was running as an independent.
I never believed the doctors wives would be a factor this time. The whole idea didn’t make sense. The Iraq invasion occured before the last election. The refugee issue played out in 2001. Those voters had already been factored into the system and their disquiet was reflected in the 2004 results.
“Still i liked our education policy that seemed like a bit of vision from the Tories i was surprised Rudd didn’t me too that but i guess he doesn’t like the idea of helping parents who send their kids to catholic and independent schools”
Pell said Catholic schools were not attracting catholics, poor catholics were going to state schools, rich catholics to Angilcan schools. The private schools admitted the funding was too heavily weighted in their favour.
Libs main education policies were a flagpole in every school, rifle ranges in the exclusive schools and $175 million to provide priests for schools. Plus a rewriie of history concentrating on Bradman and Menzies.
Great policy
Adam
It is puzzling that pre-election the expectation was Labor would get most marginals , then maybe get some in the the next band out like Deakin & Dobell
BUT to get so many of these 10% plus seats seem to be many bands out in the never never land
I’m surprised , presumably others were not
Adam
they had three seats before and they are growing, but as you said maybe not as fast as the other states.
Demographic changes would have added a few percent to some seats as well -you had a fair few lower middle class people moving into the regions and fringe urban areas that were probably more likely to vote ALP at any given time than the population was that they were moving into.
There’s a guy doing his Masters on this very thing at the moment (impact of Qld population migration on voting patterns) - he’s spoken to me of some of the interviews he’s done with interstate migrants, it’s going to be a seriously interesting piece when he’s finished it next year.
Labor won the education issue hands down. Rudd with the laptop was a killer moment.
Sorry - that last post was for Qld
Absolutely , the laptop was one of the 2t defining moments of the campaign
The other when Rudd cleverly promised no more spending & left Howard nowhere
Watching Rudd tap that laptop got annoying after a few seconds.
Agree on the laptops.
Big issue in the schools with kids with laptops and those without, including some jealousy and harrassment.
Helps enormously with homework and really interests the kids in homework and research on projects.
Quite a few parents can salary sacrifice or claim a laptop as a tax deduction because of their work, but many cannot.
The laptop policy made it equal for all regardless of their work staus, like making sure all kids had text books, also part of the policy.
Maybe that is what the libs did not like, the equality bit, as most of their supporter base would be those able to get the tax deduction for laptops or do the salary sacrifice.
not for parents and teachers it didn’t
Tom , not to swinging voters ….
the choice of the future vs the past was before their eyes
Yes, Howard’s two big “breakthrough” opportunities were the tax policy at the start, and the policy speech at the end. Rudd trumped him both times, the first time by being Mr Social Eqity and the second time by being Mr Fiscal Responsibility. Very clever stuff, byt also good policy.
41
marky marky
It’s pretty much shuffling the deck chairs around as usual, and if you really want to know what the planet is likely to look like in a few thousand years or so, take a peek at Mars.
The IPCC is probably on the conservative side, and the truth is we don’t have several decades to fix it, maybe not even one decade, but I cannot see the human race pulling its collective head out of the sand until the effects are well and truly bearing down…and that’s way too late.
On just how desperate it’s really looking, try this:
http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2007/12/12/ipcc_report/
I admit I believe ‘workchoices’ was the trojan horse that destroyed the Libs
Does anyone believe Howard could have won a cliffhanger IF he had never
changed IR from the 2004 election status ?
56
Adam - Yes i do live in Melbourne Ports but i helped out in Chisholm.
87
Ron - he’d have had a better chance that’s for sure.
It was striking that Melb Ports broke the pattern - the high income areas Caulfield, South Yarra, Southbank, swung most strongly to Labor, while Port Melb swung to the Libs. Caulfield swung because Danby got back all the Jewish vote he lost last time. Held was a worse candidate than Southwick and he was afraid to debate Danby - I don’t blame him. The Jewish community liked Rudd much more than they liked L*th*m.
Your candidate in Ports was feeble. Refused to debate Danby. Hence the big swing back to Labor in Caulfield - the J*wish community likes a good debate.
Port Melbourne and the St Kilda Rd area is getting more trendy thus more Tory voters, but Held who i assume was not Jewish didn’t really do well with that section of PM. I agree with you that Southwick was a better candidate but let’s not forget the Latham factor, still to beat Danby on first preferences in MP was a good achievement nevertheless. I can’t really comment too much on the 2004 campaign as i was in WA helping out in Stirling and Hasluck.
I wouldn’t think it was all down to not debating Danby. Though i wonder when the ALP will pre-select a quality rising star candidate, Danby isn’t going up and is like a Petro will warm the seat for decades and do virtually nothing. The time Danby retires if the Libs put up a good Jewish candidate (willing to debate) and with the margin not so large we’d be half a chance but still thanks to preferential voting Adam with the Greens at a nominal 15% it’s bloody hard to win our primary would have to be mid-high 40s and Labor’s at around 30% not easy not easy. Still maybe some pork for us?
Just as we have deadbeats in our Party you have your fair share in yours, sure its nice having a ‘good local member’ but political parties should be pre-selecting the best and brightest for seats not factional/union people who won’t contribute much to political life and won’t take on leadership roles.
Maybe for another time but i bet we can pick out a dozen on both sides who deserve the boot.
Now that I’ve seriously spent time on the ratios formula for state swings adjusted for safe ALP & Libs seats +marginal seats to forecast , my conclusion is
if the quarterly Newspoll at ANY time is different to the actual ultimate election
result in these categories , then the formula’s forecast will be out by the degree of the difference per category ?
Held is in fact Jewish. He couldn’t hold the gains that Southwick made in the Jewish community because of Labor’s promises of Jewish schools and security funding, which Ruddock refused to match, plus he wouldn’t debate which got the Jewish News offside. St Kilda now votes over 70% Labor. The only part of the seat where the Libs are improving is Port Melb because of the new housing like Beacon Cove which is filling up with bayside-bourgeois types.
I should have added :
I accept the formula is not an election forecast BUT a calculation of how many seats would be won IF the election is held at that time
So the formula translates the poll at any time into seats won at that time
Therefore we are back to assessing if the Poll itself represents reality given
campaigns can change voting dynamics
St. Kilda the Suburb yes is heavily Labor but St. Kilda Road is still Tory land Adam.
Were the funding projects core or non core?
the type & cost of living in Port should finally turn into a Lib seat
ps/ curious only - why do you say Tory instead of Liberal or Conservative ?
Ron for me it’s just being economical after all it’s less words than saying Liberals, Nationals, or the Coalition and anyway most of you Laborites refer to us as Tories anyway so everybody wins.
There are redistributions due in WA, Tasmania and NT next year.
WA will be the most interesting. They’ll keep their 15 seats but there’s been plenty of population movement since the last redistribution. So there’ll be lots of boundary changes.
Tasmania on the other hand will see very little change. Bass and Braddon might not change at all.
NT almost certainly will remain unaltered.
Come early 2009 the new determinations will be calculated. Previously on this blog I’d been pretty bullish about Victoria losing a seat. But the latest evidence suggest the state has turned things around and is now keeping pace with or exceeding national growth. More likely it’ll be New South Wales that loses a seat (again) and Queensland that gains one (again). But nothing is certain.
David Walsh says:
Surely they will have to increase the size of the Reps? I think they could go to 158 or so seats there without having to worry about the nexus.
The population size of some seats in NSW and Vic is getting all out of kilter especially when compared to Tas seats.
Albert, the only way to increase the size of the House is to increase the size of the Senate.
You say, “I think they could go to 158 or so seats there without having to worry about the nexus.” They cannot.
Couldnt they add two more to make it 152? There are 76 senate seats after all arn’t there? Isnt it suppost to be half?
The twice-the-size-of-the-Senate provision relates only to the allocation of seats given to the six states.
I don’t believe there is any scope to change the method of allocation here.
The reason why the size of the Senate is greater than half the size of the HoR is because the add-ons, i.e. the territories, have just as many Senators as Reps.
David W.
Section 24 of the Constitution provides that the number of members of the House of Representatives must be twice the number of senators, or as near as practicable.
By my reckoning they could go to 155 which would improve things somewhat. And Canberra should get 3 divisions.
Adam Says:
December 12th, 2007 at 10:22 pm
Hopefully we will all face up to our responsibilities and do something about the liberal party. Unfortunately mad right wing nutters will be as difficult to deal with as the mad left.
Kirribilli Removals Says:
December 13th, 2007 at 12:01 am
Planet earth will chew up mankind and go on as if we never existed, and thats the point, we we want this short period of stability to last we need to take some care.
Albert, I repeat: there is no scope for changing the number of seats allotted to the states without increasing the size of the Senate.
Your “reckoning” that the size of the House could be arbitrarily increased to 155 seats is no more than a baseless assertion. (An hour beforehand you said 158.)
Regarding the ACT: parliament can manipulate the number of seats allotted to the territories. As they did with the NT in 2004. Giving the ACT an extra seat would be in keeping with that precedent, though it would be condemned as a partisan manouvre by the Rudd government.
The full text of Rudd’s address to the UN climate change conference in Bali.
Source: The Australian
12-DEC-2007
concluding with …
The debate about HoR vs Senate seat numbers of course begs the question, why bother with the Senate at all? What purpose does it serve, apart from frustrating the Government of the day (esp Labor Govts) in the carrying out of their mandate. They are generally an ‘unrepresentative swill’, to quote the Master (spoken reverentially) and any idea about them being a house of review on behalf of the states is poppycock, they are there to carry out the agenda of whichever party controls the numbers. Some states have abolished their upper houses aeons ago and the sky has not yet fallen. It is an idea that originated in the dim distant past, and deserves to be consigned to the dustbin of history.
Glad to see the bagging of Scottsdale has stopped, since my family comes from there. It’s a big logging area and Michael Ferguson was a good candidate. Jodie Campbell was lucky to get in. Re Franklin - it’s big and disparate electorate that includes a hugely growing area around Kingston, which is Eric Abetz’s power base. It’s full of Dutch Reformed people and retirees. And it includes the Huon Valley - another big logging area. Campaigning there for YR@W was quite confronting at times.
And as far as our Labor Government goes, they’ll be lucky to win next time - Workchoices was a huge factor last time, and now we have Federal protection, given Lennon’s growing unpopularity, I think they’ll struggle to hold power.
I can only see the Greens getting stronger here, thankfully. We have lots to protect.
Not surprised by Tassie - ALP clean sweep, although Braddon should be the first to fall in the event of a pro-Lib swing next election (if such happens).
Overall, I was disappointed, but not overly surprised, when Swan and Cowan swung to the Coalition - I wish my fellow Sandgropers would stop giving the impression that they care more about money than morality. Also, the failure of the “doctors’ wives” was hardly news to me - they’ve failed to deliver in every election since 1998. Psephs should stop harping on about them - they say “We’ll vote Labor/Green/Democrat”, and then look at their chequebook balance and vote Lib.
But hey, what am I complaining about? Rudd won! *does happy squirmy dance*
Also, he should find it easy to get re-elected, probably with a swing to him, unless the Libs come up with a viable leader. They’ve got a bad problem - Nelson is a turncoat (and hence very easy for Labor to hammer), and Turnbull will be forced to choose between the far-Right votes and the “wet” votes, due to his ownership of a “wet” Liberal seat. This, my Tory friends, is where a formalised system of factions within the Party would have helped you. Note, for instance, that Rudd was able to appeal to the “battlers” in Qld, SA and NSW (he’s from the right-wing Labor Unity faction), while Gillard (from the soft Left faction), as his deputy, was able to campaign heavily in Victoria and suburban NSW to great effect - people were speculating that Labor would gain no seats in Vic (due to high margins enjoyed by sitting Lib members), and here they are with at least two extras.
Any news from the McEwen recount? Surely someone will start leaking out some information?
108
Basil Fawlty
Actually I think only Queensland has no upper house. Need I say more.
#53 - Labor got all three CEC preferences in my booth too, but that was because all three CEC votes were donkeys.
#98
Whether Victoria needs to lose a seat or not, it will still need to be redistributed under the seven year rule. The last redistribution was in 2002, so it’s likely one will commence during this term.
The WA redistribution will be fascinating. From the booth maps, it seems all of the marginal seats in Perth contain a mix of very strong Lib and very strong Labor areas. So even minor changes to the boundaries of Swan, Stirling, Cowan, etc could produce a big political impact.
Sydney equivalent of Melbourne Ports is Lowe, in both seats the old Liberal areas have drifted notably towards Labor but the Liberals are kept in the running (just) by waterfront development.
Will the Victorian and Commonwealth electoral boundaries ever cross the Yarra to include Southbank with the CBD?
88 Glen “i helped out in Chisholm”
Chris says Thanks for helping Anna Burke get a 5% swing.
Further to Adam’s post waaay back at #54 regarding Bob Day (otherwise known as the Moneybags of Makin) and his expensive campaign; a few people that were helping out late in the day at my booth in Hindmarsh told me that Bob Day’s people were handing out free food at the booth they were attending early on polling day. Is that a breach of the electoral act ? Something tells me it probably is.
I know that I’ve said it before in other posts, but there really needs to be electoral reform to allow one vote, one value in this country. And there should be a referendum to break the nexus between the House and the Senate. We do not need any more senators, but we should have more members in the Reps. The US gets by with two senators per state, why on earth do we need 12? Canberra and other large seats are badly served by the present system.
In what part of Braddon is Davenport?
Bet you Bob McMullan has his eye on electoral act changes to produce a third ACT seat.The issue was raised in the debate over the changes to enable the NT to retain its second seat.
The current formula will permanently disadvantages the ACT getting equitable representation.
an extra seat can be added without upsetting the Senate nexus
119 [In what part of Braddon is Davenport?]
Isn’t it a sister city of Devonport?
Anyone heard Radio National’s Media report describing the evolving relation between blogs that provide a better analysis of polls than the newspapers that own the polls and the poor reaction of one Shanahan to them (along with other observations made on this blog long ago)?
Just had a look at the results for Lingiari. Turnout increased over 2004 by 3.63%. But despite that only 4 out of 5 electors voted - 81.34%
That’s astoundingly low - would that be because so many voters live too far away from polling booths?
Late counting in the Vic Senate is flowing to the ALP away from the Libs. Small changes only. But with maybe 1.7-2% of the vote to go, the trend could see the 5th and 6th places swap over again between Lib and ALP. That could be interesting.
dyspnoeia, it’s because Lingairi has much the highest proportion of Indigenous people of any electorate, many of them living in communities only very slightly connected to post-conquest Australian society. Although voting is theoretically compulsory, it’s not enforced in such communities, and rightly so.
dyspnoeia @124
Could you please elucidate why the 5th and 6th place Vic Senate swapping over would be of interest? Does that put the Greens in with a chance for the 6th?
Purely of intellectual interest only, I believe.
5th and 6th are both still elected. No Green, unfortunately.
Re bee dongers, the male bee genitals literally explode and snap off inside the queen. Afterwards, the males do what any of us would if our testes exploded and our penis snapped off - they wander off to the corner and die. And bees have one of the largest dongers proportional to body size in the animal kingdom!
118
La Nina to break the nexus between the House and the Senate problem’
Ron says:
ain’t going to change without bipartisan support
the same issue arises with having Reps with 4 year terms resulting in Senators with 8 years.
After THIS election however , a referendum on a fixed day for the election would probably pass even if the libs opposed it !!!!!!!!
(as the public were fed up with the whole of 2007 being election mode)
But that ain’t going to happen either as its not a big issue
Dyspnoeia- I don’t know if your name refers to the medical term for “shortness of breath” but if it does, the correct spelling is dyspnoea (or dyspnea if American).
I think every state except SA will be redistributed before the next election.
Tas, WA and Vic are due, Qld will gain a seat and NSW will lose one.
If the calculation was done now based on the latest figures (30 Jun 07) NSW is already down to 48 seats and it’s only going backwards.
WA and Qld look the most interesting redistributions to me. Qld is always interesting because it is so volatile.
I am shocked, stunned and amazed that factionalism is seen in such a poor light.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2007/12/13/2117529.htm
David W @ 106: “Regarding the ACT: parliament can manipulate the number of seats allotted to the territories. As they did with the NT in 2004. Giving the ACT an extra seat would be in keeping with that precedent, though it would be condemned as a partisan manouvre by the Rudd government.”
I’m not convinced of that, Canberra (southern city electorate) has fallen twice to Libs, it is not as Labor ’safe’ as the northern city electorate (Fraser).
The first time it fell to Malcolm Fraser’s govt in the 1975 landslide, but that was a brand new electorate then, only being established in the 1974 redistribution.
The most recent time it was lost to the Libs was in a by-election in 1995 with a >16% swing against Labor. Presumably, that was mostly due to the incumbent Ros Kelly debacle.
The third seat of Namadgi, was cut such that it included most of the rural farming areas south of the city, and at the time, most of the outlying southern mortgage belters (making a mini-Lindsay region, of rapid outer urban population growth being the rationale for cutting it in the first place) and, was only narrowly won by Labor.
I believe Canberra is the largest federal electorate, and while usually its rusted-on Liberal population is outnumbered by the rusted-on Laborites, is historically only “fairly safe”, not “very safe”. Cutting it will reduce the margin.
And as history shows on a couple occasions, the sleepy huge electorate of Canberra, can be cattle-prodded to wake up. Back in the 95 by-election, my observation of local Canberran electoral attitudes was along the lines of, “yeah OK, we’re usually very comfy to sleep and yawn away, be ignored and forgotten by both sides for years, but Don’t Piss Us Off, or you will see double-digit swings.”
The combination of Keating and Ros, was a pretty big piss-off to cause a 16% swing.
The smaller swings in 2007 following the larger ones for Latham in 2004 is interesting, supports my theory of yes, Canberra is safe Labor, sure - but don’t piss ‘em off
Federal Labor may not want to cut it unless they have to, because its likely the ALP would then be up for a harder campaign battle in any new third ACT electorate, (and maybe also, in the original one remaining behind in the redistribution)
The ACT Territory govt has 3 multi-member electorates - roughly cutting the city into thirds, with the largest middle-third having 7 members, the other two having only 5 members. The electorates do generally fall out much closer and far more marginal in local election runs, than in the federal seats, and Independents also do better locally.
Perhaps just speculating, but maybe its because there aren’t many clearly identifiable ‘pockets’ of rich vs poor or class-distinction suburb splits like other cities. Its much more evenly distributed across the city, and however you might cut it, its likely to reduce the federal ALP margin as it does in local ACT elections.
So in short, I don’t agree that a third ACT electorate in a redistribution, would be “condemned as a partisan manouvre by the Rudd government.”
Rates Analyst @127
Cheers for answering my question regarding the Viv Senate seats. Obviously, it was just wishful thinking on my part that the Greens would benefit.
Albert Ross @103
Section 24 has to be read in conjunction with High Court cases. The number of State seats is twice the number of STATE Senators. So its the population is divided by 144, not 152. The Territory seats use the same formula for allocation to Territory, but are in addition of the seats allocated to the States.
#133
* Possibly the presence of a more left-leaning leader would allow the Libs to go down better in the ACT, compared to Howard.
* If the ACT is increased to three seats, you’ll see one seat taking in all the inner suburbs on both sides of the lake, and two seats covering the outer north and outer south. Most of the good Labor/Green areas would be in one very safe seat, with the other two taking in the more volatile newer suburbs. These two seats would probably be more winnable for the Liberals, although under normal circumstances would lean to Labor. At least it would make the ACT more exciting….
* It’s a pity that electorates can’t cross state borders. The ACT is apparently just under the 2.5 quota mark, but if you included Queanbeyan and the Greater Canberra catchment there’d easily be enough people for 3 seats.
Marcus says:
Redistributions due within 12 months of the expiration of parliament are postponed until after the next election.
The 7-year rule for Victoria kicks in in Feb 2010. It’ll be line ball as to whether it even gets underway. And even if it does, an election may be called prior to its completion.
Rain: 1975 was one of the most lopsided elections in Australian history. 1995 was a by-election, notoriously fickle towards government at the best of times, compounded by the Kelly controversy.
In other words, both were abberations.
It’s instructive that all three ACT electorates were won by Labor in 1996. Despite 1996 being a dreadful election for Labor. And despite Namadgi having a sitting Liberal member.
Put it another way: if Labor are troubled in the ACT, then they’re probably suffering far worse problems elsewhere.
Bob McMullen has put up a proposal before that would allow the ACT to regain a third seat. I suspect it will be revived. Unlike the allocation of seats to the states, territory allocations are in legislation, not the constitution. A simple change to the formula, as was done to allow the NT to retain two seats, could be implemented for the ACT, creating a third seat.
Geoff at 115
Lowe is not similar to Melbourne Ports. The long term drift away from the libs is demographic - pre war the inner western suburbs of Sydney - Drummoyne, Ashfield, Croydon, Burwood were conservative voting middle class whilst Strathfield was swish - Summer Hill and Five Dock were lower middle class enough to give Labor a chance of winning in good years. Ashfield in particular saw downward social mobility as large houses were demolished and replaced by walk up flats - the anglo children of the pre war middle class moved to the North Shore - immigrants Italians first, everybody else and Chinese moved in later. Even in the 60’s what is now Lowe was covered by 3 seats - Lowe, Evans and Parkes. The population has been largely static (or declining) as everywhere else got bigger. The liberal vote has held up pretty well in Strathfield, probably got better in Drummoyne as it has gentrified - and increased greatly in Mortlake which was once industrial but now has expensive flats along the river (on the old factory sites). The shift to the ALP has been largely due to the non anglo population grwoing and the growth of the seat to the south which has always been prime ALP territory.
If there was a Sydney equivalent of Melbourne Ports, it would probably be Wentworth.
As for your suggestion of the seat of Melbourne crossing the river and taking in southbank. Why not? or Melbourne Ports taking in Docklands. Until 1984, Melbourne Ports took in Richmond after all.
I’ve lived in Melbourne Ports, on and off, all my life. St. Kilda now, but I grew up in Port Melbourne and it makes me sad now whenever I go to the Port and see Beacon Cove. It looks like a great location for a horror movie to me. The old Anglican church is now a Starbucks. Even though I’m an aetheist that just seems wrong to me. I’m not surprised that 70% of St. Kilda-ites vote Labor, although it’s interesting given that the suburb has changed so much in the last 10 years.
Thank you Antony, the nexus is never easily explained.
Antony,
Do you think this is likely, or politically wise? At least with NT the major parties could hide behind community of interest arguments; that NT was too large and diverse for one seat ,etc. ACT is tiny and if population growth does not demand an extra seat, it would look pretty self-serving for Labor to just legislate for one. Obviously if population growth does demand an extra seat, that’s a different story.
BTW, do you have any opinion on allowing electorates to cross state borders? Apart from community of interest arguments (Broken hill with SA, Albury-Wodonga, Canberra-Queanbeyan) the extra flexibility may help prevent the creation of large, disparate rural electorates like we saw at the recent NSW redistribution.
If they expand the Senate to 14 per state then the NT could have its second seat without a legislative prop-up and the ACT would get its third seat and Tasmania would be less over represented in relation to the mainland.
A third seat in the ACT would also mean that of the ACT Legislative Assembly was allowed to expand to 21 seats then they could have three House of Reps electorates that were the same as the three seven member electorates.
The Electorates are allocated by state which means they can’t cross state boundaries. And given more people vote in each ACT electorate than vote in the NT all up, and they’d still have more people per seat if a third was allocated than Tasmania or the NT, I think you could sort that one out on equity grounds.
Sorry if this is a dumb question, but does the AEC try to redistribute boundaries so that seats become “closer” or do they just do it by population basis?
Being highly active in the Canberra electorate community during the Ros Kelly era, I can confirm that 1995 was simple a ‘whiteboard’ reaction.
Liberal Brendan Smyth was elected only because of the short time before another election was due. The people of Canberra (electorate, not city) were prepared to sacrifice their normal Labor vote to ensure the message was loud and clear not to take us for granted.
However, with the calling of the national election, we reverted to type and elected Labor MP, and former Kelly staffer, Annette Ellis, who has been there since. The primary reason Ellis didn’t get the gig first time round was because she was too close to Ros Kelly (as her staffer) and electing her was tantamount to giving Ros the OK, which we wouldn’t do. (The 1995 by-election was only the second time in more than 20 years that I didn’t vote Labor).
Smyth, by the way, has been living off his moment of glory in 1995 ever since, recently dumped as Liberal leader in the ACT Government.
The city of Canberra, which encompasses the outlying suburbs , or satellite towns, is Labor through and through - look at the Senate vote for confirmation of this. A third electorate taking in the city and expensive inner suburbs may be a chance of going Liberal, but you must remember that the ‘old’ public servants, who bought early and well, and were brought up under the old PSU, live here in relatively high numbers still.
Many of the new-wealthy moving into those areas are Greens voters, not conservatives. Something to do with the education levels and social conscience in Canberra, people say.
Regardless, Canberra, whether two seats or three, will remain Labor territory for many years to come - unless someone else takes us for granted.
Held was a disaster. To see the big swings to Danby in Caulfield just proved how much more hard work Southwick did in 2004. BTW, Southwick didn’t just win the primary vote in 2004 (McLorinan won the primary vote just in 2001), he won 42/39. Infact 2007 is the first time since Danby’s initial election he didn’t poll under 40% of the primary vote.
The day Danby retires is the day the Liberals preselect a serious Jewish Candidate, sweep Caulfield 60/40 or better and win the seat.
Tasmania should have 3 seats not 5, based on population. It just isn’t right that Tasmania’s seats have 2/3 the number of voters than seats in the rest of the country.
But since the constitution says that Tasmania shall have at least 5 seats I don’t know what the solution is. More seats could be created elsewhere bringing the total to say 170 but that would mean more Senators which would mwan more Tasmanian Senators, and they overrepresneted enough as it is in that chamber.
Just been looking at some Below The Line BTL votes in Senate. A good indication of how keen/knowledgable the voters are within different groups as well as avoiding risk of informal vote. Across Australia only about 60,000 Lib/Nat votes out of nearly 5m are BTL. ALP votes about 83,000 out of just over 5m. Greens 117,000 out of 1,100,000. Some of the minor groups and Democrats also get a high %. The keenest group of voters seems to be for Nick Xenephon 26,000 out of 120,000 counted to date ie over 20% (up in part because his name was not next to the group box above the line). BTL votes are much higher in Tasmania and ACT partly because they are used to the Hare Clark voting system and also because the ballot papers have less names. And why would the Greens and Family First in Vic Senate have 6 candidates each on their list - just to discourage BTL votes or is something else going on there?! (I assume its not legal to have 7 otherwise they might be tempted???).
We need a system of Senate voting that makes it easier for voters to show preferences rather than opting for the Group voting ticket out of fear of informal votes. And to help get rid of oddities like Socialist Equality Party giving part of its Group vote preferences to Lib/Nats along with some other mis named groups.
Antony,
should we (Greens) give up on the victorian senate spot?
I have made by final comment in my little difference of opinion with the Possum here:
http://psephoblog.wordpress.com/2007/12/13/stirring-the-possum/
The new government should pass a bill saying that no seat can have more than 100,000 voters. That would give the ACT three seats and SA 12. The Libs would say that was to Labor’s advantage, and of course at present it would be, but they are in no position to talk. Their bill to keep the NT’s second seat was called “the Dave Tollner Preservation Bill” even by Liberal MPs.
Will our election process become gradually subject to CORRUPTION by election
2,515,254 Australians did NOT go to a polling booth to vote (20%)
Historically it WAS harder to get to the polling booths due to lack of cars/transport
Today it is easier to get to the polling booths but less are going
The result is that postal votes alone have grown 28% from the 2001 election
(form 4.28% of the total vote in 2001 to 5.46% in 2007)
My TWO fears are that the 27% increase in postal votes on the Total Count
1/ may be a higher % in “marginal’ seats
2/ may in part be caused by Party’s “encouraging” or “soliciting” such behaviour
Numerous possible “corrupt” consequences can follow INCREASING by election:
a/ may allow Party’s to ’solicit’ block votes in nursing homes, retirement villages
b/ may allow Party’s to gain otherwise Booth ‘donkey votes’ as HTV direct votes
c/ may place Party officials in position to decide if to onpost applic. or votes
Some but NOT ALL of these problems would be overcome by restricting the right to post postal applications by the aec alone
Marcus @ 136, yes, very good point on the greater catchment - Queanbeyan, Yass, Goulburn, along with smaller towns like Captain’s Flat, Bungendore, Braidwood etc — are all now very much satellite commuter townships and rapidly growing with the attraction of the commuter lifestyle advantages.
The people have far more in common interest with Canberran urban issues, than they do with the rest of their NSW regional electorate neighbours.
Belconnen long had the rep for being the “panel-beaters” town, blue-collar district, (with some scattered pockets of wealth like elsewhere in Canberra) and Gungahlin, although newest development, is more economically down-scale too, relatively speaking.
Inner north & south are your main pockets of crusty Liberals in the oldest parts of town, well-kept 50s double-bricks and oak tree-lined avenues, and the inner-south “Embassy Belt” with all the dippos for neighbours, coupled with very recent rapid development of high-rise city apartment dwellers in Civic and Woden, but with the inner-north “cafe-latte” University crowd of local ‘intelligentsia’ and their pushbikes, and interstate undergrads trying to find cheap group house rentals.
But in a lot of places, Canberrans do tend to live next-door to each other in the older parts of town, although that is changing more each year, like an old in-joke I heard when I moved here ” His & Hers BMWs do live next-door to the squat of welfare housing junkies
eg.. In Weston Creek, looking at the booths, there is Chapman with some Leafy Liberal Avenues sticking out, but only a 5-minute walk away from one of the largest state housing pockets in Rivett, or the Kingston/Manuka ‘townhouse trendies’ right next-door to several of the original state housing blocks of units etc (which I understand ACT Housing are desperately trying to relocate to Gungahlin, so they dont upset the newer neighbours, and sell off the better priced real-estate)
Tuggeranong is far more well-established now, and has started to outgrow its *new* urban housing development status, I suspect it is the more mixed demographics of the three now.
Antony: Thanks for the info on Bob’s proposal - putting all political speculations aside, (entertaining as they might be *grin*) simply on the grounds of obvious population growth, a third seat needs to be added. How the seat boundaries are divvied up, or classified as notionally marginal, safe etc is another matter.
Might be interesting though, if the city were ever to be subject to intensive ‘on-the-ground’ campaigning (which it usually isn’t), might just annoy more into voting informal instead - many of us enjoy our sleepy quiet lifestyle and wouldn’t take kindly to it being interrupted by campaigning door-knockers and junk-mail.
(And the tree-hugging loopy-left Greens can stay on the northside *grin*)
Adam,
Don’t they have optional preferential voting in NSW for the upper house? That might be a solution for the Senate, although to avoid confusion it would probably mean introducing OPV in the House as well, which neither major party would agree to.
Adrian,
Bob Brown has propsed a system of preferencing above the line for senate voting so that voters can choose thier own prefernecs (after the FF debacle in Vic last election ) without having to fill in all then BTL’s.
I agree with increasing the number of seats in the House (and therefore, Senate too). The last major increase was in 1984 from 125 seats to 148. It has since crept up to 150. In 1984 the population of Australia was about 15 million, today it is 21 million. So whilst we’ve had a 37% increase in the population, that’s only been accompanied by a 3% increase in the representation! More electorates would also go some way to reducing the ineqaulity of representation, i.e. the number of peope in electorates in ACT and SA will be comparable to the number of people in NT and TAS.
How would a bill awarding SA 12 seats not be in violation of the constitution?
The Tassie redistribution will probably be a little academic at the Federal level - I don’t know the population trends but I’m guessing the growth centres are still around Hobart and Launceston, so changes minimal maybe? - but at a state level they could be very important, particularly in a close election.
Taswegians are turned off by all three (remember the Hare-Clark lower house - the Greens take seats) parties at the moment, though we Greens have had something of a renaissance with the pulp mill debate/clever local gov’t campaigning. As a result, the 2010 election will be something of a watershed, as there’s no attachment to the government. If the boundaries change at a federal level, I assume they shift automatically at the State level, so in close seats like Kim Booth’s in Bass or Paula Wriedt’s in Franklin, even little shifts could make a difference in a hung parliament/close election.
I agree though - with this last election, WA and QLD are the states to watch as the population centres and interesting voting patterns shift north and west.
TO WILLIAM BOWE
I have made 2 blogs today
1/ in response re no of senators
2/ re postal voting trends which is in moderation - specifically WHY
ha obviously #154 was directed to Adrian, not Adam.
Thank you David W & Antony G for clearing up the situation regarding the nexus.
A book I am reading on the 1972 election indicates that the size of mainland electorates then was around 62 to 65k
It seems to me that the populations of some electorates is too large for parliamentarians to look after them properly. If you write to a federal parliamentarian it often takes a long time to even get an ack. I would imagine that this is a function of the lack of office staff they are provided with and the sheer volume of contacts they receive. This is not good for our polity.
Even at the risk of having more Erica Betzes I think we have to bite the bullet and increase the number of senators in order to balance up things in the house.
An increase in MHRs beyond 152 or close to would necessitate an increase in Senators. This could happen three ways:
1. Make the Territories (or one of them) states. One changing would increase the number of Senators from 76 to 86, and two would make this 96. Reducing the number of Senators from each state to ten but increasing the number of states would may work better, meaning a maximum of 80 Senators.
2. Increasing the number of Senators from each state to 14, which would mean 88 Senators instead of 76.
3. Changing the constitutional requirement for there to be a rough 2-1 ratio.
Myself, I would like to see a 3-1 ratio, with 10 Senators from each state and about 200 MHRs.
@ 153 Rain uses the term “welfare housing junkies”. I take he means the Howards given their limpet like attacment to their waterside abode.
A problem to the whole concept of increasing the number of Senators and MHRs is the size of parliament house. How many more parliamentarians can it take before a new one has to be built?
Why can the Senate not be increased to 13? Is there a rule that says it has to be even?
While this would perhaps increase the possibility of an outright majority for the Government int he Senate it would also help the minor parties who frewuently get the “wasted” quota.
Adrian @ 149 “BTL votes are much higher in Tasmania and ACT partly because they are used to the Hare Clark voting system and also because the ballot papers have less names.”
I never knew this! I’ve been a BTL voter all my life. I get a buzz out of defying the bell curve wherever possible *chuckle*.
Also a *personal* thing, I get some petty childish satisfaction out of putting my most disliked candidates last, and working up the numbers list. Like saying “Take That - You &^*% ”
But never knew my ACT neighbours were also more likely to do it.
Hare Clark was fairly recent in ACT elections, and we did suffer through minority Liberal governments with some strangely bizarre Independents holding balance-of-power there for awhile. Perhaps it confused many, before finally getting the hang of it? Just guessing, but maybe we learned the hard way through painful experience, over several elections, that the Number 5,6 7 etc vote, isn’t a worthless junk vote, as it is in other voting systems.
Albert Ross @ 163
@ 153 Rain uses the term “welfare housing junkies”. I take he means the Howards given their limpet like attacment to their waterside abode.
MUAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
Ta Albert, needed that!
165
I think there needs to be an even no. of Senators because each election sees half of the seats vacated. It would be a bit awkward for the final senate position to be timeshared!
Why does the ABC site have the coalition now winning 85 seats and Labor 83 now? Before the recount in McEwen they had Labor on 84. Do they know something we don’t?
That site is here.
http://www.abc.net.au/elections/federal/2007/results/
Ron at 152 re corruption of election process by postal voting - here is more food for thought. I know for a fact that the booth previously available at my father’s retirement village was not available this year. Why not, I have no idea, nor does he. Is the increase in postal voting related in part at least to fewer booths being made available? And was this one of the ‘clever’ things the rodent is responsible for?
In a Double Dissolution election the first 6 highest vote getters get 6 years and the next 6 get only three years.
If you wanted a 13 per state in the Senate you could have 6 x 6 years and 1 x 3Y available at each election easily enough. A little weird, no doubt, but it works…
Wouldn’t having a third ACT seat be a disadvantage for Labor, making neighbouring Eden-Monaro a fairly safe Liberal seat, sure there’d have to be a redistribution and I’d speculate that such a move would push a few rural seats north, maybe helping Labor in Gilmore or McCarthur by including more Labor voting territory from Wollongong and Campbelltown.
Also I don’t think the sitting member of Eden-Monaro would take too kindly to this, and all those arguments from other sitting members wanting stability of electorate. If this happened, we would probably need to have a new bell-wether seat, or would it revert back to McArthur.
172 Stephen Hill. No the ACT boundaries do not extend to Eden-Monaro
If you had 13 Senators, a half Senate election would be entertaining.
Gee, I always thought Queenbyean was just inside the ACT, is it part of NSW?
yep
adrian/grace pettigrew/antony/anyone
Grace Pettigrew answered Adrian’s 940 with her 1022 previous thread Morgan 58.5-41.5 Dec 13, 2007
Adrian: “There seem to be a lot of provisional/absent/postal/prepoll votes being excluded. Apart from not being on roll, what else causes this. Is there any breakdown of the causes for exclusion. How does it compare to previous elections. Nationally then we have 500,000 plus informals, probably 400,000 plus excluded and plenty more who never got on the roll. Surely we could do better than this?”
Follow up Q. CW: Can I find the booth by booth breakdowns, now or eventually? Do such breakdowns include by type as nominated by Adrian?
Am I correct in assuming that the information posted on the site re booth counts is coming only from the individual scrutineer?
Another thought from a novice — and further to mine at 170 - the box/booth that was available at the last election at my father’s retirement village but not in 2007 - as far as I understand was always a strongly labour voting one (am I paranoid or what?) Also — and pardon me if this is basic - does more postal voting also mean inevitably more informal voting as people presumably do not replace the ballots they mess up????
I notice the ABC calculator has pegged ALP back to 83 seats today and LNP up to 65 presumably this is in relation to the McKewen recount.
If Antony Green is reading the blog currently I’d like to know if he has any new information that he is basing this on?
Crikey W @177
Its available on AEC website. For each HoR division you can check the rejected votes for all 4 categories of votes by clicking on “Declaration Vote Scutiny Process” (sixth on list of information options). Similarly “First preference by vote type” shows where each of the 4 vote categories ends up. Its only available for whole Division not by polling booths as far as I know because they are checked/counted at only 1 place for each Division (exception might be Provisional votes which could be done by booth). The informals show up in National, State, Division and booth figures.
I thought the reason that labor lost the Canberra seat in 95 was because of Keating’s remarks regarding the local elections there shortly before.
The libs got power locally and Keating was asked for his reaction, he replied “Oh, who takes notice of municipal elections”.
The by-election followed shortly after which the libs won with a swing of about 17%, laughed when I saw the result and thought well Paul are you going to take note of that result bucko.
The ABC page on McEwan has a ALP TPP swing of 5.6% which I think is the nationwide swing? Most likely the web site reverted to using those figures due to the recount being closed to updates until the recount figures are released.
McEwen.
182, 183 et al
You say tomato, I say tomayto
I say potato you say potahto
You say McEwan, I say McEwan
Let’s call the whole thing off
McEWEN - OMG, now I’ve done it too
Adrian at 180, thanks, I found it in the meantime, kind of by chance.
I also checked on a nursing home in Boothby.
The number of formal votes cast there totals 172.
Internet records on the particlar home show the no. of beds, ie residents to be 72 (ish) 2007.
I phoned the particular home to confirm the number of beds/residents.
Confirmed it is 76.
Votes according to AEC website for that home, seat of Boothby. Special Hospital Team 3 (whatever that means)
FORMAL 172 95.03 +1.42
INFORMAL 9 4.97 -1.42
TOTAL 181 0.19 - 0.04
Two CP Candidate Party Votes Percentage (%) Swing (%)
CORNES, Nicole Australian Labor Party 72 41.86 +12.59
SOUTHCOTT, Andrew Re-elected Liberal 100 58.14 -12.59
Clue, anyone?
“The city of Canberra, which encompasses the outlying suburbs , or satellite towns, is Labor through and through - A third electorate taking in the city and expensive inner suburbs may be a chance of going Liberal, but you must remember that the ‘old’ public servants, who bought early and well, and were brought up under the old PSU, live here in relatively high numbers still.”
Yes, or marginal swinging, might depend on whether or not it includes/excludes the Weston Creek valley, the oldest of the southern central sections.
“…but you must remember that the ‘old’ public servants, who bought early and well, and were brought up under the old PSU, live here in relatively high numbers still….”
true - but also Catholic Labor-right in that ‘old family’ PS community that are now established with 3rd, 4th, 5th generational branches, with strong historical family *roots* originating in Melbourne’s Catholic Labor strongholds of the 1950s.
This caught me way off-guard when I first moved to ‘berra in the early 80s, coming from young hippy-trippy inner-city Sydney loopy-lefty territory.
Some classic social faux pas with putting my foot in it with the Catholics, and to a lesser extent Anglicans, noticing the extraordinarily large number of tyke schools in the neighbourhood, and working in Personnel/Recruitment reviewing hundreds of CVs with St Eddies, St Clares, Saint this, Saint that), with plenty of 2nd-generation Navy, Army and Air-Force brats too… coupled with how socially conservative the city is on some issues, (eg abortion), along with the streams heading south on the Hume to Melbourne every school holidays.
Although its changed and grown a great deal since then, that theme is still there in the ‘old family’ pockets in some canberran social and workplace circles. They dont much like the younger Green “blow-ins” either.
186
Can only suggest day patients, relatives visiting, staff OR current residents have a number of aka’s (LOL).
Not So Mad Max.
AEC Notes:
1. The percentage of votes counted are calculated against the total enrolment figure.
(Doubt that they have day patients, cannot see why they or visitors (or staff) would be enrolled there, but give a very few, for sake of it. They most certainly do not have a staff/patient ratio of that level. In fact the home has twice failed accreditation standards, most recently this year)
AEC Notes Cont. On election night, all ordinary ballot papers cast at polling places on election day (approximately 80% of the total vote) are counted and the results entered. The remaining 20% of votes (including pre-poll, postal, absent and progressive votes) cannot be counted until after polling day.
2. These results are not final.
I took the trouble to ring the office Chloe Fox, (my) State Member for Bright, Intrigued and will follow up.
The AEC told me no preliminary re-count figures would be released for McEwen. Well, they are being released. The prediction is completely automated. Wait till all the votes are re-counted by the middle of next week.
CW, my guess would be that while one nursing home is listed they actually cover more. Mayo covers a large geographical area - the hills, Fleurieu and KI -with quite a few nursing homes but there are only 4 special hospital teams listed and some of the homes they’re listed for are the smallest in the area. OTOH, Mt Barker has several homes, including one of the biggest in the hills, but no team assigned.
I went along to the Matt Price memorial service at Parliament house today:
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,22918227-601,00.html
It was very moving, but also very funny. Julia Gillard and Joe Hockey both spoke very well, as did Annabell Crabbe, Dennis Shanahan and Neil Breen. Barry Cassidy was the MC.
Rain @166
It seems that we have more in common than our wet pen names. I, too, being a citizen of wonderful, cosmopolitan, politically aware and tolerant Canberra, enjoyed voting BTL and putting the most disliked candidate last. In fact, I don’t know anyone who voted ATL.
To all the others who would increase the Senate - it’s ridiculous and expensive to have so many Senators. The Senate is not as democratically elected as the House. Didn’t the revered PK call them “umrepresentative swill”? I’m not in favour of abolishing the upper chamber, just limitimg the numbers which should be reduced or frozen. Imagine making NT a state and giving it 12 senators! What over representation that would be. Good quality senators usually have no difficulty in transferring to the House, so they wouldn’t necessarily be thrown out of Parliament in a reduction of numbers.
193
La Nina - funny thing is that if everyone voted BTL the Senate would be by far the most representative constituent assembly. Seats allocated at close to the proportions of votes received . . . sigh - it will never happen.
Someone asked earlier about Bob Day and how much the campaign cost him.
He has been refusing to answer questions on how much money he ultimately spent, but given that he spent over $200,000 before the election was even called and then had at least 2 electorate-wide mail-outs per week during the campaign proper, I would suggest that it would have been close to $500,000.
Given that the result wasn’t even close, I suspect he’s now regretting his decision to eschew the advice of the Liberal campaign office and run his own, more personalised campaign. A lot of his “non-traditional” campaign techniques went down like a lead balloon in this electorate and his refusal to take advice from those who actually know what they are doing was just plain dumb.
Oh, and pretending Workchoices wasn’t a problem with the electorate - and stating that repeatedly and very publicly - was even dumber.
Thank god he wasn’t elected.
To be fair La Nina the current constitution allows for new states to have whatever limiting of their rights the others see fit to put into the agreement.
Number of Senators being right up there on the list.
So the NT can become a state without necessarily receiving 12 senators.
Greetings all
Sorry to go off thread a bit, but we have important breaking developments in the ACT war. The old trots are a-titter. Amongst the comrades the angst is palpable.
BTW, ESJ, how are the ngusys of Kamchatka? I trust you are picking up a bit of scientific materialism and have learned to shed your false consciousness at the school for de-programming running dogs.
You are also being deprived of important developments in the class war. The ACT now has a new liberal leader. We had Brendan. We nearly had the Richard but he spat the dummy. We had Bill and now we have Ned. Still leaves Vicki and Jacqui for the full roster of wannabees, exes and actuals but in all the excitement I might have missed a couple.
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Ron Says:
December 13th, 2007 at 1:24 pm
TO WILLIAM BOWE
I have made 2 blogs today
1/ in response re no of senators
2/ re postal voting trends which is in moderation - specifically WHY
I don’t know Ron, they must have had words in them that triggered my moderation filters, which serve to block spam and ensure compliance with various stupid laws we have in this country. They were unblocked not all that long after you posted them.
William could we possibly have a list of banned words so that we can avoid transgressions? Is the J-word still one of them? (I think this needs justification). The only other one I keep tripping up on is c*rrupt. I assume the f-word and c-word are on the list so you don’t need to list them if it would make you blush to type them.
What on earth?
http://www.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/story/0,22049,22919020-5001021,00.html
Crikey Whitey,
I’m aware of instances where staff at nursing homes have voted at the mobile booth, admittedly at a State election. For such voters, it became a de facto pre-poll booth.
Even if this explanation is relevant, it would hardly explain the scale of the extra votes you quote, so perhaps MayoFeral’s (#191) observation is right (unless we are all corrected by an authority such as Antony).
Ah i see, the actual photo in question is here:
http://www.theage.com.au/news/national/is-this-maxines-sharon-stone-moment/2007/12/13/1197135641055.html
Filters for mentions of certain religions and their practitioners are justified on utilitarian grounds: they have blocked a number of unpleasant statements that could otherwise have lingered for many long hours. I have no problem with regular customers artfully sidestepping these blocks. Prozac, casino, roulette are there to block spam, and there will probably be further additions here as the problem gets steadily worse. “Corrupt” isn’t there any more. I guess I can remove “Tully” now.
Disallowed Key Characters$Version
Does anyone here know what the means?
Every time I attempt to access the GG threads of Janet and the ilk this comes up.
I warned Mitchell that if I’m blocked, then my legal team will have him and his toe-rag!!!
If this is indeed the case…HIHO, it’s off to court we go.
Scaper, you dont actually have any right to comment on The Oz site, or any other non-government site for that matter. They owns it, they sets the rules and we all gets to lump it.
Property rights in action.
Scaper why do you bother, let them speak for the conservatives of Australia!
You may disagree with them but i bet you have nothing constructive to put on their blogs but rubbish and insults.
I dont suppose you favour like Crickeys editor to sack conservative journalists???
Re: McKew Photo. I knew something was up when my paper was stolen this morning.
I don’t insult anyone Glen….not even you mate.
And I also believe what I have to say is fairly good rubbish.
Possum, please explain why Chris Mitchell backed down and ensured that I got through when I suggested going down the legal path about three months ago???
Anyway, I just wanted to read the discussion but was denied that!!!
What’s next denying myself to access to the main page?
This cuts deep into my belief on implied free speech.
James J, and I thought we poll Bludgers had no life!
Maybe this was the reason they let me back there?
I propose to forward a copy of your correspondence to my colleague
Senator Joe Ludwig MP, the Shadow Attorney General for his
consideration.
Scarper, I don’t think they jump at shadows.
Glen, Guy Rundle has a point. If the Australian Op-Ed section is going to turn into a circle-jerk of historical ideological anachronism, they will not only lose a few eyeballs, but they will lose a great deal of influence - which isn’t good for the paper since they have already lost a fair bit of that as it is.
There is nothing wrong with conservatives - but having half a dozen of them inflected with a bad case of the clones, and where the only way you can tell the difference between them is by paying close attention to the by-line…. well it all seems a little pointless really.
Even conservatives have to move with the times - if that only means finding some new ones that can spin the same arguments in a new way, so be it. But it would certainly help your cause and the quality of public discourse generally if they could find a few whose opinions were not only distinguishable between each other, but that could make arguments that are relevant to today in a world that has simply moved on.
When I open up The Oz, I expect some decent, weighty and challenging opinion, not some ideological rabble left navel gazing and bitching about past battles long lost. The last thing that conservatism in this country needs is for it to be dominated by a commentariat vending machine with only one flavour - you put in the coin, you pull the handle and you know exactly what you’re going to get…..The same thing as last time.
Scaper - “being nice is being efficient” would explain it pretty well.
On the subject of territory senators, the High Court did say they would look at the constitutionality of allowing full Senate representation to the territories if the numbers of senators were increased. Still, I find it hard to imagine a modern court could decide the territories shouldn’t be represented in the Senate by members with full voting rights.
Personally, I think both chambers are too small particularly in comparison to other nations’ parliaments. I’d increase the number of senators in each state and territory by 2 (with 1 extra elected at each election). This would also make it less likely for a party to gain control of both chambers.
Andrew Robb, charged with reviewing what went wrong with the Liberals, believes the party needs “major surgery” .
http://news.theage.com.au/liberal-party-needs-major-surgery-robb/20071213-1gsv.html
The major surgery could have been done by the electorate 3 weeks ago but they flinched.
Now the festering pustulating sores in the libs and nats will continue to poison them, theydo not have the courage to cut them out themselves.
Speaking of The Oz, Caroline Overington no longer seems to have a blog. When did they take down her page?
While you here, Possum. This is a partial, edited by me, transcript of the Media Report, ABC Today.
Antony Funnell: And even at The Australian, we saw a change bringing in more blogs..?
Amanda Meade: Yes changed completely .. reporters often have to file immediately for the internet site..
Antony Funnell: ..serious breaking news coming first to online sites; is that the future?
Margaret Simons: Yes..will be exceptions… now we’re talking about instant news.. not new for ..organisations like AAP ABC and radio generally..is new for print media.
..not only about mainstream news organisations. ..this year has also been the first and the first election campaign, in which blogs and independent internet publishing have had an impact. It’s still a small impact, I’m not suggesting that it wins or loses elections, but it is there.
..best example is probably the analysis of public opinion polls, on a couple of key blog sites, superior to any offered by mainstream media. So even though the mainstream media own the polls, I don’t think they necessarily did the best analysis. That was being done by academics with blogs.
Antony Funnell: And how do you think media practitioners, journalists, have adapted to this change. …we’re a precious lot sometimes, and we often feel quite threatened don’t we?
Margaret Simons: ..Certainly we saw The Australian and Dennis Shanahan in particular, react extraordinarily defensively to criticism of their analysis of public opinion polls, that was at that stage only on a couple of sites, and ..I probably wouldn’t have been aware if it hadn’t been for Dennis’ reaction. ..symptomatic of increase over the years ahead..But mainstream media can no longer assume theirs will be the only voice. The gatekeeper function is no longer there as powerfully..
Amanda Meade: ..newspapers have a lot to learn from comments readers post online on news stories and on blogs, because often a paper will run a campaign, or take a particular view, then the public will respond totally against the view of the paper, and this happened with The Telegraph with the Stan Zemanek and Mike Carlton fight, and you find that the readers of The Telegraph were actually taking a different view to the editorial of the paper, which I find fascinating.
The transcript has lots of interesting discussion about Telstra, which I might put on your site, rather than here.
Link is http://www.abc.net.au/rn/mediareport/stories/2007/2114804.htm#transcript
Think program is replayed tonight.
The more senators per state, the more chance of minor parties getting in. In the past I would have said that the majors would dislike such a situation. But given that the ALP is unlikely to ever get a majority and the Liberals did not have a great success with their majority (over reaching with WorkChoices), I suspect that it is not such unpopular idea with either party at the moment.
Also any one else here the news about the ACT Liberals changing leaders today? Given that there are only 6 members left, do they all get a turn?
Last time I heard she was heading for Paris, Grog. On leave rather departing permanently though it seemed, for worst or worser.
Cheers
Rod
Crikey, that sounds interesting. Ta for the heads up, might go and have a listen
If this is indeed the case…HIHO, it’s off to court we go.
I retract this comment for the time being.
There is another tactic that I will utilise….now is not the opportunity.
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199
William Bowe Says:
December 13th, 2007 at 5:49 pm
I don’t know Ron, they must have had words in them that triggered my moderation filters, which serve to block spam and ensure compliance with various stupid laws we have in this country. They were unblocked not all that long after you posted them.
TO WILLIAM BOWE
the below was my blog which I input at 12.15 PM !!
immediately words appeared at the top: “under moderation” or he like
My blog was held in moderation for an hour till 1.20 PM
then the words “under moderation” disappeared and the blog showed as 1.20PM
My blog’s words were not changed and is listed below
what are offending words below ? (’Ron’ or ‘Liberal’ or both)
#
152
Ron Says:
December 13th, 2007 at 1:20 pm
Will our election process become gradually subject to CORRUPTION by election
2,515,254 Australians did NOT go to a polling booth to vote (20%)
Historically it WAS harder to get to the polling booths due to lack of cars/transport
Today it is easier to get to the polling booths but less are going
The result is that postal votes alone have grown 28% from the 2001 election
(form 4.28% of the total vote in 2001 to 5.46% in 2007)
My TWO fears are that the 27% increase in postal votes on the Total Count
1/ may be a higher % in “marginal’ seats
2/ may in part be caused by Party’s “encouraging” or “soliciting” such behaviour
Numerous possible “corrupt” consequences can follow INCREASING by election:
a/ may allow Party’s to ’solicit’ block votes in nursing homes, retirement villages
b/ may allow Party’s to gain otherwise Booth ‘donkey votes’ as HTV direct votes
c/ may place Party officials in position to decide if to onpost applic. or votes
Some but NOT ALL of these problems would be overcome by restricting the right to post postal applications by the aec alone
Ah, Maxine. Beauty, brains and a great pair of pins. How will Mr McKew, aka Bob Hogg , know he’s fallen off his perch when he must already wake every morning thinking he’s died and gone to heaven?
220 Rod - yeah I heard she was “on leave” and off to the Weekend Oz Magazine. But I’m still surprised they have taken down her old blogs… Certainly does suggest more than just a holiday - and that they weren’t all that impressed with her 24 Nov behaviour.
Increasing the number of Senators elected by each state to 14, which is the minumum enlargement possible, would give us 84 state-elected Senators, which would permit the Reps to be enlarged to 168, give or take a few - the High Court would probably accept 170. That would give an average enrolment of 80,000, against the current 91,000 (although the smaller enrolments in Tasmania would push that figure up a bit).
The problem is that this would mean the creation of 32 new federal politicians, which would mean 32 new electorate offices, 128 new electorate office staff, 32 new allocations of stationery, printing, postage, phones etc etc. Enlarging the Reps by 20 would also mean 20 more AEC Divisional offices, staff, etc etc. The cost, while very small compared to 24 useless Super Hornets at $125m a pop, would be fairly substantial, and you can bet that the Coalition would run a populist “no more politicians” campaign against it, as they did in 1984.
B.S. Fairman @ 208 et al
This ACTer will hang head in shame for our local rag *sniff*
Methinx CanTimes really should stick to covering nasty car accidents on the Parkway and roo culls at the War Memorial.
Meanwhile, it is confusing for us Canberrans when we have headlines like “Opposition in turmoil” - never know which one they mean?
Ho-Hum stepdown speech by Billy and Jacqui
Never knew this new young bloke *whatsisnameagain*
bit of a forgettable face (and name)
and with yet another “best transitions” for “generational change” speech, (what is it about Liberals jumping on the “youth and experience” bandwagon - you’d think by bnow, they could come up something *original* in their Leadership stoushes..)
with a monotone “they will be held accountable for their record”.
going up against our sweet Jon-Boy for next year’s election,
Perhaps yet another forgettable Liberal defeat as it was in 2004?
Re: The Mysterious Case of the Votes and the Nursing Home.
Thanks for input, so far. I’m checking out a couple of things, including as suggested. MayoFeral, the only problem I have with what you suggest is that the AEC specifically nominates the name and address of the Home, rather than suggesting it covers more than one address. As with the other locations visited by one of these teams eg Repat. As far as I know, and am +99% sure, the home in question has no other operating outlet, if I can put it like that.
The owner did have another in another electorate, but that was closed for reasons similar to my earlier indicated.
There is another home near me, which I cannot identify in AEC. So I’ll check that out. Could be postals, I suppose.
Are the postals, absents, prepolls as listed on the AEC site I am looking broken down any further than currently shown?
Actually, looking at all those figures, I am quite pleased with Nicole’s performance. Guessing at the booths which I thought would have swung her way,(primaries) before I looked, the results were very pleasing. Next Time!
I may trouble to add up all the Greens, Indep and Dem Primaries as well.
Oops, sorry William, should have waited till your SA Post Match.
BSF,
They’ve still got Vicki Dunne and Steve Pratt up their sleeve.
WHy did the coaliton order totally useless planes against all expert advice?
These, and other inquiries coming to a front page near you!
I am looking forward to the first QT next year: “My question is to the Minister for Defence. I ask the minister: is it the case that Australia has spent three billion dollars on 24 useless Super Hornet jet aircraft? Is it the case that these aircraft were bought against all expert advice? Can the Minister advise who was responsible for this irresponsible decision?”
Tassieannie, back at 190. I wasn’t bagging Scottsdale per se, just offering a comment on some of him indoors rellies who live there who I found passing strange. And not to put too fine a point on it, there are folk in my own family who are even more strange, and they vote! One of the things I’ve found so informative about William’s site during the looong election is, not only the diversity of analysis and opinion available, but also the depth and breadth of knowledge of contributors.
Ron, I think Adam mentioned that “corrupt” might trigger the moderation filter.
He has now removed that trigger
Adam, the first question time will be interesting:
How will Rudd perform?
How many questions on environment (but sort of on climate change) will be asked of Garrett?
How will Abbott cope without a friendly speaker?
How often will the ALP refer to the 3 wise men (Costello, Downer and Ruddock) on the back row?
Who will be the first shadow Minister to be destroyed by Julia?
How often will the dodgy Liberal Party leadership vote get a mention?
How loud will the “hear hears’ be when the speaker first calls for the Member for Bennelong?
adam don’t you mean EX DEFENSE MINISTER now leader of the opposition?
235 libsrok - I assume Adam’s question was a dorothy dixer.
sorry i’m a idiot
It’s not really fair that the boys can do it, when Jen says she was told off for ‘gloating,’ over what I don’t know, and no doubt I am entirely off the mark, but I am thinking ‘Young Ladies may Do Well to Emulate the Outstanding Demeanour of the Mss Gillard and McKew, Exemplars of Grace in Victory.’
How many billions of dollars of useless crud did the former Govt buy from Boeing? What was the role of Andrew Peacock and his close ties to the former Govt?
Poor Horatio Half Hornet Nelson.
I almost feel sorry for him - nah I fibbed. 
The ‘Courious Snail’ is reporting that the Queensland senate seats have been finalised.
LABOR and the Coalition will have three senators each in Queensland after the close of the count today.
Australian Electoral Commission (AEC) state manager Anne Bright said the count, which was scrutinised by representatives for the candidates and parties, was completed today.
Sitting Labor senators John Hogg and Claire Moore were returned, with new ALP candidate Mark Furner securing the third seat.
Sitting Liberal Party senators Ian Macdonald and Sue Boyce were returned, as was veteran Nationals senator Ron Boswell.
Australian Democrats deputy leader Andrew Bartlett lost his seat. The Senate will sit in its existing form until June 30 next year.
http://www.news.com.au/couriermail/story/0,23739,22919019-3102,00.html
No surprises that Bartlett lost his seat. He is obviously a zombie:
http://psephos.adam-carr.net/countries/a/australia/bartlett.jpg
But I’m still waiting for PAUL KAVANAGH to acknowledge that I was CORRECT in predicting that the Democrats would lose all their seats and that no Democrat candidate anywhere would poll 5% of the vote, and to retract his various nasty remarks aimed at me over these predictions. WHERE ARE YOU PAUL?
217 Grog- Yeah I noticed that too today. Pretty sure it was there earlier in week. There was an article in the Age with this “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.”
I’m going to buy “Kickback” in memorial. Actually, I just read “Dark Victory” which was fantastic. I hope Roxon sacks Jane Halton soon.
205 scaper…
“Disallowed Key Characters”
Usually this means you have a corrupt cookie. Delete cookies and try again.
You can test using Firefox or Safari vs IE to narrow down the problem if you really want to.
I’ve seen this occur accessing pages through the Opinion 1-6 feature on the Oz top right.
In other words it is a coding error, not them trying to stop you posting.
Diogenese @242: I hope Roxon sacks Jane Halton soon.
*ditto* from me on that, but what’s your beef with JH?
242 Diogenese are you referring to her days as head of the “People smuggling Taskforce”?
http://www.abc.net.au/7.30/content/2002/s535129.htm
Adam, I recall your prediction, agreed with it then, and moreover said they weren’t to be mourned.
All 100% correct.
The only exception is Bartlett. I like Bartlett myself. He should join the Greens. Jeez, I’ll have a word to Drew Hutton myself. Then we’d have a real gold shot at a QLD senator in 2010.
http://www.c.overington is not dead, just buried:
http://blogs.theaustralian.news.com.au/coverington/index.php
The decision to buy the FA-18 super hornets was off course political but as someone who knows a little of these things i can rationlise the thinking.
the jsf-35 is a dog of a aircraft it was forced onto the us. armed forces because of budget concerns .
Howard & nelson signed up to a partnership to help fund it
Most of our military harware & sotware is programed into the us. comps
this includes weapons,guidence,support
support is a big one
there are a lot better planes out there to buy the typhoon eu. community and thr russkis new sukoiuh but without the software are shit
the labour party are left with this shit but it’s the fault of the libs to buy us. abd forget about the rest
ask nelson why
Rain,
Jane Halton was Max Moore-Wilton’s 2-i-c in PM&C and head of the People Smuggling Taskforce.
She had a lead role in the children overboard lies and was less than co-operative at the Senate inquiry.
I read Dark Victory and thoroughly agree with the barrel-dweller.
Lefty, I doubt the Greens would want a zombie Senator. Anyways the Greens vote has reached its natural ceiling so they aren’t likely to win a Qld Senate seat unless we have a DD. The only Dem who could or should make a comeback is NSD. She should wait a decent interval then join either the Greens or the ALP.
Rain and Grog- ViggoP is spot on. Jane Halton epitomises what went wrong with the public service under the Rodent. “Frank and fearless advice” became “manipulate and cover-up for political gain for your boss at all costs”. I was particularly taken by similarities between her loss of a moral compass and that of doctor involved in the Holocaust. There is an extensive literature on how “good people become evil” and she is a text-book case.
Hmm, getting a swing despite a Ruddslide suggests to me the Greens may got some way to go in solidifying their natural base vote. Will depend on how much envirocred Rudd has 3 yrs hence/
I think you’ll find the Greens will advertise strategic voting Green 1 ALP 2 more seriously than they have, and I moreover wager that every state will be returning a Green senator by 2013.
Agree on NSD.
250
Adam - NSD has had a lot of nasty things to say about the Greens and the ALP, i dont think she’ll want to join your ranks.
253 Don’t hold your breathe waiting for her to join your team Glen.
No steve i wouldn’t want her to join our team. She couldn’t hold a candle to Eric Abetz or Nigel Scullion
Well, she wouldn’t want to burn the hair off his pants-less legs.
That’s right Pancho
255 I suppose you’d be right Glen, she did have a tertiary education so would have little in common with your team.
Well that would be because she is a lefty, yes im glad you agree Steve.
Rudd makes it clear he ain’t no lap dog:
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2007/12/13/2118468.htm
“An alliance with the United States does not mandate automatic compliance with every aspect of US foreign policy and there are established differences between ourselves,” he said.
“One is well known to us all in Iraq and the second relates to climate change.
“I have made no bones about it in the past that I believe the United States needs to accept its share of the global burden on climate change.”
Comparing NSD to Nigel Scull-it-down and Eric Abetz - words fail me.
How The Washington Post has seen the Bali Conference:
U.S. Strategy Succeeds in Bali
Climate Talks Turn to Efforts Other Than Emissions Targets
And on Rudd:
Even as negotiators wrangled behind closed doors over what specifics could make it into a final resolution, political leaders took the podium to describe ways in which global warming is transforming the global landscape. Australia’s newly elected prime minister, Kevin Rudd, who last week ratified the 1997 Kyoto Protocol as his first official act, told delegates that climate change is no longer an abstract concept in his country. “It is an emerging reality,” Rudd said.
243
Thanks Ed for replying to my query, as I have being feeling despondent because I don’t abuse people and I’ve been racking my brain to understand why I am blocked.
Paranoia was starting to set in regarding a project that I’m developing and my contacts there on both sides are not contactable at the moment.
I will activate a scan and delete the cookies and hope that works, as I was going to contact O’Mahoney on this because of my concerns.
Thanks again mate.
Oh and Adam i forgot to also compare NSD to Julian McGauran.
263 Scaper: Keeping a weather eye on your project. Good luck with it.
Glen I hope you read the story on the front page of today’s Age about the results of Julian McGauran’s disgraceful behaviour. He lives in the same toilet as Tuckey and Heffernan IMHO.
What a dynasty the McGaurans are in Victoria…
The only bad thing about Julian is he is anti-abortion.
Adam you should know i only read the Der Stürmer (Hun) and the Völkischer Beobachter (GG) i rarely touch an Unsere Zeit (Age).
CW @ 228
I just find it curious that some smaller homes get a AEC team while much bigger ones don’t. For eample, the Strathalbyn nursing home with 30 residents had a team, but the 3x larger (about 4x if residents of the independent living units are included) home at Mt Barker didn’t.
Grog i love Labors’ response however, we will wait until the Garnaut review occurs before committing to targets offered.
What if the Garnaut review comes up with a view that significant cutbacks will be damaging to Australias’ economy, therefore Australia will do very little when it comes to Climate Change, it was a simple answer and just shows that at this stage it is just a change in the rhetoric.
Simple answer why wait, Wind and Solar projects can begin straight away.
Re Franklin (apologies for posting on-topic after the first page, which is probably illegal) it was on the radar as a likely rogue seat when Kevin Harkins was the candidate and at one stage I posted a prediction that Harkins would beat Goodwin 51:49. But with him out of the way it seemed obvious that the Libs were out of oxygen and would not make many inroads, especially with Labor shadowing Goodwin by also picking a youngish female candidate.
200-vote polls don’t mean much but two of them thrown together with Labor averaging 62.5% 2PP didn’t offer much by way of threat of a swing to the Libs, yet it happened. Goodwin was a very good candidate for the Libs on the western shore side of the electorate (which is why the swings back to Labor in the timber booths are mostly modest rather than double figures) and campaigned for the seat for a long time. She also did surprisingly well in some areas that I would have thought were hopeless for her as a rather “intellectual” candidate - 7% swing to the Liberals in Bridgewater when Brighton just up the road had a massive swing to Labor. It looks like the late start to Collins’ campaign and the endless Harry Quick saga did do the Labor vote some harm.
I can only wonder how much damage was done to Goodwin’s campaign by Abetz fans making unspecified personal insinuations about her failure to reproduce while pushing the preselection cause of one Daniel Muggeridge, who I got on well with during his anti-compulsory-unionism days at the Tas University Union, but who hadn’t raised a blip on the political radar anywhere in about a decade since then. I do not hold Muggeridge himself responsible for the slurs and doubt he had any foreknowledge of them. Perhaps had the Abetz faction not been almost as much in self-destruct mode as Labor was when preselecting Harkins, it could have been a little bit closer still.
Another political dynasty, oh politics the people who end up in Canberra consist of family members or appartchiks.
Eric Abetz is an embaressment to tasmania and Trust me it takes alot to stand out of the crowd of embaressments we have. He is filth thats political career only endures due to above the line voting. If he thinks he is so popular maybe he should quit the senate and run for Franklin or even better Denison.
What was the story about? Is it on The Age website?
In reguards to franklin i would also suggest there was more at play than Quick and Harkins. A cynical demand for pork. I assure you that next election i would expect that labors vote will substantially decrease futher. Southern Tasmanians resent all the goodies th undeserving less and more sparcley populated north get just because they have marginal seats.(yet they continue to ungreatfully winge all the time). If you had read The Muckery(Mercury) in the lead up to the federal election, there was alot about wanting to become more marginal for pork barelling.
ShowsOn its about an old abortion case you’ll find here
Phillip Adams was talking to Mungo MacCallum on LNL, mainly about his new book. Had some interesting things to say about Howard and his legacy.
You can probably catch it on the LNL website. There’s a repeat tomorrow at 4pm on Radio National.
Thanks.
@230 Lefty E Says:
Well I know nothing whatsoever about jet fighter aircraft but The Concatenate News Blog has an interesting article “Some thoughts on why we bought the Super Hornets” which says inter alia:
More at http://www.theconcat.com.au/live/?p=2549
251 Diogenes Says: Jane Halton epitomises what went wrong with the public service under the Rodent.
*nodding*, Tell me about it, and then to top it off, she was promoted???
And pulled over her sidekicks in the affair, to litter the Health SES with more useless extra baggage.
but recently 2 new DSs recruited, making 4 DS’s - unusual to have so many, and a couple of previously “retired” SES, have returned as ’special advisors’ *grin*
As much I would do my squirmy dance to see her go, and fast (and don’t forget to take your garbage with you on your way out) Rudd & Co seem to be going slowly on PS movements. Last I saw, Nicola Roxon expressed support for her, but that may have been the usual always show good manners in public etc.
265
Thanks Ed.
I’m humbly confident and you know what?….the support base is growing to a point that a structure is forming on a voluntary basis.
The input is very encouraging indeed.
scaper…
Albert,
Interesting article about the Hornets, seems to be saying they weren’t such a bad choice after all.
I guess the Andrew Peacock connection may make it hard for Nelson, anyway, even if the choice was justifiable according to some observers.
You missed the point
The Su 27 flown by the Indonesia pilots WILL be able to see the Super Hornet
The Aussie Super Hornet pilots WILL NOT be able to see their enemy
Our Airforce will be demolished overnight
( at least Peacock got a good bonus)
Israel can get the F22 from the US , so should we
Ron,
Ok, not my area of expertise by any stretch.
Did you read the article that was linked to?
Dyno
Peacock’s pitch was (and it was true) ;
The Super Hornet can fly further than the Russian SU 27
and can carry a greater payload
But the SU27 will not be seen by the Super Hornet pilots ,
so the Super Hornets will get blown out of the sky
Geez i love it how people talk of Russian and American weapons as if they are the “only” options that exist. It is “Either” “Or”. What about the Eurofighter Typhoon? JAS 39 Gripen? Dassault Rafale?
The Eurofighter Typhoon seems pretty capable to me
And when do we expect to be having this war with Indonesia? I suppose if Nelson ever became PM it would be a risk, since he would want to justify these expensive toys by using them, but otherwise I can’t really see it. Indonesia is now a reasonably healthy democracy and democracies generally don’t have wars with each other. My point was not that one expensive plane is better than another, but that they are all generically useless. What the ADF needs is more soldiers on the ground, more transport capacity to move then around quickly, and also more ships and sailors to sail them. With whom exactly is Australia ever likely to be fighting an air war?
Agree totally Adam(!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!)…
Aren’t there McDonalds in Indonesia and that therefore McDonald’s Rule would apply?
Adam if we had nuclear weapons we wouldn’t need to spend so much on defence except for rapid response units so as to protect our zone of influence in Asia/Pacific.
Ron, Israel needs F-22s we don’t.
Dyno et al have a look here for a considered opinion re bangs for bucks and no doubt the opening dorothy dixer for the Kokoda Kid & Ms Hornette at the first QT in 08…
http://www.theage.com.au/news/opinion/flying-into-trouble/2006/12/29/1166895477918.html?page=fullpage#contentSwap1
Cheers
Somebody posted the following link when this topic was being discussed a while ago.
http://www.ausairpower.net/jsf.html
My completely naive view is that whenever the Americans decide to bomb some poor bastard back to the stone age as they so gleefully put it, the job is pretty much done before the Hornets et al turn up on our tv screens.
It seems to me that what we need are some B52s to launch cruise missiles from at high altitude. We also need some of those Sukhois to defend our own sea-air gap from conventional forces. This seems the cheaper, more reliable option.
Xmas knives out for Iemma
And for a non cardigan non Sheridan view try this…
http://www.smh.com.au/news/opinion/there-is-nothing-super-about-this-hornet/2007/03/14/1173722557984.html?page=fullpage#contentSwap1
What was that about who do you trust?
Cheers
PS will be interesting to see what Kev07 does about this disaster in 08.
The Indonesians are only going to have 8 SU-30s in total you guys we’ll have 24 F-18 SuperHornets + our other F-18s id say we’d take them in less than 10 mins if we had too. The SuperHornets are not crap aircraft you only to compare them with SU-27s and SU-30s.
I think Israel is getting the F-22’s smaller, single engined sibling, the F-35. They’re apparently the priority 1 customer for it too, so we’ll be bumped down the list a bit after manufacturing starts if we end up buying them.
US Congress has outright refused to entertain the thought of selling the F-22 at this stage (and will probably continue to do so for a few years yet) - it’s by far and away the best air-superiority fighter flying today & the USAF will want to hold on to that advantage for some time yet.
It will eventually get exported - in the late 70’s the F-15 was the top fighter in the US inventory & its now its flying with many airforces and is even being made overseas.
The Superhornet saga seems to be quite a popular topic on this forum - there’s lots of good stuff on this website: http://www.ausairpower.net/ for those that are interested.
Glen, just when the Christmas spirit begins to descend on me, and in the warm glow of it’s influence I begin to forgive you for some of your more repulsive thought processes, you snap me back to reality with a post such as 289. Nuclear weapons indeed.
Scotty (274) - good point, I suspect there’s something in that which you say.
Indonesia plans to acquire 48-54 Su-30 over the next decade. Currently they have 4, and by the end of 2009 they’ll have 10-16. Malaysia has purchased 18 (not yet delivered). India will eventually build about 180 of them. China 250+.
Gee, we are talking weapons that ultimately reek collateral damage.
Be shore to kiss your loved ones tonight.
And don’t give me this shit about protecting our nation!!!
You know the problem folks…we are working from the result backwards…if this could be realised in true chronological fashion, then a better outcome could realised.
More rubbish.
scaper…
MayoFeral at 268 re my 228
‘I just find it curious that some smaller homes get a AEC team while much bigger ones don’t. For example, the Strathalbyn nursing home with 30 residents had a team, but the 3x larger (about 4x if residents of the independent living units are included) home at Mt Barker didn’t’.
Noted, MayoFeral. Hence my reference to Repat. Seems a bit odd. Look at the other ‘Team’ on the AEC site. They are few, given.
Apart from anything else, I too wondered why the smaller outfits were, attended to, whereas the larger are not featured and do not have a ‘Team’ on the AEC site.
Still no idea on the the discrepancy I began with.
Adam, it’s not a matter of fixing the size of the Senate and then coming up with a good number for the House of Reps. The seat entitlements for each state are strictly determined by a formula set down in the constitution. The High Court’s role, as Antony Green has pointed out, has been to interpret that formula.
Ergo, the High Court would only accept the results of said formula.
(The territories use the same formula. But it’s set down in legislation, which leaves room for parliament to toy with it.)
Since my last post, I went in to the neighbour’s to turn off his wasteful, foolish bore watering which was again, running into the gutters.
Now I am taking his dog for a run on the beach.
Little does his owner know.
CW @302
We have just awoken from 11yrs 8mnths 3wks and one day of fascist rule and you are off (@2:30)am) to turn off your neighbours water and take their dog for a run - I LOVE this country and its resilience
Sam Roggeveen, a former intelligence analyst, is the editor of the Lowy Institute’s blog (www.lowyinterpreter.org)
says, inter alia
“But there is a roadblock: government secrecy impedes the take-up of blogging as a bureaucratic tool. Blogs thrive in a culture of openness, whereas governments live in fear of leaks, so tend to leave big decisions to small groups of senior people. This inhibits the kind of innovative thinking that can happen when groups of people with fresh perspectives are allowed to tackle an old problem. It also makes it impossible for bureaucracies to exploit pockets of expertise they did not even know existed.
Politicians already see blogs as useful public relations devices, and a number of foreign ministries are using them in their public diplomacy. Now governments are beginning to explore blogging as a tool for improving international policy.
Blogging may have proven to be something less than a media revolution, but the slow spread of blogs into government suggests they are more than a passing fad.”
i’m fairly sure a few here would muldly disapprove?
muldy is a 2:50am, 6 crownies word
May I suggest Nelson’s Super hornet decision in context
Accoding to both the US and Australian Joint Military Chiefs of Staff ,
air superiority is a PREREQUISITE to the defence of any Country
Since 1951 until todate , Australia has had air superiority over all our neigbours
via US supply
The Super Hornet is intended to fill a possible gap between the current upgraded F111’s and the joint US/Australian fighter project
However the Super Hornet will be up against our neighbours fighters
(including Indonesia , Malaysia , China and India) who will have the Russian
Su27 & SU30 fighter which is superior
ie. Should the gap arise , the Howard Cabinet on Nelson’s recommendation but without the support of the Joint Chiefs of Staff has conceded for the first time in Australian history air superiority to our neigbours
Another legacy
Scotty@274
You’re quite right. The Liberal guy handing out HTVs at the Warrane booth I was on said “make Franklin a marginal seat” every time he tried to hand out a card.
By my reckoning the quota system would require that there be 170 state-based electorates if the Senate was enlarged to 84. You’d then undoubtedly give three seats to the ACT for a House of 175.
Ryan at 164 - the House of Representatives wing was designed to eventually accommodate 240 MHRs. It follows that the Senate wing (which also contains the press gallery) is designed to hold 120.
I’m sure that with a little bit of shuffling of deck chairs they could fit the extra half-dozen or so offices on each side to accommodate the MPs from the territories, in which case there is scope for four enlargements of parliament.
And theres the rub. Neither the SH or F-35 can replace the F-111s. The latter can haul up to 25×500lb guided bombs over a combat radius of 1,000 nautical miles (without refueling) and with a high chance of reaching the target and returning.
The F/A-18Fs can lift 2×500lb with a combat radius of 150 nm and has a so-so chance of success.
To maintain the F-35s stealth characterists all weapons must be carried in its 2 internal weapons bay, but to give it anything like a decent range one bay will have to be filled with an extra tank. So effectivelly it can carry only a single bomb or missile. It also then has limited self-defence missile capacity (2 short range Sidewinders) so in the bomber role the F-35s will either need fighter escorts, or carry externally mounted missiles at the expense of stealth. It also has only one engine, moreover one that needs to operate at a much higher temp than previous designs to get adequate performance.
The European fighters share some combination of the same disadvantages of the hornets and f-35.
As for the suggestion that the F-111s will be replaced by cruise-missiles. Crap! Not even the Americans can afford that. And they’re useless against moving targets like shipping, a primary F-111s target.
The F-15s the Koreas are building would be a better stop gap measure if one was required. But it isn’t. The F-111s could be upgraded with state of the art radars, electronics and more powerful engines for comparatively peanuts. Despite the nonsense Nelson dribbled abut them falling out of the sky, we have enough spare airframes and wings to keep them safely flying until at least 2050, at which point I expect humanity will be facing a crisis that can’t be resolved with bombs.
Sharing the Joy, Otiose.
Every Dog has it’s Day.
In Rebel’s lifetime (he is Twelve) we have done the midnight swim, at least a hundred times.
On the hot, hot nights. When I arrive home. Or whenever.
The 180, my paces, to the beach. Rebel’s dad, his owner, rarely aware of these escapades.
Not that he minded when he caught us out!
I have been so bitter and twisted for so long I have failed to take that dog out, for at least 12 months.
The dog does not know why things have so marvellously changed.
In any event, Rebel smiles, wags, as he does.
Despite his friend next door, so oddly sullen and strange, for so long a time, happy to swim and dance, on the beach, again, at any hour.
Rebel doesn’t know what is different.
He does know it feels better.
As do we!
just a quick historical note
1.read “israels best defence” by retired israeli air force chief-air superiority is CRAP unless you have the appropriate logistical support
2.Our comms/sat nav capabilties are light years ahead of ANY unfriendlies- we can monitor,jam,ghost and even shutdown any Unfriendlies systems
3.Contextually we could fly sopwith camels and still have “air superiority”
4.” Despite the nonsense Nelson dribbled abut them falling out of the sky, we have enough spare airframes and wings to keep them safely flying until at least 2050, at which point I expect humanity will be facing a crisis that can’t be resolved with bombs.” plus the amount of spares if needed are available to equip at least 3 squadrons.
the real issue is appearance not functionality- but a good dose of reality helps
Are we still banned from discussing child abuse? If not, these allegations are explosive.
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,22922011-601,00.html
In SA we have mandatory reporting of child abuse. I assume the same is true in Qld. If ministers were found to have directed child protection officers to break the law and not report child abuse, they would be forced to resign and possibly face criminal action. Of course in SA, we don’t have a CCC so it would never get out!
Well this certainly feels like a Boy’s Blog at the moment.
War planes and Maxine’s skirt.
Sheez guys -
Well this certainly feels like a Boy’s Blog at the moment.
War planes and Maxine’s skirt.
Sheez guys -
in the meantime… what is the latest on the vic senate vote?
Sorry - some weird thing happened with the first post (said i’d already sent it- but I hadn’t.) then it pops up twice…
Jen dont worry the wacky greens have no chance at a Vic Senate spot you’d have done better with your 2004 candidate, infact he’d have probably won had the ALP not preferenced Steve Fielding…
Sorry Jen, maybe we can strap some bombs to the roofs of our V8 supercars. Parachute them out the back of a Hercules and get Lowndsey and Skaifey to race each other to the targets.
David Walsh #301: Yes the High Court is the arbiter of whether the size of the Reps is in conformity with the nexus clause. At the 1977 redistribution the Reps was reduced from 127 to 124 because the HC ruled that 127 was too high. There were then 60 state-elected Senators, so a strict application of the nexus would have meant 120, but the HC apparently accepted 124. There are now 72 state-elected Senators, so we should have 144 in the Reps, but the HC apparently accepts 150. (Of course the HC can only rule if someone challanges the current size of the Reps - maybe if someone did the HC would order a reduction.)
So, if we were to increase the number of state-elected Senators to 84 (14 per state), which is the minimum possible, that would give a House of Reps of 168. It could probably be 170 or even a bit more without provoking the wrath of the HC. That, incidentally, would mean that at a half-Senate election the quota for election would be 12.5%, and at a DD it would be 6.7%.
If we had a House of 170, the seats would be distributed as follows: NSW 55, Vic 42, Qld 34, WA 17, SA 13, Tas 4, ACT 3, NT 2. Since Tas must have five seats, the state with the lowest quota would lose a seat to Tas, that would be SA with 12.75, so SA would go back to 12.
Talk about irony! Geldof (that’s Sir Bob, to you), has just called renewable energy “Mickey Mouse”.
Not that self-adulating pop concerts on the theme of human blights are anything other than “Mickey Mouse”!
Anyway, Sir Bob has decided that the world better go nuclear, despite the costs, the severe downstream problems, and the fact that there’s not more than a few decades worth of the stuff if we all did.
Nup, why waste time and effort on Mickey Mouse when we’ve got Sir Bob?
so as well as mondays the git dont like Mother Nature
tell me why??
Get it right you Ossees - it’s pronounced NUKULAR
Check out the calculater for the senate in Vic. We’re heading into recount territory me thinks.
Labor leading by .0098 of a quota. only 5 parties are directly favouring Labor, in a recount who knows.
#319 - presumably the 124 includes the (then) 3 Territory seats? That would leave a difference of 1 which could be attributable to rounding.
Also, does anyone know whether the additional seats that Tasmania gets under its guaranteed minimum of 5 (which I think accounts for about 1.5 seats these days) is applied before or after the per-state quota of seats is calculated under the number-of-Senators-based formula? If it’s after (which would make more sense to me), you would always expect the total number seats to be a little over 148 as Tasmania would always have more than its quota (other states would have up to 0.5 above or below their quotas).
sorry quota is .0091 lead to the Labor party. big problems in the count too from what I’ve seen.
As well as Sir Bob going nukular, now we have The Locum telling Rudd how to be PM, as well as trying to stick it to Garrett. Maybe a few strafes from those Hornets over the Jap’s bows would be lots more fun and achieve more than collecting stats on whaling. Do a Gareth Garrett.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2007/12/14/2118705.htm
Thanks Adam, I wasn’t aware of that.
But I still wonder how getting 12 from 12.75 lives in harmony with a constitution that states: “if on such division there is a remainder greater than one-half of the quota, one more member shall be chosen in the State”.
Well maybe they would just give Tas its fifth seat and have a House of 171.
HC would be prevented Constitutionally from ruling a reduction of SA from 12.75 to 12
The HC would wear any reasonable anomaly in the Rep total as an alternative to
avoid this
Crikey Whitey 311,
I wish you were my neighbour! Give rebel a big jowl squeeze and ear-rub from me! Do you think he would like a holiday in Brisbane?
“The seat entitlements for each state are strictly determined by a formula set down in the constitution. The High Court’s role, as Antony Green has pointed out, has been to interpret that formula.
Ergo, the High Court would only accept the results of said formula.”
To be precise, the formula in S24 of the Constitution applies “until the Parliament otherwise provides”. Thus it is quite open for the Parliament to legislate a new formula, although the general nexus provision is constitutionally entrenched.
As it turns out, the Commonwealth Electoral Act essentially repeats the Consititution’s formula. But it would be perfectly legitimate if it variesd it.
The cut in seats in 1977 came about because the High Court ruled that S24 meant dividing the total population of the states by twice the number of State Senators to determine the quota, not dividing the Commonwealth’s population by twice the number of all Senators. The Court also invalidated a provision from 1964 that gave a seat to any state fractionally above a full quota in the seat determination.
The formulas are all here.
http://www.aec.gov.au/Electorates/Redistributions/Overview.htm
Did everyone get it? Cossie on the radio telling anyone interested that the Liberal government was doing a good job, you know, the economy’s running like a fast train and their only problem was they failed to, you know, ‘renew’ themselves. (I think that’s code for not turfing the Rodent and giving him the PM’s job).
If there was ever any doubt about what a concieted, smug git he is, then this is surely like a tatoo across the forehead: Smug Git.
The populace were pretty happy with the government (particularily his bit), and just wanted a change. Obvioulsly we are a bunch of ADHD kids with a low boredom threshold, and didn’t appreciate how wonderful the Smirk would have been as PM.
Talk about living in denial, and having an ego bigger than the known universe.
Lisa @323, only five parties directing preference to Labor, which is exactly why Labor’s lead will be greater than shown by the Calculator. Very very few Labor votes are below the line. It will be the Greens that suffer leakage of BTL votes away from where the ATL votes go. So Labor’s vote will be at the same level or slightly higher in the real count, while the Green vote is certain to be lower. The Greens go from 10.06% to 13.39% on current calculations, but some of that will leak away. Labor is not nearly so reliant on BTL to get elected, going from 13.06% to 13.99% and then 14.4% after Family First goes out.
The 1964 provision was to appease the Country Party, which had scuttled the 1962 redistribution because it would have cost them seats (in those days redistributions had to be approved by the Parliament). That’s why there was no redistribution between 1955 and 1969, producing enormously distorted enrolments at the 1966 election - Bruce had 119,000 voters while West Sydney had 29,000.
McKinlay’s case (I think 1974) fixed the problem that allowed governments to keep deferring redistributions. That case meant a state had to have its new entitlement to seats at the next election. Fraser had to include statewide PR as a provision in case a redistribution had been knocked back by Parliament. The Hawke government changed this to a mini-redistribution where an election took place before boundaries had been drawn to take account of a state’s new entitlement.
KR,
I also noticed that tip said how lucky Prime Minister Rudd and Treasurer Swan (sounds good, eh?) were to inherit such a good economy.
Seems to have forgotten that he inherited an economy on the improve and that his legacy is an economy which seems to be developing a few problems.
My understanding was that territory seats have no bearing on the nexus. So the important numbers now are 72 and 146, not 150. The two surplus seats are because each state must have as many seats as it does quotas, and Tasmania throws it out a little.
On that basis, I think the number of required seats if the Senate was expanded to 14 per state would be 170. Here is the population of the various states according to the last determination:
New South Wales: 6,764,690
Victoria: 5,012,689
Queensland: 3,945,940
Western Australia: 2,003,778
South Australia: 1,540,223
Tasmania: 484,745
The Commonwealth: 19,752,065
(excluding the Territories)
Australian Capital Territory: 325 790
Northern Territory: 206,492
Now, if the number of seats across the six states were to increase to 168, then the quota would have been 117,571.82. So the allocations to each state would have been:
New South Wales: 57.54 (58 seats)
Victoria: 42.64 (43 seats)
Queensland: 33.56 (34 seats)
Western Australia: 17.04 (17 seats)
South Australia: 13.10 (13 seats)
Tasmania: 4.12 (5 seats)
That’s 170 seats. Then you give the ACT a third seat and retain the current two seats in the Northern Territory, for a House of 175.
KR @ 333
We will never know, but my gut feeling is that even if Howard had tossed Costello the keys to Kirribilli last year they would have still lost, possibly by an even bigger margin. I don’t believe Cossie has what it takes to connect with the electorate so any post transition honeymoon would have been brief.
As for the great economy he’s left, take out the windfall resources boom and we would have been in deep poop for some time. We may yet be if, as many economists believe, the US is about to nosedive into recession probably taking China with it. If so, the wasting of the huge surpluses on trinkets by the Costello et al will bite us on the bumb, bigtime.
There is another way to change the numbers. Cut the Senate back to ten Senators per state, make it one-third the size of the House, and you still get about the same number of members of Parliament. That requires a referendum, but you could sell it to the public. It has one problem, in that there would only be four Senators per state elected at the next election. That would cut out the Greens. Another would be a referendum to break the nexus. Unlike the previous attempt in 1967, it might require some sort of formula to be included. Even the presence of the Aboriginal referendum in 1967, included as a deliberate attempt to get a yes vote for the nexus referendum the same day, didn’t work against the campaigning of the DLP. But it would be worth trying again, arguing that 100,000 is getting a bit large for House seats, and the only way to cut this number is to alter the nexus provision. I’m sure people would understand why you don’t want to increase the size of the Senate.
Cutting to ten Senators would be good, Antony. Do you know if either party supports cutting Senate terms to three years? It’s just plain common sense.
337
ViggoP
Oh yeah, the Smirk doesn’t have to rise from his hammock to tell us about what went before, he obvioulsy thinks he was the best thing to happen to Oz in the last decade and all else is mere history.
Pity we didn’t recognize his greatness, eh?
I’m still gobsmacked by these creeps, the utter self-obsession and delusional perspective, even after all these years! Or else their complete dismissal of our intelligence to see what frauds they are.
And yes, I still get a frison of joy every time I hear the Prime Minister’s name mentioned. It’s a mixture of relief and expectation, and its only heightened every time I hear the likes of Smirk and his dreary ilk drone on about what might have been.
Antony, I know this is probably a completely moronic question (but a psephologist I ain’t)…
Why would BTL votes leak away from The Greens, when I thought the current wisdom was that minor party voters are More likely to vote BTL?
Why does half the Senate have to be elected each three years? Apart from legislative and constitutional questions, is it immutable as a concept or more efficient in some way?
The only time the nexus has any real impact is on the relative number of votes between the Senate and the HoR in a joint sitting. Given that there has been exactly one such sitting it seems a bit excessive to keep a whole lot of extra Senators hanging around just in case we have another, but if the intent of the Constitution in this regard was considered important it would be just as easy to devise a formula whereby the total number of votes exercised by the Senate in a joint sitting was as near as practicable half of those exercised by the HoR as it is to define a formula where the number of actual Senators is as near as practicable half the number of actual members of the HoR.
If cutting the number of Senators meant cutting out the Greens im all for it good option Antony!
Didn’t work that well in Tasmania when they reduced the number of MPs in each division. Green vote just grew to make the new quota.
Surely if you were changing the Senate you would put all positions up for re-election at the next election after the referendum and therefor not necessarily achieve Glen’s wish.
Glen, please don’t use this site as your own personal message board on issues that have nothing to do with electoral matters. Your comment on IVF and the responses to it have been deleted.
Sorry William i thought it was a political issue in Victoria but obviously it has nothing to do with the Tasmania situation after the Federal poll.
Sorry, I shouldn’t have commented, but really! Aaargh!
My bad its not your fault Kirribilli…
So when will we hear more detail about McEwen is there a day next week that we’ll know the result or we just have to hang on edge?
William, I think your outstanding success this year has created a politics forum even if it was never intended.
Perhaps a way around the problem would be to set up threads for policy discussion - perhaps one per portfolio. That way, anything policy-related that encroaches onto a psephology thread could be deleted with no questions asked.
“100,000 is getting a bit large for House seats”
The US House of Reps has 600,000 per seat.
We’re in a lot of trouble if the US ever becomes our benchmark for democratic representation, Spiros.
Spiros,
And US has more than 15 times our population.
I can’t see why you would want to reduce the numbers in the Senate. By a quirk of the system, it is a more representative chamber than the Reps and is usually the only thing that stands between the liberties and rights of the people and the will of the Executive. For mine, the Senate should be constructed so that neither major party can achieve unilateral control. The public interest would be much safer. So a numerous chamber, with low barriers to entry and strong commitees, would be a good thing.
Blindoptimist, 10 Senators elected every three years would be infinitely preferable to 14 Senators elected every six years.
Reducing the numbers in the Senate is by no means desirable in and of itself, but breaking the nexus - or at least increasing the number of MHRs allowed per Senator - certainly is.
It all depends on what you’re used to. The Indian Lok Sabha has 543 seats, with an average of 712,000 votes cast in each electorate (I don’t know the enrolment but since they don’t have compulsory voting it’s probably well over a million). Lok Sabha members don’t even try to provide “constituent services” as we understand them.
Neither does my local member unless an election is in the offing.
I’m inclined to agree about the virtues of the Senate, though I may change my mind again if it obstructs Rudd the way it obstructed Whitlam! The experience of Qld suggests that unicameralism is not the way to good government.
The overlapping terms, which were modelled on the US system, were intended to provide a check on a first-term government carrying “over-enthusiastic” legislation. I don’t think a referendum to end the overlapping terms would ever be passed. A package deal involving breaking the nexus, four-year terms for the House and eight for the Senate, reducing the size of the Senate and increasing the size of the House might get up, although Tas and WA would probably oppose it.
Adam,
can you comment on whether the BTL senate vote tends to favour Greens or not?
Clive Hamilton in today’s Crikey tells of the real shocker that Howard’s bequeathed us:
It will take the Rudd Government many years to pay off John Howard’s massive greenhouse debt. In truth, the Australian public will pay for it. The economic modellers have been pointing out for a long time that delaying action drives up the cost of cutting our emissions.
Although it is now Rudd’s problem, it is Howard himself who must take all of the blame, for it was his personal decision, against all of the advice, to remain stubbornly opposed to accepting the reality of global warming.
…and the Libs are still sounding like they haven’t grasped the importance of what a miserable legacy they’ve left us with on this issue.
someone???
Jen @ 343. The calculators assume all votes follow the tickets. The major party votes have the lowest proportion of BTL votes, so you see the leakage out of the major party tickets. So Labor’s vote isn’t going to fall through the count.
For the Greens to get close at the end, they need all the tickets to flow to them. The calculators assume 100% flow, but as most minor parties have 5-10% BTL vote, there is more likely to be leakage away from the ticket.
With these two factors, the Labor vote is likely to hold up or rise slightly with BTL leakage, while the Green vote is more likely to be slightly lower because of BTl leakage. If the Greens need 100% of BTL votes to get close, and they won’t get 100%.
That should be “don’t see leakage out of the major party tickets”.
Adam 362
Interesting that Andrew Robb the Google Guru is now saying that the downfall of the Libs was when they gained control of the Senate and went ‘too far’ with worksocalledchoices.
368
apres
It’s a fascinating insight into the political pysche: we cannot be trusted with too much unfettered power because we just can’t stop oursleves from going ‘too far’.
Hmm, sounds like they need a Polly equivalent of AA, a 12 step programme to help them handle power without ending up dishevelled and incontinent in the gutter.
Of course they could have listened to the advice of others, talked things over with various bodies other than Cabinet, and let the various stakeholders review their ideological leanings. Nah, too much like seeking a consensus, when what they really wanted was to be all hairy chested and smooch up to the big end of town.
Well, they paid for it, and will go on paying for a very long time.
Not on topic, but the broad issue has been wafting throught the ether quite a bit, here and around the world, and on this blog too: here’s the latest NASA data on global temperatures so far this year.
Just check the the slope of the mean temp. for the last 20 years:
http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/mailings/20071210_GISTEMP.pdf
Now, tell me again, Horatio Hornet, why we should bother listening to anything your mob have to say about anything?
Rain (previous page),
I think that there’s a strong case for some significant changes at the upper end of the public service bequeathed to the new Government, although I think that avoiding the temptation of a night of the long knives was both proper and good politics. I defer to your better knowledge of the specifics, but from what has emerged, Ms. Halton seems like a prime candidate for the chop.
The ambassador to Indonesia is another I would see as deserving an opportunity to spend more time with his family, as his elevation to Djakarta seems to owe more to his (non-) efforts in DIMIA, than any particular merit. A friend of mine, who is much wittier than me, had a letter published in the Age, in which he likened that appointment to Caligula’s nomination of his horse (Incitatus) to the Roman Senate. However, my mate pointed out a distinguishing characteristic - that Incitatus was probably a success as a horse!
Thanks Antony.
Why not reduce the size of parliament overall so the Senate goes back to 10 a state? Is it wrong to assume that a 2:2:1 (Labor: Coalition:Green) outcome is more likely than a 3:2:1 (Labor: Coalition: Green) outcome? If you wanted to increase the likelihood of a Labor+Green Senate majority is this more likley with 10 senators a state?
Let’s not forget that the Tasmanian majors once conspired to cut out the Greens by reducing the number of members per region - the eventual result being that now the Greens hold proportionally more seats than before… Greens and or Democrats have also won seats in 5-member regions in WA and Vic. So no, it’s not out of the ballpark at all, Geoff…
Waaaay back in the mid 200s, Adam said:
“Anyways the Greens vote has reached its natural ceiling so they aren’t likely to win a Qld Senate seat unless we have a DD.”
Perhaps, but if the Qld Coalition vote had been 2.5% lower and Family First’s 2.5% higher, then the Greens would have been elected even if their vote was a percent or two lower than it was. Senate Quotas are funny things.
d
Ed@Bennelong asked:
“Why does half the Senate have to be elected each three years?”
Upper Houses are, more-or-less, intended to frustrate (or at least moderate) the ambitions of an elected government and the half-Senate election is intended to be a protection against outbursts of popular passion. If, at election time, ‘the people’ get all worked with some ‘crazy ideas’ and elect a government composed of ‘populist ratbags’, the half-Senate elected at the previous election will be there to protect the Commonwealth until ‘common sense’ can be restored to the National Government.
d
I think the notion that the Green vote has reached a natural ceiling is wishful thinking from a serial detractor. I would take the Bennelong vote as a very good example of why. The first thing to note is that the swing away from the Greens was huge (probably the largest) and I would give this two reasons: 1) Andrew Wilkie drew a large personal vote, and 2) The Maxine machine was unstoppable. It is in the second reason that I take comfort in knowing that despite our best efforts most people still don’t understand or trust the preferential voting system in the lower house (let alone the upper house) and feel tentative about voting 1 Green 2 ALP. When handing out HTVs I’ve had otherwise intelligent people tell me “well, I’d vote Green but this election is too important, gotta vote Labor…”. And the number of nice old ladies who smile on the way out and tell us “I put you number 2, dear…” flies against the theory that everyone who doesn’t vote Greens 1 therefore hates them.
That’s all.
Re #374, the Greens in Tas have now won 4/25 (16%) at the last two polls although they only just held one of those in 2006. Had the old 7-seat system been used, in 2002 they would have won 6/35 (17.1%) and in 2006 5/35 (14.3%) so really at current support levels whether you have a 35 seat or 25 seat system makes little difference to the Greens’ proportional representation in the Tasmanian parliament (unless the change to the system alone is seen as having increased their vote, which was certainly not evident in the 1998 poll). It is when their support levels are down in the low teens that they can win a swag of seats in a 35 seat house, but get more or less wiped out in a 25 seat one.
I’m suspecting a Labor/Green controlled Senate would indeed become much more likely in the long term under a 10-seat Senate system than a 12-seat one. The issue isn’t the relative chances of the Greens winning in a 10-seat system, but that if Labor and Green swap preferences firmly, then after all the minor party debris is distributed, the Coalition needs to get to 50% of the vote in a given 5-seat state to prevent 3-2 outcomes against it, but only needs to get 42.86% in a given 6-seat state to hold the line at 3-3.
It’s an interesting question of the nexus between the reduction in the numbers in the Tasmanian Parliament and whether this was a causal factor in the increase in the Green vote post-1998. Being involved in Tasmanian Greens election campaigns at the time, I think that the increase in the quota was a factor behind the party organisation taking its campaigning up a gear to achieve the higher hurdle. The Greens are basically just going for one seat in each electorate, with a stab at a second in Denison, and so whatever the quota is will determine the allocation and intensity of electoral resources.
The lag of one election between the reform and the effect could just be the result of the need for party re-organisation. Although, in this particular case, it may be that some (and it just needs to be 2-3% of the electorate) thought Parliament was less effective with only one Green and/or having only one member highlighted the impact that the Greens can have and so then switched their vote at the following poll. Of course, this second paragraph is more influenced by my partisan biases.