Upper house results from the Western Australian election are coming through this afternoon, and we will also have Premier-elect Colin Barnett announce his new cabinet. The first upper house result comes from Mining and Pastoral, which has gone two Labor (Jon Ford and Helen Bullock), two Liberal (Norman Moore and Ken Baston), one Nationals (Wendy Duncan) and one Greens (Robin Chapple). Full preference distribution here. It earlier appeared possible that second Nationals candidate David Grills might win a seat at the expense of the Greens, but Chapple emerged 8168 to 7070 ahead at the final count.
This post will be progressively updated as information becomes available.
UPDATE (1.30pm): Cabinet announced. Included are three Nationals (Brendon Grylls in regional development, Terry Waldron in sport and recreation and Terry Redman in agriculture) along with independent Liz Constable, who takes education from Peter Collier, who instead gets energy and training. Constable is one of only three women out of 17, and the only one in the lower house. The others are Robyn McSweeney as Child Protection and Community Services Minister and Donna Faragher as Environment Minister, the latter a surprise inclusion at the expense of former Shadow Women’s Affairs Minister Helen Morton.
UPDATE (3.30pm): North Metropolitan, East Metropolitan and South Metropolitan have all gone Liberal three, Labor two and Greens one. Still to come are Agricultural (likely result Nationals three, Liberals two and Labor one, although the third Nationals seat might go to Liberal-turned-Family First member Anthony Fels) and South West (looking like three Liberal, two Labor and one Nationals).
UPDATE (3.40pm): Three Liberal, two Labor and one Nationals in South West.
UPDATE (4.50pm): Three Nationals, two Liberals and one Labor in Agricultural. Final result: 16 Liberal, 11 Labor, five Nationals, four Greens.
UPDATE (Saturday): Full preference distributions:
North Metropolitan
East Metropolitan
South Metropolitan
South West
Agricultural
Mining and Pastoral
Listed below are close-ish results at the final counts. There were no tremendously close calls earlier in the counts that might have proved decisive, such as Family First or CDP candidates getting ahead of Liberal or Nationals candidates in South West or Agricultural.
EAST METROPOLITAN
Greens #1: 41489 (15.0%) ELECTED
Labor #3: 37106 (13.5%)
SOUTH METROPOLITAN
Greens #1: 43516 (15.5%) ELECTED
Liberal #3: 40174 (14.3%) ELECTED
Labor #3: 34640 (12.4%)
SOUTH WEST
Liberal #3: 22124 (14.4%) ELECTED
Greens #1: 20992 (13.6%)
AGRICULTURAL
Nationals #3: 11096 (15.2%) ELECTED
Labor #2: 8971 (12.3%)
228 Comments
I’m intrigued as to why Helen Morton missed out on a Ministry. I would have thought that Barnett would be eager to have as many women as possible in Ministerial offices. She was a reasonably effective shadow Minister for Women’s Interests, too.
Buswell has a LOT of portfolios!
Matt, I didn’t know they’d been announced – can you point to a link?
Chapple has won his seat with 2,710 primary votes. This proves my assertion that the Greens sided with the conservatives to preserve the outrageous rural gerrymander in the Council to create rotten boroughs for themselves.
Only The West have announced the full ministry.
http://www.thewest.com.au/default.aspx?MenuID=77&ContentID=98441
Thanks Frank.
#1 Matt C…from what i hear Matt, Helen Morton is too left/progressive/wet for the likes of Barnett (and his supporters).
William when are you going to setup a thread on the ACT election?
The ACT has the same flawed system of counting the vote as the Australian Senate which saw the Greens being unjustly denied representation in Queensland.
Judging by correspondence received by Andrew Moyes, Deputy Electoral Commissioner, the ACT is also looking at not wanting to maintain an open and transparent election as they will only be providing access to the raw preference data files sometime next year. Three months after the election. In order to try and limit access to this information they also intend to charge a fee for a copy of the data file.
This Information should be readily and freely available and published as part of the declaration of the elections results.
My guess is that they do not want the public to know the true results should it turn out that the election result is effected by the inbuilt distortion in the counting system.
It is unclear if this data will be made available to scrutineers. Without access to the data file it is impossible to properly scutinize an electronic computerised count.
#6 – Mr Orange
Yes, I suppose that makes sense. Still, I thought Barnett would strike a conciliatory tone, both within his party and in his dealings with others. This is not a promising early sign.
Adam #3: Do you know if the result was effected as a result of the flawed method used in distributing ballot papers form excluded candidates? Did the change in the WA elections introducing the weighted value of the vote Surplus Transfer value come into play? Has the WAEC published the raw preference data-files? This information is essential if proper and detailed analysis of the election results is be undertaken.
I’m not terribly interested in technical election questions. William or Anthony would know about this stuff.
Whatever happened to MelbCity by the way?
Adam in Canberra: Still alive and well… But the principle of maintaining an open and transparent electoral process is essential to the acceptance of the outcome. Antony Green failed to do the annals of the 2007 Queensland Senate count. had he done so he would have came to the same conclusion that the Greens has been unfairly denied representation. Publciation of the raw data-file should be a matter of course. This is a similar issue to the US not providing a paper trial in their electronic ballots
Now I am not a great fan of the Greens, as you know, and I have been an active member of the ALP for over 30 years (So I am pleased that the ALP hads gained an extra seat in the upper-house) BUT I think the system should reflect accurately the voters intention don’t you?
The Oz goes with a predictable headline: http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,24366022-12377,00.html
Sorry spell checker should read “Antony Green failed to do the analysis of the 2007 Queensland Senate count.”
D@W do I understand you to say that you are in fact MelbCity?
#12 Matt C…..Sad but true.
Sniffer’s achievements are something for all sexist, right-wing, misogynists to aspire to!
A much better article on the the New Barnett Ministry on Perth Now.
http://www.watoday.com.au/wa-news/barnett-announces-new-cabinet-20080918-4j3j.html?page=-1
And watch Labor put in more females in Key shadow portfolios.
Adam in the Senate County: Do you support the notion that Elections should be open and transparent and accurately reflect the voters intention. Or is near enough good enough for you? I suppose you support the fact that the Greens were denied unfairly representation in the QLD senate. You are aware that David Feeney could have readily lost his seat on the red leather as a result of the distortion in the way the Senate is counted? All it would have taken was for One Nation to have preferenced the Liberals ahead of Labor and then to the Greens. I don’t know about you BUT I think the electoral system should be fair and accurate. I also would like to know that the WA upper-house results was fair and accurate. Which is wahy I support the publihsing of the details of the elections results. Maybe you don’t. Your choice.
William,
Antony Green has a quota of 4187 for the Minig and Pastoral Region compared to the 7773 quota indicated on the preference distribution sheet.
http://www.abc.net.au/elections/wa/2008/guide/legislativecouncil.htm?region=mpas
Can you explain?
Matt C 8 – Barnett cant work with people – thats why he came undone previously. This tenuous arrangement will unravel pretty soon I think
#19 – It had been my expectation that the Barnett government wouldn’t be characterised by the sort of arrogance and partisanship that you could usually expect of a first-term government, due to the simple fact of Barnett’s tenuous position rendering him unwilling to piss too many people off. Perhaps that will not be the case.
I wonder if there will be a “night of the long knives” for senior public servants.
He doesnt care how tenuous it is – he’s got it now and all those mates need looking after
Yes, you are MelbCity. I can’t answer such rhetorical questions.
Not sure why Green deserve a 3rd seat in the senate in QLD in 2007
Lib/Nat had 2.83 quota
Lab had 2.74 quota
Green had .5125 quota
3Lib/Nat 3 Lab seems like a fair result
If the minor parties preferred Labor than the Greens, the Greens might need to look at why that is
#19 Barnett cannot work with people, yet somehow an electorate voted him in, enough people supported him for him to get nominated for an electorate, enough members of the Lib parliamentary party supported him that he became opposition leader and then enough western australians like him to become premier. Wow you must know a side of him that no one else sees
North Metro, East Metro and South Metro have all gone Liberal 3, Labor 2, Greens 1.
Er, you seem to be ignoring the obvious dovif – he didnt win the election, Labor lost it. The nationals handed him governemnt. And he was only brought back from the brink of retirement because there was no one else. the fact he was preselected into a safe seat means the party probably knows he’s a dill and couldnt win a marginal
#25 dovif……and people voted Buswell back in too. That doesnt necessarily make him a respectable human being does it? Or maybe it does in your eyes? Maybe people know a side of him other than chair sniffing and sending the Busselton Shire broke? Who knows and who really cares.
Barnett has only been leader of the parliamentary liberal party for 10 minutes (this time around that is) which doesnt give him a record in leadership of any worth in my humble opinion. He has already been rolled once before for being arrogant and exclusive….slugs dont normally change their slime.
People voted for a child molester in NSW, Mrs Iguana “do you know who I am got voted in too”
No Barnett is not perfect, but if he is that bad with people, he would have had no chance of getting into that position, he must be doing something right.
Three Liberal, two Labor and one Nationals in South West.
30 – Oh what an honourable view of how to succeed in politics you have. People skills are not generally a requirement these days
#30 dovif…….”No Barnett is not perfect”.
I agree, but one only has to look at the rabble they had to pick from and sure enough, Barney came up trumps. Only time will tell
I’m pleased all the regions are working out with the same numbers as my calculator.
democracy@work. The ACT DOES NOT have the same system as the Senate. It is an almost exact copy of Tasmanian Hare-Clark. As for the analysis of the QLD senate, you sent me a confusing 70 page print out with nothing about preferences that produces a victory for the Greens for no immediately apparent reason. I’ve been asked by MPs why your system produces a Green victory, and my answer is I don’t know. If you want the JSCEM to adopt your Senate counting system, your going to have to produce something which is understandable.
#26 dovif. Not being able to work with people isn’t always a barrier to attaining high office. A example would be the former treasurer of NSW. Also, you have to remember, that Barnett got the leadership when no one was giving the Libs a snowballs chance in hell of winning the next election. Being chosen to lead a fractious opposition to defeat, and being chosen to run a minority government could be considered to require different attributes.
As an aside I notice Collier didn’t get Education, which according to the quote in the Australian’s coverage left him “slightly disappointed”. I wonder how disappointed he really is and weather it’ll come back to bite Barnett, and if it does how long it will take.
Agriculture has just come thru:
Nats – 3
Libs – 2
ALP – 1
Adam, I appreciate you don’t like the Greens but it appears to me that Robin Chapple polled 4 783 primary votes not 2 710. I got my numbers of the spreadsheet provided by the WAEC, where did you get yours?
One thing I have noticed with the Liberal party is that much of their internal bickerings, fights, divisions etc, are based on individual personalities, ie “your my mate because I hate you less than him”.
Unlike the Labor party which has a more organised, formalised system for internal fighting based on factional groups, ie “I hate you because your in another faction”.
This will make life difficult for Barney, particularly when Govt sits on a knife edge. Upset the wrong person/people and there isnt any formal structure in place to manage the resulting dummy spit….and thats something the Lib’s do well.
I presume Adam took the numbers from the ABC site. Someone else was confused about that earlier. The WAEC issued no updated LC primary votes after completing the polling booth count on Tuesday last week. That’s why the ABC site is way behind in terms of numbers. Not much you can do to update a site if new figures aren’t released. I’m currently manually updating the LA figures every morning to try and update the site.
William,
any spreadsheets for the other regions like the one you linked for the mining & pastoral..
Antony, that may be the case but fortunately the ever efficient William has posted a link to the M&P full preference distribution.
Mr Orange is right – Wa libs is based on personality and powerbroking. No such thing as dry/wet/mod/right.
r hentzschel: Antony’s comment at 39 answers your question also. Sorry you were in moderation so long.
William: any word from WAEC on Dee Margett’s complaint re Ag ballots not being secured, or the missing 1000 Geraldton ballots?
Re Geardlton, they were found in another district’s box.
http://www.watoday.com.au/wa-news/missing-ballot-papers-found-20080918-4j9c.html
Thanks Frank. At least we have no hanging chads to deal with.
Not sure how much Labor would wish they’d won; would have been a mad hostile senate.
Yes I took the Greens vote from the ABC website, sorry about that. But it doesn’t alter my point. M&P and Agricultural are rotten boroughs created (or rather preserved) by the Greens in defiance of every principle of democratic representation, in the hope of winning seats with a handful of votes, as they have in fact done in M&P. In the process they have given the Lib-Nats a massive upper house majority. The Lib-Nats got 45.2% of the statewide Legislative Council primary vote. That earned them 21 of 36 seats (58.3%), thanks to the grotesque malapportionment of Council electorates. The Nats got 5.5% of the vote and have 13.8% of the seats. This is entirely the responsibility of the Greens. Well done ferals, I hope you enjoy the next four years – uranium mining, forestry, the whole deal. You deserve it.
Daniel @ 47
Make mo mistake, Labor wish they had won. Not only because it’s so much nicer to be a member of the government than a member of the opposition, but because they really do believe the “Barnett Liberals-Nationals government” (as he has asked them to be known) will be poorer governors of the state.
Personally I hope they rise to the occasion for all our sakes. But there is a lot stacked against them (minority government that includes 3 independents, personal rivalries and personality clashes, global economic gloom, highly cynical electorate, etc, etc, etc)
Adam in canberra
I do not know what you are talking about, you might want to check this out
http://www.abc.net.au/elections/wa/2008/guide/legislativecouncil.htm?region=mpas
In Agricultral the Lib+ Nat vote = 4.65quota, FF and CDP = .38 giving the conservatives 5 seats, they had no help from green
In South west Lib + Nat = 3.52quota FF, ONP and CDP = .50quota giving the conservatives 5 seats, they had no help from green
In Mining and Pastorial it was the ALP’s preference that elected the Green, I think you were right there the ALP should have given it to the Liberal… butit was the low ALP vote that cost them the seat
You are correct, Dovif – you don’t know what I’m talking about.
I’m not talking about preference flows. Within each district, the result was of course roughly proportional. I am talking the malapportionment of the districts – the vast difference in the number of voters in each district. Viz:
Mining and Pastoral: 76,005
Agricultural: 84,553
South West: 178,801
East Metropolitan: 327,550
South Metropolitan: 331,344
North Metropolitan: 332,146
So in M&P the quota was 10,588, while in North Metro it was 47,449. In other words, if you live in Port Hedland, your Leg Council vote is worth 4.48 times what it would be worth if you lived in Wanneroo.
Get ready for the fireworks.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/09/18/2368522.htm
“the three Nationals ministers will have to support the Government if any no-confidence motions are moved.”
And its not a coalition how?
I’m wondering that myself. Can anyone point to a theoretical basis for distinguishing this “alliance” from a “coalition”, other than the Nationals’ say-so?
Did not Grylls say categorically that he would not accept a portfolio?
Well, the National MLA who is not a Minister is not bound to support the Government in a motion of confidence.
Adam,
No, he said that he didn’t want the Deputy Premiership.
I guess an alliance means you at least get to pretend you disagree on things.
Matt C, why do you think Barnett has alighted on Grant Woodhams as the new Speaker?
What I can say is that this so-called “agreement” is simply not going to last the distance – it will hold up for a while, but I’m fairly certain WA will be “re-syncing” the polls back to February in 2010 or 2011.
And I find it quite amusing that the new government hates the notion of Planning & Transport being together and have split them, at the same time giving Troy Buswell a ludicrous workload under a super Commerce ministry IN ADDITION to being Treasurer and Minister for Housing & Works…
Adam in Canberra
I think you should complain to the WAEC while you are at it, I just notice another problem in the electorate system
Like the Nationals, The ALP had 35% of the vote, but somehow managed 46% of the seats in the lower house, can you complain about that too
I’m guessing because they lose the vote of the Speaker, they’d prefer it to be someone who wasn’t absolutely certain of voting with them anyway (ie: not in the Liberal Party), which if you take out the ministers (Constable + 3 Nats) leaves Woodhams, Woollard or Bowler. Grant Woodhams is probably the least flaky of that lot.
Sorry Bird, I did mean my question somewhat more ironically than it comes across on the screen!
Although the thought of the Peter Lewis of Western Australian politics, Mrs W in the chair is reason enough for us to opt for the ex-weatherman…
I couldn’t give a _______ about WA now, it’ll stay off my radar for the next 3 years.
Ahh – a ferrous remark. I miss those more than I should.
In terms of leaving a major party to become an independent, supporting the minority govt of the other major party, and then imploding halfway through the term, I would’ve picked John Bowler as our Peter Lewis. Janet Woollard seems mostly harmless… although I guess she hasn’t been tested yet. I can see her getting her face on telly a lot more now.
OK, one more question: who will be the shadow ministers, has Ripper announced the lineup yet?
Shadow Caucus Meeting next tuesday
Line up should be released then, and probably delayed so Labor can do matchups.
Thanks Frank!
And will THE WEST AUSTRALIAN take a break from drooling over the new Liberal Govt and give the opposition any coverage?
Well the Axe is poised over the Nationals
If Brendon plays up, then maybe they’ll be forced to give time to the opposition 
Video of Barnett Media Conference announcing Ministry.
http://www.westtv.com.au/?vxSiteId=43c6a3c7-abf1-4c32-b98d-c27f8fa83360&vxChannel=News&vxClipId=1416_WAU1517&vxBitrate=300
Semi on topic, found this clip from the 80’s, possibly from 1989 from Perth’s Ch 7 and features a young Grant Woodhams, who was the Weatherperson at the time, and of course could be the next Speaker of the House.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=whdLMUcfeHg
And for our astern States Bludgers, here is an example of failed ALP Candidate for Morley (and Pollbludger lurker)
Reece Whitby reading the Ch 7 News on Boxing Day 2007.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s4P5EApy818
The Australian article seems to suggest that Buswell has become a modern day Russ Hinze – “Minister for everything”.
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,24368855-2702,00.html
51 “So in M&P the quota was 10,588, while in North Metro it was 47,449. In other words, if you live in Port Hedland, your Leg Council vote is worth 4.48 times what it would be worth if you lived in Wanneroo.”
Adam, what a coincidence – the same order of magnitude as the zonal system malapportionment of Johannes Bjelke Petersen. In that one the western zone had a quarter of the voter numbers in city seats so gained a disproportional amount of seats relative to the city. A 10% tolerance is acceptable, this is scandalous.
Ever since the Fitzgerald Inquiry pinpointed this sort of electoral rorting as a form of official corruption and recommended EARC be established, I can see no reason or excuse for this sort of malapportionment to continue anywhere in Australia.
http://www.cs.mu.oz.au/~lee/prsa/earc/
Dovif @ 60, spare me your silly sarcasm: it is unbecoming when you obviously don’t understand this subject very well.
The Legislative Assembly figures you cite are not analogous at all, because the Assembly is not elected by proportional representation. The Greens got 11% of the Assembly vote but won no seats. Most of their preferences went to Labor, so of course Labor got a higher proportion of seats than their proportion of the primary vote. The Council, on the other hand, is elected by PR. That’s why the Greens get seats there. But the proportionality of the Council result has been grossly distorted by the malapportionment I described above. And that was brought about by the Greens. The Nats got 5% of the Council vote, which should have got them 2 seats (5% of 36 being 1.8). Instead they got five, because of the much lower enrolments in the three rural districts. Are we clear now?
Adam in Canberra
Can you make up your mind, first you blame the green
now you said the green help you win the seats?
a. the 2PP preferred is 52-48 Liberal + independants Vs ALP, as a point of reference the federal poll was 53-47 Labor in the Ruddslide.
If you are going to complain about misrepresentation of a system, you cannot ignore the part that benefits you and complain about the part that is against you
b. while the National only recorded 5% of the vote, it is a regional party, it only ran for seats in the country area, so its representation is always going to be higher than its vote
It is similar that Tasmainia has a misrepresentation in the Federeral senate, I don’t think I heard you complaining about that
perhaps when the Labor tried to change the electorate map at the last election, it should have looked at the upper house as well
The system was set up for a reason, and currently most of the wealth is coming from the mines in the country area, so there is a arguments for the country receiving higher representation
Dovif, it’s hard to know where to start with a post of such invincible obtuseness.
1. Your first two sentences: I was talking about two different houses, duh.
2. Your point (a): there is no such thing as 2PP in the Legislative Council, because it is elected by PR.
3. Your point (b): in a true PR election, all parties would get seats roughly proportional to their vote. The fact that the Nats are a regional party is irrelevant.
4. Tasmania has equal representation to the other states in the Senate because the Senate is a states’ house and has never claimed to represent the states proportionally.
5. Your 2nd-last paragraph: Labor DID try to change the Council as well as the Assembly, but was blocked by the Greens. That was the whole point of my original post – please pay attention.
6. Is a political opinion and not relevant to this discussion.
Adam,
first things first. Greens are not ferals. keep your damn prejudices and childish comments to yourself.
Secondly, before you talk about upper house problems, lets talk about the Labor parties mistake in preferencing the Chistian fundamentalist conservative Steven Fielding and electing him! hmmm, the right wingers inthe Victorian ALP are keeping very quite at the moment. I remember your staunch defence of this.
I don’t agree with the upper house as it is elected in WA. But then I don’t believe that my 1.8% should have been elected. Lets fix all of it. But name calling and thumping our chests aren’t going to do it. Until then, you may want to try and fix the mess in the ALP party office and kick the right wing out.
Damian
The preferencing of Family First in Vic in 2004 was done with as a tactic to get three ALP Senators elected. If the ALP primary vote had been a few % higher, it would have worked. The Senate electoral system forces all parties, including the Greens, to do preference deals. Sometimes they work, sometimes they don’t.
I remind you that the same Vic ALP has successfully reformed the Vic upper house so that it is elected by full PR with equal-sized districts, reducing the over-representation that the Nats had under the old system.
In WA, the Greens sided with the Nats to keep the upper house malapportionment. That is why the Lib-Nats now have a large Council majority. What would have happened if a couple of lower house seats had gone the other way and the ALP had been able to form a government? It would have been faced with a Lib-Nat majority in the Council, elected on a minority vote thanks to the Greens refusal to allow the Council to be reformed.
And furthermore the Family First preference deal was done by Eric Locke, the then state secretary, who is from the Left.
Re Adam at 79.
C’mon Adam, at least get your facts straight.
The Legislative Council was reformed at the same time as the Legislative Assembly in legislation supported by the Greens and the ALP and opposed by the Nats and the Libs. There was no deal between the Greens and the Nats.
The Libs, the Nats and other minor right wing parties got a majority of the 2PP vote in this election and now have a majority in the Upper House although I do concede the size of their majority is out of porportion with the vote they received.
I do not agree with the 6×6 model for the Council and cannot defend it but your belligerent insistence that there was some “deal” between the Nats and the Greens is pure fantasy.
1. The Legislative Council was NOT reformed. The only change was to have all the districts elect six members. The malapportionment was not touched.
2. I didn’t say there was a deal. I don’t know if there was a deal or not. And I don’t really understand why the Greens took the position they did. Do you? I do know that if the Greens had supported Labor they could have reformed the upper house, but they didn’t.
3. There is no such thing as 2PP for a house elected by PR. The Libs-Nats did NOT get a majority of the Council vote. (WAEC have taken their figures down today, but my recollection is that they got about 45%.)
4. Whether there was a “deal” is not really relevant. There was a voting alliance, overt or covert. The Greens joined with the Lib-Nats to block Labor’s attempt to reform the Council, and that’s why (to return to my original point) we have the current situation. I really don’t see how anyone can dispute this.
So the ALP deal with Family first was done by a Secretary From the Left? Is that OK. What about the ALP Victorian State deal done by Secretary Newmann from the Right that got the DLP (upper house) in at the expense of the Greens,. Is that all right too. The ALP members are fairly touchy about these deal and what about doing what is right and preferenceing like minded, Oh Sorry, on these occasions they did. And why did they because they get preferences back, Look at the Northern Region in Victoria at the last election, the second ALP was elected on , you guessed it, family first prefereces, at who’s expense, you guessed it , the Greens. The Greens are showing that they are fair more likely to preference against the ALP, good on them,.
With respect Adam, that is just bollocks.
The ALP and the Greens (and Alan Cadby) supported the 1V1V legislation which reformed both upper and lower houses while the Nats and Libs voted against it. There was no voting alliance between the Nats and the Greens.
Like it or not Adam, a change to the Upper House composition is still a “reform” in the strict sense of the word.
My reference to Eric Locke was in response to Damian @ 78 who said the Family First deal was all the Right’s fault. As I have said before, I think Locke was quite correct to negotiate that deal. I also think Newnham was correct to negotiate the deals he did in 2006. I’m not a bit tocuhy about preference deals. All parties do preference deals, and no-one is any position to get too sanctimonious about them. All deals are done to maximise the chances of Labor winning seats. That’s what political parties are for, and I don’t apologise for it. But from Labor’s point of view, if we can’t win the seat ourselves, having the DLP in the Council was preferable to having more Greens. The DLP is, at bottom, a labour party – certainly in Kavanagh’s case that is true – and it sticks to its principles, which are known to all. The Greens by contrast are a party of petit bourgeois dilletantes, who combine self-righteous rhetoric with treacherous and unprincipled behavior, as we saw in Qld in 1995 when they got into bed with the Nats, and again in WA when (to return to the topic), they handed the Legislative Council over to the Nats.
Luke: “The ALP and the Greens (and Alan Cadby) supported the 1V1V legislation which reformed both upper and lower houses while the Nats and Libs voted against it.” Oh really. Then why don’t we now have 1V1V in the upper house?
#84 luke. But that proposal wasn’t the orginal one put to the Greens by McGinty which would have extended 1v1v to the Council. The Greens knocked that proposal back.
Frank or anyone who knows about WA politics,
Related to WA politics but not directly related to the election, I am searching to try to find a map of the state districts to know where and in what district Ellenbrook is. Can someone let me know please? I’ve searched the Parliament map for WA and can’t seem to find a link which identifies the boundaries for each seat. Cheers
* I know it is in Pearce federally but I need to know the state seat …..
Julie: Ellenbrook’s in Swan Hills.
There are detailed maps here
http://www.boundarieswa.com/2007/Final-Boundaries/Quick-Links-2007/
thanks bird and Adam very much
I love the argument ‘we supported a legislation package of which Assembley 1V1V was a component, therefore we supported 1V1V even though we didn’t support 1V1V in the upper house.’ Greens are so good at having their cake & eating it too, then walking away leaving the crumbs for someone else to worry about.
I see Carol Adams is demanding a recount in Kwinana. She clearly has a rudimentary grasp of preferential voting – she got 22% of the primary vote, lost on preferences, and believes there must have been foul play (counters playing footsy with scrutineers, etc! how would she know, as she was swanning around at parliament house the whole time the count was going on?) for that to occur. She’s not competetent for local government, let alone state parliament, if she doesn’t understand how she lost.
Oh and Luke belated thanks for Kwinana, as requested a while ago, although I’m not sure how cluey Green voters choosing to ignore the preference deal favouring Adams on your HTV is something the party negotiators can take credit for. I thank the Green voters as a mass, and assorted Liberals who put Labor second.
Adam (85)
So the DLP and Family First are closer to the ALP than the Greens, Umm So the ALP have moved to the right of the Libs and the Nats or am I missing something. I really enjoy the DLP being fundamentally a Labour Party. Ha Ha Ha Ha , thats really funny, and I suppose that Family First are an old group of lefties that are just missunderstood.
I know that its Friday, late in the week, but my bull**** detector is going right off.
I didn’t say a word about Family First, don’t put words in my mouth please.
Are you serious Adam?????
I really don’t think many in the ALP would agree with you.
I love that Adam’s hatred for the Greens is up, usually means Greens vote is going up in proportion to Labors going down.
Labor is not a party of Labour anymore, The Greens have positioned themselves as the party of labour and slowly will squeeze more of Labors core vote out. As they say in the Pantene ad… it wont happen overnight… but it will happen.
Bring on the ACT election and the Vic local council elections. Now if only Labor candidates in Vic actually said they were Labor candidates. Can’t blame them for hiding though.
Because, unfortunately, that was the compromise that was needed to gain the support of all Greens MLC’s. If your criticism is that the decision was stupid then I totally agree but if your claim is that there was some underhanded purpose to advantage the Greens in the regions then you are wrong.
Luke @ 95: Yes they do actually.
Luke @ 97: In other words, your first statement was wrong. The Greens DIDN’T “support legislation which reformed both upper and lower houses,” because, as you now concede, they in fact sank 1v1v in the Council. I didn’t say they did it for “an underhand purpose”. I said yesterday that they did it to advantage themselves, as shown by Chappel winning a seat with less than 5,000 votes. This has been denied, which means that I have no idea why they did it, as I said above. Why don’t you tell me why they did it?
Adam, I am not asserting the reform of the Upper House was for the better or that it addressed the malapportionment of the LC but surely you would have to concede that 1V1V in one house is better than malapportionment in both.
I really fail to see your point about the number of votes received by Chapple. The ALP members in M&P also got elected off a comparatively low number of votes. It was not an advantage open to the Greens only.
What was Alan Cadby’s position on the upper house? For those unfamiliar with the situation, he was a Liberal-turned-independent MLC who held the swing vote at the time between Labor-Greens and Liberal-Nationals.
Adam@85 “[unlike the DLP] The Greens by contrast are a party of petit bourgeois dilletantes, who combine self-righteous rhetoric with treacherous and unprincipled behavior…”
Hee. Deft use of irony and self-deprecation, or Freudian projection? ;^)
d
If I recall this issue went like this
The gresns call a meeting of all thier members to discuss upper house reform and in particular the issue of giving the upper house president a deliberateive vote like the Senate
7 people turned up and they voted against this as a result the ALP and Greens did not have a majority to change the constitution, however if the greens has said yes ot the president getting the vote then the upper house would of changed
Maverick, I believe you are talking about the different but related issue of the Gallop government’s attempt to get 1v1v through during its first term. From memory: the numbers were locked at 17-16 on the floor whereas the constitution required an “absolute majority” of 18 votes, and the President couldn’t do a casting vote because it wasn’t tied. The Greens wouldn’t allow Labor to change the law to give the President a deliberative rather than casting vote.
Independently of all that, Liberal MLC Alan Cadby quit the party after losing preselection and agreed to back 1v1v during the period between the February 2005 election and the changeover to the new upper house the following May, thereby providing the 18th vote. However, he could have scuppered any arrangement between Labor and the Greens came to if he wanted to.
William, in response to your question, the comments of Cadby during the third reading of the 1V1V bill seem to indicate that he was trying to “represent the interests of the Liberal Party” in his negotiations over the legislation.
I do not know if that would have translated into rejecting anything other than the 6×6 model for the LC. His vote was required though.
William @ 100: Here is Cadby in Hansard, on the second reading of the One-Vote-One-Value bill (29 April 2005, p. 974):
“I will now turn to the Legislative Council. I have some difficulty with the basis for the electoral distribution of Council membership. However, I have now accepted that the nature of the Council is different from that of the Legislative Assembly, and therefore it can be established under different principles. However, I make it clear that my preferred option would be a system based on population numbers within the regions. I will accept amendments that give equal representation in this house to both metropolitan and non-metropolitan regions. Within that parameter, I would prefer the status quo; that is, 17 from the metropolitan regions, with their split taking account of the population, and 17 from the non-metropolitan regions, once again based on their individual populations.”
WILLIAM, will you PLEASE, as a WA resident and local elections media whizz, confirm the basic facts that
(a) the Gallop-Carpenter government wanted to bring in one-vote-one-value for both Houses
(b) In the last parliament the ALP and the Greens between them had 18 of 34 seats in the Council, so it would have been possible to achieve one-vote-one-value if the Greens had voted with Labor.
(c) They did not do so.
If these facts are correct, can you then tell us, in your opinion, WHY the Greens did this.
I can help you out there Adam:
(a) Yes in theory but no legislation was ever introduced,
(b) Yes but ALP then had to supply the President reducing them to 17. Then Archer resigned from the ALP over BB issues and made it clear she would not support 1V1V changes. The ALP tried to expel her from LC but Libs refused as would have handed numbers back to the ALP and Greens.
(c) No legislation introduced as moot point once Archer resigned from the ALP.
Adam, maybe you should blame Brian Burke.
What a lot of self-contradictory hogwash from Adam:
“All parties do preference deals, and no-one is any position to get too sanctimonious about them.”
but yet…
“The Greens by contrast are a party of petit bourgeois dilletantes, who combine self-righteous rhetoric with treacherous and unprincipled behavior, as we saw in Qld in 1995 when they got into bed with the Nats…”
And in the same post no less.
The Labor fanatics expect, nay demand, that they receive the Greens co-operation and preferences in every instance, yet tell them not get to “get too sanctimonious” about it when Labor does a preference deal with Family First and the ultra-conservative DLP.
You might think that “The DLP is, at bottom, a labour party…” but have you actually paid any attention to the ultra-conservative fruitcakery that goes along with this.
Your comments about the membership and outlook of the Greens are as absurd as they are insulting. To suggest that Greens members are not committed to their party and to the political process is a uninformed delusion at best, and a deliberate lie at worst. You should seriously consider withdrawing that statement.
William,
I would rally appreciate being able to wade through the numbers from the distributions in all regions. Are you able to post or link the equivlent of the M&P file for the other regions.
Also I would like to be able to change my login to a prefered name and a password that I can remember. How can I do this?
Grant
as long as the Greens include old CPA members/supporters like Lee Rhiannon, i share Adam’s skepticism about them
Skepticism like yours is one thing Mary. Out and out lies and abusive rhetoric like Adam’s are a different thing altogether.
WAEC Media Release of Legislative Council result complete with names.
http://www.waec.wa.gov.au/elections/state_elections/election_results/2008_State_General_Election/media_centre/documents/Media%20Release15%2008%20LCcount.pdf
Luke, thanks for that. I wasn’t aware that Labor had lost one of its Council members through BBism. So that’s why Cadby was needed. Nevertheless, once Cadby was on board, there were still 18 votes for 1v1v in the Council. It was passed for the Assembly, so it could have been passed for the Council too. I presume the reason no legislation was introduced to this effect was that the Greens told Labor they wouldn’t support it. Is this not so? The inescable fact is that if the Greens had supported 1v1v for both houses that is what would have happened.
The question you have not answered is WHY the Greens took this position. I can think of several possible explanations:
(a) like the Nats, they actually think that people in Useless Loop are superior beings and should have votes worth 4 times more than the votes of people in Perth.
(b) they calculated that they could win more seats that way and be damned to democratic principle.
(c) others – I can’t think of any others.
Any thoughts of what might have happened in the upper house, as the current vote been conducted at 1V1V with the 36 seats?
Adam Dear 113,
You are so Passe!!!!! Loosen up!!!!!
Shelly Archer and Alan Cadby were never in the council together. 1v1v went through before the 2005 council took office but after the election in the lower house. This was because the new Council which took office May 22 2005 or therabouts , consisted of 14 Labor , 2 greens, 15 libs and 1 nat.
No one had a constitutional majority.
Adam @ 113: No. Check out post 105;Cadby favoured equal representation, not proportional representation, as between metro and country regions, and this is what we have – 18 country seats, and 18 metro seats. He favoured 1V1V within country and metro regions, but not between them. If the 36 LC seats were allocated in proportion to the country and metro elector numbers, it would be 9 country seats, and 27 metro seats, but it doesn’t appear that Cadby would have supported that.
Mary Hanna Wade!
Beware Reds under the bed! You poor young thing, as though any of your generation KNOWS anything about hardship. The spoilt rotten generation who thinks Labor still stands for something! The “Another Liberal Party” and a damned CONSERVATIVE one at that!
Actually Adam, the Shelley Archer situation wasn’t the reason why Cadby’s vote was needed. She resigned/was kicked out of the ALP during the November 2007 federal election campaign, whereas 1v1v was passed in the period between the February 2005 election and the May 2005 changeover to the new upper house, at which point Cadby exited parliament. The numbers then became ALP 16, Greens 2, Liberal 15, Nationals 1. This returned the situation to where it had been previously: 18 MLCs who might back 1v1v reduced to 17 after appointment of the President, against 16 who wouldn’t. Any Labor-Greens deal would thus have been 17-16 with no vote from the President, whereas the constitution required an absolute majority (18 votes) for changes to the composition of the upper house (which as I recall was one of a number of retrograde measures which Charles Court’s government passed in the late 70s).
However, Labor and the Greens together could have changed it so that the President had a deliberative rather than a casting vote, in which case any change to upper house would have got the magic 18th vote. But the Greens refused to support this when Labor tried to do it during Gallop’s first term. Labor didn’t try it again during the second term because they were content with the deal that had been reached, rightly or wrongly. Those in the WA ALP who see eye-to-eye with your reading of the situation blame Jim McGinty and the Left for being too keen to do a deal with the Greens, when they could have cut a better deal with the Liberals.
Andrew, that’s not correct. The 2005 Council had 16 ALP, 2 Green, 15 Libs and 1 Nat.
http://www.waec.wa.gov.au/elections/state_elections/election_results/2005_State_General_Election/legislative_council_elected_members.php
16+2=18 is an absolute majority of 34 which is the requirement.
Scott, if the Council election had been done by statewide PR with a 5% threshold, the result would have been: Lib 16, Nat 2, ALP 14, Green 4.
I hope I’ve answered that question for you: one of the 18 couldn’t vote, hence no absolute majority. As for the Greens’ motivations, the commenter “Hands off Venezuela” seems to be on top of which MPs were gunning for what in this thread.
OK I take the point about the President not having a deliberative vote, but from what William says it still seems to be the case that if Labor and the Greens had really wanted 1v1v in both houses they could have got it.
To cut a long story short, that is indeed the case.
Thanks William.
Now reading that thread, it seems that “Hands Off Venezuela” is supporting my original assertion, that it was all done to help Dee Margetts win a seat in Agricultural district. The other Green MLCs were divided but eventually acquiesced to oblige Margetts and Chappel. So if in your view “Hands Off Venezuela” knows what he or she is talking about, then I claim vindication.
A significant distinction being that it served the interests of a few Greens MPs, rather than the Greens as a whole. Interesting to note that this was a once-in-a-lifetime Greens caucus (if that’s the right word) that had more country than metro MPs, thanks to One Nation preferences in 2001.
Thanks Adam. Interesting. So in effect had the 1V1V reforms gone through, ALP/Greens would have a majority, once a speaker is chosen, presuming this comes from the Liberal Party.
Instead the Conservative forces now have complete control of both houses. I’m sure that will be great for democracy in WA.
I don’t think that makes it any less reprehensible. The opportunity to end a century of malapportionment in the WA parliament was lost because of the short-term opportunism of a handful of petit bourgeois dilettante politicians, and who knows when the chance will come again?
Adam,
Sticking with that thread of which you’re so enamored, can I draw people’s attention to Stewart J’s comments, particularly at 51 (and 41 and 44)?
You’re missing a very important aspect of The Greens (WA) decision making process: Consensus. The Greens, particualrly the Greens WA work very very hard to reach a consensus position on issues. If Dee Margetts required a system that maintained a particular level of representation to non-metro residents and she was supported by her constituents and local Greens members, a compromise would have to be found since her vote was required to pass anything.
Stewart goes on at 55 and 56 to explain how this compromise *reduced* the Greens chances in the LC.
I’d also draw your attention to Williams comment to you in that thread at 38:
“Adam, I agree with your antagonists here – in particular Luke’s assessment that “it may be stupid but it is not opportunist”. Any number of one-vote one-value models would have been better for the Greens than this six-by-six arrangement.”
and then Antony Green’s:
“I’m with William. I really don’t know why the Greens agreed to six member regions. They’ve made it harder for themselves to get elected in the two regions they represented on the marginal chance of winning seats in two of the other regions.”
And to be fair, I should include your response to William, in its entirety:
“*mutters darkly*”
d
Does that mean that East Metropolitan constituents and party members were uniquely unrepresented because they alone didn’t have a Greens MP?
William and Antony were disagreeing with me about the Greens’ motivations for doing what they did, not about the fact of what they did. With the greatest of respect in both cases, I still think they were wrong. The only explanation for what the Greens did is that has been offered so far is that they were acquiescing in Margetts’s demand that 1v1v be rejected so that she could win a seat in Agricultural. I still haven’t seen another plausible explanation. Darryl, do you have one?
#120 Adam: Mea Culpa. I realised after I posted that, I had taken my numbers from the current wa Parliament website, which doesn’t include 2 ALP members ( Catania and Giffard ).
“Does that mean that East Metropolitan constituents and party members were uniquely unrepresented because they alone didn’t have a Greens MP?”
Well, by definition if East Metro was the only division without a Greens MP then they were unique in not being represented by a Green. I’m not sure what you’re getting at with this question William. Are liberal voters in Fremantle unrepresented because they have an ALP MP? MPs always have a balancing act trying to represent the various people with legitimate claims on their attention. Caucus colleagues, the Party organisation, party members, constituents and members of the public who feel like they are not getting satisfaction from their local member. That’s hard balancing act and one that’s likely to end up with a lot more obviously angry people than obviously happy people. That’s also one of the reasons I like some sort of PR that takes state-wide party votes into account. If your local member is not someone who’s views accord with yours, you might have someone else whose mandate includes representing your views.
Sorry if I’ve missed your point. I’m a Queenslander and I don’t understand why the other states waste time and money on Legislative Councils :^)
d
d
My point is that there’s obviously a problem with a model of “consensus” that freezes out about a quarter of the membership.
According to ABC TV News, the Libs plan to retain RPH is in trouble with both John Bowler & Janet Woolard indicating their opposition to the plan, with Bowler going as far as saying he’ll vote against the legislation, while Woolard is concerned about funding being diverted from the Fiona Stanley hospital and health services in general in the Southern suburbs.
I notice Crikey lagging 4 months behind The Worst of Perth, and then shamefully giving absoutely no credit to The Lazy Aussie for remembering back 20 years that there was a picture of WA Nationals Grant Woodhams wearing a bong shirt, and equally no credit to David Cohen for finding the photo they used in tips and rumours.
http://theworstofperth.com/2008/05/08/bad-gin-2/
What kind of organisation have you joined here William? Disgraceful.
Perfect timing for the new Liberal Government in WA (see link attached) as they strive to implement and foster the birth of the Uranium Mining industry in WA.
They will quite rightfully continue to smell like roses over the next few years as a result of continued breakthroughs like this.
And to think the previous Labor Government wanted to legislate to keep the resource buried in the ground.
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,24370728-5013404,00.html
I’m in no doubt that it (Uranium Mining) will be this states next boom industry and congratulations must go to the Liberal Party for putting the issue on the electoral platform from the start in the recent election – and further having the balls to cut through and win the right to govern in spite of it.
If the Nats could have had a majority in the upper house with Labor, i would put money on the Nats having gone with Labor instead…
Adam
You require a plausible explanation. How about what happened, or is that just not good enough? I will admit that Dee Margetts may have thought she would win her seat in Agricultural in 2005, but I can also say that no-one else thought that. The acquiescence you think you see is that her vote was required at the time to pass the legislation in whatever form. Simple stuff.
As to the Presidents vote: well, if you believe in “what ever it takes” then fine, but at the time the thinking was that if the change to the Presidents vote was unconnected to the 1v1v legislation then it might have been considered, but as it was directly linked to it, it was seen as a just a piece of partisan electoral engineering. I was privy to a number of discussions on this and the consensus (heck, lets call it a unanimous vote) was that it was just too much like shifting the goalposts to suit the team – if McGinty had been smarter he might have brought the Presidents vote on sooner (ie; before the 1v1v legislation arrived) and it might have gotten through – suspicions of his motives notwithstanding.
re William & Greens members in East Metropolitan not having a say, well Luke can answer that one – they certainly did and some are fortunate enough to be in the position of being able to say ‘I told you so’. Whether East Metro constituents were represented – well maybe they weren’t, but by the same token, you might argue were the constituents of other regions well served – in the Assembly yes, in the Council perhaps not.
“My point is that there’s obviously a problem with a model of “consensus” that freezes out about a quarter of the membership.”
That would be a problem, but we’ve no reason to think that happened and until now I’ve not heard anyone claim that it happened.
I thought I suggested Margetts was listening to her constituents and pointed to Stewarts comments @ 51 in the previous thead. You’ve somehow interpreted that as meaning party members in east metro were unrepresented in the process that led to the Greens (WA) position. Clearly, I should call it a night.
d
Darryl, my line of thought was that a process requiring consensus among MPs taking their cues from “constituents and local Greens members” meant that if you didn’t have an MP to take cues from you, you were not represented in the process in any meaningful sense. You seem pretty sure that’s not the case, so perhaps I’m missing something. However, a more important point might be that the default position in the absence of consensus is support for the status quo. Maybe in this case the status quo would have been better for the Greens and their constituency than a system that has delivered a 21-15 conservative majority, but it seems plain to me that other options would have been better than either.
And the other point I’m making is that country constituents/branch members were over-influential because the Greens party room at the time was egregiously unrepresentative of the party’s base, as most of them had been elected in country regions off One Nation surpluses.
Full preference distributions for all regions:
North Metropolitan
East Metropolitan
South Metropolitan
South West
Agricultural
Mining and Pastoral
Sue Walker on her Election Defeat.
http://www.postnewspapers.com.au/20080920/news/009.shtml
I noticed in Friday’s West that they’re advertising the Welcome Home Parade and Reception for the Olympic & Paralympic teams for this coming Monday, and it features the old WA Coat of Arms as used during the Court Era, and not the current state Govt Logo.
And in a supreme irony, it will be the last public act by outgoing Premier Alan Carpenter, as he welcomes the team home, as the new Govt won’t be sworn in until Tuesday
Poor old Colin won’t have honour as Premier, but will be there as Opposition Leader
What timing
Listed below are close-ish results at the final counts. There were no tremendously close calls earlier in the counts that might have proved decisive, such as Family First or CDP candidates getting ahead of Liberal or Nationals candidates in South West or Agricultural.
EAST METROPOLITAN
Greens #1: 41489 (15.0%) ELECTED
Labor #3: 37106 (13.5%)
SOUTH METROPOLITAN
Greens #1: 43516 (15.5%) ELECTED
Liberal #3: 40174 (14.3%) ELECTED
Labor #3: 34640 (12.4%)
SOUTH WEST
Liberal #3: 22124 (14.4%) ELECTED
Greens #1: 20992 (13.6%)
AGRICULTURAL
Nationals #3: 11096 (15.2%) ELECTED
Labor #2: 8971 (12.3%)
Stewart J, thanks for your reply. I still can’t see any explanation for what happened in what you say other than that Dee Margetts said “I’m opposed to 1v1v in the Council because I want the retention of Agricultural so I can get elected there, and I won’t vote for 1v1v whatever you guys decide.” And then the others said: “OK Dee whatever you want.” If that is NOT what happened, please tell me what DID happen.
On the President’s vote, you seem to be saying that the Greens opposed it because they saw it is a manoeuvre by McGinty to get 1v1v through the Council. Well of COURSE it was – so what? If the Greens had been committed to the principle of electoral equality (which is what 1v1v) is, they would have supported it for precisely that reason.
All in all, NOTHING that Stewart or William or anyone else has said here has mounted any effective challenge to my assertion that the Greens opposed 1v1v purely to benefit themselves, or rather one of themselves, namely Margetts. And all for nothing since she didn’t get elected anyway.
SNIP: Abusive comment deleted. Last warning – The Management.
I note Today’s West are seting up The Nat’s as the whipping boys if things in Govt go pear shaped, especially Paul Murray.
I predict. Armstrong will do a 180 degree turnaround and talk up Labor as the good guys
1. My account of what happened in the Greens party room is based on what other contributors have said here.
2. As I’ve said several times, I’ve no objection to parties doing deals to benefit themselves. In this case, however, we are talking the Greens sabotaging a historic opportunity to reform the WA parliament by ending malapportionment in both houses. If they had done it out of principle, that would be one thing. I am still waiting for someone to tell me what principle the Greens were acting on when they made this decision. Until someone does so, I have to conclude they did it out of self-interest. Do you have a better explanation?
3. I have never been a candidate for pre-selection, and I have never had a boyfriend who was a Greens member (I don’t like lentils).
4. When you have something other than personal attacks to contribute, feel free.
William, I can look after myself.
I am very sorry for my previous comments and I withdraw them without reservation.
To exlplain myself, I was was deeply and personally offended by Adam’s earlier abusive and as yet uncensored comments such as describing the Greens as “a handful of petit bourgeois dilettante politicians…” etc etc.
I should have thought more carefully before posting.
I would, however, be very interested to know why it is the Greens that draw Adam’s considerable ire. The Liberals and Nationals in WA opposed reform in both the upper and lower houses but do not rate a mention from Adam (as far as I have seen). This seems inconsistent.
Grant, thanks for that statement.
The Libs and Nats do not claim to support 1v1v. I disagree with their views but I recognise they are acting in accord with their principles. The Greens claim to support 1v1v but sided with the Libs and Nats to block it in the Council. I find that hard to understand and hard to forgive, since the chance may not come again for a long time.
Is Donna Faragher the same person as Donna Taylor?
Yes.
Personally, I myself don’t see how 1v1v does not align with Liberal principles. Unless we are discussing the Liberal principle of being elected at all costs.
I have now uploaded seat-by-seat results for both houses at they currently stand, plus a beautiful map.
Adam,
Couldn’t your comments at 152 equally be directed at those in the ALP who espouse progressive ideals yet happily defend climbing into bed with Steven Fielding and condemning the Senate to conservative control for at least 6 years if not longer?
Sounds a mite hypocritical to me.
I’ve already answered that question several times.
ABC TV news in Perth reports Deidre Willmott to take Chris Ellison’s Senate seat.
“a handful of petit bourgeois dilettante politicians…” A good description without being offensive.
Adam can you definewhat u mean by 1v1v? Whilst I congratulate the WA government in introducing changes intheway they count the upper-house Suplus tgransfer value, the system left in place still retains the non – 1v1v method of distributing preferences from excludedcandidates. (A factor that produced a distortion in theelection of the 3rd ALP Senator in QLD. or when yoy refer to 1v1v are you claiming the need to ensure each electorate has the same number of voters…
Personaly I think multi-member constituents isthe only means of delivering 1v1v provided the system used to count the vote is correct and fair with each electorate returning the same number elected with the same percentage quota (ideally same in numer enrolled also). The single member constituentcy can never deliver 1v1v as it is based on geographical residency which in itself is a distortion in the socio-economics distribution and so called community of interest. Once elected, memers of parliament are susposed to represent the whole not the part. Then there is the issue of afirmative action. the list goes on. A single house elected on a multi-member stv being far preferable then a bi-cameral parliament. But if you place weight on the number of constituents being the sole basis of 1v1v then Tasmania should not be a state but a Territory.
William, will the WAEC be publishing the detailed preference data-files. As was proven in other counts it is impossible to scrutinise the validity of an electronic count without access to this data. Its similar in context/priniciple to the usa not providing a paper receipt. The detailed election results must be readily available and should be publishedvas part of the scrutiny/declaration of the poll in order to maintain open and transparent conduct of public elections.
No idea, D@W.
Well D@W, I guess what’s offensive is in the eye of the beholder.
Personally, I think ” a handful of corrupt, power-hungry incompetents” is an excellent way to describe the ALP. I wonder would you find that description offensive?
D@W, I have no opinion about the technicalities of how votes are counted. So far as I know the Senate system works well in delivering proportional results. I know you don’t agree, but I don’t know enough about it to argue with you about it.
One vote one value means electorates with roughly equal numbers of voters, whether they are single-member seats, as in the WA Leg Assembly, or multi-member seats, in the WA Leg Council.
The story so far: For over a century WA had gross malapportionments in both houses – country districts had fewer voters than urban districts. (So of course did other states, but WA’s was the only one surviving by 2005.) This was always wrong in principle, but until recently it didn’t make much political difference because both sides of politics had roughly equal support in the rural areas of WA. With the decline in Labor’s voting base in regional WA as the old rural working class has disappeared, the malapportionment has come to be more politically significant. Hence the long battle to get rid of the malapportionment.
In WA, the Libs and Nats hold the view that country people ought to have more representation in Parliament than their numbers warrant. Labor supports one vote one value. These three parties have acted in accordance with their principles. The Greens also say that they support one vote one value, but when it came to the point they sided with the Libs and Nats to preserve the malapportionment in the Leg Council.
After all this argument I have STILL seen no coherent explanation for why they did this. The only explanation anyone has offered is that they did it because Dee Margetts insisted on it so that she would have a better chance of regaining her seat in Agricultural. Every time I say this I get abused, but no-one has actually denied it, or offered a better explanation.
Well on that basis Tassy should not be a`state. There is much more to 1v1v then numbers in a given electorate. Ideally equality should exist at all levels and divisions. A multi member system is the only true 1v1v system provided it does not use a distorted distibution method. Meeks or a reiterative linear count isthe prefered 1v1v system. Each electorate must be equal in number and percentage of quota. I agree the rual sector in WA is over represented. Most of Austalia is over represented.
luke@104 a 5 x 7 or 7 x 5 model would have provided a better outcome.
Gerrymander Wheel of fortune.
Spin the 1v1v and chose the outcome.
1v1v its a myth under a single member system. Equality in the count/percentage of quota is equally if not more important then numbers.
D@W
there’s a snowflake’s chance in H*ll of PR being adopted for the House of Reps
and here is the story in question.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/09/20/2369863.htm
MHW I agree. But it was quilified by the statement if there was one house. In a bi-cameral “two house” parliament then I think the lower house should be single member Tasmainia hasit the wrong way around) if it isjust one house then a multi-member chamber is preferable. And yes idealy the same principals should apply. Each house should be as equal as possible and most importaant is that the vote is counted in the same way as every other vote and any exclusions shoulg be redistributed as though the excluded candidate had not stood. The current WA system does not fullfill either principle nor does the Senate which is much worst then in WA.
The federal arena is not really analogous to the state parliaments. Australia is a federation, and the Constitution represents a negotiated agreement between what were then six sovereign states as to the terms on which they would agree to federate. Both the equal representation of the states in the Senate, and the five-seat minimum in the House of Reps (which originally benefited WA as well as Tas), were necessary concessions by the two large states to get the four small states to agree to federate. As a further concession, the large states agreed that the Constitution couldn’t be changed without the consent of the small states (the double majority rule), so we are stuck with these arrangements, probably forever.
The states are quite different. They are not federations, and the distortions of democracy which were built into their electoral systems in the 19th century had nothing to do with accommodating regional differences. They had to do with protecting class interests, namely the property owning class (restricted franchise, particularly for upper houses), and the farmers (rural malapportionment). Furthermore in most cases the state constitutions can be altered by legislation, not by referendum, so these arrangements can be changed. And most of them have been changed. In NSW, Vic, Qld and SA undemocratic upper houses have been reformed (in Qld it was abolished), and rural malapportionents (the “Playmander” in SA, the “Joh-mander” in Qld), were abolished. WA was the last holdout, for reasons I explained in an earlier post. Now the WA Leg Assembly has been reformed, so the WA Leg Council is the last relic of 19th century class privileging in Australia’s electoral arrangements. In WA a farmer’s vote is still worth 4 times more than an urban worker’s vote. And this travesty of democracy has been perpetuated, possibly for another generation, by the allegedly most progressive party in Australian politics, the Greens, for reasons no-one has yet coherently explained.
Adam is of course entirely right and I share this just in the hope that my agreeing with him will shake his rock solid confidence.
Au contraire, Jasmine, your concurrence is very reassuring.
The infamous Troy Buswell quote. on his “extremities” that he made on Election night.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QB5XqX0p7uA&eurl=http://viv.id.au/blog/?p=2173
Anyone who thinks feminism is “not needed anymore” can just be shown Treasurer Troy Buswell
Adam
Your reading of what I said isn’t quite correct. The advantage to the Greens of the current upper house is largely non-existent (4 seats notwithstanding). To think that Margetts thought only of how to retain her seat is incorrect. The correct conclusion would be to consider that she felt no threat from standing in the Agriculture Region because she thought she could be re-elected, and so could argue from a position of some comfort. She was, however, swayed by her constituents and after Sharp came up with the ’state senate’ analogy felt she could continue. BTW there is another principle at play here which is to do with equality of service provision for all electors – that rural residents should have the same access to services as city residents. Sharp as a person who lived in a regional area and Margetts as a representative of a rural electorate both felt this was a key issue. Interestingly Chapple who had lived 11 years in Port Hedland and represented Mining & Pastoral was no so convinced, but thats another story.
The opening scenario in this, by the way, was one of no change, so getting Margetts to agree to 1v1v in the Assembly was a move forward. Whether you see this as ‘voting with the Libs and Nats’ (which never happened because thats not how the Bill came forward) or part of the negotiating with the ALP is a matter of interpretation. The same applies to the Presidents vote – Green MP’s did try to do what they thought was the right thing at the time, but perhaps in that also lies a political lesson to ‘keep your eye’s on the prize’ – to focus on the outcomes that you believe to be important and find the best ways to achieve them.
On your comments, however, I happen to think your version is tainted by your own political position, and is not coming from a more neutral perspective.
I will, however, agree that the failure to reform the Council was a serious error. It was not only a lost opportunity but potentially will deliver to the Libs & Nats the chance to remake the Council into something far worse, such as a return to the old province system. I’m not sure Barnett will go that far as it could tip them out of government in the future (it was the heat generated by the electoral debate in the 80’s that caused the Nats to consider siding with Labor to reform the Council then – plus the hope that it might benefit them). But as some one else has mentioned earlier, it should be in the Libs interest to get rid of the gerrymander too – it actually makes it easier for them gain government in their own right if they don’t have to constantly consider the Nats in any discussions on government. But they still remain opposed to it, I suspect, because it has delivered them enough seats…
Stewart J, thanks for that comment, which if I may say so presents the situation more clearly than did your previous post. If I understand you correctly, I was wrong in my assumption that the Greens supported the principle of equal representation, and therefore wrong in my accusation that they sold out that principle in order to secure more seats for themselves. If you are correct, the Greens did NOT support the principle of equal representation in the first place. Rather they agreed with the Nats on the view that rural people deserve disproportionate representation in at least one house of the legislature. I’m glad we’ve clarified that. I can now withdraw my accusation that the Greens sold out their principles – and I would have done so days ago if someone had clearly stated why they acted as they did, as you have now done.
The issue now becomes one of the rightness or wrongness of the view shared by the Greens and the Nats – that the votes of people in Doodlakine are four times more valuable than the votes of people in Balcatta, at least as far as the Legislative Council is concerned. I’ll come back to this in a later post when I have more time.
Was having a brief look at the live streaming of the Olympic Welcome home parade and note that Terry Waldron, who hasn’t been sworn in, is representing the State Govt as Minister for Sport.
Considering that the ALP are still the caretaker Govt until tomorrow, shouldn’t the CURRENT sports Minister, John Kolbelkie be the relevant Minister ?
Adam @ 177: One of the possible reasons for having an upper house at all is to give representation for interests and perspectives that tend to be marginalised in the lower house. Ironically, the more faithful the electoral system for the lower house is to the principles underlying 1V1V, the stronger the argument becomes for a differently-constituted upper house.
Malapportionment in favour of country voters can be justified if:
- country voters are a permanent minority;
- country voters have perspectives and interests which different significantly from those of metropolitan voters; and
- metropolitan voters can be expected to return members who will discount the perspectives and interests of country voters.
The first of these is certainly the case; the latter two I suppose are debatable.
The thing is, on the recent election results, it doesn’t appear that country voices are
completely eclipsed, at least if we take the Nationals as representative of country voices. Relative to their vote, the Nats are in fact the most overrepresented party in the Assembly – 4.9% of the votes, but 6.8% of the seats. And it’s not as though the Liberal party doesn’t include many members representing country seats, and sensitive to country views.
The Nat support, though small, is concentrated, and the system of single-member electorates that we have in the LA favours concentrated support over more widely-diffused support. The Greens have more than two-and-a-half times as many first-preference votes as the Nats, but no MLAs at all. If the Green vote were as well represented as the Nat vote, there would be 10 Green MLAs. Likewise, if the Christian right vote (taken together) were as well-represented as the Nats there would be four Christian right MLAs, whereas in fact there are none.
A second chamber that that is doing its job of widening the range of views and perspectives that are given a parliamentary voice should be returning Green and Christian right members (your distaste for the Greens and mine for the Christian right notwithstanding), and fewer members of the major parties – in other words, it should be countering the very significant distortions built into the electoral mechanism for the Legislative Assembly. Perhaps it should also favour, or at least facilitate, representation by groups that do not fit easily into the conventional classification of political parties.
There’s no reason to think that malapportionment in favour of country areas will produce this result. The Nats, unsurprisingly, are even more overrepresented in the LC than they are in the LA. What might help would be abolition of the ludicrous rule requiring voters to express, or pretend to express, a preference for every single candidate, plus abolition of the system by which parties can effectively dictate comprehensive preferences for voters who are unable or unwilling to formulate their own. However, since these reforms would increase the power of the voter at the expense of the parties, I don’t expect them to be introduced.
BARNETT WILL BE SWORN IN TOMORROW. LABOR WILL BE THE OPPOSITION FROM TOMORROW!
THANKS FOR THAT JOHN, I HADN’T REALISED!
John:
KINDLY REFRAIN FROM SCREAMING MY BLOODY HEAD OFF!
FreoBloke @ 179. That is why the upper house is elected by PR – so as to give minority parties a voice proprtional to their vote. I am fully in favour of that. That does not justify the gross OVER-representation that country areas have in the WA Council.
The argument you cite, that “country voters are a permanent minority; that country voters have perspectives and interests which different significantly from those of metropolitan voters; and that metropolitan voters can be expected to return members who will discount the perspectives and interests of country voters” might well be true, but it could be just as truly said of young people, old people, retired people, indigenous people, gay and lesbian people, people with disabilities, non-English-speaking people, people with pierced tongues, people who collect stamps, etc etc. Are they all to have disproportional representation in the legislature? Do Liberal politicians bewail their under-representation? No. It seems to be ONLY country people who get this kind of consideration. And why is that? Because they are a reliably conservative voting block, and it is in the interests of conservative politicians to increase their voting power. That has been true in Australia all the way back to the first NSW Legislative Council in 1825, and before that it was true of the unreformed House of Commons in the UK. This is the most ancient rort in the history of parliamentary politics.
ABC Election Night Coverage- WA Votes 2008:
Troy Buswell: “I was increasing circulation to my extremities a bit there”
Treasurer Troy Buswell will be like Treasurer Peter Costello I think, he has a good sense of humour! Barnett will be the wise one like John Howard!
The West Australian
Story: Perth welcomes Olympic heroes home
“Country boy George also said he was thrilled with the State election result and believed the stronger National presence was a good thing for regional Western Australia.”
“(The result) was awesome. My vote counted a fair bit so I was pretty happy that the National Party did well,” he said.
“Max Trenorden, he’s in my area so we’re pretty happy.”
Looks like ALL West Australians like the election result!!!
… with about 390,558 exceptions.
Yes, his vote counted about 4.4 times as much as the votes of people in Perth. Do you support that, Honest John. If so, on what grounds?
on the grounds they don’t vote labor as a general rule Adam …
And Honest John, again thanks for the irony of ‘Honest John’ so close to the liberal symbol thingy … your message is the same as Franks, but more subtle I love it. I know you don’t mean it that way.
Buswell is like Costello minus any ability Costello has but with a lot more arrogance and without the sense of propriety the former treasurer had.
Barnett seems both fundamentally a million times more decent than Howard was on his best day, seems to actually care about policy, but a bit politically inept. Much much better for WA in a single day than Howard was in his whole wasted administration.
Labor announces the shadow ministers on Tuesday?
Will Carpenter put his hat in the ring, or is he staying on the backbench until a retirement in the next 12-18 months?
Apparently the ALP Caucus meets on Wednesday, and Carpenter isn’t expected to put his hat in the ring, unless Eric appoints him anyway – somehow I doubt that as it would open the way for the Govt to attack Labor over it’s loss, but Carpenter has maintained he will stay for the next four years to represent his electorate of Willage which had a swing towards him.
It’s to Carpenter’s credit that he’s going to represent his constituents for the next 4 years, or until there’s a new election – the likes of Iemma and Reba in N.S.W could have taken a leaf out of his book.
Ah Adam (@177 & 183), how close to Wilde you come, but then again, perhaps not…
I was trying to allude that in some Green MP’s minds there were competing principles. Now, I should add that this view was held by 2 of the 5 – Watson, Chapple & Scott did not share Margetts enthusiasm for a continuing gerrymander (Sharp came up with the ’state senate’ idea to mediate this disagreement). But what was able to be achieved was a (largely) removed gerrymander in the Assembly. This is the positive step forward. That two of the MP’s sought to deal with what they saw as competing principles should at least be acknowledged. The end result came through negotiation with Margetts, which also included asking Laurie Marquett (the Clerk of the Legislative Council) seeking the formal legal ruling from the Supreme Court (this ruling overturned the original legislation, which lead to McGinty’s failed case at the High Court). I should also add that the Greens (WA) allows a conscience vote on all parliamentary matters (for better or worse), so Margetts was within her rights to deny this legislation if she so chose. Perhaps one day the Greens (WA) will abolish this quirk of their constitution, but then all Australian Greens MP’s (with the exception of NSW MP’s) get a conscience vote, so it could be tricky. Sometimes makes you wonder about the worth of policy…
As it happens, Adam, I agree with you that the gerrymander should be removed. The retention of the upper house in its current form was a mistake, as it fails even Sharp’s ’state senate’ ideal – the regions don’t see themselves in such a way, don’t vote, act or communicate that way. Only those who believe in regionalised government (the abolition of state governments and their replacement with regional government) would even countenance it. So maybe the Greens should be castigated for not getting it completely right, or for being able to persuade Margetts & Sharp to change their positions between the failure of the original legislation and the passing of the second – but at least do this understanding the circumstances under which it occurred.
Stewart, I try to come as close to Wilde as I can
http://www.adam-carr.net/travelindex7.html (scroll down)
Thanks for your further refinement of what happened. It seems from this version that it was not the Greens as a whole who were responsible for retaining the malapportionment (it’s not technically a gerrymander, although I sometimes use this word when I’m in rhetorical mode, because more people are familiar with it). It seems it was just two of them, or perhaps one and a half. So I was correct to identify Margetts as the principal villain, although you insist that her motive was not self-interest but rather the principle that rural areas should be over-represented. And since the Greens believe in “consensus,” that gave Margetts a veto over the rest of the Greens caucus. How very democratic. Perhaps she is a devotee of Richard Darre and his Blut und Boden theories? But I won’t pursue that…
Even with the fullest understanding of the motives of everyone involved, I will indeed continue to “castigate” the Greens, because the outcome was the retention of a grossly undemocratic malapportionment in the Council, which will give the Nats a veto over this and quite possibly future governments. I really don’t care whether this is because Margetts is a fool or a knave or because all the Greens are fools or knaves, or because they are a bunch of naive hippies who don’t know what they’re doing – the outcome is the same. They are responsible for their own stupid internal processes, and also responsible for the consequences of their actions. They will now get four years of Lib-Nat government, complete with uranium mining, forestry and god-knows-what-else, during which to contemplate the folly of their ways.
Adam, I agree with you that the present malapportionment in the LC to favour country voters is wrong. My point is that an egalitarian 1V1V electoral system is not necessary or appropriate in the LC, but it doesn’t follow that any system will do, provided it is inegalitarian and skewed.
The case for 1V1V in the Assembly is unassailable, but the logic of that is that the Assembly should also have PR. Under the present system of single-member electorates, about 55% of the voters across the state would prefer to be represented by somebody other than the MP who in fact represents them, and there is only a tenuous relationship between the percentage of votes that a party gets, and the percentage of seats; how is this consistent with a 1V!V approach?
If the LC had both 1V1V in the distribution of seats, and PR, then it would have a stronger democratic and representative mandate that the Assembly, which makes little sense, given that the executive is accountable to the Assembly. It would also make for instability, given that the house which knew itself to be the more democratic and representative body would tend to feel more justified in blocking legislation it disliked, or in refusing supply to a government it disliked.
The obvious course is to follow up 1V1V in the lower house with some form of PR, so that the distribution of seats between parties bears a reasonable relationship to the distribution of votes.. An electoral system for the upper house could then be devised which would give a voice to minor or unorganised perspectives marginalised in the lower house. This, I agree, is not done by the present malapportionment.
Freo, that is all fair comment. The problem is deciding what the primary function of a legislature is. Is it to be as representative as possible, or is it to provide stable government? It’s easy to cite examples that take one view or the other to extremes. In Belgium and Israel, pure PR produces a fragmented legislature and no effective government (in Belgium, no government at all), and gives far too much power to extremes. In Israel this has had dire consequences for the Middle East*. In the UK they have a winner-take-all system that hands a massive majority to the leading party, even if they only have 35 or 40% of the vote.
I happen to think our system provides a compromise between the two extremes. In our lower houses (except Tas and the ACT) we have single member seats, with members elected by preferential voting. This gives minor parties considerable say over who gets elected, even if they rarely get elected themselves. But we nearly always get stable majority governments which have the support of a majority of the 2PP. In our upper houses (except Tas), we have PR, which allows minorities to get elected and have influence over the legislative process, without (usually) destabilising government. I would be opposed to introducing PR in our lower houses. I think the *primary* role of lower houses is to provide stable, majoritarian government, not to be totally representative of all shades of opinion.
*Where did Israel copy its electoral system from? The Weimar Republic, of all places. You’d think they’d've known better.
Hi Adam
I think the flaw here is the assumption that only a single-party majority government can be “stable”; this is not the case. Ireland hasn’t elected a single-party majority government since 1977, and yet has enjoyed since then a period of governmental stability and unprecedented growth. In terms of society, history and traditions Ireland and Australia have a certain amount in common.
A genuinely representative PR system requires the development of a political culture in which parties understand that it is their role and function to form stable and effective governments, and to enter into coalitions, pacts or agreements for government which will deliver that. Parties go to the electorate with electoral platforms, and then depending on the support which each party gets they bargain with one another to agree a composite platform which will attract sufficient cross-party support to allow a stable government to be formed.
There is nothing inherently impossible about such a culture, and no reason why one would not develop in Australia, given a representative electoral system. Political parties have a strong natural incentive to develop such a culture and make it work, since otherwise they deny themselves power and influence. And the “culture of coalition” avoids the periodic instability which arises when a political culture that depends on single-party majority is faced, as it is from time to time, with a hung parliament.
The objection to this culture is that the government which results implements a platform which was never put to the electorate. On the other hand, the platform is a composite of several platforms which were put to the electorate, and which did between them achieve majority support. The alternative, which we have in Australia at the moment, is that the largest party claims a mandate to implement a platform which in nearly all cases the majority of the voters has voted against. I don’t honestly see that as a better outcome, either from a pragmatic or a principled point of view.
Hey, don’t blame us for 4 years of Barnett Government – it was this bloke…er, wazisname…Carpenter?!?! who went to the polls months early (or a week too late). And anyway, imagine how bad it’d be if the old malapportionment still existed in the Assembly (actually, probably wouldn’t look so dissimilar – those darned Libs seem to be able to win seats everywhere).
Sure, blame us for not getting our internal processes totally flawless (but we did tie down an MP to voting the right way for half the legislation). Yes, you were correct in saying that Margetts is the reason the legislation didn’t pass in your preferred form (but I don’t remember actually denying this, excepting to try and clarify what actually happened). Yes, we tried consensus in the party room – knowing that we had no way fo forcing Margetts to actually vote the way we might otherwise want her too. The Greens don’t have a big “preselection” stick to carry around and threaten recalcitrant MP’s with (although they apparently can get special dispensation in the NSW ALP from big cheese Karl?). Oh, and while you’re probably right about uranium mining, I’m not so sure that logging will make the comeback you seem to think – the Libs found out in 2001 what a good forest campaign can do to your electoral performance, and now they’re defending even more city seats.
And while you fulminate about WA, I’ll sit back and contemplate the train wreck formally known as NSW after 12 years of ALP government (although I’ll also give Wran his dues for mostly sorting out the Leg Council here in NSW).
Hmm, we might be seeing our first by-election
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/09/23/2372368.htm
Does anybody know why the WAEC would refuse a recount in Riverton. 64 votes is less than one pile in the wrong spot. While i dont think the recount will change the result, surely when 32 votes being reasigned could change the vote isnt there a strong arguement for a recount. I seek enliightenment re the WAEC decision making process.
A recount would keep this thread going for at least another week or two.
I don’t blame the Greens for putting the Libs in, that was all our own work, I quite agree. But if the Council had been elected by statewide PR, as I calculated earlier, the results would have been Lib 14, Nat 2, ALP 12, Green 4, so that the Lib-Nats would have had to negotiate their bills through the Council. As it is they have open slather. I do blame the Greens for that.
How did you figure that Adam?
6×6 = 36
What happened to the other 4?
It seems the ALP are going for a recount of Riverton:
http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,24392937-29277,00.html
You mean there’s a crack group of professional vote counters somewhere who do it week in week out??? “We’re just taking it one vote at a time…”
Oops. From my post 120:
If the Council election had been done by statewide PR with a 5% threshold, the result would have been: Lib 16, Nat 2, ALP 14, Green 4.
ALP wants a recount in Riverton
http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,24392937-29277,00.html
The Nationals have secured five seats in the WAs Legislative Council one more then the so called third force in Australian politics the Greens. This result confirms that the Nationals will have this role all over Australia including the Senate where they had it last term holding the balance of power new Senate leader Barnaby Joyce is more than a match for the hapless Bob Brown.
Dario: the ALP never does well out of recounts, I wouldn’t put too much faith in the Riverton result being reversed!
Ripper announces his shadow ministry today?
The man with the mobile phones and the Panama hat rears his ugly head again.
Brian Burke emerges as problem for new WA Premier Colin Barnett
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,24393709-2702,00.html
New ALP Shadow ministry.
http://www.news.com.au/perthnow/story/0,21598,24395823-2761,00.html
I realise Mark McGowan isn’t flavour of the month at the moment, but I’m at a loss to understand why you’d drop him from the front bench. Would love to know what happened there.
Paul, the Greens got over twice as many votes than the Nationals. The reason this converted into fewer seats is their own insistence on maintaining rural vote weighting, but let’s not go back there.
THe Alleged Brian Burke link re emails sent from his wife’s email acount ? Though I think McGowan was being tactful in telling him to piss off in those replies – you have to be VERY careful when dealing with people like that in rejecting them in case it goes pear shaped.
ABC Radio just included McGowan in a list of previous ministers who HAVE been named on the front bench. I am most confused.
All talk of McGowan being dropped has disappeared from the PerthNow site.
http://www.news.com.au/perthnow/story/0,21598,24395823-2761,00.html
The ABC has McGowan on the front bench:
http://www.watoday.com.au/wa-news/ripper-unveils-shadow-ministers-20080924-4n4z.html
Just in case anyone thinks I was on crack: link.
Journey to the Centre of Troy Buswell’s Arse: “a frightening voyage of discovery”
http://www.watoday.com.au/wa-news/treasury-briefing-a-frightening-voyage-of-discovery-20080924-4n5h.html
ABC news last night mentioned McGowan in particular, along with Ravlich and Papalia… sounds like someone’s stuffed up at Perthnow.
Our William has made the Perth Now comments
I always love the PN comments… who says Mark ‘Sneakers’ McGowan, anyway?
Also, this:
Hmm. Lakemba, Ramsay, Broadmeadows, Lalor, Girrawheen, Nollamara… etc. Not sure where Bob of Perth gets his stuff from, but I think it’s time to change dealers.
Besides which, a “safe” seat is one that’s safe from the other major party. These seats are actually the ones that are most at threat from non-major predators: witness Churchlands, Alfred Cove and very nearly Kwinana. If Fremantle had nearly fallen to the Liberals, then “Bob of Perth” would have a point.
Good post William, but somehow you’ll b e accused of being an ALP Stooge and/or Staffer
I note they’ve updated the WA Govt website to include the new Ministry and note the formality of the email addresses.
http://www.premier.wa.gov.au/Minister.html
eg:e-Mail: Minister.Hames@dpc.wa.gov.au
I’m pretty sure the previous government had first name.surname@dpc.wa.gov.au
Yep, the email guidelines of Department of Premiewr & Cabinet do favour the previous govt’s standard.
http://www.egov.wa.gov.au/index.cfm?event=emailNamingStandards
Talk about changing of the guard.
Eric Ripper explained on Russell Woolf’s show that McGowan had been omitted from the press release announcing the shadow cabinet, if anyone’s still interested.
Just noticed that after the final distribution of preferences the Nats came a close second in three lower house seats in the Mining and Pastoral district.
Independent (Bowler) won Kalgoorlie ahead of Nats by 3.59%. Did anyone else pick Labor and Liberal to finish out of the top two in that seat?
Liberal (Jacobs) won Eyre by 3.64% ahead of the Nats and Labor (Stephens) won Pilbara from the Nats by 3.55%.
By any measure the campaign tactics of Brendon Grylls were a remarkable success and he led the Nats close to winning eight lower house seats.
Ooo, interesting. I picked Kalgoorlie to be either ALP/Ind or Lib/Ind, with Bowler maybe winning – didn’t pick the Nat. Makes it doubly impossible to figure out a swing… it’s gone from Lib/ALP to Ind/Nat, both parties changing. When’s the last time that happened?
By the way, the ABC site’s gone bung for Alfred Cove. Apparently, Woollard had a 38.8% swing, to end up with 92.8% 2PP. 7.2% for the Liberal… a bit rough considering he got 43% of the vote. The Greens must’ve been doing very funky things with preferences…
The new strength for the WA Nats will make both federal Kalgoorlie and O’Connor interesting in 2010 (or maybe 2009). Tuckey will presumably be made to retire (he looked quite senile this week with his angry points of order), and Haase may go as well. The Nats haven’t won a Reps seat in WA since 1972 but this will be their best chance for a long time.
Adam (226), most people thought the redistribution made it impossible for the Nats to win a WA federal seat, but based on the state performance I think you’re right.
Even if Tuckey and Haase stay on, they’ll have to face new electorates and they won’t find it easy.
Tuckey would rather retire than be beaten by a Nat.
Just wondering if anyone knows how serious the ALP is about challenging the result in Riverton?