Comments on: Frome by-election live

By: bob1234

bob1234 — Fri, 06 Feb 2009 09:30:15 +0000

Well, it seems it fizzled out at 476 posts. Still, not bad for an SA state by-election.

And what a great result!

Until next time…

By: bob1234

bob1234 — Tue, 03 Feb 2009 08:10:08 +0000

William, might be worth adding to your thread his declaration:

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/01/29/2477743.htm

And swearing in to parliament:

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/02/03/2480931.htm

By: Antony GREEN

Antony GREEN — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 02:11:57 +0000

Having returned from nine days with no internet access, I’ve finalised the figures from Frome at
http://www.abc.net.au/elections/sa/2009/frome/ and pointed out that the election was so close that certain unique features of the South Australian Electoral Act played their part in making Brock’s victory possible. http://blogs.abc.net.au/antonygreen/

By: bob1234

bob1234 — Sun, 01 Feb 2009 14:12:46 +0000

BOP, exactrly what seats do you consider will fall? Bar Giles, the only rural seat Labor hold, all their seats are in the metropolitan area, which is always where SA elections are decided. Have a read of:

http://www.news.com.au/adelaidenow/story/0,27574,24587709-2682,00.html

I seriously question your claim that a “bundle” of seats that will go to the Libs in 2010. Name me the “non-marginal” seats that will fall to the Libs in 2010. Kgo.

By: Bird of paradox

Bird of paradox — Sun, 01 Feb 2009 10:29:45 +0000

I don’t know what they’re thinking or rethinking, but they oughta be considering this: there’s a bundle of seats which will quite likely go to the Libs in 2010, and not necessarily the marginal ones. Check out the swing last time in the current marginal Labor seats, then the non-marginal seats.

About all this by-election shows bad for Labor is that Stuart may not be the easy get for them that you’d think. (Although I hope they don’t elect the nutso mayor of Port Augusta as an independent. I’ve heard just enough about her to be quite worried about her and that town.) Also, Flinders may go to the Nats (or the mayor of yet another flippin’ Port Something town), although what that means for the major parties, I haven’t a clue.

By: bob1234

bob1234 — Sun, 01 Feb 2009 06:29:56 +0000

BOP, it sure does let it’s bias show. It ends with:

“the major parties need to rethink their strategy for 2010.”

Err, the Liberals held the seat on a 3.4% margin after the 2006 election, which saw Labor take in a historic 56.8% 2pp. Labor picked up another 1.7% in 2pp terms since then. They never had a whiskers chance of actually winning the seat.

Exactly what part of the strategy should Labor be rethinking for 2010, if they were to go off the result of this seat alone?

As I said, bloody rural conservative rubbish that article is.

By: Bird of paradox

Bird of paradox — Sun, 01 Feb 2009 01:50:32 +0000

That article does let its bias show, but it does at least explain the process of preferential voting (ie: how Brock won despite coming third on the primary vote)… not too many do that properly. The only thing missing was a sentence saying something like “< n% of elections are won by someone who comes third”, where n is something fairly small.

What is that number, anyway? Winning from second’s relatively common (Labor with Greens, Libs with Nats, almost any independent the first time round), but I can’t think of too many cases where the third-placed person wins. Only one that springs to mind is the Liberal who beat Pauline Hanson in 1998 on about 22% of the vote, due to the Libs, Nats and Labor all swapping preferences. (That’d be a good example to pull out for those commenters of the Advertiser website, actually.)

By: castle

castle — Sat, 31 Jan 2009 21:54:33 +0000

A ‘first past the post’ voting system would save confusion

Bob
From the article

When people go to the polls they rarely think about the implications of the numbers they place in the boxes on the ballot.

Shades of Abbott and Hockey and their remarks that the voters were sleep walking when they voted out Howard.

Deep down they believe that voting is a privalege not a right and is not appreciated by the uniformed ignorant unwashed lower masses.

What they are really wanting is a Thatcher type poll tax, bring in property qualifications and take back the vote off women.

By: Oz

Oz — Sat, 31 Jan 2009 21:19:08 +0000

Is that a joke?

By: Frank Calabrese

Frank Calabrese — Sat, 31 Jan 2009 15:37:15 +0000

Are they aware of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swan_by-election,_1918 and how if we had first past the post, Labor would win more elections?

Speaking of First Past The post – the WA Libs are reintroducing them to local govt elections.