Australian federal election: 7 September

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Loved some of the non sequiturs Abbott dropped last night...

"Well ah, David, we're all about building infrastructure, I want to be the infrastructure Prime Minister, I love the smell of fresh asphalt in the morning Dave... and by the way, we will stop the boats."

No you won't, Tony. You can't. Nobody can.
 
Kieran McConville said:
Loved some of the non sequiturs Abbott dropped last night...

"Well ah, David, we're all about building infrastructure, I want to be the infrastructure Prime Minister, I love the smell of fresh asphalt in the morning Dave... and by the way, we will stop the boats."

No you won't, Tony. You can't. Nobody can.
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This implies places like Somalia and Afghanistan don't get the Courier Mail or the Herald Sun!
 
Angela Harlem said:
... Or badgerys Creek! That bloody airport. Since when the hell did this stop being a NSW issue and move to federal? Haha, no wonder he had no idea.
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I was baffled when that came up. Who the fuck - beyond Sydney and its surrounds - cares? Yes, Badgery's Creek is definitely relevant to the voters watching in Launceston or Warrnambool or Dampier. Though I was hardly surprised to see such a question come from a man who in appearance, articulation, and intellectual content appeared to be a rugby league player. Honestly, all three of those questioners came across as complete morons. Maybe Hartcher not quite, but the other two were horrid.

cobl04 said:
Labour's asylum seeker policies, in gif form

gIEXgue.gif
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Amazing.

cobl04 said:
Ex-cricketer Nathan Bracken to run as independent in Craig Thomson's seat of Dobell | The Australian
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He's an ACB front to ensure that the "you will never be settled in Australia" policy will be amended to include "unless you can play cricket".

Kieran McConville said:
Or that the readers of the Courier Mail are in danger of accidentally bringing a boatload of the desperate to Australia.
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This happens all the time. I have a friend who just can't stop sliding into this trap. Every weekend, without fail, oh there's another boatload. Maybe two if he's especially sloppy!
 
I don't wish for the LNP to win this election, although there is some chance they will. But if they do... oh, the look on Tony Abbott's face a year or so from now. He's a nobody.
 
Good to see Treasury and Finance sticking to their guns on the Liberal costings. Be interesting to hear how they plan to bridge the gap. Media now have to hold them to an answer #suppository
 
I see we're already onto the Tony Abbott vs Mark Latham stage of the Gaffe Wars.
 
AEC is publishing the candidate lists today. Only Tassie and the Territory up so far: 2013 federal election candidates - Australian Electoral Commission

I am abnormally excited for the Victorian candidates to be posted. There are some truly nutty minor parties running for Tassie. No Carbon Tax Climate Sceptics? Australian Fishing and Leisure Party? Stop the Greens? Smokers Rights?! Victoria always has the second largest Senate ballot after NSW so I can't wait to see what loons we have for me to give shitty preferences to. Voting below the line for the Senate is one of the truest nerdy joys.
 
Victoria looks like it's up... Help End Marijuana Prohibition (HEMP) Party is one.

Why is there like a million senate candidates for Lalor?? :huh: I'm gonna have to research House of Reps/Senate.
 
Yep, Victoria went live right after I posted. I'm far too excited about it. So many incredibly hilarious minor parties - and so many absolutely mental anti-carbon tax, anti-Green, anti-environmental parties. Looks like the shooters and fishers movement has seriously fragmented. And I love that the HEMP Party is back! I've missed them.

Disappointingly, Wills has the shortest ballot of the three times I've voted, I think. Just eight candidates - I'm stunned the Citizen's Electoral Council isn't running. Those crazies despise Kelvin Thompson. They think he's some genocidal warlord or something.
 
The Fishing and Lifestyle Party and the Australian Motoring Enthusiasts Party are going to be my choices.
 
Baahahahaha the Non-Custodial Parents Party still exists - alas only on the NSW ballot. :lol:
 
Ok, it's far from over but I guess I might have to start radically reevaluating my expectations here. About the only salvation I can see is the possibility that in the absence of a national campaign, there are a lot of local campaigns pulling some serious rabbits out of hats.

What the fuck is wrong with Rudd? Two years whiteanting his own party and, this, this is the best he's got? It's not as though there isn't a record - quite a good one, on the whole - to run on.

Well anyway, if he does go down to defeat, his reputation will be a bucket of shit for all time. No rehabilitation, no revision. The verdict on his predecessor will be considerably kinder.

A Keating would have eaten this opposition for breakfast. A leader of that calibre could, and did, pull victory out of considerably less promising material.
 
I am genuinely baffled how the wheels are falling off here, or why the hell the polls are swinging to the Liberals. Abbott's offering practically nothing except fear, extremism, vague nebulous hints at policy, an unwillingness to actually interact with the public, and an inability to articulate much of anything, and somehow this is working even when the ALP lurches to the right. I can only conclude that the Australian people are experiencing a serious bout of incredible fucking stupidity right now.

Frankly, I think what might help the ALP is if they stopped trying to encroach on Abbott's turf, stopped trying to beat the Libs at their own game of appealling to bigots and racists, and articulated a clear leftwing policy. Perhaps that's what's costing them - you can try to snare all the votes you can, but selling your soul and trying to be the lite version of another party is no recipe for popularity. If they articulated an alternative vision for Australia, something seriously opposed to the Libs' brand of fearmongering and greed, then perhaps they'd get more traction.

Or maybe it'd just kill them completely in this bogan country. I don't know.
 
I don't think Labor have much of anything 'left wing' left in them these days. It's not too different from 'oh well they're supposed to be left but they aren't really' with UK Labour, is it?
 
Axver said:
I am genuinely baffled how the wheels are falling off here, or why the hell the polls are swinging to the Liberals. Abbott's offering practically nothing except fear, extremism, vague nebulous hints at policy, an unwillingness to actually interact with the public, and an inability to articulate much of anything, and somehow this is working even when the ALP lurches to the right. I can only conclude that the Australian people are experiencing a serious bout of incredible fucking stupidity right now.

Frankly, I think what might help the ALP is if they stopped trying to encroach on Abbott's turf, stopped trying to beat the Libs at their own game of appealling to bigots and racists, and articulated a clear leftwing policy. Perhaps that's what's costing them - you can try to snare all the votes you can, but selling your soul and trying to be the lite version of another party is no recipe for popularity. If they articulated an alternative vision for Australia, something seriously opposed to the Libs' brand of fearmongering and greed, then perhaps they'd get more traction.

Or maybe it'd just kill them completely in this bogan country. I don't know.
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It's a multitude of things, I suspect. But all I know is this: if a media-confected image of 'untrustworthy', 'big deficits', 'broken promises' etc were congealing about my government, I'd be pulling out the big guns. Look at the UK, I'd say. Look to Europe. That's austerity. A self-defeating cycle that will end in revolution, and that can't be good for anybody.

There but for the grace of god (and, admittedly, cough, ahem, just quietly, China's demand), go we.

People go on about Lindsay and the west of Sydney. Those marginals only matter because the game is stalemated. Shift the window and you change the game. Ah well.

...

It's not that the ALP is leftwing really, not now (although it has left leaning people still in and around it), as that it remains the biggest fish in the broad left front, to completely mix some metaphors.
 
Murdoch may own a shit-tonne of the press, but he doesn't own the TV networks. Rudd has a closer relationship with the camera than with his own wife. He should be setting his sights on every television network falling over themselves to support his campaign even while the Murdoch press tries to drive him into the ground.

Still, it's the last week of the campaign that matters.
 
The TV and radio take a lot of leads from the big newspapers in the daily cycle; that is unfortunately what has always given Murdoch's ownership of so much local press its bite, even when the likes of The Australian sell pitiful numbers of copies.

But it can't all be pinned on Murdoch. I'm no conspiracy monger. His influence is almost entirely for the worse, but it's not omnipotent. It takes two to tango.
 
He's certainly trying to exert every little bit of influence he can possibly get this election. It's depressing how homogenous the Aussie press is, given how vibrant and diverse it used to be.

The Group Voting Tickets are out and make fascinating reading. I know it is unrealistic to expect many people to vote below the line like I do, or even to fully read or truly understand the GVTs before voting above the line, but I'd like to just urge everybody to at least look at the GVTs for parties you support to make sure that when you do vote above the line, the preferences allocated to you actually reflect your interests and intentions. Go here and select your state from the Senate list and the file with the GVTs is at the top above the list of your state's Senate candidates. There are some very odd flows in some states; watch out, for instance, for the Bullet Train people preferencing far-right parties above the Greens, or the Animal Justice people preferencing nutters like Family First, No Carbon Tax, and the Citizens Electoral Council above the ALP or Greens. The Socialist Equality Party has the funniest Victorian GVT; as in previous elections, they offer three separate GVTs (which are each allocated to a third of their votes), all of which are donkey votes - one favours the ALP, one the Greens, and one the Liberals.

Oh, and the Australian Motoring Enthusiast Party has the most bogan website ever. How about the chick draped in the Aussie flag in one of the images that rotates through the front page! Looks like something straight out of the Bogan Day Out/Cronulla riots playbook.
 
Fuck me, the Sex Party is preferencing ONE NATION ahead of the ALP, Greens, or Coalition. This could actually be significant in NSW, where Pauline Hanson will probably be in contention for the final Senate seat.

There are some really baffling preferences in the Group Voting Tickets, but this just might be the worst of them.
 
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