Australian federal election: 7 September

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Kieran McConville said:
If a Labor government depends on a(n entirely hypothetical) Socialist and/or Green bloc to pass basic legislation, then, maybe, yes.

Doesn't the last parliament, for all the bad blood and bullshit on both sides, provide an example of a policy that a free-agent Labor administration would probably have avoided (carbon tax)? The pokie reforms, had they been an agreed demand among the whole suite of independents, probably would have had a happier fate too. Maybe Wilkie should consider that.
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To develop this thought-bubble a bit further; I wouldn't pretend that I would necessarily vote for such an entity, an Australian Socialist Party. In all likelihood I wouldn't. But something like that should exist. Politics is magnetic. You see the window drifting always to the right, well, let me suggest that a Labor Party operating in an environment populated by strong movements of the further left might be a somewhat different entity to one competing for a moveable 'centre'.
 
I think I've finally figured out the difference between the Senate and the House of Reps - in the House of Reps you are voting for someone to represent your area on a national level, whereas in the Senate you are voting for someone to represent your state on a national level? Is this right?
 
I got my postal vote today so I'm just pouring over it now and researching parties.

Rise Up Australia seemed reasonable on first glance - a party for people "from all ethnic backgrounds" upholding Australian values. President was born in Sri Lanka, nominated for Aussie of the Year in 2007.

Then I clicked on the same-sex marriage part of their website and quoted in full is some batshit insane article condemning it. And the president is a "prominent human rights advocate"!
 
Plus, y'know, they're rabidly anti-Muslim. Nalliah is a fucking nut, and a hypocrite to boot. Anti-immigration and anti-multiculturalism despite his own origin.
 
Oh, and Nalliah was the nut who claimed he had a vision that Black Saturday was God's punishment for Victoria's abortion laws.

cobl04 said:
How come you can't vote above the line for the Liberal Democrats, One Nation, Smokers Rights, Australian Republicans or Stop The Greens?
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Because they did not submit a Group Voting Ticket - in other words, if people could vote above the line for them, there would be no preference flow to allocate to their vote. So they've really shot themselves in the foot; anybody who wants to vote 1 for them HAS to vote below the line. (Bizarrely, although I haven't comprehensively checked them, at least some of those parties DID submit GVTs in other states.)
 
cobl04 said:
And when is the last time a hilarious minor party got a seat in the Senate?
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Didn't notice this last night - the Democratic Labour Party, 2010 for Victoria. We're very good at accidentally electing small far-right parties due to unusual preference flows. Nobody took the DLP's John Madigan seriously and then suddenly he was in.

This year, there's a good likelihood that at least one of Katter's Australia Party in Queensland, the Nick Xenophon Group (formerly No Pokies) in South Australia, and either One Nation or the Shooters & Fishers in NSW could get one member. Greens might get screwed over by this. I've seen some polling that suggests Nick Xenophon and friends could even get two in SA but I don't know how likely that is, and I wouldn't put a couple of KAP Senators past Queensland if the place goes really nuts - especially as the ALP in Queensland is preferencing KAP ahead of the Greens.
 
Just in case you were unsure whether or not Barnaby Joyce is completely bonkers, here's the proof. He's preferencing Fred Nile's Christian Democrats second, One Nation above both the ALP and Greens, and the Citizens Electoral Council above the Greens: Joyce favours One Nation ahead of ALP | The Australian

In direct defiance of Coalition policy too! So it'll probably get the support of absolute morons who think "that Barnaby really says what he thinks and nobody holds him back!" He should just run as an independent; he only supports National or Coalition policy when it suits him. At least Katter was honest enough to leave the Nats and stand as an independent before founding KAP.
 
Second debate tonight.

"I'd like to answer that question in two ways if I may; firstly in my normal voice, and then in a kind of silly high-pitched squeal which I've developed..."
 
Odds of anything new or interesting being said during the debate: 10,000 to 1.
 
I'm thinking of registering a batty microparty with the acronym 'FEMUR'. Now all I have to do is work out what the heck it stands for.

...too late?
 
The Institute of Public Affairs can seriously get fucked.

Tonight's debate was better than the first. Better questions, and Rudd really sassed Abbott a couple of times - yet again, Rudd is simply the more eloquent and engaging speaker. Abbott has the charisma of cardboard. But also yet again, that debate really didn't tell us anything we didn't already know. Far too many questions were not directly answered.
 
An improvement on the whole. Abbott is really quite embarrassing.

The other thing about Abbott - and here I'm probably differing from the choir a bit - is that I see his position as historically weak. As a leader of his own party, he is very weak. He won his position by a bare majority. His own frontbench shadow ministers routinely contradict him on policy. I actually believe what he says about Workchoices. I believe it probably reflects his own background and instincts. I don't believe he would be much more than a figurehead in office, a nominal chairman of the board. It's the rest of them who concern me.

And to reach back to the government of Malcolm Fraser, for heavens' sakes, to grab a bit of conservationist cred. Heavens to Betsy. Fraser isn't even a member of a party that has subsequently disowned him and his legacy.
 
Yeah, that Fraser comment baffled me - Rudd should've leapt all over it. I can understand drawing on the Howard legacy, especially given Abbott's position as a Howard minister. But Fraser? He thinks today's Libs are wankers. Fuck me, he endorses Sarah Hanson-Young, if not quite her party. You'd think Abbott would call Fraser a dangerous extremist, not praise him.

I'm not sure I differ too much from you about Abbott's weakness as leader. One of the great failings of the ALP propaganda machine is that they have never been able to make anything of this - I guess because it would just backfire on them though. I've been discussing this with a few colleagues lately. They are convinced/afraid Abbott will be a two-term PM. I think the Liberals will be a 2-3 term government only if it's not under Abbott. Let's face it, Abbott doesn't run the Libs; major business interests do. Major businesses love love love Malcolm Turnbull - and conveniently so does the public. The Liberals can't afford a messy spill because it would contradict so many of their ALP critiques, but I wouldn't be shocked that 12-18 months into an Abbott government, he will be persuaded to quietly stand aside because of a "family crisis" or something of the sort. "You've achieved your dream mate, now here's the script, step aside for Malcolm." If Abbott stays, the ALP should be able to get its shit together in opposition and make his ministry a one-term government. If Turnbull takes the reins in a publicly acceptable way, he'll be in until 2019.

Incidentally, part of the reason why I think Abbott, if he stays the full three years, will be a one-term leader is that he really "won" election in 2010. Sure, Australia has only had one single term government since WWII, but the pattern of "winning" an election too early has some credence. The ALP really "won" in 1969, achieving a substantial swing against the Coalition, but it just had too much ground to make up to actually form government. When Whitlam did finally win in 1972, it was only through a much smaller swing. 1972 was more the victory of an incumbent than a change of government; 1975's loss had extenuating circumstances, but Whitlam had still in the public mind been the preferred leader for two terms - he was not a true single-term incumbent. Then in 1993, Hewson lost the unloseable election; when Howard won in 1996, it was a result that the Coalition had already "won" three years earlier - and then in 1998, the ALP actually won the popular two-party-preferred vote and only failed to form government due to the uneven nature of the swing. Similarly, in 2010, Abbott really "won" the election but failed to get across the line by the faintest margin. A win this year will really be an incumbent's win. So come an election in 2016 or so, he won't possess the advantage incumbents often enjoy after their very first term.
 
Axver said:
Incidentally, part of the reason why I think Abbott, if he stays the full three years, will be a one-term leader is that he really "won" election in 2010. Sure, Australia has only had one single term government since WWII, but the pattern of "winning" an election too early has some credence. The ALP really "won" in 1969, achieving a substantial swing against the Coalition, but it just had too much ground to make up to actually form government. When Whitlam did finally win in 1972, it was only through a much smaller swing. 1972 was more the victory of an incumbent than a change of government; 1975's loss had extenuating circumstances, but Whitlam had still in the public mind been the preferred leader for two terms - he was not a true single-term incumbent. Then in 1993, Hewson lost the unloseable election; when Howard won in 1996, it was a result that the Coalition had already "won" three years earlier - and then in 1998, the ALP actually won the popular two-party-preferred vote and only failed to form government due to the uneven nature of the swing. Similarly, in 2010, Abbott really "won" the election but failed to get across the line by the faintest margin. A win this year will really be an incumbent's win. So come an election in 2016 or so, he won't possess the advantage incumbents often enjoy after their very first term.
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There is something in all of that. Although his government was a little more than a single term (technically) Whitlam indeed won twice before he 'won'.

And Abbott kinda/sorta won 2010 on the same metric, sure. If he were a decent negotiator in a position of authority, he might have cobbled together a minority government. But he didn't.

Of course hindsight can fool us a little. I was around in the mid nineties and I can remember handwringing think pieces about how Howard was the last roll of the dice, predictions of permanent extinction for the Liberal Party if they couldn't turn it around after the 1993 result.

As for this year, it's really messy. Abbott's (putative) win might be a sort of incumbent's win, but then again, the (late) incumbent is now living in Adelaide.

My personal take is that they're still angling for one last Howard win. They might get it, too. But this isn't 2007 or 2004 or even 2001.

And not Turnbull, but Hockey.
 
You reckon Hockey would take over in the event of Abbott stepping aside? I just can't see it. Turnbull's incredibly popular with the public and would definitely secure a lot of marginal voters and even some centre-left voters who normally vote ALP (not due to any policy, but his public persona). Hockey's a boring oaf with no charisma. He's pretty much the new Peter Costello, except Costello wasn't quite so much of an oaf.

Unrelated note: somehow the Citizens Electoral Council managed to sneak in and leave a few copies of their election newspaper on the table in the lobby area of my floor at work. It made for hilarious lunchtime reading, I assure you.
 
Turnbull may be popular with the public but he isn't popular with his own party. Maybe he gets some brownie points for being such a good team player all the time. But the Liberal Party is increasingly tribal. I'm not sure.

The CEC has an election newspaper? Wow. Any updates on the correct pitch at which your brain will meld with classical music?
 
My colleague tells me they were handing out copies of the paper on the street the other day too! Thanks to the CEC, now I realise that the British royal family wants to cause global genocide not just with the "hoax of global warming" but also with a "bank bail-in".

... yeaaahhhhh.
 
I thought the British Royals were into global genocide via the international drug trade.

Also, that homeopathy can't be good for anyone.

IT'S THE VERDI KEY, THE KEY TO THE GODHEAD
 
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