Straya thread part 5 - scallops and slippery dips

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I spent an hour today trying to wrestle a list of early voting centres out of the VEC website, so I can't be bothered trying to find this out on my own...

If I only number, say, 10 boxes below the line for the senate, are the remaining preferences distributed according to some mysterious method, or does my vote stop being counted if none of the candidates I've numbered are successful?
 
I spent an hour today trying to wrestle a list of early voting centres out of the VEC website, so I can't be bothered trying to find this out on my own...

If I only number, say, 10 boxes below the line for the senate, are the remaining preferences distributed according to some mysterious method, or does my vote stop being counted if none of the candidates I've numbered are successful?

If you vote below the line but do not distribute preferences to all candidates, and none of the candidates you number are successful, your ballot will be considered "exhausted" once the end of your preferences is reached, and will be removed from the count at that stage.

So let's say you're a hardcore environmental/animal rights voter in a rural upper house electorate. You have to give at least five preferences, so you give your first two preferences to the Animal Justice candidates, your next three to the Greens, and think the rest are a bunch of animal-hating, climate-denying scumbags so you give no further preferences. Animal Justice are knocked out pretty early, so your preferences flow on to the Greens. They stay in the count for quite a while, but since this is a rural electorate they ultimately get eliminated at a late stage when the fifth seat is still in contention between the ALP and the DLP. Since your ballot shows no further preferences, it plays no further role. The stoush between the ALP and DLP is settled solely by those ballots giving preferences to either party.

I presume you're in Eastern Metropolitan...?

Most ballots in metropolitan regions showing preferences for the Greens and the ALP are unlikely to ever be exhausted and eliminated from the count. I'm going to preference fairly deep but I'd rather my vote be exhausted than contribute in any way to the tally for Family First, No Smart Meters, Rise Up, etc.
 
I'd like to get into the senate and threaten to vote against everything unless I'm given a jar of smarties with the blue ones taken out. Every day.

I'd like to get into the same senate and threaten to vote against everything if you are given a jar of smarties with the blue ones taken out. Every day.

The chaos would be fantastic.
 
I'd like to get into the same senate and threaten to vote against everything if you are given a jar of smarties with the blue ones taken out. Every day.

The chaos would be fantastic.

Total democracy in action gridlock, man.

I'm thinking I'd run on some vaguely acceptable-sounding ticket like 'The Progress Party' or 'The Better Straya Party'. Or the Hilux Enthusiasts' Party.
 
Is it possible that there is anyone left, anywhere, who actually is influenced by whom the Age endorsed?

I think it's cute that papers think they wield influential power when it comes to elections.

Although it does speak volumes that in all likelihood Napthine will be ousted tonight, and replaced by perhaps the most uninspiring politician of all time in Daniel Andrews. No one knew who he was for the first three years of his time as leader of the opposition and he's not doing himself any favours with all these shit-boring ads. Even Tone speaks better scripted. He's the definition of white bread.
 

This is pretty great.

I think it's cute that papers think they wield influential power when it comes to elections.

Although it does speak volumes that in all likelihood Napthine will be ousted tonight, and replaced by perhaps the most uninspiring politician of all time in Daniel Andrews. No one knew who he was for the first three years of his time as leader of the opposition and he's not doing himself any favours with all these shit-boring ads. Even Tone speaks better scripted. He's the definition of white bread.

Of course papers wield influential power when it comes to elections. Haven't we learnt anything from News Corp tabloids? The formal endorsement I suppose plays a smaller part than it used to, though.

It's been a rather uninspiring campaign in general, though I'm obviously very interested in the parallel universe of ALP vs Green in inner Melbourne. Neither Napthine nor Andrews seem to have much charisma, vision, or serious interest at all. If you asked people to name Napthine's achievements as premier - or indeed the Libs' achievements over the whole term, whether under Baillieu or Napthine - I expect they'd come up rather short. But yeah then you have a man like Andrews who seems competent and little more.

Of course this relates back to the gradual erosion of state powers in favour of the federal government. With less room to act, there's also less room for vision.
 
I think it's cute that papers think they wield influential power when it comes to elections.

Although it does speak volumes that in all likelihood Napthine will be ousted tonight, and replaced by perhaps the most uninspiring politician of all time in Daniel Andrews. No one knew who he was for the first three years of his time as leader of the opposition and he's not doing himself any favours with all these shit-boring ads. Even Tone speaks better scripted. He's the definition of white bread.


I suppose it says something that a figure so whitebread is in with a shot. I'd like to imagine there are federal implications here, as there often are with state elections. It's rarely all about state issues. Put another way, I wouldn't be surprised if Napthine survived under a hypothetical ongoing Rudd (restoration) government.
 
Certainly the states are a bit of a sideshow these days, except perhaps (by omission) in the damage they can do by not keeping the police in their box. I wouldn't personally advocate for their abolition, but it might well be on the cards within a century. Indeed I intimated as much a couple of years ago when a survey company rang to ask me about my thoughts on the-then Bligh government's amazing 2030 vision for something or other.

Competent managers is what you will get, in the meantime.
 
I cannot imagine the states will ever be abolished, much as people like to talk about it. Too easily we forget that Australia is simply a federation of states that would otherwise be sovereign.* I think - though I'm not 100% sure about this - that to abolish the states each state would have to vote itself out of existence. Australia could hold a national referendum and five out of six states could vote for abolition, but that one refusal would destroy the entire process. Imagine if you had Queensland, for example, clinging on to statehood by itself. It doesn't work. New Zealand was only able to get rid of its provinces because they had no constitutional protection to their existence.

Plus, what do you replace the states with? I think a better reform would be to actually create new states. I'm surprised there have never been any new states created, because it would be a very effective way for Canberra to divide and rule (it's how centralist politicians in New Zealand undermined the provincial system). I definitely think there is a case for breaking up Queensland into two or three states, and for separating New England from NSW. If we are going to stick with the status quo of state/federal relations, where the states are comparatively weak and focused on competent administration rather than large vision, then we might as well make the states compact and easily manageable. The main case for retaining large states is having powerful state governments and a weak federal government, and that hasn't been the case since the Chifley and Curtin ministries expanded Canberra's powers in WWII (most notable being the shift in income taxation from state to federal control).

*It's interesting to ponder how quickly the colonies would have received independence had they not federated. I imagine NSW and Victoria at minimum would have become independent in 1901 anyway, but I sincerely doubt that Western Australia would have achieved independence for some decades (keep in mind it only received responsible government in the 1890s). I wonder if there are any counterfactual histories out there that consider this, because I think it would be a fun read.
 
It's true that the Australia is a federation of otherwise sovereign states, in the same way that it's true that the US is a federation of otherwise sovereign states... yes, but not so much. Yes, way back in the beginning. Imagine any state attempting to actually secede (I think Joh used to make vague threats along those lines, in the event of Australia ever becoming a republic. He might have even done some legislative jiggery to make the Queen the Queen of Queensland, just in case).

I agree, I was sort of bullshitting, in so far as any referendum to liquidate them and enter into some sort of unitary state ruling over super-regions (already halfway there with the council amalgamations of recent times), would be very vulnerable to failure. So yeah, I guess the states are unlikely to go away, short of a revolutionary junta. The thing is, maybe we can't forever rule out a revolutionary junta, even in sleepy old Australia.

A breakup of the 'North Queensland' vs the rest of Queensland notion has been floated now and then in the past. For my money, probably less likely at this point than wholesale abolition.

I have a suspicion that 'weak' federal governments, if they actually are governments (the EU hasn't made up its mind), never stay weak. They stay weak until their first major war or imperial phase. See also the 'weak' US presidency (actually in some ways it is quite weak, in terms of what its incumbent may actually be able to pursue, but the federal government certainly isn't).
 
For another interesting counterfactual, what if New Zealand had agreed to join the federation.

I think we would have been better for it, in all sorts of way. The example of indigenous/European relations in the two islands, for instance
 
I understand that in the 1930s the Country Party was very keen on creating New England (capital in either Armidale or Newcastle), Southern Queensland (capital Brisbane), Central Queensland (capital Gladstone), and Northern Queensland (capital Cairns). Just a few days ago I actually got out a book on the new states movements in Australia, albeit one written in the 1930s itself. Plan to sit down and read it soon. I know that new states are rather unlikely in the foreseeable future, but if I were a federal politician wanting to accentuate Canberra's power, I'd definitely be agitating for break-ups of the most powerful states.

And yeah it's very true that weak federations don't tend to stay weak for long. The federal government always moves - sooner or later - to assert its authority over its constituent components. Australia and the US are both good examples; New Zealand even more perfect given the swiftness with which the central government first moved against the provinces and then abolished them. I don't know enough about Canada to comment yet. I wonder if this has something to do with not having a tradition of independence pre-federation though? Some federations have weakened and collapsed; e.g. Yugoslavia being a very graphic example.
 
Yugoslavia was probably one of those federations held together only by a strongman, and unlikely to ever endure. Ditto the shortest federation ever, Nasser's Arab republic of Egypt and Syria.

Probably multiethnic/religious federations are incredibly vulnerable. Which certainly hasn't ever described Australia. Or the US, though it's a tricky one, with its puritan north east, its freaky desert Mormons and I guess places like Louisiana historically Catholic.

I don't know nearly enough about Canada, but get the impression its French contigent make the picture complex.
 
For another interesting counterfactual, what if New Zealand had agreed to join the federation.

I think we would have been better for it, in all sorts of way. The example of indigenous/European relations in the two islands, for instance

It would have been really interesting to see what would have happened. New Zealand would have entered as a powerful state - it would've been third largest, smaller than NSW and Victoria but double the size of Queensland and even further ahead of the others. I'm not sure it could have necessarily wielded authority equal to its size, though, because of its own internal divisions and the tendency of some parts of New Zealand to side more readily with NSW interests and other parts with Victorian interests. It might have moderated some odious sides of policy, especially as wars with Maori were still a living memory and an occasional threat, but other aspects of White Australia would probably have been maintained because New Zealand had its own "Yellow Scare" about the Chinese in the late 19th century.

Ultimately I think New Zealand would have not gained from joining the federation. I don't think the Waitangi Tribunal could have existed if we had joined the federation, and that institution - for all its flaws - has done so much good for race relations and repairing past injustices that I cannot imagine New Zealand without it.
 
Before we totally move on from talking about new states, one of my favourite examples was a proposal of the 1860s to create Princeland, encompassing western Victoria around the Portland region and southeastern South Australia around Mount Gambier. Because goddamn that would be a bloody weak state today if it existed, while doing little to sap the strength of either VIC or SA.

Yugoslavia was probably one of those federations held together only by a strongman, and unlikely to ever endure. Ditto the shortest federation ever, Nasser's Arab republic of Egypt and Syria.

Probably multiethnic/religious federations are incredibly vulnerable. Which certainly hasn't ever described Australia. Or the US, though it's a tricky one, with its puritan north east, its freaky desert Mormons and I guess places like Louisiana historically Catholic.

I don't know nearly enough about Canada, but get the impression its French contigent make the picture complex.

I wonder if djerdap ever glances in here. He's Croatian and always keen to talk about their history. I get the feeling Yugoslavia possibly could have endured had it been framed in a different way and not become so inextricably bound up with Tito himself.

Nasser was dreaming if he ever thought that union was going to last...

How about the USSR or Czechoslovakia? Neither are quite federations in the same model as Australia, but they do show how a strong central state not defined by one strongman can ultimately be weakened (though I guess you could say the USSR was a series of strongmen who also happened to keep Czechoslovakia under their thumb).
 
Good points there (edit: replying to post above that one). It might have been Australia's gain but New Zealand's loss then.

I wasn't thinking so much of White Australia; it was quite understandable for the time and circumstances (meaning that Australia understood itself to be a basically British entity, and I doubt that really died in the ass until the second world war showed the empire as incapable of protecting the colonies), and that sort of thinking didn't really fall entirely out of respectability until much later.
 
Before we totally move on from talking about new states, one of my favourite examples was a proposal of the 1860s to create Princeland, encompassing western Victoria around the Portland region and southeastern South Australia around Mount Gambier. Because goddamn that would be a bloody weak state today if it existed, while doing little to sap the strength of either VIC or SA.



I wonder if djerdap ever glances in here. He's Croatian and always keen to talk about their history. I get the feeling Yugoslavia possibly could have endured had it been framed in a different way and not become so inextricably bound up with Tito himself.

Nasser was dreaming if he ever thought that union was going to last...

How about the USSR or Czechoslovakia? Neither are quite federations in the same model as Australia, but they do show how a strong central state not defined by one strongman can ultimately be weakened (though I guess you could say the USSR was a series of strongmen who also happened to keep Czechoslovakia under their thumb).


I know next to nothing about Czechoslovakia, but as for the USSR, I see it as a de facto continuation of the Russian Empire. The state could ultimately be weakened, for sure, and probably the only really strong strongmen it had were Lenin, Stalin and Khrushchev. But what really brought it undone was the strings were untied and everything fell apart. Absent Gorbachev, it might still be there, slowly winding down like an old clock and freaking out over flights of seasonal geese.
 
Before we totally move on from talking about new states, one of my favourite examples was a proposal of the 1860s to create Princeland, encompassing western Victoria around the Portland region and southeastern South Australia around Mount Gambier. Because goddamn that would be a bloody weak state today if it existed, while doing little to sap the strength of either VIC or SA.

Heh. That sounds like the idea of someone who'd had one brandy too many and just thought the idea of a place with Prince in the name was called for.
 
Good points there (edit: replying to post above that one). It might have been Australia's gain but New Zealand's loss then.

I wasn't thinking so much of White Australia; it was quite understandable for the time and circumstances (meaning that Australia understood itself to be a basically British entity, and I doubt that really died in the ass until the second world war showed the empire as incapable of protecting the colonies), and that sort of thinking didn't really fall entirely out of respectability until much later.

New Zealand probably would have gained economically, but at a serious cost to race relations and other social reforms. The country would seriously chafe under Abbott - and I say that as somebody who remains depressed that John Key won the election earlier this year. I think that says it all about the gulf that has emerged between the Australian right and the Kiwi right.

What I find quite interesting is how both Australia and New Zealand were fairly multiethnic in the mid-19th century and then very consciously moved away from that. The Chinese, for example, were actually invited to Otago by its provincial government in the 1860s to participate in the gold rush - a situation that would've been unthinkable just twenty years later. I suppose New Zealand could never move as strongly away from a multiethnic society as Australia because Maori remained much more visible and prominent in social life. Hence anti-immigration sentiment became more focused on Asians specifically than on the general promotion of Anglo whiteness as seen in Australia.
 
Absent Gorbachev, it might still be there, slowly winding down like an old clock and freaking out over flights of seasonal geese.

Doing its best attempt to mimic the Ottoman Empire and be the sick man of Europe for a new century.
 
New Zealand probably would have gained economically, but at a serious cost to race relations and other social reforms. The country would seriously chafe under Abbott - and I say that as somebody who remains depressed that John Key won the election earlier this year. I think that says it all about the gulf that has emerged between the Australian right and the Kiwi right.

What I find quite interesting is how both Australia and New Zealand were fairly multiethnic in the mid-19th century and then very consciously moved away from that. The Chinese, for example, were actually invited to Otago by its provincial government in the 1860s to participate in the gold rush - a situation that would've been unthinkable just twenty years later. I suppose New Zealand could never move as strongly away from a multiethnic society as Australia because Maori remained much more visible and prominent in social life. Hence anti-immigration sentiment became more focused on Asians specifically than on the general promotion of Anglo whiteness as seen in Australia.

If I had to hazard a wild and barely-informed guess, the hardening of sentiment against the 'yellows' and the rest probably accompanied the high water mark of hard edged, pitiless, Protestant and explicitly white supremicist British imperium. And the obvious corruption and seeming inferiority of China itself as the nineteenth century drew to a close.

You see similar changes in India, where the Raj at its peak was all white administrators living isolated in local versions of Britain, in contrast to which some of the earlier generations of British East India company men went native to the extent of marrying into Mughal families, and in more than one instance converting to Islam.

What I find quite interesting - and don't worry, this isn't me crying out for a return to White Australia - is that even now, at this moment in history, self-consciously multiethnic nations are a rarity. And even Australia, when you drill down, is overwhelmingly British/Irish/Scots/German. I think people can cope with immigration as long as it has the quality of a 'sprinkling on top'.
 
I presume you're in Eastern Metropolitan...?

Most ballots in metropolitan regions showing preferences for the Greens and the ALP are unlikely to ever be exhausted and eliminated from the count. I'm going to preference fairly deep but I'd rather my vote be exhausted than contribute in any way to the tally for Family First, No Smart Meters, Rise Up, etc.

Yes I am... I'm pretty sure I'm in a safe coalition seat so I don't consider my lower house vote to be very important. But good to know the senate paper works the way I thought it did.

I managed to use a sneaky side entrance to the school/polling station today, and dodged most of the pamphlet-wavers... interestingly, the one that spotted and pursued me was a Greens person. Have to admire her tenacity I guess. (I really wasn't in the mood to have pamphlets waved at me by anyone.)

Although it does speak volumes that in all likelihood Napthine will be ousted tonight, and replaced by perhaps the most uninspiring politician of all time in Daniel Andrews. No one knew who he was for the first three years of his time as leader of the opposition and he's not doing himself any favours with all these shit-boring ads. Even Tone speaks better scripted. He's the definition of white bread.

I only knew who he was cos I used to live in Mulgrave (his electorate). And even when he became leader, I just thought "really? him?"
 
Looking very good for a change in government here in Victoria, and the Greens picking up a couple of lower house seats too. I'm getting pretty excited. :up:

Today had a very nice voting experience. Showed up literally just before a surge so there was almost no queue, there were a whole bunch of nice Greens campaigners, and the sausage sizzle was delicious. I'm in Brunswick, so I'm hoping the Greens might snare it as well as Melbourne and Richmond. It'll be close.

If I had to hazard a wild and barely-informed guess, the hardening of sentiment against the 'yellows' and the rest probably accompanied the high water mark of hard edged, pitiless, Protestant and explicitly white supremicist British imperium. And the obvious corruption and seeming inferiority of China itself as the nineteenth century drew to a close.

You see similar changes in India, where the Raj at its peak was all white administrators living isolated in local versions of Britain, in contrast to which some of the earlier generations of British East India company men went native to the extent of marrying into Mughal families, and in more than one instance converting to Islam.

What I find quite interesting - and don't worry, this isn't me crying out for a return to White Australia - is that even now, at this moment in history, self-consciously multiethnic nations are a rarity. And even Australia, when you drill down, is overwhelmingly British/Irish/Scots/German. I think people can cope with immigration as long as it has the quality of a 'sprinkling on top'.

These are good points. I also wonder if a factor in both Australia and New Zealand was that by the late nineteenth century, they were starting to forge their own independent identity rather than viewing themselves as mere colonies. In crafting those identities, the countries became more exclusive, defining who was and wasn't part of the new nations.
 
Probably that (nationalism) was part of it too. Nationalism: the nineteenth century's great gift to mankind!

I hope the Greens pick up a few seats in Victoria, but mostly I want to see the whites of Napthine's... ah who am I kidding. Barely know anything about the guy. But anything that delivers a kick to the present regime in Canberra is fine by me.
 
I know next to nothing about Czechoslovakia, but as for the USSR, I see it as a de facto continuation of the Russian Empire. The state could ultimately be weakened, for sure, and probably the only really strong strongmen it had were Lenin, Stalin and Khrushchev. But what really brought it undone was the strings were untied and everything fell apart. Absent Gorbachev, it might still be there, slowly winding down like an old clock and freaking out over flights of seasonal geese.

exciuse me for drinking although suggesting the USSR was a continuation of the Russian Empire is a bit basic, although, unless you are talking about the fact that it evenrtually became an imperialist power in the same sense that the Russian Empire was but apart from that, that's where ant similarities end

there are many reasons why it all fell apart and that's a discussion for another day or week or whatever
 
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