Australian federal election: 7 September

[Kieran McConville]

Originally Posted by Axver

Secondly, the Guardian's got a good opinion piece contrasting the Wikileaks Party with the Pirate Party. After digging around on the Pirates' website and being impressed both by the majority of their policies and their transparency, it's safe to say I'll be giving them high preferences. Wikileaks looked promising but their implosion over the past week has put paid to that. The WikiLeaks party could learn about transparency from the Pirate party | Asher Wolf | Comment is free | theguardian.com

As an aside, I don't like to be the grammar police but that Guardian piece is just dire. I don't know if that's part of the broader 'Guardian Australian Edition' thing or not (which I am deeply unimpressed by after their recent and credulous reportage of certain seat-by-seat robopolls). On the basic points, ok, interesting info.

[Axver]

I honestly think the Guardian's a good few steps ahead of The Age/SMH in quality of reporting. Lenore Taylor and Katharine Murphy have been covering the election really well. It's just a shame the Guardian runs a fairly narrow selection of news; I still need The Age just for basic around-Melbourne sort of stuff and they're usually quicker with breaking news.

That said, I agree with you completely on their reportage of the robopolls. Terrible methodology and hard to take seriously. What baffled me, though, is that The Age ran a really good piece criticising it - yet has kept reporting the polls with the same credulous reporting as the Guardian!

[Kieran McConville]

Originally Posted by Axver

I honestly think the Guardian's a good few steps ahead of The Age/SMH in quality of reporting. Lenore Taylor and Katharine Murphy have been covering the election really well. It's just a shame the Guardian runs a fairly narrow selection of news; I still need The Age just for basic around-Melbourne sort of stuff and they're usually quicker with breaking news.

That said, I agree with you completely on their reportage of the robopolls. Terrible methodology and hard to take seriously. What baffled me, though, is that The Age ran a really good piece criticising it - yet has kept reporting the polls with the same credulous reporting as the Guardian!

Well in fairness, I doubt that any of these mastheads are unified conspiracies, I doubt any of them are terribly coordinated in this era. The dissonance is understandable.

[cobl04]

The Guardian Australia has been a godsend. I've already lost count of the amount of good pieces I've read on there, and it's so great to have another non-right-wing publication.

[Kieran McConville]

I've lost count of the number of times I've bashed my head against the desk.

[cobl04]

Abbott's Internet | Watch what happened when we tried to sell Tony Abbott's broadband plan to the world.

[Vlad n U 2]

[Kieran McConville]

This thing could still turn around.

No, not Clive Palmer's campaign. Even he isn't serious. I mean the campaign.

[Vlad n U 2]

Clive Palmer to win by a landslide of 95% of the votes due to his twerking abilities.

[Axver]

Well that convinced me to change my vote to Palmer United!

[Kieran McConville]

I still can't forgive the man his egotism. He claimed, at one point, quite explicitly, to be resurrecting the United Australia Party (that would be the entity last led by an 80 year old Billy Hughes in the 1942 election campaign), but no, it's 'Palmers United Party'.

[Axver]

Palmer claims that he only used his own name because "United Australia Party" was rejected and he had almost no time left before the deadline to register, and that after the election he will come up with a new party name that doesn't name-check himself. Sure Clive. I'll believe it when it happens.

In other news, almost every one of these maps just makes me say "fucking Queensland!": Battlelines: Top 20 seats where voters are most at odds on key election issues - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

[Kieran McConville]

Third debate tonight.

There's our Tony, on-script as always, "we'll stop the waste, scrap the tax, and we'll stop the boats, because I, uh, ah, I want to be an infrastructure prime minister..."

Does he realise how brain damaged he sounds?

Edit, oops, I forgot he's going to build the roads of the twenty first century as well... where we're going, Marty, we don't need no fucking roads.

[Axver]

Need I write any comments on that debate, or am I just preaching to the choir?

Rudd was surprisingly tetchy in parts though. He's got Abbott slayed on public speaking ability - why give any hint of nerves or aggression when you can so easily out-talk and out-reason him?

[Kieran McConville]

There were a surprising number of registered nurses in the audience. Oh and of course the obligatory small businesspeople who can't tell the difference between a small business and a sovereign state wrt finances.

What Rudd should have said was, deficits don't matter. They really don't. Well ok, if you're Greece they do, but hint, Greece doesn't control its own currency. Well ok, they sort of do matter, but not in the way and not to the extent that the average family doing their budget (shot of angry dad in backseat) around the kitchen table think.

[Axver]

I just about exploded with rage on the finance issue. Fuck me. There's some independent running for Victoria solely on the basis of his experience as a business owner. Hey, dickhead, a sovereign state is not a commercial venture. Its finances function completely differently, it enjoys different access to money and loans, and it has revenue streams totally distinct from the private sector. Let's stop pretending government should have an annual balance sheet like Joe Bloggs' Sandwich Shop around the corner.

[Kieran McConville]

What they should say is this.

Your money is good because it is the medium which the government accepts in payment of taxes. That's it. We go away, it goes away.

[cobl04]

Rudd's about to do a Reddit AMA.

In betting markets the Coalition is nearly unbackable while the ALP is out to double figures.

[Axver]

Some surprisingly funny comments within that AMA.

Love when somebody calls him "Rudd dog" so he signs off his reply as "KRudd dog", and when he tells an American his favourite thing about Australia is dropbears.

[Kieran McConville]

What's a Reddit AMA?

I presume it has nothing to do with the Australian Medical Association.