UPDATE: 50% counted so far, likely result = Lib 2 | Lab 2 | Greens 1 | Pup 1 [ABC tally] (This page says all 6 seats are “elected” yet only 50% is counted. Can someone explain? – Jo]
The WA re-election of six senators runs tomorrow. The carbon tax lie is still here, the zombie law dead, but living. The Abbott government can’t get the legislation through the Senate to bury it.
It’s been a novel political strategy by the Labor Party: make a definitive commitment to voters, win by the skin of your teeth, then do the exact opposite. Get caned in the next poll, lose resoundingly. Then stick with the commitment you promised you wouldn’t commit too. Apparently, at the core of the Labor Party philosophy — Truth Is Optional. Changing the weather is more important than being straight with the voters. It’s how you serve them, right?
Ponder the ambition. Gillard declared “there will be no carbon tax” then chose voluntarily, in full view, and with no gun to her head, to break her commitment. She hoped perhaps the Australian people would a/ forget, b/ say thanks, or c/ be understanding — after all, She Really Really Wanted To Be PM. (It could happen to anyone.)
Alas, it didn’t work. Nor did the propaganda. The public didn’t like being deceived, and they don’t want climate action much either. They twice voted not to be carbon taxed. Having suffered a bucketing, Labor’s new strategy is to do “more of the same”. Could voters make it any clearer?
The question no one seems to be asking the Labor Party is whether being honest matters — they got rid of Gillard but kept fighting for the proceeds of her crime. Many of the MPs still here today were accomplices in voting the deceit in, and as long as the Tax is still here they are still endorsing the tactic.
This is a matter of principle that ought to trump any policy. Without trust, we have nothing. What does an election campaign or a democracy mean if politicians can promise one thing and do the opposite?
Armchair critics will protest that “all politicians lie!” But this lie was a Richter-scale-10. Politicians have always overpromised and underachieved, they’ve always said “we’ll build a bridge by January then cure unemployment” and failed. We can debate whether they knew beforehand that their promise was or was not achieveable. But when a politician says “I will not do X” and then does exactly X, what’s left to debate? It crosses the line in the direction of fraud and deception. Could there be mitigating circumstances? Sure plague, war, mass death, maybe mental illness. Gillard’s excuse was that she didn’t know a “hung parliament” could occur when she made the promise. Bollocks. The hung parliament changed nothing. Except that her government won by the tiniest of margins and had a nano-thin-mandate. It was legally real, but popularly-not.
The result turned on a mere 400 voters in Corangamite (and those two independent unrepresentative members). How many voters would have voted the other way if they had known Gillard was going to do the opposite of what she and Swan were saying loud and clear? A friend urged me to vote Labor back then, saying it would be ok because Gillard and Swan were promising not to introduce a carbon tax.If Labor had been a moderate, centrist and sensible government, as befitted its oh-so-tight win, it might still be in power.
The only way to show that the Labor Party or Bill Shorten are honest, and care about honesty, is to axe the Carbon Tax. Lies for the environment are not OK. The ends does not justify the means.
If the case for a carbon tax or trading scheme is real, urgent and obvious. Then after removing the carbon tax, gaining respect and regaining trust, the Labor Party will be in a much better position to explain the overwhelming case for Climate Action and the people will vote for them in 2016. This would be the honest approach, the one that shows respect for the voters.
There are many in the Labor Party who are dismayed at the continuing rot within the party.
The media support the big party machines
Once again in the media run up to an election, what I haven’t seen is any realistic effort by journalists to tell us about the minor parties. The ABC did token efforts on the Hemp Party, and Wayne Dropulich got a small mention, but there was next to nothing on any other contenders.
If a brilliant, honest smart person ran for government in Australia with a minor party they might as well wear an invisibility cloak — the public would never know. What this means is that anyone from outside the big party machines has to resort to playing preference games, setting up front parties — each party carrying a one line bumper sticker message of their policies. It’s a messy way to do it, but that’s the only way to get their message out.
After this election the smaller parties will find it even harder. Soon parliament is bound to vote to change the current Senate rules and raise the bar to entry. That would be fine if the media gave the minor parties a chance, but I can’t see that happening.
How to Vote?
I’ll be voting for minor parties. Boringly, taking the time to number one to 77 below the line. Does it matter? Apparently only 14 votes changed the direction of the preference flow in the 2013 election, so yes, yes, and yes. Do make the effort.
What to do? Current rules mean non-West Australians can stand to be a West Australian Senator. But they are the rules, just this one last time. Sigh. I wish my favorite candidates were from WA, but ask whether it’s possible that a non-West Australian might serve your needs better in the Senate than plenty of WA candidates. It could be.
- The Liberal Democrat Party has a philosophy that is hard not to agree with (don’t hurt people, don’t take their stuff). They are running two candidates: Jim Fryar, and Neil Hamilton.
- The No Carbon Tax, Climate Skeptics Party has renamed itself the Freedom and Prosperity Party, they have two candidates, Bill Koutalianos, and Leon Ashby. Anyone who wants to help hand out flyers for them should call WA Property Rights Association – 10 Kearns Crescent, Ardross. Ph 0409 082442
Election information
- List of Candidates AEC
- Group voting tickets are here (for people who want to vote above the line and know where there votes are going.) The Freedom and Prosperity Party (Climate Skeptics) tell me their preferences are Minors, LDP, Palmer, Nationals, Libs, Labor, other minors, Greens last.
Preferences: Which minor parties are on which side of the fence?
Inasmuch as the party preferences can tell us anything about the philosophy of the candidates, there are only a few minor parties who have put Labor ahead of the Libs. Those are: Sustainable Population, The HEMP Party, The Secular Party, The Sex Party, and the Socialist Alliance. Katter has split the ticket.
Every other minor party has put the Liberals ahead of Labor. For whatever that is worth…
To answer Ian in comments: The ALP are preferencing the Greens at 17, far ahead of the Libs. The Libs have put the six Greens last, bar two unknown independents.
I could post this exact same article to Canada or the US, and just change a few names. Oh and the UK. I’m pretty sure in most other countries it is just S.O.P. anyway; We just hear about it more in the nations where could HOPE politicians would show a bit more integrity.
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With one other exception as well. You vote for ONE person, not your primary and then 2nd, 3rd, 4th, etc. I can see the benefits in Australia for that, and the headaches!
Joanne, how many down the list do you have to rank your votes?
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Different rules for how many down the list do you have to rank your votes.
Here is a link from DFAT explaining all of the different jurisdictions and the types of voting used in each.
In the WA Senate election-rerun it is full preferential, that is you either enter an automatic vote by placing the number 1 against a party ticket above the line, or enter a number (1, 2, 3, …) against all of the candidates below the line.
Most folks will select the first option and their vote will be counted as if it followed the preference pattern registered by that party with the appropriate electoral commission. It is the deals done between some of these minor parties that see them being able to gain the “last” seat and hopefully have a balance of power vote in the Senate to be able to influence legislation. The main aim of these deals is not to end with the least number of votes as that candidates votes are then re-distributed based on the voter’s preference or if they have just voted above the line with the registered preferences.
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A lot on the line concerning the WA senate election.
I have faith in the good people on the other side.
Failing that…let’s go to a DD. The left cannot deny the mandate. Doing such is denial.
Now, where have I heard that before?
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I’m with you scaper, hopefully 6 months of a real government in action will be enough for people to have their heads cleared of the pollution spouted by the Labor/Greens and if not then Double Disollusion up and come what may – people will get the government they deserve – one way or the other.
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Yep, bring on a double D, it would be a great opportunity to highlight the risks of global cooling. PUP will vote to dismantle the tax on a harmless trace gas, so all going well a DD won’t be necessary.
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A bit of extra explanation may be needed for non-Australians who are not familiar with current events. The way the article is written, the opening paragraphs makes it appear that the new government is doing exactly what the previous government did.
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Sorry Michael, I must have agreed, and I rewrote the entire first half after posting. It was way too serious. I hope it makes more sense. It is definitely more fun.
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Jo I’m in the UK at the moment and have already voted postally. Can you tell me to which party if any do Verity James and Russell Wolf belong, its not shown on the ballot paper and are they supporting the LNP? In your post you mention the minor parties not supporting the LNP and I guess but don’t know the Greens will support the ALP but is the ALP preferencing the Greens?
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Ian, I’ve added a note at the bottom of the post. Except I can’t tell you anything about James and Wolf, they didn’t put in a group ticket to direct preferences. The information on the AEC site says: WOOLF, Russell, Broadcaster-Journalist, and JAMES Verity Funeral Celebrant.
Yes the ALP is definitely preferencing The Greens.
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With our aging population I knew competition in the funeral market was heating up but I didn’t think someone would specialise in only seeing off hated people.
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Thanks Jo. I don’t get anything but print media comments via reading Australian papers on the internet. Whatever the Australian media think of TA he has come over very well here with his handling of the Malaysian Flight MH 370 disaster. This is regarded by most (except by readers of the Guardian of course) as very competent and successfully treads the line between providing accurate information while not giving false hope to the stricken relatives of the missing passengers and crew.
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Ian
It’s BECAUSE he’s competent that he’s hated by the media and Luvvies. They’re all about sounding and seeming, but government is all about doing.
The guy is doing what he’s paid for – good on him.
Cheers,
Speedy.
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Julia Gillard established the Socialist Forum and gathered far-left factions together, the Forum merged into the Fabian Society not long before Gillard became deputy leader of Union Labor. The Greens are far-left faction members too, including former or continuing to be Communists.
The Australian reported last year that returning from a trip to Europe, including to Germany, our former Coalition Government Treasurer Peter Costello told journalists that he had met a former German Minister for Foreign Affairs and a Green who described the Australian Greens as being way off to the left of international Greens politically. Apparently he made other remarks that Costello chose not to repeat.
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I’ve just spent an hour listening to some people who are convinced that man is going to ruin the world:what has changed I would ask what is the imperative?people I presume are hard-wired for disaster;they have a tendency to believe the worst. Here I am trying to debrief the young undergraduates at UNE and at least ask them to consider and to think for themselves.Ahh ennui again
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I’ve just spent an hour listening to some people who are convinced that man is going to ruin the world:what has changed I would ask what is the imperative?people I presume are hard-wired for disaster;they have a tendency to believe the worst. Here I am trying to debrief the young undergraduates at UNE and at least ask them to consider and to think for themselves.Ahh ennui again
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Good luck to all the Party’s that doesn’t want the Carbon Tax in the WA election tomorrow. Tony Abbott doesn’t really does Labor or the greens to stop the Carbon Tax before June 30, but he will need the help of who ever you guy’s over in WA vote for to get ride of it. After it. How just refuse to enforce it from July 1st. The rule is still on the books as they say but no one knocks on any doors ask why no paid it, no one gets fined for not paying it. That just what they do in the Netherlands. Its still illegal to have Cannabis but there’s a policy of non-enforcement. The Carbon Tax could be stopped right now from 01/07/14 but its much better to have it voted down. Put right out of our misery once and for all. Don’t you think so, please if your in WA vote for someone that’s on the public record saying they will vote against the Carbon Tax. Thank you.
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Tony has introduced the carbon tax removal bill twice to the Senate. He now has his trigger for a double dissolution and a shotgun pointed at the Senate over the carbon tax. Guess which bill will be introduced first?
If he is then frustrated by this Senate, the new senators will not get to sit very long and a month is not long enough for a pension. The good people of WA, the whole country will be treated to another election. Now who would want all that trouble and expense and have to do it all over again? I think we can bid farewell to the carbon tax and a Federal mining tax. Even Palmer does not really want to throw money away.
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You are mistaken. The cache of bills for the removal of the carbon tax has been presented to the Senate once thus far and was voted down a couple of weeks ago. The bills can not be represented for another three months.
I believe you are referring to the Clean Energy Finance Commission removal bill that was presented around three weeks ago for the second time.
For our foreign readers…the CEFC is a $10B fund set up to loan government money for clean energy development that the banks wouldn’t touch with a ten foot pole.
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Scaper… – Just a question of clarification. When you say the banks would not touch it, is that because they see it as too risky? hence the $10b is actually a loan guarantee from the government? IN other words, when the project fails, the loan institutions do not lose their money, the government reimburses them?
If that is what you are saying, then you already have heard of other programs just like that. Except they were the idiocy of the US, not Australia. Solyndra, Fisker, etc.
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I agree. Both the CT & MT in all likelihood will be rescinded post July 1 simply because the Minor Party Senators will not want a DD Election – they would prefer to maintain their 3 & 6 years terms & accept any sweeteners from the Coalition to convince them. The worse case scenario for WA’s half senate election today is: 2 LIB, 2 ALP, 1 Green & 1 Minor Party (opposed to the rescinding of the CT & MT). This would give the Coalition little wriggle room to get the numbers to rescind both of those insidious taxes in the Upper House post July 1.
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Ok, clarification time for a Non Australian.
Do you rank every candidate running for a seat? So if there are 77, you have to rank them from 1-77?
Or is it just the top 2 you “vote” for? The quoted part seems to indicate that every person gets a “ranking”, which if there is no majority of #1s, then it goes to a process of elimination.
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Phil, wait til you hear how the Australian Voting System works.
In the senate there are two ways to fill in the ballot paper
1/ Either vote 1 – 77, marked neatly in the boxes. Do Not Make a Mistake!
or
2/ Pick one box “above the line” and write 1 against a party name. If we choose this option our vote is counted as if we had filled in the particular order 1 – 77 below the line, and the numbers fall in the way the party has chosen, which is filed with the AEC and available on their site. This is what most people do. It’s a lot quicker to count as well.
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Very confusing. I would not want to take anyone’s “default”, yet I would be very hesitant to fill in 1-77 with the care you describe. I take it a miss mark is counted as a no vote?
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I always start with the top Greens candidate at, say 77, then down their extras (usually 3) to 75.
Then it is just a matter of selecting the group who are slightly less objectionable e.g. Sacrifice the First Born or Bring back the Black Death and voting down them.
Move onto the no-hopers e.g. Cars, Fishing and Bingo Callers and eliminate them.
By the time you’ve eliminated all those you don’t want you are left with less than 20 votes and you can scatter them as you wish. By voting from the bottom number up you can keep track of where you are, and so you can vote, as I did in NSW, for “LORD BLOODY WOG ROLLO” (well, why not? Considering recent revelations about the choices (Williamson, Thompson, Sinodinos, Obeid etc. I think that would have been one of the better candidates).
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It gets more confusing Phil, as not only do we have minor parties but now we also have a miner party.
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Well, at least you have a sense of humor! 😉 I understand the reasoning. I am not sure I love the implementation.
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Actually if you fill out the 77 below the line your vote can be still counted even if you make a couple of mistakes! After all the left would not want to miss out on passionate voters who lack the ability to count!
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Yea, – Florida 2000. 😉
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While I have always believed this to be the case, prior to the full election last year, I heard someone associated with the polling, (scrutineer) I think, saying that ballots with minor mistakes (up to three or four on a large senate paper) are mostly counted as long as they feel they understand the voters intentions.
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Should have kept reading, Rob JM has already made my point.
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Ouch! Then the vote becomes that of the scrutineer, not the voter. They may coincide. They may not.
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The ballot paper is divided into two areas by a horizontal line. You can record your vote in either area but not both ie there are two ways to record a valid vote.
The names of political parties are listed above the line. In this area you put a 1 next to your favoured party. THat is all you do. Your primary vote goes to that party. If preferences are distributed, they are distributed in the way that the *parties* have decided. If Party1 is eliminated and its preferences are distributed, they go to the party that Party1 nominates.
The names of all candidates are listed below the line, grouped according to their parties. There are a whopping 77 of them in this election. In this area you number every candidate, all 77 of them, in the order you prefer. If your ballot is in a group whose prefernces are distributed, your ballot is distributed according to *your* preferences.
Complicated, isn’t it?
Most people vote above the line because it is easier. The disadvantage is that minor parties can negotiate deals about preferences before the election. It’s legal but devious people can create “front” minor parties whose main purpose is to direct preferences to another party. For this reason, I intended to vote below the line at this election.
The ballot paper is 1.2 metres wide to accommodate all of the candidaets. Yes, really, 1.2 metres. It will have to be folded many times to fit through the slot in the top of the ballot box.
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The answer is Yes.
Okay, time for a clarification on the clarification. It’s both.
In the House of Representatives we can just vote for our top 1 or top 2 or top 3 as it is optional preferential. But the WA election this weekend is for the Senate, not the lower house.
In the Senate, we have a choice of voting by a “group ticket” by putting a “1” in the party we want to vote for as a block, OR ELSE we can put an individual ranking for each Senate candidate.
It looks just like THIS except in the federal election there were over 20 group boxes and 77 individual names. The ballot form is like 70cm+ wide, which is a source of amusement for everyone.
There are some subtleties to how the vote counting is done and more than you could ever want to know about the system is on the AEC site.
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Must remember to hit refresh before posting. So many replies in just 14 minutes. We are eager to sell the wonders of our election system to foreigners, aren’t we?
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I think it is getting clear now. You vote for 1 Rep, but ALL the senators. And then the biggest heap wins. That is why you have 77 names.
Is that close?
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Correct.
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Andrew, Federally you also must number all candidates in the lower house (except the last one) for the vote to be considered valid. In some states you may use optional preferential, that is if you have 7 candidates then you can choose to only rank one, two three, etc., if you wish.
No wonder folks from overseas look at our system and wonder just when we all went mad. 🙂
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Absolutely correct, Greg, sorry I didn’t recall that part correctly.
Got my state Legislative Assembly mixed up with my federal House of Reps.
Just read your link at the top to DFAT. I had no idea the other States counted ballots differently to Qld, interesting.
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Thanks for asking Phil, it saves me from the task. I’ve read explanations of their voting process but I still struggle to understand why they do it that way.
Does it have something to do with all the different registered parties?
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I guess Wiki is good for something! Now I get it. We vote for one senator at a time. Aussies vote for 6 at a time. So while 77 seems like a lot of candidates, given the number of parties and positions – it still is a lot of candidates! 12 per seat.
But at least now that makes sense. And thanks Mark D for the link.
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Where is the carbon tax going to. Is it going into general revenue. If so its developing into a windfall helper to the government with its usual catastrophic Labor hole to fill.
Since the companies that pay it send it down the line to the taxpayer wouldn’t it be better to make each bill declare (Labors Carbon Tax included in this bill = $x). Then pocket the cash and give Labor the stench.
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See Ted – that’s the thing about the Australian Carbon Tax – it was levied on the … well we don’t know how many of the biggest energy companies it was levied on, but the result was that they all put the price of energy up to force the consumer to use less energy and then the prices went up again so the energy companies could maintain a cash flow for their stock holders then the Labor/Green Governmnet gave the carbon tax back to the consumer in the form of energy subsidies to offset the energy price increases and the energy companies put their prices up once again because the consumer had more money to spend on energy consumption.
Simple really….
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The carbon tax is a tax on the productive portion of society. If you want to balance the budget the get rid of all the subsidies that generally favour the baby boomers and rich. Get rid on Negative gearing on existing properties, Restore capital gains tax, replace stamp duty with a broad based land tax, Stop the Super discount that massively favours high income earners while penalising low income earners. Stop retirees from blowing their life savings in one go or hiding it in their principle place of residence and claiming the pension.
Instead the boomer cohort are calling for an increase in fuel excise since they plan to retire and not have to drive their cars much anymore.
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Um, how much misinformation in one post…
Mr lefty dogooder.
Capital gains tax is alive and well
Consider for yourself what removing negative gearing on property would do. Landlords can charge less rent than they need to cover mortgage because of the tax credit on the difference between earnings and cost, including depreciation. Remove tax deductability of their businesses then what happens is that the Landlords will need to recover the cost of ownership, the tax on the earnings, plus a return at least to the CPI even to break even. Rents would jump almost 250% overnight. What’s that going to do to struggle st? Keating actually tried this and the rental market dried up overnight and families were turned out onto the street as investors flocked to more profitable investments than property (In the absence of negative gearing property is not a particularly attractive investment). That dumb Labor government had to reinstate negative gearing to avoid the collapse of the rental housing market. Rents are low cost in Australia because of negative gearing.
One more point of ignorance on your part…. You assume that negative gearing is some sort of special thing, a loophole in the law that allows for some sort of middle class welfare. Bulls..t. Landlords operate a business, their business is renting property and or investing in property for a capital gain. The rent they get is treated as income, and the capital gain they make is treated as income in the year the cash it in and is taxed as a capital gain. Because they are taxed on their income, they are absolutely entitled to deduct their costs – just as you can claim the costs of earning your income. Negative gearing is simply the situation where the Landlord makes a loss, in this case the loss can be used to reduce tax liability on other income, and so it should be!
You reckon that in order to plug the previous government’s black hole we should tax those pensioners that paid tax for 50 years and fought in wars, so that you could live a privileged life in a developed economy. In fact I think that that our nation building pensioners should be given a guaranteed government pension without any means test as a reward for paying taxes for 50 years and that we as a country should say “Thanks for your hard work”. Even if they have a billion dollars because that just means they paid even more tax to support the nation. Seniors should pay NO tax, and they should ALL get a pension, they’ve done their bit. It’s disgusting that you should think they bear some responsibility for paying back the mess that Rudd and Gillard left. Leave the pensioners alone.
Sorry, but you are just wrong on so many levels.
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Why didn’t the Governor General sack the Gillard government and put it back to the people after Gillard lied to us all?
…That’s the GGs job! … to protect the Australian people from dis-honest and ruthless sociopaths who seek to destroy our Commonwealth?
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Probably the same reason John Roberts turned a fee into a tax. His rationale? You voted for those people.
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Probably because the Governor General is the Mother-in-Law of the current Labor Leader.
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The governor general is the queens rep, Unless the queen is trying to avoid charles from becoming the next king by showing himself as a fool then we can presume she shares the same concern over the doomsday scam as her nutcase son!
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I don’t think my original point came though so Ive added:
The question no one seems to be asking the Labor Party is whether being honest matters? They got rid of Gillard but kept fighting for the proceeds of her crime. Many of the MP’s still here today were accomplices, voting the deceit in, and as long as the Tax is still here, they are still endorsing the tactic.
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I cannot speak for the land down under. But I can tell you that is EXACTLY how the left is here.
In one case, the continued to collect a tax that was repealed for 6 years. When it was pointed out the tax was illegal, they wrote a bill and made it retroactive. No refunds are forthcoming.
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Show me a rational MP (sorry Bob K) that hasn’t sold their soul to the devil! Its all part of the game and the game is obtaining power. Half the Lib party would have thrown Abbott under a bus for a chance to do a deal with the greens in the hung election. Labour just gave them a better offer!
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Really? Just name one Lib/Nat that would do a deal with the Greens.
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Malcolm Turnbull?
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Touche,
Malcolm, the libs token leftie.
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I suppose Turnbull is a leftie…in the eyes of the far right.
Touché!
02
Labor Lite
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Turnbull’s downfall is he believes and wants CO2 trading. If he was so left then why was he leader of the coalition/right???
Shame he did not drop his belief, he would of been in his second term as PM and the nation would be more comfortable with him than Abbott.
I find this clip to be very prophetic, especially just after the seven minute mark.
I’m sure both sides could be identified in the clip.
01
I doubt that very much.
10
So, you reckon that Gillard would have won government if Turnbull dropped his belief and ran as coalition leader in 2010??
If Turnbull is left why has he got a ministerial portfolio?
01
Keep your friends close, and you enemies even closer…
00
Jo
Labor are so corrupt. Have you any idea how hard it is to vote on the bottom half of the paper?
Once you’ve voted for the top 10-15 candidates, it comes down to how you’d live with yourself if you’d voted for the Euthanasia party, the socialist (patewie) alliance, the greens or the rest of the “I hate humanity” parties.
We need a system where we only vote for our preferred top 10 candidates, and after that we don’t get stuck with the other donkeys.
Cheers,
Speedy
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With the continual barrage of climate change propaganda and little information to refute it one can understand that the general public may believe it is a problem and a carbon tax, or whatever, is the way to go to solve it. Both Ms. Milne and Mr. Shorten have publicly stated this and continue to block the repeal. So it’s up to WA to decide which party is the most honest. And if they make the wrong choice the only way to repeal the Labor taxes is yet a D.D. election which could change the whole scene, but would be risky as well.
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I also voted for minor parties in the Senate in the last federal election and Secular got put fairly low on my ticket after their candidate didn’t respond to my question about their ETS/RET support.
I was lucky enough for the lower house to have a minor party candidate that seemed okay. Of course he went nowhere and a major party won the seat, but the point is de-funding (or de-voting) the majors that are on the wrong track. You can’t not vote, the least you can do is send a message.
This is why I reckon nobody voted for Palmer United and the Australian Motorsports parties, they were really voting against the major parties and they had to choose a least worst option. The politically adept advisors smelled the scent and created dozens of alternative brands to pick up the tab.
So go on, Westies, be alternative.
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Palmer claimed that he could make money grow on trees! I wouldn’t hesitate to believe that lots of people voted for him for this reason.
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Clive claims a lot of things. Not all of them are true.
Cheers,
Speedy
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I would like to see a new system where its three party preferred rather than two, then first past post at the final three. Should avoid electing one person with less than one percent primary vote.
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It sounds like you can win when you lose and lose when you win.
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Simpler is to eliminate all parties who fail to get a certain amount, say 2%. That gets rid of a lot of double/triple counting and would also reduce the number standing.
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I would love to be able to preference above the line, and not have to preference all candidates.
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I completely agree with this article.
So this weekend we will see exactly how intelligent WA voters are?
My guess is they have not yet worked it out about Labor. Which is a pity, because so much is at stake.
But if WA voters are indeed truly smart, and have bothered to figure out Labor, they will overwhelmingly vote for the conservatives.
Somehow I doubt this will happen.
And the way things are going, come July, if the new Senate refuses to repeal the carbon tax and mining tax, I don’t hold out any hope of a double dissolution. Which means, with more budget worries ahead, repealing the carbon tax and mining tax will become less of a priority, and we know what that would mean.
So lets just hope WA voters are smart… not just smart, but extremely smart!
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Nearly all of my relatives, friends and acquaintances are labor (or Greens) voters and ABSOLUTELY NOTHING I say to them changes their minds. They are blinkered. They think that they are “thinking for themselves” but, to me they have been indoctrinated by the MEDIA.
THE MEDIA CONTROLS HOW THESE PEOPLE THINK.
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Ron
Depressing. Not that they’re bad people, but that they aren’t thinking for themselves. A similar situation at work – smart enough tradie but totally locked into the labor party propaganda.
My strategy is to keep asking him questions.
Cheers,
Speedy.
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Here’s a scenario…Knowing you will lose the next election; borrow, spend and squander. Perpetuate the spending by enshrining it in law for years to come. The huge deficit will ensure that the incoming government is forced to drastically cut back on services and welfare, leading to public alarm. Win the next election by default. Continue the spending to ‘restore services’. The IMF and World Bank then move in. Loss of sovereignty and rule by Global Governance.
Just sayin’.
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I disagree that minor parties need the media on their side.
Nigel Farage and UKIP are doing so well in the UK the media is being forced to talk about them – but the doing well came first.
It takes shoe leather and thankless decades in the wilderness – but if a minor party really cares about its principles, it will succeeded in the end.
50
Eric, I want to make it easier for new entrants to politics. I’d rather someone could come in from outside, speak well, answer questions, and represent me without doing 10 years of trudging from house to house begging for attention.
40
Jo I was 6 years in politics, including years as one of the campaign directors of a politician who won a marginal seat.
If you want to win, you have to build a network of people who support you. And the only way to build that network, from scratch, is to make a visible effort – to go door to door, to help them with local issues as well as big issues – that pothole the council is ignoring, that annoying parking regulation, the planes which fly too low overhead, the problem with the gutter drainage.
Some people judge others on big issues. But the overwhelming majority judge politicians on how well they perform on local, personal issues. Its not that people don’t care about big issues, its just that talk is cheap – they need to see you perform on something close to home, before they believe you’ll make a difference.
That shoe leather is important – because how else do you notice that d*mn pothole, if you don’t trip over in it?
80
Eric, thanks for the background. Impressive.
We need both kinds of politicians. Some problems are potholes, but sometimes we’re building a road to nowhere and we need someone looking from afar to see it.
I don’t want to make it onerous for smart good people to get in and out of politics.
Call me naive, I want number crunchers in politics too. Especially in the Senate.
60
I agree Jo,
But we need to know what a candidate stands for and have a reason to believe them.
You have put in the hard yards and have a national and international profile. Would you consider standing for the Senate? Then there is the problem of which party? Independent has the greatest freedom to make your own path.
10
Eric, hi, I think you are right here. It is “grass roots” policies that win voters over. The “ordinary people” are concerned with issues that immediately effect them. The bigger picture, what’s good for the country as a whole seems to have little effect. Most voters are concerned for their own “hip-pocket”.
Ron
20
The day to start campaigning to win the next election is the day after the last election Jo, having had over thirty years of my life as a member of a politician’s family I know that unless the electorate is held by a comfortable margin hard work is required to keep a candidate’s name, even a sitting member’s name in the mind of as many voters as possible.
Palmer using FM radio to act the clown is of course a Katter tactic, as former PM Keating once remarked, at times it is necessary to switch to Vaudeville.
I would like an end to preferential voting and for a ceiling to be imposed on election campaign spending by candidate and by party.
00
Why do independent candidates seem ‘invisible’?
The ABC’s policy during elections was described to me by a person in ABC radio, thus: We (the ABC) allocate free time to candidates based on the proportion of the vote they achieved in the previous election.
I was just such an independent candidate at the time (Queensland, 1984, federal election, standing against John Moore).
52
So, amusing comments on the virtues of micro parties and preference harvesting aside, what are people punting for the result?
I think the normal 3 left, 3 right split is the most likely. However, whats interesting is that while in W.A. its normal the left vote gets split ALP/Green, we now have a situation where the right vote may get split Lib/PUP.
Pundits in W.A. seem to indicate that the Greens are set for at least a quota easily. ALP not polling so well, but should get enough prefs to get their 2 (they would do better with Pratt at #1 ). And the sheepen who get their politics off the TV news seem impressed by Big Clive. Anyway, I’m picking 2 ALP, 2 Lib, 1 Green, and 1 Pup.
Be interesting if HEMP wins one. Do Senators have to do drug tests?? Still, a stoned Senator would most likely be more coherent than Barnyard.
44
Jo, I don’t think the huge green echo chamber in this country ever gives any thought at all to truth, they just scream louder, get really hysterical in outdoing each other and lies and the noise convinces them they must be right, accuse anyone else of the worst that their fertile but juvenile minds can make up.
Then if you listened to the Labor leader or the greens leader they expect and demand that their election wipe-outs be forgotten, that the faithful restore them lest those evil scary people, cut wages, lose jobs, or shudder cut welfare, wasteful but useless highly paid public servants that labor and the green stacked into position of power and those rotten right wing people are now dismantling like the Tim Flannery climate commission that was specifically created to force public opinion to the extreme left.
One poster above asked why our Governor General didn’t put a stop to their excesses, well the last government had that base covered as they had installed Bill Shortens Mother In Law. I watched Bill Shorten giving his speeches in Western Australia, he almost got into the low point buckets of beer to buy votes and way he could, talk about scare mongering, the guy has no shame as far as he was concerned the voters made a mistake at the last election, he should have won. I would be amazed if that charade could expunge the economic mess that Labor and the Greens made, but then when you view the mob responding to his tripe and scares, its just mob responding to propaganda, nothing more. Truly the best outcome would be the voter decimation of the Labour and Green vote to emphatically say buck off. Sadly truth doesn’t matter any more it’s just whip up the baying mobs and hope that you can frustrate the will of the peoples parliament who voted emphatically to remove the carbon tax and fix the economy and jobs. The bleating hearts milking the refugee issue had no practical notions to stop people smugglers and the inevitable loss of life that goes with it. Tony Abbots party stood on that platform and Bill Shorten and the Greens decry him for that success – but they are the great progressives who stuffed it up in the fist place. Heaven help Australia if the short term addled minded actually really believe and vote them in to win!! – Though this may be what we deserve for having such a broken manipulated electoral system I wonder if a parcel of crucial votes will go missing again, but then they didn’t win last time did they.!!
40
Totally agree, “mob responding to propaganda”. The question is: How do we get our alternative view point into the “MEDIA”? To me the “media” controls the country not the people or the government. So the solution is:- Convince the “MEDIA” that CAGW and ‘Climate Change’ is wrong, fake, falsehood, lies, etc, etc,. I wish I knew how we “skeptics, deniers, etc, can do it.
30
What a madhouse.
60
Exactly.
The stupidest thing about all this is that Bill Shorten doesn’t seem to realise he’s painting himself into a corner.
During the run up to the Sept.’13 election Tony Abbott was unequivocal that part of his mission was the abolition of the carbon tax. During the campaign, Julia Gillard was not prominently defending it and when Kevin Rudd took over the Labor leadership, neither was he . . and Kevin was the originator of the slogan ‘Climate change is the greatest moral, economic and social challenge of our time.’
With the rather public falling out with The Greens behind them, Bill Shorten became leader of the opposition, but he still wants to maintain the old position? . . What?
Clearly, the mood of the people has changed and for the life of me I don’t understand why he’s clinging to a policy that has such a bleak future (all going well in WA, of course).
Strategically, Bill Shorten should have taken the opportunity to start his leadership with a clean slate and allow the carbon tax to slip onto the back burner. I mean . . does it matter if it upsets Christine Milne now?
By nailing his colours to the carbon tax mast, Shorten has set himself up for a fall come the next election. This will surely come back to haunt him as Tony Abbott will delight in branding the Labor Party as the Carbon Tax Party, in much the same way as the Labor Party use the same tactic around ‘WorkChoices’ for the Liberal/Coalition.
What Bill doesn’t seem to ‘get’ is that no one ever voted for the carbon tax, and they want it even less these days. While everyone had a chuckle at the nickname ‘Electricity Bill Shorten’, he’s going to be saddled with it permanently now. He’s on a hiding to nowhere and doesn’t even know it.
Also, in the recent landslide Tasmanian election the ‘Climate Change’ portfolio was dropped altogether, among others. Of course, The Greens became suitable enraged, but since that initial predictable flurry . . . not a dicky bird.
90
Frustration shared. But if we disperse our votes to dozens of minor parties, we’ll never get rid of the Stupidity Tax. Our best hope is to consolidate our influence, expand it with growing support from the middle ground, and relentlessly confront the LNP with it.
30
A paper about how dishonesty in climate science is OK gets peer review acceptance. What next ??
http://www.breitbart.com/Breitbart-London/2014/04/04/Lying-About-Climate-Change-To-Advance-The-Green-Agenda-Is-Good-Says-Peer-Reviewed-Paper
20
Bl__y hell, if I was dishonest in my job I’d be sacked on-the-spot and my reputation gone forever.
30
It is going to take a week and a half to get a result for the WA Senate because of the voting system. What would be wrong with a foolscap page list of candidates with a number of different variations randomised, e.g. pink, white, green, blue, yellow, pages.
Smith B. A. Lab#
Jones M.A. Green
Black B. S. LNP
Brown A. D. Green#
Able J. E. Ind
# denotes sitting member
The voters place a tick (or cross) in the box for their six selections, no 1,2,3, etc. A valid vote must have one box marked and no more than six. That’s it, the ballots can be scanned like your Tatts Lotto and you would have a result in a day. This gets rid of above and below line voting, dodgy preference deals and party allocation of 1,2,3 spots. The six be elected are the ones with the most ticks, or cross; end of story. Too simple and democratic methinks for us voters and our parties, but it would save a lot of money too.
20
Paraphrasing Bismarck again: there are two great mysteries in lifeAusrtalian Upper House elections and what makes up a sausage
30
“Armchair critics will protest that “all politicians lie!” But this lie was a Richter-scale-10”
That is a superb line, Jo.
Like the warming effect of CO2, Lying is not Linear but Logarithmic!
I suspect that the aftershocks of monumental lying will always be more damaging on the Retribution-scale than on the Richter-Scale -aka, the cover-up is always worse than the original transgression.
I suspect that Dr Lew (apologies for not spelling out his full name but I can barely spell Lysenko) will soon be subjected to the tender ministrations of a Mr Nemesis thanks to the no-holds-barred retaliation by a,very p***ed-off, Frontiers journal.
With impeccable timing our dear psycho-pathologist submitted this article just hours before the Frontiers statement.
http://www.shapingtomorrowsworld.org/rfmedia.html
I commend this link to all and, particularly, to the VP of UWA!
20
What I find interesting and rather surprising is the number of comments from us “deniers” that are published in response to that Lew article.
Wouldn’t happen over at SkS or the Guardian!
10
If Labor’s number 1 senate candidate ( Joe Bullock) says Labor is mad and his 2 (Louise Pratt) candidate is a looney, then why would you ever vote for Labor?
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-04-04/labor-powerbroker-bullock-sorry-over-attack-on-pratt/5367270?section=wa
McGinty has just informed us that Joe Bullock is more right wing than Tony Abbott. A great little senate team Shorten has presented to the WA electorate. But I disagree with Bullock, I think Labor is BARKING MAD. Mad just doesn’t do them justice.
40
Not much. Jo, I think there’s a problem. The minors exchanged prefs as a rule – I think you could have encouraged a de facto vote for Green here.
10
The Bolter gives us much more on Bullock, Pratt and Labor.
http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/labor_fears_its_about_to_be_senator_from_wa_will_help_tony_abbott/#commentsmore
I only hope the Libs can hold on to their 3 senate seats and Bullock moves to the cross benches. Perfect result.
30
For at least the last 4 decades the so-called “media” has determined the out-come of elections; local, state and federal by their biased reporting on the issues at-hand e.g temperature rise, sea level rise, catastrophic weather patterns, destruction of the ‘Great barrier Reef’, etc, etc.
This issue then becomes how do we convince “the media”(hence the voters) that we, “skeptics”, “deniers” etc are correct. In other words we need to convince the most powerful voice in the world “THE MEDIA” that CAGW (a.k.a. Climate Change) reporting to-date is wrong, false, a lie, misrepresentation of empirical observation, and out-right fraud.
Ron Cook ( Industrial Chemist_)
50
There’s an alternative these days in social networking. Why deal with the mainstream media when you can avoid them completely? One person can write a blog post or a tweet that is read by millions around the world. The huge challenge there is to build your own “brand” and get people to subscribe/follow your messages amidst an ocean of other people all trying to do the same.
For example, if The Coral Whisperer at UQ tries to tell us his favourite coral is doomed from man-made ocean acidification, all it would take is a few short sharp words and a link to a diagram to be tweeted by an industrial chemist, and perhaps a few awkward questions would begin to be raised in the right places.
It’s worth considering.
10
What efforts has the Government made towards giving effect to the removal of the carbon tax as they promised? It is not all simply about Legislation. The Government seems to feign frustration at the Legislative side of things while in the meantime they could promise to pay back the taxation they have collected from this since election, at the earliest opportunity. It would make little difference to their bottom line if they are merely collecting it and then giving it back later than if they had never collected it in the first place. This would demonstrate a commitment to their promise. There are plenty of ways to work around extant legislation as demonstrated by the thousands of bits of Legislation that were recently repealed with no objection from either side – most because they were simply defunct although they had been valid for all this time.
While the effect of this Federal tax on our electricity prices gets a lot of mention, we seem to forget that we are also paying an even larger Federal tax on our electricity, the GST is 10% of our electric bills. We pay that same tax on a bottle of fizzy drink but not on a bottle of milk because the Federal Gov decrees that milk is an ‘essential commodity’ and thus free of this 10% tax whereas fizzy drink and electricity are not essential goods or services and thus not exempt. If the Federal Government is genuinely concerned about the price of electricity and the carbon tax why has it not simply added electricity to the exempt category for GST? Is the Opposition hampering them from doing just that?
Why too when we are looking at the price of electricity do we ignore the hikes by Qld and WA Govs (as soon as they came to power) to the State taxes (ok ‘royalties’ for digging)on coal which far outweigh the Federal carbon tax on the burning of that same coal? This is about as direct an impost on coal fired electricity generation that you can get. Are we as consumers simply being jerked around as taxes simply get renamed or moved elsewhere? Why no outrage at the far bigger State taxes or Fed GST effectively on this same commodity?
And on another note …
Why is nobody outraged about the proposed tax on atmospheric nitric oxide that is proposed by those opposed to the carbon tax and seems to be favoured by the Federal Gov? Where is the science on that one? Jo?
00
UPDATE: 50% counted so far, likely result = Lib 2 | Lab 2 | Greens 1 | Pup 1 [ABC tally]
(This ABC page says all 6 seats are “elected” yet only 50% is counted. Can someone explain? – Jo
Doesn’t make sense to me.
10
Joanne,
That link you have is Antony Green’s election calculator. He’s factored in all the preference distributions that the computer can stand and it gives him a projected end result, and hey, guess what?
It’s a ….. Model!
Scroll down to see how the preferences get distributed.
This will probably change as none of the pre polls are counted in this result, and they traditionally favour The Liberals, and for all you Americans, the Liberal Party here in Oz is the major Conservative Party.
Tony.
20
Tony,
Unlike Climate Models Green’s is updated minute-by-minute as the results roll in.
As of now it has Liberal 3, Labor 1, Green and PUP also 1 each (68.72% counted). Of course, that could change.
What all this might mean for sensible legislation is anyone’s guess.
20
Just thought to add:
I suppose that as the results come in Green’s initial projections become predictions, then ultimately become fact.
That must make Green the most objective and least biased person in the ABC! 🙂
10
Of course it is! You are upside down! We all know that. 😉
00
Joanne,
Looking at the AEC web page, the total vote is 68.72% counted. About 2.88% of voters could not number from 1 to 77 correctly. Provisional quotas have been allocated as follows;
Liberals: 2.3596
Nationals: 0.2169
Total: LNP: 2.5765
Labor: 1.5229
Greens: 1.1116
PUP: 0.8740
If the Liberals get 3 it may come at the expense of labour rather than PUP. What surprises and saddens me is that the Greens have actually increased their vote. Can anyone explain that?
20
Unlike Tas, WA has yet to experience the economic vandalism of the greens, Instead they see a party that cares about asylum seekers and sharks.
Labor on the other hand is on the nose due to union corruption, and not appealing to the hard left enough. Shorten is never going to get the trendy vote!
10
Incidentally you actually get to make about 5-7 mistakes when numbering 1-77, they just don’t advertise it as they’d rather everyone at least tried.
01
And don;t underestimate that pretty much everyone thinks that the ALP #1 senate ticket candidate is a prick. Other than Tony Abbott.
01
I have the (mis?)fortune of coming back 2 days later. It seems Libs are 3 now, and Labor only one (with just under 70% counted).
What was the makeup pre-election?
00
Hmm, how in hades did Ludlum manage to get a 16% primary vote. I thought WA voters were smart! Seems the association of green ideology with landing in the poor house hasn’t yet dawned on WA voters. Very frustrating that the anti-human and communist agenda of the greens party is so hard to expose. Too many people think they are just about saving butterflys. They have to be the most idealogically damaging party in Australia today.
I think what’s wrong is that both Labor and Liberals are afraid to attack the greens for fear of appearing to be anti-environment rather than anti-communist, but I think they absolutely should take it upon themselves to expose the greens ideology in all its glory to the public, like say their policy of handing over Australia’s sovereignty to some sort of world government. Anyway, assuming the libs take the sixth seat which the pre-polls should give them, and that Clive can be relied upon to do what’s in the interest of Clive, I think we should still be able to see off the Mining and Carbon Dioxide taxes come July 1.
Jo? What’s your take on the election last night?
20
The more people vote below the line and give candidate preferences within a party that isn’t the same order as that party has chosen on their group ticket, the more likely the voters are to split the vote of that party and give 1st preference wins to another party. Also, if people rebel against a major party by voting in another minor party, but the fanatics who previously voted for the Greens still Vote 1 for the Greens, then the Greens still win a seat even though the people who stopped voting 1 on the Lib/Lab duopoly would have put the greens further down in preferences than their 1st and 2nd choices.
Maybe there were a lot of below-the-line votes?
Unfortunately looking at the swing in other parties 1st prefs gives a more obvious explanation.
Compared to 2013, Libs share was down by 6pc points, Labor down by 5pc points, PUP up by 7pc points, and the Greens got a boost too.
The Greens’ poll will probably grow at a slightly lesser rate than the quota as the count proceeds since Greenism is trendy suburban thing not a regional thing, giving them about 200,000 1st pref votes total and a first preference elected seat.
On early figures The Greens increased their votes 6pc points from 9.5% to 15.9% in 8 months, winning voters over from Labor probably. I reckon that boost will turn out to be closer to 4.5%, not 6%.
No, I still don’t have an answer to your question – HOW did they grab more mind share.
Their main recent policy advertisements for WA have been:
The renewables are fanciful, most will ignore them.
To claim a seat it would only have taken 60,000 jaded Labor voters in Perth to think that more affordable housing, light rail, no cuts to Uni funding, and a costed plan for city redevelopment were a good idea. They aren’t the usual Green memes. The Greens got smart and diversified their product offerings. Not sure how goodies for Perth translates into Commonwealth issues, but the only people who vote Greens are sold on the brand not the plan anyway.
It’s the same bait-and-switch that every party pulls. They loudly promote stuff the people want, keep quiet about the unpopular stuff in their policy documents, then when they get into power they claim a democratic mandate to do the stuff nobody wanted.
00
Significant swings to both parties with more compassionate asylum seeker policies. Forget the shark cull (very local state issue), forget the carbon tax/mining tax (no change since last election), think about Manus Island riots and govt’s general hard line, and the opposition’s parroting of that line. That and just sick of the same old same old.
6 months in just why would 6% of LNP and ALP voters abandon LNP for PUP or greens? Greens may have picked up ALP voters who definately don’t want the carbon/mining taxes dropped? But for the LNP the only thing I can isolate is that a number of people who wanted an LNP government felt more comfortable in sending a message that asylum seekers policy is on the nose given that the matter of having an LNP government is settled.
Andrew light rail is a commonwealth issue as we’ve just shelved a light rail plan pretty much because the commonwealth has said it will fund roads not rail (draconian).
13
Mattb,
How is a policy that lead to over 1100 actual deaths by drowning more compassionate then the current one where no-one has died and no one is put at risk?
00
who knows who has drowned… the government does not discuss operational issues.
13
Mattb,
The give an end-of-week press conference about what has occurred in that week. They do not discuss ongoing operational methods.
10
Come on now. To admit no deaths at sea under the current government is to admit that what the Libs have done ACTUALLY WORKS and they are fulfilling a promise they made at the election. Leftard heads would explode if they are forced to concede this point.
Today is 109 days without an illegal boat arrival in Australia. Good job Tony!
10
As for ludlum… that “viral” video of him ripping in to Abbott and the LNP must have won the hearts of some of the ALP voters who think Shorten is a bit too polite at the moment.
01
Leftards love the sort of vile approach from Ludlum et al. If you have no argument, label someone with an ‘ist’ or a ‘phobe’ descriptor, regardless of the facts, and then claim that every YouTube view = approval.
The workers in WA will soon learn the ramifications of giving these Green tossers momentum. Made your bed, now lie in it.
01
lets wait for the cuts contained in the report Tony would not release pre-election until we decide what the workers of WA will soon be learning.
11
Cuts will be made to reign in the spending that led to the deficit left by the ALP. These cuts will be across the board and affect everybody.
Greens policies generally do not support the industries that are the predominate money spinners for WA ie. mining, gas etc.
A vote for the Greens is a vote for less jobs, particularly in WA. That is unless, of course, you believe that a few sharks and whales, same sex marriage and a free ride for illegal immigrants is more important than employment.
00
oh you mean our small and pretty much insignificant defecit? THe one that got us through the GFC?
02
Some argue that the healthy surplus left by the Howard/Costello was the major factor in getting us through the GST more so than the actions of the ALP.
Small and insignificant compared to what? You aren’t going to play the ‘but everyone else has it worse’ argument? I have terminal cancer but that’s OK, because the guy next to me has it twice as bad.
We are currently bleeding >$10Bish a quarter and this needs to be reigned in. The GFC was years ago now, no excuse to keep wasting money.
Mind you, what do you care how much is spent, as long as it isn’t your money right?
10
Of course, I meant GFC.
My bad.
00
http://www.abc.net.au/news/wa-senate-2014/detail/
The link above is to the progressive count. At present the outcome looks as could as it could be about the best we could have hoped for failing the Greens failing altogether and the unlikely success of the National Party candidate. Those Nat preferences look to have gotten the 3rd Lib across the line. As long as Palmer doesn’t insist on the backdating of the tax to save himself a few million he is overdue in paying, and this trend holds up we should be rid of it in July. It is staggering that the Green vote went up but I have heard some attribute this to the shark cull factor. Go figure!!
20
Better to go to the actual source … http://vtr.aec.gov.au/
Given that the ABC cannot be trusted to represent the count accurately … http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/the_greens_not_so_triumphant_as_the_abc_kept_saying/
00
How about just focus on the fact that the greens lost/just scrambled their seat in the last run of the election acter clinging to preferences, but now achieved a 1.2 quota 1st preferences. It was a MASSIVE swing. Same to PUP.
12
All true Mattb, but the point is that despite that the ABC still feels the need to gild the lily …
10
They didn’t gild the lily. If you followed the count some of the early counts were showing massive returns for the Greens. And that’s actual, not projected. Bolt, on the other hand, is a spinner of negativity and grumpy spin. It’s on his business card.
02
In fact, the direct opposite was true, and was the point that I think Truthseeker was trying to make. I’m assuming that you didn’t take the time to read the post in Truthseeker’s link. The whole point was that the ABC were showing preference projections, and deliberately – and expressly – ignoring the actual count. Guess which figures looked better for the Greens? It’s called “cherrypicking” or, if you prefer, “gilding the lily”. A fair and impartial ABC would have been providing a more complete picture.
00
Has anyone really read all the parties? I mean:
Voluntary Euthanasia Party – They are self terminating?
The Wikileaks Party – They are all in the Ecuadorian embassy
Outdoor Recreation Party – Free Love?
Secular Party of Australia – In Dog they trust?
Australian Sports Party – Every game is a party!
Sex Party – Finally, one I can get it on with!
You may have complicated elections, but you got a lot of fun parties!
10