Isn’t Kirribilli the epitome of public housing?
public housing
noun - housing provided for people on low incomes subsidized by public funds.
Like Admiralty House, Yarralumla and the various Government Houses around the states? Only in much the same sense that the White House "… is the crown jewel of the federal penal system.”
Public housing…housing provided for people subsidised by public funds. I fixed that for you 
Yes, thank you for that … I didn’t mean to spell “subsidised” with a “Z”
Funny bugger
There is a current Australian Senator known as the $120M man - because Clive Palmer spent $120 million running candidates for (almost?) every available position in the legislature in the last Federal election and succeeded in getting only that one senator elected.
I know nobody who regards Palmer’s efforts as more than a joke, but then I am a prime member of the leftie, inner city, latte-sipping, woke, eliterati so maybe I’m just out of touch.
Thank goodness!
You lot are so much more sensible than we are!
Over here it’s “Guardian-reading, tofu-eating wokerati”. I’d wear the T-shirt, but I’m not keen on tofu.
So, what’s happening down under? any polls to report? terrible gaffes? candidates being disowned by the party when some horrible fact comes to light?
The opposition’s campaign, while not exactly a disaster, is not going well for them - the leader keeps changing their policies on the run. And his previous positive comments on Trump and trumpism have NOT gone down well, that more ot less started the rot. Their shadow defense minister has removed the party branding from his ads.
I’m campaigning for an independent and compared to the previous election 3 years ago the level of nastiness, vandalism of corflutes, and unattributed slander is off the scale.
Well, starting off with the name “Spender” can’t be helping.
I have been overseas for the past couple of weeks, visiting India.
Consequently, if I had some semblance of a commentariat role on the Australian political scene, I have been ignoring it.
For any US readers, it is essential to be mindful that Australia has both mandatory voting and uses preference voting or as you might call it IRV.
Australian elections are typically won by broad shifts in the middle, not by the sharp radical left/right. As a general principle, Australia doesn’t kick out first term governments, as Albanese’s is. We “give him a fair go!” as a former scion might say. Were Dutton to pull off an unlikely victory on Saturday, he will be the first to unseat a first-term government since the Great Depression in 1929.
In 2022 Albanese ran a rather anodyne campaign against the Liberal/National government, and won because we really hated ScoMo (Scott Morrison).
Despite having coveted the PM’s job since way before I knew him, Albanese (who comes from a quite modest background) didn’t seem particularly prepared to be PM and his government had a rough first term, replete with mistakes, missteps and blunders, and was insipid, unconfident and steadily leaked support.
The Australian electorate appeared to be following the prevailing global trend of an extended trail of obliterated incumbent governments unable to deliver inspiration or cope with cost-of-living pressures and succumb to an angry electorate wanting change.
45/47 winning made little mark on that trend. But 45/47 in the White House was transformative. The vast majority of Australians don’t want 45/47s America any closer than the expanse of the Pacific allows.
For Albanese, the prospects of an ugly clash with the capricious POTUS opened a pathway to a second election victory.
Conversely Dutton dabbled with MAGA (as a kindred spirit) before recognising it as local electoral poison. Dutton was never going to crack through the teal wall (the loose association of independent breakaways from the LIBs who are fiscal conservative, socially progressive) because his politics and personality and attitudes are absolutely at odds them. His path to victory was by moving to the right, as seen in many of the past European elections. There is fertile ground there … but not nearly enough.
A LIB loss foreshadows a brutal re-fractioning of the centre-right coalition. Possibly with the far-right being spun off. And the centre wing making a play to reabsorb the teals demographic.
Australian political contests are increasingly determined by third-party campaigns. that dictate overall outcomes either via preferences or, more recently by winning a parliamentary bloc of their own.
In the 2004 election, a majority 89 out of 150 House of Representative seats were won by candidates on first preferences alone. Going almost without exception to the LIB (centre right) or the LAB (centre left). The proportion of “blue ribbon” seats has been in steady decline ever since and was 46 in 2019, but it fell off a cliff in 2022 to just 15 seats.
Polls last week put Labor’s primary vote on between 32 per cent and 33 per cent, broadly in line with the 2022 result. The Coalition sits between 35 per cent and 39 per cent after several weeks of decline.
That leaves a big field of non-major players, led by the Greens, Independents and others. Definitely not a monolithic bloc.
The Greens aren’t going to win anything substantive, but that support reliably flows back to LAB in preferences. The Teals may also extend their momentum.
Australia has it’s share of MAGA-like wannabees, especially in Queensland (our Florida). The Nationals will hoover up a fair bit of that bloc. The more radical and racist may flock to an even less palatable banner and fuel another resurgence of Pauline Hanson One Nation. An upside is that billionaire flugelhorn Clive Palmer’s Trumpet of Patriots, and their ubiquitous yellow banners of MAGA-style trolling looks to be another $100m bust. Oh dear, how sad, never mind.
Conventional wisdom gives Albanese small win with a workable majority over a badly fractured opposition. A week to go.
Another factor crimping Dutton’s chances of pulling a rabbit out of the hat (or, as Albo is a staunch Rabbitohs support … stuffing it back in) in the final days of the campaign is the nation’s increasing preference to vote pre-poll.
In 2022, for the first time less than half (49%) of votes were cast on polling day as either ordinary or absent votes. There is no reason to suspect that trend will continue down. Since the ordinary pre-poll option was introduced in 2010 it has steadily increased and in 2022 was 32% of the vote. In a couple of election cycles pre-poll voting will probably exceed ordinary polling day voting and effectively elections will be determined before the polls open.
There are six categories of voting in Australian elections:
- Ordinary polling day: a vote cast in the voter’s home electorate on the day
- Absent: a vote cast outside of the voter’s home electorate on the day
- Ordinary pre-poll: a vote cast in the weeks leading up to polling day
- Declaration pre-poll votes: a vote cast in the weeks leading up to polling day, and with the voter having a specific reason for doing so (such as being unable to vote on polling day, serious illness, or religious reasons).
- Postal votes: a vote issued, and generally returned, by mail (requires a reason like declaration pre-poll votes).
- Provisional: a vote cast where a voter’s name cannot be found on the roll, is already marked off, or by a silent elector. They make up a very small share of the vote (0.3% in 2022)
‘Tis the most wonderful part of the local electoral season … determining which candidate I place last on the ballot.
With preference voting (IRV) candidates with the lowest total votes are progressively reallocated to the remaining candidates. Your preferences are your prerogative. As indicated previously, the proportion of Australian electorates that determine their member with a majority on primary votes is low. It’s certainly not going to happen in Reid.
Distribution of preferences involves the elimination/reallocation process recycles until two remain of whom one will have some sort of majority, and they are declared as elected on a two-party preferred basis. They can validly be described as the candidate whom the electorate dislike the least.
Your lowest preference candidate is the only one your vote will not go to support. It’s psephological shadenfreuden.
I am domiciled in the inner west Sydney electorate of Reid, named after George Reid, barrister, NSW Premier and Australia 4th Prime Minister when his Free Trade Party formed a coalition with the Protectionist Party … which must have been a difficult needle to thread.
He had his detractors on the centre left, which might be behind, though a n establishment conservative, his eponymous electorate was a Labor stronghold since its creation in 1922.
The Labor hold was diminished in 2010 when a redistribution moved the seat east absorbing most of the adjoining blue ribbon Liberal seat of Lowe. Then in 2016 it moved further east, indeed now resembles that old seat of Lowe, started electing Liberal members and is now a marginal bellwether seat currently held by Labor.
In ballot order we have 7 options:
- The Greens
- Liberal
- Trumpet of Patriots
- Pauline Hanson’s One Nation
- Labor
- Libertarian
- Independent
The Liberal is a first time candidate. Generally harmless. Probably finish second around 5% shy of the win.
Trumpet of Patriots is the current iteration of the Clive Palmer vainglory. Won 2% last time. Definitely an option.
Pauline Hanson’s One Nation, the racist, populist hydra, economically illiterate but in-it-for-the-money scion of the Queensland white shoe brigade which we just can’t kill off. 2% last time, worryingly might get 5% this time. Hard to go past for #7.
Labor is the incumbent, earnest local pollie with little pretention of climbing the greasy political poll. From the NSW Right and her factional warlord boss is a prick. Will probably win again.
Libertarian is only in it for the publicity. Unlikely to achieve more than 2%
Independent is not running under the Teals banner and accordingly will finish amongst at the tail of the also rans.
You’re such a Downer.
Some great overview there. With only two more sleeps until election day and Dutton pretty much pre-lost, it interesting watching Labor trying to make it still look like a fight without risking putting their chin forward for a lucky punch at the last minute.
Assuming no hot-mike episode where Albo talks about slashing negative gearing and cutting pensions, then Dutton will lose. He’ll have to take the blame for the shift to the right and not having any defensible policies and costings. He’s pugnacious enough to want to stay on, so the question is whether there’s a viable alternative who the Libs see as a credible challenger in 3 years time. They and the teals shafted all their centrists last time, so few remain.
As for last numbered senate box - its goodnight Pauline, just edging out Clive Palmer and his Vuvuzela for Billionaires.
So refreshing to read a non-vituperative election thread.
I can’t vote yet as a landed immigrant from Canada but the citizenship application is partially completed and I’m elegible.
Partner is working ( paid ) the election all day Saturday and as required for counting beyond that. 
BTW congrats on a civilized thread. 
Thank you.
We play nice to set an example for the less civilised electoral systems.
Well, not everyone plays nice:
(Definitely NSFW language)
ROFL!
That’s the drum.
Bloody bewdy, mate!