Prime Minister Scott Morrison (ScoMo) has announced a Federal Election to be held on 21st May. Yes, our merkin brethren … we can do it all in 6 weeks.
The governing Libs have been on the Treasury benches for 9 years and the “if the elections was held now” polls have the LABs well in front with the LIBs currently holding only low 30s approval in the polls.
The fly in that ointment is that individual electorates will not, and never have, go in a national average swing. Also ScoMo won in 2019 from a historically poor (but not quite so bad) base of support. For Labor leader Albanese, winning is no sure thing. It seems likely to be a marginal seat focused battle rather than a national campaign. I’m not expecting any great moments of progressive policies or soaring rhetoric. ScoMo and Albo know that scaring the horses doesn’t win elections, which is disappointing but we are where we are.
As said one election pollster "It’ll be a contest between character and experience, between an expert strategist and a master projectionist. "
For PT, residing in a marginal inner city electorate this is going to test patience and tolerance. ScoMo’s mob throughly deserve a good tar and feathering and/or wire brushing. Albo is Australia’s Neil Kinnock.
At least as a voter in a marginal seat you’ll have sundry politicians playing their guitars and crooning outside your window with all manner of saucy fiscal offers.
Having only lived in safe seats [really safe Lib and Labor] I’ve never gotten a bean from anybody. Even Clive Palmer [for US readers an amalgam of your richer, righter winged politicians without the coherent political philosophy] doesn’t bother spam calling.
Would you not be better off using a non-stop election mode form of campaigning, so that parties never agree or even debate things? So that nothing gets done, and government is paralyzed? How can you grossly overspend on an election with a mere six weeks of campaigning? And despite multiple other concerns, why shouldn’t an election campaign take up all the oxygen in the room?
I don’t understand meat pies or coffee with TimTams either. It’s a good thing you are a decent and sociable people.
The electorate where I grew up was staunchly Country/National.
The small electoral booth at the local primary school, about 5m from home usually only took 80-100 votes and for 5 consecutive elections in the 80s/90s only took one vote for another party. We always suspected the school teacher had leftist tendencies.
The electorate where I live in W.A. has always been a safe Liberal seat but after Labor’s absolute landslide in the last state election the libs would have to be pretty worried this time around
I had a meeting with Albanese once. It wasn’t a pleasant encounter but then I was representing a client who was severely at loggerheads with the government at the time so I’m trying to be adult about it.
I have really no view on what he’s like, at all. The PM contest is the unknown man vs the sleaze so I would go for the former if I were making the choice. But the way I vote is based on long term party policy trends not the personality of the front man so it doesn’t make much difference to me, really.
I vaguely get the feeling that a substantial number of swinging voters think Morrison stinks but I have no real feel for these things so I have no idea how it will go, really. Morrison is ruthless and knows how to win - he will hit the FUD triggers hard and that tends to work.
Used to bump into Albo on a infrequent basis associated with junior AFL when he was the runner for his sons team with the Newtown Swans. He was a footy Dad doing his volunteering bit.
One thing, he’s had a power of reconstructive dental work done since those days.
Some election background details for the benefit of any non-Aussie following this thread.
Like the US Australia has two Federal Houses of parliament/government.
The AUS Senate, like the US Senate is based on state representation. There are 76 senators with each State having 12 senators and the territories (ACT & NT) having 4. Half of whom are up for election each cycle, though some times the PM can call a full Senate election.
The AUS House of Representatives, like the US House of Representatives is based on divisions we call electorates or seats rather than districts. All the HoR seats are declared vacant at every election. The number of electorates is by the Australian Constitution (yep we have one too) as close as practical to twice the number of Senators. The number of electorates per state is proportional with their population. The mathematics of rounding mean that there are currently 151 HoR electorates rather than 2x76 = 152
AUS HoR electorates are redrawn if necessary based on an accepted formula after every election. There is minimal gerrymander. There is a slight bias favouring the larger rural electorates. The vast majority of electorates are metropolitan, reflecting Australia’s highly urbanised demographic. They have names, not numbers and are generally named after notable Australians with some connection to the area rather than geographic features, because the electoral boundaries move.
For example the electorate of Parkes is named after one of the national founders Henry Parkes, not the city of Parkes which is now in the adjoining electorate of Riverina which has progressively migrated a couple of hundred kms north from where it was originally based on the NSW/VIC border.
Electorates are by design of similar number of voters. They average 113,000. The biggest has 133,026 voters (Macarthur in Sydney’s southwest), the smallest has 71,937 (Solomon in Darwin, NT).
As a consequence of having similar number of voters, the electorates have vastly different sizes as demonstrated below. The smallest @ 32km2 (12 sq mi) is Grayndler in Sydney which happens to be Opposition Leader Albanese’s home patch. You can perambulate around it’s boundaries in a day. The biggest are the size of substantial countries or the biggest US states.
Morrison and Albanese (and Shorten) were/are all politician-bots who are the product of careful grinding and polishing to make sure they have nothing protruding that could offend. They are what you get when the major parties play the dull percentages to try not to scare the dull middle.
We’ve got to know Morrison a bit through him being PM and I’m not sure that is working in his favour.
Bandt has the advantage of being able to be more real because he’s never going to win. He has no chance of picking up the dull middle, so he has no need to try. It’s sad that we only seem to see real character at the edges.
On the completely opposite side of the political coin there’s the political demise of George Christensen a god bothering, anti-vaxer, climate change denialist, right wing reptile, party disloyalist and carpet bagger from northern Queensland (Australia’s Florida).
He’s engineered his exit so as to trouser a $100k golden handshake as a resettlement allowance (equal to 6 months parliamentary salary) which is for MPs who leave parliament involuntarily, either by losing their seat or their party preselection.
He’s gone on a fools quest joining One Nation (Australia’s Tea Party) for the unwinnable 3rd spot on their Queensland Senate ticket. Methinks $100K for George to fuck off is cheap.
It just depends. In fact there are currently 150 members; this will increase to 151 at the coming election.
Tied votes are handled by the Speaker (who normally doesn’t vote) having a casting vote, which by convention they cast in favour of the government of the day.
In both the Senate and House of Representatives, if a vote is tied it is a ‘no’ vote. This is because the Australian Constitution says that votes that votes shall be agreed by more than half of the members voting. Without a majority voting ‘yes’, the question is defeated.
Section 23 of the Constitution requires all senators – including the President of the Senate –to vote. This makes sure each state is equally represented. It also means a tied vote immediately fails, as the President has already voted and cannot resolve a tie.
Section 40 of the Australian Constitution says that the Speaker of the House of Representatives will only vote if there is a tie. This is called a casting vote. Traditionally, the Speaker votes ‘yes’ if the question will allow the House to continue debate but votes ‘no’ if the question is to make a decision or a change.
Yes, that’s the same as in Canada. There’s no casting vote in the Senate; a tie vote defeats a measure. Which is why Canada does not have any restrictions on abortion, other than medical guidlines like any other medical procedure.
In the Commons, the Speaker only votes in case of a tie, and will vote to continue debate, which is why the Martin government survived by 1 vote on a procedural budget measure. Speaker votes “no” if it’s a final vote, because the government has to have a clear majority to pass a bill or a resolution - can’t rely on the Speaker to get them over the hump.
