I think most people had already 90% made up their minds before the start of the campaign … which I’m quite ok with, honestly. I think people SHOULD make up their minds on the basis of what the government and opposition have been doing over the last three years, not on whether they can talk a good game when they’re trying to sell themselves to us.
Slightly concerned about reports of fake news coming up on WeChat … seems to be more a case of good old-fashioned ‘individuals spreading FUD about their opponents’ rather than bot accounts as with Russian interference in the US, but I hope both political parties keep on top of this stuff, so that it doesn’t become a recognised campaign technique
(and I may take a moment here to admire the sheer brass balls behind whinging in a foreign language that Labor’s going to let too many foreigners into the country. Oh, right. Too many foreigners that aren’t you. I seeeee!)
Pretty sure my seat’s safe for Labor. I had one doorknock from a Greens lady trailing up and down the street with pamphlets and I bottled on explicitly saying “not this soon after you chased off your last local candidate” but even so, her pitch was concentrated on “well, do at least vote for Janet in the Senate” - which I think was interesting, and smells of giving up on the House of Reps seat.
Two weeks is a bit soon for the poisons that lie in the mud to hatch out.
For any non-Aussie psephologists following a thread that otherwise Aspidistra and I could conduct in a phone booth, One Nation started when Pauline Hansen, preselected for the Brisbane outer metro seat of Oxley in 1996, was dis-endorsed following a characteristic racist rant. However she remained on the ballot and duly won the seat.
She has always been able to attract a right wing anti-Asian populist following.
In 1998 Queensland state election, launched as a political party with a principal aim of enriching the party apparatchiks, the Pauline Hansen’s One Nation polled 22.7% of the vote and elected 11 members.
Then the problems start. Her candidates are always neophytes who win on her appalling xenophobic coat tails. And once elected, without any experience in government at any level and zero sense of discipline, they simply run feral. Hansen, of course, with some justification thinks she owns their political arses and they are there to singularly to vote as her advisors decide. It has always ended in tears, spectacularly, remorselessly, unedifyingly.
They disappear for an election cycle and then the hydra re-emerges.
The venerable Antony Green (Australia’s Nate Silver) summarises it well:
Clive Palmer’s UAP follows much the same script, without the xenophobic overtones and Clive is a generally better judge of political candidates, but the venture still ends in tears.
For those who are interested but not following the Australian news, the Daily Telegraph displayed the class and fairness for which they are known, and published an article claiming Bill Shorten (leader of the Opposition) was misleading when talking about his mother’s life recently.
He was pretty angry, and hearing him talk about her and how she influenced him has to be the most genuine and relatable I have ever seen him.
Radio advertisement from the senate member with the criminal record who wants more people to go to jail (like he did). I don’t normally take the papers, so I haven’t seen the full-page adds from the other well-known populist third-party candidate.
I live in a safe seat. The only campaining I have seen in my area has been a single letter from my sitting member. Nobody else is even pretending to bother.
You say ‘he’, so I’m assuming you don’t mean Hanson. Hinch?
This would make a good election night quiz - how many pollies have been in jail?
Dunno how you manage to stay away from CliveSpam by not reading newspapers - I see his ugly mug on billboards up and down every street. And I live just next door to Hipster Central!
Some parallels with trends in UK politics here, one the effects of old social media posts turning up to bite candidates in the bum, and the other the chaotic fissiparousness of parties based round egocentric populism. What’s said above about Pauline Hanson and One Nation could just as easily be said about Nigel Farage in his relations with UKIP and potentially now his new fanclub/party just set up in time for the European Parliament elections in a couple of weeks’ time.
I’ve seen my full ballot paper now. (The parties only put out guidance that conceals the affiliation of all the other candidates). I’ve get the two centrist parties, the Greens, the right wing populist CliveOcrat (a property developer), and one far right (DLP - their web site was down when I tired to look).
On the right of centre it’s the sitting member, on the left of centre, somebody who doesn’t expect to win.
I’d probably vote centre-alliance (no more pokies) if they put up a candidate, but they’ve been burned and retreated to SA. The senate ballot paper is dominated by lunatic fringe parties.
… well the Monday after a win might have been better.
Of course, amongst the many poignant tributes Tony Abbott decided to morph his into a poorly thunk out partisan hijack which might just be enough to put a stake into the heart of his own elected career.
Personally I never really warmed to the Silver Bodgie, the larrikin was too regularly the yobbo for my taste. On the other hand, the team around him was pretty good for most of the four terms of the Hawke/Keating era.
I’m predicting a slightly larger informal senate vote, due to changes in the voting rules, but perhaps too small to measure You can vote just “1” above the line, but if you vote just “1” below the line, your vote will be invalid. However
Nobody (other than me) votes below the line in the senate, and
If you vote 1…6 below the line, your vote will be valid. That is, of course, the number of preferences they are telling you to vote above the line, so it is the best known number.
In Vic, Derryn Hinch will be out (from the party for putting people in jail), which is the only really good outcome expected from this election. 6 seats are up for election in vic, which will split 2 right, 2 left, and 2 up for play.
I predict the Nat’s will remain solid in Vic, so I’m thinking 2 lib, 1 Nat, 2 labour and 1 Green.
I expect that the numbers for the coalition will thin out, but mostly go to minor parties, so I’m thinking the 3rd candidate (the Nat) will be elected on preferences, and that will pretty much exhaust the right-wing preferences. so that last seat will be the Greens on Labour preferences. The labour vote will be more solid, so they’ll be ahead of the Nat for place 5 until the preferences are allotted, which will split between coalition and the Greens, and the Greens, if they are lucky, will overtake labour.
If Clive does well in Vic, I expect his candidate will edge out the Nat’s, and Labour will get the last seat instead of the Greens.
I think Bob’s passing will benefit the Lab vote tomorrow. Bob Hawke and Paul Keating were the last great partnership in the Aus political scene and many have forgotten the essential Lab principals and legacies
Bob’s death will remind them of all the stuff that the Lab governments (his in particular) have blessed us with.
Polling clerk told me I had to vote all the preferences if I voted below the line today
But co-worker looked it up on the AEC site, and the rule for what you are supposed to do is different than the rule for what is formal or informal after you’ve done it. I could be remembering what he told me wrong, but I completed out past 32, so I’m good unless I was illegible.
You can’t do “just one number above the line” any more. You have to put at least six. I expect that will catch a number of people out - hopefully not too many. It was enough of a dismantling of preference-dealing that I actually 'above the line’d for the first time … possibly ever.
Now camping out the results. My predictions: Abbott is looking a wee bit toasted. However I’m going to predict that Dutton - much as I loathe the man - will hang on. Cori Bernardi’s new “Australian Conservatives” will go precisely nowhere - field too crowded on the ‘loony right’ end. (I estimate about two ‘loony rights’ to every one ‘loony left’, though others may have a different calculus). Greens will go backwards a little.
First nominations in the “dirty tricks award” category for the night - AEC-coloured posters in Chisholm telling mandarin speakers that putting Liberal first was the ‘correct way to vote’. Candidate pulls the ‘golly gosh, didn’t even notice’ routine. Dude who assaulted a Liberal Party volunteer in Warringah also missing the ‘free and fair elections’ spirit.
I’m glad Abbott lost but am more concerned about the overall result.
It is looking very close, AEC TPP so far suggests a swing towards the Coalition (0.72 currently). Fingers crossed things change as more numbers come in.
You can vote just “1” above the line, but if you vote just “1” below the line, your vote will be invalid. However