Yep great to see it get hijacked to express a political opinion.
Polls don’t mean jack shit. I don’t think they have ever reflected accurately what will result.
I personally would be happy if Liberal remained in power, but don’t have any real problem with Labor getting in either. My biggest fear is either a) that Peter Costello will be PM after Howard retires, which is so alarming it literally frightens me. And b) that a change in Govt will mean some of the few good ideas that the Coalition have would then not be properly implemented, or done at all, which will mess some other stuff up along the way.
But whatever, no political party really has a firm grasp of all things comfortably, so many things will be good, and many will be crap, and we’ll all suffer through whatever happens and that’s that.
I’m in Watson, and the ALP would take Watson if it campaigned on disemboweling kittens.
I’m a conservative who doesn’t like Workchoices. I will not mind the ALP winning this one, but I don’t think I can bring myself to actually vote for the thugs, but given that I’m in such a solid ALP seat, I don’t have to. I’ll vote for some random loon, if there are any. Own preferences of course, Hanson-types last, as ever.
What!?!
I never got a sausage. Where was my sausage? I demand a sausage!
There’s a simple reason I don’t want to vote.
Either Labour are going to win, or Liberal.
I would prefer Labour over Liberal, but when push comes to shove I honestly don’t believe in a lot of what Labour are saying either. So I will be voting Labour in an effort to get Howard out, but I’m probably not going to be happy either way the vote swings.
And this is why the compulsory voting hacks me off - I really don’t have an informed opinion, my gut feeling is what I go with. But no matter which of the two parties gets into power, I’m going to be unhappy either way. So I’d much rather have my Saturday morning to myself, not have to go out of my way (and not being a driver, it is out of my way), and still be unhappy with the state of the government, whichever way it goes.
Time before last voted Green, gave preferences to Liberal (they had better health care policies at that time). Voted for Brian Deegan last time, gave my preferences to Greens (I think).
All politics remains not local for me this time so I’m going Labour. I don’t want a Prime Minister that “squeals like a pig, boy” for a US President who has absolute minimal grasp on international relations. Rudd’s ideas on fostering closer ties with our nearest asian (and Muslim) neighbours appeal. John Howard’s closing statement in the election debate scared me sick, “We need to restore a proper narrative of Australian history. We can’t know where to go, we can’t understand where we are now without properly understanding where we’ve come from.”
Yeah, great idea. Let’s shove our kids full of how the evil pommy generals sent all those nice young australian boys to their deaths in 1916. Hey, they can even watch the movie and we’ll call it a history lesson.
I also attended a seminar on Workchoices recently presented by an excellent speaker who was a lawyer for a large employer group. I figure if she couldn’t convince me in three hours that workplace agreements are fair and equitable then workplace agreements aren’t fair and equitable.
So this time, it’s Labour with Libs near the bottom but not below the Family First/One Nation types. I draw the line at that.
Done and dusted.
Next time I’m taking a bat. If one of those flyer hander-outers comes near me again I’m going to break their fucking fingers.
Is there any reason they don’t just stick the how-to-vote cards in the polling booths? It seems like a waste of paper to hand them to every voter who’ll take them.
I’m someone else who numbered all the boxes below the line for the senate. The girl next to me was doing the same thing but messed it up and spent a few minutes recounting her votes before asking for a new ballot sheet.
Gallipoli = 1915. 
Even though the recent polls indicate that the election will be close I am sure that Rudd will be declared PM by 7:30 tonight. Surely they will win by 10 to 15 seats.
I have to add I love the idea that people are worried about Peter Costello becoming PM. I have always said that the best thing about Peter Costello is that he isn’t Tony Abbott, who would be heir apparent otherwise. Now THAT is a really scary idea.
Well, that was a damp exercise. It started raining on the walk up, and the queue zigzagged round the school playground.
Interesting seeing people’s actions in the queue. More people than usual looking at the flyers in their neighbour’s hands, and conversations being struck between people with the same flyers about why they were voting in a particular way.
So community building in a wet way!
Do we really need this election to be covered on three TV channels?
Not in my experience as a scrutineer in Australia (over a period of 25 years). Polling staff actually want to count votes if their meaning is reasonably clear, and extraneous stuff does not make a vote informal. What will make a vote informal is anything identifying the voter, but I’ve never ever seen that in real life. But, on the other hand, voters who write stuff like “All politicians are crooks” are obviously deliberately trying to make their ballot paper informal, and generally don’t put numbers in any of the boxes – so they are voting informal because they haven’t given a number for any candidate, not because of the message they wrote.
Me too. I’ve seen Joe Hockey around several times during the past couple of weeks. But nothing of Mike Bailey. Not even any brochures.
I don’t understand it either. Beyond “I don’t like Liberals”, what’s the concern? He’s boring and lacking in charisma, but that’s often no bad thing either. How is he worse than Howard?
I ended up voting against the Libs (first time in many a year, and it wasn’t an easy thing to do) because of Workchoices. However, I’d have voted Coalition if it wasn’t for the industrial stuff, and Howard’s retirement and a Costello government would not have even been remotely a factor in how I voted.
I genuinely don’t get the negative feeling against this guy. I am (was) a Howard supporter, but I’ve always understood the arguments of people who hated him, but Costello? Can anybody explain this (rationally and as non-partisan as possible), please?
For me it’s all the “leadership challenge” rumours that surrounded him, and the weaselly way he’d pretend it hadn’t happened. He radiates untrustworthiness more than any other.
Very similar to me.
Also like a few others enrolled in North Sydney.
Ye Gods and Little Fishes - an Oaks Dopefest???
Ok, I went. I voted. I went with Labor, again. I find Rudd sleazy and insincere, but I still hate Howard and I want Work Choices out. I would vote far more enthusastically if one of the options was for all the candidates to rot in hell, but that choice was inexplicably left off my ballot paper.