Oz Federal Election 2013 - Discussion and Comments

[Pushka]

Did anyone catch the interview with Beatty early on the evening? There was a woman smoking I'm assuming an electronic cigarette. Blowing "smoke" all over the other people standing behind him. Clearly not cigarette smoke but I'm not sure I'd like to be shrouded in someone else's stuff exhaled through their mouth. Then she looked towards the camera and blew it straight out. Just looked tacky. Thought his minders might have sorted that out. Unless she was one of them!

Lordy. Rudds speech. We'd been looking forward to them all but the Port Collingwood match won out. Kept flicking back and forwards and was still going on. Missed most of Abbots unfortunately.

Nothing can change until July when the greenish tinge is lightened somewhat. Good to see Mr X get in and there is no love anymore between him and the greens after their misleading advertising campaign.

 

[medhead]

Looks like I now live in one of the most marginal seats in the country, and one that K Rudd didn't check before claiming ALP has retained all their seats in Qld.

House of Representatives Division First Preferences

Showing 50.46% to NLP candidate on 2-party preferred and only 600 votes between NLP/ALP with about 7000 postal votes to be counted. Will be close and I am not certain Mr Rudd's claim will hold true.

Even the abc was making that claim. Last I checked there are 2 qld seats changing hands.

 

[amaroo]

Did anyone catch the interview with Beatty early on the evening? There was a woman smoking I'm assuming an electronic cigarette. Blowing "smoke" all over the other people standing behind him. Clearly not cigarette smoke but I'm not sure I'd like to be shrouded in someone else's stuff exhaled through their mouth. Then she looked towards the camera and blew it straight out. Just looked tacky. Thought his minders might have sorted that out. Unless she was one of them!

Lordy. Rudds speech. We'd been looking forward to them all but the Port Collingwood match won out. Kept flicking back and forwards and was still going on. Missed most of Abbots unfortunately.

Nothing can change until July when the greenish tinge is lightened somewhat. Good to see Mr X get in and there is no love anymore between him and the greens after their misleading advertising campaign.

Looks like Hanson-Young has benefited from the (likely) demise of Don Farrell. IIRC one of the faceless men that backstabbed Rudd........good riddance!

 

[JohnK]

The Senate Results - Australia Votes | Federal Election 2013 (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) predicts:

Senateseats

The provisional result in SA highlights the stupidity of the preference system.

The Australia Greens with 0.4956 of a quota and Family First with 0.2639 of a quota get a Senate seat while the Liberal party with 1.8680 quota struggles to get a second Senate seat and Nick Xenophon party with 1.8117 quota misses out on a second Senate seat.

There is something seriously wrong if Australia Greens and Family First get a Senate seat each.

 

[badseed]

There is something seriously wrong if Australia Greens and Family First get a Senate seat each.

At least one of those parties has fairly widespread support. At the moment it looks like the Australian Sports Party are going to get a Senate seat in WA. They've received 1,922 primary votes, or 0.22%.

I personally believe the entire electoral system should be changed to proportional representation, similar to Europe or NZ.

 

[moa999]

Looks like I now live in one of the most marginal seats in the country, and one that K Rudd didn't check before claiming ALP has retained all their seats in Qld.

House of Representatives Division First Preferences

Showing 50.46% to NLP candidate on 2-party preferred and only 600 votes between NLP/ALP with about 7000 postal votes to be counted. Will be close and I am not certain Mr Rudd's claim will hold true.

At the time he made the statement, even ABC was saying they are labor holds.

Now a few seats in Qld in doubt
Petrie - Liberals ahead by 100 votes
Capricorna - Labor ahead by 140 votes
Fairfax - Palmer ahead by 1400 votes

While still showing as a safe Liberal retain I still have doubts on Fisher.
ABC/AEC is doing the count on Labor v Liberal,
However Palmer United polled 18.1% v Labor 21.2%...
Then you had Greens at 8% and Katter at 3% who are likely to preference PUP first, so I suspect the preference count will need to be redone.

 

[medhead]

At least one of those parties has fairly widespread support. At the moment it looks like the Australian Sports Party are going to get a Senate seat in WA. They've received 1,922 primary votes, or 0.22%.

I personally believe the entire electoral system should be changed to proportional representation, similar to Europe or NZ.

Hare-Clark.

 

[JohnK]

At least one of those parties has fairly widespread support. At the moment it looks like the Australian Sports Party are going to get a Senate seat in WA. They've received 1,922 primary votes, or 0.22%.

I personally believe the entire electoral system should be changed to proportional representation, similar to Europe or NZ.

I saw another one somewhere with ~11,000 also predicted to get a Senate seat. That could not possibly be the will of the people?

The other thing i find strange is the votes to form a quota. It is ~450,000 in NSW yet ~39,000 in Tasmania and they both get 6 Senators each. I guess they do not want the majority to have a say.

 

[coyote25]

Well good luck to Tony Abbott and the members of Liberal and National Parties. I disagree with several of their major reversal policies like NBN and the concept of carbon tax (instead of more costly direct action) but its now time for them to try and implement their vision.

As much as people push and support their political parties we also overreach sometimes in criticising the other side. I have no doubt that Tony Abbott wants the best for all Australians and that the new government will have some very positive ideas for our country.

The opposition parties will hopefully hold the government to account just like the last opposition did to mitigate the power of government.

Simple slogans are for election campaigns. Now time for serious people to work hard, listen to various experts and make hard decisions to complex problems.

It's easy to criticise from outside but I have no doubt how hard it is to actually run a complex and large (land size) country.

Time to get back to travelling tricks, tips and lounge reviews.

 

[dfcatch]

I saw another one somewhere with ~11,000 also predicted to get a Senate seat. That could not possibly be the will of the people?

The other thing i find strange is the votes to form a quota. It is ~450,000 in NSW yet ~39,000 in Tasmania and they both get 6 Senators each. I guess they do not want the majority to have a say.

Remember - the Senate is the House of the States.

 

[Pushka]

The provisional result in SA highlights the stupidity of the preference system.

The Australia Greens with 0.4956 of a quota and Family First with 0.2639 of a quota get a Senate seat while the Liberal party with 1.8680 quota struggles to get a second Senate seat and Nick Xenophon party with 1.8117 quota misses out on a second Senate seat.

There is something seriously wrong if Australia Greens and Family First get a Senate seat each.

I heard the Liberals were getting two seats; Family First one, Greens one, and Labor one. Bet OFarrells glad he swapped first place with Wong - NOT. We almost removed her. Sigh.

 

[moa999]

ABC Senate Calculator here:

Senate Results - Australia Votes | Federal Election 2013 (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

Particularly interesting watching all the preferences get Australian Sports Party seemingly elected in WA, with under 2,000 primary votes.

 

[whatmeworry]

ABC Senate Calculator here:

Senate Results - Australia Votes | Federal Election 2013 (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

Particularly interesting watching all the preferences get Australian Sports Party seemingly elected in WA, with under 2,000 primary votes.

Seems the minor and micro parties form alliances so they can funnel votes amongst themselves, which leads to some unknown quantity getting a seat.

Bit of a tussle in QLD with some of independents and micro parties.
Bitter dispute erupts over Senate preferences in Queensland - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

 

[JohnK]

I heard the Liberals were getting two seats; Family First one, Greens one, and Labor one. Bet OFarrells glad he swapped first place with Wong - NOT. We almost removed her. Sigh.

Which was my point.

The current prediction has Australia Greens and Family First get a Senate seat each with a combined ~0.70 quota between them yet Nick Xenophon party only gets one Senate seat with a ~1.80 quota.

The situation mentioned in WA is even worse.

It makes no sense. The majority are not getting a say. The minority are getting a say which is one of the biggest problems in this country.

 

[medhead]

I saw another one somewhere with ~11,000 also predicted to get a Senate seat. That could not possibly be the will of the people?

The other thing i find strange is the votes to form a quota. It is ~450,000 in NSW yet ~39,000 in Tasmania and they both get 6 Senators each. I guess they do not want the majority to have a say.

It's called federation. The states have equal representation in the senate. A quota is therefore based on the state's population divided by an equal number of senators.

 

[serfty]

I wonder if they has another bit of artwork prepared: just on case

---

As for the Senate, each state has 12 senate positions, irrespective of their population.

 

[medhead]

Which was my point.

The current prediction has Australia Greens and Family First get a Senate seat each with a combined ~0.70 quota between them yet Nick Xenophon party only gets one Senate seat with a ~1.80 quota.

The situation mentioned in WA is even worse.

It makes no sense. The majority are not getting a say. The minority is getting a say which is one of the biggest problems in this country.

It makes perfect sense actually because everyone in the state gets to elect 6 senators not just one. Hence preferences are very important.

Hare-Clark has to be a better system given it makes it much harder I game the system with preferences.

 

[drsmithy]

Which was my point.

The current prediction has Australia Greens and Family First get a Senate seat each with a combined ~0.70 quota between them yet Nick Xenophon party only gets one Senate seat with a ~1.80 quota.

The situation mentioned in WA is even worse.

It makes no sense. The majority are not getting a say. The minority are getting a say which is one of the biggest problems in this country.

25% of people didn't vote for Labor, Liberals, or Xenophon.

25% of 6 is 1.5.

So at least 1.5 seats shouldn't be aligned with the above three groups to be representative.

 

[moa999]

It makes perfect sense, if you actually believe that people putting a 1 against the minor parties have read their Preference statement**

What it does mean is while 1.8/7 people in SA really like Nick Xenophon, the other 5.2/7 preferenced a whole lot of other people in front of him


** I unfortunately acknowledge the absurdity of this statement.
I suspect that the major parties will push through an amendment to change the Senate system to optional preferential - as occured in NSW after minor parties got in.
This at least forces people to provide their own preferencing, although on a tablecloth ticket also opens up the risk of a lot more exhausted votes.

 

[mono88]

I wonder if they has another bit of artwork prepared: just on case

---

As for the Senate, each state has 12 senate positions, irrespective of their population.

And the very purpose of this was to protect the population in the smaller States from being oppressed by the larger States. Not sure how effective it has been but that was 1890's thinking.