I will use this post to provide ongoing commentary of late counting in doubtful seats over the coming days/weeks.
UPDATE (27/3/07): Christian Kerr points to a slow count in today’s Crikey:
The ever-protracted count for the NSW Legislative Council election is likely to be even slower this time, with the Australian Electoral Commission refusing to authorise any more overtime for the AEC staff engaged for the count. There have been unprecedented levels of cooperation between the AEC and the NSW electoral authorities this election, but after just two days of preparing for the Upper House count over the weekend, the AEC has gone into a panic about the likely level of overtime, and has literally ordered its workers to take a “rest”. Counting will now finish each day at 5pm, with no approval for overtime to complete the count. With Easter imminent, this delay is likely to push back the announcement of the Upper House results substantially. The NSW Electoral Commission is understood to have expected the AEC to finish the Legislative Council count by Wednesday. The AEC told staff that the Electoral Commissioner has been informed that he will have to adjust his timetable. No amended timeframe for the conclusion of the count was suggested. A major outcry from furious Government, opposition and minor parties about the delay in finalising the count for the Upper House count in 2003, marred by slow counting and a total meltdown in the computer software used for calculating the results, saw new procedures adopted for the 2007 election. Efficiency was supposed to have been increased by the use of AEC staff in the count.
Legislative Council
| Roy Smith (Shooters) | 83,320 | 0.61 |
| Trevor Khan (Nationals) | 57,727 | 0.43 |
| Arthur Chesterfield-Evans (Democrats) | 50,335 | 0.37 |
| Janey Woodger (AAFI) | 46,332 | 0.34 |
| Robert Smith (Fishing) | 45,460 | 0.34 |
Sunday 3pm. I’m not doing too well here – I now realise the Legislative Council Summary figures I was just getting excited about have been little changed in the past week. They tell us of 3.3 million votes out of roughly 4 million in total, including 293,240 "other" votes that include (I believe) both informals and below-the-lines. The progressive totals figures show us the destination of 13,566 out of a probable total of about 80,000 below-the-line votes; from these the Democrats have polled 5.6 per cent and the Coalition 17.2 per cent, bearing in mind that not all of these votes will stay within the party ticket. Using these figures to extrapolate the as-yet-uncounted votes, I have the Democrats with a fractional lead over the Nationals’ Trevor Khan, but the margin is far too close (and the method far too crude) for anything to be stated with confidence.
Saturday 11pm. Okay, turns out all that effort on the previous entry was wasted. Because as well as the daily PDF file update, the NSWEC also has on its main page a different count with 3,278,467 votes. This includes 293,240 "other" votes, which probably means about 200,000 informals plus yet-to-be-counted below-the-line votes. There would be about 700,000 further to come. These figures show that the Shooters Party are home, while the gap between the Coalition and the Democrats has narrowed considerably. If the Coalition’s share continues to decline at the same rate as it did between the 1.9 million count and the 3.3 million count, the outcome will be very close indeed.
Saturday 10pm. A further 765,023 votes have been added, bringing the total to 1,938,396 out of a likely 4 million. This has resulted in a significant shift in the aggregate vote from the Coalition (down from 35.4 per cent to 34.4 per cent) to Labor (up from 40.4 per cent to 41.4 per cent). If there was reason to think that trend would continue, Labor’s number 10 candidate Barry Calvert might still be out of the hunt. However, aggregate lower house figures (Labor 39.0 per cent, Coalition 37.0 per cent) suggest that won’t be the case, even when taking into account the Coalition’s traditionally lower vote in the upper house (33.0 per cent against 35.0 per cent in 2003). In the meantime, the drop in the Coalition vote has reduced their surplus over the seventh quota from 0.78 to 0.56, almost enough to return the Nationals’ Trevor Khan to twenty-first place, with the Shooters Party up from 0.53 to 0.55.
Friday 8pm. The NSWEC has published a group and candidate votes report, based on the results of 1,168,246 group votes and 5,127 below-the-lines. The totals in 2003 were 3,721,457 and a bit over 70,000. Ben Raue says the two combined suggest the Nationals’ Trevor Khan has moved up a spot from 20 to 21; if this continues, the final spot looms as a race between the Shooters Party (0.53 quotas), Unity (0.35), the Democrats (0.35) and AAFI (0.30), with the Fishing Party slowly but surely headed for the exit (don’t let the door hit your arse on the way out, Bob Smith).
Friday 3pm. Props to Upperhouse.info for pointing out the following message from the NSWEC: "Legislative Council progressive totals will be provided daily in this directory from the evening of Friday 30 March 2007".
Sunday 5pm. The raw numbers at present look straightforward enough: Labor 9, Coalition 8, Greens 2, CDP 1, Shooters Party 1. However, Stephen L in comments cautiously offers that the Democrats (and perhaps also AAFI and the Fishing Party) might do well enough on below-the-lines and preferences to stay in the hunt against the Nationals’ Trevor Khan, eighth Coalition candidate and Poll Bludger fan.
| Greg Piper | 12,913 | 30.3 | 18,656 | 50.1 | ||||
| Jeff Hunter | 17,294 | 40.6 | 18,550 | 49.9 |
Wednesday 2am. One more change of lead in the final strait has given Greg Piper a 106-vote win after the full distribution of preferences.
Monday 2.30pm. Another 940 absent votes have produced yet another change of lead, Jeff Hunter now ahead by 65 votes. Antony Green notes in comments that the closest outcome in modern times was the Liberals’ eight-vote win in Coogee in 1973; this was overturned on a legal challenge, and Labor won the ensuing by-election by 54 votes.
Monday 1.30pm. The lead changes again after the addition of 496 further absent votes, which have put Greg Piper 44 votes in front.
Friday 5pm. In an exciting late-count development, Greg Piper has done very poorly from the addition of 1,988 absent votes (23.7 per cent compared with 30.7 per cent overall), which have turned Labor incumbent Jeff Hunter’s 272-vote deficit into a 22-vote lead.
Thursday 10pm. More than 3000 postal votes and about 700 further pre-polls added; still no absent votes. Greg Piper’s lead has changed little, from 263 to 272.
Wednesday 9pm. Excellent account of today’s slow progress from Sally McEwan in comments, along with informed talk of deep Labor pessimism.
Tuesday 4.30pm. Very good call yesterday from Sally McEwan – the second batch of pre-polls has been very similar to the first, barring a slightly higher primary vote for the Liberals. This boosted Greg Piper’s lead by 243 votes; however, 122 "Dec Inst" votes have reeled him in slightly, going 59-15 in Labor’s favour. Piper’s lead is now 263, but with well over 5000 postal and absent votes pending, it’s still too close to call.
Monday 11.30pm. Sally McEwan corrects my previous description of Carey Bay as a conservative area: "Carey Bay pre-poll is different from Carey Bay conservative lakeside waterfront booth … The remainder of the pre-poll votes will favour Piper in the same proportion or greater".
Monday 10pm. Partial pre-poll results have been posted, 999 votes out of what scrutineer Sally McEwan says is about 2000. These votes are "a mix of Cooranbong and Carey Bay", which is to say they include the much touted Seventh Day Adventist community, along with another conservative area. As expected, these votes have strongly favoured Greg Piper, whose 158-vote deficit has turned into a lead of 64. This sounds a little disappointing from Piper’s perspective, because the remainder of the pre-polls will presumably be strong for Labor. Next comes about 3000 absent votes and 2250 postals – these differed only slightly from the polling booth results in 2003, though Labor’s vote was notably a little lower and the "others" a little higher.
Monday 2.30pm. Looks like those Dora Creek votes for Piper stayed missing – his tally there has gone from 533 to 508. No word yet on pre-polls.
Monday 4am. A scrutineer at the count, Sally McEwan, says in comments she can "confirm the expected advantage to Independent Piper from the pre-poll votes from Cooranbong". These votes "will be counted and distributed tomorrow". McEwan also reports that "24 or so Piper votes" from the Dora Creek booth are "missing", "leading to extra State Electoral officers being called from Sydney for a reconstruction of the Dora Creek booth tomorrow".
Sunday 5pm. Labor incumbent Jeff Hunter leads independent Greg Piper by 158 votes. That would normally be difficult to close, given Labor’s organisational efficiency with respect to pre-poll and postal voting. However, Lake Macquarie has the quirk of the Seventh Day Adventist community at Cooranbong, which produces a big flow of mostly conservative pre-poll votes due to its observation of the Sabbath on Saturday. In 2003, Labor polled 795 votes (34.2 per cent) to the Liberals’ 1173 (52.4 per cent) on pre-polls, compared with overall totals of 54.9 per cent and 30.7 per cent. Pre-polls accounted for 5.1 per cent of the total vote; also still to come are the less quirky absent (7.3 per cent) and postal (5.3 per cent) votes. The latter might go a little better for Labor than last time, as consciousness of their danger might have resulted in a better organised postal vote campaign.
| Craig Baumann | 17,894 | 42.5 | 19,375 | 50.1 | ||||
| Jim Arneman | 17,544 | 41.7 | 19,311 | 49.9 |
Wednesday 2am. The margin widened to 64 votes after completion of the full preference distribution.
Friday 3pm. The notional preference count has been completed, and it points to a 19-vote Liberal victory. However, a "proper" preference count will now follow, and these can turn up anomalies. For example, the primary vote recount cut Chris Baumann’s vote by five votes and Jim Arneman’s by six (UPDATE: And more pertinently, as Geoff Lambert points out in comments, there were variations of up to five votes at individual booths).
Thursday 10pm. Absent and postal votes are now coming in at a fair clip, and while it’s still extremely close, the trend has been with the Liberals. Antony Green‘s regular updates show how Labor candidate Jim Arneman’s lead narrowed and then disappeared in late afternoon counting, with the Liberals’ Chris Baumann currently ahead by 56 votes.
Tuesday 8pm. Not much progress today: polling booth re-check completed and 213 "Dec Inst" votes added, increasing the Labor lead from 76 to 86.
Monday 10pm. Either Port Stephens has had an extraordinarily high number of section votes, or the pre-polls have been entered on the wrong line – I will assume the latter. There are 1,244 of them and they have tipped the see-saw back towards the Liberals, whose deficit has narrowed from 153 votes to 76. However, the 2003 figures suggest Labor should do better on absent and postal votes. Slow progress on the polling booth re-check for some reason.
Monday 4am. The Daily Telegraph reports confident noises from a Liberal scrutineer, as "many votes were exhausting because of a decision by the Greens not to preference Labor". Conversely, the Australian Financial Review reports that "Labor strategists are sounding increasingly confident".
Sunday 5pm. Labor’s Jim Arneman was 153 votes behind the Liberals’ Chris Baumann at the close of counting last night, but is now 111 votes ahead. Pre-poll and postal figures from 2003 are probably no guide, as the seat was less fiercely contested last time.
| Jodi McKay | 12,951 | 31.2 | 13,793 | 50.7 | ||||
| John Tate | 10,003 | 24.1 | 13,430 | 49.3 | ||||
| Bryce Gaudry | 8,774 | 21.1 |
Friday 9.30pm. Those two-candidate figures quoted in the Herald have now been posted on the NSWEC site.
Thursday 10pm. Yesterday, the Newcastle Herald told us that "an Electoral Commission notional distribution showed Ms McKay on 13,793 votes and Cr Tate on 13,430". Today it reported that "preliminary counts show that Cr Tate would gain more than 2000 votes on McKay once preferences are distributed". On present indications, that would leave him about 700 votes in arrears.
Tuesday 2am. The NSWEC reveals nothing of the two-candidate preferred count that has evidently been conducted between Jodi McKay and John Tate, but the Sydney Morning Herald reports Tate conceding he is 700 votes behind. Morris Iemma is claiming victory.
Monday 4am. Yesterday’s recheck of first preferences from polling booths has increased Tate’s tally by 18 and reduced McKay’s by 12. The aforementioned Anthony Llewellyn says: "having reviewed the results in total now, my guess is a McKay win over Tate by around 500 … Gaudry will not pull ahead of Tate (of this I am now very confident)". The Sydney Morning Herald reports Labor "has become more confident".
Sunday 5pm. Still anybody’s guess as far as I can see. There is a 2.6 per cent gap between John Tate (24.1 per cent) and Bryce Gaudry (21.5 per cent), which might be closed with preferences from the Greens (11.2 per cent), who directed to Gaudry. Last night’s NSWEC notional preference count assumed Gaudry rather than Tate would finish second; if that is so, Labor’s Jodi McKay will win quite comfortably. If not, the race between McKay and Tate will come down to unpredictable preference flows. Last night, reader Anthony Llewellyn provided a preference breakdown from a booth at which he was scrutineering: if this is applied consistently, Tate emerges ahead with 12,792 votes to 12,327 (not counting preferences from the CDP and three other independents, who collectively account for 915 votes). However, Llewellyn also spoke of better preference flows for Labor at other less conservative booths.
| Pru Goward | 16,994 | 39.9 | 18,632 | 51.3 | ||||
| Paul Stephenson | 10,544 | 25.3 | 17,657 | 48.7 |
Thursday 8pm. Paul Stephenson has conceded defeat after being buried by absent and postal votes, widening the lead to 975. This entry, and the figures above, will not be further updated.
Tuesday 2pm. A further 670 pre-polls have gone rather better for Goward than the previous two batches, increasing her lead by 10 votes. Even better for her are the 154 "Dec Inst Votes" (declaration and/or institution?), which have run 70-31 in her favour.
Monday 10pm. I was mistaken to say all the pre-polls were in – it was in fact only about half. The newly added second batch was not quite as bad for Goward as the first, but it still cost her another 40 votes or so.
Monday 2.30pm. Pre-polls are in (all of them, or almost all), and they are surprisingly poor for Goward – she has polled 35.7 per cent compared with her 39.8 per cent of ordinary votes, while Paul Stephenson has 30.6 per cent compared with 25.1 per cent. If preferences follow the same pattern, this will narrow the gap by 134 votes to a little over 300. In 2003, pre-polls were 5.6 per cent of the total – still to come are absents (8.8 per cent), postals (5.6 per cent) and a few others (0.7 per cent).
Monday 4am. Yesterday’s recheck of first preferences from polling booths appears to have unearthed 38 extra votes for Stephenson and only one for Goward. It appears that Goward is better placed than it seemed on election night due to an across-the-board increase in "plumped" voting (numbering one box and then exhausting) at this election.
Sunday 5pm. An updated count (polling booths only) has seen Pru Goward’s lead after preferences increase from 311 votes last night to a fairly handy 455. Talk of the Labor candidate beating Paul Stephenson into second place on preferences has faded.
| Frank Terenzini | 14,819 | 39.7 | 16,741 | 50.9 | |||
| Peter Blackmore | 10,093 | 27.1 | 16,157 | 49.1 |
Friday 9.30pm. The NSWEC has finally unveiled its notional Labor-versus-independent two-candidate preferred, which shows Frank Terenzini a comfortable 584 votes ahead. That wraps it up for my coverage of this seat.
Thursday 10pm. This count has stayed on ice for some reason, at least as far as the NSWEC website is concerned, but the ABC reports Labor is more than 1,000 votes ahead.
Tuesday 2pm. Very slow progress in the count, but Morris Iemma has claimed victory for Labor.
Monday 4am. The Sydney Morning Herald reports Labor "has become more confident".
Sunday 5pm. As with Newcastle, this is one that will depend on preference flows we don’t know about yet because the notional count was Labor-versus-Liberal, rather than Labor-versus-Peter Blackmore. For what it’s worth, the primary vote figures (Blackmore 27.1 per cent, Labor 39.8 per cent, Liberal 20.1 per cent) are similar to those Pru Goward faces in Goulburn (Paul Stephenson 25.0 per cent, Liberal 39.9 per cent, Labor 22.4 per cent). The difference being that Blackmore will need a strong flow of preferences from the Liberals, while Stephenson will need them from Labor. Can anyone suggest if supporters of one party or the other are more dutiful with respect to how-to-vote instructions?
| Dawn Fardell | 17,158 | 41.9 | 19,270 | 50.9 | ||
| Greg Matthews | 17,518 | 42.8 | 18,590 | 49.1 |
Wednesday 8pm. With most postals and about 600 absent votes now in, any remaining doubt is now gone. Fardell’s lead has now widened to 680 votes, or 0.9 per cent. No further updates will be added to this entry.
Tuesday 4.30pm. Pre-poll figures are now up at the NSWEC site, and they tell a different story to the Financial Review – 2318 for Dawn Fardell and 2177 for the Nationals, widening Fardell’s lead to a surely unassailable 521.
Tuesday 2am. It falls to the Australian Financial Review to inform us that "two-thirds of the pre-poll votes have been counted, according to the returning officer. The results have favoured Nationals challenger Greg Matthews, who garnered 1495 of the pre-poll votes on offer while 1453 went to incumbent independent Dawn Fardell". These results are yet to appear on the NSWEC site. However, this makes only a modest dent in what had been a 401-vote lead.
Monday 2.30pm. Re-checking of polling booth first preferences has now been completed, giving a 42-vote boost to Dawn Fardell. Most notably, 37 votes have been deducted from the Nationals at the Forbes booth.
Sunday 5pm. Independent candidate Dawn Fardell leads Nationals candidate Greg Matthews by 401 votes. The precedent of 2003, when then-independent member Tony McGrane did somewhat less well on non-ordinary than polling booth votes (from a near identical vote total to Fardell’s), suggests this could yet narrow.
Re: Malcolm Mackerras
Chris / Adam,
Of course you know who else Malcolm has predicted as a cert this year, our very own Heavy Kevvie.
Be Afraid, Very Afraid
Edward, we’re on the same side mate…although given I’m a not-so-distant relative of one John Grey Gorton, not sure if you’d be shouting me a beer if we ever crossed paths??!!
Well Edward, even my mum has predicted that one. Just because Malcolm agrees doesn’t make it untrue. But really, someone should tell Malcolm never to *predict* anything.
You never know Chris, lol
Adam, Adam, Adam – fervent hope does not translate into reality. $15bn budget surplus translates into lots of bribes. The rodent aint Debnam.
You know what is strange. The ALP will end up reforming the public service not too far from what the Libs wanted to do. They have been carefully scrutinising vacant positions for the last year or so and reducing numbers as they go. It probably will not be quite as savage as the Libs but the public service has been given the message that all will not be the same. My point to saying this is that the Libs should just have shut up on that point and not gone on about the 20k people etc.
And yes I am a NSW public servant and whilst some heartache for us will happen, it is much more palatable than the radical unpredictable Debnam.
Anyway, sorry to get off the subject I think I rambled:)
Those with long memories will recall the last budgets of both the McMahon and Fraser governments. The Fraser budget was so irresponsible that the Treasurer (one J W Howard) nearly resigned over it. Never have so many goodies been thrown at so many people with such gay abandon (in Bill’s case anyway), with so little return from the ungrateful proles, who took the bribes and voted Labor anyway. Huzzah for the secret ballot! Once one is on the slippery slide, it is very difficult to bribe one’s way off it.
Yes and I remember the 1998,2001 and 2004 budgets.
# Anthony Llewellyn Says: I did notice one palm-pilot but it did not seem to be being used very much.
Yes, this is the I_Roll (a PDA), it has the updated electoral roll on it. This seems to have been Colin Barry’s initiative, an idea he first seems to have had in Victoria. NSWEC developed it and other states have bought it. In Queensland this week, they are using borrowed IRolls to update their own roll.
It is, however, only a device for cross-checking whether voters are on the roll, and where…. you cannot use it to cross off names, etc. on voting day- they still use a pencil and paper for that, as everyone will have noticed on Saturday.
The IRoll is updated with a plug-in card and the final issue of cards happened very recently, perhaps not till after pre-poll started. One senses there were teething troubles- early last week NSWEC issued a lengthy PDF document to DROs, instructing them on how to handle problems and debug the things.
Yes Edward, but that is not to the point. My point is that when a government is in terminal decline, a throwaway budget will not save it. Howard in 1998, 2001 and 2004 was not nearly as far behind as he is now, and in fact I don’t think (without checking) that Fraser or even McMahon were this far behind at e-minus-7-months. He was certainly not terminal, although he was trailing. And in fact I don’t think there was a throwaway budget in 2004, because the Libs knew by May that Latham would win the election for them. So IF your argument is, yes Howard is in a deep hole, BUT he can spend his way out of it, I don’t agree.
In 98, Howard was not totally on the nose, thus it was not difficult to bribe people. In 2001, the ALP’s stance on refugees and terrorism were so close to the Libs it was almost the same. Again not much needed to change people from the pretend Libs to the real ones (plus this was against big Kim again, a proven loser). In 2004, there was a difference between parties but it was policy more then bribes (forestry and interest rates) that made the difference.
The only two things Howard has left is a budget and the dubious honor of being the under dog. I cant see either of these helping.
Updates added for Goulburn, Lake Macquarie and Port Stephens.
Dave, I don’t want to take up space here with ancient history, but your comments about 2001 are total bilge. Not only was Beazley right in principle on the issues, he also saved Labor from a catastrophic defeat by defying the left and defending Labor’s long-standing policy in support of mandatory detention. Go here: http://www.ozpolitics.info/blog/page/2/ and scroll down to the table “Newspoll: Labor’s TPP predictions for 2001, 2004 and 2007”. Look at the purple line at the bottom right. That upturn you see between weeks 35 and 40 is Beazley single-handedly turning public opinion around after Tampa and 9/11 and saving Labor from the thrashing that the left would have led us into.
Mackerras has two big problems. One is that he’s a pendulum fundamentalist. He thinks that pendulum is king. The other thing is that he doesn’t seem capable of expressing doubt. Any political analyst who’s worth anything knows well enough to know that we’re all just trying to make predictions and estimates which can always go wrong. I can’t believe he can say that Labor WILL (not “probably will”, or “might”) win Bennelong and Eden-Monaro. It’s just ridiculous.
Adam, I agree with you about Beazley saving Labor from a hiding in the 2001 election. Remember, at that time there were polls in which 80% said they agreed with the govts response to “boat people”, and many people were scared of “Muslims”, “terrorists” and “boat people” – boat people especially pushed the “Muslim” and “potential terrorist” buttons. As much as some people might have disliked it (I was one of them), Beazley saw that the ALP risked being wedged in an almighty way by Howard leading to a massive defeat, and so supported govt legislation. I have not doubt that, if he had become PM after the election, the cabinet would have relooked at the legislation.
Whatever gets you through the day Adam. My point still stands that the policies were very similar and thus from the general perspective the parties were saying the same thing.
What I was essentially saying was in those three elections there was not a huge shift needed for Howard through bribary while this time there is.
Can we at least agree on that?
Well, I happen to think Labor’s policy was correct as well as tactically necessary. But this is not a forum for debating policy 🙂
Sorry, should have explained that Carey Bay pre-poll is different from Carey Bay conservative lakeside waterfront booth.
The major (non-SDAdventist) pre-poll is now in Carey Bay, when previously it was was in close neighbouring population centre of Toronto.
The mix of these two pre-poll sources is a matter of contention.
The remainder of the pre-poll votes will favour Piper in the same proportion or greater.
The absent and postal ratios are difficult to predict with Mayor Piper the new third horse in this race.
Lake Macquarie
PIPER 15,180 50.1 15,979 49.6
HUNTER 14,186 41.4 15,116 49.9
This is a blog, and you can correct your comments about numbers of postals, ratios, and local geography, as you learn new things about this previously undiscovered electorate.
That’s now corrected, Sally – it was only like that for a minute or so. Thanks for your contributions, BTW.
James
You are right there. It was a really stupid tactics of the liberals to keep mentioning cut to 20,000 public servants, that is the best way to get the 500,000? Public servant in the whole state to vote against you.
Yes Morris is smarter, he plans to cut probably the same staff, never denied it once when ask during the election, not table report that talks about cutting staff at train stations and increasing shifts. He win the election and now put the rail boss under notice. It is great politics
Time for a new Federal thread William
dovif – Debnam marketed his public service jobs policy the wrong way. He should have marketed it as “moving 20,000 head-office jobs to the service front-line, and have a small amount of natural attrition”.
It sounds much better than saying “we’ll cut 20 000 jobs and with the savings employ more front-line staff”.
Yes, it’s particularly stupid to talk about cutting jobs when you will be spending a lot of the money (or so they claimed) on employing new people. That’s not cutting, that’s moving.
I’m always amazed at the fact that no-one in the Liberal Party put their hand up and said “um, excuse me, maybe we shouldn’t say that?”
Ben, we are talking about the NSW libs here remember. From whats been said here, they don’t seem that smart at the moment.
Dave C/Ben/Dovif,
Is it politically smart to say one thing and do another?
Might that be part of the reason Australians are so cynical about politics in this country?
Once upon a time, boys and girls, there were two Honest Johns. The first Honest John campaigned on bringing in a GST, which was indeed honest of him, and got beaten by Big Bad Paul. The second Honest John lied through his teeth and said he would never, ever bring in a GST. He vanquished Big Bad Paul and then brought in a GST. And the moral is: never campaign on nasties from Opposition.
Sacha/Ben: I thought about that at the time, and then guessed the implication was meant to be that the new services would, so far as it was possible, be contracted out to private suppliers. But, like so much Liberal policy, it was poorly articulated; probably because it had been poorly thought-out in the first place.
In other news, the ABC news service today is describing Barwon as “still too close to call”. Is the indicative 2PP distribution to date (53.8 to 46.2) wrong, or is ‘too close to call’ just code for ‘counting is ongoing, no-one has conceded, and we don’t have a clue what’s going on’? The ABC election webpage distribution of only 2671 votes to Horan out of a combined total of 7161 ALP/Green votes (not to mention just over 1000 CDP/other indie), seemed a bit skinny. (Although whether Greens were handing out HTVs at all, I have no idea.) Not that I expect he could actually overhaul Humphries without stunning preference flows. Any news/ideas?
What amazes me about the NSW Libs policy to cut public service jobs is that its the exact same policy, put forward in the exact same manner, that the SA Libs ran with at the SA state election a year ago.
In SA Labor and the PSA spent the whole campaign thumping the Libs over the head with that policy. I find it incredible that the NSW Libs tried a tactic that had failed so miserably in other states
Surely they wouldn’t be contracting out positions of police officers?
I’m not talking about being deceptive (although it does surprise me that Debnam wouldn’t be willing to lie through his teeth like most opposition leaders and premiers/PMs do all the time), but if your policy is “when people retire, we’ll use their salary to employ a person in a different position”, that genuinely isn’t a “cut”. I’m not talking about them lying to make their policy appear better, it’s about them saying something that is both misleading and makes their policy appear worse.
Saying that, I still think the policy was terrible. Don’t take this as anyway supporting it.
I think what people are forgetting is that conservatives would find the idea of cutting the public service as basically a good thing, and I imagine they think most people agree with them. Cutting fatcat bureaucrats – I’m reminded of Montgomery Burns when he ran for mayor of Springfield. But in the real world, things aren’t that simple. The problem for them wasn’t so much the policy, but rather the unforgiveable lack of detail, which made it easy for Labor to make hay with it.
The fundamental problem for the Libs in State politics (in all states) is that their gene pool is so shallow, they make the ALP appear like a party rich in talent in comparison (no easy feat). Consequently, for “policy formation”, half-arsed commitments based on naked populism are considered enough preparation for government. The last 20-odd state elections suggest that they are not.
Adam, while Johnny may have promised to “never, ever” introduce a GST in 96, he introduced it after campaigning for it in the 98 election.
Kindly do not spoil the symmetry of my story. The point stands: the time to introduce nasty-but-necessary things is once you are in office. When campaigning from opposition, you smile a lot and avoid specifics.
If Adam is reflective of the ALP (with an attitude like the above) is it any wonder people are so cynical about politics.
We dont expect boy scouts but at least some level of honesty is appropriate – or is he from the “whatever it takes school”?
New update added for Goulburn – Goward has performed better on the latest batch of pre-polls.
Simon, I don’t know where they’re on about re Barwon.
Does anyone other than me find it rather ironic that after an election campaign that seemed to be about the failure of government services, we now have the situation where event the counting of ballots will be delayed because of a failure to plan for apropriate funding for staff?
I suggest that people write to our (newly re-elected) Premier and suggest that this be one of the first things that he could “head in the right direction” to and fix.
Melb City, who often has a thing or two to say about the VECC, should find it amusing that we northerners have our problems too…
Um, Edward, I am describing the behaviour of a Liberal prime minister here. The voters rejected the GST in 1993, so Howard flatly denied in 1996 that he would introduce a GST. Then once he was in office he announced that he would, after all, introduce a GST. It’s true that he won the 1998 election (just) on the GST, but by then he was in government. The fact is that he obviously lied about it in 1996. Everyone noted at the time that Howard had adopted a “small target” strategy of making no specific commitments about anything.
I disagree Adam. there is something to be said for standing up to the right instead of *gasp* appeasing.
But then Beazley did wake a sleeping giant in the Greens. 🙂
I suspect a party that attracts 5-10% of the vote is better described as a “sleeping dwarf” than a giant, but one that is awake nevertheless.
Among blog commentators you would expect many of those who always imagine themselves to be in the lucky 1% grappling with moral and strategic dilemmas in their comfortable beds and making the hard decisions.
Greens an awakened giant? more like an underfed runt…why did they completley fail to capitalise on Labor’s poor performance in govt?
Will Barry O’Farrell be the Kim Beazley of the NSW Libs? 2011 will be interesting?
I don’t think the Greens should be doing too much skiting. Their result on Saturday was very poor (a gain of 0.8%) given the unappetising alternatives. They should have been able to exploit dissatisfaction with Labor and steal Labor’s vote in the inner city. Instead Labor’s base rallied, at least partly because of the IR laws.
Adam,
As Mao said the people are poor and blank ready to be written over by the party.
What is the modern ALP if not a pale echo? Apart from WorkChoices what is the die in the ditch, no surrender, true believer issue of the ALP – higher broadband speeds? (AND of course we all know what will happen to that if Comrade Rudd is elected, don’t we ? I am sure there is principled disagreement with the BCA)
I would have thought that standing up for the principle of collective bargaining is a pretty solid one.
At any rate, the historical strength of the Liberal Party has been that they have largely eschewed ideology. I think that part of the reason that the Libs have struggled over the last decade (one successful government out of nine ain’t a great record) is that they have been hi-jacked by the radical right. This will only get worse for them when /if they lose Federal office later this year.
Why didn’t the Greens capitalise on Labor’s performance? Well, apart from the Tele being almost pathological in its dislike of the Greens, the SMH trying its best not to mention them (even if they were at the core of a story), and having less than 1/20th the budget (and that’s not even considering the resources of Government to propogandise – as people have already mentioned here)…and the rest of the mainstream media only interested in talking about how ordinary Iemma and Debnam were, rather than what alternatives might exist…I don’t know how else we might have done it. Oh, we could have gone stunt mad like Xenophon in SA, but then we’re bagged out as just pulling stunts and not being a ‘real’ party. We develop policy and get bagged for that even though it looks quite like, but better developed, the other parties (drug’s for Labor, small business for the Libs).
No, I think it was Adam who made a comment a few weeks back about incrementalism being the way things change – one day people in major parties are going to wake up and find a Green or three in mainland lower house seats – we might still be polling 10-12%, but then the Nats only polled this and they won 13 seats. Maybe the inner-city, as opposed to the bush, will be were the Greens carve out their niche?
Dare to struggle, Dare to win, Stewart J
If I had a choice between avoiding criticism for pulling stunts and polling 20.5 per cent, I know which one I’d pick.
BTW I don’t normally react to comment’s but remarks about ‘why haven’t the Greens capitalised on Labor’s performance’ deserve retort. The exact same remarks can be made about the Liberals, or Nationals, or Independents, but the range of factors (money, policy, media access, voter demographic, etc etc) are taken into account. I haven’t heard people complain about the Nat’s ‘only’ getting 13 seats. Oh sorry, they’re already part of the ‘team’, part of the cartel on the inside, aren’t they, where being in power, or limiting the damage if you don’t get it (and by corollary, limiting access to outsiders) is what its about.
And I note that Tebbut announced her resignation from Cabinet the day after the election – maybe the result would have been different if she was just another backbencher?
ps: this of course doesn’t mean that ALP candidates aren’t improving in the inner city areas – certainly in inner-Sydney Paul Pearce, Verity Firth, Carmel Tebbut and Tany Plibersik have lifted the ALP game in their electorates, I would suggest directly as a result of the Greens. Shame The Greens aren’t ina position to do the same for Tripodi, Obeid or Costa.
ESJ – have been for almost 20 years
WB – yes, but I don’t think Nick’s 20.5 is repeatable. Any vote for the Greens has to be repeatable and sustainable.
Shame The Greens aren’t ina position to do the same for Tripodi, Obeid or Costa.
If the Greens could do something about them I am willing to bet that they would have no worries about being invited into an ALP coalition!!
Updates added for Lake Macquarie and Dubbo.
anonymousie, the Greens will be very cautious about even thinking about a coalition with the ALP after the behavior of the ALP after The Accord in Tasmania. The ALP broke a principle agreement (no new saw mills) and then blamed the Greens for supporting a no confidence motion.