In the meantime:
• The Australian reports the dunce of the Senate, Steve Fielding, is contemplating adding constitutional vandal to the extensive list of black marks against his name. Fielding polled all of 2.7 per cent of the vote in Victoria on Saturday, yet remains a serious prospect to retain his Senate seat thanks to a disastrous electoral system that Labor has been determined not to reform.
• Today’s Sydney Morning Herald editorial offers some fascinating speculation about Tony Abbott’s tactics in the past few days. The paper’s national editor, Mark Davis, detects a high-stakes game with the objective of final victory at a fresh election. It is evident he will be backed to the hilt in this endeavour by The Australian, which has jacked up the hysteria today by (among other things) running a lead news story that describes former Office of National Assessments intelligence analyst Andrew Wilkie as a “radical”.
• On Wednesday, the News Limited tabloids published a Galaxy poll of 600 voters in the rural independents’ electorates of Kennedy, New England and Lyne, which predictably showed a 52 per cent supporting a Coalition government against 36 per cent for Labor. Respondents were evenly split as to whether they wanted a fresh election. Some national polling at the moment would be uncommonly interesting.
• There has been talk of a legal challenge, or at least the possibility of one, against the election of Coalition candidates Russell Matheson in Macarthur and Natasha Griggs in Solomon, on the basis that their position as councillors runs foul of the archaic constitutional requirement that candidates not enjoy “office for profit under the Crown”. Constitutional expert George Williams has been quoted saying such a challenge would have a “one-in-four chance of winning”. Labor successfully engineered a re-match in Lindsay in similar circumstances after the 1996 election, only to have the voters respond to their sore-loser act by delivering a further 5 per cent swing to the successful Liberal candidate, Jackie Kelly.
UPDATE: Here is a link to the Brisbane late counting thread, which has dropped off the front page. I’ll come up with a more enduring solution to this issue later today.
I think the Denison recount working out where the Green prefs go
and checking that Wilkie gets ahead of the Lib for second spot
is not clear cut.
Might be interesting counting still to go in this election.
whats happens if katter cant agree with the other indies when they decide?
The real enemy is not the Coalition; they are inherently unelectable. It is the MSM. They are holding this country back in a way that is almost treasonous.
The Crikey article points out that by not advertising to fill vacancies as they arise the APS would deprive the Australian of a much needed revenue source.
Dr Good @ 998
What other possible scenario is there in dennison?
Rewi Lyall@1001
The government would save a heap of money just advertising on their own dedicated website.
[( PBers and friends) to boycott any goods or services that are advertised in Murdoch papers from for example pages 1 to 6. The msm strength is in advertising. Let’s attack that strength. Isn’t there an “art of war” theory like this?]
Is there anyone on here with the know how to get a boycott of the Murdoch empire going on the net?
This morning they were trying to infer something amiss because Bruce Hawker is Tony Widsor’s cousin.
The ALP is copping it from all sides. Bet the radical christian groups like the Salt Shakers & the Exclusive Brethren have been mobilised to a grassroots campaign against the independents. This is where the ALP fails.
pithicus
The 2CP count on Saturday night told us that if the last two candidates
are ALP and Libs then ALP was way ahead (even without the postal
votes etc being there to count)
The 2CP count since Monday until today has told us that if the
last two candidates are Wilkie and ALP then Wilkie just wins
But now we don’t quite know whether Wilkie does get into
the last two. When the SA and Greens are eliminated first
and second then they might just put the Liberal ahead
of Wilkie.
Then Wilkie gets eliminated and the ALP wins the run
off between ALP and Lib.
If anyone seriously wants to start a Media Reform website I am willing to provide the space to host it.
I have a few gig a month of bandwidth not being used.
Those who care enough to boycott murdoch publications probably weren’t reading them in the first place. Waste of time.
[If anyone seriously wants to start a Media Reform website I am willing to provide the space to host it.
I have a few gig a month of bandwidth not being used.]
ruawake, me too – servers in the States, a terabyte of data per month.
I am interested…
James J that is not the point – people are reading this site, more each day…there are plenty who just need to know where to come.
72-72 -1-6 Channel 9 news Brisbane. They are reporting the WA Nat as an independent, which hopefully helps negate the argument at least in a lot of disinterested people’s minds of Coalition win.
[ruawake, me too – servers in the States, a terabyte of data per month.]
So how do we get real media reform? I don’t mean a Rupert Boo – ABC crud type of thing. How do we get journalism back to the level it should be?
[So how do we get real media reform? I don’t mean a Rupert Boo – ABC crud type of thing. How do we get journalism back to the level it should be?]
You need quality journalists (the standard of John Pilger), you need to give them resources, and you need to pay them. Simple formula.
I imagine Rupert would prefer a Labor minority government over an Abbott minority government as the latter would stifle opportunities to polarise the people, sell stuff and leverage policy favourable to Newscorp.
He would not be overly fussed at the outcome of any new election in the short term as long as it was decisive, as in either case his media can go feral.
i think if anyone thinks the vote is safe in a cardboard bax with a lead seal is tripping.what we should have is a electronic vote off a screen that prints out a hard copy.you verify the hard copy against the screen,press enter and then secure the hard copy into the ballot box…the commission can concur parity after official count of the hard copy
Does Rupert Murdoch have his own web page?
So Dr good can Wilkie stay ahead of the Lib? What is your gut feel. Are HTV’s handed out in Tassie or are they baned like in the state election? If they aren’t then what were the preferance advice on the HTV’s?
Ru
[So how do we get real media reform? I don’t mean a Rupert Boo – ABC crud type of thing. How do we get journalism back to the level it should be?]
I have suggested more than once that by having a RATINGs type website we could rank the journos
Not as currently happens,where they rate themselves
criteria would fall broadly into 3 cats.
1. Truthfulness
2. Relevance
3. Analysis
to score all 3 would be a welcome change
Huge error from Abbott. Give the Indies nothing. The election is over boys. Grow a pair and pick a side.
Abbott has gone soft. He should have kept his boot on the neck of the 3 Indies from notionally National electorates. They would have caved eventually. If they go ALP then none of them will be there beyond the next election.
Treasury an impartial, independent agency? You must be joking. A public institution in Canberra staffed with ACT residents (57.85% 2PP ALP). Even if they didn’t leak like a sieve no Tory government will ever put their faith in the public service for independent advice. That way lies madness and despair. Those that matter to Abbott i.e. Coalition voters don’t trust Treaury either. These are the same economic philistines that enthusiastically gave us the Resource Rent Tax. The single most disastrous economic policy any government of Australia has ever considered.
How many votes are suspected of being tampered with? If this happened in one seat, whose to say it wasn’t an organised campaign across the nation?
[Treasury an impartial, independent agency? You must be joking. A public institution in Canberra staffed with ACT residents (57.85% 2PP ALP).]
A workforce that was hired by the Coalition government. My oh my….what short memories. Remember goblin Grech?
Peter Wellington escaped the dreaded boot after he supported Peter Beattie in 1998. Maybe the boot will be on the other foot?
[Abbott has gone soft. He should have kept his boot on the neck of the 3 Indies from notionally National electorates.]
LOL
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fwagoP_Hfd4
cheer up
organised campaign across the nation? = political suicide
unless they get away with it.
You know what? Bugger it. I’m gonna lay it on the line:
If the indies side with Gillard, I’ll eat my hat.
So there!
@WASecessionist 1022
How refreshing to see the Abbott supports have not completely lost their sense of humour!
So you can’t trust the Treasury because the ACT votes 57.85% ALP? Presumably this means you can’t trust any government department at all?
So how do you expect to govern? Are you going to sack the entire public service? Or only the ones who voted Labor?
Perhaps we should also buy tinfoil hats for all the Liberal and National party ministers and let them go and sit in the dark somewhere and formulate policy?
Actually, this sounds like a good plan!
WASecessionist @ 1022 So – just so I can get my head around your post – why did Howard set up the charter of budget honesty?
[If there was no tampering, and no aspect that woudl change the result, then it will only make labor look bad if they pursue it. If there was tampering, that is different.]
The ALP must think something has occurred because they knew about this at the beginning of the week. Perhaps their own investigations suggest something a little more sinister than what is being reported.
Who did do the Howard Government’s costings from 1996-2007? Apparently it wasn’t the Treasury.
Brisbane blows out to 1,000 – gone I’m afraid
[If the indies side with Gillard, I’ll eat my hat.]
This being the internet, you’ll never ever live that down 🙂
Just be sure to put it on youtube!
New thread.
[organised campaign across the nation? = political suicide
unless they get away with it.]
They will just claim that it occurred without their knowledge. I don’t think it is impossible.