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.
If Katter isn’t going to come to party, then i can’t see how any side is going to get a 77 majority…
[KineticPearl Is Wilkie from TAS or was he an import? Reason I ask is that he seems sensible and I can not see a second head. #AusVotes]
ROFL
Alby Shultz has called the independents’ demands “egotistical nonsense”.
Why can’t the indies release this information if Abbott won’t?
[Julia Gillard, the only PM whose caretaker period exceeded her time as Real PM]
interesting…
[The Institute of Chartered Accountants have received a complaint….
http://petermartin.blogspot.com/2010/08/robb-says-perth-auditor-as-good-as.html%5D
It gets better and better.
blackdog@804
I believe they can if they want to. So if they choose not to, then I think we can all draw our own conclusions …
Don’t you just love them.
The Coalition have been caught out lying once again. Read the last two paragraphs of this.
[The government said the Coalition’s costings were shonky and would blow a hole in the budget. Mr Katter tended to agree yesterday, saying Mr Abbott looked like a man with something to hide. ”He’s demonstrated to the whole of Australia that he doesn’t want his figures looked at,” he said.
Mr Windsor was incensed, saying the request was about trying to establish trust and Mr Abbott had made a poor start.
At first, Mr Abbott rejected the request, saying public servants were ill-suited to costing Opposition policies because they did not have ”the same degree of insight” as they did with government policy. Yesterday he changed his defence to the claim that Treasury could not be trusted.
The Coalition called the Australian Federal Police over the leak and Mr Robb said yesterday the deputy commissioner had assured him the ”investigation” would be over within days.
But an AFP spokeswoman said there was no investigation and that police were ”still assessing” the Coalition’s complaint.]
http://www.smh.com.au/federal-election/coalition-refuses-to-tug-forelock-like-gillard-20100826-13uam.html
[Alby Shultz has called the independents’ demands “egotistical nonsense”.]
We just need him to tell them that he’s slaughtered better animals then them and I reckon Gillard’s home.
C’mon Alby!
Nick and Andrew making me proud!
Go fellas! 🙂
Why does Antony Green include the WA Nat in his figures when that guy has constantly caalled to be treated as an independent?
maybe the fibs are thrashing about cos they realise they have been hung on their own dirty petard
LUV IT
I think people calling it is still a bit premature.
It’s not over until the Downfall clip is posted.
FWIW… national gap is 90 odd thousand between ALP and LNP.
[But an AFP spokeswoman said there was no investigation and that police were ”still assessing” the Coalition’s complaint.]
Pure gold.
[Why does Antony Green include the WA Nat in his figures when that guy has constantly caalled to be treated as an independent?]
Because he was on the ballot paper as The Nationals. He is not an independent. There was an offer made to list him separately (WA Nationals or some such thing) and to subtract the WA Nationals votes from The Nationals national vote but they were not keen on taking that up. Again, this is an obviously sham act from Crook that is convenient for Gillard to acknowledge, but everyone knows it’s a sham.
gebungalah@811
Because reporting it this way it makes it look like the Libs are ahead.
[But an AFP spokeswoman said there was no investigation and that police were ”still assessing” the Coalition’s complaint.
Pure gold.]
These Libs will lie about anything.
Wally Cola
The best come back was by Otto Brandes, a fat South African tail ender who was having trouble with some fast bowling. Glenn McGrath asked him “Why are you so fat?”, the response was “Because every time I ‘shake hands with’ your wife, she gives me a biscuit. “
Wal
just quietly,to take offence at murali being called “chuck’ and then in almost the next breath to disparage tasmanians, is a tad hypocritical
It will be interesting to see if the media follow up with Andrew Robb and ask him to stand by his words.
Thankyou 816
Apparently Tone has had a win on costings today. 😆
Murali was a chucker. He may have the record but how many times did Warne play against0 sh!t sides like Bangladesh?
I know that I would like to see the fibs costings.
If I were an independent, I would feel compromised if I were forced to make a decision to withhold information that should have been available for the public before the election, let alone in this situation.
Regarding Wilkie his views are pretty clear in his website.
http://www.andrewwilkie.org
For instance
Going on that I would suspect that Wilkie would favour Labor, unless Abbott has some 11th hour change of heart on many issues.
[but how many times did Warne play against0 sh!t sides like Bangladesh?]
yeah but we had the poms
😉
Itep
Who is “they”? In the following: “…subtract the WA Nationals votes from The Nationals national vote but they were not keen on taking that up”.
And there is no “Nationals” vote on the ABC main page. It just says “Coalition”
even though there is no Coalition agreement at the moment.
No-one has mentioned William’s quote
[Some day this war is gonna end]
which is from Apocalypse Now. Lt Kilgore says it just after he says he loves the smell of napalm in the morning because it smells like victory.
This time I am not going to venture to interpret what the quote refers to in the context of this election.
[Because reporting it this way it makes it look like the Libs are ahead.]
And Antony Green is nothing if not a cheerleader for one side of politics over the other. For a non-stupid explanation, see here.
Wilkie has at least two things going for him – a lefty electorate and a brain.
[And Antony Green is nothing if not a cheerleader for one side of politics over the other. For a non-stupid explanation, see here.]
Ohhh
I thought it was Antony, Green
Dr Good, I’m just paraphrasing what I heard Antony Green say when I was watching ABC News 24 one day. I presume it refers to the Coalition vote, the computer system would need to subtract out whatever the WA Nationals vote was and add it to ‘others’. The contact person from the WA Nationals wasn’t so keen on this happening.
GWEEDS – a bit worried about the word “retrospective” in the Super Profits Tax part. Thats the same weasel word the weasel-in-chief, Kloppers used to try and escape liability. But at least it looks like he doesn’t have a deep philosophical problem with it.
Of course, Wilkie might take the view that Tone’s apology to him was totally sincere and heart felt and had nothing to do with Tone wanting to become PM.
Meanwhile…..
ABC Cadetship Journalist Program 2011
The ABC’s News Division is offering a number of positions in its Cadet Journalist Program. The successful applicants will be offered a one-year training contract and will be trained as journalists for radio, television and online news. Salary circa $45K per annum.
Applications close 5pm (AEST), Friday 24 September 2010.
More information here
Just start you copy and reports about what the leader of the Coalition has stated and a long career awaits you.
Tuckey sends in the removalists
Posted 1 hour 24 minutes ago
The blinds have been drawn and the lights turned off at Wilson Tuckey’s electoral office
The blinds have been drawn and the lights turned off at Wilson Tuckey’s electoral office
The blinds have been drawn and the lights turned off at Wilson Tuckey’s electoral office in Albany today, marking the end of a 30 year career in federal politics.
Mr Tuckey, nicknamed Ironbar, has refused to formally concede defeat after the Nationals Tony Crook won the seat of O’Connor at the Federal Election.
Removalists arrived at the former MPs office early this morning.
Mr Tuckey is in town to oversee the move, but has declined to be interviewed by the ABC.
Corangamite surely is no longer in doubt – Labor leading now by a tick over 900. 🙂
ABC gives Brisbane to Libs
72-73-1-4 or 72-72-1-1-4?
@William 830,
That comment was meant to be tongue-in-cheek. Sorry if I was too subtle for you 🙂
824 Scalckboy72
[Murali was a chucker. ]
The ICC changed the “chucking” rule when slow motion video revealed that just about every bowler bent their arm more than 5 degrees, so they either had to change the rule or ban most bowlers in first class cricket.
Thanks, Gweeds. Looks good.
What it amounts to is a challenge in the Court of Disputed Returns.
Here are the grounds of the challenge that precipitated the Mundingburra By-election
As in any challenge to a court, similar cases are used as precedent, making the above relevant.
If there really was significant vote-tampering; there appears to be no way of determining what the original votes were or the exact number involved, and the difference between the ALP and Liberal candidates’ final 2pp is not clearly above the number claimed (about 3,000), there will almost certainly be a by-election.
Depending on further revelations (or lack of them) the number of votes involved might become secondary to the need to ensure public confidence in the integrity of the Australian ballot process; especially as such concerns were raised at the time the old locked metal ballot boxes were replaced by the current cardboard.
Antony Green is by far the best source of any clarification of what I’ve written above & of further info, especially whether the poll declaration can be deferred.
Interesting times indeed? Anyone in need of a thesis topic? If I were still working, I’d be out there tolling for students to supervise!
slackboy, this keyboard (and me) having trouble.
evan, still need to count absentee pre-polls and probably more postals (plus more absentees). Corangamite will almost certainly be the most marginal seat in the country at the next election.
Actually I take that back. Forgot about the redistribution.
Diogenes 829
I had an earlier post in this thread about 750 posts back so it was probalby missed
wtte
[Steve Fielding is no Kurtz, I see him more as the Dennis Hopper photojournalist character..]
My apologies, Oscar. I like to think it was too subtle full-stop.
I agree with a big mining tax on super profits, but not retrospective action. Retrospective taxation is something that should not be done to any business.
Super profit taxation should not be restricted to miners. This is a big win tax and it only applies to the big winners. Paying super profit taxes would actually add to a companies profile, as it would be an accurate yardstick of success.
Mr Green is sooooooo! professional. (830)