Developments of various kinds in the field of vote-counting:
• Labor’s month-long leadership election campaign is finally drawing to a close, with caucus having determined its 50% share of the total vote yesterday and around 25,000 rank-and-file ballots to be counted on Sunday. Reports suggest that Bill Shorten has won at least 50 out of the 86 votes in the party room, receiving the undivided support of a Right which had been polarised during the Gillard-Rudd stand-off. By contrast, David Crowe of The Australian reports that Left members including Warren Snowdon, Brendan O’Connor, Kate Lundy, Laurie Ferguson, Maria Vamvakinou, Julie Owens and newly elected Bendigo MP Lisa Chesters have failed to fall in behind Albanese. Tea-leaf reading from party sources quoted around the place suggests Bill Shorten will do best if a large number of votes are received from his relatively strong states of Victoria and Western Australia, with most other states (together with the ACT, which punches above its weight in terms of ALP membership) considered strongholds for Albanese.
• ReachTEL published a poll yesterday of 891 respondents in New South Wales and Victoria showing Anthony Albanese favoured over Shorten by 60.9-39.1 in New South Wales and 54.0-46.0 in Victoria. Each had slight leads over Tony Abbott as preferred prime minister in Victoria and slight deficits in New South Wales. Results on voting intention confirmed the general impression from the limited national polling in finding no honeymoon bounce for the new government.
• Electoral Commissioner Ed Killesteyn has ordered a recount of above-the-line votes for the Western Australian Senate, which will change the result of two Senate seats if a 14-vote gap between the Shooters and Fishers and Australian Christians parties is reversed. Also under review are votes declared informal the first time around, which is always a grey area. Tireless anonymous blogger TruthSeeker has performed good work in identifying count peculiarities potentially significant enough to turn the result, including a popular favourite known as the “Waggrakine discrepancy”.
• The Fairfax recount limps with the Clive Palmer camp apparently challenging any vote that doesn’t go its way, thereby requiring it to be sent for determination by the state electoral officer in Brisbane. AAP reports the result “won’t be known for at least another week”.
UPDATE: GhostWhoVotes relates that ReachTEL has let rip with its first post-election poll of national voting intention, and it continues an unbroken run of such polling in plotting a position for the Coalition south of what it achieved at the election, however slightly. Coming off a large-even-for-ReachTEL sample of 3600, it shows the Coalition with a two-party preferred lead of 52.1-47.9, compared with roughly 53.5-46.5 at the election, from primary votes of 45.4% for the Coalition (45.6% at the election), 35.3% for Labor (33.4%) and 8.6% for the Greens (unchanged). Tony Abbott’s performance is rated good by 40.5% and poor by 40.2%.
I really can’t believe that Cassidy thinks it adds value to his show having Slipper on.
CTar1
Posted Saturday, October 12, 2013 at 3:02 pm | Permalink
bad
It wasn’t a terrible weekend out.
‘Stuff’ happened.
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O La La …… I’m blushing at the though of that – ViVa La France 😉
Don’t the writs have to be returned in 100 days.
I presume the returning officer will ensure the recount is finished by then and if Palmer is unhappy then it will be up to the courts.
I think it is quite appropriate for someone who has just been sacked as Captain of the Australian Test Cricket Team to cry – he’s just lost the most imporant job in the land.
Hmm … I generally pay no attention to “beauty pageants” but this one here does illustrate, again, the fact that America has its fair share of ranting dimwits …
http://www.dailylife.com.au/dl-people/dl-entertainment/americans-let-their-racist-side-shine-post-miss-america-announcement-20130917-2tvtj.html
Re the reachtel poll – Care Factor < 0
BK
Posted Saturday, October 12, 2013 at 3:04 pm | Permalink
A hearty hello from Dublin to Poll Bludgers
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BK – are you sure you cant do the “news” from there??? – I am worn out already trying to live up to your postings with Mari and other early birds – my OH thinks thinks I am spending all this internet time with a secret on-line lover …… and there is you having a soft easy time in PaddyLand
Why be in a hurry for parliament to resit?
Already – according to one poll – nearly two percent lopped off the conservative TPP and not one stick of legislation in place.
It could well be that by the time parliament sits, the TPP will show Labor in front!
The conservatives are going backwards.
Really doesn’t matter much as this stage, but that “thumping victory” looks a bit threadbare at the moment.
As I said just after the election, no cheering in the streets for Abbott – just dull accepetance – for the time being only.
[Compact Crank
Posted Saturday, October 12, 2013 at 3:06 pm | PERMALINK
I really can’t believe that Cassidy thinks it adds value to his show having Slipper on.]
The Wedding invitation list might be an interesting read! :devil:
Bit like the tears shed by Malcolm those many years ago.
The Liberals disowned him after this and he has since disowned the Liberals.
Fraser is further to the left than most of the ALP these days – a better fit with the Greens.
Sad, really.
I guess the value adding having Slipper on with Cassidy is about the same as the Slipper bash the Murdoch press and others thought in terms of value adding back then.
Ah, hypocrisy thy name is Tory.
Mod Lib @1209
It appears the ALP keep getting into a bother with Ski trips – which isn’t really a working class pursuit.
Fraser is/was an old fashioned Liberal in the small “l” something the Red Neck/Tea Party group the Liberals and their hayseed cousins have become, they just cannot understand.
The real sadness is the right-wing movement of the Liberals to the hard right.
Scratch a conservative and quite often find a nascent fascist just below the surface.
I don’t think the ALP have been a working class party for quite some time…
The sooner parliament meets the sooner it will dissolve through “the efflux of time”
Badcat
I see you have been keeping up the morning tradition with Mari concentrating on the cartoons. Good stuff!
I am supposed to he banned from blog activities whilst away but hey, Mrs BK is still asleep.
Fraser was/is certainly a conservative in dealing with issues of class/the labour movement but otherwise anti-racist and anti-parochial — a sort of patrician conservtaive.
As far as I can tell, he was a genuine supporter of human rights and multi-culturalism and on that basis took a liberal view on at least some lifestyle issues (though clearly not “the war on drugs”).
That puts him closer to Menzies than either Howard or Abbott.
BK
Posted Saturday, October 12, 2013 at 3:24 pm | Permalink
Badcat
I see you have been keeping up the morning tradition with Mari concentrating on the cartoons. Good stuff!
I am supposed to he banned from blog activities whilst away but hey, Mrs BK is still asleep
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BK – I am sure your wife deserves a holiday – just when she is asleep – can you put down your Guinness for 5 minutes and do a few quickies …..
Of course Socialism had nothing whatsoever to do with Communism and those paragons of Democratic justice spawned by communism in its’ various forms.
Mod Lib
Thanks for the link you posted earlier today regarding the stoush going on in the US over Obamacare. I just wanted to ask you two questions about that.
1. Do you think the temporary compromise that Obama and the Republicans have agreed to sign off on has weakened his position in defending his health care legislation?
2. Do you think there is any truth in the suggestion by the Republicans that Obamacare is causing more problems than it is solving? (That seems to be what they are basically arguing).
From someone on Twitter. This was in Opposition.
[tony abbott claimed $4.2 million fr 2009 to 2012. you have to be fecken kidding me! how much was kosher pic.twitter.com/jbCsb978DD ]
Compact Crank
Posted Saturday, October 12, 2013 at 3:06 pm | Permalink
I really can’t believe that Cassidy thinks it adds value to his show having Slipper on.
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The list of conservatives who have not rorted/misused allowances is getting shorter by the day.
Pretty soon he wont be able to have a conservative guest who has not been pinged.
CC
[Of course Socialism had nothing whatsoever to do with Communism and those paragons of Democratic justice spawned by communism in its’ various forms.]
Correct – just as Conservatism has nothing to do with fascism.
On the ‘the ALP is no longer working class’ thing.
Most ‘working class’ parents dream of their children having opportunities to get out of the ‘working class’ – a dream best realised through education.
Thus the ALP, as a working class party, opened up opportunities for children of the working class to get an education.
Thus ALP supporters who came from ‘working class’ homes are often quite well off professionals.
It’s a fairly natural and obvious evolution – and a party which has survived as long as the ALP has has to evolve if it is to remain relevant.
(Of course, these observations are based on my experience. My father was a boiler maker. I was the first in my family, going back several generations, to have a University education. My two younger sisters also have university educations.
That was my father’s dream, but it’s meant that none of us are now truly classifiable as ‘working class’).
lizzie @1222 – do they expect Federal Opposition members to sit at home?
…one of my uni professors was the youngest of seven boys. The other six worked extra shifts at the meatworks to get him through University. They’d represent ‘old’ Labor, he represents the kind of person who increasingly makes up Labor in the present.
..apparently CC thinks that no Liberal MP can leave their homes without rorting the taxpayer….
AussieAchmed
Pretty soon he wont be able to have a conservative guest who has not been pinged.
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It is a bigger fraud to conceal fraud
…apparently the Twittersphere thinks every dollar a politician claims as expenses is a rort.
badcat @1228 – as Slipper appears likely to be about to find out
[ Fraser is further to the left than most of the ALP these days – a better fit with the Greens.
Sad, really. ]
Well, thank god that you can at least acknowledge this. The current LNP would make George Bush look like a leftie!
CC –
Your fellow traveler Sean Tisme has asserted exactly that on here several times with respect to the amount paid for Julia Gillard’s expenses as PM, amongst others.
Not sure if it has already been posted but if so David Rowe is worth another look.
CC
Actually, no I don’t. I’ve had probably far more to do with politicians of all persuasions than you ever have or will, and I do understand the need for them to be able to claim expenses (and unlike some here, I would defend the expense of attending party functions, particularly to support local branches — although I wouldn’t put a wedding in that catergory).
There is a difference between an expense and a rort, and most MPs are capable of telling the two apart.
zoomster
There is a difference between an expense and a rort, and most MPs are capable of telling the two apart.
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As this weeks rorting revelations have exposed :
Telling apart – yes ….. Abiding by – NO !!!
@Colvinius: Canberra Times veteran Jack Waterford on the expenses question: http://t.co/RjLnpzVuVe
Zoomster – so if a Parliamentarian receives an invitation to a function – any function – addressed to the Parliamentarian in their Official Capacity – then attending the function is a claimable expense.
I’m glad we are all clear on that now.
CC
not at all what I said. For example, I made it clear that I wouldn’t regard weddings as a claimable expense. I don’t think sporting events are, either, if competing in the event is all the MP does (if they do the official opening, that may be a different matter).
poroti
Posted Saturday, October 12, 2013 at 4:03 pm | Permalink
Not sure if it has already been posted but if so David Rowe is worth another look.
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Jabba The Hutt Clive – has got the derangeed one by the short and curlies – and about to twist hard !!!!
guytaur @1236 – what a complete pile of sanctimonious tosh – a blatant attempt to have a swing at Abbott while attempting to give some alusion of bipartisan tut-tutting.
Excerpt from my 1236 link
[The one being done the most damage over the past week is Tony Abbott. This is not because he is a spectacular rorter – though there is evidence enough for a fair-minded person to call his a pattern of dubious claims. But he is not in the gun as a particularly bad rorter. He’s in the gun as a representative rorter who, being in high public position, ought to know better, ought to set a better example, and who ought to be more straightforward with the public when caught out. He has not yet even said sorry on his own account, let alone his party’s or his Parliament’s.]
Crank
You seem to be just as out of touch
BK:
Enjoy your holiday!
zoomster – so if someone goes and watches an event but doesn’t particpate, that’s OK?
Weddings aren’t claimable? Nobody told Julia and Timmie.
zoomster – I don’t think Politicians should be able to claim for Party Political Activities – that should be paid for by the Party or the Individual.
The reality is workplace entitlements are a natural part of many workplaces and they have there place.
The problem for the Liberals is in opposition they treated every tax dollar spent as waste and a rort rather than being more mature.
I for one cannot see weddings as work as they are social gatherings normally only involving close friends and family.
There is a fine line for had pollies been invited to a wedding involve the British Royals or another country head of state then that would be work related.
There needs to be clear guidelines as all ready exist in the public sector or in many other industries.
It is only fair that people which travel a great deal are able to claim expenses for the alternative is less travel or higher pay rates.
What about Party Political Activities at Taxpayer Expense?
Are all expenses/activities equally worthy? Surely it’s not simply a matter of justifying some activitiy through its classification as political business or otherwise but also its significance relative to the expense.
Does it create problems, having a cap (or whatever) that requires politicians prioritise?
If you are a polly and as part of befriending an oversea business or political leader hoping that they will invest in the local economy takes them to the AFL GF then hosts dinner at Vue de Mon (sorry about the spelling) then that should be a claimable expense.
CC
[so if someone goes and watches an event but doesn’t particpate, that’s OK?]
It can be. I find it’s easier to talk to people when I’m watching an event than I do when I’m participating. (Water keeps getting in your mouth if you try this during a swim, for example).
But it does depend very much on circumstances – for example, when I was a councillor, there was an annual invitation for a councillor to attend a local race meeting to present the Council Cup. I claimed for that, as I was expected to. But I wouldn’t have claimed a cent had the council car been available for me to use, and I only claimed the cost of my fuel.
IF someone is the leader of a government, and it was accepted protocol that each country sent their leaders to a particular function, then yes, that’s claimable, too.