State of confusion: day three

Another open thread for general post-election discussion.

A thread for general discussion of the political environment as the nation hangs on late counting, the intricacies of which may be discussed in the post above this one.

Author: William Bowe

William Bowe is a Perth-based election analyst and occasional teacher of political science. His blog, The Poll Bludger, has existed in one form or another since 2004, and is one of the most heavily trafficked websites on Australian politics.

1,823 comments on “State of confusion: day three”

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  1. SophyRidgeSky: #Chilcot – Tony Blair wrote to George Bush nine months before the invasion saying he would be with him whatever…

  2. Hmmm… assuming Aly gets in, and assuming she is a muslim(?), we will have the first muslim woman and the first Aboriginal woman in Parliament.
    We will have two muslims and four Aboriginal people in parliament.
    Not before time and better late than never and my hearty congratulations to all of them.
    Congratulations in particular to Labor for running such candidates in winnable seats.
    I am sure that the contrast between Labor and Liberal/Nationals in terms of female representation will be even stronger after the counts are complete.
    As far as I know, the Greens and the Nationals do not have an Aboriginal representative between them.
    I do hope we are not looking at birds of a feather here.

  3. AB:

    And for those of us living in electorates where Labor ran dead with zero campaigning we still did our bit via social media and sharing Labor’s emails with our families and friends.

    A woman at work took leave for the last 2 weeks to campaign for the Liberals. What she did I have no idea. Perhaps the Libs concentrated their campaign in more rural areas of the electorate, but I never saw any campaign material here at all outside the local msm. No signage, no corflutes, no events, no campaign activities. Nothing.

    Labor ran dead and still received more first preference votes than the Nats. Quite an achievement.

  4. Boerwar:

    Linda Burney is the first Aboriginal woman in federal HoR. But yes, agree Labor deserves congrats for running minority candidates in winnable seats.

  5. confessions

    If not for the media dominance Labor would have won easily. They certainly deserved to. I voted for Labor not just so I could vote for outstanding candidate Linda Burney.

    It was also because the policies Labor went with were without doubt the best of the two parties by a country mile.

    I still would like Labor to go further towards the Greens positions on some issues but I know they can’t while the media portrays the right as the centre instead of the right

  8. I think the last place Labor needs to be is running the government with this senate, with a bare majority, with a world economy about to tank and the first full recession in 25 years about to hit.
    I first voted in the early 1980s and it was Fraser/Howard government’s economic ineptitude that I remember most. Its not goimg to hurt the current generation to learn the lessons we did in the early 80′, it’ll certainly destroy the myth around Liberals being good economic managers.
    I suspect next election may well be a swing of epic proportions unless the Liberals suddenly morph into a completely different beast to what they’ve been the last 6 years.

  9. One of the Green policies I like that I would like Labor to adopt is for Parliament not just the PM to vote on going to war.

    With Iraq as we saw with the US Congress this does not mean such things will stop but at least it will give voice to more alternate views and maybe give pause for thought.

  10. elusive_kate: I remember the day many of us in Sydney, dressed in our business suits, marched down George St. We knew it was wrong thenmn #Chilcot

  11. I remember the day many of us in Sydney, dressed in our business suits, marched down George St. We knew it was wrong then

    Biggest protest I’ve seen in my life. You had to be deliberately deluding yourself not to know Iraq was a shockingly bad idea.

  12. Guytaur:

    Yes our media is bad, but still I believe that Labor didn’t pull enough seats to unseat the govt because voters are extremely reluctant to unseat a first term govt. The good news for LAbor is that there are now so many marginal LNP seats that, coupled with the instability we’re about to see with minority govt and hostile Senate, makes electoral victory that much more achievable for Labor in 2019.

  15. Zoomster

    For goodness sake, try to be reasonable

    The reality is that the ALP did amazingly well in Tas, very well in NSW, OK in WA and not so well elsewhere. Now I think the Medicare stuff was brilliantand hit home. However in my part of the world there was a swing TOO Malcolm. Several of us here commented on this. For a while I though I was being unfair until Rigeway made the same point.

    What I am trying to find out is why Longman and Dickson swung Labor but Brisbane and Ryan swung Liberal. So the issues are was it the message (ie richer areas not so bothered by medicare or even school funding and not liking the negative gearing plan, or was it something about the actual campaigning.

  18. Families of soldiers who were killed in Iraq have instructed lawyers to examine the Chilcot Report with a view to obtaining damages on the basis of misconduct in office in that Blair misrepresented intelligence findings.

    IMO, Howard would be gone for all money on that one as well.

  19. confessions

    Linda Burney is the first Aboriginal woman in federal HoR

    A reminder of how far behind Australia is from the cousins over The Ditch.

    Iriaka Rātana, the first Maori woman to become a member of Parliament, represented the enormous Western Maori electorate from 1949 to 1969.

    http://www.teara.govt.nz/en/photograph/28636/first-maori-woman-mp

    Frederick Nene Russell, Mete Kingi Te Rangi Paetahi, Tareha Te Moananui and John Patterson took their places as the first Maori Members of Parliament (MPs) in the House in 1868. Te Moananui was the first to speak, and he urged the government to enact wise laws to promote good, and for Maori and Pakeha to work together

    http://www.nzhistory.net.nz/politics/parliaments-people/maori-mps

  20. Tasmania, ACT and NT have no Lib/Coal/HOR reps.

    what were they thinking?

    I’m thinking the so-called less educated are saying piss off to those Lib/Coal./FRWNJ s

  28. Btw. There is no evidence anywhere that deradicalization programmes make any difference, except of course employ those doing it. Will anyone ask Aly ‘what is wrong with islam’???

  29. DF
    You just about made me choke on my halal doughnuts.
    I am exceedingly lucky that my extended family survived (sort of) two mass Christian wars last century. As it was they suffered huge disruption, economic loss and psychic scars that still affect various family members to this very day.
    So why not go take your sly sectarian hatemongering and have a love-in with your besties over at Fortress ALA?
    These massive slaughter dwarf by a thousand times anything that any other puny lots of wannabes have been able to achieve.

  32. I imagine that any day now Howard will apologise for the war he started in 2003 and which has since spread around the world.
    I imagine that any day now Howard will apologise for spending a decade doing his best to destroy any and all efforts to fight global warming.
    I imagine that any day now Howard will apologise to Australia for pissing away a mining boom and leaving structural budget time bombs for us all to sort out.
    Nah.
    BUT WYSIWIG. What we saw on election night was Howard whinging about the demise of one of the Liberal’s foremost freedom haters – Nicolic.

  34. Possibly Howard’s main contribution to the ongoing Budget problems is the 30,000 veterans who have PTSD.
    Expensive. Very, very expensive.

  37. Thanks AB. Nice words.

    Pity we won’t get a hung parliament. Would have been fun to watch.

    Still, 10 to 12 seats reclaimed and a severely wounded PM and divided Government is an outstanding achievement by Labor and its volunteers.

  40. DF, no. But I would also rather we not have invaded a sovereign nation on a lie.

    That war has exacerbated terrorism and led to countless deaths of innocent people.

    And you tacitly supporting that makes you an accomplice.

    How do you sleep at night?

    Oh yes, plausible deniability.

    I hope you rot in hell.

  43. confessions @ #1698 Wednesday, July 6, 2016 at 8:25 pm

    Labor will win Cowan

    I certainly hope so. The positivity and encouragement of Aly vs the insular fear and loathing of Simpkin is a stark contrast, and honestly, our parliament could seriously do with some genuine cultural and gender diversity. The Simpkins of our community offer nothing but the same old Old White Male succour that we’ve seen for centuries.

    Girlpower. Go stick it to them.

    Just done a quick breakdown of the Reps
    Labor 67
    Male 40 (60%)
    Female 27 (40%)
    Liberal/LNP 68
    Male 55 (81%)
    Female 13 (19%)
    Nationals 10
    Male 10 (100%)
    Female 0 (0%)
    Others 5
    Male 3 (60%)
    Female 2 (40%)

    Do you see any problems there?

  45. Boerwar
    In the article I linked are these snippets. Would be from alternative universe compared to Australia at the time. The locals must have been breathing a sigh of relief that NZ decided not sign up to join the Commonwealth and so be stirring up trouble re Mighty Whitey Australia policy .

    Apirana Ngata, who was elected for Eastern Maori in 1905 and promoted to Cabinet in 1909 as Minister for the Public Trust Office…………………. Carroll’s central place in the Liberal party in the 20th century was recognised when he became acting prime minister in 1909 and 1911. He was the first Maori to hold that position. In 1892 he was appointed as a member of the Executive Council

  49. People lose thousands in one sitting at the casino, or on one bet on a horse. You have to go flat out for hours to do that on a pokie machine.

    Poker machine problem gambling is far more prevalent in our society than horse race problem gambling. Do some reading. Te reports on this issue go into the details of typical loss rates per hour, numbers of families affected etc. It’s not even close. Poker machine problem gambling is a special kind of problem which requires particular reforms on things like abolishing $1 bets, and introducing universally recognized cards with daily betting amounts which have to be deliberately and consciously chosen by the gambler in advance and which cannot be topped up.

  50. Do you see any problems there?

    Coalition needs to pull its finger out when it comes to preselecting women MPs. This is not news however.

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