It’s time (past time, actually) for the Poll Bludger’s bi-monthly (in the once every two months sense of that ambiguous term) undignified hustle for donations. After what I must confess was a pretty good month on the donations front in March, thanks to the Dunkley by-election, the month of the Cook by-election proved quite a bit less productive. So if you’re an occasional donor (and with due regard to the fact that I say this quite often), now would be an opportune time to exercise your valued generosity.
These posts are also a good opportunity to call attention to looming electoral events, starting with this Saturday’s periodic Tasmanian Legislative Council elections, which will elect three of that chamber’s 15 members. These are often sedate affairs, but this year’s round is unusually interesting: former Greens leader Cassy O’Connor will seek to win the party’s first ever seat in the chamber for the seat of Hobart, and former Labor leader Bryan Green is on the comeback trail in the seat of Prosser, where he faces competition from the Liberals.
Beyond that, we can start to look at the end of an election drought that was relieved only by the surprise early Tasmanian election on March 24, with the Northern Territory going to the polls on August 24, the Australian Capital Territory doing so on October 19, and then Queensland’s big day a week later on October 26.
