Sunday 18 November 2007

The scary side of Australian elections

Armagnac Esq. points to the stuff of nightmares.
 
"Last week's 4 Corners had interviews with several people in marginals, following their reactions to various announcements as we entered the campaign. The one who embodied the difficulties faced by social democratic parties more than any other was the woman with the godfrigginalmighty mcmansion.

There she was, with a huge behemoth behind her, or indoors with vast plasma TV and a thousand other spoils. I don't begrudge her this, beyond thinking there's no accounting for taste and moderation. But all she cared about was her pocket. Each promise to give her a handful more bucks caught her attention, to the point that she was coming across as a potential swinger. No wider issue even registered.

A swinging voter in a marginal; key election winning territory. And she, with all her needs and a busload of wants amply met, could not care less about any policy that impacts anyone except her.

She's a natural creature of the Right; singularly greedy and lacking empathy. Yet in a marginal dictatorship she's all that counts, politically speaking.

She's undecided. They're undecided. I hope I'm wrong and he slams it through next weekend. I do give Kev odds-on, but only just. The champagne's corked and stashed. It ain't over 'till the CUB lady sings."
 
Posted by clarencegirl at 10:52 0 comments
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Coalition set for a political drubbing, but will thoughtless preference distribution get them over the line?

The Sunday Age Taverner Research opinion poll released today again reflects the general trend and predicts a calamitous loss for the Coalition.
 
"With Kevin Rudd neither pressed nor making big errors, he remains the voters' clear and unchallenged choice and can look forward to a good majority in the lower house," Mr Mitchell-Taverner said.
"The Coalition is paying the penalty for not listening, yet imposing policies that the voters don't recognise as necessarily good for them."
The Sunday Age article:
 
However the niggle remains. Will the Howard Government get re-elected because ordinary voters didn't think through how they marked ballot papers to indicate second, third, fourth or fifth preferences.
 
The federal election result is not a first past the post proposition and at which point an individual vote exhausts is important.
It is not unknown for a party to gain federal government with seats won on preferences after losing badly in the primary vote.
So on 24 November all Australians need to mark their ballot papers wisely.
 
The NSW North Coast needs to decide if it can risk voting for the Nationals again and face being neglected by local MPs for another three years. 
Posted by WaterDragon at 08:46 0 comments
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Campaign Day 35 - eye of the storm

Only another six more nights until the dawn of polling day. A preternatural calm has descended on my house as we wait to see if Australia decides that enough is enough and gives Howard the boot. It almost feels like being in the eye of the storm.
If we could only convince the pollies to head for their backyard storm shelters now, so that this endless drone of campaign nonsense can cease - white hat good, black hat bad, baa baa baa.
Posted by Petering Time at 07:00 0 comments
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Saturday 17 November 2007

Peoples front in full swing on the NSW North Coast during 2007 federal election campaign

All in all the Nationals candidates on the NSW North Coast did not have a good week.
 
Deputy Prime Minister Mark Vaile joined Nationals candidate for Page, Chris Gulaptis, at a press conference yesterday and spent most of his time defending WorkChoices and that Regional Partnerships Program rort.
 
Chris Gulaptis faced consecutive negative newspaper adverts by his old partner in Clarence Valley property development, and now may have to explain why it is that this former partner's statement about when this partnership ended doesn't appear to match what Gulaptis previously told the NSW Pecuniary Interest Tribunal.
 
Nationals candidate for Richmond Sue Page has just found out that the latest The Northern Star survey shows it is likely that she will be trounced on election day.
 
While both these candidates and retiring Nationals Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives, Ian Causley, have been embarrassed by one of Causley's cousins abandoning the Nationals and coming out very publicly against WorkChoices in the national media.
 
The Sydney Morning Herald on WorkChoices and grassroot movement:
The Northern Star on latest Richmond opinion poll:
The Daily Examiner on Vaile and Gulaptis press conference:
The Daily Examiner on that Baker advertisement:
Posted by clarencegirl at 15:56 2 comments
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Mud, slurs and innuendo in the fight for Page and Richmond electorates

Well the dirt is beginning to fly on the NSW North Coast as the battle for voter allegiance hots up in the electorates of Page and Richmond.
 
Nationals supporters are not repeating their now famous whispering campaign which falsely accused a past Labor candidate of drug running, nevertheless during this federal election they are showing enough venom to have rated a mention or two in the local media.
 
"A spokesperson for Ms Elliot said the call to keep it clean followed revelations that staff at a local hospital had received a postcard fraudulently claiming that Labor would introduce compulsory unionism and a fee of $20 per week per worker."
 
"The Echo has unfortunately found itself used as a vehicle for a dirty-tricks campaign of slurs and innuendos through a letter which we recently published denigrating Labor candidate Janelle Saffin.
The Northern Star had already refused to publish the letter and we should have done the same.
On closer investigation the letter writer turns out to be a recent recruit to the National Party and the information he was peddling came from a controversial Sydney columnist making wild and spurious remarks against Ms Saffin, remarks which have already been roundly condemned by the editors of the region's two daily newspapers.
To her credit, Ms Saffin ignored the attacks, both then and now."
 
Not a peep is being uttered out loud about the reputations of Nationals candidates because of that party's penchant for sending threatening letters to local correspondents in letters to the editor columns (including defenceless pensioners) and past litigation against regional newspapers.
Although one delicious rumour about the Nationals candidate for Page has broken past this barrier of fear.
 
The Northern Rivers Echo articles yesterday:
Posted by clarencegirl at 07:30 0 comments
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Just how far Howard has led the Libs astray on climate change targets

Crikey.com.au yesterday gave us a glimpse of Liberal Party climate change goals before John Howard managed to reintroduce this party to the Dark Ages.
"A reduction in 'greenhouse gas' emissions of at least 20% by the year 2000" being its core promise in 1990.
In 2007 Australia can't even get a vague reduction percentage out of Howard's Liberal Party.
 
Copy of Liberal Party campaign leaflet from the Peacock era:
 
 
Posted by clarencegirl at 05:45 0 comments
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Exactly when did Howard lose his political instinct?

Peter Hartcher's view of John Howard's lack of political instinct in The Sydney Morning Herald yesterday.
"Howard's $9.5 billion in new commitments on Monday took the Coalition's election promises to a stunning total of $65 billion. This is an extraordinary 6 per cent of the nation's total annual output as measured by GDP. It's the size of Vietnam's economy. It was a fundamental misjudgment.------He trusted in three things. First, he trusted in our greed, that we would grasp every dollar of handouts that we could get and be grateful to get them.------
Second, he trusted in our stupidity. Australia would understand cash handouts, but surely the country could not grasp some arcane economic point?------
Third, he trusted that his spending would pressure Kevin Rudd into matching him or even outspending him. If Rudd had followed suit, any outrage at crazy spending promises would not have had any partisan power but would have applied to both parties."
The Sydney Morning Herald article:
 
Peter Hartcher gives a canny account of John Howard's recent missteps and mistakes, but exactly when did the Prime Minister lose his famous edge? 
 
I don't think it can be pinpointed to one specific event. I think Howard's instinct began to fatally blunt over the period in which his government held a firm majority in the Senate. With senate numbers allowing the Prime Minister and Cabinet to ram through almost any legislation they chose to treat in this manner, both Howard and his ministers lost the ability to critically evaluate their own performance as a government.
 
Time and again, the Coalition ignored community concerns and cautions given by expert bodies.
The nature of Australian society began to warp under the weight of John Howard's personal prejudices and flawed theories.
 
After eleven years of a Coalition federal government, many MPs had also lost touch with the heartbeat of their own electorates. Additionally, hubris began to replace commonsense - Tony Abbott being a perfect although not singular example.
 
If the Coalition loses power on 24 November it will have no-one to blame but itself. The Coalition lost touch with democracy and reality, while Australia lost its trust of a parliament dominated by the far right of the political spectrum.
Posted by WaterDragon at 04:38 0 comments
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