Jaysus, that fork-tongued sssnake is at it again!

Not content with telling pork pies on his own behalf - now Libs Leader Tony Abbott is inventing words for Nats Leader Warren Truss and getting called on it when interviewed on Aunty's Insiders:

BARRIE CASSIDY: What has Warren Truss said over the last three days that you regard as meritorious?
TONY ABBOTT: Well Warren has said that he understands their position, the three rural independents, and he's happy to work with them.
BARRIE CASSIDY: I must have missed that. I haven't seen him interviewed anywhere.
TONY ABBOTT: Well look Warren has been talking to lots of people and certainly I've had lots of conversations with him and that's very much the message that I'm getting.

The NSW North Coast Nationals - better late than never?

Reduced to being the cow's rump of the Coalition partnership in 2007 and on 21 August 2010 further whittled down by voters to a mere handful of hair on the Liberal Party tail (with only seven seats held nationally outside of Queensland), have the Nationals have begun their fightback with this NSW North Coast recruitment drive in the Coastal Views on 25 August:

Ripley's Believe It Or Not - climate change

Connie Meskimen is recorded for posterity as someone who just doesn't understand how the natural world works - as she worries about the effect an extra hour of sunshine (coming her way due to daylight saving time) will have on the US climate.
Hat tip to KHayhoe for uploading the letter to Twitpic.

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Are we over the thought of a hung parliament?

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If the Google Trends graph generated at 5pm Saturday 28 August 2010 is any indication, it seems that Australian Internet users may be well on the way to switching off from the hung parliament negotiations and beginning to get on with the rest of their lives.

By last Thursday football, racing, and a celebrity chanteuse were generating more local searches than two of the terms commonly in use concerning the 21 August federal election result.

Main players get impatient for final tally in 2010 Australian Federal Election

Virtual Tally Room at 6pm on 27 August 2010
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The Denison electorate in Tasmania is one of those polling anomalies where the bulk of first preference votes clearly got to one candidate (in the this case Labor) but following preferences are expected to flow in large numbers to a second candidate (in this case an Independent).

Today the Australian Electoral Commission staff and candidates scruntineers are counting Denison preferences in this electorate according to an 27 August 2010 AEC media release.

It would appear that all the main players in the national hung parliament scenario are becoming a mite impatient and would like Andrew Wilkie's position clarified asap.

The Australian Electoral Commission (AEC) announced today that a preliminary distribution of preferences will occur in the electorate of Denison (Tasmania) this Saturday, 28 August.

State Manager and Australian Electoral Officer for Tasmania, Sandra Riordan said the decision to conduct a provisional scrutiny at this earlier stage in the count was to assist in providing some early certainty of the closely contested result of the 2010 federal election for the Electoral Division of Denison.

The provisional scrutiny on Saturday will be conducted on all available ballot papers that have been fully rechecked for the electorate of Denison, and will include all votes cast at polling places on election day, and all early votes that have been processed to date.

Following completion of the provisional scrutiny a further media release will be issued and available on the AEC website.

A provisional scrutiny involves a full distribution of preferences on the ballot papers, and scrutineers are able to be present during the count. The first distribution reallocates the votes of the candidate with the fewest first preferences to the next available candidate. Following that distribution, the votes of the candidate with the next fewest votes will be reallocated to the remaining available candidates. Finally the votes of the candidate that then has the fewest votes remaining will be reallocated. After that third distribution it is expected that the leading candidate, and consequently the likely result of the election, will become clear.

For more information on the counting of votes in the 2010 federal election, visit the virtual tally room.