Australia Decides: Old Moon-faced McPsychopath vs Sleazy McNoPlans
September 6, 2013 5:04 AM Subscribe

Australia goes to the polls tomorrow. Want the skinny on three word slogans? Want to know about the fabled voters of 'middle Australia'? Are you confused about preferential voting? Aussie comedian Dan Ilic has you covered with #C@%TASTROPHE 2013: Guide to the Election.

Some Election day extras:

Comedy

Don't Be a Fucking Idiot: A Sweary, Angry Yet Accurate Comparison of Policy, (which has unfortunately been subjected to some last minute bully boy tactics by the Coalition (PDF)).

First Dog on the Moon explains the Labor Party's new approach to refugee policy.

Previously on MeFi, Dennis the Election Koala explains that you can't waste your vote, and the Guardian helps out with its Three Word Slogan Generator.

Some straight-out pessimism from Vice: Here Comes a Victory of Shit.

Actually useful stuff

The Global Mail's Preferences Game is a fun visualisation of how the various parties are organising their Senate preferences.

Below the Line will help you work out your Senate preferences before you vote.

This visualisation shows the various election promises made by the Coalition and Labor Party leaders (since 6 August 2013), their costs, and where the promises were made. See also Crikey's Cash Tracker.

After working up a solid election day appetite, find yourself a traditional sausage sizzle and slice of cake with the SnagVotes map.

Finally, if you're feeling nostalgic, step back in time to when it all began (on MeFi, anyway): It's on.

posted by His thoughts were red thoughts (280 comments total) 24 users marked this as a favorite

I say every four years we give some portion of the AEC's budget to the fivethirtyeight guy and let him tell us who's in government. No campaign, no ads, no signs, no voting, just a barbie at home.
posted by obiwanwasabi at 5:08 AM on September 6, 2013

Great post, Red Thoughts. We haven't had much Oz election talk on the blue! I gotta admit to feeling a lot of trepidation about tomorrow.. I'm still clutching on to some optimism.. But i fear that Sunday morning Australia is going to wake to a 4 year nightmare.. In my opinion anyways. Thanks for putting together such a great collection of links!
posted by Philby at 5:13 AM on September 6, 2013

Oh no! I forgot Dave vs the Minor Parties Parts 1 and 2, where comedian Dave Bloustien mercilessly skewers oblivious Senate hopefuls.
posted by His thoughts were red thoughts at 5:32 AM on September 6, 2013

Federal elections are every three years guys. Thankfully.
posted by Quilford at 5:39 AM on September 6, 2013

I feel sick to my stomach. I'm physically dreading the outcome tomorrow.

Still, I have some shreds of my poor, tattered optimism still flapping in the breeze. Maybe the polls are wrong?

I guess we'll find out soon enough.
posted by h00py at 5:42 AM on September 6, 2013 [1 favorite]

Philby: I've only been here for nine years, but I thought federal elections were three years apart? Not that it would make the nightmare of an LNP leadership any less disturbing... Neither Rudd nor Abbott are a great choice, but looking at the comparative front benches and it becomes cringe worthy.

I'll be going through these links tomorrow. Might try to find a sausage sizzle. Lipids and alcohol. It'll dull things for Sunday.
posted by michswiss at 5:44 AM on September 6, 2013

I feel sick to my stomach. I'm physically dreading the outcome tomorrow.

Yep. That's why I thought we could all do with some comedy.
posted by His thoughts were red thoughts at 5:45 AM on September 6, 2013

Excellent place to share this interview of Clive Palmer on Today. As a non-Aussie who's used to much more anodyne interviews, I couldn't stop laughing at this.
posted by dry white toast at 5:53 AM on September 6, 2013

Excellent place to share this interview of Clive Palmer on Today.

If you liked that, you'll love this. Sketch comedy show Wednesday Night Fever did some sketches involving Clive (impersonated by Heath Franklin of Chopper fame).

Turns out that Clive's a fan of the show - he asked them to let him do his own sketch, which he wrote himself. It's a doozy.
posted by His thoughts were red thoughts at 6:07 AM on September 6, 2013

Yeah, my typo there- it's definitely every 3 years, unless something weird like a double dissolution goes down. Sorry for the confusion. It could still be a years long nightmare though!
posted by Philby at 6:22 AM on September 6, 2013

As an overseas Aussie, the more I hear about tomorrow's election the more I find it a relief to be on the other side of the world at present. The coverage from Gruen and the Chaser team have been some bright spots though.
posted by AlienGrace at 6:56 AM on September 6, 2013

My prediction: Libs win the lower house and Greens to win the balance of power in senate, ultimately forcing a double dissolution.
posted by Joe Chip at 7:09 AM on September 6, 2013

As the new Senate doesn't sit until July 2014, there's no mechanism to force a double dissolution before then as they can't dissolve a house that hasn't sat yet. There can be no double dissolution until 2015 (as per the redoubtable Antony Green).
posted by chiquitita at 7:11 AM on September 6, 2013 [4 favorites]

It could still be a years long nightmare though!

Speak for yourself. For me this nightmare has been decades in the making. Decades. Abbott disclosed only this morning he was praying for humility and wisdom. That's right. Policy by epiphany.

All that endearing 'daggy-dad' stuff we've just endured without going berko? That's right. Subtext. Paternalism: commences Monday 9th, 9am. You think you know what's in your own best interests? We bomb Syria! You weren't told? Don't you worry your pretty little head about the badies. You thought you knew what mandate was? Ha!

Who's our daddy? We won't shift this jerK for 12 years. And I looked at every link, too, just to see the funny side.
posted by de at 7:17 AM on September 6, 2013 [2 favorites]

Thanks chiquitita. Any chance of posting the links? Can't have a good election post without some Anthony Green.
posted by Joe Chip at 7:18 AM on September 6, 2013

Can't have a good election post without some Anthony Green.

Antony Green on the possibility of a double dissolution.
posted by His thoughts were red thoughts at 7:25 AM on September 6, 2013

A friend of mine is in LA, and on going to the embassy or whatever to cast her vote found to her horror that there was no sausage sizzle.

It's fuckin unAustralian I tell youse. The constitution explicitly states that your vote only counts if you consume a sausage sanga immediately after casting it. The vote, not the sandwich, being cast that is, there's been a bit too much of that recently.

We need to teach those damn seppos what democracy tastes like - cheap sausages, burnt onions, and the cheapest whitest white bread you can get from the local hot bread shop. It's not like Aristotle, good bloke that he was, didn't mention this fuckin stuff in his fuckin book on Politics.
posted by Hello, I'm David McGahan at 7:44 AM on September 6, 2013 [12 favorites]

I've printed out charts of electorates to colour in, and posters of names to cross out. I invite people around and we all get drunk and throw things at the tv. This year though, it seems most people are statying away, knowing it will just be to depressing.

There are some things to look forward to. Like Jaymes Diaz bumbling victory speach. Sophia Mirabella being beat by an independent, and finding out in a few days who will be in the Labor opposition leader.
posted by Burgatron at 7:55 AM on September 6, 2013

The *only* thing I've let through has been Gruen and that shit has been mega fuNNy. I can't believe what people intimate about the polls though. Obviously we tend to associate with like-minded people consciously or otherwise, but it seems positively weird that the fascists are said to be set for a big win, yet I've not seen ANYONE anywhere (you know, regular voters) say anything supporting the Abbott bastards. My ignorance helps me retain some vague feeling of optimism, but it's still punctuated by depressing thoughts of what the future may vomit on us next week. Abbott is one of the biggest misogynistic theocratic bumbling fuckwits ever to enter parliament and I just know he's gonna go totally apeshit with the power under his delusions.

PLEASE PEOPLE, VOTE INFORMAL OR ANYTHING OTHER THAN THE BLOODY LIBS, if you can't quite swallow the idea of direct help for krudd. Oh shit oh shit oh shit shit shit bugger fuck shit fuck you labor what have you fucking done to us?!!!
posted by peacay at 8:55 AM on September 6, 2013 [2 favorites]

A friend of mine is in LA, and on going to the embassy or whatever to cast her vote found to her horror that there was no sausage sizzle.

Since I moved here to the outer suburbs of Hobart, there's never been a sausage sizzle at the polling place - there's usually just a scary guy with tattoos on his neck, hanging around the park looking like he wants to shiv you. He must vote Palmer United.

Rarely any Liberal HTVers to be seen, though. They know what's good for 'em.

Libs win the lower house and Greens to win the balance of power in senate, ultimately forcing a double dissolution.

Greens retaining the balance of power is far from guaranteed, once we see which fascist micro-parties those red blooded folk in QLD and NSW can get over the line in the senate.

Fuck it. I give it 4 months before we start seeing some TURNBULLMENTUM.
posted by Jimbob at 10:25 AM on September 6, 2013 [1 favorite]

Turnbull for shore will be opposition leader is the Libs lose.

I'm interested to see who possibly ends up the Labor opposition leader. I know he wasn't Mr popular but I liked Combet as a future leader (Roxon too). I also like Albo but he will be tainted by Rudd. I HAVE NO IDEA.
posted by Burgatron at 10:36 AM on September 6, 2013

I've not seen ANYONE anywhere (you know, regular voters) say anything supporting the Abbott bastards

A couple of my siblings are ecstatic that finally someone trustworthy and good at economics will be in and will act responsibly about refugees. Could be worse, I could be less than 18 hours away.
posted by jacalata at 12:09 PM on September 6, 2013 [1 favorite]

A couple of my siblings are ecstatic that finally someone trustworthy and good at economics will be in and will act responsibly about refugees.

Ouch.

I might be much more at peace at the moment, and less liable to get into verbal slanging matches with the Tories at the booth later today - I just drove past, looks they decided to turn up this time - if I could understand exactly what on earth people seem to think is wrong with the economy?

As far as I can figure out, millions upon millions of people are hurting because 4K super hi-def internet-connected plasma TVs aren't quite as cheap as they were hoping, and they won't be able to trade in for a new Statesman this year, like they have the last 5, and will have to settle for a Calais instead.

We don't have cost of living pressures, but a lot of people seem to have cost of lifestyle pressures. Well, good luck with that under austerity, you muppets.
posted by Jimbob at 2:30 PM on September 6, 2013 [7 favorites]

Jimbob you're reading austerity all wrongly. During the last week I have listened to Abbott divulged a Jesuit-education, and a lifelong disinterest in money. We're all to become minimalists. Abbott's not your regular suppository, he's something else again.
posted by de at 3:52 PM on September 6, 2013 [2 favorites]

I just met up with my mum, who was passing through town, and who's getting somewhat reactionary in her old age. She started off by arguing that the NSA reading everyone's secrets is justifiable because the Muslims want to kill us. (She didn't go on to say that Manning/Snowden/Greenwald are traitors, but her husband had expressed those views before, so I imagine that would have been the subtext.)

After that, everything went well until she asked if I voted and for whom; when I mention having voted for the Greens, she went incandescent and started expounding that they are evil Communists. Literally Communists, five-year-plan and gulags for kulaks and everything.
When I mentioned that my old MP, Adam Bandt, was a good representative, the expression on her face is as if she had, after a lifetime, heard the name of the concentration-camp guard who murdered her entire family; Bandt, I was animatedly informed, is the most contemptible kind of swine ever. Meanwhile, Tony Abbott is an intelligent, moderate and eminently sensible leader for Australia, being a Rhodes scholar and a skilled economist. All those claims that he's a religious fanatic and a misogynist are propaganda from agenda-carrying leftists. I swear, had it been in her power, she'd have dragged me back to the Australian High Commission and made me change my vote.

The thing is, she has generally been an intelligent and observant person, but has tipped over towards the reactionary Right in recent years. (She resents any implication of being reactionary, of course, believing her views to be common sense, and arguments against them being mere fashion-following.) I suspect part of that is her husband's influence (he has a somewhat Hobbesian worldview, where everything is a matter of forces being brought to bear; incidentally, for what it's worth, he's a (retired) oil-industry engineer by profession).

The ironic thing is that she lived part of her life behind the Iron Curtain in Communist-ruled Poland, and has seen the workings of a totalitarian state, but nonetheless she discounts the threat of an unanswerable surveillance state against the (statistically far smaller) threat of terrorism, whilst attributing Stalinist tendencies to a party based on an impression of some Green candidate reminding her of the Communist apparatchiks she remembers from her time in Warsaw.
posted by acb at 3:58 PM on September 6, 2013 [3 favorites]

The worst thing is that Labor brought this on themselves - not through any policy, but through all the leadership bullshit and the NSW right. I entertain this fantasy where Rudd was never replaced; he would have comfortably won the 2010 election as every other leader in that position has historically, and in 2013 would be gracefully handing over to Gillard, and Abbott wouldn't stand a chance.

I just hope their hubris doesn't cost us the senate, or fucking DLP/Katter/Xenophon holding balance of power. On ABC yesterday, Nick Frigging Minchin of all people actually went on record saying that if it was a choice between those minors and the greens, he hopes the greens get BOP. Nick Minchin. The Greens. This is the Austrian neoliberal, climate-change denier who devoted most of his political career to destroying the Greens.

Best case scenario for me is that Bandt stays in, Mirabella loses, and BOP stays with Greens. It would be nice if Labor learnt their fucking lesson and stopped this terrible bullshit, too, but I don't have high hopes.
posted by smoke at 4:32 PM on September 6, 2013 [2 favorites]

Cognitive dissonance is a hell of a drug acb!

Weirdly enough my parents are getting more progressive as they get older - though my dad is somewhat erratic. A year ago he was firmly in the 'ditch the witch' camp, only to change his mind after the Ruddturnering. It kinda only makes sense if you know about his long held hatred for the NSW Labor party.

Bandt is my local member and I'm hoping that he keeps his seat. More widely I'm hoping that this election, and the last 3 years as well, is as low as political discourse can sink in this country but that's a pretty vain hope at this point. For instance I was going to comment on an online newspaper comment the other day from some dill arguing that the FTTP was already obsolete, because Japan was installing.... faster FTTP, and that wireless was the way of the future and would be faster than fibre in the future. But then I realised that there was little point. There's some non-insignificant proportion of the electorate that is so far into firmly not even wrong territory that their only hope is to keep on going and hope they come around the other side, like a 'so bad it's good' movie or something. More likely they'll just continue to blurt out whatever ever up is down, day is night, etc nonsense the Terrorgraph, Hun, and Border Fail serves up.
posted by Hello, I'm David McGahan at 4:46 PM on September 6, 2013 [2 favorites]

Bandt looks likely to stay in, judging by the polls. I'm more concerned about Scott Ludlam, who has done more to fight for digital rights in Australia than any other politician, and for some reason who ended up behind the Tories on the Wikileaks Party's preference sheet. (I have no idea what's going on there: Julian Assange exercising some kind of betrayal fetish perhaps, or just plain bribery?) If he loses his seat (which some polls predict as likely), it may be due to low-information voters voting Wikileaks in the hope of fighting for privacy/transparency/an end to surveillance and achieving precisely the opposite.
posted by acb at 4:46 PM on September 6, 2013 [1 favorite]

For instance I was going to comment on an online newspaper comment the other day from some dill arguing that the FTTP was already obsolete, because Japan was installing.... faster FTTP, and that wireless was the way of the future and would be faster than fibre in the future.

My mother informs me that Labor's expensive and corrupt FTTP is obsolete because the Liberals' policy will use satellites. And that her husband, who's an engineer, told her this, and knows what he's talking about.

There's a lot of Chewbacca Defence going on.
posted by acb at 4:49 PM on September 6, 2013 [1 favorite]

Yeah, Wikileaks royally screwed the pooch with their preference antics. Oddly enough the large number of unregistered young voters, some of whom may have voted for them for the reasons you note, might actually work in the Green's favour. But that's probably more wishful thinking on my part.

I do have one close friend who is voting liberal, or would vote liberal if he hadn't somehow slipped off the electoral roll and could be bothered to re-enrol. He at least has a rational reason - owning a small business in the hospitality industry he is somewhat unsurprisingly keen to see penalty rates reduced.
posted by Hello, I'm David McGahan at 5:02 PM on September 6, 2013

I just finished ordering my preferences on belowtheline.org.au, and found out that my printer is almost out of ink. So I renumbered the paper by hand so I can read it in a dingy polling place. Possibly I should have conserved my hand strength for the real thing, but I've made some fairly perverse choices where the numbers get high, and I've forgotten why in the 20 minutes since I made them (I'm sure I had my reasons. Past me wouldn't steer me wrong, she's good people), so numbering is going to be a nightmare without a readable cheat sheet.

God I love elections. Except for the part where this day will determine the course of the next three years and beyond, and it's probably going to suck.
posted by misfish at 5:12 PM on September 6, 2013 [4 favorites]

If he loses his seat (which some polls predict as likely), it may be due to low-information voters voting Wikileaks in the hope of fighting for privacy/transparency/an end to surveillance and achieving precisely the opposite.

I doubt there are that many privacy/transparency/digital rights people out there by now who aren't aware of Wikileaks' shennanigans and are on board with the Pirate Party instead; although having said that, the Pirate Party aren't fielding any senate candidates in WA. I'm assuming there are about 50 people left in the country who actually plan on deliberately voting Wikileaks, and any votes they get above that figure are donkeys.

Anyway, I'm going go do the deed, see if I can help keep one Tasmanian seat Labor.
posted by Jimbob at 5:29 PM on September 6, 2013

Was that a callout?
posted by pompomtom at 5:35 PM on September 6, 2013 [1 favorite]

Was that a callout?

I'm not sure, but that's what initially prompted me to put together this FPP.

But, by the by, I just had an excellent sausage-inna-bun. And an election day muffin! An an orange chocolate brownie!

I'm really just in it for the munchies. Numbering below the line works up a wicked hunger.
posted by His thoughts were red thoughts at 7:36 PM on September 6, 2013 [2 favorites]

You son of a bitch. My colitis is playing up, so I had to ignore the sausage sizzle (which was cheap as hell at marsden high), AND the bonus cake stall they had. Sob.

I had plain rye bread for lunch. Yummy bloody yummy.
posted by smoke at 7:45 PM on September 6, 2013 [1 favorite]

I'm terribly disappointed with Australian politics at the moment, but I love Election Day. I love everyone queueing up peacefully to exercise their democratic rights. I love people with wildly opposing political views standing next to each other and offering you how to vote cards. I love the smooth efficiency with which the AEC works -- it is truly, as somebody said in our last federal election thread here, one of our most under-appreciated public institutions.

Today my polling place/primary school had a sausage sizzle, a cake stall, and the school's Concert Band playing something that may or may not have been Chattanooga Choo Choo. Election Day! It rocks!

Now if only we could get some politicians worthy of all that cake.
posted by Georgina at 7:51 PM on September 6, 2013 [6 favorites]

You son of a bitch. My colitis is playing up, so I had to ignore the sausage sizzle (which was cheap as hell at marsden high), AND the bonus cake stall they had. Sob.

The infant school I voted at had organic bacon and egg rolls, with eggs from the school chooks. But I opted for the sausage, because tradition.

Now, Blue Mountains pear cider.
posted by His thoughts were red thoughts at 7:51 PM on September 6, 2013 [1 favorite]

I'm terribly disappointed with Australian politics at the moment, but I love Election Day.

I couldn't agree more.

The infant school I voted at had [a vast cornucopia delectable consumables]

No you're just rubbing it in. I can't even get drunk, either.
posted by smoke at 7:57 PM on September 6, 2013

This is how I'm trying to stay positive. Lots of music and interesting threads to follow, voting under the line with a look of fierce concentration on my face (why are there so many to put last?), a sausage in a bun minus the bun and the thought of all the cider I will drink later on whilst roaring at the television. Stroya!
posted by h00py at 8:03 PM on September 6, 2013 [1 favorite]

Concert Band playing something that may or may not have been Chattanooga Choo Choo

Barnaby Joyce?
posted by Hello, I'm David McGahan at 8:31 PM on September 6, 2013

I can't even get drunk, either.

I will shoulder your burden, comrade.

(I pre-voted, so no democracy snag for me. SO is putting together a consolation cheeseboard though, so things are looking up there....)
posted by pompomtom at 8:40 PM on September 6, 2013 [1 favorite]

I can't even get drunk, either.

Dude. Not OK, especially tonight.
posted by His thoughts were red thoughts at 8:46 PM on September 6, 2013 [2 favorites]

peacay: "I've not seen ANYONE anywhere (you know, regular voters) say anything supporting the Abbott bastards."

That's delightfully close to Pauline Kael's alleged quote about Nixon voters.

But you might also come out to WA sometime (if you do, we'll throw a long-overdue Perth meetup!), because among the people I work with when I go up into the Pilbara I've heard quite a bit of support for Abbott and his ilk.

And indeed, I'm currently sitting in a Qantas lounge in Melbourne and I ended up taking myself off to a far distant corner because I sat for a little too long next to a loudmouth who was (at 110 decibels) saying things supporting the Abbott bastards.
posted by barnacles at 9:10 PM on September 6, 2013 [1 favorite]

No snags for me, but I picked up a rather nice jar of tomato chutney at my polling booth.

I'm finding today incredibly depressing (particularly the number of folks holding the Liberal how to vote card in the queue as I waited to get my ballot papers - this is in Perth). However, I'm trying hold onto the silver lining: as a very wise friend of mine said, we are about to enter a golden age of Australian political satire. It is inevitable given the material.

Now if you'll excuse me, I'll be weeping into my pint of scotch in the corner here.
posted by Alice Russel-Wallace at 9:15 PM on September 6, 2013 [1 favorite]

Alice Russel-Wallace: "... we are about to enter a golden age of Australian political satire."

Yup. If there's any silver lining, it's that we might have more Gruen Politics and more Hamster Wheel mockery.

I mean, there's gonna be a metric fuckton of shit linings, but I'm gonna ignore them and just go with the silver one.
posted by barnacles at 9:18 PM on September 6, 2013

Dude. Not OK, especially tonight.

I know, it's just the worst. I had even bought beers and bombay sapphire and everything. Will have to pour one out for my homie Rudd.
posted by smoke at 9:56 PM on September 6, 2013

.
posted by drnick at 11:12 PM on September 6, 2013 [2 favorites]

Oh excellent! I was hoping someone would start a thread. Thanks His thoughts were red thoughts.

We're in Deputy PM Albo's seat and scored an excellent sausage-on-a-bun at Taverners Hill Infants School. Interestingly only Greens and Labor handing out how to votes.

Admittedly, I'm an insular inner-west lefty, but I have no idea where this Liberal landslide is supposed to come from - all the Liberals I know are protest-voting Bullet Train.
posted by the.carol.baxter.experience at 11:33 PM on September 6, 2013

all the Liberals I know are protest-voting Bullet Train.

VOTE [1] THOMAS
posted by His thoughts were red thoughts at 11:41 PM on September 6, 2013 [2 favorites]

While filling out my ballot, a young guy in the booth next to me politely asked for help: he didn't understand the boxes and numbering. At first I panicked, thinking we weren't allowed to talk to each other, as if it were some sort of exam. I looked around, waiting for someone to come and growl at me, but of course that didn't happen. I started explaining, but he still didn't get it. I felt bad for him, wanting to make sure his vote counted, so asked him, "Who do you want to vote for?" with the intention of giving him more directed help. He replied, "Liberal" and a part of me died and I thought, do I really want to help him vote in Tony Abbott? Luckily an Electoral Commission helper came over and I let her explain, but he still didn't get it and she walked away and he looked at me and I caved in and pointed to the Liberal candidate box on his green slip: "Put a 1 there and then choose your preferences, say for the Greens next and then the rest." Maybe he listened...

My Canadian-born but newly Australian citizen husband got to vote today in his first Aussie election. I made him fill out all his senate preferences below the line - just to make sure he got the full experience. :) He was stunned at the size of the ballot paper and that nothing was done by machines. It was kind of exciting in that it was a new experience for him, and we'll watch the results come in on ABC iView tonight, but I wish it was a more inspiring election.

Come Monday I think we're all screwed.
posted by {quick brown fox} at 11:58 PM on September 6, 2013 [1 favorite]

This "sausage sizzle" idea intrigues me. I'm very upset that we don't have our election day on the weekend in the U.S. I'd love to have an Election Day Barbecue. Good luck to my Aussie relations.
posted by ob1quixote at 12:08 AM on September 7, 2013 [1 favorite]

"Put a 1 there and then choose your preferences, say for the Greens next and then the rest."

Funny thing at my polling place today; the local Labor candidate's HTV card, by some good luck, involved simply numbering the boxes sequentially, 1-7, top to bottom.

When I went to the desk and picked up my ballot, the worker there instructed me "Just number the boxes here, 1 to 7", indicating the boxes with a downwards motion of his finger...

Mrs Jimbob interpreted it as benign. I'm figuring for a very slight evidence of a little bit of ALP suggestiveness... Ah well.
posted by Jimbob at 12:30 AM on September 7, 2013

.
posted by panaceanot at 12:33 AM on September 7, 2013

In other years I've got up in the dark and handed out in the hail far from home. This year it was very very hard to cast any sort of a formal vote. I want everyone to lose.

I made a cake this morning for the school stall and had some snags. As ever, loved the pencils.
posted by hawthorne at 12:37 AM on September 7, 2013 [1 favorite]

Mrs Jimbob interpreted it as benign. I'm figuring for a very slight evidence of a little bit of ALP suggestiveness... Ah well.

Yeah, I'd probably see some suggestiveness in there too...though I'd hope people wouldn't be that naive to actually do it.
posted by {quick brown fox} at 12:43 AM on September 7, 2013

Well, people are naive enough to follow HTV cards to begin with...
posted by Jimbob at 12:54 AM on September 7, 2013 [2 favorites]

Good point Jimbob.
posted by {quick brown fox} at 12:58 AM on September 7, 2013

On a positive note, I just saw this tweet in my feed:

"As Australian's head 2 the polls together we have hit a worldwide peak 4 the use of the word #sausage on Twitter in 2013! #AusVotes"

That's something. :)
posted by {quick brown fox} at 1:00 AM on September 7, 2013 [1 favorite]

The ABC TV coverage starts now. I'm too frightened to watch in case Anthony Green has called it already.
posted by drnick at 1:00 AM on September 7, 2013 [1 favorite]

I'm a bit pissed that they dug out red kezza instead of Leigh.
posted by smoke at 1:01 AM on September 7, 2013

If you've not had time to sit and imagine the Abbott family, on stage, thanking Australia for the great honour. Please. For your own good.

This is going to be quick.
posted by de at 1:13 AM on September 7, 2013

Well thanks to this trusty site I was able to look at all the be-sausage sizzled up polling places in anticipation of the vote.

I must say, this campaign has been depressing but I do love voting day. I love the ordered lines. I love the local schools and communities raising money with their sausage sizzles and cake stalls. I love that everyone's out exercising their right to vote. I love that we can do it peacefully and without intimidation. And I love the AEC's twitter feed ("If you number all the boxes correctly, but then ALSO draw a dick on yr ballot paper, is it considered an informal vote?")
posted by mooza at 1:16 AM on September 7, 2013 [6 favorites]

58 minutes after the polls close in the Eastern States and Anthony Green calls it for the Liberal-Nationals. Is that a record?
posted by drnick at 1:59 AM on September 7, 2013

Mike Kelly looks like he's in with a shot in Eden-Monaro. Good on ya, dude. He's a good candidate who's worked hard. Also looks like Diaz' stupidity may cost coalition the seat in Greenway. Yay.
posted by smoke at 2:12 AM on September 7, 2013

Julie Collins is holding it together here in Franklin, so Labor might not be a total wipeout in Tasmania.
posted by Jimbob at 2:17 AM on September 7, 2013

Boooo, they reckon Mirabella to retain Indi, damn it.
posted by smoke at 2:20 AM on September 7, 2013

Boooo, they reckon Mirabella to retain Indi, damn it.

She'll get her reward in a dark corner of hell.
posted by Jimbob at 2:23 AM on September 7, 2013

Why should hell have all the fun?
posted by de at 2:24 AM on September 7, 2013

Wilkie to hold, yay.
posted by smoke at 2:25 AM on September 7, 2013 [1 favorite]

No thanks to Labor, prefencing coalition. Cocksuckers.
posted by smoke at 2:29 AM on September 7, 2013 [2 favorites]

ALP in Denison have directed preferences to Liberals, rather than Wilkie, the useless bastards. I don't think he's safe yet.
posted by Jimbob at 2:30 AM on September 7, 2013 [2 favorites]

Also, what a fucking surprise - Griffith to be safe Labor hold. Turns out all those polls were total bullshit. Fancy that. Fuuuuuuu
posted by smoke at 2:32 AM on September 7, 2013 [1 favorite]

I won't shed a tear for my former member, John Murphy in Reid. A total dickhead. Wrote to him once about some homophobic comments he made re gay marriage, and he wrote back to have it out with me. Also, I lived in that seat for about seven years, and never saw him once, despite living in the middle of Strathfield. Hopefully the next Labor member they get (whenever that will be) won't be such a troglodyte smarmy twat.

Sad that Jason Yat Sen Li looks to lose in Bennelong. Hope he sticks around. He was a great candidate and they campaigned hard.
posted by smoke at 2:35 AM on September 7, 2013 [1 favorite]

That little pissant Wyatt Roy to retain his seat.
posted by smoke at 2:41 AM on September 7, 2013 [1 favorite]

Also, the insanely successful results of PUP are a testament basically to why money is so important in election. Those results are straight from advertising.
posted by smoke at 2:43 AM on September 7, 2013 [1 favorite]

I haven't been paying attention to Palmer at all until today, when I was handed one of their leaflets.

As far as I can figure out, they're basically CUT TAXES FOR EVERYONE EVERYWHERE ALL THE TIME AND BUY LOTS OF COOL SHIT.

Lowest common denominator.
posted by Jimbob at 2:46 AM on September 7, 2013 [1 favorite]

Mal Brough wins. Peter Slipper scored 1.5% of the vote.
posted by Jimbob at 2:46 AM on September 7, 2013

ABC calling a Bandt win, it seems!
posted by Jimbob at 2:47 AM on September 7, 2013 [2 favorites]

Yeah I saw that. Fisher is my birth electorate. On one hand, I'm happy that useless bag of dicks Slipper got the drubbing he deserved. On the other, that slimy f**ker Mal Brough is an evil bag of dick. And PUP is almost eclisping Labor. WTF sunshine coast people, you are seriously so damned stupid.
posted by smoke at 2:48 AM on September 7, 2013 [1 favorite]

Well, Shayne Neumann in Blair (my electorate) will almost certainly retain his seat so yay for my vote. I fully intend writing to him with some of my thoughts regarding how incredibly unhappy I am with the squandering of goodwill and the unbelievable shitting of their own bed by the Labor Party.

I'm so angry right now and have commenced roaring at the TV and any human who comes within my sphere of reference.

It's all about the Senate now, it seems.
posted by h00py at 2:49 AM on September 7, 2013 [1 favorite]

Sticking my neck out: Given Wayne Swan has survived, Wayne Swan will lead the Opposition.
posted by de at 2:50 AM on September 7, 2013

Given Wayne Swan has survived, Wayne Swan will lead the Opposition.

Oh jesus no. No fucking way. Rudd is more likely to stay than Swan to lead. No one would vote for him. I've got socks with more charisma and a better ability to connect with the public.

Indeed, though this is a loss, I would actually, tentatively, chalk this up as an effective win for Rudd. They were never going to win, but with Bowen and lots of QLDers holding on, the furniture has been effectively saved, and Rudd has accomplished what he was brought back to do.
posted by smoke at 2:53 AM on September 7, 2013

Rudd won't stay. He'll hold 'interim' leader who under new caucus rules cannot be contender for leadership. Swan didn't exit politics with the other Gillard faithfuls for one reason: to stop Shorten's rise.

On that basis, go Swan!
posted by de at 2:59 AM on September 7, 2013

Dude, you are really mixed up: Swan and Shorten are on the same side. They were both architects of Rudd's initial downfall. They would not compete against each other, and if they did, Shorten would receive all the factional backing (and they are part of the same faction).

If the Labor party has even a skerrick of sense left, they will let Rudd keep leadership for maybe a year or so, before passing on to some of the talented newbies like Bowen, Clare (if he's around), Plibersek (in my dreams; I fear it will be a long time indeed before we see another female leader of Labor, unfortunately), etc, with talented safe-seat people like Andrew Leigh moving into shadow cabinet.
posted by smoke at 3:03 AM on September 7, 2013

Dude, Shorten was cut off from the inner circle as a snitch weeks before Rudd's last challenge. No-one is talking with the head bobbing number crunching sleaze bag ;-)
posted by de at 3:05 AM on September 7, 2013 [1 favorite]

I can only hope so De.

Latest news, Palmer set to get up. Hahaha. It was safe coalition seat anyway.
posted by smoke at 3:07 AM on September 7, 2013

Honest question; in all this discussion about Labor leadership, why does no-one ever mention Albanese?

Oh shit, ABC's taken Bandt away again...
posted by Jimbob at 3:08 AM on September 7, 2013 [1 favorite]

The upper echelon of the Labor Party, all factions, need to have a good hard look at themselves. It's all the fucking ridiculous game playing and power struggles that have caused this defeat. Many people will only put up with so much before they fall full-bodied into the arms of the right which panders to selfish notions and the notion of teaching people a lesson. Raargh!
posted by h00py at 3:08 AM on September 7, 2013 [2 favorites]

Penny Wong for PM!
posted by Quilford at 3:11 AM on September 7, 2013 [5 favorites]

Penny Wong for PM!

Damn, if only you could have a PM from the senate.
posted by Jimbob at 3:13 AM on September 7, 2013

Not too pleased with the decline in the Greens vote - I'm assuming the protest-vote component has drifted away a little to Katter/Palmer etc. Scary times if the trend continues in the Senate.
posted by Jimbob at 3:17 AM on September 7, 2013 [2 favorites]

11% of the vote to Clive Palmer's party in Queensland! Unbelievable. The man is clearly bonkers.
posted by drnick at 3:18 AM on September 7, 2013

> if only you could have a PM from the senate.

We can, over a short term, but a prompt and clear path into the house of reps is required. Not sure if that applies to leader of opposition. Don't see why not. (John Gordon was senator when chosen as PM.)

> It's all the fucking ridiculous game playing and power struggles that have caused this defeat.

Which is precisely why Shorten has got to go.
posted by de at 3:19 AM on September 7, 2013 [1 favorite]

All bits crossed for a Sophie Mirabella loss!
posted by the.carol.baxter.experience at 3:19 AM on September 7, 2013 [3 favorites]

The man is clearly bonkers.

Or, alternatively, Queensland is.

Meanwhile, all class from JG.
posted by Jimbob at 3:20 AM on September 7, 2013 [2 favorites]

It seems like the informal vote has only ticked up the tiniest amount; less than 0.1% ... I'm quite surprised by that.
posted by adamt at 3:20 AM on September 7, 2013 [1 favorite]

Even Barnaby Joyce thinks Palmer is bonkers. Now that's rich.
posted by drnick at 3:26 AM on September 7, 2013 [2 favorites]

11% of the vote to Clive Palmer's party in Queensland! Unbelievable.

That right there is the difference that money makes.
posted by smoke at 3:29 AM on September 7, 2013 [1 favorite]

At least Heath Franklin's excellent Clive Palmer impression will pay dividends.
posted by His thoughts were red thoughts at 3:33 AM on September 7, 2013 [2 favorites]

Barnaby's partying with Gina, Clive wins a seat, and Rupert got his win. Indeed, it's the difference money makes.
posted by Jimbob at 3:36 AM on September 7, 2013 [1 favorite]

For those curious in what the non-reality-based community, i.e journalists, are writing, read this piece in the smh which captures so much of what is wrong with reporting (I look forward to the non-existent piece in the SMH about how completely wrong all the polls, especially the bullshit robopolls).

Additionally, the article contends that Bill Shorten was one of the better campaign performers so presumably some high quality crack was involved in its writing.

Combet on ABC now, has the temerity to say how successful Gillard would have been if she had had "an uninterrupted" run. If we're trading counter-factuals, Greg, lets imagine what would have happened if Rudd had had an uninterrupted run, and was now handing over to Gillard, you idiot.
posted by smoke at 3:41 AM on September 7, 2013

Oh also, I'd be happy with Bowen as leadership material. More so than Clare.
posted by smoke at 3:51 AM on September 7, 2013

Bowen is a future prime minister, they won't put him in the opposition-lead too early (IMO).
posted by de at 3:54 AM on September 7, 2013 [1 favorite]

I'm in the seat of Melbourne and have been watching (watching? refreshing?) the results on the AEC page. Bandt's first preferences are up ~7-7.5% for last time at the moment, and 2 party v ALP has dropped from -~3% an hour or so ago to -~0.3%. Fuck yeah inner North Melbourne!

Also, if there is the inevitable by-election I feel that we all need to chip in to help out Smoke to make up the election day essentials they've been missing out on.
posted by Hello, I'm David McGahan at 4:00 AM on September 7, 2013 [3 favorites]

PUP have one senator up in Tassie. Madness.
posted by smoke at 4:01 AM on September 7, 2013

wat
posted by Jimbob at 4:06 AM on September 7, 2013

Queensland...... Queensland is different. I've a lot of extended family that live up there, on both sides of my family.

From a comedy point of view I'm really looking forward to a lower house with both Barnaby and Clive in it. Particularly Clive - Question Time gold!
posted by Hello, I'm David McGahan at 4:08 AM on September 7, 2013 [1 favorite]

Actually, I take that back. That's what the ABC results page is showing - but I'm not confident it's accurate.
posted by smoke at 4:09 AM on September 7, 2013

It should be amazing that the ALP gained in 2 party in Batman against the GRNs, particularly given that a long serving member was retiring. Makes more sense if you'd ever had to exchange pleasantries with Martin Fergusen when he was campaigning at your train station the last couple of times round.
posted by Hello, I'm David McGahan at 4:12 AM on September 7, 2013

Good riddance to Mar'n. If only "Coal" Fitzgibbon would lose his seat, too. Those guys were in the wrong party.
posted by smoke at 4:14 AM on September 7, 2013

It was a lot of fun waiting for the train while watching him getting chewed out by successive progressive Northcote types last time around. Wrong place to be a grumpy old white dude that's all for fossil fuels, traditional marriages and gender roles, and nuclear power. Particularly at half 7 in the morning.
posted by Hello, I'm David McGahan at 4:19 AM on September 7, 2013 [2 favorites]

Well, it looks like the LNP aren't going to hold a majority in the Senate, so that's at least something. Let's all push for sane and logical debate, shall we?
posted by h00py at 4:22 AM on September 7, 2013 [1 favorite]

Yeah senate results are all modelled and rubbish at this stage - last time I looked, NSW said no Liberal senators, but a win for Pauline Hanson and the LDP.
posted by Jimbob at 4:23 AM on September 7, 2013

Let's all push for sane and logical debate, shall we?

Bugger that. I'm up for vicious obstructionism
posted by Jimbob at 4:25 AM on September 7, 2013 [2 favorites]

I think jimbob that they had actually confused LDP with Lib on their website. On tele, Antony just said PUP is a real threat in Tassie though, and he's never steered me wrong.
posted by smoke at 4:25 AM on September 7, 2013

I certainly had my heart in my mouth when I read the ABCs website showing Senator Hanson. Gonna stop torturing myself now, go have curry and beer, and come back tomorrow to see what the senate looks like.
posted by adamt at 4:25 AM on September 7, 2013

Senator Hanson. Christ. Senate terms are six years.
posted by Jimbob at 4:28 AM on September 7, 2013

It would be a delightful situation if Tony had to spend the next several years having to deal with minor parties to get his legislation through. And by delightful I mean that in ~10-20 years school children will have to answer essay questions around the topic of 'Why could Gillard advance her party's policy while being a minority government when Abbot could not with a majority in the House of Representatives.

I'm all for obstructionism. Abbot hasn't just shat all over his bed, he's taken the soiled sheets and run around town with them to show everyone. It's the politics he's has a large responsibility for creating.
posted by Hello, I'm David McGahan at 4:36 AM on September 7, 2013

Obstructing Abbott's ridiculous plans to throttle the NBN expansion and the removal of the carbon tax and lack of support for the Gonski reforms by the opposition seems sane and logical to me.
posted by h00py at 4:44 AM on September 7, 2013 [3 favorites]

Rudd is on stage, conceding.

Welp, time for more gin!
posted by His thoughts were red thoughts at 4:48 AM on September 7, 2013 [2 favorites]

Rudd's comment of "Bill Glasson, eat your heart out" in his conceding speech was pretty cheap. Whatever you think of his politics, the guy put up a good fight and made Rudd's seat look a bit shaky for a while there. More power to him, that was his job.
posted by drnick at 4:51 AM on September 7, 2013

I'm all for logical debate.

3 word slogans * 6 that candidates for government aren't apparently even capable of remembering though is definitely not that.

STOP THE STOATS!

REDUCE FACED!

NO CARB TAX!

...

I've forgotten the rest sorry.
posted by Hello, I'm David McGahan at 4:52 AM on September 7, 2013

I'm on the Stone's, but gin sounds like a plan.
posted by russm at 4:52 AM on September 7, 2013

It's cider, beer and my bitter, bitter tears over here.
posted by h00py at 4:56 AM on September 7, 2013 [1 favorite]

Drinking Murray's Dark Night, although since Clive looks like getting up perhaps I should crack a 'loon.
posted by hawthorne at 4:57 AM on September 7, 2013

So, Rudd's not recontesting. A lot of respect to him for that.
posted by Quilford at 4:57 AM on September 7, 2013

So, Rudd's not recontesting.

and you can totally trust him when he says that.
posted by russm at 5:00 AM on September 7, 2013 [4 favorites]

Rudd's comment of "Bill Glasson, eat your heart out" in his conceding speech was pretty cheap.

Agreed. That was the last speech Rudd will ever give to Australia, I'm surprised by the unnecessary cheap shot. It went about as long as I expected though.
posted by kisch mokusch at 5:00 AM on September 7, 2013

It went about as long as I expected though.

Pretty sure Shakespeare had something to say about being full of noise and etc, signifying whatever.
posted by Hello, I'm David McGahan at 5:07 AM on September 7, 2013 [1 favorite]

What site are people using for Senate results? The AEC doesn't seem to have any, and the ABC isn't showing NSW.
posted by Georgina at 5:12 AM on September 7, 2013

Oh lordy, Skeletor Abbott is taking the stage. The podium has transmuted into a mass of writhing snakes. The fiends all scream in unearthly tones, as the sky turns the colour of blood.
posted by His thoughts were red thoughts at 5:13 AM on September 7, 2013 [13 favorites]

ABC website.
posted by h00py at 5:15 AM on September 7, 2013

Ahh, thanks, it's showing NSW Senate results now. It was having technical problems earlier.

(Reports of Senator Hanson may have been premature? We can but hope.)
posted by Georgina at 5:29 AM on September 7, 2013

Has to be one of the least graceful acceptance speeches. Still can't keep from trying too sink the boot in.
posted by Hello, I'm David McGahan at 5:32 AM on September 7, 2013 [1 favorite]

(via a tweet) Bill Shorten: "I can say now, Labor believes in the science of climate change... we believe there should be a price on carbon pollution".

There's a scene-setting remark.
posted by hawthorne at 5:39 AM on September 7, 2013 [1 favorite]

Smoke, I suspect that if Rudd had an uninterrupted run he would have lost the public anyway through his megalomania and inability to get any meaningful reforms through.
posted by mooza at 5:41 AM on September 7, 2013 [1 favorite]

Just quietly, I'm not convinced about the existence of His Noodly Appendage and I'm fairly sure that homeopathy and scientology are five-star scams. I reckon humanity is fucking up the climate though.
posted by panaceanot at 5:46 AM on September 7, 2013

I know those senate models are dodgy as hell, but if they're any indication of what we're getting... Holy shit, this is going to be darkly hilarious.
posted by Jimbob at 7:02 AM on September 7, 2013 [1 favorite]

Until the laws start getting passed.
posted by His thoughts were red thoughts at 7:04 AM on September 7, 2013 [4 favorites]

Got home. Didn't kick any teles in. Yet.

Surely they can't be calling senate seats yet?
posted by pompomtom at 7:13 AM on September 7, 2013

Not calling them, just showing the trend. I do hope it goes the way the trend is showing.
posted by h00py at 7:14 AM on September 7, 2013

The trend is towards more Greens... But not enough to counter the Family First/Palmer/Sporting Party/Motoring Enthusiasts/Liberal Democrats/whoever the hell are looking at getting up too.

Technical question - is passage of legislation required to kill the NBN? Or can Turnbull just pull the plug? I ask for purely selfish reasons (as is now the national fashion) - it's due on my street before the new senators take their seats.
posted by Jimbob at 7:28 AM on September 7, 2013

Good question. Apparently not.
Turnbull doesn't need to pass legislation to change the NBN
posted by de at 7:57 AM on September 7, 2013

Oh god, dig faster you bastards!!! It's like 100m from here. I'll help if I can.
posted by pompomtom at 8:00 AM on September 7, 2013 [7 favorites]

Apparently Scott Ludlam just scraped into the WA Senate, just behind a clusterfuck of right-wing minor parties and ahead of the one unfortunate last Labor senator.

It does look like the Tories, Family First and Motoring Enthusiasts/Sports Party/whoever will be able to pass legislation. Which may mean that Abbott resurrects the Great Firewall of Australia to get around some objection that some of his legislation is insufficiently “family-friendly”.
posted by acb at 8:21 AM on September 7, 2013

In other news, 2013 is now pronounced “nineteen-fifty-sixtythree” in Australia.
posted by acb at 8:21 AM on September 7, 2013 [2 favorites]

Celebrating 20 years of dial up.
posted by h00py at 8:27 AM on September 7, 2013 [1 favorite]

TBH I was looking forward to getting a yagi to put on our chimney. Perhaps, given our natural advantage in the area of all living on top of each other, we can become a special testbed for community wireless mesh networks.

Fine fine, I'm looking desperately for an upside
posted by pompomtom at 8:35 AM on September 7, 2013

In Victoria we're looking at two Liberal senators, two Labor, one Green, and one ... Australian Motoring Enthusiasts Party? What the frickety-frack?
posted by Joe in Australia at 9:41 AM on September 7, 2013 [2 favorites]

I HATE YOU, VOTERS.
posted by Mezentian at 9:49 AM on September 7, 2013 [2 favorites]

If this analysis by the ABC is correct then it's a robust result, too: it's not like Ricky Muir (Australian Motoring Enthusiast Party) was about to be excluded at any stage. Basically, all the minor parties swapped votes, even the ones you would have expected to go to the Libs, and in the end it was the Libs, the Sex Party, Palmer United Party, and AMEP. PUP was excluded and those votes went mostly to AMEP. Which literally has no policies:

Our role in the Senate will primarily be to review proposed legislation, which is passed in the lower house. This legislation will be based on the policies of the party which introduced it. In this respect it is not necessary for us to have our own set of policies [...]

I think it's fair to say that Victorian voters did not anticipate or desire this result.
posted by Joe in Australia at 10:02 AM on September 7, 2013 [2 favorites]

Australians going to be learning lessons about democracy all over the place for the next 3 years.
posted by lrobertjones at 1:18 PM on September 7, 2013 [1 favorite]

11% of the vote to Clive Palmer's party in Queensland! Unbelievable.

That right there is the difference that money makes.

He would have also gotten a lot of votes from people who think he's entertaining.
posted by heyjude at 1:36 PM on September 7, 2013 [1 favorite]

I hope AMEP is more along the lines of vintage car appreciation and less along the lines of running down cyclists.
posted by Joe Chip at 2:40 PM on September 7, 2013

So, far Turnbull hasn't blocked me. I'll wear the bastard down eventually...
posted by Jimbob at 2:52 PM on September 7, 2013 [2 favorites]

I've got a hellish hangover after last night. And I don't drink. Hope it doesn't keep going for 3 years.
posted by Jimbob at 3:09 PM on September 7, 2013 [1 favorite]

I do drink, I did drink (a great deal), and I'm not hungover at all. Either the Coalition has already begun its reign of terror by ruining alcohol, or the harsh realities of the situation are a very sobering influence.
posted by His thoughts were red thoughts at 4:25 PM on September 7, 2013 [4 favorites]

I think it's fair to say that Victorian voters did not anticipate or desire this result.

I predict Abbott will propose some senate reform to stop this happening again - with support from Labor and possibly the Greens depending on the shape of the reform.
posted by smoke at 4:29 PM on September 7, 2013 [1 favorite]

Animal justice party preferences Greens last, gets Liberal senator elected in ACT instead of a Green who was about to get over the line. Golf clap.
posted by Jimbob at 5:38 PM on September 7, 2013 [2 favorites]

Animal justice party preferences Greens last

But why?
posted by His thoughts were red thoughts at 6:00 PM on September 7, 2013

"It has put the Greens last in retaliation against ACT Greens MLA Shane Rattenbury, the Minister for Territory and Municipal Services, who authorised the cull of about 1450 kangaroos recently to protect rare grasslands from overgrazing."

Nice work idiots.
posted by Hello, I'm David McGahan at 6:01 PM on September 7, 2013 [6 favorites]

Oh, of course. Because the fucking Coalition love animal.

The Senate's going to be held hostage by these nutters. Australian Sports Party? What the fuck is that even?
posted by His thoughts were red thoughts at 6:07 PM on September 7, 2013 [1 favorite]

I see Barnaby Joyce is now the MP for Hancock. Good job, Queensland.

At least it wasn't a complete wipeout for the ALP, and Sophie's seat of Indi is still in doubt.
posted by Mezentian at 6:17 PM on September 7, 2013

I see Barnaby Joyce is now the MP for Hancock. Good job, Queensland.

Well Northern NSW, since Joyce won the seat of New England.

I did like this comment from David Marr's report from the Liberal's victory party:

"As the count went on, Liberal guests buttonholed journalists to ask: Will Sophie Mirabella go down in Indi? I didn’t meet a party member or a journalist all night who didn’t want it to happen."
posted by Hello, I'm David McGahan at 6:35 PM on September 7, 2013

The Senate's going to be held hostage by these nutters. Australian Sports Party? What the fuck is that even?
posted by His thoughts were red thoughts at 6:07 PM on September 7 [+] [!]

Wow, that's even worse than the 'We Love Top Gear and V8s and Doing Sick Burnouts' party getting a senate seat in Vic. On the current count this Sports Party got less than 2,000 first preference votes. Keating may have had a point about the Senate being unrepresentative swill.
posted by Hello, I'm David McGahan at 6:42 PM on September 7, 2013

Looking at the WA senate preference flows, the Hemp Party, Sex Party, or the Animal Justice Party all put the Sports Party higher than the Greens? Well done you dropkicks.
posted by Hello, I'm David McGahan at 6:48 PM on September 7, 2013 [5 favorites]

So, it looks like PUP gets two seats in the Senate, the Motorists one, the Sports Party one and Family First one.

Yay?
posted by Mezentian at 7:15 PM on September 7, 2013

So, it looks like PUP gets two seats in the Senate, the Motorists one, the Sports Party one and Family First one.

That's looking most likely. I wish crazy-ass leftie parties like HEMP would ever pick up the dregs of the senate seats instead of the Sports Party (who I assume are into shooting at shit, rather than, say, cycling and hang-gliding). And if the Family First senator there is Bob Day from South Australia...well, he's not going to be as blandly amusing as Steve Fielding, I can tell you that.
posted by Jimbob at 7:42 PM on September 7, 2013

That is the man. I'm a bit scared now....

"In 2002, as secretary of H.R. Nicholls, (Bob Day) blamed the award system for high unemployment and the social ills of drugs, crime, violence, poor health, teenage pregnancy and suicide. In a March 2005 financial forum speech, he likened workplace regulations and protections to 'Checkpoint Charlie' as he advocated his idea of workplace nirvana, called "Workforce SuperHighway". Employment conditions would be determined solely between employers and employees. "Hours of work, rates of pay, holidays, sick leave, long-service leave, hiring and firing, would be agreed between the two parties"

You used to be cool, South Australia.
posted by Mezentian at 7:53 PM on September 7, 2013

The Australian Sports Party actually looks orright. No idea how they will vote on the actual huge issues that will come up in the next 3 years. Hooray?

Also this page showing how the distributions actually went down, gives the impression the Sportos got in as the least disliked from all sides and groups.
posted by lrobertjones at 8:20 PM on September 7, 2013

I like count 27, where the votes of the Smoker's Rights Party were distributed to the Australian Sports Party.
posted by Hello, I'm David McGahan at 8:35 PM on September 7, 2013 [2 favorites]

Oh. There you go. They are into cycling and hang-gliding. That's great, I guess...
posted by Jimbob at 8:39 PM on September 7, 2013

Maybe they'll support measures to increase cycling commuting. Actually I'd be pretty happy to hang glide to work if possible.
posted by Hello, I'm David McGahan at 8:42 PM on September 7, 2013 [1 favorite]

Amusingly, their wikipedia page was created yesterday afternoon. I don't disagree with the idea of a healthier and more active population, but this isn't exactly how the electoral system is supposed to work. Good luck to them though.
posted by Hello, I'm David McGahan at 8:47 PM on September 7, 2013

The Australian Sports Party actually looks orright. No idea how they will vote on the actual huge issues that will come up in the next 3 years. Hooray?

A idiot of benign intent is still an idiot. Doubtless they'll sell their vote to the highest bidder, probably for a new football field or something equally pointless.
posted by His thoughts were red thoughts at 9:00 PM on September 7, 2013 [2 favorites]

Actually, I could theoretically kayak to work if a few canals were dug. Get on that Sports Party.
posted by Hello, I'm David McGahan at 9:36 PM on September 7, 2013 [1 favorite]

I still can't understand why a major newspaper is allowed to print on its front page that it "believes Mr Abbott should be given the opportunity tomorrow to restore Australia for Australians.

We urge Australians to vote for Mr Abbott and elect him as our 28th prime minister."

I don't know, is that sort of thing normal here? Seems like what Australia needs most is an actual free and independent media.
posted by lwb at 10:10 PM on September 7, 2013 [1 favorite]

Lwb: totally normal in the UK and Australia. They might be expressing it a bit more strongly than usual, but you'd expect at least an editorial giving the paper's view.
posted by Joe in Australia at 10:12 PM on September 7, 2013

Newspapers are more or less free to do what they, or the people that own them, feel like. It's a bit shit from time to time but the alternative is worse.
posted by Hello, I'm David McGahan at 10:43 PM on September 7, 2013 [1 favorite]

What's the alternative?

We've just had a 6% swing to 'other' and still can't shift Sophie Horribilus Mirabellus.

The Coalition has started governing, and I can't wait until I'm culling Canberra kangaroos, stoned, from the back of a high-axle V8 SUV with OHC and two pack canary yellow duco as a matter of legislation. It's going to beat grid-iron, or the gridlock of faceless men.

I don't know how Shorten and Feeney can show their faces.
By the way, what happened to the Voluntary Euthanasia Party?
posted by de at 10:47 PM on September 7, 2013 [1 favorite]

but the alternative is worse

Fair point. I guess I was just a bit taken aback, it seemed so bold.
posted by lwb at 11:25 PM on September 7, 2013

So the ALP has managed the most prolonged own-goal in its history, turning a record of presiding over the healthiest Western economy of the past five years into a liability, and handing the keys to the Lodge to someone who regards the UK's current government as a model of sound policy. FF, as the kids say, S.

This would be worse if I believed that repealing the carbon tax at this point was any more than rearranging deckchairs on the Titanic, or if Rudd hadn't managed to make the ALP's policy towards refugees equally as appalling as the coalition's. As it is, Australia is set for another three years of debating climate change (if it gets a look in at all) as a matter of belief in whether or not it's happening, while here in the Northern hemisphere we're about at the stage of William Hill placing odds on when the last bit of summer ice in the Arctic will melt. Business as usual, whoever's in charge.

What gets me are the short memories of the Australian electorate, but I suppose it's just the gradual influx of new voters who can't remember the past performance of these "new" leaders. In 1996 I was old enough to remember Howard's time as treasurer and his unedifying rivalry with Andrew Peacock in the 1980s, enough to see through all the shiny spin around his 1996 campaign, so his subsequent years as PM held no great surprises. Now I'm old enough to remember the mad monk's past performance as minister for shafting working-class Australians in the late 1990s, and have a pretty good idea of what's in store now.

But people can change, I suppose. After all, I've changed from an open and optimistic twenty-something in the 1990s to a bitter and cynical 45-year-old today.
posted by rory at 2:55 AM on September 8, 2013 [6 favorites]

I'm open to the idea that the Senate results are actually a triumph of democracy rather than the consequences of a broken system. Has anyone argued this?
posted by Joe in Australia at 5:28 AM on September 8, 2013

Not very defensible Joe.

The 'I Like Cars' and the 'I Like Sports' parties will likely hold the balance of power in the Senate with fractions of 1% of the popular vote, and the 'I Like Concealed Weapons and Ron Paul' party looks to sneak in based on voters making mistakes at the booth.

A defensible Senate result would have been preferences flowing to parties that best represented the ideology of the knocked out party.

Instead we get the 'I Like Smoking' party preferences going to the 'I Like Sports' party.
posted by panaceanot at 5:40 AM on September 8, 2013 [6 favorites]

Welcome to Abbottabad...

Tony Abbott, once called the "Mad Monk"
By Aussies who reckoned he stunk,
Has become our prime minister,
An outcome so sinister
We're sitting around in a funk.
posted by rory at 5:48 AM on September 8, 2013 [3 favorites]

In our overall strategy, we have preferenced the radical extremist parties last, Greens second last and via multiple Group Voting Tickets have split the votes equally between Labor and Liberal at third last; the other (up to 50) parties are preferenced after the AMEP and before the majors in a deliberate attempt to bring balance to the Senate through minor party representation.

It's preference funnelling.
posted by de at 6:10 AM on September 8, 2013 [1 favorite]

Funding for Canals? Funding for football stadiums? Seems like all the money that Tony Abbott is going to rip from expanding the train networks can be put to good use in Western Australia, where the premier once lost an election on a plan to bring water south from the Kimberley via a series of canals, and is funding a new football standium somewhere where a battler like Mr Packer can make a killing.

Maybe he can also fund a new mountain climbing school at Ayres Rock.
posted by Mezentian at 6:19 AM on September 8, 2013 [1 favorite]

South Australian Nick Xenophon gets almost two quotas of primary votes in his own right. So he takes a running partner. This running partner can potentially ride into senate on Xenophon's preferences alone. Xenophon registers a Group, not a party, and Nick and his running partner are "1" and "2" on Nick's ticket. 95 to 99% of voters vote above the line. Discuss.
posted by de at 6:23 AM on September 8, 2013

They need to allow optional preferential voting like in various state Senate's. That way you can number as far as you want your pref to go, so it has no unintended effects.
posted by Joe Chip at 9:07 AM on September 8, 2013 [3 favorites]

I've got how it will work: eliminate above the line, and require people to number only as many candidates as their state has senate seats up for election, then any further numbering is optional. The counting could then could then work exactly the same wayas the current system.
posted by Joe Chip at 9:18 AM on September 8, 2013

Now I'm old enough to remember the mad monk's past performance as minister for shafting working-class Australians in the late 1990s, and have a pretty good idea of what's in store now.

We're gonna party like it's 1959?
posted by Talez at 12:13 PM on September 8, 2013 [1 favorite]

The fact that every bastard party preferences Greens last only improves my conviction that they were the right ones to vote for, you know.
posted by Jimbob at 1:34 PM on September 8, 2013 [9 favorites]

I'm still riding on a high that Adam Bandt got reelected and pretending the other results haven't happened.
posted by daybeforetheday at 1:36 PM on September 8, 2013 [1 favorite]

Every minor party preferenced The Greens last because from an electoral perspective The Greens are the enemy: they are the ones who get the largest vote, so they will roll up everyone else's preferences if they aren't put last on the ballot. The minor parties behaved exactly the way you would expect from people who prioritise their election over any form of principle - not that I'm saying they lack principles, just that you can't tell anything different from their actions.

I only wonder how much influence Druery had on Wikileaks' preferencing. I would hope its members learned a valuable lesson there: any time there is a back room deal, it's because you are being screwed.
posted by Joe in Australia at 2:58 PM on September 8, 2013 [1 favorite]

The Palmer United Party senator who looks like getting up in Tasmania, Jacque Lambie, has just told ABC radio in Tasmania that she would not support repealing the carbon tax. Interesting times.
posted by Jimbob at 7:01 PM on September 8, 2013 [1 favorite]

Just regarding the sausage sizzles... I had a quiet chuckle at our local school when I went to vote. Homemade felafel instead of sausages - where else but inner west (Glebe). Greens dominating the HTV advertising. Very different from when I used to live on the Gold Coast.
posted by joz at 8:29 PM on September 8, 2013 [1 favorite]

"Hello, this is how it works. You vote with us on everything and you get a nice office and we go the full term. Otherwise we throw vote after vote at you until you jump the wrong way on a popular bit of legislation and we have a double dissolution. There is not a rat's chance in hell you'll ever get reelected. Your choice."

If the Senate is filled as per the ABC projections, the Coalition will need six crossbench votes to pass legislation in the Upper House. Three of the eight non-Green crossbenchers benefit from a DD: Xenophon and PUP can definitely ignore the threat. Depending on how lucky they feel, Family First and DLP could also take their chances. I don't think the coalition will have much luck bullying the Senate - they are going to be forced to make a lot of deals, bill by bill.
posted by kithrater at 8:31 PM on September 8, 2013 [1 favorite]

I don't think the coalition will have much luck bullying the Senate - they are going to be forced to make a lot of deals, bill by bill.

They've made deals with Family First before. The motorists and the sports party will be easy to buy with the one sacrifice of national parks (the motorists want to tear them up with 4WDs and the sports party want to do something sporty to them). They can probably find something in their bag of regressive policies to appease the gun-crazy idiot from the Liberal Democrats - they support small government, privatization of public assets, reducing foreign aid, tax cuts.

Not sure about Palmer's two chess pieces - I think they might be the only sticking point
posted by His thoughts were red thoughts at 8:40 PM on September 8, 2013 [2 favorites]

This is the guy who couldn't get the support of any one of the three former National Party rural conservative independents despite offering anything except his arse after the last election. Logrolling is hard.
posted by hawthorne at 8:52 PM on September 8, 2013 [1 favorite]

they are going to be forced to make a lot of deals, bill by bill.

Oh, oh, but Tony said he wasn't going to negotiate or do deals with anyone!
posted by Jimbob at 9:07 PM on September 8, 2013 [1 favorite]

I don't see the Coalition having any real trouble managing the Motorists, Sports, or Libertarians - these people have almost nothing to lose or gain except their parliamentary allowances.

I disagree on Family First, though - they've got a brand to protect, and stakeholders to please. Family First has representatives in SA, and they field candidates nationally. While I agree they are probably predisposed to the Coalition, they have a future to protect. Australian political history is increasingly replete with examples of what happens to minor parties and independents who hew too close to the government of the day. Same story for the DLP.
posted by kithrater at 9:11 PM on September 8, 2013

I disagree on Family First, though - they've got a brand to protect, and stakeholders to please.

Easily bought off with a non-functional internet filter (to save TEH CHILDRENZ from TEH PORNZ) and a promise to continue to vote against gay marriage.
posted by His thoughts were red thoughts at 9:19 PM on September 8, 2013 [2 favorites]

The Palmer United Party senator who looks like getting up in Tasmania, Jacque Lambie, has just told ABC radio in Tasmania that she would not support repealing the carbon tax

That is interesting, given that one of PUP's few, key platforms was repealing it. God I hope she sticks to her guns.

Also, Abbott will never call a DD, and anyone who thinks otherwise is nuts.

a) incumbents get walloped in DD elections typically, cause the public hates them (elections, that is)
b) The senate quota halves; any wack job and his monkey will get up, the senate will definitely 100% get crazier, not saner.
c) Assuming (a big assumption) Labor get their shit together, they will have a most formidable shadow front bench and probable leader, with none of the baggage that Rudd and Gillard had.
posted by smoke at 9:28 PM on September 8, 2013 [1 favorite]

Nowdays, Family First are basically a catch-all group for candidates too insane and messy to get Liberal preselection, ie. Bob Day in South Australia. Although one could argue PUP serve a similar purpose, this time.
posted by Jimbob at 9:28 PM on September 8, 2013

God I hope she sticks to her guns.

She also made a comment along the lines of "I was in the army, Tony Abbott's going to have a fight on his hands with me."
posted by Jimbob at 9:31 PM on September 8, 2013 [1 favorite]

b) The senate quota halves; any wack job and his monkey will get up, the senate will definitely 100% get crazier, not saner.

I think the ALP and Coalition, and maybe the Greens, would
agree to reform the Senate election process before calling a DD. But even with reforms to freeze out micro party Senators I doubt the Coalition would get the Senate numbers it wants from a DD.
posted by kithrater at 9:35 PM on September 8, 2013 [1 favorite]

Meanwhile, the new senator from the Australian Motoring Enthusiast Party thinks that 'buying a Ford is like hiring a prostitute' [I confess I don't understand how this joke works], and posts Youtube videos of himself throwing kangaroo poo at his family.
posted by His thoughts were red thoughts at 9:54 PM on September 8, 2013 [1 favorite]

Heh. I was thinking yesterday it's lucky we didn't get two MEP senators elected - might end up with Holden v Ford factional disarray...
posted by Jimbob at 10:02 PM on September 8, 2013 [3 favorites]

Current 2PP count has Mirabella behind by 35 votes.
posted by hawthorne at 10:23 PM on September 8, 2013 [1 favorite]

Man if I was infront of a desktop I'd love to put together a real-time Mirabella count graph right now.
posted by Jimbob at 10:38 PM on September 8, 2013

Good piece from the Guardian: PUP - who voted for them? - lots there for both Labor and Coalition to mull on if they want to reduce the number of votes going elsewhere.

I feel for the Greens you know. Can't help thinking that if more people realised their actual policy platforms (or they had another name), their vote would be higher. I'm probably wrong, but really they are so mild and get branded with the most spittle-flecked invective from people who don't know anything about them.
posted by smoke at 11:00 PM on September 8, 2013 [2 favorites]

Judging by the commentary on Twitter right now, Sophie Mirabella is the most unifying politician in Australia...
posted by Jimbob at 11:13 PM on September 8, 2013 [2 favorites]

Judging by the commentary on Twitter right now, Sophie Mirabella is the most unifying politician in Australia...

I think this is my favourite:

Mike Stuchbery ‏@MikeRStuchbery 2m
BREAKING: Live footage of Sophie Mirabella's concession speech. #auspol #indivotes - http://youtu.be/j7GJcKuVGm8

The 2PP just keeps looking better and better for McGowan. I hope she wins; it'll take some of the sting out of Alex Bhathal's loss here in Batman.
posted by lwb at 11:26 PM on September 8, 2013

Good piece from the Guardian: PUP - who voted for them? - lots there for both Labor and Coalition to mull on if they want to reduce the number of votes going elsewhere.

"[T]the vote for the PUP is a vote of frustration from those perceiving economic decline, those who live in a local area in which few people access high-paying jobs, those who experience unemployment with little employment prospects."

Why the hell would these people vote for a multi-millionaire mining mogul? I'm poor and unemployed. Who will best represent my interests? I know; this super rich crazy person!
posted by His thoughts were red thoughts at 11:36 PM on September 8, 2013

Why all the hate for Sophie Mirabella?
posted by Joe in Australia at 12:20 AM on September 9, 2013

Why the hell would these people vote for a multi-millionaire mining mogul? I'm poor and unemployed. Who will best represent my interests? I know; this super rich crazy person!

You are worried about money. Politicians keep droning about things that have no relevance to you. Palmer talks about jobs and money and how you ought to have more of it.
posted by Joe in Australia at 12:22 AM on September 9, 2013

Why all the hate for Sophie Mirabella?

It's not her, it's us. It hasn't worked out.
posted by de at 1:01 AM on September 9, 2013

Why the hell would these people vote for a multi-millionaire mining mogul?

Because they don't feel the existing parties have done anything for them, and they despise the Greens with the fiery passion of a thousand suns (ironic, as Green policies are arguably the most generous to those with low education, poor employment etc) - and there's no one else. Palmer didn't stand for much except rolling back the carbon tax, but when he wasn't twerking, his message was generally positive and absolutely removed from the vacuum of the media/politician bubble.

Guy's a smart operator. Not my kind of operator, but I think people viewing him as an eccentric Uncle Moneybags will get a shock when he and PUP enter parliament. There is much more to him than that, and despite his 'outsider' brand, he's actually very experienced in Australian politics.

Why all the hate for Sophie Mirabella?

You mean here, or in Indi? In Indi because she clearly despised her electorate, had no visibility and typified a common rural complaint about the coalition, namely that they don't give a shit about rural people, take the vote for granted, and neoliberal policy is absolutely the opposite of what primary producers want, which is a weird kind of agrarian socialist utopianism where the govt basically gives money to farmers no matter what, and sky high tariffs protect them from competition. A return to rural landed aristocracy, basically.

In general, because she's widely recognised on both sides of the house as a deeply, deeply unpleasant person. As a leftie, her views are on par for me with Corey Bernardi's - and, like Bernardi - she's a total idiot as well. I despised Nick Minchin, but he was at least a worthy adversary. Mirabella is a squalling baby with razors mixed into the shit she sprays everywhere. Have you ever watched her in parliament? Appalling.
posted by smoke at 1:04 AM on September 9, 2013 [5 favorites]

Why all the hate for Sophie Mirabella

A journalist yesterday was claiming that at Abbott's victory party, there were Liberal party members wandering around asking "Is Sophie gone yet? Is Sophie gone yet?"
posted by Jimbob at 1:14 AM on September 9, 2013

Appalling.

In a word! So appalling that many of us have been watching her seat for the whole campaign. Cathy McGowan has attracted mega campaign funds from all over. The Nationals supported her locally, and it's rumoured (even) Liberal party faithfuls threw money at Cathy McGowan's campaign.

Cathy McGowan's in there for the nation.
+ 1,754 (up from 35 three hours ago) ... c'mon. Count faster!
posted by de at 1:17 AM on September 9, 2013 [3 favorites]

Counting's over for the day, the lazy sods.
posted by Jimbob at 1:26 AM on September 9, 2013

And next week the WA electorate commences Denis Koala tutorials:
"Now you senate, now you don't: Michaela Cash"
posted by de at 1:27 AM on September 9, 2013

I used to listen to Parliament, but people got nervous when I shouted at the radio. Especially when I was driving and took a hand off the wheel to express my emotions.
posted by Joe in Australia at 1:28 AM on September 9, 2013 [1 favorite]

Why all the hate for Sophie Mirabella

She's a terrible human being.

In 2008, she boycotted the apology to the stolen generation, claiming, more or less, that it didn't happen, and if it did then it was for their own good.

Here she is in 2008 insulting Julia Gillard for being childless.

In 2011, she compared Julia Gillard to Moamar Gaddafi.

In 2012, she told Heffernan (who, granted, is a tool) "Why don't you go and pop your Alzheimer's pills.''

There's so much more, but I honestly can't be bothered.
posted by His thoughts were red thoughts at 1:42 AM on September 9, 2013 [6 favorites]

Oh well, point made.

Mind you, I checked six people you won't believe could be elected

Sophie Mirabella is not listed.
posted by Joe in Australia at 1:54 AM on September 9, 2013

Sophie Mirabella has had more than her share of bad press. Rare for a Liberal.

And this'll be the first wave of fringe senators which will educate the electorate for good or bad. Things could get worse before they get better (maybe).

Meanwhile, senate electoral reform, rushed through before the July 2014 senate takes over, will not be easy. The system, as it stands, suits the major parties' powerbrokers who function much like the enterprising Mr Druery in hijacking the senate.
posted by de at 2:31 AM on September 9, 2013

I think one fix might be to increase the size of the deposit for registering a political party. Right now it's $500 for something which, in the aggregate, burdens voters and distorts the electoral process. I think it should be far higher - somewhere in the tens of thousands of dollars. This isn't much if you're actually running a political campaign but it should get rid of the joke parties.
posted by Joe in Australia at 2:58 AM on September 9, 2013

You might argue that you shouldn't have to take out a bank loan to participate in democracy.

There are other options, though. At the moment, you only get electoral funding if you get over 5% of the primary vote. This could be extended to candidate exclusion as well - candidates that score less than 5% of the 1st preference vote on the first round are excluded - their preferences are still distributed to the parties that remain above that threshold.

ALP - 33%
LNP - 43%
GRN - 10%
FF - 7%
Liberal Democrats For Finger-Banging Your Cousin - 1.7% GONE!
Toranas Are Fully Sick Mate - 1.6% GONE!
White People Rule OK! - 0.9% Fuck right off!
posted by Jimbob at 3:27 AM on September 9, 2013 [3 favorites]

Also, Abbott will never call a DD, and anyone who thinks otherwise is nuts.
a) incumbents get walloped in DD elections typically, cause the public hates them (elections, that is)
b) The senate quota halves; any wack job and his monkey will get up, the senate will definitely 100% get crazier, not saner.

Is it really going to get any crazier? Really?
(I admit, I want a DD because I want to see change).

I also want to see real electoral reform. So many candidates could stand without, you know, policies. How can we be elected to vote if we don't know what the AMEP stands for besides kangaroo-poo fun and cuttin' up the bush with fully sick burns? Minors like the Stable Population Party and Family First had considered policy platforms. That should be a given.

And we need VISIBILITY on candidates. Mandatory, AEC controlled and examined websites.
posted by Mezentian at 3:49 AM on September 9, 2013 [1 favorite]

I'm not suggesting that they can't "participate in democracy"; I'm just saying that the existing barrier to allow a party listing "above the line" is far too low. The actual purpose of listing parties isn't to let parties direct preferences: it's because people want to vote for Liberal/Labor/Green candidates and the ballot paper is too huge for most people to do this correctly. So my first option is to keep the existing system, but raise the barrier to entry. People can still vote for you and your mates, but you don't get to direct your preferences automatically unless you're serious enough to have people who want to vote your ticket.

Another option would be to do away with the above/below distinction altogether, and let parties list themselves as a unit. So you'd have 1) Jane Austen; 2) William Shakespeare; 3) Australian Labor Party (First bugger, second bugger, third bugger); 4) Enid Blyton; 5) Liberal Party (Rotter A, Rotter B, Rotter C); 6) James Joyce ....
posted by Joe in Australia at 4:29 AM on September 9, 2013

> Liberal Democrats For Finger-Banging Your Cousin

I laughed, but only because I saw the entitled Michaela Cash having to arguing the finer points of a piece of legislation with an undemocratically elected LDFFBYC senator.

> candidates that score less than 5% of the 1st preference vote on the first round are excluded

It is going to have to be something along those lines but are you excluding parties or candidates? It won't work while there's the hybrid above-the-line (party) system, below-the-line (candidate) system. One suggestion has been allowing an across-the-line-while-above-the-line option, too. There'll still be influential HTVs. Exclusions would be a nightmare while the party powerbrokers can reek as much havoc (above-the-line) as the Druerys.

We either vote for parties, groups and independents and have the parties and groups choose their representatives, or we vote for individuals ... which leads into Mezantian's (minimal) candidate visibility requirement and campaign platforms.

As it stands, with upward of 90% of voters polling above the line, Australians elect the senators like we elect the prime minister. We don't. We can. But we don't.

> Is it really going to get any crazier? Really?

Either reform gets pushed through before July 2014, after which micro-parties will block reform, or there is no reform (without referendum). Whichever, it gets worse before better IMO because there is nothing democratic about the current senate electoral process (and the major parties like it that way).

Helen Kroger, Liberal powerbroker Michael Kroger's ex, has just been unseated by Ricky Muir. One vote put Nova Peris in senate. Had an in-party faction war not occurred Penny Wong would be out. I could go on.
posted by de at 5:08 AM on September 9, 2013

Honestly I think Approval Voting would work a lot better than Instant Runoff Voting for Senate Elections. It'll never happen though.
posted by Proofs and Refutations at 5:52 AM on September 9, 2013

To be fair: Toranas are fully sick, mate.

Not the four bangers, obviously, but the environment and shit.
posted by pompomtom at 6:20 AM on September 9, 2013

To be fair: Toranas are fully sick, mate.

I know little about cars, but Old Toranas or New Toranas?

I think I just exhibited more knowledge of obscure car cults than most fixated car owners oay to their automobiles.
posted by Mezentian at 6:30 AM on September 9, 2013

Old toranas, but I'm open to new experiences.

Anyway, back to the topic at hand: Birmo casts an eye over the Upper Madhouse.
posted by pompomtom at 6:01 PM on September 9, 2013

Anyway, back to the topic at hand: Birmo casts an eye over the Upper Madhouse.

Family First got upset about this on Twitter, and Birmingham smacked them down.
posted by His thoughts were red thoughts at 6:26 PM on September 9, 2013 [2 favorites]

Channel Ten interview with libertarian nutjob David Leyonhjelm (pronounced 'line-holme') of the Liberal Democrats For Finger-Banging Your Cousin. Guns are great! American doesn't have gun crime (except for those pesky blacks and latinos)! Gun laws have no effect! Refugees should pay $50K when they show up!
posted by His thoughts were red thoughts at 9:22 PM on September 9, 2013 [1 favorite]

Just waiting for him to turn up and demand the right to conceal-carry on the Senate floor...
posted by Jimbob at 9:36 PM on September 9, 2013

Antony Green is giving Indi to Mirabella.
C'est la vie

S'pose she's no worse than ... um :(
posted by de at 11:33 PM on September 9, 2013

First Dog on the Moon takes on the new senators.
posted by His thoughts were red thoughts at 11:45 PM on September 9, 2013 [1 favorite]

I think Antony might be wrong on this one - it would require a more-than-usual Liberal bias in the postals, and I don't know where he's getting that idea. But we'll see.
posted by Jimbob at 11:58 PM on September 9, 2013

Hmm well as of 7 minutes ago, the gap has narrowed.
posted by Jimbob at 12:00 AM on September 10, 2013

The ABC still has McGowan ahead by 1000 votes or so, with only three booths to be counted.
posted by Joe in Australia at 12:09 AM on September 10, 2013 [1 favorite]

He says the postals always favour the incumbent. There were 20,000 votes to count nearly half of those postal. Her margin wasn't large enough for her to survive.

Now +700 (... that's dropping 100 an hour).
Not happy, Jan.
posted by de at 12:15 AM on September 10, 2013

According to Wikipedia she was first elected with a margin of 13% in 2004. And, heh, according to Antony Green in 2010 "The last time Labor won this seat was in 1928 when the conservative candidate forgot to nominate."

All I can say is, if Sophie loses then she'll have some 'splainin to do.
posted by Joe in Australia at 12:22 AM on September 10, 2013

she'll have some 'splainin to do.
Nobody ask. She make up some tripe and speak it to the ceiling with her eyes draw shut.
posted by de at 12:31 AM on September 10, 2013

I really hope that if Mirabella keeps her seat, that McGowan has at least frightened her into making more of an effort to actually represent Indi this time around.
posted by lwb at 4:53 AM on September 10, 2013

CHAPTER 1
1. Now the election of Cathy McGowan was in this wise.
2. A wise man came out of the bush and said Lo, Blessed art thou amongst independents for thou shalt surely win thy seat.
3. And Cathy laughed within herself saying, And shall an independent beat an incumbent? And a rural consultant a barrister?
4. But Antony did rebuke her, saying No, for thou shalt surely win thy seat.
5. And Cathy was not silenced but watched the matter.

CHAPTER 2
1. And lo, as Antony foretold did it come to pass.
2. For the polling places did turn against the incumbent.
3. And the electoral workers cried out saying Lo, eight tithes have now been counted and the tide has turned.
4. And so was Cathy ahead by seven hundred, threescore and four votes.
5. Here endeth the counting.

Amen.
posted by Joe in Australia at 4:58 AM on September 10, 2013

I'm hoping Mirabella scrapes back in.

As a prominent minister, she will do more damage to an Abbott government than Cathy McGowen ever could.
posted by moorooka at 5:13 AM on September 10, 2013 [1 favorite]

Ahh, the Bronwyn Bishop factor, I hadn't considered that...
posted by Jimbob at 12:05 PM on September 10, 2013

> I'm hoping Mirabella scrapes back in.

You and Tony Abbott. He's waiting to swear everyone in. Plus Mirabella's first assignment is to bury and cremate the dying car industry. Obviously she'll knock it on the head first. Won't she?

Abbott knows attack-dog when he sees one. Wait until she's seconded to Health. It won't be Abbott who gets mauled.
posted by de at 12:40 PM on September 10, 2013

Well okay, I'm not really hoping that she gets back in, but since it's looking that way on postals, I'm trying to find the silver lining.

She will be extremely unpopular in whatever role she's in, and might just help wake the public up to what they actually did on Saturday.
posted by moorooka at 2:15 PM on September 10, 2013

She will be extremely unpopular in whatever role she's in, and might just help wake the public up to what they actually did on Saturday.

With Murdoch controlling what the people see? Unlikely.

Abbott's first two terms will be like the 1980s British underground comedy Eat The Rich, in which an evil right-wing politician gets away with all sorts of crimes, with the tabloids reframing them as cheeky japes.
posted by acb at 4:08 PM on September 10, 2013

With Murdoch tweets setting the agenda.
Sure hope Abbott isn't indebted.
--- ✂-------------------------------------------

posted by de at 4:28 PM on September 10, 2013

Unrepresentative whackos...
posted by Jimbob at 4:34 PM on September 10, 2013 [1 favorite]

"Hi, we're starting a people's uprising. Do you fancy joining us?"
posted by russm at 6:52 PM on September 10, 2013

Of course, the inexplicable entitlement of right-wing power is already starting.
posted by michswiss at 7:25 PM on September 10, 2013

Tony Abbott's incoming Chief of Staff:

"Justice doesn't have to be done. It has to be seen to be done."

Here's her talking to the press after her court appearance.
posted by michswiss at 7:35 PM on September 10, 2013

the inexplicable entitlement of right-wing power

"Justice doesn't have to be done. It has to be seen to be done."

SNAP!
posted by de at 7:37 PM on September 10, 2013

"Justice doesn't have to be done. It has to be seen to be done."

For dog's sake.
posted by His thoughts were red thoughts at 7:44 PM on September 10, 2013

1003 pre-poll votes for McGowan have just been 'found' at a pre-poll booth in Wangaratta...
posted by Jimbob at 9:54 PM on September 10, 2013 [1 favorite]

Well, that certainly inspires confidence in all the oversight procedures.

Still: yay!
posted by lwb at 10:29 PM on September 10, 2013

Well they found them because the total vote count for the upper house didn't match the lower house, and they went searching. So I guess the system works!
posted by Jimbob at 10:52 PM on September 10, 2013

Indeed. The conspiracy theorists are already all over Twitter, though. Some people are saying this makes the Indi election void, but I don't know enough about Australian electoral procedures to know if this is true or not.
posted by lwb at 11:04 PM on September 10, 2013

The story keeps changing. Latest news is that there was no physical pile of misplaced votes, just a number written in a wrong colomn.
posted by Jimbob at 11:16 PM on September 10, 2013

Some people are saying this makes the Indi election void

What a load of cobblers, geez. They'll have a recount, anyway, when it's this close.
posted by smoke at 11:43 PM on September 10, 2013 [1 favorite]

Cite, Jimbob?
posted by His thoughts were red thoughts at 11:43 PM on September 10, 2013

A Fairfax radio journalist on Twitter reporting and AEC spokesperson saying @redneckninja: AEC"A simple human error in the transposition of numbers onto what we call a tally sheet for a count for that early voting centre"#indivotes and similar things from that guy.
posted by Jimbob at 11:57 PM on September 10, 2013 [1 favorite]

Ricky Muir (Senator for Sick Toranas) has emerged from hiding.
He was on the ABC tonight (radio).

I am not filled with confidence.
And, Antony Green says "you dumb fuckers I could have told you they were gaming the preferences years ago" as only he can.

Crikey (now behind a paywall) did point out that the system is fucked when one guy registers four parties, and his all four parties hadn't failed to lodge preferences, Canberra would have a Sex Party.
posted by Mezentian at 5:41 AM on September 11, 2013

Some bright spark has done a Sophie Mirabella Downfall parody. It's pretty great.
posted by His thoughts were red thoughts at 7:24 PM on September 11, 2013 [2 favorites]

And Mirabella quits the frontbench.
posted by de at 8:23 PM on September 11, 2013 [1 favorite]

Already, Liberal backbencher Dennis Jensen has put his hand up for the job, arguing that his background as a scientist would make him well qualified for the position.

Dennis Jensen, the scientist. What sort of scientist, you ask?

He was educated at RMIT University, Melbourne University and Monash University, from where he has a PhD in materials engineering on ceramics.

That's right. Ceramics. A crack pot.
posted by Jimbob at 9:22 PM on September 11, 2013 [4 favorites]

Like that creature Mirabella he also boycotted the apology to the stolen generation, and said on Twitter that aboriginal people affected by colonisation should 'get over it'.

That's right - climate denialist and racist piece of crap.
posted by His thoughts were red thoughts at 9:28 PM on September 11, 2013 [2 favorites]

He should fit right in.
posted by pompomtom at 9:37 PM on September 11, 2013

> He should fit right in.

Yep. Let's swear this mob in.
Abbott's on egg shells.
posted by de at 9:46 PM on September 11, 2013

Even more amusing, he apparently lost preselection for his seat in 2007 and 2010 despite being the sitting member at the time. On that basis alone, Jensen appears to be a worthy replacement for Mirabella.
posted by kithrater at 11:29 PM on September 11, 2013 [1 favorite]

I called it. Albo for PM. Go buy Metafilter's own robcorr's shirt.
posted by Jimbob at 9:18 PM on September 12, 2013 [2 favorites]

You say you want a double dissolution? Well, you know, ain't nobody got time for that.
posted by Mezentian at 5:26 AM on September 13, 2013

There'll be no double dissolution. Micro-party senators will block the pre-requisite Senate Electoral Reform Bill (2015). That in itself will be a trigger.

Either these ring-ins without law degrees proliferate or they proliferate. Very delicate situation.
posted by de at 8:10 AM on September 13, 2013

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