A Meaningless Title

Costello's gone - I don't blame him. Who'd want to deal with rebuilding the Liberal party in their current state, especially considering whoever gets control of the Libs is unlikely to still be opposition leader by the next election. I've always kinda liked Costello, mainly on the logic that anyone who despises Howard that much can't be *all* bad. Still not sorry to see him leave parliament, of course.

The Greens look like they'll pick up senate seats in Western Australia and South Australia, but Nettle's lost her seat; a shame, I really liked her. I have to say, Western Australia is the last state I'd expect to have a Green senator. That gives the Greens and Nick Xenophon control of the senate once the new term starts in June - not bad, not bad at all. :)

Thankfully, Family First came nowhere near winning another senator - Labor learned its lesson and didn't make the bizarre preference deal they made last time. Hopefully, next election they'll lose their only seat, and that will be the end of them as a political force.

What is Downer playing at, with his claims that he'd 'always known' that the Coalition would lose? Does he think that's going to build his credibility, either with the public or his party? Granted, he's always saying strange or stupid things, but this was particularly strange and stupid. Can he quit already?

Still a few seats in doubt, but it looks like Bennelong is Labor-held. Congratulations to Maxine McKew!

I have to admit it's still hard to believe the scale of Labor's victory. I complained earlier in the campaign about the amount of advertising junk the Liberals were sending me, and wondered why they were putting so much effort into campaigning in a seat they held by - what I considered - a comfortable margin of 5%. Well, Deakin's now a Labor seat with a margin of 2%, and there's plenty of other seats with swings even larger towards Labor. La Trobe's still in doubt; if the Liberals keep it, it'll be by the skin of their teeth.

When's the next state election? I can't imagine Labor will be able to stay in power in every state and territory for long, but it'll be interesting to see what they can do in the meantime with total Federal and State control...

I was rather surprised when I went up to vote today how few Liberal party posters were up there. The side of the polling building seemed to be wall-to-wall Labor ads. I began to speculate that the Libs had spent so much on their constant barrage of leaflets during the campaign that they ran out of money to promote their candidate at the polling station itself...

Then I got a bit closer and noticed that about half the posters WERE Liberal posters. The problem? All of them were warning of the dangers of having Labor governments at the state and federal level. What the Liberal ad designers apparently didn't consider is that, at a glance, the most noticeable element of the poster is a map of Australia with "Labor" written all over it in big letters.

Handy hint for campaign advertising: Make sure your party's name is the dominant element of the poster, not your opponents...

Don't think I'll be watching the election coverage tonight - it's too nerve-wracking. I'm still cautiously optimistic - but I don't want to have my hopes raised and dashed over and over all night long.

Who will you be voting for? Labor? The Liberals? The Greens? The Democrats? Family First? Have you perhaps considered...



Tony Klein! He*:

• Has worked for small business AND large corporations!
• Has a family AND a mortgage!
• Owns shares!
• Has traveled extensively!
• Never smoked!
• Works hard AND is dedicated to his family!
• Overall, thinks he is an average Victorian!
• Has no specific agenda or policies!

How could you pass him up? He's running as part of Independent Group V, alongside Amanda Klein, who isn't mentioned at all on her husband's (?) website. Then again, considering how proudly his policy page notes that he has no policies, perhaps it's better if she's not overly associated with him or his campaign.

So if you want a candidate with no agenda, no policies, and quite probably no ideas, VOTE TONY KLEIN on Saturday!

Seriously, how do candidates like this get enough support to get on the ballot in the first place?

* All statements taken from his policies webpage.

Election time is almost upon us, and what does that mean?

Yes, it means it’s time to scrutinise the websites of obscure fringe candidates and parties! Part of the fun of preferential voting is that you’re not just voting for a single candidate – no, you’re ranking all of them, and you can hardly call yourself an informed voter unless you’re aware of the policies of all those seeking your vote!

Fortunately, in Victoria, there’s a mere sixty-eight candidates for the senate, so this will be a breeze!

Today’s fringe party is the Democratic Labor Party, which split from the main Australian Labor Party in 1954 and attracted the support of Catholics and anti-Communists. They exerted considerable influence at both the state and federal level for the next two decades, but lost influence following the election of Gough Whitlam, and were formally dissolved in 1978.

Then what are they doing on my ballot paper, you might ask? Well, seems after the party was dissolved, it was reformed a few years later, but only in Victoria. Having lost the national influence and Church endorsements the old DLP enjoyed, the Victorian DLP has remained a political non-entity for its entire existence. They actually managed to get almost two percent of the Victorian senate vote in the last election, but since other right-wing parties tend to preference Family First ahead of them, and left-wing and centrist parties tend to stay as far away from them as possible, they failed to win any seats. They’re still confident, however, and this time around they’re running six candidates for the senate. This may seem optimistic, considering the major parties are only running four; but, hey, better safe than sorry, and maybe some freak distribution of preferences WILL result in this dying remnant of a decades-dead political movement winning all six Victorian senate seats.

The DPL website can be found at http://www.dlp.org.au/ , where you can read all their policies, written, for no apparent reason, in Comic Sans. Perhaps they feel that by following the web-design standards of the early 90s, they come across as more conservative than the major parties with their new-fangled, wishy-washy, left wing, non-horrible font choices. Their polices are an odd mix of the progressive – eliminating Workchoices, increased foreign aid to Pacific nations, an emphasis on accepting more asylum seekers into Australia – the appallingly reactionary – large rants against ‘radical-feminist policies, AIDS being ‘overwhelmingly a homosexual disease’ – and the outright baffling – calls for Australia to develop a nuclear power program that would ‘facilitate future options for acquiring a nuclear deterrent capability, and to promote the prospect of New Zealand joining the Commonwealth as a seventh state.

I plan on preferencing the DLP ahead of the outright racist One Nation and the conservatively religious Family First, but behind all the major parties. They’re not the worst option on the ballot paper, but they’re not very good.

 

My Federal MP sends out campaign advertisements ridiculously often - about once a fortnight normally, but now that we're in campaign season and there's actually a reason to send the stuff, he's up to about twice a week. They're full of big pictures of himself, vague promises, and always - ALWAYS - a mention of how he hiked the Kokoda trail.

Today's advertisement is the usual junk, including a list of his plans for the future. They're STRONG plans, and you can tell because he writes "Strong Plan" next to each one. Of course, he doesn't seem to have too many plans, as "Work to upgrade community halls" and "Upgrade community centres" are listed as separate plans. On the plus side, in case you've forgotten what he looks like, the booklet includes twelve photos of him, one on each page. That, combined with the eight photos of him in the pamphlet he sent out on Saturday, along with the two billboards of his face he's put up in a vacant lot in my street, means I've got a pretty good mental image of the guy I'm going to try and vote out on the 24th.