The NEXT coming Oz election thread!

Whaaaa?

I've just attempted to post a cartoon twice. Each time I get the message that it's identical to my last post & the filter has stopped it, etc ....

So where is it?

Whaaa?

It just appeared!

(no, I have not been tippling the cooking sherry! )

Indeed there is, hinge. A kinder, warmer version, according to their (rather stunned & surprised) spokesperson on the ABC this morning. Of course he was stunned & surprised. Two upper house seats with just the teensiest number of votes! Seems everyone was so keen to keep the Greens out they got into their usual "clever" preference deals. This, of course, is how we got stuck with Fielding & Family First at the last federal election. Now we've got the DLP here!
I will never, ever vote "above the line" again. In fact I didn't this time because of the Fielding fiasco last time I voted. Too clever by half these ALP wheelers & dealers! But the good news is that the Greens got two upper house seats, too, so all is not lost.

If you have the patience to follow the process, this is how it all happened:

http://www.theage.com.au/news/national/preferences-trip-up-all-but-the-dlp/2006/12/12/1165685681140.html

I agree with not voting above the line, but I'd also like to share this tip from Margot Kingston

If you think your vote is wasted on a minor party and you have a preference for one of the big two give no1 to the minor party and no2 to the major party.

This means a) You get your major party of choice if your minor party doesn't get in.

b) the minor party gets funding from the AEC based on the number of first prefs it got and so gets resources to expand and promote its message - something that is incredibly hard these days with the monetary weight the big two have.

c) we promote diversity of political thought in this country

... & there's also that other below the line option, hinge, which I wasn't aware of till this election: you can vote for a minimum of 5 candidates of your choice. You don't have to fill in every box! (This applies in Victoria, I don't know about other states.) This could help avoid the upset of discovering that your 18th preference (the DLP!) ending up being your local member in the upper house! Agggh!

The Kingston option (Vote 1 minor, 2 major) I've employed a lot in the past, living in one of those eternally safe Labor electorates where you don't count! I haven't brought the big parties to their knees yet, though.

Good news on the Victorian front: we've just had a recount & the DLP has now lost one of it's positions to the Greens, in the western suburbs. Which means, instead of two Greens & two DLP members, we now that 3 Greens & 1 DLP. This could well mean the Greens have the balance of power in the upper house! Interesting!

Go Vics.

Is the DLP still catholic? I remember Bob Santamaria....

Well, I'm not exactly sure what the DLP stands for these days. The DLP chap on the ABC yesterday talked about his party standing for different things now .... saying things like "It's not all about the economy" & that the DLP wanted to inject some values into politics. What he meant by that, I'm not certain. It could be the same old "family values" stuff (anti abortion, anti-gay), who knows? However, the one remaining DLP member in the upper house was today quoted as declaring his support for the Labor Party because the Labor Party had supported the DLP in its voting recommendations!

Oh & I remember Bob S. How could I possibly forget?

VOTE MAC BACK was a bit before my time.

STRONG VIEWS KEY DLP POLICIES


■ An end to radical-feminist affirmative action policies whose primary … effect is the disemployment of male breadwinners and the youth.

■ Abolition of the dishonestly named Family Court of Australia, exposure of its destructive ideology and its harm done to children.

■ Rejection of the GST.

■ No child should be conceived to be born and reared deliberately deprived of a father as in the cases of single women and lesbians accessing … IVF.

■ Enforcement of the criminal law with respect to procured abortions and euthanasia through the prosecution of medical professionals.

■ Educational diversity through voucher-based funding.

■ Development of nuclear engineering and power-generating capabilities for peaceful purposes.

■ A permanent bar on foreign ownership of Australian real estate with special case exceptions.

■ Abolition of the upper house … upon proportional representation in the lower house of Parliament.

■ Zero tolerance of illicit drugs.

SOURCE: www.dlp.org.au

Thanks for posting that dadpad.

That's quite a glad-bag of policies, hey?

Is it just me, or does it sound to others like there are no women members? :wink:

The bleeding obvious.:

Iraq is a disaster: old warriors have their say
Nick McKenzie
December 16, 2006/the AGE

SOME of the nation's most senior military figures from the past two decades have delivered a blistering assessment of the US-led coalition's strategy in Iraq, saying Australia must urge the Americans to change course.

Eight former military chiefs and the present RSL president said the coalition strategy had failed and must be overhauled. ... <cont>

http://www.theage.com.au/news/national/iraq-is-a-disaster/2006/12/15/1166162320234.html?page=fullpage#contentSwap1

Today's Bleak:

Looks like a very raw deal for the aboriginal community from here, hinge. How are the Qld press & the locals responding to the the situation?

... sometimes it all just gets to be too much for Leunig.
<sigh>

The press seem to be fairly even handed, giving lots of indigenous people a five second grab here and there.

Mrs Hinge is very ambivalent. She says that a cop who stayed there for five years must have actually given a sh1t about the community because there's no way he'd stay there otherwise.

She should post here to get her point across better - I don't think I'd do it justice - she's focussing on the bigger picture - not just this incident. But she thinks A2K is the devil.

I'm always interested in Mrs h's perspective on aboriginal issues, hinge. It's a real shame you can't persuade her to A2K. The Melbourne/Sydney media is a long way from what's really going on & tend to see these things in very predictable ways, depending on political bias. Her thoughts were interesting & provided a different perspective. So police at Palm Island tend to stay for only quite short periods?

From the SMH: