Australian Federal Election thread - 2010 edition.

[Stark]

Oh man, the hilarious posters informing me that a vote for Labor is a vote for debt, waste and MORE BOATS was the best thing I've seen all week. Labor funds those boats, you know. THat's why there's so many!

[Chris OFarrell]

I managed to dodge my local member (the most honorable Federal Attorney general in fact) by about 5 minutes today.

Sex Party for the Senate! I mean, ther number of crazy parties on the senate paper..


The 'The Climate Sceptics party' FFS??!!!
I didn't know the Liberals were allowed to go under multiple names

[Lusankya]

I read the Climate Sceptics website a while ago, just for a lark. Their party leader lists in his educational achievements "One year at Flinders University studying Science subjects". And his biggest challenge was "shearing 10,000 sheep". I have no idea how people can take him seriously.

[thejester]

Absentee voting is fucking rad, I enjoyed JUMPING THE QUEU by about forty minutes. I guess that makes me unAustralian.

I also was going to vote below the line but couldn't decide who I hated more out of the climate sceptics, family first and the DLP so I ended up putting '1' Greens.

[adam_grif]

FF came last, CS second last, DLP third last.

Honestly, voting below the line took me less than 20 seconds.

I also love living directly across the street from my local polling station.

[Phantasee]

What's all this about voting above or below a line? How do your ballots work?

[thejester]

Because of the massive number of candidates in the upper house, rather than have to preference each one individually you can just indicate one party (above the line) and that automatically preferences the rest based on that party.

[mr friendly guy]

The voting above and below the line only applies to the upper house ie the senate. The lower house you just number them in order of how you like.
explains the preferential voting system

At 2.36 onwards it explains voting below and above the line for those foreigners.

[Stofsk]

Was anybody as excited as I was to cast their vote today? Oh man was I excited.

[Stark]

I was able to absentee vote AND approach from the not-how-to-vote-card side. Best vote ever.

[weemadando]

Thanks to belowtheline.cc it was a breeze to do my Senate sheet. It was fun to see the dregs that Labor and the Greens sent to my electorate (Kooyong in Melbourne - safe, safe, safe Liberal) to stand outside the polling station. Especially seeing as I had to take my turn standing outside for a while with baby while my wife voted.

Hilariously, the Greens douche and the Labor douche were exchanging racist jokes.

[Stark]

Someone should make party preference deals required to be public, so people can look it up on a sign at the ballot box.

Oh sorry, too democratic.

[JointStrikeFighter]

Absentee voting is fucking rad, I enjoyed JUMPING THE QUEU by about forty minutes. I guess that makes me unAustralian.
.

I drove one electorate over for that very reason

[weemadando]

Looks like the Greens might have snaked Melbourne. Fuck yeah.

Still looks like it will be a damn long night.

[weemadando]

And the LNP have been formally reprimanded for posing as Greens at QLD polling stations.

[weemadando]

Whoa. What the fuck is going on... Hung Parliament with Greens and a fucking DENISON INDEPENDENT holding balance of power.

[Twoyboy]

Someone should make party preference deals required to be public, so people can look it up on a sign at the ballot box.

Most of them were. I was looking on the AEC site this morning.

http://www.aec.gov.au/election/wa/gvt.htm

[Archaic`]

At the moment, the most exciting thing about this whole election is that my recent tweet on informal voters has made me a trending topic in Brisbane, and might get me a top tweet on #ausvotes for today. =o

This could certainly still go any way. Looks like it'll be a long night. Might not know the results until mid week at this rate.

[pj1351]

And the LNP have been formally reprimanded for posing as Greens at QLD polling stations.

I do wish the various political parties wouldn't try to pull that kind of B.S., but I really can't say that I'm surprised in the slighest.

[adam_grif]

Whoa. What the fuck is going on... Hung Parliament with Greens and a fucking DENISON INDEPENDENT holding balance of power.

This election is fucking close. First time I've watched this much tv in years.

[adam_grif]

Bob Brown should really think about investing in the med bay upgrade. If he's not careful his cyborg parts will start showing soon!

[LionElJonson]

Heh. The most TV I'm watched in months, as well. Looks like Gillard can probably thank Anna Bligh for the hung parliament; odds are the reason Labor lost so many Queensland seats is because Bligh is an incompetent idiot and we're stuck with her for another two years, so we took it out on the national labor party.

[bobnik]

Heh. The most TV I'm watched in months, as well. Looks like Gillard can probably thank Anna Bligh for the hung parliament; odds are the reason Labor lost so many Queensland seats is because Bligh is an incompetent idiot and we're stuck with her for another two years, so we took it out on the national labor party.

Yeah, I wouldn't be surprised to learn a similar thing has happened in NSW. So, hung parliament? As Kerry O'Brien was just saying, the independents have just made a whole load of new best friends.

[bobalot]

Wow, you have proven beyond a doubt that you are a fucking retard. It appears you didn't even read your own article.

The Daily Telegraph reports the campaign is run by the Alliance of Australian Retailers, which was registered only last week, and is being funded almost entirely by tobacco giants Philip Morris and British American Tobacco.

Who's being a fucking retard? Your claim is that the Liberals are "secretly using tobacco companies to run "independent" anti-government advertisements", and yet in the same article that you claim I didn't read, the link from Alliance of Australian Retailers to Crosby Textor (the supposed "architects of the research behind the campaign") is shot down.

You didn't do much research. Here is the original article, which your article followed up on.

However, the campaign has been devised by former Howard government advisers and Liberal Party strategists and is being almost entirely funded by the tobacco industry.

We're talking about the same party that apparently has an "attack response group" (based in Bob's own office), which specifically digs around for "solicitors who are willing to write 'cease and desist' letters to frighten off people (will work only with smaller groups, not with the other major parties)" to silence critics?

You took that out of context, you dishonest shit. That was a single request from a single member. Not official party policy.

Oh, I took it out of context? Then let's read the entire paragraph for the full context:

Two days later, in an email written after a meeting of the attack response group on July 23, Emma Bull from Senator Brown's office requested each state branch check local contacts ''for lawyers who may be willing to give pro bono advice if injunctions are required at any point'' and for ''contact details for solicitors who are willing to write 'cease and desist' letters to frighten off people (will work only with smaller groups, not with the other major parties)''.

It is an request, like I pointed out before, most of these branches are autonomous. Weather they actually follow it is up to them. You were at pains to point out before how much less influence Bob Brown actually had on them compared to the leaders of other parties in your attempt to provide evidence for "shady dealings".

I don't see the Green's using the race bait card, which is something that is far worse than any of this trivial bullshit.

Hm. This point, however, I do conceed.

So after all this, you agree that your golden mean argument (your main argument) is still full of crap. You could have just admitted that at the beginning.

Using Tobacco companies? When did they do that? I haven't heard anything like that. They've certainly accepted donations from those in the Tobacco industry, but I'm fairly sure Labor have there as well.

BTW, Labor stopped accepting donations in 2004. One of the only few good party policies that Mark Latham implemented.

Stopped accepting all donations? I find that very hard to believe. If they've stopped taking money from firms, I doubt that means they've also stopped taking money from the unions.

I meant they stopped taking donations from the Tobacco industry.

[bobalot]

Whoa. What the fuck is going on... Hung Parliament with Greens and a fucking DENISON INDEPENDENT holding balance of power.

It could be worse, they could form a minority government with Tony Abbott, the Liberal party's Mark Latham.