OH F&%K

Ok, I'm gonna swear now so for those with sensitive ears turn away from the screen......that fucking John Howard has got control of the fucking senate and now the little bastard will not be stopped. Could it get any fucking worse....ok I think I have got that out of my system so those of you who don't like the swearing business can turn back to your screens.

We knew it was going to happen but it's still hard to believe. Johnny says:

It's a very good outcome but I want to assure the Australian people that the Government will use its majority in the new Senate very carefully, very wisely, and not provocatively.

We intend to do the things we've promised the Australian people we would do, but we don't intend to allow this unexpected but welcome majority in the Senate to go to our heads.

Like fuck you will. By the look of this photo on the SMH site this afternoon you already have. What a turd.

Sorry, up until this point Psephite has been a restrained blog, perhaps I've been reading too much Ms Fits.

Insular? Me?

Haven't posted for a while and this is going to be short: Dubya's website now blocks visitors from outside the US. More at the BBC and the orginal source Boing Boing.

Grogblogging

Via the Daily Flute, news of a get-together for Sydney bloggers (although, I am sure our cousins in the ACT could tag along). I am not sure how I feel about being outed as a Psephite (or a Blogballer, or Templatedata) and I have horrible thoughts of early web chat-room "flesh meets" that I witnessed (WITNESSED, was NOT part of) but there is something that is strangely drawing me to want to go. Perhaps it's the chance of seeing Darp in the flesh (just not the shaved bits).

UPDATE: According to Darp, Tim Blair has confirmed his attendance. A little jelly foxy-boxing between Darp and Tim, I'd PAY to see that.

No wonder most of them don't bother to vote

A 'firestorm' is brewing in the US after claims that a private voter registration firm trashed registrations from Democrat voters.

An employee of a private voter registration firm alleges that his bosses trashed registration forms filled out by Democratic voters because they only wanted to sign up Republican voters.

Apparently in the US you identify as a Democrat or Republican voter when you register. I find this very strange and if I am wrong in thinking this is the case someone please set me straight.

Either way, I have been wondering if there would be any voter scandals after the debacle that was the last US election - surely it couldn't happen again. Actually, I could believe Bush/Republicans are capable of anything...

More claims of voter fraud, and more.

Mandate, mandate

Here we go again, Howard believes that voters want the troops to stay in Iraq. According to the SMH:

Australians might be divided over the Iraq war, but the election result proved most backed plans to keep troops there, Prime Minister John Howard said today.

The article also raised the point that the war in Iraq was not really addressed as an election issue. This has probably been spoken about on other blogs around the traps but I'm going to give my usual ill-informed gut reactions.

I didn't really think about it at the time but Labor didn't really address the war during their campaign. To do so would have meant attacking Howard's appalling record with the truth and this would have meant a somewhat negative campaign. They chose instead to reserve their negativity for the question of whether Howard would remain for a whole term. I'm sorry, but I don't believe that anyone gives a shit whether Howard was going to hang around or not. To use this tactic was basically admitting that people wanted to vote for Howard, that he was a strong leader who people would be voting for, not so much the Coalition as a whole. Labor was admitting the strength of the opposition and trying to use the fact that he may up and leave as ammunition. Hmm, sounds a little flawed.

Would they have been better off if they really went for Howard's jugular, pointing out his lies, his suck-hole behaviour with Dubya? Did they just accept that Howard was a strong leader and they would be better off running a positive campaign? The theory says that negative campaigns don't work - this time it did. The Coalition ran a heavily negative campaign, stressing Latham's inexperience, his alleged stuff-up at Liverpool. Labor's negative tactic was the fact that Little Johhny might not hang around. Hmm, I think reminding people of the lies, the half-arsed research and the teflon-Don impersonations, may have worked more effectively.

The only appropriate response

Now, this has probably appeared in your inbox already care of a 40-times forwarded email.

Go look at it anyway, cheered me up no end.

Well kiss my grits!

I don't think I have the emotional energy right now to post long and analytical.

But I just can't stop thinking about the Senate result. Australia will soon be in for a real shock as Johnny polishes up his jack-boots and pulls all the real scary legislation from the bottom drawer.

And I'm not talking about Telstra. I don't think people much care about that. Neither am I sure people will care that News Ltd will soon be able to buy up a tv station (yes that's right, the Government's previous 'safeguards' in their proposed media-ownership legislation will be out the window on 1 July 2005, and it will be back to their original open-slather reforms).

Has any one else got an underlying sense of panic about this Government's legislative agenda? Remember, nothing will get referred to Committee for review and analysis, so there'll be no public submissions, no scrutiny, no assessment of the long term effects. We'll lose a significant chunk of our ability to participate in our democracy between elections.

But perhaps that is what people really want. Somone to cover their eyes and take the wheel. Doesn't matter that we're headed for the ditch, just as long as they feel they are still moving along.

The horror, the horror

I have been a bad blogger. It is only now on Sunday evening that I have been able to bring myself to post about last night's events. Thankfully we never promised that Psephite would provide up-to-the-minute coverage...

Last night I watched the election at an election party. And what a sad party it was. In attendance with me was comicstriphero who left early, once it became clear that things were very bad. I am not sure if we will see a post from her any time soon, she has driven back to Canberra today and may spend the next couple of months in an election-induced fugue state.

The party was unashamedly Labor/Greens supportive so you can imagine the pall of depression that was only worsened by the beer that had to be consumed to dull the pain. We had a couple of wags who kept our spirits up, those who insisted that Family First were actually saying that lesbians burn the steak, being tofu-eaters and all and were subsequently not to be trusted at BBQs. But it wasn't enough.

So where did it all go wrong? I will continue in the vein of my previous analytical posts and provide a couple of spurious claims based on gut-feeling.

Firstly, the L-plater Latham. Did inexperience really play a part in the end? I think it did. Howard is a crafty bastard and Latham just seemed too honest. Too nice (but not as nice as Big Beazo). Howard plays on people's fears, he plays on the fears that people have of losing what they have got. Whereas Labor attempted to provide promise of building on what we had, Howard just emphasised that it all may be lost. The Coalition ran a negative, fear-mongering campaign. No surprises there then.

Latham tried to bring a 'vision' to the campaign but he is evidently not a good speaker, his repetition and monotone never inspiring anyone much. Perhaps he would have been better served if we saw the cabbie-punching, congo-line-of-suckhole Latham. Perhaps he should have just gone out and nailed the scum instead of trying to provide 'vision', however weak.

The thing though that frightens me most about this result is what this says about the Australian people. Howard has succeeded in turning this country into a collection of individuals who care only about what they will directly get from the Government. Mainly, they seem to care about cash. The promise of a tiny bit of cash is far more easy to understand than Labor's 'Medicare Gold' which on the surface seemed to benefit only the over-75s but which in reality had a trickle-down effect that would reach most of the population. Such an idea has proven too complex for the electorate. We've become a population that is self-serving, simple, ignorant, money-grabbing, short-sighted and unwilling to risk a couple of bucks for the greater good. At least, this is what last night's result would have you believe.

Clinging on to a hope with my fingernails

Well, the big day is almost here and I can admit to feeling a shiver of excitement (perhaps I need to get a life). I was opinion-polled out some time last week so my predictions are going to be made purely on gut feeling, I have even less expertise in these things than comicstriphero. So, here goes:

I have been feeling that Labor will not make it. I feel they may improve on their last efforts but Little Johnny rat will make it to a fourth term and a sizable chunk of the population will move to New Zealand. I have been overwhelmed into submission by the Coalition bias shown by the News Ltd media, as comicstriphero earlier mentioned. Little Johnboy has constantly aimed at the lowest common denominator both in his time as PM and in this election campaign and it is hard to struggle against the feeling that this country has become the lowest common denominator. That this denominator is valued and questioning, intelligent public discussion is dismissed as elite. As such, idiotic and blatantly untrue platforms like "higher interest rates under Labor" are believed without question. Teflon-John is going to get away with it again.

Well, this is how I was feeling until about 1pm this afternoon. A chat with a colleague revealed some high-level research she had been doing this week. Every cab she got into she asked the cab driver their opinion on the election. And the answers? Overwhelming in favour of a Labor win. Perhaps there is just a shred of hope...

One last blog for the road before the big day, eh?

It feels a bit like Christmas eve round here, everyone’s just marking time waiting for the big event.

Most of the papers this morning were screaming for a Coalition win, the Telegraph runs its editorial “The Daily Telegraph believes the Howard Government deserves to be re-elected.”

That the campaign could be at this point after all Howard’s done, and how extensively its been covered in the public arena, just boggles the mind. Its as if the commentators and voters willing to give Howard the big tick have looped themselves out of logic somehow.

I know its probably a tired analogy, but its as if certain Howardian actions have just been cut out of history completely 1984-style. People will just believe anything he says, as long as he says it often enough, and with enough conviction.

The only solace I am taking in all this is that the more a strong Coalition victory is talked up, the more likely it is people will feel ‘safe’ in casting a protest vote. Waverers might be less likely to mark 1 next to their local ALP candidate if they think it will actually make a difference.

Howard, being the annoyingly deft electoral operator he is knows this. And the News Ltd web site has helpfully pointed out the ‘dangers’ of people voting how they actually want to. It has actually bolded and capitalised the word “warning” before the headline, immediately drawing the eye in to the story (view story here, and see the bolded, capitalised ‘warning’ here). John must be loving Rupert sick right now. The News press has pretty much turned into Coalition ‘how-to-vote’ literature.

Any way, just to add my voice to the teeming mass of speculation choking the land, I’m going to make my prediction. If I was going to be timid, I would say that whichever party wins, it will be with a majority of about 5 seats, with a fairly identical Senate equation except for substituting some Dems with some Greens. Throw in a Family First Senator, another Liberal Senator to take Shayne Murphy’s place, and this makes for a favourable Senate for the Coalition.

But I’ve decided not to be timid, and to totally fly off the handle and predict a romping ALP victory, with celebrations in the streets and an end to neo-conservatism in Australia. ALP to pick up marginal seats along coastal NSW and suburban Adelaide and Brisbane.

Please? I’ve been good!

Senate ranking tool

Via Poll Vault, Nosemugger's Senate ranking tool helps you sort out your preferences should you wish to vote below the line. We all have parties we love, some we hate and some of which we know nothing. This little tool orders your preferences according to the parties you nominate as your loves and your hates. Well worth a go. (And it seems to be housed at Sydney Uni...)

The thrills of democracy

Well, I've just voted (advance voting - get in early!).

I'll admit to being a bit nervous about it, but I think this was just an extension of my overall nervousness about the poll result.

I was somewhat disappointed not to be harangued by party volunteers outside the polling place. I was only approached by the Greens volunteer. Perhaps my appearance puts the others off, I don't' know. Perhaps word got out about me after I made a monarchist volunteer cry at a referendum polling place back in 1999 (yes, its true! Its not my fault they decided to send out 9 year-olds who couldn't handle some slightly surly questioning).

Anyway, just for the record, I voted under the line in the Senate, just so I could put the Nile mob last (I felt I had to, just to make up for the fact that my girlfriend and I were too chicken to snog in front of Fred when we accidentally ran into him on Macquarie Street one day).

And, despite the ACT Senate ballot paper only listing 13 candidates (as opposed to the 50-odd one has had to number in NSW in the past), I managed to stuff it up and had to ask for a new piece of paper.

Now all I can do is wait...

Only 5 days of blind optimism left...

Five days left of campaigning also means there’s only 5 days left for pre-election blogging!

I suppose now would be a pertinent time to get some predictive thoughts down on record. Its pretty obvious I don’t have the knowledge to be able to sit down and work through the electorates, analyse polling data and come up with a well researched picture of a likely House of Reps, Senate, or marginal electorate results.

However, as far as generalised, airy-fairy, off-the-top-of-the-head type predictions, I reckon I’m pretty well qualified (ie, I have all the right physical attributes needed to give 'gut' predictions).

At this stage, it just doesn’t feel like Latham has enough momentum to get him over the top of the incumbent’s advantage. One just gets the sense that he’s almost there. But that really counts for nothing if Howard gets back in. Just ask Kim Beazley.

Lately I’ve been investing all my hopes in a 1999 Victorian election style ALP victory. In the coming days, I may even allow myself to start getting my hopes up.

But I’m going to hold off for now. It really does seem way too close to call. I guess it doesn’t really matter if I get my hopes up and they are then dashed by an ALP loss. I will be utterly devastated any way just by the result, and it won’t really make that much difference whether or not I was expecting it.

As usual, Backpages has some meaty discussion of the latest polls, and I should probably do some more research before flying off the handle with wildly pessimistic or unrealistically optimistic predictions.

On the advertisements front, I quite liked the latest Mark Latham effort, which obviously aims to address his perceived lack of experience.

You can see a story board of the advertisement here, and the ALP’s site also allows you to watch video of the ads.

The Liberal’s latest interest rate scare advertisement is of the brutal and heavy handed school of advertising, and if taken on face value by your ordinary mortgage payer could have some nasty results (if you haven’t seen it, it drones on with predicted rises in monthly mortgage repayments if interest rates were to rise – but of course fails to mention that a rate rise has been predicted for later in the year irrespective of the election result). It would be interesting to see if there is any research on the effectiveness of these advertisements.

Also, just to show how truly evil the Liberals are, they’ve generated an interest rate scare pop-up ad on their website. The bastards!

Kurt Kennedy! Ydennek Truk!

This is a guest post by Gloomy, who wishes to merely dip his toe in the blogging waters....

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The Federal election is boring me.

Fortunately, there is another election campaign going on at the same time – the election for the illustrious ACT Legislative Assembly is being held on October 16. While this means that Canberra residents have to go to the polls on two consecutive weekends, it has fortunately meant that out ACT “politicians” haven’t had much airtime over the course of the election campaign so far. They have just been drowned out by the Federal campaign.

Nevertheless, some local media is still finding some time to cover the local derby. A quick glance at the ABC Online *forum* will give you an idea of some of the hot issues concerning Canberrans: Bicycle lanes on main roads! Fireworks! The Dragway! Happy chooks! (If you’re confused by the last one, a group called “Free Range Canberra” is running on a campaign to close down Canberra’s battery hen operation – apparently there are 250,000 battery hens in Canberra.)

Strangely, the ABC forum doesn’t mention one promising young candidate, *Mr Kurt Kennedy*. Mr Kennedy’s certainly got some interesting policies. Take his views on the issue of interest:

Interest rates should be zero. The government will not receive interest as part of its revenue.

The expectation of receiving interest on deposits/lending is nothing but pure greed. What is the difference between a person who lends money and does not charge interest and the person who lends money and charges interest? The person charging interest is greedy.

If you lent someone a pen to use, do you expect that person to give you the pen back and in addition give you another pen?

No, indeed.

I’ve often thought there weren’t enough fruit trees in Canberra. Fortunately, Mr Kennedy has a solution to this problem!

Use fruit bearing trees as street plants to provide a source of free food for the community. Include fruit trees as an extended plant issue scheme. Information brochures on how to propagate fruit trees from seed will be made available to help you grow your own fruit trees.

Home owner have the option of replacing their street tree (when due) with a suitable fruit tree if they are willing to look after it and reap its fruits. Suitable trees may include figs, persimmons (sic); that is trees that are low maintenance, do not need spraying and are not dangerous.

And what better way to make good use of your fruit tree than to share its bounty with your family? But it would be such a hassle to drive all the way across town to share some apples or persimmons with your parents. Wouldn’t it be so much easier if they lived close by? Mr Kennedy’s thought of that too, with a policy to encourage people to live close to their family members:

When you buy your home within walking distance of any of your family member (parent-child, and sibling relationships), you can be eligible for a proportional duty reduction. This is to encourage people to live near and walk to visit loved ones, thus reducing the use of cars and increasing community closeness and interaction.

That’s the solution to our transport woes! If there’s one thing wrong with our transport system, it’s the number of cars clogging our roads with people driving to see their loved ones.

And if there's one thing wrong with the Australian legal system it's that it's way too hard to dig your own well. But Mr Kennedy will fix that, by “making it easier for you to dig your own well to get water”. You can use the water to irrigate your fruit trees!

Mr Kennedy has also brought a refreshingly new approach to political campaigning. Here’s an extract from his press release of 25 September:

As you can see from my campaign calendar, I've been very busy. I am going to write in the first person now as I am capable of changing and adapting. There's no rule that media releases should not be in the first person, especially when I am uploading them into my web page. (...) The National Library has approached me to archive my campaign webpage as they consider it is of "national significance". How mind blowing; I was happy to oblige.

In spite of his radical and thought-provoking policies, part of me can’t help but hope that Mr Kennedy is not successful in his campaign. It would be such a waste were he elected to the ACT Legislative Assembly. After all, he has so much to offer the world of music through his *music mirror* palindromic compositions. The benefit of palindromic music, as Mr Kennedy points out, is that you only need to do half as much work. Of course, one disadvantage is that it doesn’t end up sounding very good, but that’s a minor quibble.

I think he could be onto something with these palindromes. He should consider encapsulating some of his policies in palindromic form.

A suggestion: Apple ho ! Help, Pa!

Unfocused groups

Seems like the campaign to sell the Latham ‘brand’ has only half succeeded:

When the uncommitted voters of the marginal federal seat of Parramatta were asked to give their impressions of Mark Latham, they generally started with a gush of positives.

The Labor leader was passionate, sincere, down to earth, determined, confident, self-made, youthful, a fresh face, intelligent, a fighter, a believer, a working man, an intellectual - all descriptions offered spontaneously by people in three focus groups convened for the Herald last week by pollsters ACNielsen.

But then the positives started to give way to negatives […]The word that came up most often was inexperienced.

See the full story here.

This would suggest that Latham’s newness has not been successfully sold as a positive. That his freshness and youth has not so much contrasted with Howard’s age, but has contrasted with Howard’s experience. Well, in these people’s mind anyway.

Some aspects of Latham’s character which I thought could have easily come across as positives have been damned by some of those interviewed:

John Howard is battle hardened - I saw Latham with tears in his eyes because someone said something bad about his family. At least Howard has his mind on the job.

Talk about tough! Makes me wonder what a leader would have to do to appeal to people like this.

And as for Howard, the voter’s impressions were so confused I’d be surprised if they could tell their arse from their elbow:

The Prime Minister was a grump, old-fashioned, 1950s, whingey, peevish, a liar, a bit devious, a twister of truth, evasive, boring, bland, short, "a bit of a grandpa - he looks like he needs help to cross the street".

But after the initial reactions came a generally more positive stream of thoughts. Howard was experienced, stable, decent, in control, qualified, solid, tried and true, doesn't give up, a good leader, solid, a guy you can't push over.

Perhaps these people should sit down and have a good think about why they have these negative impressions of Howard, and then try to reconcile these with their good impressions of him. Methinks this would be an impossible task. At least they might then see in themselves the same conflicts which come across in the focus group results.

Allow me to introduce an analogy. Any good relationship consultant worth their exorbitant hourly fee would tell you that a relationship with so many conflicts can only be unhealthy and destructive. One simply can’t be happy in a relationship if one is continually reconciling the negative characteristics of the other person – trying to find reasons to stay.

On the other hand, who can honestly say they don’t enjoy that first, exciting and ‘dangerous’ period in a new relationship, a period of discovery and tumult. Even if the relationship doesn't turn into something more long term, you've still lived and enjoyed that period in your life more than you would have had you not taken the risk in the first place.

These voters have enjoyed learning more about Latham as the campaign has gone on and I think they should throw off their inhibitions and progress from flirting to dating.

So I would implore these voters (who, the article states, are more likely to vote on the basis of leadership brands than policy) to break off their current deceitful, negative and stale relationship. Fill your life with positives! Throw off the shackles and free yourself from Johnny’s destructive grasp! Commit your hearts to the young Lathario!