Limbo dancing

While you wait:

• The media has finally awoken to the possibility the Steve Fielding might yet win the race for the final Victorian Senate seat, which is the only result of the election still in doubt. The ABC projection has John Madigan of the Democratic Labor Party winning the seat after narrowly escaping exclusion at “count 21”, where he keeps ahead of Fielding with 3.29 per cent of the vote against 3.14 per cent. If Fielding gets ahead – and there is reason to think name recognition will boost him on below-the-line preferences – it will be he rather than Madigan that snowballs to victory with the help of the other preferences. However, Antony Green reckons it more likely whoever gets ahead will ultimately land short of the third Coalition candidate, Julian McGauran, who will benefit from the Coalition’s traditional strength on late counting. More from Andrew Crook at Crikey. Those wishing to discuss the Senate count are asked to do so in the dedicated post below.

• Government formation negotiations have turned up a number of agreements on campaign finance and electoral reform. The Labor-Greens alliance proposes that the two parties will “work together” to enact reforms that were blocked in the Senate last year by the Coalition and silly Steve Fielding: lowering the threshold for public disclosure of donations from $11,500 to $1000, closing the loophole that allows separate donations below the threshold to be made to multiple state party branches, shortening the gap between receipt of donations and disclosure, tying public funding to genuine campaign expenditure, banning foreign donations and banning anonymous donations over $50. Julia Gillard has said the deal she has offered to the independents, which has not been made available to the public, is along the same lines. According to The Age, “Tony Abbott has signalled he is prepared to consider significant reform but is yet to reveal the specific options he is putting to the three rural independents”.

• Also in the Labor-Greens agreement is a promise to “consider” a long-standing Greens private members bill which proposes to abolish the “just vote one” above-the-line Senate option that commits the voter to the party’s registered Senate ticket, to be replaced with preferential ordering of at least four party boxes above the line (seven at double dissolutions). This would result in votes exhausting where no further preference is indicated, rather than locking every vote in behind the sometimes highly obscure candidates who survive to the final stages of the count.

• Labor and the Greens also promise to “work together” to enforce “truth in advertising”, which the Greens have been very keen on since Labor targeted them with a smear campaign before the March state election in Tasmania. Establishing the terms of such a measure would be highly fraught, as noted recently by Robert Merkel at Larvatus Prodeo.

• Labor has agreed only to “investigate” the possibility of legislated fixed terms; the rural independents are calling for the length of the current term to be set by “enabling legislation or other means”.

• Tim Colebatch of The Age fancies Senate figures suggest Labor should ultimately win the two-party arm wrestle, the results of which won’t be known to us for at least a month.

• Tasmanian firm EMRS has published one of its regular polls of state voting intention, which has the Liberals down from 39.0 per cent at the election to 35 per cent, Labor down from 36.9 per cent to 34 per cent, the Greens up from 21.6 per cent to 26 per cent – overstatement of the Greens being a feature of EMRS polls. The firm suffered a further dent during the federal election campaign when its poll failed to detect the strength of support for Andrew Wilkie.

Author: William Bowe

William Bowe is a Perth-based election analyst and occasional teacher of political science. His blog, The Poll Bludger, has existed in one form or another since 2004, and is one of the most heavily trafficked websites on Australian politics.

4,048 comments on “Limbo dancing”

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  1. I need PBers assistance with a very important problem

    Normally we produce three Incoming Government Briefs
    1) Blue Book
    2) Red Book
    3) Little Blue or Red Book

    this weeked I need to work on a few others – but what colour
    4) ALP plus Green plus Tasmania plus KOW
    5) ALP plus Green plus Tasmania plus KO
    6) ALP plus Green plus Tasmania plus OW
    7) ALP plus Green plus Tasmania plus KW

    Any ideas

  2. TSOP

    The rain event is due to pass through Victoria overnight. Apparently, it is going to be a pretty significant weather event. Weather Bureau is stating up to 150 mm rain in parts of the State, with strong winds. Melbourne not going to get full impact, but sounds like we are in for a good one.

  3. [ Now 60 hours into my No Sleep Until Tony Loses Marathon – with PBers permission I think I’m going to declare Tony the moral loser and go to sleep tonight. ]

    I’d be seeing stuff by now, you can’t last another 48 hours and it is likely to take that long, if you rest instead, when you wake up the sun could well and truly be shining.

  5. Wal,

    Ranatunga was a portly, truculent dissembler.

    But he does deserve respect, as he completely changed Sri Lankan cricket.

    To think that they used to be the polite, amiable easybeats of the cricket world!

    Nowadays they can still be beaten- but they certainly nice aren’t nice about losing!

    I didn’t know about his present status as a Minister- good for him, but the current President is not someone I’d like my name to be closely associated with…

  8. [Now 60 hours into my No Sleep Until Tony Loses Marathon]

    Hallelujah VP — I thught it was only till he cries anyway — and I am willling to bet he has done so several times in the past 24 hours.

    Rest well, jedi

  10. [this weeked I need to work on a few others – but what colour
    4) ALP plus Green plus Tasmania plus KOW
    5) ALP plus Green plus Tasmania plus KO
    6) ALP plus Green plus Tasmania plus OW
    7) ALP plus Green plus Tasmania plus KW

    Any ideas]

    4) Yellow
    5) Orange
    6) Green
    7) Purple

    Those were just arbitrary suggestions. 🙂

  11. just had an email from a cousin in qld who do not like wilkie they are upset about the gambling revenue told her its the same here but we are not jumping up and down. dont think i will be very popular as i said it sounds like qld is very much like the southern states of american and may be time to grow up and not be so marerialistic.

    WEll of course i thought they are a liberal state

  13. [Easy a rainbow coloured book.]

    Sorry – they each have to have their own colour – I reckon if Katter is on board it has to be banana yellow

  14. [maybe I do need to go to sleep]

    YES!!!

    (are you coming down from a meth binge or something? :P)

    Seriously, do sleep.

  15. I was 15 at the time. Walked straight out of a cinema after seeing “They’re a Weird Mob” into the crowd along the street waving American and Australian flags just as the official motorcade went by!

    Thanks for posting your memories Rod. You and me are of about the same vintage. I was in one of the last batches that had to register for conscription. I was balloted out.

    A good mate of mine was called up and was due to go vietnam as a tunnel rat doing clearance work. He is convinced to this day that Gough saved his life.

  19. [I didn’t know about his present status as a Minister- good for him, but the current President is not someone I’d like my name to be closely associated with…]

    I, myself, don’t like Mahinda Rajapaksa (we call him rajapuka – puka is a slang word for what we sit on…) – but even then he stoped the civil war.

    Sri Lankans know how to pork barrell…. and support a local candidate…
    we have a saying, elephants (the simple of the opposition party) can’t win elections.
    however, we cruicified our war hero (Sarath Fonseka)… its a pity really.

  20. [victoria @ 3747 I like that one a lot!]

    Unfortunately that is too easy to bat away. All it requires is a ‘yes’ or ‘of course’ answer.

  21. do any of the pbs think that the indies would go with libs becasue they do not like the gambling laws he is puttin up
    of is it just qld being them selves and being liberal again.

    really dont care if i ever go to that state again i dont think i would want to strike up a conversation with any one i would be to scared to have an opinion

  22. Thatnks to a suggestion from Dio, I call the Red-green alliance the Yellow or Golden alliance (due to equal amounts of red and green light making yellow light.)

    The Lib-Nat Coalition can be the Cyan alliance. Idiots.

  23. Rod – Australia’s public dental system is a joke, medicare has more holes than swiss cheese, Howards assault on public housing has resulted in a chronic shortage of rental property and families forced to pay enormous rents for monthly leases in caravan parks on the fringes of town were if they can’t afford to run a car they can’t find work.
    If they do find work then unless they are skilled it will not be a job – it will be a temporary assignment via some labour hire company.Eight hour day – twelve hour shifts are becoming the norm out there in post union factory land even under”fair work Australia” or whatever it is called.
    The post materialist new new “left” need to get out and about bit more, there is still a lot of hardship in this country.

  25. Mick Collins@3516

    ps. How can I Link to other peoples posts ?

    With every post you can see a Permalink link next to time it is posted.
    If using Firefox: Right click on the link; select “Copy Link Location”; and paste into the textbox.
    To get the nicely formed link like “Mick Collins@3516” you need to:

    To use the Crikey Clear Comment Preview script, install in order:
    Firefox
    Greasemonkey
    cccp

  26. Ever been woken in the small hours by two dogs barking? One keeps barking, one gives up. The gaps between barks gradually increase, as their volume declines, culminating, in a plaintive, deep and grumpy bark. Ages later, the dog lets off one final bark a rather pathetic, grumpy effort, and then yawns audibly.

  27. [Rangatunga == God!

    He is the sports minister these days…. got into trouble for hitting a few people over the head with a cricket bat too…]

    When Warney was frustrated about Arjuna not leaving his crease Healy suggested he place a Mars Bar on a good length. Worked a treat apparently. The spoken idea of course, not the reality. This is certainly the blog for those considerations.

  31. On tonight’s PM:
    [ANDREW ROBB: I would find it almost inconceivable that the country Independents would back a Labor-Green Coalition. It would be the most left wing government in Australia’s history.

    JOE HOCKEY: It is inconceivable to me the country Independents would choose to go with what will be the most centre-left government in Australian history.]

    Inigo Montoya responds:
    [You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.]

  32. [When Warney was frustrated about Arjuna not leaving his crease Healy suggested he place a Mars Bar on a good length. Worked a treat apparently. The spoken idea of course, not the reality. This is certainly the blog for those considerations.]

    Maybe if you need another member for labor, just hid a mars bar under one of the government backbenches and tell Joe Hockey???

  34. [ qld being them selves and being liberal again. ]

    One swallow does not a summer make.

    [ really dont care if i ever go to that state again i dont think i would want to strike up a conversation with any one i would be to scared to have an opinion ]
    Your opinion would be most welcome by everyone in this Qld household My Say.

  37. My say that’s what Queensland voted for. They are just going to have to get used to all the goodies and say going elsewhere now Queensland has voted for stopping the waste and a reduction in Government services. On any figures Tasmania deserves a fairer share of the pie because they didn’t waste their votes.

    Tasmania dictating how Tory voting Queenslanders gamble has a nice ring to it. I could never have dreamed up that one.

  38. [Your opinion would be most welcome by everyone in this Qld household My Say]

    well you know me i would talk to a light pole about left and right right from wrong.

    so i would have to shut up most of the time in qld i think.

    why are they like that enlighten me is it the heat is the petersen days

    or what we did notice over the years the gold coast got very materiaistic and
    and built out and the scenery dissapeared replaced by high rise everywhere.

    love cairns and cape tribulation.

  39. [this weeked I need to work on a few others – but what colour]
    Given the Libs assertion, shouldn’t it just be the little red school book?

  41. Was not at all too early to clap my hands!

    Clapped my hands when I detected on Andrew Wilkie’s face last night on Kerry the slight suppression of a smile, when questioned about the direction of the Indies.

    Immediately phoned my bro…said to him looks like it is won!

    Then looked for a suitable song!!!

    Okay, kill me if I am wrong!

    (Other notes:

    Puff, maybe Sir James Hardy.

    Person other…thanks for the referral to Laura Tingle’s article, rushed out and bought the Fin. Hilarious. Love her. She, with her usual grace and courtesy, was in the minority who addressed Julia as Prime Minister at the Press Club).

    Back to St Kilda!!!! Yay!!

    Whomever asked about Adelaide weather, awful, may hit Melbourne in the last quarter.

  42. [Tasmania dictating how Tory voting Queenslanders gamble has a nice ring to it. I could never have dreamed up that one.]

    may be they will invade us in boats, and try to change our ways.

  45. Its a bit rough when I’m the one telling the Minister’s office not to lose hope

    These young staffers haven;t done the hard yards

    and various ither cliches

  46. lets dont build any gp clincs there lets make them pay more HECS lets stop the pbs there

    and then they may say o gee well we dont want to gamble after all

    you never miss something till its taken away

  47. The interesting thing about the weather outside is when the rain bates and the wind calms down, it’s not actually cold. It’s quite moderate out there.

    Despite the storm, we are definitely into Spring.

  48. [do any of the pbs think that the indies would go with libs becasue they do not like the gambling laws he is puttin up]

    Apparently Abbott agreed to do something as well, just wasn’t detailed so I expect Wilkie didn’t think he was serious.

    This kinda reminds me of Telstra’s response when govt called for submissions re NBN first time. Telstra just assumed they had it in the bag as they’d always had the monopoly … so they put in a token effort. Am willing to wages Abbott has done the same with the Indies, while Jules and crew did their homework and actually drafted proper policy responses.

    Her ‘folders’ that she had for them on the first meeting should have signaled Abbott that he needed to know his stuff. But they have been lax in that area throughout their time in opposition. If the media hadn’t been so supportive, they’d likely be in no mans land right now.

  50. Assume a scale from negative infinity (equals extreme right wing ) through zero equals centre to positive infinity (equals extreme left wing).

    Where , Mr Hockey, or anyone, is extreme centre-left?

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