I love the smell of voting in the morning. Or is that the sausage sizzle at the primary school just around the corning which doubles as the local polling place I can smell? I’ll soon find out as I wander off to cast my vote in Indifference 2007, the NSW Election.
4 years ago I worked a Greens both at Balmain Town Hall which was a lot of fun. The day concluded with the Balmain constabulary doing a very credible impression of the Keystone Cops relating to some argy bargy between the Liberals and an anti-war protester. This year, with my political party allegiance given to no-one, it is very much Hobson’s Choice per Mark.
If you are working a booth today for a party (doesn’t matter who), any stories from the grass roots? Otherwise general chitchat, local colour during polling day and psephological musings all welcome.
Update [by Kim]: The Poll Bludger is live blogging the count, and the ABC’s election website is here. You can also watch or listen to streaming coverage via the ABC website.
I’ve just come back from voting for Clover Moore in central Sydney. Voting for Clover is an experience which makes the term “representative democracy” very real. I’ve lived in her electorate for over a decade and she has a very strong profile. I’d never previously had an independent MP and would have felt sceptical about them, but Clover is impressive at a grass roots level. She holds neighbourhood community meetings regularly. She walks in the park with her dogs regularly. We get her newsletters through the door regularly (or a weekly e-newsletter, in my case.) People refer to her by her first name. Although she’s a Catholic, she’s not necessarily a saint but she is a responsive MP who works hard for the people and the differing communities who elected her.
All the people handing out how-to-vote cards for Clover at my booth were women over the age of 50. It’s usually like that. On the way back, I passed a neighbour in the street. “Going down to vote?” I said. He nodded and said “I vote for Clover all the time”. “Oh, I do too”, I said and we went our seperate ways.
Although I’ve shared in the ubiquitous indifference about the state election in general, I feel good about being able to elect a representative like Clover.
Suppose they held an election and nobody came?
No mandates- no authorities
No Gods – no masters
Don’t vote – it only encourages them
No matter who you vote for a politician gets in
I voted once and all I got was a skin disease
The only vote I cast said no to all governments
If you must vote – vote 1 Tweedledum…no wait…Tweedledee
Did you know electoral rolls are really death lists?
Voting is bad for your health and causes mutagens in rats
I sought out the person who was handing out the ‘how to vote Green’ card, and some jerk from another party – probably Fred Nile’s party – commented that I was voting for drugs. I was so riled, I couldn’t think of any wittry repartee, so I just told them to shut up. It made me think – the Greens have a real PR problem, but what are you going to do?
The best voting booths have lamingtons for sale!
Just sayin…
Well I would have told him he was encouraging people to vote for Fred Nile which is far far worse.
The Greens seem only to have a problem in that anything other than something akin to mandatory detention can be considered as a reasonable response to DRUGS. Frankly, i dont know how to argue without resorting to violence with someone who stubbornly insists that criminialisation is the only policy worth pursuing. De-criminialisation isnt some universal panacea but 50 years of attempted prohibition, incarceration, gross under-investment in medical based substance abuse programmes etc etc certainly hasnt worked either.
As usual, a memorable, humbling, connecting (half) day. Co-existing, joshing, sharing food, small talk, jokes and whinges with the other booth workers/party members/supporters.
Something new: voters indignant that the Greens are preferencing the ALP. Previously, hostility was always about the possibility that we would not. Only a couple of comments about drugs. Overall, the usual polite, even cordial reception: the Greens are recognised and accepted as a legitimate, serious political party and our candidates and reps are increasingly known.
The best part of the day: the constant stream and feast of faces, eyes and voices. A busy multicultural booth in Sydney’s south: Indian, Serbian, Macedonian, Croatian, Maori, Lebanese, Pacific Islander, Iraqi, Syrian, Chinese, Greek, Italian, South African.
The shiningly beautiful, the haughty, the sun-blighted, cruel-faced, angry, disengaged, the passionate, humourous, wasted, hopeful, despairing; the proud, bleary-eyed bearers of new-born; the cracked, twisted, lame, old, dying. The warring. The saintly.
The human, all too human. Petals on a wet, black bough.
Perhaps les peuples will have the last laugh if an unexpectedly large batch of Independents and Minors get up tonight. Worth keeping a weather-eye on will be the trends of the primary votes of all partys, and the potential federal ramifications thereof.
professor, your armchair anarchy seems cliched and lacks conviction. As that esteemed genius of realpolitik, Donald “known known” Rumsfeld says:
“You go to poll with the politicians that you have, not the one’s you wished you had.”
You could maybe make a statement today by wearing surgical gloves and holding your forearms in the classic togged-up surgical pose while queueing with your fellow voters. At least you won’t catch any nasty skin diseases.
The P&C sausage sizzle at my local primary school voting place sizzled rather more than intended – they set the gas barbeque on fire at about 2:30pm, having to run into the tuckshop kitchen for a fire blanket to throw over it. The hose connection to the gas bottle and all the knobs melted around the level of the drip-pan.
I missed the conflagration, arriving about 10 minutes later while they were clearing the uncooked sausages, bacon and eggs away. Luckily they had hit break-even point about midday, but they had a lot left over, so I offered to take $20 worth of assorted meats and packaged cookies etc off their hands. My neighbour said yes.
Barbie for lunch tomorrow. Drooling already.
Did my first Absentee Vote (my brother also voted for the first time). Other than a mass of Ray Williams and Stephen Pringle signage, nothing special.
Ray’s people however did park a crane truck out the front of the school and hoisted an Australian flag, sans stars:
I’m guessing you’d like to see the photo.
Staffed the Leichhardt Town Hall (I’m the Dems candidate for Balmain). Camaraderie between booth workers was excellent – nice people all around EXCEPT two stooges telling everyone “VOTE GREENS AND LEGALISE DRUGS”. That sort of thing just isn’t on, and an official complaint will surely be made.
People were lovely to me. Some mature ladies said I was cute and I blushed. Rochelle Porteous appears very popular in Leichhardt – the Greens HTV-giver-outer-ers were bilingual – “Vota di Verdi”, (NB: probably not exact wording) they sang out in a catchy sing-song. I bet that was pretty effective.
Verity Firth’s posters kept falling down. Peter Shmigel handed out baked goods to booth workers of all stripes. Climate Change Coalition HTV-ers couldn’t tell me why they weren’t recommending ATL preferences.
I think I may have tricked a Fred Nile supporter into voting for me because of the similar party name.
All in all, a pleasant day despite the heat. The final result (Lab v Grn) should be interesting in light of all the dodgy publicity and the decay of the Iemma government.
Silkworm, I had the green /drug thingo happen and it was from someone I that I try to avoid, Edna on the Christian Democrat party (where do they come from)and I said”Edna, you would drive anyone to drugs” and she said “I know what will happen when you die”. Charming aren’t they.
Just back from booth duty in the new Goulburn electorate – yes Pru’s Push for Premier. Very good response to the Greens (as opposed to past experience where things got a bit willing on occasion), though not a snowflake’s chance of getting up in the lower house seat. Lot of comment about Goward being a blow-in, & a lot of support for the independent Stephenson, mayor of Goulburn. Who a lot people reckon will certanly run second in the primary and may get up on preferences. Wont The White Rabbitt be cranky?
This electorate has also seen a big change as a federal seat too, so this should be an interesting guide to Alby’s fortunes in the fed.election. If the ALP can select a good local candidate or a strong independent stands, Hume will be a very interesting seat indeed.
Early reports are that Parker, the ALP candidate has already conceded. & ABC news is reporting a 7-9% swing against Labor in early counting.
I was working for Dems, handing out htv’s at Town Hall. Silkworm, you may have got just a random dickhead – but we were blessed with the presence of none other than Bill Heffernan, handing out Greens htv’s and shouting, “vote Green! Legalise drugs for you children!”
Chris Harris, the local Green candidate sicced the police onto him for stealing their htv’s, and so Bill was reduced to digging through the bins to get rumpled Greens htv’s.
Digging through garbage: Bill’s metier.
Everyone from every other party was lovely, excepting one Liberal guy, who was a total dick, and went around trying to pick fights with all the other htv’ers.
If people feel bad for the Dems, spare a thought for the Nationals. Practically in uniform with their Chambres and R.M Williams boots, they were about as popular as cancer.
I will be interested to see the results, I felt that I got a pretty good response to the Democrats. Hopefully Arthur, the MLC, will retain his seat.
Oh please tell me patrickg that you have photos of Bill, green htvs in hand. Can’t wait to see them waved in the senate…
Silkworm the way to avoid that shit is to get a how to vote card from every party, it’s not only polite but the fringe benefit is that fuckers you hate will never know your intentions.
Slightly off thread but the upper house spreadsheet is becoming like a roll of wallpaper. What a joke, it seems to grow a metre with every election–maybe we’ll get the Rooting Tooting Party alongside the Shooting Party next time round.
(maybe they should all merge with Senator Brandis, the Petrol Head Party, the Sex Workers Party and the Chimney-sweeps Party–the Soot, Hoot, Moot, Root, Loot, Shoot Through Party)
Mmm goulburn is very interesting – with 17% counted, Stephenson is sitting on 31% of the primary, Goward on 35%, but guess who gets the preferences…..no indication of which booths have been counted unfortunately.
Update [by Kim]: The Poll Bludger is live blogging the count, and the ABC’s election website is here. You can also watch or listen to streaming coverage via the ABC website.
Antony Green just called the election. Labor can only lose up to two seats, he says.
Interesting to see the Labor primary well behind the combined primary of the Libs and the Nats, with 24% going to “others”…
Mind you, those figures are only based on 7% of the state vote, and you’d expect the Nats’ % to drop off later in the evening:
And for those with access to ABC2 (the Free to air digital network), there will be coverage throughout Australia from 6.30pm local time to your location, so people in SA, Qld & WA will get a delayed coverage.
Also official tally room figures are at [link] though tis struggling a bit…
Bernice, how I wish! But I didn’t have a camera on me…
Oh patrickg – damn – oh well a bit of photoshop mischief then. & Pru’s not looking too hot at present – ABC predicting an 11% lead to the Independent on preferences…. which should make the point that parachuting candidates might work in urban seats but not in rural seats? Or how bloody out of touch the Libs are with the electorate…this aint what Peta Seaton held.
Just heard the traditional Greens “have done far worse than expected” from an ABC reporter on radio. Imagine getting paid to repeat the same tosh every election. Mind you, on the odds, at one election it will prove to be correct.
I always find dead links for election coverage on election night to be very helpful.
I wish the ABC TV coverage would turn down those f*cking phones! The constant loud ringing interfering with the discussion is doing my head in! Can’t they use phones with flashing lights instead?
This was my first vote as a silent elector. I was disturbed to find that the procedure involves putting my ballots in an envelope with my name, address and signature (countersigned by an electoral officer) therefore meaning that the details of my vote are identifiable. I trust that it will be handled confidentially, but surely there’s a better way?
My name is Debnam,and Im as boring as bat shit.
Oh and by the way,Labor has one more chance.
He he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he.
All over, red rover.
So Labor are going to be only 2 seats down?
Thanks to the 2 hour delayed telecast on ABC2(well at least we Sandgropers can actrually watch it), Pru Goward is currently on and is being her typical uppity self
And yes, the ;ound phone ringing on the desk is a pain, in fact why don’t they give all the pollies on the panels earpieces and a button which cuts their mike into the TV feed.
Debnam’s ‘concession’ speech was a classic. “OK Labor you’ve got one last chance to adopt our policies … one last chance. This is definitely your last chance!”
Thank god that’s over for another four years.
Wouldn’t you love to be in the room on Monday when Peter gets the tap on the shoulder and the party bosses tell him “Great job mate. By the way, have you met Barry Farrell?”
I believe his name is actually “Fatty O’Barrell”.
Realistically, Barry O’Farrell won’t help them because the crazies in the Liberal party won’t support him, and the crazies still have the upper hand.
That doesn’t make much sense. I should have said:
Making O’Farrell the leader won’t help the Liberals because the crazies in the Liberal party won’t support him, and the crazies are still in control.
yeah kim
possibly 1,2,3 – i hope the ALP lose newcastle to the labor independent – the party endorsed some bimbo newsreader – who apparently didn’t know who beattie was the other day….sheesh..but she’s just ahead.
and the left-wing lake macquarie mayor might take another from them.
port stephens might go to the liberals – lots of fishing issues!
the nats took tweed from labor – the only coalition from labor gain, which is definite.
the liberals haven’t taken anything from the ALP yet, they’ve won back 2 of “their” seats from indies.
pru goward is probably going to get over the line with postals – (and she is looking more like jeanette every day! (snigger))
and how was iemma’s ten minute italian hug-fest as he made his way to the podium to make his speech -
his mum who was standing on the podium is such a classic looking southern italian woman. if you’d told her and his dad, as they left the village in calabria and got a boat with nuffing that their son was going to be the Premier etc.
Surely the comment of the night from the Daily Telegraph’s online election blog
“One thing I forgot to say, congratulations Mr Dedman, you a gentlemen and did your best.’
Deadman indeed, ‘Sue of Turramurrra.”
BTW, the Tele now claims to have apparently retrospectively predicted tonight’s outcome last November when Debnam attempted to fit Bob Debus up as a paedophile. They presumably forgot to tell us about their prescience when they urged us to vote for the waste of space yesterday……..
Although it’s late, this kind of stuff really annoys me. 1. She couldn’t remember beattie’s name, not who he was. It’s not as if none of us have ever temporarily forgotten the names of people or things, is it? Something about what happens to memory as people age? 2. “Some bimbo newsreader” – I’m sorry, who are you to rudely dismiss someone as “some bimbo newsreader”? Rudness does not describe it. Do you know what the phrase “personally respecting someone” means?
“Rudeness”, not “Rudness”.
Do you demand that others give you respect? If so, then you should respect others.
Bloody ABC2 coverage finished at 9.30pm WA Time with No speeches from the leader, now showing At The Movies.
NOT HAPPY, JAN !!
Skipping between the NRL and the ABC had me a little confused as at one stage it seemed Iemma had just scored in the corner.
Not sure on the final stats but a few safe Labor seats are now officially marginal with a swing of 5% against Labor. IIRC, the Libs won no seats from Labor and Labor lost a seat to an independant.
Thanks a deity (take your pick) that it is all over till 2011. Be interesting to see if the Libs lurch further to the right or go on a purge.
No out of control bbq’s at the local polling booth but they did have lamingtons. Which were quite tasty.
Labor’s biggest gain was in the seat of Penrith, where Kevin Rudd campaigned. That should tell everyone something.
get a grip sacha…..
i have alot of disrespect for a candidate who didnt belong to the party, who was parachuted into the position by sussex st, someone who had been talking with the liberals about joining their party, FFS! and has no ideas, or track record – (compared to star recruits like Garrett)
Reading scripts from Sussex St….no wonder they picked her for the job….
And as for her “blank moment” when couldn’t remember Beattie’s name – “I could see his face – but I just couldn’t remember his name” again – all a bit harder without the autocue….
As for your risible
WTF??? – you earn respect. you don’t demand respect.
Chris Sheil looks at the federal implications at Troppo:
http://www.clubtroppo.com.au/2007/03/24/two-decades-of-nsw-labor/
I agree with him about the Work Choices effect – certainly both the prominence of the advertising and the distribution of swings would suggest it may well have been there.
There was also the contrast of Rudd lending support to Iemma’s campaign and Howard being used to increase Debnam’s negatives.
There seem to be a lot of Brisbane people here – you have Pete and Anna – oh well. We in NSW now have Morris and his band of boofy blokes for another 4 years. Pete and his girl seem remarkably benign actually, especially Anna – from an AO6 in DEVETIR to Queen Cheese. Mighty Morris is off for a few beers after his “win” tonight – god help us! Thank heavens I have a few more bottles of my friend Dom to help me through the night! – and to think, I actually voted Labor today……
No Jo, every person demands respect as of right.
If you choose to not respect someone because they don’t live up to what you see as appropriate standards for an ALP election candidate, well, of course you need not respect them. If you call them “some bimbo newsreader”, you should not be surprised if, in the future, someone labelled you so similarly nastily.
Everyone deserves personal respect.
I had an interesting conversation with a guy from Bangladesh who was handing out for the Democrats. Apparently he lives in a campervan and is winding his way around Australia, after doing something similar abroad. He was handing out as a favour for a friend and didn’t really seem to have any specific allegiance to the Dems.
The lower house results were for the most part predictable. Labor will take particular heart from the results seats like Penrith and Monaro, where Karyn Paluzzano and Steve Whan recorded swings to them, against the statewide trend.
The upper house results will be interesting. The Goulburn stoush with Pru Goward should be interesting and will be very important for the Liberal Party.
Sorry Sacha, have to agree with Jo on this one. Respect can not be imposed on anybody. Either earn it or don’t have it. Brave people have been executed for refusing to show respect for people who are undeserving of respect and it will ever be so.
Your writings here at LP have earned you respect from me. This argument here does not add to it because it just does not ring true.
Trifle confused though re Goulburn – the count stopped last night at about 36 000, with all booths posting votes. But the total roll is for 47 000 – 11 000 postal & absentee?!! Or are there a lot of contested slips? The scrutineers I came across didnt seem the hanging chad types…
Can’t get any sense out of Electoral Commission website. Anyone…?
On the basis of last night’s figures Pru aint lookin’ too sure at all. & before all the Libs (except Mr O’Farrell) squwarkkkk about the unfairness of an independent gaining the seat with only 25% of the primary, Pru may muster 40%, but the combined non-Liberal primary vote looks like Ind 25%, ALP 22% and Greens 6% = 53% of votes so far counted. And the Greens placed Stephenson the Ind. second & ALP third on their htvs. Prudence a distant fourth.
Sacha Blumen is absolutely correct.
Jo’s original comment http://larvatusprodeo.net/2007/03/24/indifference-2007-decision-day/#comment-356443 was insulting: “the party endorsed some bimbo newsreader”.
Assuming that jo is correct in describing the newsreader as:
(and these are good arguments against the suitability of a candidate) it’s still a long step from there to call someone a degrading term like ‘bimbo’.
You don’t have to have respect for a person to display respectful, non-insulting behaviour towards them. was insulting: “the party endorsed some bimbo newsreader”.
Assuming that jo is correct in describing the newsreader as:
(and these are good arguments against the suitability of a candidate) it’s still a long step from there to call someone a degrading term like ‘bimbo’.
You don’t have to have respect for a person to display respectful, non-insulting behaviour towards them.
Alas Bernice, it is normal for 3000-4000 voters in any given seat to neglect to perform their civic duty. There should be about 7000 pre-polls, postals and absentees, which is fairly typical.
Thanks Poll Bludge ( & thanks for your posts last night too) – in that case, Pru puts her nose in front…though ALP workers were saying that pre-poll sentiment was much the same as at the booths yesterday. Annoyance at the parachute act, annoyance at the silly plan to pipe water from Queanbeyan to Goulburn (did Mr O’Farrell come up with that one?) and a lot of anti-Howard hostility, even from CDP & Liberal Party workers.