I like this local initiative from some voters in the Prime Minister’s electorate of Bennelong, whose major slogans are:
A Future without John Howard? It all hangs on 3000 votes.
Just because Howard is the PM, doesn’t mean he has to be our MP.
Campaigning for Fresh Apples in Bennelong
There are apples all over the 3000 votes website – the Granny Smith apple is the emblem of the greater Ryde area, which is most of the seat of Bennelong, so the locals are familiar with the symbology.
At the upcoming 2007 Federal Election, the residents of Bennelong face a simple choice. To re-elect our incumbent MP and PM John Howard only to have him step down twelve months later if the Coalitions wins (or to step down 12 minutes later in the likely event Labor get up) or to cast their vote with another candidate and save themselves the inconvenience of a by-election.
Bennelong voters are also faced with some slightly more complex choices. Do we, as a socio-economic and cultural microcosm of Australia, wish to endure more of the same tired, outmoded rhetoric and policy spearheaded by John Howard or do we desire change and a forward-thinking approach to government?
3000 Votes is a non-partisan campaign formed by a group of young Bennelong residents who do desire change. We, as the adult children and teenage grandkids of the baby boomers understand that it will be our generations who suffer most from the Howard Government’s years of skepticism and inaction on climate change and it is our peers who are most vulnerable to John Howard’s ‘WorkChoices’ legislation.
And that’s just for starters.
The articles on the campaign skew youth and Green-ish, which may not be to all potential Bennelong voters’ taste, but with a bit of luck the message that it will only take 3000 votes to unseat Howard will nonetheless ring loud and clear to all. Onyas.
crossposted from Hoyden About Town
I take your point about the youthful perspective of the website and the possible difficulties of connecting with the mainstream of the seat of Bennelong. But a thousand kudos to the folks at that site. It is an interesting thought that “only 3,000 votes” (that is 3,000 more than in the 2004 election) are needed in a sustained swing in the seat to see John Howard voted out of his electorate. It will be pretty to watch (if it happens) on election night.
Some digging and poking as I was curious:
http://www.smh.com.au/news/spike/ambushed-nelsons-own-goal/2005/09/23/1126982224673.html
(from a Google search for Giselle Finnane – the authorising person’s name)
She has form!
She’s also listed as the holder of the domain name through Melbourne IT. Is it more than one person or is she using the “web 2.0 we”?
Also interesting are the invisible links to Getup and the Greens appearing on every page. Crack open the source view and you’ll see each page has a span element with display: none set. That span has the links – invisible to browser users but not to search engines.
“Non-partisan” – not sure negative campaigning deserves that appellation. But good luck to them.
A campaign strategy based on avoiding a by-election. Winning votes by promising less elections. Its certainly original.
I’ve heard that the Bennelong redistribution has brought a lot of recent asian migrants into the seat. They probably are quite unaware of what Howard thinks of asian migration and should be reminded.
Howard recanted his objections to asian immigration wilful – how credibly he did so I’ll leave up to his electorate. There are plenty of much more recent examples of why he has to go, bringing up a bit of late-1980s kite flying from a desperate opposition leader just isn’t helpful.
Perhaps the 1980s is a bit too far away to serve as a useful reminder of the ugly form the PM has on race, but there are plenty of more recent examples that coud be used to get the message across. After all, political mobilisation based on stoking racial fears and tensions should not go unacknowledged and it would be churlish to deprive people of information about the ways in which contemporary Australian conservatism may need to enlist them in a similar exercise down the line. ‘I am the best friend the battlers ever had’.Lol.
Most of the “recent Asian migrants” in Bennelong won’t be entitled to vote. I live in Marsfield, and I can’t vote (NZer). In fact, of the dozen or so friends I have who live in the PMs electorate, only one will be able to vote here. The rest are either damn’ foreigners (oh, wait, that’s me too), or being students are still enrolled to vote elsewhere.
I’d be quite curious to know what proportion of the population of Ryde are actually allowed to vote in an Australian election, and what proportion of them are enrolled in Bennelong. Especially in the youth demographic these guys claim to be targetting.
Whilst the East Asian migrants should have good reason to vote against Howard, there might be a disconcerting political apathy that would work in his favour, especially amongst the Chinese, 山高皇å¸?é? and all that.
On the other hand, if Howard gets beaten, McKew will start benefiting from apathy’s tendency to support incumbents.
There will be a lot of fence-sitting in Bennelong. If the rest of the country wants a Labor government it would be pointless to return a Lib and then have a byelection months later – if there’s a turnaround, or if it’s too close to call, Howard will be back in.
It will be a bugger of a seat for polling as the keener media are to run a poll, the less keen Bennelongers will be to get polled and polled again.
Afree with Andrew E.
Bennelong will share the government’s fate, either way.
The left-liberal pond in Bennelong has been pretty much drained. 2004 Liberal voters are more likely to be swayed by Rudd’s broadband package and general image of forward thinking managerialism, tell Lane Cove voters that if they can’t get Peter Costello Rudd is the next best thing.
If the only thing Giselle has now to offer besides the query re 3000 votes and the enemy baby-boomers,I dont see much future for myself.I guess it doesnt pass inspection that baby boomers come in all sorts of incomes and demographics and are unlikely to hold passionate opinions that serve as the enemy.I am shocked by the so called Leftists here not to note in passing a period of birth seems to indicate a political conservatism in everyone of our breathing days!?Having seen what were the struggle of pensioners in the past,wayback in memory to the present,my future is assured.And offended.
“3000 Votes is a non-partisan campaign formed by a group of young Bennelong residents who do desire change”
Clearly they do not understand what an oxymoron is.
Non-partisan in this context denotes that the campaign is not run at the behest of any particular political party. It’s certainly a general lefty project …but it is not an ALP, Greens or Dems project.
I live in Bennelong, so make that 2999 votes to unseat Howard.
I cant wait.
PDL, the needed 3000 votes are from people who did vote Liberal last time to vote against them this time.
You don’t strike me as someone who qualifies, but if you truly do, when/what was your moment on the road to Damascus?
Oh, unless you’re newly part of Bennelong with the new boundaries and all. That works, of course.
Tigtog, I’ve lived here since Feb 05. This will be the first time I’ve had a chance to put Howard last on a ballot paper.
Tigtog, to further clarify, I was previously enrolled in Ian McFarlanes electorate in QLD (didnt vote for him either). So I really am a new anti-Howard voter in Bennelong. But you’re right, I’ve never voted anywhere right of the ALP in my life.
It will all come down to which way Eastwood, Ryde and Epping go. The fringes of the electorate wear their colours fairly openly. Ermington will be staunchly labor as will Meadowbank, West Ryde and parts of Carlingford. North Ryde, North Epping, Putney and Gladesville will stay with Howard. I guess it all comes down to that big chunk in the middle.
On the Asian vote, I’d estimate that most of the Koreans are not on the electoral roll. There’s a sizeable proportion that are involved with evangelical christian movements which would denote them fair game for any Lib party operatives trying to lock in the block vote. The more established Chinese community in the electorate haven’t forgotten the old John Howard either so that will be interesting.
I think the hip-pocket vote will desert Howard this time around. People in this area are genuinely a bit edgy about workchoices, if not for themselves then certainly for their vulnerable kids. The environment MAY play a role but only amongst younger voters.
Ultimately, whether Howard wins and his party loses or he wins and his party wins, we’re still facing a by-election. Who needs the hassle – vote him out now.
I would be extremely surprised if there wasn’t at least some connection to one of these parties, most likely via student politics. All plausibly deniable of course.
Student politics? My thoughts exactly, Jacques.
The domain 3000votes.org is registered to (and authorised at the bottom by) Giselle Finnane.
2004 Liberal voters are moving out: every week a rugby-lovin’, two-to-one-Liberal-votin’ family moves out and is replaced by an aspirational voter who breaks 51-55% Liberal at best. Howard used to work the electorate hard but a critical mass of 2007 have never met him and are not confident that he’s a local representative. In a metropolitan seat like this you don’t have to be parochial, but you do show you have your finger on the pulse. I doubt that broadband is in the top ten issues affecting voters, but I agree the switch will be on if Rudd generates an image of having a clue about the future, and this being more appealling than increasingly dim assurances of more of the same from Howard.
Look at McMahon 1972 and Fraser 1983 for lessons on what an exhausted Coalition government looks like: lots of attempts to represent the ALP as being more like the long-dead previous government than the current reality, vague about their own plans for the future, and a few badly-judged let-them-eat-cake assessments about what voters want. All the symptoms are there.
Tell Lane Cove voters whatever you like – they’re in North Sydney, not Bennelong.
The last serving Prime Minister to lose his seat was Stanley Melbourne Bruce in 1929. It would be a fitting end to the reign of the lying little rodent to have him go down in history as the 2nd Australian Prime Minister to lose his seat in a Federal Election.
Jacques Chester,
Are you sure the brethos or Scientlologists arent behind the site?
ooooooh, the intrigue is killing me, I might ask asio for some info!!!!
I actually think its Howard behind this site, its a brilliant plot for sympathy..
the plot thickens!