Libs win elections in second place
March 22nd, 2010 by Mercurius | Published in Elections, State/Territory Elections | 76 Comments
After the two weekend state elections, it’s likely that two Labor governments will be (re-)formed: a majority government in SA and a minority government in Tasmania with Greens support (unless the Greens flip to supporting the Libs).
Not that you’d know it from today’s headlines…
- ‘Rudd Faces Anti-Labor Headwinds’ – The Australian
- ‘Libs back from the dead’ – Glenn Milne in The Australian
- ‘Abbott says elections a warning for Rudd’ – ABC.net.au News
- ‘Liberals win the vote, lose the election’ – Adelaide Advertiser
- ‘Liberals hail the fabulous four’ – Adelaide Advertiser
- ‘Liberals ready to share power’ – The Australian
The only thing missing is for some muppet to point out just how strong and consistent the Liberal’s election results are across the nation – just look how often they come second!
It’s almost like we’re living in an alternate universe. I’m reading those comments and finding myself asking “Didn’t Labor win?”.
It’s bizarre.
I don’t see it as likely that the ALP will rule with the Greens in Tasmania, but then, I’m no expert on Tassie politics.
Though it may incense some Greens, I see them as more likely to cautiously support a Liberal government, and aim to get a few policies of their own over the line, particularly in relation to the environment, which the Libs will feel able to support because that is the way the whole world body politic is trending due to AGW issues.
I just hate having to wait two weeks to find out. I’m sure I was promised instant gratification somewhere along the line!
Yes Yaz, it’s possible that the Greens will give their support to a minority Liberal government. How long do you think that would last? I give that about six months. Labor deserved to lose, decisively, in Tasmania. But the Libs still couldn’t nail it.
In the past it might have been possible for the libs and the greens to work together, but given the current federal leader of the libs, and his deputy in the nationals, the chances of this working out are just about zero.
How and where do We The People Of Oz begin, with reminding the journalariat that their ostensible mission is actually to investigate, report and comment on REALITY, not Uncle Rupert’s delirious mumblings?
Pi, there’s usually a bit of a difference between federal parties and their state counterparts. Don’t you remember when Lennon supported Howard’s forestry policy over Latham’s?
Sam is right. The Greens may well simply agree to not vote up an ALP vote of ‘no confidence’, which would force an election. Every other bill would be fair game and subject to negotiation. This means the ALP could pass bills too, with Greens support.
Media Muppets!!! That is cute.
Jon Faine on ABC Breakfast was almost beside himself with indignation when pointing out that Fairfax papers weren’t canning Rudd and Labour in general as Murdock papers were ‘rightly’ doing so, on front pages.
On Sunday it was just..shocked silence..the msm, expecting Labor to be given the sound thrashing were unable to run their already scanned Sunday morning headlines “Labor Thrashed in Two States”. So this morning we are running the same stories we wrote on Friday….with a slightly modified headline. ;-)
Why is the malignant midget still writing his column? According to Crikey and this blog he got the Bulli last week.
@Sam,
Milne still has his column with The Australian, as was deduced by Crikey in the original piece. He is no longer News Ltd’s national political editor. News Ltd has confirmed the reports in Crikey last week, announcing that their new national political editor is Simon Kearney.
I also note T. P. D. (or T. M. M. if Sam prefers) is doing some “investigative reporting” that involves something other than going out to dinner with George Brandis or Chris Pyne.
Linked text
There’s no fun reporting a two horse race unless both of the horses are made to look like contenders. How many readers do you think they’ll get if they write “Rudd return a certainty, nothing to watch here folks”?
People constantly fall into the trap of thinking journalists are concerned to write accurate factual reports. It’s not true. They’re in the entertainment business and their KPIs are all about getting readers, even if the readers are there purely to writhe in scorn and indignation. LP’s regular stories validating News Ltd as the country’s pre-eminent media company, as I’m sick of noting, simply play Rupert’s game. At least this time Mercurius didn’t provide links, for which we can be thankful.
The Advertiser is also running with the meme that a leadership challenge by Weatherill is a “factional battle”.
Very interesting results over the w/end. I think the big swings against Labor do warrant the criticism even though they did win SA. There is still a possibility that SA could be a minority government because of the large amount of postal votes coming through, although it is unlikely. Re Mercurius @ 3. Wouldnt any deal involve a confidence and supply agreement? It would have to, otherwise as you say, it would last 6 mths. And does anyone know what role Greens preferences played in SA? Labor’s vote seemed to hold up remarkebly well in marginals in defiance of the 7.something swing against tyhem!!!!
Yes it’s so weird. I was watching the news last night, with approving newsreaders nodding along as Tony Abbott says, “This is a real message to federal Labor, they are in trouble” or some such nonsense, echoed in the papers.
It’s like, trouble? Dude, you lost. If there’s a message for Labor here, it’s hip hip hooray. Also, I find it physically painful that everyone is now suddenly talking about state results as harbingers for federal results. If that was the case, we would be at the tail end of a +10 year federal labor government.
Yes it V funny. When Howard was in office were the Labor wins in the state’s presented like this? Not too sure. I seem to recall the pundits telling us voters are smart (they are) and know the difference between state and federal elections. It seems our Canberra Gallery is not able to make this distinction. And if we are to believe what they wrote in 2007 Rudd should be delighted by not having “wall to wall” Labor Govts. Of course it is all crap all to do with incumbency. Both have been there for ages and the bloke in Tassie is on the nose big time. Indeed they said if his deputy had run as premier labor would still be comfortably in control. Interested to know what the Michelle whatsername affair had on Rann. It was a concerted media avalanche on this issue. Good news for all of us is that the biggest dill in politics the AG Atkinson whi is leaving and if the man Rann isn’t supprting for deputy can get up Labor will be looking better. But I fear all the Crwo eaters have done is sentnece themselves to four h[=years hard Lazbor like we did in NSW. Roll on next eyar so we can kick this curddy Government from office and this from a man who has voted Labor (apart from side tracks to the Greens) all his life.
Ooops, I’d put this oin another thread by accident.
Re the announcement of the Labor loss that wasn’t. I’ve given up long ago expressing shock and horror at right wing media bias. When I was a very young man I can reemember being in demos outside the Tele in Sydney when Frank Packer ran it, protesting at their Labor bias. Things haven’t changed and sadly they never will.
PS submit key hit early apologies …..Good news for all of us is that the biggest dill in politics the AG Atkinson is leaving and if the man Rann isn’t supporting for deputy can get up Labor will be looking better. But I fear all the Crow eaters have done is sentence themselves to four years hard Labor like we did in NSW. Roll on next year so we can kick this cruddy Government from office and this from a man who has voted Labor (apart from side tracks to the Greens) all his life.
It’s not bias, for the most part. It’s laziness and stupidity.
Anyway, the underdog label suits Rudd.
More spinning headlines eh?
And this whole Federal implication thing is a bit suss. Sure lessons can be learnt…but…
feel free to correct me, going by my research the following States & Territories fell to Labor during the Howard years?
Victoria in 99.
QLD in 98
SA in 2002
Tasmania in 98
Tasmania in 2001
& Chief Minister in NT in 2001
Chief Minister of ACT in 2001
Didn’t seem to stop Howard from winning Federally. Why should it Rudd?
This “serious Federal implications for Labor” stuff sounds like a load of bull to me.
N’
The whole point is the election is still in doubt. Rather than waiting for the results to come in if there can be pressure applied for the ALP to “do the right thing” and “concede for the sake of a clear result” then it’s mission accomplished.
And why not? It worked for Bush.
Also is it acceptable for the ALP to win by forming coalition with the Greens? Surely it’s different to the Lib/National coalition because…because…well it just is!
The really funny thing is there’s still an outside chance Bartlett will cling on in Tas as well. LOL!
Media 1, Observable Reality 0.
Whoops! Make that WA in 2001. Not the 2nd Tasmania obviously.
N’
If you want a model for how a minority Tas Governement and the Greens might work take a look at the ACT. We’ve had a minority Labor Government since the last election and it is going swimmingly. Labor and the Greens sat down for a week or so and banged out an agreement which both could live with. Labor would have to honour it, and the goals the Greens had set out in it, to get the Greens to support them in the assembly. This was how the Greens felt they could achieve their objectives but remain at arms length from the stale Labor mob. They also insisted on of their guys get the Speakers gig.
Labour and the Greens take potshots at each other still, but in general it has been a good outcome. We seem to have better oversight and a lot less Government by fiat. The real grown-ups seem to the the Greens. They are reasonable and make sense. It is Labor and Liberal who look old and tired and grumpy and partisan when asked for their view on stuff.
To be honest I reckon this will turn out to be a boon for Labor in the ACT. They’d likely have been kicked out if the votes hadn’t gone to the Greens. I think people like this arrangement and can see it working for another term or more. Without the Greens the Liberals would almost certainly have had “their turn” next time around.
That whole business has been very strange. The Sunday Mail (Murdoch, locally known as the Mundane Snail) ran a double-page spread of a survey they did among ‘ordinary’ women (women being identified as the likely disapprovers), at least 25 or 30 respondents cross-sectioning age, job, suburb etc, asking whether the Chantelois business made any difference to them. Very few said they cared — the responses went all the way from ‘I hate him anyway’ to ‘No, I think he’s lovely’, with the majority saying they thought pollies’ personal lives ought to be left personal. The frantic Lib meme of ‘It’s all about trust’ (as in, if he can’t be trusted in his personal life …) barely got off the ground despite an enthusiastic media campaign.
To me it smacked of the events of 1978-9 when a couple of Liberal-attached journalists went after Dunstan on the basis of his sex life, which was a great deal more colourful than Rann’s, and the resulting little book It’s Grossly Improper played its part in Dunstan’s decline, along with other vile media behaviour.
Re these post-election shifts and developments in the SA team, I read Jay Weatherill’s bid for the Deputy role as a re-positioning to be ready for an early Rann departure. Could be wrong, of course.
the Tasmanian situation is too complex for the simple kick Rudd campaign.
While the result is definitely about State issues and the decline of the ALP there may be some implications for a DD election later in the year with the Greens building a wider community base of people who are prepared to vote Green
Agreed about Jay Weatherill, and good luck to him. Although I doubt he’d be terribly different to Mike Rann after a few years in the top job.
I once collided with Mike Rann out the front of parliament house, I was avoiding a drunk person’s chaotic wanderings, and the then opposition leader was walking along reading a newspaper. It was kind of embarrassing when I looked up at this suit and realised it was him. I apologised and we had a bit of a chat – he was reading an article about an old friend who was in the then fairly recently elected Blair govt, and he showed me the article and the pic of his friend and he said, “look at him….don’t you reckon he looks crook..?”. T’was true, the bloke looked pale and tired. I said, “They only just got in, imagine how dodgy he’ll look if they get a second term!”. I remember that brief exchange every time I see a pic of Mr Rann, he looks crook.
I hope the Greens do support the Liberals in Tasmania because I believe it will be political poison for both of them, Tasmania will become ungovernable and the simle message that a vote for the Greens is a vote for the Liberal Party will be very easy to demonstrate to the rest of Australia.
Saw my Mum on Sunday, she asked who I thought would win in S.A., she being informed only by the crap legacy media.
“Labor has won, already.” I said, getting the laptop booted up to show her this http://www.abc.net.au/elections/sa/2010/
@Steve 1,
It’s not like Labor is offering the Greens a choice here, is it? It’s Labor that’s refusing to deal with the Greens. I don’t think a Lib-Green coalition in TAS will demonstrate what you say above at all.
I think the greatest obstacle to a successful minority Liberal government is Abetz – he will probably lean on his state party to not cooperate with the Greens, at least until after the federal election.
As an aside, as difficult as it is to translate state results to Federal, the Greens might elect two senators in Tasmania at the next Federal election if they can inch past the ALP surplus and pick up their preferences. (The ALP loses their third Tas senator in that circumstance)
‘It’s not bias, for the most part. It’s laziness and stupidity.’
No Sam. If it was laziness and stupidity alone, it would tend to benefit the Labor and the coalition equally. This is definitely not the case, particularly not with News Ltd and the ABC.
I don’t read News Ltd papers, but I have given up attempting to catalogue the daily, systematic and blatant bias eminating from the ABC.
It’s not laziness and stupidity, it’s policy.
I can’t comment on SA as I’ve been a tad involved in events down here on the isle, but you hardly need to have the glazed eyes of a commentator in the Australia to see that unequivocally the ALP in Tas got a thrashing.
The Hare-Clarke system, wonderful thing that it is, just hides the extent to many people observing from afar. So to help out:
– The swing against the ALP was just over 12%
– The ALP has lost two Ministers (and possibly a third), and a parliamentary secretary. In total 5 ALP incumbents have been ousted
– where the ALP held on it was to see incumbents taken out by new young blood
– the Premier & Deputy Premier struggled to poll a quota in their own right.
The only reason the Libs haven’t got an outright majority is because they had such a low number of seats to start with.
Then, even if you agree there is bias for the lesser part, we have a problem. If any section of the 4th Estate is playing favorites and running propaganda under the guise of journalism it is a threat to democracy.
Actually, the ‘lazy and stupid’ excuse, at any level, is pretty weak. It is just an attempt to distract from the reality. We live in a Murdochracy.
http://www.zcommunications.org/welcome-to-the-worlds-first-murdochracy-by-john-pilger
It’s also the case of course that with workload issues being what they are, the temoptation to do rip and read from PR firms, especially when they fit an established narrative (and thus won’t look obviously ‘wrong’) would be very strong.
One can fairly call that laziness, but it’s laziness in a context — being worked at a rate inconsistent with high professional standards being maintained. Lowly paid juniors can easily do this stuff.
Now who needs the heavy hand of political micromanagement when simply cost cutting gets you the result you want without explicit editorial interference?
“It’s also the case of course that with workload issues being what they are, the temptation to do rip and read from PR firms”
I reckon News Ltd journos use a PR firm. It’s called Rupert Murdoch Inc.
:)
N’
If you read some of the stories, as I just have, it’s pretty clear that the line is coming from Tony Abbott and co. directly.
Not so sure about that, myriad74.
Particularly when you neglect to mention that the swing to Liberals comes in at a mere 7% for Tasmania.
The point being made here is that the results from Saturday are hardly a ringing endorsement of that party although MSM would have you think so.
The other point to make here is that a swing of nearly 5% to The Greens in Tassie hardly fits the whole “momentum for Abbott” spin.
… and obviously the long-term Labor governments in Tasmania and SA suffered significant swings against them for factors having to do with their long-term nature and the states’ individual particular politics. I gave my reasons in another post why I think there are bugger all federal implications:
http://larvatusprodeo.net/2010/03/20/the-state-elections-and-federal-implications/
Maybe the “lazy and stupid” media, excuse, meme should include “cheap” as well, Mark.
They have taken out the middlemen and report Tony opinion, directly.
I can’t understand why people it’s so difficult for many to come to terms with the systematic media bias that we have in this country. It’s not as though it hasn’t been going on for years – but for a large part Labor and the left seem to be in some sort of denial.
What’s that about the first step to solving a problem is recognising that it exists??? Maybe some problems don’t have a solution.
Sorry about that first sentence but the word people should come between ‘many’ and ‘to’. Trying to do three things at once and doing none of them properly!
“The other point to make here is that a swing of nearly 5% to The Greens in Tassie hardly fits the whole “momentum for Abbott” spin.”
Good point Mark. And considering the bashing “climate change” has received from the “usual suspects” over the past few mths. it didn’t seem to hurt the Green vote in Tasmania.
N’
On holidays in Coinsland last week, I was forced to read the Oz due to lack of alternatives. It was truly eye-popping. On Friday’s front page was a news piece that clearly stated that Labor looked like losing SA and TAS, providing ‘irresistable momentum’ for the Coalition federally. This wasn’t Shanahan’s opinion piece – it was in the news article. This isn’t just incorrect – it is pure personal opinion.
Strangely, though – the rest of the Oz is actually quite a good read. Everything but the, um, news.
The Libs may well have just lost NSW as well today because the front page of the SMH features a maliciously grinning Kennett inviting us to go to page 6 to read his treatment for what ails the joint. Sure enough, slash and burn neoliberalism. Frankly I’ll put up with the stench of ALP corruption and a job rather than the alternative that Kennettite Liberals offer which is unemployment and the same stench of corruption with an added overtone fundamentalist Christian sanctimony.
David Bartlett may claim that he won’t deal with the Greens, but isn’t this in some way completely disregarding the voters who did continue to support Labor? It seems to me that Labor voters would be horrified to think that the Liberals may be in Government when a majority of Labor voters would have leanings towards the Greens. Am I wrong to think this way? I know if I was a Tasmanian Labor voter, I would be furious that my vote was being interpreted in a way I had not intended.
Australian Journal of Politics & History
Volume 56 Issue 1, Pages 105 – 119
Special Issue: Special Issue: The Rebirth of Political History
Published Online: 19 Mar 2010
© 2010 School of History, Philosophy, Religion and Classics, School of Political Science and International Studies, University of Queensland and Blackwell Publishing Asia Pty Ltd.
Journalists Writing Australian Political History
Jackie Dickenson 1
1 School of Historical Studies, University of Melbourne
ABSTRACT
There has been a considerable increase in the number of political histories written by journalists since the 1960s. Three types of journalistic political histories have emerged in this period: the quickie, the longer history and the investigative work, and the works of Warren Denning, Alan Reid and Paul Kelly have been particularly influential in the development of the genre’s present characteristics and concerns. This article finds that the genre’s increase is the result of a combination of factors: the expansion of a tertiary-educated readership; the introduction of university training for journalists; increasing economic pressures faced by publishers, and the rise of celebrity culture.
After browsing the national headlines on news.com.au at around lunchtime on Monday I have to ask the question, “What elections?”. Doesn’t appear to be any mention of them at all. Nothing to see here………..
In the 1970s and 1980s, in the context of the Lake Pedder and Franklin Dam disputes, it was a commonplace that the Labor and Liberal parties in Tasmania each had more in common with each other than with their mainland counterparts. This is probably a bit of an overstatement but in general there are peculiarities of Tasmanian politics which are not easily transmissible to the mainland.
“the Labor and Liberal parties in Tasmania each had more in common with each other than with their mainland counterparts.”
Of course. You might argue with your relatives occasionally, but when it’s all said and done, they are family after all.
What chance of a Labor [sic] and Liberal majority government in Tasmania?
Adrian,
I know what you mean, but the sheer uniformity of the serene responses from (parliamentary) Labor on media bias probably indicate that they have made a conscious decision to ignore it. I’m sure they are as aware of the problem as we are!
There is nothing that they can do about the Murdoch press- that’s just part of life, like Irritable Bowel Syndrome.
As to the appalling downward slide of ABC News & Current Affairs, Labor have probably decided that trying to directly address the problem would simply spark wall-to-wall headlines of “Labor’s War on the ABC!” and such. I can well imagine Labor deciding that they didn’t need that sort of thing, either in their first term or more particularly in this election run-up.
Howard had the luxury of having enough time in Govt to boil the ABC frog slowly. I reckon that Labor have their eye on the same time-frame for unboiling it.
@55 – whether or not that’s so, Kersebleptes, I wonder if it might not be clear to ABC staffers in the event of a Rudd re-election that the absence of a Coalition government isn’t some sort of temporary aberration, and that might cause them to rethink the way they report politics. One lives in hope.
El Diablo, the chance of that is zero. because then the veil would be lifted and it would be out in the open that they’re basically indistinguishable parties.
BTW, Labor has been using the US spelling since foundation. Just get used to it.
Further to wilful #57, the majors on the mainland would be mortified by auch a development in a Federal election year.
You say that now, but what if a suitable vector could be found. This truly virulent strain of political madness could gain a foothold on the mainland! Maybe it already has!
Stuff the mosquito nets .. we need “Abetz Netz”!
Agree that the rest of the Murdoch press’s spin is just that (ie Abbott rising), but their starting point in Tas at least (that the ALP got a thrashing) is accurate. I just think those two points need to be separated by us here as much as Murdoch et al, if that makes sense. The first can be true without endorsing the second.
It’s probably also fair to point out that Tas is unlike any other state given the strength of the Greens, so the +7% swing is high in that environment, particularly remembering they started from a base of just 7 seats.
But frankly what I should have said but was in a hurry is that Tasmania probably more than any other state makes a nonsense of drawing any federal conclusions from the state results, and I get just as tired of it as others do.
Labor and Liberal down here are very different beasts to their federal counterparts, and the electorate definitely makes the distinction.
I think I could live with a national swing of +5% to The Greens. Bob for PM!
Obama wins healthcare stoush. A timely reminder to the Right – in both countries – that they arent still in power, and no amount of huffy outrage will alter that for now. http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/03/22/2852672.htm
All state governments are struggling to remain relevant to voters in the 21st Century. These patchy state election outcomes will continue into the future until we arrive at the end game that will end the institutions of state governments.
The reasons for their demise are obvious. Falling service and infrastructure standards from the states have occurred at the same time that their deficits have escalated. They are unsustainable institutions.
The game changer will be the moves to fix our broken federal system. Rudd’s bold national reform agenda could move us in that direction. Will it come down to a referendum or constitutional stealth? Either way, bills for national health and education are likely to be pushed through federal parliament in Rudd’s next term.
Abbott’s only chance for an up-set victory will be the high risk strategy of out-bidding Labor on the national reform road-map. Does he have the courage and party backing? Making necessary root and branch structural reforms for on-going productivity benefits in the tens of billions each year will understandably bring howls of protests from state premiers.
However, as we have just seen this weekend, their impact and stature have just been seriously weakened by the electorate. Great leverage in the hard negotiations ahead.
Hooray Obama!
Bernard Keane on the results of the latest Essential Research polling.
Let’s face it, a snowball would freeze in hell before the Greens anywhere jumped into bed with the Liberals, just like it would have frozen in hell in WA if the nats. had jumped into bed with the ALP.
Essential Reseach? I thought that Newspoll was the only polling company in town.
Fantastic news from the US!
Mark @ 56,
Yes, me too! Hope isn’t such a bad address, and certainly beats the alternative.
After the next Federal Labor win I’m sure that partisan journos at the ABC will lay off for a time- but then so do the News Ltd slime when one of their attempted manipulations falls in a heap.
It’s a bully’s instinctive reaction: immediately absent yourself from the scene of an embarrassing reverse- but then come right back as soon as you can bear to, and act as if it had never happened…
Big win for French socialists party in regional elections over the weekend too…
Vive la France!
I’m not surprised at the coverage. I’m pretty sure none of these journalists are stupid. Some are more venal than others, but I’m sure they all know that, federally, Labor are in a strong position, and a lot of what they write is just ‘party line’ stuff. Given that, they’re not going to turn around and suddenly talk honestly about state elections. They’re going to do what they’ve been doing for ages – spinning it into a feel-good story for the Coalition. It’s entirely consistent.
But I would like to know what’s up with Newspoll. They’ve been consistently a couple of percentage points low on the national ALP 2PP compared with the other pollsters, at least since the ‘rogue’ poll of last year. And the poll-eve SA state Newspoll showed the same discrepancy. That last one is at least measurable and, on the face of it, seems to make the likes of Essential and Nielsen a bit more credible by comparison.
It’s very unlikely that Newspoll are doing anything underhand – they’d be mad to put their credibility under threat like that. But there does appear to something in their methodology they need to look at.
Now that the Hive Mind has had the chance to express its disdain for the pack mentality of the press, maybe it’s time to get on with attacking Labor from the left. You know you want to.
Sure the ALP got a thrashing, Myriad74, if you compare their vote on Saturday to that of the previous election, but the fact remains that the Libs achieved only 39%, and most likely 10 seats out of 25, hardly a ringing endorsement for them, and still less for Abbott, even if you accept the furphy that the result had any significant federal implications. The only way they could have drawn any comfort from it is if the 12% anti Labor swing went all their way. You’d have to think that under federal election rules, a fair part of the disaffected 12% would vote Green and preference Labor. Result: probably no change federally – all 5 Reps seats to Labor. In the Senate, maybe more Greens, as suggested above.
One point that perhaps hasn’t been made strongly enough here is that the MSM has always been about using dramatic stories to boost the reader/viewers they can sell to advertisers. And now as the eyeballs drain away to the innertubes, they are more desperate than ever to whip up souffles of conflict. Brumby Blasts Rudd! Costello Slams Abbott!
And of course the more overheated partisan blogs aren’t helping either. Obama is a Communist! Howard is a Fascist!
Reminded here of Rabindranath Tagore saying the gods are amused when the busy river condemns the idle clouds.
That’s true Mercurius @ 39. The conservatives now only has the Alsace-Lorraine region. It’s funny how we take so little notice of what in Europe, yet we get really interested about Us health care, even though it doesn’t effect us either.
Those of us who know the waywardness of the Hare-Clarke system of voting are not going to be drawn over the final result in Tasmania so it’s silly to predict anything till the ALP or Liberals think they have won in terms of seats or the percentage of the overall vote. We’re all waiting for the postal votes to be finalised before preferences can be worked out. After that, the two major parties can decide how to negotiate with the Greens.
Some of us wonder why the Liberals don’t form a Grand Coalition with the ALP as they invariably vote together against the Greens and their two major backers, the forest destruction industry and Federal Hotels, would be very happy. Then the Greens could be the real Opposition as they are anyway and there would be enough MPs to have nine Ministers and some backbenchers which in the current situation, there will not be.