SFF did well because they are an actual country party, not lib light sellouts like the nationals.
SFF did well because they are an actual country party, not lib light sellouts like the nationals.
That stuff can all be included in point 1. It was just a different time. For sure there were crappy non compliant venues. Of course I am also not in any way condoning drink driving, I am simply describing what used to happen and the impact RBT had on people going out to see live music.
I worked for the electoral commission at one of the polling booths here. First time Iâve done it and hopefully can do it again for the Federal one. I recommend anyone available & wanting to do 1 days well paid work and is not a member of a political party or have a conflict of interest should check it out. Yes itâs a very long day (made even longer if you stupidly choose to work until 3am on election eve and head straight back to work on the completion of counting until 3am) but it actually passed by fairly quickly and I really enjoyed it.
Apart from making the Upper House paper more user friendly, probably only possible through electronic voting, I donât see how the casting of your vote could be made any easier or clearer. The number of questionable & non-intentional informal votes astounds me. Some of the highlights were:
This is not to be taken as a comment on the electoral system either negative or positive. Nor is it a comment on either the Far Right or Left
We had at least one Upper House ballot where the first 4 votes above the line were (not indicitive of voting order) SFF, Aus Conservatives, Fred Nile & One Nation. Now I am hardly a LWNJ Snowflake but there was a genuine feeling of unease that came over me and the 2 other workers younger than me. Itâs a pretty sad indictment of the world we live in that 3 people with widely differing political views all have a âworst case scenarioâ reaction to 4 votes to 4 parties, 3 of which are well established have been around in various guises for a significant amount of time.
Itâs also indicative of how the younger, normally Nats voter, feels about the direction the party has taken.
The Liberals would not have a majority in NSW tonight if there was no Coalition. Plain and simple.
They probably would if they ran candidates in seats that Nats are still holding onto.
I am not sure if it is still the case but there was a gentlemanâs agreement between the Coalition partners that Liberals would not contest Nationals seats. There were, and may well still be, a number of seats that are held by the Nationals that the Liberals could hold with a bigger margin.
This agreement, however, goes out the window if the Nationals lose the seat. Some Liberals may not be unhappy if the Nats lose a seat to the SFF or an independent as this means they may gain a Liberal seat at the next election.
And one further observation. I donât think the Liberals won. I think Labor lost.
That was an election in which an opposition party of average or above competence should have won in a cantor and Labor threw it away when, after eight years of planning, they gave one of the worst final weeks in a campaign since Mark Latham was the Labor leader.
Iâm not so sure this was as easy a win for State ALP as everyone expects it should have been. Thereâs a reason Daley kept stumping up to the SFS to make statements everyday. Itâs the only issue he had any traction on.
NSW has the lowest rate of unemployment in 10 years. Nearly 200,000 jobs have been added since the last election. People like having jobs. Thereâs a massive amount of infrastructure underway. Itâs taking time to complete but itâs the first big build of much at all since the Olympics. The appearance is of a state government doing major construction. Getting the state going again. People like that too, despite any inconvenience caused. Add in the fact that the state Liberal party has for the most part managed to stear clear of the major issues that have dogged the federal Liberal party (climate, immigration, infighting, etc) and there really wasnt much for the ALP to go to town on. Especially in the short amount of time Daley had.
If it wasnât for the stadium issue Daley would have gone unnoticed entirely just like the last few opposition leaders in this state. Daley had to keep hitting the stadium issue and the ALP had to ensure zero bad publicity. You can never ensure zero bad publicity so something was always going to come up to hurt him with little time to recover.
I think that there was no chance of Labor winning, they would have got close and there might have been a chance of a minority Liberal Government but the stink from the last Labor Government still hangs over them. Not helped that both leaders have been pretty much anonymous (granted Daley was only there for a few months).
Sorry to bring this one up again but it was confirmed earlier today that the CLP have taken Lismore from the Nats. Unless the preferential voting system is done away with (not happening) then, under their current guise, I canât see them ever winning it back. The neighbouring electorate of Ballina (another former Nats stronghold) voted The Greens in for a 2nd successive election and I wouldnât be surprised if Lismore goes that way in 4 years time.
While the Nats received around 40% of the primary vote, the CLP & The Greens were only separated by roughly 100 votes with their combined total of votes close to 60% of the poll. The 4 other candidates, 3 of which more than likely flowed to the Nats, polled so poorly that their preferences had next to no impact on the vote. In effect, whoever finished 2nd in the first count could make a very conservative claim to 45% of the 2PP vote.
The only thing that will save them is to break away from the Liberals. Itâs hard to see what is gained, other than personally for a small few, by remaining in a hard coalition with them. As they lose seats they also lose cabinet members thus reducing their influence on policy. It also means they have no choice but to make changes to their own policies, often against the wishes of their base, to get them implemented making them nothing more than a Liberal Party lap dog.
They need to completely relaunch the party as the stable choice, a moderate voice of the right with policies focused on re-engaging their base, recapturing their lost votes and appealing to the new generation of country voter. Give the party an identity again and set clearly defined targets that set the direction the party will be heading in and the votes will come back.
By remaining the insignificant partner of a coalition and retaining a jumbled mess of policies that appeal to no one and alienate their base, the Nats will be gone in 2027.
People have been saying the Nats are dying for years now. The future of that party, IMO is the Barnaby Joyce/John Barilaro model of being in coalition but going out of your way to pick fights with the Libs and create a more maverick persona while still, substantially, working within the coalition model. You can see the huge swing Barilaro received at this election as proof that thereâs a real appetite for questioning some fundamentals.
The other possibility long-term is the Queensland model of merging parties but Iâm sceptical they will go that way as it feels like a very specifically Queensland thing to do.
Well that was a bit of a worry.
You never go full Queensland.
The problem with that is that they are badly leaking seats in doing this - Libs will always stand with big business so thatâs what the coalition will be doing. It is at odds with what rural communities will want. What they will want is a weir mix - not just âright wing shitâ as Barnaby has suggested in the wake of the NSW result, but a mix of right wing shit, along with left wing and environmental shit, which Barnaby doesnât seem to get - maybe because after all heâs an accountant.
Some good news!
Fascist cunts
John Barilaro spitting the dummy over a farmerâs inalienable right to destroy endangered species habitat.
Barilaro comes across as a bit of a colourful racing identity
My favourite part of the story is how they want to keep their ministries despite walking away from the coalition.