What wonderful news. Emo genocide, 3 extra recycling bins per household and free range eggs as far as the eye can see. I for one hope all the greens candidates get in. What we need in these economically troubled times are the steady hand and profound economic nouse of the likes of Amanda Bresnan and James Higgins running the city.

And your point is? Rhodium shows the calibre of the ALP’s financial management. And I’m not sure what pearls of economic wisdom Zed may have found during his brief career as a bureaucrat in DOTARS…

Ah yes, Rhodium.

I guess the ALP won’t be talking up that little fiasco much.

Ah. Ok well let’s hope that Caroline le Couteur’s 11 years in a Nimbin commune relaxed her enough to cope with the stresses of a portfolio.

http://act.greens.org.au/candidates/shane-rattenbury

Have the Greens given any indication as to which major party they would support in forming a government?

How embarrassing for Mulcahy that even Helen Cross stomps over him.

It says in today’s Crimes that they would join either major party.

Interesting that 3 of labor’s high profile ministers are possibly fighting for 2 seats.

So how will this work – will the BArr, Corbell, Gallagher race come down to their own primary votes? (I still don’t have a grip on our complicated voting system).

I was one of those polled. Apart from the incompetence of the interviewer (he called it a state elction at first, until I asked him which state, and couldn’t pronounce Zed Seselja’s name)it was heavily biased towards the ALP and Liberals. How so? There were a series of questions about which I preferred, Stanhope or Seselja, and then based on that answer a serious of propositions about Stanhope I could agree or ddisgree with.

I think the result is fantastic because I want to give the school closing, managerial, HowRuddistas in the conservative ACT ALP Government a kick right up that place where the sun don’t shine. I couldn’t ever stomach voting for the ALP’s alternative face of reaction, the Liberals, so it is the Greens for my vote. I have no illusions in them, but at least they understand there is a global warming crisis even if they don’t have a class analysis of society.

In fact I hope there may be a snowball effect. Those who may have been considering voting Green but wouldn’t because they thought their vote might be wasted might now re-consider and switch from the ALP to the Greens. The poll makes it clear many have already made the switch and others can do it too. The message is that it’s OK to vote Green.

One quibble. Shane Rattenbury refuses to say who he would support for Chief Minister. I suggest he put himself or one of the other Greens forward and force the ALP to grovel to them. But secondly, Shane, I am not voting Green to see you do deals with the Liberals. Go anywhere near them and you have lost me forever.

In fact, tell us before the elction who you will support. I know you won’t because you want disaffected Liberal voters (and there are heaps of them since the Libs vote is static or below 2004) to vote for you too. That’s a worry. It’s the same cross-class alliance the Democrats tried to forge. It could end in disater. You have to decide now if you are to the left of the ALP or not.

I was surveyed a few weeks ago by telephone, though whether it was ‘push polling’ or a survey such as today’s I couldn’t say. (I asked who the authorising client was but an answer was not forthcoming.)

I can say, though, that I thought the questions were pretty obviously ‘directional’ in that they assumed people would vote for one of the two major parties. Several questions had no scope for answers that indicated a preference for a minor party, of which we have a plethora this time around (Greens, Pangallo, CAP, Motorists, Canberra), or any of the independents. This meant the answers were inevitably skewed.

It’s fairly obvious that the minister to lose his seat will be Andrew Barr. Apart from his unpopularity among straights, there is a push on in the gay community to put him last on the ballot paper as punishment for his role in having Black Mountain Peninsula (Homo Point) closed at night, and his refusal to reply to any letters or other representations protesting about the decision.

Steady Eddie said :

It’s fairly obvious that the minister to lose his seat will be Andrew Barr. Apart from his unpopularity among straights, there is a push on in the gay community to put him last on the ballot paper as punishment for his role in having Black Mountain Peninsula (Homo Point) closed at night, and his refusal to reply to any letters or other representations protesting about the decision.

Wow, given that the decision was made by public servants and it’s not even his portfolio that seems a bit misguided. I also think it was the right decision given the massive amount of crime taking place at ‘homo point’.

“One of the three Ministers in Molonglo, Barr, Gallagher and Corbell is set to lose their seat.”
Couldn’t we try for all three. Not much between Barr and Corbell in terms of arrogance. At least Gallagher does some work – just not very effect.

kagey said :

“One of the three Ministers in Molonglo, Barr, Gallagher and Corbell is set to lose their seat.”
Couldn’t we try for all three. Not much between Barr and Corbell in terms of arrogance. At least Gallagher does some work – just not very effect.

Fail.

Barr may be feeling the heat – see his green campaign sign.

I think it would be a great pity if Andrew Barr were to lose his spot in the Assembly. Andrew is a competent politician who has been given some very tough jobs in his very first term on London Circuit

Those who may have been considering voting Green but wouldn’t because they thought their vote might be wasted…

Jesus Christ. Every bloody election. Anyone who can’t explain, at least in simple terms, what a preferential voting system is and how it works should be banned from voting.

Spectra, but even Labor were caught out when they had initially planned to run an extra candidate in two of the electorates until Antony Green pointed out that such a move would disadvantage them

Stanhope was given majority government and has no-one but himself to blame for falling this low. He had the whole pavlova on a platter and dropped the lot.

“One of the three Ministers in Molonglo, Barr, Gallagher and Corbell is set to lose their seat.” Intreseting that bloggers are thinking it will be Barr, I would have thought Corbell for sure, anyone who has talked to him on the street would have seen how uncomfortable he is with the general public and how he doesn’t want to be in the public eye.

Hmmm. If the poll is correct the Greens are likely to hold balance of power. I just remembered why I along with the majority of Canberrans, voted (twice) all those years ago for no self-government.

I thought Corbell would go last time, after taking time out for depression just before the election. He has good name recognition, as do the other two. It will be interesting.

I suspect one of them should have moved house (and electorates) – it seems a waste to hvae 3 of their 4 top people fighting for 2 seats.

The Greens were part of the ruling majority of Kiama council when I was down there.

That municipality worked a lot better than Liberal Shoalhaven to the south or Labor Shellharbour and Wollongong.

I just can’t see the Greens gaining four seats. Three maybe, two, most probably.

sepi said :

I suspect one of them should have moved house (and electorates) – it seems a waste to hvae 3 of their 4 top people fighting for 2 seats.

One of them did move house – right out of Gungahlin! Seems it was a bit of a crappy place to live ….

Steady Eddie said :

It’s fairly obvious that the minister to lose his seat will be Andrew Barr. Apart from his unpopularity among straights, there is a push on in the gay community to put him last on the ballot paper as punishment for his role in having Black Mountain Peninsula (Homo Point) closed at night, and his refusal to reply to any letters or other representations protesting about the decision.

Um, okay, I understand he has SOME unpopularity amongst parents of schoolkids, due to being handed the poisoned chalice of implementing the

However, the push on in the gay community represents a grand total of one poster on ACT Queer, as far as I can tell. To argue that a minister should be representing or involved in a push to encourage the re-opening of a dangerous facility largely used by married men in the closet, simply ’cause he’s gay, seems remarkably ludicrous to me…

To finish the middle sentance there – “the poisioned chalice of implementing the schools closure program – which was going to be vastly unpopular no matter which minster implemented it”.

I really don’t see this happening. I think Greens will probably get two, three if they are lucky, but four no way.

And as if the Greens would back the Libs. My guess remains 8 Labor, 6 Libs, 3 Green.

Kitchen Man said :

I think it would be a great pity if Andrew Barr were to lose his spot in the Assembly. Andrew is a competent politician who has been given some very tough jobs in his very first term on London Circuit

Maybe we are all getting sick of “competent politicians”. Maybe we would like good political leadership, or effective administration or any combination of the two!

Dump the Liberal/Labor apparatchiks. Forget the feral hippies. Make it Mike!

Spectra

You quote me:

Those who may have been considering voting Green but wouldn’t because they thought their vote might be wasted…

Then you comment:

“Jesus Christ. Every bloody election. Anyone who can’t explain, at least in simple terms, what a preferential voting system is and how it works should be banned from voting.”

I think you misunderstood my comment. People are reluctant to desert the party they have voted for since they were young adults. To actually make a protest vote is not as easy as it sounds, even knowing that with preferential voting you can vote second for the party you have suported all your llife till now.

It’s so unfair – finally a poll on which to comment and I’m busy all day with family commitments (damn Labour day long weekend). To add insult to injury I find myself agreeing with Thumper (and boomacat, but that aint so bad). As it’s late – especially since it’s daylight saving soon – I won’t bother getting too stats heavy (I’ll write that up on pollbludger) but let me say this:
1) the Greens will not win four seats. Not because I don’t like them (I once shared a sauna with Shane Rattenbury and he seemed like a nice chap), nor because of any political leaning I have (confused at the best of times) but because to win four seats would require winning two in Molonglo. This aint going to happen because they would need to DOUBLE their vote from last time.
2) they need to DOUBLE their vote because unlike the major parites they don’t get a natural flow of preferences to them – Labor picks up green/dem prefs, Libs pick up CDP (not running this time)or random conservative prefs. They would need to get at least 1.8 quotas on first prefs to have a chance.
3)The Patterson poll, whilst having a decent sample size does have two bad flaws:
3a)the electorate sample has an error margin of 4.9% – the last seats in each electorate are decided by far less than this, but rather then acknowledging this they reduce the error by using a 70% confidence interval! A scandalous con – a 70% CI isn’t worth spitting on
3b) the method used for distributing the significant undecided vote is note one normally used – and since it comes up with some of the marginal calls (such as the second green in Molonglo) should be treated with extreme caution.

Given the prima facie quality of the poll (issues above nothwithstanding)I’m tempted to put this result down as a 5% outlier (ie in the 5% that are outside a 95% confidence interval).

If the Greens get two seats in Molonglo I’ll happily eat my hat.

I think almost everyone knows that Andrew Barr didn’t make the decision to close the schools, he just got handed the education job once the decision was done.

Of course he did say they wouldn’t sell off any schools, which then was not true.

I think this election could be a real shake-up, and I won’t be surprised if Molonglo gets 2 greens.

I think you misunderstood my comment. People are reluctant to desert the party they have voted for since they were young adults. To actually make a protest vote is not as easy as it sounds, even knowing that with preferential voting you can vote second for the party you have suported all your llife till now.

My apologies if I took you the wrong way Passy – I didn’t necessarily meant to imply that you yourself didn’t understand the system, but I did infer you to mean that there were plenty of others who didn’t (which is sadly true) – sorry if that was wrong. It just touched a nerve with me – the notion of “throwing your vote away” is one that’s always infuriated me, and to this day I hear otherwise intelligent people saying “well, I’d like to vote for [minor party X], but I don’t want to waste my vote”. It makes my blood boil.

Sepi – Molonglo getting two Greens will be an event deserving more than mild surprise! The earth will have had to have fallen off its axis! No malice intended but the Greens got 24,000 first preference votes in the ACT for the 2007 Senate election, which was for the whole of the ACT. To win two seats in Molonglo will require 22,000 first preference votes! The maths aint pretty…

I see what you mean. I still think people will be far more inclined to vote green locally as opposed to federally, but perhaps not 22 thousand people…

– Can anyone explain to me how it will work between the three Labor bods if they only get two seats. Will it just come down to their own primary votes, and then other labor preferences?

Eg – Say if one of them got more than a quota, of above the line votes, which of the other two would get the flow on votes?

Thanks Spectra. You say: ‘to this day I hear otherwise intelligent people saying “well, I’d like to vote for [minor party X], but I don’t want to waste my vote”. It makes my blood boil.’ I can only agree.

I want people who normally would vote for the ALP to consider voting for the Greens to give Labor a kick up the backside for closing schools, mishandling the GDE, backing down on gay marriage and right to die laws, presiding over a disgraceful health system, trying to sneak a power plant into Tuggeranong, backing away from a curfew at Canberra Airport, not addressing global warming in any significant way, barely managing our transport system, just to name a few.

jimbocool

Thanks for the analysis. My enthusiasm about the fact that the ALP might suffer a kick in the guts is tempered somewhat by your more reasoned analysis. Oh well.

I think taking the Green vote at the last federal election and using it as a basis for this election is a grave mistake.

Labor federally last year was the next big thing offering left leaning Canberrans an end to the Howard government.

Now not only are they pissed off with Rudd as they realise he’s more conservative than a large chunk of the Liberal party, but they’re really pissed off at local Labor who have let them down on a lot of hot button lefty issues. Education first and foremost.

A high tide is a very poor predictor of a low tide. And that’s what we’re realistically looking at.

Both the major parties are in trouble. Labor will lose some skin. I see them coming back from 9 to 7. However, what we need to remember is there is no hint of corruption or great scandal. The budget is in surplus. Stanhope will do a Beattie and win (ie don’t believe the polls). When it comes to the crunch, I can’t see many in the community switching from Labor to Liberal candidates. This is the election to be a Green candidate. I see them winning 1 seat in each electorate, reflecting national trends. What I think we’ll also see will be the Liberals struggling to win anymore than 6 seats. They will pay for their shenanigans since 2004 (3 leaders and various scandals revealing gross disunity) and running with an inexperienced leader. I see Ginninderra as a key electorate for the Liberals. They do not have the candidates required to safely deliver 2 seats. Everyone seems to be downplaying Stefaniak’s very strong personal vote. That is a mistake. He won over a quota in first preference votes. Dunne does not have the pulling power Bill had(she got around 3,300 firsts last time – a poor result). We will see a Green and Mark Parton get up in that Belconnen electorate. Labor will win 2 seats.

Disenfranchised, Mark who? He will not get elected. If anyone other than the ALP, Libs and Greens gets elected, I’ll walk naked through Riot ACT’s offices. (I hope you don’t have any!!). Indeed if this motley crew average more than 5% across the ACT I’ll do that. (Please, please don’t have a real office.)

Passy. You have put your own credibility on the line with such a silly statement. We’ll hold you to this. I conclude from one of your recent RiotACT entries, concerning a Socialist Alternative event at the ANU, that Mark Parton probably isn’t your cup of tea in terms of political views. I’m not associated with him. He is not in my electorate. Moreover, I didn’t listen to him on radio, but understand many Canberrans did. Let me assure you the masses – the Industrial Reserve Army – are sick and tired of polical hacks and wannabe intellectuals. The majority in the community just want middle of the road candidates with a common sense approach.

Thanks for the abuse and stereotyping disenfranchised. I was trying to make the point that Mark Parton (and all the other pseudo-liberals and independents) have absolutely no chance.

Socialist Alternative meets every Thursday at 6 pm in room G 52 of the Haydon Allen Building at the ANU. The discussion this coming Thursday 9 October is on capitalism in crisis. We will talk about the impact of the finance crisis in the US on the rest of the world, including Australia, talk about the boom/bust slump inherent in capitalism, the tendency of the rate of profit to fall, low profit rates in the developed world and how crisis is inbuilt into capitalism. We will argue for an alternative world – one where the great majority – working people – democratically decide what is produced to satisfy human need, not to make a profit.

As financial crisis grips the world, and destroys the living standards of tens of millions of American workers, (900,000 have lost their jobs to date this year, millions have lost their homes, 30 million are on food stamps, tent cities are springing up), and with unemployment likely to increase to over 5 percent by early next year in Australia, (an extra 200,000 unemployed) and to 6 per cent by the end of next year, the masses, as so you interestingly put it, might need to look beyond the usual economic analyses of the problem and what solutions exist. If Mark Parton, or Frank Pangallo, or Shane Rattenbury or Jon Stanhope or Zed Seselja have any idea about if and how they can insulate the ACT (or Australia for that matter) from the possible depression around the corner then let them tell us their ideas.

If you or other readers want an alternative view of the world, come along to our meeting – Capitalism in crisis, Thursday 9 October 6 pm in Room G53 of the Haydon Allen Building at the ANU.

http://www.sa.org.au Canberra@sa.org.au

disenfranchised said :

The majority in the community just want middle of the road candidates with a common sense approach.

Yep, that’s the mentality that got the likes of Paul Osbourne elected. And wasn’t that just a rousing success?

Last warning on spamming Passy.

Hmm, I am very suspicious of independents, and they have to have a very good track record, either within or outside of politics, before I will vote for them. For example Clover Moore, independent member for the NSW State seat of Sydney, and also Lord Mayor of Sydney. Otherwise, without party discipline or a consistent political brand, what’s to stop them acting like a total nut job, eg Steve Fielding of the so called “Family First”.

I know nothing of Mark Paton and I don’t see how being a radio announcer qualifies you for a job in politics, with no disrespect meant to Mr Paton who I bet is a great guy. I think you have to be a top performer to make a difference on the cross benches. I would not vote for him.

Spamming? Am I?

boomacat said :

Hmm, I am very suspicious of independents, and they have to have a very good track record, either within or outside of politics, before I will vote for them. For example Clover Moore, independent member for the NSW State seat of Sydney, and also Lord Mayor of Sydney. Otherwise, without party discipline or a consistent political brand, what’s to stop them acting like a total nut job, eg Steve Fielding of the so called “Family First”.

I know nothing of Mark Paton and I don’t see how being a radio announcer qualifies you for a job in politics, with no disrespect meant to Mr Paton who I bet is a great guy. I think you have to be a top performer to make a difference on the cross benches. I would not vote for him.

Agreed. Being a well-recognised personality around town, being a “good bloke” who has a nice family, and who likes watching footy, doesn’t necessarily make you the most qualified or appropriate person to be calling the shots in a minority government.

Gun Street girl – if I could respond to your comment above regarding “that’s the mentality…etc”. Osborne got up because of his reputation as a Raiders footballer. He was in fact a right wing politician with strong christian values who took a very conservative line on issues. My point is that the majority of the people just want candidates to be small l in outlook, ie not too right wing or too left wing in outlook. There is plenty of room between the extremes. That may not be a fashionable view. I contend it represents political reality.

Also I didn’t suggest being a nice bloke, family man or football watcher were the criteria for selection. I used a term – a common sense approach. I reckon it never goes astray.

Boomacat: being on radio doesn’t disqualify you either for seeking political office.

Passy said :

(Passy) Socialist Alternative meets every Thursday at 6 pm… (we will talk about) the boom/bust slump inherent in capitalism, – one where the great majority – working people – democratically decide what is produced to satisfy human need, not to make a profit…

All fine in theory Passy, but whenever and wherever your Marxist theory has been applied, it almost always ends in tyranny and misery.

IMO many people are ready for more (benign) Sate intervention to correct the worst of the free market’s excesses, but you guys (S.A.) go too far. People still want freedom, and they don’t like being told what to think.