23 September 2008

Election Wrap - 23 September

| johnboy
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General:

Elections ACT reports that 243,471 electors are on the roll for the upcoming election, an increase of 17,373 or 7.7% from the last time round in 2004.

Now here’s a different breakdown of their numbers:

    Ginninderra, 5 seats, 68,358 electors, 13672 voters per member.
    Brindabella, 5 seats, 71,394 electors, 14279 voters per member.
    Molonglo, 7 seats, 103,719 electors, 14817 voters per member.

Labor:

The dynamic and seemingly inseperable duo of Katy and Jon have put out a double:

Greens:

The ABC has an inkling of a Green education policy:

    Greens Candidate for Ginninderra Meredith Hunter says her party would not enter into any bidding war over class sizes.

    “Rather than across the board class reduction to 21 in high schools, we would be far far better off targeting resources to those who most need them,” she said.

    The Greens are also promising to review the Stanhope Government’s school closure if it gets candidates elected to the Legislative Assembly.

CAP:

Roger Nicoll says the Labor GP plan is “better late than never”.

Jane Tullis agrees with the Greens that class sizes are not a universal panacea.

Roger Nicoll thinks that today’s West Belconnen health announcement is fabbo.

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That’s correct ns, the previous Federal Government had ruled out any increase.

Previously the ALP and Libs both supported an increase in size but differed on the specifics. Now the Libs (along with the Liberal Democratic Party) advocate no change.

I thought part of the problem was that we couldn’t get more than 17 MLAs without the Feds approving it first?

(Ditto having a bigger cabinet – we’re restricted to 5 ACT Ministers).

Gungahlin Al3:18 pm 23 Sep 08

Yep – the principles call for odd number of MLAs per electorate, odd number of MLAs in total, and I think odd number of electorates.

Really narrows down your options.

ALP is after 5 x 5. They think as caf has said – two each and fighting over the remainder, with minor/independents less likely to get the remainder as the quota is larger.

Greens prefer 3 x 7 as the quota is smaller, so more chance of getting more than just one elected.

Libs are currently (I think) saying status quo, I presume as a point of differentiation from ALP more than anything.

Personally I’m torn by the smaller quota argument, and the concerns about the electorate being too big to either campaign in or service. I agree with multi-member – but not too multi…

Oh and not to mention that your specific example is going to lead to 10 Lib, 10 ALP in any conceivable election – oh what a workable Assembly that would be!

S4anta: As a practical matter the Assembly should have an odd number of members. Additionally, 4 member electorates will have the effect of a major-party boondoggle, completely locking out the chance of any third party candidate getting up.

Five electorates; four members each.

Compulsary community outreach/consultation sessions to be held on a rotational basis for each elected member, over the period of their term on top of their usual gimping and spruiking.

A similar system has been in use by the salmon murdering canucks for years with great success, except half of them speaks french – so they shouldn’t have the right to vote or breath anyways.

Point to note: electorates run on geographical lines, hence the names.

Gungahlin Al11:25 am 23 Sep 08

Good points these. Which was why Gungahlin Community Council put a lot of effort into trying to get the electoral boundaries overhauled during the review last year.
You can read one of our submissions here – it isn’t too long.

We argue that the Molonglo electorate is too bid and too geographically spread out to allow adequate campaigning by smaller-resourced candidates, and adequate servicing by those who are elected.

It is an issue we will put to candidates at our big Meet the Candidates evening on 8 October – 25 candidates confirmed so far covering both Molonglo and Ginninderra. But any candidates reading this should feel free to not wait until then, and voice their support now!

… or that Nicholls, a part of Gungahlin, is represented by people from Belconnen.

It’s also less than ideal the way Nicholls has to be hacked off the rest of Gunghalin, and Chifley/Pearce/Torrens/Farrer lumped in with Tuggeranong.

I reckon we should move to 5 electorates of 5 members each. That would allow for a moderate expansion in the size of the Assembly, as well as better flexibility in grouping together “communities of interest” (the current map is here for those interested).

I always thought it was a plot to keep Gungahlin quiet.

Someone please explain to me why it’s a good idea that Weston Creek should be represented by the same people who represent Civic and Gungahlin…

C’mon Johnboy, surely you could have made up a natty little spiel aboutit or a rhyme or something?????

Sorry I just figure that everything should be like ‘a better fella for Brindabella’ and ‘Gulia with a G’.

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