The Canberra Times has a piece on the divvying up of the electoral commission loot post election based on votes garnered:
“Almost $30,000 went to parties and Independent candidates who failed to win any seats in the Legislative Assembly, including almost $12,000 to the Australian Motorist Party and almost $6000 to Ginninderra Independent Mark Parton.
The Labor [...]

[First filed: November 10, 2008 @ 14:47]
Since election day an eery silence has descended on the Liberals’ website with only Senator Humphries making occasional efforts to fly the flag.
Today the long silence has been broken with news of the new shadow cabinet!
““Unlike the Labor party’s regurgitated ministry, with its history of failures, the Liberal team [...]

[First filed: October 31, 2008 @ 18:03]
The Canberra Times brings word that the Greens are preparing to announce their support for a returned Stanhope Government at 6pm tonight.
Apparently they were up until 12.30 last night agonising over their decision.
UPDATED: The Greens have published their agreement with Labor. Their shorter media release is also online.
Significant points, [...]

The ABC radio news has lead its bulletin with news that the Greens MLA-elect from Ginninderra, Meredith Hunter, will lead the party in the Legislative Assembly.
This despite Shane Rattenbury pulling in 9555 votes in Molonglo at 0.9 of a quota compared to Meredith’s 6125 votes at 0.6 of a quota.
On the other hand one man [...]

[First filed: October 26, 2008 @ 11:40]
The ACT Election Count is finally over…
The Labor Party secured 7 seats, The Liberals only got 6 while the Greens managed to steal a fourth in Molonglo.
So the new look Legislative Assembly is as follows:
Brindabella:
Brendan Smyth (LIB), Steve Doszpot (LIB), Amanda Bresnan (GREENS), John Hargreaves (LAB), and Joy Burch [...]

The Canberra Times has mischievously asked Simon Corbell what lessons he’s learned from his disastrous personal vote in the election. Somewhat surprisingly he thinks voters have shown “a lot of confidence in all the Labor candidates”. Even Mick Gentleman Simon?
“I’m very pleased to have still received a strong level of support despite the fact that [...]

Interesting that on our Ballot papers it states: Number five boxes from 1 to 5 in the order of your choice. Then under that: you may then show as many further preferences as you wish by writing numbers from 6 onwards in other boxes. At the bottom of the page you get: Remember, number at [...]

OMFG! I know I said I wouldn’t post again until the end of the weekend because of the volatility in the ACT election count and I wanted some quality time alone with my slide rule to do some projections, well it seems there’s no need. I reckon it’s all over, the Greens get the last [...]

Last night’s distribution sees the second Green, in this instance Elena Kirshbaum, elected to the last spot – a margin of 58 votes at the crucial point where Jones is excluded. Given that we haven’t hit the Greens’ strongest booths yet and that over half the votes have been counted, things are getting very interesting [...]

The Canberra Times reports that the desperately close race for the Molonglo seventh seat now has Elena Kirschbaum, Caroline le Couteur, and Giulia Jones locked ridiculously tight.
But with counting running to next week it’s all still speculative.
Of possibly more interest, and sure to be the subject of some degree of “I told you so” from [...]

Over on yesterday’s story Jimbocool has produced an analysis of where the crucial Molonglo count is up to today:
“Ok – a productive morning has been spent doing some analysis. Now a big caveat here is that the interim distribution of preferences is still too early for my projections to be reliable, but for fun here [...]

The Canberra Times reports that it’s razor thin in the race for the final Molonglo seat.
The Liberals and Greens are fighting for the seat and ACT Electoral Commission figures issued last night show the Liberal lead has shrunk by 139 votes…
The preference count includes the distribution of about 23 per cent of votes cast [...]

Many thanks to the people of GINNINDERRA who voted for me and to those who wished me well.
Many thanks also to my supporters and helpers, both members of the Australian Democrats and others.
We fought a good campaign and got quite a bit of media interest. And that’s not easy to do when flawed electoral legislation [...]

Zugzwang:(pronounced “zoogsvung”, German: “Compulsion to move”), most commonly used in chess to describe when a player has no option left but to move, even if it is into a state of disadvantage. The worst part about being stuck in a Zugzwang though, is that once your opponent realizes, It becomes almost impossible to escape of [...]

[First filed: October 20, 2008 @ 08:42]
Both major parties are trying to tell you that Satruday’s election was a ringing endorsement of them. They are both extremely fortunate that there isn’t another election next Saturday if they want to keep up this line. The latest figures from the ABC show a -9.3% swing against Labor [...]

Jon Stanhope’s never been a skilled negotiator. His latest effort as reported by the ABC is to demand the Greens respect his 37.4% of the vote as a right to rule.
Meanwhile in the Canberra Times Zed appears to be challenging Shane Rattenbury to be a man. More generally though he’s sounding keen to do a [...]

Jon Reynolds from Canberra Votes has sent in the video above. A pretty good look at life on the campaign trail for election candidates.
Well worth the download.

[First filed: October 18, 2008 @ 18:06]

18:03
OK… so here we go…
Sources tonight are:
– Elections ACT
– Elections ABC
– NowUC twitter feed
ABC reportage on the tele starts at 18:30.
And the team is ensconced in All Bar Nun now so feel free to come on down.
—
18:17
Early days but the Greens look like they’re getting the anticipated votes.
No [...]

One of the things that always pissed me off about elections was the propensity for candidates (particularly failed ones) to just leave all their posters around the landscape.   The Labor party have been a real help in this regard (taking most of mine down even before the poll was held), and I think I have [...]

Silly me I forgot about the bloody elections on today and at 5:59pm I rushed down to my nearest polling place to arrive @ 6:04 pm to be told It was too late the doors were going to be shut.
I suppose I was too late, but bloody hell (talk about your power trip)
Anyway does [...]

Pity I hadn’t logged on to Riotact to see the 100 metre piece of string debate. I might have been tempted to bring one along with me this morning, just to stir the possum.
Voting in Dickson was a very laid back, first world experience. My nuclear family walked past well mannered volunteers handing out how [...]

Brightly dawns the day!
The Canberra Times is editorialising for the major parties against the Greens
Having just spent a year in Kiama where a Green coalition rules the council (and has just been returned) I can say with some assurance that it beat the arse out of the Labor councils to the north (now sacked) and [...]

[First filed: October 16, 2008 @ 13:34]
A growing number of readers are getting in touch reporting that operatives of political parties are handing out election material inside the 100m exclusion zone around polling places.
Questioning these operatives about their practice is in most cases met with abuse or lies.
Elections ACT was moved yesterday to issue a [...]

“Experience should teach us to be most on our guard to protect liberty when the Government’s purposes are beneficent. Men born to freedom are naturally alert to repel invasion of their liberty by evil minded rulers. The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in insidious encroachment by men of zeal well meaning but without understanding.” – [...]

The final RiotACT Sim Challenger was Dr Luciano Lombardo (Pangallo Independents, for Molonglo). He sat down to play last night in All Bar Nun.
A serious man, Dr. Lombardo approched his task with great seriousness. After a slow start he’d put his foundations in place and let the game speed rip to race to a [...]

The following responses in so far today to your questions in the 2008 candidate questionaire:
– Chris Bourke, Labor for Ginninderra
– David Matthews, Labor for Molonglo
– Darren Churchill, Democrat for Ginninderra

I was at a friends house in Chisholm about an hour ago and the phone range with a recorded phone message from Zzzzzzz droning on about how he wont build a power plant near your suburb.
Geez, talk about desperate!!!
He went on about something else like GP’s.
The Libs in Brindabella have no chance [...]

Senator Ian MacDonald did not secure a job for Giulia Jones with Women’s Forum Australia.
Women’s Forum Australia does not know Ian MacDonald and has no connection with him.
Women’s Forum Australia did employ Giulia Jones for four months last year in an administrative capacity.
Women’s Forum Australia is not “Liberal run”. WFA is an independent women’s think [...]

[ED - While this story was posted by a new commenter, readers should note that our sources within the Liberal Party are not denying it]
Despite last minute desperate attempts by Zed and Doyle to keep a lid on things, open warfare has now developed in the Liberal ranks.
It all started when two certain Liberal candidates, bitter that [...]

Masthead for sale?

Today’s Canberra Times masthead is adorned by a luvverly ALP campaign sticker.
“Authorised by” gumpf on the reverse?
So who looks more desperate?
And is this going a bit far for an ad sale in a vehicle which aspires to be the paper of record?
The ABC has a bit in which editor Peter Fray defends [...]

The following responses in so far today to your questions in the 2008 candidate questionaire:
– Norvan Vogt, Community Alliance Party for Molonglo

[First filed: October 13, 2008 @ 23:43]

Candidate websites are in decline.
Politicians seem to have realised that the web is hostile territory where people won’t always say what you want them to say. Much safer to stick to older school media where opinion can be safely bought and sold, to be ladled to the dwindling [...]