10 September 2010

Not exactly gracious in victory

| johnboy
Join the conversation
60

Senator Humphries has been officially given the nod by the electoral commission to retain his place.

His office has now sent out the sort of media release normally associated with a sore loser:

THE TRUTH BEHIND THE GREENS SPIN CYCLE

Despite the hundreds of thousands of dollars, the dodgy polls, and the blatant fear campaign run by the ACT Greens, at the end of counting they are 25 000 votes short of a seat in the Senate in the ACT.

What must be galling and disappointing to Greens supporters is that they were duped by a cynical campaign that promised near-certain victory but delivered the lowest swing to the Greens in the country. The hubris and dishonesty of this campaign by the Greens was simply breathtaking.

Even if this race had gone to preferences, the Greens would still not have come close.

Even with every single Labor preference, they would still be thousands of votes short of gaining the seat.

To tell their supporters that they needed less than 2000 votes to win when in fact they needed more than ten times that amount is a deception of genuine believers in the Greens’ mission.

Greens supporters would rightly be very angry at a campaign that employed a deceptive trick against their own supporters. They would also be angry and confused with a candidate who:

— backflipped several times over education policy
— drove a V8 4WD yet took photo ops on electric bikes
— didn’t know if she had private health cover, but campaigned against it
— denigrated the Australian Christian Lobby
— swore at the media, and
— flagrantly wasted hundreds of thousands of dollars on a campaign based on fear and mistruths and spin.

I am proud to serve every Canberran in the Senate once again, to stand up for local solutions and to be honest about who I am and what I stand for.

10 September 2010

Join the conversation

60
All Comments
  • All Comments
  • Website Comments
LatestOldest

The ACT Senators are voted in or out every election, so it wont be long before he is at the polls again, but he only needs 34% to get his quota, and the Libs will always have at least a 345 primary in Canberra. So he has the job for as long as the Libs endorse him.

I actually think he is a great senator, he seems to be part of our community and is friendly where ever you might see him. I actually couldn’t pick Lyn H-D or Lundy out of a line up. So at least GH is visible in our community

Anyone who thinks The Greens are a one-trick pony hasn’t read their policies: http://greens.org.au/policies – note that The Greens have their policies up all the time.

Liberal and Labor have some policies up for the moment, let’s see how long they stay up. Though when the Liberal Party has statements along the lines of “In the inalienable rights and freedoms of all peoples…” but at the same time promises to “stop the boats” I start wondering whether these people actually believe what they say they believe.

Outta Control said :

Large feature articles promoting climate change….

Promoting it’s health benefits or business opportunities?

Outta Control said :

…the branding of conservatives as sceptics, deniers….

Without making a judgement – someone who claims that global warming isn’t having a meaningful effect (or that they don’t know if that effect will be meaningful) is either denying it or sceptical of it.

Outta Control said :

…the open ridiculing of anybody daring to question the new religion (witness the treatment Lord Monckton received earlier this year)…

Because he comes across as such a stable believable character when compared to the people who do the research which he disputes.

Outta Control said :

…and the promotion of such things as Earth Hour.

Because using less electricity (even if CC is a false theory) is a bad thing?

Gungahlin Al said :

Time to go renew your subscription to The Australian.

Or Quadrant! lol

WMC, I think Outta Control is doing a fine job of denigrating Senator Humphries on his/her own…

Gungahlin Al10:26 am 13 Sep 10

Outta Control said :

Repeated complaints to The Canberra Times for a change of editorial policy to a more mainstream, centrist approach have fallen on deaf ears. On the contrary whenever you complain to them, inevitably a day or so later they print an even more extreme and inflammatory article. To have the only newspaper in town pursuing such an adgenda is disturbing and goes against the wishes and feelings of 50% of the population who are being denied expression. Not only the CT but WIN News also openly promotes green ideals and as for the ABC, well, nothing more needs to be said. The only local media which tries to be impartial on this issue is 2CC. So Gary Humphries has every right to take the approach he has towards retaining his seat. He was up against the might of The Canberra establishment – the ACTU, The Canberra Times, WIN News, the ABC et al – and won.

Wow – it’s like they are all part of some great big conspiracy against Gary isn’t it? Unless, that is, your claimed 50% is not at all the case, and that ‘everyone else’ is actually the mainstream, and the town’s media are merely reflecting that mainstream sentiment?

Time to go renew your subscription to The Australian.

Woody Mann-Caruso9:06 am 13 Sep 10

Many members trying to denigrate Humphries and the press release are missing the point.

Thanks for the condescension, but we really do get the point. It just happens to be different to yours.

Also, paragraphs – learn how to make one.

http://the-riotact.com/?p=27578

Outta Control said :

The burning of the Qur’an (Koran) has been cancelled after threats of violence and terrorism. Says a lot, doesn’t it?

Do you work for Gazza? I only ask this because your post here looks like scripted policy/media-release/propaganda.

And you’d probably want to use different user profiles to support him in one post and hint at your bigotry in others…

I’m sure he would not like to be associated with your kind of intolerance. (given his previous stance on things like same-sex civil unions)

I look forward to a clean sweep by the Australian Sex Party next time.

Outta Control5:00 am 13 Sep 10

Many members trying to denigrate Humphries and the press release are missing the point. He not only had to fight the Greens to retain his seat, he was up against the ACTU and much of the local media who were cheerleading for Hatfield-Dodds and desperately wanted her to win the seat. The ACTU (or the local TLC) tried to whip up a scare campaign regarding Abbott’s plans to streamline the public service, in particular the false and erroneous claim that 30,000 people would be sacked. The unions held a rally in Civic during the final week of the campaign pushing this message and The Canberra Times took the unprecedented step of promoting the rally as their main front page story that morning. The Canberra Times has been relentlessly pushing green politics day after day for at least three years. Large feature articles promoting climate change, the branding of conservatives as sceptics, deniers and dinosaurs out of touch with reality, the refusal to print any dissenting views, the open ridiculing of anybody daring to question the new religion (witness the treatment Lord Monckton received earlier this year) and the promotion of such things as Earth Hour. Even last Saturday – after members here had criticised the paper for its hard left, green editorial policy – they printed as their main feature article a long piece about “Putting a price on carbon” and made the ridiculous claim that “after a lull caused by the federal election, climate change is once again the number one issue facing Australia”. There were also three other articles pushing green ideas. Repeated complaints to The Canberra Times for a change of editorial policy to a more mainstream, centrist approach have fallen on deaf ears. On the contrary whenever you complain to them, inevitably a day or so later they print an even more extreme and inflammatory article. To have the only newspaper in town pursuing such an adgenda is disturbing and goes against the wishes and feelings of 50% of the population who are being denied expression. Not only the CT but WIN News also openly promotes green ideals and as for the ABC, well, nothing more needs to be said. The only local media which tries to be impartial on this issue is 2CC. So Gary Humphries has every right to take the approach he has towards retaining his seat. He was up against the might of The Canberra establishment – the ACTU, The Canberra Times, WIN News, the ABC et al – and won. No doubt the rubbishing of him and his supporters will continue relentlessly until a Green senator is elected but in the meantime it’s hats off to Humph and a salutory lesson that the good guys occasionally win in the end.

I actually found Ms Hatfield Dodds right painful throughout the campaign – it always appeared to me that she was constantly attacking the other parties (not the ALP of course) but never actually said anything that made me want to vote for her. TBH I am glad she didn’t get a seat.

Bussie said :

What’s wrong with denigrating the Australian Christian Lobby? Since when has having an imaginary friend become compulsory for politicians?

Well done to the Greens for denigrating the Australian Christian Lobby! Now, if only Labor and the Liberals would do this too.

johnboy said :

She’s very proud of her electric bicycle I hear. (hopefully carbon offset)

Beep beep!

sirocco, that just proves my point. Politicians, including Humphries are only too happy to provide the illusion of listening during an election but in the period following it’s pretty much a “come find me and then I’ll listen to you… maybe’ attitude. If only they would be proactive in listening to those in their electorates all the time.

Is it true that Hatfield Dodds drives a V8 4WD? Shame on her if so. What rank hypocrisy – if it’s true, this will follow her into any future campaigns, regardless of whether she conveniently switches to an electric Getz (I suspect that cycling would not be an option for Hatfield Dodds)

She’s very proud of her electric bicycle I hear. (hopefully carbon offset)

Pommy bastard9:01 am 12 Sep 10

What a funny old fellow is Humphries,
He gets in all manner of strife

Now that just has to be a tagline.

I thought it was a good start for a limerick, anyone up to completing it?

He certainly seems like a sore loser to me but then again I can’t recall Humphries ever actually saying anything positive. He was at Kambah shops before the election and seemed more interested in eating his apple than actually engaging with the great unwashed. I also loved the little ‘listening post’ the Libs put up for the occassion. I’m curious to know where this listening post is kept between elections?!

I note the CT has an article this morning where ANU political lecturer Abjorensen says Humphries deserves and should get a shadow cabinet position. A reasonable question would be why? Abjorensen’s assertions that Humphries has been a politician for a long time is pretty absurd as longevity should never be a criteria for promotion over ability. As for Abjorensen’s claim that Humphries experience in the ACT Gov’t qualifies him for a bigger Federal role, surely being a big fish in a small pond is an entirely different matter to being a small and irrelevant fish in a much bigger pond. Overall, the article makes you wonder if Abjorensen is just trying to give a mate a leg up rather than offering an unbiased opinion based on past-performance of all players.

Deref said :

p1 said :

It shits me that the “above the line” option exists at all….

Hear, hear. I’ll vote for any politician who works to get rid of that anti-democratic abomination.

If it shits you both, why don’t you vote below the line like the rest of us?

bikeshopgirl8:39 am 12 Sep 10

Spectra said :

If the greens had any chance of getting a seat, theyd get my full support, but the problem is, a vote for them is just a vote against the big 2 parties, but with a silent tick for one.

Oh Christ, and another one. The problem is that there’s only two parties parties with a chance of winning, so the best way to deal with this is to vote for them, thus perpetuating exactly the situation you’re complaining about? Do you people even listen to yourselves when you’re talking?

How is explicitly putting a “2” or a “3” in a box a “silent tick”? What the hell is wrong with people?

+ infinity, spectra!
I know people who quote the Simpsons “Go on, throw your vote away” in response to the idea of voting for other than the two major parties, not understanding just how ironic they’re being…aaaaaargh.

The reality here is the Greens put up a candidate who they did not scrutinise properly during preselection. The persona she tried to portray did not stack up when the electorate had a good look at her, reducing her chances of being elected. I know a lot of people who wanted to say “bye bye gazza”, but couldn’t invite Lyn to the trough.

Technically, the seat did go to preferences.

As you can see in the AEC counts, a quota is 76,425 votes (a third of the formal votes, plus 1). The Liberal ticket delivered Gary 64,045 votes, and he got another 11,531 below the line first preferences, giving him a total that was 849 votes shy of a quota.

It’s likely that when Matthew Watts (the second Liberal) was excluded, most of his 887 votes would have gone to Gary – perhaps enough to push him over the line. But it’s also quite possible that Gary wasn’t elected until the independent John Glynn was excluded, too.

Holden Caulfield10:19 pm 11 Sep 10

Humprhies made an arse of himself the first time I saw him in public about 20 years ago, and nothing seems to have changed. Must try harder to vote him out next time around.

Man, everyone here is an expert in politics.

Thoroughly Smashed5:50 pm 11 Sep 10

I-filed said :

I just went looking for Hatfield-Dodds’s gracious concession speech – anyone know where to find it? If there wasn’t one – why bag Gary?

Concession speeches for the Senate?

The Traineediplomat4:55 pm 11 Sep 10

Spectra said :

You…you do understand how a preferential voting system works, don’t you? Why is it that every election people trot out the “waste your vote” line to describe voting for minor parties? I can only presume that they’re afraid that if people actually understood the voting system, the minor parties might actually start to wield some clout. That, or it’s just simple bone-headed ignorance. Yeah, that sounds more plausible.

+1

Gungahlin Al said :

Stunningly pathetic.

“Intellectual dishonesty is pure poison…” — Edward Lazarus

Alas I found Senator Humphries the one guilty of every issue he lays at the feet of another during this campaign.

I note that The Greens have challenged him to ante up with evidence and he has failed to provided a single shred.

A clear example of his disgraceful distortions: “that promised near-certain victory”. When exactly? It was always portrayed as a long-shot but possible. And so it proved – far far closer than he would have wished for. The Liberals’ vote was just 38 votes over a quota. Just 38 votes from having to rely on the preferences from a bitter and twisted Democrat who is destroying the last shreds of credibility of a once-proud party. And just 38 votes and one preference decision from a loss.

And if he wants to get personal about it, the AEC website shows Gary received just 11,531 personal below the line votes. That’s against 19,004 for Lin Hatfield Dodds.

Gary must be dreading the next election already. He is no doubt breathing a sigh of relief that the independents sided with Labor so he didn’t have to face another election that he surely would have lost.

Exactly. There was nothing disingenuous for the Greens to state that they were 2000 votes shy last time, and they were quite clear about it: if 2000 people hadn’t voted for Humphries the preferences would have flown to Kerrie Tucker and got her over the line. I think the Libs must be shitting themselves in the ACT, because if they lose that Senate seat they know they won’t get it back in a hurry. It’s a different scenario in other jurisdictions where the Greens are picking up upper house seats at the expense of sitting Labor Senators.

Either way, this dummy spit is a real shame, and tarnishes Senator Humphries’ otherwise solid record in the Senate and as an MLA here.

I just went looking for Hatfield-Dodds’s gracious concession speech – anyone know where to find it? If there wasn’t one – why bag Gary?

“Sweet grapes”?

What a funny old fellow is Humphries, He gets in all manner of strife

Now that just has to be a tagline.

It’s just as well the old theme song is appropriate. The current theme song is a little bit creepy in this context…

Thoroughly Smashed11:03 am 11 Sep 10

John Moulis said :

I bet The Canberra Times will completely ignore this

What exactly do you expect them to write? Humphries’ Senate Seat Confirmed, Spits Dummy?

If the greens had any chance of getting a seat, theyd get my full support, but the problem is, a vote for them is just a vote against the big 2 parties, but with a silent tick for one.

Oh Christ, and another one. The problem is that there’s only two parties parties with a chance of winning, so the best way to deal with this is to vote for them, thus perpetuating exactly the situation you’re complaining about? Do you people even listen to yourselves when you’re talking?

How is explicitly putting a “2” or a “3” in a box a “silent tick”? What the hell is wrong with people?

the coterie of dipshits who have nothing better to do with their vote but waste it on a one-trick pony.

You…you do understand how a preferential voting system works, don’t you? Why is it that every election people trot out the “waste your vote” line to describe voting for minor parties? I can only presume that they’re afraid that if people actually understood the voting system, the minor parties might actually start to wield some clout. That, or it’s just simple bone-headed ignorance. Yeah, that sounds more plausible.

Poor Gary it must be hard having the mean Green’s targeting you.

Anyone who bothered to look at Antony Green’s Electoral calculator would have noticed that for the Green’s to knock Gary off they needed to push his primary to around 21% or less, unfortunately there is a consistent 25% of the ACT population that votes Libs (note to Katy Gallagher at least 10% of those must be needing mental health checks).

For the Green’s to win an ACT Senate seat they need to win it off the ALP. Once they do it once, knocking the Liberal off becomes possible. An ALP candidate elected off Greens preferences is an easy exercise if you can get enough primary votes.

Possibly a high profile independent would be the best chance of gaining a senate seat, they would need to find a way to encourage 50% of Canberran’s to vote below the line. Although http://www.belowtheline.org does make it easy to do. If we go before July 2013 the ACT & NT will be the only Senate elections to occur. That would be the time.

If the greens had any chance of getting a seat, theyd get my full support, but the problem is, a vote for them is just a vote against the big 2 parties, but with a silent tick for one. When the 2 big parties have zero to offer, whats the point in even bothering to try? Neither side represents us, and never will, as long as they vote along party lines. What about we have another election again, and every politician who failed to get majority vote is inelligible to re-run… that should give us a nice clean slate

Woody Mann-Caruso8:40 am 11 Sep 10

What a funny old fellow is Humphries
He gets in all manner of strife

WillowJim said :

trevar said :

At a dinner about a week before the election, I got sat at a table with a couple of Libs and they spent the entire dinner campaigning and ultimately just made themselves look very desperate.

Just out of interest, how does one campaign at dinner? Hand out flyers and how-to-vote cards with the menus?

It’s worse than that: they brought every topic of conversation back to politics, making snide comments about Labor (which I didn’t mind quite so much), and brought all genuine conversation to a standstill by trying to make everything either about them or about the campaign. Someone needs to remind them that it’s not polite to talk about politics… okay, I’ll accept a bit of banter, but this was an advertisement. A two-hour advertisement! And I couldn’t use time shift to skip it!

I have been quite supportive of Humphries, even voted for him in the past, but this puts the nail in that coffin.

p1 said :

It shits me that the “above the line” option exists at all….

Hear, hear. I’ll vote for any politician who works to get rid of that anti-democratic abomination.

Pommy bastard7:27 am 11 Sep 10

Nothing wrong with giving the greens a good slagging, it’s about time Mr Reality knocked on their doors. They’ve never been at home to a dose of political actuality before, and even if it had arrived, they’d try to cure it with Feng Shui, honey and lentil, macrobiotic, homeopathic, native American ear candle poultices.

Bussie said :

What’s wrong with denigrating the Australian Christian Lobby?

Nothing at all, it should be compulsory..

“to stand up for local solutions” – are ‘local solutions’ the new ‘real action’?

Gungahlin Al11:20 pm 10 Sep 10

Stunningly pathetic.

“Intellectual dishonesty is pure poison…” — Edward Lazarus

Alas I found Senator Humphries the one guilty of every issue he lays at the feet of another during this campaign.

I note that The Greens have challenged him to ante up with evidence and he has failed to provided a single shred.

A clear example of his disgraceful distortions: “that promised near-certain victory”. When exactly? It was always portrayed as a long-shot but possible. And so it proved – far far closer than he would have wished for. The Liberals’ vote was just 38 votes over a quota. Just 38 votes from having to rely on the preferences from a bitter and twisted Democrat who is destroying the last shreds of credibility of a once-proud party. And just 38 votes and one preference decision from a loss.

And if he wants to get personal about it, the AEC website shows Gary received just 11,531 personal below the line votes. That’s against 19,004 for Lin Hatfield Dodds.

Gary must be dreading the next election already. He is no doubt breathing a sigh of relief that the independents sided with Labor so he didn’t have to face another election that he surely would have lost.

The cat did it9:21 pm 10 Sep 10

Gratuitously bitter comments from Gary. Sucking up to the Australian Christian Lobby might ingratiate you with Steve Fielding, but bagging the Greens unnecessarily isn’t the wisest moves, when the Senate will be controlled by them for the next few years.

Of course one of the reasons that the Green swing here was less is that unlike in other parts of Australia, it was coming off a relatively high previous vote in 2007. OK local politician declines into hack Senator. Pity.

WillowJim said :

trevar said :

At a dinner about a week before the election, I got sat at a table with a couple of Libs and they spent the entire dinner campaigning and ultimately just made themselves look very desperate.

Just out of interest, how does one campaign at dinner? Hand out flyers and how-to-vote cards with the menus?

Unless you have had dinner with a Politician, its difficult to explain in one sentence, think of a car salesman, a real estate agent, mortgage broker and a banking executive all rolled into one, on steroids…

So much for thanking the people of Canberra for their continued support as just about every other re-elected politician in the country has done….

trevar said :

At a dinner about a week before the election, I got sat at a table with a couple of Libs and they spent the entire dinner campaigning and ultimately just made themselves look very desperate.

Just out of interest, how does one campaign at dinner? Hand out flyers and how-to-vote cards with the menus?

My Thoughts:

1. Why hasn’t he been standing up for the his constituents who work for Treasury and have been pilloried by his leader?

2. So there are no really serious issues he can find to criticize so deals with petty matters.

3. After hearing GH speak on one occasion during the campaign, I had felt sorry for him having to defend the indefensible. When he carries on like this, he looses all my sympathy.

Wow. That’s really quite depressingly pathetic.

Bussie said :

What’s wrong with denigrating the Australian Christian Lobby? Since when has having an imaginary friend become compulsory for politicians?

When he says “angered and confused with”, I think he actually meant “thrilled by the idea of”. Ditto with the swearing at the media.

So instead of, gee I don’t know, thanking all the people that no doubt worked hard on his campaign he chooses to bag the Greens. Charming fellow!

What’s wrong with denigrating the Australian Christian Lobby? Since when has having an imaginary friend become compulsory for politicians?

Call it karma – if you say you only need another 2000 votes, then you’d better make sure you can live up to it.

Clown Killer said :

…and the coterie of dipshits who have nothing better to do with their vote but waste it on a one-trick pony.

I would imagine most people who voted for the one trick pony did so with reasonable knowledge of where their preferences were going. I know I did, cause they went in accordance with some numbers I put in boxes.

It shits me that the “above the line” option exists at all….

I don’t find Gary Humphreys being a bad winner surprising; the Libs are really on the back foot. At a dinner about a week before the election, I got sat at a table with a couple of Libs and they spent the entire dinner campaigning and ultimately just made themselves look very desperate. If anyone’s afraid, it’s the Liberals!

So there *was* a swing to the Greens in the ACT, which he’s dismissing as the ‘lowest swing in the country’. LOL.

And accusations of a ‘fear campaign’ coming from a Liberal, the party that bases election campaigns on ‘turning the boats back’: hell, if the Greens did run a fear campaign, at least it wasn’t pandering to xenophobic bigotry.

Clown Killer5:52 pm 10 Sep 10

The internal Liberal Party polling showed the Humper was never under threat. Still, You might imagine that a newly re-elected candidate might want to focus on the future rather than some numpty and the coterie of dipshits who have nothing better to do with their vote but waste it on a one-trick pony.

Oh dear.

I have a bit of time for Humphries but I think being petty and whiney now seems to be official Liberal party policy. Or at least Minchin, Hockey, Tuckey and Pine are carrying that banner with some passion.

I despair this country, if indeed the quality of governmnet is dependant on the quality of opposition, we are truly stuffed

DeadlySchnauzer5:41 pm 10 Sep 10

epic.

I like it! It’s the truth, after all. I bet The Canberra Times will completely ignore this and fill their paper tomorrow with more big articles about climate change and more stories promoting The Greens. And the following day look forward to the Sunday edition with its dedicated weekly page promoting green politics. I would suggest Jack Waterford and the rest of them visit Big W and buy a spatula to scrape the egg off their faces.

Humpy your double backflip and pike on the emission trading scheme legislation during the last parliament was truely cringe-worthy.

Gee – how surprising from a Liberal.

Not.

Daily Digest

Want the best Canberra news delivered daily? Every day we package the most popular Riotact stories and send them straight to your inbox. Sign-up now for trusted local news that will never be behind a paywall.

By submitting your email address you are agreeing to Region Group's terms and conditions and privacy policy.