Picking up the pieces post election

IrishPete said :

watto23 said :

…
I think though that Tasmania has 5 seats because that is the minimum a state can have vs the 2 seats a territory must have both mean that Canberra and the ACT suffer come election time. If the ACT had 5 seats you’d probably find at least 2 would be coalition. Even a third seat as what happened in the 96 election, it went to the coalition.
…

?eh?

States have 12 Senators each, methinks. And half are up for election at each Federal election, so 6 in each. If somewhere is showing only 5 Senators elected in Tassie, that’s because the 6th hasn’t been won yet – they’re still counting.

IP

The post you are replying to is referring to the House of Reps, in which each original state is indeed guaranteed at least 5 seats, Tasmania being the only current beneficiary of this rule.

watto23 said :

HiddenDragon said :

Keep up, JB, next time around it will be Alistair – gotta keep that generational change thing rolling along.

In the meantime, this AEC table probably best illustrates why Canberra (Canute-berra?) is so special, and can probably look forward to some very special treatment in coming years:

http://vtr.aec.gov.au/HouseTppByState-17496.htm

That said, Tasmania had a huge swing against them and liberal only just outpolled them, but more importantly won the 3 seats.

I think though that Tasmania has 5 seats because that is the minimum a state can have vs the 2 seats a territory must have both mean that Canberra and the ACT suffer come election time. If the ACT had 5 seats you’d probably find at least 2 would be coalition. Even a third seat as what happened in the 96 election, it went to the coalition.

I doubt though it will be a priority of any government to fix up the senate and house of reps, because the ACT gets a much smaller voice than many other citizens of other states and as a result its easy to just forget us and not give a shit.

So if Zed is the sole coalition member maybe its something he should raise with his party to get some amendments going.

Of course while democracies are great the downside is tony and the coalition said what it needed to gain power, just like every other previous government did and it doesn’t mean its what is best for the country, but its what won the most votes.

I’d also prefer say fixed 4 year terms as well, although happy to have provisions to sack a government within the fixed term. It means things can be planned a bit better.

?eh?

States have 12 Senators each, methinks. And half are up for election at each Federal election, so 6 in each. If somewhere is showing only 5 Senators elected in Tassie, that’s because the 6th hasn’t been won yet – they’re still counting.

IP

MrBigEars said :

Voter turnout appears to have been quite low. (http://vtr.aec.gov.au/HouseTurnoutByState-17496.htm)
Results are obviously not final, but it would appear to be a fairly sizable drop in turnout compared to 2010.

I assume that the turnout appears low because they haven’t counted all the postal and pre-poll votes yet.

IP

Roundhead89 said :

Brendan Smyth (Lib) won the 1995 Canberra by-election when “Whiteboard Ros” Kelly (ALP) was forced to retire. The ACT then had two electorates. Following that win the Keating Labor government created an extra seat called Namadgi in the ACT to split the Liberal vote and regain all seats in the ACT. It worked. At the 1996 election Smyth ran for Namadgi and lost to Annette Ellis (ALP) – despite the landslide victory for Howard and the Libs nationwide – meaning the ACT had three Labor members in the lower house.

That is not what happened. The ACT acquired a third house of reps seat because its relative population growth meant that it went slightly over 2.5 quotas in the seat calculation that is dispassionately applied by the Electoral Commissioner. It lost that seat because of relative population decline in the wake of the new Howard Government’s public service cuts, and has never regained it. At the most recent determination, the ACT sat on 2.38 seat quotas.

There was no conspiracy.

watto23 said :

HiddenDragon said :

Keep up, JB, next time around it will be Alistair – gotta keep that generational change thing rolling along.

In the meantime, this AEC table probably best illustrates why Canberra (Canute-berra?) is so special, and can probably look forward to some very special treatment in coming years:

http://vtr.aec.gov.au/HouseTppByState-17496.htm

That said, Tasmania had a huge swing against them and liberal only just outpolled them, but more importantly won the 3 seats.

I think though that Tasmania has 5 seats because that is the minimum a state can have vs the 2 seats a territory must have both mean that Canberra and the ACT suffer come election time. If the ACT had 5 seats you’d probably find at least 2 would be coalition. Even a third seat as what happened in the 96 election, it went to the coalition.

I’d also prefer say fixed 4 year terms as well, although happy to have provisions to sack a government within the fixed term. It means things can be planned a bit better.

Wrong. Brendan Smyth (Lib) won the 1995 Canberra by-election when “Whiteboard Ros” Kelly (ALP) was forced to retire. The ACT then had two electorates. Following that win the Keating Labor government created an extra seat called Namadgi in the ACT to split the Liberal vote and regain all seats in the ACT. It worked. At the 1996 election Smyth ran for Namadgi and lost to Annette Ellis (ALP) – despite the landslide victory for Howard and the Libs nationwide – meaning the ACT had three Labor members in the lower house.

As for fixed four year terms, are you serious? Did you really want the hated hung parliament to run an extra year and for us to wait until the end of next year to get things back to normal again? And have you forgotten NSW between 2007-11? The Labor government had become so rotten, corrupt and scandal plagued that everybody wanted an election but were told no because of the fixed four year term. People were even sending petitions to the state governor begging her to sack the government but she said her hands were tied by the fixed four year term. Even The Sydney Morning Herald – which had campaigned to have the system introduced in the early 1990s – began campaigning for either the restoration of floating three year terms or California-style recall elections where voters could bring on an election if enough signed a petition.

HiddenDragon said :

Keep up, JB, next time around it will be Alistair – gotta keep that generational change thing rolling along.

In the meantime, this AEC table probably best illustrates why Canberra (Canute-berra?) is so special, and can probably look forward to some very special treatment in coming years:

http://vtr.aec.gov.au/HouseTppByState-17496.htm

That said, Tasmania had a huge swing against them and liberal only just outpolled them, but more importantly won the 3 seats.

I think though that Tasmania has 5 seats because that is the minimum a state can have vs the 2 seats a territory must have both mean that Canberra and the ACT suffer come election time. If the ACT had 5 seats you’d probably find at least 2 would be coalition. Even a third seat as what happened in the 96 election, it went to the coalition.

I doubt though it will be a priority of any government to fix up the senate and house of reps, because the ACT gets a much smaller voice than many other citizens of other states and as a result its easy to just forget us and not give a shit.

So if Zed is the sole coalition member maybe its something he should raise with his party to get some amendments going.

Of course while democracies are great the downside is tony and the coalition said what it needed to gain power, just like every other previous government did and it doesn’t mean its what is best for the country, but its what won the most votes.

I’d also prefer say fixed 4 year terms as well, although happy to have provisions to sack a government within the fixed term. It means things can be planned a bit better.

Keep up, JB, next time around it will be Alistair – gotta keep that generational change thing rolling along.

In the meantime, this AEC table probably best illustrates why Canberra (Canute-berra?) is so special, and can probably look forward to some very special treatment in coming years:

http://vtr.aec.gov.au/HouseTppByState-17496.htm

Voter turnout appears to have been quite low. (http://vtr.aec.gov.au/HouseTurnoutByState-17496.htm)
Results are obviously not final, but it would appear to be a fairly sizable drop in turnout compared to 2010.

Darkfalz said :

Won’t happen. But SkyNews is a better product than ABCNews24. By a country mile.

Bahahahahaha! You are a piece of wit and no mistake.

IrishPete said :

Are you in breach of Godwin’s law??? Or is the Nazi reference just coincidental?

IP

Nah, just a coincidence. I was looking for a federal election where the result was fairly certain a long time before hand. I considered FDR’s or Regan’s second terms, as these were known four years in advance; or one of Chrétien’s victories; or maybe the INC. But none of them had the ironclad certainty. A high risk approach I’ll admit given that some numpty will grab the wrong end of the stick.

Anyway can you “breach” Godwin’s law? Given that it is just an observation that any debate carried on for “enough” time will cover “everything”. It’s like saying if you trip over you’re in breach of Newton’s law of gravity.