So what happens next?

We like to keep an air of mystery and excitement to it.

I’ve just realised I’ve graduated to a Rioter from a Hooligan! JB how much more bs do I need to post to make it to the next level? What is the next level?

thetruth just can’t seem to let it go. If you care so much why don’t you write to someone or start a petition or something asking for an enquiry? Write to Faulkner or whoever the Territories Minister is.

The reality is that there is no Stefaniak Affair. amarooresident beat me to it mentioning Connelly and Follett. These things happen all the time and I think unlike what usually happen in this situation Stefaniak clearly approached the ACT Government instead of the other way around. So far no one (Stefaniak or the Libs) has disputed either that or Katy’s assertions on Saturday that Stefaniak approached them several times. (and not the other way around) I thing the only thing wrong with this situation is that Stefaniak didn’t tell his own party. If I were the Libs I’d be more pissed about that – you’d expect some sort of loyalty from someone on your own side.

That should be Carnell offered…

You speak the truth thetruth
I acknowledge that the govt is not actually corrupt (Stefaniak Affair aside)but can we agree that they are arrogant untrustworthy liars?

The same way Carnell appointed Follet and Connelly Government appointments? And according to the published accounts Stefaniak asked for an appointment some months before he resigned, rather than Stanhope offering it to him out of the blue.

That said offering your competitor a government appointment months out of an election to get them out of the race

Says more about councils than Stanhope – but have to agree

The Stanhope government has been light years better than those dysfunctional, and in some cases actually corrupt, councils. And they don’t even have to deal with the big stinking political dirty nappies of Education and Health, either.

NoAddedMSG – are you suggesting that the Stanhope dictatorship has been any better?

Mrshmellowman said :

I agree Johnboy – disolve the lot of them – preferably in a light acid bath
I would suggest scrapping the whole system and bringing in a local council – BUT – then we would all miss out on playing “where is our minister” at COAG meetings!

Because local councils work so brilliantly well in the rest of the country – just looking at NSW in 2008 alone and you get Wollongong, Shellharbour and Port Macquarie-Hastings councils which have all been sacked for being corrupt and/or utterly incompetant.

Ok …. I don’t quite get the difference but….

84% wanted someone else rather than the Greens to be in Government;
70% wanted someone else rather than the Lib
and 63% wanted someone else rather than Labor

But still 84% wanted someone else rather than the Greens and they are currently negotiating themselves into that position – despite 84% wanting someone else more.

My point is not who they support, but they should not form part of the Government (because of the three majors more wanted someone else to form Government). I personally think they should support Labor (not become government) – on the basis of the same anaysis above and that it will keep alive that wonderful maxim – “you get the government that you deserve” and Canberra does deserve the Stanhope Government.

I also think that the assembly should investigate the Stefaniak Affair.

I agree Johnboy – disolve the lot of them – preferably in a light acid bath
I would suggest scrapping the whole system and bringing in a local council – BUT – then we would all miss out on playing “where is our minister” at COAG meetings!

No, 84% of the population wanted someone else more.

Just as 70% of the population wanted someone other than Liberals more, and 63% wanted someone other than Labor more.

By that thinking they should just dissolve the assembly and start again.

caf said :

A majority of MLAs represents a majority of voters. (Also, the not-enough-people thing refers to the fact that ACT Governments are limited to 5 ministers).

I made the lib/lab coalition comment was 98% tougue in cheek, but…….

My point was that the Greens could be dealing themselves to form part of the government of the ACT yet 84% of the population did not want the Greens in the actual Government (otherwise they would have voted for them). 15-16% did, but the rest didn’t. If they stay out of government and lend support for one side to form government – different story (support and be one or lost and coalition means that you have to take the good with the bad).

A majority of MLAs represents a majority of voters. (Also, the not-enough-people thing refers to the fact that ACT Governments are limited to 5 ministers).

caf said :

thetruth: A Liberal/Labor government would be equally as legitimate as a Labor/Green or Green/Liberal coalition – in each case the government would be supported by a majority of the MLAs.

But the difference is that the Government would be supported by a majority of voters.

No-hope always says that there are not enough members for all the portfolios – share the load and bring cabinent to the assembly.

I see RiotACT got a mention by Zed in the Canberra Times as “a website” and that the Giulia with a G issue hasn’t gone away:

http://www.canberratimes.com.au/news/local/news/general/liberal-printing-investigation/1338732.aspx

Combining Libs with Greens would distance both parties from their support base, need some major rejigging of policies for everyone, and would just encourage them to spend four years collecting in-the-family data to use against them at the next election.

Doubleplus unpretty.

VERY interesting interview by Ross Solly of Michael Moore on 666 this morning. If there’s any way to nab/post a recording of it, I would highly recommend it to the nay-sayers here.

ABC might be amenable to sharing JB?

He explained the understandings and boundaries around his relationship with Carnell’s government. And he discussed how people from the SA government talked with him about how it worked then implemented much the same sort of approach in SA where the ALP government has two external ministers – one independent and one National Party.

I trust both Zed and Jon were also listening in…

A coalition between the Greens and Liberals sounds like the bastard arrangement between Trevor Kaine’s Liberals, the Residents Rally and the No Self Government Party in 1990/91. Everybody knew they hated each others guts and were ideologically opposed to each other, but they maintained this facade of unity and pretended that everything was hunky dory. Nobody believed them and the farce collapsed after a year.

thetruth: A Liberal/Labor government would be equally as legitimate as a Labor/Green or Green/Liberal coalition – in each case the government would be supported by a majority of the MLAs.

johnboy said :

Here’s a slightly more realistic scenario than CM Rattenbury.

What if Greens and Liberals combined to vote for another Labor MLA? Say Andrew Barr?

just a thought exercise…

JB, You’re a very scary man…

It’s about time he had a good hard look at himself.

I imagine he looks at himself in the mirror and say “Hot damn! _Another_ term.” And then he waggles his fingers and says “Doo doo doo, dee doo doo doo”. And then he goes to work and does the same things that got him the last two terms.

justbands said :

Labor claims they deserve to rule, the Libs claim the same. I reckon The Greens have about as much claim as either of them. The massive Green vote could be said to be an indication that the voters didn’t want either of the majors at the helm & that perhaps they should get the top job.

Massive Green vote ????? I think people are forgetting that this is the first election that did not include the Dems in the last 4 elections the combined green/Dem vote was 11.6% (2004), 17.1%(2001), 15.1% (1998), 13% (1995). In addition 2004 was unusual as it was the first majority government and there was a massive swing to the two major parties (the Libs vote also went up and they did not win any seats.

The “others” (which includes the Motorist Party) got a bigger swing to them than the greens.

and 84.4% of the electorate did not vote for the Greens – if 15.6% is MASSIVE then what is the 31.5% that the libs got and the 37odd% that the ALP got “mega super massive”!!!

They are still the third force that by the stupidity of our electoral system they get to choose who the Government is (quite disproportionally from their electoral success).

On the basis of the arguements that many are putting forward – why not a labor / liberal coalition Government of territory unity? make the greens irrelevant – if peole wanted a green government they would have voted one in their own right.

I would think he’d have to accept, but as he’s from the right I’d think that the greens would have more issues with Barr than they do with Stanhope.

Stanhope continues to show the same arrogance that got him into this position in the first place. It’s about time he had a good hard look at himself.

He said in his speech on Saturday night that he had learned the lessons the voters had given him.

Obviously he hasn’t.

Perhaps we need another election to make sure he well and truly gets the message.

I think the Greens should make sure that their negotiations with the Libs are serious and well thought out, and although they don’t make natural bedfellows, Zed Instead may turn out to be easier to work with.

Doesn’t the Barr Option require Andrew Barr to accept their nomination for CM? I highly doubt that would happen.

I have to say, Bob Brown’s highly visible role through this as the “brains of The Greens” doesn’t fill me with confidence for their prospects, once he eventually moves on. Shades of Don Chipp?

I read something in a paper a few months ago (can’t remember where) where a some kind of political expert came up with a prediction that the Greens would become a major political force in the next 50 years. This was in a large part thanks to climate change and the natural disasters that result. The Greens would be the major ‘left’ party while Labor would fill the ‘centre’ and ‘right’ void after the death of the Liberal party.

Don’t know if he’ll be right or wrong, but was an interesting read.

I could live with Barr as the CM.

Stanhope is drifting into a Fed Lib alt\reality world, it has taken almost a year and they still don’t accept the 24/11 outcome. He has to go, its a real pity Mlke Hettinger did not make it in Molongo, a big ask getting 4 up there.

johnboy said :

Here’s a slightly more realistic scenario than CM Rattenbury.

What if Greens and Liberals combined to vote for another Labor MLA? Say Andrew Barr?

Liberals could claim the head of Stanhope which would shore up their precarious positions within their own party.

Greens would be keeping their left leaning base happy while getting rid of a hard man to work with, also electing an openly gay chief minister wouldn’t hurt them with their base. Then they could use the balance of power to negotiate their agenda with a more amenable government.

just a thought exercise…

Sounds like an okay outcome. Maybe it is time for Stanhope to go. Barr is the best candidate (IMHO).

I don’t see the Greens getting into bed with the Libs. On most social policy issues they are too far apart.

It would be interesting to know if there is much history between Rattenbury-Bresnan-Hunter and the current Labor members. Canberra is a small town, they must have past dealings?

John and Zed are both just posturing, I really don’t see much difference in their spinning.

I don’t think there is very much chance if ANY that Jon Stanhope is going to allow a portfolio go to the Greens. If he does it is likely it will be things like Art, Public Housing. But given what he has said in the past 24 hours there is no doubt in my mind he will keep the greens well away from a direct decision making positions in the Government, whatever make up that might be.

There is almost no chance they will give them something like Environment or Transport (TAMS)..

But surely the greens have to be overwhelmed by the whole situation. Two months ago I doubt the candidate’s would have expected such a result in their wildest dreams..

And i heard Jon talking to Mike Welsh on 2CC this afternoon and he claimed victory plain and simple…

“We have won this election Mike… Now lets get back to business”

Sorry Jon, I don’t think it’s going to be that easy!

Here’s a slightly more realistic scenario than CM Rattenbury.

What if Greens and Liberals combined to vote for another Labor MLA? Say Andrew Barr?

Liberals could claim the head of Stanhope which would shore up their precarious positions within their own party.

Greens would be keeping their left leaning base happy while getting rid of a hard man to work with, also electing an openly gay chief minister wouldn’t hurt them with their base. Then they could use the balance of power to negotiate their agenda with a more amenable government.

just a thought exercise…

OCR can be efficient and accurate – DFAT use it on passport applications (although, there were some horrendous teething problems…)

Perhaps most amazingly… the country’s biggest election nerd is yet to say anything on his blog.

I didn’t say that…I’m just saying that’s a spin that The Greens could put on the result.

amarooresident said :

I reckon they’ll declare it by the end of the week, next Tuesday by the latest. Their just saying 2-3 weeks to give themselves breathing space and there are fewer candidates this time than last time so in theory it should be easier.

More candidates, less independents on account of all the extra parties.

You honestly feel that a party who polled 15% of the primary vote should be in power?

Labor claims they deserve to rule, the Libs claim the same. I reckon The Greens have about as much claim as either of them. The massive Green vote could be said to be an indication that the voters didn’t want either of the majors at the helm & that perhaps they should get the top job.

Chief Minister still has 4-5 portfolios as the government is limited to only 5 ministers.

I reckon they’ll declare it by the end of the week, next Tuesday by the latest. Their just saying 2-3 weeks to give themselves breathing space and there are fewer candidates this time than last time so in theory it should be easier.

“Maybe if all the parties agreed to give the chief minister job to an independent (assume one was elected?). That way they can all bad mouth the chief minister whenever they want to, and really, that position doesn’t actually DO anything does it?”

They have something like that in Brisbane City Council, with a popularly elected Mayor, except that the mayor’s office actually controls/sets the budget!

So when there was a labor council but the Libs’ Campbell Newman elected as mayor, it was a total shambles.

But if (as you suggested) the CM was more like a Mayor in an ordinary local government, and just one vote in all the day to day business, it could feasibly be workable.

Of course if the whole shebang were computerised, we’d avoid the OCR issue (which will be fought over mark my words – wait for the recounts), and we’d all have known of the entire result before we downed our second beer at the pub Saturday night.

Maybe if all the parties agreed to give the chief minister job to an independent (assume one was elected?). That way they can all bad mouth the chief minister whenever they want to, and really, that position doesn’t actually DO anything does it?

Even if the Green hammer out an accord with one of the majors, it may not last, particularly if Mr Stanhope continues with his ‘Divine Right to Rule’ approach to negotiation. The Chief Minister’s Office may require a revolving door.