31 October 2012

With the election finalised, who should be considering their future?

| johnboy
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packing up

The Legislative Assembly has published the finalised composition of the Eighth Assembly. It is what we expected last Saturday. A hung Assembly with the chastened Greens hanging on to the balance of power.

While we await the Greens’ decision on who will form government let’s look at what and who didn’t work in the election campaign.

Brindabella

The Labor effort down south was generally poor (or at least poorly recieved), but Joy Burch with very close to a complete quota will be happy and Mick Gentleman polled strongly for a retread unburdened by the strong Labor rivals of the past.

Brendan Smyth with just .4 of a quota after all his years banging around down south really needs to think about hanging up the boots. Val Jeffery was probably already getting too long in the tooth for this sort of thing.

The Greens Amanda Bresnan with just .3 of a quota probably needed to spend more time in her electorate.

Ginninderra

Labor will be thrilled with taking three seats in Belco but Chris Bourke, while new to the Assembly, should have done better than .5 of a quota as a minister.

For the Motorists Chic Henry wasn’t that far off it with .4, but it felt like he lost interest in the contest just when he should have been putting the pedal to the metal. Chic hooning around Belconnen in a big convertible with a couple of bikini models throwing Woodstock cans to grateful bogans would have been a beautiful thing.

The Liberals’ Alistair Coe will be pretty happy with his .9, but after all these years you’d have to think Vicki Dunne polling .5 isn’t good enough. A stronger candidate coming in early in the Assembly to get lots of face time could tip the balance come 2016.

Marion Le’s strange campaign was met largely with disinterest.

The Greens’ Meredith Hunter just barely managed to beat Chic Henry on primary votes which is something for her to think about.

Molonglo

The Team Katy strategy played merry hell with the other Labor candidates in Molonglo. If things had gone slightly worse the cult of personality could have lead to disastrous outcomes rather than be merely bad for her party with serious Labor players at risk of early exclusion.

Simon Corbell with .2 of a quota got beaten on the primary vote by his little known Labor colleague Meegan Fitzharris. It’s probably time for him to seek new opportunities and give someone else a go rather than face oblivion next time around.

Steve Dozspot, with over twice the primary votes of Simon Corbell should be feeling OK, but one has to think the party and the people would be better served if he made way for Elizabeth Lee in the next year or so.

Steve, on the other hand, outpolled all the Green candidates who are certainly in the room of mirrors and won’t be coming out any time soon.

It’s a good thing Shane Rattenbury runs triathlons, because trying to be speaker, lone green MLA, and also get out there in front of the people of Molonglo is going to be one hell of a job. Shane probably remains the best Green for it.

Who else?

I know if I’d announced the winner of this election two days before people got a chance to vote I’d have preferred a finalised result before now. Yes I’m talking about Noel Towell at the Canberra Times.

[Photo by Victor1558 CC BY 2.0]

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colourful sydney racing identity11:21 am 01 Nov 12

cmdwedge said :

johnboy said :

colourful sydney racing identity said :

Didn’t Seslja do the same thing in Brindabella???

Seselja’s secondary candidates all did much better.

And throughout the campaign I got a much bigger sense of the rest of the team from the Liberals rather than Labor’s “Katy Katy Katy”.

Yup, I’m certain I saw ‘Angie Drake for Team Katy’ on a corflute at Coolo a couple of times. The Molonglo Labor peeps were really pegging their elctoral hopes on Katy, not the party. Zed’s team didn’t try to hide behind his coattails, we knew Zed would get in and everyone else on the ticket got equal airtime and support.

Angie Drake for Team Katy? lol! Didn’t see that – sounds like she was pre-selected solely to get more publicity for Katy – though hardly surprising given the CFMEU connection.

Anyway, thanks for clarifying.

To be fair on Steve Doszpot, he had changed electorates and while he did have some name recognition, there were a lot of voters in Molonglo that just didn’t know who he was.

With the amount of advertising that both Elizabeth and Giulia did, that job was only going to be harder for Steve. Giulia came out strong with the signs and advertising very early in the campaign and never showed any sign of letting up.

As soon as signs were stolen/damaged/removed, they were replaced with new ones. I’d hate to think how much of her own money she threw at the campaign, but it wasn’t by any means trivial.

Elizabeth too, had a lot of advertising throughout the whole campaign, whereas I did notice Steve – despite having the advantage of being an existing MLA – didn’t advertise anywhere near as much as the other two. It was always going to be difficult for him under both those circumstances.

As for Brendan’s 0.4 quota, I think that the “cult of personality” that Johnboy talked about came into effect with Zed and to say he should retire simply because of the low primary vote I think doesn’t take into account the whole story.

Anyone, no matter how “good” a candidate they might be, will always suffer when you have a strong leader in the same electorate. Zed campaigned as hard as Katy did. Everytime you turned on the TV, you’d either see Zed or Katy. He was always going to get close to 2 quotas in his own right – just as Katy did. But over half of Zed’s primaries went straight through to Brendan once his prefererences were distributed. It’s exactly the same thing as happened to the Labor Party in Molonglo (look at Andrew Barr and his 0.3 quota).

Just my 2c.

johnboy said :

colourful sydney racing identity said :

Didn’t Seslja do the same thing in Brindabella???

Seselja’s secondary candidates all did much better.

And throughout the campaign I got a much bigger sense of the rest of the team from the Liberals rather than Labor’s “Katy Katy Katy”.

Yup, I’m certain I saw ‘Angie Drake for Team Katy’ on a corflute at Coolo a couple of times. The Molonglo Labor peeps were really pegging their elctoral hopes on Katy, not the party. Zed’s team didn’t try to hide behind his coattails, we knew Zed would get in and everyone else on the ticket got equal airtime and support.

colourful sydney racing identity said :

Didn’t Seslja do the same thing in Brindabella???

Seselja’s secondary candidates all did much better.

And throughout the campaign I got a much bigger sense of the rest of the team from the Liberals rather than Labor’s “Katy Katy Katy”.

colourful sydney racing identity10:08 am 01 Nov 12

cmdwedge said :

Great write-up, JB. Agree with the lot of it. Particularly Corbell, he should leave on his own terms, but the Team Katy voter blackhole sucked away so many primary vote in Molonglo for other talented Laborites.

Didn’t Seslja do the same thing in Brindabella???

Chic hooning around Belconnen in a big convertible with a couple of bikini models throwing Woodstock cans to grateful bogans would have been a beautiful thing.

Still wouldn’t have swayed my vote but the sheer awenessness of this idea is a thing of beauty.

Rack off, Thumper! I want Chic to stand in Molonglo next time. He’ll get my vote, no sweat.

Is the ACT Government transparent about its superannuation arrangements? Have the Greens over the years attempted to keep superannuation payments reasonable?

How much will they all get? Anyone know?

Comparisons based on first preference votes are of very limited usefulness. For example, although Simon Corbell received only 0.2 quotas on the first preferences, he had a very strong preference flow from Katy Gallagher.

Essentially this means “Out of everyone who didn’t vote for Katy, Simon wasn’t as popular as Meegan.”, but since so many people voted for Katy, how is this a relevant statistic? Surely it is unsurprising that if you didn’t vote 1 for the CM, you’re probably less likely to vote 1 for one of her Ministers too?

In terms of Chris Bourke, it’s worth pointing out that if he had taken a greater share of the Labor vote from Berry, then it’s likely that Hunter would have gotten back in instead. Having the Labor vote evenly split among those candidates was a blessing for Labor (it’s always in a party’s interest to have their vote distributed evenly, so that their candidates are eliminated as late as possible).

Simon should start looking for a new career .. I don’t mean to labour a point but ffs, he didn’t even make an effort! There were 4 other labour candidates who ran genuine campaigns and who missed out because someone who barely scraped 1000 primary votes got in on 1) Katy’s preferences and 2) his name ..

Other than that, I think new faces in the Assembly – from any party – are a good thing; fresh ideas, lots of passion and more spunk!

Make that CTP insurance.

Smyth should certainly be looking for an exit. How on earth he won a .4 quota is a miracle.

This man is in the pocket of big business in this town. He has ensured that ACT motorists pay the highest CPI vehicle insurance in Australia, to line the pockets of his solicitor mates. He closed the dragstrip to give the land to his mate Snow.

Smyth should be under investigation for corruption.

I was wondering whether Z’s bizarre victory speech on polling night was to make Jeremy keep his dagger sheathed. Now that he has not won 2 elections, when are the libs going to roll him (based on the assumption that Shane will back Labor) ?

Too early to call that for my money.

maxblues said :

Hooning around in a big convertible with a couple of bikini models does sound like a retirement plan and a good one at that. Of course I would have looked after the environment and bought an electric car but electricity is now so damned expensive. Luckily bikini models are cheap…

Yeah, but they clog up the carburettor something wicked.

so, noel should throw in the towell, then?

Tetranitrate3:18 pm 31 Oct 12

Alderney said :

Agree that it is probably time for Brendan to think about giving it away. If only there was a strong candidate to fill his place. He is, if nothing else, an extremely hard worker. Government is a powerful lure.

Presuming the Greens go with Labor, it probably would be for the best for Brendan to hang up his boots at the next election unless the Libs really are a stones throw away from Government, though they’d need strong candidates down south if they want to hold on to three seats.
I think he’d be a good minister if given the chance. One of the quiet ones you never hear about due to the lack of scandals or overt screwups.

Agree that it is probably time for Brendan to think about giving it away. If only there was a strong candidate to fill his place. He is, if nothing else, an extremely hard worker. Government is a powerful lure.

Vicki Dunn likewise should go. I only wish I could speak as highly of her. The Labor team has been turned over quite a bit which at least gives the appearence of freshness. The Libs need to consider doing likewise.

There is a snowflakes chance in hell of Steve Dozpot retiring before he gets a pension. He’ll do a full term.

Chic hooning around Belconnen in a big convertible with a couple of bikini models throwing Woodstock cans to grateful bogans would have been a beautiful thing.

Still wouldn’t have swayed my vote but the sheer awenessness of this idea is a thing of beauty.

Just imagine having that much pulling power,i’m so envious!

….and now we have to put up with 3.5 years of crap before they tell us “We have never had it so good” again

Great write-up, JB. Agree with the lot of it. Particularly Corbell, he should leave on his own terms, but the Team Katy voter blackhole sucked away so many primary vote in Molonglo for other talented Laborites.

Hooning around in a big convertible with a couple of bikini models does sound like a retirement plan and a good one at that. Of course I would have looked after the environment and bought an electric car but electricity is now so damned expensive. Luckily bikini models are cheap…

Chic hooning around Belconnen in a big convertible with a couple of bikini models throwing Woodstock cans to grateful bogans would have been a beautiful thing.

Still wouldn’t have swayed my vote but the sheer awenessness of this idea is a thing of beauty.

You must’ve missed it…

A one paper country town with a local government that spends $4 billion per annum could expect a bit more than Noel.

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