Month: November 2000

In 1972, the parents of a friend of mine had a political fight. Normally, the husband articulated the families politics and the wife nodded agreement. It was a small-business, private-sector family and the views were naturally high Tory. But in 1972, that nice education Mr Whitlam had replaced the working-class, gravel-voiced Arthur Calwell and the It’s Time slogan was taking hold. The wife indicated that she was going to – shock, horror – vote Labor.

“”This family votes Liberal,” articulated the husband.

On December 2, my friend described – with enormous amusement — how his father, in the primary-school hall, had to be physically restrained by Electoral Commission staff as yelled to his wife, “”You’re not voting for that socialist”, or words to that effect.

Commission staff were patiently explaining, “”Come along now sir, your wife is entitled to vote in her own way.”
Continue reading “2000_11_november_voting for oped”

The reason the vote in the ACT Legislative Assembly appeared to wander all over the place over the past week and a half was the freakish closeness of the vote.

Indeed, it was so close that Labor came within 350 votes of obtaining a majority of nine seats.

The ACT Electoral Commission did a computer crunch of the preferences after each day’s keying in of ballot papers. It treated all the votes counted as if they were the whole electorate and counted all the preferences of all of them.
Continue reading “2000_11_november_vote close”

A big storm hit the Colorado skifields during the week. Vail (North America’s largest single-mountain resort) has had 175cm of snow so far this season, leaving a base of 60cm for skiing. Vail has opened 270 hectares of the resort. It is being seen as the best season opening for decades, a bit like the season just passed in Australia, but equivalent to the season starting in mid-May.
Continue reading “2000_11_november_usski”

In 1969, as a consequence of the 1969 election, my parents bought a television set.

Hitherto, my father, who thought all music penned after 1890 was unbearably romantic smultchz or impossibly tuneless cacophony, would not have a television in the house.

I was the reason for the change of mind.

In 1966, television first came to Beechworth. Those who could not afford a set sat on the footpath outside Garland’s Electrical store. Or those who got their early enough in the evening could park their EJ Holdens at the kerb in front of the store and honk the horn at anyone who blocked the view. There was no sound, but perhaps that was a blessing in the days of Graham Kennedy’s In Melbourne Tonight.
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It seems likely that the balance of power in the Senate will change when the new senators elected yesterday take their seats on July 1 next year.

The Coalition has successfully defended its good 1996 (SUBS: correct 1996) Senate result, the Democrats have possibly lost two seats and One Nation’s Pauline Hanson is close to election as a Senator in Queensland.

It will change the overall political position in the Senate. The Government can get a majority with One Nation or the Greens. The Democrats can no longer join Labor on its own to get a majority.
Continue reading “2000_11_november_senate2001”

They were at it again yesterday, as they have been for more than 100 years. The “”leaders” of the states squabbling with the Commonwealth over money.

They need the money to buy things so they will look good in front of the voters, so they will get get voted back into power. Once again, it is about that most basic instinct, survival.

The Commonwealth is not much better. We witnessed the petty ego of the Education Minister David Kemp this week demanding that the Commonwealth’s contribution be recognised when school buildings it has partially funded are openned. It means that he, or someone he appoints, must attend the openning and be invited to speak or do the openning depending on the funding level. Kemp was making his demands against Victoria and threatened to withdraw funding unless they were met. In short, Coalition politicians must be seen to look good in front of voters rather than state Labor ones. Labor is no better.
Continue reading “2000_11_november_republic for forum”

Late last month a piece of retrospective legislation passed through the Parliament agreed to by the major parties, making one law for political parties and Members of Parliament and another law for all the rest of us. The issue was privacy.

Every federal politician can now demand to be provided with an electronic version of the electoral roll. It will contain all the details individuals provide to the Australian Electoral Commission.

This information was provided by individuals to the Australian Electoral Commission for the purpose of getting themselves on the electoral roll to vote.
Continue reading “2000_11_november_privacy for oped”

The following are the questions asked in the weekend’s Canberra Times Datacol opinion poll. They are followed with the percentages for each option and the undecided/uncommitted/don’t know last.

Thinking about Kate Carnell the Chief Minister of the ACT do you approve or disapprove of her performance? (33, 56, 11)

And John Stanhope the Leader of the Opposition do you approve or disapprove of his performance? (32, 31, 37)
Continue reading “2000_11_november_privacy for oped”

Why the fuss over preferences? In a straw poll around the office, I asked the question: how many seats were determined by preferences at the last election? That is, in how many seats did the leading vote-getter at the first count change after the distribuition of preferences so someone else got elected?

About 20 was a typical reply. The fuss over preferences suggests that they decide elections. Not so. Preferences have very little effect in the House of Representatives.

At the last election, just five seats changed from one major party to the other.
Continue reading “2000_11_november_preference fuss”

The fracas in Parliament on Wednesday and yesterday was caused as much by imprecision of language as political differences.

English can often be a precise language. It has so many words with so many shades of meaning that someone well versed in the language can convey meaning on the most complex subject. But the imprecision this week was caused by the absence in modern English of a very simple word to denote the second person singular.

The Opposition complained about the Minister for Employment Services, Tony Abbott, making what it said was an attack on his Opposition counterpart, the Member for Dickson, Cheryl Kernot. Ms Kernot, it will be remembered, was once the leader of the Australian Democrats.
Continue reading “2000_11_november_political language”