Australian Federal Election - Results Thread

[minionofmidas]

Well duh, the Green transfers.

[minionofmidas]

Labor was leading in the early returns in Corangamite, but the margin is now less than 300 votes:

http://www.abc.net.au/elections/federal/2010/guide/cora.htm

Closest seat at the moment.

39,321 to 38,047 is 300? (Actually, that lead with two precincts out is not enough to call it - wtf?)

[minionofmidas]

The 50.0-50.0 is probably what lead you.

The tallies and percentages often don't sync - I *think* that's because the percentage is a projection. (Which means those missing precincts must be Coalition areas.)

[minionofmidas]

5 final seats:

Boothby (Lib): 50.4% LIB
Corangamite (ALP): tied
Greenway (ALP not): 50.5% ALP
Hasluck (ALP): 50.5% LIB
Lindsay (ALP): 50.2% ALP

imo, only Corangamite is in doubt for me. so, ALP 71 vs. Forces of Darkness 73.

Wait - they've called O'Connor? That looks premature to me. (Mind you, it's an intra FoD battle.)

[minionofmidas]

Bob Katter's political positions are more old Labour right - okay antediluvian Labour right - than anything else.

[minionofmidas]

Windsor hasn't been a National for twenty years.

He's never been a National elected officeholder, actually.

Still a center-right man of course.

[minionofmidas]

What exactly is Windsor's problem with the Nats?

They deselected him when they first wanted to run him. Based on some false rumour. He ran as an indy and won anyways. (This was for the State House.) And has continued to do so. I'm not sure there's anything more to it besides him not needing them.

[minionofmidas]

I actually do miss Howard, yeah.

Please change your avatar to blue.

Yeah, seriously.

Tbh Howard was more brown than blue.

[minionofmidas]

As long as it's 76-74 right-left, a Coalition government is the likely (though not certain) outcome. If it's 77-73 or 78-72 it becomes a near-cert. 75-75 will likely lead to a Labour government. (74-76 won't happen, but makes Labour governing a certainty.)

[minionofmidas]

While it would be in Labor's favour to do either, I also think it would be in democracy's favour. The likelihood of 75-75, which means 74-75-1 with the speaker and a government permanently at risk of no confidence without the speaker voting (no tie at 74-75) is real, but with a 151st seat the most equal it could be is 75-75 allowing the speaker to vote.

What about electing a speaker from the ranks of the opposition when attempting to govern with a razor-thin majority?

[minionofmidas]

So they've called Coramangite now?

[minionofmidas]

Question for those who know about Australian history than my wikipedia-perusing self - why has been historically so many right-wing splits from the Labor party like the DLP or various 'anti-communist' factions? (Catholicism?)

The big split (that created the DLP) had a lot to do with Catholicism, but there was more to it than that. [snip]

And that a Catholic organization could win such an importance in the ALP has a lot to do with the strong Labour lean of Catholics in the decades before 1950... which has a lot to do with so many of them being the descendants of Irish convicts.

[minionofmidas]

Question for those who know about Australian history than my wikipedia-perusing self - why has been historically so many right-wing splits from the Labor party like the DLP or various 'anti-communist' factions? (Catholicism?)

The big split (that created the DLP) had a lot to do with Catholicism, but there was more to it than that. [snip]

And that a Catholic organization could win such an importance in the ALP has a lot to do with the strong Labour lean of Catholics in the decades before 1950... which has a lot to do with so many of them being the descendants of Irish convicts. immigrants.

Fixed (although to be fair it was probably many convicts as well, but most convicts sent across were English, and almost all the Welsh and Scotsmen were free settlers).

A quarter of convicts were Irish. But yeah, hardly the sole source of Irish immigration of course - the Gold Rush immigration that really made Victoria was quite heavily Irish too.

[minionofmidas]

Also remember that Victoria was freely settled.

That's South Australia, actually.

[minionofmidas]

Also remember that Victoria was freely settled.

That's South Australia, actually.

Both.

Technically not.

(And not in practice either - both colonies got settled to a considerable degree by excon exilees.)

[minionofmidas]

There was also a second - quite minor - phase of convict immigration to Victoria a few years after the (also as yet quite minor) establishment of continuous settlement.
Only the abortive 1803 attempt would be mighty technical, yeah.

[minionofmidas]

For now. We'll see how long it holds.