Australia - 7 September 2013

[Hatman 🍁]

Can someone explain to me how it is that gay marriage is even the least bit controversial within the ALp - let alone within Australia as a whole. Same sex marriage is now legal in Canada, the UK, New Zealand, many US states, France etc... etc... and not only that but in mots of the countries being in favour of gay marriage is now almost a sine qua non of being a modern progressive/left of centre party. In Canada, there is literally NO ONE of any rank in the NDP who is against equal marriage and the last time anyone was (Bev Desjarlais) she was punished and was never renominated.

How is it that the Australian Labour Party which has done a lot of progressive things over the years and is allied with parties like the NDP and Labor in the UK and NZ and the German SPD etc... can even allow anti-gay bigots to exist in their party?? Why not simply tell them all they are persona non grata and say "god riddance" - who would shed a tear?

Yeah. I never got why an Atheist like Gillard was anti-gay marriage. You can't make a logical non religious argument against it.

[Hatman 🍁]

So, the ABC has that infamous "Vote Compass" that the CBC keeps pushing on us here?

At least I'm used to it. I got the Greens. No surprise. Surprised it only has 3 parties, they usually have more listed in Canada.


Oh, and the Aussie Senate election is a joke. I didn't realize parties got to pick the preferences. If I were a voter, I would be one of the a$$holes who ranked all 90+ candidates below the line.

[Hatman 🍁]

This is soooo fricking typical - he gives the best speech of the campaign 6 days before the election and gives one of the best ever tv performances 5 days before the election... Peter Beattie was right, this was needed a week ago at least. GAH!!!

I suppose that Australians are a lot like Americans in that they pick who they're going to vote for months in advance and so any last minute "game changers" don't really sway very many people?

If that were in Canada- especially recently, something like this late in the campaign would be good, just as people are starting to make up their minds. (more and more people are deciding in the last 2 days, which is a reason for our recent polling disasters)

[Hatman 🍁]

Teddy is wrong ...

Teddy's not usually very good at predicting our elections, leta lone a country on the other side of the world. Kudos to him though, I wouldn't know where to begin in making a prediction.

[Hatman 🍁]

Was that the same Teddy that used to post here?

yup

[Hatman 🍁]

A question for you Aussies:

Have there been much complaints about media bias in this election? I looked at a list of newspapers endorsements and was surprised to see that every single newspaper has endorsed the Coalition (with Canberra Times being the lone exception). Seems like the press really despise mr. Rudd.

It's the same in Canada. Every paper but one (the Toronto Star) always endorse the Conservatives. The Star normally endorses the Liberals, but endorsed the NDP in 2011.

[Hatman 🍁]

What time do the polls close?

6pm.

Or 4AM Eastern.

[Hatman 🍁]

Contemplating getting up early. Might not be wise; my daughter's birthday party is at 11AM.

[Hatman 🍁]

Where is everyone? I just got up to pee and check things out.