It’s super early in the night, but with 0.06% of the vote counted, the Coalition have 64.73% of the two-party preferred vote, compared to 35.27% for Labor. The ABC computer is awarding 17 seats to the Coalition and 9 to Labor.
No ACT results yet.
Samuel
August 21st, 2010 at 06:34pm
I’m hearing that the Liberal Party volunteers on the ground in South Australia are receiving a warmer response from the public than expected.
The anticipated swing would put the Liberals in with a chance of taking office, however if South Australia does the unexpected and swings to the Liberals, as seems to be indicated by the mood on the ground, then we could be in for a clearer coalition victory.
This is going to be an election to watch as it unfolds…this could very easily be the most interesting election night in recent history.
Samuel
August 21st, 2010 at 04:29pm
Well that was an usual experience. I was not hassled by ANY of the pamphlet people, although I did deliberately sneak past The Greens who spotted me after I got past and started to move in my direction before obviously deciding that I was already gone and was a lost cause for them anyway.
Oddly enough, the GetUp people looked bored. This is Canberra, normally it’s the Liberal Party people who look bored, not the purveyors of Socialism and Global Warming Doom. For those awful people to look bored, is an interesting sign. It would take a lot for a Liberal candidate to take one of the ACT House of Reps seats, but without an incumbent, and with the communists looking bored, perhaps there is a chance after all.
I’m encouraged.
I’ll be heading back to the polling place after lunch to retrieve a Liberal how-to-vote card so that I can compare it to my how-to-vote card.
Samuel
August 21st, 2010 at 03:15pm
Not a lot has changed since my preliminary how-to-vote card…in fact the only change is that I’ve decided to swap the order in which I placed the Greens and Labor. I don’t expect my preferences to get down to either of them anyway, so it’s not a big change, but I have to do it on the grounds that I can no longer allow any of my preferences to flow to Labor as they:
1. Left their campaign launch until extremely late in the campaign, causing taxpayers to foot the bill for most of it, further proving their love of wasting tax dollars.
2. They, in conjunction with their union mates, ran a bunch scare ads in Canberra and surrounds about massive public service job losses. These ads were false, as Tony Abbott merely plans to cut public service job numbers through natural attrition, not by randomly firing 25% (or some other magic number) of the public service…although in many ways I’d be supportive if that had been his policy.
So, first up, the quick national version:
That’s simple, support real action and the return of sane and sensible government by voting 1 for your local Liberal or National Party candidate. If you have one of each, put them first and second. Distribute the rest of your preferences as you see fit. In the Senate, I’ll leave it up to you as to whether you wish to vote above or below the line.
Fraser
1. MILLIGAN, James Keith (Liberal Party) — obviously he must come first
2. HEDGES-PHILLIPS, Quintin (Secular Party of Australia) — I find a bunch of their policies to be quite scary, especially ones about climate change, mining taxes and illegal immigrants etc, but they have minimal chance of gaining enough seats in parliament to do much of anything, so I’d rather have them than the Labor or Green party. He also has a job which I can respect (Television Presentation Co-ordinator…and he’s not an ABC person!) and isn’t a career politician, which is more than I can say for many people from the other parties.
3. ESGUERRA, Indra (The Greens).
4. LEIGH, Andrew (Australian Labor Party).
Canberra
1. JONES, Giulia (Liberal Party) — “Giulia with a G” would have been a great addition to the Legislative Assembly, so hopefully we can get her in to the federal parliament.
2. ELLERMAN, Sue (The Greens)
3. BRODTMANN, Gai (Labor Party)
Senate
1. HUMPHRIES, Gary (Liberal Party) — I must ask that, in the ACT, Gary gets your first preference and not Matthew Watts. I ask this because in the ACT, Gary needs all the support he can get in order to block a Green from getting a seat. As such, to ensure Gary gets his quota, put him first and Matthew second…this way, once Gary has his quota, his runoff can go to Matthew.
2. WATTS, Matthew (Liberal Party)
3. CHURCHILL, Darren Mark (Democrat) — With the Labor candidates being bumped to the bottom of the list, and independent John Glynn also being demoted, the Democrats find themselves in third and fourth respectively. I do hope that my runoff doesn’t get this far…although with only two Senate seats in the ACT, I doubt that it will.
4. DAVID, Anthony John (Democrat)
5. GLYNN, John (Independent) — John’s people sent me a link with his policies…scary left-wing big government type stuff. Sorry John, but you lost third spot.
6. PARRIS, Hannah (Green Party) — Of the two Greens running in this race, Hannah has made less scary press statements.
7. HATFIELD DODDS, Lin (Green Party) — Still the scariest Green I’ve ever seen. Hopefully she disappears in to a job in which we never have to hear from her ever again after the election is over.
8. LUNDY, Kate Alexandra (Labor Party) — Labor, so right down the bottom of the list. Kate gets a slightly higher spot than David because…
8. MATHEWS, David (Labor) — David disqualified himself from getting a higher ranking in the preferences by dishonestly appearing in a photo of supportive locals in one of Mike Kelly’s (incumbent candidate for Eden-Monaro) pamphlets, and then tried to defend his position on WIN News by claiming that, as he supports Mike Kelly, he is entitled to be in the photo. David, you’re not a local unless you live in the electorate. Still, it’s nice to see that you can be as dishonest as the Labor government have been.
So there we have it. As I said a little while back, I’ll be running regular updates on the election throughout the night, however they won’t be as comprehensive or on the “every three minutes or so” as the last election.
Good luck with your voting today.
Samuel
August 21st, 2010 at 05:32am
This is the result of the exclusive SamuelPoll (errr, well if you have a batter name for it, then let me know).
Total Votes: 89
Started: July 31, 2010
I’m not surprised to see the Greens win this as the primary audience of this blog is people living in Canberra. I am however surprised to see Labor poll so poorly. NewsPoll claimed yesterday that the swing away from Labor was going straight to the coalition…this may very well be the case in marginal seats, but I’m not so sure that it is the case in safe Labor seats…that raises the interesting question of who people will be putting second on their ballot papers.
The other interesting trend is that the coalition’s vote picked up significantly in the last week of the campaign, which indicates that even my little poll agrees with the big polls about a late swing to the coalition. This makes me very happy as it gives me some sort of indication that, the Greens protest vote against Labor might just come with a second preference to the Liberal or National Party.
Samuel
August 21st, 2010 at 05:11am
If, like me, you missed some (or unlike me, all) of Casey and Heather’s first show on KDOX, then fear not because they have been kind enough to post it online for everyone to enjoy.
I personally missed bits of it because I was not at all well overnight and I’m still not feeling great right now…in fact I had to take my first sick day in many months today (arguably I should have done this a few weeks ago…but today was much worse than I was a few weeks ago). I did manage to hear most of the show though, and that which I heard was great…it’s almost as if they were never off the air as they really were firing on all cylinders. I was even pleased to note that there were no accidental half-mentions of their previous station’s call sign or phone number…something which tends to plague radio people for a few days when they start at a new station.
So, if you missed it, here it is, enjoy!
[audio:http://www.mypodcast.com/fsaudio/caseyhendrickson_20100816_1817-675579.mp3]
Download MP3
The podcast URL is likely to change in the near future, so if you subscribe, please note that you may have to change URL soon.
Casey and Heather can be heard on Fox News 1280AM and 102.3FM KDOX, weekdays from 9am to 11am in Las Vegas, (Tuesday-Saturday 2am-4am Canberra time on the current time difference). Streaming at foxnews1280.com
Samuel
August 17th, 2010 at 11:55am
In just under ten minutes, streaming at foxnews1280.com, Casey Hendrickson and Heather Kydd will make their triumphant return to the airwaves.
Live from 9am-11am Las Vegas time, 2am-4am Canberra time.
Samuel
August 17th, 2010 at 01:52am
Last year I noted that Sydney community radio station 2NSB had collapsed due to financial problems. I’m pleased to be able to report that a dedicated group of people have managed to save the station, and are in the process of making it a viable station once again.
John Southgate, one of the people responsible for this rebuilding has written in with the following update:
Sydney North Shore’s FM99.3 has been operating successfully since February 2010 with a new board of directors and in August 2010 is ready to recruit a permanent station manager. Details of the position can be found on the station web site at FM993.com.au or through SEEK at seek.com.au.
Thanks John, that’s great news. Best of luck with finding a suitable manager.
Samuel
August 16th, 2010 at 12:20pm
The RiotACT brings word that the Gungahlin Drive Extension’s 2nd stage bridge, which is currently under construction, has collapsed on to the Barton Highway.
Thankfully nobody has been seriously hurt. One person was trapped and had to be freed with up to ten people being taken to hospital. (Update: In one breath the Emergency Services Agency says that there were no serious injuries, and in the next says that “The injuries range from limb to suspected spinal”. That sounds pretty serious to me.)
I’m sorry, but I can’t mince words here. Regardless of what may or may not have happened on-site, I have no doubts that the people ultimately to blame for this ar e the loopy greenies and socialists from Save The Ridge, the very people who caused delays and massive budget blowouts in the original GDE construction, which effectively prevented the second lane each way from being built at the time. If it weren’t for these people, the bridge in question would have been built at least a couple years ago, and would therefore have not collapsed during construction today.
“But it could have collapsed back then!” you say? Well, no, I don’t agree. Data from Darren Giles’ Gungahlin Weather Centre (which is closer to the bridge collapse than the Bureau’s airport measuring devices) shows that over the last few years we have had:
2006: 366.8 mm of rain
2007: 499.0 mm of rain
2008: 503.2 mm of rain
2009: 390.2 mm of rain
2010: 328.8 mm of rain to the end of yesterday (225 days of the year, which once extrapolated to a full year gives us 533.39 mm.
This makes this year our wettest of the years in which construction has been undertaken on the GDE. Rain can severely affect the integrity of setting concrete, and it is reasonable to say that, had the bridge been built in a previous year, it would have had less chance of being adversely affected by rain. Therefore, the delays caused by Save The Ridge are to blame for this bridge collapse.
Just another reason why we can’t let people like this be in charge of important infrastructure projects.
Samuel
4 comments August 14th, 2010 at 04:49pm
I’ve received a number off odd emails over the last week, the oddest of all was, oddly enough, sent to the old Editorial Echoes email address. Among this bunch of odd emails, there was one with a sensible question which probably deserves a wider audience for its answer.
The question was about why the current poll, which I said would be reset on a weekly basis until the election, has not been reset yet. It’s a good question…the simple answer is that between ten straight days of 5am-ish starts, recovering from the flu and a myriad of other projects, it simply fell by the way side. I remember it on Wednesday, by which time it would have been pointless to reset it…so the poll can run until Friday night now.
As for the interviews with local candidates…I haven’t sent out any requests yet, and I won’t be sending any. The reasons above are the main reason for this, although I should note that one of the lovely symptoms of that wonderful flu was that I lost most of my hearing for a week or so. I wasn’t able to get around to conducting interviews over the last couple of weeks, and I won’t have time this week.
To the person who was upset by this in said email, I’m sorry…I’d love to vote again as well, but alas it’s not going to happen.
Speaking of elections, on election night my attention will be split between the election and the Sydney Swans V Western Bulldogs AFL game. I do intend on blogging about the election through the night, however it won’t be as thorough and as regularly updated as it was for the last federal election…until full time in the AFL anyway!
I start work rather early in the morning on election day, and again the day after that, so with the election day blog posts which will need to be written on the Friday night, plus the election coverage, I dare say that I’m going to have an election weekend in which I get very very little sleep. I can only hope that the result will make it worthwhile.
Samuel
August 14th, 2010 at 04:13pm
Or for those of us on this side of the world, Tuesday at 2am. I’ll be up, and I hope that you will be too!
As noted last month, former KXNT hosts Casey Hendrickson and Heather Kydd have found a new home on rival station Fox News 1280 KDOX. Since then, the details of their new show have been announced. They will be occupying the 9am-11am timeslot Monday to Friday, up against Rush Limbaugh on KXNT and a tape-delayed version of Glenn Beck on KDWN.
Casey noted in a podcast last month that, while the competition will be tough as they are two of the biggest names in American talk radio, the duo are confident that they will be able to overtake at least one of their competitors in the ratings fairly quickly. The podcast makes for quite interesting listening if you’re interested in the state of the Las Vegas radio market.
[audio:http://caseythehost.podbean.com/mf/web/nfyxx/kdox.mp3]
Casey also noted in the podcast that one of the reasons for him and Heather choosing to go with KDOX instead of some of the other stations which made them offers, is that KDOX have a viable plan to launch themselves to the top of the talk ratings. One of the parts of this plan came to life rather spectacularly yesterday.
Until yesterday, all talk stations in Las Vegas were on the AM band. In other markets, some talk stations have launched FM simulcasts which have helped to improve their ratings. KXNT announced a few weeks back that, from this coming Monday, they would launch a simulcast of their 840AM signal on 100.5FM, and have been promoting this as Las Vegas’s first FM talk station…well, very quietly, KDOX have been planning the same thing for a while and bought an FM translator a few months back for the tiny price of $100. Yesterday, they launched their FM simulcast on 102.3FM, beating KXNT by a matter of days, and making KXNT’s promotion of being the first FM talk station redundant.
KDOX promotional graphic featuring station personalities (L-R) Dr. Laura Schlessinger, Laura Ingraham, Jeremy Wayne, Roger Hedgecock, Rusty Humphries, Heather Kydd and Casey Hendrickson. It is the first time Casey and Heather have appeared in a KDOX promotional photo, having previously appeared at a handful of KDOX events and outside broadcasts. Image credit: Summit Media Broadcasting.
Having an FM translator is arguably more beneficial for KDOX than it is for KXNT as KDOX, being a Class D AM station, is virtually inaudible at night when its daytime 5,000 watt signal is reduced to a mere 28 watts. The FM signal will broadcast at a rate of 99 watts 24/7. KXNT on the other hand will be aiming to increase their weekend audience by running sport coverage on their FM station instead of their current programming, which will continue to air on their AM station.
The battle for dominance of the talk market in Las Vegas appears to be hotting up considerably…and I’m looking forward to Casey and Heather’s return to the airwaves from 9am-11am Monday (2am-4am Tuesday Canberra time) which, with any luck, will bring the majority of their existing audience with them. The show will stream live from the KDOX website.
Samuel
August 14th, 2010 at 06:34am
Some days some ads bewilder me:
(click image to enlarge)
Sure, it’s probably a good strategy to name your business after the place in which it is located…this probably cuts down on confusion, but in terms of the location itself, I don’t really see what is so great about an industrial area which enjoys traffic jams every morning and night of every weekday, much more so than any other industrial area in Canberra.
If it was a military installation like HMAS Harman, remotely located on Canberra Avenue between Canberra and Queanbeyan, then I might understand why it would be considered a “strategic location”…but in this case, I think it’s just false advertising.
Samuel
August 13th, 2010 at 06:39pm
The “do as we say, not as we do” gore-bull warming enthusiasts strike again….this time in the form of Greens Senate candidate for the ACT, Lin Hatfield Dodds.
Senate candidate Lin Hatfield Dodds says she’s not environmentally irresponsible for owning a V8 Toyota Landcruiser.
[..]
Ms Hatfield Dodds told The Canberra Times that poor public transport options forced her family to buy a second car about two years ago. The other family car was a Toyota Echo. The 4WD was chosen to take the family on monthly camping trips.”I’m not at all worried about driving a four-wheel drive I’ve always said I don’t fit the mould of what people often perceive a green to be,” she said.
Well Lin, that’s just because most Canberrans don’t realise that the Greens’ socialist utopia inevitably involves the almighty administrators living a much more luxurious life than the rest of the population. It’s sold as “being nice to the environment” and “equality”…but you and I both know that this is not the case.
Back to the point though…monthly camping trips? Really? Aren’t those campfires bad for the environment or causing global warming or something? And if the rest of us are supposed to give up our large vehicles, how come you can’t lead by example. There are plenty of places to camp which do not require a four wheel drive in order to access them.
This is exactly the sort of “do as I say, not as I do” mentality that led to the delays and blowouts in cost of the Gungahlin Drive Extension. Admittedly the Stanhope government shares the blame for this by ineptly not simply overruling the cuckoo activists when they had the chance…however the Save The Ridge mob, supported by the Greens and the Socialists were the main cause of the delays in construction, the resulting blowout in costs, and the necessity to increase overall costs further by making the second lane a “we’ll just have to do that at some later stage” proposition for the ACT government. How is this a “do as I say, not as I do” issue? Because the Save The Ridge nuts use the GDE.
We can’t allow these people to take control of our government. We can’t risk having proponents of large central government in power when they pretend to be interested in “fairness”, but really just want to increase their own personal power and thrust some delusional socialist doctrine upon us. If they can cause a GDE fiasco at a local level, imagine what chaos they could cause at a national level. If you thought the Building the Education Revolution disaster was bad…you ain’t seen nothin’ (to borrow a quaint phrase) until you’ve seen Bob Brown as Dear Leader.
By the way, I love how The Canberra Times (aka The Fyshwick Guardian) not only tries to justify Lin’s hypocritical use of a V8 4WD with details of her carbon offset program (memo Lin: offsetting is not the same as reducing) but also seems to think that the only members of the Legislative Assembly are Greens:
Of Canberra’s four MLAs, three drive a Toyota Prius and the fourth has a Smart Car
I’m sure life would be much more in-line with the ideological standpoint of The Fyshwick Guardian if this were the case…but unless I missed something, the Hare-Clark proportional voting system hasn’t extended itself to removing all but the representatives of the party with the fewest elected members. Do the journos know something about the plans of the Greens that we don’t?
(with thanks to Jeremy Hanson MLA for the link to the article…seeing as I’ve mentioned Jeremy’s name, I should probably point out that my views do not necessarily reflect his)
Samuel
1 comment August 12th, 2010 at 11:38pm
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