Now to work!
You can follow the WA senate election results at the AEC tally room or I think preferably at the ABC. There is seat by seat counting at Antony Green’s Election Blog.
Poll Bludger is here.
At time of writing (just after midnight EST) it seems that about 25% of the vote has been counted. It’s looking like two seats for the Liberals, one for Labor, one for the Greens, one for the Palmer United Party and the final seat a tussle between Liberal and Labor, with Liberals the more likely.
I’m not sure exactly what this means for the final balance of power in the Senate, but I think it means that Abbott will have a choice of coming to terms with Labor and the Greens, or assembling a combination of “others” which must include PUP. If anyone knows, please share.
It looks as though Scott Ludlam will be elected comfortably, which is good to see.
Update: This morning Antony Green has Labor slightly ahead for the last seat with just over half the vote counted.
For Senate composition go here.
So for the LNP it’s a choice between needing 6/8 extras or 7/8. See also my comment here.
Observing from the other side of the world, it looks like that Labor guy who is first on the ticket may have stuffed things up (or the rerun of his old speech did) – but he will be elected anyway, whereas the woman who was second may not, yeah?
Won’t make the feminist analysis because I’m sure it’s obvious to all, but how frustrating is that.
Ludlam’s speech was great wasn’t it (the one that went viral)? Now I’m on Facebook (have my toe in the water, with only a few friends anyway) as well as twitter, I see a bit more of what younger people like, and they loved that.
The impression I got from Insiders this morning is that the new composition of the Senate will mean things will stay more or less the same with Labor more likely to get up than the Libs. Though I may have got the wrong end of the stick there.)
Louise Pratt may yet survive. (I think the attack on her by the No. 1 ALP candidate was much more homophobic than anti-feminist, btw. Put the lowering of Pratt’s second place on the ballot paper beside the ultimately unsuccessful challenge against Wong in SA, and I think there’s something very nasty going on with Labor’s right wing troglydites aimed at cruelling a conscience vote on gay marriage.)
Paul I’ve just heard the radio repeat on NewsRadio.
Antony Green said Labor are slightly in front for the last seat with about half the votes counted, though it keeps changing.
If Labor get it then Labor/Greens will only need two extras to block LNP legislation.
The PUP doubled their vote. The Greens almost doubled. Only a bit more than 1 in 5 vote first preference Labor. For the Libs it’s 1 in 3, they lost about 5.5%, presumably mostly to PUP.
Its still heartening news then, Brian.
At last we’ll see what Palmer and his acolytes are made of then. I don’t trust him. (Am actually waiting for the amazing explosion that will occur when one of his party members displays a smidgin of independent thought, and goes against his dictates. It will not be nice.)
Paul, Palmer is unusual. He has an idea of the public good, equity issues etc that often put him ahead of what you get from the LNP. He has a genuine political commitment and often sounds quite sensible and humane.
But some of his policies are hopelessly impractical, like refunding all the carbon tax collected and budget ideas you wouldn’t get from pixies at the bottom of the garden.
There is also the question, as you say, whether party discipline will remain intact. The one from Tassie (can’t remember her name) seemed pretty feisty. I think it would be easy to underestimate him, however.
This is probably the worst nightmare that the Libs could envision. If the most likely result of LIB2 ALP2 GRN1 and PUP1 is recorded as the final result then there will be 8 crossbenchers in the senate. The Libs require 7/8 of these in agreement with them to pass legislation. It will be difficult for them to dash to a double dissolution on this result and with a ludicrous job destroying budget in the pipeline.
Brian, completely agree Palmer is humane – his attitude to refugees for instance, or veterans’ children. He may help stop some of Abbott’s more egregious social policies. But I don’t see any wins on the environment from him, if it gets in the wayof him making money, except maybe the Clean Energy Commission [?] Abbott wants to scrap.
We live in terrible times!
Here’s the composition of the Senate.
There are 76 senators and to pass stuff the Government needs 39 votes.
Leaving aside the last WA seat the LNP have 32, so 7 extra votes needed.
There are 8 ‘others’ – 3 PUP, 1 independent, 1 Democratic Labor, 1 Liberal Democrat, 1 Family First, and 1 Australian Motoring Enthusiast Party.
So if the LNP wins the last seat they will need 6/8. If Labor wins they’ll need 7/8.
The Motorist guy has thrown in his lot with PUP to leverage his policies.
Abbott can’t get past Palmer, if Labor and the Greens oppose.
If he goes for a double dissolution the senate quota halves and generally favours the indies and splinter groups.
Abbott is actually far worse placed to govern than Gillard was, it would seem.
Steve @ 6, well said!
Adrian Beaumont at The Conversation on the ALP:
Paul @2
Should be studying German but had to respond to this one Paul – homophobia and sexism are related – both integral parts of classic patriarchy (as I’m sure you know when you think about it). Cheers
With over a million votes counted it is interesting to note that over 28% of primary votes went to parties that are strongly opposed to the Rudd/Abbott mistreat the refugees policies. (6.6% more than Joe Bulloch’s Labor party.
Joe would have to be the poster boy for the campaign to reform Senate preselections.
Keep in mind that pre-polling is becoming more and more popular. Most pre-pollers would have voted before the Joe speech became public.
Val,
my detailed knowledge of gay history is limited to 18C England. That particular history, especially in the Royal Navy, is much much more nuanced than classic patriarchy v. queers; and opposition to the London molly-shops in early 18C. London was much more class-based – the vast majority of queers prosecuted were all from the lower orders and suffered death or dreadful maiming in the stocks. – or religious based. (Early 18C morals campaigners were responsible in the main for stirring up homophobia, with Queen Anne’s approval.) There were very few prosecutions of aristocratic gay men, even though there were some notorious aristocratic homosexuals who were quite open with their sexuality, and this in a culture where the penalty for sodomy or other gay relations was death by hanging, or a day or so in the stocks which frequently ended in death, but only if the crime was homosexuality.
My cursory knowledge of 19 and 20C gay history reinforces this impression gained from my 18C studies.
Anyway, this is not the thread to discuss it. I may continue the discussion, or may not, once the open threads are going, but not here.
John D @ 12, yes your comment about the timing of that fool Bulloch’s speech could be quite significant. Labor might squeak in in spite of him.
Paul @ 13, this is OT but what the heck! I read in Christopher Clark’s great history of Prussia that King Fred (Frederick the Great) over-ruled a judge and pardoned a man who was convicted for having sex with a donkey. Fred said that what a man did with his penis, as with his conscience, was up to him.
Clark also says of the Prussian justice system generally at the time that you were 16 times more likely to be hanged in England than in Prussia.
Well Paul, Brian has kinda sorta given us permission to continue the conversation here, but I agree with you – it’s such a complex issue, it would take too much space on this thread to discuss. I appreciate your historical knowledge, and would like to have a more detailed conversation, but my key point in terms of this thread is –
you don’t need to work out whether sexism OR homophobia is more important in deciding why Louise Pratt (and Penny Wong) got lower positions on the ticket than less competent men – it can be both at once.
That may be so, Val, but in this instance I fear there are much darker forces at play than the usual patriarchy v. feminism. IIRC, some time before the ALP adopted a conscience vote on gay marriage, or before Wong herself was married, Graham Richardson on Q&A, defending Penny Wong against an attack by gays on her for not at that time being more public in advocating gay marriage, warned that there were forces at play on the Right in the ALP who were doing everything they could to prevent party support for gay marriage. Bullock’s placing on the WA ticket and the attempted demotion of Wong in SA are part of an attempted stack against a vote for gay marriage. I suspect the same would happen to a bloke at the top of the ticket if he was a supporter of gay marriage.
Must read Iron Kingdom soon, Brian. Its been on my reading list for a while. King Fred was a very, very enlightened monarch in general. Recently finished Clark’s book on the origins of the First World War. He places a lot of the blame on the Serbs. A good read.