The NSW ALP, is, of course, the “unspeakable”, but they’ve had to become virtual cartoons before the LibNat Coalition have been able to look like this time they are finally going to get Labor out of government. It’s a telling sign when voting posters for incumbent Labor MPs have the smallest possible ALP logo hidden in an inconspicuous corner. Watch for Greens and Independents to outpoll Labor in many electorates, although that doesn’t mean they’ll necessarily win more than a few seats. The “uneatable” LibNats are on track for a landslide win, and all the ALP attack ads can do is desperately accuse Barry O’Farrell of not being clear enough about his intentions.
(*Wilde quote in context: “The English country gentleman galloping after a fox is the unspeakable in full pursuit of the uneatable.” Despite the obvious differences in situation, it nonetheless sums up the unedifying spectacle perfectly.)
Dammit I thought you meant Kevin Wilde from channel 9. He couldn’t foresee his own feet sitting in a deck chair.
Niiiiice snark there!
re the inevitable LibNat Coalition win, I shudder to think what the public transport system is going to end up as by the end of their term. Sydney could well become utterly unliveable.
BTW, did anybody else notice the O’Farrell bluster this week regarding how he snarl-hoped that an Upper House that didn’t have a Liberal majority would “respect his party’s mandate” regarding not blocking legislation?
I hate this fucking mandate idea. People vote for different people in the Upper House from those for whom they vote in the Lower House precisely so that there are partisan opponents to keep a check on the “mandate” of the Lower House majority. This is a feature of our two-tier parliamentary system, mate – not a damn bug.
I really hope there is a non-pliant upper house. The NSW Liberals will be pretty scary with control of both houses.
ABC currently projecting 19 ALP, 55 LNP, OTH 3, 16 unknown, which is already better than some of the more pessimistic projections for the ALP. And Balmain is interesting, although partly because Antony Green has almost no data: it’s not clear that it will be a Greens v ALP seat. It could be any of the Greens, ALP or LNP making the final two.
As for actual voting, our local ALP candidate (my local seat is unwinnable for the ALP in any election) was at my polling booth and his pitch was that I was wearing red, and thus should vote for him. It was the only interesting polling moment, the very small number of late afternoon voters were outnumbered about 2 to 1 by both campaigners and booth staff.
19 ALP
Either I misread or they re-pessimisticised: they’re only giving 10 or 11 right now.
And here comes O’Farrell’s “this is a referendum against Gillard” spin redoubled now that he’s won.
FFS, if his party hadn’t been more useless than a chocolate teapot in 2007 when they chose Debnam as leader, they would have won government then. The current Federal government is obviously not totally irrelevant to any State election, but they are way overplaying its importance in this particular result.
I’m anticipating some deeper analysis over the next few days regarding exactly which Labor factions lost most heavily and what that means for future directions of the party. Here’s hoping that the hard right has taken some hard knocks.
David Penberthy in The Punch has got it about right, I reckon. Years of contempt from Sussex Street, particularly with the parachuting-in of crony-candidates instead of preselecting tried and true (and popular) locals, has been one of the worst features for this election in particular – the local voters don’t ever fully trust these blow-ins, and that chicken comes home to roost when there’s a swing against the party as a whole.
He also reckons the NSW right has been reduced to a frayed fringe amongst the ALP MPs who have been returned, which is only justice.
But still deadly.
The bad bad news of the morning is the high Christian Democrat vote in the LC; that’s potentially very frightening indeed.
With the CDP MLCs the LibNat Coalition will have a working majority in the LC (as well as their outright majority in the LA), and that means the Coalition gets to pass just about anything they want to pass. Bugger.
Straight from the “not getting the voters message that the NSW ALP should just STFU for a while plz” department, here comes new Leader of the Opposition John Robertson:
Yes…he’s done it..have to break it out…here comes the double facepalm…