Just heard that Howard has rung Rudd to concede the election!
I’m off to drink some bubbly with some blogfriends and others at the Bat and Ball Hotel. Woohoo!
Categories: Politics
Elections #AusPol 2019 Thread 
Vale John Clarke #PutOutYourGumboots 
QOTD for IWD: Aung San Suu Kyi -
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Hoyden About Town 
*Happy Dance*
I’m so deliciously happy – enjoy!!
Best day I’ve had for a DECADE!!! Don’t let the door hit you on the way out, boys!!!
The only downside is that it looks like the Libs + Fielding will keep a majority in the Senate – bring on a double dissolution
I’m in tears.
I’m so happy it hurts!
Congrats from the Northern Hemisphere! I heard about it this morning!
A Tale of Two Taxi-drivers:
#1 (from home to the pub): had the radio tuned to the election reports, and a big smile on his face. Happy discussion of the results on the ride into town to meet up with Mark and Suze etc.
#2 (from the pub to home): had the radio tuned to a music station, and looked really sour. Asked whether I was finishing work, and I said I’d been at an election party and he looked sourer. We had a lively debate! He asked whether Kevin Rudd had paid for the party, and looked even sourer when I told him it was a bunch of media types and political tragics who’d paid for it themselves! Still, by the end I had a polite, cheerful and fact-filled answer for all his talking points, and he left with “well, give him a go, eh?”. I hope he really believed that a Rudd government is not going to be the end of his world.
Paul, re the Senate – at least Fielding is no fan of Workchoices, and will probably vote for Labor’s IR reforms.
If Labor can persuade both Fielding and Xenophon to vote for a bill along with them and the Greens, the bill will get up. Xenophon is broadly progressive, so should mostly be with the new Govt, but it’s annoying that Fielding will hold the balance of power for most bills (we can’t rely on Barnaby Joyce continuing to cross the floor all that often).
Joyce lost his seat I think. I’m quite hopeful about Xenophon too; I think his preferences helped to get another Green into the senate but he ran a split ticket with the other half of preferences being distibuted to family first eventually. Still it can’t be too bad to have someone who sits somewhere in between the Greens and FF.
Joyce wasn’t contesting his seat this time around, as he was first elected in 2004, so he still serves out the rest of his six-year term,
expiring on 30 June 2011.
Xenophon’s a wild card, and has said (and the voters believe him) that he will always vote for South Australia first and foremost, so he will be wheeling and dealing. Not necessarily a bad thing (he is supposed to work for his State first, after all), but it will certainly make life interesting.
I can see the possibility of a series of 38-38 deadlocks, which could trigger a double dissolution in late ’08 or early ’09 if they can’t be dealt with. Now that could be very interesting indeed for the Greens in the Senate.
Oops! Thanks for clearing that up.
Tigtog, would that be good-interesting, or bad-interesting, do you think?
Ding Dong the witch is dead! *smiles broadly*