On Saturday, Australians go to the polls in an election that will, in all likelihood, shape the way we in this country work, eat, travel and power our homes for decades to come. Labor Prime Minister Julia Gillard is seeking a mandate to take Australia three steps closer to the authoritarian workers’ paradise she so fervently advocated as secretary of the Victorian Socialist Forum.
Having replaced the prime minister elected by the people, in a midnight back-room deal engineered by the NSW Labor Party machine, Julia the Red is essentially running a fear campaign on Work Choices, the centre-right Liberal-National coalition government’s industrial relations policy emphatically rejected by the electorate in 2007.
The coalition, led by the sincere but gaffe-prone Tony Abbott, have made a remarkable showing in the polls against a first-term government but, lacking a clear and unified voice on several key policy issues, are unlikely to pip Labor at the post. And in a real sense, it marks a “tipping point” in Australian political history. For many years now, Labor’s primary vote has been in steady decline. In the 2007 election it was 43.3 percent. Current polling has it at around 38 percent. The decline of Australia’s manufacturing industry, trade union membership and blue-collar support base respectively, are usually cited as reasons for this. What is important though, is to see where these votes have gone. And almost without exception, they have gone to the Greens. While unlikely to gain any seats in the House of Representatives (with the possible exception of the inner-city seat of Melbourne), most commentators agree that the only certainty in this election is that the Greens will hold the balance of power in the Senate, and will continue to do so for some time.
The electoral system used is crucial in understanding this issue, so allow me to elaborate briefly. Unlike the first-past-the-post system used in UK general elections, Australian federal elections for the House of Representatives use a system of single-member, preferential voting. That is, while each seat is represented by only one member (as in the UK), the candidate with the most votes does not automatically win the seat (unless he or she polls more than fifty percent). Electors have the ability to nominate their second, third and subsequent choices on the ballot paper. So if no candidate gains a plurality on first preferences, the first-preference votes for the candidate polling the least number of votes are redistributed according to each ballot paper’s nominated second preference. This process is repeated until one candidate holds a plurality of votes, and is declared the winner of that seat. The party (or coalition of parties) which gain a majority of seats around the country forms government, and the parliamentary leader of that party or coalition is sworn in as Prime Minister and selects a cabinet.
While tending to disadvantage non-mainstream parties, this system can and has allowed the success of popular local independent candidates, and is seen around the world as a model for gaining good democratic outcomes—that is, governments which are representative but workable. Had this system been in use in the UK, the Liberal Democrats would have been virtually wiped out electorally, and a single party would be running the British government today.
By contrast, elections in the Australian Federal Senate are an unholy mess. Under a deal cobbled together back in 1897 between the then six colonies, each state in the Australian Federation sends an equal number of senators to the Upper House. The original intention was that the Senate would be the States’ House, senators from different states, even if from the same party, being able to vote in the interests of their own state. Worse, the senators from each state are elected on a purely quota-based system of proportional representation. While designed to most precisely reflect the will of the people, the likelihood that no single party or declared coalition will win a majority of seats is enormous, meaning that governance, in the form of shady deals, takes place in smoke-filled back rooms, not on the floor of the people’s forum. The senate has become just one more Party House, in which a Tasmanian senator representing 20,000 electors has the same voting rights as a New South Welshman representing 200,000. It was a rare moment of clarity for former Prime Minister Paul Keating when he referred to the Senate as “unrepresentative swill”.
It is almost certain that whoever wins Saturday’s election for the House of Representatives will have to deal with the Australian Greens to get any legislation at all through parliament. Purely proportional representation is a system that looks idealistic and fair on paper, but in practice allows malevolent, authoritarian third-force influences to pervade and corrupt the body politic. It places a great responsibility of decisiveness on the shoulders of an electorate; the failure to discharge this responsibility carries the gravest consequences. At the risk of invoking Godwin’s Law, it should be remembered that the Weimar Republic in Germany used a system of purely proportional representation, and was what allowed the National Socialists to gain control of the Reichstag.
Any country considering electoral reform would do well to study the example of Australia, where the best and worst of all democratic systems are on display simultaneously. And electorates should consider carefully their choices when going to the polls, and remember that the refusal to make a clear choice, is a choice in itself.
Be Responsible - Be Free! 
Whichever way you choose you lose.
I wrote this elsewhere but it still applies
“Politicians, as they always have, pander to the concerns and fears of the electorate no matter how illogical they may be. That’s how you garner votes and get elected. This is exacerbated in a modern democracy by the floating voter effect. Left wingers invariably vote for the left and right wingers for the right. Politicians pay some attention to their own voters (but they’re in the bag anyway) and very little to the opposition voters. Where they really concentrate all their attention, is on the floating or uncommitted voter, promising them pretty much anything that will swing the vote in their direction. We thus arrive at situations where national policies are adopted that only a small percentage of the electorate actually have any interest in.”
PR/PV just compounds the problem by not only including the extremists but making them the power brokers in close run elections. Who’s to blame? Politicians, for not even being good politicians and catching the mood of the electorate, allowing the polity and their country to drift into such ‘hostage to fortune’ dangerous waters.
Pointman
Ozboy
Beg to differ, but there is nothing inherently wrong with our preferential voting system, or the idea of having an Upper House that represents the lesser-populated states against the money-grubbing desires of the more populous ones. Ask any Sandgroper.
Up until the early Eighties (I think) the system worked very well. This was back in the days when the Senate ballot paper only had on it the names of the candidates, listed under the heading of the party they represented. Voters could give their first preference to (say) the Liberal candidate, their second to the National Party, their third back to Liberal, and so on. It actually DID represent the will of the electorate. The only drawback was that sometimes there were up to 48 candidates, and every box had to be numbered.
Then, not long before an election ( I forget exactly which one), Australian voters were told, in effect that they were idiots and were making too many mistakes on their ballot papers, so henceforth there would be a box at the top next to each party’s name, and people could just “tick-a-box” so to speak, to vote IN ACCORD with that party’s wishes (without even really knowing what that might be).
From the very first election with this option, I think 88% of the voters cast their vote this way. Today it is virtually 100%.
So my point is, it is not the SYSTEM of voting that is faulty, it is the lazy, ill-informed, couldn’t be bothered, all too much trouble VOTERS who are the stumbling block.
Two weeks after this election, ask you next door neighbour who they voted for. They will invariably reply Liberal, Labor, Greens or whatever. Reply, “no, WHO did you vote for – what was their name, what did they see as the major issues”, and you will get a dumb look for a moment, followed by – “I voted Liberal (or Labor or Greens or whatever)”. In all probability they will not even know if their candidate was a man or a woman.
While this is not too much of a problem with the House of Representatives vote, because each party only has one candidate on the ballot, so preferences still represent a choice between candidates AND parties and the voter must, in effect, choose both, the “tick-a-box and leave the rest up to us” system now used in the Senate is a complete and utter sham that has led to exactly the situation you describe.
I don’t think we’re too far apart on this one MV (Western Australia figures prominently in an upcoming thread). As I said, PR places an enormous collective responsibility on the electorate to vote decisively. And I completely agree with your assessment of the “one tick” method.
While very few people know the names of every Senate candidate in their state, my preference is to rank the ones I do. Say there are 100 candidates running; there are 10 whose names I know and I would like to see elected. I’ll number them 1,2,3 up to 10. Say there are also 10 I definitely want to keep OUT of the Senate; I’ll number them 100, 99, 98 to 91. The rest, whom I don’t know, I will rank in order of my party preference, but RANDOMLY within their own party.
This is my own personal protest against the system, and while exercising my democratic franchise, also a lot of fun to contemplate the poor scrutineers poring over my table-cloth sized ballot paper. If enough people did the same, maybe the major parties would be willing to open a debate on the issue. – Oz
Quadrant on line has an article ( http://www.quadrant.org.au/blogs/doomed-planet/2010/08/where-we-are) worth a read upon our voting system. Elections just stoke the fires in my natural, internal fury……
Hi Oz,
If your excellent summary of the Australian Political system is confusing to our N/H friends, it is no less so for the average Aussie.
Because Mr/Mrs/Ms Average don’t always understand the ramifications of their electoral choices, I believe they are more reliant/susceptible on or to what MSM journos and “personalities” say – probably why AGW has any legs here at all. Because the voter doesn’t always understand the “system” they seem all-too-ready to defer to what those they think know better will tell them.
As an example of Labor’s stage-managed campaign, read Andrew Bolt’s take on the PM’s campaign launch……….
http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/election/take-a-tip-and-check-labors-form/story-fn5zmod2-1225906502425
As he cites, most leading MSM reports on the event swallowed the spin hook,line and sinker and the polls put Labor ahead. Then you have the vox pop interviews where comments are along the lines of; let’s give her a go, because she’s our first woman PM she deserves a chance, because she’s a redhead (?), the mistakes were all KRudd’s fault blah, blah, blah……..
This will be a half-Senate election with the successful candidates not sworn into office till July 2011. You can imagine the plethora of non-Green-approved legislation rammed through both Houses before a Green dominated Senate next year.
In short, it will be a bloody bun-fight around here for quite a while to come.
“PR places an enormous collective responsibility on the electorate to vote decisively”
Spheroids. No way. Exactly the opposite. It’s goodbye to ‘make your mind up’ time.
Pointman
G’day Pointy. Perhaps I should point out that in the debate I have been following on the UK electoral system, pure PR is exactly what the Liberal Democrats are after, as they know it will hand them the balance of power in your country, probably for good – Oz
Ozboy
I LIKE your senate voting system.
However, personally I gave up the entire voting habit about fifteen years ago now. Seems no matter who I voted for, some damned politician got in.
These days I subscribe to the Billy Connolly view: “Just don’t vote – it only encourages the b^st^*ds”.
“pure PR is exactly what the Liberal Democrats are after”. Never going to happen.
People get very offended when I go Realpolitik but here I go again. The LDs went into the coalition because they were promised a few Cabinet posts and a few tactical gestures, which they got and a vague promise of PR on the horizon.
We’re heading into the deeper bit of a double dip recession and the Tories will be able to do without the ‘chic’ centre as things get worse. The LDs will either have to refuse to support them or stay on board for the duration of the full Parliament. Every day they stay on board, it becomes politically more impossible for them to wiggle out of.
Pointman
It’s even worse down here in Tasmania (on a smaller scale, of course) where the state parliament’s Lower House is elected using the Hare-Clark voting system. Under it, Tasmania is divided into five electorates, each of which sends FIVE members to parliament, for a House of twenty-five members. And as a natural consequence of Murphy’s Law (oh, all right Izen, the Second Law of Thermodynamics) we have a House of ten Labor members, ten Liberal members and five Greens. So what we have ended up with is a Labor-Green coalition government, with the leader of the Greens, Nick McKim, sworn in as Minister for Climate Change, Sustainable Transport and Alternative Energy (!!!)
Bloody shambles doesn’t even begin to describe it- Oz 😦
mlpinaus says:
August 18, 2010 at 10:58 am
G’day Marcus,
Your link is to one of the most important summaries of our modern malaise that I’ve read. It touches on so many points that I, in my own bumbling way, have attempted to highlight in recent months of posting to these blogs.
Australia has the highest house prices in the world, the highest level of personal debt, the steepest increases in food prices of any OECD country over the past decade and a declining manufacturing sector that is now the smallest in the developed world.
…………..
The ongoing proliferation of government and bureaucracy, political pandering for green votes, extortion from producers and abrogation of personal and property rights is rapidly turning our way of life into a new form of feudal system wherein taxes, interest and insurance usurp the majority of worker’s incomes. We live as tenant occupants of property we in effect rent from the government, where all we really own is a right to use so long as we keep paying. Then we serve our whole working life as indentured labourers forced to pay for the benefits of our overseers and tithes to our overlords in the banking, insurance and finance rackets.
…………….
our own self-induced malignancy is eating away the vital productive organs of the entire nation.
I don’t know the author, Walter Starck, but if I did I’d like to shake his hand.
Thanks Marcus, I think we all share your “natural, internal fury”.
OK off topic but something to cheer you all up….
OO
You have a large continent lots of space only what 22 million people and you have high house prices a net exporter of food even in a bad year.
Thanks Crown,
I needed a laugh.
The worst part of our import/export is that we are forced to import food we don’t want and don’t need as per WTO directives.
The Red Cross won’t allow blood donations from anyone who was in the UK for 6 months at the height of their “mad cow” crisis, and yet we have been importing such meat from the USA. We are being forced to import apples from China & New Zealand, both areas riddled with “fire blight”, despite our strict quarantine and disease-free status. We import orange concentrates from Brazil and all the while our apple/pear/orange orchardists are bulldozing their trees out of the ground – can’t compete with cheap imports.
Don’t ask……………….
Blackswan Tasmania says:
August 18, 2010 at 2:22 pm
Exactly…… Green beans from China with e-coli, apples with fire blight from New Zealand…nasty, like the accent. Beef with mad cow….. just like our PM…… I’ll just go back to worrying about the weather in the back blocks of New South Wales…
Marcus
Blackswan and mlpinaus same in the USA since Nafta and the whole letting China into the WTO I don’t know which idiot thought food security wasn’t an issue. China can barely feed itself and is exporting food and is now plundering the oceans and selling mislabeled fish.
As for mad cow now that was another scare that was a bust, mad cow comes from a disease in sheep called scrapie that has been on the go since the 1600’s, people have been eating sheep in all that time guess what in all that time no mass die offs of people.
I will wager Australian sheep have it.
Our farmers are under high safety standards yet foreign imports are not held to the same standard a lot of veggies come to the USA from Mexico and the farm workers go the bathroom in those fields and don’t wash their hands.
A lot of countries had mad cow but hid it like most of Europe, Japan and the whole of North America. Everyone was following the same bad practice in feed stuffs, cows are veggies not meat eaters.
Did no one learn from WW2 in the UK people suffered badly from lack of food because farming had been neglected at home well in the towns at least us country folk had small plots to grow veggies and raise some chickens and some pigs.
mlpinaus says:
August 18, 2010 at 3:04 pm
Hi Marcus,
When we try to explain the insanity of this nonsense to non-Auusies, we are met with glassy-eyed stares of disbelief. I have attempted to put these questions to our local pollies for some rational explanation – more glassy-eyed stares.
The ONLY rationale I have been offered is that we are signatories to United Nations Treaties and Trade Agreements which render us helpless to refuse these imports.
And these useless sons of bitches would STILL have us believe we are in deed an Independent Sovereign Nation.
Yeah, right.
About as independent as the UK under EU directives. Looks like we can all kiss our collective backsides goodbye. NONE of our political Masters is going to do a single thing about any of it. Hence – circle the wagons, look after our own…………
crownarmourer says:
August 18, 2010 at 3:49 pm
Strange you should point at ordinary people having a level of self sufficiency….. 50 years ago, my mother used to have a serious vegetable plot, fruit trees, half a dozen hens, and got the occasional half beast from farmer friends…. That was the original intent of the Australian quarter acre block enshrined in the Torrens title… Looked at the old place on Google Earth recently; the cock that I sold it to upon her death, sold the back yard off to a developer, who put up the usual tiny housie. All IKEA like, about 2/3 scale…. Cock
Marcus
Hi Crown,
I didn’t realise all that about the USA and its food imports.
About the mad cow. Nobody seemed to turn a hair when it came to feeding cows all the sheepish bits. Ruminants being fed offal? What’s that all about? Oh, it’s to increase the protein in their diet, to bulk them up, more meat on their bones. Well, it’s all our own fault. We didn’t like them being fed growth hormones and antibiotics. Producers have to make a buck somehow – more meat per beast, better return, better prices in the supermarket. “Responding to market forces”.
The sun’s well over the yardarm – anyone for a Wild Turkey?
I’m going for a home brew… fortunately my stocks were stored in the main shed, not the chook shed – Oz
Blackswan
Booze at 4.00pm?
That’s disgusting. I NEVER drink before 5.00pm.
Forty one minutes to go – sigh
Mate, your watch is running slow – Oz
Blackswan don’t get me started about growth hormones as well, why do think young girls are reaching puberty so early these days and people are getting so fat. The whole food chain needs looking at. As for fast food some of those burgers are injected with bleach.
Blackswan Tasmania says:
August 18, 2010 at 3:57 pm
Circling the waggons….. Ok if you can shoot back…. Used to have a hand-gun licence. Handed it in at the buy back with all the reloading gear when Howard made it impossible to continue in a club. Bought my son an Mx5 with the cash. None of the politicos really says anything that I align with. I ran a succesful electronics manfacturing company that I started for 20 yrs. My wife is still a dentist. None of these people has run a corner store. Paid the bills, paid the staff, kept the bank at bay…
I still like DesCartes maxim “to live well, you must live unseen…”
Marcus
memoryvault says:
August 18, 2010 at 11:08 am
“personally I gave up the entire voting habit about fifteen years ago now”.
MV, I can understand why anyone would feel like that.
I don’t like the electoral system.
I don’t like politicians, of any colour.
I don’t like bureacrats.
I don’t like their blithering policies.
Speaking for myself, while I don’t think Govts will crash and burn for the want of one Tasmanian senior citizen’s vote, BUT if someone handcuffed me to my verandah railing to prevent me voting in this election, I’d probably chew my bloody arm off before I’d allow myself to be stopped from having my say.
It won’t be recorded anywhere.
My name won’t go up in lights.
There’ll be no song & dance band at the polling booth.
In my electorate it’ll make no difference to the outcome.
It’s enough for ME to know I had a vote.
Whether my being such a martyr will see any goodies waiting for me in Paradise (if there is one) remains to be seen, but I really love that I get to choose if I vote or not and I get to choose for whom I do. Simple really.
mlpinaus says:
August 18, 2010 at 4:29 pm
Hey Marcus,
Ever tried a crossbow?
Ozboy,
Now we know why you moved your office into that big ol’ shed of yours – closer to the beer fridge.
You’re catching on…
Actually no, it was our new arrival who’s kicked me out of my office. It’s her room now.
But thanks for that pleasant thought – Oz
MV,
Booze at 4.00pm?
Yeah, I’m pretty disgusting aren’t I?
….and don’t you forget it..lol
Marcus,
“to live well, you must live unseen…”
I’ve been giving that some extra thought – I really like it.
Sheesh,
Abbott just lost himself the election.
He just said the KRudd Labor Govt had increased the Public Service by 20,000 since 2007.
He’s going to take out 12,000 of them.
The Libs razor gang only took 5,000 out of Canberra in the late ’90s and the place took years to recover.
Louise’s latest tidbit:
Mammoths couldn’t sh!t in the woods so they all died of constipation. Australian sheep could lose all there wool as they adapt to the climate change. All Tasmanians forced to shave heads.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/earthnews/7950058/Woolly-mammoth-killed-off-by-climate-change.html
Well his department’s grant is safe for next year then.
While Durham is on my mind, reposting this for interest. Open next two links in separate tabs and then click between the tabs:
Durham after homogenizing: http://data.giss.nasa.gov/work/gistemp/STATIONS//tmp.651032420010.2.1/station.gif
Durham raw data: http://data.giss.nasa.gov/work/gistemp/STATIONS//tmp.651032420010.0.1/station.gif
Blackswan
Believe me, I know where you’re coming from and I understand.
But from where I stand you’re still a young bloke who has an idealistic view that there is some basic or fundamental difference on which to make some kind of choice between the major parties.
But rather than waste electrons debating it, why don’t we just make a few predictions, and see how things pan out between now and Xmas. I’ll go first. No matter who wins:
We will get some version of an ETS.
We will get some return to some of the more odious sections of “Workchoices”.
We will get some form of the “supertax” on mining profits.
Taxes will increase – either as new taxes, or as increases in existing taxes, or most likely both. If a new Liberal guvmint does this, it will be because “things were a lot worse than Labor told us”. If it is a re-elected Labor guvmint it will because of an “unexpected downturn in international affairs beyond our control”.
We will get more AGW nonsense – windfarms, solar cell farms, and tidal generators.
We will NOT get any meaningful investment in base-load power generation.
We will NOT get many – if any – of the “goodies” promised by either side. See the point on increased taxes above. Same story – different spin.
We WILL get more bureaucrats, more taxes, more laws that stitch up productive small business, and increased penalties for failure to comply.
We will get a decrease in company tax, or an increase in what companies can claim to offset against taxes, framed in a way that it is only of benefit to the big multi-nationals, and at the expense of small, local business.
We will get an expansion of the various idiotic food policies you and others have already posted about today.
We will get changes to banking laws that favour the banks and major lending organisations, to the detriment of Australians.
We will get changes (yet again) to our compulsory superannuation laws that will mean the average worker gets even less of his savings, and the Super companies (by and large extensions of the banks) make even bigger profits.
We will get migration at at least existing, if not elevated levels.
We will get an increase in “skilled labour” brought into the country to artificially depress the cost of employees, nullifying any bargaining power they might otherwise have had.
Land prices will continue to increase way out of line with the so-called Consumer Price Index” (CPI), despite the availability of vast tracts of land.
Food prices ditto.
Basic services ditto (electricity, water etc).
Health care ditto.
Petrol ditto.
Despite this, the “official” CPI will only go up by 3%.
The MSM will go on being a propaganda mouthpiece, including the fully-taxpayer-funded ABC, which will get an increase in funding.
The same vipers who are currently responsible for turning our education facilities into propaganda indoctrination centres for the young, will carry on untouched and unfazed and entirely unaccountable. Business as per usual.
Remember Blacky – these are not “long term” predictions. These things will either have come to pass, or be on the voting table, by Xmas, and they are but a small sampling of what I could include.
So, by all means, enjoy your moment in the sun and vote. Personally, I’ll do something meaningful with my Saturday, like take the grandkids to the park.
One last thing – you do not get to CHOOSE to vote – it is compulsory.
You are like a brother Blackswan. But I’m sorry – naivety will change nothing. The system, as it stands is going to collapse. When it does, there MAY be a chance to change it for the better.
Until it does, things are only going to get worse.
I’m thinking the time may be ripe for a Tea Party movement in our own fair land? Or do things have to get a lot worse first (such as your predictions, all of with which I agree) – Oz
Ozboy
I’ve got a book packed away somewhere, written in the early Eighties by an American – I forget his name – but he said something along the following lines in the foreword:
“If you think about it, it is impossible to change a corrupt system from within that system. As soon as a patriot exposes some element of corruption, the corrupt system will simply change its own corrupt laws the protect its own corruption.”
Organisations like the “Tea-Party” movement have never, and will never, change anything. As always, they are infiltrated and taken over by the very elements being confronted.
The system cannot and will not change until first it totally collapses in on itself. Consider the old Soviet Union: it was not overcome by revolution or “movements”. The old system simply collapsed, the citizens found they had to fend for themselves because no-one else was going to, and the citizens and countries involved simply had to re-invent themselves in order to survive. Many didn’t.
memoryvault says:
August 18, 2010 at 7:16 pm
“you’re still a young bloke who has an idealistic view”
None of the above applies to me.
Now, this is my view………….
We will get some version of an ETS.
We will get some return to some of the more odious sections of “Workchoices”.
We will get some form of the “supertax” on mining profits.
Taxes will increase – either as new taxes, or as increases in existing taxes, or most likely both. If a new Liberal guvmint does this, it will be because “things were a lot worse than Labor told us”. If it is a re-elected Labor guvmint it will because of an “unexpected downturn in international affairs beyond our control”.
We will get more AGW nonsense – windfarms, solar cell farms, and tidal generators.
We will NOT get any meaningful investment in base-load power generation.
We will NOT get many – if any – of the “goodies” promised by either side. See the point on increased taxes above. Same story – different spin.
We WILL get more bureaucrats, more taxes, more laws that stitch up productive small business, and increased penalties for failure to comply.
We will get a decrease in company tax, or an increase in what companies can claim to offset against taxes, framed in a way that it is only of benefit to the big multi-nationals, and at the expense of small, local business.
We will get an expansion of the various idiotic food policies you and others have already posted about today.
We will get changes to banking laws that favour the banks and major lending organisations, to the detriment of Australians.
We will get changes (yet again) to our compulsory superannuation laws that will mean the average worker gets even less of his savings, and the Super companies (by and large extensions of the banks) make even bigger profits.
We will get migration at at least existing, if not elevated levels.
We will get an increase in “skilled labour” brought into the country to artificially depress the cost of employees, nullifying any bargaining power they might otherwise have had.
Land prices will continue to increase way out of line with the so-called Consumer Price Index” (CPI), despite the availability of vast tracts of land.
Food prices ditto.
Basic services ditto (electricity, water etc).
Health care ditto.
Petrol ditto.
Despite this, the “official” CPI will only go up by 3%.
The MSM will go on being a propaganda mouthpiece, including the fully-taxpayer-funded ABC, which will get an increase in funding.
The same vipers who are currently responsible for turning our education facilities into propaganda indoctrination centres for the young, will carry on untouched and unfazed and entirely unaccountable. Business as per usual.
You are like a brother Memoryvault. But I’m a jaded, cynical and thoroughly pissed off 63 year old with few illusions about modern life. If some ponce tried to PREVENT me from voting, I’d probably chew their arm off, right to the shoulder – as you warned Brewster (izent’it?) once.
“One last thing – you do not get to CHOOSE to vote – it is compulsory.”
No it’s not. Attendance at a polling station is compulsory – I get to choose what I write on a ballot paper….lol
“The system, as it stands is going to collapse.”
That is a certainty – and I am so sure that it’s a given, I’m the one stacking and racking my pantry (not forgetting the toilet rolls)…LOL
So you see MV? There’s very little we disagree on after all. And I’m glad of that.
Blackswan Tasmania says:
August 18, 2010 at 6:43 pm
“to live well, you must live unseen…”
Yes, it is a good one…” Don’t be famous”. Another: ” E pur si muove “…..Galileo Galilei. Muttered to the Inquisition . “Nevertheless it does move”…. Just been to the local Library, then to the local Italian restaurant, bottle of red fizz with the family; all is now right with my world.
Marcus
memoryvault says:
August 18, 2010 at 7:38 pm
I agree with all that too.
When we bought an old farmhouse nearly 30 years ago it was surrounded by 25 acres of pasture with about 20 head of Poll Hereford cattle grazing on it – the best neighbours I ever had..lol
After a year or two the farmer who owned the land planted an apple orchard on the acreage. How nice, we city-slickers thought, apple blossom in the Spring. Then we found ourselves, our kids, our dogs and our chooks doused in fungicides, herbicides, pesticides and for good measure a small crop-duster aircraft banking over our house peppering the place with super-phosphate after his run down the hillside behind us.
Too-long-a-story later, I got involved with the newly formed Greens, seeking support in my endeavours to protect my home and family.
Your statement “Organisations like the “Tea-Party” movement have never, and will never, change anything. As always, they are infiltrated and taken over by the very elements being confronted” fits the Greens perfectly. A squabbling, bitching bunch of creatures mostly on the hunt for taxpayer grants to mount their various hobby-horses. They disgusted me then and that was way before AGW – Brown was just crowing about “getting one over” on the PM Hawke to stop the Franklin Dam – a great hydro-electric project that never got to draw a breath.
This election is not just about who I’d vote FOR – it’s who I’d vote against that simply adds impetus as I trot off to that polling booth.
Hi Marcus,
Almost married an Italian once – turned out I cared more for the food than the person who cooked it…lol
Have a nice evening.
Hot button: GOP candidates knock global warming.
“Fueled by anti-Obama rhetoric and news articles purportedly showing scientists manipulating their own data, Republicans running for the House, Senate and governor’s mansions have gotten bolder in stating their doubts over the well-established link between man-made greenhouse gas emissions and global warming.”
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0810/41192.html
The climate is changing. The political climate …
Pointman
Pointman says:
August 18, 2010 at 9:28 pm
Hi Pointman,
That is a really encouraging link – if only it were true here.
While many politicians hold sceptic views, none of them will publicly challenge AGW.
The Party system has their feet pretty well nailed to the floor.
Blackswan Tasmania says:
August 18, 2010 at 10:43 pm
Hi Swan, I’m more optimistic because I’m practical about politicians. They will jump aboard any bandwagon that will get them votes, no matter how nonsensical it is. With equal alacrity, they’ll jump of it when it becomes a perceived liability. Indeed, if opposing that bandwagon becomes a vote winner, they’ll cheerfully overturn the cart. It won’t happen overnight, because the political mainstream have to back away from CAGW with some face saving but I think we’re looking at the beginnings.
Pointman
suffolkboy says:August 18, 2010 at 7:04 pm
Curses: foiled out by a cached gif. Try this one in staed.
Durham after “homogenising”:
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/gistemp/gistemp_station.py?id=651032420010&data_set=2&num_neighbors=1
Durham raw data:
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/gistemp/gistemp_station.py?id=651032420010&data_set=0&num_neighbors=1
Why does “homegenisation” cause Durham to warm up for a few years in the middle of the 20th Century?
Also excellent post by chili over at DT at 14:00 18th Aug 2010 regarding Louise Gray cut’n’paste.
suffolkboy I can assure you that never ever will Durham ever experience a rise in temperatures the whole global temperature could rise by 10c and Durham will always be cool and temperate and overcast and if anything get colder. Coming from that part of the world a rise in temperature would be welcome so please burn more coal.
Blackswan my friend did marry an Italian you have missed out on a lot of drama the Italians are a very emotional people.
Has anybody actually realized the reason is things are so bad is that they want everything to be destroyed and collapse this is deliberate policy so they can then step in and create a socialist distopia after saying well look we tried it your way but…
Obama is doing this here and we do not have long to stop him before the USA splinters in three or five different nations after a possible civil war. Our politicians here are behaving like the ancien regime in France and as just as contemptuous of the public, unless we can vote them out things will boil over here at some point.
Seems wind farm industry in UK is breeding cuckoos
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1303688/More-half-Britains-wind-farms-built-wind.html
One assumes that these farms are built on the most suitable sites, IT WILL GET WORSE!!
The wind of change is definitely required as the man representing the WIND industry said talk of efficiency was unhelpful. …. You could not make it up!
Chinese as a foreign language.
Rather than me blog about it, here is a couple of rather nice graphs:
http://www.sinosplice.com/life/archives/2008/06/25/learning-curves-chinese-vs-japanese
and a rather in depth discussion by someone who thinks that Chinese is the most difficult language in the world here:
http://chinayouren.com/en/2009/11/20/2518
I think that Chinese is a difficult language to learn for a different reason than him. Chinese pop music, tv programmes and films are usually terrible, and the acting especially can be laughably bad. If they’d sorted that out a few years ago, I guess I’d be a little more fluent than I am today.
JD post a bit earlier today
jamesdelingpole
Right everyone, just so you know, I’m taking a break. I’ll post occasionally with luck but not too much because I’ve been ill recently and I haven’t recovered and I think I shan’t get better if I keep flogging myself. Sorry. I know how annoying it is being stuck with the same old post for days. But I can’t help my valetudinarian temperament. I’m like a race horse: when they go they go, but when they’re sick they’re fit only for the knackers yard. And that’s where I am at the moment and will be if I carry on like I have been this year. see you – and don’t let those naughty trolls get up to too much mischief xxx
………………………………………………………………………………………………………..
I am sure James will be missed. Unfortunately if my analysis was correct the other day there is now no none to carry the anti AGW banner at the DT.
James makes no mention of any hand over merely refers to occasional posts.
I wish James a speedy return to good health.
MOTM….if you head to his personal blog it explains why he’s taking a breather and it may be doctors orders it was something he posted in the Daily Mail.
Locusts Chinese should be easy as they come subtitled don’t they?
Typical James to blow kisses at the end… even to the guys, apparently.
Only just got to the computer – been tied-up all day. Going over to JD’s Blog now. Hope he’s not going to worry, we’ll keep things ticking-over for him (or at least all you lot will) I’m just here to support.
Talk tomorrow.
meltemian says:
August 19, 2010 at 7:18 am
Too much detail Mel …
Pointman
amanda well he did go to a public school.
G’day all,
New post here. Something topical and a bit different 🙂
Good morning All,
Look what I found reading the papers over breakfast today……..
The Greens are actually more like tomatoes – red all over
“yesterday Brown said it was actually redistribution of wealth – not climate science – that was the reason he helped block the Rudd government’s emissions trading scheme.”
http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/politics/the-greens-are-actually-more-like-tomatoes–red-all-over-20100818-12f89.html
At present the Greens only have seats in the Senate, which is a House of Review – they can’t introduce or propose Legislation.
If they get a seat in the House of Reps they can do so, and if they hold the balance of power in the Senate as well, the Govt (whoever wins) will be operating on a quid pro quo basis, pushing Green Laws through as a trade-off for Senate approval of their own policies.
Very mucky, already compromised, does not augur well for our future.
The Greens are truely scarey. Got my son to read in detail what they want…… Back to the Stone Age. He is now trying to convert his mates and mate-etes from “the Soft and Cuddly Animals with Big Eyes ” view of the Greens to “No Olympic Dam”. One couple did not even know that Olympic Dam was a mine…… Not a mine really, just 5 spots in multiple squares located on the bull dust plains as you fly by it…….
Marcus
G’day my friends.
As your prepare to vote in your upcoming election I’d like to share with you some wisdom from our greatest president since George Washington – Ronald Reagan. The following speech is from 1964 when he was stumping for the late, great Barry Goldwater. Trust me…this is WORTH 26 minutes of your life to listen to.
My prayers are with you,
Dave
Magnificent, ringing declaration of the principles of Liberty. Reagan was the last of the western world’s great orators; we won’t see his like again.
Many thanks Dave for sharing it with us – Oz
Dr. Dave says:
August 19, 2010 at 2:41 pm
G’day Dave,
Thanks for the Reagan speech, a step back through a curtain into the life and times of my youth.
Until I heard him say it, I hadn’t realised he had been a Democrat all his life until he switched to the Republicans for the Goldwater campaign.
It was all the more poignant for knowing the tragic fate that awaited him, and for seeing how many of his cautions had come to pass in a progressively more Socialist/Marxist world.
Thanks, it was certainly food for thought.
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