• Quick note - the problem with Youtube videos not embedding on the forum appears to have been fixed, thanks to ZiprHead. If you do still see problems let me know.

And Australia's most popular political leader is... [cue drum-roll]

bit_pattern said:
"To me it looks like the Labor party attacking themselves all over again, cannibalising their own vote and devouring their own values," she said.

"This is more about an attack on themselves than attack on the Greens."
Click to expand...

I read that and dismissed it - the child senator speaketh panicky desperate nonsense. Labor now moves inexorably towards obliterating the Green cancer within and Sarah H-Y pleads: "Look at them, it's not about us! Look at them!"

Classic and clinical denial.
 
A.A. Alfie said:
Labor claim victory in the Melbourne by election. It looks like the federal strategy of bagging the greens has had the desired effect.

The Greens won the primary vote and have criticised Labor over its preference deals.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-07-22/labor-claims-victory-in-melbourne-by-election/4146382

The Green death begins.
Click to expand...

Yes, a TTP swing of 3% towards the Greens, and getting nearly 1000 more first preference votes than Labor is a huge death knell for the Greens.
 
Did they win?
Can they influence parliament?

They are losing relevance - they should have won this election but their policies came under the scrutiny they deserve (at long last). Suddenly people began using their brains not their emotions. The slide has begun, the Greens will be gone in two election cycles; Labor will squeeze them the same way the Libs squeezed One Nation.

According to someone who saw the polling, the Greens led Labor on a two-party-preferred basis by 56 per cent to 44 per cent.
With 16 candidates in the field, trying to second-guess a preference flow to arrive at this two-party-preferred figure would have required some powers of assumption. Even so, no-one disputed Labor was at risk of being trounced.

http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/polit...-the-jungle-20120722-22i6l.html#ixzz21ODtWbZN

Labor's future lies in attacking the Greens, they now know this and will do so with relish.
 
Last edited:
Clive (The LNP are a Stalinist organisation) Palmer has lambasted Stalin for his comments in China.
Quoting the SMH (with a few edits)
THE colourful Queensland mining billionaire Clive Palmer has hit back at federal Opposition Leader Stalin's warning to the Chinese earlier this week that their state-owned enterprises are not welcome to take over Australian businesses.
The Chinese would be entitled to take offence at Mr Stalin's remarks, which were made in Beijing to a business audience. And he warned that the Opposition Leader's rhetoric could trigger a backlash against companies such as Telstra.
So Clive (The LNP are a Stalinist organisation) Palmer said.

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/national/palm...tts-warning-20120727-22zmj.html#ixzz21sFo0Uys


​
 
Last edited:
Ummm. Tony Abbott (or Stalin as like to call him - I wonder what a true communist like Lee Rhiannon would think?), is not even a member of the LNP. How you somehow seem to make him the leader of that party is a pretty long bow to draw.

I just thought you ought to know. ;)
 
A.A. Alfie said:
Ummm. Tony Abbott (or Stalin as like to call him - I wonder what a true communist like Lee Rhiannon would think?), is not even a member of the LNP. How you somehow seem to make him the leader of that party is a pretty long bow to draw.

I just thought you ought to know. ;)
Click to expand...
??
 
Guess who were the only two twits who didn't vote for the Asylum seeker bill?

Bandt and the independent Wilkie.

Fair dinkum idiots both of them. Any dwindling respect I had for Wilkie has well and truly disappeared now.
Bandt however has again simply proved the childish stupidity of the greens and their policies.
 
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-09-10/labor-figures-take-aim-at-greens-after-nsw-election/4252218

Big swings against the Greens in the New South Wales local government elections are proof the community is starting to "wake up" to the party's "populist" policies, according to senior federal Labor MP Joel Fitzgibbon.

I suspect he is right. I also suspect the Greens will be dead and buried (or close to it) by the time we have two more federal elections - say four years. Good riddance too.
 
A.A. Alfie said:
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-09-10/labor-figures-take-aim-at-greens-after-nsw-election/4252218

Big swings against the Greens in the New South Wales local government elections are proof the community is starting to "wake up" to the party's "populist" policies, according to senior federal Labor MP Joel Fitzgibbon.

I suspect he is right. I also suspect the Greens will be dead and buried (or close to it) by the time we have two more federal elections - say four years. Good riddance too.
Click to expand...

Australia has mostly had three parties.
- Liberals and National parties
- Labour
- One other. Holds the balance of power in the Senate.

This third party has previously been
- DLP
- Democrats
- Greens

So what will be next on this list? I just cannot see anything on the horizon.
 
Any views on Tony Abbott, the wall beater?

I don't believe it myself, although even if it were true it wouldn't impact on my lack of a desire to vote for Tony Abbott. I don't mind Tony Abbott, but I don't want personally want him as PM, but even if this story were true it wouldn't really alter my opinion of him being as basically a socially conservative figure, but who is now generally respecting of women within that socially conservative framework.

Why do I not believe it?
1. It seems convenient after Julia Gillard's involvement in an embezzlement scheme (although I don't know when Ms Ramjan spoke to David Marr)
2. It could be part of a growing pattern of dirty tricks on both sides which I think is deplorable - eg the Peter Slipper affair
3. No other witnesses, at least at present, how often did the two have tete-a-tetes in private immediately after a student election campaign? Not saying it is impossible, but I would like a bit more context. Clearly where-ever it was it was a situation when Ms Ramjan was standing very close to a wall.
4. Why was this claim not used in the subsequent very divisive student election that Tony Abbott took part in - when he won the presidency? Had that really occurred you would think it would have come out in the SRC election of 1978 and be found in student newspapers etc. We all know how nasty student politics can be, his enemies would have lapped it up.
 
rjh01 said:
Australia has mostly had three parties.
- Liberals and National parties
- Labour
- One other. Holds the balance of power in the Senate.

This third party has previously been
- DLP
- Democrats
- Greens

So what will be next on this list? I just cannot see anything on the horizon.
Click to expand...


Um not quite. Even a glance at our last house numbers proves you incorrect:

House of reps (Rudd):
ALP 83
Coalition 63
Independents 4

No greens democrats or DLP there.

Senate 2005-2008 (Howard years)
Coalition 43
ALP 28
Green 4
Dem 4
Family First 1

The coalition held the senate with no 'balance of power' concerns even if all the smaller parties voted with Labor.


I get what you are saying, but the Greens do not have to have a successor before they disintegrate; it can happen under any circumstance.
 
A.A. Alfie said:
Um not quite. Even a glance at our last house numbers proves you incorrect:

House of reps (Rudd):
ALP 83
Coalition 63
Independents 4

No greens democrats or DLP there.

Senate 2005-2008 (Howard years)
Coalition 43
ALP 28
Green 4
Dem 4
Family First 1

The coalition held the senate with no 'balance of power' concerns even if all the smaller parties voted with Labor.


I get what you are saying, but the Greens do not have to have a successor before they disintegrate; it can happen under any circumstance.
Click to expand...

You are partly right. The government sometimes has an absolute majority in the upper house. It is rare for Independents to have much power (or numbers) in the lower house. The current lower house is rare where a by election loss could threaten the government.

However it is not common for the government to have an absolute majority in the upper house. Even in the case above the Greens and Democrats both have some numbers in the upper house. Which is my point. The upper house will have several members who are not Labour, Liberal, National, but they do belong to same party.

It would be interesting to see what would happen if the vote for the Greens in the upper house went down by a lot. Who would pick up these votes? I am not willing to make any predictions on this point.
 
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-10-08/mp-found-guilty-of-tax-offences/4301176

(Greens) MP found guilty of tax offences
Click to expand...

Aren't the Greens supposed to be our morally more pure than the rest of us?

I also find it interesting that the ABC chose not to identify which party the MP represented. Had it been say a Lib, would they have been as silent?

I guess not...

Former Liberal senator Mary Jo Fisher has pleaded guilty and been given a good behaviour bond in a shoplifting case.
Click to expand...

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-10-03/mary-jo-fisher-admits-shoplifting/4293296
 
Last edited:
The Greens were whacked in the ACT over the weekend. They have lost two (maybe three) of their four seats and have lost nearly one third of their votes.

The sooner they are a completely spent force the better.
 
A.A. Alfie said:
Um not quite. Even a glance at our last house numbers proves you incorrect:

House of reps (Rudd):
ALP 83
Coalition 63
Independents 4

No greens democrats or DLP there.
Click to expand...

Do you even know who the DLP are/were? They haven't been a force in politics for like 40 years. That says nothing about the historical role they played, which is what rjh01 was getting at.

A.A. Alfie said:
Senate 2005-2008 (Howard years)
Coalition 43
ALP 28
Green 4
Dem 4
Family First 1

The coalition held the senate with no 'balance of power' concerns even if all the smaller parties voted with Labor.
Click to expand...

Haha, so you pick 3 years (half a senate term!) to prove what exactly? I certainly don't have a perfect recall of all the senate numbers over the past 2 decades, but the Coalition were only able to do things like sell Telstra and push through the GST with the help of the Dems and/or independents (like Harradine).

Get some perspective.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Back
Top Bottom