1. hughbris says:

    and the ex-page returns 404 like it never existed. fail. The cached copy probably won’t last forever either.

  2. David says:

    Myself, I’m wondering if the Greens are going to be able to hold on to the staggering swing they have had advantage of this general election.

    The Greens have a strong branding based on environmental issues. With both parties eschewing strong climate change policy in the run-up to the election, The Greens have probably picked up a noticeable amount of votes on that issue alone. It would be interesting to see what would happen to The Greens’ primary vote if either Labor or the Coalition took a strong stance to prevent climate change.

  3. Jeff Waugh says:

    Very tough piece. Here’s one of the lighter moments:

    Annabel Crabb recently wrote up events on the campaign trail as commentary on a wrestling bout. Her piece was satire but, actually, pro-wrestling makes a pretty good analogy for where we’re at: an election is a product designed for TV, in which the wacky antics of assorted larger than life characters disguise how little’s actually at stake.

  4. David says:

    They actually use the term incomprehensible but I think incredulous is the word they are looking for.

  5. Jeff Waugh says:

    No greater example of this than the press conference we’ve just seen… Julia Gillard announces significant changes for pensioners, press pack asks about anything but — including “distractions”, Kevin Rudd and Mark Latham, who was there on 9′s payroll.

    Then, finally, the first policy question… was the last question of the 40 minute press conference. Mind blowing.

  6. Jeff Waugh says:

    “But one of the most frustrating things can be knowing what to read” … enter Wonk News! :-)

  7. David says:

    “Fairfax is a small company”

  8. David says:

    I really enjoy reading HCA transcripts sometimes:

    GUMMOW J: “The United States is a country in which some millions of people are disenfranchised because at some stage in their life they were convicted of a felony, a sentence for which has long since been served. It is not necessarily an attractive place to go to for analogies if you are talking about franchise as we understand it in our country.”

  9. Jeff Waugh says:

    … and a media release from AEC regarding the decision:

    http://www.aec.gov.au/About_AEC/Media_releases/e2010/06-08.htm

  10. David says:

    Still waiting on the reasons, but the orders of the Court are here:

    http://images.smh.com.au/file/2010/08/06/1755221/GetUp.pdf

  11. David says:

    Who would have thought that restricting the ability of people eligible and required to vote from getting on the electoral roll would be unconstitutional?

  12. David says:

    Neither of the major parties are going to legalise gay marriage anytime soon. When it comes to GLBTI equality, Labor certainly have made more progress recently though.

    Despite the political realities, I don’t think that this is a reason for people to be quiet about marriage equality. Just because it isn’t likely to happen tomorrow isn’t a good enough reason to shut up about it.

  13. Simon Elvery says:

    If I can level one major criticism of the Labor Party, it is this: They are the worst salespeople since John Hewson.

    Quite.

  14. Simon Elvery says:

    Agreed. I have no idea why Julia is just standing there and taking it whenever Tony says Labor have destroyed the economy. There is zero evidence that they’ve hurt the economy in any way and quite convincing evidence that they’ve managed a globally challenging economic episode with expertise.

    I don’t see any reason not to tell the people repeatedly and forcefully.

  15. Jeff Waugh says:

    You have to wonder why Labor aren’t carpet-bombing everyone with this stuff.

  16. heycam says:

    Guaranteed >50% more uptime than that other site. :)

  17. Benno Rice says:

    Another below the line assistance site with all the group voting tickets and live editing.

  18. David says:

    As a side note, it looks like @abc_investigate has gotten past the backlog of questions and is now looking for who is actually behind onevote.com.au

    We’re looking for info about the person/group behind the http://onevote.com.au website. Pls tweet us or email http://bit.ly/90Zohg #ausvotes

    Some reddit users were thinking that it came from the CDP due to this post on their website.

  19. David says:

    I thought the production quality of this was particularly high, even if I strongly disagree with the content.

    The comments on the video are moderated, and the tag-line at the end of the piece was “This is not open for debate”. About the only good thing I have to say about the posters is the response to comments (which didn’t make it through moderation) talking about this quote:

    Thank you for everyone’s comments regarding this anti-greens video. We received a number of very constructive comments with a number taking issue with the tag line at the end saying ‘this is not open for debate’.

    The spirit of the sentence was meant to convey something closer to ‘surely, this can’t be open for debate’, but instead it came across like an instruction that it should not be open for debate.

    This was not intended. A replacement is being uploaded now.

  20. Jeff Waugh says:

    Grog hands out some mighty fine advice to the ALP.

  21. Jeff Waugh says:

    Another failed leader, the Liberal’s John Hewson, appears regularly both on Sky and on ABC News 24′s The Drum. His contributions are thoughtful, consistently fair, and bring with them all the experience of both his political and post-political life … the contrast between Hewson and Latham could not be stronger.

    Yes! Great post.

  22. I’ll make the same comment here as I did on reddit:

    I’m glad someone finally said it.

    Just who exactly is the ADF protecting us from?

  23. Simon Elvery says:

    I was very interested to see how Penny would handle this inevitable question.

    She was passionate and composed. There was real emotion evident in her manner and speech. It’s well worth a look (late in Episode 24: http://www.abc.net.au/tv/qanda/vodcast.htm).

    Graham Richardson’s support for her course of action also made obvious its wisdom.

  24. Simon Elvery says:

    Gold.

    The very reason we are going to the polls on August 21 is to elect a 150-member citizens’ assembly. It is called the House of Representatives.

    What Gillard proposes is to instead outsource what should be the job of Parliament to a group of unelected people, chosen – on the basis of the electoral roll and census data – by “an independent authority”.

    SHE is saying, in effect, that Parliament as an institution no longer works.

    Also, by promising that her citizens’ assembly would be “genuinely representative of the wider Australian public”, she implies that the Parliament is not.

    She may well be right on both counts, but surely the answer is to reform Parliament – not set up other ad hoc bodies to take over its role.

  25. It appears that AGs were not in on the series of memos out of APH on open government, innovation, FoI reform, etc.

    Singularly unimpressive.

  26. Simon Elvery says:

    Obviously my original title was “gratuitous editorial spin” since it has been rewritten. So to make my point again, the only reason this article is interesting is because it’s a rare example of fear based political journalism from the ABC.

    The political reality is that there is near enough to zero chance that the Greens would/could block supply. To do so, they would need:
    a) the support of the Coalition, and
    b) to be willing to burn much of the mainstream support they’re only just beginning to acquire.

    The article deliberately makes the possibility of the Greens blocking supply seem much more realistic than it is, simply to try and find readers. That’s unfortunate.

    P.S. I’m not a Greens voter, but fear based journalism really gets on my nerves.

  27. Jeff Waugh says:

    … and, of course, the website itself: Election Leaflets.

  28. Jeff Waugh says:

    Recommended by Bernard Keane. Bloody good read.