2007 Australian Federal Election

[Chicken Little]

Saturday November 24th, 2007 the Australian public of voting age voted for political parties and individuals to elect a Prime Minister of this country. Polls closed at 6pm EST and it is now 10:42pm with a victor being declared.

In order to hold government the opposition party, the ALP (Australian Labor Party) needed to reach 16 more seats in parliament than the Coalition (Liberal Party & Nationals), well Labor returned +23 seats on estimates (70-80% of the votes being counted - postal votes) making the ALP the ruling party and John Howard booted the fuck out of office with Kevin Rudd (to which Americans would probably know him as the politician who ate his own ear wax) as the new Prime Minister of Australia, with Julia Gillard as his deputy.

http://www.theage.com.au/ffximage/2006/12/02/0312RUDD_narrowweb__300x492,0. jpg
Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard.

Of note in this election is that only once before has a Prime Minister lost his seat in parliament, John Howard seems to be in risk of doing just that this time around with a tally of his seat of Bennelong showing that, while it was close, Howard was behind 2% on primary votes to be returned, and should he lose would be only the 2nd Prime Minister displaced form office.

http://i.treehugger.com/files/john%20howard.jpg
The deusche himself.

Should Howard lose his seat this would leave the opposition party without an immediate leader, one which an arrogant prick of a treasurer would fill, a one Mr Peter Costello.

http://aussie_news_views.typepad.com/aussie_news_views/images/peter_costello.jpg
Poida "dickless" Costello

The number of seats one needed to hold to form government in their own right was 76 (the minimum for attaining a majority government) the ALP currently are projected to pick up 83 with possibly 10 or so across the country still in dispute. The ALP's win sees the party now hold sway over all forms of the government on a national and state basis.

Fuck news on this, it won't be finalised until tomorrow sometime anyway with postal votes to then be added on that, the only thing certain is that John Howard has been replaced as Prime Minister and the ALP & Kevin Rudd are now running the nation.

For those of you who may want to know, I voted for the SEP (Socialist Equality Party) who gave preferences to the ALP, my electorate is a safe ALP seat (with needing something like a 16% swing to say otherwise).

All cries of "you commy bastard" can be dealt with now as "you uneducated cockhead".

Now, discuss with addition that voting is compulsory for those over 18yrs of age and how this is ze voice of ze people! Also how none of you besides lades and Jethro would really care. :P

[Travisblaze]

I don't think anybody cares about this other than you, Fly. No offense.

[Lancet Jades]

At least I'm somewhat aware of who these people are >.>

[Chicken Little]

I don't think anybody cares about this other than you, Fly. No offense.

Reread the very last line of my post before you decide to become opinionated. You'll find that I am well aware at the level of people who wouldn't care.

At least I'm somewhat aware of who these people are >.>

The opposition really only Aussies would know, Howard however did follow Bush around like a bad smell so people probably would have seen him, which is why I included piccies. ;)

[Rainbow Dash]

I care.

[Kaffee]

wow, you guys actually vote, I thought you just drew a circle on the ground and threw stones to decide, :D

[Chicken Little]

wow, you guys actually vote, I thought you just drew a circle on the ground and threw stones to decide, :D

While some of us do that, or in my case in the last election wrote slurs about how Yoda would promptly buttfuck both major parties into submission, eh what can I say, I quite like the lottery method.

"And the next prime minister is.... Big Bird? Who rigged the fucking ballot!"

[Night]

discuss how none of you besides lades and Jethro would really care.

According to the last line of your post, TBlaze is just following your directions.

Now, to demonstrate my knowledge of Australian politics... Didn't you have a female prime minister a few years back?

[jethro]

Ah...no lol

I thought this election was going to be closer, it will be interesting to see what rudd does.

Too bad i didn't get to vote since im still 17 :P

[Chicken Little]

According to the last line of your post, TBlaze is just following your directions.

Now, to demonstrate my knowledge of Australian politics... Didn't you have a female prime minister a few years back?

Notice the exclamation point separating the word discuss and what you quoted, and then explain to me how restarting what I had just said is discussing what I said? "With addition" means that you could discuss how American politics are viewed on a global basis and how other such election periods are not, a case in point of this election which people don't know or care about. Restating what I had already said does not constitute a discussion, so therefore no he's not following my directions unless this is the limitation of your intellect, in which case whatever schooling institute you attended failed miserably.

Anyway, Howard has been Pm for 11 years so no we haven't had a female prime minister, you're probably thinking of New Zealand and Helen Clark who is NZ's second (maybe) female prime minister and current if memory serves.

I thought this election was going to be closer, it will be interesting to see what rudd does.

There was always going to be a swing to Labor and in Tassie a swing to the Greens due to the furor of the Pulp Mill, usually the Greens give preferences to Labor to match the Nationals giving them to the Coalition because they're a group as much as they mostly agree with Labor (in my electorate, Calwell, the Green Senator was actually handing out leaflets and explaining the Green preferences distribution wise) so in a sense, while the Green members gain the seats in parliament on a 2 party preferred they're counted as Labor because of preferences. What was unpredicted was the amount of swing that there was to Labor, people thought in most cases it'd only be 3-5% but it ended up being 6-10% (in my case 11.97%) which meant Labor were pretty much "oh we thought we had no chance in this electorate but suddenly we beat the pants off of them".

Also of note, Peter Costello who many thought would lead the Liberal party in Opposition has said that he will not and instead will be a backbencher to focus for post politic life, which since Howard was going to retire should he have won, that Costello might not be far behind. The effectively leaves the Liberal party without a head.

But yeah, you didn't miss much, just make sure you don't vote with old people and you should be fine. Accursed people made me lose my train of thought. :P