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July 2010

We have candidates.

The complete lists of candidates in all House of Representatives seats and Senate contests were released by the Australian Electoral Commission tonight.

Here are the people I will have to choose from, in order as they will appear on the respective ballots, and with hyperlinks to party and candidate pages where known. There are six candidates in Grayndler, while in the Senate there are a bewildering 84 candidates for New South Wales in what appears to be 33 groups.

My #ausvotes twitter log

This be a digest of my election-related tweets to date from the time that Julia Gillard called the federal election almost two weeks ago. Australia's first general election in the Twitter era has by general consensus the hashtag of #ausvotes.

Saturday, 17 July 2010:

moving forward moving forward moving forward moving forward
Saturday, 17 July 2010 12:13 PM

Debate. Yawn. Discuss.

"Just think.. if this were a soccer match we could have had 30 minutes extra time followed by penalty kicks. #ausvotes #debate #nilnil"

- me on Twitter, 7.36pm 25.7.10

The Leaders Debate between Julia Gillard and Tony Abbott took place on Sunday night. There's nothing more that I can say about the content. Really. The transcript is here.

From Hey Hey It's Saturday to I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue

Nine days in, and the 2010 election campaign is as dismal as any I've witnessed in the past four decades. Tony Abbott defies serious appraisal, while Julia Gillard's entire first month as Prime Minister has been a massive disappointment.

Dead. Buried. Cremated. Freddy Krueger IS Workchoices.

If you consider the continuity errors in Tony Abbott's glib slogan proclaiming that Workchoices is "Dead. Buried. Cremated.", then maybe you are looking for an "Exhumed" to be inserted into that sequence - at least once, maybe more often. Abbott's serial non sequiteurs on the talk-radio circuit on Monday suggest that neo-liberal IR reform, whether named Workchoices or some other moniker, is not about to disappear from the tory agenda. Where's Freddy Krueger when you need him?

Moving the move forward forwards

"...today I seek my own mandate to move Australia forward.
...this election is about the choice as to whether we move Australia forward or go back. Our great nation, our very great nation, has been built by generations of men and women who had the courage to move forward.

Moving forward, of course, requires conviction, it requires confidence...

Moving forward with confidence also requires a strong set of convictions...

I will be asking Australians for their trust so that we can move forward together.

It's (almost) federal election time again

If all the rumours tonight are true, then tomorrow morning Australia's first female Prime Minister will pay a visit to Australia's first female Governor-General to prorogue Federal Parliament and call for a general election (including half-senate election) on either August 21 or August 28.

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