2010 Election Predictions Thread

[dibo]

Belinda Neal is cold-calling? Odd...

 

[FFC Mariner]

Scary more like

"Do you know who I am?"
"Vote for me or I will come round and belt you"

Will work

 

[Jazzie]

Has anyone ever actually been asked the question by one of these mobs conducting a "poll" ?

Yes, about 3 weeks ago

 

[Lisarow Yellow (Pooley)]

Belinda Neal is cold-calling? Odd...

not if the rumors are true thats she's going to run as an independent.

as for dobell, if labor loses, the spot wont be free, a lease was signed and the next MP will just take it over till it runs out.

 

[dibo]

Given she's been f**ked off and Della's been f**ked (and f**king) around, it wouldn't surprise me.

 

[FFC Mariner]

Given she's been f**ked off and Della's been f**ked (and f**king) around, it wouldn't surprise me.

Would mean expulsion from the Party and f**k Della over at the same time.

Oh................

 

[dibo]

Coming back to an earlier thing:

Sadly, the only people running the country are the respondants to opinion polls. Nothing else seems to matter.

Being able to win 50%+1 is why these people are in power. You don't get to implement policy from the Opposition benches.

I once heard Mike Rann asked why he chased populist policies. He replied the alternative was to be unpopular and therefore irrelevant. I see his point, even if I don't agree 100% with the method.

These parties are about winning, forming government and then governing for everyone. They can't possibly please everyone and they're better off not trying. The focus is to win. The stakes are such that they will win by any means.

[sings]Riot shields, voodoo economics...[/sings]

 

[curious]

Coming back to an earlier thing:

Sadly, the only people running the country are the respondants to opinion polls. Nothing else seems to matter.

Being able to win 50%+1 is why these people are in power. You don't get to implement policy from the Opposition benches.

I once heard Mike Rann asked why he chased populist policies. He replied the alternative was to be unpopular and therefore irrelevant. I see his point, even if I don't agree 100% with the method.

These parties are about winning, forming government and then governing for everyone. They can't possibly please everyone and they're better off not trying. The focus is to win. The stakes are such that they will win by any means.

[sings]Riot shields, voodoo economics...[/sings]

Time and experience makes a man skeptical the motives for political power are not as honorable as he might have imagined when he was younger, idealistic, impressionable and handicapped by a naive view of human nature.

 

[dibo]

I just can't see the point if not to win. There's always a worse option. Such is the nature of democracy - the worst political system of all, except for all the others.

 

[Arabmariner]

Self preservation and later a big fat pension is what it's all about.

Dibo, do you honestly believe that any of them give a toss about the country and it's citizens ?

I recently went on my kids school trip to Canberra.When we went to the House of Reps the guide took us to a room where they set up a mock house of reps and had the kids role play etc to let them understand what was happening when we saw the real thing.
The guide was constantly emphasising the correct etiquette i.e. addressing your opponent through the speaker etc.

Then we went into the real house and what we witnessed was a disgraceful rabble of f**kin aresholes with no respect for each other or the place they were in.

And we let these plonkers run the country.

The kids would see better behaviour watching the pubs empty at midnight.

 

[dibo]

Self preservation and later a big fat pension is what it's all about.

Dibo, do you honestly believe that any of them give a toss about the country and it's citizens ?

I recently went on my kids school trip to Canberra.When we went to the House of Reps the guide took us to a room where they set up a mock house of reps and had the kids role play etc to let them understand what was happening when we saw the real thing.
The guide was constantly emphasising the correct etiquette i.e. addressing your opponent through the speaker etc.

Then we went into the real house and what we witnessed was a disgraceful rabble of f**kin aresholes with no respect for each other or the place they were in.

And we let these plonkers run the country.

The kids would see better behaviour watching the pubs empty at midnight.

I do think they're motivated by good, I used to work in the building.

Forget what's going on in the chamber at question time. That's pantomime - a bunch of set piece plays designed to extract good soundbites for the evening news.

When actual bills are debated (especially when they get into the committee stages where they're talking about amendments and technical points) you see them at their best. MPs and Senators bring to the parliament what they hear from their electorates and constituent groups and they argue points of principle and good law.

I know it sounds trite, but the times when there are a handful of them in the chamber and nobody in the gallery is when you see them at their best.

When you see them in the community at things like citizenship ceremonies, community events and town hall meetings, that's when they're gathering info and learning as much as they can so they can take it back to parliament and bring it into deliberations.

They're always trying to win votes, all of it is 'politically motivated', but they're politicians - of course they're politically motivated. They're trying to win. That means they've got to convince more people to vote for them than the other guy. The reason for winning is that you can do more from inside the parliament than outside it.

Most local members work 6 days a week, they do a lot of nights, and that's before they get to Canberra. In Canberra 16 hour days are closer to the rule than the exception. They work bloody hard.

As for money - there are 226 parliamentarians and most of them are backbenchers of one sort or another. A backbencher makes ~$150k. Outside the Government basically everyone except leaders are classed as backbenchers. So there are maybe 175 of them who are making the basic amount.

Given that a helluva lot of the people in the building are lawyers, doctors and businesspeople of different stripes they could make a lot more money elsewhere. A lot of these people could work in any number of corporate, government affairs or NGO tye environments where you could make more money too, but they wouldn't have the influence.

All of the above applies to all parties. There's no particular party that works harder than the others. They all have their champs and plonkers. Such is the nature off representative democracy.

 

[Mr Cleansheets]

I reckon the major problem with Oz politics is that we, the people, have allowed ourselves to be changed from an electorate into a market. This means that people with vision no longer emerge from our ranks with a barrow to push to (genuinely) take us somewhere new and better. Politicians are motivated solely by power so they're all more or less vanilla and elections become an exercise between the red team and the blue team sampling the market to find out how best to push its buttons and thereby get elected.

My solution would be to have less politicians, but pay them a lot more. As dibo said, pollies don't get paid much in comparison to what they could be making at the top of the professions or as captains of industry - and quite frankly such people don't want to be in parliament simply because of what it would cost them. I'm not saying we want to fill parliament with plutocrats (far from it) but we need a mix and we're not getting the top managerial/fiscal/visionary talent in parliament. We're getting the B graders and mediocrities who crave power and will say anything to get it or keep it.

I've stopped voting for the mainstream parties because I refuse to be part of their "market". I only vote for people who I feel actually stand for something tangible and seem to share my opinions on most things.

Having said all that...go Mariners. 

 

[FFC Mariner]

Having managed the insurances on a property portfolio for an ex pm who has never "worked" outside of the political system, can I tell you that the rewards are simply immense.

No, I am not talking about Hawke buying that office block in Melbourne.

Influence and knowledge is tradeable into $$$

 

[Mr Cleansheets]

Well that's the evil side of the mediocrity coin. Instead of getting talented people into power to make hay for the country, we're getting mediocrities into power to make hay for themselves.

If they were payed a lot more they'd have less of an eye out for their own opportunities when trying to optimise the countries opportunities.

That's probably naive and simplistic, but that's the kind of guy I am...erm...let me rephrase that.

 

[curious]

Well that's the evil side of the mediocrity coin. Instead of getting talented people into power to make hay for the country, we're getting mediocrities into power to make hay for themselves.

If they were payed a lot more they'd have less of an eye out for their own opportunities when trying to optimise the countries opportunities.

That's probably naive and simplistic, but that's the kind of guy I am...erm...let me rephrase that.

To play the devil's advocate, cleansheets, the bigger the prize, the tighter the grasp.

In my opinion, the top people in their fields that have also managed retain positive ideals, would not only be not interested in the dog eat dog, affluent pond of party politics, they would not get within kooee of support for a leadership position with known non populist, idealist policies.

Petro Giorgio comes to mind as a somewhat principled small l liberal whom often went against party policy on social and immigration issues, and wouldn't have got past first base while retaining his personal ideals if he'd had leadership aspirations.

Malcolm Turnbull, a wealthy and very successful businessman in his own right, a Rhodes Scholar, a republican mover and shaker and moderate in his  public opinions and policies on a number of issues. We know what happened to him over his climate control stance.

Both are Liberals of course, but that's only by accident of my poor spur of the moment memory. I'm certain there are also examples among labor, other parties and independents.

Then there's those with the talent to make a difference, but choose to sell their soul to the party machine.  Gillard.
A national leader of Australian Union of Students, secretary of the left wing Socialist Forum, career in representing unions as a partner in the law firm, Slater and Gordon and an immigrant.

She rode to the leadership on the back of her education portfolio, attempting to break the back of the teachers union and further demonised teachers and principles.

Now in power, amongst other things, she sells her soul on immigration by practically copying a past populist right wing Liberal policy in an effort to pander to the 'conservative' vote.

Power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely.

If it's already not obvious enough, I'm extremely disappointed in Gillard.

 

[midfielder]

Well that's the evil side of the mediocrity coin. Instead of getting talented people into power to make hay for the country, we're getting mediocrities into power to make hay for themselves.

If they were payed a lot more they'd have less of an eye out for their own opportunities when trying to optimise the countries opportunities.

That's probably naive and simplistic, but that's the kind of guy I am...erm...let me rephrase that.

To play the devil's advocate, cleansheets, the bigger the prize, the tighter the grasp.

In my opinion, the top people in their fields that have also managed retain positive ideals, would not only be not interested in the dog eat dog, affluent pond of party politics, they would not get within kooee of support for a leadership position with known non populist, idealist policies.

Petro Giorgio comes to mind as a somewhat principled small l liberal whom often went against party policy on social and immigration issues, and wouldn't have got past first base while retaining his personal ideals if he'd had leadership aspirations.

Malcolm Turnbull, a wealthy and very successful businessman in his own right, a Rhodes Scholar, a republican mover and shaker and moderate in his  public opinions and policies on a number of issues. We know what happened to him over his climate control stance.

Both are Liberals of course, but that's only by accident of my poor spur of the moment memory. I'm certain there are also examples among labor, other parties and independents.

Then there's those with the talent to make a difference, but choose to sell their soul to the party machine.  Gillard.
A national leader of Australian Union of Students, secretary of the left wing Socialist Forum, career in representing unions as a partner in the law firm, Slater and Gordon and an immigrant.

She rode to the leadership on the back of her education portfolio, attempting to break the back of the teachers union and further demonised teachers and principles.

Now in power, amongst other things, she sells her soul on immigration by practically copying a past populist right wing Liberal policy in an effort to pander to the 'conservative' vote.

Power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely.

If it's already not obvious enough, I'm extremely disappointed in Gillard.

Well said Curious...

 

[FFC Mariner]

I too feel violated by Gillard (and not in a good way)

Some small part of me hoped we might have a slightly left of centre conviction politician who would be prepared to fight.

Sadly, she has lurched to the right and is as bad as the rest of them.

 

[Mr Cleansheets]

Couldn't agree more that principled pollies in the current system get screwed over, but that's exactly my point. The vicious mediocrities run a closed shop - a quasi-stalinist power structure where only the other mediocrities are admitted into the inner sanctums and rewarded with higher duties.

It will stay a closed shop until the shop is changed. My suggestion is to make joining the shop a lot more attractive to encourage better quality people. Whether or not they are purer of principle is impossible to judge, but at least they would be less likely to be mediocrities fighting tooth and nail for self-preservation.

 

[Mr Cleansheets]

And speaking of pollies that sell their souls...

Peter Garrett anyone?

 

[curious]

Couldn't agree more that principled pollies in the current system get screwed over, but that's exactly my point. The vicious mediocrities run a closed shop - a quasi-stalinist power structure where only the other mediocrities are admitted into the inner sanctums and rewarded with higher duties.

It will stay a closed shop until the shop is changed. My suggestion is to make joining the shop a lot more attractive to encourage better quality people. Whether or not they are purer of principle is impossible to judge, but at least they would be less likely to be mediocrities fighting tooth and nail for self-preservation.

That's why I said, To play the devil's advocate, cleansheets, the bigger the prize, the tighter the grasp.

I honestly don't believe it would alter the nature of the beast. Honest, principled straight shooters wouldn't be in it because of the financial rewards, regardless of the figure.

And speaking of pollies that sell their souls...

Peter Garrett anyone?

He should be put in stocks for daily 6 hour periods for 6 months and forced to tend public gardens for the following six.