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4th August 2016, 10:41 PM | #481 |
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The way you are dancing around this, it is obvious that you are quite willing to have a conservative government that is able to pass its bills unchallenged as long as you can get rid of the Senate.
You are aware of what happened in 2004 when the coalition accidentally won a majority in the Senate. We got the most horrendous anti-worker legislation in Australia's history - ironically titled "Work Choices". Howard had never let it slip that he was even thinking of such an attack on workers. You might think that this is acceptable but I can assure you that most of us don't. Ironically, the makeup of the Senate far more accurately represents the will of the voters than the House of Representatives with its single member electorates ever could. The simple fact is that voters are getting fed up with the major parties with fully a quarter of the voters giving a first preference for candidates who are not Labor or coalition. There is no good reason why these voters should not be represented in parliament. It is actually the House of Representatives that is the "unrepresentative swill". |
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4th August 2016, 10:49 PM | #482 |
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The Queensland first preference results were:
coalition - 4.5851 quotas Labor - 3.4253 quotas One Nation - 1.1941 quotas Greens - 0.8990 quotas http://www.abc.net.au/news/federal-e...esults/senate/ With the coalition, Labor and Greens each getting enough preferences to fill one more quota, the election of the last candidate was always going to come down to preferences. Once again, democracy triumphed. |
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4th August 2016, 10:49 PM | #483 |
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i loves the little birdies they goes tweet tweet tweet hee hee i loves them they sings to each other tweet twet tweet hee hee i loves them they is so cute i love yje little birdies little birdies in the room when birfies sings ther is no gloom i lobes the little birdies they goess tweet tweet tweet hee hee hee i loves them they sings me to sleep sing me to slrrp now little birdies - The wisdom of Shemp. |
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4th August 2016, 11:34 PM | #484 |
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I gather you dislike major parties. Fair enough. But I can't let this nonsense slip. What happened in the election after Work Choices? The people had their say.
Show me where a House of Reps member got up with 2% or less of the vote and you may have a point about it being unrepresentative. You can't and you don't. We don't have proportional representation in the house that matters. We do in the Senate as an historical sop to the states. Now have a go at explaining how electors the NT and Tasmania have upper house votes worth far, far more than those in the States which have made this country great? |
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5th August 2016, 12:49 AM | #485 |
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Part of that say was denying the ruling party Carte-Blanche in future elections. You are the only person (other than the erstwhile Alphie) who would have been happy to let Abbott run loose.
23.23% of voters voted against the big two in the HoR yet they only got 5 seats (3.33% of the seats). The Greens with 10.23% of the vote got only one seat. Tell me how that represents the will of the voters. You can't and you don't. What???? PR has got nothing to do with having a Senate. PR wasn't used in the Senate until 1948 when it replaced the "block vote" system that had been in use. It is the best safeguard against a government that would otherwise pork barrel the two most populous states in Australia at the expense of all the others. You can be sure that the independents especially will stand up for the interests of their state when Turnbull is forced to negotiate with them. |
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5th August 2016, 12:57 AM | #486 |
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Failed at every attempted point. Your wilful misrepresentation of Australia's electoral system is telling.
The Coalition and Labour have led to stable government for decades. I haven't liked all of them. Big deal. The nation has survived just fine. |
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5th August 2016, 01:16 AM | #487 |
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If any of my facts are incorrect then you are welcome to correct them.
You won't be able to of course. You are grasping at straws to try and justify your emotional hatred of the Senate. Fortunately, that is the opinion of just one voter. BTW The nation has survived "just fine" with a Senate too. |
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5th August 2016, 02:27 AM | #488 |
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6 Year terms again
An examination of the Senate election results shows that under the Order method, the Greens will get 3 instead of 5 members elected for 6 years and Derryn Hinch (the man who threatened to go to court if the Senate doesn't adopt the Order method) will only get 3 years. The big two get 3 extra long termers.
Anybody want to take bets about which method the Senate will choose? |
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7th August 2016, 08:09 PM | #489 |
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One fewer One Nation senator?
It looks like Rod Culleton may lose his WA senate seat.
He was convicted in absence earlier this year and a warrant for his arrest was issued. When he turned up in a NSW court to attempt to get the conviction annulled, he was arrested. So when you call Aussie politicians crooks, you can now know it is not just rhetoric! |
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7th August 2016, 08:22 PM | #490 |
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7th August 2016, 10:29 PM | #491 |
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His conviction in NSW has been annulled. So he is eligible to be a Senator unless or until his upcoming trial in Perth results in a conviction for stealing a hire car (in which case another One Nation candidate must be selected to replace him).
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-07-1...-trial/7642910 |
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7th August 2016, 10:33 PM | #492 |
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As long as the crime in which he was convicted carries a sentence of 12 months, which I think it does. It does not matter that he only gets fined.
What would happen is that the WA governor gets told of the vacancy by the President of the Senate and the WA parliament asks One Nation to nominate another person. They then elect that person to be the new senator. http://www.aph.gov.au/About_Parliame...-01_part-02_20
Quote:
http://www.aph.gov.au/About_Parliame...-01_part-02_15 Edit. However there are penalties for sitting while disqualified. The constitution says 100 pounds per day, but this may have been changed. Ref: http://www.aph.gov.au/About_Parliame...-01_part-04_46 |
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7th August 2016, 10:57 PM | #493 |
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Ah well.
We get what we deserve I guess. |
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7th August 2016, 11:58 PM | #494 |
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This is section 15 as was amended in 1977. It mandated that a replacement Senator should come from the same party as the outgoing Senator and should serve out the rest of his term instead of until the next election.
It was designed to prevent a repeat of the Gair AffairWP in 1974 and prevent a state Premier from stealing a vote in the Senate by replacing a Senator with somebody from a different party as happened in 1975 and precipitated the constitutional crisis. Joh Bjelke-Petersen (Queensland's Premier at the time) was a key player in both cases. |
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8th August 2016, 01:39 AM | #495 |
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Yes. This means that Mr. Fraser PM took advantage of the loophole in the constitution, then fixed it so that it could not be used again (like against him).
Edit. Just to point out the technical error in my post. Mr. Fraser was not actually PM when he took advantage of the loophole. |
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8th August 2016, 02:41 AM | #496 |
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Not quite, the issue with Gair was that JBP delayed issuing writs.
The real issue was in 1975 when following the death of ALP Senator Bertie Millner ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bertie_Milliner) JBP replaced him with Field not the ALP nominee. This in turn enabled the crisis of 1975 and fittingly earned Malcom Fraser the title of the PM who rode to power on the back of a dead mans grave. Edit to add that iirc the NSW premier did a similar thing earlier, but that his nominee took the view that he would not vote against the Govt because he was replacing a Govt Senator. |
8th August 2016, 03:40 AM | #497 |
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That was part of the story.
The issue was that Gough Whitlam attempted to destroy the DLP (Democratic Labor Party) and gain an extra seat in the Senate by offering Vincent Gair (the leader of the DLP) an ambassadorship to Ireland. As the constitution stood at that time, Gair's replacement would have to face the polls at the next election meaning that Queensland would have had 6 Senators up for election. The sixth seat would certainly have gone to Labor. However, JBP managed to delay issuing the writs so that only the 5 Senate seats had to go to the polls and Labor missed out. So Gough was only partly successful. He managed to wreck the DLP but in the process, he damaged the reputation of himself and his government. |
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8th August 2016, 03:41 AM | #498 |
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Interesting that one politician being charged with a crime suddenly means that "all politicians are corrupt".
It's exactly the same mentality that says that all Christians are as despicable as Westboro, and that all Muslims are terrorists. Also, Oscar Pistorius shot someone, so that obviously means that you can call paralympians murderers. |
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8th August 2016, 04:01 AM | #499 |
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i loves the little birdies they goes tweet tweet tweet hee hee i loves them they sings to each other tweet twet tweet hee hee i loves them they is so cute i love yje little birdies little birdies in the room when birfies sings ther is no gloom i lobes the little birdies they goess tweet tweet tweet hee hee hee i loves them they sings me to sleep sing me to slrrp now little birdies - The wisdom of Shemp. |
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8th August 2016, 04:05 AM | #500 |
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That was the whole story in constitutional terms. Whether Gough misjudged politically is another issue - in the result of the Gair affair he clearly did, but was it reasonable that he did not foresee what that corrupt pos BJP would do I wouldn't judge him too harshly.
My point remains correct though, the constitutional amendment was more as a result of the Field than the Gair issue. Given that Gair was not replaced by an appointed person not of his party's selection surely you would agree? |
8th August 2016, 07:49 AM | #501 |
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You are forgetting that there are two aspects to that 1977 constitutional change. And it is not just a dry constitutional issue - it's about the dirty politics that PMs are willing to play to overcome the will of the voters.
The change that mandated that a new Senator serve out the balance of the previous Senator's term was designed to prevent politicians manipulating the number of Senators who face re-election and hence gain an unwarranted member. It is true that Joh thwarted Gough's plans (and the 1974 double dissolution election rendered it all moot anyway) but as long as the constitution remained the way it was, it was always possible for a future PM to pull the same stunt. |
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8th August 2016, 03:08 PM | #502 |
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Interesting that lack of smileys in a post means that it should be taken at face value (Some people appear to be incapable of comprehending nuance) and the view extrapolated to enable construction of strawmen.
For ***** and giggles. Convicted Australian Politicians Wiki's list seems more comprehensive. |
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8th August 2016, 04:31 PM | #503 |
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Mmm, yes. I count 37 on that list, in over 100 years of Australian political history. Oh, that is a lot of politicians. Totally a representative sample.
Rhetoric is one thing - false generalisation is another. |
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8th August 2016, 07:10 PM | #504 |
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You are deliberately pretending that you've never heard the phrase "***** and giggles" to perpetuate your strawman?
Did you read the posts I linked to in my previous reply? Do you see what you are doing, or does a lack of understanding of nuance only something other people do? |
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8th August 2016, 11:14 PM | #505 |
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9th August 2016, 12:28 AM | #506 |
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You are right. My bad. In what was dubbed "The night of the long prawns"WP Senator Ron Maunsell kept Gair away from the Queensland governor by plying him with whiskey and prawns until after Joh had advised the Governor to issue the writs for the half-Senate election.
BTW It would be more accurate to say that the highlighted sentence was wrong rather than imply that the entire post was "100% wrong". |
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9th August 2016, 12:42 AM | #507 |
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9th August 2016, 01:31 AM | #508 |
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9th August 2016, 03:19 AM | #509 |
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So take that quantum equation and recalculate the wave by a factor of hoopty doo! The answer is not my problem, it's yours. Three Word Story Wisdom |
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9th August 2016, 04:09 PM | #510 |
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9th August 2016, 04:26 PM | #511 |
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So take that quantum equation and recalculate the wave by a factor of hoopty doo! The answer is not my problem, it's yours. Three Word Story Wisdom |
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10th August 2016, 02:20 AM | #512 |
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10th August 2016, 02:28 AM | #513 |
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10th August 2016, 06:28 AM | #514 |
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It matters even less than that. Like the ACT, both senators have to get re-elected at every senate election so there will always be 1 Labor and 1 coalition senator in each territory.
Therefore, in any division, they cancel each other out and have no influence on the outcome of the division. |
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11th August 2016, 10:46 PM | #515 |
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So take that quantum equation and recalculate the wave by a factor of hoopty doo! The answer is not my problem, it's yours. Three Word Story Wisdom |
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11th August 2016, 11:08 PM | #516 |
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Oh goody, derryn will be so pleased. A pity the ultra-racist and her mates aren't all there.
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i loves the little birdies they goes tweet tweet tweet hee hee i loves them they sings to each other tweet twet tweet hee hee i loves them they is so cute i love yje little birdies little birdies in the room when birfies sings ther is no gloom i lobes the little birdies they goess tweet tweet tweet hee hee hee i loves them they sings me to sleep sing me to slrrp now little birdies - The wisdom of Shemp. |
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11th August 2016, 11:26 PM | #517 |
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11th August 2016, 11:55 PM | #518 |
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And the winner is - The order elected method! (Obviously).
Regardless of the rhetoric that may be sprouted, the big two simply chose the method which gave more of them 6 year terms. It's no surprise that nobody took me up on that bet. It still leaves 7 Senators from minor parties with 6 year terms: Greens (3), Xenophon team (2), Pauline Hanson and Jackie Lambie. 13 Senators from the minor parties will go to the polls in 3 years: Greens (6), Xenophon team (1), One Nation (3), Lib Dem (1), Hinch (1) and Family First (1). We can expect the minor parties to lose 4 Senators after the next election. |
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12th August 2016, 01:28 AM | #519 |
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Looks like we were right. psionl0 said it first, then I said it in stronger terms. There were 20 minor party senators elected, 13 of whom will be up for reelection. If 10 get re elected that is a reduction of 3 from this parliament.
In the old parliament there were 18 minor party senators. So now we have a senate with 2 more minor party senators. Turnbull stuffed up. Even if my previous paragraph is right then there will be only 1 less minor party senator in the parliament after this one. And the margin of error is far bigger than that. http://www.abc.net.au/news/federal-e...esults/senate/ Lesson: Having a DD does not work for just about anything. |
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12th August 2016, 02:22 AM | #520 |
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