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I wanted a pic of Suzie Wright here, but all I could find was pix of Lee Rhiannon - so here's another green.
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Well, the Penrith by-election came out as expected – with the flogging of Labor by the worthy Liberal candidate Stuart “Stu-boy” Ayres.
And what a flogging it was. While pundits have been evenly divided over the underlying cause – assuming that it was just one cause, adding a touch of “can’t get to work for under $80 a week – if the public transport ever shows up” to “our suspicions about the incumbent being as crooked as a dog’s hind leg being confirmed” and maybe just a dash of “time to change the pigs at the public trough” should just about explain the massacre.
Local versus national issues ? See the previous paragraph !
When the ABC interviewed a few locals this morning to get their take on the blood-letting, I found one response particularly interesting. A former Labor-voting woman put the boot into the Liberals for wasting so much paper morning after morning at the railway station (so much for a cyberspace campaign debate, folks). This woman voted “Green” of course, but she went one further than that.
She voted “Green” and then “Exhausted” her vote. Now personally, I usually find voting exhausting – and even debilitating if it was not for the local P&C cake and coffee provided as a public good and fundraiser for the school.
But in this sense, in NSW, at least, one can simply put a “1″ next to the party of one’s choice and nothing else and nobody gets a preference after that. It’s a way of raising the middle finger to the major parties. And when I cannot bring myself to vote Liberal no matter how vomitous the candidates or the totality of my traditional roots party are, in the NSW election coming, at least I would like to simply do as our Penrith sister did.
Admittedly a by-election voter backlash is not unusual – democracy being such an imposition particularly when the Panthers are playing away, or the Wallabies are set to cough one up to the Lions (thanks, Matt). But this one has the hallmark of an avalanche to come. In Penrith, this time, 3% of the 88% voter turnout voted informal and the exhausted vote count was 62%.
The people of Penrith were pretty clear about their preferences. In some traditionally Labor booths, the Liberal candidate out-polled Labor 2 to 1. Labor’s vote set the new record turn around of minus 25.7% of which the Liberals scored plus 18% and a bit and the Greens (not traditionally well rewarded in the Western Labor heartland) were rewarded with a gain of somewhere around 8 % – just for showing up.
I don’t know about you, but given the incumbents and the alternatives, vastly talented O’Furball team, I’m feeling exhausted already.
* Apparently “optional preferential” voting only works in NSW single constituency by-elections. Disappointing, huh ?
something quite like this appeared over at the daily bludge a few minutes ago….
Window Dresser's Arms, Pig & Whistle 
I voted once but a politician got in
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Reminds me of the man trying to explain to his little boy that dogs lick each other’s bums as a way of identifying each other’s scents. The pooch with poo breath turns to the man and says “Bullshit, I’ve just bitten a politician, and am trying to get rid of the taste.”
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LOL
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I must confess to the fact that ‘I HATE VOTING’.
It drives me crazy.
I usually seem to be on night shift the previous night, so not entirely up for being jollied along by some fans of the local member.
It’s not like voting for union reps, or, even members of the Nurses rego Board, where each candidate provides a short biography, qualifications, and a statement describing just how they will do a superior job to the other aspirants.
There’s always a bunch of sycophants handing out pamphlets. The pricks elbow each other out of the way to thrust their bloody literature into my face. I usually something clever like. “Piss off, do you really think that shoving a pamphlet in my face two minutes before I vote will change my mind?”
Last time I tried to vote at the electoral office about a week before. The same sycophants were there, working shifts. The first one intercepted me 50 meters up the street, asking for my suburb. As son as I blurted it out came the cry. “This one’s for you, Bill.” As if I were a fish in a net! I quickly changed my mind!
Will there ever be a better system?
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At the time of the take over from the crooked right wing faction of the ALP, Stan The Man and dodgy shipping container welders at Balmain, missing tea spoons were nothing.
‘Make way for the pregnant lady’ someone shouted, a burly thug pushing aside those queuing up to renew their membership. Next the lights were switched off, a fire extinguisher hurled through the top floor window, people bashed up.
When the police were called, all the books were missing.
Those were the days. Remember Peter Baldwin?
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This is like one of those dances where we go round and round.
You’ve made me laugh G. You’re a tonic.
Yes I remember poor Peter Baldwin very well and that wonderful front page picture of him in his hospital bed, face all broken and swollen, two black eyes, the full disaster. That was when you lived in Balmain wasn’t it?
For those who may not remember here’s a quick rehash:
http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/lid-lifted-on-the-ugly-80s/2005/11/24/1132703316743.html
Ya gotta love a full on Labor brawl, just so long as you’re not actually involved. The Liberals of course just roast and then eat their own. Who can forget the way they rolled then roasted Kerry Chikarovsky and what they did to John Brogden, at the behest of the evil Liberal reptile David Clarke, just leaves me gobsmacked.
Politics in NSW actually is a blood sport.
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Gez, I typed in nearly 500 words in response, got distracted by the cleaner at an early start at a client’s place and lost the lot. Answer – “Yes” and Peter Crawford who was flogged by Dawn Fraser. And after that I decided that it was all too hard and pointless into the bargain. I think ALP branch politics is triple-distilled horse piss.
Baldwin was a decent sort of chap, I guess although I can’t remember him being outstanding – or helping us with a shitfight with NSW Education.
Crawford I also campaigned for – I suspect that he was more your Dickensian rotund chuffer than a modern day pollie. By then Balmain had moved on and parking for a Porsche became the pressing social problem de jour.
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And something quite like this appeared under that Bludge piece too. (Is it cheating in the blogosphere to post the same thing twice?)
Ya feelin’ better now Emmas, got that off ya chest?
Penrith’s always been a pigs breakfast. It’s like the Labor Party cousin no-one talks about because they can’t be trusted. You know you invite them in to Sussex Street for afternoon tea and then count the teaspoons when they’re gone.
Scratch a Penrith labor voter and you find Liberal bog underneath; but then equally scratch a Penrith Liberal and you find Labor repair work under the paint too.
Poor buggers get it in the neck no matter which of the two is in, local state or federal. Just gun fodder. Remember the last federal election? Howard spent more time in Lindsay than just about anywhere else and it was the Libs copped a caning that time.
Whenever I think of Penrith I’m reminded of that scene from “1984″ where Winston Smith looks out the window of the room where he is about to commit all manner of antisocial crimes and sees the Prole hanging her washing in the breeze and singing some simple ditty. I’ll let you all work the semiotics, not to mention psychology on that one for yourselves.
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No, it’s not cheating. I got an Email request from JJ asking me (and others I imagine) to help mind the shop while he and his FM do a quick Euro tour.
Yeah, well, OK. It IS cheating a bit I s’pose.
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