Yay voting! Boo lack of majority, I assume?

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Yay voting! Boo lack of majority, I assume?

Well; it depends on who is hoping for the majority. At the moment it seems the two possibilities are that the Coalition (the conservative parties) is returned, but with a buffer of three or fewer seats; or it'll be a hung Parliament, with the Coalition falling maybe one or two seats short. In either case, the Coalition has lost a dozen or more seats, and we're likely to see a wobbly and uncertain government for the next three years.

This is an unusual election, being a double dissolution election. Normally, as with the US system, our elections typically involve voting for all the seats in the House, and a proportion of the seats in the Senate (a half rather than a third). A double dissolution election (which involves certain conditions to be met, basically around the Senate blocking government legislation) sees every seat in the Senate up for grabs.

That means every state elects 12 Senators instead of 6. The voting system in the Senate is complicated, more or less a preferential-proportional hybrid. At a D-D election, it becomes much easier for minority parties to get in - basically they need to muster just a twelfth of the vote instead of a sixth. I'm guessing the government is going to find this mob even harder to work with than the incumbents.

Sadly, this also means that more extremist views can get in. We'll be seeing the return to our Senate of Pauline Hanson's One Nation party. This is an anti-immigration bunch, who in the 90s came to prominence railing against Asian immigration. Nowadays they've decided that's cool, and it's really the Muslims we should be keeping out. Because of course.

Anyway, the results are a strong rebuff to the PM, Malcolm Turnbull. He replaced Tony Abbott just last year, on the realisation that not only was Abbott was a goose, but it turns out the electorate had noticed. His leadership claim was that he could win the election. (I like him better than his party, he's fairly socially progressive, but that also makes him a shaky fit.)

I spend a lot more time following US politics than local these days, but this result is going to warrant some attention.

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Oh! Some trivia about Australian politics. We currently have in the Senate one Glenn Lazarus. He is a former professional rugby league player, with the remarkable record of winning six premierships with three different teams (the first two with my beloved Canberra Raiders). His nickname was "the brick with eyes", just what you look for in a Senator. He is not a member of either major party, having won office on the ticket of a local mining magnate, who once accused Greenpeace of receiving funding from the CIA. (He's since decided that's maybe not the smartest alliance.)

But the trivia I really wanted to share is: Ryan and I have been reading a book about all Australia's former Prime Ministers. Our second PM, Alfred Deakin, was a lawyer before he became PM, in which role he very possibly acted as defence lawyer for Jack the Ripper. So there you go.

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Your thoughts on the price? She keeps saying obo

$400 seems on the high side for a piece like that in this market. Bob says check out the website krrb to see listings for vintage stores by area. You might be able to get a price comparison.

[link]

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This is an unusual election, being a double dissolution election. Normally, as with the US system, our elections typically involve voting for all the seats in the House, and a proportion of the seats in the Senate (a half rather than a third). A double dissolution election (which involves certain conditions to be met, basically around the Senate blocking government legislation) sees every seat in the Senate up for grabs.

Wow. Aussie rules are always something else, as far as I can tell.

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Just the vanity & stool, asking $400, and they'd deliver this weekend for free.

I love it! Couldn't resist.

I'm really sad to see that bar go

I hope they find a new place. Easier said than done for sure.

Oh fun, meara! Yes, having your playlist ready to go would be great.

Vote! May sanity prevail.

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Wow. Aussie rules are always something else, as far as I can tell.

We do try. (Our other winter sport, incidentally, is called Aussie Rules.) I tend to be pretty enthusiastic about the Australian system - preferential voting, compulsory voting (which kills voter suppression as an issue), proportional Senate representation, independently drawn electoral boundaries, standardised ballot design over the whole country. But since 2007, we've had five changes of Prime Minister, three of which were leadership spills rather than election results. Oh, and we knighted Prince Phillip. We do our best to inject a bit of texture into it all.

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(Our other winter sport, incidentally, is called Aussie Rules.)

I knew that!

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I tend to be pretty enthusiastic about the Australian system - preferential voting, compulsory voting (which kills voter suppression as an issue), proportional Senate representation, independently drawn electoral boundaries, standardised ballot design over the whole country.

Oh we do need to get us some of that! Not that I think this is ever going to happen, but it sounds nice.

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Yeah, we could use some Aussie rules in the USA.

Used the CPAP machine for the first time last night. Plus a nap yesterday. The machine tells me I got total 10 hours of sleep. I feel better. Not all bouncy full of energy, but I guess I have years of sleep debt to catch up on.

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