2013 Federal Election: 7 September 2013

Well, well. An ABSOLUTE SHELLACKING. Who woulda thunk it? :dance::bier:corn::aus::thankyou:

Miss Hale said:

I am also having a quiet celebratory drink at home Mr B (maybe you can tell )

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and well deserved Miss Hale after putting up with Gillard then Rudd, it's been a nightmare, Cheers to you

Macquack said:

Thought your were being humble for a second, my mistake.

Everybody knows you live in "Toorak", were you swindled some old widow out of her mansion by being the "gun" real estate agent who did not even put the property to market.

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Oh Mac she put up a hell of a fight but I got her into the nursing home quicker than you can say "sign here"
Lovely house and so cheap too

Explod, may have blown his money. If he backed his prediction.

Aussiejeff said:

Well, well. An ABSOLUTE SHELLACKING. Who woulda thunk it? :dance::bier:corn::aus::thankyou:

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It looked like a record routing from all the 'experts' commenting from early results in... but ignoring the commercial channels who keep switching to damn social media comments, Anthony Green has been winding back the LNP lead all night as preferences come in and having quite a bit of trouble estimating preferences with the significant strength of minor parties in some key seats.

Still looks like a LNP win... BUT, has Christopher Pine got the pre poll numbers wrong? He claims they will be, because they are typically, strongly LNP. Given Labor support was much stronger earlier and the exceptionally large number of pre poll this time, the result could be a lot closer than many expected... and probably not quite a routing in the order the NSW and Qld Labor got.

Looks like Barnaby Joyce is in. Don't agree with everything he says... but he's the straight talking type we need in parliament.

Just checked the AEC website and was happy to see that my electorate which I thought was a safe Labor seat is listed as 'in doubt', this is going better than I thought

Miss Hale said:

Just checked the AEC website and was happy to see that my electorate which I thought was a safe Labor seat is listed as 'in doubt', this is going better than I thought

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Yes, I think Rudds selfies and group huggs with the kids on a twitter, didn't have much effect on the silent majority.

Bowen and Rudd look like keeping their seats, the wipe out in Western Sydney didn't happen losing only 4 or 5 seats...disappointing but far from a disaster, not much of a rout.

Tanya Plibersek for PM a reckon.

So_Cynical said:

Bowen and Rudd look like keeping their seats, the wipe out in Western Sydney didn't happen losing only 4 or 5 seats...disappointing but far from a disaster, not much of a rout.

Tanya Plibersek for PM a reckon.

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Looks like you did well.lol
Did you short them.

Tanya as PM, you have a better chance of the hole in your, healing up.

Miss Hale said:

Well my tip for tonight is Port Adelaide to beat Collingwood, oh hang on, I mean Abbott to beat Rudd Glad to have football to distract me from politics though. Have only seen a bit of the coverage but it seems Craig Thomson is polling very badly, what a shame

Our local Labor member was at the polling booth when I went to vote so I made sure my Coalition 'How to Vote' card (the only one I took) was clearly on display when she was near me.

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Boy you really showed her.

Well, some surprising results, especially in Qld where the predicted rout has simply not happened, and many Labor seats were retained.

Clive Palmer seems to have done extraordinarily well and looks like actually getting a seat. God help us.
He certainly saturated the media with his promises of $2500 (I think that was the amount) given out to everyone. No accountability for any budget considerations.
It must be terrific to be a minority candidate - you can promise anything at all, and the idiots in the electorate will simply believe you!!

Perhaps additional results will change the picture, but at this stage, the national result is not at all a rout, and will leave Labor with some of their key players, viz Chris Bowen, Wayne Swan. Kevin Rudd also looks like retaining his seat. Peter Beattie must be really regretting allowing himself to be persuaded back into the race, given his resounding defeat.

Good to see the Greens' vote down.

I felt quite sorry for the Labor volunteer at my local polling booth today. He was all on his own, surrounded in all directions by jubilant LNP people. No representatives of any other candidate other than some motoring enthusiast party.

There seems to me to be a sense of anticlimax now. Perhaps that's just as a result of the extraordinary length and bitterness of the campaign.

I am listening to his concession speech;

DOES THIS GUY EVER SHUT UP?

Australia has spoken - Kevin and Labor - shut up!

Yes Kev summed it up well "I gave it my all, but it wasn't enough".

To cover up for six years of stupidity.

Rudd has said he won’t stay on as Labor leader. A wise move on his part – otherwise he would have been savaged by his own party.

Thought I heard Abbot say that this was the lowest ALP vote in 100 years – would that be right? I could be mistaken – I was nodding off in my recliner at the time.

Did Labor make the right move in ousting Gillard and reinstating Rudd to contest the election? I think so – under Gillard I feel they would have lost by a considerably greater margin.

Full marks to Wayne Swan for retaining his seat.
I thought he was pretty damn pathetic as treasurer, but credit where credit is due - he’s been the member for Lilley since 1995 apparently, and the people of his electorate obviously think he’s doing a good job for them if they’ve stuck with him for 18 years and are now supporting him for another three.
Ditto for Rudd – a pathetic PM, but the people of his electorate must feel he’s doing a good job in representing their interests, otherwise he wouldn't have retained his seat.

I’m pleased to see Barnaby Joyce collar the seat of New England – my only regret is that we didn’t see that villain Tony Windsor stand against him and get annihilated.

I'm glad that the Libs didn't run away with it in both houses. Personally, I'm amazed that the Libs have had a larger swing against them than Labor in NSW (the ridiculous senate BP has something to do with this I think). It looks as though with PUP around, the protest vote no longer flows straight to the Greens, which can't be a bad thing. The swing against Labor in Victoria turned out to be far worse than the non-event in Western Sydney.

I don't hold high hopes for Abbott but hopefully he'll surprise to the upside.

I've travelled to plenty of countries and most of the world's population don't have the luxury of voting out an unpopular government. As I got my sausage and lamington at the sausage sizzle outside the polling booth I remembered what a great country this is. Not because we can whinge and moan about the government but because we can take for granted the right to have an opinion and express it.

Goodnight.

bunyip said:

Thought I heard Abbot say that this was the lowest ALP vote in 100 years – would that be right? I could be mistaken – I was nodding off in my recliner at the time.

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Lowest primary vote since the 30's - interesting that the Liberal primary vote increase this election is only 1.3% the Primary Labor vote shifted to independents, also at least 8 seats where the swing was to Labor.

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We seriously need to move to some sort of electronic voting, the NSW senate ballot paper was crazy, i was writing 3 figure numbers in a tiny little box, we need to move to some sort of terminal where voters can click or touch a screen to populate the boxes...wont happen under a Liberal government though.

So_Cynical said:

Bowen and Rudd look like keeping their seats, the wipe out in Western Sydney didn't happen losing only 4 or 5 seats...disappointing but far from a disaster, not much of a rout.

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Looks like the Gillard, independents and greens alliance was probably the biggest factor, looking at the hiding in Tas in particular with the strong history of the greens forcing everyone to unreasonably pander to them at the fed and state levels... capped off with the leadership and party disunity.

Julia said:

Well, some surprising results, especially in Qld where the predicted rout has simply not happened, and many Labor seats were retained.

Clive Palmer seems to have done extraordinarily well and looks like actually getting a seat. God help us.

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As mentioned earlier, an expected protest vote to a new party. Can't see him repeating this form next time.

Abbott has to be careful now. Ãt's not so much that he won as labor lost this election. It seems he doesn't have control of the new senate... although the greens appear to have lost their bargaining power. It's arguably a typical cautious support (by not overwhelming the senate) for Abbott at least for one term. If the LNP should loose a senate seat to any of the others, it would be a sure sign of caution for Abbott.

Abbott has the government to lose now. Assuming Labor appoints some fresh blood, free of strong faction or union affiliation, all things otherwise being equal next time, they will surely win back some of their seats.

As mentioned previously he made a small target of himself, successfully. He now really needs to be very true to his word and make no surprise decisions or construe any of his vague policies to anything substantially different to what was perceived. He just needs to clean out a bit of bureaucratic dead wood and improve efficiency in the near term.

Assuming almost anyone except Bill Shorten becomes leader, Labor would be a real threat for next election. So theoretically, with everyone resuming their seats knowing that it was probably more a protest vote against the Labor, Greens fiasco than support for the LNP... they should be on their best behaviour and achieve some good government for the next three years.

Oh, and btw good riddens to Oakshot!

With reference to Rudd's rather long speech.....

It's a Saturday night. Some will be sitting at home watching the TV election coverage but there will also be many people out and about at restaurants, pubs, nightclubs and otherwise partying for completely non-political reasons.

I'd take a guess that there will be people who caught a glimpse of the news coverage whilst in a shop etc and will now honestly be thinking that Labor has won the election. I mean that seriously - if someone saw a minute or two of Rudd and nothing else, they'd go away thinking he was claiming victory. It won't be until sometime tomorrow that they find out that this is not actually the case.

This would surely be the most ridiculous, drawn out election campaign we've ever had. Incredibly long, a change of Prime Minister during the campaign, and the loser makes what could easily be mistaken for a victory speech.

As for the actual results, I'm not surprised that Palmer has attracted a significant vote. I suspect that much of this is a "protest vote" against Labor / Liberal rather than a vote for Palmer as such and that would especially be so outside of Palmer's own electorate. That the Greens vote declined suggests that a considerable amount of their support is also a protest vote, some of which has now gone to Palmer.

So what happens now? Listening to the TV coverage I suspect that the new government faces a tough time in the Senate especially with regard to the carbon tax issue. Time will tell, but comments from various Labor members pointed that way.

The one thing I really don't like, is that representatives from both Labor and the Coalition (think I saw this on Channel 7 or it might have been the ABC - I watched some of both) were suggesting that there's a good chance of Pauline Hanson being elected once again. That's probably the only point they agreed on - this is not a good development for Australia to have her back on the scene.

Another interesting observation, that being the Greens seeming to acknowledge Palmer as a legitimate alternative. I can't think of two parties further apart politically, but credit to the Green (can't remember his name) who made the point. No real comment really, I just think it's an interesting situation given how different their policies and philosophy are.

My real hope, specific issues and parties aside, is that 3 years from now we have an election based on actual policy and substance rather than the fluff that has dominated the past few months.

Congratulations to Tony Abbott and the Coalition
I think he will make a good PM.

Labor only have themselves to blame and I am glad its over.

Whiskers said:

Looks like the Gillard, independents and greens alliance was probably the biggest factor, looking at the hiding in Tas in particular with the strong history of the greens forcing everyone to unreasonably pander to them at the fed and state levels... capped off with the leadership and party disunity.

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There's an interesting split within Tas too.

In short, independent Andrew Wilkie has retained Denison (Hobart an inner suburbs) whilst Labor has retained Franklin (basically the outer suburbs in all directions). But the Liberals have won the other 3 electorates in Tas (ie everwhere not near Hobart).

The significance of this, in my opinion, is that:

1. Andrew Wilkie is a stong, outspoken and seemingly effective MP. He won as such.

2. Labor retained a traditional working class seat which includes all of the "welfare suburbs" in that part of the state (Hobart) where most public servants also happen to be based.

3. Liberal won the rest, noting that the Tas economy is pretty much stuffed especially in the northern half of the state (Launceston isn't so bad, but apart from that it's stuffed).

The really strange thing and my main point is that, in Tas at least, Liberal is effectively now the default "workers party" with the strongest support in the more economically depressed parts of the state. Concern about pay and conditions (ie vote Labor) has given way to concern about having a job at all (ie vote Liberal). I think that's an interesting situation to have arisen where Liberal represents the workers and the key supporters of the Greens are those in the wealthiest suburbs.