Australian Election

vanity | 9th October 2004 | naturalman1975

[naturalman1975]

I hesitate to suggest this, as I am fairly new around here, but I have noticed that there is quite a lot of interest in the Australian eleciton, so I thought I would make an offer here. I will be watching the election coverage and if people are interested, as the coverage proceeds, I can post updates in this thread, so people can follow what is happening in Australia.

Just an offer. Coverage starts in 15 minutes.

Oh and if any other Aussies want to post updates as well, of course, I wouldn't object. It's just I can see interest.

[ambrose]

What you call Precincts, I think are referred to as Booths here - none hold out deliberately, but some inner city ones do tend to take longer to report.

Sure - they wait to see how many ballot boxes to stuff.

[naturalman1975]

Too many seats should start coming in soon, so I will start focusing on broad trends at this point. Early results looking reasonably positive.

[naturalman1975]

Braddon and Bass in Tasmania virtually certainly to have gone to Liberal party.

Net result for Tasmania - 2 seats gained by Coalition.

[naturalman1975]

Eden-Monaro - seat that has matched every Australian election result since 1972, is currently too close to call.

[GAGOPSWEEPTOVICTORY]

Net result for Tasmania - 2 seats gained by Coalition.

That's great news. From 5-0 Labor to 3-2 Labor. Where could Labor possibly make this up? What's your term for a particular seat? I know it's "riding" in Canada.

[naturalman1975]

What's your term for a particular seat? I know it's "riding" in Canada.

Referred to as 'Seat' or 'Electorate' here.

Labor will hope for gains in Queensland.

[Terp]

http://www.abc.net.au/streaming/newsradio.ram

Listen Live

[piasa]

Here's to hoping for good news from down under.

[Cindy]

Absolutely.
Good news is most welcome.

[jellybean]

Don't you ever rest?

I keep strange hours :^)

Besides, I have tomorrow off...I can sleep whenever I want.

How goes the election?

[zeppenwolf]

It's sure hard to root for "liberals", but I'm trying!!

Ok, so:

Howard = Liberal/Coalition
Latham = Labor (Labour?)

As far as the acronyms in this chart thingie:

"NAT" ?
ALP = "Aussie Labor Party" ?
LIB = Liberal (Howard)

[naturalman1975]

NAT = National, the party that is in coalition with the Liberals to form goverment.

LIB = Liberal Party of Australian
ALB = Australian Labor Party

[Brandon]

I think "NAT" is The Nationals -- if I'm reading this right, they're Howard's partners in the Coalition government. We want The Nationals to do well, along with the Liberals.

[naturalman1975]

Also

GRN = Green
DEM = Democrats
FF = Family First
OTH = Other/Independent

Only GRN and OTH currently have House of Reps seats, out of the minor groups.

[naturalman1975]

I think "NAT" is The Nationals -- if I'm reading this right, they're Howard's partners in the Coalition government. We want The Nationals to do well, along with the Liberals.

Exactly - a National Party win is just as good as a Liberal Party win.

Basically Liberals are City Conservatives, Nationals are Country Conservatives.

[naturalman1975]

Big concern at this point is the Green vote - Green preferences could give Labor seats.

Nick Minchin (Liberal Minister) thinks a hung parliament (neither party having an absolute majority) is the best result Labor can hope for.

Prime Ministers own seat may be in some very slight danger - slight possibility (very slight) that we could end up with a Liberal government, with the Prime Minister having to leave because he didn't get elected himself.

[GAGOPSWEEPTOVICTORY]

2004 Federal Election Facts & Figures

• Across Australia 13,021,230 electors enrolled to vote.
• Currently 4.38% of the primary vote has been counted.
• The two party preferred count is 2.58% complete.
• Polling place results are not available on election night to optimise system performance.
• The election results and analysis on this website were last updated at 9/10/2004 6:58:00 PM.

House of Representatives National Two Party Preferred Result

Coalition	Votes	Percentage %	Swing %
Liberal/National Coalition	177,697	52.82	+3.26
Australian Labor Party	158,732	47.18	-3.26

Summary of Divisions Won

Party	NSW	VIC	QLD	WA	SA	TAS	ACT	NT	National
									This Election	Last Election
Australian Labor Party	0	0	0	0	0	3	0	0	3	65
Liberal	0	3	0	0	0	1	0	0	4	68
The Nationals	1	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	1	13
CLP - The Territory Party	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	1
Independent	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	3
Doubtful	49	34	28	15	11	1	2	2	142	0
TOTAL	50	37	28	15	11	5	2	2	150	150
COUNTED %	1.34	1.65	1.32	0.00	0.01	60.51	0.07	0.00	2.58

[ozguy]

Analysts on both ABC and Channel 9 saying already there is a swing to the coaltion
Beginning to look hard for Labor to gain necessary seats for victory

[naturalman1975]

After one hour of counting in most populous states.

Coalition vote seems to be up 3.8%

Labor looks to need to win 15 extra mainland seats to win.

Power failure means they can't show us all their fancy graphics!

Early figures on mainland (oh, need to explain - Tasmania is an island, everything else is the mainland) showing possible Coalition gains.

[Sapper26]

According to the ABC site listed earlier, after 4.4% counted.

The coalition have 64 seats (56 won and 8 likely). Labor et al have 39 seats.