Posted on 08/21/2010 12:49:31 AM PDT by naturalman1975
Thanks for the live thread and congratulations on the outcome! We’ll be pulling for a change in government soon.
I wasn’t happy for Ozzies stuck with KRudd, either. I found it rather spooky that he did the same unicorn speeches similar to the Won. Long on skittles, short on substance.
Tentative congratulations, Naturalman1975. At least labor does not have a majority. Whew.
Please keep us posted. And may the force be with us Stateside in November!
Any update? CNBC is reporting that Labor has agreed to all of the demands of the independents and the conservative coalition has not.
The conservative coalition now looks to have 73 near certain seats, Labor has 71. The Greens have 1, and there are 4 independents.
1 seat remains in doubt, but is most likely going to go Labor over Liberal.
Negotiations are underway with the independents at present.
What Labor has agreed to and the coalition has not is a demand by the independents that they have access to confidential Treasury information concerning the state of the budget. The Prime Minister has agreed, the Leader of the Opposition has not - the reason he has not, is because the request is probably a violation of what are called the ‘caretaker conventions’ - the rules by which government is meant to operate in an election period (which we are still in). The request is arguably unconstitutional. This information is only supposed to be provided to a new government after it takes office.
Thanks; in the US an unconstitutional action to win an election by the Democrats would be expected. Maybe the Australian Labor party has the same mindset?
Yes, I think Ms Gillard is willing to ignore the rules if it gives her an edge.
This isn’t an incredibly blatant violation - if it went to the High Court, they might even rule that the exceptional circumstances justify it (it could be argued that the independents will certainly be part of any government and so are entitled to see this advice). But it’s certainly not something that should be done without careful thought and discussion.
Potentially possible, but I would say the odds are in our favour at this point.
The fact we have more seats than Labor (either 73-72, or 74-71 depending on the way the last seat falls - the numbers aren’t guaranteed but they are pretty solid at this point except in that last seat) is fairly important. And polls being taking in the independents own constituencies show most of the people who voted for them want them to support the coalition over Labor (by about 55-33, with 12% uncommitted). If they support Labor, it will hurt them in their own seats.
There’s no guarantees, but we’re in a better position than Labor right now.
If Labor could have got it up to 72 all, things would be different. In a tie, the incumbents have the greater right to govern and you have to find a justification to go different. If we’re ahead, we have the greater right, and they have find reasons to go Labor.
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