Jimmy's weblog

Some of the most significant images in the last few days of the election campaign were the television screens filled with Tasmanian Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union (CFMEU) members cheering John Howard as he launched his forestry policy. Seeing one of Australia’s most militant unions publicly supporting their natural enemy raised questions in [...]

Crikey has a list of the grubbiest preference deals made for the 2004 Federal Election. The list was posted five days before the election and at least one of the deals had a major effect on the balance of power. Here are some of the more interesting ones and their election ramifications:

Democrats preferencing [...]

Today’s Photo of the Day comes via email. It seems that the election result is already taking its toll on someone’s mental health. At least our schools / universities are teaching good research skills…

Subtitle: “If you voted Liberal I will hunt you down and KILL YOU. I don’t know where you live but [...]

I only managed to watch a small part of the second US presidential debate so I can’t comment on who won or lost. Media reports suggest the debate was a tie while the left and right wing blogs generally give the debate to their candidate (no surprises there).
Mystery Pollster points out that media coverage [...]

It looks more and more like the Coalition will win 38 Senate seats, leaving them one seat short of an outright majority but still in a position to control Senate procedures. Family First are almost certain to take the last Victorian Senate seat and win the balance of power.
Although Family First is a socially [...]

Wow, what an election result! To the surprise of almost everyone (including both the Coalition and Labor), John Howard has pulled off a decisive election win and increased his government’s majority. Even more importantly, it looks like the Liberal / National coalition will take control of the Senate for the first time since [...]

Subtitled: “I surf porn and I vote” OR “I burn witches and I vote”
In a vain attempt to lighten up this serious election day, more quality reporting from the Murdoch press:

PORN-USERS are more than twice as likely to vote Green compared with the general population, according to the preliminary findings of a new Australian study.
Almost [...]

Just back from listening to a two-hour talk by Dr Richard Stallman on the danger of software patents. RMS, as he is more commonly known, is one of the fathers of the Free Software Foundation and author of many of the GNU tools including the Emacs editor.
Below is my summary of his talk. [...]

Well spotted by Ben Haslam who points out an unusual prediction from The Australian newspaper. A photo from the front page of the finance section shows bookie’s odds for who will win Saturday’s election. Apparently the graphic designer wasn’t aware that red letters represent odds on, leaving One Nation at 4-5 to win.