Immigration, refugees and multiculturalism are issues that no-one in the centre left parties likes to talk about during election campaigns. The spectre, not to mention the reality, of Pauline Hanson is ever present not just on All Soul's Day.
Xenophobia seems to be well and truly alive in Australia if you go by some of the comments in response to my article Australia’s multicultural society works! in ONLINE Opinion. It has always disturbed me that the easiest thing to teach our children is hate.
If you missed last night's SBS Insight program catch the repeat on Friday afternoon. It looks at the African immigration issue from the perspective of local Noble Park people.
Labor View is intended as a place for labor supporters to share ideas and opinions. When you visit please leave a COMMENT below.
Wednesday, October 31, 2007
Xenophobia alive and well...
Tuesday, October 30, 2007
Picking Winners #3: 1998 Reflections
1998 saw a national swing of 4.61% to the ALP, giving it 50.98% of the two-party-preferred vote. It only won 67 of the 148 seats or 45.27%. A depressing reflection for Labor voters. With a uniform swing in every electorate, the ALP would have won 17 of the 18 seats which it did capture, plus 11 more.
This graph of seats which changed hands includes Hume which switched from National to Liberal, Curtin and Moore won by the Libs from independents and Kalgoorlie won by the Libs from the former ALP member and then independent. These swings are not towards the ALP.
Most of the large swings against the government were in safe ALP or Coalition seats. A lot of "wasted" votes. With only 0.93% more in 8 marginals Kim Beazley would have saved us 9 years of Mr. Sneaky.
Kevin Rudd will be hoping that this pattern does not repeat itself in 2007 or that the national swing is enough to overcome this.
Monday, October 29, 2007
Picking Winners #2: Seats changing hands
There was quite a spread in 2004 as the national, seat by seat, swings show. An earlier post shows the top 20 of these.
In 2004, 70 seats had a swing less than the 1.79% average towards the government and 79 had a swing greater than the average. Yet so few seats changed hands. Those that did were all over the place. All the Coalition wins were with swings greater than the average except one. Reasons varied. Four weeks before the campaign the impact on Tasmanian seats of forest policy could not have been anticipated quite the way it panned out.
If the swing had only been the average 1.79% in the seats picked up by the government, 6 of the 8 would still have been changed hands. Had the swing been uniform then the ALP would have won 59 seats compared with the 60 they did win.
The spread seemed to even out in the end across the nation. But if you're trying to pick a particular seat to have a punt, good luck!
Labor View is intended as a place for labor supporters to share ideas and opinions. When you visit please leave a COMMENT below.
Kyoto: Howard hoist on his own...
Howard's rejection of Kyoto has always been symbolic not practical. A tough no nonsense approach, inline with his mate Geroge W.
It worked for a while but the tide has turned and now the government has dropped its standard or being hoisted on its own petard. Malcolm Turnbull cannot enjoy being the standard bearer. (Love mixing metaphors. It's fitting that petard comes from the word for "fart"). Something to do with wind power?
Rudd is certainly on a winner with Al Gore rather than the neo-cons.
Sunday, October 28, 2007
Picking Winners #1: Top 20 Swings 2004
Picking winners which won't follow the uniform swings used in the plethora of pendulums and meters is a hard job for psephologists. This table shows the 10 seats from the last election with highest swing away from the Howard government and the 10 with the highest swing to them.
The difference between Gilmore (-4.55%) and Canning (9.16%) is a huge 13.71%. If you take into account the 1.79% national swing to the coalition, the swing in Gilmore was 6.34%, to the ALP and 7.37% to the Liberals in Canning. Interestingly, neither seat changed hands. It may all even out in the wash, but it makes the punters' job harder than ever when it comes to picking winners in individual seats. Form is not always a good indicator.
Labor View is intended as a place for labor supporters to share ideas and opinions. When you visit please leave a COMMENT below.
Friday, October 26, 2007
AWAs: Not all plane sailing
We haven’t heard much about Work Choices during the campaign except generalities. However, some things just won’t go away. I reported in August in AWAs up in the air that National Jet pilots in WA were threatening strikes over AWAs. They are the ones who carry the fly-in fly-out miners.
Well it has popped its head up again. They want a collective agreement and may stop work for two days before the election. Pilots’ strike may cripple NW mining (The West Australian, 26 October 2007)
The West Australian also features these two sporting headlines today:
Howard gives $5m for WA cricket (How tragic!)
Howard wishes Cousins well in drug fight (They both need it if they are to play next year. Obviously not part of his tough on drugs talk!)
Won’t bother opening them. Got to draw the line somewhere.
Labor View is intended as a place for labor supporters to share ideas and opinions. When you visit please leave a COMMENT below.
Thursday, October 25, 2007
Charles Perkins Oration 2007
Thanks to Will Owen who provided the following link to Marion Scrymgour's speech "Whose national emergency? Caboolture and Kirribili? or Milikapati and Mutijulu?": Labor minister lashes party over intervention (SMH 24 October 2007).
PDF files of the full speech are available in this article.
Wednesday, October 24, 2007
Two Strong Voices
We have had the very special experience of having two indigenous women as our local members of parliament. Carol Martin, whose video interview for Broome Voices is featured below, was the first aboriginal women elected to any parliament in Australia. She is the State Member for Kimberley in Western Australia.
Marion Scrymgour, who is a Minister in the Northern Territory government, was our local member during the four years we lived in Maningrida. Yesterday she took on Mal Brough and his invasion of NT aboriginal communities. It was time that someone of Marion's authority spoke up so strongly:
Aboriginal Territorians are being herded back to primitivism of assimilation and the days of native welfare. It has been a deliberate, savage attack on the sanctity of Aboriginal family life.
Brough wants NT Minister to resign over intervention criticism (ABC News 24 October 2007)
Download the audio podcast from the ABC news site.
If anyone knows of a complete copy of her speech, please let me know.
Labor View is intended as a place for labor supporters to share ideas and opinions. When you visit please leave a COMMENT below.
Tuesday, October 23, 2007
Killerspudly strikes again!
Search for a Scapegoat 4 - African edition
For my views see Australia's multicultural society works below and posts in the indigenous topic opposite.
Labor View is intended as a place for labor supporters to share ideas and opinions. When you visit please leave a COMMENT below.
Monday, October 22, 2007
Cape Leveque Sunset
While the spin doctors were arguing on Saturday about whether to have the worm, we were enjoying a classic Kimberley sunset at Cape Leveque. No television, no web, just paradise.
