2016 Australian Federal Elections

[Platinum Lucario]

Here in Australia, there's not many days before the Australian Federal Elections are about to begin. On July 2nd (UTC +10:00, UTC +09:30 or UTC +08:00), everyone decides on which candidate they'd like to choose for their electorate.

The two Major Parties, which are the Australian Labor Party and a national front called the Coalition (consisting of Liberal Party of Australia, National Party of Australia, Liberal/National Party and Country Liberal Party) will be facing off against each other. There are also minor parties such as the Australian Greens which also hope to gain some seats in the both House of Representatives and in the Senate.

It's been one of the most discussed things here in Australia as of current. The candidates that the people in Australia vote for... will be the ones who will determine the future for Australia. There has been many stuff discussed regarding the election, such as refugees, the economy, renewable energy, the future of Medicare and many other things.

 

[gimmepie]

I've been really sick so I already did my vote via the post. I found it positively alarming how many extreme anti-islamic and openly racist policies and parties that are present on the ballot this year. I also find it quite ridiculous that it's so hard for anyone to get heard by the major parties they're forced to form overly-specific minor parties.

My first four choices were the Socialist Alliance, Greens, Labor Party and Democratic Labour Party. Gone are the days where the Liberals were a strong, cohesive and reasonable party.

Also worth noting, I urge people to inform themselves before voting and not to fall into the "Liberty Alliance" trap because that party is basically our Donald Trump. They want oppression not liberty and are quite appalling. Pauline Hanson is more reasonable than those lunatics, which is saying something.

 

[bobandbill]

Also had to go with a postal vote this year, thanks to a conference/student school happening across the election weekend.

I've been really sick so I already did my vote via the post. I found it positively alarming how many extreme anti-islamic and openly racist policies and parties that are present on the ballot this year. I also find it quite ridiculous that it's so hard for anyone to get heard by the major parties they're forced to form overly-specific minor parties.

Bonus, the first listed party on the Senate ballot paper is the Australian Health Party. Nice name for a party against vaccinations! :V

 

[gimmepie]

Also had to go with a postal vote this year, thanks to a conference/student school happening across the election weekend.
Bonus, the first listed party on the Senate ballot paper is the Australian Health Party. Nice name for a party against vaccinations! :V

There are so many misleading party names actually, there really should be some sort of standard towards honesty that we hold parties to when they determine their names. Not just one, but both our Liberal parties are now highly conservative, the Liberty Alliance actually wants to infringe on our constitution and so forth.

Interesting to see that H.E.M.P and the Sex Party have formed a coalition. They've always been very outside, almost laughable parties, but it seems as though they're actually trying to make some waves this time around.

 

[Charlie Brown]

Did my postal vote today, and +1 on misleading names. One of the parties on the Senate ballot was "Sustainable Australia" iirc, and I was about to mark them as a middle preference thinking they were for sustainability and stuff but then saw their logo was about "keeping Australia Australian" and protecting the borders and other stuff like that lol.

 

[Aliencommander1245]

It'd be a tight race for me if it was Turnbull vs Shorten on their own merits, but considering how much of a hostage to his party Turnbull's views/opinions have become it has to be hands down Shorten out of the two

 

[Platinum Lucario]

I'll probably have to check the ballot for the electorate of Wannon (which includes my hometown of Warrnambool) and see which candidates on there (as I've forgotten who was listed on there). But also, I have no idea who is listed on the Senate ballot, so I'll have to check that too.

But I know for certain that Australian Greens candidate, Thomas Campbell will definitely be getting my first preference, in hopes of making Wannon a marginal seat (since I know Wannon has been a safe Liberal Party seat for so many decades). And also because my views are exactly in line with the Australian Greens policies, which is also why I became a member of the Australian Greens two years ago.

 

[Hikamaru]

I won't be voting until election day, but the opinion polls that have been coming out have all been close so that makes me believe the election result will be close. The main problem I'm worried about is my mother not voting correctly due to the recent changes to the method for voting on the Senate's ballot paper and the fact she's completely heartless when it comes to politics.

My electorate is Sydney, which is currently held by Tanya Plibersek (deputy Labor leader) and she has held that seat for a long time now so wouldn't be surprising if she retained it again given it's a safe Labor seat.

This election will be a different one to me because it's the first one where all my family is voting, since my brother turned 18 back in April.

 

[gimmepie]

This is scary close right now, wow. Terrifying.

 

[Biogoji]

This has been a nail biter of an election. I just hope that the liberals are able to pull through but i guess this proves that scare tactics can indeed work.

Update: Just to give anyone browsing this thread an update the seat count is 77 to 66 in favour of the Liberal, five independent parties won a seat each I can only confirm three out of those five parties and they are the Greens, Xenophon, One Nation and the KAP i am unsure of who the fifth party is but i will update this post if i figure it out before i fall asleep.. There are still seven seats are in doubt and up for grabs the liberals are leading in five out of seven seats with labour leading in the other two. The counting is excepted to finish at around 2AM and not will more votes will be counted until Tuesday where it is estimated that all postal votes will have arrived and be ready to be counted so tuesday is the earliest that we will see a result/

 

[Ivysaur]

77 to 66? The Electoral Commission says Labor are winning 72 to 66, with seven to go, which could leave the count in Lab 74, Lib 71. If anything, it could be Lab 73, Lib 72 looking at ABC's tally- and it largely depends on how marginal seats go.

But if the Coalition gets 77 seats... well, at this rate, a Labor win looks even more likely than that.

Whatever the case, this is a sound defeat for Turnbull and a victory for Shorten. Even if Turnbull manages to cling to power by getting all the minor parties to support him, or manages to scrape home by a few thousand votes, this is devastating for the guy who knifed Abbot claiming that the alternative was losing the election.

 

[Hikamaru]

I admit that while watching ABC's election coverage it is getting close, especially with Labor gaining some key seats. The seat of Eden-Monaro in NSW getting handed back to Labor is a notably crucial seat since in most elections the party that won that seat would go on to form government.

If Liberal still ends up with more seats they'll likely have to negotiate with the seat holders from the minor parties.

 

[Ivysaur]

If the Liberals end up with more seats but short of a majority, I expect new elections much sooner than 2019. Turnbull is barely alive if he gets an outright majority, and he isn't currently doing that.

 

[Hikamaru]

If the Liberals end up with more seats but short of a majority, I expect new elections much sooner than 2019. Turnbull is barely alive if he gets an outright majority, and he isn't currently doing that.

I think you have a point, I could see the Liberals winning but having to form a minority government by negotiating with the seats held by minor parties. Antony Green, the ABC's election analyst says the result is "too close to call".

 

[gimmepie]

All these people talking shit about Turnbull seem to be forgetting how absolutely terrible Abbott is. Turnbull is a vastly more competent politician than Abbott is or ever will be but a lot of Liberals are basically turning the blame on him knifing Abbott for the results and it'll only be worse if Labor wins (and God I hope they do). The entire party completely lost their minds when they won over Rudd (like that's an achievement lmao) and have in general become progressively more conservative to the point of it being concerning. They were going to have a fight on their hands regardless of their leadership and foisting the blame all onto the better of he two politicians is just them covering their asses in the hopes of a better shot next election.

I'm generally not a huge fan of Labor, they tend to play too loosely with economics, always have huge issues within their party and in general are less effective politicians than the Liberals. But they've maintained a relatively cohesive front and have policies that reflect much more on the newer generations' beliefs and values. If the Liberals want to make any sort of political come-back, they'll need to follow Turnbull's example a bit more and start readjusting their policies to fit a changing world instead of returning even harder to the Abbott mind-set which is a weaker and weaker position the more old conservatives that drop dead.

Aside from that, any thoughts on the medicare debate?

 

[Aliencommander1245]

All these people talking **** about Turnbull seem to be forgetting how absolutely terrible Abbott is. Turnbull is a vastly more competent politician than Abbott is or ever will be but a lot of Liberals are basically turning the blame on him knifing Abbott for the results and it'll only be worse if Labor wins (and God I hope they do).

I feel like "better than Abbott" is putting the bar really low but it's more down to scapegoating than actual criticism. The right-wing/conservative base of the Liberal party were less than thrilled with Turnbull taking power considering his more centre views and have pretty blatantly been trying to keep him on a tight leash and this is just a good opportunity to dump him, regardless if it's bad for the party as a whole or not.

Aside from that, any thoughts on the medicare debate?

There's a medicare debate?

 

[Hikamaru]

I saw some seats swinging heavily to Labor, to the point the party claimed all the seats in Tasmania (Independent Andrew Wilkie was the sole exception) and saw wins in NSW, particularly winning two "bellwether" seats that are known for often going to the side that would eventually form government.

I do think Turnbull has been doing a not-bad job as PM but if Labor wins and Shorten becomes the new PM, I would mostly blame Medicare and people's fear of Liberal privatizing it as the reason behind a Labor win here, despite Turnbull claiming he won't privatize it.

 

[gimmepie]

I feel like "better than Abbott" is putting the bar really low but it's more down to scapegoating than actual criticism. The right-wing/conservative base of the Liberal party were less than thrilled with Turnbull taking power considering his more centre views and have pretty blatantly been trying to keep him on a tight leash and this is just a good opportunity to dump him, regardless if it's bad for the party as a whole or not.

You're definitely not wrong there, sadly even with Turnbull heading the party that leash has kept him from doing any good. It's pretty clear that they want to return to even more conservative policy and being able to blame him for the massive Labor swing going on just about everywhere bar Queensland (in as much as that Labor's standings have improved a lot, not necessarily talking outright wins) is just an added bonus. Instead of Turnbull making the party respectable again they're as bad as ever and fragmented.

There's a medicare debate?

Yup. Labor claims that Liberal was going to privatise Medicare and Liberal is crying scare tactics and outright lies... even though their intention was widely publicised (even by Liberal-leaning media). On top of that there was apparently something about text messages that the Liberals are obviously trying to pin on Labor too.

 

[Platinum Lucario]

Currently as of this post, here's where it stands:
Labor - 66
Coalition - 72
Greens - 1
Others - 4
Seats in doubt - 7

As we're currently aware of in which happened recently, the postal votes that were counted ended up with the Coalition gaining in votes, causing a few seats that were in doubt to become secured by the Liberal Party candidates. From what I've heard, most of the postal votes are votes that go directly to the Liberal Party. Also, the seat of Flynn changed several hours ago from being secured by Labor to becoming a seat in doubt. So it seems like the postal votes are actually turning things backwards in so many ways possible. At this point, I'm not exactly sure if there will be a hung parliament or not, but just looking at the outcome... the Coalition only needs to secure 4 more seats to govern in their own right in the House of Representatives. I was hoping for a hung parliament, but now I kinda see it unlikely to happen.

Anyways, I was meaning to post this earlier, but I didn't even get around to it. I voted the day before the Election on pre-polling (while I was handing out How to Vote cards for Greens, which I also did on Election Day too). Also, I forgot to take a picture of the ballot papers to show everyone my preferences. But I know I did my preferences on the House of Representatives in the same way as displayed on the Greens How to Vote card, but as for the Senate, I voted below the line and filled in every box preferencing every box in every group in the same way as the Greens How to Vote card, but after the last one, I had to think very hard and carefully about which candidate was closest to Greens all the way to furthest. If I remember correctly, I think there was 116 candidates for the Victoria electorate. I preferenced the far-right parties dead last. I know I could've done it above the line, but I feel it's better to do all the boxes below the line so that no backroom preference deals can be done with my vote.

Speaking of How to Vote cards, I noticed how similar the Science Party's policies are to the Greens:

Spoiler:

 

[Hikamaru]

According to ABC election analyst Antony Green, he says that Gilmore's result could be decided later today as likely to go to the Liberals. If that is the case, that will take Liberal's seat count to 73 meaning they'll only need three more for a majority government.