Bushwalk Australia

Voters in Victoria will likely be represented in Canberra's upper house come July by Ricky Muir, of the Australian Motoring Enthusiast Party, who appears to have a filmed his backyardkangaroo poo fight and posted it on the internet.

http://www.stuff.co.nz/world/australia/ ... rowing-row

Yes, we've all been discussing this on the various forums and social media sites. He is only one of a few noob senators with interesting history, largely got elected in by opportunistic situations. [palm-face]

It can't be worse than our new PM who thinks climate change is rubbish.

What the?? Hasn't everyone had a roo nugget fight?? Arkk.. haven't lived!!
Oh.. maybe its the pollie thing?? more 'respectable' upbringings??- no need to have flung dung to be in politics?? hahar -yeah right!
I voted for more of the green pheno this time (rather than brown).. still dung.. still smells that way!

Hallu wrote:It can't be worse than our new PM who thinks climate change is rubbish.

Abbott can think what he likes but control on whether those environmental measures get repealed or not lies with the Senate. So these noob senators matters. I can guess how a petrol head and Clive Palmer think of these issues. A worry.

I can live with personal opinions we dont agree with but equating "invisible" with harmless boggled my mind

The Australian political system is an absolute joke, especially this preferencing crap.

Another member of Australia's new Senate is likely to be gridiron-playing engineer Wayne Dropulich, representing the Australian Sports Party - which has no platform other than playing a lot of sport. Dropulich won just 0.22 per cent of the vote, but preferences from other small candidates will put him ahead of a Labor candidate who won 12.33 per cent.

Strider wrote:The Australian political system is an absolute joke, especially this preferencing crap.

Another member of Australia's new Senate is likely to be gridiron-playing engineer Wayne Dropulich, representing the Australian Sports Party - which has no platform other than playing a lot of sport. Dropulich won just 0.22 per cent of the vote, but preferences from other small candidates will put him ahead of a Labor candidate who won 12.33 per cent.

Unless reformed, Australia will need to run 2nd round of voting to weed out these ridiculous spur of the moment "parties" from getting onto our tax dollar funded payrolls.

wayno wrote:Voters in Victoria will likely be represented in Canberra's upper house come July by Ricky Muir, of the Australian Motoring Enthusiast Party, who appears to have a filmed his backyardkangaroo poo fight and posted it on the internet.

http://www.stuff.co.nz/world/australia/ ... rowing-row

NSW hasn't faired much better: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-09-09/nsw-sends-liberal-democrat-to-senate/4945080.

michael_p wrote:NSW hasn't faired much better: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-09-09/nsw-sends-liberal-democrat-to-senate/4945080.

8.88% donkey vote. Why do they even bother to vote? Void would have been better.

I don't think we can go far with such topics before they narrow down to personal opinion and sketchy assumptions- individuals or parties (rather than just reporting facts I guess). Seems harmless, though, as a report (quite rightly) points out; please keep the forum rules in mind:

Political content unrelated to bushwalking is not permitted, either for or against any particular issue, party, person or organisation.

GPSGuided wrote:

michael_p wrote:NSW hasn't faired much better: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-09-09/nsw-sends-liberal-democrat-to-senate/4945080.

8.88% donkey vote. Why do they even bother to vote? Void would have been better.

More importantly, what idiot decided voting should be compulsory? Prevention is better than the cure.

For anyone interested this explains the Australian preferential voting system in more detail.
The stupid thing is preferences get passed to people they think have no possible chance of getting in but when everyone does it, they actually do get in on a few percent of the primary vote.
There has got to be a better way than this.

This is all I have to say on this matter.

LandSailor wrote:The stupid thing is preferences get passed to people they think have no possible chance of getting in but when everyone does it, they actually do get in on a few percent of the primary vote.

It is ironic isn't it? There's just no perfect system. Compulsory voting prods people to think and participate but picks up a percentage of donkey voters. Non-compulsory voting (US) also has its own set of problems in the society. Maybe they should randomise the order on the ballot paper so any donkey votes get spread across all parties but I am sure this will create other problems.

How about not having 54 senate candidates so people don't get bored after number 15 and select the rest at random.

We could start the Bushwalkers Party. Get that senate ticket and then negotiate that your favourite patch of bush be "locked up" as a National Park in return for voting for the sell off of some public infrastructure. Poo throwing is a desirable quality for joining

Pteropus wrote:We could start the Bushwalkers Party. Get that senate ticket and then negotiate that your favourite patch of bush be "locked up" as a National Park in return for voting for the sell off of some public infrastructure. Poo throwing is a desirable quality for joining

Well, have 3 years to round up the troops. But may have to hurry in case a double resolution gets called in the not too distant future. Good preference deals and 1st position on the ballot paper is what's needed.

Hallu wrote:our new PM ... thinks climate change is rubbish.

That's incorrect. He simply thinks that the former Labor government's version of an ETS is rubbish. (Possibly based on the the results of some of the similar schemes in other countries).

He was famously quoted as saying that the science was rubbish about 5 years ago, but has since made his position clear that not only does he think climate change real, but that he thinks humans are contributing to it.

Son of a Beach wrote:

Hallu wrote:our new PM ... thinks climate change is rubbish.

That's incorrect. He simply thinks that the former Labor government's version of an ETS is rubbish. (Possibly based on the the results of some of the similar schemes in other countries).

He was famously quoted as saying that the science was rubbish about 5 years ago, but has since made his position clear that not only does he think climate change real, but that he thinks humans are contributing to it.

He was called out on calling the climate change argument "crap" by Kerry O'Brien and defended himself by saying that everyone is casually with their language at times and that it didn't represent his position. But like any politician, it seems his position changes depending on the audience at any given time. What's new... Anyhow, this thread is in danger of becoming a poo throwing contest if we go down this path of the character of our new PM and discussion on climate change (as I have found in the past)

At least it has got Ricky Muir off his New Start Allowance!

I thought I would check what his salary package was likely to be, so searched for "Politician salary" on the govt website.

This is what I got! Seems appropriate

Search for Australian Senator Allowances and you get

Introduction

Senators and members receive an annual allowance[1] by way of basic salary—$140 910 from 1 July 2011


I think I'll start a nice sounding political party and get into the Senate.
All you need is nine years service and a pension for life.

But I'd be completely crazy within a month

I understand they are in the $190+k range now. Wasted tax money on some of those guys!

Good one Tastrax Give it thirty seconds once a polly finds about that

If we believe in democracy then everyone should vote and anyone encouraged stand, no matter how strange they may appear to others. The alternative is a dictatorship of some form of political "elite".

The only two reforms I would like to see is on the senate paper for preferential voting above the line as it appears that the politicians as a group can not be trusted and some of their preference deals are even against the way people that vote for them would want. Nik Xenophon (He is SA so I did not vote for him so no political allegiance there) pointed out the preference deals that went on in South Australian and I was amazed. I thought people that voted for any "body of beliefs" that I had should have their preference going to the closest matching candidate but instead it appears to be one of horse trading and trying to sabotage the election of a rival that might be gaining votes from me as their position is similar to mine.

The second is a vote counts even if it only has one number below the line because seriously by the time I get past the top twenty I have no idea who they are or more likely find their politics revolting. Just means that my vote gets exhausted and the preference lost in an extreme circumstance.

Maybe the final thing is a a bigger voting booth table and or smaller multi-page ballots. It was bad enough in Tassie but seeing voters fight with the ballot paper in NSW highlighted this administrative matter.

I as a matter of principle always vote below the line as I tend to go 54 backwards as the politicians' campaign of negativity appears to have worked So I select the one I can less abide and give them the finger (54). This election ticket sadly I only had one 54 and so many deserving candidates. Also I can vote for a group but make felt my unhappiness with their number one that nowadays is a party power broker rather than the best person. Scrutineers do report back to party HQ on these things so I encourage more to vote this way.

And if you think the minor and micro parties have fruitloops stop to think how many people of dubious ethics and sanity the bigger parties have put up.

As one person I respect says, "A country will get the politicians that it deserves".

Cheers

I reckon there should be no automated preferences, simple as that. In the senate if you bother to numbber all boxes good for you (I did this time) but having parties decided who someone preferences without any other voice from the voter is wrong

It is okay to laugh isn't it? I mean, it's natural for some people laugh when they are afraid! Some political satire from Crikey's First Dog on the Moon -> http://www.crikey.com.au/2013/09/10/unr ... e-swill-2/

What struck me about politics in Australia are 2 things : 1) they hate reforms. They'd rather do nothing than make a mistake. Completely different to many European countries where the strategy is "I need to be remembered so I'll make as many reforms as I can and make an impression" and 2) their strong bond with the industry (influencing the political decisions) despite having almost no government-owned company in the country.

And to come back to the compulsory vote, I can't understand it when I see that so few aboriginal people vote (which is why there was nothing in Rudd or Abbott's program dealing with aboriginal communities and their numerous issues).

What's different to pretty much all Western countries? The US is completely linked with all their industry (read big $$$) special interest groups. Italy was until recently completely held to ransom by the country's richest businessman. The list goes on...

GPSGuided wrote:What's different to pretty much all Western countries? The US is completely linked with all their industry (read big $$$) special interest groups. Italy was until recently completely held to ransom by the country's richest businessman. The list goes on...

I don't know, I guess I just feel it a lot more in Australia when I see big mining companies scarring national parks such as Karijini or Kakadu. And this certainly wouldn't happen in the US. Over there, once a National Park is declared, at least you can't touch it. Here, we're talking about allowing logging and hunting in VIC and NSW NPs, and Queensland has authorized grazing by cattle in NPs in case of drought. And yet it doesn't seem like such the scandal that it should be, because it's Australia, and this is pretty common and expected from greedy industry-friendly state governments...