I, for one, kinda-sorta welcome our new overlords
It's good news, but it's not all good news. The Coalition are out, and not before time. Ding, dong, the witch is dead, and so forth.
Howard may or may not lose his own seat -- the latest numbers from the AEC show Howard with 32,283 first preference votes, McKew with 32,852. On a two-party preferred, McKew is ~3000 votes in front, so it looks like that seat will be decided by preferences, and particularly the Green preferences.
The bad news: The Democrats got pounded even harder than the Coalition. Last night, Andrew Bartlett was remaining positive and expecting a long wait, today he seems to be conceding defeat. He blogs about this here. This is truly a tragedy for reasoned consideration of legislation in the upper house. It's also a tragedy that more people voted for each of Pauline bloody Hanson or Family First than the Democrats.
The ABC are predicting the Senate numbers thusly:
If accurate, Labor will need the support of the Greens and both Family First Senator Steve Fielding and new independent senator Nick Xenophon to pass legislation opposed by the Coalition.
As Nic Suzor points out, this will leave us particularly vulnerable to extremist hold-outs in the Senate. We could see a repeat of the Harradine years, where ill-conceived Internet censorship legislation was enacted to buy his support in other areas.
Howard may or may not lose his own seat -- the latest numbers from the AEC show Howard with 32,283 first preference votes, McKew with 32,852. On a two-party preferred, McKew is ~3000 votes in front, so it looks like that seat will be decided by preferences, and particularly the Green preferences.
The bad news: The Democrats got pounded even harder than the Coalition. Last night, Andrew Bartlett was remaining positive and expecting a long wait, today he seems to be conceding defeat. He blogs about this here. This is truly a tragedy for reasoned consideration of legislation in the upper house. It's also a tragedy that more people voted for each of Pauline bloody Hanson or Family First than the Democrats.
The ABC are predicting the Senate numbers thusly:
| Coalition | 37 |
| Labor | 32 |
| Greens | 5 |
| Family First | 1 |
| "Other" | 1 |
If accurate, Labor will need the support of the Greens and both Family First Senator Steve Fielding and new independent senator Nick Xenophon to pass legislation opposed by the Coalition.
As Nic Suzor points out, this will leave us particularly vulnerable to extremist hold-outs in the Senate. We could see a repeat of the Harradine years, where ill-conceived Internet censorship legislation was enacted to buy his support in other areas.
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