Election Day!

[Pickle]

From what i understand the Greens lost their only seat.

 

I am not getting $600.

[Guest niall]

That's their seat in the House of Reps, I'm talking about their Senate seats. I read today they're still counting, but expect to increase their Senate seats to about 5-6 so this is a very good outcome. In the end it's the Greens who have cannabis-friendly policies, so as long as they keep expanding their vote each year, we're on the path to real cannabis law reform.

 

I'm going to join the Greens next week and start helping out.

[bloodshot_eyes]

It seems that with the help of family first, the Coalition will have greater control of the Senate than ever before. We will become more right wing than ever in our history, we will loose our freedom and privacy as the howard government quells our freedoms for the reasons of "security", we will follow america into any military venture unchecked and we can kiss goodbye cannabis law reform this decade. October 9 2004 was a black day in Australian history and I think it will be 10 or 20 years before we recover from the damage that is going to be done

[RobbieGanjaSeed]

I always thought it was going to be close, and I was really prepared in myheart that we would likely retain Howard, but I never dreamed we would give such a twit a huge margin like this! I don't know anyone at all who voted for Howard, but they seem to be out there.

 

I agree, we're headed for a right wing mess like America. I now a bloke from a site that has quiet a few yanks, and he recently lost his job, because he was busted for an old warrant! Now he has to have three urine tests a week. The cubicle he has to piss in his bottle in has mirrors on the walls and floor, and the one mirror that he faces is actually a one way window/mirror, with a person watching. (what a job!).

 

As a consequence, he has no medical insurance now. Apparently when you work in USA, they give you a wage, and you have access to the work place's medical insurance policy. If you loose that, you're on ya own. Have your own insurance, which is so expensive it's just not on for normal battlers, or pay full price for every medical thing.

 

He has a severely injured back, which is where I met him (on a pain forum). His visit to the dctor is supposed to be weekly, or fortnightly at least, but is somthing like 250 bux a visit, and his medicine, is 285 dollars a script! That's just for Iboprofen. What we pay like 4 dollars for over the counter!

 

If ya ever intersted, do a search on the internet for the price of medicines, anything at all from anti-biotics to pain killers in US pharmacies. It will blow your mind. Most scripts come in at around 200 dollars a pop for a 30 day course.

 

Howard's been taking this country the direction he has with some reservation. But now, with this record win, and outraegous margin, i don't think we'll see any softly softly as we go anymore. I reckon it'll be full on, straight away.

 

I can't believe my fellow countrymen and women have thrown away so much.

 

rob

[Chev]

I knew it would be close, but for Howard to win by such a margin.......... Blows my mind. And I personally know only 1 person who voted for the Libs, everyone else used their sanity and voted for the Greens or Labor. And most people walking around are muttering about how Howard got back in and we got another 4 years under his government, so who the fuck voted for him??

Must be waaaay more rich folk than poor these days :scratchin

[Brainstorm]

I think you'll find you know more people than you realise that voted Liberal on Saturday, there was after all an increase nationally in the Liberal vote.

 

A couple of the big reasons Labour did so poorly was that they didn't challenge the Liberals economics policies at all and I'm sure quite a few normally Labour voters felt that Latham sold out the workers with his Greens deal, how many times have you seen a hall full of blue collar workers cheer a Liberal Prime Minister the way they did in Tassie?

 

For those people that did vote for the Greens especially in the Senate, they probably did the Liberal Party a favour, and the Family First Party also may have taken a few normally labour votes for two reasons, their family policies and their christian values.

 

As for the price of drugs in the US and Aus, we won't likely get that bad on most of our drugs as bodies such as the AMA won't allow any goverment, Liberal or Labour, to chop up the PBA that badly.

 

We will become more right wing than ever in our history, we will loose our freedom and privacy as the howard government quells our freedoms for the reasons of "security", we will follow america into any military venture unchecked and we can kiss goodbye cannabis law reform this decade. October 9 2004 was a black day in Australian history and I think it will be 10 or 20 years before we recover from the damage that is going to be done

 

I doubt very much that we will ever go down the same route as the US with their Patriot Act, what we have now will most likely be about the extent of "security" control.

 

Regarding other military actions the US may go forward with, Howard and Downer have already put the US administration on notice that they will not necessarily join in on every venture the US decide to take on, note the comments about Taiwan.

 

Cannabis law reform was never going to happen this decade and probably not for the next couple of decades, no matter who wins government in the next couple of elections. Without unbiased, positive research it is something that won't be broached - except maybe for limited medical use - remember drug laws are mostly a state issue. Though there may be a chance that changes to laws allowing the cultivation and use of Hemp may have a chance over the next decade or so.

 

Another factor thay may have influenced voters that hasn't been mentioned very much by political commentators is the fact that every state or territory has a Labour government and that traditionally many swing voters have voted for the opposite party from that which holds government in their state

[Frazz]

Labor vote here! its a bloody disaster now with JH having control of BOTH house of parliment,first time in 24yrs,Australia is at his mercy.OMFG!!!

[Luke Skywalker]

@niall, the greens got another 3 or 4 senate seats, and the democrats were wiped out.

 

The reason the Govt. was returned was because of the splitting of the primary vote to the labor from the greens, and the lies, damn lies and statistics of the Howard gov.

 

Be prepared for a sale of telstra; industrial relations reform which will put ALL of the power into the employers pocket; more tax cuts for the rich and leaving the poor behind; disability and unemployment pension reforms which will take legitimate welfare from the mentally and physically ill, or those who just happen to be out there looking for jobs which don't exist, and giving it to the middle and upper classes in family payments and other types of welfare for those who don't need it; medicare to be further disintegrated and damaged, particularly by the new FTA; a further walk down the road to a society with even MORE of it's persons in debt, with a credit system so ridiculously overweighted on itself that all it will take is a puff from a nearby recession to wipe us out; harsher drug laws; and last, but never least.............

 

 

interest rates will rise.

 

Bastards.

 

We just have to talk to and convince more people next time I suppose. I feel Mark will likely keep his job, and over the next three years he'll be working his arse off to put a hold on the Howard or Costello government. If Howard and the conservatives do all the things they want to, and with a senate nominally in their control they can, (even to the point of changing the way the senate is elected, which can be done with a simple majority vote!) totally destroy the nature of this nation and make us into the 53rd state even more than we are already... With this effect, it won't take long for the people to realise what a total and utter disaster this was, and I can see a very strong swing against the government in the next election, simply because they will go too far.

 

Governments with control of the senate and reps are dangerous, for no more reason than the nature of the total control over the senate committee system. They don't want it, it won't be looked at. This will eventually turn the people against them, it's just such a darn shame they didn't vote him out this time round.

 

Just on the logging policy, I think that was their absolute failure on labors part. The plan was well thought out, consistent with keeping jobs and economic development of the logging industry, and would have probably resulted after the year review in almost all old growth forests in Tassie being protected from the clearfelling and woodchip industry. The problem in the policy was that they waited. That was really the problem with all of labors policies. If Mark had decided to release the lot over the months preceeding the election, explaining and discussing things with all groups concerned openly and fairly, then I reckon he woulda won by a landslide. But they held onto most of it until the campaign was called, and even then they hid just about everything from view and costing... it was just stupid. Why? God knows, but if they really expected swinging voters to elect him and the labor party after only knowing about their policies for a couple of weeks, then they must have mush for brains.

 

Perhaps if there's a bit of a coup within the party, and some of the old school powerbrokers don't have so much of a say in the next one, they might scrape together enough brains to realise that what they've been doing over the last 8 years trying to get back into power hasn't worked.

 

Either that, or the present government will be voted OUT, rather than they will be voted IN, which isn't ideal, and isn't the way I'd like to see it, but I'll take Latham over How-hard-does-he-suck-bush-dick anyday.

[rightwingsmoker]

Australians know their right wing from their wrong. I'd not like to see Howard with power though because he banned guns, maybe Costello.

 

I'd love to see Pauline get some power back. And the Shooters party to become a force.

 

Just because a party is against legalisation doesn't mean they are not the best party for the country.

 

You've probably had friends who you do not agree with on everything, so one issue should not make you get so agro.

[Luke Skywalker]

Uh, yeah....

 

I hope Howard smokes a joint one day, and realises just what a total fuck he's been.

 

And Pauline hanson is a moron. Simple solutions for complex problems doesn't make things better, it just makes it worse.

 

I can think of few things worse than the shooters organisations having more lobbying power than they already do.

 

Welcome to OS rightwingsmoker, hope you enjoy the boards.