Talk:2004 Australian federal election/Archive 2

message: Does anyone else find the following
The National and Liberal Parties won the fifth and sixth seats respectively in Queensland, thus giving the Coalition 39 seats and outright control of the Senate. Labor won the final seats in New South Wales and South Australia, giving it 28 seats. The Greens won the final seats in Western Australia and Tasmania.
confusing? If someone isn't paying attention, could someone think that the Coalition won every seat in Queensland? Andjam 02:20, 21 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, this is confusing.  The reference is to Senate seats only and should clearly state that - or a have a subheading to that effect Peter Campbell 04:57, 28 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Confusing paragraph 

message: The Democrats in turn did a preference deal with the Family First Party, despite the great ideological differences between the two parties.
Apart from VSU, and religious issues (abortion, gay marriage, etc), it could be argued the two parties are not that different. They're pro-reconciliation, ambivalent about IR changes, opposed the Iraq war but supported subsequent peacekeeping. I guess people thought FF would be a proxy for the Coalition, but they've since opposed a lot of their legislation. Maybe it should be re-worded to say that some people viewed the deal as a cynical deal, especially if any notable politicians denounced it thus. Andjam 02:39, 21 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I really don't think this is particularly POV. The religious differences here are major' ones. It's not just things such as abortion and gay marriage either - the gulf between Don Chipp and Steve Fielding on issues of censorship couldn't be broader. Ambi 02:52, 21 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Which aspects of censorship are you referring to? Censorship of "immoral" stuff (eg porn) in particular, of censorship in general? Aren't the Democrats in favour of anti-vilification legislation, as well as "truth in political advertising" legislation? (Another possible example of different perceptions of similarity of parties could be that some would regard the Australian Democrats as being different to One Nation, while one person called a Democrat a Pauline Hanson with a Degree (PhD)) Andjam 03:27, 21 December 2005 (UTC)

text: No, you've dismissed it as a view held by "left-wing people", which is blatantly POV. Ambi 09:45, 28 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I didn't mean to use it in a dismissive manner. Some Democrat supporters envisage the party as being a left-wing one and other supporters envisage it as a centrist one. If nothing else, it should be noted that it's the Democrats supporters who were annoyed, not the FF supporters. (Given that many of those annoyed at the Democrats weren't going to vote for them anyway, Democrats supporters may be a slight misnomer, but...) Andjam 09:58, 28 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: The FF supporters were hardly likely to be offended at another party preferencing them, seeing as they happily courted Labor too. While I see where you're going with this, I don't think it's an unreasonable generalisation to say that this is how it generally went down. Ambi 10:09, 28 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: What I meant by "not annoyed" was that FF supporters weren't offended by FF giving preferences to a party that supports gay marriage and the like, not that they were not offended by the Democrats giving them preferences. (Double negatives? I ain't using no double negatives!) Andjam 10:19, 28 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Who were the Democrats being preferenced over that opposed gay marriage? Ambi 10:28, 28 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm not sure what their preferences were (it's only partially mentioned in the article), but the Democrats are more supportive of gay marriage than Labor and the Coalition. I'm assuming that the Democrats are ahead of the majors, otherwise it wouldn't be much of a deal. Andjam 11:06, 28 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  POV about preference deal 

message: This galvanised Labor's base but many commentators felt that Latham's policies and personality alienated middle class voters. In retrospect Labor's forests policy was a major miscalculation, costing two seats in Tasmania.
Wouldn't Latham's forests policy be an example of Labor galvanising middle class voters at the expense of Labor's "base", ie the opposite of the first sentence? Andjam 10:04, 28 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Nice catch - the two sentences are completely contradictory. They're both quite true, but putting it that way is odd, to say the least. Ambi 10:09, 28 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Labour's forest policy did not cost them two seats in Tasmania - they would have lost these seats in any case - but this is a commonly held perception.  I will look for a reference on this.  Peter Campbell 10:13, 28 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Nonsense. That's been the conclusion of just about every political commentator I've read on the subject, including the likes of Antony Green. Ambi 10:28, 28 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: That is the popular belief - and may well be the case for Braddon which had a large and unexpected swing, but I don't think the same claim can be made or verified for Bass - which was one of the most marginal seats in the country. The "forests costs seats" line is POV from some logging-affiliated unionists.  The ALP is lost primary votes across the board Peter Campbell 01:05, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

text: Agreed.  I think Howard has been taking votes of the "ALP core" as more "workers" prosper, own homes and have mortgages - hence the interest rates & economic credibility scare run by the Coalition.  Some of the "Liberal core" is undoubtedly going elsewhere (to Greens & ALP) as per "doctors wives" and general discontent about Howard's lack of substantive action on environment/climate change etc AND on treatment of asylum seekers.  Howard successfully stopped some of this drifting vote by running the "extreme kooky greens" scare campaign. For every action there is a reaction. Peter Campbell 02:21, 19 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I thought that it was FF that ran the kooky greens campaign. Andjam 02:31, 19 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Analysis of Latham 

message: Bob Brown had been a Senator and the informal leader of the Australian Greens since 1996. By resolutely opposing Australia's participation in the Iraq War he established himself as the most prominent figure of the Australian left and gained a high reputation for integrity.
Other parties also opposed the Iraq war. Is the difference that the Greens opposed them unconditionally? Andjam 11:11, 28 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Bob Brown analysis 

message: I think some subheadings within the Campaign section would make more readable and flow better. Comments? Peter C Talk! 00:56, 20 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: It reads like a Melbourne Cup commentator - and they're off! michael talk 07:29, 7 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Subheadings for Campaign section? 

message: What was wrong with the name 'Australian Federal Election 2000' ?  The problem with 'Australian legislative election' is that suggests the election only involved the legislative arm (i.e.:  the House of Representatives, not the Senate).  Otherwise, the word 'legislative' sounds redundantKransky 14:51, 17 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree that the title of the article is a bit bizarre. All elections in Australia are "legislative", there is no such thing as a non-legislative election, there is no direct election of judges or the executive. In response to Kransky, both the House of Reps and and the Senate are legislative, the reason the election affects the executive is because the numbers in the House of Reps determine who is Prime Minister, ie the winner of the election. The term "General Election" is widely used, so the full title of the article should be "Australian General Election 2004"LimitedNews 21:55, 22 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Name

message: Can someone put the old leader infobox under the current results infobox without stuffing up the layout? I don't know how to fix it. Brisvegas 10:57, 16 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Infoboxes