Transport back to the year 2002 and you’ll find countless references to the web voting system donated to both the NSW State and the Federal Parliament by Big Pulse - a company specialising in online elections. It was launched Federally by Greg Hunt, who said in a speech to parliament in September that year the site was “a new opportunity” and “a constructive use of modern technology for information and for insight into our democracy”.

As The Australian reported, the voting system was set up by “Finance guru Ralph McKay” through his company Big Pulse. The objective was to allow MPs to nominate positions on issues important to them and then vote online. It was hoped this would enhance parliamentary debate on key issues, and allow MPs to express their real views rather than tow the standard party line. Members could vote on these positions, most notably, either by name or anonymously.

Mr Oakeshott said in 2002 that the site “provides anonymous polling for members of Parliament” and that it “gives us an opportunity to vote with our conscience.”

“I told the company that I would give it a plug and tell all honourable members to get a password and participate. The success of this venture depends on the level of participation”, Oakeshott informed, “it is about building a bridge with a community.”

The site died a bit of a death after that. The Australian reported the major issue was that not all MPs were on board, a similar sentiment to that held by the site founder Mr McKay.

Although it was up and running during the recent election campaign, neither the Coalition or ALP participated on the site. However, 154 candidates from parties like the Greens, the Sex Party and Family First made their positions known and utilised the technology established by McKay. As Electioneering understands, Mr Oakeshott and the other independents did not.

McKay believes it is time to redirect attention to the site and the process it supported as Oakeshott is now in a position to encourage the major parties to use it.

He said today he was disappointed his $3 million piece of work had fizzed, saying the issue was that the “parliamentarians would not use the site seriously”. He also said there was a disinterest from the media, who “don’t run stories about it because they don’t believe parliament has these issues”.

Although neither party have at any  stage said they were against the site, McKay says that off the record conversations with both major parties suggested they “saw it as a threat”.

A spokesperson for Greg Hunt said the MP would not be commenting on this site or Mr Hunt’s speech to parliament as it was “nearly a decade old”. He said he couldn’t see Mr Hunt “engaging in discussions about this whilst negotiations” were continuing and “critical issues” were being addressed.

Political expert Malcolm Mackerras was another backer of the idea in ‘02. He said at the time he thought it was “a great idea” and hoped “all Members of Parliaments” would join. When contacted yesterday, he said he still thought it was a good idea and anything that “would allow politicians to express their real views” on policy would be a positive for Australia’s political system.

Contact was made with Mr Oakeshott’s office but a response wasn’t received before publication.

Words – Zach Kitschke

Image – Focus Magazine

http://doesaustraliahaveagovernmentyet.com/

It sums up the current political situation pretty well, and what a bizarre situation it is.

Gillard stabbed Rudd in the back, Rudd stepped up and helped out his Lady Macbeth during the election, interim-mad-monk-Abbott pushed a relentless campaign, we discovered that there was Julia and then there was the “real Julia” (along with two impersonators) which was confusing, the Greens slid gracefully into the Senate and House of Reps, Bob Katter… I don’t know what Bob Katter is doing, but one somewhat effective campaign video and all of a sudden he’s the force to be reckoned with.

More interestingly, since http://doesaustraliahaveagovernmentyet.com/ reassures me that “no” we don’t have a government yet.. is the increasing political nonce being shown by the independents which was sadly lacking from either major party’s election campaign this year.

Firstly, they banded together. Thank god someone has learnt something from the fiasco that both parties called their “election campaigns” – undercutting, undermining, fear tactics… They’ve always been a big part of politics but this year the campaigns seemed to be entirely founded upon this idea that “we’re bad, but the others are heaps worse!”. United not divided, the independents have shown some savvy with that one.

Secondly, they’re making demands! It’s been a long time since our government has had to answer to demands of any sort (they do a great job at ignoring the demands of their constituents) and these are demands which demand transparency, another concept our government is not particularly familiar with.

Gillard’s bending over backwards to accommodate them, which is more a reflection of her sense of immanent downfall rather than any innate respect for processes of open disclosure. Whilst Abbott is largely trying to do the same, he just quite bring himself to put the costings on the table (well, without a set of conditions). For a party that uses the Australian fear over anything economic related (GBNT, deficits, surpluses, overspending, underspending…) hopefully that gesture alone will clear through some of the mist and mirrors.

Thirdly, they’ve stepped away from the hot election issues (refugees, health reform and a mutual commitment to do nothing about climate change) and decided that they’d like to look at all the other incredibly important portfolios that we seemed to forget existed – like Education, Workplace Relations, Transport, Agriculture, Defence … It certainly feels more like an election now than it deed a couple of weeks ago.

And finally, they’re proposing a new style of politics, one that would allow for a “concensus option” and a majority government to be formed. This is the most radical non-radical idea anyone has had since Kevin Rudd took the radically non-radical steps of apologising for the hideous past treatment of Indigenous Australians and decided that climate change was probably a little problem we should address relatively soon. Unsurprisingly, Abbott’s finding this all a bit confronting and difficult, but Gillard seems relatively receptive to the idea.

So there you have it, the election period is over, the campaigning has been done…and all of a sudden it seems like it’s about to get political.

Check: http://doesaustraliahaveagovernmentyet.com/

Nope, not yet. Perhaps that’s not such a bad thing.

It is unclear at this point (and don’t hold your breath that it will ever become apparent) what on earth Fielding hopes to achieve with his boycotting-Labor rampage.

Fielding’s (flawed) rational for the recent announcement is that the Australian public do not want a Labor Government and thus he will not let them function.

Hmmm… this is problematic in multiple ways.

1. It’s unclear that the Australian public know what on earth they want, but the most logical conclusion given the massive shift of votes from the big two parties to a bunch of minor parties, is that they feel neither Labor nor Liberal can give them what they want.
2. If the Labor Government do manage to form a minority government, it makes absolutely no sense (though who is to say what makes sense to someone who says the scientific fact is not real?) to render that government useless.
3. For Fielding to have any legs at all in this ridiculous fiasco, he would need Coalition support. This, he does not have. Fortunately Abbott’s decided it’s high time that he does something reasonable, and has said that the Coalition will not be supporting Fielding’s plan to veto Labor legislation (including the Budget).
4. Fielding’s seat is in a very very shaky state. It would be wise for him to not talk/appear/be in public until someone sits him down and explains to him the meaning of the words “rational”, “logical”, “reasonable” or “in public interest”. Could throw in “self preservation” for good measure.

ABC quoted Fielding as saying: “[People say], ‘you could determine whether there’s a stable government or not’.”

I’m not holding much hope midst the election shambles, but god forbid we ever get to a point where Fielding determines our government’s stability.

Words – Sophie Trevitt

These questions and more circulate the airwaves, water coolers and cafes at present, with each day delivering a new twist to the saga. This morning it was Steve Fielding weighing into the fray, declaring his intention to block supply in the Senate for the duration of his term if Labor is granted the right to govern. The Liberals have finally, it seems, taken the all-important seat of Hasluck, and days before that Independent Rob Oakeshott floated the idea of creating a government combined of members from both major parties. Add to that a regular dose of Bob Katter, and there can be no doubting that we live in very peculiar times.

There is some speculation that Tony Abbott’s refusal to subject his figures to Treasury reveals a desire within the Coalition to return to the polls sooner rather than later. According to Associate Professor Anne Twomey, there exists a convention that the parliament should attempt to sit ‘as elected’ before another election can be called – that is assuming, of course, that a majority can be forged. If not, the Governor-General would seemingly have no other choice than to return Australia to the ballot box – an improbability, but one we would surely be foolish to rule out.

There are a number of things here to consider. Firstly, the three ex-Nationals Independents are far from unanimous in their beliefs. While all share a general concern for rural areas, and seem to be equally committed to shake up the way parliament is run, they each have different priorities in policy terms. Rob Oakeshott, for example, has voiced strong support for a price on carbon and onshore processing of asylum seekers – a sentiment that hasn’t been as strongly put by his fellow deal-makers. Let’s say for argument’s sake he breaks with the other two to preference Labor, with the others moving to the Coalition. On current counting, that would deliver the Liberals 75 seats and Labor 73. Add to Labor’s tally the Greens’ Adam Bandt, and that rises to 74. The burden then falls on ex-Green, ex-Intelligence Officer Andrew Wilkie to decide the next government. If he errs to the left, as is perhaps probable, but far from certain, we are again deadlocked on 75 apiece.

This is all highly speculative, I know, but let’s run with it for a moment. If for this or any other reason a viable government is not formed, and an election is called sometime in the not-too-distant future, to what extent would the result change? One possibility is that we would see some decline in the Greens’ vote. As I have written, the feeling was positively electric at the Greens election event in Melbourne on Saturday night after Adam Bandt and Richard Di Natale were elevated to parliament, but there was a serious deadening of mood as it began to look likely that Tony Abbott could become the next Prime Minister. However faithful the Greens’ supporters are, there is degree of caution out there about straying from the two major parties, out of a fear of inadvertently propelling Abbott to the highest office – however unfounded this fear may be. With a second election, and mood growing for stable government to be formed, there is an argument that the Greens could be brought back to earth after what was for them a history-making result.

Words – Dylan Bird

Image – Labourlist.org

This election campaign we lost our remaining faith in the system. The power plays became clear to the electorate and nothing else was put forward to hold on to. For some, the negativity of the Liberals struck a chord and for others there was hope for an alternative in the Greens, but most saw no hope from the past record of results and no hope for any future action. We looked to Kevin Rudd for change last election, sick of the failing rate of reform under John Howard, and we received minimal results. Our current parties are marked by infighting, instability and party politics on one side, and a coalition inexorably pulling apart on the other. But this point of Labour/Liberal parliament is not fixed, and we can evolve to a new multi-party system.

The independents with the power to decide the government have called for “a different paradigm” (Bob Katter) that no longer puts political parties before national interests (Rob Oakeshott). Most politicians care about people and the nation, but in the current system of Australia, they get lost in the politicking and the few who join for power. The three main independents, Bob Katter, Tony Windsor and Rob Oakeshott, rejected their parties for their lack of action. They truly want to move forward, already articulating some real actions that they stand behind. They personify the straight-talking and firm personal beliefs that so many were calling for in the election campaign. So, just maybe, a hung parliament, with three experienced politicians with strong values but a practical understanding of government who are highly respected in their electorate, will be a positive and stabilising influence over Australian politics.

Along with the Greens, these three could push non-major party representation into the next stage. With the power held in the cross benches, the government will have to sit down and work out legislation carefully, thinking nationally but also thinking rurally. They will be held more accountable for their policy decisions, and party politics will have less influence, as the party will no longer be the final decision maker. The cross benchers want to focus on concrete issues like health systems, broadband, the environment, water reserves and farming support and they have already called for reports like the Garnaut Report and the Henry Tax Review to be followed through to their end. The three rural independents and the environmental Greens want to shine the light back onto the collapse of the rural in Australia, to relieve the pressure on city infrastructure through supporting the regional and the environmental.

The independents will continue to stand strong and the parties will have to negotiate, compromise and innovate. Our stumbled upon solution to disillusionment, despair, empty policy and no hope for the future, may be embracing the country. This important and overlooked part of Australia could leave us with a taste of independent representation, a taste that we will want to repeat and grow into Australian political life.

Words – Alina Jeeves

Image – State Library of New South Wales – The opening of Australia’s first national parliament 1901

The part that interests me the most is the line “the future’s fucked, the world is fucked, all of us are fucked.” The view of the coming apocalypse, the sense of disillusionment, apathy and of giving up  – the hung parliament in 1940 can’t have had this much despair. How will the future look back on these moments? Will we see this period as one of the darkest of the century? As a period where the highest amount of people tuned into a leader’s debate but our election can helpfully be summed up as this?:

Cartoon, computerised and devoid of policy? Or perhaps as wonderfully summarised by Clarke and Dawe, just weeks of inanity:

We seem to believe we’re all fucked. What happens when the world is reduce to inanity and we are told to despair for the future? Do you believe that this election is another sign of the dramatic collapse?

Words – Alina Jeeves

Image: State Library of New South Wales 1872

By 6.30pm, fellow Electioneer Joel Tozer and I had made it to the Tally Room. The room was full of excitement with journos, party reps and the public hustling for a prime spot. We took our places before realising it was actually easier to follow the action online than it was wandering the Tally Room, an ironically deceiving election night institution. I did kind of miss the Kerry O’Brien of the telly screen. Although I could see him from afar, the room was too noisy, so I had to forgo his and Antony Green’s always informative dissection of the rolling events.

On to twitter it was. There I heard Maxine McKew had lost her seat, and our first-timer Wyatt Roy had gained his. I also heard when Kevin Rudd was about to appear on the ABC, quickly rushing over to the ABC set to catch his surprisingly upbeat speech (which O’Brien humorously cut off at the risk of it ‘dragging on…’).

Returning to the press zone, I decided I’d go for the FM option, tuning into ABC radio for some slightly different coverage (funnily enough it was being broadcast from the desk a few rows back). Next there were cheers and a mad scramble to the entrance of the hall, where Greens Leader Bob Brown elicited the only real crowd excitement of the night. The mosh-like pack of media folk and now smiling revellers jostled to catch a glimpse.

My first press pack experience it was! And I learnt you have to be quick. With my SLR and Zoom audio recorder in tow, I was just a tad too late on the scene. While I made it over just before he started to speak, I actually couldn’t see or hear Australia’s most popular Greenie. Clambering on a chair, then onto a table, I managed to spot Brown in the centre of it all. As I stepped back to ground floor my phone started to buzz. Although I could now see the back of Brown’s head, I had unwittingly become the photo bomber in Bob Brown’s ‘Greenslide’ speech. My pocket buzzed as the messages came through – “move left!” and “get a bloody hair cut”. Feeling a little out of place I pretended to be doing something. A few photos there, a nod here…you get the picture. Bob Brown left after a while and the flash crowd again subsided.

By this stage it was becoming increasingly apparent the government had ‘hung’ itself (Hmm, I know). Joel and I put a few pieces up online as we heard from our bloggers in Melbourne in Sydney. They were also reporting a lack of anything much at their end. “Not much to see; big room with a TV” informed Fraser at the Melbourne Gillard event. “Hmm yes I’m here, but it’s a large amount of nothing”, messaged Sophie from Abbott’s do.

Feeling a little over the whole thing and struggling to get three friends into the media section with just one spare pass, it was time to give up and get out. We went back to the hotel room to watch the ongoing coverage on TV. All stations were telling us that it all still hung in the balance (yes another), and the result wouldn’t be known for days.

I was keen to go to the National Press Club on the other side of Canberra as we’d heard there was some action going on from our Twitter buds. But my friends, who were now in party mode, were more interested in hitting up the Uni Pub. We worked our way up the different floors and then back down again. Finally, after convincing my far from lucid mates it was time to head to the next nightspot, we left to decide our next stop.

One mate decided he was up for an adventure, so we went off and left the other two behind as they moved onto the next Canberra nightclub. Getting ourselves to the Press Club which is near Parliament House was proving more difficult. Thankfully some friendly strangers were keen to do a good deed and we hitched a ride with them across town. Turns out it was one of the passengers’ birthday so there was plenty of cheer, even despite the seemingly less rosy election result.

Although we’d now arrived, it was getting in that proved the next challenge. Either we’d had one too many or the front door wasn’t where it should have been. Anyway, it was looking less risky at this point to take the back entrance. Through the loading dock we went, passing a few surprised faces on the way, before emerging in true blogger style into the bar.

Turns out the dregs from the ALP’s Press Club function were still kicking on. That meant friendly faces from politics and some telly journos. There were a few “I know you!” moments and then, with gin & tonic in hand (it was the press club), we went around introducing ourselves as unqualified nobodies. It’s surprising how much Press Club types love to talk. Get them on to politics or something and you’ve got a 10 minute conversation ready and served. As long as you keep pretty quiet, we learnt you can actually avoid embarrassment too in these usually interesting exchanges of conversation.

It can’t have been that bad, I guess. We came out at the end of the night with a few business cards and a complimentary membership to the club (don’t know how we swindled that one). By 3am it was time to take my friend home, but all in all we had a pretty good night.

After a cab ride back to our Dickson hotel we met the others, who in the meantime had realised Mooseheads was called so for a reason and bailed out a few hours earlier. Bed time had come and gone by now, and it was now time for us all to hit the hay.

And so it was, in a somewhat unexpected turn of events that my election night became one of photo bombing, pollie spotting and a bit of blind networking. Like my Saturday night, I’m hoping things get better over the next few days – even if they seem a little bit lost at first.

Words – Zach Kitschke

Image – Zach photobombing in the tally room

10) That Maxine McKew is the political worlds equivalent of a one slam wonder in tennis.

9) That it is possible for Tony Abbott not to put his foot in his mouth for an entire 4 week period.

8 ) That Jessica Rudd is possibly nostradamus and if she had just written a book about a Prime Minister who weathers some bad polling to election victory this could have been a very different election.

7) That speaking off the cuff actually means reading a speech word for word.

6) That the sequel to the movie Julie and Julia will be Julia and Julia: One womans journey to the ‘real Julia’.

5) That all we have needed this whole time to solve the humanitarian and moral dilemma of refugees is a ‘boat phone’.

4) That qanda is the best show on Australian television.

3) That the only the people of Western Sydney and Queensland are voting in this election.

2) That we don’t need a local version of Jersey Shore because we have Mark Latham.

1) That you should never deride an election as uninteresting and boring because it will result in a hung parliament just to spite you.

What have you learnt this election? How do you feel about the hung parliament and the possibility of another election?

Food and booze but little of the celebratory mayhem I’d been anticipating well, dreading (might as well be honest!)

The room was filled with low chatter, urgent phone conversations to various ‘informants’ and eyes glued to a screen rolling out the tally.

We watched as both Liberal and Labor tallies seemed to slide up inch by inch, neck and neck for hours. The Greens did some amazing exponential leaps and bounds, and Andrew Wilkie’s success was certainly a perk amongst the dreary race between the two major parties to just scrape over the finishing line.

The ‘Greenslide’ (as dubbed by Brown) in the Senate is another little piece of history in the making and Adam Bandt’s success is of particular notability. I received many an excited sms at the news of his polling success.

The worry is though, what’s the good of any of it?

Where we sit at the moment we have a hung parliament with it likely to end up as a Liberal minority. A Liberal minority with the Greens holding balance of power in the Senate – it hardly rolls off the tongue.

I think any of three things could happen, if the Libs do manage to scrape a victory…

1) We might see no new legislation for a very long time as the Libs freak out about what on earth they’re going to be able to get through the Senate.

2) We might see the Greens back down hard on several issues in order to avoid a situation where the Liberals throw bills at them, and they throw them right back. This might be coated in political spin as “compromise” or “diplomacy”.

3) We might have the Libs and the Greens head to head, and a double dissolution called.

I’m sitting in a café in Newtown and the air is pretty heavy with disappointment (or perhaps it’s just mass-hangover, there was a pretty raging election party last night).

The image I saw walking into vote yesterday really sums up this remarkable election. With a herd of Greens T-shirts on one side of the church and a bunch of Lib shirts on the others… it’s clear that Labor has lost support in both directions, in this whole polarising fiasco.

Words – Sophie Trevitt

The evening rolled on. A few moments roused the attention of the crowd.

Wyatt Roy became Australia’s youngest ever Member of Parliament, at age 20. More than one joker yelled for his parents to come and collect him.

One of the biggest cheers of the night came when the ABC announced WIlson Tuckey, the deeply conservative long-standing member for O’Connor, had lost his seat to the Nationals candidate, Tony Crook. Tuckey had held the rural Western Australia seat since it was first created in 1980.

The night stretched on, well past its nominal 11pm finish time. The attendees started to mutter. “When’s Julia coming on?” Conversations inevitably turned to what she could possibly say, when nothing had been decided.

First came Kevin Rudd, up on the big screen. As he addressed his supporters in his own seat of Griffith, those in the room shuffled their feet and coughed awkwardly. Presumably more than a few people were thinking about the nine or more seats Labor had lost that day in Queensland.

Finally, to a chant of “Julia! Julia!”, the Prime Minister walked onto the stage, seeming shrunk by the wide open space. A small core of supporters – notably those less formally dressed in attendance – crowded in front of her, cheering, clapping and calling her name happily. The suit-wearing types at the back of the room were notably less rapturous in their applause.

Gillard walked to the podium, all composure and reassuring smiles, and gave the speech of her Prime Ministership. That is, she gave the same speech she had given day after day since she first took over from Rudd two months ago. The words were new, but the delivery was heavily recycled. It was calm and steady, spoken with confidence but without passion or excitement. She talked about core Labor values, like the role of government in “protect(ing) that all-important right to work and get a job” and “the great tradition of the labour movement, a tradition that believes the healthcare of each of us is important”, as though seeking to remind her audience what they stood for. She spoke largely in platitudes, like: “Friends, as we know in our great democracy, every vote is important, every vote must be counted.”

Neither a concession speech or a celebratory speech, it was… just a speech.

Finally, after a determined call for optimism, and a brief hug with her partner Tim Mathieson, Gillard left the stage. The applause from the first few rows was enthusiastic.

“Wonderful,” said one older gentleman admiringly. “How could she ever be beaten?”

But few in the room were as positive. Many pinched faces could be seen as the crowd wandered slowly out. This was a loss, of sorts – certainly the speech subsequently given by Tony Abbott sounded like a victory celebration. And yet it was not a loss; there was no great sense of tragedy or fear for the future, just an anaesthetised curiosity. It wasn’t like the Other Bastards were going to run in and start trashing the place, not with the ALP and the Greens controlling the Senate. And yet the best outcome Labor’s supporters could hope for, if they were really lucky, was a Labor-led coalition government propped up on a splint of Greens and independent MPs, ready to hobble awkwardly through the next three years.

The faithful had come to witness the flip of a coin: the result of the election that was too close to call. They had hoped and expected for it to land in favour of the ALP. They had braced themselves against the possibility that it would land in favour of the Coalition. They had not prepared to see it come down on its edge.

Words – Fraser Allison

Image – ALP