John Howard's last night as PM.

[Sheik Yerbouti]

Gillard suprised me as well, as did the pro Labor media journos & pollys on the various stations.
Classy concede from the ex PM, unlike a few before him.

[Mr66]

Its a pity you don't show the same class and dignity as the Prime Minister elect has shown towards a great Australian, but I'm not surprised

I disappointed that you believe what comes out of a pollies mouth.
Goes to show that there are a lot of people suckered by slick,insincere spin doctors
who can coach their puppets very well. I bet the rodent was thinking the exact opposite
to what he was saying.
Great Australian?! WTF? Pathological liar who was only PM because Labor couldn't get their act together.
I have no sympathy for his 'plight'.
Fat super payout,and will have plenty of business mates giving him jobs.
God help him if a dose of real life ever belts him in the mouth.
All politicians are self serving scum who have no regard for this country.
And anyone that believes a politician is a fool.

[NFC]

[mal]

How many votes did Darren Lehmann get ?

at least one but it will be a inforMAL vote, you idiot

How many votes did Jenny williams get ?

[am Bays]

Its a pity you don't show the same class and dignity as the Prime Minister elect has shown towards a great Australian, but I'm not surprised

I disappointed that you believe what comes out of a pollies mouth.
Goes to show that there are a lot of people suckered by slick,insincere spin doctors
who can coach their puppets very well. I bet the rodent was thinking the exact opposite
to what he was saying.
Great Australian?! WTF? Pathological liar who was only PM because Labor couldn't get their act together.
I have no sympathy for his 'plight'.
Fat super payout,and will have plenty of business mates giving him jobs.
God help him if a dose of real life ever belts him in the mouth.
All politicians are self serving scum who have no regard for this country.
And anyone that believes a politician is a fool.

You really are a happy little Australian aren't you....

[Thiele]

Jenny Willams got about 1400 votes

[Jimmy]

its funny how people are going to think that things will change, they all lie through their teeth.

be interesting to see how things go now.

[Jimmy]

just saw the ex-PM's speech, very good and very gracious to the new leader.

well, rudd has a great start, lets see where he or the redhead will lead this place.

[TroyGFC]

YES!!!!! Geez it was great sucking on a few sherbets at Nicole's campaign HQ's watching Hoard make history, not like he wanted as longest serving PM but 2nd PM to lose seat in the biggest landslide victory. And good too see all the union heavy weights get up despite weeks of bashing on adverts!! Australian's have spoken that we want "workchoices" scraped!! and our troops sent home!!
GO KRUDD07!!


Any idea if Democrats won any seats? How did senate go?

[smac]

Sitting in a losers campaign HQ, cheering for losers. Must have been an enthralling evening.

[am Bays]

YES!!!!! Geez it was great sucking on a few sherbets at Nicole's campaign HQ's watching Hoard make history, not like he wanted as longest serving PM but 2nd PM to lose seat in the biggest landslide victory. And good too see all the union heavy weights get up despite weeks of bashing on adverts!! Australian's have spoken that we want "workchoices" scraped!! and our troops sent home!!
GO KRUDD07!!


Any idea if Democrats won any seats? How did senate go?

Troy the election of the union officials was a fait accompli given that they all stood in safe labor seats (except for the bloke that beat Barasi Deakin). By and large they ratted on labor mates (Shorten and Combet) and got them kicked out of their jobs.

If they had shown the guts of Maxine Mckew one could respect them more. I don't like teh result in Bennelong but I respect Maxine for standing in a difficult seat to win and campaigning hard to win it.

But anyway as i said before will done to the ALP they campigned well and much to my surprise teh sun has risen today.

I hope the Liberals learn from this, so once we regain govt (whenever that may be) we don't gift the ALP the valuable middle ground in Australian politics as we have with our policies.

[mick]

Gillard suprised me as well, as did the pro Labor media journos & pollys on the various stations.
Classy concede from the ex PM, unlike a few before him.

I have to agree with that, in fact pretty well, all commentators and party reps from both sides behaved very well, I must say my estimation of Gillard went up a few notches. The distance between the two major parties is not that great now, I will imagine to a large degree Mr Rudd will stick to the Howard Agenda. It will be interesting to see how much of "work choices" will be kept. There will be a watering down, but no return to the old days.

[Sojourner]

Congratulations to Kevin Rudd and the Labor Party - no I didnt vote for them, yet credit where credit is due!

Congratulations to Nick Xenephon who may be in with a chance of having the balance of power which could make things interesting for SA.

[Psyber]

Its a pity you don't show the same class and dignity as the Prime Minister elect has shown towards a great Australian, but I'm not surprised

I (am?) disappointed that you believe what comes out of a pollies mouth.
Goes to show that there are a lot of people suckered by slick,insincere spin doctors
who can coach their puppets very well. I bet the rodent was thinking the exact opposite
to what he was saying.
Great Australian?! WTF? Pathological liar who was only PM because Labor couldn't get their act together.
I have no sympathy for his 'plight'.
Fat super payout,and will have plenty of business mates giving him jobs.
God help him if a dose of real life ever belts him in the mouth.
All politicians are self serving scum who have no regard for this country.
And anyone that believes a politician is a fool.

This is the sort of vicious one-eyed bigotry that tends to make it hard to support the Labor party even when you are not entirely happy with the Liberals - the fear of people with these attitudes having any power.

I'm still worried there are more of them hiding behind Rudd. I remember not long ago they were prepared to make Mark Latham - a man with similar bigotry - leader, which probably cost them the last election.

[Dogwatcher]

How is the post you quote a Labor response Psyber? While Howard's at the forefront of his diatribe, he's having a crack at all pollies.....

[redandblack]

Psyber, in a spirit of reconciliation, I will be gentle with you.

Mr 66 is in no way representative of all Labor supporters, anymore than you (fortunately) represent all Liberal supporters.

As for bigotry, I suspect that a large part of the reason the Government lost was its dogwhistle support of various forms of bigotry, which finally manifested itself in the Lindsay pamphlet debacle. Eventually, people had had enough of this sort of confrontational politics. Add that to the cumulative effect of too many lies and you get a result such as we've just seen.

There are a large number of good people in the Liberal party, or who support it, including many of those who post on here, and I hope they now come to the forefront of that party and free it from the mean-minded extremists who have recently become more prominent.

Meanwhile, Psyber, I wish you and your huge financial investment decisions all the best.

[Psyber]

How is the post you quote a Labor response Psyber? While Howard's at the forefront of his diatribe, he's having a crack at all pollies.....

This is the component I was referring to. Not exactly balanced and it displays Mr66's bias. John howard was not my favourite leader but he did some good too as Julia Gillard pointed out in her much more balanced speech.

Great Australian?! WTF? Pathological liar who was only PM because Labor couldn't get their act together.
I have no sympathy for his 'plight'.
Fat super payout,and will have plenty of business mates giving him jobs.
God help him if a dose of real life ever belts him in the mouth.

Generally, I think pollies should not get better superannuatioin than the rest of the community but JH is not alone there or in having the potential to be given jobs by his past contacts. The rest of Mr 66's outburst looked like padding around this to try to make it look balanced - the sort of spin he was grizzling about in fact!

[Wedgie]

You can say what you like about Mr Howard but he did the job he did because he genuinely (rightfully or wrongfully) thought he was helping make this a better country.
If he was in it for the money or the super he would have been working in private sector and wouldn't have been in politics for so long.

I got to chat to a few of the AFP that 'minded' Howard whenever he came to Adelaide.
They said the guy was a freak, up at 5am to start his working day, off for a walk and then worked till midnight every night, young fit guys struggled to keep up with him for a third of his day.

I hope Mr Rudd is prepared for the same sort of work ethic.

[Psyber]

Psyber, in a spirit of reconciliation, I will be gentle with you.

Mr 66 is in no way representative of all Labor supporters, anymore than you (fortunately) represent all Liberal supporters.

As for bigotry, I suspect that a large part of the reason the Government lost was its dogwhistle support of various forms of bigotry, which finally manifested itself in the Lindsay pamphlet debacle. Eventually, people had had enough of this sort of confrontational politics. Add that to the cumulative effect of too many lies and you get a result such as we've just seen.

There are a large number of good people in the Liberal party, or who support it, including many of those who post on here, and I hope they now come to the forefront of that party and free it from the mean-minded extremists who have recently become more prominent.

Meanwhile, Psyber, I wish you and your huge financial investment decisions all the best.

R&B I am hopeful, also in a spirit of reconciliation, that Kevin Rudd will deliver what he said he would, and will wait to see.

Despite your expectation and perception of my opinions, I am reasonably happy with his proposed policies. The only reason I hesitated to vote for them was the fear of the more bigoted and extreme elements of Labor hiding behind him, ready to depose him some time after the election. I genuinely found that plausible because of the fact that they elected Mark Latham as leader last time, which really scared me off - I was genuinely considering voting for Labor under Kym Beasley until then. I hope this fear proves unfounded now...

Julia Gillard's magnanimity last night gives me hope.

I agree that there are extreme elements in the Liberal party too, and, as I have said before in this forum, I joined the Liberal party in an attempt to help counter them - and at times I felt it was a lone battle - I opposed the extent of WorkChoices and its lack of an independent umpire, going into Iraq, the management of the Hicks affair, and the way the illegal immigrant policy was executed. And in Victoria I have stood up for workers in court against the way they have been treated by the Labor run Victorian Workcover Authority and the Transport Accident Commission.

The extremists in both parties are the problem, and I always prefer the upper house not to be controlled by those in power in the lower house.

Thank you for the good wishes re my financial investments - I can hold my decisions until I see the drift. Actually, I have made most of my money out of shrewd playing of the inflation under past Labor governments, so self-interest should encourage me to vote Labor.

The difference this time is my move overseas next year, and that adds a new element to consider - the strength of the $AU against the UK Pound and the Euro - new ground for me!

[Mr66]

Its a pity you don't show the same class and dignity as the Prime Minister elect has shown towards a great Australian, but I'm not surprised

I (am?) disappointed that you believe what comes out of a pollies mouth.
Goes to show that there are a lot of people suckered by slick,insincere spin doctors
who can coach their puppets very well. I bet the rodent was thinking the exact opposite
to what he was saying.
Great Australian?! WTF? Pathological liar who was only PM because Labor couldn't get their act together.
I have no sympathy for his 'plight'.
Fat super payout,and will have plenty of business mates giving him jobs.
God help him if a dose of real life ever belts him in the mouth.
All politicians are self serving scum who have no regard for this country.
And anyone that believes a politician is a fool.

This is the sort of vicious one-eyed bigotry that tends to make it hard to support the Labor party even when you are not entirely happy with the Liberals - the fear of people with these attitudes having any power.

I'm still worried there are more of them hiding behind Rudd. I remember not long ago they were prepared to make Mark Latham - a man with similar bigotry - leader, which probably cost them the last election.

What makes you think I'm a labour voter?
I apologise if I didn't articulate my contempt and digust for all politicians thoroughly enough.