Who will be Prime Minister?

[Sojourner]

After a week or so, once all the results are in and all the dealing done, who will be Prime Minister of Australia?

[dedja]

Where's the Bob Katter option?

[Squawk]

Where's the Bob Katter option?

or Bob Brown?

[Media Park]

More heart than head, I'm voting Tony (for the second time in as many days)...

[dedja]

More heart than head, I'm voting Tony (for the second time in as many days)...

So you're in the seat of Warringah?

[GWW]

Julia Rudd

[fisho mcspaz]

Ugh. Not Tony. Please, not Tony. I am hoping for a Labor minority government and the Greens to push Labor to the left.

[Interceptor]

Reckon Abbott might have to cave in on the NBN if he wants to be PM.

[dedja]

Someone would have to explain to the Mad Monk what the NBN is first ...

[Squawk]

Reckon Abbott might have to cave in on the NBN if he wants to be PM.

You could be spot on there.

The 3 conservative independents are all representing rural constituents. Wilkie said last night he was sick of southern Tasmania not getting any Cwlth coin because northern Tasmania was marginal and attracted all the coin, eg road upgrades.

Both parties will be looking in two directions for guidance.

Tasmania - a hung Parliament there ended up seeing Labor take government because the Governor demanded that the pre-existing govt test its strength on the floor of the house. That could be the same advice that Quentin Bryce offers, remembering that as luck would have it, the Tasmanian Governor is an ex-Judge of high legal standing.

WA - Barnett got in because he promised a massive rural dividend from mining profits. Something like $750m per annum IIRC? That was enough to sway the necessary allegiances required to side with his party to form government there.

A third possibility for guidance is the NT, where "hung parliament" has a whole new meaning altogether.

A fourth possibility is the SA history, ie "Peter Lewis will be speaker and we will have a constitutional pageant manouevre" in SA in 2002, when Lewis fooled everyone to go from being a conservative, to being an independent, to handing govt to Mike Rann.

The sorts of offers that are made will very much depend on who has how many seats after all the counting is complete. The trickiest bit of all, is whether the independents will stick together as a bloc of 5, two blocks of 2 and 3, or whether one party can splinter the 5 in such a way as to take govt.

[Squawk]

Someone would have to explain to the Mad Monk what the NBN is first ...

Nauru Before Noon? or maybe No Bloody N-sulation

[Psyber]

Ugh. Not Tony. Please, not Tony. I am hoping for a Labor minority government and the Greens to push Labor to the left.

Exactly what I dread! I couldn't cope with an initiative stifling nanny state run by the PC righteous - Victoria was bad enough. I'd have to emigrate..
[Perhaps Switzerland would be nice, or I note I could buy a decent unit in Malibu cheaper than one at Goolwa at present.]

[redandblack]

Squawk, would you agree that if the 3 Ind's are from conservative electorates, then Wilkie is definitely from a Labor electorate?

[Psyber]

Reckon Abbott might have to cave in on the NBN if he wants to be PM.

I don't think he'll have to go that far.
I suspect the rural seats would feel well rewarded if they even got ADSL1 level performance instead of dial up if they are lucky, or expensive and patchy satellite. ADSL2+ would be a real bonus.
Subsidised satellite services, with improved reliability, may even satisfy them. Country folk tend not to be greedy and always want more.

One of the faults of the NBN was that it was not going to do anything for the people in the real country areas but increase the city-country divide.
Provision of good phone and ISP services has been highly city, and near city area, orientated because that is where most voters are.

It was only in 2004 I finally lived anywhere I could get ADSL1, and only in 2009 that I moved close enough to a city to get nominal ADSL2+.
[And even that - 18 Km from the Adelaide CBD is limited to 6.4Mbps by the 4.6 Km of rotting copper line from the exchange.]
I'd be happy t get real ADSL2+, let alone massive speeds of the very expensive NBN.

[fisho mcspaz]

Ugh. Not Tony. Please, not Tony. I am hoping for a Labor minority government and the Greens to push Labor to the left.

Exactly what I dread! I couldn't cope with an initiative stifling nanny state run by the PC righteous - Victoria was bad enough. I'd have to emigrate..
[Perhaps Switzerland would be nice, or I note I could buy a decent unit in Malibu cheaper than one at Goolwa at present.]

Yes, well I discussed the possibility of moving to New Zealand with my partner, should Tony become PM. We haven't ruled it out!

[Psyber]

Ugh. Not Tony. Please, not Tony. I am hoping for a Labor minority government and the Greens to push Labor to the left.

Exactly what I dread! I couldn't cope with an initiative stifling nanny state run by the PC righteous - Victoria was bad enough. I'd have to emigrate..
[Perhaps Switzerland would be nice, or I note I could buy a decent unit in Malibu cheaper than one at Goolwa at present.]

Yes, well I discussed the possibility of moving to New Zealand with my partner, should Tony become PM. We haven't ruled it out!

I guess that would help offset the flow of NZ refugees coming our way to some extent.
Perhaps we could run a social experiment and move all our lefties to NZ and all their righties here and see how it goes.

[fisho mcspaz]

Ugh. Not Tony. Please, not Tony. I am hoping for a Labor minority government and the Greens to push Labor to the left.

Exactly what I dread! I couldn't cope with an initiative stifling nanny state run by the PC righteous - Victoria was bad enough. I'd have to emigrate..
[Perhaps Switzerland would be nice, or I note I could buy a decent unit in Malibu cheaper than one at Goolwa at present.]

Yes, well I discussed the possibility of moving to New Zealand with my partner, should Tony become PM. We haven't ruled it out!

I guess that would help offset the flow of NZ refugees coming our way to some extent.
Perhaps we could run a social experiment and move all our lefties to NZ and all their righties here and see how it goes.

I'm currently thinking of all the different ways this could play out... unfortunately they all seem to end with NZ's economy falling into disrepair and the government splitting up into six or seven unruly factions. I might be a leftist but without balance, there is no left, only chaos.

[Wedgie]

I think most South Aussies will sit on the fence after seeing what happened here in 2002.
People in other states will probably assume the independents will represent their constituants but who knows especially with Mad Katter probably in his last term.

Mind you if Labor get up in Hasluck I don't think it'll matter and Labor will have enough. Going to all come down to postals and pre polls. If they favour the sitting member which they quite often do the squawky red head will be back in power IMHO.

[Leaping Lindner]

Barnaby "It's a joke" Joyce has a swipe at Tony Windsor on the tube saturday night and then (stupidly) backs it up AGAIN on radio this morning. Warren Truss has previously abused Bob Katter, and there is no love lost there. Coupled with the fact that the Greens will have nine senators next july - and blind freddie can see a Gillard Government would negotiate easier them than an Abbott Government - it's not looking good for Tone.

http://www.smh.com.au/federal-election/ ... 13aen.html

[Psyber]

LL I'd argue that it is a matter of necessity to prevent economic chaos to have a Coalition controlled lower house to balance the leftist insanity that will reign in the upper house.
I don't expect you to agree with me.
I see the Greens as the 3D party; the dogmatists, the disaffected, and the delusional.

I agree Barnaby Joyce has foot in mouth disease again.
Hopefully, though those differences will be overcome in the interests of the rural people those independents represent.
After all the ALP is very much a party of the cities and the industrial unions, and any promise they make to help the rural areas is usually token and broken.