Comments on: Who said the Nats were washed-up?

By: Kevin Rennie

Kevin Rennie — Fri, 04 Jul 2008 16:59:54 +0000

The Nat voters made their protest last year, especially against their sitting member. Things are back to normal in Gippsland now. Protest votes from nata and ALP obviously went to the Libs.
When the price of oil skyrocketed in the early 70′s every Western governemnt lost the next election. Rudd must watch his back as well as his front.
Also current economic times should make McCain unelectable.

By: Arjay

Arjay — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 23:58:15 +0000

“Something is happening out in voter land which is very difficult to measure” Yes,well Kev has under performed.He and Wayne Swan screamed that the inflation genie was out of the bottle and egged the RBA on to increase rates.The RBA could not decipher the difference between inflation,whereby too much money was chasing too fewer goods and services and simple price increases by oil producers which have the same effect as increasing interest rates,ie the money leaves Aust and goes to OPEC.
If Kevin does not quickly grasp the reality,then he will be gone by next election,making Gough look like a marathon runner.

By: Temujin (John Humphreys)

Temujin (John Humphreys) — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 18:05:58 +0000

Family First didn’t run, and neither did their last candidate run as an independent. There were no independent candidates in Gippsland. Just Liberals, Labor, Nationals, Greens and the LDP.
The Green vote increased by 1%, but that would have come from the WWW vote (which was a Green feeder party anyway). So not too good for them.
The Liberals did fine taking 10% each from Labor & Nationals. It was the ALP result that was the worst.
The Family First vote would probably have gone to the Liberals. The independent vote went to the LDP, maybe along with some free-market liberals picking the low-tax party.

By: Julien Peter Benney

Julien Peter Benney — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 14:45:10 +0000

It surprised me to find Family First did not field a candidate – and that their former Gippsland candidate only got 32% as many votes running as an independent.
Maybe the very fact that she was an independent prevented people who would have voted for Family First turn to the Nationals? Or are the Nationals, more than other major parties, cimply copying Famiyl First so the latter does not win power in the long term?

By: Steve

Steve — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 13:55:19 +0000

The Liberals/Nationals will only take government again as a merged structure. Not sure how many loops the other states and feds will do to arrive at that point though. Not an ‘if’ but a ‘when’.