THE DONKEY VOTE

Novemeber, my favourite month of the year, the best month of the year.

But sadly it is often abused and unloved. Taunted by many advertisements on television saying how it is summer when we clearly still have a third of spring to go still. Even December creeps into November and tries to steal some of its limelight by erecting christmas trees and tinsel everywhere.

And to add insult to November’s misery, it has to endure jokes such as Movember, with every clown in the country growing grotesque soup strainers, but at least it is for a good charitable  cause. However the fact that half of Australia’s population is walking around like 1970s amateur porn stars just makes a complete joke out of poor old November.

It must be tough being November. I’m sick of people being mean to November, nearly as much as I am the Coalition of Evil government.

So let’s all show November how much we love it this year ok? And fix two of these problems in the same 30 days.

Well today is the 1st of the month and it’s just 24 days left until Labor sweep to victory or I crash harder than the stockmarket in 1929.

Labor has placed their campaign launch for Brisbane on the 14th. And it seems the Coalition is planning to crash that party by also launching their campaign in Brisbane.

Not only do they want to gate crash Labor’s party and reel in any lead Labor has in the Sunshine State, but they want to jump Labor with holding their shindig THREE days earlier.

We need a strong win for Labor in Queensland, we need it badly and surely with Kevin Rudd and Wayne Swan being Queenslanders we can do it. I will be heartbroken if we fail and fail in Queensland. I think Kevin Rudd needs to start wearing more Broncos and Maroons jerseys around.

Oh I know, do what Peter Beattie did, give money to rugby league in Queensland! Come on Howard is throwing money around at sports he only pretends to follow, let’s inject some cash into Queensland’s favourite past time!

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Here is a combined analyis of the past two newspolls published in The Australia. It has some interesting stats.

As we can see there is an enormous swing towards Labor in Queensland, so it is great to see that in black and white and see it consistent. But the Liberals and Nationals will be running an extreme marginal campaign and this can mean little for instance when Kim Beazley won 51% of the TTP vote but still didn’t win government in 98.

I think maybe me and Sheldon should focus a lot more on Queensland and its marginal seats.

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With Labor only holding a mere 6 out of 29 Queensland seats, you’d think we would have to be able to win a significant amount back to put towards the 16 we need nationally.

But stories like Labor’s vulnerable standing in Capricornia really bother me.

I guess that is what makes the election even more relevant and exciting for me and Sheldon, with us being Queenslanders, it is easy to feel right in the mist of the action around here in Brisbane. For the record I live in Forde and Sheldon lives in Petrie but we both grew up and lived most of our lives in Lilley and we are certainly eager to return to Lilley and leave these northern and southern barbarian electorates. (Well they are both held by the Coalition.)

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Today is a great day. I have the day off! I’ll be working on some assignments but it means I can stay glued to SKY NEWS all day. How many of you out there watch SKY NEWS religiously lately?

Congratulations to Nicola Roxon for her performance and attendance in yesterday’s health debate.

Enjoy Day 18 voters!

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Here is the Day 17 report.

It was certainly a day Coalition Health Minister Tony Abbott would soon like to forget.

Tony Abbott begun the day on the phone to terminally ill abestos campaigner Bernie Banton apologising for his comments towards him the previous day.

Then it was off to Blacktown in eastern Melbourne with his Coalition colleagues John Howard and Peter Costello for a major health policy announcement at a local GP clinic.

Under the $444million four year health plan (There is that number 4 again! Must be Jannette’s birthday or something.) the Coalition will offer…

- $164.5 million over four years to pay for practice nurses to make 800,000 Medicare-funded home visits for older Australians and veterans.

- Another $108 million will be spent creating 900 GP training places by 2011 and 510 junior doctor practice rotation places each year.

- The coalition will double the number of training places for specialists in private hospitals and surgeries to 300 each year by 2011, at a cost of $37 million.

- Other announcements to come.

But unfortunately for the Coalition it isn’t their policy that captured the days headlines, Mr Abbott had a mortage on that.

Tony Abbott was due at 12:30pm in Canberra at the National Press Club to debate his Labor counterpart Nicola Roxon in a health debate. Though Tony didn’t show, infact it took another 35 minutes for him to turn up. He then blamed over running questions after his parties policy announcement for his delay. Certainly the guests were not impressed and it gave Nicola and the Labor party a fantastic opportunity for some free shots.

And to make it a hatrick, during the course of the debate the Coalition announced that the Federal take over of the Mersey hospital would be delayed.

Here is a recap of the health debate on NEWS.com.au.

Kevin Rudd meanwhile announced his party’s $600million plan to reduce elective surgery waiting times in public hospitals.

Kevin Rudd refused to guarantee Peter Garrett would be his environment minister in a Labor government after he made an embarrassing goof about the Kyoto Protocol.

The Greens and Democrats swapped preferences.

The previously invisible Nationals leader Mark Vaile once against surfaces to sing the praises of ethanol fuel.

Kevin Rudd and John Howard in the battle of the websites.

The Coalition announced a package of $14million to go towards the Australian seafood industry.

Kevin Rudd contrasts Labor and Coalition Climate Change Policy.

And to wrap up the day Tony Abbott is caught swearing at Nicola Roxon after the health debate.

Posing for photographs with Ms Roxon at the end of the debate, the pair got into a testy exchange.

Ms Roxon told the Minister he could have made it on time if he had wanted to. Mr Abbott replied: “That’s bullshit. You’re being deliberately unpleasant.”

Stranger still John Howard’s morning walk turned into a chaotic circus.

This also included an assault by four young women dressed 1950s style and calling themselves the John Howard Ladies Auxiliary Club

They were carrying a placard with The Race Card written on it, a collection tin marked Xenophobia and an iced “yellow” cake.

A lot of other stuff probably happened, but how am I supposed to know?

I am just a donkey.

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