THE DONKEY VOTE

I’ve just saw the video Brad was talking about yesterday. I’m pretty impressed by the efforts people will go to on youtube. It’s actually quite professional looking. Of course this all came about after an ad by Bluetongue brewery to promote their beer as “whale safe”. The idea behind it is that they want people to boycott beer brands that are owned or partially owned by Japanese companies, in particular… for instance, Tooheys. Apparently also $1 from every beer sold is going to some radical anti-whaling group.

It’s an incredibly cynical campaign which I hope backfires on Bluetongue. Now I’m no prude, I have no problems with any offensive thing you can chuck on television (or find on certain internet sites) but I think when you have to go to such lengths to sell a beer than obviously you’re doing something wrong. I realise that the campaign is more about producing publicity of any kind but can’t we go back to ads that attempt to sell a product on its own merits? Or if not that, have some ironical twist that makes a joke out of it? Or if you feel that strongly about whaling do something tasteful like start a Facebook group about it.

I’m looking forward to seeing what other causes companies can exploit to sell products. Aboriginal health is very “in” at the moment. Global warming is so last year. The civil war in Iraq isn’t holding the 18-35 market like it used to. The drought is big in key regional areas.

However I do hope that a youtube war starts up over this as that could be fairly entertaining…

Brad I reckon if you load up the video and leave your internet on you might be able to watch it after a few days…

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Brad’s always whining about something. I thought it was all sunshine and light now that Rudd is the man in charge.

Clem Jones, Brisbane’s longest serving mayor, died Saturday after a long period of ill health. He has mayor for fourteen years and quoting from the article:

Through the 1960s he led the council to develop a town plan, seal roads, improve drainage and connect sewers to most of the city.

Under his stewardship, the city bought properties to build underground car parks, which were then topped with public parks and gardens.

In the suburbs, land was acquired for open space and parkland and work started on the development of the Brisbane Botanic Gardens at Mount Coot-tha.

But Dr Jones also closed the city’s large tram and trolley-bus network, replacing them with buses, a move which attracted widespread controversy.

A great loss for Brisbane and the country.

Wayne Swan has warned of further interest rates rises in the next eighteenth months. Of course they’ll be this period of twelve to eighteen months where any poor economic results will be put down to the previous Coalition government. It will probably be similar to what happened when the Coalition first came to power in 1996 and everything horrible that was occurring in the country was due to the many years of Labor mismanagement. I was certainly glad when the Coalition moved on from that. Can anyone remember how long that took? I think I’ll be sick of it after six months but I’d expect it to go at least a year before the Labor government start taking credit for things.

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To move away from federal politics for a second, the Queensland Liberals have finally selected a leader after a week in which they’ve looked incredibly amateur, even by Queensland Liberal standards. The new leader is Mark McArdle and I’m sure the reaction of most people will be “who?”. You wouldn’t think it would be that hard to find a leader out of eight people. I guess everyone thought that the small numbers meant that their chances of winning the leadership were fairly reasonable. I still think they should have decided by a pissing contest…

God, we’re going to have a Labor government in Queensland until the end of time the way it’s going. Does anyone think that it’s likely that the Coalition (if there’s going to be one) will win the next state election? Maybe this is karma for the Joh years…

I have to agree with Brad in the feeling that the decision to elect Nelson as federal Liberal leader. Polls have come out suggesting that the general public would prefer Turnbull as Liberal leader. Of course I think much of this decision comes down to a backlash against Turnbull for his rebel ways in the election campaign. Then again, that might be the reason that he’s more popular than Nelson. I think if I was Nelson I’d be sleeping with one eye open because Turnbull looks like a ruthless kind of guy and if the polls start tilting against Nelson… out come the knives.

Brad can talk about the Kyoto Procotol and related boring stuff like that…

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Just a quick update before I head into work to cover a couple of the outstanding election stories.

I have to say after our live election coverage I needed a couple of days of relaxation from the whole election scene and mission was accomplished. I did manage to see Julian Morrow from the Chaser hanging around Brisbane city on the weekend with some camera crew so there was probably a humourous “jape” occurring at some point.

The other big election news to come out apart from what Brad has mentioned previously is the stepping down of Mark Vaile as National Party leader. No doubt he was still hurting from me mentioning earlier in the campaign that John Anderson was still National Party leader. Surprised he held on so long after that really…

I also have to agree with Brad that Turnbull is looking the goods to take out the Liberal Party leadership. I did think that his victory speech on the night felt like a beginning of a challenge for the leadership. Wonder who else will put their hand up…

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I have to say that I’m a little bit relieved that we’re at the end of this very long campaign. While it may seem that Brad did the majority of the work and I just wasted time and posted when I had nothing better to do, this was far from the truth. I can’t remember what I actually did but I’m sure it was vital to the running of this blog.

At this point I’d just like to say that we’ve both really enjoyed the opportunity to provide our own unique viewpoints about this election campaign and no doubt we’ll keep an online presence for a while longer. We’ve got projects in the pipeline…

I had my own first today, the first time I have voted absentee since I was out and about around the Griffith electorate instead of slumming around in my own electorate of Petrie. Also unlike the ads my face didn’t light up when I voted but maybe I was doing something wrong. I did number every box in my Senate ballot as I like to get my money’s worth and give the scrutineers something to do. Lazy bums.

I also avoided telling the Socialist Alliance to get a job and have a shower which I thought was very restrained under the circumstances. I did enjoy the guy from whatever party who seemed to have fallen asleep standing up doing his job. Maybe he was coming down from a big Friday night, who knows?

Anyway I hope you all did the right thing and got out there and voted. I’ll know if you didn’t and I’ll be making sure a fine goes your way. Well probably not, but you should make an effort to get out there and appreciate the atmosphere of it all. Before I was able to vote I made sure my parents brought home all the how to vote forms so I felt like I was part of the action. I realise it’s hard to get excited these days when the differences between the major parties seems to be very little and the minor parties are filled with nutcases and people with no chance. Still have to make your choice.

Expectations? Well even with a few of the polls tightening up in the last few days I still predict a Labor victory as has everyone else in the country. I do think it may be closer than people expect, maybe a margin of less than ten seats. I also think that the Liberals may hold onto Forde and Petrie although Petrie I think is line ball. But then again I’m probably just being contrary to annoy Brad.

As to what I’ll be watching tonight, it will definitely not be Seven. Mel and Kochie can kiss my ass. I feel dirtier by the very fact that they are on TV at all. I’ll probably tune into the ABC and watch Anthony Green get wood playing with this computer.

Hey I think I almost started by posts with an Anthony Green joke and I’ve managed to avoid making another one until polling day. I’m impressed with myself I have to say.

Tick, tick, tick…

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I have to say that I’m generally displeased about the Courier Mail coming out in support of Rudd before the election. I’ve read that other papers do similar things in their editorials before the election but I have to say I’m critical of that whole tradition, if it is in fact one.

We all know that the media is biased, it’s not a secret but I tend to think that something as important as a federal election should be reported neutrally. I just think it looks bad for the media and leads people to think that their coverage for the whole of the election has been tinted with bias when that probably isn’t the case. By the way, I’d feel exactly the same way if the Courier Mail came out to support Howard. And I’m not exactly sure that it will help Rudd because many of the comments on the website about the article are negative about the advertorial for Rudd.

That’s my rant for the day.

I’ve avoided talking about all the late Liberal Party scandals as Brad enjoys sticking the knife in and I really don’t have anything to add except there’s some stupid people running around not thinking much about what they’re doing.

A public service announcement: never set off Brad about rugby league. He’ll go on for ten pages about something trivial and annoying. Just so you know, he does that in real life. You just can’t shut him up at all. Also you don’t have the option of switching your computer off.

Newspoll predicts a cliffhanger.  Apparently a poll that’s going to be released tomorrow suggests that there’s a late surge for Howard and that the swing to Labor may not be uniform. Suggestions that it will be close and come down to recounts. The article talks about some of the other recent polls which either show Coalition annihilation or a close win to Labor. But the time for polls meaning anything stops tomorrow when the Australian public take to the polls to elect their federal government.

We here at The Donkey Vote will not be deserting you on election day. We are discussing plans for election night so that you have an option if you don’t want to watch Mel and Kochie (and may God have mercy on your souls if you do) or have seen the Empire Strikes Back way too many times. Myself, I’ll be taping it. I’m hopeful that we’ll be able to give out some details tonight or tomorrow morning.

Not long to go now!

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Just to clear up my apparent no titles policy. When you’re a hard worker and not a union thug living off the sweat of the average worker you just don’t get the time to type up post titles. Brad wouldn’t know about that…

Oh by the way, I support the arrest of anyone wearing a Kevin07 shirt.  They are absolute shockers fashion-wise and anyone sad enough to be wearing one deserves whatever they get.

I think the Coalition is getting a little desperate as election day comes looming into view. The Liberals have claimed that thirteen Labor candidates are ineligible to stand for election due to the fact that they are still holding government positions. Apparently the Liberals got the information from an out of date website. Sounds like some staffer was googling one afternoon and they thought they’d give this tactic a try. It was probably worth a shot but perhaps a little more research needed to go into it.

There are questions being asked about whether Rudd’s plan to cut spending in the public service will result in a reduction in services and major job losses. Well obviously there will be because that’s what normally happens when there are attempts to trim the fat in the public service. Will be interesting to see how far Rudd will go with the cost cutting.

Julia Gillard apparently has been telling people to get workplace advice from the Workplace Ombudsman which she plans to abolish after the election. Hypocrite? Either way she should know that anything she says to her partner’s daughter is a matter of public record. That’s why I couldn’t run for parliament, too many indiscreet conversations. You know what I mean…

She also turned up fifteen minutes late for a radio debate. Tsk, tsk… young people today.

There’s been a phone poll released by Morgan Poll which suggests that the Liberals may hold onto their marginal seats in Western Australia and maybe even pick up Labor held Swan and possibly even Cowan. I wonder why Western Australia seems to be going against the trend in many of these polls and whether the Liberals polling is really holding up that well over there. Time will tell although it’s likely that the election might already be decided before we hear from the Western Australian electorates.

Labor candidate claims he’s a parent when he isn’t, in fact. These politicians will lie about anything. What a stupid thing to say though… then again, maybe he’s got a few illegitimate kids running around somewhere. You never can tell. Is there a better pickup line than “Hi, I’m from the Labor Party”. Would probably work on Brad…

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I’m back… just like the unions will be by the end of next weekend. And then you’ll see where we’ll be.

I think I’ve been watching too many Liberal Party ads. You know if you watch the same political ad three times it directly infects your brain and you can’t remove it until the election ends? True story and I have a friend who’s a med student so I’d know.

So Rudd was on Rove on Sunday (old news, yeah yeah I know). I absolutely can’t stand Rove and so I didn’t watch the program but what I thought was interesting was Barrie Cassidy getting up in arms about Rudd dodging “proper” political TV shows like Insiders and Meet the Press for Rove. It’s an interesting point, is Rudd avoiding the hard questions? Well Rudd has been on Sunday and Lateline so I’m not sure why he’d avoid going on Meet the Press or Insiders. Maybe he doesn’t like Barrie Cassidy which I find hard to believe… how can anyone not like Barrie Cassidy? The mystery continues…

There are suggestions that there’s splits in the Coalition, especially surrounding golden boy Malcolm Turnbull and error prone Tony Abbott. I think it’s probably likely that there’s a few people trying to position themselves when they lose government. The knives are being sharpened.

Rudd comes to the aid of swooning schoolgirl. I don’t know, I just don’t see why people find him so irresistable. I guess he’s not really my type though, I suppose. Never had a big thing for public servants… maybe Rudd/Howard is the new Beatles/Rolling Stones divide. You honestly either like one or the other.

Hmm I do alot of fluff in my posts, don’t I? I should really concentrate on hard hitting political analysis for the last week of the campaign. Either that or keep making jokes about the Democrats.

Tune in next time to see which way I go!

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