[Marxism] NYT: Australia's Prime Minister Defeated After Four Terms

[Alan Bradley]

From: glparramatta 
> other parties, including the Greens, have millions
> of dollars to campaign with, 

Actually, one of the interesting aspects of the
campaign is how little difference this seems to have
made for the Greens.

I can't help feeling that the SA would have made much
more effective use of it. Of course the Greens have
this kind of money and we don't precisely because of
their earlier electoral successes - when they didn't
have this kind of cash.

> the socialist vote was split by the mad Socialist
> Equality Party targeting many SA candidates 

A quick check suggests this happened in three seats:
Grayndler, Parramatta and Newcastle, all in NSW. It
also happened to the Socialist Party in Melbourne.

The relevant results are (figures from the official
Electoral Commission site mentioned earlier in the
thread):
Grayndler
SA 1.81%
SEP 0.39%

Parramatta
SA 1.51%
SEP 0.27%

Newcastle
SA 0.39%
SEP 0.33%

Melbourne
Socialist Party 0.61%
SEP 0.42%

The is little reason to believe that much of the SEP's
vote was specifically loyal to them, so most of their
vote would presumably have flowed onto the other
socialist candidates. This would have made a
significant difference in some cases, or at least as
significant as is possible when we are dealing with
such lameass little votes in the first place.

Where it might become important at some stage would be
if we started to approach the kind of vote totals that
would make us eligible for state electoral funding.
See the comments on the Greens above for the
significance of this. Split votes like this could cost
us bigtime.

Of course, it will be a few years before it becomes a factor...


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