Another day has passed in the slow march towards minority government. Little has changed in what we know, however it is most disturbing to see how the forces of darkness (News Ltd) are trying to influence the outcome. For three days straight there have been editorials in the Daily Telegraph, Courier Mail, Herald Sun and The Australian arguing that “whichever side finishes with more seats deserves and expects the support of the independents to form a minority government”. Make no mistake, this is Murdoch trying to sway the outcome once again. Never mind the two party preferred vote in Labor’s favour, or the fact that the Coalition is actually comprised of up to 5 different parties (Liberals, Nationals, LNP (Queensland), WA National, CLP).

The reality is that this posturing is in preparation for an incredibly bout of incessant hounding on its illegitimacy should Labor manage to form government with only 72 seats in the House of Reps. Brant, a Green, has already stated that he is in the Labor camp. Wilkie’s policies read like a carbon copy of the Greens’. That makes 74. Thus Labor already has a stronger bargaining position with the remaining 3 independents.

Be prepared for many more stories about how the independents will be betraying their electorates should they support a Labor government. News Limited will not let up. They have successfully brought Abbott to the brink of government and they will certainly not stop now. This corruption of our democracy is dangerous for the future. Murdoch must be stopped. Again, friends, let us join together as “Progressive Australians Against Tony Abbott”. If we can build a large group on Facebook we will have a strong basis from which to organise. If you haven’t joined the group, please do so below. Then visit the group page and invite everyone on your contact list. Together we are stronger than any commercial media operation.

Here’s the in-play roundup:
Boothby – LIB ahead by 657
Brisbane – LIB ahead by 784
Denison – ALP ahead by 412
Dunkley – LIB ahead by 497
Corangamite – ALP ahead by 1230
Greenway – ALP ahead by 1190
Hasluck – LIB ahead by 369
Lindsay – ALP ahead by 1058

Just watch…

Has this been properly reported by the mainstream media? Of course not. It is now clear that media bias in this country is out of control. Our once independent ABC has now become a right-wing stable for News Limited hacks. The board is still stacked with conservatives from the Howard era. Most are up for reappointment next year. If Abbott is in control the same bias will remain or get even worse. We MUST join together to form a powerful progressive voice in this nation. We cannot rely on mainstream media to keep us informed.

Let’s join together as Progress Australians Against Tony Abbott! Please join the group and invite everyone on your contact list. If we can grow the group to 50,000 people or more we will have a solid basis from which we can keep people informed and organise as a progressive movement. Together we can do it!

In an attempt to clear up some of the nonsense being bandied about all over the place, I’m going to summarise where things stand at present.

Right now Anthony Green has the ALP sitting on 72 likely seats and the Coalition on 73. Along with that we have 4 independents and 1 Green.

The following seats should not be taken as given:
Boothby – LIB ahead
Brisbane – LIB ahead
Denison – IND ahead
Corangamite – ALP ahead
Greenway – ALP ahead
Hasluck – LIB ahead
Lindsay – ALP ahead

If any of these seats switch hands, the numbers change. From Labor’s point of view, the main seat I’m worried about is Corangamite (live AEC results here). While we are ahead by 1,200 votes, there are still 20,000 to be counted and Labor’s postal campaign there was not as well-executed as in Greenway, Hasluck and Lindsay.

If Labor can hold Corangamite, Greenway and Lindsay and pick up any of Boothby, Brisbane or Hasluck then we are home and dry. However, this task may be insurmountable. Although Labor has run a strong postal campaign, whereby they send out campaign material along with a postal ballot form, the timeframe for postals unfortunately overlaps the period when the damaging leaks emerged about Gillard opposing paid parental leave. It is therefore difficult, though not impossible, to see Labor gaining any of these three.

Assuming we finish on 72, Labor’s task will be essentially to woo 2 of the regional independents. Adam Bandt from Melbourne (Green) has already said he will support Labor. The potential new independent from Tasmania, Wilkie, has a policy platform that mirrors much of Labor’s agenda and happens to be a former Green. So we can count 74. If Labor can then persuade Oakeshott and Windsor to come on-side, we have a minority government in the making. Katter could be made speaker (oh the hilarity!)

Oakeshott is a progressive from what I can ascertain, and both him and Windsor have outlined a policy platform that is far more in line with Labor’s approach to regional issues. Therefore, I believe, should Labor finish on 72 seats, we will see a Labor minority government.

There is one additional complication here, however. That of the Murdoch press. The Australian and the Daily Telegraph have already begun arguing that whichever party ends up with more seats in the house is the one with the legitimacy to form government. I think this is an attempt to twist public opinion against a possible Labor minority government based on 72 seats (to the Libs 73). I suspect the independents will be able to take the heat, but do expect to see the Murdoch rags getting increasingly shrill over the next few days.

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EDIT: I have been re-evaluating my statement after examining more recent polling data.

I now believe a Labor minority government is more likely. We are currently sitting on 72 seats. Wilkie and Brandt will side with Labor, putting us on 74. Oakeshott is a progressive and will likely also side with Labor (75). He has also said as recently as last night that “The independents won’t necessarily side with the party that has the most seats or votes in the lower house, rather they would look at who could best deliver stable government “taking into consideration the make-up of the Senate”. Seeing as the Senate will dominated by Labor and the Greens, I think we’re going to see a very interesting political arrangement.

Hopefully either Tony Windsor or Bob Katter will find the strength to support Labor in this case. If, however, we lose another seat in postal counts things will get far more complicated. Nevertheless, at this stage, we’re looking good. Maintain the rage!

It is now clear that media bias in this country is out of control. Our once independent ABC has a board, still stacked with conservatives from the Howard era. Most are up for reappointment next year. If Abbott is in control the same bias will remain or get even worse. We MUST join together to form a powerful progressive voice in this nation. We cannot rely on mainstream media to keep us informed. Let us join together as Progress Australians Against Tony Abbott!

Posted earlier:

There is a lot of sadness here, to be sure.

I project that Labor will end up with something between 71-73 seats. If we manage to pull off 73 seats then we should be able to form a minority government with Adam Bandt (Green from Melbourne), Andrew Wilkie (Independent but former Green from Dickson), and one of the three rural independents.

However, we are currently behind in Brisbane, and Lindsay and Corangamite are very tight. We must win all 3 for the above scenario to be a possibility. Thus, I put our chances of success at something like 25%. It’s not looking good people.

The current electoral reality aside, I think there is one thing that needs to be addressed, and that is the status of “our” ABC. In my 30 years I have never seen our beloved broadcaster act in such a partisan fashion.

There have traditionally been two powerful media interests in this country which set the agenda each day – News Limited, and the ABC. The ABC is a media behemoth, with a radio, tv, and online presence. It has completely and utterly failed to inform the public, as was once its role. I am certain that the ABC, in its heyday, would have spent great time pulling apart all of the intricacies of policy on both sides of the house in an objective manner.

Instead, we saw Murdoch talking points repeated ad-lib day after day after day.

The greatest tragedy about Gillard’s loss is that she will not get to make the new board appointments that are due next year. Thus we will find ourselves in an extremely difficult situation electorally.

This spells great trouble for our democracy.

I’m ridiculously tired, but I believe that we need to build an online “progressive army”, which can collectively act in the lead-up to election campaigns to influence the media narrative. I’m talking about an online organisation which can act at a local grassroots level as well as collectively online through new media to reach large numbers of people. Talkback radio, letter-writing, documenting systemic bias at our public broadcaster, documenting systemic bias elsewhere in the mainstream media.

One project which I think could be extremely powerful would be a documentary like Out-foxed (which covers News Limited’s influence in the USA)

I feel that there is a wonderful story to be told about what has happened in this country. A sad story to be sure, but framed the right way, with appropriate supporting evidence, it could truly show people what many of us already know to be true; that big business interests have successfully destroyed a Prime Minister, and corrupted our democracy.

That is not to say the Labor party is blameless. It certainly is not. They are prone to panic, however. And perhaps with good reason. I’m sure they haven’t forgotten their time in the electoral wilderness for 11 years thanks to Howard. The thought of a repeat of that was probably unfathomable to some. So they did what they felt was right according to the predominant narrative. They executed their leader and installed the popular deputy. The powerful forces of industry set a trap, and they fell for it. Arbib and Bitar and Shorten and whoever else was involved are not evil men, or even power-hungry men. They were scared. They panicked. Many of us were also scared. Don’t forget the extensive hit-job the media relentlessly pursued against Rudd’s character. We started to doubt the man that he was. The focus on his temper. The stories about his insane workload, the silent treatment he would give his staffers.

I have no doubt, no doubt at all, that Murdoch has become a master manipulator in political affairs around the world. I think he sees Australia as his test bed for new ideas. His plaything, if you will. The media is so concentrated here that public opinion is much easier to sway. The USA is a different beast. I’m certain that he has an entire division dedicated to fine-tuning public opinion, shifting views, indeed manufacturing consent. He is the modern day Machiavelli and thus one of the most powerful men in the world.

The progressive left, all of us, need to recognise this. We need to work together to overcome the incredible odds that we are fighting against. Indeed, I find it amazing that despite the immense level of one-sided reporting throughout this campaign that Labor still managed to poll above 50% on a TPP basis and may yet still form minority government (although doubtful). This tells me that all is not lost for our great country. We are a well-educated nation; far more so than the bulk of our unfortunate friends on the other side of the Atlantic.

My friends, I propose we form this progressive army. I feel that Abbott can be a unifying force for those of us who oppose him. He is an extremely polarising character, and a very dangerous at that. The facebook group “friends don’t let friends vote for tony abbott” is a testament to this at over 100,000 users. That, in itself, is an asset. Facebook is one example of the sort of media we can use to organise collectively and influence public opinion.

I put together an article “10 reasons not to vote for tony abbott” the day before the election. Simply through Facebook, Twitter, and sending around a few emails I was able to get over 8,000 people to read the damn thing. Now imagine if I was a little more organised. Imagine if there were a thousand of us or even ten thousand of us. How many people could we reach? How much media tripe could we cut through?

I’m extremely tired, angry, upset, and rather ranty. But my point stands. We must stand up and fight for our intellectual freedom and for our country. This is a cultural war for the hearts and minds of our fellow countrymen and women. We cannot surrender to small-minded bigotry and greed. Let us fight the good fight.

Please join the facebook group, invite others to join, and let’s build something together!

Sky News and ABC24 would have you believing that a massive swing against the Labor party is underway at present in NSW. Supposedly an exit poll is showing a collapse in the Labor vote, sufficient to sweep the Gillard government from power and install Tony Abbott as our next Prime Minister. God Help us all.

Updates to be posted as things develop.

Right now, I’m still calling the most likely event to be Gillard forming government, possibly with the help of independents and the Greens, who look set to pick up Melbourne. Over to you guys for now!

Julia Gillard was roundly criticised in the media for deciding to announce that she would be revealing the “real” Julia to the nation. In hindsight, I believe this was one of the shrewdest political moves of her entire campaign. After all, one thing we have not seen is the “real” Tony Abbott. The media has completely and utterly failed to illuminate the public as to just who this man is, what he stands for, and what has made him the man that he is today.

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Well, ladies and gentlemen, may I present you with some light reading before you head off to the polls to cast your vote today. Tony Abbott is a child of Sydney’s leafy North Shore. His father a dentist, his mother a science graduate. He attended St Ignatius, Riverview (a Jesuit college). Tony Abbott found a mentor there in Father Emmet Costello, who instilled in him that politics was “a vocation, a way of giving glory to God in the human realm”. Aged 15, Tony became a great admirer of Santamaria, the founder of the off-shoot DLP (right-wing Catholic splinter group from the Labor party). Santamaria was someone who had doubts about liberal democracy, and wished to return to traditional Catholic values. He has been characterised as having “a touch of the Taliban about him”.

Tony Abbott had a brief sojourn in Oxford and returned home (not without some controversy). He then entered St. Patrick’s seminary in Manly. According Louis Nowra, a respected writer:

..instead of finding a form of Catholicism that featured social engagement, poverty and service to the community, he ( Abbott) found himself surrounded by a strongly homosexual fraternity. A Catholic friend of mine who mixed with St Patrick’s priests said, still with surprise in his voice, that they were ‘the most effeminate men I had ever seen. And this was when the Church unconditionally condemned homosexuality. …like half of the young seminarians, he left before becoming a priest.

I have received some unpublishable information surrounding why he left the seminary.

Later in his political life, Tony Abbott turned to spiritual guidance from Cardinal Pell. Nowra writes:

Like all his mentors, from Santamaria onwards, he hero-worshipped him uncritically. To Abbott, Cardinal Pell is ‘one of the greatest churchmen that Australia has seen.’

Pell is the type of Catholic Abbott likes- someone who excelled at sports, is not introspective and takes a close interest in politics. He is a divisive man who was at the centre of a controversy over his maladroit dealings with victims of sexual abuse by priests…Pell acts as Abbott’s personal confessor.

Indeed, the reason that Abbott has likely been touchy about his close personal friendship with Pell is because the Cardinal pushes hard, like Santamaria did, for Catholic intervention in politics. Abbott has said in the past:

A Minister of the crown is scarcely supposed to abandon his principles simple because he is a minister of the crown. You don’t become an ethnical-free zone just because you are a minister.

Louis Nowra concludes:

the institution that has made him, the Catholic Church has also shaped his principles, so that he finds it difficult to disentangle his religious convictions from his political agenda. Like all his mentors he loathes abortion, IVF, the morning-after-pill and RYU486. He sees abortion as a national tragedy, as he does no-fault divorce…

Throughout his life , Abbott has needed the Church and its teachings sometimes to a desperate degree, because he realizes that without it he would be morally and even psychologically lost. He knows he has personal demons to quell. Between his belfry-bat ears is a coil of such saturnine weirdness that no one, not even his closest friends, would want to unravel it…

I don’t pretend that I can substantiate all of what is said here. Much of this relies on the essay written by Louis Nowra in the journal, “The Monthly” (subscription required). Another article on Tony Abbott’s links to Santamaria can be found in the Jesuit publication, Eureka Street as well as Guy Rundle here, quoting Rundle:

Santa’s little helpers run the Right these days, because they’re the “Last Men” standing. The Protestant liberal-conservative tradition has all but died out as a self-possessed political intellectual strand or dwindled down to Peter Coleman and Alexander Downer, which is the same thing and the mitteleuropean anti-communist phalanx never took any exercise, and checked out early. Tony Abbott, Greg Sheridan, Dennis Shanalamadingdong, Gerard Henderson keep on going, Duracell anti-modernists.

Santa’s little helpers have been assiduous in waging the war by all means necessary. You can get an idea of the worldview by recalling that Sheridan once remarked that his life had meaning because he believed God wanted him to live in Australia and do his work.

As for the controversial elements of Abbott’s past that I have alluded to, obviously there are contentious things I cannot publish for fear of defamation recriminations. However, there are many recent examples which establish Abbott’s entrenched misogyny, including his claim that for Julia Gillard “no doesn’t mean no”. Let’s not forget his charge (later acquitted on lack of evidence) for indecent assault against a 29 year old woman who was trying to give a speech, and I quote:

Helen Elizabeth Wilson, whose age was given as 29, a former student teacher, claimed she was assaulted in October 1977 when she was addressing students at Ku-ring-gai College of Advanced Education in a debate about whether the college should withdraw from the Australian Union of Students (AUS).

She told the North Sydney court that someone had called out: “Why don’t you smile, honey?” Then a youth had touched her on the upper part of her leg.

Mr Abbott, then 20, pleaded not guilty.

The Daily Telegraph report said: “Miss Wilson said as she approached the microphone . . . two youths moved up behind her.

“She said: ‘I had just commenced speaking when I felt a hand between my legs on my lower buttocks. I was wearing jeans. I jumped back, turned around, and saw Tony Abbott laughing about two feet away. The people in the audience began laughing and jeering’, Miss Wilson said.”

I expect to receive some harsh criticism for publishing all of this, but I think this story needs to be told. The media simply hasn’t done its job. If you haven’t already, please peruse this list of 10 Reasons Why You Shouldn’t Vote for Tony Abbott (all supported with primary sources).

1. Tony Abbott claims that his religious views will not affect the policies he put into place in government. Yet, as health minister he blocked the introduction of RU486, a drug which would allow women to have non-surgical abortions. He claimed that it had a “higher rate of adverse events” to justify the ban, a claim directly countered by the Australian Medical Association who said that the drug was blocked for political reasons. It took a rebellion in his own party which saw a bill introduced and passed to take away his right as health minister to block the drug.

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2. Tony Abbott can not be trusted to tell the truth. In an interview earlier this year he admitted to Kerry O’Brien that not everything he says should be taken as the “gospel truth“, unless it is pre-scripted.

He has prior form on this issue, when he lied about having met Cardinal Pell in the lead-up to the 2004 election. Tony Jones asked whether he had met the Cardinal during the election, and he responded with a blatant lie. Watch for the death stare at the conclusion of the interview.

3. He wants to cut $1.1 billion from the pharmaceutical benefits scheme, which will either raise the cost of medicines, or see some medicines not subsidised by the government. At the last election, he had the gall to brand a dying man – Bernie Banton – not “true of heart” as he was pleading with Tony to add a new drug to treat mesothelioma to the PBS. Just watch:

4. When Tony Abbott was 20 years old he was charged with indecent assault, having been accused of touching a young woman’s upper leg when she was going up to the podium to give a speech. He was later acquitted over lack of evidence, however there are still questions over what exactly happened.

Helen Elizabeth Wilson, whose age was given as 29, a former student teacher, claimed she was assaulted in October 1977 when she was addressing students at Ku-ring-gai College of Advanced Education in a debate about whether the college should withdraw from the Australian Union of Students (AUS).

She told the North Sydney court that someone had called out: “Why don’t you smile, honey?” Then a youth had touched her on the upper part of her leg.

Mr Abbott, then 20, pleaded not guilty.

The Daily Telegraph report said: “Miss Wilson said as she approached the microphone . . . two youths moved up behind her.

“She said: ‘I had just commenced speaking when I felt a hand between my legs on my lower buttocks. I was wearing jeans. I jumped back, turned around, and saw Tony Abbott laughing about two feet away. The people in the audience began laughing and jeering’, Miss Wilson said.”

5. He said “I probably feel a bit threatened (by homosexuality), as so many people do.” as recently as in March of this year. In fact, he went on to say that homosexuality challenges “the right order of things”.

6. Tony Abbott has said that “the phrase Workchoices is dead, buried, cremated”, but he said nothing about the policies that entails. In fact, he believes that it was good for wages, jobs and workers. See below:

7. Tony Abbott thinks that we have no need for the national broadband network. The industry has being crying out for the government to take the lead here. Telstra’s copper network is on death’s door and we need a permanent replacement. Wireless is unreliable and is simply not capable of sustaining our future needs, which will grow exponentially as new technologies and services come out. For our future economic prosperity we need an optical fibre network. This is recognised as being the most future-proof technology out there, with estimates for its longevity at 50 years plus. Article on this available here.

8. Tony Abbott claims that he will introduce a generous parental leave scheme. He has, in the past, said that the introduction of paid parental leave would be over his government’s dead body. Big business is opposed to it, and it is most unlikely that he will actually deliver on this promise. Do not be surprised if this is dumped as a “non-core” promise.

9. He thinks climate change is “absolute crap”. Need I say more.

10. He claims to be strenuously opposed to Labor’s stimulus package which helped prop up the economy during the great financial crisis. Yet, he fell asleep and missed the vote, drunk from partying the night before! Talk about an irresponsible man, not fit for government.

In conclusion, he is undoubtedly one of the most backward looking and conservative leaders the Liberal party has ever presented to the Australian people. It’s also just been revealed that he plans to cut $1.5 billion more from education, in addition to another $3 billion already announced. We need a skilled workforce to be able to compete with the global economy. He will forsake our future economic prosperity in favour of free market ideals. I’ll leave the final word to Paul Keating.

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After evaluating the state of the media for the last couple of days, I believe Labor is set for a narrow loss. Not to throw in the towel, but I believe the undecideds will make up their minds based on the mood of the media in the last couple of days. The incredible endemic bias in Fairfax, News Limited and the ABC will collectively spell a loss for the ALP, unless Gillard manages to make a dent on the spending cuts laid out in today’s Liberal party costings.

I have previously outlined the $1.1 billion cuts to the PBS outlined on page 19 of the Liberal’s costing document, but there’s far more. Swan and co have outlined the other faults they’ve found in the costings document, and they can be found here.

A Labor loss will be a very dark day for our democracy, with big industry and business having successfully destroyed two great Labor leaders in a very short space of time. The ability to change the makeup of the ABC board will be lost, and Labor may well be destined to a very very long period in opposition. If you have the ability to contribute to the ALP or Greens campaign through volunteering or monetary donation, I suggest you do so now before it’s too late.

Relevant links:

Australian Labor Party – http://www.alp.org.au/
The Greens – http://greens.org.au/

And some light humour while we’re at it:

According to the Liberal party costing document, available here, they will save $1.1 billion over the forward estimates period by making cuts to the pharmaceutical benefits scheme. Its Orwellian heading is “PBS – Ensuring a Sustainable Healthcare System”.

My question is this – with $1.1 billion being slashed from the PBS budget over the forward period, who will suffer? What medicines will lose funding? Who will pay? Will we see pensioners slugged higher amounts? Will cancer patients lose access to cutting-line drugs? What’s the go here? Hopefully someone will put this question to Tony Abbott tonight at the Broncos Town Hall meeting. Please tweet on this topic.

Are we going to see a return to the days of Tony Abbott’s disinterest in the healthcare portfolio? Tony Abbott claims to be a Catholic, but what about the uncaring way he dealt with Bernie Banton, a man dying from mesothelioma as a result of asbestos exposure. Just watch:

Something caught my attention this morning that I thought was worthy of a post. Last night the Herald released the results of a 28,000 strong poll, which placed Labor to win with 79 seats to 68 for the Coalition.

Initially the heading read “Marginal seat poll has Abbott reeling”, juxtaposed against an image of Tony Abbott fishing. This morning, however, the headline changed. Firs to “Gillard ahead by 4 setas: Poll”, and now it says “Gillard to cling on by 4 seats: Poll” as per the image.

However, if one accesses the source of the link, the title is still there, intact, as per the image below:

What does this say about Fairfax I wonder?