willedoo

It will be a big hit to the Grey Nomad economy. The Nomads are parking up at a time when they would normally be starting to get on the move. Also the Easter bookings are way down. Cat and dog boarding kennels have plenty of extra space if you want to book Fido in. They'd normally be booked up this time of year.

The ABC is calling the lower house seat of MacKillop for One Nation, bringing their numbers to three in the lower house. I don't know the details of how they make that call. The candidate is on 51.2%, so maybe he's more votes ahead than there is remaining voters on the roll to be counted. The remaining possible seat for One Nation, Narungga, will go down to the wire. The candidate there at last count was twenty five votes ahead with the postals and absentee votes yet to be counted. Traditionally they would favour the Liberal candidate. The seat was previously held by an independent.

Too many things could go wrong with a system like that. You could end up with a mullet.

Counting in the upper house is still going on but the ABC has only one seat listed as still in doubt, a sitting Labor member likely to be returned. Half the upper house was up for election, eleven seats, and of those, five changed hands.The Liberals lost two, SA Best lost one, Better Community lost one and an Independant lost one. Those who gained new seats were Labor 1, Greens 1 and One Nation 3.

Apart from the two seats where One Nation is slightly ahead, it looks like only another two are undecided. Both Labor/Liberal contests with one likely to Labor and one to the Liberals.

One Nation looks to have picked up a second lower house seat, Hammond, making five seats all up so far with the three upper house seats. The other two lower house seats where they are ahead are still close with MacKillop on 51.2% two candidate preferred for ON, and Narunnga at 50.3%.

Plastic jerry cans have a lot of headspace above the measure mark, but I can't see anyone fitting 15 litres in a 10 litre jerry can. My 20 litre jerry can would probably take 24 or 25, but the 10 litre one would probably only hold an extra two litres.

I think Saturday is the day they officially allocate preferences. So far preferences have been estimated by various outlets but they're using their own estimates and not that of the electoral commission. The reason is the electoral commission was expecting the Liberals to poll second overall and had worked out two party preferred estimates based on that. One Nation coming in second caught them with their pants down, so their preference estimate was no use and observers like the ABC etc. have had to try to work out their own estimates. It looks like One Nation definitely has Ngadjuri with current estimates putting them at 58.3% to Labor's 41.7%. Another seat, Hammond, is most likely to go to One Nation with current estimates at 54.4% over Labor's 45.6%. They're leading in another two, but only just (by 0.6% and 1.2%) over Liberals in second place. They're in with a chance there but the problem with those two seats is that Labor and Green preferences will go strongly to Liberal over One Nation. Liberals also often do well with postal votes, but I don't know what the status is on that count. At this stage for One Nation, it looks like definitely one lower house seat, most likely another one, and possibly those last two depending on Saturday's distribution. The ABC is calling three One Nation seats in the upper house, so that makes four between the two houses with another possible three in the lower house.

The government is saying there is, the opposition says they're fudging the figures, usual BS politics. The premier is from North Queensland so he has a good understanding of the problems in Townsville which is one of the worst spots. The previous premier was born and bred in Brisbane and did a PhD on the trade union movement, so he's in that bubble and good luck to him. People are just glad there's some adults in the room now.

David Crisafulli is a very good politician. He's a bit like the South Australian premier in that he's skilled in making political things not sound political, and a very good people person as well. His team is competent enough, but the premier is the glue that holds it together.

Jerry, happier than what they were before GST I meant. There'll always be one state or another screaming it's not fair.

I think the states are a lot happier with it. There's still a few arguments over shares and fairness, but they don't have to grovel to Canberra as much as pre GST days.

I think it was centrifugal force I learnt that day.

I learnt about force and momentum and all that stuff at an early age when I went flying off the running board of the old Maple Leaf Chev, straight into a big patch of bullheads. I never did tell anyone I purposely let go to see if I could ride it round a corner without hanging on.

Probably the only place the Coalition, or in our case the LNP is doing well is here in Queensland. They're a popular government and polling suggests they're weathering the One Nation storm well. State labor doesn't look to have much chance of returning for a long time yet. None of that's unusual as Queensland quite often goes against the national trend, and state and national issues here are always clearly defined. It's quite normal for us to have a Labor state government and no chance for them in a federal election, and the same the opposite way around at times.

You'll know Labor is concerned about about voter base erosion if they start talking about One Nation and not the Coalition. If Labor loses a fair bit of the blue collar vote, some might go to One Nation. But if they get tired of that, they might walk past the Coalition on the way back and stop there for a while. Either way, it's no time for the true believers to be gloating. I don't think they are, they seem to be taking a bit of notice of what's happening lately.

I was looking through the SA poll figures so far and the Libs have copped it from all sides, losing a possible four seats to Labor, possible three to independants, one likely and two possible lost to One Nation.

ome, did you read that or have you tried it?

I don't remember whether they said PAYG tax would be decreased or not, someone here might know. The original deal was supposed to do away with certain state taxes like stamp duty, but the states reneged on that crying broke and we ended up with GST and stamp duty. We ended up paying GST on a lot of extra things, but a lot of things previously had the 22% general sales tax rate so it probably balanced out.

Due to the high primary vote they got, the party picks up a fairly good pay packet helped by South Australia's new electoral rules. Most political donations were banned, but the dollar rate for votes received by parties has increased. I don't know One Nation's state/national branch financial sharing, but they should be a bit more cashed up for the Victorian by-election and the state election later on.

Jerry, it already has got way out of hand where I live. It's not just 10 or 20 kids hooning around town, there's dozens of them all over town causing problems in the afternoon after school. It's bad in the whole district, but my local town gets singled out in the press as being the most troublesome standout area. I think it's to do with the geopraphy and layout of the town and where the school is sited. It makes it easy for the kids to roar around and not get caught. What's brought it to a head lately is the number of deaths and injuries to riders and pedestrians. The police don't have the resources to be chasing them all over town every afternoon, it's only a small local station.

With this one, if you took the pedals off, you could call it an electric motorbike. A pedal E-Bike I think it's called.

I think that's why they are restricting under 16's. Regulations are already there to stop them from modifying the speeds, but no amount of regulation stops it. It doesn't work proactively in the case of kids, so at the moment all the police can do is act reactively after the offence.

The final preferenced result won't be known until Saturday. One nation has one lower house seat called by different outlets, but I don't think it's official. They're ahead in three others, but I think of those three, only Hammond will get up for them. It's a ON against Labor contest with the sitting Liberal knocked out. ON has a good lead over Labor at this stage and they'll pick up Liberal preferences. In the other two, ON is ahead of Liberals in the number two position, but only just. Labor and Green preferences will flow to the Liberals ahead of ON, so I can see the Libs gaining those seats.

That's the thing, they're sold legally with a motor capable of those speeds but by law have to have a speed limiter. It doesn't seem very hard for the kids to get their hands on a black market chip to override that limitation. If kids under 16 are totally banned from riding them in public it would negate a lot of that. I think back to when I was 13 or 14 and how great it would have been if your parents bought you something like that and let you loose with it. That's why I don't blame the kids fror the temptation; I would have done the same thing at their age, hotted it up to go as fast as possible.