Labor wins S.A. election

[Jerry_Atrick]

I don't seem to be able to find the swing across the state at the moment,  but is seems the LNP are bearing the brunt ov votert dissatisfaction. https://www.abc.net.au/news/elections/sa/2026/results?sortBy=margin&filter=all&selectedRegion=all&selectedParty=all&partyWonBy=all&partyHeldBy=all

 

With 63% oif the vote counted and 9 seats in doubt, Labor seems to have romped it in. But, some of the biggest individual seat swings at present are to Labor. For example, Waite has an 18.3% swinf to ALP. Note, in Kavel, there is currently a 17.4% swing to Libs from the independent. Until the vote is counted, we won't know across the state, but it will be interesting reading

 

 

 

27 minutes ago, Grumpy Old Nasho said:

My internet has slowed right up, got to fix things here.

You can thank Abbott for that. At last look, Australian internet was slower than Khazakstan's on the whole. 

 

In London, you can get gigbit internet unlimited for £20/month, including a landline. We are getting in the sticks early 2027. 

Edited 1 hour ago by Jerry_Atrick

[Jerry_Atrick]

6 minutes ago, Grumpy Old Nasho said:

We have a Community Committee here in the bush where I live. It is more useful than any politician. There's no politics or ideologies, only just working on issues to make things better for us in the immediate area. Lobbying the local Council is usually necessary for larger issues.

 

We hold community meetings with eats and drinks afterwards, no outside politicians to spoil anything. The rest of Australia could learn from us, just work on issues, not who's best at doing them, but just getting them done.  

This works well on a small scale and for local management, but could you really organise it for the defence of the realm or the provision of hospitals, justice, etc?

 

 

Edited 1 hour ago by Jerry_Atrick

[octave]

I find the voting system in NZ quite appealing, but it's not some brilliant solution to the perceived failings of our system of democracy.

 

My son lives in NZ and is now a citizen. We regularly talk about politics and the thing that occurs to me is that although they have multi-member electorates and we have the preferential system, these two countries are pretty similar. When I am on my yearly visit to NZ, I do not notice a huge difference.  I can even sometimes forget which country I am in.   If you are unhappy now, then changing the system won't cure you. 

 

[Grumpy Old Nasho]

1 hour ago, octave said:

5. Strategic effects

• NZ: Encourages voting for the party you actually like (less “wasted vote”)
• Australia: Preferences help, but major parties still dominate outcomes

 

Did you see that Jerry? ... "Preferences help, but major parties still dominate outcomes"

 

Minor parties need to become major parties before they can govern OZ, unless of course two or more join forces as one large party, but with still no guarantee of winning seats in Parliament, in which case, if they don't, their votes will have no value. We need a system where every vote has value, a PR system.

[Grumpy Old Nasho]

31 minutes ago, Jerry_Atrick said:

This works well on a small scale and for local management, but could you really organise it for the defence of the realm or the provision of hospitals, justice, etc?

 

 

 

Yes easily. In principle, just expand it to include those extra provisions.

[octave]

Sure, I am all for smaller parties playing a bigger part, but they may not be to your particular taste. There are as many left-wing parties as right-wing. Look, as I said, I am not against the NZ system; in fact, I quite like it, but you did rather cherry-pick what I posted. There are downsides as well, such as stability. Either way the conservatives lost. SA is quite a progressive state. I grew up there and visit there regularly and have  many friends

[willedoo]

I like South Australia. I spent a fair bit of my working life in oil and gas exploration from the Flinders Range up to the Queensland border. Haven't had much to do with the city apart from transiting by air through there and the occasional overnight stopover, but from what I've seen of Adelaide I like it. We even almost speak the same language. They say darnce and charnce and we say dance and chance like the Yanks and Scots. A couple of workmates were from Oodnadatta and they used to call soft drinks cool drinks. I don't know if that's a general SA term or an Aboriginal one as they grew up with mainly Aboriginals. But yes, fond memories of South Australia.

[Jerry_Atrick]

1 hour ago, Grumpy Old Nasho said:

We have a Community Committee here in the bush where I live. It is more useful than any politician. There's no politics or ideologies, only just working on issues to make things better for us in the immediate area. Lobbying the local Council is usually necessary for larger issues.

 

We hold community meetings with eats and drinks afterwards, no outside politicians to spoil anything. The rest of Australia could learn from us, just work on issues, not who's best at doing them, but just getting them done.  

 

50 minutes ago, Grumpy Old Nasho said:

 

Yes easily. In principle, just expand it to include those extra provisions.

Both quotes posted to keep context...

 

Can you pls explain how a big community committee would work for all of the stuff government provides (and is expected to provide) on a national scale for a country the size of Australia, when there are many complex issues presenting and needing decisions on a daily basis? I am genuinely interested because, as I undestand (from my son and I haven't checked him), Lichtenstien sort of operates in a similasr way. Except that it is a country of 40,000 people and has a small geogrpahic area. It has a power sharing agreement between the monarchy and the elected representatives, and, as I understand, on items of political importance, it goes to a popular vote. 

 

Again, I am not sure how a system that works for a much larger country economically, in complexity and geographically. It's GDP is a tad under USD $9Bn; this is barely the budget of one department in Australia,m which as a GDP of a tad under USD$2tn. And, according to Google, Lichtenstein fits into Australia a little over 48,000 times. But, I am genuinely interested in how a community committee could scale to Australia.