Election 2007.

[vanth]

I live in the Melbourne City Council so I get escorted to the front of the line to vote at the town hall. Makes me feel like a VIP

 

[420star]

oh man would i love to see someone coordinate that. So do you need come up with paper work or anything to substantiate why you won't be around?

I did pre poll voting for the last state election. They didn't even ask me why I wanted to vote early. I'm so doing pre poll voting for every election from now on, it's much easier then doing it on the day.:D

 

[kryalkastleE]

Well im in Europe and cant vote because we left before they announced it so we cant even postal vote.

But my b/fs vote and my vote cancel each other out anyway.

 

[MazDan]

^^^^^ are you sure??? shirley you could just go to a consulate or some thing?

 

[lostpunk5545]

I did pre poll voting for the last state election. They didn't even ask me why I wanted to vote early. I'm so doing pre poll voting for every election from now on, it's much easier then doing it on the day.:D

But the fun of voting is getting all liquored up and stumbling as a large group up to the local school, defacing Family First posters along the way!

 

[ayjay]

my b/fs vote and my vote cancel each other out anyway.

WHaaat!

That shocks me to my core - I don't think I could have any kind of significant relationship with anyone whose political beliefs were that different to mine...

How does it affect the relationship, if you don't mind me asking?

...Anyone else out there vote different from their s/o?

 

[Klue]

Or parents! ^

I am of firm beleif that political views are quite easily inherited from your parents.
Well, mine are anyway.

:D

 

[eggman]

Of course they are, but any political view can be changed by opening your mind up to alternate points of view.

Its up to the individual to go with what they believe is right rather than accepting the easy norm.

Of course if you r parents political views just happen to sum up the way you feel about the current state of play then lucky you

 

[kytnism]

does anyone know what the figure of the fine is for not voting?

...kytnism...

 

[vanth]

$50, I think.

Inheriting your voting preference from your parents is a bit iffy, I think every one should take the time to consider what they really believe in, rather than just accepting your parents point of view.

 

[eggman]

Yep $50

I got fined once for not voting in a small local election that I didnt even was happening

Is it my fault they where not successful at building the public awareness?

 

[ValeTudo]

My mum is a labor voter, im a liberal voter. she cares about "issues", i care about money and booze. my mother is lapsed catholic, i pray to god regularly (for my salvation, because im a bad guy). Inheriting values is fine if you truly believe. but i thinks everyone has a responsibility to question their ideologys at some point and consider whether its right for them. i dont believe for a second that different political beliefs et al have any genuine capacity to drive a wedge between partners or parents with an otherwise solid relationship

 

[Chaos Butterfly]

Called up the AEC today, as I'm gonna be in Canberra on election day, and to vote out of area, you just have to go to an interstate voting place, they have a few of them set up in pretty much all major cities. Luckily for me, the one I need to go to is about 100m up the road from the hotel that my brothers wedding is being held at

CB

 

[Chronik Fatigue]

Daily Telegraph Brands Kevin Rudd 'Gay'

12 Hours Later, Dirty Tricks Headline Wiped From Website

A few days ago, we mentioned that we were getting e-mail tips that the Sydney Daily Telegraph had a big 'scoop' on Kevin Rudd planned for its Friday front page. The rumours ran that Liberal dirt units had uncovered something allegedly dodgy about the way Kevin Rudd came to purchase his current home in 1994.

So here it is, Friday, and what's the big 'scoop' in the Daily Telegraph?

All we could find in the online edition at 1.20am was this incredible headline :

Kevin Rudd, John Howard's election rival, is 'gay'?

If true, it would certainly be a scoop indeed.

Trouble is, the story under that headline mentions nothing about Howard's election rival being 'gay'. It doesn't mention the word 'gay' at all.

Instead it's a story on John Howard and Julia Gillard waffling on about Howard's Monty Python-esque explanation of how saying "sorry" for rising interest rates is not the same as giving an apology for rising interest rates.

So what's going on here?

Is this a dirty tricks attempt by the Murdoch media to plant a thought-seed in peoples' minds that Kevin Rudd might be 'gay'?

What other explanation could there be for such a bizarre and unsubstantiated headline on a news site visited by tens of thousands of people this morning? A headline that has now been indexed on GoogleNews?

The headline is not a typo. The intention and headline is clear, despite what editors will later claim. And the accusation is all over the Daily Telegraph site. Here's how it appears on the 'National News' page :

Here's how it appears in the 'Also in News' listing on the main Daily Telegraph site (its second appearance on the main page) :

The aim of such a headline is clear : to spark speculation about Kevin Rudd's sexuality, and force him into a position where he has to issue denials.

This is very similar to the 'make him deny it' media campaign against Mark Latham in the 2004 election, where the Labor leader was forced to repeatedly deny that there was a saucy video tape of his bachelor party doing the rounds.

The Daily Telegraph and its sister Melbourne paper The Herald Sun were all over that one as well. There was no video tape, but Latham spent days in the final weeks of the election campaign denying it existed, or that his bachelor party was anything less than respectable. It didn't matter that the allegation was utter fiction, it planted seeds of doubt in voters' minds.

Clearly, the intention of the Daily Telegraph here is to plant a few seeds of doubt about Rudd.

The last two weeks of the election campaign, as far as some branches of the media is concerned and if this odious effort from the Daily Telegraph is anything to go by, is going to get extremely nasty.

UPDATE : The PM Not Sorry, Election Rival 'Gay' headline was removed from the front page of the online Daily Telegraph site around 11am today. It's still running, without explanation, on the National News page and the DT's Election 2007 page.

UPDATE II : The PM Not Sorry, Election Rival 'Gay' headline is now gone from all Daily Telegraph online pages. The complete x-ing of that headline happened at around 1pm. Same story, but brand new headline :

An e-mailer who claims to work at the Daily Telegraph, but sent a message during his/her lunchbreak from an internet cafe, claims journalist Malcolm Farr "went ballistic" when he heard how this story was spreading.

But not when he saw the original headline on his story?

The Orstrahyun

 

[MazDan]

Bloody media has way to much power and not enough accountability.

 

[eggman]

^ yep, its all filth

 

[kittymeow]

Bah thanks for mentioning that CB - I'll be in Tassie on election day. Means I have to be in Hobart to vote as there are no interstate polling places down where my parents live. Bummer.

I hate voting...Yeh I've sort of inherited my views from my parents....They vote Liberal but I'm not entirely convinced of either of the major party's ideologies. If you read the other thread where I said I was born in Transylvania, you might know that Romania was once a Communist country and I'm very much against anything that remotely resembles Communism in its essence....Hence the Liberal standpoint.

And I'm an individualist truly....I believe that if you create healthy, knowledgeable individuals they will in turn contribute to a healthy society...not the other way round - or by suppressing the singular for the "greater good" of the whole. People are not equal.

Anyway, my ideas are not very close at all to what the main parties are in truth...and its hard to hold down strong views when you want to speak for the masses....thats why I dislike voting because I feel I have to choose between two options when I'd rather not commit to either. Yet I can't disagree with the general state of Australia - its still a great country to live in - call me apathetic, but I can't see any way in which Labor could better this country - especially since they have no solid views on anything right now. So it probably matters most this election, but I'm letting my parents sway me this time.

 

[lostpunk5545]

This is what depresses me. People hold communism in a bad light because of the way in which people have carried its banner but no-one give a shit that the true theory of democracy has been just as dragged through the mud, and is just as worthy of disdain. We don't live in a fucking democracy. This is feudalism.

 

[ValeTudo]

Without getting into a debate, communism has a bad name because people need money to buy things. Communism, even Marxism, by its very nature, has no capacity for the individual to earn significant amounts of money.

I'd rather live in an Oligarchy and be rich, albeit powerless, than live under communism and be poor, yet still powerless.

 

[lostpunk5545]

In a true communist society people are given the things they need without having to buy them.