I wrote sarcastically on this the other day, but the conservatives do seem convinced that if the election was held again, people would change their votes in their favour.
Somehow the time line skewed into this tangent, creating an alternate 2010 election result in which Tony Abbott did not become PM as he was certain he should have. Alternate to Liberals and News Ltd columnists, but reality to everyone else.
Which seems extraordinary to me. I haven’t seen Abbott do anything post-election other than whinge about releasing his costings, storm petulantly out of press conferences, and order the independents to support him. Why does he think this will have won over new voters? I’m not sure to which voters on the ALP side of the ledger, the voters he’d need to convert, such antics would appeal.
As you might expect, I certainly have no intention of changing my vote.
So here’s the question: would you change your vote? From what, to what? Why? Do you know anyone else who would? How? Why?
I am genuinely curious as to the mindset of anyone taking the hung parliament result as a reason to switch from Labor to the Coalition, or vice versa.
Moved On 
I wouldn’t change my vote, but some people would.
Some people who voted Liberal or Independent or Green as a protest against the government, based on the widely held assumption that they’d win anyway, might switch back.
Some people who voted ALP might be so uncomfortable that Gillard would even negotiate with the likes of Katter that they’d switch to the Greens.
Others who voted ALP because they like stability and thought it a bad idea to change government after a term might switch to the Liberals, based on Labor’s internal squabbling and/or the sense that the tide seems to be going that way so they may as well make it decisive.
Perhaps most crucially, its likely a lot of people who didn’t vote last time would vote this time.
More people might seriously consider their independent candidates, including myself. Preferences would still go the same way.
Let’s spend $160m to get more hung, or just as hung!
“Some people who voted Liberal or Independent or Green as a protest against the government, based on the widely held assumption that they’d win anyway, might switch back.”
I don’t recall there being any such assumption before the election.
“Some people who voted ALP might be so uncomfortable that Gillard would even negotiate with the likes of Katter that they’d switch to the Greens.”
Maybe, but I doubt many ALP voters wanted her to just give up.
Like most Australians, I live in a safe seat. Even if I did change my vote (which I wouldn’t), it wouldn’t make a difference to the result anyway.
I suspect that for most Australians – i.e. those of us who don’t live in marginal seats – going back to the polls would just feel like a waste of time. If we do go back to the polls it could result in an angry backlash at whichever side was seen to be pushing a second election. The other major party would probably run ads capitalising on that backlash.
Democracy isn’t about being sent back to the polls if the press & at least one of the major parties don’t like the result.
Right now the attitude of the press towards minority government seems to be that “it’ll never work” without giving it a fair go to see if it can. I wish the press would just relax, sit back and let things take their course. As I understand Antony Greene’s explanation http://blogs.abc.net.au/antonygreen/2010/08/hung-parliament-where-to-from-here.html, we can’t go back to the polls until it is has been tried and shown to be unworkable.
Indeed. Silly News Ltd. All it needs to do is beat up stories claiming the ALP is trying to force us back to the polls over and over and over until that’s the meme that gets in people’s heads, and then when it happens sit back and enjoy the backlash.
I would change the order of my Senate vote below the line. I’ve learned more about some of the ‘independents’ – the fascist Australian Protection Party couldn’t get registered, therefore had no party associated with their names on the ballot, so I didn’t know to put them second-last (above Fred Nile).
I failed to update my details on the electoral roll so I didn’t vote this time around, but if I could vote in a re-run I’d vote for the Greens in the knowledge that my vote would go to the Labor candidate and I wouldn’t potentially be voting for an Abbott minority government.
And yes, after discovering that the electorate in which I live isn’t a safe Liberal seat as I thought, and that the Labor challenger, Laura Smyth, seems to be a down-to-earth idealistic young lawyer, I was worried that Smyth might lose by one or two votes, but then I googled the name of the Liberal sitting member and discovered these videos.
(Reference to person against whom I have an intervention order removed. – Jeremy)
http://www.theage.com.au/federal-election/view-from-la-trobe-is-one-labor-can-enjoy-20100822-13ay6.html
I think the Coalition will easily win government at the next election whenever it’s held.
Why is my comment still in moderation? Is it because (after arguing so long and hard that a vote for the Greens couldn’t possibly be a vote for the Coalition) you know that the number of seats held by Labor and the Coalition is so important to the independents that the Green voters in Melbourne may have elected an Abbott minority government?
(Comment edited to remove reference to person against whom I have an intervention order. – Jeremy)
“I think the Coalition will easily win government at the next election whenever it’s held.”
Why?
They lost the two party preferred. What would change a second time?
“the number of seats held by Labor and the Coalition is so important to the independents that the Green voters in Melbourne may have elected an Abbott minority government?”
I don’t get how that makes any sense at all. Green voters in Melbourne elected Adam Bandt, who will not support an Abbott government. What you’re saying is completely contrary to the facts.