Simon Jackman has two interesting recent posts:
1. Bob Brown [Green] : tough negotiator [not!]
with $42 billion on the table, Brown is reported as putting cycle paths on the negotiating table. Amazing. [...]
With $42 billion on the table and your vote pivotal, wouldn’t you’d think the leader of the Greens would go for, oh, say, the biggest investment in green tech and infrastructure in the history of Federation…and then some…?!?
(Simon also includes a pointed comparison to another small-party Senator’s superior negotiating strategy.)
2. “Have we all written off the prospect of buying off a National (or two)? Barnaby?”
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Bob Brown is a deeply admirable guy as an individual, but he has the political sense of the average housebrick. Most Green parties are fairly sophisticated in their internal procedures and policy development. By contrast, the Australian Greens have been far too dependent on Brown’s charisma and not much more.
Seed planted by Alan — 11 February 2009 @ 05:01
The stimulus package failed to pass the Senate, 35/35 (tied votes are decided in the negative). The decisive vote was an independent from South Australia who demanded accelerated spending on the long-term water crisis in the Murray-Darling Basin. Alarums and chambers go off within.
Seed planted by Alan — 12 February 2009 @ 12:09
Nick Xenophon was born Nick Xenophou but decided, after a trip back to the old country, to change his surname by deed poll from the genitive case to the accusative (or possibly nominative? or even genitive plural? Is that an omega or an omicron before the last N?).
There was some political symbolism to this – but it was all Greek to The Australians reporter, who declined to give any further details – so my best guess is it’s something like the difference between “Hindenburg” and “von Hindenburg” in German, or “Estaing” and “d’Estaing” in French, perhaps.
Seed planted by Tom Round — 12 February 2009 @ 19:43
‘xenophou’ is a genitive singular second declension neuter.’xenophon’ is a nominative singular in the same declension and gender. Greek is prone, much more than other European languages, to back the pure to the pure Attic movements, which generally mean the impossible task of trying to purge the language of Turkicisms. But that would be to give the nominativisation of ‘xenophou’ a foreign sound.
There will be a vanishingly small prize for anyone who catches the joke in the last sentence.
Seed planted by Alan — 12 February 2009 @ 20:08
Caught it.
There was an incident in 2007, or maybe 2008, when Nick Minchin (leading Liberal Senator) noted that some amendment proposed by the other Senator Nick “sounded strange”. And I thought, hmmm, what if the Greeks had a word for “strange sound”…
PS: omicron-N is accusative singular for masculine and neuter, and also nominative singular for neuter, right? And omega-N is genitive plural for masculine and neuter, yes? (In Classical, not koine/ modern).
Seed planted by Tom Round — 12 February 2009 @ 22:32
Ar risk of lengthening the discussion of omega/omicron values, it would be an Atticising anabasis to go from a genitive singular to a genitive plural.
Seed planted by Alan — 13 February 2009 @ 04:23
Wouldn’t want an Attici[z]ing anabasis on MSS’s blog. Anyway, here’s some vox populi from [the] hoi polloi concerning how Xenophon voted in the Senate (now I’m starting to sound like dialogue from 300):
“Government frustrated by the single-issue Senator”
Better, presumably, for single-issue voters to choose a whole party to govern on the basis of that issue. (Labor lost power unexpectedly in Queensland in 1995 largely because of a grass-roots campaign to stop a highway extension in four electorates).
And speaking of Labor and Queensland, the Premiere seems to think the Senate is a Bundesrat:
“Bligh calls on state Senators to back rescue”
Seed planted by Tom Round — 14 February 2009 @ 19:31
And yet a number of the Gerousia mutinied against Bligh because the bill had not enough bounty for them.
Seed planted by Alan — 16 February 2009 @ 03:42
The Joycean drama continues. Now, kiddies, you can see why the National Party’s most prominent federal parliamentarian is not in the shadow cabinet:
‘Maverick National Party Senator Barnaby Joyce has hosed down suggestions that Page is one of the lower house seats he is considering in a possible move to the House of Representatives at the next federal election.
‘”It’s a decision that will be made by the executive of the party when and where and if I go,” Mr Joyce said.
‘”There is a lot of speculation out there and what I want to do is to make sure it doesn’t get ahead of itself… You can’t just launch yourself on a seat.
‘”I was asked a question (about Page) and I answered honestly that yes I would (consider it)… and it gets turned into “he’s going there next’.”
‘Senator Joyce was born in Tamworth and said almost every seat from New England to Leichhardt in Far North Queensland has been mentioned.
‘He said he would prefer to run against an independent or a sitting Labor member rather than take a seat currently held by the National Party.
‘”That’s how the party will survive, by winning more seats and winning power,” he said.
[...]
‘Senator Joyce ruffled a few feathers in the coalition recently by saying he would vote against an Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) even if it was supported by his Liberal and National colleagues.
‘He believes the current coalition arrangement should remain, despite the Queensland Liberals and Nationals forming a single party last year.
‘”What you had (at state level) in Queensland was no opposition… that is not the situation federally,” he said.’
- Andy Parks “Joyce leaves Page in the picture”, 15(4) The Northern Rivers Echo (29 January 2009), p 5.
Page is my House of Reps electorate. As it happens, the Nationals’ 2007 candidate for Richmond, the next federal electorate northwards, was Dr Sue Page, while the State member for Ballina (which partly overlaps with both) is Don Paige. And yes, it can be confusing.
Seed planted by Tom Round — 23 February 2009 @ 19:17
Meanwhile, certain [l]abo[u]r leaders in Victoria think that State’s upper house is a Bundestag:
‘UNION leaders from rival factions have teamed up to try to deny Victorian ALP members a vote in upper house preselections, inflaming tensions in the party’s state branch.
In a move likened to a state Labor-style “Moscow-Berlin pact,” the left-wing metalworkers union and right-wing shop assistants union [... are] advocating a Senate-style system for Victorian upper house preselections.
[... Opponents have, in retaliation,] threatened to conduct the ballots for each position one by one, instead by proportional representation, if their proposal is implemented.
A source said this would mean pro-deal forces would get a clean sweep of all three viable positions, denying [the union allies] their goal of controlling all of the third positions on the ALP upper house tickets. Labor is usually assured of securing at least two spots in each of the eight upper house divisions in Victoria and usually claims three in the metropolitan divisions. [...]
- Ewin Hannan and Rick Wallace, “Left and Right join on votes,” The Australian (27 March 2009).
Australian parties usually use an STV count (sometimes of the whole membership, but more often of the State council or similar body) to determine which prospective candidates are endorsed for the party’s “mainland upper house” ticket (ie, those chambers elected by STV-PR without ballot rotation – the Senate and the NSW, Vic, WA and SA Legislative Councils). Well and good. But the next crucial step – ranking the (say) four candidates preselected to contest the (say) five seats – is usually done on a “first-past-the-quota” basis, by simple order of election. Thus, if one faction has 41% of the floor votes, it gets two of the four ticket slots; if its troops are well-marshalled, it gets the top two ticket slots and thus may end up monopolising the party’s representation in the State/ region concerned.
Seed planted by Tom Round — 28 March 2009 @ 07:43