In Victoria, Steve Bracks’s minority government transformed a knife-edge win into electoral longevity and parliamentary reform, write Brian Costar and David Hayward

I’m getting a little fed up with how, when a government, a politician or political party announce some policy initiative, something that may actually be worthwhile doing, the announcement seems to be inevitably reported as “outraging some powerful lobby industry” or other, and being a thing that will tip society over the teetering edge of civilisation as we know it.

Yet the abyss beckons according to Clubs Australia executive director Anthony Ball …

… said the undertaking to implement a mandatory pre-commitment system for all poker machines across Australia as well as to limit ATM cash withdrawals to just $250 a day were completely untested.

He said the measures would close rural clubs, cost jobs, inconvenience recreational gamblers and club users, and do nothing to alleviate problem gambling.

“Julia Gillard wrote to Clubs Australia and committed herself to consultation in developing gambling policy. Read more »

The NSW North Coast Nats have been in a quiet frenzy since a minority government became the new political reality.
The idea of Rob Oakeshott (who resigned from the National Party in 2002) in the quartet holding balance of power has them swarming out of the nest like so many irritated and agitated green ants.
To anyone who'll listen they are suggesting that if Oakeshott supports a Labor federal government he would be betraying a predominately National's electorate.
Eh? Come again fellas? A National Party electorate?
The region covered by the Lyne electorate is fiercely independent and hasn't supported the Nats at federal level since a September 2008 by-election. Read more »

I want to see a rip-off of a "Cool Hand Luke" scene, with Ken Henry (not George Kennedy) saying "What we have here is a failure to calculate", while shoving a bucket-load of pocket calculators down a supine Mr Rabbit’s mouth (in budgie smugglers rather than Paul Newman’s shorts).

And the bets would of course be not eggs, but how many billion dollars "fell between the cracks"… (or did LNP numbers fall out of one crack?).

See Also: Read more »

Wait, what? This doesn’t fit the right-wing talking points about independents holding the rest of us to ransom for their local electorates at all:

Mr Wilkie also revealed Opposition Leader Tony Abbott offered him almost three times as much for the Hobart hospital, but he turned it down.

“The ALP best meets my criteria that the government must be stable, competent and ethical,” he said.

As well as the $340 million for Hobart hospital, Ms Gillard has promised to open up a funding round of $1.8 billion for other hospitals.

Mr Wilkie says regional and rural hospitals should be considered as priorities in the applications for funding.

So he turned down extra funding for his local electorate on the basis of a principled stand for hospitals throughout the country? He agreed to support a party for government that wasn’t actually offering his electorate the most money, but instead made his choice on the basis of which is the least unethical option? Read more »