Trigger warning:

This site may, in fact always will contain images and information likely to cause consternation, conniptions, distress, along with moderate to severe bedwetting among statists, wimps, wusses, politicians, lefties, green fascists, and creatures of the state who can't bear the thought of anything that disagrees with their jaded view of the world.

Sep 8, 2013

HUGE!!!!! Australia elects its first libertarian senator


After a history making effort, the libertarian Liberal Democratic Party is welcoming our new provisional senator, David Leyonhjelm who scored the fifth senate spot in NSW. Who said we would be battling it out for the final place??????
It could have been even better had the Liberals had the sense to preference us ahead of The Palmer United Party, which would have won us a second seat in Tasmania, where our candidate came a whisker short.  The Libs will pay for this in a big way, as we are essentially classical liberals while PUP has a populist grab-bag of policies varying from left of the greens, to the far right of Abbott.
In most of the other states we had the third or fourth highest tally of votes at the end of the night.
While we bask in the kudos of the breakthrough, everyone and his dog are talking about us and seeking more information to the point where our website crashed from overuse.  The Liberal Dems are on the way.
Not all of the conversation is happy talk.  The normally sensible ABC election annalist, Antony Green and others are claiming that David's position of first on the ballot caused Liberals to get all confused and in a tizz, bringing about his election.  While we probably benefitted from this, it is a little rich to claim that the 8.9% who voted for him were Liberal Party members who cant read very well.  We were conspicuously in second place on the ballot in WA without that happening, so perhaps Antony thinks WA Liberals are much smarter than NSW ones.
Perhaps some of the warnings that were issued by the Liberals, that the Liberal Democrats at the head of the ballot were not the Liberal Party drew some attention to us and caused people to have a better look at us and they liked what they saw.
I had a good result in WA with nearly 3.5% but lost out to the Sports Party. We got a little bit of favorable press this time, which was better than the normal cloak of invisibility that gets thrown over us.
Overall we increased our vote in every state except Queensland where the Palmer billions crushed us along with all other small parties.
Overall though, we are in a great position to go on to win from here.  In most states we achieved a sufficient primary vote to win with in any other election than this one, which had two new well-funded parties who took most of the oxygen out of the campaign.
We now have a voice in federal parliament, which cannot be ignored and a healthy base of enthusiastic supporters who have tasted victory and want to pig out on it.  The sky’s the limit, or perhaps even higher. 
Of the two new parties, Katter's saved Labor from defeats in Queensland, while both his and Palmer's did preference deals that resulted in the election of luddite Greens senators in both Qld and WA.  This should be neither forgiven, nor forgotten.

6 comments:

  1. Congratulations. I wish we had free elections in the USA.

    ReplyDelete
  2. profoundly_disturbedSeptember 9, 2013 at 9:38 AM

    Onward and upward Jim!

    You're right, both Katter and Palmer will be feeling a cold wind blowing sooner than they expect.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Some of us envy aspects of the US voting system Gary. Voting is compulsory here with the threats of fines for non compliance. We like the idea of recall elections, and the propositions that get voted on in the states, among other things.

    On the other hand, we think you could benefit from the preferential system we have here where voters list candidates in order from the least disappointing through to the least wanted. This makes voting for smaller parties more palatable as a preference can then be given to your statist of choice.

    I think the path leads upwards from here PD. We've hit the big time and need to grab it with both hands.

    I think Katter's dreams have been dashed and he will fade from here. It must have been a hell of a wake up call for him to find himself trailing badly to the LNP guy and need Labor to get him in.

    I think Palmer is probably too volatile to put up with being an irrelevant MP in a house dominated by the new government. My bet is that in 6 - 12 months, he will have a dummy spit and quit.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Good on you Jim of securing the percentage of vote that you did. Agree with your assessment of Palmer.
    I'm more a conservative without a home rather than a libertarian but I see an opportunity for your lot to promote just what you are on about now that David has secured a Senate seat.
    Tonight a reporter on ABC radio PM program described LDP as gun lovers. Rather a snide limited definition I would have thought.

    ReplyDelete
  5. The ABC and some of the others seem totally obsessed with the gun issue and David has addressed it well in the interviews I have seen so far. I spoke to him a short time ago in an executive meeting and e is getting a bit sick of questions on the issue but we are getting plenty of applications for membership from firearms enthusiasts wanting to join the party.

    We are fortunate that he was the first to be elected as he is coming across as an articulate voice, rather than the personification of what the ABC would have people believe us to be.

    As for being 'a conservative without a home rather than a libertarian' you will find that most of us are fairly conservative. The difference is that we don't really care what others choose to do as long as it doesn't impact adversely on others or involve coercion.

    ReplyDelete
  6. David has been doing excellent at the interviews. Every time the suggestion of the Lib Dems being a far right party comes up, it merely gives an opportunity to promote policies such as same sex marriage, assisted suicide and more open immigration -- all of which are socially 'left' issues.

    The LDP finally gives a home for those that agree with the economic management of the Coalition and the social freedoms of the Labor/Green!

    ReplyDelete