Federal by-elections:
- Oakeshott has romped it in with more than 60% of the primary vote in Lyne.
- It’s tight in Mayo, with an 11% swing against the Libs putting Briggs up on the Greens candidate by around 52-48 on a 2PP basis.
WA state election:
- Results here, and liveblogging at The Poll Bludger. Things look very grim for Labor.
Pakistan:
UPDATE: I have added some comments below about Bolt’s misinterpretation of the results. Cosmicjester has done the same at Tha Bastard Son.
Bolt is being his usual moronic self, declaring the likely labor win in WA all about people turing on Kevin Rudd but he is ignoring the Lyne and Mayo elections and the big swing against the coalition, and his monkeys play along
Yep, this is pretty much what I expected from him – crowing about WA and ignoring the federal by-election results.
Some counter-facts:
- While the WA result is a disaster for Labor in that state, WA was also the weakest state for the ALP in the federal election last year. The ALP only holds 4 seats in the House of Representatives from WA, so for the result to have federal implications it needs to generalise to the other states and territories.
- He completely ignores the fact that Labor is polling, if anything, above its performance last November. The worst polls for Labor at the moment are around 55-45, with several recent polls up around 58-42.
- He assumes any votes the ALP loses will go across to the Coalition. The trend toward the Greens at the moment suggests otherwise.
- If a double dissolution is called, it won’t be an entirely cynical ploy, as the early elections in the NT and WA were. It will be because the Government could not secure the passage of its Bills through the Senate – something they will be able to hit both the Opposition and Mr F with.
Bolt really needs to get back onto distorting the evidence about climate change. The more he talks about politics (both Australian and in the US), the more obvious it becomes that conservative bias isn’t his only problem. He truly has no idea – even if he was trying to be objective, he doesn’t have the insight to offer meaningful commentary.