OK If you are interested in helping the new wave out of the DARK AGES to start rolling here DownUnder keep reading, if not I won't hold it against you and will still help it roll on stateside with my vote NEXT November.

Down here we will be voting in the big one on Sat Nov 24th, 8AM to 6pm HERE ( Fri 23rd 6PM to Sat 24th 4AM THERE) (give or take an hour because my state doesn't do daylight savings, but that's another story)

So those are the hours we vote, then after that we wait for the result,
We don't vote for the person. The party selects it's leader and we vote for the party.

We vote on one Ballot for the House of Reps for someone from our state. Then on another Ballot for The Senate. For the Senate we vote in a section above a line for the party we want then they determine where their preferences go. Or we vote below the line with the party we want as number one then order our preferences from there.

Anyhow I'd appreciate some BlunderVibes on the day!!
If you don't know our parties I'll give you a brief description as it can be confusing!

The Labor Party....Kevin Rudd is the leader, he was a Diplomat and said right at the start that we should not go to Iraq.


It is between Labor and Little (Dubyas deputy DownUnder) Johnnies party.

Now a third party The Greens are great in things like Climate change, anti war and rights but they can't beat the other two.

There are also many other lesser parties and some independants.

Now this is where it can get confusing....Little Johnnie's Party is called The Liberal Party (HA HA.) So in my case if I call myself a liberal type persom here it is VERY IMPORTANT to call myself a SMALL L LIBERAL or I guess that should be small l Liberal,,,,,,or someone might mistake me for a follower of Little Johnnie!!!!

So my wish would be for Vibes to go to Labor.

Hey another thing.........There is a movement here to break Oz away from Britian. The Queen is still our head of state! Can you believe it!!
So that group, which I totally agree with, are called REPUBLICANS so I also have to be carefull in that area too!

It is compulsary to vote here which I don't agree with cos it makes for too many informal (or maybe some stab in the dark )votes from people who don't care or couldn't be bothered finding things out.

I feel privilaged to be able to vote in both countries so will keep studying up and following the pre election year over there. Your views will also be very important to me as you are "on the ground" so to speak!

So wish us luck for 24th Nov. I have a good feeling about it and see both my countries moving out of the Dark Times over the next 12 months.

Just Google the parties if you wanna know more about em and see for yourself.[/url]

Very interesting Louise. Didn't know that the Queen still is your head of state. Very odd.
We have two major parties over here too, but also smaller ones,like e.g. The Green Party, who will never get enough votes to win, but will get enough votes to be in the "Bundestag" (Senate). The big parties often need them to get majority, so they build an alliance, and therefore the smaller parties have the power to force some of their great things into government. If a voter decides he wants to keep more balance and not have one party become too strong, they vote for a smaller (but still big enough) one.
Good luck for your favourites in the election.
Brigitte

This was interesting info. Had no idea the Queen was still heading up things there. May the best man win...

The Blundervibes are headed to you and the to Labor Party, Wheezie!

Wikipedia can be a bit of a dry read, but this page http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_political_parties has links to discourses on the Australian political parties. It IS confusing, but then what isn't confusing about politics???? Sometimes it just turns out to be confusing; sometimes "they" make it confusing on purpose.

Anyway, good luck and thanks for leading the way (we hope) out of the darkness and into a least a dim light.

Seems like I've heard about another country that has a system like that.

Louise, this year we've named our Thanksgiving turkey "Little Johnny." By a happy coincidence, he's smoked, too. And by Saturday, neither of them will have anything left but the bones!

Was it JFK Jr' who asked, "Why isn't politics fun?"

Ceashel
Yeah, I think he will be toast by Sun morn. Things are looking good, but keep those voting vibes comin'. THANKS!
The Kyoto Protocol will finally get signed in this country, the troops will start coming home (and those of us who marched in '03 and weren't listened to by our govt. and were called traitors will be relieved)
This govt started taking away our award system,(we had penalty rates for weekend and night work etc), with their Workchoices and Certified Agreements between boss and worker. They scraped the unfair dismissal law for businesses with less than 100 staff............I could go on and on.
Well, all that will change after Sat.
A new wave is coming. I'm starting feel like I can breath again.
Hey, the Labor Party won't get it all right either "you can't please all of the people all of the time" but it's a start.

"Good, good, good, good vibrations" (to throw in another Beach Boys quote) are coming to the Australian Labor Party! Hey, that's "ALP"! You could say "ALP" is on the way!

Looks like there's good news from Down Under... Rudd over Howard by a BIG margin!

That gives us hope up here, too!

I have been computerless at the beach for two days or I would have said this sooner WE WON!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! labor won the majority in the House of Reps and we have to wait a few weeks to see what happens in the Senate. Howard even lost the Electorate he has held for 33YEARS!!! He is only the second PM in our political history to lose his seat in The House, the last time was in 1929!
I feel I can breath now ! Our new Vice PM in Julia Gillard.
I'm real tired from the late night to hear the speeches etc. I guess you'll hear about it in the media there (dubya will be pissed).
This is hopefully a sign of the times and I can't wait to vote stateside next Nov!

Glad you had a good time at the beach. Sounds like your elections went well for you...

Good for Oz! Johnny B. Gone! (Apologies to Chuck Berry!)

Congratulations Louise and Oz. I keep my fingers crossed for the next step.

Can you imagine??? Because the Labor party had such a huge win last weekend here in OZ, and Little Johnnies party was hit hard, the Labor party is now in power in every state and territory in OZ!!!............and the most senior elected Liberal (remember the Liberal Party here is the right wing Repub like party) now with ANY sort of power, is the MAYOR of Brisbane!! (he is also outnumbered by his Council who are a majority of Labor Party members) . The metro population size of Brisbane ( the city I live near) is about 1.8 million.Can you imagine, after the election next Nov, if a mayor of a city, somewhere in the states, with a pop of say, 2 million, was the most senior elected Repub in the land!!!
Friends, I'd say that would be a movement!!!