I think that's a little unfair to the Australian Electoral Commission. They're not the government's lackeys and never have been, no matter what government has been in place. That's not to say fraud never ever happens, but to suggest they don't give a toss is a bit insulting to their many dedicated and supremely honest workers, IMHO (and yes, I know someone who works there :O).

In any case, the ALP are currently flat out getting enough members and volunteers to hand out pamphlets and how to vote cards. When a Labor Party can't hang on to places like Woodridge or the NT, you know the run's on. Never mind the dead turning out to vote; they're going to be flat out getting their living supporters to vote for them, let alone commit major electoral fraud on the party's behalf. They are incredibly stinky with their own people at the moment. From talking to people, I think Katter (:eek:) and the Greens (:mad:) are going to do remarkably well in the next election.

Re your second point, About 60% of the electorate always vote the same way (whichever way it is). Always have, always will. 30% of the Labor vote would vote for them if they announced their intention to form a communist state, and 30% of the Liberal vote would vote for them if they promised to paint swastikas on Parliament House.

IIRC the lowest primary vote for a major party in a federal election (in recent times) was about 42%. State swings are bigger which suggests people will change their state allegience more readily than their federal one.

You can safely discount 60% at any election and just look at the 40% who change their vote, either regularly or occasionally. It's not a conspiracy or a dodgy poll thing, it's just the way it is.

Agree

The Australian Electoral Commission has given stick to the Government,
State and Federal on many occasion for doing the wrong thing.

Whilst there may, or may not be small corruptions here & there, I just cannot see widescale electoral fraud occurring here. The apathy is too great to enable this level of organisation!

Australians should be very concerned. This is overt government intrusion into a citizen's private affairs.

If you write a letter to somebody and post it in the mail, is there a law that allows government to keep a copy for two years?

Would the average person accept their snail mail being copied and stored?

Because emails are a different form of communication does that make it acceptable?

What's next on government's agenda? Will we be micro-chipped like the family dog or cat? :ugh:

Another financial time bomb set for the future today in Adelaide... Delay of the Air Warfare Destroyer and announcement that the "future submarine" will be built in South Australia. With the enormous size of the area of sea the RAN has to cover with very, very limited assets, a non-nuke "future submarine", to be home built as was the Collins class, is the equivalent of investing in the latest saddles and cutting edge reins and bridles just as motor vehicles were taking over from horse drawn carts.

Andu

You have to admit that when the Collins class does work,
it works very well indeed - as the US Navy found out !

Problem is, too long to make, too many hiccups
and too many serious incidents almost resulting in the
loss of the subs (at least 2).


Buying jobs in Adelaide - mmmm, more pork barreling !

Is there any point in having a submarine that needs to come up to breathe though? Particularly when you can buy one that doesn't? :confused:
I must say I thought similarly to Andu re horse mounted cavalry et al.
TO be sure. They'd announce a sub base at Alice Springs if they thought there was a vote in it. :}

P.S. Why the heck has PPRuNe advertising suddenly decided that I want to meet older women in my area? :ugh::ugh:

I was a state election scrutineer a few years ago and asked a question about that. The answer they gave me was that the electoral rolls from different booths in an electorate are compared as soon as possible after the election. Any significant double 'marking off' (indicating an illegal vote) raises the alarm. If that occurs, the result for the electorate cannot be declared until all double votes have been found and discounted, including absentee votes. The process isn't advertised, as mass doubled voting would slow an election down, although not change its result.

The names involved in doubling are investigated for connections, and if you are guilty you are carried away in an armoured Hummer with black windows. They take it seriously, while they're prepared to let a few percent of people not vote without investigating those cases. What's the point of suing a hippy anyway.

It costs more to prosecute such cases than can be recouped through the fines imposed by the courts.

The thing is that diesel electric subs are, by far, the quietest subs in the market and ideal as sub and surface killers. Drawback is the requirement to occasionally come to the surface to breathe. Whether Australia has the capabilities to design and build an effective platform is debateable. The record with the Collins ain't good.

A compromise is the nuclear hunter/killer subs that the Brits have. But of course buying proven bits of kit from the Brits is totally politically unacceptable. So we'll settle for second best.

Thanks for that. So the nukes are noisy?
We buy French or Austrian stuff before we buy British stuff. Go figure...:rolleyes:
Actually I thought we had a policy not to buy nuclear subs whatever their origin, because any Australian ships of war have to be hippy friendly. IIRC the Howard Government had the same policy...

We have some crazy defence policies.

Not buying British because it is British is bloody stupid.
Might be a throw back to when we didn't get the Ark Royal Aircraft carrier
because of the Falklands !!!

I think the Virginia class nuke (US) is at the top of the Navy's 'in yer dreams' wish list, but there'd be very few who'd think it's a realistic wish because of the politics involved in Australia buying anything nuclear-powered. Even with the long standing traditional links between the RN and RAN, I don't think there are too many people in the RAN who'd want to touch anything Brit. (Look at what's happened with the RAN's most recent major acquisition from the Brits - HMAS Choules (L100). Six months laid up for repairs after a major technical failure within months of acceptance. Not to worry; it was serviceable enough to star on Master Chef.)

Virtually all the non-nuke submarines are European and, (apart from the obvious need to snort regularly), have one glaring shortcoming for the RAN - lack of range. (I can't comment on the Japanese conventional sub which is available for sale, which may be the exception.) Some are quite small, with a very small crew - not suitable for long cruises, which would be the bread and butter of any effective RAN submarine fleet, (it's been a while since we've had one - since the excellent 'O' Boats were decommissioned), even if they were based in Darwin. (There's a huge difference in what a long range submarine must provide for its crew if they are to remain effective on a multi-week, even multi-month cruise to the 'out for the day and back to base by 1700' (I accept, an exaggeration), which is a quite acceptable profile for European navies, given that their areas of responsibility are immediately offshore from their ports.

The same problem exists with the Air Warfare Destroyer - (I am told, to the Navy's horror), the DMO accepted a ship that provides totally unacceptable accommodation for its enlisted crew if that crew is to be deployed away from port for months at a time, as the RAN frequently does and the Spanish Navy does not. [The ***ing bunks, four high, are only 1.8m long(!), and cannot be extended without major mods. to the ship, like moving structural bulkheads.)




Meanwhile, two more asylum seeker boats with 140 new country shoppers arrived today.

RJM. When I still lived with the fossils, I had the exact same name & address as my old man. He'd get a letter asking why he hadn't voted & I'd get a letter asking why I voted twice! The AEC couldn't work it out, so we sorted it ourselves. I used to take the second one & he'd take the first one!

Simple solution. Recruit shortarses for the RAN and send them to sea with crates of beer. You'll have a happy crew, and they can stand on the beer crates to do their jobs when the boxing starts.

I did hear, second or third hand, that the guys have left the services and the 'lady' will remain on leave for at least another year, on full pay, before being quietly discharged, 'services no longer required' or something similar, she has considerable history, as her contemporaries will tell you.

Watching the Paul Murray show, I see the talking heads are saying that Malcolm Turnbull has done, (as was predicted here some days if not weeks ago), yet another damaging 'own goal' to the Libs with his speech yesterday in Perth.

What is it with the name 'Malcolm' and the Liberal Party?

EffohX

I think they may be correct re Turnbull.

He now only needs to lose his trousers:ok::O

A third boat within 24 hours... That strongly-worded "you risk being sent to Nauru" has really spoiled the people smugglers' business plan, hasn't it? (It would appear NOT.)

Meanwhile, in a curious reversal of roles, there's talk of the government (I'm assuming one of the State Governments), hiring a corporate jet - at a cost of around one million dollars - to deport a UK-born murderer back to the UK after he has served his time. A number of attempts to send him by commercial air have failed when he spat at crew, urinated in the aisle and generally behaved badly.

I find myself wondering why the gentlemen couldn't be sedated and restrained, (if necessary, to the point where he's strapped into a stretcher and fed on a drip). If no airline is willing to do that, I'm sure he could be taken, heavily restrained, as far as Kabul on a Herc or a C-17 and handed over to the Poms there. Or to take the reversal of convict traffic to its full extreme, maybe they could put him in a cell on a very slow cargo ship.

They could take him to the air base in UAE in a C17 or C130,
whichever we have going at the time and then it is a lot shorter
journey to the UK.


And if he decides to play up, give him a bit of Ramp surfing with
knife held over the strap :O and if he continues to play up, cut the strap
at the same time as the pilot does a a quick steep climb and hey presto,
problem solved.