Last night the Chaser did their election wrap up show. During the show they aired the clip below. The sad thing about the comedy in the skit is that the message is quite true. Depending on the final count Australia may have elected its first ever indigenous politician. New Zealand elected its first indigenous MP in 1868 and since then has had over 80 Maori MPs (20 in the current Parliament). It is good to finally see some progress in Australian politics, they are only 140 years behind NZ. One can only hope that the rest of the barriers of racism and oppression will fall and Australia will embrace their cultural roots as much as NZ does.

From around 6pm AEST tonight I will be live blogging the Australian Election results in this post.

Updates will be added to the post as the results come in.

My commentary will be from a Kiwi’s perspective with the focus primarily on New South Wales but also a bit of Queensland and Victoria.

Stay Tuned for more.

5.20pm update – Seven News have exit polls by Roy Morgan. First seat Herbet near Townsville is showing a swing to Labor however exit polls are not accurate and with a sample of only 300 people the result is within the margin of error (which 7 News failed to tell the viewers).

5.30pm – Seven News have their second exit poll. Lindsay to go Liberal with a 15% swing. Again massive swing and most likely because the sample size is so small.

5.40pm – Third exit poll. La Trobe, in Melbourne’s South East. ALP to win with 5% swing.

7pm – 7 News is reporting that the swing is going against Labor but instead of going to Liberal it is going towards the Greens. Still very early days with only around 1% of the votes counted.

7.30pm – It looks like The Greens may pick up their first ever House of Representatives seat by winning the electorate of Melbourne. (This is an early prediction). Predictions also showing ALP have lost two seats nationally, and LNP have gained two, so neck and neck.

8pm – With 3 million votes counted nationally on two party preferred LNP is leading 50.5% to 49.5%, so neck and neck, ALP may lose 13 seats on latest predictions. Election is very much too close to call. Sydney may also go Greens, and possibly Denison in Tasmania. Result may not be known tonight.

8.30pm – Greens have almost definitely won Melbourne. Candidate just gave a victory speech. Nationally with a little over 5 million votes ALP is now leading 50.3% to 49.7%.

9pm – A few victory speeches over the last half hour, but still too close to call in many seats.

9.30pm – Still heading for a hung parliament.

9.50pm – Greens have 12% in the Senate. Looks like 9 senators in the new Parliament. “We are seeing the birth of a new political movement” – Bob Brown, Greens Leader. “It is time we moved to proportional representation”

10pm – 7 News is calling it currently at 73 seats each, below the 76 needed to govern. With 3 independents + 1 Green.

10.15pm – Can a government be formed? Labor + Greens will not be enough to govern without two independents on current predictions.

11.15pm – Gillard takes the stage (before Abbott), “Too close to call”, “Every vote must be counted”

11.30pm – Channel 7′s panel is saying Labor lost the plot when they failed to have a backbone and pass the ETS in March or go to a Double D Election over the issue.

12am – Abbott has addressed the Liberal Party faithful. At end of the night hung parliament with 72 seats Labor, 71 seats LNP declared.

This morning’s announcement that the National Government will not mine any land in Schedule 4 conservation land is a massive win for the Greens, Greenpeace, and environmentalists in NZ. The end result is even better than a simple back down because the government will now “automatically designate all Schedule 4-equivalent lands, such as national parks and marine reserves, as having equally untouchable status, effectively creating a massive expansion of highly protected conservation lands.”

Deputy Prime Minister, Gerry Brownlee, is arguing that in response to 37,552 submissions on the proposal the back down is listening to the people, however, I think it is more than likely they are listening to the polls. The timing of this announcement makes you wonder if the government is trying to smokescreen and divert attention away from the controversy that is surrounding their announcement of changes to the Employment Relations Act.

Interestingly enough at the end of the announcement, Brownlee, makes the assertion that in areas of non-conservation “New Zealanders have given the minerals sector a clear mandate to go and explore that land, and where appropriate, within the constraints of the resource consent process, utilise its mineral resources for everyone’s benefit”. This is complete rubbish, poll after poll has shown that the vast majority of New Zealanders do not want mining, it is a dirty and old technology and is not the solution to moving the country forward. The future is in education and the information section not in destroying the natural environment for a quick buck.

Citing the Christian ethos of feeding the hungry, housing the homeless and clothing the naked, just as long as they’ve got the appropriate documentation, Abbott said anyone who had fled a war zone or escaped from a torture chamber without travel papers could jolly well pelt themselves with their own eggs (which no doubt would come from ducks, knowing how weird these foreigners are).

So funny yet it would not surprise me if Abbott actually said something along these lines.

Sources say Abbott had initially insisted that boat arrivals must hold Australian passports. However, it was soon realised that the only people processed under this scheme would be Australian citizens returning from holidays aboard cruise ships and those are the last sort of characters we want to encourage into the country.

Rumours that the Prime Minister is planning to keep out undesirables by processing cruise-ship passengers offshore – to ascertain whether any of them had danced to the chicken dance, giggled while ordering cocktails with rude names or played bingo while on the high seas – could not be confirmed.

The full article is here.

In October this year New Zealanders will vote for their representatives on local city councils, regional councils and health boards. But in order to vote you must first be enrolled.

Every vote counts, yours just as much as anyone else’s. It is a shame that voter turnout in local body elections over the last 20 years has dropped from almost 90% to a little over 30%. So make sure your able to have your say this year, click the image below to check that you are enrolled to vote.

It is rather alarming that New Zealand Prime Minister, John Key is involved in discussions with the Australian Prime Minister, Julia Gillard over the processing of asylum seekers: (from the NZ Herald)

Ms Gillard said she had also spoken to New Zealand Prime Minister John Key about the possibility of a regional processing centre for asylum seekers.

“John said to me that he would be open to considering this initiative constructively,” she said.

“East Timor and New Zealand are vital countries in this initiative, as they are already signatories to the refugee convention.

“And New Zealand, like Australia, is a key resettlement country.”

Currently the two major political parties in Australia are locked in a battle of who is the biggest bigot and racist. This is not a game that New Zealand wants to join. New Zealand prides itself on its multiculturalism.

Declining asylum applications from people of Afghanistan and Sri Lanka just because they are from those two countries is racist segregation in its most simple form. For any New Zealand politician to support the immigration policies of a country that is happy to endorse racism is political suicide. Crosby|Textor may have done well with John Key so far but this is one push poll that they will lose.

In a little over an hour it is about 95% likely that Australian PM Kevin Rudd will be replaced by deputy Julia Gillard. This will see Julia Gillard becoming Australia’s first female Prime Minister.

While it is a historic moment for Australia to have its first female Prime Minister it is a terrible move for democracy and for the reputation of the ALP in general.

Firstly, Democracy. Kevin Rudd was elected by the people as the leader of the country. Sure technically he was elected by members of the Labor Party to be their leader and then Labor was elected, but the reality of it is at the election he put his face forward as Kevin 07 and the election became a cult of personality which the voters endorsed. So as much as the election in 2007 was a Labor win it was also a Kevin Rudd win. If anyone should have the ability to vote out Labor and Kevin Rudd it should be the voters not just the caucus MPs.

Second, the reputation of the ALP. For the last few years Kevin Rudd has been the most popular Prime Minister in Australia’s history only in the last few months and weeks has things start to go wrong. All governments experience moments of popularity and moments of dislike by the general population. However, the instant that the gloss has come off Kevin 07 factions within the ALP have moved to get him dumped and this has completely undermined his leadership. The worst thing about Julia Gillard becoming the Prime Minister is time and again she has said that she does not want the role. This is not her saying that for political stability it has been clear that she genuinely meant it, even last night she did not look happy that she was contesting the spill this morning rather that she had been forced into it.

What this all shows is that the internal workings of the ALP have absolute contempt for the general population. They believe that because Kevin Rudd is not pushing their agenda to the letter of what they expect they can replace him with a puppet who will. Furthermore this sets a very bad precedent for the leadership of the ALP, essentially what this move is showing is in order to lead the ALP you must be popular and the instant you begin to hit a storm you will be rolled. This isn’t going to bring stability to the party or seek out the right kind of candidates for the top job.

Finally whatever the outcome of this mornings vote I hope that the Liberal Party moves a vote of confidence against the government and the government loses confidence and election is forced immediately. Julia Gillard needs to face the voters of the general public, not MPs and background lobbyists.

A gem of a comment from NZ Prime Minister John Key:

“We fully believe in the freedom of speech and freedom of rights in this country. I’d hate to see that overshadow what has been a growing and developing relationship.”

The comment was made in response to a protest by Green Party leader Dr Russel Norman where a Chinese Security Detail took a Tibetan Flag from him and roughed him up a little. The reality if Russel Norman probably did get a little close for comfort of some of the security guards.

However, to make a statement that we care about our own rights and freedoms but not enough to let it overshadow the money we are making through economic relationships with a dictatorship is rather concerning. I recognise it is not our place to dictate policy in other countries and we would not expect other countries to dictate policy to us, but, to completely ignore and not mention the extreme human rights abuses that occur in China in the name of ensuring free trade is rather concerning. Good treatment of workers, fair pay, and respecting human rights should be a condition of any free trade agreement not something to ignore as they could overshadow it.

Shane Jones needs to resign now; he has already hung on for too long. But so does Phil Goff. If Labour want any chance to win the next election they need to completely rebuild the party from the ground up. This involves a dramatic restructure of their list and they need to shuffle the old pack out of parliament as fast as possible. If they don’t National are guaranteed to win the next election and the Greens will eat a large amount of the vote. Right now Labour are on the verge of being destroyed and they need to act to stop the damage, if they don’t they are gone from power for a very long time.

Loading up the Labour party website it is clearly obvious they are lacking any distinction. All they are is attack the attack National party, and this is a terrible approach to take as a National is so popular in the polls and there is no clear reason why anyone would want to vote for Labour. In fact their website seems to advertise National more than they advertise themselves, the word National is much larger than the words Labour and the only image I see is of John Key!

As part of this rebuilding they need to clear out the old guard. Some of the MPs have dug themselves such big holes they need to go now, others have just been around for far too long and have this terrible odour about them.

A much better line up of Labour would be:
David Cunliffe – Leader
David Parker – Deputy Leader
Maryan Street
Darren Hughes
Clayton Cosgrove
Ruth Dyson
Charles Chauvel
Annette King
Nanaia Mahuta
Lianne Dalziel
Winnie Laban
Moana Mackey
Steve Chadwick
Sue Moroney
Jacinda Ardern
Ross Robertson
Mita Ririnui
Lynne Pillay
Clare Curran
Kelvin Davis
Chris Hipkins
Raymond Huo
Ashraf Choudhary
Darien Fenton
Su’a William Sio
Carol Beaumont
Damien O’Connor
Brendon Burns
Iain Lees-Galloway
Stuart Nash
Dr Rajen Prasad
Grant Robertson
Carmel Sepuloni
Phil Twyford
David Shearer

Gone:
Phil Goff
Parekura Horomia
Chris Carter
Shane Jones
Trevor Mallard
Pete Hodgson
Rick Barker
George Hawkins

Apparently the NZ Budget announced today is the biggest change to the tax system in 25 years. It doesn’t seem like much of a change more just adjusting the dials of an old and broken system.

The key adjustments are:

The personal income tax rate changes from 1 October 2010 are:

• Up to $14K – tax rate goes from 12.5% to 10.5%
• $14K to $48K – tax rate goes from 21.0% to 17.5%
• $48K to $70K – tax rate goes from 33.0% to 30.0%
• $70K+ – tax rate goes from 38.0% to 33.0%

GST will rise to 15% and company tax will drop to 28%.

If you really wanted to make radical changes to the system this is what I would do:

Taxation:

• Flat tax rate – equal for both individuals and businesses
• No GST
• Capital Gains Tax
• No Working for Families or middle class welfare

Transport:

• Build and upgrade highways but introduce tolls on most major roads
• Encourage people onto public transport by building more railways and introducing light rail into busy bus corridors. Make fares much cheaper than driving until a critical mass is achieved and slowly phase out the subsidies once things are paying for themselves.

Education:

• Free public education until the age of 25 including university or polytech study
• Universal Student Allowance to everyone in full time study in public post secondary education living away from home
• No funding to private schools – if parents want to send their children there they can pay for it entirely
• Increase funding for Research

Healthcare:

• Free doctors visits and hospitals
• Remove ACC
• Introduce Private Health Insurance for accidents with various options around cover but ensure everyone is eligible to be covered

State Owned Enterprises:

• Sell all SOEs operating in a commercial environment such as TVNZ, and Air New Zealand.
• Other SOEs do not pay tax as overheads in giving money to an SOE and then taxing it back is just silly.

Defense:

• Focus on Search and Rescue and Peace Keeping
• Increase funding for equipment to ensure state of the art equipment is used