Labor Wins

Political staffer: “Hey Rob I’m just going to the parliamentary canteen, did you want the pasta or the salad roll?”

Rob Oakeshott: “Well, look. I mean, yikes. I’m not pretending this is easy. It’s been line ball, a points decision, six to one half a dozen the other, it really could go either way, in fact it’s going right down to the wire. I mean, I like pasta. I like it a lot. Over the years I have eaten a lot of pasta, it’s, you know, it’s a carbohydrate, and you can have it with a variety of sauces. 

But then I really like salad rolls. I’ve eaten a lot of salad rolls in my time too. And weighing it up on balance I have to say that I’m kind of torn. The question I have been asking myself is what is the pasta going to provide? I want more than just sustenance, I don’t just want to eat for the sake of eating, I think what we really need at this point of time, that is, lunch time, is a whole new way of eating.

Continue reading "Day one of democracy’s new dawn: Oakeshott gets lunch" »

If Julia Gillard can make a go of governing Australia over the next three years her next job should be to succeed Ban Ki-Moon as the general secretary of the United Nations.

The minority government she has cobbled together could not be any more delicately poised. This fragile coalition was sealed with the support of Rob Oakeshott and Tony Windsor at a 3pm press conference so tortuous in its length that it constituted a cruel form of electoral teasing.

After Bob Katter announced earlier this afternoon that he would back the Coalition, Labor needed the support of the two remaining independents to reach the magic figure of 76 Lower House seats.
Labor got it.

Continue reading "Government by the phew" »

Put My Way on the karaoke machine. It’s the end of the night and the sun is coming up on a new government - a Labor minority government, to be precise. If you’re a bit of a political tragic having followed the campaign and its surreal denouement, tomorrow you might wake up feeling as if someone has died.

But conversely if you don’t care - and many normal people don’t seem to have given a hoot, in fact being politically rudderless has been a subject of some mirth - you might feel as if that irritating but really fun friend of yours has just left town. Anyway here’s The Punch’s list of our favourite shark-jumping and oddball moments of the 2010 campaign. Add yours in the comments, and we might build out the list. Let’s start with today’s silliness:

1. Rob Oakeshott’s speech announcing who he would support: Really, could he actually have drawn it out any longer? He started with a list of thank-yous that made it seem like he was accepting an Oscar, then proceeded with a meandering justification of his decision that prompted Laurie Oakes to wonder if we would be here another fortnight. But in the end said he would support Julia Gillard in helping Labor form a minority government.

Continue reading "Goodbye campaign 2010, we’ll miss you" »