Political stir-fry: 9 things happening on the campaign trail.

By MAMAMIA NEWS

Oh boy, where to begin?

1. The Liberal party really, REALLY dislikes the Greens.  

On Wednesday Opposition Leader Tony Abbott announced that he had made a “captain’s call” to give the Labor party – i.e. his sworn, mortal enemy – preferences in the upcoming federal election, over the Greens.

In fact, the Liberal party will preference every party over the Greens, including the minor parties run by the Bob Katter (Katter’s Australia Party) and Clive Palmer (Palmer United Party).

According to Mr Abbott, “There is a world of difference between the Greens and, as far as I’m aware, just about everyone else who is contesting this election campaign … Everyone else in this campaign supports economic growth and supports economic growth and supports a more prosperous economy.”

Ouch.

This decision will make it much, much harder for the Greens to win any new seats – and also to keep the marginal seat currently held by Greens Deputy Leader Adam Bandt (who won the 2010 election on the back of Liberal preferences).

2. Despite goading from Tony Abbott, who asked the Prime Minister if he was “man enough” (because one’s love for the Greens is directly proportionate to their lack of testosterone, clearly) to put the Greens last on Labor’s preferences, the ALP has not echoed these sentiments.

However, the Labor party has followed in the footsteps of the Opposition Leader’s promise during the leaders debate, and will not be striking any deals with independents or minor parties to form government.

3. This tweet happened: 

I’m following the election in Australia. It occurs to me that voting in that election is like choosing a boyfriend in prison. #auspol — The West Wing (@thewestwingTV) August 7, 2013

4. In breaking news, Kevin Rudd sang happy birthday a few nights ago to an 18-year-old Townsville voter called Roxanne, where he is currently campaigning.

According to reports, he also joked to the rest of the table, “If you buggers don’t vote Labor I’m going to come after you.”

JOKES, GUYS.

5. Labor’s Pre-Election Economic and Fiscal Outlook was released on Tuesday by Treasury, and forecast a deficit of $30.1 bil for 2013-14 and $24 bil for 2014-15. Cue: everybody talking about costings.

And just when people throughout Australia were beginning to feel a bit bad about tuning out, Joe Hockey – you know, the guy who is the Shadow Treasurer – came out and said that a campaign focussing on costings would ”[bore] to death” the Australian public.

Well, does anyone actually disagree?

6. MP wannabe wants YOU to come to his epic house party. 

A Palmer United Party candidate for the upcoming election, in the seat of Corangamite in Victoria, has developed an ingenious strategy for tempting volunteers to his cause.

Buddy Rojek, a 39-year-old business analyst, has promised to host a raging party on election day. The party will be held in a hotel. How rock star. Is that isn’t tempting enough, Rojek has said that he will pay models to be in attendance at the party – and said that volunteers might get ‘lucky’. Buddy Rojek distributed a flyer with the following information:

“You will have a rocking night with DJs, mingling models and possibly a mystery rock band if I can secure. My parties go off!!! Kevin ’13 party is for nerds! I have booked a hotel for the models. If you are lucky and behave yourself they might invite you back to party longer ;)”.

7. Tony Abbott has called marriage equality the “fashion of the moment”.

And just in case you assume those comments have been taken out of context: “I’m not saying that our culture, our traditions are perfect, but we have to respect them and my idea is to build on the strength of our society … I support by and large evolutionary change, I’m not someone who wants to see radical change based on the fashion of the moment.”

Sigh. And for a perfect example of why the issue of marriage equality isn’t just a ‘fashion trend’ watch Penny Wong speaking passionately and eloquently about same-sex marriage here.

Hanson also managed to very, very tenuously call on the spirit of the Diggers. She said: ”It’s wonderful that people have opinions and views on these things but the hard fact is, at the end of the day, someone’s got to pay the price for all this. People have to understand what happened in the past to discover this land; the Diggers that fought for us.”

Uh-huh.

9. Kevin Rudd had his very own ‘there will be no carbon tax under a government I lead’ moment, when the Labor party released their first negative advertisement for the campaign.

At the start of the campaign, Kevin Rudd declared in his first television spot, “I believe all Australians are sick and tired of negative politics. I believe people want all of us to raise the standards.”

Fast forward to now.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fApj9CrKvLk

Very positive.