[Linux-aus] Help with a political approach to Open Source please :)

[James Purser]

On Thu, 2005-10-06 at 09:13 +1000, Matthew Hannigan wrote:
> On Thu, Oct 06, 2005 at 07:19:53AM +1000, James Purser wrote:
> > I suppose there is a good argument that the Nationals are a spent force
> > politically, especially after the recent Telstra fiasco and "Backflip
> > Barnaby".
> 
> ?!
> 
> The Nationals have 12 seats, so what does that say about Greens
> the Democrats, who have none?

The Greens have always been a fringe party and the Democrats managed to
implode quite spectacularly. The Nationals on the other hand are a main
stream party that has been slowly becoming more and more irrelevant as
time goes on. Below are the house of reps figures for the past four
elections.

2004: 12
2001: 13
1998: 16
1996: 18

After the recent Telstra fiasco I'm willing to bet that more Rural
voters get turned off the "Party of the Bush" as they come to
realisation - true or not - that the Nationals are now nothing more than
empty seats there to make up the numbers for a Coalition government.

And on the flip side, so I'm not accused of bias, the Labor party is
doing a pretty good impression of a once great party slowly sliding into
irrelevancy itself.
-- 
James Purser
WINNET Developer
Ph: +61 2 4223 4131