Possibilities for Pauline Hanson

Because of the Proportional Representation Voting System, virtually no vote is wasted: votes cascade down like a tower of champagne glasses being filled with champagne and flowing over.

This also means, though, that people can be elected to the Senate on the primary votes of fewer than 200,000 Australians. This is why minor parties love the Senate. It also explains how Australian voters have chosen time and again to hand (but not at the 2004 election) the balance of power in the Senate to minor parties.

The minor parties have to put their hopes in canny preference deals. In the 2004 election, Family First got a Senator from Victoria up with just one per cent of the primary vote. They are clearly desperate to get more people up.

So desperate are they that Family First is doing deals with Pauline Hanson which could see her elected to the Senate.

Heaven forbid that long-standing minor parties - The Greens and the Democrats - who have a history of acting responsibly and involving and interacting with the mainstream polity of this nation should be preferenced ahead of ratbags, particularly ratbags with a racist history.

Election Day in Victoria

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To-day has been Election Day in the State of Victoria. Miss Eagle has been participating in the process. A fellow member with Miss Eagle of St Thom's congregation at Upper Gully, Rex Thompson, stood as the Greens candidate in the seat of Scoresby. Now Miss Eagle does not know Rex's age but let us just say that Rex and June celebrated their Golden Wedding Anniversay in August this year. So Miss Eagle figures this puts Rex at 70+. Miss Eagle reckons he needs a medal: putting up a creditable, but unwinnable, campaign for a party some would consider radical and the province of a younger generation.

Victoria has the Australian Labor Party (ALP) in government under the leadership of Premier Steve Bracks. His main opponent is the Liberal Party led by Opposition Leader Ted Baillieau. The National Party, a rural and agriculturally based party, runs in rural and regional areas and holds seats in the Victorian parliament. The Greens have no seats in the Victorian parliament but are a well known political party. Family First, a party widely supported by people in Pentecostal churches, has become known since it won a senate seat in the last Federal election with a Victorian candidate from the second largest Assembly of God church in Australia. The new kid on the block is People Power.

The real interest will focus on Victoria's upper house, the Legislative Council, where reform has been instituted in the form of election by proportional representation within multi-member electorates which will, in all likelihood, mean a more diverse membership.

As this is being written, it appears there is a possibility of the Greens winning their first seat in the Victorian Legislative Assembly in the seat of Richmond. The Greens are outpolling the Liberals to come in second which, under the preferential system of voting, means that the outcome of Liberal preferences will be of great interest.