It’s their ABC. And our ABC. And so it should be. Russell Woolf and Verity James are Australian radio and TV personalities who are concerned that the ABC is under attack from the current government and have therefore joined forces to see if they can get it some representation in Canberra. So far, so good.
Their Group Voting ticket seems to be skewed towards all the tiny parties I’ve never heard of, making it difficult to analyse at a glance! They give their first few spots to the Voluntary Euthanasia Party, the Sports Party and the Australian Motoring Enthusiasts Party, before funnelling their vote to Labor in the person of Louise Pratt. (My Oma always did say that the ABC were a bunch of Reds…). The Greens get next billing, for whatever good that is likely to do them, and then we get two carefully selected Liberals, David Johnston and Michaela Cash, but not the other two. Their ticket then meanders through a number of smallish, vaguely libertarian parties, though it does avoid the more loopy ones as well as all the religious ones. The bottom of their ticket is held, interestingly, by Family First, The Australian Voice and the Liberal Democrats, as well as the dodgily-named Freedom and Prosperity Party and Stop the Greens. The Socialists, incidentally, are at 50 and 51 out of 77, so my Oma wasn’t 100% right about the ABC’s coloration.
Cate Speaks 