I am a great believer in the value of research and preparation. It leads to the most productive use of resources and the best outcomes. Know your goal, investigate ways to achieve it, then concentrate your efforts.
With this in mind, I have been pondering the best way to rid ourselves of Tony Abbott. I think many members of the Coalition would feel similarly relieved if someone else would do it for them, as would most conservative voters from what I hear.
And we can do it by appealing to a few thousand people in Tony’s seat of Warringah.
On two candidate preferred, Abbott won by 27,421 votes over the Labor candidate. The figures indicate that the Greens preferenced Labor and all other candidates (along with 179 of the Greens voters) preferenced Liberal. Abbott ended up with 3986 votes from people who did not put him as their first choice.
Of a total enrolment of 102,672 the turnout was only 91.95%. Of the 94,405 votes cast, 5,078 were informal. This means that 13,345 enrolled voters did not participate in the result.
According to the Australian Electoral Commission the number of eligible Australians who were not enrolled to vote was 1.4 million at 30 June 2013 (and still 1.2 million at 30 June 2014). Whilst there are no figures specifically for Warringah, it would be reasonable to assume that there may be some constituents who failed to register to vote. If we assume a very low estimate of 1,655 (the average is about 9,000 per electorate) that makes the total number of eligible votes lost grow to approximately 15,000.
If those 15,000 could be shaken from their apathy and enlisted to vote progressive (many of them may be young people whose future depends on doing so), and if those 4,000 who voted against Abbott chose to direct their preferences to Labor ahead of Liberal, we only need to change the minds of a little over 2,200 conservative voters in the Warringah electorate to be rid of Abbott forever.
I realise this is overly optimistic but surely there are enough intelligent people in Warringah who can put aside selfish greed for long enough to recognise that Abbott is leading us down a path to ruin.
To the people of Warringah, your vote is crucial. Enrol, turn up, cast a formal vote and direct your own preferences. The future of the Liberal Party and the country is in your hands.
PS To the member for Dickson, back off turkey! Gillian Triggs has more integrity in her toenail than the entire Cabinet put together. Your bullying only shows up your fear of an intelligent woman whose silence cannot be bought through bribes of job offers or threats of termination or piss weak intimidatory slurs by her intellectual inferiors based on what they have read in the Murdoch press. You, sir, are an ass.
