I live in the most liberal of liberal safe seats (Toorak) so what I vote makes zero difference.

Interesting comment, Gobbledygook. What difference does your vote usually make?

If the difference between someone being elected or not was 20 votes or 20,000, is there any actual change to the amount of influence a single vote has?

My district is at least 70% liberal. It will never not be liberal.

Not if people who aren't liberal never bother voting, certainly.

It's the richest district in Melbourne. There is no way anyone votes Labour and lives there anyway.

My old man lives in Toorak and I'm fairly sure he votes Green out of principle.

wow - epic troll by Gobbledydook...

Your seat is Higgins.
Your vote matters a lot in the senate, doubly so considering it may be both houses that are being dissolved.
The Australian Labor Party is spelt the American way.

Well done though, you've got a few bites already and got to mention you live in Toorak and let everyone else know you live in "the richest district in Melbourne" even though we don't have districts in Melbourne, nor Victoria, nor Australia.

What school did you go to?

:)
;)
But seriously I could vote Labor or Greens and it wouldn't matter for shit. Besides Shorten is a shady dealer. I could never vote for a faceless man.

If you have to ask, I went to Wesley a few years ago and I study at Melb. Uni. Happy?

"What school did you go to?"
He went to Bridge Down Under School.

It's kind of amusing that Australians are calling a 55 day campaign "long".

Well usually we have shorter official election campaign periods...unofficially this early double dissolution election has been "on the cards" for 4 to 6 months, and in the last few weeks more and more likely by the way the Government has managed it's affairs.
The "visit to the Governor General by the Prime Minister " & subsequent processes are the formalities, and now certain " conventions" come into play...for example Government goes into "caretaker" mode, no major policy shifts, the Government will brief and consult Leader of the Opposition & shadow defence minister if any serious security decisions need to be made, eg how do we respond to something that affects our current military commitments particularly if the response is to deploy more forces

What is your view of how the Senate rules changes will affect the outcome? These micro party Senators seem odd but will removing them benefit the Coalition alone?

@ Gobbledydook

Typical - that purple uniform always goes to their head

So you are in Melbourne then Gobbledydook. Did you know that ATC organizes monthly face-to-face games in Melbourne? If you ever interested in trying out face to face with a couple of webdippers you should let him know. I went a long to a game a couple of months back. It was at a pub in Brunswick. It was a really good place to play; we pretty much had the whole place to ourselves.

On the subject of voting, you're right, Higgins would be one of the safest Liberal seats in the country, but as has already been pointed out, there is always the Senate (and of course voting is compulsory).

"What is your view of how the Senate rules changes will affect the outcome? These micro party Senators seem odd but will removing them benefit the Coalition alone?"

From what I have read the main beneficiaries for the coming election will be the coalition, supposedly because they receive the most first preference votes and the Greens because they will be more likely to hold the balance of power in the Senate.

Btw the way of course that pattern might not hold true for all future elections. Labor may in the long run benefit just as much as the Liberals.

I think that you'll find that most of the Green preferences flow on to Labor not the Liberal/National coalition

Indeed they do. So it might not be so bad for Labor after all. However while they have supported such proposed changes in the past, they have been less keen this time around.But that is probably based on the results of the last election.

I suspect the Greens might benefit because they might pick up "protest" votes that might have otherwise gone to micro parties.Plus their will be fewer minor parties in the upper house that they will need to negotiate with.

The only person who ever does accurate Australian election analysis is Mr Antony Green. Everyone else just talks bullshit with no evidence.

http://blogs.abc.net.au/antonygreen/2016/04/the-turnbull-governments-senate-position-would-be-little-better-after-a-double-dissolution.html#more

Everything he's got on the federal election is here:

http://blogs.abc.net.au/antonygreen/federal_politics_and_governments/

In Australia we are going to election as well ( not that anyone really cares ).

We have choice between Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dumm.

I think Id rather have kim jong-un.

I actually believe his promises ie ( you will die if I find out you oppose me).

and he found Unicorn Lair how cool is that...

Senate rule changes favour the major parties ..it is the best way they can keep a duopoly on our political system..isn't democracy meant to give everyone a voice not just a choice of 2.

The only way we will get better politicians who actually care about eh people they represent is to break lib and labour strangle hold ..lets give them another hung parliament again and again until the fuggers work it out.

see i told yu no one else cares ...

@_SmokeyGem...your statement that no one cares is clearly false and untruthful... You may not care, and others may not care, but there are many, many Australians who do care, who are passionate about this wonderful democracy...perhaps you and Gobbledygook might consider showing some respect for the commitment and sacrifices made by members of the Australian Defence Forces so that we can have these rights and privileges

It may have occurred in other states and electorates, in South Australia numerous electioneering posters for the Liberal Party and ALP candidates were put up, unlawfully ahead of time...no electioneering posters can be lawfully put up until after 6 PM Monday 16th May..and I had this confirmed by the chap I spoke to at the Australian Electoral Commission.
Apparently the Liberal member for Mayo, Jamie Briggs would appear to believe that campaigning in a lawful manner might be an unnecessary burden, as there were electioneering posters for his campaign up a week early, and he has, I believe, refused a request from either our local council to remove his signs from property ( the posts and poles ) over which the council has authority and responsibility. I consulted the compliance officer at our local council, and I am going on his " inexact" and sometimes vague comments. Certainly I got the impression that the association that represents local councils, the LG A had written to the Liberal Party ( apparently the greatest offenders with regard to unlawfully placed electioneering signs ) requesting the signs be removed and the Liberal Party apparently refused to comply, challenging the LGA and / or the individual councils to "take us to court".

Does every country do this rigamaroll of kissing the uniform for freedom as if soldiers have anything to do with expanding the franchise or political speech?

@Putin33: Apparently yes.

To be clear, what I think is the military is a fine thing for a country to have a useful functioning one of, but connecting that down to the details of actual democratic process is quite silly.

By all means suggest that one should have some respect for politics and political process - FFS, this is a dip site, if anyone should understand that politics exist the moment you have more than one person trying to do something, and therefore matters, it's dippers.

I like the new rules for below-the-line voting for the Senate election, especially since this is a double-dissolution election. My biggest complaints about the new rules in general are that there's no requirement to fill in votes for all (or even most) of the parties, unlike the rules for House elections where ALL candidates have to be marked, and that independents and minor party are going to get shut out unless they're well-organized with broadly-scattered support (e.g. the Greens) or have been allowed to build up a following over time (e.g. Nick Xenophon or, in the past, Brian Harradine). Whatever you may think of him or his policies the fact that someone like Ricky Muir -- or Bob Day or David Leyonhjlem or John Madigan or, in the past, Steve Fielding -- could be elected to parliament and actually matter in the process of legislating is rather refreshing. This may just be the small-town American in me speaking too loudly, but there it is. I suppose it's possible that, since this is a double dissolution, the chances for minor crossbenchers to achieve at least SOME representation is improved......but "improved" in this instance is a low bar to clear.

Strategically, I wonder what this will mean for the proliferation of small parties. Will some of them try to consolidate and build joint lists this time, rather than propping each other up with preference deals as in the past? Or will they stand separately and so die from lack of enough stated preferences to go around? I notice this sample ballot paper posted by the AEC: http://www.aec.gov.au/voting/How_to_vote/Voting_Senate.htm
My first thought was that this listing of parties was optimistically short, but maybe the rules changes will end up leading to ballots that are narrower than they have been in recent elections. And if not this time, maybe in the future.