Talk:Division of Bennelong

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Flag
Portal
 Division of Bennelong is within the scope of WikiProject Australia, which aims to improve Wikipedia's coverage of Australia and Australia-related topics. If you would like to participate, visit the project page.
Start This article has been rated as start-class on the quality scale.
Low This article has been rated as low-importance on the importance scale.
This article is supported by WikiProject New South Wales.
This article is supported by WikiProject Australian politics.
Assessment comments

Contents

[edit] 2007 Federal Election

Why not wait until either Maxine McKew has claimed victory, or John Howard has conceded defeat before saying who won it in the 2007 election? --Surturz (talk) 13:32, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

Yes that would be a good idea but reverting the page to a version from two months ago was a very bad one as the page has been vastly improved since mid September. - Galloglass 17:24, 24 November 2007 (UTC)
I agree. As much as I'd like nothing more than to see Howard ousted from his own seat, the result's far from certain yet. Shoemoney2night (talk) 23:49, 24 November 2007 (UTC)
Agree. The section should not be changed until there is an official announcement (i.e. a source meeting Wikipedia's verifiability requirements). (220.240.133.224 (talk) 11:06, 25 November 2007 (UTC))
i.e. The Australian Electoral Commission announcement in the coming days. Mattrix18 (talk) 03:29, 27 November 2007 (UTC)
References regarding Maxine McKew's likely win have been added to the article, however there has still not been an official announcement on the fate of Bennelong. User:Jack_Merridew contributed Bennelong now a Labor seat: McKew, which is only sufficient as a reference: "Labor challenger Maxine McKew is stopping just short of formally claiming victory in the battle for former prime minister John Howard's seat of Bennelong." [Emphasis added] (User:Timeshift9 contributed much the same: "But she said she was stopping short of officially declaring the seat hers.") The situation will be decided shortly, and one hopes editors can restrain themselves for a few hours or a few days for the sake of the article and adherence to Wikipedia guidelines and policies. (220.240.6.94 (talk) 03:57, 26 November 2007 (UTC))
Seems the anon wants it to say "Howard" for a few more hours - enjoy them, and be sure and check back tomorrow! --Jack Merridew 07:42, 26 November 2007 (UTC)
Lol, jack merridew is a noob. The guy he acused of wanting to see howard's name longer actually made the article say 'former Prime Minister' instead of 'Prime Minister' and 'expected to lose' instead of 'expected to narrowly lose' [1]. Not much of a howard supporter! Just goes to show just because you have a pretty user page doesn't mean you have a clue :) 130.56.65.24 (talk) 06:38, 5 December 2007 (UTC)
Sigh. Jack, please try to be mature and constructive. The courtesy of assumed good faith was extended to you, it's a pretty simple thing to extend it to others, and to adhere to Wikipedia guidelines and policies such as the three-revert rule. The purpose of this page is to discuss improving the article and your contribution - if productive and mature - on the issue of an official announcement would have been welcome. (It still is.) I am going to continue to improve the article in good faith, but will observe 3RR. Doing otherwise would only lead to edit warring (without civil and productive discussion on this page) and I have no wish to see the article descend into page protection over what should be a minor matter. Admin oversight would be moot given the time it would take - but by the same token, why is it so unbearable to wait a short while for the official announcement? Finally, as one editor to another, I hope that you continue to contribute to Wikipedia, Jack. I encourage you to make productive use of discussion pages, especially if there is something you disagree with, but not to cast irrelevant and impolite aspersions. Good luck, 220.240.6.94 (talk) 11:28, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

Here is the page that will tell us when the result has been declared officially. --Melburnian (talk) 11:36, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

Thank you Melburnian, that is a very useful resource. Unfortunately, it looks like there will be no end to the edit war with the latest edit by 124.169.112.42. Sadly, a request for page protection may be necessary. (220.240.6.94 (talk) 12:23, 26 November 2007 (UTC))
I've put on semi-protection (blocking unregistered users and new accounts) for one day. Other articles suffering from Post-Election Edit War Syndrome are similarly temporarily protected. Timrollpickering (talk) 02:23, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] McKew is no the memeber

Maxine McKew is now the emember for bennelong. She has won the ballot and is being swon in, along with the rest of parliament later this week. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 121.220.153.111 (talk) 01:34, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

Please can you supply a source. Timrollpickering (talk) 01:46, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

Yes, the fact that she was today appointed as the parliamentary secratary to the prime minister. they can' do that if she sin't an MP. Maxine mcKew is officially the MP for Bennelong, it has been reported on Sky News. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 58.166.236.199 (talk) 11:36, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

Australian Electoral Commission (remember them they count count the votes and give official results) says that only 88.8%(~81,000 of 97,000) as at 00:01 30/11/07 WSST has been counted leaving about 16,000 votes uncounted, they also say These results are not final. at the end of the page. to me that means that they havent finished counting given that theres on ~2,000 difference with ~16,000 still to count. They can appoint anyone to office positions if they come up short in the numbers they just replace them with someone else. Gnangarra 15:29, 29 November 2007 (UTC)
58.166.236.199 please remember that wiki is an encyclopaedia not a news blog so only when the Australian Electoral Commission announce a final result can we say here that Maxine McKew is the new MP. - Galloglass 15:45, 29 November 2007 (UTC)
Well if you look on the parliament house website for Bennelong which is linked to at the bottom of the page, you can see it says "Polls have not been declared in this electoral division". So I'd take that to mean that they haven't announced McKew to have won the seat yet. --124.171.166.209 (talk) 21:48, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

I'm confused. The official AEC website page for Bennelong states that for first preferences, Howard has 38,545 votes (45.65%) while McKew has 38,181 votes (45.22%). It doesn't say how many votes still need to be counted, but 90,013 have been counted and 97,573 voters are registered in the district. And McKew has just claimed victory. I'm confused. Do they go by the two party preferred vote to see who wins the division? --Lakeyboy 00:04, 1 December 2007 (UTC)

Yes, they most certainly do. That's what confuses so many people about the great Australian electoral system! Frickeg 00:46, 1 December 2007 (UTC)
What nobody (including myself) has mentioned is that s.64 of the constitution permits a non-member of parliament to be appointed a minister (the term includes parliamentary secretaries, a later invention). They can remain in the position for no longer than 3 months, unless they become a member of either house. If it had turned out that McKew hadn't won, her appointment as Parl Sec would still have been perfectly proper, but she would have had to vacate the job by today, 3 March 2008. -- JackofOz (talk) 03:29, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] References & Wikification

I've corrected the citation of references throughout the article, which included removing numerous extraneous links. The Galaxy references in the Polls section were tagged citation needed because the URL is 404/Not Found. The wikification is a bit hit-and-miss due to the formatting of the article, but typically only the first use of a term needs to be wiki-linked - it can be annoying for readers if every instance is in blue text. (220.240.39.66 (talk) 04:03, 25 November 2007 (UTC))

[edit] Counting of votes

Why does it take so long to count the votes? Has Howard officially lost his seat now, or is it still just "unofficial but certain"? --kingboyk 15:55, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

The delay is down to postal voting. Anyone who posts their vote before the close of poll has the right to have their vote included so we will not know the final result until the last of the votes have arrived from around the world. - Galloglass 11:12, 5 December 2007 (UTC)
Erm how do they know when they've received all the votes? Timrollpickering (talk) 11:52, 5 December 2007 (UTC)
Not a clue! ;) - Galloglass 00:25, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
The final day on which postal ballots posted prior to the election can be received is (I think) this friday, but it could be next friday. The AEC can't draw preliminary conclusions, and must wait for all the papers to arrive before doing the distribution of preferences. A single vote might change the order of elimination in such a way as to change the result (well, at least in theory).
The experience of party scrutineers is what's being relied on in deciding this vote. While it remains technically possible for Howard to hold the seat, it would require such a massive perturbation in the votes yet to be counted that fraud would be a more likely explanation than statistical variance. As all sensible commentators are saying the final result is beyond doubt, there is no reason for McKew not to proceed on the basis that she will be declared the winner when the final count is complete. Chrismaltby (talk) 01:26, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Image of balloons

Image does not improve the article (and particularly not the other articles it's been put in). Articles should not have images for the sake of having images; they should show something about the subject.

The Image demonstrates the extent of electioneering, indicating the importance of the seat outcome at the 2007 election. And btw, sign your comments whoever you are please. Timeshift (talk) 07:25, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Polls section

I'd question whether the polls section is particularly necessary here. The election results are given in the electoral results page, while, as to the others, Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information. Frickeg (talk) 07:08, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Borderline sexist?

Is it necessary to highlight gender here? I am unsure about it, though I fear you could read sexist sentiments into the sentence. (ie it is remarkable that a woman was able to defeat a man in an election). I also think that there are other more notable things about Howard's defeat in his electorate than the candidates gender, such as a complete political novice defeating arguably the most experienced politician contesting the whole election. Note that the editor has made similar edits to the Maxine McKew article [2] and to the Women and government in Australia article [3]. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Bleakcomb (talk • contribs) 07:53, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

Arrrg. Forgot to sign and to tell you what I was talking about! Here is the section of the article I was talking about.

This was only the second time in Australian history that a sitting Prime Minister had been defeated in their own electorate, the first being Stanley Bruce in 1929. It was also the first time a woman defeated a sitting prime minister in their own electorate.

Emphasis my own.

Bleakcomb (talk) 10:15, 15 April 2008 (UTC)