Brisbane

Shopkeepers next to a Brisbane construction site say they are struggling to stay open as traffic detours make it hard for customers to access their businesses.

The Moggill Road upgrade is running one year behind schedule and will cost about twice the original budget.

It was a terrible intersection, but it's also a total suck that businesses have their access severely restricted for literally years at a time without any compensation.

The construction company keeps getting their income provided as costs double... why shouldn't the nearby businesses be compensated as the delays blow out?

Good thing we have Liberals in power now who are on the side of small business. They'll come up with a solution! 💪

cross-posted from: https://aussie.zone/post/14914389

(Please follow that link to keep any discussion on the subject within one place.)

Transcription

Preference count

57.0% (14,915) Labor Party Barbara O'Shea

43.0% (11,254) Greens Amy MacMahor (MP)

• While the Labor Party is well ahead on the two-candidate preferred count for South Brisbane, there remains a possibility that the LNP will pass Labor on postal votes and the flow of One Nation preferences. Were Labor to slip to third, Labor preferences would re-elect Greens MLA Amy MacMahon. Monday's counting of Absent votes narrowed the primary vote percentage gap between Labor and the LNP from 2.7% to 2.3%.
• Barbara O'Shea leads by 3,661 votes.
• Previously held by GRN with margin of 5.3%.

First preference	Vote	Swing
Greens Amy MacMahon	35.1% (10,119)	-2.8%
Labor Party Barbara O'Shea	31.9% (9,221)	-2.5%
Liberal National Marita Parkinson	29.7% (8,560)	+6.8%
One Nation Richard Henderson	3.3% (946)	+1.6%
Others -	0.0% (0)	-3.1%

Informal Votes 2.3% (689)

Total Votes 29,535

Results taken from the Qld 2024 Election results for South Brisbane on the ABC 29/10/2024.

I need to preface this by saying that while I prefer proportional systems, if you're going to have a single-winner system I have never seen one I prefer over IRV.

Some context for those not familiar with Australian politics: by coincidence, the parties here are ranked by first preference in order from left to right. As a general rule Greens voters will prefer Labor over anyone else, and most Labor voters will vote 2 Greens. One Nation voters mostly vote 2 for Liberal National (LNP). And most LNP voters will vote Labor before Greens. But some voters are weird: you will see people who vote 1 One Nation, 2 Greens or Labor; etc.

Obviously as advocates of IRV, we usually talk about how it lets you vote honestly without worrying about strategic voting or the fear that your honest vote may increase the chance of your least-favourite candidate winning. I think this is a result that shows the interesting, rare corner case where that isn't entirely true. It's not an argument for going back to FPTP, because it's still much rarer and less destructive than it is there.

In this case, One Nation will obviously be eliminated first and their votes distributed in a way that could prove kingmaker, but doesn't directly affect this discussion.

What actually matters is where the LNP finishes, once all votes have been counted and One Nation votes redistributed. If the LNP stays where they are in third, the LNP will be eliminated and most likely their votes will be redistributed to help Labor win. If the LNP can squeeze just a few more votes out (very possible, given many of the uncounted votes are probably early and postal votes—and the fact that the LNP was doing much better in the polls up until a few days before the election) and finish in 2nd, Labor will be eliminated, and their preferences will likely result in the Greens being elected.

Since most LNP votes would prefer to see Labor win than the Greens, an LNP voter would actually prefer that their candidate finish in third than in 2nd. They would have been better of voting dishonestly for Labor 1st.

A quick aside: One Nation voters could prove kingmaker because if all of them fit the mould of the modal One Nation voter, the LNP would easily fit in 2nd, resulting in a Greens win. Thus, a strategic One Nation voter with full prior knowledge should vote 2 Labor instead of 2 LNP, 3 Labor.

Of course, this should not be construed as an argument against IRV. It requires prior knowledge of how the electorate will vote to take advantage of it, which is a far cry from how easy and even inevitable strategic voting is under FPTP. Look at the seat of Maiwar just across the river, where the Greens are likely to win but the LNP is very, very close and could possibly still get over the line based on postal votes.

If LNP voters were to vote strategically here in the same way I am suggesting South Brisbane voters should, it would remove that chance that the LNP could end up actually winning.

And then there's also the fact that in South Brisbane, the LNP was never going to win either way, and they don't care too much whether it's Labor or Greens. They probably care more about the funding that parties get based on how many first preference votes they receive.

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TL;DR right-wing LNP voters could have voted strategically to increase the chance the centrist Labor will win rather than the left-wing Greens.

Posting on behalf of a group who is mainly volunteers who look after the local creeks and waterways (planting trees to prevent erosion, chasing up businesses that dump waste, cleaning up rubbish, etc)

Thieves are the worst, imo, and stealing from a community group is so low.

We are supported by B4C. OCCA (Oxley Creek Catchment Association) is a similar non profit group based on Oxley Creek.

For those that haven’t heard OCCA had one of its vehicles stolen from the vehicle compound at Archerfield at about 3 pm on Friday afternoon while the gates were open and someone was on site. It appears to be very opportunistic.

It has been reported to police and they will follow up with BCC to get access to any cctv footage.

This is the grey Mitsubishi Triton ute 604 EL9 which unfortunately doesn’t have OCCA’s logo on it. The police report number is QP2401832786.

https://www.police.qld.gov.au/node/26849

Logan motorway was shut this morning on my way to work. Reckon it will cause a bit of chaos today.