The Null Device

2002/12/1

No great surprises in the election; Labor romped home with a landslide, mostly because the Liberals didn't have their shit together (to use the technical term). The Greens polled really well (almost 10% statewide, with results in the high 20s in some city seats); they came a close second in several inner-city seats, but didn't win any. Interesting that Peter Batchelor (the minister for freeway construction and tram-conductor non-reinstatement) went on the ABC and all but said that the Greens were irrelevant.

In the inner-Melbourne seat of Richmond, the Greens (led by former Monash student activist Gemma Pinnell) got a not-unimpressive 27.4%. Serial public-transport nutter Paul Mees got 2.2% or 587 votes, and the local Nu Marxists got 544 votes (most of them probably coming from punk squats in the area). There were 866 informal votes.

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