The dying days of the Fourth Reich: it's the 2007 AUSTRALIAN FEDERAL ELECTION

Exit polls on SkyNews seem to lean slightly in faovr of Labor but didn't include any question like, 'Who did you vote for?'

Trayce, our local church is not doing voting this year. I went to cnr Inkerman St and Nelson St.

Ended up going down to St Kilda primary cause Rob had to do an interstate vote so we had no choice.

This meant we were entertained by RokWiz being done live on stage while we waited in line. Which was pretty fucking awesome.

Missed Tripod by half an hour. I LOVE ST KILDA.

The Overington incident has already been Wikipedia'd! Funny, and odd stuff. Is she insane?

Exit polls on SkyNews seem to lean slightly in faovr of Labor but didn't include any question like, 'Who did you vote for?'

7.0 swing to Labor in Bennelong.

WE HAVE BOUGHT CRISPS.

Let'z git it awn!!!

http://vtr.aec.gov.au/

Ooooh lovely, thanks.

Christ, channel 7's coverage is appalling. When it comes to political comment, Koshy & Doyle aren't a particularly credible source. Nice to see Kennett acknowledge his Nazi past though. Ray's immovable hair on 9 makes it unwatchable, which leaves us with good ol' Aunty.

Or The Simpsons on 10.

Simpsons, obv. It is after all where I learned all about Australian politics (mustachioed gentlemen, the boot, etc.)

I'm quite enjoying the Sky news coverage even if they are liberal biased.

It's nice to see some candour in the politicians after a year of lying their arses off.

I just think it's nice to see Bob Hawke :)

I'm enjoying Julia Gillard's lapels.

They are getting bigger, aren't they?

It certainly seems so. I predict she'll be completely engulfed by them by 7.30pm.

I was wondering why Kerry is looking a bit nervous, then realised that he knows that The Chaser boys are in the building...

10.5% swing to labor in bennelong!!! (based on 0.2% of votes)

The ABC tally room crowd went spastic when he said that.

Dumb question maybe but is there any good streaming radio/TV coverage of this I can tune in to over here?

omg, getting very excited here! but i have to cook for all these people who are coming so i can't post. but i'll try to check in in a bit :D

Ned: http://www.abc.net.au/elections/federal/2007/

Nothing for Kingsford-Smith yet (that's Garrett's seat).

Go Maxine! :)

Thanks Autumn -- getting an invalid file format on the .asx thing I'm downloading. Weird!

Never mind, just launched the audio feed instead.

Sorry 'bout that.

Link to another network here ned: http://ninemsn.com.au/

"WATCH LIVE: Full election coverage"

Oh no worries, the audio is going just fine. You people need to clarify all your regional accents for me one of these days. I'm all "Okay, is this reporter a Scottish immigrant or what?"

Antony Green has a Scottish accent I think, yeah.

All good. Anyway what's this about an evil Tasmanian paper mill?

A paper mill was given the go-ahead to be built in Tasmania this year. Both parties supported it.

This is crucial because in 2004 (the last election) the Liberal party supported something equally polluting and Labor opposed it, and Labor lost that seat at the time.

This time Labor tried to avoid being wedged, and it looks to have paid off.

The obvious problem with this is that Peter Garrett had to support a polluting pulp mill.

(obvious to Aussies, anyway!)

Yeah, you wouldn't read about it. :)

We're too busy burning oil, speak up sonny.

UPDATE: We have started on the chocolate

Not looking good for The Rodent. Kerry's starting to talk Maxine up and the in-studio crowd are loving it.

The ABC's on-screen graphics for lib/nat and labor are backwards.

So when you see the coalition ahead by 15 seats, it's not, it's the other way round. Don't panic :)

Oh Ned, the Coalition is a coalition of the Liberal and National parties, in case you were wondering wtf everyone's talking about

The swing is fucking enormous so far.

I figured out the Coalition deal a while back (Wikipedia helped). Dumb question -- so why don't the two parties merge if they've been BFF for decades?

Honestly I've no idea.

But they go round starting wars and banning same-sex marriage so who knows what goes through their heads.

It must be love.

If Labor wins this, the highest Coalition position in the entire country will be the lord mayor of Brisbane.

I want to see Howard cry.

Both National and Liberal are very SOCIALLY conservative (anti-immigrant, anti-gay, anti-"socialism"), but fairly different economically (Liberals are are free market and globalisation, while Nationals are about protectionism so that Aussie farmers can compete against the US, the Third World, etc), so there are differences that stop them uniting.

The ABC is calling a loss in Bennelong.

Ned, that means John Howard is losing his own seat. In Aus history only one prime minister has ever lost his seat whilst in office.

I could cry, I'm so happy right now.

Okay all the background cheers and yelps are hilarious.

"Preferences..swings...Labor...Coalition...candidates --"

"WHEE WOW OMG! YAY!"

Yeah I caught that about Bennelong. Hilarity!

Early days though. I know it looks great but there's a long way to go.

xpost haha yeah I'm loving that.

Greens are getting hammered here, Democrats will be obliterated - no other way for Labout to win this.