August 7? Forgeddaboudit

According to most pundits, we'll all be off to our local school on August 7 to cast our votes for the 2004 Federal Election. Even Ray Martin had cancelled all previous engagements so that he could anchor channel nine coverage:

The Age, Crikey and The Australian have all decided that August 7 is THE date. I am not to sure that Howard has the testicular fortitude to call such an early election, and nor does Ari. Here's why:

1. Howard's best chance is to give himself as much time as possible to expose and reinforce the flaws in Latham's character. The longer he waits, the more likely there will be Latham gaffes and the more chance there is for dirt to be flung and stick. Howard loves a good mudwrestle.

2. The US election is not until the first week of November, and any tricks that Bush has up his sleeve will came out late ("We're all going on Osama holiday..."). If Howard goes early, he will miss out on the massive boost that this will provide.

3. Howard has said in the past he thinks three years between elections is short enough as it is, and that governments should sit for a full term. And Howard would hate to be a hypocrite.

4. The Senate cycle will become unhealthily out of sync. Regardless of the date, the Senators elected at the next election will not take office until 1 July, 2005. With an early election, there would be an 11 month gap between election and taking office. This means that there will almost certainly be a Senate-only election in the next couple of years.

5. August 7 is Bledisloe Cup night.

So settle down folks, breathe easy, I think we might be waiting until mid to late October. Why, well if August 7 doesn't happen, we'll run into the issue of school holidays. It’s generally considered hard to hold a poll with kids round the house, for some reason. Tasmanian has school holidays from September 6 to 22, Victorian and Queensland school holidays begin on September 18 and in the West the little blighters don’t return until October 17. And given that the PM has kindly said that the AFL and National Rugby League Grand Finals won’t be overshadowed by an election, that rules out September 25 and October 3.

So October 16, 23, or 30 I reakon. Any other thoughts? Closest to the pin perhaps?

Comments

[dave]

You'll be voting before October IMHO :)