Yes Poirot, I second your wondrous thoughts!
Maybe the holy Abbott isn't as tightly rooted to the top job as he thinks?
Well, I can only dream....zzzzzzzz.....

Don't forget girls, vote early and vote often.

A really smart govt would act at the earliest possible opportunity, to usher in optional preferencing, and give Labour's current primary vote, for both houses.
Labour is likely to support such a move, given how much the coalition depends on National party support!
And it's plans for further democratization and broadening the primary support base!
Rhrosty.

Agenda 21?

Tinfoil hats anyone?

By the way, it seems there were only 73 candidates in South Australia for the Senate in 2013 http://www.abc.net.au/news/federal-election-2013/guide/ssa/ so I can't make head nor tail of this preferencing of the ALP from 93 to 98. I expect the rest of the article is similarly accurate.

Agro, the only man/woman/? in Australia who doesn't believe there is an Agenda 21 process from the UN which is up and running in Australia; read the link in the article or read this:

http://parlinfo.aph.gov.au/parlInfo/search/display/display.w3p;adv=yes;orderBy=customrank;page=0;query=%22ECOLOGICAL%20SUSTAINABLE%20DEVELOPMENT%20AND%20LOCAL%20AGENDA%2021%22;rec=0;resCount=Default

I mean it's on the parliamentary record; it's on the UN books; you don't need a tinfoil hat Agro, the wind tunnel between your ears is doing a great job.

The 93-98 and beyond refers to the cascade in the preference counts; Leon Ashby was eliminated near the last count. The point is explained in very elementary terms in the article that sometimes you have to see beyond the immediate point to achieve the end game, which in this case was the elimination of the Green candidates.

As it turns out PUP snookered NCTCS. Are you a Palmer supporter Agro, or a Green supporter; in either case you will be pleased.

"I expect the rest of the article is similarly accurate."

Correct. It is accurate. Reader response or failings are not the author's responsibility.

cohenite, I think you need to go back and read Anthony Cox's article again, because you obviously misunderstood it. Specifically this bit:

"Firstly, the ALP was preferenced 93 to 98 by the NCTCS and the Coalition preferences began at 99 with all the other minor parties preferenced before the 2 main parties."

Unless the word preferences has grown a new meaning in the last few days, this bears no resemblance to what you claimed it meant.

You claim in itself is silly. Because Senate counting redistributes votes on the basis of a person reaching a quota or a party being eliminated (for above the line voting) there cannot be 98 rounds of preferences re-distributed with 73 candidates. In any case, how on earth would a party be able to predict how the count would go before the campaign had finished. To claim they could is just a joke.

As for the NCTCS comments about Agenda 21, they are just laughable. Agenda 21 is a UN aspiration all goal agreed to 20 odd years ago at Rio and is largely about development in the developing world. The NCTCS will have a gunman on the grassy knoll and thermite bringing down WTC7 next.