Assange Stands 'Real Chance' of Election In Australia

Okian Warrior writes "Various new sources are reporting the results of a recent Labor Party poll, indicating that Julian Assange would be elected to the Australian senate, should he choose to run. From the Sun Daily article: 'Controversial WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange stands a real chance of winning an upper house seat in his native Australia if he presses ahead with plans to stand for election, a poll showed Saturday. A survey conducted by the ruling Labor party's internal pollsters UMR Research and published in the Sydney Morning Herald newspaper showed 25 percent of those polled would vote for the whistleblowing website chief.'"

Comments

If Julian Assange gets elected

[FudRucker]

i will sell everything i own and move to australia because it is the last western nation with a little redemption left in it

Re:If Julian Assange gets elected

[Asic Eng]

Well, Germany now has the Pirate party represented in it's fourth state parliament (Berlin: 15 seats, Saarland 4 seats, North_Rhine-Westphaliav 20 seats, Schleswig-Holstein 6 seats). They are polling at 11% for the federal elections.

One senate seat doesn't seem like all that much...

Re:If Julian Assange gets elected

[overbaud]

"Few koalas live outside Australia, but the U.S. government designated the animal as endangered in response to a petition filed by animal-protection groups. The Australian government, which bans hunting and commercial use of koalas, sees no scientific evidence that it is likely to become endangered anytime soon." http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2002/05/0510_020510_TVkoala.html So basically the US who have no idea what is going on in Australia BOW DOWN TO SPECIAL INTEREST GROUPS and list it as endangered. Meanwhile in Australia in certain areas Koalas are so prolific they are hurting their environment. As for the rain forrest MASSIVE amounts of Australian rainforest is protected. I can only guess what the BS in PBS stands for. You're a dick. If you really want to get pissed about something try the Japanese hunting wales for 'Research Purposes'... or better yet fix your own country first.

Immunity

[koekebakker]

Would this grant him political immunity? ;-)

Re:Immunity

[Intrepid imaginaut]

Sad really when you think about it. Citizen Assange can be set up, framed and generally gone after with impunity. Politician Assange, dearie me no, he's important! Might cause an international incident!

The system is so broken.

Re:Here comes the begging for campaign donations

[TapeCutter]

Pauline Hanson was the last ideologue to mishandle campaign funds, she was jailed for it. This is not the US, the guy with the most money is not the automatic winner here. Our politicians benifit greatly by pointing out fraudulent behaviour by their enemies to the federal police, if they are not prepared to take it to court then they are simply preaching to their own choir and nobody else takes it seriously.

Having seen the bombardment of political ads in the US I was stunned as to how nasty they get. At least the politicians here put some effort into their bullshit and attempt to make a reasonably civil and coherent argument in their advertising. I look at some of the attack ads in the US and think to myself; "the attacker must think I'm an idiot", I thought the same thing when they put Palin up for VP. Republican's treated their suppoerters as morons by selecting a village idiot as a VP candidate, they deserved to lose.