This has been a weekend of results. Sporting and political. The important one first and that was the win by Sydney FC for the Premiership of the A-League.
Despite being a Melbourne Victory supporter I am not too distraught by the result becaus I can see it may benefit the A-League and the code as a whole. The two teams were evenly matched and it came to the ‘lottery’ of the penalty shootout to divide them. The final was exciting (especially in the second half) and the last 10 minutes of regulation time (after Adrian Leijer equaliser) being on level one at Etihad Stadium was one of my most intense sport experiences of my life, similar to the last minutes of the 1979 VFL Grand Final between Carlton and Collingwood and the qualification match for the World Cup in Sydney with Uruguay in 2005. For a knowlegeable comment on the match I would go to Mike Salter. Sufficient to say that I am happy with a team that has reached a second Grand Final in succession, had the chance to be on the top of the ladder until the last match and has been able to be part of the Asian Champions League next year (and a good thing too considering that we can forget about the ACL this time around). But ultimately, well done Sydney FC.
The other results were in the Tasmanian and South Australian elections. Swings against these governments that have been in power for some time were inevitable. However most in the commentariat lead by ‘The Australian’ were licking their lips to the porspect of massive defeats of the Labor Governments in these two states and the disasterous consequences for Kevin Rudd. Funny that when Howard was in power, and State after State had Labor governments where the only Liberal government was the federal ones you didn’t hear about how this meant that the Liberals were on the nose. But when State Labor governments are in trouble this somehow is directly attributable to Rudd. Well there was a sizeable swing to the Liberals in South Australia but it seems that Rann will be still Premier. And in Tasmania really the real winners seems to be the Greens. So if we really think about it the non-conservative parties are in the minority (although the combination of ‘non-conservative’ and Labor in Tasmania can be disputed). So ‘The Australian’ suck shit. I am sure they will be able to concoct some story that the swing is bad for Rudd. But as Blogocrats states you can spin this anyway you like.
I thought that I would try my hand at spinning the South Australian and Tasmanian elections against the Liberals. The primary votes (from Aunties website) has the following primary vote figures:
South Australia
ALP 37.9%
LIB 41.4%
Tasmania
ALP 37.1%
LIB 39.1%
That means in both states, six out of ten voters did not vote for the Liberal party. This is a dismal result for Tony Abbott. I suspect that Julie Bishop is planning her takeover of the leadership as I write this. The Tony
LathamAbbott experiment has been an abject failure and must end.Of course, this is all silly fiction on my part, and the plain truth is that the failure by both states to elect a Liberal government is a complete and utter disaster for Rudd, and just proves that the emperor is wearing no clothes.
The accidental Australian 
Guido, the fact that you can congratulate Sydney so nicely makes me wonder if in some ways Victory is not truly your real team yet (nor is it mine). Would you be congratulating Inter quite as nicely?
Of course not! 🙂 But football in a deeply football country such as Italy is different than football in Australia where it is not the main code and in fact it struggles to get attention.
That is why I am happy for Adelaide United to do well in the ACL because an Australian team doing well there reflects well on the whole Australian football scene, while every one knows that Italy (or Germany, Spain, England) are strong football countries and if teams of those countries do not do well in Europe than it is just a blimp. I am very happy when Inter and Juventus stuff up in UEFA competitions!
IIRC, the prevailing narrative during the Howard years is that the states were strong ALP because the Federal Lib was so strong, thereby sucking in all the “talent”. And let’s face it, deep down, given the free choice between being a federal minister or in state opposition, I can’t imagine anyone choosing the latter.
Given the quality of muppet who has been running particularly NSW for however long, it doesn’t say good things about the quality of politician that the Libs have been able to muster at state level to win back power, so maybe there is something to it.
That not withstanding, we all know that the media needs an angle and a narrative to fill the void left by an absence of in-depth, complex analysis.
And you missed another (more) important sporting result from the weekend. Well done Victoria for belting Queensland in the cricket to win the Sheffield shield again.