It’s Election Time–Again!

Our third election.,  This time it’s the State election where; like the Federal government; we have two houses.  The Legislative Assembly (lower house) and the Legislative Council (upper house.  The Legislative Council has six regions, each with six members.

The structure of the Legislative Council is heavily weighed in favour of rural voters.  The Perth metropolitan area contains 75% of the population but only has 50% of the seats.

Australia has a proportional voting system which does have a tendency to attract fringe elements.  For example, in our region there are 47 candidates for the six seats.  This is how they are listed as parties on the ballot paper

• Independent
• Legalise Cannabis Party
• Health Australia Party
• Shooters, Fishers & Farmers
• Great Australian Party
• Daylight Saving Party
• WA Labor
• Pauline Hanson’s One Nation
• No Mandatory Vaccination
• WAxit
• Liberals for Climate
• Animal Justice Party
• Liberal Democrats
• Australian Christians
• Liberal Party
• The Greens
• Sustainable Australia Party – Stop Overdevelopment/corruption

Voters have two options.  They can individually rank each candidate from 1 to 47 or make a single vote for a party.  Should that party receive insufficient votes they decide which other party will receive that vote.  Being a cantankerous old curmudgeon with time on my hands I decided to rank individual candidates from 1 to 47.  No doubt the staff in the tally room will curse me!

This country is cursed with a history resulting in it being over governed. 

Meanwhile I’ve been (unsuccessfully) attempting to make soft shackles from some cordage purchased in Aldi.

It has an interesting inner core which has the thickness and consistency of paper tissues.  It breaks just as easily!  However I suspect it gives the rope some strength when retained inside the outer braid.

 I cut 1200mm off the end of the length of rope and managed to extract the core.  I then marked the 1200mm at the 400mm and 800mm points before taping one end to a ballpoint pen which I hoped would act as a surrogate Fid. 

 

Fid’s are expensive and I’m trying to avoid purchasing one.  My pen Fid didn’t work as the insulation tape stuck to the inside of the braid.

Next I tried using a length of 16 gauge steel wire.  That was better, but it still failed.

I really don’t want to buy a Fid.  Then I had an idea.  Use a knitting needle as a Fid.  Jan doesn’t have one large enough so I ordered a packet of 10mm needles for $8 from eBay.  I plan to cut one end off the needle in the hope it’s hollow.  Third time lucky?