The location turned out to be on the railway line just behind Ettamoguh Sanctuary. Myself and another adventured made it to the point and took some photos.

For the uninitiated, Geohashing is a sport where you aim to get to a randomly generated location somewhere within your 1×1 degree square on the earths surface. The location is determined by a formula that uses that days opening price of the Dow Jones index. You don’t know where you are going until that morning, where you will end up, or who you might meet along the way.

For more information about geohashing in Albury Wodonga, checkout the Albury Wodonga entry on the geohashing wiki.

Update: Bugger… just found out that The Conversation Hour is syndicated across the state. Talk about nerve racking… *Phew* it was just in Ballarat, that took the pressure off a lot!

Borderline was run by Paul Green, a friend and relative of 2008 Albury City Council candidate John Emmery. Myself and others long suspected that the purpose of Borderline was to help John Emmery’s election campaign by smearing the other candidates, at arms length so to speak.

The website regularly featured attack pieces on sitting councillors, embarrassing photos of candidates, and various examples of creative photo shopping. A favourite was a picture of previous Albury city council with steak knives drawn.

I hope I’m wrong and that Paul Greene decides to continue commenting on Albury Wodonga politics. I didn’t like his point of view, and I suspect that if he decides to cover Wodonga’s election I will be a regular target for attack. But it is enjoyable to have one or two “rogue” commentators, and Paul Greenes commentary was at least always interesting.

Wordpress creator Matt Mullenweg has confirmed he will be attending, along with a variety of big names in Australian blogging. The conference will be held on the 29th and 30th of November at The Red Box in Lilyfield (Sydney).

Early sign ups at $60, late sign ups are $80 and places are limited. Check out www.wordcamp.com.au for details.

It seems that this confluence of “left” and “right” gut reactions to the Paulson proposal could be enough to kill it. The US markets opened an hour ago, the uncertainly will probably cause something of a drop.

If the US government is unable to do something to sure up the US financial sector, everyone who depends on it will suffer. And in case you didn’t realise, to a lesser or greater extent, that’s everyone.

Oh the joys of market failure. Maybe it’s time I went and planted another row of corn in my garden.

Update: If you want nuts and bolts commentary, I’m not the person to ask. I don’t know who to ask, I wouldn’t even recommend Paulson. Krugman (via John Quiggin) put it well when he said that, like the rest of us, Paulson is “making it up as he goes along”.

Further Update: You could probably do a lot worse than Krugman’s article a few days ago.

There needs to be government action of some sort, but understandably, American’s are hesitating at the prospect of writing another blank cheque to the Bush administration (look at where the “War on Terror” resolution got them).

Afterthought:

When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir? - John Maynard Keynes

Where will the facts leave us in a week? This is something that heavily committed public institutions (*cough* Wodonga Council *cough*) need to be following closely.

Any Wodonga resident wanting more information, or interested in participating in the campaign, can contact me on 0430509913, or at kieranbennett@gmail.com.

Patricia GOULD
Alice GLACHAN
Paul WAREHAM
Robert ANGUS
Daryl BETTERIDGE
Philomena SAWYER
Henk VAN DE VAN
Neville HULL
Amanda DUNCAN-STRELEC

So what does it all mean?

Duncan Strelec and Wareham

There was hope that this election could publicly end the personal feuding that has dogged Albury City council over the last year. Voters could turf either candidate, or both, out of office, and we wouldn’t have to hear about it again. Unfortunately both Paul Wareham and Amanda Duncan-Strelec were re-elected.

Amanda had claimed she would lose office because people were victimising her. I predicted she would lose office because of her handling of the Paul Wareham issue. At the time I said that she was hurting her reputation whilst building the profile of a person who previously stood no chance at re-election.

It did hurt Amanda Duncan-Strelec, but not enough to turf her out of office.

Paul Wareham will no doubt see his high personal result as a vindication of his stance. His vote was significant, and he will be tempted to use it as a weapon against Amanda Duncan-Strelec.

Alice Glachan

I didn’t think Alice would get re-elected. It was Fraunfelder’s whopping 34% of the vote in 2004 that saw Alice Glachan elected. He was a vet, and people like vets. Alice Glachan was not a vet, but she did get the second highest result.

Mick Mcglone claimed she was a sure thing, because of the high Liberal vote. I thought he was in fairy land. I am tempted to suggest that her success was in part due to the Border Mail treating her with undue seriousness. She did get a significant run in the local press during the campaign, but not enough to entirely account for her performance.

So I’ll admit, Mick Mcglone was right and I was wrong about this one.

Henk Van de Ven

Who the hell is Henk Van de Ven? It didn’t matter in the end, the words “sitting councillor” were enough to get him re-elected. Might this be an example of the famed incumbency effect? With a plethora of candidates on offer, voters did seem to favour those candidates (Gould, Glachan, Wareham, Van de Van, and Duncan-Strelec) who were seeking a second term over those who were seeking a first.

Daryl Betteridge

The kiddies came out, and they voted for Daryl. Will this mean the new council has to find a new whipping boy for violence on Dean St?

Daryl owns Sweethearts Pizza and ran on a ticket backed by other late night traders. I suspect they are sick of council reflexively blaming “alcohol” and insufficient restrictions on opening hours for Albury’s problems.

Maybe Daryl will be able to bring some intelligence to the debate, maybe council will start talking about the root cause of alcohol abuse rather than simply attacking “alcohol” and blaming the victims.

Patricia Gould

In the end, perhaps it is Patricia Gould’s result that is the final word on the nonsense that has plagued Albury City council over the last year.

Name a councillor who was not publicly caught up in the Fromholtz Park issue? Patricia Gould. Name a councillor who didn’t trade insults back and forth across the council chamber? Patricia Gould. It goes on.

She scored a massive vote that saw her and her number two (Robert Angus) elected. There were masses of other candidates, but in an atmosphere of turmoil, the people of Albury turned to the one rock of Albury politics.

Patricia Gould will almost certainly be the next Mayor of Albury. She’s had a ringing public endorsement that the other councillors will be reluctant to defy. I would not be surprised if Patricia Gould was still Mayor going into the next election.

Trenchard claims that Ryan “used his Labor connections to bully the newly formed Workers Ticket into allocating preferences to his non-endorsed ticket” and that “members of her team were verbally abused by Ryan”.

Trenchard also claims that Ryan misused Labor Party resources:

Ryan has used Labor party signage from previous Party funded campaigns throughout his Albury City Council campaign, and used the Country Labor marquee in QEII Square in the lead up to the election, in contravention of Labor Party policy.

If this is true, it isn’t just in contravention of Labor party policy. Purporting to be the endorsed ticket of a party that has not endorsed you is in contravention of electoral regulations. Using Labor material from Ryan’s previous campaigns, badged as it was with Labor party logos and slogans, would appear to do just that.

Trenchard claims that Ryan bullied her ticket and “used Labor party resources to undermine a like minded ticket”.

The bruvvas have long had an unfounded sense of entitlement towards the union movement. It’s their property, how dare it disobey orders. Of course the point is that Ryan wasn’t the endorsed Labor candidate, but that sure didn’t stop him acting like it.

Karen Trenchard wants to know if I have any questions about her claims. I’ll ask Karen anything (reasonable) posted in the comments thread.

they are still there fighting valiantly for cheaper alcohol for teenage girls for the benefit of big distilling companies - (via Open Australia)

That was finance minister Lindsay Tanner’s attack on the Libs in yesterday’s question time.

Teenage girls. Tax pre-mixed drinks to protect “teenage girls”. Don’t worry about the teenage boys though, they drink beer, and no government in it’s right mind would dare fight for increased beer taxation.

Big distilling companies are evil, Carlton and Tooheys on the other hand, are Australian icons.

I this government actually gave a damn about the youth, they’d attack alcohol advertising. But of course that costs money rather than raising it, and we have the budget to think about…