Assange to run for Australian Senate

[Rumckle]

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-03-17/julian-assange-to-run-for-senate/3895958

WikiLeaks has announced that its founder and leader Julian Assange is planning to run for a seat in the Australian Senate.
...
He is currently waiting for a British Supreme Court decision on his appeal against the extradition.

But WikiLeaks says despite his legal predicament, Assange is eligible to run for the Australian Upper House.

In its announcement on Twitter, WikiLeaks said it would also be running a candidate against Prime Minister Julia Gillard in her Lower House Victorian seat of Lalor.

I don't think he'll actually win a seat, but if he does it could make for an interesting situation.

[Q. G. Pennyworth]

On the plus side, the inevitable sexual scandal is already out of the way 

[Cain]

Lalor's a Labour party safe seat. 

Even not taking that into account, in the last election, between Labor and the Liberals, that was 90% of the vote sewn up.

Lalor does have an ethnically diverse and working class background, which could help Assange, but even then, his chances of even being a runner up are fairly low.  More likely, he'd split the vote for the Greens in the area, and pick up a smattering of disaffected Labor voters.

Of course, Assange is likely aware of this.  So it's not about getting elected.  It's about being able to get into a debate with the Prime Minister of Australia.

[Rumckle]

I think you may have misread that Cain, Assange is running for senate, and someone else is running for Lalor (with Wikileaks backing).

But, yeah, there is definitely no way that they'll be able to win Lalor, hell I doubt a Wikileaks candidate that isn't Assange would be able to take any seat in the House of Reps (unless an they were an existing independent MoP). And I'm sure you're right that running a guy in Lalor is just a chance to fuck with Gillard a bit.

[Placid Dingo]

You'd think that if he was serious, the safest seat for him would be maybe Melbourne, were Adam Bandt (he's the elected Green right?) got in. Of course, the greens voters would be hard pressed to change sides and that could do more harm than good.

But I don't think he wants to win. This is about changing the dialogue in the middle of an election. That said, Gillard being of the right faction, and Labor not exactly pandering to the left (because hey what are the going to do about it? Vote Libs? Greens?) I can't see much liklihood of anything but a race to see who can say the nastiest thing about Assange first.

[Rumckle]

Not really, the easiest way for any small party to get in is the senate, because you don't have to come first. Just checking then, and it seems that the Democratic Labor Party senator go into senate with only 2.3% of the primary vote (of course they also had some smart preference deals).

[Placid Dingo]

Urgh, the two houses keeps me permanently confused. Thanks Rum.

I guess the approach depends on if 'winning' is the aim.

[Cain]

I think you may have misread that Cain, Assange is running for senate, and someone else is running for Lalor (with Wikileaks backing).

But, yeah, there is definitely no way that they'll be able to win Lalor, hell I doubt a Wikileaks candidate that isn't Assange would be able to take any seat in the House of Reps (unless an they were an existing independent MoP). And I'm sure you're right that running a guy in Lalor is just a chance to fuck with Gillard a bit.

Ah yes, I did misread.

Well then, depending on the state and whole load of other conditions, Assange could end up in the Senate.  The Australian Senate is a strange beast, due to its use of single transferrable voting.  Assuming Assange can survive the first round of counting, I can see him having a lot of second and third place preferential support to carry him through.  It'll be that first stage where he'll be weakest, though.