The main trouble with the Labor Party is that they retain the lingering impression that they’re meant to be the good guys. However, when you’re seriously contemplating sending child refugees to Malaysia (and let’s recall that Malaysia, like, hmmmm… Nauru, aren’t signatories to the UNHCR convention) it’s time to let that particular illusion go.

Punishing human beings who are seeking help does not fit into my personal understanding of top-shelf “Australian” behaviour. Perhaps it’s just me and my bleeding heart, but any “solution” which involves bullying vulnerable people isn’t good enough, especially when we all know the real reason is to appease the focus groups.

Yes, seeking asylum via leaky fishing boats is bloody dangerous, but the real solution is not to stop the boats by deterrence, but to stop people from needing the boats in the first place, and until that rather unlikely goal is achieved, you deal with the fact that the world can be a shitty place and do your best not to make it any shittier. A bit more complicated, granted, but that’s justice for you.

The numbers used to justify sponsoring Hawthorn are pretty compelling. We pay in around a jajillion dollars for them to play in Launceston and if you believe the hype, get a jajillion jajillion dollars back, more or less, who knows, apparently it’s a lot. Total no-brainer for the government, which is probably just as well considering the current playing list.

Now we have the opportunity to get North Melbourne to play in Hobart for around half  a jajillion and all of a sudden the government’s not at all keen to pick up that ball, much less run with it.

Sure, the North Melbourne strip isn’t as sexy as Hawthorn’s light and dark baby poo ensemble, and it probably will be a bit confusing for our northern cousins having a team with “north” in its name playing in the south, but it seems difficult to believe that the economic fantasticness of the Launceston deal suddenly becomes that much less fantastic south of Oatlands.

Somebody get the umpire a set of specs, pronto.

Many years ago, on a (very) quiet afternoon I sat down with a crayon and a large sheet of paper and thought my way through Tasmania’s Hare-Clark voting system. I mostly get it, it’s quite clever and as approximations of the will of the people go, it does a better job than most.

Where it gets a little tricky is with a by-election. With a multi-member electorate the idea is that rather than have another election to elect everyone again, you just recount the votes that got the departing member in. It’s a bit like holding another ballot but only inviting the people who got it right (or in fact as events will have demonstrated, wrong) the first time.

I kind of vaguely see how maybe those voters whose horse fell over should be the only ones to get a say in the replacement, but it does tend to result in the election of someone who might end up saying “Don’t you know who I am?” rather a lot.

I really mean it: do not try this at home, or anywhere else.

I’m pretty sure he can’t change his mind.