In the southern Tasmanian seat of Franklin, the Liberals will need a swing of more than 7.6 per cent to wrest the seat from Labor.

The seat has been held by retiring MP Harry Quick - who was expelled from the Labor Party earlier this year.

Labor’s original candidate was Union Official, Kevin Harkins, but he stood aside after what he called an ongoing smear campaign by his opponents - including Mr Quick.

The party instead appointed Labor’s State Secretary, Julie Collins, as its candidate.

Vanessa Goodwin, who is contesting the seat the Liberals, is a criminologist and lawyer working for the Tasmanian Police.

Source:
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2007/11/24/2100164.htm?site=elections/federal/2007

The Polls are closed. Stay tuned for TECH.GEEK as we broadcast the election here and on Twitter (http://www.twitter.com/election07/)…

Terence Huynh

Less than 30 minutes to the polls close, we have now launched our Twitter account. We have now got http://twitter.com/election07, so you can now add us to recieve latest updates on the Election.

Web 2.0… what a wonder, or a blunder.

We have made a panel of people of what they think before the count is on. The questions we ask are not based on political ideas, but to see an outcome over the election. We will be asking a few people over our network, even some outsiders to give your ideas..

“If the Liberals win, do you think that John Howard will give the job to Peter Costello?“ Please give a full answer.

James Davis - Editor of TECH.GEEK
John Howard will take another 3 years to retire, then he will hand it over to Mr. Costello after he retires.

Stewart Wilson - Editor of TECH.GEEK
Yes, Because John Howard has been rambling on about it for a while.

Alexander Ross - SRSSMS Networks
I think what John Howard will be not till 2009. Becuase John Howard love’s his job to much.

So, what do you think… Comment Today!!! We want to have your opinion about this.

The Labor Party has accused the Liberals after another leaflet were being handed out in the seat of Brisbane.

Voters, according to the ABC, were given a leaflet promoting to place Labor’s candidate Arch Bevis last on the ballot paper. The leaflet was ‘approved’ by G Williams of Moggill Road.

Milton Dick, Queensland’s ALP state secretary have made an official complaint over to the Australian Electoral Commission.

“We believe that this sheet that is being handed out is unlawful, we think it should be withdrawn,” he said.

He also said that they approached backpackers to send out the leaflet to the voters.

[poll=2]

It’s 8 o’clock… the polls have now officially opened!!!

Tom Wood, the 16-year-old who circumvent the $84 million porn filter from the government, has been enlisted by Labor to draft their cyber policy. However, he is been thrown into a slinging match between Labor and Liberal.

Helen Coonan, the communication minister, has said that Wood did not “hack” the files, saying he just bypassed his way to an administer account. She’s seeking to discredit Wood saying that he “continued to seek notoriety using any means possible”.

Labor’s communication spokesman, Stephen Conroy, has shot back at Coonan; saying that “only wants to make the internet safer.”

“Well I feel quite offended by Senator Coonan actually,” Tom said in an email interview to The Age.

“I think it’s quite low that Senator Coonan would attack my credibility - as with my experiences, I have been pushing hard for this year to do whatever I can do, whether that be by exposing inadequacies, or pushing for improvements on cyber-safety - with a common aim of improving it.”

After reaching widespread coverage about cracking the filter; he was invited to a range of conferences, including one in New Zealand (via web-link).

Need for Speed was one of those automotive franchises that was really starting to wear out its charm throughout the years. The last entry in the series, Need for Speed: Carbon, definitely left a lot to be desired. But Black Box and EA have completely overhauled a redesign of the series in the form of Need For Speed: ProStreet. Of course it was a little bit of a gamble, but it paid off. Need for Speed: ProStreet is, to say the least, an awesome game.

Everything is extremely detailed and brought to life in full HD. The tracks vary considerably in terrain and environment depending on location, and the cars look extremely realistic. One thing that no other Need For Speed game has is the crash mechanics. When cars bump, crash, or even swipe an object, it reacts in specific ways. Little pieces of it will ding, dent, or even fall off. The amazing look of this game is probably the first facet of this game that will impress.

One really unique feature of this game is that its career mode has somewhat of a story to it. You play as a newcomer to the professional street racing scene, and the basic idea here is to work your way up the ranks and eventually challenge the reigning champion, Ryo. To do that, you’ll have to become an active participant in the weekend culture that is professional street racing scene. You’ll participate in a series of race days which will be composed of a number of different racing types.

The best feature of Need for Speed: ProStreet, however, is not its awesome graphics, nor its fresh experience. It’s the controls. Although each series has its own feel to it, and Need for Speed is no different. The effort put into the depth of control of this game is very apparent. Each of the four modes of racing is different and has its own special feature.

Although the automotive genre has been suffering lately from games without much collective substance and flavour behind them, Need for Speed: Prostreet has hit the stands with a whole new look, a whole new control scheme, and a whole new way to race. It is a must for all racing fanatics.

Britain’s tax and customs service has lost banking and personal data of 25 million people - nearly half of the entire 60 million population in the UK - when 2 computer hard drive disks were missing on their way to a government audit office in an internal mail service.

Paul Gray, the chairman of the Revenue and Customs department, has resigned over the scandal. Treasury chief Alistair Darling revealed that the disks were not tracked and were missing for three weeks before alarms were raised.

The disks contained data of names of parents and children, their addresses, date of birth, national insurance numbers and banking details. “I regard this as an extremely serious failure,” Mr Darling told lawmakers in the House of Commons.

Mr. Darling has also said that there was no evidence that the data has fallen into the hands of criminals and police were involved in the hunt for the disks.

“I profoundly regret and apologise for the inconvenience and worries that have been caused to millions of families,” Prime Minister Gordon Brown told the House of Commons. “We have a duty to do everything that we can to protect the public.” He has ordered a review into the scandal.