I'm so sorry: Australia is having an election and it's going to be very dumb

[Arwon]

Small interesting thing - first electoral debate held in Mandarin. The Labor candidate is Taiwanese-born, the Liberal is from Hong Kong (so Mandarin is her third language).

Chisholm is a marginal seat (2.9% margin) whose sitting Liberal member quit the party over sexist bullying and is running as an independent targeting the sitting Liberal in a neighbouring seat. So there's no incumbent. The electorate is about 20% people with Chinese ancestry, about 16% speak Mandarin at home and about 5% speak Cantonese, and only about half the electorate speaks English at home. Chinese language social media campaigning via WeChat is likely to be quite crucial.

 

[Arwon]

Oh and the Prime Minister is under fire over his football team allegiances - https://thenewdaily.com.au/news/election-2019/2019/04/15/pm-afl-footy-colours

Scott Morrison has declared he is “not a phoney” after admitting he doesn’t support any particular AFL team.

But his own social media accounts reveal the Prime Minister was previously a Western Bulldogs fan, who also flirted with Richmond and Carlton and boasted of belting out AFL team anthems.

In 2009, he took to social media, tweeting that he was “singing sons of west, red, white and blue, we’ll come out snarling bulldogs thru and thru go doggies”.

[...]

Mr Morrison has previously claimed he supported the Western Bulldogs because he was introduced to the game by coach Rodney Eade (Eade coached the Bulldogs from 2005-2011).

“Loyalty counts,” the PM said.

 

[Takhisis]

Ahh… at first I thought you'd been bitten by a Canadian, but now I see why you started the thread with an apology.

 

[Modder_Mode]

This is Australia, where things are all backwards, so the Liberals are the Republican party and Labour are the Democrats
Let the (even more) crazyness begin

It is very similar, especially in the sense of the US Democrats being the racist and bigoted party with strong links to the KKK before doing the "switch" to be more "inclusive". The exact same thing occurred with the Australian Labor party who were equally racist and bigoted before doing their own "switch" to try and be more inclusive and attract disenfranchised voters.

 

[Arwon]

Except the White Australia policy was bipartisan and compulsory voting means there wasn't really disenfranchised voters except for Aboriginal people

 

[Traitorfish]

Labor, no U. This is the result of one guy in the 1910s who was really into modernising spelling reform.

There's a campaign slogan in that. "Vote Labor? No, u!"

(i didn't say it was a good slogan.)

 

[Modder_Mode]

compulsory voting

AKA as the "donkey vote" lol

 

[Arwon]

A donkey vote is just going 1 2 3 4 5 6 down the ballot in order.

 

[Mouthwash]

Without even looking at the OP, I can just tell that this is due to bigoted hordes actually exercising their right to vote. Am I wrong?

 

[Arwon]

Yes. It's very clearly about the parties and the form and content of the campaign. Reading is underrated, you should give it a go.

Also, voting is compulsory here, turnout isn't a factor. Basically everyone votes.

 

[Camikaze]

It's a shame the campaign is so dumb, because it's not like the ALP is devoid of policy. I disagree that the differences between the parties' policies are negligible, as if Australia suffers from some type of American paralysis. Changes to franking credits and negative gearing, for example, would likely have a substantial redistributive impact.

I am in a marginal seat which will probably not flip (I was in the most marginal seat for the state election, and the Liberal candidate extended their margin). Which is a shame but will probably not matter in the end.

 

[Modder_Mode]

Without even looking at the OP, I can just tell that this is due to bigoted hordes actually exercising their right to vote. Am I wrong?

Well he claimed one of them was a Nazi, so they must hate the Jews, not sure how a Nazi would get into power in Australia though....

 

[Traitorfish]

Well he claimed one of them was a Nazi, so they must hate the Jews, not sure how a Nazi would get into power in Australia though....

"I don't know how that happened" is not powerful evidence against it having happened.

 

[Arwon]

Well he claimed one of them was a Nazi, so they must hate the Jews, not sure how a Nazi would get into power in Australia though....

Are you unaware of what Fraser Anning is?

 

[Modder_Mode]

"I don't know how that happened" is not powerful evidence against it having happened.

True, however Nazi's just aren't very welcome in Australia and there is zero chance of any such political party being democratically elected in the first place.

Are you unaware of what Fraser Anning is?

I'm well aware of who Fraser Anning is and he is not a Nazi.

 

[Camikaze]

How Anning is precisely categoriesd is not a useful hair to split, and I think in his case it actually is probably best to not give him too much attention. If he gets elected, then it is absolutely necessary to confront his particular brand of far-right extremism, but I feel that acknowledging his existence too much during the election can only help him stand out on the ballot paper from the plethora of other right-wing parties no-one knows anything about.

 

[uppi]

not sure how a Nazi would get into power in Australia though....

By vigorously claiming that he is not a Nazi and people believing and defending that claim?

Which is technically correct, because the NSDAP was disbanded before most of today's politicians were born. In the very strict sense, there are no Nazis. Even if you just look at ideologies and policies: The Nazi party was a product of the early 20th century and that exact same combination of views may never occur again. But the sentiment on which they were elected and on which they could conduct their policies is very much alive today in many countries to varying degree. "It could never happen here" is usually a dangerous misread of the situation. And if it does, don't be fooled by the goons not wearing a Hakenkreuz.

 

[Arwon]

By vigorously claiming that he is not a Nazi and people believing and defending that claim?

Nah he was an anonymous accident elected by the circa 4% of Australian voters and 9% of Queensland voters who were supporting the regular, coded, non-genocidey far right.

He was a down-ballot candidate in a proportional representation system, far enough down he wasn't elected, but became the replacement for a guy who was initially elected. He was elected by being in the One Nation party, who are a more conventional racist/anti immigrant party along the lines of any number of racist populists in other countries.

People voted for Pauline Hanson. They didn't deliberately go for the guy advocating a "final solution" to non white immigration, speaking at nazi rallies, associating with people convicted of racist crimes, talking about "usury", supporting violence against Muslims, ranting about third world migrants and gender fluidity destroying "the white family" etc.

That party put Anning on the ballot because they either didn't know or didn't care that he was a neonazi. Both are possible - their diligence and vetting is terrible. Other people elected on Hanson's coat tails in 2016 included a banker climate change hoax conspiracy theorist and a sovereign citizen nut job. A recurring theme is nearly everyone else who gets elected under Hanson's name is they quit and form their own parties.

So Anning wasn't consciously elected, he became a senator because of the elected guy above him on the ballot being disqualified post facto on constitutional grounds. And even that guy was elected on Pauline Hanson's name.

 

[Zardnaar]

We have somethoso similar here except the parties are better at the list candidates.

 

[Takhisis]

That party put Anning on the ballot because they either didn't know or didn't care that he was a neonazi. Both are possible - their diligence and vetting is terrible.

I don't know about this specific case, but there is a worrisome tendency on the rise to just allow whomever they can as long as they look as if they could draw in some votes and as long as there is a superficial overlap in their public discourse it'll be ‘good enough’ because few people actually do go beyond the soundbites. I think and say that Donald Trump and Maduro and Le Pen and Bolsonaro and all the others are buffoons because I take the time to listen to/read what they say and what they do, but even clueless little me is head and shoulders the average member of the electorate.