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

At this stage the Greens appear to have retained all 6 senators, which is a good long term prospect because next election they'll only be defending 3 seats

In the near term, there's a decent chance the Labor+Greens+Centre Alliance will have a blocking majority, but there's a couple seats in doubt that'll swing that one way or the other. There's certainly a chance the Coalition will be able to pass stuff with the support of the fash
 
So Australia did have an election and it really was very dumb.
 
Its been an interesting election. That Victoria swung towards Labor was expected however, I was surprised that they retained seats in NSW and elsewhere

That regional queensland swung for the Coalition was expected. Central Queensland suffers from acute regional unemployment issues, hence the opposition to Adani and the southern activists who campaigned there against it did no favours for the labour party amongst working class people in that region who are suffer under its economic problems. Of course, environmental degradation would damage livelihoods in Queensland as well as has been mentioned before on this thread, however most people who suffer under poor circumstances are more concerned about their present economic state and its alleviation than on nebulous future concepts, particularly when there are doubts Australian climate policy would have any tangible effect long-term given world trends [albeit there are serious environmental concerns regarding Adani, most of it seeming to relate to a certain finch species from the media coverage in qld].

As for why Brisbane seats flipped from labour to the coalition... tbh I have no clue. Labour is fairly popular at a state level in Brisbane and doctrinally speaking Brisbane is closer to the rest of Australia than the rest of Queensland [As Kevin Rudd once quipped that north of Eumundi was redneck country]. Thinking out loud it might have something to do with the proposed reforms on franking credits and superannuation ["the retiree tax"] since the older constituency is fairly prominent in parts of South-East Queensland and particularly significant in the case of marginal seats. There were also strong preference flows from the right-wing minor parties [which also impacted in central queensland] But again, it seems fairly anomalous and there isn't a clear cause that comes to mind as to why Brisbane turned towards the coalition in contrast to say Melbourne, or didn't stay fairly stable like Sydney.
 
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So Australia is keeping up with the new tradition of Anglosphere nations voting against their best interest. I wonder what’s causing it? Other than fifty odd years of promoting and rewarding rampant egoism.
 
It will be interesting to see how long Bill Shorten remains in parliament and if he resigns quickly to give the new opposition leader (whoever the left chooses) some clear air
he says he will continue to represent his electorate... can only hope someone reminds him of Tony.. its only 3 years before we have another try at this democracy thing
 
So Australia is keeping up with the new tradition of Anglosphere nations voting against their best interest. I wonder what’s causing it? Other than fifty odd years of promoting and rewarding rampant egoism.

Best interests is subjective. Alot of people are turned off by far left ideas and the right wins elections. The far left can't figure it out while the center left think WTH.

The current Aussie government isn't far right?
 
The Coalition parties are run-of-the-mill centre-right except in the most deranged fantasies of the most deluded members of the left.

As for Shorten, he resigned as opposition leader already but is remaining as the member for his seat. Presumably he will remain so for the duration of the current term, he doesn't give the impression of equivocating on whether to abandon ship or not, as some politicians seem to do when they are pondering leaving public life.
 
It can't be denied, though, that following the dumping of Turnbull, the Coalition is more right-wing than it was; it is clear the parliamentary Liberal party has been captured by its more extreme wing. That doe snot make it 'far right', but it does make it decidedly right-wing, more so than has been the case in the past. The complete inability to get any sort of reasonable climate change policy through the party room is Exhibit A.
 
Helen Clark also jumped when she lost. It doesn't help their parties out for post election rebuilding. Right wing leader also quit, so the knives come out post defeat. The right usually bounces back a bit quicker though.

Thought the Aussie right was basically business as usual for a mainstream right wing party. There's a xenophobic undertone but that's more Aussie culture than Aussie politics IMHO.
 
Left wing here can't get through any major climate change action either.

And we're a left of center nation with the Greens in parliament/government.

They couldn't get a capital gains tax through either. 20 -30% of well off people here still vote left wing similar % of poor people vote right wing. Lose those groups you lose elections.
 
The Coalition parties are run-of-the-mill centre-right except in the most deranged fantasies of the most deluded members of the left.

As for Shorten, he resigned as opposition leader already but is remaining as the member for his seat. Presumably he will remain so for the duration of the current term, he doesn't give the impression of equivocating on whether to abandon ship or not, as some politicians seem to do when they are pondering leaving public life.
On your first point I am pretty centalist now days on the left right spectrum
on your second point being centeralist I was commenting on what might be best for his party...I know he resigned as leader ... I was thinking about what has happened for Rudd/ Gillard /Rudd/Turnbull /Abbott/Turnbull, when a leader hangs around in the chamber... you would think Malcolm and Rudd would have learned...
my point is has Bill been paying attention
 
@Camikaze

They are trending towards becoming a more mainstream conservative party, rather than being "small L" liberal/conservative chimera which was Howard's modus vivendi [the whole broad church thing]. This being primarily because Labor in becoming more clearly progressive [ie its conservative wing becoming much weaker over the last decade] has concordantly made the two big parties differentiate from eachother more clearly [progressive = labor, conservative = coalition].

That said there is still a plenty strong classical liberal wing in the Liberal party with more progressive views on social policy. Its simply that the unity of the party is predicated on maintaining socially conservative policies while working towards classically liberal economic ones.

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@Old Hippy

1) I wasn't commenting on your political status, and I don't particularly care about it either.
2) Fair point. With regards to consequences, imo its not like Shorten was politically murdered by a colleague, so its not analogous to Rudd being assassinated by Gillard [before returning the favour] or Abbot being knocked off by Turnbull. I don't think there would be that much personal resentment by him towards the new leader and concordantly the internal sniping and disunity would likely not be so much of a factor going into the next term for Labor.
 
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So Australia is keeping up with the new tradition of Anglosphere nations voting against their best interest. I wonder what’s causing it? Other than fifty odd years of promoting and rewarding rampant egoism.

I don't think most of the people voting for the Coalition thought they were voting against their best interests
 
@Old Hippy


2) With regards to consequences, its not like Shorten was politically murdered by a colleague, so its not analogous to Rudd being assassinated by Gillard [before returning the favour]. I don't think their would be that much personal resentment by him towards the new leader.
Melbourne Union politics is brutal and Bill was involved in both Rudd's butter kniffing and Gillard's the left/ right factions of Sydney/Melbourne will have to choose a new leader the Deputy must come from the opposite capital unless their is only one obvious choice (their are many choices for deputy) the factional jockeying would have already begun

On this weekend where I had my first beer in 20 years to toast old Hawkey at his and my favorite Pub ( around the corner from Trades Hall and the CFMEU) its also worth remembering that the most popular PM in modern times was himself backstab by Keating the left/ right divide Sydney /Melbourne

its also worth remembering Shorten met with Hawke the day he ''inadvertently'' let slip the comment about Gillard at the airport ... they say there are still stains on the carpet...Shorten just has too much baggage with the Unions. the new leader will need clean air to establish themselves
Morrison would just single out Shorten every question time... pick a weak spot and hammer it home... every sitting day till the next election...faceless left wing Union bosses run the ALP is my guess... its worked so far
to go into the legend of true blue believers you have to put the party first... at least publicly...
failed leader or labor stalwart are his choices .. what did Bill advised Sam Dastyari to do
 
I don't think most of the people voting for the Coalition thought they were voting against their best interests
I don’t think they thought so either. Dolts.
 
I haven't been paying attention to australian politics. How did Gillard fall from power? (along with Abbot those were the only two i knew existed up to now :o ).
 
I haven't been paying attention to australian politics. How did Gillard fall from power? (along with Abbot those were the only two i knew existed up to now :o ).
Rudd got rolled by Gillard...opposition leader Turnbull reached agreement over a carbon tax with Gillard... Abbott rolled him shouting Coaltax coaltax coaltax at the next election cycle Bill shorten helped roll Gillard and reinstalled Rudd. Rudd lost... Abbot became PM... Turnbull rolled Abbott when his popularity went for 30+ weeks as hopeless...Turnbull's popularity went for 30+ weeks as hopeless tho he won an election coming up to this election he got rolled by Morrison...and the band plays on while we straighten up the deckchairs on the Titanic while one crazy politician plans on rebuilding the titanic ( and that's for real tho he just wasted close to $60 million on buying adds for this election so i don't think it will go ahead)
During all this seems like half??? of parliament was deemed ineligible to be in parliament by the High court
I blame ancient ''Athenian democracy.'' for starting it all...
 
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