There appears to be a minor technical issues over on the RWDP blog and Oigal
can no longer post..chuckle. Therefore for
those who have any interest in the Australian Elections held yesterday;
For the first time in since World War 2, Australia will have a hung parliament
with neither the notionally left Labour Party nor the notionally conservative
Liberal Coalition having enough seats to form government in their own right.
Even more curious will be the manipulations as each party tries to justify
its right to form a minority government.
The Liberals will be claiming the right that in total primary votes they
gathered more support from the Australian people and Labour will be pushing the
line that combined with the Greens (11%) the primary vote of Australians
demonstrated a clear wish for a more leftist government.
The most positive result of the election was the Australians outright and
absolute dismissal of the xenophobic, racist and overtly hard line religious
groups such as Family First and One Nation who between them, despite running
hundreds of candidates gathered no more than 2.5% of the vote and nil seats.
Family First were on the same level as One Nation? Don't know too much about them.
Any progress yet on the negotiations or how it's going to shape up? I'm not even on the electoral roll anymore but well I'll own up I always vote Liberal, not out of any great enthusiasm for them, on some levels they're a bunch of toff nosed wankers particularly in the branches, but I like Abbott….and Gillard/Rudd are, well 'loathsome' is a bit strong but well….
The most positive result of the election was the Australians outright and
absolute dismissal of the xenophobic, racist and overtly hard line religious
groups such as Family First and One Nation who between them, despite running
hundreds of candidates gathered no more than 2.5% of the vote and nil seats.
I think what's far more worrying than One Nation ever was is the Greens, they'll do far more damage than any right wing group could ever manage, although since the Democrats imploded I suppose some group had to step into the empty space there, seems like there's an up to or around 10% market share for that end of things…
Actually not much detailed data as yet. Notionally, Labour is ahead but most pundits seem to think that it will end up 73 seats each (LNP, ALP) with 76 needed to govern in their own right. This of course puts the outsiders including the Greens in the box seat.
At the risk of outing myself, I am a LNP supporter although could not have been underToffy Malcolm. There is no doubt in my mind, the only reason we don't have a Republic right now is Malcolm's support for it and the absolute self serving crappy model proposed.
I do concur the Greens present a far greater challenge to Australia than One Nation or Family First. Both Family First and One Nation were never anything more than a fringe groups that garnered far more oxygen than they deserved. If fact, although Howard was roundly condemned for it, he refused to acknowledge their presence until forced to by those who suggested his ignoring them was some sort of silent support for their positions.
As a quick and dirty breakdown, One Nation was Pauline Hanson's vehicle which was quickly hi-jacked by the more vile xenophobes and racists that exist in all societies. The party itself rapidly became a bad joke internationally and within Australia. A shame really, despite being not overly clever Pauline did indeed highlight the failures of successive governments to explain the benefits of immigration and the cultural changes Australia has to go though in the modern era to survive. As much as the dog whistlers like to pretend otherwise, a little white outpost of 15 million people is just a sad throw back to happily bygone era.
Familiy First, another minority fringe group with a very limited agenda, heavy into religious overtones. Usual thing for these types of groups; no divorce, no abortion in any circumstances, censuring across the board. Very limited appeal and Sentator Steve Fielding doesn't help much as he is not the brightest tool in the shed as a quick search of his speeches will indicate.
Greens, scary but they will self destruct once Bob Brown retires. For some reason (not in my book) he engenders some respect as an "elder statesman" and manages to hold that mish mash of views together. The problem with the Greens is people tend to think of them as block and they are not. Your typical Greens candidate may be a lost socialist looking for home, your toorak coffee green whose biggest issue is the neighbour burning leaves in the spring or hard faced, hairy armpitted tree hugging female wombats. Trouble is there is really no central core of logic to their demands. One thing you can count on with the Greens is higher taxes across the board with no visible outcomes for the public.
A couple of interesting/funny scenarios I did hear. One Abbott was thinking offering a couple of very senior Cabinet Postions to some well chosen ALP members if they would defect (It would be nice to see Stephen Smith remain Foreign Minister). Can't see it myself but a nice thought, to have people in cabinet positions based on merit instead of debts owed.
Another was Kevin Rudd was awaiting to see if Gillard gets up and would resign on the promise of UN posting by the LNP. This of course would cause a by-election and based on the swing against the ALP in Queensland (and the local Bligh Government) would almost certainly result in a LNP win. With 74-73 to the LNP, a minority LNP government would be a monty and Rudd would have a very tasty dish of revenge against those that tipped him with no remorse or loyality.
Country Liberal Party? Showing your age there CLP is better sounding than LNP, the latter sort of makes me think of NLP…Natural Law Party
Your post (could have been a blog post that one ) got me to searching around a bit for news, a few interesting things I found -
Germaine Greer….she actually makes a bit of sense in this piece although totally ruins what sense she did make with the last sentence, won't spoil it for you – http://www.telegraph.co.uk/new…..of-Oz.html
Quadrant – The Tosspots, I mean Kingmakers
Near the end of the count the Labor party had received around 20% of the
vote in Kennedy, 13% in Lyne and 8% in New England. And the three might
support Labor? What mandate would they have for that?
Actually this is for me (and I suggest a relatively small audience over this way) a very interesting turn of events in Australian Politics. There are so many different variations of what could be a good thing, a bad thing and or indifferent.
Latest score, 72 each with one undecided plus the motley crew of candidates on the outside of the mainstream.
Ah Bob Katter, he will be a problem with a very insular, angry protectionist agenda that no major party could support. A very good local member but to think someone like him could influence National Policy is just scary.
Someone on TV describing the "Tea Party" situation as pretty much a protest vote on both Dems and Republicians. It's curious but ultimately not relevent movement of "Angry, Grumpy Old White Men" (A classic description I heard this morning) who really do not reflect the changing voting dynamics in the USA today.
I don't think you could find a better description of Bob Katter than that.
Eeer, for what is is worth, I am kind of working on a Post cum Blog but as you know snarky comments based on other peoples lunatic and idiotic posts are far easier and less time consuming than actually writing a decent post. Strange as it may seem, I do have a day job as holding back the forces of socialism :-)
This has been one of the least uninspiring elections in recent memory. Neither major party seems to have much vision for the nation, just for a change.
One Nation was a godsend for John Howard! It enabled him to let someone else open up that xenophobic can of worms on his behalf, while he was able to play on the fears of the ignorant masses, giving legitimacy to Hanson's views rather than condemning them.
"This has been one of the least uninspiring elections in recent memory.
Neither major party seems to have much vision for the nation, just for a
change"
I would not really agree with that, the ALP was playing with the greatest change to resource taxation in history and the revival of what was essentially a train wreck of a makor party (LNP) six months ago.
A first term government has not been tossed since the 1940's and the what is going on now is of exterme interest to anyoen who follows these sort of things.
"One Nation was a godsend for John Howard! It enabled him to let someone else open up that xenophobic can of worms on his behalf"
That was a view that gained a fair bit of currency amongst the Howard Haters in Australia and fairly wide currency by any number of self serving Asian pollies. Uninformed and/or lazy journalists tend to run inane copy.
The reality was all Howard did was try and ignore One Nation as the non relevent distraction it was and deny the xenophobes the oxygen they so desperately crave. On a more direct and practical level, there is nothing that the Howard Governement did or enacted that could be remotely linked to a xenophobic mindset. Unless of course, you mean increased Asian migration, relaxation of skilled immigrant family entry, increase work permits/visas, vastly increased aid to the region and the greatest increase in direct nation to nation contacts with Asian Nations in Australia's history.
The final question to any that trot out the old hoary xenophobic Australian Government chestnut…
He did have a habit of speaking some what bluntly, but it always amuses me when any near neighbour trys to tell me Howard Government was xenophobic. A mirror to Malaysian, Indonesian (or pick another) and their policies on immigrants, the malay bumaputra policy, the Indonesia requirement that churches must have a permit from the ministry to build a church but not a Mosque for instance would reveal a far more honest picture of the real world.
'How many immigrants were made citizens in Indonesia (Malaysia, Korea, Vietnam…your choice insert) last year….
Ah of course Dentention of Aslyum Seekers was purely a Howard (NLP) policy….Oh wait no its not…ALP maintained the policy..and some may of course heard the ALP/East Timor Nonsense.
But wait that is domestic, lets turn outward for just a second..Shall we talk about Singapore and Malaysia's dentention policy for illegal immigrants, please don't forget to mention the legal punishment of cannings as well as the dentention. Refugees in Indonesia are housed where???
No one is saying any oz party has got the refugee issue right but is simply laughable that any SE Asian nation ever has the gall to comment based on thier own record. Once again pretty simple question
How many refugees have been offered full citizenship of say Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia?
Unfortunately Australia does have few nutters and xenophobes posing as conseratives (and curiously a lot of the time as Greens_ but they are policy non effectual. The fact remains that there is not one SE Asian Nation that should not be embarrassed by the racist and xenphobice nature of their immigration and race laws. They certainly are not in a position to lecture anyone.
In the interests of fairness tho, Winmar what do you think should be done differently with Asylum seekers, I do confess a thorny issue and one which I do as yet see a better way.
Well into week two and no result. Current unelected Prime Minister Gillard (ALP) is still laying claim to form a minority government however her position was badly weakened today when a review of votes indicated Tony Abbott's LNP securing the most two party preferred and also primary votes. However it should be noted we are talking less than 1% difference here with no party scoring over 51% of the vote, a solid indication that the peopel are saying a pox on both your houses.
The Labour Party has embraced the Greens (surprise, surprise) in a grasping attempt to hold onto power. The promise of much higher taxes for the long suffering Australian Taxpayer based on looney tree hugging looms.
Treasury reports LNP has under costed its proposed policies by 11 billion dollars (damn, thats a lot)
The four (ok 3 Greens "Brant") has and always will be a committed communist (which is fine by me except is a fib to call yourself a green and makes hime yet another one term waste of space). Anyway the 3 Independents
are proving to be more fickle and jumpy than a virgin boy at an Arab webbing party.
Of course, its been that long since Australia had a functioning government, perhaps we don't need any of them after all..
I love the smear campaign Landeryou is running against Bandt on vexnews……I used to be involved in student politics and Bandt's name doesn't ring any bells but I can guess his type, he would have been grouped with Left Alliance, in those days it was everybody versus LA, you had Santamaria Industrial Groupers standing shoulder to shoulder with Socialist Left ALP people againts Left Alliance, LA were that bad….there were some attempts to get the Greens over to the 'rainbow coalition' side but they just got taken over by the hardcore LA types….
Yes, unfortunately it really appears the back lash curse of a Pox on both your houses is strange and weird creatures like Bob Katter and Brandt have gone from simply amusing sideshows to actually having a degree of influence in the real world. It would be like waking up here and finding Ross had been elected Wali Kota of South Jakarta.
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CLP is better sounding than LNP, the latter sort of makes me think of NLP…Natural Law Party
) got me to searching around a bit for news, a few interesting things I found -
