New South Wales State Election, 2015

[politicus]

Hifly teaches us that one can be left-wing and a bigoted conservative unwilling to grant equality to the people. News at 6.


Oh, and about the fact that both NDP and ALP belong to the Socialist International, so do the Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola, the Republican Turkish Party of Northern Cyprus, the Fatah or the MAS in Venezuela... Not all members of the SI can be described as "sister parties".

If anything, I would say the ALP is closer to the Liberals in Canada than to the NDP.

The ALP has two main factions. Socialist Left would clearly be comparable to NDP and the sheer fact that ALP has a union base makes it logical to compare it to NDP.
Labor Unity is more comparable to the Liberals in Canada on most issues, with the SoCon positions of some of its members being an important difference.
Basically ALP is a much broader coalition than NDP - stretching further right.

[politicus]

Regarding posts upthread, there's a fundamental misunderstanding of Labor Unity here; excepting the usual careerist drones (found in all political factions of any significance world over, alas) they are genuine social democrats deeply rooted in Australian political tradition (Australia is one of only a handful of countries where trade unionism played a foundational role in its establishment), and not an amorphous centrist blob flying under a red(ish) flag of convenience.

What you describe is certainly historically true, but it seems that "amorphous centrist blob" would be a pretty accurate describtion for a lot of them these days.  Still, the trade union ties sets them apart from something like Canadian Grits, but having union links does not automatically anchor you in an SD tradition.

It will be interesting whether the Aussie posters agree with your evaluation.

[politicus]

I think Hifly just really, really loathes greenies. He hates Greens more than I hate Slovakian democracy