Australian Federal Election - Results Thread

[Хahar 🤔]

What exactly is Windsor's problem with the Nats?

[Хahar 🤔]

The Democratic Labor Party that elected a Senator today isn't the same one as the group that allowed the Liberals to recieve the votes of Catholic workers back in the day, is it?

[Хahar 🤔]

I actually do miss Howard, yeah.

Please change your avatar to blue.

Yeah, seriously.

[Хahar 🤔]

Now it looks like Tony Crook and WA Nationals are saying that they won't support the Coalition unless they get more $ for rural WA??:

http://www.smh.com.au/federal-election/profile-tony-crook-20100822-13azk.html

That's related to a question I was going to ask --

What - other than a political disaster - would prevent some sort of Labor-National coalition (other than the LNP merger in Queensland)?

What - other than a political disaster - would cause African Americans to vote Republican in the mid-terms this year?

(okay, probably a little more chance of the Nationals going off and having a Coalition with Labor, but you get the point... the Coalition has been around for about 80 years now - longer than the Liberal Party has been in existance in its current form).

Didn't the Nationals have a coalition with Labor at the provincial level somewhere until recently?

SA Nationals aren't affiliated with the national party.

[Хahar 🤔]

Was Lang left of the Canberra party, or right, or neither? I can't tell.

"Tony Crook, the WA National who looks to have won the federal seat of O'Connor in Western Australia, says he doesn't believe the Federal Nationals should be in a Coalition government with the Federal Liberals."

WTF is wrong with this dude?

http://www.abc.net.au/rural/news/content/201008/s2992127.htm

Why do you think something is wrong? Now that the Queensland establishment has left, the Nationals would be better off adopting a more independent course if they wish to remain viable.

[Хahar 🤔]

Smid, there could be House-only elections, no? I believe Senate and House elections were not aligned for much of the 1960s and '70s.

Anyhow, I think that at this point it's meaningless to speak of any single National Party as such. In the NT, ACT, and Tasmania, of course, there has never been a National Party. In Queensland alone, the Nats were the establishment, and thus now they have seen fit to rebrand themselves with the Liberal name, as the rural partner in the Coalition is increasingly forgotten. I predict that the LNP will drop the "N" at some point. In NSW and Victoria, the Nationals hold the same sort of position that they hold at Canberra: they are a junior partner to the Liberal Party, and not really all that different. Windsor and Oakeshott, it may be noted, both hold traditionally Country/National seats in NSW. In South Australia, the Coalition became one party long ago. There is a National Party there, but it is independent (having supported Labor until being defeated at the last election) and not very important. In Western Australia, the Nationals are not relly very clear about where they want to be in relation to the Liberals, resulting in the current confidence-and-supply agreement.

The National Party is not a unified national party. The independents in the House provide a more effective means of representation of rural interests, and the Nationals must either follow them or the Liberals. They cannot tread a middle ground.

[Хahar 🤔]

Well, I'll defer to your knowledge on Queensland; a large part of that post was inference and guessing. It seems surprising, though; the Liberal brand is a lot more viable than the National brand.