Australia - 7 September 2013

[Filuwaúrdjan]

This is both amazing and utterly hilarious:

http://psephos.adam-carr.net/countries/a/australia/membersgallery/galleryindexpage.shtml

Showbusiness for ugly people indeed!

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Of course very similar claims were made about many safe Coalition seats in 2007 and, for the most part...

[Filuwaúrdjan]

I also remember what the polls looked like in 2007.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

I think you're all letting the unfamiliar hysteria of Australian politics get to your heads.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

The problem is that factional warfare is addictive, even when pointless and even when obviously destructive.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Your friendly neighbourhood dictator would like it to be known that he does, indeed, read this thread.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Kinnock was never popular, but was always an eminently credible PM candidate.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Australia certainly isn't xenophobic: few countries are quite so keen on essentially importing people, particularly not over such a long period of time. The man in my signature is a famous (and delightfully ironic) example. White Australia (to deal immediately with what would otherwise be a rather large elephant in the room) was a racist policy but not a xenophobic one: the policies that led to the massive wave of European immigrants to Australia after the Second World War were largely the work of Arthur Calwell, who was also a dogged and determined advocate of White Australia. And post Holt/Whitlam Australia has seen a considerable amount of nonwhite immigration, to which the backlash has been notably less ugly than that against comparable first waves of nonwhite immigration to (say) Britain or France.

The boats issue is an ugly one (no point in pretending otherwise), but there's nothing specifically Australian about it, other than the obvious: that Australia - one of the richest countries on the planet and also one of its first and most stable democracies - happens to be comparatively easy to reach from basically anywhere in South or East Asia.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

And no, there is nothing exceptional about Australian xenophobia/racism (whatever term you prefer). Europeans are, naturally, no better. But not being "exceptional" does not make it any less repugnant.

It was the idea that there's something strange about Australian attitudes to asylum seekers that I objected to.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Tas is being impacted by the v unpopular state govt.

Basically. You'd think they'd have learned by now not to do deals with the Greenies. But the internals of those polls (it should be noted) look less than entirely kosher.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

There were many many polls done of safe Coalition divisions in 2007 that appeared to show all manner of truly sensational results. Remarkable and startling findings that were not reflected in terms of actual votes. Of course Lyons (née Wilmot) has a very strange electoral history - even for Tasmania - and so is maybe more likely to do weird things than (say) North Sydney was, but the lesson is there. Also Dick Adams has already won on a couple of occasions when he should by rights have lost (1996, 2004).

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Rudd sounds very Australian. The key point is that many Australians do not sound like how Australians are thought to sound by people who know no Australians.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Oh Queensland...

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Why would anyone want to hear the 'thoughts' of that disgusting racist thug? The sooner he dies the better.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Is that for both divisions combined or are the numbers the same for both divisions?

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Well that's spectacularly unhelpful then.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

To point out the obvious, though it's quite obvious that everyone is already thinking this: there is no way that the published national polls and these robo-seat polls can both be accurate. Past performance and the Antique Monk doth strongly suggest which of the two realities is the real one.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Regarding the other issue, the ALP was shut out of government throughout the 1950s and 1960s because it's most conservative faction was thrown out of the party and decided to hit back in a fantastically spiteful manner. That sort of history is quite the incentive for not trying that type of thing again.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

He means the SDA, which is largely run by people with more than a vague hint of a Grouper background about them.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Though I should point out that there were votes in the PLP against gay marriage and there would have certainly been more if matters hadn't been pursued along the gradualist track of first introducing civil partnerships etc.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Would strongly suggest that if participants wish to discuss the rights and wrongs of gay marriage (or gay rights generally), that they do it elsewhere. Thank you.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Has SSM become the primary question the electorate is focused on?

Certainly not.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

To push things back on track, I'll just repeat meself...

To point out the obvious, though it's quite obvious that everyone is already thinking this: there is no way that the published national polls and these robo-seat polls can both be accurate. Past performance and the Antique Monk doth strongly suggest which of the two realities is the real one.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

And while certainly not good, it has clearly not been taken in the same universe as those robodivisionalpolls.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Murdoch has a well known preference for people who are about to get convictions.