Australia General Discussion

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Would probably look nothing like maps of recent U.S elections (slight exaggeration), especially this election.

I'll post a couple of demographicy stuff and so on shortly.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Worth pointing out that the demographic changes that cost them Dawson are rather different to the demographic changes that killed them in the touristy parts of Queensland and which are continuing to kill them in coastal NSW. Would also question the inclusion of Capricornia on the list; historically that's a Labor seat. The concern for the Nationals isn't that they can't hold seats gained in Coalition landslides, but that they can't even hold onto their old fiefdoms half the time.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Worth pointing out that the demographic changes that cost them Dawson are rather different to the demographic changes that killed them in the touristy parts of Queensland and which are continuing to kill them in coastal NSW. Would also question the inclusion of Capricornia on the list; historically that's a Labor seat. The concern for the Nationals isn't that they can't hold seats gained in Coalition landslides, but that they can't even hold onto their NSW fiefdoms half the time.

More realistic, I think.

But Hyperbole Is Fun And Murray* is in Victoria**

*lost over a decade ago though and nothing else has gone since, so yeah, the bleeding there seems to have stopped.
**"The Works Are Closed But The Ballot Box Is Open" (I think it was ballot box, may have been polling station or just polls. Can't remember), on Labour posters in 1929. This, everyone, is how deeply sad I am.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Government always results in frustration. No one should ever be surprised by that.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Essentially Rudd is a prick.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Perhaps now would be the time to consider democratising the leadership process somewhat?

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Perhaps now would be the time to consider democratising the leadership process somewhat?

How does the rank and file feel about Rudd?

I've no idea and that's really not the point.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

And this, comrades, is why I will never become a politician.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Which is the problem... the public like him... but don't know him - his colleagues know him, and hate him.

The closer people get to him, the less they like him. I handed out HTV cards at the Woodridge by-election opposite him when he was a first term backbencher and found him to be an odious t***. Don't know if the word to fill the blank is allowable or not.

Pretty sure that 'twat' is fine here.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Can Rudd now fyck off and retire quietly?

[Filuwaúrdjan]

If you think that's possible then you don't really understand Australia.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Anyways, I think Shorten counts as the PoMo candidate in any potential leadership spill.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

If you think that's possible then you don't really understand Australia.

Is the Australian two-party system as engrained as the American one?  Or is Australia just too conservative a country to make the Greens an opposition party? 

It's more that the ALP's base (or, more accurately, bases) has no reason to desert it and would have nowhere to go if (for whatever reason) that were to happen. The Greens certainly offer very little to such people. That's without considering the importance of the political traditions represented by the ALP to a surprisingly wide range of things within Australian society; they're grandfathered in. A few bad federal elections (if that's what does end up happening) won't change that.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Our politicians don't really come across with any sincerity even in their rowdy confrontations

That's because there are more rules governing what they can and can't say (and how they can and can't say it). So, generally, the rowdier, the less sincere - in appearance, at least. Or is sincere the right word? John Smith called the Commons an intimate theatre, after all.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Especially as this is self-inflicted to a very considerable degree...

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Probably all it is is Australian voters being less reflexively pro-incumbent than they used to be. Something that also contributed to the disastrous string (upon string) of Coalition performances in state elections not all that long ago. Probably also some long-serving (and often, if we're being entirely honest, less than competent) state ALP governments have hurt the party's reputation in general, but there's no reason to believe that will have lasting consequences federally. If the Coalition do win later this year (God forbid, etc) they'll find themselves in a non-brilliant situation pretty quickly as well.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

I randomly wake up, decide to check the news and this happens. Australia is very Austrian.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Labour moved away from having the PLP elect the Leader in the early 1980s (this was actually the main trigger for the subsequent creation of the SDP) and moved to an electoral college (which was further democratised in the 1990s with the introduction of OMOV in the Affiliates section: previously this section had been decided by block voting)¹ but even before then you didn't have leadership challenges every five seconds. Gaitskell was pointlessly challenged a couple of times in the early sixties (Once by Wilson, once by Tony Greenwood), but these were essentially embarrassments that the Left accidentally backed themselves into forcing and were foregone conclusions.² You basically never had a situation in which a vulnerable leader was actually challenged. The only time an incumbent Leader has been beaten was in 1922 when MacDonald defeated Clynes: but that doesn't really count as 1922 was the first 'proper' leadership election. And since 1988 (when Benn pointlessly challenged Kinnock and stupidly said that he would do so every year) it has been very hard to launch a formal challenge against a sitting leader.

Which isn't the same as saying leaders don't get forced out. Ask Blair about that.

But, basically, it's as much a question of party culture(s) as the system used.

<sub>1. As in, the General Secretary of the General & United Transport Society (or whatever) cast the votes of all his 384,938 members for them and on their behalf. The system - still used at the various Conferences - has its roots in 19th century Chapel culture.

2. And would have been under any system.</sub>

[Filuwaúrdjan]

That's more Nats than women, right?

And would a misogynist really choose a female as deputy party leader?

Of course.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Natural Liberal area and all that, but it was a Labor seat from 1999 until the Great Electoral Awfulness.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

It's the less Liberal half of Cook, but is still solidly Liberal (would last have been certainly been Labor in 1983, may have done so - just about - in 1993. After that, non). I think we have to see this as a classic perfect storm mid-term by-election freak result, but also that the fact that such a result is possible is extremely significant.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

That election will not be pleasant.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

If Tasmania used FPTP the coming Liberal landslide wouldn't be happening because Labor would not be in bed with the hated Greens.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

The specific issue at the moment is that forestry peace deal nonsense. It's the north of the state that is most dependent on the timber industry.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

lol