So there's an Australian federal election today (the polls in the Eastern states close in 20 minutes), and apparently we have top-level posts for Five Eyes federal elections.
So, here's a top-level post for the Australian federal election. Polls are predicting a Labour landslide (thanks Obama Trump, we really needed all that friendly fire), but we live in the age of Shy Tories so one can never be 100% sure.
I just voted; below the line all the way (I would have voted above the line, except for the whole "I like the Nationals a lot more than the Liberals" thing), and I didn't even get to eat democracy sausage afterward. So now I'm cranky and miserable, though that might also be because I've been up for 24 hours or so.
One Nation didn't actually show up at the polling place I went to, which was odd; they did last time, though it moved a few streets over.
I think I voted lower on the Libertarian Party than I otherwise would have due to not realising they were the Liberal Democrats and/or vaguely recalling something about a joint ticket with Clive Palmer. Whoops.
I rate myself as like a 3/10 on engagement this election; I'm usually more active about pushing civil defence, even if it's basically yelling at a brick wall.
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Notes -
Liberals on suicide watch. The opposition leader lost his seat which shows what a bloodbath this is. (Ironically it looks like the Greens party might lose their leader too).
Massive swing to the Left, partially due to a failing of the conservative party to resonate with voters and also the Trump tariff effect.
Many right wingers on my twitter feed taking it badly.
Yeah, the Liberals have been annihilated. And it has almost entirely been the Liberals; the Nationals lost I think one seat compared to last election (specifically, after Andrew Gee defected from the party mid-term and became an independent, they failed to take it back from him). Meanwhile, the Liberals have lost most of their heartland and while they still do have more seats than the Nats, a lot of those seats are ones that are actually significantly rural/regional but just have the Liberals there for some reason (e.g. they're in SA/WA, where the Nationals aren't really a thing).
A lot of this is blowback from Trump, obviously, and thus not really permanent, but in some regards it looks like the most plausible Coalition path back to power involves Sydney/Melbourne/Perth being arbitrarily erased from the cosmic whiteboard.
I'd bear in mind that it has been this lopsided or worse in the past. Labor have just won 85 seats, possibly a few more once counting finishes, but for comparison, Labor won 83 seats in the 2007 landslide, and then the Coalition won 90 seats in their own 2013 landslide. The Coalition won 94 seats back in 1996. Victories on this scale have happened in the relatively recent past and the other party fought its way back.
That said, it is undoubtedly true that the Liberals need to do something to expand their appeal. One commentator on the ABC said something that seemed apt - that increasingly the Liberals are the party of the boomers and only the boomers. That is not sufficient to win an election now. In particular they need to find a way back to winning urban voters, and aspirational migrant communities as well.
Look at which way the "in doubt" seats are leaning. Labour'll be in the 90s. And 1996's Coalition seats are not by themselves a good measure of how devastating this is, because the crossbench was much smaller then - Labour still won 49 seats in 1996, while the Coalition is currently looking at low 40s. The last left-wing blowout this big was, uh, 1943, and that one was the one that killed the original UAP and birthed the Liberals (the last right-wing blowout this big was 1975, after Whitlam pulled enough shenanigans to earn himself a Monarch Interrupt).
I will note that the ABC people talking about how Dutton lost by focusing on culture wars amounts to basically code/false-consciousness for "we've got a lock on the culture wars in Australia; defy SJ and you lose". I'm not sure that's true, though; the Voice referendum proved that SJ does not have a full lock. The really-nasty part is that Western anti-SJ has a voice, and a face, and a name - Donald Trump - and he's utter poison in the Australian electorate because the Borderer culture that props up Trumpism is alien to Australia and Trump himself is obviously not very good at governance (or very friendly to Australia).
I tend to agree about cultural politics - I was cringeing inwardly when Penny Wong and Albo both doubled down on some of the indigenous stuff during their victory speeches. The Voice would seem to show that even when the Opposition itself is unpopular, there is very little appetite in Australia for SJ-tinted institutional change.
However, as you say, the American or Trumpist style does not work in Australia at all, and is experienced as both alienating and repulsive by most Australians. I think we've seen some of that with Jacinta Price, for instance, or Dutton's failed experiment with 'government efficiency' ideas, or with the completely unsuccessful Trumpet of Patriots. There is a strong element of resistance to, or at the very least skepticism of, SJ ideas in Australia, but Trumpism is not the way to access it. They will need to find a more distinctively Australian way of articulating the criticism.
This is my read too. There is an anti-SJW undercurrent, but it can't be accessed by apeing Trumpism. Someone in Australian politics may eventually figure out how to tap that vein and I hope they do.
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But if you wipe out the capital cities, then what is the point of the Liberal Party or Labour? Can't prop up housing market if the houses are vaporized!
Seriously, I don't understand the result at all. I guess everyone decided the economic meltdown wasn't Albanese's fault and that his promise to lower power prices (when they then rose) was fine at the time. Or perhaps it's demographics = destiny time.
Bizarre how Reform seems to have ignored the anti-anti-incumbent trend, they're somehow not tarred by association with Trump despite Farage being closer to Trump than most.
I think it really just comes down to Dutton’s lack of like-ability to be honest. More vibes based voting from the eastern seaboard urban population.
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