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.
So, what happens now? What policy questions is Australia currently facing, and how do different strata of Australia feel about them? Are there regional considerations, or does looks up capital Canberra rule the entire country from one city and make up literally whatever rules it wants? I don't know what the stakes are, and all I know is left won and Reddit is very happy about that.
I don't have the time to long form this sadly, but I'll throw out some dot points.
The center right conservative Liberal party didn't do enough to differentiate itself from the incumbent center left Labor party. Their (ex)leader was generally uncharismatic even though he did a good job bringing stability during his tenure to a party that had previously gone through several leadership spills.
Australia's largest problems right now are arguably a cost of living crisis (post COVID inflation, energy policies) and housing affordability (due to mass immigration, nimbyist building restrictions).
By electing the incumbent government we can expect more of the same policies that the incumbant govt has promoted. A push towards (more expensive) renewable energy over the Liberals promotion of long term development of nuclear energy. I think this will exacerbate the cost of living problem over the long term.
Same with immigration. The Foreign Minister primed the crowd for the PM's victory speech with the usual platitudes such as 'Welcome to Country' and a celebration of multiculturalism and how many different peoples we had in this country. They seem to have no intention of stemming the flow of mass migration into Australia, primarily from India, with predictable excuse of skills shortages. More than 30% of the Australian population is foreign born for context and 2/3rds of Australians are home owners (who are likely quite happy for house prices to inflate out of reach for the renters).
The vast majority of Australians live on the coast and in the capital cities. There are some state cultural differences with Western Australia with its mining based economy traditionally having an undercurrent of successionism against the 'out of touch' Eastern States, but Canberra has been smart enough to give WA enough revenue to keep any real anger at the Eastern States under control.
There's a lot more that can be said about this election and Australia itself, but I'll finish with this. I expect Australia to continue a long slow and steady decline into stagnation. Australians in general do not want things to change. They like the welfare state and rising housing prices (read: retirement portfolios) and seem to be happy with mass immigration.
A final anecdote. I was watching the election coverage last night from the publicly funded Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC). A supposedly neutral ABC journalist immediately start badgering a Liberal politician on a panel if the Liberals would retract their nuclear energy policy as soon as it became clear the Liberals had lost. A different journalist later asked a Labor politician if they would use their new majority to resurrect the failed Voice to Parliament policy that had been resoundingly defeated at referendum. I get enough Reddit online and don't need to see more on TV.
The mainstream republicans are dead in the US. Mitt Romney and Jeb Bush are unrunnable today. The CDU is dead in Germany, they are a ghost of their former selves with a contingent of boomers still voting for them. The tories have imploded in the UK. Instead we se Trumpism, Reform UK, national rally, AfD doing well. Especially among young people these new rightwing movements are polling better than the old right. Australia's and Canada's right has failed completely at reforming itself and is still running old school mainstream conservatives that only appeal to some boomers. It isn't working.
At some point the conservatives in these countries have to realize that they are 20 years behind and have no popular appeal.
Australia is more urban and more educated than the US, with a generally high-skill immigration mix. If coalition wants to abandon previously safe wealthy inner-urban seats over cultural differences to the teals, they'll need to make them up elsewhere, and there's not enough rural or exurban seats to do that.
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No: in Canada’s case, the old school mainstream conservatives that only appeal to Boomers are the Liberals, not the Conservatives (look at the polling data if you want to see that). Contrary to their stated names, of course; but there’s a reason the Conservatives are traditionally called ‘Reform’ (or similar) in this country.
Appetite for reform among the old is quite limited in all American provinces at this time due to how the Americans are carrying out their reforms.
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The coalition offered no concrete plan for energy. Their nuclear proposal was extremely expensive (hundreds of billions for a small share of generation) in a country lacking both the necessary industrial base and regulatory structure. Electricity prices in Australia, as in Europe, are driven by expensive gas. Despite being one of the world’s largest gas exporters, domestic prices remain high because exports are more profitable than supplying the local market. The coalition’s gas policy was to wave through more gas projects and pray the supply would somehow reach the domestic market.
A shift toward nuclear would likely have delayed any easing of power prices until at least the 2040s, and only if everything proceeded smoothly, an unlikely prospect given Australia's record with large-scale infrastructure, to say the least. They opened the campaign focused on nuclear, then dropped it entirely in the final weeks. That shift speaks for itself.
Lacking the industrial base is the argument there, you poison it by adding 'lacking regulatory structure', because that is an issue that can only be solved with nuclear power plants to regulate, and it is solved by politicians doing their jobs.
Thanks for pointing that out. I should have been clearer. By regulatory structure, I meant the legal and institutional framework required just to begin considering nuclear power. That means repealing the current ban, signing a 123 agreement with the US, and getting alignment between federal and state governments (when even coalition-led states showed only tepid support during the campaign). These steps alone could take years.
That's not mentioning the harder part that comes next: building national public acceptance in a country broadly hostile to nuclear, gaining local backing at each proposed site, launching an international tender process because there's no domestic industry, and securing administrative and environmental approvals. All this unfolds under constant political friction and the risk of reversal with each change in government. Even under ideal conditions, these take years too.
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For what it's worth, there's pretty much zero likelihood that the Coalition would have slashed immigration either. The Coalition tend to go hard on illegal immigration while increasing legal, skilled immigration. It is effectively bipartisan consensus that Australia needs large-scale immigration, and they don't even disagree that much about the criteria for it (i.e. they like skilled professionals). Immigration fights tend to be around the edges, about illegal immigrants, refugees, and asylum seekers - an incredibly small proportion of the total.
I have to agree with this. Liberals said that they would reduce immigration by 100000 a year only and still faced backlash:
I had a chat to a non-Indian IT friend in a private server and he told me he had come across multiple uber drivers handing out resumes (which they kept in their car). They were desperate to qualify for PR under Australia's points based system before their time ran out.
The pipeline for those guys was apparently: Foreign student comes to Australia and pays full price for an IT Masters degree from Australia's massive university sector > Student gets 3 years after completion to find employment or leave > Student takes IT job for vastly reduced rate (A$60k) in order to qualify for permanent residency, suppressing salaries for heritage Australians > New batch graduates every year, saturating the industry > Govt campaigns on 'skills shortages' in IT
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