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AusPoliGaf |Early 2016 Election| - the government's term has been... Shortened

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D

danm999

Member
mjontrix said:
I can't I'm saying this - but they might very well lose the State of NSW with this.

The NSW Labor party - oh god we're going from bad to worse.

I'm hoping for many independents to takeover the Legislative Council next State Election.

Labor might just pull off having every State/Territory and the Federal Government...
Click to expand...

People are slowly starting to realise there's a one size fits all approach.

Energy prices a concern? Let's privatise Ausgrid.

Housing affordability? Let's privatise the Land Titles Registry.

Public transport poor? Etc etc

If/when the housing boom ends and stamp duty revenues dry up NSW is in trouble.
 
D.Lo

D.Lo

Member
danm999 said:
People are slowly starting to realise there's a one size fits all approach.

Energy prices a concern? Let's privatise Ausgrid.

Housing affordability? Let's privatise the Land Titles Registry.

Public transport poor? Etc etc

If/when the housing boom ends and stamp duty revenues dry up NSW is in trouble.
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I tried to find that famous cartoon of Dick Cheney (might have been Bush/Rumsfeld) drafting a 'reasons to go to war in Iraq' list, searching for a justification, when he looks out of his window and sees a plane hit the pentagon.

Cheney = Liberal Party of Australia
List = reasons to privatise literally everything so our donors gets some nice monopolies
Trigger = any event of any sort good or bad
 
C

Candescence

Member
bobnowhere said:
Queensland will be trouble next year for Labor state-wise and the last time I saw polling Dan Andrews was down 54-46 in Victoria.

I don't think NSW Labor could possibly found more lightweight leader than Foley, complete waste of space.
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That is horrifying, considering Andrews is a terrific premier. Losing the Vic state election would be an absolute tragedy.
 
M

mjontrix

Member
The only way for this to work is for Shorten to step down for Family Reasons and then Albanese to take over.

It's be lights out for the Libs at the election then.

If Labor loses Victoria then people are more stupid than I thought.

Of course, unless it's because the Vic State Labor party is like the NSW one...
 
B

bobnowhere

Member
Candescence said:
That is horrifying, considering Andrews is a terrific premier. Losing the Vic state election would be an absolute tragedy.
Click to expand...


I dug up the article, might need to use a private window/google to access it.

Looks like there were a few contributing factors, it was taken just after those two Labor idiots were caught rorting the system and refused to pay it back. It was also an internal Liberal reachtel poll and it's independence is questionable. The poll has ONP at 12.5% which I'd suggest is very strong and doubtful.

There are, a least perceivable, law and order issues in Victoria with the crime rate up and there is nothing the Libs love more than running on tough on crime. If it comes down to that it might be over.

Dan can still win but it won't be easy.
 
E

Elaugaufein

Member
Brandis is running pretty dead for such a high profile position, I'm guessing he's been told if he keeps his head down and nose clean that he'll get a nice sinecure as long as he keeps supporting Turnbull in the party room until there's enough clean air to give him such.


Dutton would have to fuck up majorly to be forced to step down , the Liberal Right backers who see him as their last best hope simply won't allow it (and they've got nothing to lose after Abbot's immolation and this Budget) unless it's bad enough to risk their mostly safe seats.
 
S

Shaneus

Member
bobnowhere said:
I dug up the article, might need to use a private window/google to access it.

Looks like there were a few contributing factors, it was taken just after those two Labor idiots were caught rorting the system and refused to pay it back. It was also an internal Liberal reachtel poll and it's independence is questionable. The poll has ONP at 12.5% which I'd suggest is very strong and doubtful.

There are, a least perceivable, law and order issues in Victoria with the crime rate up and there is nothing the Libs love more than running on tough on crime. If it comes down to that it might be over.

Dan can still win but it won't be easy.
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Oh god, don't even suggest that it could be a possibility. With the various "left" initiatives he's put in place (usage of medical marijuana being one) it would be a massive blow to have some complete cunt like Matthew Guy wielding any sort of power.

I worry that the CFA shenanigans might work against him, too :(
 
R

Ruthless_Barbarian

Member
8545008-3x2-460x307.jpg


http://mobile.abc.net.au/news/2017-...-mural-in-melbournes-west/8545080?pfmredir=sm


I live nearby so going to take a picture before this gets taken down.
 
S

Shaneus

Member
Who'd take it down? The shop owner loves it! Footscray is also pretty progressive too, I doubt many people will hate on it (but maybe deface it for publicity though :/).
 
B

bobnowhere

Member
And now a future leader of ONP and a staffer for Malcolm Roberts has been arrested for failing to attend an interview related to a charge from August last year. The article is being coy on the charges but a simple google shows he was accused of assault last year and "for legal reasons" usually means they want to protect the ID of the victim. Definitely future leadership potential.
 
D

danm999

Member
bobnowhere said:
And now a future leader of ONP and a staffer for Malcolm Roberts has been arrested for failing to attend an interview related to a charge from August last year. The article is being coy on the charges but a simple google shows he was accused of assault last year and "for legal reasons" usually means they want to protect the ID of the victim. Definitely future leadership potential.
Click to expand...

Let's hope we're smarter than Montana.
 
B

bobnowhere

Member
A journo did leak the suppressed charge in a tweet before quickly removing it. It rhymes with Audio Tape.

Roberts of course has decried it as fake news.

Also, At what point do you reckon the kids completely zoned out! Though it is heartening to at least have a PM with a level of intellectual curiosity. Abbott would have gone silent and wandered off.

Finally, it looks like even QLD Labor is giving up on the Adani Mine and have completely ruled out any sort of royalty holiday. Maybe the fact that India cancelled a proposed 4GW plant during the week and have cancelled another 10GW of coal plans all for renewables is finally making everyone realise it's just not viable without ridiculous subsidies.
 
E

Elaugaufein

Member
Wait , what ? Queensland Labor doubled down on Adani about 4 times. I wasn't expecting an actual public denial of anything, just radio silence on anything they wouldn't do.
 
C

Candescence

Member
Labor federally and in Queensland is being rocked with an awkward conundrum concerning the mine, especially since the Greens are pushing an aggressive and rather effective anti-Adani campaign with the fairly obvious intent of pushing Labor left on the issue. That's not to say the government isn't having it's own awkward issues with the mine as well, since certain MPs are pushing hard for the mine but others know it's not economically viable.
 
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Elaugaufein

Member
Candescence said:
Labor federally and in Queensland is being rocked with an awkward conundrum concerning the mine, especially since the Greens are pushing an aggressive and rather effective anti-Adani campaign with the fairly obvious intent of pushing Labor left on the issue. That's not to say the government isn't having it's own awkward issues with the mine as well, since certain MPs are pushing hard for the mine but others know it's not economically viable.
Click to expand...

Yeah, I know bout the Greens. Got an email about that suggesting a royalty holiday by stealth just after I posted (so the Greens certainly perceive the shift as a counterstrike). I'm just surprised that Qld Labor would commit so far and hard before doing this, they'll wear it from everybody for a while (so it's probably safe to assume we're at least 3 months from an election announcement).

Its always going to be less problems for the LNP though, seats that are primarily or moving towards Greens / LNP contests are usually 5+ margin safe Liberal seats. They'd have to do something like run Peter Dutton in Wentworth for it to be a major issue.
 
E

Elaugaufein

Member
Candescence said:
Peter Lewis at The Guardian raises the idea of "actually, maybe we already had our Trump moment, and it was in the form of Tony Abbott?"

I mean, he's got a point - Abbott was basically a slightly more professional version of Trump, in many ways. Fortunately, the electorate saw what he was offering, and they realized mistakes had been made.
Click to expand...

I think that's drawing a really long bow. Abbott is a conservative yes, but he's been a political creature for decades. He also couldn't do faux populism to save his life (he made the 2014 budget worse by all account, ).

And even if we discount that, Abbott didn't get elected under his own power, he got in because Labor knifed a sitting Prime Minister, without an explanation of why to the public, and then internally self-destructed for the better part of 3 years.

Palmer is a better Trump analogue than Abbott was.
 
C

Candescence

Member
Elaugaufein said:
I think that's drawing a really long bow. Abbott is a conservative yes, but he's been a political creature for decades. He also couldn't do faux populism to save his life (he made the 2014 budget worse by all account, ).

And even if we discount that, Abbott didn't get elected under his own power, he got in because Labor knifed a sitting Prime Minister, without an explanation of why to the public, and then internally self-destructed for the better part of 3 years.

Palmer is a better Trump analogue than Abbott was.
Click to expand...

Yeah, Palmer was indeed, but Palmer is himself a big example of why such populism has its limits here in Australia (though to his credit, he's actually less of a shithead than Trump, even if he was basically a toady for Abbot). And with One Nation having limited appeal outside of Queensland (seriously tho wtf is wrong with Queensland voters), I think right-wing populism has mostly sent the extent of its run here in Australia for the time being.
 
E

Elaugaufein

Member
We're very rural for an east coast state populous , PHON started here (as did Palmer and Katter) and we probably have the single most majoritarian State Government system in the country which has long led us to favor populist authoritarians as leaders.
 
D.Lo

D.Lo

Member
Elaugaufein said:
I think that's drawing a really long bow. Abbott is a conservative yes, but he's been a political creature for decades. He also couldn't do faux populism to save his life (he made the 2014 budget worse by all account, ).

And even if we discount that, Abbott didn't get elected under his own power, he got in because Labor knifed a sitting Prime Minister, without an explanation of why to the public, and then internally self-destructed for the better part of 3 years.

Palmer is a better Trump analogue than Abbott was.
Click to expand...
Absolutely.

Due to compulsory voting, and indirect election of PM, Australia has a history of electing 'last muppet standing when the other side implodes/gets on the nose'. Johnny Howard was a pathetic spent yesterday's man, but Downer fell to pieces and Costello had no balls so he Stephen Bradbury'd the Lib leadership at the exact time Australia was finally out of patience with Keating. By all logic Hewson or Costello were who should have been.

Rudd did pretty well with Kevin07, but really it was just that he was there when Howard's time was up. Abbott only got in over the stink of Labor's rotting corpse after a string on non-stop political blunder, and Shorten looks likely to do the same now.
 
E

Elaugaufein

Member
To be fair to Shorten he at least seems to have planned to do it that way. He's almost offensively inoffensive on anything he doesn't know he'll get an easy win from.

And he can just coast at this point, the Coalition have​ burnt so much political capital that people don't even care that Labor is defending Catholic Schools from having their overinflated spending cut, while the Coalition is bashing banks (wat?).

If the Coalition had chosen to stop walking into rakes every week after rolling Abbot things would be different now.
 
D.Lo

D.Lo

Member
Well yeah it is now an official standard strategy. Rudd used it too, twice, he made himself 'Howard plus saying sorry and no workchoices' the first time, when he got the leadership back his entire strategy to save the furniture was to neutralise attack points by doing Liberal-lite policy.

Even Abbott used the 'small target' strategy (no cuts to medicare ABC etc) when he didn't even have to, and it came back to bite, what an idiot.
 
S

Shaneus

Member
D.Lo said:
Absolutely.

Due to compulsory voting, and indirect election of PM, Australia has a history of electing 'last muppet standing when the other side implodes/gets on the nose'. Johnny Howard was a pathetic spent yesterday's man, but Downer fell to pieces and Costello had no balls so he Stephen Bradbury'd the Lib leadership at the exact time Australia was finally out of patience with Keating. By all logic Hewson or Costello were who should have been.

Rudd did pretty well with Kevin07, but really it was just that he was there when Howard's time was up. Abbott only got in over the stink of Labor's rotting corpse after a string on non-stop political blunder, and Shorten looks likely to do the same now.
Click to expand...
It's a shame there's not someone more charismatic at the Labor helm. I think this country could've done with someone like Albo or Wong as PM. I could see Shorten getting in at the next election (if not sooner), but couldn't picture him lasting more than one, maybe two terms.
 
E

Elaugaufein

Member
Shaneus said:
It's a shame there's not someone more charismatic at the Labor helm. I think this country could've done with someone like Albo or Wong as PM. I could see Shorten getting in at the next election (if not sooner), but couldn't picture him lasting more than one, maybe two terms.
Click to expand...

He might last, he's hardly be the first or last placeholder PM we've had. It kinda works for him to run as Mr Labor because it means there's no clash between his party and brand. He sort of disables the union / faceless man attack just be existing because if he gets in people clearly​ don't care.

And credit where it's due he's done a not insignificant amount to drag Labor's formal positions into line with the public by using his connections to neutralize the SDA and friends with compromises that are basically dignified surrenders. A firebrand never could have done that.
 
D

danm999

Member
There won't be a Trump style populist in Australia.

Trump's true North as a populist was bragging about how wealthy and successful he was. Even his bigotry was informed by it (ie; I'm not a racist I've employed lots of the Blacks and Latinos and women and have created fabulous jobs for them).

That can't work in Australia. The first dickhead that tries to brag about how wealthy they are will be torn to shreds by tall poppy syndrome.
 
E

Elaugaufein

Member
danm999 said:
There won't be a Trump style populist in Australia.

Trump's true North as a populist was bragging about how wealthy and successful he was. Even his bigotry was informed by it (ie; I'm not a racist I've employed lots of the Blacks and Latinos and women and have created fabulous jobs for them).

That can't work in Australia. The first dickhead that tries to brag about how wealthy they are will be torn to shreds by tall poppy syndrome.
Click to expand...

Counter argument: Palmer and Turnbull. The Nationals Parliamentary representation are fecking loaded on average too. They own huge tracts of very valuable land, that's how they can afford to do politics.

You only get set on fire for bragging about being wealthy if you do it wrong.

Although Trump's exact style would never work because it's too crass.
 
L

luchadork

Member
danm999 said:
There won't be a Trump style populist in Australia.

Trump's true North as a populist was bragging about how wealthy and successful he was. Even his bigotry was informed by it (ie; I'm not a racist I've employed lots of the Blacks and Latinos and women and have created fabulous jobs for them).

That can't work in Australia. The first dickhead that tries to brag about how wealthy they are will be torn to shreds by tall poppy syndrome.
Click to expand...

didnt turnbull already try that 'dont hate me cause i'm ballin' move? didnt really backfire on him tbh.

http://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/2017/02/08/pm-labels-shorten-billionaire-sycophant
 
T

Tommy DJ

Member
Trump main advantage right now is a base that has been, more or less, traumatized by the previous Democratic administration. Issues such as same sex marriage and the constant threat of more progressive female reproductive rights, gun control, better police accountability and so forth have galvanized a lot of the Republican base.

It doesn't matter if Trump has done every sin in the Bible, the Republican Party is the only party with the moral right to rule the United States for a lot of people. I honestly don't know if there are enough wedge issues in Australia that people actually think are an existential threat to their very existence.

That being said, I can see the seeds being planted here. Non-ABC and SBS TV news (so Channel 7 and 9), commercial radio and the Herald Sun are going continuously mental over black immigrant gangs stealing cars and making Victoria unsafe.
 
D

danm999

Member
Elaugaufein said:
Counter argument: Palmer and Turnbull. The Nationals Parliamentary representation are fecking loaded on average too. They own huge tracts of very valuable land, that's how they can afford to do politics.

You only get set on fire for bragging about being wealthy if you do it wrong.

Although Trump's exact style would never work because it's too crass.
Click to expand...

luchadork said:
didnt turnbull already try that 'dont hate me cause i'm ballin' move? didnt really backfire on him tbh.

http://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/2017/02/08/pm-labels-shorten-billionaire-sycophant
Click to expand...

That's kind of my point. Neither Palmer or Turnbull ran on platforms they should be elected because of all the money they made. They are both very wealthy, but they ran on platforms of vague platitudes; being fair dinkum, innovation and growth, etc.
 
V

viciouskillersquirrel

Member
Trump's schtick worked because making money and getting rich is an American value. The titans of industry are American heroes in a way that they'll never be in this country. The poor masses here just don't look up to Rinehart the way they do (say) Musk, Jobs or Zuckerberg in the US. We're much more egalitarian, culturally, so putting on airs about your financial success looks crass to us.

An Australian Trump would take a distinctly Australian form and not necessarily come from wealth.
 
E

Elaugaufein

Member
viciouskillersquirrel said:
Trump's schtick worked because making money and getting rich is an American value. The titans of industry are American heroes in a way that they'll never be in this country. The poor masses here just don't look up to Rinehart the way they do (say) Musk, Jobs or Zuckerberg in the US. We're much more egalitarian, culturally, so putting on airs about your financial success looks crass to us.

An Australian Trump would take a distinctly Australian form and not necessarily come from wealth.
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I mean we might if we had that kind of story. Those people did impressive things. In Australia you tend to get your megafortunes from what is essentially buying and selling shit. You don't have to create anything. Though that's not an argument for an Australian Trump we have the same 'real estate' baron class of megarich and we don't like em any more than we do the coal barons or financial types.
 
V

viciouskillersquirrel

Member
Elaugaufein said:
I mean we might if we had that kind of story. Those people did impressive things. In Australia you tend to get your megafortunes from what is essentially buying and selling shit. You don't have to create anything. Though that's not an argument for an Australian Trump we have the same 'real estate' baron class of megarich and we don't like em any more than we do the coal barons or financial types.
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J D Rockefeller was an oil tycoon. I really think Americans equate money with success in a way that Australians tend not to.
 
A

Aarglefarg

Member
Mitt Romney's wealth was used in criticisms of him in 2012. I don't think criticism of Clive Palmer went there much (he was an easy target, absolutely no joke intended, in other ways)?

But at the same time, Donald Trump was criticised as not being so rich.
 
V

viciouskillersquirrel

Member
luchadork said:
Are we really _that_ different from America?
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I just think we have different national myths. America has this whole frontier independent spirit thing going on. Bootstraps, self made men and freedom and all that.

Australia is a lot more laid back. It might be because even though we're almost as big as the US size-wise, we only have tiny strips of really inhabitable land near the coasts. Most of the continent isn't worth conquering from that standpoint, so we never really had huge swaths of the populace effectively cut off from all help.

Plus, we never had a violent war to achieve self-rule. We kind of just asked Mother Britain for permission.
Aarglefarg said:
Mitt Romney's wealth was used in criticisms of him in 2012. I don't think criticism of Clive Palmer went there much (he was an easy target, absolutely no joke intended, in other ways)?

But at the same time, Donald Trump was criticised as not being so rich.
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The reason Mitt Romney's wealth could be undermined as a strong point was that his money came from mergers and acquisitions - processes that many Americans had seen destroy their jobs and livelihoods. Obama attacked him by accusing him of never building anything and only profiting by destroying the work of others. It was a very effective line of attack and had an excellent catchphrase in the term "vulture capitalism".

You couldn't attack Trump that way though, since his years in the public limelight had already cemented in people's minds that he was a "builder". It was his whole public persona. Accusing him of lying about his wealth could undermine that, but it apparently wasn't enough.
 
D.Lo

D.Lo

Member
I don't think Trump being rich is a selling point to most who voted for him.

They voted for him as a 'fuck you' to Washington. He was the first guy in years to say their pain was real, and he'd go in and fuck shit up.

His supporters were/are able to rationalise away traditional political weaknesses (eg him being rich/an asshole/racist/dumb/unstable etc) because the thrust of what he said was appealing enough to them.

Palmer was a similar phenomenon here, except with less anger at Canberra than Americans feel at Washington (still some, we hated Gillard and Abbott), much less of a message and in a non-presidential system he needed to lead a party, which he of course could not lead effectively. The primary process in the US allowed Trump to take over a party.

It was anger at Washington that enabled Trump, nothing else IMO. There was another character who said people's pain was real and we needed a resolution, he ran in the other primary, but he just didn't have fame or financial backing initially and so couldn't overcome the party's long term plan to coronate a particular candidate.
 
J

Jintor

Member
I don't think necessarily that how you get your wealth is as strong an issue that resounds in the minds of an electorate as you'd think - perhaps amongst the more politically inclined, by Trump was one of those people who was Rich because he already was Rich. Nobody cared for the story/facts that he inherited most of his wealth and actually diminished it (perhaps) from where it started because he was already Rich, and he was known for being Rich, so he was Rich. It's why the Tax stuff never really went anywhere and he knew he could go past it, because ultimately nobody is really interested in taxes and tax dodging unless they've already made their rep at playing by the rules. Trump's whole shtick was that he was openly contemptous of the rules, so fuck 'em.

It really was about anger imho. idiotic misplaced anger and gerrymandering and the US's idiotic fucked up voting system, but very much about anger.

i still cannot believe they went from Obama to Trump. it defies reason.
 
L

luchadork

Member
Jintor said:
like in what sense

i generally think we're pretty different but i could be pursuaded otherwise i guess
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I think we've dropped the egalitarianism in pursuit of the American dream.

Tell me which one you think is more applicable to Australia:

Everyone can have success if they work hard enough.
Or...
Everyone should work harder at fighting inequality.

Maybe its because I live in Sydney but theres a massive idolisation of wealth and acceptance of greed here. People care more about house prices than homeless people. Its no surprise that our PM is an ex-merchant banker from the Eastern Suburb with a net worth of 9 figures or so. No one blinks an eye. We fucking love capitalism and consumerism.

Turn on your TV or radio and it will basically be a parroted version of American culture. Real House Wives of Capital City, shock jocks, Drake, housing makeover shows, etc. We've even got our own Shark Tank.

Oh and we're super conservative about certain social issues, like gay marriage, drug use. And we're xenophobic too and concerned about border control. And we idolise our military too.

I think we've completely bent over and accepted a lot of American values and culture and what not. Including the idea that wealth equals success.
 
D

danm999

Member
luchadork said:
I think we've dropped the egalitarianism in pursuit of the American dream.

Tell me which one you think is more applicable to Australia:

Everyone can have success if they work hard enough.
Or...
Everyone should work harder at fighting inequality.

Maybe its because I live in Sydney but theres a massive idolisation of wealth and acceptance of greed here. People care more about house prices than homeless people. Its no surprise that our PM is an ex-merchant banker from the Eastern Suburb with a net worth of 9 figures or so. No one blinks an eye. We fucking love capitalism and consumerism.

Turn on your TV or radio and it will basically be a parroted version of American culture. Real House Wives of Capital City, shock jocks, Drake, housing makeover shows, etc. We've even got our own Shark Tank.

Oh and we're super conservative about certain social issues, like gay marriage, drug use. And we're xenophobic too and concerned about border control. And we idolise our military too.

I think we've completely bent over and accepted a lot of American values and culture and what not. Including the idea that wealth equals success.
Click to expand...

I think these are all fair knocks of the government but not necessarily the public.

Polling, generally, says the public wants strong action on housing affordability, climate change, investment in health and education, marriage equality. It's part of the reason the government keeps doing so abysmally in State elections and in Federal polls; they just aren't giving the public what they want in these areas.

Really the only place I think the government has lock step with the public is our treatment of asylum seekers which is pretty disgusting.

luchadork said:
Are we really _that_ different from America?
Click to expand...

Well WA didn't usher in the glorious age of PHON so we're doing better than them so far.
 
J

Jintor

Member
i think people care more about house prices in sydney because housing prices are fucking ridiculous and they're scared they can't afford houses.
 
L

luchadork

Member
danm999 said:
I think these are all fair knocks of the government but not necessarily the public.

Polling, generally, says the public wants strong action on housing affordability, climate change, investment in health and education, marriage equality. It's part of the reason the government keeps doing so abysmally in State elections and in Federal polls; they just aren't giving the public what they want in these areas.
Click to expand...

To be fair to America, the majority of them voted for a candidate that was fairly socially progressive and offered all those things too. And this is off the back of 8 years of Obama.
 
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