Have just returned from voting. This year there is a larger than usual number of minor parties on offer. Some of them are a bit strange. My favourite is “The United Australia Party”, previously called “The Clive Palmer Party” .
Ole Clive is a shady millionaire, with a dreadful reputation for ripping off investors and employees. The slogan for Clive’s party is . “Make Australia Great” (no, really) . His main platform seems to be a promise to increase the age pension by $150. No plans for major public works have been mentioned yet.
I’m betting that the governing conservative Liberal party will be defeated. The slightly left of centre Labor party may win in its own right. I think it’s more likely that the independents and minor parties will hold the balance of power. This tends to happen when Aussies get pissed off by the major parties. That is my perception right now. I’m not always right about elections (or anything else ,for that matter).
“Patrick D says that citizens do not have a right to vote.”
Yes, I think that’s a true statement . Voting is a privilege and a civic responsibility in my opinion, but it most certainly is not a right. It can be taken away at any time by those in power.
All I’ve done is to state a position, which I think explained quite clearly. I certainly don’t expect you or anyone else to necessarily agree.
Don’t agree, fine, no problem, but do try to summon the spine to respond with your own position, rather than sniping from the peanut gallery.
I thought you were American? If so, I’m stunned.–whenI was in New York I was complimented on my English.
Well, I’m a smidge disappointed, but it will be pretty much business as usual. I think I may have been projecting a bit when I made my prediction. I seriously misread the mood of the electorate, especially that of the swinging voters, who actually decide the elections in Oz.
Patrick, I have friends who could not get out of bed for three days after our last Presidential election. After the election no one at church talked political anymore. At the senior center the locals could not stop talking about Trump. What is happening right now is the word “Progressive” is becoming a bad word. Our whole system is out of balance. And I blame a lot of the problems on our left leaning new media. Or to Trump it, the Fake News. How is your media doing?
Gains? Not significantly. The talking heads are calling the election 'a miracle win" for Liberals. The numbers in the lower house are still reasonably close; 75 to 63, I think.
There are a few quite nasty small right wing parties. Such as Pauline Hanson’s** One Nation; racist and anti immigration. Clive Palmers’s “United Australia Party” . A crude popularist . Eg promised to increase the age pension by $150 a week. Imagine someone not as wealthy as Donald Trump, obese, and lacking Donald’s sophistication and social skills .
** Pauline is a former Fish and Chip shop proprietor, with the intellectual acumen of a chimpanzee, and the personality of an agitated chicken.
I was stunned because in my experience, few Americans have any idea about Australia.
Travelling as an Australian, one of the first things I notice in most countries, including the US is that there is NOTHING in local news, print or TV, about Australia. It’s as if my country does not exist. It’s extraordinary to run across an American who not only knows where Australia is on a map, but has at least as much knowledge of Australian domestic politics as many Aussies. I think ‘stunned’ is the right word.
It’s very different with me having some idea of US domestic politics and general news; the US sneezes, Oz catches a cold. Best example in recent years was the financial crisis in the US. As soon as I understood about the problem with Sub prime loans, I could see big trouble ahead. I moved all of my investments out of both property and the stock market. Had I not done so, I would have lost around 30% of my investments. My brother’s superannuation lost 30% of its value. --In Australia the most common forms of investment for Super are property and the stock market. I moved into wholesale cash; lower interest, but I lost nothing.
You are right. Australia is not a news item here. The election made the news. But the news was that it was following Trump and moving away from the far left politically. I heard more about Australia back in the early 60’s when Australia was being talked about as the place to move to. We even talked about moving to Australia. Recessions created a lot of hard times here and we were worried about another depression. Today we don’t have the soup line recessions and depressions we just have deflationary and inflationary recessions.
PD. I watch BBC America occasionally. They cover Australia a bit.
Now I understand your comment about someone in New York complimenting your ability to speak English. IOW most Americans are largely dumbasses. That has become painfully obvious to me over the years.
I heard on National Public Radio that some kind of bigtime chicanery just went down in Austria, with some top righties caught on video doing something or other with some Nazi types. I think they resigned or got booted. And there was even a reference to a Russian woman and her Oligarch overseer being involved somehow. IDK, I just heard the blurb on the NPR news.
To be fair; we were staying in the heart of Manhattan, in my Uncle’s apartment, cnr of 35th and Park Ave (rent control) . Did a lot of walking. Got lost a few times. So I asked someone passing by, girding my loins for the legendary New York rudeness. Not a hint; I was polite, slightly apologetic; (bunged on the broad Aussie accent) The New Yorkers were polite to the point of graciousness. Scratch one stereotype for me .
—I have always had some simple rules when travelling: I am a guest in their country, behave like one ;the locals owe me exactly nothing. It is I who must fit in, not they . AND, never criticise a country to a local. Have had ONE mildly unpleasant experience in the US; some petty official who had the quaint notion that every visitor is dying to live in the US . Americans who have actually visited Oz tend not to make such assumptions. As it turns out, a significant number of Americans outstay their visas in Oz.