Our current (liberal, small liberal) PM went to the Governor General this morning to call an election. Anthony Albanese has been the PM for the last three years, and according to our constitution, an election must be called.
So, it’s in 6 weeks time. A far cry from you poor Usain’s having to deal with two years of campaigning. Ours is short, sharp and hopefully sweet, with the Liberal candidate (LARGE L, a trumpian sychopant) being beaten down in the polls.
One hopes. One can dream. Heaven help us if Dutton gets in.
The Liberals have already sent me an unsolicited text message that I cannot, by law, opt out of. Resuming my standard response of donating to an opposing party for every spam I receive from them.
Last election a bank of small L liberals turned independents, mostly female, picked out a number of inner city electorates with above average income, fiscally conservative, socially progressive, environmentally conscience bleeding hearts and with sitting members being of the aging, white, establishment males demographic … and gave them one hell of a shellacking. Teals won seven seats and have generally played to their base and been credible and effective members. Where they didn’t poll well were in the poorer, regional, socially conservative seats.
The consequence being the balance of the Liberal Party party room abruptly lurched to the right. So instead of the option of replacing ScoMo with the acceptable face of Josh Frydenberg, he lost his blue ribbon seat of Kooyong to the Teal’s Monique Ryan. So when the defeated and much reduced Libs caucused after the 2022 election loss, boofhead Dutton was the only leadership option available.
In 2022 I campaigned for a friend who was standing as non-teal female independent last time. Caused barely a ripple. Am looking at voting informal, unless there is a friend of Fred Nile or Pauline Hanson standing. Then I’ll thunk out some voting option to put them on the bottom of my ballot.
An election must be held on a Saturday not less than 33 nor more than 58 days after the issue of writ(s). So we can’t knock the proceeding over at quite the Canadian efficiency, though you can early vote 21 days from the issue of writs. But you lot almost all live bunched up along the US border, no?
In the 15 minutes on an early Saturday morning that it will take for me to cast my vote, wearing wearing slippers, PJs and a dressing gown is not outside the bounds of possibility.
The Trump Bump.
For the past few election cycles the democratic world has seen a pronounced shift both right and against incumbent governments.
Australian election 2025 will be first where Gen Z and Millennials outnumber the baby boomers in every state. So how to these misfits, of whom PT has contributed 3, view the prevailing political sways?
In polls of Australian voters aged 18-44 across all the social, economic and political groups, a plurality in almost every single group said that Australia would not benefit from a leader like Trump. Well that sounds a reasonable start.
But:
12 per cent say Australia would definitely benefit from a leader like Trump
11 per cent say it probably would
19 per cent undecided
That many??!! You are kidding me?
OK, 48 per cent say Australia would definitely not benefit from a leader like Trump
10 per cent say it probably would not.
OZ’s GenZs and Millenials, not generally known for their respect of authority figures, with a deplorable perchant for making Tik Tocs of their genitals, and yet somewhere between a quarter and a third are nazi fantasists???
Once again, I applaud the Australian Founding Fathers who considered that voting was an act of civic duty and made it mandatory.
Serial pest, mining magnate Clive Palmer, fifth richest Australian and variously described as Australia’s greatest egomaniac and an Olympic scale narcissist, is on the hustings again in 2025.
Palmer, who listed litigation as amongst his hobbies in Who’s Who, is taking a break from suing the Commonwealth for AUD$296 billion over the alleged loss of iron ore contractual entitlements and is back on the political trail with his latest incarnation Trumpet of Patriots.
link is provided as a placeholder, not something you should click as a reference.
Clive started his eponymous Palmer United Party 2013, even winning a seat representing in the white shoe brigade, property shonks and spivs of Queensland’s Sunshine Coast.
Rebirthed as the United Australia Party in 2019 he ran candidates for all 151 seats in the House of Representatives and totally flamed out winning none.
Trying again in 2022 he won a single Senate seat on preferences.
The party platform is the typical populous guff you’d expect from a glass jaw bloviator with too much money and too many Big Macs. You can promise anything when you know you’ll never be called to deliver.
Palmer is as charismatic as a fart in an old sauce bottle. His early morning ads on the commercial channels are an exercise in yawning boredom. He reads off a script in a complete monotone, extolling the virtues of Trumpism but without the fervour. I don’t understand how he’s gotten this far on the Aus political scene, but, there ya go. Yep. We got 'em too.
Our opposition leader, Liberal (right wingers), Peter Dutton is coming to seriously regret having attempted to align himself with the right-wing of the US during recent campaigning.
After the kerfuffle of a clusterfuck with the tariff situation in the US, the Australian stock market is also getting a right-rogering, and our superannuation accounts (401k’s) are seeing considerable drops in balances.
Thus, we’re also seeing drops in the popularity polls coming out; Dutton and our PM, Anthony Albanese, were neck and neck for the last couple of months, but now the gaps are widening.
Nitpick - compulsory voting was not introduced in Australia until 1924. But indeed it, along with preferential voting, and a truly independent body that draws up electorates, has kept our elections free, fair, and generally fairly central.
He’s also walked back promises to force people to work from the office not home, has shut up about nuclear power, went on holiday when there were floods in his own electorate, and has said he’ll live in Sydney if PM (300km from the capital Canberra where parliament sits and 2,000km from his electorate).
He has one topic he has cred for in the public mind (wrongly, of course), cost of living. And he can’t even seem to land a blow in that space.
Am looking at voting informal, unless there is a friend of Fred Nile or Pauline Hanson standing. Then I’ll thunk out some voting option to put them on the bottom of my ballot.