The thing that most baffles me about the election result is the pleasure that is being expressed at the Greens vote.
As far as I can see this is the high water mark for the Greens. They should have inherited some Democrat voters, Labor lost votes, the Prime Minister is openly condemned and they still manage to lose the only seat they had in the lower house, are still unlikely to earn their initial first preference Senate quota and probably no longer hold the balance of power in the Senate. I don’t imagine that the media will be much interested in Bob Brown’s opinion when legislatively it means nothing.
I’m just gobsmacked that he got in with a greater majority! What the fuck does that say about Australia and lap-dogness? Or about Australia and attitudes towards immigrants?
Look at the countries that have thrived or exisit because of immigrants. How many are there? America, Aussie, Canada, New Zealand, yes many countries HAVE immigrants but not many are built on them! Would any of the four I named be the same place without immigrants? We are all countries who have gained so much from immigration (there may be many more…I just KNOW which countries did). Why would the Australian public vote for a bigot?
Have Australians rejoiced in the lap dog role? Does it make you feel all important? Well NO to the intelligent ones obviously! But what does this vote say about the masses?
Shit the very next time Aus critisices NZ for our inferior military contribution, I will thank whoever is charge! (and it will be the prime twat…thanks for the name Rune). I sooooooooo want to be on the "you are too feeble to fight…just keep on being in just about every “Peace keeping force there” is force.
I could have lived with him winning…but an increased majority? Well that says something I didn’t want to say about Aussies. Ok Yanks it’s down to you :D. Someone has to redeem themselves!
Calm Kiwi, as you probably know, elections are won and lost on the issues of the time. Immigration and the Iraq thing are no longer current issues and I don’t believe they were a huge factor in the result.
Also, Australians seem significantly more conservative than Kiwis. My views seem much more extreme left than they did when I was in NZ. From what I have been able to tell over the last 4 years I’ve been here, Australians, as a group, may have much in common with New Zealanders but they are certainly not the same.
Not picking on you in particular, but that condescending attitude is widely expressed by the Left, and IMO, goes a long way to explaining why Howard resoundingly won, as will Bush and Blair. I understand that you and others disagree with Iraq and whatnot; you guys may want to understand why other people do not disagree, rather than write them off with a worried quip about ‘lapdogs’ and whatnot.
Hey feel free to pick on me, I’m more then comfortable with the thought that my non-lapdog govt (who still contributed engineers ‘after’ the war…but wasn’t part of the “coalition of the willing”) is the lefty one. They have recently gained in the polls and are in NO danger of losing the next election. Did mention I will be voting for the "Prime Twat’ ?
I’m not sure that that was ever a shock. You have lived there for a while, I also lived there for a couple of years. Aussies are socially more gregerious but they are politicaly more staid. Hey we wern’t the first country in the world to give women the vote for nothing! We also had a working social welfare system while they were still sniffing foreigners
We chucked out the American navy when we were too small to have any right to do so but we did and we have stuck to our guns for 20-ish years. We never said no to a peace keeping role, shit this weeks bombings at the Hilton on the Israeli/Egypt border showed that.
We were lefty born and bred Long may we stay that way. Helpful but not obnoxious
I thought that the cartoon in today’s (Sydney) Sun Herald was a pretty good description of what happened. It’s a picture of a ballot paper, with two candidates on it. The candidates are:
I’MALRIGHT, Jack
NOTHAPPY, John
The ballot paper is marked with a “1” next to “I’MALRIGHT, Jack”, and a “2” next to “NOTHAPPY, John”.
Our little country is lucky in that it can afford to be that way, we have no immediate threat. We still do what we can though and I’m quite confident that we will go in with what few guns we have blazing if any of our allies are invaded.
Are there any Australians here who voted for Mr. Howard? I get the impression from this thread that the Australian Dopers are more left than than the general population.
I’m not an Aussie citizen, but I do work here. And words cannot express how disappointed I am at the election result.
All those fucking lies about the interest rates really pissed me off.
And did nobody care about the *illegal * Iraq war?
Just day before the election, it was finally confirmed that there were no WMDs, and this barely got a mention in the papers.
Latham should’ve gone out full offensive on this one.
Gahhh, its like the economy is more important to those 46.6% of Aussies than the bloodshed and destruction of a nation (not to mention the lies and deceit).
They’ve basically said “We *remain * willfully ignorant as long as we get our benefits”
:mad:
The real disaster is the Senate result. The Libs now have exactly half the seats in the Senate. They may still gain one more, depending on the count in Queensland, thus giving them an absolute majority. Even if they fail to win this last Queensland seat, they’ve already stitched up a deal with Family First (the disgusting religious right party) which will give them a completely compliant Senate. The Greens, Dems, ALP and whatever the fuck Meg Lees is calling herself this week have no power whatsoever.
This means that the Libs will be able to pass whatever fucking policies they want. Certain to come in the next year - the full sale of Telstra, the deregulation of the media (it’ll be ALL Packer and Murdoch) and IR policies closer to the US “fire at will” bullshit. The Lib-controlled Senate will also be able to block a lot of stuff - it will control all committees, and will be able to prevent any inquiries into the Children Overboard and Iraqi WMD lies.
This is the biggest fucking disaster since 1975, and it’s all Labor’s fault. I’ve had enough of this “small target” bullshit. I’ve had enough of the weak little policies, which are such pathetic attempts at vote-buying. I’ve had enough of the ALP refusal to call the Libs on their blatant lies, their blatant class warfare and their ongoing Kulturkampf. Australia’s soul is being destroyed and we can do nothing at all about it for another three years.
The exact same thing happened to us here in Canada: Alexa McDonough, bless her heart, and a few other elements in the NDP had the splendid idea of bringing the party closer to the centre. We promptly tanked (losing 8 seats in the 2000 elections) and remained tanked. As it turned out, people who want Liberal Party policies by and large choose to vote Liberal.
A large faction of the party raised hell, leading to a huge “New Politics Initiative” that sparked much drama and many standing votes at the rather exciting convention in Winnipeg in 2001. The party drifted back to the left, culminating in the altogether unstartling election of Jack Layton as leader (the furthest left of the principal contenders), and we resumed our usual preoccupations. This summer, we doubled our popular vote.
Believe it or not, people who vote for the NDP tend to be left-wingers who like left-wing policies. Who knew?
Hear, hear. It’s a translation of the French Oyez, oyez! from the archaic ouïr, “to hear.”
