Australia 2022 Election

[Secretary of State Liberal Hack]

Wentworth is probably most similarly economically and culturally to an electorate like Wimbledon, professionals, wealthy people, socially liberal and elite. The likes of Islington in Australia still vote solidly for Labor; Granalyder, Sydney etc. Australia is probably more class polarised than England in urban metropolises, but voting patterns are largely the same.

The places comparable to Grayndler could be those London constituencies which had a big Green vote in 2015 (by some distance the Green Party's best general election in terms of votes). Holborn and St Pancreas springs to mind, not least because of whose seat it is.

Now that you mention him, Albanese's strategy is similar to Starmer's. Both have been talked down for their small target strategy, but one has a wide open path to victory with just weeks to go. If victory is won, then this should encourage Starmer that the big strategic calls he has been making as leader are sensible.

For New Zealand politics, I would be more encouraged by a Scott Morrison victory for Labour's 2023 odds. Both governments have taken serious blows over their vaccine rollouts and the global inflation surge. Jacinda Ardern could be able to survive what Morrison can't, because she has more personal popularity and there is less of a sense of this being a tired old government. However, no incumbent wants to have an election now and we will just be hoping that we are better off in 2023 than we are on either side of the ditch right now.

I don't know, Arden might be more personaly popular but the NZ electorate is more flexibile and prone to swings than the australian ones. And even a flawless government would be hard pressed to solve the main issue of housing prices driving much of the annoyance with her government.

[Secretary of State Liberal Hack]

Why does the National Party still exist? Why don't they just merge with the Liberals given that they are de facto the same party

Because they represent rural areas in a way the liberal never has and can never do.

[Secretary of State Liberal Hack]

The other issue is that the Australian population is far more concentrated in state capitals than in other countries, Queensland aside. If the Liberals wrote off Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide and Perth they would mathematically be locked out of rule in those states.

No disagreement there, but I will add an observation: the National party is likely to do quite well in this election, regardless of how the Liberals fare.  The agricultural policy debate was missed by most urban commentators but it did not go unnoticed in regional electorates.  The general vibe is that the ALP has completely written off any attempt on making any gains with rural or regional voters in this election - which is not to say that they cannot win without them, but it will certainly complicate the task.  And with party operatives no longer expecting any seats in Queensland to change hands, it does limit the number of options available.  The strategy now is to dominate in WA, make gains in NSW and Tasmania, and hold the fort in Victoria (Chisholm remains a possible gain to offset likely losses in McEwen and Dunkley).

Was the ALP ever able to compete for farmers ?. Seems like a loosing stratagey to focus on a block that almost never votes for you and isn't located in that many competive ridings.

[Secretary of State Liberal Hack]

Was the ALP ever able to compete for farmers ?. Seems like a loosing stratagey to focus on a block that almost never votes for you and isn't located in that many competive ridings.

They typically don't support the ALP, no, but there is widespread discontent among regional electorates if the ALP would bother to even make the effort to tap into it.  It's not wise to read too much into these debates*, but the performance of the Labor shadow minister was so bad that even the left-leaning papers admitted it.  That being said, it's interesting how little I've seen about regional independents this time around - there was quite a lot of hype in 2019 (misplaced, as it turned out).

*Another one today - Josh Frydenberg vs Jim Chalmers for the treasurers debate.  I haven't had time to review the whole thing but the clips seem to indicate that Chalmers was the winner, for whatever that's worth.  (Frydenberg is obviously pretty distracted given the difficulties he's facing in keeping his own seat.)

What's the source of this discontent, trade deals or something else ?

Given the negative partisanship that exists for the ALP perhaps leaving the task of tapping into this discontent to various indepednets is the best stratagey for weakening the national party.

[Secretary of State Liberal Hack]

I voted.

Based on the number of socialists down at the voting booth, I would say Fremantle will stay Labor in 2022.

ALP...Socialist,

[Secretary of State Liberal Hack]

https://www.themandarin.com.au/188810-election-2022-almost-700-million-kicked-in-for-a-defence-reno/

The federal government has announced yet another renovation and expansion to a defence facility, with the promise of $694.4 million for the General John Baker Complex, which is home to the joint operations command for the Australian Defence Force here and overseas.

Defence minister Peter Dutton has made yet another spending promise in his portfolio, with $30 million towards the renovation and expansion of army reserve and cadet facilities in Tasmania.

That investment is a portion of a $1 billion that has been set aside to renovate army reserve and cadet facilities around the country.

A re-elected Coalition government would put in place a technology skills passport that will assist with getting Australians work ready.

It seems the Coalition is seeking to present itself as having lots of meat to its defense policy.

Frankly I find it impossible to distinguish the foreign and military policy of the ALP and Coalition.

[Secretary of State Liberal Hack]

Is immigration/refugee policy an issue at all during this election ?

[Secretary of State Liberal Hack]

That's just not true. Plenty of boats still came and were turned back - often with only enough fuel to reach the nearest Indonesian islands, so who knows whether there were more deaths at sea.

In 2015, the Abbott government admitted to paying people smugglers to turn back, which to me, sounds like an incentive to fill a leaky boat with desperate people.  Because the government is so secretive about these things, we have no idea really how much money the Australian government pays to people smugglers and how many people have died under the watch of said smugglers.  Needless to say, pretending that this issue is as simple as saying "just turn boats back!" and then acting as though there are no longer any migrants, is one of the great bipartisan disgraces of Australian politics.

It's what the australian people seem to vote, given how they've punished any party that has attempted to take an alternative stance on the issue.

[Secretary of State Liberal Hack]

On a more general point, why have far-right parites been so uniquely electorally successful in australia compared to other  anglo countries ?

[Secretary of State Liberal Hack]

I mean the far right vote in Australia really exists only in QLD. In 2019 the far-right vote (One Nation, KAP, Fraser Anning's Party)

QLD: 13.08%
WA: 5.57%
TAS: 3.36%
NSW: 1.48%
VIC: 1.26%
SA: 1.11%

Parties like the UAP, SFF while they do have a right-wing base against progressivism barely talk about immigration, indigenous issues etc.

One of favourite things about the UAP is that despite mostly drawing on demographics supportive of anti-immigration policies it's kinda left of both Labour and the Coallation on asylum policy.

https://www.unitedaustraliaparty.org.au/flawed-asylum-seeker-policies-wasting-billions-clive-palmer/

[Secretary of State Liberal Hack]

The best ad so far in the Australian election campaign.

Gollum - Albanese

https://youtu.be/v0MMrmteZfk

Apparently, the Liberals have a Judge Judy one coming out as well.

I see a lot of people criticzing the ad online but I rather liked it, I also showed it to my parents who also found it quite funny.

[Secretary of State Liberal Hack]

Is there any truth to the sterotype that Melborune is Australia most left-wing city ? if so, why is that the case ?

[Secretary of State Liberal Hack]

Will the greens be able to break out of Melbourne in the lower house ?

[Secretary of State Liberal Hack]

A labour minority Goverment would be better from a policy and left wing perspective so long as the greens plus Wilke alone can hold the balnce of power.

[Secretary of State Liberal Hack]

Are there any actual liberals left in the Liberal Party ?

[Secretary of State Liberal Hack]

Will there be an election day thread or is the discussion staying here ?. Tasmania is looking bad for Labour, Very Bad.

[Secretary of State Liberal Hack]

The Coalition picks up Gilmore, first seat called to switch hands either way.

Who called this seat? Can't imagine this seat would be called with only 25% of the vote reporting.

Can't be ABC, Anothony Greeen just said it's still not called.

[Secretary of State Liberal Hack]

What happend in Queensland to give the Greens such a boost ? The State Labour's terrible enviormentla postioning alienating those voters or something else ?

[Secretary of State Liberal Hack]

Seriously WTF 2 Green MP's from queensland, this is weird. Did anybody predict that ?

[Secretary of State Liberal Hack]

Seriously WTF 2 Green MP's from queensland, this is weird. Did anybody predict that ?

The seats were known to be targets for them, I actually predicted Griffith for them, maybe that was a lucky guess.

I always thought Queensland was the most conservative mining heavy part of australia  so I thought it would their weakest state.

[Secretary of State Liberal Hack]

I'm not Antony Green but I do not see how the Coalition can form a government under these numbers.

Bribe the Greens, Net zero by 2025. The Real story of this election is that saying " Screw the Enviorment" is suprisingly not a very popular political postion.

[Secretary of State Liberal Hack]

ABC is saying Boothby is still in doubt with Liberals ahead. If we can't even win that, something has gone badly, badly wrong.

Maybe i'm jumping the gun, but I think Labour choice to abandon environmentalism after the 2019 disappointment might be part of the reason.

[Secretary of State Liberal Hack]

ABC suggesting that Labor getting better swings with Chinese language speakers. Not a surprise but interesting to see-if it plays out.

Another swing in Chinese voters towards the left, similar to the collapse of the Canadian Tories in the Canadian election.  I wonder if some of this is to do with age churn as younger more left-wing Chinese voters come into the electorate.

[Secretary of State Liberal Hack]

I'm not Antony Green but I do not see how the Coalition can form a government under these numbers.

Bribe the Greens, Net zero by 2025. The Real story of this election is that saying " Screw the Enviorment" is suprisingly not a very popular political postion.

Seriously, what are the chances of this happening even if the numbers are there?

Very low but there have been deals between the LNP and Greens before, notably on an education funding bill. Tbh the Greens could probably get more concession on an enviormental basis from a desperate LNP but it would be electorally disastrous.

[Secretary of State Liberal Hack]

Are any of the races in Tasmania going to be interesting ? I'm particulary curious about who Andrew Wilkie's voter base in Hobart are ?. he seems to be a crypto-green having been a former member of the party who's officaly left but mostly kept the same kind of left-wing policies(focused more on social liberalism) but i'm curious what his voting patterns.

Are his voters just your normal green voters or is there something else at play here ?


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Wilkie

3 of Tasmania's 5 seats are battlegrounds - Labor are targeting Braddon and Bass. Bass is particularly interesting given it's held on a knife edge by the Liberals, but the sitting member Bridget Archer is something of a backbench rebel who's crossed the floor a few times on hot-button issues. It'll be interesting if she garners any support from putting distance between herself and the unpopular government.

The latest I heard was that the Liberals were actually optimistic about holding both of those seats and were even targeting Labor-held Lyon, so it'll be a state to watch, definitely.

Franklin is safe Labor and morgieb summed up Wilkie's strength in Clark very well - he's one of the best MPs in the house and Clark are very lucky to have him.

Tasmania at federal elections is a black box that delights in swinging at random against the national trends (just look at the 80s!) but from what I’ve heard Tassie Libs are a putting on a brave face but both northern seats are on track to flip and Lyons firmimg up with it.

Proven true again, something has to be in the water down there.