Day 9: Australia

[phk]

Skipping Aruba as its a territory of Netherlands.

http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/as.html

[Platypus]

It's good, there are problems. I won't do an analysis, but if there are questions, i'll do my best to answer them.

[Cubby]

1. John Howard is like a secular Bush, ergo, he's evil

2. If the Australian Labour Party doesn't get its act together soon I will be really pissed off.

3. Walkabout is an awesome movie.

4. Tasmania used to be evil but now its okay (right Hugh )

5. Australia (and Canada for that matter) are underpopulated. If we managed to get 640,000 people to live in North Dakota, I think the Aussies can get manage to get more than 200,000 to live in the Northern Territory, which has a much greater land area.

[Platypus]

1.Well, he's religious, he just doesnt believe he, his aims and his nation have the especial favour of God.

2. Labor, and I agree. The ALP is absolutely awful, it's just that the Co-alition is worse. No country would elect the federal ALP in it's current state.

3. Haven't seen it. We do have some good movies, but Aussie cinema is a bit weak at the moment. A recent one is "Rabbit Proof Fence", which deals with three aboriginal children on the run to avoid being forced to leave their families (stolen generation)

4. Myeh, depends who you ask. Some parts of it's history are very bad, certainly, and it is now one of the most left-wing areas in Australia, but has a lot of groups with surprisingly large per-cap population. There'd be more greens per cap then any other state, but also more religious conservatives.

5.

North Dakota:




Northern Territory:




Both have beauty, but only one has the ability to sustain a significant number of people in reasonable conditions.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Let's just hope that the ALP leader won't publically declare war on the economy of a lot of Tasmania just before the next federal election again...

[Platypus]

Let's just hope that the ALP leader won't publically declare war on the economy of a lot of Tasmania just before the next federal election again...

Myeh. Made no real difference. Even though Latham is/was insane...he'd still probably be better then Howard. Both parties are in very very sorry states at the federal level at the moment, although the ALP is probably in worse shape.

In almost all the states and territories though, the Liberals are in heaps of trouble. The only thing that makes them somewhat competitive in NSW, SA and WA is that the ALP isn't going so well either. The premier of SA, Mike Rann, has significant personal popularity though, which should keep Labor safe for a while there-at least another term, unless he stuffs up, imho. WA, especially now Gallop is gne, is a wildcard, but there isn't an election for a while.

The ALP have established complete dominance in the NT, and are also in very strong positions in Victoria, the ACT and Tasmania, probably in that order-the Tassie Libs seem to be doing well, but it's probably just a 6-month blip. Beattie and the ALP are safe in Queensland as long as they keep going up against the Nationals, really, but I fear they are getting complacent. The next election isn't for a few years, but it could be another Kennett '99 scenario.

The one that is completely beyond prediction is NSW. The ALP government is quite unpopular, but the Libs suffer from bad leadership and bad policy. It's kind of like the federal situation reversed-not all that many people like the once very popular government any more, but they like the opposition even less.

That's a basic overview, not 100% accurate, but a good briefing, I suppose.

BTW, Al might know what i'm talking about when I say I have great hopes for Julian McGauran-I hope the Liberals do the moral, correct, right and honourable thing and decline his membership application. He'd still support the coalition on 99% of stuff, but at least they'd lose the official BoP inthe Senate...

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Myeh. Made no real difference.

Two seats is no difference? Well in a way it is no real difference as Howard won by a lot more than two seats...

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Yeah, I saw a poll recently which gave a very strong indication of that (ALP was leading IIRC but it's mid term isn't it...)

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Amusing as SA having an ALP Premier is, I don't think the ALP will be re-elected there. O/c I'm being pessimistic but... then again ALP should have lost WA but didn't for several amusing reasons

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Pretty much

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Maybe they should lobby for blowing a gap through the Great Barrier Reef

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Yeah, that showed through very clearly with those by-elections a while ago...

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Define "hopes"

[minionofmidas]

If both the ALP and the Coalition are so bad ... why have the Democrats just about imploded?

[Cubby]

1.Well, he's religious, he just doesnt believe he, his aims and his nation have the especial favour of God.

2. Labor, and I agree. The ALP is absolutely awful, it's just that the Co-alition is worse. No country would elect the federal ALP in it's current state.

3. Haven't seen it. We do have some good movies, but Aussie cinema is a bit weak at the moment. A recent one is "Rabbit Proof Fence", which deals with three aboriginal children on the run to avoid being forced to leave their families (stolen generation)

4. Myeh, depends who you ask. Some parts of it's history are very bad, certainly, and it is now one of the most left-wing areas in Australia, but has a lot of groups with surprisingly large per-cap population. There'd be more greens per cap then any other state, but also more religious conservatives.

5. Both have beauty, but only one has the ability to sustain a significant number of people in reasonable conditions.

The cinema is weak because all your actors are in Hollywood

I saw Rabbit Proof Fence, it was alright, but I don't remember much about it.

Is the ALP in even worse shape than the (American) Democrats?

[ag]

ALP is not in such a bad shape - it does govern every state and territory, including those that until recently have been quite hostile to them, and is likely to continue governing for the forseeble future (wouldn't US Dems like that?).  What is in bad shape is their federal leadership.

Australian Democrats have disintegrated for all practical purposes, and have been replaced by the Greens as the (somewhat) relevant "third force" (I am not saying "third party", because there are alos Nats).  Australian electoral system used for the House elections ("preferential vote", known, in its House version, to political scientists as the Single Transferable Vote) naturally leads to the "two-coalition" system (as distinct from the "two-party system" in the U.S.).  In Australian tradition, for the last 90+ years these have been Labour/Anti-Labour (these days Lib/Nat). The absence of elected national presidency might have allowed for regional parties or differet regional coalition pairings (as in UK and Canada), but because of the Lab/Anti-Lab nature of politics this has almost never happened (though CLP and Nats are sort of like regional Anti-Labs).

The more complicated electoral system in the senate allows for the continued existence of all sort of midget parties, providing them with a chance of being elected somewhere, but this is not enough to let them flourish.  Given the electoral system in the more powerful House "third coalitions" there are no more likely to be elected than in the U.S. (though, the preferential vote gives them an extra reason to exist outside of the Parliament - they can coordinate their voters to support either Lib/Nats or Labs, election by election).  The only way a new party could replace the Labs or Lib/Nats is if one of those two implodes (like the UK Libs in the 1920s), and this is an extremely rare event.

[WMS]

Let's just hope that the ALP leader won't publically declare war on the economy of a lot of Tasmania just before the next federal election again...

Funny how that reminds me of a certain American Democratic politician and a certain Appalachian state in a certain important 2000 election.

[Platypus]

1.Well, he's religious, he just doesnt believe he, his aims and his nation have the especial favour of God.

2. Labor, and I agree. The ALP is absolutely awful, it's just that the Co-alition is worse. No country would elect the federal ALP in it's current state.

3. Haven't seen it. We do have some good movies, but Aussie cinema is a bit weak at the moment. A recent one is "Rabbit Proof Fence", which deals with three aboriginal children on the run to avoid being forced to leave their families (stolen generation)

4. Myeh, depends who you ask. Some parts of it's history are very bad, certainly, and it is now one of the most left-wing areas in Australia, but has a lot of groups with surprisingly large per-cap population. There'd be more greens per cap then any other state, but also more religious conservatives.

5. Both have beauty, but only one has the ability to sustain a significant number of people in reasonable conditions.

The cinema is weak because all your actors are in Hollywood

I saw Rabbit Proof Fence, it was alright, but I don't remember much about it.

Is the ALP in even worse shape than the (American) Democrats?

Federally, yes, at state level, it's much stronger. With the Liberals, they're not quite as powerful as the GOP, but still dominant, especially in the House of Representatives. At the state level, they're doing very poorly-currently all states and territories are controlled by the ALP.

ag-Yep, since around WW1 the basic thing has been the ALP vs. everyone, although when they're in opposition the greens are sometimes a little friendlier with the ALP. That said, they don't like each other much-the Shadow Health spokeswoman, Julia Gillard, once said in a speech at our school that she dislikes the Greens more firmly then the Nationals, but the Liberals are worse
She said some pretty interesting things, actually; she was amazingly candid.

WMS-Tasmania is a little bit like West Virginia, crossed with New Hampshire, crossed with Nevada, crossed with Hawaii.

[WMS]

WMS-Tasmania is a little bit like West Virginia, crossed with New Hampshire, crossed with Nevada, crossed with Hawaii.

Hmm...that's quite a mix. I was, of course, making a parallel to Al Gore's 'WE HAT TEH COAL INDSTRY!!!!' bit in 2000 which cost him West Virginia. Vorlon has a much better quote about this...

[Filuwaúrdjan]

WMS-Tasmania is a little bit like West Virginia, crossed with New Hampshire, crossed with Nevada, crossed with Hawaii.

Hmm...that's quite a mix. I was, of course, making a parallel to Al Gore's 'WE HAT TEH COAL INDSTRY!!!!' bit in 2000 which cost him West Virginia. Vorlon has a much better quote about this...

Yes it is...

We could tell

Anyways, before the last Aussie federal election the then ALP leader (Latham) basically went: "WE HAT TEH TIMBER INDSTRY!!!!!1111" so...

[WMS]

WMS-Tasmania is a little bit like West Virginia, crossed with New Hampshire, crossed with Nevada, crossed with Hawaii.

Hmm...that's quite a mix. I was, of course, making a parallel to Al Gore's 'WE HAT TEH COAL INDSTRY!!!!' bit in 2000 which cost him West Virginia. Vorlon has a much better quote about this...

Yes it is...

We could tell

Anyways, before the last Aussie federal election the then ALP leader (Latham) basically went: "WE HAT TEH TIMBER INDSTRY!!!!!1111" so...

Mind you, I have no idea how it all mixes together...

Well, of course you could tell, but for the slow ones in the audience...

Actually, Al Gore did that as well...did immense damage to the Dems in the Mountain West, as I recall...

[Platypus]

WMS-Tasmania is a little bit like West Virginia, crossed with New Hampshire, crossed with Nevada, crossed with Hawaii.

Hmm...that's quite a mix. I was, of course, making a parallel to Al Gore's 'WE HAT TEH COAL INDSTRY!!!!' bit in 2000 which cost him West Virginia. Vorlon has a much better quote about this...

Yes it is...

We could tell

Anyways, before the last Aussie federal election the then ALP leader (Latham) basically went: "WE HAT TEH TIMBER INDSTRY!!!!!1111" so...

It was more like "HMMn, WE LoVE THEM GRe3n VOTZ!". Still it was rather amusing that the Timberworker's union supported Howrd. It's particularly amusing now with all the IR reforms.

[WMS]

WMS-Tasmania is a little bit like West Virginia, crossed with New Hampshire, crossed with Nevada, crossed with Hawaii.

Hmm...that's quite a mix. I was, of course, making a parallel to Al Gore's 'WE HAT TEH COAL INDSTRY!!!!' bit in 2000 which cost him West Virginia. Vorlon has a much better quote about this...

Yes it is...

We could tell

Anyways, before the last Aussie federal election the then ALP leader (Latham) basically went: "WE HAT TEH TIMBER INDSTRY!!!!!1111" so...

It was more like "HMMn, WE LoVE THEM GRe3n VOTZ!". Still it was rather amusing that the Timberworker's union supported Howrd. It's particularly amusing now with all the IR reforms.

Damn Greens.