Australian Federal Election 18th of May 2019

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

I was always just under the impression Queensland was a much more rural and rednecky place than the rest of eastern Australia. Like comparing western Pennsylvania to metro NYC and metro Philadelphia.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

MY HOT TAKE: Polling is never going to be trustworthy again. There are too many "culturally conservative " voters who are ashamed enough of being politically motivated by their desire to brutalize immigrants and the poor to lie about it to pollsters, but not ashamed enough to meaningfully self-reflect about it.

[politicallefty]

Your description of Queensland there Crabcake reminds me a bit (in some, not all, aspects) of Western Canada.

I was thinking similarly when reading that, yeah. It's probably a vast oversimplification, but I was sort of reminded of the old prairie populism in the US and Canada in areas that have turned hard right in recent years (particularly the Dakotas and Saskatchewan).

It seems to me as though the ALP needs to start with carefully choosing its next leader. But the question for them is how to also make inroads into the Coalition strongholds of Queensland and WA. It doesn't seem to me like there's any other path for the ALP. Even the 2 seats Labor lost in Tasmania hurt because that actually could end up being the difference in the Coalition winning a majority vs. a minority.

[urutzizu]

MY HOT TAKE: Polling is never going to be trustworthy again. There are too many "culturally conservative " voters who are ashamed enough of being politically motivated by their desire to brutalize immigrants and the poor to lie about it to pollsters, but not ashamed enough to meaningfully self-reflect about it.

The thing is that it is immigrants and the poor, who make up a increasing share of "culturally conservative" voters, sadly. The strongest votes against Same-sex marriage in 2017, were not the rural traditional heartlands but the working-class immigrant suburbs of eastern Sydney. And today the swings against the government were not in the working class areas in Queensland, no this is where Labor got absolutely hammered. In general the only places that did see a significant swing to the left were the wealthy suburbs of Melbourne and western Sydney (Warringah, North Sydney, Bennelong, Bradford..).

tl;dr: We on the left need to take concerns about immigration and about excessive societal liberalism serious again, or we will become the ideology of the white upper middle class and not of main street. You insinuating that these voters are are all coldhearted, evil or intolerant or whatever is exactly what has gotten us in this mess.  

[adma]

The thing is that it is immigrants and the poor, who make up a increasing share of "culturally conservative" voters, sadly. The strongest votes against Same-sex marriage in 2017, were not the rural traditional heartlands but the working-class immigrant suburbs of eastern Sydney. And today the swings against the government were not in the working class areas in Queensland, no this is where Labor got absolutely hammered. In general the only places that did see a significant swing to the left were the wealthy suburbs of Melbourne and western Sydney (Warringah, North Sydney, Bennelong, Bradford..).

And in that, there's definitely a Canadian corollary--think of Ford Nation's "reach" in Toronto's ethnoburbs.

[Beet]

Disappointing but hardly surprising. The 1990s 3rd way style politics was the only way Left of center parties can win in the West, but the rise of the far left woke crowd in the past 20 years have prohibited that from happening.

[ON Progressive]

Disappointing but hardly surprising. The 1990s 3rd way style politics was the only way Left of center parties can win in the West, but the rise of the far left woke crowd in the past 20 years have prohibited that from happening.

Bill Shorten is literally in the Labor Right (the Third Way faction of the ALP).

[Sestak]

Disappointing but hardly surprising. The 1990s 3rd way style politics was the only way Left of center parties can win in the West, but the rise of the far left woke crowd in the past 20 years have prohibited that from happening.

Bill Shorten is literally in the Labor Right (the Third Way faction of the ALP).

Yeah lmao. If anything, third wayism has been downright awful for the left in most cases this decade.

[H.E. VOLODYMYR ZELENKSYY]

Disappointing but hardly surprising. The 1990s 3rd way style politics was the only way Left of center parties can win in the West, but the rise of the far left woke crowd in the past 20 years have prohibited that from happening.

I think Pedro Sánchez would disagree with you on that.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

MY HOT TAKE: Polling is never going to be trustworthy again. There are too many "culturally conservative " voters who are ashamed enough of being politically motivated by their desire to brutalize immigrants and the poor to lie about it to pollsters, but not ashamed enough to meaningfully self-reflect about it.

The thing is that it is immigrants and the poor, who make up a increasing share of "culturally conservative" voters, sadly. The strongest votes against Same-sex marriage in 2017, were not the rural traditional heartlands but the working-class immigrant suburbs of eastern Sydney. And today the swings against the government were not in the working class areas in Queensland, no this is where Labor got absolutely hammered. In general the only places that did see a significant swing to the left were the wealthy suburbs of Melbourne and western Sydney (Warringah, North Sydney, Bennelong, Bradford..).

I stand corrected. I suppose I made assumptions based on preconceived/out-of-date notions about what the Australian political landscape is like.

tl;dr: We on the left need to take concerns about immigration and about excessive societal liberalism serious again, or we will become the ideology of the white upper middle class and not of main street. You insinuating that these voters are are all coldhearted, evil or intolerant or whatever is exactly what has gotten us in this mess.  

I'm a proponent of taking these concerns more seriously in the contexts of most developed countries, but in the case of Australia the Overton window on immigration/nationalism/national identity-type issues strikes me as being so far to the right already that surely there has to be some sort of limit. Again, I stand corrected about the extent to which that contributed to this result.

[Boobs]

Going forward, Labor will have to  hold its ground to stay in politics. I see no reason why it could not.


The Labor Party will need to convince voters that the policies it backs are reasonable and effective. They must show why they must win government for a change. But their policies do not have to be perfect. It doesn't matter what they end up with. The only reason to support Labor is for all the voters to hear the words "yes, I voted for the ALP, yes, I believe in Labor and no, I am not afraid of a Labor government". Labor will need to persuade them that they don't know the best way to reform the welfare state and I would suggest they learn to accept a number of things about it in the time spent fighting in parliament. The Liberal Party has been at pains to show that it can make government much easier by simply re-working the social security system and abolishing the tax. Labor, on the other hand, has shown that it has little in common with them when it comes to reforming the Australian welfare state and I think even Labor has to admit that they are not very much of a party like us.

If you think about it, the welfare system has been a major aspect of Australian politics for over 50 years. You know, it's just kind of in a bad way.

And I think, if anyone could have been surprised by this, it would have been this party that I just think is not interested in reforming the system in any significant way and so I find it sort of baffling the degree to which their support for the Abbott government really is a matter of some confusion.

You know, Labor's own candidate for the Senate, Senator Dick Smith, he's not a great admirer of Tony Abbott – but when it comes to the welfare system he doesn't find much of a way to present himself either.

What do you think Senator Smith believes about the Abbott government?

[politicallefty]

MY HOT TAKE: Polling is never going to be trustworthy again. There are too many "culturally conservative " voters who are ashamed enough of being politically motivated by their desire to brutalize immigrants and the poor to lie about it to pollsters, but not ashamed enough to meaningfully self-reflect about it.

The thing is that it is immigrants and the poor, who make up a increasing share of "culturally conservative" voters, sadly. The strongest votes against Same-sex marriage in 2017, were not the rural traditional heartlands but the working-class immigrant suburbs of eastern Sydney. And today the swings against the government were not in the working class areas in Queensland, no this is where Labor got absolutely hammered. In general the only places that did see a significant swing to the left were the wealthy suburbs of Melbourne and western Sydney (Warringah, North Sydney, Bennelong, Bradford..).

I stand corrected. I suppose I made assumptions based on preconceived/out-of-date notions about what the Australian political landscape is like.

I was suprised myself actually when I looked at the results of the gay marriage vote from 2017. Wikipedia can be your friend. I don't think you can say anything about turnout as it was nearly 80%. The divide on that issue doesn't appear to be the same as it is in other places (apart from obvious places, like the Katter seat). Apparently, two of the safest ALP seats were the two strongest seats against marriage equality. I'm actually pretty perplexed looking at the electorate breakdown for gay marriage versus partisanship.

I'm a proponent of taking these concerns more seriously in the contexts of most developed countries, but in the case of Australia the Overton window on immigration/nationalism/national identity-type issues strikes me as being so far to the right already that surely there has to be some sort of limit. Again, I stand corrected about the extent to which that contributed to this result.

I agree with you there. For all the issues people say the US is more rightward compared with other modern industrialized countries, immigration is definitely not one of them. Australia and New Zealand have both struck me as countries with pretty restrictive immigration laws.

[brucejoel99]

Going forward, Labor will have to  hold its ground to stay in politics. I see no reason why it could not.


The Labor Party will need to convince voters that the policies it backs are reasonable and effective. They must show why they must win government for a change. But their policies do not have to be perfect. It doesn't matter what they end up with. The only reason to support Labor is for all the voters to hear the words "yes, I voted for the ALP, yes, I believe in Labor and no, I am not afraid of a Labor government". Labor will need to persuade them that they don't know the best way to reform the welfare state and I would suggest they learn to accept a number of things about it in the time spent fighting in parliament. The Liberal Party has been at pains to show that it can make government much easier by simply re-working the social security system and abolishing the tax. Labor, on the other hand, has shown that it has little in common with them when it comes to reforming the Australian welfare state and I think even Labor has to admit that they are not very much of a party like us.

If you think about it, the welfare system has been a major aspect of Australian politics for over 50 years. You know, it's just kind of in a bad way.

And I think, if anyone could have been surprised by this, it would have been this party that I just think is not interested in reforming the system in any significant way and so I find it sort of baffling the degree to which their support for the Abbott government really is a matter of some confusion.

You know, Labor's own candidate for the Senate, Senator Dick Smith, he's not a great admirer of Tony Abbott – but when it comes to the welfare system he doesn't find much of a way to present himself either.

What do you think Senator Smith believes about the Abbott government?

It's really a shame that Labor lost. Not because they had better policies (they did, but that's not my point) but because they ran a very positive, non-scare based campaign, & I was looking forward to a change in rhetoric. Labor nearly stole it in 2016 with a scare campaign &, in all likelihood, they'll probably just go back to that in 2022.

[Beet]

MY HOT TAKE: Polling is never going to be trustworthy again. There are too many "culturally conservative " voters who are ashamed enough of being politically motivated by their desire to brutalize immigrants and the poor to lie about it to pollsters, but not ashamed enough to meaningfully self-reflect about it.

The thing is that it is immigrants and the poor, who make up a increasing share of "culturally conservative" voters, sadly. The strongest votes against Same-sex marriage in 2017, were not the rural traditional heartlands but the working-class immigrant suburbs of eastern Sydney. And today the swings against the government were not in the working class areas in Queensland, no this is where Labor got absolutely hammered. In general the only places that did see a significant swing to the left were the wealthy suburbs of Melbourne and western Sydney (Warringah, North Sydney, Bennelong, Bradford..).

I stand corrected. I suppose I made assumptions based on preconceived/out-of-date notions about what the Australian political landscape is like.

I was suprised myself actually when I looked at the results of the gay marriage vote from 2017. Wikipedia can be your friend. I don't think you can say anything about turnout as it was nearly 80%. The divide on that issue doesn't appear to be the same as it is in other places (apart from obvious places, like the Katter seat). Apparently, two of the safest ALP seats were the two strongest seats against marriage equality. I'm actually pretty perplexed looking at the electorate breakdown for gay marriage versus partisanship.

I'm a proponent of taking these concerns more seriously in the contexts of most developed countries, but in the case of Australia the Overton window on immigration/nationalism/national identity-type issues strikes me as being so far to the right already that surely there has to be some sort of limit. Again, I stand corrected about the extent to which that contributed to this result.

I agree with you there. For all the issues people say the US is more rightward compared with other modern industrialized countries, immigration is definitely not one of them. Australia and New Zealand have both struck me as countries with pretty restrictive immigration laws.

Even with the lowered 2019 cap, Australia accepts 0.65% of its population annually via immigration (New Zealand even more), compared to only 0.3% for the U.S.

[morgieb]

Bill Shorten is the Australian Labor Party's John Hewson

I was thinking Adlai Stevenson II myself.

At least Stevenson's losses were in election the Dems shouldn't have won anyway, against a very likable opponent. I can't say the same here.

[morgieb]

Australia has mandatory voting and 90% turnout

How the hell can polls be off under that scenario?

Lol

That's the thing, they usually aren't. That's what makes the result so galling.

As for your answer, I'll point to this article from Mark The Ballot: https://marktheballot.blogspot.com/search?updated-max=2019-05-09T08:04:00%2B10:00&max-results=7

[morgieb]

1. The ALP should have learned long ago that 'cultural' politics is a net vote and seat loser for them. The nature of the Australian culture war is such that they can't disengage totally, but they should avoid allowing it to dominate. This isn't a matter of 'Left' or 'Right', of course (not that any Australians here will need that note, but people from elsewhere might).

Perhaps they learnt the wrong lesson from the last Victorian election where the Liberals led a very culturally focused campaign (Safe Schools, black African gangs etc) and utterly flopped when compared with Dan Andrews' obsessive focus on infrastructure and development (apparently removing railway crossings is the electoral equivalent of crack in Victoria).

It's even worse when you consider that I felt like the Liberals ran like that because they didn't have too many other options (i.e. the state Labor government hadn't done enough wrong to anger swinging voters so they tried a cultural approach to swing some voters). There was plenty for Labor to run on - they could've gone harder on climate change than their half-arsed option that made limited gains for a lot of losses, and also on the disunity/deals with ON/Palmer that the Liberals were having.

In fact, just avoiding the sort of policy list that was prone to a big scare campaign. Most of the most disappointing losses for both sides were down to the opposition leader taking too many risks.

[Intell]

Going to QLD and talking about refugees and Adani on a bus is #such a good idea. #Adani is unpopular everywhere.

[urutzizu]

The thing is that it is immigrants and the poor, who make up a increasing share of "culturally conservative" voters, sadly. The strongest votes against Same-sex marriage in 2017, were not the rural traditional heartlands but the working-class immigrant suburbs of eastern Sydney. And today the swings against the government were not in the working class areas in Queensland, no this is where Labor got absolutely hammered. In general the only places that did see a significant swing to the left were the wealthy suburbs of Melbourne and western Sydney (Warringah, North Sydney, Bennelong, Bradford..).

An interesting article about this: https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2019/may/19/winning-the-wealthy-and-losing-the-workers-how-labors-victorian-vote-transformed

[parochial boy]

tl;dr: We on the left need to take concerns about immigration and about excessive societal liberalism serious again, or we will become the ideology of the white upper middle class and not of main street. You insinuating that these voters are are all coldhearted, evil or intolerant or whatever is exactly what has gotten us in this mess.  

I'm a proponent of taking these concerns more seriously in the contexts of most developed countries, but in the case of Australia the Overton window on immigration/nationalism/national identity-type issues strikes me as being so far to the right already that surely there has to be some sort of limit. Again, I stand corrected about the extent to which that contributed to this result.

I dunno, people forget that it often has been leftist governments that have put restrictive laws on immigration in place; and attempts to play that game have often seemed to have backfired, seeing as you can't really outdo the populist right on the issue, but at the same time talking about immigration like it is a problem merely serves to validate the idea that it is one.

I mean, it's one thing to respond to people's concerns or whatever, but what the left does well; and what it is supposed to be about; is fighting for equality and sticking up for the vulnerable and the less powerful. So if you go and undermine your own values (especially in an era where having values seems increasingly important in electoral politics) just to fulfil some narrative about how "white working class" voters are all apparently xenophobic; I don't think that ends well to be honest.

probably a point for a different thread though.

[CumbrianLefty]

Disappointing but hardly surprising. The 1990s 3rd way style politics was the only way Left of center parties can win in the West, but the rise of the far left woke crowd in the past 20 years have prohibited that from happening.

1990s third way politics was a brilliant fit for the 1990s (not least its "end of history" vibe)

It is deader than the proverbial dodo now.

Those still promoting it are either delusional or charlatans (and in some cases, of course, both)

[Wisconsin+17]

who are ashamed enough of being politically motivated by their desire to brutalize immigrants and the poor to lie about it to pollsters,

Yes, I'm sure your post is going to motivate them to accommodate pollsters.

[Wisconsin+17]

 

they could've gone harder on climate change

Rural people are generally rational voters. They vote for their interests. Labor sold itself out long ago to pursue urbanites because that's where they saw the future of the party. It really is that simple.


If you want rural people to vote for you you're going to have to discard the carbon tax (which threatens the jobs of rural people and is absolutely despised and drop alternative energy subsidies (which steal the taxes of rural people to finance daft things that just happen to be well liked by urbanites.


But if your post is any indication, we can could on labor being a boot stamping on the country folks forever.

[Wisconsin+17]

I'm actually pretty perplexed looking at the electorate breakdown for gay marriage versus partisanship.

You shouldn't be. Folks like my girlfriend and her family are a big reason why Labor lost the unlosable election. She hits all your demographics, younger, woman, well educated with a degree in social sciences. Labor has a large base of people just like her who are faithful Catholic.


When your party runs a radical rainbow activist in her riding, what is she going to vote for? This year was the first time she's ever voted Coalition. Her whole family moved over en masse, because of the euthanasia vote which was the straw that finally broke the camel's back. That's more than 10 people who were all solidly Labor voters. Emphasis on *were*.

She's also been talking to her friends who are also all in this demographic trying to move them over too.

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

I think one issue where Labor overdid their hand on social issues was Shorten dinging Morrison on whether the latter thought gays were going to hell or not. This is a tactic that can work in certain circles (e.g. it heavily wounded Tim Farron in the key seats that the Lib Dems were going for in 2017) but came across as kind of unfair, I feel, for the median voter (who supported SSM, remember). ScoMo is many things, but he is not Toneh Abbott. Abbott has a very one track mind, and that sort of attack works on him because his weirdo obsessions and niche interests comes across as deeply baffling to the non partisan voter who is more interested in things like tax or education spending. But Morrison? I think he made a basically fair point that he was running for PM not for Pope (a distinction that Abbott never got) and it was broadly unfair to be targeted for a privately held belief. This may kind of link in to a broader issue with the whole Israel Folau situation.