Australia General Discussion 4.0: It ain’t easy under Albanese

[Cassius]

Just what exactly is an ‘indigenous voice to parliament’? Everything I’ve read about it seems to be incredibly sketchy on details.

[AustralianSwingVoter]

Just what exactly is an ‘indigenous voice to parliament’? Everything I’ve read about it seems to be incredibly sketchy on details.

Akin to the Waitangi Process in New Zealand, it’s about achieving limited self-determination as a recognition of colonisation and continued inequality.

All sounds very confusing and buzzwordy I know. Basically it’s just a body representing the Aboriginal community to government. Importantly it’s neither binding nor justiceable, just advisory. And it’s what the Aboriginal community decided they wanted for themselves as part of the Uluru process, rather than having the Parliament decide what was best for recognition (such as a preamble).

[(no subject)]

If i were advising the NO campaign, here would be my advice: "intensely publicise YES campaigners and supporters use of, or refusal to publicly condemn, the formulas "always, was, always will be Aboriginal land" and "sovereignty never ceded" when targeting the average non-ATSI Australian voters, particularly those in the suburbs and in the provincial cities".

[(no subject)]

The Whitlam ministers were a very mixed lot, and totally without experience. The Whitlam ministry was the only one since federation in which no member had ever been a minister before. There were some competent ones: Barnard, Hayden, Daly, Bowen, Beazley, Wriedt, Morrison. Unfortunately the senior ones - Crean, Cairns, Connor, Cameron, Murphy - were all crackpots to some extent, made bitter and cranky by years in opposition. If Whitlam had had another term he could have pensioned them off and promoted the better younger ones.

[CumbrianLefty]

The coalition really shouldn't have won in 1969.

Not unlike the (equally undeserved) 1992 Tory win in the UK in many respects.

[AustralianSwingVoter]

The coalition really shouldn't have won in 1969.

Not unlike the (equally undeserved) 1992 Tory win in the UK in many respects.

The counterpoint is always that Whitlam’s ALP wasn’t ready for government yet. If Gorton wasn’t so scatterbrained, erratic and hyper confrontational he wouldn’t have come close to the 7% swing against them.

Whitlam’s first grand failure was his inability to capitalise in those dreary three final years. McMahon was a hateable creature but managed to hold onto far too many votes. So Whitlam would enter government on 52.7% with a radical agenda but a narrow parliamentary margin for error.
(History repeated itself in 2007. Rudd was at ~58% through most of the term, right up to the writs dropping. But the underwhelming campaign helped Howard narrow it back to 52.7%. Spooky. That then set up for a weak, 6 year stint.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

If i were advising the NO campaign, here would be my advice: "intensely publicise YES campaigners and supporters use of, or refusal to publicly condemn, the formulas "always, was, always will be Aboriginal land" and "sovereignty never ceded" when targeting the average non-ATSI Australian voters, particularly those in the suburbs and in the provincial cities".

Would there be room to target non-European Australians with this sort of messaging?

[(no subject)]

The coalition really shouldn't have won in 1969.

Not unlike the (equally undeserved) 1992 Tory win in the UK in many respects.

In 1992, the English voters didn't like Kinocchio's Welsh accent and they wanted Tory tax cuts. But they obviously wouldn't admit openly to this prejudice and greed; hence the exit polls.

[(no subject)]

If i were advising the NO campaign, here would be my advice: "intensely publicise YES campaigners and supporters use of, or refusal to publicly condemn, the formulas "always, was, always will be Aboriginal land" and "sovereignty never ceded" when targeting the average non-ATSI Australian voters, particularly those in the suburbs and in the provincial cities".

Would there be room to target non-European Australians with this sort of messaging?

Oh, i don't know; I just do know that taking advantage of how toxic those two phrases will be with average voters would help torpedo the referendum.

[(no subject)]

The coalition really shouldn't have won in 1969.

Not unlike the (equally undeserved) 1992 Tory win in the UK in many respects.

The counterpoint is always that Whitlam’s ALP wasn’t ready for government yet. If Gorton wasn’t so scatterbrained, erratic and hyper confrontational he wouldn’t have come close to the 7% swing against them.

Whitlam’s first grand failure was his inability to capitalise in those dreary three final years. McMahon was a hateable creature but managed to hold onto far too many votes. So Whitlam would enter government on 52.7% with a radical agenda but a narrow parliamentary margin for error.
(History repeated itself in 2007. Rudd was at ~58% through most of the term, right up to the writs dropping. But the underwhelming campaign helped Howard narrow it back to 52.7%. Spooky. That then set up for a weak, 6 year stint.

Gough was also dealing with a senate half-elected in 1967 and half in 1970. Then, by the time of the 1974 DD, Gough's moronic rural policies had killed his chances of getting a fifth Senate seath in QLD. As Gil Duthie (Wilmot, TAS) pointed out in his memoirs, had Labor got even a reasonble vote in rural QLD, they would have won that fifth seat easily  - and there would have been no 1975 crisis.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

If i were advising the NO campaign, here would be my advice: "intensely publicise YES campaigners and supporters use of, or refusal to publicly condemn, the formulas "always, was, always will be Aboriginal land" and "sovereignty never ceded" when targeting the average non-ATSI Australian voters, particularly those in the suburbs and in the provincial cities".

Would there be room to target non-European Australians with this sort of messaging?

Oh, i don't know; I just do know that taking advantage of how toxic those two phrases will be with average voters would help torpedo the referendum.

Fair enough.

[(no subject)]

His own caucus warned Gough that his rural policies were killing them: "If we knock out the fuel subsidy, *Jesus Christ himself* could not win Kalgoorlie!"

[(no subject)]

The coalition really shouldn't have won in 1969.

Not unlike the (equally undeserved) 1992 Tory win in the UK in many respects.

The counterpoint is always that Whitlam’s ALP wasn’t ready for government yet. If Gorton wasn’t so scatterbrained, erratic and hyper confrontational he wouldn’t have come close to the 7% swing against them.

Whitlam’s first grand failure was his inability to capitalise in those dreary three final years. McMahon was a hateable creature but managed to hold onto far too many votes. So Whitlam would enter government on 52.7% with a radical agenda but a narrow parliamentary margin for error.
(History repeated itself in 2007. Rudd was at ~58% through most of the term, right up to the writs dropping. But the underwhelming campaign helped Howard narrow it back to 52.7%. Spooky. That then set up for a weak, 6 year stint.

Also another part of the reason that there was such a small swing in 1972 is that "most" of the swing had already happened in 1969. Give McMahon just  that little bit more luck and he would have won.  Which means that whoever succeeds Whitlam after this defeat will win in 1975 - but whoever ALP person it is will govern quite different to the our time line Whitlam PM-ship

[CumbrianLefty]

Looking back further to the 1966 election, the ALP hopeful for PM then was a 70 year old left winger - sound familiar? - but unlike Corbyn in 2019 he had lost not one but two previous elections.

Sounds pretty inexplicable even at a time when leaders losing was more tolerated than it is now.

Was it mainly down to factionalism?

[(no subject)]

Callwell was no match for Holt.

Like McMahon, he looked and sounded bad on television, having come of political age in the days of the raucous public meeting.

Callwell very foolishly failed to read the public mood on Vietnam in 1966 and the increasing public dislike for White Australia and the new more middle-class Australia's intolerance for outdated Depression-era rhetoric about socialism and nationalisation.

End result: "Did anyone get the registration number plate of the truck"?

[(no subject)]

By the way, does anyone else think that adult Charlie from "Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory" looks like Merv Hughes with this moustache:

[morgieb]

By the way, does anyone else think that adult Charlie from "Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory" looks like Merv Hughes with this moustache:

Well, a much skinnier version anyway.

[(no subject)]

Sorry, just a little joke

[AustralianSwingVoter]

Looking back further to the 1966 election, the ALP hopeful for PM then was a 70 year old left winger - sound familiar? - but unlike Corbyn in 2019 he had lost not one but two previous elections.

Sounds pretty inexplicable even at a time when leaders losing was more tolerated than it is now.

Was it mainly down to factionalism?

he remained, reasoning that Evatt had been given three opportunities to win, and that he should be allowed a third try
Very much a "left-winger" of his time, though.

[Pericles]

Looking back further to the 1966 election, the ALP hopeful for PM then was a 70 year old left winger - sound familiar? - but unlike Corbyn in 2019 he had lost not one but two previous elections.

Sounds pretty inexplicable even at a time when leaders losing was more tolerated than it is now.

Was it mainly down to factionalism?

Interestingly, one of the NZ PMs now regarded as among the most charismatic (basically a JFK equivalent complete with an early death) lost two elections with minor gains before finally winning on the third try.

[(no subject)]

"he remained, reasoning that Evatt had been given three opportunities to win, and that he should be allowed a third try".

"My arse has been kicked twice - that must mean the Australian voters want even more of me!"

Whitlam was from the NSW Right. Opposed by the Left at every turn - not working class, not a unionist, not a socialist etc.

They don't say that now, of course...

[GoTfan]

Looking back further to the 1966 election, the ALP hopeful for PM then was a 70 year old left winger - sound familiar? - but unlike Corbyn in 2019 he had lost not one but two previous elections.

Sounds pretty inexplicable even at a time when leaders losing was more tolerated than it is now.

Was it mainly down to factionalism?

he remained, reasoning that Evatt had been given three opportunities to win, and that he should be allowed a third try
Very much a "left-winger" of his time, though.

Slugg's ideal PM.

[(no subject)]

The Labor Right got the hint about how to be electable in modern Australia. GoTfan seems to have never did.

[(no subject)]

And again, Whitlam was from the NSW Right.

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

And Albanese is from the Left, while Shorten is Right. Do these factions even matter beyond "this is what i vaguely believed when i joined the party in uni or from the union, now it's just my mates"?