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

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Utterly disgusting.
I wish Shanks the best of luck in his lawsuit.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

The AEC has announced the final boundaries for the Victorian Federal Redistribution. Along with the usual minor changes they have made two major changes;
Firstly, they have reverted the proposed Division of Tucker's name back to the current Corangamite after many submissions opposing the change, noting how Corangamite is a Federal division and an Aboriginal name while Margaret Tucker was not local to the region (being Yorta Yorta from the Murray valley) and also noting that the name can easily be changed to F#cker with graffiti.
Secondly, they have reverted the proposed changes to the boundary between Macnamara and Higgins, returning Caulfield to Macnamara and South Yarra, Prahran and Windsor to Higgins. The proposed changes were incredibly unpopular with the large Jewish community, and the reversion is unsurprising. This significantly helps the Labor position in Macnamara where they were at risk of falling behind the Greens on the draft borders while slightly strengthening the Greens position in Higgins. Overall this change helps Labor in Macnamara while helping the Greens in Higgins.

And tomorrow the VEC will be releasing their draft report for the Victorian State Redistribution, which will have major changes and is eagerly awaited by both parties.

Why did they suggest the changes to the border between Macnamara and Higgins to begin with?

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Aussies, talk to me.

What is life like as an untitled Aussie commoner?

Is there anything as the Australian Dream?

Seppo, stay out of Straya!

Just wait till Bronz learns that Australia changed a line in its national anthem earlier this year...

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Australia is already unable to freely have a Beijing policy of its choosing.
Canberra is reliant on China for its livelihood and must tread carefully.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Australia is already unable to freely have a Beijing policy of its choosing.
Canberra is reliant on China for its livelihood and must tread carefully.

The current tariffs they've imposed on us are costing us $20 billion AUD, and are particularly hitting farmers and the wine industry hard, and in SA, we rely on the wine industry heavily for tourism from the rest of the world.

Seems unwise to escalate things even further.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

In other news, Michael Gunner is now one of my favourite people in Australia.
[snip]

Someone give this man a medal for a class act performance.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Looking at the population data for Northern Territory, I'm inclined to believe Jolly Slugg on this one. If they weren't counted, it would for sure appear in the Northern Territory total, yet it still had almost 45k in 1961. There was a huge increase by 1974, but that's in a context where it clearly was growing quite massively before and after 1967.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/dec/16/i-went-cross-eyed-australias-former-deputy-pm-taken-to-hospital-after-drinking-entire-bowl-of-kava

The Lucky Country

As least he seems to have taken it in stride.

[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?

[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.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Holy crap, NSW Liberals really give Republicans a run for their money, don't they?

If you think we're bad, just look at NSW Labor! Rex Jackson, Milton Orkopoulos, Eddie Obeid, Ian Macdonald and so much more

I mean, I looked them up and the first guy's been dead for a decade while the others seem like low-hanging fruit as far as 'party corruption' goes since those cases also seem old and they were all low-ranking MLA's (I may have the wrong term for members of the NSW legislature, please correct me if so) whereas what is being alleged at the top echelons of NSW Liberal leadership and the police seemingly helping to coverup resource corruption while literally forbidding opponents from talking about them + resource companies is insane to me.

Now I'm obviously a foreigner and also pretty new to Australian politics so I doubt I could hold my own genuinely debating these issues unless I did do a lot more research... And I realize that YT'er is apparently a pretty big firebrand for the center-left in NSW but even those on the right gotta admit the optics are terrible at the least.

I'm positive there is nuance that Australians have on this topic that I don't; but the ignoring of environmental protection laws for lumber production + once again, literally forbidding a critic from talking about that Lumber company online (or originally even USING social media!) is pretty shady.

At least in regards to Eddie Obeid, his influence, iirc, was much more strong than his technical job title would suggest.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/dutton-is-making-labor-look-like-the-natural-party-of-government-20230403-p5cxlh.html

Anthony Albanese seems to be doing a pretty good job of advancing his project to make Labor the natural party of government. A central reason why is because Peter Dutton is making the Liberals the natural party of opposition.

Only about one in four voters under the age of 40 said they voted for the Coalition.

As Jackman notes, never before in its 35-year history has the Australian Election Study recorded such low levels of support for either major party among such a large segment of the electorate.

That sage of the Canberra press gallery, Malcolm Farr, once remarked that Scott Morrison’s main contribution to Australian political life was to stop Peter Dutton from becoming prime minister. Presently, and also perhaps permanently, Peter Dutton also seems to be stopping Peter Dutton from ever entering The Lodge.

Interesting article.
https://australianelectionstudy.org/wp-content/uploads/The-2022-Australian-Federal-Election-Results-from-the-Australian-Election-Study.pdf
This is the study they linked to.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

I presume the difference between Jacinta and Jacinda is more than just one letter, then?

Jacinta is really up against some very difficult issues:

https://fb.watch/j-5w3_CXyt/?mibextid=2Rb1fB

If the situation is that bad, then it's hardly surprising that people like Price and Dutton could capitalize on it.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Will be visiting 'Straya in December, see you guys soon 👀

Which state(s) do you plan to visit?

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Will be visiting 'Straya in December, see you guys soon 👀

Which state(s) do you plan to visit?

Still figuring it out. I'd love to see it all but my purse strings (and time) are tight- correspondingly, this is something I'm kinda tagging along for, but that I had some significance in deciding as someone who's long admired and studied Australia. Would love to see some Australian Gold Rush history in Western Australia, Ayer's Rock, the Old Gum Tree, the Great Barrier Reef, etc., but like the US, most everything seems to be in the east, so I'll probably stick around Sydney.

Australia, is Canberra worth a visit? Planned cities are fun and obviously I'm the boring type who likes museums and stuff

this is worth visiting
If you have enough time.
It seems you would enjoy seeing the Parliament building in Canberra at least.
Darwin might also be interesting if you have interest in WW2 history. Though I'm not sure what's there in that front...

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Will be visiting 'Straya in December, see you guys soon 👀

Which state(s) do you plan to visit?

Still figuring it out. I'd love to see it all but my purse strings (and time) are tight- correspondingly, this is something I'm kinda tagging along for, but that I had some significance in deciding as someone who's long admired and studied Australia. Would love to see some Australian Gold Rush history in Western Australia, Ayer's Rock, the Old Gum Tree, the Great Barrier Reef, etc., but like the US, most everything seems to be in the east, so I'll probably stick around Sydney.

Australia, is Canberra worth a visit? Planned cities are fun and obviously I'm the boring type who likes museums and stuff

this is worth visiting
If you have enough time.
It seems you would enjoy seeing the Parliament building in Canberra at least.
Darwin might also be interesting if you have interest in WW2 history. Though I'm not sure what's there in that front...

Surprisingly I'm neither more green than red (regarding the Tree of Knowledge) nor one of the kids who'd sit in the back of class drawing tanks and guns (read: future military historians, on visiting Darwin), but noted! Parliament Building is also noted but kinda sad as someone who still hasn't seen D.C. despite literally living in two Southern states

What are you most interested in re: Australia?

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

As I said elsewhere: Goodbye, Scotty from Marketing.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Labor is now planning changes to the Stage 3 cuts. Long overdue. The cuts will now look to balance things a bit more; taxes on those making $180,000 or more will have to make do with a reduced cut, while brackets that are lower will get a larger one.

Of course, Dutton and his allies at Sky and 7 will be screeching about it with no one to actually challenge them.

Labor giving tax cuts to working class types wouldn't be a bad idea. It's not like tax cuts have to regressive.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

This was 43 years ago.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Corny, but it evidently worked.

If I'm not careful "Wran, Wran, gotta be Wran" will end up looping in my head.
Neville Wran certainly was a successful political operator.