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

[morgieb]

So back in lockdown for Greater Sydney (and Wollongong, Blue Mountains and the Central Coast)

[morgieb]

So now alledged "progressives" are tweeting "Thin Blue Line" and "Thank You Vic Pol" style nonsense.

This is good as it means I feel comfortable knowing who would tell the Nazis about Anne Frank.

[morgieb]

Is Shanks that pipsqueak from friendly jordies?  He's got to be one of the most boneheaded, numbskulled tools on YouTube.

Yep.

[morgieb]

Haven't been following this, why on earth have the ALP persisted with said tax cuts anyway?

Still haunted by There will be no carbon tax under the government I lead.

Or perhaps even more relevantly, the L.A.W. tax cuts are LAW.

[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.

[morgieb]

What has happened to Latham is genuinely extraordinary.

Did bitterness and resentment over not becoming PM simply drive him mad?

Would be genuinely interested in any of our Australian (or otherwise knowledgeable) posters explaining the Latham journey, because from the outside it’s just looks utterly bizarre.

Trust me, it's just as bizarre from the inside.

[morgieb]

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2023/jan/11/george-pell-dead-australian-cardinal-dies-aged-81-rome-vatican?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other&fbclid=IwAR0hCY0hbUXUGaiN_p2kcot-SFUvLLVNMA9iLZ3FBYpR11vwRUPCQFNMqkk

Somehow RIP doesn't feel appropriate here....

[morgieb]

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-64245422

This feels infinitely worse than all those blackface scandals. At least those outside of the US you could argue ignorance until a decade or so ago. I'm not sure how you could think that wearing a Nazi uniform was ever OK.

[morgieb]

https://twitter.com/missrobinson/status/1657187377029185537

Has any TV show done more damage towards political punditry than The West Wing?

[morgieb]

Vale Simon Crean.

74 no age either. He wasn't a good leader but he seemed like a decent man and was a strong Cabinet stalwart for a number of years. He will be missed.

[morgieb]

This seat was securely Liberal not that long ago, which makes it an even better result for the ALP.

In fairness the seat before the 2019 redistribution was located further south - it flipped Labor in 2019 after exchanging rich exurbia in Mornington for working-class suburbia in areas around Carrum.

[morgieb]

Labor seems likely to lose the next election based on the current numbers.

But recent actual election results were, mostly, somewhat underwhelming for the right. Are we going to see a similar trend as in the US for the last few years here?

FWIW that Essential poll was almost certainly an outlier. Other polls have Labor in a comparable or at worst slightly weaker position as where they were in 2022. Also on actual past election preferences (not to be confused with their weird headline 2PP+ figures) Labor would still stand a pretty good chance of remaining in government if in minority.

That said, the longer this immigration war lasts, the worse Labor's position is.