Australia 2022 Election

[Kahane's Grave Is A Gender-Neutral Bathroom]

2PP vote is 58-42 in a recent poll. That's not good.

[Kahane's Grave Is A Gender-Neutral Bathroom]

2PP vote is 58-42 in a recent poll. That's not good.

The Coalition absolutely deserves to get annihilated.

I know lol. It doesn't look good for them.

[Kahane's Grave Is A Gender-Neutral Bathroom]

IMO:

The Coal-ition has had 9 years to fix the country, and they've screwed up. Emissions are up along with the deficit, despite ScroMo saying it was going down. And of course Dutton threw a bunch of refugees into Manus even though they only had to flee because Pyney's Weapons Store is giving sh**t to the Saudis.

The Australian Right is probably one of the few western right-wings I'd pick the left over.

[Kahane's Grave Is A Gender-Neutral Bathroom]

https://www.themandarin.com.au/188810-election-2022-almost-700-million-kicked-in-for-a-defence-reno/

The federal government has announced yet another renovation and expansion to a defence facility, with the promise of $694.4 million for the General John Baker Complex, which is home to the joint operations command for the Australian Defence Force here and overseas.

Defence minister Peter Dutton has made yet another spending promise in his portfolio, with $30 million towards the renovation and expansion of army reserve and cadet facilities in Tasmania.

That investment is a portion of a $1 billion that has been set aside to renovate army reserve and cadet facilities around the country.

A re-elected Coalition government would put in place a technology skills passport that will assist with getting Australians work ready.

It seems the Coalition is seeking to present itself as having lots of meat to its defense policy.

They always fearmonger over defense/immigration issues in the final days of the election.

[Kahane's Grave Is A Gender-Neutral Bathroom]

The more pertinent reason that I'm backing the Liberals over Labor is that Scott Morrison is a better Prime Minister than Anthony Albanese could ever hope to be.  They have identical policies on most issues, but Morrison is placing less emphasis on nationalism, insularity, and xenophobia - ergo, Labor is no longer a viable choice for somebody badly affected by prolonged border closures and punitive lockdowns.  I don't like Morrison, and I don't like the Liberals, but they are easily the lesser of two evils at this election.

I don't live in Australia (obviously), but I'd vaguely been rooting for an ALP victory at this election to punish Morrison and the Liberals for instituting the strict lockdowns and the restrictions on exiting the country. Are Albanese and the ALP really so much more hardline that it makes sense for single-issue "the lockdowns were wrong" voters to preference the Coalition over them? (Would be extremely bleak if true).

Great question, and an understandable perspective to hold from an international perspective: Australia handled covid in a very punitive way, and Scott Morrison could easily end up in a list of nasties along with Ardern and Trudeau for that, but the reality on the ground is that Morrison acted as a handbrake on the worst impulses of Australians throughout the pandemic.  On most issues, he had to be dragged kicking and screaming.  It is difficult for me to describe the relief now that the international border closure has already been lifted: I really do not believe that Albanese would lift it if it were still in place right now and he won the election.  How could he?  Australia has one of the highest, if not the highest, per-capita case rates in the world right now.  If ever we were going to have restrictions, it would be now: but Morrison did the politically unpalatable thing of removing them at a federal level already, and Albanese isn't going to ignite a political storm by re-instating them.

(You may be wondering how that makes sense: basically, the average person is under the impression that any restrictions that remain are based on "science" / "health advice", so they tend to oppose removing them if they are already in place, but the political and popular will to bring back new ones no longer exists.)

Throughout the last two years, the Labor party has demanded going "further" and has never then said that such things are no longer necessary: they banged on and on about the need to establish on-shore quarantine centers, which would doubtlessly transition to being detention centers for visa holders in a matter of absolutely no time at all, proposing to waste billions on the construction of camps where travelers would spend two weeks, presumably entrenching the ridiculous "border controls" that they had been demanding the whole time.

The reason for this is very simple; Labor wants to position itself as the party of health care.  While they have wisely chosen not to emphasise this for the federal election campaign, do not be under any illusions about their continued status as being entirely beholden to nursing unions and medical lobbies.  (Ironically, some of the worst ambulance ramping, indicative of overfilled emergency departments, is in Labor-run states such as Victoria and Western Australia.)

All of this being said, this federal election is certainly not about covid, or lockdowns, or border closures.  Really this is a cost-of-living election, and that's why Albanese needs to run an insular and xenophobic campaign, which is advantageous in the Australian electorate (particularly outside of NSW and Victoria).  The more that people pay attention to the global context, the more they see that Australia's economic position is comparatively enviable, aside from the ever-present risk of the housing bubble popping.  If Albanese can convince people to keep looking inwards (very likely), then people might buy the idea that high petrol and grocery prices are exclusively Scott Morrison's fault.

We are.literally ranked lowest in the OECD

Worse then us? I thought we were at the bottom of like every single OECD Category/

[Kahane's Grave Is A Gender-Neutral Bathroom]

Is there any truth to the sterotype that Melborune is Australia most left-wing city ? if so, why is that the case ?

Really, Canberra is the most progressive city, being a hive for public servants and academics and consistently giving the Greens the balance of power at the Territory level. But it often gets overlooked due to its small size (including by me in the original version of this post!)

Of the big cities, Melbourne would take the title, though this wasn't always the case; the modern Liberal Party was born out its wealthier eastern suburbs. I suspect it's at least in part due to its association with being the "cultural capital" of Australia, which really started with the Victorian Labor government in the 80s and its efforts to draw in more art and culture into the city. A lot of bohemian artsy types reside there now for sure.

But I've never lived in Melbourne, so I'll defer to anyone who has if they want to offer up alternate ideas.

Melbourne has a green MP though and probably a solid third of citizens are thejuicemedia fans.

[Kahane's Grave Is A Gender-Neutral Bathroom]

So Canberra is basically Aussie DC?

[Kahane's Grave Is A Gender-Neutral Bathroom]

Screw ScroMo and the Coal-ition.

[Kahane's Grave Is A Gender-Neutral Bathroom]

Morrison deserved to lose given his authoritarian COVID policies

I was going to say because of Hawaiigate but that too.

[Kahane's Grave Is A Gender-Neutral Bathroom]

Great results but I'm sad Frydenberg lost (both because Australia getting a Jewish PM in 2025 would be cool and because we get Dutto instead).

[Kahane's Grave Is A Gender-Neutral Bathroom]

If the "teals" are all about climate change and the environment why aren't they all running for the Green Party? What issues would a Green MP and a "teal" MP disagree on? 

Mainly Economics and some social issues, Teal Mp's tend to be in favour in of traditional LNP economic polices as well as more moderate on social issues than the green.

What would be an example of a social issue where a teal might feel the Greens were too progressive? Are any of the teals against abortion rights or want to disallow same sex marriage? and how exactly does anyone propose to take drastic action on climate change while also keeping "traditional LNP economic policies"? Doesn't one preclude the other?

It's probably not really social issues where there's a difference. Economics is the big thing. Because if you think about it 'we need strong climate action' and 'THE TRANSGENDER GAYS ARE STEALING OUR HEALTHCARE BECAUSE THEY NEED ABORTIONS' are not really relatable.

Anyway, the good thing is that the teals will be able to vote on climate proposals but keep the tax-and-spend policies in check.

[Kahane's Grave Is A Gender-Neutral Bathroom]

Is it possible that a hung parliament would be the best for the climate? I know the Labor climate policies are better (43% vs ScroMo's Kyoto Credit BS) but if Labor has to cooperate with the Teal Independents or the Greens they'd have to go more aggressively after the issue. I remember that happened in 2010-2013.

[Kahane's Grave Is A Gender-Neutral Bathroom]

Outside their own heads. the Greens actually have little support from working class Australian voters. Years of refusing to listen to what these voters are saying and lecturing them on how they are wrong (notably on unauthorised immigration), will do that.

They've got more support than the far right but jobs you stan

not from working class Australians.

Even from working class australinans they do

most working class Australians oppose unauthorised immigration by boat, which the Greens support.

Most also don't want their house to catch on fire.