Do not blame the ALP … blame The People!
In the next day or so the ALP will release their post-mortem on why they lost the election. I am sure it will be a very erudite document. It will probably blame Shorten, it will probably blame the breadth of policy that the ALP took to the election, it will probably blame the ALP for over-reach. It will probably blame the Palmer affect.
Well, as a person who splits his allegiance between the Greens and the ALP I have my own view on the whole deal.
There was nothing wrong with the policies that the ALP took to the last election. Their policies were well overdue. Their policies did not represent a case of over-reach, if anything, their policies (given their fear of losing votes) represented a case of under-reach.
The problem with the last election was not the ALP. The problem at the last election was with The People.
Here we are in the 21st Century, with a populace that has been exposed to world-class education over the last 30 years or so, who voting-wise expressed their incredible ability to sideline critical thinking and analysis, and who subsumed the good of the nation for the good of their own venal pockets and wallets, and who voted for a group of political representatives who are repressive, subversive, and who are overtly promulgating the mores of Fascism.
This country that we love, and hold dear, is not under threat from easily swayed swinging voters. Our country is under threat from Intelligent People who made a very considered decision to support our current Coalition Government. Those people willingly voted for the draconian policies that are now being run out.
The problem in contemporary Australia is not with the ALP, the last election was lost because venal people put themselves, and their wants, before the good of the nation. And they don’t give a toss about the cost of their decision.
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Keitha Granville -
Olivia Manor -
Matters Not -
Bill Purvis -
Regional Elder -
Paul Davis -
Lambchop Simnel -
Ill fares the land -
Mark Delmege -
Suzanne Cass -
Kathryn -
Fred -
New England Cocky -
Baby Jewels -
Wayne Turner -
Smithy -
Kaye Lee -
Jack Cade -
Arthur Tary -
Kaye Lee -
Joseph Carli -
totaram -
Kaye Lee -
Alpo -
Joseph Carli -
Alpo -
Kaye Lee -
Alpo -
Henry Rodrigues -
Joseph Carli -
Keith ( not author of article ) -
Kaye Lee -
Joseph Carli -
Kaye Lee -
Jack Cade -
George Theodoridis -
Kaye Lee -
George Theodoridis -
George Theodoridis -
Wobbley -
paul walter -
Roswell -
blair -
George Theodoridis -
Josephus -
Pete rF -
Ron -
Matters Not -
Neil Hogan -
Michael Taylor -
George Theodoridis -
Joseph Carli -
Kaye Lee -
Andreas -
Claudio Pompili -
Keith Davis -
Joseph Carli -
Kaye Lee -
Joseph Carli -
Kaye Lee -
Egalitarian -
Kaye Lee -
Matters Not -
Roswell -
Roswell -
Miriam -
corvus boreus -
Joseph Carli -
corvus boreus -
Miriam -
Kaye Lee -
Miriam -
Roswell -
Joseph Carli -
Kaye Lee -
Roswell -
Matters Not -
paul walter -
Return to home pageYep, absolutely spot on.
And we are doomed to these fascists for years and years if Labor insists on reversing everything that we supported.
Well said. Wish the ALP stopped the navel gazing, and the mea culpa, and it was Bill that done it. The people preferred greed over the good of the nation, and now we are paying for it. The LNP is in full flight, not believing their luck and making sure they can march into fascism, whilst they got a head wind. What we need is a strong opposition that reminds the populace daily of the basic maleficence of the government, obsessed by their magic surplus, and beholden to the coal barons and baroness.
Re:
Yeah the problem was The People. Doesn’t augur well for the future does it, given we (supposedly) live in a democracy with power and authority emanating from that very specific root cause.
Perhaps we should move to a form of guided democracy? Or are we already there? Perhaps you have a practical alternative? Like a participatory democracy? Or would that just make the problem worse?
Shorten did not present as a leader. The ALP was not able to rise above the LNP scare tactics.
I would never vote LNP, I would usually vote ALP but I think my 1st preference was Greens.
In my opinion Shorten did lose the election. If one would never vote LNP then its not policies
its personalities.
Queensland didn’t vote like the rest of Australia did at the last election, W.A. excepted.
(https://results.aec.gov.au/24310/Website/HouseDefault-24310.htm ).
Thus progressive policies valued in most of Australia, fell political hostage to those couple of million people in Dutton’s state ‘Murdoch-topia’, who voted in accord with the strident NewsCorp opinion against Bill Shorten, or with Clive Palmer’s financial tsunami against Labor, or with Pauline Hanson pervasive xenophobia and misinformation.
And in spite of all that, Morrison gained only one more seat.
Appears that way Olivia.
Meanwhile the MSM will gleefully drive their Hummers back and forth over the decaying roadkill of Labor’s election defeat, highlighting their odiously unpopular unelectable exleader and their raft of socialist spendthrift high taxing antiworker antifarmer antiindustry antipensioner divisive destructive policies. No mention of corrupt AEC rule bending, Palmer’s and Newscorp’s millions spent on lying advertising etc which helped see the LNP squeak back in, with special thanks also in part to the gormless in the usual places and of course the almighty in heaven who apparently blessed this LNP status quo.
Karvelas led the charge this evening ‘interviewing’ senator Wong who persistently went off script and kept forgetting her lines. Poor Patricia had to repeat and repeat her question but the senator kept missing the prompts and just couldn’t get it right. Apparently an important part of the play, as stressed in the approved script she was reading from, was that no one was driving the big red bus as it careered towards the cliff, all of the Labor seniors were down the back drinking champers and jockeying for ministries.
He is pretty much right about the ALP taking the right policies to the election and it is also fair enough that the unbelievably bad LNP should have been sent spinning into the wilderness for a decade.
It is also true that the public itself was lazy, sluggish, self absorbed and cowardly. To mitigate on that of course, you can pause for a second to consider the intense propagandising that brainwashed big chunks of the public over my life time at least. A number of folk are to blame for the worst reasons, including the likes of the Packers , Stokes, Nine Net work and TV, press and radio wings of MSM including the eventually polluted public broadcasting sector.
But ultimately, the ALP DOES share blame for the Morrison governments election.
It backed off meaningful challenging and resistance to the very worst of so many LNP economic and domestic policies, aware that they represented the worst of neoliberalism brought in to bring the nation to its knees; now it is well ripe for far more exploitation and we can guess why some at the upper echelons went along or also tried to parasite off the system while pretending to seek its reform despite the parliamentary record of their failures and maybe even betrayal, as occurred in NSW during the first decade.
What can’t and should not be forgotten is the Morrison factor and I absolutely mean that in the most disrespectful way possible. He lied, blustered and ponced his way through the campaign. Every misstep by Shorten meant he was pilloried in the media, but daily lies by Morrison were completely ignored.
He set out no policies and that was somehow acceptable, but of course it meant that Shorten and Labor were the bigger target, despite Morrison being a significant part of the most inept, corrupt and directionless government in decades. Morrison essentially copied Trump’s election techniques, which was to appeal to our venality and make vague “promises” that his followers could latch on to and would make it seem like he “identified” with them and their travails.
And, don’t forget that outside of Queensland, Labor still won more seats than the LNP. What kind of person and “leader” Morrison is and just how corrupt and woeful his party is has been revealed in the months following the election, but he still retains some popularity because the media spends way more time trying to shred Albanese. The media focus is whether Albanese is the kind of PM this country needs, but the media also never goes near the issue of whether Morrison is that leader. The answer is that we don’t know about Albanese, but we know all we would want to know about Morrison and I don’t know about you, but what I see is a cause for the gravest concern.
Na, Shortie didn’t impress.
I think it’s wrong and unfair to blame Shorten in any way. Noone could have stood up to Morrison’s, and the media lies and slurs.
Now Labor has a rubbish leader and deputy, it’s a Morrison lapdog and a policy wasteland.
Bill Shorten was, by far, infinitely more aggressive and vocal than the ineffective, LNP-light Albo! With Anthony Albanese at the helm the REAL WORRYING thing is that the fascist, callously inhumane, totally corrupt grubs in the smug, sadistic Morrison/Dutton regime will win the next election and defund, destroy, annihilate and sell-off EVERYTHING they didn’t have time to defund, destroy, annihilate and sell-off in six years of EPIC waste, ineptitude and blatant corruption.
We desperately need someone with credibility, integrity and willing to fight the LNP every step of the way. Penny Wong, Tanya Plibersek, Tony Burke or Chris Bowen would be the best, most charismatic choices – any one of them would be infinitely better than the lacklustre Anthony Albanese. WAKE UP, LABOR! This country simply CANNOT AFFORD another gruesome, catastrophic term of the worst government in our history!
Bill Shorten had a terrible campaign. He never landed a punch on Morrison.and he didn’t even try.Until he owns that he is not being honest with himself.The previous campaign he was out there like a terrier.His polices were great he just didn’t explain them well enough and calm the horses.There was no mongrel in him and he was too passive was too regal.He let a bullshit artist Morrison win.
And he looked and sounded too upper class,too regal and too comfy and too calm just like he has become in life.He wasn’t out there fighting for the have not’s.A sloganeering bullshit,bullshits artist won the election, single handedly.I think Bill and his wife were out looking for curtains for the lodge on election day.It’s been a bitter pill for many. It’s time Bill Shorten owned it.He read the campaign so badly.
@Regional Elder: Correct, only a two seat majority, and there are two seats disputed at the moment (071119) in the Court of Disputed Returns.
However, the timed effects of the Palmer money, a pre-paid political donation for the next Palmer COAL mine near Adani, the Bob Brown self-indulgent bus ride to ignominy in Queensland and the ever malicious anti-Labor scribblings from the Murdoch MSM added to Labor woes.
When the unions paid back Shorten for many historic favours by electing him Leader, over the will of the paid up individual members of the Labor membership Party, the unelected political hacks forgot that it is the individual members who vote in elections, not unions.
@Kathryn: Agreed. But are Australian voters ready to elect their second competent female Prime Minister when the recent incumbents have demonstrated complete lack of meaningful policies that only favours foreign owned multinational corporations presently revelling in the political swill that is building the worst third world export economy in the OECD.
Couldn’t agree more Keith. On every point. And I agree with Kathryn. After fighting this for 6 years, frankly, I think we’re screwed. Because of the people. Our fellow Australians. I have always blamed the people, and the fact that the polls told us for 5 years that Shorten wasn’t popular – a fact I can’t really explain. If Shorten was unpopular, Albanese should be vastly more unpopular, he’s not a patch on Shorten. And there’s not one standout in the Labor Party to do the job at the next election. Yes, we’re screwed.
Ultimately this is correct. Add to many people are extremely ignorant and gullible when it comes to politics. Claiming they vote in their own self interest,but many are too ignorant to know what that is.
Add to that a BIASED pro coalition Main Stream Media,and anti Labor MSM. That repeated all the coalition LIES.
The uneven undemocratic sham of an election was a battle of Coalition,MSM,Palmer, & mostly gullible ignorant/greedy public vs Labor. Always an uneven contest.
Great article. I don’t blame Bill and for the Labor party to even mention this I think is stupid. The blame squarely lies with the Australian people for being ignorant enough to think you can ignore politics until just before an election and then get your information about who to vote for from MSM. Personally I gave up on the Australian people being able to make informed choices after the last election, and now I don’t know what to think.
Electorates with a high proportion of high-income, well-educated or recent migrants swung to the ALP. The report finds those areas with a high proportion of the following groups were associated with a swing against Labor:
• Voters aged 25-34 years living in outer-urban and regional areas;
• Christians;
• Coal mining communities;
• Chinese Australians; and
• Queenslanders.
Take away the the result in Queensland and you have the answer. My view – and I know it is not popular, is that Bob Brown’s caravan was the clincher. But even taking that out of the picture, you have to wonder about people who are happy to have the likes of Peter Dutton as their representative. Clive Palmer, who owes millions in wages, spent as much as he owes in wages and more in anti-Labor adverts. How on earth could ANYBODY have believed a single word of his advertising? And that Christensen – whose politics are certainly repellent to me – could be so comfortable as to spend half his time overseas looking for women in the Philippines.
The Queensland ALP state government is not evenly remotely a Labor government.
The premise of this article is correct – IS the people.
Labor presented a very good programme. Too good, actually. And I don’t see how Shorten’s unpopularity could be the main cause of the loss. Adani and it’s massive confidence trick, it’s false promises of not only fake jobs but hugely highly-paid mining jobs was significant. Absolutely transparent. But Queenslanders bought it.
Queensland has 30 seats, and the Coalition won 25 of them.
And have a one-seat majority. QED.
Electioneering is about marketing. The ALP used to know this eg: It’s Time, but seems to have lapsed into presenting a cavalcade of policies (good though they be) that most people don’t seem to understand, or want to understand. This provides an easy opportunity for an unscrupulous and bereft though skilled marketeer like Morisson to build a campaign based in perception, image, lies, etc, the stock in-trade of an ad-man. Add another ad-man, Palmer, and bingo. The ALP needs to re-position and adapt to this reality.
Jack,
Minor correction, the Coalition won 23 seats in QLD.
If we leave QLD out, in the rest of the country, the ALP won 62 seats to the Coalition’s 54.
If we leave out the only two states/territories where the Coalition got a majority of seats (Qld and WA), Labor won 57 to 43.
In other words, once again, we have the government the miners want and bugger the rest of the country. And they STILL cry that they are being persecuted.
The elephant in the room NOT being serioualy discussed in this thread is that very subject currently before the Federal Court at this moment…: Whether there was deliberate electorate fraud carried on by the LNP in relation to several actions in the election and whether those actions were facilitated with the turning of a “blind-eye” by the AEC.
It is so easy to point the finger at those “over there citizens”..be they of a different state or dis-connected or just plain stupid…such accusations tick our boxes so easily of prejudice and bigotry…AND make the job of lying, coverup and obfuscation so much easier for those who WOULD defraud the elections.
The AEC is currently riding shot-gun in the Fed’ Court in defence of the LNP using misleading signage in two electorates that were designed by and confessed by the LNP’s own electoral team manager to being deliberately simulated as official AEC signage to trick and confuse the voters…and the defence from the AEC lawyers is that they “doubt” that enough votes could have been moved to change the election…You see..they don’t feel they even need concrete evidence to convince the court, mere speculation will do.. they just need to create doubt and let the in-situ prejudice extant in the community do the rest…it’s called “divide and rule”..
The crime in the actions of PHON to seek NRA funds from a foreign nation to “alter the outcome of the election”, The suspicion of Palmer’s origin of his multi-millions and the method of “preference farming” to “alter the outcome of the elections” to favour the LNP, then the sweetheart deals made by The LNP with both those players demanded at least some trite investigation, considering that now we see the rewards being filtered on to those players..yet there was nothing.
I’m calling it…; There was collusion/blind-eye facilitation between the AEC and those conservative political parties..The dumb-arse kiddies that currently fill Labor strategy ranks need kicking up the arse and more radical/savvy players of the likes of John Setka and experienced union people brought into the ranks of political advisers to create a party with muscle to confront and smash the criminals in the conservative side of politics…anything less is soft-cocking and mealy-mouthing!
The left need to re-radicalise.
The article is correct and is supported by evidence. The latest essential poll shows that 60% of voters think the government is doing a good job.
However, the deeper question you have to ask is this: how is it that so many voters haven’t got a correct idea about what constitutes their interest? How come we have so many “turkeys voting for Christmas”?
The answer to that question is “effective propaganda” now being run wall-to-wall by the entire mass-media, which runs it 24/7 , no matter when the next election is due. At the time of the election, throw in another $60 m. for a newly formed party, which gets 3% of the vote, and farms off the preferences to the coalition as intended. That turns what was looking like a Labor victory into a two-seat loss.
Why do we need any further analysis of Labor’s loss? Only to see how Labor can beat this phenomenon, because this MSM scenario is here to stay. You can fiddle a little bit here and there by getting Facebook to take down some ads etc. but there will be little change.
John Setka? Savvy? Seriously?
Why did the ALP lose?
Murdoch, hence the role of information and misinformation in deciding the direction of elections in Australia via lies and scaremongering. He is poison for this country and, I am afraid, his two sons aren’t any better…. They take advantage of and promote Moronism in the electorate… We have got to do something about it and De-Moronise the voters…. a GFC-2 will definitely help and the ALP must take full advantage of it if and when it comes next year.
Queensland, hence a state that can vote ALP locally but is against the ALP federally, except when a Queenslander (Rudd) led the ALP. The regular bashing of the federal ALP in Queensland (since the times of John Howard at least) is enough to win a Federal election. Take the result in Queensland to a mere 50%-50% of seats shared by LNP and Labor and you would have got an ALP win at this year’s federal election!…. Yes, that’s the importance of the “Queensland problem”.
The Queensland factor had an additional interesting dynamic this time around. The voters didn’t fully go for the LNP as their first preference, they indeed showed a superficial “rejection of the duopoly”…. BUT, their Moronism was on show when many of them first-preferenced Hanson’s or Palmer’s parties, but then put the LNP ahead of the ALP. That sunk the ALP and it has been sinking the federal ALP in Qld for a long time, thus crucially undermining their ability to win a federal election.
The leader?…. Yeah, sure, note how Shorten, a Victorian, carried Victoria for the ALP, but ScuMo a NSWelshman was defeated in his home state of NSW!!…. Who was a better leader?…. In addition, as demonstrated with the Queenslander Rudd in 2007, Queenslanders don’t really care about the leader unless he is a Queenslander and neither ScuMo nor Shorten are….. Give credit to the courageous Shorten and stop writing crap against him. Yes, this message is also a warning for the group that came up with this report!
Yes, the problem is ultimately with the electorate. There are too many Voting Morons, that is people who vote against their own interests following either an intrinsic level of superficiality in their decision-making or a pathetic level of gullibility that makes them susceptible to the Liberal propaganda…. They can wake up, for sure…. but only if they SUFFER!
Yes, Kaye Lee!!…seriously!!…we don’t need another therapy writer with their book on good manners and polite conversation…we need GRUNT…we need MUSCLE…we don’t need soft-cock!….get it?
My warmest congratulations to totaram for getting the current sad situation of Australian “democracy” perfectly correct!
No Joseph I don’t “get it”.
John Setka might be passionate but his judgement is moronic and he would absolutely feed into the rhetoric about union thugs. Using his children to hold up a sign saying “Go get f#cked” on Fathers Day? Publicly threatening public servants saying that “We will lob in their neighbourhoods, we will tell them who lives in their house and what he does for a living, or she. We will go to their local footy club, we will go to their local shopping centre. They will not be able to show their faces anywhere, their kids will be ashamed of who their parents are when we expose all these ABCC inspectors.”
Whilst that may be appealing to you, Joe, it would be red meat for the Coalition. Most Australians don’t respond well to threats from thugs.
Sally McManus, on the other hand, is what I call savvy. Perhaps we need less cock?
Joseph Carli, I understand your point and yes, I agree that there is a point in time when you either show your muscles or your enemies will crash you. But Kaye has also a good point, given the just about complete control of the media by the Liberals and their mates in this country, you have got to smarten up and use strategies that attract support and sympathy from the People (= the voters). For instance, I personally like Sally McManus’ firm, strong, intelligent, yet rational rather than emotive/violent approach to workers rights and the role of Unionism (and the ACTU in particular) in this society.
This is what many people will agree with and endorse. I personally know many so-called “intelligent” people who were very forthright about their voting intentions which left me in despair. They won’t show any remorse or regret because that would be self condemnation. All they cared about was their own personal hip pocket economics, not a bit of empathy or wisdom or farsightedness, just ‘what’s in it for me’
But let’s not ever forget the role of the bastards in the media, starting with that SOB Murdoch, Costello and Stokes, the ABC, Sky News and those dickheads ranting and spewing bile, on radio.
Labor’s policies were progressive and long overdue. Shorten fought well but was targeted singularly by all, especially the stupid airheads on the ABC, Karvalas and Sales in particular. Albo is now playing to their agenda.
Knew it wouldn’t take YOU long KL to bring your gospel to the fore…Here..I wrote this with you and your “proselytisers” in mind..
“. . . The same is happening today..where we have the patsy placators coming along after the bastards have been voted out pleading the case for their “consciousness of kind” equals…”Don’t be too hard on them” they complain..or; “that’s just trolling abuse”..and the best one..: “We got to be better than this.” …. The bastards are killers..KILLERS!.. and the patsys say we gotta be better than this..”show example” is another…yeah!..I’ll show example..give me a horse-whip and ten minutes alone and I’LL show example! ”
Sally McManus spent around $20mill of union money for no result..THAT is not savvy!
I’m with Kathryn with her reply to Miriam English yesterday on this…
On climate change, Labor policy was quite unclear. The emission target set by Labor was far better than what the LNP provided.
There was cognitive dissonance though, in promoting the Adani coal mine. Nature takes no notice of accounting tricks, emissions come back to bite us through climate change no matter where they are emitted.
The LNP sought to damage Labor and Bill Shorten through their mongrel Royal Commission.
John Hewson came unstuck in trying to promote too much when pundits suggested that the Coalition would win the forth coming election at the time. The LNP offered buggerall except for discredited tax cuts.
Joseph, I won’t bother reading your article. (I hope you are donating to Michael for the constant free advertising).
I have no gospel Joseph. I have an opinion. And your constant personal slurs won’t silence (or bother) me. You are a wordsmith Joe and you should be able to express your opinion without personal attacks.
As for your horsewhip solution….giant eye roll.
You don’t read my articles because you lack that essential ingredient of sharp intellect …curiosity of what “the other” is thinking and saying…I read many of your articles..even though I could go back over several years and find the same lament..those same gripes against the malaise of the unfairness of (insert name) the leader of the LNP or its ministers…it’s why I read Havel, Rand or Machiavelli…to see what we are up against…I am not interested in creating an echo-chamber of my own prejudices…that is why I have so many detractors on this site…it is healthy to contest, challenge…be seen as the outsider…it is the set position of what being “Left-Wing” is all about…it worries me not.
You may keep your opinions and your fan base…you deserve them!
One thing I find very interesting is the swing away from the Coalition in wealthy electorates. These are the people who actually might be affected by changes to franking credit refunds or negative gearing or capital gains tax and hence understand the policies.
The other somewhat disturbing development is Labor’s new talking point (as shown by its constant repetition of late) where “wealth creation” is now the goal of both major parties. Sigh….
Another thing both parties ignore is that low interest rates have pretty much forced retirees to invest in shares. Hence the franking credit reaction – and does this pose a risk if there is another GFC?
(Yup Joe, you’re right. I don’t have a dick to swing)
Joseph Carli (at 8.39).
Your point reminded me of the situation in the US elections yesterday. A gubernatorial race appears to have been won by a Democrat by a very slender margin. If the state legislature decides that the cost of a recount is unwarranted, then it can decide on the winner.
The Republicans hold power in both houses of the state government, by dint of Petersen-esque gerrymanders.
Democracy is a wonderful thing, but the Americans actually shun it.
Yeah, ok. The fault was with the people. Stupid people.
Not with the system that gives people the choice to vote only for either, a jar of cow dung or a jar of horse dung.
Not with the ALP, which presented itself -and to this day still is- as a pack of non-entities who thought the other pack was so bad that there was no way the people would vote them back in, instead of them, the warm and fuzzy self proclaimed “Socialists!”
No one but the Morrison clones would believe that the ALP had anything to do with socialism or with society on the ground floor.
I certainly couldn’t see anything socialist about them but then I haven’t seen anything remotely resembling socialism since the heady days of Whitlam -and I’m not at all saying the guy was a fully formed socialist.
But the people were waiting for some Whitlamesque inspiration, like Medibank for example, like free education, like less militarism, like less obsequy to the Americans, like the closing down of the offshore torture tents, like some statement against the savagery of zionism, like a decent policy on reduction and or elimination of the mountains of pollution that is suffocating the planet. That’s what was in their minds when the campaigns began. Instead, they heard mealy mouthed waffle about a thousand and one things none of which had much to do with them. Some house keeping chores would be done but the huge lumps of dung in the middle of the lounge room, the kitchen the bedrooms were not even mentioned.
They -the poor people- are still waiting for that Whitlamesque inspiration. Instead, they’ve got from the Labor mob the Howardesque “aspiration.”
How do you tell a political party, it’s doing the wrong thing?
The system doesn’t allow for protest.
The system won’t move from the status quo.
It’s boulder that Sisiphus had to deal with in Tartarus. The moment you move it up an inch it rolls back down two.
The people?
What about its enemy? Whom would Ibsen name here?
Jack,
I have been following that news too. This article gives a very good rundown of options for challenges. I don’t think it is as simple as them changing the result.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/elections/2019/11/05/bevin-beshear-recount-what-happens-next-in-kentucky-governor-race/4174894002/
George,
YES!!!!
The “people” were always “the people.” Haven’t changed in millennia. Still the same Jacks and Jills, still the same butchers and bakers and candlestick makers.
And, alas, the thugs who rule them are still the same who ruled them since time immemorial.
I am looking across the pond and see that there is some quite brilliant glimmer of hope in the leader of the steamy island country. No, Penny Wong or Tanya are nowhere bear where Jacinda Arden is. Nowhere bloody near. Gillard was closer to Bibi Netanyahu than to our butcher and baker. I have heard nothing Jacinda-like from them or from anyone else, who looks as if butter wouldn’t melt in their mouth but are totally pro, status quo because it is thie status quo that butters their wholemeal bread.
Please forgive my typos. I’ll put my dentures back on!
Anyway, bitch on amoungst Ourselves, I’m sure the fascists love it. For my two bobs worth, it was the lying cheating scum, the M, S, MEDIA that did the damage and continue to do damage to our once great democracy. Turdoch and all his shills and Costello and co. Not to mention the rabid right on AM radio, and the rest. Palmer got the tax payer through the lnp fascists to pay his employees some 70 million and then spent the money that should have gone to his workers On greatly assisting the lnp scum to regain power. As for Queenslanders, well what can I say, I live here and do I rue the decision to relocate from NSW, only during summer, but to generalise, I don’t think they ever grew up, that former fascist premier springs to mind.
Just added some more circumstantial stuff in the form of Katharine Murphy and the Grauniad.
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2019/nov/07/labors-election-review-reads-like-a-disaster-movie-with-a-few-clues-for-the-stunned-survivors#comment-135250323
Also, just listening to Kenneally, I don’t think the NSW Right has got it even now as it plays off the enviro against jobs, a false dichotomy for a generation , as the Murray Darling, adaptations for power genration against and global warming issues and associated problems alone demonstrate ( think also the eventual ruin of the tourist industry)
The ALP has needed to explain why the binary is false (as also did Murphy, who ran out of space) a long time ago, but from Tasmania to NSW and everywhere else no attempt was made to resolve the easily resolved conflict by logic , that cost effective planning based on logic aids development for Australia by cutting out the sort of waste and cost groupings like Adani, the Utilities and Cotton agri business eventually cost in the way of jobs because science and information were locked out for fear of upsetting developer s and their kick backs. So, costly subsidising of business subsides and tax gifties most seen with the LNP and Nats from Howard onwards. in particular, but coveted by some Labor politicians also.
By embracing neo liberalism however, Labor actually authenticated Murdoch, Palmer and the various lobbies and LNP, when unity might have been preserved by a simple explanation of the obvious to blue collars, that precisely the sort of rubbish that has gone on over this early last century costs far more than it earns when planning, science, genuine economics, information, inclusion, logic and transparency rather than opportunism, animal greed, and false consciousness are removed.
In fact Latham of all people, briefly DID try do that with Tasmania and timber, but was kneecapped by his “own” for fear of upsetting vested interests tied to the likes of Shorten and Gillard. Instead it was very late, from 2007 to 2013, and Murdoch got Abbott back in easily. Now we have stifled FOI, cider house rules for the politicians like Canavan and big business FTAs and wage theft and a surveillance state that will eventually kill whatever belated resistance may occur shortly when the 1984 farmhouse live stock finally wake to what they were robbed of even although most seem clueless already.
If Labor wants to remember how to win it can go back to its win over John Hewson in 1992 through forthrightness, reason and unity.
Jack, I think Trump’s going to use the Kentucky situation as a template for 2020 in case he loses the election.
oh, I don’t know
I would have though the MSM unwillingness to discuss any Labour policy without putting a conservative spin on it,
The MSM denegration of the “Unpopular” Bill Shorten, or showing anything but a Electricity” Bill soundbite, edited to put a negative spin on it.
Or how about Palmer and Hanson drawing votes away from Labor and preferencing LibNats
Or the Lies, said by LibNats and propagated by the MSM. Death Tax anyone??, Franking Rort lies!
FIX THE MEDIA OWNERSHIP LAWS.
we are being fed BS by the MSM.
“FIX THE MEDIA OWNERSHIP LAWS.”
Who is going to do that, blair?
I too am fed up with Mr Carli’s often incoherent venom.
Labor deserted decency by its stance on off shore prison camps for desperate people fleeing death and persecution, often because of wars the US and UK instigated. Labor deserted common sense by pandering to overseas and national coal and gas interests. While the UK has banned fracking, Labor has sanctioned the potential criss – crossing of NT and Queensland with hundreds of toxic gas wells that are already, or are likely to, poison large areas, depriving people, animals and trees of clean water, this in the middle of an impending, largely anthropogenic planetary catastrophe.
We all know know how control of the media by corrupt interests wins elections. I am reading a book, ‘Epitaph for Europe’, author Paul Tabori, London 1943. This relates a chance encounter (1939) with a fat old man in Germany, who asks whether Londoners are still murdering Jews every Saturday in the East End. The author suspects that his informant has been reading the Voelkische Beobachter.
And so c 80 years on I am told after the federal election that Labor was intent on abolishing Medicare. And so I am told that Aborigenes are lazy, lying swindlers. And so Dutton says our refugees held in the camps/Africans are dangerous criminals. And so Theresa May lies that Brexit will ‘restore’ the UK’s control over immigration.
Orwell and other futuristic dystopians exaggerated only a little.
I believe we will see how much you can blame Bill Shorten when we see how the next ALP leader is rendered ‘unpopular’ by the MSM.
I have to agree. But those intelligent people are ill-informed by our media, which is owned by millionaire right-wing extremist One Percenters. Stupid us, for allowing that to happen. AJA journalist unions warned us 50 years ago this was a bad idea. We, and our corrupt political class, ignored them, and entered into corrupt deal after corrupt deal with Rupert Murdoch, Kerry Groves, the Herald and Weekly Times and the rest of the propaganda outfits. Australians’ intelligence is useless, if they imbibe the neo-liberal imperialist greed-head poison these entities pump out day and night. Australians are entering into a banker-miner-spook nightmare police-state banker’s tyranny.
They will have plenty years’ of repression, corruption economic melt-down, foreign wars, eclogical decline and infrastructure decay, to think about the ‘wisdom’ of putting all their hard-earned onto the ”escalator” of the Lib-banks’ real estate bubble. If things get bad enough we may be finally desperate enough to question why the British-directed decline of our nation is not a good argument for a republic, and for the rooting out and destruction of the insidious elements of the City of London within our society.
Amazed that so many people know that the MSM (including Murdoch) misled so many ‘others’ but deny any negative effect on themselves. How does that happen? Luck of the draw? A particular type of vaccination? Chosen ones?
That Queenslanders are so dumb yet they have a State Labor government while those from elsewhere are so bright but elect conservative State governments. Perhaps there’s other forces in play? Perhaps there’s confusion about what is co-incidental and what is causal?
Watching Albo at the Press Club and he simply doesn’t inspire. For Labor to win, it seems that the LNP will have to lose. (And that’s not beyond the bounds of possibility.)
Here are some of the key takeaways of Labor’s Review & when you read these it’s a wonder Labor didn’t lose by a large margin!!
“Labor went into the contest with no documented election strategy that had been discussed, contested and agreed across the campaign organisation, the leadership and the wider Labor party – and there was no body empowered to discuss and settle a campaign strategy or monitor its implementation.
Adding to the organisational debacles, the review says frank internal discussion was not encouraged. It says the campaign “lacked a culture and structure that encouraged dialogue and challenge, which led to the dismissal of warnings from within the party about the campaign’s direction”.
The review notes new spending policies were worked up on the hop, with policies “appear[ing] to have been decided by a combination of the leader and his office, a shadow expenditure review committee and an augmented leadership group” – and there was no overarching strategy to inform the messaging.
It says Labor’s national secretary seemed to have been taken by surprise by the number and size of the policy offerings that were announced during the campaign, and there was no campaign committee.
“Unsurprisingly, the Labor campaign lacked focus, wandering from topic to topic without a clear purpose,” the review notes.
It says the spending announcements, totalling more than $100bn, drove the unpopular tax policies and exposed Labor to a Coalition attack “that fuelled anxieties among insecure, low-income couples in outer-urban and regional Australia that Labor would crash the economy and risk their jobs”.
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2019/nov/07/labor-election-review-strategy-adaptability-bill-shorten-defeat
I’ve deleted both Roswell’s and Joe’s comment. I DON’T WANT that rubbish here. It stops NOW.
Stephen Fry:
“It’s the catastrophic failure of the Left.”
Hear, hear, George…It is time to stop fluttering ourselves with those airy fans and time to start swinging the baseball bats!
Stephen Fry said “If you have a point of view, fight it in the proper manner using democracy as it should be”. I heard NOTHING about swinging baseball bats.
What good does that navel-gazing and backward-looking do, folks? The election is past and we are here today. The LNP offer never-ending material for attack with its corruption, lying and downright nastiness, SO WHERE IS THE OPPOSITION ? Still afraid to be wedged (again)? If this mob does not grow a pair in short order, Australia will be stuffed and Fascism will we irreversible. Do you want to live under that yoke?
From a lifetime of voting Labor, Albo’s Liberal Party is doomed to the wilderness for the foreseeable future. I agree Keith that it’s primarily the people, however, Labor, since Hawke-Keating’s unrestrained embrace of neo-liberalism, has not prosecuted the debates, arguments and the narratives to win hearts and minds instead ducked for cover in the cowardly small-target strategies and bipartisanship of all national security and foreign policy. It’s been hammered by Murdoch’s MSM for 40 years and in that time, whilst in government, it never tried to dismantle Murdoch’s strangle-hold on Australia’s media, always playing lap dog, and instead of developing an alternative media, and compelling and far-reaching online/streaming presence.
Consider this… we’ve been hearing for decades how the traditional print MSM has lost circulation, sacked massive amounts of journalists, and is rapidly becoming irrelevant in the internet age. Yet, we’re also constantly told that it’s Murdoch who brainwashes the masses, the shock jocks stir up faux rage against the dole bludgers and welfare recipients, while the ABC and every other civic institution has been thoroughly white-anted by LNP apparachtiks.
If I submit an article on any given subject matter I generally stay out of making any further comment on what I have written … I figure that I have had my say and that the floor is now opened up for others to express their own opinions/knowledge on whatever the subject matter may have happened to be … that way I, and others, are exposed to different thought-lines, different ways of seeing, and sometimes the exposure is to determined opposition to whatever point of view was expressed in the article.
All of that is good, it is a learning experience, agreeance is fine and so is reasoned disagreeance, and it is one of the strengths of AIMN in my opinion that such variety of opinion is welcomed.
However, it is sad to see personal attacks appearing now and then. They detract from a reasoned debate, and they cause a sinking feeling in the heart. When the moderators have to step in and clear out harmful commentary we all lose out: the writer loses out, the readers who are the soul and guts of AIMN lose out, the other people who have taken the time and supplied a reasoned/heartfelt opinion on the piece (whether for, against, or neutral) lose out, and the very platform itself, the AIMN loses out.
We have such a wonderful independent platform in AIMN. It allows us to express opinion, contrary opinion, political opinion, comedic opinion, satirical opinion, opinion on matters such as social justice, science, environment etc. It is independent of the MSM. It has great value in the contemporary media landscape.
We all need to dive in and play our part in nurturing it, and protecting it.
A truly noble sentiment, Keith…and on the equal to those old firework instructions of : “Light blue-touch paper then stand clear”….In the days of “letter to the editor” or an invitation to write a short commentary for such and such a publication, the privilege of playing the Pontius Pilate in publishing was a reality…but in these days of social media where instantious mis-interpretation and slighting of author or fellow poster is but a click away, one has to ask..; Is there such a thing anymore as “the innocent by-stander”?…Having chucked a Molotov into the building, can one just assume an outward oblviousness to the flames one has wrought?
I don’t think so…anyway…I certainly like to cross- swords with my detractors…Why take the fun out of it?
I’m sure social media thrives more on the flames of discontent and rivalry than bland opinion.
Joseph,
I have absolutely no issue with disagreeing about opinions, for example John Setka’s approach. My problem arises when, instead of discussing the comment, you attack the person making the comment. It’s not “fun”. It’s a bore.
AGAIN with the provocation, Kay Lee??…I was adressing Keith…and here you go sticking your oar in…if it’s not Trish or some other poor commentator..it’s myself…can you not control yourself?………please!
Are you for real?
Hi Keith I think your writing is great,very incite-full and interesting.Keep it up mate.
I look at the demographics of groups who were associated with a swing against Labor.
When I spoke to a young tradie, a friend’s son, who lives in the western suburbs of Sydney, he told me he voted Liberal because they were better economic managers and then berated his mother for putting him on the spot by bringing it up. He works really hard. he doesn’t care about politics. He was repeating something he had heard.
(Some) Christians were still smarting from the loss of the marriage equality debate and scared about the Safe Schools propaganda campaign and very confronted by gender fluidity. Scott Morrison took the cameras into church (he really should read up on Matthew 6), he abstained from the marriage equality vote in his typical “my hands are clean” way, he has blamed schools for some form of gender coaching or something (can’t be stuffed looking it up).
Coal-mining communities are justifiably concerned and deserve a real plan for their future – which isn’t coal.
Chinese tend to be conservative, respectful of authority, and wealth-oriented.
Queenslanders? Still don’t understand that result.
Re the Review by Jay Weatherill and Craig Emerson of the last election and the (overstated) disappointing result for Labor. Will be interesting to see Albanese’s future policy platform – what he keeps and what he rejects for the next election in the light of that Review. While Weatherill and Emerson make many claims (including some that contradict Shorten’s analysis), no hard (mathematical) evidence is anywhere to be found. (Or have I missed that bit?)
I entertain the thought that Emerson is forever trying to settle some political scores for some slights (both real and imagined) from the past and might be taking this once in a lifetime opportunity to get square. Time will tell.
FMD.
How can the person who said this …
… then blame someone else for (what was in their opinion) “provocation” (which it clearly was not)?
Who was that Ros? Also what is the acronym?
This is people crossing swords for fun;
Oh!…I can help you with that, Miriam…The quite was from Spartacus, I believe and the acronym ; FMD = “Forever My Dear”….it is a term of endearment much used in American politics………I believe… 🙂
Miriam,
ffs = for feck’s sake.
FMD = FECK ME DEAD.
RAOTFLMAO = rolling around on the floor laughing my arse off.
The AIMN is not only a forum for expression of political opinion, it is also a medium for informational exchange.
Thank you Corvus and Joseph silly me.
I think these discussions are important. (I mean Keith’s article, not the never-ending squabble between me and Joe)
Let’s get back to the topic. I will try harder not to be a red rag.
Dear Joseph I feel young Kaye is strangely attracted to you. Opposites attract.
I think Miriam is what we on blogs refer to as a “sock puppet”.
Generally they are an identity whose prime purpose is to stir up trouble. And generally they are a person who comments here under a number of different personas.
Ah..Miriam..modesty forbids confiding and distance obstructs what I am sure could be the start of a beeeutiful relationship….so alas…it could all end bad..
Loss.
Into the fire she did cast,
Letter by letter until the last.
Her stern face, flame-lit aglow,
No pity nor sentiment did it show.
No regret, nor heartfelt loss,
As letter by letter she did toss.
Until the last in hesitant hold,
One short sentence writ in bold,
One final line that caught her eye,
And though the rest she did despise,
That one broken promise with love’s death,
Gave pause for memory’s catch of breath,
Forgotten above this, all the rest;
“Forever, my love, my pledge, to you,
I do bequeath”.
FFS….am I now to be told to whom I am attracted? Let’s make this clear. I am not on the internet to flirt, I am married to a wonderful man with whom I argue all the time too – he is way more interesting, informative, challenging, than this BS. I don’t need to come on here for my jollies. Geeze Louise…time to leave for me. This is getting creepy.
Joseph Carli, you are one comment away from being blocked.
KL re your comment:
Much (very superficial) comment on this site and elsewhere but the Review by Emerson et al digs a little bit deeper. Citing Ben Phillips (2019):
While not surprised with that conclusion, one wonders why those demographic indicators weren’t discussed in more detail. Yes Queensland is different. Variables – including the lack of educational provision beginning in the post WW 2 era, courtesy of Labor – but for understandable reasons. Demographics – including it having the most decentralised population of all the Australian States. Economic reliance on mining and its predicted (pessimistic) future (Note that Joel Fitzgibbon suffered a 14% swing against him in his mining electorate.) And so on.
Seems to me that any Review is only as good as the methodology employed and those who are empowered to giving meaning to (interpret) those methodological generated results. In short, Emerson has lots of political baggage. Yep there’s wheels within wheels.
Open-mouthed at the height, length, width, depth, magnitude, extension and cognitive and intellectual intensity of the last dozen comments…
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