WA Voters: Disrupt the Disruption. Let’s Blow This Shit Up!
WA voters! Lend me your ears! Ask yourself this: “Do I want to be a disruptor? OR Do I want to disrupt the disruption?” You are in a game. Today, you need to decide which role you play.
It Is Just A Game
There is absolutely no doubt we are in the middle of a game. A game fuelled on by the media and populist politics. A game played to see just how many people don’t really care about politics. They are asking you today when you vote (and the media are testing you on this) “How much do you actually care about Western Australia?”
The media have played this game for a while now. It’s a fun game for the media. Because this game fuels suspicion and a divide amongst us all. It sees politicians scrambling. This agenda is a game to see how the politicians respond to this disruption. For those who feel like a star and are “having your voice heard for the first time.” Well in this game you are the pawn, not the King.
Why this is a game of disruption is that forever there has only been two sides to choosing our votes in this country and it is the way it will always be. The Liberal/National Conservative anti-worker parties versus the Laborist Pro work at parties. Work or the inability to work for whatever reason is central to everything we do.
The struggle between these two sides is endless. How much power and autonomy do the conservatives try to take from the workers, the disadvantaged and the poor? What will the worker parties do to protect this? The fight is real. This fight against conservatism can be captured in three spheres: welfare, workers and unionism and protest groups.
Other minor parties and independents have always served as one issue parties such as environmentalism, animal justice, gun lobbyists, farming and agriculture or LGBTIQ rights as examples.
The Party of Disruption
Pauline Hanson’s One Nation party are not true Conservatives. For example, her economic adviser is a totally free market, user pays libertarian. It is very clear after voting for the ABCC, supporting cuts to penalty rates and being very anti-union, the Pauline Hanson One Nation party is indeed an anti-worker party. The are certainly not a pro-worker party.
In saying this, Pauline Hanson does not lead a single-issue party either. The One Nation party is simply set by an agenda of disruption. To disrupt everything. The good and the bad. They have not thought about how to deal with the ramifications of this.
Both major parties need to take into account all of the single issues the other minor parties advocate for. For example, they respond to environmentalism in a conservative or a progressive way. The extreme of conservatism or progressiveness may differ depending upon the issue.
Pauline Hanson’s agenda is to disrupt every single minor or major issue and to hell with the outcome. To hell with society and to hell with the people of Western Australia. The main objective for Pauline Hanson is power.
Her candidates who have left the party are consistent on this. Pauline is about power for Pauline. Being from Queensland, and following her since the 1990’s when she turned on Indigenous people in my community; hand on my heart, this is very, very true.
Harming Society. Harming Our People.
The media has actively fuelled this on. They have fuelled on what they label as the ‘Pauline Hanson Phenomenon.” This insinuates, Hanson’s appeal is more widespread than it is, and to give it a cool sounding edge – that it is acceptable to participate in.
However, the media know full well that massive disruption in our economy, in business, for our workers, in the community sector, and in a public services could really truly harm our society and our people irreversibly.
They are actively encouraging voters classed as disruptors to see if this game could become a reality. A real life of real chaos for four years ahead of voters with no rhyme nor reason.
But why? Why would the media do this? What is in for the media is that this generates a lot of stories and a lot of advertising revenue, which equals a lot of profit for them.
The Minor Parties Are Pushed Aside
Pauline Hanson is disruption personified and everyone who votes for Hanson is considered a disruptor. An army of disruptors. Like the KISS Army, but way, way, way less cool.
At the moment, the media wants you to believe this is cool. However, after buying it and after unpacking it at home, you will soon release it is just a piece of junk. Just like all the adverts in their magazines and newspapers, they position words, meaning and symbols to present what they want you to think is cool. Their game is not fairness and full representation of all voices in politics. It is not democracy. It is sales.
Don’t believe me? Major parties aside: ask yourself this, how many minor parties are there and how many minor parties have been in the spotlight this election?
That’s right! Just one party. The Pauline Hanson One Nation party.
Who Doesn’t Give A Stuff?
What the media is really pushing when they are pushing you to be this ‘disruptive voter’ is how many voters don’t really care about themselves, their family, friends, the community, their state, and their country? How many people will show they don’t give a stuff about Western Australia, by giving disruption their number one vote. How will this disrupt Federal Politics and Queensland Politics and how many stories are there in this!
In a nutshell the media is asking voters in Western Australia today how much of your state are you prepared to blow up?
You Need To Blow This Shit Up!
To be a disruptor you need to disrupt the media and the populist politics it has embraced. You need to blow this shit up! Don’t blow up Western Australia. You need to choose the alternative, because the media wants this disruption that Hanson brings to become cool. It sells their papers and their advertising. If simply being a minor party was the best for change, they would be shoving the Greens down your throats.
This is vitally important. It is you who needs to live in the aftermath of this this disruption. The media, just like me, will bang on the keyboards long after your decisions today, regardless of the outcome.
Think of it as when alternative music becomes mainstream and it simply isn’t cool anymore. We have all been there. Anarchy in the UK and punk hair became tiresome after a while and we turned to pop synth, Karma Chameleon, ragged clothes and boots (OMG I miss my boots soooo much!).
Today Become a True Disruptor
To be a real disruptor on voting day, you actually need to vote to disrupt the disruption. You need to choose to disrupt the media and disrupt the populist politics of Hanson. Because simply, it is not cool anymore. Don’t give them what they want! You need to blow this shit up! Today!
The only way this can be achieved is very simple. Ask yourself, do you choose the side of the anti-worker Conservative parties or do you choose the side of the pro worker Laborist parties?
Subsets of the major Liberal Conservative parties or the Laborist Workers parties are found in either conservative or progressive minor single-issue parties. The key is if you do choose these minor parties first, where do you put your preferences for the major party? Who do you preference to Govern from the major parties? Because one of the major parties will govern after today. That is a fact.
Regardless of whether you achieve this by first preference vote, or via preferences, at the end of today, Colin Barnett’s Liberals or Mark McGowan’s Labor will Govern Western Australia.
The only party that should be last on your ticket is the disruption party and that is the Pauline Hanson One Nation party. Don’t let this fly-in blow up your state. She lives in Queensland and doesn’t give a stuff about us either!
Best of luck with your decisions today and from all the way over here in Central Queensland I wish your state of Western Australia all the best for the next four years.
Originally Published on The Red Window Blog
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Return to home pageTrish
I found one line interesting
““How much do you actually care about Western Australia?”
And from online publications over the past few weeks I’d say they couldn’t care less.
To be honest I’m Trumped out, something Aussies can’t do a thing about and at guess the bulk of Americans couldn’t care less what we thought of Trump or even if most couldn’t find OZ on a map.
We have the W.A. election and if you were dependent on online “progressive” publications for a run up you’d be sadly disappointed
I guess it gets down to priorities :-{
I must say it has been very different to the last QLD election to oust Newman. I couldn’t let today go by without adding my voice to it.
Said it all for me when they were interviewing voters and one woman said “I’ll be voting for Pauline” and when asked why said “I’d rather not say”…
I posted this on another article but this seems a better spot
with an addition
The polling figures I saw last night make it a bit closer
Pauline Hanson has high hopes of getting five One Nation MPs into the WA parliament.
She has high hopes of winning the lower house seats of Kalgoorlie and Pilbara which is held by Nationals leader Brendon Grylls, as well three upper house seats.
Derryn Hinchs staffer “preference whisperer” Glenn Druery has been a busy little lad in W.A. with the minor Parties and it seems uncertain what parties like JULIE MATHESON for WESTERN AUSTRALIA Party which has 30 candidates will play and the fact there are 700 candidates from 16 parties things might not be all that open and shut for Labor.
In the past week Mark McGowans ratings have slumped a bit while Colin Barnetts have continued to improve
Should be interesting
correction, she is running 32 candidates and has this to say on preferencing
The Julie Matheson for Western Australia Party called a meeting with all “micro parties” on Sunday 5 February to see if we could come to an arrangement to give our preference votes to each other should the other party not receive enough votes.
So it was agreed to on Friday 10 February that these parties gave their “word” to preference each other:
Julie Matheson for Western Australia Party
Australian Christians
Daylight Savings
Family First
Fluoride Free
Flux
Liberal Democrats
Micro Business
Pretty surprising really, a Party with 32 candidates and I’d read NOTHING on them
Yes, very much stood out for me. Every election we see at least the Greens or some minor party minor issue that is a hot topic at the moment. The media have been focusing on One Nation, because this will generate a lot of stories, a lot of advertising and a lot of media IF they do make headway for QLD election and Federally from tomorrow. They will be riding and pushing federal politics for them to move further to the right and watch them struggle with trying to remain in the centre right or centre left. it is a sick game and I’m over it.
Excellent article Trish. I believe that a lot of former Hanson supporters are abandoning ship. They have realised that the only agenda she has is to get herself into a position of power & to do that she toadies to the LNP and that has been her downfall. If only more people realised this she would just fade away into the mist never to be seen or heard of again. I know this because one of my sisters and some of her friends were ardent ON supporters but she shot herself in the foot with her support of LNP bills and they have turned against her. I think that a lot of them though that she was going to save them from everything that she had taught them to fear but she has shown herself to be nothing but a hollow self centered twit. the fact that so many of her people have left her shows that & her narcissism knows no bounds. It has to be PAULINE all the way.
The people of WA have the right to make their own choices and this has been a long-standing grievance. These days, reporters and journalists comment on the views of each other. Perhaps we need a confederacy rather than the so-called common wealth. That will never happen but I’m sick and tired of the resources of this country being sold at bargain basement prices while Australians are finding fuel and heating reserves are exported. Don’t bite Hanson as it provides combustible material for her. We now have a rather angry electorate out there and I suspect no-one has any answers for the crisis to come. It’s time to look after our own people first for a change. The lack of vision is appalling.
Hi Chris. Your main thought in your post is not clear to me. Are you suggesting Hanson is the answer and why? If not what are you suggesting?
I don’t know what will give me the greater satisfaction. Seeing Barnett rolled, or seeing the bubble burst on One Nation.
Both are going to cause some rumblings in Canberra.
I have two bottles of champagne- one for each ?
Comments from outside the polling stations
It seems it’s a good thing the election day sausage sanger is popular
not much else is
At Canning Vale Primary School there was a lot of last minute decision making going on.
“I still don’t know who I’m voting for. I just haven’t had time to think about it.”
“Honestly, there’s too many options.”
“I’ll decide when I walk in and have a good look at the paper.”
“I wasn’t even planning on voting. I feel like it’s kind of pointless. If major changes were going to be addressed they would have been way more emphasised in the media. I haven’t been told much about anything even with watching TV and listening to the radio everyday.”
Perth: Gary Flatt had been a Labor voter all his life, just like his train driver dad. Then John Howard came along.
“He was probably the greatest PM we ever had,” says Flatt, a power station operations technician from Collie, a mining town of 7000 people two hours’ drive south of Perth. “He was a strong leader.”Instead he’ll be voting for Pauline Hanson’s One Nation: “She’s a force to be reckoned with now.”
Is this as it is reported by the media, or as reported by booth captains?
Just posted by Perth Now. Pauline says it is obvious voting for her is down due to confusion with preference deal. Many voters not taking her HTV cards show many voters have already made up their mind. An early turn out at the voting booths shows that there is a strong swing against the Government. Has Pauline ever actually worked a booth?
But Trish can we blow other shit up too?
W.A. residents ,be concerned :-{
Your future is in the hands of voters like this
“Mr Maguire later told The Australian he was “a bit of a swinging voter” and had been a Liberal voter but was contemplating voting Labor this time. He was in line and about 10 minutes from the front of the queue when he said he might vote One Nation instead, now that Senator
Hanson had explained how to avoid directing preferences to the Liberals.
“But who knows I might run into a Greens volunteer further up the line – that would really throw me,” he said.”
They exist at every election though. As I said the other day to someone. I’ve always wondered what people who draw rude pictures on voting slips think and now I do.
Gary was featured in the SMH today. Gary’s a bikie who is reported as saying: ‘moslems should fit in or f..k off!’ Just like he does. Maybe hes trying to recruit for his bikie group.
A liberal party member said of One nation to have “become more sophisticated” these days, most likely because Hanson has learn’t to take bribes.
As a sometime West Aussie I agree with everything you wrote Atrish. I can’t vote there but if I could I would put PHON stone cold last. The few policies she has — ban the Burqua, stop mosques, hate Muslims — are just hardline versions of the LNP policies. She has nothing el se to offer, and by her support if LNP on the ABCC and penalty rates, shows she is no friend of workers and no friend of pensioners either. I am saddened by those who say they support her because she is strong. She is a self-serving egomaniac, a bully and as thick as two short planks.
Trish Corry
As to Booth Captains, I’m waiting for reports to come in from Lenora in the goldfields {Peaceful, riots nothing will surprise}
Booth Captain Bighead 1883 will keep a tight rein 😀
Thx Nurse
Thank you Trish … your article hits nail on head !
W.A. election is simply an example of the provocation fostered by the msm to provide CHAOS ! … behind which screen the current Federal Government stoically adheres to script ! Behind all the din and smoke, the likes of Medicare is being chipped away , and vital privileges are being white anted ….. need I mention the Centrelink word ?
Even with a change of Government federally, it would take a long time ( particularly in the current media environment ) to restore equity in just the above mentioned ….. were the Aus. electorate to bring forth an e.g. Labor majority Government,.
From a Party perspective, it would require some particularly ‘bold’ policy moves to out manoeuvre the neocon ‘environment’ … set Aus. politics right on it,s head!
It would be fair to say the electorate (despite it’s wide ranging views from apathy to partisanship) …. probably has a clear understanding of $ $ MONEY $ $ . even when expressed simply as $$. The top end of town certainly understands the former whilst, the rest of our community will understand, in gradients to the single $ !
So ‘ Dollars ‘ is a common denominator Electorally ! Were the Labor Party to rejig to the extent that it presented as a united front (another ‘common denominator’ ) absent of left,right,centre,etc. which invite serious exploitation by neocon media …. and …..
Pledged to remove $ $ MONEY $ $ from Aus. Politics, it would simply need to convince the electorate that ( with a clear majority) it would deliver !
Bold move !?! …. How much MONEY is spent on advertising at elections ? ….. how much Reality is distorted by advertising ? …( It was Edward Bernays’ birthday recently … he would be chuckling in his grave! ) …. Mr.Bill Shorten has started on the Town Hall Meeting track, so I think he probably has ‘feel’ for the ‘ rejig ‘ !
With respect, could we live without all those t v ads ( I ceased reading newspapers long ago )…. Would it really be impossible for local politicians to conduct Local Meetings as a means of being ‘in touch’ and expound policy? … Could such an agenda offer the Public an opportunity to feel involved?
Even Government Ministers are ‘ Local Politicians ‘ so it would be incumbent upon them to ‘ fit the mould ‘ … good fun ? Positive action ?
Might even reduce/ remove the ‘ need’ for o/seas trips – to ‘borrow’ ideas from there…. modern technology to the rescue ?… is there really a need to press the flesh and eat together ? so as to gain understanding every time ?.
All of the above used to happen not all that long ago ! Before we were conned by the Media – Money & Vested interests !!
In this Trumpish era of difference, would we have the courage and ability to create such a BIG BANG and become the Iceland of the Antipodes ? ! ….. Fair Dinkum Australians ? !
On the other hand …is removing $ $ MONEY $ $ from our Political System just too hard ? …. too simple ? …. TOO BRAVE ?
Maybe it is a bit like the late nineties, when Hanson ran amok, cutting a swathe through state tory governments before Howard and Abbott decide there was a problem and eventually knee capped her by less than gentlemanly means.
Did I REALLY read a comment about another blue collar and the “Howard was ok meme”? How can you hold out much hope when people have become this brainwashed?
Talk about “death of historical (cultural?) memory”!!
when i read phon a image of the real senatorial slime leaps forward.
loved the voter who hasn’t had time wow 8 years and 3 federal and 4 WA elections should have generated some conclusive thoughts.
the polls have just closed and the powerline has been switched off.
if not and labor loses then only slogans and controversy will help bill capture a share of the media.
Just watching it on telly.. a bit of a walloping, eh?
The best bit was the Hansonists not letting the ABC in to film their wake..not “approved media”, Bwwahaha,
The outer subs have rebelled.. Centrelink, Penalty rates?
So the Labor ‘dog’ has caught the Liberal ‘bus’ and even raced ahead. Congratulations here, there and everywhere. But ‘what now’? What new direction will Labor pursue?
Seems to me that Brendon Grylls was the only Leader to advance any worthwhile, ‘radical’ policy proposal. Grylls proposed hitting the big mining companies with a $5 per tonne iron ore tax – 20 times the current, laughable imposition of a mere 25 cents per tonne. He was belted from pillar to post because most of the increase would flow to the other States.. And it would have. Shock! Horror!
As we all know, the interests of multinational companies must always be advanced when compared to Australian citizens resident in other states.
Talk about limited, narrow thinking.
That went well.
The main reason for Labor’s win was the privatization of Western power. Now let’s see if Labor has the balls to bring it back into public hands.
But what will change? Anything of significance? Will the new Labor leader ‘discover’ that the finances in the State of WA are so bad that a new mining tax must be imposed? (Hope so.)
Advice: Do it soon! Wedge the Nats and the Libs with a new mining tax. And challenge the rest of the States to do exactly the same. (It’s not as though any company can take the mining sites elsewhere.) And if they decide to leave, (they will threaten), then wave them goodbye and invite other companies to take over the leases. Be brave! Provide leadership. Use your margin!
Bet they won’t.
Good article. Reminds me of the saying “subvert the dominant paradigm”. The outcome is Landslide to Labor. One Nation crashed and burned except for Pilbara seat. Media loves the we hold all the cards game. Always been that way. The difference is voting for workers or voting for the bosses. And yes these positions are hard to see at times, but in the land of Wait Awhile Labor in a Landslide burned up the disrupters in the media for a moment.
James Ashby refused to let the ABC into the One Nation election headquarters.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-03-11/abc-locked-out-of-one-nation-wa-election-function/8346374
Mr Tinckell also poured water on Mrs Dodd’s statements that One Nation is a “dictatorship” that lacked “integrity, honesty and transparency,”
“Absolutely not. The reason we have people speaking up and disagreeing with the leadership is because we allow people to speak up, it’s a free country,” he said.
“We would like people to always agree with the party leadership, and if they don’t they have the freedom to go off and become independent.”
http://www.watoday.com.au/wa-news/wa-election-2017/one-nation-accuse-wa-labor-of-buying-off-candidate-and-playing-dirty-20170311-guvzdy.html
Too funny. You can speak up, just not inside the party.
You got your wish Trish. Hate to be a wet blanket but now WA has to face up to the fact that they will have to put up with a great deal of pain before they see any improvement as will all of Australia when the L/NP government are finally voted out.
“You got your wish Trish.”
Most Labor supporters got their wish with the wipeout of Barnett and his motley crew.
It seems from a couple of comments above, If you are a PHON or a Green supporter and have absolutely nothing to celebrate from the election results you start the negatitity towards W,A. Labor
It would have been nice to at least let the count conclude at least but I assume not
Nurses1968, negatitity (sic) I’m not being negative towards Labor. I’m a staunch unionist and Labor voter and have been all my working life and on top of that I welcome the route of the Libs in WA and can’t wait for the same to happen to the mob in Canberra. There is going to be pain to sort out the mess the previous government have created but at least WA can see a glimmer of light at the end of the tunnel. The rest of us however will have to wait a bit longer.
In QLD LNP basically ruined QLD in one term. I thought it would have taken two terms to fix everything, but Labor has done a very good job. We are in surplus. We are not arresting people and chucking them in solitary confinement for sharing a beer together. Many front line jobs have now been restored and a lot of community organisation funding has also been restored. The Back to Work program has also worked really well. I would like to see a very focused plan about attracting alternative industry to the mining regions in regional QLD and a long transitional approach to phase out mining. A stronger focus on Indigenous Tourism. A decentralisation of the public sector with a long term transitional approach. After the Feds tried to take farming land for defence, laws to protect farming land from compulsory acquisition. Massive investment in mental health for young people and rural people. Massive investment in combating the drug ICE (which has now started). Decriminalisation of abortion. Development of regions as service sector/community sector hubs. and many more things – my list is long. Still so much more to do and we cannot afford for the regressive QLD LNP to get back in. Ever! and we must absolutely stamp out any notion that One Nation offers anything for QLD.
I also want to let everyone know that I dictated this blog post on my Iphone wordpress app. It was a different experience. So any other bloggers who haven’t tried it, have a go and let me know what you think. My experience was that dictating my blog post flowed very well and I didn’t lose my train of thought as much sitting in front of the computer, with other pop ups and notifications distracting my attention. Some of the things that translate from voice are quite funny though and I had to stop and edit a few times.
Some things I repeated by voice a number of times, but to no avail, it didn’t translate. One was “Laborist parties” kept being “Labor and all their parties” The other funny one was “Pauline Hanson” sometimes translated as “Pauline Handsome”. The coolest thing was, for me, if you say new paragraph and full stop – it does just that!
It was an enjoyable experience and I will definitely try it again.
It’s an amazing feature on the iPhone I too only recently discovered, which I use for emails and commenting here.
There is also a plugin for a searching for posts or comments on WordPress that is also voice activated. How good would that be?
Did you do this whilst driving?
No. Sitting outside with a cup of tea.
On the election are there any West Australians on here who can fill us in as to why the Greens did so badly
Five micro parties struck a deal that allowed them to form blocks to preference each other, which boosted their chances of winning.
I’m from central QLD are Greens barely Rate a mention here because they want to shut down all the mines, which will put a hell of a lot of people out of work. It is a shame because they have other policies and the candidates are all very nice people. WA is a huge mining and agriculture state. The Greens best chance is to start making inroads with Farmers. That is just my opinion. I have no idea if any official analysis.
Mick Byron,
For the lower house (legislative assembly) , the WA Greens seem to have done no worse and little better (+0.1%) than last time around, with around 8.5% of the primary vote (at 67% total ballots counted), and a projected total of 0 seats won..
http://www.abc.net.au/news/elections/wa-election-2017/results/
I have found no posting of any definite results for the upper house, but this usually takes much longer to count.
Legislative council
Party Current Predicted
WA Labor 11 14
Liberal Party 16 10
The Nationals 5 4
The Greens 2 3
One Nation 0 2
Shooters, Fishers, Farmers 2 2
Liberal Democrats 0 1
http://www.abc.net.au/news/elections/wa-election-2017/results/legislative-council/
Kaye Lee
I was aware of the micro party preference deals but I was more interested in the first preference vote.There seems to have been a total silence pre and post election from the Greens or from the Canberra Greens for that matter
Mick Byron, what do you mean by badly? The figures I’ve seen show they did around the same as last election.
Mike Byron,
It seems that the WA Greens lower house primary vote has risen by a minuscule increment, and current projections predict them gaining an extra seat in the upper house.
I have no information-based explanation for this slightly improved performance.
Möbius Ecko
What I mean by doing so badly was that there was a wipeout of both the Barnett Government and One Nation and the Greens failed to capitalise in the slightest.As the person above said they have risen by a minuscule increment in and election where swings were massive.
In an electoral atmosphere such as the one just experienced doing the same as last election would be considered a major fail.I asked the question as the eastern states didn’t get much coverage of the election at all and I thought there may have been a state based reason for the fail
Fair enough Mick. I wonder how the Greens have gone historically. Seems to me that WA has never been good to the Greens and it leans conservative.
Mic Byron (from ‘the person above’),
Do you seriously think that disgruntled Lib/Nats and disillusioned PHONys are going to leap a major ideological chasm and suddenly go Green?
It seems like many former-Libs went with Labor, enabling them to win big-time and achieve government outright. (congratulations).
Many potential PHONys probably went with a far-right micro-party protest vote instead, enabling the Lib-Dems to gain a seat through preference deals.
Meanwhile, the Greens somehow gained enough extra upper-house votes to win another seat (possibly due to the ‘scorching summer’ factor).
Möbius Ecko
Curiosity got the better of me so I went and had a look at past results
In the 2008 election the Greens gained almost 12% of the vote and gained 4 Upper House reps.
In 2013 the vote dropped to 8.40% -3.52 and they lost 2 Upper House reps
2017 and the Greens ran candidates in every seat and the Upper House a total of 71 Greens candidates
the current figures 8.5% +0.1%
An alarming figure if you are a Greens supporters is that currently 28+ Greens candidates have had a drop in vote from 2013 some not insignificant drops like Kimberley where the Green vote dropped 13.9%
Maybe a W.A. Green could shed some light on this?
The key issues in WA were the economy, jobs, stopping sale of electricity assets and infrastructure. None of these are things the Greens capitalise on. No minor party could get a message out because the media was too focused on Hanson. The majors could barely get a message out. They didn’t even have Greens on the board yesterday, citing exit polls from Lib Lab and PHON.
The WA platform was: 100 Percent renewables, abolish uranium mining, increase public transport, increase land tax and decriminalise personal possession of drugs. I’d say on that basis with the key issues in WA the Greens attracted the party faithful and those in the senate who see voting Greens as keeping Labor honest.
Perhaps?
As reported. They were the key issues as reported.
“As reported. They were the key issues as reported.”
Every election the frigging MSM does this, even when the election is years away. They attempt to steer the main issues and have already started on the next Federal election. I’ve lost count of the number of national and policy issues they have stated will be THE issue at the next Federal election.
They throw an issue out there as a headline and leading story and try to get as much traction for it as they can for as long as they can, and when it inevitably fades, they throw out another issue as THE one for the next election.
Annoyingly this ramps up as elections get closer and competing media outlets, even within the same organisation, have differing issues that are THE one. And to make it worse they all offer advice on what a government and opposition should do on THE issue, and that advice is always contradictory across the outlets.
I hate with a passion this side of the media’s political reporting.
Möbius Ecko
It seems Labor set its own agenda,not unlike the issues Ms Corry raised.
W.A. Labor did have a booklet 200 fresh ideas for W.A. as their policy platform
available here
https://www.markmcgowan.com.au/files/MarkMcGowanFreshIdeas.pdf
Labor normally sets its agenda through grassroots talking to people. Door knocking, telephone calls, town halls etc. the fact that Labor’s key issues were fairly much those reported by the media. Labor’s message in the past has been wrong on price on carbon (too soon, not enough explanation) and Gonski – not a key issue for the majority in every electorate.
corvus boreus
I am not a Greens voter but find the slide in support a bit unusual and to be honest quite intriguing.
There must be a reason for it in the deep West but no one seems to know or it seems,care
A question was raised as to the Greens historical vote in W.A.
It seems at some stage they were seen with some chance in inner city seats and Metro but that seems to have evaporated as well if the seat of Freemantle is an indication
“Greens’ candidate, Adele Carles, in the West Australian state seat of Fremantle with a primary vote of more than 44 per cent in the byelection”
http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/greens-profit-from-liberal-largesse-20090518-bcn5.html
In the current election the Greens vote in Fremantle has fallen away dramatically from 2009 now down to
18.1% -0.9% a continued fall from 2013 as well
I would be pleased if someone had some explanation as to the downward trend
That’s how it was in my electorate, Trish. Labor campaigned with their feet.
Mick Byron, there was a time when even John Howard agreed we needed an emissions trading scheme. The scientists had warned us of the dangers of climate change and we were acting.
Prime Minister John Howard announced on 4 June 2007 the government’s plan for a carbon trading scheme to be launched in 2012. Howard took the draft carbon trading scheme to the 2007 federal election.
People saw the Greens defence of the environment as important. Now we all know that climate change has been “grossly exaggerated” and we “don’t believe CO2 is causing it.” and those “scientists are just in it for the money”. And look how the carbon tax is driving up our power bills….oh wait, it’s renewables driving up our power bills….it has NOTHING to do with gas exports which are making the country (or at least a few shareholders) rich or the building of unnecessary infrastructure like polls and wires or three gas liquification plants at Gladstone.
I disagree Trish about it being too soon for a carbon price. It had to be done. Where the Labor Party fell down was their shameful abandonment of Julia Gillard.
Yes I door knock and my pre conceived ideas aren’t always right. You don’t know until you get around the neighbourhoods.
Kaye Lee
Not sure what to make of your response.Is that your answer to why the Greens 2017 are failing?
“People saw the Greens defence of the environment as important.” and they aren’t now,is that what you are insinuating?
I think it is a possibe contributing factor as is the economic uncertainty. The Greens have been painted as pro-environment and anti-jobs so action on the environment has been wrongly cast as detrimental to the economy.