Middle Road

[Aliantha]

So, yesterday Australians went to the polls in a federal election.

Today, we're facing the likely possibility of a hung parliament which is where neither side has a majority with which to form a government.

We are a divided nation.

[ZenGum]

No, no, we just have electile dysfunction.

Current count is Liberal/national coalition: 73

Labor: 72

Green, strongly favours labor: 1

Other independents: 4

What happens next is unlikely to be dignified.

I've whinged about this already in the upsetting you thread.

[casimendocina]

Originally Posted by ZenGum

What happens next is unlikely to be dignified.

Ali and Zen would have seen/heard this already, but for anyone outside of Australia reading this thread, all video footage from late last night shows Tony Abbott (and all the major current and ex-Liberals-Malcolm Turnbull, John Howard) being very, very cocky.

[TheMercenary]

Originally Posted by ZenGum

What happens next is unlikely to be dignified.

Now ur just like Americans. (not really)

[casimendocina]

I was really sorry to see that Maxine McKew lost her seat of Bennelong. Having said that though, she is still a champion for taking John Howard's seat off him in the last election. Wonder if Lateline will take her back.

[casimendocina]

And while we're here...very, very disappointed to see that Christopher Pyne won his seat by 7.5% at the last figures I saw. In previous years (before overseas and interstate soujourns), I was registered in his electorate. Given that how long I'll be living where isn't overly certain at the moment, I haven't changed my address on the electoral rolls and was hoping to use my vote against him. Found out about a week before the election though that the electoral boundaries have changed and my address is now in another electorate so DAMN!, DAMN! DAMN! wasn't able to put my vote to good use in the House of Reps.

Am sitting here watching the political commentators and one of them ventured this opinion:

"Although Tony Abbott is a mixed character, he is a certain character." .... (as referred to the "what's mildly upsetting you today" thread), my response to this would be "what? a certain wanker?"

[Aliantha]

I'll be praying like hell the LNP doesn't snatch power. Either way, I think whoever gets the nod will be stymied anyway, so my prediction is we'll be back to the polls within 6 months, if not sooner.

[Sundae]

Was on the phone talking to my Unclue Jim about this on Friday.
They were all going to vote green, because they felt that the best result for the country would be some sort of power sharing option - like the uneasy truce we have at pleasant.

I gave him my opinion of exactly how that was working out (some pretty hardline Tory policies coming through - for example drug treatment programmes having to hit targets or their funding cut - like that'll incentivise the addicts!) He was a little insulted that we've had NO coverage here. NONE. I've sought it out online, but I can't remember a single article in the newspapers until after the event. Of course we don't get a serious paper here, but you should see the coverage French and American politics get. Front page news. Pakistan and Indian news too. Poor old Aus, down there at the bottom of the world.

Well, I was interested anyway.

[casimendocina]

Check this out.

http://www.sbs.com.au/vote2010/

[spudcon]

Here in Merica, we're being told we should all be middle of the road, and not be partisan. I've disagreed, since most things in the middle of the road are road kill. I'm glad to see Australians understand the threat apathy brings.

[Griff]

[ridiculous response] True, the partisans do appear willing to kill us middle of the roaders, but we can still hope for a pluralistic society. I just got done reading Bloody Mohawk, central NewYork/Northern PA are only about 200 years removed from the kill your neighbor to get his stuff mindset so your guys can still win. Keep limiting the 1st Amendment to white Christians and we'll be swimming in blood soon enough.[to ridiculous comment]

[xoxoxoBruce]

ridiculous response

I wish it were.

[Aliantha]

I don't think it's apathy that has brought us to this although as with every other country in the world, plenty of people have no interest in politics or their rights with regard to it.

I think the problem is that both major parties are closer to the centre (on the surface) than they'd have us believe, coupled with negative smear campaigns which cause those unwilling or ill equiped to do their own research and inform themselves feel they are all just as bad as each other (which is true anyway) so they cast informal (donkey) votes or just tick any box. Law of averages says there's going to be a pretty equal spread of votes if that's the case.

You can read the indepth analysis if you want to on any Aus news site, and there were some major issues in the mix which seem to have no well developed policy from either side.

I guess if Australians were more actively involved in politics, we might have descended into anarchy by now.

[ZenGum]

Australian politics is actually quite interesting now. I would never have expected it.

The house of reps, where government is formed, has 151 members, so 76 is a majority.
We have Labor with prob.72 seats.
The Liberal/National coalition with prob 72 or 73.
One Green who has announced preference for Labor.
Four independents:
One right wing country bloke who left the Nationals because they were too much into economic rationalism, and who wears a really big hat.
One centrist country bloke who left the Nationals because they were not socially progressive enough, and supports boat people/refugees.
One former National who left when they de-selected him for no apparent reason, and took the seat off their new candidate.

These three are policy-wise more inclined to the Liberal / National coalition, but not in all cases, and political-interest wise, are bitter enemies of the Nationals, who are in coalition with the Liberals.

And one left-independent, former labor-member, former greens member, former military, but new to parliament, and calling for immediate support for the logging industry.

Either major party will need the support of at least three of these four to form a government.

Meanwhile, in the upper house, the balance of power will be held by the greens (who prefer labor) but not until new senators take their seats in the middle of next year. (I don't get the delay, but never mind). Until then a Family First (i.e. religious interest party) senator says he will block all bills from a Labor government.

In this context the four independents (mostly the three ex-nationals) are behaving brilliantly; calm, reasonable, politely asking the two major parties to summarise their policies, have them properly costed by treasury, and give reasons why they should be next government. They're actually asking the questions that the major parties avoided during the campaign.

The election was, mostly by chance, a very accurate expression of our political feelings. We didn't like Gillard, we didn't like Abbot, we refuse to elect either of them. Now a few genuine representatives are grilling them for the answers they should have provided before. Brilliant.

[Griff]

OMG! A functional democracy!