May 18th Federal Election

[pietillidie]

[think positive]

[David]

[pietillidie]

^Unfortunately, under conditions of imaginary siege few of those things concern enough voters. The interests of the powerless and young people are easy prey when mindsets take a dark turn, as happens within families.

The best you can do for now is lean against the worst excesses until the tide turns generationally or the Darwinian game of self protection becomes obviously counterproductive. The fielding of a hopeless opposition choice in Shorten during a moment of social conservatism makes a modest loss a good result. This is even more the case when you think that virtually every election is fought against massive wealth interests, the defensive pensioned and privately-insured, the hate vote, and an ever-expanding fearful older vote. General social quality and future costs such as environmental destruction will never in a million years rate as significant to these groups.

The polls also aren't capturing the strength of the closet fear vote; unfortunately, this made Shorten look more plausible than the cardboard shell he is, fooling the ALP into backing him. (Or perhaps like the Glibs the ALP consists of nothing but cardboard cutouts mouthing talking points, so it doesn't matter who is chosen).

In any case, it is virtually impossible to sate the nagging sense of historical decline which is gripping the swing vote cohort, causing it to scapegoat easy targets and retreat to tribalism (fundamentalist Christianity, anachronistic rural sub-cultures, white nationalist groups, and 'Left is evil' Facebook culture warriors are good examples of this). Social media then makes people's heads explode with fear and rage, motivating these groups to get out and vote.

The fact is that some people are reacting to the disorientation of rapid world change in this way, and I doubt they will make peace with reality for a long while yet.

The future will clearly read that there was massive denial dealing not with immigration, which will be viewed as a pre-requisite for future social and political capacity in a brown world, but with productivity, the wealth gap as a marker of social access, the quality of jobs and work, the environment (including urban environments), the protection of the vulnerable as a test of commitment to stable moral principles, and the thankless task of encouraging developing countries towards success, thereby underwriting peace and prosperity to come.

Fortunately, a good swathe of younger people get this intuitively, so assuming cities rather than rural communes keep expanding, you would hope it's only a matter of time before these things bite at elections.

[ronrat]

What gets me is how health, education and safety issues become entangled in federal politics when essentially they are state matters although the Federal government sets some agendas and funding. External issues such as immigration, Defence, foreign aid and policy, and economic direction (eg exchange rates) are federal issues that get ignored. The federal pollies even get involved with local public transport issues. The Australian voting public is getting treated like mugs.

You can have all your politically correct Q and A panels and whatever but every 20 something twitterer has 4 grandparents and 2 parents who are saying we want a return on our investment. We don't care about things that don't effect us because we are living in a caravan in Hervey bay or about to retire in 5 years time and not interested in spending 20000 dollars putting in solar panels and things like taht tat will take 30 years to get our money back.

My folks are pensioners living in the wide bay electorate and were convinced by the state labor government to put solar panlels on their house. a year after doing it the power company said they would stop giving
rebates for power going into the grid and the government agreed contract allows them to do so. They must however still continue to feed into the system. They now pay water rates despite being on tank water because of the state government enforced council amalgamations. The grey water rebate scheme was unfunded so nobody got paid . They feel betrayed and given the amount of retirees stretching along the Qld coast it is no surprise what happened. Who do think they are going to trust. The state ALP has cost the federal ALP victory. The Adani mine thing was just seen as another "Eff you rural Queensland, we don't care".

[Wokko]

And still the left are here sneering down their noses at those with different views and life experiences. You lot never learn.

[stui magpie]

[Pies4shaw]

I don't get why people care either way. ALP v LNP is a like a Carlton v Richmond Grand Final. You'd like the earth to swallow them both up just before half time. The only things that really matter about this process from the last few months are that:

- Abbott is gone
- Anning is gone
- Dutton isn't PM
- Shorten is gone.

These are all great victories for decent people.

[Morrigu]

[David]

Senate predictions:

17–19 Coalition (most likely 19)
13–15 Labor (most likely 13)
6 Greens
1 Jacqui Lambie
1 One Nation

Still an outside chance of Hinch winning in Victoria, but otherwise we’ve lost a lot of the right-wing eccentrics on the upper house crossbench. In the worst case scenario above, Coalition will have 35 senators and need four out of Cory Bernardi, One Nation x2, Jacqui Lambie and Xenophon group x2 to pass legislation. Expect Lambie and the Centre Alliance pair in particular to give them hell.

Otherwise, Libs will probably have a slight majority in the house, with either 76 or 77 seats. 75 means they’re dependent on Katter to pass legislation, and 74 means they also need one of the more ‘centrist’ independents onboard.

[partypie]

[roar]

[Pies4shaw]

[Pies4shaw]

[David]

I concede that “rort” is probably the wrong word here – I certainly agree that there’s no point pinning the blame on people trying to do the best they can in the conditions they’ve been given (and that wasn’t my intention)! My issue with it is that it’s effectively free money (through under taxation) for people who don’t need it, in turn putting housing out of reach for people who do. Obviously I don’t expect property investors to be happy about such a policy, and I’m not saying for a minute that they should be demonised, but I equally don’t feel the need to pander to them. It’s the same problem with pretty much any progressive economic policy, really – the rich always stand a chance of becoming a little less so.