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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tony_Abbot
Prepare to get dominated by bad Americans on the online ladder because the NBN is canceled and your internet is below Belarus.
EDIT: And yes, this is my first post as a senior member.
EDIT 2: This post gave me my 420 thank. No regrets.
Do you understand why he was voted in ACIN?
As far as I know, it's because your Labour party made a fool of itself by swapping its leaders around too much and running a terrible campaign. Also, a lot of Australians have a lot of problems with the issue of illegal immigration, hence the effective statement "stop the boats".Quote:
Originally Posted by Visorslash
Anything more substantial than that, I do not know. But this was simply me trying to rile all you Australians into talking about the election. Everything I typed here is just verbatim from what I saw in reddit.com/r/australia
Oh god, don't try to take anything from reddit seriously. r/Australia is an echo chamber of young left wingers and the world news post is filled with them too. They've had a reaction similar to what your republicans had last year.Quote:
Originally Posted by a completely inoffensive name
"Can't wait to legitimately hate this country and everything it stands for once Tony Abbott gets in."
"The tallies haven't come in and I'm already depressed. How can this great country have come to this. Murdoch running the media and G. W. Bush in power. I'm going to get drunk."
To be fair Murdouch does own a lot of the media, but it wasn't the reason why labor were kicked out. The backstabbing of the leaders, the immigration policy (on both sides), gillard's acts driving people away from supporting labor (she was a bit of a rad fem basically). Carbon tax was an issue too.
I'm very surprised at how close Katter came to losing his seat. Dunno what I would've done without ol'Faithful being there.
Yeah, I am not surprised at how the votes turned out after looking into some of the stuff gillard said and did. The cheapest laughter available in this day and age are young leftists who don't understand how politics and other people work.Quote:
Originally Posted by Visorslash
Still, it seems like Gay Marriage and some other good ideas might be put on hold due to the liberal victory. Lets be honest though, given Abbott's slogan, how could I have phrased the title of this thread any differently?
Quote:
Originally Posted by a completely inoffensive name
No you definitely couldn't have phrased it better really. :laugh4:
(another look at the) Problem with the labor party. Gillard drove people away so they brought back Kevin. Backstabbing drove people away. However, Kevin was able to bring them to back to a more respectable position. Gillard would have been destroyed by Abbot had she contested.
I know many rad fems. She was not a rad fem. Well personally she may feel that she is but at no point since coming into Government did she act like one, apart from the discussion of Abbott's mysogyny. Not only that but polls showed a favourable reaction to that speech and general agreement with it (IIRC). So claiming that Gillard's 'feminism' of whatever variety made people oppose here is far from the truth.Quote:
Originally Posted by Visorslash
I saw this result coming long ago so I was prepared for it and expected it. It disappoints me that people elected the Liberal government when their policy platform was full of contradictions (cut expenses in the budget but raise military spending), was self-defeating (cut foreign aid, which will create more asylum seekers...), as well as being based primarily on rhetoric (stop the boats) but that's what was always going to happen. I have very little faith in the Australian public and this just confirms that.
Basically this. The contradictions in policies, and the lack of transparency from the Coalition in the build-up, should have had a greater impact on the result. People clearly just do not care. This is not to say that the Labour government did not have some very real problems, which ultimately led to a situation where there was little pressure on the Coalition to actually explain away these contradictions, but at least their policies attempted to adhere to their rhetoric. On the economic front, Abbott has spent the last three years peddling the whole 'budget emergency' line borrowed from the British Conservatives and US Republicans. He now has two choices: cut spending, and send a stable economy down the wrong path, or (the more likely option IMHO) continue along the same path that Labour were on, secure in the knowledge that they cannot criticise him for not taking an axe to spending...Quote:
Originally Posted by CountArach
In positive news, at least Diaz was not elected: that would make Australia a laughing-stock.
Now we have to hope that Abbott does not gain full control of the Senate. I am not confident over which way the ultra-minor parties currently projected to win seats will flop (Motoring Enthusiasts, Australian Sports)...
Micro parties tend to mostly draw from the right so would break to the coalition on many policy issues, providing the coalition granted them a few of their pet policies. That is how the shooters and fishers party has tended to work here at a state level and I believe also elsewhere.
Hmm... That's what I am afraid of.
Say what you like about Xenophon, at least he seems what you might class as a true independent.
Great result. Always good to see a hyper intense catholic who is center-right win highest office. Gillard was a creep and Rudd was a talentless hack. Abbott is no libertarian, but is better than the Labor alternative on most issues.
Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk 4
What was interesting was the move away from the major parties. 20% of primary vote going to then at the same time as Greens losing percentage has meant a large variety in the senate whilst hopefully giving the three major parties pause to realize this was a protest election.
Coalition win was a minor one by historical books. Labour lost a lot of seats and could/should have lost more.
Will be interesting to see how Clive Palmer performs.
If we could elect the GG I'd go for Nick Xenophon. At least after seeing the Malaysian elections intealsie he has a whole bucketload of integrity.
Thankfully Diaz failed and hopefully Mirrabella is out (far to right wing).
This. Unfortunately, I am also a part of this group. I didn't even vote. I chose not to vote. In the end, it's a popularity contest (politics in a nutshell). I'd rather pay the $50 fine than stroke their narcissistic personalities. I know that Rudd/Abbott will not care that 1 lone guy chose no to indulge in this bukkake of egocentrism, but it makes me feel good to know that I didn't take part.Quote:
Originally Posted by Gaius Scribonius Curio
Since I didn't vote, I have no right to complain about the Coalition. I don't care who is in office as long as they make the right choice. By right, I mean choices that make this country a better place to live WITHOUT the abolition of morality. Abbott says "stop the boats". But what about the people of Kiribati, who are quite literally losing their land? What is Abbott going to do when several thousand people arrive on his doorstep? Is he going to shun them, like a ruthless tyrant? That is what I'm interested in seeing.
Sometimes when I watch the debates, I think that both parties argue for the sake of arguing.
Bah, I just hate politics. But I like talking about it.
There are other parties to vote for. And you can send in a postal vote.
Turning up or sending it in you can put in a blank and not get fined. Because if you don't vote you need to reply to a mail with a valid reason or get fined $20.
Had a read through the liberal democratic party programme.
I lol'ed.
The liberal coalition that won is not the liberal democrats. Liberals protested that the name may cause confusion and damage to their brand.
Liberal democrats did well with donkey votes on the senate as they were the first listed in NSW.
It never ceases to amaze me how many problems you anglophones have with your ballots.
Seriously, how hard can it be to design a fool-proof system...?
Nothing wrong with it. It is a democracy and even lazy idiots can vote.
The ballot order is a lottery. It is to minimize favourable placement by the AEC. It does mean lazy uninformed voters will slick pick someone, but it stops that laziness being used to nefarious purposes.
FYI the senate white paper is over a meter wide and had 110 candidates for NSW.
24 hours in, and Tony Abbot has already started properly rustling some jimmies. Taking down that wasteful climate commission.
http://www.theage.com.au/federal-pol...919-2u185.html
r/australia is now consoling themselves with the knowledge that they can say "I told you so." to their Baby Boomer parents that don't care one bit. lol
I just remembered that you guys vote for individual seats instead of individual parties...Quote:
Originally Posted by Papewaio
When I voted a week ago, all I did was find the sheet of paper with the name of the party I wanted to vote, fold it and take it with me to the box. No writing, no chance of mistakes, no "lazy vote"...
Individual seats is more democratic than parties. Since you are voting for the person on their principles opposed to affiliation. There are MP's or senators which do a very good job but are in the 'other party' than you might support if you chose on that basis. Party loyalty is a form of croynism and corruption of the process, taking the power out of voters in electing as they see fit to govern and ended up appointing those who are best at greasing the proverbial poles within party organisations.Quote:
Originally Posted by HoreTore
Party-list is an woeful system and a step backwards.
Most people vote based on the party of the candidate not the name of the person since both are listed.Quote:
Originally Posted by HoreTore
For the senate you can either number the individual candidates from 1 to n or you can just put 1 for the party of your choice.
So you have both voting for individuals or parties as by your preference for senate.
This is an ideological disagreement, I believe politics shouldn't be about persons at all. It should be about politics. Who gets elected is irrelevant, what politics are elected is relevant.Quote:
Originally Posted by Tiaexz
Yes, but my point is that you can still screw it up. When all you need to do is get a piece of paper and fold it, there's no way you can get it wrong.Quote:
Originally Posted by Papewaio
Which is why the individual is better. For example, our 'Labour' MP is a strong advocate of removing public funding from Higher Education, Tough Retaliatory Justice system, wants to dismantal the welfare state and pro-privatisation of the NHS. Pretty much a hard-right Tory all-but-party. For a representative of the party for the 'Working People' which Labour is meant to be his ideology is some where different.Quote:
Originally Posted by HoreTore
You should vote the individual people based on their track records and their professed ideologies, what is the point of hardline right-winger getting into parliament on the back of a left-wing ticket ? Under partylist system, he gets a free seat in parliament based on how many votes the party gets without a democratic chance to get rid of him.
Parties are corrupt. They should be coalitions on like-minded ideology, opposed to champaign-political-career paths of red, blue and yellow.
That couldn't work with our electoral system where all votes for minor parties will filter through to the major party of your choice in most cases:Quote:
Originally Posted by HoreTore
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instant-runoff_voting
I really like it. It means that I can vote for my party (Greens) and still know that my vote isn't being wasted because I can then chose for it to go to Labor who may actually have a much better chance of being elected. So essentially I am getting two votes out of this - my real one and then my less-of-two-evils vote. Not only that but in our other chamber we have a modified proportional representation system that is really, really hard to explain, but once again my preferences in there can really make the difference.
Okay well Immigration Minister Scott Morrison is my esteemed local member and his margin is huge... so yeah... it is kind of wasted, but that's for a different reason.
Oh and now, in addition to the several climate change based things that he has defunded (despite the fact that most of them cost almost nothing) he has also named himself as Minister for Women something that he is known to have a great history with. He has also already indicated a heavy-handedness in terms of Territory relations by threatening to push back against an ACT bill that would legalise gay marriage for those who live there. People were fooled into thinking that he would not be running the country with his religious views in mind, but we are already seeing evidence against that.Quote:
Originally Posted by a completely inoffensive name
In a party system, his opinions are irrelevant.Quote:
Originally Posted by Tiaexz
I voted socialist left a few weeks ago, and I voted on the policies developed by the central committee of that party. Those are the policies they will enact, and so the opinions of the persons on their list is completely irrelevant.
For a practical example, the socialist left party contains quite a few Christians who have a conservative view of stuff related to artificial insemination. I am in favour. Does this mean I run the risk of voting for people who will vote against what I want? Nope, the party has determined that they are in favour, and so any representatives will have to vote in favour should the issue arise.
Again, this is different because MPs can vote as they like, even with an issued triple-whip (though usually with consequences) such as the Syria vote, where there what we call a 'Backbench Rebellion'.Quote:
Originally Posted by HoreTore
Stop your blasphemous ways, heathen.Quote:
Originally Posted by Tiaexz
Bring back the party whip! Get the cronies back in line.
Doesn't quite work like that in Aus. Each party has a different degree of latitude for its MPs to go with. Traditional for Labor it is lockstep, do as they say or you are out. Liberals were well more liberal, but Abott has been referred to as disciplined and so has his team. However he rules a coalition and the partners are the Nationals who are about as individual as they come for a major party.
That's why I called you heathens and told you to repent your sinful ways ~;)Quote:
Originally Posted by Papewaio
I wish the Prime Minister was more heathen and less vicar.Quote:
Originally Posted by HoreTore
Well Australia, it's been fun and all, but I'm gonna have to jump ship to NZ.
You know, before the ADF just blasts the vessel outta the water.
Only 6 months in and fascism has arrived according to reddit.
http://www.smh.com.au/technology/tec...317-34xtr.html
This is making me rethink my goal of taking my dream vacation on an Australia/New Zealand adventure. You guys better step it up next election.
They have requested this before and been denied.
Also NZ is to Australia what Canada is to the US.
So basically I should only visit NZ?Quote:
Originally Posted by Papewaio
Bay of Islands is awesome but I have a bias as I grew up there.
NZs insurance policy makes it much safer to the wallet to do adventurous things then essentially anywhere else in the world.
Because we have an aging population and all the baby boomers love them some Reaganite/Thatcherite neo-liberal conservatives?Quote:
Originally Posted by Visorslash