I cannot claim to be wholly sold on the idea of Democracy. I was a King after all. And this is Hilary's Village after all. But the idea that one person's vote is worth just the same as another's seems odd to me. There are very odd and dim people out there who vote. Some still have the cradle marks on their bums and heads filled with 'schooling' from marxist-feminists. And in a country which, like others, swings from one party to another and barely change their views despite the evidence of cock-up after cock-up, I am sadly reminded every election just how thick the electorate can be
Our current - for the moment, with his fingers crossed - PM had both houses dissolved in the hope of 'greater stability'. He is not likely to get it.
Our PM's claim to imfamy is that he knifed a sitting PM in the back. He is running against an opposition leader who has greater experience as he knifed two of his PMs in the back. Oz resembles Rome more everyday.
The 'Eekomonee' is the fixation of both major parties. We call them 'Labour and Liberal' here. The Americans call our labour their liberal and our liberal their conservative (or Republican). Not that either can do any actual 'good' for Oz. All they usually do is make things more difficult and take even more money from people's wallets and purses. Trees and Whales and global warming, skies falling down and seas washing us all away are the fixations of the third, Green party. Meanwhile all three parties ensure that the nation's soul gets blacker by the day.
A pox on them.
This time around we have an entire battalion of minor parties vying for seats. It is unlikely that many will find a space on the benches in the House of Representatives, but with some good fortune and a larger than usual handful of votes some may make it into the Senate. The Senate ballot paper is so large that it will not take many to cover a cricket pitch. Amongst the shooters and motorists and scientist parties we have several up and coming Christian, Family and Morals parties. And Independants. And women.
I shall keep you posted on the results, although in this most laid-back of countries, the results of the Reps might be in sooner than for the Senate but still a while.
Come back later. I am sitting here with a pint.
Meanwhile..... looking forward......
And why are we going to see a crash? Jo Nova dropped by with a clue or two. America has its Independence Day (in 2 day's time, as my Southern Gal reminded me - she's been weeding the flower beds in her local park getting it ready for the festivities), and Britain has just declared itself Independent of the EU, but here we are awash with Independents.
Both major parties have lost their heart and soul — deserting their bases
Australian politics is a parody.
Labor fights to stop plebiscites that would ask the workers what they really want (how bad can that be?). It rages for same-sex marriage, a topic that affects 2% of voters, and not in a life or death way. Labor tries to galvanize the crowd to change the weather in 2100, even though voters don’t vote much on environmental issues, and choose other environmental problems when they do.
The party of workers supposedly worries about the rights of non-workers from outside Australia who apparently escaped death and tyranny but aren’t grateful for food, shelter, and allowances in safe locations. Labor lied about bringing in a carbon tax and hasn’t yet admitted it was the wrong thing to do or said sorry for doing it.
The Liberals have given up on free speech and smaller government. They are not even pretending.
The ABC pours scorn on half of Australian voters and does so with permission of the Coalition. The Liberals won the last election on a blood oath to stop the carbon tax, but they tossed out the leader who did that, and a carbon tax started today.
They tax as much as almost any government in Australia ever has, and enthuse that governments really can control the weather, stop storms and make floods go away. The Liberal Party cannot keep this up. Will they split, or will a new force arise from the forgotten base?
Curiously a couple of Bellwether voters I know, who only see mainstream news and mix in mainstream circles in median suburbs, have told me they’ve already voted and they went “totally independent”. They know almost nothing about Brexit. When asked why they are fed up with the major parties, the answer is “they both lie”. And some of them put the Greens last, after the majors.
The independent movement in Australia is immature, disorganised, not networked and not focused.
There’s no Trump here, no Boris Johnson or Farage.
Fortunately no Hilary either.Yet there is anger and passion here for the galvanizing. Who will do that?
OK. The Tavern Keeper's prediction..... The Liberals will very likely get back in with a reduced majority. They will not have an easy Senate, filled with small parties and independents. So, not a change for the better for Mr Turncoat. The Greens will be trashed. Labour will be trashed unless there is a big 'protest' vote by conservatives. Let us wait on the 'mind' of the People. God help us.
Don't count on a Tavern Keeper's political guesses though.
There will be protests of course. As with Britain voting to 'brexit' the EU, we may well have female academics - surely the most useless creatures on the taxpayer teat - protesting in the only way they know.
Getting naked !
Cambridge academic walked in naked at a meeting at the Faculty of Economics in protest against the results of the EU referendum.
Put 'em on, silly woman. We do not want to see your lady bits. They are worth only a D- anyway. That woman teaches in a University !Victoria Bateman had written on her breasts and stomach ‘Brexit leaves Britain naked’.
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Well here we are half-way through the evening and all the talking heads on the TV dissecting the votes are looking toward a very close call sometime tomorrow. We just may have a hung-Parliament, seems to be the view. The Senate will see Independents up the Ying Yang. And in all the discussions of 'ishoos' not one person, TV presenter, politician, ex-politician, candidate, has mentioned the 'M' word. I guess they've all had the memo.
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Now the question turns on whether Turncoat can hold onto his job even if the Liberals scrape back in. I know quite a few 'conservative' folk who would be glad to see the back of him. Mind you, here in Tasmania the Liberals are thin on the ground and surrounded by welfairies and greens. I doubt the conservatives (Liberals) will do well on the Island, or even survive.
Notable, Eden-Monaro, a seat on the NSW coast which always sends an MP to the new Government, (the Bellweather seat) has gone Labour. It may not be enough for the socialists but it does not bode well for the Libs.
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Barely had I spoke than Andy Bolt dropped in for a cleansing ale. He shouted a few words out of the window, although Turncoat may not have heard them yet.
Malcolm,You assassinated a Liberal Prime Minister, Tony Abbott, who’d won an election by a huge margin.You promised to do even better than him.
You then treated the Liberal base like dirt, smashing it with a huge super tax, refusing to speak to conservative journalists, repeatedly humiliating Abbott.You referred to the colonial settlement of Australia as an “invasion” and even held an end-of-Ramadan meal with known Muslim bigots.You called an early double dissolution election on the excuse of needing new laws to tackle rogue unions with a building and construction commission, but with the true aim of getting rid of crossbench oppositionists in the Senate.You went to the election with basically only one policy to sell - a pathetic 10-year promise to cut company tax.And now look. Almost everything turned to ruin.You have lost so many seats that you could even be forced into minority government, if pre-polling and Western Australia go against you.
Hmmmmm. I don't think Malcolm will want to resign. Hopefully he will feel the heat as his mate Cameron in the UK did. I pulled a pint for Andy anyway.You have, if anything, lost ground in the Senate, which will block most of your plans.You will be unable to get the numbers to get your building and construction commission through in any joint sitting of parliament.You have asked for no mandate for real reform, and will have almost no power to undertake any.Your popularity, already plummeting, will fall further.There is no way you can seriously claim that this result is better than anything Abbott could have achieved.Abbott picked up seven seats at the 2010 election and another 15 in the 2013 election. You have lost between 10 and 15 seats and dumped key Liberal values in doing so.You have been a disaster. You betrayed Tony Abbott and then led the party to humiliation, stripped of both values and honour.Resign.
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The night is nearly done and the 'faithful' on both sides are gathering for the wake. And both sides will be grieving. The Libs are still not over the line despite being ahead.
If it is a hung Parliament, as I indicated earlier that it could be, there will be pouches of silver coins, 30 to a pouch, being filled, ready to buy off the independents who will hold the balance of power.
It will be a fine old time for them as Silver has risen 30% in the past month. The pay-off of Malcolm to prise him out of his chair will be bags full of the stuff.
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And the counting continues. 76 seats needed to win. The result yet to come, perhaps in a day or two. Labour has no chance left. But the Liberals are not in majority. The Greens have one seat and Independents have four. There are a few seats yet to be decided.
Libs 73: Lab 66: Green 1: 'others' 4.
What is clear is that Turnbull has buggered his Party and Shorten is being hailed as a hero.
Not in this Tavern though.
There will be sore heads in the morning but not from drinking the Tavern's Ale.
Pax.
I enjoyed watchimg the election results at your bar last night bartend. Your observations were spot on and show a lot of foresight and for that matter hindsight.This is an excellent overview of yesterdays events and the current political climate both in Australia and world wide. Put succinctly, should we keep going the way we are, the West is lost. However,while we are in a right bally mess kind Sir I would add this as an addendum to our conversation, while there is life, there is still hope, so forgive the chliche, but perhaps there is still some hope for us after all. Great political discourse bartend. Enjoyed every moment of our conversation. Now for that ginger beer 😁
ReplyDeleteGinger beer on the table for you Rissa. And a ginger head in the gummunt corridors now too. I look forward to seeing bogan Pauline give them all the fright of their cossetted lives. The media has yet to show the real result.... which is that almost 25% of the population voted for 'other' than the main parties, and many of those were Christian oriented. Not that it makes a lot of difference in a 'first past the post' system but those big parties will have to heed the lesson.
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