Aus Election 2025

[pipbarber]

I'm more confident we won't get a coalition majority in the lower house than i was 6 weeks ago, but it's a quivering look over your shoulder type of confidence that provides me with as much dread as reassurance. It's hard to believe but there is widespread support for Trump in the burbs. Maga chaos looks like a bit of a lark, a bit of fun, 'shake things up.' After all, it's the best rating reality TV show there is and if you want an Australian season of the show, Dutton is going to be your man.

The ALP have to remember that electoral politics in the 2020s has very little to do with policy and everything to do with narrative, especially change narrative. A terrible policy will not lose an election provided it alludes to a new and different way of doing things. I'm concerned the ALP are going to campaign as if it's 1990, or 2000. There is just a whiff of Democrats 2024 about them. It's concerning.

[stylofone]

3rd of May, vote early, vote often.

To be honest the reactions we have been getting to sign waving the last couple of weeks have been super positive. But it is Jim Chalmer's seat so make of that what you will.

I live in the most marginal seat in Australia, I consider the Liberal candidate to be a lying toad, he disgusts me. It's going to be hard for me to volunteer for the Labor or Greens campaign, but I will try to attend any relevant events where I can swell the numbers. Every election always seems to be the most consequential ever. I agree with Pip, this time the Trump factor is the biggest issue. It used to be a sort of mindless jibe to call the mainstream right wing "fascists", but the genuine instincts and tolerance for far-right tyranny are coming to the fore now in our formerly centre-right parties.

[stevebrooks]

I'm more confident we won't get a coalition majority in the lower house than i was 6 weeks ago,

I read an article on Dutton the other day, he's going to, lower house prices, lower energy costs by diverting gas from export to local use and removing it from price controls, remove taxes on petrol, allow people to access superannuation to pay for mortgages, sack thousands of government workers to reduce expenditure, and he actually said "stop the boats" when the majority of illegal immigration happens through legal ports of entry! He's basically gone full Trump with promising everything he possibly can to get elected, and guaranteed most of it won't happen.

I mean, private companies own the gas, successive governments have given it to them, they make way more profit selling it overseas, is he going to just, like, impound the gas, steal it from them and remove the profit they get from selling it? How does that work, are the gas companies going to continue pumping gas if the government just takes it? And where exactly is he going to store this gas he is going to steal from private companies? Because, you know, we extract and export way more gas than we can ever actually use!

It's like his nuclear ambitions, all talk but no real explanation of why it will be better, just Labour green energy bad, nuclear energy good type stuff. The more he talks the more Trump Lite he sounds, lets hope this actually resonates with voters and they turn away from him.

[pipbarber]

Howard won the working class in the 1990s, and now all the conservative parties in the English speaking world have a strong working class constituency. Really he did it with identity politics, by appealing to base level bigotry against 'others' and 'elites,' of which of course he was one, but it worked, and it has endured.

There is an opportunity here for the left adjacent party, and the left generally, to pull off a similar electoral coup. They have the chance to redefine nationalism, they have the chance to win the 'australia' vote.

'A vote for the ALP is a vote for Australian sovereignty'

'Dutton is Trump lite, Temu Trump, he'll sell Australia to Elon Musk.'

'We'll all be forced to drive Teslas.'

'Australia makes it's own decisions, not Trump.'

'We're not a nation of bootlickers, we're free and independent.'

'Dutton will make Australia the 51st state, or as good as.'

'A vote for Dutton is a vote for Trump, a vote for Albo is a vote for Australia.'

Wave that god-awful flag of ours. Lets take it from the right (and then change it).

Or not. The ALP have some nice policies, that ought to probably be enough, maybe, to win.

[wolty]

Sign waving this arvo. The response is noticeably different after the election had been called this morning. It's way more galvanised. The positive responses are bigger, the fingers and abuse are bigger. Well not the fingers, you know what I mean....

But the response would have to be 80/20 for the ALP. It is Rankin though......it is very positive.

[pipbarber]

I start on pre-polling booths next week, for the greens. I usually help out with Vic socialists and the AJP if they're short on the day too. My election day gig is at the scout hall which maps says is 140 meters from my front door! Looking forward to it, it's always fun and i enjoy the interactions. Like you Wolty, my voting booth voted 60-40 Greens/Labor at the last election, so i'm on my home ground. Conservatives got less than 20 votes from that booth. They don't even bother sending someone out for how to vote cards, which makes for a very pleasant day for me and also i probably ought to be somewhere a bit more...necessary, but then again, i'm an old crusty man, probs best i just stick with my kin.

Re my post about how the ALP might harness anti-Trump sentiment and undermine the Australia vote, Jonathan Freedland has a similar idea for UK labor.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfr ... ain-danger

[stylofone]

I saw some signage while I was driving around town today and had to slam the brakes on and photograph it.

DumpTrump.jpg (81.98 KiB) Viewed 514 times

Greens.jpg (190.12 KiB) Viewed 514 times

225bn.jpg (69.28 KiB) Viewed 514 times

[stevebrooks]

We may not have to worry to much, Dutton is aligning himself with Trump so much it's become laughable, let's hope the ALP run with this:

Labor has slammed Peter Dutton’s plan to slash public servants and question the reason for a Department of Education as a “copycat” of US President Donald Trump.

Speaking on Sky News last night at the Paul Murray Pub Test, the Opposition Leader questioned the need for public servants in the Department of Education.

“The Commonwealth government doesn’t own or run a school, which is why people ask, well, why have we got a department of thousands and thousands of people in Canberra called the Education Department,” Mr Dutton said.

Because local schools don't have the funds or resources to service disabled children, children with learning disabilities like Autism and etc. The education department is there to make sure children who exist outside the standard education envelope aren't just abandoned! The man is an idiot, he's just, as they say, parroting Trump propaganda and the ALP need to run big with this aspect of his campaign! Anything Trump like from Dutton needs to be emphasised so the population can see who he really is!

https://www.news.com.au/national/federa ... 0a4c4563c6

[pipbarber]

That is especially true given that maga is about to hit us with the next round of tariffs. Surely to hell someone in the ALP strategy team can see the benefit of standing up to Trump right now? Fuck me, they could even confuse the rusted-on libs by calling the ALP the Australia first party, and Dutton just a bootlicker for Trump and Musk. Emphasise sovereignty!!!

It's like a free hit! I have no faith they'll take it though. Can't you set them right Wolty?

Of course i could be wrong, but i heard a poll this morning that had 60% saying Trump was bad for Australia, up from 40%...6 weeks ago! What'll be after our beef exports are tariffed? Ya reckon our farmers are going to be saying lets be more like 'merica? This is a chance to undermine the Nats. Take it!

[stylofone]

Like Ferris Bueller, Trump had a day off when the teacher told the class that tariffs are a really bad idea. I remember the scene very well, but I'd completely forgotten the stultifying subject, now made interesting by glorious Trump. Y'all might have seen this already in recent weeks but I keep on laughing at it no matter how many times I watch it.