As usual Tim I feel a kindred spirit as I was raised as a Liberal child in UK
My parents reckoned back in the day that Westminster men system was doomed eventually as both looked after their own Scargill was a pain and Thatcher another and the two divided us badly .The country never really saw the benefits of Liberal and proportional representation was unheard of .Hopefully our kids are better educated and no longer looking to billionaires to be told what to do 🙏🏼🙏🏼
From what I can tell, younger voters are heading in exactly that direction which is exactly why they are either ignored or targeted. Cause for optimism though.
Great analysis as always Tim. The vibe seems to be an increasing awareness that neither of the majors are capable of the wholesale reform needed to solve the challenges the country faces, and so the electorate will have to take matters into their own hands.
It’s just a matter of how quickly the rusted on partisans abandon their teams to embrace real change. I expect it will be analogous to the Hemingway quote about going broke; we’re in the slowly phase, but the all at once phase could happen as early as 2028 depending on events 🤷🏼♀️
Well that too! This is the election that heralds the major demographic shift coming our way; by 2028 or 2031 it will be a tsunami of demographic re-alignment
The Hemingway quote is apropos. The next election is confusing bc Trumpism has handed Albanese a bit of a lifeline, as I've been saying. But the quick bit will come.
Trump has handed Albanese a bit of a lifeline, but also forced the electorate to stop and think about the consequences of wholesale destruction of our political system. I think in the long run it will help shift us toward a better form of politics, rather than destructive populism, but the all at once wave is still looming 😊
The sheer force of pressure from the right is hard to resist. We can try and hold off electorally, but ultimately we have to address the massive inequality that drives it. That's the only way.
Absolutely. The US is a horrifying case study in what happens when you hand your country over to the far right and their "solutions". I think the electorate will respond instantly to proposals to deal with inequality with fairness and compassion and a modicum of actual justice, not the "I voted for Trump because he promised to hurt the people I dislike" sense of justice.
I am so encouraged to hear that, Louise, and you may well be right. As I said to Elana, I think Trump has handed Albanese a bit of a lifeline, which is why I'm allowing for the possibility. Then again, it's not as if Albo isn't sucked into the Trump BS himself. Early voting figures will be interesting. And this new YouGov is interesting too: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-03-30/yougov-modelling-finds-swing-back-to-labor-since-february/105112720
Neoliberalism as represented by privatisation and PPPs is in retreat almost everywhere. But we are still struggling to find a replacement. The Trumpist far-right is offering one, but fortunately there isn't an electoral base for it in Australia comparable to that in the US. So, we are limping along with the politics of stasis. Not a bad time to do the institutional change required for the end of majority party government.
It's that institutional change that we really should be talking about and part of the reason I'm stressing the trend towards minority govt. As usual, the political class is about a decade behind in their thinking.
The most likely first step towards a break with the two-party system is a minority (hopefully Labor) government relying on confidence and supply. That leaves them without control over the proceedings of the House, as well as having to negotiate legislation in both House and Senate.
Albanese has ruled out "doing deals", but might stretch to this, if Labor is silly enough to keep on after the failure of his first term. Much better to switch to a less tribalist alternative, which means Chalmers.
Plibersek would have been in the box seat in such a scenario, had she resigned rather than do Albo's dirty work. As it is, she doesn't stand for anything.
"Albanese has ruled out "doing deals"," he is so stupid to say that; it might be all that saves his bacon.
What's going to happen if Albanese refuses to form a minority government with crossbench support? They'll just go and negotiate with Dutton, won't they?
I wish some journalist would ask those questions when he says that stuff. I get that he feels like he has to sound like he will win, but someone should push him a bit anyway. If there is a minoirty govt, his position is antidemocratic and untenable.
Well argued TD. I will, however allow myself to dream & thus rewrite your sentence, 'The election of 2022 was a two-steps-forward moment as will undoubtedly be 2025.'
'The election of 2022 was a two-steps-forward moment, and 2025 may well be a one step back moment.'
Very well said. Absolutely with you, but let’s not call it a “trend.” It’s a slow-motion rupture, a tectonic recoil from decades of managerial sedation. The major parties aren’t offering choices; they’re offering flavours of austerity, garnished with spin. Labor’s technocratic tweaks to a broken system are not reform, they’re risk management for capital. The rot isn’t accidental; it’s the logical endgame of a politics that outsourced vision to markets and sold off the very idea of a public good.
May 3 isn’t a fork in the road; it’s a pothole in a road that’s collapsing. While we haven’t hit the full populist tailspin yet, the runway’s visible. The best-case scenario? A hung parliament, a pissed-off electorate and enough crossbench ballast to slow the neoliberal death spiral.
So yes, vote, but don’t pretend it’s salvation. It’s damage control. The real fight is cultural, structural, existential. It starts by naming the problem: this system cannot be redeemed. It can only be replaced.
Yes, this is part of the next stage and why we need to fix things like campaign financing to allow more candidates to emerge in more electorates. If there is a minority govt, the first order of business should be find ways to normalise financing of community engagement so candidates can emerge. So people like you have an actual choice. There are still too many electorates like yours.
The best evidence that the system is fundamentally broken is in the almost complete absence of a debate on the existential issues confronting us - civilisation-threatening climate change and the final upending of the post-WWII geopolitical order. As you observe, Tim, the ALP is fatally stuck with its withered and uninspiring offer of a faintly more progressive managerialism. The LNP, meanwhile, has completely jumped the fence from centre-right pro-business conservatism to the Trumpist brand of neo-fascism that is destroying everything before it. These institutions are failing not because of any internal design faults but because the operating system of the past 40 years - one imposed on us from above - is now collapsing under its many contradictions. All that’s left is the oligarchy and, unlike others here, I’m not so confident that Australia’s democratic infrastructure - compulsory voting, the preferential system, a respected electoral commission - will be enough to save us from the destructive forces elsewhere. Globally, we are approaching a fight over basic resources - clean water, breathable air, fresh food, and liveable spaces not threatened by climate breakdown. Neoliberalism has no answer for this which is why Trump’s siren call against unrestricted immigration, cheap imports and global cooperation in the face of external threats is proving so resonant. Dutton will follow the same script and in doing so he will mine the increasing fear that Australians, and people everywhere, feel about global breakdown. Fear tends to be a much stronger motivating force than hope. But the ALP is not even able to offer the latter. Instead, it promises managerialism, incrementalism, and endless accommodation with powerful lobbyists - in the fossil fuel sector, the defence industries, banking, gambling, salmon farming and the rest - whose deep pockets and ability to control the news cycle, and hence policy, will continue to hold sway. I think it is going to take more than a handful of community independents and greens to hold back this tsunami. We’re going to need something like what happened in France last year when the combined forces of the centre and left rallied to keep out the nationalists. And someone needs to turn out the lights at the ALP and start again. By the way, I don’t think there is anything wrong with populism per se. Arguably what we need is a left-wing populism that is fuelled by the same real anger that drives MAGA. You can see it in the US with the roadshow that Bernie Sanders and AOC have been on. Without a return of conviction and passion, the ALP is toast. We need a new stronger coalition on the left to push back the coming far right tide about to engulf Australia.
You and I are at one on most of this. My only additional thought is that whatever the limitations of our system, the two-party power structure has to be broken, or at least challenged, if anything is going to improve. I don't think minority government will solve everything, but I am completely certain that majority govt by parties beholden to vested interests is the most certain path to the collapse we are seeing elsewhere. I'm all for a populism of the left, and breaking the duopoloy is one way of achieving that. Forcing realignment. Labor could move in that direction now if they didn't hate the Greens so much.
The ALP’s so-called hardheads have fooled themselves that the pragmatic approach is to continue with their accommodation of the right. It’s a message they seem to have completely absorbed since the Howard years to the extent they can’t see the opportunity on the left. For the life of me, I can’t understand why Albo is not taking off the gloves against Trump as the Canadians have done. That has single-handedly saved the Liberal Party there from what looked like certain defeat a couple of months ago. Australia has an even stronger economic and geopolitical argument for distancing ourselves from the US as we are nowhere near as dependent as Canada is on trade with that country. As Keating said, we must seek our security in Asia, not from Asia, and that is completely at odds with Washington’s bipartisan belligerence toward China. I would be also be picking a fight with Musk and the tech bros as Europe is doing and I’d be threatening to run the Murdoch crime family out of the country for good. Australia is not going to be respected internationally so long as we remain America’s poodle.
I think Albanese actually believes in Aukus and doesn't mind Trump. He is squandering the anti-Trump thing that he could've stuck to Dutton because he doesn't actually want to criticise Trump. FFS, he has officially invited him to Australia. What else explains this if not some sort of approval? There's no eight dimensional chess theory that makes any sense.
With the new electoral funding laws just passed, it becomes critical that Australia elect a minority government. The new laws will severely restrict the funding independent challengers are able to raise and utilise in future elections. The only way to undo the changes is if the crossbench is powerful enough to force the new parliament to rescind those laws. And if it doesn't happen in the next parliament, the laws will kick in and it will become even more difficult in future.
Polls seem to indicate a diverse parliament, but how do we ensure we land just at the right balance point? Is it possible?
Agree. The duopoloy will do everything they can to undermine the possibility of a larger crossbench. Hell, Albanese doesn't even accept the validity of the Greens, as he made clear again this week and will just ignore them if he can, no matter what voters say.
I don't think you can force any particular outcome, but it is important to institutue the sort of community engagement that allows good candidates to emerge. It's a long process, but it starts there.
As usual Tim I feel a kindred spirit as I was raised as a Liberal child in UK
My parents reckoned back in the day that Westminster men system was doomed eventually as both looked after their own Scargill was a pain and Thatcher another and the two divided us badly .The country never really saw the benefits of Liberal and proportional representation was unheard of .Hopefully our kids are better educated and no longer looking to billionaires to be told what to do 🙏🏼🙏🏼
From what I can tell, younger voters are heading in exactly that direction which is exactly why they are either ignored or targeted. Cause for optimism though.
Great analysis as always Tim. The vibe seems to be an increasing awareness that neither of the majors are capable of the wholesale reform needed to solve the challenges the country faces, and so the electorate will have to take matters into their own hands.
It’s just a matter of how quickly the rusted on partisans abandon their teams to embrace real change. I expect it will be analogous to the Hemingway quote about going broke; we’re in the slowly phase, but the all at once phase could happen as early as 2028 depending on events 🤷🏼♀️
eventually Rustadons, well the old campaigners, simply die.
'rusted on partisans abandon their teams to embrace real change'
Well that too! This is the election that heralds the major demographic shift coming our way; by 2028 or 2031 it will be a tsunami of demographic re-alignment
yipppeeeee!
Ha!
The Hemingway quote is apropos. The next election is confusing bc Trumpism has handed Albanese a bit of a lifeline, as I've been saying. But the quick bit will come.
Trump has handed Albanese a bit of a lifeline, but also forced the electorate to stop and think about the consequences of wholesale destruction of our political system. I think in the long run it will help shift us toward a better form of politics, rather than destructive populism, but the all at once wave is still looming 😊
The sheer force of pressure from the right is hard to resist. We can try and hold off electorally, but ultimately we have to address the massive inequality that drives it. That's the only way.
Absolutely. The US is a horrifying case study in what happens when you hand your country over to the far right and their "solutions". I think the electorate will respond instantly to proposals to deal with inequality with fairness and compassion and a modicum of actual justice, not the "I voted for Trump because he promised to hurt the people I dislike" sense of justice.
My prediction is that it won’t be a one step back moment. 👊
I am so encouraged to hear that, Louise, and you may well be right. As I said to Elana, I think Trump has handed Albanese a bit of a lifeline, which is why I'm allowing for the possibility. Then again, it's not as if Albo isn't sucked into the Trump BS himself. Early voting figures will be interesting. And this new YouGov is interesting too: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-03-30/yougov-modelling-finds-swing-back-to-labor-since-february/105112720
Neoliberalism as represented by privatisation and PPPs is in retreat almost everywhere. But we are still struggling to find a replacement. The Trumpist far-right is offering one, but fortunately there isn't an electoral base for it in Australia comparable to that in the US. So, we are limping along with the politics of stasis. Not a bad time to do the institutional change required for the end of majority party government.
I'm new to this, but put simply for me exactly what does ' institutional change' involve?
It's that institutional change that we really should be talking about and part of the reason I'm stressing the trend towards minority govt. As usual, the political class is about a decade behind in their thinking.
The most likely first step towards a break with the two-party system is a minority (hopefully Labor) government relying on confidence and supply. That leaves them without control over the proceedings of the House, as well as having to negotiate legislation in both House and Senate.
Albanese has ruled out "doing deals", but might stretch to this, if Labor is silly enough to keep on after the failure of his first term. Much better to switch to a less tribalist alternative, which means Chalmers.
Plibersek would have been in the box seat in such a scenario, had she resigned rather than do Albo's dirty work. As it is, she doesn't stand for anything.
"Albanese has ruled out "doing deals"," he is so stupid to say that; it might be all that saves his bacon.
What's going to happen if Albanese refuses to form a minority government with crossbench support? They'll just go and negotiate with Dutton, won't they?
I wish some journalist would ask those questions when he says that stuff. I get that he feels like he has to sound like he will win, but someone should push him a bit anyway. If there is a minoirty govt, his position is antidemocratic and untenable.
Well argued TD. I will, however allow myself to dream & thus rewrite your sentence, 'The election of 2022 was a two-steps-forward moment as will undoubtedly be 2025.'
'The election of 2022 was a two-steps-forward moment, and 2025 may well be a one step back moment.'
Fair enough, Gavin. I hope you're right, and I think there is a reasonable chance you are!
Very well said. Absolutely with you, but let’s not call it a “trend.” It’s a slow-motion rupture, a tectonic recoil from decades of managerial sedation. The major parties aren’t offering choices; they’re offering flavours of austerity, garnished with spin. Labor’s technocratic tweaks to a broken system are not reform, they’re risk management for capital. The rot isn’t accidental; it’s the logical endgame of a politics that outsourced vision to markets and sold off the very idea of a public good.
May 3 isn’t a fork in the road; it’s a pothole in a road that’s collapsing. While we haven’t hit the full populist tailspin yet, the runway’s visible. The best-case scenario? A hung parliament, a pissed-off electorate and enough crossbench ballast to slow the neoliberal death spiral.
So yes, vote, but don’t pretend it’s salvation. It’s damage control. The real fight is cultural, structural, existential. It starts by naming the problem: this system cannot be redeemed. It can only be replaced.
Nicely said.
Tim
you just described my voting predicament, and I dont have an Independent candidate choice
ouch
Yes, this is part of the next stage and why we need to fix things like campaign financing to allow more candidates to emerge in more electorates. If there is a minority govt, the first order of business should be find ways to normalise financing of community engagement so candidates can emerge. So people like you have an actual choice. There are still too many electorates like yours.
The best evidence that the system is fundamentally broken is in the almost complete absence of a debate on the existential issues confronting us - civilisation-threatening climate change and the final upending of the post-WWII geopolitical order. As you observe, Tim, the ALP is fatally stuck with its withered and uninspiring offer of a faintly more progressive managerialism. The LNP, meanwhile, has completely jumped the fence from centre-right pro-business conservatism to the Trumpist brand of neo-fascism that is destroying everything before it. These institutions are failing not because of any internal design faults but because the operating system of the past 40 years - one imposed on us from above - is now collapsing under its many contradictions. All that’s left is the oligarchy and, unlike others here, I’m not so confident that Australia’s democratic infrastructure - compulsory voting, the preferential system, a respected electoral commission - will be enough to save us from the destructive forces elsewhere. Globally, we are approaching a fight over basic resources - clean water, breathable air, fresh food, and liveable spaces not threatened by climate breakdown. Neoliberalism has no answer for this which is why Trump’s siren call against unrestricted immigration, cheap imports and global cooperation in the face of external threats is proving so resonant. Dutton will follow the same script and in doing so he will mine the increasing fear that Australians, and people everywhere, feel about global breakdown. Fear tends to be a much stronger motivating force than hope. But the ALP is not even able to offer the latter. Instead, it promises managerialism, incrementalism, and endless accommodation with powerful lobbyists - in the fossil fuel sector, the defence industries, banking, gambling, salmon farming and the rest - whose deep pockets and ability to control the news cycle, and hence policy, will continue to hold sway. I think it is going to take more than a handful of community independents and greens to hold back this tsunami. We’re going to need something like what happened in France last year when the combined forces of the centre and left rallied to keep out the nationalists. And someone needs to turn out the lights at the ALP and start again. By the way, I don’t think there is anything wrong with populism per se. Arguably what we need is a left-wing populism that is fuelled by the same real anger that drives MAGA. You can see it in the US with the roadshow that Bernie Sanders and AOC have been on. Without a return of conviction and passion, the ALP is toast. We need a new stronger coalition on the left to push back the coming far right tide about to engulf Australia.
You and I are at one on most of this. My only additional thought is that whatever the limitations of our system, the two-party power structure has to be broken, or at least challenged, if anything is going to improve. I don't think minority government will solve everything, but I am completely certain that majority govt by parties beholden to vested interests is the most certain path to the collapse we are seeing elsewhere. I'm all for a populism of the left, and breaking the duopoloy is one way of achieving that. Forcing realignment. Labor could move in that direction now if they didn't hate the Greens so much.
The ALP’s so-called hardheads have fooled themselves that the pragmatic approach is to continue with their accommodation of the right. It’s a message they seem to have completely absorbed since the Howard years to the extent they can’t see the opportunity on the left. For the life of me, I can’t understand why Albo is not taking off the gloves against Trump as the Canadians have done. That has single-handedly saved the Liberal Party there from what looked like certain defeat a couple of months ago. Australia has an even stronger economic and geopolitical argument for distancing ourselves from the US as we are nowhere near as dependent as Canada is on trade with that country. As Keating said, we must seek our security in Asia, not from Asia, and that is completely at odds with Washington’s bipartisan belligerence toward China. I would be also be picking a fight with Musk and the tech bros as Europe is doing and I’d be threatening to run the Murdoch crime family out of the country for good. Australia is not going to be respected internationally so long as we remain America’s poodle.
I think Albanese actually believes in Aukus and doesn't mind Trump. He is squandering the anti-Trump thing that he could've stuck to Dutton because he doesn't actually want to criticise Trump. FFS, he has officially invited him to Australia. What else explains this if not some sort of approval? There's no eight dimensional chess theory that makes any sense.
With the new electoral funding laws just passed, it becomes critical that Australia elect a minority government. The new laws will severely restrict the funding independent challengers are able to raise and utilise in future elections. The only way to undo the changes is if the crossbench is powerful enough to force the new parliament to rescind those laws. And if it doesn't happen in the next parliament, the laws will kick in and it will become even more difficult in future.
Polls seem to indicate a diverse parliament, but how do we ensure we land just at the right balance point? Is it possible?
Agree. The duopoloy will do everything they can to undermine the possibility of a larger crossbench. Hell, Albanese doesn't even accept the validity of the Greens, as he made clear again this week and will just ignore them if he can, no matter what voters say.
I don't think you can force any particular outcome, but it is important to institutue the sort of community engagement that allows good candidates to emerge. It's a long process, but it starts there.