Have not watched The Insiders for years, and boy was it enjoyable this morning :)
Huge kudos to the archivist who dug out the Simon Birmingham snippet wherein he laid out EXACTLY what the party needed to do after the 2022 loss. Spoiler: the party ignored him entirely.
And yes, the brief "Dutton is a lovely bloke with a great sense of humour" tribute is a bridge about 6 or 7 Nuclear reactors too far. If he's a great bloke, why did he constantly seek to divide the country? Great blokes don't do that.
Me too Simon, I have not watched Insiders since 22 May 2022. I agree about Dutton, although I was actually moved by his concession speech. But yes, if he's such a lovely bloke why is he such a racist, divisive thug who runs with Nazi talking points? Even really bad people can be charming and gracious at times. These moments don't make up for their deep moral failings.
I was hoping for a similar result to the one you hoped for but I am quite quite happy with the outcome from last night. It does indeed have many positives attached to it. Thanks for this insightful piece.
Yep, TD you've got it correct & I shall indeed '....enjoy their miserable demise and let the Labor faithful bask in what is genuinely a stellar outcome'. There is something I am still endeavouring to get my head around with with regards to major party reinvention following a juncture like this election result. I'm trying hard to rationalise what a political party should be. Should it be something that at a personal level is immutable in one's ethical DNA? That collectively parties will always hold true to these no matter how society and culture changes. Otherwise what are parties? Are they just corporations that exist to make money for party member shareholders and that can quickly adapt to exploit a new market & a way to make profits? Perhaps with the rise of robotics parties could recruit masses of robots to become MPs which can then be reprogrammed by the party to suit the policies perceived to be the best money earners?
One other thing. I will believe that Labor will no longer be cowed by the Murdoch/MSM if a meeting like the one that occurred post Labor win in 2022 where Laclan Murdoch summoned Albanese, Wong & Marles, doesn't occur and if it does then the true account of the meeting is published.
For me the duopoly still exists although its malignacy on the health of Australian democracy has gone into a brief remission. What we need is a new class of anti-duopoly drugs that actually are a cure.
If it’s true that the three most powerful people in the government met with Lachlan Murdoch on Wednesday, what does that say about lobbying and influence in Australia?
Yes, still a lot to unfold, isn't there? Baically, for me, it comes down to one thing: will Labor govern in a genuinely progressive manner, or will they just be in office and not in power? The r'ship with Murdoch will be key in determining this.
The sheer failure to get people elected undermines any chance they have of renewal in the short-term. They are stuck with a parliamentary rump, which was alteady pretty much the C-team and a party structure that doesn't allow for centrist renewal. Tony Barry seems to be the only Liberal willing to say this out loud.
Not much remarked is that the supposed surge in votes for One Nation didn't happen, even though they ran in every seat. And the rest of the far right is fragmented in a manner reminiscent of the Marxist left, with at least half a dozen parties fighting over 5 per cent of the vote. When Hanson leaves the political scene (maybe at the next election) One Nation will almost certainly go the same way. I don't think Australia has the demographic structure (not rural enough, not white enough, not Christian enough) to support a strong far right.
I live in regional NSW. My electorate had one of the highest No votes..
Racism & conservative misanthropy is alive & well in places like this. The far right has a home among the gum trees.
We had 11 candidates in a Nationals stronghold. At least 5 of them were from the extreme right. Preference flows helped reelect their man again instead of a good Independent
Yes, where did that sudden burst of One Nation commentary come from?
Agree about the size and fragmented nature of that rightwing rump. And a hollowed out Liberal Party makes it even harder to it to coalese. Maybe I'm being a bit glass-half-empty about their ability to disrupt...?
The Nats have had big drop in membership but stay put in places like Cowper because there's no Liberal candidate & although the demographic isn't as rural any more as Page to the north, like Port Macquarie, Coffs has a lot of cashed up Liberal voting retirees who would rather eat their hair than vote anything but conservative.
The coalition are essentially a minority party now.
Small correction: there was no One Nation in mighty Bean (ACT), where a C200 backed candidate Jessie Price is neck and neck with the incumbent Labor man, who had held the seat on a 12% margin 😀
Same sentiments as you, Tim - wish we could’ve got a minority gvmt but it felt like Christmas seeing Dutton lose his seat. Will be interesting to see how the independents and greens (RIP) will position themselves over the coming term.
It really is astonishing how profoundly off-base the chattering classes were about this result.
The ALP were returned to government due to fears about what a Dutton government might throw up or out.
Being in Kyrgyzstan at the moment, I'm not all over the results. But it seems that the Greens fared worst due to those fears. Some people may have hesitated about voting for a minor party.
I'd like to know about the extent of Labor's polling. They pretty much know how things are going everywhere and can put resources into any weak spots.
They didn't put forward strong policies and I can't see that this is going to be a good term of governance. They don't care about the environment and climate change, the NACC and political donations have been pretty much pasted and there are many issues where tokenism is applied.
On Sky this morning (no I don’t watch this rubbish but saw it on a Google newsfeed) Rowan Dean was saying that the Liberals HAVE to become a true Conservative Party after their election loss. And that if the moderates take control they will die a slow death. Why do these bozos keep peddling such inane nonsense? The Liberal Party basically died yesterday and I think that’s sad. But ironically the party died because commentators like Dean and Credlin and Dennis Shanahan and basically anyone working for the Murdochs
You are so correct here. He was at least, in a bizarre way, a moral weathervane for them - and an emblem of the "once great" Menzies party. As Greg Jericho points out, we reach an age where we know the next Liberal leader will be worse than the one before. We'll never get to slot Peter into his place in the "worst PM ever". Sad/not sad.
To be honest the Liberals have been dying since 1996 when John Howard became Prime Minister. Howard talked of a broad church but he increasingly isolated the moderates and lead the party further to the right. In the years since there has been an intervene war inside the Liberal Party which the Moderates lost. Moderates lost preselection for safe seats, many resigned whilst those who remained were forced to wear wolves clothing to survive.
The whole neoliberal turn from the 80s on has contributed to this. It has been bipartisan, unfortunately. I don't think this result will alter the fundamentals. We'll see.
All you fascists bound to lose, all you fascists bound to lose AND they did! Australia said no to fascism, no to Trumpery, no to far right government. Like you, Tim, my preference was for a progressive minority government. But, the inner voter in me whose first ever vote was for Gough Whitlam's government thinks this result is damn fine bloody splendid. I have hope again. And faith in Australia. That is no small thing.
Yes, I'm sort of enjoying the fact that I'm a bit disappointed (actually, devastated that Chandler-Mather lost his seat) in what is an utter shellacking of the Lib-Nats and their Murdoch mates. What we would have given for this result in 2019 or 2013, or just about any election that Labor has ever lost...My glass is half full too and the beer in it tastes beautiful.
This is the thing that the likes of Dutton have done to ruin the essence of democracy: by becoming so obnoxious and extreme they don't allow the formation of a soft centre that can shrug if their sides loses, confident that things won't go too pear-shaped. It used to be a bit like "I'm a vegetarian" versus "I eat meat": different but compatiable, able to sit at the same table. After 1996, the menu has been dominated by people who are suddenly eating nuts-and-bolts and it's been like, wtf?
What does it say about the judgement of the Right, News, Gina, Advance.... that they continued to back Duddie when they could have moved him out in a flash? Then again, Angus, Barnaby, Brige, the whole catastrophe? You are so correct about the ABC, time to re-assemble the spine!
To me it says that, one, they live in a bubble of their own bullshit and think they alone create reality. And two, that the vehicle for their political dominance has been destroyed by the logic of their own inability to see outside that bubble. In other words, the problem is structural and Anguses all the way down for the foreseeable future.
The extreme right lobbies may have come a cropper but achieved their goal of weakening The Greens. My letter box was full of warnings of the dire effects of a Green vote- from the so called Christian Lobby (who do they represent?), Advance, with a mix of evil Green attributes in the gun especially in championing Gaza,(Zionist funding?), opposing native forest logging, blocking fossil fuel expansion etc. Then the Catholic Education Office warned their schools and parents of the threat to religious schools funding, by targeting 7 seats subject to Greens support. A couple of hrs before polls closed I (and presumably the full ALP data base) was warned of the heinous crime of the Greens in not giving Labor their preferences. The resources of the right wing lobbies had their intended effect!
True Angela, but the Green vote still held up. Rotten results for them in Queensland though and even Adam Bandt could be in trouble. Australia will be much worse off without Greens in the lower house.
I wonder what their next move is. I mean her and her ilk. The mining industry seems happy with the result (which isn’t surprising) but I’m not convinced these darker forces are just going to slink away…
Have not watched The Insiders for years, and boy was it enjoyable this morning :)
Huge kudos to the archivist who dug out the Simon Birmingham snippet wherein he laid out EXACTLY what the party needed to do after the 2022 loss. Spoiler: the party ignored him entirely.
And yes, the brief "Dutton is a lovely bloke with a great sense of humour" tribute is a bridge about 6 or 7 Nuclear reactors too far. If he's a great bloke, why did he constantly seek to divide the country? Great blokes don't do that.
I slept through Insiders (late night). Might watch the replay.
And yeah, I hate to be ungracious, but Dutton reaps what he sows, afaic.
Me too Simon, I have not watched Insiders since 22 May 2022. I agree about Dutton, although I was actually moved by his concession speech. But yes, if he's such a lovely bloke why is he such a racist, divisive thug who runs with Nazi talking points? Even really bad people can be charming and gracious at times. These moments don't make up for their deep moral failings.
I was hoping for a similar result to the one you hoped for but I am quite quite happy with the outcome from last night. It does indeed have many positives attached to it. Thanks for this insightful piece.
Yep, TD you've got it correct & I shall indeed '....enjoy their miserable demise and let the Labor faithful bask in what is genuinely a stellar outcome'. There is something I am still endeavouring to get my head around with with regards to major party reinvention following a juncture like this election result. I'm trying hard to rationalise what a political party should be. Should it be something that at a personal level is immutable in one's ethical DNA? That collectively parties will always hold true to these no matter how society and culture changes. Otherwise what are parties? Are they just corporations that exist to make money for party member shareholders and that can quickly adapt to exploit a new market & a way to make profits? Perhaps with the rise of robotics parties could recruit masses of robots to become MPs which can then be reprogrammed by the party to suit the policies perceived to be the best money earners?
One other thing. I will believe that Labor will no longer be cowed by the Murdoch/MSM if a meeting like the one that occurred post Labor win in 2022 where Laclan Murdoch summoned Albanese, Wong & Marles, doesn't occur and if it does then the true account of the meeting is published.
For me the duopoly still exists although its malignacy on the health of Australian democracy has gone into a brief remission. What we need is a new class of anti-duopoly drugs that actually are a cure.
https://www.crikey.com.au/2022/08/26/labors-deafening-silence-on-murdoch-meeting/
Labor’s deafening silence on Murdoch meeting
If it’s true that the three most powerful people in the government met with Lachlan Murdoch on Wednesday, what does that say about lobbying and influence in Australia?
Bernard Keane
Aug 26, 2022
3 min read
Thanks for your great writings TD. Cheers
Yes, still a lot to unfold, isn't there? Baically, for me, it comes down to one thing: will Labor govern in a genuinely progressive manner, or will they just be in office and not in power? The r'ship with Murdoch will be key in determining this.
I think Peta Credlin said it all on Sky or somewhere equally irrelevant last night: we didn't go hard enough on the culture wars
Oh, I really hope that attitude prevails. Maybe then we'll end up with a new, sane, conservative party.
The sheer failure to get people elected undermines any chance they have of renewal in the short-term. They are stuck with a parliamentary rump, which was alteady pretty much the C-team and a party structure that doesn't allow for centrist renewal. Tony Barry seems to be the only Liberal willing to say this out loud.
That becomes very obvious when you look at some of the more longstanding members, especially in the Senate: Matt Canavan, Alex Antic, John McGrath.
Wild
And maybe parliament will be that 'better place' it was meant to be after the last election, now that Dutton is gone?
It can only help.
Not much remarked is that the supposed surge in votes for One Nation didn't happen, even though they ran in every seat. And the rest of the far right is fragmented in a manner reminiscent of the Marxist left, with at least half a dozen parties fighting over 5 per cent of the vote. When Hanson leaves the political scene (maybe at the next election) One Nation will almost certainly go the same way. I don't think Australia has the demographic structure (not rural enough, not white enough, not Christian enough) to support a strong far right.
Indeed, they were as absent as they've ever been.
Grasping and failing from genesis all the way to the rubbish bin.
As Elvis Costello once sang for Thatcher, when Hanson dies/goes, I shall tramp the dirt down. Bring it on.
Another unmentionable in the wrap up is "The Quiet Australians". Did they take the autumn off and head to Bali?
Hawaii.
I hope you're right John.
I live in regional NSW. My electorate had one of the highest No votes..
Racism & conservative misanthropy is alive & well in places like this. The far right has a home among the gum trees.
We had 11 candidates in a Nationals stronghold. At least 5 of them were from the extreme right. Preference flows helped reelect their man again instead of a good Independent
Yes, where did that sudden burst of One Nation commentary come from?
Agree about the size and fragmented nature of that rightwing rump. And a hollowed out Liberal Party makes it even harder to it to coalese. Maybe I'm being a bit glass-half-empty about their ability to disrupt...?
Feeling a bit more optimistic.
About 2% difference again.
it's not a guaranteed safe seat anymore.
The Nats have had big drop in membership but stay put in places like Cowper because there's no Liberal candidate & although the demographic isn't as rural any more as Page to the north, like Port Macquarie, Coffs has a lot of cashed up Liberal voting retirees who would rather eat their hair than vote anything but conservative.
The coalition are essentially a minority party now.
The next election is for Labor to lose.
Hope they seize the day.
Small correction: there was no One Nation in mighty Bean (ACT), where a C200 backed candidate Jessie Price is neck and neck with the incumbent Labor man, who had held the seat on a 12% margin 😀
Watching that one closely!
Same sentiments as you, Tim - wish we could’ve got a minority gvmt but it felt like Christmas seeing Dutton lose his seat. Will be interesting to see how the independents and greens (RIP) will position themselves over the coming term.
It really is astonishing how profoundly off-base the chattering classes were about this result.
The Greens will still be strong in the Senate, so yeah, we'll see. Definitely need for some renewal there. Keep an eye on Barbara Pocock.
The ALP were returned to government due to fears about what a Dutton government might throw up or out.
Being in Kyrgyzstan at the moment, I'm not all over the results. But it seems that the Greens fared worst due to those fears. Some people may have hesitated about voting for a minor party.
I'd like to know about the extent of Labor's polling. They pretty much know how things are going everywhere and can put resources into any weak spots.
They didn't put forward strong policies and I can't see that this is going to be a good term of governance. They don't care about the environment and climate change, the NACC and political donations have been pretty much pasted and there are many issues where tokenism is applied.
I thought similar about Greens - but discovered this morning their vote had increased slightly.
The LNP preference deal - out of spite what else - placed ALP above Greens (first time ever?), and here we are.
The upside is they maintain 6 Senate positions.
Looking at the ABC Election results The Greens will have between 9-11 senators in the new Senate
Snap!
Share many of these concerns, Peta. And so it begins.
Greens share went up, but preference changes f'd them over to some extent: haven't really seen the figures on this, but it will be interesting.
On Sky this morning (no I don’t watch this rubbish but saw it on a Google newsfeed) Rowan Dean was saying that the Liberals HAVE to become a true Conservative Party after their election loss. And that if the moderates take control they will die a slow death. Why do these bozos keep peddling such inane nonsense? The Liberal Party basically died yesterday and I think that’s sad. But ironically the party died because commentators like Dean and Credlin and Dennis Shanahan and basically anyone working for the Murdochs
The Liberal Party actually died some time during Howard's leadership. It's just been a shambling corpse animated by spite for years.
You are so correct here. He was at least, in a bizarre way, a moral weathervane for them - and an emblem of the "once great" Menzies party. As Greg Jericho points out, we reach an age where we know the next Liberal leader will be worse than the one before. We'll never get to slot Peter into his place in the "worst PM ever". Sad/not sad.
Lot of truth in that. Delightful irony really.
To be honest the Liberals have been dying since 1996 when John Howard became Prime Minister. Howard talked of a broad church but he increasingly isolated the moderates and lead the party further to the right. In the years since there has been an intervene war inside the Liberal Party which the Moderates lost. Moderates lost preselection for safe seats, many resigned whilst those who remained were forced to wear wolves clothing to survive.
Exactly.
Our problem is the Howard legacy lives on in the damage to public institutions & the psyche of too many.
He appealed the selfish & venal side of our nature's & we are living with that.
The whole neoliberal turn from the 80s on has contributed to this. It has been bipartisan, unfortunately. I don't think this result will alter the fundamentals. We'll see.
Yep, they have been structurally gutted and can't renew in any genuinely moderate form and Howard is ground zero for that.
Yep, the fate of the Libs in inextricably tied to these idiots and their insane theories. It's FoxNews fever dream they all live in.
Are writing and preaching utter rubbish and they know it I’m sure. The demise of the Liberal Party begins and ends with the Murdoch family.
There is certainly a codependency problem.
According to that acute observer of Australian politics Andrew Blot, the Coalition only lost because they didn't wage full-blooded Kulturkampf.
And he'd know …
It's an addiction. They have to keep upping the dose, chasing that first high they all got in 1996. When such things seemed true.
All you fascists bound to lose, all you fascists bound to lose AND they did! Australia said no to fascism, no to Trumpery, no to far right government. Like you, Tim, my preference was for a progressive minority government. But, the inner voter in me whose first ever vote was for Gough Whitlam's government thinks this result is damn fine bloody splendid. I have hope again. And faith in Australia. That is no small thing.
Yes, I'm sort of enjoying the fact that I'm a bit disappointed (actually, devastated that Chandler-Mather lost his seat) in what is an utter shellacking of the Lib-Nats and their Murdoch mates. What we would have given for this result in 2019 or 2013, or just about any election that Labor has ever lost...My glass is half full too and the beer in it tastes beautiful.
Gotta take the wins, eh?
This is the thing that the likes of Dutton have done to ruin the essence of democracy: by becoming so obnoxious and extreme they don't allow the formation of a soft centre that can shrug if their sides loses, confident that things won't go too pear-shaped. It used to be a bit like "I'm a vegetarian" versus "I eat meat": different but compatiable, able to sit at the same table. After 1996, the menu has been dominated by people who are suddenly eating nuts-and-bolts and it's been like, wtf?
A huge thing. I agree.
What does it say about the judgement of the Right, News, Gina, Advance.... that they continued to back Duddie when they could have moved him out in a flash? Then again, Angus, Barnaby, Brige, the whole catastrophe? You are so correct about the ABC, time to re-assemble the spine!
To me it says that, one, they live in a bubble of their own bullshit and think they alone create reality. And two, that the vehicle for their political dominance has been destroyed by the logic of their own inability to see outside that bubble. In other words, the problem is structural and Anguses all the way down for the foreseeable future.
The extreme right lobbies may have come a cropper but achieved their goal of weakening The Greens. My letter box was full of warnings of the dire effects of a Green vote- from the so called Christian Lobby (who do they represent?), Advance, with a mix of evil Green attributes in the gun especially in championing Gaza,(Zionist funding?), opposing native forest logging, blocking fossil fuel expansion etc. Then the Catholic Education Office warned their schools and parents of the threat to religious schools funding, by targeting 7 seats subject to Greens support. A couple of hrs before polls closed I (and presumably the full ALP data base) was warned of the heinous crime of the Greens in not giving Labor their preferences. The resources of the right wing lobbies had their intended effect!
True Angela, but the Green vote still held up. Rotten results for them in Queensland though and even Adam Bandt could be in trouble. Australia will be much worse off without Greens in the lower house.
The attacks were relentless, weren't they? Had to do some damage.
Tim, so very true. Especially your footnote about the ABC and how they have legitimised the extreme right for so long. Welcome to Country indeed.
Has anyone checked on Gina?
Lol. Wonder if Pete will be at her next birthday? Or still has access to the jet?
I wonder what their next move is. I mean her and her ilk. The mining industry seems happy with the result (which isn’t surprising) but I’m not convinced these darker forces are just going to slink away…