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tomorrowusa · 2 years

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When we see Australian election returns they often resemble the chart above. And this final result is certainly accurate. The ALP (Australian Labor Party) won with 77 seats in the House of Representatives and so it can now govern with a majority.

But as a nerdy American hearing confusing and seemingly contradictory references for the past dozen days I decided to look a little more deeply into the actual parties which won House seats.

The result was the creation of this chart.

What really complicates the party situation is the long term relationship between the Liberals (who aren’t that liberal) and Nationals (who aren’t that national). It gets peculiar in the state of Queensland where the two have tied the knot and now run on a common slate. To make it all simple, The Liberals, The Nationals, and LNP of Queensland are usually referred to as The Coalition.

Of course the complications don’t end there. Katter’s Australian Party and the Center Alliance are now essentially one-state parties; though Rebekha Sharkie (South Australia) and Bob Katter (Queensland) might dispute that.

The Australian Greens are indeed a regular party who even picked up one seat in May.

The biggest media splash in this election was made by a loose grouping called “teal independents”. It’s not really an official name but they seem to have split with the Liberal Party over the latter’s increasingly conservative policies on climate and social issues.

And to top it all off, there are four regular independents.

While initially confusing, it’s worth keeping up with Australian politics these days. The ALP has a clear majority under Prime Minister Albanese. And there are four Greens and six Teals who could support him on some environmental measures.

Australia is also in the process of coming to terms with its colonial past and maltreatment of indigenous peoples. We’ll be hearing a lot about the ULURU STATEMENT FROM THE HEART in the next few years. There may be elements of this which we might find applicable in North America.

#australia #election 2022 #political parties #australian labor party #alp #liberal party of australia #liberal national party of queensland #npa #national party of australia #the coalition #australian greens #katter's australian party #centre alliance #teal independents #independents #electoral democracy #ranked choice voting #anthony albanese

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dialogue-queered · 2 years

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D-Q Comment:

Going into Australia’s May 2022 national elections, the right’s Liberal National Coalition seemed like a government that had no credible agenda for the future.

It had stalled on badly on climate change and even private business was ahead of it.

Pandemic management was ‘spotty’ and the government could not help itself to run a neo-liberal, pro-business line even when the state governments (in Australia’s federal system) enjoyed decisive community support for strong lockdown and other measures successfully minimising deaths to around 2500 in 2020 and 2021.

Corruption seemed significant at the national level, but the government refused to move anti-corruption watchdog legislation forward.

Old-style, semi-toxic masculinities abounded in this government amidst workplace discrimination and scandals relating to the treatment of women including in the national parliament itself.

These are some broad themes as to why (a) the Labor, centre-left opposition won a narrow two seat majority, and (b) female independents in wealthy Coalition seats rebelled on the women’s, climate change and corruption issues - and won election - the so-called blue-green ‘teals’ - gaining 10 lower house seats.

Article Text:

The eight reasons the Coalition lost the 2022 federal election may have been personified by Scott Morrison, but they were an institutional failure, according to the architect of Labor’s victory.

Labor’s national secretary, Paul Erickson, gave his account of the election win at the National Press Club on Wednesday, broadening the attack from voters’ fatigue with Morrison to the failures of the Coalition team.

Although Labor “won’t be fighting Scott Morrison” at the next election, it will “be up against some of his nastier and more incompetent enablers”, he said – a sledge directed at the current Liberal leader, Peter Dutton.

So why does Labor think it won – and will the Liberals’ problems outlast Morrison’s leadership into Dutton’s reign?

1. Lack of responsibility

The first reason for victory was “a pathological refusal to take responsibility for anything, which comes from their small government mindset”, Erickson said.

He illustrated this with numerous examples, from Morrison’s declaration he didn’t “hold a hose” to his statement to parliament that “his solution to a lack of maternal health services in Yass, which left a woman giving birth by the side of the road on the Barton Highway, was to upgrade the highway”.

2. Poor pandemic management

Erickson accused the federal government of “incompetent management of [its] responsibilities during the pandemic”.

Erickson cited the failure to do “basic due diligence” by ordering a variety of vaccines, arguing “problems with specific vaccines were inevitable”.

“This isn’t the wisdom of hindsight, Chris Bowen pointed out the urgent need to invest in a range of potential vaccines in July 2020. Liberal failure to do so was the context for Morrison saying three times in one day in March 2021 that the vaccine rollout was not a race and it wasn’t a competition. The bungled rollout wasn’t something that happened to the Coalition, it was a direct result of their dangerous complacency.”

Similarly, the Coalition failed to build quarantine facilities, resulting in “leaky hotel quarantine that led to repeated Covid outbreaks”.

3. Attacking the states

Erickson said the government engaged in “cabinet-wide partisan attacks on state and territory governments throughout Covid, which particularly alienated voters in Victoria and Western Australia”.

Erickson argued from Morrison down, the Coalition showed “hubris and mindless partisanship” in attacks against Queensland’s Annastacia Palaszczuk, the Victorian Andrews government’s roadmap out of Covid, and through its support for Clive Palmer’s challenge to the Western Australian border closure.

“No Victorian needs to be reminded of the Liberals’ subsequent attempts to undermine the public health response to the second wave in Melbourne, led by Josh Frydenberg and the lamentable Tim Smith,” he said.

4. The budget

Erickson repeated Labor attack lines about the Coalition’s “incompetent budget management”, including that it racked up “billions of dollars in wasted rorts, and nothing to show for a trillion dollars of debt”.

5. Response to the cost of living crisis

Erickson argued the Coalition response to the cost of living crisis “wasn’t just incompetent, it was incoherent”.

“The Liberals argued that Australia was already enjoying a strong recovery, but only a returned Morrison government could secure that recovery,” he said.

By then claiming “the sky would fall in” over Anthony Albanese’s support for a minimum wage rise in line with inflation it undercut “their campaign assertions about the strength of the recovery”.

6. China – and other regional issues

Erickson accused the Coalition of “incoherent engagement with our allies in our region”.

He cited an “irresponsible and immature” response to the news China would sign a security pact with Solomon Islands, with “assertions that the Chinese Communist party were backing Labor, warmongering rhetoric on Anzac Day, talk of ‘red lines’, and failed attempts to suggest Labor opposes the Aukus arrangement”.

This followed “February’s Manchurian candidate silliness”, when Morrison and then Dutton suggested Labor figures including deputy leader, Richard Marles, were helped by China.

7. Ignoring women’s experiences

Erickson accused the Coalition of “a lack of awareness or interest in women’s experiences across the economy and society”.

Erickson noted all but one of Morrison’s network featured in an Australian Financial Review story in July 2020 were men; the Morrison government ending free childcare mid-pandemic; and the Barton Highway clanger.

After the reckoning in the first quarter of 2021 on workplace bullying, sexual harassment and sexual assault in politics, two of Morrison’s gaffes continued to come up in Labor’s research, according to Erickson: first, that it wasn’t until he considered these issues as a husband and a father that he was able to reflect and listen; and second, that women who marched outside Parliament House were lucky not to be met with bullets.

8. Climate change inaction

Erickson accused the Coalition of “a decades-long failure to take climate change seriously”.

He noted that Barnaby Joyce returned to the Nationals leadership in part due to opposition to net zero emissions by 2050, adding: “In the lead-up to Cop26, the Liberals had to beg the Nationals to let them to commit to net zero. They then released a vacuous pamphlet that maintained Tony Abbott’s 2030 targets.

“I recall some reporting in late 2021 suggesting that the Liberals believed the net zero commitment would see off any threat from climate-orientated independents. And all I can say based on our work was we never saw any evidence that Morrison persuaded anyone in the community of his commitment to the climate, which is hardly surprising given the empty and desperately political nature of where he landed.

Who swung to Labor?

Erickson argued these factors combined to help Labor assemble a broad coalition, including winning full-time workers, Tafe-educated voters, renters and mortgage voters in low-income households earning less than $50,000 a year, and medium-income households between $50,000 and $100,000.

“Some of the biggest swings to Labor were recorded in outer suburban and regional electorates,” he said.

Erickson cited consolidation in Macquarie, Eden-Monaro, Dobell, Dunkley and Corangamite, gains of Robertson, Hasluck and Pearce, and in seats it “didn’t gain but will continue to campaign in and fight for like Flynn and Deakin”.

What of the future?

Erickson argued that “Scott Morrison may have come to personify these failures but they are institutional and collective, not individual”.

“They’re actively prosecuted by senior cabinet ministers and all Coalition leaders including the two men then seen as the only likely successors to Scott Morrison – Josh Frydenberg and Peter Dutton.”

Erickson also commented on the media’s performance in the election, endorsing comments by the Western Australian premier, Mark McGowan, “about some of the dynamics we saw in terms of how the media pack engaged with the opposition leader”.

He said that some behaviour was “beyond the pale” and reminded him of people’s shock and negative reactions to the way journalists spoke to political leaders during the 2020 Covid outbreaks. “I think there’s a lot there to reflect on.”

#australian election 2022 #labor party #coalition #australia news #australian politics #anthony albanese #australia #auspol #elections #politics #australian labor party #the guardian #paul erickson

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