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Conservative Tony Abbott now PM of Australia
- Thread starter Jintor
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Well.... that was a really robust response.
Seems to be missing what was discussed BEFORE shit happens and AFTER.
What do you think might have happened that would explain his behaviour?
Behold, our new PM!
He'll probably be doing this a lot but this time in front of the whole world, good times ahead...
Labour should have been running this non-stop on TV since it came out, might have scared a few more people off voting for the psycho.
toddhunter
Member
For those interested, especially people from America, here is my take on the why Abbott was elected to counter or provide context to some of the claims in the OP. I believe the OP makes more of a case of why he/she is upset with the result, not why it actually came about.
It started back in 2004. John Howard was the long serving prime minister and up until that point had been doing a pretty good job. It may have been because he had an easy time of it with the mining boom (and I'm sure his haters will never acknowledge his leadership) but for whatever reason things were going ok in the country to that point. Then, like a lot of governments he went one term too long, had too much power and went way too far with his policies.
Those policies were in theory actually beneficial for me, but even I voted against him because I realised the balance just wasn't there in the workplace reforms. He had to go and it was no surprise when he did.
Taking advantage of this was Kevin Rudd. He won the election easily, running mostly on a platform of "Not being John Howard" quite similar to how Obama wasn't George Bush (albeit Obama had to do a heck of a lot of work to become the Democrat candidate). He was very popular with the people, the party was going well and the bad policies from the previous Liberal government were being disbanded. That isn't to say that they didn't deserve their success, just that the actual leader wasn't the critical factor in the change of government. It was going to happen no matter who was at the helm.
The Liberals themselves had no answer to this. All they could do was appoint a proven attack dog in Abbott to try to take some of the shine off of Rudd whilst they rebuilt the party and tried to get some trust back. I don't believe they ever intended to win the 2011 election, they just wanted to get back on the right track and then get rid of Abbott after he had done his job to later appoint somebody who was actually electable.
In this context, everything was great for Labor. They had some "strong" policies such as the NBN (I won't debate if the policies are good or not, just roll with it) So what was the problem? How did things go so wrong?
Rudd was popular with the people, but his party hated him. They hated him because he was a bit of a dick. He wanted to do everything himself, he was egotistical, he didn't consult with anybody on policy and in general ran his own race.
The Labor party found itself facing a big choice. Bite their tongue and just let him keep going or do something about it even though changing a leader is ALWAYS a move seen as extremely negative by the Australian people. Inevitably, Rudd gave them a prime opportunity by trying to introduce a tax that dropped his popularity. The Labor party saw the chance to get rid of him and struck, installing Julia Gillard as leader of the country in a secret backroom deal.
This had a number of repercussions. The Labor party took a huge hit in popularity and gained some long lasting resentment from voters. I'm sure they would have expected this and decided that it was worth it to get rid of Rudd, especially with no viable alternative on the opposition to bother them.
It might have worked too if Rudd had gone quietly, but he didn't. He stayed in parliament and actively undermined the now Gillard government by leaking to the media, playing up to leadership speculation and basically being a disruptive presence. The damage meant the Gillard government scraped through in the 2011 election, but only with the help of minor parties, which forced them to compromise and go back on key promises that further damaged the brand. A minority government is almost impossible to pull off properly at the best of times, but when the party is still divided it was just never going to end well.
When the popularity of the Labor party did not improve, they decided to eventually, after many, many months or denials switch back to (the still somewhat popular) Rudd as leader to salvage as many votes as they could. When they did this move, most of the senior members of the party resigned rather than working with Rudd again, such was the hatred. They did all this literally months before the election. In one move, Australia lost its trade minister, minister for education, climate change minister, communications minister, agriculture minister and even the treasurer. Somehow this all seems to get lost in discussions about why the party ultimately lost.
Whilst all this was going on, the Liberal party also had a problem. Abbott was put in there just to take the gloss off of Rudd. But the Labor party actually self destructed and did his job much better and faster than he ever could. All of a sudden he was the leader and had a chance of winning by default. Because he got so close after the terrible 2007 result, they stuck by him. He moderated, basically meaning he kept his mouth shut and was able to hold the party together and keep it on message...which was mostly to say not much at all.
At any time the Labor party could have got their shit together and easily won the election based on policy, but they never did. The fighting continued up until the election and even after, with Rudd not even mentioning Gillard in a 22 minute speech in which I think he even thanked me personally.
You can blame the papers for making the Labor party look unpopular during the initial tax that took Rudd down, but that is just an excuse. A government will always end up doing something unpopular. They'll take a hit in the polls, communicate or change their message and come back again. But this only works if the party is functioning as a team. When it is actively looking for excuses to cut personalities and working to destroy sections of itself, you end up with an unpopular man as prime minister.
The moral? If you want to lead the country, sort your shit out and keep it sorted. If a newspaper or opposition can bring you down you were not united and showing leadership. Good policies do not win you elections, they just make it easier to be popular. It is politics after all.
Well the OP is very wrong about this:
Despite the wonderful sense that the Liberals would want the free markets to determine a price on carbon, Tony Abbott's plan is a policy of 'direct action'. Instead of making the big polluters pay us for polluting, the Liberals will give sacks of money TO the big polluters if they promise to be good. He will also raise a Green Army (whatever that is) and plant trees around the country making everything laa-dee-daa.
The whole direct action scheme is also capped at $3 billion. Which all independent analysis shows is not enough to achieve the stated aim to cut 5% of carbon emissions. Mr Abbott has already said he won't spend more money and would rather not reach the targeted goal.
Don't you think the prime minister should be a man of better self-control?
The guy is representing Australia on the world stage.
VKS' summary of why people voted the way they did was pretty bang-on, too. Fucked if I can be bothered (that's a thing, right?) looking for a link, though. But it was accurate as hell, according to someone from the areas he was talking about.
Almost word-for-word what his mother would've said on that fateful day in November 1957 (and funnily enough, almost three years before his family migrated to Australia... by boat).
Just spoke to some family members....they only voted Liberal because they were already going to win and everyone else was voting for them as well, they actually didn't know much about the LNP's policies until I told them about them (I.e. cutting school kids bonus etc).....now they are actually unhappy that he won. I guess you are always going to get that in a compulsory voting system, people like sticking with the herd
reptilescorpio
Member
Yeah this is spot on, especially the bold. An absolute mess of management over there.
Honestly, what the fuck? Why would you vote for someone who was "already going to make it in"?
I fear the general public's mentality was like that. Media tells them Libs will win, public votes for Libs because they'll win anyway and guess what. THEY WIN.
But toddhunter is right, though. If at any stage the ALP got their shit together (or even had the appearance of doing so) they could've shit it in.
TriangleOfCorruption
Member
It's important to know that despite being conservatives the Libs aren't really going the austerity route. They talked up a 'budget emergency' as a cynical vote winner, but their costings only saved about 0.3% iirc, and they aren't promising a surplus.
The cuts will hurt, but we're not going to go the way of UK and much of Europe.
The cuts will hurt, but we're not going to go the way of UK and much of Europe.
PhantomZone
Member
Well when the majority of Australia prefer him over Rudd/Gillard/Rudd you know something must have been put in the water.
Senate is still in play, but it seems likely it'll be Katter, Palmer, the Motoring Enthusiast's party, the Liberal Democrats (LOL) and Family First who are the wedge this time - Hanson-Young and Xenophon are going to have a tough time of it to grab the last few seats. Say nothing of the Greens who will probably lose two seats. Incorrect, Greens are projected to gain a seat somewhere
Sutton Dagger
Member
Great post.
Watching Meet the Press this morning and they had a segment where they were interviewing people who had voted for the LNP. The first guy made the statement that 'Labour ran the country into the ground', no justification, except for 'look back at Howard and Costello, they were fantastic we even got tax cuts cause the economy was so good'...
Next was a woman who voted for Tony Abott because 'he looks fit'. The last was a young 20ish female who didn't know the name of the Liberal leader, but just 'didn't like' Kevin Rudd.
Fake edit: Breaking news: Liberal supporter voted to stop the boats, 'sick of the diseases coming off the boats into the community'... Fuck me this country is shameful.
Shaking my head. The best argument against democracy is a conversation with the average voter, it would seem.
Waiting for the sober assessment of whether or not the micro-party preference betrayals like the Sex Party, WikiLeaks and the Animal Justice Parties did any major damage or not.
The Age said One Nation only got 1.25% of the primary vote but got a staggering amount of preference deals that actually made her competitive for that final NSW Senate seat.
The Age said One Nation only got 1.25% of the primary vote but got a staggering amount of preference deals that actually made her competitive for that final NSW Senate seat.
>_<;
There were plenty of spending announcements, they were just small things like grants to Guide Dogs. But I get what you mean. Here's the thing...
After '93 and '96, you'll never again have an Opposition Leader willing to campaign on big ticket items. Instead, they'll do whatever they can to stop their opponent from making a scare campaign over any announcement. Because that's what works in this country, hence the phrase "oppositions don't win, governments lose".
That's why I was so disappointed that Chris Bowen held McMahon. That seat had the dirtiest campaign against Ray King, and I would hate for the lesson from that to be that false dirt files work and become more widespread.
I think it'll get better once incumbency gives the Coalition some spine. That spine gave us tax reform in 1998.
The whole election has proved that false dirt files work, hell, the last 3 years with the Peter Slipper bullshit showed that.
Restraint in not knocking out a reporter who asked a question, are you for real?
Edit: Double post, fuck it.
CrankyKong
Member
So the greens gained a seat in the senate and held their house seat?
ABC projecting they have 10 seats total, so looks that way - I was mistaken earlier. (A common theme, apparently)
CrankyKong
Member
Well thats a silver lining I guess
Sutton Dagger
Member
We also have the existing senate until June/July next year, so they don't have a rubber stamp just yet. I'm still hopeful the senate will pan out to be somewhat reasonable and Abbot won't have free rein to bring in some of his more disgusting policies (refugees/education)
PhantomZone
Member
If you knew what a gutter journalist Mark Riley is then you would share the same opinion
No, I wouldn't, sorry. And I feel bad for you that you think that that is a reasonable defence of Abbott.
Whiteshirt
Member
That's patently untrue.
They don't want Abbott. They just don't want the Labor party. Completely different things, you're literally dumber than a sack of bricks because we've repeated this a billion times in a billion threads.
Most polls showed that Rudd was the preferred prime minister but people didn't want Labor. The voting showed this where you've got people voting the LNP and even more people were voting for one of the billion crackpot third parties like the PUP.
PhantomZone
Member
Well you have at least 3 years before you can vote him/Liberal out so i look forward to your angry letters in the meantime .
.Atraveller
Banned
Oh wow, well, good luck I guess.Behold, our new PM!
He'll probably be doing this a lot but this time in front of the whole world, good times ahead...
reptilescorpio
Member
What? All the polls had him behind Rudd as preferred PM.
Bulbagarden
Member
It looks like preferences from the Animal Justice Party may end up elect a Liberal Senator over a Green in the ACT.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/federal-election-2013/results/senate/act/
The difference between the Liberals and Greens currently (60%-ish of voted counted) is a little under 2300. Subtract the AJP's almost 1900 from the Liberals and give it to the Greens, and they'd probably take the seat if there's not any big changes in the vote ratios.
The man is a bumbling ball of rage, I can't believe he will be the face of Australia. Although given the results, maybe that is appropriateBehold, our new PM!
He'll probably be doing this a lot but this time in front of the whole world, good times ahead...
It seems busted that an animal justice party would preference the Libs.
I'm a New Zealander who just moved to Australia. I can't vote and have no path to citizenship here even though I can stay and work here as long as I like.
Australia have made the same mistake that New Zealand did in 2008 when they threw out the New Zealand Labour party who had been in for three terms, just for changes sake.
The New Zealand National party then came in raising GST to 15% (after promising not to) and are in the process of selling multiple state assets.
It's so frustrating seeing people vote against their interests just because they "want change"
Australia have made the same mistake that New Zealand did in 2008 when they threw out the New Zealand Labour party who had been in for three terms, just for changes sake.
The New Zealand National party then came in raising GST to 15% (after promising not to) and are in the process of selling multiple state assets.
It's so frustrating seeing people vote against their interests just because they "want change"
Whiteshirt
Member
I think they even preferenced Rise Up Australia over the Greens on a couple of ballots. They highlight the biggest problem with this election: people not understanding anything about any party. Liberal winning isn't really so much a problem, since we can blame that on Labor, but its kind of horrible that all of these crazy single issue political parties have actually won seats (Australian Motor Enthusiasts Club are you fucking with me).
That shit drives me insane, condolences.
roosters93
Member
How many times do people have to be told this? THERE IS NO ILLEGAL WAY TO SEEK ASYLUM
short of perhaps parachuting into the lodge, taking Abbott hostage while saying your demand is asylum
Adopting such a simple narrative moves away from the truth.
No doubt it is a very large part of it, but denying the other parts is disingenuous.
This also.
There's definitely an argument on how much or little influence the bias of News Limited has on voters but to deny their influence exists at all? That's ludicrous.
they did lol
Did you vote for the Drug Law Reform or HEMP (Held End Marijuana Prohibition) Parties in the Senate?
They'll definitely introduce more cuts that weren't part of their costings. But yeah I generally agree they won't go too far.
Huh
Xenophon is already in. Dude's got 1.8 quotas with 70% of the vote counted.
ABC's calculator is predicting Hanson Young will get in on Labor preferences and as long the Xenophon group vote stays steady in the rest of the count, that will probably happen.
Insane or rage-filled or robot or whatever. He isn't fit for leadership of Australia.
But optimistically, it's kind of a win-win situation. Either Abbott will do well and he will face tough journalistic questions with calm reason and logic, or his circuitboard will explode and Turnbull will take over/Labor gets back in in 2016.
Where else did his daughters get their good looks from?
I thought that bit about the school kids bonus was part of the 'if abbott wins, you lose' ads. How could have they missed that?
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