OT: Current Affairs and Politics

[Poupou Escobar]

If you’re going to promote Australia losing our status as a sovereign country and becoming part of America then there’s nothing left to say.

Australia is a made-up thing. Like NSW or Taiwan.

 

[Twizzle]

Many borders are arbitrary, including the one separating Canada from the US.

many, maybe, but ours is not arbitrary, we're a f**king island

 

[the phantom menace]

Australia is a made-up thing. Like NSW or Taiwan.

 

[Gary Gutful]

Gina R is another dumb merkin - and proof that money (and knowing how to make gazillions of it) doesn't equal brains.

She's absolutely trying to lead the LNP down the wrong path here - heading further to the right is not the way the LNP picks up the votes it lost and is missing closer to the centre. The Libs will need those centre votes to ever present as a credible alternative government, not votes out to the right that it already has (through One Nation preference flow).

Voters, ‘left media’ to blame for Coalition wipeout: Rinehart

Mining magnate Gina Rinehart says Australians should learn from US citizens she met as she wondered the streets of New York in a MAGA hat.

www.smh.com.au

I think it depends on who is delivering it. Dutton is a poor communicator and didn't do well under scrutiny.

Some factors that are different to the US:

1. We are less polarised when it comes to what media we consume. In the US, Trump has been able to use lack of trust in the media to his advantage. That's proven more powerful than if he were to receive positive media.
2. Albo is performing much better than Biden and Kamala. He was more popular going into the election and didn't have a disastrous campaign.

If any of the above factors change then its possible, but I agree that the centre is where they can more easily pick up support right now.

Either way, the LNP are in a Ryles-style rebuild.

 

[Poupou Escobar]

many, maybe, but ours is not arbitrary, we're a f**king island

So is Tasmania. And Alaska.

 

[RustedonEel]

So is Tasmania. And Alaska.

No, no, no Pou. Alaska is NOT an island.

 

[the phantom menace]

If the LNP right faction (which has the numbers and control) follows Gina's lead and sticks with/heads further right... then maybe - sometime in the next year or three - the few moderate Libs that are left hive off and semi-merge with the Teals movement closer to the centre?

And then we'd have the long suspected conservative split, with the far right Libs alongside Hanson etc, and the moderate Libs and Teals becoming a third force in Australian politics. All that's left to see then is whether the Nationals stick with the far right Libs, or want a piece of the more likely to win votes moderate Lib/Teal action.

 

[Poupou Escobar]

What's the one with the volcanos and Moana?

 

[emjaycee]

What's the one with the volcanos and Moana?

Nebraska I think.

 

[MarkInTheStands]

All that's left to see then is whether the Nationals stick with the far right Libs, or want a piece of the more likely to win votes moderate Lib/Teal action.

The Nats are climate change deniers, that won't sit well with the Climate 200 backed Teals.

 

[Matty Bhoy]

Nebraska I think.

What's Bruce Springsteen got to do with this?

 

[bazza]

The Nats are climate change deniers, that won't sit well with the Climate 200 backed Teals.

they have a few normal MPs - they just don't get as much air time as the nut jobs

 

[the phantom menace]

The Nats are climate change deniers, that won't sit well with the Climate 200 backed Teals.

True. The Nats are also political opportunists... maybe they end up going it alone and getting more seats that the Libs - or (crystal balling, 10 years ahead) even team up with Labor (shock horror), as a new version Country Labor...?

I think Calare (Central West NSW) went to the incumbent Independent, who had left the Nats due to disagreeing with their climate denial stance. Perhaps it's a portent, or the writing on the wall...

 

[Gronk]

The Nats are climate change deniers, that won't sit well with the Climate 200 backed Teals.

Two things about this:

1. The Nationals (formerly known as the National Country Party) have certainly lost their identity. Case in point, the National Farmers Federation have a Net Zero policy. Farmers are not dumb. They see in impacts of climate change.

2. The LNP label the teals to be nutters or even extremists. Placards in my area (a teal electorate) suggest that their funding is somehow dodgy - almost organised crime dodgy. The rhetoric is that they are unreliable and loose units. But really they are economic conservatives with a social conscience. Ironically, the brotheren to the LNP in the UK, the Tories, have been pragmatic about climate change and active in the bipartisan phasing out of the use of brown coal for power generation. Their last coal-fired power station closed in September 2024.

 

[bazza]

Ironically, the brotheren to the LNP in the UK, the Tories, have been pragmatic about climate change and active in the bipartisan phasing out of the use of brown coal for power generation. Their last coal-fired power station closed in September 2024.

I imagine that the coal lobby in the UK is not as big as it is in Australia

In regards to the Nationals I understand that there are factions within the party there. In Queensland they are basically owned by the coal industry. In Victoria they are agrarian socialists and in NSW it is a mix of both depending on where they are in the state