Australian Politics thread

Prisoner Monkeys wrote:

After all, we had six years of Labor government. But we've had six *weeks* of Liberal government, so of course illegal arrivals are down.

Correct, it took the Libs just six weeks to get on track to fixing Labor's wreckage. Delicious.

Quote :

And since the government can hide behind the military, they don't have to reveal how many arrivals there have been, skewing the statistics even further.

Except for the part where they publicly release those statistics every week.

How sweet it is to have competent governance in this country. Your tears and the tears of the people smugglers you cherish make it all the sweeter.

CJB wrote:

Prisoner Monkeys wrote:

After all, we had six years of Labor government. But we've had six *weeks* of Liberal government, so of course illegal arrivals are down.

Correct, it took the Libs just six weeks to get on track to fixing Labor's wreckage. Delicious.

Just when I think your stupidity knows no bounds, you go ahead and prove me wrong with maniacal naivety.

You can't prove that the government has ended people-smuggling. If you look at the trends in illegal arrivals over the past six years, you will notice that while they increased, they did not increase consistently. People smuggling came and went through distinct patterns, with everyone arriving at once and then backing off before arriving again. The most likely explanation for this is that the people smugglers had to actually get the people they were smuggling together before they could actually be smuggled. So how do you know that the trends in people smuggling over the past few weeks were a result of successful policy, rather than trends that can be explained in terms of basic economics? And how do you know that people smugglers won't be emboldened by the way the Indonesians forced us to take the boat Abbott tried to turn around, and then followed it up by saying they won't accept boats that they are not legally obligated to take? All the people smugglers have to do is launch their boats, and then get intercepted knowing that Indonesia will not take them back.

All you do is look at the numbers, strip any context out of them and then mix it in with the foregone conclusion that the government is right.

It's a total coincidence that there was a monumental surge in boats when Labor removed the Coalition's policies.

It's also a total coincidence that there's been a monumental reduction in boats once the Coalition's policies were re-instated.

One coinkydink after another.

Australia has a new Prime Minister in Malcolm Turnbull, successfully challenging Tony Abbott for the Liberal leadership and winning by 8 votes.

Disappointing that the prime ministership of this country is now the plaything of opinion polls. There will clearly never be a Hawke or a Howard in the Twitter era and the nation will be the poorer for it. However, the priority is to ensure our shorter, uglier version of Jeremy Corbyn does not touch the treasury benches.

Four prime ministers in two years. At this rate Oz will break Italy's record for instability.

While I admire Australia's desire to be number one in what-the-fuck?, you guys are spoiling Jeremy Corbyn's coronation.

Comparisons to Italy have been made, but even Silvio managed to bunga-bunga for longer than our last three prime ministers.

Basically there's been a downward trajectory ever since John Howard was turfed in 2007 after 11 years in office. I told people not to vote for that autistic knob-gobbler Kevin 'Monkeys' Rudd but alas prosperity made Australia complacent and it was all too easy to tear down a highly competent government for something new, shiny, and vapid (no offence to Helga).

The three prime ministers who got the chop might not have been had they been competent. They weren't. Tough luck. Tough gig. Hopefully the message will be sent to the lifelong political hacks that they actually need to do something to warrant a place in parliament.

Turnbull's made more right calls in four weeks than Rudd-Gillard-Rudd-Abbott did collectively. First is putting the Hon Michaelia Cash in Industrial Relations. She's going to smash the unions once TURC reports and drink the blood of Shorten, the CMFEU and their enablers. I look forward to it.

I was witness to a dickhead driver in a ute plastered with CFMEU/anti-CHAFTA stickers yesterday. Confirms everything.

Anyway, I'll tolerate Turnbull so long as he doesn't Merkel us with immigration and leaves OSB in place.

I'll never understand the belief amongst hard conservatives that Turnbull is some leftist in sheep's clothing. The bloke was the Australian director of Goldman Sachs, is married into one of the most prominent conservative families in the country, and was mentored and groomed by Howard, Bill Heffernan, and every senior Liberal figure of the Howard era.

It's a great political asset that the left see him as one of them when he's not. It's a shame some on his own side fall for the same trap.

There's a tendency for some to conflate small-l liberalism with socialism. Turnbull's views on most social issues are pretty much lock-step with those of at least 40-50% of the Liberal Party's membership. Economically, he's hardly Lenin, to say the least.

Came here to see CJB's thoughts on the Australian federal election, but he's away. Looking very close at the moment.

Voting was too close to call for the election on Saturday. So we've needed to wait until today (Tuesday) for counting to recommence. I'm glad the Greens got the Melbourne seat, that's for sure. And Pauline Hanson's "there are too many Asians in Australia" is embarrassing and probably indicative of where things are going in this country.

A week later and still no PM elected.

Good thing I was a couple of continents away when this whole clusterfuck occurred. Admittedly haven't been analysing things as closely as I would've had I been in the country.

To be honest I'd forgotten about it. It's ok though, we'll have another election in the next couple of months. Someone will overthrow the PM and we'll be back to the polling booths.

To be honest I'd forgotten about it. It's ok though, we'll have another election in the next couple of months. Someone will overthrow the PM and we'll be back to the polling booths.

Turnbull's political authority has taken a shellacking. Probably fatal. I somehow doubt he has the emotional intelligence to rebuild any sort of base of support amongst the general electorate.

Prisoner Monkeys wrote:

CJB wrote:

Prisoner Monkeys wrote:

After all, we had six years of Labor government. But we've had six *weeks* of Liberal government, so of course illegal arrivals are down.

Correct, it took the Libs just six weeks to get on track to fixing Labor's wreckage. Delicious.

Just when I think your stupidity knows no bounds, you go ahead and prove me wrong with maniacal naivety.

You can't prove that the government has ended people-smuggling. If you look at the trends in illegal arrivals over the past six years, you will notice that while they increased, they did not increase consistently. People smuggling came and went through distinct patterns, with everyone arriving at once and then backing off before arriving again. The most likely explanation for this is that the people smugglers had to actually get the people they were smuggling together before they could actually be smuggled. So how do you know that the trends in people smuggling over the past few weeks were a result of successful policy, rather than trends that can be explained in terms of basic economics? And how do you know that people smugglers won't be emboldened by the way the Indonesians forced us to take the boat Abbott tried to turn around, and then followed it up by saying they won't accept boats that they are not legally obligated to take? All the people smugglers have to do is launch their boats, and then get intercepted knowing that Indonesia will not take them back.

All you do is look at the numbers, strip any context out of them and then mix it in with the foregone conclusion that the government is right.

I think we can safely say in hindsight we were right.

Abbott needs to fuck off before he gets rolled out of parliament though. Boy did that end badly.

Good to see you, Vesp!

Yes, I'll bet Monkeys is eating humble pie. We know what he's not eating...

Abbott is 60 going on 19. He never mentally moved past student politics. Career politicians are largely twats.

I've been a bit taken aback by the number of young(ish) people lately who aren't hugely political saying unsolicited that this is a government that has done some good things and that Shorten is hugely unpalatable.

We might scratch a third term still.

CJB wrote:

Turnbull's political authority has taken a shellacking. Probably fatal. I somehow doubt he has the emotional intelligence to rebuild any sort of base of support amongst the general electorate.

I was right back in 2k16 (my best and bigly-est year of political predictions). He's gone within 24 hours.

That said, Dutton lurches around like the fucking grim reaper so I don't rate his chances at an election.

Why can't we just stick with the PM we've elected?

I blame Julia.

To some extent, yes. Since the Whitlam dismissal we've had Fraser and Hawke serving eight years a piece, Keating for five, and Howard for eleven so this sort of leadership instability is a relatively recent phenomenon. If the current mentality had been around 20 years ago Howard would've been turfed before his first re-election bid on the basis of polls.

I happen to be of the view that Abbott could've won the last election had he been given the opportunity as he's a natural scrapper and Turnbull, for all my reservations, was an underdog but not out of contention for the next election.

However, those who fail to learn from history etc. etc. If you look at the last three decades of mid-term PM swaps:

Keating: Had 18 months to establish himself and only turned things around at the last minute.

Gillard: First first-term government to lose its majority since the Depression.

Rudd 2.0: Lost in an inevitable landslide within months (but acted like he won on the night because he's an insufferable fat shit).

Turnbull: Lost all his authority within the first few weeks and only won the election by one seat.

So what the Libs are now hoping to achieve with well under a year to go til the next election is beyond me.

That's enough political nerding for one day.

I agree about Abbott. He seemed to be the only PM of late with a backbone. I might not always agree with his policies but at least he knew what he wanted. Rudd will be remembered for an apology, Gillard for being the 1st female PM and Turnbull for wasting $122m on a vote.

I feel as though Julia jumping in now is a ploy for the Liberals to stay in power. We already know how much support she would garner merely for being a woman.

JBish is probably one of the most vacuous politicians in parliament. I don't think I've ever heard her express any convictions. Her sugar rush in the polls would be an even shorter honeymoon than Turnbull's.

I'm surprised she wants to give up her current gig of jet setting and bag shopping with her man-friend. She must be worried that Dutton would give the Foreign Affairs portfolio to Abbott.