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Watching the election night coverage at home, I could not help but think that this feast of democracy was a most civilized way of settling differences of opinion. To put it bluntly, the contest of May 18 was as close to civil war as we have seen for some decades; without a doubt, Labor tried to incite generational warfare and were slapped hard for their efforts. Now, at a distance days and after heaving those deep sighs of a relief at the sweet and largely unexpected result, there is time to reflect on the factors that made Australia’s latest exercise in democracy so unique.
There is, first of all, the dogged determination of Prime Minister Scott Morrison, who refused to heed the pundits and the bookies’ odds boards and cast himself as the proverbial frog in the milk bowl. He refused to go down without a fight and circled the country tirelessly, never easing up on his unrelenting campaigning. Eventually he churned milk into butter and found a solid place from which to leap back into contention. He deserved the voters’ support — and he got it. The once and future PM confronts many challenges — reducing energy prices, cleansing the remaining traces of Turnbullian spoor from the party his predecessor all but ruined for good. But whatever else he does, the come-from-behind triumph he pulled off will forever deserve Australia’s gratitude.
Can you just imagine the horrors if the radical and divisive Labor program had been adopted as Australia’s official roadmap? Its advocates made no bones about pitting younger voters against their elders in the cause of “justice”, which sounded in every sentient voters’ ears as “wealth redistribution”. This included the odious franking-credit wipeout, which was shamelessly pitched to voters as ending a first-order rort when it is nothing of the kind. Then there were the half-baked electric-car nostrums Mr Shorten spouted. They summed up the perilous ignorance of the would-be government, which did not take into consideration production costs and the consequences of extensive infrastructure that would need to be built. Once again, Labor had given the helm of its policies to The Greens and the politically correct platitudes of the inner-city. The devastating outcome in Queensland, where voters prefer jobs to pieties, was the result.
Second, as mentioned, there was Scott Morrison. While Bill Shorten came across as shady and sleazy, voters saw in Morrison a family man, loyal to his country, creed and convictions who is not afraid to wear his heart on the sleeve. His campaigning style endeared him to enough of the voting public to make a big difference in the tally room. Compared to Shorten, they saw an honest man who does not take himself too seriously, is respectful of ordinary people and possesses both a humility and a sense of humor.
Third, the Coalition was able to convince Australians that Turnbull was gone and the turmoil he sowed with him. Even better, a slather of his supporters decided to bail out of politics, leaving Team Morrison free to re-embrace a traditional Liberal philosophy that is not divisive nor based on resentment, envy or ancient antagonisms. The Coalition offered opportunity, independence and a social lift to voters. Labor thought voters wanted managers to oversee their lives, their incomes, even the sort of cars they drive.
What made this election unique in Australian terms? That factor was the Deplorables’ revolt against the smug and the self-righteous ‘progressive’ intelligentsia. True, in Warringah they tossed out a good man in favour of a blonde chimera, a woman who can say with a straight face that she is an independent Liberal yet, as subsequently emerged, had never voted Coalition in her life. But Tony Abbott’s former seat was the exception. Elsewhere in the country, voters who live in the real world of jobs, families and monthly bills rejected the idea of being governed by the same elites who hold them in contempt, who believe it is their natural role to lead and decree.
This rejection of institutionalised arrogance — ‘What, you like your petrol-driven car? Not any more, little man, it’s a battery pack and green sticker on the bumber for you’ — would seem to be part of a worldwide movement: Trump, Brexit, Emmanuel Macron’s victory and now, with Yellow Vests in the streets every weekend, the rejection of Macron. Further evidence? Look to the elections for the European Parliament, which have just seen Nigel Farage’s party emerge as the UK’s largest single voting bloc. The pattern is too frequently repeated not to be valid: Mr. and Mrs. Average Voter tell pollsters they are concerned about social justice, climate change and gay marriage, but then vote otherwise in the solitude of the voting booth. You can’t blame them, either. Express those sort of opinions in public and some self-righteous scold will be signalling their virtue by putting down yours. After being hectored daily about the things the ABC regards as important, climate change not least of all, marking those ballots for Mr Morrison was a quiet and effective way of crying ‘Enough already!’
Despite every inducement, offered by Labor, mainstream voters chose the conservative side of the Australian politics and ignored the politically correct pipedreams. To the sheer delight of many, the Australian electorate demonstrated common sense, political maturity and a refusal to entertain the notions of fashionable green-leftism.
Unwilling to accept the truth, Labor and its apologists put the result down to the alleged stupidity of Coalition voters. In so doing they demonstrated not only their contempt for fellow Australians, they also showed where those suffering from the greater delusions reside — fortunately, at least for the near future, not on the government benches.
I’m much less celebratory about the election win because I know Morrison will have to keep that rabble together (already signs of a break out!!) and not appear Labor Lite. Ken Wyatt apparently has a list of “Statement from the Heart” principles he wants enacted for the indigenous people. Morrison may have, ironically, been able to sway the Australian people but may not be able to control the rabble in his Coalition, emboldened by hubris. It’s a huge concern.
We must live in parallel universes. In yours, the Liberals are conservatives. In mine …
I am still having bad dreams about Turnbull and Morrison facing the cameras, Morrison resting his hand on Turnbull’s shoulder saying: “this is my leader”.
I lean Jody’s way and I think something that everyone is messing in the wash up analysis in Queensland in particular is that in that State, whilst Morrison’s persona helped a lot, the clincher was not the way the campaign was run through the LNP Brisbane apparatchiks, but more-so the fact that Turnbull demonstrated in spades what rural and regional Queenslanders could face if they do not take a more active role in the voting process. If the Brisbane based LNP apparatchiks don’t realise this and actually set up policies that favour rural and regional Queensland, they will lose the next State election despite what they might now think.
The Coalition did everything it possibly could to lose the election, starting with the dumping of another sitting PM, right up until the date of the election. It seemed that a large minority before May 18 were silently praying “please, give me some reason to vote for the Coalition!”, and a very effective “presidential” campaign from PM Morrison seemed to do exactly that. Like Ms Clinton in the US had to ask herself after losing to Pres. Trump, “how bad was I that I lost to him?”, Labor will likewise have to face that unpalatable fact – they had everything going for them, with the might of the journalist-industrial complex in their corner to spin everything their way, and they STILL lost.
Sadly, I think what we are now witnessing is a concerted push by the Liberal Party backroom to revert to business as usual. While ever the Photios virus persists in the NSW Branch, there will be no change except for the worst. That any party could do what they did to Jim Molan is beyond rational comprehension, and Zimmerman has shown his and his faction’s true colours by accusing Molan of dishonourable conduct. Projection, much!
Of course, with the ALP, there was never any chance that anything would change. I simply cannot believe that Albanese would willingly have exchanged Husic for such a chronic loser as Keneally without major factional pressure.
Comments here run 3:2 against the LINO’s; 3 comments want the LINO’s squashed, 2 comments fear that will happen.
A ratio close to the actual LNP returns. Coincidence ? Just a variation of the “Elites vs Deplorables” global slugfest. Still, bless those Yellow Vest Central Q’landers !
Enough ticky-tacky. Waffle is gone, as have a considerable number of Wafflettes (including Bishop, which relieves me). The real issues now resurface. The country is short of commercial retail supplies of gas and this is threatening various manufacturing operations. Forced-allocation out of contracted exports, while much favoured by those who don’t have to fulfil those contracts, is highly economically damaging, yet State Govts refuse to permit onshore gas development.
Liddell is to be shut within just over two years, removing almost 2Gw of reliable power from the eastern grid. We have only AGL’s tinkly little squeak that even more windmills will really work when the wind drops. Perhaps $billion batteries will supply power for more than 2 minutes to the myriad of civilised demands (that excludes households, as Vic showed late last January). Already, I see the pigs are fed and ready to fly … in fact, there goes one now.
MG, we have dodged a bullet so to speak, but I am very pessimistic were the LNP (Labour Lite Party) is heading. No dams will be approved or constructed. Ditto for coal or nuke power stations. Mass immigration will continue. Ditto for cultural marxism’s march through our institutions (all 11 objectives).
Not a bright future for Australia.
Michael,
The real reasons Labor lost are:
10-The voters are just not up to scratch. Just deplorable little people in fact.
9-Oz has not had enough indoctrination through focused education propaganda
8-The huge Right Wing conspiracy has poisoned the minds of the proles
7-The ABC allowed too many conservatives to have a say
6-Clive Palmer bought the election
5-Too many preferences ended up supporting the LNP as the stupid voters did not understand the need to put a ‘1″‘ against the Labor/Green candidate
4-Labor/Green were not always No. 1 on the Ballot sheets
3-664,000 self-funded superannuates were permitted to vote. In a true socialist democracy the age bracket would be 15-65 years old only.
2-The liberals were not as bad as Green/Labor – by a whisker
100%-Bill Shorten. No, more correctly BILL SHORTEN!!!
However, try not to celebrate too hard just because we dodged a .50 calibre explosive bullet as we have still been winged by a .38 calibre Morrison / Hunt / Frydenberg (of the $441M grant to people who never asked for it / “Manchurian’ Robert, et al cabal of Lite Greenfools. Thanks to Morrison’s Miracle they will now believe ‘they’ did it.
Yes Queensland got the result. But seat by seat all over the country previous marginal Coalition seats widened their margin e.g. Dutton and a swathe of safe Labor seats became marginal.
This election was a watershed moment. The political pendulum swung of Labor don’t heed the message it will a much wider margin by the next election.
To en passant:
Deliciously disdainful, disparagingly dystopian discourse.
Bravo!
EP, what Michael said. Well done, you.
ianl – given coal is ‘archaic’ perhaps the way to go is to demand that coal fired generators be heritage listed? Even if they aren’t producing power that will at least mean they will still exist, and not get blown up.
Our major emerging problem is found in this report
‘This means that fuel security is not a problem to be solved but, rather, something to be monitored ‘
http://www.environment.gov.au/system/files/consultations/7cf6f8e2-fef0-479e-b2dd-3c1d87efb637/files/liquid-fuel-security-review-interim-report.pdf
We have about 20 days of fuel in Australia, the 80 days you hear about is in tankers,on the way.
So, in the event of rationing, all we need do is monitor the problem while the nation grinds to a halt.
We need water, stable power systems and fuel.
I’m a factory worker and I reckon labor, this new green incarnation of labor sucks. Shorten is/was a fake and Albo needs to be a fake to have a snowflakes chance in hell of being competitive at an election.
I would have a lot more confidence in the mob currently in charge if they would even hint that they are determined to extract us from the Paris Excrement. While the nation has some enormous problems with which to deal, such as servicing an ever expanding debt and dealing with an invasion from foreign cultures (or should that be vultures?), the overwhelming millstone around our neck is the climate cult. Mother Nature and Old Sol will eventually extinguish this wicked ideology, along with many a frozen corpse, but we can make no progress until a significant majority come to realise that it is a scam and a hoax entirely, from the warming nonsense to the CO2 demonisation and irrational hatred of King coal.
en passant – 31st May 2019
“The real reasons Labor lost are:…”
Like the Commandments, there could be an 11th reason: all voters vote with a LEAD pencil.
“For want of a biro a kingdom was lost.”
What does an eraser cost these days?
All AEC employees are fortunately apolitical…
Alice,
Just how many ballot papers did they have to alter?
Can you show me one?
I have not heard Labor supporters making such claims. I have heard them talk about losing to a nasty scare campaign built on lies by the Morrison Government, and having too many policies as an election platform compared to the virtually none of the Government.
Not that it matters. Australia swings from each side and the Government is unlikely to last beyond three years.
Indeed, we are fortunate in Australia that our history reveals, neither side does much harm in Government and both Labor and Liberal are as good as each other in managing the economy and while each gets a bit wrong, they also get a bit right. So the Government winning on lies matters only in that it sets a precedent for ‘no policy’ electioneering, constant bagging of the opposition and lying about the policies of the opponents. That is why Australia lost on election day.
Let us also remember it was a very small swing in essence and Queensland was a clincher. The election result was not a vote for the Coalition in any substantive sense.
rosross, I agree that the Government did not win the election. But the ALP certainly lost it, and it did so all by its own hubris and stupidity. Your claim about the Government winning on lies is mere projection. You obviously don’t recall the ALP’s blatant lies in its 2016 election campaign. Google it and you’ll see that the and their media allies are quite proud of it.
For ALP or other Green Left supporters to complain about Coalition campaign lies is laughable.
I think rosross is channeling Claim # 41 of “Why We Lost”.
Today I noted a comment (Claim # 47) that ‘too many people voted based on their emotions’. DuH?
I think #33 was Alice’s ballot erased and changed – which might be why they won in Victoria.
Eventually they might finally get to the answer at Claim #XX ‘We sucked more than the Liberals’.
Alice Thermopolis
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One does not need an eraser to rort – one can go to a polling booth, give one’s neighbour’s name and address and vote under his/her name, with or without his/her knowledge (best to chose a booth far from his/her address); one can go to each polling booth in one’s electorate, voting at each, up to 60, under one’s name, one’s neighbour’s, or someone else’s, provided one is prepared to answer “no” to the inane question “Have you voted elsewhere today?”, and prior to the 16 April 2007 requirement to provide ID on enrolment, one could enrol under multiple names.
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As reported in “The Advertiser”, a SA family claimed to have voted 159 times, including 31 times by a 17 year old, in a recent election. Even the AEC, which in the past has buried its head in the sand conceded it is possible, and if a rort is possible, it is done, with only the extent being in question. “Whatever it takes” – vote often, vote Left.
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And Australia has had the audacity to send observers to monitor other countries’ elections!