Good news from Australia
JVL Introduction
We carry this news report from ABC News, announcing a Labor victory in the Australian general election.
We will carry more critical analysis soon, but for now we can bask in the sunshine of a progressive victory which “has seen the conservative party decimated and shattered”.
It was, says Laura Tingle, “the climate election”.
We should not be over-optimistic in this regard. There are reasons to expect ferocious resistance from those who have benefited from the outgoing Coalition government’s disastrous policies in this area.
While we are hopeful we are also aware of the history of Labour Governments in the UK, in Australia and elsewhere to fail to live up to their promises of radical change. In this respect we are, unusually, a little regretful that the ALP secured an overall majority rather than being dependent on Green and Teal MPs who are firmly committed to reversing the destructive climate policies of the right-wing ex-government.
These policies have not only produced catastrophes in Australia but threaten the whole planet.
But for the moment we can smile – a little! Morrison is (bad) history – enjoy his defeat.
This article was originally published by ABC News on Sat 21 May 2022. Read the original here.
This win for Anthony Albanese is the most transformative election you can imagine
There may have been lots of swirling currents but the results of the federal election overwhelmingly showed that 2022 was, finally, the climate election.
But it was also an election that profoundly changed the political geography and demography of Australia. And an election that rejected smarty-pants political tactics and messaging, and a call for our political leaders to take the job of government seriously.
It wasn’t just that the independent candidates running on climate change made spectacular gains. There was also a swing to the Greens — and at least one more seat in parliament for them, if not more.
Even in the so-called “coal” seats like Hunter and Flynn, there was not a huge swing, as had been predicted, towards the Coalition because of fear of loss of coal jobs but in fact towards Labor.
Decimated and shattered
It is the end of the Morrison government in an election which — while it might not have resulted in a landslide for the opposition — has seen the conservative party decimated and shattered.
It has seen Treasurer Josh Frydenberg unseated from the seat of the Liberal founder Sir Robert Menzies, and a rout in the wealthiest electorates of Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane, Adelaide and Perth.
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Scott Morrison’s close ally, Special Minister of State Ben Morton, also lost his seat of Tangney in Perth after suffering a swing of almost 12 per cent against him.
Formerly safe Coalition seats are now marginal seats and there have been inroads made in places Labor has never gone before.
There was a swing of more than 6 per cent against Scott Morrison in his own seat and seats that the Coalition targeted — like Blair in Queensland and Lingiari — also stubbornly resisted the PM’s visits and overtures and swung further to Labor.
The demographics of the seats the decimated Liberal Party now represents are very different groups of people to the ones it represented a decade ago.
The balance of power of the Coalition will also change. The Nationals have held all their seats but the Liberals have lost so many.
The Coalition will be a very, very small opposition grouping, while the crossbench is likely to be around twice as large as it was in the last parliament.
The downfall of the government — and the destruction of so much of what has been the old Liberal Party — and the story of the independents also make the story of the night — that we have a new Labor government — seem almost a postscript when of course it is the most important story for the future.
It seemed to remain a possibility that Labor might be able to form a government in its own right on Saturday night — but whether it can or not, the fact it is set for majority or minority government after having won on just 30 per cent of the primary vote says much about the way Australian politics has profoundly changed at this election.
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Anthony Albanese claims victory in federal election
A coalition builder
One of the most important things to note about the nature of the new Labor government is that it will be an Albanese Labor government — it was Albanese, as leader of the house, who more than any other person made the last Labor minority government work
He is a superb negotiator and coalition builder: skills that will be crucial whatever the final numbers. And that sets the culture for his government. His Leader of the House, Tony Burke, is an equally wily negotiator.
There are multiple options for Labor if it wishes to negotiate on particular issues and, significantly, a path through roadblocks that have held Australia back for a decade on climate change.
A proper integrity commission looms, which could help re-establish some sense of probity in government and trust from voters. And an Indigenous Voice to Parliament may also finally make progress.
It’s the most transformative election you can imagine, both in the country and in the way we govern ourselves.
Laura Tingle is 7.30’s chief political correspondent.
Analysis from the ABC’s experts
- “People are looking at the national vote level, and missing the fact that the change is occurring at a much lower level. Antony Green
- “it was a notable shift to hear Albanese open his victory speech with what he spelled out as a key ambition — creating an Indigenous Voice to Parliament. Bridget Brennan
- “The Greens’ federal high-water mark raises two questions: Why now? And why did those voters not choose Labor? Matt Wordsworth
Rupert Murdoch is behind so much of Australia’s problems. Whatever happened to Kevin Rudd’s proposed Royal Inquiry into the Murdoch Empire and media diversity? Rudd’s tweet two days before the election shows that he still wants to hold it to account: “Today, all of Murdoch’s major papers formally backed Morrison. That’s 23 of the last 23 federal & state elections that Murdoch has supported the Liberals. Our Bias Tracker detailed this throughout the campaign. Time to show Murdoch he doesn’t own Australia: vote Morrison out”. https://twitter.com/MrKRudd/status/1527399998937497600. The election result bodes well.
Sounds encouraging but will this be a “real” Labour government or one that is Labour in name only, such as the one with which we are familiar? Could we dare to hope that a new Australian regime might loosen the chains by which Australia is so slavishly bound to NATO?
The demise of the Morrison government is surely good news, and as someone who lives in Australia, and works in the university sector where tens of thousands of jobs were destroyed during the COVID-19 pandemic due to the vindictive attitude of this government, I have good reason to agree. However, celebrations over the election of a new Labour government in Australia under Anthony Albanese should be tempered with a strong dose of reality.
It is worth noting that Labour did not as such ‘win’, but rather benefited from the collapse of the Liberal National Coalition which had become deeply unpopular in certain sections. Labour’s share of the primary vote at about 32.8% actually went down from about 33.3% in 2019 (a swing of -0.5% against) and Labor suffered key losses, not least their home affairs spokesperson. If this were a first-past-the-post system the Liberal National Coalition on about 35.6% (-5.8%) would still be in power. The biggest gainers from the 2022 election were in fact the Greens at about 12% (+1.5%) of the primary vote and independents at about 5% total (+2.1%). Labour was only able to obtain the largest number of seats in the lower house, and thus to form a government, due to 2nd preference votes. Sure, on some issue, e.g. climate change and indigenous affairs, Labour had a mildly progressive position, but on a raft of others, including economic and foreign affairs, the two major parties were virtually indistinguishable. The whole election process was dull and uninspiring, and hardly surprising that there was no big positive mandate for the new government.
Take Labour’s housing policy, for example. There is a massive housing crisis in Australia, like many other countries in the developed world, with prices continuing to spiral upwards. Yet rather than propose the massive building programme that it required to deal with the severe lack of supply, Aus Labour is promoting a ‘Help to Buy’ policy which is little different from that of George Osborne and David Cameron. Such schemes have been proven to be self-defeating in only exacerbating the crisis by driving prices ever higher.
Aus Labor’s outlook in matters of foreign affairs is quite reactionary, e.g. in the case of Israel. Late last year Senator Penny Wong, now Labour’s new Foreign Minister, said in an address to the Zionist Federation of Australia, “Labor fully supports the IHRA definition of antisemitism – a position reaffirmed in 2016, 2019, and I again reaffirm today. It is precisely because we value our friendship with Israel, and our ability to engage on complex matters, that the IHRA’s definition is so important, …”. We are steeling ourselves in Australian universities for an upcoming battle as the new Albanese government continues the outgoing Morrison government’s policy of forcing the bogus IHRA ‘definition’ on public institutions.
Saldly Albanese is no Corbyn, and closer to Starmer in policy, though he does have a personality. Much as we are relieved to see the back of Morrison, this will be no radical socialist government or even a mildly socialist one, but in reality a Tory lite government with some progressive window dressing.
Sydney, NSW, Australia
One pressing question is, does Anthony Albanese have anything to say, to Priti Patel, that would stop the extradition of Australian citizen, Julian Assange, to the US?
Philip F. Nelson has written an article about the mysterious death of a previous Australian Prime Minister, Harold Holt.
Let us hope that history does not repeat itself.
https://lbjthemasterofdeceit.com/2021/04/18/the-mysterious-death-of-australia-prime-minister-harold-holt/
Set Julian free and let him go home.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/may/20/extradite-julian-assange-investigative-journalism-wikileaks
To George Peel and others who quite rightly turned their minds to whether a new Labor government would help Assange. The short and brutal answer is “NO”, so yes, getting rid of Morrison was good, but not too much else to celebrate about.
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2022/04/23/lcpd-a23.html