Best animated comment on the Oz federal election
Australian federal politics are summarised for Asian viewers by a hilarious animation. (Via)
A friend who is a Liberal stalwart very perceptive about politics made a striking observation last night: that Julia was not yet PM in people's heads when she went to the election. So, it was like (as someone said) having two Opposition Leaders. Labor should have waited until she had established herself as PM in people's heads, not merely in office.
Apparently Labor were worried about a double-dip recession before an October election: but that strikes me as a reason to wait, not go early, since the argument could be "stick with us, we got you through last time".
The other observation he made was that Labor had the problem of "we did a great job of economic management but we had to get rid of our PM because he was hopeless". A difficult sell, hence the problem Labor had capitalising on Oz sailing through the Global Financial Crisis and the Great Recession. His suggestion was they needed to make more use of Swan, as the continuing Treasurer. (Fair, but difficult without Lindsay Tanner around to tell him what to say: public life is the poorer for Tanner's retirement.)
Looking at how the numbers in the House are stacking up, I would say Julia is now likely to be the only person who can form a Government. Which will leave her suspended between the Greens on one hand and rural Independents on the other. Abbott will be able to have endless fun aiming at the glaring contradiction between the sentiments of the former (inner city folk should control people's lives--and particularly their livelihoods--because inner city folk have morally superior concerns: the economically destructive nature of Greens policies is perfectly rational since undermining private sector activity increases the relative social power of the government/NGO/welfare sector nomenklatura--the Greens do best in the ACT and Tasmania for exactly that reason) and the jobs-and-property concerns of the latter while Julia hopes that "services, services, services" can keep her show on the road.
Should be a fascinating spectacle.
But do check out the animation.
A friend who is a Liberal stalwart very perceptive about politics made a striking observation last night: that Julia was not yet PM in people's heads when she went to the election. So, it was like (as someone said) having two Opposition Leaders. Labor should have waited until she had established herself as PM in people's heads, not merely in office.
Apparently Labor were worried about a double-dip recession before an October election: but that strikes me as a reason to wait, not go early, since the argument could be "stick with us, we got you through last time".
The other observation he made was that Labor had the problem of "we did a great job of economic management but we had to get rid of our PM because he was hopeless". A difficult sell, hence the problem Labor had capitalising on Oz sailing through the Global Financial Crisis and the Great Recession. His suggestion was they needed to make more use of Swan, as the continuing Treasurer. (Fair, but difficult without Lindsay Tanner around to tell him what to say: public life is the poorer for Tanner's retirement.)
Looking at how the numbers in the House are stacking up, I would say Julia is now likely to be the only person who can form a Government. Which will leave her suspended between the Greens on one hand and rural Independents on the other. Abbott will be able to have endless fun aiming at the glaring contradiction between the sentiments of the former (inner city folk should control people's lives--and particularly their livelihoods--because inner city folk have morally superior concerns: the economically destructive nature of Greens policies is perfectly rational since undermining private sector activity increases the relative social power of the government/NGO/welfare sector nomenklatura--the Greens do best in the ACT and Tasmania for exactly that reason) and the jobs-and-property concerns of the latter while Julia hopes that "services, services, services" can keep her show on the road.
Should be a fascinating spectacle.
But do check out the animation.