The coming Oz election thread ...

Oh dear. That one hits home!!!

Yep, Deb, time for that old VW to catch up with the times.





<sigh>

pssst ... Barry Jones knows the solution!

That's still a very interesting thread.

But in my view it is featured too late.

Why too late, Thok?

Well, the real election is already over.

After all , better late than never.

Ah, but Thok, we are trying to understand the result ... & why this happened. It is a very shocking outcome for many of us. We are trying to understand & we keep talking about it. It is important to us.

As I said:

I know, that's shocking for y'all.
Actually questionable , which reason really determined it. Economy? Iraq? Asylum policy? Which is ,as is generally known, extrem.
The folk (if there is no election fraud... ) had decided,so there is no chance to change the goverment.

It is very hard to accurately explain the reasons, Thok. I didn't vote for the Liberal Party, So I don't understand why the majority people voted them back in. I have never voted for them in my life.

All we have to go by is the media's understanding of the result & our own gut feelings. The media tells us that the majority of the public felt "secure" with a continuation of the Liberal Party in government. John Howard apparently makes people feel safe about their lives, their home mortgage payments, etc ... I have so little empathy with people who voted for Howard that I can't say more. I really can't understand why.

I strongly support the views expressed in an article by Barry Jones, which I posted (a few posts back) ... What the Labor Party failed to do was to provide a REAL alternative to to the Liberal (far right) message ... Instead Labor responded with a more moderate right message. I guess there was really no clear alternative, just different degrees of right policies for voters ....

Yet there are so many important things that need to be addressed! (read Barry Jones' article for a pretty good outline of those ignored issues). There are many people in Australia who now feel no one represents them ... & the things they passionately care about. I'm just one of them & it doesn't feel very good at all .... Actually, Thok, it feels quite depressing.

Mungo McCallum quote:

'John Howard said if I voted for Mark Latham interest rates would go up. So I voted for Mark Latham and interest rates ARE going up.'

Well, there you go! John Howard was right!
Who is Mungo writing for these days? He must be getting on a bit, the old muckraker!

No idea who he writes for Olga - this quote was relayed to me from a radio chat - 2SER I think.

Oh well, thanks anyway, hh.

Poor fellah, my country.

Yep.

Wide awake in Melbourne, hey?

Absolutely.

Avoiding the news tonight because I don't want to see the new government being sworn in. The radio reports earlier were bad enough. God, 3 more years! It's still sinking in.