Well, there’s not much joy in the election results, with the outcome looking a bit worse than the status quo ante. That means another three years of a government that didn’t even deserve a second term, let alone a fourth. Latham ran a pretty good campaign, but couldn’t beat the interest rate scare, and should have bitten the bullet on forest policy much earlier. In addition, the problems of state Labor governments didn’t help.
As for the Liberals, they’ll have an interesting time of it, I think. They’ve made expensive promises, which will be hard to keep and costly to repudiate. And their credibility is now completely tied to low interest rates, something over which they have no real control. As I said in my chapter in The Howard Years
In 1964, Donald Horne described Australia as ‘a lucky country, run by second-rate people who share its luck’. This epigram could be applied, with equal or greater justice, to the Howard government and its term in office, particularly as regards economic policy. Sooner or later, however, this kind of luck will run out.
It hasn’t run out yet, though.
John Quiggin 
There might be the odd Georgiou or Theophanous, but when are we going to get a Clinton who says “I want my cabinet to be representative of the diversity of Australia”?
Comments like that are just so indicative of the intellectual failure of the modern left. Mark says that with a straight face, but it’s the uninformed masses who believed the liberals’ “lies” who are stupid?
Keep going like this and the left won’t see government for another 25 years.
Screw diversity. People don’t give a damn about identity politics – money is far more important. On the other hand, it doesn’t bother me if the Left really believes all this nonsense, as it’s precisely the kind of obsession that will hand another 2 decades of government to the Tories.
Mark Bahnisch writes:
“Albatross2147, no idea whether or not Husic was a good candidate, but what depresses me is that his loss probably means that no party will preselect a Muslim candidate again, just as Ingrid Tall’s loss in Brisbane makes it less likely that an openly gay candidate will be preselected.”
Boo-frick’n-hoo.
I must tell that to my Egyptian Coptic (and Serbian) friends. If they’re charitable, they might only laugh at you.
I find it most amusing that those, such as Prime Minister Zapatero of Spain, who invoke “secularism” are always the first to call for more state representation/funding for Islam.
Yobbo, yeah I say it with a straight face. Walk down a street in Sydney, Melbourne or Adelaide and see if you see the people represented in Parliament. I’m happy to be bipartisan about this and bag PJK as well for his take on multiculturalism – “we” have been advantaged by ethnic cuisine and being a bit of a hub for biz – because so many languages are spoken in Sydney – but who are “we”?
Steve – if you want to make a serious argument (as in with reasons) opposing secularism, I’m happy to take you on (and happy to defend banning Muslim girls’ headscarves in France), but if all you have to say is as flippant as what you’ve written in your comment, I can’t be bothered.
Above-the-line voting in the Senate came in under the Hawke Labor Govt. in 1984. I wonder how happy the Victorian Labor number-crunchers are with the result today. Obviously, Labor hates the Democrats and the Greens far more than the fundamentalist Right. What does that tell you about their mental attitude?
I support secularism. There is no such thing as a Christian government, nor can there be if we are to take the Sermon on the Mount seriously. The only people meaningfully opposing secularism are Mark Bahnisch and Zapatero, even if they like to think of them as “secularists”.
to all you atheists and agnostics out there Family First are not remotely Evangelical nor fundamentalist. They have not been attending the meetings.
They are pentacostal.
So I guess this means everyone out there who voted Lib believes in;
The destruction of Medicare – no bulk billing Dr’s avaiable – increased medical costs for all, US style health system where if you can’t afford the care you die – simple (Really shows the Libs up as a warm ‘n fuzzy lot – not).
The demise of State schooling by starving them of funds over the period of 10 yrs which means the ignorant masses out there really do believe that private schooling is better even if it does mean paying twice.
That part time contract jobs with bugger all income is the norm and to be accepted (the way I see it most large company and corporation CEO’s and shareholders won’t be happy until this country is paying wages similar to that in China and we are all working 9 million hours a week for $1).
The people may have spoken, but as numerous people have already said. They’ve been blinded by the Liberal/media propaganda machine pure and simple. It’s gonna be a hard 10 years (cos thats how long it’s going to take some other party to unravell the mess this nation is now getting itself into).
Cheers,
David