So Tony Abbott will likely become the PM of Australia...

It sucks. Labor is no good at promoting the good things they have done, especially our strong economic record during the GFC. The PNG solution is horrible and seems to be an effort to kowtow to public demand to 'stop the boats' (which isn't an actual problem from my point of view, other than the fact that asylum seekers put their lives at great risk in using those methods)

So there's nothing that can be done to stop it at this stage. Rupert Murdoch will be quite happy - papers like the Daily Telegraph have been making me hugely infuriated of late and I've resigned myself to tomorrow's result.

The shit they've been running this election is pretty disgusting. They have basically declared that they are the Fox News of Australia now and will run nothing but propaganda for the Liberal National Party.

Just going to leave this here:

I'm glad to see that was posted here. People do not have to vote for one of the majors.

As an american, reading about the small amount of stuff they've had on the BBC... Labor is the more liberal party while... the liberals... aren't?

I mean it's not like democrat and republican are easy to tell, but if the liberal party is the head of the conservative opposition, then that is messed up.

@animasta: That is correct. Names are just names.

But yeah, I'm totally scared. My 2 main concerns are marriage equality and NBN, and Liberal's idea of both of those is not my cuppa tea. Plus Abbot is a man I don't see can ever pull a rationale, logical debate.

Always a good reminder.

This is all nice on paper but it should be mentioned that almost all of the minor parties in Australia are affiliated with or part of the coalitions led by the two major parties of Australia. Be it the Coalition led by the Liberal Party or the Australian Labor Party, which together comprise of 143 of the 150 seats in the House of Representatives and 65 of the 74 seats in the Senate. Then you have the thorny issue of the Australia Press:

Yeah the name of the Liberal party does not make sense considering its conservative. If I could vote I'd go Labour, Tony's a wolf in sheeps clothing and most of their policies aren't that great. Plus not being up front about how they want to fund their policies is kind of sly.

Axing the National Broadband Network might not be such a bad idea as its costing a lot of money for something that may be outdated by the time its done. I've heard rumblings about Satellites being the way to go for Internet traffic rather than digging up phone lines and upgrading the cables. But then I don't really know the details.

@hidys What do you like about the Carbon tax? I'm just curious since I've had to defend the idea of its policy to people in Oz.

Fuck man I can see what you're worried about this guy is leading a double life in two different countries.

Can I just write in this guy?

The NBN is being bought with bonds, by the time the repayment on those bonds are due the relative cost will be significantly less than it sounds. On top of that fibre will be good for decades to come, no amount of wireless comm's can beat out fibre when it comes to speed and reliability. The internet is the telephone network of the modern age (and indoor plumbing before that), it's a sound investment.

Edit: Typo

Alright I'd have to take your word for it. I don't know but the person who told me sounded convincing. Reliability I absolutely agree with you but speed...no idea.

The term "liberal" has it's roots from the enlightenment political ideology known as "classical liberalism." It was a response to absolute monarchies and believed that civil liberties could be best ensured with capitalism and a limited government ruled by civilians, and not kings or queens. As such some "conservative" parties, or conservative in the modern sense, use the term "liberal" to denote that they believe in those ideals in a modern society. What we know as "liberalism" is "social liberalism" which started in the late 1800s to the early 1900s in response to all of the nightmares that industrialization resulted in.

I don't know, Tony Abbott can't completely set the country on fire. It's not like Australia has nukes or anything like that...or is that what Ayers Rock is for?

... how can a party make liberals look conservative? That is pretty scary. Wait! Holy shit, how extreme are real conservatives viewed there? I thought we were bad with just our 2 main Lefty and Righty parties. I can't even fathom a party that makes lefties look right. I'm scared.

@zombiepie said:

@beachthunder said:

Just going to leave this here:

This is all nice on paper but it should be mentioned that almost all of the minor parties in Australia are affiliated with or part of the coalitions led by the two major parties of Australia. Be it the Coalition led by the Liberal Party or the Australian Labor Party, which together comprise of 143 of the 150 seats in the House of Representatives and 65 of the 74 seats in the Senate. Then you have the thorny issue of the Australia Press:

Looks exactly like the US. Just change "The Age" to be Fox.

Australia's economic situation is actually illusory, we've been kept afloat by the mining boom. If you subtract the profits from the mining boom, we've been in recession for some time, because the rest of the economy is fucked. I'd also point out that some of Labor's policies have been less than exemplary, like the ridiculous tax back stimulus package. I'm not saying it didn't help, I'm saying there are far better plans out there than "Throw money at people".

The insulation scheme was fucking nightmare (it killed three people and caused god knows how many fires), and the schools infrastructure program was a similar clusterfuck and a huge waste of money. IMO the NBN is just a huge boondoggle which most of the country doesn't need, and the way it's set up is basically creating a monopoly (Imagine if Telstra was the only company allowed to sell you 4G, that's basically what the NBN is for fiber networks). Labor's asylum policy has easily been their biggest disaster. Howard's policy worked, and then Labor destroyed it for no reason, panicked, and then tried to sell asylum seekers to Malaysia, drop them in East Timor (without asking the East Timorese) and now they're going to resettle them in PNG as if PNG is a country that could possibly support them! Oh wait it can't, so we're going to pay for PNG to develop enough so that it can.

And this is all ignoring the insanity that Labor has been for the last 6 years. Dropped two PMs because the polls looked bad, tried desperately to defend a man who sexually harassed staff when they made him Speaker, continued to defend a literally corrupt politician even after the AFP started investigating him, and let's not forget the untold damage done to the Australian cattle industry and our trade relations when they banned live exports overnight because of one story.

So yeah, I'm voting for the party that's not a clusterfuck.

I voted yesterday and I voted Liberal, albeit after a lot of internal debate.

There are things that the Labor Party have accomplished that have been positive (although taking credit for steering us through the GFC is a stretch - the Howard Govt deserves at least some of the credit there), they have also created multiple disasters.

But the real thing that gets me is that the current PM, the previous PM, and a majority of their Ministers have demonstrated a lack of trustworthiness and competence I cannot get past. The sheer instability of the Party and their comical back and forth on leadership and all of that gives me no faith in their ability to run a country effectively, and I would almost guarantee we would have yet another unelected PM from Labor before the next election.

I think they need to clean house and come back.

So I voted for the Liberals, as I think they will do a better job overall for a while, even though I despise Abbott and disagree with some of their policies.

I just hope that, regardless of who wins, that our politics moves away from being the disgusting, American-esque shitfight it is currently.

There should at least be respect shown in Parliament.

@tycobb said:

@zombiepie said:

@beachthunder said:

Just going to leave this here:

This is all nice on paper but it should be mentioned that almost all of the minor parties in Australia are affiliated with or part of the coalitions led by the two major parties of Australia. Be it the Coalition led by the Liberal Party or the Australian Labor Party, which together comprise of 143 of the 150 seats in the House of Representatives and 65 of the 74 seats in the Senate. Then you have the thorny issue of the Australia Press:

Looks exactly like the US. Just change "The Age" to be Fox.

(Pssst) Liberal means conservative in Australia.

@animasta: The Liberal Party (LNP) in Australia is economically liberal and socially conservative. At least, so they tell everyone. Like most major democracies it just looks like another fight for the centre. (center?)

@hidys: It's the same in Japan, Denmark, Romania, Hong Kong, Honduras, and many more.

The insulation scheme was disastrous, there can be no doubt about that. The school halls certainly went over budget, unsurprising given that its main purpose was to stimulate the economy and its over expenditure/ delays have been vastly over-hyped by the Libs and The Australian.

Your statement on the NBN being a monopoly is completely misinformed. We already have a virtual monopoly with Telstra owning virtually all of the copper network. At least with NBN Co. (which will almost certainly be privatised by the tories) it will be a separate entity which only wholesales out to ISPs.A coppere/fibre network is in fact what economists call a "natural monopoly" which means it is in fact more efficient to be delivered by one party preferably that party should be the government.

The Asylum seeker problem has been a joke ever since Labor decided that an "East Timorese" solution under Gillard. It is worth noting that during the Howrd era there was drop in migration throughout the world. More recently that has gone up quite substantially.

Also were you at all paying attention to what the judge had to say in the Slipper case? He basically accused Mal Brough and James Ashby of setting up Slipper for political gains.

@rick_fingers: Curious as to what credit Howard deserves for the GFC success. Other than pissing away the mining boom on middle class welfare and tax cuts.

Again history teacher here, "liberal" is oftentimes used as a moniker for conservative parties that favor smaller, limited governments because it allows them to trace their party platform to that of "classical liberalism," and "neo-liberalism." Which are exactly that, small government, civil laws, and support for laissez-faire capitalism. Modern day liberalism traces its origins to a movement known as "social liberalism," which started as a response to issues stemming from industrialization. Social liberalism still favors capitalism but the government has a legitimate role given to it, by the people, to address economic and social issues such as poverty, free education, and health care.

Then you have "neo-liberalism" which was a response to "social liberalism" and sought to move the "liberal movement" back to the original ideals of "classical liberalism." This movement was most prominently promoted by Milton Friedman and Friedrich Hayek.

@zombiepie: I know but I don;t think the person I was replying to knew that.

@hidys: That wasn't for you, but hey let me tell you about John Dewey and his social theories about education....

Oh the things I could tell you about the home insulation scheme and the amazing shit show that it was.

@inkerman: You're joking about the NBN right? The whole point of the government building the NBN is to stop the current situation we have with Telstra's ownership of the copper network in the first place. Private ownership of the bulk of Australia's internet infrastructure does NOBODY any good apart from Telstra. It doesn't benefit marketplace competition and it certainly doesn't benefit access for people living in rural Australia.

You guys are worried about your elections? I'd be worried about your evil wildlife more....

Rupert Murdoch and his vast array of satanic mouthpieces is what's wrong with Australia.

Wherever this bastard goes. Wherever any nation allows him to set up his media empire, there festers and multiplies ultra right wing hate politics.

Murdoch and the News Corp empire needs to be eradicated. By any means neccessary.

@fourwude: @lydian_sel: woah guys, how's that hyperbole treating you?

There is no winning, its just selecting which guy will screw you over less.

A man who just today called Rupert Murdoch a national hero is going to be our Prime Minister in a little over 24 hours. Just think on that for a moment.

I guess this is what an aging, News Ltd. reading population gets you.

Sigh. Yet again, Australia goes nowhere socially. Between the two major parties trying to out-redneck one another on immigration, and the guy in favour of equal rights for gay people wanting to marry about to lose heavily, this campaign has been really demoralizing for progressives.

I keep telling myself that Abbott won't last 18 months, when his party finally tires of his bumbling, buffoonish nature embarrassing the nation.

I think this whole thing is fucked. I just don't want Abbott to think he has some sort of mandate for anything. No-one likes him no-one wants him to be pm, this is us voting out Rudd not about us voting him in. Also it's been pretty fucking good for the last 6 years, labor are shit at selling their successes.

And we are a bunch of tards for giving a shit about boats that don't matter and a deficit that most other countries can only dream about.

We get the gov we deserve.

Man what a night. I was at a 21st birthday party when Rudd conceded. The whole party stopped for a minute with reactions of various kinds, but the predominant one which won out as the night wore on was a deep sense of apathy.

We'll see if anything really changes with the Liberal party in power - I'm an independents/greens guy myself, so no skin off my nose. I'll be grabbing some popcorn.