[tac0_]

I feel you mate. Sad part is Australia has all the potential to have a really good future but the only thing missing is competent leadership. The liberal government continues to fuck up time and time again and the Murdoch press just turns a blind eye.

Fucked up quarantine, fucked up vaccine rollout, fucked up climate policies, fucked up the news media bargaining code, and fucked up numerous policies just to prop up the housing market. And it'll be the younger generations that will certainly pay for these fuck ups.

I really hope we have an early election and Australians choose Labor over Liberal this time.

[inkyoto]

the only thing missing is competent leadership

I keep hearing this every now and then, but the incompetent leadership does not come from nowhere nor has conceived itself. The country leaders have been legitimately elected, which means the leadership is the direct reflection of the country people's will. People consciously elect incompetence that bears the incompetent leadership, for that is what they desire for one reason or another. There are a few progressive, young parties that could steer the future of Australia in the right direction with progressive policies that make sense in the 21st century. Guess what? An average Australian does not care about the progress, they care about their real estate portfolio in maintaining the status quo for a change is scary and frightens people. Politics have become a career ladder excercise with public servants serving their own self-interest rather than working out differences between differing views and opinions and working towards a modern future of the country. Australia has been become mired in complacency, pipe dreaming and discussing how Labour is better over Liberals (or the other way around) whereas both parties are more or less the same in the grand scheme of things.

[a_bonobo]

>. The country leaders have been legitimately elected, which means the leadership is the direct reflection of the country people's will. People consciously elect incompetence that bears the incompetent leadership

Counterpoints: 1. Australia's two big parties are closer to an oligarchy than an egalitarian system, these parties recruit from university politics so there's a whole pipeline that will seed out people who have non-party views. Having mostly uni-people will automatically restrict the party to a small percentage of the population.

2. Incompetence can be hidden from the voting populace. If you consume only Murdoch content (i.e., most private TV news, most published newspapers, public TV station boards are also getting packed with government people) then you will probably think that things are running great.

[cromulent]

Good points. I would also add, in relation to:

> the leadership is the direct reflection of the country people's will.

Every 4 years you get to influence the politicians for a few days and they do their best to make you happy. On all the other days, the lobbyists and party factions get to influence them.

[tac0_]

> The country leaders have been legitimately elected, which means the leadership is the direct reflection of the country people's will.

I don't disagree. Although influencing the people's will is a lot easier when the main stream media is monopolised and heavily biased towards one political party. If we want a government that truly reflects the people's will we need a diverse media landscape. Also a reason why I support Kevin Rudd's push for the Murdoch royal commission.

[rosege]

We also need a population that takes an interest in what's going on an will vote out a corrupt politician regardless of their party. Most will excuse anything if it comes from their side. I'm in SA and I do what I can to support Rex Patrick as I see strong independents like him being the only hope in the immediate future.

[jim-jim-jim]

I don't want to single you out, but the monomaniacal hardon that middle aged Redditors and Kevin Rudd (same thing) have for Rupert Murdoch is fascinating from my outsider perspective. It seems like a relic of a bygone generation—think 2003 and "Faux News." Like, it's not the wrong news that's turning Australia shit. Mean old Newscorp didn't force Labor to vote for increased surveillance, to leave negative gearing alone, or to go soft on coal lol.

[conz]

  "Mean old Newscorp didn't force Labor to vote for increased surveillance, to leave negative gearing alone, or to go soft on coal lol."

On the contrary, Newscorp does exactly that. It's called wedge politics, and Newscorp is highly competent at wielding the stick that ensures that anyone who doesn't toe the line with the conservative parties is deemed a threat to the nation.

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/249062912_The_ideol...

[stephen_g]

I would say a great deal of it is the media. Almost all the large outlets now are basically operating through a pro-Liberal/National political filter and pushing misinformation about the Government on people. There is huge complacency about the Government, and I think most of that is because many people literally have no idea what's going on. Probably less than one or two percent of the population would have actually heard of any of these mass surveillance or "national security" laws, the "eSafety" censorship laws, etc.

It used to be better, but Fairfax which had some fairly decent papers got bought out by Nine Media, whose chairman is retired Liberal party Treasurer Peter Costello. The paper's reporting has shifted to a very pro-Liberal Party bias since then. The News Corp papers were always politically slanted towards the Liberal/Nationals. ABC has been cowed by funding cuts and undermining by the Government appointing terrible board members and chairpersons, and they have literally pushed people out because they didn't toe the line (like Nick Ross, because he reported accurately on how bad the Liberal Party's policy on the NBN was, or Emma Alberiche because she reported on the fact that corporate tax cuts generally haven't been shown to increase economic growth when corporate tax cuts were basically the only policy the LNP had).

We'll see what happens this election. Murdoch might temporarily switch sides for a couple of months like they did in 2007, because he hates backing a loser (and I think Morrison's and the rest of this terrible Government's incompetence is a bit too obvious despite the protection racket the papers and TV news try to run). But if they do, almost as soon as Labor gets in, it will likely be back to attacks and undermining of Labor and pro-Liberal/National party bias...

[didibus]

> The country leaders have been legitimately elected, which means the leadership is the direct reflection of the country people's will

I think this is only true if the Australian voting system is Condorcet based. Otherwise I think technically you can elect someone overall less popular, but that has a very strong base of dedicated voters.

[lsiebert]

For US folks, The Liberal Party is Center Right and further to the left than the Republicans, Labor is Center Left and further to the left of the Democrats.

[stephen_g]

This isn't quite accurate. Really, Labor over the last five or six years (but mostly in just the last two) has actually moved basically centre-right as well, but still to the left of the Liberal/National coalition.

In terms of the Liberal and National parties (who are in coalition Federally, and the two state branches merged in Queensland), while they are slightly left of the GOP overall, there are definitely a fair few MPs and senators in the party that are just as far right-wing. For the 'moderates', they're mostly captured by business interests (especially the resources (coal, oil and gas) and property lobbies).

For Labor, the shift right is because a massive media campaign spread lies about some of their slightly more progressive policies last election, so instead of trying to correct it, the leader of the opposition who replaced the one who ran at the last election just decided to drop the policies. Also, Labor have voted in lock-step on all the mass-surveillance laws, censorship laws. Finally, despite being on about climate, they have voted for increasing grants and subsidies to new coal and gas exploration, such as in the Narrabi and Beetaloo basins, against the wishes of much of the population, farmers in the area, and the First Nations traditional owners of the land.

They are definitely the "lesser of two evils", but where I would have laughed at the thought of not voting 1st for them ten years ago, now I give my first preference to a minor party or independent (preferential voting is seriously a good idea, by the way).

[lsiebert]

This is all accurate and detailed and I appreciate it, but I'm comparing them directly to US parties, hence center left, not centre-left.

It's possible I'm just splitting hairs though.

[jclulow]

Under the current leadership the LNP inches closer to the GOP with each passing day, so, I don't expect they'll be perpetually to the left of the Republicans.

[bogomipz]

Sorry if this is a silly question but are the LP and the LNP the same party? When I try to look up LNP I see references to Queensland which confuses me if it's a national party. If not are they related?

[stephen_g]

Yeah, it's confusing. The federal parties are made up of state branches, and the state branches of the Nationals and Liberals merged in Queensland.

Federally the two parties are in coalition, so it's basically the same anyway, even though they are technically different parties in the other states.

[Jedd]

> .. Labor is Center Left and further to the left of the Democrats.

Do you think? I'd have pegged things like Green New Deal, fairly strong consensus around fossil fuels and renewables, as strong US Democrat party line -- compared to AU's Labor being still wedded to a fossil fuel future, still keen to satiate Murdoch and co.

What broad policies / positions are you suggesting indicate AU Labor is more left than US Democrat?

[lsiebert]

On a lot of things, universal health care, how strongly they are in favor of nuclear disarmament, gun control, etc. Remember President Biden is the head of the Democratic Party, And the US itself has been pushed further to the right by a conservative dominated supreme court.

Here's the 2021 Labor party platform https://alp.org.au/media/2594/2021-alp-national-platform-fin...

Here's the 2020 Democratic Party platform https://democrats.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2020/08/202...

[Jedd]

Okay, so there's 249 pages of policy to read and then correlate, which is a bit beyond me.

> ... universal health care, how strongly they are in favor of nuclear disarmament, gun control, etc

As I understand it, US Democrats are keen on those three, and in Australia, we've already embraced all of those.

Are you suggesting there's a policy mis-match, or that one of the two groups leans even more strongly towards these principles than the other group?

Either way, I'm not sure how this strongly differentiates them.

> ... the US itself has been pushed further to the right by a conservative dominated supreme court.

The USA's supreme court arrangement is indeed a curious artefact, for those of us outside its domain.

AFAICT it's been 'pushed' in one direction by political appointees in the previous presidents' term.

[lsiebert]

While many Democrats do support it, Biden doesn't support medicare for all.

[Jedd]

Sure, and that's objectively a weird position to take for someone who appears to be as empathetic as he is.

But it (as you observe) does not reflect 'the party policies' - simply the current elected leader. And while that's obviously important, it doesn't necessarily define policy of either party of (current) administration.

The fact it's at odds with what the majority of the rest of the party would advocate speaks to my earlier claim / question.

[astrange]

People don't appreciate how left the Democrats are because almost everyone's political opinions are 5-10 years behind reality. The Democrats are one of the most successful left parties in the world currently; as soon as you count "respecting immigrants" then e.g. Europe loses cred no matter how good the healthcare systems are. And those systems weren't designed by the current generation.

[sigotirandolas]

Various sources are reporting that Labor supported the bill as well.

https://www.zdnet.com/article/australias-hacking-bill-passes...

> The House of Representatives on Tuesday passed the Bill, with a total of 60 amendments, and while Labor has thrown its support behind the Bill as a result of the amended document being a "better Bill", the Australian Greens have not.