Aston byelection

[Pies4shaw]

There is, at this stage, a swing of over 9% to the ALP. Antony Green has the ALP as "likely". Since the Libs have held this electorate since 1990 and the usual thing with byelections is a 5% swing against the government of the day (and a government hasn’t won a byelection from an opposition in more than 100 years), this is yet another problematic night for the Libs (even if they manage to claw the seat back as counting progresses).

[Pies4shaw]

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-04-01/ ... /102157990

Labor has won a by-election in the federal seat of Aston in Melbourne's outer eastern suburbs.

The result is considered a devastating blow for the Liberal Party, which now only holds two federal seats in metropolitan Melbourne.

It is the first time in more than a century that a government has won a seat from the opposition at a by-election.

The count remains underway but the ABC is projecting a swing toward Labor's Mary Doyle of around 6 per cent, from which the party will win the seat.

....

Two hours into vote counting, the ABC's chief election analyst Antony Green said Labor's Mary Doyle appeared to have a clear lead over Liberal candidate Roshena Campbell.

"This is a devastating swing," Green said.

"Mary Doyle will be the first Labor member for Aston since 1990."

Both the major political parties consider Saturday night's decisive defeat of the Liberal Party very unexpected ....

[Pies4shaw]

Dutton says "Victoria is a difficult market for us".

[watt price tully]

Wow. Just got home from work. Bloody hell a drubbing.
Can’t understand how the Liberals did so poorly what with:

Dutton saying that Melbournians are too scared to eat out because of the Sudanese;
Dutton making fun of our neighbours in the South Pacific over climate change
https://youtu.be/rGMrGlAHUq0 ;
Dutton way over the top reaction to China as a Minister;
The sway of the conservative religious right in the Liberal Party;
Trying to parachute in an out of touch barrister who has zero to do with the electorate v a local everyday person (to the Outer East); and,
The legacy of the hypocritical Alan Tudge (Affairs, Robodebt….)

Marvellous result for the continually under-estimated Anthony Albanese.

How long has Dutton got left?

[Pies4shaw]

^ Isn't the real question how long the Liberal Party has left?

[watt price tully]

^ Isn't the real question how long the Liberal Party has left?

[Pies4shaw]

[stui magpie]

What clearly isn't evident to the nutjobs trying to drive the Liberals further to the right is that
there clearly isn't an appetite for that far right rubbish among average Australians, despite their nosiy efforts to say otherwise.

Both Labor and Liberals primary vote has been falling for decades, but Labor gets elected off the back of the Greens. The only independants or other parties who make any kind of real dent aren't far right nuts, but other progressives like the Teals who were basically economic conservatives but socially progressive.

Surely if there was any kind of appetite for that stuff, it would show up with far right minor parties and/or independants getting good chunks of votes, but there isn't.

[What'sinaname]

^ More Australians voted for the Coalition than for the Labor Party in the 2022 Federal Election 5.2 vs 4.8 million. As you point out, winning is about getting preferences.

[stui magpie]

With One nation basically defunct, the Libs don't have a right wing ally to rely on like Labor has with the Greens.

[watt price tully]

^ More Australians voted for the Coalition than for the Labor Party in the 2022 Federal Election 5.2 vs 4.8 million. As you point out, winning is about getting preferences.

In a preferential voting system who’d a thought preferences count

[watt price tully]

With One nation basically defunct, the Libs don't have a right wing ally to rely on like Labor has with the Greens.

Some (don’t know how many) green voters are former ALP voters.
Libs are on the nose with:

Young people;
Women;
The Chinese community; and
Thinking people

[doriswilgus]

Dutton says "Victoria is a difficult market for us".

I think the whole country is a difficult market for them at the moment.

[swoop42]

^ More Australians voted for the Coalition than for the Labor Party in the 2022 Federal Election 5.2 vs 4.8 million. As you point out, winning is about getting preferences.

Who'd have thought that 2 parties combined scored more votes than 1.

Next you'll tell me that Essendon and Carlton together have more members than us.

In reality however....

1.25 million more people voted for Labor over Liberal.

The Greens gained 95,000 more votes than The Liberal National Party and The Nationals combined.

The Coalition is bloody fortunate however that all those Green votes only gain them 4 seats compared to 31.

Not sure how that's even remotely fair or representative of the people but hey that's electoral boundaries for you.

[David]

Interesting op ed from a Liberal Party apparatchik in The Age today:

https://www.theage.com.au/politics/vict ... 5cxlc.html

The problem is that his fairly sensible suggestions (i.e. embracing the reality of climate change, not playing to the fringe anti-transgender vote, etc.) will likely only see him and those within the party who agree with him attacked by the party's right-wing factions and Sky News crowd in the same manner that Malcolm Turnbull and Matt Kean were. For them, the problem is that the Liberals aren't right-wing enough, and the path to success is to look to John Howard, Tony Abbott and maybe even Donald Trump.

Barry makes one specific suggestion that could potentially be a good policy in general, though (as opposed to just something for the Libs to take to an election):

At the moment there’s no bigger or more important economic policy than housing attainability. Housing attainability is the new political fault line in Australian politics.

That’s in part because in Australia we tax income punitively, but we tax wealth at nominal levels, and we’ve allowed wealth to accumulate in property as an asset and investment class through favourable tax concessions and superannuation treatments.

Rebalancing this equation by delivering income tax cuts for aspirational voters and a more reasonable taxation regime for asset-holders is one way we can get back into the mainstream conversation, particularly with Millennial voters.

What do people make of that? Would it work to reduce inequality at all?