Did you know that Australia had a Federal election today?

damn shame that new answers don't mean new govt....what a fucking day...now i know how the brits/yanks must've felt when thatcher & reagan/bush won.

i wish you my deepest sympthays and i am sure we could afford some refugees

Toraneko, did you watch the whole show? What a whitewash. I didn't vote Labor this time around, but I didn't vote for Howard either, or Pauline for that matter. I guess it just wasn't going to happen with a war on.

Something that I found particularly intersting was Kernot's speech. She came across as a very bitter woman. She says she's going to write a book, I think she should just go to therapy.

Cheryl's a hoot - she's been bitchslapped ever since she switched...there's a lot more going on within the labor party to do with her than we recognize...i'd buy the book...was looking at the distirbution map of sydney today, the entire city is segregated across the harbour ie north, east voted libs, soouth, and south west all went labor.

The evil Howard was vindictively triumphalist last night: almost too painful to watch. Still, a government which wins 51%/ 49% after preferences has NO mandate to govern, especially after sending as many coded race messages as Howard did. I hope Brown (and hopefully more Greens) frustrate Howard in the Senate as much as possible.

Geoff: I actually live in the safest (or so) Lib. electorate in the country; the pub was horrific last night (the north shore suX!!)

Well, as much as it should be impossible, the bastard managed to increase his mandate from last time, which should be impossible for an incumbent government in all but insane circumstances. But I guess these were relatively insane circumstances. T'was a SAD DAY.

i live in one of the very safest labor suburbs, and it's ridiculously sucky - we didn't even get any mail from him this election, we didn't have any green or green lit at our booth, and the democrats had a please take one leflet poster...at least I got to say I'm not voting for the racist to the liebral woman.....grrr. So, thread morph, will the labor party reething its policies, or will it just bemore of the usual from crean and co?

I suspect the Labour party will become more like the Liberal party than ever.

Which electorate do the Aussies live in? I am currently in Dickson. Kernot Cuntry. I got a fridge magnet from her and a questionnaire asking me what was important to me, on Friday.

Bradfield; uber tory country and home of dear Brendan Nelson. Choice paraphrase from local rag interview: 'one elderly constituent asked me if I was homosexual, because of my earing'. Up the North Shore retiree!

Nice to see the murdoch papers touting for Mark Latham. Someone to the RIGHT of Abbott etc. Exactly what Labor needs.

I, being in Higgins, am blessed with Petey Costello. What a visionary, what a champ.

I reckon the Labor Party will be decimated for a long time - I think people have underestimated just how (comparatively) great a statesman Kim was/is, and how he has kept the party together when there is very little leadership talent there otherwise (that said, I still voted for them in the lower house). Certainly it's going to be particularly pathetic under Crean. There needs to be a new generation of energetic-but-honorable Labor politicians, but I wonder if one exists.

watson - home of fuckwit mccleay, jobs for the boys and all teh rest of labor's right-wing wankery... I was amamazed, this place being the home of "little lebanon", that the only non-anglo candidate on sat was from unity, yet labor rompedd it in here...someone must have good mates in the greek club.

Let me get this straight. Aussie Liberal Party akin to UK Tory Party. Labour = New Labour. Is there a third party.

SOmeone told me that Australia was inherently more conservative that the UK. Anyone care to comment?

At least Pauline Hanson's vote collapsed. Or was that just cause the Liberals stole all her policies?

Nick: yes and yes.

Pete - there is a Democrats Party with a small percentage of votes, now being superceded by the Greens who, while traditionally even more marginal, have done very well due to Labor's Blair-like capitulation to the center-right.

I couldn't say whether Australia is more conservative than the UK - perhaps the problem is that we don't have Europe a stone's throw away as an instructive example, so we take all our cues from America and the UK. Plus our media is largely concentrated in the center-right.

Talking of received ideas abt Australia, someone told me it has one of the most corrupt police forces in the world. Is this true?

inasmuch as there are continual royal comission's/enquiries going on, and victorian police shoot ppl, while nsw police just shoot up...yeah.

The stuff I saw about New South Wales Police Force on BBC World had to be seen to be believed.

The UK print press occupies generally the centre to far right with one exception (tabloid and broadsheet being leftist - or leftish these days). Broadcast media is difficult to pin down editorially (at least the BBC is).

Collapse in One Nation vote after the Liberals stole their policies reminds me very much of the collapse of the National Front vote at the 1979 UK election a year after Thatcher had deliberately gone for NF supporters with her "swamped by an alien culture" rhetoric.

It must be terrible to be living through this. I can remember how I felt on the afternoon after the fourth Tory election victory, in 1992, and I don't want to go there again.

Australia HAS traditionally been more conservative than the UK: cf 23 years of Liberal government, largely under Menzies, who was astute in portraying Labor as pro-communist etc. Apart from Whitlam's 3 years government, since '49, all governments have been centre right (including Labor's 13 years, 83-96). This is exacebated by a preferential voting system; in the lower house, you might vote Democrat or Green, but will eventually have to preference one of the big two (Labor, or Liberal/ National, the latter being a conservative alliance of urban and rural parties). At least the upper house is state based pr selected, making it impossible for either party to secure a majority. Therefore the Left did have some say under Hawke/ Keating.

One of the most depressing aspects of the last week has been Howard claiming that the election wasn't won on race, despite basing his advertising campaign on Australians 'determining who will enter this country'. That, and all four Sydney-based dailies backing him as a more responsible economic manager, even with his craven vote buying for the last year. For a selection of what Australians are feeling at the moment, www.smh.com.au/news/webdiary

this "myth" that howard exploited boat ppl - it's not a fucking myth, god he's a fuckwit...is it so wrong to think of violence as means to democracy?