Posted on 03/13/2014 12:28:47 PM PDT by naturalman1975
AUSTRALIA is headed for coast-to-coast Liberal governments, with expected Labor defeats in South Australia and Tasmania tomorrow and Tony Abbott welcoming the prospect of working with “like-minded” leaders to “reshape our country to provide more jobs and prosperity”.
Newspoll surveys point to a Labor-Greens rout in Tasmania, with the likelihood of the Liberals governing in their own right, and a Liberal victory in a much tighter contest in South Australia - the biggest spread of Coalition governments since John Howard’s win in 1996.
The Prime Minister and Joe Hockey yesterday used the prospect of Liberal state victories and an 80,500 jump in full-time jobs to pressure Labor over economic management and repealing the carbon and mining taxes.
Campaigning in Adelaide, Mr Abbott said the Coalition and a South Australian Liberal government wanted to “get taxes down, regulation down, and we want to get prosperity up and employment up”.
The Treasurer said the creation of a net 47,300 jobs in February made “a mockery of Bill Shorten’s claim that one job has been lost every three minutes in Australia since the Prime Minister was elected”.
On the prospect of a Liberal “blue map”, Mr Abbott told The Australian: “It’s always more helpful to be working with like-minded people who want to be constructive. The last thing I want to do is to see a deliberate, wilful picking of fights.”
(Excerpt) Read more at theaustralian.com.au ...
Four of Australia six states already have conservative governments (New South Wales, Victoria, Western Australia, and Queensland) as does one of the two self-governing territories (the Northern Territory). Elections are being held in the other two states, South Australia, and Tasmania, tomorrow, and polls predict the conservatives will take both those states as well. This will leave the Australian Capital Territory (somewhat analogous to America's District of Columbia - an area that surrounds the national Capital) as the sole Labor held area of Australia. As a territory its powers of self government are less than those of a state, and it's fairly small anyway - we wouldn't mind it being conservative, but the fact it isn't won't worry us too much if we have the rest of the country.
The Liberals are a broad church - while sections of it are truly and wholeheartedly conservative, there's also a moderate wing, so the whole country going blue doesn't mean quite as much as true conservatives might wish - but even the moderates are much better than having Labor in charge.
Excellent. Thank you for the good news from our friends down under. Question: is there a Tea Party/UKIP type movement in Australia that is pushing the Liberal Party into more victories? Or dissatisfaction with policies of the previous administration?
The Orwellian mislabeling of “Red” for the American Republicans didn’t occur until 2000. The Democrats are the “RED” party in America with their Communist agenda. Blue is the true color for Conservatism.
But, but, but my Liberal (Left Wing) friends told me Australians were embarrassed by Tony Abbott’s “Denial” of Global Warming that he was going to lose big
I visited Aus back in ‘97.
Loved it but you could see the Liberal influence even back then.
Glad to hear things are swinging back the other way.
Yes, but for the most part it is within the Liberal Party, rather than external to it. The true conservative faction of the party (which the current Prime Minister Tony Abbott is part of) has more influence now than it has had for the last couple of decades, where the moderates had more sway than they currently do.
Or dissatisfaction with policies of the previous administration?
The last Federal level Labor government (Rudd/Gillard/Rudd, 2007-2013) is generally perceived (rightly) as highly dysfunctional, which doesn't help their prospects - but a large part of what is being seen in Tasmania and South Australia tomorrow is part of a mood for a change - they've both had Labor governments a long time now. Later in the year that mood for change is likely to work against us in Victoria, although I hope (and think) we will hold on.
Actually, it occured in the 1990's. I remember the first time I saw Republicans turn from blue to red in a USA Today map in the 1992 elections.
So it’s pretty close to the same politically as here in the USA with the Republicans?
It started earlier than 2000. I remember the CBS election map in 1984 showed the Republican states in red. That was because they expected it to be a blowout and it’s easier to pick out the few blue states on a field of red than a few red states on a field of blue.
A lot of the Liberal policies overlap with those of Republicans, but our moderate wing spreads slightly further left than yours - the moderates really are centrists rather than conservatives, but in the end we’d rather have the centrists in Parliament boosting our numbers than boosting Labors.
1984, not 1992. See my post #9 on this thread. Here is a youtube video from CBS’ 1984 election night coverage: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1e4t1qKGFao
Not sure if that is true or not, but it's what I was told.
You may have had some outliers, but the deliberate and willful mislabeling came on Election Night 2000. There was none of that red=Republican; blue=Democrat “state” horsecrap prior to that date. That any Conservative or Republican accepted such willful mislabeling from then on was appalling. I refuse to use such historically and logically inaccurate coloring. Red is the color of leftist totalitarianism, not blue. Nazi Germany, Soviet Russia, Red China/Vietnam, et al. Nary a blue shade in sight.
“The Orwellian mislabeling of “Red” for the American Republicans didn’t occur until 2000”
Exactly. in 1980 David Brinkley one of the Network News Anchors looked at the POTUS election projections which showed Reagan’s states in blue and declared it looked like a “suburban swimming pool”. Psychologically blue invokes trust and red tends to signal danger. I believe it is no coincidence that blue was hijacked for the Dems. Classic Alinsky.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PsDe-8cOSYY
One of the great voices....
The donkey states should be colored in pink. Or with rainbow stripes, since the rainbow was hijacked by one of their core groups.
I remember that day. I was 6 years old and my father took me to the fire station to vote. He had me vote for... yup... John Anderson. *rolling eyes*
Republicans = Red; Democrats = Blue goes back to the 1870s...
http://politicalgame.blogspot.com/2005/01/red-and-blue-state-phenomenon.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/02/08/weekinreview/ideas-trends-one-state-two-state-red-state-blue-state.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_states_and_blue_states#Origins_of_the_color_scheme
See post 20.
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