Posted on 10/09/2004 12:47:55 AM PDT by naturalman1975
I hesitate to suggest this, as I am fairly new around here, but I have noticed that there is quite a lot of interest in the Australian eleciton, so I thought I would make an offer here. I will be watching the election coverage and if people are interested, as the coverage proceeds, I can post updates in this thread, so people can follow what is happening in Australia.
Just an offer. Coverage starts in 15 minutes.
Oh and if any other Aussies want to post updates as well, of course, I wouldn't object. It's just I can see interest.
This turned into a great play-by-play thread....I thank all who participated with the good info!!
Congrats to our Aussie friends for reelecting their PM and for backing us in the War on Terror....and for sending us Russell Crowe and Nicole Kidman! (I won't even mention your leftie, anti-Iraq war novelist that just won the Nobel prize.)
Arrrgh. Gotta quit staying up that late. That post made no sense. Should be "from Howard's opponent"
Sorry for the late reply Gretchen...It is now the morning after and I am still stunned on how the government stormed in - a swing of 1.8% on the primary vote. One government pollster called the election for the PM 1 hour and 15 mintues after the polling booths closed!
I watched the returns coming in on the TV; hence I missed hopping online last night. I was too busy picking my jaw up off the floor!! LOL
I trust this victory here is a good omen for President Bush.
The thing I have learned is do not listen to the polls; the Labor party got it way, way wrong. It was actually quite stunning of how wrong they were!
But, boy, did I sleep soundly....
Sorry that I didn't see your post until now. How about Singapore? It is part of the COW (althiugh a minor one, but considering it is surrounded by two anti-Iraq War SE Asia, and peopled with ethnic groups you wouldn't expect to be sympathetic to the war it was a courageous stand by Goh Cheok Tong and Lee Kwan Yew) and the PPP seems to go on forever over there. (Although I can't recall any election held in Singapore)
Dang, Labor lost Sydney,if I heard correctly,I always imagined that Sydney would be really left-leaning? Could I have misunderstood that?
Surprisingly, Syndey is moderate in orientation - a bit like a cross between blue and red tate. Unlike Melbourne, Toronto, Montreal, or indeed most inner US metros, it doesn't turn out true leftists even when it elects Labor. I can't see how many US metros with population of 3 million or more that are this conervative.
I have an extract from Paddy McGuinness (from the SMH) about Sydney and Melbourne difference:
There is a harder edge, a tougher minded approach to many issues in Sydney compared with Melbourne. There you tend to get more of the politics of the warm inner glow, along with pretensions to intellectual, cultural and moral superiority. Typically, the Fabian Society - wishy-washy socialism for idealistic and ineffectual intellectuals - flourishes there while it never did in Sydney.
Also I wrote this on another thread:
My guess in general is that New South Wales - which is the largest state - (including Sydney!) is moderately conservative Labor and conservative Liberal/National - even the Labor MPs (analogous to Representatives in the US) aren't the knee-jerk anti-Americans. By US standards it will be a cross between blue and red state.
Queensland and Western Australia are out and out red states (they are the 3rd and 4th largest states respectively). I'm not too sure about South Australia (with Adelaide as largest city and capital) though, but intitutively it isn't too liberal either and I would call it a moderate red state.
Now, the bad news. The second largest state, Victoria (including its capital and largest city, Melbourne, which is also Australia's second largest city), is a typical liberal big city in US standards. You can think of it as Ontario (and Melbourne as Toronto) in Australia. Tasmania (the sixth and smallest state) is out and out nutty left in the Washington state and British Columbia model - it is the most left-wing jurdisdiction in Australia. Both two states elect Labor candidates that would be considered liberals by US standards.
And we are left with two territories. Canberra (the Australian Capital Territory, a bit like Washington DC) elects the usual degrees-holding-professional-liberal/realpolitik-bureaucrats, and Northern Territory is schipozeric - the Europeans elect conservatives, while Aborginals elect "brownie activists" just like South Dakota in the US does.
Final words must be said about Australia's party spectrum. Labor is the main party on the left. Its Left faction is equal to Canada's Liberal Party and its Right truly moderates (its right is pro-US, and Mark Latham is currently using Paul Martin rhetoric for campaigns - but still he is considered too anti-US and he is losing support precisely because of his foreign policy stance). The main two parties on the Right, Liberal and National parties, are like urban-suburban and country versions of the US Republicans (except maybe they have more pork from time to time), etc. The Green party and Australian Democratic Party are the fringe-loony left parties in Australia. They are equal to Canada's New Democratic Party and Green Party but unlike Canada's NDP which gets 20% in the recent Canadian election, in Australia both combined gets around 4% of support. (A note of interest is Tasmania's share of votes for these two left-wing parties is similar to the figure for Canada's NDP nationally)
In short, Australia's political orientation is about 75 to the right of Canada and 25 to the left of the US.
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