So happy about Australian election result

[StartupRepair]

Australia has just thrown out its tired, misogynistic, racist and corrupt government and elected a Labour Greens coalition with an agenda for action on climate, social cohesion and implementation of the First Nations Uluru statement.
This is huge. It happened despite a Murdoch dominated press. Our new Prime Minister, Anthony Albanese, was brought up in public housing by a single mother with a disability. Finally a new era. Lot of celebration at our house!

Adam Bandt is salivating this morning at holding the balance of power.

I'm interested in the view that life will get harder under Greens/Labor. Life is already hard with cost of living rises, rampant housing inflation, weak wage growth etc.

It seems like life may get less easy for the haves who are used to guzzling resources, perhaps? The rest of us already have to live below our means in smaller apartments, watching our power use etc. I don't mind seeing some change coming.

The last 9 years of Coalition has shown massive blow outs on the budgets, mainly through corruption, slinging of dodgy contracts to mates, paying the French billions not to manufacture submarines etc. Australia 's Labor government managed the GFC brilliantly.
I was so moved that Albo referenced the Uluru statement in his first words as PM. Read it.

Well done oz! 🙌

@silentpool thats a weird way of looking at things - some people are doing it tough so let’s get more people to do worse so everyone suffers? Rather than more people doing better?

And also, I just don’t think that’s how it works. Let’s take my family as an example. We’re comfortably off (probably well off). DH works for a bank, I have my own business. Our children are in private school, we go on holiday a couple of times a year.
If the cost of essentials starts to rise, ok, we will absorb that, to a point. And then we start looking at our non essentials. But who provides those non essentials that we would cut back on if the essentials like power, food and fuel rise dramatically? Tennis lessons; a local coach who is a sole practitioner. Music classes; again, small local business. Eating out at locally run cafes. Supporting other numerous local businesses who benefit from people having decent disposable income.

I don’t disagree that the gap between rich and poor should get smaller, but I think this should be done by improving things for the less well paid, not just by making things worse for the rich.

I look forward to watching things progress in Australia and hope it is an indication that things could change I the UK soon too.

Ozgirl75 finally I find someone on Mumsnet I agree with.

@PortMac i assume I’ll be criticised about being out of touch etc and yes, we don’t have money worries (although we’ve not always been well off) but to me it seems obvious that you can’t make things better by making things worse for people who spend money on goods and services.
I’m also fine with tax rises to an extent as I also think that a good country is a fair country and I don’t think it’s right at all for people (like in the U.K.) to be in fuel or food poverty. I think that’s absolutely terrible. I would love for everyone to be comfortable and I don’t believe that the rich can only do well on the backs of the poor. In the business I run, I pay above the market rate as I want good people who enjoy their job and feel good and valued. In turn this makes them do a good job, stay with me for years which makes for a more successful company. We all win.

Australia was fast becoming as toxic as the US with politics. So many Liberal supporters also think Trump was good.

This is the change Australia needed.

Ozgirl75 I was not a fan of ScoMo however at least he can hold himself in an interview or when he is getting grilled. Albanese can barely string a sentence together.
Hardly a PM that we can say we are proud of on the world stage.

I find most of them pretty uninspiring to be fair. I suppose because they have to be a “man of the people” so they all have this Everyman persona which appeals to the voters but on a world stage we want someone with a little more, I don’t know, finesse? But those people don’t appeal to your working class voters. Hard to have both.

I don't want someone with a bit of finesse, I want someone with a conscious! Something ScoMo did not have.

And you're really wrong about your Labor=working class comment. I'm far from working class, but the Liberal Party is now so far right wing, only those with no social conscience could vote for them.

(the Greens) they are the most hard left wing socialist party, openly want to nationalise various industries, do away with private schools

They do not want to do way with private schools, they want to take away government funding, which is fair enough. If you choose to spend money on a car rather than use PT, then that's your decision. Same with education.

I think it’s totally fine for the Greens to pursue their anti private school/healthcare etc ideas. I’m sure many people support that, but I’d be surprised if many of those people actually have their children at private school.
My comment was that it’s easy to see who just thinks; Greens=care for the environment when their manifesto is a much more hard left socialist agenda.
I may be totally wrong but I hear people I know sometimes say “well I don’t like the liberals or labor so I’ll go for the greens” as if they’re some kind of Liberal Democrat, environmental friendly party with no other policies. I don’t hear many people saying “yes I’ll vote for the greens because I want to nationalise industry, minimise the armed forces, minimise private healthcare and private schools”

@Ozgirl75 I was so disgusted by the state of politics in Aus that I volunteered for one of the Teal campaigns. I'm not a natural left wing voter far from it but my time living in developing countries has made me see how corrosive inequality is.

Finally we saw a campaign where the community stopped thinking about their own narrow self interests and started thinking about what was happening in Aus. And worked to create some choice for voters.

Let's hope we will leave a better country behind us for everyone. Not just the well off.

Definitely agree with you there @silentpool - rising living standards for everyone is a great aim.

It isn’t a Labor Green coalition and the Greens won’t hold the balance of power. At this point it’s most likely that Labor will form a majority government and many of the undecided seats are battles between the two major parties rather than potential Green or independent seats.

That said, when we did have a Labor minority government with Greens support, some years ago, it was one of the best and most productive governments we’ve had in recent decades - there would be nothing to be frightened of if Labor did form a coalition with the Greens, but it is most unlikely because Greens policy is to become a major party in its own right.

It is not surprising that there has been a major rise in votes for green-leaning independents given the appalling environmental crises we’ve had in the last few years, which the outgoing government mismanaged abhorrently. As PP said, people are still living in tents and vans while bushfire relief funds have been unspent or given to business. The response to flooding was delayed, and relief funds allocated disproportionately to electorates that favoured the government.

Albanese is an experienced and conscientious politician with an experienced team, many of whom have been in government before. I’m looking forward to seeing what happens next :)

Remember that decisions have to pass the Senate. Greens are very likely to hold the balance of power there.

I was about to mention this. Much depends on the Senate balance of power. Remember Kevin Rudd's government had to fight through a deadlocked Senate? This shouldn't happen here, but it could be close.^^ As you note, it looks like the Greens could hold the balance of power this time around.

The Greens want to be best friends with China? This sounds odd for them, given China's environmental record, etc.

Can you link to a source for this?

Thank fuck I don’t live there!

True, though it looks like the Senate mix will improve and One Nation may be out of it, so happy days on that front :)

It isn’t a Labor Green coalition and the Greens won’t hold the balance of power. At this point it’s most likely that Labor will form a majority government and many of the undecided seats are battles between the two major parties rather than potential Green or independent seats.

Exactly. Why are people crapping on in doom-laden tones about the Greens??!

What happens will be what always happens. Everyone will think it's great to start with, they'll gradually become more and more disillusioned over the years until finally everyone's sick to death of them and vote the other side in.

I agree with the PP who said it's only ever the least worst lot that gets in, I think everyone gets so excited by change that they conveniently overlook all the glaring issues. And bloody coalition governments are often a disaster IMO.