by PAUL COLLITS – AND so to the recriminations.
For the ABC “squad”, it was always going to be described as “the climate election”. Well, they would say that.
Yet for at least 90 per cent of the electorate, it was not the climate election.
- Morrison let everyone down.
- Conservatives are these days all but non-existent in the Liberal Party.
- The electorate wanted “change from”, but had no idea of what the “change to” should be.
For Julie Bishop, forever bitter at her non elevation to the leadership of the Liberal Party, it was, inevitably, about “women”, and Morrison’s supposed women problem. This is fantasyland.
And, related but different, for Niki Savva and the endlessly grumpy female-Left, it was all about Catherine Deves! Really?
TRANSGENDER
A single candidate whose past, eminently right-thinking social media posts on the unbelievably prominent transgendered issue, caused a nation to turn on ScoMo?
For the dimwits at The Guardian, it was the defeat of a Right-wing government. No one other than a Guardian “journalist” (Katharine Murphy) could possibly think Morrison or even Abbott – inevitably still given a mention – led a remotely Right-wing administration. Again, fantasyland.
Her headline read “Tony Abbott and Scott Morrison have emptied the Liberals’ Broad Church.”
But she failed to mention it was emptied of conservatives. It was emptied by Katharine Murphy’s mates in the teals’ cabal.
Fair dinkum conservatives are these days all but non-existent in the Liberal Party (with now, apparently, the pro-life stalwart Bernie Finn set to be excised this week in Victoria in an act of utter bastardry).
Most certainly there are no real conservatives in the National Party. The Guardian’s line is ideological self-serving idiocy.
For the (mercifully now) ex-minister Simon Birmingham, it was the Liberals’ alleged move to the Right on climate policy, or, at least, their failure to embrace the extremist position on climate change of a lunatic minority of voters, that did the Government in.
When in doubt – blame the Nats! Kill the Coalition. That would be the now-Brokeback Nats who embrace every Leftist cause going.
Only last week, the NSW Nats cheered on the euthanasia legislation in NSW, as enthusiastically as they had championed infanticide-on-demand back in 2019.
The same Nats who waved through Matt Kean’s insane green agenda for the collapse of the NSW economy. This is now the Party of Trevor Khan, thankfully granted his retirement sinecure as a magistrate.
ABOMINATION
It’s the same Nats who in Canberra waved through ScoMo’s net-zero abomination, with only Matt Canavan expressing opposition.
What about ScoMo? It really is a problem when they all hate you.
The conservative base that you obliterated with your corporatism. The Modern Liberals. The feministas. The climateers. The COVID-crushed. The fiscal conservatives. Those who resent top-down “captain’s picks”. The old fashioned swinging voters. The religious freedom lobby.
Morrison let everyone down.
His government was old, by Australian electoral standards. It was a poor government. It corrupted grants programs, it worked through three prime ministers, two of which it sacked without giving the electorate a say in the matter.
It was populated with mediocre (at best) ministers, it was fiscally incontinent, it failed (post-Abbott) to create a reason for its existence, it was hopelessly divided factionally, it trashed our defences, and, worst of all, it crushed freedoms and rights with its woeful lockdowns and border closures.
The Liberal Left thought the government too “conservative”, a truly mind-numbing analysis.
Morrison was left with no one loving his government, despite its all-too-late appeal to Party elders to save it.
The only surprise is that the LNP Government lingered as long as it did. Governments lose elections, oppositions rarely win them, in Australia. This appalling government lost.
MYSTERY
There is no great mystery, despite the mindless narratives already being rolled out by everyone with an interest in so doing.
When they all hate you, you have nowhere to turn. Especially when you were the accidental prime minister in the first place, without a compelling reason for your occupation of our highest office.
But another aspect of the election, clearly, is that we clearly hate them all. As Adrian Beaumont (at The Conversation) summed up the figures on election night: “Primary votes were 35.3% Coalition (down 6.2% since the 2019 election), 31.9% Labor (down 1.4%), 12.4% Greens (up 2.0%), 5.1% One Nation (up 2.0%), 4.4% UAP (up 1.0%) and 10.9% for all Others (up 2.6%). Labor is projected to win the two Party vote by a 51.2-48.8 margin, a 2.7% swing to Labor.”
So, we now have a government elected with clearly less than one third of the primary vote. A sad first in Australia.
Let this astonishing outcome sink in. On these (incomplete) figures, 68 per cent of Australians have a government they do not want and did not vote for. The electorate wanted “change from”, but had no idea of what the “change to” should be.
The shockingly low results for the freedom Parties make a mockery of the optimism many felt that Australians would rally around a freedom-based campaign after two years as a prison camp.
FAILURE
As one blogger noted, we have voted to live in said prison camp. Both George Christensen and Craig Kelly admitted failure.
Though George did make the point that the FFMPs obtained around 12 per cent of the vote nationally.
Enough, as he said, to elect several senators – if the voters for these Parties had preferenced the others.
Sadly, they did not, though, at the time of writing, Christensen had not abandoned hope of some Senate seats.
Which takes us back to the woeful ground game of the minor right-of-centre Parties, in contrast to the sophistication and commitment of the Leftie minors and “teals”.
Splashing big money on big signs and big adverts no longer cuts it in the age of targeted, online advertising.
Another clear implication of the election result is that no one who lives in the inner cities cares a fig about the core freedoms of those who do not.
These things should alarm those of us who do care about freedom and national prosperity.
Where to from here? Notwithstanding at least one assessment (at What’s Up With That) that Australia now has the greenest regime in our history, it is worthwhile remembering that culture is upstream from politics, and that changes of government count for little when the Lib-Lab duopoly agrees on so much.
RELIGION
So many of the wars over climate, freedoms, education, religion and culture are already (alas) lost, and non-parliamentary and supra-national institutions now run the world, dragging along political Party puppets of whatever persuasion in their wake.
Christensen is here for the long haul. After all, One Nation has been around for a quarter century this year, and its vote is up considerably on previous efforts.
(Yes, that is because they stood candidates in more seats, but the fact remains people were willing to vote for ON candidates).
Time will tell whether we get goofy Albo or radical Leftist Albo, and whether the Coalition in the Senate will now oppose policies, detested by its base, that it championed in government. Like net-zero and COVID statism.
But one thing is clear. It was a “feeble” attempt by ScoMo at re-election, as one observer put it, and perhaps this was the inevitable result of having been a feeble, illiberal government, which stood on the sidelines as our premiers and chief ministers gutted the nation.
Should we have rewarded this?
Good riddance to an awful government. Now onwards to Sydney and March 2023.PC
Thanks Paul, I agree the Lib-Lab duopoly was on the nose. A friend sent me this the day after the election:-
In the 2019 election the major parties (Liberal, Labor, Nationals and Greens) attracted 10,866,722 first preference votes.
In the 2022 election the same parties have at this stage attracted 7,849,882 votes. These numbers will change a little as they finalise counting, BUT this means that over 3,000,000 FEWER people voted for the major parties at this election than in 2019.
The shift is happening, just not fast enough for our liking.
In the Page electorate, where the Nationals and Labor dominate, this election they attracted over 29,000 FEWER votes than the 2019 election.
Great analysis and article Paul.
The election results say it all, what a mess. Australian’s need some pain to wake-up from their net-flix induced vaccinated coma and Labor will give it to them.