Anthony Albanese has the chance to enter the pantheon of great Labor leaders – not just as the leader who achieved a massive election victory, but the one who made that victory matter.
My concern is that ALP numbers men will look at the 65+% number (those that voted 1st preference other than ALP) as a warning against more progressive policies. The reality is that a very large minority of that 65% want a more progressive government.
The demotion of Dreyfus, although likely due to factional decisions, is still a net positive due to his triple failures on the NACC, pursuit of whistleblower David McBride and willing blindness to go to Israel whose head of Government has a warrant for arrest.
The elevation of Rowland, who did nothing about gambling while accepting their gifts and tickets from them (which Andrew Wilkie pointed out was an obvious potential conflict of interest), is disturbing.
The mandate achieved is impressive, on the back of 34.6% of the primary vote. As one of 65% that did not vote for the ALP, I wish them well because I want the country to succeed. Their right wing policies on defence, trashing of the environment, inadequate neoliberal HAFF and stripping of due process for asylum seekers need to be corrected and without proper oversight in the Lower House I am sceptical if that can be achieved.
The potential productivity of the next parliament is threatened by the hostility which Albanese has for the Greens and by extension their voter base is concerning. The ALP’s campaign is buttressed by Greens preference flows but it is disturbing how much respect the PM has for the dangerous Peter Dutton, but nothing but bile for former MPs Chandler-Mather and Bandt.
I think we should talk to the UK about accelerating the UK-AUS arm of AUKUS to get submarine construction happening in Adelaide much faster than currently intended. That way, if the US rats on us over the US arm of the deal, we will already be proceeding with the UK alternative.
Public housing is a huge opportunity for Albanese Labor to reform the housing market to benefit the one-third of the population who are renters and may never be able to afford to buy their first home.
Housing has become an investment strategy, but actually it should be a human right. Only a Labor Government will back renters. The LNP don't care.
Will Albanese back bold action, or will his caution inhibit him from actions most voters would support?
I was hoping that Richard Marles would no longer be the Minister for Defence because I heard an interview with him re AUKUS. In it he said that we could trust the US, including Trump. The rest of the interview was blah, blah, blah and isn't the US great.
I find it difficult to believe that anyone trusts the US on anything now and that we evidently still will be giving the US money for nothing. I don't believe we will ever receive those subs, if we do they will be well past their use by date.
How stupid is Australia to keep any agreement like that, especially one concocted by Scott Morrison.
That money would have been better spent on infrastructure and social causes in Australia for Australians.
If Australia strengthens its ties with Europe, could the French submarine option be back on the table? The US is proving itself to be thoroughly unreliable and its international relations appear to depend on the whim of its president.
Excellent article and I desperately hope you're right and the current Neolaboral Political Party evolves back into something like the Australian Labor Party some of us can still remember and that we so desperately need.
It would be great if they could find a way to get rid of the idiot Marles and the Minerals Council stooge King, but I suppose all ships have a few barnacles. However, those two are going to make sanity around AUKUS and climate change much harder to achieve. Given the delight Albo takes in putting the boot into the Greens, he might like to apply a bit of that medicine to his own team.
Of course there is risk in taking actions that weren't foreshadowed at the election - though they might reflect on the one significant time they did so in their last term, with the stage 3 tax cuts, and how well that eminently necessary and sensible change was received. It will require great care and skilled persuasion but, if they stick with the obsessive caution and are too fearful to invest their political capital, it will blow up in their faces. That is the other, maybe more important, lesson they need to learn from the disaster of Rudd, who blew extraordinary popularity by being unwilling to commit to any real action simply because it might bruise parts of his popularity. At least Albo isn't obsessed with endlessly proving that he's the smartest person in any room he happens to be occupying.
My concern is that ALP numbers men will look at the 65+% number (those that voted 1st preference other than ALP) as a warning against more progressive policies. The reality is that a very large minority of that 65% want a more progressive government.
Hopefully, the new government recognises this.
Another insightful read.
The demotion of Dreyfus, although likely due to factional decisions, is still a net positive due to his triple failures on the NACC, pursuit of whistleblower David McBride and willing blindness to go to Israel whose head of Government has a warrant for arrest.
The elevation of Rowland, who did nothing about gambling while accepting their gifts and tickets from them (which Andrew Wilkie pointed out was an obvious potential conflict of interest), is disturbing.
The mandate achieved is impressive, on the back of 34.6% of the primary vote. As one of 65% that did not vote for the ALP, I wish them well because I want the country to succeed. Their right wing policies on defence, trashing of the environment, inadequate neoliberal HAFF and stripping of due process for asylum seekers need to be corrected and without proper oversight in the Lower House I am sceptical if that can be achieved.
The potential productivity of the next parliament is threatened by the hostility which Albanese has for the Greens and by extension their voter base is concerning. The ALP’s campaign is buttressed by Greens preference flows but it is disturbing how much respect the PM has for the dangerous Peter Dutton, but nothing but bile for former MPs Chandler-Mather and Bandt.
I think we should talk to the UK about accelerating the UK-AUS arm of AUKUS to get submarine construction happening in Adelaide much faster than currently intended. That way, if the US rats on us over the US arm of the deal, we will already be proceeding with the UK alternative.
Public housing is a huge opportunity for Albanese Labor to reform the housing market to benefit the one-third of the population who are renters and may never be able to afford to buy their first home.
Housing has become an investment strategy, but actually it should be a human right. Only a Labor Government will back renters. The LNP don't care.
Will Albanese back bold action, or will his caution inhibit him from actions most voters would support?
I was hoping that Richard Marles would no longer be the Minister for Defence because I heard an interview with him re AUKUS. In it he said that we could trust the US, including Trump. The rest of the interview was blah, blah, blah and isn't the US great.
I find it difficult to believe that anyone trusts the US on anything now and that we evidently still will be giving the US money for nothing. I don't believe we will ever receive those subs, if we do they will be well past their use by date.
How stupid is Australia to keep any agreement like that, especially one concocted by Scott Morrison.
That money would have been better spent on infrastructure and social causes in Australia for Australians.
If Australia strengthens its ties with Europe, could the French submarine option be back on the table? The US is proving itself to be thoroughly unreliable and its international relations appear to depend on the whim of its president.
Excellent article and I desperately hope you're right and the current Neolaboral Political Party evolves back into something like the Australian Labor Party some of us can still remember and that we so desperately need.
It would be great if they could find a way to get rid of the idiot Marles and the Minerals Council stooge King, but I suppose all ships have a few barnacles. However, those two are going to make sanity around AUKUS and climate change much harder to achieve. Given the delight Albo takes in putting the boot into the Greens, he might like to apply a bit of that medicine to his own team.
Of course there is risk in taking actions that weren't foreshadowed at the election - though they might reflect on the one significant time they did so in their last term, with the stage 3 tax cuts, and how well that eminently necessary and sensible change was received. It will require great care and skilled persuasion but, if they stick with the obsessive caution and are too fearful to invest their political capital, it will blow up in their faces. That is the other, maybe more important, lesson they need to learn from the disaster of Rudd, who blew extraordinary popularity by being unwilling to commit to any real action simply because it might bruise parts of his popularity. At least Albo isn't obsessed with endlessly proving that he's the smartest person in any room he happens to be occupying.