Posted on 05/18/2019 2:36:22 AM PDT by naturalman1975
YouTube links to Australian electoral coverage:
Major parties that can form government:
The Liberal/National Coalition (LNP) - an almost permanent coalition that represents the conservative side of politics. Headed by current Prime Minister Scott Morrison.
Labor (ALP) - the major socialist part. Headed by Leader of the Opposition Bill Shorten.
Significant minor parties:
Greens (GRN) - left wing party with what it calls an environmental focus.
One Nation (ONP) - conservative party with stronger anti-immigration stance than others.
United Australia Party (UAP) - conservative party, largely a vanity exercise from one of Australia's richest men (Clive Palmer) but he's spent a lot of money.
Because Australia has a preferential voting system, votes for the Greens will often flow to Labor, votes for One Nation and UAP will often flow to the Coalition in the end - so those votes especially need to be watched.
Looking very much like former Prime Minister Tony Abbott has lost his seat of Waringah to independent Zali Steggall.
Whatever the overall result, this is not a good result for conservatives in Australia.
Abbott was specifically targeted for defeat by an Australian group called GetUp! which was set up as a copy of the American MoveOn! group with some of the same people involved.
Wonder how well the Shooters, Fishers, and Farmers Party will do?
They are basically only a factor in the Senate, which doesn’t decide who forms government, and the voting system is so complicated it takes weeks to get a result. So they won’t figure at all tonight in any discussions.
They may wind up with some influence but not in terms of who actually forms government.
hows it going so far
The announcers look annoyed and glum, i guess that means labor isn’t doing as well as they hoped
Much better than expected.
I can’t say what the result will be but it’s going to be closer than predicted.
No Labor landslide. They may win - and that’s not good - but a year ago, most experts were predicting a conservative rump - at worst, they will still be a credible opposition, and even victory seems possible.
I'm curious now about both Australia and India.
My son & I did what we could to stop labour and the greens out here in W.A.
The thing is we already had a conservative government when President Trump got into office. Certainly I can’t say that he might not have made some difference - especially as the result is looking better for conservatives than it was a year ago - but it’s hard to say.
i checked the projections before the vote, they were expecting labor to be ahead 1.5% and win.
But the initial counts show them doing much worse in queensland than projected, and not getting anywhere in western australia
looks like tony abbot lost his seat?
Yes, Tony is conceding now.
But he’s also pointing out that the overall result is looking better than expected.
Probably too early to say much about WA - polls only closed there half an hour ago. But Labor do look like they need to do well there.
I had decided not to watch anything of the election campaign so I had no idea how polls or issues were going (did wonders for my blood pressure).
I thought that Abbott would loose his seat, a combination of out right hate on the part of the media and the left, and wealthy electorates swinging to the loony left.
It would be interesting to see if Labor fails to win, what the fallout would be. Will they stick with Shorten? Will Albo get the nod. The factional fights could be more entertaining than a grand final.
From what I was seeimg pre election day Labor are more than likely to get the popular vote but were not looking so good in the Marginal seats. The lack of confidence in Shorten seems to be biting thwm there plus some local issues like jobs at Adani in Queensland seats. Might come down to WA and I am hoping that them getting more of a share of GST revenue has been enough to get them voting the right way. Nice to possibly pick up 2 seats on Tassie which nobody really thought were going to go LNP.
One of the announcers said Labor “was getting killed by the palmer united party and one nation”, what is the story there
Abbot seems confident that Morrison will remain as PM.
Basically Palmer United and One Nation (and to a lesser extent the Katter Australian Party) are particularly strong in Queensland. And if people vote for them, in the end, most of their preferences will pass to the Coalition. So Labor can poll very well compared to the Coalition, but if Palmer/ONP/Katter votes are big enough, they lose in the end.
Labor gets some of the same benefit from Greens votes, but those tend to be less significant in Queensland.
It applies in other places as well, but I think that comment was largely about why Labor is not seeing gains in Queensland (I heard it as well and that was my impression).
Yes, he does - and he may have access to internal figures that give him more information than I have.
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