Australian politics 2005
The Australian conservative parties have won only two elections this Millennium while the ALP has won 12. The most recent election, in Western Australia, saw the ALP win an unwinnable election: they won in 2001 by getting incredible preference flows and because the doctors' wives voted for the Liberals for Forests Party in protest against the logging policy of then incumbent Liberal government in WA. Given the 2004-5 polls and the collapse of Liberals for Forests, the election was very difficult for the ALP. Yet through a combination of good local politics by Geoff Gallop's government and poor judgment by the Opposition (particularly leader Colin Barnett's very silly promise to build a canal to bring water from the Kimberley to Perth, costed at $2 million but more likely to cost $10 million), the ALP was able to hold enough country seats (and win one additional metropolitan seat) to maintain its majority.
This keeps going a streak: since 13 June 1998, the Liberals and their allies have won only three elections (all federal) while the ALP has won 17. Yet the blatherings, who have made much of the alleged failure of Labor to displace the Howard Gang (and a grievous sin it has been too, although circumstances have conspired to make all but the 1998 federal election impossible for the ALP), have all but ignored the basket-case nature of the state and territory Liberal, National and Country-Liberal parties. There is a real story here: the punters have suffered through several terms of the Evil Little Bastard but are refusing to countenance his state and territory clones, even when they are presenting the same nasty-medicine-good-for-you message. The white male 'aspirationals' (Howard's battlers) are more than happy to vote for Bob Carr, Steve Bracks, Peter Beattie and the rest of Labor's second-raters at the state and territory level but not for Mark Latham and other more creative and inventive politicians at the national level (nor increasingly for the ALP's back-hander-accepting local candidates at municipal and shire elections, where Greens, Independents and Ratepayer Association candidates are increasingly dominating proceedings). So at the three levels of government, the people have three different sorts of governments: the bastards in Canberra; the nice-towards-nurses-teachers-and-cops cookie-cutter Premiers; and the independent and slightly edgy local heroes in council. For the record, here's how you've voted in recent times:
1998
Qld 13 Jun ALP
Tas 29 Aug ALP
Aus 3 Oct LIB
1999
NSW 27 Mar ALP
Vic 18 Sep ALP
2001
WA 10 Feb ALP
Qld 17 Feb ALP
NT 18 Aug ALP
ACT 20 Oct ALP
Aus 10 Nov LIB
2002
SA 09 Feb ALP
Tas 20 Jul ALP
Vic 30 Nov ALP
2003
NSW 22 Mar ALP
2004
Qld 07 Feb ALP
Aus 09 Oct LIB
ACT 16 Oct ALP
2005
WA 26 Feb ALP
First written: April 2005
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