Australia votes 2019: Shock! Climate action bombs. Pollsters crash. Skeptics Win

Against all the polls, the money, advertising, and the non-stop media coverage, against all expectations and the betting agencies — the Extreme Climate Fix was a flop.  The Labor Plan to cut Australian emissions by 45% percent is now gone — per capita this would have been a world record sacrifice in a country already increasing their renewable energy faster than any other.

Major betting agency Sportsbet were so sure Labor would win they paid out $1.3 million on bets two days early.  Someone cleaned up with a $128,000 win for a party that lost. *

They called this a climate election and the people voted “No”

Activists thought it was safe to piggy back on a “sure thing”, and they went in hard. Volunteers even wore bright orange “I’m a climate voter” T-shirts.

“This will be a climate election“: Greenpeace

Make this a climate election:  GetUp

If Labor had won, they would be crowing right now about how it proved the people wanted action.

Political pollsters and bullied and badgered voters

Labor was tipped to win decisively in every poll. Even in the exit polls. So thousands of people told pollsters one thing, then they voted the other way, and hid that again on the way out the polling door.

This was not just the abject failure of climate change as a vote winner, it was also a crashing fail for the pollsters. Australians have been badgered and bullied into saying they believe in climate change and prefer the left-leaning parties. (They knew it was uncool to vote “right”.) But when the time came, they voted against them both.

Bullying works in public, but people vote alone.

To understand just how far they got it wrong, read Aaron Patrick yesterday:

The latest Ipsos poll predicted Labor would win 78 lower house seats on Saturday…  Betting on seven commercial marketspredicted Labor would win 83…   the chances of 12 polls getting it wrong is 0.024 per cent.

Even though recent opinion polls have put the two sides within the margin of error, 44 polls since Scott Morrison became prime minister have pointed in the same direction: a narrowing contest, but one which Labor has exclusively led.

A Coalition win would represent one of the great upsets of modern Australian polling…”It’s virtually impossible for them to win,” says Andy Marks, a political scientist at Western Sydney University.

So much for academics.

The only seat that went with the climate spin-masters was the massive battle at Warringah, where GetUp threw everything they had at ousting leading “climate denier”, Tony Abbott. They may have succeeded at throwing out one of the best men in Australian politics, but I wonder if the people of Warringah will feel a bit used when they wake up and realize that the rest of the nation didn’t come with them.

Imagine the sweeping phase change if people felt free to share their thoughts and ask curious questions without penalty about a science topic? Imagine if the polls and momentum rolled the same way?

This will be a brutal shake for the Labor Party. A tough pill. They believed the polls and pushed aggressive, risky policies, doomed by their overconfidence.

Also potentially Liberals like Julie Bishop and Christopher Pyne were victims of the polls. They who left the party were probably assuming a big loss. Nice clean sweep for Scott Morrison. A few less Turnbull fans.

Australia missed a bullet today.

Let’s build another coal mine.

__________________

*Sportsbet are taking it well tweeting “Yep, we blew $1.3million. Could have been $80million though eh Clive?, referring to Clive Palmer, who spent that much trying to win a seat for himself.

Australian flag – Phillip Barrington.

9.6 out of 10 based on 154 ratings

458 comments to Australia votes 2019: Shock! Climate action bombs. Pollsters crash. Skeptics Win

  • #
    Zane

    Yay!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

    601

    • #

      What is so good about this is that we had Malcolm Turnbull rallying support for Labor (channeling this through his son) and once again he lost. I think we could list him as one of Australia’s biggest losers, along with BS and Hewson (both who lost the unlosable election).

      731

      • #
        Alice Thermopolis

        Julie Bishop ‘I sent a text to Bill and Chloe’

        By Latika Bourke

        12.30am 19 May 2019:

        Julie Bishop was in the box seat to be Labor’s appointee to Washington.

        She’s just revealed on Nine’s live coverage that she texted Bill and Chloe Shorten to comfort them on their loss tonight.

        191

      • #
        Greebo

        Nice to see that Wentworth seems to be waking up.

        60

      • #
        Sam Pyeatte

        This certainly was a good election result. It shows that most people are not falling for the climate-change scam. The whole world was watching this…and the truth and the good guys won.

        10

    • #
      theRealUniverse

      Shorten must be looking for the bullet hole in his foot.

      He really p..ed of the Nth QLD workers as well put by the LNP member for Caprocornia last night, you cant sacrifice jobs for the idiot environment policies. No Adani = NO jobs, not a good look.
      He was too in bed with Mr Greenie.

      Bye Bye BS.

      381

      • #
        Analitik

        I bet the Nationals are thanking Bob Brown for his Adani caravan of inner city greenies helping galvanize the rural Queenslanders against the threat of political activism.

        490

        • #
          OriginalSteve

          Yup….nothing quite like showing people how bonkers the greenies and the Left is…..perfectly displayed.

          Don Quixote would have been proud….

          302

        • #
          AndyG55

          I get the impression that people are getting well and truly p***ed off by the Greenie agenda and the way it is holding back economic development, not only here, but in many other countries of the world.

          430

        • #
          pattoh

          Gee, who’da thunk Bob Brown was a toxic priveleged white male?

          180

      • #

        And Warringah voted in Chicken Little. Let’s see how long that lasts before they start regretting things.

        220

    • #
      sophocles

      Yesterday, I wished you all the best of luck, for this election.

      What a great, no: what a fantastic result!

      Australia is truly the lucky country. 🙂

      The people of a democratic country have spoken. However, I don’t think the activists will have taken the real lesson from this. They will have to have it explained to them, in simple words. People are not mindless, they are not stupid, they can and do think for themselves.

      The loss of Tony Abbott is a great shame. Can he be resurrected next election? It’s a shame to lose such a good man.

      (Was the Law criminalizing foreign interference in Australia’s internal affairs passed? Can it be invocked? Christina Figueres needs an Arrest Warrant waiting at every port of entry under that law … she painted the target on Tony Abbott’s back in what is flagrant interference in Australia’s affairs. )

      620

      • #
        Kinky Keith

        Excellent.

        150

      • #
        el gordo

        ‘People are not mindless, they are not stupid, they can and do think for themselves.’

        The big take out from this election is that Australians lie to robo pollsters, and they continue to lie walking into the polling booth and back out into the street.

        Its not characteristic of Australians, so it must be political correctness over climate change which has produced this anomaly.

        440

        • #
          Bill in Oz

          Yes that is happening EG.
          Folks are saying ” Oh yes we have to save the planet” to the pollsters and to their facebook buddies.

          But in the privacy of the polling booth, they are saying ” I want to protect my job and standard of living”.

          321

        • #
          Rupert Ashford

          EG, may that lying continue for many years to come!!! 🙂 We are unfortunately living in an era where personal data/information can be leaked or published at will by these media companies to “shame” people or inflict much worse damage (career, social standing etc.). People are sick of the things like the press that used to be a weapon in the battle for information and freedom now being used as a weapon against the common citizen, and they have resorted to parrotting what is expected from them in public, but being true to themselves in private. It is a sad state of affairs, but unfortunately I don’t see an end anytime soon. The rise of the globalist monsters and their associates and funders (OPEN and the S0r0s money) is making the world as we knew it a distant memory.

          180

          • #
            el gordo

            ‘…unfortunately I don’t see an end anytime soon.’

            If Morrison appointed Abbott as Australia’s roving climate change ambassador, then the end wouldn’t be far off.

            In the interim, as the leftards of my acquaintance are still brainwashed, it might be best to wait until the ABC returns to balance. All we want is the truth and if they continue to pump out propaganda then we’ll privatise them, or we could just humiliate the organisation into oblivion.

            New player Catalano will bring Rural Press back to the centre and the owners of the SMH have told the staff to stop editorialising the news.

            The education system has been corrupted, but this can be turned around fairly quickly once the MSM start debating climate change.

            110

            • #
              truth

              El Gordo..

              I’ll be very surprised if Morrison appoints Tony Abbott to anything unless it’s something demeaning..that will give the ABC and LW journalists a new reason to slime him.

              IMO Morrison’s throwaway ‘form’-type remark to Abbott ie ‘thank you for your service’ before quickly moving on to effusive thanks to others…was much closer to a slur to the PM who got them all into office and without whose landslide 2013 win and without Morrison’s 2015 betrayal of him and of the Australian people…Morrison would never have had the chance to be PM himself.

              I hope we’ve dodged a bullet with this win but I’m not at all sure because Morrison is a Photios footsoldier who’s continued to implement the Turnbull/Photios ‘transition’ of Australia to a 100% weather-dependent electricity system.

              His new Cabinet will be very telling –it will show whether the Photios/Turnbull Cabinet he appointed after the spill..with all of Turnbull’s trusty progressive coup plotters promoted to senior positions… was just insurance in order to get elected….or whether Morrison’s the full-on but tricky RE zealot I think he is.

              The coal stunt in parliament says not…but that was when his Emperor Turnbull too was pretending to be agnostic and open to coal plants….in order to keep himself politically alive.

              The next two weeks should tell.

              If Morrison doesn’t start building HELE coal plants soon…Australia will be well on the way to being the only 1st world country that will never again have the security of a baseload electricity system….alone in the world.

              All of our competitors and trading partners…every one…has baseload electricity forever.

              UK has nuclear and 5 interconnectors to the EU with more planned to the huge Nordic system of run of river hydro and nuclear…Germany has similar and the rest of Europe is all interconnected or about to be. Canada has huge hydro and nuclear and provides power to the New England States of the US.

              All of those countries and others like China and Brazil will never ever be without the security of baseload electricity in the form of coal, run of river hydro or nuclear.

              Only Australia has leaders who will force Australia to just wing it on the weather -rely 100% on weather-dependent intermittents and their weather-dependent props…..and that will be the end of Australia….IMO.

              220

            • #
              Sceptical Sam

              Talking of their ABC, Antony Green last night as he was giving the world the benefit of his unbiased analysis of the early count:

              “There’s a swing against us.
              Oh. I mean against the Labor Party, of between 4 and 5 percent”.

              Another fine example of the cat getting out of the bag.

              The cat’s got their tongue this morning.

              230

              • #
                GD

                “There’s a swing against us.
                Oh. I mean against the Labor Party”.

                ‘Red Kerry’ O’Brien made the same slip on the ABC election coverage in a previous election.

                “Well, we won that one”.

                Shameless.

                80

        • #
          Annie

          Actually what has been happening is pollsters don’t advertise the sampling errors in their reports ( you have to dig for them) nor the various strategies they use to adjust their sample results to arrive at their claims. Most now moderate their findings to accord with other pollsters; so as a group they discounted the possibility (quite probable, given sampling error is 2.5 – 3 %) that the Liberal/ Nationals might win. Furthermore, a large proportion of polls were really based on focus groups or internet panel studies, which simply don’t accurately generalise to the population. Perhaps if market research was again taught in Uni by psychometricians rather than marketers we might get less naivety in market research. But then we’d also need thoughtful, critical journalists to report the findings.

          50

      • #
        beowulf

        Sophocles
        The law you’re referring to controls foreign funding of political parties. Unfortunately the likes of GETUP — which has just crucified Tony Abbott — falls outside the definition of a political party within the Act, so Soros or the unions or whoever can still fund them without controls and without disclosure of the source of funding.

        They have been before the courts 3 times now and each time have been ruled out as a political party despite their overt support for Labor/Greens. It was originally thought that they would be caught by the Act but each time they have wriggled out of it. There was a photo the other day of multiple people in GETUP T-shirts handing out Labor how-to-vote cards at a pre-poll centre. Tell me again how they aren’t just the radical arm of the Labor Party — I love a good laugh.

        After this scandalous campaign against Abbott I would think that broadening the definition of a political organisation would be well up on the agenda for the Libs, or repeats of this could take place in the future. Once their funding is throttled and its sources exposed, GETUP’s influence could be expected to dwindle somewhat, although they have a deep pool of idiots to draw upon for their foot soldiers.

        330

        • #
          Ian

          This “scandalous campaign against Abbott “was not only run by GetUp but also by several different groups of local residents all trying to get rid of Abbott. If he was so marvellous why were these groups formed? Abbott was a destructive wrecker and 60% of Warringah voters recognised that and chucked him out. They did Australian politics and a huge favour. We are well rid of him

          155

          • #
            el gordo

            Morrison owes Tony a favour, for toeing the Party line and win the election.

            Climate change ambassador would be perfect for a man with his courage.

            151

          • #
            James Murphy

            You are using all the right catch phrases, but as with every other Abbott-hater, you fail to explain exactly what it is that he has done that is so terrible for Australia, or for his electorate. Perhaps that’s because you don’t need actual details, just a target and orders to follow…?

            I’m prepared to listen to cogent arguments involving facts, because maybe he has actually done terrible things I was not aware of, but until then, your “buzzword bingo” is, at best, childish.

            301

          • #
            truth

            Exactly in what way was Abbott a wrecker, Ian?

            Was it when he worked his guts out to get all the miserable Leftywets who were even then plotting against him…into government in 2013?

            Was it when he got the 3 FTAS done

            ..the new Sydney airport decision no other PM had had the guts to make.

            ….the restoration of live cattle for Northern farmers who’d been ruined by Labor..

            ….the asset writeoffs and red and green tape cuts for small biz that they’ve thrived from ever since..

            ….the repeal of the Carbon Tax and Mining Tax

            …was it because he did what was deemed impossible…he stopped the boats?

            Or was it because Abbott wouldn’t just lie down and die…because he exercised his freedom of speech rights as a backbencher and an Australian citizen…speaking out in Australia’s interests?

            Was it because Abbott wouldn’t join the fashionable group of internationalists who are gung ho to subvert Australia’s interests to make Australia the sacrificial goat…a crippled country for the forseeable future…for the hypothesis that must not be questioned?

            Was it because he’s averse to Australia and Australians having to live in constant struggle….forever…trying to survive with an unreliable weather-dependent intermittent electricity system…with zero baseload power… while the rest of the developed world has the comfort and security of baseload electricity forever….they’ll never be without it.

            If Tony Abbott’s actions so far are those of a ‘destructive wrecker’ in your confused mind….I hope he never ceases to act that way…I hope he’s now at least unleashed…and will regularly speak and act… to protect Australia from the relentless juggernaut of the evil Left.

            430

          • #
            GD

            Abbott was a destructive wrecker

            How so?

            Examples?

            50

    • #
      Geoff

      Now we will see if the LNP will actually do what we voted for and finally get out of the Paris Agreement.

      360

      • #
        Ian

        You may remember Tony Abbott’s last call on the Paris Agreement was to remain not leave. Surely you don’t want to go against his advice now he has been sacked by Warringah voters.

        140

        • #
          glen Michel

          Pragmatic on Abbott’s part as you should know.Then again I doubt that you have the acuity of mind to recognise that.
          ac

          171

  • #

    Climate, coal and power were big in this election. I reckon the Coalition owes more than a few votes to Jo Nova.

    1212

    • #
      Reed Coray

      I agree. There’s no way Joanne’s blog negatively influenced Australia’s election results and every reason to believe it helped. I know capitalizing every letter is considered “so yesterday,” but THANK YOU JOANNE!

      792

      • #
        sophocles

        Reed:
        In the Internet, all Upper Case is generally regarded as shouting.
        But hey! With yesterday’s result, what’s a little shouting?
        You, me, and others are of like mind. WELL DONE JOANNE! 🙂
        Yes, you can take some credit.
        Atta girl!

        No, don’t blame me for the result, I couldn’t vote yesterday, not being Australian. 😛
        I can only admit to being an interested — a very interested — overseas observer. Yesterday’s Sceptical Win — and it was only yesterday — bodes better for my country. To a degree, we do tend to follow Australia, not necessarily all the time nor all the way, so it was most certainly reassuring for me that the wisdom of democracy can and does triumph, confounding the (supposed) experts on the way! What price Propaganda?

        (We have an election late next year and I admit to being worried about what will be thrown at us in the lead up. The ignoramus James “Cat 6” Shaw is still holding the Climate portfolio. Heh: he’s also according to HMNZG’s official list of portfolios and incumbents, Minister for Statistics and last year’s Census is (still) a great example of how not to run a national Census. Of course, it’s not his fault. but it is. Aren’t Ministers of the Crown culpable? As in Responsible? We’re still waiting for him to do the decent thing … )

        And I’ll be watching next week’s EU election, and cheering on the Brexit party. And I’m not even British 😛
        C’mon Nige! You can do it!

        340

        • #
          theRealUniverse

          Im hoping that J.Ardern over there might just take note! (probably not though).

          90

          • #
            Latus Dextro

            Cinders will not be taking note of anything. She’s an oblivious Soros clone living in a bubble in which free speech is verboten. And she’s just been smootching the beleaguered globalist Macaroon, while checking out Parisienne wedding dresses on the taxpayer, equally oblivious to the obvious, that Macaroon is disappearing into political oblivion, while the Yellow Shirts relentlessly continue their litany of protest.

            The globalista are approaching the EU elections at the end of May with all the enthusiasm of a patient undergoing a DRE, simultaneously for painful haemorrhoids and an enlarged prostate.

            111

          • #
            yarpos

            maybe the people of NZ, rather than Adern

            30

    • #
      Eddie

      It’s not called the Coal-ition for nothing you know.

      610

    • #
      clivehoskin

      Once again the “Experts”got it wrong.You would think that they would get sick of WE the PEOPLE giving their”Global Warming”BS the middle finger.We’re NOT as gullible as they are.LOL.

      571

      • #
        OriginalSteve

        NWO = Fail.

        Australians dont like being bullied, so they put up with the brown shirt tactics of the Left, and then stuck it to them where it counted.

        However, now is not the time for complacency, the NWO boys will just try other means to keep undermining the country through the climate meme.

        I suspect the climate stupidity will just change tack, maybe make it more subtle but a wider net , mote indoctrination in schools, more using the business community which weve already seen starting through management of companiesand “climate risk” and other foolishness.

        To anyone in business reading this right now – clearly the population know BS when they see it, are business management so inept that they dont have the same perception? Think about that……

        Anyway, the NWO mob will double down now. They are like a bunch of hungry hyenas suddenly deprived of a fresh “kill” and will come back hard. They clearly have a timeframe to wreck this country, to sacrifice it to thier false gods, so be vigilant and stare them down…..

        430

        • #
          glen Michel

          Yeah OS- wouldn’t be surprised by demonstrations, strikes and more harassment from the radicals. Watch Insiders on the ABC. I hope that joker Cassidy fronts.

          150

        • #
          Latus Dextro

          They clearly have a timeframe to wreck this country …

          Yep, it’s 2030, the due date for implementation of the UN “Transformational” Agenda. Seriously. The rainbow globalists and their corporatist stooges have that date fixed in their sights and have been busily orchestrating their polemic and affairs around that specified time line.

          Fortunately for us, it is and they are, becoming spectacularly and irretrievably derailed.

          No one but the most ideologically inane seek the kind of nightmare they propose, namely the demented neo-Marxist eco-psychosis, that trinity of identity politics, cultural Marxism, political correctness and environmentalism, manifest as the Green Death: de-population, de-industrialisation, destitution and despair.

          It spells the end of liberty, prosperity, happiness, hope and a future.
          And most realise that.

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        • #
          Athelstan.

          excellent comment and yes be very vigilant, it’s your country not ‘theirs’.

          30

      • #
        Latus Dextro

        Once again the “Experts”got it wrong.

        Absolutely.
        The pundits and the polls, the globalist narrative, rigged Fake info for Fake news, much as the “impossibility” of DJT defeating the multi-million $ Clinton corporation, the MSM, and the Deep State coup led by Hussein.

        We’ve said it here before, so many times:

        You can fool all the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time.

        And this has been noticed World wide, to the delight and rejoicing of all.

        AUSTRALIA ELECTIONS: Conservatives Win STUNNING Victory! The comments are worth their weight in gold.

        Well done Australia.
        Now we need to lance and express the green pus form the Leftist boil in New Zealand.

        340

        • #
          Another Ian

          It is better than that (hopefully)

          “You can fool all the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time.”

          The usually unwritten fourth of that is along the lines of

          “And if caught trying to fool people everything you ever said is open to inspection”

          170

      • #
        RickWill

        This result highlights the flawed nature of polls. My understanding is that polls are conducted on fixed telephone lines. We had dozens of unanswered calls in the last month on our landline as we screen through the answering machine. I answered one number I suspected was a poll and so it was. It was an automated poll; no personal contact.

        None of my children living in their own houses have fixed telephone lines. They rely only on mobile. So if mobile phones are not being polled then there is a whole lot of people not being polled.

        There needs to be a whole rethink of the poling process if it is ever going to get close.

        190

        • #
          Serp

          I thought Jonathan Green mentioned random polling of mobile phones is in use though it’s useless for focusing on any particular electorate.

          80

        • #
          yarpos

          I guess the limitation must be in privacy leguslation because its a pretty trivial task to locate you to a town or a suburb on a mobile.

          30

        • #
          Ian Hill

          I was astonished last Thursday night to hear a message on my landline answering machine from my local Labor candidate for Boothby in SA. I’m glad I wasn’t home when she rang and I wasn’t interested in calling her back. I thought Labor must be getting desperate.

          A couple of weeks ago I said that I felt Labor would kick an own goal with their renewables posters. Of course a far greater reason for their loss was their sheer arrogance and as John Howard put it, adopting a moral position about climate change and hang the cost. Still, it’s nice to have a gut feeling which turned out to be true!

          30

  • #

    You would think that the pollsters and media would learn that attempting to manipulate an election by biasing polls and media reports only works on the most gullible, especially when what the elites driving the manipulation want goes against the interests of the voters.

    410

    • #
      ivan

      I don’t know if Labor are going to try the old ‘It was the Russians manipulating the vote’ as the Marxists did in the US and are trying it with the EU parliament elections that will be held soon.

      Now we wait , not holding our breath, to see how it all works out for you.

      250

      • #
        OriginalSteve

        Comrade Dangerous Dan of Victoriastan
        Had a power saving plan

        Of power reductions he did pursue
        To apparently wreck the economy just for you

        Happiness to reduce power on a whim
        Until the election confronted him

        “Its not fair” he whined to no avail
        The country had show climate to be a fail.

        180

      • #
        theRealUniverse

        sarc / on – I thought I saw some guys in trench coats outside a polling booth speaking Russian..

        80

    • #
      David-of-Cooyal-in-Oz

      But surely a consensus of opinion polls is reliable? Or at least as reliable as a consensus of climate scientists I suppose.
      Cheers
      Dave B

      340

    • #
      glen Michel

      I’m not one to gloat (unlike the Lefties) but……

      150

      • #
        glen Michel

        This is such GREAT news. Hoping the Senate outcomes look good.

        190

        • #
          sophocles

          you’re not indulging in just a little gloating by any chance, are you?
          I am.

          50

          • #
            michael hart

            Little and often is the doctor’s recommendation, just like oral rehydration therapy.

            Here in the UK, there seems to be an almost stony silence at the BBC on the matter.

            60

        • #
          Greebo

          Hmm… Seems that the shrew of Tasmania is back…

          60

    • #
      Hasbeen

      I wonder how long it will take for the NWO lot to realise they already have the gullible voting left/green. Pushing more of their garbage so hard has only succeeded in making those not fooled dig their heels in, & push back, if only quietly behind closed doors.

      In the navy we had a saying, “bullsh1t baffles brains”. Well this is not as true as it perhaps once was, Brexit, Trump, & now this. Perhaps brains & honesty will win.

      190

    • #
      sophocles

      … where X is the unknown (or unknowable) quantity, and a spurt is a drip under pressure 🙂

      50

  • #
    Annie

    All sorts of stuff that Labor were promising were really frightening. We can now go to bed feeling a lot more optimistic about Australia’s future.

    532

    • #
      GD

      Yes, we dodged a lot of bullets tonight.

      450

    • #

      About half of the population here felt the same way when Trump won. The question is will your Labor party apply the same kind of lies, deception and hostility the Democrats did here in their vain attempts to undermine a duly elected leader.

      341

      • #
        Sceptical Sam

        They’ve already started down that track with some of the immediate self-delusional commentary including things like:

        1. UAP manipulated the outcome they whine – especially in Queensland. They ignore their biased comments of just three days ago when they were saying Queenslanders would reject UAP because of what Palmer had done to Queensland workers.

        2. Australians have voted for their “hip pocket” rather than take the long-term moral view that climate change is getting worse. They are criticizing this as “Populism”, forgetting that this is a democracy and people vote to determine their future. That’s not “Populism” that’s democracy.

        3. They are blaming the Murdoch media and accusing it of running a campaign against them. Honest coverage is all that Murdoch has delivered compared with the green/left socialist bias of the ABC, the Age, the SMH, and the Guardian, not to mention the subversive work of GetUp! and the green violence that accompanied so much of the green left’s campaigning.

        Trust the people. The Australian people got it right today. The green left socialists have been defeated for the time being. That’s all.

        600

      • #
        Hanrahan

        The question is will your Labor party apply the same kind of lies, deception and hostility the Democrats did here in their vain attempts to undermine a duly elected leader.

        I doubt it. The parties can change their leader any time they like in a party room “spill” and a sitting PM has been toppled four times that way in recent times. There is little the opposition can do except have a “no confidence” bill passed on the floor of the house [not the senate] and they don’t have the numbers. Our politics is not as tough as yours and if a member is absent for good reason the opposition will offer a “pair” and have one of their members vote “present”.

        80

    • #
      Another Ian

      Annie

      Nice toknow we don’t have to bow to “Mr Notley”

      (If you follow Canadian politics)

      70

    • #

      I think what now needs to be done is to push our elected members to start considering rational policies, especially regarding climate change crap. The writing is one the wall when you look at what’s happening in the US, Asia,and parts of Europe, the false edifice is crumbling.

      The LNP snatched victory from the jaws of defeat, but they need to read the tea leaves as to why and it’s all to do with the cost of living (which has rapidly become the cost of simply existing). Climate change policies have been the biggest impost of our standard of living and they need to change. The US has set the example and we need to look towards our biggest ally and realise they have taken the correct path.

      Trump has given the US a chance to live, Morrison now has that opportunity, so don’t ruin it.

      250

  • #
    Obie

    “It’s the end of a beginning” and one hopes it’s really the beginning of the end for the con game of global warming or what ever it is called this week

    470

  • #
    NB

    2016/11/07 – Clinton 47, Trump 43.
    2016/06/22 – Brexit: 51% remain, 49% leave.
    2019/05/17 – Labor with a lead of 51.5-48.5.
    ‘highly implausible under-dispersion in the Australian opinion polls’ (https://marktheballot.blogspot.com/2019/05/a-herd-of-new-polls.html)
    ‘The probability of 13 polls in a row at 48 or 49 per cent is 0.000059. This is actually slightly less likely than throwing 14 heads in a row.’
    and
    ‘A systemic problem with the polls, depending on what it is, may point to a heightened possibility of an unexpected election result (in either direction).’ (https://marktheballot.blogspot.com/2019/05/why-i-am-troubled-by-polls.html )
    “for forecasting purposes the pollsters’ published margins of error should at least be doubled” (https://marktheballot.blogspot.com/2015/01/polling-accuracy.html )

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      DonS

      Yeah, turns out the result was exactly the opposite to what the poles had predicted. Do they (polling companies) really get paid millions for their shoddy work?

      230

      • #
        Bobl

        Not only that the bookies lost. They were calling an odds on Labor win.

        170

        • #
          Kevin Lohse

          I can live with that

          130

          • #
            OriginalSteve

            So can I. For a country with a small population, the number of betting shops is huge. Australians seem to like to waste thier money it seems.. .

            100

        • #
          Serp

          The principle of bookmaking is that the odds are framed such that the house always wins; bookies don’t care about the actual outcome.

          30

      • #
        Sceptical Sam

        Do they (polling companies) really get paid millions for their shoddy work?

        They do.

        Just like the Climate Change modelers and projectionists. They can’t get it right either.

        Error bars? What are they?

        321

    • #
      Reed Coray

      Since I believe most polling, especially pre-election polling, is not meant to inform but rather influence the populace, I treat the fact that pre-election and exit polling differ from reality as a silver lining. Maybe, just maybe, the populace is coming around to my way of thinking and will now start mocking the pollsters; or even better, start treating their efforts as representing the opposite of reality. Couldn’t happen to a nicer bunch of people.

      241

    • #
      Spuyten Duyvil

      A cousin of mine is a (now mostly retired) American political “consultant.” After Brexit won, he made a prediction that Donald Trump had a good chance of winning. His take on polls on both sides of the Atlantic in 2016: people are lying to the pollsters more than ever.

      210

      • #
        JCalvertN(UK)

        And why NOT lie to a pollster?
        They’re like SPAM. Or JWs. Or double-glazing salesmen.
        To get them off your doorstep, or off your telephone line, or out of your face in the street; any means short of violence (or otherwise breaking the law) is valid.

        140

      • #
        Hanrahan

        I can understand why conservatives lie to pollsters in the US. The left [even your neighbours] can be nasty if they knew.

        110

    • #
      Graeme No.3

      Speaking of predictions — last night the weather forecast for Adelaide was stormy weather with 15mm of rain from a severe low moving slowly across SA in the night. Today is nice and sunny with a warm night (17+℃) and no rain.
      I can’t think of a suitable comment (which would pass The Mod).

      130

      • #
        Bill in Oz

        Yes I was wondering about this earlier Graeme.
        It’s showering now at Mt Barker.(11.18 am )
        But earlier we too had lovely sunny skies.
        So BOM was out by about 16 hours
        On when the rain would arrive
        Hummmmmm ?
        So given this incapacity to get it right
        On the daily weather
        How can they ever expect anyone
        To believe in their capacity
        To predict the weather
        Years into the future ?
        Bizarre !

        81

  • #
    NB

    Commentator on ABC ‘Drum’ at about 12.35am tells us we have only 11 1/2 years to live.
    ‘It’s really serious science’ she says.
    This comes from AOC, who initially just meant that we had 12 years to deal with it to prevent disaster further down the track.
    But on 13/05/2019 · #AOC recants: ‘…world ending in 12 years due to climate change’ – it was “a joke”.

    What on earth does that tell us about the ABC’s understanding of what is really serious science?
    Utterly, completely, demonstrably, ridiculous. Oh, I know, a joke. Shame on the ABC and its super-dumb commentators.

    Oh, why would I dream of watching the ABC. I don’t usually, but the opportunity to see them squirm tonight is just too tempting.

    490

    • #
      Graeme No.3

      There will be further angst for the ABC in the next 12 months.
      I predict that Dopey Dan we try and push one more coal fired power stations out of business. The result will be blackouts and public fury. The Liberals may take “emergency action” and get several new ones built. (They have people lined up with plans).
      I think Labor will realise that their opposition to the Adani mine cost them seats. The Federals won’t change but Premier PalaceChook will be under a lot of pressure to stop delaying the mine, and the others, and give jobs to the locals.

      190

      • #
        OriginalSteve

        Never get in the way of a ticked off and focussed Australian.

        There is a very good reason we have the best SAS / special ops unit in the world…

        110

      • #
        Analitik

        I think some of the shift back to the right is due to the very visible and deleterious effects of renewables policies on the Victorian and South Australian grids. The Victorians are still sadly enamored with the “sustainability” meme but all the other electorates (Warringah, aside) are wising up to the lie of “dispatchable renewables” and aren’t willing to sacrifice their well being on a mythical notion.

        Until Dan Andrews is voted out, Victoria (and South Australia due to its past mistakes and interconnection) will continue to suffer further job loss and deindustrialization due to unreliable power. But the election results does gives me hope for the future of our nation – much more than I had a few days ago.

        140

    • #
      el gordo

      Its time we talked about privatising the ABC, the body language on election night gave them away.

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      • #
        NB

        Just put ads on it. Will solve everything.

        40

      • #
        JB

        Privatising isn’t the answer. Shut it down and turn off all those high powered transmitters. We might just save the planet!

        40

        • #
          Kinky Keith

          Shut it down.

          Public radio and television broadcasting has succumbed to terminal verbalism.

          20

          • #
            el gordo

            We cannot close it down until we get balance in the newsroom, otherwise the left will call it a coup.

            10

    • #
      Bill in Oz

      I was watching the count last night
      On the ABC
      It was a joy to watch them squirm
      And not be able to escape
      Being on screen
      Having been tripped up
      By their own hubris.
      Lovely to watch
      On the ABC !

      For the first time
      In weeks,
      It was MY ABC

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      • #
        JohninCQ

        I pinched this comment from US news about CNN news panel when the Muller report broke!
        I think it’s apt for our ABC panel last night “They behaved like little children that where promised ice cream but, got broccoli instead.

        60

      • #
        John

        What about the Insiders to-day? Dripping with bitterness all Barrie Cassidy could do was try to blame Josh Friedenberg for fooling the public by calling the franking credit scam a tax.
        Of course later when looking for an excuse the team blamed the Palmer party for “demonising “ poor old Bill. And naturally Bill’s policies were all fine, he just tried to introduce too much at the same time.
        The ABC will never change. ScoMo has a big chance here, either privatise them OR job spill every position and balance them out so that they can fulfil their true charter.

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    • #
      greggg

      We need regular referenda, and one of the questions needs to be about whether or not we continue to fund ABC and SBS TV.

      50

  • #
    DonS

    Hi Jo

    There once were a people known as the Aztecs who thought it a jolly good idea to sacrifice other people, by cutting out their hearts, to the climate gods in order to ensure a good maze harvest. No matter how much they believed or how many they sacrificed they made no difference to the climate and their “civilisation” faded away.

    Today in Australia we saw the Australian Labour Party propose to cut out its own heart i.e. its working class base, and sacrifice them to the climate gods. Bill and all his mates thought it a jolly good idea. One problem though, unlike the Aztecs the Australian working class had a chance to stop Bill before he could put the knife in. Who says democracy is broken? NSW, Queensland, WA and Tasmania said NO THANKS Bill we like our cars and our jobs.

    Sad to see Tony Abbott replaced by a nuff nuff but he really just reaped what he had sown. As PM he had his chance to get rid of the RET, but didn’t, and now all the merchant bankers and rent seekers who are invested in renewable energy schemes mostly paid for by government have gotten rid of him.

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    • #

      DonS — great analogy!

      On Abbott, remember he didn’t have control of the Senate. He wanted to do a lot more but Clive Palmer and Al Gore stopped him even disassembling the Climate Change Authority. There is no way he could have removed the RET or Section 18C without going to a Double Dissolution Election and hoping to get a supportive Senate.

      In hindsight that might have worked.

      The people who voted for Clive the Coal Miner surely didn’t expect him to insist on us having an emissions trading scheme “option” written into legislation and to keep the Climate Change Authority.

      Clive reaped what he sowed yesterday. $80m for 3% of the vote based on his history of double crossing his voters.

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      • #
        Another Ian

        “Clive reaped what he sowed yesterday. $80m for 3% of the vote based on his history of double crossing his voters.”

        Borrowed and adapted

        “Tough for thee brash spirit
        Trump thou never wert”

        50

  • #
    RAH

    The take from the Washington Post

    https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/complete-shock-australias-prime-minister-holds-onto-power-defying-election-predictions/ar-AABwUHP?ocid=spartanntp

    seems your political poles are just as skewed as ours are here, and thus just as wrong.

    150

    • #
      WXcycles

      The article says posted 20 hours ago!

      ‘Complete shock’: Australia’s prime minister holds onto power, defying election predictions
      A. Odysseus Patrick
      20 hrs ago

      It only occurred 6 hours back. lol

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  • #
    Lionell Griffith

    A small window has opened to let in some fresh air. A good start.

    When better ideas get into the people, better people can get into government.

    That is how change comes to government.

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  • #

    Australia has stepped back from the brink of a Socialist economy and constraints on free speech and religious freedom, a temporary reprieve because they never give up. But let us celebrate tonite, yeay, and after we’ve sent off our letters of congratulation, then make sure that our voices are heard, drowning out the ABC, informing our leaders that we have to have cheap energy that allows us to thrive … and we have to explode that myth of demon CO2 causing runaway warming.The madness of crowds has got to end. ( Before the next election. )

    450

  • #
    Bobl

    Labour wanted tax, tax, tax but the public is not prepared to be the turkey voting for Christmas. Gone is forcing Australians to buy electric cars, gone is 45% renewables, gone are the attacks on pensioners savings and even higher electricity bills.

    Unfortunately Australia didn’t purge the green senators, the lies and misinformation delivered by the green fear mongers (can I say terrorism) is still pervading our parliament. We still have the coalitions 26% green waste and continuing climate largesse we still don’t have politicians that can do grade 9 math or know that 3.7 Watts per square metre of so called back radiation can’t power 15 watts of extra surface emissions or understand that you can’t possibly power Australia with unreliable part time energy at an average availability of just 5 Watts per square metre or put another way that 8 billion solar panels tiling the environment and needing replacement every 15 years at a constant rate of 530 million per year (1.4 million a day) is a pipe dream of the highest order

    We are not done but at least a chance remains that the Paris agreement can be dislodged. A hung parliament is still possible with fake independents that are invariably using climate as a battering ram ready to drag scomo to the left. 24.7% of Australians gave the majors their middle finger and voted for someone other than Labor or Liberal. Only 33.8% of people voted for Labor, just 9.1 % more than the middle finger vote. The greens continue to eat Labors lunch as Labor continues to appease gang green. There are lessons here for Labor, appeasement of the greens is destroying Labor. It has been a surprising election.

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    • #
      GD

      Unfortunately Australia didn’t purge the green senators

      What results for the Senate have you seen?

      90

      • #
        MudCrab

        Senate won’t be out for days.

        If there is a swing against the Greens (I don’t know, I haven’t looked) we could still see a few get the axe. Quota (I still believe) for a senate seat is 1/7th of the vote, or about 14.2%. My understanding is the Greens currently poll about 9% and pick up the remainder from the mass of pointless idiots who clog up the bottom of the white paper.

        No longer complete sure how the system works, but they have made changes to the senate system to try and remove the ability of people who only get 100 votes getting into Canberra in front of people who got several thousand. In practical terms these changes MIGHT leave the Greens stranded. It might not, but counting is not over yet and while I don’t live in hope (the rent is too dear) I do occasionally look at it on the map.

        See what happens.

        141

        • #
          Bobl

          From what I can see Sarah Hansen Young looks like retaining her seat, Malcolm Roberts is behind the Greens in qld, the sixth seats as usual will come down to preferences and Liberal stupidly put the ALP/Greens ahead of ONP. My guess in most places that’ll elect greens. Libs in one report look like picking up 2 extra senators. But yes it’s early. My big worry is greens are polling ahead of ONP in the Senate.

          What is needed is for Labor to return to its roots, despite the class warfare Labor oddly is winning rich millionaire seats like Wentworth and Warringa and has lost the mortgage belt. What is it with millionaires that want to change the weather by taxing pensioners and veterans. Labor at 33% is totally reliant on greens preferences yet the Libs focus on taking down Labor, it’d be a far easier proposition to take down the loony people hating, totally immoral greens, and for their survival Labor urgently needs to do that too.

          The Senate results so far are on the ABC election website.

          But the election result is a big win for small investors , ordinary people with self managed super funds ( imputation credit change was designed to direct people away from SMSFs into union funds), pensioners and veterans, small business owners dodged a 30% tax on every dollar (removal of lower tax thresholds), and people saving for their future while providing rental housing for poorer people. Renters dodged a predicted 20-30% rise in rents which would have resulted from removing negative gearing of property. And just maybe we won’t have our a”ses hanging over the equivalent of 86 kg of TNT in 2030.

          Shifty Shorten has stood down and hopefully his class warfare on the middle class and old age pensioners is gone with him. Once again the baby boomers come to the rescue, but we are getting a bit old now, can’t someone else pick up the heavy lifting of sane economic policy rather than the fairyland green eco-lunacy we are forced to endure every day on the TV.

          Renewables are not cheap, EVs are not cheap, none of them save CO2 and they don’t change the weather, people are waking up to that, waking up to the waste. Plus, the biggest social issue at the booth yesterday was FREEDOM of SPEECH and notably Israel Falau, go Izzy.

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          • #
            clivehoskin

            You have to wonder how these”Sniveling,Cowardly,Lying,Do Nothing,Career Politicians”can wind up as”Multi Millionaires”in a very short period of time.Lots of brown paper bags maybe?

            130

  • #

    It’s wonderful, but… I don’t suppose the Liberals might end the draconian internet censorship we have at the moment? No, didn’t think so.

    140

    • #
      OriginalSteve

      No. The NBN is designed such that its difficult to avoid monitoring of all comms . I had to point out to someone that vpns work now, but they might become outlawed as its gets closer to democracy take down day….

      70

      • #
        clivehoskin

        Well,Traitor May”has largely done away with Democracy in the UK.This might be the time to sharpen the pitchforks,and stock up on piano wire in case OUR betters don’t get the message.

        80

        • #
          NB

          No she hasn’t. She has tried to though, for sure.
          But a little bird tells me there is a fellow named Farage…

          70

    • #
      yarpos

      Draconian censorship? really? I must have missed that

      20

  • #

    Hmm!

    I wonder where philthegeek is.

    Tony.

    151

  • #
    MudCrab

    Well don’t want to sound smug, but… CALLED IT.

    For me there was always a lot of people in the media TELLING us that Shorten should be the new prime minister, but none of the excitement out on the street like we got back in the Kevin oh Seven era.

    No one was interested in this election because basically no one really believed that Shorten would truly make a good Prime Minister.

    Two very big take aways from this – the only poll that matters is the one with the green and white pieces of paper, and that our beloved MSM are utterly useless at analysing and reporting on the real world.

    The first point totally flies in the face of Turnbull’s excuse for wreaking the Liberal party. There was absolutely no reason for backstabbing Abbott and the members who lost their seats could still have been spending quality time in Canberra if it wasn’t for his self centered greed.

    The second simply reinforces why we even have a MSM anymore. In simple words – They. Got. It. Wrong. Let’s face it, the Forth Estate is a slum. All the people with honest ambition have moved out and gotten real jobs while those that are left exist mainly on welfare and the collective self reinforcement of just how true blue and honest they all are.

    I repeat. The Media Got It Wrong.

    Privately owned media can do what they want and live or die on their own, but this utter failure to even discuss a Liberal/National victory draws yet another cut on the already bleeding corpse like question of why we still own an ABC.

    290

    • #
      GD

      Well don’t want to sound smug, but… CALLED IT.

      I get to collect on Monday. One bet at $4.50 for the Libs and one at $5.50.

      I’d like to say that I put a couple of grand on each one, but that wouldn’t be quite true. Still, a nice little earner.

      111

    • #
      theRealUniverse

      7news coverage was so biased at the start except for Alan Jones who called it right from the start. You could see the squirming start about when ALP was 9 seats behind LNP.

      110

    • #
      Analitik

      A few weeks ago, I started thinking that the coalition could hold off Labor when the media started questioning Shorten on the costs for his climate change policies, especially when Leigh Sales joined in. Prior to that, I was expecting the worst as I still had some trust in the polls even though I’m not upfront about how conservative I am when polled.

      But I never expected the coalition to be on the brink of forming a majority government in election night. This speaks volumes of how there is a large “silent majority” who don’t want the hassle of fighting to explain why their views don’t align with the media.

      Democracy is still working in Australia, contrary to the wishes of the ABC, SBS and most of the media personalities.

      110

  • #
    Deplorable Lord Kek

    So, Australia passed the national IQ test.

    Places like sportsbet – who paid out on the ALP winning before the election – should be investigated for attempting to influence the result.

    320

  • #
    Phillip Bratby

    So much for polls – Brexit, Trump, now this; polls always wrong by favouring left-wing parties.

    241

    • #
      MudCrab

      Always my point coming into this.

      Polls have been shown to almost scientific levels to be about 2 points to the left. As soon as the polls started saying Labor 52/48 you could almost put money on a Liberal victory. (I didn’t, and currently mildly regret it. Oh well.)

      The other thing I remember is the election where we were TOLD without a shadow of doubt that Mark Latham would defeat the much hated John Howard. Remember that election? I was in Queensland that year and we nearly got the victory speeches before the sun had even gone down.

      Now compare that election to 2007 when this new exciting Kevin from Brissy was all over people’s t-shirts. Kevin. From Brissy. Yeah. Like the sound of him. Fiscal Conservative. He will keep the strong economy but bring back some social justice. Yeah. That sounds good. Lets talk about Kev!

      People in 2007 were excited about the idea of Kevin. True people in 2008 started to stop making eye contact when Kevin’s name came up, but pre election Kevin was new and exciting. Shorten was NEVER exciting. I dare anyone to name one conversation they have had in the past few months with a ‘real’ person who casually said, “Hey, what you think about this Shorten bloke?” There were instead only three type of people – Rusted Labor, people who thought he was a complete idiot and people who didn’t care about him. NO BODY was excited by him.

      Shorten, in retrospect, was never going to win and my only regret here is that I didn’t put my money where my mouth was.

      150

    • #
      OriginalSteve

      Yeah dont get complacent though….the Left are like a slow water leak that rots away your house foundations.

      The only way to get rid of Communism is to crush it.

      161

  • #
    MudCrab

    Another thought – If Abbott is actually free from the stinking mass of Canberra this may in fact be simply the beginning of a new speedo clad hell for the Left.

    While I never see Tony to be even a fraction of the vindictive and bitter loser that career failure Turnbull has been (what is his record? The Republic? 2009 leadership? His post backstabbing election result? His own removal? His utter failure to see his friends gain power in May 2019?), Abbott will now be free of the restrictions of being an elected member of parliament and formally supporting the party position.

    Abbott has gone from being important and influential member of parliament to being important and influential private citizen, only with new added free speech. If the Left think they have seen the end of Abbott – a monster they themselves largely created – they are dumber then I claim they are.

    Shorten, by comparison, is royally screwed. People still want him in court to explain what did or did not really happen back at that Labor youth camp. He has, in the space of less than 24 hours, gone from ‘Next Prime Minister’ to the utter moron who kept Labor out of power. By the end of the month his former friends will have blamed him for not only the election, but also the Rum Rebellion, Global Warming, Trump, the P76 and eating the last slice of pizza. The bus they will throw him under is currently being fueled up and once he comes up from under those wheels his once guardians will then go and find some wolves for him to play with.

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    • #
      GD

      Abbott has gone from being important and influential member of parliament to being important and influential private citizen, only with new added free speech.

      That’s a great point. In his concession speech he alluded to the fact that while he was finished with political life, he wasn’t finished with public life.

      I look forward to his further contributions to the public discourse.

      Others have suggested he could become the next ambassador to the USA. He is more than qualified for that posting. Much more so than Joe Hocking.

      While I wouldn’t say this about many ex-politicians, I do hope his parliamentary pension is generous enough to reward a man who has given great service to Australia, both in and out of Parliament.

      291

    • #
      Ross

      I see the media are still out stabbing Tony Abbott. Peter Hatcher has a hit piece on an NZ site.
      I watched the Sky News coverage of the election in NZ. The best moment was when after Abbott’s amazing concession speech Speers turned Pita Credlin and ask if in hindsight it might have been better if Abbott had left after he was rolled. Without a seconds hesitation Peta just said something like ” No, I think it would been better if Turnbull had left earlier when he was beaten a few years earlier”. Speers was just speechless
      Peta would make a great Aussie PM

      191

      • #
        Ross

        BTW The headline for Hatcher’s piece. ” Tony Abbott still cannot see the man in the mirror”.
        I hope people like Hatcher “choke” on the result.

        151

        • #
          Annie

          I couldn’t believe that headline….it was nasty…didn’t read the piece. Those lefties need to take a good look at themselves in the mirror and see what we see.
          We’ve lost a really good man in Tony Abbott and hope he’ll be back.

          161

      • #
        OriginalSteve

        Well, look what happened to Israel Folau.

        Abbott is also Christian – the result was driven by a hatred by the Left of his faith, dont lose sight if this.

        Abbott was anti- Left on everything, and they saw him as a rally point, so no matter how dirty the fight, they had to get rid of him.

        If I lived in his electorate, Id be scared wondering firstly how easily lead my neighbours were, but also be wondering what the heck they had just elected…

        That scene in Jurrasic Park when they lower the cow in for the velociraptors, comes to mind…

        151

    • #
      NB

      ‘P76’
      Hilarious!

      70

      • #
        MudCrab

        Thanks, NB.

        Considering I wrote that post at 2am I am a little surprised it is not only coherent but also entertaining. Maybe I should stay up late writing more often 😀

        50

      • #
        Greebo

        I wish I still had mine….. V8 Executive. It’d be worth a motza now.

        It wasn’t well built ( what Leyland car was? ) but it was a brilliant drive for the time.

        11

        • #
          yarpos

          I was at the Historic Winton car races/display today. Yes, they were burning fossil fuel just for fun.

          I saw a Leyland P76 Force 7 Coupe, registered and running on the road outside the track. I beleive that only 10 were ever made.

          20

    • #
      LightningCamel

      I was just reading through the thread prior to posting something similar. One of the things I took away from his concession speech was that he was not finished with public life. He has the knowledge of the facts and the public policy failures around the global warming scam that he would make a very powerful advocate. It would be a difficult task, when he started to make headway you ould just see the abc headlines “ScoMo dances to Abbott’s tune”, but Tony is a skilled and intelligent man. Whatever he does I hope it gives him satisfaction because this country owes him.

      80

  • #
    Anton

    ”It’s virtually impossible for them to win,” says Andy Marks, a political scientist at Western Sydney University.

    Serve you right for calling politics a science. Physics, chemistry and biology are proper sciences. Try some meaningful employment mate.

    310

    • #
      theRealUniverse

      Tha term political science has always amazed me how stupid it is. It washes what the real term should be political nonsense.

      61

      • #
        Kinky Keith

        There is something worse.

        Just imagine:

        An “Emeritus Professor” of Political Science.

        And of course that’s All about manipulation and how to make people understand the “truth”, at least as designed by a Politician.

        KK

        20

  • #
    Reed Coray

    Up to now no one has explicitly said that Shorten won’t be Australia’s Prime Minister. Help a poor American out. Does your election mean Shorten won’t be Prime Minister; and if so, who will be?

    120

    • #
      GD

      Does your election mean Shorten won’t be Prime Minister; and if so, who will be?

      Reed, the conservative Liberal-National Coalition party has won the unwinnable election. The bookies, the pollsters, and the media got the result completely wrong. Just like Trump and Brexit.

      The Libs Scott Morrison is our new Prime Minister. Bill Shorten has conceded the election and his leadership of the Labor Party.

      This is a great day for Australia. We have dodged a socialist onslaught of never seen before proportions.

      Thank God for miracle maker Scott Morrison.

      However, it’s not enough. For instance, the AGW hoax will continue for a time, but at least that beast will now be leashed and controlled.

      As I say, a great day for Australia!

      250

      • #
        GD

        We have dodged a socialist onslaught of never seen before proportions.

        Well, apart from Whitlam Labor in 1972.

        160

        • #
          Bobl

          Whitman did win a mandate though, then ran out of other people’s money trying to do what he said he’d do, so while that was unabashed socialism, at least he was honest, Shifty shorten gave different answers to the same question depending on which electorate he was standing in, and we never did get an answer on how much his grand EV fueled green utopia was going to cost the unwashed masses. So despite the rhetoric Labor was about as transparent as a brick wall.

          160

      • #
        Reed Coray

        Thank you GD.

        Somewhere in the back of my mind is the belief that there are a whole bunch of smug “Rachael Maddow Like” members of the Australian main-stream media who on the eve of Australia’s election were practicing their next-day speeches that would go something like the following.

        We, Australia, are not the United States. The US elected Donald Trump against all logic and against the hopes and wishes of us, the main-stream press. Australia is a different country altogether. As yesterday’s election proves, Australia is further along the path of enlightened socialism than the US. We have great confidence, however, that our neighbor to the north will soon join us.

        I know it’s not the Christian thing to do, but the fact that Australia’s election brings misery to Australia’s socialists by preventing them from giving their condescending speeches (at least for the time being) fills me with joy. So that belief in the back of my mind is now augmented with joy. Way-to-go Australia.

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        • #
          OriginalSteve

          Reed, I’m also Christian, and see nothing wrong with the pursuit of freedom , especially with this election.

          The Left were after crushing freedom of everything, especially freedom of speech & freedom of religion ( look up the Israel Folau case )

          If foolish people suffer as a result of their own foolishness, there is nothing we can do about that.

          God will not be mocked – they reap as they sow.

          100

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          Roy Hogue

          Reed,

          I avoid Rachael Maddow like the plague she is but I was told by someone that she almost ate crow when the Mueller report fizzled. Such people live in a fantasy world that’s seemingly closed off to reality and they can never quite get up to accepting stone cold facts. Rachael is still sounding off to her (almost an) audience and I’ll bet her counterparts in Australia will no doubt do the same.

          60

        • #
          Lewis P Buckingham

          In a sense Tony Abbott made it clear his approach to vocational service to our nation in a recent review.
          https://www.connorcourtpublishing.com.au/Heart-of-James-McAuley-Life-and-Work-of-the-Australian-Poet–Peter-Coleman_p_189.html
          He writes
          It was McAuley’ s fate to be the advocate of traditional values throughout the time Francis Fukuyama has dubbed “the great disruption”. Perhaps the social consequences of the permissive society might soon prompt the conclusion that there’s something to be said for traditional values after all. As McAuley put it in a poem thought to have been inspired by the experiences of his friend, BA Santamaria:

          Nor is failure our disgrace:

          By ways we cannot know

          He keeps the merit in his hand,

          And suddenly as no one planned,

          Behold the kingdom grow!

          20

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    Richard Ilfeld

    Well, the polls were ‘wrong’.
    Big whoop — they are always in error, which is why we actually vote.
    The News is, they were wrong again in the same political direction, which is another
    brick in the wall of evidence that there is a systematic and international “leftist” bias to this
    stuff.

    So now, some questions.
    Bias beacause of respondent selection?
    Bias because of query format?
    Bias because of different proclivity to answer between groups?
    Bias because some respondents are not telling pollsters the truth?
    or Bias because the results are a bit fraudulent, and intended to persuade rather than measure?

    Why do we take polls, when we know that on a date certain in the near future we will have a result?

    In any case, a result that will allow a change of course, and hopefully, a change in economic fortunes.
    Good on y’all.

    130

    • #
      RAH

      Bias because of who pays for the polls and takes them to satisfy those paying them. Heck to hear the polls and the press right now we might as well not even have the election in 2020 here in the states. Biden has it wrapped up according to some of the wackos.

      90

  • #
    Alan

    After the 2016 US election of Trump the emotional devastation of his opposition was almost sad to witness.
    This is a lament from an Aussie this morning on my twitter feed:

    Effort gone unrewarded.
    Hope abandoned and future betrayed
    We are all of us bruised and broken.
    And lying here hurt, assailed by sounds and images of loss,
    Breathe.
    Remember.
    Open your eyes.
    And look to the stars.

    We are not beaten yet.

    90

    • #
      RAH

      LOL! The only tears I shed election morning 2016 were those of joy. My laughter was at all the long faces in the Hillary camp and the looks on the faces of the media idiots and the crazy stuff some of them were saying, and the silence among the crowd in Times Square that had gathered to celebrate a Hillary victory. To this day when I’m feeling down about the way things are going I go to YouTube and watch an election night video or two.

      150

    • #
      JCalvertN(UK)

      The emotional devastation of people who have dressed in white robes and stood on a hilltop all night in expectation the Second Coming would also be “sad” to witness. The mentality (and IQ) is much the same.

      As for the “poem” (I assume that is what it was intended to be), I’m sure there are localities (North Carlton and Fitzroy come to mind) were this sort of thing would be greatly appreciated. But in the rest of Australia? Not so much! (“Look to the stars”. Wow! Such good advice!)

      50

  • #
    Jim Carson

    Congrats, Jo! Very happy for my Aussie friends, especially the well-meaning, misguided ones who know not what they do.

    130

  • #
    Hot under the collar

    The reason all the opinion polls and exit polls fail is due to confirmation bias in the media, including social media.

    Firstly, the left wing social bubble the MSM live in and social media users who tend to be in contact with people of the same opinion. Also, the recent habit of ostracising and name calling anyone who disagrees with their alarmist, catastrophic view of ‘climate change’ and the environment results in voters keeping their opinions to themselves or, just pretending to agree with what someone ranting at them is saying.

    Most voters, of whatever persuasion; including those at the poll exit; will not want to admit who they voted for if their opinion may be subject to ridicule or name calling in their community or on social media and the MSM.

    231

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    Kevin Lohse

    Trust the People (Harold Macmillan). They will invariably get the government they want unless pollies lie, for better or worse. Let’s hope it’s for better.

    90

    • #
      Salome

      Given the alternative, then I would say that at the very least it’s for the less worse.

      60

  • #
    David

    Great news. And Labour was not even as crazy as the Green New Deal.

    130

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    Roy Hogue

    Whether against all odds or any other way, take the money and run. I’m sitting here laughing and smiling. 🙂

    Good for you, Australia.

    140

    • #
      Roy Hogue

      I thought Rebecca Smith might be here with something to say. Maybe later…

      70

    • #
      David-of-Cooyal-in-Oz

      Thanks Roy,
      It’s a better result than I dared hope for. And for a while I thought the result wasn’t going to be declared last night.
      Cheers
      Dave B

      100

      • #
        Roy Hogue

        David,

        Unfortunately now you face the same battle we do after Trump’s election, the trend has to be kept going. Let us hope for both our sake that the momentum has built up to the point where the inevitable attacks can’t stop it. But for now, it’s time to enjoy the success.

        60

        • #
          David-of-Cooyal-in-Oz

          Agree.
          I’m surprised at how relieved I am today. We stayed up and watched the Sky News coverage until the Morrison acceptance speech, and kept hoping he get the 76 seats necessary for a majority. While that didn’t, and hasn’t (yet?) happened his win was clear.
          I’m also hoping that the comments by Credlin and Richardson prove accurate and Labor have to abandon, and rapidly abandon, their climate policies. After all Labor, the ABC and GetUp all labelled it as the “climate change election”, and have been trashed, decisively and clearly, especially in Queensland.
          But the enemy is numerous, well funded, and has a well oiled propaganda machine, so we’ll have to keep alert.
          Cheers
          Dave B

          70

          • #
            James Murphy

            if Labor/Greens want to change, they would have to acknowledge that their policies were not what the public wanted. They will never do that, so will spend the next few weeks blaming everything but themselves. They will not learn from this defeat.

            50

  • #
    Tim Spence

    The press are saying the conservatives won, I didn’t think there was a conservative party in Australia, forgive my ignorance, can someone explain.

    90

    • #
      Roy Hogue

      I don’t know if this explains it or not but conservative could just mean wide awake with brain running and head facing straight forward.

      120

      • #
        Kinky Keith

        That’s it Roy.

        Media labeling, designed to mislead, doesn’t work when enough of the population can still see clearly.

        KK

        100

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      GD

      I didn’t think there was a conservative party in Australia

      The new Scott Morrison Liberal/National Party is moderately conservative.

      The Liberals still pay lip-service to the AGW scam, while the Nationals, representing the farmers and others on the land, are more likely to call it out as being complete hogwash.

      180

    • #
      Graeme No.3

      Tim Spence:

      There is a Conservative Party in Australia but they were only running for The Senate (in the hope that they had the balance of power). We won’t know how we went for nearly 2 weeks.
      I say we, as a member and having spent 3 hours outside the local polling station with HowToVote cards.

      I went to bed very early when the media were still calling it a Labor victory when only a handful of seats had been called and few were for Labor, and I woke up to this great news. Regarding the public I couldn’t tell what was going to happen (except that the local member would be returned) as people were either ignoring the Party faithful or taking paper from all. In both cases they had made up their mind but weren’t going to let on. A few people I knew ‘tipped me the wink” so I knew we had started to gain traction, but whether we can take a Senate seat in this State will remain to be seen.

      I did comment one of the Liberals that if they lost then I thought that the Party would split and the Conservative would pick up a lot of new members. Well, I was wrong about that Party splitting.

      140

      • #
        Salome

        On the count so far (over at the AEC) they won’t get a seat, I fear, as they are well behind One Nation and, sadly, well behind the Watermelons. It’s a pity that those for whom the Liberals are not conservative enough go to the noisy parties like One Nation. Also, although the Conservatives haven’t disgraced themselves, they are not helped by the no-more-Turnbull factor and the bringing by ScoMo of the Liberals away from their extreme left renewable invested edge. I voted on an early day and gave the young Conservative man a thumb up on the way out. (Didn’t want to upset the old ladies handing out GetUp and Greens cards. Don’t know what the GetUp lady was handing out. Didn’t get close enough.)

        100

        • #
          Cog Williams

          I couldn’t help myself. When the greens rep tried to hand me a leaflet on the way in I said “no thanks, let’s save paper “ At least I amused myself :o)

          100

      • #
        Hanrahan

        Could the conservatives rejoin the libs now Turnbull and Pyne are gone?

        70

        • #
          WXcycles

          It think the tension caused by the splitting worked in everyone’s favor here.

          Competition produces better result.

          41

  • #
    Harry Passfield

    Well done Oz!! Now lets hope that the Brexit Party in the UK sends a similar message to Westminster, so that when the next GE comes here we get a government that will not only get us out of the EU but also out of the UN’s IPCC grasp.

    190

    • #
      sophocles

      Get on with it! Shift that May Fly sideways and drop that EU.
      Leave!
      We, The Commonwealth, are waiting for you.
      And Boy, do we have trade deals we want to do with you!

      80

  • #
    Kinky Keith

    In Memorium.

    New at McDonald’s,

    “ THE MCSHORTEN BURGER”

    Description is;

    Burger has everything on it and the guy behind you in line pays for it.

    230

    • #
      NB

      Almost. The guy who pays for it is the one at Greasy Joes down the road.

      80

      • #
        Analitik

        Nio. You get it “free” but pay DOUBLE (or more) for it in MacTaxes so that everyone can have a MacShorten NOW

        60

    • #
      WXcycles

      If you don’t like the cost of our burgers don’t buy them!

      How’s that working out for you Bowen? 😀

      70

    • #
      Roy Hogue

      And that’s about all there is to these grand schemes, get someone else to pay for it while believing he’s getting something for his money.

      30

  • #
    Another Ian

    Cop this!

    “Senior Labor lawmaker Chris Bowen said his party may have suffered from what he conceded was an unusual strategy of pushing a detailed policy agenda through the election campaign.”

    https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2019/05/18/australia-conservatives-set-for-surprise-election-win-left-admits-defeat/

    If that was his idea of detailed policy think of what his budget would have looked like!

    Shades of Trudeau’s “The budget will balance itself”

    180

    • #
      Bobl

      Chris Bowen was right, they were up-front in what they were trying g to sell us, the problem was that they were hiding most of what it would cost. The EV thing was a 1% of GDP nightmare waiting to happen. Australians just said, nup, too expensive so maybe I’ll just spend my money myself instead of giving it to you to fritter away.

      There is NO DOUBT that it was the 250 billion of extra taxes levied on pensioners and small businesses that swung this election and that Australians voted Bill shortens hand out of their back pockets. Note well ScoMo, no new taxes you said.

      150

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    Travis T. Jones

    The cost to Australian taxpayer for their abc; 7c a day per person.

    The look on the abc’s presenters; priceless!

    130

  • #
    TdeF

    Congratulations to the Liberals, Nationals and Scott Morrison. After the Climate election, kick out the stumps. Halve energy prices immediately. Repeal the RET and the whole ripoff of Australia and Australians will come crumbling down. Electricity prices will halve in a month. Windmill building will stop cold. All those Clean Energy Finance and Clean Energy Administrators and so many more will have to find another job, not ripping off consumers. AGL will have to keep low cost Liddell going as the windmill money will stop overnight and the biggest, cheapest and most reliable electricity supply will boom, as it should.

    The criminals herding people onto boats in Indonesia will be asked for the money back.

    The electric car madness will stop.

    Australia will have most favored nation status with Donald Trump, all to the horror of the Greens, especially if Tony Abbott is US ambassador, not the untrustworthy Julie Bishop.

    And Australia will be allowed to use it own coal and build submarines which make sense, not diesel nonsense.

    Morrison will move slowly, perhaps, but the first move must be to repeal the Renewable Energy (Electricity) Act and so the whole massive ripoff which is killing Australia. We could also send a bill to the UN and EU for all the CO2 they are sending to Australia, 98% of which is not ours.

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    • #
      NB

      With Aust and the USA on track, and the UK showing signs of waking up, and maybe even Canada coming to its senses after a period of dreaminess, maybe the world can be put back on track after a flirtation with socialist utopianism coupled with left millennialism. There are glimmers of a revival along the lines of the 1980s after the unbelievably destructive socialism of the 1970s.
      But this time we have computers, robots, safe nuclear power, internet. If the energies of innovators are unleashed from complying with burdensome regulation and ever increasing taxes, we may see radical changes in the way we live, and the amazing shifts in productivity we have been speculating upon for a generation.

      100

      • #
        Kinky Keith

        That’s real Positivity!

        60

      • #
        David-of-Cooyal-in-Oz

        And don’t forget Brazil.
        Cheers
        Dave B

        100

      • #
        el gordo

        ‘….after a flirtation with socialist utopianism coupled with left millennialism.’

        Utopianism emerged from the Renaissance and not necessarily socialist, and that should read Christian millennialism. Note the religious fervour of AGW fanatics, the world is coming to an end, repent.

        40

  • #
    Drapetomania

    Climate activist Zali Steggall beats Abbott over fossil fuels.
    Steggall climbs into fossil fuel powered car and drives how to fossil fuel powered house.
    The house that was built using fossil fuels.
    All of her supporters use fossil fuel powered cars and live in fossil fuel powered houses.
    None know anything about energy costs or history of climate or geology..
    Welcome to the insane left world..
    The independents the libs need are inferring they are “climate based” so..they will ignore the will of the people of course and play their own agenda and virtual signalling

    170

    • #
      theRealUniverse

      I saw the smug look by the Steggall fans at her speech. Was that defeat, which seems pretty weird considering the hammering of the left in other places, a Setup by Getup? Need a ‘Getup Gate’ investigation..
      Abbot did a good job with his defeat speech.

      81

    • #
      MudCrab

      Steggall was one of those ‘Winter Olympics’ types who used to spend their lives chasing the snow by spending half their lives in Europe. Bet she has flown around the world more times than I have flown total.

      Steggall needs to watch herself no and rapidly distance herself from GetUp. GetUp ran a dirty and violent campaign. Steggall needs to make sure she isn’t branded guilty by association.

      Not that I would complain too much if she was…

      40

      • #
        yarpos

        She will be too busy stroking her own ego. She seems to think her election is the dawn of a new era in Australian politics. Delusions of relevance, I think.

        40

  • #
    David Wojick

    The good news is this is considered a conservative win, even if the government isn’t all that conservative, except compared to labor. Here is the NYT lead para:

    “SYDNEY, Australia — Scott Morrison, Australia’s conservative prime minister, scored a surprise victory in federal elections on Saturday, propelled by a populist wave — the “quiet Australians,” he termed it — resembling the force that has upended politics in the United States, Britain and beyond.”

    So the wins keep coming, around the world.

    They also admit that climate action was an issue (which the BBC does not mention):

    “The election had presented Australia, a vital American ally in the Asia-Pacific, with a crucial question: Would it remain on a rightward path and stick with a political coalition that promised economic stability, jobs and cuts to immigration or choose greater action on climate change and income inequality?”

    Economic stability and jobs versus greater action on climate change? Let me think. The NYT does not realize how stupid this sounds, but the good people of Oz did.

    120

    • #
      OriginalSteve

      Which creates a problem for the globalists who are using the Left as their weapon of choice.

      This is why its possible a regional war somewhere in the world is possible as a diversion, or they shove through their economy killing lunacy under the guise of “national energy security” while the shooting is on….

      Look at what the globalists did to freedoms & liberties just after 9 / 11 with the infamous laws passed while people were still freaking out.

      80

  • #
    EternalOptimist

    I hear there will be a challenge to the election results, an investigation into ‘Prussian collusion’
    apparently the historical climate adjustments have led the Prussians to believe the battle of jena should be adjusted

    70

    • #
      PeterS

      Funny you should mention something like that. I expected some of the extreme the left leaning commentators in our MSM to come out and say something like what they say about Trump winning, except in our case we could replace Russia with China. If that does indeed happen it won’t last long because Australians are not that naive.

      82

    • #
      Mark D.

      The Prussians are just blue.

      40

  • #
    PeterS

    It’s impossible to pick which issue blocked Shorten the nation destroyer from becoming PM of Australia. I tend to believe it’s a whole lot of issues that sealed his demise. They include the threats by the Greens to close down our coal mines and introduce death duties, the policies of ALP+Greens on franking credits, climate change, taxes and spending, etc. They all would be disastrous to our economy and would hit the back pocket of most Australians very badly. Enough voters realised all that and voted accordingly. In many respects Labor+Greens lost because of so many “own goals”. We can thank ALP+Greens for that, and thank a lot of Australians for waking up just in time. My faith in Australian voters has been restored somewhat.

    121

    • #
      Bobl

      I have no doubt $250bn of added taxes targeted at the hard earned savings of middle class gen Xers and pensioners, or soon to be pensioner baby boomers did.

      This election wasn’t over climate it was about tax and spend socialism. The public voted shortens hand out of their back pocket.

      101

      • #
        PeterS

        I agree the taxes was a large part but climate change was also significant. ALP+Greens have gone too far on it and now they have to rethink their strategy on climate change to avoid scarring people away again at the next election. Queensland was very angry on that point and rejected ALP+Greens stronger than expected.

        100

        • #
          Bobl

          OK Peter, I’m in WA at the moment and don’t have a sense of the sentiment on the ground back home in Wright. I do know a lot of Queenslanders are pretty livid about Adani being interfered with by state Labor getting in the way of lots of good jobs.

          90

          • #
            Chad

            The Labor tax hike was one and the same thing as their climate policies.
            Even they knew thet needed that extra financial source to attempt any of their mad climate agenda.

            10

        • #
          OriginalSteve

          The taxes on pensions killed labor.

          They are just cant help themselves…..the climate stuff was just additional proof they were loopy.

          90

    • #
      el gordo

      Hip pocket nerve trumps ideology, our democracy is very pragmatic.

      I would like to especially thank Lachlan Murdoch and Sky News for their unstinting effort to get the right outcome.

      80

    • #
      NB

      I’d be interest to know if any votes were shifted by the silencing of Israel Folau. Strikes me that this had a very very bad smell to it.

      70

    • #
      Analitik

      Sorry PeterS, I wrong thumbed you 🙁

      30

    • #
      MudCrab

      Well there is the minor point that Shorten comes across like an idiot. Remember his ‘I don’t know what the Prime Minister said, but I agree with her’ interview?

      We also have the fact that the ALP went Full Green, and you should never go full Green. I honestly can’t see why someone thought this was a good idea. The Greens have been Full Green for years and their primary vote isn’t even double figures anymore. Why would anymore in the ALP assume that Full Green would win votes from the voting center?

      70

    • #
      WXcycles

      Shows just how rubbish-bin quality the Australian Left are that they lost an election they should have been able to romp home to a landslide victory. Instead the Labor primary vote is now just 34%.

      I watched Chris Bowen last night looking at the result of his handiwork saying that the Labor primary vote was terrible and a complete disaster! But he’s the same conceited twit who said this to Australia on January 30th this year:

      “I say to your listeners, if they feel very strongly about this, if they fee that this is something which should impact on their vote, they are of course perfectly entitled to vote against us,” he said.

      https://www.afr.com/news/politics/retirees-angry-about-franking-refunds-are-perfectly-entitled-to-vote-against-us-chris-bowen-20190130-h1amug

      I don’t think they’ll try that approach again, but you can be sure that the elitist arrogance and contempt behind that thinking will endure long after the Sun goes supernova.

      70

  • #
  • #
    tom0mason

    Congratulations Australia!

    Make Australia Great Again! 🙂

    90

    • #
      Salome

      That was on the big yellow Palmer signs. Except for one, which had been defaced to read ‘Make Australia eat Again’.

      60

  • #
    Ross

    WELL DONE Australia. I can tell there are many Kiwis who are very happy and very relieved.

    I was worried Shorten would pull it off with Climate Change as a headline issue and then our idiots would go absolutely mad with it. At least this result has put a bit of a hand brake on it.

    130

    • #
      el gordo

      In a political sense the Opposition was convinced they were going to win, all the polls told them so, which is why Bill came out with a radical agenda and became a large target.

      Morrison only had to stand on his economic record, promising stability, making him a small target. One other point worth noting, Morrison realised he was more popular than Bill so he produced a presidential style election.

      80

      • #
        sophocles

        Lewis Carroll puts it best:

            And hast thou slain the Jabberwock?
            Come to my arms, my beamish boy!
            O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!”
            He chortled in his joy.

        And to think yesterday started so well, … with optimism and hope …
        and finished so much better.

            ’Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
             Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
             All mimsy were the borogoves,
             And the mome raths outgrabe.

        Simply substitute the “UN” for the Jabberwock
        I know the Left will never understand that.

        80

  • #

    No tears for Shorten. Just get lost. War on coal is war on me, husband of Chloe. (Plus, you talk in a creepy sing-song, even creepier than Malcolm’s Bowralese.)

    Let’s not forget that globalism and its wedge, Big Green, are still stinking up the Liberal and National Parties. So enjoy the moment, people, but if you see a globalist head, remember to kick it.

    Now, about a St George contract for Israel Folau…

    150

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    robert rosicka

    I did some channel surfing when it became obvious that Labor couldn’t win , which I believe ABC called first .
    The excuses from Labor were varied –

    Plibersek mused that if only the public were able to take more time to read their policies .

    Bowen was in complete denial but took the how dare the public not vote for us path.

    Albo blamed one nation and Clive Palmer , also blasted the Liberals scare campaign about taxes .

    Wong also went into meltdown blaming the scare tactics and I was amazed when Leigh Sales put her in her place by reminding her of Medicare .

    170

    • #
      NB

      ‘I was amazed when Leigh Sales put her in her place by reminding her of Medicare.’
      A moment to treasure.

      90

      • #
        Analitik

        Leigh Sales does seem to have shifted towards the center, of late. She really kept at Bill Shorten about the costs of his climate change policies when he was on the 7:30 Report after the campaign began. It was at that point that I felt some hope for a coalition victory, although I didn’t dream of anything like last night’s result.

        I wonder if this is a result of the criticism she received from the far left a while back.

        40

  • #
    Robert Swan

    Particularly liked this bit:

    I wonder if the people of Warringah will feel a bit used when they wake up and realize that the rest of the nation didn’t come with them.

    Much as I wish political parties would disappear, these heavily boosted independents are much worse. The voters of Warringah, flattered into voting “independently”, can now be seen as some of the most credulous voters in the country.

    At least Oakeshott didn’t “get up”.

    160

    • #
      OriginalSteve

      The people of Warringah might feel a bit foolish thing morning…..

      Not a good Look, I’d have thought, for their demographic at least…..

      Tut tut.

      Noted.

      60

      • #
        theRealUniverse

        Theres probably a large rock nearby they can crawl under.

        40

        • #
          OriginalSteve

          Probably a little hard when most of them probably sit on company Boards etc.

          Maybe as they leave thier suburb tomorrow we could give them tshirts with “Warning – poor voting induces curable but painful Left wing symptoms like loss of Democracy and confiscation of private property. Treat with extreme caution”

          Might make for a few pointed conversations at the local private club too….

          I understand these people…tomorrow will hurt…its like ghost of Malcolm….

          51

    • #
      yarpos

      Oh, I hadnt heard of Oakshotts fate. So much winning.

      20

  • #
    Ross

    I have justread a piece on a Kiwi site written by an Australian reporter who by the way said way back in February that he thought the Coalition could win. He writes about how vial and terrible the campaign in Tony Abbott’s electorate was. I had heard it was bad but no where near as bad as it was.

    “As I’ve reported, this has been an extraordinarily nasty campaign, but the antics of Labor and GetUp in Warringah beggar belief. From an attack so vicious that even Abbott’s opponent publicly decried it, to posters which are being investigated by police, to faeces being sent to electoral offices.

    In the most shocking turn, one of Abbott’s campaign volunteers was stabbed while setting up at a polling station.”

    81

    • #
      robert rosicka

      Rowan Dean has been one of a very few that predicted this result .

      90

      • #
        Ross

        Alan Jones was quite confident on Sky News the other night.

        He was extremely complimentary to Tony Abbott last night. Great to see someone like Jones come out so forcefully in support of Tony Abbott’s contribution. ( I see the media are all talking of the end of his political career but I noted when this was said in an interview with him last night he did not confirm it. For Australia’s sake I hope he “hangs around” on the political scene)

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        • #
          Analitik

          Agreed. I’m still hoping that Abbott can get back into the ministry or even lead the party again, in the future. Steggall will almost certainly be a single term representative since she has no real agenda and it will show over time.

          61

          • #
            Ross

            Maybe Tony can be persuaded to follow the USA political “tradition” and write a book. It does not have to be nasty, just a factual “warts and all” book on some important issues for Australia.

            41

      • #
        WXcycles

        Watching Outsiders was hilarious this morning, raw unadulterated schadenfreude. 😀

        40

    • #
      yarpos

      Its a shame Tony Abbott didnt show more of what he showed graciously conceding while Prime Minister. I think he spent to much time trying to master sound bites and the MSM and would have been better off being himself. probably why he seems well liked by those closer to him.

      Stegall has basically become a seat warmer now, as have all the cross bench. But we will see, funny business politics.

      00

  • #
    TdeF

    Let’s not forget that the Liberals lost 4 seats in Victoria. Of course those seats were not lost in the last election, which allowed grumpy Malcolm to keep his day job, so it may be a catch up on the last election where Daniel Andrews was on the nose with his attacks on ambulances, fireys and the corruption of his friends in parliament. One used a government car and drive just to chaffeur his puppies around. This time though those marginal seats went to Labor.

    Perhaps the greatest relief is that the boat invasion is not restarting today. It’s odd that no one mentions this.

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    • #
      PeterS

      No one mentioned the boat people issue in the MSM because people have short memories and tend to focus on the present. It’s an unfortunate and bad habit. It what makes us as humans repeat the same mistakes of the past repeatedly. However it was mentioned a few times on this blog.

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      • #
        Salome

        I went to bed last night and turned on ABC News Radio to get a special edition of The Drum. Apparently Australians chose short term gain and racism over the real moral issues. So the boats sort of got a mention. And, yes, it was delicious listening . . .

        150

        • #
          NB

          The Drum last night was hilarious, illustrating just how delusional is the ABC commentariate.

          130

        • #
          Graeme No.3

          I can foresee the ABC tonight. After the traditional sackcloth and ashes ‘welcome to our channel” performed by Ernie the Dingo, the announcer will blame the Indians (or the Jews, or the Indian Jews) for interfering in the election. They will switch to comment from Peter Fitzroy who will explain that this disaster only brings the end of the world in 12 years even closer and leaves Australia no time to prepare for the inevitable Climate Destruction.
          After a brief pause while the ABC advertises 5 coming programs before PhiltheGeek supplies the closing lament about how the hard hearted far right Liberal government hasn’t promised any financial benefit for 3 legged green haired layabouts.
          Facts will, as usual, be ignored. After the final piece about it all being the fault of President Trump, the news will end with the mournful sounds of the bagpiper’s lament “The fading light on the hill”.

          40

      • #
        yarpos

        People often dont mention whats not happening

        10

  • #
    John of Cloverdale, WA, Australia

    I’m with ScoMO, I believe in miracles. I should have learned from 2016 when Trump won.

    100

  • #
    HotScot

    Brexit, Trump, now Aus.

    Well done guys.

    100

  • #
  • #
    robert rosicka

    Anyone know what happened to the Green vote ? , I notice no one is talking about them .

    50

    • #
      Salome

      I had a quick look at the initial Senate count a little while ago. I think the Greens are still the biggest of the minors. Not rid of them yet, I fear.

      100

    • #
      Enjoy Peter Fitzroy in Moderation

      I note that the greens are running at double the Nationals.

      18

      • #
        AndyG55

        Nearly all from wealthy inner city suburbs SJWs, with the large houses, multiple internal combustion cars, and near zero contact with reality or real life outside their sickophantic ghettos.

        150

      • #

        I note that the greens are running at double the Nationals.

        Why so they are. Well picked up Peter Fitzroy.

        Nationals – 11 seats, plus 4 LNP in Queensland who sit with the Nationals, so 15 seats in all.

        Greens – 1 seat.

        It seems the Nationals won 15-1 after all.

        Tony.

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    • #
      Analitik

      The Greens vote is largely stolen from the Labor vote – how many seats have Labor won only because of Green preferences in the 2 party preferred result? I’m going to try and do a study on this once the final results are in and compare the 2 party preferred results from the pre Greens era.

      There is an urban myth about the nation turning Green but the reality is that it is a split of the ideological far left (but without the trade union faction) from the Labor constituency.

      110

  • #
    Serge Wright

    Labor talk about their true believers and in this election Shorten found out the hard way that they arn’t all true “climate ” believers”.

    When considering the role played by CC in this election, I think Abbott hit the nail perfectly in his concession speech when he said that climate change was seen as a moral issue in wealthy inner city seats, but seen as an economic issue in the blue collar seats.

    IMO – the ALP have also failed their base by trying to create an elite ruling class, closely aligning themselves with the super wealthy inner-city green virtue signalling university elites, that can afford to pay $10k per year on electricity to feel less guilty about their excessive lifestyles. When those blue collar workers in QLD refused to shake hands with Shorten they were clearly stating that “you’re no longer one of us”. And for a man who once lead the union movement, this was a telling moment in the campaign. It’s ironic that those old true believers now belong to Morrison and the LNP.

    No doubt the aftermath discussion inside ALP HQ will focus on a fake blame game and avoid the elephant in the room, as it does after every ALP loss.

    For now, HAPPY DAYS… 🙂

    110

  • #
    Dennis

    Voters in Warringah elected an unproven “Independent” to represent them from the back benches and got rid of a very experienced and active Liberal MP who was in the now returned to government for 25 years, a former PM and experienced cabinet minister.

    I would prefer to have an MP with a voice in government, or even in the main opposition side.

    121

    • #
      Hanrahan

      Nor will she have balance of power in a hung parliament. There are others. But if she tries to make life hard for ScoMo she will be a one termer.

      I saw on the ticker Alexander got back so a sportsman can succeed.

      81

      • #
        NB

        She owes her success to GetUp. Can you imagine how she is going to be treated? Despite everything, I felt a little sorry for her last night as she gave her victory speech. Life is not going to be pretty.

        111

        • #
          Travis T. Jones

          Getting stuck on the Spit Bridge in her electric clown car will be a source of mirth to look forward to.

          91

      • #
        Analitik

        Steggall has no depth to her agenda and it will be shown that she is powerless and irrelevant. I’m certain of her ending up as a one termer.

        81

    • #
      Serge Wright

      What we see occuring in Warringah is an extension of the inner city, as the virtue signalling elites grow in numbers and expand. Zali won entirely on climate change with possibly some sheep herd effect, mainly because this area of Sydney is now being overrun by the young green executives, fresh from the university climate brainwash and plush with money. Many of these people are also beneficiaries of the billions of dollars taken from working Australians and donated to climate gravy train rent seeker wealth fund. Viewed from suburbia, the green alarmist elites exude a really bizzare culture. People like Phelps and Steggell and their support base are on one hand extremely wealthy, with very high salary jobs, but on the other hand are calling for struggling working Australians to adopt a 3rd world livestyle so they can feel less guilty about themselves and continue on their status quo.

      The sad reality is that Abbott’s fan base has been slowly forced out of his area over the past decade and now resides in the suburbs and beyond.

      170

      • #
        David Wojick

        Perhaps he should run some place that fits his policies.

        20

      • #
        yarpos

        I dont know hwo many saw it. A nice one liner from Abbott.

        Out early on Sunday putting bike racks on the back of his car. Getting harangued by a reporter from the footpath. Doesnt respond to one question (being aprivate citizen now he has that luxury) and then when asked “What will you do next!!” responds “Go for a bike ride” noice.

        I bet Scoop was glad she got out early to snag that insight.

        10

  • #
    Dennis

    Pre-poll and postal votes numbered 4.7 million and they have yet to be counted.

    50

    • #
      Ross

      Dennis

      Are they likely to change the result much? Do they traditionally favour one party over another?

      40

      • #
        Dennis

        It is my understanding that early voters tend to be more interested in politics and favour the Coalition Ross.

        60

      • #
        MudCrab

        pre-polling has tended to favour Lib/Nats the last couple of elections. Can’t offer hard stats but… gut feel… about 65/35.

        I was looking at Warringah on AEC and it suggests that there is still about 18,000 votes out there. Technically speaking (very technically) Abbott can still hold his seat. I don’t think he actually will, but I do think the final winning margin for the GetUp party will be that impressive in the end.

        50

    • #
      Chad

      The 4.7 m figure was pre poll only and are counted at the same time as the main vite.
      Postal votes wont be finalised for weeks later. ( postal votes need not be returnd until 13 days after polling day..

      30

  • #
    Hanrahan

    What will Turnbull do, head off to NY? Whatever it is do it quietly and get out of our lives.

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    • #
      PeterS

      Agree. Turnbull did all he could to destroy the LNP both during his ministership and afterwards in the recent months yet is till a member of the Liberal Party. Turnbull should be reregistered from the party forthwith for betraying the Liberal Party.

      120

      • #
        Analitik

        Yes, Turncoat should be delisted and his actions noted for future generations of conservatives so his like are kept out of the party

        70

    • #
      MudCrab

      Book deal.

      We are yet to get a warts and all insider account of how everyone picked on him. Expect a book within the next 18 months.

      Don’t however expect anything from Shorten. He is going to be in a lot of trouble. His ex friends are currently ringing up the zoos to see which one has the biggest pack of wolves.

      30

  • #
    Dave in the States

    Look for American Dems socialists to back away bit from their recent push to make climate change action an issue in the up coming US election cycle in 3,2,1….

    Well done.

    90

    • #
      Hanrahan

      Could dems point to Australia on a map? Many that Watters talks to couldn’t.

      70

      • #
        David Wojick

        Probably not but they read the NYT and WashPo. This effect will be worth watching for. Pelosi is trying to keep a lid on alarmism, with AOC dragging the Dems dangerously left. Have to see how the horde of Pres candidates react.

        30

  • #
    Michael Hammer

    One of many negative aspects of increasing totalitarianism is that people start to say what they think authority wants to hear, not what they really believe. Polls rely on those polled being honest, stating what they really think, and as became obvious last night, honesty and totalitarianism are incompatible, at least outside the ballot box – at least while we still have secret ballots.

    On another subject, I think the people of Warringa will regret their decision over the next 3 years. Tony Abbot was a member who tirelessly and honestly strove to represent and support the people of his electorate. Most of the politics that counts is mundane issues over a very broad range of subjects not in the public spotlight. Steggall however made it clear in her victory speech, her entire focus is on one issue – climate change. Does she have the slightest interest in representing her electorate on other issues? Even worse, if the electorate decides it does not want some of the outcomes flowing from her brand of climate alarmism would she go with the wishes of the electorate or with her beliefs? Basically her goal is to peddle her brand of climate alarmism not to represent the people who elected her at all and I think it will not be long until the electorate realises how badly they have been deceived.

    A pack of vicious jackals brought down a lion. The best history is always written with some time perspective. I thought Tony’s concession speech was, as Peta Credlin stated, a master class in grace and humility. That is the true measure of the man they have spurned.

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    • #
      OriginalSteve

      I think the voters of Warringa may give the Left a lesson they will never forget once they have come to their senses.

      Although given the number of company directors and other intelligent people within the electorate, I’d suggest private sector Management in this country has suffered a nasty self inflicted wound that the rest of the population will now put under the microscope.

      Board Rooms are now on notice….

      Tut Tut

      2/10 – must try harder.

      50

    • #
      Analitik

      And I’m hoping the press have totally misinterpreted his speech and he will contest the seat at the next election and win it back once the people of Warringah notice how irrelevant Steggall is in parliament.

      40

      • #
        yarpos

        No, no. Zali said her election was the dawning of a new age of Australian politics. Just you watch! /sarc

        00

  • #
    Fin

    Besides the other issues already mentioned, I kept hearing of another factor which I’m sure played its part: electric vehicles being forced on the driving public. Young employees could see their diesel and petrol cars/SUVs etc being made worthless and too expensive to fill, while super-expensive charging stations for EVs would be needed at home and taking hours for a “fill” with hyper-expensive electricity (from rotten wind”farms” and the like).

    And now perhaps, an inquiry into Infigen share prices and Turnbull (both generations) involvement can take place.

    150

  • #
    pat

    yes, ABC, it was the “C” election. COAL, not CLIMATE:

    BBC World Service reported Qld & coal won it for the COALition. can’t find it documented as yet.

    18 May: Axios: Australian election: Voters in mining areas voted on economy over climate issues
    by Marisa Fernandez, Amy Harder
    Australian voters turned against center-left opponents pushing aggressive strategies to combat climate change when they reelected Australia’s conservative government in the country’s national elections on Saturday, the Wall Street Journal (LINK) reports…

    Our thought bubble via Amy Harder: “The elections indicate that Australia will continue to closely resemble the Trump administration’s positioning on climate change. Climate advocates had said this election would be a referendum on the current leadership’s positions on climate change, the results suggest that either voters don’t care as much about the issue compared to others or they prefer less aggressive measures, as the current leadership is pursuing.”…

    One level deeper: Several Liberal Party candidates won in the state of Queensland, near the Great Barrier Reef, per the New York Times.
    •Prime Minister Scott Morrison campaigned in support of major coal mine projects like the proposed Adani coal mine in that region, which would be one of the largest in the world if approved by the government.
    •”Voters favored immediate concerns about jobs over the risks of climate change,” the Times reports…
    https://www.axios.com/australia-election-climate-change-labor-party-dbc337bc-cd1f-4999-9d26-7a63267218c7.html

    60

  • #
    Rob

    Been a while since I stopped by here. Saw an article somewhere else about the election results. Figured a “Good job mates” was in order. Best of luck to you from the states. Keep your fingers crossed that we can do the same in 2020.

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  • #
    pat

    19 May: Sunday Mail Front Page (Courier Mail, Brisbane)
    SCOMO’S MIRACLT – QLD BRINGS PM BACK FROM THE DEAD
    https://couriermail.digitaleditions.com.au/index.php?silentlogin=3

    REUTERS VIDEO: 1min01sec: 18 May: Courier Mail: Anti-coal protester runs at Australian PM outside voting center
    Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison voted in the country’s general election on Saturday, and said he wanted to back the aspirations of Australians. When leaving the voting center, an anti-coal protester ran towards Morrison but was removed by security…
    https://www.couriermail.com.au/news/national/anticoal-protester-runs-at-australian-pm-outside-voting-center/video/56df9d4121bfe9d08bc5ae827c7a4ef0

    60

  • #
    pat

    18 May: The Leader: Updated | ‘We smashed them’ says Craig Kelly after easily retaining Hughes for Liberal Party
    by Murray Trembath
    9.20pm:
    Re-elected Liberal MP for Hughes, Craig Kelly, has given a rousing victory speech, praising the efforts of party volunteers in “smashing” the concerted opposition against them
    “We weren’t taking on the Labor Party,” Mr Kelly told supporters who gathered at Woronora River RSL Club.

    VIDEO: 1min42sec: Craig Kelly’s victory speech to supporters after retaining Hughes.

    “We were taking on Labor, Greens and GetUp.
    “We had three teams against us and we smashed them all.”…

    Mr Kelly said he was saddened at the defeat of “my good mate” Tony Abbott.
    “But, he is like a champion footballer – he has taken all the hits in his seat,” Mr Kelly said.
    “He took all that opposition. They put all their resources, money and people to attack him and, by doing that, they left gaps elsewhere on the field.
    “And those gaps we are seeing those results roll into night – seats we really didn’t think were in play are in play…
    https://www.theleader.com.au/story/6131412/federal-election-2019-cook-and-hughes/

    90

  • #

    I want to hear what Annastacia Palaszczuk has to say about this result.

    Crickets so far.

    Tony.

    140

    • #
      Hanrahan

      She approved Adani, expecting an incoming labor gov to veto it. That way she could claim innocence.

      I should go and buy a house in Townsville or Mackay today, the prices are depressed but Adani will change that.

      100

    • #
      WXcycles

      Palaszczuk is fresh out of credibility, she’s a seat shiner only, she can;t even run a train or bus on time. Even praises siting subsidized intermittent solar-power farms within a coastal cyclone belt.

      But without a viable opposition in Queensland Labor will win regardless. What we need is a new Joh Bjelke Petersen type leader to finally kill-off the persistent political-left smallpox infection in Queensland once and for all.

      Now is the time for a conserve leader to actually get that done.

      60

  • #
    pat

    lots of fantasy from Farr, but a few touches of reality:

    19 May: news.com.au: One word that sums up Labor’s election disaster in Queensland
    There was the uncertainty which spread like a virus through Queensland and it robbed Labor of seats in the state’s south-east it had hoped to take.
    by Malcolm Farr
    Also, Labor was punished in regional areas of the state where it appeared to be championing metropolitan fashion such as expensive climate change priorities — or in other words, to be an inner-city policy snob.
    The perception was of regional Queenslanders paying the price in jobs and growth for the ALP looking after Sydney and Melbourne voters…

    There was, for example, National George Christensen who over a period spent more time in Manila than in his home town of Mackay. This clearly didn’t bother the people of his Queensland seat of Dawson.
    The source of voter tolerance of MP truancy and other unhappy episodes could be summed up in one word: Adani…

    One of the daftest and most self-indulgent features of the campaign was the Adani convoy of Greens leaders who drove to central Queensland full of moral superiority. All they did was further convince locals the anti-mine movement was part of a Labor/Greens plot against them.
    And across the nation the ALP’s big emissions reduction target and its failure to detail what this would cost the economy and employment was a damning position which will not survive this election…
    https://www.news.com.au/national/federal-election/one-word-that-sums-up-labors-election-disaster-in-queensland/news-story/79f0adfb76eea5a0c0210d038f66b2ca

    Qld Govt needs to get out of Adani’s way NOW – the voters have spoken.

    90

    • #
      pat

      original headline, as per google results:

      Federal election 2019 results: Adani destroys Labor in Queensland
      news.com.au – 48 mins ago

      50

    • #
      Analitik

      Yes, The National Party should send Bob Brown a Christmas card this year, just as Turncoat should have sent one to Dan Andrews after the last election.

      50

  • #
    jtom

    Well, congrats to Australia. I hope the move to the righht continues.

    I believe, though, that it would be good if some country or state went the full monty, and actually deployed the absurd ‘green new deal’ policies. Only renewable power allowed, ban on all oil products, only EVs permitted, higher taxes…

    These elections are very close. A catastrophic failure of these policies on a small scale, though, would prevent a more massive failure that could have long reaching effects. I am more than willing to see a U.S. state like California show us what would happen.

    One federal law we need, first, is one that says if you ban the production of electricity by using fossil fuels, then you can not import electricity from another state that was produced by fossil fuels. I think CA is going to do just that, and claim its green policies work.

    70

    • #
      Graeme No.3

      Don’t worry, S.A. is headed that way while Victoria still has Dopey Dan as Premier for blackouts. Hope for a cool summer coming and keep your generator serviced.

      20

  • #
    pat

    18 May: MSN: Daily Mail: Adani, jobs and the ‘Bob Brown caravan’: Bloodbath in Queensland has cost Labor the election
    by Nic White For Daily Mail Australia
    The government is heading for a shock election victory on the back of Queensland voters who bucked the polls and rallied behind the Coalition.

    Early results have the Liberal National Party tipped to retain all its seats in the Sunshine State and gain at least two of Labor’s.
    A shock swing of more than four per cent to the government has dashed Labor’s hopes of a victory…
    Senator Wong admitted the controversial Adani coal mine, which Labor opposes but the Coalition supports, may have made the difference…

    Liberal Senator Arthur Sinodinos said some of the result could be explained by those opposing the Adani project being seen as anti-jobs.
    ‘Adani became about jobs. It became emblematic of “we want jobs” and the Bob Brown caravan which went up there to talk about stopping Adani, had locals thinking “hang on, you are not going to tell us how to live”,’ he said.
    https://www.msn.com/en-au/kids/other/adani-jobs-and-the-bob-brown-caravan-bloodbath-in-queensland-has-cost-labor-the-election/ar-AABxRnT?li=AA4RE4&%3Bocid=ientp&pfr=1

    50

    • #
      Hanrahan

      Senator Wong admitted the controversial Adani coal mine, which Labor opposes but the Coalition supports, may have made the difference…

      She THINKS??????

      80

      • #
        Analitik

        No, she opines.

        50

      • #
        yarpos

        One of my great memories from last night is Wong still banging on about Climate while the ticker under her on the screen was converting undecided seats to LNP. She then went on to once again describe how very superior Labor policies were for the good of the country. I think she may have been in denial and her mouth was on auto pilot.

        20

  • #
    philthegeek

    Yay for the right of politics! Of course it gives us another govt…for however long they hold it together…with the economically illiterate kiddies in charge again. Silver lining is that Tone’s gorn, but enough of their right wing out there brigade is still in place to cause them problems.

    The sadness i feel on this is that there was a chance of a govt that would operate on a sustainable basis (on fiscal / climate issues). But, Fear and Skeer seems to have just carried the day. Will be hard for a future opposition or even Govt to take worthwhile policy that has winners and losers (as they all do) to the electorate. Not the time for small target stuff but its what we will get for a while. Will be interesting to see how the final count plays out.

    319

    • #
      Travis T. Jones

      “But, Fear and Skeer seems to have just carried the day.”

      How scary was the cost of inaction?

      80

    • #
      Hanrahan

      Fear not Phil, this will be the most unified coalition gov for years. Turnbull gorn, Pyne gorn, Bishop gorn.

      I look out the window and see beautiful blue sky. Life is good. 🙂

      150

    • #
      Kinky Keith

      Phill,

      It seems that we agree on something: we both don’t like the Libl Parti.

      But there we diverge because my driving motivation is to make sure Hard Laba doesn’t get in to drain the National Treasury again for the benefit of “the maaates”.

      Libl Parti had it’s share of “inactivity” in moving Australia out of the clutches of the climate club with MalEx444 and Julie 11 sequestering our tax dollars here, there and everywhere.

      But! the laba parti in power again would have been a final blow to many who have put their life’s work into our country only to see it destroyed.

      A number of people have already mentioned Shill Borten’s sing song pattern of speech, which to me, suggests that he’s in another universe where talking down to fellow unionists is the name of the game and listening to others is irrelevant.

      We’ve been saved.

      The only question now is can Scomo bring the nation’s electricity costs down to where they should be, 25% of current rates, so that Australian workers can get back to work and make stuff for ourselves and the world.

      If he won’t accept the mandate to move forward quickly and make Australia Great again we will all be very disappointed.

      Can you hear us Scott?

      KK

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    • #
      AndyG55

      “Yay for the right of politics”

      Again, the idiot thinks the Liberals are “to the right”

      They are not, they are a centrist, slightly left party.

      It is the sickly deep green agenda, that you and your ilk espouse, that has been defeated for at least the next 3 years.

      [snip all the rest]ED

      80

    • #
      AndyG55

      “there was a chance of a govt that would operate on a sustainable basis “

      And they got elected. So what are you so sad about?

      80

    • #
      AndyG55

      “Fear and Skeer seems to have just carried the day”

      NO, the Liberal party got elected, not Lab-/green with their brain-numbed climate scare agenda.

      100

    • #
      AndyG55

      “Will be hard for a future opposition or even Govt to take worthwhile policy “

      That was one of Labor/Green/GetUp’s many problems.

      They DIDN’T HAVE ANY WORTHWHILE POLICIES.

      They also had a total jackass as a leader, and a whole bunch of non-thinking thugs as immediate followers.

      110

    • #
      el gordo

      ‘ …. operate on a sustainable basis (on fiscal / climate issues).’

      CO2 does not cause global warming, we need to build new Hele coal fired power stations for the good of the planet.

      The Green/Left hysteria on climate change lost them the election.

      https://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2019/05/18/climate-hysteria-costs-labor-australian-elections/

      20

      • #
        David Wojick

        Sustainable is a one word oxymoron because it requires giving up, that is not sustaining, our present way of life. The meaning contradicts the word.

        40

    • #
      yarpos

      Funny how people find ways to spin presenting reality as fear and scare. Shows you how far from , and uncomfortable with, reality they are and why their policies crash and burn.

      30

  • #
    pat

    19 May: Daily Mail: Scott Morrison celebrates the Coalition’s incredible election win with a rousing victory speech and vows to ‘burn for you every single day’ – as a devastated Bill Shorten resigns as Labor leader
    By Stephen Johnson
    Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton secured a swing to him in his northern Brisbane seat of Dickson, as Queenslanders swung political baseballs bats against Labor right across the state.
    The Nationals had strong swings to them in north Queensland based on their support for the Adani coal mine, which could complicate a power-sharing arrangement.

    The Labor’s qualified support for the Adani coal mine in Queensland’s Galilee Basin has boosted the Nationals in their most marginal seats, with swings of 12 per cent to it in Dawson and Capricornia, centred around Mackay and Rockhampton…

    ABC election analyst Antony Green said the result was a ‘spectacular failure of opinion polls’ with the upset representing the first occasion since 2004 that a federal government has enjoyed a swing towards it…
    Former Nationals deputy prime minister Barnaby Joyce slammed GetUp! and left-wing activists for targeting Mr Abbott, as the Coalition recorded strong swings to it in Brisbane’s outer suburbs and regional Queensland.
    ‘You went after Tony you clowns … and forgot about everyone else,’ he told the ABC…
    Senator Sinodinos said the anti-Adani protests led by a former Greens leader – ‘Bob Brown’s caravan’ – had also hurt Labor in north Queensland…

    Labor is also suffering double-digit swings against it in in western Sydney, where it looks likely to lose the seat of Lindsay and possibly neighbouring Macquarie, where the Liberal Party was marginally ahead on Saturday night.
    Liberal Immigration Minister David Coleman has retained the south-west Sydney seat of Banks with a 4.3 per cent swing towards him, boosting his margin to 5.8 per cent in a seat that Labor had held from 1949 to 2013…
    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7044365/Scott-Morrison-wins-election.html

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    • #
      Hanrahan

      No doubt Qld saved Scotty’s bacon. A 12% swing to Christensen in Dawson, after the revelations of the time he spent in Bali, shows people really want the mine. And jobs. The area is depressed with high unemployment and house prices falling from a low base.

      130

  • #
    Athelstan.

    Hallelujah Australia!

    And Waltzing Matilda too.

    A great day for you lot, I wish we could have some of that common sense electoral balance and sobriety up here in the frozen north or pommie land as you might refer to it.

    Good on yers and God Bless Australia!

    150

    • #
      Annie

      Let’s see what happens with the Brexit Party next Thursday. 🙂

      71

    • #
      Adaminaby Angler

      Actually, where I live in Aussie is colder than much of Pommieland. Winters here average –4° / 5° C (minimum / maximum daily); Anglers Reach, at 1,290-1,311 m AMSL.

      Some more global warming flakes next week, too. 4th snowfall this year down at my altitude, beginning unusually early this year—on the 30th-31st of March!

      20

  • #
    Travis T. Jones

    Barrie Cassidy questions Deputy Liberal Leader Josh Frydenberg about energy policy, “Don’t you get lessons from election campaigns?”

    Deputy Liberal Leader Josh Frydenberg, 1.00: ” I have to say to you on [failed doomsday global warming], it is real, we take it very seriously, as the PM made clear, we will meet and beat our 2020 targets.

    There has been a billion ton turn-around come to government, we will meet and beat our 2030 targets.

    We accept the science and we will continue to take action on [failed doomsday global warming].”

    https://twitter.com/InsidersABC/status/1129896749152161792

    >> It appears Morrison and company didn’t get the message.

    100

    • #
      Analitik

      At least Frydenberg is out of the Energy portfolio so he can only indirectly damage our grids.

      80

      • #
        theRealUniverse

        Scomo better not damage any grids or supply if he does hell go the same way next time, he better take note, Aussies dont want damaged grid supply..they are sick of it!

        61

  • #
    pat

    prior to Shorten’s concession:

    18 May: BBC Newshour: Presenter: Lyse Doucet
    Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison appears certain to retain power in close election…
    (Photo: Labor supporters watch the tally count at the Federal Labor Reception, in Melbourne, Australia)
    Interview with Janet Albrechtsen, The Australian: (paraphrase – it’s telling too, that we were told that this was a climate change election. over and over again we were told by the Labor/Green left this was a climate change election, and Australia seems to have rejected that too.)
    https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/w172wq4nyx9jpqq

    Doucet pivots to The Greens immediately following the above excerpt, but Albrechtsen says they haen’t really shifted their vote. ENDS 4min55sec.

    Doucet then goes straight to Hawke/Keating Labor senator, a depressed Stephen Loosley, Non-Resident Senior Fellow, United States Studies Centre at the University of Sydney, who was convinced Labor would win. he calls it a “spectacular failure of Australian opinion polling” etc.
    says Adani has hurt Federal ALP too. ENDS 10mins.

    Doucet then has Simon Birmingham. Doucet gives Birmingham an opportunity to say whether taxes or coal and climate change dominated; he says it was higher taxes. ENDS 12min58sec.

    Australia Longs for Bolder Politics as Beloved Leader Dies on Election’s Eve
    By Damien Cave
    The New York Times – 17 May 2019
    “Hawke was authentic in just about every which way,” said Stephen Loosley, national president of the Labor Party in the early 1990s…

    30

    • #
      pat

      the BBC Sydney correspondent, Hywel Griffith’s coverage as mentioned in comment #59:

      begins 14min04sec. at 15min37sec Doucet? what swung it for the Coalition? crosses to BBC’s correspondent in Sydney, Hywel Griffith.

      18 May: BBC Newshour Presenter: Lyse Doucet
      HYWEL GRIFFITH: (PARAPHRASING) IN THE END, I THINK THE KEY ISSUE WAS CLIMATE CHANGE THAT POTENTIALLY FLIPPED THE RESULT. MANY PEOPLE EXPECTED THAT AUSTRALIA WOULD VOTE FOR CHANGE FOR GREATER ACTION ON CARBON EMISSIONS BUT, ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE ARGUMENT, WERE MANY PEOPLE WHO WANTED TO MAINTAIN AND PROTECT AUSTRALIA’S ***HUUUGE*** FOSSIL FUEL INDUSTRY, PARTICULARLY THE COAL INDUSTRY UP IN QUEENSLAND. COAL IS STILL THE #2 EXPORT OUT OF AUSTRALIA, SO LOTS OF PEOPLE THERE SEE IT ?? AS ECONOMIC PROSPERITY. THAT ARGUMENT SEEMS TO HAVE WORKED AGAINST LABOR IN QUEENSLAND AND PROTECTED THE LIBERALS.
      https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/w172wq4nyx9knpr

      segment begins 3min40sec:

      18 May: BBC Newsroom
      at 5min04sec: BBC’s Hywel Griffith: Labor lost seats in key areas such as Queensland where coal is still king and plans to cut carbon emissions further were viewed with suspicion by those who depend on the fossil fuel industries for employment. having misjudged the voters, Shorten was forced to admit defeat and quit as Labor leader.
      https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/w172wyfn3kvf14k

      80

      • #
        theRealUniverse

        BBC Newshour bulshyte Presenter: Lyse Doucet
        The British Bulls^t Corporation strikes again with a non statement from its extreme left, they must be running scared.

        31

        • #
          theRealUniverse

          Shorten was forced to admit defeat..NO got a BIG boot up the a……s! BBC looking for a rock to crawl under as they probably had all the ‘victory of ALP in Australia’ statements all lined ready to roll for the ‘predicted result’ that never was.

          21

  • #
    David Lee

    The Aussies have punched through the illusion of Matrix! Never trust the establishment “news” or “polls” again!

    100

  • #
    Robin Barker

    ‘Goodbye Bill, thankyou for your service’.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E1jf2hOkec4

    40

    • #
      robert rosicka

      Yes and don’t let the door slam you on the backside on the way out .

      30

      • #
        AndyG55

        “and don’t let the door slam you on the backside on the way out “

        Oh, but please do.

        … and send him flying to do a massive faceplant into his own BS.

        70

  • #
    PeterS

    More good news. The Liberal bedwetters have been rejected. Morrison now has a clear mandate to do a lot of good things, such as get our of the Paris agreement.

    100

  • #
    pat

    18 May: ABC: Election 2019 result sees Peter Dutton victory amid Labor wipe-out in Queensland
    By Nick Wiggins
    Updated about 3 hours ago
    Capricornia Liberal MP Michelle Landry said the massive swing towards her was “beyond belief”.
    She said she owed her success to a convoy of anti-Adani protesters, which descended on central Queensland last month.
    “Thank you Bob Brown is all I can say,” she said.

    ABC’s chief election analyst Antony Green said the Coalition was on track to win 23 seats in Queensland, while Labor has so far been left with five.
    The seat of Lilley, previously held by former Labor treasurer Wayne Swan, is still in doubt with Labor’s Anika Wells only slightly ahead…

    Former prime minister John Howard said Queenslanders were “common-sense Australians”.
    ***”They worry about job security. And when they saw a Labor Party prepared to destroy jobs in the name of climate ideology in relation to the Adani mine, they said ‘that’s not for Queensland’.”…

    During his victory speech in Townsville, the successful LNP candidate for Herbert, Phillip Thompson, was met by chants of “Adani” from the crowd.
    “We are from grassroots. I see small business, I see Defence, I see people who work for — and you’re going to like this — the Adani mine,” he said.
    “We don’t shy away from that in north Queensland … because we back projects that create jobs and economic drivers.”…

    With 74.7 per cent of the vote counted, One Nation appears to have massively out-polled Clive Palmer’s United Australia Party in Queensland.
    This morning, the ABC’s election computer still has One Nation’s Malcolm Roberts potentially picking up one of Queensland’s Senate seats…
    https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-05-18/election-result-sees-peter-dutton-win-dickson/11107396

    60

  • #

    Boys & Girls. I cannot share your excitement and optimism re the LNP win. They have proven over and over to be a “Labour Lite” party. What have they achieved or changed the previous 6 years in office (TA reversed the C02 tax is about all)? How many new dams was approved or built? How many coal fired or nuclear power stations were approved or built? Immigration to AU has increased massively/uncontrolled. Cultural Marxism exploded under their watch (freedom of speech or religion – Israel Folau, corrupted institutions – Universities, CSRO, BOM, identity politics, etc).Approving energy poverty for Australians (RET, Paris). My prediction unfortunately is very pessimistic: No new dams or power stations will be approved, immigration as usual, LNP will stay in Paris and bow down to all the UN unconstitutional requirements. I have lived through communism, socialism , cultural marxism and the combination of all three. The LNP is unfortunately part of the NWO global elite. They are not as blunt as Labour and the Greens. The outcome will be the same: Totalitarian one world socialistic government is the the end game (read Agenda 21 & now 2030). Australian leaders have signed away Australia’s sovereignty since 1992. I have deliberately corrupted my house of representative vote by writing a summarized version of these comments on the voting slip.

    91

    • #
      Kinky Keith

      ” They are not as blunt as Labour and the Greens.”

      True, and that’s the only reason they got in.

      We got the least worst option.

      110

    • #
      scaper...

      I strongly disagree with a lot of your post. Especially on water. Now that the Liberal bedwetters have been purged or have quit, it is the opportunity to get this nation moving again.

      The way I see it…the stars are aligning to get a few pet projects up and running. The water transfer project is policy of One Nation, I have sleepers on the front bench whom support this and recently, Barnaby has come out in support. Here. Dams will be built in Northern Australia…an ANDEV thing.

      I have been a sleeper since Abbott was knifed and now it is time to seize the opportunity. I’m back in the game. As far as population is concerned…I would prefer it was reduced but it isn’t, it plays into another project that was formulated around the beginning of the century.

      I believe a new, coal fired power station will be constructed, inland from Townsville. It is reliant on the opening up of the Galilee Basin to coal mining. Australia rejected socialism yesterday and will do so again in the future. It is not part of the Aussie psyche. I’m very optimistic but it will take hard work.

      60

      • #
        Kinky Keith

        But Scaper, you don’t seem to be disagreeing with Staal’s comment.

        Am I missing something?

        20

        • #
          scaper...

          The LNP are not part of the NWO for starters and Australia will NEVER be socialist.

          50

          • #

            All city and town counsels in AU have implemented the UN Agenda 21 fully. State Gov’s & National Gov’s are a few steps behind. How many years has PHON party been around? 20 years? The Nationals? All talk, NO DAMS! Mass immigration: work?, energy?, water?. What an utter disgrace. MP’s and Senators, 3 decades of gravy train remuneration, nothing delivered for Australians. You honestly believe those clowns in Canberra are not part of the NWO global elite?

            61

            • #
              Kinky Keith

              Very clear and unambiguous.

              Self Interest has been the hallmark of recent politics and the liberals are just not quite as bad as the others.

              50

          • #
            joseph

            If the LNP aren’t part of the NWO then I guess I don’t know what the NWO is . . . . . .

            30

            • #
              scaper...

              Joseph, name them then. Come on…just two that are in this government.

              10

              • #
                robert rosicka

                Could name more than two , everyone of them that voted Turdball in .

                20

              • #
                joseph

                Scaper,
                I think of it more in terms of structure. You could say that everyone in the government is part of it. It doesn’t mean that everyone in government would be thinking of themselves as being conscious, active, participants in manifesting what has come to be known as the NWO. For instance, you might enter into an trade agreement, thinking you’re benefiting your country financially and just accept that the national sovereignty you just sacrificed was a necessary part of the bargain, and little by little . . . . . .

                10

              • #
                scaper...

                No robert, the bedwetters were just useful idiots. Bishop and Turnbull are, but they are gone. Bishop will be pissed off because the Coalition held. It did not go to plan.

                But Labor? Full of Fabians! In fact, most of our PMs are/were Fabians except Howard and Abbott. Not sure about Morrison though.

                10

      • #
        Deplorable Lord Kek

        I would prefer [immigration] was reduced but it isn’t,

        Everyone would prefer it reduced but it isn’t.

        The data on overpopulation is undeniable:

        (1) Net overseas migration has nearly doubled since 2000.

        (2) According to the ABS, net overseas migration for the year ended 31 March 2018 was 236,800 people.

        (3) World Bank data for 2017 show that Australia’s population growth was 1.6%. This is much higher than other developed countries with comparable immigration programs such as Canada (1.2%), the UK (0.6%) and the United States (0.7%).

        This immigration rate is clearly unsustainable and unplanned for: In 1998, the ABS forecast Australia’s population wouldn’t reach between 23.5 and 26.4 million until 2051.

        We reached 25 million in 2018.

        Effects: (1) school overcrowding; (2) health system overcrowding; (3) public amenities overcrowding; (5) wage growth suppressed by high immigration rate; (6) house prices artificially inflated by high immigration drives up demand; (7) social cohesion (identity politics); (8) water supply (despite massive population increase, no new dams built); (8) Road congestion; (9) excessive high-rise development, destruction of garden suburbs… etc.

        Funny how the climate change crowds never crows about overpopulation even though rapid population growth is a clear driver of co2 emissions.

        100

    • #
      NB

      Staal, you may be correct. Hopefully, though, there will be changes in the party room about the general direction of the country. Also, this gives the population a chance to see what this brand of liberals is like. If the current crop of libs don’t perform, then there is always the option of tightening things up more as we watch successes in the USA. USA is likely to lead the way over the next five or so years. Additionally this shows the ALP that flirting with the policies of madness is not such a great idea. They might even have to come up with some good ideas with which to entice the electorate. For example, they could become the party of nuclear energy if the libs won’t.
      One small change I hope for is putting advertising on the ABC. I think the taxpayer needs to know their burden is to be lifted a little, and that more of a level playing field is created for other media organisations. It’s only fair! (Chuckle)

      50

    • #
      Hanrahan

      What have they achieved or changed the previous 6 years in office (TA reversed the C02 tax is about all)?

      and the mining tax AND stopped the boats, and they are still stopped [better that Trump’s mess]. Having life boats at the ready for those who sabotaged their own boats was a stroke of genius.

      They are close to repairing the budget after the wrecking job Rudd did on it and they are rid of the bed wetters. Hopefully there will be some major works coming and Snowy II will be quietly dropped. It was a binary choice anyway and they are better than the alternative.

      50

    • #
      yarpos

      I prefer to celebrate small wins than be despondent that an option that wasnt even on the table didnt get up. At least there is something to build on, rather than Labor/Green

      10

  • #
    Travis T. Jones

    “We have lost Australia for now,” warned Penn State climatologist Michael Mann in an email.

    ‘We have lost Australia for now,’ warns climate scientist in wake of election upset

    https://thinkprogress.org/we-have-lost-australia-warns-climate-scientist-scott-morrison-upset-92008fabb597/

    120

    • #
      theRealUniverse

      Mann should be in the State Pen not Penn State.

      161

    • #
      Maptram

      A quote from the attachment

      “These include “the fossil fueled Murdoch media empire, which saturated the country with dishonest right-wing campaign propaganda” working with a few “petrostates including Saudi Arabia, Russia, Trump’s America, and now Australia.”

      Note the reference to dishonest right-wing campaign propaganda. As if the left-wing campaign propaganda was anywhere near honest.

      60

  • #
    Bwiano

    We dodged a .50 cal to the head but still ended up with a .22 cal in the @@@@!

    71

    • #
      Mary E

      Bwiano – that small bit of lead in the backside should be welcomed, a reminder that sitting down and slacking off on the push to return sense to the masses and abolish green policies should not be done. If anyone in those countries which are climbing out of the green pits of doom and re-entering the world of reliable and dispatchable energy, lower taxes and freedom slows the pace, we will all lose to the socialist nonsense and pipe-dream fantasies of the watermelon people.

      Dodging a 50 cal to the head is good, of course. But that 22 cal in the backside will keep everyone on their toes!

      00

  • #
    el gordo

    Morrison to keep Price as a small target in a sensitive area.

    ‘ …. In a rare off-the-cuff undertaking, Mr Morrison guaranteed that Minister Price would retain her portfolio; it will be interesting to see if that undertaking is kept.’ ABC

    40

    • #
      scaper...

      I doubt the government will undertake any more action on global warming. Maybe reinstate the Green Army, that, in my opinion was a good policy. So I don’t care who takes the portfolio.

      60

    • #
      yarpos

      If the Libs get past 76 they need to go hard and go hard now, and stop faffing around.

      70

  • #
    Deplorable Lord Kek

    List of climate Change casualties:

    Rudd
    Gillard
    Rudd
    Turnbull
    Shorten

    will they ever learn?

    150

    • #

      Waitin’ fer Get Up to bite the dust, Lord K. I do believe, as well as the Labor Party Link, that there may be a connection with it’s Anti-Fa cousin from overseas, Rise-Up? Oo-oh I’m so-o into conspiracy theory these days, its what some evil humans do … Et Tu Soros?

      40

      • #
        Deplorable Lord Kek

        ‘conspiracy theory’ is just a term weaponized by the deep state media to crush dissenting views.

        40

        • #
          theRealUniverse

          ..invented by the CIA who are the source of most of the real ‘conspiracies’ anyway.

          30

  • #
    pattoh

    I’d better race out & get a photo of Clive’s big roadside advertising sign for posterity.

    In future times, nobody will believe he was chosen to do a reprise of Ted R’s Bull Moose Scam.

    60

    • #
      Hanrahan

      Speaking of Clive he promised to pay the workers from his refinery what he owes them. My hunch is that was dependent on his being elected.

      60

  • #
    WXcycles

    I’d love to see the I-just-sucked-a-lemon face on the supercilious Virginia Trioli, and the confected sanctimony I’m-imitating-a-cats-bum face of Tony Jones, and the I-just-ate-a-raw-onion face of the arrogant one-eyed Fran Kelly right now.

    So much crow to eat.

    150

    • #
      pattoh

      WX
      You are dead right. The horse faces for the next couple of weeks would almost make watching their ABC worth while.

      The shrinks of Sydney’s Eastern Surbrubs will all be boning up on their “Trump Derangement Syndrome” papers.
      [ & making a killing]

      70

    • #
      glen Michel

      Well I noticed Barrie Cassidy looked to have a few more creases on his dial this morning. How sad.

      50

    • #
      Kinky Keith

      On election night I got my TV going for the first time in 3 years and looked at their abc’s election coverage.

      Possibly knowing that Scomo was returning was uppermost but their manner was very subdued and very restrained compared to the usual big mouthing I listen to on their ABC radio while driving.

      But still, 15 minutes was enough.

      We don’t need the abc to verbalize and nuance every minor detail of Australia’s life.

      Get rid of them!

      KK

      20

  • #
    robert rosicka

    Was a good day first Collingwood won then the Libs won .

    21

  • #
    pat

    one of the next cabs off the rank – Justin Trudeau?

    18 May: Toronto Sun: Why the Liberals are getting unhinged on climate issues
    by Lorne Gunter
    Catherine McKenna, the federal Environment Minister, became unhinged in question period on Friday. It’s easy to understand why.
    The Liberals’ eco-agenda is collapsing, even as the party’s war room plans to make more climate action – not less – a centrepiece of this October’s federal election campaign.
    The federal carbon tax is unpopular with about two-thirds of voters. What’s more, it’s being applied unequally across the country.

    Drivers in most Liberal-friendly provinces are paying less per litre than drivers in more Conservative provinces. For instance, Newfoundlanders are paying an emission tax that works out to less than half-a-cent per litre, while Albertans are paying 6.7 cents and Ontarians 4.4 cents, according to a study released this week by the Canadian Taxpayers Federation (CTF).
    The broader implication of this uneven application is that it might help convince the Supreme Court to rule the carbon tax is unconstitutional…

    Another example of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s agenda coming apart came in reports this week that Ontario Liberal MPs were asked by party strategists to rank their highest campaign priorities in this fall’s election. Preventing climate change, which party brass rank as priority No. 1 or No. 2, came in just seventh on the MPs’ list, behind the economy, taxes and economic development…
    https://torontosun.com/opinion/columnists/gunter-why-the-liberals-are-getting-unhinged-on-climate-issues

    10 May: Bloomberg: Even Trudeau’s Canada Won’t Rid Itself of Coal
    The nation is politically riven over how to square its vast resource wealth with a commitment to cut greenhouse gas emissions.
    By Josh Wingrove; With assistance by Hayley Warren
    The Port of Vancouver exported 38 million tonnes of coal last year, on par with the biggest American terminals. Of that, about a third — 12.7 million tonnes — was thermal coal, nearly all of it U.S.-produced and shipped through Vancouver to Asia.
    That makes Canada a global cheerleader for shuttering coal-fired plants while exporting huge quantities of the fuel and leaving mines producing steel-making coal largely alone…

    Across the Rockies in oil-rich Alberta, Trudeau is accused of ignoring the energy sector. A convoy of trucks drove 2000 miles this year from Alberta to the capital, Ottawa, to protest Trudeau’s policies, with signs calling for him to “build pipelines” and “save coal.”…

    Trudeau has to decide by June on whether to expand the Trans Mountain pipeline, and all signs point to him pressing ahead…
    https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2019-05-10/even-justin-trudeau-s-canada-won-t-rid-itself-of-coal

    18 May: Washington Examiner: Around the world, backlash against expensive climate change policies
    by H. Sterling Burnett
    From Alberta to Australia, from Finland to France, and beyond, voters are increasingly showing their displeasure with expensive energy policies imposed by politicians in an inane effort to purportedly fight human-caused climate change…

    As daily headlines become ever more shrill, hyping climate fears based on projections made by unverified climate models, the international public is becoming increasingly wary of the Chicken Little claims of impending climate doom. Voters in developed countries are saying “enough is enough” to high energy prices that punish the most vulnerable but do nothing to control the weather.
    https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/op-eds/around-the-world-backlash-against-expensive-climate-change-policies

    50

    • #
      Another Ian

      Pat

      “Few if any of the pollsters predicted it. The resulting bafflement was expressed by one tweet: “How could polls, from every company, for months including exit polls taken on election day not just be wrong but spectacularly wrong?” It was a massive intelligence failure and one worthy of examination. All political parties presumably pay for accurate polling, even if it shows them losing, because possession of the true facts is the only way to adjust their strategy. But after three failed predictions in three major Anglosphere elections, it may be time to ask how the polls got it wrong.”

      http://www.smalldeadanimals.com/index.php/2019/05/19/the-deplorables-11/#comments

      I wonder how the outfit(s) that do(es) the polls for the Libs and Nats went?

      20

      • #
        Andrew McRae

        SDA says

        “How could polls, from every company, for months including exit polls taken on election day not just be wrong but spectacularly wrong?”

        Jo Nova says:

        Labor was tipped to win decisively in every poll. Even in the exit polls. So thousands of people told pollsters one thing, then they voted the other way, and hid that again on the way out the polling door.

        That’s overlooking the usual historical explanation for differences between exit polls and official results, which is tally tampering. At only 8% difference that is not the only plausible explanation in a election which was expected to be close anyhow.
        The other less dramatic explanation is that no tampering occurred and nobody lied in the exit polls, but nobody is compelled to answer an exit poll and people who voted Lib/Nat/PHON/UAP/AC were more likely to refuse to answer than the I-accidentally-deliberately-uploaded-my-life-onto-Facebook-now-please-regulate-them Total-surveillance-is-fine Collectivists.

        I can be even handed on the insults. Another way of saying the same thing is that conservatives have a bunker mentality and act like they’re part of a secret resistance movement. They probably even have a secret gang sign, like…I dunno… the

        10

        • #
          Andrew McRae

          (gah! comment displayed fine in preview but after posting got chopped on the first emojii character, retyping from memory.)

          Another way of saying the same thing is that conservatives currently have a bunker mentality and act like they’re part of a secret resistance movement. They probably even have a secret gang sign, like… I dunno… the 🖏 Okay Hand Sign. 😉 There’s no limit to what the MSM will believe about the right wing because they’ve never studied right wing philosophy or talked honestly directly with a living breathing right winger.
          It’s like, left wing is from Marx, right wing is from Venus.

          20

        • #
          yarpos

          mmmmm…if polled I would feel no obligation to tell them the truth. Even in the census I am a transexual Jedi identifying as Indigineous.

          20

    • #
      Unemployed Taxpayer

      You cannot run an economy on parasitism.

      40

  • #
    yarpos

    The echoes of Trump 2016 are pretty strong.

    Over confident Labor/Green consortium
    Lacklustre leadership candidate
    Sycophantic MSM
    Polls showing Labor win
    Reality bites
    Labor still snarking about how superior their policies are as they are losing
    Berating the Australian population for not understanding how theirs is the only way forward (stopped just short of “Deplorables”) I wonder if Plibersek and Wong ever watch videos of themselves to understand how they come across?
    We was robbed mentality, “negative Lib campaign” as if they have never done that
    MSM talking about how Libs “stole” the election

    If they dig much harder , the hole they make will take more than 3 years to get out of.

    50

    • #
      Hanrahan

      Plibers clearly thinks us in the Sunshine State are a bit slow. She said that labor had infrastructure projects ready to go that would have generated more jobs sooner than Adani. That is soooo labor: She thinks we should prefer short term work projects that pull cash out of taxpayers’ pockets to long term real jobs that increase royalties to the state and tax to the feds.

      Joh gave miners royalty honeymoons and ensured there was ample power to run the draglines and railways to haul the coal. Those mines are all that are preventing Qld from bankruptcy today and Pluckachook doesn’t appreciate that..

      50

  • #
    Robber

    The problem with Canberra as the bureaucratic centre of government:
    Three Rep seats – all held by Labor.
    Two Senate seats – probably one each, but the Greens poll 20% of the votes.
    So the majority of advisers to the LNP Government are against them.
    Drain the Swamp – decentralise the Federal bureaucracy and send them out to work in country Australia.
    And interestingly, in the Senate, Informal is polling 7% of total votes, and over 5% in the House.

    40

  • #
    Another Ian

    “NO WONDER THE ABC HOSTS LOOKED GRIM”

    “More good news from this election result! The ABC can’t collect the bribe Labor offered: ”

    https://www.heraldsun.com.au/blogs/andrew-bolt/no-wonder-the-abc-hosts-looked-grim/news-story/5463a54a1456497c77eb18477a3e70fc

    40

  • #
    Another Ian

    Remember Always that

    All sjw, center and leftist politicians, media and greens are all Factos Intolerant.

    https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-qlyaSRqnotE/XN_aC8lj41I/AAAAAAAAe1c/SpudUWvw5jcDeno31tlmd3T0YAr5CDQUQCLcBGAs/s1600/AOC-factose-intolerant.jpg

    Via SDA

    60

  • #
    David Maddison

    Yesterday I was at a polling booth handing out how-to-votes for a conservative party. Some observations as follows:

    1) Greens had many tens of meters of plastic banners attached to fences, a material of which they have a pathological hatred. Labor had less plastic banners and Libs (nominally conservative) none at all.

    2) The Greens had huge numbers of volunteers, perhaps three per entrance and my booth had five entrances. Labor maybe two per entrance, Libs one.

    3) I saw two Greens get into their cars. One was a $100,000 plus Tesla, the other was a fuel guzzling Toyota Land Cruiser.

    4) There was a tragic Green child there, perhaps 12 yrs, a heavily indoctrinated mindless, brainless drone handing out literature both to adults and other children and telling scare stories to other children. She was also telling other children how they could go “on strike” (it used to be called truancy) to save the planet from a supposed climate catastrophe.

    80

    • #
      robert rosicka

      We voted late about 5ish pm and the independent had about five muggers and the only other spruiker was a Liberal .

      20

    • #
      yarpos

      Sadly, the Labor banners are half hanging dejectedly and unloved from the fence in front of our little polling place. I guess nobody wants a momento? hangovers to great? someone elses problem? perhaps a grant to come and get them?

      30

  • #
    Another Ian

    Time to give C.J. Dennis’s “The Australaise” a run (IMO)

    Words at the end of

    https://ninglun.wordpress.com/2007/11/09/friday-australian-poem-15-the-australaise-by-c-j-dennis/

    30

  • #
    pat

    Another Ian –

    re the polls. here’s ABC:

    19 May: ABC: Election 2019: How the polls got it so wrong in predicting a Labor victory
    By Paige Cockburn and Bellinda Kontominas
    Updated 11 minutes ago
    Experts say cost cutting and technological change in the polling process is leading to many inaccurate and misleading suggestions…

    Social media the answer?
    One man who did predict a Scott Morrison stay said traditional polling was past its used by date.
    Data mining expert from Griffith University Professor Bela Stantic, who predicted Donald Trump’s election to US presidency and Brexit, uses his own methods to gauge opinion.
    “I am able to assess the opinions of people through their social media … other polling has a much smaller sample.
    “I must [just] be careful of fake news.”…READ ON
    https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-05-19/federal-election-results-how-the-polls-got-it-so-wrong/11128176

    above has link to “Top Stories: Analysis: How Bob Brown and his anti-Adani convoy handed Queensland to the Coalition

    which is now headlined:

    19 May: ABC: Election 2019: Why Queensland turned its back on Labor and helped Scott Morrison to victory
    By Allyson Horn
    Updated about 2 hours ago
    VIDEO: 12sec
    If there’s one thing Queenslanders don’t like, it’s being told what to do.
    When Bob Brown’s anti-Adani convoy rolled through the Sunshine State demanding voters shun coal, he hammered a nail in Bill Shorten’s electoral coffin…

    In Adani country, Michelle Landry, George Christensen and Ken O’Dowd recorded swings of up to 15 per cent to transform their ultra-marginal electorates into comfortably safe seats… READ ON
    https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-05-19/how-labor-lost-queensland-and-gifted-the-coalition-a-third-term/11122998

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      robert rosicka

      I’ve heard that there has been 12 closely contested federal elections since federation and 11 times the sitting government of the day have won .

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      yarpos

      social media as a way of doing accurate polling and getting touch with reality? …..someone really said that? it had to be an academic, oh wait ..

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    pat

    One Nation candidate Stuart Bonds a threat to Joel Fitzgibbon’s Hunter seat
    Adani backlash: One Nation threat to Hunter
    Pro-coal candidate Stuart Bonds has gained a 20 per cent swing in the Labor seat of Hunter.
    By SID MAHER
    The Australian – 19 May 2019

    Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk denies Adani link to federal election loss
    Courier Mail-5 hours ago
    PREMIER Annastacia Palaszczuk and her Deputy Jackie Trad have refused to concede the handling of the Adani coal mine had a role in Labor’s drubbing at the polls…

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      WXcycles

      PREMIER Annastacia Palaszczuk and her Deputy Jackie Trad have refused to concede the handling of the Adani coal mine had a role in Labor’s drubbing at the polls…

      In other words, they still aren’t going to let it make it into production and to export coal.

      Pay attention Queensland.

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    RickWill

    Alan Jones was on the Channel 7 election reporting panel. I have never been a fan of the man but he had some insightful comments and never missed an opportunity to stick the boot into Labor on Climate Change.

    Tonight, though, here’s what he had to say on the topic. After fellow panellist, Labor MP Chris Bowen, asked “what is the Morrison government going to do on Monday if it is elected?”, Jones jumped in to cheerfully point out that “well, we won’t have to have a 50 percent renewable energy target, that’s for sure!”

    Jeff Kennett felt Palmer’s advertising had hurt Labor. In that regard he considered it money well spent although it did not deliver much for the PUP.

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      Analitik

      Jones pulled out the point that Australia contributes 1.3% of man made CO2 emissions which form 3% of the total emissions of a gas that makes up 0.04% of the atmosphere.

      For doing that on mainstream Australian television, I now hold him in high regard even though I’m no fan of his radio show

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        robert rosicka

        Gets even worse when you point out that about 96% of that 0.04% is natural CO2 , so now your staring at a decimal point with a bucket load of zeros .

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    yarpos

    I love how we have elections on a Saturday, the nation is waiting for results. Will the LNP rule with a majority, whats happening in the Senate!! So counting of course continues relentlessly? well not so much. Because Straya! and its Sunday , nah mate it can wait till Monday. Whats the rush?

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    Rick Kinsman

    I spent the afternoon handing out material for Cory Bernardi’s candidates in W.A and noticed a couple of things I’ve never noticed before at polling places. Firstly, the number of people who flatly refused to take any material from any of the volunteers handing stuff out. I estimate about 35 – 40% did this. Secondly, in response to questions about Australian Conservatives, many were pleasantly surprised and keen to take the extra brochures we had outlining policies.
    Maybe there’s hope yet for the future!

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    Hanrahan

    The left never changes its spots. A One Nation truck was torched in Tas.

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    richard

    From the UK – Well done Australia and look forward to renewed trading after Brrexit once Farage has kicked the Tories and Labour into the long grass.

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    Morphy

    Congratulations, Australia…. the last bastion of great big balls left on the planet and you found them just in time.

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    French geographer

    Thank You, dear Australian Fellows ! You kicked out the green alarmists who change the Labor Party into an ecological stupid party. The same phenomenon is detroying the political debate in all european countries, and especially here, in France.
    The actual campaign for the european elections is completely polluted by the cliamate alarmists.
    Your vote gives us hope again in our fight for the frexit (doing France out of the EU) after our British friends who voted for the brexit.

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      Annie

      Bon chance avec le frexit!

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      Richard S Courtney

      French geographer,

      The UK started the global warming scare (see https://tallbloke.wordpress.com/2012/09/12/richard-courtney-the-history-of-the-global-warming-scare/ ) and remains the greatest supporter of the scare to this day.

      For example, there has been little mention of the Australian election result here in the UK, and there has no reporting (n.b. no reporting, none, not any) in the main UK media of that election’s rejection of climate alarmism. However, a few weeks ago an autistic teenager visited from Scandinavia and called for declaration of a ‘Climate Emergency’: she was feted by all the UK’s political parties and the UK Parliament responded to her visit by voting to adopt an undefined state of ‘Climate Emergency’.

      Richard

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    David Wojick

    CFACT, my home base, has reprinted this great post:
    https://www.cfact.org/2019/05/18/australia-votes-2019-shock-climate-action-bombs-pollsters-crash-skeptics-win/

    Mind you we haste a standing cadre of alarmist commenters, so there will be nothing like the deep discussion here (which is why I am here).

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    Ruairi

    Those Australian voters were wise,
    Not to fall for climate-change lies,
    Through electing by poll,
    They opted for coal,
    Giving warmists a nasty surprise.

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    Thanks for a great summing up of the aftermath of the election, Jo. Can we wish that this is the start of the death of Climatism in Australian and even World elections?

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    Bill Hall

    Speaking as a “knuckle dragging climate denier”, the message all to all the ‘global warming’ parasites is, the climate HAS changed (finally !).

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    Dean_from_Ohio

    I’m so happy for you guys! Three cheers for freedom and truth and prosperity down under!

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      Deano

      Thanks – always great to get support from our mates in the U.S. or anywhere sensible people have managed to evade indoctrination.

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    Richard S Courtney

    Dear Jo,

    Sincere congratulations to you and all other climate realists in Australia.

    You have shown the way. It is now up to the rest of us to follow your example and to save civilisation in our countries by championing Enlightenment thought and opposing medieval-style superstitions such as the global warming scare.

    Richard

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    Fabian ecological national socialism is the fair-haired child of “former” Fabian socialists, racial nationalsocialists, Soviet socialists, People’s Temple Kool-Aid collectivists, Mao Tse-tung broad-jumping athletes, Venezuelan junta managers and Cuban Doctors Without Boarders. Showered with money by the Nixon Anti-Libertarian Campaign Finance law it owns government-controlled media and evidently even the bookmakers at Paddypower. Nothing has so powerfully hampered the enemies of the religious mercantilist version of a mixed economy since the nihilistic fanaticism of the No Nukes movement operative at the twilight of the Soviet empire. If the movement had had an anaconda stranglehold on the Dems in 1932, Herbert Hoover would likely have led Amerika into a Greater Reich with Gott Mitt Uns on every dollar bill.

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    Zane

    Go Sco-Mo!

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    Deano

    3 days out from the election, a local talk-back radio show in Perth held a quick poll of listeners on who they’d vote for, and who they thought would win. Interestingly, most said they’d vote Libs, but most thought Labor would win. It seemed like most believed the aggressively pushed ABC/Fairfax mantra that ‘everyone’ was voting Labor/Greens, yet most individuals privately favored the Coalition. Talk-back listeners usually lean right so it was hardly meant to be a scientific poll, but the Empororer’s New Clothes syndrome was at work again.

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