Given the rightward lurch of Labor under Hawke and Keating, I used to joke that Fraser was the last social democratic PM that Australia had.
I'd argue that Turnbull was terrible because he completely gave in to the right fringe of the party. He gave up on all of his professed values, and not only stayed quiet when the fringe perked up, but started to talk and act like them. It was a complete capitulation.
Abbott and Morrison were bad for obvious reasons, but Turnbull was not able to even slow the degradation of the party into what it is now.
Also whenever people pointed out to me that Shorten was so disliked because he was a Unionist, I replied that Turnbull was a fucking banker. What, do people really like banks more than unions? Apparently so.
Abbott and Morrison were bad for obvious reasons, but Turnbull was not able to even slow the degradation of the party into what it is now.
Also whenever people pointed out to me that Shorten was so disliked because he was a Unionist, I replied that Turnbull was a fucking banker. What, do people really like banks more than unions? Apparently so.
Not that I know what "moderate" means anymore in the modern Liberal party.
Jesus Christ.
The Liberals had a narrow but plausible path to rebuild with Ley. How the fuck do you build a winning coalition if your "centre-right" party capitulates entirely to rural and hard right grievance voters? There just aren't enough seats in rural and regional Australia to ever win government without the cities. Australia is not America.
Best hope for accountable governance in the next decade is if Labor needs the Greens and Teals to form minority government. Because I sure as shit don't see the right wing providing meaningful opposition.
The Liberals had a narrow but plausible path to rebuild with Ley. How the fuck do you build a winning coalition if your "centre-right" party capitulates entirely to rural and hard right grievance voters? There just aren't enough seats in rural and regional Australia to ever win government without the cities. Australia is not America.
Best hope for accountable governance in the next decade is if Labor needs the Greens and Teals to form minority government. Because I sure as shit don't see the right wing providing meaningful opposition.
Sussan Ley announces her departure from parliament, and invokes her professed punk rock past as a guide for the future.
Just when I think I've seen enough bullshit for one day.
Just when I think I've seen enough bullshit for one day.
I think I'd be doing the same if I found myself in her position. I wish her well in whatever endeavour she chooses next.
Sure hope Angus enjoys his by-election.
Be a good test of the polling on ON strength or a strong independent.
Be a good test of the polling on ON strength or a strong independent.
I'd just like to have a choice other than Hard Right or Centre-Right. Maybe if the Libs came back towards the Centre, Labor might shift back more to the left. But they continue to seem to be convinced that the only answer to being completely obliterated at the last election is to charge further to the right.
And Fraser was a piece of shit. I've heard some odd stuff about him as Defence Minister visiting Vietnam and making...specific...requests. No idea if it's true, but the stuff I do know about him isn't much better.
Yes, after retirement, he was a great advocate for refugees and migration, but that has to be balanced by the Dismissal and putting John Howard in charge of the economy.
The poll over Same Sex marriage is emblematic of his failure as PM. He could have got it through parliament without the poll, but he was afraid the Right Wing Nut Jobs in the party would throw him if he tried, so he wanted a referendum, like Ireland had just had, to force the issue. Except a referendum is only for amendments to the Constitution, and a plebecite would require special funding for the AEC to run it.
So he came up with creating a survey from the ABS, which was voluntary, because the funding could be more easily obtained. This is a completely absurd use of the ABS, and should never have happened. Fortunately for him (and most people) it got the result he wanted, so he could now pass his bill since it was "the will of the people".
But he didn't even do that. He never put forward a bill, he never even promised that there would be a bill in case the
Turnbull's leadership through that whole affair was abysmal, and what's even worse is that at some point he was actively trying to claim the legalising of same-sex marriage as his legacy.
I'm waiting for the opponents of marriage equality to publicly apologize, now none of the catastrophic consequences of dropping that bit of bigotry came to pass.
(Another bit of ABS abuse was Labour ditching LGBTQ+ questions in the census. They backflipped when it was protested, but with the bare minimum they could get away with.)
In passing on the libspill, I thought this bit from Ley's exit speech was... odd.
Retiring bus drivers don't generally proudly declare they've never seen a bus.
A moderate independent (like Milthorpe who came 2nd in 2025) taking Farrer would be easily the best by-election outcome... but One Nation taking it would be the most hilarious.
I've actually had people tell me proudly that the Liberal Party passed that law, and that Labor never did. Despite the fact the went along kicking, and screaming during the whole process.
I'm not a fan of how particularly Gillard and Wong behaved during the debate. Despite their personal opinions on marriage, they should have been more progressive on the issue. It would have been an easy win for Labor without faffing around with postal votes.
Pity. Although I'm guessing it's ripe for a Teal challenger.
Is Tim Fischer the only leader of the Nationals who hasn't been a total cunt?
Turnbull was better than Abbot but that's not saying much, and I will never forgive him for fucking over the entire country by bringing in the MTM IE Malcolm Turnbull Mess and hamstringing the NBN in order to appease Murdoch.
Pure selfish fuckery.
Yeah the sabotaging of the NBN was when I lost all respect for Turnbull.
Given the LNP is totally dependent on a continuous stream of supportive outright lies from Murdoch media to win elections, it was probably inevitable he'd cave. LNP leaders know full well that if they lose Murdoch's support they're toast, and like almost all politicians on he right he put his own career ahead of doing the right thing by the country.
On Turnbull, I'll always remember Sammy J's "Faustian pact" sketch. Great stuff.
On Taylor, I guess we'll see if the leopard can change his spots. Dutton never did, no matter how refined the glasses frame, so I expect it'll only be a short few weeks before the electorate is reminded what a monumental moron Taylor is.
Isn't politics fun.
On Taylor, I guess we'll see if the leopard can change his spots. Dutton never did, no matter how refined the glasses frame, so I expect it'll only be a short few weeks before the electorate is reminded what a monumental moron Taylor is.
Isn't politics fun.
Thanks, hadn't sen that particular bit of Sammy J's awesome body of work.
You can't rise to the top of the LNP without completely selling your soul. Taylor is a criminal conman and will always be just that.
Good visualisation of One Nation polling support.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-02-15/story-lab-one-nation-polling/106322978
No huge surprises really. By far the biggest predictors, are education (15% gap between pre-12 and postgrad), location (14% gap between rural and metro), and age (11% gap between 18-34 and 55+). It's not a QLD vs Australia thing anymore; the ACT is the only highly polarised state/territory now (which you could predict by looking at the three factors above!).
One interesting difference between One Nation and other right-wing populist parties around the world is a relatively low gender gap. Hanson might be a racist reactionary populist, but she and her supporters aren't particularly sexist. Yay?
One Nation supporter priorities stand far outside the norm of Australian politics on two specific areas. Immigration and trust in government.
So yeah, very much reaffirming what we already know, but good to have data nonetheless.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-02-15/story-lab-one-nation-polling/106322978
No huge surprises really. By far the biggest predictors, are education (15% gap between pre-12 and postgrad), location (14% gap between rural and metro), and age (11% gap between 18-34 and 55+). It's not a QLD vs Australia thing anymore; the ACT is the only highly polarised state/territory now (which you could predict by looking at the three factors above!).
One interesting difference between One Nation and other right-wing populist parties around the world is a relatively low gender gap. Hanson might be a racist reactionary populist, but she and her supporters aren't particularly sexist. Yay?
One Nation supporter priorities stand far outside the norm of Australian politics on two specific areas. Immigration and trust in government.
So yeah, very much reaffirming what we already know, but good to have data nonetheless.
I was talking to a left-leaning Sydney-based friend yesterday. She has a degree and lives in the inner city of a capital city. In her mind the strong One Nation vote doesn't make any sense. To her, One Nation is strictly a poor, ignorant, backwoods grievance thing, and there is no population outside the major cities that could influence politics. In her mind, almost all the people in the city are well-educated, well informed, have a baseline progressiveness and are not really struggling. So they can't be One Nation voters. So the alarming primary vote is an unsolved mystery.
I didn't have enough of a handle on what's happening to respond intelligently, so thanks for the link.
I think part of that is people can see something like "14% gap between rural and metro" and process it like a totally predictive boolean.
(EDIT: add inner city: the inner cities are like another country, IMO.)
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Polls this far out from an election can be misleading, and a lot can depend on the actual candidates and how they appeal to the voters. I was reading about how Tim Fischer pinched the nominally safe Liberal seat of Farrer back in 1984. Apologies if it is paywalled, here's a quote with minor edits:
Speaking of candidates, one of the more depressing things about the smaller parties is that they seem to have...let's say less thorough vetting processes for their candidates, and as a result, some absolute numpties end up being elected. This feels like a mostly right-wing phenomenon - I'm looking at you Ralph Babet and Malcolm Roberts. Although as a counter-example, Jacqui Lambie turned out to be better than she first seemed.
Speaking of candidates, one of the more depressing things about the smaller parties is that they seem to have...let's say less thorough vetting processes for their candidates, and as a result, some absolute numpties end up being elected. This feels like a mostly right-wing phenomenon - I'm looking at you Ralph Babet and Malcolm Roberts. Although as a counter-example, Jacqui Lambie turned out to be better than she first seemed.
So the highly predictable consequences of kicking the first female Liberal party leader to the curb are starting.
And friendlyjordies has a video up covering Angus Taylor becoming leader.
I think Albo's comment about Taylor was spot on:
If you're old enough, you might remember Keating asking whether a soufflé can rise twice in reference to Andrew Peacock becoming Liberal leader for the second time. He led the party to two election defeats in the '80's
If you're old enough, you might remember Keating asking whether a soufflé can rise twice in reference to Andrew Peacock becoming Liberal leader for the second time. He led the party to two election defeats in the '80's
Eh, Given that all the major parties vetting utterly failed to comply with constitutional requirements, can you really be that surprised?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2017–18_Australian_parliamentary_eligibility_crisis
I got two alerts from Apple News, this morning. One saying that Angus Taylor has a shocking new immigration policy to counter One Nation, and the other was that Charlotte Mortlock has quit the Liberal Party over a feared backlash against them sacking their first woman leader. Basically, it seems that women in the Liberal Party (according to Mortlock) are worried about the fact they just dumped Sussan like that.
The policy has been leaked:
Via a murdoch site:
Edit, also a discussion of dropping the number to 170k (from 305k), and deporting any migrants not adhering to "Australian Values"
Via a murdoch site:
Edit, also a discussion of dropping the number to 170k (from 305k), and deporting any migrants not adhering to "Australian Values"
So they're just gonna pretend the Bondi terrorists weren't radicalised while living in Australia? The son was born and raised here!
I mean, I don't know what I expected. I guess I hoped there might still be some veneer over the blatant racism.
I mean, I don't know what I expected. I guess I hoped there might still be some veneer over the blatant racism.
Sure he was born in Australia, but he had a different skin colour....
I think the real worry for women in the Liberal Party is that they’re not ever going to be seen as leaders. Ley took the poisoned chalice after the election defeat, so I don’t think anyone expected her to last but it does look like the dumped her as soon as they could. The takeaway is that women are not capable of leading the Libs and even Taylor, of all men, is better than a woman.
While I loathe Julie Bishop (defender of James Hardie and denier of asbestosis), she was far and away the best candidate they had in a decade and never got more than a few votes in the party room. And so we got the corrupt and lazy Morrison over a cruel but competent Bishop.
These two data points lead me to think they won’t allow a woman to run to an election.
I didn’t think much of Ley but she was better than Taylor on any level.
I've been saying that about Julie Bishop for ages. She may be evil, but she at least had an air of competence. But there was no way this Liberal Party would ever vote for a woman.
I see that Taylor is saying that nuclear energy is back as a Liberal party policy.
I'm absolutely certain that nuclear won't bring down prices.
Not that there’s any risk of him seizing power, but given the low unemployment now, cutting immigration will make life interesting. Economically, we really like houses and building them to sell to immigrants. Cut that market in half and what happens, what are the flow on effects? I can make a few guesses but they won’t appear in Lib slogans.
Taking policies from PHON is a fool’s errand. She doesn’t bother costing them or working out the impacts. She knows she’ll never be in power so all she has to do is get the sound bites for votes and that sweet government salary. She doesn’t care that she’d cause a recession.
The Libs are meant to be a serious party with actual policies. Sad to see they abandoned that ideal years ago and are doing nothing to change course away from a well-deserved oblivion.
Oh for the love of…
When driving toward a cliff, the rational response is to change direction. Taylor, inspired by Evil Knieval, is putting his foot on the accelerator.
(Edit: I’ve go to stop reading the news. I’m trying to bring the blood pressure down)
