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stui magpie 
Prepare for the worst, hope for the best.
Joined: 03 May 2005
Location: In flagrante delicto
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This could equally go in the Vic election thread, but works here.
Part of a Herald Sun opinion piece by James Campbell
| Quote: | the truly scary thing for the Liberals around the country was not that the party’s vote crashed in outer suburbia — an outcome that could probably be explained away as a consequence of a first-term state government splashing money around — but that it was walloped in what we once upon a time used to call its heartland seats of Hawthorn, Malvern, Kew, Brighton and Sandringham, as well as the inner-city marginal of Prahran.
These are places where cost-of-living concerns are not exactly front of mind for most voters, and they’ve hardly been the beneficiaries of the Labor Party’s spendathon these past few years.
I bet most people in Hawthorn and Armadale thought Scott Morrison looked weird holding up a piece of coal in parliament.
To understand why voters have turned on the Liberals, you have to talk about culture.
Not the just the culture inside the Liberal Party — as important as that subject is — but the culture in which these voters live their lives.
In person, Peter Dutton can be charming and agreeable company. But when he tells Melburnians they are scared to go out to restaurants, he looks like a visitor from another planet — and not a friendly one either.
Holding up a piece of coal in parliament — as Scott Morrison did last year — must have seemed like a terrific wheeze at the time and maybe it wowed them in Queensland, I wouldn’t know.
But I bet you most people in Hawthorn and Armadale thought it just looked weird.
What has become clear since August is that as odd as these voters find the obsessions of the parliamentary Liberal Party in Canberra, they were prepared to overlook them as long as the party was led by Malcolm Turnbull, a man who looked as though he shared their worldview.
And the moment he went, they decided that there wasn’t really anything keeping them attached to the Liberal Party anymore.
Voting Liberal was something many of them did in the privacy of the ballot box out of habit — it has been years, if ever, since many of them were prepared to work at a polling booth or put a Liberal poster in their front yard.
The Liberal Party, with its hostility to arguments in favour of anthropomorphic climate and weird obsessions with trans-sexuality, just doesn’t fit them anymore.
And as their counterparts did in Wentworth earlier this year, these people have now decided they’re off.
In short, the Liberals find themselves contemplating the same collapse in their heartland vote as the UK Conservatives did 20 years ago — and for much the same reasons.
It took that party a decade before it accepted, as I wrote 10 years ago, “that Britain had changed and that the Tory party needed to change to better reflect it: It needed to be friendlier to Britain’s migrants, gays and women, to confront what former Tory adviser Daniel Finkelstein called the task of ‘making peace with the Sixties’”.
Whether it takes the Liberals in Australia as long to get this message is a matter for them. |
https://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/opinion/james-campbell/james-campbell-liberals-dont-fit-anymore-and-not-just-in-victoria/news-story/4a94161c4c50b4275b5a04f4f0b4a214
And this section in an article by Jeff Kennet
| Quote: | I believe, and still deeply believe, in the fundamental tenets behind the creation and deliberate naming of the Liberal Party by Robert Menzies.
At its centre is the supremacy of the individual and the private sector to best meet the many needs of the vulnerable and those forgotten, and to encourage a prosperous, open economy.
The best the Liberal Party can offer is to be economically conservative in how it manages the taxes you pay, but to be socially liberal, humane and generous. |
https://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/opinion/jeff-kennett-liberals-need-big-changes-at-the-top/news-story/8854a639606a10540d490fe68307b026
I've never been a fan of Kennett, but his description of the Liberal party certainly seems at odds with where the more right wing punters want it to go.
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Every dead body on Mt Everest was once a highly motivated person, so maybe just calm the **** down. |
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David 
I dare you to try
Joined: 27 Jul 2003
Location: Andromeda
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When you've got one federal MP (Julia Banks) leaving the party because it's become too right-wing and another (Craig Kelly) threatening to leave the party because it's not right-wing enough, you know your party is heading for a split. The prospect of that actually happening still seems unlikely (as it would quite possibly destroy the Liberal Party as we know it, at least for a number of years), but one does wonder how much longer the status quo of a right-wing trying to push the party into One Nation territory and a centre-right faction trying to return to the mainstream can persist.
I suspect what we might end up seeing in the event of a catastrophic election result next year is an exodus of a small number of MPs (perhaps including Dutton and his supporters) to Bernardi's Australian Conservatives outfit, and a weakened Liberal Party spending a couple of election cycles in the wilderness trying to rebuild itself around a more socially progressive centre-right politics, ala the UK Conservative Party – basically, a Turnbullist model. Either way, expect plenty of ugly battles ahead.
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All watched over by machines of loving grace |
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Pies4shaw 
pies4shaw
Joined: 08 Oct 2007
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| Perhaps Queensland will secede. If that happens, the Libs won’t have to worry about mixing with the Duttzis because they’re a fairly localised phenomenon. |
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Dave The Man 
Joined: 01 Apr 2005
Location: Someville, Victoria, Australia
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They are on Borrowed Time.
They will get Destroyed in Next Years Federal Election
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I am Da Man |
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Culprit 
Joined: 06 Feb 2003
Location: Port Melbourne
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David
I dare you to try
Joined: 27 Jul 2003
Location: Andromeda
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And the obsession about politicians’ private lives continues unabated...
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All watched over by machines of loving grace |
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Culprit
Joined: 06 Feb 2003
Location: Port Melbourne
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| David wrote: | | And the obsession about politicians’ private lives continues unabated... |
You put yourself up on a moral pedestal, you will get your head knocked off. Nothing like self righteous ar*eholes shooting themselves in the foot. |
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think positive
Side By Side
Joined: 30 Jun 2005
Location: somewhere
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Yup! That’s actually a funny read! Hellloooo Karma!
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You cant fix stupid, turns out you cant quarantine it either! |
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K
Joined: 09 Sep 2011
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| Broad told the woman he was "a country boy so I know how to fly a plane, ride a horse, and **** my woman". |
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David
I dare you to try
Joined: 27 Jul 2003
Location: Andromeda
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I don't want to make a habit of going in to bat for conservative politicians, but I think the key accusation against Broad here – of hypocrisy – may be a little overstated. Here's a piece on him from last year that's been making the rounds in the last 24 hours:
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-05-06/keeping-the-faith-andrew-broad/8476438
| Quote: | Mr Broad considered going into youth work when he finished year 12 and is still a strong Christian.
But he's keen to point out he's "not Fred Nile" and doesn't want to be put in the "Christian politician" column.
"I'm a member of Parliament who's got a belief and that belief does stem from the basic principles that the human race has fallen, that we can be redeemed," he says. |
He actually comes across as a pretty compassionate and (for the Nationals) forward-thinking guy, and not exactly the type to force his Christian views on others. There may be other issues orbiting this that end up proving more damning, but honestly it just seems really backward to me that this kind of thing still qualifies as a scandal.
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All watched over by machines of loving grace |
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K
Joined: 09 Sep 2011
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| Clearly, the first thing is to establish whether this was all on private time and private money. |
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David
I dare you to try
Joined: 27 Jul 2003
Location: Andromeda
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^ Indeed. But to be fair, whether or not that's the case, it shouldn't make a difference whether he's hooking up with a "sugar baby", hanging out on a boat and drinking ginger beer or going to a friend's wedding. In that schema, it'd be misuse of entitlements that's the issue, not who he's sleeping with while doing it.
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All watched over by machines of loving grace |
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K
Joined: 09 Sep 2011
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| Well, the media would claim (self-servingly, of course) that it's relevant because "family values" (in this case) or whatever is projected by the politician almost like a campaign policy. |
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Culprit
Joined: 06 Feb 2003
Location: Port Melbourne
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Culprit
Joined: 06 Feb 2003
Location: Port Melbourne
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