The Liberal Party broad church is groaning under the strain of ideological and personality conflicts. While a fully blown schism at some point before the next federal election or shortly afterwards is improbable, it remains well within the realms of the possible.
Political parties come and go. Minor parties tear themselves apart on an almost annual basis. The Liberal Party has been a monolith in Australian politics since 1948 but that does not mean it has a guaranteed future. In a sense it is its own worst enemy, a collective gaggle of participants from the Menzian centre to the outer reaches of the spectrum on the right.
These were the conditions found within the Labor Party post-WWII and led to the split of 1954-55, keeping Labor from forming a viable alternative government for nearly two decades.
Prior to World War II conservative parties in Australia came and went, often tearing themselves apart over weaknesses in administration and brawling over policy and ideology.
Full column here.
The United States has dropped a massive GBU-43 bomb – the largest non-nuclear bomb it has ever used in combat – in eastern Afghanistan on Thursday against a series of caves used by ISIS militants, Mr Insider. POTUS Trump said he would take the fight to ISIS and Co and by damn he is! Go hard Donald!
http://tinyurl.com/m4rqjve
According to former Foreign Minister Gareth Evans, Donald Trump
“is manifestly the most ill-informed, underprepared, ethically challenged, psychologically ill-equipped President in US history.”
http://www.abc.net.au/7.30/content/2017/s4653721.htm
So DT is dumb & dangerous? This won’t end well Henry.
Wish he’d say what he means and not beat around the bush Bella
Partly what we see in the Liberals now and what we saw in Labor in the Parliamentary term before last is a reversal of the normal functioning of Australian politics, in which the Liberal factions are more based on personality and the Labor ones on ideology and politics (and later faction).
The ‘dries’ and ‘wets’ and their various sub-factions were always there in the Liberals, but since Howard’s day wherein the Dries took over much of the party and shoved the Fraser-era Wets out, and particularly since Howard’s booting, it seems to have got worse (maybe without some of the true ugliness that infested the NSW Right back in the Noughties and before). Particularly since the Right-wing factions have marched ever further towards the Right and hollowed out of any real ideology bar a version of manifestos better suited to Powerpoint presentations done by amateurs who forgot to prepare the rest of the presentation, and bluster and bullshit have replaced conviction (Labor and some of the Greens are just as bad; possibly even more hollow, really).
It’s part of the reason that the Right have been fracturing and going bonkers for the last 20 years or so, particularly with regards to minor parties who’d seemingly dearly love to turn back the clock to Fortress Australia and the White Australia Policy (the Nationals, especially, have been fighting off such groups like One Nation and the actual far-Right since the Keating and Howard years).
I’m not making any predictions, but I sort of expect Turnbull to limp on to the next election, rather like the Black Knight from Monty Python’s Holy Grail, and his ministers getting more ridiculous by the day. ‘Mr. Potato-head’ Dutton being touted as a possible replacement makes me laugh. He strikes me as a boorish incompetent who can’t run a portfolio for peanuts and relies on his nonsensical, dishonest soundbites to friendly shock-jocks for his appeal, rather than any discernible talent. Unless he and Morrison, et alia, make a bigger cock-up of the budget than 2014, that is.
Shifting back to the centre on policy and disregarding the Hard Right just enough not to jeopardise his one-seat majority and actually doing something on reducing the concessions to speculators in existing housing stock and building more social and affordable housing might reduce the blood-letting, though – and not the rather cockamamie and eminently risky policy to allow people to use up their superannuation to put a deposit on a house.
I’m also not expecting the kind of schism in the Liberals that I’ve been predicting for the best part of ten years while they remain in Government. They’d be even more foolhardy then they come across now, rather than leave it for when they’re likely choosing Turnbull’s successor after probably the next election.
Then again, I got the US election badly wrong and my Footy Tips really went further south than if I’d forgotten to put them in completely.
As for Shorten, his being behind on Preferred Prime Minister polls (for what they’re worth – they’re the easiest metric we’ve got) may well shrink the size of the ALP’s probable or possible win at the 2019 election.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=krD4hdGvGHM
I don’t know about the rest of it, but expecting the federal government to fix the housing affordability issue is just one more item in the long list of delusional expectations of an electorate that has somehow come to believe that Canberra can fix everything. Remember, the lawyers and accountants hired by private concerns are smarter and better motivated than those employed by the government, by a large margin.
I’ve said it before – the best you can expect from the national government on any issue is an ordinary result at extraordinary cost. Canberra should get out of every area of policy that affects housing cost and availability at all. The more they meddle the worse it gets.
TBLS – I have never spoken to anyone who expect the government to “fix” housing affordability. People do discuss tax concessions etc though. It is the government that is delusional in thinking they can make some noise, waste more taxpayer money and think the electorate will thank them for doing “something” when really as you note they are actually exasperating the problem by supporting speculators.
There are Liberals who would rather lose an election than move sensibly to the centre.
They also have the ‘Abbott syndrome’ of ‘We can’t do that (even if it is good policy) simply because Labor thought of it first. This goes back as far as the NBN. Abbott initially said he was going to destroy it. In fact most of the policies the Looters have adopted they stole from Labor either partially or in full.
By the way. My NBN is up and running. I am paying for 25mgbit download speed but can get no faster than
13mgbit down and 1.8mgbit upload…faster? cheaper? Malcolm? SAD CAFE
Maybe if I paid a fortune for the 100mgbit download pack I might achieve the 25mgbit pack!
The fact that people have actually mentioned Dutton as a possibility for PM shows how far down the gurgler they have gone.
Razor, I know you’ve said before you know Dutton, but *urbane*? Seriously?
Different bloke away from the spotlight TV.
PMs live in the spotlight but
Sort of begs the question as to whether any organisation other than the Coalition could turn somebody “urbane” into the Peter Dutton we see.
Perhaps if it wasn’t for Rugby League, Todd Carney would be a sophisticated metrosexual.
Nah, he’s from Goulburn. Now if it had been Queanbeyan…
You mean he shuts up in the dark?
Does he kiss his kids goodnight?
http://reneweconomy.com.au/hey-look-another-record-low-month-sea-ice-60071/
One year data? Put it in context. Over what period of time is the average? I had a look at your source – they seem to source stories from one side to suit their agenda.
Call me imaginative but it looks to me like the graph clearly shows summer and winter ice volume on a consistent downturn since 1972. A loss far exceeding Antarctic summer gains.
http://e360.yale.edu/features/as_arctic_ocean_ice_disappears_global_climate_impacts_intensify_wadhams
Imaginative!
Actually, from 1979. Go and have a look at Dismayed’s link again.
The article says “Nearly 40 years of satellite data” do you have better data?
How good was this bloke. Ahead of his time.
http://www.afl.com.au/video/2017-04-12/fantastic-five-peter-daicos-best-moments
He was pure magic. A true legend. And some of us hope that his offspring, now in the black-and-white, will come somewhere near it.
yes, a joy to watch, even for the rest of us non-Pies fans.
i particularly recall a friday night match against essendon when sheeds played a young wanganeen on him, Daics won the battle and the Pies won the game but even the bombers fans left less disgruntled than normal.
Geez JTI the Carlton Giants have 27 players not contracted past this year? Most list changes in the last couple of years and still missing at least 3 or 4 to knock on the September door. SOS needs to do better.
We’ll get rid of him and make you the list manager. Obviously your intense reading of an article on the AFL website makes you an instant expert. I just hope you can fit the new gig in what with your selection duties for the Australian Test, ODI and T-20 squads.
Oh behave, Jack. Old mate Dismayed played cricket at a level that most (ok all) have never heard about; unless you were a doting Mum or Aunt. Better than that he actually (in his own words) spoke with chaps who played for their country. I’ve, mercifully, not suffered his afl experiences, but take it from me, Dismayed is to sport what astrology is to economists are to evangelists and their heir, our future climate predictors. How’s about one of those crystal ball types tell me what the weather is going to be xmas day?
Milton, if you’ve never heard of district cricket you don’t know what the game is. I said played with guys that represented their country and knocked a few of their hats off on some juiced up district pitches. Was part of the pace squad that was the fore runner of the cricket academy in Adelaide. Maybe not test level but still better than backyarders like you if you could actually get off the couch. I am sure the Norm life be in it Ad’s were for people like you. No parents around by the time I was 15 so no folks on the sidelines. I don’t need your approval. It may have been a long time ago but at least I had ago.
Hey Milton see my other comment on football re my short lived career their. Oh and living in Adelaide I can always forecast the Xmas day weather. Hot.
Incoming!
!…but did he take ALL ten wickets against Bondi Marist Brothers in 1963?
You are thinking of your mate Rodent.
Actually Milton. reading past the brown nosing, you’re not far off the mark. To be expected I suppose, you’re well informed. Are you keeping a dossier?
Really? That is your measured response to a question? and an observation? Yes I read an article and asked a question about the team you support as man has done since football was created. Apologies for having the audacity to take an interest in football and your team. We better tell the Nation that it is no longer acceptable to discuss teams and selections.
I mean, seriously, you stick your chin out and complain when you get slapped. I could have posed the simple question: WTF do you know about AFL list management? And then sent you a postage stamp and a texta so you could write your reply in full.
Yes, it’s great to see that the AEC has confirmed Lucy Gichuhi’s election the the Senate spot vacated by Bob Day. We need more vibrant, intelligent, professional political candidates like Lucy rather than burnt out shock jocks and associated dissolute time-wasters.
Carl there must be a mistake! Dismayed assured us that Labor were set to win the spot. Eddie the expert is always right!
Yep, recount.
Razor, Eddie may well be an expert, and we all know what that means eh, but I dont think “right” is altogether an appropriate term given his erratic lean to the left is akin to a tall pine in a gale.
We wuzz robbed!
I said Labor “may sneak another Senate seat after a recount”. CotC actually made an issue of the term “sneak”. So again the mistake or probably not is your dishonest attempt to misrepresent. No Surprises.
Dwight.
Right. Gotcha, phew!
https://books.google.com.au/books?id=DKZ1uTfaVogC&pg=PA123&lpg=PA123&dq=lefty+Balistrieri&source=bl&ots=pllXpA2M7L&sig=QiTIsJSm0nX89ZtCJloZctshX8g&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiEvpyGzqDTAhWDnpQKHTbtCIcQ6AEIJTAC#v=onepage&q=lefty%20Balistrieri&f=false
My only connection with the Balistrieris passed away in December. They were an interesting family. The whole car bombing thing, which really only ended with the Donnie Brasco thing, was scary.
Thought you might appreciate the excerpt. Now that’s great writing, perfectly resonant from the crime voyeurs point of view. Here’s some recuperation inspiration from the great Runyon.
http://www.azquotes.com/author/12776-Damon_Runyon
We really should be going with the tide.
http://reneweconomy.com.au/tide-turns-as-solar-storage-costs-trump-ideologues-and-incumbents-79502/
Thank god an independent source such as reneweconomy is supplying this information. How about rentseeker dot com?
That would be Adani would it? You are supporting the worst rent seeking the Nation has seen and you spew out this rubbish.
Australia are in danger of missing the boat again due to coalition creating uncertainty for investment and ideology for a couple of FN Qld seats
http://reneweconomy.com.au/china-spend-us750-billion-wind-solar-energy-2030/
http://reneweconomy.com.au/australian-coal-indias-biggest-city-source-half-needs-solar-81707/