Guest essay by Eric Worrall
One of the most intriguing takeaways from the 18th May Federal Election in Australia is how poorly Labor’s climate action political campaign focus played in working class areas.
Scott Morrison has earnt a permanent place as a Liberal Party legend — returning the Government in what was meant to be an unwinnable election for the Coalition.
Mr Morrison smashed the doctrine that disunity will lead to electoral death.
Despite three prime ministers in two terms of government, the Queensland swing to back the Coalition and swings in Tasmania and WA showed that ultimately jobs and fear of change are too dominant.
The Prime Minister made the campaign all about economic management and himself — out-campaigning Labor by running a brutal and stunning campaign demolishing Labor’s big-target policy agenda.Mr Morrison made the campaign a referendum on him and Bill Shorten, and downplayed the Liberal brand — cultivating a new Scott Morrison image and promising to be a steady pair of hands on the economy.
He told a packed crowd of Liberal supporters in Sydney he had always believed in miracles.“And tonight we’ve been delivered another one,” he said.
…
Read more: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-05-19/federal-election-result-morrison-turn-labor-strategy-into-weapon/11116468
This isn’t the first time the climate movement has misjudged their audience. The wealthy elitism of the climate movement was on full display during the recent Extinction Rebellion shutdown of central London.
During the “rebellion”, leisure rich dilettante hippies partied in London, creating commuter misery for people who have to work for a living. Yet the out of touch Extinction Rebellion hippies somehow thought that raising “awareness” of climate change, by mocking workers with their privilege, would win support from the victims of their disruption.
The Australian Labor Party was traditionally the party of workers. But like Extinction Rebellion in the UK, and the Democrats in the USA, the Australian Labor Party has lost touch with their base, and become the plaything of rich champagne socialists who want to assuage their self indulgent liberal angst by virtue signalling issues like climate activism.
The May 18 2019 Australian election is a message to the climate movement, and to out of touch politicians everywhere who somehow think climate messages are a way of connecting with voters; it’s not working.
Update (EW): Fixed a spelling mistake (h/t Tony)
What is bemusing is that the ABC are doubling down on something that never actually happened.
Morrison is practically invisible. Your part of Australia may vary, but in mine and my 40 minute each way daily drive to the day job I can recall seeing no posters of either Shorten or Morrison.
Labor tried to campaign on Climate Action. I actually received from letterboxing an ALP card saying ‘If the Liberals truly believed in Climate Action they would not have gotten rid of Malcolm Turnbull’. To be honest I am not even sure what that is suppose to mean. Don’t the ALP understand that conservatives HATED Turnbull? This wonderful reminder, kindly hand delivered by ALP members, basically said ‘Hey, remember that leader you liked who pushed that expensive policy you don’t believe in? Well both of them are gone now, so it is safe for you to vote for our political enemies again!’
Core point on Climate Action that everyone in Australia seems unable to understand. The Greens get less than 10% of the vote. The Greens. The political party that wears their gaia worship very very clearly in their party name. That have been proudly and loudly pushing Climate Action for over a decade and 90% of Australian voters have always answered by giving their votes to someone else.
Climate Action is dead. Climate Action is so dead that the Greens here in South Oz seems to have more posters up pushing marine parks, the Bight and water management in the Murray Darling. Even they were refusing to go full Climate.
Shorten lost because the Australian public dislike him and believe him to be something of an idiot who would struggle to tell you what day of the week it was without evasion and getting the month wrong.
Labor lost because they tried to go Full Climate Action on a public that now cares more about cost of living and then utterly failed to crush rumours it was going to cost voters their first born.
Labor lost because they pushed class warfare while lacking the self awareness of what actual class they actually are.
Labor lost because they fail to understand that the ‘Little Aussie Battler’ is now a conservative small business owner with a massive morgage and not the pro union semi skilled factory worker.
Labor lost because they fail to realise the semi skilled factory workers lost their jobs when their own greedy unions destroyed the manufacturing industry and those people have moved on.
Labor lost because they fail to realise their core supporters are now public servants and the rest of Australia actually work for a living.
Labor lost because they believed the polls would transfer straight over into the ballot boxes.
Morrison won by simply not being stupid, offering a safe, low risk low cost policy and remembering to never do a nudie run outside a primary school. (cause let’s face it, NO ONE votes for anyone who nudie runs outside schools, so for all those thinking of one day getting into politics? Keep ya pants on!)
(actually, now I have raised that point, what actually were the Liberal policies? The only one I can actually remember is ‘This is the one Bill Australia cannot afford’, so basically as far as I can remember the ENTIRE Liberal election promise was not to be as dumb as Shorten.)
Morrison won by keeping to the game plan and refusing to believe what the MSM were telling him.
The fact that the ABC do not understand this is another sign they are not only pointless, but are actually beginning to become a danger to themselves.
the abc are always for labor socialist as they want moar money!!!
in spite of massive wages they still claim poverty and underfunding
abc was all over whatsis face Krudd and then julIAR, and still is.
amazing how quiet they were today ;-)))))
theyre having scomo derangement symptoms in the broom closet
or any closet thats handy , they have a lot of closet space in abc buildings;-)
Very true Craig. The only thing ScoMo had to do was not be stupid and let people keep looking at Shorten and thinking ‘no way’. The Climate Obsession seems to have been losing for Labor at least since KRudd exposed himself for what he was and his back to ‘No Carbon Tax’ Julia.
I would prefer to see the ABC reformed and be forced to be non-partisan, rather than privatised or eliminated. They are still the best source of some hard news, e.g. disasters and electoral outcomes, but one does have to ignore the ideological ranting that goes along with the reporting. (Antony Green, however, seems a relict of the past and more interested in analysis than pushing dogma.) It is a travesty, though, that so many tax dollars go to the ABC for barracking in support of the Green Party and Labor.
The horny ones?
“Workers with their privilege.”
You just can’t make this sh=t up!
In all venues, three-generation socio-cultural cycles shift regular as clockwork every 2 x 36 = 72 years. For example, Russia’s sadsack Soviet Era lasted 1919 – ’91… as of 2017, seventy-two years past Hiroshima, the post-WW II period of crypto-fascist administrative/regulatory (“Deep State”) dominance by Enarque clerisies ground finally to its end.
As in (roughly) 1848 – 1920, since 2016 a sea-change in ye ole Western cultural Zeitgeist (to date, the spirit driving all the rest) has set the world’s dirigiste New Bourbon oligarchs shivering on their club barstools. Come the much-bruited robotics/AI “Singularity” of AD 2030, concomitant with a 70+ year Grand Solar Minimum similar to that of 1645 – 1715, the years to c. AD 2100 and beyond will witness changes dwarfing those of 1801 – 1900, 1901 – 2000; and as ever, the world’s blinkered, cozened “experts on the future” will be the most surprised.
Anyone born after c. AD 2050 – ’75 will download his psyche to a hyperlinked, effectively immortal symbiontic exocete, typically plying gigantic exosolar refugia ever-outward to the stars.
Seems there is confusion between ” rich champagne socialists”
and hippies.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Hippie
Looking back you’d think our political leaders with half a brain would have learnt by now that getting serious about climate change is to commit political suicide so add Battery Bill to the pile of corpses. The punters don’t mind being thrown some pink batts, solar panel subsidies and FIT, CF/LED globes, shower heads and the odd door draught stopper but don’t go talking about fuel and carbon taxes or saying you can’t possibly put a price on changing the climate and intimating the sky’s the limit. That’s yellow vest stuff but we’re more laid back than that and Bill was a dead man talking.
Climate change is now like world peace motherhood and fluffy kittens. You can’t go around intimating fluffy kittens are a steaming pile of manure but you’re not remotely expected to own one or rescue one from the pound and pay to look after it. Just smile and pay it lip service but Battery Bill took it all seriously. Next!
There is one wee problem with the fluffy kitten approach. National power grids don’t run on emotion but physics and engineering with concomitant economics so that’s ScoMo’s BIG number one problem now. He was the brains behind Operation Sovereign Borders that stopped the fluffy kitten drownings when the serious fluffy kitten mob reckoned it couldn’t be done humanely. So it will be very interesting to see how he handles the rising power bill problem and the national grid headed for a train wreck with increasing unreliables. Lip service and fluffy kittens aren’t all they’re cracked up to be.
I bet he was in his secret lair
… stroking his white cat.
Joe Romm wrote this Think Progress Article
‘We have lost Australia for now,’ warns climate scientist in wake of election upset
“A coalition of a small number of bad actors now threaten the survivability of our species,”
Reads: Gulp! Our cosy gravy train sustainability club is coming to an end here guys.
That’s hilarious – posted, thanks.
“A small number of bad actors”…elected by an increased proportion of Australian citizens.
Funny how they can characterise a ballot of 95% of Australia’s adult population (Australia has compulsory voting), can as determined by a small number of people.
I think that our lefty friends have “lost the plot” as the Brits say.
Old Plot: OMG, the world is going to end unless we fight for the workers.
Good idea, because back in the day, the workers were the majority of voters, and they liked the free stuff.
Today’s Plot: OMG, the world is going to end unless we save the climate.
Bad idea, because the majority of voters just want jobs, housing, and a future for their kids. Free stuff? Only climate scientists and Tesla buyers need apply.
Unfortunately ScoMo’s team includes some affluent poseurs who are still insisting that “climate change is real” – well, yes it is but humans can’t control it and it won’t necessarily be detrimental anyway.
So this is a form of reprieve but not yet victory.
”still insisting that “climate change is real” – well, yes it is”
Not it’s not. And that’s the problem. What we are talking about is a small change (most probably temporary and benign) in weather…..if that!
The definition of climate being 30 years’ average weather is made up garbage.
CLIMATE……
The meteorological conditions, including temperature, precipitation, and wind, that characteristically prevail in a particular region……(eg tropical, temperate, polar)
CHANGE……..
The replacing of one thing for another; substitution.
Language in Normandy originated from Norske, Norman. With loanwords from french, the lingua franca for easier communication between the people.
The written language was Latin, spiritual and secular leaders were able to easily communicate in the then known world across political and religious boundaries.
Anglo-Saxon was a plain german dialect – which led to short, easy-to-understand expressions.
SO PROUD TO BE AN AUSSIE FOR A WHILE AND HOPEFULLY A WHILE LONGER
1. Judge Salvadore Vasta’s judgement of JCU bullying of Peter Ridd
2. ignorant climate change agendas did not prevail in our latest election
oi oi oi
Its a mantra I have been drumming for a long time now. This whole climate hoax is a fad that must necessarily go into a self-induced suicide spin as the remedy proposed denies the majority of the population of just about anywhere a decent life. And people want to live – they care about jobs – they care about full stomachs – hell they even care about their nightly sitcom. Those are the things people really do care about ultimately when they are done with virtue signaling. Because gluing your breasts to the street is no fun when the hospital that’s supposed to fix the stupid damage you do to yourself has no more electricity to just do that. Or when people have to choose between eating or heating. There will be more like this and in Europe, it’s festering.