Australia's Commonwealth Election results

Update: after I posted this last night (at, I noticed, 11:11 PM), the ALP conceded and Bill Shorten resigned. An analysis of the election and its result has been posted here.

I've also found this about my concerns about the lies hate flowing in some Chinese social media groups.

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Wow - an unexpected result. At this stage - and vote counting will continue for some time - it looks like the neoliberal coalition government will be returned.

There have been some signs that this wouldn't happen, including:

• public opinion polls and media reaction being quite negative to the neoliberal coalition's change of leadership; 
• polls that were favouring the opposition ALP significantly over the neoliberal coalition; and 
• the strongly pro-ALP and anti-neoliberal election result in my home state.

However, there were also strong indications that the ALP's leader, Bill Shorten, was not particularly liked by voters, with personal approval ratings that were quite low. The neoliberal coalition capitalised on this, with their anti-Bill Shorten focus.

So . . . going in to the election:

• the public opinion polls were starting to tighten; 
• the ALP needed to do well in Queensland, where concerns about jobs had a lot of support for the controversial Adani coal mine that was contrary to the rest of the nation (or to a significant in another state); 
• the neoliberal coalition were running a campaign that was anti-ALP policies (the ALP had made details of a package of progressive policies available quite some time ago so they could be debated and defended and voters persuaded - in other words, they ran a scare campaign), as well as anti the ALP's leader; 
• both campaigns were quite Presidential, with an unusually heavy focus on the leader.

At the start of the ABC's election coverage, I was stunned to see the number of neoliberal coalition electorates being declared straight away - it caused the same sort of despairing feeling I saw at coverage of the US Presidential election in 2016. I know that it was early, and that things can change, but there was too little momentum and too much of a gap too early.

The election still has to be officially called, and the extraordinary number of pre-poll votes (did they all really have legitimate reasons for re-polling?) will have an influence. Many of those were before the public opinion polls started to tighten up, so they may be more in favour of the ALP than today's votes.

Nevertheless, something - or some things - went wrong: what?

I think fear has been a major influence - in particular:

• fear around loss of jobs, notably in Queensland; 
• fear of trouble surviving financially as a result of the neoliberal coalition's fear campaign - and, ironically, the tougher living conditions the neoliberal coalition, in my opinion, largely caused; and 
• xenophobia - which was shown by the vote for the far right wing and extremist One Nation and the right wing anti-worker / anti-union UAP, particularly in the very socially backward state of Queensland.

I also think the Chinese language campaigns have been an extreme problem. 

Comments I've heard during the ABC's coverage also included:

• no opposition party is likely to ever run a "big target" campaign again (several comparison to other past unexpected results have been made); 
• the UAP's advertising blitz caused problems for the ALP, especially in Queensland; 
• the success of independents shows that sophisticated community focused campaigns are likely to be the future of campaigning; 
• the public opinion polls before the vote were mostly wrong in Queensland.

Overall, I consider this result is terrible for the climate crisis, for Australia, and for Australians.

What next?

Well, IF the ALP does not form a government (it is still not definite), there will probably be a change of leader of the ALP, but, sadly, it will also be unlikely that ALP policies will be detailed, discussed and advocated before the next election - sadly, as I consider better selling of some policies and effective countering of the fear mongering is needed. Workers will be worse off (I would still like to see my idea on future proofing work implemented - maybe at a state level).

The facts of the climate crisis - such as the high energy prices being because of gas exports and over-investment, not renewables - also need to be better sold (and the ALP and the Greens need to collaborate on this, in my view as both need to sell it better), including that it IS looking after Australia's best interests and IS nationalistic to act on the climate crisis.

And we need to find an effective way to counter fear (see here, here, and here) - if it is effective, parties like One Nation and the UAP will decline, and that would be good for both politics and for the development of those people who were previously so fearful and plagued by misperceptions. (I'd also like the Presidential style to be replaced with a focus on policies, but I think that's going to be too much to be realistic - it requires too much of a change in too many everyday people.)

Will that be done before the next Commonwealth election - possibly at a state level?

I don't know.

And on that note, time to go to bed (and maybe think of moving to New Zealand for the next couple of years or so, if I can get a job :) - Jacinda Ardern is looking better than ever - any other nations looking for an armchair philosopher / commentator and her family? :) ).